Taylor Swift is keeping things indie. On Thursday morning, a multitude of independently owned record stores across America took to social media to share that signed Folklore CDs just showed up  as Chicagos Reckless Records put it  at the door.

Fans were instructed that the supply was limited to one per customer and that the situation was first-come-first-served. Holds and phone orders were not allowed. According to a Newbury Comics representative, a UMG rep had gotten in touch with the store about the plan earlier this week. Fan reaction has been through the roof, the Newbury rep tells Rolling Stone. And thats not an overstatement, considering that many locations sold out almost instantly.

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A representative from Bull Moose, which has locations in Maine and New Hampshire, tells Rolling Stone that one of Universal Music Groups sales reps offered his team the ability to get in on a promotional sale for signed CDs by a major artist late on Tuesday night. I said Sure, sounds like fun. Whos the artist? and he said Taylor Swift, the Bull Moose representative explains. And I was pretty floored. The idea, as I understand it anyway, was to partner up with Record Store Day to give something super cool for indie stores to sell to drive some foot traffic into stores to help those affected by the pandemic.

The short notice incited some scrambling, overnight shipping, and a lot of online communication, according to a representative from Zia Records, which has locations in Arizona and Nevada. But Folklore is one of those titles that appeals to Swifts hardcore fanbase and indie heads via the Bon Iver and National connections, he tells Rolling Stone. We knew it would be worth it.

Story continues

Not only did the plan bring together pop, country, and indie fans, but it also drove young people into the brick-and-mortar world. [All involved members of the Alliance of Independent Media Stores] had our stores full of young people when we opened, most of whom had never been here before, seeing what a cool spot this is, and over the moon happy to get a signed CD, says a representative from Nashville favorite Grimeys  which is a founding member of AIMS. This was an incredible promotion. and the right way to do it! (Swift previously helped Grimeys at the start of the pandemic by playing employees wages for three months and providing them with healthcare.)

In the end, we received copies at nine of our 12 locations, the Bull Moose representative adds. And it only took about two hours after I tweeted at 11:10 a.m. this morning to sell completely through. Phones rang off the hook in every store. Folks took road trips to try to get one. It was a huge deal! Honestly, I expected it to be big, but this was huger than I expected!

Obviously the excitement level was pretty high, a Reckless representative tells Rolling Stone. We posted that we had the CDs on our Instagram and they were gone in about an hour. Two of our locations received copies. Everybody was really cool about it, and it was nice to see people excited about anything right now honestly.

When Rolling Stone asked Reckless about profit splits  and whether or not the store had to purchase the CDs, or if they were gifted  the representative replied simply: We sold them like normal CDs, so we were able to make some money.

While joyful excitement is a treasure during the monotony that is quarantine, some feared the risk of potentially spreading Covid-19. That was definitely a concern of ours but everybody showed up pretty sporadically, the Reckless representative shares. There was never any line or anything. The most people that were in here together was a family of four. The Grimeys representative also confirmed that it never got too crowded in their 20-person-capacity shop. There was a line, but shop workers say they didnt need to police it, thanks to social distancing and masks.

Some other recipients of the CDs included Portland, Oregons Music Millennium, Cincinnati, Ohios Shake It Records, Kansas City, Missouris Mills Records, Lexington, Kentuckys CD Central, Brooklyns Rough Trade, Long Islands Looney Tunes, Dayton, Ohios Omega Music, St. Louis, Missouris Vintage Vinyl, and Arizonas Zia Records.

About a month ago, Swift ditched the usual album rollout for her new album. With Folklore, there were no pre-drop singles nor music videos, radio promotion, or physical advertisements. She released the project, filled with poetic prose and ethereal production, in full and by surprise.

In the past, Swift has partnered with huge retail chains like Target, providing companies with deluxe versions that featured varying art in an effort to encourage fans to collect em all. But this time, she announced last month, all physical products and merchandise were available exclusively on her own website  until now.

When Rolling Stone asked if Swift was planning on only sending these items to smaller-scale shops instead of eventually supplying the likes of Target and Walmart, a spokesperson for Universal Music Group declined to comment.

See where your favorite artists and songs rank on the Rolling Stone Charts.



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A federal judge on Friday sentenced actress Lori Loughlin to two months in prison in connection with charges that she and her husband, fashion designer Mossimi Giannulli, paid bribes to help get their daughters accepted to college as fake rowing recruits.

The couple is among the highest-profile parents who have been charged in connection to the sweeping college admissions and bribery scandal known as Varsity Blues.

Loughlin, the former Full House actress, had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. The judge on Friday accepted her plea deal with federal prosecutors, which in addition to the two-month prison sentence also includes a $150,000 fine, two years of supervised release, and 100 hours of community service.

Loughlin, who has not spoken publicly since being charged in the case, said in brief, tearful remarks at the virtual sentencing hearing that she was truly profoundly and deeply sorry.

I made an awful decision. I went along with a plan to give my daughters an unfair advantage in the college admissions process, she said. I now understand that my decision helped exacerbate existing inequalities in society generally and the higher education system more specifically.

Loughlins lawyer argued that the two-month sentence was justified, arguing that she was the least culpable of any of the dozens of parents charged in the admissions cheating scheme but had become the public face most identified with the scandal.

U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton admonished Loughlin during the hearing, calling her an admired, successful professional actor who enjoyed a fairy tale life.

Yet you stand before me a convicted felon, and for what? For the inexplicable desire to grasp even more, he said. To have whatever prestige and instant gratification that comes from being able to show off the admission of your daughters to a preferred university.

Gorton said Loughlin had participated in the corruption of the system of higher education in this country.

Story continues

Loughlins husband, Giannulli, was accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to facilitate his children's acceptance to the University of Southern California. He earlier this year pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, as well as honest services wire and mail fraud.

The same judge on Friday also accepted Giannulli's plea deal with federal prosecutors, sentencing him to five months in prison. Giannulli also faces two years of supervised release, must pay a $250,000 fine and must perform 250 hours of community.

Giannulli spoke briefly during his sentencing hearing, which was held virtually earlier on Friday. He said he regretted his actions and took full responsibility for his conduct.

You helped sponsor a breathtaking fraud on our system of education and involved your wife and your two daughters in cheating and faking their ways into a prestigious university, Gorton said during the hearing.

The judge added that the prison sentence, in addition to being a punishment, was meant to dissuade and deter anyone else in your position who thinks that, because they have enough money to buy anything they want, they can flout the law and buy their kids entry into college.

The judge ordered both Laughlin and Giannulli to report for prison by Nov. 19.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 20

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The value of steel export from Turkey to Azerbaijan dropped by 12.73 percent from January through July 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, having stood at $55.8 million, the Turkish Trade Ministry told Trend.

Reportedly, in July 2020, Turkeys export of steel to Azerbaijan decreased by 30.43 percent compared to July 2019, making up nearly $9.8 million.

Steel export from Turkey to international markets dropped by 16.4 percent from January through July 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, and amounted to $7 billion.

Meanwhile, Turkeys steel export made up 7.8 percent of the country's total export over this period.

In July 2020, Turkey exported the steel worth $1 billion to foreign markets, which is 15.4 percent less compared to the same month of 2019, the ministry said.

Turkeys steel export in July 2020 accounted for 7 percent of the country's total export.

Over the past 12 months (from July 2019 through July 2020, Turkey exported the steel worth $12.4 billion abroad.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
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MUMBAI: One of the prime witnesses in Sushant Singh Rajput death case, a keymaker who broke open the actor's door on June 14, revealed that he was not allowed to enter the room and instructed to immediately leave the place.

The keymaker, identified as Rafique Chabiwala, told Zee News that he received a call from Sidharth Pithani at around 1:05 pm on June 14 who asked him to unlock the door of a residence in Bandra. Rafique said he asked the caller to share a picture of the door lock on his WhatsApp number.

He said that till then, he was unaware that the house belonged to Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. He also mentioned that he did not know the caller's identity then, but later came to know that it was Sidharth Pithani after several media reports stated it.

He said he was informed about the location. Upon reaching them along with a companion, he was taken to the sixth floor of the residence where a person asked him to unlock the door of a room. He said that after trying for a few minutes, he informed the people there that the lock needs to be broken. He said that he was told that he would stop the work immediately if there was a sound from inside the room.

The keymaker said that it was a computerised lock and he had to break it using a hammer. He was given Rs 2,000 and was asked to leave the place as soon as he broke the lock. As per Rafique, he was not allowed to look or enter inside the actor's room and was taken away from there.

He said when he left the place, the actor's sister was present in the house.

Speaking of the CBI investigation into the case, the keymaker said that he has not received any call from the probe agency yet. He, however, added that if called, he would cooperate with the offcials. His statements have been recorded by the Mumbai Police, who was earlier investigating the case.
PARIS (Reuters) - Shares in France's Accor <ACCP.PA> rallied on Thursday after Le Figaro newspaper reported it had examined a potential merger with British rival InterContinental Hotels (IHG) <IHG.L> that would create the world's biggest hotel group.

The hospitality sector has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis as travel dwindles, forcing many hotel owners to temporarily halt bookings and shore up their finances.

Le Figaro said no formal approach had been made by Accor, which is behind brands such as Ibis and Movenpick, to IHG, which owns Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza. Based on current prices, a combined firm could have a market value of about $17 billion.

Without citing sources, it added Accor's management board was in favour of a deal, but Accor chairman and CEO Sebastien Bazin, who had set up an internal taskforce on the matter, was more cautious about moving ahead.

An Accor spokeswoman said the company did not comment on market rumours. IHG declined to comment.

Accor shares were up 1.9%. The company, which faces higher interest payments after it was downgraded to junk status by ratings agency S&P Global earlier this week, has been punished by investors this year, with its shares down over 43% so far.

Shares in IHG, down around 23% this year, were up 0.35% at 0825 GMT after surging as much as 3.1% in early trading, outperforming a falling FTSE-100 index.

A marriage between the two firms would propel them far ahead of U.S. rival Marriott by number of hotel rooms, with over 1.6 million between the two.

It could also make geographical sense, with Accor and its brands more skewed towards Europe, while IHG has larger operations in the United States and is also growing fast in Greater China.

Both firms have announced job cuts and cost savings plans in recent weeks as they try to cope with the fallout from the pandemic.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Benoit Van Overstraeten, Tanishaa Nadkar and Sarah White; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)
Indiana American Water donated $5,000 through the American Water Charitable Foundation to help Meals on Wheels of Northwest Indiana provide COVID-19 relief to the community.

The donation from American Water Charitable Foundation's COVID-19 Response Fund will go to meal delivery to home-bound Northwest Indiana seniors, who are most susceptible to serious and potential deadly complications from the coronavirus that's killed more than 171,000 Americans thus far.

Indiana American Water and Meals on Wheels share a mission to deliver vital services that support health and safety, said Justin Mount, Major Account Manager with Indiana American Water. We appreciate Meals on Wheels daily meal delivery to seniors and others in need throughout this pandemic and beyond.

Meals on Wheels of Northwest Indiana drops off 1,300 balanced meals a day to people in Lake, Porter, Newton, and Jasper counties, enabling them to stay home and lower their risk of catching or spreading COVID-19. The deliveries by volunteers also double as a wellness check and a friendly visit to sometimes socially isolated seniors.
Those arrested might have triad connections. The MTR station attack left 50 people injured. Activists accuse the police of collusion with organised crime. The investigation continues but pro-democracy advocates slam the police as tools of repression. The government tries to drop charges against a policeman who shot at a pro-democracy protester.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - The police yesterday arrested six people in connection with a mob attack in Yuen Long last year during protests in favour of democracy and against a proposed extradition bill.

This brings the total number of people detained to 43. The police have kept their identity confidential, but according to press reports those arrested have triad and organised crime links.

On 21 July 2019, a group of thugs attacked anti-extradition protesters and unsuspecting passengers at a Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station near the border with China.

Clad in white (to distinguish themselves from the black clothing worn by protesters), the hooligans armed with iron bars, sticks and other offensive weapons lashed out violently against people, causing injuries to 50.

Although called right away, the police took 35 minutes to arrive because, according to activists, they were in league with the thugs in order to violently break the pro-democracy movement.

The victims of the attack also accuse the police of taking their time before making arrests. The authorities have justified the delay with the need to sift through a large body of evidence, and with the fact that several suspects had fled the city.

So far, the court has indicted only six people. Senior Superintendent Chan Tin-chu of the New Territories North headquarters crime squad said the six men, aged between 32 and 57, were taken into custody for rioting and conspiracy to wound with intent.

Chan noted that the investigation was still ongoing and that more arrests related to the case are expected.

However, despite the arrest of alleged triad members, pro-democracy advocates have continued to criticise the police for acting as the repressive tool of the Hong Kong government backed by mainland China.

Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui recently slammed Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng for stopping the prosecution of a police officer for shooting a pro-democracy protester last November.

For Hui, Cheng's intervention is contrary to the law and politically motivated, designed to suppress the pro-democracy demands of Hong Kongers. Hui announced that he would file for a judicial review of Chengs action.
BEIJING, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- RYB Education, Inc. ("RYB" or the "Company") (NYSE: RYB), a leading early childhood education service provider in China, today announced that it plans to release unaudited financial results for the second quarter 2020 after market close on Thursday, August 27, 2020.

The earnings release will be available on the investor relations page of its website at http://ir.rybbaby.com.

Management will hold a conference call at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday, August 28, 2020 (8:00 p.m. Beijing Time on August 28, 2020) to discuss financial results and answer questions from investors and analysts.

About RYB Education, Inc.

Founded on the core values of "Care" and "Responsibility," "Inspire" and "Innovate," RYB Education, Inc. is a leading early childhood education service provider in China. Since opening its first play-and-learn center in 1998, the Company has grown and flourished with the mission to provide high-quality, individualized and age-appropriate care and education to nurture and inspire each child for his or her betterment in life. During its two decades of operating history, the Company has built "RYB" into a well-recognized education brand and helped bring about many new educational practices in China's early childhood education industry. RYB's comprehensive early childhood education solutions meet the needs of children from infancy to 6 years old through structured courses at kindergartens and play-and-learn centers, as well as at-home educational products and services.

For more information, please visit http://ir.rybbaby.com.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

In China:

RYB Education, Inc.

Investor Relations

Tel: +86 (10) 8767-5752

E-mail: [email protected]

The Piacente Group, Inc.

Ross Warner

Tel: +86 (10) 6508-0677

E-mail: [email protected]

In the United States:

The Piacente Group, Inc.

Brandi Piacente

Tel: +1-212-481-2050

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE RYB Education, Inc.

Related Links

www.rybbaby.com


CLEVELAND, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- US demand for steel mill products is forecast to rise less than 1.0% yearly in volume terms through 2024, according to Steel Mill Products: United States, a report recently released by Freedonia Focus Reports. The sizable motor vehicle market is expected to see above average growth as US motor vehicle production expands. The favorable characteristics of high-strength steel will continue to support demand in the motor vehicle market; faster growth will be limited by lightweighting initiatives among motor vehicle producers, substituting steel for alternative materials such as aluminum and plastic. In addition, building construction expenditures in real terms are projected to register minimal growth through 2024, preventing more rapid gains in steel demand. However, expected healthy gains in nonbuilding construction will support demand. In value terms, demand is projected to fall slightly through 2024. Ongoing global overcapacity in steel production is expected to continue to restrain demand in value terms.

These and other key insights are featured in Steel Mill Products: United States. This report forecasts for 2020 and 2024 US steel mill products demand and shipments in metric tons and nominal US dollars at the manufacturer level. Total demand in metric tons is segmented by product in terms of:

hot-rolled sheet

hot-dip galvanized sheet and strip

bars

cold-rolled sheet

pipe and tubing

plates

heavy structural shapes

other products such as rails, tin mill products, and wire rods

Total demand in metric tons is also segmented by market as follows:

metal service centers and distributors

construction

motor vehicles

other markets such as appliances, packaging, and energy

To illustrate historical trends, total demand, total shipments, trade in metric tons and nominal dollars, and the various demand segments in metric tons are provided in annual series from 2009 to 2019.

This report encompasses demand and shipments of steel mill products, as opposed to crude steel. To avoid double counting among the various segments, reported volumes of hot-rolled sheet exclude those quantities further processed via cold-rolling and/or hot-dip galvanizing. Likewise, volumes of cold-rolled sheet do not include galvanized types or tin mill products (as they are included in other segments). Finally, reported volumes of sheet and plate exclude those quantities used to fabricate pipe and tubing. Re-exports of steel mill products are excluded from demand and trade figures.

https://www.freedoniafocusreports.com/Freight-by-Rail-United-States-10775040/

About Freedonia Focus Reports

Each month, The Freedonia Group  a division of MarketResearch.com  publishes over 20 new or updated Freedonia Focus Reports, providing fresh, unbiased analysis on a wide variety of markets and industries. Published in 20-30 pages, Focus Report coverage ranges from raw materials to finished manufactured goods and related services such as freight and construction. Additional Industrials reports can be purchased at Freedonia Focus Reports or MarketResearch.com.

Analysis is intended to guide the busy reader through pertinent topics in rapid succession, including:

total historical market size and industry output

segmentation by products and markets

identification of market drivers, constraints, and key indicators

segment-by-segment outlook in five-year forecasts

a survey of the supply base

suggested resources for further study

Press Contact:

Corinne Gangloff

+1 440.684.9600

[email protected]

SOURCE The Freedonia Group

Related Links

http://www.freedoniagroup.com


A gossip item published in 1995 in The Sun Herald claimed Fox had hosted the now dead billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his squeeze, the now in-custody Ghislaine Maxwell, on a harbour cruise in Sydney. "It is simply not true and we can prove it," came the response from Fox's spokesman when PS queried. Indeed Fox's diary entries for the dates in December 1995, when he was supposedly fraternising with someone who would become one of the world's most reviled figures, had him thousands of kilometres away at his Hawaiian holiday house. Trucking magnate Lindsay Fox. Credit:Eddie Jim "Back then there were no Google news alerts and I'd suggest Lindsay had no idea about the newspaper story ... until now," an associate of Fox's told PS. "This is some sort of guilt by association but it's simply not true. Lindsay knows a lot of people around the world but Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are not among them".

Fox also denied he owned a 100-foot yacht at the time, as reported back in 1995. "Despite the contents of the story Lindsay has never met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - neither in Sydney, nor Melbourne. Indeed, at the time of the 'harbour cruise' in Sydney as suggested by the article, Lindsay's diary records confirm that he was in Hawaii celebrating Christmas with family," was the official line from Fox's office. But let's not let details get in the way of a good story, which has since been regurgitated around the world this week on countless websites, from the New York Post to Britain's The Daily Mail. And that's despite Fox's comprehensive denial within hours of the story first going online on Wednesday. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in New York in 2005. Credit:Getty Images PS asked the story's author, former gossip queen Ros Reines, about the item.

"I didn't go on the boat but Fox never repudiated it," she said. Loading Fox's spokesman responded: "If Lindsay sued over everything published about him he'd have more lawyers working for him than truck drivers." Reines' original item also named billionaire James Packer and his then girlfriend Deni Hines as fellow guests on the cruise, along with millionaire Rodney Adler and his wife Lyndi. PS asked Packer directly about the alleged soiree, to which he responded: "It doesn't sound right to me ... I have no memory of it".

Adler did not respond. At the time Reines was more interested in the presence of Maxwell, "the beautiful, feisty 34-year-old daughter of the late disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell" than her rich boyfriend, Epstein. "The couple is on a fleeting visit to Sydney after stopping off in Melbourne and spending some time with the Fox family," she wrote, though not according to Lindsay Fox this week. "Robert Maxwell's demise after he disappeared off the decks of his luxury yacht The Lady Ghislaine was not thought to be a hot topic of conversation during last night's cruise," wrote Reines. "There are those who think it was bad taste taking Ghislaine out on the harbour at all but as one of the guests pointed out, 'you can't visit Sydney and NOT go out on the Harbour - it's like going to Paris and avoiding the Eiffel Tower'." Frosty reception

Theatrical producers across the country - already beleaguered from the devastation wrought by the pandemic - have been left scratching their heads ever since industry leader John Frost boldly claimed he would reboot the stage world by opening his multimillion-dollar show Pippin at Sydney's Lyric theatre in November. "How can they announce that and start selling tickets when there is no sign things are going to be any better in November?" a rival producer vented to PS. "Shows are currently uninsurable, social distancing restrictions mean economically, we just cannot put the shows on unless its a full house, that means people sitting next to each other. That's a $3 million-plus show just to get it to opening night, weekly costs after that are well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars; you'd have to be grossing $1.5 million a week to make it viable." Sydney Lyric has assured ticket buyers the theatre "will operate in accordance with its CovidSafe Plan, with the goal of ensuring that each patrons experience at the theatre is made as safe as reasonably possible". No details on what that plan actually is have been made publicly available, but will be posted on the theatre's website when performances occur. Glam stamps' hidden history

Australians have been licking some seriously glamorous history in recent weeks since Australia Post released its latest collection commemorating the creativity of influential Australian photographers of the mid-20th century, including two wartime emigre photographers, Helmut Newton and Henry Talbot. Patricia "Bambi" Tuckwell in Athol Shmith's photograph on the new stamp. But it is the work of Athol Shmith, one of Australias leading portrait, fashion and commercial photographers from the 1930s, which caught PS's eye, in particular for the striking subject - Smith's ex-wife, the Australian society fashion model Patricia "Bambi" Tuckwell. But what those licking the stamp featuring the 1949 photo of Bambi looking resplendent in a Dior gown might not know was the model was at the centre of one of the great British royal scandals of the 20th century. In 1964 she gave birth to a son by George Lascelles, the 7th Earl of Harewood, who was George V and Queen Marys eldest grandchild. It was a scandal because he was still married to his first wife, Marion (who later went on to marry politician Jeremy Thorpe).

Down-to-earth Bambi, who died two years ago, would become Lady Harewood when she married the earl in 1967 after finally winning the Queen's approval, and amid a blaze of scandalous headlines. Indeed her story is worth much more than the $1.10 stamp she is currently gracing. QVB's '2020 Tree' There's still four months to go and while most of us are ready to bid farewell to 2020, the management of the Queen Victoria Building are adamant they have not jumped the shark by installing a giant, sparkling tree in the historic shopping arcade. Rather it is "The 2020 Tree". The what, you ask?
The country's tally has topped 1,007 cases by August 20 with 666 locally-transmitted infection since the virus first hit it in January.



Yesterday, the Ministry of Health decided to remove a 87-year-old man hailing from the Northern Province of Phu Tho from the tally in the evening following his three consecutive negative retests.

Right after the 87-year-old man was removed the tally, the Ministry of Health decided to lift the lockdown on the Hospital E where the man has been staying for treatment.



To meet the testing demand in Da Nang and some central localities where reported Covid-19 outbreaks, the Ministry has directed to increase the health sectors testing capacity. From July 23 till now, the heath sector has performed 390,490 tests.

542 patients have beaten the pathogen while 25 have succumbed to the virus, most having suffered critical existing conditions.





By SGGP staff writers - Translated by Anh Quan
Delhi HC refuses to stay release of movie 'Nyay: The Justice', purportedly based on Sushant Singh Rajput's lif

Sushant Singh Rajput Death Anniversary: A Timeline of the of events that have transpired so far

Relief for Rhea Chakraborty, Court allows de-freezing of actress' bank accounts after a year

At least 6 members of Sushant Singh Rajputs family killed in road accident in Bihar

CBIs probe into Sushant Singh Rajput case begins at his Bandra home

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Mumbai, Aug 21: The Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) Special Investigation Team (SIT) reached here on Thursday and initiated the probe into the death case of actor Sushant Singh Rajput after the Supreme Court ordered for a CBI probe into the case.

The central probe agency team is accompanied by a five-member forensic team. Reportedly, the CBI team first would go to the late actor's Bandra residence and recreate the scene.

"Officers from the special investigation team and a forensic expert will visit the crime scene which is Sushant's residence in Mumbai where he was found dead. The SIT will recapture the crime scene," CBI sources told ANI.

CBI officials will also examine the Mumbai police officers, who had visited crime spot first.

"Officers of Mumbai Police, other members, and friends of the late actor are to be examined and those suspected persons which Mumbai Police had already questioned," the sources added.

The CBI will also probe the role of Sandip Ssingh the 'self-proclaimed' friend of Sushant, according to sources.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

The CBI team officials have contacted Sushant's cook Neeraj and will record his statement today, as per reports.

The CBI officials will stay at the DRDO guest house in the Santa Cruz area of the city and exempted from the quarantine by BMC.

The CBI team, led by CBI Superintendent of Police Nupur Prasad has formed three teams to take the investigation forward.

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Story first published: Friday, August 21, 2020, 12:16 [IST]
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Everyone is advised to buckle up and prepare for a disaster this weekend. Three tropical systems are brewing and being closely monitored by the National Hurricane Center, with two of the tropical depressions likely to develop into at least tropical storms or hurricanes next week.

The brewing tropical depressions pose threats to the U.S. mainland, and everyone is advised to monitor weather updates closely and prepare for the coming storms.



Tropical Depression 13

Tropical storm 13 is expected to develop into a tropical storm and then a hurricane near Florida. Per the National Hurricane Center Advisory, "The NHC intensity forecast now shows the system becoming a hurricane by 96 hours, but it is a little lower than the consensus aids at days 4 and 5 due to uncertainty in how much the system will interact with the Greater Antilles."

NHC says the storm has shown signs of an organization but is still "getting its act together." Residents of Florida or the eastern Gulf of Mexico coast are advised to pay close attention to this storm.

READ: Isaias Update: Death Toll at 9, Millions Worth of Damages after Hitting East Coast



Tropical Depression 14

Tropical depression 14 is now on the southwest of Jamaica and is forecasted to go through the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico in the next 2-3 days. It may be weakened when the center gets in the land but will likely re-strengthen as it moves to the Gulf of Mexico. The intensity of the forecast is still uncertain once the depression gets near the U.S.



Name of the Storms

On a Twitter post by Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado University, he said that the next Atlantic storm would be called Laura. The last Atlantic record for the "L" is "Luis" on April 29, 1995. The other storm will likely be named Marco.

READ ALSO: Derecho Causes Havoc Across Midwest



Numerous Storms in 2020

Another unusual thing with 2020 is that it had many storms in store. For this tropical season, eleven named storms were formed in the Atlantic. According to the National Hurricane Center, an average of two storms usually develops by early August, and the ninth storm is not expected to form until October 4.



A Rare Kind of Storm Successions

It is not unusual for multiple storms and hurricanes to develop in the Atlantic ocean. One storm may hit landfall in the U.S. while another on is raging in Central America or the Caribbean Sea.

On September 8, 2017, Hurricane Irma made landfall in Cuba before midnight. In the Mexican Gulf Coast, approximately 1,200 miles west away, Hurricane Katia was also making a landfall. Tropical scientist, Brian McNoldy of the University of Miami, listed several incidences similar to this.

Two Atlantic Basin landfall hitting the U.S. at once is rarer. The most recent was when Hurricane Jeanne hit eastern Florida on midnight of September 26, 2004, Forty-eight (48) hours earlier, Ivan hit Louisiana on the night of September 23.

But there is one documented case of two landfalls on the mainland U.S. happening at the same time: a Category 3 made landfall at Brownsville, Texas. At the same hour, a tropical shore also moved at Cedar Key, Florida, Klotzbach said. This happened on September 5, 1933. That was 87 years ago.

READ NEXT: Storm-Proofing Miami Could Cost 4.6 Billion Dollars

Check out more news and information on Natural Disasters on Nature World News.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 14: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 24 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex attend

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's love story is straight out of a fairy tale. The couple first met when they were set up by mutual friends Misha Nonoo and Markus Anderson in May 2016; they got engaged a year later, tied the knot in May 2018, and welcomed their beautiful son, Archie, into the world in May 2019. And thanks to the recent release of Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand's book Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, we've been learning even more sweet tidbits about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

In fact, remember when Harry and Meghan posted a never-before-seen photo of their trip to Botswana on Instagram back in April 2019? Well, it turns out that August 2017 trip wasn't just Meghan's 36th birthday celebration, it was also where Harry promised to make Meghan his wife. While he didn't exactly propose at the time, according to the authors, on the final day of their trip under "Botswana's blanket of stars," Harry made his intentions about wanting to marry Meghan "very clear" and they "felt more connected to each other than ever." Given that Botswana holds a special place in Harry's heart and it's where "they had fallen in love a year earlier," it makes sense that the prince chose the country to pledge his love to Meghan.

Related:

Meghan Markle's Christmas Gag Gift For Prince William

We're Still Laughing Over the Hilarious Gag Gift Meghan Markle Once Gave Prince William

When Harry and Meghan returned to London shortly after, the duke stayed true to his word and popped the question while Meghan prepared dinner at their Nottingham Cottage. Harry also chose a diamond sourced from Botswana to include in Meghan's engagement ring.

After being secretly engaged for a few months, Harry and Meghan finally announced the exciting news to the world in November 2017. "It was just an amazing surprise," Meghan later gushed in their postengagement interview. "It was so sweet and natural and very romantic." And the rest is history.
The White House is formally declaring teachers essential workers as part of their efforts to encourage schools around the country to reopen for in-person learning.
An aerial view shows the construction site of SK Battery America's factory in Georgia. / Courtesy of SK Innovation



US lawmaker calls for probe into SK for hiring undocumented workers



By Baek Byung-yeul



SK Innovation's ambitious plan to expand its electric vehicle (EV) battery business has hit a snag after a U.S. lawmaker called for an investigation into the firm's U.S. affiliate SK Battery America for illegally employing Korean workers at its factory construction site in Georgia.



On Aug. 20, Georgia Congressman Doug Collins said he had sent a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to investigate whether there was an attempt to illegally employee foreign nationals to build the battery factory.



Collins cited information that CBP officers caught 33 Korean nationals at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport attempting to enter the U.S. without proper work authorizations in May and said this was not a one-time incident.



"It is my understanding that the CBP determined that this was not an isolated incident, and that these Korean nationals were part of a larger scheme to illegally bring foreign workers into the United States," he said.



Collins said he "was contacted by a constituent who has already observed additional Korean nationals illegally working at the facility in Georgia."



"According to the constituent, who has been to the facility on multiple occasions, the 33 Korean nationals intercepted by CBP in May represent only a small fraction of the workforce on this project that have systemically and illegally been brought to the United States to displace American workers," Collins said.



"If true, these actions are not only hurting American workers, many of whom are currently eager for work, they are illegal and must be stopped."



SK Innovation, Korea's third-largest EV battery maker, broke ground for the battery factory in Commerce, Jackson County, Georgia, in March 2019 after securing 1.2 square kilometers of land. The plant is scheduled to begin mass production of EV battery cells in 2022.



SK Battery America also promised that the new factory would create about 2,600 jobs once completed. However, the Georgia Local Union 72, whose members include plumbers, pipefitters and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVACR) technicians, said the company is taking away about 500 jobs from them, by providing these construction job positions to Korean workers.



"Georgians have gotten the shaft over the SKI battery plant," David Cagle, a member of the union, was quoted by Fox 5 Atlanta's report.



According to the report, Cagle said when his people tried applying for the construction jobs to build the plant, they were told nothing was available.



"We've got about 500 people out of work right now who could come up here and be on this job and making a living," he said. "Instead, the Koreans are making a living."



SK Innovation said that it was hiring the Korean workers only to build the factory and reconfirmed that the Georgia plant would be operated by American employees once construction is completed.



"SK Innovation has said the new Georgia factory will provide about 2,600 new jobs in the Jackson Country area. We hired those Korean workers because they are specialized in constructing battery factories," an SK Innovation official said, Friday.



"Once the factory construction process is completed, the plant will be operated by American employees."


There was no change in the condition of former President and he remains haemodynamically stable and on ventilatory support, the hospital said Friday.

Doctors attending to him said his vital parameters are being maintained.

Mukherjee was admitted to the Army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated for removal of a clot in the brain.

He was also tested positive for COVID-19. Thereafter, he developed a lung infection and is being treated for the same. His health parameters are being closely monitored by a team of specialists at the hospital.

"The medical condition of Shri remains the same. He is being treated for lung infection and continues to be on ventilatory support. His vital parameters are being maintained and he is haemodynamically stable," the hospital said in a statement.

Mukherjee was the 13th from 2012 to 2017.

(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.)
BEIJING, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The 5th Guizhou Zunyi International Chili Expo kicked off on August 18 in Zunyi, a major chili planting region in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

The expo, which was held for the fifth session this year, has attracted wide attention from the chili industry and become a cooperation and communication platform for the industry.

More than 1,000 representatives from World Chili Alliance, China Vegetable Marketing Association, chili industry associations and organizations, leading chili enterprises, universities and research institutions, chili distributors and chili producing areas attended the expo.

During the expo, 30 agreements were signed, with a total contract value of 2.836 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, China Economic Information Service (CEIS) of Xinhua News Agency has officially released the China dry chili price index, aiming to build an index system for monitoring the price fluctuations of wide dry chili varieties, creating an authoritative pricing reference for China's chili industry.

It is learned that this year's expo also held exhibition and sales, visit and investigation, cooperation talks, online chili expo and other activities. Among them, the online expo was launched on July 18 and will last until the opening of the chili expo next year.

As the main producing area of high-quality chili in China, Guizhou has the only national chili wholesale market in the country, making a solid foundation for the development of the chili industry.

As of July this year, Guizhou's planting area of chili reached 5.45 million mu, up 6.4 percent year on year, with an estimated output value of about 23 billion yuan.

Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/315620.html

SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road
Can a gorilla ape Banksy? Thats the setup of Disneys new animal rights flick, The One and Only Ivan, inspired by the true story of a silverback gorilla who spent 27 years intimidating children at a shopping mall in Tacoma, Wash. In the film, he becomes politicized over his imprisonment and expresses his outrage through art. Directed by Thea Sharrock and based on K.A. Applegates Newbery Award-winning book of the same title, this retelling is candy sweet compared with the real Ivans cameo in the 1991 documentary The Urban Gorilla, which turned him into a 500-pound cause celebre. This computer-animated Ivan is able to speak for himself (in the voice of Sam Rockwell). As legal efforts in Germany, Argentina and the Balearic Islands have established precedents that could make primate personhood a future civil rights fight, whats the films ratio of fiction to fact? We answer this and other questions below.

Ivan resents the stereotype that silverback gorillas are angry chest-thumpers. Are silverbacks really the most violent gorilla species?

First, silverbacks arent a species. Silverback is a literal description for a male gorilla whose black fur has begun to turn gray on his shoulders and spine, which happens around the wizened age of 13. Yet, while calling a human a graybeard or a blue hair is an insult, silverback is synonymous with alpha. In gorilla society, age equals status. Instead of reaching for the hair dye, a silverback enjoys the adoration of a harem of females, while lonely younger males skulk in exile. A silverback will fight rival troops and juvenile punks looking to seize power, but hes no particular threat to humans.
It's a union of royalty and one of Britain's richest aristocratic dynasties.

I hear that Prince Charles's goddaughter, Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark, has found love with Peregrine Pearson, son and heir of the 4th Viscount Cowdray, whose family has a reputed 224million fortune.

The 24-year-old socialite, who grew up in Chelsea and is the only daughter of Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece and his wife, MarieChantal Miller, is said to be 'head over heels' with the eligible bachelor.

Prince Charles's goddaughter, Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark (pictured), has found love

'Things are getting very serious,' a friend says. 'He's already met the family and they love him.'

Property developer Perry, 25, spent his summer holiday with the princess and her family on the Greek island of Spetses.

Also there was her grandfather, King Constantine, a relation of Prince Philip, who was exiled from Greece following the 1967 coup.

Maria-Olympia was romantically linked to Prince Harry in 2016.

Perry's father owns a significant chunk of the Pearson media empire as well as the 16,500-acre West Sussex estate which is home to Cowdray Park polo club, where Princes William and Harry have played.

She is said to be 'head over heels' with Peregrine Pearson, son and heir of the 4th Viscount Cowdray, whose family has a reputed 224million fortune

Dunhill happy to be out for her Count after marrying at 73!

Why wait until this crisis is over to hold a wedding? Novelist Anne Dunhill, granddaughter of tobacconist Alfred Dunhill, married this week at the age of 73.

Her new husband is Count Zdzislaw Zamoyski, 75-year-old brother of historian Adam Zamoyski. 'It was lovely, and very quiet,' says Anne, who has been married twice before. 'It was just me and my children.'

The wedding was held at St Andrew's Catholic church in Tenterden, Kent, after Zamoyski's first marriage was annulled.

The pair met through their mutual chum, society figure Basia Briggs. 'I did ask the priest if I was the oldest bride he'd ever married,' Anne adds. 'He said he'd married a couple in their 80s. You can find love at any age.'

(Very) modern manners

Princess Dianas wedding dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel has definitely moved with the times. Shes now creating beautiful face masks for brides to match their wedding gowns.

Wedding masks are a fabulous idea, she tells me. We shall do them in lace to match the dress. Even when the vaccine comes, were going to be social distancing, and people will want to get married, so bridal masks are excellent.

Although face masks are compulsory in places of worship, couples heading for the altar can choose not to wear them.
An NGO-sponsored international webinar on the role of international carbon markets in India has regretted that negotiations to agree on rules to govern international carbon markets have failed, and uncertainty remains as to whether or not countries will be able to agree on such rules by the next UN climate conference (COP26), scheduled to take place in November 2021.Organized jointly by Paryavaran Mitra, based in Gujarat, and Carbon Market Watch, a Belgian environmental NGO, the one-and-a-half hour webinar reached the conclusion that in the absence of rules, international trades will continue like before, with markets having failed to truly reduce emissions, and existing offsetting mechanisms riddled with loopholes.Both Pavyavaran Mitra and Carbon Market Watch hold observer status at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They agreed, currently, carbon markets are not trustworthy, insisting, a strong grievance mechanism and improved rules to stimulate public participation are needed as a precondition for these systems to work.A Paryavaran Mitra communique on the webinar, however, does not recall loopholes and uncertainties, if any, with regard to steps the Government of India might have for reducing carbon emission with an eye on the COP26 meet. The communique confines itself to stating the different forms carbon markets can take.It refers to what it calls an increasingly popular type of market  the so-called baseline and credit market  which is used by countries and companies to purchase carbon offsets, which allow them to claim emission reductions even if they have not achieved these through their own actions.According to the communique, those who participated in the webinar included civil society activists, experts from academic institutes and policy institutes, researchers and other interested stakeholders, including Carbon Market Watchs Policy Officer, Gilles Dufrasne, and Mahesh Pandya from Paryavaran Mitra, though omitting what they said about India.
Parliamentarians are expected to decide on the issue in the coming months.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine plans to toughen punishment for drunk driving, says advisor to the Minister, Volodymyr Martynenko.

"We have initiated [the move] and we ask the people's deputies to toughen [drivers'] liability. That is, not only to impose fines, but also to allow courts to impose administrative arrest so that we have much fewer drunk drivers [on roads]," he told Ukraine 24 TV channel on August 20.

The official added that the decision on ensuring tougher responsibility for such offenses depends on Parliament.

According to Martynenko, deputies may take the final decision in the coming months.

"We are working very hard to this end, together with the people's deputies. There is a bill, they are working on it, and I hope that we will get the [draft] law by the next session this autumn," he said.

DUI punishment: latest news

Criminal liability for DUI was earlier expected to be applied in the following cases, according to TSN:

- Driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medication that reduce attention and reaction span;

- Handing the wheel to a person under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medication;

- Refusing to undergo a DUI test; and

- Consuming alcohol or doing drugs or taking medication following a road accident (except for those included in the officially approved first-aid kit or prescribed by a doctor), or after the vehicle was stopped by police, before an authorized authority conducts a DUI test or before a decision is made to exempt a driver from such test.
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WASHINGTON (AP)  The Trump administration on Thursday announced new sanctions against six Syrian military, government and financial officials as part of ongoing efforts to prevent money from going to President Bashar Assad's government.

We will continue pressure against the Assad regime to compel it to end its attacks against the Syrian people, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, adding that the sanctions were timed to coincide with the seventh anniversary Friday of the Assad's government's chemical weapons attack in Ghouta that killed more than 1,400 Syrians.

The State Department sanctioned Yasser Ibrahim, who is suspected of obstructing a political solution to the Syrian conflict and using his networks across the Middle East and beyond to cut deals to enrich Assad.

The Treasury Department took action against the Syrian presidential office and Syrian Baath Party by targeting Luna al-Shibl, Assads presidential media adviser, and Mohamad Amar Saati, a senior Baath party official. The U.S. accuses the party official of facilitating the entry of university students into Assad-backed militias.

The military officials Fadi Saqr, Ghaith Dalah and Samer Ismail also were sanctioned.

In June, the Trump administration increased pressure on Assad, his wife, Asma, and his inner circle with new economic and travel penalties for human rights abuses and blocking a settlement of the countrys bloody nine-year conflict. Last month, the State Department imposed sanctions on Assads eldest son, Hafez.

The State Department also has designated 39 Syrian individuals, including the Assads, as well as members of their extended family, military leaders and business executives. Many were already subject to U.S. sanctions, but the penalties also targeted non-Syrians who do business with them.

Separately, the Treasury Department imposed penalties on 24 individuals, companies and government agencies that the U.S. accuses of supporting Assad's corrupt reconstruction efforts.

The Treasury sanctions are the result of legislation known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, named after the pseudonym of a Syrian policeman who turned over photographs of thousands of victims of torture by the Assad government.
The City Council OKd a zoning change Thursday that will allow commercial development on a corner in Government Hill  a fast-growing neighborhood sandwiched between downtown, the Pearl and Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.

Numerous residents have said they dont want a C-2 designation, with some preferring residential uses or a less-intense commercial zoning district.

Council members voted 9-1 to approve the Cloma Jackson Trusts request to rezone roughly 0.7 acres at North Walters and the Interstate 35 access road from residential to C-2NA commercial, with a designation that prohibits alcohol sales.

They also passed an amendment to the neighborhood plan, changing the land use from low-density residential to mixed use.

The trust and Sara Martinez, who owns roughly 1.1 acres next to the trusts property, are looking to have their land rezoned to clear the way for a commercial tenant. The council has not yet taken up Martinezs requests.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio developer gets green light for spa facility near Hot Wells ruins and county park

The project for this property is not to sell it to a developer, but for the property owners to develop it themselves in partnerships, Matthew Badders, an attorney representing Martinez, told council members Thursday. What we seek to attract to the neighborhood is a Class A, national-brand restaurant or limited-use shopping center, which is why the hard corner of I-35 and the multilane thoroughfare of Walters Avenue is a critical location.

But area residents are concerned about what kinds of businesses could end up at the corner. Theyre also dismayed over plans to demolish multiple houses on the properties. Some sought a compromise  a less-intense zoning designation.

Signs peppering yards and fences in the neighborhood proclaim No C-2 commercial rezoning, neighbors for residential development only and Dont kill Govt Hill.

Our neighborhood is fragile and deserves protecting, DEtte Cole, who lives near the properties, told council members. Were a predominantly Hispanic, multigenerational, old-school San Antonio neighborhood, where neighbors look out for each other. Our homes are modest, well-loved, and we are extremely house-proud.

The rezoning proposals are for speculative real estate deals that are working to sell out a chunk of our neighborhood to the highest bidder, Cole said.

On ExpressNews.com: Home sales and prices in the San Antonio area surged in July

Other residents and the Government Hill Alliance Neighborhood Association support the changes.

This land has been underdeveloped for over 30 years, said Rose Hill, who leads the association. We urgently need economic development.

One of the neighbors worries was that a gas station would be built at the site.

Robert Wynn of Frost Bank, the trustee appointed under Cloma Jacksons will, told council members Thursday that the trust submitted an affidavit pledging to include a deed restriction barring the construction of a gas station.

That is a win for us all, District 2 Councilwoman Jada Andrews-Sullivan said. The C-2NA designation makes sure our residents have all of the needs that they need met along with making sure our city and District 2 have full commercial use and productive commercial use.

For months, rezoning and plan amendment proposals for the properties have wound through the citys Zoning and Planning commissions, which make recommendations to the City Council for a final decision.

In January, amid opposition from neighbors, the Zoning Commission shot down a proposal for a QuikTrip gas station and convenience store there. The panel again recommended denying zoning changes in July, when the possibility of placing a Starbucks coffee shop at the site surfaced.

At the July meeting, Badders said Martinez was of an age now where she cannot be a landlord anymore and that the houses would be demolished regardless of what happened with the rezoning.

The Planning Commission suggested approving the trusts land use change, which the council greenlighted Thursday. But earlier this month, commissioners recommended denying Martinezs request to change the designation of her property, suggesting low-density mixed use instead.

madison.iszler@express-news.net
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A missouri home which features a fully-functioning jail in the basement is going viral on social media.

Potential buyers scrolling through pictures of the property, located in the town of Fayette, have been left stunned by photos showing the nine-cell prison, which is included along with images of the home's kitchen and living areas.

The two-bedroom, two-bathroom home is listed by House of Brokers Realty with an asking price of $350,000.

Built back in 1875, the three-story red-brick home looks inconspicuous from the outside, with passersby having no idea that a jail was housed inside.

The listing doesn't explain how the elaborate prison came to be included in the home, but the realtors boast that it is 'the best part' of the property.

A real estate listing of a Fayette, Missouri home which features a fully-functioning jail in the basement is going viral on the internet. Built back in 1875, the three-story red-brick home looks inconspicuous from the outside, with passersby having no idea that a large prison was concealed inside

Real estate photos show the home has been extensively renovated and now features polished floorboards. While the home initially appears like any other, a door off the kitchen (far right) leads down to a double story prison below ground

Potential buyers may assume that the door at the side of the kitchen opens up to a pantry. However, a 2500 sq ft prison is located inside

The real estate listing doesn't explain how the elaborate prison came to be included in the home, but the realtors boast that it is 'the best part' of the property

Photos show the prison spread across two underground levels, with multiple metal bunk beds included in each of the cells

The real estate listing is going viral on social media, with many left perturbed by the prison in the basement

Many claimed that the home would make a very unusual Airbnb listing, should the future buyer choose to rent out the cells to holidaymakers

'Nice property with excellent cell service!' The jail also features a large booking room (pictured)

The listing states: 'Connected to the home is a 2500 sq ft legitimate jail with 9 cells, booking room and 1/2 bath.'

Photos show the prison spread across two underground levels, with multiple metal bunk beds included in each of the cells.

According to the realtors, 'the cell door lock throws appear to be operational'.

The listing further exclaims that 'the possibilities are amazing with this property'.

Many viewers have been left amused by the bizarre feature, and have taken to Twitter to share their thoughts.

'Who wants to look at a late night nightmare house with me??" user @NatalieZed asked.

Her tweet prompted a flurry of replies, with many posting puns about the property.

'Nice property with excellent cell service!' one quipped.

Others claimed that the home would make a very unusual Airbnb listing.

However, a majority of people have been left considerably perturbed.

'Anybody making on a offer on this house needs to be put on a watch list immediately,' one stated.

'I'll keep an eye on this address for lurid headlines in the coming years,' another chimed in.

'Anybody making on a offer on this house needs to be put on a watch list immediately': One Twitter user wondered what kind of person the strange home might appeal to

One of the nine basement prison cells is pictured

The cells also include their own toilets, which are currently in working order

A stylish living room, located on the ground floor of the home, is pictured. Those walking through the home would have no idea of what is hidden downstairs
Making a case for the postponement of the JEE and NEET exams, the BJP leader reportedly claimed in his letter that holding the exam 'may lead to a large number of suicides' of the youth

As the Centre shows no sign of relenting to demands of postponing of Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG), students requesting for the same have found a new ally in BJP leader Subramanian Swamy who has urged the Centre to hold the exams post Diwali.

The National Testing Agency, however, has given no signs of deferring the entrance tests from the scheduled dates in September.

According to an ABPLive report, Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Education has confirmed that the exams will be held as per schedule.

The Rajya Sabha MP has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that the entrance exams should be held after Diwali even as he conceded that students requested him to intevene in the matter rather late in the day.

"Since the number of new COVID-19 cases have soared to 70,000 per day, it is in the balance of public interest that the education ministry approaches the CJI's court at his home and seek an adjournment to November after Deepavali," Swamy said in his tweet.

He also said that he has relayed his concerns to the Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank as well.

"I have already tweeted as well as conveyed to (the) education minister that JEE, NEET exams should be after Deepavali. (The) minister is holding an emergency meeting. Let us see. I was asked to intervene by you all at a very late stage after SC had delivered its judgment," Swamy said in another tweet.

LiveMint reported sections of Swamy's letter, wherein the BJP leader has mentioned that the exams are a make-or-break situation for most students.

"There is wide spread desperation amongst the youth since this exam is make or break for them and they have to take it fully prepared," the report quoted as Swamy as saying in the letter.

Making a case for the postponement of the exams, the BJP leader's letter, as cited in the report, further claimed that holding the exams "may lead to a large number of suicides".

The Supreme Court had on Monday rejected a plea for the postponement of the two entrance tests, saying that life has to go on despite the COVID-19 pandemic and that it could not put the careers of students in jeopardy by interfering in National Testing Agency's decision to hold these in September.

The apex court had given the verdict in a petition filed by 11 students, which said that conducting JEE Main 2020, JEE Advanced 2020 and NEET 2020 despite the coronavirus situation in India to be "utterly arbitrary, whimsical and violative of the fundamental right to life of lakhs of affected students".

JEE Main 2020, the entrance exam for admission into engineering institutes, is to be held online from 1 to 6 September while NEET 2020, held for admission to undergraduate medical courses, is slated to be held offline on 13 September.

The admit card for the former was released on 18 August, while the hall ticket for latter is expected to be released soon on the NTA's official website ntaneet.nic.in.
A vaccine for novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) may only become available in Vietnam in the second half of 2021, said acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long.

The Ministry of Health convened a teleconference with health departments in provinces and cities throughout the country on Wednesday to discuss COVID-19 prevention and control efforts.

Vietnam is taking all possible measures to access a coronavirus vaccine, but it may only become available in the country in the last six months of 2021, Long remarked at the meeting.

The Southeast Asian nation has signed up to purchase COVID-19 vaccines produced by Russia and the UK while at the same time expediting the development of a locally-made jab.

Four groups of researchers are currently in the process of developing coronavirus vaccines in Vietnam, according to Nguyen Ngo Quang, a Ministry of Health official.

Among them, the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC) is planning to conduct human trials of its vaccine between October and December this year.

The shot is anticipated to be distributed to the local market in October 2021.

Another group of scientists from VABIOTECH, a state-owned firm managed by the Ministry of Health, is also expected to conduct human trials of its vaccine in early 2021.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had become the first country to grant regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine, after less than two months of human testing.

Vietnams COVID-19 tally has reached 1,007, with 542 having recovered and 25 deaths as of Friday morning.

Five-hundred and twenty-five local infections have been reported since July 25, when the country documented its first community-based case after 99 days.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
SAN BENITO, Texas  Police in a southern Texas town say an officer fatally shot a man who pointed a gun at the officer after first pointing at his mother.

Police in San Benito near the Texas-Mexico border said in a news release that Officer Oscar Lara shot Samuel Mata, 21, about 11 p.m. Wednesday in the city about 460 miles (740 kilometers) south of Dallas.

Lara was attempting to intervene in an argument between Mata and his mother over Matas use of her vehicle when Mata pointed the gun at his mother then at the officer, according to the Thursday news release.

Police said Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting.
Omsk: A plane carrying Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny took off from the Russian city of Omsk early on Saturday headed for Germany, his spokeswoman said on Twitter.

The gravely ill Kremlin critic was to be airlifted to Berlin to receive medical care after his allies accused the Russian authorities of trying to stop his evacuation.

Opposition activist Alexei Navalny at a protest in Moscow, Russia, last year. Credit:AP

Navalny fell ill earlier this week while flying back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he had met allies ahead of regional elections next month. He was taken on a stretcher, motionless, from the plane and rushed to hospital after an emergency landing in Omsk.

Navalny, a long-time opponent of President Vladimir Putin and a campaigner against corruption, collapsed on the plane on Thursday after drinking tea that his allies believe was laced with poison.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced that exploratory talks with German biopharmaceutical company, CureVac to purchase a potential Covid-19 vaccine have concluded.

Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said on Thursday that "each round of talks that we conclude with the pharmaceutical industry brings us closer to beating this virus", reports Xinhua news agency.

It is anticipated that the Commission will have a contractual framework in place for the initial purchase of 225 million doses on behalf of all (EU) member states, to be supplied once a vaccine has proven to be safe and effective against the coronavirus, according to a statement from the Commission.

It added that CureVac pioneers in vaccines based on messenger RNA, transported into cells by lipid nanoparticles.

The basic principle is the use of this molecule as a data carrier for information, and the human body would then produce its own active substances to combat various diseases.

The company had earlier received EU funding.

In July, the European Investment Bank and CureVac signed a 75-million-euro loan agreement for the development and large-scale production of vaccines, including CureVac's vaccine candidate against COVID-19.

CureVac is the fourth partner the Commission has announced to have been talking with.

So far the Commission has signed an actual advance purchase agreement with AstraZeneca, and published "positive steps" with Sanofi-GSK and Johnson & Johnson.

--IANS

ksk/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Philippine fishermen are seen on their boat docked in Matalvis, a fishing village in Masinloc, a coastal town in Zambales province facing the South China Sea, Sept. 6, 2019.

Updated at 6:06 p.m. ET on 2020-08-26

Manila lodged a diplomatic protest against Beijing over its coast guards confiscation of Philippine fishing gear from a disputed South China Sea shoal, the foreign office said, in its third bilateral complaint this year about Chinese actions in the waterway.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said it objected to radio challenges sent by Chinese air controllers to Philippine planes patrolling the region as well as to the seizure of the equipment from Scarborough Shoal, a Chinese-occupied reef claimed by both countries. The shoal sits in the middle of a prime fishing ground and is within the Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The department, in a brief statement issued late Thursday, said it had lodged today a diplomatic protest to China over the illegal confiscation by the Chinese Coast Guard of fish aggregating devices (payaos) of Filipino fishermen in Bajo de Masinloc in May.

Payaos is a Tagalog name for man-made floating reefs where fish flock and Filipino fishermen use them to haul in catches. Such gear was left on the reef after China seized Scarborough Shoal in 2012 during a territorial standoff with the Philippines.

The Philippines also resolutely objected to Chinas continuing illicit issuances of radio challenges to Philippine aircraft conducting legitimate regular maritime patrols in the West Philippine Sea, the statement said, using the Philippine name for the South China Sea.

On Friday, officials at the foreign office gave no other details about the complaint but said the department would have to consult with a multi-agency task force on the West Philippine Sea headed by the Philippines national security adviser.

Meanwhile in Beijing, a spokesman for Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs defended the actions.

The Chinese coast guard carried out law enforcement activities in the Scarborough Shoal waters in accordance with the law, and their actions are understandable, spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a statement on Friday.

It alleged that the Philippine side had sent military aircraft to invade airspace adjacent to the Spratly Islands, where China is stationed, damaging Chinas sovereignty and security.

Scarborough Shoal, or Bajo de Masinloc as Manila calls it, is a triangle-shaped reef that lies west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The Spratlys, a group of atolls and islets believed to be rich in mineral deposits, lie southwest of the Philippines. The chain is claimed by the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

Historic rights challenged

China claims most of the South China Sea, saying it has historic rights to the waterway, where it has been building military installations and artificial islands as Beijing expands the footprint of its armed forces in the contested maritime region. Chinas claims are demarcated by a so-called nine-dash line that appears on Chinese maps.

Beijing effectively seized control of Scarborough Shoal eight years ago during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III, who was forced to take the case to an international tribunal.

In July 2016, weeks after President Rodrigo Duterte assumed power, the court ruled in favor of Manila and against Beijings claim to the shoal. Neither the nine-dash line nor the historic rights argument was supported under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), according to the landmark ruling that assessed whether they were accorded with international law.

China rejected the courts verdict.

Duterte, for his part, never actively pushed to enforce the ruling and so far has placated China by visiting Beijing five times during his presidency, in exchange for billions of dollars in Chinese aid and investment.

In April, Manila filed twin diplomatic protests against perceived aggressive actions by China, including Beijings unilateral creation of two new administrative districts in the South China Sea.

The earlier protests also included a Philippine complaint about an incident where a Chinese navy boat pointed a radar gun at a Philippine Navy ship near the Philippine-occupied Rizal Reef in the Kalayaan Island group.

On Friday, presidential spokesman Harry Roque suggested that diplomatic protests filed by the Philippines against China this year would not affect the relationship between the two Asian countries.

Those protests are something that our diplomats normally file whenever they think our sovereign rights are violated, Roque told reporters in Manila.

But this wont affect the entirety of our intimate relationship with China, he said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version stated incorrectly that the court of arbitration issued its 2016 ruling soon before President Duterte took office.
This is the Coronavirus Schools Briefing, a guide to the seismic changes in U.S. education that are taking place during the pandemic. Sign up here to get the briefing by email.

How the world is handling school

My 11-year-old daughter went back to school in London on June 1, Jenny Anderson, a former Times reporter and veteran education journalist, told us. She loved it. I tell you this not to make you hate me, but to offer you hope.

Based on reporting from Jenny and our colleagues around the world, weve gathered some stories about how countries are preparing for the new school year.
The University of California campus at Santa Cruz and most of the nearby town of Scotts Valley were ordered evacuated Thursday evening, local police said, as the group of fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties known as the CZU Complex continued burning out of control after consuming 40,000 acres.

The latest evacuation order covered the communities of Felton and Paradise Valley and the area around State Route 35, as well as all of Scotts Valley west of Highway 17 and the UC campus. About 12,000 people live in Scotts Valley, and 20,000 students attend the university, though most were studying remotely due to restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Film Critic

Chuck Koplinski is The News-Gazette's film critic. His email is chuckkoplinski@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter (@ckoplinski).
Third level students in DKIT will benefit from a new fund to help them access laptops and other devices, a local senator has said.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has confirmed the funding for DKIT students as part of a new fund for student devices worth 15 million. The fund is part of a larger168 million package to help further and higher education sectors deal with the impacts of Covid-19.

Speaking today, Senator John McGahon said: Covid-19 has disrupted many aspects of our lives. For students in third level, it has resulted in a changed college experience.

This new academic year will see students attending courses online and they will need access to devices to cope with this challenge. This investment will allow us to help 16,700 students access laptops and will ensure they can keep up to date with their studies.

It will also go some way to bridging the digital divide, support students and ensure equality of access to education.

The 168 million funding package includes an additional 10million for access supports which complements the IT support package. Students in higher education institutions experiencing exceptional financial need can apply for support via their local access office.

The devices will be distributed through targeted lending schemes run by the institutions and will be overseen by Student Access Offices.

Minister Harris added: The focus will be on ensuring disadvantaged students have access to the devices.

But we must also recognise many students and their families have fallen on hard times as a result of Covid. We must ensure they dont fall behind in their studies and ensure they can access this support fund also.

We still have significant work to do to address the digital divide in Ireland but this will go some of the way to doing that.

The grant funding for the devices will be provided to Higher Education Institutions through the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and to Education and Training Boards through SOLAS. The bulk order of laptops was organised by HEAnet, which provides internet connectivity and ICT services to education bodies throughout Ireland.
#PrimeroMiSalud En breve, conferencia virtual del presidente @MartinVizcarraC. pic.twitter.com/Ni4IuHaPeV
As the world's best selling car for more than twenty years now, the Toyota Corolla series has sold a total of over 48 million units over twelve generations, spanning more than 150 countries around the world.

To further add diversity and excitement into the lineup, Toyota has added the new Corolla Cross compact SUV to its Corolla series. The Corolla Cross debuted in Thailand last July, and has now been just launched in the Philippines.

Toyota Corolla Cross

The all-new Toyota Corolla Cross slides right in between the Toyota Rush and the Toyota RAV4, giving customers another option to consider in the ever-growing market of SUVs.

Toyota Corolla Cross

The global-spec Corolla Cross comes standard with a 1.8-liter inline-four engine that makes 138 hp and 176 Nm of torque, mated to a CVT transmission and a front-wheel drive configuration. For the hybrid variant, the Corolla Cross comes equipped with the same 1.8 liter engine, but with a lower output of only 98 hp and 142Nm of torque. The engine comes paired with a 600-volt electric motor that generates 72 hp and 163Nm of torque, along with Toyota's e-CVT.

Toyota Corolla Cross

"Now that the Corolla Cross has newly joined the Corolla family, we sincerely hope that our customers will warmly welcome the vehicle to become part of their families: just like their partners, siblings or even friends," Daizo Kameyama, Chief Engineer in charge of development shared. "We wish that the Corolla Cross could assist customers in creating a new story by loading on their vehicle the people who are important to them, the luggage, and their dreams for the future."

Toyota Corolla Cross

The exterior of the Corolla Cross looks like the lovechild of a RAV4 and a Fortuner, sporting a fresh, bold new styling that ensures it fits right in to the Corolla series. The interior is spacious and surprisingly luxurious, with a 9-inch touchscreen infotainment system, rear area climate vents, plush seats, and a large, best-of-its-class luggage space capacity of 487 liters.

Story continues

Toyota Corolla Cross

Toyota already has three hybrid vehicles in their local lineup, namely the Toyota Prius, Toyota Prius C, and the hybrid variant of the Toyota Corolla Altis sedan. As the Toyota Corolla Cross enters the local market with its hybrid variant, we expect it to be priced somewhere between the Corolla Altis Hybrid (Php 1.58 million), and the cheapest RAV4 variant, which starts at Php 1.725 million.

Photos from Toyota

Also Read:

The Corolla Cross is coming!

Toyota uncovers Limited Apex Edition 2021 Corolla
BEIJING  The self-exiled Chinese tycoon on whose 150-foot (45-meter) yacht President Donald Trumps former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was arrested is a high-profile irritant to the ruling Communist Party.

Guo Wengui left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by President Xi Jinping that ensnared people close to Guo, including a top intelligence official. Chinese authorities have accused Guo of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other offenses.

A former civil servant turned real estate developer, Guo has rankled the ruling party by launching accusations of corruption on social media. From his base in a Manhattan luxury apartment, he has been especially critical of Vice President Wang Qishan, a Xi ally and key figure in the partys anti-corruption drive.

Bannon, who was arrested on Thursday, was charged along with three others with defrauding online donors in the name of helping build Trumps southern border wall. Bannon pleaded not guilty at a hearing Thursday in Manhattan.

In June, Guo and Bannon announced the founding of the Federal State of New China, an initiative to overthrow the Chinese government.

Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, was one of Chinas richest businesspeople, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.1 billion in 2015. His most prominent asset was Pangu Plaza, an office-and-hotel complex overlooking Beijings Olympic Stadium.

Guo paid $67.5 million in 2015 for his 9,000-square foot (850-square meter) apartment above Central Park and joined Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The status of Guos fortune is unclear. Assets in China have been frozen or confiscated. He is trying to sell his Manhattan apartment; the asking price was cut this year to $55 million. His yacht, the Lady May, is for sale for nearly $28 million.

Guo told The Associated Press in 2017 his goal was to win the release of family members, employees and assets in China, not to undermine the Communist Party.

Also in 2017, however, his lawyer said Guo had applied for political asylum in the United States. Even if the claim is ultimately rejected, that might let Guo stay in the country for years while it is reviewed and during possible appeals.

That came after Beijing asked the international police agency Interpol to issue a red notice asking other governments to arrest Guo.

In the first criminal proceeding stemming from accusations against Guo and his companies, three employees were sentenced to prison in 2017 on charges they carried out Guos orders to falsify financial documents in order to obtain loans from a state bank.

The official Xinhua News Agency said other Guo-related businesses were suspected of bribery, embezzlement, illegal detention and forced transactions.

The former deputy chief of the Chinese intelligence agency, Ma Jian, was convicted in December 2018 of taking bribes to help Guo. The charges included conspiring to blackmail a Beijing city official who blocked a Guo development project.

In 2017, Chinese developer SOHO sued Guo in New York after he accused the company of improperly obtaining regulatory changes to boost the value of its properties. Guo countersued. SOHO dropped its complaint in 2018. A judge dismissed Guos suit the following year.

A separate lawsuit filed by a Chinese woman in New York accused Guo of raping her and holding her prisoner for three years after hiring her as his assistant. Guo denied the allegations.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a nighttime view of Tropical Depression 13 early on Aug. 21. By 11 a.m. EDT, it had strengthened into Tropical Storm Laura. NASA's Night-Time View of Tropical Depression 13

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a nighttime image of Tropical Depression 13 during the early morning hours of Aug. 21. Nighttime imagery showed the structure of Tropical Depression 13 was still somewhat elongated but it had become better organized than it was yesterday although it still lacked well-defined banding features. Nighttime imagery from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite was created using the NASA Worldview application at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

When NOAA's Hurricane Hunters flew over the storm later in the morning, they also found that the center of the storm is located somewhat to the south of previous estimates.

Numerous Watches and Warnings Now in Effect

NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) has posted many watches and warnings for Laura on Aug. 21. In addition to the U.S., the following governments issued warnings or watches for their islands: Antigua, the Netherlands, France, St. Maarten, Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued for Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The government of Antigua has issued a Tropical Storm Warning for Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands. The government of the Netherlands has issued a Tropical Storm Warning for Saba and St. Eustatius. The government of France has issued a Tropical Storm Warning for St. Martin and St. Barthelemy. The government of St. Maarten has issued a Tropical Storm Warning for St. Maarten. The government of the Dominican Republic has issued a Tropical Storm Watch for northern coast of the Dominican Republic from Cabo Cabron to the border with Haiti. The government of Haiti has issued a Tropical Storm Watch for northern coast of Haiti from Le Mole St. Nicholas to the border with the Dominican Republic.

Tropical Storm Laura's Status on Aug. 21

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located near latitude 17.0 degrees north and longitude 60.2 degrees west. Laura was about 210 miles (335 km) east-southeast of the Northern Leeward Islands.

Laura was moving toward the west near 18 mph (30 kph) and a generally west-northwestward motion at a faster forward speed is expected over the next couple of days. Maximum sustained winds were near 45 mph (75 kph) with higher gusts. Some slow strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 150 miles (240 km) from the center. The minimum central pressure estimated from NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft observations was 1007 millibars.

Laura's Forecast Track

NHC Hurricane Forecaster Richard Pasch noted, "Laura is expected to move mainly west-northwestward on the south side of a subtropical high pressure system over the next couple of days. Later in the forecast period, the tropical cyclone should turn toward the northwest as it moves around the western periphery of the high [pressure area]."

On the forecast track, the center of Laura will move near or over the northern Leeward Islands later today, Aug. 21, near or over Puerto Rico Saturday morning, and near the northern coast of Hispaniola late Saturday and early Sunday, Aug. 23.

###

About NASA's EOSDIS Worldview

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now."

NASA Researches Earth from Space

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
The tiny little town of Plymouth, Wisconsin, where I grew up and my wife grew up  and they have never voted for me and never will vote for me, not because theyre not my friends, its because theyre Republicans  at the end of the day, they had two protests around George Floyd, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) said in one breakout session this week, referring to the Black man killed while being pinned down by Minneapolis police in May. So I just think that resonates.
A woman and her six children were kicked off a JetBlue flight bound Newark Airport after her 2-year-old daughter did not want to wear a mask, according to a report.

The incident was captured on cellphone video on the plane which was set to depart from Orlando and shows Chaya Bruck, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, pleading with a flight attendant to let them stay on the plane as many passengers urged the same, NBC New York reported.

He said no, she has to cover her nose and her mouth, and I said I could try but then she was pulling it off, Bruch told NBC New York. A few minutes later, they came to me and they told me that I have to gather my things and I have to get off the plane.

Everyone was ordered off the plane and Bruck and her family later boarded another flight to head home, NBC reported.

A spokesperson for JetBlue told NJ Advance Media its face covering policy was updated on Aug. 10 and that it stipulates that children ages 2 and up must wear one, per CDC guidelines.

During these unprecedented times, our first priority is to keep crewmembers and customers safe, and weve quickly introduced new safety policies and procedures throughout the pandemic, the spokesperson said.

He added that customers receive an email before their flight outlining safety protocols and face covering policies.

Our crewmembers are ready to assist customers in the airport and onboard who might need support, the spokesperson said. We have a flexible rebooking policy for those who are unable to meet this requirement, and customers who refuse to follow these standards after requests from crewmembers will be reviewed for further travel eligibility on JetBlue.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
Scientists are gaining new insight into the ancient Egyptian practice of mummifying animals, using high-resolution 3D scans to peer inside mummies of a cat, a bird and a snake to learn about their treatment before being killed and embalmed.

Researchers on Monday said they digitally unwrapped and dissected the three mummies using X-ray micro CT scanning, which generates three-dimensional images with a resolution 100 times greater than a medical CT scan. Actual unwrapping can damage and dislodge structures within a mummy.

Ancient Egyptians mummified not only human corpses but millions of animals including cats, dogs, birds, snakes and crocodiles, particularly during a period of more than 1,000 years starting around 700 BC.

The three mummies apparently were made as votive offerings to gods at temples to act as a go-between between deities and living people, according to study co-author Carolyn Graves-Brown, curator of the Egypt Centre at Swansea University in Britain. They were long held in Swanseas collection and their precise age and origin in ancient Egypt are unclear.

The researchers found evidence that the snake, a juvenile Egyptian Cobra, had been denied water while alive, based on its calcified kidneys, and apparently was killed by spinal fracture after being lifted by the tail and whipped in the air.

The coiled snakes mouth contained a substance called natron and its jaw was placed in a wide-open position, consistent with the animal possibly having undergone the opening of the mouth ceremony, said Swansea engineering professor Richard Johnston, lead author of the study published in Scientific Reports.

This ritual was conducted so mummified subjects could regain their senses in the afterlife.

This would be additional information supporting other evidence that the opening of the mouth was done on mummified animals. We know it was carried out on humans, Graves-Brown said.

The domestic cat also was a juvenile: a 5-month-old kitten, based on unerupted teeth within the lower jaw. Its neck was broken at the time of death or during the mummification process.

The bird appears to be a Eurasian kestrel, of the falcon family.

Snakes were associated with numerous ancient Egyptian gods. Cats were often associated with the fertility goddess Bastet. Raptors were associated with sky gods such as Re and Horus.

Like us, the ancient Egyptians used and abused animals, Graves-Brown said. There is evidence from the mummified remains of maltreatment.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Washington  Fri, August 21, 2020 12:55 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f82317 2 People Meghan-Markle,presidential-election Free

Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry, on Thursday broke from protocol normally followed by British royals in calling for a "change" in the upcoming US presidential election.

Her comments came during a virtual "voter registration couch party" organized by When We All Vote, an outreach group co-chaired by former first lady Michelle Obama, actor Tom Hanks and others to increase participation at the polls.

"We all know what's at stake this year. I know it, I think all of you certainly know it," Markle said. "You're just as mobilized and energized to the change that we all need and deserve."

"We vote to honor those who came before us and to protect those who will come after us  because that's what community is all about and that's specifically what this election is all about," she said.

The "Suits" actress did not mention President Donald Trump, who will face Democrat Joe Biden at the polls on Nov. 3.

Read also: Britain's royal family wish Meghan happy birthday amid rift

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit frontline British royal duties this year and moved to California.

Markle and Harry have spoken of their desire to "to do something of meaning, to do something that matters," in California, where they plan to launch a wide-ranging non-profit organization named Archewell.

Markle, whose mother is black, spoke out in June after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed African American killed by police, reflecting on her own memories of racism growing up in Los Angeles.
Chichen Itza, the pre-Colombian archaeological site built by the Mayans in northern Yucatan, Mexico, is home to many architectural and cultural wonders, one of which has baffled acoustics experts for decades.

The Temple of Kukulkan is one of the most visually-striking structures at Chichen Itza, but perhaps its most intriguing characteristic is acoustic, not visual. Clapping at the base of the Mayan pyramid causes an echo that closely resembles a birds chirp. Do it repeatedly, or in a group, and the echos will sound like a chorus of ghostly chirps rolling down the steps of the impressive structures. Its one of those tricks tour guides use to impress visitors, but its actually no gimmick. Acoustic experts have been fascinated by the Chichen Itza Chirp ever since it was documented by an acoustic engineer in the late 90s, but so far no one has been able to demonstrate if the architects of the pyramid designed it with the specific echo in mind, or if it was accidental.

Photo: Vinicius Kern/Pixabay

The Chichen Itza Chirp became a hot topic of discussion among acoustic experts in 1998, after being documented by California-based acoustic engineer David Lubman. He described the echo of a clap at the base of Kukulkans Pyramid as the distinct call of a bird, and his account inspired other acoustic experts to visit the Mayan site and experience the sound for themselves. Some even started studying it.

Nico Declercq, an acoustic expert at Ghent University, in Belgium, was one of the many scientists who ventured to Chichen Itza to study the mysterious echo. After studying the architecture of Kukulkans Pyramid and performing various calculations and experiments, Declercq and his colleagues concluded that the architects must have known about the echo produced by the hollow chamber at the top, but they couldnt demonstrate that they knew it sounded like a bird.

The fascinating thing about this special echo is that it is tied to the sound it follows. You only get a chirping sound if you clap at the base of the temple. If you beat a drum or scream, you get a different sound altogether, so its virtually impossible to know if the Mayans knew about the echo a clap would produce, or if they tweaked the design after its construction in order to get this specific sound.

One thing is for sure, there are indications that the Chichen Itza Chirp was no accident. Acoustic and bird experts agree that the chirping sound closely resembles that of the quetzal, a majestic bird worshiped by the Mayans as a god of the air.

Also, the Temple of Kukulkan is famous for being so precisely constructed that at the equinoxes, the sun striking one side casts an undulating shadow down the stairway that closely resembles a snake. In case you didnt know Kukulkan, the Plumed Serpent, is a serpent deity. If they could calculate that, its not impossible to believe that they planned for the chirp echo as well.

But the actual intention of the builders is still up for debate. During his analysis, Declercq also noticed that the echos of people steps as they climbed up the stairs of Kukulkans Pyramid sounded a lot like rain falling into a bucket of water. The rain god played an important part in Mayan culture, so that may not be a coincidence either.



Nico Declercqs study found that the height and spacing of the pyramids steps creates an acoustic filter that emphasizes some sound frequencies while suppressing others, but also that the echo is influenced by other factors as well, such as the mix of frequencies of the original sound.

We may never have an answer to the question was the Chichen Itza Chirp intentional, but that doesnt make the echo itself any less impressive. If anything, the mystery only makes it even more interesting.
The vast majority of students enrolled in schools in the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board (HWCDSB) will return to classes in-person when school restarts in September, according to preliminary numbers released by the board on Thursday.

The HWCDSB says that initial reports show 77 per cent of students will attend in-person classes while 13 per cent of students have opted to learn remotely.

The board noted that 10 per cent of families have not yet responded to the HWCDSB registration process to indicate whether their children will attend in-person or online, meaning the numbers could change slightly in the coming weeks.

Pat Daly, chair of the HWCDSB, says he expects the number of in-person attendees to rise to roughly 85 per cent when the remaining 10 per cent of families respond.

A couple of months ago, I would have predicted a much smaller number but clearly, having listened to lots of parents over the last number of weeks, Im not overly surprised today. But six weeks ago, I wouldnt have predicted this, Daly said.

Parents are clearly doing what they believe to be in the best interest of their families and we obviously respect that.

The HWCDSB hosts just under 29,000 students across its 46 elementary schools and seven high schools in the Hamilton area.

The Catholic board has not provided a breakdown of enrolment numbers for elementary and secondary schools.

In recent weeks, the board has faced increased pressure from parents and teachers calling for a reduction in class sizes for elementary schools and new requirements around safety protocols like mask-wearing and sanitization.

The Catholic board is still deciding if it will use its reserve funds to reduce class sizes in some elementary schools, and it is considering whether to stagger reopening dates for elementary classes.

Across the GTA, approximately two-thirds of parents are sending their kids to school for in-person lessons, according to board pre-registration numbers. However, a new poll found that parents are sending their children back to school with great unease.

The Pollara poll, which surveyed parents in the GTA, showed that most parents feel uncomfortable about sending kids back to class, but feel they have to in order to maintain their childrens mental health and to maintain a work-life balance for themselves.

The poll found that roughly 36 per cent of parents want the start of the school year to be delayed if necessary.

Registered HWCDSB students learning decisions for September 77% In-person 13% Remote 10% Not yet responded As of Aug. 20 Source: Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board

Earlier in August, the HWCDSB released a 27-page guide outlining its reopening plans and requirements for elementary and secondary students.

The plan indicates that elementary students in kindergarten through Grade 8 will attend school five days per week, while remaining with one cohort for the full day and eating lunch in classrooms with staggered recess times.

Secondary schools, meanwhile, will place its students in groups of approximately 15, attending in-person classes every other day of the week with alternating Fridays.

In both levels of school, students who opt out of in-person attendance will follow along with the curriculum remotely using pre-recorded lessons and assignments on myClass, the boards online learning software of choice.

The public school board has not released enrolment numbers yet.

Shawn McKillop, spokesperson for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, said the official numbers will be released after pre-registration for families ends on Aug. 25.
Watch: British national held for allegedly sexually abusing minor boy in Odisha

A British national who runs a shelter home in Jharsuguda areea of Odisha has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a minor boy. The accused, identified as John Patrick Bridge runs a shelter home named 'Faith Outreach'. The incident came to the fore during a probe over misuse of funds by the accused. When police were conducting a probe, a minor boy alleged that John Patrick Bridge had sexualy assaulted him. The minor boy said the incident happened when he was returning from his home to the shelter home last year. Police have registered a case and the accused has been arrested. 'The person has been accused of sexual abuse of a child in the institution he was running. During the investigation, the person has been arrested and has been sent to Court, the further probe is underway,' Superintendent of Police (SP) Rahul PR said. He however refused to divulge any further details related to the case. Watch the full video for all the details on the story. ...read more
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New aerial photos have captured the massive scale of the renovation works being carried out on the former Playboy mansion.

The 29-room Holmby Hills mansion, which was owned by Playboy Enterprises, was sold to billionaire Daren Metropoulos in 2016 for $100million but Hefner was allowed to stay in the house until he died in 2017.

Renovations on the former Playboy mansion began last year when Metropoulos filed permits to begin working on the property.

New aerial photos show the enormous amount of work being carried out on the grounds of the Playboy mansion in Beverly Hills as a new roof is installed and a digger and flatbed truck work to clear some land at the side of the house

An image taken at the back of the property shows new foundations being dug behind the mansion which was sold for $100million in 2016

The 29-room Holmby Hills mansion belonged to Playboy Enterprises before being sold in 2016. Pictured: Hugh Hefner and model Crystal Hefner in 2014

Who is billionaire Daren Metropoulos who owns the Playboy mansion? Billionaire Daren Metropoulos is a principal at private-equity firm Metropoulos and Co. The company co-owns Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, an iconic American snack. Metropoulos bought the Playboy mansion from Playboy Enterprises in 2016 for $100 million. Hefner was able to live in the house until he died. After Hefner's death, Daren said: 'Hugh Hefner was a visionary in business, a giant in media and an iconic figure of pop culture whose legacy will leave a lasting impact. Billionaire Daren Metropoulos is a principal at private-equity firm Metropoulos and Co. 'I was fortunate to know him as a neighbor and friend and I extend my deepest sympathies to his family.' He previously said he intended to connect the two estates into a combined 7.3-acre compound after Hefner's death, according to the Wall Street Journal. Metropoulos said the mansion's heritage 'transcends its celebrity' and that 'to have the opportunity to serve as its steward would be a true privilege.' Advertisement

When Metropoulos took on the building he promised to maintain its iconic exterior, but new pictures have revealed just how large the scale of work being done is on the grounds of the property.

In one picture roof has started to be installed on the middle section of the property, while wooden beams provide support along other sections of the roof.

Scaffolding now surrounds the entire mansion while a digger and flatbed truck are also seen working on the grounds.

A snap from behind the mansion shows foundations have been dug into the ground and the infamous grotto remains drained of water.

Temporary offices for the workforce carrying out the renovation works can also be seen at the front end of the estate.

The Playboy Mansion was built in 1927 and bought by Playboy Enterprises for $1 million in 1971.

It was emblematic of Hollywood's excess, hosting parties with lingerie-only dress code for the female guests who cavorted in the caved grotto.

In 2011, health officials confirmed that the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease was found in a whirlpool spa at the Playboy Mansion where more than 100 people fell ill.

The Los Angeles County Health Department presented its findings at an annual conference at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The legionella bacteria also causes a milder illness called Pontiac fever.

Symptoms, which include fever and headache, are the same as those suffered by the Playboy Mansion partygoers.

Hefner's widow, Crystal, 31, was the third of his wives, having married him in 2012.

He had previously been married to Mildred Williams from 1949-1959, with whom he had two children, and Kimberley Conrad - 1989's 27-year-old Playmate of the Year - from 1989-2010.

Cooper, Hefner and Conrad's elder son, said that he and brother Marston grew up with a framed photo of his mom's nude centerfold in the home.

'Yeah, that was weird,' he admitted. 'It was like the elephant in the room.'

Hefner also had a bevvy of 'girlfriends' who lived with him - usually several at a time - at his famed Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

Despite declaring that he had slept with more than a thousand women, Hefner spent much of his life 'looking for love in all the wrong places,' as he tearfully told The New York Times in 1992.

Hefner married Crystal - and took up a life of monogamy - in 2012 after briefly calling off the engagement. 'Maybe I should be single,' he said a few months later.

'But I do know that I need an ongoing romantic relationship. In other words, I am essentially a very romantic person, and all I really was looking for, quite frankly, with the notion of marriage was continuity and something to let the girl know that I really cared.'

The year before their marriage, he had mused: 'I never really found my soulmate.'

Pictures taken earlier this year showed that work had begun on the iconic Playboy mansion with plastic sheeting having been placed over a section of the roof

Three workers wearing protective face masks are seen outside the Playboy mansion. The landmark super-home in located in Holmby Hills


State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Minister Erick Thohir(R) and BUMN Deputy Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin in Jakarta, Wed (8/19/20). (Antara Photos / Adam Bariq)

Jakarta, Indonesia, Aug 21, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - Christovita Wiloto, Founder of IYE! Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs, believes that the BUMN Go Global strategy issued by the Minister of State Owned Enterprises (BUMN) is exactly what Indonesia needs right now, especially in the midst of a global economic recession due to the Covid-19 pandemic.Indonesia Young Entrepreneurs, otherwise known as IYE!, is a global network of young Indonesians with entrepreneurial spirit across all industries. With over 50,000 members based all around the world, this organization acts as a platform to bring together young minds that are resilient and have integrity."The launch of the BUMN Go Global strategy as we enter a world recession due to the Covid-19 pandemic is very timely. Even countries as strong as the United States and China have been overwhelmed by this mega disruption. These new circumstances level the playing field so that countries are now in a position of equal opportunities within the global business playing field," explained Christovita Wiloto.Known as a reliable global entrepreneur with an extensive international network, BUMN Minister Erick Thohir is believed to be able to direct BUMNs to be more active on a global scale."Under the leadership of Erick Thohir, the opportunities for SOEs to be more active at the global level has widened through the BUMN Go Global program," Christov said.BUMN Minister Erick Thohir and Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi initiated the BUMN Go Global economic diplomacy program. The goal of the program is to improve Indonesia's supply chain. BUMNs are encouraged to acquire foreign companies, many of which are beginning to stagger during this time of global recession.State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir explained that the BUMN GO Global program is an effort to develop and uplift the Indonesian business world towards the international level. He said there were two big goals of the program, which includes marketing BUMN products as well as improving supply chains in Indonesia."So this is not a program that is just for show. But it really has to be able to improve the ecosystem of our nation," said Erick.From the marketing side, Erick said that Indonesia's state-owned companies currently already have various products that are recognized by various countries. Examples of products that are already well known in other countries include vaccines produced by Biofarma as well as products of the defense industry, and these can be improved even more.Christov also observed that there are actually quite a number of Indonesian state-owned companies that have already successfully penetrated the global market. These companies include Telkomcel, PT Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero) Tbk, Bank BRI, Bank Mandiri, PT Semen Indonesia (Persero) Tbk., PT Pertamina (Persero), PT Wijaya Karya (Persero) Tbk., Kimia Farma Dawaa, and many more."But it is not enough that BUMN Go Global, we also want to participate in improving the supply chain in Indonesia. We know that, so far, Indonesia has only been a market for other global companies, but how long will this go on? What we can expect from acquiring several global companies overseas is a simple objective, namely to improve Indonesia's supply chain," Erick asserted.Erick further said that Indonesia actually has two advantages, namely a large market and rich natural resources. However, on the other hand, Indonesia is still facing challenges related to logistics and technology. For that reason, these are the areas that he intends to fix.For more information, please contact:PowerPR | Indonesia Investment Forumchristhaliawiloto@powerpr.co.idwww.powerpr.co.id/IIFNYC2021Source: Indonesian Ministry of State Owned Enterprises / BUMNCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Fresh off a front end score, Southwind Ion will look to take David Dowling all the way in the Linda Ford Memorial Pace in the opening half of a Saturday doubleheader at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park on the final day of 2020 Gold Cup & Saucer week.

The 10-dash Saturday afternoon card starts at 1:00 P.M. with the Linda Ford Memorial Pace in the race 10 finale.

Southwind Ion has post six in the $1,900 class with Dowling in the bike for trainer Jennifer Doyle, who co-owns the Sportswriter mare with Danny Birt of Earnscliffe. The mare was a 1:56.2 victor on the lead Tuesday evening for her 22nd lifetime win.

Dueling Banjos brings a summary of six straight top-three finishes into the race with post seven for driver Steven Shepherd and trainer Jay Noye while Dreas Good Powow was a winner her last start from the Joe MacDonald stable of Cornwall. The 40-time winner will have Corey MacPherson sitting behind her Saturday afternoon from the rail.

The Post Time Picks in the Saturday afternoon program will place Southwind Ion as the top choice.

Southwind Ion blasted off the wings and went right down the road for Dowling last time out. She gets the same class, same driver and maybe the same result.

Completing the field are Medici Hanover (Jason Hughes), Dorabella (Adam Merner), Good Luck Kathy (Brodie MacPhee), Paythelinebluechip (Marc Campbell) and The Time To Win (Gilles Barrieau).

The fifth race on the afternoon card is the Tom & Margaret Claybourne Memorial Trot for a $2,350 purse. Setting Day is the morning line favourite from post four for driver Kenny Arsenault, trainer Mike McGuigan and owner Jamie Whalen of Avondale.

Rest Assured is the favourite in the Fred & Rena Hughes Memorial, carded as the afternoon's fourth race, with Barrieau at the lines for trainer Blaine McKenna and owners Marsha Knox and Kyla and Wade MacDonald of Stanhope.

A pair of $8,400 Joe OBrien Grassroots divisions for three-year-old pacing colts line up in Races 6 and 8.

Watch the worldwide broadcast at Redshores.ca and wager online at HPIBet.com.

A Gold Cup And Saucer For The Ages

All the glory is up for grabs Saturday evening in the 61st running of The Guardian Gold Cup & Saucer at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park.

First post for the evening card is 7:00 P.M.

The $60,000 Gold Cup & Saucer final goes under the spotlight in the Race 14 finale. Casimir Richie P is pegged as the one to beat from the stable of Dr. Ian Moore. A native of Summerside, Moore co-owns the pacer with Michael Goldberg of Toronto and places him in the capable hands of driver Dale Spence from post six. The Astronomical pacer was a winner in 1:51.2 in Trial 2 on Monday night while Trial 1 winner Time To Dance has post two for trainer-driver Marc Campbell. Brent Campbell of Charlottetown co-owns the 12-time winning Time To Dance with Matthew McDonald of Edwards, Ont. Rose Run Quest, the only horse in the field to have previously raced in the Gold Cup and Saucer final, has post eight with Gilles Barrieau in the seat from the Campbell stable.

Woodmere Ideal Art (David Dowling) will leave from post five for trainer Sifroi Melanson. The Articulator gelding is the first Island-bred horse to race in the Gold Cup and Saucer final since Country Estate in 2008.

The Post Time Picks are in agreement with classifier Gerard Smith in Casimir Richie P getting the top spot on the ticket.

"That was an awesome performance in trial two where he got front and then fired home in :27.1 to win in 1:51.2. He may not get that trip tonight but his driver says he can do it any way so well see what Dale decides to do but we expect him to hit the wire first."

Other entries in the ultra-competitive field of eight are Lisburn (Kenny Arsenault), Screen Test (Corey MacPherson), Father Ofthe Year (Mike Downey) and Simple Kinda Man (Jason Hughes).

Woodmere Chella is the favourite off the rail in the $8,000 Birthplace Of Confederation Final, sponsored by the City of Charlottetown in memory of Dr. Bob Webster, in Race 13. Spence drives the pacing mare for trainer Marvyn Webster of Kensington.

A pair of $12,500 Joe OBrien Gold divisions line up in Races 9 and 12. The card also features the Miriam Simmons Memorial, The Kiwanis George Kays Memorial, The Papermaker Pace, the David MacPhail Memorial, the Colonel Dan Trot, the Mayors Pace, the Minister Of Finance Pace, and the Premiers Pace.

Go to Redshores.ca for race programs and more and wager online at HPIBet.com.

To view the entries for Saturday's cards of harness racing at Red Shores, click the following link: Saturday Entries - Charlottetown Driving Park.

(Red Shores)
Buying shares in the best businesses can build meaningful wealth for you and your family. While not every stock performs well, when investors win, they can win big. Just think about the savvy investors who held Golden Star Resources Ltd. (TSE:GSC) shares for the last five years, while they gained 402%. If that doesn't get you thinking about long term investing, we don't know what will. Also pleasing for shareholders was the 54% gain in the last three months. This could be related to the recent financial results, released recently - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report.

View our latest analysis for Golden Star Resources

Golden Star Resources isn't currently profitable, so most analysts would look to revenue growth to get an idea of how fast the underlying business is growing. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually expect strong revenue growth. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

In the last 5 years Golden Star Resources saw its revenue grow at 1.5% per year. Put simply, that growth rate fails to impress. So shareholders should be pretty elated with the 38% increase per year, in that time. We don't think the growth over the period is that great, but it could be that faster growth appears to some to be on the horizon. Having said that, a closer look at the numbers might surface good reasons to believe that profits will gush in the future.

The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Having said that, most people consider earnings and revenue growth trends to be a more meaningful guide to the business. So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Golden Star Resources will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

A Different Perspective

Story continues

It's good to see that Golden Star Resources has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 62% in the last twelve months. That's better than the annualised return of 38% over half a decade, implying that the company is doing better recently. Someone with an optimistic perspective could view the recent improvement in TSR as indicating that the business itself is getting better with time. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Golden Star Resources you should know about.

If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on CA 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.
So its with great honor and humility, I accept this nomination for president of the United States of America. [crowd noise] This week, we saw a very fractured Democratic Party come together  putting aside a lot of ideological differences  and make clear that they are unified in their goal of taking on and defeating Donald Trump. This election is about preserving our democracy. Because thats whats at stake right now. You, me and Joe. Joe Biden. The convention closed with a pretty fired-up speech from Joe Biden. The Democratic nominee was trying, really at every turn, to extend a hand to not only Democratic voters, but also to independent voters and to Republican voters who may feel disaffected with President Trumps leadership. Ill work hard for those who didnt support me, as hard for them as I did for those who did vote for me. Thats the job of a president. Joe Biden hit on a number of key themes in his speech on Thursday. One of them was this idea that he could lead the nation out of a very dark, very polarized time, a moment when the country is struggling with a pandemic, with an economic crisis, with unrest over racial injustice. The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long  too much anger, too much fear, too much division. Ill be an ally of the light, not the darkness. So on the campaign trail, Joe Biden was not always the smoothest speaker. But perhaps his greatest strength as a campaigner  and this has long been the case  was his ability to connect with voters one on one, especially voters who are suffering or voters who are dealing with grief. I have some idea how it feels to lose someone you love. I know that deep black hole that opens up in the middle of your chest and you feel like youre being sucked into it. I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes. Joe Biden didnt say this directly, but implicit in that message was the part of a broader argument that he and his allies have long been pushing, that perhaps the greatest distinction between Joe Biden and Donald Trump comes down to the matter of character. I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose. We have a great purpose as a nation. Joe Biden has faced questions about whether he has the grit and the determination and the energy to wage a really vigorous fall campaign. So headed into Thursday night, something that some of his allies were a little worried about was, how can he deliver a powerful, electrifying speech when he is not going to have an audience in there to cheer him on? Let us begin, you and I together, one nation under God, united in our love for America, united in our love for each other. But when Joe Biden took the podium, he did everything that he could to suggest that he does have the fight in him to take on President Trump. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here, tonight. Meanwhile outside, there were more of those supporters who had gathered in a scene that I can compare to a drive-in movie situation. It was a pretty surreal event, unusual certainly, and in fact extraordinary to see a presidential nominee accept their nomination in that way under these circumstances. But it really played to the broader Democratic argument that they are the party that can be trusted to lead the country forward amid a pandemic, to defer to the science as they make their decisions instead of, as they would put it, to the politics. The Democrats head into the general election pleased by Joe Bidens lead over Donald Trump in a lot of polls, but also very aware  because 2016 is never too far from their minds  that a poll lead right now does certainly not guarantee anything in November. Depending on what the restrictions look like and just how much the Democrats may need to continue following the virtual campaign route, it is possible that those restrictions could make it more difficult to promote an affirmative clear case for their vision of where they want to take the country. Singing: O say can you see, by the dawns  Hi, Im Sarah Kerr, the producer of this video. Thanks for following our convention coverage this week. Well be back next week as the R.N.C. gets underway. Check out nytimes.com/2020 for the latest news and analysis.
NEW YORK: A federal judge turned down President Donald Trumps newest move Friday to keep New York City prosecutors from getting his tax records, but Trumps lawyers have already asked higher courts to step in.

The developments came a day after U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled as he had before in a case that has been to the U.S. Supreme Court and back that Manhattans top prosecutor could subpoena the records for a criminal investigation. Trumps lawyers immediately appealed Thursdays ruling.

They also asked Marrero to delay enforcement of the subpoena while the appeal plays out. Marrero said no to that Friday.

The president has not demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm if the records are turned over for a grand jury probe that would keep them secret, he wrote.

However, Trumps lawyers noted in a court filing Thursday that they were making the same request of an appeals court and the Supreme Court.

The president raises serious arguments, Trump attorney William Consovoy wrote in an appeals court filing Friday, adding that its implausible that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. needs these records so badly that theres no time for appellate review.

Vances office, which has agreed to hold off enforcing the subpoena for a week, declined to comment Friday.

Messages seeking comment were sent Friday to Trumps lawyers.

Marrero has refused multiple times to block the subpoena. The U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld one of his rulings, finding that the presidency in itself doesnt shield Trump from Vances investigation.

But the high court returned the case to Marreros courtroom to allow Trumps lawyers to raise other concerns about the subpoena. They did, arguing that it was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment.

Vances attorneys countered that they were entitled to extensive records to aid a complex financial investigation, citing public reports of extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.

Those arguments led to this weeks flurry of rulings and appeals.

Trump blasted the long-running quest for his financial records Thursday as a continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country.

Vance, a Democrat, began seeking the Republican presidents tax returns from his longtime accounting firm over a year ago, after Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the president had misled tax officials, insurers and business associates about the value of his assets.

The president has said he expects the case to end up back before the Supreme Court.

Even if the tax records ultimately are subpoenaed, they would not automatically be made public, as they are being sought as part of a confidential grand jury investigation.

Congress is also pursuing Trumps financial records, though the Supreme Court last month kept a hold on the banking and other documents that Congress has been seeking and returned the case to a lower court.

Trump is the only modern president who has refused to release his tax returns. Before he was elected, he had promised to do so.

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
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine initially declined to weigh in on President Donald Trumps tweet calling for a boycott of Goodyear Tire & Rubber because of the companys rules prohibiting employees from wearing MAGA hats and other political attire.

But on Thursday, DeWine took a stand, saying he didnt support a boycott. They have Ohio workers who are doing a good job and making a good product, DeWine said.

Were talking about DeWines position on This Week in the CLE.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour coronavirus news podcast, with editors Kris Wernowsky and Jane Kahoun, and were answering all sorts of questions from the news.

Youve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom account, in which he shares once or twice a day what were thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.

And youve been offering all sorts of great perspective in our coronavirus alert account, which has 13,000-plus subscribers. You can sign up for free by texting 216-279-7784.

Here are the questions were answering today:

Why cant ousted House Speaker Larry Householder find a lawyer to defend him on a racketeering charge in the $60 million FirstEnergy bribery scheme to bail out aging nuclear plants? Householder got his federal court arraignment delayed two weeks after telling the court he was having trouble finding a conflict-free attorney.

What are the practical ramifications of Cuyahoga Countys color-coded coronavirus rating going to orange from red, and why wont Cuyahoga Health Director Terry Allan, who is embroiled in a bit of a blackface controversy, talk about it? The county had spent seven weeks at the red warning level because of what had been considered very high exposure and spread of the coronavirus. Allan is staying mum until a Friday afternoon briefing.

We wondered Thursday whether Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine would take a stand on President Donald Trumps call for a boycott of Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber, and he did. What was it? DeWine broke with the president and says he doesnt support a boycott.

How does Congressman Jim Jordan, who just wrote an op-ed attacking Americas cancel culture, find a way to justify President Donald Trumps call for a Goodyear boycott as not being part of cancel culture? Jordan backed Trump and accused the company of discriminating against conservatives by letting employees wear apparel with Black Lives Matter or LGBTQ messaging, while blocking messages favorable to conservatives.

Whats the latest move by the BMV to save me from having to go to one of their crowded offices? Ohioans can now get print-on-demand temporary tags at home without going into a Deputy Registrar office.

How did the Cannonball Run crown  the unofficial honor of driving the fastest from coast to coast  come back to Ohio? A Northeast Ohio exotic car dealer, who along with two other daredevils set a cross-continent driving record in November only to have it broken five months later, told cleveland.com last week that they have reclaimed the crown.

Want more? You can find all our past episodes here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

On Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.
The decline and fall of Scalo had enough intrigue for a Netflix miniseries.

A fight for control between the spouse-owners descended into allegations of substance abuse and embezzlement. The drama sapped the energy from the place, and its reputation eroded away until it abruptly closed in December 2018 after four decades in Nob Hill. The prime location, under a squat, octagonal cupola on the northwest corner of the historical Nob Hill Business Center, sat idle.

A year and a half later, Scalo has reopened under the ownership of the husband-and-wife team of Prashant and Christie Sawant, patrons of the old place who want to restore it to its former glory. They hired Gaetano Ascione, a Naples, Italy-born chef with international experience, to take over in the kitchen, and have been using social media to promote the reopening.

The efforts appear to be paying off. When I visited for takeout on a recent Saturday night, the patio was busy, the small parking lot full. It was heartening to see activity again at this corner of the circa-1946 shopping center, a marvelous relic of the golden age of Route 66.

The new launch represents a reset more than a rebuild. Northern Italian Grill is gone from the name, suggesting that a more comprehensive presentation of Italian cuisine is in the offing, but the menu is mostly similar to that of the previous incarnation. For casual diners who might blanch at the sight of dishes such as osso buco, rack of lamb and filet mignon, there are several pizzas and pasta dishes in the $12-$18 range. Vegetarian and gluten-free options are easy to find.

Starters tend toward the more upscale, such as grilled octopus for $14 and mussels and leek stew for $16. The tartare e carpaccio ($16) presents raw beef tenderloin two ways: chopped and thin-sliced. The underseasoned tartare, formed into a patty and topped with a raw egg, picks up sorely needed salt and acidity from the fat capers, halved cherry tomatoes and cornichons on the plate. If you can manage to load everything onto the accompanying pieces of crostini, youre rewarded with a great bite.

Branzino alla Liguria ($34), one of three fish dishes on the menu, pairs skin-on, boneless fillets of European bass with black olives and tomatoes. In the takeout box, it looks like a pile of leftovers scraped off a plate, but these days you have to move past appearances and focus on flavors  in this case, a flaky, mildly sweet fish expertly set against the acid of the watery tomato sauce. The sauce has bit of heat that the halved purple fingerling potatoes avidly absorb. Its bright and fresh, a fitting tribute to the sun-splashed Mediterranean region in its name.

Pasta dishes include preparations of gnocchi ($18) that vary daily. On the day I ordered, the special was a well-executed but rather mundane presentation of gnocchi in butter and oil topped with parmesan. A marinara would have put it over the top.

The menu offers an intriguing selection of vegetable sides, including lacinato fritto ($5), fried black Tuscan kale in a roasted garlic vinaigrette. The kale, as crisp and thin as dried leaves, gets a kick from the Japanese spice mix togarashi.

Cavolini ($5), a dish of sauteed Brussels sprouts tossed with pieces of bacon in a white balsamic vinaigrette, was less successful. The outer layers of the vegetables presented an appetizingly charred appearance, but they were too tough to eat, and the bacon was undercooked.

Initial impressions of the ordering process were not good, as the person who answered the phone kept me on the line while seeking help, exposing me to this bit of dialogue: Hey, can you take this guys order? No? Gawwwd.

Fortunately, someone else took the phone, and things went smoothly from there. The food was ready in 15 minutes. Upon arriving, I pulled up to the curb and called the restaurant, and a server ran the food out to me.

The temporary prohibition on dining in has a silver lining for Scalo, which has some time to get up to speed before the crowds return. And return they will. Scalo has an intriguing menu, a matchless location and new ownership intent on reviving its once lofty reputation.

SCALO

3 stars

LOCATION: 3500 Central SE, 522-3800, scaloabq.com

HOURS: 5-9 p.m. daily; happy hours 4-5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. Sunday brunch

FULL BAR



ON THE SIDE



VARA WINERY & DISTILLERY

3 stars

LOCATION/CONTACT: 315 Alameda NE, 898-6280, varawines.com

Vara Winery & Distillery in the North Valley occupies a tranquil spot off Alameda just west of the Balloon Fiesta Park entrance. The tasting room menu features more than a dozen wines. Prices are modest, starting at $17 for a bottle of r

osado, Spanish pink wine, and topping out at $32 for Vina Cardinal ($32), an aperitif Vara rolled out in February as its first 100% New Mexico wine.

Accompanying the wines and spirits is a concise menu that includes braised short ribs, chorizo macaroni, and cheese and ceviche. Everything is conveniently offered in small, as well as full, servings, so you wont break the bank trying a few different dishes.

Richard S. Dargan
In the latest twist in US-Chinese relations, Trump has forced global mobile carriers to pick a side. As reported by LightReading, the Trump Administration has created a clean list of global mobile carriers.

These are those that refuse to do business with tools of the Chinese Communist Partys surveillance state, like Huawei according to Trump. The implication being that those not on this list are in some way dirty companies.

It was well documented that Trump has forced TikTok to sell its U.S. operations in order to keep operating in the company. Oracle and Microsoft have both expressed interest in purchasing the American side of the company but have just 90 days to complete a deal.

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Global carriers now with or against Trump

As part of this move, Trump has listed a number of carriers that are designated as clean. These include Orange in France, Jio in India, Telstra in Australia, SK and KT in South Korea, NTT in Japan, and O2 in the United Kingdom. Other clean telcos include Telefonica, NTT, Rakuten and Telekom Albania.

Japans SoftBank has also joined the anti-Huawei gang in support of Trump. In a statement, it said, SoftBank is pleased to be recognized as a 5G Clean Telecommunications company.

The statement was rather diplomatic and seemed sycophantic in construction. It went onto state, SoftBank fully supports the Clean Network initiative of the US Department of State. It also noted that the company would, endeavor to build out 5G Clean Networks that use secure equipment from trusted network vendors.

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Checklist released for clean companies to follow

The US State Department has also released a 31 point checklist to become a clean carrier. Amongst the requirements is the need to be financed openly and transparently, use best practices in procurement, investment, and contracting, and have records available for public or regulatory scrutiny as appropriate.

The U.S. State Department says the requirements were made from Prague Proposal and 5G Toolbox. They have also created some short videos for the public can see the trusted companies.

This move adds another element to the already tense relationship between Trump and China. By publicly stating which companies are trustworthy Trump has moved into some new ground.

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Reports suggest that this might actually work. Estimates and forecasts indicate that Huaweis market share will decrease in the coming years. Chinas 5G buildout has also stalled after U.S. restrictions on the Chinese companies.

However, in Africa, the State Departments efforts have not been a success. A number of companies have rejected the move. Reports indicate that Huawei has not lost a single order in the region.

This saga will no doubt continue to rumble as Trump and his administration continue to put pressure on China. There is certainly some success for them but whether it is worth it, in the long run, may be another question.
As the COVID-19 emergency dragged into the second half of the year, some were losing faith in Australias ability to respond, but this week there have been encouraging signs that we can get this virus under control.

Early this month, parts of Victoria returned to a hard lockdown as new daily cases ticked over 700 a day, leaving thousands in despair. The brutal restrictions on Melbourne were smashing the state and national economies, and public health officials seemed incapable of stopping the virus spreading through aged care facilities or even keeping suspected cases in isolation.

Yet there is now light at the end of the tunnel. Victoria reported 179 cases on Friday and the seven-day average is down to about 250, half the level before lockdown. Deaths are also trending down. It has, perhaps, taken longer than it should, but the state is showing that lockdowns work. The situation could improve quickly from here.

Melburnians take their one hour of exercise in Carlton Gardens. Credit:Getty Images

With fewer new cases, the teams of contact tracers and testers will have more capacity to hunt down the virus before it can spread. And, with the number of infectious cases falling, it will be much easier to ensure effective quarantine. The risk to health professionals and carers will fall. It is not just Victoria offering hope. In NSW, cases of community transmission have fallen to low single digits a day.
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
BAMAKO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), a transitional governing body set up by mutinous Malian soldiers, informed Thursday night that the land and air borders of Mali are to reopen on Friday.

In a short press release signed by its vice-president Colonel Malick Diaw, the CNSP announced the reopening of Mali's land and air borders from zero o'clock this Friday.

The new governing body of Mali said that all security measures have been taken in order to "assure the good circulation of people and their goods."

A few hours after the forced resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Tuesday, the CNSP made its first public statement. Colonel-Major Ismael Wague, as spokesman for the CNSP, announced a series of measures, including the immediate closure of the country's land and air borders until further notice, and a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Strongly condemning the overthrowing of Keita's democratically elected government, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decided Tuesday evening to close all land and air borders, as well as to stop all economical, trade and financial flows and transactions between the ECOWAS member states and Mali, until the effective reinstatement of the constitutional order in Mali.
New open source satellite imagery suggests China has stepped up work on military infrastructure, including a surface-to-air missile site, in the area opposite Lipulekh region in Uttarakhand amid the standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The mobilisation of a battalion by Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) near Lipulekh Pass, one of the locations outside of the Ladakh sector that have witnessed movement of Chinese troops in recent weeks, was first reported by Hindustan Times on August 2.

The satellite imagery, shared by the open source intelligence analyst who uses the name @detresfa on Twitter, show what appears to be two sites at which the PLA is creating new infrastructure and accommodation. Both sites are not very far from the Kalapani-Lipulekh region that is at the heart of a new border row between India and Nepal.

According to a tweet from @detresfa, a surface-to-air missile facility is being constructed at one of the two sites on the banks of Mansarovar Lake in Tibet.

A graphic included in the tweet said: While India & China border tensions in Ladakh have been ongoing for over 3 months, new inputs suggest the India-China-Nepal tri-junction border area near Lipulekh Pass is feverish with Chinese military activity.

The two sites are located within a radius of 100 km of the Kalapani-Lipulekh region that has been depicted as Nepalese territory in a new political map issued by the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.

The India-Nepal border row erupted after New Delhi opened a new road to Lipulekh region to facilitate pilgrims travelling to Kailash-Mansarovar. Nepal responded by lodging a protest and then issuing the new political map that included Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, which are all controlled by India.

India has disputed Nepals claims and the border row affected bilateral ties. However, Oli spoke on phone with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 15 and said Nepal looks forward to meaningful bilateral cooperation with India. India and Nepal also held a meeting of a high level mechanism that oversees bilateral projects on August 17, though there is no sign as yet of the two sides holding talks on the border issue.

In a separate tweet, @detresfa posted open source satellite imagery that appeared to show Chinese troop deployments in Gar county of Tibet, south of Pangong Lake, one of the key friction points in the current standoff. The tweet said these Chinese deployments were suspected to either resupply or respond to potential issues arising from the dispute.

A graphic attached to the tweet said the PLAs deployments across its western military theatre continue to remain on alert and on the field. At Gar county, located 180 km south of Pangong Lake, there has been auxiliary construction & development in progress meant to aid pre-existing military infrastructure, along with a large volume of tents sprawled across the city.

Assisted by logistical and mechanical support the area is a suspected military basing prepared to respond to potential issues arising from the border dispute, it added.

Among the infrastructure reportedly being created in Gar county is a helipad, other military sites and barracks.

HT had earlier reported that PLA had moved a battalion  about 1,000 soldiers  at some distance from the border in the area opposite Lipulekh. India had matched the strength of PLA troops and was also keeping a close watch on Nepal in the context of its border claims.

India had on Thursday emphasised the need to speedily resolve outstanding issues related to the standoff after it was unable to bridge differences with China on the disengagement and de-escalation process along the LAC during diplomatic talks under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs.
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A 1,550ft Manhattan skyscraper believed to be the worlds tallest residential building has unveiled the first glimpse of what its luxurious apartments will look like.

The developer of Central Park Tower, the luxury condo building at 217 West 57th Street which topped out last fall, released renderings showing floor-to-ceiling windows that look out toward Central Park.

The images from Extell Development show what the inside of a three-bedroom condo on the 43rd floor will look like. The cost of the condo is $17.5million.

Once completed, the building will have 179 units. Eight of them are currently on the market and 12 have sold already.

It remains to be seen how the apocalyptic effect of COVID-19 on Manhattan's real estate market will impact the ultra-luxe building.

Since March, thousands of people have fled their homes first to avoid the epicenter of the virus, then to escape riots and looting. Many are hesitant to come back. It has driven prices down in Manhattan and has saturated the market with empty apartments, triggering fears of an imminent market collapse.

UrbanDigs released data on Thursday which showed the volume of sales between March and August was down by 56 percent. It remains unclear how much prices have actually dropped yet, as owners and developers continue to take stock of the situation. The Getty building in West Chelsea has halved the price of its remaining units.

The clientele that Central Park Tower building would appeal to were among the first to leave and now, after being waved off by Mayor Bill de Blasio and told that they are 'fair weather friends', there are concerns they may never bring their tax dollars back to the Big Apple.

Coupled with rising crime rates,an escalating homeless problem, and the fact that the many bars, restaurants and venues that make New York what it once was simply no longer exist, many have declared the city over for good.

The developer of the world's tallest residential skyscraper released model photos showing what a condo on the 43rd floor of the building will look like. The image above shows a model of a dining table and salon with views toward Central Park from Central Park Tower

The master bedroom includes floor-to-celing windows that offer a view of downtown Manhattan

The apartment includes wraparound views of the entire city, including Midtown Manhattan

Central Park Tower is the luxury condo building at 217 West 57th Street. It topped out last fall at 1,550ft, making it taller than the roof of One World Trade Center and Chicago's Willis Tower

The interior was designed by Pembrooke & Ives, the New York City-based luxury firm. The residence is selling for $17.5million

The condo also has a walk-in closet (as seen in the above image) with concealed LED strip lighting.

Anyone lucky enough to sleep in the guest suite will enjoy a view of another residential skyscraper - One57, the 75-story, 1,005ft tall tower that was developed by the same company

The master bathroom allows you to stare out at the city skyline from either a soaking tub or a walk-in shower.

The entrance to the condo looks quite glamorous, though it is not the most expensive apartment in the building

The residents of this apartment will be able to enjoy bird's eye views of Central Park during the daytime as they sit in the living and dining rooms

The building is one of several along West 57th Street, which has been given the nickname 'Billionaire's Row'

The image above shows the kitchen and dining area as well as a view of Midtown Manhattan

All of the woes of the last six months in New York are not reflected in the shiny veneer of Central Park Tower.

The interior was designed by Pembrooke & Ives, the New York City-based luxury firm. The idea was to accentuate the views of Central Park so that it could be seen from both the living and the dining room.

The master bedroom also has floor-to-ceiling windows that look toward downtown.The master bathroom allows you to stare out at the city skyline from either a soaking tub or a walk-in shower

The condo also has a walk-in closet with concealed LED strip lighting.

Anyone lucky enough to sleep in the guest suite will enjoy a view of another residential skyscraper - One57, the 75-story, 1,005ft tall tower that was developed by the same company.

The condo also includes a study which has custom-designed pale oak wall panels.

Residents are expected to begin moving in after construction on the building, which will have 179 residences that the developers hope will fetch a total of $4billion, will be completed sometime before the end of the year.

The $17.5million condo on the 43rd floor is not even the most expensive residence in the building.

Apartments now listed on the tower's web site range from $6.9million for a 33rd floor, two-bedroom place, to $63million for a five-bedroom penthouse on the 112th floor.

It will feature 'the world's most exclusive club' with a 60ft outdoor pool, sundecks and luxurious cabanas for its super-rich residents.

The Club, spread across 50,000 square feet, will provide a five-star beverage service so that homeowners can cool off during the summer, as well as a spa offering massages, facials and body treatments throughout the year.

A view over Midtown Manhattan shows New York's Central Park Tower rising during its construction last year, as it soared towards its final height of 1,550ft, which was celebrated at its 'topping off' ceremony last September.

A view from Central Park Tower shows the Empire State Building and in the distance the One World Trade Center - New York's tallest skyscraper. Upon completion the residential tower will be taller than the One World Trade Center at roof level, only losing out to the Freedom Tower's huge spire

The building, just a short distance from Central Park, provides unrivaled views of Manhattan's legendary 850 acre green space and its panoramas were presented to the world during a ceremony to mark its 'topping off' last fall

Apartments now listed on Central Park Tower's website range from $6.9 million for a 33rd floor, two-bedroom to $63 million for a five-bedroom penthouse (Pictured: a woman relaxes with an Afghan Hound inside a luxurious apartment in demonstration pictures released by Extell Development Company)

The shadow of the Central Park Tower stretches over the west side of Manhattan as seen from the window of the building as it celebrates its topping out in New York. Critics have complained the tall, skinny towers proliferating along the southern edge of Central Park over the last few years are casting shadows on the park

The largest penthouses, known as Duplex Residence Grand Salons, provide wall-to-wall views over the city and disguised structural elements to limit any impact on the panorama.

To get an idea of just how tall the building is, its roof height exceeds that of both One World Trade Center in downtown New York and Chicagos Willis Tower.

Measured just to the roof, One World Trade's height would be 1,368 feet.

By comparison, Chicago's Willis Tower is 1,451 feet when measured to the top of its roof and 1,729 feet when measured to the top of the television masts atop its roof.

Central Park Tower will be the world's tallest building that is mostly residential, although there are other buildings with a residential component that will be taller.

Extell's partners in the project include Nordstrom, which is building a seven-story department store at the building's base.

Nordstrom department store will occupy the first seven floors of the West 57th Street building.

Floors eight to twelve will house amenity spaces for residents. The condominium residences begin on the 32nd floor and extend to the 131st floor.

The unveiling of the photos comes during a grim period for the luxury real estate market in New York City.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt the market an even bigger blow than both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis.

Some high-end condos have seen their prices be reduced by more than 40 per cent as demand has declined due to the pandemic, the Journal is reporting.

In late July, Michael Price, a financier, sold his 9,000sq ft townhouse on the Upper East Side for $18.8million - which is 51 per cent less than his original asking price of $38million.

It will feature 'the world's most exclusive club' with a 60ft outdoor pool, sundecks and luxurious cabanas for its super-rich residents (Pictured: a computer generated image of the outdoor terrace for The Club)

The Central Park Tower says on its website: 'The fitness and wellness program at Central Park Club has been developed in collaboration with renowned fitness experts and operators. The Club's spa will offer restorative treatments including massages, facials and body treatments' (Pictured: a computer generated image of a pool in the indoor spa)

An opulent lobby within Central Park Tower in this digital representation of the finished building. The largest penthouses, known as Duplex Residence Grand Salons, provide wall-to-wall views over the city and disguised structural elements to limit any impact on the panorama.

Gorgeous views over Central Park were seen on Tuesday from the building's 107th floor during the ceremony to celebrate the roof reaching its ultimate height of more than 1,500ft. The colossal tower sits on Manhattan's Billionaires' Row and will be opened next year

A man takes a photo of the stunning views over the south side of Manhattan during the topping off ceremony, as a chain can be seen dangling from a crane in the near distance

The Empire State Building rises above Manhattan in the far right window of an apartment inside of the Central Park Tower as it celebrates its topping off in New York

Price and his wife bought the property in 2003 for $14million, according to the Journal.

One Manhattan owner of a five-story home in Chelsea sold it for $14.99million - even though he first listed it for $36.8million in 2016.

Between March 23 and August 16, sales of homes in Manhattan dropped by 56 per cent compared to the same period as last year. Sales of properties valued at $4million and up dipped by 67 per cent.

Overall, new listings in Manhattan declined by 21 per cent.

For luxury properties starting at $4million, new listings were down by nearly 35 per cent.

Real estate analysts blame the lockdown and the racial unrest for the precipitous decline in the market.

Buyers were unable to see the properties for themselves since social distancing guidelines prevented real estate agents from showing them the homes in person.

There was also the turmoil surrounding the protests and rioting in the wake of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis.

Shops were boarded up and restaurants and museums had already been forced to shutter due to the lockdown.

The wealthy have also been scared off by proposals from progressive Democrats in New York to raise taxes, though Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he is opposed to doing so for fear that it would drive the rich out of the state for good.

But it doesnt appear as if Central Park Tower is offering any discounts.

According to its web site, the offering price for seven available condos in the building has not changed despite the pandemic.

In March, when the lockdown went into effect, Extell suspended construction due to fears that workers were at risk of contracting COVID-19. But a recent report by New York YIMBY indicates that work has resumed and is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.

A grand salon, a private reception gallery, and a library: How $63million will buy you a five-bedroom condo on the 112th floor of Central Park Tower The most expensive condo in Central Park Tower will set you back $63million, according to the developer. The five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom pad measures 7,074 square feet. On top of the $63million asking price, the future resident will have to shell out a considerable amount in expenses. The estimated monthly common charges for the building amount to $10,587. Owning the apartment means paying more to the government by way of real estate taxes. According to the developer, the owner of the property will be expected to fork over $19,619 per month in taxes. Photos of the interior have yet to be revealed, and there is no word if the property has been sold. A floor plan of the most expensive property at Central Park Tower shows that it will include a grand salon, a private reception gallery, a family room, a sitting room, a library, a dressing room, and a master foyer Advertisement

COVID-19 has also walloped the rental market throughout the city.

The number of vacant apartments for rent in New York City is at its highest level on record, as residents continue to flee the city amid soaring crime and pandemic restrictions.

In July, there were more than 67,300 unoccupied rental units available across the city, the most apartments available in any month since StreetEasy started tracking rental inventory in 2010.

The surge in vacancies has driven rental prices down some 10 percent across the city, as desperate landlords try to entice new tenants with discounts and sweeteners such as one free month, according to the New York Times.

In Manhattan alone, there were a reported 13,000 empty apartments for rent - the highest number in 14 years, according to Douglas Elliman.

The real estate firm released data showing that the number of new leases being signed has fallen by 23 per cent whereas the number of apartments that are available has doubled since last year.

It is slowly being reflected in rental prices. In July 2020, the average price of an apartment in Manhattan was $4,031 compared to $4,292 last July.

Still, rents in New York remain among the highest in the nation, with the median rental price at $3,167 in July, a 10 percent drop from July 2019.

In July, there were more than 67,300 unoccupied rental units available across the city, this StreetEasy data shows

Driving the mass exodus from the city has been the misery caused by the coronavirus pandemic which killed hundreds a day at its peak in early April.

Though the virus has been wrestled well under control in the city, harsh lockdown rules still stifle many of the pleasures of city life, while unemployment has risen sharply, and violent crime has exploded in the months since late May.

In July, there were more than 67,300 unoccupied rental units available across the city, this StreetEasy data shows

Signs of life have returned to Times Square, seen above on Tuesday, but residents of New York continue to flee the city

People continue to move out of New York in droves, as the pain of lockdowns is replaced with the danger of soaring crime. Above, a Manhattan couple uses a U-Haul van to move out of the city in May

The wealthy were among the first to flee, decamping to second homes and snapping up real estate in Connecticut and Rhode Island in the early days of lockdown in March and April.

They were followed by legions of young people: students, restaurant workers, Broadway theater hands and others who had no reason to continue paying sky-high rents in the city with universities and businesses shut down.

Between March 1 and May 1, some 420,000 people left the city, cell phone location data shows, and by some estimates the number may have exceeded one million in the months since, or 10 per cent of the city's population.

Many of those who remained faced financial hardship.

The citys latest unemployment rate, which was released in June, was over 20 percent -- double the highs during the Great Recession of 2008, and approaching levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In early June, just as lockdown restrictions began to ease, a dangerous new chapter in the crisis began, when protests over racial injustice exploded into nights of looting and attacks on police.




Haiti - Education : School resumption, the Ministry welcomes the determination of the parents





The Ministry of National Education welcomes the commitment and determination of parents to respect their children's right to education. The actual presence of students in the classroom, since August 10, according to the revised school calendar https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31439-haiti-flash-official-revised-school-calendar-2019-2020.html , testifies to this clear desire of parents to see their children complete the 2019-2020 school year.



Reports from the 10 Departmental Directorates of Education indeed confirm the revival of school activities across the country.



The Ministry also welcomes the presence of teachers in the classroom who understood the need to support students, despite calls from some for yet another attempt to block public schools. On this point, the Ministry invites teachers who claim, to pull together and take the opportunity to launch a new appeal for understanding and affirms that only frank, sincere and continuous dialogue can help all actors to find together the mechanisms and means to gradually respond to the demands of the teaching world.



Revised school calendar :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31439-haiti-flash-official-revised-school-calendar-2019-2020.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















A federal judge has denied a request for a gag order on the family of slain Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen.

Attorneys for Cecily Aguilar, a woman accused of helping her boyfriend dispose of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillens body, asked a federal judge to place a gag order on the Guillen family earlier this month.

The defense team argued that the potential jury pool is being poisoned by statements made by Natalie Khawam, the Guillen family attorney. Aguilar is being put at risk of not receiving a fair trial for the two federal charges she faces for conspiring and tampering with a victim, witness or informant, the federal public defenders said.

Ms. Khawam has repeatedly invoked dehumanizing tropes to condemn Ms. Aguilar as an animal or something less than human, the motion reads. It goes on to cite stories in which Khawam was quoted as calling Aguilar a terrorist for killing and dismembering a U.S. soldier.

Judge Jeffrey C. Manske denied the motion Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. He did, however, warn that the court could revisit the issue if it finds future circumstances warrant it.

"The defendant's motion to gag a person, who is not a party to the case, is ridiculous, and that's one of many reasons why the judge was correct in denying it, Khawam told the Chronicle Thursday. This is like gagging a journalist because their report describing an alleged murderer was upsetting or negative but still truthful. Should they or everyone who says things the defendant doesn't like be gagged?

Khawam said had the order been granted, it would have infringed on the First Amendment rights of those involved.

Attorneys from the Office of the Federal Public Defenders were not immediately available for comment Thursday.

Guillen, a 20-year-old Houston native, was reported missing from Fort Hood April 23 and her body was found 30 miles away on June 30. Spc. Aaron David Robinson, Aguilars boyfriend at the time, is believed by authorities to be responsible for killing Guillen. He fatally shot himself as investigators closed in on him early July 1. Aguilar is accused of helping Robinson dismember and hide Guillens body. She pleaded not guilty to the charges she faces.

Before she died, Guillen told her mother that she was sexually harassed by a sergeant at the base, but said that she didnt file a complaint because it would not have beeen taken seriously by those in charge.

The killing has ignited a global movement demanding answers and justice for the Guillen family, as well as better treatment for women and minorities in the military. Khawam and members of Guillens family have been vocal about pushing for legislation and a Congressional investigation.

The motion for the gag order, filed July 27, asked the court to prohibit any potential witnesses, family, and their attorneys, from making statements intended to influence public opinion.

Khawam reportedly called Aguilar a monster, barbaric, savage, among other words, in media interviews.

The Sixth Amendment, as well as case law from the 1979 Supreme Court Case Gannett v. DePasquale, in which the court ruled unfair media coverage poses significant dangers to a fair trial, was cited by defense attorney Maureen Scott Franco in the motion.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark L. Frazzier argued in a response that gag orders are issued to restrain the speech of participating parties in court trials, such as attorneys and witnesses. Khawam is a civil attorney and not involved in Aguilars prosecution and its not yet clear if any of the Guillen family will be called to testify at her trial.

The federal prosecutors asked the judge to consider a less restrictive measure to lessen the impact of negative pretrial publicity, such as tight restrictions on jury selection.

Maske, the judge, ultimately sided with prosecutors, denying the motion for the gag order.

Because Khama does not represent the government or the defendant, the case law cited by the defense does not apply to her or the Guillen family, he added.

Maske said though the motion was denied, the court will monitor the conduct of trial participants going forward to safeguard these proceedings against any potential damage of negative pretrial publicity.

Aguilar is set to have a hearing on Sept. 8. The deadline for any possible plea agreements in the case is Sept. 14, court records show, and a jury trial is scheduled for Sept. 28.
The Vietnam Competition and Consumer Protection Authority (VCCA) has issued a warning over cashback apps which lack transparency and showed signs of illegal multi-level marketing.





Some cashback apps lacked transparency and were risky to users.  File Photo





VCCA said that cashbank was an emerging model of business-to-consumer e-commerce and used as a way to attract customers.

Some e-commerce websites and apps were offering cashback with attractive rates from 80 per cent to 100 per cent, even higher, for each transaction. Some gave attractive commissions for those inviting new participants.

Such attractive offers would be in the form of earning reward points which could be redeemed for cash at very low rates, however.

VCCA also pointed out that cashback could be in the form of cryptocurrencies, such as GEM, CPB, Silling, USDT, ETH, ONE and VNDC which could be exchanged within the internal system.

These cryptocurrencies had not been recognised by laws as intermediaries for payment and users would not be protected by law in case of disputes, VCCA said.

For example, the My Aladdinz app claimed to be member of one of the largest companies in the world with a development history of 27 years. The app offered cashback at rates of up to 80 per cent. However, users must use Vietnamese dong to buy the platforms currency named GEM for transactions and the cashback was also in GEM. On this platform, GEM could be converted into another cryptocurrency named USDT and vice versa as an investment for profit.

Other platforms named in the warning by the VCCA included Payback VN and Tailoc888.

VCCA urged people not to participate in these cashback websites and apps.

Multi-level marketing businesses must comply with the Governments Decree No 40/2018/ND-CP.  VNS
The general director of a state-run drainage firm in Hanoi has been arrested for the alleged monopolistic purchase of a lake cleaning substance  a deal which investigators say caused heavy losses to state coffers.

The Ministry of Public Security confirmed on Thursday that it had apprehended and initiated legal procedures against Vo Tien Hung, general director of the Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Company (HSDC), for violating regulations on the management and use of state assets, resulting in losses and wastefulness.

HSDC is a state-run company under the Hanoi Peoples Committee.

According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, Hungs alleged misconduct is related to the exclusive purchase of Redoxy-3C inoculant, a substance used to treat polluted lakes in the capital city.

Chairman of the municipal administration Nguyen Duc Chung was suspended last week for his role in both this case and two other cases.

A Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper probe revealed that chairman Chung had approved the use of Redoxy-3C in the treatment of polluted lakes in the capital.

On August 10, 2016, HSDC signed a contract with Hanoi-based Arktic Co. Ltd. to buy 3.24 metric tons of Redoxy-3C at VND326,000 (US$14) per kilogram.

Vo Tien Hung, general director of the state-run Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Company, is held at a police station in this supplied photo.

From 2016 to 2019, the Hanoi administration agreed to let the HSDC buy more than 400 metric tons of Redoxy-3C at a cost of approximately VND137 billion ($5.9 million) to treat contamination at 91 lakes in the inner city and 50 lakes in the suburbs.

The drainage firm also used the chemicals to treat water in the citys West Lake when mass fish deaths occurred, to treat wastewater at Nam Son landfill, and to deal with pollution in the To Lich River.

To create favorable conditions for Arktic to be the exclusive supplier of Redoxy-3C for water pollution treatment in Hanoi, the municipal administration sent a delegation of officials led by its vice-chairman to a trade fair on wastewater management in Munich, Germany in May 2016.

Nguyen Duc Hanh  one of Arktics two co-founders  is believed to be a relative of a high-ranking official in the Hanoi Peoples Committee.

On June 2016, Hanh and Dao Xuan Tan, Arktics legal representative, transferred all of their contributed capital at the company to other individuals.

The Ministry of Public Security is expanding its investigation into the case and is taking legal measures to recover the lost state property.

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JOHANNESBURG, Aug 21 (Reuters) - South Africa's Eskom has suspended planned power cuts, after returning to service overnight three generating units at coal-fired power stations, the state utility said on Friday.

More power cuts had been due on Friday in addition to three on consecutive days this week, but supply constraints had eased following the recovery of units at the Lethabo, Medupi and Kusile plants, the ailing utility said in a statement.

Unplanned breakdowns stand at 8,750 megawatts (MW), out of Eskom's nominal capacity of 44,000 MW, compared to breakdowns of more than 11,900 MW at one stage on Tuesday.

Eskom's struggles to power Africa's most industrialised nation are one of the main obstacles to economic growth.

"Any significant deterioration in the generation performance may necessitate the implementation of loadshedding at short notice," Eskom said, referring to the planned power cuts. (Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Later contacted a female escort and plotted to flee the UK for Italy via Turkey

Anmol Chana was convicted by jurors at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday of killing his mother Jasbir Kaur and stepfather Rupinder Singh Bassan at their home in Oldbury, West Midlands

A knife-obsessed killer who murdered his mother and stepfather in a frenzied attack has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.

Anmol Chana was convicted by jurors at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday of killing Jasbir Kaur, 52, and her husband, Rupinder Singh Bassan, 51, at their home in Oldbury, West Midlands.

The 26-year-old's trial was told he had shown previous 'animosity' towards his mother, having sent a text expressing a desire 'to knife her' before the killings in February this year.

After the murders, Chana stole money from the victims' semi-detached house in Moat Road, and fled the scene in Mr Bassan's yellow Toyota Aygo, before contacting a female escort, going to a pub and 'calmly' playing pool.

Chana, of Hamilton Road, Smethwick, also plotted to flee the UK, booking a plane ticket to Italy via Turkey, and writing himself a reminder list including entries to 'rob a Lidl' and 'buy a new knife'.

After being contacted by Chana's sister out of concern for her parents, West Midlands Police found the victims in their home and launched a murder investigation.

CCTV footage showed Chana driving away in his stepfather's Toyota Aygo, and further investigation found he had received treatment for a bite on his thumb. He was arrested in a raid on his home days later.

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Mark Wall QC told Chana that false claims he had made about both victims were evidence of a complete lack of remorse.

The judge told Chana, who inflicted more than 50 stab and slash wounds on his victims: 'You claimed to the jury that you had killed them in self-defence. The truth was very different, as they decided.

'I am sure that the allegations you made at trial of your mother abusing you throughout your childhood were false and designed to garner jury sympathy for you.

The 26-year-old's trial was told he had shown previous 'animosity' towards his mother, having sent a text expressing a desire 'to knife her' before the killings in February this year

'These are allegations born of pure fantasy. I do not increase your sentence because of the defence you chose to run at trial but it is the clearest example of your complete lack of remorse for what you have done.

'I also reject any suggestion that Mr Bassan and your mother started the incident or that they were in any way violent and threatening to you.'

Ruling that Chana, who had a machete and two other weapons stored at his home, had a longstanding fascination with knives, the judge added: 'The effects of what you have done are devastating - two people have lost their lives.

'Your sister has lost the stable and supporting family that she obviously relied on.

'There are no mitigating features that I need to reflect in sentence, save that you are a relatively young man of 26.'

At the start of the trial, prosecution barrister Jason Pitter QC said both victims had been brutally murdered, suffering multiple stab wounds.

'The tragedy is they were killed by the defendant who they had, only that same Saturday, allowed to stay under this same roof,' Mr Pitter told the court.

The judge told Chana, who inflicted more than 50 stab and slash wounds on his victims: 'You claimed to the jury that you had killed them in self-defence. The truth was very different, as they decided

Giving a victim impact statement from the witness box before sentence was passed, Mrs Kaur's daughter, Kiran Chana, said she pitied her brother for what he had done.

She told the court: 'I really don't hate him. I do hate what he has done.'

Telling Judge Wall that Mr Bassan had treated her and her brother as if they were his own children, Ms Chana said of her mother and stepfather: 'Not a day goes by when I don't think about them or what they went through.'
The Daily Sabah is considering the possibility of the deployment of a Turkish military base in Azerbaijan.

The discussion of the Turkish military presence in Azerbaijan is always linked to the coldness or warmth of relations between Moscow and Ankara, especially when the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict flares up.

Russia is Turkey's biggest competitor in the region. If we take into account Turkeys membership in NATO, the establishment of a Turkish military base in Azerbaijan to ensure military and political balance would create a counterweight to the Russian military base in Armenia. When a Turkish military base is established, it directly complicates the bilateral relations of Russia and Azerbaijan and would also become a source of concern to Iran.

The bilateral defense cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan defines two legal frameworks. The first one, which was established in the early 1990s, enables military training for Azerbaijani personnel in Turkish military institutions. The second framework is the "strategic partnership" agreement, which explicitly states that the two countries will help each other if one of them demanded its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Although the nature of this "assistance" was subject to bilateral consultations, the agreement clearly affirmed the possibility of using military means in emergency circumstances.

On Aug. 13, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Guler, commanders of the Turkish land, air and naval forces, and other members of the high-level Turkish military delegation in Azerbaijan.

On the visit, both sides attended part of a large-scale Turkish-Azerbaijani joint military maneuver in the Azerbaijani regions of Baku, Nakhchivan, Kajah, Kordimer and Yulakh. Those exercises began on July 29 and continued until mid-August.

In mid-July, a high-level Azerbaijani military delegation had visited Turkey and met with the Turkish defense minister and most of the military leaders in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).

Azerbaijani political expert Gabel Husayn Ali said that during the return visit of the high Turkish military delegation, issues of establishing a Turkish military base in Nakhchivan (likely to have reached a joint conclusion), and of establishing another military base in Absheron Peninsula were discussed in detail.

Whether Turkey will establish a base in Azerbaijan or not, it should be noted that, even a few years ago, Turkey did not have military bases outside its territory, except for its military presence in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1974, and today Turkey has military bases in Somalia, Qatar, Iraq and Syria, writes the Daily Sabah.
Detainees held following anti-government protests in Belarus have described how they say they were beaten, humiliated, and subject to rape threats by the security forces. Protests erupted on August 9 after President Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory in an election widely seen as rigged.
With an assault expected but he Syrian regime, residents of Idleb have expressed their scepticism of Turkeys willingness to protect them reports North Press.

Residents of Idleb expressed their fears of a military operation by the Syrian government and its affiliated militias, as well as overambitious Turkish positions, which failed to foil the governments advance in the southern and eastern Idleb countryside.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government and Russias mobilization on the outskirts of Jabal al-Zawiya and the countryside of both Hama and Lattakia, also increases residents fears.

Idleb resident Mustafa Hamid told North Press that upcoming military operations between the Syrian government and pro-government militias and armed opposition groups are going to start, even if they are late.

Residents fear that Turkey, which has an unclear position on the battle, will not adhere to its promise and prevent the government from advancing, more than conducting the battle, Hamid added.

Shadi Omar, displaced from Hama and living in Idleb, told North Press that, we are observing the matters, and do not rule out that Turkey will hand Jabal al-Zawiya over to the Syrian government and Ariha to Russia, as Turkey has already handed areas in Hama and the southern Idleb countryside over to the government and Russia.

We do not trust the military groups in Idleb anymore, because they comply with Turkish orders and cannot refuse them, Shadi added.

He pointed out that, if the Syrian government conducted a military operation in Jabal al-Zawiya, it would displace Idlebs people towards the Syrian-Turkish border, and hope that we do not need to do this.

Ahmad Kamel, a journalist from Idleb, told North Press that, Idleb residents do not trust Turkish military points that are distributed in Idleb and its countryside.

Turkish military points did not prevent the Syrian government forces advance in the eastern Idleb countryside, north Hama, and west Aleppo, adding that those points did not play an active role; rather, the Syrian government and Russia repeatedly shelled the point and Turkish troops in areas of Hama.

Kamel said that, Turkey entered Idleb in order to protect civilians, but it failed. Moreover, it displaced hundreds of thousands of people and allowed the government to take control over many areas.

Mustafa Bakor, the spokesman for an armed opposition group, previously told North Press that an Idleb battle, especially Jabal al-Zawiya, was coming soon, though Turkey hinted repeatedly that it would not allow the government and Russia to take control over areas south of the M4 Highway.

He added, If the opposition groups lost the expected upcoming battle, it would mark their end, while if Syrian government lost, it would mark their end, which means an international orientation to impose a political solution according to the Geneva resolution.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Members of the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) who were laid off during the Covid period in the organised sector can claim 50 per cent of their average salaries of the past two years as unemployment benefit. This decision to hike the benefit from the current 25 per cent to 50 per cent was taken by the Corporation at its meeting on Thursday.

The money will be given under the Corporations Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyna Yojna. Hypothetically, if the salary of a sacked person is Rs 21,000 a month in the last two years--those above this level being ineligible for ...
Washington

There was a moment during his Democratic National Convention speech Wednesday when former President Barack Obama appeared on the edge of tears. Evoking American ancestors persecuted because of their race, religion or nationality, he said they had every reason to give up on democracy but did not.

In his telling, that is what is at stake at this hinge point in history, nothing less than the future of democracy, and he seemed emotional in a way that the famously stoic former president rarely allows himself to be in public. He talked of "dark times" and "hardship and injustice" and "the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories." He declared that this year's election will determine whether America lives up to its promise.

His excoriation of his predecessor was withering. The incumbent president, he charged, is lazy, uncaring and interested only in drawing attention to himself. President Donald Trump, Obama said, acts as if he is "above the law," uses his office "to enrich" himself and his allies, exploits the military "as political props" to be deployed against peaceful protesters, demonizes his opponents and the free press, and disregards science during a deadly pandemic in favor of "just making stuff up." What's more, he added, Trump is trying to suppress the vote to stay in office.

The 19-minute address, delivered in front of an exhibit titled "Writing the Constitution" at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, reflected a long journey from the hope and change of 2008 when Obama sailed into the White House on a fundamentally optimistic message that whatever the country's problems, they could be solved by coming together. Twelve years later, he did not seem so certain.

"This president and those in power  those who benefit from keeping things the way they are  they are counting on your cynicism," Obama told his audience. "They know they can't win you over with their policies, so they're hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote and to convince you that your vote doesn't matter."

"We can't let that happen," he added. "Do not let them take away your power. Don't let them take away your democracy."

During the midterm campaign in 2018, Obama traveled the country denouncing Trump for "lying" and "fearmongering" and "ripping immigrant children from the arms of their mothers." But then he went quiet again, keeping out of sight until recent days as he began speaking out on behalf of his former vice president, Joe Biden, who was nominated as the Democratic challenger to Trump.

Still, this was Obama's most prominent stage since leaving office and his censure of Trump went further than any of his more recent predecessors. It reflected the deep antipathy the 44th president harbors toward the 45th  one that is mutual.

Indeed, Trump did not wait for Obama to finish before responding, posting a couple of Twitter messages in all capital letters as his predecessor was still speaking. "HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!" Trump wrote, twisting the known facts to make an uncorroborated charge.

One of the more curious reactions to Obama's stated concern about democracy came from a Trump campaign spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson. "We are NOT a Democracy!!" she wrote on Twitter. "Not understanding this simple, yet critical fact, is likely the root cause of Trump Derangement Syndrome! The United States is a Republic."

While scholars might agree on the distinction between a pure democracy and a republic, in which the views of citizens are reflected by their elected representatives, it is pretty unusual politics for a president's staff to defend him by declaring that America is not a democracy.

There was no question that democracy was the point for Obama. He used the word 18 times in his speech, and his presence at the revolution museum in the city where America declared its independence and wrote its Constitution was meant to reinforce the theme.

The difference between his speech Wednesday and his convention speech in 2008 when he accepted the nomination was striking. Even as he attacked "the failed policies of George W. Bush" and the Republican choice to succeed him, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the disagreement was over substance, not character or patriotism.

In fact, Obama couched his criticism of McCain with praise for serving his country "with bravery and distinction," saying "we owe him our gratitude and respect." Nor did Obama question his opponent's devotion to America. "I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain," Obama said.

And while he made the case that Bush had made a mess of the economy and overseas wars, Obama also presented an essentially positive prescription as the crowd waved "CHANGE" signs and chanted "Yes, we can."

The tale of these two speeches, from 2008 to 2020, is for Obama the story of the past dozen years, a personal journey from a moment when America was choosing a way forward to a moment when he contends the question is whether America will still be America.
A major reason behind OIC's inaction has been Saudi's reluctance to accept Pakistan's request for holding a meeting specifically on Kashmir

A paramilitary soldier stands guard by a road near the venue for India's Independence Day ceremony in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. (AP)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday denied reports of a rift with Saudi Arabia and said the two countries enjoy strong ties, amid reports of strain in their relations over Riyadh's reluctance to toe Islamabad's line on the Kashmir issue.

Foreign Office Spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have strong economic, political, security and military cooperation at all levels.

"Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks and Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's recent visit to Saudi Arabia attest to the unchanged fraternal relations and close contact between the two countries, Chaudhri said during his weekly press briefing.

"Pakistan remains firmly committed to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia," he added.

He said that Pakistan appreciates the Kingdom's role in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has been pushing the 57-member organisation, which is the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN, for the foreign ministers' meeting since India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.

However, there has not been any positive response from Jeddah-based OIC, the biggest bloc of Islamic countries in the world, to Pakistan's request so far.

A major reason behind the OIC's inaction has been Saudi Arabia's reluctance to accept Pakistan's request for holding a meeting specifically on Kashmir. Riyadh's support is crucial for any move at the OIC, which is dominated by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Pakistan has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status.

India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution was its internal matter. It also advised Pakistan to accept reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, for the first time, criticised the Saudi government in a recent TV interview and threatened to call an OIC meeting by sidestepping the Gulf country.

Saudis avoided directly responding to Qureshi's remarks, but reportedly stopped renewing a USD 3.2 billion oil credit facility to Pakistan despite requests from Islamabad. Pakistan has also paid back USD 1 billion loan to Riyadh which, according to some reports, the Saudis had demanded.

In 2018, Saudi Arabia granted Pakistan a USD 3 billion loan and USD 3.2 billion oil credit facility to help its balance of payments crisis after Prime Minister Khan visited the country to seek financial support.
New Delhi: Delhi Polices Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Friday arrested two men for allegedly using fabricated documents and photographs to form four shell companies that were used to make a donation of Rs 2 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the run-up to the 2014 Delhi assembly elections.

The AAP said it is continuing to cooperate with the agencies in their probe and that nothing amiss has been found against the party.

OP Mishra, joint commissioner of police (EOW), said that the money trail followed by Delhi Police revealed that the funds for the donation were generated from the account of a company named M/S Antara Purukul Senior Living Limited. It is a subsidiary company of Max Group, Mishra said.

The Max Group, a business conglomerate that works in real estate and senior living, said that was dragged into the investigation needlessly, and that it had no long-term association with the two people arrested, who merely did some work for it and were duly paid.

The officer identified the arrested men as Mukesh Kumar and his employee Sudhanshu Bansal. Bansal is a chartered accountant by profession. Kumar is an accommodation entry operator and the mind behind all the four shell companies, Mishra said.

The two have been arrested under Indian Penal Code sections of cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy.

Police did not specify whether AAP knew about these shell companies, or if the party had any knowledge of any problems with the donation.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is committed to honest and transparent politics and has changed the political discourse in India in the last eight years of its existence. AAP will never compromise on its integrity. This is a six-year-old case, which has been investigated by almost all agencies. So far, nothing amiss has been found against AAP by any of the agencies. AAP has cooperated with all agencies and will continue to cooperate with them, a party spokesperson said.

The controversy over the Rs 2 crore donation first erupted in 2015, when the AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM), a breakaway faction of AAP led by Karn Singh, alleged that the donations were hawala transactions that were accepted by the party. The AAP dismissed the allegations and said it was open for a probe.

In February, the Registrar of Companies (ROC) in Delhi started a suo motu enquiry about the donations. They approached us with a complaint on which we had registered an FIR and took up the investigation, said OP Mishra.

The ROC, in its complaint, alleged that the four companies from which donations were made -- in the form of Rs 50 lakh cheques -- were bogus and not located at the addresses according to the ROCs records, the officer said.

Max said the people involved in the case were not associated directly with the group, and were once hired for a temporary construction job by one of its subsidiaries. We have been needlessly dragged into this investigation. Antara (M/s Antara Purukul Senior Living Limited) hired a contractor through local contacts in Purukul (a place in Dehradun) for mud excavation for its senior living community. Given the basic nature of the job, it is normal not to do detailed diligence on contractors background, or his intended use of payments received from us. We have provided to the police clear proof of the work executed and fairness of payment. We are clear that we have done nothing wrong. We have no other association with the individuals concerned beyond a one-time work contract in the past, a statement by Max India said.
The final report of an inquiry into the Ruby Princess cruise ship fiasco was released late last week. The inquiry, commissioned by New South Wales (NSW) Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian, and headed by Bret Walker, SC detailed numerous serious and material errors in the conduct of NSW Health officials, but issued only a handful of recommendations.

On March 19, the Ruby Princess was allowed to dock in Sydney after a round-trip voyage to New Zealand that was cut short following an announcement by the Australian federal government of a ban on cruise ship arrivals.

According to the report, 663 of the 1,682 Australian passengers subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, and 20 have died. A further 8 passengers died after returning to the US.

Accurate statistics are not available for the remaining passengers, as many, especially in the UK, were not eligible for testing after returning home although they were symptomatic. A total of 2,647 disembarked, meaning that there were almost a thousand passengers who were not from Australia, and potentially returned to their country of origin carrying the virus.

The Ruby Princess (Credit: Wikipedia)

The final days of the journey were marked by a rapid increase in the number of passengers and crew presenting to the ships medical centre with respiratory symptoms.

Up to the afternoon of 16 March, 53 people had become ill, most with acute respiratory infections (ARI) or influenza-like illnesses (ILI), and 10 had recorded temperatures of above 38C. By the morning of March 18, this had doubled, with 110 people unwell, and 17 febrile. By 7:21p.m. that evening, 128 people were sick, and 24 were showing signs of fever.

While it was not possible to process COVID-19 tests on board, the ships medical centre was equipped with rapid influenza tests. Of 48 patients tested on board for the flu, half were negative, meaning it was probable that the coronavirus was the cause of their symptoms.

Samples were taken from patients suspected to have COVID-19, to be processed upon the ships arrival, although this was limited by the fact that Dr Ilse von Watzdorf, head of the ships medical centre had only been able to source 27 swabs prior to the ships departure from Sydney on March 8.

By the time the ship arrived in Sydney, von Watzdorf had ordered 120 passengers and crew to isolate in their cabins due to the possibility that they were infected with COVID-19.

Ambulance transportation was ordered for two passengers who had complicating conditions in addition to COVID-19, they were displaying acute respiratory symptoms and paramedics were advised to wear full personal protective equipment.

Both patients subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 and one, Lesley Bacon, died of the disease a few days later.

Despite evidence of mounting illness on board, the Ruby Princess was assessed as low-risk by NSW Health, meaning the ships 2,647 passengers were allowed to walk off the vessel into Australias most populous city without COVID-19 testing or screening.

This low-risk classification was made by an Expert Panel of four public health physicians, including the states Chief Human Biosecurity Officer, Dr Sean Tobin.

In fact, the four doctors merely approved a risk assessment prepared by NSW Health non-medical epidemiologist Kelly-Anne Ressler. Only one was sent the ships Acute Respiratory Disease (ARD) log, and he said he did not read it closely.

None of the experts, or Ressler, took into consideration a change made on March 10 to Communicable Diseases Network Australias guidelines stating that anyone with fever and/or acute respiratory infection should be considered suspect cases of COVID-19 if they had recently travelled anywhere overseas.

Aside from pointing out the failure of NSW Health to properly follow its own procedures, Walker criticised the design of the measures.

Walker doubted whether the three categories, low-, medium-, and high-risk, were of much use, given that the nature of the virus meant that all passengers should have been held until tests were run, unless there was effectively no risk.

By March 18, it was clear that the virus could be transmitted by those who had felt no symptoms. As such, preventing the promiscuous mingling of contacts of cases in the community was vital.

Because COVID-19 tests could not be processed at sea, any suspected cases should have been treated as positive until proven otherwise by land-side testing. By March 18, everyone on a cruise ship was considered to be a close contact of any case on board, so all passengers should have been treated as possibly infected.

The decision to grant pratique (allowing a ship to dock and discharge passengers) falls to the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE). Although a DAWE officer did board the Ruby Princess for a routine inspection on March 19, she did not administer a Traveller with Illness Checklist as required by the departments work instructions. Instead, the NSW Health assessment was taken at face value and pratique was granted.

The departing passengers were supplied with a fact sheet that advised them that they were required to self-isolate for 14 days, but were permitted to travel interstate prior to this if they did not live in NSW. The fact sheet made no mention of international travel. This advice contravened a Public Health Order issued by NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard on March 16 prohibiting returned travellers from leaving the state.

Following the release of the report, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian issued a tepid public apology, emphasising that the public health catastrophe was the result of mistakes by individuals at a particular time. The upshot of this is that no-one will be held responsible, and none of NSW Healths processes will be changed.

Berejiklian made a particular point of apologising to the 62 people who got the virus in [a] secondary or tertiary way, referring to a figure provided to the inquiry by the federal government. This number, which includes workers at the Overseas Passengers Terminal, at least one of whom became critically ill, vastly understates the impact of the Ruby Princess outbreak on the Australian community.

In Tasmania alone, at least 138 infections and 10 deaths resulted from an outbreak at the North West Regional Hospital, which began with two patients who had travelled on the Ruby Princess.

While Walkers comment that there are no systemic failures to address was seized upon by Berejiklian in her unrepentant apology, it is difficult to comprehend how the litany of errors described in the report could be interpreted as anything else.

Following the terms of reference of the inquiry, Walker did not investigate the treatment of the Ruby Princesss 1,148 crew, who were forced to remain isolated on board the ship, moored first in Sydney then at Port Kembla, for more than a month. Although the disease continued to spread, most of the crew were not tested for COVID-19 until late April.

The inquiry did not find any significant fault with the conduct of Dr von Watzdorf, noting that, as the senior of only two doctors on the ship, she was working long hours and was under considerable pressure in the latter stages of the cruise.

Walker offered no criticism of cruise ship operator Carnivals handling of the voyage, or its decision to go ahead with the trip in the first place. Following the devastating outbreaks on board the Diamond Princess and Grand Princess, the company was certainly conscious of the risks posed by continuing to operate cruises during the pandemic.

Carnivals decision to continue running cruises until they were legally prevented from doing so, was entirely motivated by the companys profit interests, and demonstrated a complete disregard for the health of its passengers and crew.

The fundamental issuethe subordination of public health by all state and federal governments to the dictates of the corporate elitewas passed over in silence by the inquiry.
Multiple wildfires are burning in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties and several have merged into larger fires. Cal Fire is referring to them collectively as the CZU August Lightning Complex. CZU stands for Cal Fire's San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit. Find fire and evacuation updates here and map here.

LATEST Aug. 21, 6:05 p.m. The CZU August Lightning Complex Fires burned 57,000 acres and was 2% contained Friday evening, Cal Fire said. Ninety-seven structures have been destroyed and 24,000 remain threatened.

The agency noted that the city of Santa Cruz and the UC Santa Cruz campus are not directly threatened by the fire at this time and have not been evacuated.

Cal Fire was hopeful that "Mother Nature" would aid in the firefighting efforts Friday night: "The weather should be more favorable, not as heavy north winds. Our expectation is the fire behavior should mitigate slightly  only slightly."

Aug. 21, 4:10 p.m. The CZU A Fires have forced a number of state parks and beaches to shutter until further notice.

Here is a list of the latest park closures due to the CZU Complex, as of 11 a.m. Friday:

 Ano Nuevo State Park

 Bean Hollow State Beach

 Big Basin Redwoods State Park (including Rancho Del Oso)

 Butano State Park

 Castle Rock State Park

 Coast Dairies State Park

 Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (including Fall Creek)

 Natural Bridges State Beach

 Pescadero State Beach

 Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park

 Pomponio State Beach

 Portola Redwoods State Park

 San Gregorio State Beach

 Wilder Ranch State Park

Aug. 21, 3:50 p.m. Evacuees from the fires affecting Northern California have one more emergency housing option available to them, if they need it: Airbnb is offering free housing via its Open Homes program.

From Aug. 20 to Sept. 10, qualifying evacuees can search for places to stay within the Airbnb housing network, once they answer some questions and are approved for free lodging. The Open Homes program has been enacted in times of disasters when people have become displaced, such as hurricanes.

For more information, visit the Airbnb page set up for the fires here.

Aug. 21, 1:15 p.m. The City of Santa Cruz has activated its Emergency Operations Center in light of the CZU August Lightning Complex fires burning in the region. Efforts are focused on mitigating fire risk in the city and helping residents prepare their homes.

"What we need from you is to be prepared," officials said. "We're optimistic that we're not going to have to evacuate. We're optimistic the fire isn't going to impact the city of Santa Cruz. We're making plans in case it does happen."

Aug. 21, 1 p.m. Cal Fire provided an update at 12:30 p.m. on fires burning around the Bay Area in a video posted on Twitter.

Aug. 21, 6:30 a.m. A series of fires burning in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties raced across a bone-dry landscape overnight, growing at a rate of 700 to 1,000 acres an hour, Cal Fire officials said.

The fires, collectively called the CZU August Lightning Complex, covered 40,000 acres when everyone went to bed Thursday. By this morning, the CZU Complex had scorched 50,000 acres with zero containment.

More than 64,000 people have been evacuated  that's about 6% of the total population of Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, according to KCBS Radio.

The UC Santa Cruz campus and vast parts of Scotts Valley were evacuated last night (find evacuation updates on the Cal Fire Twitter feed), and today officials will be checking the area to ensure people have left their homes. Multiple towns in the Santa Cruz Mountains and toward the coast have been evacuated, including Felton, Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek, Pescadero and Davenport.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Santa Cruz County Chief Deputy Chris Clark said "it could, potentially, be weeks," before people are allowed to return home. "I don't want to give false hope."

Santa Cruz itself, a coastal city of 65,000, wasn't affected, but Mayor Justin Cummings urged residents Thursday evening to be prepared to evacuate by gassing up their vehicles and packing important documents, medicines and other belongings.

Prepare early so that you are ready to go at a moment's notice," Cummings said.

Fifty structures have been destroyed, but "that number is expected to grow," Cal Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox said, as 20,952 structures are threatened.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Tim and Anne Roberts had gone to the beach Monday with their two children to avoid the smoke at their home in Boulder Creek. They packed a change of clothes, their childrens school supplies and their passports  just in case.

They learned Wednesday that their house had burned. Birth certificates, legal documents, and family heirlooms are gone. But in photos of the ruins, they were surprised by how many redwoods, oaks and fruit trees were still standing.

Its a strange sort of comfort, Tim Roberts said.

The good news for Brookdale resident Larissa Eisenstein on Thursday afternoon was that her five chickens, Kelly and The Nuggets, had been safely relocated into a strangers yard in a safer, neighboring community.

The chicken evacuation came a day after Eisenstein, a Silicon Valley tech worker, had been forced to leave them behind during an overnight evacuation. She fled with her cats, Mochi and Mini, driving from one hotel to the next only to find they were full before landing in a safe place where they could get some rest.

The bad news was that the fire was burning down her wooded street. She adjusted to the idea that her worldly possessions may now be limited to photos of her parents, some jewelry she had grabbed and fresh tomatoes from her garden.

After I got the cats, I realized there was very little important to me, and the priority is to try to remember how lovely things can be," she said. Ive had a wonderful garden this year.

Cal Fire CZU

Firefighters said the marine layer helped calm the blaze initially last night, but once the cloud cover pulled out, the fire activity heightened and flames were being thrown in all directions.

Although temperatures were predicted to ease slightly Friday, they were also expected to be hot enough so that firefighters would not be able to count on cool evening weather aiding them. Erratic winds also could drive the fires unpredictably in multiple directions, state fire officials said.

Theres so much heat in these fires that they create their own wind ... and they may blow in any direction, and very erratically," said Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire.

Winds gusting to 20 mph (32 kph) over ridge tops could challenge the overnight firefighting efforts in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, said the incident commander, Cal Fire Assistant Chief Billy See.

This country likes to burn at night, more so than during the day, and thats because of the wind patterns, he said.

Cal Fire CZU

The blaze is racing through a highly flammable landscape parched after a year marked by low rainfall. It hasn't seen a fire in years.

"It's so dry it's something we have not seen historically," said Cal Fire Operations Section Chief Mark Brunton "We're seeing fire we've never seen in the coastal area before, in terms of amount and severity."

Brunton said when he was talking to firefighters on the scene, they all shook their heads and said, "We've never seen anything like this."

Cal Fire is fighting the CZU Complex with about 10% of the resources it would usually have for a fire of this size and severity. Brunton said due to the high number of fires spread across the state, they "are woefully short of resources." Nearly 600 firefighters are assigned to the fire.

An arm of the blaze raced through Big Basin Redwoods State Park on Tuesday, and officials said Wednesday night that multiple structures were destroyed, including the parks headquarters, historic core and campgrounds. (Read more about damage to Big Basin on SFGATE.)

Evacuation centers are open at Half Moon Bay High School, the Santa Cruz County Fairground and the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and risk of spreading the virus in centers, Cal Fire is encouraging evacuees to check with friends and family about staying with them.

Due to the heavy smoke, Cal Fire has been unable to operate complete aircraft operations, and they don't expect these conditions to improve for 48 to 72 hours. The focus now is on protecting "life and property." The lack of aircraft over the fire also means that accurate mapping of the blaze is lacking.

The CZU August Lightning Complex is named for the blazes that were sparked amid the rash of thunderstorms that moved across California early this week. Go to the Cal Fire incident page for updates, evacuations and road closures.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

CZU Lightning Complex: Fire grows at rate of 700-1,000 acres an hour in Santa Cruz, San Mateo

LNU Lightning Complex: 4 dead, nearly 500 homes destroyed in North Bay fires

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The FBI has identified dozens of suspicious websites that look like official election websites but are not legitimate and could be used to interfere with the 2020 vote, according to a Department of Homeland Security bulletin sent to state and local officials across the country and reviewed by Yahoo News. The URLs of those websites are close imitations of state and federal election websites, and could be used to spread wrong information on how to vote or for election interference or influence operations.

The FBI between March and June 2020 identified suspicious typosquatting of U.S. state and federal election domains, according to recent FBI reporting from a collaborative source, the Aug. 11 bulletin says.

The FBI is warning of typosquatting, suspicious websites that look like official government sources, ahead of the 2020 presidential election. (Yuri Gripas/AFP via Getty Images)

Typosquatting refers to websites that are set up to mimic a real or official website, using misspellings or similar domain names, hoping to lure in internet users who accidentally enter the wrong address.

These suspicious typosquatting domains may be used for advertising, credential harvesting, and other malicious purposes, such as phishing and influence operations, says the DHS bulletin. Users should pay close attention to the spelling of web addresses or websites that look trustworthy but may be close imitations of legitimate U.S. election websites.

A DHS official told Yahoo News registering these doppelganger domain names may not be nefarious  but they are concerned they could be the initial preparatory step by criminal and foreign adversaries planning to carry out a range of different types of attacks on the presidential election.

This comes as the U.S. intelligence community says Russia, China and Iran are attempting to meddle in the upcoming election. Earlier this month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released information warning of several countries, including Russia, China and Iran, which are seeking to influence the 2020 elections. And on Wednesday, Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center said Cuba, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are also working to influence the U.S. election with information operations, cyberscoop reported.

Story continues

In the middle of a pandemic, and as Congress and the public worry the postal system will be overwhelmed, some states are still scrambling to implement changes to their voting process  and voters are going online to find out how to cast their ballot for president. But the lack of standard use of dot-gov and decentralized nature of U.S. elections can make it hard for voters to know what information and sources to trust.

Someone attempting to go to a county website for information on voting could get redirected to a site set up to steal personal financial information or credentials, explained Lawrence Norden, Director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

And of course, disinformation. Something may be set up to basically get voters the wrong info on how to vote, Norden said.

Lawrence Norden says that some malicious websites will steal personal information while posing as official sources. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

We are also worried about all these sites spoofing election night reporting, he said.

The websites addresses flagged by the FBI include names that appear to reference voting in states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and among others. Many end in dot-com, others in dot-net, just like many official elections websites.

This makes it harder for people to tell if theyre clicking on the real government website or a close approximation that could give them bad information or install malware on their computer that steals all their data. This is especially a problem for those searching for voting information from their mobile phone, where its harder to see a websites full address before clicking on it.

Some states and counties do use dot-gov but many other local and state election websites end in dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, dot-us  domains anyone can buy. A dot-gov domain involves an assessment by the government and indicates its a legitimate site.

A bipartisan bill to usher along states and counties move to dot-gov has been sitting on the Senate floor since January. It specifically speaks to the issue of elections, and cites a 2018 study from security company McAfee that found most county websites in swing states did not use dot-gov addresses. More than 90 percent of counties in Minnesota, Texas, Michigan and New Hampshire were on non-dot-gov sites, and Ohio and Mississippi were both over 85 percent non-dot-gov. Ohio has since moved to dot-gov, and the percentage of counties nationwide using dot-gov has increased since then, according to a June 2020 update from McAfee.

Colorado made the move from dot-com to dot-gov in 2018 after noticing that someone had purchased a domain name very similar to their official voting portal, then govotecolorado-dot-com, said Trevor Timmons, chief information officer for Colorados Secretary of State. (The states official election portal is now govotecolorado.gov.)

Govotecolorado2018-dot-com was purchased by someone else who isnt us, and when we saw that, we called the FBI, he said.

That website never went live with any content, but if it had, it could have thrown the election into chaos.

Moving all states election websites to dot-gov like this would mitigate some, but not all, of the risks associated with these fake election sites.

The FBI declined to comment, referring questions to DHS, which declined to comment on the record.

Its not just a government issue, a DHS official, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive security issues, told Yahoo News. Campaigns run on their own infrastructure, with their own websites, their own email service.

Only after the election does the transition team for the incoming administration get set up with dot-gov addresses.

In the meantime, election security researchers in the run-up to the elections are also seeing domain names and websites pop up mimicking candidates or party or surrogate websites.

Its a very volatile environment, said Kacey Clark, Threat Researcher, Digital Shadows, who has done research on presidential candidate-themed typosquatting sites. You can definitely see how these could easily confuse users.

She found dozens of recently registered websites that appear to be associated with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, she told Yahoo News. Many appear innocuous, others appear to be sources of information and could be nefarious depending on what content appears. The ones that redirect or attempt to download an extension are the most concerning  thats how malware could be installed. Some appear to support one candidate but redirect to a website supporting their opponent.

Democratic presidential nominee, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L), and vice presidential running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, hold a news conference after receiving a briefing on COVID-19 in Wilmington, Delaware, on August 13, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Like the election websites doppelgangers, these fake candidate websites could be used for criminal purposes, or even just to mislead voters.

Not all of these typosquatting sites are set up for bad purposes, the DHS official emphasized. Its unknown how or even if the sites flagged by DHS  or others like McAfee and Clark  will ultimately be used, which is why its so critical for states to have backup plans in place, said Norden, the elections expert at NYUs Brennan Center.

Unfortunately, we dont know what we dont know, Norden said.

Those backup plans, thats what Im worried about now, he said. Theres still time, but we are running out of time.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Press Release

21 August 2020

There's nothing quite like a road trip: scenic views, surprising stops, discovery of local delicacies, and time spent with loved ones. This fall, The Scenic Route with Four Seasons showcases drivable destinations offering travellers a one-of-a-kind European escape.

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To ensure an unforgettable adventure, Four Seasons concierges in Budapest, Lisbon, Madrid and Prague are sharing their ultimate road trip picks and under-the-radar city-break itineraries to help customise the ultimate fall getaway. Whether exploring the Art Nouveau architecture in Budapest, taking in jaw-dropping Atlantic views near Lisbon, tasting the world's best tapas in Madrid or cruising on the Vltava in Prague, The Scenic Route with Four Seasons brings together unique experiences to suit every type of traveller.

The Magic of Budapest

Budapest is a one-of-a-kind city with beauty, charm and charisma. Located in the heart of the city's vibrant gastro district, Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest is an Art Nouveau masterpiece offering a unique landmark experience just steps from the city's best attractions.

Visitors can choose to cruise the Danube River in a private Venetian-style speedboat while discovering the city's rich musical heritage, or opt for a guided history and architecture tour.

A visit to Budapest would not be complete without a trip to the beautiful Hungarian countryside to explore the rolling hilltops, romantic castles and charming lakeside beaches. Just an hour away, travellers can sample wines on a vineyard in the picturesque village of Etyek, eat langos along the Danube, discover the scenic town of Szentendre's shops and art galleries or explore the 250-year-old baroque Royal Palace in Godollo, once favourited by Sissi, Queen Elisabeth of Hungary.

Bom dia Lisboa

Guests checking in at Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon are welcomed with everyone's favourite local sweet treat: pasteis de nata (custard tarts) as they settle in for a stay at Lisbon's most iconic address. A lap around the rooftop outdoor running track overlooking the city's seven hills or a dip in the pool at the Ritz Spa is the perfect start to a day of sightseeing and sampling exquisite local cuisine, fresh fish and seafood, and delectable wine and cheese.

Art lovers can admire one of the country's largest privately-owned collections of mid-twentieth century Portuguese art housed on property anytime they please. Using the free iPad and iPhone art app as a personal art curator and tour guide, guests can explore the eclectic mix of Portuguese sculptures, paintings and tapestries that rival any contemporary art museum in the city.

Take in the sights and smells of the ocean on a breezy adventure across picturesque landscapes, all just a short drive from Four Seasons Hotel Ritz Lisbon. Over the Tagus, winding roads lead to the blissful countryside to enjoy vineyards in Evora or the narrow, cobbled streets of Reguengos de Monsaraz. Guests can stop to taste the day's catch if they choose the scenic 007 route to coastal Cascais overlooking the Atlantic. Adventurers can try a surf class or SUP class or embark on a sunset cruise while keeping an eye out for dolphins. History enthusiasts will enjoy the town of Sintra, where they can explore the Castle of the Moors dating back to the 8th century or colourful Pena Palace and its breath-taking views.

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Part of the Centro Canalejas, a collection of seven historical buildings that have been beautifully combined into one, Four Seasons Hotel Madrid offers some of the city's best views to locals and guests alike. Housing 16,700 restored artefacts and a sunny rooftop restaurant and lounge by Dani Garcia, road trippers are invited to explore what makes Madrid the vibrant European capital that it is today.

Located just steps from Four Seasons Hotel Madrid in bustling Puerta del Sol, explore Kilometro Cero, or Kilometre Zero, the central point from which all distances in Spain are measured. Museums, the Royal Palace and Retiro Park are within a 20-minute walk while nearby cities of Segovia or Avila are both just over an hour's drive from the capital city.

Segovia offers incredible culture, mouth-watering gastronomy and UNESCO Heritage Sites and famously, the gravity-defying aqueduct dating from the Roman Empire. The Castilian city of Avila is a World Heritage Site and is still enclosed by its 2.5 kilometre (1.5 mile) long medieval walls.

Timeless Prague

Explore riverside elegance in Europe's Golden City. Located in the heart of Prague with stunning views of Vltava River and Prague Castle, Four Seasons Hotel Prague has it all. Travellers can explore the city's rich history, modern art and fashion before dining under the stars on the rooftop terrace at Miru.

For a truly Czech experience, Four Seasons Hotel Prague has teamed up with the renowned Ruckl glassworks to showcase a unique aspect of Czech culture - the art of crystal glassmaking in Nizbor, a picturesque village in central Bohemia. Travellers can uncover centuries of traditional handmade Czech crystal, witness the magic of mouth-blowing and glass engraving, explore the artist's studio and even have a chance to cut or blow the glass themselves.

Enjoy a day trip or weekend of exploration in the Czech Republic and venture south to the Renaissance town of Cesky Krumlov. In the north, explore the Krkonose Mountains and the Bohemian National Park.

Click here for more information about The Scenic Route with Four Seasons and reservations.

Use #FSScenicRoute to share road trip adventures on social media for a chance to be featured on the Instagram pages of Four Seasons Budapest, Lisbon, Madrid and Prague.
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict has accused reporter Atom Araullo from GMA broadcast network of spreading inaccurate news following a documentary on the education of the Lumad indigenous group. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) to denounce the accusation and urge the authorities to respect the independence of media institutions and journalists.

Araullo highlighted the Lumad schools in Metro Manila in a 20-minutes documentary entitled Ang Iskul kong Bakwit or My refugee School in the I-Witness program which was premiered on GMA on August 14.

The documentary focuses on the efforts of the Lumad young generation, from Mindanao, to seek an education. They left their hometown to pursue an education in Metro Manila. However, the government closed the schools, arguing that the curriculum was unsuitable to their cultural heritage. Volunteer Lumad teachers joined forces to keep one school running with the financial help from international NGOs. The schools location was kept confidential so as not to jeopardise the students access to education. Indigenous people have long faced challenges in securing their basic rights, including access to education, and are often displaced from their traditional lands.

Following the airing of documentary, Datu Rico Maca, the Indigenous People Mandatory Representative (IPMR) of San Miguel, Surigao del Sur, published a statement decrying the documentary. He said it presented a one-sided story, calling the documentary a blatant propagandistic documentary.

This statement then was reiterated by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict through its Facebook post published on August 17. The agency said that documentary failed to describe the reasons behind the closure of the Lumad schools, accusing the schools of being terrorist training camps set up by the CPP NPA NDF. The task force also added that students were trained to be child warriors and radicalised with the violent and communist ideology.

NUJP said: The NTF-ELCAC should stop attempting to control the narrative by vilifying those that present a contrary view. It is ironic that an agency that professes to defend democracy seeks to stifle freedom of the press and freedom of expression, without which no society can claim to be democratic."

The IFJ said: Journalisms role is giving voice to underrepresented groups. What the reporter did with the documentary is simply present the challenges of indigenous people. IFJ joins NUJP to stand solidly behind I-Witness and Araullo.
Firefighters from across the region had to get creative Thursday evening to fight a stubborn, smoky fire in a large roll of foam inside a Forks Township manufacturing plant, an official reports.

No one was hurt attacking the fire within the roll, which was piled high upon other rolls at Ecopax at 3600 Glover Road, Forks Township Fire Department Capt. Jason Billiard said Friday morning.

The company, which was founded in 2006, makes single-use foam and plastic takeout containers, food trays and consumer tableware, according to its website.

The building has sprinklers and it was an automatic alarm inside that first altered authorities, Billiard said. But because the fire got inside the layers of the roll, sprinklers werent enough to extinguish it, Billiard said.

Firefighters went into the smoke-filled building and had to use air tanks due to the nature of the products, Billiard said. But it wasnt until they cut two ventilation holes in the roof, including one right above the fire, that they could put it out, Billiard said. A hose was lifted to the roof and aimed down through the hole as firefighters worked from below as well, he said.

Smoke hangs in the air inside Ecopax after a large roll of foam caught fire Aug. 20, 2020, in the Forks Township manufacturing plant.Photo courtesy | LV Fire Pix on Facebook.

The cause of the fire, which was first reported about 7:15 p.m., remains under the township fire marshals investigation, Billiard said.

Everyone working in the building at the time of the fire was able to get out safely, Billiard said.

The fire was difficult to fight and all the crews did a phenomenal job in controlling it and putting it out, he said.

One plus is there was a fire hydrant right outside, he added.

The building will be closed until the fire suppression system can be recharged, Billiard said. Employees kept an eye on the place overnight due to the state of the suppression system, he said.

Firefighters cleared the scene about 9:45 p.m.

Mutual aid companies and other responders were dispatched to assist, including township police and fire police, Suburban EMS, Nazareth EMS, Northampton County emergency management, Tatamy fire, Palmer Township fire, Bethlehem Township fire, Nancy Run fire, Upper Nazareth Township fire, Lower Nazareth Township fire, Plainfield Township fire, Hecktown fire and Lower Mount Bethel Township fire.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Tony Rhodin can be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.
Biden says Putin will pay 'dear price' if he invades Ukraine
Our producer Stella Tan on last Fridays episode:

Our story began shortly after the police killing of George Floyd in May. The calls to examine the role of systemic racism in American law enforcement led to a closer examination of how those same systemic forces had shaped attitudes within families, friendships, the media and the workplace.

As we looked at the racial reckonings happening in the corporate world, Adidas caught our eye. The German sportswear brand built its audience in the United States largely through its connection with Black celebrities, from the Run-D.M.C. song My Adidas in the 1980s to collaborations with Kanye West and Beyonce today. But, as our colleagues Julie Creswell and Kevin Draper reported last year, some Black employees expressed feeling sidelined at Adidas, saying that the scene within the company didnt match its public image.

When Julie and Kevin did their reporting in June 2019, few employees were willing to go on record. But when they revisited Adidas in June 2020, something had changed. They put us in touch with several of their sources, including Aric Armon, an Adidas footwear designer who recounted being called a racial slur by a colleague, and Aaron Ture, a product manager who took issue with the way a human resources executive had responded to a question about racism at the company. When asked why they were speaking out now, one name kept coming up: Julia Bond.

Our team was intrigued. Julia Bond was an assistant apparel designer who had been working at Adidas for about a year. In June, Julia wrote a letter to the companys North America leadership and made it public. Two days later, she initiated daily protests outside Adidass Portland headquarters. Her actions spurred Aric, Aaron and other colleagues to come forward with their own stories.
Portland police officers disperse rioters past a dumpster fire near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Portland, Ore., early Aug. 21, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Federal, Portland Officers Work Together to Disperse Crowd Outside ICE Facility

Rioters in Portland on Thursday targeted the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building for the second consecutive night, hurling objects at officers and disabling security cameras.

The group of about 100 marched in south Portland, arriving at the facility soon after 10 p.m.

The group disabled security cameras with spray paint, vandalized the building with graffiti, tampered with a control panel to the entrance gate, and kept banging on exterior doors. They shouted continually at one officer who was visible through glass walls, urging him to quit his job.

When federal officers exited the building, the mob hurled rocks and bottles at them, while others shined lasers and still others launched commercial-grade fireworks.

Some of the group had positioned vehicles to block traffic from the street, a common tactic used by Portland agitators. A dumpster fire was lit a few blocks away.

People became upset when a man approached them and urged them not to set buildings on fire.

Youre 53, right? Im 22 and Im changing more than you have, one told him, adding later: You are not the same skin tone as me. You cannot tell people how to protest.

White privilege, dude, another told him.

Because the group, which at one point chanted Black Lives Matter! was blocking traffic, vandalizing the ICE building, setting fires, and throwing projectiles at officers, officers warned them to disperse or face arrest or crowd control methods, according to a Portland Police Bureau incident summary.

Portland officers and federal officers then worked together to disperse the crowd, with federal officers appearing to use tear gas. Three arrests were made. Christopher Wise, 30, was charged with interfering with a peace officer and disorderly conduct. Riley Haralson, 18, was charged with interfering with a peace officer and harassment. Courtney Pace, 27, was charged with interfering with a peace officer.

All the charges will likely be dropped under a new policy from the district attorney.

More projectiles were hurled at officers during the dispersal, including rocks, glass bottles, and paint balloons.

The crowd ultimately dispersed by 2 a.m.

Law enforcement officers respond to rioting outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in South Portland, Ore., on Aug. 20, 2020. (KPTV)

A man speaks with a federal officer during a riot outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Portland, Ore., early Aug. 21, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf denounced the rioting that took place the previous evening, describing the rioters as violent criminals.

After 80+ straight nights of violence, Portland clearly remains a city in crisis, he said in a statement.

A separate event organized by the PDX Black Youth Movement started in the daylight hours, with a crowd following a truck. People stood on the back and alternated speaking to those assembled. They periodically stopped but often kept moving through city streets.

Listen to every [expletive] black person who wants to talk. And if none of us want to talk, sit here in silence and think about why were here. Think about every night. Think about what they could have accomplished if they werent murdered in cold blood, one speaker said.

Another called on people to get angry!

Be as angry as I am! Thats why youre out here. I should hear you screaming and being mad. Not cheering. Do not cheer for me. Do not clap for me. I dont want to be up here. I dont have a choice but to be up here. But people who look like me are [expletive] dying.

The group released a list of demands in early August. The demands include abolishing the police, ending the death penalty, creating a fund specifically for businesses owned by black people, and reserving two areas for black-owned companies.

Correction: This story was updated with clarification on the district attorneys new policy.
A doctor walks at a general hospital in Seoul, Friday. Thousands of trainee doctors at general hospitals began a strike Friday to protest the government's medical reform plan amid a surge in coronavirus infections. Yonhap



Trainee doctors working at the country's general hospitals began a strike Friday to protest the government's medical reform plan amid a surge in coronavirus infections.



Their walkout is the third of its kind after many doctors boycotted attending patients on Aug. 7, followed by a one-day strike last Friday.



Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun expressed regret over the strike.



"It's very regrettable that the doctors, who should protect the life of the people in the serious situation that COVID-19 is spreading again, have begun the collective action," he said during a daily government meeting on the coronavirus response.



What the people want is national unity in the anti-virus fight, he added, requesting that they halt the strike and continue their medical service.



The Korean Intern and Resident Association (KIRA) said the latest protest will take place with fourth-year residents working at large hospitals going on strike first, followed by third-year trainee doctors Saturday and first- and second-year residents Sunday.






Luxembourg reported a total of 94 requests for asylum in July.

More than half of asylum seekers registered in July hail from Afghanistan and Syria, with 26 requests apiece.

The pandemic has had a marked effect on the number of asylum seekers. Up until 31 July 2020, just 537 requests for international protection had been made in Luxembourg - the same period in 2019 saw twice as many people seeking asylum.

In April, during lockdown, the number of asylum seekers fell to just 10.

To date, the majority of asylum seekers in 2020 come from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan.

880 decisions have been made to date in 2020, with 441 people granted refugee status. A quarter of applications have been refused, for being either inadmissible or transferred to another service by the Directorate of Immigration.

56 transfers have taken place under the Dublin Regulation, most of them to Germany, Spain and France. As part of this procedure, 33 people have been transferred to Luxembourg.

This year, the Grand Duchy has processed 45 returns. 29 of these were done on a voluntary basis, while 11 were enforced.
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
Melissa Doyle has vowed not to expose her former Channel Seven colleagues in her upcoming book.

In an interview with News Corp, as reported by the Herald Sun on Friday, the 50-year-old said she had no intention of turning her book into a media industry tell-all.

The interview came just hours after it was announced Melissa would be leaving the network after 25 years.

Rising above it all: Melissa Doyle (pictured), 50, has vowed not to expose her former Channel Seven colleagues in her upcoming book

Explaining that it was 'not my style' to dish the dirt, the former Sunrise host admitted she was still trying to process her departure from Seven.

'To be frank, I'm just trying to enjoy today, enjoy the moment and see what comes next,' she added.

'I figure I'm not the sort of person that sits still. I'm not the sort to sit back and wait for things to come my way. I'm proactive, I'm always working on other projects.'

Tight-lipped: In an interview with News Corp, as reported by the Herald Sun on Friday, the journalist said she had no intention of turning her book into a media industry tell-all. Pictured with former Sunrise co-host David Koch

The TV journalist had nothing but positive things to say about her former colleagues, who she said 'made me better'.

She admitted she was feeling 'overwhelmed' by the messages her friends and colleagues had sent her after her departure was announced on Friday morning.

And while she was appreciative of her time at the network, Melissa admitted she was also 'sad' to be leaving.

Sudden exit: The interview came just hours after it was announced Melissa would be leaving the network after 25 years

'I'll be really honest, I'm a little sad because it's been half of my life. I feel like I'm part of the furniture,' she confessed.

Although Melissa is determined to remain tight-lipped on her former colleagues, fellow TV host Lisa Wilkinson is reportedly happy to discuss her departure from Channel Nine's Today after 10 years on the breakfast show.

According to a report by The Weekend Australian earlier this month, the 60-year-old 'is expected to address' her exit from the network in her memoir to be released next year.
Band Flees Iran After 15 Year Sentence For Playing Heavy Metal

Members of heavy metal band Arsames fled Iran after being sentenced to 15 years in prison for playing Satanic music.

In a statement to Loudwire, the band said:

We [were] arrested in 2017 when we were in our studio during rehearsal. They moved us to jail that day and [did] not [tell] our family about where we [were] for a week. Finally after nearly a month later we paid bail to come out of prison and they told us you should not work, release [or sell] your merch until your final court  and do not talk with media! Our Instagram page, official website  banned and they shot down all for a year, but we built a new Instagram again and [started] to be active until few weeks ago [when] the court called us again and they gave us 15 years [in] prison. So we had to escape from Iran.

Mfaiiazi / CC BY

Arsames also posted a video to YouTube claiming to be patriotic Iranians and offering details of their trial.

Is it a crime that we are playing metal music!?, states the band in the video. Is it [a] crime that we are talking about Persian history?! Is it a crime that you think we are into Satanism when we have songs about Cyrus the Great and monotheism!? Is it a crime that we love music and our country?!

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Sure, it might be warm Wednesday, but what about the rest of the week?
John Anzalone, founder of a Democratic polling firm based in Alabama, said his profession was easier when he started 30 years ago.

Those were the days when every household still depended on a landline telephone.

People picked up the phone because they thought it was a neighbor or relative calling, Anzalone said. Everyone picked up the phone. So it was easy to do polling and it was easy to be accurate.

Today, Anzalone and his firm are in the thick of the biggest political race going as members of the Joe Biden campaigns polling team.

ALG Research has its headquarters in Montgomery, where Anzalone lives. But the firms work is in the national arena. It worked for Barack Obamas winning campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and Hillary Clintons failed effort four years ago. It has offices in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Anzalone met Biden in 1987 when he worked on Bidens first campaign for president in Iowa. It was a small staff, Anzalone and one other person, he said, so there was plenty of interaction with the candidate.

He always made you feel like the most important person in the room, Anzalone said. He made you feel special.

Anzalone said Biden gave him his first nickname, Zo, which eventually morphed into Anzo, which he said everyone calls him now.

Everything you hear about Bidens empathy and compassion is true. He is the guy who calls you when your dad dies, which happened to me last September, Anzalone said.

Biden formally accepted his partys nomination for the Nov. 3 election Thursday night.

Anzalone grew up in St. Joseph, Mich., where his parents, Steve and Rosie, were both members of the Teamsters Union. His father had a strong affection for Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

He said that he did not know he was a Democrat until Jimmy Hoffa told him so, Anzalone said. But we did not grow up a political family. No politics around the kitchen table. We just struggled through like most families. My mom was a switchboard operator at the county mental hospital and was also a Teamster in their public employee section.

Anzalone said Biden would eventually spend a good deal of time with his father.

They last saw each other in October of 2018 and Biden sat with him for about 30 minutes telling stories about Teamsters and truck drivers, Anzalone said. Biden is just a good human being.

Polling done the right way is difficult and expensive but also gratifying when the work leads to success on election day, Anzalone said.

Counted among those successes for ALG Research are Democratic wins in governors races  Gretchen Whitmir in Michigan and Steve Sisolak in Nevada in 2018, and the reelection of Democrat John Bel Edwards in Louisiana last year. In North Carolina, Anzalone is working for Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in his bid for reelection.

Cell phones are the main way to reach poll respondents. Anzalone said the typical mix is about 65% cell phones, 35% land lines.

Theres certain states where landlines actually still have a constituency, especially in rural areas, Anzalone said. And a lot of the battleground states actually have big rural areas.

It is those battleground states that will decide the presidential election and where most of the best polling will take place this year, according to Anzalone.

Alabama is not on that list. Trump carried it with 62% of the vote in 2016. Republicans have carried the state in the last 10 presidential elections, with Jimmy Carter the last Democrat to do so in 1976.

Anzalone said six states are generally considered pivotal.

The key for Trump in 2016 was winning states his recent GOP predecessors could not. Trump carried Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all by less than 1 percentage point. Democratic candidates had carried Michigan and Pennsylvania in six straight presidential elections and Wisconsin in seven straight before Trumps breakthrough.

Had Clinton carried those three states and everything else held the same, the 46 electoral votes would have given her 273, three more than needed to win. Trumps total would have dropped to 258.

Three other three key states are Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, Anzalone said. Trump won all three, North Carolina by 3.6%, Arizona by 3.5%, and Florida by 1.2%.

Those tend to be the big six as we call them that a lot of people say will decide the election and what you need to get to your tipping point of 270, he said. Theres also states that Trump is playing the defense in right now.

Those are other states that Trump won, including Ohio, Texas, Georgia, and Iowa, according to Anzalone.

Anzalone said fewer than 10% of people who answer a call from a polling firm are willing to participate. But he believes that rate has ticked upward because of the pandemic.

Weve seen people be more willing to take polls, Anzalone said. Theyre home. Theyve got a little more time on their hands. So, our production rates have actually gone up. And we see that both Democrats and Republicans and independents are participating at a higher rate.

Anzalone points to a couple of distinctive characteristics of the electorate in a year of sharp polarization.

One is, because theres such division, we dont see a big undecided, he said. Its not unusual to see 3, 4, 5% undecided, which is pretty low. And then we see fewer people picking third-party candidates than they did in 2016.

He said third-party candidates hurt Clinton four years ago.

Anzalone came to Alabama in 1990 to manage Don Siegelmans first campaign for governor, when Alabama Education Association chief Paul Hubbert defeated Siegelman for the Democratic nomination. He married a woman from Montgomery. They moved to Washington, where he worked for a polling firm, learned the business, and built up a clientele. After a divorce he and his ex-wife decided to raise their children in Montgomery. Anzalone said he has lived in Montgomery since, although he spends a lot of time in D.C.

He started his company in 1994. Polling and research in high-stakes political races is as demanding as ever after all these years, but still rewarding, he said.

Its like anything that youve been involved in 30 years. It can become a grind. But at the end of the day, what youre doing is hopefully impactful and helping people, Anzalone said.

Alabama and national politics.
The 360 shows you diverse perspectives on the days top stories and debates.

Whats happening

The Democratic National Convention concluded Thursday night with a keynote address from Joe Biden as he accepted the partys nomination for president.

Bidens speech echoed the themes raised by speakers throughout the four-night event: Sharp criticisms of President Trumps first term in office, calls for unity and a push to build back better after the coronavirus pandemic has been brought under control. The structure was consistent with previous conventions. But the pandemic forced Democrats to hold the event virtually, which presented some opportunities and pitfalls along the way.

Speakers throughout the week represented a broad swath of the political spectrum: Democratic icons such as Barack and Michelle Obama, progressives including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and even prominent Republicans like John Kasich and Colin Powell.

Why theres debate

Many responses to the convention praised Democrats for ably handling the massive challenge of carrying out such a complicated virtual event, even if there were some hiccups. They also earned points from some pundits for embracing the big tent that the party represents, from past GOP voters who may be considering a change, to progressives seeking a major systemic overhaul.

The convention effectively presented Biden as an alternative to Trump, some argue, by consistently highlighting his compassion and eagerness to find common ground with diverse groups of people. Bidens acceptance speech was widely considered to be both skilfully delivered and effective in presenting a clear vision for how America can overcome its current crises. By giving a 24-minute address to the nation with minimal stumbles, Biden dealt a major blow to the presidents attempts to portray the former vice president as mentally in decline, some say.

The convention did receive some strong criticism from both sides of the aisle. Many progressives felt the inclusion of Republican speakers  along with limited speaking time given to rising stars like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  would alienate the young, diverse coalition of voters Biden needs to win in November. Others felt that Democrats failed to take advantage of the virtual format, and instead their attempts to mimic a traditional convention came off more like an extended telethon.

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Many conservatives took issue with what they saw as overly dark rhetoric on the state of the country and the Trump presidency. Repeated attacks on the president and calls for unity obscured the reality of Bidens policy agenda, which would radically transform the structures of American life, they say..

Whats next

Polling over the next few weeks will provide a clearer picture of the effect of the convention on public opinion, though the true impact may not be known until Election Day on Nov. 3.

Republicans will launch their own party convention on Monday in Charlotte, N.C.. Unlike Democrats, the GOP will be holding some in-person events, but the festivities will be scaled down significantly from previous conventions. President Trump is scheduled to give his acceptance speech Thursday from the White House.

Perspectives

Boosters

Democrats sent a clear message of what party stands for

If the purpose of a convention is to lay out a vision for America and define what the election is about, I dont think Biden and the Democrats could have done a better job.  Chris Truax, USA Today

Biden gave a powerful rebuttal to Trumps two strongest attacks

Biden's commanding delivery could make it more difficult for Trump to paint him as staggering and senile (Slow Joe) at the Republican convention next week. At the same time, Bidens focus on middle-of-the-road policies complicates Trumps attempts to tag his ticket as pawns of the radical left.  Natasha Korecki and Christopher Cadelago, Politico

The convention made a strong case against Trumps presidency

The convention was more about Trump than it was about Biden. Democrats and Republicans who have decided to support Biden made the case with searing effectiveness, that Trump has failed at his job, and what matters now is saving the country by ending his presidency.  Frida Ghitis, CNN

Appealing to GOP voters is a smart strategy, even if it angers progressives

Progressives like Sanders have long argued that the way to win in 2020 is by mobilizing a new coalition of young voters and nonvoters who are excited by issues such as a Green New Deal, Medicare for All and free public college. But the numbers dont really support this theory.  Andrew Romano, Yahoo News

Democrats embraced the broad coalition their party represents

The Democratic National Convention began with a mosaic of Americans reciting the preamble to the U.S. Constitution  a striking display of ethnic, racial and gender diversity. But more important, this time around, the Democrats have taken care to celebrate the kind of ideological diversity that is crucial to winning the White House on Nov. 3.  Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post

They overcame the limitations of a virtual convention

I wondered if this year's online convention held in the midst of a pandemic would even be watchable. ... By the time former first lady Michelle Obama got rolling in her keynote address near the end of the telecast, I was a believer, reminded of television's ability to adapt to new technology and the enduring power of one human voice speaking passionately from the heart to a camera.  David Zurawik, South Florida Sun Sentinel

Critics

Democrats focused far too much on dark moments, rather than hope for the future

To show their ferocious sincerity in the struggle against Americas injustices, most of the speakers thought they had to beat the crap out of the country  over and over. Its sins: racism, sexism, bigotry, violence, xenophobia, being unwelcoming to immigrants. The charges, direct and indirect, never let up. Little love was expressed, little gratitude.  Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal

There was no clear policy vision

In its entire four-night convention, the Democratic Party said almost nothing about its own platform or the policies Biden plans to implement if elected.  Kaylee McGhee, Washington Examiner

There wasnt nearly enough representation of Latinos

Rather than growing the electorate, which is how Democrats will win in November and beyond, it seems as though they are reaching out to Republican voters. This sends a terrible message to the Latino voters they need to win in November.  Cristina Jimenez Moreta, New York Times

Including Republicans risks severing a shaky truce between moderates and progressives

Many progressives, including Sanders and Warren, say the threat of Trump's election is enough to fully unify them behind Biden. But that doesn't mean there aren't rising tensions  and a convention leaning so heavily into Republican support for Biden is exacerbating them.  Will Weissert and Sara Burnett, Associated Press

The virtual convention was boring and frequently awkward

These things are always about a raucous atmosphere, yelling and cheering and balloons dropping, and noises, crazy hats, and crazy people sometimes. Now youve got very benign-looking people sitting in front of the fireplace. ... Id make it a little more entertaining, make it more watchable.  Mike Huckabee, Fox News

Is there a topic youd like to see covered in The 360? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Read more 360s

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images
"No one's afraid of anything," Zelensky noted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukrainian citizens are no longer afraid of COVID-19 or complying with quarantine restrictions imposed.

"I wish everyone good health and I ask to be careful. Especially now, people have ceased in fact to observe any quarantine measures  no one's afraid of anything," the president told journalists during a working trip to Mykolaiv region, as reported by an UNIAN correspondent on August 21.

"Believe my family  no one's afraid until someone near of kin contracts the disease," he said, referring to COVID-19 cases in his family.

Read alsoUkraine publishes reviewed list of quarantine zones (Map)According to Zelensky, coronavirus disease lasts three weeks on average "completely wearing off" human body.

I wish everyone good health and I ask to be carerful

"At the beginning of week two, people feel very sick," he added.

Coronavirus in Zelensky's family: developments

Olena Zelenska, Ukraine's First Lady, tested positive for COVID-19 on June 12.

She was hospitalized in Kyiv on June 16.

On July 3, Zelenska recovered from COVID-19 before being discharged from the hospital, according to the President's Office.

On August 21, the president admitted his 7-year-old son Kyrylo had COVID-19 and underwent treatment along with his mother.

COVID-19 in Ukraine: latest
Creating excellence together

Coteccons is famous for its ability to execute and operate complex projects on a large scale. With The Marq, a wonder of the city with its charismatic look, Coteccons has given free rein to its passion for innovation and has combined the most advanced materials today  mass-pour and self-compacting concrete  to regulate the temperature of the concrete and fly well above the rising standards for quality, technique, and performance, said Nguyen Ba Duong, chairman of the Board of Directors at Coteccons.

The Marq  a classy and sophisticated living space with 5-star resort facilities in the city centre, created by a team of experts from leading local and regional brands

P&T Group, a world-famous architectural brand with thousands of projects in more than 25 countries, does not only enhance quality of life but also aims to promote the rich heritage of the surrounding city or country with each of its architectural designs.

Inspired by the heritage and distinctive lifestyle of old Saigon, the project brings outstanding creativity and opulent amenities that allow the residents to enjoy the verdant landscape every day. The use of double glazing for the entire facade not only helps reduce the amount of ambient noise from the street but also decreases the amount of heat reaching into the units. The private lift that stops only at your unit will provide supreme privacy while a ceiling height of 3.2m or even 6.9m will ensure a sense of spaciousness and a comfortable, luxurious atmosphere, said Kingsley Ng, art director at P&T Group.

P&T Group made its hallmark at The Marq by adding double glazing for the entire facade, private lifts, and ensuring 3,2m or even 6,9m interior height at apartments

The mark of PTang Studio  one of the best architectural and interior design companies in Asia with multiple award-winning projects at cities around the globe  at The Marq is an airy high ceiling with bespoke taste of material application and furniture selection.

Treating The Marq as the pearl in Ho Chi Minh City, we chose bright colour tones of marble with clean veins recalling the subtlest details, while a jade colour as the project ascend had been widely applied in each area  giving a sense of privilege to the project, said Philip C. H. Tang, director of PTang Studio.

Treating The Marq as the pearl of Ho Chi Minh City, PTang Studio chose bright colour tones of marble, with a jade colour as the project ascend

For Ecoplan Asia, one of the most famous landscape design brands in Asia, the challenge was to make this single tower stand out in the central business district (CBD) area of the city.

While the land bank is scarce in the CBD area, wealthy people show high demand for high-class living spaces with top-notch amenities in the area. Responding to this need, Ecoplan Asia brought The Marq the feeling of a resort oasis right in the centre of the city with tropical green landscape, peaceful waterfalls, and warm lighting. This is especially true for The Sky Club on the rooftop including the Infinity Lap Pool, accompanied by The Sky Bar and Sky Dining, as well as the Kids Pool, Jacuzzi, modern gym, and other premium amenities to facilitate interaction or silent contemplation, shared Thanapong Boonyasiriwat (Gong), director of Ecoplan Asia.

Ecoplan Asia turned The Marq into a resort oasis right in the centre of the city with tropical landscape, peaceful waterfalls, and warm lighting

Obviously, the anthem titled The Marq would not resound without other tones. Prestigious partners in the fields of structural consulting, M&E, and quantity surveyors such as Arup, Aurecon, and Arcadis have worked with Hongkong Land to create a masterpiece for savvy investors.

Preparing to welcome first residents

From May 25 to September 30, 2020, homebuyers of The Marq can enjoy a preferential loan limit of up to 70 per cent of the apartment price with interest subsidy for the outstanding debt by the developer.

While Hongkong Land, the leading real estate developer with a history of more than 130 years and timeless works such as Alexandra Building, Marina House, Holland House, and Queen's Building & Prince's Building, is a guarantee of enduring quality, the prestige of the main contractor and the multitude of famous partners make the The Marq more sophisticated, exquisite, and luxurious down to the smallest detail.

The classy and sophisticated living space with 5-star resort facilities in the centre of one of the worlds most vibrant cities, created by a team of experts from leading local and regional brands, lures both domestic and foreign investors who consider property as a long-term investment, both for living or rental purposes.

This exclusive space is welcoming the first residents and investors by a special sales offer. Accordingly, from May 25, 2020 to September 30, 2020, homebuyers of The Marq can enjoy a preferential loan limit of up to 70 per cent of the apartment price with interest subsidy for the outstanding debt by the developer.

Also, the first buyers will be able to enjoy the period of interest subsidy as well as grace for principal from the first disbursement until up to 12 months from the date the developer serves the apartment handover notice.
WASHINGTON - New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Friday he has no plans to restore mailboxes and other agency cuts made since he took over in June, sparking fresh questions over how the Postal Service will ensure timely delivery of an expected surge of mail-in ballots for the November election.

It was DeJoys first time publicly answering questions since summer mail delays brought a public outcry. Testifying before a Senate committee, the ally of President Donald Trump said it was his sacred duty that ballots arrive on time. But he told senators he did not yet have a plan for handling a crush of election mail.

From the White House, Trump delivered fresh complaints over the mail-in ballots expected because of the coronavirus pandemic. As he did, the House pushed ahead with plans for a rare Saturday vote to block the postal cutbacks and funnel $25 billion to shore up operations.

DeJoy declared that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on-time. He distanced himself from Trumps objections about widescale mail-in voting and said ensuring ballots arrive was his No. 1 priority between now and Election Day.

The outcry over mail delays and warnings of political interference have put the Postal Service at the centre of the nations tumultuous election year, with Americans of both parties rallying around one of the nations oldest and more popular institutions.

The new postmaster general, a Trump donor who took the job at the start of summer to revamp the agency, is facing a backlash over changes since his arrival. Democrats warn his cost-cutting initiatives are causing an upheaval that threatens the election.

With mounting pressure, DeJoy promised this week to postpone any further changes until after the election, saying he wanted to avoid even the perception of interference. A number of blue mailboxes have been removed, back-of-shop sorting equipment has been shut down and overtime hours have been limited.

But DeJoy told senators he has no plans to restore the equipment, saying its not needed. And he stood by a new rule that limits late delivery trips, which several postal workers have said is a major cause of delivery delays. He vowed more changes are coming to postal operations after November.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the publics concern is understandable, particularly given Trumps efforts to stop universal mail-in ballots. Many states are encouraging mail-in voting in response to voters pandemic-related fears of going to crowded polling centres on Election Day.

Trump has said he wants to block agency emergency funding that would help the service handle a great increase in mail-in ballots.

At Fridays hearing, DeJoy said hed had no idea equipment was being removed until the public outcry.

Now that its widely known, Democrats pressed him for his plan to ensure election mail and ballots arrive on time.

Do you have a more detailed plan? demanded Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, asking for it by Sunday.

I dont think well have a complete plan by Sunday night, DeJoy replied, acknowledging it was just being formed.

He is expected to testify before the House on Monday.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, defended the postmaster and dismissed the Democratic claims of election sabotage.

Johnson, of Wisconsin, said public outcry over the mail smacked of ginned up effort to rally voters  a political hit job.

Meanwhile, attorneys general in Pennsylvania, California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington D.C., filed a lawsuit on Friday to halt the changes. In all, some 20 states and several voting rights groups are now suing.

As House Democrats prepare for Saturdays vote, Republicans are mounting a counter-offensive, saying the concerns about mail delivery are overblown and the money is unnecessary.

In a memo to House Republicans, leaders called the legislation a conspiracy theory by Democrats to spread fear and misinformation about mail operations.

Nevertheless, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is eyeing a $10 billion postal rescue as part of the next COVID-19 relief package. The White House has said it would be open to more postal funding as part of a broader bill.

The Postal Service has been struggling financially under a decline in mail volume, COVID-related costs and a rare and critics say cumbersome congressional requirement to fund in advance its retiree health care benefits.

For many, the Postal Service provides a lifeline, delivering not just cards and letters but also prescription drugs, financial statements and other items that are especially needed by mail during the pandemic.

The postal board of governors, appointed by Trump, selected DeJoy to take his job. A GOP donor, he previously owned a logistics business that was a longtime Postal Service contractor. He maintains significant financial stakes in companies that do business or compete with the agency, raising conflict of interest questions.

In a statement, the Postal Service said DeJoy has made all required financial disclosures but that he might have to divest some holdings if conflicts arise.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose role in postal operations is being questioned by Senate Democrats, said in a letter to Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that he had no hand in recruiting or suggesting DeJoy for the job.

Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said he would judge the postmaster by deeds, and a lot of what he said did not comport with the facts on the ground.

Republicans have long sought postal reforms to run the agency more like a private company, and Trump often complains the Postal Service should be charging Amazon and other companies higher rates for package deliveries. Mnuchin told Schumer he was reviewing those contracts.

Others say the Postal Service is not expected to be solely a money-making enterprise, often delivering to far-flung places where it is not efficient to operate.

David C. Williams, the former vice chairman of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, on Thursday told lawmakers that he resigned from the board in part over DeJoys selection, and because he believed the White House was taking extraordinary steps to turn the independent agency into a political tool.

___

Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press produced this coverage with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. So has been the case for Prince Edward Island horseman Dale Spence, who was forced to postpone his wedding from this summer to 2021 on account of the coronavirus pandemic. But thanks to a leap of faith he took earlier in the year, he may still be able to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience this summer after all.

This Saturday (Aug. 22), Spence will make his first ever appearance in the $60,000 Guardian Gold Cup and Saucer at Red Shores at Charlottetown Driving Park, driving 5-2 favourite Casimir Richie P for trainer Dr. Ian Moore. The opportunity was borne of Spence and his fiancee MacKenzie MacInnis' decision to join Moore's winter staff in Florida -- seemingly an eternity ago in hindsight, but truly just mere months ago.

"We had kind of had a string of bad luck  not really bad luck, I guess, just working hard and getting nowhere  and we saw Doc's post on Facebook that he was looking for help in Florida for the winter," Spence told Trot Insider. "[MacKenzie] said to me, 'Why don't we do this for the winter? It'll be a nice change of pace.'

"Doc didn't know me, but he did know MacKenzie," Spencer continued, noting that MacInnis was the Ambassador for Moore's Gold Cup and Saucer winner Eighteen in 2012. "We called him up, and seven days later we were in Florida. It was great ... it was a nice learning experience, and actually we're going down again next winter."

The move proved fulfilling for both Spence and MacInnis, who gained more experience with preparing two-year-olds for the races than they had been availed in their home province of Prince Edward Island. But the stint in the Sunshine State came at a cost, as both had to take leave of their day jobs away from the racetrack -- Spence at a concrete plant, MacInnis as a dental assistant.

"I work at the office doing dispatching and invoices," Spence explained. "The concrete world around here in the wintertime is fairly slow...Everything shuts down here in the winter, pretty much.

"I actually -- just the way the organization works that I work for -- I had to give up my position in order to do it. MacKenzie was a little luckier than me; she had a leave of absence. In saying that, when I got back here, I contacted my employer and told them I was back in town if they ever needed anything, and I'm back working for them again."

While they both were able to resume employment upon their return north, Spence and MacInnis were sadly forced to put other plans on hold.

"We had planned our wedding for this year, June 20," Spence continued. "But anyway, with everything that went on when we were in Florida and COVID-19 came along -- back home, you had the two weeks' quarantine, can't have gatherings over four people. And the kind of people that we are, we have a lot of family and a lot of friends, and we want to have a celebration. Our plans didn't work out, so we rescheduled the wedding for June 18, 2021."

To say that the pandemic and the sweeping public health measures that have followed have disrupted many a major event is a grave understatement. But in one case in particular for Spence, it has also opened the door for his first appearance in Atlantic Canada's most prestigious race. And the sense of accomplishment is not lost on the 28-year-old reinsman, who has been teamed up with one of his old Florida friends in Casimir Richie P, whom MacInnis actually cared for through the winter.

"Picking up the catch drive on Richie is a huge feather in my cap," Spence said. "Per capita, Doc's had the best horses for a long time; he puts out good horses year to year. For him to call me and say, 'I've got Richie down for the Gold Cup; can you drive him?' It's quite a large feather in my cap. He could have called anybody here -- Gilles Barrieau, Marc Campbell -- he could have called any of those guys.

"He called me the other day just to give me a little pep talk...'Dale, you know the horse, you've got a good set of hands, you've got a good head on your shoulders. Just do what you do best and go have some fun.'"

To no one's surprise, the young gun delivered with the poise of a grizzled veteran in Monday's second Gold Cup and Saucer trial, piloting Casimir Richie P to a decisive 1:51.2 win over Prince Edward Island stalwart Rose Run Quest.

If Casimir Richie P's post-race disposition is any indication, the short turnaround into Saturday's $60,000 final shouldn't be any issue.

"I talked to Doc [Wednesday], and he said that the reports were that he's doing well," Spence said, noting that light jog miles make up the bulk of Casimir Richie P's training regimen for the week. "After the race, he was feeling pretty sharp. He's just a classy animal. He's in top physical condition and he's feeling good."

On Saturday, Spence and Casimir Richie P will start from post six. The other Trial winner, Time To Dance, will start from post 2 in line to Marc Campbell after posting a 1:52.4 win last Saturday. Despite the post disadvantage, Spence likes his chances.

"The six-hole doesn't bother me a whole lot. It's just going to be an interesting mile."

Aside from Time To Dance leaving from the inside half of the gate, Casimir Richie P's main contenders -- Simple Kinda Man and Rose Run Quest -- line up in the outside two slots, paving the way potentially for a hotly-contested early pace under the Red Shores floodlights.

"Everything will be left on the racetrack, that's for sure. The Gold Cup and Saucer is one of the most coveted races in Canada, as far as I'm concerned. The pageantry is unbelievable. There are only two fellows in the race as far as drivers go who have ever won it before, so there's six of us looking for our first Gold Cup and Saucer."

Regardless of the result, Spence is thrilled to have the opportunity to drive on the Maritimes' biggest stage.

"Just to be mentioned in this race  it's the best of the best; it really reflects well on a person. We're going to make the most of our opportunity, that's for sure."
A Compton station tattoo. (Sweeney Firm / Glickman & Glickman)

At the Compton sheriff's station, it's called a ghost gun: a weapon a deputy says he spots on a suspect but that is never found when colleagues respond to the scene and search for it.

That's because the call-out is based on a lie. The deputy didn't actually see a gun, but his suspect could turn out to be armed and an arrest or recovered firearm could pad his reputation.

It's the kind of behavior that plays out regularly at the station, according to a whistleblower who worked there for five years and recounted other sensational allegations in a recent deposition obtained by The Times in a federal civil rights lawsuit.

In reality, they've never seen the gun, L.A. County Sheriffs Deputy Austreberto Gonzalez said under oath. And then at the end when their containments are set up, you know, the gun is never recovered. You know, they'll call it a day and say, Thank you for rolling. We're going to call it, and a gun was never recovered.

Gonzalez says the scheme is employed in Compton by tattooed deputies who call themselves the Executioners, the clandestine gang many say runs the station.

His allegations add to a growing body of information about the Compton clique, one of several tattooed deputy groups within the Sheriff's Department with names such as the Grim Reapers, Banditos and Jump Out Boys.

The Sheriff's Department has been aware of the groups for decades but has struggled to crack down, despite repeated internal and independent investigations and instances in which members are accused of misconduct.

Gonzalez's statements were introduced in an excessive-force lawsuit filed against the Sheriff's Department by Sheldon Lockett. The judge hearing the case cited the evidence when tentatively deciding to advance the case for trial.

Accepting the deputys testimony, there is evidence that the clique existed in Compton and that it routinely violated the rights of suspects, Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh said in his ruling. The testimony also establishes that the command staff at the station knew about it and not only did not stop it but it encouraged the behavior and placed its members in positions of authority where they could help other members.

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The Sheriff's Department said the FBI is now involved in an investigation of the Executioners. Following The Times' reporting, Compton officials issued formal requests to the state and federal attorney generals to investigate allegations of pervasive civil rights violations.

In his deposition, Gonzalez identified Miguel Vega, the Compton station deputy who killed 18-year-old Andres Guardado in a shooting in June that sparked weeks of protests, and his partner, Chris Hernandez, as prospective members of the Executioners. Their attorneys said Wednesday that those allegations are false.

"Deputy Vega does not have one single tattoo on his body, much less a deputy gang tattoo," his attorney Adam Marangell said. "He doesn't have one, nor does he plan on getting one."

The Sheriff's Department said in a statement that it had not yet received the transcript of Gonzalez's testimony. "Once we do, counsel will review and we can respond appropriately," a spokesman said. County attorneys have argued that Gonzalez's testimony about the Executioners was nothing more than speculation and conjecture, as he's not in the group and has no personal knowledge about it.

Lockett alleges he was targeted by deputies "chasing ink" when he was beaten and falsely arrested for attempted murder in 2016, his attorneys said. He sued in 2018.

Deputies that day pulled up to Lockett outside his godmother's home and jumped out of their car with their guns drawn because they said he matched the description of a shooting suspect. Lockett froze, then ran. The deputies, Samuel Aldama and Mizrain Orrego, radioed that Lockett had a gun, which he says was a lie. No gun was found.

They chased him until they found him hiding in a backyard, where Lockett says he surrendered. Even so, he says, Aldama punched him in the head five times while using the N-word. He alleged that one of the deputies rammed the end of a police baton into his eye socket, which caused permanent damage, and that he was kicked in the back of the head. The county has denied the allegations.

Lockett was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and other gun charges and spent eight months in jail. In August, prosecutors dropped charges because of insufficient evidence and after a witness testified that she was mistaken when she identified him, according to a district attorney's office spokeswoman.

After the arrest, Lockett's mother filed a complaint to the Sheriff's Department.

"They did nothing," Locketts attorney John Sweeney said during a hearing this week. Instead, he says, they served a search warrant on her home in retaliation. Several months after Lockett's arrest and three weeks after charges were dropped, Aldama and Orrego shot at and killed Donta Taylor, 31, during a foot chase. Deputies said Taylor had a handgun, but no weapon was found.

"Had that been investigated ... Donta Taylor would still be alive," Sweeney said. "This was nothing more than a sport kill and an attempt to getting into this gang. And instead of being prosecuted, what happened? There were inking parties and celebrations."

Aldama admitted under oath to having a tattoo on his calf depicting a skull with a rifle and a military-style helmet emerging from flames. The letters CPT, for Compton, appear on the helmet. Aldama said he was one of as many as 20 deputies selected to get the same tattoo after working hard by making arrests and answering calls. He denied being part of a club.

L.A. County settled a lawsuit brought by Taylor's family for $7 million. Deputies with alleged ties to these cliques, which are accused of using violent and aggressive tactics similar to those of criminal street gangs, have cost taxpayers $55 million in settlements and payouts in incidents that date to the 1990s, according to county records obtained by The Times.

Walsh said three Compton deputies, including Aldama and Orrego, have denied in other court proceedings that they were part of a clique and attributed their matching tattoos to serendipity.

The depositions of those three deputies are under seal, but Lockett's attorney Steven Glickman argued during a court hearing Thursday that their tattoos are numbered. In their depositions, Glickman said Aldama testified that his tattoo's No. 38 was a nod to his first gun; Orrego's said his tattoo, which was covered up, was never numbered and he got it in solidarity with Aldama, his friend who had cancer; and Deputy Rogelio Benzor's tattoo has a No. 40, which he explained as a reference to his retirement in 2040.

The county had argued that Lockett's attorneys failed to produce evidence that there was a clique and show that the county knew about it.

"Obviously, these rogue officers are not going to simply admit that they had formed an unlawful group bent on assaulting minorities," the judge wrote. "And, presumably, the clique would not be issuing membership cards, or taking minutes at membership meetings, or doing anything else that normal, lawful organizations do. Thus, it would seem impossible for a plaintiff to find tangible evidence to prove that the officers were lying when they denied the existence of their group."

Just last week, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he was moving to discipline 26 employees with firings or suspensions for their roles in a fight at an off-duty East L.A. station party at Kennedy Hall, a nearby event space, where deputies say they were attacked by inked members of the Banditos, who allegedly wielded power at the station. But he denied that gangs exist within the Sheriffs Department.

There is zero evidence of three or more deputies engaged in criminal activity with a unifying symbol whose primary purpose is to commit crime, Villanueva said.

Two deputies who said they were assaulted and knocked unconscious are among those facing discipline for policy violations that include failing to report the Kennedy Hall incident to superiors, their attorney Vincent Miller said.

My guys are in trouble for not reporting the Banditos to the Banditos, Miller said, adding that his clients did report the incident right away to a lieutenant they trusted.

Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against the deputies who Miller says attacked his clients. But an administrative investigation found that some employees at the East L.A. station were acting as so-called shot callers, controlling scheduling and events at the station, Cmdr. April Tardy said, using a term often used to describe top leaders in prisons and gangs.

In Compton, the Executioners ruled the station using a similar structure, Gonzalez testified. About 15 to 20 deputies are Executioners, he said, and at least a handful more are prospective members who are chasing ink. He said "it's the word out" that only two deputies are inked each year  women and Black people arent allowed. A vast majority of members and prospects, he said, have been involved in high-profile shootings or beatings.

After a shooting, members will have a party at a bar and call it a 998 debrief, referencing the code for a deputy-involved shooting. Some say its to celebrate that a deputy survived, he said. But often, Gonzalez said, after the party, the deputy and his partner will get inked. Gonzalez said he'd never been invited to nor attended one.

I think it is some type of reward, Gonzalez testified. He added later: So we call it 'ink chasers' because they're out there trying to show the rest of the members, the rest of the inked members that, you know, they're worthy of that tattoo.

Gonzalez, 42, joined the department as a deputy in 2008. He was investigated by Los Angeles police in 2012 on an allegation of sexual misconduct. The district attorneys office declined to file charges. He said in his deposition that he was relieved of duty for the off-duty incident but that the allegation was unfounded and he was not disciplined.

Gonzalezs attorney Alan Romero said that disclosing the allegation about his client is totally irrelevant to the heroism of his coming forward to protect the public, and only serves to deter and frighten future whistleblowers from coming forward.

The L.A. Times would be sending a clear message: If you want to blow the whistle on public corruption, be warned that we will dig into your history and disclose any false allegations that [were] ever made against you.

Gonzalez said in the deposition that Jaime Juarez, a deputy he identified as the Executioners' shot caller, carried out a work slowdown last year when the acting captain refused to install a member as scheduling deputy. The powerful position, which Juarez had previously held, controls scheduling, days off and overtime, Gonzalez said.

There was nobody being arrested. Very minimal arrests were being done at that time, Gonzalez said of the work slowdown. We have a booking line. We would hardly ever see a unit in the booking line with, you know  you know, with suspects in their back seats. It was so obvious that, you know, we all noticed that.

The Times has requested arrest records from the Compton station to determine whether such a slowdown occurred. Juarez did not respond to a request for comment. Elizabeth Gibbons, an attorney representing Juarez, denied the allegations against him on Friday but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing Sheriff's Department investigation.

In 2017, Gonzalez said, the Compton station captain at the time had turned to that deputy to boost arrest statistics after the captain was reprimanded for low numbers at the station. Monthly arrests per deputy more than doubled and that captain was eventually promoted, he said.

Gonzalez testified that he faced blowback earlier this year after anonymously reporting an Executioner to the Internal Affairs Bureau for assaulting a fellow deputy. After Gonzalez made his report, graffiti appeared at the station calling him a rat. He was warned by another deputy to be careful.

They know it was you, Gonzalez recalled being told. He filed a legal claim against the county in June alleging retaliation.

One deputy told Gonzalez he didnt want to partner with him out of fear of getting screwed with, he said.

Gonzalez testified that he feared for his safety from the clique.

"I think that I now call them a gang because that's what gangs do. They beat up other people," he said. " I call that a gang. Their focus is not the station, their focus is not the department, and their focus is not their job. Their focus is their group."
Jerusalem, Aug 21 : Israel launched airstrikes on Hamas sites in Gaza in retaliation after two rockets fired from the Palestinian enclave fell near an Israeli security fence, the military said on Friday.

An Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement that warplanes struck "a concrete manufacturing site used for underground infrastructure and tunnel construction" that belongs to the Islamic Hamas movement, reports Xinhua news agency.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on both sides.

Tensions have escalated as militant groups in the Gaza Strip sent balloons attached to incendiary and explosive materials into southern Israel.

Israel has carried out daily airstrikes and used artillery against Hamas sites for the past 11 days.

It has also closed the fishing zone around Gaza and its main cargo crossing.

Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian movement that runs the Gaza Strip, demands the ease of Israeli blockade imposed after the movement seized power in Gaza in 2007.

The recent exchange came amid efforts by Egyptian security officials to halt the flare-up.

Despite a truce achieved in 2019, Gaza militants and Israel clash sporadically, in which Palestinians launch rockets or balloons toward southern Israel and Israel launches missile strikes and imposes sanctions against Gaza residents.

According to Palestinian and Israeli commentators, the recent violence was triggered by Israel's refusal to allow the transfer of Qatari money to the besieged enclave.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Logistics management startup FarEye on Friday said it has raised an additional $13 million (approximately Rs 97.4 crore) as an extension to its Series D investment led by Nandan Nilekani-backed Fundamentum Partnership and Korean firm KB Global Platform Fund.

In April, the Noida-based firm had raised $24.5 million in Series D from Microsoft's venture fund M12, with participation from Eight Roads Ventures, Honeywell Ventures, and existing investor SAIF Partners.

FarEye said the new investment will accelerate its global expansion.

"With recently raised funds, we will continue to invest in the best talent in the Americas, Europe, and APAC to support our hyper-growth in these regions," Kushal Nahata, CEO, FarEye, said in a statement.

"With a vision to make FarEye one of the most customer-centric organizations globally, we aim to make every delivery delightful for the consumers." FarEye works with its enterprise customers to provide higher control on their supply chains.

The company's software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform digitizes the way enterprises dispatch, execute, track, and optimise the movement of goods.

"We are excited to partner with FarEye as it paves the way for its enterprise customers, such as DHL and Walmart to gain flexibility as well as visibility in logistics by providing the easy-to-use platform to manage all moving parts," said Chunsoo Kim, Managing Director (Head of Global Investment Group) at KB Investment.

With the new funding, FarEye has raised a total of $51 million investment this year so far.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has chaired a regular meeting of the Security Council on August 21.

In his opening remarks, the Prime Minister said that the Armenian militarys victorious defensive actions against the July Azerbaijani offensive in Tavush Province proved that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict has no military solution, and that its time for Baku to accept this.

We adopted the new National Security Strategy in the last session, and it is noteworthy that shortly afterwards this documents viability was recorded. After our previous session the well-known Tavush battles took place  the victorious battles of Tavush  and we must note the following: during the entire preceding period Azerbaijan had adopted a stance whereby it was presenting the non-initiation of a military solution to the NK conflict to be a concession for both Armenia and the international community. And during this entire period of time we were calling upon the Azerbaijani leadership not to speak to Armenia from positions of force, language of force, and that it is a futile rhetoric. And inherently the July victorious battles proved this and proved that the Karabakh conflict doesnt have a military solution. I think its time for the Azerbaijani authorities to accept this.

The PM noted that if the conflict were to have a military solution then the people of Artsakh can note that they have solved the issue a long time ago.

It is highly important to note that Armenias stance in the Karabakh issue remains constructive, and our position is that indeed, the NK conflict must be solved through peaceful negotiations, and inherently this has always been the position of the Republic of Armenia, moreover  regardless of the lineage of governments and authorities.

Pashinyan emphasized that the other factor which is recorded in the strategy and which manifested itself very quickly is Turkeys destructive policy in the region and globally.

I believe that Turkeys destabilizing and destructive activity causes significant concerns and worries among our partners in the Middle East, the Eurasian region, as well as the European region. This is an agenda which is already developed, and our actions in this agenda must also become the subject of highly important discussions at the Security Council, the government, the foreign ministry, and we will discuss issues connected with this during todays session also, the PM said.

PM Pashinyan emphasized that the Republic of Armenia is able to deal with its security challenges.

At the same time, we must put a task before us to further increase the level of manageability of the security environment with every week, every month and every year. And the Security Council is the working format where this kind of issues must be discussed and solved, the Armenian PM said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Homegrown jihadi Hashem Abedi is expected to die in jail after being handed a record-length sentence for the Manchester Arena bomb plot which killed 22 people and injured hundreds of others.

Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Baker ordered that Abedi serve 24 life sentences and said he would spend at least 55 years in prison before he could even be considered for parole.

Family members gasped as the sentence  a record for a determinate prison term  was handed down for Abedis role in the largest murder case in English legal history.

Abedi, born and raised in Manchester, was accused of showing contempt to the families of those he and his suicide bomber brother Salman Abedi killed more than three years earlier by not coming into the dock.

He was again absent as the sentence was handed down, the judge ordering a copy of his remarks to be sent to the cells.

Sentencing him on Thursday afternoon, the judge said: The defendant and his brother were equally culpable for the deaths and injuries caused.

The stark reality is that these were atrocious crimes, large in their scale, deadly in their intent, and appalling in their consequences.

The despair and desolation of the bereaved families has been palpable.

The 22 victims of the Manchester Arena attack. (Top row, left to right) Elaine McIver, Saffie Roussos, Sorrell Leczkowski, Eilidh MacLeod; (second row) Nell Jones, Olivia Campbell-Hardy, Megan Hurley, Georgina Callander; (third row), Chloe Rutherford, Liam Curry, Courtney Boyle, Philip Tron; (fourth row) John Atkinson, Martyn Hett, Kelly Brewster, Angelika Klis; (fifth row) Marcin Klis, Michelle Kiss, Alison Howe, Lisa Lees; (sixth row) Wendy Fawell and Jane Tweddle (Greater Manchester Police/PA)

The sentence eclipsed that of racist homophobe David Copeland, who was handed a 50-year term for a 13-day nail bombing campaign in London in 1999 which killed three and injured scores.

The judge  who put on record his tribute to the tremendous dignity and courage of the families who attended court  said the 1,024 days Abedi spent remanded in custody will count towards the overall sentence, adding he was unable to hand him a whole-life term due to his age.

He added: He may never be released.

Reacting to the sentence, Paul Hett, father of victim Martyn Hett, said: Hes now going to spend the rest of his life in jail, Im sure because after the 55 years he was given, Im sure the Parole Board which then has to make a decision, will ensure this coward never sees the light of day again.

Story continues

Those who were taken from us will never be forgotten, nor will the spirit of the people of Manchester who came together to send a clear message to the entire world that terrorists will never prevail. 2/5  Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 20, 2020

Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the bombing a horrifying and cowardly act of violence which targeted children and families, and praised the courage and dignity of those affected.

Abedi, of Fallowfield in south Manchester, was found guilty by a jury in March of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and plotting to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.

The trial heard it was Abedis older brother, 22-year-old Salman, who detonated the suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017, as thousands of men, women and children left a concert by pop star Ariana Grande.

Together, the Abedis spent months ordering, stockpiling and transporting the deadly materials required for their murderous act, using multiple mobile phones, addresses and runaround vehicles to craft their bomb.

The brothers joined their parents in Libya the month before the blast amid concerns the siblings were becoming radicalised.

However, Salman returned to the UK on May 18. He bought the final components needed for the bomb, rented a flat in the city centre in which to build it, and carried out reconnaissance on the arena before finally executing the plot  the chilling final moments of which were caught on CCTV.

CCTV image of Salman Abedi at Victoria Station making his way to the Manchester Arena on May 22 2017 (Greater Manchester Police/PA)

Ian Hopkins, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, described the brothers as cowardly and calculating murderers who tried to divide society.

He said: He (Hashem Abedi) showed that in his contempt for the court proceedings and by the end just not turning up.

But they failed to do that because actually what that atrocity did do, as painful as it was for those that lost their loved ones and those injured, it brought everybody together.

And it showed, it showed the world that we stood together here in Manchester in our darkest hour.

And the fact that weve had this sentence and him brought to justice shows terrorists around the world, if you commit an atrocity in the UK we will do absolutely everything to make sure you stand trial here and are brought to justice.

Mr Hopkins said he and his colleagues would have liked to have seen him receive a whole-life tariff  to remain in prison forever  but the judge was prevented from doing so because of the defendants age at the time of the blast.

He added: Others, at some stage many decades from now, may have to make a decision as to whether he ever gets released on licence.

But asked whether he expected Abedi to spend the rest of his life in prison as a result, Mr Hopkins replied: I would suspect in all likelihood, yes.

The two-day sentencing heard powerful testimony from the families of the victims, many of whom fought back tears as they described their devastating loss, their endless grief, and the gaping voids left by the massacre.

The mothers of teenage sweethearts Chloe Rutherford, 17, and Liam Curry, 19, were among those to explain devastation to the hushed courtroom, with Lisa Rutherford saying: As a family we need answers, we are destroyed.

Ms Rutherford, who was supporting herself on crutches as she read her statement, said her heart snapped when she received a telephone call with the news that her daughter had died.

Caroline Curry held up a photo of her son and directed some of her comments to the absent Abedi, who sacked his legal team on March 12 and effectively withdrew from the process having not been present in court for several days prior.

Addressing an empty dock on Wednesday, Ms Curry said: I want you to look at Liam and remember the beautiful boy that was snatched away.

Your actions have caused this heartbreak. I just feel cheated.

You took his future, my future, my familys future. All we have now is heartbreak and dreams of what if.

Family and friends of the Manchester bomb victims, wearing masks in support of the victims, arrive at the Hilton Hotel in Manchester to watch the sentencing of Hashem Abedi via videolink (Peter Byrne/PA)

Samantha Leczkowski, mother of Sorrell Leczkowski, 14, from Leeds, said her daughters bedroom had been kept untouched since she died.

Losing one of my children has killed me, she said. I may as well be dead.

Survivors also recalled feeling guilty  for escaping the blast with their lives when others did not, and for instantly thinking the worst when they saw people wearing backpacks on public transport.

Harriet Taylor, in a tribute to her mother, Jane Tweddle, a 51-year-old school receptionist from Blackpool, said evil would not triumph.

We simply will not let evil win, she said. Evil is invisible, it has no face, no heart, no race.

But what we have that evil never will have is love.

The 22 people who were killed were: off-duty police officer Elaine McIver, 43, Saffie Roussos, eight, Sorrell Leczkowski, 14, Eilidh MacLeod, 14, Nell Jones, 14, Olivia Campbell-Hardy, 15, Megan Hurley, 15, Georgina Callander, 18, Chloe Rutherford, 17, Liam Curry, 19, Courtney Boyle, 19, Philip Tron, 32, John Atkinson, 28, Martyn Hett, 29, Kelly Brewster, 32, Angelika Klis, 39, Marcin Klis, 42, Michelle Kiss, 45, Alison Howe, 44, Lisa Lees, 43, Wendy Fawell, 50, and Jane Tweddle, 51.

A public inquiry into the bombing is scheduled to start next month.
The leader of the pro-Western opposition in Russia, Alexei Navalny, was hospitalized in critical condition on Thursday.

Navalny reportedly fell ill while on a plane from Tomsk to Moscow. After an emergency landing, he was brought to a hospital in Omsk. The doctors treating him have so far made no diagnosis, but his supporters and family allege that he was poisoned with a cup of tea in Tomsk. As of this writing, Navalny is in critical but stable condition. He was put on a ventilator and is in a coma. It is not clear whether the coma was a result of his condition or medically induced.

Alexei Navalny

Russian media reports note that several representatives of the FSB as well as the state prosecution are stationed outside his room. His assistant Kira Yarmysh, who was travelling with him, said that he had only consumed a cup of tea at the airport on that day, and stated that she was convinced that the tea had been poisoned.

Navalnys personal doctor and his family have said from the beginning that they want him transferred to a hospital in Europe. The Kremlin has offered to help with the transfer.

Hours after the news of his hospitalization broke, French President Emmanuel Macron offered Navalny both medical help and political asylum. German Chancellor Angela Merkel similarly declared that she was deeply shaken by the news. According to the Spiegel, a German plane already left Berlin on Thursday night to fly to Russia and transfer Navalny to a German clinic. EU High Representative Josep Borrell demanded on Twitter that those responsible must be held to account.

Even though it has not even been confirmed that Navalny was poisoned, Masha Gessen, a leading figure in the anti-Putin campaign in the US, pondered in the New Yorker, Why assassinate Navalny now? She noted that it may have either been that an eager self-appointed Kremlin avenger struck without being given explicit authority or that the Kremlin was terrified of the protests in Belarus and was trying to protect itself by killing the presumptive leader of the uprising to come.

While portrayed by the Western media as a defender of democracy against the Putin regime, in reality Navalny is a right-wing operative who maintains close ties to the US, sections of the Russian elite and the countrys far right. In 2010, Navalny participated in the Yale World Fellowship program, which has also trained several figures who played key roles in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004 and the pro-Western coup in Kiev in 2014. He has participated numerous times in marches of Russias far right.

Navalny is also known to have ties to sections of the oligarchy and the Kremlin and state apparatus. One commentary in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted that Navalny is not inconvenient to the Kremlin, but to individual figures. The article pointed out that many of his revelations of corruption, crimes and personal wealth of politicians and officials bore the character of the dossiers that the Russian secret service compiles about its real and potential opponents, suggesting that they may have been leaked to him from within the state apparatus.

Navalnys hospitalization comes amid an escalating crisis around the protests and mass strikes in Belarus which have shaken the Lukashenko regime. The movement has provoked enormous concerns in the bourgeoisie across Europe and Russia that the strikes might get out of control and spread to other countries. At the same time, the crisis has heightened geopolitical tensions in a region that has become the main staging ground for the NATO-led war preparations against Russia.

In an extraordinary summit on Wednesday, the EU publicly sided with the opposition against Lukashenko, demanding that his government initiate negotiations with its opponents. However, Lukashenko has rejected multiple offers by the opposition to initiate negotiations. On Thursday, he launched a criminal investigation into the oppositions Coordination Council, accusing it of an attempt to seize power.

Navalny has prominently supported the opposition in Belarus, focusing most of his coverage and publications in recent weeks on developments in the country. Regardless of what actually led to Navalnys hospitalization, it is set to deepen tensions between the imperialist powers and Russia, and in the political crisis in Russia itself.

The Kremlin has taken an ambiguous and cautious attitude toward developments in Belarus, refusing to offer unconditional support to Lukashenko. Lukashenkos government has long tried to balance between Western imperialism and the Kremlin and has recently moved closer to NATO.

As strikes escalated in Belarus, both Merkel and Macron called Putin to discuss the situation. In a recent piece for the Atlantic Council, one of the most belligerent think tanks in Washington vis-a-vis Russia, Anders Aslund urged the EU to step up its involvement in Belarus and seek to mediate the situation together with Russia in order to bring the crisis under control.

However, there are clearly growing concerns in the Russian ruling class that NATO and the EU will exploit the crisis in Belarus to further tighten the military and political noose around Russia.

After Wednesdays EU summit, Putins press secretary Dmitri Peskov denounced the meddling of foreign powers in developments in Belarus. The Kremlin has also rejected the attempts by the oppositions Coordination Council to initiate negotiations with Moscow.

Russian press commentaries were divided in their assessment of the Coordination Council. While Russia Today pointed out that the opposition does not seem intent on turning against Russia, Gazeta.Ru has described several members of the Council as Russophobes who were seeking a secession of Belarus from Russia.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko has escalated his crackdown on the strikes. On Tuesday, he mobilized the military on the countrys western borders with the EU and NATO, where several of the biggest strikes have been taking place. Lukashenko has also instructed the forces of the interior ministry to prevent all unrest in Minsk and other cities.

Strike leaders and striking workers have been arrested. Dozens of people are still unaccounted for, and there have been widespread reports of the torture and rape of prisoners. The government also seeks to starve strikers into submission by withholding their meager salaries.

There is little doubt that the brutal crackdown by the Lukashenko regime on workers and youth enjoys the backing of the Kremlin. The Russian oligarchy, which emerged out of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism, is acutely aware of the danger that the mass strikes can spread to Russia.

Much as in Belarus, the coronavirus pandemic in Russia has brought social tensions to the boiling point. Russia has reported over 942,000 cases, the fourth highest number in the world. Hospitals have been brought to the brink of collapse. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been laid off or are not receiving their salaries.

The Russian oligarchy also relies heavily on Belarusian manufacturing. Over 40 percent of Belarusian exports go to Russia, including machinery, but also a large number of agricultural products and food. Production for the Russian Ministry of Defense has been hit hard by strikes in Belarus, whose factories account for about 15 percent of Russias military production procurement. According to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the defense ministry is considering suing the Belarusian companies where the strikes are delaying production, in an attempt to further step up pressure on the Belarusian government to put an end to the strike movement.
When graphic designer Vince Frost, 55, was introduced to publisher Julie Gibbs, 55, each recognised a kindred spirit. Almost immediately, they were supporting each other through personal upheavals.

Julie Gibbs and Vince Frost: "Vince gives me great advice. We have a strong connection, but there has never been anything romantic between us; its more like were siblings or cousins." Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

VINCE: When I started travelling from Melbourne to Sydney for work in 2004, I spent a lot of time at a bookshop called Published Art. The owner kept telling me I had to meet Julie Gibbs, the publisher of Lantern books, because she thought wed get on well. We eventually met in the shop in 2005. My first impression was, This is a quirky chick. Julie is quite theatrical.

We started meeting regularly for lunch at Longrain restaurant. We had a lot in common. Were both Sagittarius, born 10 days apart in 1964, which means were incredibly optimistic and deeply passionate about life. We also both like to surround ourselves with interesting people, and are excited by diversity and the new.

When you go to a restaurant with Julie, you feel like youre a celebrity. Because shes published so many cookbooks, everyone knows her; Longrains chef and owner would come out to give her a kiss and have a chat. Youre no longer anonymous  you get improved service and special treats. Plus, she seems to know everyone in Sydney, so people would keep stopping for a chat.
VALE  A former U.S. Army combat veteran and former area resident convicted of sexual abuse 11 years ago has been pardoned by Gov. Kate Brown.

Earl Bain, 41, was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse by a non-unanimous Malheur County jury in 2009 and spent six years in prison.

The pardon was the final chapter in a long legal battle where Bain, with the help of the Oregon Innocence Project, tried unsuccessfully to get his conviction overturned.

Bains conviction was nullified after a key witness in the case recanted her story in 2015. There was no physical evidence in the case, according to the governors pardon order.

The witness repeated her recantation to Malheur County District Attorney Dave Goldthorpe. Goldthorpe, according a press release from the Oregon Innocence Project, supported the pardon.

You have convinced her that you are worthy of this opportunity, said Dustin Buehler, the governors general counsel in a letter to Bain. The governor asks that you be true to your word, and continue to work hard and prove yourself worthy of this privilege.

The Oregon Innocence Project began to work with Bain five years ago and according to the press release sought the pardon because of the strong and compelling evidence that he is innocent.

This is the first pardon the governor has granted on innocence grounds, and it is an exceedingly rare event throughout the U.S. for a pardon to be given on this basis, the press release said.

Attorneys with the Oregon Innocence Project helped Bain with a federal habeas corpus petition and an appeal to the U.S. Ninth Court of Appeals for a rehearing after an earlier appeal was dismissed by a lower court.

The Ninth Circuit Court denied the appeal for a rehearing.

That left a pardon from Governor Brown as the only hope of overturning the wrongful conviction, according to the Oregon Innocence Project press release.

We are grateful to Gov. Brown and her staff for thoroughly reviewing Mr. Bains case and remedying the mistakes that were made, said Steve Wax, Legal Director of the Oregon Innocence Project.

Wax said Bains case had many of the characteristics seen in wrongful conviction cases around the country.

For example, 84% of wrongful convictions for child sex abuse documented by the National Registry of Exonerations involve false accusations and/or perjury, as Mr. Bains case does, said Wax.

Bain now lives in Idaho.
Official White House Photo by Delano ScottBy ABC NEWS



(WASHINGTON) -- Vice President Mike Pence defended the Trump administrations response to the coronavirus pandemic on ABCs Good Morning America Friday, saying he "couldnt be more proud" of President Donald Trumps leadership, despite millions of active cases across the country and a death toll above 170,000.



"I couldn't be more proud of the leadership President Trump is provided from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic," Pence told GMA anchor George Stephanopoulos, citing Trumps suspension of travel from China in late January.



Concluding the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, presidential nominee Joe Biden reflected heavily on how he would handle the virus and promised to get the virus under control as his top priority.



Biden also said Trump "failed in his most basic duty to the nation. He failed us when the virus hit." Pence responded to Bidens attack by falsely claiming Biden called Trumps ban on travel from China "xenophobic."



Biden did tweet the day after Trump announced the travel restrictions, but did not tie xenophobia to the travel restrictions.



"We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus," Biden tweeted on Feb. 1. "We need to lead the way with science  not Donald Trumps record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency."



Reflecting on Bidens nomination speech at the DNC, Pence said "everything" that the former vice president proposed are efforts Trump has "been doing from very early on."



"In early February we started a march toward a vaccine in record time and while Joe Biden said last night that there'll be no miracle cure, we actually believe that it's very likely before the end of this year, that we will have one or more vaccines for the American people and in fact we're producing tens of millions of those vaccines right now. As soon as the FDA determines one is safe and effective we're going to have literally millions of doses to the American people."



Biden has also proposed a nationwide mask mandate, something Trump has not supported.

An Aug. 14 Gallup poll shows 60% of Americans believe that the coronavirus situation in the U.S. is getting worse, a 13 point drop from the same poll released in July. But 55% still say theyre very or somewhat worried about contracting COVID-19.

On April 24, Pence told Giraldo Rivera that he believed "by Memorial Day weekend we will have this coronavirus epidemic behind us." More than 75,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 since that then and pressed by Stephanopoulos to admit that at a minimum the administration may have underestimated the severity of the crisis, Pence said, "weve all been learning all along the way."



"The massive increases in cases in losses in places like New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and elsewhere were largely behind us and many of our best experts thought we might be going into a, a summer respite, like a seasonal flu, which -- which abates in the summertime."



Pence touted the amount of testing being done in the U.S. and the call to industries to produce ventilators and develop a vaccine, and said the administration believes the country will see cases declining in the days ahead.



"It's a great tribute to the American people is a great tribute to our health care workers but we're going to stay focused on -- on dealing with the coronavirus pandemic."



The U.S. has recorded more deaths from COVID-19 than any other country and on Thursday night, Biden pointed out that the U.S. has just 5% of the worlds population but about 25% of the worlds deaths from the coronavirus.



"The reality is that our mortality rate now with more than five and a half million cases identified is among the lowest in the world, and we're going to continue to work every day to provide the kind of medicines and treatments that reduce that," Pence said in response to Bidens statement.



During a campaign speech in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Monday, Trump made a remarkable statement, claiming that he could only lose the 2020 election if it were "rigged." Asked by Stephanopoulos if he believes that as well, Pence refused to directly answer and pivoted to worries over mail-in voting.



"We're gonna take a strong stand for ballot integrity, and when you see Democrat politicians and governors around the country advancing what's called universal mail-in balloting, we're gonna fight efforts to compromise the integrity of this election, with universal mail-in voting."



Stephanopoulos asked Pence again for a direct answer and pointed out that on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said voting by mail is a "non-existent problem," Pence once again answered with concerns about a mail-in vote.



"I don't think there's any question that if we have widespread voter fraud which I think universal mail-in voting invites. Now I didn't see the Majority Leader's comment but, I want to agree that absentee balloting is not a problem in America today."



Despite Pences claim, there is no widespread evidence of voter fraud.



Stephanopoulos followed up by asking, "by definition if Joe Biden wins, its not a fair election?" Pence only said, "we're gonna make sure it's a fair election."

Pence also distanced himself from Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign CEO and chief strategist in the White House, who was federally indicted on Thursday for wire fraud and money laundering connected to a campaign to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.



Bannon becomes the sixth close associate of Trump's 2016 campaign to face federal charges. Asked by Stephanopoulos if voters have a right to judge the president based on the number of his closest associates being indicted and imprisoned, Pence denied knowing anything about Bannon's case and pivoted to the importance of judging Trump on his record.



"I don't know anything about that case and, frankly, the other matters have different complications as well and I think the American people have a right to -- to judge this president on the record of what he's done for the American people."



Bannon, 66, pleaded not guilty to his charges in a Manhattan court on Thursday afternoon.



The indictment accuses Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea of defrauding hundreds of thousands of people of more than $25 million for the "We Build The Wall" fundraising campaign to cover personal expenses.



Trump sought to distance himself from Bannon when asked about the charges, saying he knew "nothing about the project" and said Bannon's arrest was "very sad" and "surprising."

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
North Carolina State University will switch all of its undergraduate classes online after clusters of covid-19 cases were found on campus this week, adding to the chaos of students scrambling to find new housing as more colleges shut down.

It was another sign of the challenge facing universities that have tried to hold some classes in person, with residential life - and student behavior - apparently making it more difficult to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

At the nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which had already announced an abrupt shift to virtual learning earlier this week, the chancellor announced that undergraduate classes would be canceled Monday and Tuesday to allow students time to move off campus as the number of cases continued to rise.

And on Thursday night, as positive test results continued to escalate -- with 91 new cases on Wednesday among students -- university officials announced that they would begin testing at three dorms starting Friday. People living in those buildings would get an email later that night about testing, school officials said, and employees such as housekeepers working there will also be tested.

Given the greater prevalence of coronavirus cases on campus, university officials also announced changes to the way they reported information to the public, with daily updates from clusters at dorms reported on an online dashboard, effective Friday. On Thursday evening, the dashboard had conflicting data, adding to the confusion.

At UNC-Chapel Hill from February to July 20, 113 students had tested positive. Last week, after students returned to campus, 130 more students tested positive.

On Thursday, the school said that 91 new cases had been reported among students Wednesday, and the total number of positive tests since February was 478.

"It's been a lot happening in the last couple of days," said Henry Swift, who had moved into a dorm as a freshman earlier this month and has spent the past few days trying to juggle classes and the prospect of moving back to his parents' home near Asheville, N.C. "A lot of announcements, a lot of updates," about new clusters of cases and the dwindling availability of quarantine space. "It's definitely a concern."

His dorm, Hinton James, was one of those singled out for testing because of the number of positive test results.

School leaders announced Thursday night that they were extending the deadline for students to drop classes through the end of the month, given the turmoil on campus.

The situation was changing quickly at N.C. State, as well. On Wednesday, N.C. State had announced two new clusters at two sorority houses on campus, with a total of 13 cases. On Thursday, Randy Woodson, the chancellor, announced that there were three clusters of cases at the 36,000-student university and that undergraduate classes would be held online-only, beginning Monday.

"In the last two days alone, we've identified three COVID-19 clusters in off-campus and Greek Village houses that can be traced to parties and behavior outside of our community standards and the governor's mandates," he wrote in a statement announcing the pivot. "We're seeing significant infections in Greek life, and at this time there have been another seven Greek houses that have been quarantined due to a number of additional positive cases."

On Thursday evening, the school announced two additional clusters of cases, one at a fraternity house and another at two off-campus homes.

Five hundred students were in quarantine Thursday either because of positive tests or exposure, Woodson wrote.

Dorms remain open at N.C. State and students have the option of remaining on campus, according to Mick Kulikowski, a spokesman for the school.

"It remains to be seen how many students leave," said John Hedlund, a graduate student who was part of a coalition of organizations within the University of North Carolina System advocating against reopening this fall. "If a large number of students remain on campus even if classes are remote it's still going to be a very dangerous, volatile situation."

Hedlund said he was particularly frustrated that the chancellor's message seemed to place the blame on students partying. With tens of thousands of students living on campus, the plan was untenable from the start, he said. "This was bound to fail."

University of North Carolina System President Peter Hans issued a statement Thursday saying that each institution had prepared over the spring and summer with guidance from public health officials. "This hard work is being undermined by a very small number of students behaving irresponsibly off campus," he said, "which unfairly punishes the vast majority of their classmates who are following the rules."

Hedlund said without discounting the need for social distancing, "The blame for the outbreaks that have occurred on campus and the need to so rapidly switch to remote learning is on the UNC administration and the board of governors."

At Johns Hopkins University, which pivoted to online instruction for undergraduates earlier this month and urged students not to return to campus, spokeswoman Karen Lancaster said administrators expect to have fewer than 100 undergraduates living on campus when classes start on Aug. 31, but they don't yet know how many students plan to move into apartments near campus.

Some people are upset that they signed leases and found out in early August that classes would be held online, said Sam Mollin, student body president at Hopkins. But the university acknowledged the sudden shift would create a financial hardship for many students, and took steps to address that, such as discounting fall tuition and increasing financial aid. "I think they've done better than other universities."

Michigan State University announced Tuesday that most classes would be taught remotely.

On Monday, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the state flagship school with 30,000 students, abruptly changed to virtual instruction after testing revealed rapid spread of coronavirus.

It was just a week after classes started, leaving many students who had just unpacked scrambling to find new housing or move back home.

The school began the semester at 60% capacity in its dorms, an effort to reduce the spread of coronavirus, but quickly responded after finding increased cases among students.

The university has asked students to move back home if they are able to, but is making exceptions for some students.

Since Monday afternoon, more than 2,800 students asked to cancel their housing contracts, and more than 2,500 appointments to move out have been scheduled.

By Thursday, occupancy in on-campus housing had dropped to 51%, according to a campus dashboard of covid-related data.

When the switch to virtual classes was announced, "it was widespread chaos," said Lamar Richards, a sophomore from Columbia, S.C.

"Everyone kind of had in their mind that this might happen eventually," he said. "But students were not prepared to be told, 'You need to go home,' so soon after getting here. Students are feeling lost, without hope," and some are saying they will take the semester or the year off.

Many needed financial help to rent moving vans, to pay for gas or for plane tickets home, he said. Richards, who is chairman of the Commission on Campus Equality and Student Equity, a student group, said they began a fundraiser Wednesday night at 10 p.m. and had raised nearly $7,000 less than 24 hours later. There were multiple efforts underway to help students afford the sudden move, he said.

"It's starting to feel like a ghost town," said Stefano Dongowski, a 17-year-old freshman, with students moving out of his dorm at UNC. One of his friends had lugged a couch into the dorm, only to have to drag it back out. Others had gone all-out decorating their rooms, only to dismantle it all. His parents are coming Saturday to drive him home to Wilmington, N.C., he said, and he got tested for covid-19 Wednesday as a precaution.

He didn't think campus was safe, but two of his classes - Italian and a math - were being held in-person, so he had moved into the dorm. "It's really frustrating," he said. "I could have just stayed home."

- - -

The Washington Post's Nick Anderson contributed to this report.
Following the devastating blast in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, Senegal authorities have requested the removal of 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate from Darkar Port.

As per BBC reports, the amount of ammonium nitrate (the chemical that was responsible for the blast that occurred in the Lebanese capital) is almost as much as that present at the Beirut port at the time of the blast.

Read: Mali President Keita Faces Possible Deportation To Senegal After Coup: Report

Senegal careful not to repeat Lebanon's mistake

Senegalese officials have stated that the concerned ammonium nitrate pile is a large part of a 3,050 consignment that was meant to go to Mali. The owner of the ammonium nitrate shipment remains unknown and the purpose of the chemicals in Mali is also not known at this point.

About 350 tonnes of the inflammable chemical has already been removed with authorities trying to move the rest as soon as possible.

Read: Reward Offered In Denver Fire That Killed 5 From Senegal

As per reports, the ammonium nitrate will be moved to a warehouse in Diamniadio which is 30 km from Dakar, but Senegal's environment ministry is yet to approve the request as the site has not met all the requirements.

Ammonium Nitrate led to the explosion in Beruit which killed more than 200 people; the blast has been called the largest non-nuclear explosion in history. The blast also wounded 4,000 people and left at least 300,000 homeless. To make matters worse COVID-19 cases in Lebanon have spiked after the blast, forcing the Lebanese administration to impose a lockdown.

Shipping the chemical consignment to Mali currently poses great risk given the recent political turmoil in the African nation following the arrest of President Keita and Prime Minister Cisse in a military coup. A military Junta has now taken control of the country and forced the president to resign on national television. The latest updates suggest the Malian President could be deported to Senegal by the new military junta. The military coup in Mali has been condemned by several world leaders but celebrated by those who opposed President Keita.

Read: Senegal President Offers Condolences To Denver Fire Victims

Read: Eid Celebrations In Senegal Overshadowed By Coronavirus Pandemic
and small-time flower sellers in are crying foul over Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's directive to all to see that flowers from neighbouring states are not used for celebrations.

The harvest festival spread over 10 days will begin on Saturday and end on September 2.

During the festivities, flowers are much sought after to make floral carpets for decoration, be it at homes or offices.

Vijayan directed that people should use flowers available in their neighbourhoods and not rely on those from neighbouring states.

"There are about 6,000 in the state. It is a matter of our livelihood, especially during We are now told that there is a new directive. We wish to ask 'if flowers are a problem, is not relying on other states for fruits and vegetables?' This is not acceptable," a group of griped.

Incidentally, one of the biggest flower markets in Tamil Nadu is at Thovala, located about 20 km from the border. The economy of the Tamil Nadu town is heavily dependent on flower sales during the season in Kerala.

"What are we supposed to do? We know only this business of flowers, which we have been into for three decades. Covid-19 has hit us really bad. For more than three months, we remained indoors. Onam is one festival we were all waiting for. This is not fair, this ban order should not be implemented," said a woman selling flowers in the state capital.

A leading florists told IANS that there has been no supply of flowers from outside the state for four months, adding that they were looking forward to the Onam sales.

"For the past four months, I was disposing my flowers and flower petals by burying them in a pit. If we do not tend to plants by plucking flowers and pruning the plants, these tend to be destroyed. We are now looking for markets within the state. We do not know what will happen," said another florist.

--IANS

sg/tsb

(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.)
Captured on 19 August 2020, this Copernicus Sentinel-3 image shows the extent of the smoke from fires currently ablaze in California, US.



Amid the blistering heatwave, which is in its second week, there are around 40 separate wildfires across the state. Record high temperatures, strong winds and thunderstorms have created the dangerous conditions that have allowed fires to ignite and spread. The fires are so extreme in regions around the San Francisco Bay Area that thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate.

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Salt Lake City, Utah, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diagnosing respiratory illness associated with vaping has always been challenging. Adding the spread of COVID-19 and the many similarities in symptoms makes it even more difficult.



There are no tests for e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury, known by the acronym, EVALI, which has sickened 2,800 people and killed 68 Americans as of February. Physicians can only diagnose EVALI by first ruling out other conditions that its not, a task that is further complicated by patients not always disclosing that they vape.



While cases of EVALI have dropped since their peak in September 2019, they are now once again climbing, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made diagnosing the condition even more difficult since both illnesses share symptoms, but vital



EVALI is still happening, and on the rise again as people use vaping to cope with pandemic stress, said Denitza Blagev MD, a pulmonary medicine physician at Intermountain Healthcare. Its important for clinicians to keep EVALI in mind as they are considering COVID. EVALI has a different prognosis and therapies that we can use to treat these patients, as long as we can diagnose them.



This comes on the heels of a new study by researchers at Stanford University this week that found vaping is linked to a substantially increased risk of COVID-19 among teenagers and young adults, according to a new study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.



The study, which will be published online Aug. 11 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, is the first to examine connections between youth vaping and COVID-19 using U.S. population-based data collected during the pandemic.



The study found that among young people who were tested for the virus that causes COVID-19, the research found that those who vaped were five to seven times more likely to be infected than those who did not use e-cigarettes.



Patients who contract EVALI or COVID and suffer the same levels of respiratory failure tend to have divergent outcomes, said Sean J. Callahan, MD, assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at University of Utah Health. Patients with EVALI require a high level of oxygen, but still tend to do well, whereas someone with COVID needing the same level of oxygen support may not do as well. Getting the diagnosis right is vital.



In a new study published in the journal CHEST, researchers from Intermountain Healthcare and University of Utah Health looked at all patients diagnosed with EVALI at their institutions since March 2020, when COVID tests were readily available in Utah. They found a total of 12 people, who were diagnosed with EVALI who had a negative flu test and at least one negative COVID-19 test between March 1 and May 15.



They found that both illnesses showed similar symptoms: respiratory failure, gastrointestinal distress and/or ground glass opacities in the lungs.



Making accurate EVALI diagnoses even more difficult are patients who didnt admit that they vaped, even after being asked repeatedly. In some cases, clinicians didnt know someones true vaping history until well into the hospital course.



This is a situation in which youve got to ask the patient repeatedly and hope they eventually volunteer the truth, said Dr. Callahan. Its crucial for diagnosis.



Researchers did, however, find two important differences that can help differentiate between EVALI and COVID-19.



First, COVID-19 often leads to normal or low white blood cell counts, while 11 of the 12 EVALI patients showed an increased white blood cell count. Second, patients with severe EVALI tended to be young, with a mean age of 30.8 years old. While COVID-19 can severely affect younger adults, its relatively uncommon.



While treatments for COVID-19 are being evaluated, EVALI patients typically respond well to proven to established treatments, such as to corticosteroids. Drs. Blagev and Callahan said this is why physicians should consider EVALI when evaluating patients who test negative for COVID-19.



The risk of missing other diseases that can present with similar and non-specific symptoms, such as a cough or shortness of breath, remains during this time, said Dr. Blagev.



She said while its more challenging to diagnose in the time of COVID, EVALI remains an important diagnosis to consider in patients, particularly after an initial negative COVID test.



First, and foremost, its important to keep EVALI in mind because that diagnosis has different treatment and prognosis than COVID. Equally important during a pandemic is ruling out COVID before making the diagnosis of EVALI, she added.



###





Story continues

Intermountain Healthcare is a not-for-profit system of 24 hospitals, 215 clinics, a Medical Group with 2,500 employed physicians and advanced practice clinicians, a health insurance company called SelectHealth, and other health services in Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes and sustainable costs. For more information, see intermountainhealthcare.org.

CONTACT: Jess Gomez Intermountain Healthcare (801) 718-8495 jess.gomez@imail.org




Babycare retailer Mothercare UK has finalised a deal with Boots to sell goods across the chain in time for the autumn season.

Mothercare announced a new business model following talks with its franchisee.

Under the terms of the deal with Boots the pharmacy chain will become Mothercare's Ireland and UK franchise partner.

The agreement, which was first announced in December, allows for Mothercare clothing to be sold in all Boots shops across the two countries, while bigger items such as pushchairs and car seats will be sold in the larger Boots stores. The products will also be available to buy online.

The Boots deal had suffered a series of delays due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Mothercare - which last year put its UK stores into administration, closing all 79 of its shops - has also announced a new business model after talks with franchisees.

It said the new franchise arrangements would ensure a "more sustainable and less capital-intensive business model".

That model will see the group's franchise partners pay for products directly to the manufacturers.

Shares in Mothercare jumped in morning trading yesterday, rising as much as 18pc at one stage yesterday before settling around 7pc higher in London.

As well as the 10-year Boots deal, Mothercare said it had also struck a new 20-year franchise arrangement with Alshaya Group, its main franchise partner.

But Mothercare added that it still expects to take a 10m (11m) hit from the UK stores entering administration last November.

The administration left Mothercare refocused on simply providing branded products to retailers.

In June, the group was also dealt a blow when temporary boss Glyn Hughes said he did not want the job on a permanent basis.

His departure saw Mothercare led by the chief operating officer and chief financial officer, under the eye of chairman Clive Whiley.

Mothercare Ireland was placed into liquidation in June with the loss of 197 jobs after the directors said they could no longer see a viable future for the business.

Prior to that the company - which is a separate entity to Mothercare UK - had operated 14 stores across Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Dundalk, Galway, Limerick, Newbridge, Portlaoise, Sligo and Tralee.

The business had been operating in Ireland since 1992.

In 2018 sales in Ireland were 28.5m, generating a profit of 136,000.

Additional reporting: PA
Newlyweds: Stephanie McCarthy (right), her husband Jan Reichle, and Rose of Tralee Sinead Flanagan, at Maryborough House Hotel, Co Cork. PHOTO: Michael MacSweeney

Neither a pandemic nor Storm Ellen was going to spoil the big day for Cork Rose Stephanie McCarthy and her new husband, Jan Reichle.

Beautiful bride Stephanie, a pharmaceutical technology graduate from Frankfield, walked down the aisle in a small family ceremony at the Maryborough House Hotel in Cork.

The reigning Rose of Tralee, Sinead Flanagan from Limerick, was one of her bridesmaids.

As if the Covid-19 restrictions on guest numbers weren't enough, the wedding took place immediately after Storm Ellen, which hit Cork hard.

The newlyweds were thrilled when, after a morning of stormy winds and heavy rain, the skies brightened as they took their photos at the beautiful Douglas venue.

Stephanie and Jan got engaged last year after the mechanics firm director surprised her with a proposal while on holiday in Dubai.

Jan, whose family are German, was brought up in Cork and wanted to ensure Stephanie got the romantic engagement she had always dreamed of.

During a day trip to the desert, he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

"When he dropped down on one knee I thought he was after collapsing with the heat and dehydration," Stephanie joked.

"I could feel his hand shaking on my back."

The couple have been an item for five years and, after setting their wedding date, refused to allow the pandemic to spoil their plans.

Stephanie said the wedding was focused on family and close friends.

"It made us evaluate what was really important to us. We both wanted something positive to come out of this year."

The wedding was organised around an intimate guest list of 50, with Stephanie delighted that the reigning Rose of Tralee agreed to be one of her bridesmaids.

The bridesmaids were Sinead, Stephanie's twin sister Shauna, two of her best friends, and Jan's younger sister.

Jan, in turn, had five groomsmen.

"I met Sinead in June 2019, just after I was selected as the Cork Rose," Stephanie explained. She said they got on very well and became close friends during and after their Rose of Tralee involvement.

Such close friends, in fact, that after meeting extended family members, Sinead became friends with her twin sister, Shauna, and they now rent a house together in Cork, where they both work.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Bangkok, Thailand  Fri, August 21, 2020 11:30 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f7caa7 2 SE Asia Thailand,pro-democracy,protest,Monarchy,anti-government Free

Thai police Thursday arrested several more prominent activists involved in the kingdom's young pro-democracy movement, which is demanding an overhaul of the government and breaking taboos by calling for reforms to the monarchy.

The country has seen near-daily rallies for over a month, with some 20,000 turning out at the weekend to vent their anger at the military-aligned government and call for discussions about the royal family's role.

Overnight, police detained three key activists before taking five more into custody Thursday morning -- including two outspoken rap stars -- taking the total to 11 arrests.

Four further arrest warrants had been issued, police told reporters Thursday.

Those detained had "all joined the protest on 18 July," said Karoon Hosakul, an MP from the opposition Pheu Thai party, referring to a demonstration in Bangkok that kicked off the wave of rallies.

They face eight charges, including sedition, he confirmed.

All were later released on bail.

Dechatorn Bamrungmuang from Rap Against Dictatorship (RAD) and Thanayut Na Ayutthaya, better known as rapper "Elevenfinger", both performed on stage at the event.

RAD's track "What My Country's Got?" -- an indictment of military oppression -- has racked up more than 87 million views since its release ahead of last year's election.

The poll saw ex-army chief and mastermind of the 2014 coup Prayut Chan-O-Cha sweep to power.

But protesters say the vote was stacked in his favor thanks to a constitution scripted by the military in 2017.

They are demanding parliament be dissolved and the constitution rewritten.

Thursday's detentions came after the re-arrest late Wednesday of human rights lawyer Anon Numpa for his part in another protest on August 3.

He was one of the first activists to openly discuss reforming the monarchy.

The movement is calling for greater transparency of palace finances, and for a controversial royal defamation law -- which carries jail sentences of up to 15 years -- to be scrapped.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn is hugely powerful, supported by the arch-royalist military and the country's billionaire clans.

Since he ascended the throne in 2016 he has made unprecedented changes to the institution -- including amassing direct control of the palace's fortune, which is estimated to be worth up to $60 billion.

Many of Thailand's high school students have taken up the pro-democracy fight, tying white bows in their hair and on backpacks in solidarity with the cause.

So far no activists have been charged under lese-majeste laws, but their perceived affront to the monarchy has triggered several smaller counter-demonstrations by royalists.
HAVANA, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Cuba kicks off clinical trials next week of a potential coronavirus vaccine called "Soberana 01" ("Sovereign 01") developed by its state-run Finlay Institute, with results due in February, state-run media said on Wednesday.

The potential coronovirus vaccine will be delivered in two injections during the trials that will involve 676 people aged between 19 and 80 years and conclude on Jan. 11.

The Communist-run island prides itself on its biopharmaceutical industry, begun by former revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, which is also an important hard currency earner and already produces several vaccines.

Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russias sovereign wealth fund, told Cuban state news agency Prensa Latina that Cuba could even be one of the places it could choose to produce the vaccine from November onwards.

Authorities say their treatments for the new coronavirus have already helped it reduce mortality in sufferers.

They touted interferon long before other producers started hailing the merits of the decades-old antiviral agent that boosts immune system and say dozens of countries have expressed an interest in buying it.

The country of 11 million inhabitants has registered just a handful of deaths in the last few months, bringing the total to 88 deaths for 3,482 confirmed cases since the start of its outbreak in March.

Cuba has handled its outbreak in textbook fashion through contact tracing and isolation of potential asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, although cases have risen in recent weeks since it eased lockdown restrictions in the capital, prompting it to tighten them once more. (Reporting by Nelson Acosta Writing by Sarah Marsh Editing by Marguerita Choy)
The ex-lover of Juan Carlos, the disgraced former king of Spain, has described his decision to transfer 65m to her as an "enormously generous gift", dismissing claims of money laundering.

Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein told the BBC that the 82-year-old royal had given her the money as "recognition of how much I meant to him", and out of "gratitude for looking after him during his absolutely worst moments". Ms Sayn-Wittgenstein, a 55-year-old businesswoman, became the king's mistress in 2004.

A Swiss court has placed the transfer, which took place in 2012, under investigation for alleged money laundering.

Juan Carlos has not spoken publicly about the transfer but the London-based Daily Telegraph has seen a document from the Geneva investigation in which he also claims it was a gift that he had no intention of seeking back.

The former king wrote to his Swiss lawyer that the "donation agreed to by me in 2012 to Madame Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was irrevocable".

In the signed letter, dated August 12, 2018, Juan Carlos adds that he has not received any part of the money in return, "and nor have I ever requested it".

In her interview with the BBC, Ms zu Sayn-Wittgenstein said that in 2014 Juan Carlos had in fact demanded that she return the sum - but she put it down to him being angry that she did not wish to resume a relationship she said had ceased to be romantic in 2009.

"At some point he realised I wasn't going to return, and he went completely ballistic. He asked for everything back. I think it was just a tantrum he threw."

Yves Bertossa, the Swiss prosecutor, launched his investigation in the summer of 2018 after the publication in the Spanish media of tapes in which Ms zu Sayn-Wittgenstein describes how the former king had property registered under her ownership, before later asking her to hand it over to him.

Juan Carlos, who abdicated in 2014, left Spain because of the scandal earlier this month and is currently residing in Abu Dhabi.

He had been largely untouchable due to his role as head of state in Spain's peaceful transition to democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Juan Carlos had also faced down an attempted coup in 1981.
In the 1950s, I fought with my father over a number of controversial issues, he the conservative and I the blooming liberal. In the 1960s, I went to college and stayed for a decade. That set my mind for a while. I became a professor, which required a certain trendy outlook.

I voted for Goldwater because I didn't trust FDR/LBJ. I voted against Nixon twice and for Carter twice. I hated Nixon with a fury. I used to repeat what Nixon's mother said: "He was the best potato masher one could wish for." Later in life, I changed my mind quite a bit about Nixon and changed it even more quickly about Carter. I never changed my mind about LBJ. I was heavily influenced by Iran's reaction to Reagan becoming president and his regulatory pushback.

In the early 1980s, it dawned on me that big government was the problem, not the answer. My non-menu Catholic upbringing kicked in, and I started teaching market economics instead of government economics. My research delved into deregulation. I returned to my roots and discovered that my father was really just an older version of me in many ways. From about 1957 to 1982, I was encased in a moderate left bubble.

My generation failed miserably by sitting back and letting America incrementally slide downhill at an ever rapid rate. I thought Marxist economics was dead, dead, and dead. But as Gene Wilder said: "It's alive!" The antidote was applied in 2016, much too late. The Marxist virus is powerful. To kill it completely requires an upcoming four-year injection and, after that, additional four-year doses for at least several four-year periods beyond.

As long as lawyers exist, some will claim that the Constitution requires equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. Every time this argument shows up in court, it has to be knocked down, or the virus will continue to be viable.

Some people believe we ought to have an open mind on all things new and old. I say that if you haven't formed your world view at age 40, you will simply drift around, trying on one trendy idea floating in the wind after another for the rest of your life. For example, some of you probably think "Imagine" is a beautiful, inspirational song. It is played at funerals, I imagine.

I believe there is truth for the ages  foundational truth, not something cooked up at the moment. This doesn't mean you shouldn't think and evaluate what is new. But if you have no foundation, you won't be able to assess whether the new has value or even whether it is new at all. You'll just have a mushy opinion.

How do you build a foundation? It comes from the basics of history, art, music, economics, literature, math, and science. If you don't know Mozart, Monet, Milton Friedman, War and Peace, Buddy Holly, Thomas Sowell, a bit of algebra, the Bell Curve, All the King's Men, how a drug trial works, where the Hail Mary comes from in Luke's Gospel, and George Washington's place in America, to name a few basics of Western civilization, your mind will be a desert. I've often wondered why Mozart is not played at lunch in our schools.

We ought to have a sport in our youth and one as we grow old. We need good friends and people of like minds to talk to over food and drink. We need to be friends and have polite discussions with those who have opposing views. We need to be tolerant Americans, not a nation of warring tribes. And we need to agree that tolerance is not the same as acquiescence.

Christopher Garbacz made up his mind a while back and is much at ease.

Image: Collage. On the left, Anti-Vietnam war protest and demonstration in front of the White House, by Leffler, Warren K. and O'Halloran, Thomas J., Library of Congress, no known restrictions on publication; on the right, Andrea Widburg's collection.
DNC2020 Sen. Tammy Duckworth

During the final night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth dug into President Donald Trump's performance as commander-in-chief while speaking about the sacrifices of U.S. military families.

Duckworth, who lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee in 2004 while serving in Iraq when her helicopter was shot down, spoke in support of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and honored his late son Beau's own military service in Iraq as a U.S. Army major.

"Joe knows the fear military families live because he's felt that dread of never knowing if your deployed loved one is safe," the Illinois lawmaker, 52, said from Washington D.C., in view of the U.S. Capitol building. "He had to muster that same strength every hour of every day Beau was overseas."

Upon returning from service, Beau later became the attorney general of Delaware. He died at age 46 in 2015 from brain cancer.

"Unlike Trump," said Duckworth, who introduced Biden's son in 2008 before he spoke at that year's Democratic National Convention. "Joe Biden has common decency. He has common sense."

Duckworth also challenged Trump's decision to use U.S. military police to clear peaceful protesters who gathered outside the White House in early June, after which he strolled across neighboring Lafayette Square and posed for a photo-op with a Bible outside a nearby church.

Biden "would never pervert our own military to stroke his own ego," the senator said, adding that the Democratic nominee "would never turn his back on our troops or threaten them against Americans peacefully exercising their Constitutional rights."

"Donald Trump doesn't deserve to call himself commander-in-chief for another four minutes, let alone another four years," she said. "Our troops deserve better. Our country deserves better."

Story continues

RELATED: Billie Eilish Says Trump Is 'Destroying Our Country and Everything We Care About' in DNC Remarks

Seth Perlman/AP Sen. Tammy Duckworth

Biden accepted the Democratic Party's nomination on Tuesday and will join running mate Sen. Kamala Harris on the party's 2020 ticket this November against Trump, the Republican incumbent.

Duckworth saw her political profile rise this summer during the Biden campaign's months-long vice presidential decision, in which she was named a finalist. She also came under the national spotlight in part because of a number of clashes with conservatives over policies and rhetoric surrounding the militaryincluding Trump.

RELATED: Tammy Duckworth Just Became the First Sitting Senator to Have a Baby While in Office

Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Sen. Tammy Duckworth

Fox News host Tucker Carlson faced backlash in July after he questioned Duckworth's patriotism and called her a "moron" after the Iraq War veteran told CNN that she believes it's worth "having a national dialogue" about possibly removing a statue of former President George Washington. (Washington owned hundreds of slaves, according to the National Archives.)

Duckworth's initial remarks came amid nationwide protests over racial injustice this summer, which also included the removal and renaming of a number of monuments previously in honor of Confederate military men and American figures who owned slaves.

After Carlson's comments drew bipartisan criticism, Duckworth, a Purple Heart recipient, pointed out on social media that her family's military service dates back to the American Revolution.

Previously, Trump's campaign accused Duckworth of using "her military service to deflect from her support for the left-wing campaign to villainize America's founding," according to CNN.

In contrast, Biden called Carlson's comments "disgusting" and "sickening," according to the New York Times.
Carter Hamilton Holland, 24, died on August 15, 2020, at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, from cardiac arrest.

With music as his first love, Carters talent was only surpassed by his kindness, unconditional love for his wide circle of friends, wry wit and calm dignity as the embodiment of a true Southern gentleman.

A graduate of St. Stephens & St. Agnes School in Alexandria, Carter was a Lifer having started his schooling there in kindergarten. At SSSAS he excelled on the cross country team and the orchestra. During those years he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and was honored with the Great Son award from Alpine Camp for Boys in Mentone, Alabama. Carter received a degree in English from the College of Charleston.

Carter shared his musical talents as a composer and multi-instrumentalist in a Charleston band and at garden parties to support Historic Alexandria Foundation. He launched his career path at the IOn Club in SC and Potomack Company Auctions in Alexandria before becoming a journalist for Law Street Media in Washington, D.C., following in the career footsteps of his father.

Carter and Hamilton are family surnames, and as the only grandchild on one side of his family he was amused when referred to as the heir by his grandparents friends. He delighted in the historic atmosphere of his Old Town Alexandria hometown and Charleston, and he was a member of The Order of the First Families of Virginia and the Huguenot Society of South Carolina.

The source of Carters greatest happiness were his family and friends and especially the times he spent with his extended relatives at the familys rural mountain compound on the Little River in Mentone, Alabama and at Kiawah, SC. He loved his cat Tommy.

Carter is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Steven Asbury Holland (Lucie Howard Stephens) of Alexandria; grandmother, Mrs. Gerry Underwood Stephens of Chattanooga; grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Donald R. Worley (Mary Frances Beane Holland) of Chattanooga; aunt, Allison Ward Stephens and uncles, Gerry U. Stephens, Jr. and A.W. Holland III of Chattanooga and numerous beloved cousins.

A Service for the Celebration and Thanksgiving for Carters life will be held at the Virginia Theological Seminary on Aug. 22, and he will be laid to rest in a private family ceremony in Chattanooga.

Memorial contributions may be made to St. Pauls Episcopal Church in Alexandria, College of Charleston departments of Music or English and Mentone Educational Resources Foundation (Alabama).
In a virtual news conference from the organization's Copenhagen office, the WHO Europe's senior emergency official Catherine Smallwood said there have been several direct discussions between Russia's teams and the WHO's pre-qualification colleagues, primarily on how the organization is going to assess the potential vaccine.

The World Health Organization's Europe office said it has begun discussions with Russia regarding the COVID-19 vaccine that the nation approved last week without the advanced trials normally required to prove a vaccine works.

The WHO Europe's regional director, Hans Kluge, said that while any potential vaccine is good news, all must go through the same vigorous assessments. Smallwood added "This concern that we have around safety and efficacy is not specifically for the Russia vaccine, it's for all of the vaccines under development."

Smallwood acknowledged that the WHO was taking an "accelerated approach" to try to speed development of coronavirus vaccines but said "it's essential we don't cut corners in safety or efficacy."

Kluge cautioned that even once a vaccine or vaccines are approved, that will not be the end of the pandemic. "The end of the pandemic will be the day when everyone of us will take the responsibility and have been learning how to behave with the virus. And that depends on us, that day can even be tomorrow."
will offer free, universal testing to its residents starting September 1.

The testing program, which will last a maximum of two weeks, is on a voluntary basis.

leader Carrie Lam said that universal testing was possible due to support from Beijing, which provided resources such as laboratory staff to boost capacity in the semi-autonomous city.

The program is aimed at identifying individuals who are infected but have exhibited no symptoms. The city, with a population of 7.5 million, has conducted over 1.2 million tests so far.

Critics of the universal testing program say that there may be potential privacy concerns, given that the program is supported by the Chinese Communist Party.

Lam brushed aside such concerns, stating that no matter what the government did, there will always be people who come up with conspiracy theories.

(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.)
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

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As India records highest recoveries, research talks about when it will hit Covid-19 peak

India touched another peak of the highest recoveries of Covid-19 cases in a single day on Friday as 62,282 patients recovered and were discharged in the past 24 hours, according to Union health ministry. Read more

Amid political row in India, Facebook says it is open, transparent and non-partisan

Social media giant Facebook, which is in the midst of a political row in India, has said that it is an open, transparent and non-partisan organisation. Read more

IPL 2020: Lasith Malinga likely to miss first few games for Mumbai Indians

Lasith Malinga is reportedly set to miss the first few games of the IPL 2020 for Mumbai Indians and will not be travelling with the team that takes off for the UAE. Read more

Sushant Singh Rajputs family lawyer on Kangana Ranaut: She is on her own trip, trying to settle her own scores

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Lenovo India CEO on how Legion gaming laptops appeal to non-gaming users

Gaming laptops are just for gaming enthusiasts. Yes and no, both. Most of these devices come with cutting-edge technologies and top-of-the-line specifications. Read more

Catwalk: Pet clothing designer inspired by ancient Chinese fashion makes Hanfu for cats

Liu Liu is every fashion designers dream model and muse, and shes happy to spend hours getting herself measured and dressed in various outfits, and then posing for photoshoots thereafter. Read more

Kia Sonet off to a flying start, gets 6,523 bookings on opening day

Kia Sonet has managed to get as many as 6,523 bookings on the first day that pre-launch bookings were opened on Thursday. Read more

Covid: Kejriwal hands over 1 cr to family of MCD worker who died from virus

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal handed over a cheque of 1 crore to the family of sanitation worker who died due after contracted coronavirus. Read more
Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, remains in a coma in intensive care after a suspected poisoning his allies link to his political activity and believe was engineered by the Kremlin

Russian doctors treating opposition politician Alexei Navalny say they haven't found any indication that the Kremlin critic was poisoned.

Deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko at Omsk hospital says that as of today, no traces of poison were found in Navalnys body. Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh posted a video on Twitter of Kalinichenko speaking.

"Poisoning as a diagnosis remains on the back burner, but we dont believe that the patient suffered from poisoning," Kalinichenko told reporters on Friday.

Kalinichenko added that the diagnosis have been determined and relayed to Navalnys family members. He refused to reveal it to reporters, citing a law preventing medical workers from disclosing confidential patient information.

Earlier Friday, Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov said police found traces of a dangerous poisonous substance in the politicians system, but didn't say which one. Police officials didnt confirm that.

Earlier in the day, Russian doctors had refused to authorise Navalny's transfer to a German hospital from the Siberian city of Omsk.

Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, remains in a coma in intensive care after a suspected poisoning his allies link to his political activity and believe was engineered by the Kremlin.

"The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Familys decision to transfer him is not enough," Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted. Omsk is about 4,200 kilometers (2,500 miles) east of Berlin, roughly a six-hour flight.

The 44-year-old Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. His team says a plane with all the necessary equipment is waiting at Omsk airport to take Navalny to a German clinic.

Navalnys ally Ivan Zhdanov said Friday that police found "a very dangerous substance" in Navalnys system, but officials refuse to disclose which substance it is. Police officials didn't confirm it, saying that forensic testing is still ongoing.

Alexander Murakhovsky, chief doctor of the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1 where the politician is being treated, told reporters on Friday that Navalny's condition "somewhat improved," but he wasn't stable enough for a transfer. Murakhovsky said doctors were still working on determining a diagnosis.

Yarmysh also said in her tweet that "the ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life."

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalnys Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russias ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russias Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the regions governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.
(LOS ANGELES) - StandWithUs announces the launch of its new division, Rabbis United. Rabbis United will enable StandWithUs to connect more closely with rabbis and other Jewish community leaders and their congregations from a variety of denominations and backgrounds in cities around the world.

The newest division of StandWithUs will ensure that rabbis and Jewish community leaders have access to community-building tools, including:

 A multimedia library of educational materials, programs, speakers, and virtual tours to strengthen their communities' connection to Israel

 Access to free...
Joe Bidens speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination last night went down a storm with the party faithful  and even drew praise from Republican commentators not known for praising the other side.

Fox Newss Chris Wallace, who recently interviewed Donald Trump in an encounter that many considered disastrous for the president, concluded that after such a successful turn, Mr Trumps attempts to frame Mr Biden as a senile joke were clearly unlikely to work.

Yes, Biden was reading from a teleprompter, and a prepared speech, but I thought he blew a hole, a big hole in that characterisation.

Referring to the line that character is on the ballot, Mr Wallace waxed on.

He talked about a different path for the country. Not in a deep programmatic sense, but he did talk about plans, from the virus and the economy, for climate change and race and foreign policy. And he talked about what a united America can do to accomplish all of those things.

Recommended Boy with stutter shares advice Joe Biden gave and wins over viewers

It seems to me that after tonight, Donald Trump is going to have to run against a candidate, not a caricature.

Also giving Mr Biden a good review was Dana Perino, a former press secretary to George W Bush and now a Fox News commentator. Joe Biden just hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth, she said.

He had pace, rhythm, energy, emotion, and delivery. So I think if he looks back, hes gotta say thats the best speech of his life. And he really just took the moment, and I love that.

Less enamoured at first was staunchly pro-Trump Laura Ingraham, who live-tweeted the speech with complaints about policy substance, Mr Biden and Barack Obamas attitude at the Trump inauguration, and Mr Bidens diagnosis of social problems.

We are a good and decent people?? she wrote. He just said that the country is marked by systemic racism. Did anyone edit this speech?

Yet even she conceded onscreen later that night that Mr Biden did beat expectations  this during a discussion with no less than the presidents son, Donald Jr. I mean, people were expecting him to flub every line and have a senior moment.

Others in the networks high-profile roster kept quiet. Sean Hannity left the speech untouched, despite having hosted a lengthy live phonecall with the president earlier the same night in which Mr Trump claimed nonspecifically that there is something wrong with Joe Biden.

Also silent was South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime colleague of Mr Bidens who has become one of Mr Trumps most aggressive defenders in Washington  despite having not voted for the president in 2016, instead calling him a race baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.

Mr Graham delivered his verdict on many of the conventions lead speakers throughout the week on Twitter, writing that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton give sore losers a bad name, that radical left-wingers are pulling the Democrats strings, and that the Obama administration left the US in a dire mess. Many of his harsh messages throughout the week have been retweeted by Donald Trump.

However, he did praise Jill Biden as an outstanding person who has led a consequential life  and on the Democratic nominees headline speech, he held fire completely.
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Thousands of students are back at Texas A&M University System campuses in Corpus Christi and Laredo, places that have logged some of the countrys highest rates of coronavirus cases.

The growth of cases per capita in Nueces County, home to Corpus Christi, and Webb County, which includes Laredo, has far surpassed Bexar Countys, state data shows. But the A&M schools in those cities are offering considerably more in-person classes than their sister university in San Antonio.

Faculty from all three, along with Texas A&M University-Kingsville, have called the classroom reopenings premature. The A&M System has remained committed to back-to-campus plans formed over the summer, even as some universities across the country curtailed or halted even limited classroom openings.

Nueces County had 38 coronavirus cases per 1,000 residents on Tuesday, while Webb County had 36.7 per 1,000, Texas Department of State Health Services data show. Bexar County had fewer than 18 cases per 1,000.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

The daily numbers of new cases hit alarming levels in Nueces and Webb counties in August but have been on a downward trend in recent days.

A&M-Corpus Christi opened last week with 34 percent of fall courses fully online, 53 percent in a hybrid model that includes some in-person instruction, and 13 percent fully in-person, university spokeswoman Luisa Buttler said.

A&M International in Laredo started Monday with only 18 percent of classes fully online. Most were set up as a hybrid of in-person and online, university spokesman Steve Harmon said.

By contrast, no more than 30 percent of A&M-San Antonios classes will be taught in person, including some hybrid arrangements, with the rest fully online. The school started its fall semester Thursday.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

On ExpressNews.com: Profs say adjunct instructors are hostages in A&M-San Antonio reopening plan

Professors from the San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Laredo schools said in interviews that they believe their presidents were under considerable unofficial pressure to find a way to reopen.

A&M-Corpus Christi President Kelly Miller said system officials have been collaborative, not pressuring.

Its a very reassuring thing to be part of the system right now because you have the wisdom of the A&M System and a lot of other presidents and talk through things collectively, she said.

Miller will be in the classroom herself  teaching advanced public speaking  partly to set an example and show how important it is. Therell be 15 students in a room that usually seats 150 and everyone will have a bottle of sanitizer, she said.

We walked every single classroom and counted and measured and thought how many people can we fit and how can we adjust the schedule so we can keep the safe environment, Miller said.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

The usual excitement at the start of the semester has been replaced with worry, A&M-Corpus Christi political science Professor Carlos Huerta said.

He posted pictures to Twitter of his classrooms before students arrived  trash bags over seats designated as unoccupied, plexiglass shields in front of each table  and a first day selfie in his new uniform: a blue mask emblazoned with the universitys logo and a face shield provided by his department.

Huerta will teach close to 150 students this fall in hybrid courses. The students have been divided and assigned different days to report to class in person to keep them from crowding the classroom.

Part of me was always under the assumption that if the situation were really bad in the community, that there would be reconsideration of the plans, Huerta said. We made these plans with different information and with different assumptions about what it was going to be like.

He was one of more than 900 faculty and staff members from four A&M schools in South Texas to sign an open letter to the system chancellor and regents last week asking that the decision to reopen physically be left to individual campuses.

Pablo Arenaz, president of A&M International, said he was a little surprised to see his faculty among the signers. In the spring, he created five committees on fall reopening that each included faculty, staff and students. Their work was released to the university community in mid-July. He hosted two discussions with faculty, before and after the plans release, and each drew nearly 70 participants, he said.

The Laredo signers of the letter seemed oblivious to what wed been doing for the last five months, Arenaz said.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox

He acknowledged his faculty might have thought the plan would change if the coronavirus situation in Webb County reached the point it has. Like others, Arenaz anticipated Laredos numbers would be better by now, he said, but hes still comfortable with starting the semester under current protocols, and the university has contingency plans if it gets worse.

You can never take the probability down to zero. But I think weve done enough here on this campus to try to mitigate and minimize exposure, Arenaz said.

The regents chairwoman, Elaine Mendoza, and Chancellor John Sharp issued a statement last week saying university presidents customized their plans to fit the circumstances and needs of their campuses, emphasizing safety and providing for testing and tracing.

The systems vice chancellor for academic affairs, James Hallmark, included the statement in a presentation to regents Thursday, saying it frames our commitment to being open and hopefully remaining open.

He expects to see clusters of cases throughout the systems 11 institutions, but each campus has plans to identify people who had contact with those who test positive, to avoid closing entire campuses or even classes.

Its really the students who are right around that individual in a classroom. So a sort of level of specificity is very important because we want to isolate those individuals, but not shut down an entire class unless there is a known spread in that class or in that residence hall or wherever it might be, Hallmark said.

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina praised A&M International for its close collaboration with local leaders and health experts. He expressed confidence in the health and safety protocols the university has planned but said he worries about whether students will adhere to social distancing guidelines in gatherings outside the classroom.

Tijerina said hed rather A&M International go fully online for at least the first six weeks. He pointed to the quick closure last week of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana after more than 100 new cases were reported, most of which could be traced to a single off-campus gathering.

My gut feeling is, if students do their part, it will stay open, but if history is showing us what its showing us, as soon as they get in there and they start a party and whatnot, and start gathering in the apartments and dorms, and start thinking theyre invincible  its going to be a situation and well start getting more numbers, Tijerina said.

Students at the Laredo campus are required to take back-to-school training and sign a pledge to wear masks, keep their social distance and refrain from activities that put them at risk of exposure.

At this point, Im very comfortable with the plan that we put in place, Arenaz 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
It was inaction on health care that ultimately made Dr. Al Gross of Juneau decide to challenge Republican Dan Sullivan, who is running for a second, six-year term to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate.

Gross, who has opted for the Independent ticket, has fished his whole life, his four kids have fished to pay for college, and he left a 20 year career as an orthopedic surgeon to get a degree to go to work in public health.

His campaign claims Dr. Gross has the "Prescription for Change."

"As a doctor, I stepped up and proposed a means of fishermen obtaining affordable health care, which I...
A German university is giving out scholarships in idleness to people who want to do as little as possible.

Researchers at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg are searching for people to take part in a project examining laziness and lack of ambition.

Three 1,600 (1,450) scholarships will go to applicants who successfully convince academics they will do absolutely nothing in a particularly interesting way.

The application form asks potential idlers what do you not want to do? and why is it important not to do this thing in particular?

Professor Friedrich von Borries, who designed the project, believes laziness should be studied more closely to help bring about an eco-social transformation. It is about exiting the constant success spiral, getting off lifes hamster wheel, he said.

Applicants from across Germany are invited to submit their pitches on their plans for active inactivity before the September 15 deadline.

If we want to live in a society that consumes less energy, wastes fewer resources, this is not the right system of values, Professor von Borries told Germanys Deutsche Welle broadcaster.

Wouldnt it be nicer to gain social prestige by saying, I have time to dream meet friends, put up my feet  I have time to do nothing?

However, some Germans have been sceptical of the project. Professor von Borries said Germanys Taxpayers Association have questioned the idea and demanded to know who is financing the experiment.

The project is of a planned exhibition called School of Inconsequentiality: Towards A Better Life planned at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg next year.
Evidence is emerging worldwide showing between 20 and 50 per cent of people who have never been exposed to COVID-19 have immune cells that can recognise and react to the virus.

The discovery of T cell cross-reactivity has excited immunologists, who hope it could explain some of the mysteries that surround the virus, such as why some people get so much sicker than others.

But scientists caution that it is not yet clear what the discovery means for human health.

An electron microscope image shows the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (yellow) emerging from the surface of cells (pink) cultured in a US National Institutes of Health lab. Credit:AP

Australian National University's head of immunology and infectious diseases, Professor David Tscharke, said: "It's the good, the bad and the ugly  it could help, it could do nothing, or it could make COVID-19 worse."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she is "seeking dialogue" with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko after the EU rejected the country's election results.



Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, was re-elected after winning 80 percent of the vote, but demonstrators and critics believe the election was rigged.



On Wednesday Charles Michel, President of the European Council, said the bloc didn't recognise Lukashenko's victory and would impose sanctions on key figures within the Belarus government.



Merkel has now revealed she wants to speak directly to the Belarusian leader, after speaking at a joint news conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.



"President Lukashenko has not yet spoken to anyone on the phone, but we are seeking dialogue, and we will of course insist on certain things. That means release of prisoners, not violence, freedom of expression, freedom of demonstration,"CGTN cited her as saying.
New Delhi: There was no change in the condition of former President Pranab Mukherjee and he remains haemodynamically stable and on ventilatory support, the hospital said Friday.

Doctors attending to him said his vital parameters are being maintained.

Mukherjee was admitted to the Army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated for removal of a clot in the brain.

He was also tested positive for COVID-19. Thereafter, he developed a lung infection and is being treated for the same. His health parameters are being closely monitored by a team of specialists at the hospital.

"The medical condition of Shri Pranab Mukherjee remains the same. He is being treated for lung infection and continues to be on ventilatory support. His vital parameters are being maintained and he is haemodynamically stable," the hospital said in a statement.
On Monday, the Republican National Convention opens four nights devoted to championing President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. This election, with the oldest presidential candidates in history  Trump is 74, Democrat Joe Biden, 77  makes running mates more important than ever.

Pence has been No. 2 for nearly four years and in government for decades, but how much do you know about the man a heartbeat away from the top job in the land? Take our political trivia quiz below. And, if you missed this past weeks Democratic Veep quiz, test your Kamala-Q at: richmond.com/opinion
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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 22 2020

Antigraft and human rights activists have raised concerns over the government's use of social media "influencers" to promote its policies, demanding transparency over the partnership amid fears that it could be misused to sway public opinion on problematic issues.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Egi Primayogha said ministries and state institutions under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration often involved the so-called influencers for governmental purposes, including to promote programs and public policies.

The latest research by ICW  conducted by compiling publicly available data  found that the government had spent at least Rp 90.4 billion (US$6.1 million) on goods and services procurement containing the keywords "influencers" and "key opinion leaders" from 2017 until this year.

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H olidaymakers returning to face a fortnight of quarantine in the UK could be coming home to towns or cities with higher coronavirus rates than the places they have left.

The Governments threshold for considering quarantine measures is when a country records a seven-day rate of more than 20 cases per 100,000 people.

But a number of local authority areas in England now have much higher rates than that.

The latest figures on Thursday showed that Oldham in Greater Manchester, which is already subject to restrictive measures on households being able to meet, had a rate of 78.9 per 100,000 people.

Northampton is almost level on 78.4, while Blackburn with Darwen is third, where the rate has fallen from 81.5 to 67.5.

In Leicester, which was subject to the UKs first local lockdown, the rate continues to fall, but was still at 52.5.

The coronavirus R value in the UK as a whole has meanwhile risen to between 0.9 to 1.1, according to new figures.

The reproduction numbers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) suggest there is a risk that the overall coronavirus epidemic in the UK is growing, Government scientists said.

Coronavirus R rate could be as high as 1.1 in UK

According to the Croatian Government the rate of confirmed cases in Dubrovnik was 16.5 per 100,000  well below the countrys overall rate as indicated by the UKs Department for Transport this week of 27.4 per 100,000.

The countrys rate had risen to 31.4 by Friday.

In the seven days to August 17, the rate of confirmed cases in Zagreb was 37.9 per 100,000.

Croatias ambassador to the UK said he regretted that British officials had not taken a regional approach, instead of enforcing a quarantine for people returning from any part of the country.

Igor Pokaz told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: In Croatia we have, as I said, witnessed these spikes in certain areas  for example in Zagreb in the capital and maybe among the young population.

But in Dubrovnik, its surroundings and the islands there were very, very few cases. And I deliberately mention Dubrovnik and the islands as that is where most of the British tourists go. 

Austrias latest rate was 21.2 new cases per 100,000 people, up from 11.8 in the previous seven days.

Grant Shapps says it's 'quite difficult' to set quarantine rules for regions

Trinidad & Tobago, which was named alongside Austria and Croatia regarding quarantine measures on Thursday, meanwhile had a rate of 26.0 per 100,000, up from 13.9.

The rates in Spain and France, which are both also subject to quarantine for returning travellers, are 86.4 and 30.5 respectively.

Spains rate has risen from 58.5, indicating UK sunseekers might face quarantine if travelling there for a while to come.

Portugal, which was moved on to the UKs safe list on Thursday, has a latest rate of 14.1, down slightly from 14.5.

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The UKs latest rate for the seven days to August 20 was 11 cases per 100,000 people.
Orion Global Solutions LLC Named to the 2020 Inc. 5000 List of Americas Fastest-Growing Private Companies Orion is honored to be named to the 2020 Inc. 5000 List of America's Fastest-Growing Private Companies. We take great pride in the team's accomplishments over the past 5 years including how everyone stepped up through the current challenges to support our clients and community.

Inc. magazine revealed last week that Orion Global Solutions LLC is No. 798 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

We are honored to be on this list with so many prestigious companies, especially as we celebrate our 5-year anniversary, said Yacov Wrocherinsky, Founder and CEO of Orion. Growth has been part of our DNA from day-one! We continue to build the best team of professionals in the industry, working together for the common cause, focused on relentless innovation for our customers and community.

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

In times like this, our commitment to serve our customers is more important than ever. I am so proud of the strong relationships the Orion team has developed, which accelerated our growth, said Dan Farrugia, Vice President, Professional Services at Orion. We are trailblazers, and proud to be one of the fastest growing partners in the Salesforce ecosystem while maintaining a customer satisfaction index of 9.8 for the past 4 years!

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.

About Orion:

Orion Global Solutions, LLC is a boutique technology advisory and implementation firm and Salesforce Consulting Partner in the New York Metro area. Orions experienced advisors, consultants, and solution architects work closely with medium size firms and enterprise divisions. Orion is headquartered in NYC with a regional office in Atlanta, GA. Orions Salesforce Certified consultants have over 50 Salesforce certifications and accreditations and has completed hundreds of successful Salesforce implementations for Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Financial and Services clients.

Orion participates in Pledge 1% by delivering pro-bono advisory and technical work to several non-profits and volunteering for a host of organizations. Orion also has a commitment to sustainability as one of the first Salesforce Sustainability Cloud customers and the only implementation partner on the East Coast.

Orions leadership are active members in national and global organizations including YPO, Strategic Forum, and Forbes Business Development Council.

CONTACT:

Ellen Williams

orionpr@orion-gs.com

https://www.orion-gs.com/

https://corporateearthbalance.com/

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue.

About Inc. Media

The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multi-platform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc.
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.
EFCC begins a manhunt for 46-year-old Nigerien scammer who allegedly duped the Nigerian Army to the tune of over $394million (N152, 315, 803, 981), Euro9.9million (N4, 539, 509, 271) and N369million.

Nigerias Anti-Graft Agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has launched a manhunt for a foreigner, 46-year-old Nigerien Aboubakar Hima who allegedly scammed the Nigerian Army to the tune of N157 billion over supplies of military wares.

The EFCC said that its men are out with a Wanted Person poster for the military contractor who allegedly defrauded the Nigerian Army in an equipment-supply contract worth over N157, 224, 313, 252.

According to the poster issued by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the suspect identified as Aboubakar Hima is wanted in a case of criminal conspiracy contract scam, misappropriation of public funds, money laundering and fraud to the tune of over $394million (N152, 315, 803, 981), Euro9.9million (N4, 539, 509, 271) and N369million.

Tony Orilade, the EFCC spokesman further stated on the poster: The suspect, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Societe DEquipment Internationaux, SEI, is alleged to have received the sums for the purchase of equipment for the Nigerian Military. However, investigations have revealed discrepancies in the supply of the equipment.

Having failed to honour invitations from the Commission, Hima is currently evading investigation, thus the need to declare him wanted.

Hima was described as a 46-year-old Nigerian citizen who speaks French and Hausa languages fluently but has limited English proficiency. His last known address is Block A, Flat 3, No 5 Sapele Street, Garki II, Abuja.
State government officials plan to track and publicly report confirmed cases of COVID-19 tied to public schools, the Texas Education Agency and Department of State Health Services announced Thursday.

In a joint statement, the two agencies said they are developing a reporting system for school districts that will allow the Department of State Health Services to publish information on cases and outbreaks beginning sometime in September.

Data on the number of cases in schools is of paramount interest to parents, students, teachers, staff, public health experts, policymakers and the larger community, the agencies said in their statement. This information will be submitted to DSHS any time there is a positive case in a campus community.

State officials did not specify what data they will publish, including whether they will name specific schools with confirmed on-campus cases. In Michigan, state health leaders drew some criticism this week after posting the number of confirmed school-based cases on a regional basis, but not identifying campuses.

TEA is collaborating with superintendents on the reporting process and will finalize it in the coming days, the statement read.

The announcement comes as a small percentage of Texas public school districts begin resuming some in-person classes to start the 2020-21 academic year. Among Houstons larger school districts, only Humble ISD has formally started face-to-face classes, welcoming back some students with disabilities Monday.

Humble and Lamar CISD plan to bring back all students who chose in-person classes starting next week, while several districts expect to phase in face-to-face instruction starting Aug. 31. Cy-Fair ISD, Katy ISD and several other districts plan to begin in-person classes during the week after Labor Day.

Houston ISD will not reopen campuses until mid-October at the earliest, and Alief and Fort Bend ISDs have announced they will remain online-only indefinitely.

Calls for increased tracking of school-based cases of potential COVID-19 exposure have increased as districts across the country that resumed face-to-face instruction started reporting potential outbreaks. In dozens of districts, a smattering of schools have briefly closed or a small percentage of children are in quarantine after a student or staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

Some Houston-area parents were notified in August that an individual with a confirmed COVID-19 case was present at two school-affiliated locations: Cy-Fair ISDs Andre Learning Center and Spring Branch ISDs The Zebra Zone School.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com
Five more migrants risked their lives in gale-force winds to cross the channel as Storm Ellen battered the UK - taking the total to arrive this year to more than 5,000 with 'at least 13' migrants going on hunger strike over a plan to deport them.

Waves of up to nine feet (2.7 metres) high are predicted to hit the channel today by the Met Office and, together with strong winds, could create dangerous seas and strong rip currents.

Meanwhile, migrants who crossed the Channel to the UK are on hunger strike in a detention centre as they face deportation next week, according to campaigners.

Numbers of people trying to reach British shores have surged in the summer months, prompting the Government to deploy RAF planes to the English Channel in an effort to tackle the problem.

This is despite Home Secretary Priti Patel's vow last year that the crossings would be an 'infrequent phenomenon' by now, and her recent pledge to make the route 'completely unviable'.

The five who arrived today presented themselves as Sudanese and Chad nationals after making the perilous 21-mile trip across the Dover Strait, tackling fierce winds and choppy sea conditions.

As the storm hit Britain for a third day, the Met Office imposed a wind weather warning across England, Wales and parts of Scotland until 6pm today, amid concerns over short-term power cuts, falling trees and debris on roads.

Huge winds were seen in the English channel throughout the day as five more migrants risked their lives in gale-force winds today. Pictured: A DFDS ferry is hit by waves as it arrives at the Port of Dover in Kent

Huge waves batter the coast in Selsey in West Sussex today as Storm Ellen hit the channel

Numbers of people trying to reach British shores (one group pictured yesterday) have surged in the summer months, prompting the Government to deploy RAF planes to the English Channel in an effort to tackle the problem

A haul of boats believed to have been used by migrants are seen in a Port Authority yard this month

A group of men were photographed being picked up by UK Border Force officers yesterday after making the perilous crossing

The migrants landing came as Gale force winds and massive waves batter the small Welsh seaside resort of Porthcawl in Bridgend

Huge waves crashed onto the Welsh town as Storm Ellen hit the west of the British Isles today

Storm Ellen brings gale force winds and big waves to the Welsh coastal town of Tywn

They were brought into Dover, Kent, and handed over to immigration officials who will question them.

It comes as charities and campaigners supporting detainees claim a number of migrants who made the Channel crossing to the UK recently are on hunger strike at Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick Airport.

As many as 13 are thought to have been refusing food this week with around five understood to still be on strike.

There have also been reports of suicide attempts.

Their crossing came as French prosecutors investigate the death of 28-year-old Abdulfatah Hamdallah (pictured), a Sudanese migrant whose body was found on a beach in France earlier this week

Campaign groups say two deportation flights are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday next week to France, Spain and Germany and lawyers are said to be in the process of working with detainees who are due to be on board.

It comes as campaigners are planning a demonstration outside the Home Office on Sunday from noon.

According to the organisation Detained Voices - which publishes statements provided by detainees describing their experiences on a website in a bid to campaign for improvements in the system - said there was 'mounting concern from campaigners about the safety and legitimacy of carrying out deportations at a time when coronavirus rates across Europe are rising'.

The group said it knows of five people who are on their seventh day of hunger strike in Brook House.

One of those is said to have told Detained Voices they were in a 'very depressed situation' and they were refusing meals 'to reach our voice'.

While a spokesman for charity Detention Action, which is also providing support for those being held, said: 'We have heard between 10 and 13 people have been on hunger strike.

'People are getting so desperate in there.

'One of the men in there told me "No one can take this every day, we need help and for someone to listen to us." Many of them are in a bad way.'

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

Meanwhile, French prosecutors are investigating the death of a 28-year-old Sudanese migrant whose body was found on a beach in France earlier this week.

Abdulfatah Hamdallah, initially said to be 16, only made the desperate attempt to cross the Channel to Britain because he was turned down by France.

He died after the 3ft dinghy he and a friend were in was punctured by the shovels they were using as oars.

His friend survived. But Mr Hamdallah, from Sudan, could not swim and his body was later found washed up on a beach at Sangatte.

Recent attempts by the Government to put a stop to migrant crossings have included asking the armed forces for help and the appointment of a new 'clandestine Channel threat commander'.

A Royal Lifeboat vessel brings in migrants found off the coast of Dover on Wednesday

Recent attempts by the Government to put a stop to migrant crossings have included asking the armed forces for help and the appointment of a new 'clandestine Channel threat commander'. Pictured: Migrants in Dover on Wednesday

Border Force officers aboard HMC Hunter speak to a group of people, thought to be migrants, spotted crossing the Channel on August 10

White Cliffs plea for migrant compassion An emotional plea for compassion for migrants crossing the English Channel has been beamed on to the White Cliffs of Dover. The landmark was lit up with a giant video of NHS cleaner Hassan Akkad, a Syrian refugee who crossed to Britain several years ago. He highlighted the 'terrifying and devastating' journeys that so many people are undertaking to reach the UK by boat, and blamed the Government for using the crisis as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic. The giant projection is the latest stunt by Led By Donkeys, a group of activists famed for their giant billboards of politicians' tweets. It came as French prosecutors continue to investigate the death of a Sudanese migrant whose body was found on a beach in Calais earlier this week. Almost 4,900 migrants have successfully crossed to the UK in small boats so far this year, analysis from the PA news agency shows. In the video, Mr Akkad said: 'Hello everyone. Apologies for taking over the cliff but I have a few words that I would love to share with you. 'My name is Hassan and five years ago I was on the other side of this Channel trying to cross here. 'These cliffs were actually visible from our makeshift camp and they represented hope.' He said that, like many of those arriving recently, he had to put his trust in a people smuggler because safe and legal asylum routes are unavailable. He continued: 'Crossing the sea in a rubber dinghy is terrifying and devastating. 'Devastating because it makes you feel so helpless and insignificant. 'And I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.' He argued that Britain is not facing a refugee crisis, but that the migrant crossings are being used as a distraction by the Government. 'I will say it again - they are using us to distract you from how from how badly they have managed during this pandemic,' he said. 'The past few months have proved that the people who made Britain their home didn't hesitate to roll up their sleeves and keep this country running during the worst public health crisis in modern history. 'From harvesting our produce to stacking our shelves. From delivering our takeaways to looking after our elderly and sick. 'From driving our buses to, in my case, cleaning my hospital to help the NHS. 'The only difference between you and us is luck.' Advertisement

Meanwhile, the Government has called on councils to 'take responsibility' as it urgently tries to find care for lone migrant children who have crossed the Channel to the UK.

Late on Thursday an emotional plea for compassion for migrants, featuring NHS cleaner Hassan Akkad, was beamed on to the White Cliffs of Dover.

Several crossings in the last week have taken the number of migrants who have reached the UK by small boat this year to more than 5,000.

More than 1,000 others are known to have been intercepted by French authorities as they tried to reach the UK.

On Thursday eight men were detained and said they were from Nigeria, Guinea, Gambia and Sierra Leone.

Declared nationalities of migrants intercepted by Border Force have included: Iraqi, Iranian, Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian, Eritrean, Kuwaiti, Tajikstani, Vietnamese, Guinean, Malian, Ethiopian, Turkish, Afghan, Palestinian, Sri Lankan, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Pakistani, Chadian, Somali, Togolese, Nigerian, Libyan, South Sudanese, Albanian and Chinese.

Dan O'Mahoney, the Home Office's new clandestine Channel threat commander, returned to France on Thursday to continue discussions with officials in Paris and Calais in a bid to tackle the migrant crossings crisis.

He said: 'This week's incident, where a Sudanese migrant lost his life attempting to cross the Channel, served as a tragic reminder of the vital importance of the work the UK and France are engaged in to make this route completely unviable.

'At meetings I have held in Paris and Calais yesterday there were positive discussions about enhancing operations with increased surveillance, aerial support, further intelligence sharing and patrols in Northern France.

'I look forward to returning in the coming weeks to progress these discussions.'

Around 10pm on Thursday the famous White Cliffs of Dover were lit up with a giant video of Mr Akkad, a Syrian refugee who crossed to Britain several years ago.

He highlighted the 'terrifying and devastating' journeys so many people are making to reach the UK by boat, and blamed the Government for using the crisis as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic.

The giant projection was the latest stunt from Led By Donkeys, a group of activists famed for their giant billboards of politicians' tweets.

In the video, Mr Akkad said: 'Hello everyone. Apologies for taking over the cliff but I have a few words that I would love to share with you.

'My name is Hassan and five years ago I was on the other side of this Channel trying to cross here.

'These cliffs were actually visible from our makeshift camp and they represented hope.'

He argued that Britain is not facing a refugee crisis, but the migrant crossings are being used as a distraction by the Government.
CHICAGO/LONDON  Clint Parry ransacked every kitchen cupboard and scoured all corners of his fridge during lockdown in Detroit, hunting for lost ingredients and leftovers to whip up meals.

The 33-year-old is one of many people across the world to have embraced thriftiness and cut down on food waste during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to experts.

They say the new habits, if maintained, will provide a major boost in tackling another global crisis: climate change.

We are using virtually all of our leftovers, where we used to waste food because we would forget to pack it and just pick up fast food on a lunch break, said Parry, who is married and works as a master model builder at Legoland in Michigan.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that a third of the worlds food is wasted every year.

Forests are cleared, fuel is burnt and packaging in produced just to provide food which is thrown away.

Meanwhile, rotting food in landfills releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

As a result, food waste is responsible for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a similar amount to road transportation.

The next crisis will be the climate crisis and the best thing you can do as a consumer is reduce food waste, said Toine Timmermans, program manager for sustainable food chains at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Chicken tacos made by Clint Parry are seen in Auburn Hills, Michigan, U.S., July 30, 2020. Picture taken July 30, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Household food waste in Britain, to take one country, fell significantly in the early phase of the lockdown in April with just 14% of four key items - bread, chicken, milk and potatoes - thrown away, according to research by environmental group WRAP, which conducted thousands of interviews.

Pre-lockdown, an average of 24% had been wasted.

Waste had begun to rebound by June, with a second WRAP survey putting waste of those products at 18%, but remained significantly below pre-lockdown levels.

Although people are reporting wasting more food as restrictions lift ... the positive news is that 70% of people want to maintain their new-found food management behaviors in the long term, said Richard Swannell, director at WRAP Global which works with governments to reduce food waste.

This is an encouraging sign that people are taking this opportunity to adopt less wasteful habits in life after lockdown.

Plan more, cook more

Food security has been a major concern during the pandemic as consumers panic-bought basic goods, migrant workers struggled to get to the fields, meat-packing plants shut, and farm goods produced for shuttered restaurants rotted.

But the lower household food waste has been one bright spot.

Out of necessity, consumers have become more organized in planning menus, developed new cooking skills, checked their cupboards and fridges more before they shop and found better ways to use up leftovers, according to food waste experts.

What people have been forced to do during the pandemic is plan ahead because theyre now shopping less frequently, said Dana Gunders, executive director at ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing wasted food across the United States.

Theyre being forced to cook more and build those cooking skills.

Laura Brooks, who has developed new habits to reduce food waste during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, waits in line to pick up free groceries from the monthly Weymouth Market in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, U.S., August 5, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Laura Brooks, a stay-at-home mother of five in Weymouth, Massachusetts, said she had developed useful habits during the lockdown that she would keep.

I think as things go back to normal, I may continue with less frequent shopping trips. When I go more often, I find that the new produce pushes the old produce out of sight and things get wasted more easily, she added.

Increased frugality could prove a valuable habit in the economic and unemployment crisis caused by the pandemic; Gunders said a family of four in the United States was estimated to throw out food worth about $1,800 a year.

Too good for the bin

A survey from Germanys Food and Agriculture Ministry also showed consumers had started to show more concern about wasting food during the coronavirus crisis.

The government had launched an anti-food waste campaign called Too good for the bin before the crisis, urging the public not to automatically throw food away after the sell-by date but to smell and taste it to see if it was still in good condition.

The ministrys survey, undertaken during the pandemic, found that 91% of German consumers questioned were now checking food after its sell-by date and not automatically throwing it away.

This compared to only 76% in a similar survey in 2016.

Laura Brooks' daughter Scarlett looks back as free groceries are loaded in their minivan at the monthly Weymouth Market in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, U.S., August 5, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Food waste is not restricted to the home but it is the biggest source in many countries.

The European Union has published a study estimating that 53% of food waste was in households and 11% in production, with the balance in areas such as processing and retailing.

Chinas President Xi Jingping said this month that the amount of food wasted in China was shocking, prompting many local governments to launch related campaigns.

For Parry in Detroit, and many others, thrift is here to stay.

Our food costs have definitely gone way down, since we are not buying out when we have perfectly consumable leftovers in the fridge at home, he said.
Around the country, school leaders are trying to anticipate how these mental health burdens will shape what unfolds in classrooms and via screens during a school year in which the trauma is likely to worsen. Some school districts, such as Los Angeles Unified, are running hotlines to provide guidance and connect families to services. Other schools are offering grief training to teachers, counseling them on how to recognize signs of distress, and encouraging them to attend to their own emotional well-being. Still others are setting up virtual wellness rooms and unveiling new or expanded social-emotional curricula to help students process their feelings.
NEW YORK, Aug. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- After a year and a half in development, Weareactors.com is set to launch on Oct. 1, 2020. After dealing with setbacks due to COVID-19, the team of actors and developers used their time in quarantine to perfect and improve their platform and expend their partnerships extensively. We Are Actors is an online community built by actors, for actors in an always evolving market. With the rise in new emerging hubs, get the help you need to better navigate your career. We Are Actors guides actors for all their various professional needs. The team is headed by President/CEO Mershad Torabi, who has dedicated the last decade of his life to the craft of acting. While pursuing his dreams he also attended Cal State University of Northridge in Los Angeles and received a Bachelors Of Science in Marketing. Mershad has appeared on hit shows such as Bones, Madam Secretary, NCIS LA and more. Weareactors.com has created a community that allows actors to help one another out, use a plethora of resources provided to them and get discounts on dozens of partner services such as headshots, acting classes, rehearsal spaces, self-tape studios and more. Membership to the site is free and welcome to actors of all levels. What can exclusive members take advantage of?

We Are Actors

All members get an actor profile where they can upload their acting resume and headshots. Access to community of their peers in all four major cities: New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Atlanta.

Discounts You Receive

Headshots, Acting Classes, Self Tape Studios, Health and Fitness, Demo Reels and much more! Take advantage of the partner discounts at the top acting resources in your city. Check out the members benefits page for a breakdown of our partners and discounts.

Access to multiple databases: -Acting Studios -Casting Directors -Talent Agents -Talent Managers -All Shakespeare Plays -All Sonnets -Self Tape Studios -Rehearsal Spaces

Acting Resources: Monologues for actors. Pick from hundreds of monologues and print them out for educational purposes. Categories: - Monologues for Men - Monologues for Women - Monologues for Teens -Dramatic Monologues - Comedic Monologues - Classical Monologues and More!

Acting Resume Builder - Choose from Acting resume templates, enter your information and they create your acting resume for you! Then download and save your resume to your profile!

Member Forums - Start a discussion in the member forums about whatever topic you like. Post casting notices, ask your peers a question. The forums are there to help one another.

Access To Digital Theater Plus - Increase engagement and passion for performance with over 400 first-class productions and all-star casts, available on any device, anywhere, anytime. More than 300 exclusive in-depth interviews and backstage insights will give you a deep understanding of theater processes, including creative and technical disciplines. These illuminate motivations, challenges and the choices that theater practitioners face.

Weareactors.com - | Join A Community

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Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested and charged with fraud over a fundraising campaign to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.



Mr Bannon and three others defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with the "We Build the Wall" campaign, which raised $25m (19m), the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said.



Mr Bannon received more than $1m, at least some of which he used to cover personal expenses, it alleged.



He is due to appear in court later.



Mr Bannon was a key architect of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election victory. His right-wing anti-immigration ideology fuelled Mr Trump's "America First" campaign.



Telefonica

He was reportedly arrested on a 150-foot (45m) yacht in Connecticut by agents from the US Postal Inspection Service, which investigates fraud cases.



Responding to Mr Bannon's arrest, President Trump said he felt "very badly" about it. He also said he had had no involvement with "We Build the Wall".



"I said, 'This is for government; this isn't for private people' - and it sounded to me like showboating and I think I let my opinion be very strongly stated at the time," he said.



What are the charges against Bannon?

The "We Build the Wall" campaign pledged to use donations to build segments of the border barrier - whose construction was a key Trump promise during the 2016 election - on private land.



CoronaLife Web Series

But Audrey Strauss, the acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), said Mr Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea had "defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalising on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretence that all of that money would be spent on construction".



Mr Bannon had received more than $1m through a non-profit organisation he controlled, at least some of which he used to cover "hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal expenses", the DoJ said.





Meanwhile, Mr Kolfage - founder of "We Build the Wall" - covertly took $350,000 for his personal use, the statement said.



"While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle," Ms Strauss said.



SDNY Inspector-in-Charge Philip R Bartlett said the four created "sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth".



"This case should serve as a warning to other fraudsters that no one is above the law, not even a disabled war veteran or a millionaire political strategist," he said.



Mr Bannon and the three others launched the scheme in December 2018. the DoJ said, and during the campaign Mr Kolfage said that all of the money donated would go towards construction while Mr Bannon publicly said: "We're a volunteer organisation."



All four defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.



Mr Bannon, 66, will appear in court in the SDNY. Mr Kolfage and Mr Badolato will appear in separate courts in Florida and Mr Shea will appear in Colorado.



Mr Bannon is the sixth former senior aide to Donald Trump to face criminal charges - after ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, veteran political operator Roger Stone, ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, ex-deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.



Who is Steve Bannon?

The former investment banker was the driving force behind the right-wing Breitbart News website before serving in the Trump White House as chief strategist. His influence was discernible in key decisions such as the mid-2017 US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.



He left the post in August 2017 and returned to Breitbart, but was again forced to step down after criticising Mr Trump's decisions, prompting Mr Trump to say "Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind".



Mr. Bannon has since expressed support for the idea of a right-wing supergroup of populist parties in Europe and his presence at events has become controversial, with the New Yorker magazine dropping him from a festival, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pulling out of an event co-hosted by the BBC at which he appeared, and a further appearance at Oxford University Union that attracted protests.



Last year he told the BBC that the "turmoil" from Brexit was "only just beginning" and argued that the border wall between the US and Mexico would help black and Hispanic communities.



What is happening with the border wall?

The wall with Mexico is perhaps Donald Trump's most memorable signature promise from his 2016 election campaign. He said he would build it and Mexico would pay for it.



Before Mr Trump took office, there were 654 miles (just over 1,000km) of barrier along the southern border. He promised to build a wall along the border's entire 2,000-mile length. Later, he said it would only cover half of that - with nature, such as mountains and rivers, helping to take care of the rest.



Work on extending the current barrier began last year.



The money has come from previous funding approved by Congress, as well as extra cash Mr Trump has been able to access since he declared a state of emergency in February 2019 amid a spike in the number of migrants entering the US.



He has gained access to defence funds, but is still short of the original estimate of up to $12bn which, in turn, is far shorter than much higher estimates that include construction consultants and others.



Mr Trump has also changed his view of what constitutes a wall. Initially he talked about concrete - but, once elected, he started advocating a barrier made of steel.



The new system will be made of what the US Customs and Borders Protection (CBP) describes as a combination of "steel-bollard barrier, all-weather roads, lighting, enforcement cameras and other related technology".



The administration's aim was to have 509 miles of it ready by the end of 2020.

Source: BBC









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India and Finland have always enjoyed warm and long-standing bilateral relations. While India is one of the top five trade partners for Finland in South and South-East Asia, Finland's ranking has been consistently progressing amongst India's EU trade partners.

At the beginning of the millennium, there were around 30 Finnish companies operating in the country whereas today over 120 Finnish companies have operations in India, and set up manufacturing facilities, service centres, R & D centres, sales, and marketing offices, generating employment for lakhs of local Indians.

Some of the top Finnish enterprises in India include Nokia, KONE, Huhtamaki, Metso Outotec, Wartsila, Cargotec, Konecranes, Fortum, and many more.

Over the years, several Indian software and consultancy companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Motherson Sumi Systems, Mahindra, have invested in active operations in Finland to the tune of more than USD one billion.

As the ongoing pandemic exposed vulnerabilities/fault-lines in the value chain systems for most countries significantly impacting trade and commerce, and national economies, India, like most countries, introduced policies and reforms.

The aim of these reforms is to position the country as a global manufacturing hub, foster innovation, enhance skill development, and foreign investments.

Re-iterating this message during his address to the nation on the occasion of India's 74th Independence Day, Prime Minister spoke on the need to transition from a supplier of raw materials and importer of finished goods to an importer of raw materials and exporter of value-added goods. He further laid emphasis on shifting the focus from 'Make in India' to 'Make for World'.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce and Railways, Piyush Goyal, recently held a virtual interaction with the members of FINCHAM India at its 10th Members Meeting on August 14th, where he shared insights on the vision of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'.

The Minister emphasized that the national agenda is aimed at driving India's economic engagement with the world and seeks to open wider doors for new technology, high-quality products, boosting manufacturing and energy sectors, and sustainability.

Towards this, the Finnish business community in India is willing to collaboratively develop capacities with their expertise in sophisticated and innovative technologies, and contribute to the overall infrastructure development, and look forward to a predictable and stable regulatory environment which would not only protect existing investments but boost fresh investment and expansion plans.

"Atmanirbhar Bharat announced by the Prime Minister of India is a significant step and can offer many opportunities for the Finnish enterprises to grow and expand investments in India. The current environment for international trade provides huge opportunities to India to make high-quality products thus creating unparalleled job opportunities in India as well as helping the global economies through these cost-effective world-class products. We are optimistic that the Government of India will bring about necessary policy changes and reforms to advance its vision for a 'Self-reliant' Indian economy and offer suitable platforms for stakeholder consultation with industry associations such as FINCHAM India," stated Amit Gossain, Chairperson, FINCHAM India and MD KONE Elevator India emphasizing on assembling in India for the world to boost exports and generate jobs, as the time necessary for the logistical processes of exporting and importing goods has been significantly reduced.

"India's impressive progression in the Ease of Doing Business rankings over the past few years is a tremendous achievement, especially for an economy that is as large and complex as India's. The latest reforms are in doing business areas of starting a business, taxation, trading across borders, and resolving insolvency. For India to become a major exporter of the world, we should specialize more in the areas of comparative advantage and achieve significant quantity expansion," he added.

KONE has been making in India since 1984, and in November last year, KONE's new state-of-the-art elevator manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu, the largest in this region was inaugurated.

This unit aims at leveraging digitalization opportunities and speeding up development in a changing business environment.

"The importance of trust, predictability, and stable business environment as key elements in facilitating sustainable trade & investment cooperation and enhancing economic growth. In this regard, an Investment Protection Treaty between EU and India would be an important element, as is also the need for constant and constructive dialogue bilaterally, between EU and India and within multilateral platforms, especially at the WTO," highlighted Ritva Koukku-Ronde, Ambassador of Finland in India.

"Finland is committed and keen on developing trade & investment and commercial & industry cooperation with India based on mutual interests, shared principles and with view on sustainability and responsibility. Added focus also on technology and innovation, skills, education and science and towards ambitious and binding climate and environment targets, there is an enormous potential for increased Finland-India collaboration," added the Ambassador.

While the national need is to ensure self-sustaining and self-generating growth with an emphasis on efficiency, equity and resilience, developing a regulatory and policy framework which supports the objective of merging domestic production and consumption with global supply chains without being self-contained or being closed to the world, would be complimentary.

India is focused on developing capacities across key sectors, inter alia, using advanced and innovative technologies, and improving it's positioning as a preferred destination for foreign investments in the region.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Libya's warring rival administrations announced in separate statements Friday that they would cease all hostilities and organise nationwide elections soon, an understanding swiftly welcomed by the United Nations.

The statements were signed by Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital Tripoli, and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based parliament backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

The two have been at war virtually since the formation of Sarraj's government in December 2015.

The UN's top official to Libya, Stephanie Williams, called for "all parties to rise to this historic occasion and shoulder their full responsiblities before the Libyan people."

Sarraj called for the holding of "presidential and parliamentary elections next March", and for the "end of all combat operations".

On the other side, Saleh also backed elections -- though he did not specify a date -- and called on "all parties" to observe "an immediate ceasefire and the cessation of all fighting."

It is the first deal between rival Libyan factions since a UN-sponsored accord in Morocco in December 2015, when dialogue led to agreement on a unity government.

'Important step'

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he supported the ceasefire declarations.

"I welcome statements by Libya's presidential council and the House of Representatives calling for a ceasefire and halting military operations in all Libyan territory," Sisi said in a tweet.

Sisi, whose government has been a major supporter of the eastern-based administration dominated by Haftar, said the twin announcements were an "important step" on the path to restoring stability.

Libya has been in chaos since a Western-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Haftar launched an offensive in April 2019 to seize Tripoli from the GNA.

But the move prompted heightened intervention by Turkey and its regional ally Qatar in support of the Tripoli based administration.

After 14 months of fierce fighting, Turkish-backed pro-GNA forces expelled Haftar's troops from much of western Libya and pushed them eastwards to Sirte, a gateway to Libya's rich oil fields and export terminals.

As well as Egypt, Haftar has had the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Russia, prompting repeated calls from the United Nations for outside powers to stop meddling.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, on a surprise visit to Tripoli this week, had warned that Libya faced a "deceptive calm" since fighting stalled around Sirte.

The central Mediterranean coastal city -- a symbolic site as the hometown of Kadhafi -- is the gateway to Libya's eastern oil fields and export terminals, and to the key Al-Jufra airbase to the south.

In reaction to the rival parties' declarations, German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said Friday "this could be an important step towards establishing peace."

Italy also welcomed the announcement. "These developments constitute an important and courageous step towards the stabilisation of the Libyan crisis," the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

Sarraj said a ceasefire would allow the creation of "demilitarised zones" in Sirte and the Jufra region, currently under the control of pro-Haftar forces.

Saleh did not mention the demilitarisation of Sirte and Jufra, but proposed the installation of a new government in Sirte.

But while the agreement was widely welcomed, analyst Jalel Harchaoui, research fellow at The Hague-based Clingendael Institute, said there was a long road ahead before peace.

"The question is, is this announcement fully achievable? In all likelihood, implementation will be difficult," said Harchaoui, noting the multiple regional forces who could act as spoilers of a deal.
The World Health Organization will hold a virtual meeting for all member countries on reopening schools on August 31, the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Henri P. Kluge, said Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2020) The World Health Organization will hold a virtual meeting for all member countries on reopening schools on August 31, the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Henri P. Kluge, said Thursday.

"The WHO European Regional Office is convening a virtual meeting for all 53 countries on reopening school and COVID-19 on the 31st of August, where concrete actions will be discussed to ensure children receive proper education in safe settings," Kluge told reporters.

The schools may have to introduce increased hygiene and physical distancing, open only in the areas where there are few infections, change the schedule and limit the number of students, the WHO official said.

"The risk of resurgence has never been far away. In the last two months, new cases have been steadily increasing every week in the region. There were 40,000 more cases in the first week of August compared to the first week of June, when cases were at the lowest. Every day now the European regional reports an average of over 26,000 new COVID-19 cases," Kluge told a virtual briefing.

The influx of new cases can be explained by eased coronavirus measures, Kluge said.
China's top Party school asks faculty members to draw lessons from Cai's case, strictly observe political discipline

Global Times

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 17:38:04

The Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has asked its faculty members to draw profound lessons from the case of Cai Xia, a retired professor from the school, after school authorities announced on Monday to rescind Cai's Party membership and revoke her retirement benefits because she made remarks that damaged the country's reputation and seriously violated the Party's political discipline.

Party organizations at all levels and faculty members at the school should improve their political positions, remain true to their original aspiration and keeps their mission firmly in mind, and maintain a high degree of consistency with the Communist Party of China's Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core in terms of ideology, politics and actions, said He Yiting, a vice president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, at a meeting held on Monday.

Senior officials from the school and officials from China's top anti-graft agency attended the meeting, at which Cai's case was notified with the aim of warning other teachers at the school to learn the lesson, according to a statement published on the school's official website on Wednesday.

The school committee decided to expel Cai from the Party and cancel her retirement benefits in accordance with the regulations on CPC disciplinary actions following a joint investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC and the Party School's discipline committee, the school previously said.

Cai was known for frequently making remarks that defamed the Party and the country. In 2016, she was criticized by news site gmw.cn for losing her "Party spirit" after she expressed support for former property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, who is known for his aggressive remarks online. In July, Ren was expelled from the Party for serious violations of discipline and law.

He pointed out that the serious handling of Cai's violations fully demonstrated the school's firm determination of comprehensively governing the Party and the school with strict discipline. The school is the Party's political organ and its faculty members are the spokesperson of the Party's image.

He required all faculty members at the school to strictly abide by the Party's political discipline and rules. They are prohibited from spreading comments against the Party's theories and policies, from making and spreading political rumors and tarnishing the image of the Party and the country, and from participating in any kind of illegal organizations and activities.

Faculty members of the school are required to strictly follow the procedures of applying for approval for going abroad for private purposes, and truthfully report their personal affairs.

"We will guide Party members, officials and faculty members to spread positive energy, and take a clear-cut stand against and resist all kinds of erroneous views," He said.

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Two young women who narrowly avoided jail after flying into Perth from Adelaide without an exemption before going on to escape hotel quarantine have defiantly vowed to return to Western Australia.

Isata Jalloh, 19, and Banchi Techana, 22, made obscene gestures to Nine News Perth reporters and staff as they were escorted out of hotel quarantine to be flown back to South Australia on Thursday night.

But Jelloh, who has been under police guard at the hotel since a teary court appearance on Thursday, told Nine News Perth reporter Lucy McLeod she was planning to return to WA, "by force" if necessary.

The pair arrived at Perth Airport on August 17 and told authorities they wanted to holiday in WA and visit friends, despite border closures being in place since April.
English visitors have been put off coming to Scotland because of Border protests and the threat of quarantine, tourism bosses have admitted.

A senior VisitScotland official said he was 'embarrassed' by groups of protesters at the Border brandishing signs saying 'England  get out of Scotland'.

Riddell Graham told MSPs this had damaged the 'wellbeing' of the vital industry, which has been left on its knees by the coronavirus pandemic.

He also admitted that some bookings were cancelled by people from England after Nicola Sturgeon threatened to impose quarantine on them.

But he defended a decision by the SNP Government to airbrush references to the 'North of England' out of a VisitScotland campaign.

A senior VisitScotland official said he was 'embarrassed' by groups of protesters at the Border brandishing signs saying 'England  get out of Scotland'

At a meeting of Holyrood's tourism committee yesterday, Mr Graham was told by Tory MSP Oliver Mundell that leading industry figures think there has been 'negative anti-English sentiment' and that Scotland is not seen as a welcoming destination.

The VisitScotland director of industry and destination development admitted he was 'embarrassed' by the Border protesters, and added: 'I think it was a minority view and one that is not representative of the rest of the country.'

Mr Mundell said Miss Sturgeon had 'failed to shut down the perception that Scotland is closed to English visitors'.

The Tory MSP added he had been contacted by a tourism business that had been 'inundated with angry calls', many 'turning into cancellations due to the alienation being created from Holyrood and the messages on many Border main roads'.

He said the firm had received an email from one customer asking if everything was OK with their booking 'especially with Nicola Sturgeon threatening to quarantine us nasty English people'.

Mr Mundell asked what was being done to 'reverse the damage' and to guarantee that visitors get a 'traditional, warm Scottish welcome'.

Mr Graham admitted there 'were examples of people contacting businesses in relation to cancellation', but added: 'The experience I've seen and heard is in fact the opposite... I know people that had cancellations were rebooked.

'It may have put off a small number of people coming from our most important market, England. But the figures and feedback I've had... in rural parts of Scotland it has been extremely busy with loads of English visitors around.'

Mr Mundell said Nicola Sturgeon, pictured yesterday during First Minister's Questions in Edinburghm had 'failed to shut down the perception that Scotland is closed to English visitors'

On the reason for the Government removing mention of England from a VisitScotland campaign, he said: 'We were given guidance by the Scottish Government that to launch a major campaign UK-wide, not just England but UK-wide beyond Scotland, would not be the right thing to do at the time based on medical evidence we were given.

'They were obviously much closer to the medical advice than we were, and two days after that advice was given there was a significant outbreak in the north of England which we were unaware of, and I suspect officials on the health side were and that made it absolutely sensible.

'There seems no point in promoting tourism to parts of the country that have particular issues. A classic example would be why would we promote Scotland in North America when we have huge problems there with the virus?'

But Stephen Montgomery, a hotelier in Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, said he has had 'a lot of cancellations' from English tourists, and called the advertising row a 'nail in the coffin' for hospitality firms.

He said: 'It is not every part of the north of England that has a cluster outbreak.

'You can't relate that to what is happening in America, it is nonsensical.'

The committee also heard from the Scottish Tourism Alliance, which said 70,000 jobs could be lost if there is no quick recovery.
One thing in common: We will not agree on everything, but we have to learn to live together again without trying to ridicule each other and without killing each other all the time. We have death threats on Dr. Anthony Fauci because hes telling his truth. You dont have to take his word but you dont have to threaten his family either. I dont like Donald Trump, but I will not go out and threaten the lives of those who support Donald Trump. We all have one thing in common. We are all Americans.
Kanye West was pictured arriving back to Los Angeles on Friday morning after a whirlwind trip to New York.

The 43-year-old rapper was spotted exiting a private jet at Van Nuys airport wearing his eye-catching customized Varsity jacket with the images of his children.

Kanye will be reuniting with wife Kim Kardashian, who is already back in LA with their four children at their Hidden Hills mansion, following their recent family vacation as the couple try to fix their marriage.

Home: Kanye West is pictured arriving back to LA on Friday morning after a trip to New York

As Kanye arrived back in LA, Kim posted some snaps of herself in underwear as she promoted her new SKIMS Fits Everybody range.

In his continued bid to become president, Kanye tweeted on Friday a list of 10 states where he's supposedly managed to get on the ballot ahead of the November election.

However, his status is still pending many of the states he listed and he likely won't make it on some.

'Praise God... look at all the ballots we're on On [sic]' he wrote.

He then listed Oklahoma, Arkansas, Vermont, West Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Utah, Minnesota, Tennessee and Virginia.

The 43-year-old rapper was spotted exiting a private jet at Van Nuys airport wearing his eye-catching customized Varsity jacket with the images of his children

Kanye will be reuniting with wife Kim Kardashian, who is already back in LA with their four children at their Hidden Hills mansion, following their recent family vacation as the couple try to fix their marriage

Werk: As Kanye arrived back in LA, Kim posted some snaps of herself in underwear as she promoted her new SKIMS Fits Everybody range

Earlier this week the rapper uploaded what appeared to be a 2020 Vision banner to his Twitter which included a photo of actress Kirsten Dunst when she was younger.

Dunst was more than confused when she noticed her face had made it onto the grid-like banner - clearly without her permission or knowledge. The photo of Dunst was taken by Mario Testino for a 2002 Vanity Fair profile.

'Whats the message here, and why am I apart of it?' wrote the 38-year-old actress in reply to West on Wednesday evening.

In his continued bid to become president, Kanye tweeted on Friday a list of 10 states where he's supposedly managed to get on the ballot ahead of the November election

Kanye later tweeted that he found his chief financial officer and is pushing ahead with plans to make a Christian-monitored version of TikTok

Bizarre: Kirsten Dunst was left baffled earlier this week when Kanye unveiled a 2020 Vision poster with her face on it

Dunst was more than confused when she noticed her face had made it onto the grid-like banner - clearly without her permission or knowledge

Why? The photo of Dunst was taken by Mario Testino for a 2002 Vanity Fair profile. The actress is seen here in January

Aside from Dunst, Kanye's 2020 Vision banner featured a slew of faces, each with visibly different background, including Vogue Editor-In-Chief, Anna Wintour.

Wintour's image was also used without her knowledge, according to reports.

West, who announced he was running for president of the United States on July 4, has yet to reveal why Kirsten's face was made a part of his 2020 Vision.

2020 Vision: The 43-year-old rapper uploaded what appeared to be a 2020 Vision banner to his Twitter on Tuesday with no explanation

West has so far qualified in several states but his effort to get on the ballot has been challenged in Wisconsin.

Amid his political venture, Kanye has been enduring an increasingly strained time in his marriage with wife Kim, 39.

The couple, as well as their four children, daughters North, seven, and Chicago, two, and sons Saint, five, and Psalm, one, recently returned from a two-week vacation to the Dominican Republic and a luxe camp ground in Colorado.

A source told People Kim is 'happy to be back' in LA, saying that 'it's hard traveling with the kids for such a long time.'

The source adds: 'Kim still seems focused on making her marriage work. She is pretty quiet about her exact plans for the future, but for now she seems okay with Kanye living in Wyoming.

Trouble in paradise: Amid his political venture, Kanye has been enduring an increasingly strained time in his marriage with wife Kim, 39

'He is moving ahead with the presidential campaign. This is a decision that no one can change his mind about.'

However, another source close to the couple tells DailyMail.com that they were 'never living apart' adding: 'He does a lot of work in Wyoming and she works in LA. They're focused on their family now and rarely talk politics.'

Kanye - who suffers from bi-polar disorder - caused huge controversy in July when he went on a series of Twitter rants that included accusing Kim of having an affair with rapper Meek Mill, as well as claiming they once considered having an abortion.
Sitting MLA from Deoria Sadar seat, Janmejay Singh, has died of a at a hospital in Lucknow, party spokesperson Chandra Mohan said Friday.

Singh, 75, was admitted to Lohia hospital after he developed health complications and died during pacemaker implantation late Thursday night, Mohan said.

The MLA was initially taken to the civil hospital but referred to Lohia hospital, he added.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit expressed grief over Singh's sudden death.

(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 Duchess of Cornwall has revealed a selection of must-reads for summer.

The 73-year-old, who shared a reading list at the height of the pandemic, has revealed a number of her other favourite books.

'I am delighted to share a few more of my favourite books. At present, it might be ambitious to describe them as "beach reads", but I very much hope they provide a welcome bit of escapism,' Camilla said.

The Duchess rounded up a selection of bestsellers across mystery, classics and contemporary works.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Girl by Edna OBrien, The Roy Grace series by Peter James, The Queens Necklace by Alexandra Dumas and The Island by Victoria Hislop all made the list.

The Duchess of Cornwall (pictured) shared a selection of her favourite books for escapism throughout summer

Camilla gave reasons for why each of the five books on her summer recommendations are worth reading.

Camilla's must-reads The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Girl by Edna OBrien The Roy Grace series by Peter James The Queens Necklace by Alexandra Dumas The Island by Victoria Hislop Advertisement

'This brilliant Irish novelist lays bare the trauma of Nigeria's abducted schoolgirls in this harrowing novel,' she said of Girl by Edna O'Brien.

Released in 2019, the book received impressive reviews and the 89-year-old author was praised for the empathy she displayed while visiting the nation on research trips for the book.

Camilla's list also includes The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins, which has sold over 100,000 copies since it was released in 1859.

Describing the read, she said: 'A menacing and mysterious tale spun by this great Victorian writer with a penchant for drama.'

'If you have never read Peter James' crime thriller series about the Sussex detective, Roy Grace, I would highly recommend you give it a try!,' The Duchess said of the Roy Grace series by Peter James.

Camilla who promotes the joy of reading at any age with patronages including the National Literacy Trust, the Royal Society of Literature, BookTrust, and Coram Beanstalk, also added The Queen's Necklace by Alexandre Dumas to her summer reading list.

Among Camilla's latest picks is The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins (pictured left) and Girl by Edna O'Brien (pictured right)

Speaking about the novel, she said: 'A thrilling mystery about a missing diamond necklace. An epic tale of love and hatred, betrayal and courage, set at the court of Louis XVI.'

She completed her list with The Island by Victoria Hislop, which has sold over a million copies since its release in 2006.

The royal described the read as 'an evocatively told story of four generations rent by war, illicit love, violence and leprosy, from the thirties, through the war, to the present day.'

Camilla previously shared nine books at Easter, including A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Travels On My Elephant by Mark Shand, which is about her late brother.
Two gardai were hospitalised after a patrol vehicle was destroyed when it was rammed by a ruthless criminal gang using a stolen car they had taken in an earlier burglary.

The shocking incident happened as senior gardai become increasingly concerned over organised gangs from the capital travelling to north Kildare to carry out burglaries in recent weeks.

"It is becoming a massive problem - houses are being broken into in areas such as Celbridge, Maynooth and Leixlip by gangs travelling from Dublin," a senior source said.

"A proactive policing plan has been put in place to target these gangs who are travelling to Co Kildare in stolen cars."

In the latest incident in the early hours of Tuesday, two gardai in a brand new Hyundai Tucson 4x4 responded to reports of a vehicle acting suspiciously on a motorway slip road in the Celbridge area.

Speed

When they tried to confront the occupants of the vehicle the car reversed into the garda 4x4 at "huge speed" before it fled the scene.

Investigations quickly found out that it had been stolen earlier on Tuesday morning in Maynooth and the badly damaged car was later found by gardai in Celbridge.

However, the criminals managed to flee the scene on foot before being picked up in another stolen car by other gang members and the suspects remained at large last night.

"The two gardai who were in the rammed patrol vehicle were brought to hospital where they were treated for soft tissue injuries, but they have since been discharged and will be okay, thankfully," a source told the Herald last night.

"It could have been much worse and this shows the complete recklessness of criminals engaged in this type of activity in north Kildare. The vehicle is completely written-off."

It remained unclear last night if the stolen car that rammed the garda car was one of two cars that were stolen from the same property in Maynooth on Tuesday morning.

The Rockfield Park burglary and "the unauthorised taking of vehicles" were reported to gardai at 6am on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, at 3.30am, the occupiers of a household at Brookfield Avenue, Maynooth, awoke to find two thieves in their bedroom.

Gardai said the men fled the scene through a rear door in the direction of the M4. It is also unclear if this crime is linked to the criminals who rammed the garda vehicle in Celbridge.

These suspects also remain at large as officers in Maynooth and Celbridge trawled through CCTV last night in a bid to identify the thieves.

"Gangs from both the northside and southside of Dublin are coming to north Kildare to rob cars and to kick in the doors of homes in late-night burglaries," a senior source pointed out.

"These are organised gangs who have identified targets in the locality and their activities are a cause of serious concern, which means they are also being monitored by specialist nationalist units."

Lockdown

A major recent arrest operation by Leixlip gardai targeting criminals who allegedly stole cars from Maynooth cannot be outlined here for legal reasons.

There had been a big decrease in burglaries and the stealing of cars nationwide during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, but figures have increased in recent weeks.

"Kildare is a county which is currently in temporary lockdown, but that is not stopping these criminal gangs coming into the county, and causing mayhem," the source added.

"Gangs from Tallaght, Finglas, Clondalkin and Blanchardstown have all been identified and gardai are investigating if they have been given information by local criminals," the source added.

Earlier this month it emerged that there had been a major spike in break-ins in Kildare, with 16 incidents in a week.
It was Joes turn in the spotlight.

Democrats spent three days casting the former vice president as the antidote to President Donald Trumps America, and on Thursday night, Joe Biden personally delivered his case to the country.

Here are the key moments from the evening.

Joe Biden: Ill protect America

Biden condemned Trump for setting America on a grim and divisive path, pledging in his acceptance speech to be a leader for all Americans.

Here and now I give you my word. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst, Biden said. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness.

Biden offered a positive vision for the future of the country as it grapples with cascading crises, for which he squarely blamed Trump.

Our current presidents failed in his most basic duty to the nation, Biden said. Hes failed to protect us. Hes failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable.

Biden went on to pledge, As president, I'll make you a promise. I'll protect America.



Biden gets back-up from his former primary rivals

Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg joined a video chat to catch up on life since the primary ended this winter, and give their own personal testimony about their former primary foe.

Klobuchar recounted a floor speech she delivered to an empty Senate chamber, when she walked off the floor and received a complimentary call from Biden. Buttigieg recalled an Iowa campaign event when Biden offered his condolences to a Buttigieg staffer who had recently suffered a family tragedy. Warren described Bidens sincerity when he visited Boston following the Boston Marathon bombing.

Sanders, who was Bidens final remaining competitor in this years primary, contrasted the former vice president with the current occupant of the Oval Office.

In Joe Biden, you have a human being who is empathetic, who is honest, who is decent. And at this particular moment in American history, my God, that is something that this country absolutely needs, Sanders said, issuing a plea for a broad coalition to beat Trump. And all of us, whether you are progressives, whether you are moderates or conservatives, have got to come together to defeat this president.

Story continues



Bloomberg takes one more shot at Trump

Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor and Democratic presidential candidate, argued that Trumps job performance alone  not his character while in office  should move voters to oust him from the White House in November.

Tonight, Im not asking you to vote against Donald Trump because hes a bad guy. Im urging you to vote against him because hes done a bad job, the billionaire businessman said.

Bloomberg went on to tout his private sector experience, while blasting Trumps stewardship of his own real estate empire: He drove his companies into bankruptcy six times, always leaving behind customers and contractors who were cheated and swindled and stopped doing business with him.

The president, who frequently targeted Bloomberg on Twitter during the Democratic primary, lashed out again Thursday night following the former mayors remarks.

After the worst debate performance in the history of politics, Michael Bloomberg, commonly known as Mini Mike, is trying to make a comeback by begging the Democrats for relevance, Trump wrote online. They treated him like a dog - and always will. Before politics, he said GREAT things about me!



Duckworth calls Trump coward in chief

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth on Thursday condemned Trump as a coward in chief who was unfit to command the nations military.

Donald Trump doesnt deserve to call himself commander in chief for another four minutes  let alone another four years, she said in her address.

Duckworth, an Iraq War combat veteran who had both of her legs amputated after her helicopter was hit with a grenade in 2004, became a target of conservative criticism earlier this summer amid reports that she was under consideration to become Bidens running mate.

On Thursday, Duckworth argued that Biden was particularly well-suited to assume the responsibilities of commander in chief because his late son Beau was an Army veteran who had served in Iraq.

Joe knows the fear military families live because hes felt that dread of never knowing if your deployed loved one is safe, she said, adding that Biden also would never let tyrants manipulate him like a puppet.



Yang: I get it if you voted for Trump in 2016

Yang, the businessman who shocked pundits by outlasting sitting governors and members of Congress in the Democratic primary, kicked off the final night of the convention with an I told you so."

You might know me as the guy who ran for president talking about MATH and the future. Unfortunately for all of us, that future is now, Yang began his remarks, with an allusion to the alarms he raised during his White House bid about the perils of automation. The pandemic has accelerated everything.

Yang, whose marquee proposal of providing Americans with a universal basic income won him both fans and eye rolls, leveled with disaffected voters with whom his campaign resonated because of his outsider status.

I know many politicians promise and then fail to deliver. If you voted for Trump, or didnt vote at all back in 2016, I get it, he said.

We despair that our government will ever rise to the challenges of our time. But we must give this country, our country, a chance to recover  and recovery is only possible with a change of leadership and new ideas, Yang continued, arguing that former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris understand the problems we face.



Booker says his late grandfather would be so proud of Biden and Harris

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said Thursday that his late grandfather would be so proud of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris if he were alive today.

Booker told viewers he was only able to speak on the final night of the partys convention because of a union job secured a half-century ago by his grandfather  who left the Jim Crow South for Detroit, joined the UAW and got a job on the assembly lines during World War II.

Hed tell us, Take another by the hand, and another, and lets get to work. This dream aint free. You gotta work for it, Booker said.

As a presidential candidate in the Democratic primary, Booker often challenged Biden on matters of race and championed the pursuit of justice in all aspects of American life. But the senator expressed his full support for the partys White House ticket on Thursday.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know the dignity of all working Americans. They know the urgency and the demand of our dream, he said.



Keisha Lance Bottoms invokes Atlantas John Lewis

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms invoked the late Rep. John Lewis as she implored Americans to vote in November, describing the act of casting a ballot as a key component of the social justice activism championed by the civil rights legend.

We have cried out for justice. We have gathered in our streets to demand change. And now, we must pass on the gift John Lewis sacrificed to give us. We must register, and we must vote, Bottoms said in her prepared remarks.

The mayor also condemned those who are disgracefully using this pandemic to spread misinformation and interfere with voting, and emphasized the importance of electing real servant leaders like Biden and Harris, who believe that the lives of my four Black children matter.

Bottoms has seen her political star rise in the Democratic Party amid the coronavirus pandemic and mass protests against racial injustice. She continued to lead her city through both crises despite testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this summer, and she was reportedly a contender to become Bidens running mate.

Several other speakers at the Democrats convention have mentioned Lewis throughout the partys four nights of primetime programming. The 17-term Atlanta-area congressman, who was the youngest leader of the 1963 March on Washington, died in July after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.



Julia Louis-Dreyfus fires off barbed jokes

Comedic actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus took several jabs at conservative commentators and President Donald Trump as she emceed the final night.

In an early exchange with tech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, she referred to Vice President Mike Pence as Meeka Pints  nodding to Fox News host Tucker Carlsons mispronunciation of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris name.

Louis-Dreyfus also told viewers of the virtual convention that she was eager to host the event in part to remind them that Biden not only knows how to read, but also he reads everything. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany memorably insisted in June that Trump does read.

Following a segment of programming focused on Bidens faith, Louis-Dreyfus referenced Trumps violent dispersal of largely peaceful protesters outside the White House in order to pose for a photo opportunity with a Bible outside a nearby church.

Just remember, she said, Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesnt even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there.



Beau Biden gets a touching tribute

Bidens son, Beau, got an emotional tribute with a compilation of photos and videos that captured the various roles he played during his lifetime.

Beaus story was reminisced in a two-minute memorial that showed him as an Army officer, a family man, and a politician.

The tribute wrapped with a clip of Beau speaking at the 2008 Democratic convention, where he gave a touching introduction for his father as the running mate of former President Barack Obama.

It won't be possible for me to be here this fall, Beau said, referencing his other obligations at the time. So I have something to ask of you. Be there for my dad, like he was for me.

Beau, who died from a brain tumor in 2015, also had a friendship with Bidens vice presidential pick, Kamala Harris.

Later in the evening, Bidens living children, Hunter and Ashley, introduced their father, while also expressing affection for Beau.

Beau isn't with us any longer, said Hunter during the introduction.

But he is still very much alive in our hearts, and we can still hear his strong voice, followed Ashley.


Washington, Aug 21 : Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump's former campaign adviser, was charged with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars over a fundraising campaign to build a wall on the country's border with Mexico.

On Thursday, Bannon and three others, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea, were indicted for their roles in connection with the online crowdfunding campaign known as "We Build the Wall", which raised more than $25 million, according to a statement from the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York.

Bannon received more than $1 million, at least some of which he used to cover personal expenses, it alleged.

"As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," Xinhua news agency quoted US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss as saying in the statement.

Bannon was arrested on Thursday morning on a 150-foot yacht called the Lady May in Connecticut by agents from the US Postal Inspection Service, which investigates fraud cases.

The yacht is owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, according to US media reports.

The other three defendants were also arrested on Thursday morning.

Later in a New York court, Bannon entered a not guilty plea.

Responding to his arrest, President Trump said he felt "very badly" about it, the BBC reported.

He also said he had had no involvement with "We Build the Wall".

"I said, 'This is for government; this isn't for private people' - and it sounded to me like showboating and I think I let my opinion be very strongly stated at the time," he said.

Bannon, who has been released on bail, was a key architect of Trump's 2016 presidential election victory.

His right-wing anti-immigration ideology fuelled Trump's "America First" campaign.

Bannon is the sixth former senior aide to Trump to face criminal charges after former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, veteran political operator Roger Stone, former lawyer Michael Cohen, former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The Uttar Pradesh assembly was adjourned for the second consecutive day on Friday after paying homage to its sitting BJP MLA from Deoria (Sadar) seat Janmejaya Singh (75), who died in a hospital here earlier in the day.

Soon after the House assembled at 11am, Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit said as the house had to take up condolence resolution to mourn the death of a sitting member, the leaders of all political parties met in the morning and decided to take up Fridays listed agenda on Saturday.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath moved the condolence resolution saying Singh was a popular leader in his constituency. He said Singh held various posts and remained in district jail of Deoria. He said with Singhs death, the state had lost a leader dedicated to public life.

Leaders of all parties echoed similar views urging the Speaker to convey feelings of the house to the bereaved family. Samajwadi Party leader Shailendra Yadav Lalai said it was probably the first time that the house was condoling death of a member for the second consecutive day. Others who spoke on condolence motion included Bahujan Samaj Party legislature party leader Lalji Verma, Congress legislature party leader Aaradhna Mishra Mona, Apna Dal (Sone Lal) leader Neel Ratan Patel and SBSP leader Om Prakash Rajbhar.

Dikshit said during the monsoon session, the House was mourning death of its fifth sitting member. He also said he would convey the feelings of the House to the bereaved family. The assembly observed a two-minute silence to pay respect to the departed soul before being adjourned for the day.

On Thursday, the house was adjourned for the day after paying tribute to four sitting members, including two ministers Kamla Rani Varun and Chetan Chauhan, 20 former members, 20 soldiers of the Indian army who died in Galwan valley in clash with Chinese forces and corona warriors who are sacrificing their lives in fight against Covid-19.
The calls started at 6 a.m., and Patrick McCauley was ready, having retreated to the privacy of his garage, where he sat waiting for Angelenos to share how they are coping with the stresses of the coronavirus pandemic.

For the past 14 years, McCauley has worked as a mental health counselor and consultant in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In April, he began staffing a new hotline the district created to reach students, parents and teachers in need of mental health support and other services as the virus has forced people into isolation and cost jobs and lives.

One day, he heard from a fifth-grader who was terrified that her parents would catch the illness. Another day, a mother wanted advice on her once mild-mannered daughter, who had started throwing tantrums and yelling profanities after the quarantine began. Teachers wanted to know how to respond to students who appeared distraught during Zoom lessons, or what to do about the kids who didn't log on at all.

McCauley, who has a soothing voice and a surfer's unruffled mien, listened carefully and reassured the callers that they were experiencing understandable reactions to highly abnormal circumstances. Their testimony amounted to a warning, though, of what schools may face when they restart this fall: students with a history of mental health problems whose symptoms have worsened, students who may be experiencing anxiety or anger for the first time, children in households that have become financially precarious. More and more, schools are recognizing that academic learning may at times have to take a back seat to alleviating those challenges.

"Before we push anything at students academically, let's ask how they're doing, with no unrealistic expectations that we can somehow solve all their problems or magically fix everything and make all this go away, but just a lot of acknowledgment, a lot of listening to kids and trying to get them the support they need," McCauley said.

Around the country, school leaders are trying to anticipate how these mental health burdens will shape what unfolds in classrooms and via screens during a school year in which the trauma is likely to worsen. Some school districts, such as Los Angeles Unified, are running hotlines to provide guidance and connect families to services. Other schools are offering grief training to teachers, counseling them on how to recognize signs of distress, and encouraging them to attend to their own emotional well-being. Still others are setting up virtual "wellness rooms" and unveiling new or expanded "social-emotional curricula" to help students process their feelings.

Research on the emotional toll of the pandemic on children is relatively scant, given how new the crisis is. But what does exist is worrisome: A study of more than 2,300 children who endured home confinement during the pandemic in Hubei province, China, found that nearly 23 percent reported symptoms of depression, and nearly 19 percent reported experiencing anxiety. In a review of past studies on loneliness and disease, researchers noted that, even early in the shutdown, more than a third of adolescents reported increased loneliness, which could make them more susceptible to depression and anxiety.

And yet even before the pandemic, many schools were overwhelmed with helping to fill gaps in health services and helping students develop emotional coping skills. Now their efforts may be further complicated by the education system's looming financial crisis, which is expected to bring layoffs for teachers, counselors and other school staff who work closely with students and can provide emotional support. The virus's resurgence has also made efforts to support students more difficult by prolonging their isolation and ending hopes for an immediate return to face-to-face instruction and counseling in much of the country.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District, where 42 percent of children live below the poverty line, has tried for more than a decade to prioritize its students' social-emotional needs. Administrators hope that before the district reopens in early September for remote-only learning, teachers and principals will have an opportunity to participate in "restorative learning circles," where they can report on how the pandemic has affected them. Then, when virtual learning begins, teachers would model those circles for their students, encouraging them to share their experiences since schools closed in March.

At the top of each school day, teachers would also do a "temperature check" of students, asking them how they're doing, and mindfulness exercises would be sprinkled throughout the day, said William Stencil, who leads the district's social-emotional work.

It's not just the virus that is leaving students feeling overwhelmed and anxious. Next door, in the East Cleveland school district, Jerome West said he wants to make space this year for conversations around racial injustice, which some psychologists refer to as "the second pandemic." Last spring, after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, "kids were upset, they were angry, they were enraged, they thought how is this still happening, this is 2020," said West, executive director of the East Cleveland Neighborhood Center. The nonprofit center provides social-emotional support to the school district, where 99 percent of students are Black.

When schools shut down, the group held "wellness calls" with parents and ran virtual programs for small groups of students, including a You Matter Academy designed to help them cope with stress. Students reported feeling lonely, frustrated and concerned that teachers were piling on worksheets and other assignments to compensate for the lack of in-person classes, West said.

At some KIPP charter schools in New Jersey, teachers will receive training in suicide prevention, grief counseling and how to spot signs of distress in an online environment. This fall, teachers will also trade "calming corners" in classrooms for an online wellness space where students can listen to music, fill online coloring books or practice yoga on the school's virtual-learning platform. If students seem upset, a teacher might message them through the virtual learning platform and encourage them to visit the Web tool, said Sheyla Riaz, director of social work for KIPP New Jersey.

As crises go, the pandemic is unusual in that it combines a public health emergency and an economic downturn while isolating kids from school, friends, activities and other support. Each of these emergencies has the potential to create adverse child experiences, known as ACES, that can have long-term consequences on children's health and well-being.

Archana Basu, a clinical psychologist and researcher who sees patients in outpatient treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital, noted that research after the 2008 recession showed increases in partner violence and child maltreatment, which are among the experiences that can make a child more vulnerable to later health problems.

This doesn't mean that every child will experience trauma from the events of this year; most won't. Sadness and anxiety are perfectly natural responses to the pandemic and typically don't become clinical concerns, said Karestan Koenen, a professor of psychiatric epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. On the whole, children tend to be more resilient than adults, she said.

"What's hard in a lot of these situations, after any disaster, is that a lot of people have symptoms of anxiety, depression, even PTSD," said Koenen. "Some of that is going to be normal reactions to difficult circumstances, and in many people and kids, they will resolve over time. . . . But in some people, they won't, and we can't always predict well where the problem is."

That reinforces the need for universal interventions such as the social-emotional work that some school districts are trying, experts say.

But efforts to intervene and help children can be expensive. Social-emotional lessons sometimes require curricula schools must purchase and professional development for teachers. Counseling and other one-on-one supports for children who need greater attention is costly, and counselors are already stretched thin. Nationally, counselors serve an average of more than 430 students, and it is unclear whether schools will have the money to help students who need it at a time when falling tax revenue could force deep cuts in U.S. public education.

"It's the opposite of robust," said Rachel Bauer, a parent in Memphis, of the support available at the PK-8 school her daughter, Noel, attends. "It's minimal, basic."

Still, there are a few places that have made investments in counseling and support. In June, the Dallas Independent School District announced that it would hire more than 50 new clinicians.

Pauline Agulefo, a clinician who has worked in the district for 10 years, said she is optimistic that teachers and administrators will find a way to meet students' emotional and academic needs when schools reopen. "There's no blueprint or examples of how this can be done, but we know it has to be done," she said. "We have to get it done because kids, they have to learn."

- - -

This report is a product of The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States backs independent international examinations of "electoral irregularities" in Belarus' presidential election, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday, while implicitly warning Russia against intervening in the crisis.

Pompeos statement was the strongest by the United States since Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenkos security forces began beating and detaining peaceful demonstrators who took to the streets in the tens of thousands, alleging he rigged the Aug. 9 vote.

Lukashenko appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for help to secure his 26-year rule. Russia, with which Belarus has collective security and union state treaties, has urged foreign powers against involvement in the crisis, which it says should be solved internally.

Pompeo, who held talks in February in the capital of Minsk with Lukashenko on normalizing U.S.-Belarusian relations, implicitly warned Russia - without naming it - against intervening in Belarus biggest crisis since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

We stand by our long-term commitment to support Belarus sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the aspiration of the Belarusian people to choose their leader and to choose their own path, free from external intervention, he said. He did not elaborate on how Washington would respond.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was willing to discuss the crisis with Putin "at the appropriate time."

Pompeo last week said the United States may consider sanctions on Belarusian officials involved in the crackdown, a step the European Union took on Wednesday.

The opposition claims its candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, won the election. She fled to neighboring Lithuania after the protest crackdown began.

She and other opposition figures formed a coordination council to negotiate a transfer of power, but the government launched a criminal case on Thursday against the group, accusing it of an illegal attempt to seize power.

Story continues

Condemning the violence against protesters and calling for the immediate release of those unjustly detained, Pompeo said Washington supports international efforts to investigate electoral irregularities, the human rights abuses surrounding the election, and the subsequent clampdown on protests.

"The United States supports free and fair elections that reflect the will of the Belarusian people as a matter of principle. The August 9 elections did not meet that standard," he said.

Pompeo called on Minsk to accept an offer by the 57-nation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which promotes political dialogue and security, to facilitate talks with the opposition.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Mary Milliken)
Kabul:

Taliban gunmen stormed the residence of an Afghan lawmaker in the capital Kabul on Wednesday, with casualties feared in the ongoing gun battle that follows a recent lull in violence.

It was not immediately clear if Helmand MP Mir Wali was in the compound when the attack began this evening, but local media reported some members of his family may have been killed or taken the hostage, citing security officials at the scene.

The Taliban in a statement said their suicide bombers raided the house to disrupt an important gathering of security officials.

Sporadic gunfire and explosions were heard from the house as Afghan forces cordoned off the property after launching a clearance operation.

Security officials were tight-lipped about the attack, which underscores the worsening security situation in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are escalating their insurgency despite the onset of winter when fighting usually ebbs, even as international efforts intensify to restart stalled peace talks.

Fifteen years and hundreds of billions of dollars since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the security situation in the country remains fraught and Afghan forces are struggling to contain the conflict.

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Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones do sterilize children, hospital consent docs show

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Consent documents from Children's Hospital Los Angeles that were made public this week reveal that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones used on gender dysphoric children do in fact cause sterility, contrary to repeated assertions made by some California Democratic lawmakers.

Democrats in the California state Senate have in recent days dismissed those who've warned that AB 2218, a bill under consideration, would fund the sterilization of physically healthy minors. They assert that such concerns raised by constituents amount to "fear-mongering."

AB 2218, the Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund, passed the Senate Health committee 7-1 on Aug. 11. If it's passed by both chambers and signed into law, the legislation would give taxpayer dollars to groups that fund medicalized experimental gender-transition practices such as prescribing cross-sex hormones and performing cosmetic gender surgeries on trans-identifying youth and adults.

The informed consent documents from Children's Hospital Los Angeles  which has one of the largest transgender centers in the country  obtained by the California Family Council, reveal that the hospital has also warned patients and parental guardians that the drugs do indeed yield infertility in those who undergo the experimental procedures.

The consent forms to participate in the hospital's medical trial to research the effects puberty blockers have on children states in part: If your child starts puberty blockers in the earliest stages of puberty, and then goes on to gender-affirming hormones, they will not develop sperm or eggs. This means that they will not have biological children.

The statement is followed by an italicized and underlined sentence explaining that this is an important factor to consider before proceeding with chemical puberty suppression. The forms also warn about the risks puberty blockers have regarding bone density and development.

Another consent document for females taking male hormones states that it's "not known what the effects of testosterone are on fertility" and that even if they stop taking it "it is uncertain if you will be able to get pregnant again in the future.

For males transitioning to appear more female, a similar warning of the adverse impact on fertility reads: Sperm may not mature, leading to reduced fertility. The ability to make sperm normally may or may not come back even after stopping taking feminizing medication.

State Sen. Connie Leyva, D-San Bernardino, asserted last week during committee hearings that she "felt bad for the people who were calling to ask us to vote 'No' because I do think they were misled. There is nothing in this bill that talks about sterilizing children. It really talks about health care for individuals who identify as transgender, she asserted.



The bill states that state funds will be made available in the form of grants to hospitals, health care clinics, or other medical providers that are already engaged in "gender-affirming" services, including the administration of cross-sex hormones and gender surgeries to continue providing those services, or to outfits that will establish a program in cooperation with transgender organizations.

Another hearing for the bill is scheduled in the Senate Appropriation Committee suspense file for Thursday and will likely later head to the Senate floor for a vote.

The hospital's informed consent documents were obtained with the help of Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group that files Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to investigate government misconduct, Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist from Rocklin, told the California Family Council.

They confirmed exactly what I suspected, that the hormones used for child and adolescent transition are causing sterility in addition to a host of other health problems, Laidlaw added.



Laidlaw has previously testified in the legislature on other similar measures, and has warned legislators about the unethical practices going on within California medical institutions.

In 2018, he and others urged legislators to scrap AB 2119, a bill that ultimately became law and guarantees resources for so-called gender-affirmative treatments for children in the state foster care system who identify as transgender or nonbinary.

In a statement sent to The Christian Post Wednesday, Dr. James Dobson, president of the James Dobson Family Institute, called the bill "morally repugnant."

"It is beyond reprehensible that our government officials would actually set aside money to fund this evil assault on children and adults who are made in the image of Almighty God. These hurting individuals need our compassion and care  not a cocktail of drugs and disfiguring surgeries that could well cause irreversible harm to their bodies," he said.

"Children arent the only victims of such a bill. No rational and compassionate individual could possibly celebrate the mutilation of adolescents or adults. And yet this bill would fund procedures including double mastectomies on adolescent girls and genital amputations and reconstructive procedures for individuals older than 18. This isnt the fulfillment of personal autonomy  this is the celebration of acts of cruelty."

In late July, it was announced that AB 2218 would not be taken up for consideration for the remainder of the year. But following pressure from transgender activists, legislators revived the bill. The bill originally asked for $15 million to begin the fund, but that figure was subsequently scrubbed from the text.

At the federal level, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., introduced two bills last week, the Protecting Children from Experimentation Act and the End Taxpayer Funding of Gender Experimentation Act. The bills are being co-sponsored by several other Republicans in Congress.

"Our society has quickly normalized gender experimentation under the guise of an accepting political ideology rather than biological reality. Even more troubling, children are undergoing experimental treatments, like being injected with puberty-blocking hormones and cross-sex hormones, which have irreversible consequences, such as permanent sterility," LaMalfa said in a press release about his bills.

"As minors, children cannot vote, join the military, or open a bank account; its our job as a society, and especially parents, to protect them from making life-altering gender experimentation decisions that they may likely later regret.
Today host Karl Stefanovic appeared to be in great spirits as he enjoyed a boozy lunch in Sydney on Thursday.

The 46-year-old was joined by several mates at the China Doll restaurant in the upmarket suburb of Woolloomooloo.

Karl was all smiles as he happily chatted to friends before sitting down for a hearty meal.

Dining out: Today host Karl Stefanovic appeared to be in great spirits as he enjoyed a boozy lunch in Sydney's Woolloomooloo on Thursday

The father of four cut a stylish figure in denim jeans and a white collared shirt.

He completed his look with brown suede boots and a navy jacket, and also wore several bracelets on his left wrist.

During the outing, Karl and his mates were seen chatting animatedly as they enjoyed a few glasses of wine.

Great wine, great company! During the outing, Karl and his mates were seen chatting animatedly as they enjoyed a few glasses of wine

It comes after Karl revealed on the Today show last week that he'd managed to shed eight kilos since embarking on a weight-loss program.

He told viewers he was down to 97kg, and hoped to lose a further seven kilograms.

Back in May, he'd vowed to lose 10kg in 10 weeks after tipping the scales at 105kg.

Life is good! Karl was all smiles as he happily chatted to friends

The boozy lunch could have been a belated birthday bash for Karl, who was unable to properly celebrate his 46th birthday on August 12 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

He told The Sunday Telegraph over the weekend: 'We would have loved to have a big dinner with everyone, but it is too risky.

'When this is all over, we'll have a party with all our friends from Victoria - my shout!'
Separate polling booth for Covid-19 infected patients and designated grounds for rallies with clear cut markings to maintain social distancing are some of the guidelines being discussed by the Election Commission for the assembly elections in Bihar.

The commission has prepared a set of guidelines for holding the upcoming elections, the schedule for which is likely to be announced by September 20, sources told News18. Polls are due in the months of October-November in the state, which has, till date, witnessed 1.15 lakh COVID-19 cases, including 574 fatalities.

The EC is set to meet again on Friday, post which it is likely to announce the new set of rules for holding the elections as well as the political campaign. The guidelines will be framed based on the inputs of political parties and chief electoral officers of various states.

According to sources, the poll panel is preparing to increase the total number of polling booths by 50 per cent to ensure physical distancing while voting. The total number of polling stations are to be increased to around 1,06,000.

The separate booths for confirmed cases Covid-19 will have trained staff in complete personal protection equipment, sources said.

The EC will also ask local authorities to designate grounds for rallies with markings to maintain social distancing, and is also open to the concept of virtual campaigning for the elections.

The commission may leave it to the local authorities to decide the number of people who can participate after keeping in mind the size of the venue and social distancing norms, the sources said.

Sources said it is likely that the assembly elections this time are held in two or three phases, down from the six phases in the previous election.

The guidelines are being prepared even as concerns are being voiced over holding of the election amid the pandemic.

On Thursday, former Union minister and United Democratic Alliance (UDA) convenor Yashwant Sinha on Thursday joined a host of political leaders to seek postponement of the polls.

Sinha said that it was an "irony" that political activities have been put on hold for now owing to the rise in number of coronavirus cases, but nothing was being done to delay the elections.

"I am of the view that assembly elections should not be held in the current scenario. Polls should be conducted later," Sinha said, adding he worried that all polling booths will turn into coronavirus infection centres.

Except Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and the BJP, almost all major political parties in Bihar, including NDA constituent LJP, have demanded that elections be postponed.

The term of the Bihar legislative Assembly comes to an end on 29 November and the polls are likely to he held sometime in October-November.
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Britain's coronavirus outbreak shrank again today as the average number of people testing positive for the life-threatening disease dropped to below 1,000 for the first time in a week and separate government data suggested cases have plummeted by 37 per cent over the same time-frame.

Department of Health chiefs announced another 1,033 Covid-19 cases today - down from the 1,441 infections that were recorded last Friday. It means 992 Britons are now being diagnosed with the illness every day, on average, after it doubled from the start of July to reach 1,097 last Saturday - the highest in six weeks.

And the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today estimated that only 2,400 people are catching the infection every day in England. Last week the government-run agency - which tracks the size of the outbreak by swabbing thousands of people - claimed that 3,800 people were being infected each day.

In another sign the darkest days of the pandemic are over, officials also declared just two more deaths - taking the official number of victims since the virus first reached the UK to 41,405. Britain has yet to suffer a spike in fatalities or hospital admissions, suggesting the spike in cases is down to more testing in badly-hit areas. Doctors say the rise in cases is largely down to younger people getting infected, who studies have shown face less risk of dying or becoming severely ill from Covid-19.

But confusion about the current trajectory of the Covid-19 crisis in the UK was sparked today after SAGE warned the reproduction rate could now be above the dreaded level of one. Government advisers are understood to be scared that cases are trending upwards - despite data released to the public showing the opposite.

The Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) estimates the R value - the average number of people each coronavirus patient infects - is now between 0.9 and 1.1, up from last week's prediction that it was hovering around 0.8 and 1. Experts say the R needs to stay below one or Governments risk losing control of the epidemic and the virus could start to spread exponentially again.

But the estimate is based on three week old data due to the lag in time between Covid-19 patients falling ill and appearing in the statistics, meaning it does not paint a real-time picture of the UK's current epidemic. And it can be skewed upwards by local clusters of infections, which has been seen in swathes of the North West of England.

It comes as the government today announced households in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn will be banned from socialising together from midnight tonight because of drastic new measures to tackle spiralling outbreaks in the three authorities. In other developments today:

Public sector debt went above 2trillion for the first time in history after the Government was forced to borrow billions of pounds to keep the UK's crippled plc afloat during the coronavirus crisis;

Britons dashed to book Bank Holiday breaks in Portugal after it was 'green-listed' and hotels slashed prices in a last-minute scramble to fill rooms - but flight costs have risen six-fold;

Official statistics revealed coronavirus has been bumped down to become the eighth most common killer in England, in another sign the darkest days of the crisis are behind us;

Pregnant women and new mothers died needlessly in lockdown after being denied intensive care beds or mental health services, a damning Oxford University report warned.

The Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) estimates the R value - the average number of people each coronavirus patient infects - is now between 0.9 and 1.1, up from last week's prediction that it was hovering around 0.8 and 1.0

The latest growth rate for the whole of the UK is between -3 per cent to +1 per cent. A growth rate between -3 per cent to +1 per cent means the number of new infections is somewhere between shrinking by 3 per cent and growing by 1 per cent every day. The most likely value is towards the middle of the range

The Office for National Statistics estimates 2,400 people are contracting the disease every day, down 37 per cent from the 3,800 the previous week

HOW HAS THE R RATE CHANGED IN THE UK? AREA ENGLAND UK --- EAST LONDON MIDLANDS NORTH EAST NORTH WEST SOUTH EAST SOUTH WEST THIS WEEK 0.9 - 1.0 0.9 - 1.1 --- 0.8 - 1.0 0.9 - 1.1 0.8 - 1.0 0.8 - 1.0 0.9 - 1.1 0.8 - 1.0 0.8 - 1.1 LAST WEEK 0.8-1.0 0.8-1.0 --- 0.8 - 1.0 0.8 - 1.0 0.8 - 1.0 0.8 - 1.0 0.8 - 1.1 0.8 - 0.9 0.8 - 1.0 Advertisement

HOW HAS THE GROWTH RATE CHANGED? AREA ENGLAND UK --- EAST LONDON MIDLANDS NORTH EAST NORTH WEST SOUTH EAST SOUTH WEST THIS WEEK -3% to 0% -3% to +1% --- -3% to 0% -2% to +1% -4% to 0% -4% to 0% -2% to +1% -4% to 0% -1% to +2% LAST WEEK -4% to -1% -4% to -1% --- -5% to -1% -4% to 0% -5% to -1% -4% to 0% -3% to +1% -5% to -1% -5% to +1% Advertisement

CASES HAVE BEEN GOING UP... BUT HOSPITALS ARE EMPTY, TOP DOCTOR SAYS Dr Ron Daniels, a consultant in the West Midlands, said there were barely any Covid-19 patients coming into hospitals there, even though cases had been on the rise since July Hospitals are empty despite coronavirus cases having gone up over the past month - and it could be because the most vulnerable to the disease have already died, an intensive care specialist claimed today. Dr Ron Daniels, a consultant in the West Midlands, said there are barely any Covid-19 patients being admitted despite government infections showing cases had risen throughout July. More than 1,000 Britons are testing positive for the life-threatening disease each day, on average, data shows - but the figures appears to have started dropping. There are fewer than 100 daily hospital admissions for the virus. For comparison, up to 5,000 people were diagnosed daily during the darkest days of the crisis in April, and as many as 2,500 of these patients needed hospital care. However, hospital admission figures at the height of the crisis need to be treated with caution because they were inflated due to a counting error, it emerged last night. Dr Daniels believes the recent spike in infections is due to young people catching the coronavirus more, who are unlikely to get severely ill and need hospital care. And older and vulnerable populations may have already had the disease and died, or are being more cautious in fear of catching Covid-19. Other scientists have theorised the coronavirus has mutated to become less deadly, but this is 'slightly optimistic' in Dr Daniels' eyes. Advertisement









SAGE said it was 'seeing indications that' coronavirus was resurging in all of the home nations, which has fuelled fears that a second wave of the virus is making its way through the country.

In the last week, England's R value crept up from between 0.8 and 1.0 to 0.9 and 1.0, which has pushed up the overall rate across Britain. Miniature outbreaks in Scotland and Northern Ireland have also contributed to the rise.

To estimate the R, scientists look at clinical data such as hospital admissions and deaths, as well as behavioural surveys and people's movement patterns.

But SAGE warned that when transmission is as low as it currently is in the UK - around 1,000 people are being diagnosed every day - the R is more volatile.

SAGE estimates that the R has risen in four regions of England in the space of a week. London saw its rate go up from between 0.8 and 1.0 to 0.9 and 1.1, while in the North West it jumped from 0.8 and 1.1 to 0.9 and 1.1.

There was a similar trajectory in southern parts of the country, where the virus's reproduction rate moved from between 0.8 and 0.9 to 0.8 and 1.0 in the South East and between 0.8 and 1.0 to 0.8 and 1.1 in the South West.

One of the Government's top scientific advisers said today that, after reviewing the R rate study and ONS report, they think 'this is all probably trending upwards, very gently.' They warned younger people were fuelling the rise in cases and suggested it was only a matter of time before they began to infect older citizens who are far more vulnerable to Covid-19's nasty symptoms.

Reacting to the findings, Dr Michael Head, senior researcher in global health at the University of Southampton, said: 'The data suggests that as people mix more freely, there are probably increases in community transmission. This is to be expected, but highlights the problems in coming out of lockdown, particularly when there are many thousands of active cases in a population.

'Suppressing COVID-19 is extremely difficult. We know that most cases are transmitted within the indoor environment.

'Its currently August, and so outdoor meetings are possible, but as we head towards the winter, fewer people will be inclined to meet outside.

'That raises difficult questions about how best to handle social contacts across the winter months, particularly with the increased potential for transmission from younger populations, who usually have relatively mild cases, on to vulnerable populations where the consequences can be more serious.'

Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University, added: 'As always, all these sources of information have strengths and limitations, and have their own peculiarities, and there inevitably remains some uncertainty about whats actually happening.

'My overall assessment (as a statistician, not an epidemiologist) is that the current path of the pandemic in England, on average, is downward, though we cant be confident of that because theres too much unavoidable uncertainty and because, if new infection rates are indeed falling on average, they arent falling fast.

Coronavirus now just the EIGHTH biggest killer in England Coronavirus has been bumped down to become the eighth most common killer in England, in another sign the darkest days of the crisis are behind us. Office for National Statistics data released today show that 1,320 people had the virus mentioned on their death certificate in July, roughly 21 people per 100,000. In the same month, dementia killed nearly four times as many people (4,034) and heart disease took the lives of almost triple the number of patients (3,868). Conditions like strokes, aneurysms and lung diseases are now killing double the amount of people in England as Covid-19. But the number of people dying from influenza and pneumonia is similar. In Wales, coronavirus did not even rank among the 10 most common causes of death, with just 16.7 per 100,000 people dying in July, or 70 people. For comparison, 623 people per 100,000 in England died from coronavirus at the height of the pandemic in April and 495 per 100,000 in Wales. Separate ONS data released last week revealed that flu and pneumonia were also now killing more people than Covid-19. That report was more recent and looked at fatalities up to the first week of August, which explains why those deaths are not reflected in today's data. The ONS report found that, of the 38,179 deaths registered in July 2020 in England, 3.5 per cent (1,320 deaths) involved the coronavirus, which is around one in 30. In Wales, 2.7 per cent of the 2,548 deaths registered were due to Covid-19, or 70 deaths. Coronavirus was directly to blame for around 90 per cent of people who died and had the disease mentioned on their death certificate. Covid-19 fatalities have decreased by more than 96 per cent in both England and Wales since the darkest days of the crisis in April, when up to a 1,000 people were dying every day. Dementia and Alzheimer's disease regained its status as the number one killer in England and Wales in June, when Covid-19 deaths dropped off significantly. Advertisement

'But that overall pattern hides a lot of variation from one place to another, which is why Im pleased that local actions to contain outbreaks are being taken. It would be much more pleasant for everyone, particularly for the people living in the areas in the watchlist, if those actions werent necessary  but in my view they very much are necessary.'

Meanwhile, today's SAGE report also revealed that the growth rate of the UK's epidemic - which shows how the number of new cases is changing day-by-day  is between minus three and one per cent.

It means the number of new infections is somewhere between shrinking by 3 per cent and growing by 1 per cent every day. The most likely value is towards the middle of the range.

The growth rate reflects how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day and, as the number of infections decreases, it is a way of keeping track of the virus.

If it is greater than zero, and therefore positive, then the disease will grow, and if the growth rate is less than zero, then the disease will shrink.

However, there is some regional variation between the figures. In the South West of England, the growth rate has increased to between -1 and +2, meaning the outbreak there is likely growing.

In the North West and London, which have been the two worst-hit regions in the country through the crisis, the growth rate is between -2 and +1. In the East, the rate is slightly lower, at between -3 and 0, and almost certainly in retreat.

Scientists are most confident that cases are shrinking in the South East, Midlands, and North East and Yorkshire, where the rate is between -4 and 0. For England as a whole, the growth rate is sitting between -3 and 0.

It comes after the latest ONS report suggested that cases were declining, despite fears of a second wave and an uptick in positive tests.

The ONS estimated that 24,600 people in England had the coronavirus at any given time in the week ending August 13, the most recent study period.

It suggests 0.05 per cent of the population in England is currently infected with the disease, or around one in 2,200 people.

The ONS estimates that 1,300 people in Wales had Covid-19 at any one time between August 7 and August 13 - one in every 2,100 people.

The ONS report this week used results from 135,808 swab tests taken over seven weeks, out of which 61 people tested positive for Covid-19.

People who have coronavirus and are in hospital or care homes are not included in the study, which swabs random households.

Lifting lockdown on July 4 - Super Saturday - does not appear to have led to a spike in the numbers of people catching coronavirus, the ONS reports show.

Researchers from King's College London, who run the COVID Symptom Tracker app that is used by millions of Brits, say Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, Dundee City and Nottingham should now be monitored closely. The other seven hotspots have already had lockdown restrictions rolled back

HOSPITAL COVID-19 ADMISSIONS WERE OVER-REPORTED DURING PEAK OF THE PANDEMIC The figures of those admitted to hospital for coronavirus during the peak of the pandemic were over-reported, it was revealed last night. Britons who were suffering from other illnesses were included in data collected to monitor the virus outbreak, according to the Daily Telegraph. The Government's Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) found patients were categorised as Covid-19 hospital admissions if they had ever tested positive for the disease. And they were included in the number of people who were admitted specifically for coronavirus. Around 20,000 people a week were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 at the peak of the crisis in April, according to government statistics. The correct figure is not yet known. It comes after a recent review into the way Public Health England (PHE) calculated coronavirus deaths. More than 5,000 people who died from causes unrelated to the virus were initially included in the statistics - a tenth of the overall death toll. One top expert today said the statistical error was more widespread for hospital admissions than deaths - but the NHS denies it was happening nationwide and claimed the miscounting only occurred at one trust. Advertisement

There was a small rise in cases in July - the percentage of people testing positive rose to 0.07 per cent in the week ending July 26 - but this appears to have dropped again.

The percentage has remained below 0.1 per cent - one in every 1,000 people - since May 30, showing there have been no drastic increases.

'There is evidence that the incidence rate for England has increased in the most recent weeks following a low point in June and appears to have now levelled off,' the report said.

The ONS' daily infection predictions are much different to the Government's official daily count, released by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) every afternoon.

Testing data is collected by the ONS from swab tests sent regularly to people's homes to test whether they are infected with the virus at the time. The people are chosen to be representative of the UK population.

The households taking part in the survey were tested for Covid-19 regardless of whether they had symptoms or not.

Thousands of people become infected but never request a test and so go unreported in the DHSC's statistics.

Going by the official metric, 992 Britons are now testing positive for the life-threatening disease each day, on average - which is half of what the ONS predicts. For comparison, the rolling average yesterday was 1,043 and it had been falling every day since August 15, when the figure reached a six-week high of 1,097.

Meanwhile, a coronavirus mobile app which suspected patients use to report their symptoms has picked up on three new areas of the UK that could see mini outbreaks.

Officials have yet to announce the number of daily infections today, but it is expected later this afternoon along with the daily death toll.

Researchers from King's College London, who run the COVID Symptom Tracker app that is used by millions of Brits, say Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, Dundee City and Nottingham now join the ranks of the worst-hit places in the UK.

They warn of spikes in cases in 10 other parts of England - mostly in the North West, such as Manchester, Blackpool and Holton - but they have already seen lockdown restrictions rolled back due to climbing cases.

The COVID Symptom Tracker estimated that 20,299 people have Covid that is making them unwell in the UK. The KCL researchers predict there are currently 1,434 daily new cases of the disease in the UK on average, based on testing 8,798 people between August 2 and August 15.

They found Blackpool was the worst hit part of the country, with 0.4 per cent of residents in the area having displayed symptoms.

The seaside resort overtook Halton, in Chesire, where there are now 0.35 per cent of the population people with symptomatic Covid. Manchester rounded out the top three with an infection rate of 0.21 per cent.

But the mobile app identified three areas which are not currently on the Government's watchlist.

Merthyr Tydfil in Wales now has 0.21 per cent of its population suffering from symptomatic Covid, while in Dundee City it is 0.18 per cent, according to the data. A total of 0.17 per cent of residents in Nottingham - another new entry - are now battling the virus.

FRANCE SEES ANOTHER SPIKE IN CASES - AS BRITS SCRAMBLE TO GET HOME FROM CROATIA AND AUSTRIA France recorded another sharp rise is coronavirus cases yesterday with 4,700 infections - up by a thousand - while Italy has seen its highest daily tally since May. There have also been worrying spikes in Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia - much of it blamed on holidaying Europeans and youngsters enjoying parties in the summer heatwave. Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily tally since May, while France's 4,771 fresh infections was a colossal increase on Wednesday's 3,776 (pictured: a graph of the rolling 7-day average) Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest figure for three months, while France's 4,771 fresh infections was a colossal increase on Wednesday's 3,776. Britons were scrambling to return home from Croatia and Austria last night after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps declared that anyone arriving from the countries must self-isolate for 14 days. British Airways economy flights from Zagreb to London are up at 276 today compared to 82 on Monday. Around 20,000 British tourists are thought to be in Croatia. In Vienna its a similar story, 482 to Heathrow compared to 109 for the same route on Sunday. Advertisement

It comes as households in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn will be banned from socialising together from midnight on Saturday as the Government announces new measures to stop the localised spread of coronavirus.

The Government said it had agreed the tougher restrictions with local leaders, with residents now being told not to meet with anyone from outside their own household.

Ministers said that 'despite dedicated local efforts, evidence of rising rates in areas remain'.

But a drop in infection rates in Wigan, Darwen and Rossendale means they will soon be released from local lockdown rules which currently apply to the Greater Manchester area.

Meanwhile, the Government has designated Birmingham as an Area of Enhanced Support after a rise in case numbers in the city, with additional testing to be rolled out to determine the extent of infection.

The new rules in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn will not prevent people from going shopping, going to work or attending child-care settings including schools which are due to reopen from September 1.

However, they do mean that social activities both indoors and outdoors can only be shared with people who live together.

Residents in the three areas are also being advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel.

The number of people who can attend weddings and funerals is recommended to be limited to household members and close family and no more than 20 people.

Local restaurants are being told not to allow walk-ins and to only seat people who have made reservations in advance.

The new rules, which will not apply in the Darwen area of the Blackburn with Darwen Upper Tier Local Authority area, parts of Pendle, in Rossendale or in Wigan, are in addition to the existing ban on indoor gatherings of more than two households in place across parts of Lancashire, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire.

Today's announcement stopped short of a full localised lockdown - where businesses would be closed - which local leaders had warned would be 'catastrophic' for firms.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: 'To prevent a second peak and keep Covid-19 under control, we need robust, targeted intervention where we see a spike in cases. The only way we can keep on top of this deadly virus is through decisive action led by the people who know their areas best, wherever possible through consensus with a local area.

'Working with local leaders we agreed further action [in] Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn. It is vital that everyone in these areas follow the advice of their councils, and abide by their local rules carefully.

'Our approach is to make the action we take as targeted as possible, with the maximum possible local consensus.

'To do that we are introducing a new process to increase engagement between local leaders, both councils and MPs, with the aim of taking as targeted action as possible. This will allow local councils to focus resources onto the wards which need more targeted intervention in order to drive infection rates down, and gives local people a stronger voice at the table.'

The decision to impose more stringent restrictions in Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle comes after it emerged yesterday that cases in Oldham had reached 103.1 per 100,000 people during the week ending 13 August.

In Blackburn and Pendle case numbers had reached 95.3 and 75.5 cases respectively. The sharp rise in cases is in part due to a major increase in testing led by local councils.

The Government said local data suggested the increase in cases is being driven by social mixing between 20-39 year-olds.

Ministers also today announced that Birmingham is being designated as an 'Area of Enhanced Support' because coronavirus cases in the city are 'rising quickly'.

The city currently has 30.2 cases per 100,000 and the percentage of people testing positive is up to 4.3 per cent. The new designation means Birmingham will now be subject to additional testing, more locally led contact tracing and targeted community engagement.

Mr Hancock is due to hold a meeting with local leaders today to discuss 'urgent next steps' which could be required in Birmingham.

Rules prohibiting social gatherings in Lancashire, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Leicester will now be lifted in Wigan, Rossendale and some parts of Blackburn with Darwen.

OLDHAM, PENDLE AND BLACKBURN HIT WITH TOUGHER RULES OVER SPIKE IN CASES Households in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn will be banned from socialising together from midnight on Saturday as the Government today new measures to stop the localised spread of coronavirus. The Government said it had agreed the tougher restrictions with local leaders, with residents now being told not to meet with anyone from outside their own household. Ministers said that 'despite dedicated local efforts, evidence of rising rates in areas remain'. But a drop in infection rates in Wigan, Darwen and Rossendale means they are now being released from local lockdown rules which applied to the Greater Manchester area. The new rules will not prevent people from going shopping, going to work or attending child-care settings including schools which are due to reopen from September 1. However, they do mean that social activities both indoors and outdoors can only be shared with people who live together. Residents in the three areas are also being advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel. Meanwhile, the number of people who can attend weddings and funerals is recommended to be limited to household members and close family and no more than 20 people. Local restaurants are being told not to allow walk-ins and to only seat people who have made reservations in advance. The new rules, which will not apply in the Darwen area of the Blackburn with Darwen Upper Tier Local Authority area, parts of Pendle, in Rossendale or in Wigan, are in addition to the existing ban on indoor gatherings of more than two households in place across parts of Lancashire, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. Advertisement

These areas will align with the rest of England from Wednesday August 26 but the measures will continue to apply elsewhere, with another review scheduled for next week.

The Government's new approach to drawing up local lockdowns will see councils in areas of 'National Intervention' tasked with working together in order to propose a plan for a specified area which is experiencing a surge in cases.

Local leaders will be expected to strike a consensus between councils and local MPs with areas where coronavirus is less prevalent expected to be made exempt from restrictions.

A final decision will then be made by the Joint Biosecurity Centre Gold Meeting which will be chaired by Mr Hancock and the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty.

Separate ONS data today showed coronavirus had been bumped down to become the eighth most common killer in England, in another sign the darkest days of the crisis are behind us.

Office for National Statistics data released today show that 1,320 people had the virus mentioned on their death certificate in July, roughly 21 people per 100,000.

In the same month, dementia killed nearly four times as many people (4,034) and heart disease took the lives of almost triple the number of patients (3,868).

Conditions like strokes, aneurysms and lung diseases are now killing double the amount of people in England as Covid-19. But the number of people dying from influenza and pneumonia is similar.

In Wales, coronavirus did not even rank among the 10 most common causes of death, with just 16.7 per 100,000 people dying in July, or 70 people.

For comparison, 623 people per 100,000 in England died from coronavirus at the height of the pandemic in April and 495 per 100,000 in Wales.

Separate ONS data released last week revealed that flu and pneumonia were also now killing more people than Covid-19. That report was more recent and looked at fatalities up to the first week of August, which explains why those deaths are not reflected in today's data.

The ONS report found that, of the 38,179 deaths registered in July 2020 in England, 3.5 per cent (1,320 deaths) involved the coronavirus, which is around one in 30. In Wales, 2.7 per cent of the 2,548 deaths registered were due to Covid-19, or 70 deaths.

Coronavirus was directly to blame for around 90 per cent of people who died and had the disease mentioned on their death certificate.

Covid-19 fatalities have decreased by more than 96 per cent in both England and Wales since the darkest days of the crisis in April, when up to a 1,000 people were dying every day.

Dementia and Alzheimer's disease regained its status as the number one killer in England and Wales in June, when Covid-19 deaths dropped off significantly.

In July, 4,034 deaths were attributed to the memory-robbing disorders in England, the equivalent of 86.3 deaths per 100,000 people.

The actual death of a person with dementia is caused by the complications the disorder causes. Patients are likely to be frail and lose their ability to cope with infections and other physical problems.

In many cases they die from acute illnesses such as pneumonia, heart disease and strokes. They may also pass from malnourishment due to not being able to eat or process food properly. Accidents such as falls and choking on food are also a common way dementia sufferers pass away.

Putting Birmingham under a blanket lockdown is 'risk averse' because new cases are being driven by clusters in separate parts of the city, top doctor says

An intensive care doctor working in Birmingham has said that putting the entire city under lockdown would be 'risk averse' because new cases are being driven by clusters in separate parts of the city.

Dr Ron Daniels, who works for University Hospitals Birmingham, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the increase in coronavirus cases is not a city-wide problem.

Official figures show Birmingham's infection rate has more than doubled over the past fortnight to around 25 new cases for every 100,00 people. A handful of wards are seeing a similar amount of new infections, according to government data.

It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday chaired a 'Gold Command' meeting to discuss the potential of Birmingham being placed under lockdown.

Council bosses who attended the meeting were desperate to prevent further damage to the already-crippled local economy by avoiding tougher measures like ones imposed in the North West and Leicester.

Birmingham is expected to be placed on a national 'watch list' from today, meaning it will be offered 'enhanced support' to avoid further cases.

Local health bosses warned residents of the city  1.1million people  that 'what we do in the next seven days will decide if we go into lockdown or not'.

Ministers are also expected to announce an update on whether tougher measures will be needed for Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle, where cases were rising.

In-depth government statistics, which are published on a map by the Department of Health, show no specific wards in Birmingham are responsible for the city's soaring infection rate

Official figures show the city of Birmingham's infection rate has more than doubled over the past fortnight, with around 25 new cases of coronavirus for every 100,000 people  up from just 11 in the first week of August

Dr Daniels said: 'We can't yet let our guard down against this virus. But the reality is we are seeing regions, and this is not a city-wide problem in Birmingham - these are clusters, they are outbreaks.

'We need to look very carefully at where we're seeing localised clusters, localised outbreaks, and we need to consider actions in those regions.

'But to apply a city-wide lockdown seems a little risk-averse right now to me.

'And the reason I say that is we are testing more people, that will partly account for the increased number of cases of course, but there are other factors that don't seem to be being considered.'

He added: 'I think there are considerations around the positivity rates, but we're not looking at the case-fatality rates and we're not looking at hospital admissions.

'We've seen cases go up since the beginning of July, and still our hospitals are relatively empty of patients with this condition.'

Birmingham had around 25 new cases of coronavirus for every 100,000 people between August 11 and 17  up from just 11 in the first week of the month.

In-depth government statistics, which are published on a map by the Department of Health, show no specific ward in Birmingham is responsible for the city's soaring infection rate but a handful all have recorded several cases.

The most up-to-date figures for the postcode map show Rotton Park  in the west of the city and on the border of neighbouring Sandwell  saw the most cases between August 9 and 15 (16).

Sandwell, which borders Birmingham, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton, is currently one of the 20 worst-hit places in England with an infection rate of 21.1 cases for every 100,000 people.

Fifteen cases were recorded in Handsworth South and 13 in Birchfield West. While 12 people were diagnosed with Covid-19 in Bordesley and 11 in neighbouring Small Heath Park, both of which are located just to the east of the city centre.

Thirty-six cases were diagnosed in the three boroughs of Smethwick, which is technically classed as being in the local government authority of Sandwell and not Birmingham.
As scientists across the globe race to create a COVID-19 vaccine that is safe and effective, the American public appears sharply divided when it comes to the prospect of getting vaccinated against the new virus, which has so far infected roughly 5.5 million and killed more than 172,000 in the United States.
MBABANE - The country has recorded two new COVID-19-related deaths, bringing the total to 81 in the country.

The deaths were confirmed by the Minister of Health, Lizzie Nkosi, yesterday.

The first death was of a 54-year-old woman from the Hhohho Region, who passed away while in care in one of the countrys health facilities. The deceased was in the intensive care unit.

The second death was of a 42-year-old man from Hhohho Region, who also died while admitted to one of the countrys health facilities and was in a critical state, according to the minister.

Meanwhile, the country recorded 52 new cases of COVID-19. This means that the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country is 4 110.

Highest

Manzini Region had the highest cases as it recorded 27 followed by Hhohho with 16 while Shiselweni had six and three from the Lubombo Region. From the confirmed cases, one presented with severe symptoms, three had a moderate disease while 29 had mild symptoms and 19 were asymptomatic.

The youngest case was one in the age bracket of one to nine and the oldest were two in the age group 60 to 69 years.

There were 32 new recoveries yesterday, bringing the total to 2 643. This means that current active cases are 1 386.

The minister said they were noting with concern, the increase in the number of deaths of confirmed COVID-19 cases as a result of co-existing medical conditions such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cardiac disease and asthma. She said they were therefore urging the public, especially males, to ensure that they did medical check-ups regularly, at least once a year.

Those diagnosed with a chronic illness should adhere to the treatment as advised by the health workers, she said.
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The global volatile organic compound gas sensor market size is anticipated to reach USD 186.7 million by 2025, registering a CAGR of 4.0% from 2019 to 2025, according to a new study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. The detection of volatile organic compound (VOC) gases in the air has received considerable attention and is becoming increasingly important in the development of leak detection devices. This factor is anticipated to drive the market growth.

A VOC gas sensor is an electronic device that detects the presence of gases such as benzene, methylene chloride, propane, acetone, and ethanol, among others in a particular area and is often integrated into a safety system. These sensors are integrated into leak detection devices and consume low power.Technological developments, such as enhancement of MEMS sensors and PID sensors for detection of VOC emission are expected to create growth opportunities for the market.

VOC sensors are widely used in air monitoring devices to observe emission levels owing to their unique properties such as high sensing performance, portability, and compact size among others. However, these sensors still exhibit limitations such as poor selectivity and lack high operating temperatures. Hence, to counter these challenges, companies are coming up with advanced MEMS sensors to overcome the limitations.

The infrared-based VOC gas sensor is anticipated to witness substantial growth as it enables the accurate measurement of a wide variety of VOC gases with benefits such as instantaneous results, ease of operation, and low cost. Moreover, increased adoption of VOC gas sensors can be attributed to the high need for safety in the oil and gas sector. This is anticipated to further create growth opportunities for the volatile organic compound gas sensors market.

To request a sample copy or view summary of this report, click the link below:

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/volatile-organic-compound-gas-sensor-market

Further key findings from the report suggest:

Stringent regulations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines for Europe have specified the permissible levels of formaldehyde, toluene, and tetrachloroethylene gases that are released in the atmosphere as a result of industrial processes

Single gas detection sensors are majorly used in automotive applications and are widely used for the detection of VOC gases such as combustible gases, acetone, butadiene, xylene, toluene, tetrachloroethylene, methylene chloride, and benzene, among others

PID sensors can detect concentrations of explosives and hydrocarbons below the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL). Therefore, they are ideal for applications such as monitoring and controlling of decontamination and leak detection in closed rooms and confined spaces

The use of VOC sensors is growing at a rapid pace for real-time tracking of reservoir environment, monitoring of pipelines, monitoring of benzene leaks, and remote monitoring of plant equipment

Key players in the VOC gas sensors market include ABB Ltd., Siemens AG, Aeroqual Limited., Alphasense, City Technology Ltd., Bosch Sensortec, and SGX Sensortech among others

Grand View Research has segmented the global volatile organic compound gas sensors market on the basis of type, technology, application, and region:

Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Gas Sensor Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Single Gas Detection Sensor

Multiple Gas Detection Sensor

Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Gas Sensor Technology Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Photo-Ionization Detector (PID)

Infrared-based Detection

Metal-oxide Semiconductor

Others

Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Gas Sensor Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Oil & Gas

Agriculture

Automotive

Chemical Industry

Manufacturing

Food & Beverages

Metals & Mining

Others

Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Gas Sensor Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

North America US. Canada Mexico

Europe Germany UK.

Asia Pacific China India Japan

South America Brazil

Middle East & Africa

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.
INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sanctuary Wealth, home to the next generation of elite financial advisors, has expanded its network into the New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast region with the addition of its first Louisiana team, The Longo Group, to the Sanctuary Network. The team is led by Ted Longo, a highly respected veteran with more than 30 years at Merrill Lynch where he was Managing Director, Senior Resident Director-Wealth Management Advisor. The 8-person team has annual revenues of $4 million and over $530 million in assets under management (AUM).

"By choosing Sanctuary's partnered independence, The Longo Group will have control of their business and flexibility in how they serve clients, but they won't be alone," said Jim Dickson, CEO and Founder of Sanctuary Wealth. "Our platform can supply the services, solutions and technology they need to give their clients what they deserve. We're delighted to welcome The Longo Group to Sanctuary as we expand our presence along the Gulf Coast and help them realize their full growth potential."

"I grew up in this business being taught that everything starts with the client and that's a philosophy that I've held to throughout my career. What attracted me to Sanctuary in the first place is that the firm is based on the same principle," said Ted Longo, President & Senior Wealth Management Advisor, The Longo Group. "I've known and respected the individuals leading Sanctuary for many years and was comfortable right away because we speak the same language. My biggest concern about going independent was the transition of client accounts, as we have a large and sophisticated client base. But Lili Kaufmann, Sanctuary's Director of Transitions, is someone I worked closely with previously as well as being a close personal friend. I felt my clients couldn't be in better hands."

Ted Longo got hooked on investing when his ninth grade math teacher had the class play a stock market game. He decided in high school that he wanted to be a stock broker and started buying stocks while he was still a student. After receiving a degree from Auburn University, he joined Merrill Lynch in 1986 and remained there for the next 34 years, rising to the position of Managing Director, Senior Resident Director-Wealth Management Advisor. He opened the firm's office in Slidell, Louisiana in 1997 and built an environment that enabled advisors and their practices to compete with advisors in major markets.

"I first met Ted Longo as a colleague 18 years ago and consider him to be one of the finest gentlemen I know, someone distinguished by his character and leadership," said Vince Fertitta, President, Wealth Management, Sanctuary Wealth. "Ted has a well-deserved reputation for client advocacy, professionalism, integrity, and compassion and they are characteristics shared by his entire team. He is someone with the intensity, competitive spirt and work ethic required to be among the top producers in the industry. I'm incredibly proud that he and his team are joining the Sanctuary community to launch their family business, The Longo Group."

Longo, who grew up in Waveland, Mississippi and likes to say he has 'one foot in Mississippi and one in Louisiana', sees his firm's move as a realignment rather than a major change. "As far as clients are concerned, nothing is changing, except maybe for the better. We have always led with what is best for the client and that's what we'll continue to do," he said. "With Sanctuary, we'll have access to an open platform with a wider range of solutions and investments that will allow my team and I to do an even better job for our clients."

About Sanctuary Wealth

Sanctuary Wealth (sanctuarywealth.com/) is the advanced platform for the next generation of elite, top-performing advisors, who have the entrepreneurial spirit to build and own their own practices, and desire the freedom to deliver the tailored service each client deserves. Creating an ecosystem of partnered independence, Sanctuary provides a complete technology and operations platform, as well as support from a community of like-minded advisors and the resources of invaluable affiliated businesses all designed to empower each partner firm to achieve their full potential.

Currently, the Sanctuary Wealth network covers 16 states and includes 38 partner firms with over $10 billion in assets under advisement. The Sanctuary Wealth Group includes the fully owned subsidiaries Sanctuary Advisors, a registered investment adviser, and the broker-dealer Sanctuary Securities, as well as Sanctuary Asset Management, Sanctuary Insurance Solutions, Sanctuary Capital Markets, and Sanctuary Global Family Office.

CONTACT: Michaela Morales

JConnelly

973 224 7152

[email protected]

SOURCE Sanctuary Wealth
Goodvalley maintained satisfactory operations in Q2 2020 despite challenging market conditions during the outbreak of COVID-19, which entailed volatility, significant price fluctuations and a decline in local currencies entailing a temporary negative translation effect. The Group continued to boost sales of branded premium products and acquired a sow farm in Gniewno to increase production capacity in Poland.

"We protected our business and employees and maintained satisfactory operational performance in Q2 2020 in the face of unprecedented challenges and market volatility during the COVID-19 crisis." says CEO Hans Henrik Pedersen.

Q2 2020

 Group revenue decreased by 9% to DKK 352 million (Q2 2019: DKK 385 million), and Goodvalley's Adjusted EBITDA decreased to DKK 69 million (Q2 2019: DKK 77 million), corresponding to an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.6% (Q2 2019: 20.0%).

 The Polish segment revenue declined to DKK 214 million (Q2 2019: DKK 240 million), and Adjusted EBITDA was stable at DKK 22 million (Q2 2019: DKK 22 million) corresponding to a slight improvement of the Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.5% (Q2 2019: 9.3%) driven by satisfactory performance at the slaughterhouse during the outbreak of COVID-19 and despite unsustainably low price levels for deboned meat due to reduced demand.

 In Ukraine, Goodvalley increased revenue to DKK 106 million (Q2 2019: DKK 97 million), and Adjusted EBITDA increased to DKK 45 million (Q2 2019: DKK 37 million) corresponding to an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 42.2% (Q2 2019: 37.9%) on the back of high production efficiency and strong volume growth.

 Revenue in the Russian business declined to DKK 32 million (Q2 2019: DKK 48 million) as a result of lower volumes after an outbreak of PRRS and a drop in pig prices, which contributed to a decrease in Adjusted EBITDA to DKK 7 million (Q2 2019: DKK 13 million) and a lower Adjusted EBITDA margin of 22.8% (Q2 2019: 27.2%).

Outlook

Goodvalley maintains the outlook for 2020 and expects revenue of DKK 1,600 - 1,750 million and an Adjusted EBITDA of DKK 320-380 million. The outlook is based on strong year-to-date performance coupled with continued market challenges related to COVID-19 in the short-term and an expected stabilisation in the second half of 2020.

Conference call

On 24 August 2020 at 08.30 (CET), Goodvalley will host a conference call at which CEO Hans Henrik Pedersen and Vice CEO Kristian Brokop Jacobsen will provide comments on financial and operational performance, the outlook and answer questions. Registration is not required.

The conference call will be conducted in English and can be followed live here:

https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/y95a4frp

Participants should dial the numbers provided below and state conference code 6680528

Denmark: +45 32 72 80 42 Norway: +47 239 60264 Poland: +48 222 120 152 Sweden: +46 (0)850 692180 United Kingdom: +44 (0)844 571 8892 United States +1 631 510 7495

Further information

Group CFO, Jakob Brasted

+ 45 76 52 20 00

info@goodvalley.com

GOODVALLEY AT A GLANCE

Goodvalley is an international producer of high-quality pork products operating in Poland, Ukraine and Russia based on Danish production standards. The company is to a large extent self-sufficient and masters the whole production chain from field to fork, from growing crops for feed, breeding and slaughtering pigs including using the manure in biogas facilities to produce electricity and organic fertilizer for the fields. Goodvalley is certified as a carbon neutral company by German TUV and operates according to the highest standards in terms of animal welfare, transparency in the production and sustainable production methods.

Attachment
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Colfax Corporation

Global Credit Research - 20 Aug 2020

New York, August 20, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Colfax 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.

Colfax Corporation's Ba2 corporate family rating reflects the company's resilient business model and improved product and end market diversification following the portfolio rebalance (i.e. acquisition of DJO Global, Inc. and sale of Air & Gas Handling business). Moody's expects the company to generate positive free cash flow, although with weaker credit metrics in 2020 due to COVID-19 impacts. The long-term fundamentals of the healthcare industry remain favorable with pent-up demand for reconstructive and elective procedures expected to gradually translate into revenue growth in 2021 and beyond. Colfax maintains good liquidity with cash and ample availability under the revolving credit facility.

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 Manufacturing Methodology published in March 2020. 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.

Eric Greaser Vice President - Senior Analyst Corporate Finance Group Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Robert Jankowitz MD - Corporate Finance Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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JERUSALEM - Palestinian militants fired 12 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip overnight, nine of which were intercepted, and Israel responded with three airstrikes on targets linked to the territorys militant Hamas rulers, the Israeli military said early Friday.

Friday evening, the military added that the militants fired at least one more projectile that was also intercepted.

It was the most serious exchange of fire along the Gaza frontier in months, but there were no reports of casualties. Police said buildings and vehicles in Israel were damaged, and that bomb-disposal units had been dispatched to pick up shrapnel and rocket parts.

In recent weeks, groups affiliated with Hamas have launched incendiary balloons into Israel, igniting farmland in a bid to pressure Israel to ease the blockade it imposed on Gaza when the Islamic militants seized power in 2007. The rocket fire marks a significant escalation.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and several smaller battles over the last 13 years. Neither side is believed to be seeking war, but any casualties could ignite a wider conflict.

After a meeting with the military chiefs to assess the situation, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz threatened Hamas with a serious blow. He said the army is prepared, is protecting and will continue to protect the people of the south, and will attack the attackers in turn, inflicting serious damage.

We will not stand by while Hamas is out of control, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement. The military will respond with force and determination, sortie after sortie, and will continue even if it requires patience and time.

Israel has closed Gazas only commercial crossing, causing the territorys sole power plant to shut down for lack of fuel and limiting the territorys 2 million residents to around four hours of electricity a day. Israel has also banned fishing in Gazas coastal waters, measures it says are in response to the incendiary balloons.

Egyptian mediators were in Gaza earlier this week to try and shore up an informal truce but left without announcing any progress. Israel has allowed the Gulf nation of Qatar to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza in recent years to keep the economy from collapsing and preserve calm.

We will not allow the enemy to continue the unjust siege on our people, who have the right to express their rejection to this siege by all means, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups said in a joint statement.

Describing the incendiary balloons as peaceful tools of resistance, the factions said they responded and will respond to any Israeli airstrikes on militant sites.

The latest exchange began late Thursday when militants fired two rockets that landed near the security fence. A few hours later, a volley of three rockets was intercepted by Israeli missile defences. Another seven rockets were fired early Friday, six of which were shot down.

The Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes targeting Hamas military infrastructure, including a compound used to manufacture rocket ammunition, in response.

It was the most serious cross-border exchange since February, when the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group fired around 80 rockets into Israel after one of its fighters was killed near the border while allegedly planting explosives. Israel struck dozens of targets across the territory.

___

Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip contributed.

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A Ryerson University staffer widely recognized for her anti-racism work on campus is accusing the university of anti-Black racism, discrimination based on gender and disability, harassment and reprisal after she was fired last year while on medical leave.

Carol Sutherlands accusations are the subject of three grievances filed by her union prior to the global reckoning of systemic anti-Black racism and before a major campus review released last month found discrimination against Black people to be rampant and a defining feature for staff at Ryerson.

We must continue to take serious action to create a future in which all Black students, faculty and staff feel welcome, included and can bring their whole selves to Ryerson to work, learn, research, teach and succeed, university president Mohamed Lachemi wrote in response to the review.

Sutherland, whose grievances are slated for an arbitration hearing on Sept. 9, outlined her case to the Star in several interviews. A complaint she filed at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has been deferred pending the resolution of the grievances. All the documents mentioned here have been seen by the Star. The Star also put these allegations to Ryerson, which declined to comment.

At Ryerson University, all human resources issues involving individual employees are addressed as confidential matters, a university spokesperson said by email Monday on behalf of the president and two staffers named by Sutherland in her grievances. Due to confidentiality and privacy requirements we cannot provide information or clarification regarding the particulars of the matter that you have raised.

Sutherland, a Black woman, was hired by Ryerson in 2004 and fired in January 2019 for misappropriating sick leave, and for frustrating and/or misusing the complaints process, according to her termination letter.

Sutherland told the Star her three medical leaves were necessitated by work stress from a string of issues, including being picked on for small errors, berated for her clothing, accused of being too loud and in one instance asked if she was practising Obeah  a Caribbean spiritual healing practice  when using a humidifier in her office.

As news of Sutherlands firing spread around campus, students and employees rallied to support her.

Five campus groups and 32 faculty and staff sent a joint letter to Lachemi asking him to reconsider the decision. We believe this termination is unjust, said the writers, among whom were highly respected professors such as Akua Benjamin, Grace-Edward Galabuzi and Shiri Pasternak.

It has come to our attention that other racialized workers at Ryerson have complaints of harassment and/or inequitable treatment, the letter read. Similar to Carols story, they have faced isolation, intimidation, targeting and limited training and advancement opportunities.

Lila Pine, an Indigenous professor of media and culture, called the case beyond embarrassing and so deeply wrong, in a separate letter to Lachemi.

Last September, a group of supporters marched with Sutherland at the Labour Day Parade wearing T-shirts saying Black Workers Matter on the front and #IStandWithCarol on the back.

Sutherland has won several awards for her work at the university including the Alan Shepard Award for advancing equity. She was also featured in the book, 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women  2016.

As the matter is at arbitration, it would be inappropriate to provide a statement or details other than to confirm we fully support our member, Warren Thomas, president of OPSEU, the union pursuing her grievance challenging her termination, said by email Tuesday.

Sutherland, 56, identifies as a Black Canadian-Caribbean woman with North American Indigenous ancestry.

In 2015, she founded the universitys Black Faculty and Staff Community Network to support Black employees and students on campus. It was widely recognized as a success. For instance, nominations for Ryersons Viola Desmond Staff Awards described Sutherland as someone genuinely regarded as a key and influential mentor for Black students, staff and faculty, a community bridge builder, someone who had a wonderful personality, an infectious laugh.

That same year, she filed a grievance for being harassed, discriminated and bullied in the workplace. Ryerson hired an external investigator and concluded no discrimination or wrongdoing had taken place.

In written details she submitted to the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, Sutherland said, As a worker with a learning disability, I have never been fully trained for any of the positions I have held at Ryerson. I have been frequently reprimanded for even slight errors in my work.

Her latest round of troubles originated, ironically, in the Office of Equity and Community Inclusion (ECI), where she was seconded for two years from 2016 to 2018.

One of the expectations outlined in the brief for her new job as special projects co-ordinator at the ECI was that she continue to provide leadership and support to the network. Another was that she draft a process for forming a community network. She understood that to mean it would be a template for anyone else wanting to create a network.

Offering support meant having an open-door policy, which Sutherland said, her boss Darrell Bowden criticized.

Sutherland believes there was a change in how she was treated in the spring of 2018, when she came back from a vacation and found her department was organizing a White Privilege Conference that May, and, according to her, not getting anywhere. Within a week of returning, she said, she had university rooms booked. She went to hotels in the neighbourhood, worked through their uneasiness around white privilege, met with event planners and got hotel rooms booked.

Associate professor Bryan Koivisto nominated Sutherland for the Viola Desmond Staff Award in 2018, praising her work for the conference in a note to the university that July.

Around this time, Sutherland placed a mini humidifier on the desk of her windowless office. In her now deferred application to the human rights tribunal, Sutherland said her director (Bowden) accused me of doing Obeah.

It threw me off, she told the Star, adding he asked why she was putting her hand on the mist. I said, Its a humidifier, come touch it. Its for my nosebleeds.

About a month before the conference, Sutherland said Bowden called her into his office. He threatened to send me home for the way I was dressed, saying he has an image to uphold in the office, she wrote in a pre-application interview form to Ontarios Human Rights Legal Support Centre. He spoke to me in a condescending, bullying tone, and the act of commenting on my wardrobe without reason in the workplace was a blatant exhibit of misogynoir, she wrote.

Sutherland got a colleague to take a photo of her outfit: She was wearing a high neck shirt, ripped jeans and boots.

Bowden did not respond to Star questions on these allegations. Ryerson did not respond to a question on whether it has a dress code.

Sutherland wrote in the form she cried so much after that incident she began getting chest pains. She said she had a dental appointment that day to deal with a cracked tooth, but when she got there, the dental surgeon couldnt work on her because she was shaking so much. That night she went into emergency where she was told she was having a panic attack.

She went on six-weeks medical leave that day and missed the conference.

She told the Star that when she returned  before the six weeks were up  Bowden told her she had undermined the conference with her absence.

Within weeks, on June 20, 2018, she received a warning letter from Bowden for insubordination for the day in April she said she was berated for her clothes. It accused her of raising her voice at him and for not completing work as assigned and leaving the workplace without prior approval.

Sutherland told the Star she had left to go to her dentist, and that she did not raise her voice. Knowing the situation I was in, why would I raise my voice when I wanted to prove Im not a problem employee? she asked.

On June 25, 2018, Sutherland filed a complaint against Bowden and the university launched an external investigation.

After that, Sutherland got a new supervisor, Tamar Myers.

Myers asked her to write the report on the process of starting a network that was outlined in her job description. According to Sutherland, Myers didnt like what she had written and wanted her to say ECI (the department they work in) played a role in creating the Black Community and Staff Faculty Network when, according to Sutherland, it was nowhere in the picture.

That summer, Sutherland went to a workplace negotiation at Ryerson to be a support person for another Black woman. I saw it as part of my support role, she said. The next day she got a note from Myers that pointed out how any absenteeism by Sutherland required prior approval and that she, Myers, had not given that approval. In addition, your role does not involve attending workplace negotiation, it said. (The written job brief makes no mention of workplace negotiations.)

Myers handed her a one-day suspension for insubordination. Myers did not respond to Star questions about these allegations.

In August 2018, Sutherland wrote a letter to Lachemi. The very office charged with executing the mandate to hold the university accountable for equity and inclusion has subjected me to the same practice and behaviour it was created to disallow, she wrote.

Why am I being called into a meeting to discuss my clothing because it is not in line with the ECI department dress code, when ECI and Ryerson does not have a dress code policy as far as I know? I pride myself in how I look and dress.

That Im not allowed licence to express emotion amidst the treatment Ive received suggests that as a Black woman I must censor my emotions. I am not an angry Black woman.

Lachemi did not respond. Instead, she got a note from a human resources vice-president that acknowledged her letter and offered two dates on which to speak to the external investigator.

Sutherland said she agreed to one date, but the investigator had to cancel. She later received a new date but it fell on a day in October when she was on her second medical stress leave. Im not coming in to do an investigation when Im on leave.

Earlier in October, Myers asked Sutherland to meet her in the human resources department and sent her another note outlining serious concerns around insubordination. You indicated you would not meet with us today without a witness present and suggested we email you instead  You are not entitled to a support person when meeting with your manager, the note said.

I also asked you to confirm who youve been meeting with in your office as I noticed you had a couple of meetings that were not noted on your calendar that morning. You did not respond to my question and instead sent an email ... indicating that you were submitting a formal complaint against me for creating an undue stressful work environment.

Myers wrote she was very concerned about Sutherlands progress on her draft on how to create a guide.

She wanted the report to read like a scholarly work, like a manual, Sutherland says, I said Im not qualified to do it, Im not a writer at a Masters level. I gave you the report based on my experience.

Sutherland has a Bachelors degree in public administration and governance from Ryerson.

Myers suspended her for three days.

I realized then they were out to fire me. I started to cry. Ive done everything right. Sutherland said since that suspension, she has had panic attacks and ended up in emergency three times.

When she went on medical leave a third time, in December 2018, Sutherland said Ryerson ignored her team of health professionals  doctors, therapists  and insisted she go to a university mandated psychologist.

The psychologist met her for 30 minutes, she said, and she spent three hours answering a standard questionnaire. He submitted a 21-page report to Ryerson.

On Jan. 8, 2019, Sutherland was fired.

She said she received three months of EI from the federal government on the basis of the letters her doctors provided.

Ryerson accused me of not being sick when even the federal government found me sick, she said.

Sutherland said she had a tumorous stomach cancer in 2017 and now suffers from chronic anxiety and fibromyalgia.

In her February 2019 letter to the university president, professor Pine asked: Why is a doctor Ryerson appoints in a better position to offer an assessment after seeing a patient only once than a persons own doctor who has known them over three years of care?

While Sutherland awaits a hearing on her grievances, she continues to be supported by the students. She was re-elected in April 2020 as vice-president of services and finance at the Continuing Education Students Association of Ryerson, which is a local of Canadian Federation of Students.
Singapore has announced on August 21 that it would allow visitors coming from New Zealand and Brunei from next month. According to the reports, it is the country's first step resuming leisure travel since its closed its borders to curb the spread of novel coronavirus. As per international media reports, the city-state which currently only allows official and business travel to selected countries added that it would allow students to travel for study overseas if distance learning program is not available.

The new measure would be effective from September 1 along with several restrictions, the health ministry reportedly said.

READ: Singapore Announces SGD 8 Billion Measures To Support Workers And Businesses

Singapore returns to new normal

Singapore started closing its borders in March and went into a strict two-month lockdown as mass outbreaks emerged in the country. According to the reports, the lockdown was lifted in June after a drop in cases to revive the travel and tourism hub as it is facing worst recession in its history.

READ: Singapore Researchers Find Coronavirus Variant With Milder Infections

Singapore, on August 17, announced a seven months extension of wage subsidies under the state-run scheme and a new initiative to bolster hiring in bright spots. The announcement was a part of a massive economic package to bolster the economy which is fast slipping into recession. Making the announcement of an economic package worth SPD eight billion in a televised address, country's Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat highlighted the growing anxieties within the working class.

As per the official data, the countys economy shrank by 6.7 per cent in the first half of the year, with a record quarterly slump in the second quarter amid a two-month circuit breaker and weak external demand. Therefore, to support those hit by the pandemic induced job loss, the lawmaker said that Jobs Support Scheme(JSS) would be extended by seven months to cover wages paid up to March 2021. The scheme was set to expire on August 31.

READ: Zoom Opens A Data Centre In Singapore To Monitor The South-East Asian Region

READ: African Cheetah Arrives From South Africa Via Singapore At Mysore Zoo

Image: AP
Robert Coleman is used to waiting for mail. But the Marine Corps veteran and James Island resident said he wasn't expecting the refill for his arthritis prescription to be held up for so long, especially because he ordered it "about a month ago."

Other veterans in the Lowcountry have passed their concerns on to the office of U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, a Charleston Democrat who is a member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

His staff reports receiving several complaints from retired service members expressing worry about how political gamesmanship and financial trouble might affect their prescriptions.

"Lowcountry seniors and veterans rely on the USPS to deliver life-saving prescriptions and pay their bills, small businesses rely on the USPS to receive supplies and conduct commerce, and voters rely on the USPS to vote safely and securely," Cunningham said in a statement.

"We urgently need legislation to fund the USPS and reverse the Postmaster Generals destructive actions," he added.

Some of the recent acts at the Postal Service that Democrats have criticized include removal of mailboxes and high-speed sorting machines ahead of election season.

The Palmetto State has the ninth highest military retiree population in the nation and is home to more than 400,000 veterans, according to the South Carolina Military Base Task Force. More than 80 percent of these men and women receive medication through the mail.

While veterans and advocates are raising concerns nationwide about delays in medication delivery, others report it hasn't been a widespread issue in South Carolina so far.

Tonya Lobbestael, a spokeswoman at Charleston's Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, said there haven't been reports of delays in the Holy City.

Charleston's Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy has shipped an estimated 172,000 packages in the last three months, with an average delivery time of two days, she said. Additionally, she said there were no delays from medicine sent by mail, which can take three to five days on average.

But advocates continue keeping their guard up and are monitoring potential problems with mail delivery.

Maj. Gen. William F. Grimsley, South Carolina's secretary of veterans affairs, told The Post and Courier he "has not heard a significant amount of complaints so far" relating to delays in mailing medication. He added that he has been speaking to congressmen and senators to stay up-to-date on the situation.

"We need to be aware of this and we need to watch this very closely," Grimsley said.

Also watching is Cunningham's November opponent, Republican Nancy Mace, who said "while we figure out the best way to secure things, like our ballots, we should also ensure the mail continues to run well."

She passed the blame on to Democrats, saying they "have a lot of nerve criticizing when theyre part of the problem" and pointed out that a GOP proposal being held up in the house would forgive a $10 billion loan the Trump administration issued the USPS last month.

The VA mailed out more than 125 million prescriptions in the last fiscal year alone, according to the department's budget submission for 2021. More veterans have grown dependent on getting their medicine delivered during the coronavirus pandemic as many hospitals observe social distancing measures.

Sign up for our SC Military Digest newsletter Get exclusive military reporting, updates from Palmetto State bases, headlines from around the globe and more delivered to your inbox each Tuesday. Email

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At the same time, there have been recent service disruptions and operational cutbacks, which have drawn accusations from Democrats that President Donald Trump's administration is holding back necessary funding and fast service to slow down the system for electoral gain. The commander in chief has denied political motivations relating to postal service funding.

This has lead to scattered reports of issues with mail delivery.

Coleman said he typically receives medication through the mail. He added that the weekslong delay has been inconvenient, but he can also acquire the medication through a nearby pharmacy if need be.

Scott Nowaczck, a Marine Corps veteran and the vice president of the South Carolina American Postal Workers Union, said he has picked up on complaints, some of which have been related to veterans not getting mail. Overall, he knows there are delays in service.

"It is going out late," he said. "If it's not getting off the dock, then people aren't getting their mail. And if it doesn't leave on the truck, it's there another day."

This week, the VA confirmed to Disabled American Veterans, one of the country's largest nonprofit organizations benefiting former service members, the department had been delayed in delivering medications by an average of almost 25 percent nationwide over the past year.

"It is simply unacceptable that Americas veterans, particularly those who were injured or made ill in defense of this country, should face the prospect of not receiving necessary medications in a timely manner, considering such delays can be the difference between health and sickness, or even worse," DAV National Commander Stephen Whitehead said in a statement.

The Postal Service is an integral service for military retirees. It employs more than 97,000 veterans and is one of the largest employers in the nation for those who have folded up their fatigues.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a statement Tuesday planned service reductions and other cost-cutting initiatives will be suspended. The changes were announced prior to his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday and before the House Oversight Committee on Monday.

Organizations such as the Union Veterans Council, a national labor and workers rights group, are skeptical. William Attig, executive director of the council, wrote a letter to House and Senate leaders on Thursday calling for increased funding for the service.

"Even if Postmaster General DeJoys changes are delayed until after the election, attacking the Postal Service still will put veterans at risk," he said. "Cuts to the Postal Service will take away quality career options and benefits from disabled veterans. It would be a disgrace to leave behind those who have served our country in the dust."

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on legislation Saturday that includes $25 billion in additional USPS funding and would explicitly prohibit any operational changes made this year that impede service.
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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 22 2020

The day after the United Arab Emirates announced on Aug. 13 that it would be the first Gulf state to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi received a phone call from her Emirati counterpart to discuss the development.

The agreement between the UAE and Israel, dubbed the Abraham Accord, was facilitated by the United States and includes an Israeli commitment to suspend plans to annex Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank. The policy shift was the most significant development since Washington unveiled its deal of the century early this year.

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President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have condoled the death of nine people in fire at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana.

While President Kovind said he is pained by the loss of lives, PM Modi called the incident deeply unfortunate.

Pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I wish speedy recovery for the injured, President Kovid said on Twitter.

Pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I wish speedy recovery for the injured.  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 21, 2020

Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest, PM Modi tweeted.

Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 21, 2020

The fire broke out late on Thursday night when 30 people were inside the plant. While six employees were rescued and brought out of the tunnel, 15 others managed to come out through the emergency exit route of the project.

The remaining nine were trapped as thick smoke engulfed the inside tunnel, making it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the place. They were killed on Friday.

Of nine bodies recovered, three were identified as assistant engineers - Sundar Naik, Mohan Kumar and Fathima.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has ordered a comprehensive enquiry by Crime Investigation Department (CID) into the cause of the accident. Govind Singh, CIDs additional director of police, has been appointed as the inquiry officer. Singh has been asked to submit a report at the earliest.

KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, expressed anguish over the loss of lives in the Srisailam power station fire. Describing it as unfortunate, KCR said all the efforts were made to rescue the trapped engineers and bring them out alive, but in vain. He expressed his deep condolences to the bereaved families.

Telangana Minister for Power Jagadeeswar Reddy, Nagarkurnool district collector L Sarman, Telangana Transco, GENCO CMD Prabhakar Rao, local MLA G Balaraju, were among those who visited the site.
LONDON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With gold prices breaking new records daily now and some analysts saying its heading directly for $2,500 , it's time again to pay close attention to the discovery world because buying it before it comes out of the ground is the most efficient way to make money on this precious metal. And there's every reason to be bullish, and not just at the moment. Mentioned in today's commentary includes: Yamana Gold Inc. (NYSE:: AUY), Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM), Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE: GOLD), Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. (NYSE: KL), Kinross Gold Corporation (NYSE: KGC).

Goldman Sachs has revised its 12-month forecast to $2300 per ounce --or a 20% gain.

--or a 20% gain. UBS has a $2,000 price target on gold for the end of September, while Deutsche Bank is targeting $2,000 - $2,100 .

price target on gold for the end of September, while Deutsche Bank is targeting - . JPMorgan has a $2,000 price target, and Bank of America says $3,000 by the end of 2021.

This is only the first three innings of the next gold bull market. Almost everyone should be holding gold in their portfolio now. The only thing left to do is decide how to bet on gold, and Wall Street will be the first to tell you: either play it safe with a low-risk/low return stability move like a tried-and-true mid-cap miner that has weathered the coronavirus storm, or 

Find the junior miners with major potential upside. They're wildly undervalued if it turns out they're sitting on gold assets. When the dust settles on the COVID pandemic, the next gold to come out of the ground could mint another class of millionaires.

Here are the top 3 gold trends for the third inning of this bull run:

#1 Exposure Is Everything

Yamana has already seen its stocks gain over 10% since early June--a clear testament to rising gold prices. But there's much more to this story than that: This is a company that focuses strongly on its financial health and likes to keep its shareholders happy.

Even the COVID pandemic that caused Yamana to slow down operations at two of its mines in March did not upset this basket. In fact, despite the slowdown, Yamana managed not only to come back with a resumption of operations, but also beat expectations at one of its key Canadian assets: Malartic.

It also reported $92 million in Q2 cash flow and yet another quarter of free cash flow generation. That's five quarters in a row--even when gold wasn't exactly shining. That means it's one of the best-positioned gold companies to actually take advantage of soaring gold prices now and in the future. The rest of the mid-caps will just be playing catch-up. Right now, for these mid-caps, investors are strongly focusing on balance sheets, and this is one of the strongest ones out there.

Canadian-based Yamana has five producing assets in its portfolio, with a production platform of 1 million gold equivalent ounces at low all-in sustaining costs--and it's also on our new discovery radar.

#2 Friendly Jurisdiction

Starr Peak Exploration Ltd. (STE.V; STRPF) shares have surged over 380% in 12 months, primarily because it's sitting on a major past producing gold venue in Quebec AND right next to a mega discovery that's being proved up right now. It's gaining extra momentum as we speak because it just made another major acquisition and it's getting ready to drill. The icing on the cake is that it's one of those rare small-caps (~$40M) that's fully funded for an ambitious drill campaign, so there's not going to be any waiting around to make the next move.

Starr Peak has positioned itself to replicate the major success of its neighbor, Amex Exploration, whose own shares surged over 7,000% in the past year on the heels of a world-class gold discovery. Not only that, the founders of Amex believe they know exactly what Starr Peak is sitting on, so they also jumped in right away as shareholders. And it's all going down in Quebec, one of the most lucrative and friendly gold-mining venues in the world, with massive infrastructure already in place.

Right before Amex made its huge discovery, Starr Peak jumped in and acquired the property adjacent to and adjoining Amex's property. AMEX hit very high-grade gold in three distinct zones here, including on its Perron Gold Project: a massive 45 square kilometers with two significant faults covering more than 15 kilometers of strike along a wildly underexplored Abitibi Greenstone Belt. Amex currently has $25 million in cash and is now fully funded for its ongoing 200,000-meter drill program. They have 6 drill rigs working around the clock and have basically announced high-grade results hole after hole--with no sign of anything slowing down. And what they're working towards is Starr Peak's property border.

Amex is now about 1 kilometer from Starr's Peak's boundary line, and the closer it gets with the drill, the better the numbers get. But Starr Peak didn't stop with that first acquisition. It's been very aggressive, doubling down and expanding the initial property adjacent to Amex in June this year.

And it didn't stop there, either: On August 10th, it moved to acquire another prime land package: Normetal Mine, the past-producing mine on the other side of Starr Peak's boundary. This time, Starr Peak acquired a 100% interest in three major gold properties, orchestrating what can only be described as a mining coup for a small-cap company like this.

The blockbuster acquisition not only solidifies Starr's main NewMetal property, which directly adjoins Amex, but it adds to additional prospective gold claims to the portfolio: Rousseau (a bloc of 12 claims covering over 470 hectares in the Rollmac gold zone) and Turgeon Lake (2 claims on 113 hectares with high-grade drill hole assays).

Now that it's made its pincher movement, Starr Peak ( S TE.V; STRPF) is ready to drill. The best part: It's fully funded and just signed on the top geological consulting firm in Quebec, Laurentia Exploration--the same one behind the Amex discovery--to ramp it up 

#3 High Grade Exploration

AMEX Exploration Inc (AMX.V) has been a flurry of drills and hits. Over the past 18 months, AMEX has produced some of the highest-grade gold exploration holes in all of Canada.

Last year, AMEX launched its first large-scale drill program in Quebec, setting out to drill about 50,000 meters but ending up drilling more than 100,000 meters and working towards 200,000. They have six drill rigs going at full bore. That's a massive amount of activity--but the play is clearly worth it. That's why AMEX has a budget to drill as much as it possibly can. By the end of the year, we're expecting a resource calculation that looks set to be substantial.

Everyone has known that this area is a huge gold system because of the massive historic production, but the majors failed to find the motherlode because they were only drilling on gravity lows. AMEX went for the gravity highs and hit the motherlode.

The Perron Property is the size of an entire district at about 45 square kilometers, and it's 100% owned by AMEX. We're looking at two significant faults in this property that cover more than 15 kilometers of strike along a wildly underexplored Abitibi Greenstone Belt.

Already, they've hit very high-grade and visible gold in three different zone--the Eastern Gold Zone, the Gratien Gold Zone and the Grey Cat Gold Zone. That's across a 2.7-kilometer corridor of gold mineralization.

Now, AMEX is sitting on some $28 million in cash and $19 million in warrants. Nothing can stop them from a massive drill campaign at this point. And AMEX is doubling down: They are also betting that Starr Peak is sitting on the same motherlode.

Now, as AMEX drills down further east, the grade keeps getting higher and higher and the depths keep getting shallower and shallower. That means increasingly higher-grade gold for lower and lower extraction costs. And all the while, it's closer and closer to Starr Peak. Right now, they're only about 1.2 kilometers from Star Peak's property, and the numbers just keep getting better.

AMEX now has a market cap of $250-$300 million and, even at that, it's still likely undervalued. Retail investors haven't caught on because this has been an institutional play until now. Take your pick: Starr Peak or AMEX; either way, it's one of the biggest gold discovery stories in decades, and it's all going down in the No. 1 venue for companies and investors.

Bonus: Large-Cap Miners

Newmont (NEM) may be the biggest gold mining company on the planet, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still have significant upside potential. Founded in 1916, and based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, Newmont is a veteran miner with one of the top executive teams in the business, and its operations span 11 countries, including gold mines in Nevada, Colorado, Ontario, Quebec, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Australia, Ghana, Argentina, Peru, and Suriname.

Last year, Newmont acquired Goldcorp  a move that seemed somewhat controversial for shareholders at the time. But its $10 billion acquisition has paid off in a big way as gold prices soared to record highs as investors, spurred by the COVID pandemic and weakening U.S. dollar, piled into safe haven assets. Since the acquisition, gold prices have soared from $1282 to $2006 per ounce, fueling a 90% rally in the company's share price.

Barrick Gold (GOLD) is another top-tier gold miner with a global footprint. The Toronto-based gold giant operates in 13 countries, including Argentina, Canada, Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, the United States and Zambia. Though Newmont surpassed Barrick as the largest gold miner when it acquired Goldcorp, Barrick is still a force to be reckoned with.

Barrick Gold is on track to produce to produce between 4.6 to 5 million ounces of gold and between 440 to 500 million pounds of copper in 2020. At current prices, that could equate to as much as $1.5 billion in revenue from just its gold and copper assets.

Though Barrick dipped in March as the COVID-19 pandemic took global markets by surprise, year-to-date, Barrick has earned investors a handsome 56% return  in addition to its healthy dividends. With even more market makers turning bullish on gold, Barrick's investors could see even higher returns by the end of the year.

Kirkland Lake Gold (KL) is another one of Toronto's finest gold miners. Though not quite as established as Barrick or Newmont, Kirkland is no stranger to striking headline grabbing deals in the industry. In fact, just recently, Kirkland and Newmont signed a $75 million exploration deal that could wind up being a game-changer for the industry.

According to a joint press release on August 18th, "Newmont has acquired an option from Kirkland on the mining and mineral rights subject to a royalty payable by Newmont to Royal Gold, Inc. (the Holt Royalty) in exchange for a $75 million payment to Kirkland Lake Gold. Newmont can exercise the Option only in the event Kirkland intends to restart operations at the Holt Mine and process material subject to the Holt Royalty"

This alliance will provide Kirkland with cash flow to evaluate new alternatives for the future of the mining complex, dive deeper into its existing properties, and weigh other opportunities where the two gold companies may be able to find common ground in the future

Kinross Gold Corp. (KGC) is another one of the somewhat new miners in the race. Though it's only been around since 1993, the $11 billion gold company is no stranger to the scene. Operating in Brazil, Ghana, Mauritania, Russia and the United States, Kinross is slowly expanding its global footprint, and its moves are paying off.

In just the past five years, Kinross has earned investors with a strong stomach over 400% in returns. And just since January, the company's share price soared by 85%.  which is impressive by any and all metrics.

And Kinross is showing no signs of slowing. With a healthy balance sheet, favorable earnings reports, and governments, banks, and retail investors piling into safe haven assets, it's likely to continue climbing. If gold continues its dramatic rise, who knows where gold companies like Kinross could end up by the end of the year.

By. Susan Melonie

**IMPORTANT! BY READING OUR CONTENT YOU EXPLICITLY AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY**

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information which is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements in this release include that prices for gold will retain value in future as currently expected; that Starr Peak can fulfill all its obligations to acquire its Quebec property, including receiving stock exchange approval; that Starr Peak's Quebec property can achieve drilling and mining success for gold; that historical geological information and estimations will prove to be accurate; that high-grade targets exist; and that Starr Peak will be able to carry out its business plans. These forward-looking statements 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. Risks that could change or prevent these statements from coming to fruition include that the Company may not get TSXV approval; it may not be able to finance its intended drilling program; Starr Peak may not raise sufficient funds to carry out its plans; geological interpretations and technological results based on current data that may change with more detailed information or testing. The forward-looking information contained herein is given as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

DISCLAIMERS

This communication is for entertainment purposes only. Never invest purely based on our communication. We have not been compensated by Starr Peak but may in the future be compensated to conduct investor awareness advertising and marketing for STE.V. The information in our communications and on our website has not been independently verified and is not guaranteed to be correct.

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Striking images of the California wildfires are seen in these nighttime satellite images taken by the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite on Aug. 20, 2020. At approximately 3:01 am PDT, NOAA-NASA's Suomi NPP was almost directly overhead and imaged the regionusing different bands on its VIIRS (Visible infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument. Large fires are easily visible in this image. Suomi NPP's day/night band clearly showed that lights in the Central Valley were being scattered by the smoke, from both the LNU and the SCU Lightning Complexes.

California is experiencing major, sustained wildfires across much of the state along with a heat wave that has produced what has been called a "heat dome" over much of the state. National Interagency Fire Meteorologist Nicky Nausler tweeted on Aug. 18: "7000+ lightning strikes have ignited 350+ fires including several large fires and complexes across central and northern California." These storms produced more than 53,262 lightning strikes, although all were not cloud-to-ground and some were over the Pacific, according to the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network's Chris Vagasky on Twitter. However, 13,845 were cloud-to-ground strikes. Some of the fires that were started due to those strikes have merged and become major complexes of fires such as the two largest complexes the LNU Lightning Complex and the SCU Lightning Complex. The amount of lightning that occurred over three and a half days is 9% of the amount that California usually sees in a year.

The LNU Complex of fire is currently 215,000 acres with 0% containment. The fire complex is made up of seven fires lit by lightning on Aug. 17 in the Napa Valley Area. The LNU stands for Lake Napa Unit which is the fire unit currently battling the blaze complex. The LNU fire complex now ranks as the ninth largest fire in California history. The second complex is the SCU complex which has consumed 157,475 acres and is 5% contained. This fire is a complex of over 20 fires and is located near Santa Clara where it is being managed by the Santa Clara fire unit.

Some of these fires are so powerful they are able to "create" weather systems of their own. Wildfires generate hot air that rises up creating an updraft. As the air rises up, moisture in the upper atmosphere cool and condenses the air into water droplets on the ash, also rising, which comes together as a cloud. A cloud that is produced by a fire is called a pyrocumulus or "fire cloud." If the fire is large enough a pyrocumulonimbus cloud can be generated which is not only a fire cloud but a fire storm cloud which can produce winds and lightning, continuing the cycle with more fires being started. Updrafts can also produce tornadoes or even "fire tornadoes" when the updraft occurs so quickly that it creates a whirling effect, and a fire tornado is created.

The extended heat wave, the dry forest conditions, and unusual August storms all combined to create the current situation California finds itself in. Face masks, once worn just to ward off the novel coronavirus, have also become a way to shield residents from the effects of the smoke that is also blanketing the state.

Currently over 48,000 people have been evacuated in the state due to the current wildfire situation.

NASA's satellite instruments are often the first to detect wildfires burning in remote regions, and the locations of new fires are sent directly to land managers worldwide within hours of the satellite overpass. Together, NASA instruments detect actively burning fires, track the transport of smoke from fires, provide information for fire management, and map the extent of changes to ecosystems, based on the extent and severity of burn scars. NASA has a fleet of Earth-observing instruments, many of which contribute to our understanding of fire in the Earth system. Satellites in orbit around the poles provide observations of the entire planet several times per day, whereas satellites in a geostationary orbit provide coarse-resolution imagery of fires, smoke and clouds every five to 15 minutes. For more information visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/missions/index.html

Image Courtesy: NOAA/NASA/William Straka U. of W-Madison/CIMSS/SSEC. Caption: Lynn Jenner and William Straka, University of Wisconsin-Madison

###
President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that France was ready to provide assistance concerning asylum or medical services for Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a Siberian hospital after a suspected poisoning.

Alexei Navalny's spokeswomen said on Friday that the Russian opposition figure's life was at risk, as doctors were refusing to move him from the Siberian hospital where he is being treated for suspected poisoning.

The hospital in the city of Omsk claimed that Navalny's condition was too 'unstable' for him to be transported, announcing there were no traces of poison in Navalny's body.

Partisans denounce Kremlin manoeuvre

Navalny's partisans have announced the decision as politically motivated.

They are waiting for the toxins to be released so that they are undetectable in the body, Navalny's right-hand man Leonid Volkov tweeted, saying that Navalny's life was in 'grave danger'.

Doctors in the hospital announced on Friday that there were no traces of poison Navalny's body.

France, Germany offer support

The leaders of France and Germany expressed concern Thursday and offered their assistance.

Emmanuel Macron said France stood ready to provide help regarding Navalny's health, asylum or protection, while Angela Merkel said the Kremlin critic could receive medical treatment in either country.

Merkel said European leaders would 'demand explanations', stating that the conditions of the poisoning should have been 'more transparent'.

An air ambulance was sent to Russia on Friday to fly Navalny to Germany.

Poisoned at airport?

Navalny , a 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner, is among President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics

On Thursday, he lost consciousness while on a flight to Moscow leading his plane to make an emergency landing in Omsk.

(Below - a video showing Navalny being transported off the plane in Omsk)

Aides claim he was poisoned and that something was put in his tea at an airport cafe.
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Belarusians 'will never accept' Alexander Lukashenko as president, opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Friday as she called for 'free, fair and transparent elections' to take place as soon as possible.

Speaking for the first time from exile in Lithuania, where she fled following her loss to Lukashenko in an August 9 vote widely viewed as rigged, Tikhanovskaya called for political prisoners to be released and for violence against protesters to stop.

As she spoke, thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Minsk to call for Lukashenko's resignation, in the 12th straight day of demonstrations since the election result was announced.

Lukashenko has rejected calls to re-run the vote, which he claimed to have won with 80 per cent support, telling striking factory workers: 'You will have to kill me first'.

Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has made her first speech from exile in Lithuania, saying the country will 'never accept' Alexander Lukashenko as leader

Tikhanovskaya called for violence against protesters (pictured in Minsk today) to stop, political prisoners to be released, and 'free and fair' elections to be held as soon as possible

At a televised press conference, Tikhanovskaya said: 'Belarusians are behind bars today, they are prevented from demonstrating. People are in prison simply because they dared to dream of a different country

'Our objective is very simple. We do not wish to live any longer in fear. We want for everyone to have a right to live in the world, to not be beaten up in the street, the right not to be imprisoned without a trial and to have free and fair elections.

'We Belarusians are peace-loving and peaceful people, but anyone who thinks that we are lacking in determination is sorely mistaken.

'You only have to look at history and the ordeals of our ancestors. Today Belarus has woken up. Hundreds of thousands of people are coming out on to the streets of the country and are prepared to say 'resign.'

'Thousands of workers have announced they are on strike in order to say 'enough is enough'. Enough lying, intimidating, anarchy, and violence.

Protesters have been on the streets around Belarus for almost two weeks following an August 9 election that is widely viewed as rigged (pictured, protests today)

A woman holds up a sign reading Love is Stronger Than Fear outside the offices of the Belarusian Investigative Committee which is accused of persecuting protesters

'Violence must stop. Political prisoners must be released. And elections must be held anew. Free, fair and transparent. This is what the people of Belarus are demanding, and they must be heard.'

Tikhanovskaya added that she is planning to return to Belarus, but only 'when I feel safe there'.

The political novice - a school teacher who stepped in to battle Lukashenko after her husband was jailed - declined to answer questions about her personal safety or about what compelled her to leave Belarus.

Supporters and the Lithuanian government have said she had little choice but to leave after coming under intense pressure from the authorities during a meeting at the Central Election Commission in Minsk.

'It should be clear to the president that there is a need for change. I hope that good sense prevails and the people will be heard and there will be new elections,' Tikhanovskaya told reporters.

Lukashenko has rejected all calls to re-run the elections, vowing 'you will have to kill me first' at a rally in front of striking tractor workers

Tikhanovskaya's campaign has inspired unprecedented mass protests in the former Soviet republic against Lukashenko's 26-year rule.

Asked about Russian support for Lukashenko, she said: 'I call on all countries of the world to respect the sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus.'

'We don't want to live in fear and falsehoods any more,' she said, calling for striking workers to liaise with the coordination council she has appointed to organise pro-democracy protests.

'The creation of the coordination council is aimed at negotiating a peaceful handover of power,' she said.

Belarus on Thursday opened a criminal probe into the opposition council, saying it was an unconstitutional attempt to topple Lukashenko.

The EU on Friday demanded that Belarus halt the investigation, accusing it of 'intimidation'.
The Islamabad International Airport, one of Pakistan's most security-sensitive zones, does not have bomb detection and disposal squads, according to a media report on Thursday. Intelligence officials brought the issue to the notice of the Regional Police Officer (RPO) Sohail Habib Tajik last month, Dawn newspaper reported.

As per the intelligence, the Islamabad airport, which is surrounded by wooded area, should have a constant presence of rescue teams as it is 28 km from Islamabad main city, the newspaper quoted sources as saying.

Also read: Air travel to get costlier with aviation security fee hike from September 1

Rawalpindi (33) and Attock (82) are the other cities close to the airport but they are at a distance of 33 km and 82 km respectively. Due to the distance, rescue teams and bomb disposal squads cannot reach the airport premises on time in case of emergencies, the newspaper said.

The intelligence also asked for stationing of detection dogs. Following the intelligence, RPO Tajik had directed Rawalpindi City Police Officer and Attock District Police Officer (DPO) to submit a report on the matter. Speaking to Dawn, Attock DPO Syed Khalid Hamdani said the security of the Islamabad airport has been put in place according to international standards by Rawalpindi and Islamabad police.

Also read: Kerala opposes Trivandrum airport transfer to Adani group, 'will not cooperate'

Meanwhile, a senior security official has described the archaic, unsafe standard operating procedure put in place when suspicious bags or items are seen abandoned at the Islamabad airport. The security officials put a blanket on the item and then shift it to a 'bomb ditch' which, the official said, was a dangerous routine.

He said he had written several letters to the authorities concerned regarding deployment of bomb disposal and detection squads but his efforts were in vain.

Also read: Aviation Ministry to place proposal for 'further' privatisation of airports: Puri
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The agreement was announced by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in a virtual press conference after a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

JAKARTAIndonesia and China agreed Thursday that a Chinese pharmaceutical company working with a state-owned Indonesian drugmaker will send up to 40 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine to the Southeast Asian county starting in November.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (first from left) and Erick Thohir, chief of the Committee for COVID-19 Mitigation and National Economic Recovery, pose in a photo with CEOs of Chinese drug-maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and Indonesian pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma after witnessing the signing of memorandum of understanding between the two companies to develop COVID-19 vaccine in Sanya, China on Aug. 20, 2020. / Kyodo

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (first from left) and Erick Thohir, chief of the Committee for COVID-19 Mitigation and National Economic Recovery, pose in a photo with CEOs of Chinese drug-maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and Indonesian pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma after witnessing the signing of memorandum of understanding between the two companies to develop COVID-19 vaccine in Sanya, China on Aug. 20, 2020. / Kyodo

Ex-Generals Still in as Myanmar's Former Ruling Party Reveals Candidates for Upcoming Poll

Three Activists Charged for Unlawful Assembly Over Karen Martyrs Day Event in Myanmar

Myanmars Largest Poll Monitor Hits Out at UEC After Being Banned From 2020 Election

When Myanmar Cast Off Its Colonial Tongue Under Japanese Rule

Tens of Thousands Call for Monarchy Reform at Thailands Largest Protest in Years

Myanmar Firm Ties Up With Krispy Kreme to Create Doughnuts With a Local Flavor

Kokang Party Vows to Make Friends With All if It Wins Seats in Myanmars Election

Three Rearrested Over New Years Murder of Myanmar Comedian

North Koreas Ruling Party to Hold First Congress Since 2016 in January

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Morgan County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Jami D. Carter, 40, of 705 Finley Drive was booked into the Morgan County jail at 1:03 a.m. Thursday on charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of ammunition by a felon.

Jacksonville Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Mario T. Jackson, 35, of 1176 N. Diamond St. was arrested at 1:07 p.m. Thursday on a retail theft charge after being accused of taking items from Walmart, 1941 W. Morton Ave., without paying.

 Vanessa N. Rupe, 33, of 1207 Illinois Ave. was arrested at 11:28 a.m. Thursday on a residential burglary charge.

 John R.J. Covey, 31, of 1010 N. Church St. was cited on a charge of driving while license is suspended after a traffic stop at 5:28 p.m. Wednesday in the 1000 block of East Fayette Street.

THEFTS, BURGLARIES

 Items were taken between 4 and 5 a.m. Wednesday from a residence in the 1000 block of East Lafayette Avenue.

 A bicycle was stolen about 11 p.m. Wednesday from the 1200 block of Illinois Avenue.



Cass County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Gabriel Munoz Alvarado, 24, of 409 W. Fifth St., Beardstown, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 4:22 a.m. Thursday on charges of domestic battery, interfering with a report of domestic violence and aggravated domestic battery and on a warrant accusing him of failing to appear in court on a charge of possession of a controlled substance.

 Kathy A. Riley, 59, of 305 Redwood St., Beardstown, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 11:05 p.m. Wednesday on a domestic battery charge.

Compiled by David C.L. Bauer
The potential coronovirus vaccine will be delivered in two injections during the trials that will involve 676 people aged between 19 and 80 years and conclude on Jan. 11.

Cuba prides itself on its biopharmaceutical industry, begun by former revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, which is also an important hard currency earner and already produces several vaccines.

Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russias sovereign wealth fund, told Cuban state news agency Prensa Latina that Cuba could even be one of the places it could choose to produce the vaccine from November onwards.

Authorities say their treatments for the new coronavirus have already helped it reduce mortality in sufferers.

They touted interferon long before other producers started hailing the merits of the decades-old antiviral agent that boosts immune system and say dozens of countries have expressed an interest in buying it.

The country of 11 million inhabitants has registered just a handful of deaths in the last few months, bringing the total to 88 deaths for 3,482 confirmed cases since the start of its outbreak in March.

Cuba has handled its outbreak in textbook fashion through contact tracing and isolation of potential asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, although cases have risen in recent weeks since it eased lockdown restrictions in the capital, prompting it to tighten them once more.

* Bangladesh is ready to hold trials of potential COVID-19 vaccines developed by India and will receive early supplies of any successful candidate, officials said on Wednesday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his foreign secretary to Bangladesh's capital Dhaka on Tuesday on a two-day visit to hold meetings with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and officials.

"Bangladesh is ready to collaborate in the development of a COVID vaccine, including its trial, and looks forward to early affordable availability of the vaccine when it is ready," its foreign ministry said in a statement.

The release followed a meeting of the foreign secretary and his Indian counterpart Harsh Vardhan Shringla, during which Shringla had discussed India's economies of scale in vaccine manufacturing with Bangladeshi officials, the statement said.

India is home to the world's biggest vaccine making company, the Serum Institute of India, and is currently holding trials for three potential COVID-19 vaccines, including one licensed to AstraZeneca Plc by Oxford University.

* Mexico has told Moscow it is eager to have Russia's coronavirus vaccine once phase three testing for the product is complete, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Wednesday.

After a meeting with Russia's ambassador to Mexico, Viktor Koronelli, Ebrard said on Twitter that he had communicated Mexico's interest that phase three should be carried out "so as to have the vaccine as soon as possible in Mexico."

* Republic of Korea's Green Cross Corp has received regulatory approval for phase II human clinical trials of its experimental coronavirus plasma treatment drug, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said on Thursday. The trials will test the safety and efficacy of the drug in 60 severe patients with underlying conditions like pneumonia, Green Cross said. Green Cross was allowed to skip phase I trials. Its therapy is the country's first to enter phase II for COVID-19 plasma treatment.

* Turkey is in talks with Russia, Germany and China about conducting Phase 3 trials for coronavirus vaccines developed in those countries, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Wednesday.

Germany and China have applied to conduct the Phase 3 trials in Turkey and have presented pre-clinical trial results, while Ankara wants to see pre-clinical results from Russia before the trials, Koca said.

Speaking at a news conference in Ankara, he said there were 13 vaccines being developed in Turkey, three of which have gone beyond the animal testing phase.
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc hinted Thursday that details about federal support for Newfoundland and Labrador's troubled oil and gas sector could be weeks away.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 14th Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Dr. Andrew Furey addresses the audience following the swearing-in ceremony on the grounds of Government House in St. John's on Wednesday, August 19, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Daly

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc hinted Thursday that details about federal support for Newfoundland and Labrador's troubled oil and gas sector could be weeks away.

After meeting with Liberal Premier Andrew Furey in St. John's, LeBlanc told reporters that strengthening the relationship between the two governments is a priority for him and his colleagues in Ottawa.

LeBlanc said Furey, who was sworn in as premier Wednesday, made a strong case during their meeting for federal support for the oil and gas sector and its workers. He said Ottawa would have "very specific things to say" for the sector in the coming weeks.

Oil and gas represents approximately 30 per cent of the province's GDP, Furey noted Thursday, but dropping oil prices and lack of demand amid the pandemic have hammered the industry.

A fiscal update last month reported a $2.1-billion deficit, attributing the losses largely to pandemic spending and a downturn in the oil and gas sector.

Industry groups have been calling for aid from the federal government for months as foreign interest in oil and gas exploration has faded and production has been suspended.

"There is a circumstance now which requires the governments to work together and ensure a long-term economic future," LeBlanc said. "That's certainly something we're wide open to doing with the government of Newfoundland and Labrador."

He said the pair also discussed issues about the fact electricity rates are expected to skyrocket due to cost overruns from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam, and about other fiscal and demographic challenges in Newfoundland and Labrador that existed before the pandemic.

LeBlanc said any financial support from Ottawa is not a "bailout." He said the country needs to recognize the "unique fiscal circumstance" in the province and new provincial leadership is an opportunity to address that.

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"We have a dynamic, articulate, aggressive, effective new premier in Newfoundland and Labrador," LeBlanc said. "Our government is very excited about working collaboratively with him. Big, bold ideas are what should inspire the relationship between our two governments."

He also argued that supporting oil and gas in the province does not mean Ottawa is backing away from its commitments to fight climate change.

Furey arrives in the job with strong connections in Ottawa despite never holding public office. He has done campaign work for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and is the son of Senate Speaker George Furey.

Furey was elected provincial Liberal leader this month, replacing former premier Dwight Ball. He does not have a legislative seat in the House of Assembly, where the Liberals lead a minority government.

On Wednesday, Furey shuffled prominent cabinet positions, including finance, and expanded the natural resources portfolio to include the technology sector, calling it "a new cabinet for a new time."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 20, 2020.
Michigan Democrats urged voters not to sit on their heels when it comes to casting a ballot in the Nov. 3 presidential election, promoting early absentee voting as a vital act to improve the country.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, said Democratic nominee Joe Biden will not be president if he doesnt win Michigan, while also noting his the result of his reelection campaign could decide which party controls the Senate. Peters said voters face the most consequential election ever.

Basically we are the center of both national senatorial politics and the center of national presidential politics, Peters said. So that means we have no pressure on us.

Peters was joined virtually by Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss, and actor Adam Scott in an event organized by Bidens Michigan campaign team.

Michigan citizens set a record for absentee votes cast this month, turning in 1.6 million absentee ballots in the Aug. 4 primary. The total beat out the prior record of 1.27 million absentee voters in the 2016 presidential election and election officials expect even more residents will vote by mail on Nov. 3.

Gilchrist said 10,704 -- the number of votes that decided President Donald Trumps Michigan victory in 2016 -- is burned into my psyche. While Democrats are feeling good about the increased turnout for their candidates in Augusts primary elections, Gilchrist said voters need to blow the walls off turnout records in 2020.

Michigan is a bellwether state, Gilchrist said. Its time for us to ring the damn bell.

Michigan voters can begin requesting absentee ballots Thursday, either online, through the mail or in person at their local clerks office. Clerks must receive your request to have an absent voter ballot mailed to your home before 5 p.m. on Oct. 30, the Friday before the election, but election officials are urging voters to submit their requests as soon as possible.

Absentee ballots must be turned in by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. Voters can hand-deliver their ballot to clerks on Election Day, but speakers highlighted the importance of mailing ballots early due to reports of postal delays.

Democrats have accused Trump of trying to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service before the election, pointing to new policies implemented by a new postmaster general who donated to Republican campaigns. Peters is set to question Postmaster General Louis DeJoy at a Senate hearing on Friday, while Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued the USPS this week.

Today we all know this president is making it harder, and threatening to make it harder to vote by mail, Bliss said. We need to make it a priority to apply for an absentee ballot.

READ MORE ON MLIVE:

Bidens socially distant campaign feels strong in Michigan after Democratic Party rebuilt to beat Trump

Most of Michigans rejected August primary absentee ballots had signature, late arrival issues

Whats a stamp? Absentee voting could pose challenges for young people in 2020 elections

U.S. Postal Service scrapping usable mail sorting machines in Grand Rapids, union says
Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old from New Hampshire who struggles with a verbal stutter, addressed the Democratic National Convention on Thursday and shared a story about meeting Joe Biden and learning that "we were members of the same club."

Why it matters: Biden's boyhood stutter was the subject of a profile in The Atlantic earlier this year, following a series of verbal miscues during the primary debates. Biden's outreach to Harrington, who said the Democratic nominee "made me feel better about something that's bothered me my whole life," is one of a number of anecdotes told during the DNC that sought to underscore empathy as one of Biden's strongest traits.

What he's saying: "Without Joe Biden, I would not be talking to you today. About a few months ago, I met him in New Hampshire. He told me we were members of the same club. We stutter," Harrington said.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A lawyer representing a group that bills itself as an advocate for Cleveland Public Power customers has asked Cleveland Law Director Barbara Langhenry to try to stop City Council from investigating the group.

Attorney Subodh Chandra, who represents Consumers Against Deceptive Fees, warned in a letter that if City Council follows through with its plan, it would amount to retaliation against the group for exercising free speech rights and open the city up to a potential lawsuit.
(Newser)  Under pressure after a conspiracy theorist won a GOP primary in Georgia, the House Republican leader has distanced his party from QAnon. "There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party," Rep. Kevin McCarthy said in a Fox News interview, the Hill reports. "I do not support it, and the candidate you talked about has denounced it." The candidate is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who endorses QAnon in YouTube videos. She's said lately that she doesn't believe the theory, though she attacked another House Republican who said "there's no place in Congress for these conspiracies" in a Twitter exchange after her victory, per Politico. Greene also has a record of bigoted comments, saying that Muslims don't belong in government and that a Confederate monument would make her proud if she were Black because it would reflect progress made since slavery, Politico points out.

story continues below

Vice President Mike Pence also rejected QAnon on Friday. "I dismiss it out of hand," he said on CBS. McCarthy is now the highest-ranking congressional Republican to denounce the wild claims about a global child sex-trafficking ring. Liz Cheney, the third-highest Republican in the House, did the same thing Thursday. "QAnon is a dangerous lunacy that should have no place in American politics," Cheney said. McCarthy faced pressure from his members to make clear he didn't support Greene's candidacy. Instead, though he had earlier called some of her statements "appalling," he stayed neutral. "The party does not decide whether you serve in Congress, your district decides when you serve in Congress," he said. McCarthy also said that he's talked with Greene and that she denounced QAnon to him. (President Trump praised Greene after she won.)
- 22 million people, representing 40.6% of UK consumers, have used or plan to use the Eat Out to Help Out scheme*

- 76.6% of consumers have used or plan to use the scheme during the daytime when shops will be open, boosting footfall

- Despite this, UK offline non-food spend will plummet 25.2% this year, according to GlobalData forecasts

LONDON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A total of 22 million people, representing 40.6% of UK consumers, have used or plan to use the government's Eat Out to Help Out scheme, according to a survey by leading data and analytics company GlobalData. Driven by under 35s*, the increased number of people venturing out because of the scheme is set to benefit desperate retailers, even though consumer concern around COVID-19 remains high. However, despite this much needed boost, UK offline non-food spend is set to plummet 25.2% versus last year.

Retailers with stores in neighbourhood locations and on high streets will see the biggest impact from the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, with 60.6% and 45.2% of scheme users, respectively, planning to visit cafes or restaurants in these spots. Over three quarters of UK consumers (78.6%) remain concerned about COVID-19 and, as a result, are reluctant to travel unnecessarily meaning that retail locations that are more difficult to reach by foot or in a short car journey such as out-of-town shopping centres, will see less impact on footfall and spend.

Sofie Willmott, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, comments: "Many British consumers are keen to utilize the Eat Out to Help Out scheme to regain a sense of normality, while obtaining value for money and simultaneously helping businesses to get back on their feet. Retailers located in easily accessible neighbourhood areas, close to restaurants, will see the most significant boost with 76.6% of consumers planning to use the scheme during the daytime when shops will be open."

Although the scheme will bring consumers back out to public places, it alone will not be enough to stem the flow of retail spend shifting online. GlobalData forecasts that UK offline non-food spend will plummet 25.2% in 2020, heavily impacted by stores being shuttered for three months alongside the additional, potentially off-putting safety measures required when visiting shops. Spend via the online channel is set to rise by 13.4%.

Willmott continues: "Evident from announcements by key players Next and ASOS, the pandemic has accelerated changes that were already happening in the retail market with shoppers veering towards digital shopping and away from physical stores. Retailers including M&S and John Lewis & Partners have responded quickly with plans to shutter stores permanently and make redundancies, as the major shift towards online caused by COVID-19 will not be reversed."

*Data taken from GlobalData's survey of 2,000 nationally representative UK consumers, aged 16+ conducted in early August

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1231841/GlobalData_Eat_Out_to_Help_Out_Infographic.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1167658/GlobalData_Logo.jpg
Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) Working President Satish Jarkiholi demanded a judicial probe into the recent incident of violence in Bengaluru. Congress party leaders and workers were being selectively targeted for inquiry by the police, hence judicial probe was needed to clear the air, he said

Speaking to reporters at the party office here on Friday, Jarkiholi said, "Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai has been blaming the factions in the Congress party for the violence. We do agree that we have factions within the party, but were not involved in the violence. It has come to the notice that Congress party leaders and workers were being summoned for inquiry by police. Truth needs to come out and judicial probe into the violence is needed."

He denied that KPCC President D K Shivakumar threatened Bengaluru Police Commissioner Kamal Pant. He said, Shivakumar addressed him respectfully, using 'Mr' and asked not to make Congress party leaders and workers scapegoats for violence. It does not amount to threatening.

Congress party has formed fact-finding committee and it will soon visit the affected areas and collect information about the violence. Committee will submit its findings to the KPCC president. Based on its report, the party will decide the next course of action. The committee was yet to begin its work, he stated.

"BJP leaders earlier used to abuse the CBI and call it different names and now want it to conduct an inquiry into the Bengaluru violence. Judicial probe will bring facts to the fore, Jarkiholi expressed.

He blamed the BJP government as being responsible for the violence. Complainants had been waiting for their complaint to be filed for more than three hours. Had that been done immediately, violence could have been prevented.
This is the disaster scenario the Bay Area has been dreading since March. Wildfires, awful air quality and the coronavirus pandemic are combining to strain public health resources stretched impossibly thin.

The potential for respiratory catastrophe looms large on two fronts. Fires are ringing the nine counties and thick smoke blankets the region. The coronavirus still is circulating widely, with more than 1,000 new cases reported most days. The added air pollution could make matters worse, experts said.

Meanwhile fire-related evacuations in nearly every Bay Area county are creating additional public health difficulties, from how to keep people socially distant in shelters to finding hotel rooms and other safe spaces to house those who need them.

John Blanchard

And there are other challenges. Firefighters may face increased risk of contracting the coronavirus while living and working in close quarters on the front lines. In hospitals and evacuation shelters across the region, people suffering smoke exposure may have symptoms that could be confused for COVID-19, complicating care and draining resources.

These are all cascading catastrophes. Were looking at the consequences of these overlapping emergencies, said Dr. Matt Willis, the Marin County health officer. We had been concerned there might be a fire here or there. And now were dealing with fires everywhere. And while were still seeing all this viral transmission.

And on top of it all, everyones exhausted.

Were at that point of time where youre just numb dealing with crises, said Dr. Bela Matyas, the health officer in Solano County, where thousands have been evacuated this week due to several large, threatening fires. But its an emergency. You dont really think, you just do. And people are stepping up.

For many health experts, the most pressing issue is whether the poor air quality from wildfire smoke will exacerbate symptoms of COVID-19, or lead to more coronavirus infections, potentially driving up transmission and sending more people to hospitals even as the Bay Area struggles to quash a summer surge in cases.

Even if the air pollution doesnt directly cause more severe illness, infectious disease experts said the increased coughing, sneezing and other reactions to smoke exposure could make it easier for the coronavirus to spread.

There is evidence that air pollution is tied to increased risk of coronavirus infection and more serious illness, but those studies are preliminary and more research is needed, infectious disease experts said. Other studies have found that exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to excess cases of influenza and other respiratory infections weeks later.

Theres a model that showed a moderate wildfire smoke episode, which this is more than moderate, could increase the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths by about 10%, said Dr. Mary Prunicki, director of Air Pollution and Health Research at Stanfords Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, referring to a disease model developed by Canadian scientists.

Prunicki noted that models, like weather forecasts and other predictive tools, can be unreliable. Still, she said, theres good reason to worry that these wildfires are going to impact how people are susceptible to COVID, and the severity if they do get it.

Previous studies of wildfire smoke exposure have found that the small particulates people inhale can damage not just the lungs, but the bodys immune response, which can then have further negative effects, said Dr. John Balmes, who studies the health effects of air pollutants at the Human Exposure Laboratory at UCSF.

Were very worried about wildfire smoke exposure and a raging viral pandemic, Balmes said during a news briefing Thursday. My advice to the public is that people should be sheltering in place as much as possible.

That advice is consistent across current crises. But in other ways, the messages for how people should behave in a fire compared to a pandemic are conflicting, and that can make the jobs of health officials more difficult.

In a pandemic, people are told that outdoor activities are better than inside. But with smoke choking the region, everyones being told to stay inside now. People evacuated from their homes often are urged to stay with friends or relatives if they can. But thats not necessarily a wise choice now, either, when the pandemic message is to avoid others.

Masks, too, are a confusing topic: Across the state people have been told to wear face coverings outside to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus, but those masks do little or nothing to protect people from the smoke. N95 masks, which are effective at stopping tiny particulates found in smoke, would help, but those need to be saved for doctors and nurses at the front lines of the pandemic.

The truth is that the normal reactions for this wildfire scenario are unfortunately contrary to what we need to do for COVID, said Matyas. So we have to find more elaborate solutions.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

In Solano County, Matyas said hes suggested that evacuees live out of their vehicles for a night or two if they have a place to park and feel safe. Another solution has been to open more shelters  seven at the moment, when normally they would have only two  so that conditions arent so crowded. But that requires more staff.

Thats a lot more impact on our bandwidth when were already thin, he said. Plus, many of the people who show up at shelters are coughing and feeling poorly from the smoke, which mimics COVID symptoms, so you have to distinguish between COVID and smoke and do more screening. And that utilizes even more personnel, he said.

Counties also are running out of hotel rooms for evacuees, due to pandemic- and fire-related factors. Matyas said Solano County hotels already were full of Napa County residents fleeing fires before Vacaville was evacuated. Willis in Marin County said his hotels are close to full, as well, in part because of people who are in quarantine due to COVID-19. On Thursday, Santa Cruz County ordered all tourists to leave to help free up hotel rooms for local evacuees.

And at the back of everyones minds is the recognition that its only August. Three or more months of fire season still lie ahead, plus whatever the fall brings for the pandemic. Even before these fires, public health officials have been concerned about a new wave of infection later this year.

We are in this perfect storm of a lot of uncertainty with not a ton of reassurance that things are going to get substantially better in the next few months, said Dr. Jahan Fahimi, medical director of UCSFs emergency room.

Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert with UC Berkeley, said he worries about the collective resilience of the region, and how well people will cope with increasing stress, isolation and public health demands.

It feels like were being visited by a variety of plagues right now, Swartzberg said. And your response can be overwhelmed, and you throw up your arms and say, I cant deal with this. Or the response can be the other extreme, that this is just further argument to hunker down right now.

But, either way, on either side of the bell curve of response, this is really depressing, he said. It was hard enough to cope with just COVID.

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was within her authority when she continued Michigans COVID-19 state of emergency without legislative approval this spring, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Friday.

In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled in Whitmers favor on a challenge brought by Republican legislative leadership, determining that Whitmers use of executive emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic was constitutional.

Proceeding on the assumption that the Legislature had standing to file suit, we hold that the Governors declaration of a state of emergency, her extensions of the state of emergency, and her issuance of related EOs clearly fell within the scope of the Governors authority, the court concluded in its majority opinion from Judges Jane E. Markey and Kirsten Frank Kelly. Judge Jonathan Tukel dissented.

Legislative Republicans led by House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, have argued Whitmers decision to extend Michigans state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic past April 30 was unconstitutional, as the legislature declined to issue an extension.

Related: Michigan Supreme Court wont fast-track Republican lawsuit against Whitmer

Michigan has two laws on the books related to the governors emergency powers. The 1945 Emergency Powers of Governor Act allows governors to call for a state of emergency for as long as necessary, while the 1976 Emergency Management Act includes a 28-day window for the governor to unilaterally declare an emergency without legislative approval. The 1976 law did not invalidate the prior law.

During a state of emergency, the governor is allowed to unilaterally issue executive orders and deploy resources as she sees fit.

The legislature opted not to extend the initial state of emergency on April 30 over concerns with the stay-at-home order and other limitations on in-person activity outlined in Whitmers executive orders. Whitmer has argued she has the authority to go it alone under the 1945 law, and has extended the COVID-19 state of emergency through Sept. 4.

The majority rejected the legislatures arguments that the 1945 law oversteps the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive branch, and further concluded that it would be entirely pointless to rule that Whitmer violated the 1976 law, as the governor had the authority to continue the very same state of emergency and issue the very same (executive orders) under the EPGA.

In a statement, Whitmer spokesperson Tiffany Brown said the Court of Appeals handed the governor a complete and decisive win.

This decision recognizes that the Governors actions to save lives are lawful and her orders remain in place, she said. This lawsuit is a dangerous and costly attempt to take away the governors power to respond to the COVID-19 emergency and save lives.

The Michigan Supreme Court will likely have the final say on the matter.

Legislative Republicans initially requested the Michigan Supreme Court bypass the Court of Appeals. But in a 4-3 split decision in June, the Supreme Court opted not to fast-track the suit, concluding, we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court before consideration by the Court of Appeals.

Chatfield wrote on social media that the Court of Appeals got it wrong today and confirmed the case would be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Our Constitution is clear, and separation of powers is real, he wrote. No Governor, Republican or Democrat, can have unilateral control over a state based solely on their judgment. This precedent is extremely dangerous.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Related:

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer can extend state of emergency without legislature, judge rules

Groups pick sides as legislature, Whitmer head to court over Michigan state of emergency

Judge to determine if Michigans extended coronavirus state of emergency is legal

Whitmer administration calls Republican lawsuit challenging emergency authority a power grab

5 reasons Michigan lawmakers are suing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Protesters condemn stay-home order

Michigans mask mandate highlights political fault lines in coronavirus crisis
Despite repeated citations and police changing the locks early Friday morning, an Ocean County diner opened Friday for indoor dining, continuing to defy a state executive order.

On Friday morning, Lakeside Diner, located in the Forked River section of Lacey, was open for business inside and outside, after Ocean County Sheriffs officers visited the diner and had a locksmith change the locks, said Debbie Brindisi, who co-owns the diner with her husband, Brian.

At around 4:30 a.m. Friday, the Brindisis got a call from their alarm company notifying them that all three of the diners doors had been broken into, said Brindisi. When Debbie and Brian Brindisi arrived, they found a small crowd awaiting them, she said.

We came down here, Brindisi told NJ Advance Media in a phone call from the diner. The (Ocean County) sheriffs department was here. A locksmith was here. Lacey Township police were here. They were changing the locks.

You would think that they wouldnt because theyre trespassing, added Brindisi. But I guess because it was an executive order from our wonderful governor. They didnt want to do it. But theyre doing their jobs as well.

While the locks were being changed, Brian Brindisi managed to get inside and refused to leave, said Debbie Brindisi. And at 7 a.m., the diner opened for business, with plenty of diners sitting outside and inside for the breakfast rush, she said.

Since June, the Lakeside Diner has allowed indoor dining in defiance of a state executive order, with owners saying that they needed to allow some indoor tables to stay afloat financially. The diner allowed limited indoor dining when outdoor tables were fully booked, but they were taking safety precautions, Brian Brindisi previously told Patch.

In an order dated July 31, the diner was told to stop allowing indoor dining by the Commissioner of the Department of Health Judy Persichilli. The order cited the first four violations on June 5, and July 1, July 24, and July 28.

As of Friday, the diner had received 10 citations, said Debbie Brindisi. Two of those violations happened this past week, State Police Col. Pat Callahan said at Wednesday afternoons coronavirus press briefing.

Along with the financial necessity, Brindisi believes they are within their rights to reopen, noting the executive order signed by Gov. Phil Murphy is an overreach.

As well as a need financially to pay our bills here, pay our bills at home, pay our employees, its also a constitutional right, she said.

After all dining was barred in mid-March, outdoor dining was allowed to resume in New Jersey on June 15. Indoor dining was also set to resume on July 2, before Gov. Phil Murphy abruptly canceled the reopening as COVID-19 statistics spiked.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.


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Donald Harris, the father of Indian-origin Senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, has said that close contact with his daughters came to an abrupt halt after a contentious custody battle, according to a media report.

The New York Times report said that the Jamaican-born economics professor expressed regret that the custody battle brought an end to the contact with his daughters.

Harris mother Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer biologist came from India to the US at the age of 19 to pursue her dream of curing cancer.

Also read: The importance of Kamala Harris | Opinion

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris spoke fondly and profusely about her mother but had limited words for her father.

She said her mother met her father, who had come from Jamaica to study economics, at the University of California Berkeley, and the two fell in love in that most American waywhile marching together for justice in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

My mother instilled in my sister, Maya, and me the values that would chart the course of our lives. She raised us to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage, Harris, 55, said in her acceptance speech on Wednesday.

When I was 5, my parents split and my mother raised us mostly on her own. Like so many mothers, she worked around the clock to make it workpacking lunches before we woke up and paying bills after we went to bed. Helping us with homework at the kitchen tableand shuttling us to church for choir practice, said the Indian-American Senator from California.

She made it look easy, though I know it never was. She taught us to put family firstthe family youre born into and the family you choose, Harris said.

The New York Times article said that her father Donald,81, is long retired from teaching and has remained mostly silent even as his daughter has stepped into the national spotlight. The report cited a 2018 essay by Donald, in which he says his early, close contact with his daughters came to an abrupt halt after a contentious custody battle.

This early phase of interaction with my children came to an abrupt halt in 1972 when, after a hard-fought custody battle in the family court of Oakland, California, the context of the relationship was placed within arbitrary limits imposed by a court-ordered divorce settlement based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parentingNevertheless, I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children or reneging on my responsibilities as their father, he wrote.

The report said that his only recent comments about her, published on a Jamaican website run by an acquaintance, express a combination of pride in his daughter and bitterness over their estrangement.

He scolded her in a letter, which has since been removed from the site, for joking in an interview that, growing up in a Jamaican family, it was natural that she had smoked marijuana, the report said.

Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty, Harris father wrote in the letter, according to the report.

The report added that the divorce between Harris parents was bitter. Harris recalls inviting both her parents to her high school graduation, even though I knew they wouldnt speak to each other, and initially fearing that her mother would not show up, it said.
AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday (August 21) cancelled his scheduled trip to Srisailam following a fire accident in the left bank powerhouse on the neighbouring Telangana side late Thursday night.

The Chief Minister was supposed to conduct puja for the new Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme. He was scheduled to reach Srisailam at 11 am and conduct an inspection of the project site.

A review meeting with Water Resources Department officials was also planned. A CMO release said the Chief Minister cancelled the trip following the fire mishap in the left bank power house.

Expressing grief over the incident, he directed the AP officials to extend all required assistance to their Telanagna counterparts to handle the situation.

Two teams comprising 20 members including three officials of Singareni Collieries Company Limited, a state-owned coal miner, have left for Srisailam Hydel Electric Power project in which nine persons are trapped due to a fire accident, a senior official of SCCL said. "The teams are experts in rescuing people trapped in irrespirable conditions. We have equipment that can allow our personnel where there are poisonous gases and no oxygen also. The teams can go even if there is dense smoke," SCCL General Manager (Rescue) S Venkateswarlu told PTI.

At least 9 persons are feared trapped in Srisailam Left bank hydroelectric station located underground on the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border after a fire broke out on Thursday night, officials said on Friday.

Though the fire was put off, thick smoke engulfed the tunnel where the power plant is located, hampering the rescue operations.
Last month, the U.S. government rejected nearly all of Beijings South China Sea claims and in effect sided with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei in each of their territorial spats with Beijing. China responded by saying the U.S. was trying to sow discord and was meddling in an Asian dispute to flex its muscles and incite a confrontation.
NOAA issues hurricane watch for Quintana Roo coast

Cancun, Riviera Maya, Q.R.  UPDATED: The coast of the state of Quintana Roo from Cancun to Mahahual is preparing for a direct hit by topical depression Catorce. According to forecasts, the depression is expected to hit the coast Saturday afternoon.

The National Hurricane Center out of Miami is warning that tropical storm conditions are expected to first reach the eastern Yucatan coast within the warning area by Saturday afternoon, adding that hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area by late Saturday.

The National Hurricane Center has updated its advisory as of 8:00 a.m Friday for the Quintana Roo coast reporting A Hurricane Watch is in effect for Punta Herrero to Cancun Mexico. At 11:00 a.m., the warning remained.

Municipalities along the coast are preparing for the arrival of the storm starting with the evacuation of residents from Punta Allen at Tulum, since the tiny seaside town is in the direct path of the storm.

Government officials have continued to meet with State Civil Protection updating residents. As of 8:00 a.m., Civil Protection had issued only a green (low) alert for the region as the system continues to move west northwest toward the state at 12 mph. Since then, Civil Protection has upgraded their alert to yellow (medium), warning residents to take precautions and be prepared in the event of an evacuation.

Once it hits, the storm is expected to remain in the Cancun, Riviera Maya region for around 12 hours, while it crosses over into the neighboring state of Yucatan late Saturday night. From there, the storm will head out into the south-central Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.

Regardless of development, the National Hurricane Center reports that the system is forecast to be near or at hurricane strength when it reaches the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico late Saturday, bringing with it heavy rainfall that may result in areas of flash flooding.
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New Delhi, Aug 21 : Former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar, who implemented much of PM Narendra Modi's pet projects of financial inclusion, was on Friday appointed an Election Commissioner, in place of Ashok Lavasa.

A 1984 batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer, Rajiv Kumar will take charge "with effect from with the date he assumes office vice Ashok Lavasa, Election Commissioner who has resigned with effect from 31st August, 2020," according to a notification by the Ministry of Law and Justice.

Lavasa had on Tuesday sent his resignation as Election Commissioner to the President, as he has been selected as Vice President of the Asian Development Bank.

Only this April, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had approved Rajiv Kumar's appointment as the Public Enterprises Selection Board Chairperson for a period of three years.

Rajiv Kumar has often been credited with bringing in reforms in banking as well as in the bureaucracy during his stints in the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Personnel respectively. He is believed to have played a key role in merging 10 public sector banks into four.

Before taking over as the Finance Secretary, he earned the government's trust by playing a key role in implementing Modi's flagship schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Mudra loan scheme, among others.
Three more countries -- Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago -- have been added to the UK's quarantine list in an effort to contain the spread of the novel in the country, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced.

In his announcement on Thursday, Shapps said that the new measures will come into force at 4 a.m. on Saturday, reports Xinhua news agency.

The Transport Secretary also announced that travellers arriving in the from Portugal will no longer need to self-isolate for 14 days.

He said the decision to change the travel corridors took a range of factors into account, including the estimated prevalence of COVID-19 in a country, the level and rate of change in the incidence of confirmed positive cases, and the extent of testing in a country.

The other factors included the testing regime and test positivity, the extent to which cases can be accounted for by a contained outbreak as opposed to more general transmission in the community, government actions and other relevant epidemiological information, he said.

The new move was announced after Covid-19 cases on the Caribbean islands more than doubled in a week.

The Foreign Office said that it would look at putting any country with more than 20 cases per 100,000 people on its quarantine list.

Earlier this week, the British government refused to deny that tourists returning from Croatia and Greece could face quarantine measures after the number of cases per 100,000 people in Croatia reportedly rose above 20, seen as a key benchmark.

Downing Street said the government continues to "keep these rules under review" and that "protecting public health" remains the main priority.

Pushed on the limited time between new quarantine measures being announced and their implementation, Downing Street said: "It is important that when we make changes to the exemptions list, we do so in a swift way."

France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta and other countries were placed on the quarantine list on August 15.

Previously, Shapps announced that travellers returning to the UK from Belgium, the Bahamas and Andorra would have to quarantine at home for two weeks, citing rising Covid-19 levels in the three countries.
Mosquitoes are known to be vectors or bearers of several viral and protozoal infections such as dengue, Zika, yellow fever, Chikungunya, and malaria. These infections are known to infect and even kill millions around the world each year. In order to tackle this vector-borne menace, researchers have genetically engineered mosquitoes that could replace the infection carrying species of the mosquitoes.

750 Million Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Approved for Release in Florida Keys

The altered mosquitoes

The new batch of genetically altered mosquitoes is named OX5034. These have been altered in a manner so that they can produce only female offspring, and these mosquitoes die when they are in their larval stage before they reach their adulthood. This prevents the offspring of these mosquitoes from carrying disease. The male mosquitoes do not bite or infect and feed on plant nectar and juices. Thus they are harmless. This process targets female mosquitoes only. The female mosquitoes need to feed on blood in order to mature their eggs.

Pilot project

Approval from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) was obtained in May this year. Following this, a pilot project was initiated where these genetically modified species of Aedes aegypti were tested. The genetically altered mosquito release was compared with spraying insecticides in terms of efficacy in preventing the spread of the infections borne by these mosquitoes such as Zika, dengue, Chikungunya, and yellow fever.

The mosquitoes were developed by Oxitec, an American British-based company. They had applied for the release of these mosquitoes in Harris County, Texas, in 2021. The EPA has approved their request after considering the impact of this experiment on human as well as environmental health.

Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen had said in an earlier statement, "This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases."

Plans in Florida

The authorities have approved the release of over 750 million such genetically engineered mosquitoes into Florida Keys region in 2021 and 2022. The State and Federal government had already approved the move earlier.

An experimental use permit was provided for the use of these mosquitoes in Florida in June this year. It was approved by seven agencies in the state. The whole process of approval took nearly a decade. It was in 2009 and 2010 when an outbreak of dengue in Florida had initiated the search for alternatives to mosquito control say authorities. Several avenues had been triedsome of these included insecticide spray, the spread of mosquito larva eating fish, etc. None of them were effective in the long run, said the health authorities from Florida Keys Mosquito Control, and were not cost-effective.

Oxitec was approached in 2012 by the authorities for help. They had then developed the male mosquito named OX513A that would die before adulthood and were sterile and could not reproduce. These would be allowed to mate with the existing females, the researchers had said. Their offspring, if produced, would die in the larval stage. This would limit the population of mosquitoes. This OX513A strain had been tested in Cayman Islands, Panama, and Brazil by Oxitec, which had reported success in vector control.

Objections to "Jurassic Park" experiment

Local environmental advocacy groups were against this idea of the introduction of genetically modified insects that could upend the ecological balance in the environment.

Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, in a statement this week said, "With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the State of Florida  the Covid-19 pandemic, racial injustice, climate change  the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment." She added, "Now the Monroe County Mosquito Control District has given the final permission needed. What could possibly go wrong? We don't know, because EPA unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks, now without further review of the risks, the experiment can proceed."

Dana Perls, food and technology program manager at Friends of the Earth, said, "The release of genetically engineered mosquitoes will needlessly put Floridians, the environment and endangered species at risk in the midst of a pandemic."

Public health campaigns try to convince people of the safety

Public relations campaigns are trying to convince the general population that these genetically modified mosquitoes are males and thus do not bite. The EPA says it has investigated the safety of the program thoroughly and Oxitec has now come up with a second generation of "Friendly mosquito" technology. This new altered male mosquito is called OX5034. It can kill only female mosquitoes and lets the males survive. The modified genes in these males are transmitted to offspring.

Notification before release and plans ahead

The state officials would be notified 72 hours before the release of these genetically modified mosquitoes says the EPA. Tests would be conducted over 10 weeks after release to check if the female mosquitoes died before adulthood.

Phil Goodman, chair of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control Board said, "We heard all the hypotheticals of what a male GMM flying around you may do, but we know exactly what an infected wild female Aedes aegypti mosquito will do. Unfortunately, the need for new technology is now even more evident with the current dengue fever outbreak in the Upper Keys. There are other regions of the Keys with even higher risks, so we should not waste more time." He added, "We now have the regulatory approvals for safety, and we finally have the chance to determine if it works locally. If it does, this may be a real game-changer for mosquito control in the Keys and the world." Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen added, "Our team is ready to get to work. We couldn't think of a better partner than the FKMCD, and we're looking forward to working with the Keys community to demonstrate the effectiveness."
Despite the economic slowdown, development in Tomball seems to not be slowing as another developer is planning to bring another 125 homes to Tomball.

The community, called Alexander Estates, is being built by Meritage Homes off Hufsmith-Kohrville and Spell Roads by the Tomball Business and Technology Park, with home prices starting at more than $200,000.

Residential growth continues: Tomball development adding more than 400 homes

Alexander Estates will be ideal for families looking for a spacious new home within the sought-after Klein ISD, Meritage Homes Division President Kyle Davidson said. With Meritage Homes high standard for quality construction and energy efficiency that goes into every home, this is a great opportunity to escape escalating rents and transition to homeownership in this fast-growing area.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Frustrated Houston-area homebuyers face dwindling supply amid hot market

The development will also be located near major thoroughfares running through Tomball, less than two miles from Grand Parkway and less than three miles from Highway 249.

Meritage Homes plans to offer nine different floorplans, with at most four bedrooms, three bedrooms, and extra rooms like studies or game rooms. Each home will also have smart door locks, USB outlets and smart garage doors.

As for how developments keep coming to Tomball, Mayor and Economic Development Corporation President Gretchen Fagan said she thinks it has to do with the small-town feel.

The ones already opened are filling up, I think people just realize its a good market, Fagan said. Having the business park across the street doesnt hurt because that gives employees places to live.

Fagan said the town could see even more development in the future as the city is in the process of extending Medical Complex Drive to Hufsmith-Kohrville Road.

Since the pandemic began, Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce President Bruce Hillegeist said there has been a rise in construction, along with a rise in purchases from places such as Home Depot and Lowes.

Its just the open land thats here in and around Tomball, especially towards the west of the city of Tomball, were seeing homes being built, Hillegeist said. And as soon as theyre being built, theyre being purchased.

Area sees influx of new housing: Tomball sees growth in residential developments

While the Houston area may not have diverse seasons, Hillegeist said it has the cultural diversity, parks and schools that draw people here.

Tomball was first established in 1907, he said, and currently has a population of about 12,000, which he said is expected to double by 2030.

It took 113 years to get to where we are now and its going to double in size just in the next 10, he said. Even though weve got not-so-positive times right now, opportunities are coming to Tomball and thats good for everyone.

paul.wedding@hcnonline.com
A child walks past flood water at a site for internally displaced people in Aden, Yemen, March 2020.  UNHCR/Essam Adduais

An estimated 300,000 people in Yemen have lost their homes, crops, livestock and personal belongings in the last three months due to torrential rains and severe flash floods. Amongst the newly displaced are people were previously forced to flee their homes by the conflict. They are once again having to rebuild their lives and communities.

The most badly-hit areas include Marib, Amran, Hajjah, Al Hudaydah, Taizz, Lahj, Aden and Abyan governorates where floods have killed at least 148 people in the last two months alone. In Hababa, a sudden and catastrophic break of the Al-Roone dam led to the uncontrolled release of 250,000 cubic metres of water, affecting thousands of people in IDP sites in Al-Tahseen, Souq al-Lill and elsewhere.

Many of the internally displaced people (IDPs) displaced by the floods were already living in abject poverty, often in overcrowded, makeshift shelters made from plastic sheeting or mud which have been washed away or sustained significant damage. People are now being forced to shelter in mosques, schools or with relatives or live out in the open, in abandoned buildings, some of which are at risk of collapsing, or in whatever is left of their damaged homes.

Many were already struggling to survive, with little to no work opportunities and barely able to afford one meal for their families each day. Levels of desperation and despair are rising as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis plumbs to new depths.

UNHCR is deeply concerned that the displaced communities are extremely vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many unable to practice social or physical distancing, access clean water for hand-washing or enact other measures to prevent transmission of the virus. The countrys health infrastructure is already badly damaged by years of conflict,

Thousands more may yet be impacted as the rainy season is expected to continue and the capacities of many dams, some of which are in poor condition due to neglect in recent years because of the conflict, are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. In Marib, the dam has reached the overflow level and is highly vulnerable to bursting if further extreme and extended rainfall overfills the reservoir. This would destroy the downstream irrigated area, where sites hosting thousands of people who have become internally displaced (IDPs) by the conflict are located, as well as the lower parts of Marib town.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is rushing to provide emergency shelter support and core relief items such as blankets and mattresses to thousands of people, as well as counselling support to those struggling to cope with the loss of their homes and loved ones. Together with partners, we are engaging the displaced communities to raises awareness of COVID-19 protection and prevention measures.

However, our capacities continue to be constrained by severe underfunding. On current levels, our stocks of shelter and emergency relief items will run out in a matter of weeks, leaving with some of their most basic needs unmet. After more than five years of conflict, more than 80 per cent of Yemens total population requires humanitarian assistance. Close to 4 four million IDPs, returnees, refugees and asylum-seekers are now reliant on regular humanitarian aid to survive.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
(Natural News) Consistently heavy rainfall over the Yangtze and its tributaries has left many areas  including Sichuan Province, Gansu Province and Chongqing  submerged in water.

Intense rainstorms have caused water levels to rise at the Three Gorges Dam located at the upper reaches of the Yangtze, which prompted Chinas Ministry of Water Resources to issue a warning about the increased water levels on Aug. 18.

The ministry said that water levels in the dam reached more than 74,000 cubic meters per second in the morning of Aug. 20  the highest level since the dams commissioning in 2003  Chinese state-run media Xinhua News Agency reported.

In a statement released early August by The Heritage Foundation, a U.S.-based think tank, excessive flooding put dams upstream of Three Gorges under increasing stress. They added that should the dam collapse, the resulting deluge would affect millions of people living downstream, inundate major cities (including Wuhan where the outbreak of COVID-19 began) and wipe out extensive cropland. The latter could possibly worsen the food shortage China is facing. (Related: China buying up American corn due to flooding, creating food shortage crisis.)

Authorities rush to respond to the flooding

China has been grappling with heavy rainstorms since June, with floods affecting at least 54.8 million people in 27 provinces and regions as per the latest data from the Ministry of Emergency Management. Some Chinese netizens doubt the data released by the ministry however, believing that the number of casualties is actually higher than indicated.

In a report by Xinhua, the authorities in Sichuan raised the flood control response to level one  the highest level of Chinas four-tier flood response system  on Aug. 18. This came a day after the level was raised from three to two, according to the same report. More than 100,000 people, some of the residents of Yaan city, were evacuated on the same day after the citys water banks burst due to flooding the previous day.

Chinese state-run media also reported that the 71-meter-tall Leshan Giant Buddha statue, which UNESCO declared a World Natural and Cultural Heritage site, had floodwater covering its toes.

According to authorities, Chongqing has been under level one flood control since the afternoon of Aug. 18 with more than 100,000 people in the megacitys 31 districts and counties were severely affected by floodwaters and mudslides.

Flooding also impacted the city of Longnan in Gansu province. According to a report by Chinese state-run media, a mudslide in Wen county south  of Longnan  buried more than 300 homes that belonged to about 1,300 residents.

Chinese president Xi Jinping visited affected residents in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui  the first time since the years flooding season. Regions close to the provinces Huai River, located in between the southern Yangtze River and the northern Yellow River, were part of Xis itinerary.

Meanwhile, Xinhua also reported that Typhoon Higos made landfall in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong at around 6 a.m. local time on Aug. 19, with the nearby provinces of Hainan and Guangxi to experiencing heavy rain. The Zhuhai city educational bureau ordered the suspension of any school classes on that date, while many flights to and from Guangzhou Baiyuan International Airport were canceled in response to the typhoon.

Local residents share their stories

Mr. Li, a resident in Sichuans Jintang county, said that the flooding in his area wasnt exactly the result of heavy rains, but rather  the overflow of water from the Yangtze towards the Tuo River near Jintang. He also added that his area first saw flooding on Aug. 15 with the water only starting to subside after two days.

Hailing from the capital of Sichuan, Chengdu resident Mr. Xu said that floodwaters about 1.2 meters high submerged his first-floor home. He estimated his financial losses to the flooding at around 20,000 to 30,000 yuan (about $2,890 to $4,340)  which included much of his furniture and appliances, plus a number of animals he was raising. Xu added that power was cut on the afternoon of Aug. 16 when the water level began to rise, with electricity being restored the next day. However, the water service was cut at around 6 p.m. local time on Aug. 17.

Residents in Gansu provinces Wen county were unable to return home because of the flood. A resident from Bikou town shared that the area was completely submerged in water two storeys deep by the evening of Aug. 18. Another Bikou resident, a farm owner, said that mudslides forced a local highway to be shut down and that local public transportation was also cut short.

We will keep you updated with the latest news on the flooding in China and how this affects the Three Gorges Dam. More news about the natural disasters China is facing can be found at Collapse.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Heritage.org

MedicalNewsToday.com
The San Antonio areas unemployment rate decreased slightly in July, though uncertainty about school and business reopenings could continue to harass the regions economic recovery.

Unemployment dipped to 6.9 percent in July, down from 7.1 percent in June, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Yet San Antonio lost jobs last month  with 400 fewer overall  in contrast to Junes gain of 25,700 jobs.

Theres a significant step back in July in Texas, said Keith Phillips, a senior economist at the Dallas Fed. Job growth stalled in July.

The Dallas Feds numbers are seasonally adjusted, which minimizes the impact of seasonal employment patterns, and differ slightly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. The BLS pegged the San Antonio regions unemployment rate at 7.9 percent in July, down from 8.5 percent in June.

Related: As Congress debates future stimulus, unemployed San Antonians cope with $600-a-week cut in unemployment

In San Antonio, we have overall jobs declining in July, just slightly, by 0.5 percent  with a big decline in leisure and hospitality, Phillips said.

San Antonio and Houston were the only major Texas metropolitan areas to lose jobs in July, according to Phillips. Other Texas cities saw job growth, albeit slow-paced.

Weekly unemployment claims in Bexar County dropped to 2,967 in the first week of August, the lowest since mid-March, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

The number of weekly claims is significantly lower than the weekly high of nearly 21,000 recorded at the end of March, but its still more than triple the amount of claims filed this time last year.

The August data will likely show once again positive private-sector job growth but not very strong, Phillips said. In order to return to a strong rate of growth, its going to have to see a significant decline in new COVID cases.

The Dallas Fed predicts 2.1 percent job growth throughout the rest of the year.

Related: San Antonio unemployment rate drops in June  despite COVID-19 surge and reopening uncertainty

It depends on how the virus plays out, he said.

The current unemployment rate is more than double the July 2019 rate of 3 percent.

If we get the pandemic under control, the economy will come back, said economic Steven Nivin, an associate professor at St. Marys University. To me, the best economic policy we can implement right now is to do our best to get the pandemic under control.

Brandon Lingle writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org.

brandon.lingle@express-news.net
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.
Surely no civilised person could condone the barbaric sentence meted out to Ye Ming Yuen for drug offences in Singapore.

The former public schoolboy was given 20 years after being found guilty of selling a small amount of illegal drugs to his friends; an amount that probably would have got him 12 months in a British jail; an amount that suggests a young man had taken a wrong turn in life, but that his life was redeemable.

In Singapore, they take a different view. Yuen, 31, has been in the brutal Changi prison since February 2018 after being arrested for 'repeat drug trafficking' in the summer of 2016.

This week he was taken from his cell, tied to a medieval contraption and given 24 lashes with a rattan cane as part of his punishment.

There is no doubt he is a criminal and a bit of an idiot  Singapore's draconian and brutal drug laws are no secret  but thank goodness nothing so barbarous happens in the justice system here.

Ye Ming Yuen (pictured) was given 20 years in prison after being found guilty of selling a small amount of illegal drugs to his friends in Singapore

Our problem is that we have gone too far the other way. This week, Hashem Abedi, convicted of helping his older brother build the suicide bomb that devastated the Manchester Arena in 2017, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for his part in the murder of 22 men, women and children.

He was jailed for a minimum of 55 years  but refused to come to court to hear his sentence and to face the tearful relatives of those he murdered. Abedi's sentencing trial was their single opportunity to look him in the eye as they read out their victim impact statements.

But the cowardly brute denied them even this small comfort. The judge told the families of the victims that he was powerless to force Abedi, now 23, to leave his cell at the court to hear their testimony.

But why was the judge powerless? How can a terrorist with the blood of 22 innocents on his hands and found guilty by a jury now dictate what he will and will not do?

One wonders why the wretch wasn't forcibly dragged from his cell and into the dock and made to face the families he had so terribly bereaved. Not so long ago, that is exactly what would have happened.

After all, this is no petty criminal. Abedi helped plan one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on British soil, yet he was allowed to skulk in his cell like a sulky teenager rather than face the victims' families.

Amid the grief they have to live with for ever, it must be hard for them to understand why his human rights and mental health are deemed more important than theirs. His absence from court is not the kind of mannered social nicety ('No, you just stay in there, son, if that is what you feel like doing') that would be tolerated in Singapore. Or in most countries, come to think of it.

Yet prisoners in custody or on remand refusing to attend their own hearings is an increasing problem in British courts. In December, a serial rapist refused to attend his own trial, claiming that he was 'sleep-deprived'.

This means that many victims who have long planned for their moment in court in front of the perpetrator of the crime are denied the closure they seek. Over the years, there have been misgivings about victim impact statements  I've had a few myself.

They are supposed to bring comfort to victims and bereaved families. But what comfort does anyone gain from this farrago if the killer refuses to listen? Victim impact statements are an idea copied from the U.S. and were introduced into our legal system by Harriet Harman when she was minister for constitutional affairs. The premise is laudable.

The statements are read out after the verdicts but before the sentencing, allowing the victim or their loved ones a say in court, making them feel included in the legal process.

Their words will not necessarily influence the tariff or sentence set by the judge, but it is important for many to feel that their grief and heartbreak have at least been officially noted; that their voice has been heard. It is a courtesy rather than a new layer of emotional justice.

But when it goes wrong  as it did this week  does it really help a family already in shreds? Yet we must draw the line at indulging murderers and rapists who are too cowardly to face their fate. I'm not saying get out the rattan canes, but a little rigour wouldn't go amiss.

A frocky horror show for summer

The dress of the summer? Apparently it is this 370 strawberry-print confection by Kosovo designer Lirika Matoshi.

Fashioned from pink tulle, it is a knickerbocker glory of a gown that screams out to be accessorised with ankle socks, handcuffs and an arrest warrant.

Yet this frightmare of a dress has its own hashtag, is popular across three continents and has had devotees fighting among each other.

Plus-size model Tess Holliday has complained that she was on 'worst dressed' lists when she wore the 370 strawberry-print confection by Kosovo designer Lirika Matoshi

Plus-size model Tess Holliday has complained that she was on 'worst dressed' lists when she wore it, but when skinny people posed in the strawberry monstrosity on video app TikTok they were praised to the skies.

Tess has concluded that the world simply 'hates fat people', but I think they just hate the dress. No one looks good in it.

It is the kind of dress that makes every woman look utterly mad, as if she has escaped from a high-security facility and is on her way to settle a score with that boy in school who once gave her 'a funny look' in geography class.

Ladies, wear the dress if you must  but only if you want to look like a summer pudding.

Try it in French, I beg of you. Vendredi soir, les lumieres sont tamisees. Gorgeous!

How about Italian? E' venerdi sera e le luci sono basse. Divine.

It even sounds wild in German. Freitag nacht und es dammert.

Although you perhaps know it best in English  altogether now! 'Friday night and the lights are low...'

Yes, it is one of the opening lines of Dancing Queen, the mega hit from Abba which has just been voted the best ever song to dance to, beating Beyonce, Marvin Gaye and all other no-hopers in the process. Of course it has!

Those irresistible opening bars could get a corpse on a dance floor, never mind all the red-blooded boomers who love it still. Evacuate the dance floor, here we come.

Sandwich short of a picnic, Heston

Yum, yum, barf. Following the Greggs vegan sausage roll, plant-based burgers, sea bass ham, pea milk and fruit flours, save a space for Heston Blumenthal's new English breakfast sandwich.

The snack (3.80, available at Waitrose) features baked bean-flavoured bread, bacon, something ominous called 'smoky crumbed sausage', cannellini beans, sliced egg, coffee-flavoured mushroom ketchup and coldpressed mayonnaise. Cold pressed! There's fancy.

It sounds horrific  and not just because only savages have baked beans in their Full English.

Heston Blumenthal's new English breakfast sandwich (pictured) features baked bean-flavoured bread, bacon, something ominous called 'smoky crumbed sausage', cannellini beans, sliced egg, coffee-flavoured mushroom ketchup and coldpressed mayonnaise

It is also a bit, well, dull. UK diners don't think twice about scoffing things like macaroni pie, boiled rhubarb, jellied eels, mushy peas, Scotch eggs, brown sauce, mustard, fish-finger sandwiches and even pork pies somehow impaled with hard-boiled eggs.

What was his inspiration for the wacky brekkie? 'I realised the solution was in a sandwich,' said Heston.

Just like a million mums who prepare lunch boxes every day

Tragic and quiet desperation behind Britain's closed doors

Who among us is not haunted by the plight of the mother accused in court of suffocating her profoundly disabled son with a sponge? The Old Bailey heard this week that the burden of the 24-hour care needed for victim Dylan Freeman, ten, had fallen on the defendant, Olga Freeman, after she separated from her husband, celebrity photographer Dean Freeman.

Dylan was severely autistic and neighbours claimed his mother had been struggling to meet his care needs as he became older, bigger and more difficult to manage.

Six months ago, the court heard, his behaviour became especially challenging.

The lockdown may have made things worse, as Dylan was not able to attend his special school. We shouldnt forget that lockdown has brought heartbreak and huge pressure to many families.

In the discomfort of their own homes, a great number of people are living lives of quiet desperation, cut off from their usual safety lines, adrift and feeling hopeless. The Freemans were divorced and it seems that the mother took on the bulk of Dylans care. His father was in Spain when he was told of the tragedy.

We cannot know what went on behind the doors of this blighted familys home. Only that the boys body was found beside his toys after Olga Freeman walked into a police station. I hope the courts treat her with understanding.

No guarantees in this lockdown life

Thousands of holidaymakers rush home from France to avoid self-isolating for two weeks. Some travellers are trapped in Malta  but Portugal has just been given the all-clear, hurrah!

Meanwhile, fears grow for those Brits whose holiday plans are up the chute after the World Health Organisation warned the Balkans is a hotspot for the coronavirus; and Croatia has just been put on the UKs quarantine list. I have my sympathies.

Of course I do. Yet huge numbers of people took it upon themselves to book holidays and travel abroad in the middle of a pandemic. They knew the risks, they took a chance, perhaps they were even right to do so.

But if and when it all goes wrong, please dont start whining about the inconvenience or the airport queues or the return to lockdown or the idiot government. Please. Accept the consequences of your actions. And think of those you may be putting at risk, too.

I dont blame anyone for making a dash to the sun in this hellish year, but the only guarantee in this fastmoving situation is that there are no guarantees
Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department is anticipating the recovery of stolen funds from 2018's Coincheck exchange hack.

To that end, law enforcement obtained a protective court order in March, which allows for the immediate confiscation of a suspect's funds upon a guilty verdict, according to a new report from The Japan Times.

Over half a million dollars in NEM was stolen in the initial attack. Though the hacker has not been apprehended and the investigation is still ongoing, the Japan Times reported that a 30-year-old doctor is suspected to be holding some funds stolen in the attack.

An individual named Takayoshi Doi allegedly obtained Coincheck's NEM token with the knowledge it had been stolen. If found guilty following an indictment, the court order allows for his NEM to be confiscated.

This may be the first time a preemptive order has been issued in a case related to cryptocurrency in the country, according to the Japan Times.





 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.
West African leaders from regional bloc Ecowas kick off a high-stakes mission to Mali on Saturday in a bid to reverse Tuesday's military coup. Member heads of state want ousted leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to be reinstated, but Malians have cheered his resignation. It is the latest sign of the widening schism between the bloc and civilians.

A delicate balancing act lies ahead for the Ecowas delegation as it tries to restore constitutional order to Mali, while at the same time acknowledging the public's desire for change.

The architect of that mission is former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

He was the mediator between ousted leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and an opposition coalition, known as the June 5 Movement, during last month's talks that failed to end the deadlock.

Jonathan has said he hopes Saturday "to help the search for solutions" after this week's coup, and will be flanked by the president of the Ecowas Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, and Niger's foreign minister, Kalla Ankourao.

A junta official told AFP that the envoys would be received "with pleasure... it is important to talk to our brothers."

However, chances of a breakthrough appear slim reckon analysts, largely due to a misunderstanding between Ecowas and ordinary Malians.

Crossing red line

"The mediation by Ecowas has been ongoing, they've met with all different stakeholders but they have not integrated at all the claims of civil society and opposition parties," says Sten Hagberg, a professor in Cultural Anthropology at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Those claims include an end to escalating corruption, the embezzlement of public funds and access to education. Demands, which in Hagberg's view, have been largely ignored.

"None of this has been integrated in the mediation attempts, because the stepping down of the president is a red line they cannot cross," he told RFI.

The 15-member bloc is composed of leaders who are also facing demands for reform in their own countries, and who fear that Mali's collapse could set a precedent in the region.

Story continues

In the cases of Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire, their presidents have altered the rules to allow them to stay in power beyond their mandated terms.

"Many people in Mali and elsewhere in West Africa say that Ecowas is almost like a labour union of presidents," continues Hagberg.

The coup in Mali has put Ecowas' reputation as a champion of democracy to the test.

"People are saying we need an Ecowas of West African peoples not of presidents," he said.

Paying high price

While Malians have expressed widespread support for the military coup, it has been met with almost universal condemnation abroad.

This paradox can be explained by the country's security crisis, which has spilled over into neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger.

"The security crisis in Mali since 2011-2012 has led to a situation whereby for the international community, the stability of Mali is key," says the Uppsala University professor, referring to fears that Mali's conflict is driving illegal migration to Europe.

"But on the other hand who is paying the price? It's the Malian people. There are no schools that have opened in months if not years. The public health service is not working. Even the army has been lacking military equipment and these are the people who are fighting terrorist groups."

For Hagberg, the international community has "invested everything in Keita" for the price of stability.

It is a price that Malians are no longer willing to pay.
For Karlie Noon, the sky tells a story.

When the Gamilaraay woman looks at the moon, she sees more than just a bright orb. A surrounding halo hints that a storm is coming. The halos size bears clues about the movements of the clouds. If the stars are hidden, rain is imminent.

Karlie Noon has been appointed the Sydney Observatory's first astronomy ambassador. Credit:Rhett Wyman

She has gleaned this knowledge from a combination of traditional Aboriginal stories passed down by her elders, and a decade of scientific study.

Observing the stars, observing the sky, observing the land - these are things that my ancestors have been doing forever, Ms Noon said.




The scientist who leads the team dedicated to the project at Lima-based Cayetano Heredia University explained that, thanks to these characteristics, the Peruvian molecular test will be accessible to the population.





However, he added, it does not mean it will be a home test, as its use will require trained personnel.





In an interview with Andina news agency, Malaga-Trillo recalled that, after completing the first phase , the test has managed to enter phase II, meaning the clinical validation, the process in which a number of samples are analyzed using a specific protocol.





"The National Health Institute (INS) is in charge of preparing this roadmap, while the General Directorate for Medicines, Supplies and Drugs (Digemid) is responsible for approving the massive use of the test in the Peruvian population," he commented.





Access to molecular testing

The neurobiologist affirmed that he is unaware of the distribution channels for said test, since the team he leads is academic and responsible for developing the prototype. "We do not participate in the production or distribution process," he clarified.





However, he estimates that the test may become accessible through an agreement reached by the State, the Social Health Insurance System (EsSalud) and private clinics.





(END) SMS/RRC/RMB/MVB

The Peruvian molecular test will be rapid, low-cost and portable unlike the standard one which will facilitate its delivery to health posts and centers in remote areas of the country, Peruvian neurobiologist Edward Malaga-Trillo reported on Friday.Published: 8/21/2020
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah today held the second round of meeting with senior NC leaders at his residence in Srinagar in the backdrop of partys allegations that several of its leaders were forcefully being kept under house arrest or detention.

The attendees included Mubarak Gul, Choudhary Ramzaan, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, Shameema Firdous, Basharat Bukhari. These members who were under detention/house arrest met Dr Farooq after over a year, NC spokesman said, adding that partys Provincial President Nasir Aslam Wani, Treasurer Shammi Oberoi, Political Advisor to Dr Farooq Mushtaq Guroo were also present.

On Thursday too, Abdullah had met senior party leaders in the backdrop of the Jammu and Kashmir administrations denial of NCs contention in court that several party leaders were in illegal confinement at their homes.

Yesterdays meeting was the first at Abdullahs Gupkar residence since the nullification of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. He said it was called to find out whether his party colleagues could come out of their homes.

NC general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar and former ministers Mohammad Shafi Uri, Abdul Rahim Rather and Nasir Aslam Wani had attended the meeting yesterday.

On July 13, Abdullah and his son, Omar Abdullah, filed a habeas corpus petition in the high court, contending that several NC leaders were being held in a brazen violation of constitutional guarantees of the right to liberty.

The party decided to convene Thursdays meeting after the administration told the court that none of the 16 leaders, who the party said were in illegal confinement, were detained.

The government nullified Article 370, which accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, last August and also bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union territories  Jammu and Kashmir with a legislative assembly and Ladakh without one.

In anticipation of protests erupting in the wake of the announcement, several political leaders and activists including former chief ministers were detained as a preventive measure. While prominent politicians such as ex-CMs Farooq and Omar Abdullah have been released, about 20 leaders, including Peoples Democratic Partys Mehbooba Mufti, are still in detention.
US knocked over the head by allies as it tries to snap back Iran sanctions

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 8:25 PM

The United States' most prominent Western allies refuse to fall into step with its push to snap back the United Nations sanctions against Iran.

On Thursday, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany said they could not support the US move, describing the action as incompatible with efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal, Reuters reported.

The trio announced their position in a statement in response to an illegal US push to invoke the mechanism in the nuclear deal that would restore all of the UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, whose related resolutions was annulled after the agreement was concluded.

The nuclear accord was made between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of states -- the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany -- in Vienna in July 2015.

The US left the accord, which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018. The move, by extension, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorses the JCPOA.

In order to lend a plausible aspect to its ongoing attacks on the JCPOA, including the attempt at the sanctions snapback, Washington has falsely been alleging that it is still "mentioned" as a JCPOA member in Resolution 2231.

Reacting to the Europeans' put-down, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo still hailed the US's anti-Iran bid by saying, "No country but the United States has had the courage and conviction to put forward a resolution."

Delivering the unilateral US approach its next blow was China's UN mission that reminded that Washington had itself compromised all of its contractual rights under the nuclear deal.

Neither did a letter presented to the world body by Pompeo to trigger the snapback module qualify for the purpose it has been written for, the mission noted in a tweet.

Before Thursday's snub, Washington was similarly defeated at the Security Council in an earlier attempt to prevent the expiry of an arms embargo against Iran that will expire in October under the JCPOA.

The European statement, however, urged Iran "to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay."

Last May, the Islamic Republic began phased-out countermeasures against the US's withdrawal from the nuclear accord and the refusal of the European partners of the deal to retain their business with Iran for fear of coming under American sanctions.

Tehran's retaliation, however, has consistently fitted within the JCPOA that allows signatories to take reciprocal measures in the face of non-commitment by the other parties.

The Islamic Republic has, meanwhile, conditioned reversal of its countermeasures to the US's return to the nuclear agreement, and the European trio's resumption of their contractual obligations.

US to face another defeat at UNSC: Iran envoy

Attending a press conference at the world body's headquarters in New York, Iran's UN Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi said the country was certain that the US would face another defeat at the Security Council regarding the snapback push.

He reminded that the US push was lacking in all legal reasoning and that Washington was no longer being recognized across the international community as a party to the nuclear agreement.

Therefore, what the Americans allege in order to try and justify their bid amounts to falsification because they have lost the right to have any opinion about the deal.

By proposing the sanctions snapback, Washington is mocking the entirety of the United Nations' membership, he said, adding that the pending failure would constitute a catastrophe for America's statesmen.

Takht Ravanchi, who condemned the US for failing to treat the JCPOA in good faith, also said Washington's push contradicted the UN Charter.

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who was part of the Iranian team negotiating the JCPOA, also weighed in, echoing Takht Ravanchi's remarks, and expressing certainty that the Security Council would stand up to Washington.

So far, Israel has been the sole supporter of the US in its bid against Iran, with the occupying regime's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the move "the right decision."

Many reports have revealed how it was Israel and others' pressure in the first place that proved instrumental in Washington's departure from the nuclear deal.

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Govt fixes sugarcane prices for 20-21 sugar season at Rs285/tonne

The government has fixed the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of sugarcane for the 2020-21 sugar season at Rs285 per quintal for a basic recovery rate of 10 per cent, an increase of Rs10 per tonne.

There will be a premium of Rs2.85 per quintal to be paid for every 0.1 per cent increase above 10 per cent in the recovery and an equal reduction for every 0.1 percentage point decrease in recovery, in respect of those mills whose recovery is below 10 per cent but above 9.5 per cent.

However, for mills having recovery 9.5 per cent or below, the FRP is fixed at Rs270.75 per quintal.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of sugarcane payable by sugar mills for 2020-21 sugar season (October-September) on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).

The determination of FRP will be in the interest of sugarcane growers keeping in view their entitlement to a fair and remunerative price for their produce.

The Fair and Remunerative price of sugarcane is determined under Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966. This will be uniformly applicable all over the country.

The sugarcane sale season will start in October 2020. The FRP, which is provided for by the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966, is the minimum price that sugar mills have to pay to sugarcane farmers.

Major sugarcane producing states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana fix their own sugarcane price called state advisory prices (SAPs), which are usually higher than the Centres FRP.

According to government estimates, the countrys total sugar production is pegged at 28-29 million tonnes in the current year ending next month, compared to 33.1 million tonnes during 2018-19 due to a sharp fall in cane acreage in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Nine out of every 10 of Indias 63.3 million small businesses (termed micro, small, and medium enterprises or MSMEs) have restarted operations after the lockdown necessitated by Covid-19, but only one in four is producing at least half its capacity -- largely on account of poor demand, logistical issues, and their own financial troubles (at least half said they faced a liquidity crunch as of August 1).

85% of MSME units operate from households and as their exposure to formal banking is almost zero, they are not able to take the benefit of the Centres liquidity package, which is linked to outstanding bank credit. The government should come out with a separate fund or fast-track MUDRA [Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd] loan for these people. For bigger MSMEs, e-marketing should be strengthened and a special fund for technology upgradation is required as many MSMEs want to invest heavily in technology, said Tamal Sarkar, executive director of Foundation for MSME Cluster.

And as of August 6, four million MSMEs had been sanctioned around ~140,000 crore under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme announced as part of the governments ~20 lakh crore relief package, of which around ~95,000 crore had been disbursed.

Also read: World Bank, government of India sign $750 mn agreement to support MSMEs amid Covid-19 crisis

The numbers highlight the toll the pandemic and the lockdown imposed to slow its spread (while the national lockdown ended on May 31, localised lockdowns continue across many parts of India as cases continue to rise) has taken on what is popularly described as the backbone of Indian industry -- MSMEs.

The numbers are part of a presentation made by the ministry of MSMEs this week, and based on a survey conducted by National Small Industries Corporation.

Indias small businesses employ around 110 million people and accounted for almost half of Indias exports in 2019-20. According to the presentation, they also account for around 30% of GDP.

If the MSME cant produce, big industries would not be able to survive in India. To give just one example, India is the worlds largest producer of bicycles and 98% of bicycle parts are made by MSMEs. They are also a cost-effective way of production as one MSMEs scrap is raw material for another. The government must do everything to turn it around to revive the Indian industry, said Gurmeet Singh Kular, president of Federation of Industrial & Commercial Organization (FICO).

To be sure, the August survey (around 3,100 MSMEs responded) show an improvement over the July and June ones. For instance, in June, only 18.2% of MSMEs were producing more than 50% of their capacity; and in June 70% of MSMEs said they faced a liquidity crunch.

Also read: Special Covid package has 6 MSME reforms to power PM Modis reliant India mantra

One cannot talk of last month or August only but have to start from the beginning. In April and May, there was almost total closure, no [availability of] labour, no liquidity. June onwards, there is tremendous improvement, especially after the Atmanirbhar Bharat package was put in place in mid-May. To be precise, from mid-March to entire April, [there] was almost total closure and the sector started opening only from May, said the spokesperson of the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises.

In addition to this, the presentation also identified sectors such as automobiles, tourism, consumer products and apparel as those worst affected by the pandemic, while listing internet service providers, online retailers, and pharma companies as possible beneficiaries.

Interestingly, the presentation also showed the overlap between Indias industrial belts and the regions worst affected by the pandemic: states accounting for 72% of the countrys total industrial output saw around 60% of Covid-19 cases (till August 1).

This highlights the economic challenge before the country; consensus estimates say the Indian economy will contract by at lest 5% this financial year. For instance, Maharashtra , Tamil Nadu and Karnataka accounted for exactly a third of the countrys industrial output but also 43% of active cases (as on August 1).

Most MSMEs do not seem to be worried about labour shortage -- despite at least 10 million migrant workers leaving for their homes in the hinterland during the lockdown. Just 9% of the respondents in the August survey flagged labour shortage compared to 12% respondents facing problem with raw materials. Still, this could just be because of poor demand and lack of working capital -- forcing many of these businesses to operate at low capacity.

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A new market study, titled "Cellular Concrete Market Research Report - Forecast till 2023  has been featured on Market Research Future

Cellular concrete is a lightweight material produced by mixing cement with other materials. It is extensively used by the construction industry leaders owing to its advantages such as fire resistance, thermal insulation, etc. According to Market Research Future (MRFR)s study, the global cellular concrete market is expected to register 5.5% CAGR across the forecast period 2017 to 2023.

ALSO READ : https://www.abnewswire.com/pressreleases/cellular-concrete-market-2019-swot-analysis-and-competitive-landscape-by-2023-with-worldwide-overview-by-size-share-segments-global-leaders-driversrestraints-major-segments-and-regional-trends_422220.html

The growth of the construction industry is expected to encourage the expansion of the cellular concrete market over the next couple of years. In addition, the efforts directed towards the reduction of carbon footprints, in conjunction with the adoption of green buildings, is anticipated to boost the demand for cellular concrete in the nearby future. The rising demand for eco-friendly building materials is expected to be proven beneficial for market growth.

Increasing investments in the development of public infrastructure by the governments of developed and developing economies are expected to catapult the cellular concrete market on upward trajectory. In addition, the increasing residential projects are further poised to favor market expansion in the forthcoming years.

Market Segmentation:

On the basis of application, the global cellular concrete market has been segmented into building material, concrete pipes, roof insulation, road sub-bases, bridge abutment, and others. Among these, the building material segment is currently leading the market and is anticipated to hold its leading position over the next couple of years. Factors such as low cost, minimum time requirement for building, etc. are poised to drive market growth in the foreseeable future. The road sub-bases segment, on the other hand, is expected to register the highest CAGR across the review period.

Based on end-user, the cellular concrete market has been divided into residential and non-residential. The non-residential segment is expected to dictate the growth of the global market in the nearby future. Increasing investments in the development of public infrastructure by the governments are likely to influence the growth of the segment greatly in the upcoming years.

Regional Analysis:

The geographical study of the global cellular concrete market spans across Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, North America, and the Rest of the world (RoW). Asia Pacific cellular concrete market is expected to expand at the highest CAGR over the evaluation period. The consolidation of developing nations such as China and India are projected to have a favorable impact on the growth of the cellular concrete market. The rising government investments in these regions in the establishment of public infrastructure is projected to lead the growth of the regional market.

North America is a crucial revenue pocket which is poised to expand at a rapid pace in the coming years. Increasing residential and non-residential construction projects in the region are prognosticated to merger as the driving factors of the regional cellular concrete market.

Competitive Dashboard:

Saint Gobain (France), Cellucrete (U.S.), Xella Group (Germany), Cematrix (Canada), Laston Italiana S.P.A (Italy), Litebuilt (Australia), CellFill, LLC (U.S.), Cellular Concrete Technologies (U.S.), ACICO (Kuwait), Aerix Industries (U.S.), B. G. Shirke Construction Technology Pvt. Ltd (India), Conco (U.S.), Broco Industries (Indonesia), JK Lakshmi Cement Ltd (India), and Aircrete Europe (Netherlands) are some of the major producers operating in the global cellular concrete market. These players are expected to contribute extensively to the development of the market over the next couple of years.

Industry News:

In September 2019, Canada based Cematrix has announced the acquisition of Pacific International Grout Co. by the Corporations US subsidiary which was announced on January 2019.

In April 2019, Germany based Xella Group has announced that the plant in Teodory which was taken over the company and went extensive modernization is up for re-opening.

In March 2019, Xella Group announced the opening of a new plant in Pontenure for plaster and mortar.

FOR MORE DETAILS

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cellular-concrete-market-one-5329
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Linkedin Lisa Barrington (Reuters) Dubai, United Arab Emirates  Fri, August 21, 2020 20:00 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fa3196 2 People divorce,superyacht Free

Dubai's highest court has rejected an appeal by the ex-wife of a Russian billionaire to seize a 350 million ($460 million) superyacht in one of the world's costliest divorce battles, a court ruling last week said.

The Dubai Court of Cassation rejected an appeal by Tatiana Akhmedova, ex-wife of oil and gas billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, to seize the yacht as part of a 453 million pound divorce bill imposed by London's High Court.

The vessel, the M.V. Luna, was built for Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich before Akhmedov bought it in 2014. It has at least nine decks, space for 50 crew, two helipads, a vast swimming pool and a mini submarine.

The yacht is at the center of one of the largest divorce settlements in legal history. London's High Court in 2016 ordered Akhmedov to pay about 40% of his fortune to former wife Akhmedova.

But Akhmedov failed to pay and the London court granted a worldwide freezing order, under which the Luna was impounded in Dubai in 2018.

This appeals process has ended in Dubai, but the battle for control of the yacht continues in the Marshall Islands, whose flag the ship sails under, and regarding the Liechtenstein entity which owns the yacht, publicly available British and Marshall Islands court documents show.

Read also: Death and hurt: Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus reflect on their divorce one year later

The Dubai Court of Cassation upheld a previous Dubai court ruling that London's 453 million pound divorce bill payout is unenforceable in Dubai, English and Arabic copies of the Aug. 13 Cassation ruling provided to Reuters by Akhmedov's spokesman show.

The spokesman said the court upheld that the London ruling is "contrary to Islamic sharia, United Arab Emirates personal status law and public policy, and is therefore unenforceable in Dubai".

Forbes has estimated Akhmedov's net worth around $1.4 billion. The US Treasury Department has put him on a list of sanctioned Russian state-owned companies and so-called "oligarchs", identified as close to President Vladimir Putin.

Akhmedova is represented by London-listed litigation funder Burford Capital. Burford declined to comment on the development.

Topics : divorce superyacht
U.S. President Trump holds news conference at the White House in Washington

By Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump cannot block a prosecutor's subpoena for eight years of his tax returns, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, in the latest setback in the U.S. president's longstanding effort to keep his finances under wraps.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan rejected Trump's claims that the grand jury subpoena from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance to the president's accounting firm Mazars USA was "wildly overbroad" and issued in bad faith.

In a 103-page decision, Marrero also said letting Trump block the subpoena, which was issued last August, would amount to an "undue expansion" of presidential immunity.

"Justice requires an end to this controversy," Marrero wrote.

Trump quickly appealed the decision and filed an emergency motion to delay turning over his tax returns, saying enforcing the subpoena would cause him irreparable harm by disclosing his "private, confidential information."

The litigation and grand jury secrecy rules make it unlikely Trump's financial records will become public before Nov. 3, when the president is seeking reelection.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the case will likely head back to the Supreme Court, which on July 9 rejected his earlier argument he was immune from state criminal probes while in office.

The Supreme Court said the Republican president could still challenge the subpoena on other grounds. Marrero had also ruled last October that Vance, a Democrat, could enforce the subpoena.

"This is a continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country," Trump told reporters. "This is the ultimate fishing expedition."

A spokesman for Vance declined to comment.

Trump has long fought efforts by lawmakers and prosecutors to obtain those records, and by withholding his tax returns has departed from the decades-long practice of his predecessors.

Story continues

The subpoena is related to Vance's criminal probe into Trump and his Trump Organization.

In a court filing this month, Vance suggested the subpoena was related to "possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization," including alleged insurance and bank fraud.

Marrero accepted Vance's argument that letting Trump delay the subpoena's enforcement would effectively give the president "absolute temporary immunity" from the probe while in the White House.

Unless enforcing the subpoena would affect his constitutional duties, "the President is entitled to claim no greater shield from judicial process than any other person," Marrero wrote.

Vance's probe began after reports that Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen paid pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence before the 2016 election about claimed sexual encounters with Trump, which he has denied.

The case is Trump v Vance et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 19-08694.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel; additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington. Editing by Alistair Bell)
Are Israels Ministry of Interior and the Population and Immigration Authority trying to deny citizenship to Bedouin residents of the Negev Desert? Both the ministry and the attorney generals office claim that the problems are the result of registration errors, which are currently being fixed. Nevertheless, the number of complaints is still large. Bedouin who have lost their citizenship have appealed to the office of Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman of the Arab Joint List, asking her to investigate the situation. Meanwhile, Attorney Sawsan Zaher from the Adalah Legal Center appealed to Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, demanding that the policy be overturned. Her appeal claims that this has been happening since at least 2010.

According to Adalah, when Bedouin in the Negev go to the Interior Ministry to take care of their mundane affairs  a change of address, obtaining a birth certificate, registering a name, and so on  their status, and that of their parents and grandparents, is checked against the population registry, reaching as far back as the 1948 founding of the state. In certain cases, the ministry informs them right then and there that they received their citizenship by mistake, and then changes their status on the population registry from citizen to permanent resident.

Adalah says that those people whose citizenship is revoked are given no explanation as to why, nor are they granted the option to appeal. Instead, the ministry staff suggests that they submit a request to begin the normal naturalization process to obtain citizenship.

Upon appealing these cases with the minister of interior, Adalah has found that some of these Bedouin have been citizens for 20, 30 and even 40 years. They paid taxes, voted in the elections and in, some cases, even served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Then, a bureaucrat at the Ministry of Interior came along and revoked their citizenship, turning them into permanent residents. They can still vote in local elections, but they cannot run for office, and they cannot vote or run for office in national elections. They receive social benefits  health insurance and social security  but they cannot obtain a passport, and if they leave the country for an extended period, their status as resident could be revoked. Nor is their status transferred automatically to their children, as it would be with citizens.

Surprised by this, and in the absence of anywhere to appeal the decision, they do not know what to do. Some submit a naturalization and citizenship request, while others simply give up. Zaher said that many of the requests to obtain citizenship are rejected because documents are missing, the applicant has a criminal record  which is not grounds for the denial of citizenship  or even for being unable to speak Hebrew. Among those denied citizenship are people born in Israel to Israeli citizens. They have seen their status changed to permanent resident, even if their parents are still citizens. There are even families in which one child is a citizen, while the other child is a permanent resident. Some lost their citizenship when they went to renew their passports so that they could make the pilgrimage to Mecca, as required by their religion. Only then did they find that their citizenship had been revoked.

Salim al-Dantiri, 50, of Bir Hadaj, whose father served in the IDF, was denied citizenship. He said that he cannot understand why he is being denied. In some cases  like mine  they say that there was some mistake when our parents were registered, but that was decades ago. Is that our fault? Dantiri told Al-Monitor.

Atalla Sagaira of the unrecognized village of Rahma fought for 13 years before he received citizenship, even though his late father served in the IDF. He began his struggle in 2002, when he tried to obtain a passport. The Interior Ministry originally denied his request. He told Al-Monitor, They said that my parents were naturalized, and that they were not originally citizens. He then began the process to register as a citizen, and finally received his citizenship in 2015. I insisted on obtaining my rights and fought the whole bureaucratic process on my own, until I obtained my citizenship. Still, I know that there are people who just give up, Sagaira said. His father was a tracker for the IDF and received his discharge as an injured veteran. At the time, he had seven children. Three of them have yet to receive citizenship.

During a debate last year in the Knessets Interior Committee, head of Citizenship at the Population and Immigration Authority Ronen Yerushalmi explained that there are about 2,600 people who now have Israeli citizenship but for whom it could be revoked, because of erroneous registration by the ministry in the past. Later in the debate it became apparent that the main problem lies with the lack of registration for the parents generation from the early years of statehood, when the Bedouin of the Negev lived under a military government.

Adalah considers this entire situation to be yet another example of discrimination against the Bedouin for nationalist reasons. There is no case of a Jewish citizen who had his citizenship revoked because of some mistake in the registration of his parents or grandparents, Zaher noted.

Touma-Suleiman added, I fear that what this incident has revealed so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and that what has yet to be revealed is even more serious. She said that if she does not receive answers from the Interior Ministry, and if the situation is not corrected, she will appeal to the Supreme Court.

A senior official dealing with the situation told Al-Monitor that the Bedouin are confronted with investigations over the status of their parents and family members, because of some problematic cases in the past. He refers to cases involving West Bank Palestinians related to the Bedouin living in the Negev. These Palestinians have tried  so he claims  to obtain Israeli citizenship by exploiting the mistaken registration by the Interior Ministry.

So are we talking about mistakes or about a deliberate policy? The spokesperson for the Population and Immigration Authority told Al-Monitor that an investigation has found that this is not a case of revoking citizenship, but rather of mistaken registration, and that most cases have been dealt with already. He said, There have been discussions recently about finding a solution that will resolve the problem within the context of the law, without detracting from these peoples status in Israel. The spokesperson also noted that in response to Adalahs appeal in the matter, the attorney general is now involved in dealing with it.

Deri's office said that the minister has instructed staff at the Population and Immigration Authority to do everything they can to shorten the bureaucratic process facing these citizens, in order to spare them any frustration. The attorney general's office also stated that it has instructed the authority to allow for a rapid naturalization process for anyone who is not a citizen, on condition that there are no grounds  criminal or other  to prevent the applicant from obtaining citizenship.
The arrest of a US citizen caught with three undocumented immigrants hiding in her car in Texas led U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to a smuggler 'stash house' where 32 migrants were stuffed into a small apartment.

The incident unfolded Tuesday when CBP agents at El Paso International Airport stopped a vehicle driven by an American woman and found that the three Cuban passengers aboard the minivan had unlawfully crossed into the United States from Mexico.

During the investigation, CBP learned of the location of an El Paso home where the human trafficking ring was holding a group of undocumented immigrants who had been recently smuggled into the U.S.

CBP said the migrants were crammed into a small ground level apartment in the El Paso Lower Valley sector. None of them were wearing masks or able to socially distance despite the coronavirus pandemic.

CBP discovered 32 migrants who had previously unlawfully entered the United States and were being held by human smugglers at a stash house in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday

The arrest of an American woman (pictured) and three Cuba undocumented immigrants in a vehicle outside El Paso International Airport on Tuesday led CBP agents to a home where 32 migrants were being held by human traffickers

The migrants were identified as citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Cuba and were arrested and processed for unlawful entry into the United States. The female driver was also taken into custody.

According to CBP, the migrants were reportedly ferried into the country near Mt. Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

'This incident demonstrates that our region is being exploited regularly by Transnational Criminal Organizations who continue to use humans for profit regardless of the inherent risks,' said El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez in a statement.

CBP said it learned of the ground level stash house's location after questioning an American woman outside El Paso International Airport who was stopped in her minivan with three undocumented immigrants from Cuba

CBP arrested an American woman and 36 undocumented immigrants on Tuesday in El Paso

In recent weeks, CBP has discovered a number of properties that have been utilized as hideouts by human smuggling organizations, somehow evading the strict restrictions that have been put in place at the U.S.-Mexico border due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

'COVID-19 only adds to the dangers of this situation. It only takes one person with the virus to spread it to many in these conditions,' Commissioner Morgan said.

CBP and the Laredo Police Department shut down three stash houses August 11 and detained 35 undocumented immigrants.
Indore is fourth time topper in India's clean city survey

Indore has retained its title as the countrys cleanest city retaining its top position in the `Swachh Survekshan 2020, a fourth consecutive year. The government today announced the results of annual survey of cleanliness, in which Gujarats Surat has been placed on the second spot and Maharashtras Navi Mumbai on third.

Karnatakas Mysuru had won the award for the cleanest city of India in the first edition of the survey, while Indore has retained the top position for three consecutive years (2017, 2018, 2019).

Indore, Ambikapur, Navi Mumbai, Surat, Rajkot and Mysuru have been rated as 5-Star cities while 86 cities have been rated as 3-Star and 64 other cities as 1-Star cities.

Swachh Survekshan will continue to help us in sustaining the gains made under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U), while providing a comprehensive roadmap to institutionalize the concept of total Swachhata among all our cities, Hardeep Singh Puri, MoS in the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA), said while giving away the awards for Swachh Survekshan 2020, the fifth edition of the annual cleanliness urban survey conducted by the ministry.

As the performance of cities rightly show, we are well on our way to creating not just a Swachh (clean) but a Swasth (healthy), Sashakt (empowered),Sampann (prosperous) and Atmanirbhar (self-reliant) New India!, he added.

While Indore won the coveted title of the Cleanest City of India, Surat and Navi Mumbai won the second and third position respectively (in the > 1 lakh population category). Chhattisgarh won the prestigious title of the Cleanest State of India in the > 100 ULB category while Jharkhand was adjudged the Cleanest State of India in the <100 ULB category. The minister also handed over an additional 117 awards in various categories, including those for municipal commissioners and swachhta warriors, in the online event.

SS 2020 survey report released along with reports on innovations and best practices and the report on assessment of Ganga Towns showed:

4,324 urban ULSs declared ODF so far;

1,319 cities certified ODF+ and 489 cities certified ODF++

More than 66 lakh individual household toilets and over 6 lakh community/ public toilets were constructed; and

Over 59,900 toilets across 2900+ cities made live on Google Maps.

SS 2021 will focus on wastewater treatment and reuse along with faecal sludge, legacy waste management and remediation of landfills.

A new performance category, `Prerak Dauur Samman, has been introduced in SS 2021 with five additional sub-categories - Divya (Platinum), Anupam (Gold), Ujjwal (Silver), Udit (Bronze) and Aarohi (Aspiring).

Addressing the winners and citizens, the minister said that it is over five years that the prime minister spoke of his dream of a Swachh Bharat. Today, we feel immensely proud, as well as humbled, to see how every citizen of urban India have come together to make that dream a tangible reality.

This mission has created a deep impact on peoples health, livelihoods, quality of life and most importantly, in their thoughts and their behaviour. The minister further exhorted everyone to play their part and be a true Swachhata Warrior.
FSIS Warns of Food Safety Ahead of Students Returning to School

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has made it a priority ahead of schools reopening to address the importance of food safety.

In a news release on Aug. 18, the FSIS highlighted several ways to make sure that food safety isnt one of the concerns that parents and guardians have to worry or stress over amid the CCP virus pandemic.

Parents are juggling many decisions as students may be returning to school for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and others may still be distance learning, said Mindy Brashears, under secretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

You dont want to add foodborne illnesscommonly called food poisoningto your list of concerns, so take time to plan and prepare your childrens lunch meals safely, she said.

Bacteria tends to spread quickly at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, the FSIS says, and during these temperatures, bacteria and microorganisms in food and on surfaces can multiply to unmanageable levels, which can lead to food poisoning.

People can contract food poisoning for various different reasons, especially so during the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They can be caused by any number of things, such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites. They can also be caused by harmful toxins and chemicals that contaminate the food.

The CDC stated that there are more than 250 types of foodborne diseases.

In addition, the FSIS also suggested a few ways to help parents with their childrens lunch packing, including bringing items such as hand wipes, hand sanitizers, soap, and towels.

FSIS explained that amidst the pandemic, people tend to forget to wipe down surfaces, either food preparation surfaces or utensils. The USDA conducted research on kitchen habits on test kitchens and found that people participating in the research were not washing their hands properly up to 99 percent of the time before and during meal preparation, and that could put children and students at risk for food poisoning.

Furthermore, the FSIS also suggested that its important to separate raw food from ready-to-eat food, especially when it comes to raw meat such as poultry, beef, or pork, to avoid cross-contamination. FSIS encourages parents to prepare separate preparation surfaces such as cutting boards for various foods.

Harmful bacteria can spread through the kitchen and get onto cutting boards, utensils, countertops, and other ready-to-eat foods youre preparing, the news release indicated.

Bacteria can also be avoided by using a food thermometer. The FSIS indicated that by using a food thermometer, parents are able to tell whether the food has been cooked to the point where any harmful bacteria are killed to prevent foodborne diseases.

Although anyone can get food poisoning, some groups of people are more susceptible to food poisoning than othersolder adults, young children, pregnant women, or people with a weak immune system (either normally or because of medical issues such as diabetes, liver or kidney disease, HIV or AIDS, those who had organ transplants, or from chemotherapy).

The CDC listed several symptoms of food poisoning, the most common form of foodborne diseases, and those are nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. Other symptoms can also appear, depending on the variation of the foodborne disease that an individual might have contracted, and may also be life-threatening.

Under a normal circumstance, people who have food poisoning issues or foodborne diseases can recover without medical treatment. However, those who are experiencing strong or severe symptoms of food poisoning should consult a medical professional.
Kanye West's 2020 Presidential dreams continue, and so is the drama surrounding his campaign.

Since announcing his presidential bid on the 4th of July, Kanye received massive backlash and controversies involving his dreams to secure the highest office in the White House.

It could be recalled that when the 43-year-old rapper kicked off his presidential campaign last July, it sparked tons of controversy, mostly involving his wife, Kim Kardashian and their family.

Following the controversial South Carolina campaign rally, Kanye West had a massive Twitter rant breakdown exposing some dirt on his marriage and even trolling his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner.

Kanye's wife labelled these unfortunate events as one of Kanye's "bipolar episodes" and attempted to salvage their relationship through a seven-day Caribbean trip together with their kids.

The rapper recently went back from his family trip with sources saying that he feels refreshed and already in a good place after his alleged mental health breakdown.

Kanye 2020 Vision Poster

However, the "Yeezy" founder's presidential bid is once again in hot waters after actress Kirsten Dunst seems to have been dragged off his campaign.

On Thursday, Kanye West uploaded a photo of his 2020 presidential vision campaign poster and captioned it with #2020VISION."

The poster is composed of collage photos of 13 individuals (celebrities, activist, and other public figures) alternating with his "Kanye 2020 Vision" campaign logo. The poster immediately sparked controversy, particularly for one celebrity image.

The first image you'll see on the poster is a familiar face because it is no other than "Spider-Man" actress Kirsten Dunst.

Because of this, the puzzled 38-year-old actress felt the need to speak publicly as her image appeared on a presidential campaign poster.

Kirsten savagely ruined Kanye's presidential dream by asking him burning questions regarding the poster.

"What's the message here, and why am I apart of it, (sic)" Kirsten wrote with a shrug emoji, directly replying to Kanye's tweet.

Whats the message here, and why am I apart of it?   Kirsten Dunst (@kirstendunst) August 20, 2020

Meanwhile, according to "People," Dunst's photo was taken from a 2002 Vanity Fair profile.

The news outlet also reported that Vogue editor Anna Wintour, whose photo is used on the upper left part of the poster, also distanced herself from Kanye's campaign.

Dunst and Wintour's representative said that both personalities did not agree for their images to be used on Kanye's campaign poster.

Twitter Reacts

Twitter users were also confused about how both personalities landed on Kanye's campaign poster.

"I was like, wait, is that Kirsten Dunst and Anna Wintour? How did he get that clearance?" one Twitter user wrote.

"What the f*ck does Kirsten Dunst have to do with your already unsuccessful presidential run?" another one added.

What the fuck does Kirsten Dunst have to do with your already unsuccessful presidential run? pic.twitter.com/6Ese1ooyAo  Sassbox Grand Supreme (@MissSassbox) August 18, 2020

What would Kirsten Dunst's role be in your cabinet?  V (@herroconhache) August 18, 2020

Meanwhile, some Twitter users likened the use of Dunst's photo to Kanye's 2016 feud with Taylor Swift, where Kim Kardashian filmed their phone conversation and released it on the public without her permission.

As of writing Kanye or anyone from his campaign team has yet to respond to Dunst's question nor explain the unauthorized use of Dunst and Wintour's photos on the poster.

It is also unknown if the other personalities images used in the campaign poster agreed to be a part of his campaign materials.

READ MORE: Scott Disick Get Flirty With Ex Kourtney Kardashian's Bikini Pic
Drop the word bloodbath into your media release and you can pretty much guarantee headlines across the land. But is it true? Is a 27 per cent step-down from the biggest building boom in Sydneys boom-bust history really a bloodbath? Or is it a long-needed correction, an opportunity to take stock and rethink?

Admittedly, from the Busselton Mail to the Boorowa News, most of the papers that ran this weeks "Builders warn of looming housing bloodbath" headline hail from a single stable with a discernible agenda. But their shared premise, which governments routinely support, makes the construction industry some beneficent overlord whose current jitters constitute such imminent danger to us all as to justify billions of dollars in public up-prop.

A pause in construction could be time for a reset. Credit:Bloomberg

Indeed, Master Builders Association chief executive Denita Wawn seemed to think it perfectly reasonable, this week, to demand $5.1 billion public dollars in special building industry favours to avoid a bloodbath now that private sector investment is evaporating. That sum combines a 12-month extension of the $25,000 HomeBuilder renovation grant to prop up residential builders and an additional $3.8 billion version of same for the commercial sector.

But why? The Australian construction industry is surely among the most ruthless, arrogant and self-concerned industries anywhere this side of the law (a line it has been known to straddle). Public benefit? Pah. Developers have to be dragged to it kicking and screaming and, usually, theyre not, which is why our public realm has all the delight and variety of a prison exercise yard. Yet at first sight of their own blood these same schoolyard bullies drop into self-pity, demanding a head pat from nanny and a kiss better. Billions, please, boo hoo.
Visitors tour the Guangfulin Cultural Relics Park at Songjiang district in Shanghai, on Aug 18, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Guangfulin was a cultural, political, economic and transportation center in ancient times. Its original surroundings have been preserved, allowing visitors to experience the authentic rural scenery and farming culture at the Guangfulin Cultural Relics Park.

There are also cultural and archaeological exhibition halls as well as commercial hotels, allowing people to enjoy the past and present simultaneously.

The park, where relics of an ancient culture dating back to the Neolithic Age have been unearthed, is a must-visit scenic attraction in the Shanghai Sheshan National Tourist Resort.

Dubbed the "Root of Shanghai", it imitates the city's ancient way of life and offers ample evidence of ancient inhabitants living in Shanghai 5,000 years ago.

Opened in the summer of 2018, the Guangfulin Cultural Relics Park has received around 2.48 million visitors.

7

1

[ Editor: SRQ ]
A suicide in the upper ranks of Chicagos Police Department amid a surge in the citys already high homicide rate highlights a painful reality about this summer: Were dealing with more than one pandemic.

That realization came to mind after Deputy Chief Dion Boyd, 57, was found shot to death at the Homan Square police facility on the citys West Side.

With the ruling by the Cook County medical examiners office after an autopsy, the 29-year veteran became at least the 10th Chicago police officer to die by suicide in two years, according to Chicago Tribune reports.

This second pandemic, of police suicides, comes at a time when Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a surge in homicides.

In Chicago, often cited by President Donald Trump as a Democrat-controlled city where violence is running out of control, killings have mounted so far this year at a higher rate than in 2016, which was the citys highest toll since 1996.

But homicides are up in other cities too. For example, killings are up 23% in New York and 11.6% in Los Angeles so far this year, according to a Wall Street Journal survey. The same survey found homicides rising at a double-digit rate in most big cities run by Republicans, including Miami; San Diego; Omaha, Nebraska.; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Jacksonville, Florida.

Reported police suicides also have been rising in recent years. At least 228 police officers died by suicide in 2019, according to the support group Blue H.E.L.P. Thats more than were killed in the line of duty.

The causes are multiple and personal. Social, psychological and economic pressures from the pandemic lockdown can play a role. But so do political and social pressures, such as backlash to the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Amid the national racial reckoning promoted by Black Lives Matter and others, some cities and departments have cut police budgets, in some cases before fully constructing plans or programs to replace or reallocate police functions.

Months of lockdown, rising unemployment and too many guns circulating on the streets put a lot of pressure on cops as well as civilians. Yet, just as many members and supporters of the military were too slow to take post-traumatic stress disorder seriously, too many police officers fear being killed on the job less than they fear the possible stigma attached to seeking mental health treatment.

Thats like having a fire but being afraid to grab a bucket of water.

I would say right now the amount of trauma that Chicago police officers see, compared to any other state or city right now, is so much higher that we need to do more comparatively than anybody else, Dr. Carrie Steiner, a former Chicago police officer who became a licensed clinical psychologist, said in a telephone interview. Steiner opened the First Responders Wellness Center in Lombard, which she says is a first-of-its-kind practice in the country to offer mental health services exclusively to first responders. Former or current first responders provide the help.

I think the police culture is changing. They see that they can reach out more for more help, Steiner added. But I think every officer I know is burned out and not doing well.

Thats why I was calling. Like countless other people who have experienced suicide in their own families, I am constantly looking for reasons why.

Police suicide for many decades was an underreported story, partly because of the unwarranted shame that some cultures attach to such tragedies. Steiner began her center so first responders would have understanding ears to talk to.

I think a lot of people have more than a little bit of an issue, theyre not coming forward, she said. And that scares me right now because, if youre burnt out and depressed, you need to talk to somebody else and if you delay youre going to think  incorrectly  that theres nothing wrong with you.

For many, the big question today: Can we demand police accountability while also remembering to support police in performing their sworn duty to serve and protect?

Steiner says police and the communities they serve need to learn from each other. Just as police need to understand civilians, civilians also need to understand the pressure of being a police officer. If were trying to have a relationship but the dialogue doesnt happen with both sides, its not going to work.

Which sounds sort of like a marriage, except divorce is not an option in police-community relations. Instead, we sometimes have to stop, reintroduce ourselves to each other and work out a better relationship.

Email Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.
Appointment

21 August 2020

One&Only Palmilla, the iconic ultra-luxury resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, has announced the appointment of Kelly Teo as its new Director of Sales & Marketing. In this role, Kelly will be responsible for managing the commercial efforts for the resort and overseeing the sales and reservations teams, as well as strategic marketing campaigns and partnerships to achieve the resort's short- and long-term goals and objectives.

Kelly brings with him a wealth of experience within luxury hospitality, having worked with both domestic and international hotels for over 17 years. He has led the sales and marketing teams of luxury hotel brands such as Waldorf Astoria, St. Regis, EDITION, The Ritz-Carlton, and InterContinental on the West Coast of the U.S., as well across the Asia-Pacific. Most recently, Kelly was the Director of Sales and Marketing at Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills after returning to California from Hong Kong, where he spearheaded pre-opening sales and marketing efforts for The St. Regis, Hong Kong. Prior to that, he was the pre-opening sales and marketing leader of The Sanya EDITION in China - the first EDITION hotel in Asia-Pacific where he was instrumental in developing the overarching positioning and sales strategy for the brand in this new market.

Kelly began his hospitality career in San Francisco, California as Group Sales Manager at the Hilton San Francisco & Towers. Covering both group and transient segments, he has additionally worked with Renaissance Parc 55, Hotel Rex - a Joie de Vivre hotel, and the landmark InterContinental Mark Hopkins. In 2010, Kelly moved to Los Angeles to join The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey as Director of Sales and was promoted to Director of Sales and Marketing in 2013 where he led the team in achieving the highest total room revenue in the history of the hotel. He grew within Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and Marriott International, crossing continents and working in Asia for the following six years before returning to the United States at the end of 2019. Kelly is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business and a recipient of multiple hospitality industry awards and hotel sales achievements.
Addressing the launch ceremony, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said that the organisation of the award aims to materialise Government Directive No.01, issued on January 14, 2020, on promoting the development of digital technology enterprises.

The biggest prize of the award is that the MIC will accompany businesses in promoting market connection, building a favourable legal framework, and connecting investors at home and abroad in order to develop Vietnamese digital products, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung emphasised.

The award is expected to encourage digital technology enterprises to research and create digital technology products and honour outstanding products with contributions to the development of the e-government, digital economy and digital society in addition to promoting Make in Vietnam digital products to businesses and the people of Vietnam.

The awards will cover five categories including excellent digital foundation, excellent digital products, outstanding digital solutions, the narrowing of the digital gap, and potential digital products.

All enterprises operating in Vietnam can apply for the awards from August 20 to October 20, 2020, through the online address makeinvietnam.mic.gov.vn.

Digital products and solutions that win the award will have the right to use the brand identity of Make in Vietnam and be consulted and supported by the MIC to commercialise their products and solutions.
(Newser)  "So much for being lucky at the lottery." That's how the Clearwater Police Department in Florida is describing the unfortunate plight of 27-year-old Herbert McClellan, who's accused of swiping more than a dozen scratch-off lottery tickets from a local Speedway, then trying to cash in a winning ticket at the same store. Police say that McClellan strolled into the convenience store around 2am on Tuesday, and while the worker behind the counter was caught up doing something else, McClellan reached over and took 13 different scratch-offs worth just over $100, per FOX 13.

story continues below

McClellan slipped out of the store, police say, but he apparently couldn't wait to see if any of his tickets were winners. One was, in the amount of $30, and so a few hours later he showed back up at the same Speedway to cash it in, per police. In a Facebook post, the Clearwater PD notes, "That's when store workers called us, and we arrested him." According to jail records, McClellan was charged with petit theft, dealing with stolen property, and driving with a suspended license for the second time, KOKI reports. "It's safe to say it was not his lucky day," the police department says in its Facebook post. (Read more weird crimes stories.)
tejascshetty BHPian



Join Date: May 2020 Location: Bangalore Posts: 31 Thanked: 326 Times

Skoda Rapid 1.0 TSI Rider Variant - Ownership Review - The Carbon Steel beast comes home!



Welcome to my thread on my thoughts and observations on the initial ownership experience of my brand new Carbon Steel Beauty - The Skoda Rapid TSI 2020 - Rider Variant! If you are a guest reader like how I used to be up until recently, anonymously reading the posts on this brilliant forum, but hesitant to contribute to the same, this one is for you. I hope this initial ownership experience thread helps you in some way to make your choice. On the other hand, if you are an esteemed member of this fantastic forum, I hope this is an enjoyable read for you, and as always would love to hear your views.



Before, we begin, here's a look at my new Carbon Steel Beauty!





Likes:

That sweet sweet 1.0 TSI Engine. It is a real joy to revv it and truly has to be experienced to understand why everyone is writing such rave reviews of it. Be it in the new Polo TSI, the Vento TSI or in this Rapid TSI!

This car is F.A.S.T.! No two ways about it. Fastest Sedan in this segment? You better believe it. Puts all the newly launched Turbo Petrols with DCT's to shame.

The design of the car, though dated, has aged well and still looks striking in comparison to its competitors.

Solid Build Quality. Everything feels built to last. Doors close with a solid reassuring thunk.

Ride and handling is fantastic. The car handles like a dream on a set of tight corners and has great high speed stability as well.

Great quality of essential accessories comes with the Car. (Yes, this would fall under 'Likes' as the Car is so woefully bereft of any other features.)

Great 'Project Car' for any enthusiast. A well rounded and powerful engine with all basic features, will ensure that optional creature comfort upgrades as well as performance upgrades should make this Rider variant a runaway success.

Lastly, the price of this extremely well priced and 'Value For Money' Rider Variant. At 9.13 Lakhs on-road in Bengaluru, this is a steal deal and an absolute no brainer!

Dislikes:

Low speed drivability of this engine. Under 2000 RPM, the engine feels a little low on grunt. Nothing alarming, but something to be aware about.

Missing features like controls for rear power windows in the Rider variant, steering mounted audio controls and height adjustable driver's seat. These are acceptable misses at this price, though I would have any day preferred these features over an automatic AC unit.

Non-inclusion of an MID system in the Rider Variant is just cheap and pointless cost cutting. Base variants of even entry level hatchbacks provide this feature.

Stock tyres are average and provide decent grip, but a stiff suspension coupled with the stock tyres do ensure a lot of thuds and bumps are felt in the cabin. A tyre upgrade is highly recommended.

Prologue:

They say new cars cannot change your life. They also say cars are a depreciating asset. Why do we purchase them then? Cut to about 15 to 20 years ago, when cars were considered a luxury and not something a young adult was expected to purchase. Youngsters were expected to graduate, save every penny or send it back home, spend on a few essentials in a month, but definitely not go around spending their hard earned money on trifling expenditures such as a gas guzzling automobile.



Francoise Sagan once said Money may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus. This quote continues to reverberate with me. It may appear to be a materialistic view on life at first blush and a short sighted approach to happiness and self worth, but in today's time and age, are we all not looking for validation? Are we not craving that release of dopamine to our nervous system to feel good about our choices and decisions? At the end of the day, we choose to spend our time and money on things that make sense to us and for our pleasure. For some of us, its our love for automobiles and the pleasure we derive by flooring the pedal to the metal. The moment when mind and machine become one.



Background:

As a young lawyer, working with one of the top law firms in the city of Bengaluru, having graduated from law school 2 years previously, life is not bad. Law school was grueling to say the least. But being a resident of Bengaluru, it allowed me the luxury of staying at home while my college mates from out of Bengaluru, rented flats nearby. In that sense, I enjoyed the comforts of home and almost always was staying over with my college mates at their homes. It was the perfect college life. Great city to study in, Great city with an even better nightlife (The 1:30 AM rule for shutting down clubs notwithstanding.) and friends like family to experience it all with.



Back then for the first 2 years of law school, travel to college entailed walking a distance of 2 KM's from home to the nearest BMTC bus station, take a bus (Route No. 375B) to Banashankari Bus Station, switch buses there and take another bus to Jayanagar 4th Block Bus Station. From here, either a friend would pick me up for the last mile to college or I would have to bargain with the infamous auto rickshaw chaps. During my third year, parents finally caved in to my incessant requests and bought me a Honda Dio which was all the rage back then (getting a proper geared bike was out of the question as there was no way mom would be agreeable to the same). The Honda Dio was my first vehicle and continues to remain with me. It has been an absolute peach to own and have had great memories with it. Right before my final year, as I had done quite well throughout college and was due to intern in a couple of large law firms in Bengaluru which would entail extremely late nights at work, my parents extracted a promise out of me that conditional to my driving safely and responsibly they would buy me my first car!



After a lot of test drives, we decided to go ahead with the Swift VDi (O) in 2017. Maruti may face a lot of flak, but the Swift was a car they broke the mould with. Hatchbacks in India had boring boxy designs before the Swift (with the exception of the Daewoo Matiz. That was a cute little car). My Swift served me well. It was great fun to drive. Returned phenomenal economy figures within the city and took it to a whole different level out on the highway. It was stable and planted at speed and was a deft little handler as well. I loved each and every single minute of owning the Swift. Some of my greatest memories of college and my first 2 years of my professional life have all included my Swift. It has been part of umpteen road trips, and has handled extremely NICE Roads (Bangalore peeps will get the pun) as well as the crater filled roads during monsoon with aplomb. A picture of my beloved Swift is attached below:





Therefore, it was with a heavy heart that I decided to part with my beloved Swift after just under 3 years of ownership this year. It had clocked around 30,000 Km's on the Odo and was well set to crunch many a mile more. So why did I decide to part ways with my Swift? The simple answer is Dad and me have always believed in buying cars and changing them within 5 years. This may sound wasteful to some, but our logic has been that the tech always gets better with every generation. We wished to enjoy the best of every generation and turn them over for a good price while we still could. Of course, we do not apply this logic to all our purchases. Dad purchased the 2018 BMW X1 and intends to keep it for atleast 10 years and we have a Bolero Pick-Up Truck for use at our estate, which we intend to keep for a long time as well. However, with our daily drivers which were mostly driven within the city, this strategy worked out well for us. Therefore, put up ads on all listing websites, interacted with numerous prospective buyers before finally striking gold. Call it Maruti's incredible resale value or maybe my dogged persistence to get the best deal, but finally sold my Swift to a buyer for 6.2 lakhs. To put it in perspective, this was a car bought in 2017 for just a shade under 8 Lakhs. Add to this, that our daily drivers are usually purchased as a company car to get certain tax benefits and this worked itself out to a be very good deal for us. With the Swift out of the picture, we could now focus on the next purchase to enter our garage....



Narrowing Down on the Options:

Beginning in early 2020, we started to shortlist our next purchase. My budget was around 12 lakhs. After a ton of online research, the following cars were selected for the test drives:

KIA Seltos HTK Variant (NA Petrol).

Hyundai Creta EX Variant (NA Petrol)

Hyundai Creta E Variant (Diesel)

Hyundai Venue SX Variant (Turbo Petrol)

Ford Ecosport Titanium Variant (TDCi)

Maruti Suzuki Ciaz Alpha Variant(NA Petrol)

Honda City V Variant (NA Petrol)

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza (NA Petrol)

I will not spend too much time detailing why I did not go ahead with each of the above cars, and will hope to capture it all in a few paragraphs. For the purposes of this discussion, each and every one of the above cars was in the 12 lakhs bracket.



The KIA Dealerships across Bangalore were an interesting experience. They had a blockbuster on their hands and they knew it. They were selling the Seltos by the dozen and I was not looking for a particularly top end trim. However, the experience at the dealerships was fabulous. As soon as I entered the showroom, a Sales Associate (SA) was allotted to me by the friendly staff at the front desk and within minutes the concerned SA would whisk me away to the Car and would make all efforts to ascertain what I was looking for, as the Seltos had countless variants and they could tell me about the most appropriate one. The HTE Diesel was too bare-bones. The HTK petrol was really well kitted for the price it commanded. However, none of the KIA dealerships across Bangalore had a test drive unit of the 1.5 NA petrol variant. This was really disappointing and was later informed by my SA off the record that this was a conscious decision by KIA so as to not draw the attention away from its turbo petrol models. This was the only drawback from an otherwise flawless experience at the KIA Dealerships. There was no way I was going to book a car without going for a test drive in it, so the KIA Seltos was ruled out though I was sorely tempted to go ahead with it.



Luckily, when I test drove the Hyundai Creta 2020 variants, I could drive the 1.5 Petrol NA engine which was decent and quite functional. The Creta E Diesel variant was also considered due to its peppy engine and better VFM proposition as opposed to the Seltos HTE Diesel. The Hyundai Venue was again fun to drive, however just didn't tug at my heart the way the Ecosport did.



The Ford Ecosport TDCi was an absolute hoot to drive and the steering dynamics were great and reminded me why we buy cars for the driving pleasure. However, with Ford's decision to chop features across the range, particularly the omission of the SYNC 3 system in the Titanium variant, I felt like the current generation of the Ecosport was a little shortchanged as opposed to the previous variant.



The experience with the Maruti and Nexa dealerships were again a lesson in sheer efficiency and another casual reminder of why Maruti sells the numbers it does. Well mannered SA's, with the bare minimum knowledge who are prompt in responding to customer queries and arranging for test drives. The Ciaz and the Brezza were both good, but not great. Maybe, I expected too much after being spoilt by my Swift's driving dynamics, however I was disappointed by both the Brezza and the Ciaz. In the BS6 avatar, both vehicles seem to have lost whatever little punch they had with these grossly under powered albeit fuel efficient NA engines.



The experience at the Honda dealership was a joke. They behaved as if they were doing me a favor by showing me the car and staunchly refused to offer any discounts on the City despite the release of the 5th Gen Variant being right around the corner. I had a feeling that the SA's at Honda behaved like this because I maybe drove up in a Swift to their dealership and probably felt like I wasn't a serious customer or had only come to gawk at their highly desirable line of vehicles. To test this theory, the next day we drove in with our BMW and the response was palpably different. The SA was now ever so attentive to my requests and assured me that they would try their best to get me a great deal and to be fair to them, they did follow up on multiple occasions. The Car itself drove great, however, the suspension felt a little too soft, the steering feel and feedback was good but nothing out of the world and to truly enjoy the engine you had to revv it to very high RPM's which is just pointless and largely impossible in Bangalore roads. In any event, I was put off by the dealership's attitude, because every admirer who may not have the capacity to buy a car, if treated with respect may be a future customer. In a service driven industry, you do not have the luxury at an SA level to be picky and choosy about which walk in guests deserve your attention.



At this point, I was almost on the verge of finalizing the Creta E Diesel Variant and was on the fence with the Ecosport TDCi Titanium variants. Then came the game-changer wild card entry...



The Wild Card Entry:

Volkswagen in May 2020 launched its Polo and Vento BS6 TSI Editions. A few hours of copious research later, I realized that this was an internationally acclaimed engine having won numerous awards as well as the International Engine of the Year Award in 2018. This at least commanded the respect of affording it a test drive. Therefore, one fine day I took the Polo TSI Variant for a test drive and it was love at first sight (Revv). This was an absolute beauty of an engine, and i have penned down my initial test drive impressions of the Polo TSI Variant which may be found here:



I had almost decided to go ahead with the Polo when Skoda launched the Rapid BS6 TSI variants, and along with it they launched the Rider variant at a price of 7.49 Lakhs Rupees Ex-Showroom, and the rest as they say is history....



Taking delivery of the Skoda Rapid Rider TSI Variant:



I have penned down my first impressions of the Skoda Rapid TSI and the experience at the dealership in my initial impressions on a different thread which can be found here:



You can read further on my decision to go for the Rider Variant in this post:



Therefore, my mind was made up finally. A rewarding and informative search extending to over 5 months finally came to an end. The car was booked, and then we waited for the delivery date. There were a few hiccups mainly due to the Lockdown being imposed and this consequently pushed the delivery date by a few weeks. Finally, the car arrived in Bangalore. I went to the Showroom the day before the Registration formalities could take place and completed the PDI accompanied with the trusty Team-BHP PDI Checklist. All systems were go, and we fixed an auspicious date for delivery which was on 29.07.2020.



On 29.07.2020, the SA kept me informed throughout the day. We reached the showroom at 4 PM and completed the formalities. Did one last PDI and ensured that all the accessories as described were provided. My SA described the features of my Car to me and put me in touch with their Service representative and my relationship manager. I handed a small gift to my SA as a token of my appreciation for his excellent work in this entire process. All in all, it was an extremely smooth affair and full credit to the Skoda Tafe Accessories Limited Team at St Marks Road, Bengaluru for such a flawless booking and delivery experience. A few cheers and party poppers later, we drove out of the showroom, ecstatic and covered in glitter. Here are a few pictures from the happy occasion:







That's my parents standing happily next to me!







A solo picture with me and my new beauty!

Drove down to Shell Petrol Pump at Vittal Mallya Road and topped up to a full tank with their premium petrol in an effort to aid me to calculate the actual fuel economy. This was followed by the mandatory visit to the Gali Anjaneya Temple in Vijayanagar where we got the Vehicle Puja done and we were at home. Finally the Carbon Steel Beauty was where she belonged!



Initial Impressions:

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this review, the car has covered 136 Kms. Out of which about 40 Km's were driven on the stock tyres and the remaining were driven after upgrading the tyres. The stock tyres were decent, though a bit too loud and offered decent grip. (UPDATE: The Perfinza tyres have made a world of a difference. The car feels so much more quieter and still retains great grip and handling characteristics. Also feels as if the steering has become a little heavier, which is a good thing for me.)



Initial impressions of this car are brilliant. Looks like a real stunner especially in this 'Carbon Steel' colour. (UPDATE: The addition of those sweet looking alloys, makes it so much more desirable. Step into the vehicle and you are greeted with a sophisticated and mature interior with no garish pieces of trim. Essentially, you do not get the feeling that you are sitting in a sub 10 Lakh vehicle. Skoda have done a great job in packaging this Rider variant. Coupled with the bombshell of an engine and that slick 6 Speed Manual transmission, you would be hard pressed to find a better deal than this in the present circumstances.



Exterior and Build Quality.

'Top Notch' is the expression which comes to mind to describe the exterior of the Skoda Rapid Rider Variant. This Carbon Steel Colour looks great and the paint quality is excellent. The Rider Variant misses out on Fog Lamps and a Projector Headlight setup, which truly would have accentuated the looks of the car, nonetheless the car looks like a beauty. Build quality is typical of the Skoda group. Solid as ever, and everything feels as if it is built to last. This is a handsome looking car which looks great and feels great as well. A timeless design as well, though some would argue that the design is a little long in the tooth by now. Small touches such as the side indicators on the ORVM and the addition of the boot opener in the Key fob go a long way in adding to the premium feel of the vehicle. The essential accessories provided for the exterior include:

Black racy side decals. Looks almost invisible on the carbon steel variant of the Rider. Trunk Lip Garnish in black. Again looks almost non existent in this colour. Mudflaps. Driver and Front Passenger side silver scuff plates with 'Rapid'inscribed on them. Looks great! A Car Cover. This is yet to be opened by me, as I park my car in an enclosed parking lot at home.

Interior Quality, Fit and Finish, Features offered:

The Rider Variant is well packaged for what it offers and for the price at which it is offered. The front glove box opens wide and is reasonably well sized. The fabric interiors are dual tone with a black and beige treatment, They feel premium and the seats are well bolstered and offer good comfort. I am 6'2 tall and therefore, the low seating position of the Driver's seat is convenient for me, though the lack of a height adjustable driver's seat will definitely be an irk for the shorter drivers. The seating position offers great all round visibility and there are no blind spots caused by the pillars. It is easy to get a sense of the dimensions of the vehicle. However, the puny ORVM's and the smaller than average IRVM can be bothersome at times as it can be difficult to ascertain the vehicles behind you.



The stock speakers and the stock RCD320 Head Unit are par for the course for the features they provide. The stock HU offers Bluetooth connectivity and you can receive calls through the same. The Bluetooth connectivity is more often a miss than a hit, and I often faced difficulties with connecting my iPhone to the stock system. The stock speakers sound average at best, and you should definitely consider an audio upgrade.



The rear seat comfort is good. It's definitely not the roomiest seats in the segment, however the comfort levels are decent. Leg room is adequate for me to sit behind the drivers seat with the driver's seat set to my driving position. There are rear seat pockets which is a useful touch. There is also a bottle holder and a 12V power outlet provided for the comfort of the rear passengers which are functional features at best. The addition of the adjustable armrest and adjustable rear headrests even in the Rider variant is a great feature add and another example of how Skoda scores brownie points for including functional and useful features even in its base variant. (The 5th gen Honda City for instance has fixed rear headrests even in its top spec variant. At that price point, that is just criminal.) Not to mention, the Rider Variant also comes with both front and rear cabin lights which come with a theater style dimming effect when you turn the car off and on, as well as a rear windscreen defogger. These small touches just add to the 'feel good' factor.



The Air Conditioning unit is a real chiller and chills the cabin in no time. The Auto AC is a convenient feature to have. All the controls are easy to reach and fall to hand instantly. The rear AC blower is not the most effective though. There are well sized bottle holders present in all the door pockets, so carrying water bottles should be easy.



I have already mentioned this before, but I will mention it again. Skoda skimping on the MID is a real miss. We rely on an MID for a variety of real time information, such as distance to empty, long term fuel economy, dynamic fuel economy, etc. It really isn't that much of a premium feature for you to omit it from a variant specifically. Similarly, the omission of the controls for the rear power windows from the drivers side controls is another silly omission, where an omission has been made for the sake of making an omission.



All in all, this Rider variant is a good and reasonable spacious interior to be seated in. You have all your basic creature comforts and some available to you, though there are some glaring omissions present as well, which do well to remind you that you are in the base variant of the Skoda Rapid.



The essential accessories provided for the interior include:

A pair of plush memory foam pillows with 'Rider' embossed on it. Incidentally this is the only indication that I am sitting in the Rider Variant, as nowhere else does Skoda mention the variant name. Rear Window Sunshades including for the rear quarter class. great touch by Skoda. Luxurious Carpet like Foot Mats which are of really premium quality and have 'Rapid/ embossed on them. Feels great to rest your feet on.

A quick sweeping look at the interiors!









Driving the Skoda Rapid Rider:



Now we come to the all important section of this Initial Ownership Report. The driving experience! Now, truth be told, there is nothing I can add here which has not already been minutely dissected by the other members of the forum including by GTO in his initial impressions of the Skoda Rapid TSI, as well as the other impressions/reviews of this particular 1.0 Litre TSI Unit on its siblings (The 2020 Polo TSI, and the 2020 Vento TSI) on the respective threads. (Special shout out to GTO and Aditya for their official review of the Skoda Rapid TSI as well as suhaas307 and Vid6639 for their official review of the Volkswagen Polo 1.0L TSI). We have all raved about this little gem of an engine to the high heavens and back. Therefore, in this section, I will gloss over the highlights of the experience of driving this Car and attempt to focus more on the little things which may put you off.



Agility:



If there was a word I would use to describe this car, it would be "Agile". Of course it is fast. But being fast can be misleading at times. Straight line speed can mean nothing, if a vehicle isn't agile, that is to say, the ability to move at speed. The lighter powerful engine, with a comparatively stiff chassis by class standards and a suspension set up which is hinting at the firmer side, all make for a very pleasing experience behind the wheel. This car is extremely adept at gathering speed, and very quickly at that. It darts into corners and darts out with confidence and is very engaging to drive. Being a turbocharged engine, does mean that there is a bit of turbo lag, which can be quite annoying at times, and the low end 'driveability' in city speeds especially does take a hit. As mentioned, I had just come from a torquey diesel engine and it was second nature for me to release the clutch and feel the vehicle crawl forward with almost negligible accelerator input, on minor inclines as well. Needless to state, my first two days of owning this car, led to a few embarrassing situations of stalling the car right when the signal turned green. But to be honest, this is just a question of adapting to the same. Its been a fair few days since I've been driving my Rapid and I'm pleased to inform that its been an extremely smooth affair now. It's like muscle memory. My feet know exactly how to release the clutch and we're back to it being a sub conscious action and thankfully this means no more stalling! Once you get accustomed to the power band of the car, you will also be able to easily keep it in the RPM range, which I would not call the meat of the power band, but around 1200 to 1500 RPM, wherein there is sufficient grunt for you to be able to potter around in city speeds.



On a fine stretch of open road, it's a whole another story. Step on the gas and keep the gears slotted at the right RPM, and this car will blow you away with just how easily and effortlessly it picks up pace. Before you know it, you will be doing illegal speeds and then you have to quickly tone it down a notch. The engine does pick up a very racy growl (may be annoying to some, but sure sounds sweet!) at higher RPM's to egg you on and make you keep going faster. Like I said, this is a complete driver's package. Will ensure that you have a wide smile plastered across your face whenever you get a chance to stretch its legs. As a caveat, you may not be doing this a whole lot in everyday city conditions. It's not as impressive then and you will surely not be marveling at the ease of driving this car in city conditions. If you are looking for effortless driving in city conditions, look elsewhere.



That being said, the engine feels too easy to drive for an enthusiast. This a very very minor observation and almost a non-issue. Let me explain. There is a reason why naturally aspirated engines still retain their charm. You do not maybe have the same 'fastest car to 100 Km/Hr' in the class experience, but if you mash the gears just right and change them at the exact right moment, you can extract the maximum punch from the engine. You can hear the engine strain as you extract that performance from it. You are truly driving the car then! Don't get me wrong, but the Rapid just feels so effortless at picking up pace that it's almost silly. Even an amateur can pin his foot down at around 1700 RPM and then watch the car reach silly speeds with hardly no effort and a very forgiving wide torque band. In retrospect, this is a non-issue. 99% of the buyers will be more than satisfied with the effortless manner in which the Rapid truly achieves rapid speeds, but just keep in mind that the turbo petrol engine has just made your life a whole lot simpler.



Ride Quality:



I can fairly say that the car feels quite smooth while driving over minor aberrations on the surface of the road. Larger bumps and potholes do make themselves felt, but by and large it is a smooth affair. It cannot be called plush by any stretch of the imagination though. It is not a car you take sailing over potholes and speed bumps. The car will not glide over them. You will feel it, and it is not a pleasant experience. However, if you are someone who likes an engaging drive, you will love it. You can feel the road and you feel connected to it. Now, this is something which I personally enjoy and therefore I have no complaints. However, if you are someone who prefers a relaxed drive and a plush ride, this wont do it for you.



Creature Comforts while driving:



Now this should have been covered in my previous section on interior quality, however, I have purposely included it in this section as I will be only detailing my experience with the creature comforts available from the perspective of a Driver while driving the car. I do not care about my co-passengers in this section.

The absence of steering wheel controls is a real pain in the arse. I sincerely hope that the Government soon considers them to be essential safety equipment and makes it mandatory to include them as standard accessories. The stock RCD320 Head Unit is absolute junk and constantly keeps disconnecting from my device. (This as I later discovered was a common gripe with numerous buyers). It is a pain to operate while driving. Honestly, only the physical volume control knob was a blessing. Receiving calls was a tricky affair. Changing songs was again an exercise which required you to fumble around on the dash. These are not deal breakers and one can definitely not complain about the same at this price point. However, like I have mentioned earlier, Skoda could have integrated audio controls on the steering unit. Hopefully, this should be somewhat remedied in the Rider 'Plus' variant, which although does not come with steering mounted controls, does atleast come with a more dependable RCD330G Plus Head Unit, which should comparatively improve the experience. That being said, the steering wheel provided on the Rapid Rider feels cheap. I am not nitpicking here, but this is an element which constantly reminds you that you are in the base version.

The automatic AC Unit is a bit gimmicky in my personal opinion, since at any level above Level 1 of the blower, it becomes noisy and therefore you end up keeping it at the first level. (On the plus side, at Level 1, the blower is more than sufficient to chill the car). The Auto AC however feels the need to keep it at Level 2. Therefore, I inadvertently end up manually dialing it down a notch at which point the Auto AC function turns off and I'm dealing with a normal AC Unit, which possibly just looks sleeker. Functionally, I have no use for the Auto AC. Give me steering mounted controls and a manually operated AC Unit any day of the week.

An ergonomic miss for me is the absence of any storage unit on the window side arm rest, behind the power window buttons. You know the sort, you would normally find where you rest your right arm. There is no space there which in my opinion could have been easily integrated. This is mildly annoying as I often feel the need to carry little knick knacks, coins, car keys, bracelets, etc which I could easily keep there while driving. There is storage space provided in the center arm rest, but that for me is useless as if I need to store something while driving or will have the need to constantly access, I cannot do so.

The stock headlights in the Rider variant are barely adequate at night. Please do yourself a favour and upgrade to a better set of lights. You don't even need to get a set of fancy high intensity headlights. Just normal ones will do.

The MID!! It can be so very annoying to have an MID with a fixed display. The MID on the Rider will only show you the total distance traveled, High Speed alert and you can toggle to the trip distance reports, a huge temperature read out and the distance to be covered before your next service visit. Come on Skoda! This is just very unnecessary cost cutting. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just retain the normal MID display as in the other variants since literally no other car manufacturer skimps on providing a MID which cannot even show you the Distance to Empty, Average Fuel Economy, let alone displaying current speed and average speed. It would be helpful if the driver or if anyone else were to borrow the car to be able to see an estimate of how much the car can travel on the remaining fuel instead of having a look at the fuel level indicator and speculating on the same. It would also be easier to calculate the fuel economy instead of running an experiment with a full tank of fuel and calculating the same at the end of every fueling cycle.

It's not all negative though. The presence of front overhead cabin lamps is a welcome touch. The majority of the touch points even in the base variant all feel solid to use and hold. The steering stalks for the light controls (turn indicators and to toggle high beam) and the wiper controls feel upmarket and are well damped. The instrument cluster may feel a little long in the tooth for some, but I like the clean design and the choice of background lighting. The flip key provided to access the car feels a step above the ordinary. The flip key also includes an option to open the boot with a long press of a button. These are all good to have features. Skoda has also been kind to include a rear windshield defogger with the Rapid Rider which is a great inclusion as well! My complaints about the Automatic AC aside, there is no doubt it does make the cabin feel more upmarket and posh so to speak. It was also a thoughtful gesture on the part of Skoda to include adjustable headrests at the rear and provide a rear armrest. (The only time in this section I am concerned for the comfort of my co-passengers). And, that is why the above gripes I have detailed bother me. I understand the economics of having purchased a base variant. You expect certain features to be chopped off which are exclusive to the buyers of the higher variants (In this case, the Ambition, Onyx, Style and Monte Carlo Variants). Makes complete sense. But how does it make sense when Skoda includes all these lovely subtle touches which are usually compromised on in the base variants and proceed to take off the rear window controls from the driver side, omit the steering mounted controls or provide a fixed MID display! Any prospective buyer in my opinion would like to upgrade to the Ambition variant if he were to get features such as an Auto AC, adjustable rear headrests, arm rests at the back, front and back ceiling mounted cabin lights, etc in addition to what was being offered. The sort of value add features which make it worth the difference amount of close to 3 Lakhs over the Rider variant. He would not upgrade for the promise of a proper MID or just for the projector headlamps. Anyways, why am I complaining. For around 9 Lakhs On-Road for my Rapid Rider, I get all the car I would ever need and some more!



Conclusion

If I were to sum up this final section of my initial ownership report, let me do it in a slightly off beat manner and take a page from how Mat Watson concludes his reviews of cars on the YouTube channel - CarWow.



When it comes to the 2020 Skoda Rapid 'Rider' TSI, should you:

Avoid it?

Consider it?

Shortlist it?

Buy it?

Well, as I'm sure Mat Watson would say, I think you should go right ahead and get your hands on the 2020 Skoda Rapid 'Rider' Variant or even the 'Rider Plus' Variant, if you can stretch your budget by about 50K.



There is no doubt that this is an absolute game changer for Skoda India. Forget about the higher variants. If you are in the market for a compact sedan or a compact sub 4 metre SUV, there is no debate at all. Plonk your money on the Skoda Rapid Rider. If your budget extends to above 12 Lakhs, do not consider the other variants of the Rapid (unless of course you get some staggering discounts on them), as then you start noticing the missing features which are standard at that price point. If you are looking at a budget of above 12 lakhs, I would suggest the 5th Gen Honda City instead.



But at around 9 Lakhs On-Road for the Rider variant, and with a few choice upgrades which I have detailed in my posts below, you are getting a superb internationally acclaimed engine, a full sized sedan, great driving dynamics and a more than acceptable for the price range of features which puts the base variants of most other car manufacturers to shame. There are of course a few cons as well, but when you consider the overall package, there is no doubt in my head that this has been the perfect choice for me! Fingers crossed for a great and thoroughly enjoyable ownership experience for me and my Carbon Steel Beauty for the years to come! Thank you all for reading! Dear Reader,Welcome to my thread on my thoughts and observations on the initial ownership experience of my brand new Carbon Steel Beauty - The Skoda Rapid TSI 2020 - Rider Variant! If you are a guest reader like how I used to be up until recently, anonymously reading the posts on this brilliant forum, but hesitant to contribute to the same, this one is for you. I hope this initial ownership experience thread helps you in some way to make your choice. On the other hand, if you are an esteemed member of this fantastic forum, I hope this is an enjoyable read for you, and as always would love to hear your views.Before, we begin, here's a look at my new Carbon Steel Beauty!They say new cars cannot change your life. They also say cars are a depreciating asset. Why do we purchase them then? Cut to about 15 to 20 years ago, when cars were considered a luxury and not something a young adult was expected to purchase. Youngsters were expected to graduate, save every penny or send it back home, spend on a few essentials in a month, but definitely not go around spending their hard earned money on trifling expenditures such as a gas guzzling automobile.Francoise Sagan once said Money may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus. This quote continues to reverberate with me. It may appear to be a materialistic view on life at first blush and a short sighted approach to happiness and self worth, but in today's time and age, are we all not looking for validation? Are we not craving that release of dopamine to our nervous system to feel good about our choices and decisions? At the end of the day, we choose to spend our time and money on things that make sense to us and for our pleasure. For some of us, its our love for automobiles and the pleasure we derive by flooring the pedal to the metal. The moment when mind and machine become one.As a young lawyer, working with one of the top law firms in the city of Bengaluru, having graduated from law school 2 years previously, life is not bad. Law school was grueling to say the least. But being a resident of Bengaluru, it allowed me the luxury of staying at home while my college mates from out of Bengaluru, rented flats nearby. In that sense, I enjoyed the comforts of home and almost always was staying over with my college mates at their homes. It was the perfect college life. Great city to study in, Great city with an even better nightlife (The 1:30 AM rule for shutting down clubs notwithstanding.) and friends like family to experience it all with.Back then for the first 2 years of law school, travel to college entailed walking a distance of 2 KM's from home to the nearest BMTC bus station, take a bus (Route No. 375B) to Banashankari Bus Station, switch buses there and take another bus to Jayanagar 4th Block Bus Station. From here, either a friend would pick me up for the last mile to college or I would have to bargain with the infamous auto rickshaw chaps. During my third year, parents finally caved in to my incessant requests and bought me a Honda Dio which was all the rage back then (getting a proper geared bike was out of the question as there was no way mom would be agreeable to the same). The Honda Dio was my first vehicle and continues to remain with me. It has been an absolute peach to own and have had great memories with it. Right before my final year, as I had done quite well throughout college and was due to intern in a couple of large law firms in Bengaluru which would entail extremely late nights at work, my parents extracted a promise out of me that conditional to my driving safely and responsibly they would buy me my first car!After a lot of test drives, we decided to go ahead with the Swift VDi (O) in 2017. Maruti may face a lot of flak, but the Swift was a car they broke the mould with. Hatchbacks in India had boring boxy designs before the Swift (with the exception of the Daewoo Matiz. That was a cute little car). My Swift served me well. It was great fun to drive. Returned phenomenal economy figures within the city and took it to a whole different level out on the highway. It was stable and planted at speed and was a deft little handler as well. I loved each and every single minute of owning the Swift. Some of my greatest memories of college and my first 2 years of my professional life have all included my Swift. It has been part of umpteen road trips, and has handled extremely NICE Roads (Bangalore peeps will get the pun) as well as the crater filled roads during monsoon with aplomb. A picture of my beloved Swift is attached below:Therefore, it was with a heavy heart that I decided to part with my beloved Swift after just under 3 years of ownership this year. It had clocked around 30,000 Km's on the Odo and was well set to crunch many a mile more. So why did I decide to part ways with my Swift? The simple answer is Dad and me have always believed in buying cars and changing them within 5 years. This may sound wasteful to some, but our logic has been that the tech always gets better with every generation. We wished to enjoy the best of every generation and turn them over for a good price while we still could. Of course, we do not apply this logic to all our purchases. Dad purchased the 2018 BMW X1 and intends to keep it for atleast 10 years and we have a Bolero Pick-Up Truck for use at our estate, which we intend to keep for a long time as well. However, with our daily drivers which were mostly driven within the city, this strategy worked out well for us. Therefore, put up ads on all listing websites, interacted with numerous prospective buyers before finally striking gold. Call it Maruti's incredible resale value or maybe my dogged persistence to get the best deal, but finally sold my Swift to a buyer for 6.2 lakhs. To put it in perspective, this was a car bought in 2017 for just a shade under 8 Lakhs. Add to this, that our daily drivers are usually purchased as a company car to get certain tax benefits and this worked itself out to a be very good deal for us. With the Swift out of the picture, we could now focus on the next purchase to enter our garage....Beginning in early 2020, we started to shortlist our next purchase. My budget was around 12 lakhs. After a ton of online research, the following cars were selected for the test drives:I will not spend too much time detailing why I did not go ahead with each of the above cars, and will hope to capture it all in a few paragraphs. For the purposes of this discussion, each and every one of the above cars was in the 12 lakhs bracket.The KIA Dealerships across Bangalore were an interesting experience. They had a blockbuster on their hands and they knew it. They were selling the Seltos by the dozen and I was not looking for a particularly top end trim. However, the experience at the dealerships was fabulous. As soon as I entered the showroom, a Sales Associate (SA) was allotted to me by the friendly staff at the front desk and within minutes the concerned SA would whisk me away to the Car and would make all efforts to ascertain what I was looking for, as the Seltos had countless variants and they could tell me about the most appropriate one. The HTE Diesel was too bare-bones. The HTK petrol was really well kitted for the price it commanded. However, none of the KIA dealerships across Bangalore had a test drive unit of the 1.5 NA petrol variant. This was really disappointing and was later informed by my SA off the record that this was a conscious decision by KIA so as to not draw the attention away from its turbo petrol models. This was the only drawback from an otherwise flawless experience at the KIA Dealerships. There was no way I was going to book a car without going for a test drive in it, so the KIA Seltos was ruled out though I was sorely tempted to go ahead with it.Luckily, when I test drove the Hyundai Creta 2020 variants, I could drive the 1.5 Petrol NA engine which was decent and quite functional. The Creta E Diesel variant was also considered due to its peppy engine and better VFM proposition as opposed to the Seltos HTE Diesel. The Hyundai Venue was again fun to drive, however just didn't tug at my heart the way the Ecosport did.The Ford Ecosport TDCi was an absolute hoot to drive and the steering dynamics were great and reminded me why we buy cars for the driving pleasure. However, with Ford's decision to chop features across the range, particularly the omission of the SYNC 3 system in the Titanium variant, I felt like the current generation of the Ecosport was a little shortchanged as opposed to the previous variant.The experience with the Maruti and Nexa dealerships were again a lesson in sheer efficiency and another casual reminder of why Maruti sells the numbers it does. Well mannered SA's, with the bare minimum knowledge who are prompt in responding to customer queries and arranging for test drives. The Ciaz and the Brezza were both good, but not great. Maybe, I expected too much after being spoilt by my Swift's driving dynamics, however I was disappointed by both the Brezza and the Ciaz. In the BS6 avatar, both vehicles seem to have lost whatever little punch they had with these grossly under powered albeit fuel efficient NA engines.The experience at the Honda dealership was a joke. They behaved as if they were doing me a favor by showing me the car and staunchly refused to offer any discounts on the City despite the release of the 5th Gen Variant being right around the corner. I had a feeling that the SA's at Honda behaved like this because I maybe drove up in a Swift to their dealership and probably felt like I wasn't a serious customer or had only come to gawk at their highly desirable line of vehicles. To test this theory, the next day we drove in with our BMW and the response was palpably different. The SA was now ever so attentive to my requests and assured me that they would try their best to get me a great deal and to be fair to them, they did follow up on multiple occasions. The Car itself drove great, however, the suspension felt a little too soft, the steering feel and feedback was good but nothing out of the world and to truly enjoy the engine you had to revv it to very high RPM's which is just pointless and largely impossible in Bangalore roads. In any event, I was put off by the dealership's attitude, because every admirer who may not have the capacity to buy a car, if treated with respect may be a future customer. In a service driven industry, you do not have the luxury at an SA level to be picky and choosy about which walk in guests deserve your attention.At this point, I was almost on the verge of finalizing the Creta E Diesel Variant and was on the fence with the Ecosport TDCi Titanium variants. Then came the game-changer wild card entry...Volkswagen in May 2020 launched its Polo and Vento BS6 TSI Editions. A few hours of copious research later, I realized that this was an internationally acclaimed engine having won numerous awards as well as the International Engine of the Year Award in 2018. This at least commanded the respect of affording it a test drive. Therefore, one fine day I took the Polo TSI Variant for a test drive and it was love at first sight (Revv). This was an absolute beauty of an engine, and i have penned down my initial test drive impressions of the Polo TSI Variant which may be found here: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post4812993 (VW India discontinues DSG in Polo & Vento 1.0 TSI, replaces with torque converter AT) I had almost decided to go ahead with the Polo when Skoda launched the Rapid BS6 TSI variants, and along with it they launched the Rider variant at a price of 7.49 Lakhs Rupees Ex-Showroom, and the rest as they say is history....I have penned down my first impressions of the Skoda Rapid TSI and the experience at the dealership in my initial impressions on a different thread which can be found here: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post4822121 (The Skoda Rapid 1.0L TSI Petrol, now launched at Rs 7.49 lakhs) You can read further on my decision to go for the Rider Variant in this post: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post4838622 (The Skoda Rapid 1.0L TSI Petrol, now launched at Rs 7.49 lakhs) Therefore, my mind was made up finally. A rewarding and informative search extending to over 5 months finally came to an end. The car was booked, and then we waited for the delivery date. There were a few hiccups mainly due to the Lockdown being imposed and this consequently pushed the delivery date by a few weeks. Finally, the car arrived in Bangalore. I went to the Showroom the day before the Registration formalities could take place and completed the PDI accompanied with the trusty Team-BHP PDI Checklist. All systems were go, and we fixed an auspicious date for delivery which was on 29.07.2020.On 29.07.2020, the SA kept me informed throughout the day. We reached the showroom at 4 PM and completed the formalities. Did one last PDI and ensured that all the accessories as described were provided. My SA described the features of my Car to me and put me in touch with their Service representative and my relationship manager. I handed a small gift to my SA as a token of my appreciation for his excellent work in this entire process. All in all, it was an extremely smooth affair and full credit to the Skoda Tafe Accessories Limited Team at St Marks Road, Bengaluru for such a flawless booking and delivery experience. A few cheers and party poppers later, we drove out of the showroom, ecstatic and covered in glitter. Here are a few pictures from the happy occasion:Drove down to Shell Petrol Pump at Vittal Mallya Road and topped up to a full tank with their premium petrol in an effort to aid me to calculate the actual fuel economy. This was followed by the mandatory visit to the Gali Anjaneya Temple in Vijayanagar where we got the Vehicle Puja done and we were at home. Finally the Carbon Steel Beauty was where she belonged!At the time of writing this review, the car has covered 136 Kms. Out of which about 40 Km's were driven on the stock tyres and the remaining were driven after upgrading the tyres. The stock tyres were decent, though a bit too loud and offered decent grip. (The Perfinza tyres have made a world of a difference. The car feels so much more quieter and still retains great grip and handling characteristics. Also feels as if the steering has become a little heavier, which is a good thing for me.)Initial impressions of this car are brilliant. Looks like a real stunner especially in this 'Carbon Steel' colour. (The addition of those sweet looking alloys, makes it so much more desirable. Step into the vehicle and you are greeted with a sophisticated and mature interior with no garish pieces of trim. Essentially, you do not get the feeling that you are sitting in a sub 10 Lakh vehicle. Skoda have done a great job in packaging this Rider variant. Coupled with the bombshell of an engine and that slick 6 Speed Manual transmission, you would be hard pressed to find a better deal than this in the present circumstances.'Top Notch' is the expression which comes to mind to describe the exterior of the Skoda Rapid Rider Variant. This Carbon Steel Colour looks great and the paint quality is excellent. The Rider Variant misses out on Fog Lamps and a Projector Headlight setup, which truly would have accentuated the looks of the car, nonetheless the car looks like a beauty. Build quality is typical of the Skoda group. Solid as ever, and everything feels as if it is built to last. This is a handsome looking car which looks great and feels great as well. A timeless design as well, though some would argue that the design is a little long in the tooth by now. Small touches such as the side indicators on the ORVM and the addition of the boot opener in the Key fob go a long way in adding to the premium feel of the vehicle. The essential accessories provided for the exterior include:The Rider Variant is well packaged for what it offers and for the price at which it is offered. The front glove box opens wide and is reasonably well sized. The fabric interiors are dual tone with a black and beige treatment, They feel premium and the seats are well bolstered and offer good comfort. I am 6'2 tall and therefore, the low seating position of the Driver's seat is convenient for me, though the lack of a height adjustable driver's seat will definitely be an irk for the shorter drivers. The seating position offers great all round visibility and there are no blind spots caused by the pillars. It is easy to get a sense of the dimensions of the vehicle. However, the puny ORVM's and the smaller than average IRVM can be bothersome at times as it can be difficult to ascertain the vehicles behind you.The stock speakers and the stock RCD320 Head Unit are par for the course for the features they provide. The stock HU offers Bluetooth connectivity and you can receive calls through the same. The Bluetooth connectivity is more often a miss than a hit, and I often faced difficulties with connecting my iPhone to the stock system. The stock speakers sound average at best, and you should definitely consider an audio upgrade.The rear seat comfort is good. It's definitely not the roomiest seats in the segment, however the comfort levels are decent. Leg room is adequate for me to sit behind the drivers seat with the driver's seat set to my driving position. There are rear seat pockets which is a useful touch. There is also a bottle holder and a 12V power outlet provided for the comfort of the rear passengers which are functional features at best. The addition of the adjustable armrest and adjustable rear headrests even in the Rider variant is a great feature add and another example of how Skoda scores brownie points for including functional and useful features even in its base variant. (The 5th gen Honda City for instance has fixed rear headrests even in its top spec variant. At that price point, that is just criminal.) Not to mention, the Rider Variant also comes with both front and rear cabin lights which come with a theater style dimming effect when you turn the car off and on, as well as a rear windscreen defogger. These small touches just add to the 'feel good' factor.The Air Conditioning unit is a real chiller and chills the cabin in no time. The Auto AC is a convenient feature to have. All the controls are easy to reach and fall to hand instantly. The rear AC blower is not the most effective though. There are well sized bottle holders present in all the door pockets, so carrying water bottles should be easy.I have already mentioned this before, but I will mention it again. Skoda skimping on the MID is a real miss. We rely on an MID for a variety of real time information, such as distance to empty, long term fuel economy, dynamic fuel economy, etc. It really isn't that much of a premium feature for you to omit it from a variant specifically. Similarly, the omission of the controls for the rear power windows from the drivers side controls is another silly omission, where an omission has been made for the sake of making an omission.All in all, this Rider variant is a good and reasonable spacious interior to be seated in. You have all your basic creature comforts and some available to you, though there are some glaring omissions present as well, which do well to remind you that you are in the base variant of the Skoda Rapid.The essential accessories provided for the interior include:Now we come to the all important section of this Initial Ownership Report. The driving experience! Now, truth be told, there is nothing I can add here which has not already been minutely dissected by the other members of the forum including by GTO in his initial impressions of the Skoda Rapid TSI, as well as the other impressions/reviews of this particular 1.0 Litre TSI Unit on its siblings (The 2020 Polo TSI, and the 2020 Vento TSI) on the respective threads. (Special shout out to GTO and Aditya for their official review of the Skoda Rapid TSI as well as suhaas307 and Vid6639 for their official review of the Volkswagen Polo 1.0L TSI). We have all raved about this little gem of an engine to the high heavens and back. Therefore, in this section, I will gloss over the highlights of the experience of driving this Car and attempt to focus more on the little things which may put you off.If there was a word I would use to describe this car, it would be "Agile". Of course it is fast. But being fast can be misleading at times. Straight line speed can mean nothing, if a vehicle isn't agile, that is to say, the ability to move at speed. The lighter powerful engine, with a comparatively stiff chassis by class standards and a suspension set up which is hinting at the firmer side, all make for a very pleasing experience behind the wheel. This car is extremely adept at gathering speed, and very quickly at that. It darts into corners and darts out with confidence and is very engaging to drive. Being a turbocharged engine, does mean that there is a bit of turbo lag, which can be quite annoying at times, and the low end 'driveability' in city speeds especially does take a hit. As mentioned, I had just come from a torquey diesel engine and it was second nature for me to release the clutch and feel the vehicle crawl forward with almost negligible accelerator input, on minor inclines as well. Needless to state, my first two days of owning this car, led to a few embarrassing situations of stalling the car right when the signal turned green. But to be honest, this is just a question of adapting to the same. Its been a fair few days since I've been driving my Rapid and I'm pleased to inform that its been an extremely smooth affair now. It's like muscle memory. My feet know exactly how to release the clutch and we're back to it being a sub conscious action and thankfully this means no more stalling! Once you get accustomed to the power band of the car, you will also be able to easily keep it in the RPM range, which I would not call the meat of the power band, but around 1200 to 1500 RPM, wherein there is sufficient grunt for you to be able to potter around in city speeds.On a fine stretch of open road, it's a whole another story. Step on the gas and keep the gears slotted at the right RPM, and this car will blow you away with just how easily and effortlessly it picks up pace. Before you know it, you will be doing illegal speeds and then you have to quickly tone it down a notch. The engine does pick up a very racy growl (may be annoying to some, but sure sounds sweet!) at higher RPM's to egg you on and make you keep going faster. Like I said, this is a complete driver's package. Will ensure that you have a wide smile plastered across your face whenever you get a chance to stretch its legs. As a caveat, you may not be doing this a whole lot in everyday city conditions. It's not as impressive then and you will surely not be marveling at the ease of driving this car in city conditions. If you are looking for effortless driving in city conditions, look elsewhere.That being said, the engine feels too easy to drive for an enthusiast. This a very very minor observation and almost a non-issue. Let me explain. There is a reason why naturally aspirated engines still retain their charm. You do not maybe have the same 'fastest car to 100 Km/Hr' in the class experience, but if you mash the gears just right and change them at the exact right moment, you can extract the maximum punch from the engine. You can hear the engine strain as you extract that performance from it. You are truly driving the car then! Don't get me wrong, but the Rapid just feels so effortless at picking up pace that it's almost silly. Even an amateur can pin his foot down at around 1700 RPM and then watch the car reach silly speeds with hardly no effort and a very forgiving wide torque band. In retrospect, this is a non-issue. 99% of the buyers will be more than satisfied with the effortless manner in which the Rapid truly achieves rapid speeds, but just keep in mind that the turbo petrol engine has just made your life a whole lot simpler.I can fairly say that the car feels quite smooth while driving over minor aberrations on the surface of the road. Larger bumps and potholes do make themselves felt, but by and large it is a smooth affair. It cannot be called plush by any stretch of the imagination though. It is not a car you take sailing over potholes and speed bumps. The car will not glide over them. You will feel it, and it is not a pleasant experience. However, if you are someone who likes an engaging drive, you will love it. You can feel the road and you feel connected to it. Now, this is something which I personally enjoy and therefore I have no complaints. However, if you are someone who prefers a relaxed drive and a plush ride, this wont do it for you.Now this should have been covered in my previous section on interior quality, however, I have purposely included it in this section as I will be only detailing my experience with the creature comforts available from the perspective of a Driver while driving the car. I do not care about my co-passengers in this section.It's not all negative though. The presence of front overhead cabin lamps is a welcome touch. The majority of the touch points even in the base variant all feel solid to use and hold. The steering stalks for the light controls (turn indicators and to toggle high beam) and the wiper controls feel upmarket and are well damped. The instrument cluster may feel a little long in the tooth for some, but I like the clean design and the choice of background lighting. The flip key provided to access the car feels a step above the ordinary. The flip key also includes an option to open the boot with a long press of a button. These are all good to have features. Skoda has also been kind to include a rear windshield defogger with the Rapid Rider which is a great inclusion as well! My complaints about the Automatic AC aside, there is no doubt it does make the cabin feel more upmarket and posh so to speak. It was also a thoughtful gesture on the part of Skoda to include adjustable headrests at the rear and provide a rear armrest. (The only time in this section I am concerned for the comfort of my co-passengers). And, that is why the above gripes I have detailed bother me. I understand the economics of having purchased a base variant. You expect certain features to be chopped off which are exclusive to the buyers of the higher variants (In this case, the Ambition, Onyx, Style and Monte Carlo Variants). Makes complete sense. But how does it make sense when Skoda includes all these lovely subtle touches which are usually compromised on in the base variants and proceed to take off the rear window controls from the driver side, omit the steering mounted controls or provide a fixed MID display! Any prospective buyer in my opinion would like to upgrade to the Ambition variant if he were to get features such as an Auto AC, adjustable rear headrests, arm rests at the back, front and back ceiling mounted cabin lights, etc in addition to what was being offered. The sort of value add features which make it worth the difference amount of close to 3 Lakhs over the Rider variant. He would not upgrade for the promise of a proper MID or just for the projector headlamps. Anyways, why am I complaining. For around 9 Lakhs On-Road for my Rapid Rider, I get all the car I would ever need and some more!If I were to sum up this final section of my initial ownership report, let me do it in a slightly off beat manner and take a page from how Mat Watson concludes his reviews of cars on the YouTube channel - CarWow.When it comes to the 2020 Skoda Rapid 'Rider' TSI, should you:Well, as I'm sure Mat Watson would say, I think you should go right ahead and get your hands on the 2020 Skoda Rapid 'Rider' Variant or even the 'Rider Plus' Variant, if you can stretch your budget by about 50K.There is no doubt that this is an absolute game changer for Skoda India. Forget about the higher variants. If you are in the market for a compact sedan or a compact sub 4 metre SUV, there is no debate at all. Plonk your money on the Skoda Rapid Rider. If your budget extends to above 12 Lakhs, do not consider the other variants of the Rapid (unless of course you get some staggering discounts on them), as then you start noticing the missing features which are standard at that price point. If you are looking at a budget of above 12 lakhs, I would suggest the 5th Gen Honda City instead.But at around 9 Lakhs On-Road for the Rider variant, and with a few choice upgrades which I have detailed in my posts below, you are getting a superb internationally acclaimed engine, a full sized sedan, great driving dynamics and a more than acceptable for the price range of features which puts the base variants of most other car manufacturers to shame. There are of course a few cons as well, but when you consider the overall package, there is no doubt in my head that this has been the perfect choice for me! Fingers crossed for a great and thoroughly enjoyable ownership experience for me and my Carbon Steel Beauty for the years to come! Thank you all for reading! Last edited by tejascshetty : 20th August 2020 at 00:41 .
New York, Aug 21 : Democratic Party's presidential nominee Joe Biden has said that his running mate, Kamala Harris will make a "great Vice President" with a powerful voice for the nation.

In his speech on Thursday night while formally accepting his nomination at the last day of the Democratic National Convention, he spoke of her various identities that mesh with the party's assertions of unity and empowerment of minorities.

Outlining his monumental tasks ahead if he is elected, Biden said: "I won't have to do it alone. Because I will have a great Vice President at my side. Senator Kamala Harris. She is a powerful voice for this nation.

"Her story is the American story. She knows about all the obstacles thrown in the way of so many in our country. Women, Black women, Black Americans, South Asian Americans, immigrants, the left-out and left-behind.

"But she's overcome every obstacle she's ever faced. No one's been tougher on the big banks or the gun lobby. No one's been tougher in calling out this current administration for its extremism, its failure to follow the law, and its failure to simply tell the truth." While accepting her nomination for Vice President on Wednesday, Harris paid tributes to her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, and her activism as an immigrant.

Harris said she stood on the shoulders of her mother and promised to be "committed to the values she taught me".

Harris spoke of her family that included her sister, niece, stepchildren, uncles and "chithis" (younger maternal aunts).

Biden said on Thursday that "Kamala and I both draw strength from our families. For Kamala, it's (husband) Doug (Emhoff) and their families. For me, it's Jill and ours." "No man deserves one great love in his life. But I've known two," Biden said recalling his late first wife Neilia.

"After losing my first wife in a car accident, Jill came into my life and put our family back together.

"And I will have the strength that can only come from family. (Son) Hunter, (daughter) Ashley and all our grandchildren, my brothers, my sister. They give me courage and lift me up," he said.

He also mentioned his other son Beau, who had died as an adult because of a brain tumour.

"While he is no longer with us, Beau inspires me every day," he said.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
As companies across the world rush to produce a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, the University of Manitoba is partnering with a Toronto firm to produce a therapeutic solution it hopes will put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As companies across the world rush to produce a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, the University of Manitoba is partnering with a Toronto firm to produce a therapeutic solution it hopes will put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toronto-based Theralase Technologies Inc. told the Free Press Friday the partnership "couldnt be a more perfect fit."

Using specialized compounds that actively kill cancer cells, bacteria and viruses, the company says its patented chemicals are being tested and researched in Manitoba labs to create an "elegant solution to the destruction of some very nasty pathogens."

If successful, Theralase hopes to commercialize the technology for mass-scale production as early as late 2021.

Dr. Kevin Coombs, a leading microbiologist at U of M whos spearheading the research, says hes never seen anything like it.

"This technology is showing absolutely amazing high efficacy kill rates, both with and without stimulation," he said.

Theralases proprietary technology  dubbed "photo dynamic compounds" or PDCs  are completely non-toxic and safe for normal cells. They produce a destructive form of oxygen that is able to destroy pathogens from the inside out, while leaving healthy cells unscathed.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Coombs is using his past research on viruses such as H1N1 Influenza, Zika and other novel viruses to determine an exact methodology that can be used to administer the new treatment on humans.

"Part of what makes the whole thing so special is that its unique in being not exactly a vaccine, but more of a therapy," Coombs explained.

"Vaccines are an incredibly important health benefit, but they wont help everyone  simply because not everyone has the proper immune system to make them work. Thats why therapeutic measures like this are equally important to work in a complimentary fashion."

Details shared with the Free Press from the research agreement between Theralase and U of M show plans to use proprietary chemicals as a vaccine (prevention from contracting COVID-19) and as a therapeutic (treatment of a patient who has already contracted COVID-19).

To do this, Coombs is using his past research on viruses such as H1N1 Influenza, Zika and other novel viruses to determine an exact methodology that can be used to administer the treatment on humans.

"I think its also very special that we dont really even need to insert the PDCs directly inside a human being," he said. "We can take samples of blood and saliva to treat the virus in it and then safely insert that back in  isolating the fear of any toxicity entering the body."

Dr. Arkady Mandel, chief scientific officer at Theralase, says the companys support to create quick timelines for the project are "game-changing."

He said he hopes to complete preliminary research as early as October, with small animal analysis by mid-2021  based on which Theralase could begin human clinical studies later in the year.

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In order to meet those timelines, Chief Financial Officer Kristina Hachey says theyre funding all initial research out of pocket.

"In the global race for the COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic," Hachey said Theralase "may not be first to the market."

"But we have full confidence that our PDC technology will provide one of the safest and most effective COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic."

Twitter: @temurdur

Temur.Durrani@freepress.mb.ca
Andrews is not alone in having to account for previous things said in the pandemic. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's defence against accusations the federal government failed to prepare the aged care sector for outbreaks - that the abrupt standing-down of all management and staff at nursing homes like St Basil's could not have been anticipated or considered - appears at odds with advice provided by his own government to aged care providers two months ago. Residents are removed from St Basil's Home for the Aged, the site of Australia's deadliest COVID-19 outbreak. Credit:Justin McManus Yet it is in Victoria and particularly Melbourne - which remains under crippling stage four restrictions and a curfew - where the stakes are highest. All of us have a shared interest in the Andrews government successfully leading Victoria out of this crisis. There is a political compact at work which acknowledges the scale of the problems being confronted, the speed with which decisions must taken and the inevitability that mistakes will be made. But if a leader is not entirely truthful about decisions they are taking, do they undermine the additional political licence given to them in an emergency? When the genomic picture finally did finally emerge, tendered as an exhibit in the inquiry into hotel quarantine chaired by Justice Jennifer Coate, it revealed a story both sad and maddening. It is a graph which, at first glance, appears a confusing mess of dots. When you look at it long enough, the tragedy of Victorias pandemic emerges like a gestalt puzzle.

The bottom half of the graph plots Victorias first wave of infections. It shows that nearly every strain had disappeared from the chart by early May. Melbourne's second wave epidemic starts with the band marked Transmission network 2. This is the Rydges on Swanston outbreak started by four orange dots - a family of four returned from overseas. Transmission network 3 and the cluster labelled 45A relate to the Stamford Plaza. That mass of black dots stretching from June into July and August represents outbreaks at housing commission towers, schools, meat works, logistics centres and aged care centres. Every black dot is a person. When the graph was prepared for the Coate inquiry, more than 200 of them had died in the second wave. The Coate inquiry has heard evidence from nurses, security guards and guests from quarantine hotels describing a shambolic approach to infectious disease control. As compelling as some of this testimony was, the most damning evidence was contained in a bland two-page document, developed by the DHHS-led Operation Soteria taskforce responsible for hotel quarantine, advising security guards on the use of PPE. Professor Lindsay Grayson, the director of the Austin Hospital's infectious disease department, told the hearing that staff and security guards working at quarantine hotels should have adhered to the same standards of PPE required by healthcare workers at the Austin whenever dealing with people suspected of having the virus.

This means that security guards working in the lobby and stationed on hotel floors should have been dressed in full PPE including level 2 surgical masks, safety glasses or face masks, long-sleeve, single-use gowns and single-use latex gloves. Masks should have been changed at the start of each shift, the end of the shift, after every meal break and otherwise at least every four hours. Security guards should have been shown how to don and doff their PPE without contaminating themselves and fellow workers. The advice to security guards contained in the Operation Soteria document fell woefully short of this standard. As of June 8, after the virus had broken out of the Rydges and was breaking out at Stamford Plaza, Operation Soteria was telling security guards that so long as they stayed 1.5 metres away from returned travellers, there was no need to wear any PPE in the hotel lobby, on the hotel floors and even in the doorway of rooms occupied by hotel guests. When Grayson was shown the advice by the Unified Security Group's counsel, Arthur Moses, SC, he was incredulous. On this evidence alone, the most shocking thing about Victoria's hotel quarantine program is not that guards and staff were infected at two hotels; it is that breakouts occurred at so few hotels.

The consequences of this are being felt by every household and business in Victoria. Nick Economou, a senior lecturer on politics at Monash University, believes the political implications are also likely to be significant. "The core problem for Daniel Andrews is the administration of quarantine on his watch. It is very hard to get away from that,'' Economou says. "I actually think his position is bad and getting worse and I expect him not to be the leader at the next election.'' Does this help explain why we had to wait this long to see the genomics data? Over the past two months, Andrews and Victorias Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton have been asked about this modelling. Each time they proffered reasons for why it could not be released. Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the genomic modelling was not his to release. Credit:Jason South

On July 14, Sutton said the data was not his to release: Its not my genomic sequencing data, it belongs to the Peter Doherty Institute. He said he wouldnt comment on the data because it would be subject to a judicial inquiry. On August 6, the day after Coate issued a statement clarifying there was no legal impediment to anyone discussing matters before her inquiry, Andrews was again asked about the data. The genomic sequencing report is not a document that I hold, it is not a product that I have," he said. Andrews and Sutton did not lie. But neither were they entirely truthful. The genomic sequencing provided to the Coate inquiry is owned by the MDU, housed inside Melbourne University's Doherty Institute. The data is shared on a weekly basis with the DHHS, which funds the MDU and is free to use it as it sees fit. Professor Ben Howden, the director of the MDU, told the hearing: "I understand the data, and related information and reports, are provided to the [DHHS] and the department is able to use that information, including by publishing it for public health purposes."

An MDU spokeswoman confirmed to The Age: The MDU does not place restrictions on what DHHS can do with data provided to it by the MDU." Sutton, a senior public servant within the DHHS, should have known this. Earlier this year, he co-authored with Howden and Dr Charles Alpren, a DHHS epidemiologist, a study based on genomic analysis of Victorias first wave infections. That study and the genomic data it contains have been published on an open access platform since May 16. The Victorian Premier doesnt need to "hold" a document paid for and provided to his government to authorise its release. The importance of the genomic data to our understanding of Victorias second wave was underscored by Alpren, who told the Coate inquiry that 99 per cent of all current COVID-19 cases in Victoria had arisen from either the Rydges or Stamford Plaza hotels. For all the riddles of this virus, there is no mystery as to why Andrews wanted this publicly known later rather than sooner. Andrews dispute with the ADF is another matter. When the Premier told a Victorian parliamentary committee on August 11 "I don't believe ADF support was on offer" for hotel quarantine, he was calling into question the sincerity of previous public statements made by the Prime Minister, ADF top brass and, perversely, himself.

When challenged on this, Andrews cited a carefully phrased statement from Victorias Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp, who said that, in the coordination and planning meetings he chaired on March 27 and 28, I did not seek nor did representatives of the ADF offer assistance as part of the hotel quarantine program". Frewen cut through these word games. He told the Senate it was made plain" that ADF assistance was available to all states and territories to help establish the regime and confirmed that in Victoria, 100 ADF personnel were stood to" for this purpose. Lieutenant-General John Frewen, commander of the Defence COVID-19 Taskforce. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Andrews refused to budge. The day after the generals testimony, he said no one has ever questioned whether ADF troops were put on standby. No one other than Andrews. It was he who, five days earlier, when asked to respond to the reports of troop readiness carried in this newspaper, replied: I am not sure who has confirmed that 100 troops were on standby. I see some reports but there are no names associated with any of those reports."

There was one name associated with those reports; the order to put 100 troops on standby in Victoria was given by Australias most senior soldier, ADF chief General Angus Campbell. Andrews cannot change his position now. To do so would be to admit he misled parliament. The Opposition is already calling for him to resign on that basis. The issue before the Coate inquiry is why Victoria chose not to make use of ADF personnel within quarantine hotels. Does it matter whether Andrews is being entirely truthful about these episodes? Monash University Associate Professor of Politics Paul Strangio, in contrast to Economou, doubts whether public faith in the Premier has been shaken. I think there is a bit of a disjunction with the way the public is looking upon this moment and how the media is looking upon it, he says. We do have to give some allowance for the complexities of leadership and government in a situation like this. Mistakes are going to be made. There is a massive, bureaucratic machinery working at a hyper pace and politicians dont always have all the answers. James Paterson, the Liberal senator who questioned Frewen about the quarantine hotels, is less charitable. We are asking for unprecedented things from Australians and from Victorians. You would think the bare minimum they deserve in response to that is complete honesty about what we are doing and why we are doing it. Either withholding information or trying to play cute games to try to get around responsibility for decisions we have made is not in that spirit."
Chennai: The Madras High Court on Friday (August 21, 2020) gave permission to individuals and their families to install Ganesha idols and immerse them in nearby water bodies to celebrate Vinayaka Chaturthi. The immersion of idols in large public spaces such as the Marina beach remains prohibited, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival falls on August 22, Saturday.

A division bench of Justice MM Sundresh and R Hemalatha emphasised that the Tamil Nadus governments ban on public celebrations, processions, installation of idols in public will be in force. The Court also clarified that no organisation would be able to carry out celebration activities and processions.

The court provided this relaxation for individuals and their families, after the state government told the court that it was not possible to relax the ban on public celebrations of the festival, which include installing idols in public places and taking them on processions.

The bench also recorded the undertaking by Hindu Munnani outfit, which stated that they would not undertake any processions and would cooperate with the state authorities.

On Thursday, the court had sought the governments stance if any relaxation could be provided in the interest of the artisans who would suffer huge losses and livelihood issues due to the complete ban. The order was passed on a batch of PILs challenging the prohibition of public celebration of the festival.

This issue had also taken a political turn and had brought NDA allies - the AIADMK (state ruling party) and the BJP (central ruling party) on a collision path.

The state governments decision to permit opening of liquor shops in Chennai city (from August 18), while not permitting installing of Ganesha idols, taking them on processions, immersion rituals had irked the BJP state leadership. BJP leaders had questioned the Tamil Nadu government, asking them to take a cue from the neighboring Karnataka government that has permitted the festival to be celebrated amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision to prohibit the celebrations touched a raw nerve with Hindu groups in the state, which had planned on celebrating the festival in a big manner. The Hindu Munnani group had stated that they would celebrate the festival across the state by installing about 1.5 lakh idols. The state BJP too said that their stance would be the same as that of the Hindu Munnani.

On August 13, the Tamil Nadu government had issued guidelines stating that, in view of the COVID-19 situation, they were prohibiting putting up of Ganesh idols, celebrations in public, carrying them around the city in processions and also immersing them in water bodies.

The government instructed the public to follow physical distancing and mask-wearing norms while stepping out to buy essentials and other items for the festivals. The government urged people to celebrate the festival at their respective homes.

The government statement added that, places of worship that earn less than Rs10,000 per annum have been permitted to remain open across the the state, mentioning that they can carry on with festive traditions, in accordance with the stated norms.
The indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, "AdimrSC-2f vaccine (COVID-19 S-protein)" from Adimmune Corp. is the first to enter Phase I human trials in Taiwan with conditional approval from Taiwan FDA

For the first time ever, Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given conditional approval for the experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed by Taiwanese company 'Adimmune Corporation' to initiate the human clinical trial.

The indigenous COVID-19 vaccine, "AdimrSC-2f vaccine (COVID-19 S-protein)" was found Sunday by medical experts to be eligible to enter a phase 1 clinical trial, under controlled policies of FDA.

Chang Lien-cheng, the head of the Medicinal Products Division at the FDA, said the company must first look for 60 able-bodied and healthy individuals for the trial. For safety reasons, the people chosen will have to undergo toxicity testing before the COVID-19 trial, which is expected to take place at National Taiwan University Hospital".

The Ministry of Health and Welfare is still waiting on the company to provide additional technical data about the vaccine, and only after the data is received can the process begin, he said.

According to the health official, if things move forward as scheduled, the vaccine by Adimmune would likely be the first to enter a clinical trial in the country.

The company is expected to receive NT$200 million (US$6.8 million) in government subsidies for entering the first phase of clinical trials in late August, reported UDN. If it gets approval to begin Phase II before Dec. 31, the company will receive an additional NT$300 million.
Singapore will allow general travel to New Zealand and Brunei Darussalam from September, as the country eases its border control measures to take into account countries where the virus situation is under control.

Travelers from the two countries will undergo a Covid-19 test upon arrival instead of a stay-home notice, the Ministry of Health said in a statement on Friday. These changes will take effect from September 1, it said.

Here are further details of the easing of border restrictions:

For other low-risk places, Singapore will shorten the stay-home notice duration from the current 14 days to seven days, and allow travelers to serve this at their place of residence. These places are Australia (excluding Victoria State), Macao, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The Covid-19 test will continue to be administered before the end of the 7-day notice

All other incoming travelers will continue to serve their 14-day stay-home notice at dedicated facilities, and will be subject to a test before the end of the period

The country will also allow travel for students pursuing their education overseas, and where distance-learning is not offered as an option

Singapores border measures will evolve as the global situation changes," the health ministry said.

This announcement comes after Ong Ye Kung, the newly appointed transport minister, said last week that Singapore could consider opening its borders to tourists in an effort to attract more traffic into its once-bustling airport.

The Southeast Asian nation has been hard hit by the pandemic, given its tourism industry largely relies on international travelers to keep its shops and attractions humming. It welcomed just 3,800 visitors in the second quarter, the least on record, and its economy is heading for the worst contraction since independence.

The country this week announced additional support measures of S$8 billion ($5.8 billion) to cushion the blow from the coronavirus pandemic, extending wage subsidies and aiming to shore up the hard-hit aviation and hospitality sectors.

Malls, No Loud Music

Singapore has gradually restarted its economy since June and allowed limited social activities as the total number of new cases has fallen following partial lockdown measures implemented in April. Malls and restaurants have started filling up again as people go out to shop and dine.

Some popular malls or premises that face crowd management issues may have entry restrictions, while dining outlets will be allowed to play recorded music as soft background music only to prevent patrons from talking loudly and raising the risk of droplet spread, the health ministry said.

The city-state is negotiating with various companies over vaccine deals, Kenneth Mak, the health ministrys director of medical services, said at the briefing. Authorities will need to prioritize the vaccines availability to more vulnerable groups and front-line workers when it is ready, and hasnt made a decision on whether itll be mandatory for all.

The Southeast Asian country has recorded more than 56,000 confirmed cases of infection, with more than 90% of the total coming from migrant laborers living in tightly-spaced dormitories. The daily infection count has however been on a downward trend following the governments sweeping effort to test and clear that population of the virus.





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The Centre has shortlisted three firms for the construction of the long-pending strategic project of the construction of Zojila Tunnel in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, out of which Hyderabad-based infrastructure from Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) has emerged as the lowest bidder for the tender and is likely to be awarded the contract, according to officials aware of the development.

The governments nodal agency for the strategic project National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd had issued a fresh tender in June and opened the bids on July 24. Three firms L&T Construction, MEIL and railways PSU Ircon International Limited (IRCON) had been shortlisted by NHIDCL on Tuesday. Hindustan Times has reviewed a copy of the notification.

MEIL has emerged as the lowest bidder and is likely to be awarded but no official award letter has been issued yet, a senior official said requesting anonymity. According to the tender, generally, the lowest bidder shall be the selected bidder. HT has reviewed a copy of the tender.

The project which will be implemented in two sections involves the construction of a connecting road from Z-Morh Tunnel to Zojila Tunnel and a 14.150 km long bi-directional tunnel across Zojila Pass on the Sonamarg-Kargil section of NH-01 on Engineering, Procurement, Construction mode in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The completion period for the first section is 2.5 years and 6.5 years for the second section. The project has been estimated to cost 4429.83 crore.

The long-pending project has gone through many design changes. In its previous tender a parallel escape (egress) tunnel was also included earlier but has been done away with to reduce the cost of the project, another official said. The project got further delayed after it was stranded by IL&FS Transportation Network amid its financial crisis which was awarded in 2017.

The Zojila Tunnel for connecting Srinagar with Leh will be Asias longest 14.2 km long two-lane tunnel road and the strategically important tunnel is aimed to drastically reduce travel time from three and a half hours to just 15 minutes. The 14.2 km long road tunnel under Zoji La pass lies between Sonmarg and Drass town in Kargil district of the Indian Union Territory of Ladakh.

The tunnel was a strategic requirement for the armed forces given its proximity to the Line of Control.

MEIL has become an L-1 in the most prestigious Zoji-la pass tunnel in Jammu Kashmir-Ladakh in Himalayan region. National Highways and Industrial Development Corporation (NHIDCL) has opened the bids on Friday, and MEIL topped the list by quoting less than other companies. MEIL topped as L-1 by quoting a lesser amount than the other two companies. On July 30, three companies submitted the bids to NHIDCL, and the finance bids opened on August 21. The project to be constructed in 2 divisions in two sections of about 33 kilometres, MEIL said in a statement on Friday.

The road from Srinagar to Leh in Ladakh is not suitable for vehicular traffic throughout the year. The Srinagar-Ladakh highway is completely closed for six months, especially during the winter season. Even the military vehicles are unable to move under these conditions. Travelling long distances on alternate routes has become a costly affair and a waste of time. Under these circumstances, the road tunnel was proposed between Sonmarg to Leh and Ladakh via Kargil long back, it added.
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The CNG vehicles market is likely to witness propulsion in growth owing to the rising awareness towards the hazardous effects of the use of conventional energy sources to the environment. This is fueling the demand for clean energy-based vehicles for environment-friendly transit options, driving exponential growth to the CNG vehicles market. The global CNG vehicles market is anticipated to expand at a 5.96% CAGR during the review period, as stated in the latest MRFR report. Further, rising prices of conventional fuels such as petrol and diesel are pivoting the consumers to adopt CNG vehicles. Additionally, supportive government initiatives are pushing the general public to opt for CNG-based vehicles, instead of vehicles operating on petrol or diesel. Tough regulations laid out by the government towards the emission of pollutants from automobiles is also expected to drive the CNG vehicles market as CNG-based vehicles have the lowest carbon emissions among all types of vehicles.

ALSO READ

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/04/02/1795173/0/en/CNG-Vehicles-Market-Forecast-by-Product-Type-Applications-and-Region-Adoption-of-Clean-Technology-Likely-to-Expand-CNG-Vehicles-Industry-Size-by-2025.html

Segmental Analysis

The global CNG vehicles market is segmented by product type, application, and region. Based on product type, the market is segmented into OEM and car modification. The car modification market segment held for the largest CNG vehicles market share in 2017 and is likely to retain the same during the forecast period. The car modifications segment is also expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period.

On the basis of application, the CNG vehicles market is segmented into personal use and commercial use. Both personal and commercial segments are witnessing proliferated demand due to the extensive range of products in the CNG conversion kit for cars, trucks, as well as buses. The personal use segment is assessed to be the fastest to grow during the forecast period. Additionally, the personal use segment is also projected to hold the largest share in the CNG vehicles market. A rise in the affordability of CNG vehicles and an increasing number of refueling CNG stations are also contributing majorly to the augmentation of the personal use segment.

Detailed Regional Analysis

Europe, North America, Asia Pacific (APAC), and the Rest of the World (RoW) are the regional segments based on which the MRFR report has been prepared. Rest of the World (RoW) is anticipated to account for 46% of the global CNG vehicles market. The government authorities of many economies comprised in the RoW have introduced policies such as tax reduction, affordable pricing, subsidies, and stringent emission regulations, hence, promoting growth in the CNG vehicles market. South Africa, Thailand, Egypt, Iraq, Columbia, Brazil, Iran, Pakistan, and Argentina are significant contributors in the CNG market in the RoW. Iran has made a dual fuel capacity in all cars compulsory, promoting the usage of CNG vehicles over conventional vehicles. Whereas, Dubai and Saudi Arabia are also witnessing numerous activities creating awareness of the advantages of CNG vehicles, hence, propelling the growth in the CNG vehicles market.

China is projected to witness substantial growth during the assessment period and holds 18% of the global CNG vehicles market share. Also, Japan is anticipated to showcase potential growth opportunities for CNG vehicles owing to the presence of many prominent CNG automobile manufacturers such as Honda, Suzuki, Toyota, and Nissan.

Market Players

The noteworthy players in the CNG vehicle market as profiled by MRFR include Daimler AG, General Motors, Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Renault, Ford Motor Company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Toyota Motor Corporation, Hyundai Motor Company, Groupe PSA, Volvo Group, Suzuki Motor Corporation, and Volkswagen Group.

Industry Updates

February 27, 2019: Kwik Trip is likely to be a primary dispenser of renewable natural gas (RNG) which was produced at the Wisconsin countys landfill biogas project once it is completed during 2019.

February 12, 2019: ECO-GATE introduced the ECO-G brand, which is designed to rename the natural gas used for CNG vehicles. ECO-GATE is a European consortium led by NEDGIA (Naturgy groups gas distributor) and co-financed by the European Union.

FOR MORE DETAILS

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cng-vehicles-market-6497
It was the most violent incident in Basra since mass anti-government demonstrations in October, when tens of thousands took to the streets in Baghdad and across the south to decry government corruption. Protests also erupted in Basra in the summer of 2018.
The cost of flights to Portugal have soared but hotels have slashed prices as Britons plan a late summer getaway now the country is back on the UK's 'green list'.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced yesterday that quarantine will not be required on return to the UK from Portugal, leaving travel companies expecting a surge in bookings over the coming days.

The country is traditionally one of British holidaymakers' most popular destinations, attracting 2.1 million visitors a year, but has been banned during the lockdown.

However, with the doors opened and a Bank Holiday at the end of the month, airlines are looking to take advantage of soaring demand.

It comes amid another dash in the other direction, with an estimated 20,000 Britons in Croatia scrambling to get home with just hours before the new 14-day quarantine rules come into effect at 4am tomorrow.

Aviation data analysts Cirium reported that there were 719 flights between the UK and Portugal before pupils return to school next month, with a total seat capacity of nearly 128,000, but Jet2 announced today it was putting on additional flights with thousands of extra seats to meet the surge in interest in trips to Portugal.

Average fare prices to Faro - the airport used by holidaymakers heading to the Algarve - rocketed from just 35 to 190 in the hours after Mr Shapps' announcement yesterday.

Flights to Portugal have risen sixfold, but hotels have slashed prices as Britons plan a late summer getaway now the country is back on the UK's 'green list'

No flights? How to travel home from Croatia by train British holidaymakers in Croatia are limited in their options for getting home to beat the quarantine with very few direct flights available on Friday. They could book a flight with a stopover on the way back to the UK, but that means a journey time more akin to a transatlantic jaunt than a short-haul European getaway. But those who do not mind a long trek could opt to shun planes altogether and travel the whole way home via the railways. A quick search online will bring up possible routes, timetables and prices, so there could well be a number of Britons unexpectedly discovering parts of Europe by train over the coming hours. One potential option, taking around 20 hours, is to board a train in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, and travel through Villach and Salzburg in Austria, Munich in Germany, and on to Paris to catch the Eurostar to London. Another option would be to leave Zagreb and travel to London via Brussels. There is also the possibility of leaving Croatia and travelling through part of northern Italy - Trieste, Venice and Milan - and on to the French capital before the final leg of the journey across the Channel to London. With train journeys from Zagreb to London taking in the region of 20 to 25 hours, holidaymakers would need to have set out on their European railway adventure by now to guarantee being home by 4am on Saturday. Advertisement

One website showed a BA flight fare from London to Faro had jumped from 90 to 580 - with a claim it had been reduced from 594 - in a day.

Google searches by MailOnline also showed one BA round trip from London to Faro, leaving this Saturday - the day the quarantine rule is lifted for Portugal - and returning next Saturday - costing 1,069.

Prices from London to Faro have also spiked for travel this Sunday, while flights to Lisbon, another popular city break destination, have also rocketed since the announcement, from around 55 to 185, according to Google.

One exasperated holiday-hopeful said on Twitter: 'And instantly the holidays prices go up to Portugal!'

In a bid to meet growing demand, Jet2 said today it had put on extra flights to the country from Birmingham, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, London Stansted and Manchester.

Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said: 'Customers are responding to the welcome change in government advice by booking their much-needed holidays in the Portuguese sunshine, and we are responding to that by adding more flights and seats.

'We want our customers to enjoy their well-deserved holidays, and our decision to act quickly and add even more capacity to Faro ensures they will have plenty of choice.

'With flights and holidays operating to Faro, in addition to Madeira, we are thrilled to be offering customers two fantastic options in Portugal when they're looking to book their well-deserved holiday away from the gloom.

'With a fantastic choice of flights and holidays, not to mention fantastic deals and free child places available, those looking to get away can take advantage of great choice and value.

'We have been busy looking after customers and independent travel agents during these uncertain times.

'As a result of this, customers know they can trust us deliver and that's our absolute focus for everyone travelling with us  delivering our award-winning customer service and package holidays you can trust.'

However, Portuguese hotel companies, desperate to fill rooms after a summer of lost takings, have kept prices low in a bid to attract sun-seeking tourists.

Only 32.6 per cent of the Algarve's hotel rooms were booked last month, the worst rate ever for the month of July, according to data seen by the Telegraph.

One hotel in Madeira is available for 90 a night next week, but typically costs between 91 and 146 for similar dates.

Likewise, another is going for just 84 a night, compared to between 121 and 151.

Travel expert Simon Calder told Good Morning Britain that prices for flights from Croatia to Britain are now 'going through the roof' as people scramble to get home.

The cheapest direct service from Zagreb to Heathrow today was 286 on British Airways, while a Croatia Airlines flight between the two airports was 496.

The cheapest flight with a change that would get back before 4am tomorrow is 230 with Eurowings, via Stuttgart. There are also KLM flights via Amsterdam, but this would involve quarantining - with the Netherlands already off the air bridges list.

A British mother holidaying in Croatia said today she would not cut short her trip despite the new quarantine forcing her son to miss his first week of school.

Jennie Dock's 11-year-old son Cass Robertson-Dock will be in self-isolation when his new school starts back, after Croatia was removed from the UK's list of air bridges.

But Ms Dock, who is on holiday with friend Elle Mitchell, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'We're both lucky in that we can both work from home, both work remotely.

'Cass was year six last year, so he did manage to get in for around six weeks or so at the end, which he really enjoyed. So, yeah, it's unfortunate he's going to miss the first week, but he's a bright boy and he'll catch up, I'm not worried about it.'

British Airways has laid on an extra flight from Zagreb to London Heathrow with seats costing 275.

This is more than six times higher than the BA equivalent flight on the Friday four weeks from now, which currently costs only 42. An equivalent flight on the Friday two weeks from now is only 45.

Mr Calder urged people looking at flights with changes to avoid going via Paris or Amsterdam because they would also then have to quarantine.

Despite the easing of some restrictions, industry leaders warned of dark times ahead.

Average fare prices to Faro - the airport used by holidaymakers heading to the Algarve - rocketed from just 35 to 190 in the hours after the announcement was made by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today. Pictured: A Google price chart showing how prices on flights to Faro on Sunday have rocketed today

Flights from London to Lisbon on Saturday have also rocketed, from around 50 to 181

Yorkshire couple pay 800 to travel home from northern Croatia via Munich to beat the quarantine deadline Liam and Jodie, a couple from Keighley, West Yorkshire, paid about 800 to travel home from northern Croatia via Munich, in order to beat the quarantine deadline, after finding it impossible to book a direct flight in time. Liam and Jodie from Keighley, West Yorkshire, who are travelling home from Croatia via Munich to avoid the quarantine 'There wasn't an alternative. There are no flights from Pula to the UK on Fridays, only a flight from Zagreb to London runs, but obviously that was fully booked,' Liam said. 'The only (other) flights available were with stops in Spain through Ryanair, but then we would have to quarantine anyway,' he added. Liam, a mechanical assembly engineer, said he had started a new job recently so 'didn't want to miss another two weeks work'. He added that they had tried to make the most of their trip despite 'the distraction of not knowing what's going to happen', and were treating their visit to Munich as a 'city break we got as an extra'. Advertisement

Christopher Snelling of the Airport Operators' Association said: 'The removal of the quarantine for Portugal is welcome, but the re-introduction of blanket quarantine measures to a further tranche of nations reinforces the significant and continuing challenge facing the aviation industry.

'Our airports are facing pressures that were unimaginable six months ago and the Government must work urgently with the industry to introduce regional travel corridors to low-risk areas and agree financial measures that support our airports, who have already lost over 2billion since the start of the pandemic.'

Portugal has seen the number of coronavirus cases drop by 45 per cent over the past month, with 14.4 cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days - well below the government's threshold of 20 cases.

It comes as Mr Shapps warned holidaymakers to 'only travel if you content to unexpectedly quarantine', after he himself was caught out, as Austria, Croatia and Trinidad were added to Britain's no-go list.

Referencing his own experience, in which he was left facing a two week quarantine when his department suddenly added Spain to the quarantine list in July, Mr Shapps warned any air bridge could be axed at short notice.

In a tweet in which he announced Croatia, Austria and Trinidad would be added to the Government's 'red list', and Portugal taken off, Mr Shapps said: 'Data shows we need to remove Croatia, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago from our list of #coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN.

'If you arrive in the UK after 0400 Saturday from these destinations, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days.

'Data also shows we can now add Portugal to those countries INCLUDED in Travel Corridors.

'As with all air bridge countries, please be aware that things can change quickly. Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required (I speak from experience!)'

Portuguese travel chiefs welcomed the move yesterday as 'useful for all those who travel between Portugal and the United Kingdom'.

In a tweet, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Portugal, said: 'This decision is proof of the good outcome of intense bilateral work.

'It allowed for an understanding that the situation in the country has always been under control, with Portugal standing as one of the European countries with more tests, fewer deaths and fewer hospitalisations.'

Meanwhile, consumer group Which? said the change in rules for Portugal was 'likely to come too late to help many struggling holiday companies'.

Holiday firm Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said it will resume its flights and holidays programme to Faro, in Portugal's Algarve, from Monday

Which? Travel editor Rory Boland told the BBC that the government had 'now made it clear that countries can be removed or added from the travel corridor list at a moment's notice'.

He said: 'That policy currently makes it too risky for anyone who is not able to quarantine for 14 days on return to travel anywhere abroad.

'Yet, those holidaymakers who want to heed the government warning to not undertake non-essential travel to Spain, France and now Croatia and Austria are finding it increasingly difficult to claim a refund.

He added: 'The addition of Portugal is likely to come too late to help many struggling holiday companies who are at the point of collapse, as summer trips have already been cancelled.'

Following the announcement, holiday firm Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said it will resume its flights and holidays programme to Faro, in Portugal's Algarve, from Monday.

Air passengers arrive at London Heathrow Airport this morning wearing face masks

A sign at Heathrow today warns about self-isolating if they have visited a certain country

Passengers push their luggage through the arrivals at London Heathrow Airport this morning

People wait for planes at Split Airport in Croatia yesterday as they try to get home quickly

Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago were added to the 'red' list due to rising numbers of Covid cases.

Croatia's total over seven days  a metric closely watched by Downing Street  has risen to 27.4 per 100,000 people.

Britons who arrive back in the UK after the 4am deadline will have to spend 14 days under stricter measures than many faced in lockdown, as they are not even allowed to go outside for exercise or food shopping.

Croatia's ambassador to the UK has said it is 'a regret' that the UK Government did not implement regional quarantine rules rather than removing the entire country from its quarantine exemption list.

Igor Pokaz told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'What we are trying to do in our constant dialogue with the British Government on this particular measure of quarantine is to somehow see whether it would be possible, something that other countries do, to have a more nuanced approach.

'So we regret that it was not possible for the UK Government to consider a regional approach, because in Croatia we have, as I said, witnessed these spikes in certain areas - for example in Zagreb in the capital and maybe among the young population.

'But in Dubrovnik, its surroundings and the islands there were very, very few cases. And I deliberately mention Dubrovnik and the islands as that is where most of the British tourists go.

'And Dubrovnik has its own international airport and is naturally secluded from the rest of the country.

'Germany, as I said, has introduced this model, and has introduced measures for only two of the Croatian counties and we have 20 counties in Croatia.'
Many people here are more informed because they have relatives abroad, and we have a way to see how people can protest peacefully, said Ms. Pochebyt, who came to the citys main Orthodox cathedral on Thursday to commemorate victims of police brutality.

Whether or not fear keeps most protesters off the streets this weekend, and prevents factory workers from walking off the job, could prove decisive for Mr. Lukashenkos fate. Some estimates put last Sundays crowds in Minsk, the capital, calling for the presidents departure at more than 200,000  the biggest protests in the countrys post-Soviet history.

Sergei S. Demenko, a roofer with a state-run construction company in Grodno, said that many of his colleagues were only doing the minimum amount of work in a form of protest, but that the pressure against them was getting stronger.

Standing in front of a police car announcing that protesters in the central square Thursday evening must disperse, Mr. Demenko was fuming. He said that many of his friends had gone to work in neighboring Poland, earning more money there and enjoying a freer life. Despite working all the time, he still lived in a dormitory.

I am paying taxes, I have rights  why can I not come out to express my opinion? asked Mr. Demenko, 35, adding that after a few days without arrests, some of his most active colleagues had been detained the previous night. Why is it that they have the law applied to us regular folks, but they violate it themselves all the time?
The Twifo Praso District Hospital in the Central Region will be ready for use by the close of September this year, engineers at the site have said.

They said that would pave the way for commissioning  the testing of equipment and facilities  before it would be eventually inaugurated in October.



Engineers working on the 60-bed facility, who briefed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo when he visited the project site yesterday, said work was 90 per cent complete, with the remaining 10 per cent composed largely of fittings and the installation of equipment.



The Resident Engineer, Mr Ahmed Ali, and the Equipment Manager, Mr Maged Nour, said they did not expect any hitches to delay the completion schedule.



Tour



The two officials of the project contractor, Euroget De-Invest, took the President round the site as he toured the facility as part of his working visit to the Central Region.



Also present were the chiefs and traditional leaders of Twifo Praso.



The President was accompanied by some ministers of state, including the Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, and the Central Regional Minister, Mr Kwamena Duncan, as well as some NPP stalwarts, and his presence in the town attracted an impressive crowd to the official assignment.



Inspection



The President inspected the various components of the ongoing project, notably the physical infrastructure, equipment, layout and general environment.



The hospital comes alive at a time when the government has stated a plan to construct similar edifices in 88 other districts and at least eight others in eight regional capitals to expand and extend healthcare delivery across the country.



An aerial view of the hospital



It is the first time that a health facility of that size and standard has reached that corner of Ghana.





It will offer the people a few 'luxuries' in a mini market, laundry services, kitchen services, a dining hall and a housing block for lactating mothers.



All these are part of the standard complementary facilities that include two high-tech power plants to ensure an uninterrupted power supply, an ambulance station for emergency services, treatment plants for sewage and medical waste and a water treatment and supply system.



It is one of nine hospital projects awarded to Euroget De-Invest, an Egyptian investment company, to be constructed in different parts of the country.



The company has already delivered the Wa Regional Hospital in the Upper West Region and the Ga East Municipal Hospital in Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region, which has become the foremost facility for the treatment and management of Ghana's COVID-19 cases.



The Twifo Praso District Hospital will become the third to be delivered by the contractor.

Source: Graphiconline.com









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SHANGHAI, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2020 / Recently, the first offline meeting of Huawei Ascend AI Startup Incubation Program was held at Hangzhou Research Institute of Huawei. A total of 8 Chinese AI startups participated in the meeting, and 4 of them obtained the eligibility for incubation. As an unmanned retail startup in China, Cloudpick has managed to join the incubation program based on its excellent commercial results in recent years, and will commence further cooperation with Huawei to jointly explore future development opportunities in the global market.

Founded in 2017, Cloudpick is a smart retail solution provider based on computer vision, providing offline brick-and-mortar retail stores with smart store solutions, delivering the grab-and-go shopping experience to customers that does not need to queue for checkout. In addition to providing consumers with a convenient shopping experience, the computer vision system installed in the store can also quickly identify static tags such as customer identities and social attributes, and build dynamic tags such as brand preferences and purchasing power based on previous shopping trajectories and consumption records, offering pivotal historical reference for future operation.

Following the cooperation with Huawei, Cloudpick will receive training, development support and other technical support as well as global marketing support from Huawei. In the process, Cloudpick will witness in-depth integration with Atlas, an artificial intelligence computing platform applying AI processor of Huawei Ascend series, bolstering offline retail stores to complete data collection and data analysis projects for business decision-making.

It is reported that Huawei and Cloudpick has a history of cooperation for more than 3 years previously. At the conference of the third HUAWEI CONNECT in 2018, "Huawei Cloud  Cloudpick Unmanned Convenience Store" showed visitors a black-tech artificial intelligence convenience store with an unmanned cashier and automatic mobile payment in response to Huawei Cloud accelerating "+AI" in various industries. In 2019, at the conference of the HUAWEI CLOUD Summit Singapore themed "+AI, Grow with Intelligence", Huawei signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with a number of companies including Cloudpick to deepen mutual cooperation and development in cloud computing and AI applications.

The commercial launch of Cloudpick is extremely rapid. Since its establishment in 2017, it has launched various unmanned stores in Asia, North America and beyond. In the future, Cloudpick's non-inductive payment system will also serve as a data portal to help traditional retail stores collect real-time user portraits, consumer shopping behaviors, transaction information and other full-dimensional business data. Through the Cloudpick++ data engine, it can cut to personalized experience, digital decision-making and other operation scenarios, optimizing more retail links.

Medic Contact

Cloudpick

Jacky Peng

info@cloudpick.com

Phone:400 060 9811

http://www.cloudpick.com/

SOURCE: Cloudpick

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602713/Huawei-Ascend-Boosts-AI-Startups-to-Take-off-Cloudpick-and-Huawei-reached-a-strategic-cooperation-to-explore-the-infinite-possibilities-of-industry-AI
Virtual interaction has become the new norm, be it at work or otherwise. Empowering businesses and leaders to adapt to the new ways of working and communicating, Panasonic India brings its Home Office Solutions, powered by Lumix to enable a more life-like interface. Compatible with Lumix G9 and G95 camera range, the Home Office Solution extends the highest standard of live streaming and 4K video quality that supports leaders to effortlessly connect and communicate with clients and employees for a more personalized and interactive experience.

Talking about his experience with the new solution, Mr. Manish Sharma, President & CEO, Panasonic India and South Asia said, The current times have transformed the way we live, work and do business. And no doubt that technology has powered efficient communication between all of us. However, with long virtual meetings on the rise, there is a need for more sustainable ways to fulfill professional commitments without compromising on ones health and body posture. Being a user of this solution at home and office, it has truly made my internal and external interactions a lot more engaging, life-like, and connected.

Easy to connect, the solution further assists to minimize time lags when interacting with multiple people at once and allows free movement during long hour meetings with its wide-angle view, both at home and office spaces. It also lets users record live streaming sessions for later use.

Elaborating on the solution, Mr. Sandeep Sehgal, Business Chief, Imaging Business Group, Panasonic India & SAARC, said, Our focus has always been to anticipate industry needs and introduce solutions that are a blend of quality and value. Through this Home Office Solution, we wanted to bring the power of video in everyday collaboration by offering not only a high-video quality camera by Lumix but a complete solution that helps business leaders to enhance their communication  be it for business discussions, group webinars, employee town halls, addressing live events, etc. Being a plug and stream model, the solution can be easily installed at home or office spaces.

The compact Home Office set-up includes; Lumix G9/G95, a tripod, USB power adapter, and HDMI connector and starts at INR 99,990 with Lumix G-95. The solution is available across all Lumix 4K centres and on panasoniclumix.in/G9.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 15:45 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f93939 4 National National-Police,extortion,Tourist,Japan,Jembrana-Police,traffic-violation,tilang Free

The National Police have said that they have punished two officers who reportedly extorted a Japanese tourist for Rp 1 million (US$ 67.93) over a traffic violation in an incident that took place in Jembrana, Bali, in 2019.

The police have taken strict action against the police officers, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Argo Yuwono said as quoted by kompas.com on Friday, without providing further details on the punishment.

He confirmed the extortion occurred and offered a public apology, while also encouraging the public to file a report if they go through a similar experience or hear about such incidents.

Read also: Tourists flock to Bali after ban lifted

Previously, Jembrana Police chief Sr. Comm. Ketut Gede Adi Wibawa said two of his officers were involved in a case of extortion. The officers admitted to having committed the misconduct, he added.

The police said they were investigating the case to find out the perpetrators intentions and their respective roles.

We are still investigating the case. They had confessed to their actions. However, we are still figuring out what they were going to do with the money, Wibawa said. (dpk)
After moving the date to adhere to the pandemic and subsequent shelter orders, Home to Stay Housing Assistance Center is moving its annual House to Home fundraiser online.

The virtual fundraiser will take place next Thursday, Aug. 27, with two Facebook live events from noon to 1 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m. During the sessions, attendees will learn more about the organization, bid on auction items, make monetary donations and watch videos made by guests like Honorary Chairs Marsha and Jim Stamas.

Auction items include things such as painted Adirondack chairs, cornhole sets, birdhouses, kayak trips and more.

In addition, beverage and cheese pairings are available for purchase ahead of time at Eastman Party Store to enjoy during the sessions. Call the store to order your pairing. Options are listed at the end of this article.

Tickets are no longer necessary for attendance, though the organization is asking for donations to reach their fundraising goal of $100,000. The funds will help support the organizations mission, which is to help Midland County residents sustain stable housing and support self-sufficiency.

As Board Member and Fundraising Committee Chair Kayla Susko pointed out, Home To Stay has been busier than ever carrying out its mission due to the coronavirus pandemic and recent flooding. She said theyve taken on additional programs such as partnering with local organizations to spearhead eviction diversion, and working with United Way and Midland Area Community Foundation for flood relief case management.

So, the organization as a whole has taken on significantly more responsibilities this year and then we also still have the people who weren't impacted by COVID and impacted by the flood, that are in need, Susko said. So, I would say even though weve seen such an outpouring of support from the community, there is still that gap that were hoping to fill through the fundraiser.

To donate, a PayPal link is available at www.myhometostay.org/annual-fundraiser and Susko said they will be using a platform called OneCause for bidding and donations during the live events.

Beer and wine options for pairings:

 Founders Brewing Solid Gold: Their take on a classic, Solid Gold is a drinkable premium lager brewed with quality ingredients. Try pairing with Artikaas Double Cream Gouda.

 Grand Armory Wheezin the Juice: A juicy IPA that is dry hopped with predominately Citra and Mosaic hops. Refreshingly citrusy and perfect for warm weather! Try pairing with Milton Farms Prairie Breeze.

 Chateau Briot Bordeaux Blanc: This 100% Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, bright wine with plenty of acidity that contrasts with the green-apple flavors. The light texture and touch of minerality give an edge to this wine. Try pairing with Milton Farms Prairie Breeze.

 Colossal Reserva: One of Portugal's most famous winemakers Jose Neiva Correia crafts Colossal, a blend of Touriga Nacional, Syrah, Tempranillo (Tinto Roriz), and Alicante Bouschet. Try pairing with Artikaas Double Cream Gouda.

Cheese Options:

 Milton Farms Prairie Breeze: Prairie Breeze is a twist on a well-aged white Cheddar style cheese, aged for a minimum of 9 month, made with Vegetarian Rennet and no added color.

 Artikaas Double Cream Gouda: Youngsters is a double cream Gouda from the Netherlands. This cheese is extra creamy with over 60% milkfat.
JHARSUGUDA: A 68-year-old British national has been arrested by the Odisha Police for allegedly sexually abusing a minor boy at a shelter home he ran in the state's western district of Jharsuguda.

The accused, identified as John Patrick Bridge, ran a child shelter home in the Cox Colony area of Jharsuguda, where he provided education to tribal students. He was arrested following a complaint by the minor boy about Bridge sexually abusing him.

"The person has been accused of sexual abuse of a child in the institution he was running. During the investigation, the person has been arrested and has been sent to court, the further probe is underway," Superintendent of Police (SP) Rahul PR told ANI.

A New Zeland-based NGO had given a complaint against the British man regarding misuse of their fund and police was inquiring about the matter. The incident came to fore during a funds misuse probe.

During the inquiry, the minor has alleged that Bridge had sexually assaulted him when he was returning with the British national from his home in Rayagada district last year. Acting on the complaint, the police arrested Bridge and further investigations are underway.
The Gone Game

Director - Nikhil Nagesh Bhat

Cast - Sanjay Kapoor, Shweta Tripathi, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Arjun Mathur, Rukhsar Rehman, Dibyendu Bhattacharya

While some of the most high-profile film projects languish in limbo, both in India and abroad, the coronavirus pandemic has allowed for a new sub-genre of streaming to emerge. Regardless of their quality, these films and shows will serve as a nifty time capsule in the years to come, and a reminder that even in the face of extraordinary odds, storytellers continued doing what they do best.

The Gone Game, a four-part series out on the streamer Voot, isnt the best example of quarantine content, but the paranoia and unease in the air certainly lends itself well to the shows Hitchcockian plot.

Watch The Gone Game trailer here

Director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat sets his locked-room murder mystery in the early days of the pandemic. Our story begins in March, back when people were making dalgona coffee and banging thaalis in the hope that everything would soon get back to normal. It hasnt. You can see the relative innocence in the Gujrals eyes when they debate, over video conference, whether or not to participate in the janta curfew that was conducted in March.

While Amara (Shweta Tripathi) and her mother, Suneeta (Rukhsar Rehman), are quite looking forward to participating in the nationwide gesture of support for frontline workers, Amaras brother Sahil (Arjun Mathur) scoffs at the idea. Not only does he think its a waste of time, he has more concerning matters on his mind. Sahil returned from Bangkok recently, and after having evaded the mandatory test at the airport, quarantined himself in his bedroom, convinced that hes been infected.

His wife, a social media influencer named Suhani (Shriya Pilgaonkar), is forced to sleep in the guest room. They are the only two characters who are in the same house. Everyone else, through a stroke of bad luck, is stranded alone, as so many of us were when the lockdown was announced by the government with just four hours notice.

When Sahil succumbs to the virus at the end of episode one  dont worry, this isnt a spoiler, but rather the central premise of the story, which appears to be a cross between Hitchcockss The Lady Vanishes and Finchers Gone Girl  the family is stunned. They arent even able to attend his funeral. But when the hospital tells Amara that Sahil had never been admitted at all, she is convinced that something sinister is afoot, and that her brother might not really be dead.

Shot with the assistance of minimal crews at the actors homes, The Gone Game, on occasion, finds it difficult to escape its rather slapdash style. It feels like something that was put together only weeks ago. But it really cant be held to the same standards as regular programming. While its screenplay certainly couldve used another couple of passes  the transitions are abrupt and the performances not tonally aligned  it never lags, which might be just enough for its audience.

I wish that it had the restraint to be more lean. Throwing in a couple of unnecessary subplots  one involves a goon and the other infidelity  only adds to the noise. But by introducing so many strands, Bhat routinely ends up tying himself into knots. And to disentangle the storylines, he is forced to rely on contrivances. Amara conveniently happens to know a hacker, while her father Rajeev (played by Sanjay Kapoor), is especially well-connected, and manages to bribe his way through more than a handful of tough situations.

Unlike the terrific thriller Searching and the recent quarantine horror film Host, both of which restricted all action to within computer screens, thereby ramping up the tension and claustrophobia, The Gone Game uses this technique sparingly. The ratio of conventionally shot scenes, Id estimate, is probably 50-50. But the show taps into the idea of isolation rather well. The restrictions leave little room for flamboyance but they encourage invention.

Aided by a groovy jazz-inspired score that regularly enters the ring when the screenplay runs out of steam, The Gone Game is an effective attempt at experimental cinema. Its reach often exceeds its grasp, but thats OK.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

The author tweets @RohanNaahar
Beijing (Gasgoo)- The sales of the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV exceeded 15,000 units within only 20 days after it hit the market at the Chengdu Motor Show that kicked off on July 24, the first mini-sized EV model whose sales reach 10,000 milestone in such a short time. Actually, its first-week sales were up to 7,346. Besides, the EVs cumulative orders have surpassed 50,000.

With three variants, the models price ranges from only 28,800 yuan ($4,112) to 38,800 yuan ($5,540). With dimensions of 2,917mm long, 1,493mm wide and 1,621 tall and a wheelbase of 1,940mm, the Hongguang MINI EV is positioned as a four-seater mini-sized car and has a NEDC-rated range of 170km or 120km, which is suitable for daily trips, such as commuting to work or going shopping.

On August 12, Wuling said that it expects to set up around 100 experience stores across the country, most of which will be located downtown with heavy traffic. When young customers are shopping, they can also enter into the fashionable experience stores to learn more about the brands EV products.

Whats more, it is reported that the MINI EV will be on sale in foreign markets in the future, to offer global young customers new options.
Russias Cabinet backs bill on more precise definition of term official in Criminal Code

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

13:01 21/08/2020

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  The Government of the Russian Federation has approved a bill more precisely defining the term official in the provisions of the national Criminal Code on abuse of authority and abuse of office, according to a statement of the Justice Ministry responsible for the development of respective amendments.

The bill is to be submitted to the State Duma, the lower house of Russias Parliament, under the standard procedure.

The document envisages that the list of officials indicated in a Criminal Code provision on crimes against the public order, as well as interests of state and municipal service, is to additionally encompass heads of business entities and companies, public not-for-profit organizations, and state non-budgetary funds.

The business entities mentioned in the bill are to include structures partially run by the state represented by the Russian Federation, subjects of the Russian Federation, or local governments, where the state party has the right to directly or indirectly exercise more than 50% of the votes, or appoint a single-person executive body and (or) more than 50% of the members of a corporate board.

Companies are to include the structures, where the state party has the special right to participate in the management.

The document is to ensure that the officials as defined in the document undergo just punishments proportional to the committed offences and to make more efficient combat against corruption, the statement reads.

The bill has been developed in furtherance of the National Anticorruption Plan for years 2018  2020.
A new restaurant is bringing traditional Mexican street style tacos to The Heights.

The Taco Stand from the team behind The Burger Joint, chef Matthew Pak and Shawn Bermudez, will launch at 2018 N. Shepherd Dr. this fall, according to a Friday release.

On CHRON.COM: BCK restaurant reopens with mini donuts, boozy milkshakes

Offerings will include pastor, barbacoa, lengua, carnitas and vegan tacos, all served with onions and cilantro on house-made corn and flour tortillas.

The Taco Stand will also serve breakfast tacos and frozen margaritas.

Chef Pak traveled to Mexico City and Los Angeles to research the menu. I love the culture (of Mexico), and traditional Mexican cuisine is my favorite food, he said in the release.

Construction has begun on the 2,000 square foot space, including a drive-thru, according to the release.
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Anti-riot police on Friday stopped a demonstration over the alleged mismanagement of coronavirus procurement processes, Activists, led by Haki Africa's Hussein Khalid, were tear-gassed as police stopped them from proceeding to the Central Business District
I pick up the trail of the Great Western Railway line, built in 1857, that connected Galt, Preston and Hespeler to Guelph, as described last week by rych mills. Railways not only connected existing towns but sometimes prompted the creation of new ones, as was the case with the village of Gourock in Guelph Township.

Gourock appears to have been the brainchild of James Mewhort, who immigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1851, settling in 1857 along the Waterloo Road (now Highway 124) just a few kilometres west of Guelph. In addition to his general goods store, Mewhort added a post office, which he named after a small seaside town back in Scotland.

Perhaps not by coincidence, Gourock was located where the new railway nearly touches the road. Local residents wished for the day when they could access the trains along the route directly, instead of through stations in Hespeler or Guelph. In 1881, the railway granted their wish and established a flag stop in Gourock. Residents could then flag down the train where they lived and buy tickets with their stop as the destination.

Local farmers could ship and receive their goods and produce right in their own locale. Outsiders could visit Gourock on special occasions, such as raspberry-picking expeditions to the great patch in Howitts bush during raspberry season.

Yet with the convenience of railways comes danger. Gourock was the site of a particularly bad collision on Sept. 22, 1906. Around 6 oclock that morning, the fruit special from Niagara passed through the Hespeler Grand Trunk Railway station, the Grand Trunk having absorbed the Great Western in the early 1880s. The train was quite late and should have shunted to a siding to make way for the No. 44 train from Guelph, which had left the Royal City on schedule headed to Galt. When the fruit special ran through Hespeler without diverting, the dispatcher in St. Thomas realized that a collision was imminent and, not able to communicate with either train, telegraphed to Guelph to send doctors and to Stratford to send a cleanup crew.

The morning was foggy, so neither engineer saw the other train until they were only two car-lengths apart at the bend at Gourock. Both crews instinctively leapt for their lives. It would be hard to image the sound of twisting metal and screaming jets of steam as the two locomotives crashed at the bend.

Engineer Thomas Farley of the No. 44 had activated his brakes and was crushed to death in the collision. On the fruit special, engineer Mark Reid and brakeman Harry Andrews were both badly scalded while fireman Cecil Bright soon succumbed to internal injuries. As the locomotives had absorbed most of the impact, passengers on board the No. 44 were not severely injured.

Naturally, the wreck drew a large crowd to Gourock and several local shutterbugs recorded the scene. Old-timers in the area can vividly remember oranges from the fruit train being strewn everywhere, wrote Donald Coulman in 1977. Even today, local farmers plowing their crop fields occasionally dig up remnants of this wreck.

A coroners inquiry laid blame on engineer Reid and conductor Joseph Thompson of the fruit special for not diverting to the siding, as required by the Grand Trunk. However, the jury also blamed the railway for having Thompson work for several days on end with only a few hours sleep and for not having a night operator at Hespeler to see that safety procedures were followed.

Events soon overtook Gourock. The post office was closed in 1913 after mail delivery was centralized to Guelph. This closure robbed the community of its centre. By 1920, the railway had discontinued the flag stop. Adoption of cars and trucks, along with road paving, made it easier for locals to get to town conveniently, and interest in the train stop declined.

Today, the train line from Hespeler to Guelph remains, but the community of Gourock has receded into history.

More details at guelphpostcards.blogspot.ca.
Friday, August 21, 2020 at 1:20PM

Remote work is becoming an essential part of living in 2020. And you'll need a machine that can keep up with you. Dell is hoping the new Latitude 7410 Chromebook Enterprise can help you achieve your work goals. With a starting price of $2,547.18, the Latitude 7410 is a 14-inch premium business laptop/2-in-1 with "innovative" security features, allowing companies to quickly secure, deploy, and manage these devices no matter where their employees are working.

It features Dell's first-ever 4K panel with Low Blue Light tech on a Chromebook Enterprise, promising better readability and eye comfort. And with narrow four-sided borders, there's more screen real estate to work with. Dell pairs this with acoustic noise reduction features for better audio on video calls.

Dell claims the Latitude 7410 also boasts "world's longest battery life of any premium Chromebook" with up to 21 hours of battery life. It offers quick charge via ExpressCharge Boost, reaching 35% from 0% in just 20 minutes. With ExpressCharge, you can also reach up to 80% in around an hour.

Co-engineered with Intel as part of the Project Athena innovation program, the Latitude 7410 Chromebook Enterprise offers LTE mobile broadband, Intel WiFi 6, and up to 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processors to boost productivity and performance for bandwidth-intensive activities.

This laptop comes with a one-hand assist feature to power the Latitude Chromebook in less than three seconds by merely opening the lid. For extra flexibility, the device comes with one of the broadest arrays of ports in a premium Chromebook Enterprise. App access is available locally or online through the Chrome Browser or the managed Google Play Store. There's also an optional built-in privacy panel and camera privacy shutter.

The Latitude 7410 comes in machined aluminum or carbon fibre to make this the world's lightest 14-inch Chromebook Enterprise laptop.
Representative Image

India's food delivery industry has recovered 75-80 percent of pre-COVID levels. Recovery trends are strong and it is estimated that the industry will reach pre-COVID levels of business in the next 2-3 months.

The dining out industry, however, is yet to bounce back and is operating at 8-10 percent of pre-COVID levels, Zomato said in its latest report.

While the number of restaurants offering food delivery is at 70 percent of pre-COVID levels, about 5 percent of them did not offer food delivery services before the pandemic, suggesting that dining-in centric places have turned to food delivery.

The report further states that companies offering work from home option to employees has led to a mass exodus of people from metros to other cities, said the report.

Track this blog for all the latest updates on coronavirus pandemic

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

"One in every five Zomato customers, who lived in metro cities before the pandemic, have opened their app from a smaller town recently," the report states, adding that one-third of them have already started ordering food from their new location.

It says that reluctance of ordering food typically goes away after the first order.

Interestingly, ordering frequency of customers after their first order mid-COVID is the same as pre-COVID, which shows that the first order mid-COVID is key for customers to cross the hump of safety perception, the report said.

Zomato said that a slump in the dining-in industry is largely driven by consumers not stepping out due to fear of transmission and restaurants not opening up, even if the city is not in lockdown.

Even in cities where restrictions have been lifted, only 17 percent dining out restaurants are open for business, which are also running at low capacity, it said.

Also Read: Food delivery picks up but 40% percent restaurants face closure, says Zomato

"Additionally, out of the 83 percent restaurants that are not open for business, 10 percent restaurants have already shut down permanently. We estimate that an additional 30 percent restaurants to not reopen at all," Zomato said.

The company, which competes with Swiggy in India, said that strong recovery in international markets paints an optimistic picture.

Zomatos dining out transactions in markets like New Zealand, UAE and Portugal are already back to pre-COVID levels, it said.
MIAMI - El Salvadors government signed a $450,000 contract to hire a well-connected Washington lobbyist  only to immediately back away from the deal  as President Nayib Bukele, a strong Trump ally, has come under criticism that his popular polices mask an authoritarian streak, The Associated Press has learned.

Robert Stryks Sonoran Policy Group registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. government on Thursday after signing a contract with Bukeles national intelligence chief, according to a copy of the contract provided by the Department of Justice.

But hours later, in response to a request for comment by the AP, Bukeles office said the president had never approved the contract, which is dated Aug. 15, and had it annulled. Despite multiple requests, his office and two aides wouldnt say when it was cancelled or what led to the abrupt reversal, but insisted that no money had been disbursed.

El Salvadors government has 194 portfolios and each director has discretion to direct funds for A and B situations, contracts, services or needs, his office said in a statement. But this type of contract the president has to approve, or not approve, directly.

Stryk on Friday wouldnt comment on the contracts status after El Salvador insisted it had been cancelled. Under the terms of the contract, either party can terminate the relationship, without cause, giving 30 days notice, but will be potentially responsible for any payments until it is effectively terminated.

The signing of this contract on behalf of the people of El Salvador continues my commitment to assist all nations in rooting out corruption, organized crime and terrorism so as to promote the sacred values of capitalism, which is the eternal flame that truly lights the world!, Stryk said in a statement.

Its not clear why Bukeles government was seeking influence in Washington. The five-page consulting agreement signed by Peter Dumas, El Salvadors director of national intelligence, only says Stryks firm will charge $75,000 a month for up to six months of government and media relations work. It also says Sonoran will provide economic development advice and outreach to trade organizations for the Bukele government.

The 39-year-old Bukele took office in 2019 as an independent vowing to rescue El Salvador from the deep divisions left by uncontrolled gang violence and systemic corruption in both right and left-wing governments that followed the end of a bloody civil war in 1992.

Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Salvadorans approve of his strong-handed approach. But human rights activists and some business leaders complain he has trampled on the countrys constitution, most famously in February, when he sent heavily armed troops to surround the congress to pressure lawmakers into approving a loan to fund the fight against gangs. His strict lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus has also proven controversial.

Hes nonetheless drawn close to President Donald Trump, expressing support for his hard-line immigration policies by signing a bilateral agreement that would allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers from other countries to El Salvador. The policy had not been implemented before the pandemic.

As part of Thursdays filing, Sonoran said it had hired Mario Duarte, the former head of Guatemalas intelligence service, to assist its work on behalf of El Salvador.

Stryk, a winemaker and former Republican aide who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Yountville, California, has soared to the top of the highly competitive influence industry in Trumps Washington.

A former unpaid Trump campaign adviser on the West Coast, his firm had no reported lobbying activity from 2013 to 2016 but has billed upward of $17.3 million to foreign clients since the start of 2017, according to data from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Stryk prides himself on being an outsider and disputes claims he has some special in with the White House.

Many of his past clients have bruised reputations in Washington or are under U.S. sanctions, such as the governments of Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently he represents Isabel dos Santos, Africas richest woman, who is fighting allegations that she accumulated vast wealth through state loans brokered by her father, Angolas former president.

In January he registered as a foreign agent to open doors for Venezuelas socialist government, which Trump and Bukele both fiercely oppose. But the law firm that had hired him as a consultant later terminated the $12.5 million contract with a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro amid an outcry from Florida Republicans, who accused them of shilling for a dictator.

The last time El Salvador hired a U.S. lobbyist was in 2017, when its embassy in Washington paid law firm Dentons U.S. a total of $125,000 for five months of work aimed at strengthening bilateral relations.



AP Writers Marcos Aleman in San Salvador and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.
A Chinese boy has been saved after dangling off an anti-theft metal frame outside a six-storey window.

The six-year-old had fallen out of the flat while being left unattended at home, according to state media.

A neighbour climbed across the building's facade with his bare hands to rescue the child. He then supported the boy's body with his shoulder for about an hour without safety harnesses.

The Chinese boy gets stuck in an anti-theft metal frame outside a six-storey window while being left at home alone (left). A neighbour comes to his rescue by holding him up (right)

Firefighters eventually broke into the boy's home and pulled him into safety.

The boy was spotted swinging in midair dangerously at a residential compound last Friday in the city of Xiamen in south-eastern China's Fujian province, according to a social media post from People's Daily.

The unnamed child allegedly fell through the gap after climbing onto the window ledge to play. His parents had reportedly gone out to buy groceries, leaving the child at home by himself.

According to reports, the boy fell through the gap after climbing onto the window ledge to play. His parents had reportedly gone out to buy groceries, leaving the child at home alone

'I think anybody would have come forward bravely under such circumstances, let alone a police officer like me,' the saviour, a 48-year-old retired soldier, told a local TV reporter

The saviour, 48-year-old Ge Zhimin, lives one level above the boy and his family.

On the day, he heard people shouting outside before spotting the child crying and struggling in agony.

The man, a police officer and retired soldier, rushed out of his home and headed towards the five-storey landing.

From there, he climbed out to the building's exterior wall without any protective equipment, and reached the boy, reported Retired Soldiers Magazine.

Mr Ge told the child not to be afraid while asking other neighbours and his family members to call the police.

He stood on a metal awning to prevent the child from falling.

He initially held up the boy, who weighs around 66 pounds, with his right arm. But the man's limb soon went numb, so he decided to support the boy with his shoulder.

A firefighter removes a bar from the window frame to create a gap wide enough to lift the boy

Firefighters carry the boy back to his home after pulling him up through the widened gap

Firefighters arrived around 40 minutes later and broke into the boy's home.

The officers spent another 20 minutes or so removing a bar from the frame. They lifted the boy back into the flat through the widened gap.

'If the onlooker hadn't held up the child, [the boy] could have ended up being stuck by the neck and suffocating,' Gong Haijun, a supervisor at the Xiamen Fire Brigade, told Xiamen Radio and Television Station.

Speaking of his courageous act, Mr Ge remained modest.

'I think anybody would have come forward bravely under such circumstances, let alone a police officer like me,' he told the station.

It is understood the boy was unhurt in the ordeal.
Angelina Jolie is only demanding a "fair trial" amid the issues surrounding her four-year divorce settlement with ex-husband Brad Pitt.

Earlier this month, the 45-year-old actress filed court documents requesting private judge John W. Ouderkirk to be removed from the case, stating that he failed to disclose "ongoing business and professional relationships" with the Academy Award winner's legal counsel, Anne C. Kiley.

The private judge was hired by the two in 2017 to oversee their divorce trial. He was also the one who officiated Pitt and Jolie's secret wedding way back in August 2014 in the small chapel of Chateau Miraval, Correns, France.

However, as the divorce dispute intensifies, Jolie's lawyer Samantha Bley DeJean emphasized that their request for Ouderkirk to be removed is out of their desire to get a "fair" trial without any biases, per Us Weekly. They wanted to ensure transparency on the case, which they think will not be achieved with the said judge.

"All my client is asking for is a fair trial based on facts, with no special favors extended to either side. The only way litigants can trust the process is for everyone involved to ensure that there are transparency and impartiality," DeJean explained.

The court documents specifically claimed that Ouderkirk being on top of the case might cause a "biased" decision in favor of the 56-year-old actor.

Brad Pitt Slams Angelina Jolie

As expected, Pitt and his legal team strongly opposed the claim and fired back, alleging that Jolie is desperate to delay the case.

"Against this backdrop, Jolie's abrupt cry of judicial bias reeks of bad faith and desperation, not to mention careless disregard for the procedural rules intended to root out legitimately conflicted judicial officers," Pitt's legal team said, as obtained by USA Today.

His lawyers accused Jolie of pulling a "Hail Mary" stint in order to delay the case ahead of their custody battle for their children.

For what it's worth, Pitt's legal team pointed out several times that the "Salt" actress and her lawyers asked to extend the private judge's appointment to their ongoing divorce case.

In addition, the "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" star is said to be concerned about the welfare of their kids.

"Unfortunately, the individuals hurt most by Jolie's transparently tactical gambit are the parties' own children, who continue to be deprived of a final resolution to these custody issues." +

The former couple share six children namely Maddox, 19, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 12.

Both Brad and Angelina are very supportive parents and have always made sure that their kids are their number one priority.

Brad Pitt's Relationship With His Kids

Prior to their recent divorce argument, a source claimed that Pitt has been spending some quality time with his kids since the beginning of the pandemic.

"Brad is closer than ever to his kids and is continuing to see them during the shutdown," an insider told HollywoodLife. "Brad cherishes his time with his kids so a big silver lining in this crazy time is more quality time with them."

READ MORE: TikTok Star Breaks 'No Large Parties' Rule in LA -- Gets PUNISHED by Mayor
Kremlin critic in coma to be airlifted to Berlin for medical treatment after he drank tea allegedly laced with poison.

Doctors at the Siberian hospital where opposition politician Alexey Navalny lies in a coma after suspected poisoning have allowed his family to transport him to a top German medical facility, the hospitals deputy chief doctor has said.

We took the decision that we do not oppose his transfer to another hospital, the one that his relatives indicate to us, Anatoly Kalinichenko, deputy chief doctor at Omsk hospital, told journalists late on Friday.

The flight from the Siberian city of Omsk is scheduled for Saturday morning, Russias RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing airport officials.

Navalny, 44, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants, is in a serious condition after drinking tea on a plane on Thursday that his allies believe was laced with poison.

A plane with German specialists and equipment necessary to transfer Navalny for treatment in Berlin landed at Omsk airport on Friday morning.

German doctors who examined him said Navalny was fit to be flown abroad for medical treatment.

Doctors at the Siberian hospital earlier said he had been diagnosed with a metabolic disease caused by low blood sugar and he was not in a condition to be transported.





Wife appeals to Putin

Navalnys allies had criticised Kremlin for not allowing his medical evacuation to Germany, saying he faces mortal danger and the Siberian hospital treating him was under-equipped.

Navalnys wife Yulia Navalnaya told reporters that hospital staff and men she suspected were law enforcement agents didnt let her speak to the German specialists, who she said were brought into the facility in secrecy, through a back door.

I was forcibly kicked out in a rude manner, Yulia Navalnaya said, her voice shaking. This is an appalling situation. They are not letting us take Alexei. We believe that clearly something is being hidden from us.

She submitted a written request for a transfer on Friday to Putin. I officially apply to you with a demand for permission to take Alexey Navalny to Germany, she posted on Navalnys Twitter account.

Leonid Volkov, Navalnys chief of staff, said his family had no diagnosis, no analysis and no access to reliable data about his condition, accusing the Russian authorities of trying to conduct a cover-up operation.

Later on Friday, the European Court of Human Rights said it was considering a request from Navalnys allies to urge the Russian government to let the politician be transferred.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday dismissed pleas against August 23 exam being conducted in Haryana for the recruitment of physical training instructors (PTIs) in state schools.

The pleas were dismissed after the state government listed out arrangements made by the authorities to accommodate 9,500 applicants.

The petition had stated that some of the petitioners were suffering from chronic diseases while three of them were Covid-19 positive and in view of the lockdown imposed by the state, they would not be in a position to appear in the examination.

However, the secretary, Haryana Staff Selection Commission, had told the court that the apex court had directed to complete the entire process of examination within a period of five months from the date commission starts working on it.

Ninety-five centres have been set up in five districts whereas in normal conditions, the test would have been held at one station only.

Each centre has been allotted only 100 candidates where apart from maintaining social distancing while entering the examination centre, it has also been ensured that one examination centre will not have more than 100 candidates whereas the minimum sitting capacity ranges from 240 to 600 candidates, the court was informed.

The court was also told that two schools have been kept in reserve in each district so as to meet any sudden exigency on account of any centre falling in containment zone.

The candidates, who have symptoms of fever, cough and cold, would be made to sit in a separate room, the court was told adding that all guidelines issued by the Centre are being complied with and transportation arrangements for the candidates have also been made.

The public interest for conducting the examination on the scheduled date far outweighs the convenience of the petitioners. The unfortunate circumstances of some of the petitioners cannot be a ground to postpone the examination wherein about 9,500 candidates have to appear, the bench of Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal said, while dismissing the pleas.

The recruits are to replace about 1,900 teachers whose appointment was set aside by the apex court on April 8 and the state was asked to complete process within five months.

A single judge bench of high court had in September 2012 set aside the selection of these teachers made by the commission in 2010. They were recruited in pursuance to a 2006 advertisement.
Jonathan Barton, who has resigned from Ballet West Scotland

The vice-principal of a prestigious Scottish ballet school at the centre of a police investigation into sex assault and grooming claims has stepped down amid concern from dozens of former pupils, parents and staff over his conduct.

Detectives are probing allegations made by students at 9,000-a-year Ballet West Scotland in Taynuilt, Argyll, where Sir Billy Connolly is a patron, as one senior staff member quit and another employee was suspended.

An ITV News investigation heard from around 60 former pupils, parents and members of staff who raised concerns about vice principal Jonathan Barton, 38, who has since resigned.

ITV News said a witness had come forward who said Mr Barton groomed her sent her inappropriate text messages when she was 16.

It is understood Mr Barton will 'vigorously contest' the allegations.

Mr Barton is the son of the principal, Gillian Barton, who is understood to be a senior member of staff who has been suspended. QC Dr Kirsty Hood has been hired to lead an internal investigation into claims of 'inappropriate sexual behaviour'.

But Police Scotland have now confirmed an investigation has been launched, as it emerged that the University of Highlands and Islands raised concerns with police in Oban in late 2011 about 'student welfare' and 'serious allegations'.

The University of Highlands and Islands closed its BA classical ballet and dance performance and HNC/ HND professional stage dance courses, delivered through Ballet West Scotland, at the end of the academic year 2011/12.

Police Scotland confirmed it had investigated allegations about 'behaviour' at the school eight years ago but it concluded with no further action and 'with no criminality established'.

It also emerged that the Open University ended its partnership with Ballet West in December 2018 following 'safeguarding concerns, including allegations of inappropriate sexual relations between students and a staff member'.

Detectives are probing allegations made by students at Ballet West in Taynuilt, Argyll, (pictured) as one senior staff member quit and another employee was suspended

Ballet West Scotland has said it was unaware of allegations of sexual contact between a student and a teacher being raised by the Open University.

The Board of Trustees at Ballet West said: 'When these allegations were first brought to our attention, we contacted Police Scotland as soon as possible.

'We welcome the police investigation and urge anyone with any information to contact the police.

'The current board does not know of any allegation of sexual relations between students and a teacher being raised by the Open University.

'Furthermore, correspondence held by the board from the Open University to Ballet West stated that termination of the contract was on a no-fault basis.

'The Board of Trustees has, and continues, to take these allegations extremely seriously.

'In light of the allegations, they have contacted all past educational partners requesting information on the due diligence procedures, and any communication that was in existence to the previous board, and the staff at Ballet West.'

A Police Scotland spokesman said: 'Police have now received a number of reports which will be thoroughly investigated.

'Police Scotland is committed to bringing sexual offenders before the courts and treats all reports of sexual abuse with the utmost seriousness and sensitivity.'

The allegations came to light after media inquiries about them were made to school principal Gillian Barton last week.

Ballet West, where Sir Billy Connolly is a trustee, has an outreach programme which includes classes for 300 youngsters across Argyll, four summer schools and three associate courses in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow (stock image)

The claims relate to alleged inappropriate touching. None of the alleged victims is under 16.

Inquiries by the board established he had had a relationship with a 17-year-old student in 2012. He was in his 20s at the time. He was not a teacher or school employee during the relationship.

Last week, an influential dance organisation cut ties with Ballet West. The Royal Academy of Dance said it was 'deeply concerned' about the allegations.

Ballet West runs outreach classes in Glasgow and other Scottish cities. The school, where yearly fees are 9,250 for UK students, said it 'had developed a widely respected educational programme offering full-time higher education and dance teacher courses'.

Its outreach programme includes classes for 300 youngsters across Argyll, four summer schools and three associate courses in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The school website says: 'At Ballet West, we are committed to making the student experience the very best it can possibly be.

'From two-year-olds taking their first dance class to undergraduate professionals, you will be treated as an individual and offered the very best in dance training.'

Responding to news of the police probe, the Ballet West board of trustees said: 'When these allegations were first brought to our attention, we contacted Police Scotland as soon as possible.

'We welcome the police investigation and urge anyone with any information to contact the police.

'We are deeply sorry any student should have felt they had been subject of improper treatment by a member of staff, and that needs to be investigated thoroughly.'
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is urging coastal residents to be prepared from the affects of two tropical storms that will be churning in the Gulf of Mexico next week.

Ivey, in a news release issued Friday, also recognized the difficulties of preparing for a hurricane during the coronavirus pandemic.

Alabamians must remember that even amidst this health pandemic, if there is a threat for damaging weather, getting yourself and your family to a place of safety takes precedent, Ivey said. Do what you can to protect yourself from the virus. Wear a mask, sanitize and social distance if possible, but please follow your local weather forecasts and stay weather aware.

Tropical storms Laura and Marco are expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico early next week, and both could make landfall on Tuesday or Wednesday. The last time two tropical systems hit the U.S. Gulf of Mexico together was in 1933  when a Category 3 hurricane and a moderate tropical storm were in the Gulf at the same time. There are no records of two hurricanes occurring within the Gulf at the same times.

The biggest threat to coastal Alabama appears to be Tropical Storm Laura, which is forecast to be a hurricane and move toward the U.S. Gulf Coast next week. But the path, and intensity of the storm are still very unknown.

The storms long-term forecast track has it turning into a hurricane approaching Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle early Wednesday morning.

The Alabama Gulf Coast is no stranger to the unpredictability and potentially damaging effects of tropical weather, Ivey said in her statement. As we continue keeping a close watch on the storm systems approaching the United States, we should do what we can now to be prepared should Alabama receive impact from either of the two systems we are currently monitoring.

Ivey, also in her statement, said it was too early to decide whether to postpone municipal elections that are scheduled to take place on Tuesday.

Joe Maniscalco, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mobile, said the early forecasts have Laura turning into a Category 1 storm with minimal hurricane strength winds of 75 to 95 mph. Wind gusts, he said, could begin on Tuesday.

The main thing right now is what will the structure look like? said Maniscalco, who anticipates forecasters knowing more about the storm once it moves over the northern coast of Cuba by early Monday.

It will have a lot of interaction with land, said Maniscalco. What is the structure going to look like after that? What is the potential for strengthening after it moves over that land? That will have a lot to say about strength. Of course, forward speed is another thing. Then the size. Will it be small? Will it be larger? There are just a lot of things. Its really too soon to determine impact.
Vikas Singh, the lawyer representing Sushant Singh Rajputs father KK Singh in his ongoing case against Rhea Chakraborty and members of her family, has addressed Kangana Ranauts opinions on the matter. Kangana had proclaimed that Sushant was ostracised by the film industry, which could have been one of the reasons behind his suicide. Sushant died on June 14, and his father has accused his girlfriend Rhea of having abetted his suicide.

In an interview to Pinkvilla, Vikas Singh said, Shes trying to further her own agenda and attack people she has a personal issue with to settle her own scores. She seems to be on her own trip. The familys FIR has nothing to do with her claims at all.

Also read: Aditya Pancholi says Kangana Ranaut should return Padma Shri now that her theory on Sushant Singh Rajputs death has been disproved

Singh, however, also added that Kangana did make some relevant points. Everyone knows nepotism exists in the industry. Sushant too must have faced discrimination. But that cant be the primary course of investigation in this case. Those can still be contributory factors. but the main case is on how Rhea and her gang tiled to completely exploit and finish Sushant.

SSRs family and their lawyer have always been very supportive of my struggle  https://t.co/jffCsVOqGl  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) August 21, 2020

Kangana also shared a video interview clip of Singh on Twitter in which he said that Kangana could be right about some things. He said that the theory that the vacuum created by other facts might have been exploited by Rhea. Sharing the video, Kangana wrote, SSRs family and their lawyer have always been very supportive of my struggle.

Kangana has accused everyone from Karan Johar to Aditya Chopra -- two industry personalities she has gone on the record against for personal reasons in the past -- of having sidelined Sushant. She recently called for Karans Padma Shri to be taken away from him, and had in the past promised to return her own if her allegations were proven to be untrue. Kangana had told Republic TV in an interview, I am telling you, if I have said anything, which I cant testify, which I cant prove, and which is not in public domain, I will return my Padma Shri.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs family lawyer says death case has nothing to do with what Kangana Ranaut has suggested

Sushants case is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation, while the Enforcement Directorate is conducting its own investigation into allegations of misappropriation of funds against Rhea and her brother, Showik Chakraborty.

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South Korean President Moon Jae-ins approval rating rose for the first time in three months after he took on a church at the center of a new coronavirus wave -- a jump similar to one in March when he confronted a separate sect over an outbreak.

Moons support surged 8 percentage points to 47% in a weekly tracking poll released Friday from Gallup Korea -- the highest level since mid-July and up from a record low last week. The rebound may be temporary with many respondents faulting Moon for not doing enough to tackle runaway housing prices, an issue that had driven a recent decline in his approval rating.

The jump came after the Moon administration implemented measures against the Sarang Jeil Presbyterian Church, which has been connected to the latest surge in infections. South Korea this week saw its biggest daily tally since March and the flareup has raised concerns that the country -- once seen as successfully containing the virus -- could be losing control.

Moons administration has been lauded globally for containing outbreaks without a lockdown, relying on rapid testing and contact-tracing. His progressive camp scored a landslide victory in paramilitary elections in April, showing to political leaders around the world that effective virus management can translate into votes.

Authorities said they would charge the pastor of Sarang Jeil for violating public health laws, accusing him of breaking self-quarantine rules and failing to provide lists of parishioners for testing. Almost 4,000 members of the church have been gathering for recent services, despite government requests to stop. The pastor has tested positive for the virus, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unidentified health official.

Moon pledged to take decisive actions, including coercive measures against the church. He has also said the outbreak linked to Sarang Jeil was the biggest challenge faced by health officials since a similar incident involving the Shincheonji sect five months ago briefly made South Korea the country with the second-most infections in the world.

As of Thursday, 739 people linked to the Sarang Jeil church were confirmed positive for the virus, health authorities said. Thousands of members gathered for a weekend rally in central Seoul, sparking a new backlash and raising worries those attending could spread infections to more parts of the country. So far, at least 60 of those who took part have tested positive, according the countrys health ministry.

Sarang Jeil pastor Jun Kwang-hoon, a critic of Moon, took out advertisements in major newspapers trying to stem public anger. In them, he said he was being mistreated by the government.
Female thought leaders in the Covid-battered tourism sector share what Women's Month means to them and their hopes for the future of the industry.

What does Womens Month mean to you?

What encouragement would you like to give women in travel and tourism?

This time is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of all women and the part we play in the world today. Whether these roles are in the social, political, cultural, or economic sphere, we are all responsible for the acceleration and acceptance of gender equality. In times like this, as we contemplate life in our new normal, I encourage all women to support each other to ensure we shape the world for every young girl to thrive and prosper in," says Sue Garrett, general manager, marketing and product at the Flight Centre Travel Group.Mummy Mafojane, FCM Travel Solutions operations leader says, It is important to grow and support one another, especially in such difficult times. When women uplift each other, it benefits not only the industry but the nation as a whole.Through this pandemic, women in the tourism industry have been negatively impacted due to loss of jobs or salary cuts. What I have learnt is to make the time for family and never take them for granted. Even though this has been the hardest and the longest struggle, if we are united, we will conquer this," says Bianca Mazur, Flight Centre Travel Group general manager.The role of a woman can never be underplayed. The career woman, the entrepreneur, the mom, the stay-at-home mom, the married, the unmarried, the sister, the niece and all of us that play multiple roles. Its a reminder that we can do anything we set our minds to, without limitations," says Megan Vorster, Peopleworks general manager, Flight Centre Travel Group.Womens Month is a time to reflect on what we can do together, and better, to support one another, adds Jane Davidson, director at Development Promotions.This is a time to remember how all women deserve respect and appreciation for the contribution and value they give, adds Emma Fletcher, Flight Centre Associates.To all the women in travel and tourism - stay strong for this too shall pass. Don't be afraid to ask for help - any kind of help, says Prashanta Papia, business leader  Leisure Technology.We will keep on fighting, keep on supporting and keep on finding ways to be stronger than yesterday. No matter how you feel, get up, dress, up show up and never give up, says Mariaan van de Venter, operations leader, Flight Centre Associates (FCA).Take time for yourself. Do you have the life you envisioned? Take steps to change the things that are not right for you. One small step can make a big difference if its in the right direction, says Vanya Lessing, CEO of Sure Travel.It is up to every woman working in tourism to push the boundaries of what is expected of them. So, go out and celebrate the woman that you are," adds Sharmila Ragunanan, Dream Hotels & Resorts group marketing managerJoin the #IAmTourism movement by taking a photo and emailing it to South Africa is Travel Ready, says Natalia Rosa, founder of Big Ambitions.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:06:09|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Trade in goods between Germany and 29 countries in Eastern and Central Europe in the first half (H1) of this year declined by 14.6 percent compared with H1 2019, the German Eastern Business Association (OAOEV) announced on Friday.

After a strong first quarter and the historic slump in April and May, with monthly slumps in trade above 30 percent due to measures to contain COVID-19, "signs in German trade with Eastern Europe are pointing to recover," OAOEV noted.

With a decrease of 13 percent, the result for June was slightly better than the average for the first six months, according to OAOEV.

The low point of the COVID-19 crisis had probably passed and "we are confident that we will see further economic catch-up effects in the second half of the year," said OAOEV Chairman Oliver Hermes.

Trade in goods between Germany and Poland, Germany's most important trading partner in Eastern and Central Europe, declined only by 7.4 percent compared with H1 of the previous year, despite problems in border traffic for months due to COVID-19 restrictions, according to OAOEV.

The development in trade figures between Germany and Poland showed "how sustainable our economic partnership already is," said Hermes.

Germany's trade with Russia declined by 24 percent to 22 billion euros (26 billion U.S. dollars) in H1. Russia now ranked fourth, behind Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan recorded above-average declines in trade with Germany. "In all three cases, this can clearly be attributed to lower demand for energy sources and the resulting sharp drop in oil and gas prices in the second quarter of 2020," explained Hermes.

Overall, Germany traded goods worth 197 billion euros with Eastern and Central European countries in H1, according to OAOEV. The share of trade with Eastern Europe accounted for 18.5 percent of Germany's total foreign trade. (1 euro = 1.178 U.S. dollars) Enditem
After six months of messaging about keeping social circles small and limiting contact with other people to protect from COVID-19, school is in for September.

Its causing more than a little anxiety, as parents, students and educators grapple with how to fit hands-on, often messy and always social, classroom life into a newly sanitized world.

The reason were doing all this other stuff like not attending large gatherings is because we want to be able to do the essential activities, said Jason Ellis, a professor of education at the University of British Columbia whos been monitoring the provinces back-to-school plans. One thing thats required is going back to school face-to-face.

That doesnt mean returning to school is easy or carefree.

So far, every province is committed to bringing schools back in September.

But not all plans are created equal.

We asked experts to help grade the plans, looking at COVID-19 protections, backup plans in the event of outbreaks, and how well each province has prepared students, teachers and parents for the mental health challenge of jumping into a riskier environment mid-pandemic.

Here are their back-to-school report cards:

The expert panel:

Cynthia Carr: An epidemiologist with 24 years of experience, who runs the epidemiology research consultancy EPI Research Inc.

Leanne De Souza-Kenney: A public health researcher and an assistant professor of health studies at the University of Toronto.

Christine Korol: A registered clinical psychologist and director of the Vancouver Anxiety Centre.

British Columbia

Average Grade: B-

The plan: British Columbia plans for studies to resume in learning groups, to include a maximum of 60 students for lower grades and 120 for high school students. School districts are to post final back-to-school details online by Aug. 26. The province is promoting physical distancing and handwashing, and making masks mandatory for middle and high school students in high traffic areas.

Carr: B

De Souza-Kenney: C+

Korol: C

Carr likes that the plan outlines steps that seem practical: acknowledging that physical distancing should be practised where possible, for example, but not promising to maintain distance in classrooms, which as she points out arent getting any bigger.

De Souza-Kenney likes that B.C. is planning ahead to separate students on buses and within classrooms. She also likes the creation of learning groups, but subtracted grades because the plan says students do not need to physically distance within them.

Korol looked at all the provinces plans through the lens of reducing anxiety. In her home province, she wants to see the rationale behind the learning pods more clearly explained. People are confused by why they need a small bubble, but then its expanded for school, Korol said.

Alberta

Average Grade: B-

The plan: The province plans to fully reopen schools from kindergarten to Grade 12. Safety measures will be tightened if an outbreak occurs, including reducing class sizes to 20.

Carr: B

De Souza-Kenney: B

Korol: C

Albertas adherence to cohorts is a good sign for Carr, mostly to facilitate contact tracing in the event of any exposure. She likes that Alberta is thinking ahead about what to do if the province has an outbreak, but doesnt understand why class sizes would be reduced only after one is detected. De Souza-Kenney has questions: How big can a cohort be? Is physical distancing still required within a cohort?

Korol raised a couple of red flags, including the use of when possible language describing physical distancing, which creates uncertainty for teachers who are not infectious disease experts.

Saskatchewan

Average Grade: B-

The plan: Saskatchewan is bringing classes back Sept. 1. Students at both elementary and high schools will be placed in cohorts. The province says physical distancing is not necessarily practical in school environments and instead focuses on minimizing contact  air high-fives are better than hugs, for instance.

Carr: B

De Souza-Kenney: C+

Korol: C

Carr likes that the province is open about the need to evolve if COVID-19 case loads change, but doesnt see the utility of creating quarantine areas for symptomatic children to be picked up from school. They should get home and stay home if sick. De Souza-Kenney likes that Saskatchewan has called for the creation of cohorts but doesnt think the province goes far enough to develop the idea.

Korol said hand-sanitizer should be provided within schools, because requiring students to bring their own could create stress and guilt for those living below the poverty line.

Manitoba

Average Grade: B-

The plan: The Manitoba government is sending students back to the classroom on Sept. 8 with new guidelines. High school students may get remote learning in addition to class time. Masks are required for grades 4 to 12.

Carr: B

De Souza-Kenney: B

Korol: C

I like that they say masks are required when taking the bus because of the opportunity for recirculated air on the bus, Carr said. Masks, Carr added, are most important in spaces where people are together for long periods of time and talking. Making masks mandatory for grades 5 and up is a plus for De Souza-Kenney. She thinks Manitoba could be clearer on its definition of a cohort and the degree to which students can interact within their cohort.

Ontario

Average Grade: B

The plan: Ontario students will be back in class September, but their schedules and class sizes may vary depending on where they live. Masks are mandatory for grades 4 to 12.

Carr: B+

De Souza-Kenney: B

Korol: C

I think Ontario is a B+ because theyre clear that there are different risks in different areas and planning for that from the start, Carr said. And theyre talking about mask use in indoor common areas  for me a common area is a classroom.

For De Souza-Kenney, Ontarios plan beats out some of the other provinces in its clarity surrounding online learning, with students opting into a learning mode: in class or online. Its more robust than other provinces; you opt into a type of learning and you dont have to prove that youre well or unwell, she said. .

Clear guidelines on mask-wearing are a plus, Korol said, and she likes the provinces focus on blended learning. But, without a robust strategy to reduce anxiety, Ontario cant score higher than C for Korol.

Quebec

Average: C

The plan: All elementary and high school students will be required to attend class in September unless they have a doctors note indicating theyre at high risk of COVID-19 complications or they live with someone at risk. Those students will be allowed to study remotely. Masks are required for Grades 5 and up except in the classroom.

Carr: C

De Souza-Kenney: C+

Korol: D

A few points lead to a lower grade for Carr. One is having teachers move from classroom to classroom, instead of students, which she said doesnt make sense because adults are known spreaders of COVID-19.

The biggest red flag for De Souza-Kenney is the use of the word bubbles to describe classroom environments. A bubble is a group of people that only interacts with others inside the bubble, which is impossible in school where each student and teacher goes home to their own families, she said.

Korol is concerned about a requirement for doctors notes to complete online learning. Many people feel they are at risk of complications or live with someone at risk, so this is not reassuring messaging.

New Brunswick

Average: B

The plan: Students up to Grade 8 will attend school full-time, while high school students will have a combination of remote and in-class learning. Class sizes will be reduced for the lowest grade levels.

Carr: A for planning, B overall

De Souza-Kenney: B

Korol: C

Carr likes that New Brunswick has a more prescriptive plan to reduce interaction in high schools  namely, starting school with a mix of remote and in-class learning. She also likes the provinces plan to provide subsidies for students who may not already have a laptop to work from.

However, Korol noted that the description of subsidies is vague, and could cause embarrassment or anxiety if families have to apply for devices.

De Souza-Kenney likes New Brunswicks online learning options but criticized a plan to maintain a one-metre distance in classrooms, saying the rationale for less than two metres is unclear.

Prince Edward Island

Average Grade: B+

The plan: Schools on the Island are preparing to welcome all students back to class, while drafting backup plans for remote studies if required. Students will be sorted into cohorts that are as small as possible.

Carr: A

De Souza-Kenney: B

Korol: B

Carr loves that the province has thought about the fact that many students are likely to return to school at a disadvantage compared to where they would have been if the previous school year had proceeded normally. P.E.I. is also explicit about setting up zones within schools and limiting cohorts of students to certain zones.

De Souza-Kenney would like to see the recommendation of masks on buses upgraded to a requirement. In general, she felt P.E.I.s plan for online learning, cohorts and physical distancing was sound.

P.E.I. gets a boost for mentioning that they will revise the curricula to make up for learning gaps, Korol said. Any mention of improving processes as we go is good for anxiety; it gives people hope that there is flexibility.

Nova Scotia

Average Grade: B+

The plan: Schools will return to 100 per cent capacity in the fall, but Nova Scotias plan includes measures to address a second wave of COVID-19. In that event, high school students will study primarily online as classes return, while younger students will be in classes full-time.

Carr: A

De Souza-Kenney: B

Korol: B

Carr gave Nova Scotia an A for its staged reopening, with high school students beginning the school year on a remote schedule if public health officials recommend this.

De Souza-Kenney praised Nova Scotias online learning plans for high school students and its strong mask-wearing mandates.

Its good that Nova Scotia has a flexible second wave plan, Korol said. She also likes that the province plans to provide technology for students, though she questions if 14,000 devices is enough.

Newfoundland and Labrador

Average Grade: C+

The plan: The province aims to maximize in-class attendance with the option of a return to remote learning if the COVID-19 risk increases.

Carr: B

De Souza-Kenney: C+

Korol: D

The clear communication in the plan, with different scenarios to be followed if COVID-19 cases increase, appeals to Carr. But she doesnt like that bus drivers, and not students, are required to wear masks in a shared space she considers high risk for transmission.

The plan includes a line that physical distancing should not be overemphasized for fear of doing psychological harm to students, but De Souza-Kenney said she thinks kids are actually good at learning to stay safe as long as the communication is clear.

Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut

Average Grade: B+

The plan: There are no active cases of COVID-19 in any of the three territories. Each plans to send students back to school with new protocols for distancing. Grades 10 to 12 in Yukon will spend half their school days learning online.

Carr: A for all three

De Souza-Kenney: B for all three

The territories are in a very different situation, Carr said. Theyre all within the realities of their resources and the communities. De Souza-Kenney acknowledges that the territories are in a unique position with no active cases. That said, she would prefer to see more education on physical distancing and mask wearing, especially in Yukons plan.

Korol said flexible plans make sense in the territories where community transmission is low. Nunavut has a clear four-stage plan that could serve as a model for other jurisdictions on reducing anxiety. From an anxiety perspective, anticipating unintended consequences and having a plan for that (helps), she said.

Correction - August 21, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear Nova Scotia schools will return to 100 per cent capacity in the fall but the provinces plan does include measures to address a second wave of COVID-19. As well, the article was edited to make clear epidemiologist Cynthia Carr liked the provinces staged reopening contingency plan in the event of a second wave.
Nasa is to launch a test to try and find an air leak on the International Space Station.

The space agency has been struggling to locate the source of a tiny leak in the space station since September 2019, when it noticed that the cabin was letting out more air than would be expected.

In the months since, it has been unable to locate the problem that could be causing the small drop in pressure.

Nasa has also noticed that the rate of the depressurisation has increased, though the leak still remains within specifications.

The leak poses no risk to either the station or the people living on board. The space station can be repressurised using nitrogen tanks that are taken to the space station on cargo missions.

But Nasa hopes that isolating the problem will finally allow it to be fixed and allow the space station to return to normal operation.

The test will see the three crew members who are currently in the floating lab spend their weekend inside the Russian part of the space station.

The Zvezda service module served as the living quarters when permanent habitation of the space station began in 2000, and they will still have access to the Soyuz ship that delivered them to the ISS and will take them home.

Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010 Nasa/ESA/STScI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012 Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth Getty Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015 Nasa/APL/SwRI Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun Nasa Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona Nasa's groundbreaking decade of space exploration: In pictures Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015 Nasa/Scott Kelly

All the hatches on the space station will be closed during the test, so that engineers can monitor the air pressure in each module.

That should allow them to isolate the problem module, and further investigations will allow for the potential repair of the problem.
You are here: China

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has signed a State Council decree to publish the revised regulation on the implementation of the budget law.

The revised regulation, which will go into effect on Oct. 1, incorporates the outcomes of fiscal and taxation reform as well as the fruits of budget management practices in recent years, aiming to ensure that public finances truly benefit the people.

The revision clarifies how the public budgets at various levels should be created, tightens requirements on transparency, and improves the transfer payment mechanism.

It also enhances the management of local government bonds and standardizes the handling of special fiscal accounts.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 16:13:09|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police detained six Iraqi nationals in the northern province of Samsun over their suspected links to the Islamic State (IS) militant group, local media reported on Friday.

Police launched operations simultaneously in seven different locations across the city to capture the suspects, who were believed to carry out activities on behalf of the IS, the Ihlas news agency said.

During the raids, police seized several digital materials, and the operations are continuing to find another suspect who is at large, it added.

The IS was blamed for a spate of deadly attacks over the years in Turkey, in which more than 300 people were killed. Enditem
Economist / Statistician Consultant (SP Pilot and Covid-19), Home based, Cambodia

Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme

Country: Home-based

Closing date: Thursday, 27 August 2020

Economist / Statistician Consultant (SP Pilot and Covid-19)

Location : Homebased, CAMBODIA

Application Deadline : 27-Aug-20 (Midnight New York, USA)

Type of Contract : Individual Contract

Post Level : International Consultant

Languages Required : English

Starting Date : (date when the selected candidate is expected to start) 01-Sep-2020

Duration of Initial Contract : Initial contract from 1st September 2020 to 30 August 2021

Expected Duration of Assignment : 54 days per year with possibility of extension up to 3 years

Background

Cambodia is undergoing many transitions - an emergent Middle-Income Country, with a growing middle class supported by a rapidly growing economy; and deeper level changes given by societal modernization and the twin processes of industrialization and urbanization. Its development transformation from a near-history of conflict and social dislocation is dramatic. With economic growth (pre-Covid19), topping 7 per cent per year and a relatively equitable income distribution, poverty has declined dramatically to just 13.5% in 2014, and is likely to be below 10% today. This is a time of opportunity, but also one of turbulence. Two key social policy challenges are the emergence of: (1) a large group of near-poor and vulnerable households, with incomes just above the poverty line; and (2) a remaining group of hard-to-reach extreme poor, often living in remote areas. The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has recognized these issues with the launch of the National Social Protection Policy Framework (NSPPF).

Among other measures, UNDP has responded by developing research on the adoption of graduation-based social protection programmes. These innovative interventions offer assets and a support package to poor households in place of cash alone, enabling the poor to escape poverty through their own productive efforts. During 2020, UNDP will deliver a large operational pilot under which a Cambodian graduation package would be field-tested using a rigorous Randomized Control Trial (RCT) methodology. RCT results and operational learnings will be used to enable and inform the adoption of a similar approach by RGC at scale.

Additionally, in recent weeks, Cambodia, is set to face a severe economic downturn due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. While there has not been a major outbreak in Cambodia, the demand shock will have significant consequences for livelihoods and poverty. UNDP, with other UN agencies, is supporting RGC policy response, and the graduation pilot will likely require adaptions to enable delivery under restricted conditions, and to meet post-Covid social protection policy objectives.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant is tasked to support the successful delivery of GBSP Project. This would include various tasks and ad hoc inputs, with the LTA holder to serving as a retained economics and statistical adviser to the project. A list of examples ordered by each stage of the project cycle is attached as an Annex

Offerors should also consult the GBSP project document (the Pro-Doc is available on request).

The 4 cycles (given on the attached and in the Pro-Doc) correspond to the project outputs: project set-up, delivery of the RCT (under UNDP and contractor-based management), delivery of follow-on round (likely to be under RGC management), and reporting/ assessment. The precise outputs are given in the Pro-Doc are:

Output 1: Finalization of the RCT and scheme design, and selection of localities - made up of village selection, participant selection methods and rules; and design of analytics, base, mid and end-line questionnaires and the local economy-wide study.

Output 2: Provision of technical inputs for the delivery of a pilot graduation-based social protection programme with 2,400 extreme poor household participants (with 1,600 households receiving assets and/or cash transfers), with randomized selection, delivering clear results on livelihood and poverty impacts Output 3:Provision of the technical inputs on the follow-on graduation trials, of similar size and shape (but more efficiently), to ensure future RGC deliverability Output 4:Provision of statistical and economic analyses of data collected at base, mid-line and 2 end line surveys for household and economy-wide impacts

Note also, in line with standard LTA procedures, individual assignments (covering relevant bundles of tasks) would be supported by detailed TORs and supported by a purchase order.

Competencies

Technical Compentecies:

Technical (econometrics, statistics) and field research skills (sampling, quantitative surveys, RCTs).

Capacity to engage with senior decision/ policy makers, and to synthesize and present complex arguments in easily understood terms. Ability to work collaboratively with stakeholders, specifically including government agencies. Superior written/ oral communication skills, with the ability to convey complex development concepts and recommendations. On demand availability during the project. Positive and results-oriented attitude, able to meet targets/deadline

Functional Compentencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UNs values and ethical standards;

Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;

Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;

Tags cambodian cash transfer econometrics economic growth economist field research income distribution middle class oral communication procurement social policy statistician

Treats all people fairly without favoritism;

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Masters degree in economics/ development economics/ econometrics and/ or statistics is essential. A PhD in these subject areas is desirable.

Further documented study of social protection and RCT research modalities is highly desirable

Experience

Extensive experience (over 10 years) at international level in research, analysis, and provision of technical assistance on social protection interventions or similar statistical assignments.

Experience of social protection assignments in Cambodia and/ or very similar development contexts.

Experience of project systems design and management (including M&E systems) and reporting results.

Policy development and advocacy skills, given by extensive experience with LIC/ MIC governments, in the field of social protection.

Language Requirement:

Fluency in written and spoken English

Interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=68975 more detail information about term of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online.

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we dont accept application submitted via email.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your online applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an email acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Interested individual offeror must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Proposal: Letter of intertest explaining why they are the most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal (Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP)

3. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email pheara.lek@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDPs response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC).

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
Third stew June Foster from Below Deck Mediterranean shared an emotional moment with charter guest Jackie Siegel, from the documentary, The Queen of Versailles. Siegel gave Foster a special butterfly ring and fans wondered if she still has it today.

Captain Sandy Yawn, Colin Macy-OToole, June Foster| Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank

Siegel and Foster bonded when they shared their stories of loss. Siegels 18 year old daughter Victoria died in 2015 after overdosing on opioids. Foster shared that her father had also recently died. In a moment in Siegels cabin, Siegel gave Foster a beautiful butterfly ring. Siegel felt that when a butterfly rested on her thumb it was a kiss from her daughter.

Of course, Foster is overwhelmed and emotional as Siegel shares she now has goosebumps. The moment was filmed a few years ago, so does Foster still have the ring?

June Foster still has the ring and keeps it safe

Foster was in disbelief when Siegel gave her the ring. She recently shared she still has it and keeps it safe. Oh yes, I have it stowed in a very safe space, Foster replied to a fans question about it on an Instagram post.

The moment had significance as Foster said she received the call to be on Below Deck Med on the anniversary of her fathers passing. What was interesting, and this is gonna sound so strange, but, they called me on the day of my papas death, she told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. I took it as a sign from him to go. I took it as a sign that This is good for you.

RELATED: June Foster Reveals the Emotional Reason She Went on Below Deck Med and Talks Her Exciting New Business (Exclusive)

He died on September 13, 2016, and when loved ones die, you always know that day, Foster adds. So I remember thinking at the time, Papa would want me to do that. He was so supportive. We would sit down and watch Below Deck together, so that was always my thing with him.

Foster still works in yachting

She recently shared she was spending the summer season as a yachtie in Spain. Foster shot a video to show her mom the breathtaking landscape.

Foster has also been extremely busy since leaving the show. She launched the company, YachtInspired, designed to help captains and yacht owners enhance employee retention and satisfaction. She based the company on her experience working in the yachting industry. Some were engaging, but others had established their permanent crew and you were always treated like the second hand, she said.

RELATED: June Foster From Below Deck Med Shares This Jaw-Dropping Statistic About Human Trafficking

Her book, The Girl and the Golden Leaf was recently the inspiration for new legislation to provide better protection against human trafficking. I am honored that the namesake The American Golden Leaf Recovery & Protection Act was inspired by my novel The Girl and the Golden Leaf, a suspense story that touches upon poverty, faith and the horrors of human trafficking. The Act will strengthen and expand current anti-human trafficking efforts in our battle to save and protect the victims of human trafficking, she shared on Instagram.
Many may agree with us when we say that Indian Matchmakings Sima Taparia (from Mumbai) has been the talk of the town since the release of the reality series on Netflix. She has now taken to Instagram to share her own matchmaking story.

Posted from Taparias official Instagram account on August 20, this post details her introduction to her husband of 37 years, named Anup Taparia. A picture of the couple accompanies the text.

It was December of 82 when we got engaged. Anup was still in his final year of graduation, and I was residing with my family in Gulbarga, now Kalaburagi. Our families arranged for the match via a familial acquaintance and we met only once before saying yes to each other. It was only after the engagement that we began to have proper conversations on telephones, describes the post.

Taparia goes on to explain that the romance blossomed through phone calls and handwritten letters. The courtship took a step further when the couple met in person in Pune.

The post reveals, I was ecstatic. We sat over in one of those premium hotels by the station, probably Blue Diamond. We had our breakfast and spent some quality time together until the time came for him to leave. I was a bit teary-eyed to say goodbye to him.

Check out the full story here:

Since being shared on the photo and video sharing application, this post has captured netizens attention. It currently has nearly 6,000 likes and many comments.

Here is what Instagram users had to say about the share. One person said, So sweet. I Hope you continue to have a happy and romantic married life,. Another individual wrote, I liked your web series your love story is so much similar to mine. Many also left heart emojis under the post.

What are your thoughts on this couple?

Also Read | Love isnt in grand gestures, its in the little things: This couples story will put a big smile on your face

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Chinese domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate producers insisted on maintaining their offers in the week to Thursday August 20, citing production costs, while buyers were unwilling to compromise due to sufficient stocks.

The stand-off between Chinese domestic lithium carbonate buyers and sellers continued to keep the market unchanged

The seaborne Asian lithium markets were relatively stable due to limited spot buying activity

A mixture of Covid-19 uncertainty the traditional summer lull kept the European and US prices unchanged

Chinese domestic producers of battery-grade lithium carbonate held their offer prices firm this past week, while buyers refused to accept the offers and held off from making purchases.With both sides adopting a wait-and-see approach, Fastmarkets weekly assessment for lithium carbonate, 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China remained at 37,000-41,000 yuan ($5,347-5,925) per on Thursday August 20, unchanged since July 9 Producers are insisting relatively high offers of around 40,000 yuan per tonne, while from the buy side we are unwilling to accept any higher asking prices. I havent purchased any material this week and I also think it will be hard to move prices up considering the sufficient supply. I will keep watching the market, a buyer told Fastmarkets.We insisted our offer prices without any adjustment. Current lithium carbonate prices are already at a low level with more producers suffering losses. I think prices will not fall significantly due to the production cost, a producer said.Chinas technical and industrial grade lithium carbonate offers stopped rising in the past two weeks and stand at around 34,000 yuan per tonne this past week. Fastmarkets assessed the Chinese technical and industrial grade lithium carbonate spot price at 31,000-34,000 yuan per tonne on Thursday, unchanged from previous week.Meanwhile, market participants reported a relatively stable Chinese domestic battery-grade lithium hydroxide market this past week.Fastmarkets assessed the lithium hydroxide monohydrate, 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China at 45,000-51,000 yuan per tonne on August 20, also unchanged since July 9.The seaborne cif China, Japan and Korea battery-grade lithium market was largely flat during the week with little spot buying reported.Fastmarkets assessed the lithium carbonate, 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price cif China, Japan and Korea at $6.50-8 per kg, unchanged from a week ago.The lithium hydroxide monohydrate, 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, battery grade, spot price cif China, Japan and Korea was similarly unchanged at $8.80-10 per kg on Thursday.A distributor source in Asia attributed the steady markets to a relatively stable Chinese domestic market in recent weeks.The price for spot lithium compounds for technical and industrial grades in Europe and the United States remained unchanged in the seven days to August 20.Fastmarkets assessed the lithium carbonate 99% Li2CO3 min, technical and industrial grades, spot price ddp Europe and US at $6-7.50 per kg on Thursday, unchanged over the past six weeks in a flat market.Market participants active in Europe said that the lithium market for technical grade material is quiet because the region was at the peak of the summer holiday period.A distributor of technical grade lithium carbonate in Europe told Fastmarkets: We serve clients in the construction sector but at present they do not want to commit to long-term supply as the visibility is still unclear due to the Covid-19 economic consequences.In the battery-grade markets, Fastmarkets' lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe and US stood at $8-9 per kg on August 20, a level it has maintained since mid-July.The lithium hydroxide monohydrate 56.5% LiOH.H2O min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe and US was unchanged for the fourth consecutive week at $9.75-10.50 per kg.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 August 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
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president Thursday night, culminating a political career that spanned 36 years in the Senate, eight years as vice president and two previous attempts at the nation's highest office.

"Its with great honor and humility that I accept this nomination for president of the United States," Biden said from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. "This is a life-changing election that will determine America's future for a very long time. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot."

Biden campaigned as an empathetic leader with the experience to guide the country through the four crises of the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, the most serious racial reckoning since the 1960s and the threat of climate change. He contrasted his abilities with what he called four years of chaos under President Donald Trump.

The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger, too much fear, too much division," Biden said. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. Its time for us  for we the people  to come together.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden greets his wife Dr. Jill Biden on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center on August 20, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. The convention, which was once expected to draw 50,000 people to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is now taking place virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden blasted Trump for failing to curb the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 170,000 Americans and infected 5 million.

"Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation," Biden said. "My fellow Americans, that is unforgivable."

Biden, who previously ran for president in 1988 and 2008, also embodied the ability to get back on his feet after the deaths of his first wife and infant daughter in a car crash, and the death of his adult son from a brain tumor.

If elected, Biden will be older when he is inaugurated at 78 than the previous oldest president, Ronald Reagan, was when he left office. But Biden unified more progressive rivals behind the campaign and generated enthusiasm by choosing Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., the first Black woman and first Asian person nominated to a major-party ticket.

Story continues

"Shes overcome every obstacle shes ever faced," Biden said.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., watch fireworks during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del.

After the speech, Joe and Jill Biden donned masks, held hands, and walked with Harris and Doug Emhoff through two rows of state flags. They exited the Chase Center where supporters honked the horns and blinked the lights on cars socially distanced throughout the parking lot.

Fireworks llit up the sky as the Democratic ticket stood on a stage and waved against the backdrop of a giant American flag.

Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, tweeted that it was "easily the best and most affecting speech Biden has ever delivered."

Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginias Center for Politics, tweeted that Bidens speech had a focus and intensity, magnified by the lack of an audience, that made it shorter and stronger than it would have been in a traditional format.

Former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator, John Kerry speaks to viewers during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center.

Kerry lauds Biden's 'moral compass'

Biden headed the Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees at various times while serving in the Senate. He said another four years under Trump would lead to the same problems as the first four.

The president takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cozies up to dictators and fans the flames of hate and division, Biden said. Is that the America you want for you, your family or your children?

John Kerry, who served in the Senate with Biden and as secretary of state in the Obama administration, said the nominees moral compass always pointed in the right direction to break the back of apartheid in South Africa or alert the world to genocide in the Balkans.

The Obama administration negotiated a deal to hinder Irans development of a nuclear weapon, built a 68-nation coalition to destroy the Islamic State and joined a 195-nation agreement called the Paris Agreement to combat climate change.

Trump withdrew from the Iran deal and the Paris Agreement, which he slammed as diplomatic mistakes that gained nothing for the U.S. He withdrew troops from Syria as the threat from the Islamic State subsided.

In fact, what Donald Trump inherited, which was this growing economy and a world of respect, he has turned into a world of chaos literally, Kerry told reporters Tuesday before his speech. Our nation and the world, with respect to all of these critical priorities, is at much greater risk as a result of this.

Ruth Glenn, CEO and President of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, speaks to viewers during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.

Biden sought justice in Senate

Biden said this generation should be the one to tackle the stain of racism. He said one of the most important conversations he had this entire campaign was with someone who is too young to vote, 6-year-old Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, whose death in police custody sparked nationwide protests.

When I leaned down to speak with her, she looked into my eyes and said, Daddy, changed the world, Biden said. Her words burrowed deep into my heart. Maybe George Floyd's murder was the breaking point.

Biden promoted his ability to work across the aisle with Republicans to achieve common goals. His leadership of the Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 left some women and progressives uneasy with Bidens cooperation.

But one of Bidens greatest legislative achievements was the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. A trio of advocates offered emotional testimony at the convention about Bidens contribution to fighting sexual assault on college campuses and on against domestic abuse.

"I didnt even know the name for what was happening to me then: domestic violence, said Ruth Glenn, president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She said the legislation needs to be revamped and that we need leaders who believe a womans life is worth fighting for.

Trump has criticized Biden's crime legislation for creating a surge of stiffer penalties and longer prison terms, which the president overhauled in criminal justice legislation approved this year. Trump has also called himself the law-and-order president supporting police amid nationwide protests for racial justice that sometimes turn violent.

"We will bring back law and order to your community," Trump said at Minneapolis airport on Monday, a city where the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25 sparked the protests.

Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, speaks to viewers during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.

Biden wins over rivals

Former rivals in the contentious Democratic primaries joined and supported Biden during the convention. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had negotiated a 110-page platform of shared positions dealing with issues such as criminal justice and climate change.

Biden has proposed spending trillions of dollars to invest in infrastructure and manufacturing, clean energy and on caregivers.

"The way I see it: big problems demand big solutions," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. "I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plansplans to bring back union jobs in manufacturing and create new union jobs in clean energy. Plans to increase Social Security benefits, cancel billions in student loan debt, and make our bankruptcy laws work for families instead of the creditors who cheat them."

Biden pointed his finger at the camera when he called Social Security a sacred promise.

If Im your president, were going to protect Social Security and Medicare, you have my word, he said.

Trump has argued that the economy was the best in the country's history with among the lowest unemployment during his first three years in office, and that it will come roaring back once the pandemic is under control.

"Dont forget, until the China virus came in, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world," Trump said Wednesday at the White House. "And now we're doing it again. I'm going to have to do it a second time."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Biden claims Democratic nomination during DNC speech
Mali's new military junta said Thursday it would put in place a transitional government as its West Africa neighbours said they would dispatch envoys to help secure "the immediate return of constitutional order" and called for its ousted president to be restored to office.

Rebel soldiers seized power on Tuesday, detaining President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and other officials in a fresh setback for a country battling chronic instability and a jihadist revolt.

"We are going to set in place a transitional council, with a transitional president who is going to be either military or civilian," junta spokesman Ismael Wague said in an interview with the TV channel France 24.

"We are in contact with civil society, opposition parties, the majority, everyone, to try to set the transition in place," he said, adding that the transition "will be the shortest possible".

The comments came after the regional bloc ECOWAS voiced its support for Keita and "constitutional order."

"We have decided to immediately send a high-level delegation in order to ensure the immediate return of constitutional order," Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou said at the end of a video summit Thursday.

Colonel Assimi Goita, the head of Mali's new junta -- the self-described National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP). By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP)

Issoufou said that through talks, ECOWAS would "convey to the leaders of the military junta that the times of taking power by force are over in this region."

The coup is Mali's second in eight years.

A putsch in 2012 was followed by an insurrection in the north of the country which developed into a jihadist insurgency that now threatens neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Thousands of UN and French troops, along with soldiers from five Sahel countries, have been deployed to try to stem the bloodshed.

"Mali is in a critical situation, with serious risks that a collapse of the state and institutions leads to reversals in the fight against terrorism and organised crime, with every consequence for all our community," Issoufou warned.

Keita's overthrow culminated months-long protests in which ECOWAS -- the Economic Community of West African States -- had tried to play a mediating role.

The bloc proposed setting up a unity government including opposition representatives, but also stood firmly by the 75-year-old Keita. The package was bluntly rejected by the opposition.

In addition to the president and the prime minister, the military detained Defence Minister Ibrahima Dahirou Dembele; Security Minister M'Bemba Moussa Keita; and the president of the National Assembly, Moussa Timbine, according to various sources.

They also arrested army chief of staff General Abdoulaye Coulibaly; the president's personal chief of staff, General Oumar Dao; air force chief General Souleymane Doucoure; and the head of the National Guard, Ouahoun Kone.

The African Union, the European Union, United States and UN Security Council have all condemned the putsch and demanded the release of detained leaders.

Reports of deaths

Calling itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, under the leadership of a colonel named Assimi Goita, the junta vowed on Wednesday to stage elections within a "reasonable time" and respect "all past agreements," including international anti-jihadist missions.

It also urged citizens to return to normal life and warned against acts of vandalism after some buildings were torched.

Soldiers were stationed in Bamako Thursday in front of the administrative centre which houses most of the ministries.

The new military junta warned against acts of vandalism after some buildings were torched. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP)

Markets were open and Malians, who seemed to generally welcome the change of regime, went about their business as usual.

Amnesty International joined calls for the immediate release of all those arrested during the coup and for an investigation into the reported deaths of four people during Tuesday's events.

The NGO said 15 others were wounded.

"All the victims were hit by bullets in unclear circumstances and were sent to the Gabriel Toure hospital in the capital Bamako," Samira Daoud, Amnesty International's director for West and Central Africa, said in a statement.

The junta has denied that there were any casualties during the mutiny.

ECOWAS comprises 15 members, including Mali, but within hours of Keita's overthrow, the group announced it was immediately suspending the country from its internal decision-making bodies.

That statement also called for the immediate release of Keita and other detained leaders, said its members would close land and air borders to Mali and threatened sanctions against the coup leaders.

Mali coup: A timeline. By Janis LATVELS (AFP)

It also requested an "immediate buildup" of the ECOWAS Standby Force, a multidisciplinary force of military, civilian and police personnel.

ECOWAS has intervened in several crises in West Africa, including in The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Public anger

Keita won election in a landslide in 2013, putting himself forward as a unifying figure in a fractured country.

He was re-elected in 2018, defeating Cisse.

But public anger snowballed over his failure to roll back a bloody jihadist revolt, mixing explosively with frustration at Mali's moribund economy and perceptions of government graft.

Mass protests began after long-delayed legislative elections in April were followed by a disputed outcome.

On Wednesday, the June 5 Movement, a broad coalition of protest groups, said it "took note of the (junta's) commitment" for a civilian transition.

It promised to work with it on "developing a roadmap," and said it planned to organise large rallies on Friday to "celebrate the victory of the Malian people".
Malaysias Petronas, the national state oil and gas company, is in talks to take over Permian driller DoublePoint Energy, Bloomberg reported, citing sources in the know who declined to be named because the talks are private.

Still at an early stage, if these talks end in a deal, it could fetch several billion dollars, the sources also said.

DoublePoint Energy has 95,000 net acres in the Permian and produces some 40,000 bpd of crude as of April. This could make it an attractive target for Petronas, but based on what we have seen in the M&A space, the target will only be acquired if the price is right.

If a deal does take place, however, it would go a long way to rekindle optimism that, despite the unprecedented crisis that struck the industry this year, dealmaking is beginning to recover. Such an injection of optimism came after Chevron decided to acquire Noble Energy, but its effect was shortlived as it remains one of few deals in the oil and gas space since the start of the pandemic.

Buyers are extra-careful this time around because of the unusual degree of uncertainty. In a normal crisis, both industry players and private equity firms would vie for cheap assets safe in the knowledge that oil demand would inevitably rebound, allowing them to profit from their bargain.

This is not the case anymore.

No one in the industry has been unscathed by the fallout from the pandemic. Petronas is no exception: the company reported a 68-percent drop in profits for its first quarter and said it would shrink spending by 21 percent this year to weather the crisis. The state major also said it would pursue operating cost cuts of 12 percent in 2020.

In such an environment where cost cuts take precedence over any future production growth, the progress from talks to a deal is highly uncertain. If it does happen, it will provide a much-needed mood boost to a struggling industry.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
- Ghana's COVID-19 death toll is now 261, according to the Ghana Health Service

- The total case count of the highly infectious disease now stands at 43,260 in the country

- Meanwhile, 41,276 people have either recovered or been discharged

- Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Five more COVID-19 related deaths have been recorded in Ghana, taking the death toll to 261.

In a Thursday(August 20, 2020) evening update, the Ghana Health Service said 166 new cases have been confirmed from the labs, increasing the overall case count to 43, 260.

The active cases have recorded a steady drop from 1,875 to 1, 723 after some 41,276 recoveries were confirmed.

Dr. Patrick Aboagye is the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service. Source: Facebook/Information Ministry.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: NPP rejects Mahama's infrastructure debate invitation

In related news, Ghanas Education Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has set up a 10-member committee to deliberate and advise government accordingly on when schools should re-open in the country in this COVID-19 era.

The committee members comprise representatives from the Ghana Education Service (GES), United Nation International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), private school sector, parents and the Ministry of Education.

A statement from the Education Minister stated that Prof Dominic Fobih, a former Minister of Education is the chairman of the committee.

The sector minister during the inauguration of the committee urged the members to bring their expertise and experience to bear to ensure stakeholder consultations on the way forward on all relevant issues.

The committee is expected to present its report to the sector Minister on Monday, 21 September 2020 for consideration and onward approval by the President.

READ ALSO: Ghanaians descend on Akufo-Addo for suggesting his government is constructing real roads

President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday, August 16, during his 15th COVID-19 address, noted that government is considering reopening of schools.

Schools have been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country in March 2020.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that 13 persons suspected to have engaged in examination malpractices during the 2019 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for private candidates have been released.

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) on Thursday, August 20, 2020, published the names and index numbers of the 13 persons, adding they must turn themselves in at the Accra Office of the WAEC between August 26-28, 2020, to clear their names.

Ghanaians react on the closure of Nigerian retail businesses in Ghana | #Yencomgh

Got a story you think we should know about? Get interactive via our Facebook page!

Source: YEN.com.gh
Geneva, Aug 21 : UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen on Friday said that he wishes the upcoming Syrian peace talks in Geneva are handled correctly to build confidence and bring hope to the Syrian people.

"We need to see progress when it comes to abductees, to detainees and we need information on missing persons. This I think could perhaps be the one key important development that could help to build trust and confidence and I repeat my strong appeal to the parties on this again," he said at a press conference in Geneva.

On August 24, the Syrian Constitutional Committee will reconvene at the Palais des Nations, the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva, under the auspices of the United Nations for the third time, Xinhua news agency reported.

The UN Envoy told reporters that a nationwide ceasefire and efforts to improve the economic situation during the COVID-19 pandemic will also be important topics for the future peace talks.

According to him, during the upcoming talks in Geneva, representatives from Russia, Iran and Turkey, as well as the United States, may also come to push forward the process.

"But let me emphasize that the Constitutional Committee is of course, the work of that, is completely independent," he noted.

The Syrian Constitutional Committee, which comprises representatives of the Syrian government, the opposition, and civil society, was officially launched in Geneva on October 30, 2019, and then held two rounds of sessions in November last year, without making any major progress.
One thing heavy on everyone's hands these days is time. People have so much of it that they have reverted to doing things that they had almost forgotten about, like reading books.

Those with proper libraries can appreciate the moment the glass doors swing open to release that unique smell of leather and cigar smoke, and few things give so much pleasure as the rediscovery of a long-forgotten volume, bringing back happy memories that can go further than just the act of reading.

Donn Pohren was an American in love with Spain. He founded The Society of Spanish Studies in Seville in 1972 and hosted American guitarists keen to learn flamenco, about which he wrote several excellent books. He was also a foodie. In Adventures in Taste: The Wines and Folk Food of Spain, he describes every dish that was at the time current, making hundreds of gastronomic excursions.

He visited every corner of Spain. An example: "If you wish to eat chivo con almendras (baby goat with almonds) in Competa, phone the Pension La Sevillana the day previous. They have no phone, but the telephone office will get someone to take a message..."

Malaga did not impress. There was only one decent restaurant, Casa Antonio Martin (still there), although the Bella Mare, 12km east, was satisfactory.

Pohren was very human and liked to shake hands and embrace people. If he visited Malaga today, with its teeming bars and restaurants, but with everyone socially distanced, he might wonder whether he had mistakenly landed on another planet.
Berkeley marked the last week of spring in the year of the virus much like other cities in the Bay Area, with warm days, cool nights and frayed nerves.

As had become the case across the country, the sound of fireworks began at dusk and crackled well past midnight. While hardly an accurate measure, Nextdoor posts highlighted the edginess brought on by the blasts. Was that a gunshot or fireworks? asked a Berkeley man the night of June 15.

At 10:30 p.m. that Monday, Seth Smith left his shared Dwight Way house near Telegraph Avenue, starting a nightly walk. About 30 minutes and 15 blocks west, the jarring bang residents heard wasnt fireworks.

It was a gunshot to the back of the UC Berkeley students head, an apparently sudden and random attack that left the teenager dying alone next to a bus bench at the intersection of Dwight and Valley Street.

An hour later, a man walking his dog found Smith, just shy of his 20th birthday on July 4, on his back. He was dead when paramedics arrived.

On that patch of sidewalk, the trail for Smiths killer seemingly went cold, despite the city offering a $50,000 reward. That is, until Thursday, when Berkeley police told the 19-year-olds family they had arrested a suspect.

But the mystery endured: Why was Smith gunned down? Officials offered few details about the case on Friday, other than to confirm that a 60-year-old Berkeley man with a history of arrests was taken into custody on suspicion of murder.

According to county records, Tony Lorenzo Walker was arrested at his apartment on the 1400 block of Dwight Way, just steps from where Smith died. Walker was being held Friday without bail, and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday if Alameda County prosecutors charge him.

Mr. Walker was arrested for an ongoing homicide investigation, said Berkeley police spokesman Byron White.

Berkeley has three other unsolved killings over the past 10 years, and White would not confirm which one resulted in Walkers arrest. However, Smiths mother told The Chronicle the arrest was for her sons slaying.

Walker, a carpenter, has had several brushes with the law dating back 38 years, records show. On June 17, 2019, nearly a year to day before the Smith killing, Berkeley police said a neighbor caught Walker cutting one of her window screens and confronted him. He allegedly fled to his apartment, beginning a two-hour standoff with Berkeley police before he surrendered.

He was arrested on suspicion of burglary, resisting arrest and the alteration of an imitation firearm; that criminal case was dismissed as part of a plea agreement in a separate case, according to court records.

Michelle Rode-Smith, Smiths mother, said investigators told the family that the slaying appeared to be random, an encounter between strangers. By all accounts, Smith was a straight-and-narrow teenager. He didnt even drink wine, his mother said.

White said a handgun was probably the weapon, but declined to discuss other details.

At least four cameras appear to be trained on the stretch of sidewalk where Smith died, but neighbors said three of the devices  mounted on different homes  were not working. Noting investigators had the footage, the fourth neighbor said, Our cameras didnt help much. (It) was just out of view.

White would not confirm what, if anything, was found on the cameras.

Plus, the barrage of fireworks that evening appeared to have dulled the senses of potential witnesses.

I heard the shots, said Mehnaz Hussain, not realizing what had happened directly in front of her home. I thought it was fireworks  we had a lot this year.

I heard the gunshot, but I thought it was a big firecracker, said another resident across the street.

At 6:30 the next morning, Seth Smiths father, Phil, awoke in Clarksburg, 75 miles northeast in Yolo County, and headed downstairs to let out the family dogs when he spotted a uniformed man standing on the wraparound porch of his home, separated by a levee from the Sacramento River. A chaplain from the nearby Winters Police Department, the man had been dispatched to break the news.

The teenagers family, friends and teachers held him in high regard for his intellect and theatrical prowess. At 5 feet 11 inches with a wide-ranging baritone, Smith could command a stage. Yet the same qualities that made him stand out in high school had made his parents worry that the transition from elementary to middle school would be bumpy.

He was a nerdy kid  he read every book in the elementary school library, said Michelle Rode-Smith, an elementary school teacher. I was concerned about middle school.

Rode-Smith enrolled Seth in an academic summer program at Sacramento State University. He felt at home there, she said.

That fall, he fell in with a group of kids in homeroom, said his friend, Emma Buckman.

You could tell by seventh grade that he was a unique guy, the UC Santa Barbara junior said. He wasnt afraid to challenge teachers. Hes the only guy I know whod use thus and henceforth in regular conversation when he was trying to prove a point.

Their PE instructor had students dance the grapevine to warm up. All of us were afraid to add any pizzazz, Buckman said. Not Seth  hed go crazy with hand movements. That inspired her and other friends to make Seth Day T-shirts, which everyone in the class wore on Fridays.

When I saw him wearing the shirt, I knew hed be OK  that people liked him, said Phil Smith, a carpenter who builds stage sets.

Buckman and another friend squeezed into their Seth Day shirts for his memorial service in July.

The boy discovered theater in middle school, paving the way for Cosumnes Oaks High School performances. Theater was his outlet, his mother said. He was the leading or supporting role in everything.

He took an array of Advanced Placement classes and set his sights on Berkeley. Confident of admission, he waited until the last minute to send his application. He also became a foodie, his family said, frequently cooking for them and making paella for a Spanish class final project.

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.

At UC Berkeley, Smith took a high course load and, combined with his AP credits, was on track to graduate in economics in history a year early, in spring 2021.

At Berkeleys student orientation his first year, he met Nicholas Bear Hebel, whod come from the small town of Willits in Mendocino County. The two became friends and then roommates for their second year in a converted home on Dwight known as the Rally Com house.

Smith was the outlier, the only house resident who wasnt involved in Berkeleys Rally Committee. The joke is that every Rally Com house has someone living in it who isnt a member, Hebel said. But everyone on the committee knew him and loved him.

The two became best friends, Hebel said, sharing a love of food and going to Smiths first concert.

We liked making food together. Wed bicker like an old married couple, saying the other didnt know what he was doing in the kitchen. He loved Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Indian food. He talked a lot about curries.

On the night of June 15, Smith had a brief text exchange with his sister, Madi, about what computer she should get for her first year at Cal Poly Pomona east of Los Angeles. Later, Smith left on the fateful walk. Police told Madi Smith that her brother tried to call her during the walk, but the call did not go through.

Smith went for walks about five nights a week, his roommate said. The strolls cleared his head and gave him time to work on music playlists for specific years. He was working on 1929 or 1930, Hebel said.

Scholarship fund The Smith family has started a GoFundMe campaign to create an endowed scholarship in Seth Smith's memory with the Elk Grove Community Fund. As of Aug. 14, the fund had logged nearly $26,000 in donations. For more information, go to gofundme.com/f/seth-smith-memorial-scholarship-fund. Unsolved Berkeley killings Police are seeking help in identifying suspects in the killings of three men dating back a decade. Each has a $50,000 reward: Adolfo Ignacio Celedon Bravo - Sept. 12, 2010: Celadon was a Chilean engineer who moved to Berkeley to be with his fiance, a UC Berkeley graduate student. He was gunned down at 3:41 a.m. on the morning of his 35th birthday while walking home with his fiance after a party. At the intersection of Adeline and Emerson streets, two men robbed the couple, shooting Celedon and punching his fiance in the face before fleeing in a dark older model sport utility vehicle. Tobias Eagle - March 8, 2011:Eagle, a 30-year-old electrician and father of two, was slain in his backyard on the 1600 block of Blake Street. Alex Goodwin Jr. - Aug. 18, 2016:The 22-year-old musician was found shot near San Pablo Park just before midnight. The Berkeley man was known as "AyeGee" to family and friends. Anyone with information about the cases can call the Berkeley Police Homicide Unit at 510-981-5741 or the department's 24-hour nonemergency number at 510-981-5900. See More Collapse

A few hours later, Hebel said, police came to his door to let the students know about the attack and to get the number for Smiths parents.

Smith had moved to the older duplex on Dwight in 2019, three blocks from Peoples Park and in an area heavily populated by students. He died a mile to the west at the edge of the Poets Corner neighborhood, known for its author-inspired street names and mixture of older homes and urban-style remodels.

Dwight is busy, but the neighborhood is quiet, and the brutal crime stunned neighbors. Ive sold cookies to Walker, said Whitney Singletary, who runs the popular Nuttin Butter Cookies stand from her home across the street from the slaying. The difficult task of talking about the death with her 6- and 7-year-old children has taken its toll, she said.

The chances of anything particularly bad happening to a student at Berkeley  or at most any university  are slim, especially if a person isnt looking for trouble. Instead, trouble came looking for Seth Smith.

At student orientation, they said bike thefts were a problem, Phil Smith said, his eyes filled with tears, his voice breaking. Not anything like this.

Allen Matthews, a retired San Francisco Chronicle editor, is a freelance journalist. Email: allenjmatthews@gmail.com Twitter: @allenjmatthews
The USPS warned election officials in 46 states  including New Jersey  that mail-in ballots may not be delivered on time.

Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order that the Nov. 3 General Election in New Jersey will be conducted primarily via vote-by-mail with provisional ballots available at a limited number of polling places.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Saturday on a $25 billion aid package for the Postal Service. The U.S. Senate is not expected to support the legislation and, reportedly, favors a $10 billion allocation to the USPS as part of a larger COVID-19 package.

Outside the Atlantic City post office Thursday, the local delegation of elected officials and candidates  all Democrats  called on the regions federal representatives to vote in favor of legislation that supports the Postal Service. Shabazz said local Republican officials were invited.

Kennedy, the challenger to Republican U.S. Congressman Jeff Van Drew in the 2nd Congressional District, talked about her great uncle, a mail carrier in Atlantic County and his commitment to serve the public, even during sickness and injuries.
The number of people coming back to Ireland has reached its highest level since 2007.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show 28,900 Irish nationals returned home to live in the year to April 2020 - up from 26,900 from April 2019.

CSO statistician James Hegarty said the increase was in large part due to the global pandemic which saw a HSE drive for the return of emigrant healthcare workers.

"Last year, 26,900 Irish nationals returned from abroad. This year to April it was 28,900," Mr Hegarty said.

"We know between March and April there was a substantial enough repatriation due to the 'Be on Call for Ireland' HSE drive for healthcare workers. That would certainly play a part in increasing the number.

"The biggest previous number was in 2007, which was 30,700," he said.

The number of Irish returning dropped to a low of around 23,000 during the recession years but recovered in recent years.

"For the last few years, it has been hovering around the 27,000-28,000 figure so it is marginally higher than other years, but a good bit higher than last year," said Mr Hegarty.

"More Irish nationals returned to live in Ireland in 2020 than left to live abroad, with 28,300 leaving and 28,900 returning. This is just the second time that this has happened since 2010.

"There is a variety of reasons for fluctuations and the pandemic certainly had an impact in terms of those leaving - there is not that many countries of choice to go to either.

"The US, for example, is closed off now - and Brexit looming in the UK is also a factor."

The new figures also show the population has increased by an estimated 55,900, or 1.1pc, to 4.98 million. This is compared to an increase of 64,500 (1.3pc) in the year to April 2019.

The number of non-Irish nationals estimated to be resident here now stands at 644,400, making up 12.9pc of the population.

For the fifth consecutive year, non-Irish nationals from outside the EU were the largest single group of inward migrants.

Mr Hegarty says there are two elements underpinning this population increase

"Ireland is one of the few countries still displaying strong natural increase - we still have more births than deaths.

"Due to this and the strong inward migration, Ireland has one of the fastest-growing populations in the EU.

"In the EU since 2012, more people have died than have been born. If there wasn't net immigration into the EU, the population would be falling," he said.

The birth rate has fallen over the past 10 years, and since 1979 the fertility rate has almost halved.

"Back in 2010 there was an excess of 75,000 births but this year we are recording 58,300.

"The average age women have their first child is now 31.3 - back in 1979 it was 24.9," he said.

"And the fertility rate has dropped to 1.7, whereas back in 1979 it was 3.2."

Of the estimated 55,900 increase in population, this year net inward migration accounted for more than half the increase, with 28,900 more people moving to Ireland than leaving to live abroad.

"The remainder of the increase is explained by a sustained natural increase, with births outnumbering deaths by just over 27,000," Mr Hegarty said.

He added: "Ireland is one of only 10 EU27 countries to be experiencing a natural increase."

Continuing its growth trajectory, the population of Dublin in April this year was estimated to be almost 1.42 million - 28.5pc of the total population of Ireland.

The latest CSO demographics also show a substantial increase in the age profile of 720,100 people who were estimated to be aged 65 years and over, reflecting an increase of 90,200 persons (14.3pc), in this age group since April 2016.
Harare, Zimbabwe (PANA) - Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance Vice-Chairman and Zengeza West legislator, Job Sikhala, was arrested on Friday and charged with incitement to commit public violence
King Mohammed VI of Morocco has called on all stakeholders to be mobilized and get actively involved in national efforts to promote awareness and provide guidance to the citizens to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

In his speech broadcast Thursday on the occasion of the 67th anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, the Monarch warned that without strict, responsible compliance with health and safety measures, the number of cases and deaths will increase, while hospitals will no longer be able to cope despite the efforts made by the authorities and the health care sector.

Without exemplary, responsible and patriotic attitudes on the part of each one of us, there will be no way out of this situation, and we will not be able to rise to the challenge posed by the epidemic, underlined the King.

Despite the efforts made so far, we have not yet won the battle against this epidemic. Needless to say, these are difficult, unprecedented times for everyone, added the Sovereign in his speech to the Nation.

During the initial phase in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, Morocco was cited as an example for complying with the preventive measures taken and for the positive results achieved during the lockdown period, said the King.

However, with the lifting of the lockdown, the number of infections has increased significantly, for many reasons, deplored the Monarch, saying that there are people who claim that this epidemic does not exist, while others believe that the lifting of the lockdown means the epidemic is over, leading to unacceptably behavior by some people.

The disease is very much real, stressed the Monarch, noting that those who claim otherwise are not only putting themselves in harms way, but they are also endangering the lives of their relatives and of others.

Covid-19 makes no distinction between urban and rural populations, nor between children, youths and the elderly, explained the King, regretting that many people do not respect the protective measures advocated by the government authorities, and which include the wearing of masks, social distancing, hygiene and the use of disinfectants.

Had hygiene and cleaning supplies not been available on the market, or had they been expensive, such behavior might have been understandable. However, the government authorities have made sure these materials are abundantly available and are very reasonably priced, emphasized the Sovereign.

He also recalled the financial support provided to all those affected by the covid-19 lockdown, stressing that assistance cannot last forever as the State has already exceeded the means and resources available to it.

The deterioration of the health situation today is unfortunate and does not leave much room for optimism, said the King, noting that the numbers of confirmed cases, severe cases and deaths have increased more than threefold over a short period of time, compared to those reported the lockdown period.

If figures continue to increase, the Covid-19 Scientific Committee may recommend another lockdown, perhaps with even tighter restrictions, warned the Monarch, affirming that relock down will have severe repercussions on peoples lives and on socio-economic conditions.
Donald Trump; Roger Stone

Donald Trump and Roger Stone Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

On August 18, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its bipartisan report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. One of the things addressed in the report is Donald Trump's phone conversations with veteran GOP operative Roger Stone during the election  and according to an August 19 article by New York Times reporter Julian E. Barnes, the Senate Intelligence report sheds even more light on those interactions than the Mueller report and Stone's criminal trial.

Barnes notes that according to court records, Stone and Trump had 39 phone conversations from March-November 2016  one of which Barnes describes as "an intriguing phone call, on October 6, 2016, to Mr. Trump."

"According to the Senate report," Barnes explains, "Mr. Stone received a call that afternoon from a number belonging to an aide to Mr. Trump, who regularly used others' phones to make calls. The topic of the conversation was not known, Senate investigators wrote, but they noted that Mr. Stone was focused on a potential WikiLeaks release."

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report concludes, "It appears quite likely that Stone and Trump spoke about WikiLeaks."

In October 2016, WikiLeaks published hacked Democratic e-mails that had been stolen by Russians.

Barnes points out that in its report, the Senate Intelligence Committee "laid out a range of evidence that Mr. Stone was focused on WikiLeaks. He and Mr. Trump had spoken a few days earlier, on September 29, also on the aide's phone. Another campaign aide, Rick Gates, witnessed it and told investigators that the two men discussed WikiLeaks. After that call, Mr. Trump told Mr. Gates that 'more releases of damaging information would be coming.'"

The Times reporter also notes that Stone "said the Senate conclusion that he had discussed WikiLeaks with the president was based solely on testimony by Mr. Gates and Mr. Trump's former lawyer Michael D. Cohen. Mr. Stone called their testimony tainted by agreements with prosecutors to answer their questions."

Story continues

Stone has insisted that he did not know that people connected to the Russian government were behind the stolen Democratic e-mails that WikiLeaks published in October 2016  and that he never discussed WikiLeaks with Trump. Barnes, notes, however, "The Senate report made clear that WikiLeaks, at least, 'very likely' knew the e-mails were coming from Russian intelligence, and that Mr. Stone knew about the most critical WikiLeaks release before it happened."

Stone is among the many Trump associates who has faced criminal charges: he was convicted of charges ranging from witness tampering to lying to Congress and sentenced to 40 months in federal prison by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee. But Trump commuted Stone's sentence in July, saving him from the prison sentence he was about to begin.

Barnes notes that the Senate Intelligence Committee "rejected Mr. Trump's statement to prosecutors investigating Russia's interference that he did not recall conversations with his long-time friend, Roger J. Stone Jr., about the e-mails, which were later released by WikiLeaks."

In the Mueller report, former special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the 2016 Trump campaign's interactions with Russians  however questionable  did not rise to the level of a full-fledged criminal conspiracy. And Barnes points out that the Senate Intelligence report does not accuse Trump of lying. But Barnes also points out that the report "laid out extensive contacts between Trump advisers and Russians" and "detailed even more of the president's conversations with Mr. Stone than were previously known, renewing questions about whether Mr. Trump was truthful with investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, or misled them."

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There are another 79 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland confirmed as Ireland heads into the final weekend before schools reopen.

There is at least one more new case in Laois.

There have been no more deaths reported today, leaving the total deaths at 1,776.

As of midnight Thursday 20th August, the HPSC has been notified of 79 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 27,755 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today; 43 are in Dublin, 9 in Kildare, 6 in Cork, 6 in Tipperary and the remaining 15 cases are spread over nine counties including Laois, Clare, Donegal, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Roscommon, Wexford and Wicklow.

39 are men / 40 are women

73% are under 45 years of age

30 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case

21 cases have been identified as community transmission





Dr. Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health has thanked the people of Laois, Offaly and Kildare.

Firstly I would like to thank the people of Kildare, Laois and Offaly, you have shown an incredible example of solidarity and social responsibility by following the enhanced public health advice for your region. Your actions have saved lives. The epidemiological situation in Kildare means that we must extend the public health measures for a further two weeks. While there is some cause for optimism, the 7 and 14 day incidence rates in Kildare remain very high. Evidence suggests that the measures are working, but more time is required to reduce the number of cases in Kildare.

We as a nation must show solidarity with Kildare in our collective efforts, especially over the next two weeks, by working together to suppress this virus. We can protect each other by following the public health advice.

"I am asking all households across Ireland to play your part, reduce your social contacts, wash your hands, keep a 2m distance from each other and wear a facecovering in shops and on public transport. These actions are vital to protect our families and safeguard those who are most vulnerable to the disease.

The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread.

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community.
Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Foreign corporate executives remain optimistic about Vietnams economic prospects despite the new COVID-19 outbreak that prompted the imposition of social distancing in some localities, especially in the central city of Da Nang.

Kenneth Atkinson, founder of international audit agency Grant Thornton and Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board, said economists are warning that the new COVID-19 outbreak could overshadow the past optimistic forecasts about Vietnams short-term economic growth.

However, he still believed that Vietnam remains attractive to international companies.

Most foreigners living in Da Nang believed that the Vietnamese Government took swift and effective actions to combat COVID-19, both earlier this year and at present.

A foreign web designer said the Vietnamese Government is doing its best to prevent the new pandemic outbreak and current countermeasures are very important.
(TNS)  One book a day and cuddle.Its some advice Denae Horton got from her sons teachers after the coronavirus pandemic closed the doors to their school, Thurgood Marshall Elementary in Chesapeake, Va.Horton had been feeling down. She was worried she wasnt being the mother her two boys needed. She was preoccupied not only by what impacts the pandemic was having on her own job prospects, but about the boys education.On top of all that were money concerns. She was ready to sell some things in the house so she could get them a computer to keep up with virtual learning. The internet bill was more expensive now because they needed faster speeds to allow for all their devices to connect and run smoothly. Her grandfather is helping split the bill after she shut the internet off for a brief period this summer.Horton had to worry about child care, too. The office administrative assistant position she was counting on after graduating in March from an intensive six-month job training program seemingly vanished because of the pandemic. She works as a nursing assistant and plans to be home with her boys to start the school year but also needs to keep up hours.Instead of getting angry about how the school year ended, she listened to the teachers advice.One book a day and cuddle.Since March, Chesapeake and other Hampton Roads school districts have been focused on helping families like Hortons by addressing what has become a crucial part of learning in a pandemic: technology and access.Schools are spending millions of dollars for upgraded equipment.Thousands of laptops. Overhauling WiFi infrastructure. Building internet hotspots dubbed wireless on wheels to park around town.With just three weeks to go before virtual class is in session, schools say they are getting ready. Surveys have helped identify how many families are in need of devices and access to the internet. Horton said she filled out a survey indicating she was in need of computers so her oldest boy, Delon, who will be in the fifth grade, can get his work done. Her youngest, LeeOntae, will need one, too, as he heads into the third grade.Some way, Horton said, we will get through this.Closing the gapsTechnology will play a key role in connecting students and giving them a chance to succeed in the classroom and beyond, but districts need to be agile in addressing disparities in access to technology and the internet, said Nicol Turner Lee, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who studies the digital divides in education.Lee pointed to a Common Sense Media report that found 9 million of the 50 million K-12 public school students who have had to learn remotely from home because of COVID closures lacked both adequate internet and devices. These sorts of gaps are more pronounced for Black, Hispanic and lower-income households, according to the Pew Research Center.Its important for us to sort of think through how do we resolve those types of issues for families that have to choose between broadband and bread, Lee said.Across Virginia, the majority of public school divisions indicated that 20% or more of their students dont have access to internet at home, according to the state Department of Education. Thats largely an issue with more rural districts, but includes some families in Hampton Roads who have low incomes or live in less populated parts of cities including Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.There has been help for school districts in Hampton Roads. Federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act has given some cash-strapped districts a chance to afford these big technology orders. The federal funds have helped fast track plans to outfit most students with laptops.Thats the silver lining for COVID, said Michael Cataldo, chief information and instructional technology officer for Norfolk Public Schools. Additional funding to really truly be able to support instruction in a more unique and innovative way that many have wanted to do for a while but the funds and the direction wasnt really needed as much. Now, COVID really put everything on fast forward.To that end, Norfolk Public Schools has been contacting parents to find out how many laptops families need and expects to get totals in the next week. Cataldo says they have enough devices on hand to address those needs. In addition, the district expects in the next two weeks to receive an order of over 10,000 Chromebooks that would help Norfolk become one-to-one, meaning each of their students would have a device.That order was placed around April or May, Cataldo said, but issues in the supply chain, caused in part due to the pandemic, delayed it to at least the third week of August.In Chesapeake, Jeff Faust, the school divisions executive director of technology, said theyve run into similar delivery delays. The district is waiting on an order of 17,000 Chromebooks. The $3.6 million order was placed in May and Chesapeake was initially told the order wouldnt come until as late as November. Faust said he pushed vendors and called them every day and they now expect to receive the laptops as soon as mid-August and as late as the second or third week of September.Faust said the order would not have been possible without $6.3 million in CARES Act money. Chesapeakes City Council also recently allocated $1.8 million of the citys CARES Act funds to the school district for technology needs. The community has helped, too: Mount Lebanon Baptist Church donated $30,000 to go toward purchasing tablets for 360 children across seven elementary and primary schools.The Chromebooks will help the district get to one-to-one. Students across nine of Chesapeakes 45 buildings have Chromebooks already, Faust said.Moving toward the futureThe federal government sent $238.6 million to public schools in Virginia as part of the CARES Act. Hampton Roads received roughly 22% of that chunk, and technology expenditures appear to be at the top of the list for some schools.Virginia Beach has plans to set aside $2.6 million for upgrades to teacher laptops and spend more to improve WiFi in outdoor areas. The laptops havent been ordered yet because of availability, a school spokeswoman said, but theyre working with a vendor to determine which models to order and hope to have them available before November.Hampton City Schools plans $3.8 million in spending on technology, including expanding access to Chromebooks for students in grades kindergarten through fourth.In Newport News, all students will get a Chromebook for the upcoming school year, a school spokeswoman wrote in an email to The Virginian-Pilot. The majority of those purchases were made between March and July using $1 million in CARES Act funds. High schoolers got their Chromebooks earlier this month and middle schoolers were getting theirs this week. New Chromebooks for elementary students might not arrive until December, a spokeswoman said, but the district planned to distribute devices to those who need them in the interim.The pandemic has also meant empty buildings, allowing at least one district to get work done quicker.Since Chesapeake schools closed in March, Faust said, theyve overhauled network infrastructure inside all the buildings, which will help improve WiFi for those teachers required to lead their virtual classes from the school building. Some teachers have told The Pilot that certain schools like Oscar Smith High have poor internet connections, leading to delays in lessons.The district has also ordered 2,000 WiFi hotspots that will be distributed for free to families who dont have internet at home. Faust said they can get more if needed. The district will also be placing five wireless on wheels trailers around the city. The trailers provide a free internet connection and will be parked in public locations so anyone can connect a device to it.The technology being adopted now will change schools for good, Cataldo said. For one, districts can use less paper if more students and staff have reliable devices. Instruction can be more on a students schedule and parents can be a part of their learning. Making up missed classes after snow days could be a thing of the past because everyone has a computer.Thats the future, Cataldo said. Thats where we need to move to.
The Komodon Queen: a riveting book of Zenais and Kairis interrupted love by a kings command to abduct Kairi to be offered as tribute. The Komodon Queen is the creation of published author Shane War-rose, a dedicated writer and family man from Florida.

War-rose shares, Zenais begins his relationship with Azaleas cousin, Kairi. The two live in blissful solace. But when the reigning king requests two tributes from each village in Golgotha, Kairi is abducted along with Azalea. Will Zenais save her, or will the kings wishes keep them separated?

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Shane War-roses new book will take the readers on an adventure inspired by a love that stands the tests of dangerous odds and evil.

Follow Zenais in his quest to reclaim his lost love from the clutches of a diabolical king and his deadly schemes.

View the synopsis of The Komodon Queen on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase The Komodon Queen at traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about The Komodon Queen, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
Chelsea have held talks about a free transfer move for Paris Saint-Germain defender Thiago Silva.

Veteran defender Silva will leave PSG once his contract expires following Sundays Champions League final against Bayern Munich in Lisbon.

Silva, 35, has received other offers including one from Italian side Fiorentina.

PSG captain Thiago Silva has held talks over a free transfer to join Chelsea this summer

Frank Lampard has made defensive reinforcements a priority as it has been a problem area

The Brazilian was offered to Chelsea and a possible move has been discussed with his representatives.

Silva would represent an ideal cut-price solution in manager Frank Lampards efforts to bolster his squad and a defence which shipped 54 goals, the most in the Premier Leagues top 10 last season.

Chelsea have already spent big to land attackers Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner and German starlet Kai Havertz is also hoping Chelsea can strike an agreement to sign him from Bayer Leverkusen soon.

He has already agreed a five-year contract and talks are ongoing between the clubs over a fee with Leverkusen wanting 90m.

Other Chelsea targets, Leicester left-back Ben Chilwell, West Hams versatile Declan Rice and Atletico Madrids Jose Gimenez will all come with hefty price tags.

Silva has won a host of trophies in Paris and would add big-game experience to Chelsea

Thiago is hoping to secure a two-year deal at his next club after eight years at PSG, winning the title in seven of those seasons.

But there are reports that haggling over the length of his lucrative contract could scupper a transfer.

The Brazilian is preparing to make his farewell appearance for the French champions in Sunday's Champions League final and with no immediate plans to retire, he has been shopped round for his next move.

Chelsea have typically only offered one-year deals to players over the age of 30 and with the Brazilian turning 36 next month, there may well be a reluctance to go against that policy to recruit Silva.

David Luiz and Willian, now both at Arsenal, were both granted exceptions for their contract offers and so it could well be that Lampard's desire to add big-game experience to his defence gets the deal done.

Silva has reported interest from Fiorentina as the Serie A side look to bring him back to Italy

Chelsea are also said to be monitoring Brighton's 40m-rated Lewis Dunk should a move for Silva fail to materialise.

Determined not to let talk of his future overshadow their Champions League campaign, Silva was coy when asked by media what is to come next.

Speaking this week, he said: 'I have already said a lot of times before I wanted to, that I want to finish [my career] here in Europe.

'A decision was taken, now things are calm in my head. It will be... another club, but my heart will stay here.'
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Somerville mayor Joseph Curtatone is looking for more than a map to guide him on reopening the citys schools.

In an opinion piece published in Commonwealth Magazine Thursday, Curtatone said while he appreciates the bind Gov. Charlie Baker is in regarding reopening schools, providing municipalities with a color-coded map describing which school districts can return for in-person learning is not a plan.

The map is a snapshot of what happened weeks ago, Curtatone said. Thats when those people registering as new cases were catching this virus. It took all of two days for the number of extremely high risk communities in our state to jump from four to 11. We need to be looking at a mix of metrics to understand the direction the disease is taking.

Returning students to school requires support from the state in more forms than data, Curtatone said. The mayor said tools are needed to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Somerville, he said, needs support to implement surveillance testing, robust contact tracing and advanced ventilation systems in schools.

Much of what we need to develop a sustainable reopening plan relies upon federal funding and support, and thats a black hole from which no help is likely to emerge, Curtatone said. However, a map is not a plan.

Curtatone has kept Somerville in Phase 2 of Massachusetts reopening plan while the rest of the state is in Phase 3.

Curtatone criticized the state saying it provided detailed plans for reopening gyms, restaurants and stores, but remain vague for schools.

We are not on top of this disease, Curtatone wrote. Thats the big picture. We are nowhere near being able to operate schools, businesses, or life in general in a way that passes as normal. We are groping for order in the midst of chaos.

Curtatone called for proactive steps such as saliva tests and statewide digital contact tracing to gain a better grasp on the virus.

While Somerville is listed as a low risk community but it neighbors both Everett and Chelsea, which are higher risk with more than eight cases per 100,000 residents, according to data released by the state this week.

What happens in Everett and Chelsea happens in Somerville. Coronavirus doesnt recognize city lines, Curtatone said. If weve got an outbreak on our doorstep, then we need to respond like weve got an outbreak.

On Thursday, Baker said Massachusetts health officials plan to deploy mobile response teams to roll out a rapid response testing program to schools that meet certain criteria.

While the criteria isnt out yet, Baker and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders went on to outline some hypotheticals that could lead to the response teams going out to a school.

Two or more students in a classroom becoming infected, two or more students on a bus contracting the virus, more than 3% of a school population testing positive  any of those scenarios in a two-week period could make a school eligible for the rapid response testing.

On Friday, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced that the citys public schools will begin the new academic year with remote learning as part of a phased-in approach.

Springfield and Worcester are also starting the new year with online learning.

Related Content:
The latest reports from the National Weather Service indicate the area could get 2 to 4 inches of snow starting late Saturday into Sunday evening, with locally higher amounts, especially north and west of Greensboro. And one-tenth to three-tenths of ice accumulation is possible, with areas south of Burlington and Lexington most likely to be impacted.
A Deputy Minister for Information says he sees no reason for NDCs flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama to call for a debate with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo over infrastructure.



To Pius Enam Hadzide, the debate challenge is a useless one  adding that President Nana Addo is too busy for that now.



Former President Mahama on Wednesday, August 19, 2020, dared the Akufo-Addo-led government to a debate over infrastructure in order to settle the issue of whose administration has performed incredibly well in the area of infrastructure.



But, Pius Enam Hadzide who was speaking on NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie, said Mr. Mahama cannot stand President Akufo-Addo to debate if Mr. Mahama does not employ communist tactics.



Calling President Nana Addo for a debate is pointless, useless, and unnecessary, he told the host, Kwasi Aboagye.



According to him, the president has achieved an unprecedented record in infrastructure in the fourth republic and needs not prove himself with a debate.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are "as stark as black and white" when it comes to the maximum pressure campaign on Iran, according to one analyst. Trump wants more pressure, while Biden would want more engagement, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). "There's this long-standing trend now, that we've seen at least for 20 or 30 years in U.S. foreign policy, where the new occupant, and in this case it's a potential Biden administration, looks to do a 180 (degree change) either on key themes or key policy issues," he told CNBC's "Capital Connection" on Friday. "There will also be grandiose rhetorical changes, even if in some cases, some of the policy substance does remain the same," he said.

But the way in which this administration tries to contain and limit Iranian activity, and using sanctions very heavily as a tool to that end, I do think that would change in a Biden administration. Emily Hawthorne Stratfor

"On Iran and maximum pressure for instance, the candidates are as stark as black and white. (They're) that different, when it comes to either more pressure or more engagement," said Ben Taleblu. "I think what we've seen from the Islamic Republic, if you genuinely want to change their behavior, they don't change their behavior unless there is sustained maximum pressure and that's something the Trump administration is trying to do." Washington in 2018 withdrew from a nuclear agreement with Tehran, and imposed heavy economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. A Biden administration is likely to reengage with multi-lateral agreements and use "more diplomacy as opposed to more economic pressure," Ben Taleblu added. He said the former vice president will not "automatically revert" to the 2015 nuclear treaty, but may try to "claw back elements of that deal" to arrest the Iranian nuclear problem.

U.S. goals will remain

Still, it's "very safe to say" that the U.S. goals will stay the same, no matter who wins the election, said Emily Hawthorne, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at Stratfor. She said the Trump administration has tried to limit the extent to which Iran can act in the Middle East and around the world through militant proxies, financial networks, ballistic missiles and its nuclear program. "Those are some goals that are going to remain in place," she told "Squawk Box Asia" on Friday. "But the way in which this administration tries to contain and limit Iranian activity, and using sanctions very heavily as a tool to that end, I do think that would change in a Biden administration."

'Very precarious' situation

Hawthorne added that Iran has not reacted to the recent U.S. push to restore sanctions because it is waiting to see who wins the November election, and if there's a chance to "turn a page and start a new discussion" if Biden wins. However, there's no clean page from which a potential Biden administration could start negotiations because of "sanctions infrastructure" and "baggage," said Hawthorne.
At the end of the day we can debate the vice presidential pick all we want, until were blue in the face, but thats not going to stop who is on the ballot and ultimately we need to make sure that we remain focused, Lang said.

Whats more, if Baldwin were to vacate her U.S. Senate seat, a likely contentious special election would have been held to fill the vacancy.

Certainly, to not have her in the Senate, it would have been the nations gain but Wisconsins loss, said Mike Browne, deputy director with liberal advocacy group A Better Wisconsin Together.

Milwaukee Democratic strategist Sachin Chheda, who worked on Baldwins 2000 re-election campaign, said Bidens pick for running mate may not have been all that complicated.

I think that people sometimes look for hidden meanings, but I think this one is staring us in the face, Chheda said. You have someone who can do the job and you have trusted and who can be a partner to you  its really that simple sometimes.
Britain and the European Union made scant progress towards a deal on future ties in talks this week, and their chief negotiators blamed each other for the stalemate as time ticks down to an end-of-year deadline.

"Those who were hoping for negotiations to move swiftly forward this week will have been disappointed," the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told a news conference after two full days of talks in Brussels.

His British counterpart David Frost said a deal on post-Brexit relations was "still possible" and was still London's goal but would not be easy to achieve.

"There are ... significant areas which remain to be resolved and even where there is a broad understanding between negotiators, there is a lot of detail to work through," Frost said in a statement. "Time is short for both sides."

British officials said London was willing to talk about any issue and that the EU's insistence Britain must accept its position on state aid and fisheries meant Brussels was responsible for slowing the talks down.

On Jan. 31, Britain became the first country ever to leave the EU, which it had joined in 1973.

Their relationship is now governed by a transition arrangement that keeps previous rules in place while they negotiate a new partnership, to be effective from 2021, on everything from trade and transport to energy and security.

The EU says Britain can only go on trading freely with its lucrative single market of 450 million people if London accepts "level playing field" rules to guarantee fair competition.

Without an agreement, trade and financial ties between the world's fifth-largest economy and biggest trading bloc would break down, potentially deepening the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disagreements over state aid rules and fishing quotas have so far thwarted a deal, which the EU says must be in the making in time to be approved at an Oct. 15-16 summit of the bloc's 27 national leaders to enable ratification this year.

Beyond the biggest stumbling blocks, differences also linger in discussions on migration, security, dispute-settling mechanisms, human rights guarantees and other areas.

With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking economic havoc and both sides of the Channel wanting to avoid an even deeper recession, EU sources had been relatively upbeat in recent weeks that an agreement could be reached on time.

Barnier sounded downbeat on Friday, however, saying he was "disappointed and concerned" because British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had told the EU he wanted to speed up the negotiating process over the summer.

"This week, once again, as in the July round, the British negotiators have not shown any real willingness to move forward on issues of fundamental importance for the European Union," Barnier said. "And this despite the flexibility which we have shown over recent months."

Barnier said no progress at all was made this week on the vexed question of fishing rights in UK waters, and overall negotiations often appeared to be going backwards rather than forwards and so, at this stage, an agreement looked unlikely.

"On the European side, we are very concerned about the state of play in our negotiations. The clock is ticking," he said.

He did note, however, some progress on energy and anti-money laundering cooperation from 2021.

An EU diplomat said few had expected significant progress this month, and there are better prospects for headway to be made in the next round of negotiations, which will be held in London during the second week of September. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The potential proliferation of pot shops in Stoney Creek continues with plans for one next door to the Beer Store by Fiesta Mall.

An application before the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario seeks to open a Nirvana Budz store in the Pizza Pizza strip plaza at 141 Hwy. 8.

A 15-day public commenting period ended on Aug. 6 and the proposed cannabis shops storefront and sign are in place.

Among five stores awaiting provincial approval in the lower Stoney Creek, Nirvana Budz is already advertising online for store clerks, or budtenders, at $15 to $16 an hour, but a website provides no details on the company or owners.

An email sent to an address listed on the website was returned as undeliverable, while a call to the phone number went to voice mail and didn't get a response prior to publication.

The lower Stoney Creek area presently has one cannabis shop, The Hunny Pot at 40 Centennial Pkwy. N., across from Eastgate Square.

Besides Nirvana Budz, others awaiting approval include two on King Street East in downtown Stoney Creek: Neku Cannabis at the Attic Pizzeria and Cannabis Creek Co. by the Village Restaurant.

A Mihi shop at the Winona Crossing Shopping Centre and Toke store in the plaza at the northwest corner of Barton Street and Centennial Parkway North are also before the AGCO.

Upper Stoney Creek has two open stores, Tokyo Smoke in the Fortinos plaza at the corner of Upper Centennial Parkway and Rymal Road, and Sessions Cannabis in the strip mall at the southwest corner of Stone Church and Upper Mount Albion roads.

Two others on the Mountain are awaiting approval: Choomb Cannabis in the Walmart plaza by the corner of Rymal and Swayze roads, and Erbn Green in the former Farmer Als Market by the corner of Rymal Road East and Kingsborough Drive.
Judges are to consider increasing the prison sentences given to three teenagers convicted of killing PC Andrew Harper.

The attorney general has referred the terms to the Court of Appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

PC Harpers wife, Lissie, is campaigning for a new law to make life sentences mandatory for people who kill police officers and other emergency workers.

Two of the defendants, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, have launched appeals against their manslaughter convictions.

They were passengers in the car that dragged PC Harper to his death in Berkshire last August, as the group attempted to flee after stealing a quad bike.

Driver Henry Long, 19, was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment, while Bowers and Cole, both 18, were each given 13 years.

All three men were charged with murder but denied knowing the 28-year-old officer was attached to their car during a high-speed getaway.

The attorney general, Suella Braverman, said: This was a horrific crime which resulted in the death of a much-respected police officer while he was on duty protecting his community.

Having personally considered the details of this shocking case, I have decided to refer the sentences of PC Harpers killers to the Court of Appeal.

Attacks made against emergency workers will not be tolerated, and offenders should be punished with the greatest severity for such heinous crimes.

PC Harpers mother, Debbie Adlam, said the family hoped judges would deliver the justice that Andrew deserves.

My family and I know that the whole nation stands with us in outrage at the sentences handed down to my sons killers, she added.

Driver Henry Long, 19, and passengers Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18 (Thames Valley Police)

The Court of Appeal will be able to increase, reduce or keep the sentences the same upon its review.

PC Harpers wife is campaigning for a new law in her husbands name that would create a mandatory life sentence for those found guilty of killing an emergency worker.

She hailed the attorney generals decision as great news, and said the sentences did not match the heinous crime against her husband.

It was not justice and it needs to be addressed, she added. We now await the outcome with interest and in the meantime we will continue to campaign for Harpers Law.

Ms Harper had been married to the Thames Valley Police officer for a month when he was dragged to his death.

She wrote to the prime minister demanding a retrial after the trio were acquitted of murder last month.

But a judge said there was no evidence of jury intimidation or other issues that would have invalidated the verdict.

Ms Harpers campaign for a change in the law is being supported by the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents rank-and-file officers.
Uber and Lyft were spared in a California appeals court Thursday from being forced to comply with a state law that, they say, would upend their business models. But the relief will be temporary.

The companies plan on using the ballot box to supplant a piece of legislation, already on the books, that requires Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as employees, rather than independent contractors. Now, the companies have proposed a new law, to be decided in 11 weeks, that would grant additional protections to workers, but would not make them regular employees.

Both Uber and Lyft said they would suspend operations in California if they were forced to comply with the existing California labor law by Thursday at midnight, a court-imposed deadline. But on Thursday, hours before the companies were set to pull out of the state, an appeals court judge granted them additional time. The judge instructed the companies to prepare detailed plans for converting drivers into employees and set Oct. 13 as the date to hear arguments. But regardless of what the judge decides, voters will be the ultimate arbiters.

In the November election, the issue will be put before Californians, who will decide the fate of the companies' ballot measure, Proposition 22. Uber and Lyft have already invested heavily to promote the proposal, describing it as a superior "third way" for classifying drivers' employment, offering workers new benefits and protections. Prop 22 opponents say the measure falls short because workers are still denied employee status and rights guaranteed by state law.

The stakes are high. Rides-hailing companies have argued that converting drivers to employees would devastate their business in the country's most populous state, with one Uber study showing that prices could increase between 30% and 120% depending on the region. And while California represents less than 10% of Uber's ride-hailing volume, and less than 20% of Lyft's rides, state legislators around the country will watch the outcome of the legal battle closely. If the state's lawmakers prevail, other legislatures could follow suit with similar requirements.

As campaigning for the November election intensifies, the ballot proposal has become a hotly contested political issue. On Thursday, President Donald Trump's campaign put out a statement in support of the companies. The campaign decried Democratic support for California's labor law and said the state was "waging an all-out assault on workers."

Supporters of the companies' proposition have raised more than $110 million as of June 30, according to state filings. Meanwhile, the campaign to defeat Prop 22 has raised less than $1 million.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Lyft emphasized that the company had a long way to go to secure the right to continue operating as usual in California. "While we won't have to suspend operations tonight, we do need to continue fighting for independence plus benefits for drivers," the spokesperson said. Uber also celebrated the decision to grant an extension on enforcing the new law, saying the company was glad that "access to these critical services won't be cut off while we continue to advocate for drivers' ability to work with the freedom they want."

Labor advocates have long opposed Uber and Lyft's current way of doing business, arguing it creates a permanent underclass of workers denied traditional employment benefits like sick leave. "Wealthy executives at Uber and Lyft have had years to reshape their companies to comply with the law," said Cherri Murphy, a driver and activist from Oakland, California. "Instead, they have chosen to break the existing law and spend millions to purchase a deceptive law that weakens labor and benefit protections."

Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, took issue with the companies' argument that drivers could only work flexible hours if they were contract workers. "There's nothing about employment status that says they are supposed to work certain hours," she said. "It's a false narrative."

Nearly 100,000 drivers support the ballot initiative, according to Yes on 22 - Save App-Based Jobs & Services, a coalition of drivers and other organizations. The group -- which is financed by Uber, Lyft and DoorDash Inc. -- argues that Proposition 22 provides key benefits while preserving drivers' freedom, including guaranteeing earnings that are above minimum wage, funding health benefits for drivers working 15 hours a week or more, and providing accident insurance to cover injuries and illnesses on the job.

Some drivers, though, say it's not enough. "We want basic rights," said John Mejia, a longtime Uber and Lyft driver who stopped working March because of health concerns related to the pandemic. Mejia said he's anxious that the proposition's proponents are so well-funded compared to labor groups. "We are the small dog in this fight," Mejia said.

In an Aug. 9 poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, 41% of respondents said they will vote 'yes' on Proposition 22, while 26% said they will vote 'no' and 34% remain undecided.
Amazon's retail chief Jeff Wilke, who helped the company transform itself from an online bookstore into a global colossus, is retiring early next year.

Wilke, 53, has been with Amazon for more than two decades and was regarded as a potential successor to founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. His responsibilities grew along with the company, running not just Amazon.com, but the Whole Foods grocery chain and its physical book stores.

Wilke is often referred to within Amazon as 'The other Jeff' to differentiate him from Bezos. The two have worked closely together since Wilke joined the company in 1999, four years after Amazon.com started selling books online.

This June 2019 photo shows Jeff Wilke at an Amazon conference in Las Vegas

Wilke wrote that he decided to leave Amazon because 'it's just time'

He will be replaced by Dave Clark, who runs Amazon's warehouses and delivery network, the Seattle-based company said Friday. Clark, who also joined the company in 1999, has sped up delivery times by expanding Amazon's fleet of vans and jets, allowing it to relying less on UPS and the postal service.

Amazons growing power, however, has brought increased scrutiny from lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad. Last month, Bezos was questioned by Congress about how the company treats its third-party sellers, who list and sell goods on Amazon.com. Bezos told Congress that he couldnt guarantee that employees werent looking at seller data to create competing products, an allegation that the company and its executives had previously denied.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Wilke is 'simply one of those people without whom Amazon would be completely unrecognizable'

Last year, at an Amazon conference Las Vegas, Wilke said he welcomed the scrutiny.

'I think that substantial entities in the economy deserve scrutiny,' Wilke said at the time. 'Our job is to build the kind of company that passes that scrutiny.'

In an email to staff Friday, Wilke said that he doesn't have another job lined up.

'So why leave? Its just time,' he wrote in the email. 'Time for me to take time to explore personal interests that have taken a back seat for over two decades.'

Wilke said he will focus on running the company through the holiday season, which is shaping up to be the busiest one yet for Amazon. Sales have skyrocketed as online sales boom during the pandemic.

'He is simply one of those people without whom Amazon would be completely unrecognizable,' Bezos wrote in a memo to staff. 'Thank you, Jeff, for your contributions and your friendship.'
In collaboration with the Election Command Centre, The Governance Research Bureau says the NDC can win the 2020 elections if they increase their average votes in their strongholds by 115,000.

For the NPP, they need to increase their average votes in the swing regions by 450,000 to clinch victory, according to the Bureau.

This winning formula was prescribed by Dr. Kwame Asah Asante and Dr. Ezekiel Nii Nortey, both Resource Persons from the Governance Research Bureau, while discussing the 2020 elections from the perspectives of Political Science and Statistics on TV3 Election Watch programme last Sunday.

The formula is based on the Bureaus analysis of EC certified results of the two parties since 1992.

The Resource Persons said in addition to the NDC increasing their votes in their strongholds by 115,000, the party should also maintain their average votes of 1,069,039 in NPP strongholds and 2,515,421 in the swing regions.

For the NPP, Dr. Asah Asante and Dr. Nii Nortey recommended that while the party should increase their votes in the swing regions by 450,000 votes, they should maintain their average votes of 2,118,663 in their strongholds and 630,503 votes in NDC strongholds

Speaking on the formula they said both the NDC and NPP needed to perform better in their opponents strongholds as well as the swing regions to win the elections, stressing that other variables, such as the economy, infrastructure, health, and education, among others, could alter the results either way.

They said for the parties to win they should maintain their national average votes and target the votes of the smaller parties.

Dr. Asah Asante, who is also Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, University of Ghana, Legon, said the performance of the NDC and NPP in the swing regions would determine the winner, adding that winning in their strongholds alone would not be enough.

For his part, Dr. Nortey, also Senior Lecturer in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Ghana, Legon, said the parties should strive to capture much more votes from their opponents strongholds and the swing regions to secure victory.

Election Watch airs on TV3, every Sunday from 4pm.
ON Monday, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko went to the Minsk Tractor Works, the countrys biggest factory with almost 15,000 workers, and did his tough-guy act: Until you kill me, there will be no other election. The horn-handed sons of toil simply replied by chanting Ukhodi!  Get out!

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

ON Monday, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko went to the Minsk Tractor Works, the countrys biggest factory with almost 15,000 workers, and did his tough-guy act: "Until you kill me, there will be no other election." The horn-handed sons of toil simply replied by chanting "Ukhodi!"  Get out!

It looked like a restaging of the famous scene in Bucharest in 1989, when long-ruling Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was shouted down by an enraged crowd. Like Ceauescu, Lukashenko faltered, amazed and bewildered  these people were supposed to be his "base"  and then fled the podium.

Ceausescu was dead within four days of his last speech, executed by his own colleagues. That probably wont happen to Lukashenko: the Belarusian uprising is non-violent. Lukashenko is not a Communist, either, although his regime has been called "neo-Soviet." But will he be gone in four days? Maybe so.

And maybe not, of course. There could be a Russian military intervention to prevent power from falling into the "wrong" hands, although that seems unlikely. Or Lukashenko might manage to persuade his demoralized "security" forces to do enough killing to clear the streets of the daily demonstrations, though that also seems improbable.

Or the change of regime could just take a bit longer: these things dont run on rails. After filling the streets with protesters for 10 consecutive days, however, the democratic opposition is confident enough of its popular support to form a 35-person "co-ordination council" of artists, writers and business people to oversee the transfer of power.

It could go quite smoothly if Lukashenko accepts that exile is his best remaining option. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, probably the real winner of the election two weeks ago, says she would become president only long enough to organize a new, free and fair election (which her imprisoned husband would probably win).

But win, lose or draw, there are two encouraging conclusions to take away from the Belarusian events. The first is that winning an election is now the only way of achieving political legitimacy almost anywhere in the world. Apart from China, a few other Communist countries, and a few Arab countries, all countries now require popular consent expressed in a public vote.

Many of those votes are rigged, of course: winning elections is easy if you control the media, the police and the courts. But the principle is now almost universal: its now as important to win some sort of election, however flawed, as it was 300 years ago to prove you were the true and legitimate heir to the throne.

Lukashenko won five such elections over 26 years before coming a cropper this time: the point is that the requirement to win an election creates repeated opportunities for non-violent protest to flourish, and often even to triumph. For all the abuses and disappointments, it has made the world a better place.

The second cheering thought is that state-sponsored violence is less effective than it used to be: Lukashenko tried it for two nights, and then backed away from it. The problem is that violence is always ugly, and social media technology has made it much more visible. This might deter some people from activism, but it seems to motivate more people to protest.

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The same consideration applies to military force deployed across borders to decide political outcomes elsewhere. This is something the old Soviet Union used to do with complete impunity  East Germany 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968  and as late as 1981, the mere threat of it forced the local Communist regime to impose martial law in Poland.

On one occasion, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the current regime in Russia has done the same thing, but that only worked because most of the local population was Russian and wanted to be annexed.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin certainly doesnt want to see Lukashenko overthrown by a non-violent democratic uprising in Belarus  the parallels with his own situation in Russia are alarmingly close  but he probably doesnt dare to send in Russian troops even if Lukashenko asks for them. To do so could be the trigger for a similar popular movement in Russia.

We are still a very long way from the Promised Land, but the balance of forces has changed, perhaps permanently. It is the dictatorships, not the democratic governments, that must worry constantly about being overthrown, and from Putin in Russia to Sisi in Egypt to Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe to Chan-ocha in Thailand, they are very worried indeed.

So we should encourage them all to steal enough money that they can go into exile with an easy mind when their time finally comes. (They must know it may come one day; why else would they bother stealing so much?) And this is where the real problem with Lukashenko could arise: he may not have been corrupt enough.

Gwynne Dyers latest book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).
Due to the reopening of schools, countless people in Germany have already become infected with the deadly coronavirus within a few days.

Events in Hamburg show how recklessly the authorities are putting the lives of teachers, pupils and parents at risk and covering up the true extent of the pandemic. The state government reopened schools on August 6. Since then, at least 59 students and teachers have tested positive, the Hamburger Abendblatt reported on Tuesday.

According to the article, the school board reports that there are currently 44 active cases in at least 35 schools in Hamburg, with at least 41 schools affected. Of the 59 cases, 55 are students, and only in four cases have teachers or other school employees been proven to be infected, the newspaper said.

An employee wearing a face mask and gloves is waiting for the next patient behind the door of a corona diagnostic centre in Germany. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with Angelika, a teacher whose name we changed at her request. I am very cautious because you could expect to face repression if you talk about this in public, she said. Angelika works at one of the affected schools in the Hamburg district of Eidelstedt.

At our school, a girl tested positive and was taken out of school by the health department for this reason. There is said to have been no Category 1 contacti.e., 15 minutes face-to-facebecause she was supposed to have been sitting alone at a table with a mask in the classroom. For this reason, classes continued as normalthis was a decision of the health department.

Although in Hamburg, as in almost all other federal states, there is neither a social distancing rule nor a mask requirement for lessons, the Eimsbuttel District Office justified the decision by stating that the affected pupil had no close contact with her fellow pupils in the full classroom.

In Hamburg, there are now many schools with coronavirus incidents, Angelika reported. According to media reports, at least 11 new coronavirus cases were reported in Hamburg last weekend aloneat 11 different schools. However, Angelika is certain that the cases are covered up by the school and health authorities and not made public.  There are more than the schools named in the articles. Our case was not made public at first, and I know of two others that were not in the press either.

I talked to my neighbour, whose grandson goes to another school, she continued, There was also an incident there and a colleague had to stay at home for several days because her daughter was sitting next to a person who tested positive in the schoolyard.

On Friday, the Abendblatt reported four cases at four different schools in Hamburg, which had become known the day before. There had been no further measures, in particular, no quarantine measures or further testing had been ordered by the health authorities, the newspaper said. The cases have so far remained without consequences. This applies in particular to cases in which, as in Angelikas school, infected pupils had taken part in lessons and had not been detected at first.

Due to earlier infections, 15 more school classes are currently in quarantine in Hamburg. In total, around 40 cases of infection are now officially registered every day in Hamburgmany of them in refugee accommodation, where residents often live together in inhumane conditions in a very confined space. Apart from the local newspaper Abendblatt, no other major newspaper has reported the ominous developments in the German megacity.

So far, one hardly reads about infections in Hamburg schools. But when you hear from colleagues that it is affecting considerably more schools, you wonder why this is not being made public, as in our case! And above all: Why is the school environment not tested in a confirmed case?

The answer to these questions can only be that a deliberate policy is being pursued. Children are sent to school without protection, the lie is spread that this is not contagious, and if they do become infected, the cases are systematically covered up. Not even the most basic quarantine measures are taken, and the authorities are instructed to test as little as possible. At the same time, students and parents themselves are blamed for the developing disaster.

The latter was the purpose of the appearance of Hamburgs Mayor Peter Tschentscher (Social Democratic Party, SPD) in the ARD broadcast Hard but Fair on Monday. To distract from the dangerous policy of reopening schools without compulsory masks and distancing rules, he blamed the phenomenon of holiday returnees, private parties and the populations lack of discipline for the problems we have in Hamburg. In the same breath he declared, Wildly testing doesnt help.

[coment]PHOTO: Tschentscher, together with Chancellor Merkel at a press conference on opening policy, on 17 June (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Pool)[/comment]

The same ignorance and indifference of the ruling class was expressed by Tschentschers spokesman for the school authorities, Peter Albrecht, when he told the Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday that the infection figures at Hamburg schools were altogether of little concern. He confirmed to the newspaper, In the case of new infections, only those affected are in quarantine.

The handling of cases seems to be similar everywhere, Angelika concluded. Today, we received a letter from the authorities telling us how to proceed. It is very clear from this letter that the schools have little decision-making power in the case of confirmed or suspected cases. It is completely up to the health authoritiesand they will also have their instructions on how (late) they can react!

Two weeks ago, Hamburgs Senator (state minister) for Education, Ties Rabe, announced that 30,000 medical masks and 30,000 transparent visors would be made available to schools. It was only on the fourth day after school started that every teacher received a single FFP-2 disposable mask! Angelika reported. The school office and janitor received nothing! We will have to get down on our knees in gratitude!

The ruling class is determined to keep schools open despite the rapidly increasing number of infections, against the resistance of pupils, parents and teachers.

In an interview with the daily Die Welt before the summer holidays, Senator Rabe repeated the lie that the risk of infection in children under 10 is much lower than originally assumed. Therefore, according to Rabe, if there is a possible increase in infections, the school must not be automatically closed first, but other measures must then be considered. It must then be, schools [close] last.

This policy is now being put into practice. School closures are to be prevented by all means possible, Angelika said, summarizing the attitude of the Hamburg state government. We teachers in Hamburg feel like guinea pigs. We are one of the first federal states to have reopened schools. That is perhaps one reason why the numbers are being kept down. Things have to go well, otherwise it will be more difficult for the other states to start a total opening up...

Schools must remain open so that parents are fully available to the labour market again and profits are once again bubbling. Although they do not say this openly, the federal and state governments are pursuing a policy of herd immunity, which deliberately accepts mass infections and fatalities in the interests of the capitalist economy.
Dr Alhassan Sulemana Anamzoya, Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Development Authority (NDA), says the NDA has created some 15,000 short term jobs.



He said the jobs were created through the implementation of the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP).



He said many artisans in the five regions of the north benefited from the employments created, which had helped to improve their living conditions.



Dr Anamzoya said this when he addressed this years edition of the Northern Ghana Development Conference held in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.



He said in March, this year, the NDA awarded a total of 2,149 projects in the five regions in the north as part of the governments IPEP projects, which helped to create the jobs.



He said the projects, which cut across education, health, agriculture, roads, electrification, water and sanitation, the social and the economic sectors, were expected to be completed within six months.



Under the IPEP, the government undertakes infrastructure projects in each constituency of the country to the tune of one million dollars to address the felt needs of the people.



This years edition of the Northern Ghana Development Conference was organised by the NDA in partnership with the five Regional Coordinating Councils in the north, Civil Society Organisations and other relevant stakeholders.



It was on the theme: Election 2020 and COVID-19: Opportunities and Challenges for the Transformation of Northern Ghanas Economy.



Transformation in the perspective of stakeholders meant a conscious effort to bridge the socio-economic gaps between the north and the south of the country.



Participants deliberated on wide range of issues, which were deemed critical to the development of northern Ghana, and included What can be done to secure the dignity and human rights of women in communities in Northern Ghana, and Developing a vibrant, resilient and profitable agricultural sector in northern Ghana.



The rest were Securing peace and security in northern Ghana before, during and after the 2020 elections, and Ensuring the manifestos of political parties for the 2020 elections address the critical development needs of the five regions in northern Ghana.



Mrs Mary Chinery-Hesse, the Chancellor of the University of Ghana, emphasised the need to grow the shea nut industry because it had potential to trigger the economic transformation of the north.



Prof Yakubu Nantogmah, Chief of Bogu in the Savelugu Municipality, and a Member of the Council of State, expressed the need for value addition to raw produce to help create an attractive market for goods produced in the north.



Madam Paulina Abayage, the Upper East Regional Minister, spoke about the Conference and said it was to afford stakeholders and partners the opportunity to take stock and review the progress of key issues reached at the 2019 Conference.



Mr Salifu Saeed, the Northern Regional Minister, said a key achievement of the previous Conferences was the implementation of the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam project.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Russia has been granted a parcel of land and marine space by the Syrian state, but will be responsible for building and infrastructure writes Sputnik

Syria has agreed to grant Russia a plot of land and marine space in the coastal province of Lattakia to establish a health center for the Russian Army.

Russias Sputnik Agency quoted from a document published by the official Russian legal information portal, that, The Syrian Arab Republic agreed to transfer a plot of land and water space in Lattakia Governorate to Russia in order to establish a medical center for the health and rehabilitation of Russian flying teams.

The area around the site, according to the document, is eight hectares, and Russia bears the cost of building and equipping the infrastructure.

The document was signed on Jun. 21, 2020, in Damascus, and in Moscow on Jul. 30, 2020.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
By now, you may have seen The Dress. No, not the blue and black/white and gold one. The strawberry dress.

Tess Holliday wore the strawberry dress at this year's Grammy Awards. Credit:Getty

A frothy pink creation covered in sparkly strawberries by designer Lirika Matoshi, the strawberry dress has been going viral since July, photoshopped on celebrities, embraced by social media influencers, and taking over TikTok trends.

While it may seem to some that the strawberry dress exploded out of nowhere, it was actually worn on the red carpet by Tess Holliday to the Grammys back in January. The fact it didnt immediately take over the internet at the time has sparked a conversation about the intersection of fashion and fat bodies, and the way the latter are so often invisible in these spaces.

Holliday this week shared her frustration on Instagram. I like how this dress had me on worst dressed lists when I wore it in January to the Grammys, but now because a bunch of skinny people wore it on TikTok everyone cares, Holliday wrote.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- While NASA is preparing to send the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon in 2024 with the Artemis program, the next generation of explorers, engineers, scientists, and spaceflight professionals are sharpening their skills to help the agency establish a permanent presence on the Moon and send the first humans to Mars.

The agency announced the winners of the 2020 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge during a virtual awards ceremony posted Aug. 21. The Rover Challenge tasks U.S. and international student teams to design, engineer, and test a human-powered rover on a course that simulates the terrain found on rocky bodies in the solar system. The teams also must perform mission tasks while negotiating the course, including sample retrievals and spectrographic analysis.

Despite the cancellation of on-site competition activities at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center near NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the high school and college teams competed in multiple design, documentation, and presentation categories, and were recognized for their successful efforts.

"This year, we had 111 teams from 27 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and 11 other countries," said Julie Clift, program manager for the challenge at Marshall. "The teams pushed the limits this year, designing and building truly innovative rovers to take on the challenging course. Although we are disappointed we had to cancel the on-site activities, we are thrilled we are able to recognize and celebrate the teams' hard work and creativity."

Awards were presented in eight categories.

AIAA Neil Armstrong Best Design Award

High School Division: Escambia High School, in Pensacola, Florida

College/University Division: Middle Tennessee State University  Team 2, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Technology Challenge Award

Universidad Nacional de Ingeneiria, in Lima, Peru

Drive Train Technology Challenge

Universidad ECCI, in Bogota, Colombia

AIAA Telemetry/Electronics Award

Tecnologico de Monterrey , in Morelos, Mexico

AIAA Best Report Award

High School Division: Parish Episcopal School  Team 1, in Dallas

College/University Division: Trine University, in Angola, Indiana

System Safety Challenge Award

High School Division: Mount Juliet High School, in Mount Juliet, Tennessee

College/University Division: Instituto Tecnologico De Santo Domingo (INTEC), in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

STEM Engagement Award

High School Division: Blue Ridge High School, in Lakeside, Arizona

College/University Division: Universidad ECCI

Task Challenge Award

High School Division: Saint Thomas Academy, in Mendota Heights, Minnesota

College/University Division: University of Alabama in Huntsville

The competition is one of seven NASA Artemis Student Challenges the agency hosts to engage and inspire the Artemis Generation. It is sponsored by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and Office of STEM Engagement Next Gen STEM in Washington; and managed by Marshall's Office of STEM Engagement.

The challenge was launched in 1994 as the NASA Great Moonbuggy Race to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Just six college teams participated that first year. Expanded in 1996 to include high school teams, the race evolved again in 2014 into the Human Exploration Rover Challenge. Since the challenge's inception, more than 12,000 students have participated.

For more information about NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/stem/roverchallenge/home/index.html

For more information about NASA's Artemis Student Challenges, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/stem/artemis.html

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


In addition to measures like social distancing and wearing masks, an Indian-German team of scientists recommend controlling indoor humidity conditions to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19.

The researchers, including those from CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi, said in order to contain the pandemic, it is extremely important to implement standards for indoor air humidity in rooms with many people, such as hospitals, open-plan offices, or public transport.

In their review of studies, published in the journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research, the scientists specifically drew focus on relative humidity, which is a measure of water vapour in the air compared to the total saturation of vapour that can exist in the air at its current temperature.

According to the study, a relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane.

The scientists said tiny drops of five micrometres in diameter, such as those produced when speaking, can float in the air for up to nine minutes.

"In aerosol research, it has long been known that air humidity plays a major role -- The more humid the air is, the more water adheres to the particles and so they can grow faster. So, we were curious -- what studies have already been conducted on this," explained Ajit Ahlawat, a co-author of the study from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Germany.

According to the scientists, humidity affects the behaviour of microorganisms within the virus droplets, and the survival or inactivation of the virus on the surfaces.

They said it also influences the role of dry indoor air in the airborne transmission of viruses.

"If the relative humidity of indoor air is below 40 per cent, the particles emitted by infected people absorb less water, remain lighter, fly further through the room and are more likely to be inhaled by healthy people," Ahlawat explained.

"In addition, dry air also makes the mucous membranes in our noses dry and more permeable to viruses," he said.

humidity-window1_iStockiStock

For countries in cool climates, the scientists recommend a minimum indoor humidity.

The scientists believe the new findings are particularly important for the upcoming winter season in the northern hemisphere, when millions of people will be staying in heated rooms.

"Heating the fresh air also ensures that it dries. In cold and temperate climate zones, therefore, the indoor climate is usually very dry during the heating season. This could encourage the spread of coronaviruses," said study co-author Alfred Wiedensohler of TROPOS.

At a higher humidity, the scientists said droplets grow faster, fall to the ground earlier, and can be inhaled less by healthy people.

"A humidity level of at least 40 per cent in public buildings and local transport would therefore not only reduce the effects of COVID-19, but also of other viral diseases such as seasonal flu. Authorities should include the humidity factor in future indoor guidelines," added study co-author Sumit Kumar Mishra of CSIR - National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi.

For countries in cool climates, the scientists recommend a minimum indoor humidity.

They said countries in tropical and hot climates, on the other hand, should take care that indoor rooms are not extremely undercooled by air conditioning systems.

When air is extremely cooled, it dries out the air and the particles in it, making people inside the room feel comfortable, but the dry particles will remain in the air for longer duration, the researchers warned.

They added that the measures already known, such as social distancing, having as few people per room as possible, and wearing masks should also be practised to lower the risk of infection.

Also Read: New airplane for PM Modi to land in Delhi soon; check out details

Also Read: Coronavirus vaccine: Army, frontline workers may get it first; COVAXIN to be ready by year end
T he brother of the two men behind the Manchester Arena bombing that killed 22 and wounded dozens more has apologised to the victims' families.

Ismail Abedi, older sibling to Hashem and Salman Abedi, said: "I want to apologise on behalf of my family to the victims, for all the pain Hashem and Salman caused."

Speaking in the wake of Hashem's minimum-55-year jail sentence handed out this week, Mr Abedi told Sky News that he had "no idea" that his younger brothers had decided to "take this path".

This was the first time he had spoken out after the terrorist atrocity that his brothers carried out in 2017.

The scene close to the Manchester Arena after the terror attack / PA

Responding to Hashem's sentence, Mr Abedi added: "I'm glad this has happened because I can put it all behind me, get on with my life and look after my family."

Mr Abedi was born in Libya but grew up in Manchester. He said he lived on his own from 2013 but kept in touch with his younger brothers.

He said he noticed a change in Salman's behaviour before the terrorist attack, including that he started to go to the mosque more often.

Mr Abedi added that he even spoke to Salman the night before the attack but did not notice anything wrong on the telephone.

He added: "What's happened has happened. I can't stop it now, I can't go back. It's done and dusted. He died, they died."

A memorial at Manchester Arena / AFP/Getty Images

In the wake of the attack, Mr Abedi himself was arrested by counter-terrorism officers but was released without charge after two weeks of questioning.

Hashem, 23, was accused of showing "contempt" for refusing to face his victims' families in court on Thursday before being sentenced to the highest single life sentence ever for helping Salman build the bomb.

He will be eligible for parole when he is in his late 70s, but he is expected to die in jail after a judge said he could never be freed.

Hashem helped bomber Salman buy, source, transport and stockpile materials for the deadly weapon. He was in Libya at the time of the attack but was soon arrested.

Salman died when he detonated the suicide bomb on May 22, 2017, along with his 22 victims aged between eight and 51.

More than half were children and teenagers.

Hashem Abedi, the brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi / PA

Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said: "Although Salman Abedi was directly responsible, it was clear the defendant took an integral part in the planning."

"The motivation for them was to advance the ideology of Islamism, a matter distinct to and abhorrent to the vast majority for those who follow the Islamic faith," he added.

"The defendant and his brother were equally culpable for the deaths and injuries caused.

"The stark reality is that these were atrocious crimes, large in their scale, deadly in their intent, and appalling in their consequences."

The judge went on: "The despair and desolation of the bereaved families has been palpable."

If the defendant, like his brother, had been 21 or over at the time of the offence, the appropriate starting point would have been a whole life order.

The scene close to the Manchester Arena after the terror attack / PA

Not only because of the combination of the significant degree of pre-meditation but also because the motivation for them was to advance the ideology of Islamism, a matter distinct to and abhorrent to the vast majority for those who follow the Islamic faith.

The court heard several statements from victims' families at the sentencing.

Harriet Taylor paid tribute to her mother Jane Tweddle in a statement: "We simply will not let evil win. Evil is invisible, it has no face, no heart, no race.

"But what we have that evil never will have is love."

Michael Thompson, father of victim Michelle Kiss, said: "We believe there is more good in the world than bad but unfortunately it only takes one bad person to devastate and destroy so many lives."
India insisted on 'complete disengagement' in all its talks with China on eastern Ladakh row: Govt

Breakthrough evades India-China talks yet again

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 21: The meeting between the diplomats of India and China failed to achieve a breakthrough to resolve the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control.

However, both sides agreed to sincerely work towards complete disengagement. This was the fourth meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) since the standoff began in May.

It may be recalled that the seventh meeting of the WMCC was held last month. Both sides had agreed on complete disengagement along the LAC at eastern Ladakh. The talks are headed by the joint secretary-level officials from both sides.

India-China WMCC meet: Both sides agree to resolve outstanding issues expeditiously, says MEA

The Chinese have not disengaged in the Finger Area, Depsang Plains and Gogra despite multiple rounds of talks. The Chinese have been camping in the Finger Areas for the past three months and have been constructing bunkers and sangars.

The position that India would continue to maintain firmly is that the Chinese PLA must disengage. The decision was taken following a consultative meeting of top officials from the Army, Defence and External Affairs Ministry.

The inter-ministerial meeting was held ahead of the diplomatic talks through the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) to be held later this week.

It is quite clear that the transgressions that began in May had the approval of the Chinese Central Military Commission headed by Secretary, Xi Jinping. This is because it involved both the Tibetan and Xinjiang district as troops were inducted from outside the Western Theatre Command, an official familiar with the developments told OneIndia.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

The official cited above also said that during the talks, China continues to make demands that are clearly not acceptable to India. For instance, they are seeking the removal of an old administrative base in Pangong Tso.
Hong Kong: Universal COVID-19 test plan set

The Government will launch the Universal Community Testing Programme on September 1 to provide a one-off free testing service for members of the public.

The programme aims to identify as early as possible asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in the community and achieve the target of early identification, isolation and treatment to cut the community transmission chain.

The programme is scheduled to run for seven days. Subject to the actual progress, it may be extended for no more than seven days.

Except for children under six and people not suitable for the test, all holders of valid Hong Kong identity cards or birth certificates who are asymptomatic can take part in the programme on a voluntary basis.

The Government will set up community testing centres in all districts across the city. Appropriate infection control and social distancing measures will be put in place at the centres according to the Department of Healths recommendations.

Members of the public can make an appointment online by providing their details and choosing the testing location and time slot. Booking arrangements and other details will be announced in due course.

Specimens will be collected by trained medical or healthcare staff. They will collect the combined nasal and throat swabs of participants for laboratory testing.

People whose test results are negative will be informed by SMS. If a test result is positive, the Department of Health will take follow-up action immediately.

The Government reiterated the programme will only do testing for COVID-19 and that all testing will be conducted in Hong Kong. Specimens will not be transported outside the city and they will be destroyed after testing.

No personal particulars will be indicated on the programmes sampling bottles. The testing agencies will know only the serial numbers but not the specimen owners identities.

The Government appealed to citizens to fight the virus together and join the programme to win the battle against the virus as soon as possible.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
ETX Daily Up

After the success of the first initiative that saw houses sold for one euro in the village of Sambuca in Italy, the town hall has relaunched the project with the arrival of a new batch. By partnering with Airbnb, for example, the mayor of Sambuca hopes to attract new participants, especially with remote working becoming a possibility for an increasing number of people.
President Donald Trump appeared to confirm an element of Stormy Daniels claims about their alleged affair, when he ranted about sharks at a rally in Pennsylvania.

While talking about Iraq during a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Mr Trump got distracted when a mosquito flew in front of his face, according to the Washington Post.

I want to get that mosquito, Mr Trump said, waving at the mosquito. I dont like theyll say its cruelty to animals. I dont know  no, its true!

After the audience laughed, the president abandoned his previous line of thought and switched his attention to sharks and seals, and a campaign to save the former.

They were saying the other night, the shark. They were saying, Sharks, we have to protect them. I said, Wait a minute, wait. They actually want to remove all the seals in order to save the shark. I said, Wait, dont you have it the other way around?

Im not a big fan of sharks, either, president Trump said. I dont know, how many votes am I going to lose? I have people calling me up: Sir, we wanted to  we have a fund to save the shark. Its called save the shark. I say No, thank you. I have other things I can contribute to, he added.

Although Mr Trump did not confirm what he was specifically discussing, The Guardian reported that he may have been referring to Maine, where culling seals is being discussed as a way to reduce the chances of shark attacks in the area, after a woman was killed last month.

In 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that adult-film actress Daniels had claimed she received hush money to keep the details of a 2006 affair with the president private.

Mr Trumps former attorney Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 (99,288) in 2016 to keep the affair a secret in the build up to the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to tax evasion and campaign finance violations, and claimed he did so under the direction of the president, for the principal purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. The president denies these claims.

In 2011, during an interview with In Touch Weekly that was published after her claims were made public, Daniels said that Mr Trump invited her to see him again at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007 and that when she arrived he was watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.

The strangest thing about that night  this was the best thing ever, Daniels said. You could see the television from the little dining room table and he was watching Shark Week and he was watching a special about the USS something and it sank and it was like the worst shark attack in history. He is obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks.

Daniel said that he was like, I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die, and added: He was like riveted. He was like obsessed. Its so strange, I know.

Mr Trump had previously tweeted about his dislike of sharks, and in 2013 wrote: Sorry folks, Im just not a fan of sharks  and dont worry, they will be around long after we are gone.

He later added: Sharks are last on my list  other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!

In her 2018 autobiography, Full Disclosure, Daniels reiterated the shark element of her encounter with the president in 2007, and claimed Shark Week distracted him from a call with Hillary Clinton, when she was running for the Democratic nomination at the 2008 presidential election.

He had a whole conversation about the race, repeatedly mentioning our plan, Daniels wrote, but even while he was on the phone with Hillary (Clinton), his attention kept going back to the sharks.
MINSK, BelarusStrolling through the impeccably manicured center of the Belarusian capital the evening before this months presidential election, a local friend complained to me about the looming presence of the state in day-to-day life. This was especially true during the past several months, as a wave of unprecedented discontent derailed President Aleksandr Lukashenkos plans for a smooth recoronation. Change was on everyones mind, but so was speculation about how his regime might thwart it.

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Im sick of being forced to think about politics, she told me. Life in a place like Belgium or Denmarkwhere, she mused, not everyones always able to name the sitting prime ministerseemed so much less stifling.

Belarusians have never been particularly pushy. For years, they watched protests grip their neighbors, first in Russia and then in Ukraine, where mass movements became deeply fraught with ideological divisions, identity politics, and geopolitical undertones. Protests here had erupted over previous elections, but the culturally focused opposition, marginalized by Lukashenkos police state, failed to inspire the masses. Meanwhile, the former collective farm boss presided over an ideologically flexible, quasi-Soviet regime marked by sterile celebrations of civic (rather than ethnic) patriotism and stodgy displays of national solidarity.

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Think billboards lauding the nations harvest or reminding Belarusians of the sacrifices they endured in the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Stability and order have long been paramount, as evidenced by the spotless streets and museumlike atmosphere of Minsk. Obedience is strictly enforced, thanks to a well-resourced security apparatus. Lately, social responsibility has also figured prominently: Public service announcements posted on sidewalks remind residents to avoid using plastic bags when buying fruit, and even to teach their grandparents how to take selfies.

Ironically, in some ways Lukashenkos quest to forge a civic-minded, goal-oriented society has reached its final conclusion. Its just not in the way hed plannedthe most serious threat to his 26-year rule. The world is now watching the Belarusian people embrace widespread solidarity in a unified, nonviolent movement buoyed by remarkable displays of humanity.

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Although anger had gradually mounted in recent years over the stagnation of Belarus state-oriented economy, Lukashenkos most serious misstep came this spring, when he gruffly dismissed the coronavirus pandemic and allowed his country to suffer one of Europes worst outbreaks. After jailing several key political opponents, officials rigged the Aug. 9 election to hand Europes last dictator an unimaginable 80 percent of the vote. There is plentiful anecdotal and statical evidence suggesting this figure is laughably inaccurate.

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But the tipping point came after Lukashenko deployed his feared riot police to round up peaceful protesters who spilled onto the streets after the election. Over several days, about 7,000 people were detained, many subjected to brutal mistreatment. (I was one of them.) Horrific firsthand accounts of psychological and physical torture galvanized Belarusians like never before. Alesia Rudnik, a researcher at the Minsk-based Center for New Ideas, says the moment amounted to a common trauma for a nation whose post-Soviet identity hadnt quite been fully formed. And when I say nation, Rudnik says, I mean that Belarusians have finally emerged as a nation.

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Largely because Belarus was the crown jewel of Soviet industry, its national identity had been closely tied to that legacy, rather than to any cultural attachments. Close economic and military ties with Russiaitself struggling to give up the ghost of empirehelped lock that in place, even amid Lukashenkos soft Belarusianization campaign aimed at keeping its distance and avoiding a so-called Crimean scenario.

Now, for the first time in decades, Belarusians are rallying against a common enemy they believe is endangering their future. This time, its the regime itself.

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In recent days, commentators both at home and abroad have marveled at the largely peaceful nature of the demonstrations, even after being exposed to the ghastly abuses their compatriots had suffered in detention. Photos depicting protesters removing their shoes before hoisting themselves onto benches, or picking up trash after themselves, have gone viral. These days, the dominant sound in central Minsk is the cacophony of car horns honking in support of the movement.

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As Belarusians have increasingly realized the power of their own agency, civic society has emerged as something of a parallel structure to a state bureaucracy thats bloated and ineffective at best, and predatory at worst. Even before the protests began, the #ByCOVID19 crowdfunding campaign gained enormous traction, raising more than $300,000 for medical supplies to fight a virus the government had all but ignored. Before I left for Minsk, Andrej Stryzhak, the chief coordinator, told me that he hoped the effort would set an example for others. Limitations breed creativity, he said.

He was right. In the wake of last weeks detentions and beatings, Belarusians flocked to help one another. Volunteers gathered outside prisons to provide food, support, and even rides home for recently released detainees. Hairdressers offered free haircuts, says Alena Aharelysheva, a 32-year-old gender researcher and civic volunteer, and dentists offered their own services free of charge. My Facebook feed is full of initiatives, Aharelysheva told me, noting that the countrys army of IT professionals has been indispensable to those efforts.

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She added that Belarusians have realized they dont really need the state, at least not one like this.

But for all the popular will, its far from clear whether the movement will succeed in squeezing any concessions from Lukashenko, to say nothing of toppling his authoritarian regime. After the wave of repression, he hinted at further crackdowns, including against a fledgling opposition coordination committee thats struggling to gain political and diplomatic momentum. He also doled out hundreds of medals to officers, a resounding endorsement of the vicious violence they meted out against their own people. Meanwhile, the labor strikes many experts believe could potentially deal a fatal blow to the regime havent yet reached critical mass.

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And indeed, just as countless Belarusians have embraced their new collective sense of defiance, large swaths of Lukashenkos police state are keeping in line. Among the many disturbing memories of my detention, a brief conversation I managed to hold with a 20-year-old prison guard stands out. With his hat tipped goofily over his childlike face, with a smile full of false, youthful confidence, he offered a simple explanation for detaining those who, just like me, were simply walking down the street or waiting at a bus stop: If you dont pick off the first couple, he said, as if describing insects, the rest will come swarming in.

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Currently, Belarus is stuck in a moment of deep uncertainty, and both sides are battling to win the war of mobilization, says Tatsiana Chulitskaya, a Belarusian-born researcher at Vytautas Magnus University in Vilnius.* The opposition is hoping to maintain pressure through labor strikes and street protests, while the regimebesides begging Vladimir Putin for helpis deploying its motley crew of supporters. The latters strategy, says Chulitskaya, revolves around Soviet-style admonitions to defend the state from supposed ruin.

But what we see now is that people want to live, she says, not just to survive.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
The US prosecutors have charged a former Uber chief security officer for trying to hide a data breach from federal investigators. The United States Department of Justice charged Joseph Sullivan with obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony.

The criminal charges filed in US District Court in San Francisco accuse Sullivan, 52, of taking deliberate steps to keep the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as Uber management from learning about the breach.

The case relates to a 2016 data breach that had exposed the personal information of about 57 million Uber drivers and riders. Hackers got access to information including license numbers of around 600,000 people who drove for the ride-hailing giant.

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Sullivan, who led Ubers security team during that time, tried to hide the breach from the FTC when the agency was investigating the company following an earlier breach. Instead of reporting the breach to the FTC, he sought to pay off the hackers in exchange for silence.

He wanted to funnel the payoff through a bug bounty program. Such programs reward security researchers or the so-called white-hat hackers for reporting security flaws without doing any harm.

Uber eventually paid the hackers $100,000 in BitCoin in December 2016. Sullivan also sought to have the hackers sign non-disclosure agreements, despite them not revealing their identity. Moreover, the agreements contained a false representation that the hackers did not steal any data.

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The company was later able to identify two people responsible for the breach. Upon their identification, Sullivan again tried to have them sign the same non-disclosure agreement.

He also kept the details hidden from Ubers management. However, the company ultimately discovered all of Sullivans wrongdoings and disclosed the breach publicly as well as to the FTC in November 2017. He was later fired by the company.

The former Uber security chief faces up to eight years in prison

A former federal prosecutor himself, Joseph Sullivan was the chief security officer for Uber from April 2015 to November 2017. The case against him is reportedly the first time a corporate security officer has been charged with concealing a breach.

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Silicon Valley is not the Wild West. We expect good corporate citizenship. We expect prompt reporting of criminal conduct, said US Attorney David L. Anderson. We expect cooperation with our investigations. We will not tolerate corporate cover-ups, he added.

An A spokesperson for Sullivan, meanwhile, has denied the charges saying they had no merit. Sullivan worked with his colleagues on the case and that they decided the disclosure matters collectively, the spokesperson suggested.

A former chief of security at Facebook, Sullivan currently holds the same position at Cloudflare. He faces up to five years in prison for obstruction of justice and up to three years for misprision of a felony if convicted of the charges.
Lobstermen unload lobsters caught in the Gulf of Maine at the Stonington Lobster Co-Op wharf in Stonington, Maine, on July 5, 2019. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

European Union Lifts Tariffs on American Exports of Lobster

In a sign of easing trade tensions between the worlds two biggest trading partners, the United States and the European Union have sealed a deal to slash imports tariffs on a range of products, including lobsters.

The two, who have been embroiled in a trade spat over EU aircraft subsidies that drove President Donald Trump to impose punitive tariffs on European steel and aluminum, announced the deal in a joint statement on Friday.

As part of improving EU-U.S. relations, this mutually beneficial agreement will bring positive results to the economies of both the United States and the European Union. We intend for this package of tariff reductions to mark just the beginning of a process that will lead to additional agreements that create more free, fair, and reciprocal transatlantic trade said United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and European Union Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan, in the statement.

The trade representatives said the deal will increase market access for hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. and EU exports, with the overall deal worth some $198 million, based on 2019 trade.

Under the agreement, the European Union will remove tariffs of 812 percent on imports of lobsters, while the United States will halve its duties on imports of certain glassware, ceramics, disposable lighters, and prepared meals.

Under the agreement, the European Union will cut tariffs on imports of live and frozen lobster products from the United States, while the United States will halve its duties on imports of certain glassware, ceramics, disposable lighters, and prepared meals.

In 2017, the United States exported over $111 million worth of live and frozen lobster products to the EU.

The EU tariffs will be eliminated for a period of five years and the European Commissionthe blocs executive bodywill move to make the tariff cuts permanent. The agreement will still need approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, which could come within weeks.

These tariff reductions are the first U.S.-EU negotiated reductions in duties in over two decades.

Washington has subjected $7.5 billion of EU productsincluding Scottish whisky and French wineto tariffs because of a WTO case it won over EU subsidies to plane manufacturer Airbus.

The United States has threatened to increase the tariffs but last week it only imposed minor changes, which the European Commission acknowledged as a conciliatory move.
Texas Officials Cancel Amber Alert for 2 Sisters

Texas officials on Friday canceled an Amber Alert that was issued Thursday night involving two girls that were believed to be abducted from Santo but were found safe the next day.

No additional details have been released by authorities about where the sisters were found or who they were with. The Palo Pinto County Sheriffs Office updated the Amber Alert early Friday morning that officials located the girls safely.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said at the time of the missing report that Sarah Beth Hull, 11, and Natalie Renea Hull, 13, were last seen in the 100 block of E. Waterplant Rd., in Santo at around 4 a.m. on Thursday.

Palo Pinto County Sheriff Brent McGuire told CBS 11 that the two girls may have had some assistance in leaving their home and running away.

The reason for the Amber Alert is through our investigation today it looks like they had assistance in leaving the house and running away. We believe they have been corresponding with an unknown person on the internet, he said.

DISCONTINUED AMBER ALERT for Sarah Beth Hull and Natalie Renea from Santo, TX, on 8/21/2020. pic.twitter.com/h1XOQoK8PB  Texas Alerts (@TX_Alerts) August 21, 2020

Thursday was the first day of school for the Santo Independent School District, however, when Natalie and Sarahs parents went to check on them, they discovered they werent there.

Police were able to track one of the girls phones to somewhere near Waco but then lost all communication.

Theyve had no contact with any of their friendsnothing on social media, Snaphat, TikTok, or any of the ways young people communicate with each other. With this day and age with human trafficking, we believe they probably are in danger, McGuire said.

He added that the area the girls live in Brazos, an unincorporated and rural county.

Sarah was described as a white female, 5 feet tall and weighing 100 pounds, she has blonde hair, brown eyes. Natalie was described as a white female and also about 5 feet tall. She weighs 100 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes.

Law enforcement said at the time of the Amber Alert they believe the two may be in grave or immediate danger.

Epoch Times reporter Lorenz Duchamps contributed to this report.
Unlike Princeton and Rutgers, which are opting for almost entirely remote fall semesters due to the coronavirus, Montclair State University began welcoming students back on campus in waves this month in preparation of in-person classes that begin Tuesday.

Though 60% of classes will take place online, approximately a third will be hybrid, featuring a combination of in-person and virtual learning. Another tenth of courses, like science lab and performing art classes, will remain in-person.

Campus housing will reduce its occupancy by a third, hosting 3,499 students in dorms and apartments. Move-in started on August 5, allowing small, staggered amounts of students to move-in. Students have to be tested for the virus before they arrive.

Students move into the dorms at Montclair State University on Thursday, August 20, 2020.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

Montclair will operate similarly to schools like Rowan and Seton Hall University which are also bringing students back for a semester of hybrid classes and some on-campus housing. Additionally, Montclair, like a number of other New Jersey universities, will freeze tuition, fees, and room-and-board rates, amid a statewide push from students to reduce tuition due to remote instruction.

Students seen moving in Thursday expressed their excitement at school starting and moving into campus housing.

If I were to be at home, I wouldnt perform as well as if I was actually on a college campus, Jamila Wright, a freshman studying political science, told NJ Advance Media while she moved into her dorm room. She noted that the staggered move-in time made for a much less hectic transition and has been happy with the universitys preparations and communications.

Freshman computer science major Emmanuel Ozias said it was important for him to come back to school, even though some are opting to live at home, or take only remote courses.

Im paying for my education, I feel like its better for me to be here in person, Ozias said.

Jamila Wright, a freshman, gets help from her father Fabian, left, as she moves into her dorm room on Thursday, August 20, 2020.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

The university has taken a number of precautions in academic spaces: red arrows on the floor direct traffic in and out of classrooms, and stickers tell students where they are allowed to sit. Classroom sizes have been reduced to permit social distancing with plastic glass installed at podiums and in between student stations in science labs.

Similar safeguards have been implemented in the dining hall, where students are still able to order food and sit down to eat. No self-service is allowed, and students can opt for takeout or even place an order on the food delivery app, GrubHub, to pick up their food.

Its really the students choice on what theyre comfortable with, Carlos Mohammed, Executive Chef of Residential Dining, said. Either way, we try to offer as many options as possible for their dining experience.

Students wait in line to be served at one of the dining halls on Montclair State University, on Thursday, August 20, 2020.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

If they choose to dine in, capacity has been reduced from 450 down to 125, and stickers tell students where they are allowed to sit. Most tables only have one chair on the end, though some 6-foot-long tables are set up with two chairs on either end.

Mohammed said that dining staff sanitize all touch surfaces every 30 minutes and log every time they wash their hands and change their gloves. At night, the entire facility is deep-cleaned and in the morning, employees are given temperature checks.

Even with all the precautions, which include completion of a Covid-19 test for all students living on campus prior to arrival and a daily screening assessment, students are wary of outbreaks.

The recent news at schools like University of North Carolina and Notre Dame, whose August reopenings led to coronavirus clusters and quick pivots to remote instruction, has campus abuzz with Montclairs prospects for the semester.

Im kind of hesitant, because I wouldnt be surprised if we had to close down by early November, junior Evan Joseph said. Before coming to campus, Joseph purchased a large supply of hand sanitizer and a pack of neck gaiters but worries that other students wont wash their hands and be responsible.

Students move into the dorms at Montclair State University on Thursday, August 20, 2020.Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media

If students continuously flaunt the rules, there may be penalties or conduct hearings, but Karen Pennington, Vice President for Student Development and Campus Life, says its mostly up to students to take personal and communal responsibility.

The message that were really hoping to send is: its up to you, Pennington said. Weve done everything we can, with plans in place, with preparations in place, but its really up to each and everyone of us as individuals in this community to follow the rules to do what we need to do.

Coming to college after a chaotic spring that cut senior years short with an abrupt shift to remote learning, most students said they were eager to get onto campus and back into the classroom.

Hopefully, well be here until the end of the semester, because I dont want to go back home and do remote learning all online, freshman Jasmine Quartey said. So hopefully everyone follows the rules.

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Josh Axelrod may be reached at jaxelrod@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden slammed President Trumps response to the coronavirus pandemic during his speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, vowing that his first action if he is elected president will be to get control of the virus that has ruined so many lives.

Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. Hes failed to protect us. Hes failed to protect America. And my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable, Biden said moments after he accepted the Democratic nomination for president.

He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well I have news for him. No miracle is coming, the former vice president said.A After all this time, the president still does not have a plan. Well I do.

Biden vowed that if he is elected president, in January of next year, he will issue a national mandate for all residents to wear a face mask to protect against the coronavirus.

The president takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cozies up to dictators, and fans the flames of hate and division, Biden said. Well put politics aside. Well take the muzzle off our experts.

Biden also claimed that the U.S. has by far the worst performance of any nation on earth as far as handling the coronavirus outbreak within Americas borders.

Bidens acceptance address came on the last night of the Democratic convention, which featured his vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris of California along with Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other heavyweights in the Democratic Party.

Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy, theyre all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation, what we stand for, and, most importantly, who we want to be, thats all on th ballot, Biden said as he urged voters to cast their ballot for the Democratic ticket.

The choice could not be more clear. No rhetoric is needed. Just judge this president on the facts, he continued.

Story continues

This president, if hes reelected, you know what will happen, Biden said. Cases and deaths will remain far too high. More mom and pop businesses will close their doors, and this time for good. Working families will struggle to get by, and yet the wealthiest one percent will get tens of billions of dollars in new tax breaks.

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Officials say the threat warned of the intention to use a car bomb to target federal property in Oregons largest city.

At least two federal buildings in Portland have been closed and the FBI is investigating after a car bomb threat was made, officials have said.

The threat, which was received Thursday, warned of the intention to use a car bomb to target federal property in Portland, according to two law enforcement officials.

A number of federal offices in the area have been closed because of the threat, the officials said on Friday. The officials could not discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the threat is credible, the FBI said in a statement.

The Portland office of the US Bankruptcy Court was closed because of a threat of violence in the area, according to the courts website. Also closed was the Mark O. Hatfield Federal courthouse, which was the site of weeks of violent protests last month.

Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Oregons largest city nightly since the May police killing of George Floyd and clashed repeatedly with federal agents dispatched to protect the courthouse. A statement on the courthouse website did not say why the building had closed.

The FBIs statement said: If we develop information indicating a credible threat, we will notify the public.

Protesters this week have focused their ire on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.

Clashes overnight

People in a group of about 100 late Thursday and before dawn on Friday sprayed the building with graffiti, hurled rocks and bottles at agents and shined laser lights at them, Portland police said in a statement.

The agents set off smoke or tear gas and used crowd-control munitions to try to disperse the crowd, The Oregonians OregonLive website reported. Three people were arrested, police said in their statement.

There was a separate peaceful demonstration of about 100 people who marched to the Portland police union office and along streets in North Portland without incident, OregonLive reported.

The violence came a day after protesters clashed with federal agents for the first time since July in a demonstration that also targeted the ICE building. Two people were arrested and several officers suffered minor injuries.

On Thursday, police released information that showed during more than 80 nights of protests in Portland, authorities declared riots more than 17 times and arrested more than 500 people.

The riot declarations allow police to use tear gas, flash-bang grenades and other non-lethal weapons to try to break up crowds.

Portland police define riots as events when six or more persons engage in tumultuous and violent conduct and thereby intentionally or recklessly creating a grave risk of causing public alarm, excluding persons who are engaged in passive resistance, OregonLive reported.
Disgraced businessman Rodney Adler knows what it's like to do time for white collar crime, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone  not even the man who took a $25,000 loan from him while failing to mention he was bankrupt.

In a scene even Mr Adler could see was "ironic", the former HIH director, whose dishonest dealings led to the insurance giant's devastating collapse in 2001, turned up on Friday at the District Court sentencing hearing for his convicted debtor, Stanley Philip Kaftel, to plead for leniency.

Former corporate rogue Rodney Adler has pleaded for leniency for his convicted debtor Stanley Kaftel. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Kaftel was found guilty in June of obtaining credit from Mr Adler without disclosing he was bankrupt, in a case that boiled down to his word against his creditor's.

Mr Adler told the court during the trial that Kaftel had never informed him of his bankruptcy, and the jury believed him over Kaftel  who has form, having pleaded guilty to the same offence in November 2017.
A former Uber executive was charged Thursday in federal court on allegations that he arranged to pay hackers $100,000 to cover up a high-tech heist that stole the personal information about 57 million of the ride-hailing service's users and drivers during 2016.

Two hackers pleaded guilty in the scheme last year and are awaiting sentencing. The criminal complaint filed Thursday against Joseph Sullivan, Uber's former chief security officer, alleges that the hackers shared the data with a third person  who may still have it.

Sullivan, 52, previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in a Computer Hacking and IP Unit. He worked in the same federal prosecutor's office that brought the charges against him.

Sullivan, who lives in Palo Alto, California, was also previously employed by Facebook, eBay and PayPal. He was a member of the federal Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity under President Barack Obama.

Bradford Williams, a spokesman for Sullivan who also previously worked for eBay, said in a statement there is "no merit" to the charges.

"If not for Mr. Sullivan's and his team's efforts, it's likely that the individuals responsible for this incident never would have been identified at all," the statement said. "From the outset, Mr. Sullivan and his team collaborated closely with legal, communications and other relevant teams at Uber, in accordance with the company's written policies. Those policies made clear that Uber's legal department  and not Mr. Sullivan or his group  was responsible for deciding whether, and to whom, the matter should be disclosed."

Sullivan's charges came on the same day as a California appeals court allowed Uber and Lyft to continue treating their drivers as independent contractors in the state in a decision that will give the two companies a few more months to protect their business models in a key market.

The allegations of a cover-up served as yet another reminder of Uber's sordid past under the leadership of its co-founder Travis Kalanick, who stepped down under pressure in 2017. Since then, Uber has been run by Dara Khosrowshahi, who has previously apologized for the San Francisco company's past behavior under his predecessor. Prosecutors said Uber cooperated with its investigation that led to the charges against Sullivan.

The case is being brought by the same U.S. attorney who won a criminal conviction against a former Google engineer sentenced to 18 months in federal prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to stealing trade secrets before joining Uber's effort to build robotic vehicles. There was never any evidence that he used Google's trade secrets while overseeing Uber's self-driving car division.

Sullivan has not yet been arraigned in federal court in San Francisco. He faces up to eight years in prison, as well as $500,000 in fines, if he is convicted of obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony, a charge that alleges he deliberately concealed the commission of a crime.

"Silicon Valley is not the Wild West," U.S. Attorney David Anderson said in a news release. "We expect good corporate citizenship. We expect prompt reporting of criminal conduct. We expect cooperation with our investigations. We will not tolerate corporate cover-ups. We will not tolerate illegal hush money payments."

In the wake of a 2014 hack that was under investigation by federal officials, Uber met  at Sullivan's alleged instructions  the new hackers' 2016 demand with the $100,000 Bitcoin payment, prosecutors alleged. Sullivan then, prosecutors say, had the hackers sign non-disclosure agreements  twice  which included a false representation that they had not taken or stored any data.

Sullivan allegedly hid the payment through what's known as a "bug bounty" program, where so-called "white hat" hackers are paid if they point out security problems but do not compromise any data.

Uber's management "ultimately discovered the truth," despite Sullivan's alleged efforts to conceal it, the U.S. attorney's office says, and publicly announced the breach in November 2017. Sullivan was fired.

Prosecutors allege the hackers might not have infiltrated other companies if Sullivan had properly reported Uber's incident.
Outlining its current exposure, Suncorp noted that fossil fuel extraction and electricity generation activities made up less than 0.1% of the groups general insurance gross written premium as of June 30.

The company added: Fossil fuel exposure is less than 0.5% of our insurance and shareholder investment assets, and less than 1.5% of total investment assets under management (i.e. inclusive of wealth and investment assets managed on behalf of third parties).

Suncorps commercial lending portfolio has no exposure to fossil fuels via either extraction or power generation. Suncorp will continue to underwrite, lend to, and invest in companies whose business is clearly consistent with the transition to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

Read more:Suncorp to ditch coal coverage by 2025

Commenting on the development, Australian lobby group Market Forces described Suncorps move as a clear message to the government.

While this new guideline has significant gaps, that is, it doesnt address oil and gas pipelines nor gas-fired power stations, it is a great step forward for Suncorp which puts it ahead of many other insurance companies worldwide, said Market Forces campaigner Pablo Brait in a statement sent to Insurance Business.

Suncorp has recognised that an expansion in oil and gas production will undermine the Paris Agreement on climate change and worsen the floods, bushfires, droughts, and storms which are hitting its profits. With this new policy, Suncorp has sent a clear message to the Federal Government that it will not be a part of any expansion of dirty gas production.
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Linkedin Frans Maniagasi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 08:34 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6a40f 3 Opinion Papua,Jokowi-administration,separatism,Gus-Dur,peace-and-conflict-resolution,peace-building,Morning-Star-flag,Otsus-Day,Otsus-fund,special-autonomy,special-autonomy-fund Free

The long-standing conflict in Papua should have been settled by now. Papua needs a concrete and permanent solution. The planned revision of Law No. 21/2001 on Special Autonomy for Papua serves as an opportunity to end the conflict and establish long-lasting peace in Papua.

Trans-Papua road, bridges, houses and public health centers  on top of special autonomy funds that equals 2 percent of the governments general allocation fund  will not offer a permanent solution. The reason is that the conflict has brewed since Papua was integrated into Indonesia on May 1, 1963, and has threatened civilization and humanity in the territory.

It is those threats that have devastated the values and culture ecosystem of Papuan society. Hence, the revision of the Special Autonomy Law should become the entry point to mend civilization and humanity in Papua. Throughout nearly 20 years of its implementation, the special autonomy, according to Papuan figure Thaha Al-Hamid, has become part of the problem rather than a solution for the Papuan people.

The continuing conflict has left Papuans in uncertainty about their future. Many have expressed their disappointment, frustration or even distrust in the government. As a result, Papuans seek an outlet, which ranges from drunkenness to a cultural movement that creates a sense of ethnic identity or, as University of Indonesia scholar Margaretha Hanita puts it, ethnonationalism.

In her research, Hanita found that ethnonationalism in Papua takes shape in cultural, messianic movements like Koreri in Biak and Hai in Mimika, which survived Dutch and Japanese colonization and is now resisting Indonesias sovereignty over the territory.

In the ethnonationalism framework, a state does not necessarily consist of one nation but more than one nation. American anthropologist Clifford Geertz differentiated state from nation, with the former referring to a political space where social interaction is arranged and opportunity of life and productive resource are shareable. A nation, meanwhile, is political strength in a space. History shows those different concepts when Yugoslavia broke into pieces.

Therefore, a state whose population comprises more than one nation is not a nation-state but a multination state, and the smallest culture creates a minority nation. Thereby, Indonesia is a multination state, debunking its long-held doctrine of a nation state.

Related to the politics and culture of Papua, William Kymlicka, a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism, explains that the entry of various nations in a state could happen accidentally during a transfer of power, from one imperial power to another. A multination state can also be founded intentionally when various cultures agree to form a federation of common interests.

According to Hanita, the process to unite Papua with the Republic of Indonesia would define the territorys status in the multination state of Indonesia. First is the transfer of sovereignty of the Papuans to Indonesia as a consequence of territorial, economic and political conquest, and second is the intentional integration in Indonesia for common interests. In dealing with Papua, Jakarta tends to follow the first approach and overlook social integration.

Unsurprisingly, resistance to Indonesias sovereignty over Papua persists, as evident in the Koreri cultural movement, which envisions the arrival of a golden era when prosperity, justice, peace and welfare prevail. As a cultural movement, it has inspired the freedom movement, which is symbolized by the Baik word sampari.

Sampari is the morning star that arises from dawn until the sunrise. Papuan figures adopted it as the national flag of a free Papuan state on Dec. 1, 1961.

Then-Indonesian president Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid initiated a solution to decades-long resistance in Papua and Aceh through a sociocultural approach instead of hard approach. First, he took local traditions, cultures and beliefs into serious consideration. While approaching ulema in Aceh, Gus Dur held intensive talks with tribal, ethnic, traditional and religious leaders, including Christian and Catholic figures, in Papua.

Second, Gus Dur treated separatist groups like the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and Free Papua Organization (OPM) as citizens who are equal to the rest of Indonesians. He did not consider the groups enemies of the state as the New Order did.

Third, Gus Dur directly spoke with the GAM and OPM leaders, whom he understood as calling for justice, in open dialogues.

Fourth, Gus Dur also intended to establish a human rights court to solve the past atrocities committed against the Aceh and Papuan people and to avoid the crimes against humanity from recurring in the two territories in the future.

Fifth, Gus Dur involved the international community in the negotiations, which used a humanitarian approach. In the Aceh case, it was the Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (HDC). The involvement of the international facilitator was unimaginable or considered a taboo during the New Order era. The role of an international facilitator has never materialized until today, although such a model proved effective in bringing peace back in Aceh in 2005.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has repeatedly displayed a commitment to solving the Papua issue once and for all. He has accelerated infrastructure development in Papua and visited the easternmost region more frequently than any other Indonesian president. But this is not enough.

Only if Jokowi follows the five steps Gus Dur took in Aceh and Papua, I believe he would solve the Papua issue permanently in his last and final term.

***

The writer is former member of the assistance team who drafted the Law on Special Autonomy for Papua, and author of Masa Depan Papua (The future of Papua).

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Behold this spectacular luxury villa - that's also a boat.

Eye-opening renderings have been released of the ultimate houseboat, a four-bedroom floating presidential suite with a 360-degree rooftop lounge that will take guests on tours of the dazzling turquoise lagoon of Bora Bora, a volcanic paradise island in French Polynesia.

It has been commissioned by Bora Bora-based company ELYT Charter Tahiti, which says the design of the catamaran vessel - currently under construction - has been inspired by 'ancient Polynesian voyaging canoes'. A quick glance at the images reveals that the connection is merely a passing resemblance.

Eye-opening renderings have been released of the ultimate houseboat, a four-bedroom floating presidential suite with a 360-degree rooftop lounge that will take guests on tours of the dazzling turquoise lagoon of Bora Bora

The houseboat, which will be 51ft (15.6m) long when completed, will have a total living area of 120 square metres (1,291 square feet) across its two decks and enough space to accommodate eight guests

This stunning image underscores why Bora Bora, where the houseboat will be based, is known as the Pearl of the Pacific

The houseboat, which will be 51ft (15.6m) long when completed, will have a total living area of 120 square metres (1,291 square feet) across its two decks and enough space to accommodate eight guests.

As well as the four bedrooms, there will also be two bathrooms, a fully-equipped kitchen and a dining area.

The boat will also come complete with a barbecue, a sound system, two inflatable kayaks, two inflatable SUP boards and snorkelling gear.

Guests won't be able to sail it themselves. Instead, a captain will take the boat to 'prime moorings' in the lagoon.

This is partly because navigation in Bora Bora 'can be tricky due to shallow reefs' and 'casting anchors can be harmful to coral and marine life'.

ELYT says: 'With ELYT, you can watch the sun rise and then move to the other side of the island to enjoy the sunset. Your captain will move the boat on our selected locations based on your pre-programmed itinerary. The ELYT team will make sure to bring you on the right spots so you can make the most out of your trip while helping to protect the island.'

Guests, it adds, will 'enjoy Bora Bora from every angle'.

The design of the vessel, which is currently under construction, has been inspired by 'ancient Polynesian voyaging canoes'

As well as the four bedrooms, there will also be a fully-equipped kitchen and a dining area on the lower deck

One of the two bathrooms on the stunning vessel

The catamaran is being built without a diesel engine, with ELYT Charter Tahiti saying solar panels and lithium batteries 'will take care of propulsion, hot water, lights and household equipment'.

A further eco-measure comes in the form of an in-hull wastewater treatment system.

The ELYT Charter Tahiti website explains: 'This exclusive houseboat was custom-designed to experience the beautiful and calm lagoons of the islands of Tahiti.

'Our ambition is to offer a new way to experience our islands with a modern boat that has space in mind, that celebrates the Polynesian history of vaka (boats) and that respects the environment.'

The charter company had hoped to launch the boat this summer, but construction has been delayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, ELYT Charter Tahiti says it hopes it will be launched before the end of the year.

Rental prices start from 1,350 ($1,776) per night.

Guests won't be able to sail it themselves. Instead, a captain will take the boat to 'prime moorings' in the lagoon
Madagascar President, Andry Rajoelina has sacked the Minister of Health, Ahmad Ahmad, barely one month after he clashed with the president for seeking outside help to fight coronavirus.

Madagascar saw COVID-19 cases rise in July 2020, despite an official campaign to promote its controversial herbal drink touted as a remedy for the virus.

As hospitals raised concern about lack of beds, the Health Minister, Ahmad Ahmad, wrote a letter in July asking international agencies to send medical equipment.

The move was said to have angered President Rajoelina who said the Minister had acted without consulting either the government or head of state.

Ahmads dismissal was revealed on Thursday, August 20, during the announcement of a new list of ministers following a reshuffle by the President.

Jean Louis Hanitrala Rakotovao has been named new health minister, cabinet secretary Valery Ramonjavelo told a press conference, without giving details about the change.

KanyiDaily recalls that earlier this year, Madagascar launched a local herbal cure called Covid-Organics or CVO, claiming it prevent and cure the novel coronavirus.

Madagascars President, Andry Rajoelina said the herbal drink is effective against the coronavirus as it strengthens the bodys immune system, adding several people have been cured with the treatment.
President Donald Trump headed to the 2020 battleground state of Pennsylvania Thursday afternoon to make a campaign speech in the town of Old Forge, just a few miles from former Vice President Joe Biden's childhood home in Scranton -- and just hours before Biden makes his own speech accepting his party's nomination for president in his adopted home state of Delaware.

MORE: 5 key takeaways from 3rd night of Democratic National Convention

Speaking outside an office building to a crowd of supporters, Trump used apocalyptic imagery to paint what he said Biden's America would look like and deemed him "no friend of Pennsylvania -- he is your worst nightmare."

"If you want a vision of your life under Biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins in Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago, and imagine the mayhem coming to your town, and every single town in America," Trump said Thursday afternoon.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd of supporters during a campaign stop at Mariotti Building Product, Aug. 20, 2020, in Old Forge, Pa. (Evan Vucci/AP)

"So, tonight, we have ... Slow Joe will speak at the Democrat convention. And I'm sure that he will just knock them dead," he continued. "And he will remind us that he was born in Scranton, but you know, he left like 70 years ago, right? He left a long time ago."

Though Trump says Biden "abandoned" the state, Biden says his family left Scranton when he was 10 years old because his father unable to find steady work.

Making the trek to Pennsylvania for the sole purpose of slamming Biden, Trump addressed his imminent acceptance speech once more near the end of his own remarks, claiming he hoped he does well -- but not too well.

"He's going to make a speech tonight. It's going to be interesting to see how he does. I hope he does well. I really hope does well, but I also want him to tell the truth. He's got to tell the truth about things, and he's going to do a lot better if he does, but hopefully, not well enough," Trump said from Old Forge.

Story continues

MORE: DNC 2020 Day 3: Kamala Harris accepts VP nomination, Obama slams Trump's failures

The president also took aim at the record of Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, who on Wednesday became the first Black woman and first Asian American to be nominated for national office by a major political party.

"Joe Biden and Kamala -- she's another beauty -- also strongly support the deadly sanctuary cities that have been so bad for you and everyone else. This district attorney in San Francisco put a drug dealing illegal alien into a job and jobs program instead of into prison," Trump said. "We believe our country should be sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not for criminal aliens."

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks outside Mariotti Building Products in Old Forge, Pa., Aug. 20, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

"I watched Kamala last night, and I said I'll take Mike. I'll take Mike by a lot," he added, referring to Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump continued a baseless line of attack on former President Barack Obama after the former president cast his successor as a looming threat to American democracy at Wednesday's Democratic National Convention.

"I watched President Obama last night. And I watched him talking about everything, and I had to put it out. I said, 'Yeah, but he spied on our campaign and he got caught.' You know, that is about as bad of a thing as you can imagine," Trump said, repeating a baseless conspiracy theory stemming from the FBI's surveillance of 2016 Trump campaign associates.

In addition to trying to steal the spotlight from Biden's acceptance speech, Trump is scheduled to do a live interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity at the same time the DNC's program is set to begin Thursday night.

MORE: WH defends Trump's embrace of baseless QAnon conspiracy followers

His fiery afternoon speech comes after three nights of tuning into the Democrats' program and amid continued swipes at his critics including the late Republican Sen. John McCain, knocking him in a tweet Thursday morning.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Aug. 20, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

"McCain was a lousy candidate with lots of bad policy, but the 'deadheads' sabotaged his campaign from the inside, and never gave him a chance to win. Hope they were happy with OBiden, who gave you me!" Trump tweeted, responding to a Fox News interview with McCain's running mate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

McCain's widow, Cindy McCain, appeared at the DNC Tuesday to discuss the friendship between her late husband and Biden.

MORE: Cindy McCain to discuss 'unlikely' friendship between Biden and late husband at DNC

Trump aired his grievances with the Wednesday's speeches in real time -- in all caps -- on Twitter.

Less than 10 minutes into Obama's speech, Trump fired off as the former president told Americans in primetime that there's no indication Trump's behavior will change.

"For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends, no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves," Obama said in a forceful rebuke from Philadelphia. "This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win."

PHOTO: Sen. John McCain receives the Liberty Medal from Chair of the National Constitution Center's Board of Trustees, former Vice President Joe Biden, Oct. 16, 2017, in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP, FILE)

It's not lost on some that in sending the tweets he may have reinforced Obama's argument.

"HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!" Trump said of Obama, reigniting a debunked conspiracy theory.

MORE: Obama slams 'failure' of Trump presidency during DNC speech

Trump then attempted to sow doubt in Obama's faith in Biden, questioning why the former president didn't endorse his vice president sooner -- though it's customary for former presidents not to endorse candidates during competitive primaries.

WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2020

He weighed in again in real time as Harris formally accepted the vice presidential nomination.

After Harris said, "I know a predator when I see one," alluding to Trump and her prosecutorial background, Trump attempted to revive tensions between Harris and Biden from the primary trail.

BUT DIDN'T SHE CALL HIM A RACIST??? DIDN'T SHE SAY HE WAS INCOMPETENT???  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2020

Notably, Harris specifically said when she pushed Biden about busing on the debate stage that she did not view him as a racist.

ABC News' Terrance Smith contributed to this report.

Trump slams Biden near Pennsylvania childhood home hours before his DNC speech originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Elections

New Delhi: Voters will be provided with gloves to press the EVM button and Covid-19 patients in quarantine will be allowed to vote at the last hour of the polling day, according to broad guidelines issued by the EC on Friday for holding elections during the coronavirus pandemic.

The gloves will most likely be disposable.

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ECA separate set of guidelines would be issued for voters who are residing in areas notified as "containment zone", the Election Commission said.

The commission has recommended mandatory sanitisation of polling stations, preferably a day before the polls.

Thermal scanners would be placed at the entry point of every polling station. Polling or paramedical staff will conduct thermal screening of voters at the entry point of a polling station, it said.

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Election Commission of India

"There shall be maximum 1,000 electors instead of 1,500 electors in a polling station," the guidelines said.

A group of five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, is allowed to take part in door-to-door campaigning.

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Public gatherings and rallies can be held subject to adherence to Covid-19 guidelines.

Election Commission of IndiaThe district election officer and district superintendent of police should ensure that the number of attendees does not exceed the limit prescribed by the State Disaster Management Authority for public gatherings, the commission said.

Bihar will be the first state where assembly elections will be held amid the pandemic. The polls are likely to be held sometime in October-November.
Most of the gaming laptops are unwieldy, lack right software optimisations, and do not score high on portability scale  probably why productivity-oriented users stay at bay. Lenovo sees this as an opportunity.

Gaming laptops are just for gaming enthusiasts. Yes and no, both. Most of these devices come with cutting-edge technologies and top-of-the-line specifications. They are not perfect, though. Most of the gaming laptops are unwieldy, lack right software optimisations, and do not score high on portability scale  probably why productivity-oriented users stay at bay. Lenovo sees this as an opportunity to rope in its Legion laptops as the perfect product for both gaming and non-gaming users.

Those tracking the laptop and PC industry in India should know that Lenovo recently launched its the Legion 7i, 5Pi and 5i laptops for hardcore gamers. These laptops boast of Intel 10th-gen processor, 100% Adobe sRGB colour gamut and Dolby Vision, 10th Gen Intel Core i9 H-Series mobile processor 80WHr battery  good enough for any power user working remotely.

Also read: Lenovo Legion 7i, 5Pi and 5i gaming laptops launched in India, price starts at 79,990

To achieve the coveted balance, Lenovo has made some fine adjustments  thin and light design with 19.9mm thickness and 2.2kgs weight, TrueStrike keyboard for heavy long term use, larger trackpads, full-sized number pads and easy access to ports design.

For our latest Legion line-up, we engaged with a panel of 7,800 consumers from around the world in 2019 (gamers and non-gamers) to better understand their needs through a series of surveys. Based on our findings, we integrated customer insights and anticipated their needs to inspire and drive our innovations, including crafting better keyboard design, smarter thermals, top webcam placement and easy access to ports design, Lenovo India CEO and Managing Director Rahul Agarwal told HT Tech.

And it is not just the heavy, non-gaming work that Lenovo expects customers to do, but also perform their daily tasks. Its more like an investment in tech, so you need just one machine for everything.

Also read: Lenovo's first gaming phone is official: Check specs, features

Lockdown and the pandemic have led to a growth in laptop demand, across segments - starting from commercial laptops for working from home, consumer laptops for WFH and online classes, and the gaming laptops for more virtual engagement amongst the gaming community, he said.

In fact, with people spending less on travel, luxury dining and other experiences  we can see that consumers are willing to invest in higher-end technology to support their multiple needs.

But staying relevant for gamers is as important for Legion since the entire sub-brand is based on it and has made a pretty big mark in the industry.

Agarwal says that Legion laptops continue to cater to the gaming communitys feedback and there are certain factors that set them apart from rivals like Asus, HP, Dell and others.

Lenovo Legion devices are stylish on the outside and savage on the inside  delivering both a sophisticated exterior and epic gaming performance. What sets us apart from the other competition brands, is our intent to take the gaming communitys feedback seriously. From the start, Lenovo Legion was designed together with the gaming community  even the name itself was crowdsourced.
2 cops deputed for CM Bommai's security held for trying to 'extort' money from drug peddlers

Karnataka: Doctors threaten strike if IAS officer is not suspended

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Bengaluru, Aug 21: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, is facing the ire of government doctors over the incident of suicide of a senior medical officer allegedly due to harassment by an IAS officer.

The doctors and medical staff have threatened to boycott work if the IAS officer is not suspended and arrested.

State CM, who has just recovered from COVID-19, has announced an immediate compensation and an inquiry into the incident.

But, the doctors are in no mood to relent.

Notably, 43-year-old Dr Nagendra, a Taluk Medical Officer (TPO) at Nanjanagud in Mysore, died by suicide on Wednesday due to alleged harassment by the local Zila Panchayat CEO Prashant Kumar Mishra.

Doctors claimed that Mishra was arrogant and abusive and that he had set COVID-19 test targets for all that were impossible to achieve because of a huge resource crunch.

Doctors alleged that the officer used to abuse the deceased doctor over the number of tests and he ended his life as he was unable to take this humiliation beyond a point.

Angry lady doctors booed and shouted at Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar who rushed to Mysore to pacify the strike.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

They alleged that Sudhakar was trying to hush up the entire incident and refused to listen to them.

Their demand is to suspend, arrest and charge Mishra with abetment of suicide.

The doctors told News18 that state government is endangering the lives of millions during coronavirus crisis by trying to shield an IAS officer.

"We have decided to boycott work. The virus could spread to the entire state. Are these IAS officers above the law? Can they do the work we do? If he is not suspended and arrested, we will not return to work," said a government doctor.
Employees worried about returning to the office post-lockdown are most concerned about work-life balance and the daily commute, rather than their health, according to research from absence intelligence company e-days.

Commuting

Whereas only a quarter of employees are most worried about potential health implications, results of a snapshot poll of 100 workers show that 7 out of 10 of us are more concerned with impact to work-life balance (37%) or the office commute (34%). The research follows the change in government advice on 1 August 2020 meaning employers can make their own decisions about staff returning safely to work.

Respondents were asked to choose between health implications, commute, work/life balance and routine as the area they are most worried about in returning to their place of work. The results come as analysis from US bank Morgan Stanley showed only one-third of UK white-collar employees have gone back to work, lagging far behind their European counterparts, where twice as many have done so. A previous e-days survey showed that 1 in 3 UK workers are reluctant to return to office spaces at all now that lockdown measures have been eased, and that 63% felt they were more productive working from home anyway.

Work-life balance is key to employee wellbeing and helping avoid potential burnout. Enabling employees to spread their annual leave throughout the year is just one of the ways e-days helps to prevent burnout. e-days also offers direct health & wellbeing advice from the NHS through its NHS Wellbeing Module including how to manage sleep and tiredness.
Freeland, a Rhodes Scholar, is known more as a negotiator. Her prominent role in the CUSMA talks gave her "better preparation to be finance minister than anybody would have gotten on Bay Street," according to Dwight Duncan, former Ontario provincial finance minister under Dalton McGuinty.

"What she has that's incredibly important to a finance minister is good judgment, sound political skills, a global background, a lot of exposure in international financial markets and players, Duncan told CBC. So, I think she's probably one of the better-prepared ministers of finance we've seen in a long time."

The Washington Post complimented Freelands competence and capacity in her past portfolios, but wondered what her plan for the COVID-19 recovery might consist of. Freeland suggested bold new solutions at a Tuesday news conference, but provided no details. The author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else should be expected to take a critical look at the tenability of a growth-at-all-costs economy, but progressive policies have had a tendency to wither on the vine under Trudeaus Liberal government.

In one of her first public appearances as finance minister, Freeland on Thursday announced a one-month extension of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and provided further clarity into what the end of CERB and eventual transition to a new employment insurance program for Canadians impacted by COVID-19 will entail. The new reforms are expected to cost $37 billion.

In an August 18 editorial, J.P. Boutros, Mortgage Professionals Canadas director of government relations and regulatory affairs, said the group is eager to discuss with Freeland the implementation of changes to the qualifying rate used Canadas mortgage stress as well as MPCs recommendations to the Standing Committee on Finance.
Election Administrator Kerry Steelman said the COVID-19 factor added about $132,000 in costs to the recent election.

He said an equivalent election in 2018 cost $300,000, but this one was $431,925. He said he believes at least 95 percent of the overage was virus related.

He said virus concerns led to the office having to switch 12 polling places. Part of that was an edict from the area United Methodist Church bishop that restricted Methodist churches that had been used in the past. With each polling place that was changed, the office had to mail notices to all the registered voters in that precinct. That brought significant postage charges.

He said some prior polling spots were not large enough to allow spreading out of voters and workers.

Mr. Steelman said extra expense included buying special voting supplies and personal protective equipment for poll workers.

He also said that there was an 800 percent increase in absentee voting compared to prior elections. Still, that category was just 15 percent of overall votes cast. About 51 percent of voters came on election day, while 34 percent voted early.

He said there was "a slight decline" in voting by personal appearance.

The election official said 9,990 absentee ballots were sent out at the request of voters. About 8,000 were sent back in. He said a number were returned as invalid addresses. He said that often happens in a "mobile society."

Mr. Steelman said 59 percent asked for Republican ballots and 36 percent Democrat. Five percent sought general ballots.

He said the state of Tennessee has allotted funds to election offices in each of the 95 counties from the CARES Act for virus-related cost reimbursement.

On another topic, Mr. Steelman said the new concept of mobile ballot printing is proving to be a way for the office to save money. He said in the past the office has had to pre-print a large number of ballots for each of the four early voting sites - just to make sure they never run out. Many of these pre-printed ballots wind up being thrown away.

He said with mobile ballot printing, when an early voting site begins to run low more can be printed on the spot.

And he said the blank ballot sheets that were not used for mobile printing this election can be saved for future elections, including the upcoming one.

Early voting for the Nov. 3 election will be Oct. 14-29.
MORELAND HILLS, Ohio

Noise complaint: Chagrin Boulevard

An officer assigned to listen for roosters outside a residence in the 38000 block on Aug. 14 reported hearing the first bird crow at 6:33 a.m. The resident was advised a short time later of the village ordinance prohibiting roosters. They said they would be getting rid of them.

Hit-skip: SOM Center Road, Chagrin Boulevard

A caller reported on the afternoon of Aug. 13 that around 7:45 a.m., a white BMW had pulled out of the Sunoco gas station, striking his passenger side door and leaving a small dent. The suspect then left the area, with no further information provided.

Debris on street: West Juniper Lane

The Village Service Department reported on the morning of Aug. 11 that contractors on scene had dumped massive piles of topsoil in the roadway that could block emergency vehicles from getting through. Officials were also checking to see that permits had been obtained.

Suspicion: South Strawberry Lane

After a resident reported a suspicious van with a man walking around a house checking entrances and wearing a face shield on the afternoon of Aug. 13, police learned that he was a visiting nurse who had the wrong address.

Erratic driver: South Woodland Road

A road construction crew worker reported on the morning of Aug. 12 that a Ford pickup truck had stopped and the driver started cussing at them because Ohio 87 was closed. Police caught up with the driver within 10 minutes and spoke with him briefly.

Suspicion: Bentleyville Road

A resident called police at about 12:45 p.m. Aug. 11 about a man going around the neighborhood stuffing mailboxes. He wasnt pleasant to the caller. Police were looking for a turquoise Chevrolet Cruze.

Departmental information: Jackson Road

After a resident called Aug. 10 about a Chevrolet with Pennsylvania plates driving on his grass the night before, police contacted the driver, who apologized, saying that she had gotten lost and was turning around, but had been told by friends not to use anyones driveway because it could upset them. The homeowner was satisfied with her apology.

Animal (miscellaneous): Ellendale Road

Police responded to a complaint of barking dogs around 9 p.m. Aug. 13 and left a message at the home for the residents to call upon their return.

Traffic complaint: Chagrin Boulevard

A patrol officer called from the Orange City School District bus garage on the evening of Aug. 16 about a school bus with its reverse lights still on and a back-up alarm beeping.

About 25 minutes later, the power was pulled on the in-reverse alarm, although the lights were still on. The bus was re-secured and a message was left for school district officials.

Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
Earlier in the day, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero wrote in his order that Trump "has not demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm" if the subpoena is enforced.

Later Friday, that appeals court denied the request for an immediate "administrative stay," but said that another motion for a stay pending the appeal will be argued before a three-judge panel on Sept. 1.

Trump's lawyers on Thursday had filed a request for an emergency stay pending an appeal of that ruling. On Friday, after the judge denied their request, the lawyers filed another request to delay the release of Trump's records  this time in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The decision came a day after the judge rejected Trump's latest attempt to stop the Manhattan District Attorney's office from enforcing a subpoena issued to his accounting firm .

A federal judge on Friday denied President Donald Trump 's bid to temporarily block a ruling allowing a subpoena for his tax returns and other financial records.

"The Court notes that its views remain unchanged with respect to the President's likelihood of success on the merits," Marrero added, "particularly given the concerns addressed in the August 20 Decision regarding the effect of further delay on the grand jury's investigation."

The subpoena from D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr., directed to the president's longtime accounting firm Mazars USA, seeks the president's personal and business records, including tax returns, dating to 2011.

Last month, the Supreme Court rejected the president's claims that he was immune from state criminal subpoenas in the New York case, ruling in Vance's favor. That 7-2 decision left open the possibility for Trump to argue that the subpoena should be thrown out, or limited, on other grounds.

Less than three weeks later, Trump's lawyers filed a new effort in Manhattan federal court to quash Vance's subpoena. The second complaint argued that the subpoena is "wildly overbroad" and "amounts to harassment of the President in violation of his legal rights."

Marrero, in his ruling Thursday, sided with Vance.

The district attorney is known to be investigating issues related to hush money payments to two women who allege they had affairs with Trump years before he ran for president. Trump has denied the alleged affairs.

The payments were facilitated by Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes related to those payments, has said that he made the payments at Trump's direction in order to influence the outcome of the election.

In a court filing earlier this month, Vance's office suggested that its investigation could be much more broad. The filing noted that the office is seeking the years of financial records to see if they contain evidence of other "potentially improper financial transactions by a variety of individuals and entities over a period of years."

Trump in the 2016 election broke with decades of tradition among presidential candidates by refusing to release his income tax returns to the public.
She's just returned from a sun-soaked getaway with fellow Love Island alum Molly-Mae Hague.

But Maura Higgins was still in the holiday spirit as she shared a throwback snap from her Crete trip on Friday.

The Love Island star, 29, flashed a hint of her toned abs in a tiny black bikini for the racy Instagram post.

Glowing: Maura Higgins flashed a hint of her toned abs in a tiny black bikini in a throwback snap from her recent Crete getaway on Friday

The Irish beauty teamed the skimpy two-piece with flared black Boohoo trousers that featured a daring thigh split.

She accessorised the beach look with a 315 black Prada bucket hat and delicate silver jewellery.

The brunette beauty wore her dark tresses in a poker straight style over her shoulders and showed off her bronzed features with a minimal makeup look.

Sultry: The Irish beauty teamed the skimpy two-piece with flared black Boohoo trousers that featured a daring thigh split

Earlier this week, the star returned to the UK after her getaway with fellow Love Islanders Molly-Mae, Tommy Fury and celebrity hairstylist Jay Birmingham.

On her flight back, she hilariously recreated Britney Spears's Toxic music video as she danced down the aisle of the plane.

The star donned a cream jumpsuit as she showed off her best moves on the deserted flight.

Funny: Earlier this week on her flight back from Crete, she hilariously recreated Britney Spears's Toxic music video as she danced down the aisle of the plane

Throwback: Britney's famous music video saw the star don a racy air hostess outfit and dance on the plane

Maura was filmed by her friend Jay for the impromptu performance shared on her Instagram stories.

She was later seen arriving at Gatwick Airport in a pink Adidas hoodie as she made her way home.

The star carried a Chanel travel bag and wore her face mask with her famous catchphrase 'f*nny flutters' written across it.

It comes after Maura branded her ex-boyfriend Curtis Pritchard the 'villa villain' after learning of the dancer's new romance with Amber Pierson.

Taking to Twitter, the former grid girl 'liked' a post comparing the exes; with Maura labelled 'the perceived villa villain' and Curtis labelled the 'ACTUAL villa villain.'

MailOnline has contacted Curtis' representatives for comment at the time.

The not-so-subtle swipe comes after it was reported that Maura is so furious about Curtis's new romance with Amber, 21, that she's said to be 'on the warpath to make his life hell'.

The professional dancer was pictured putting on a cosy display with dancer Amber, with a source close to Maura, saying the pair's outing was 'a kick in the teeth'.

And while Curtis has denied accusations he cheated on Maura with Amber, a source told The Mirror: 'Maura is on the warpath and has been telling everyone she is going to make Curtis life hell.'

Ouch! It comes after Maura branded her ex boyfriend Curtis the 'villa villain' after learning of the dancer's new romance with Amber Pierson

Continued the source: 'Maura has been with all the Love Island contestants and has been in touch with everyone this weekend seeing what we all think and telling us shes going to make his life hell.

'She seems to not be able to move on and has been talking about Curtis for months and obsessing over who he is with and if he cheated on her.'

The report came after friends of the former couple insisted that Curtis did not cheat on Maura with Amber, who he was recently spotted sharing a kiss with.

A friend close to Curtis and Maura told MailOnline the cheating claims are a 'smear campaign' by Maura to serve as a 'diversion' from rumours that circulated about her relationship with her Dancing On Ice partner Alexander Demetriou.
The frontlines of Jabal al-Zawiya have witnessed a flare up with the Syrian army and opposition fighters trading blows reports Al-Masdar.

The Syrian army and jihadist rebels exchanged hostilities on Wednesday, as both parties traded heavy artillery and machine gun fire along the frontlines of Jabal al-Zawiya.

According to a field source in northern Hama, the Syrian army was engaged in an artillery exchange with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and their allies at a number of points in the Jabal al-Zawiya region, including the area around al-Baraa.

The Syrian army also targeted the jihadist positions in the town of al-Fateerah, which is where the militants have been firing artillery from.

While some opposition activists claimed that the Turkish military launched an attack against the Syrian army, a military source nearby denied the reports and pointed out that the enemy artillery came from the areas observed by Russian and Syrian reconnaissance planes.

Despite these occasional flare ups of violence, the situation around the southern countryside Idleb does remain relatively stable, and neither party has attempted to advance their positions in quite some time.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Thousands of evacuees fleeing more than 300 fires rampaging through the Bay Area and across Northern California are being forced to make quick decisions about where to go and what to do after the coronavirus pandemic forced dramatic changes in emergency procedures.

Shelters and evacuation centers, where large groups normally gather, have become a last resort for emergency workers and residents fleeing the flames, as many are reluctant to crowd inside with strangers for fear of spreading the virus.

The shelters will be open, but we are really trying to encourage people to have a plan for a safe place to go, said Jennifer Adrio, chief executive officer for the Red Cross in Northern Californias coastal region, which placed 303 evacuees in hotels and 470 more in nine emergency shelters Wednesday night. The first thing we would do is send people to a hotel, but there are only so many hotels. Thats why there are shelters open.

The limited number of hotel rooms is why Dennis Hartman and his fiancee left their home in Deer Park, near the town of Angwin in Napa County, about an hour before the actual evacuation order. Hoping to beat the crowds scrambling for rooms, they booked a hotel for an indefinite period.

Hartman, 62, said COVID-19 wasnt a concern for the couple because they had both recently recovered from the disease. But now the fire was kicking them when they were down.

I keep joking that 2020 is The Hunger Games at home edition, he said, laughing behind his N95 mask. It just keeps coming.

Fearful of staying in a shelter or unable to pay for hotels, some people are sleeping in their cars or in campgrounds.

Im camping in the Prius! laughed Cheryl Jarvis, 69, as she rearranged the pillows in her Toyota Prius in the parking lot of the Vacaville Community Center. Its not real comfortable, but Im so tired it didnt matter.

Jarvis evacuated her home at 4 a.m. Tuesday, after sheriffs deputies banged on her door. The photos of her late mother and father and the clothes she grabbed as the orange glow of the fire moved closer filled up her trunk.

On Wednesday evening, 30 people stayed at the community center, but Jarvis said many more stayed outside  with people camping in their RVs, trailers and vehicles.

It was like a party here, she said. It was just too noisy.

Diane Bubb, 62, her husband and 93-year-old aunt, who uses a wheelchair, stayed in a hotel Wednesday night, but planned to return to their Vacaville home Thursday after the evacuation order in their neighborhood was lifted.

Bubb said she wasnt worried about the virus.

Its the last thing Im worried about. Im more worried about my house than that, said Bubb, as her family passed the time at one of the long tables inside the shelter.

The fires came after a rare heat wave brought powerful thunderstorms and more than 10,000 lightning strikes at the end of a dry summer. With the response complicated by the pandemic and rolling blackouts, the fires are a major test for Californias emergency response system.

Now Playing: The LNU Lightning Complex Fire in Vacaville, CA has grown to over 100,000 acres, 0% containment. Chronicle photojournalist Carlos Avila Gonzalez captures a barn burning on Cherry Glen Road. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

The coronavirus was not on Linda Tiptons mind when she evacuated her property Wednesday on Gibson Canyon Road in Vacaville, where a glowing swirl of fire was creeping up from behind her home, which also serves as her business, 36 Oaks Day Spa. But Tipton sure wasnt going to go to a shelter during the pandemic. Instead she got a room at a Comfort Inn in Vacaville.

Im so isolated out here, and Im not used to being around people, said Tipton, who returned home Thursday relieved after so much anxiety.

People forced out of their homes by the fires are being directed to parking lots, fairgrounds, parks and other places designated by each county where evacuees can get food, supplies or hotel vouchers from the Red Cross or county emergency workers.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

Adrio said Red Cross volunteers are being stationed at dozens of these temporary evacuation points where they are serving meals and helping people find shelter. The idea, she said, is to first locate family or friends who can put them up, or if that isnt possible, provide a hotel voucher.

When evacuations happened in the pre-COVID days, we would open shelters and people would stand in line and be in shelters with a lot of other people, said Adrio, whose organization is serving about 1,000 meals a day. With COVID going, we are not doing that.

Places to go if you need to evacuate Shelters Vacaville: Ulatis Community Center, 1000 Ulatis Drive Carmel: Carmel Middle School, 4380 Carmel Valley Road Watsonville: Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, 2601 E Lake Ave. Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz Civic Center, 307 Church St. Suisun City: Joseph A. Nelson Community Center, 611 Village Drive Vacaville: Will C. Wood High School, 998 Marshall Road Fairfield: Rodriguez High School, 5000 Red Top Road Temporary Evacuation Points Sonoma County Bodega Bay: Westside Regional Park, 2400 Westshore Road Santa Rosa: A Place to Play, 2375 W. Third St. Santa Rosa: Tom Schopflin Fields, 4351 Old Redwood Hwy. Santa Rosa: Spring Lake Park, 5585 Newanga Ave. Santa Rosa: The Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 1350 Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa, is sheltering large animals. Solano County Vacaville: Vacaville Ice Sports, 551 Davis St. Vacaville: McBride Senior Center, 91 Town Square Place Vacaville: Sierra Vista School, 301 Bel Air Drive Fairfield: Old Walmart parking lot, 300 Chadbourne Road Fairfield: Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, 2948 Rockville Road Napa County Napa: Crosswalk Community Church, 2590 1st St. See More Collapse

Vacationers, meanwhile, are being urged by officials in fire zones to get out of town.

With hotel rooms at capacity, the Santa Cruz County Emergency Operations Center on Thursday asked tourists, out-of-towners and other visitors occupying hotels, motels and vacation rentals to leave the county to free up capacity.

The entire states resources are stretched thin, officials said.

The scale of existing and anticipated evacuation orders is unprecedented, and the need to safely house evacuees is critical, Santa Cruz officials said in a statement. New visitors should not travel to the county.

County officials also asked people on NextDoor, Facebook and other social media platforms, to help locate volunteer in-law units, spare bedrooms and even tents for evacuees.

This is unprecedented, Adrio said.  People are afraid, people never want to leave their home, but people need to take this seriously. Were in the process of saving lives. Dont be afraid of the support thats out there for you.

Peter Fimrite, Sarah Ravani, Matthias Gafni and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com, gafni@sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @SarRavani, @mgafni, @TrishaThadani
CAIRO  During Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly's Aug. 15 visit to Khartoum, Egypt and Sudan resumed cooperation on getting Ethiopia to sign a comprehensive and binding agreement setting the rules for filling and operating the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, visited Khartoum July 28.

The second round of GERD negotiations sponsored by the African Union were suspended Aug. 10. The second round of talks came at Sudans request after Ethiopia refused to sign an agreement on how the GERD should be filled and operated. Egypt and Sudan sent letters Aug. 5 to South Africa, which heads the AU, expressing their rejection of Ethiopia's unilateral filling of the GERD.

An Aug. 15 Egyptian-Sudanese statement following the discussions between Madbouly and his Sudanese counterpart, Abdullah Hamdouk, outlined conditions for the resumption of negotiations with Ethiopia. The statement read, It has been agreed to continue negotiations to reach a binding agreement about filling and operating the dam. It is also important to reach an effective and binding mechanism to settle disputes and a coordination mechanism between the three countries to ensure the safety of operation of all facilities and water projects affected by the dam. The statement stressed the need to avoid any unilateral measures before reaching an agreement that pleases all three parties.

A well-informed Egyptian government source told Al-Monitor, The Egyptian-Sudanese stances were largely aligned during the recent rounds of negotiations, while Ethiopia stalled on reaching a binding agreement in the GERD issue. Sudan now realizes the danger of Ethiopian stalling  as this would affect Sudans water interests.

Egyptian-Sudanese coordination on the Nile water affair is not new. The two countries were on the same page during negotiations with the upstream Nile countries on an organizational and legal framework in the Entebbe Agreement, beginning in 1999 and ending in 2010. The upstream Nile countries signed the agreement without the approval of Egypt and Sudan, who froze their membership in the Nile Basin Initiative in June 2010. But this Egyptian-Sudanese cooperation started to fade in light of the policies adopted by the ousted Sudanese regime headed by Omar al-Bashir, who mirrored the Ethiopian policy. As a result, Ethiopia and Sudan had similar stances and defended the GERD during the negotiation talks at their onset in 2011. But since the fall of Bashir, Sudan has been expressing stances closer to Egypt.

Sudan's former ambassador to Egypt, Abdul Mahmoud Abdul Halim, told Al-Monitor, Madboulys visit was not just a matter of protocol. Its timing and content are important for coordinating united stances to resume the GERD negotiations.

Abdul Halim noted, Egypt and Sudan wanted to underline their desire to continue the negotiations under the AU umbrella to resolve the pending issues and reach a binding agreement for the operation and filling of the dam, boost their credibility and intention for dialogue through Africa and push the AU to fulfill its responsibilities in resolving the dispute among the African countries.

Amani al-Tawil, director of Egypt and Sudan research at the Sudan Center for Strategic and Policy Studies, told Al-Monitor, The Egyptian-Sudanese coordination in the GERD issue might be a good step, albeit insufficient, in facing the strict Ethiopian stances on the negotiation table.

Tawil said, The unified Egyptian-Sudanese stances might help curb the Ethiopian stalling, but there should be space for pressure from regional and international parties that can influence the Ethiopian stance, like the Gulf countries that have strong investments in Ethiopia.

During a meeting between the foreign and water ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia Aug. 16, it was decided to resume technical negotiations Aug. 18, when each state submitted its own proposal for a unified agreement on the dams filling and operation. They agreed to choose a technical and legal representative from each country to compile the proposals submitted by Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, with the participation of observers from the World Bank, the United States, the European Union and the AU.

Hani Raslan, an adviser at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor, Ethiopia does not want any agreement that binds it on how to use the water. Its stances have proven that its main goal behind the GERD is water hegemony over the Blue Nile, as a prelude to strategic hegemony over the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin.

Raslan added, Ethiopia adopted a negotiation strategy in the past years that still stands. It creates new obstacles during each round of negotiations then calls for their resolution, only to disagree later over the procedural dimensions of the suggested solutions. Besides, Ethiopia is overwhelming the negotiations with details to distract focus from the main agenda or goal behind them and to debilitate Egypt and Sudan and leave them with no choice but to withdraw from the negotiations. With that, Ethiopia can justify taking unilateral measures related to using the Nile waters.

The current round of negotiations is expected to continue until Aug. 28 and a joint proposal is to be presented to South African President Cyrille Ramaphosa. The ability of Egypt and Sudan to hold all the parties to the outcome of the negotiations depends on the success of these negotiations. A successful agreement would be comprehensive and binding, cover all the technical and legal aspects of both storage and operation of the dam and avoid harming Sudanese and Egyptian interests, as well as set clear mechanisms to resolve disputes and coordinate joint water management.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 01:16:11|Editor: huaxia

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A freight train with "Made in Austria" goods prepares to leave the Vienna South Terminal for China, in Vienna, Austria, on Aug. 20, 2020. A train loaded with fibers and pulp used for textiles pulled out of the Vienna South Terminal heading for China on Thursday, marking the first time a train with goods exclusively "Made in Austria" going from the Alpine country to China. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

VIENNA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- A train loaded with fibers and pulp used for textiles pulled out of the Vienna South Terminal heading for China on Thursday, marking the first time a train with goods exclusively "Made in Austria" going from the Alpine country to China.

"For the first time in the history of Austria, a local company is sending goods that are 100 percent produced in Austria directly to China by train," the Lenzing Group said in a press statement.

The train will carry 41 containers with products made by the Austrian fibers producer Lenzing with a total value of 1.8 million euros (2.1 million U.S. dollars) directly to customers in China, it said.

On its 16-day trip to Shanghai in East China via Xi'an in northern China, the train will cover a total of 10,460 kilometers and pass six countries -- Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan -- before reaching China, it said.

"With this new transport route, we can meet the high demand from our customers for sustainably produced fibers more quickly. Thanks to train transport, the urgently needed fibers arrive at our customers in China twice as quickly as by sea freight," said Stefan Doboczky, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Lenzing Group.

"China is for us the most important country in the world in terms of sales. We will continue to invest in China, and we will continue to bring products from here to China," Doboczky told Xinhua.

This train from Vienna to China is "an integral part of climate protection," said Leonore Gewessler, Minister for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, who attended the departure ceremony.

"Because we want to support the shift from road to rail, especially in freight transport. Today's train is the first step. I am convinced this train will set an example," she added.

Chinese Ambassador to Austria Li Xiaosi called it "a new fruit of Belt and Road cooperation." China and Austria will cooperate closely to organize goods and transportation, further simplifying customs clearance procedures, he told Xinhua.

"Together, we will contribute to the recovery and development of the economies of the two countries as soon as possible," said Li. Enditem
A further five people have died in UK hospitals after testing positive for coronavirus, taking total Covid-19 deaths in hospitals to 34,129.

All five of the people who died were in England, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all reported no further deaths again.

A further 71 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday.

Public Health Wales reported another 34 cases of the virus, while Northern Irish authorities said 20 more people had tested positive.

An ambulance worker in PPE / PA

The figures announced by regional authorities differ from Government data announced later in the day, as they only include deaths in hospitals.

It comes as new figures show that the coronavirus R value in the UK has risen to between 0.9 to 1.1.

The reproduction numbers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) suggest there is a risk that the overall coronavirus epidemic in the UK is growing, Government scientists say.

The latest growth rate for the whole of the UK is between minus 3 per cent to plus 1 per cent, a change from between minus 4 per cent to minus 1 per cent last week.

Confirmed cases have begun rising again in recent weeks / Getty Images

The growth rate of coronavirus transmission reflects how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day.

The 1,182 new cases announced on Thursday were the second-highest figures announced since mid-June.
By Associated Press

JERUSALEM: Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed near the Israeli security fence late Thursday, and Israel carried out airstrikes on targets linked to the territory's Hamas rulers, the Israeli military said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage. The military said it struck a concrete manufacturing site used for underground infrastructure and tunnel construction, belonging to the Hamas terror organization.

Tensions have risen in recent days as groups affiliated with Gaza's militant Hamas rulers have launched incendiary balloons across the frontier, igniting farmland inside Israel.

Hamas is demanding that Israel ease the blockade it imposed when the Islamic militant group seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.

In response to the balloons, Israel has closed Gaza's main commercial crossing  forcing the territory's only power plant to shut down  and barred fishermen from its waters.

Israel has also carried out airstrikes on targets linked to Hamas, which it blames for all violence emanating from the territory. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and several smaller battles since the militants seized power.

Egyptian mediators visited Gaza earlier this week to try and shore up an informal cease-fire but left without announcing any progress.

Hamas says Israel is not honoring previous understandings reached with the help of Egypt and Qatar, in which Israel should ease the blockade and allow for large-scale projects to help rescue Gaza's collapsing economy.
A man has been accused of killing a nine-week-old baby boy after his tiny body was found unresponsive in a house in Sydney.

The baby was found by emergency crews at an Auburn home on June 27.

He was rushed to Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick where he was put on life support, but it was turned off on July 20.

A 46-year-old man, who is known to the baby, was arrested at a home in Auburn on Thursday and has been charged with murder.

He is expected to appear at Burwood Local Court on Friday.
Kildare Chamber has called the extra supports announced for businesses today in the wake of the lockdown extension announcement for the county "only a rehash" and "not sufficient".

Its CEO Allan Shine has called for a further stimulus package for the tourism and hospitality sector in the county, and has also said that the 1 million fund announced last week by Government, granted to Failte Ireland for the promotion of tourism in Kildare, Laois and Offaly, now immediately needs to be redirected to affected businesses who have an emergency need for cash flow to remain afloat

According to the Chamber, already further staff lay-offs in the hospitality sector have happened in the county today with more expected over the coming days. They said this adds further to the estimated 1,200 redundancies already in Kildare, putting more pressure on an already fragile tourism and hospitality sector in the area.

Under the Government's latest plan, Kildare businesses will receive a further 20% top-up to the Restart Plus Grant, equivalent to a 40% uplift overall. The Chamber said that 'the announcement of a further top up to the Restart Grant is welcomed but all other measures announced are already currently in place for existing businesses in Kildare'.

CEO of Co Kildare Chamber Allan Shine said The announcement of a 6-9 month plan for living with Covid announced by the Taoiseach recently needs to be implemented immediately and must be the priority this weekend. Businesses are today laying off staff in Kildare, the seriousness of the situation is very real. The level of community transmission cases in Kildare are extremely high and whilst this lockdown will cause severe hurt and anguish to many of our members, public health is the number 1 priority with the economy coming in a close second. We must learn how to live with this virus until a vaccine is found. Opening and closing counties cannot continue, the economy needs to recover and recover quickly.
Immigrant voters could be pivotal this fall to election outcomes in some battleground suburbs, according to a new analysis of county-level Census data reviewed by Axios.

Why it matters: Texas, Georgia and Virginia as well as Florida could see swings with statewide or national implications. Congressional races to watch include Texas' 22nd district, Georgia's 7th and California's 39th, 45th, and 48th  reaching into counties where immigrants comprise around one in five eligible voters, according to the analysis by New American Economy (NAE).

The big picture: Growing and spreading immigrant populations have helped shift the political landscape in recent years. Foreign-born voters will make up nearly one-tenth of the electorate in 2020  a record percentage.

Be smart: Not all immigrants vote alike, but growing foreign-born populations are expected to help Democrats amid President Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.

Between the lines: Immigrant voting power is growing beyond cities to surrounding counties  including some where House seats flipped in 2018, NAE's director of quantitative research Andrew Lim told Axios.

"I think for many years past it was just regarded as a big city issue," Lim said. "That is clearly no longer the case."

What to watch: Johnson and Polk counties in Iowa are emerging as new immigrant hubs. Immigrants also are moving to less-expected places such as Twin Falls, Idaho (8.5%) and Cass County, North Dakota (6.8%).
Representative Image

This week, the Supreme Court verdict dismissed a PIL that sought to transfer funds in the PM CARES fund to the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF). A day after the verdict, JP Nadda, National President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called it an endorsement, saying that it should clear confusion about the fund.

So, what did the Supreme Court actually say? It found that the PM CARES fund is a public charitable trust and is not a government fund. Therefore, it concluded that there is no occasion for issuing any direction to transfer the said funds to the NDRF. This hardly any endorsement of any kind, forget giving legitimacy to the fund.

Distortions aside, it is useful to critically analyse both the petition and the judgment. The petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation sought a direction to the government to prepare and implement a Disaster Management Plan under Section 11 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, to specifically tackle COVID-19, and to lay down minimum standards of relief to persons affected by the virus, as well as the resultant lockdown. It then sought a direction to utilise the NDRF for COVID-19 relief, and to transfer the balance in the PM CARES to the NDRF.

The governments response was to say that the Disaster Management Act, 2005, only requires the government to make a disaster management plan, not for each specific disaster. Having made a plan in November 2019, the government was not statutorily required to make a plan specific to COVID-19. Further, given that the 2019 plan had minimum standards of relief prescribed, the government was not statutorily required to make fresh standards. The court, noticing that the 2019 plan specifically provided for biological and public health emergencies (BPHE), accepted these rebuttals while dismissing the prayers.

However, had the court examined the contents of the 2019 plan, it would notice how woefully inadequate the plan was to deal with an actual public health crisis. Para 7.15 of the plan (at pages 235 to 248) deals with the BPHE. Under Preparedness and Response, it requires the government to strengthen surveillance systems for detection and investigation of disease outbreaks, in the short term. Under Strengthening Response, it mandates strengthening pre-hospital care and emergency/critical care, and ICU network. As we now know, none of this was done, which led to being blindsided by the pandemic when it hit us.

Now, it is fair to argue that an event of the scale of the current pandemic could simply not have been anticipated, and therefore, we should give the government a long rope. However, to accept this plan which is practically redundant as an adequate defence in a petition seeking an actionable plan to combat the virus what has indisputably gone out of hand, borders on the absurd.

To be clear, the petition only sought the preparation of a plan, which already had been prepared in 2019. So the apex court was not technically wrong. Ditto with regard to minimum standards of relief. It is a different matter that the last few months are abound with examples of how the bare minimum relief was beyond the reach of many sections of the society.

Then we come to PM CARES. The petitioner wanted the balance in the fund transferred to the NDRF. The court refused to interfere on the grounds that it consists entirely of voluntary donations from individuals, and does not get any budgetary support.

Yet, one must also show the mirror to the activists who filed the PIL without doing their research. The prayers were such that they could be easily refuted by the government. Transferring the balance in PM CARES to the NDRF would open a whole host of constitutional issues, including the right to start and operate a charitable trust without interference from the government.

The problem with PM CARES is that it lacks any transparency. It is irrelevant that similar funds (the PMNRF and CM relief funds) also were not audited by the CAG, or that it does not receive budgetary support. The fund is aggressively promoted by the government, with government money, and on government websites. It is the governments designated channel for COVID-19 relief. It consists of contributions of Indian citizens who answered the governments emotive appeals. All this calls for greater accountability.

Bringing the fund under the purview of RTI (which the government objects to) will give accountability. Filing half-baked public interest petitions will not.
The BBC is set to spend around 100million of taxpayers cash chasing the TV licence fee and hauling non-payers to court this year after the over-75s were told to cough up, documents reveal.

Private firm Capita last year received 59.9million from TV Licensing, the body which outsources the collection of the 157.50 annual levy for the Corporation.

But following the controversial decision to strip millions of over-75s of free licences, the BBC confirmed the company is being paid another 38million to hire 800 new staff to send out letters and chase pensioners who fail to pay.

Private firm Capita last year received 59.9million from TV Licensing, the body which outsources the collection of the 157.50 annual levy for the Corporation [File photo]

If Capitas overall collection contract remains the same in 2019/20, it means up to 97.9million of taxpayers cash could go to the firm this year  a figure described as sickening by older peoples groups.

The shocking figures are highlighted in documents published by TV Licensing and the BBC online.

Capita was widely criticised for using aggressive door-to-door tactics and paying staff hefty bonuses of up to 15,000 a year if they hit targets of catching 28 fee evaders a week in a Daily Mail investigation in February 2017.

It prompted the resignation of the firms 2.7million-a-year boss Andy Parker a month later.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen (pictured) said scrapping the free licence is a cynical betrayal and that he doesnt know how the BBC management and its talent sleep at night knowing their wages are paid by taking money from our elderly and infirm

Last night the BBC insisted no over-75s without a TV licence would be visited by enforcement staff and no on-the-spot payments would be taken during a transition period of an unspecified length while changes are made.

But campaigners say it is only a matter of time before vulnerable pensioners are threatened with fines, court and prosecution on their doorsteps.

Dennis Reed, director of pensioner campaign group Silver Voices which highlighted the figures to the Mail, said: It is sickening.

The 100million contract with the BBC would pay for 635,000 licences for older people and the annual salary of Capitas chief executive would pay for [another] 12,700.

He said the group does not believe enforcers will go easy on the elderly, adding: We need to know that instructions have been given to enforcers to treat vulnerable people with respect.

According to figures from TV Licensing online, Capita was paid 59.9million in 2018/19 to chase and collect the TV levy from all age groups  a drop of 1.5million on the previous 12 months and a figure which the National Audit Office subsequently insisted was value for money for taxpayers.

The BBC Decision Document, which outlined the reasons for scrapping the licence fee rebate, said an extra 38million would be needed to implement collection from over-75s, falling to 13million in 2021/22.

The BBC confirmed to the Mail that most of the 800 new staff given the task of sending letters to pensioners, answering queries and chasing payments would be employed by Capita.

It insisted visiting officers receive commission on licence sales, not on the number of people they get to court.

Following the controversial decision to strip millions of over-75s of free licences, the BBC confirmed the company is being paid another 38million to hire 800 new staff to send out letters and chase pensioners who fail to pay [File photo]

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said scrapping the free licence is a cynical betrayal and that he doesnt know how the BBC management and its talent sleep at night knowing their wages are paid by taking money from our elderly and infirm.

The Corporation claims it can no longer afford the 750million annual cost of funding free licences for the over 75s and, as of August 1, most will have to pay.

Only those in receipt of Pension Credit will be exempt and still be able to watch the BBC for free.

Jan Shortt, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, said it told the BBC it was entirely unhappy with Capita being awarded the contract.

Caroline Abrahams, Age UKs charity director, added: The fact that these free TV licences have been taken away in such an underhand way has offended many older peoples sense of fair play and significant numbers seem committed to doing everything they can to frustrate the new scheme.

A spokesman for TV Licensing, on behalf of the BBC, said: No one needs to do anything until they have received a letter from TV Licensing.

Neither TV Licensing or its contractors will be visiting households who previously held a free TV licence, while the new over 75s scheme is being implemented, the spokesman added. No one needs to do anything until they have received a letter from TV Licensing  whether thats paying or applying for a free licence - and no one needs to leave their home. There are now 800 specially trained staff working to provide over the phone support to older customers and we are also working with hundreds of money advice and community organisations to reach people directly, so they understand what the changes mean.'
(Alliance News) - Denmark said Friday it had signed on to the EU's deal with Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca PLC to secure a supply of coronavirus vaccine as soon as it is available.

"If the vaccine is effective and safe, Denmark will receive enough doses so that around 2.4 million Danes can be vaccinated," Health Minister Magnus Heunicke told reporters.

"But the aim is that all Danes will be offered a vaccine," he said.

Denmark is home to some 5.8 million people.

Pharmaceutical companies around the world are racing to develop vaccines against the new coronavirus.

The EU has so far reached agreements with Sanofi SA-GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Johnson & Johnson and CureVac, in addition to AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca said in JulyA that its vaccine, developed together with the University of Oxford, should be available by the end of the year.

Denmark on Friday reported a total of 16,525 cases and 621 deaths linked to the new coronavirus.

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source: AFP

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Bravo quietly took down several episodes of Southern Charm where the show's cast members proudly showed off their family's plantation grounds and laughed about not liking President Abraham Lincoln.

Four episodes in total were removed from Bravo's app and online website, with the page saying the episodes were 'currently unavailable'. The removed episodes aired between 2014 and 2016 and it is not clear when they were removed.

One of the episodes contains a scene where Thomas Ravenel, South Carolina's disgraced former state treasurer, is out to eat with his father Arthur Ravenel, who proclaims he doesn't like the $5 bill because President Lincoln is on the face of it.

Another removed episode features Kathryn Dennis, a descendant of former VP John C. Calhoun who was a staunch defender of slavery and the Confederate South, showing off her family's 800-acre plantation, pointing out a slave cemetery on the grounds.

The deleted episodes were first flagged by TikTok user thetalkofshame, highlighting the offensive clips. 'This was aired! Primetime! Bravo!,' she exclaimed.

But after the TikTok went viral and DailyMail.com contacted Bravo for comment, the episodes were back online, with a spokesperson confirming they were taken down because of 'racially charged moments', but said three of the episodes were now back up.

Bravo quietly took down several episodes of Southern Charm where the show's cast members proudly showed off their family's plantation grounds and laughed about not liking President Abraham Lincoln. One of the episodes contains a scene where Thomas Ravenel (left), South Carolina's disgraced former state treasurer, is out to eat with his father Arthur Ravenel, who proclaims he doesn't like the $5 bill because President Lincoln is on the face of it

As they close out their tab, Thomas asks his father if he has $5 to tip the waitress. Arthur pulls out a $5 bill, declaring he likes to get rid of the bill because it 'has ole Lincoln' on the face. Thomas starts laughing and asks, 'you don't like Lincoln?' and Arthur smirks at the camera

In Season 4 Episode 8, Thomas stops by to visit his father's office in downtown Charleston,. He has a Museum of the Confederacy magnet on an old Rolodex

The camera pans to show Arthur has a large portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee hanging on his wall

Four episodes in total were removed from Bravo's app and online website, with the page saying the episodes are 'currently unavailable'

The spokesperson told Variety the episode of Dennis showing off her plantation was still unavailable because they were removing the scene, but would later be put back up.

They added the network was combing through episodes of all their shows to flag 'potentially offensive content' but Southern Charm was the only show that had episodes removed.

In Season 1 Episode 2, which aired in March 2014, Thomas Ravenel is out to eat with his 93-year-old father Arthur, a former US Congressman who proudly flew the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse.

He also referred to the NAACP as the National Association of Retarded People, only to apologize to mentally handicapped people for comparing them to the group.

While eating, the father and son talk about Thomas' dating life, and the 58-year-old describes being denied a kiss by a woman he is seeing, saying he isn't used to being rejected.

Arthur quips that Thomas can solve that problem by getting a woman pregnant, adding that if it's a boy, he'll give Thomas $10,000.

As they close out their tab, Thomas asks his father if he has $5 to tip the waitress.

Arthur pulls out a $5 bill, declaring he likes to get rid of the bill because it 'has ole Lincoln' on the face.

Thomas starts laughing and asks, 'you don't like Lincoln?' and Arthur smirks at the camera.

In Season 4 Episode 8, Thomas stops by to visit his father's office in downtown Charleston.

The camera pans to show Arthur has a large portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee hanging on his wall, as well as a Museum of the Confederacy magnet on an old Rolodex.

Another removed episode features Kathryn Dennis, a descendant of former VP John C. Calhoun who was a staunch defender of slavery and the Confederate South, showing off her family's 800-acre plantation, proudly pointing out a slave cemetery on the grounds

Dennis emerges from the house with iced drinks and takes Ray on a walk of the grounds, explaining: 'Our whole plantation is about 800 acres. There's actually a slave cemetery right over there. No joke'

The removed episodes aired between 2014 and 2016 and it is not clear when they were removed

In Season 3 Episode 1, Dennis has her co-star K. Cooper Ray over to her family's plantation outside of Charleston in Moncks Corner.

Ray declares upon seeing Dennis: 'The ride in was, like, seriously a travel through time. You know, you're Scarlet O'Hara after the war out here.

Dennis laughs, saying: 'After the war, yeah, pretty much.'

Ray excitedly says: 'I want to see, I want to see, I want to see. I mean it's so beautiful. And it's huge.'

Dennis emerges from the house with iced drinks and takes Ray on a walk of the grounds, explaining: 'Our whole plantation is about 800 acres. There's actually a slave cemetery right over there. No joke.'

Ray marvels at the fact the plantation is still intact, saying 'wow' multiple times as Dennis adds the plantation grew rice, cotton and tobacco.

They then proceed to sit down on lawn chairs, drink in hand, and gossip about their love lives and friends.

In another removed episode from Season 4, star Shep Rose makes a crude joke about his friend Craig Conover, saying he 'couldn't get p***y in a money w***ehouse with a sack of bananas over his shoulder.'

Dennis, 29 and shares two children with ex-partner Ravenel, was publicly dumped as a brand ambassador by a Charleston-area luxury department store over racist remarks she made to a black woman.

In May she had hit out at Charleston radio host Tamika Gadsden who had tweeted dismay at the decision by a beauty salon owner to host a 'Trump boat parade'. The reality star bombarded Gadsden with a series of DMs including a monkey emoji

This is not the first time cast members have gotten themselves into hot water over offensive comments.

Dennis, 29 and shares two children with ex-partner Ravenel, was publicly dumped as a brand ambassador by a Charleston-area luxury department store over racist remarks she made to a black woman.

In May she had hit out at Charleston radio host Tamika Gadsden who had tweeted dismay at the decision by a beauty salon owner to host a 'Trump boat parade'.

The reality star bombarded Gadsden with a series of DMs including a monkey emoji.

Dennis attempted to explain the use of the offensive use emoji, saying: 'I use that emoji all the time bc it looks silly and awkward and thats my baseline. The account was anonymous I didnt even know who I was messaging????'

Shen then said: 'Yall have to know that this whole thing has been blown out of context. Im freakin heartbroken and SO depressed because of the way Im being portrayed is totally not true!!!

'And its not fair. And I see now that Im back on IG that some*** people are thrilled to use this situations to come up on their own. Use for their own benefit. But Im not gonna let that happen. Never have never will.'

And she had to respond because she 'cannot stand my character being annihilated. Please just be patient and know this s**t is just not true.'
Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 21.08.2020:

As of Friday morning, 158 COVID-19 new cases were confirmed in Armenia, and the total number of cases has reached 42,477 in the country.

Also, six more deaths from COVID-19 were reported, making the respective death toll 842 cases.

The total number of people who have recovered so far is 35,693, and the number of people currently being treated is 5,689.

Armenia ranks 21st in terms of the COVID-19 death toll per million population (284). In terms of the absolute number of deaths, Armenia now ranks 49th in the world (842, 6 in the last 24 hours).

After confirming 42,477 COVID-19 cases in Armenia since the beginning of the pandemic, the country is currently in 54th place in the world and 13th in terms of COVID-19 cases per million.

Russia and its partners in the OSCE Minsk Group are working on the earliest possible resumption of talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Trud newspaper, TASS reported

"We are expecting early resumption of the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. We are working on this together with our partners in the OSCE Minsk Group," he said.

Lavrov noted that the July border conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was the second most widespread violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement.

"The Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh Igor Popov has been in direct contact with the leadership of the foreign ministries of the two countries all this time. As a result, with active Russian mediation, a ceasefire has been reached since August 16, albeit not on the first attempt," he noted.

By the President's decree of Tuesday and by the petition of the Prime Minister, Captain Ruben Sanamyan has been awarded the Order of the Homeland, being awarded the highest title of National Hero of Armenia.

As an officer and commander, Captain Sanamyan has shown exceptional courage, selflessness, and bravery in ensuring the defense and security of the homeland, the President's Office reported.

By the same presidential decree, 199 more servicemen of Armenia have been awarded state awards for their selflessness while defending the borders of the homeland, and for their bravery and skill during the military actions.

The criminal case under investigation into a 57-year-old resident of Khashtarak village causing serious bodily and psychological harm to his underage grandchildren has found out that his 28-year-old daughter also had regularly beaten her five minor children, as well as her brother's two underage sons, Investigative Committee of Armenia informed.

A new criminal case was initiated in connection with this incident, and a decision was made to merge the two criminal cases and continue the investigation under one proceeding.

Seven kids have been recognized as injured parties.

A forensic medical examination has been ordered for them.

The aforesaid 28-year-old resident of Khashtarak was detained on Thursday.

The investigation continues.
(Natural News) Janet Mills, the trans-looking governor of Maine, is demanding new protocols for service industry workers throughout the state that now require them to wear dog cones around their necks while handling food at restaurants.

If a server decides that he or she does not want to wear a face muzzle due to heat exhaustion and oxygen deprivation, then he or she will now be forced to slap on an inverted face shield, just like animals that have recently been spayed or neutered.

It is acceptable for kitchen staff to wear face shields in lieu of masks when the kitchen or weather is warm, the guidelines explain.

Front-of-house staff may wear a face shield in lieu of a face covering only if the shield is designed to be worn inverted, attaching below the face (e.g. as a collar) and open at the top of the shield, with the shield extending above the eyes and laterally to the ears.

The guidelines go on to explain that other types of face shields, including those that are open at the bottom, directing breath downward, are not acceptable replacements for face coverings for front-of-house staff.

This latest humiliation ritual is of course being blamed on the threat of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), for which there are a mere handful of cases in the states  about 36 total  and no deaths.

They can borrow the ones my dogs used when they got fixed, wrote one Twitter user, jokingly yet soberly. This is a crime.

More news about Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) insanity is available at Pandemic.news.

Peak insanity

Mills, who again looks like some sort of hideous, androgynous chimera, is directly to blame for the new decree, which she issued supposedly in response to the widespread fear still present throughout the United States over a phony plandemic that, at this point, represents little more than Munchausen syndrome by proxy among mostly Democrats.

Gov Janet Mills says servers must now wear face shields upside down so that their breath is directed up, not down, noted Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, an outspoken critic of the plandemic and all of the insanity that is coming down the pike in response to it.

Yes she wants you to wear a dog cone Peak insanity. I wish this was a joke.

Mills, who is not a scientist, is apparently unaware of a little thing called Newtons Third Law of Motion, which dictates that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Either that or she simply gets some kind of sadistic pleasure of out humiliating already strained service workers by treating them like animals.

Do they ever actually show the science or are we supposed to just trust them when they proclaim Science!' asked one Twitter user, referring to Mills COVID19 Prevention Checklist Industry Guidance which states:

The State of Maine has adopted a staged approach, supported by science, public health expertise, and industry collaboration, to allow Maine businesses to safely open when the time is right.

There would seem to be nothing scientific about any of this, and especially not with upside-down dog cones that while perhaps directing some droplets upwards are still subject to the natural laws of physics, meaning those same droplets eventually have to come back down to the ground.

One wonders when, if ever, Americans are going to finally awaken from their stupor and put an end to this insanity. How much more ridiculous and tyrannical do things need to get before We the People join together and say enough is enough?

Wait till the lawsuits come in for when one of the servers trips and cracks their heads because they cant see anything below shoulder height, wrote another Twitter user.

Sources for this article include:

Twitter.com

TheBright.com

NaturalNews.com
ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) Commission said the "unconstitutional change" of government in Mali further complicates the situation on the ground, particularly the implementation of the peace and reconciliation agreement as well as the current efforts in the fight against terrorism and transnational organized crime in the country.

The statement was made by the the Peace and Security Council of the AU Commission, which also on late Wednesday suspended Mali from the AU membership during its latest meeting that dwelt upon the situation in the western Africa country.

"The Council strongly condemned the unconstitutional change of government in Mali, which took place on August 18, 2020, which further complicates the situation on the ground, particularly the implementation of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Mali emanating from the Algiers process, signed in 2015, as well as the current efforts in the fight against terrorism and transnational organized crime in the country," the Council said in a statement issued on late Wednesday.

The Council had also decided "to immediately suspend the participation of Mali in the activities of the AU until the restoration of normal constitutional order in the country, in line with the relevant AU instruments, particularly the AU Constitutive Act, the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, the 2000 Lome Declaration on Unconstitutional Changes of Governments and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, as well as the 2009 Ezulwini Framework for the Enhancement of the Implementation of AU Measures in Situations of Unconstitutional Changes of Government."

Noting the urgent need for a rapid resolution of the current crisis based on respect for constitutional order and reflecting the aspirations of the people of Mali within the framework of the relevant AU instruments, the council further appealed to the Malian people "to remain calm and to work together to resolve the crisis in their country."

It also called on the Malian defence and security forces to respect the country's constitution, uphold their professionalism, stick to their constitutional mandate and to unconditionally return to the barracks, as well as to refrain from interfering in the country's political processes.

It also demanded "the unconditional release of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister H.E. Boubou Cisse, and that defence and security forces to ensure creation of a conducive environment for an unimpeded return to civilian rule."

It also encouraged "all Malian political actors to embrace dialogue and reconciliation, within the framework of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Mali, as the only viable approach for addressing the current challenges facing the country."

The council further encouraged expediting the implementation of the provisions of the Agreement, in order to reach a lasting solution to the crisis prevailing in the country."

It also commended and "fully supports" the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for the sustained efforts being deployed in Mali, with a view to assisting the Malian stakeholders to find a consensual, peaceful and lasting solution to the current crisis in the country, and "looks forward to the outcome of the Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government scheduled for August 20, 2020."

It also encouraged the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to continue supporting the Malian stakeholders, including in the implementation of the 2015 Agreement. It also called on partners to continue providing support to Mali.

Noting the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the council also underscored the imperative for Africa Centers for Decease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) "to continue deploying its efforts in the fight against the novel coronavirus disease pandemic," as it emphasized the need to take "the necessary steps to ensure enhanced support to Mali to enable the country to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on its population."

The council also decided to remain actively seized on the matter.

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, currently detained by soldiers in the military camp in Kati, a town close to Bamako, announced late Tuesday night his resignation and the dissolution of the National Assembly and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse's government.

Leaders of the military coup said Wednesday they would enact a political transition and stage elections within a "reasonable time."

For months, the opposition coalition has been organizing demonstrations to demand Keita's resignation, accusing him of worsening the security situation in the northern part of the country and Mali's economic recession.
Taiwan is tightening rules on mainland investment on the island, barring individual and corporate mainland Chinese investors with links to the government, political parties or the military.

The decision follows a ban on settlement on the island by Hong Kong residents with mainland Chinese citizenship and who work for the mainland government, political parties or military.

Taiwanese officials said on Thursday that the new regulations were meant to close loopholes and were in line with tighter rules in the United States and Europe on mainland Chinese investment.

"We have amended Article 3, 4 and 6 of Regulations Governing the Permission of Investment by Nationals in Mainland Area, to redefine the status, proportion and structure of Chinese investment in Taiwan," Su Chi-yen, a spokesman for Taiwan's Investment Commission, said.

Under the changes, companies in which the mainland government, political parties or military have a stake will be barred from investing in Taiwan. The same applies to companies in which the board is controlled by mainland Chinese stakeholders.

The new ruling also redefines mainland Chinese investment in foreign companies.

Su said that previously any company with more than 30 per cent mainland Chinese ownership was considered a mainland company.

However, if, for example, a 40 per cent mainland-owned company had a 40 per cent stake in a foreign subsidiary, the subsidiary would still be considered a foreign firm, because the mainland-controlled company would only own a total of 16 percent of the subsidiary.

"But under the new rules, the subsidiary company will now be considered a Chinese company," he said.

Su said the restriction was to prevent mainland China from skirting the island's regulations to expand its economic influence on the self-ruled island.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a wayward province that must ultimately be brought under its control - by force if necessary. Tensions between the two governments have been especially high since Tsai Ing-wen, who rejects Beijing's claim, won a second term as the island's president in May.

Story continues

Su said the mainland's attempt to increase its economic influence around the world had come under scrutiny from other governments.

"Places like the US, Japan and Europe are tightening foreign investment requirements for China, and what we are doing is in line with the international trend," he said.

The new ruling is expected to come into effect later this year after a 60-day public consultation period from Thursday. The rule is not retroactive, meaning some companies like online merchandiser Shopee may avoid being considered mainland-invested.

Although mainland Chinese internet giant Tencent is the biggest shareholder of Shopee's Singaporean parent company, Sea - with 39.7 per cent of its shares - Shopee, which has operated in Taiwan since 2015, is still considered a non-mainland invested company.

But online shopping firm Taobao Taiwan might not be in the same position, with its status still under review by the Investment Commission.

Taobao Taiwan was launched last year by Claddagh Venture Investment, which is registered in Britain and linked to mainland China's Taobao Marketplace, which is itself run by mainland e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

"Taobao Taiwan and Taobao China are two entirely different platforms, and a number of the products sold online from Taobao Taiwan come from abroad and other countries," Taobao Taiwan spokeswoman Ko Chung-ning said.

Ko said Alibaba's stake in Claddagh Venture was less than 30 per cent.

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.
Tesla Inc. asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval to market a short-range interactive motion-sensing device that could help prevent children from being left behind in hot cars and boost theft-prevention systems.

The California automaker wants permission to use unlicensed millimeter-wave sensors that would operate at higher power levels than allowed under existing rules.

Tesla's device would utilize four transmit and three receive antennas driven by a radar front-end unit. Tesla says millimeter wave radar technology has advantages over other sensing systems like camera-based or in-seat occupant detection systems.

The radar-based system "provides depth perception and can 'see' through soft materials, such as a blanket covering a child in a child restraint." Tesla added it "can differentiate between a child and an object left on the seat, reducing the likelihood of false alarms" and can detect "micromovements like breathing patterns and heart rates, neither of which can be captured by cameras or in-seat sensors alone."

Radar imaging, Tesla adds, can assess body size to optimize airbag deployment in a crash depending on whether an adult or child is seated, which it says would be more effective than existing weight-based, in-seat sensor systems.

It would also more accurately determine when to engage seat belt reminders. The FCC is seeking public comment on Tesla's request through September 21.

Tesla notes the FCC in 2018 granted a similar request for a device of Alphabet Inc's Google that works under identical operating parameters.

Valeo North America submitted a request in March to the FCC for its in-vehicle safety-related monitoring device that would also detect children in cars. The request is pending.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says more than 50 children died when left behind in hot cars in both 2019 and 2018. Of those incidents, 54 percent occurred because someone forgot a child.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed his condolences to the families of the nine persons who tragically lost their lives in a fire at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. PM Modi said that the incident was "deeply unfortunate" and he hopes that those injured in the fire recover quickly.

"Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest," the prime minister said in a tweet.

Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest. - Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 21, 2020

President Ram Nath Kovind also tweeted about the incident. Expressing his condolences to the family of victims, Kovind wrote that he was pained by the loss of lives.

"Pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I wish speedy recovery for the injured," Kovind tweeted.

Pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I wish speedy recovery for the injured. - President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 21, 2020

Nine people died and many were injured in a fire mishap in the Srisailam Left Bank Hydel Power Station (SLBHP) on the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border on Friday. The power plant is on the Telangana side of the Srisailam reservoir on Krishna river - a joint irrigation project between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The fire broke out late on Thursday night when at least 17 people were inside the plant and only eight of them managed to come out, officials said. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has ordered a CID probe into the incident.

Also Read: New airplane for PM Modi to land in Delhi soon; check out details

Also Read: Coronavirus vaccine: Army, frontline workers may get it first; COVAXIN to be ready by year end




The Government aims to have 55 percent of the countrys 90-million-plus population shopping online by 2025, with revenues estimated at US$35 billion.

The goal is perfectly feasible given the support coming from the Government, ministries, departments, and businesses.

Participants at the forum suggested making it easier for e-commerce enterprises to access capital to join online supply chains for Made-in-Vietnam goods.

It is also necessary to have policies for online payments and for guaranteeing the security of customers personal data, they suggested.

A representative from Nielsen Vietnam said the number of internet users in Vietnam is expected to reach about 60 percent of the countrys population this year, and 33 percent of Vietnamese consumers will make online payment while shopping.
Almost a million Australians will be out of work for the next two years, Scott Morrison said today.

The Prime Minster expects the unemployment rate to hover around seven per cent as the economy recovers from the recession caused by the response to coronavirus.

In July, 7.5 per cent, or just over a million Australians, were officially out of work.

Almost a million Australians will be out of work for the next two years, Scott Morrison said today

After a meeting with the state premiers on Friday, Mr Morrison said: 'The biggest challenge shared by our governments is unemployment, it's jobs.

'It's about getting Australians back into jobs, it's about keeping Australia in jobs.'

Mr Morrison said Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has asked the states to spend an additional combined $40billion on infrastructure over the next two years.

Current projects are valued at $48billion, meaning the states and territories will almost double their spending.

The Prime Minister has also asked health experts to define a 'hotspot' to stop states arbitrarily closing their borders.

He said 'we need more clarity' on when residents in certain areas should be shut out from other states.

'There needs to be a clear medical and scientific definition of what that is. These decisions cannot be made on an arbitrary basis,' he said.

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, made up of state and federal health experts, will attempt to come up with a 'hotspot' definition in two weeks.

It comes after Qantas boss Alan Joyce, and other business figures, called for a national framework for when borders should open and close.

Mr Joyce said it is confusing why states with no cases are not open to each other and that thousands of jobs could be saved if borders come down.

The Prime Minster also warned that hard state borders do not provide full protection from the virus.

He pointed the example of New Zealand and said: 'You can pretty much say they had fairly secure borders but quarantine arrangements won't always be perfect, they are human processes and they are subject to vulnerability.'

He said good testing and tracing regimes, like in New South Wales, were the best protections against the virus.

Australian state border restrictions Victoria: Completely open, but other states are banning residents from going there NSW: Border with Victoria is closed but others are open without restriction Queensland: Open to everywhere but Victoria, NSW, and the ACT Northern Territory: Open to everywhere but Victoria and Sydney, which must do hotel quarantine South Australia: Closed to Victoria, NSW arrivals must self-isolate, rest are open Tasmania: Closed to Victoria, everywhere else must do hotel quarantine Western Australia: Closed to everywhere without an exemption Advertisement

Mr Morrison said he expects that unemployment will remain above seven per cent for the next two years.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has asked the states to spend an additional combined $40billion on fiscal stimulus over the next two years.

Earlier today Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he is concerned for tourism operators and people in border communities cut off from health care.

'Lives are really being disrupted and you've got to ask why when the medical advice is not saying that is what is needed,' Mr Dutton told the Nine Network.

'If we've got premiers who are pursuing an elimination process, the country will go broke.'

Victoria recorded 179 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the first time the daily total has fallen below 200 in weeks.

The state also recorded another nine deaths, taking the national toll to 472.

All other states and territories have fairly negligible infection numbers, or none at all.

Queensland's border closures alone are estimated to cost $21 million and 173 jobs a day.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, who hails from rural Queensland, said: 'The inability or unwillingness of our premiers to work with each other to find common-sense and practical solutions to restrictions they have imposed is becoming a major test of their leadership.

'Premiers must remember that they are not just premiers of capital cities.

'I urge each of them to visit their impacted border regions as soon as possible and thrash out workable solutions with local governments, people, businesses and organisations.'

He described the meeting as a 'flashpoint for our federation'.

'Unless premiers commit to work with one another to find workable solutions to state border issues for regional Australians, then they risk states becoming irrelevant to modern Australia.'

Businesses and farm groups have queried border restrictions on large parts of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia that have no coronavirus cases.

There are also concerns about the inflexibility of rules preventing people who live near borders from accessing interstate health services.

The tourism and transport sectors want greater certainty about when to expect an easing of travel restrictions.

Mr Morrison wrote to state leaders on August 16 urging them to resolve problems, and has been working with individual premiers on specific solutions.
Singapore Changi Airport's Terminal 2. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  From 8 September, visitors from Brunei and New Zealand will be allowed to enter Singapore without serving a stay-home notice (SHN) if they have remained in these countries in the past 14 days before arrival, said Education Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday (21 August).

Instead, they will undergo a COVID-19 test upon arrival at the airport and only be allowed to go about their activities in Singapore after receiving a negative test result, said Wong at a virtual multi-ministry task force press conference.

We know that some places have been able to control the infection effectively, and the risk of importation is low. Our assessment is that there is no need for a stay-home notice requirement for travellers from these low-risk places and the COVID-19 test would be sufficient, the taskforce co-chair added.

Prior to travelling to Singapore, visitors from Brunei and New Zealand will need to apply for an Air Travel Pass (ATP) between 7 and 30 days before their intended date of entry into Singapore. They will be responsible for their medical bills should they need medical treatment for COVID-19 while in Singapore.

The application for the ATP will start from 1 September for travel from 8 September. More details will be provided by the Ministry of Transport next week.

Returning Singapore citizens, permanent residents, and long-term pass holders will similarly not have to serve SHN and will undergo a COVID-19 test upon arrival from Brunei and New Zealand. They do not need to apply for an ATP and can return from 1 September.

Wong said that while there are no current reciprocal arrangements for visitors from Singapore planning to travel to Brunei and New Zealand, authorities here are holding ongoing discussions with both countries on the issue.

When we are ready with the reciprocal green lane arrangements with these two countries we will announce the details, he added.

Currently, all foreign visitors are not allowed to enter Brunei and New Zealand.

Story continues

Visitors from low-risk places to serve shorter SHN

There are other low-risk countries or regions where an SHN may not be necessary but authorities here will continue to implement it out of an abundance of caution, noted Wong.

Places deemed low-risk are Australia  excluding Victoria State  Macao, mainland China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

Incoming travellers from these places need only serve a seven-day SHN, down from 14, and they will be allowed to serve it at their place of residence.

All other incoming travellers will continue to serve their 14-day notice at dedicated SHN facilities, said Wong.

All travellers, regardless of the duration of the SHN, will be subjected to a COVID-19 test before the end of the notice.

The countries in the different categories will continue to be updated over time. So this is not cast in stone. We continue to assess the situation, and we will update the list of countries over time, said Wong.

Separately, students who are studying overseas will also be allowed to travel as many foreign educational institutions are resuming their terms.

This means students and other travellers who are going to Brunei and New Zealand in compliance with the updated travel advisory will be eligible for government subsidies and insurance coverage for treatment if they end up being infected with COVID-19 when they return.

All border changes will take effect from 12am on 1 September for all travellers entering or departing Singapore.

Professor Leo Yee Sin, National Centre for Infectious Diseases executive director, noted that a balanced and risk-managed approach is needed for Singapore to progressively regain connectivity with other parts of the world.

Risk assessment takes into consideration the local incidence rate in countries and their ability to contain further transmission. This will start with countries that have a lower or comparable incidence rate to our local situation, said Prof Leo.

The NCID studies and analyses available information with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to calibrate action plans.

The Singapore Airlines Group  which owns SIA, SilkAir, and Scoot  said it welcomed the governments decision to further ease border restrictions.

The recovery of air travel and airfreight is a necessary catalyst for the recovery of global trade and economies severely impacted by COVID-19, it said. Todays announcement is an important step towards the gradual rebuilding of the Singapore air hub.

The MOH on Friday reiterated its advice for Singapore residents to defer all non-essential travel overseas. Essential travel for business, official, and work purposes will continue to be permitted under the green/fast lane arrangements and the periodic commuting arrangement.

All travellers will remain subject to the prevailing border measures upon entry, including payment for their stay at dedicated SHN facilities and tests, where applicable.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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No re-infections found among recent COVID-19 cases in previously cleared dorms: MOH official

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COVID-19: Special arrangements made to ensure student safety for national exams
Will Massachusetts public schools have access to COVID-19 testing for their staff and students? If theres evidence of transmissions, yes.

Massachusetts health officials plan to deploy mobile response teams to roll out a rapid response testing program to schools that meet certain criteria, Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday afternoon during a news briefing at the Massachusetts State House.

While the criteria isnt out yet, Baker and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders went on to outline some hypotheticals that could lead to the response teams going out to a school. Two or more students in a classroom becoming infected, two or more students on a bus contracting the virus, more than 3% of a school population testing positive  any of those scenarios in a two-week period could make a school eligible for the rapid response testing.

Baker also said the Stop the Spread testing initiative announced earlier in the summer would continue through the end of September in communities that have seen the highest positive COVID-19 rates. The initiative set up free testing sites, including for people who arent showing symptoms, throughout the state.

These testing resources for school districts are another tool to keep students and staff safe when kids return to the classroom in the fall, the Republican governor said.

About 70% of school districts are planning to resume in-person instruction, though many are pursuing a hybrid model that involves both in-person and remote learning. The school reopening plans come after the state rolled out more granular data analysis categorizing communities by risk of COVID-19 spread.

The rapid response testing will only be available after COVID-19 infections are detected and reported, but Baker said the testing is one of several resources that can be tapped to contain the pandemic in Massachusetts.

As with everything thats COVID-related, there is no silver bullet, he said. We must use every tool thats available to continue to contain the virus.

Teacher unions, who are calling for a shift to remote learning and routine testing, said the governors testing plans fall short of preventing community spread.

COVID-19 testing must be widespread, frequent, easily accessible and free to all students and staff  and not limited just to cohorts where there are signs of concern. Like much of what Governor Baker has promoted for schools, his testing plan recklessly creates false confidence, Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy said in a statement. We need to be able to reopen public schools in a manner that prevents the spread of the coronavirus, and Governor Bakers plan does not accomplish that.

When asked about the demands of teacher unions in Massachusetts, Baker said he is following the advice of infectious disease experts and pediatricians who have consulted the administration.

The goal here should be to try to have as many kids as we possibly can safely being educated in a way that works for them, he said. I dont think we should go into this with an assumption that it cant be done because it is being done in so many places around the world using a lot of these same guidance, policies and procedures.

Baker pointed to a letter from the Amherst-Pelham School Committee that lays out its disagreements with the teachers union. In the Aug. 18 letter, the school committee states that 90% of families responded to a survey from the district about its first phase of reopening, or 323 of 474 parents. Of those respondents, 68% selected in-person learning for their schoolchildren.

More photos from yesterday's standout! Photo credits: Aradhna Johnson from Resident Assistant/Peer Mentor Union UAW 2322 Posted by Amherst Pelham Education Association on Thursday, August 20, 2020

The school committee said it disagrees with several demands laid forth by the Amherst-Pelham Education Association, referencing a call for N95 masks for students and teachers and a call for in-person instruction to resume when COVID-19 cases dip below 1 per 100,000 in Hampshire, Franklin, Hampden, Worcester and Berkshire counties.

The school committee called that proposal more extreme than even the most conservative recommendation from any reputable public health or medical professional organization.

The APEA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The associations website shows a proposal for a phased return with remote learning through the fall. Under the APEAs proposed plan, a hybrid learning model phased in by grade level would be considered for Feb. 1 at the earliest.

Under the districts current plan, grades 2 and higher start remote learning mid-September. Children in grades 2 and 3 are scheduled to attend classroom for in-person instruction starting in October. Those in grades 4, 5 and 6 move to in-person learning in November.

Baker said some of the unions demands dont make sense and that at the states goal is to get students to learn in the way that suits them best, adding that special education students and their teachers have continued to meet in-person.

This can be done, and as Ive said before we need to commit to the science we believe we have, Baker said, but we also need to commit to the kids.

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The We Build the Wall operators had tied themselves and their fortunes to the Trump era and the President's brand, scorning Democrats and the federal bureaucracy. Kolfage, who had lost both legs and one arm in Iraq while serving in the Air Force, has posted multiple videos on Twitter mocking former president Barack Obama's border control efforts and praising Trump's. Loading Bannon, 66, and Badolato, 56, a financier from Sarasota, Florida, had been business partners since at least 2003, when they joined to create a number of new ventures, including a nasal spray company called SinoFresh Healthcare. But like many business startups that Badolato was involved in, this one became mired in controversy, as a dispute broke out among executives over accusations of illegal trading of company stock and of using corporate funds for personal gain. Shea, 49, of Castle Rock, Colorado, and his wife, Amanda, had built a growing national profile for themselves using social media to promote their business ventures. One of those was a company called Winning Energy, which frequently used images of Trump to drive sales on products such as a can of what it described as 350ml of "liberal tears".

Kolfage, 38, from Miramar Beach, Florida, spent years operating Facebook pages and websites that sometimes trafficked in false or exaggerated news stories, many of them pro-Trump. In an interview with The New York Times in April 2018, he spoke about those efforts, part of a long-established online industry in which Facebook pages direct users to the websites that make money by selling ads. He admitted spreading fake stories "going at it like in the Wild West" but blamed his lack of journalism training. "You'd try to be as factual as possible while injecting opinion," he said. "There were a lot of people using sources that were just wrong. That's how it started going south." Kolfage became business partners with Amanda Shea after she built her own social-media-based marketing company that Kolfage used to increase traffic and profit at one of his websites, Right Wing News. When Facebook shut down that group in 2018  shortly before the congressional elections  Kolfage and the Sheas started a new fundraising group they called Fight4FreeSpeech, which attracted support from nationally known conservatives including Trump jnr and often featured video clips of Bannon.

Kolfage suggested that the Trump campaign and presidency were a critical factor in his business success. "Connecting on Facebook made people fell like they were part of something," he said. "Having a president who's not part of the same old political spectrum really united people." Loading His social media endeavours led to the birth in December 2018 of We Build the Wall, even as Trump struggled to secure money from Congress. Kolfage repeatedly promised that none of the money would be used to pay executives involved in the fundraising efforts. But after it became clear that there was no mechanism to transfer the money to the government, Kolfage said the group would become a private foundation and build its own wall. It had determined that only $US800,000 of the approximately $US20 million raised at that point had to be returned to donors. "No rules were broken," Kolfage said in an interview last year. "Ninety-four per cent of the donors we have been able to reach are opting in."

The private wall did get started, but backlash came almost as soon as workers began digging into Sunland Park, near El Paso, Texas. Perea said the group failed to obtain the necessary permits, forcing him to an order a temporary halt on the work. Kolfage responded by tweeting that Perea supported "open borders, the sex slaves and illegal drugs coming into their communities," prompting thousands of complaints to Perea's inbox. "They were deliberately withholding information," said Perea, who said county appraisers had valued the privately built barriers at nearly $US4 million. A section of a crowdfunded US-Mexico border wall in Sunland Park, New Mexico. We Build the Wall raised $US25 million to build its own private barrier, but was issued with a temporary restraining order by South Texas State District Judge Keno Vasquez in October. Credit:Bloomberg The group also built along the river bank in South Texas, where the construction of the Trump administration's border wall had been held up by lawsuits filed by landowners protesting how it would cut through their property.

Bannon began to play an increasing role in the organisation, the indictment said, "including its finances, messaging, donor outreach and general operations." For example, he held promotional events near El Paso, Texas, to highlight progress on construction and continue raising funds. The group hired a North Dakota company, Fisher Sand & Gravel, to build the barriers and publicly celebrated its work. The Trump administration then granted the North Dakota company a $US400 million contract for the government-built wall, a deal that is currently being investigated by the inspector general for the Department. While Trump distanced himself from the project Thursday, Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, told The Times last year that the group had received the President's blessing. A border wall construction site along the US-Mexico border in Donna, Texas. Credit:AP Robert Spalding III, a retired brigadier general who served on Trump's National Security Council, said he had agreed to join the board of directors at the request of Bannon, whom he knew from the White House, and had attended a symposium the organisation held at the site of one of its border wall segments.

"All I can say is, it's sad. I did it, to be honest, because I respected Brian because he had fought for the country, and as a fellow airman I wanted to support him," Spalding said of Kolfage. "They just reached out to me and asked if I would do it." He added that he had not been involved in the group's financial operations and had resigned. Donors, however, wondered what had happened to the money. Loading The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which oversees non-profit groups in the state, announced last year that it had opened an investigation into We Build the Wall after complaints from three consumers. One of the complaints, from Minnesota Assistant Attorney-General Wendy Tien, who said she was writing in her personal capacity, raised concerns the company had misled donors in its efforts to raise funds. She questioned whether the group had obtained nonprofit status.

Another complaint came from Harvey Garlotte, a Hattiesburg, Mississippi, man who had donated $US60. Garlotte said he "felt duped" because Kolfage  who had originally said he would donate the money to the border wall  was redirecting it to a non-profit organisation he controlled. "From my side of the road, Mr Kolfage was simply using a hot-button topic, a very emotional topic, and his status as a wounded veteran, for selfish and self-serving reasons and personal financial gain," Garlotte wrote to The New York Times. Kolfage at the time mocked such concerns. "This is hilarious," he wrote, retweeting official copies of the complaints. In a statement, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said that after opening an investigation in May 2019, it had referred the case to the FBI. It was not clear whether the referral had led to the arrests on Thursday. After federal and state investigators began to examine the non-profit group  which was created so recently it has not filed even its tax return detailing how it spent its money  they began to uncover evidence that large sums were being transferred to a separate non-profit set up by Shea.
(Newser)  Two suspects are in custody after an alleged attack in a Red Sea resort city in Israel that the prime minister calls "shocking," and there may be more arrests to come. Per the New York Times, police rep Nava Dihi says a 16-year-old girl came to Ashkelon police on Aug. 14 with a disturbing claim: that she'd been gang-raped two days earlier in a hotel in Eilat while on a trip with other girls. Per local media, the girls stayed at a private villa but met up to drink with friends in a nearby hotel room, which is when the teen says the rapes took place. One of the accused says up to 30 men had sex with the reportedly intoxicated girl, though he says it was consensual. Authorities say the girl's friend tried to stop the attack from taking place but wasn't able to, per the BBC. A police rep notes the number of suspects hasn't been confirmed, and that some of those present may not have participated.

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That same rep, however, adds that even just being present could bring charges. "This is not just a crime against the girl, it is a crime against humanity itself that deserves all condemnation and that those responsible for it should be brought to justice," tweeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One result of this case is that the nation's education minister has now mandated sexual-violence prevention programs in schools for the upcoming school year. "We will take action so that every boy and girl in Israel has a deep understanding of the boundaries of what is permissible and what is forbidden," Yoav Galant said on Thursday, per the Times. Meanwhile, thousands have been taking part in protests in Israel to back the teen, and the girl herself is grateful for all the support. "I feel that there are a lot of people behind me and this really strengthens me," she told local media, per the Times of Israel. (Read more Israel stories.)
RTHK: Days of US 'cozying up to dictators is over': Biden

Joe Biden vowed Thursday to end America's "days of cozying up to dictators" as he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president.

"I'll be a president who will stand with our allies and friends and make it clear to our adversaries, the days of cozying up to dictators is over," the former vice president said on the closing night of the Democratic National Convention.

He vowed to heal a country battered by a deadly pandemic and an economic catastrophe by uniting all Americans, while warning that President Donald Trump would go on stoking hatred and fear if elected to another four-year term.

"Here and now, I give you my word: if you entrust me with the presidency, I'll draw on the best of us, not the worst," Biden said as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination for an election 75 days away.

"I'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness."

The speech was delivered inside an empty arena in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, at the conclusion of the four-day Democratic National Convention, which was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Several Democrats who challenged Biden for the nomination  US Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker; former US Representative Beto O'Rourke; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang  praised Biden's empathy and leadership in a taped conversation.

Another former rival, billionaire and former Republican Michael Bloomberg, said Trump had failed both as a businessman and as a president.

"I'm not asking you to vote against Donald Trump because he's a bad guy. I'm urging you to vote against him because he's done a bad job," said Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City.

"And let me tell you a little secret. Donald Trump's economic plan was to give a huge tax cut to guys like me, who didn't need it. And then lie about it to everyone else," he said.

Biden, 77, heads into the general election campaign leading in opinion polls over Trump, 74, who will accept the Republican nomination for a second White House term at his own convention next week. (AFP, Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Fresh Gaza projectile at Israel as exchanges of fire continue An Israeli firefighter extinguishes a fire close to the Gaza Strip caused by an incendiary balloon

Gaza militants fired a projectile at Israel late Friday, the army said, as the exchanges of fire between the Palestinian enclave and Jewish state continued with no end in sight.

The projectile, which set off air raid sirens in Israel's south, was "intercepted by the Iron Dome Aerial Defence System", the army said in a statement.

Earlier Friday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, as Palestinians fired rockets and launched fire bombs into southern Israel.

Parts of southern Israel were partially cordoned off by the security forces.

Israeli planes launched raids against Gaza shortly after midnight Thursday and then again later on Friday morning.

Israel said the bombs were in response to seven rockets launched from Gaza, six of which were intercepted by its air defences.

Witnesses in Gaza said rockets were launched towards the town of Sderot, just across the border.

The rocket that was not intercepted damaged the roof of a house in Sderot, but did not cause any casualties, an AFP photographer said.

Israel has bombed Gaza almost every night since August 6 in retaliation for the launch of balloons fitted with fire bombs, or, less frequently, rocket fire, across the border.

The number of rockets fired from Gaza after midnight and again Friday morning was the largest in a day since the latest round of exchanges began two weeks ago.

Hamas "will not hesitate to fight a battle with the enemy if the escalation continues, if the bombardments and the blockade continue," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement.

"If the Israeli occupation continues its aggression... it must pay the price," he added.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz on Friday warned the army would "attack our attackers and deal them a very heavy blow".

"Gaza residents suffer at the hands of Hamas," he said in a statement following a situation assessment with the chief of the army, vowing to continue protecting Israel's residents.

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- Blockade tightened -

Israel has also tightened its 13-year blockade of Gaza's two million inhabitants.

It has banned Gaza fishermen from going to sea and closed its goods crossing with the territory, prompting the closure of Gaza's sole power plant for want of fuel.

The reprisals came after an Egyptian delegation shuttled between the two sides, trying to broker a return to an informal truce.

Egypt has acted to calm repeated flare-ups in recent years to prevent any repetition of the three wars Israel and Hamas have fought since 2008.

The latest ceasefire, which has already been renewed several times, is bolstered by millions of dollars in financial aid from Qatar to Gaza.

The truce provided for permits for Gazans to work in Israel and financing for Gaza development projects, both measures that would provide some economic relief in an impoverished territory where unemployment exceeds 50 percent.

According to a source close to Hamas, the movement wants the extension of an industrial zone in the east of Gaza, and the construction of a new power line.

Hamas also wants the number of work permits issued to Gazans to be doubled to 10,000 once anti-coronavirus restrictions are lifted, the source said.

Sources told AFP the twin issues were at the root of the latest flare-up.

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A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Mexico City, Aug 21 : Mexico has been offered at least 2,000 doses of a Russian Covid-19 vaccine and is to take part in its clinical trials, said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.

This is "very good news because once again we are gaining time", Xinhua news agency quoted Ebrard as saying on Thursday.

The Minister and Russian Ambassador to Mexico Viktor Koronelli met on Wednesday to discuss the country's participation in testing the "Sputnik V" vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology.

"It will arrive in Mexico to begin testing. I will announce the date very soon, but yesterday both the offer and the acceptance were formalized," Ebrard said.

Mexico has agreed to help produce a Covid-19 vaccine for Latin America developed by the UK's Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, said Ebrard.

Phase three trials of a vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson are likely to begin in September, he added.

Mexico has so far reported a total of 543,806 coronavirus cases with 59,106 deaths, according health authorities.
Navalnys Medevac from Russia to Germany in Limbo

MOSCOW  Family and allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who remains in a coma in a Siberian hospital, were fighting for his transfer to a German clinic on Friday as local doctors insisted the politician is too unstable to be medevaced and refuse to give authorization for the transfer.

Navalny, a 44-year-old politician who is one of President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in a coma at a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday, following what his supporters are calling a suspected poisoning that they believe was engineered by the Kremlin.

A plane with German specialists and all the necessary equipment landed at Omsk airport on Friday morning, prepared to take Navalny to a clinic in Berlin. But doctors treating the politician said his condition was too unstable to transport him and bristled at the idea of consulting with German specialists, saying that doctors that flew in from Moscow over night were competent enough.

Anatoly Kalinichenko, deputy chief doctor of the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny was hospitalized speaks to the media in Omsk, Russia, on Aug. 21, 2020. (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/ AP Photo)

Omsk hospital deputy chief doctor, Anatoly Kalinichenko, also said that no traces of poison were found in Navalnys body.

Poisoning as a diagnosis remains on the back burner, but we dont believe that the patient suffered from poisoning, Kalinichenko told reporters on Friday.

Kalinichenko added that a diagnosis have been determined and relayed to Navalnys family members. He refused to reveal it to reporters, citing a law preventing medical workers from disclosing confidential patient information.

Navalnys spokesman, Kira Yarmysh, wrote on Twitter that the politicians family wasnt given a diagnosis, but rather a range of symptoms that can be interpreted differently.

Doctors still cant determine the cause of Alexeis condition, she said.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders or dissidents and insisted that the transfer is paramount to saving the politicians life.

The ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life, Yarmysh said in a tweet.

A German special medical plane prepares to land at the airport of Omsk to pick up Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny from the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, in Omsk, Russia, on Aug. 21, 2020. (OmskSpottingClub via AP)

German officials have been in contact with both Russians and a private group that sent a plane to pick Navalny up, and support the initiative. If Mr. Navalny wants to get treated in Berlin and if he is able to come to Berlin, the Charite hospital is obviously ready, Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller told the German news agency dpa.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

A protester stands in front of a police officer holding a poster reading Putin stop poisoning people! during a picket in support of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the center of St. Petersburg, Russia, on Aug. 20, 2020. (Elena Ignatyeva/ AP Photo)

Navalnys Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russias ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russias Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the regions governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

By Daria Litvinova
Hundreds of people, including victims of domestic violence, have signed a petition urging the Justice Minister to prevent a notorious abuser from walking free from prison early.

Paul Barry, of Ballybrack in Dublin, is due to be released this Christmas after serving two years of his 32-month sentence.

His former partner Kim Fox was left for dead after Barry savagely beat her in an unprovoked attack when he came home after a night out with friends.

Ms Fox sustained soft tissue damage to her upper body and face, a fractured eye socket, three fractured ribs and had two of her teeth knocked out.

She spent three days in hospital following the attack at her Dublin home in December 2018.

Barry was sentenced to 32 months in prison at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The crime has a maximum sentence of five years, but Barry will have served 24 months behind bars when he is due for early release at Christmas.

Expand Close Kim Fox was beaten by her former partner Paul Barry (Handout/PA) / Facebook

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Ms Fox lost her job as a result of being off work for a month after the attack and she said that while she has recovered physically, she has been left permanently traumatised.

She said the prospect of her former partners release terrifies her and her family.

She has called on Minister for Justice Helen McEntee to ensure her abuser is not freed until he has served his full sentence.

I had to go through hell in order to get him locked up: trying to lift myself up out of bed to get down to court with my face swollen and smashed up  I cant understand how he is going to be left out early, to walk free while we still suffer for what he did to us, Ms Fox said.

I will never recover from the beating he gave me. The scars, the nightmare, it never ends.

My poor daughter suffered the most thinking I was dead and having to jump over my limp body covered in blood.

We are the ones left living in fear  where is the justice for the victims?

Ms Foxs campaign is being backed by the Stop Domestic Violence in Ireland (SDVII) group, which provided legal help and counselling in the aftermath of the attack.

So far the petition has been signed by more than 700 people.

SDVII founder Priscilla Grainger said the case underlines the need to have domestic violence enshrined in law as a crime in Ireland.

Ms Grainger said: This horrific case again underlines the complete inadequacy of our sentencing regime when it comes to domestic violence cases.

If abusers like Barry are allowed to walk free from prison early what kind of message does this send out to victims? It severely undermines the faith and trust they have in a system which is failing, time and time again, to protect them.

It also, yet again, illustrates why domestic violence needs to be made a crime in this country, as it is in many other jurisdictions.

If it was, gardai would have the power to charge abusers with multiple counts which would in turn lead to longer sentences and act as a far greater deterrent to abusers. In cases like this in the US the abuser could expect to serve 10 years, not 10 months, behind bars.

To sign the petition visit https://www.change.org/p/minister-of-justice-keep-dangerous-abuser-paul-barry-in-jail-for-the-maximum-sentence?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=1cdb0a20-ef31-0130-013a-3c764e049c64.
The Gulf state has long expressed a desire to acquire the jet made by Lockheed Martin, which Israel has used in combat.

The United Arab Emiratess accord to normalise ties with Israel should remove any hurdle for the United States to sell the F-35 stealth fighter jet to the Gulf Arab state, a senior Emirati official said.

The US has sold the F-35 to allies  including Turkey, South Korea, Japan and Israel  but sales to the Gulf require a deeper review because of American policy for Israel to maintain a military advantage in the Middle East.

We have legitimate requests that are there. We ought to get them  The whole idea of a state of belligerency or war with Israel no longer exists, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said in an online interview with the Atlantic Council on Thursday.

However, he said the UAE had not made any new requests to the Americans since the deal with Israel was announced last week.





The UAE expects that its requirements will be accepted and we feel that with the signing of this peace treaty in the coming weeks or months  that any hurdle towards this should no longer be there, Gargash said.

The Gulf state, one of Washingtons closest Middle Eastern allies, has long expressed interest in acquiring the fighter jet made by Lockheed Martin Corp, which Israel has used in combat.

Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would oppose any sale, citing a need to maintain Israeli military superiority in the region.

Qualitative Military Edge

Ellen Lord, the Pentagons under-secretary of defence for acquisition and sustainment and a leader in the US weapons export process, told reporters in general the US aims to reach a letter of agreement for new F-35 sales in about six months.

US President Donald Trumps said on Wednesday: Theyd like to buy F-35s, well see what happens, its under review.

Washington guarantees Israel receives more advanced American weapons than Arab states, giving it what is labelled a Qualitative Military Edge over its neighbours.

In the region, only Israel now flies the F-35 fighter jet as a planned purchase by Turkey collapsed over Ankara purchasing Russias S-400 anti-aircraft missile system.

Gargash has repeatedly said the UAEs decision to open diplomatic ties with Israel had nothing to do with Iran. However, the UAEs government long has considered Iran its top regional threat.

For the UAE, its pilots have seen the F-35 in action as US Air Force squadrons flying the stealth fighter have rotated in and out of Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi since 2019 [File: Kyodo via Reuters]

Netanyahu repeatedly denied there was any link between arms deals and opening ties to the Emirates. That was met with scepticism in Israel, particularly amid accusations he bypassed Israels defence establishment in agreeing to a past German sale of advanced submarines to Egypt.

Critics have accused Netanyahu of lying over a key element that is believed to have clinched the deal for the UAE. Netanyahus defence minister and governing partner, former military chief Benny Gantz, said he was kept in the dark about the UAE deal until the last minute.

Israel must never forget, not even for a split second, that any dent in its strength is liable to pull the rug out from under its feet in the long term, said Amos Gilead, director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center.

Intentions are fluid and vulnerable to rapid changes.





Defence aspect

For the UAE, its pilots have seen the F-35 in action as US Air Force squadrons flying the stealth fighter have rotated in and out of Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi since 2019. The Emirati air force has dozens of F-16s and French-made Mirage 2000s already in service.

But the F-35s would provide a far-greater edge over Iran, whose air force largely dates back to purchases made before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and includes some locally built aircraft. The F-35s stealth capability also make it far more difficult for Iranian anti-aircraft batteries, already internationally criticised for shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet in January, to pick up.

The UAE has repeatedly sought to buy armed American Reaper drones. It already used Chinese-made armed drones on the battlefield in Yemen, where the Emirates joined a Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels there who hold the capital. That war, which began in 2015, has become the worlds worst humanitarian crisis.

Responding to questions on Thursday about its efforts to buy the F-35, the Emirati foreign ministry said the UAE-Israel agreement will eventually include a security and defence aspect.

Meanwhile, Gargash said when the normalisation agreement with Israel is formally signed, Abu Dhabi will have its embassy in Tel Aviv based on international consensus to a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

The embassy will be in Tel Aviv. This is very clear, he said.
With the 2020 Democratic National Convention coming to a close and the Republican National Convention starting soon, Stacker takes a look at C-SPANs most recent 2017 ranking of 43 U.S. presidents. Continue reading to see the reasons why some presidents remain household names while others all but fade into the background of American history.
An All Lives Matter protester argues with an anti-racist protester. An All Lives Matter group protested against anti-racists outside the Federal Courthouse on Saturday, July 25th, at 8 p.m in Eugene, Ore. The confrontation turned violent after physical altercations. The standoff ended two hours later when anti-racists marched the All Lives Matter group away. (Kevin Wang/Daily Emerald)
The end of the British rule on the Indian subcontinent in August 1947 left a trail of destruction and resulted in the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan by partitioning India. At that time, minorities comprised 23 percent of Pakistans population. Today this number is three percent, a chilling reminder of the state of minorities in the Islamic Republic. India saw a different trend. According to the last census conducted in 2011, the Muslim population in India had grown from about 10 percent in 1947 to about 14 percent, which isnt surprising because minorities tend to flourish in liberal democracies like the United States and India.

The Pakistani government, however, peddles a one-sided narrative in their country and in these pages as well. I am a Kashmiri Hindu, a member of a minority community in the Kashmir Valley, who was forced to flee Kashmir and become a refugee due to the radical Islamic terrorism exported by Pakistan to Kashmir. As a result of this cross-border terrorism, 47,000 lives have been lost and 350,000 Kashmiri Hindus have become homeless.

It is no secret that Pakistan uses terrorism as a political tool and American people remember that it was in Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden found safe refuge. A 2019 country report brought out by counter terrorism bureau of U.S. Department of State on Pakistan states, Pakistan continued to serve as a safe haven for certain regionally focused terrorist groups. It allowed groups targeting Afghanistan, including the Afghan Taliban and affiliated HQN, as well as groups targeting India, including LeT and its affiliated front organizations, and JeM, to operate from its territory.

Abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir in India is restoration and not suspension of human rights. Reorganizing boundaries of Indian states for better governance has happened 14 times in independent India. Article 370 was a temporary provision which allowed a special status to Jammu and Kashmir but over the years had become a vehicle that fueled separatism and was an impediment to overall economic development of the region. Under the deathly grip of Article 370, groups like Ladakhis of Ladakh had become invisible, minority Hindus of Kashmir valley were ethnically cleansed and Dogras of Jammu had no political representation.

The Indian constitution, that is modeled on the U.S. Constitution, is among the most liberal in the world. This constitution was not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir as long as temporary provision of article 370 was in force. After abrogation of Article 370, Kashmiri women, minorities and the LGBTQ community in Kashmir have been given the same rights as other Indian citizens.

The series of systemic reforms witnessed in Kashmir region in the last year have already put it on the trajectory of progress and peace. The streets of Kashmir valley have been calm and have witnessed no protests. Contrary to what Pakistan likes to portray, the valley is not under any kind of siege. If the authors had looked beyond self-promoted propaganda they would have known that many English, Urdu and Kashmiri dailies are being published from Kashmir. Satellite channels and cable television is fully operational. Internet and telecommunications services have been mostly restored since March. Infrastructure development has received fresh impetus with many pending projects being completed in record time.

Imagine if the state of Texas was kept out of the progress that the rest of the United States is witnessing. Imagine if the progressive laws of American constitution were not applicable in Texas. Imagine if somebody from California or New York could not own a home or business in Texas and imagine if Texan women were discriminated against. Now imagine if the country bordering Texas ran terrorist camps and sent terrorists to kill Texans with impunity. What would the United States government do in such a scenario? Those democratic nations who understand the need for social justice and minority rights will understand why Article 370 simply had to go.

The people of Kashmir have seen a dawn of new hope. Pakistan, however, is looking at the United States to support its nefarious designs on Kashmir. I doubt they will find any success because terrorism as a political tool cannot be supported by any democracy. As a persecuted Kashmiri Hindu, I however look at the United States to tell me what happened to the minorities of Pakistan and where did they perish?

Vashisht is a columnist and political commentator who was displaced from Kashmir Valley in 1990.
Chandigarh, Aug 21 : With the continuous spike in coronavirus cases, Haryana on Friday ordered the closure of shops, except those dealing in essential items, and offices on weekends, starting this Saturday.

State Health Minister Anil Vij, who also holds the Home portfolio announced the partial lockdown across the state.

In a tweet, he informed that all offices and shops, except essential, will remain closed in Haryana on every Saturday and Sunday due to COVID-19.

The state, which shares its border with Delhi, has recorded over 50,000 cases of coronavirus and 578 deaths.

However, there will be no restrictions on the movement of people.
He said Greece had opened up for tourism in a relatively safe manner. But this week, it tightened some restrictions on daily life on the holiday island of Mykonos and in Halkidiki, a northern resort region, due to an increase in cases linked to those areas. No more than four people can sit to a table at restaurants, and masks are mandatory both indoors and out. Earlier this month, Greece mandated that bars and restaurants in some tourist hot spots shutter at midnight.
ALBANY  At one point during her wait in the line that wrapped around Samaritan Hospitals parking lot in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Walkino Howard wasnt sure what was worse: the cold mid-March winds that whipped her face as she stood for an hour and a half, the running nose she couldnt tend to behind her claustrophobia-inducing mask, or her 104 degree fever.

She was waiting to get tested for COVID-19, but Howard already knew what the results would yield.

When she got home from the hospital, Howard received a call from the Schenectady County Department of Health that provided further confirmation. She had been exposed to coronavirus, they said, and would have to quarantine for 14 days.

On March 22, three days after Howard stood in that dreadful line, she received her test results: positive, as she expected. But her experience was just getting started.

In the weeks to come, she would seek treatment five times at two area emergency rooms and be admitted to the hospital twice. The 45-year-old Albany resident is one of more than 2,600 people in Albany County who tested positive for the virus. But she was also one of the unlucky ones who had serious complications early in the pandemic - when doctors were urging those infected to stay home, instead of searching for how the virus was ravaging a person's body. We would later learn that Black people were also disproportionately impacted by the virus - whether that be because of systemic racial bias in health care, or as a window into social and economic disparity in America.

But all Howard knew was that a month after her initial COVID-19 test, her heart would be in danger of stopping.



Howard is a woman of faith.

She goes to Mount Pleasant Baptist Church on Washington Avenue weekly, expressing her love and trust in God through worship, as well as song.

But that is what led to her contracting the virus.

Howard, a wife and mother to a grown son, is a soprano in Mount Pleasants church choir, and was at choir practice on Wednesday, March 10 when she was exposed to COVID-19 through one of her fellow congregants.

That route of transmission has played out in other congregations around the world, as the respiratory droplets pushed out during singing make their way easily to others.

Four days later, Howard started feeling ill. By the fifth day, Sunday, March 15, Howard went to church, then to the emergency room at Albany Memorial Hospital.

She was tested for the flu and strep  both tests came back negative. The doctor told her she likely had some sort of a virus. But despite the pandemic lockdown happening at the same time, the doctor did not suspect coronavirus.

I dont think you have COVID, but if you want me to Ill give you a script for it, he said to her, reluctantly filling out the script. In the early days, a doctor had to order a test - not like the accessible way tests are offered now through phone lines and mobile testing sites. The doctor sent her back to her North Albany home and told her to wait out her symptoms.

Related: Where to get tested for coronavirus in the Capital Region

Courtesy of Walkino Howard



Two days after Howard received her COVID-19 test results, she started experiencing severe chest pain and went to St. Peters Hospital, per the recommendation of her primary care physician.

As she described her symptoms to the doctor  chest pain but no coughing  she felt the doctor and nurse were making skeptical looks at each other. He ordered a chest X-ray for her, and found she had double pneumonia  one spot on each lung. But her oxygen levels were fine, he said, and she was just experiencing coronavirus symptoms.

He sent her home with a lecture.

Im going to have a conversation with your doctor because they should have never sent you here, she recalled the doctor telling her. At the time, doctors were urging COVID-19 patients to stay home unless they experienced extremely serious symptoms, particularly shortness of breath.

But the tightness in her chest, the sudden frightening pain she would experience, didn't dissipate when Howard went home. She found herself in the hospital again, this time at Albany Memorial on April 2.

The pneumonia that was detected at St. Peters had cleared up, the Albany Memorial doctor found.

It seems like this might be something to do with your heart, the doctor told her after she described her symptoms.

An echo cardiogram revealed Howard had congestive heart failure.

Instead of attacking her lungs, COVID-19 had attacked her heart, inflaming its lining. She knew there had been something wrong, and was so grateful to the doctor for discovering it.

Hes the only one that really believed I was having this pain in my chest, she said.

Howards doctor prescribed her anti-inflammatory medication and told her to see a cardiologist immediately.

____

Even today, how coronavirus ravages the body is not fully understood. But studies have shown that as the virus impacts lung function, less blood is oxygenated and carried to the body's other organs.

We really did not have a grasp on how to treat it, Dr. Jehanzeb Khan, a pulmonologist based in Schenectady, said in May. The patients we were getting involved with were very sick, they had a lot of lung involvement. We were doing a lot of supportive measures you do for patients who end up on a ventilator, but we really didnt have anything specific to give these patients.

When the pandemic first started, providers say, patient care could also have been impacted by concerns about a sufficient number of hospital beds being available. But Khan said any potential hospital discharges that were uncharacteristic at the beginning of the pandemic are likely no longer happening.

I think right now, we are giving the best care that we can. I think most hospitals are doing that, Khan said. But its part of the evolution of the process of developing therapeutics and vaccinations that any new disease, any new infection, has to go through.

Howard has found herself seeking medical care for myriad of issues before: pneumonia and bronchitis, panic attacks and anxiety, and two hip replacements. The issues have varied, but the doctors responses have not: She has consistently been received with skepticism, she says.

With her second hip replacement, for instance, Howard knew something was wrong. She was in immense pain, the recovery process was never ending, she had a limp  problems she knew were legitimate because she had a smooth first operation to compare it to. But the doctors kept telling her it was in her head.

Finally, a physician assistant realized the rod the surgeon had placed in Howards femur was the wrong size.

Thats how its been with my medical treatment forever, Howard said. People think as Black people all we want is pills, and that is so not the case.

It is a commonality experienced by Black people  pain that is dismissed by doctors, as well as conditions that get overlooked or are not treated appropriately. The existence of racial bias, whether intentional or unintentional, in the medical community has been proven repeatedly in research studies.

There is such a lack of awareness about how implicit bias and institutional racism is woven into the core of how we practice and how we serve others, said Lisa Good, founder and director of Urban Grief, an Albany-based project that responds to the aftermath of community violence to support those impacted. With the nature of her role, Good has had many dealings with the healthcare system locally, and has viewed what she believes is compromised treatment.

You can be the doctor with the best of intentions and subconsciously, because you are not aware of all of these different dynamics, implicit bias can play itself out in the care that is given, Good said.

There is no explicit evidence that bias influenced Howards COVID-19 care. But the dismissiveness she felt is something she has experienced before.

Youre getting sicker because people are not believing it is what it really is, Howard said.

Related: FAQ: Do you have allergies, a cold, or COVID-19? Symptoms to look out for

Add on top of that the early unknowns about how COVID-19 impacts the body, and Howard was facing a potentially deadly situation.

Black people have disproportionately been impacted by the virus nationwide. In New York outside New York City, Black residents have died of COVID-19 at twice the rate of their population  17 percent, compared with 9 percent of the population being Black.

A Boston-based biotech firms preliminary research found that Black people who visited hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms in February and March were six times less likely to get tested or treated than white patients.

COVID-19 Death Rate in New York State

Note: Figures do not include New York City

Race Percent of deaths (Percent of population) White 61% (74%) Black 17% (9%) Hispanic 14% (12%) Asian 4% (4%) Other 4% (1%) Source: New York State Department of Health

_________

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Howard never got her appointment with the recommended cardiologist to examine her congestive heart failure.

When she tried scheduling an appointment after her hospital visit, the cardiologists office told her they couldnt see her in person because they didnt have any personal protective equipment. She went to re-test for COVID-19, hoping the cardiologist would let her into the office, but the test came back positive on April 11  three weeks after her initial diagnosis. The cardiologists office offered her a video chat, conducted by a nurse.

It wasnt until Howard was running low on her medication two weeks later, and her pain hadnt subsided, that she received in-person health care again.

The cardiologist sent her to St. Peters to get a second echo cardiogram on April 17, which revealed the inflammation in her heart lining was worsening. So he prescribed her steroids and told her to just continue taking her previously prescribed anti-inflammatory medication.

Five days later, Howard picked up her prescription bottle and examined its contents. One pill left.

Lord Jesus, she said, wheezing. I have one more day left and nothing has changed, I still feel the same tightening pain that just grabs you.

Ten days later, on April 27, Howard was back in the emergency room. She had been without her medication for days, waiting for the cardiologist to refill it for her.

On a scale of one to 10, she said, her chest pain had reached an eight. She stayed at St. Peters for 11 hours as the doctors did a CAT scan looking for blood clots and an electrocardiogram test to check her hearts rhythm, the results of each coming back fine.

When I left there, the doctors basically said, We dont know, it looks like youre still suffering from the situation with COVID, just take it easy and rest, Howard said.

Her husband picked her up from the hospital at 8:30 p.m. An ambulance took her back to the hospital the following morning.

Howards knees had buckled after she got out of bed, and she crumpled to the floor.

The pain literally took me out, Howard said. I felt like I was having a heart attack.

Another electrocardiogram came back fine. She had no abnormal heart rhythms. But her blood pressure was extremely low, so the doctors kept her.

Then they did chest X-rays on Howard, and found COVID-19 had spread to attack more of her organs. Not only had Howards heart lining become more inflamed after the steroids, but her lungs also became inflamed.

Wow, we should have kept you, one of the doctors who treated Howard the previous day said.

But at 4:30 p.m., a cardiologist stood at Howards room door and said there was no reason to not release her. Perhaps she was having acid reflux or a panic attack, he told her. He gave her medication for acid reflux and sent her home.

The Times Union described the general details involving Howards case to St. Peters Health Partners, and the health system responded saying it has been following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and state Health Department since March.

Since the very beginning of the pandemic, we have monitored new developments daily, and we continue to learn more about the novel coronavirus with each passing day, they wrote in May. Our physicians and health care providers have been leading the charge in bringing groundbreaking therapies to our sickest patients... alongside the compassionate, patient-centered, interdisciplinary care for which St. Peters has always been recognized.

_______________

Howard was on three different medications in May, still in recovery.

Some days she was ok, others extremely exhausted. She had been having semi-weekly video chats with her primary care doctor, but hadn't heard from the cardiologist since that April ER visit.

No one has followed up with me, no one has told me to come to their office, she said at the time. Were like guinea pigs to this virus. I feel like Im an experiment and theyre hanging me out to dry.

When she finally did get an appointment with a cardiologist over the summer, they found she still had fluid around her heart. But the doctors told her its not serious enough to admit her to the hospital, and that they would keep a close eye on her.

In the meantime, Howard soaked up time with her 23-year-old son and husband. A fashion enthusiast, she sells shoes, bags, clothes and other accessories online.

By the middle of August, five months after her initial COVID-19 diagnosis, she still wasnt feeling back to normal.

Howards experience with the healthcare system has been traumatizing, and shes scared. But she reminds herself she has the right to proper healthcare.

If she hadnt listened to her body, she says, if she hadnt have fought for that right, maybe she wouldnt be here today.

"It's a struggle trying to get someone to believe what's going on with you, and therefore I suffer and have the anxiety of knowing something is not right with me," Howard said. "I don't want to have a heart attack when you guys could have prevented this. I honestly don't want to lay down and die."
Yalochat, a Mexico City-based company that provides a conversational commerce platform leveraging popular mobile messaging apps, closed a $15m Series B funding round.

The round was led by B Capital Group with participation from Sierra Ventures.

The company will use the funds to continue to expand its business reach globally.

Led by founder and CEO Javier Mata, Yalochat is a conversational commerce suite that enables big brands to supports sales, marketing and customer service over WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat in China.

Users include big brands like Coca-Cola and Walmart, among others.

FinSMEs

21/08/2020
A former Conservative Party campaign manager has been spared jail for possessing indecent images of children.

Mark Lerigo had collected more than 1,500 images, including some showing babies and others involving bestiality and torture.

He walked free from Warwick Crown Court on Friday after it heard he has been judged not to pose a high risk to children.

A judge handed Lerigo, 49, a suspended jail term and told him to complete 150 hours of unpaid work.

Recorder Martin Butterworth said: I have to sentence you for downloading dreadful images of children, of children being abused, and downloading other unlawful sexual images.

Any consumer of this dreadful material causes others to make it.

Lerigo, of Coventry, had worked for the Conservative Party since 2011, in roles including a campaign manager and political agent.

His LinkedIn page said he was a press officer for the pro-Remain campaign Britain Stronger in Europe during the EU referendum.

Judge Butterworth told him: "You held a senior post in a political party. You are now disgraced, your reputation destroyed.

Those two factors are not mitigation and you're not entitled to any sympathy for that.

"But you have demonstrated remorse and shame by your attitude in interviews, latterly with the police but most recently with the Probation Service, and you have pleaded guilty."

 'Horrifying' number of men view child sex abuse images online, police say

Lerigo was given a two-year prison term, suspended for two years, and made the subject of a 40-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

He was handed a 150 hours unpaid work, a four-month nighttime electronic curfew, and a 10-year sexual harm prevention order.

The judge told him: The pre-sentence report demonstrates that you want help and you have already sought it.

That help can only be offered if you remain the subject of some order to be served in the community.

Lerigo denied having a sexual interest in children when he was arrested in 2018, following an investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

But in July, he admitted one count of distributing indecent images of children, three counts of making indecent images, one count of possessing extreme pornography involving animals, one count of possessing prohibited images of children and one count of publishing an obscene article.

As well as the images, investigators found a WhatsApp chat with another offender discussing the sexual abuse of children.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures 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 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

Lerigos iPad contained more than 1,000 illegal images of children, including 146 in the most serious category, and 258 items of extreme pornography.

He also had a laptop which contained evidence of another 414 illegal images.

Graham Ellis, NCA operations manager, said: Offenders who view indecent images are fuelling more and more sexual abuse of children.

Every time an abuse image is shared or viewed the child is revictimised.

Child sexual abuse is a priority threat for the NCA. It doesnt matter what walk of life an offender is from, we will do everything in our power to catch them.

Child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation runs the Stop It Now! helpline, which offers confidential advice to anyone concerned about their own or someone elses behaviour.

Additional reporting by PA
A joint collaboration between the Nursing and Midwifery Council (N&MC) and the Special Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Ghana Police Service has led to the arrest of Mr Desmond Narh Tetteh, an internet cafe operator at Odumase Krobo in the Eastern Region.

He was arrested on suspicion of fraudulently using the logo of the Council to brand his internet cafe as an accredited facility to allegedly defraud Nurse Assistants who are seeking employment with the Ministry of Health.

At the time of his arrest on Thursday, August 20, 2020, Mr. Narh Tetteh was in possession of some Certificates of Registration issued by the Council suspected to belong to some Nurse Assistants.

He was also found with a list of over 100 names and index numbers, which he claimed were those of Nurse Assistants who sought for his assistance to register their details and apply for employment on the Ministry of Health recruitment portal.

Operation

According to the Council, its Registrar, Mr. Felix Nyante received a tip-off that an internet cafe situated in the Odumase Krobo in the Eastern Region had used the Council's logo and photos of some Nurse Assistants to design a flyer and circulating same on social media.

The target group as per the details on the said flyer according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council was captured as Nurses General Recruitment, strictly for 2017 NAP and NAC graduates only who completed from various Public Health Training Institutions.

Following the announcement by the Ministry of Health for the recruitment of Nurse Assistant Clinical and Nurse Assistant Preventive, It was reported that Mr. Desmond Narh Tetteh advertised his internet cafe using the logo of the Council to solicit for services from the applicants.

The Council in a statement said, Mr. Narh Tetteh allegedly charges Twenty Ghana Cedis (GHS 20) for each registration done on behalf of his clients.

People who patronized his internet cafe did so with the notion that the internet cafe is accredited by the Nursing and Midwifery Council hence the Council's logo on his E-flyers. Upon this information, the Registrar tasked the Team from the Disciplinary and Intelligence Department of the Council to investigate the matter. The team sought the assistance of the Special Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department, Ghana Police Service to effect the arrest of Mr. Desmond Narh Tetteh, the statement added.

He was arrested whilst attending to some clients at his internet cafe at Odumase Krobo in the Eastern Region and subsequently sent to the Police CID Headquarters in Accra for further interrogation and investigation.

Items taken by the Police include a desktop computer, laptop, signed Certificates of Registration issued by the (N&MC) and a list containing names and index numbers.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.21

By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) held a foreign exchange auction with the participation of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), during which Azerbaijani banks acquired $62.3 million, Trend reports citing CBA.

According to CBA, demand from the banks at the auction increased by 5.7 percent or by $3.4 million compared to the previous auction.

Considering the number of days remaining before the next scheduled auction, as well as with the aim of ensuring uninterrupted currency trading by the banks, the demand of banks at the auction will be fully provided during weekends.

The first foreign exchange auction in a long time was held with the participation of SOFAZ on March 10, 2020, during which Azerbaijani banks acquired $323.2 million.

The CBA began to hold foreign exchange auctions through unilateral sale of foreign currency in competitive conditions since mid-January 2017.

In March 2020, it was decided to hold extraordinary foreign exchange auctions in connection with the increased demand of the population for foreign currency amid the failed OPEC+ deal, which entailed a sharp decline in oil prices.

(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on Aug.21)
Opposition supporters flooded into Bamako's central square Friday to celebrate the overthrow of Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, where they were warmly praised by the country's new military rulers.

Thousands gathered in the capital's Independence Square, the birthplace of a monthslong protest movement, many of them draped in Mali's national flag and blasting on vuvuzela horns.

They rallied three days after mutinying troops seized the country's unpopular 75-year-old president, forced him to announce his resignation and unveiled a junta that would rule until a "transitional president" takes over.

In contrast to fierce condemnation abroad at the overthrow of an elected leader, many in the square were jubilant and shouted their approval when the junta came to pay tribute for the public's part in the drama.

Showing solidarity

"We have come here to thank you, to thank the Malian public for its support," the junta's spokesman, Ismael Wague, told the crowd. "We merely completed the work that you began and we recognize ourselves in your fight."

Keita's downfall came after months of protests, staged by a loose coalition called the June 5 Movement, that were fueled by anger at failures to stem a bloody jihadist insurgency, revive the economy and tackle corruption.

"I am overjoyed! We won. We came here to thank all the people of Mali, because this is the victory of the people," said opposition supporter Mariam Cisse, 38.

Retired soldier Ousmane Diallo, 62, said, "We are here to celebrate the victory of the people. Just the victory of the people."

"IBK has failed," he said, using a common reference to the ousted president by his initials. "The people are victorious."

But, he cautioned, "the military should not be thinking now that they can stay in power."

Broad welcome

Friday's "victory rallies" had initially been scheduled as the latest round of protests to force out Keita by the June 5 Movement, also called the M5-RFP.

The movement  a loose alliance of parties, religious leaders and grassroots groups  has given a broad welcome to the president's fall.

Keita, who was elected for a second five-year term in 2018, announced his resignation early Wednesday, saying he had been given no other choice and wanted to avoid bloodshed.

The June 5 Movement, in its first reaction, said it "took note of the [junta's] commitment" for a civilian transition and promised to work with it on "developing a road map."

Some of the placards brandished in the rally reflected resentment at perceived foreign interference in Mali's affairs.

One read, "ECOWAS, a union of heads of state serving personal interests," a reference to the 15-nation regional bloc that has led the condemnation of the coup and stands by Keita.

The bloc is to send envoys on Saturday, led by former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
Abu Dhabi Airports welcomes Lebanese travellers aboard MEA. Image: Abu Dhabi Airports

The arriving travellers were greeted by AUHs Wellness Ambassadors, in celebration of the arrival of the first MEA flight since March 2020.

Abu Dhabi International Airport, Middle East Airlines has resumed its flights between Beirut, Lebanon and the UAE capital.

Abu Dhabi International Airport has implemented a range of health and safety measures including a team of specially trained Wellness Ambassadors to support passengers by answering common questions relating to keeping healthy during travel, encouraging social distancing, monitoring the regular sanitisation of surfaces, communicating testing and isolation procedures, and providing hand sanitiser and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves to passengers.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Delhi High Court while hearing a batch of petitions in connection with the violence that broke out in and around the Jamia Millia Islamia in December last year, on Friday observed that the report of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) "does not give a clean chit to anyone".

A division bench of the high court presided by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan said, "The NHRC report does not give a clean chit to anyone. It has stated that the entire police action was not handled very professionally." The comment from the judges came while Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aman Lekhi appearing for the Delhi Police was citing the said report in order to justify the police action in and around the varsity in December last year.

The ASG argued that the entire police action was warranted, however, there were some individual cases of minor infractions. Following which, the court passed these observations.

Responding to the same, the ASG said that the report however does not state that the police action as a whole was unnecessary. "Calling the entry of police into the campus illegal and malafide just because the students inside the campus were from minority community is completely untenable and unfounded," Lekhi said.

He further apprised the bench that the NHRC report states that the protests were not peaceful. "The protest was a mask for something far grave and serious. There has to be an intelligence inquiry," the ASG said.

The NHRC report also criticised the use of social media for circulating false rumours, the ASG argued while adding that the petitions too are based on such "rumour mongering" Following these arguments, the bench has now slated the matter for further hearing on August 28 post lunch.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions relating to the violence that broke out in and around the Jamia MIlia Islamia in December last year. The batch of petitions which include the one filed by one Nabila Hasan sought action against the allegedly ruthless, and excessive use of force and aggression unleashed by the police and paramilitary forces on students within the university.

On the previous date of hearing, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aman Lekhi had argued that University spaces are meant for educational purposes and not for engaging in disharmony.

"Universities are meant for education and are not for engaging in disharmony. Intervention is important when there is social disharmony," Lekhi had said.

"What works in political sphere cannot work in legal sphere," Lekhi had argued further while adding that petitioners have put grave allegations against the police merely on the basis of hearsay evidence. He also said that the petitioners have collected information in bits and pieces and collated it in a manner to suit their motives.

He had also said that the petitions concerning the violence that broke out in and around the Jamia Millia Islamia in December last year are merely based on opinion and agenda. "To shift from right to wrong, there should be something relevant... the accuracy of newspaper reports cannot be attributed," Lekhi said.

The batch of pleas have also sought registration of FIRs against the erring police officers.

Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) had turned violent on December 15 near Delhi's Jamia Nagar. Several buses were set afire during the violence in which police and protesters sustained injuries.
Donald Trump repeated a "mad theory" on Friday that Nancy Pelosi would become president if an election result was delayed due to mail-in voting.

As House Speaker, Ms Pelosi is second in line to the presidency behind Mike Pence. The theory posits that Ms Pelosi would ascend to the White House if a new president has not been inaugurated by the end of Mr Trump's term at noon on 20 January, as required by the 20th amendment.

Amidst a battle over universal mail-in voting, Mr Trump said at the 2020 Council for National Policy that widespread vote-by-mail ballots could lead to delays of weeks, months, years or "maybe never".

"And I don't know what's going to happen. You know there's a theory that if you don't have it by the end of the year, crazy Nancy Pelosi would become president. You know that right," Mr Trump said.

"Think of that. That mad theory too. You've heard that theory. Now I don't know if it's a theory or a fact but I said, that's not good."

Mr Trump added: "That's part of their whole act, that if you don't have a choice that the speaker of the House becomes president and I think that goes into effect either on the 20th or the 1st. And put that in the hopper, add that to everything else. It's a disgrace. They know it's filthy, dirty."

The theory first emerged in July after Mr Trump suggested a delay to the election until after the coronavirus pandemic had passed so people could vote safely in-person. The hashtag "President Pelosi" trended across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, with Republican Senator Lamar Alexander repeating the theory to CNN reporter Kristin Wilson.

Twitter blocked the original tweet behind a misleading warning label, pointing to a USA Today fact check of the theory that rated it "false" based on Ms Pelosi herself leaving office on 3 January if no election goes ahead.

The 20th amendment of the US Constitution says the president and vice president must leave office if no successor has been chosen by the end of their term on 20 January.

While the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 determined that the next in the line of presidential succession is the speaker of the House, the Constitution also places an end date on Pelosi's term at noon on 3 January.

If Ms Pelosi is not re-elected due to a delayed vote, the next in line to assume the office of president would be the "President Pro Tempore" of the Senate, who is currently Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

If no election was held, however, the 22 Republican Senate seats up for re-election would remain vacant, giving Democrats the majority and allowing them to elect a new President Pro Tempore - who would then become president.

But that line of presidential succession is based on the premise that the election would be delayed beyond 20 January, rather than Mr Trump's latest suggestion that if the election goes ahead with widespread mail-in voting the results would not be known until after the deadline.

If the election goes ahead and Ms Pelosi is re-elected with results certified before her 3 January deadline, while presidential election results are not certified until after Mr Trump's 20 January deadline, the "mad theory" is that she could be placed in the White House.

"What's going to happen when you have 150 million votes and you have 51 million, 51 million votes, think of it, they're going to send out 51 million, it could be higher than that, 51 million votes, no signature verification on many of them," Mr Trump said on Friday.

"The other thing is if you do this you'll never have an election count on November 3rd... You're not going to be able to know the end of this election, in my opinion, for weeks, months, maybe never, maybe years but maybe never, because once you go past the first week you're never going to know."
Houston Police Department

Homicide detectives are investigating an infant's death Thursday at a Greenspoint apartment, according to Houston police.

The child was found dead at the apartment in the 16800 block of City View. A 15-year-old was caring for the infant, and other children were inside the apartment at the time, police said.
Theres no denying that the United States is in a tough place right now. Theres racism running rampant, riots (not the peaceful protests), and a huge divide amongst the American people. Some will blame political figures for this big divide, others blame the police, but perhaps it starts much lower. Just recently, Trump suggested that the American people should boycott Goodyear tires after a shot of the companys employee attire policy went viral for banning MAGA attire along with a few other things.

Goodyear In Denial But the Writing is On the Wall

We cant show you the photo of Goodyears Zero Tolerance slide, but you can see it here. Basically, the slide included the following:

Acceptable Goodyear Employee Attire

Black Lives Matter (BLM)

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride (LGBT)

I guess you could argue that the Q doesnt matter to Goodyear, either, but what has been more troubling for some is what isnt considered acceptable attire.

Unacceptable Goodyear Employee Attire

Blue Lives Matter

All Lives Matter

MAGA Attire

Political Affiliated Slogans or Material

The listing of MAGA Attire on the unacceptable list is obviously what encouraged Trump to tweet the following:

The picture in question, according to CNN, was obtained via an employee of Goodyears plant in Topeka, Kansas. Of course, it didnt take log for Goodyear to issue a statement saying the visual in question was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate," but that it asks its associates to "refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues."

It later said that it has always wholeheartedly supported both equality and law enforcement and continue to do so.

Thats good an all, but that doesnt explain how a graphic that seems to only support BLM and LBGT (no Q) ended up in a Goodyear factory or what is being done to resolve the whole scenario. Goodyear didnt deny that it was there, only that corporate didnt distribute it. Sounds like damage control to me. But, I digress. The big takeaway here is that theres a major conflict with President Trumps boycott of Goodyear.

Did you know that the presidential limo  The Beast  rides on custom-made and unique Goodyear tires? Well, this is a little awkward. Trumps suggested is to swap them out and buy from a competitor:

While interesting, indeed, this isnt the kind of nonsense this country needs at this point. We already have enough divide, we dont need it happening between employees and corporations as well. Its almost like the country wants to tear itself apart. What do you think about the whole situation?
Several centers of power, where governments in exile have settled, are at play against Belarus, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he visited Agrokombinat Dzerzhinsky on 21 August, BelTA has learned.

The coordination council is a beautiful name. There are already five governments in exile today, I think," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The president drew attention to how fast the former contender for the post of head of state Valery Tsepkalo changes his location: at first he went to Russia. But he got a warning and moved to Ukraine. Then he had to move to Warsaw, because Kiev also did not want to fight with Minsk. Now he is posturing as a brave politician, making statements from Warsaw, Aleksandr Lukashenko said. "This is one of the governments'.

The head of state said that a criminal case has been opened against the coordination council and the opposition understands that their actions are illegal. Now the opposition expects multimillion-dollar support from the European Union. The money, however, will not come to the country without the knowledge of the state.

I am the president of the country. God forbid, the country collapses, you will have no jobs. You will blame me for this. I do not care about any posts, but I care about you. What will happen to you when they come and start dividing the country. You will curse me: We have elected you, why didn't you protect us?' This is what worries me the most, said Aleksandr Lukashenko. The special forces, government officials, journalists are threatened every day. We will look thoroughly into every such case. You can condemn me, but as long as I am president, I will pursue a tough policy in order to stabilize the situation in the country.
Labour advocates welcomed changes to the Employment Insurance program announced Thursday, including new benefits for gig workers and caregivers and a higher minimum payout.

Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said the new parallel benefits for non-traditional workers show the government has taken into account the different types of workers affected by the pandemic, and he hopes these temporary changes signal a more permanent overhaul of the EI system further down the line.

The Liberal government announced Thursday new details about temporary changes to the existing EI program to help more Canadians qualify for benefits. These changes include lowering the number of work hours needed to qualify to 120, using one-time hour credits, adding a minimum benefit rate of $400 per week, and offering at least 26 weeks of regular benefits.

Yussuff said the new minimum benefit raises what some people would have otherwise received by more than a hundred dollars.

Its such a significant recognition of the challenges that people are facing, he said.

The government also announced the Canada Emergency Response Benefit will be extended for four weeks in preparation for the transition, and said around three million workers will be shifted to EI Sept. 27 from CERB, while another two million who wouldnt be eligible for EI will have new benefits available to them.

The government also announced three additional benefit plans for workers.

The first is the $400-per-week Canada Recovery Benefit, aimed at self-employed and other laid-off workers who are not eligible for EI. The second is a $500-per-week Caregiving Benefit for those who cant work because theyre taking care of family. The third is a $500-per-week Sickness Benefit, for those who cant work because they are sick or have to isolate due to COVID-19.

Each of these benefits will exist for one year.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland encouraged employers Thursday to bring back their employees, and said the new benefits are intended to help people get back to work.

We have had some success at flattening the curve of the pandemic. But were not out of the woods yet, she said.

We are contending with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Sheila Block, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said having these benefits in place for a year will give Canadians much-needed certainty in the face of the pandemic.

She said the changes, albeit temporary, make EI much more accessible and include non-standard workers.

These changes need to be made permanent, she said.

Yussuff said having a benefit specifically for COVID-19 sick leave will hopefully incentivize people to stay home, instead of coming to work, when they have symptoms of COVID-19. He added that these new parallel benefits for gig and contract workers and caregivers will be of particular benefit to racialized people and women, who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

I think todays measures are going to help those workers in a tremendous way.

To help Canadians qualify for the benefits, EI claimants will receive a one-time credit of work hours: 300 hours for those claiming job loss benefits and 480 hours for those claiming other benefits such as sickness or parental leave. The credit will be retroactive to March 15, 2020, for claimants looking to transfer early from CERB to EI for non-job-loss benefits.

The government announced other changes: a freeze of the EI premium rate for two years, and a minimum unemployment rate of 13.1 per cent in order to lower the hours needed to qualify for EI. This means the minimum hours required to qualify will be 420 hours before the new hours credit. (Previously, workers needed between 420 and 700 hours.) It also announced an EI benefit for self-employed fish harvesters.

Yussuff said, while there may be some things that need ironing out in the coming months, overall he feels Thursdays announcement hit the right notes.

But he said it remains to be seen whether the EI program is capable of handling the sheer number of claimants.

Yussuff said he hopes the four-week CERB extension will function as lengthy notice for people to start planning their transition, taking some of the pressure off the EI system come Sept. 27.

Block said the new changes may need some fine-tuning, and there are still a few gaps; she had hoped to see both more workers able to attest to losing employment, instead of relying on records of employment, and an accommodation for a right to quit. But its a step in the right direction, she said.

I think that years and years of underinvestment in public services have become eminently clear, said Block, from the accessibility of EI to its ability to handle a flood of applications during a crisis.

With files from The Canadian Press

Read more about:
The Vice-Presidential aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman has called on Ghanaians to cherish and uphold the prevailing peace.

She said absolute peace and social cohesion remained pre-requisite to facilitate sustainable development, and advised Ghanaians to guard against tendencies that could disturb the peace in the electioneering.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang was speaking during a courtesy call on the members of the Sunyani Traditional Council to introduce herself as the NDC's running-mate for the forthcoming December 7, Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Accompanied by Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, the General Secretary of the NDC and other party officials, Prof Opoku-Agyemang is embarking on a two-day visit to Bono and Bono East, to introduce herself and interact with some traditional authorities in the regions.

The NDC's Vice-Presidential candidate underscored the need for Ghanaians to bury their differences and to live at peace with each other to consolidate the gains and to strengthen the nation's fledgeling democracy.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang appreciated the many contributions of traditional authorities towards nation-building.

On educational development, she said the next NDC government would strengthen Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) to create job opportunities for the unemployed youth.

In that direction, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the NDC government would complete abandoned educational projects to create a conducive environment to promote TVET education.

She called for the support of the traditional authorities to enable the NDC to regain political power and facilitate rapid socio-economic growth and development.

Oboaman Bofotia Boa-Amponsem II, the Kurontirehene of Sunyani Traditional Area, who welcomed Prof. Opoku-Agyeman, and her entourage, advised the political parties to conduct clean campaigns in the electioneering.

He said politicians needed to guard against personality attacks and inflammatory statements that could cause misunderstanding, trigger political violence and soil the image of the nation.

Oboaman Boa-Amponsem II advised them to be decorous by ensuring tolerance and decency in their pronouncements for their followers to emulate to facilitate violent-free elections.

---GNA
Former Co-Head of Private Wealth for UBS joins to manage global advisor effort

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2020) -NetCents Technology Inc. (CSE: NC) (FSE: 26N) (OTCQB: NTTCF) ("NetCents" or the "Company"), a leading cryptocurrency payments technologies Company, is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Claude Schmidt to its Advisory Board.

Dr. Schmidt is currently a member of the investment committee of Delfin Investment AG, in Zug Switzerland. Delfin is focused on providing multi asset investment products to Sovereign Wealth Funds, Foundations & Endowments. Dr. Schmidt is also on the board of the Schwyzer Kantonalbank which carries a triple A rating.

Previously, Dr. Schmidt was a member of the Private Wealth Management team within Goldman Sachs Bank AG. He joined Goldman as a Managing Director in 2012.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Dr. Schmidt was a managing director at UBS, most recently as co-head of the Global Family Office Group in EMEA for UBS Wealth Management. Before that, he was co-head of UBS Wealth Management International UHNW and the UHNW Institutional Group. Prior to joining UBS Wealth Management, Dr. Schmidt held numerous roles within UBS Investment Banking from 1995 to 2009 in Chicago, New York, Zurich and Hong Kong, including European co-head of Structured Derivatives Sales and Investments, European head of Equity and Commodity Risk Management and Investments, and deputy head of Risk Management Products. From 1993 to 1995, he worked in the Accounting and Risk Management Derivatives practice at Arthur Andersen AG in Zurich.

"I have been following the trajectory of NetCents within the Blockchain industry for quite some time now, and I am excited to be joining as so many of its efforts are gaining traction. I am looking forward to collaborating with my longtime friend Mr. Eigenmann on the advisory board as well," stated Dr. Schmidt. "Having deep financial services experience gives me insight to the migration that the large financial institutions have made towards blockchain, NetCents is a gateway for the rest of the world to participate," he concluded.

Dr. Schmidt is a member of the Club of Intelligent Angels (CIAN) and a supporter of the University of Zurich Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He served on the Board of Directors of Fumapharm AG, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, from 2003 to 2006.

Claude earned a PhD, magna cum laude, in Accounting and Finance and a degree in banking and finance, magna cum laude, from the University of Zurich in 1995 and 1993, respectively.

"NetCents is already a global Company," stated Clayton Moore, CEO. "We have clients all over the world, but it is through the relationships that an executive of the caliber of Dr. Schmidt that can bring to our company that will allow us to accelerate the strategic relationships that will take us to the next level. I am excited to work with him and the rest of our global team of directors and advisors," he concluded.

About NetCents

NetCents Technology Inc, the transactional hub for all cryptocurrency payments, equips forward-thinking businesses with the technology to seamlessly integrate cryptocurrency processing into their payment model without taking on the risk or volatility of the crypto market. NetCents Technology is registered as a Money Services Business (MSB) with FINTRAC.

For more information, please visit the corporate website at www.net-cents.com or contact Investor Relations: investor@net-cents.com.

To keep up on the latest - make sure to join the telegram channel http://t.me/NetCents

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

NetCents Technology Inc.

"Clayton Moore"

Clayton Moore, CEO, Founder and Director

NetCents Technology Inc.

1000 - 1021 West Hastings Street

Vancouver, BC, V6E 0C3

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include regulatory actions, market prices, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates, and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62212
74 evangelical leaders want pornography labeled a public health crisis in Ohio

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More than six dozen clergy members are calling on county officials in Ohio to declare pornography a public health crisis and hope to see similar action taken at the state level.

Pastors from 74 different congregations endorsed a draft resolution calling on the board of Richland Public Health to declare pornography a public health crisis.

The clergy want the county health board to push for the enforcement of obscenity laws and increased regulation of pornography on the Internet at both the state and federal levels in order to protect citizens and minors from such exposure.

Our hope is this resolution will encourage education, prevention, research, and policy changes at the state level to confront pornographys proliferation on the Internet and in society, Rev. El Akuchie of Godsfield House of Prayer, the co-founder of Richland Community Prayer Network, said in a statement.

Akuchie and other signatories see a link between the pornography industry and human trafficking.

Pornography creates a sexually toxic environment intertwined with the perpetuation of prostitution, and the modern-day slavery of human trafficking, with over half of sex trafficking victims reporting they were required to learn and perform sexual acts according to depictions in pornography, the resolution explains.

Akuchie said that due to pornographys affiliation with human trafficking, the pastors are calling on the county to declare a public health emergency.

As a diverse group of clergy, we believe if word got out of a multi-sector partnership between engaged faith community and local government, strategically, it could deter potential human traffickers from establishing operations in our region, the reverend stated.

According to Pastor James Marshall of Ganges Community Church in Shelby, human trafficking is a major problem in Ohio.

The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) is a member of the Governors Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, and according to its website, ranks Ohio as fifth among all states in total reported human trafficking cases, he said.

The Task Force also identifies Toledo [in Lucas County] as the fourth-highest ranking city in the nation for recruiting victims into the illegal trade."

The draft resolution mentions the effort to declare pornography a public health hazard at the state level. House Resolution 180, sponsored by 19 members of the Ohio House of Representatives, was introduced in June 2019.

So far, no action has been taken on the bill.

Should House Resolution 180 become law, Ohio would become the 16th state to label pornography a public health crisis.

The other states that have passed similar resolutions to H.R. 180 are Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

In the past, religious leaders in Ohio have influenced public policy in the Buckeye State.

Earlier this year, a group of more than 100 pastors wrote a letter to the Ohio State Board of Education, the leaders of the Ohio General Assembly and several superintendents of school districts across the state protesting against the practicing of yoga in public schools in certain districts.

The pastors argued that forcing children to practice yoga, which they described as a form of Eastern religion, violated the First Amendment.

In response to the letter, some of the school districts agreed to keep yoga out of their classrooms.

In 2015, before any state had passed a resolution declaring pornography a public health crisis, pastors from 66 congregations in Richland County called for a day of prayer, repentance and fasting from the sin of immorality which includes the use of pornography.

Several municipalities in Richland County implemented restrictive laws regulating businesses selling pornography and held a Pornography Awareness Week in 2016.
After Sauberans arrest, Flynn described him as a drifter who has lived in Western New York, Georgia, Florida and Oregon. Flynn said DNA obtained from Sauberan when he spent time in an Oregon prison in 2008 was entered into a national database. A check with that database led to Sauberans arrest in the Tschari murder case, Flynn said.

I take issue with the description of my client as a drifter, because it creates the impression he left town to avoid the murder investigation, Dell said on Friday. We will show that he stayed here in the Buffalo area until 1990.

Dell declined to comment when asked by The News why Sauberan was imprisoned in Oregon, or if he ever has been convicted of a violent crime.

Unsolved for more than four decades, the Tschari murder occurred in her West Side home during blizzard conditions. Police said a trail of blood drops led from Tscharis cottage to a yard outside.

Police said Tschari was a Lafayette High School graduate who had worked at a bank and a hospital, and was studying for a career in bartending.

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While we  like all Americans  had hoped that Donald Trump would govern wisely, he has disappointed millions of voters who put their faith in him and has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term, the letter states. In contrast, we believe Joe Biden has the character, experience, and temperament to lead this nation. We believe he will restore the dignity of the presidency, bring Americans together, reassert Americas role as a global leader, and inspire our nation to live up to its ideals.
The Corona virus Pandemic that has created a devastating impact on the economies of the nations around the world and continues to cause enormous anxieties and mental stresses need to be confronted with a mind tuned to positivity and hope during these testing times of great uncertainty said Dr Sangita Reddy, President FICCI and Joint Managing Director Apollo Group of Hospitals while delivering Amity Eminent Webinar Address organized by Amity University Gurugram today. The webinar was attended by over 2000 students, Vice Chancellors, Senior Semitists, Deans, HoIs and members of faculty from 10 Amity Universities in India and many more from abroad.

The Economic and social crisis caused by Covid-19 is undoubtedly the basis for the fear and enormous anxiety that covers everyone irrespective of economic prosperity or social order. It requires leadership that undertakes positivity and willingness to find solutions that can mitigate the ill-effects of the Covid Pandemic. At the same time it is absolutely necessary to create a positive health environment around.

Addressing to over 1000 inspired youth connected to the webinar, Dr Sangita Reddy said Your Mind is the most powerful force to empower you. It can take you to the heights of ecstasy or can enslave you and plunge you into the depth of misery if not used wisely. The most important thing you the young students are doing today is learning how to use this power of your mind wisely by filling it with the right knowledge and choosing the right path and right skills and capabilities. Let you overcome your fear and work together to create a better world than the one left behind before the Covid Pandemic, said Dr Reddy.

Today the humanity is grappling like never seen before. Generational medical crisis which has now become an economic crisis and also a social crisis. There are geo-political shifts and global friction. There is a manifestation of a burdening crisis all over the world. But then as it is said that the brightness of stars is in the darkness of night. As such it is also the time of great hope and to have great resilience to combat the impending threats of expansionist Covid, said Dr Reddy a crusader of affordable health care for all.

Sharing her experience of implementing a number of innovative initiatives in Apollo group of Hospitals, Dr Reddy said that the continuous quest to push the benchmarks of excellence and caring service to humanity have made Apollo a class apart in the Hospitals in Asia. The integration of latest advances in IT in health care services and the synergy between the advances in biomedical engineering and health care services have made Indias health care truly world class.

Lauding the efforts of Government of India in combating the Covid crisis, Dr Reddy said that the timely interventions of the Government have resulted into containing death rate below 3 percent and the recovery rate of over 72 percent. But we need still to win the battle as over 69000 cases are being added daily.

Invoking a sense of courage and commitment to fight the ongoing pandemic, Dr Sangita Reddy cited the courage and conviction with which the nursing professionals work in the isolation wards, giving their very best services often sacrificing their comfort and even risking their life. The youth of our country should emulate this exemplary courage and prepare themselves to serve the vast humanity with a caring concern for the last man in the society so that no one is left behind. Recalling the famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi that the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. This is the time to show our utmost care and concern for the suffering humanity and also to care for yourself at the same time.

Replying to a question from the audience as to how to remain positive mind and maintain a healthy environment when we are so pressed with online classes and other pressing engagements, Dr Reddy said that despite being busy you have to find time for yourself to refresh your mind and to connect to your soul. Answering another question on the power of prayers in the hours of crisis, Dr Reddy said that the prayers have a great healing power and they do wonders as they give solace to your mind as well. There were many other questions including the long-term effects of Covid-19 and overcoming the fear psychosis due to uncertainties. In her message to the youth Dr Sangita Reddy said that It is the defining moment for each one of us to decide how we want to live and lead our life. Have courage and faith in human capabilities to overcome the crisis and work with a positive mindset.

Founder President of Amity Education Group Dr Ashok K Chauhan, Chairperson Dr Amita Chauhan, Chancellor of Amity University Uttar Pradesh Dr Atul Chauhan, Chancellor Amity University Haryana Dr Aseem Chauhan, Dr Anupam Sibal Group Medical Director Apollo Hospital and President Global Association of Physicians of Indian origin and DR MS Chaudhary Senior Consultant Internal Medicine at Apollo Hospital New Delhi were also present in the Webinar that was moderated by Prof PB Sharma Vice Chancellor, Amity University Haryana. Dr Sanjana Vij coordinated the webinar for which excellent IT support was provided by Dr JS Sodhi and his team.
Australia's spy agency has finally revealed an ultra-secure high-tech installation after denying its existence for years.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) headquarters are in the Ben Chifley Building in Canberra - but little is known about what happens behind the doors.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess took the ABC through the 250-metre corridor in the building's basement and into the body's self-described 'chamber of secrets'.

Pictured: ASIO's 'chamber of secrets', officially known as the 'anechoic chamber'. The floor is like a trampoline, with large white panels to remove sound installed underneath

Officially known as the 'anechoic chamber', the room tests hyper-sensitive listening devices used by ASIO spies.

'This is an audio studio on steroids,' Mr Burgess told the publication.

'This room is actually floating inside the Ben Chifley building. It's physically isolated, so if the Ben Chifley Building was to vibrate, this building would not vibrate.'

The floor is like a trampoline, with large white panels to remove sound installed underneath. High heels are banned in the room due to the set-up.

Audio is played below the level a human ear can pick up but ASIO's devices can hear the sounds loudly and clearly.

'Perfect stillness and quietness is important as we are testing our listening devices,' Mr Burgess said.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess took the ABC through the 250-metre corridor in the building's basement (pictured)

ASIO are also making devices to catch other spies, as there are currently more foreign spies in Australia than there were during the Cold War.

Australian spies use a device that looks like a metal detector to find microphones and transmitters hidden in hard surfaces.

Mr Burgess said ASIO officers would use the device in the prime minister's office and the Parliament House briefing room, among other locations where confidential information is shared.

At the beginning of the year, an Australian spy revealed what is it really like to work for the country's secret service.

'Sam', who is an intelligence officer for ASIO, told 9 News that her job is nothing like the glamorous life of fictional spy James Bond.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) headquarters are in the Ben Chifley Building in Canberra - but little is known about what happens behind the doors

'We are not running around and driving Aston Martins and drinking martinis,' she said.

Sam was a nurse before she became a spy after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US and the 2003 Bali bombings.

Her work as an intelligence officer must be kept hidden from her family and she won't say what she does or how she does it.

'We are working to protect people from harm and that's probably one of the most important jobs in the world,' Sam said.
When it comes to 21st-century politics, Black women are our founders.

The double scourge of racism and sexism no longer defines American politics. The nomination of Sen. Kamala Harris to the Democrats VP slot, the more than 120 Black women running for seats in the House and the Senate, and the 90-plus percent who cast their ballots as a bloc, all announce that Black women have not only broken through  they have arrived. The American political imagination is no longer bound by more than two centuries of anti-Black and antiwoman thinking that had long relegated African American women to the margins.

In 2020, Black women in politics stand on the broad shoulders of the generations that came before. I call those generations the founders, because in the earliest decades of this nation, African American women pointed our way toward this current moment. Their shoulders were draped in shawls stitched from cotton and silk, worn by women who battled slavery and racism while also decrying sexism. While too many of them continued to be disenfranchised, even after many American women won the vote with the 19th Amendment ratified 100 years ago this month, Black women never waited for permission or formal authority before promoting their vision of fundamental rights.

In the earliest decades of the 19th century, Black women defined an ideal that we have been chasing for a very long time. They included these women who set a new bar in American politics and for our democracy:

Maria Miller Stewart took to the podiums of Boston in the 1830s to advise Americans that Black women were ready to lead. That they must. Stewart had been born into indentured servitude, but by the time she entered public life, she had been married, widowed, and was a teacher. She worried that in her adopted home of Boston, Black men were doing too little to combat the tide of racism that rose there despite slaverys abolition there a half-century before. O ye daughters of Africa, awake! awake! arise! she urged. Black women, in Stewarts view, were not destined to labor in kitchens or nurseries. They were ready to set aside the cruel mix of racism and sexism that plagued their lives, and lead.

Jarena Lee knew the pulpit was her destiny, and she aimed to convert those Christians who openly doubted that a Black woman could interpret and teach the Bible. Like Stewart, Lee came from humble beginnings. But by the 1810s, she was settled in Philadelphia and shared her gift for religious oratory with anyone who might listen. Lee traveled thousands of miles to bring new believers into her spiritual home, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Reflecting on the opposition she faced, Lee later wrote: Why should it be thought impossible, heterodox, or improper, for a woman to preach? Lee urged American Christians to see beyond race and gender and into her soul, where she was certain God had authorized her work.

Sarah Mapps Douglass, another Philadelphian, wielded a pen to show Americans that Black women were destined to shape hearts and minds. Unlike Stewart and Lee, Douglass was born into a life of activism, a tradition she inherited from her parents, who were well-known for their politics and their philanthropy in Philadelphia. Douglass made her mark first as a correspondent to William Lloyd Garrisons antislavery newspaper, the Liberator. She founded a Black womens literary society, drafting its constitution and chairing its meetings. Douglass knew that she was rivaling men in her community who had for a long time steered public life. And she did not openly challenge them as Stewart and Lee had. Still, she laid a foundation for the founding of some of the earliest womens antislavery societies in the United States. Douglass modeled how Black women were visionaries who expected to show the nation the way out of slavery and racism, all while challenging sexism.

These women, followed by a next generation that included Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, set the bar high for this nation. They insisted that neither race nor sex should play any part in our collective lives, including politics. Black women alone carried this idea forward, as too many others refused to create a truly inclusive democracy. Still, their vision persisted across centuries, passed from generation to generation.

Nearly 100 years after Jarena Lee claimed her power at the pulpit, Black women suffragists in 1920 insisted on their right to the vote. It took an additional 45 years for them to secure the ballot for all with passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and a full century for their vision to shape a major partys national ticket with Harris nomination as the Democratic candidate for vice president.

 READ MORE: The 100th-anniversary commemorations of womens suffrage highlight the racial divide

Every grand ideal is rooted in a community of thinkers who see, out of their own circumstances, principles that will endure, principles that are timeless. In the earliest decades of this nation, Black women were among our founders who built those ideals. They were original, path-breaking thinkers and activists telling anyone who would listen that neither racism nor sexism had a place in our democracy. They exemplified that ideal in their own lifes work, set a high bar for everyone around them  and then waited for the nation to catch up. We are still not quite there yet, but were getting closer.

Martha S. Jones teaches history at Johns Hopkins University and is the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. @marthasjones_.
Gov. Ned Lamont, in his first coronavirus briefing in a week, said on Thursday that Connecticuts schools are still on track to reopen on time.

With schools beginning to reopen for in-person classes starting late this month, the Lamont administration is keeping close tabs on key metrics, including the number of new cases discovered per capita. Lamont said a county is moving into the danger zone if it hits 10 new daily cases per 100,000 residents  but right now, no county in Connecticut is nearing that threshold.

Fairfield County has the largest number, according to state data, but is still only at 3.3 new daily cases per 100,000 residents.

Were way below those metrics, which implies to us that you can reopen our schools more safely, Lamont said.
"This will be the year of the Biden Republican," said Emanuel, citing the appearances of John Kasich, former governor of Ohio, Colin Powell, secretary of State under President George W. Bush, and Cindy McCain, widow of Sen. John McCain, among other GOP members at the Democratic National Convention this week.

Emanuel, appearing on " Closing Bell ," said he believes that the former vice president can win over disaffected Republicans with a platform that has moderate language to get behind.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has a chance to replicate an election strategy that helped elect Republican icon Ronald Reagan to the White House almost four decades ago, longtime Democratic politician Rahm Emanuel told CNBC on Friday.

"Joe Biden will be a president we will all be proud to salute," Powell said in his message. "With Joe Biden in the White House, you will never doubt that he will stand with our friends and stand up to our adversaries  never the other way around."

Emanuel likened Republican voters mobilized against President Donald Trump to "Reagan Democrats," the White, traditional blue-collar voters who crossed party lines to help elect Reagan to two terms as president. Reagan defeated then-Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in a landslide. The California Republican carried 44 out of 50 states in the 1980 contest and 49 states in the 1984 race.

Democrats must not only attract Republican voters who want to put Trump out of office at the end of his first term, but retain those voters under the party's big tent, said Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff under former President Barack Obama. He made the same case in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Saturday, saying that suburban voters in areas of Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, battleground states that Trump won in 2016, can be flipped.

The lack of support for a "Green New Deal" and "Medicare for All" in the Democratic platform helps the party balance between the desires of the moderate and more progressive members, Emanuel said on CNBC.

With a broad coalition of support that stretches from four-star generals to Black Lives Matter supporters, Biden can leverage his decades of governing experience in Washington to "culturally move them into a comfort zone," he said.

"My view is you don't want this to be a transactional election," the former Chicago mayor said. "You want this to be the opportunity of a transformational election."

Democrats, looking to capitalize on a fractured Republican Party, featured a string of video endorsements from prominent Republicans at their first virtual national convention that closed Thursday.

The party, however, is walking a thin line as it tries to satisfy its progressive wing that is looking for transformational policies.
Chennai: While gems and jewellery exports were down 50 per cent till July this fiscal, silver exports have doubled during the period.

Every segment, except silver jewellery, in the pandemic-hit gems and jewellery basket recorded de-growth in exports between April and July this year.

Silver jewellery worth $510.82 million were exported during the four-month period this year against $252.64 million during the same period last year  a growth of 102 per cent.

According to Prakash Pincha, chairman, eastern region Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, around 30  40 silver jewellery fabrication units were set up in Surat in the past one year and they have been contributing to the increased exports of silver jewellery. We have started exploring the global silver jewellery market. Hence the growth, he said.

A few years back, silver jewellery exports have been witnessing exponential growth, mainly due to round-tripping. Some of the regulatory measures brought in by the government and exit of a few key players had curbed the round-tripping of silver to almost nil. Industry insiders find that this time genuine exports and not round-tripping is the reason behind the growth of silver jewellery exports.

Higher silver jewellery exports helped the Surat SEZ and the Gujarat region clock positive growth while all the other regions and SEZs kept de-growing. Gujarat region grew exports by 101 per cent to $1236 million and Surat SEZ too grew exports by 43 per cent in April-July period.

Among other special economic zones, Cochin SEZ saw the steepest fall of 99 per cent to $22.45 million against $2235 million in the same period last year. Cochin SEZ, which mainly exports gold jewellery, has been affected by the gloom in the Middle East market.

The Middle East market is almost closed. The jewellery business in Dubai thrives on tourists and the pandemic has brought the businesses to near standstill, said Pincha.

While gold jewellery exports were 73 per cent down, gold bar imports have declined 83 per cent. Despite the growth in silver jewellery, silver bar imports were down by 50 per cent to $4.96 million.

Finding it tough to procure duty-free silver, the jewellery units are procuring silver bars from the Domestic Tariff Area and then claiming duty drawback. Hence the silver bar imports do not reflect the demand of silver for export purposes, said Pincha.
Amazon Pay, the digital arm of e-commerce major Amazon, has launched a service for its users to invest in digital gold.

The company said that its Gold Vault feature will act as an investment tool and provide the users an opportunity to keep in their possession the precious metal which is considered a safe investment.

Gold prices have been rising rapidly in the last few weeks due to global volatility and weakening of US dollar.

The Amazon Pay users will have the flexibility to keep gold in a digital locker and buy or sell the precious metal without having to rent a locker. The company said that its vault will be totally secure.

The users will be able to buy gold for as little as Rs 5 on the platform for which Amazon has partnered with SafeGold. The gold being offered is of 24 carat with 99.5 per cent purity, the company said.

With this offering, Amazon Pay has joined the likes of Paytm, PhonePe, Google Pay and Mobikwik who allow users to buy digital gold on their respective platforms. While Paytm launched the service in 2017, Mobikwik started offering gold investment on its platform in 2018. Google Pay finally allowed users to invest in digital gold in April last year.

Mint, the business publication of the Hindustan Times group, reported that Paytm claimed to have sold 37 kilogram of digital gold on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya in April. PhonePe, meanwhile, claimed that 100 kilogram of gold transactions took place on its platform this year, Mint reported.

Digital transactions received a boost when a nationwide lockdown was imposed in the country to check thr spread of the coronavirus disease. Various other entities, including gold, was also given a boost by different e-commerce platforms to allow users to buy the precious metal since they were not able to visit a store.

Amazon Pay has been aiming to launch various other financial services in the Indian market. It partnered with Ecko General Insurance to offer two-wheer and four-wheeler insurance in India.
Ashmore Global Opportunities Limited

(a closed-ended collective investment scheme incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 47190)

LEI Number: 549300D6OJOCNPBJ0R33

(The "Company")

21 AUGUST 2020

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

NOTICE OF PROPOSED DELISTING OF THE SHARES FROM THE OFFICIAL LIST

Notice is hereby given that the Thirteenth Annual General Meeting ("AGM") of the Company will be held at the offices of Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited Trafalgar Court, Les Banques, St Peter Port, Guernsey on 22 September 2020 at 10:00am

Notice is hereby provided that the business of the AGM includes, amongst other things, proposals to seek shareholder approval for the cancellation of the listing of the ordinary shares in the Company ("Shares") to the Official List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange plc's main market for listed securities. If approved, it is anticipated that the effective date of the delisting of the Shares will be 21 October 2020.

The Notice of AGM, Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2019 together with a circular describing the delisting proposals have been posted to shareholders.

In accordance with Listing Rule 9.6.3, the Notice of Annual General Meeting, proxy form and accounts have been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at: www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/NSM





Enquiries:

Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited

The Company Secretary

Trafalgar Court

Les Banques

St Peter Port

Guernsey

GY1 3QL



Tel: 01481 745001



END
Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) on Friday issued legal notices to two firms - Khadi Essentials and Khadi Global - for "unauthorisedly" and "fraudulently" using the brand name "Khadi". KVIC has sought damages from these firms for causing harm to its reputation and loss of wages to Khadi artisans due to the sale of fake Khadi fabric.

Vinai Kumar Saxena, Chairman, KVIC, said, "Any misuse of the brand name Khadi has a direct bearing on the livelihood of our artisans who are making genuine handcrafted products in remote parts of India."

Saxena added, "KVIC will take stern action against any individual or firm misusing the brand name Khadi. This is to safeguard the interest of Khadi artisans and prevent the sale of any spurious product in the name of Khadi."

"The two firms are engaged in selling a range of cosmetic and beauty products through various e-commerce platforms using the brand name "Khadi" and thus misleading consumers," KVIC said in a statement.

KVIC has asked Khadi Global and Khadi Essentials to stop selling or promoting its products using the brand "Khadi" and cancelling the domain names www.khadiglobalstore.com and www.khadiessentials.com respectively. The government organisation, in the notices, also asked the two companies to discontinue their social media handles.

The notices read, "The adoption of your mark is being used to sell products online...clearly the adoption of your mark is in bad faith and is aimed at misappropriating the goodwill and reputation of Khadi trademark. Apart from Khadi India, the trademark "Khadi" can only be used by authorised licensee or franchise holders." It further added, "The use of a mark which completely subsumes KVIC's trademark for identical goods will undoubtedly lead to confusion and deception in the market. Use of your mark amounts to misuse and misrepresentation of "Khadi" trademark."

The two firms have been asked to destroy all product publicity material, signboards, packaging and labels which use brand names "Khadi Essentials" and "Khadi Global". KVIC will initiate legal action against them, if they do not comply with these instructions in seven days, the statement added.

The government body has issued legal notices to more than 1,000 private firms over the past few years for violation of Khadi Mark regulations. KVIC has also been fighting cases against infringement of its trademark in other international markets.

KVIC has sought damages of around Rs 500 crore from Fabindia which is pending before the Mumbai High Court. KVIC said, "in the last few years it has acted tough against any misuse of its brand name "Khadi India" and infringement into its trademark," in a statement.

On July 27, KVIC filed a complaint against a Chandigarh-based person for unauthorisedly selling face masks dubbing them as Khadi Face Masks and also using the Prime Minister's photograph on the packets. Earlier, in May this year, 3 Delhi-based firms were issued legal notices by KVIC for selling fake PPE kits under the brand name of Khadi.

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Israeli warplanes bombed the besieged Gaza Strip for an eighth successive night Tuesday in response to the launching of dozens of incendiary balloons and rockets into southern Israel by Palestinian militants.

The airstrikes and drone attacks came as Israel threatened Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the besieged Palestinian enclave, that it was risking war by failing to stop the balloons. The balloons have caused small fires, no casualties and almost no damage.

The Israeli airstrikes, which according to military sources, targeted a military base, underground infrastructure and observation posts belonging to the Hamas terror group, included Hamas observation posts near al-Maghazi and al-Bureij refugee camps and the southern town of Khan Younis.

A Palestinian boy inspects the damage in his family home following Israeli airstrikes in Buriej refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

They also hit a United Nations-run elementary school in al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, where around 1,000 children were present. There were no reports of casualties.

On August 18, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that his government would make no distinction between rockets and airborne arson attacks by balloons, warning that There could be another major flareup.

Benny Gantz, Israels defense minister and deputy prime minister, warned, Hamas is playing with fire, and I will make sure it turns on them.

On Tuesday, President Reuven Rivlin, on a visit to southern Israel to talk with firefighters, said, Terrorism using incendiary kites and balloons is terrorism just like any other. He added, Hamas should know that this is not a game. The time will come when they have to decide... If they want war, they will get war.

Israels politicians are preparing for war on the besieged Palestinian enclave, even as they up the ante against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the wake of the devastating Beirut port blast, and against its primary target, Iran, threatening a wider conflagration.

The continuous outbreaks of violence are the inevitable byproduct of the 13-year-long Israeli siege of Gaza that has turned the enclave into an open-air prison for its two million inhabitants.

The siegeaided and abetted by Egypt and the Palestinian Authorityhas devastated Gazas economy, limiting the entry of food, pharmaceuticals and essential commodities as well as access to basic services. Also blocked is the flow of construction materials needed to rebuild Gazas infrastructure, much of which was damaged or destroyed in Israels murderous assaults in 2008-09, 2012 and 2014.

Living conditions in Gaza are atrocious. Half the population is unemployed, and poverty is endemic. A 2012 UN report predicted that Gaza would become uninhabitable by 2020, given the extreme overcrowding, collapsed infrastructure, lack of electricity and water, and the poor sanitary conditions. Gaza needed 1,000 more doctors. Conditions have further deteriorated after Washington cut off all US aid to the Palestinians through its funding of the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA).

In January, the Israeli rights group BTselem described the unprecedented health crisis in Gaza, as its barely functioning hospitals try to deal with the horrendous injuries and amputations inflicted on the Palestinians by Israels armed forces during the weekly Great March of Return that started two years ago.

As yet, Gaza has been spared the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, having reported 81 cases and one death, with none due to community transmission, thanks to its isolation. But the lockdown has exacerbated the economic hardship and suffering.

Eighty percent of Gazans already rely on humanitarian aid, with the World Bank expecting poverty in Gaza to increase from 53 percent to 64 percent due to cuts in public sector wages across the Palestinian Territories and the impact of the lockdown restrictions.

Israel has rejected numerous international calls, including from Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, a European Parliamentary delegation, and Israeli High Court Justice Elyakim Rubenstein, for it to ease the blockade in the light of the pandemic.

Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, stressed, The legal duty, anchored in Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, requires that Israel, the occupying power, must ensure that all the necessary preventive means available to it are utilized to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.

With no future in Gaza, particularly for its young graduates, 32 percent of Palestinians said they want to emigrate because of the economic, political, and social situation, according to a recent poll.

The recent escalation in rocket and incendiary balloon attacks followed accusations by Hamas that Israel had failed to implement an agreement reached in October 2018. The deal was aimed at easing the blockade and stipulated the establishment of two industrial zones east of Gaza City to create jobs for tens of thousands of unemployed Palestinians. The agreement also included electricity and water projects, as well as projects aimed at increasing the volume of Gazas imports and exports.

On August 12, Gantz halted fuel transfers into Gaza, restricted its fishing zone to eight nautical miles from 15, and halted all transfer of goods through the Erez land crossing. This has forced Gazas only power station to stop producing electricity, reducing the Palestinians already meagre daily power supply of 8 to 12 hours to just 3 or 4 hours, amid the intense heat of summer. Gazas only remaining source of electricity is that supplied directly by Israel. Egypt stopped providing electricity in February.

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that this would create problems for Gazas limited and ill-equipped hospitals and access to a clean water supply. The Gaza Neonatal Network said that the frequent electricity outages were threatening the lives of more than 100 newborn babies currently in intensive care incubators.

The latest attack on Gaza has been spurred on by the protracted political crisis in Israel, where the fractious coalition of Netanyahus far right Likud bloc and Gantzs Blue and White party, formed after three inconclusive elections within a year, could blow apart. This could set the stage for fresh elections if the Knesset fails to agree a two-year budget by Monday.

There is increasing opposition within the country to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic that has seen unemployment rise to 21 percent, the governments failure to provide PPE for its nurses and medical and social workerswho have taken strike action in support of their demandsand the reopening of schools that has led to an increase in infections. Among the most economically unequal advanced economies in the world, Israel has one of the highest poverty rates within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

For Netanyahu, who faces weekly protests calling for him to step down in the wake of his indictment on charges of bribery, corruption, and breach of trust in three separate cases, a war would provide a convenient mechanism for deflecting immense social tensions outward.

The air strikes come in the wake of the US-brokered deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, aimed at cementing an alliance with the Sunni Arab states against Iran. Hamas, along with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is routinely portrayed as part of Irans destabilizing presence in the region.

Amid the orchestrated demands for Hezbollah to be removed from its government rolebased on blaming the Shia group for the explosion that devastated BeirutIsrael, backed by the US, is demanding that the mandate for UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, either be changed or ended at an upcoming UN Security Council vote on August 31. Washington maintains that it must stop Hezbollah from violating UN Resolution 1701 by attacking Israel or give way to another military policing force. Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, told Germanys Algemeiner that UNIFIL serves as Hezbollahs de facto human shield, limiting the [Israel Defense Forces] freedom to manoeuvre in a potential conflict.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of IAMGOLD Corporation

Global Credit Research - 20 Aug 2020

Toronto, August 20, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of IAMGOLD 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.

IAMGOLD's B1 rating benefits from very good liquidity, and conservative financial policies. However, the rating is constrained by the company's moderate scale (800 thousand GEOs), the execution risk associated with its Cote Gold project, a concentration of production and cash flows at its two largest mines, and geopolitical risk (mines in Burkina Faso, and Suriname).

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 Mining published in September 2018. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Jamie Koutsoukis Vice President - Senior Analyst Corporate Finance Group Moody's Canada Inc. 70 York Street Suite 1400 Toronto, ON M5J 1S9 Canada JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Donald S. Carter, CFA MD - Corporate Finance Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Canada Inc. 70 York Street Suite 1400 Toronto, ON M5J 1S9 Canada JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 04:21:14|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a letter to the rotating chairman of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the U.S. has "no right" to restore sanctions on Iran, official IRNA news agency reported on Friday.

"The Dispute Resolution Mechanism is only open to the actual JCPOA participants," Zarif said in the letter which was written on Thursday and made public by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday.

U.S. officials have recently claimed to remain a "participant" in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by force of UNSC Resolution 2231, with the intention of initiating the JCPOA's Dispute Resolution Mechanism and re-imposing UNSC sanctions on Iran.

Zarif added that the U.S. has violated both the JCPOA and Resolution 2231 by withdrawing from the JCPOA, unilaterally reimposing sanctions on Iran, "and even punishing those complying with the resolution."

On the contrary, Iran has showed good faith in continuing "full implementation" of the JCPOA for "a full year" after the U.S. withdrawal and only applied "remedial measures" afterwards.

Zarif asked the UNSC to prevent the U.S. from "unilaterally and unlawfully abusing the Dispute Resolution Mechanism." Enditem
The coronavirus, a hydroelectric dam, a $4.7 billion mining deposit and more than a decade of diplomatic stumbles have combined to threaten the long-term future of the Kokoda track, as Chinese state-linked companies ramp up their investment in the region.

Charlie Lynn, a Vietnam veteran who helped establish the Kokoda Track Authority and former MP, said urgent intervention was needed as villagers who rely on tourism along the track risk becoming destitute and a key deterrent to mining in the region is wiped out by a $263 million Chinese-built dam.

Trekkers on the Kokoda track. Credit:Ryan Stuart

Tourism has plummeted more than 90 per cent in Papua New Guinea during the coronavirus pandemic, prompting the Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority to warn the industry is in crisis. The Kokoda track is PNG's largest tourism drawcard, attracting up to 5000 Australians per year. The 12-day trek covers the hostile jungles north of Port Moresby, where more than 600 Australians and 2000 Japanese soldiers were killed in Australia's most significant World War II victory.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison met with PNG Prime Minister James Marape on August 5 and said Australia would work with PNG to encourage tourism development.
Rohingya children at a child-friendly space in Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh, in July 2019.  UNHCR/Antoine Tardy

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is calling for renewed support and solutions for displaced and stateless Rohingya communities both within and outside of Myanmar today.

Three years on from the latest exodus of Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar and sought sanctuary in Bangladesh from August 2017 onwards, challenges persist and continue to evolve. The COVID-19 pandemic has added additional complexities. The international community must not only maintain support for refugees and their host communities, but adapt to critical needs and expand the search for solutions.

Rohingya communities estimate that up to three-quarters of the Rohingya people are today living outside of Myanmar. UNHCR and the Government of Bangladesh have individually registered over 860,000 Rohingya refugees in the refugee settlements in Coxs Bazar. Bangladesh has demonstrated a profound humanitarian commitment to Rohingya refugees. It has ensured their protection and extended life-saving humanitarian support, and now hosts nine out of ten Rohingya refugees registered in the Asia-Pacific region. This generosity must be acknowledged through continued investment in both Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi host communities.

Ultimately, the solution to the plight of the Rohingya lies in Myanmar, and in comprehensively implementing the recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, to which the Government of Myanmar has committed.

Creating conditions that are conducive to the Rohingya peoples safe and sustainable return will require whole of society engagement, resuming and enhancing the dialogue between the Myanmar authorities and Rohingya refugees, as well as other measures that help inspire trust. These include lifting restrictions on freedom of movement, reconfirming that internally displaced Rohingya can return to their own villages and providing a clear pathway towards citizenship.

Outside of Myanmar, our collective efforts must be directed not only to ensuring the dignity and well-being of the Rohingya today but also on preserving their hopes and improving prospects for their futures. This means working towards lasting solutions not only in Myanmar itself, but also through study and work opportunities outside of countries of asylum, and third-country pathways for those with the most acute vulnerabilities.

The strength and resilience of the Rohingya people in exile in Bangladesh and elsewhere have formed the backbone of the humanitarian response over the past three years, and supported the communities hosting them in turn. Respecting and recognizing their courage and capacities means ensuring they are not forgotten as the crisis enters a fourth year.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
21.08.2020 LISTEN

The Ministry of Sanitation and Water Rescores have assured aggrieved students of the three schools of hygiene that their allowances will be paid soon.

This is coming on the back of the picketing of final year students of the three School of Hygiene at the premises of the Ministry on Monday, August 17, 2020, over unpaid allowances which was abolished and reinstated by the current government.

In a press release from the Ministry of Sanitation today, it emphasizes its commitment to paying all students their allowances while indicating that they want to resource the schools of hygiene.

The Ministry wishes to reiterate its commitment not only to resourcing the schools of hygiene but also seeking the welfare of the students/graduates and the staff, as a result of our recognition of their contribution to environmental sanitation management in the country, the press released from the Ministry has said.

The Ministry adds we want to assure the students that, the Ministry of Finance is preparing to pay them. Therefore, the students are advised to go back to school and take their exams.

The statement continued, The Ministry through the Greater Accra Sustainable Sanitation and Livelihood Improvement Project (GASSLIP), procuring a number of computers and laboratory equipment for the three (3) Schools of hygiene.

Below is the full press release:
About 20 workers, including 14 women, were hospitalised following an ammonia gas leak from a private dairy unit in Andhra Pradeshs Chittoor district on Thursday night, officials said.

The incident happened at Hatsun Dairy at M Bandapalli village of Poothalapattu block around 9 pm as workers were undertaking welding of the plant at around 9.30 pm. All the affected persons were contract workers and came for the night duty.

The latest incident comes three months after a deadly gas leak near the port city of Visakhapatnam, at a plant operated by a unit of South Koreas LG Chem Ltd, killed 12 and led to the hospitalisation of hundreds.

Chittoor district collector Narayana Bharat Gupta, superintendent of police Senthil Kumar rushed to the factory to supervise rescue operations.

The reasons for the leakage of the gas were being ascertained, they told reporters late at night. However, the situation was brought under control instantly and all those who had fallen sick were shifted to Chittoor government hospital, they added.

The condition of three of them is said to be serious, but they are out of danger as they had no other complications. If necessary, they would be shifted to Tirupati hospital for better treatment. They would be under observation for three days, Gupta said.

The collector said he would order a comprehensive inquiry by the general manager of the department of industries and also the fire department.

State panchayat Raj minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy spoke to the collector and enquired about the incident. He directed that the victims be provided the best medical care.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Delaware Senator Tom Carper was caught uttering a series of expletives to an aide as he struggled to unmute himself during a widely-watched U.S. Postal Service hearing on Friday, an unintentional window into one of the shortcomings of virtual pandemic-era meetings.

Carper, a Democrat, was in line to question Postmaster General Louis DeJoy but was not heard by committee chairman Ron Johnson, who then sought to move on to the next questioner.

Carper than uttered three f-bombs, prompting Senator James Lankford to say "Mr. Chairman, I think Senator Carper is there, I think he's trying to be able to queue it all up right now."

Johnson then called on Carper and appeared to allude to Carper's comments: "We don't want to be on TV again."

Video: Senator Carper introduces Quite Because of COVID-19 Act

Carper then proceeded with his questions.

A spokeswoman for Carper said he "got frustrated with technical difficulties this morning, but that pales in comparison to his frustration with a Postmaster General who's actively undermining the U.S. Postal Service during a national crisis."

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many U.S. governmental meetings and speeches have been conducted remotely and a number of unfortunate moments or technical woes have been captured.

A toilet flushed during a Supreme Court argument, while others have been caught swearing.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer mouthed an expletive on a live feed before she spoke before the Democratic National Committee earlier this week.

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 20, 2020, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft and U.S. special representative for Iran Brian Hook listen. (Mike Segar/Pool via AP)

US Moves to Restore All UN Sanctions on Iran to Prevent It Supporting Terrorism

The Trump administration on Thursday formally notified the United Nations of its demand for all U.N. sanctions on Iran to be restored in order to prevent Iran from purchasing weapons that could be used to arm terrorist organizations.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the notification to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the president of the U.N. Security Council citing significant Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deala requirement to snap back U.N. sanctions.

In the letters presented to both U.N. officials, the U.S. notified the body that it had initiated the restoration of virtually all U.N. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which also endorsed Irans nuclear deal, Pompeo said at a press conference on Thursday.

The Trump administration resorted to invoking a snapback of all U.N. sanctions on Iran that were in effect before the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was signed in 2015, after the U.N. Security Council voted against extending the arms embargo on Iran set to expire in October.

Once the arms embargo expires, Iran will be able to purchase conventional weapons from China, Russia, or other countries.

Pompeo said the U.N. sanctions will prevent Iran, the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism, from buying and selling planes, tanks, missiles, and other kinds of conventional weapons.

Along with an arms embargo, a snapback of U.N. sanctions would include a ban on Iran developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and a halt to Irans nuclear enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. Countries would also be urged to inspect shipments to and from Iran, and be authorized to seize any banned cargo.

The U.N.s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has reported some Iranian violations of the agreement, but Tehran says those are the result of the United States violating the accord when it withdrew and then re-imposed harsh unilateral sanctions.

Iran also refuses to allow the IAEA to inspect sites suspected of undeclared nuclear activity, that were formerly part of Irans nuclear weapons program, Pompeo said.

The United States has made every diplomatic effort for almost two years trying to renew this arms embargo, he added.

Pompeo noted that the European participants in the dealGermany, France, and the United Kingdom (the E3)had attempted to bring Iran back into compliance. But he said, despite extensive efforts and exhaustive diplomacy on the part of those member states, Irans significant non-performance persists.

They all told me privately that they dont want the arms embargo lifted either but they did not provide any alternative solution, Pompeo said at the press conference,.

However, Gulf countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council urging a renewal of the arms embargo before its expiration, Pompeo said.

Pompeo hopes the U.S. action to reinstate the sanctions on Iran will put pressure on it to behave like a normal country, and to come back to the bargaining table, and called on other countries to join the U.S. in crafting a stronger deal with Iran.

After the deal [JCPOA] went into effect, and previously sanctioned assets were unfrozen, Irans defense budget (around two-thirds of which goes to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) increased by an estimated 30%-40%. The funds Iran gave to Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups climbed to nearly $1 billion annually, according to a paper by Prof. Jacob Nagel, a visiting senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD); Yaakov Amidror, a distinguished fellow at JINSAs Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy in Washington; and Jonathan Schachter, a former adviser to the prime minister of Israel.

Iran continued to ignore its obligations on missile development and the export of weapons. The Revolutionary Guards began trying to establish a permanent military presence in Syria, from which they launched drone and missile attacks on Israel, Nagel, Amidror, and Schachter wrote for the FDD. Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, using Iranian missiles, accelerated.

A Revolutionary Guards speed boat fires a missile during a military exercise on July 28, 2020. (Sepahnews via AP)

Reactions to Sanction Restoration

After the United States initiated the snapback, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom said in a statement that because the U.S. withdrew from JCPOA, they cannot support this action, which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA.

We remain committed to the JCPOA despite the significant challenges caused by U.S. withdrawal,  the E3 said in the statement. They urged Iran to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay.

The E3, however, has expressed in the statement serious concerns regarding the impact of the expiration of the Iran arms embargo on regional security and their determination to resolve these challenges through diplomatic means.

Pompeo said at the press conference that the United States did not notify the U.N. that it withdrew from the JCPOA because the Iran deal and the U.N. resolution are completely independent.

The JCPOA is not a treaty but a political agreement, Pompeo said. The U.N. resolution gives the right to execute snapback to a set of states unconditionally, he added.

Chinas U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun asked Indonesia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, not to identify and circulate the U.S. communication as a notification to trigger the snapback process and to consult with all council members on how to proceed.

Former Vice President of the Obama administration Joe Biden said he would rejoin the deal if Iran first resumed compliance.

If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement and build on it, while working with allies to push back on Irans destabilizing actions, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Reuters.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By derailing the economy, the coronavirus pandemic spoiled Trumps hopes of putting a positive spin on his reelection. It also exposed the flaw in negative polarization: It leaves a leader paralyzed in times of crisis that call for teamwork and trust. Effectively handling the pandemic would have taken an affirmative plan: Do A, B, C and D  and keep doing them until the virus is under control. Instead, for nearly six months, Trump has zigzagged between ignoring the disease and trying to find an enemy to blame for it. Democrats were hyping it, he charged. President Barack Obama did not prepare properly. Health-care workers, he hinted darkly, might be stealing face masks. Governors were infringing on liberty, he tweeted. The World Health Organization was botching matters. Scientists from the Swamp were thwarting promising cures. The media was exaggerating the whole thing.
Two Niagara Falls teenagers have been charged with mischief in connection with recent vandalism at the public docks in Chippawa.

Niagara Regional Police said they received complaints about issues in the area including vandalism, mischief and rowdy behaviour.

Police said on the weekend of Aug. 8-10, a group of youths attended the dock and damaged the railing that houses safety equipment for boaters and swimmers.

On Wednesday, police arrested and charged two male youths in relation to the damage. A 14-year-old and a 15-year-old male, both from Niagara Falls, have been charged with mischief under $5,000.

A second 14-year-old male from Niagara Falls was cautioned, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, for his role in the incident.

Police estimate the damage at $350.

Police ask anyone who observes improper behaviour or disregard for property to call the City of Niagara Falls service centre at 905-356-1355, or for immediate assistance phone police at 905-688-4111.
Lately I have been preoccupied with teaching a leadership course and coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.

I want to share with you my thoughts on leadership in Canada and the U.S. base on leadership theory. Well, at least some of the basic theories and how Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau measure up. I will be applying five basic concepts of leadership: servant, shared, ethical, evidence-based and chaos/transformational theory.

Servant leadership theory is based on the question: To whom does the leader believe they serve? A servant leader thinks about decision/actions and their impact on others in particular the team, group or community they serve.

Trump clearly is not a servant leader. It is all about him, his reelection, his reputation.

Trudeau does appear to care about all peoples across the country and decisions have been for the most part to help people cope during these difficult times.

Shared or Collaborative Leadership Theory is characterized by bringing people together. Is the leader able to let others with expertise lead and contribute? Do they bring people together?

Trudeau, despite having a minority government and facing a predominantly Conservative premier leadership in the provinces, has been able to unite the country with a purpose.

Trump has failed miserably. He divides and sets up others for failure. He attacks when challenged and certainly will not share leadership nor listen to scientific experts.

Ethical leadership theory calls on leaders to set the integrity bar for their team, organization, community. Never have we witnessed a person in leadership lie and deceive so blatantly then Trump. Trudeau also has failed us with his ethical breaches over WE. His failures undermine his credibility at a time when the nation needs to trust.

Both have come from privileged backgrounds and it shows. True leadership is humble. While senior leaders need confidence they also need perspective and in many cases guidance. I think Trump rejects help while Trudeau simply needs better gatekeepers to protect him from impulsive actions.

Evidence-based leadership theory is based on the belief that decisions should be made based on science and the best information available. Does the final decision/actions of a leader reflect that they have listened to and considered the facts available? In Trump's case he disseminates what he believes rather than listens to or truly understands what experts convey to him. Trudeau does seem to listen and is persuaded by facts as they are presented.

Chaos theory, a sub-theory of transformational theory, is interesting. Pure chaos theory comes from physics and is best understood via the butterfly effect. It states that a small event on the other side of the world (a butterfly flapping its wings) can lead to a tsunami far away, just like how COVID-19 started in a city market in China and now has infected millions of people in all corners of the world.

Chaos leadership theory is relatively new and has two aspects to it of interest. One is that leaders can be disruptive and intentionally create chaos in order to change things.

Trump set out to drain the swamp in Washington. How has he done on that? Trudeau set out to change the way politics was conducted. Remember his desire to change the senate and how Indigenous peoples have been treated? How is he doing?

The second aspect has to do with how leaders deal with chaos. Some rise to the occasion and adapt to the challenges. Trump has failed to adapt because he is basically an incompetent administrator and leader. Trudeau, I believe, has done fairly well because he has allowed others to contribute. True transformational leaders create positive change from difficult circumstances.

How is Trump doing regarding the pandemic? More than 170,000 Americans have lost their lives. More than five million have become ill. We in Canada have done better on almost all measures compared to the U.S. Is this because of Trudeau's leadership? In part, I believe, but more importantly because we have come together as a community. I also think that this virus has an ability to show weaknesses in systems of care. Certainly it has been revealed that our long-term care system has fundamental weaknesses.

How do you think our premier and local leaders have done based on these theories of leadership?

I for one am happy that I live in Canada, Ontario and Peterborough.

Perhaps we also will realize that we also need to come together to truly address climate change, poverty, and inequality.

But this pandemic is not over. We may just be in the beginning stages.

Please be safe. Please wear your masks and remain diligent to social distancing.
She first lodged a claim on her own behalf and for her father, stockman "Jubilee" Jackson, her mother Rita Jackson, three sisters, her uncle and grandfather. "I grew up hungry," Ms Butler said in her submission to the Senate. "My hunger and malnutrition were a direct result of my family not being paid their full wages and entitlements." She spoke of eating scraps from a local hotel near the town of Mount Garnet on the Atherton Tablelands. "When my mother worked at Lucey's Hotel as a laundress, she would occasionally bring home some scraps which would almost be the only good food I ever had."

Her stories of undernourishment, only seeing her father several times a year when he returned from droving and lengthy Atherton Hospital stays are shattering. More than 12,500 Indigenous Queenslanders, many of whom worked as cattle stockmen, are now seeking wages withheld from them by the Queensland government. Photo: Supplied Credit:Cape York Partnerships She tells of Aboriginal children rushing home from school with brown envelopes to donate money to starving children in Africa. "We used to run home and find little coins we could donate," she said. "We didn't realise that we were starving children then.

"We had thin grey blankets in winter and slept on a damp floor. The men crushed ant beds to make the soil harder for the flooring of the shack. There were no mattresses and the windows were opened with a stick. At the other end of the shack was a wood stove." Her long investigation identified that her wages for work as a governess, cook and cleaner - as well as her mother's and father's wages - went to the Mount Garnet police station. Sometimes they got "pocket money" from the local police, sometimes they didn't. In her submission, she tells of police records being burned, archivists confirming "Aboriginal" records were lost, and police being convicted of thieving Indigenous wages. Later she learnt her grandfather had by 1947 accumulated 623 pounds (about $43,035 in today's Australian dollars) in wages, which her family never received. "I am offended by the Queensland government's reference to any reparations as being taxpayers' money," she told.

"No taxpayers' money is being sought. What is being sought is the return of moneys and assets obtained through these moneys, in a similar manner as to current legislation operating in all states of Australia regarding the confiscation of the proceeds of crime," she said. Within a week, one of Australias largest class actions to return hundreds of millions of dollars in hard-earned wages to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will close. August 28 is closing day. Between 1937 and 1972, 12,542 Indigenous and Torres Strait Island Queenslanders reported that their wages were withheld by the Queensland government. However, seven months after a $190 million Queensland government settlement was agreed, 4600 have still not provided a photo ID and a bank account to receive their stolen wages.

The reasons are complex. Respected First Australian Noel Pearson, whose uncle Hans Pearson began the successful stolen wages class action in 2016, highlighted why the issue was so important. Cape York stockman Hans Pearson, who began the class action against the Queensland government in 2017. "If you want to understand Indigenous disadvantage today, it has its roots back then," he said in a 2016 radio interview. "This is as important as Mabo. There is a precedent here of a fundamental cornerstone justice like Mabo because of the opportunity cost that he has forgone and that an entire generation has forgone."

Mr Pearson wanted $145,000 in wages he earned from various cattle properties until he stopped work in the late 1960s. Four years later Grant Thornton Lawyers were chosen to deliver the wages to the thousands of Indigenous Queenslanders who had their wages withheld. Last year, the Queensland government agreed to a $190 million settlement fund to repay First Australians. There were more than 10,000 claimants by July 2019, when an in-principle settlement was reached with the Queensland government, Rosalind Kidd said. Dr Kidd served as an expert witness into the inquiry into underpaid wages on Palm Island, which ultimately resulted in compensation from the Queensland government of $40 million to underpaid workers.

"My personal ambition was to have the case fought in the courts - six weeks had been allocated - so that it would play out nightly on the news and the public might finally realise what had been happening for so many decades," Dr Kidd said. "But, of course, this is absolutely not my call to make. The lead claimants chose to accept the Queensland government's offer of $190 million settlement, rather than risk possibly losing in court, having possible damages awarded against them, and dragging this shameful saga out for possibly several more years. Dr Rosalind Kidd "You would appreciate that distressing numbers of elders have already passed on having never known a legal victory or accessed their missing money." Now time is running tight.

August 28 is the last day bank account details can be provided to receive a settlement, with some claimants more than 100 years old. Settlement lawyer Anthony Beven said elders, not the Queensland government, had set the deadline. "There is no extension. There is no second round. There will be no 'give it to us on August 29'. "If it is posted to us on August 28, it is too late. We must receive it on August 28." Mr Beven said his team had taken big steps to contact the 12,542 people who had lodged claims.

"We have made community visits to all the main Aboriginal communities in Queensland, regular fortnightly emails to everyone, written twice to all claimants by snail mail, done radio interviews, done newspaper stories in The Australian and in the Koori Mail, local newspapers in Indigenous community areas, telephone calls," he said. Repaying stolen wages to Indigenous Queenslanders 12,542 individual Indigenous people have made a claim.

There are 14,501 cases where family members are claiming for deceased claimants

4600 people have not provided a bank account with a photo ID

Elders have told lawyers this information must be provided by August 28, 2020. "Unfortunately the elders have told us that 7 months is long enough and we shouldnt delay the payments," Mr Beven said. The cost of finding the claimants and identifying their details comes from the $190 million settlement fund. "Every day that my staff have to be on the phone trying to locate people where there is already 100 people trying to locate them adds to the administration costs that reduces the amount of money that is paid to people," he said.
During his four terms as Illinois governor, Jim Thompson acquired a deserved reputation as a builder. His legacy includes scores of crucial roads, bridges and buildings, in every part of the state, that were constructed or restored under his leadership.

But nothing Jim Thompson built, no legislation he signed into law, has had greater impact on the quality of life for millions of Illinoisans than the collective bargaining legislation he signed into law in the 1980s.

Prior to collective bargaining, public school teachers and support staff professionals were routinely treated as second-class citizens by local school boards. The boards would often dictate the terms of the employee contracts, which established not only compensation but also the teaching and learning conditions in the schools, including class size.

If the employees considered the boards offer unfair, or harmful for students, the teachers and staff were often told take it or leave it.

When that happened, in the absence of a law that forced school boards to negotiate with the union representing the employees, only one option was available; employees would have to withhold their services until the board was ready to negotiate a fair agreement.

Strikes were not legal but, with no bargaining rights, strikes were the only option to improve conditions for teaching and learning. So, there were strikes.

Many strikes.

In the seven years before collective bargaining, there were, on average, 25 teacher strikes each year. This constant turmoil was bad for the teaching profession, bad for the students and bad for the communities served by public schools.

Gov. Thompson realized this and told the Illinois Education Association that, if we could convince the General Assembly to pass a collective bargaining bill, he would sign it.

A lot of people didnt think Big Jim meant what he said. They also assumed the question would never be answered, since they didnt expect the legislature to pass legislation that would empower education employees to improve conditions in public schools.

Those people were wrong. School employees organized and mobilized and lobbied their lawmakers. It was a tough fight that went on for years. It all would have been for naught had Governor Thompson not kept his word.

Despite intense pressure from business interests and from his fellow Republicans, on Sept. 23, 1983, Gov. Thompson signed into law the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act. He would later sign legislation giving similar rights to other public employees.

Not only that, the governor stood with working families when legislators in his own party tried to pass right to work legislation aimed at reducing the power of unions.

The impact of collective bargaining cannot be overstated. Instead of acrimony in nearly every employee contract discussion, there was now a process that would have to be followed. Agreements that were fair to both sides would become commonplace. Strikes became very rare.

Collective bargaining meant Illinois teachers would be treated as professionals, thereby allowing districts to attract and retaining quality teachers, to the benefit of the students.

Teaching and learning conditions greatly improved over time as school employees were able to effectively advocate for students on issues such as class size, cleanliness and building safety. Even now, as our districts wrestle with how best to educate children during a pandemic, the safety of students and school employees has been on the front burner for local education associations.

When former Gov. James R. Thompson died on Aug. 14, working people in general, and public school teachers, education support professionals and students in particular, lost one of their greatest their greatest champions.

Illinois school employees will never forget Big Jim. His legacy lives on in the physical structures he built, and in the lives of the children whose education he helped improve by empowering teachers and school employees.

Kathi Griffin is president of the Illinois Education Association, the states largest education employees organization.

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Britain's has issued a special video message to mark the 25th anniversary of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in north London, which prides itself as a made in India, built in London grand monument and among the largest temples outside India.

The heir to the British throne, who has made four visits to what is commonly known as Neasden Temple to mark Holi and Diwali over the years, reflected on its role as a place of worship, learning, celebration, peace and community service.

It has given me immense pride to learn of the way in which the Hindu community, including such a large number of BAPS volunteers, have been so active in their support for those in need providing thousands of hot meals and assistance for the elderly and most vulnerable, said the Prince of Wales in his video message on Thursday.

I have also been struck by the very special beauty and craftsmanship of the building, added the 71-year-old royal.

The temple, as a vision of His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, began taking shape in July 1991 and opened its doors to visitors 25 years ago in August.

Over the years, it has welcomed several dignitaries from around the world, including most recently Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead of his election in December 2019 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat.

Modi recalled his visit in a Twitter message: Neasden Temple marks its silver jubilee. The Temple has been at the forefront of many community service initiatives. It has brought people together and inspired them to work for humanity.

When I was Gujarat CM, I had the honour of visiting the Temple. The silver jubilee celebrations at the temple, being held remotely due to the coronavirus lockdown restrictions, involve musical tributes and prayers set to conclude this weekend with a Vishwa Shanti Mahapuja to be webcast live on Sunday.

The millennia-old Vedic prayers and mantras chanted during the mahapuja bestow purity, peace and harmony in the world, a temple spokesperson said.

The mahapuja can also bring peace of mind, righteous prosperity and family harmony to the participants. The mahapuja will also provide an opportunity for thousands across the UK, Europe and the rest of the world to pray for those affected by the global Covid-19 pandemic, the spokesperson said.

The temple describes itself as a humble tribute to the inexpressible beauty, majesty and glory of the Divine and involved over 3,000 volunteers in its creation.

It is made up of 5,000 tonnes of Italian Carrara, Indian Ambaji marble and fine Bulgarian limestone and was hand-carved in India before being assembled in London.

Around 169 craftsmen working across eight workshops in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal were involved in the intricate hand-carvings that make up the haveli-style structure.

The BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), a worldwide Hindu organisation rooted in the Vedas and dedicated to the service of society, said the temple in London is based on the ancient, exact and religious discipline or Vastu Shastra, or Sthapatya Veda, the Discipline of Sacred Architecture and also satisfies modern British building regulations.

(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.)
Tesla is currently working on a new motion-detection sensor that could sense a child left behind in hot cars.

The company is seeking approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to market the said sensor, which could use unlicensed millimeter-wave radar sensors.

The said unlicensed sensors would operate at a higher power level than allowed under existing rules.

According to Tesla, the device could be used to "reduce the risk of pediatric vehicular heatstroke, protect vehicle occupants from injury through advanced airbag deployment, and seatbelt reminders, and enhance theft prevention systems."

Tesla added that millimeter-wave radar technology has other advantages compared to other sensing systems. These advantages include camera-based or in-seat occupant detection systems.

The radar-based system also "provides depth perception and can 'see' through soft materials, such as a blanket covering a child in a child restraint."

The carmaker also said that the proposed technology could differentiate between a child and an object left on the seat, reducing the likelihood of false alarms.

The sensor can also detect micromovements such as breathing patterns and heart rates, which are both not captured by cameras or in-seat sensors alone.

Tesla aims to use radar imaging to measure body size to tell the difference between adults and children. The company explained that through that, they could optimize deployment in a crash more effectively.

The FCC is asking the public's comment on Tesla's request until Sept. 21.

Tesla noted that FCC granted a similar request for a device of Alphabet Inc's Google in 2018. The carmaker company said that it works under identical operating parameters.

Valeo North America submitted a request in March to the FCC for its in-vehicle safety monitoring device. This would also detect children inside cars. The request is still pending in FCC.

Tesla Vehicle Sensors

It is still not clear how and when such sensors could end up in Tesla's vehicles. A company representative did not respond to a request for comment.

There are several interior and exterior sensors that Tesla uses on its vehicles for safety measures.

One of these is the Dog Mode, which keeps the car at a comfortable temperature for owners who leave their pets in the car for a few minutes. It will use a large display to let passersby know that you will be returning soon.

There is also Sentry Mode, which lets the car guard itself using its exterior cameras to monitor and identify possible threats.

Some carmakers have already introduced technological upgrades over the years, promoting child safety inside the cars.

Nissan did this in 2018 with included sensors in its Pathfinder SUVs. It is used to detect when the rear door is opened before a trip. If the driver neglects to open the rear door after the car is parked, the horn will beep that will serve as a reminder.

General Motors also installed a feature called Rear Seat Reminder. It reminds drivers through a message on the instrument panel to check behind them.

Based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, over 50 children died of heatstroke inside a car between 2018 and 2019, simply because someone forgot them inside the vehicle.

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Elon Musk's Tesla IPO: How Much Has Changed in 9 Years?
In the midst of a state of disaster due to COVID-19, on Wednesday, Gov. Tom Wolf renewed another disaster declaration  the one over the opioid epidemic. First issued in January 2018, the 11th renewal of the 90-day disaster declaration allows the state to loosen regulations, such as allowing first responders to leave naloxone behind on the scene of overdoses.

Sadly, the disaster declaration is as relevant now as it was when it was first signed. According to preliminary data released at the end of July by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, overdose deaths decreased by only 1% in 2019 compared with 2018. In Philadelphia, overdose deaths increased by 3% over the same time period  killing 1,150 of the citys residents.

According to the preliminary data from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, fatal overdoses increased for the period of April through June. In addition, the proportion of Black people who died of overdose also increased  continuing the trend of the last few years. Emergency department visits in Philadelphia due to overdose have been significantly higher since March compared with the same period last year.

 READ MORE: As overdose rates rise in Phillys Hispanic community, racial disparities in health care add to the burden

The increase in overdoses matches reports from all over the U.S. about spikes in overdoses since stay-at-home orders have been enacted.

Contributing factors include a growing sense of despair due to loss and economic recession and social distancings impact on outreach and recovery programs.

 READ MORE: Even the pandemic doesnt slow down Philadelphias drug markets

Other forces, such as President Donald Trumps assault on the U.S. Postal Service, could also come into play. This week, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine allowed for organizations to mail the opioid antidote naloxone to overcome outreach difficulties due to COVID-19. Unfortunately, delays in mail could seriously undermine this important development.

One lifesaving tool that Philadelphia could have used at this moment, but is unlikely to have soon, is a supervised injection site. Last October, a federal judge sided with Safehouse, the nonprofit working to open a site, and rejected the argument of Trump-appointed prosecutor William M. McSwain that the sites violate federal law. However, in June, the judge issued a stay on his ruling, citing social and economic upheaval. The stay came in the midst of a pandemic and after a February effort by Safehouse to open a location in South Philadelphia that was met with protest. Now the case is pending at an appellate court  promising a long legal battle.

 READ MORE: Can a smartphone app help save lives? Philly researchers have an overdose-reversal tool set for citywide testing.

A recent New England Journal of Medicine evaluation of an unsanctioned supervised injection site in the United States found that since 2014, despite 10,534 injections, not a single person who used in the site died.

The coronavirus pandemic and recent Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyds killing have applied a magnifying glass on racial disparities in all aspects of life. The increase in overdose deaths, and shift in racial demographics of those dying away from predominantly white, demands similar scrutiny over addiction treatment and overdose prevention. In addition to continuing to pursue new solutions, the city and its partners must ensure that existing resources are accessible to all people who need them. Thats the path to preventing overdoses, not simply shifting them from one demographic to another.

 READ MORE: Phillys overdose crisis still needs attention amid coronavirus | Editorial
This satellite image released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Tropical Storm Laura in the North Atlantic Ocean, on Aug. 21, 2020. (NOAA via AP)

2 Caribbean Storms Pose Potential Hurricane Threat to US

MEXICO CITYTropical Storm Laura formed Friday in the eastern Caribbean and forecasters said it poses a potential hurricane threat to Florida and the U.S. Gulf Coast. A second storm also might hit the United States as a hurricane after running across Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula.

The new tropical storm was centered about 210 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands Friday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph. It was heading west at 18 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

The forecast track shows the storm likely to skirt or hit Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba en route to a Wednesday collision with the U.S. Gulf Coast as a hurricane, though both the force and track were still uncertain.

It was expected to dump heavy rains along the way, causing threats of flooding.

Meanwhile, Tropical Depression 14 was veering to the northwest after nearing the Honduran coast and forecasters said they expected it to gain force before hitting the tip of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula Saturday night, possibly at or near hurricane force. A hurricane watch was in effect for the strip of coast containing Tulum, Playa del Carmen, and Cancun, as well as Cozumel island.

From there, the long-term forecast track would carry it to the U.S. Gulf Coast, perhaps Texas or Louisiana, by Tuesday or Wednesday. Forecasters said it was likely to reach hurricane force over the Gulf of Mexico, but slip back to tropical storm force before reaching the United States, though the outlook was uncertain.

En route, its likely to soak flood-prone eastern Honduras, the Cayman Islands, and parts of the Yucatan.

On Friday morning, it was centered about 165 miles east of the Honduran resort island of Roatan, with 35 mph winds. It was headed northwest at 14 mph.

In the Pacific, former Category 4 Hurricane Genevieve was weakening and heading further out to sea after a glancing blow to the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, where it caused at least two deaths and knocked out power to a large part of the Los Cabos area.

The Hurricane Center said Tropical Storm Genevieve had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and was centered about 155 miles west of Cabo San Lazaro, Mexico.

It was heading west-northwest at 10 mph.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 05:16:41|Editor: huaxia

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ALGIERS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Algeria welcomed on Friday cease-fire announcements made by UN-backed Prime Minister of Libya Fayez Serraj and Speaker of the eastern-based parliament Aguila Saleh.

Algerian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it welcomed the announcements of an immediate cease-fire throughout the Libyan territory and the activation of the political process through an inclusive dialogue to end the crisis in Libya.

Algeria affirmed that this consensual initiative reflects the will of the Libyan brothers to resolve the crisis and consecrate the sovereignty of Libyan people, the statement added.

It also stressed Algeria's readiness to "host an inclusive dialogue based on a cease-fire in order to reach a peaceful solution."

Earlier in the day, Serraj announced a cease-fire and ending all hostilities in Libya, calling for presidential and parliamentary elections.

Saleh has also called for a cease-fire and elections, as well as resumption of oil exports.

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 based in the capital Tripoli and the other in the northeastern city of Tobruk allied with the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar and the eastern-based House of Representatives. Enditem
The politician who wins over the crowd with a forceful speech? Probably shes wearing a pair of possums. The novelist who keeps getting better with every book? Its all down to his Argyle knit sock, with support instep, made by artisans in Geelong. The singer who, on the TV talent show, appears to have more confidence than justified by her vocal range? Take a closer look at the toes. Why did we fall out of love with socks? When did we stop acknowledging their central importance in life? If you study Australian history, there are socks everywhere  cited as the ultimate indicator of either poverty or plenty. The artist William Dobell, three-time winner of the Archibald Prize, was so poor in his early years that he couldnt afford new socks. A friend described him going out for the evening: Whenever his socks have holes . . . he simply paints his leg to match. He wasnt the only one. James Sandy Robertson was a famous ballroom dancer from the 1930s onwards. He was so impoverished during his first performances at Brisbanes Trocadero, that  according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography  he blackened his ankles with boot polish in place of the socks he could not afford. In contrast, when Jack Beasley, Minister for Supply in Australias World War II cabinet, wanted to sing a scintillating song of success, he naturally turned to socks  noting his department had overseen the production of 31 million pairs of them in 1944 alone.

Talk about a boost to morale! This official supply was aided by volunteer hands. The community worker Cara David, of Hornsby, also a key figure in the Girl Guides, knitted hundreds of socks throughout World War II, often spinning the wool herself. Loading The same sock-based patriotism was also a feature of World War I, when Australian women knitted more than 1.3 million pairs. Their efforts were celebrated in the 1915 painting The Sock Knitter, the first work ever exhibited by Grace Cossington Smith and considered Australias first post-impressionist painting. So important was the sock that it entered the language. Pull your socks up was the ultimate riposte to someone whod let themselves go. It was a phrase that went into disuse after the invention, in 1980, of the computer sock by Australias Malcolm Patten  a sock that supposedly pulled itself up, however generally dissolute the owner.

Some phrases seem rather anti-sock in their attitude. A fine piece of theatre is said to blow your socks off, which  to me  seems an unhappy outcome. And people are still silenced with the phrase put a sock in it, which, to a pro-hosiery person, is a waste of a perfectly good sock. This unthinking attitude to socks reached its apotheosis in the work of Sir Mick Jagger, who was said to secrete a pair of socks down the front of his pants  an act that ignored the pleasure they could supply if worn in the manner intended. So ubiquitous was the sock, that according to columnist Ross Campbell, Sydney school children in the 1960s would rewrite the words to common hymns: "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" would inevitably become "While shepherds washed their socks by night". No one is claiming socks are perfect. Placed into the washing, one goes missing from each pair in a way that still defies explanation. You end up with 43 unmatched socks, which you can never throw out because, by the very act of doing so, the missing twin will be summoned to reappear from behind the dryer. But there is also something brilliant about the design of the sock. Consider the way they are designed to fit either the left foot or the right. First thing in the morning, when you're still half asleep, you can never get it wrong.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 12:16:53|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- A total of 74 former Republican national security officials released a letter Thursday, saying they will elect Democrat Joe Biden as the next U.S. president in the November election.

Shortly before Biden, a former U.S. vice president, was scheduled to deliver a speech formally accepting the Democratic nomination for president, the letter said the signatories "are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him."

The former officials, an expanded cohort compared to the 50 of them who also opposed electing Trump in the 2016 election cycle, said in the letter that they "are profoundly concerned about our nation's security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump. The President as demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term."

In 2016, these people said "none of us will vote for Donald Trump," adding, however, that many Americans "have doubts about (then Democratic presidential nominee) Hillary Clinton, as do many of us."

Trump, for his part, has been campaigning in key battleground states throughout the week. On Thursday, he stopped near Biden's birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for some counterprogramming hours before Biden's acceptance speech. Enditem
Theres no way to ensure the safety of students entirely as they head back to the classroom in the midst of a global pandemic, warned Dr. Karim Ali.

I dont see that there is going to be a zero-risk scenario anytime soon for anything that we do, said Ali, head of infectious diseases for Niagara's hospital system.

But now  at a time when community transmission of COVID-19 is at a low level in Niagara  Ali said its the best time to start putting things in place and getting back to school.

This is the time to reap the benefits of all this collective sacrifice that we in Niagara and broadly in Canada have made with the lockdown to bring down the community transmission. Now, well make sure our kids are taken care of.

Ali said other countries such as France, Sweden and South Korea that have already reopened their schools after significantly reducing community transmission, were able to do so while minimizing the risk of infection by putting safeguards in place such as physical distancing, hand washing and the use of masks when possible.

In contrast, he said countries that reopened their schools without having first reduced community transmission saw huge increases in cases of the virus.

Its all about statistical probability. If you have high community transmission, this will spill over into the school system and then vise-versa. It kind of feeds off of each other, Ali said.

But I would say Im cautiously optimistic about this.

Nevertheless, considering the risks associated with the virus, not all doctors are planning to send their own children to the classroom.

Judging from watercooler conversation at the hospital, Ali said, some physicians are considering opting out of sending their children back to school on Sept. 8.

I would say from talking to my colleagues, its a split, he said.

But its more towards people are feeling more comfortable especially after what Dr. Hirji said about community transmission being low, Ali said, referring to recent comments from Niagaras acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji.

Ali said his family, too, is still discussing sending his toddler back to daycare.

These are conversations that we are going to have personally and talk about this and see what risk we would be willing to take, he said.

Uncertainty about the virus is another aspect that families need to take into consideration.

Although children tend to be less susceptible to severe infections, Ali said he cant be very sure of this because things keep coming up and theyre developing by the day.

He said people also need to consider the risk of children bringing the virus home from school and potentially infecting people within the household who may be more susceptible to it.

This is the reason decisions have to be made if someone has any medical problems in the family, what risks there would be, Ali said. Thats where discussing it with health care providers would be very valuable to make an informed decision.

Meanwhile, he said protocols that are being put in place at schools in partnership with public health officials should help instill confidence in parents.

The silos are starting to break down, he said. All of us are working the same way to help the community.

And despite the risks posed by the virus, there are other impacts children face by not returning to the classroom.

In a column published in the Toronto Star earlier this month, the Pediatricians Alliance of Ontario noted that their young patients are displaying greater anxiety, more behavioural problems, and increased medical issues such as weight gain as a result of being out of school.

Ali agrees.

Children belong in classrooms, he said. We as a society must make every effort to make sure that it is done in a safe, efficient and flexible way.
Press Release

August 21, 2020 Amid developments about vaccine availability, Bong Go urges public to remain vigilant; says fight against COVID-19 starts at home and in communities Senator Christopher "Bong" Go warned the public about being complacent against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and advised everyone to remain vigilant despite recent developments on COVID-19 vaccine trials around the world. Philippine authorities also began relaxing some quarantine protocols, such as the recent shift to general community quarantine of many areas in the country, including Metro Manila. According to the Senator, prevention is still better than cure and the crucial fight against the virus starts in efforts at home and in communities. "Sa kabila po ng mga balita na magkakaroon ng bakuna laban sa COVID-19, huwag po sana tayong maging kampante. Huwag po tayo magkumpyansa. Let us remain vigilant since the fight is far from over. Let me remind everyone that your compliance with minimum health standards can save lives," Go said emphasizing the need to be responsible citizens to help communities overcome the crisis. "Ang laban po natin sa COVID-19 ay nag-uumpisa sa ating mga tahanan at komunidad. Ang pagsunod natin sa patakaran, pag-alaga sa ating kalusugan, pagsuot ng face mask at pag-obserba ng social distancing ay mga simpleng paraan upang makatulong sa bayan na malampasan ang krisis na ito," he added. In a press conference on Tuesday, World Health Organization Western Pacific regional director Dr. Takeshi Kasai, while expressing optimism about the speed in the development of COVID-19 vaccine, said he remains cautious because "even they can really manage, develop safe and effective vaccine, the production capacity would not really meet the demand coming from the entire world." Recently, Russia announced to be the first country to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and offered to supply the Philippines with the vaccine. President Rodrigo Duterte, however, reminded Filipinos to continue complying with health protocols, such as physical distancing, wearing of mask, and proper cough etiquette, despite recent news about vaccine availability. Go echoed the sentiments of the President and emphasized the importance of enhancing and properly implementing health protocols in communities to prevent the further spread of the virus while a vaccine is being developed. "The important part of our fight against COVID-19 starts in us, in our homes, and in our communities. Through our cooperation, malasakit sa kapwa, and bayanihan, we can contribute to the global fight against COVID-19," Go said. Once a vaccine is made available, Go said that the government must ensure that the poor, 4Ps beneficiaries and vulnerable sectors will be given access and prioritized. He also urged government to prioritize the provision of free face masks to poor and vulnerable sectors who cannot afford to buy their own so that they can comply with the stricter mask-wearing policy. Aside from his steadfast reminders to Filipinos to continue following health protocols, Go also seeks to ensure that government services remain operational and accessible despite the pandemic. Go filed a measure institutionalizing the transition of the government to the digital age through e-governance amid the current challenges caused by the 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. Through the proposed measure, this aims to fully digitalize government processes, such as citizen services and business transactions, among others, to ensure that the country can cope with the physical and mobility limitations needed to slow the spread of diseases. This will also ensure that business processes and transactions in the country remain seamless and fully operational despite pandemic threats. "We need to carefully balance economic and health objectives. By ensuring that government services remain operational by maximizing available technologies, we can help Filipinos easily adapt to the new normal, help our economy recover and mitigate the health risks," Go explained. Reminding the public that their cooperation is key to the success of the efforts of the health sector and government, Go said, "Lagi natin pong alalahanin na hindi kaya ng gobyernong mag-isa ang laban kontra pandemya. Hindi rin kakayanin ng ating mga medical frontliners kung patuloy na dadami ang kailangang dalhin sa mga ospital. Preventing the spread of COVID-19 starts with us by being responsible citizens and following health and safety protocols." Go urged the general public to make it a discipline among all Filipinos to wear face masks at all times. "Pinapa-alalahanan ko ang publiko na ang pagsuot ng face mask ay pangunahing paraan upang proteksyunan ang sarili at bilang pagrespeto o pagbibigay konsiderasyon rin sa kapwa tao," he said.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), left, and ranking member Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), right, in Washington during a hearing on Dec. 18, 2019. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Sen. Johnson Accuses Sen. Peters of Undermining Efforts to Subpoena Ex-Official Linked to Steele

Jonathan Winer met with ex-British spy Christopher Steele

A powerful Republican senator who has recently fought off criticism for not issuing subpoenas in the review of the investigation of the Trump campaign says the ranking member on his committee is working to undermine efforts to subpoena a former State Department official.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) is trying to undermine my investigation with absurd process arguments to delay or derail our subpoena of Jonathan Winer, who used to work in the State Department.

According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released this week, Winer destroyed records that British ex-spy Christopher Steele sent him.

Winer also did not disclose the fact he arranged a meeting for Steele with State Department employees until his second interview with investigators.

After Steeles memos were published in the press in January 2017, Steele asked Winer to make note of having them, then either destroy all the earlier reports Steele had sent the Department of State or return them to Steele, out of concern that someone would be able to reconstruct his source network, the committee report states.

Winer told investigators: So I destroyed them, and I basically destroyed all the correspondence I had with him.

Winer, who has known Steele since at least 2010, said previously that he met with his contact to discuss information in the dossier Steele compiled from second- and third-hand sources. Winer passed on information to Victoria Nuland, another State Department worker.

Johnson this week said Peters wants to keep the American people in the dark by not letting us ask Jonathan Winer about his correspondence with Steele.

Former State Department official Jonathan Winer. (State Department)

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, Johnson added: Among other issues, Mr. Winers admitted destruction of his records related to his contacts with Christopher Steele is concerning and deserves an explanation. I am looking forward to learning more from Mr. Winer in spite of Democrat attempts to further delay our investigation.

Johnsons office didnt respond when asked how Peters is holding up the subpoena, since Johnson was granted subpoena power by his committee in a narrow 8-6 vote in June.

A spokesman for Peters didnt respond to an inquiry.

Peters wrote to Johnson on Wednesday, claiming the attempt to depose Winer is in clear violation of committee rules.

The subpoena for his personal appearance for a deposition is therefore unenforceable. In fact, none of the Committees subpoenas for depositions are currently enforceable, he said in the letter (pdf).

Peters said committee rules enable the ranking member to disapprove of a deposition notice, triggering a full committee vote. Peters said he disapproves of the notice.

Peters before the June 4 authorization vote said he was disappointed the committee was spending time on what he sees as a partisan investigation, urging Johnson to instead tackle issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Steele was paid by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign to compile a dossier on her opponent, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, months before the 2016 election. The dossier was relied on by the FBI when seeking secret spy warrants on a former Trump campaign associate. An FBI lawyer involved in the probe recently pleaded guilty to a criminal charge this week as part of a deal with prosecutors who agreed to propose a sentencing range of zero to six months.

Johnson issued his first subpoena on Aug. 10 to the FBI, requesting records related to the probe into Trumps campaign. He suggested during an appearance on Fox News Sunday that Winer had already been subpoenaed, though no public announcements of a subpoena have been made.

More subpoenas are coming, Johnson said.
A Portland man has selflessly provided some financial assistance to cash-strapped residents applying for emergency relief checks.

The man - who has not been identified - reportedly withdrew up to $10,000 from an ATM outside the OnPoint credit union in Hillsboro on Thursday, before distributing $100 bills to each of the people waiting in line for economic help.

Kathryn Davidson was one of the hundreds of people lined up outside the credit union to apply for the $500 relief check - part of a new financial assistance package announced by the Oregon state government earlier this week.

Davidson told KOIN that she initially noticed the man pull up in a luxury Jaguar, and he appeared bothered by the fact that the crowd of people were blocking access to the ATM.

After Davidson explained to him that all of the people were waiting to apply for the emergency check, the man pushed through to the ATM and returned carrying a wad of cash.

A Portland man has selflessly provided some financial assistance to cash-strapped residents applying for emergency relief checks. Kathryn Davidson (pictured) was one of the lucky people who received a $100 bill from the selfless stranger, who has not been identified

Hundreds of people were lined up outside the OnPoint credit union in Hillsboro on Thursday, where they were applying for the

'All of a sudden he breaks open a stack of $100 bills,' Davidson stated.

'He said, 'Distribute this down the line.' He didn't ask for any thanks. He just drove off.'

Davidson told the news network that she previously worked in armored transit services, and estimated that the man was clutching $10,000 in cash.

'He actually broke the band off of it, so that means it was $10,000. At least $3,000  maybe the whole $10,000  was just distributed to everyone in line,' she stated.

That means 100 people in the line received a $100 bill from the man, who left the scene without sharing his name.

Davidson tearfully told KOIN that the act of kindness had restored her faith in a particularly difficult time.

KOIN reports that 33,000 Oregonians had applied for the $500 emergency relief check on Thursday morning. Hundreds of people are seen lining up outside a Portland credit union on Friday

'All of us in line, we wanted to say thank you so much, whoever you are. You're a saint,' Davidson emotionally said.

'There were black people, white people, men, women, Catholics and people with a Jewish star necklace  handed out to all of us, didn't matter who we were  women in burkas and every manner and walk of life are here, and he helped all of us,' she further stated.

It appears the man does not wanted to be publicized for his good deed, as local news networks have been unable to track him down.

KOIN reports that 33,000 Oregonians had applied for the $500 emergency relief check on Thursday morning. More than 70,000 people across the state are expected to apply for the additional assistance.

Oregon has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 24,000 residents testing positive to COVID-19. 412 have died.

The financial fallout has also been devastating. According to local reports, 243,500 Oregonians have lost their jobs jobs since the start of the crisis.
MEXICO CITY - Police said Thursday they had to help free an airplane that got stuck under an overpass on one of Mexico Citys busiest roads.

The airplane was one of several aircraft being carried on flatbed trucks, apparently for maintenance in a nearby city.

The planes wings had been removed prior to the trip. But as the truck approached the last big overpass on the citys south side, the trucking company apparently forgot to calculate that the planes tail stuck up too high to fit beneath the underpass.

Police had to block traffic and help the truck driver to lower the trucks bed enough to squeeze the plane through.

Read more about:
This is the heart-breaking moment a Chinese soldier cried inconsolably at the funeral of his late detection dog.

Animal handler Wang Rujian had worked with Tianbao the spaniel for 12 years before it died of multiple organ failure last month.

At the dog's farewell ceremony this week, Mr Wang grabbed onto Tianbao's gravestone tightly and broke down in tears.

Chinese soldier Wang Rujian wipes clean the grave of his late detection dog Tianbao before crying inconsolably during the spaniel's farewell ceremony on August 19 in Jinan, Shandong

Tianbao (pictured) was born in 2008 and trained to be a sniffer dog by Mr Wang from a puppy

'Tianbao, it was worth having you all the way. May you rest in peace,' the grief-stricken officer said at the funeral in eastern China's Shandong Province on Wednesday.

Touching footage shows Mr Wang wiping clean Tianbao's grave and cried on its tombstone to give the faithful hound a final send-off.

Tianbao, a decorated English Springer Spaniel, was born in 2008. His name can be translated as 'treasure from heaven' in English.

It was sent to be trained by Mr Wang at the Shandong Search and Rescue Dog Professional Mobile Detachment in the same year to be a sniffer dog for the provincial firefighting department.

Described by Mr Wang as 'timid' by nature but 'courageous' as a rescuer, Tianbao completed more than 30 major tasks together with the handler during its lifetime, according to Shandong Firefighting Department.

It was awarded the title of a 'meritorious dog' in 2011 after rescuing survivors at a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous County in north-western China the year before.

Tianbao completed more than 30 major tasks alongside Mr Wang before its retirement in 2016

It saved survivors at a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous County in 2010

Recalling Tianbao's performance in the devastating disaster, which left 2,698 dead, Mr Wang said the brave animal saved not only the locals, but also him.

The officer collapsed while searching for trapped residents in the debris for a lengthy period. Tianbao immediately barked and bit his legs gently to prevent him from losing consciousness. Tianbao's barks drew the attention of other officers, who rushed over and took Mr Wang for medical care.

'After that, Tianbao and I became partners of life and death,' Mr Wang told state media.

Devoted as well as talented, Tianbao became a national blood-hunting champion at a rescue dog competition in 2010.

In 2015, it joined the rescue efforts of a massive chemical blast in Tianjin, which killed 173 people and injured hundreds.

Mr Wang said he and Tianbao were 'partners of life and death' after being a team for so long

Tianbao died of multiple organ failure on July 26 and was buried in a cemetery in Jinan city

Tianbao retired in 2016 after eight dutiful years. It was initially separated from Mr Wang and taken to a kennel to be looked after.

But Mr Wang sent an application letter to his supervisors insisting on taking care of his retired canine colleague after seeing Tianbao appearing sad at the kennel.

Tianbao lived the following four years under Mr Wang's meticulous care until it died on July 26.

The Shandong Firefighting Department held a special farewell ceremony for the heroic dog on August 19 and buried it in the Meritorious Dogs Cemetery in the provincial capital Jinan.
Republican House Leader: No Place for QAnon in the Republican Party

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday denounced the QAnon movement after Vice President Mike Pence dismissed it earlier in the day.

Let me be very clear, McCarthy told Fox News. There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party. I do not support it and the candidate you talked about has denounced it.

He was referring to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won the Republican primary for Georgias 14th District. In YouTube videos, Greene embraced the QAnon theory but has since distanced herself from the movement, according to the GOP leader.

Pence also told CBS News on Friday that he doesnt know anything about that conspiracy theory, adding, I dismiss it out of hand. On CNN, Pence also fielded questions about QAnon, saying President Donald Trump doesnt embrace the theory.

Some QAnon followers believe Trump is trying to save the world against a secretive cabal of Satanists or Luciferians who are involved in child trafficking, cannibalism, and human sacrifice. Some of these individuals involved in the cabal are prominent politicians, celebrities, and other business luminaries. And Q posts, which feature cryptic and puzzle-like statements, have appeared on anonymous message boards, including 4chans politically incorrect subforum over the past several years.

Trump this week said he wasnt familiar with the theory and said those who subscribed to it love our country.

People hold up smartphones with QAnon-related messages on display, at a rally in Las Vegas, Nev., on Feb. 21, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

You said the president seemed to embrace it. I didnt hear that, Pence said on CNN. I heard the president talk about he appreciates people that support him.

McCarthy, in his interview, said that members of the Democratic party have embraced anti-Semitic points of view, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

But the real question would be, McCarthy said on Fox News, when you look to the Democratic party, to a Tlaib or Omar, with the anti-Semitic comments, when the Democrats would not stand up. When a member of the Republican Party said something that we believe is not about the party of Lincoln, we removed them from committee, but in the Democratic party, not only can you be anti-Semitic, you can spend your campaign money giving it to your husband.

He was referring to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who was removed from a GOP-controlled committee after he questioned why white supremacy is considered offensive.

McCarthy, meanwhile, said that Greene distanced herself from QAnon in recent days.

Ive had discussions with Marjorie Greene, she won that primary, and she recently came out and denounced the Q organization, whatever beliefs. I do not agree with their beliefs at all, and she denounced those, he told CSPAN on Wednesday.

He added, I believe everybody has an opportunity from that standpoint. And the discussions Ive had with her, I think she will continue to work to show people that lots of times impressed today imply something different  shes a small business owner and shell be given an opportunity.
An Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is expected to open a League City location this year in the Victory Lakes Town Center, according to a media release.

The movie house , which will be at the corner of Interstate 45 and FM 646, will feature 10 screens and offers in-seat food and drink services. The venue also will feature interactive movie events, themed parties and special events for families.

For more information, visit www.drafthouse.com/houston

Chevron donates $50,000 to Pasadena Health Center

The Pasadena Health Center has received a $50,000 donation on behalf of Chevron Pasadena Chemical Co.

According to PHC director and CEO John Sweitzer, the donation will provide a boost to the facilitys efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the community.

Recent studies indicate that the hardest hit communities have been black and Hispanic populations.

The health care centers largest demographic, Sweitzer said, is the Hispanic community.

PCH cites estimates showing over 5,000 people in Pasadena are unemployed due to the COVID pandemic because of business shutdowns and layoffs. Pasadena Health Center has been working to help curve the pandemic and to help school children in the area.

To date, the center has provided over 1500 free COVID-19 tests.

The center provides medical and dental services, pediatrics, womens health, mental health services, counseling, internal medicine and accepts Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and self-pay. A sliding fee scale is available for eligible families who do not have insurance or qualify for other assistance.

In 2017, Chevron Pasadena donated $5,000 to the center for Harvey disaster relief. The health care facility plans to host an event to officially thank Chevron for its recent donation on Aug. 26.

For more information on the center, visit https://www.pasadenahealthcenter.com/

Chamber hosts State of Education event

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce will host a virtual State of Education event featuring Ira K. Blake, president of University of Houston Clear Lake; Brenda Hellyer, chancellor of San Jacinto College; and DeeAnn Powell, superintendent of Pasadena ISD. The event will cover how educational leaders in the community are navigating a changing environment and how institutions are meeting the challenges of providing equitable access to connectivity and ensuring needs of student are being met.

When: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Aug 27. Meet and greet at 11:30 a.m; program at noon

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Details: RSVP the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce at pasadenachamber.org or call 281-487-7871

Hospital hosts stroke support virtual meeting

Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital- Stroke Support Group will host a Zoom meeting for patients and caregivers to discuss topics associated with recovering and living life after a stroke. The meeting is welcome to participants who register online.

Date: 9-10:30 a.m. Aug. 27

Cost: Free

Website: https://bit.ly/3aehr9Q

Contact Information: 713-222-CARE (2273). Register online at www.memorialhermann.org

Nippon Shokubai America building out space in Pasadena

Shokubai America Industries has announced it is spending $5 million plans to build out 75,000 square feet of new space at its Pasadena plant at 5151 Old Highway 146 and is expected to complete construction by early 2021, according to the Pasadena Economic Development Corp.

The global manufacturing company, based in Tennessee and part of the Chemical Manufacturing Industry, produces superabsorbent polymer, water soluble polymers and emulsion products that include materials like diapers, fabrics, paint and detergent agents.

It has 167 employees throughout 48 subsidiary companies as part of the Nippon Shokubai America Industries, Inc. corporate family. For more information on the company, visit https://bit.ly/3gpogHe.

Pasadena chamber welcomes new business members

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce is welcoming seven new members  Bank of Texas, Blue Wave Pressure Washing, Houston Therapy Specialists, Mobile Auto Pros, Pundit Services, Work Horse Facilities Maintenance LLC and ZenBusiness. The chamber will host a virtual ribbon cutting. For more information on the champber, visit pasadenachamber.org or call the chamber at 281-487-7871.
Scot MacDonald, the executive director of the Memorial Opera House, said that like most businesses the opera house closed in March when the states stay-at-home order went into effect. At that time, MacDonald said hed hoped that by May the pandemic would be mostly under control, so the decision was made to move the production of 9 to 5 to July.
A court decision in Pakistan to return custody of a 14-year-old Christian girl to the Muslim who allegedly kidnapped her and forced her to convert to Islam and marry him will make more Christian girls vulnerable to such trauma, sources said.

Lala Robin Daniel, a rights activist based in Faisalabad assisting the family of Maira Shahbaz, said the Lahore High Court's refusal to take into account the documented age of the girl and the falsification of documents, including a fake marriage certificate, was unprecedented and would lead to more such cases.

"If the courts of this country start validating underage marriages of girls belonging to the minority communities, it will encourage people from the majority faith to target them with even more impunity," he said. "A minor child can easily be influenced or coerced into renouncing their faith and marrying someone. This practice needs to be stopped."

Daniel and the family's attorney correctly refer to the girl as Maira in court documents, but the court mistakenly called her Maria in its verdict. A Catholic from Medina Town, Faisalabad, Maira contracted false marriage with the already married Muslim, Nakash Tariq, on Oct. 25, 2019  six months before he allegedly abducted her on April 28, according to her mother, Nighat Shahbaz, a single parent and domestic worker.

According to court documents, Nighat Shahbaz said she and her family were unaware of the fake marriage until after Maira was allegedly kidnapped and appeared in Faisalabad Sessions Court on July 23. At that hearing, Maira told Judge Rana Masood Akhtar that she was over 18 years old, had converted to Islam of her free will and wanted to live with her Muslim husband.

Since the family had challenged the underage marriage, the judge sent Maira to a women's shelter on July 28 until her age could be determined, as the 2019 Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act bars marriage of a child under the age of 18.

Khalil Tahir Sindhu, lawyer for Nighat Shahbaz and a member of the Punjab Assembly, told Morning Star News that the Lahore High Court (LHC) presided by Justice Shahid Mahmood Abbasi allowed Maira to go with Tariq without considering evidence that the girl was underage and that the marriage certificate was fake.

The cleric whose name is listed on the marriage certificate denied involvement in the sham marriage, and the document failed to show proof of consent from Tariq's first wife, with whom he has two children, Sindhu added.

"In my arguments before the learned high court, I submitted evidence that according to NADRA [National Database and Registration Authority], Maira's date of birth is Oct. 30, 2005, and the same is recorded in her school leaving certificate," the attorney said.

He also argued that the investigating officer of the case, Assistant Sub-Inspector Shahid Wahla, had made no effort to verify the documentary evidence under Section 8 of the Juvenile Justice System Act 2008, which requires determination of age based on birth certificate, educational certificates, and in absence of any such documents, a physical examination by a doctor, Sindhu said.

"When we objected to the inefficient and shoddy investigation by ASI Wahla, the probe was entrusted to Deputy Superintendent of Police Rana Ataur Rehman by the Faisalabad District Standing Board, which oversees complaints against the police," the lawyer said.

Sindhu added that cleric Muhammad Abu Bakar, under whose name and seal the fake Nikah Nama (Islamic marriage certificate) had been produced in court, had also filed a case against Tariq for presenting a fictitious document.

"It is appalling that the honorable judge ignored these key facts while writing the verdict, even though presenting fake documents in court is a criminal offense and punishable under the law," Sindhu said, adding that his team will file an intra-court appeal against the single bench's order and also approach the Supreme Court if it is not accepted.

Sindhu said it was likely that Maira stated she married and converted of her own will due to fear or coercion, as her family has had no contact with her since she was allegedly kidnapped.

"It's not very difficult to threaten a minor to say what you want them to say," he said.

Court Admits Dismissing Evidence

The high court's verdict states that Maira's family was denied custody because "she stated that she's 18 years old, recited the Kalma Tayyaba to prove she had embraced Islam without any duress, and married Nakash Tariq by choice."

"The statement of Maria [sic] Shahbaz as well as her general appearance unambiguously show that she is a grown-up young lady who seems to have attained the age of puberty and who acknowledges Nakash Tariq as her lawfully wedded husband," the verdict states.

The verdict acknowledges that the judge dismissed evidence her family's attorney provided that the minor could not have contracted marriage without the consent of her guardian and that the marriage certificate was fake.

"As far as proof of marriage is concerned, the other formalities can be ignored and simple acknowledgement of husband and wife regarding their Nikah [marriage] is sufficient to prove the same," the verdict states. "In such circumstances, the mandatory requirement of presence of two witnesses can be ignored."

Regarding authenticity of the marriage certificate, the verdict states, "Only the family court would be in a better position to resolve the controversy between the parties regarding genuineness or otherwise of 'Nikah Nama.'"

In February the forced conversion to Islam and marriage of another 14-year-old Christian girl was validated in a court ruling in Pakistan. The High Court in Sindh Province on Feb. 3 dismissed a petition to have the marriage and forced conversion of Huma Younus overturned, ruling that both were valid since a girl under sharia (Islamic law) can marry after her first menstrual cycle.

The Catholic girl was taken from her home in Karachi's Zia Colony on Oct. 10, 2019 while her parents were away and was forced to marry the man who abducted her.

Supreme Court Advocate Saiful Malook told Morning Star News that sharia (Islamic law) allows girls who have reached puberty to marry, and that previous court judgments have endorsed this interpretation.

"Islamic law says that if a girl has attained puberty she shall be treated as a major, and a full bench of the LHC has already declared that a major Muslim girl needs no consent of the Wali or guardian for a valid marriage," Malook said. "This judgment of the LHC was endorsed by the Supreme Court in a case reported in 2004."

Malook said that the verdict in Maira's case follows precedents established by the LHC and Supreme Court, particularly when a girl has repeatedly told courts that she is the legally wedded wife of the accused and desires to live with her husband.

Malook, a Muslim who represented Aasiya Noreen (better known as Asia Bibi), in Pakistan's most high-profile blasphemy case and won her freedom, said that forced conversion contradicts the Koran.

"It is clearly stated in the Koran that no person can be forced to renounce their faith and embrace Islam," he said. "In Maira's case, the girl has repeatedly proclaimed that she has converted to Islam without duress, hence prima facie it cannot be said that it is a case of forced conversion unless the girl retracts her statements given in court."

Pakistan ranked fifth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2020 World Watch list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, and on Nov. 28, 2018, the United States added Pakistan to its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom.

 2020 Morning Star News.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the bail application of Malkit Singh alias Shera, one of the accused in connection with the blast which took place in Punjab's Tarn Taran district in September last year.

A bench headed by Justice NV Ramana dismissed the plea saying it cannot grant bail to the accused.

The accused Malkit Singh had earlier applied for bail on health grounds in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mohali, both of which were dismissed by the respective courts.

Before the NIA court, he had sought bail contending that he was falsely implicated and that he was a patient of diabetes.

The prosecution had submitted before the NIA court that during the course of investigation incriminating role of the accused had emerged and that he was highly radicalised towards Khalistan movement and he was part of a gang that had planned terrorist activities.

The NIA court observed that evidence pointed to the accused was an active member of the pro-Khalistan terrorist gang, adding that it was of the opinion that there was sufficient ground for believing that accusation against the applicant/accused is prima facie true.

The NIA had in March this year filed a chargesheet against nine accused in connection with Tarn Taran blast case before a special NIA court.

Two persons were killed and one other was injured in the blast, which took place in Tarn Taran on September 4 last year, when the victims were reportedly digging a pit to retrieve a concealed explosive consignment.
NZ songwriter Don McGlashan has just announced a nationwide New Zealand tour with The Others.

Performing brand new songs from his next, soon-to-be-recorded album, along with plenty of gems from his sprawling back catalogue, Don will play a string of shows with a full band comprising the mighty talents of Shayne P Carter (Dimmer, Straightjacket Fits), bassist/guitarist extraordinaire James Duncan (Dimmer, SJD, Punches) and legendary drummer/percussionist Chris OConnor (Phoenix Foundation).

"We'll definitely be road-testing an album's worth of new songs, plus stomping purposefully through those parts of my back catalogue that everyone can agree on," McGlashan says in the press release. "There'll also be a lot of loud guitar, although Shayne is an award-winning author now, so he may just want to sit in a plush leather chair on stage, looking thoughtful and taking questions from the audience.

Don McGlashan & The Others NZ Tour

Wed Oct 28 - Wellington  San Fran

Thur Oct 29 - Christchurch  Cassels Blue Smoke

Fri Oct 30 - Dunedin Craft Beer & Food Festival*

Sat Oct 31 - Dunedin Craft Beer & Food Festival*

Sat Nov 7 - Auckland  Hollywood Avondale

You can get your tickets now from UnderTheRadar.co.nz

For Dunedin show tickets, you can get them from Ticketmaster
Geez, everyone is skeezy. Team no one.

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everybody looks stupid and greedy.

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"When contacted on Tuesday, Charlotte Kirks manager asked if Variety paid for interviews"



lmaooo what kind of janky management does she have?? no wonder her career is still a flop despite everything

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Ikr? you're a pretty white English lady and you still can't get work? she must be really bad

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The funny thing is, I dont think shes attractive at all. Shes very hard looking. But shes young, thin and white and lets be real thats about all it takes for some people to be called beautiful.

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Lmao idgi are they supposed to

Help

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This story (if I understand correctly) is sad and pathetic all around

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I read every post and I still dont understand the story at all.

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...I'm so confused.

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wow I wonder if she'll be able to get any roles after this outside of her bf's films

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I feel like after this neither of them will have much of a career

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If the acting in that music video she made is anything to go by... I'm going to say no.

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Im disgusted by the men and embarrassed for her

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Im torn. She seems like she is either a grifter, incredibly naive, or something else entirely.



Edited at 2020-08-22 02:20 am (UTC)

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I love this. Take them all down.

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I just dont even understand. If its worth $2 million to you to cover up an affair why even have it? You have to know that when you cheat on a spouse theres a chance youll be caught.

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People who have affairs like to think that they are really slick and savvy and will never get caught. There's something about ~secret affairs/behaving badly behind closed doors~ that really turns on some people.





The clownery eventually comes for them.

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Meyer, then 66



She was 19 at the time.



66 - 19 = 47



I keep getting stuck on this detail.

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Sounds like she was a young woman passed around by executives and promised roles in exchange and was naive enough to fall for it. It sucks, and its dirty business but it happens all the time. Im sure they didnt expect her to push so hard for what she was promised, they say that shit all the time, to anyone they want to get something from. Mistresses dont get roles tho, girl, if you wanna fuck someone for a part, youd better work hard to make him your man (Ahem, Orville season 1, ahem.)

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That's pretty much it. From the variety article, it mentions that she was the one pushing for the promised roles which granted really nothing when you look at her filmography.



They played her big time.



"Mistresses dont get roles tho" I wonder if she thought she would because of all the history of Hollywood of women "sleeping for roles"/casting couch that she would? I think there have been actresses to get that in old hollywood and not that long ago??.....but it usually seemed to be from sleeping with the producers or directors of said film.



She must've been pretty naive cause even if those affairs were ~"consensual"~ it's still blurring the lines and is really an abuse of power/manipulation.

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Yeah that sleeping for roles thing is so pervasive! Harvey used it relentlessly, that piece of shit. But its really not realistic now. Ive worked in all aspects of film/tv, and if someone way up the foodchain would come around demanding a reading for so and so, or special favors, itd raise huge red flags. Plus the casting director is supposed to send a mediocre actress to the movie director recommending her at the behest of an executive? Why would casting risk their reputation like that? Especially since its not like an executive has hiring and firing powers over individual productions, especially without cause. I hate that girls/women are still taken in by this idea, and those keen to abuse their powers perpetuate it like its real when its not.

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after reading that she's apparently on the spectrum a lot of this uncomfortably makes sense to me. it is SO hard for us to not trust people at their word even when we have all kinds of evidence that we shouldn't, and that slight when someone betrays your trust therefore is just wholly unforgivable. to them it's not a big deal because they assume you didn't really expect them to follow through anyway



I ran into this problem so often with regular, low-stakes dating and it drove me (and others) crazy. can't imagine that dynamic in a situation like this

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She was with James Packer(billionaire and once engaged to Mariah Carey not that long ago), Tsujihara, and Meyer during that whole timeframe before she got with Marshall.



Clearly she wasn't very savvy because she pretty much got half-hearted promises of a career and got used. 



I feel for her but I would think after one experience you can't expect much trustworthy-ness from anyone else who is similar.   







Edited at 2020-08-21 11:31 pm (UTC)

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so she didn't get famous out of any of this shit, and now that the news is out, she really won't get hired for new jobs. geez.

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omggg. Is this Jenn Meyer's dad?

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jKL;AJSKDLFJSA OMG IT IS!!

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lol my mind is so powerful.



I just put 2+2 together

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Quuppa, an Espoo, Finland-based provider of Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS), raised its first round of funding, worth 20m.

Backers included Bocap and Tech Consulting Group TCG Oy (TCG).

The company is using the funds to go global.

Led by Kimmo Kalliola, CEO and Founding Partner, Quuppa provides an Intelligent Locating System that enables customers in a variety of industries to locate Bluetooth-enabled devices. Its methodology and positioning algorithms enable real-time tracking with centimetre-level accuracy. The technology is used in several vertical markets, including manufacturing, healthcare, smart buildings and in sports. The location tracking system has improved the production and operational efficiency in many factories and warehouses globally.

The company has already deployed more than 2 000 location-based service solutions and has over 170 partners worldwide. In addition to Finland, the company has offices in the United States, China, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

Since its establishment in 2012,Quuppa has grown, reaching a revenue of 10m. Now, their aim is to grow from 10m to 100m in five years and establish their position as a market leader.

FinSMEs

21/08/2020
CEO Isabel Bescos and CTO Matthew Scheybeler

Riff, a London, UK-based voice-first chat tool for teams to communicate when working remotely, raised $1.5m in seed funding.

The round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Seedcamp, and angels including Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas, COO of GoCardless, Nicolas Brusson, CEO of BlaBlaCar and Tim Sadler, CEO of Tessian.

The investment will be used to launch Riff into public beta later this year ahead of a general release in 2021 and for recruitment.

Set up by CEO Isabel Bescos (former head of corporate strategy at BlaBlaCar, and former member of Baldertons investment team), with CTO Matthew Scheybeler, (co-founder of Silicon Valleys pioneering video search tool, blinkx), Riff is advancing a voice-first tool and technology designed to mimic the instant, collaborative interactions people get from working in an office while working remotely.

The company is currently in private beta and is actively seeking companies to test the tool.

FinSMEs

20/08/2020
Following the detection of its first omicron case Saturday in Haidian district of Beijing, the Chinese capital locked down certain communities and office buildings just weeks before the Winter Olympics and the Lunar New Year holiday. The city opened 30 emergency testing points in Haidian on Monday as it rushes to contain the spread

Jan 19, 2022 05:37 PM
The Trump administration on Thursday formally notified the United Nations of its demand for all UN sanctions on Iran to be restored, setting off an immediate confrontation with Russia and other Security Council members, including Americas European allies, who called the US move illegal.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the notification to the president of the UN Security Council, citing significant Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal, a requirement to snap back UN sanctions.

The United States will never allow the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons ... (or) to have a nuclear weapon, Pompeo told a UN press conference.

He said the US action will extend the arms embargo, which is set to expire Oct. 18, and also prohibit Iran from ballistic missile testing and enrichment of nuclear material.

Russias deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, shot back on Twitter: Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.

At the heart of the dispute is President Donald Trumps 2018 withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between six global powers and Iran.

The US maintains that under the Security Council resolution endorsing the agreement it retains the right as an initial party to invoke the provision to snap back sanctions. Russia, China, Britain, France and virtually all other council members say the Trump administration does not have the right since it is no longer a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

The US action sets the stage for a showdown that could lead to a crisis of credibility for the Security Council.

In a letter presented to Indonesias ambassador to the UN, Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the council, Pompeo said the US was notifying the body of significant non-performance by Iran related to the nuclear deal. As a result, Pompeo said the process leading to the re-imposition of UN sanctions had been initiated.

The UNs nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has reported some Iranian violations of the agreement, but Tehran says those are the result of the US violating the accord by withdrawing from it and then re-imposing harsh unilateral sanctions.

Pompeo noted that the European participants in the deal had attempted to bring Iran back into compliance. But he said despite extensive efforts and exhaustive diplomacy on the part of those member states, Irans significant non-performance persists.

As a result, the United States is left with no choice but to notify the council that Iran is in significant non-performance of its JCPOA commitments, Pompeo wrote.

Pompeos letter was accompanied by a six-page explanation of why the US believes it retains the right to invoke snapback.

The US insistence that it can authorize snapback has already been rejected by virtually all other members of the 15-nation council. Germany, a participant in the Iran deal, is currently serving a two-year term on the council, and is also opposed.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom note that the US ceased to be a participant to the JCPOA following their withdrawal from the deal on May 8, 2018, the group said in a statement released after Pompeo presented the letter. We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA.

Pompeo lashed out at the Europeans, accusing them of privately agreeing with the US concerns but lacking the courage to say so publicly. Instead they chose to side with ayatollahs, he said. Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of Syria and indeed their own citizens as well.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, meanwhile, told UN chief Antonio Guterres in a Thursday phone call that the Security Council must resist the US demand.

This would have dangerous consequences for international law, it will bring nothing but the destruction of international mechanisms and it will discredit the Security Council, Zarif said.

Under the terms of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal, Thursdays notification starts a 30-day clock after which pre-2015 UN sanctions on Iran that were eased will be re-imposed unless a resolution specifically extending their suspension is passed. The US, however, would use its veto power to block any resolution extending the sanctions relief.

Pompeo said a Security Council resolution will be introduced as required under snapback, but he wouldnt say which country would initiate it.

Because of the legal debate over US standing, it is possible that the snapback demand will simply be ignored by the other members, which could call into question the Security Councils relevance and ability to enforce its own legally binding decisions.

Security Council president Djani is holding one-on-one consultations with members on the legality of the US action, council diplomats said, and the vast majority of members are virtually certain to agree that the US not legally entitled to invoke snapback  meaning snapback has not been triggered and the US action will have no effect.

In these circumstances, the Security Council president would not be obliged to introduce a resolution to extend sanctions relief, which would face a US veto, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations have been private.

Russia asked for an open council meeting Friday to discuss implementation of the resolution endorsing the nuclear deal. But deputy ambassador Polyansky tweeted Thursday evening, After groundlessly claiming that they triggered #snapback our US colleagues objected to holding a SC meeting to discuss whats happening around implementation of Resolution 2231.

Trump and Pompeo had made no secret of their intention to pursue snapback, particularly after the administrations embarrassing defeat last week at the Security Council on extending the arms embargo on Iran that expires in October. The US won just one other yes vote, with China and Russia opposed and the 11 other members abstaining.

The Europeans are hoping to preserve the nuclear deal in the event Trump loses his bid for a second term in Novembers presidential election. Democratic Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.

The Europeans fear that the re-imposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons. The Trump administration says it withdrew precisely because the deal eased sanctions, opening major revenue streams for Iran while gradually easing restrictions on its nuclear activities that money could pay for.

___

Lee reported from Washington. Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2020 / The law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP reminds investors of the upcoming deadline to move for appointment as lead plaintiff in the class action litigation on behalf of investors who purchased the common stock of FirstEnergy Corp. ("FirstEnergy" or the "Company") (NYSE:FE) between February 21, 2017 and July 21, 2020, inclusive (the "Class Period").

If you purchased the common stock of FirstEnergy during the Class Period, you may move the Court for appointment as lead plaintiff by no later than September 28, 2020. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Your share of any recovery in the actions will not be affected by your decision of whether to seek appointment as lead plaintiff. You may retain Lieff Cabraser, or other attorneys, as your counsel in the action.

FirstEnergy investors who wish to learn more about the litigation and how to seek appointment as lead plaintiff should click here or contact Sharon M. Lee of Lieff Cabraser toll-free at 1-800-541-7358.

Background on the FirstEnergy Securities Class Litigation

FirstEnergy, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, is an electric utility company. The action alleges that, during the Class Period, defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding FirstEnergy's internal controls, business practices and prospects. In particular, defendants boasted of FirstEnergy's legislative "solutions" to difficulties with its nuclear facilities, but failed to disclose that those "solutions" revolved around an illicit campaign to influence state lawmakers to support legislation favoring the Company. For nearly three years, FirstEnergy and its affiliates channeled more than $60 million to state politicians and lobbyists, including Ohio Speaker Larry Householder, to ensure the passage of Ohio House Bill 6 ("HB 6"), which provided a $1.3 billion ratepayer-funded bailout of FirstEnergy's failing nuclear facilities. Defendants also falsely stated that they were in compliance with state and federal laws and regulations throughout the Class Period, when in reality they were exposing the Company and its investors to undisclosed risks of legal, financial, and reputational damage.

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On July 21, 2020, federal agents announced the arrest of Speaker Householder and four other persons, including a lobbyist for FirstEnergy, in connection with a $60 million racketeering and bribery scheme. The criminal complaint and affidavit described an alleged pay-to-play scheme in which FirstEnergy influenced the legislative process in order to guarantee the passage of HB 6, including by defending the bill against a citizens ballot initiative to overturn the bill. Prosecutors described the case as the "largest bribery, money-laundering scheme" in Ohio history. On this news, the price of FirstEnergy stock fell $7.01 per share, or almost 17%, from its closing price of $41.26 on July 20, 2020, to close at $34.25 on July 21, 2020, on heavy trading volume.

On July 22, 2020, Cleveland.com published an article providing additional details regarding the Company's illicit actions in connection with the scheme. On this news, the price of FirstEnergy stock dropped an additional $7.16, or 20.9% from its closing price of $34.25 per share on July 21, 2020, to close at $27.09 on July 22, 2020, on extremely heavy trading volume.

About Lieff Cabraser

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Nashville, is a nationally recognized law firm committed to advancing the rights of investors and promoting corporate responsibility.

The National Law Journal has recognized Lieff Cabraser as one of the nation's top plaintiffs' law firms for fourteen years. In compiling the list, the National Law Journal examines recent verdicts and settlements and looked for firms "representing the best qualities of the plaintiffs' bar and that demonstrated unusual dedication and creativity." Law360 has selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the Top 50 law firms nationwide for litigation, highlighting our firm's "laser focus" and noting that our firm routinely finds itself "facing off against some of the largest and strongest defense law firms in the world." Benchmark Litigation has named Lieff Cabraser one of the "Top 10 Plaintiffs' Firms in America."

For more information about Lieff Cabraser and the firm's representation of investors, please visit https://www.lieffcabraser.com/.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

Source/Contact for Media Inquiries Only

Sharon M. Lee

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP

Telephone: 1-800-541-7358

SOURCE: Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP





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https://www.accesswire.com/601203/FE-SHAREHOLDERS-September-28-2020-Filing-Deadline-in-Class-Action--Contact-Lieff-Cabraser




Appointment

21 August 2020

Quest Apartment Hotels has today announced the appointment of Annabell Javinez as General Manager of Quest Perth Ascot, set to open next month.

With more than ten years' experience working for Quest, Annabell hails from Quest South Perth Foreshore where she spent eighteen months as Property Manager. Prior to this, the hospitality professional devoted just short of nine years at Quest Townsville, where she worked her way from front office staff to property manager.
(Newser)  It was an exciting episode Thursday of Aussie Gold Hunters on Discovery, with a family find that could soon make them several hundred thousand dollars richer. Prospector Brent Shannon searches for gold in Australia with his brother-in-law Ethan West as the "Poseidon Crew," and West says he has unearthed thousands of small nuggets over the past four years or so. But they managed to recently excavate a much bigger golden chunk near Victoria's Tarnagullain fact, two chunks, in the same day, per a Discovery Channel press release cited by CNN. The two nuggets weighed 7.7 pounds together, and their value is estimated at $250,000.

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That price could jump by up to 30% if a private collector takes the nuggets off their hands. Per People, Shannon told the Aussie morning show Sunrise that, working with West's father, Paul, they used an excavator to dig up a bunch of dirt, spread it out over the ground, and then scan it with metal detectors. "We can recover more gold that way, and it's a better way to do it and a safer way to mine," he said. It took the men months to get the permit to dig in this area, and the section they were in had never been mined before. "Nobody has seen these pieces of gold for millions of years and we're the first people to lay eyes on them," Shannon said. "To have two large chunks in one day is quite amazing." (Read more gold stories.)
Three people are dead and 12 are wounded after a night of shooting mayhem across New York City, where violent crime continues to surge out of control.

Overnight Thursday into Friday morning, there were at least 11 separate shooting incidents spanning Brooklyn and the Bronx, where terrified residents have seen soaring violence in recent months.

It follows the release of surveillance footage showing a brazen broad-daylight drive-by shooting in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which left an 18-year-old man dead in an area residents describe as a 'shooting gallery.'

Thursday's first fatality came around 10pm, when a 23-year-old man was shot in the head and shoulder outside of a McDonald's in Downtown Brooklyn, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police respond to a McDonald's in Downtown Brooklyn, where a 23-year-old man was fatally shot at about 10pm on Thursday night

Police recovered a gun at the scene, which they believe was dropped by the victim.

The shooter, described as a black male in his 20s standing five-foot-ten and wearing a white bucket hat and black shirt, fled north on Flatbush Avenue, and remains at large.

The two other fatal shootings took place in the East Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx, just a few hours apart.

At around 2am, a gunman opened fire in an apparent drive-by shooting on East 179th Street, striking three victims and killing one of them.

The deceased victim, a 60-year-old man, was shot in the torso and pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. Two others, ages 36 and 54, hospitalized in stable condition.

Then just two hours later, around 4.20am, a 44-year-old man was fatally shot in the back of the head on Park Avenue in the Bronx.

As well, shortly before noon on Friday, an innocent bystander was shot and wounded in the ankle while she was sitting inside a Brooklyn nail salon.

Shortly before noon on Friday, an innocent bystander was shot and wounded in the ankle while she was sitting inside a Brooklyn nail salon (above)

The 68-year-old woman was in a nail salon on Pitkin Avenue when shots rang out

The 68-year-old woman was in a nail salon on Pitkin Avenue when shots rang out. She was taken to Brookdale University Hospital.

The suspects, described as two men wearing all black and face masks, fled the scene and are still at large.

The other non-fatal shootings across the city on Thursday night and Friday morning included:

Brooklyn, 10.49pm: Confirmed shots fired at 572 Warren Street.

Brooklyn, 12.33am: Confirmed shots fired at 2525 Linden Boulevard.

Brooklyn, 12.56am: One shot. Female victim self-transported to Brooklyn Hospital Medical Center and arrived with a gunshot wound.

Brooklyn, 1.15am: Two shot. A 52-year-old man was shot in the arm, and a 23-year-old woman was shot in the shoulder outside 397 East 49th street in East Flatbush. Suspects fled in SUV.

Bronx, 1.55am: Two shot. A 28-year-old man was shot in the chest and arm, and a 22-year-old woman was shot in the knee and back outside 1210 Gilbert Place. Police say the victims were uncooperative.

Bronx, 2.28am: Confirmed shots fired at 1210 Gilbert Place.

Brooklyn, 3.15am: One shot. A 27-year-old man was shot in front of 177 Sands Street. He was taken to Methodist Hospital in critical condition.

Brooklyn, 3.30am: One shot. A 36-year-old man was shot in the right thigh outside 402 Nostrand Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant. He was hospitalized in stable condition and police describe him as highly uncooperative.

It follows the NYPD release of shocking footage from a shooting on Wednesday in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, that left an 18-year-old man dead and a 33-year-old man wounded.

Cops found a gun at the scene that may have been dropped by one of the victims.

'This neighborhood is becoming a shooting gallery. Why won't it just stop?' one resident asked AM New York.

The NYPD released this shocking footage from a shooting on Wednesday in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, that left an 18-year-old man dead and a 33-year-old man wounded

It comes as the city endures a summer of soaring violent crime. Heat waves, high unemployment, and the grinding misery of social distancing restrictions have all contributed to an atmosphere in which tempers spin out of control, and verbal disputes between strangers often turn violent.

As well, gang violence and turf wars have contributed to the shootings, police say.

Last month, shooting incidents across the city were up 177 percent compared to last year. Murders were up 59 percent for the month, burglaries rose 31 percent, and auto thefts increased 53 percent.

Facing pressure from activists, as well as a mounting budget crisis, Mayor Bill de Blasio cut $1 billion from the NYPD's $6billion annual budget.

The mayor has also boasted of the large number of inmates released from Rikers Island due to the pandemic, proudly declaring that city jails had the lowest inmate population since World War II.

In the last five years the number of shootings fell to a low of 754 in 2018, but is now rising

De Blasio (seen earlier this month) said on Monday that violent crime is 'painful' and 'horrible' and said that the NYPD is 'engaging the community more deeply' to try to stem the tide

Police unions have blamed bail reform, police budget cuts, and anti-cop sentiment for the rise in violent crime.

Last week, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the city's largest police union, took the unprecedented step of endorsing President Donald Trump's re-election campaign.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has blamed police themselves for the rising crime, saying they have done 'very little' to come up with reform plans.

He also threatened to pull funding from up to 500 departments across the state if they do not have reform plans in place by April 2021.

De Blasio said on Monday that violent crime is 'painful' and 'horrible' and said that the NYPD is 'engaging the community more deeply' to try to stem the tide.
(Newser)  Steve Bannon, who has been indicted on charges of scamming donors to a "We Build the Wall" campaign, blames his political foes for his arrest. "This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall," President Trump's former chief strategist said after leaving Manhattan federal court Thursday, per the the New York Post. The 66-year-old was freed on $5 million bond after pleading not guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges. Prosecutors say hundreds of thousands of dollars people donated to a campaign to build a border wall ended up in Bannon's pockets. More:

He was arrested on Chinese billionaire's yacht. Bannon was arrested by federal agents at 7:15am Thursday on a yacht owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. NBC takes a look at Bannon's connections to the mysterious billionaire, "a self-styled crusader against Chinese Communist corruption who has drawn the ire of the Chinese government but has also been sued by other Chinese dissidents." Federal agents are also investigating a media company linked to both Bannon and Guo.

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The alleged scam . The New York Times looks at how Bannon and three other men, including Iraq vet and motivational speaker Brian Kolfage, allegedly used $25 million raised as a "private piggy bank." Donors were promised that all the money raised would go toward efforts to build a border wall, but prosecutors say Bannon received $1 million from the group and used hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses.

. The New York Times looks at how Bannon and three other men, including Iraq vet and motivational speaker Brian Kolfage, allegedly used $25 million raised as a "private piggy bank." Donors were promised that all the money raised would go toward efforts to build a border wall, but prosecutors say Bannon received $1 million from the group and used hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses. Bannon's "spectacular fall." Politico looks at what it calls the "spectacular fall" of one of the architects of Trump's 2016 win. He was seen as a "powerful, frightening figure" in the administration, but ended up departing the White House after just seven months.

Politico looks at what it calls the "spectacular fall" of one of the architects of Trump's 2016 win. He was seen as a "powerful, frightening figure" in the administration, but ended up departing the White House after just seven months. Manhattan prosecutor's office demonstrates its independence . Analysts say the arrest of Bannon shows that the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office has retained its independence from Washington, DC, despite the recent abrupt firing of Geoffrey S. Berman, the US. attorney for the Southern District of New York. "It shows that the Trump administration cannot fully protect the presidents former associates from federal criminal prosecution simply by firing US attorneys like Geoffrey Berman who honor their responsibility to seek impartial justice," Bruce Green, a former prosecutor in the office, tells the AP.

. Analysts say the arrest of Bannon shows that the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office has retained its independence from Washington, DC, despite the recent abrupt firing of Geoffrey S. Berman, the US. attorney for the Southern District of New York. "It shows that the Trump administration cannot fully protect the presidents former associates from federal criminal prosecution simply by firing US attorneys like Geoffrey Berman who honor their responsibility to seek impartial justice," Bruce Green, a former prosecutor in the office, tells the AP. Spotlight on Postal Service agents. Bannon was arrested by the US Postal Service Inspection Service. The Washington Post takes a look at the history of the Postal Service's little-known investigative arm, which is "the countrys first and oldest federal law enforcement agency." The paper explains "the agencys mission dovetails with virtually any crime that involves the transit of mail," from drugs sent by mail to mail fraud. Vox notes it's not yet clear why the USPIS made the arrest since the charges Bannon facesconspiracy to commit money laundering and wire frauddon't have an obvious connection to the mail.

(Read more Steve Bannon stories.)
After District Attorney Kim Ogg charged a former Houston Police narcotics supervisor with tampering and theft, his lawyer set about preparing the defense.

A grand jury looming, Ed McClees asked for key documents DAs investigators had used as the basis for charges against former Sgt. Thomas Wood -- a routine procedure at the beginning of the case.

Prosecutors blocked his requests, he said, along with those of lawyers representing three other former officers charged during a lengthy corruption investigation into the Houston police departments narcotics division.

They are actively withholding material, he said. I dont know why.

On Friday a judge told prosecutors to hand the materials over.

McClees and his fellow lawyers argued that prosecutors arent following internal policies and longstanding practice over how they disseminate information to defense attorneys in the early stage of criminal prosecutions - and potentially violating the Michael Morton Act, a state law meant to ensure defendants have access to information used to prosecute them.

The conflict comes amid significant tension surrounding prosecutors investigation into the Houston Police Departments Narcotics Division. The case has pitted local police against Harris County prosecutors and carries potential implications for two of the regions most prominent local law enforcement executives, both self-styled progressives devoted to transparency and criminal justice reform.

And it comes as police across the nation have come under tremendous scrutiny following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota at the hands of a local police officer.

The police officers lawyers asked Visiting Judge Leslie Brock Yates to order prosecutors to produce internal reports, mapping and confidential informant forms they used to build their case against Wood, former police officer Hodgie Armstrong, former Sgt. Clemente Reyna, and former Lt. Robert Gonzales.

We're flying blind, said Lisa Andrews, Reynas attorney. We have no idea of the scope of their investigation.

Assistant District Attorney Tiffany Larsen responded by arguing her office had disclosed significant amounts of material to the defense attorneys and would provide more as it became available.

But she balked at giving defense attorneys the internal report prosecutors used as the basis of the charges against the four officers.

There's no reason to believe that providing them with internal reports would assist them further with anything material to their case, Larsen said.

Yates sharply rejected that argument on Friday.

I have a big concern you want me to strictly construe the Michael Morton Act, when the obvious intent of the legislature was for to defense get everything they need to prepare their defense, Yates said, ordering prosecutors to turn over the offense report defense attorneys sought and most of the other information they were seeking.

District Attorney Kim Ogg said after the hearing that Yates ruling would not produce anything that would surprise the defendants or their attorneys, and promised that the former officer would be afforded the constitutional rights to which they are entitled.

These officers know what they have done, and so do their lawyers. They are well aware that cheating on overtime pay, lying about witnessing one anothers undercover drug buys on offense reports, and circumventing every check and balance in their narcotics enforcement protocol eventually resulted in the killing of an innocent family, Ogg said.

Defense attorneys and several former and current assistant district attorneys said they were perplexed by prosecutors efforts to withhold the information the defendants lawyers had asked for.

It makes me wonder why they want to keep these internal reports secret, said Amanda Peters, a legal professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston who teaches criminal procedure. This is one of the few professions where you can show cards to other side and still win. Why are you trying to hide this stuff?

Police complaints

The case stems from the January 2019 Harding Street drug raid in Pecan Park that left two homeowners dead. It sparked an internal police investigation and probes by the DAs office and the FBI.

Weeks later, investigators said case agent Gerald Goines lied about buying drugs at the home. Goines was charged with murder and other crimes. His partner, Steven Bryant, was charged with tampering with government documents.

On July 1, Ogg brought charges against the other officers, accusing them of lying about participating in search warrants or confidential informant payments where they werent present.

Police labor leaders have complained that Ogg was treating the accused former officers unfairly.

DA Ogg did not apply the same standards to these officers as she would any other defendant, said Houston Police Officers Union Vice President Douglas Griffith. This is evident by the ruling of this judge today.

Court records show that soon after Ogg charged the officers in July, defense attorneys took the unusual step of asking grand jury proceedings be recorded. They also asked for evidence to prepare information to present to a grand jury in the hopes jurors might decide not to indict their clients. An indictment is a formal charge, not a conviction.

McClees repeatedly requested information before a prosecutor told him you are not legally entitled to any documents pre-indictment, however, this office extends a courtesy to defense attorneys so they can prepare packets for a grand jury. In that respect, your client has been extended the same courtesy as any other defendant.

On Friday, Yates ordered prosecutors to turn over their investigative report and mapping documents within 10 days, and the CI activity sheets within 45 days.

Just before the hearing ended, Larsen informed Yates that she disagreed with the judges order to turn over their internal report and planned to appeal.

st.john.smith@chron.com
LANSING, MI  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed dual lawsuits in state and federal court against multiple companies that manufacturer, sell or distribute a type of chemical-based firefighting foam that has led to widespread environmental contamination.

In actions filed Thursday, Aug. 21 in Ingham County Circuit Court and U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, major chemical industry players like 3M, Chemours and DowDuPont are among dozens of companies named as defendants for their role in helping spread aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) made with the forever chemicals known as PFAS around Michigan.

The state aims to recover damages and costs from tackling PFAS contamination, which has been found at 138 locations and in the drinking water serving 1.9 million in Michigan.

Related: Michigan PFAS site list surges past 100

The new lawsuits follow an initial case Nessel filed in January against 17 chemical manufacturers who made PFAS, which is moving through dispositive motions before Judge George J. Quist in Kent County Circuit Court after being transferred from Washtenaw County.

The earlier case specifically excluded claims related to AFFF, which has been used for decades by the military, airports and municipal fire departments to quash hydrocarbon fires.

In the latest filings, Nessel claims companies concealed the dangers of PFAS and helped contaminate state natural resources and expose people to harm. The federal filing names 46 companies involved in making Mil-Spec, or military-grade foam. The state filing names 33 companies involved in making commercial grade foam.

As with the lawsuit already filed for PFAS contamination from non-AFFF sources, these lawsuits seek recovery of damages, remediation costs and other relief needed due to PFAS contamination from AFFF in the State of Michigan, Nessel said in a statement. Michigan taxpayers should not have to pay for this massive undertaking  those who profited from the manufacture and sale of these harmful chemicals should.

Nessels office said the full impact and costs of PFAS contamination in Michigan is still being determined.

Nessel signed contracts last fall to pursue PFAS litigation with three out-of-state firms collaborating on a three-year contingency fee deal, known as the Fields Team. It is comprised of Fields PLLC of Washington, D.C.; Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL of Cincinnati, Ohio; and DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC of Chicago.

Other states that have pursued litigation against PFAS manufacturers include Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio and Vermont.

The lawsuits occur against the backdrop of new enforceable rules requiring testing and potential filtration for PFAS in public water supplies like municipal treatment plants took hold in Michigan this month.

The state is four years into a multi-pronged effort to investigate and clean-up PFAS contamination through a PFAS Action Response Team (MPART) that was created by former Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, and reconstituted by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

In addition to groundwater investigation at contaminated sites, the MPART team within the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) is tracking the contaminants through multiple watersheds where the chemicals have chemicals have sparked high profile advisories due to contaminated fish and toxic surfactant foam.

Watershed investigations have led to regulatory crackdown at wastewater treatment plants which treat industrial effluent from companies that use PFAS. The chemicals pass through conventional sewage treatment.

The state is also studying PFAS in soil and wastewater biosolid sludge that was applied to farm fields as fertilizer.

On Thursday, EGLE announced a series of regional webinars next month to offer details on an increase in the list of PFAS contaminated sites where pollution levels in groundwater exceed new state rules.

High profile examples of PFAS pollution in Michigan include the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, the Wolverine World Wide tannery pollution in Rockford and Belmont, discovery of highly-contaminated municipal water in the city of Parchment and a multi-county fish advisory on the Huron River.

Exposure to certain PFAS chemicals is considered harmful at the low parts-per-trillion level and can, among other things, increase the risk of kidney and testicular cancer, suppress the bodys immune system response, cause pregnancy complications and low birth weight.

Below is the list of defendants named Thursday.

U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids; 46 defendants

E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY,

THE CHEMOURS COMPANY,

THE CHEMOURS COMPANY FC, LLC,

DOWDUPONT, INC.,

CORTEVA, INC.,

DUPONT DE NEMOURS, INC.,

ARCHROMA U.S., INC.,

ARKEMA, INC.,

AGC CHEMICALS AMERICAS INC.,

DAIKIN AMERICA, INC.,

SOLVAY SPECIALTY POLYMERS, USA,

CHEMGUARD, INC.,

TYCO FIRE PRODUCTS, LP,

NATIONAL FOAM, INC.,

ANGUS FIRE ARMOUR CORPORATION,

KIDDE P.L.C., INC.,

KIDDE-FENWAL, INC.,

RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION,

UTC FIRE & SECURITY AMERICAS CORPORATION, INC.,

VULCAN FIRE SYSTEMS, INC.,

HUNTINGTON LABORATORIES, INC.,

ECOLAB INC.,

MINE SAFETY APPLIANCES COMPANY, LLC,

VERDE ENVIRONMENTAL, INC., a/k/a MICRO-BLAZE, INC.,

HARTFORD CHEMICAL SALES CORPORATION,

G.V.C. CHEMICAL CORPORATION,

STEVENS COMPANY, INC.,

HAZARD CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,

FIRE-ADE, INC.,

ROCKWOOD SYSTEMS, INC., f/k/a ROCKWOOD SYSTEMS CORPORATION,

COBRA FIRE PROTECTION, INC.,

BROCO PRODUCTS, INC.,

PIONEER PRODUCTS, INC.,

DENKO, INC., a/k/a DENKO FOAM, INC.,

RUSSELL MARTIN INDUSTRIES, INC.,

DAWN CHEMICAL CORPORATION OF WISCONSIN, INC.,

AMEREX CORPORATION,

PERIMETER SOLUTIONS LP,

NOBLE INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY CORPORATION,

ROYAL CHEMICAL COMPANY,

VST CHEMICAL CORPORATION,

SUMMIT ENVIRONMENTAL CORPORATION, INC.

FIRE SERVICES PLUS, INC.,

BUCKEYE FIRE EQUIPMENT COMPANY,

3M COMPANY,

DYNEON, L.L.C.

Ingham County Circuit Court; 33 defendants

CHEMGUARD, INC.,

TYCO FIRE PRODUCTS, LP,

NATIONAL FOAM, INC.,

ANGUS FIRE ARMOUR CORPORATION,

KIDDE P.L.C., INC.,

KIDDE-FENWAL, INC.,

RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION,

UTC FIRE & SECURITY AMERICAS CORPORATION, INC.,

VULCAN FIRE SYSTEMS, INC.,

HUNTINGTON LABORATORIES, INC.,

ECOLAB INC.,

MINE SAFETY APPLIANCES COMPANY, LLC,

VERDE ENVIRONMENTAL, INC., a/k/a MICRO-BLAZE, INC.,

HARTFORD CHEMICAL SALES CORPORATION,

G.V.C. CHEMICAL CORPORATION,

STEVENS COMPANY, INC.,

HAZARD CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,

FIRE-ADE, INC.,

ROCKWOOD SYSTEMS, INC., f/k/a ROCKWOOD SYSTEMS CORPORATION,

COBRA FIRE PROTECTION, INC.,

BROCO PRODUCTS, INC.,

PIONEER PRODUCTS, INC.,

DENKO, INC., a/k/a DENKO FOAM, INC.,

RUSSELL MARTIN INDUSTRIES, Inc.

DAWN CHEMICAL CORPORATION OF WISCONSIN, INC.,

AMEREX CORPORATION,

PERIMETER SOLUTIONS LP,

NOBLE INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY CORPORATION,

ROYAL CHEMICAL COMPANY,

VST CHEMICAL CORPORATION,

SUMMIT ENVIRONMENTAL CORPORATION, INC.,

FIRE SERVICES PLUS, INC.,

BUCKEYE FIRE EQUIPMENT COMPANY.

Related stories:

Substantial drops seen in PFAS entering Michigan waterways

In quest to destroy PFAS, MSU diamond tech shows promise

Questions raised about adequacy of Rogue River PFAS testing

Michigan collects 30k gallons of toxic PFAS firefighting foam

Slotkin amendment would help arm Michigan for PFAS battle
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:55:16|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese medical expert team members pose for a group photo at a COVID-19 treatment facility in Juba, South Sudan, Aug. 21, 2020. A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government to South Sudan on Friday embarked on experience sharing with their local counterparts in a bid to strengthen the east African nation's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Gale Julius/Xinhua)

JUBA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government to South Sudan on Friday embarked on experience sharing with their local counterparts in a bid to strengthen the east African nation's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since arriving in South Sudan on Wednesday, the Chinese medical expert team shared experience with frontline health workers and members of the country's COVID-19 taskforce headed by Vice President for Service Cluster, Hussein Abdelbagi.

The team also visited South Sudan's main COVID-19 testing and treatment facilities to learn more about the country's battle against COVID-19.

"The team has learnt a lot of experience from the local health professionals and also the Chinese team gave some advice on how to improve safety of health professionals," Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan, Hua Ning told Xinhua in Juba.

The eight-member team from China's Anhui Province consists of experts in the medical fields including laboratory technology, infection, insensitive care, public health, and nursing.

During their nine-day mission, the Chinese medics will share knowledge and experience with senior South Sudanese government officials, local health experts, medical institutions and also train South Sudanese medical staff on COVID-19 response.

Hua said the medical team will engage several stakeholders in South Sudan in a bid to forge a common front in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

"The Chinese team will discuss with the South Sudanese colleagues to see how they can work together and make the preparation even better," Hua said.

South Sudan's total confirmed COVID-19 cases stood at 2,497, with 47 deaths and 1,293 recoveries as of Thursday. Enditem
CPS initially introduced a hybrid learning plan that would have provided kindergartners through sophomores with some days at school and some days at home. But CTU threatened a strike vote if the district moved ahead with the proposal. Citing the COVID threat, not pressure from the union, Lightfoot backed away from the hybrid model, even though remote learning in the spring was spotty at best. The diverse needs of the district make it difficult, if not impossible, for lower-income kids to have regular and reliable access to broadband and laptops. Still, its what the teachers union insisted.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that the schools will reopen with a mix of in-class and remote learning only if the citys infection rate remains below 3 percent. But that is misleading: The overall rate in the city has remained below 1 percent for several recent days, but the rates will vary by borough and by neighborhood, as they have throughout the pandemic. Some areas  such as the Bronx, where my school is located  were hit much harder than others, including much of Manhattan. This disparity isnt taken into account in the citys reopening plan.
Libya's warring rival governments announced in separate statements Friday that they would cease all hostilities and organise nationwide elections soon, an understanding swiftly welcomed by the United Nations.

The statements were signed by Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the UN-recognised unity government based in the capital Tripoli, and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based parliament backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

The two have been at war virtually since the formation of Sarraj's government in December 2015.

The UN's top official to Libya, Stephanie Williams, called for "all parties to rise to this historic occasion and shoulder their full responsiblities before the Libyan people."

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi welcomed the ceasefire declarations.

"I welcome statements by Libya's presidential council and the House of Representatives calling for a ceasefire and halting military operations in all Libyan territory," Sisi said in a tweet.

Sisi, whose government has been a major supporter of the eastern-based administration dominated by Haftar, said the twin announcements were an "important step" on the path to restoring stability.

Libya has been in chaos since a Western-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Haftar launched an offensive in April 2019 to seize Tripoli from the Government of National Accord (GNA).

But the move prompted intervention by Turkey and its regional ally Qatar in support of the GNA.

After 14 months of fierce fighting, Turkish-backed pro-GNA forces expelled Haftar's troops from much of western Libya and pushed them eastwards to Sirte, a gateway to Libya's rich oil fields and export terminals.

As well as Egypt, Haftar has had the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Russia, prompting repeated calls from the United Nations for outside powers to stop meddling.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, on a surprise visit to Tripoli on Monday, warned that Libya faces a "deceptive calm" since fighting stalled around Sirte.

Story continues

The central Mediterranean coastal city -- a symbolic site as the hometown of Kadhafi -- is the gateway to Libya's eastern oil fields and export terminals, and to the key Al-Jufra airbase to the south.

Western powers, fearing that a GNA attack on Sirte would raise the prospect of direct clashes between regional heavyweights Turkey and Egypt, have called for renewed peace efforts.

Egypt, which has threatened direct military intervention, has also sought to join forces with some of the neighbouring country's powerful tribes, to give it a local partner aside from the volatile strongman Haftar.

(AFP)
DOJ Crackdown Perspective

US Attorney General Barr personal reason for naming Operation LeGend after murdered Kansas City boy Attorney General William Barr has a personal connection to Operation LeGend, which he said is why he named the national effort after the little boy from Kansas City.

Kansas City Cash Offer

FBI offers $10,000 reward in case investigated as part of Operation LeGend KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering a reward for information in a Kansas City, Missouri, homicide case as part of Operation LeGend. Anyone who provides information leading to the identification and arrest of the person who killed 30-year-old Shawn Ricks could receive up to $10,000.

Urban Core Shooting Allegation

Murder Charges filed in August 1st shooting at 12th & Lawndale A 19 year old Kansas City man has been charged in the August 1st murder of Michael W. Brown in front of a residence in the 5600 block of E. 12th street. Thorne A.

Murder Charge Postscript

'Drugs and violence are hurting all of us': KC man pleads guilty to murder by: FOX 4 Newsroom Posted: / Updated: KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A 22-year-old man has pleaded guilty to a February drug-related murder of a 20-year-old man in the Northland. On August 18, Darius D. Miller, of Kansas City, Missouri, pleaded guilty to second degree murder, delivery of a controlled substance and armed criminal action in Platte County.

Police Brutality Charge Update

2 KCPD officers in assault case plead not guilty KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Two Kansas City, Missouri, police officers entered not guilty pleas this week in connection with an excessive force case. Officers Matthew Brummett and Charles Prichard appeared Monday in Jackson County Court in Kansas City. A grand jury indicted both officers July 24 on a charge of felony assault.

Kansas Creeper Consequences

Repeat sex offender from Linwood sentenced for distributing child porn KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KSNW) - A Kansas man with a prior rape conviction was sentenced Thursday to 197 months in federal prison for distributing child pornography, and ordered to pay $95,000 in restitution, the U.S. Attorney's office said. James Minter, 47, Linwood, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of receipt and distribution of child pornography.

Alternative Data Point Despite Histoic Cowtown Murder Spike

Many Americans Are Convinced Crime Is Rising In The U.S. They're Wrong. Will you get robbed this year? How would you rate your chances? Over 10 years, from 1994 to 2004, the national Survey of Economic Expectations asked respondents to do just that. People estimated their risks for a whole host of bad-news life events - robbery, burglary, job loss and losing their health insurance.

Right now we share a roundup of ongoing Summer violence, police action and local probs as a federal law enforcement crackdown continues . . .Developing . . .
Jammu: Nine family members of converted Sikh girl Jagjit Kaur from Nankana Sahib in Pakistan have written to authorities asking them to make a passport for them as they want to leave Pakistan. A letter written to DCO Nankana Sahib read, "Please be kind to us to hand over Jagjit Kaur to us" or "have our passports made so, that we can live a dignified and safe life in another country".

A court had earlier ruled that Jagjit should go with her "husband" Muhammad Hassan who said that Jagjit alias Ayesha Bibi married to him on her own accord, something that is disputed by her family.

The letter reads, "Living in a country like Pakistan has become not only difficult but impossible for us. It is a sign of fear that we cannot send our children to school." It added, "Where we cannot save our honours, how can we save ourselves?... If the tradition of conversion continues like this then I am sorry to say that the day is not far away when there is no minority in Pakistan."

Manmohan, the brother of the Sikh girl explained many officials of the Punjab government had promised to support but nothing came out.

The letter has been sent to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Bajwa, DG ISPR Babar Iftekhar and Punjab province Governor and CM.

Jagjit Kaur is the daughter of the Granthi of Nankana Sahib Gurudwara, one of the holiest Sikh places of worship since it is the birthplace of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak.
A retired Indian Air Force (IAF)



personnel has approached the State Human Rights Commission (MSHRC) against the Nagpur civic body for revealing his identity to an outfit affiliated to the RSS after he tested positive for the novel

The city resident, in his complaint filed on August 19 through his advocate Asim Sarode, sought the commission to take action against the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) authorities and the RSS-linked Lok Kalyan Samiti (LKS) for committing breach of his privacy.

The complainant has strong objection over such disclosure of data of persons who have tested positive for COVID-19. It is a direct violation of a patients right and the individuals right to privacy, the complaint said.

The man said he tested positive for COVID-19 on August 16 and was asked by the Nagpur civic body to quarantine himself at his residence.

On August 18, he claimed he got a call from one Sumadhar Gokhale, who said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), through its arm Lok Kalyan Samiti, was providing services to persons who have tested positive for COVID-19.

The caller (Gokhale) started asking the complainant details of his health and also family members, it said.

"The complainant sought to know (from Gokhale) from where he got his number to which the caller said the civic body provided them the data of positive patients," the plea in the MSHRC said.

The complainant then contacted NMC Assistant Commissioner Prakash Varade, who he claimed, said RSS members are helping the corporation with their work against the pandemic.

Not maintaining the privacy of patients, disclosing their information and personal data like their name and phone numbers to random persons is a serious issue relating to violation of fundamental rights, the complaint said.

It pointed out that the government has issued guidelines, saying the identity of COVID-19 patients should not be revealed so as to avoid their stigmatisation in the society.

The complainant never gave his consent to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation to hand over his medical information and contact details to the RSS or its Lok Kalyan Samiti, the former man said.

He sought the commission to direct the Nagpur police to carry out a probe against Gokhale, NMC Assistant Commissioners Ram Joshi and Prakash Varade.

The complainant may kindly be given compensation of Re 1 each from Sumadhar Gokhale, Ram Joshi and Prakash Varade for having committed violation of fundamental rights, the complaint said.

When contacted, Gokhale said he would not like to comment on the issue as he has not received any notice from the commission.

NMC officials were not available for comment.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A flight crew in full biohazard suits at Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. Qian Lang, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Los Angeles, remained the sole patient diagnosed with the virus here for five weeks, passing most of that time in top-secret isolation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

The family arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on the way home from a Mexican vacation that had been short-lived and unpleasant. They had been exhausted, the father was battling a nasty stomach bug, and even before they settled into their Cancun hotel, they got word of the sudden death of the wife's mother in their hometown: Wuhan, China.

The couple and their toddler son wanted to get back for the funeral and planned to be at LAX just long enough to switch planes. But as they passed through Tom Bradley International Terminal on Jan. 22, the father was overcome with a fever and body aches and approached a customs officer for help.

The family did not make their flight that Wednesday night and, indeed, would not return to China for more than a month. The father, Qian Lang, became the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Los Angeles and the fourth in the United States. He remained the sole patient diagnosed with the virus here for five weeks, passing most of that time in top-secret isolation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The 38-year-old salesman played an important role, not widely known until now, in a frantic race to understand the deadly new virus before it hit the United States in full force. Public health officials and researchers looked to him as a real-time, flesh-and-blood case study.

From Qian (pronounced Chee-an), they gleaned early insights into the protection of healthcare workers, contact tracing and treatment. He was the second virus patient in the world to take the drug remdesivir, then experimental and now a standard therapy for those seriously ill with COVID-19.

For his family, Qians illness and recovery meant a strange and frightening sojourn in California. Though his wife and preschooler son tested negative, they stayed with him at Cedars-Sinai in the closest approximation of a domestic life infection protocols allowed: adjoining isolation suites separated by glass.

"We realized that is a huge burden on that poor woman," L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer recalled. "By herself. Didnt really speak the language. And taking care of a child full time around the clock in basically a very confined space."

Story continues

Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, at podium, speaks at a news conference with Mayor Eric Garcetti, left, in Los Angeles in March. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

Ferrer and other health professionals said medical privacy laws prevented them from identifying Qian by name or divulging details of his care. But they agreed to talk generally about his case, which has been included in half a dozen prominent research studies. In one, he is called "CA1." In another, "Patient 9."

This story is based on those published scientific papers, interviews with public health officials and clinicians, ambulance records, an airport police report that named Qian and his wife, and a February interview he gave to a Chinese news blog, Deeper Wuhan, under a pseudonym.

Qian did not respond to messages left for him on a social media account. The anonymous author of the Wuhan blog article said she reached out to him on behalf of The Times, but he declined an interview request.

::

Americans weren't paying a lot of attention to COVID-19 when Qian landed at LAX. President Trump's impending impeachment hearing and the upcoming Iowa caucuses dominated the news, and around water coolers in L.A.  and there were still water coolers then  the talk was less likely about the new virus in Wuhan than "Parasite's" shot at a best picture Oscar or LeBron James' quest to overtake the still-alive Kobe Bryant on the NBAs all-time scorers list.

Inside L.A. County's public health department, however, epidemiologists and other experts were keeping watch for the first inevitable cases. They spoke regularly with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By mid-January, there was enough awareness about the virus in the medical community that doctors were phoning the county with suspected cases.

"There was a lot of flu at the time," said Dr. Sharon Balter, the county director of acute communicable disease control, recalling hundreds of calls her colleagues received. Many clearly were not COVID-19, she said, but "we anticipated that with a large amount of travel between L.A. and China there would eventually be a case, so we were definitely preparing for it."

Each suspected patient had to be treated as if infected until test results came back from the CDC lab in Atlanta, the only testing facility at the time. More than once, Balter and her colleagues were convinced they had a bona fide virus patient, only to get a negative result from Georgia.

Ambulance workers move a man on a stretcher from the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., into an ambulance. At the time, the facility was a hotbed of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)

It was the third week in January when COVID-19 was detected on American shores. On Sunday, Jan. 19, a man sought treatment at a Washington state clinic for a cough and fever. He became the first person in the U.S. diagnosed with the virus. One day later, a Chicago woman was hospitalized for pneumonia. She became the second. Orange County got the third case that Wednesday. All three had been in Wuhan shortly before falling ill. All would survive.

Qian was next. He, his wife, Liu Ying, and their son set out from Wuhan early that week for a long-planned Caribbean vacation. They were aware of the virus, but "pretty at ease overall" about it, he later told the blog. The local health commission in Wuhan was reporting only 62 cases and two deaths at the time of their Jan. 19 departure. Health officials there noted that many of the stricken had only mild symptoms, and the city's top public health doctor told a government news broadcast that "the infectivity of the new coronavirus is not strong."

Still, Qian, a physician's son steeped from a young age in safety protocols, took precautions public health officials would later cite as significant. On flights from Wuhan to Mexico City, he wore a mask, one of the few aboard to do so, and blasted the overhead air vents to increase circulation around his family.

Connecting through LAX on their way to Mexico, the couple and their child were screened by the CDC, but displayed no symptoms. Qian told the blog that his temperature was so low that a screener joked, "Are you a vampire?"

Cleaning supervisor Jose Mendoza uses an electrostatic sprayer to disinfect the cabin of a United Airlines 737 jet before passengers are allowed to board at LAX on July 9 in Los Angeles. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The family planned to spend time in Mexico City before heading on to their Caribbean destination, but they were gripped by fatigue and weakness and Qian contracted giardia, a common parasite that afflicts travelers with diarrhea. The family rarely ventured from the hotel. On the second day, Lius father phoned them to say her mother had taken ill with a fever. The next day, he reported that he had summoned an ambulance, but it was too late and she had died.

The family packed their bags and headed back through LAX. After touching down, Qian felt hot and, as he told the blog, "powerless." Going through customs "the Husband self-reported to one of their officers that he needs medical attention and may be suffering from flu since he has a bad cough and ... running nose," an airport police sergeant wrote in a report. He noted that the family was "from Wuhan, where the Coronavirus originated."

The situation in their hometown had become dire in the three days since theyd left. Authorities were reporting hundreds of new cases, and rather than downplaying the threat, officials were preparing to lock down the city of 11 million to stop the virus spread.

Told of Qians connection to Wuhan, his symptoms and the sudden death of his mother-in-law, CDC personnel at the airport suspected the virus and called for a Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance specially equipped for COVID patients. It took the family to Cedars-Sinais Marina del Rey hospital.

The crew, dressed head-to-toe in protective gear, allowed the boy and his parents to sit side by side on the stretcher, Qian told the blog, adding of the American authorities, Their response is very professional, timely and fast!

Tests sent to Atlanta confirmed Qian was positive and Liu and their son were negative, though she had the common flu. The family was transferred to Cedars' flagship on Beverly Boulevard, a celebrity favorite where Kim Kardashian gave birth and Frank Sinatra died. The blog did not name the hospital, but Qian described it as "a very famous medical institution" and photos of an isolation unit posted with the blog entry show personnel in blue-green scrubs such as those worn at Cedars.

Providing top-secret care was second nature at Cedars, and many who worked there were unaware of the presence of a COVID patient. One employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the family was installed in a special wing of the fourth-floor pediatric intensive care unit protected by a security guard. A photo on the blog shows Qian's room decorated with "Minions" cartoon characters such as the ones the employee said decorate the walls of Cedars' Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The family's electronic medical records were designated "break the glass," a classification that dissuades employees from spying on famous patients by requiring them to reenter their password and state a reason for viewing the records, the employee said. The employee requested anonymity to speak publicly about patient care.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

The Cedars team took aggressive steps to quarantine the hospital's COVID-19 patient, following protocols created for Ebola and other pathogens, said Dr. Jonathan Grein, Cedars' director of epidemiology. The measures were more extreme than in current use for COVID-19, but at the time, Grein said in an interview, the team was "kind of looking in the void and not sure what's going to happen."

And then Qian took a turn for the worse.

Grein described a nerve-racking time, with frequent conference calls arranged by the CDC to consult with the clinicians caring for the 11 other patients scattered across the United States. Of them, Qian was the most severely ill.

"The information coming out of China was increasingly concerning," Grein said. "At the time, there was no known treatment."

For days, the chief medical officer of the CDC's influenza division, Dr. Tim Uyeki, had been trying to recruit COVID-19 patients for an experimental treatment. Remdesivir was an experimental antiviral drug developed a decade earlier by Gilead Sciences and tested briefly on Ebola victims. It was not especially effective: Of 175 test candidates, 93 had died  most from Ebola, and one of them potentially from the treatment.



Qian initially experienced only run-of-the-mill flu symptoms that could be treated with pain reliever and cough medicine. But in the second week, his temperature spiked, his lungs filled with fluid and he struggled to breathe. He was placed on oxygen and monitored around the clock. One night, with his wife and child on the other side of a glass window, he typed out a will on his phone, he told the blog.

Doctors told Qian about the experimental trials with remdesivir, but he was apprehensive, according to the blog. Twice, he told doctors he didn't want to try it.

Qian's condition remained grave. As he struggled to breathe, he told the blog, he often thought of the bravery his young son had shown when the family had undergone blood tests, clenching his small fist and shouting to his father, "Dad, you have to hang in there!

The third time doctors approached him, he agreed to try remdesivir. An interpreter read him a five-page consent form over the phone, and then the drug was administered intravenously.

After a day, his fever dropped. Soon, he no longer needed the oxygen.

"The doctors were amazed," he told the blog, adding that one asked if he felt his recovery was due to the medication or his own immune system. I told him I think it was both. A calm, optimistic attitude also helped.

Qians case was included in an encouraging study of remdesivir published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month. Fifty-three patients hospitalized for the virus were given the drug in various countries. Seven died. But 68% improved.

Despite continued concern of adverse effects, it is so widely used now that hospitals from India to San Francisco report shortages.

A vial of the drug remdesivir is shown at a news conference about the start of a study in Hamburg, Germany, in April. (Ulrich Perrey / AFP / Getty Images)

While Qians recovery was thrilling for the medical team, it didnt mean he and his family could go home. Little was known about how long patients remained contagious. Grein said officials decided it was safest if he remained in isolation, and after 27 days at Cedars, he was moved to another secret medical facility.

The county kept close tabs on the airport first responders and Cedars employees who had contact with the family, looking for signs of illness. At the time, it was not yet known that asymptomatic people could spread the virus.

Dr. Howard Chiou, a CDC epidemiologist, recalled being interrupted in the middle of a weekend dinner to help on Qian's case. Chiou, who is fluent in Mandarin, worked directly with the family to develop a list of places and people for contact tracing.

"Case investigation and contact tracing is really hard, complicated work that requires building a strong relationship and trust in a very short amount of time," Chiou said. "This case was a great reminder that language and cultural skills are critical in building trust and rapport."

Public health officials reached out to their Mexican counterparts so the hotel could be made aware of the case. They also alerted passengers seated near the family on the flight from Mexico City as well as the plane crew.

In the end, no one is known to have been infected by Qian. Some healthcare workers developed respiratory symptoms, but tests came back negative.

There has been no recurrence of the COVID strain that infected Qian among thousands of samples shared by researchers around the world, said epidemiologist David Engelthaler, the head of the infectious disease arm of Arizonas Translational Genomics Research Institute. He said that absence suggests Qian did not infect others and was "a dead end" for the virus, though he cautioned that testing was limited. Most people working at Cedars then were not told a COVID patient was in their facility and were not offered testing.

I do not think there was spread, Balter said. Public health officials say they believe the precautions Qian took while traveling and his request for help kept others safe.

"He was very good about wearing his mask when around [his family] and on the plane," Balter said.

By mid-February, COVID had crept around the world and was starting to ravage South Korea and Italy, but Qian was still L.A.s only known case. Worried about the toll the isolation was taking on Qians wife and son, public health workers bought toys for the boy and worked to make sure the family had food they liked.

Ferrer said they learned from the family that for people to isolate successfully, they need personalized support from health workers.

It made a big difference. It wasnt just that they got good clinical care, she said.

Chiou, the CDC epidemiologist, agreed, saying, "It really helped us to think through the issues that people would face in isolation and quarantine, and especially travelers or people without safe places to stay."

On March 4, 42 days after Qian sought help at LAX, the county announced it had identified six more cases of COVID-19. In retrospect, public officials said, strict limitations on testing and ignorance of the virus asymptomatic spread prevented public health officials from detecting many people already infected.

We clearly had other cases, Ferrer said.

Qian was still in isolation when the story of his care in the U.S. was published in the Wuhan blog. Relations between China and the United States were stressed, and worsening. Some readers were cynical about the storys favorable account of U.S. medical care.

An air traveler waits to leave for China in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on May 11. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

This person was cured by remdesivir without paying a penny, one poster wrote. I highly doubt this article.

It's unclear whether Qian or the Chinese Consulate, which was kept informed of his case, paid anything. Cedars and the consulate declined to answer questions about his case, citing patient privacy.

For his part, Qian was appreciative.

He did send a very, very grateful thank you note to the department, Ferrer said.

Times staff writer Alice Su in Beijing contributed to this report.
The outlawed Communist Party of India (CPI)-Maoist rebels assaulted and inflicted injuries to over 30 residents of Chikpal village in Chhattisgarhs Dantewada district for taking part in the 74th Independence Day celebrations on August 15, the police said on Friday.

Around 40 Maoists reached the Chikpal village under the jurisdiction of Katekalyan police station on Wednesday night to take revenge against the local residents for wearing patriotism on their sleeves on the occasion of the Independence Day.

The rebels thrashed them with sticks and butts of their guns, the police said.

The villagers were assaulted for attending the 74th Independence Day celebrations and flag-hoisting programme at Marjum village, which took place after 30 years. The Maoists had been hoisting black flags on Independence Days for all these years, said Abhishek Pallav, superintendent of police (SP), Dantewada.

He said 10 villagers, including a woman, have lodged a first information report (FIR) at Katekalyan police station, following which a case has been registered.

Many villagers were beaten. However, they are not coming forward due to fear of being targeted by the Maoists again. We are sending a team of doctors along with security forces for the treatment of the injured villagers, said the SP.

The Maoists have other reasons to be unhappy with the villagers, according to the SP.

There has been an active participation of these villagers in developmental activities that have been initiated by the district administration. The Left-wing Extremists (LWEs) are facing a gradual erosion of discipline and poor command-and-control mechanism, which have led the junior cadres to target innocent villagers for no rhyme or reason. Besides, several local youths had joined the Chhattisgarh Police last year. As a result, the Maoists are apprehensive that the new recruited police hires are leaking information about them, the SP added.

Intelligence sources said that in 2014 a Maoist meeting was held in Chikpal- Marjum, which was attended by over 10,000 villagers. Both the villages had boycotted last assembly, parliamentary and assembly by-elections.

Chikpal and Marjum were cut off from mainland in 2008, when Maoists had dug up the Katekalyan -Chikpal road at 40-50 places. This area used to be the hotbed of Katekalyan area committee of Darbha division of the Maoists, said a police official.

On July 19, 25 people were injured in a similar attack by the Maoists in Parcheli village of the Dantewada district.

Chikpal-Marjum is a key strategic conduit for the Maoists, who freely move between Odisha and southern Bastar, and they are determined to maintain a stranglehold over these villages, the police said.

Soni Sori, a tribal right activist from the Maoist-hit Bastar region, has also condemned Wednesdays incident.

The Maoists assault of innocent tribals should be condemned. The police authorities must understand that when they (villagers) were planning to celebrate the 74th Independence Day in Marjum, the invitation should have been also extended to local leaders, sarpanchs and other activists, who have consistently resisted the Maoist aggression. Local leadership that acts as a pressure group cannot be ignored for any anti-Naxal campaign to become successful, she said.

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For the first time ever, a rare golden-coloured turtle has been discovered in Nepal and it is now reportedly being hailed as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The Mithila Wildlife Trust identified the rare animal as an Indian Flapshell Turtle or Lissemys punctata andersoni and cited the reason of reptiles colour as lack of melanin that occurs due to rare genetic mutation affecting the pigmentation. As per the study published in researchgate, the condition that gave gold shell to the turtle is called chromatic leucism.

It is only the fifth time that a golden turtle of the same species has been discovered anywhere in the world. The study has also elaborated that colour aberrations are very rare because they affect the mortality of the individuals by giving away their camouflage.

The study said, Colour aberrations are quite rare in nature because the affected individuals may be disadvantaged in their environment. For instance, a normally coloured L. punctata is much better camouflaged in the murky, greenish, aqueous environment the species frequents than a gold-coloured individual.

Read - California Takes Step To Protect Leatherback Sea Turtles

Read - Mary River Turtle, An Endangered Species Sports A Cool Mohawk Hairdo

However, according to some experts, the discovery holds greater importance. Kamal Devkota, a reptile expert who documented, identified and recently published a research paper on the turtle along with Dev Narayan Mandal and Hinrich Kaiser, reportedly said that it had a deep spiritual significance. As quoted by Ladbible, Devkota said that as per Hindu mythology the upper shell of the turtle denotes the sky and lower shell denotes earth.

Rare all-yellow turtle in Odisha

Before Nepal identified its first turtle with unique colour, locals from Sujanpur village in Soro block of Balasore district, Odisha had rescued a rare yellow turtle and handed over the animal to the Forest Department officials. After studying the unique all-yellow turtle, Bhanoomitra Acharya, Wildlife Warden, said that it was a unique reptile and he had never seen a turtle like this one before. According to an Indian Forester Susanta Nanda officer who is fairly well known on Twitter, the Turtle may be an albino. He also cited an example of such a find in Singh a few years back.

"The whole shell and the body of the rescued turtle is yellow. This is a rare turtle, I have never seen one like this," Acharya said.

A rare yellow turtle was spotted & rescued in Balasore, Odisha yesterday.



Most probably it was an albino. One such aberration was recorded by locals in Sindh few years back. pic.twitter.com/ZHAN8bVccU  Susanta Nanda IFS (@susantananda3) July 20, 2020

Read - Coast Guard Helps Release Turtles In Florida Keys

Read - 2 Rescued Sea Turtles Released In Florida After Recovery
By Online Desk

India's COVID-19 caseload went past 29 lakh with a single-day spike of 69,652 infections, while the recoveries increased to 21,58,947 on Friday, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

The total cases of coronavirus infections mounted to 29,05,824, while the death toll climbed to 54,849 with 983 new fatalities being reported in a day, the data updated at 8 am showed.

Meanwhile, a spike in corona cases has prompted Punjab to reboot its measures which include extension of weekend lockdown with daily night curfew from 7 pm to 5 am in all the cities and towns of the state from Friday.
After much speculation and rumours, Megan Thee Stallion has finally broken her silence on what went down when she was shot in LA earlier this year.

The WAP rapper took to IG live to break the news, directly accusing Canadian rapper Tory Lanez of shooting her, and then accusing his PR team of lying about the incident.

"Yes, this n***a Tory shot me. You shot me, and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs, lying and sh*t," she said. "Stop lying. Why lie? I don't understand. I tried to keep the situation off the internet, but you're dragging it."

The Houston native then went on to deny rumours that she had physically assaulted Lanez in the lead up to the shooting, claiming that his team also fabricated that narrative that it had anything to do Lanez' supposed interest in Kylie Jenner.

"I never hit you. Motherf*ckers were like, 'Oh she's mad 'cause he's trying to f*ck with Kylie Jenner.' No I wasn't," she continued. "You shot me."

Meg detailed her side of the story, claiming that there were two others in the vehicle when the shooting occurred, Lanez' security guard and a friend of hers.

"I get out the car ... I don't want to argue anymore," she said. "I get out. I'm walking away. This n***a, from out the back seat of the car, starts shooting me. You shot me! I didn't get cut by no glass."

She also explained why she didn't disclose all the details of the shooting to Police at the time, citing their on going mistreatment of African American's as the reason why she was initially apprehensive to communicate.

"The police come, I'm scared. All this sh*t going on with the police? The police is shooting motherf*ckers for anything," she continued. "The police was literally killing Black people for no motherf*cking reason."

Meg then said the responding officers were very aggressive, which is why she decided not to reveal what had happened.

"You think I'm about to tell the police that wen***as, us Black peoplegot a gun in the car?" she said. "You want me to tell them we got in a gun in a car so they can shoot all of us up? N***a, I'm scared ... Why the f*ck would I tell [the police] somebody got a gun in this car and this n***a shot me? So I can get shot, you can get shot, she can get shot, he can get shot?"
A loan backed by the Corporate Center at Moorestown has since the start of the pandemic fallen into delinquency in connection with the health crisis. Read more

Long before Keystone Property Group was a big Center City commercial landlord with historic properties such as the Curtis Center, it was a scrappy suburban upstart, snapping up buildings in office parks and rehabbing them to command higher rents.

That past has come back to haunt the 29-year-old Conshohocken-based company. As companies move to relinquish office space because of the coronavirus pandemic, they are disproportionally vacating buildings at the markets lower end. Thats hastening what had been a gradual shift by office tenants toward Center City away from the suburbs, where that lower-end real estate is located.

Its too early to say whether the suburbs will continue losing out to Center City through the health crisis, with some experts saying that concerns about working and commuting in dense urban areas during the pandemic could hurt their allure.

But so far thats not reflected in new data on debt against Philadelphia-area commercial real estate held by Wall Street investors, which suggests that lenders are especially skittish over the repayment prospects of suburban office buildings, relative to ones in Center City. That spells trouble for Keystone, which still has lots of suburban properties on its books.

The vast majority  83%  of the regions investor-held debt against offices thats either delinquent or being watch-listed for potential default is located outside the city itself, according to an Inquirer analysis of data compiled by commercial loan specialists Cred IQ.

Debt against Keystones properties alone accounts for more than a third of that $504 million in distressed office debt, which is itself up 42% from March, when the pandemic began to drive down the economy, the analysis shows.

Keystone said in a statement that the watch-lists contain inaccurate reporting and mathematical inaccuracies which have since been contested and corrected. Its suburban properties are 90% occupied, and 98% of its tenants have continued paying rent through the pandemic, it said.

Theyre smart guys [and] theyre good developers, Philadelphia commercial property consultant Bill Luff of CRE Visions LLC said of Keystone. But a lot of their initial portfolio was geared toward smaller tenants in emerging, suburban assets, and those are the ones that have been most negatively impacted by the pandemic.

 READ MORE: Philly-area congresswoman seeks answers on bogus report of PPP loan to long-closed Buca di Beppo restaurant in Wynnewood

The data reveal just a portion of the regions full tally of mortgages that could be headed for trouble because they reflect only the performance of the investor-held debt, known as commercial mortgage-backed securities, for which there are public disclosure requirements.

No such requirements exist for loans that are privately held by banks or other financial institutions, which make up more than half of mortgages nationwide, according to a calculation by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a trade group.

Cred IQ, based in Radnor, reported a total of $3.4 billion in distressed debt across all property types throughout the region, which includes Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester Counties; Camden, Burlington, and Gloucester Counties in New Jersey; and New Castle County in Delaware. That was a tripling from under $1 billion in March.

The sectors seeing the most trouble are hotels, which backed $648.5 million of the regions distressed debt in July (up more than seven times from March), and retail properties, which backed $1.12 billion of the troubled debt (up more than six times).

With many white-collar employees able to keep working through the pandemic, office tenants have largely been able to meet their rent obligations  even if remote work is leaving unused much of the space the firm pays for  so fewer office loans are seeing distress.

But as the health crisis continues, office landlords are feeling some pain, as economic troubles filter more fully into the corporate world and companies cut back on space.

 READ MORE: Parkway Corp. closes on $187M to finance Center City law firm headquarters tower

And although Keystone is the single biggest holder of distressed office debt in the suburbs, its far from the only one.

In Newtown, for example, the $11.9 million owed against the 41 University Dr. office building, part of the Silver Lake Executive Campus, was watch-listed in April. Its owner, Pitcairn Properties, did not respond to a message.

Even before the coronavirus, demand for suburban office space had been weakening, as employers set up shop in cities to tap their population of tech-savvy young college graduates who are needed for increasingly knowledge-intensive industries.

Last year, central Philadelphia gained about 460,00 square feet in new office leases, an increase of nearly 260% over 2015, according to data from commercial real estate firm Colliers International. In surrounding suburban Pennsylvania counties during that time, net new leases fell by 91%, to 139,000 square feet from 1.47 million square feet.

Rents have tracked that shift: Over the three months that ended on June 30, office space was renting for an average of $34 a square foot in central Philadelphia, up almost 22% from five years earlier, far outpacing the 10% increase to $27.28 in the Pennsylvania suburbs, according to Colliers.

 READ MORE: Mall owner PREIT pares executive salaries and suspends dividend payments in deal with lenders to avoid default

Part of the reason for Center Citys higher rents is its greater proportion of new, well-appointed office buildings, according to the CoStar Group, a market tracker.

About half of Philadelphias office space has four or five stars under CoStars rating system, which is based on a buildings design, management, maintenance standards, and other criteria. In surrounding Pennsylvania suburbs, just a little more than a quarter of office space has those ratings, while in South Jersey, just 17% does.

With demand now weakening throughout the market because of the health crisis, its those less desirable buildings that are having the hardest time staying filled, said Adrian Ponsen, a Philadelphia-based analyst with CoStar.

With leasing down sharply across the entire market, distress is surfacing first among properties that struggled to attract tenant interest even before COVID-19 came into the picture: older office parks in the far outlying suburbs, he said. Not Center City.

Keystone said it does not expect that trend to continue.

Our suburban assets have performed strongly amidst the unprecedented climate of economic uncertainty, it said. As the office market continues to rebound from the initial shock of the pandemic, leasing trends increasingly support the growth of the suburbs.

 ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters.

There are few signs of trouble so far at Keystones Center City properties, which include One Washington Square, the massive three-tower complex that forms a backdrop to Independence Hall, in addition to the Curtis Center across from Washington Square Park and the former Dow Chemical building at Sixth and Market Streets.

The Dow building  still best known to many by the name of its original main occupant, Rohm & Haas Co.  is being readied for a new anchor tenant, Macquarie Investment Management, in a deal that has emblazoned the multinational finance firms logo across its roofline.

The Curtis Center, meanwhile, has attracted such new tenants as Imvax, a growing biotech company cofounded by Thomas Jefferson University researchers, for which a section of the historic building has been converted to lab space, a property type that has continued to see strong demand and is insulated from trends toward working from home.

There are bright spots for Keystone in the suburbs, as well.

In Conshohocken, the company is nearing completion of its first ground-up building, a $325 million project known as Sora West, which will be a new headquarters for AmerisourceBergen after it consolidates staff there from the Chesterbrook Corporate Center in Wayne and elsewhere in Conshohocken.

But things are looking less upbeat for Keystone in other parts of the suburbs, where even before the pandemic, at least $81.9 million in debt backed by three of its properties had been on watch-lists, according to the analysis of Cred IQ data.

They included the Corporate Center at Moorestown, which was placed on a shaky footing by the bankruptcy filing late last year of Destination Maternity Corp., a major tenant, and the One Presidential building near City Avenue and the Schuylkill Expressway in Bala Cynwyd, which is on the verge of losing investment-manager Hamilton Lane as a tenant.

Keystones troubles have intensified in the coronavirus economy, with $113.8 million more debt against an additional four properties tagged as delinquent or watch-listed since early May, according to Cred IQ.

One of its distressed loans is the $7.2 million that it owes against its 950 Haverford Rd. office building in Bryn Mawr, which was placed on watch-list after Keystone asked for forbearance on that debt due to loss of revenue from tenants being unable to work due to pandemic-related shutdowns.

The $24.7 million backed by the Corporate Center at Moorestown has since the start of the pandemic fallen into delinquency in connection with the health crisis, according to the Cred IQ records. The loan is being reviewed for transfer to a special servicer, whose job it is to recover as much money from the distressed property as possible for investors.

Still, said Keystone, We are bullish on the future prospects of this segment of our portfolio.
Alleged QAnon supporter Cecilia Fulbright, 30, has been charged with driving while intoxicated and aggravated assault for allegedly trying to ram vehicles, believing there was a pedophile with a kidnapped child inside

A Texas woman with suspected ties to the notorious QAnon conspiracy theory has been arrested after allegedly chasing at least two vehicles and repeatedly ramming one of them because she believed there was a pedophile inside who had kidnapped a girl.

Cecilia Fulbright, 30, from Waco, was booked into jail on August 12 on charges of driving while intoxicated and aggravated assault.

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Waco Tribune-Herald, the bizarre incident began unfolding at around 9.20am when the driver of a catering truck called 911 to report that a small red car had chased her vehicle carrying her young daughter, but they had managed to get away unharmed.

About 20 minutes later, a second call came in, this one from a 19-year-old college student, saying that a red car matching the description of the vehicle from the first call was chasing her.

The caller said the driver of the red car, later identified as Fulbright, rammed her Dodge Caravan multiple times before she pulled into an H-E-B parking lot on 19th Street

'Ms. Fulbright pursued [the driver] through the parking lot striking her again and an uninvolved Dodge Durango before Ms. Fulbright crashed into a cement pylon at the gas pumps,' the affidavit stated.

Several people claimed that Fulbright has recently become a fervent Trump supporter after buying into the QAnon conspiracy theory (a post on Fulbright's now-defunct Instagram accounts shows Melania Trump and is accompanied by pro-Trump hashtags)

Police officers who responded to the scene said they found Fulbright 'crying hysterically' in her car and yelling that the other driver 'was a pedophile and had kidnapped a girl for human trafficking.'

Fulbright reportedly confessed to ramming the Dodge Caravan because she believed she was saving a child from a pedophile she had been following, but her account 'did not match the timeline or any facts or evidence,' according to the affidavit.

Fulbright was described as seeming 'delusional' and drunk, and a breath test confirmed that her blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit in Texas, the document stated. The 30-year-old reportedly confessed to consuming at least one beer.

Fulbright was released from McLennan County Jail on Thursday after posting $11,000 bond.

While the arrest affidavit makes no mention of Fulbright's alleged affiliation with QAnon, the website Right Wing Watch, which is run by the left-leaning non-profit advocacy group People For The American Way, claimed to have uncovered evidence linking her to the twisted, pro-Trump conspiracy theory.

QAnon first emerged in late 2017 in the darker corners of the internet, but has been creeping out of the shadows and into mainstream politics, culminating in a congressional primary victory of a known QAnon supporter last week.

It was followed by President Donald Trump's remark openly praising the conspiracy theory's adherents as 'people who love our country.'

President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised QAnon supporters as people who 'love our country'

The baseless theory centers on an alleged anonymous, high-ranking government official known as 'Q' who shares information about an anti-Trump 'deep state' often tied to satanism, child sex trafficking and even cannibalism.

QAnon supporters believe that there is a network of wealthy and powerful people, among them Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who are kidnapping children to sexually abuse them and drink their blood.

Right Wing Watch reported that it has interviewed at least two acquaintances of Fulbright's who have confirmed her ties to QAnon.

Attorney Mark Mueller told the site that less than a week before her arrest, he had an online exchange for Fulbright in which she praised Trump for 'taking down the cabal and the pedophile ring.'

Sydney Molina, a friend and former roommate of Fulbright, claimed that the 30-year-old has a history of untreated mental health problems. She also said that she was the one who first introduced Fulbright to QAnon by sending her information about the conspiracy theory to poke fun at it.

Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who openly supports QAnon, has won a congressional primary in Georgia after being endorsed by Trump

Molina said she later found out that her friend has gotten sucked into the world of QAnon and would stay up for days reading about it.

The ex-roommate claimed that before the August 12 incident, Fulbright told her that 'aliens gave her free power,' which powered her red 1984 Pontiac Fiero.

After her release from jail, Molina said she sent Fulbright a message asking if she was still following QAnon. She reportedly responded that she was.

An FBI bulletin last May warned that conspiracy theory-driven extremists have become a domestic terrorism threat. The bulletin specifically mentioned QAnon. Earlier last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center warned that the movement is becoming increasingly popular with anti-government extremists.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Trump courted the support of those who put stock in QAnon, saying, 'I heard that these are people that love our country.' It was Trumps first public comment on the subject and continued a pattern of president appearing unwilling to resoundingly condemn extremists who support his candidacy.

Trump insisted he hadnt heard much about the movement, 'other than I understand they like me very much' and 'it is gaining in popularity.'

Trump has retweeted QAnon-promoting accounts, and shirts and hats with QAnon symbols and slogans are not uncommon at his rallies.

Pressed on QAnon theories that Trump is allegedly saving the nation from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, Trump claimed ignorance, but asked, 'Is that supposed to be a bad thing?'

'If I can help save the world from problems, Im willing to do it,' Trump said.

QAnon supporters were quick to celebrate Trumps comments on social media, with many calling them a validation of their views. Many have long contended he sends them coded messages of support, and on Twitter, one user claimed Trumps choice of a pink tie on Wednesday was another signal of support.

Within minutes, dozens of Instagram users began celebrating Trumps acknowledgement of the conspiracy theory at the White House podium, uploading videos of him.

'Well weve been waiting for this moment for a while, to put it mildly thank you @realDonaldTrump,' one Instagram user wrote to her 19,000 followers in a post of Trumps exchange. The video was viewed more than 1,000 times in just 30 minutes.

'Holy Smokin Q,' another tweeted. 'Our President was asked 2 questions about the Qanon movement TODAY!! We LOVE you President Trump.'

QAnon adherents believe there is a secret cabal of celebrities and politicians who molest children and drink their blood (file photo shows conspiracy theorist QAnon demonstrators protest during a rally to re-open California and against Stay-At-Home directives on May 1)

Trumps comments came a week after he endorsed Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won her GOP House primary runoff in Georgia last week. Greene called the QAnon conspiracy theory 'something worth listening to and paying attention to' and called Q a 'patriot.'

Facebook announced just hours before Trumps statements that it was banning some QAnon Facebook groups and accounts.

The conspiracy theory gained a larger online following in recent weeks, when prominent QAnon social media accounts pushed a bizarre and baseless conspiracy theory that online retail giant Wayfair was trafficking children through pricey storage cabinets that are for sale on its site.

Some of the social media users shared the names and photos of missing children from around the country as proof of the scheme, even though many of the children have since been recovered.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The last five years of serving up their hand-crafted cocktails has shown Long Road Distillers which of their drinks consistently rise to the top of the most popular club.

The Grand-Rapids-based distillery has selected a trio of drinks from this list to be the first releases of its new canned craft cocktail line.

Theyre rolling out these three little numbers in 12-oz cans, which are available for purchase in 4-packs:

 The Polish Falcon ~ Long Road Original Vodka, house made ginger beer and lime juice.

 Long Road GnT ~ Long Road Dry Gin and house tonic.

 Tetas Lemonade ~ Long Road Original Vodka, house lavender syrup, fresh lemon juice and rosewater.

Weve always had a dream to put some of our favorite cocktails into a ready-to-drink format, said Jon OConnor, co-owner and co-founder of Long Road Distillers. We were finally able to focus on fine-tuning recipes and acquiring the licenses and equipment necessary to can a product that lived up to our exceptionally high standards.

The canned cocktails all have a 10% ABV. And each can is equal to a little more than one regularly-poured cocktail, so you can feel free to share - or not.

Releasing them in 4-packs makes it easy to grab-and-go on your way to a picnic, to the beach, or just to take back to family or friends.

We understand that convenience is king, particularly during the summer in Michigan, said Kyle VanStrien, co-owner and co-founder of Long Road Distillers. Were excited to bring some of our favorites to market, and we look forward to expanding offerings and distribution footprint in the future.

The cans are now available for purchase from Long Roads tasting rooms in Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Boyne City.

Want to be super efficient and make the pick-up process touch-free? You can order the 4-packs in advance for takeout through Long Roads website here.

READ MORE

Michigan distiller resurrects absinthe, says Green Fairy is sweet part of its evolution
ROOTSTOWN, Ohio -- We are proud to be medical students here in Northeast Ohio, working in communities many of us call home. Since we started medical school, there has been a bevy of attempted legislative actions related to abortion. Our concern stems from one alarming piece of legislation, House Bill 413, currently pending in the House, and its companion, Senate Bill 133.

The bill would require physicians to try to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy (a nonexistent, non-evidence-based procedure) or face charges of abortion murder, punishable with life in prison.

There is no known method to safely continue an ectopic pregnancy (which is the implantation of a fertilized egg outside the uterus). Such a pregnancy itself poses significant, even fatal, risk to the patient. At this time, termination of ectopic pregnancy is the safest and only treatment.

Reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy is extremely risky, requiring surgical procedures not approved by professional surgical boards. Both removing the ectopic pregnancy and inserting it into the womb (where implantation is unlikely) would cause unwarranted harm that exceeds the benefit. This not only goes against ethical guidelines but also standard of care, making physicians susceptible to legal liability for such procedures.

Physicians, medical students, and our community need to know that the state of Ohio, without seeking to understand facts, is considering a law that goes against medical standards of care, creating serious ethical dilemmas in patient treatment.

The standard of care is based on evidence. Patient care is based on empathy  two-sided discussion and two-way trust.

Thus, as medical students, we are seriously concerned about the reproductive health of Ohio residents. We believe in patient autonomy and in fighting for our patients.

As future physicians, we seek to recommend safe treatments and discuss all reasonable options with our patients. We will allow them to make informed decisions about their care, based on their values. We do not believe we can make these decisions for patients. And if we cant, we sure do not think lawmakers can.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy often comes with a heavy emotional and physical toll. It is not the job of the law to police health care and how these private decisions are made. It is not the job of the law to imprison physicians for serving their communities and treating patients using evidence-based medicine. These would be just some of the consequences of the aforementioned laws.

So, let us not attack women and physicians working through difficult, private health-care decisions. Let us not live in a society where the law mandates that physicians lie or provide unsafe medical care.

We must empower women and trust them to make the best decisions for their health. Our training prepares physicians to work through even the most complex health-care situations with empathy and competence, without the mandate of strict laws or threat of excessive punishment. Medical science is a source of evidence and truth, while the above shows that some of our elected representatives are not.

Quality care requires shared decision-making, where patients have the chance to decide their own fate. Most of all, a patient-physician relationship does not exist without trust. Without all the above, how can we encourage patients to seek care?

And remember, Ohio is home to renowned physicians and health systems, one of the great prides of our state. We are home to leaders in medical science. Our lawmakers should follow suit, so we may provide the highest quality care for Ohioans.

Therefore, we call on elected officials and advocates to stand up and oppose the restrictive measures in HB 413. Let us take action and make our voices heard. Let us exercise our freedom to choose what is best for ourselves. Contact Gov. Mike DeWines office at (614) 644-4357 to voice your opinion.

Kajal Madan and Rachana Raghupathy are third-year medical students at Northeast Ohio Medical University. The views expressed are the authors own. They are joined in this op-ed by the following contributors: medical students Sahana Harikrishnan, Punita Peketi and Rishitha Panditi; Dr. Kara Richardson, an OB/GYN resident, and Julie Aultman, Ph.D.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions, comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
Louisianas governor has signed an executive order setting a state goal for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, drawing swift praise from environmental groups.

At least 23 other states and the District of Columbia have set greenhouse gas targets, though specifics vary, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

The real unique part about it is this is a fossil fuel-driven state, said Natalie Snider, senior director of coastal resilience for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Gov. John Bel Edwards laid out the states first goal for greenhouse gases in an order creating a climate initiatives task force to include members from state government, business, environmental justice, Indian tribes, academics and other areas.

A second order signed Wednesday creates a state resilience officer and directs all state agencies to work with that person toward protecting and restoring Louisianas vanishing coast.

The United States is among the worlds biggest carbon polluters. Louisianas ultimate and interim goals are in line with those in the Paris agreement of 2017 and those of many other states, Edwards said. He did not mention that President Donald Trump had pulled the U.S. out of the agreement.

In many ways, Louisiana is the poster child for climate change, we are the canary in the coal mine, Edwards said during a Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency meeting livestreamed from Baton Rouge.

We want to be the gold standard for climate solutions, Edwards said.

He said that must include reducing emissions: We cannot build our way out of this problem.

But Edwards said theres also tremendous development and jobs potential in renewable energy and such techniques as restoring wetlands, where green plants will take in carbon dioxide that is emitted into the air, and creating ways to capture the gas from refineries and factories and store it in underground formations rather than letting it into the air.

We are not turning our back on our traditional energy here in Louisiana, Edwards said. He noted that such companies are setting their own emission goals and that Louisiana is well positioned to move from dirtier fuels to natural gas.

At same time we have to be broader, he continued. We have to work with these energy companies  theyre not even calling themselves oil and gas companies any more  to embrace the full range of options that are viable here in Louisiana.

Lori Leblanc, interim president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, said in the state news release, Louisiana has long been a global leader in energy production, and this task force presents an opportunity to show the world that energy production and environmental stewardship go hand in hand.

David Muth, director of the National Wildlife Federations Gulf of Mexico restoration programs, said, Setting a target for greenhouse gases is really critical. Even if we can do everything possible for the next 50 years to build and sustain wetlands, if we dont get greenhouse gases under control  were going to see it all under water because sea-level rise is going to outstrip everything we can do.

He and Snider both praised the order requiring all agencies to work together on coastal resilience.

Its really forward-thinking and no other state has gotten to this level of governance on resilience, Snider said.

The risk is to the entire state  the roads, the hospitals, the schools  So it goes across every aspect, she said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Linkedin Adrian Wail Akhlas and Esther Samboh (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 08:43 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6aa62 1 Business Sri-Mulyani-Indrawati,Reform,pandemic,state-budget,omnibus-bill-on-job-creation Free

Indonesia is aiming to capitalize on the coronavirus crisis to roll out sweeping reforms in education, health care and social safety nets, says Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, calling the pandemic a short-term challenge to the countrys vision.

Sri Mulyani told The Jakarta Post in a live broadcast interview on Wednesday that proper education, health care and social safety systems were required to develop a strong future generation, and that human capital was central to development progress.

For a country to become a great country  [since] there is no great country without great people  is always [a] human-centered [task], Sri Mulyani said during the Post webinar series Jakpost Up Close: Reimagining the future of Indonesias economy.

After his reelection, President Joko Jokowi Widodo rolled out the Golden Indonesia 2045 vision, which envisions Indonesia as a developed country with Rp 270 million in annual per-capita income. Then, the pandemic hit, forcing the government to redirect funds into COVID-19 containment measures.

We will use all of our policy instruments to face this short-term challenge without losing sight of what is really important, such as human capital, infrastructure, an efficient bureaucracy and the ease of doing business, said the finance minister.

Read also: Indonesia aims for structural reforms as pandemic poses 'short-term challenge' to economy

World Bank lead economist for Indonesia Frederico Gil Sander said the country would indeed need to invest more in its social protection and healthcare systems to address future shocks. Despite years of progress in Southeast Asias largest economy, he went on to say, more investment would also be needed in health care and infrastructure.

Going forward, having a robust social protection system will help Indonesia address a lot of shocks, such as natural disasters or a future pandemic, Gil Sander said. Millions are at risk of losing jobs and falling into poverty as the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to shave growth to near zero percent, the government has estimated.

The government, he added, would need to raise tax revenue to pay for the much-needed investments, otherwise it may hurt the countrys competitiveness.

As the economy recovers, it will be important to have a roadmap of how Indonesia can raise more revenue [] to sustainably pay for these important expenditures, Gil Sander said.

Former finance minister Chatib Basri also said that the government would need to spend stimulus funds for social aid more quickly, adding that that would boost household demand, which was needed to revive the economy.

Read also: Indonesian urban consumers more optimistic than global peers: Survey

The only spending that can achieve quite a significant level of absorption is social aid, not tax incentives, he said during the same webinar, adding that the government should be more pragmatic by allocating funding in which the government could spend the money.

The government should focus on cash transfers and extend it to the middle class rather than maintaining the current tax incentives, he went on to say. If there is no economic activity and companies are running losses, they don't pay tax anyway.

The government has only spent Rp 151.25 trillion (US$10.23 billion) of its stimulus budget totaling Rp 695.2 trillion, according to data from the Finance Ministry as of Aug. 6, five months after the outbreak began in Indonesia.

President Jokowi has asked to pour out the money through the economy, but pouring it out isnt just like flushing it down the toilet. You really have to spend [the money], and somebody is going to audit you, Sri Mulyani said, referring to the role of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).

Read also: Indonesia looking at near-zero growth as govt struggles to spend budget, Sri Mulyani says

The finance minister said a lack of population data and red tape were among the main factors holding up budget fund disbursement, adding that several new ministers were finding it hard to reprioritize and cut their budget allocations amid the ongoing crisis.

The current budget priority is not to increase output but for survival, said a special advisor to the finance minister, Masyita Cristallin, during the webinar, adding that the government was planning to expand the countrys tax base and undertake structural reforms.

We are looking at different solutions, such as changing the tax rate on some regressive tax, so that tax may become progressive []. This can stimulate the economy and be good for equality, she said. The government is undertaking reforms to develop downstream industries and increase the value [of products]. This may also improve revenue collection.

Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) vice chairwoman Shinta Widjaja Kamdani said structural reforms, including those formulated in the omnibus bill on job creation, would create much-needed jobs in the country.

We cant create enough jobs at the moment, so this is why the omnibus bill plays a very important role to create jobs by driving investment into the country, she said, adding that attracting investment would need a government that could cut red tape.

For the private sector, the pandemic has shed light on the future of Indonesias economy, in which technology will play an important element, said Shinta and other representatives of the private sector in the webinar, Sequoia Capital (India) managing director Abheek Anand, Prudential Indonesia president director Jens Reisch and OVO president director Karaniya Dharmasaputra.
WASHINGTON  Even as President Donald Trump continues to make unfounded claims about the security of mail-in voting, Republican voters in at least three key battleground states are receiving flyers in the mail urging them to cast absentee ballots.

In one mailer to Arizona Republicans, the state Republican Party encourages people to vote by mail. It has a picture of Trump with a quote of his from July 30 saying, I will be an absentee voter. We have a lot of absentee voters. It works, so we are in favor of absentee. It includes a return address label for voters to send this application back directly to the county.

In North Carolina, Republican voters received a similar mailer also with a picture of the president and the words Urgent notice. It also says, Your official absentee ballot status needs your attention and includes a quote from July by the president that says Absentee Ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege.

Image: Arizona Republican absentee ballot flier (Arizona Republican Party)

A similar flyer was sent to Republican voters in Pennsylvania, and the state Republican Party has detailed, step-by-step instructions on its website outlining how to vote by mail or by absentee ballot.

Both the North Carolina and the Arizona Republican parties confirmed to NBC News that they sent out the flyers and are encouraging Republicans to vote absentee.

And they, like the president, are attempting to make a distinction between mail-in voting and absentee ballots.

North Carolina's system is substantially different than the radical all-mail election scheme implemented at the last minute, where millions of ballots are mailed out indiscriminately based on incomplete data. We, along with President Trump, oppose these hastily enacted all-mail voting schemes that ignore common-sense safeguards, North Carolina GOP press secretary Tim Wigginton said.

In North Carolina, a voter must request an absentee ballot and has the option to mail it back or drop it off at a polling place in person.

Story continues

Image: North Carolina Republican absentee ballot flier (North Carolina Republican Committee)

The issue has come into focus as the president continues to slam voting by mail and call it fraudulent at the same time that the postmaster general was implementing changes to the U.S. Postal Service and warning states that the system would not be able to accommodate their ballot deadlines if they were too close to Election Day.

After a week of building political pressure, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced this week that he would halt some of the changes to mail processing.

As more states adopt vote-by-mail ballots, there is a deep partisan divide over voters' concerns about the coming election in which, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, nearly half of the supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said they will vote by mail compared to just 20 percent of Trump supporters.

And North Carolina is experiencing a massive increase in absentee ballot requests, mostly from Democrats, a major shift from previous elections.

Nearly 296,000 people have requested absentee ballots in North Carolina so far, compared to just 26,000 at this point four years ago. The party breakdown is also dramatically different. In 2016, Republicans and Democrats requested roughly the same number of absentee ballots. Right now, Democratic voters account for more than half of all requests compared to just one-fifth of Republican voters, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections.

Voting by absentee ballot in North Carolina  which is the same thing as voting by mail  is safe, secure and reliable, Austin Cook, the communications director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said. (Trumps) disingenuous attacks are hypocritical and hollow, and as the latest absentee ballot request figures show, they arent tamping down the enthusiasm voters here have to replace him in November.

Both Arizona and North Carolina are critical states in the presidents path to victory. And both also have competitive congressional races that could help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

But Republicans are warning that the presidents effort to undercut faith in mail-in voting could also undermine himin Arizona, where he is down in polling and will likely need a jolt of support from rural counties, which have historically voted by mail at high rates.

President Trump continually calling into question mail-in voting wont help our numbers in Arizona, said Barrett Marson, a veteran GOP strategist who is behind DefendArizona, a super PAC backing Sen. Martha McSallys current Senate bid. Its of utmost importance that Republicans trust the mail-in voting system, which weve had for a generation, and that they use it.

Just over one-fifth of voters voted by mail in the 2016 election, a number that is expected to grow as more state are allowing the voting method and as a pandemic continues to threaten regular activities. Only six states in the upcoming election require an excuse to vote by mail or absentee.

In 2016, Trump won by 31 percent in Yavapai County, where 80 percent of voters, more than in any other county in Arizona, cast votes by mail.

Arizonans throughout the state predominantly vote by mail. In the August primary, 92.6 percent of voters in Maricopa County, which accounts for about 60 percent of the states electorate, voted via mail-in ballots. And during the 2018 general election, 78 percent of voters statewide used mail-in ballots.

At one time, Republicans in the state held the advantage among voters who signed up for the states permanent early voting list, which automatically spurs county officials to send a voter a ballot for every election. But in recent years, and still today, Democratic organizations have worked to register Democrats on this list.

The campaign of Democrat Mark Kelly, who is running for the U.S. Senate, has sent out more than 500,000 mail-in ballot applications but  unlike the Arizona GOP  included paid postage to make it easier for their voters to return to their respective county elections officials.
KEY FACTS 1:45 p.m.: Deal announced to manufacture N95 masks in Brockville

12:30 p.m.: Deaths among minorities higher in the U.S., study shows

8:30 a.m.: TTC passengers to get Presto credit for unused monthly fares

The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Friday. This file is no longer updating. Click here to read the latest. Web links to longer stories if available.

6:02 p.m. There are 124,282 confirmed cases in Canada, including 9,062 deaths, according to The Canadian Press.

This breaks down as follows (NOTE: The Star does its own count for Ontario; see entries elsewhere in this file.):

Quebec: 61,495 confirmed (including 5,733 deaths, 54,472 resolved)

Ontario: 41,179 confirmed (including 2,796 deaths, 37,397 resolved)

Alberta: 12,748 confirmed (including 230 deaths, 11,374 resolved)

British Columbia: 4,825 confirmed (including 200 deaths, 3,845 resolved)

Saskatchewan: 1,595 confirmed (including 22 deaths, 1,439 resolved)

Nova Scotia: 1,077 confirmed (including 64 deaths, 1,008 resolved)

Manitoba: 830 confirmed (including 12 deaths, 553 resolved)

Newfoundland and Labrador: 268 confirmed (including three deaths, 265 resolved)

New Brunswick: 188 confirmed (including two deaths, 178 resolved)

Prince Edward Island: 44 confirmed (including 40 resolved)

Yukon: 15 confirmed, all of which have been resolved

Repatriated Canadians account for 13 confirmed cases, all of which have been resolved

Northwest Territories: five confirmed, all of which have been resolved

Nunavut reports no confirmed cases.

5 p.m. Ontario is once again averaging more than 100 new COVID-19 cases a day, according to the Stars latest count.

Ontarios regional health units are reporting a total of 43,268 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, including 2,833 deaths, up another 144 cases in 24 hours.

Its the most the units have reported this month.

The seven-day average for daily case reports had been consistently below triple-digits since the province saw a brief spike in late July.

But it has risen every day this week.

With Fridays total, the average has jumped to 102 cases per day over the last week. The provinces seven-day average was last in triple-digits on Aug. 2.

Still, even with the recent increases, the rate of infection remains well below the worst of the pandemic; Ontario saw the same average reach a mid-April peak of nearly 600 cases daily.

Three health units reported the vast majority of cases on Friday: Toronto, with 41 new cases; Ottawa, with 36; and Peel Region, with 33.

The three cities have reported the three highest case totals in the province so far the month.

Four deaths was reported Friday, one each in Toronto, Ottawa, York Region and Waterloo Region.

The vast majority of the provinces COVID-19 patients have since recovered; the Province lists fewer than 1,000 active cases of the disease.

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.

3:41 p.m. Property owners and organizers can be fined $2,000 for hosting events found in violation of public health orders in British Columbia under stronger enforcement measures announced Friday, The Canadian Press reports.

The fines can be levied for hosting a gathering in excess of 50 people, failing to keep the contact information of everyone who attends an event, or inviting more than five guests into a vacation rental property, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth told a news conference, CP reports.

A party with fewer than 50 people is not necessarily legal, Farnworth added, since all other public health measures must still be followed.

Police have their discretion, but if you have 38 people crammed into a kitchen and, you know, theres no social distancing (taking) place, then clearly thats in violation of the order and the owner would be subject to a $2,000 ticket, he said.

Farnworth said problematic guests may also face $200 tickets for behaviour that could include refusing to leave when directed or disregarding COVID-19 safety plans at restaurants and other businesses.

2:13 p.m.: Property owners and organizers can be fined $2,000 for hosting events in violation of public health orders in British Columbia under stronger penalties announced today.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says the fines include hosting a gathering in excess of 50 people, failing to keep the contact information of everyone who attends an event, or inviting more than five guests into a vacation rental property.

He says a party with fewer than 50 people is not necessarily legal since all other public health measures must still be followed.

He says guests may also face $200 tickets for their behaviour including if they refuse to leave when directed or disregard COVID-19 safety plans at restaurants and other businesses.

The province is enlisting liquor, cannabis and gaming inspectors, as well as conservation officers, to help issue the tickets for the duration of the pandemic.

Farnworth says the stronger enforcement actions are being taken because the behaviour of a small minority of selfish individuals across B.C. is putting vulnerable people at risk.

2 p.m.: Kingston, a city that relies heavily on tourism and revenue from three post-secondary institutions  Queens University, the Royal Military College of Canada and St. Lawrence College  has been hit hard by the lockdown.

The schools provide an economic boost to the region and many of the events they host, such as homecomings, football games and convocation, bring in people from across the country.

But with most schools moving classes online in the fall semester, much of that revenue has vanished.

Queens University has typically 24,000 students on campus, but only about 6,600 are expected to attend in person in September.

1:45 p.m.: Spooked by a shortage of N95 masks early in the pandemic  and rattled by U.S. President Donald Trumps threats of cutting off vital supplies  Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are banding together.

As disclosed Thursday by the CBC and the Star, Queens Park and Ottawa are each contributing more than $23 million toward 3Ms $70-million plan to manufacture the respirator masks in Brockville.

In the face of a global pandemic, I vowed as premier that we would do everything we can to get the essential supplies we need to protect our heroic health-care and front-line workers in the province, Ford said Friday.

Read the full story from the Stars Robert Benzie.

1:30 p.m.: Newfoundland and Labrador is back down to zero active cases of COVID-19.

The Department of Health said today the two most recent cases reported this month are now considered recovered.

The cases involved two employees of the St. Johns-shot television series Hudson & Rex, who tested positive for the virus earlier in August.

Three people have died from COVID-19 in the province and 265 people have recovered.

Ten cases have been reported since the beginning of May.

News of the recoveries comes days before an order requiring mask-wearing in indoor public spaces enters into effect across the province.

1 p.m.: Ontarios New Democrats say the province should not hand back management of for-profit long-term care homes that the government took over during the COVID-19 pandemic.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath notes the first of those management contracts will expire next week, but says the province should maintain oversight of those facilities until all investigations are complete.

The province has appointed temporary management at 11 homes since the start of the pandemic as the facilities struggled to contain COVID-19 outbreaks.

A spokeswoman for the long-term care minister says companies will be able to resume management when risks to residents and staff have been mitigated.

She says that decision rests with the ministrys inspection branch, and the ministry can extend the orders  which were to last for 90 days  if inspectors believe it necessary.

12:45 p.m.: For all of the challenges in controlling the spread of the coronavirus, Europes initial strategy was relatively straightforward: nearly universal, strictly enforced lockdowns.

It eventually worked. And in the two months since most countries have opened up, improved testing and tracing have largely kept new outbreaks in check, and with basic rules on wearing masks and social distancing, life has been able to resume with some semblance of normality.

But in recent days France, Germany and Italy have experienced their highest daily case counts since the spring, and Spain finds itself in the midst of a major outbreak. Government authorities and public health officials are warning that the continent is entering a new phase in the pandemic.

There isnt the widespread chaos and general sense of crisis seen in March and April. But there are growing concerns that with the summer travel season drawing to a close, the virus could find a new foothold as people move their lives indoors and the fall flu season begins.

The increase in cases in Europe, as in many other parts of the world, is being driven by young people: The proportion of people age 15 to 24 who are infected in Europe has risen from around 4.5 per cent to 15 per cent in the last five months, according to the World Health Organization.

This time, European leaders have largely avoided imposing widespread lockdowns, and are instead relying on measures like targeted restrictions on movement in hot spots, increased mask requirements and public health education campaigns.

12:30 p.m.: As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll. And half the dead were people of colour  Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognized until now, Asian Americans.

The new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight a stark disparity: Deaths among minorities during the crisis have risen far more than they have among whites.

As of the end of July, the official death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 was about 150,000. It has since grown to over 170,000.

But public health authorities have long known that some coronavirus deaths, especially early on, were mistakenly attributed to other causes, and that the crisis may have led indirectly to the loss of many other lives by preventing or discouraging people with other serious ailments from seeking treatment.

12:10 p.m.: Quebec reported 93 new COVID-19 cases Friday, for a total of 61,495.

Public health officials reported three more deaths attributed to COVID-19. They said one death occurred in the past 24 hours while two others occurred between Aug. 14-20.

The number of hospitalizations dropped by 10 to a total of 136 on Friday. Of those, 23 people are in intensive care, two fewer than a day earlier.

Authorities said they conducted 16,164 COVID-19 tests Wednesday, the last day for which testing data is available.

11:30 a.m.: Quebecs health department says a 19-year-old has died from complications linked to COVID-19.

The case marks the first time someone under the age of 20 has died from COVID-19 in Quebec since the pandemic began.

Spokeswoman Marie-Claude Lacasse says the health department cannot release any information about the identity of the person who died, or details about the death.

The province says 3,279 people between the ages of 10 and 19 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus to date.

Among those cases, 31 people had to be hospitalized, including six who were in intensive care.

Quebec has reported 61,402 COVID-19 cases and 5,730 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

11:03 a.m.: Tennessee had 2,100 confirmed coronavirus cases in children ages 5 to 18 during the past two weeks, according to state data.

So far, 131 of Tennessees roughly 140 public schools have restarted, with 129 districts operating or planning to run on a hybrid model. Most of those are opening in person with a virtual option, according to Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn. Eighteen districts are operating fully remotely, and nine individual schools were closed due to at least one COVID-19 case, Schwinn says.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee says his administration is asking federal officials how specific Tennessee can get in disclosing cases of COVID-19 in schools. School districts currently have the choice of releasing information on cases on their own.

Tennessee has nearly 1,500 confirmed deaths from the coronavirus.

10:40 a.m.: One day after a data glitch led to fewer than average new COVID-19 cases being reported, Ontario is reporting 131 additional cases Friday and three more coronavirus deaths.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said problems have been resolved with the Integrated Public Health Information System, which revealed just 76 new cases on Thursday.

That was because there was no data from 11 of Ontarios 34 public health units: Algoma; Brant County; Chatham-Kent; Hamilton; Niagara Region, Peterborough; Simcoe Muskoka; Southwestern; Sudbury; Timiskaming; and Windsor-Essex.

Click here for the full story from the Stars Robert Benzie.

8:30 a.m.: TTC users will be able to get refunds for fares they purchased on their PRESTO cards during March and April that were unused due to the pandemic lockdown.

People will be able to redeem their credits on Friday, which will come from unused monthly fares betwee March 18 and the end of April. To do so they can continue to tap their card as usual while boarding, or scan their card at a fare vending machine.

We know many residents who were required to stay home or were working from home were not able to use the TTC monthly passes they purchased for the months of March and April, said Mayor John Tory in a news release shared by the transit agency. By providing a credit, we are ensuring that some of our most loyal transit customers are fairly reimbursed.

Due to the high number of people who are likely to seek refunds, the agency said it could take until November to process each riders request. The service cost the agency $13 million and was approved in June.

7:17 a.m.: South Korea added its most new virus cases in months on Friday, driven by a surge around the capital that appears to be spreading nationwide.

The 324 new infections was its highest single day total since early March and the eighth consecutive triple-digit daily increase.

Most of the new cases are in the densely populated Seoul region, where health workers are scrambling to track transmissions from sources including churches, restaurants, schools and workers.

But the new infections reported Friday were from practically all major cities, including Busan, Gwangju, Daejeon, Sejong and Daegu, the southeastern city that was the epicenter of a massive outbreak in late February and March.

6:40 a.m.: Lebanon on Friday began a two-week partial lockdown and nighttime curfew after coronavirus cases increased sharply following an explosion in Beirut that killed and injured thousands of people.

Confirmed cases of the virus have increased from 5,417 a day after the massive blast on Aug. 4 to nearly 11,000 on Friday, leading officials to announce the lockdown.

On Thursday, Lebanons Health Ministry tallied a record 605 confirmed new cases in the previous 24 hours, raising the total registered cases since late February to 10,952.

The pandemic has killed 113 people in the tiny country, which was successful in limiting the spread of the virus during the early months.

6:37 a.m.: Australias hard-hit Victoria state on Friday reported its lowest tally of new coronavirus cases in more than six weeks. Victorias Health Department reported 179 new infections and nine deaths in the latest 24-hour period, the lowest daily increase since July 8.

The state capital Melbourne has been under a strict lockdown for two weeks, and authorities have said daily infections will have to fall to single digits or low double digits before Melbournes lockdown is relaxed.

6:34 a.m.: A Chinese mining company in Papua New Guinea claimed to have immunized employees against COVID-19 in an apparent vaccination trial, a newspaper reported. The Australian newspaper reported Papua New Guineas health department is investigating the claim by Ramu NiCo Management.

Papua New Guinea has not approved any vaccine trials and says any vaccine imported into the country must be approved by PNGs health authorities.

The newspaper reported that a document on Ramu letterhead said 48 Chinese employees were vaccinated with SARS-COV-2 vaccine on Aug. 10 and tests on them might return false-positive results. Papua New Guinea has recorded only 361 COVID-19 cases and four deaths but infections have surged in the past month.

6:32 a.m.: Indias coronavirus caseload crosses 2.9 million with a surge of 68,898 in the past 24 hours. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 983 more deaths, taking total fatalities to 54,849.

India has been recording at least 50,000 new infections per day since mid-July. Four of Indias 28 states now account for 63 per cent of fatalities and 54.6 per cent of cases. Western Maharashtra state and three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are the worst-hit.

The Health Ministry said more than 900,000 tests are being done and the rate of tests that are positive for the virus is averaging 8 per cent, but it will be lowered through isolation, tracking and clinical management.

6:30 a.m.: Stronger actions to enforce public health measures are expected to be announced today in British Columbia as the number of active cases of COVID-19 rises.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth is scheduled to give an update about compliance and enforcement measures under the provinces ongoing state of emergency to combat the illness.

Farnworth said on Tuesday he would bring in new measures to address the behaviour of people whose actions demonstrate their indifference to the health and safety of others.

At the same time, Premier John Horgan said people in B.C. have sacrificed to keep transmission of the illness low, and unsafe parties and gatherings are eroding that hard work.

He said the provincial government is committed to getting B.C. back on track and will announce enforcement action against people who continue to put others at risk.

B.C. reported 80 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the total number of active cases to 780, including 11 people in hospital.

6:30 a.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will join Ontario Premier Doug Ford today to announce a deal aimed at ensuring Canada is never again at the mercy of unreliable foreign suppliers of personal protective equipment during a pandemic.

Under the agreement, 3M is to increase capacity at its Brockville, Ont., facility so that it can produce up to 100 million medical-grade N95 masks a year.

The federal and Ontario governments are each kicking in $23.3 million to help increase production capacity at the plant.

A provincial government official confirmed the masks are to be used to meet private sector, provincial, and North American market demand throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Ford has repeatedly said that Ontario needs to ramp up production of personal protective equipment given the experience early in the COVID-19 crisis, when Canada was scrambling in a global competition for a limited supply of masks and other equipment.

4 a.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 1 a.m. on Aug. 21, 2020:

There are 123,873 confirmed cases in Canada.

_ Quebec: 61,402 confirmed (including 5,730 deaths, 54,383 resolved)

_ Ontario: 41,048 confirmed (including 2,793 deaths, 37,291 resolved)

_ Alberta: 12,604 confirmed (including 228 deaths, 11,292 resolved)

_ British Columbia: 4,825 confirmed (including 200 deaths, 3,845 resolved)

_ Saskatchewan: 1,590 confirmed (including 22 deaths, 1,419 resolved)

_ Nova Scotia: 1,077 confirmed (including 64 deaths, 1,007 resolved)

_ Manitoba: 796 confirmed (including 12 deaths, 537 resolved)

_ Newfoundland and Labrador: 268 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 263 resolved)

_ New Brunswick: 186 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 172 resolved)

_ Prince Edward Island: 44 confirmed (including 40 resolved)

_ Yukon: 15 confirmed (including 15 resolved)

_ Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)

_ Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved)

_ Nunavut: No confirmed cases

_ Total: 123,873 (0 presumptive, 123,873 confirmed including 9,054 deaths, 110,282 resolved)

-

Click here for news from Thursday.
French Defense Minister Florence Parly suggested Friday that French and Malian military forces would continue to work together in counterterrorism operations despite this week's coup.

While firmly condemning the coup, she said the French-led Barkhane military operation "is continuing," and France is working with European and regional forces to find a solution to the crisis.

She didn't elaborate on how French and Malian troops are cooperating.

Parly was speaking in Germany after talks with her German and British counterparts.

French and U.N. soldiers patrolled the streets in Malis northern city of Gao on Friday, amid concern over the prospect of further tension. .

The U.N. has a mission of 15,600 soldiers in Mali, and France has about 5,000 troops in its Operation Barkhane.

Both forces say they are there to try to stabilize the country amid increasing attacks from Islamic extremists.
WASHINGTON  Louis DeJoy, the logistics expert and Republican mega-donor who now serves as the Postmaster General, made his debut appearance before Congress on Friday. Senate Democrats grilled DeJoy on the recent delays in mail delivery and DeJoys plans to overhaul the Postal Services operations. While most Senate Republicans came to DeJoys defense, a few also questioned him, albeit more gently, on why their constituents had seen longer wait times to receive critical mail parcels such as vital medications and Social Security checks.

The big question that hung over DeJoys testimony, though, was this: Would DeJoys plans to remedy the Postal Services financial issues imperil the 2020 election, which could see the largest use of mail-in voting in American history?

More from Rolling Stone

In his testimony, DeJoy pledged that the Postal Service would ensure all mail-in ballots were delivered on time. But when it came down to specifics, he was at times vague and evasive. And he was firm that he would not reverse certain changes already in effect such as the decommissioning of mail-processing equipment. There is no intention to do that, DeJoy said when asked about restoring mail-sorting equipment that had been taken offline. They are not needed, sir.

Since taking over as Postmaster General two months ago, DeJoy has faced intense criticism for overseeing changes that could imperil the integrity of this years election. In an effort to cut costs, he proposed eliminating overtime pay for postal workers, reducing the number of USPS drop boxes, scaling back hours at USPS retail locations, taking mail-processing equipment out of commission, and adjusting the working hours for postal workers  all changes that could lead to longer delivery times, according to postal workers and the union that represents them.

Story continues

Due to legislation passed in 2006, the decline in first-class parcels, and increased competition from FedEx and UPS, the U.S. Postal Service face serious financial problems. A 2019 analysis by the Government Accountability Office found that the agency had lost $69 billion over the past 11 fiscal years. The Postal Services total unfunded liabilities and debt were $143 billion at the end of the 2018 fiscal year, which was double the agencys annual revenue.

Yet at the same time, DeJoys move to immediately try to slash costs raised the question of whether USPS  an agency 91 percent of Americans say they view favorably  would be ready to handle a surge in mail-in ballots in this years election. Former President Barack Obama highlighted the potential changes at USPS and the reported delays in service at the late Rep. John Lewis funeral last month. 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 the run-up to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people dont get sick, Obama said.

After the outcry, DeJoy announced last week that he would hold off on any major changes to the Postal Services operations until after the 2020 election. In his testimony on Friday, he repeatedly said he supported Americans ability to vote by mail and said he and the USPS staff feel bad about the dip in our service the level. We serve 161 million people. We still deliver at 99.5% of the timeEverybodys working here feverishly to get that right.

DeJoy tried to reassure Americans that they should feel comfortable that the Postal Service will deliver on this election. He told Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) that he was very, very confident that any ballot mailed in as late as week before Election Day would be delivered in time to be counted.

But when Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) pressed DeJoy for a specific plan about how the Postal Service would fulfill its role this election season, DeJoy declined to give specifics. There are detailed processes were going through, he told Hassan, but when the senator asked for those details or that plan by Sunday night, DeJoy demurred, saying he would try to provide it to her within a weeks time.

DeJoy also professed to have no idea about a recent internal directive sent by a USPS maintenance director to not reconnect mail-processing machines that had been recently taken out of service as reported by CNN. DeJoy told Sen. Hassan that this whole process was new to me last week. DeJoy did, however, make a promise to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) that he would not make any further changes to USPSs operations before Election Day.

In recent weeks, the debate over the role and future of the Postal Service has settled into familiar partisan tracks. While Democrats have assailed DeJoy for trying to overhaul the agency so close to an election, Republicans have described the criticism of DeJoy as a conspiracy theory and a political hit piece.

At the end of Fridays hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) appeared to float a theory of his own, claiming that the calls and emails hed received from constituents about USPS seem very highly scripted and possibly part of a very well organized effort. He went on to say that Democrats are ginning these problems up involving USPS into a false narrative designed to extract a political advantage.

Theres not a shred of evidence for any of that, so Johnson is just making a wild accusation about Democrats to obscure the Trump administrations incompetence and malfeasance. But thats sort of his thing now, anyway.

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Darebin Council is urging the state government to intervene to stop a hotel in Melbourne's northern suburbs from being used to detain refugees and asylum seekers for the Australian Border Force.

The Mantra Bell City hotel in Preston is being used as a makeshift detention centre for about 60 men who have been medically evacuated from Manus Island and Nauru.

Asylum seekers detained at the Mantra Bell City hotel in Preston in June. Credit:Jason South

In a confidential meeting on Tuesday, Darebin councillors agreed to ask Planning Minister Richard Wynne to clarify the definition of "hotel accommodation" in the planning rules to exclude immigration detention.

Darebin councillors hope the move might mean Mantra would be in breach of its planning permit if it continued to house the men for the federal government, but it is not yet clear how the amendment could be implemented in practice.
On its first day, over one lakh



school students in attended neighbourhood clases in open places maintaining social distancing, a state minister said.

The state government has started neighbourhood classes for students, who do not have television sets or mobile phones, the minister said on Friday.

A total of 1.25 lakh students attended the classes on the first day on Thursday, Education minister Ratan Lal Nath said.

Under this system, a teacher will teach a maximum of five students by strictly maintaining social distancing. Every student must carry a mask and sanitise his hand before and after classes.

Students from class 3 to class 12 participated in the neighbourhood classes in the school ground or in an open space near the educational institution, the minister said.

" and various other educational institutions remained closed for the past five months (due to COVID-19 pandemic) hampering the education of the students. We have formed committees with representatives from all political parties and organisations and on the recommendations of these committees, steps are being taken to teach the students.

"We have also asked the teachers not to pressurise any student to attend the neighbourhood classes if their parents are not willing," Nath said.

After the lockdown started from March, the state government had introduced virtual classes through cable TV networks and android phones to engage the students in the process of learning.

But a survey conducted by the state Education Department showed that all students did not have access to phones and TV.

The initiative will help students who could not take the benefit of the digital initiatives being run by the School Education Department, the minister had said.

The survey conducted by his department in all the eight districts showed that 29 per cent (94,013) of the 3.22 lakh students did not have mobile phones and around 44 per cent (1.42 lakh) of the students did not have access to television, Nath said.

"Since these students can't avail our ongoing classes, we have decided to start neighbourhood classes with a 1:5 teacher student ratio, mostly in remote areas," Nath 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.)
OTTAWA  A recent ruling that Manitoba racially discriminated against a disabled Indigenous child illustrates an ongoing disparity governments pledged to rectify a decade ago, according to the provinces independent watchdog.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  A recent ruling that Manitoba racially discriminated against a disabled Indigenous child illustrates an ongoing disparity governments pledged to rectify a decade ago, according to the provinces independent watchdog.

"There continues to be inequity for children who are living on First Nations communities, with respect to accessing services for disabilities," Daphne Penrose, Manitoba advocate for children and youth, told the Free Press.

"If we have those services here, they should be able to access them, and (yet) there are so many barriers."

In a decision released Monday, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission ruled the province discriminated against a disabled Anishinaabe child and his mother on the basis of their ancestry and his disability.

"If we have those services here, they should be able to access them, and (yet) there are so many barriers."  Daphne Penrose, Manitoba advocate for children and youth

Alfred (Dewey) Pruden, who was 16 as of an early 2019 hearing, suffers from various neurological disorders. His mother, Harriet Sumner-Pruden, claimed the province has delayed or withheld care numerous times.

The family lives at Pinaymootang First Nation (240 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg), and health care on reserves generally falls under federal jurisdiction.

That arrangement furthers "systemic discrimination," adjudicator Robert Dawson ruled.

"No government or other official intended to treat the complainants differently by reason of their ancestry as Anishinaabe people. However, that was the very effect of the whole of the assorted policies, practices, and even laws that try to carve out the concurrent jurisdiction of the federal and provincial governments in respect of health," reads the ruling.

He ordered the province to pay $42,500 in damages.

A spokeswoman said the province is speaking with the federal government, Indigenous leaders and internal departments about the ruling.

The family filed its complaint in 2010, after Ottawa and Manitoba promised to avoid such jurisdictional disputes.

In 2007, Parliament enacted Jordan's Principle, pledging for Ottawa to pay health and social-service costs for First Nations children upfront, and later resolve payment disputes with provinces.

The principle is named after Jordan River Anderson, who died at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre and never made it home to Norway House Cree Nation. The five-year-old had multiple disabilities and neither Ottawa nor the province would pay for home care.

The Manitoba government signed an agreement with Ottawa in 2008, to respect Jordans Principle by offering services upfront.

This weeks ruling noted the family unsuccessfully tried to access disability services through that principle.

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Penrose said the policy has given families a path to getting help, but "I dont think its perfect by any stretch of the measure."

She said the lack of disability support falls in line with inequitable access to mental health supports, affordable food, and safe housing on remote First Nations.

The province broadened the advocates mandate in March 2018 to include children receiving support for disabilities. Penrose said her office is about to launch a survey to better understand how parents access services.

The Southern Chiefs Organization commended this weeks ruling, noting a report last year found a widening gap in life expectancy that has First Nations people living 11 years less than non-First Nations people in Manitoba.

"Regardless of jurisdiction, no government is allowed to treat First Nation peoples differently, but that is exactly what happened," the SCO wrote in a statement.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and the UK Minister for European Neighborhood and the Americas of the United Kingdom Wendy Morton discussed development of mutual cooperation and recent Armenian provocation on the border, the ministry said on August 20.

During the telephone conversation, Bayramov informed the British minister about the latest military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces in the Tovuz direction of the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border. He pointed out that this provocation clearly showed that the Armenian leadership seeks to obstruct the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In turn, Morton emphasized the significance of decreasing tensions in the region. Wendy Morton is also Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, the ministers held discussions on a number of areas of the bilateral cooperation agenda and prospects for the development of mutual cooperation.

It should be noted that at the beginning of the Armenian provocation on the border, on July 13, the House of Commons of the UK Parliament prepared a Motion that called on the UK Government to condemn the recent actions of Armenia which represent a serious hindrance to the progress of the peace process and which have violated international law as well as the ceasefire agreement signed in 1994.

The House of Commons also urge the UK Government to support the call for the OSCE Minsk Group to investigate thoroughly to prevent the current military action escalating into an all-out war, and further calls on the UK Government to urge for the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as stated in UN Security Council resolutions adopted in 1993.

On July 6, Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom discussed bilateral energy cooperation in a video conference held between co-chairs of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on economic cooperation, Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and Parliamentary Representative of the Secretary of State and Minister of Export Graham Stuart.

On May 1, the UK Minister Wendy Morton discussed the negotiations process of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict with the former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

The cross border clashes with Armenia started on July 12 after Armenian forces shelled Azerbaijan's positions in Tovuz, Azerbaijan's strategically-important district on the border. The Armenian attack killed 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including an army general, as well as a 76-year-old civilian. Armenian forces retreated after suffering losses in Azerbaijan's retaliation.

---

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

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Erdogan said he also expects "good news" from exploration activities in the eastern Mediterranean.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has found 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the biggest ever discovery in the Black Sea, and hopes to begin production by 2023.

"We have conducted this operation completely through national means," Erdogan said Friday in a much-trailed press conference at his office in Istanbul, Bloomberg wrote.

"We didn't even rely one bit on foreign sources in drilling operations," he said.

The Fatih drill ship located the gas in the so-called Tuna-1 field, he said, and exploration is continuing in other fields.

Read alsoUkraine gas stations raise gasoline, diesel prices

Tuna-1, some 150 kilometers (93.2 miles) from Turkey's coast, is close to an area where maritime borders of Bulgaria and Romania converge. It's not far from Romania's Neptun block, the largest gas find in the Black Sea in decades discovered eight years ago by Petrom and Exxon.

Erdogan said he also expects "good news" from exploration activities in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey bought three drilling ships in recent years as it dramatically expanded energy exploration in the Black Sea and contested waters of the eastern Mediterranean. It's keen to find sizable energy reserves to ease its heavy reliance on imports from Iran, Iraq and Russia, and support one of the biggest economies in the Middle East.
Trump and Netanyahu Debunk the Failed Consensus

Commentary

With one stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahunationalist, conservative world leaders much-maligned by our sclerotic global elites as bigoted warmongersdid more last week to advance durable peace in the Middle East than did generations of Washingtons failed peace process, two-stater professional classes. Peace between Israel and the oil-rich Gulf state, the United Arab Emirates, represents a profoundly impactful act of statesmanship and reifies an ascendant, transformative paradigm. In a just world (which we do not presently inhabit), the Norwegian Nobel Committee would be knocking on their doors.

In the decades following the infamous three nos (no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel) of 1967s Khartoum Resolution; the Arab worlds (third) failure to destroy the Jewish state in 1973s Yom Kippur War; and the onset of Yasser Arafats Palestinian national movement in earnest, veteran Middle East hands uniformly asserted, as if it were Scriptural truth, that there would be no broader Israeli rapprochement with the Arab world in the absence of a final settlement with the Palestinians.

Presidential administrations of both parties imbibed this canard as if it were mothers milk, and thus was born the land for peace paradigmwherein Israel, a state smaller than New Jersey, was expected to cede large swaths of land as conciliatory gestures to bribe irredentist Arabs to accept peace. The disastrous Oslo Accords of the 1990swhich Arafat publicly accepted before a credulous world but privately rejected as a betrayal of the entire founding-era purpose of the Palestinian cause (The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise of mediations, Arafat had boasted two decades prior)encapsulated this fatal Western conceit.

The blood of over 1,000 Israelis spilt during the Second Intifadato say nothing of the calamitous results of Israels 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which was quickly transformed into a Hamas-run jihadist enclave singularly interested in raining down indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli villagessolidified in the minds of Israeli Jews the utter moral bankruptcy of Western elites prevailing capitulatory land for peace consensus. Israels historically liberal Labor Party, the party of preeminent national founder David Ben-Gurion and the decades-long dominant political party following Israels founding, has become an irrelevant and impotent laughingstock.

Nonetheless, this failed consensus persisted in the minds of Washington and Brussels simpletons. It reached an apex during the famously anti-Israel Obama administration, a coterie of quixotic liberal internationalists who preferred the hubris of trying to craft a Middle East anewbest embodied by 2015s harrowing nuclear accord with the Islamic Republic of Iranover the prudence of addressing the Middle East as it actually is.

At long last, the United States has a president grounded in realitywho sees the world as it is, and not as academes and theorists would rather it be. The United States has a president who advances a hardened and realist foreign policy, grounded in a properly narrow conception of American nationalist interests, which properly rewards our allies as allies and punishes our enemies as enemies.

In the Middle East, this has translated into a famously pro-Israel, anti-Iran set of foreign policy initiatives. Trump has moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, defended Israel to the hilt at the United Nations, unveiled the most pro-Israel U.S. peace plan initiative ever, withdrew the United States from Obamas terrible nuclear deal, and punished the Islamic Republic with crippling sanctions as part of a broader maximum pressure campaign. As Israels relations, following the nuclear deal with Shiite Iran, began to clandestinely thaw with the regions Sunni Gulf states, those Sunni Arab countries saw a strong, militarily emboldened Israel that had unambiguous American support. They saw a nation unequivocally committed to opposing a nuclear Iran, which the Sunni Arab states also fear, by any means necessary. They saw an Israel, with the imprimatur of Trumps peace plan, confident that it would not be browbeaten by supercilious Western elites into yielding yet more land concessions for an illusory peace with an implacable Palestinian foe.

The Israel-UAE peace agreement is Israels first with an Arab country since the 1994 accord with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. But it is the single most transformative peace agreement of them all. Israel has not given up any land. Nor, for that matter, has Israel been weakened in any way whatsoever.

The race is now on to see who will next follow the UAE and make peace with Israel: Bahrain, Oman, and Morocco appear to be the leading contenders. This is the legacy of the Trump-Netanyahu doctrine: the latest proof of the age-old truth that peace comes when a historical foe is not weak but strong, and the evisceration of the elites consensus that claimed the contrary.

Josh Hammer, a constitutional attorney by training, is an opinion editor for Newsweek, a podcast contributor with BlazeTV, of counsel at First Liberty Institute, and a syndicated columnist.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Criminal legal aid lawyers could get a pay rise after the Government promised an extra 51 million in funding as the first legal aid free increase in 25 years.

Although industry leaders have welcomed the 'desperately needed' extra funding they have warned that the legal aid sector needs more money.

The Law Society of England and Wales said it was a 'small step in the right direction for beleaguered defence practitioners whose profession is under threat'.

They warned: a 'giant leap in investment is urgently required if criminal legal aid firms are to survive'.

Pictured: Legal professionals demonstrating against planned cuts to the legal aid budget in London in 2014

The Ministry of Justice said the money would be used to pay for the 'considerable time and effort put in behind the scenes to prepare cases'.

'This can include reviewing sometimes vast quantities of digital evidence in a case, which has significantly increased in recent years,' said the MoJ.

Up to 51 million will cover new payments for lawyers and barristers when they have to review unused material for a court case, the MoJ said.

At present lawyers are obligated to carry out this work in order to fully prepare a case for court but effectively do not get paid for their time.

Hourly rate payments will also be provided for those who are having to deal with 'exceptionally high volumes of prosecution evidence' as well as other fees for work carried out ahead of a case going to a crown court, and when a plea is entered at the first hearing.

The reforms are part of an ongoing review of the legal aid system.

An independent review into criminal legal aid will take place later this year, the MoJ added.

The president of the Law Society of England and Wales Simon Davis described the criminal defence profession's need for more investment as 'urgent'.

He also said the future of the profession is at stake if the Government do not invest more.

The profession was already 'perilously underfunded' before the coronavirus pandemic, with defence firms sinking at an 'alarming rate' and now many are 'hanging on for survival', he added.

The Ministry of Justice said the money would be used to pay for the 'considerable time and effort put in behind the scenes to prepare cases'

Amanda Pinto QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said: 'This money is desperately needed and long overdue for criminal legal aid barristers who do crucial work in the public interest and, having been badly hit by years of cuts, have suffered drastic loss of work during the pandemic.

'We are pleased that, at last, barristers are paid for work they are obliged to do to prepare cases properly for court.

'Nonetheless, the rates of pay must be revisited as part of the wider independent review, which we look forward to engaging with, to ensure the sustainability of this vital provision.

'Without further support from the Government, we fear that this great public service will disappear.'

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said: 'Every day barristers and solicitors do outstanding work to ensure defendants get a fair trial and justice is delivered.

'These new payments are the first step in our plan to make sure the criminal legal aid system is fair and proportionate for all, and we will set out further measures in due course.'
Police have released video footage of the moment more than 5million of cocaine branded with a Gucci logo was found in a hidden compartment in the back of a van.

Nabil Chaudhry, 31, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years at Sheffield Crown Court earlier today after previously pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs between July 2018 and July 2019 and possessing criminal property.

Police said he was arrested at a petrol station in Doncaster on July 20 last year after police found 45 blocks of cocaine branded with the Gucci logo.

Police have released video footage of the moment more than 5million of cocaine branded with a Gucci logo was found in a hidden compartment in the back of a van (pictured)

The 1kg packages - with a total estimated street value of 5.7million - were discovered behind purpose-built panelling screwed into the back of the vehicle.

Investigators discovered Chaudhry was involved in the supply of another 75kg of Class A drugs after 50,000 in cash had been put into his current account.

Nabil Chaudhry, 31, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years at Sheffield Crown Court today

Metropolitan Police Detective Inspector Glenn Butler said: 'The drugs being carried in this vehicle were believed to be destined for distribution on the streets of London.

'There is an undeniable link between drug supply and violence, much of which we have witnessed across the capital in recent months.

'By intercepting the delivery of millions of pounds worth of Class A drugs, I am confident we have prevented harm coming to Londoners, and those who choose to visit our city.

'I am proud of the dedication and proactivity of my teams which has resulted in this sentence today.

'The detection of this criminality should send a warning to anyone considering carrying out similar acts that we will use all powers available to us to bring you to justice.'
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.
(Natural News) On Wikipedia criticism site Wikipediocracy, a user posted a sourcing analysis for articles about recent American politicians and found the news outlets cited in the articles were often left-wing. In gauging bias, the analysis relied on two separate sites measuring media bias. One showed a clear majority of sources were left-wing, while another showed a plurality. Both showed conservative outlets were a very small minority of sources.

(Article by T.D. Adler republished from Breitbart.com)

Centrist sources were also cited far more than conservative sources, although that includes sites dedicated to cataloging candidate positions. The findings follow a 2018 analysis showing left-leaning outlets were among the most-cited news outlets on Wikipedia, with the left-wing Guardian being the third most-cited among all news outlets.

The latest analysis was published in a thread on Wikipediocracys discussion forums, where critics of Wikipedia congregate to discuss problems with the online encyclopedia. User ExoticBeast started the thread at the beginning of August describing the basic process of gathering sources using a public tool for extracting data from Wikipedia pages and then weighing any sources used more than a hundred times against a media bias rating system employed by AllSides. The analysis was further expanded using the ratings from Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC).

For the analysis, all articles included in Wikipedias category for 21st Century American Politicians had sourcing data pulled from their pages using the tool. What the analysis shows is that articles involving recent U.S. politicians tended to rely primarily on left-leaning sources, with right-leaning sources being a small minority. AllSides and MBFC describe sources neither left- nor right-leaning as centrist and least biased respectively, with the two rating systems each showing a significant share of the sources on U.S. politicians being in the center.

A new analysis examined what sources were being cited on Wikipedia articles about U.S. politicians from the current century and it showed a clear majority of them were left-leaning sources: https://t.co/r7ljwnTunN pic.twitter.com/5yBV5QG4f0  T. D. Adler (@tdadler) August 13, 2020

Data used for the analysis covered articles on U.S. politicians as of late July this year. According to the analysis, over 33,000 sources used were left-leaning based on AllSides ratings and nearly 44,000 based on MBFC ratings. Roughly 3,000 and 9,000 right-leaning sources, based on AllSides and MBFC respectively, were used. Each set of sources showed a high number of sources in the center with AllSides showing over 26,000 centrist sources and MBFC showing almost 37,000. This translates to a majority of cited sources being left-leaning based off the AllSides ratings and a clear plurality between leftist and centrist under MBFCs ratings.

Certain details about each rating site impacts the data. MBFC is more comprehensive than AllSides, but neither has rated every news site on the list. Each also includes non-partisan voter information sites such as Vote Smart and FollowTheMoney.org. If such sources, as well as government sites, are removed from the analysis, then Wikipedias sourcing bias shifts even further leftward. Some Wikipediocracy members, typically left-leaning themselves, objected to AllSides citing a funding connection to the Koch family known for backing conservative causes. AllSides states it works with donors to both progressive and conservative causes. MBFC claims to mostly be funded through advertising and memberships.

Both AllSides and MBFC provide detailed explanations of how they assess bias in sources. However, each comes to conflicting results. For example, AllSides identifies publicly-funded broadcasters PBS, NPR, and BBC, as centrist sources, while MBFC considers all of them left-leaning. Meanwhile, Chicago Tribune and Detroit News are considered centrist by AllSides, but right-leaning by MBFC. Despite these differing interpretations of bias, using either sites bias criteria shows Wikipedia relies mostly on left-leaning sources for articles on U.S. politicians.

Prior analysis published in a Wikipediocracy blog post examined sourcing for all Wikipedia articles, rather than just articles on U.S. politicians as in the latest analysis. In that 2018 analysis, The New York Times, BBC, and the Guardian, were found to be the top three news sources on the site. With a narrower focus on U.S. politicians, the data shifts with British outlets dropping in rank. However, the New York Times remains the top news source and is rated as left-leaning by AllSides and MBFC. the Washington Post and CNN are instead the second and third most-cited news sources, each also rated as left-leaning.

Some right-leaning sources perform better when data is limited to just articles on U.S. politicians. Fox News, most notably, ends up beating several news outlets in this narrower analysis than when all Wikipedia articles are considered. However, the data for the analysis was pulled mere days after a discussion concluded with Fox News being formally discouraged as a source for contentious content on political Wikipedia articles. It is likely Fox News will gradually drop from its current position as happened after the 2018 analysis when several right-leaning outlets were later banned, including Breitbart News itself.

Wikipedias heavy reliance on left-leaning news outlets, particularly on articles about U.S. politicians, aligns with criticism from the sites co-founder who declared neutrality dead on Wikipedia due to its left-wing bias. Yet the online encyclopedia is still relied on by media, academia, and Big Tech, who all copy extensively from Wikipedia and have even spread hoaxes created by the sites editors. Conservative figures such as Candace Owens and Mark Levin, outlets such as the Gateway Pundit, and the anti-corruption movement in gaming GamerGate, have all had Wikipedia smears repeated by sources deemed reliable on Wikipedia over conservative media.

Read more at: Breitbart.com and AltLeft.news.
GENEVA (Reuters) - The coronavirus crisis in Brazil appears to be leveling off, if not easing, the World Health Organization said on Friday, offering a chink of light for the world's second biggest COVID-19 hot spot.

The number of weekly infections detected have stabilized, transmissions are slowing, and intensive care units are under less pressure, Mike Ryan, WHO's top emergency expert, told a news conference in Geneva.

"In general, the trend in Brazil is stable or downwards ... and that needs to keep going," Ryan said.

"There is a clear downward trend in many parts of Brazil. The question is, is this a lull? Can this be continued?"

The latest figures show that Brazil has recorded more than 3.5 million cases of the new coronavirus and more than 112,000 deaths related to the virus. Both are the second highest totals in the world, behind only the United States.

President Jair Bolsonaro has come under heavy criticism at home and abroad for his handling of the crisis. He has dismissed the virus as nothing more than a "little flu", frequently appears in public without a mask, and when asked by one journalist about the soaring death toll, said "So what?"

Ryan urged caution, however. Brazil is a huge country and many parts of it are still seeing increases in the number of cases, while the number of daily cases is still around 50,000-60,000 and the death toll still over 1,000 on most days, he said.

There is still much to do in Brazil, he said.

But large countries like Brazil, India, and the United States getting the disease under control will go a long way to reducing the pandemic globally.

"Any success in Brazil is a success for the world," Ryan said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Anonymous allegations against a prominent investigative journalist have been circulating online for several days

The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate has urged its members to report any incidents of sexual misconduct to the authorities.

The board of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate declares its full rejection and complete condemnation of the recently exposed sexual harassment and sexual assault crimes that have taken place in Egypt, against any Egyptian or non-Egyptian girl or woman in general, and against female journalists in particular, said Diaa Rashwan, the head of the syndicate, in a statement issued on Thursday.

Anonymous allegations that a prominent investigatory journalist had sexually assaulted and harassed a number of women in the media field have been circulating online over the past week, with the journalists name  which Ahram Online is choosing not to disclose at this time  trending on Twitter.

Writing on social media, the journalist denied the allegations and threatened legal action if he is defamed.

So far, the allegations against the journalist have been anonymous testimonies published on blogs and on social media, with no complainants making official reports to the authorities as yet.

In online comments, however, some female journalists have demanded the syndicate take action and internally investigate his conduct.

In his statement, Rashwan called on the victims to report any such crimes to Egypts general prosecution, describing it as the only competent authority for prosecuting such complaints and taking the necessary legal steps.

I call on all colleagues who have knowledge or evidence or complaints related to these shameful crimes to quickly present them to the public prosecution in order not to let the preparators escape the consequences of their actions, especially after the amendment of the criminal procedures law to guarantee victims confidentiality, he said.

Rashwan promised that the syndicate would offer all legal help to members who present complaints or testimonies to the prosecution.

He also said that the syndicate would implement its legal requirements immediately and suspend the membership of anyone convicted of such crimes, as they would have violated one of the conditions of membership.

Rashwan explained that, according to Article 5 of the law regulating the syndicate, syndicate members must have a good reputation and should not have been convicted of a felony or misdemeanour related to dishonour or trust.

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Early in May, Nydia Bonefont was concerned when her dog wouldnt eat and seemed lethargic. She realized that Papi, a 9-year-old Beagle/Cavalier mix, must have hurt himself  he cried when he was touched. But she was without income to pay for vet care.

I lost my job a while ago, and then the pandemic started, she says. I went in March to see the doctor for very bad bronchitis and asthma, and he said that I have to stay home because I was high-risk.

Fortunately, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has a clinic in her Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood where she had taken Papi before. She got him some pain medication and free dog food there, and after a few days he was his old self again, running and playing with her son.

Many pet owners are finding themselves in financial straits during the pandemic. At the same time, theres a growing recognition among animal welfare organizations that to help animals, they need to help struggling pet owners.

Increasing access to health care and critical resources for pets that are living in poverty is the best way to keep pets out of the shelter, says Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the ASPCA. If we can provide those services, we can keep animals in a home where theyre bonded and loved.

Bershadker said the need is rising: We estimate that another 4.2 million pets will likely enter poverty over the next six months as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing economic fallout. Thats a 21% increase in the number of pets living in poverty, bringing that to about 24.4 million pets living in poverty.

Since it was launched in March, the ASPCAs $5 million COVID-19 Relief & Recovery Initiative has provided $2 million in grant funding, set up new pet-food distribution centers in cities including Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Asheville, North Carolina, and helped more than 268,000 dogs, cats and horses nationwide, including distributing about 1,800 tons of food.

In response to COVID, we put a lot of this work into hyperdrive, says Bershadker. We made grants to about 50 organizations across 30 states to support them as they navigate the crisis.

Another organization offering subsidized veterinary care to low-income pet owners is Mission Animal Hospital, a nonprofit in Minnesota.

Executive Director Dr. Susan Miller says the price of care is a common reason people give when surrendering their pets to shelters and rescues.

They cant afford it, so they think their only option is to surrender, she says. I believe that everyone is entitled to the relationship you can have with a pet, no matter what your finances, because I so strongly believe in what pets bring to our quality of life and our humanity.

Mission Animal Hospital opened up their subsidized price program to anyone in need due to the pandemic.

Were seeing about 200-250 more pets per month due to COVID-related issues  so that would be 10-15% more pets per month, Miller says. And that numbers only been getting larger month after month for the past four months.

Mission also has formed partnerships with organizations that distribute free pet food.

We never had that before as a resource for our clients, but now we know we really need it, Miller says. We had a thousand pounds of food delivered a few days ago and it was gone in a little over two days.

Bershadker notes that so far most shelters are not seeing an increase in surrendered pets. While theyre tracking this carefully  the potential for an eviction crisis is of particular concern  its not a surprise to him that even when people have to cut back, caring for their pets is a priority.

We see people go to extraordinary lengths to keep and care for their pets, he says. I think that speaks to the power of the human-animal bond. They are part of the family.

Bonefort agrees. I dont even use that word, give him up. I dont even want to put that phrase in my mouth, she says. Hes adorable, hes my baby, hes my companion. I love him so much.
ROME - For a fleeting period this summer, Europe nearly resembled its old borderless self, with people zipping across the continent, unburdened by restrictions or mandatory quarantines, as they vacationed along the French Riviera or on the Greek islands.

But Europe's travel free-for-all lasted just a matter of weeks.

With coronavirus cases rising after an early-summer ebb, governments across the continent are abruptly rethinking the wisdom of an open Europe, while reinstituting quarantines and other border controls.

The changes reflect a sense that travel - and the attempt to reboot the Mediterranean's tourism economy - has undercut Europe's fight to control the virus.

Vacation-popular Greece and Croatia, which largely missed Europe's first wave, have seen cases surge in some of their most visited regions and are now dealing with their largest outbreaks to date.

Meanwhile, countries that had gotten their outbreaks under control are partly blaming travel for an uptick in cases. Italy reports that 30% of its new cases come from people who were infected abroad; Germany puts its figure at nearly 40%. In a reference to the risk of returning holidaymakers, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that "the virus is coming to Austria by car."

European governments have agreed that it's OK to curtail free movement - a fundamental principle of the European Union - from places that have higher rates of transmission. But the newly imposed restrictions can be complicated to follow.

In some cases, they apply to everyone traveling - or returning - from a specific country. In other cases, they are limited to certain "high risk" areas. People traveling from Barcelona to Belgium must observe a mandatory 14-day quarantine. For those who have been in Madrid, a quarantine is merely recommended.

In Germany, negative tests can get people out of having to self-isolate upon arrival. Some other countries offer no option but to hunker down for two weeks.

Britain, which is negotiating its post-Brexit relationship with the European Union, has been steadily removing European countries from its safe list. First Spain and Luxembourg in late July. Then Belgium, France, Malta and the Netherlands. Croatia and Austria came off on Friday - a decision that forced tens of thousands vacationers to either race home or be subject to quarantine.

There was similar chaos when European leaders shut down borders to control the coronavirus in March. But by mid-June, with cases steadily declining, they agreed to remove most restrictions between themselves.

A surprisingly robust pandemic vacation season followed, even with travelers banned from the United States. That was an especially welcome relief for the Mediterranean countries that are heavily reliant on tourism. Croatia, for example, reported earlier this month that it was hosting more than 800,000 tourists, 70% of the total from a year ago.

But just as Europe's travel season is reaching its peak, officials in country after country have started worrying about a second wave. Spain, in particular, has seen case numbers spike. France and Germany are now contending with their highest infection rates since April.

"I think we are basically relapsing to the initial stages of the pandemic," when border-free travel was halted, said Stefan Lehne, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. "Countries exporting tourists are particularly worried about returnees, and finding a collective approach is impossible. Primarily, the virus is driving the member states apart."

Lehne this week was visiting his summer home in the Italian hilltop town of Orvieto. When he drove back to his native Austria, he expected to wait several hours at the border.

"There are stringent controls," he said.

Northern Europe has been attuned to the plight of hard-hit southern economies, as demonstrated in a massive E.U. recovery package approved last month that will primarily aid Italy and Spain. But when it comes to keeping the virus at bay, Lehne said, countries are watching out for themselves, and "they don't pay much attention to what [new restrictions] might mean for tourism in Greece or employment in Croatia."

Travel is far from the only factor in the virus's resurgence in Europe. In Greece, which is now experiencing its highest daily case numbers of the pandemic, a civil protection official said this week that 83% of positive cases are coming from local transmission, not incoming travelers.

But Gkikas Magiorkinis, an epidemiologist who is part of a Greek government coronavirus task force, said it is hard to "disentangle" tourism from other changes that help spread the virus. When tourists arrive, businesses open. People in vacation mode let down their guard.

"We see an increase of transmission in popular touristic destinations, but it is not dramatic," Magiorkinis said.

Throughout the summer, Greek officials have instituted random testing of incoming visitors, with the hopes of swabbing 15% to 20% of those who arrive. The government has found 615 who tested positive. Magiorkinis said several thousand others may have entered the country carrying the virus undetected.

He said Greece had opened up for tourism in a "relatively safe" manner. But this week, it tightened some restrictions on daily life on the holiday island of Mykonos and in Halkidiki, a northern resort region, due to an increase in cases linked to those areas. No more than four people can sit to a table at restaurants, and masks are mandatory both indoors and out. Earlier this month, Greece mandated that bars and restaurants in some tourist hot spots shutter at midnight.

Italy, which was shunned by the world when it became the center of the pandemic in March, at this point has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe. But travelers may now be reimporting the virus.

Officials noted that a portion of recent cases stemmed from Italian citizens or residents who went to other countries and tested positive upon return. This week, the news agency ANSA published a list of 28 Italian hot spots or clusters across the country; 11 were related to travel abroad, primarily to other countries in Europe. The country's national health institute found that 30% of people who'd recently tested positive had contracted the virus abroad.

Italy last week announced that it would require tests for people coming from four countries - Malta, Greece, Croatia and Spain. All are seeing cases on a per capita basis several times higher than Italy.

"We must continue the line of caution to defend the results achieved in recent months," Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said.

"At the moment," said Walter Ricciardi, the World Health Organization's Italian government adviser, "the freedom of people to get around Europe should be limited according to the number of cases."

- - -

The Washington Post's Michael Birnbaum, in Riga, Latvia, William Glucroft in Berlin and Elinda Labropoulou in Athens contributed to this report.
ALTON  A drug related search warrant early Thursday in Alton left one possible suspect facing charges.

According to Alton Police Department Deputy Chief Marcos Pulido, at around 8:37 a.m. detectives working with Alton Police presented the department with a drug related search warrant for a residence in the 2300 block of Johnson Street.

Members of East Alton Police Department and the Illinois State Police were also on the scene.

The suspect is currently in custody and charges will be brought against him in the coming days, Pudilo said.
A soldier converses with a resident of the Elisabeth Roock House in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on May 20, 2020. Jonas Guttler/picture alliance via Getty Images

Coronavirus cases in nursing homes increased by nearly 80% earlier this summer, a new report from the American Health Care Association said.

Nursing homes have about 8% of the national caseload and 41% of total US COVID-19 deaths.

9,715 coronavirus cases were recorded in nursing homes the week of July 26, a 77% increase from June 21.

During the week of July 26, cases in nursing homes in the Sun Belt states accounted for 78% of all cases, and 69% of deaths compared to less than a third of cases, and 28% of deaths during the week of May 31.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Coronavirus cases in nursing homes increased by almost 80% earlier this summer, suggesting the challenge to containing the virus in that setting is far from over, a new report found.

"The case numbers suggest the problem is far from solved," Tamara Konetzka, a research professor at the University of Chicago who specializes in long-term care told the Associated Press.

According to the report from the American Health Care Association, 9,715 coronavirus cases were recorded in nursing homes the week of July 26, which is a 78% increase from June 21.

Business Insider previously reported that nursing homes have about 8% of the national caseload and 41% of total US COVID-19 deaths.

The AP added that nursing homes only account for 1% of the population.

Additionally, the study found that on the week of July 26, the number of weekly deaths increased by almost 25% compared to July 5, adding up to 1,706 deaths.

The share of cases and deaths increased mostly in Sun Belt states, where coronavirus cases were surging in general.

"As the virus surges in Sun Belt states, there's no reason to think it won't affect nursing homes in the same way it did in states that surged earlier," Konetzka told the AP. "We have learned some things about how to minimize the effect in nursing homes, but providers need the tools to implement those best practices. This is the critical role of federal policy that has not been fulfilled securing supply chains for (personal protective equipment) and rapid testing."

Story continues

The week of July 26, cases in nursing homes in the Sun Belt states accounted for 78% of all cases and 69% of deaths compared to the week of May 31 when nursing homes saw less than a third of cases, and 28% of deaths.

"With the recent major spikes of COVID cases in many states across the country, we were very concerned this trend would lead to an increase in cases in nursing homes and unfortunately it has," Mark Parkinson, President and CEO of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living said in the study. "This is especially troubling since many nursing homes and other long term care facilities are still unable to acquire the personal protective equipment and testing they need to fully combat this virus."

Infections control inside nursing facilities is one of the contributors to the growing number of cases and deaths, one expert told the AP, but others said the biggest obstacle to scaling back cases in nursing homes is asymptomatic spreaders.

Mark Parkinson, head of the nursing home trade group that produced the study, told the AP that 1 out of 10 facilities reported still lacking adequate personal protective equipment as well.

Other challenges include a proper testing regime, which Business Insider previously reported would be too expensive for any facility to afford on its own.

Business Insider reported that it would cost $675 million for a single round of testing for every worker and resident in a nursing home and assisted-living facility, according to an estimate from the American Health Care Association.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A rmed police descended on a north London park after a man in his thirties was shot in broad daylight.

Emergency services were called after witnesses reported hearing gunshots near Clissold Park in Stoke Newington shortly before 7pm on Friday, police said.

A man, who is believed to be in his mid-thirties, was found suffering from a gunshot wound.

He was rushed to hospital by paramedics.

"We await an update on his condition," the Met Police said.

"A crime scene remains in place in the area and Trident detectives from the Specialist Crime Command have been informed of the incident."

Police added no arrests had been made.
Matt Marshall is a school board member in a small town in Washington state. He recently lost an election for the state legislature and has turned his attention to campaigning for the Republican candidate for governor.

All of that political activity was disrupted, he said, on Wednesday morning when Facebook shut down several of his pages, including one he used for Eatonville school board business. That is because Marshall is also the founder and former leader of the Washington Three Percenters, a militia-style organization.

"I have never received any warning about content that I posted. Never had a ban," Marshall said. "I believe this is politically motivated to harm conservatives before November's election."

Facebook said this week it took action against anarchists, militias and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents believe President Trump is battling shadowy "deep state" saboteurs who run a child sex-trafficking ring and worship Satan.

Facebook said it had removed from its online platform 980 groups, 520 pages and 160 ads linked to militia organizations and "those encouraging riots," including antifa. The company said it had also restricted more than 1,400 hashtags related to these groups and organizations on Facebook-owned Instagram.

"We have seen growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior," Facebook said in its blog post, adding that such groups "have demonstrated significant risks to public safety."

"While we will allow people to post content that supports these movements and groups, so long as they do not otherwise violate our content policies, we will restrict their ability to organize on our platform," the company added in its blog post.

Some legal experts who track militia activity praised Facebook's decision.

"I think it's a great development," said Mary McCord, a law professor at Georgetown University and legal director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. "When you are advocating violence, use of force, unauthorized, that's illegal activity you're advocating," she said. "It's not protected."

McCord's organization is co-counsel in a lawsuit brought by a New Mexico prosecutor last month against a local militia in an attempt to stop it from showing up at protests as a military unit and assuming law enforcement duties.

Marshall, a former Army medic who served in Afghanistan, said he felt wrongly targeted by Facebook.

"We've never called for violence. We've called for people standing up for their rights," Marshall said. "We've always told people: Follow the law. Listen to police. Do the right thing."

"We're not violent, never have been," he added.

The Washington Three Percenters is a state-level group with more than 400 members. It is an offshoot of the national organization named after the debunked notion that only 3% of colonists fought in the American Revolution.

Organizations that track far-right groups have described the Washington Three Percenters as an anti-government militia that promotes conspiracy theories and has elements that promote racist or white-nationalist views.

Marshall said Facebook took down his personal pages and his candidate page for his recent run for the state legislature. He said that he had begun helping the campaign of Loren Culp, a Republican candidate for governor, but that "my ability to do that was completely yanked out from myself" by Facebook's action.

Many of the people he knows whose pages were shut down by Facebook, including members of armed groups, "are not people who would support a Democratic candidate ever," he said. "They will almost certainly be voting for Trump, and they are against Biden."

"My biggest concern here is, I would love to be able to rebut this, but I have no recourse," he said, adding that "there's no link to click, no way to submit anything" in his defense.

Marshall added that some people he has been in contact with are considering legal action.

A Republican state Senate candidate in Idaho, Eric Parker, also had his campaign Facebook page shut down. Parker, the founder of the Real 3%ers of Idaho group, told the Idaho Statesman that Facebook also closed his organization's page and his and his wife's personal pages.

"Frankly, we don't consider ourselves a militia," Parker told the Statesman. "A militia runs around the woods and trains to fight some war. . . . We're the same as any other nongovernmental organization."

In Utah, a new armed group with a rapidly growing following, the Utah Citizens' Alarm, was also taken off Facebook.

The group was founded in late June by Provo resident Casey Robertson after a shooting during a protest in that city. Since then, members of the group have appeared on several occasions at Black Lives Matter events, carrying guns and wearing tactical gear. Their stated purpose has been to maintain order, but critics have described them as an intimidating presence that discourages public debate.

Since its founding, the Utah Citizens' Alarm group's Facebook page had quickly swelled to more than 15,000 followers. Robertson posted a video on YouTube this week in response to Facebook's decision, calling it a "setback."

"This will be a day that will live in infamy," he said.

Robertson said his group would continue using YouTube and Twitter. The Utah Citizen's Alarm page on YouTube had 168 subscribers as of Friday.

In his video, Robertson said his group plans to attend a rally in support of police on Saturday at a park in Salt Lake City.

"This isn't going to stop us, not even close," he said. "It's just going to make us stronger."
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a vow to be a unifying ally of the light who would move an America in crisis past the chaos of President Donald Trumps tenure.

In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Biden spoke Thursday night both of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life. Virtually every sentence of his 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast with the Republican incumbent.

"Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. l'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness," Biden said. "Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America."

For the 77-year-old Biden, the final night of the Democratic National Convention was bittersweet. He accepted a nomination that had eluded him for over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

But the coronavirus denied him the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

Afterward, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena, where supporters waited in a parking lot, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the event.

The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Trump in November. Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Biden's mental capacity and calls him "Slow Joe," but with the nation watching, Biden was firm and clear.

Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost her legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has "common decency."

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in U.S. history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage as vice president even before President Barack Obama.

"Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans," Buttigieg said. "It's the struggle to call out what is good for every American."

Above all, Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Biden's positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans' lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Biden's Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trump's policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centered and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nation's mounting crises and policy challenges.

Voting was another prime focus of the convention on Thursday as it has been all week. Democrats fear that the pandemic -- and Trump administration changes at the U.S. Postal Service -- may make it difficult for voters to cast ballots in person or by mail.

Comedian Sarah Cooper, a favorite of many Democrats for her videos lip syncing Trump's speeches, put it bluntly: "Donald Trump doesn't want any of us to vote because he knows he can't win fair and square."

Biden's call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Trump down, that Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. That's easier said than done in a modern Democratic Party made up of disparate factions that span generation, race and ideology.

Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Biden's background before he began serving as Obama's vice president in 2008.

Thursday's convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.

"I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes," Biden said. He added: "I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose."

As a schoolboy, Biden was mocked by classmates and a nun for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. And just five years ago, he buried his eldest son, who was stricken by cancer.

From such hardship, Biden developed a deep sense of empathy that has defined much of his political career. And throughout the convention, Biden's allies testified that such empathy, backed by decades of governing experience, makes him the perfect candidate to guide the nation back from mounting health and economic crises.

His allies Thursday included Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy from Concord, New Hampshire. The boy said he and Biden were "members of the same club," each with a stutter they're working to overcome.

He noted that Biden told him about a book of poems he liked to read aloud to practice his speech and showed the boy how he marks his speeches so they're easier to read aloud.

"I'm just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about a thing that's bothered me my whole life," Harrington said.

The end of the carefully scripted convention now gives way to a far less-predictable period for Biden and his Democratic Party as the 2020 election season speeds to its uncertain conclusion. While Election Day isn't until Nov. 3, early voting gets underway in several battleground states in just one month.

Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominee's approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition he's courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.

Trump's Republican Party is expected to deliver a message next week squarely focused on the president's most loyal supporters.

Biden summed up his view of the campaign: We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal.
Muzaffarnagar:

Facing shortage of cash after demonetisation, a group of customers pelted stones at the SBI branch in Kakroli village in Muzaffarnagar, police said on Tuesday.

The branch manager Chander Mohan lodged a complaint of stone pelting at the bank last evening and damaging property while they were protesting against the shortage of cash at the bank, SHO Anand Mishra said. Police has registered a case against unidentified persons in this connection, he said.

In a similar incident at Fatehpur village in Shamli district, about 40 km from in Muzaffarnagar, customers vandalised the branch of UP Gramin Bank on Monday after they were unable to get cash, police said.

People blocked the Shahpur-Kandhla road here after the bank in their area ran out of cash, police said. Police later intervened and cleared the road for traffic movement.

In Jalalabad town of Shamli district, irate people blocked the Delhi-Saharanpur road as they were turned down by the PNB branch.

Traffic movement was affected for several hours due the protests in these area on Monday.

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The parking lot at Rahel Abrahams condominium had never flooded before, and by the time Brays Bayou threatened her car, the water was too high for her to drive away.

From a second-story window, all she could do was watch as Hurricane Harveys prodigious rainfall totaled her 2008 Infiniti G35. But the Houston engineer was too busy helping first-floor neighbors move upstairs to worry about it for too long; lives are more important than possessions.

The aftermath is what inspired her to entrepreneurship. The monthlong wait for a rental car. The fundraiser for a friend who lost his job because he had no way to get to work. The ruination of her downstairs neighbors large-format paintings, the artist and cancer patients sole source of income.

Now Playing: ClimaGuard CEO and founder Rahel Abraham demonstrates how to wrap a car in their product. Video: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle

Then there were the long hours spent filing insurance claims, weeks waiting for checks. Abraham wondered: Why wasnt there an easy way to protect cars and belongings from floodwaters so none of this would be necessary?

We were all rebuilding, and in my mind, I was like, I have the time, I have the understanding of materials and I wanted to do something, she said.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Oil patch ingenuity can help fight climate change

Abraham had earned a chemical engineering degree at the University of Texas at Austin and a masters degree in environmental engineering from the University of Houston. She has worked at chemical companies and overseen projects for pipeline operator Enterprise Products.

Before Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017, Abraham was already considering a change of careers, perhaps moving into renewable energy. But the storm revealed a challenge she could not let go of.

Her solution was simple, but the execution was hard. Abraham wanted an envelope made from a material with welded seams that could wrap around cars and keep water out for hours, if not days. She also needed to attach strong harnesses, so the cars would not float away.

Most of all, though, she needed an easy-to-use design that people could deploy quickly and easily. She knew her product was only for emergencies, like a spare tire, so she needed to make it affordable.

Abraham applied her problem-solving skills to design a patented protective enclosure that keeps the muck and water out. Her 30-pound zippered envelope fits in a duffle bag and takes one person 10 minutes to set up. Using her own money, she then launched her company, Climaguard.

That is when she learned how hard starting a business can be.

Abraham needed a heavy-duty, waterproof and lightweight plastic. But she found North American manufacturers charged far more than her potential customers would pay.

A friend, who sources textiles, recommended she go to China. Inspired by Sara Blakely, who founded underwear-maker Spanx, Abraham flew to Shanghai in October 2018 and met with manufacturers and toured facilities as the CEO of a company of one. She hired a Swiss firm to test her prototypes.

Her first 30 units arrived in December, and she sold out immediately. But then COVID struck China in January, shutting down manufacturing. Her next shipment did not arrive until June, but now she is pitching the insurance industry, car dealerships and retail stores and selling online.

I heard her address the Insurance Information Institute, explaining how companies could save money on claims by offering customers discounts on Climaguard enclosures in flood-prone areas.

Ideally, I would partner with insurance because I feel like we would be able to bring down the cost and incentivize customers and have a bigger pipeline, Abraham told me later.

New car buyers would especially benefit because their vehicles depreciate quickly, and insurance companies only reimburse for the lower value, she added. Dealers should offer Climaguard as a value-preserving add-on, she suggests.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Got Spot helps small businesses share space

Homeowners can use the same envelopes to protect their belongings when water comes over the threshold.

The compact car size could literally fit a living room, she explained. You could put two couches in there, a table, you could stack it up because the compact car size is about 14 feet.

While she works on selling her existing products that fit a range of vehicle sizes, she is working on new designs for motorcycles and recreational vehicles. She also wants to expand her range to protect cars from other natural disasters, such as hail.

I feel like that is just one more way for someone to be able to recover faster, to go to the grocery store and get your medication, to go to the Home Depot to pick up disinfectant, she said. Your car is not just a luxury; its a way of being able to live a quality life.

Like all good entrepreneurs, Abraham is trying to solve societys real problems in a way that allows her a bit of profit for her hard work. If she can save peoples cherished belongings, keep cars out of the junkyard and give people a chance to bounce back quicker, a small return is well-deserved.

Imagine the millions of dollars we could save if people in flood zones could zip their most-valuable objects into a protective envelope and feel confident they would be saved. We need more entrepreneurs like Abraham who dare to not only see a problem but to address it with an ingenious solution.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com
LONGPORT  A 34-year-old man was charged with DWI Thursday night after crashing into an electrical pole, splitting it in half.

About 11:29 p.m., borough police responded to Ventnor and 30th avenues for a report of a car crash, according to a post on the departments Facebook page.

Egg Harbor Township man, 33, dies after rollover crash in Montana An Egg Harbor Township man died Aug. 16 after a rollover crash in Montana that also left his

Witnesses at the scene told police that a driver was heading west on Ventnor Avenue when he failed to negotiate the bend at Longport Drive, police said. The vehicle struck an electrical pole, splitting it in half, and went into a spin before stopping.

Ventnor Avenue between 30th and 31st avenues was closed until Atlantic City Electric could remove the downed electrical line that was stretching across the roadway, police said.

Kyle Cocozza was later arrested by Officers Alessandro Morelli and Dean Tibbitt and charged with driving while intoxicated. He also was issued a summons for failing to maintain lane, careless driving, reckless driving, possession of an open alcohol container in a motor vehicle and DWI.

No one was injured.

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HONG KONG (AP)  The Hong Kong government on Thursday condemned the U.S.s decision to suspend bilateral extradition and tax exemption treaties with the semi-autonomous Chinese city, saying it was being used as a pawn in geopolitics.

On Wednesday, the U.S. suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, becoming the latest country to do so after Canada, Australia and Britain suspended such agreements. The U.S. also suspended a bilateral agreement with Hong Kong on the reciprocal tax exemptions on income derived from the international operation of ships.

The US unilateral decision reflects its disrespect for bilateralism and multilateralism under the current administration and should be condemned by the international community, the statement said.

The HKSAR Government strongly objects to and deplores the US action, which is widely seen as a move to create troubles in China-U.S. relationship, using Hong Kong as a pawn.

The government said that the bilateral agreements were not preferential treatment given to Hong Kong, but were negotiated in good faith to benefit both parties.

Hong Kong has faced mounting international pressure over the implementation of a national security law, approved by Beijing, which has been viewed as an attack on the one country, two systems framework under which the city has been governed since its return to China in 1997.

Jeffrey Bader, a former U.S. diplomat, said the actions taken so far are unlikely to dissuade China.

Hong Kong is an issue thats going to be with us for quite some time, and in a frustrating way, said Bader.

Its part of China and things that are internal to China, even if they have an international dimension, like Hong Kong and Xinjiang, the Chinese have a demonstrated disdain for outside opinion and are inflexible in reaction to it.

Separately on Thursday, lawmakers from Hong Kongs largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic Party also said they planned to hold a poll and debate to determine whether they will continue serving in the legislature another year, following the postponement of elections due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Story continues

Opinions within the pro-democracy camp differ on whether lawmakers should boycott the extension of their term or stay to have a voice in the legislature. Lawmakers in favor of boycotting say staying sets a precedent to delay elections.

The public opinion is still very divided, we want the solidarity of the people, said James To, a member of the Democratic Party, at a news conference. We would prepare at least one debate in order  to have a comprehensive range of arguments and points so that the whole society can decide.

The elections were to be held in September but have been postponed a year after the city's virus outbreak grew again.

Democratic Party lawmakers did not specify a time frame or details of the public poll.

Several pro-democracy lawmakers have already spoken out against serving another year in the legislature.

Ray Chan, chairman of the People Power party, said on Twitter he would boycott the "illegitimate extension and that accepting the appointment would mean accepting the authority of city leader Carrie Lams government and would allow Beijing to arbitrarily change the term of legislators.

Itll open the floodgate for all kinds of meddling for years to come, said Chan.



AP journalist Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.
Dermot OLeary has revealed that his wedding ring was stolen from a gym.

The television and radio presenter shared a police appeal on Twitter to find the alleged thief.

The ring was stolen along with a bag and a gold crucifix from a gym in central London.

Sadly this was my wedding ring & bag that was stolen. Im sure I wont see them again, but Id really like it if he didnt have the opportunity to steal yours. Please have a good look at the picture & if you recognise him call 101 ref 6195/21aug Dx @MPSWestminster @metpoliceuk https://t.co/esifysCOTM  Dermot O'Leary (@radioleary) August 21, 2020

OLeary tweeted: Sadly this was my wedding ring and bag that was stolen.

He added that he is sure he would not see the items again but would like to stop the man who allegedly stole his possessions from doing so again.

Please have a good look at the picture and if you recognise him call 101 ref 6195/21aug, he added.

In a separate Instagram post, OLeary wrote: I know there are more important things happening in the world right now, but last week by bag (with my wedding ring in it) was stolen from a locked locker at Psycle on Mortimer St, London.

Im not after any special preferential treatment.

Video of the Day

Im not the victim of a violent crime, and even though no one should have to, I can handle all the impersonal items being stolen (the wallet, phone, watch, keys etc).

He added that the person who took the items stole something that would mean nothing to him but everything to me.

The inside of the ring is inscribed with 14/9/12 Team KO, City of Westminster Police said.

It was stolen on August 13.

OLeary has been married to TV producer Dee Koppang since 2012.

The pair announced the birth of their baby son Kasper, who is their first child, in June.

Holly Willoughby shared the police appeal on Twitter.

Can you helpIf you recognise this man please call the number below thank you, the This Morning host wrote.

Singer Ronan Keating also shared the appeal, urging people to help my friend.
The first critically-endangered Large Black piglets bred from frozen, imported semen were born in the United States this summer. After years of extensive collaborative efforts from many organizations, new life and new genetics are being introduced to American Large Black Hog herds thanks to 25 half-British Large Black piglets born at Purdue University. Solid black, deep-bodied swine with lop ears that cover their eyes, Large Blacks have long been prized 
Mexico-based restaurant La Laguna Mariscos & Sushi, which specializes in extravagant micheladas, recently opened its new San Antonio location near the Dominion area.

READ ALSO: A passion for food has turned into a cooking show for two San Antonio friends

Representatives from La Laguna Mariscos & Sushi told mySA.com in February that they would open the new eatery at 23535 Interstate 10 West in either June or July. According to the La Laguna San Antonio's Facebook page, the restaurant opened Wednesday.

La Laguna Mariscos & Sushi opened its first location in 1994 in Nuevo Laredo Tamaulipas, Mexico, near Texas' border with Mexico.
Big Brother Naija, BBNaija lovers, Neo and Vee have raised suspicions of making love in the Lockdown house. It all started on Wednes...





Big Brother Naija, BBNaija lovers, Neo and Vee have raised suspicions of making love in the Lockdown house.

It all started on Wednesday night after Vee complained that she has not seen her period for the month.

Again, on Thursday, Neo asked if she has seen her period, adding that she looks pregnant.

Vee said: Ive missed my period, Im gonna fu*k you up. You should be scared.

Neo responding said: Im a fu*king 26yr old man, Im Neo, Im a reality Tv star. I got you.





You probably just miscalculated so dont be scared.





Video:

Vee is afraid that she might be pregnant . She hasnt see her period yet.

But wait, I thought she was complaining of konji some hours ago #BBNaija #BBNaijaLocdown2020 #IfIWereBiggie #BBNaijaLockdown #bbnaija2020 pic.twitter.com/5FUfgtQKMg  Nwachukwu John Owen (@johnowen99) August 20, 2020

This conversation has stirred suspicions from BBNaija fans who are speculating that the housemates made love where there were no cameras.

Here are some comments gathered from Twitter:





@MsJojacobs Does it mean Neo and Vee made love. Why is she asking Neo if he is not scared that her period is late?

@Romina_Moore My God never flops!!! So Vee and Neo had unprotected sex and her period being delayed makes her feels like she pregnant?

@Olori_Renike Did Vee and Neo have sex? Shes really worried about this period wey don miss o. 

@Mz_B_b  Im sure theyve been having sex in the bathroom because the cameras dont show the bathroom.

@Ojurepepe  Things steady going on in that house. Im sure Eric and Lilo too but they didnt show us.

@Kay_20  Vee just told Neo he should be scared (she havent seen her period yet) These two have been having sex.

@_Sophh98  The way Vee is telling Neo about this period thing, theyve done one or two. I really hope her period comes.

NEWS: BBNaija 2020: What Kaisha told me before she left - Neo

@Ajibolaoni4  Biggie is about to be an uncle.

@De_dedun  So Vee and Neo have been smashing? Wawu. I hope they are just joking sha because of period miss.

@Bigtrice  Kayode has been denying us stuff. He only likes to show Erica and Kidd.Now Vee is complaining to Neo about her period. lmao Biggie should prepare to welcome a baby. Haha Neo in trouble.

@OfficialGeno  So we know now that Neo and Vee had sex. By the way, God punish kayode. Well, Vee hasnt seen her period and is worried she is pregnant. Neo is forming like its not a problem for him.

@Isaactweet  Who just heard the convo between Neo and Vee in the kitchen?Hope Vee isnt pregnant, period yet to come!Are we about to have a Big Brother baby?

@Temitope852  Vee has been complaining to Neo about her late period and how Ne9 should be scared. He said hes an adult and cant be scared of pregnancy.




Hunter Biden's the guy who needs to be in the basement of Joe Biden's basement. He shouldn't be anywhere near Joe as the latter campaigns for votes, given his past.

He's a walking, talking scandal, an emblem of corruption, a living reminder that Washington has a political class that looks out for its own and, with the aid of communist dictators, gets very, very rich. And on the side, oodles of cocaine, strip clubs, and child support payment battles, but never jail time.

In short, a political liability. So whom do the Democrats trot out to endorse old Joe?

Sure enough, Hunter Biden, taking a break from his painting adventures and child support battles with an Arkansas judge over his offspring from an Arkansas stripper. We can't say for sure one way or another about the cocaine. We know he got thrown out of the Navy for coke, after pull had been used to get him in. With Hunter, it's always strings and influence from old Dad.

Most important, he's the emblem of corruption, being one of five, count 'em, five, family members who have used Biden's position in high public office to enrich themselves. Biden got lucrative deals from Burisma, the dodgy Ukrainian gas company that somehow wanted this zero-experience person on its board  to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He also got a lucrative venture capital deal from China, in a place with assets exceeding $1 billion, all on the heels of Dad's vice presidential trips abroad. Sure, he claims to have disposed of the power position. But he's kept his lucrative stake, and naturally, the child support judge wants to know.

Bottom line: Dictators everywhere would see Biden coming, and Hunter trailing him, and they knew what to do.

So now we have Hunter Biden touting Joe Biden's "honesty."

It's a little like what this tweeter observers:

Hunter Biden vouching for his father's honesty last night was laughable.



That's like Bill Clinton vouching for Jeffrey Epstein's morals.  Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) August 21, 2020

Can't top that, so will leave it at that.

Image credit: CBS screen shot from shareable YouTube video.
Aditya Pancholi says Kangana Ranaut should stick to her words and return her Padma Shri award now that she has been proved wrong about her Sushant theory.

He said that the Patna FIR filed by the late actor's father KK Singh does not mention nepotism at all.

Twitter

Pancholi added that now her nepotism theory has been proved wrong, she should return her Padma Shri as she promised.

Tell her to return it now because she is wrong about Sushant Singh Rajput. His father filed a report in Patna in which there is no angle of nepotism mentioned. He clearly said that Section 306 is on Rhea. When Kangana was naming industry people, she actually wasted everyones time," he told India Today.



Twitter

Kangana, in an earlier interview with Republic TV had said, "I am telling you, if I have said anything, which I cant testify, which I cant prove, and which is not in public domain, I will return my Padma Shri."

Agencies

Earlier, speaking to ETimes, Aditya spoke about the Supreme Courts verdict of transferring Sushants case to the CBI. He said, This was much needed at this time. It is a very big relief. I am very happy that CBI is going to do the investigation. The truth will come out and the culprits will be punished. At the same time the most important thing is that so many fingers were pointed out at innocent people, they will also get relief."



For the unversed, Pancholi's son Sooraj's name was also embroiled in the controversy.

Meanwhile, Kangana Ranaut had recently called out Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma for reserving their comments on Sushant's case despite having worked with him in PK.


Stranded in Pakistan, Hindus on long-term visas desperate to return to India

In the last week of June, India and Pakistan operated a shuttle service for people stuck on both sides of the border due to the pandemic. Being Indian citizens, the husband and the children returned to Jodhpur but Janta Mali, a Pakistani living in Jodhpur on long-term visa since 2007, was denied permission to travel. Read more here.

Bipasha Basu shows off her incredible physique in social media post

Bipasha Basu has been one of the foremost actors in the industry when it comes to fitness and she has been quite vocal about the importance of strengthening the body and being fit rather than just focusing on a skinny or hourglass figure. Read more here.

Mee Raqsam movie review: A simplistic but warm tale of a fathers love

Mee Raqsam is produced by actor Shabana Azmi, directed by her brother Baba Azmi and is a tribute to their late father Kaifi Azmi. Read more here.

Watch: In acceptance speech, Joe Biden says he will end season of darkness

Joe Biden officially accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party and vowed to be an ally of the light urging Americans to unite to overcome a season of darkness that President Donald Trump has cloaked the US for much too long. Watch.

Generations will remember you: PM Modi sends letter of appreciation to Suresh Raina

Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni announced their retirement from international cricket on Indias 74th Independence Day. Read more here.
President Donald Trump on Thursday reaffirmed his plan to withdraw all US troops from Iraq as quickly as possible as he met with the prime minister of Iraq to discuss ways to rein in pro-Iran militias in the country and counter residual threats from Islamic State sleeper cells.

We look forward to the day when we dont have to be there, Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

We were there and now were getting out. Well be leaving shortly and the relationship is very good. Were making very big oil deals. Our oil companies are making massive deals. ... Were going to be leaving and hopefully were going to be leaving a country that can defend itself.

Asked about a timetable for a full withdrawal, the president turned to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who replied: As soon as we can complete the mission. The president has made very clear he wants to get our forces down to the lowest level as quickly as we possibly can. Thats the mission hes given us and were working with the Iraqis to achieve that.

There are more than 5,000 American troops in Iraq now. Last month, the top U.S. general for the Middle East said he believed the U.S. will keep a smaller but enduring presence in the country. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said he believes the Iraqis welcome the U.S. and coalition troops, especially in the ongoing fight to keep IS fighters from taking hold of the country again.

McKenzie has not said how many U.S. troops might stay. But he said Iraqi conventional forces now operate on their own. U.S. and coalition forces continue to conduct training and counterterrorism operations, including with Iraqi commandos. Any final decisions, he said, would be coordinated with the Iraqi government.

Al-Kadhimi, who is backed by the United States, assumed office in May when Baghdads relations with Washington were precarious following the U.S. killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport. The prime minister has my ear, Trump said.

Al-Kadhimi has often had to walk a tightrope due to the U.S.-Iran rivalry. Asked if he was bringing any messages from Tehran following a recent visit there, al-Kadhimi told The Associated Press before he left for Washington, We do not play the role of postman in Iraq.

The U.S. recognizes the cultural and religious ties that exist between Iran and Iraq, but the administration wants to decrease Irans destabilizing influence in Iraq, often exercised by pro-Iranian militias.

Al-Kadhimis administration inherited many crises. State coffers in the crude oil-dependent country were slashed following a severe drop in prices, adding to the woes of an economy already struggling with the aftershocks of the global coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. wants to make sure the Baghdad central governments limited resources also find their way to the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.

State violence used to quell the mass protests that erupted in October brought public trust in the government to a new low. Tens of thousands of Iraqis marched, decrying rampant government corruption, poor services and unemployment, leading to the resignation of the previous premier, Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

As al-Kadhimi held strategic talks with Trump, which were expected to shape the future of the U.S.-Iraq relationship, human rights monitors on Thursday sounded the alarm over a recent spike in killings targeting civil rights activists in the southern part of the county.

In addition, rockets have continued to strike at the seat of al-Kadhimis government. Iran-backed Shiite militia groups are widely suspected of being behind both types of attacks.

Pompeo, who met Wednesday with Iraqs foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, said the U.S. was committed to helping Iraq regain and maintain security, despite Trumps desire to reduce and then eliminate American troops presence there. Armed groups are not under the full control of the Iraqi prime minister, Pompeo said. He said those groups should be replaced by local police as soon as possible and that the U.S. could and would help.

The Iraqi prime minister told Pompeo that Iraq currently does not need direct military support on the ground, and that the levels of help will depend on the changing nature of the threat. Three years since Iraq declared victory over IS, sleeper cells continue to stage attacks across the countrys north.

Pompeo and the Iraqi foreign minister expressed hope that as the security situation improves, there will be greater economic cooperation between the two countries, particularly in the energy sector.

On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette announced energy agreements worth up to $8 billion between the Iraqi minsters of oil and electricity and five U.S. companies  Honeywell, Baker Hughes, GE, Stellar and Chevron. Brouillette said U.S. private investment will help Iraqis energy sector and stressed a need for Iraq to reduce its dependence on energy from Iran.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
The former Navy Seal who says he was the one who shot and killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 has been banned from Delta Airlines flights for not wearing a mask during his flight. Robert ONeill was banned by the airline after he posted a now deleted tweet of himself maskless on a flight Wednesday with a caption reading Im not a p****.

On Thursday, Delta banned ONeill, according to the Associated Press, and ONeil himself tweeted that he has been banned by the company.

I just got banned from @Delta for posting a picture. Wow.  Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) August 20, 2020

Part of every customers commitment prior to traveling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask, the airline said in a statement. Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future.

Major airlines in the U.S. are requiring passengers to wear a mask on flights as part of measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The AP reports Delta has banned more than 100 passengers since the policy was instituted. ONeill was on a flight from Minneapolis to Newark, New Jersey on Wednesday when he took the photo.

Since the announcement of the ban, ONeill has criticized Delta and argued with those criticizing his picture.

I am not the bad guy. I Killed the bad guy.  Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) August 19, 2020

Thank God it wasnt @Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden... we werent wearing masks...  Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) August 20, 2020

ONeill, a Montana native, has claimed for several years that he was the man who fired the shots that killed bin Laden during a raid at a compound in Pakistan on May 2, 2011. The U.S. government has never confirmed nor denied ONeills claim. Members of the team that were involved with the raid have said ONeills account of what happened is false and criticized him for seeking fame because of the raid.

READ MORE

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Spains Equality Minister Irene Montero on Thursday called on the countrys regional governments to order the closure of all brothels in a bid to avoid coronavirus infections. The establishments, she said, can cause a potential rise of positive cases that are difficult to trace.

The central Health Ministry has also called on the regions to enforce measures that have already been established and to slow the transmission of the coronavirus in brothels, which are subject to the same controls as other establishments. Health Minister Salvador Illa did not specifically mention such businesses last week when he ordered the closure of nightclubs and bars across the country due to the rising number of coronavirus infections.

On Friday, state broadcaster RTVE reported that Castilla-La Mancha would be the first to close all brothels in the area, when it publishes a new gazette on Saturday at midnight containing a raft of measures aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Montero made her request via a letter sent to the regions equality chiefs, and called on them to take specific measures for the sex trade. Notwithstanding our constant fight against sexual exploitation, I believe it is important for specific action to be taken in those places where prostitution is practiced, the text reads. She suggested that measures that were put in place under the state of alarm implemented by the central government back in March be reinstated, i.e. medical attention and other resources such as rooms for the use of sex workers. This would be a fundamental element to offer this women, after the closure of establishments  dignified alternatives that would deal with the situation, she added.

The establishments present a major problem in terms of contact tracing should an infection be detected

Spains regions have the power to close or limit the opening hours of brothels, which in many cases are registered as hotels or as hostelry establishments. As such, they are not necessarily affected by the central and regional governments closure of nighttime establishments.

Last week, the central administration and the regions agreed 11 coordinated actions to try to stop the advance of the coronavirus, including the closure of nightclubs and bars, a ban on smoking in public when safe distances cannot be respected, and the closure of other bars and restaurants at 1am.

Brothels were not specifically mentioned in the new measures, and the establishments present a major problem in terms of contact tracing should an infection be detected. On Wednesday, the United Left (IU) party in Castilla-La Mancha called for their immediate closure after an outbreak of the virus was detected in a brothel in Alcazar de San Juan, in Ciudad Real province. According to the IU, the region accounts for 80% of the brothels in the country.

Prostitution was decriminalized in Spain in 1995, and is not currently illegal. But exploitation such as pimping is punishable under the countrys criminal code. Recent estimates put the revenue of the sex industry in Spain as high as 22.4 billion a year.

English version by Simon Hunter.
50 pastors who graduated from Liberty University demand Falwell be permanently removed

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A group of 50 ministers who graduated from Liberty University have sent a letter to school leadership demanding that President Jerry Falwell Jr. be permanently removed from office.

Falwell agreed to take an indefinite leave of absence earlier this month following a controversial social media post showing him with unzipped pants and his belly hanging out while his arm was wrapped around his wife's pregnant secretary who wasn't able to zip up her pre-pregnancy shorts.

The letter was sent to Libertys board of trustees and acting University President Jerry Prevo, according to Faithwire.

The alumni told the university that the Lynchburg, Virginia-based evangelical Christian school needed new leadership that represents the heart of Liberty University's mission.

It is because of our deep love for Liberty University and our great optimism for its future that we write to you today to urge you, the Board of Trustees, to permanently remove Mr. Falwell as president and chancellor and replace him with a new leader, read the letter, in part.

We do not write out of any personal vendetta against Mr. Falwell. We recognize that under his leadership, since his father's death in 2007, the school has experienced significant financial and institutional growth and added important programs that are poised to shape a generation of Christian leaders in nearly every field of study.

The letter echoes the demands of a website called Save71, a group of alumni who posted a statement arguing for Liberty to remove President Falwell and replace him with a responsible and virtuous Christian leader.

To do this, the board should appoint an independent committee of leaders from within the Liberty community, as well as leaders outside of it, to begin the search for a new president, the group states on its website.

The Board of Trustees must acknowledge the damage President Falwell has done to Liberty and the hypocrisy and corruption that has soaked into parts of its culture.

While some have argued for only Falwell's removal, Liberty alumnus Curt W. Olson argued in an op-ed published by The Christian Post Friday that more leadership should be removed.

Olson cited several questionable business and professional actions Falwell has taken while president of the university, believing that the trustees were also in the wrong.

"Isnt it the responsibility of the Trustees to make sure the President is doing the right thing for and by the university? If Trustees were doing their job, this should never have come this far," wrote Olson.

In recent times, Falwell has garnered controversy for his strong support of President Donald Trump and for social media posts that some either disagreed with or found offensive.

Falwell elicited a great deal of criticism, for example, when he posted, then deleted, the photo of himself wearing unzipped jeans while on a yacht during his family's vacation.

In an interview with the WLNI program "MorningLine" earlier this month, Falwell explained the context of the photo.

Shes pregnant (wife's assistant), so she couldnt get her pants zipped, he told the radio program. I had on a pair of jeans I havent worn in a long time, so I couldnt get mine zipped up, either. And so, I just put my belly out like hers.

Falwell went on to say, I should never have put it up and embarrassed her, adding that he has apologized to everybody.

Some charged Falwell with hypocrisy, citing among other things Liberty Universitys code of conduct that prohibits students from consuming media that contains lewd lyrics, anti-Christian message, sexual content, nudity, pornography either on or off campus.

Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire noted that Liberty students could be expelled and have in the past been penalized for participating in similar activities.

It's extremely poor leadership ... to publicize yourself doing the very thing you punish other people for doing, said Walsh.

On Aug. 7, the university announced that Falwell was taking an indefinite leave of absence and that Board of Trustees Chairman Prevo was assuming the role of acting president.

This was a decision that was not made lightly, and which factored the interests and concerns of everyone in the LU community, including students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, leaders of the Church, as well as the Falwell family, Prevo said in a statement.

To support Jerry through this period, we ask that our entire community lift him up in prayer so he may be able to fulfill Gods purpose for him and for Liberty University.
21.08.2020 LISTEN

As the World marked Humanitarian Day, Caritas Ghana, the Development and Relief Agency of the Catholic Church in Ghana has noted with concern that there was the urgent need to ensure the safety and security of health workers in the country who are making frantic efforts in containing the coronavirus pandemic.

The world celebrates and honors all humanitarian workers, health workers, Civil Society Organisations and all those engaged in the battle against COVID-19 which has plagued the world as well as to provide life-saving support and protection to people most in need.

In a statement to mark the Day on August 19, 2020, the Executive Secretary of Caritas Ghana, Zan Samuel Akologo said there is the need now more than ever, to provide safety and security for health workers and to ensure the survival, well-being, and dignity of displaced women and children, persons with disability, and the vulnerable affected by the crises.

The plight of displaced and stranded female head porters, also called Kayayee, in our cities remain a serious concern to Caritas Ghana, he noted, stating that COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the existing inadequacies in our communities and increased the population of crisis-affected persons.

Zan Akologo added Today is a reminder of our call to serve, our resolve to overcoming difficulties and our commitment to helping people in humanitarian crises all over the world.

We at Caritas Ghana are resolute in our call to serve and we will continue to provide aid to poor and vulnerable women and children, a person with a disability and all crisis-affected persons by guaranteeing access to basic livelihood security services (food, shelter, medicine), technical and logistics support for health facilities and coordinating authentic, verifiable COVID-19 information using WHO-approved guidelines and in accordance with Ghana Health Service protocols, he added.

On World Humanitarian Day marked on August 19, the world commemorates humanitarian workers killed and injured in the course of their work. This day was designated in memory of the 19 August 2003 bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 22 people, including the chief humanitarian in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly formalized the day as World Humanitarian Day.

This years World Humanitarian Day came as the world continues to fight the COVID-19 pandemic over recent months. Aid workers are overcoming unprecedented access hurdles to assist people in humanitarian crises in 54 countries, as well as in a further nine countries which have been catapulted into humanitarian need by the COVID-19 pandemic.
CALGARY, AB / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2020 / Murphy Business Alberta is a First-year Consumer Choice Award Winner in the Region of Southern Alberta and the Category of Business Brokers.

Q: What does being awarded the Consumer Choice Award mean to you? And how did winning the Consumer Choice Award impact your business?

A: It was a great honour to be the first ever winner of the Consumer Choice Award in the category of 'Best Business Brokers in Southern Alberta' in 2020. We feel that it's evidence of our commitment to excellence and superior customer service.

Q: What is the company tagline, slogan or motto of your business? And what does that mean to your business and your customers?

A: Our company tagline is "Excellence in Business Transactions." Selling our clients' businesses is our primary goal but no one can guarantee a successful sale. What Murphy Business Alberta can guarantee is a superior level of service that converts clients into future referral sources.

Q: What is one thing that the general public may not know about your company that you would like them to know?

A: We want to do everything we can to increase the chances of finding the right buyer for each of our clients. To that end, we always welcome other business brokers to bring us a qualified buyer. This expands our reach to potential buyers to that of all our colleagues.

Q: What is the most recent example of how you have exceeded your client's expectations on a job?

A: Our goal is not to convert each and every business owner into a client. Sometimes going to market with a business broker is not the best solution. It is common that we will provide free advice to business owners when we feel the sale of their business is not the best way to accomplish their goals or solve their immediate problems.

Q: How do you keep up with the trends in your industry?

A: We attend two business broker conferences annually. Our franchisor and the International Business Brokers Association each hold an educational conference each year. It is an ideal opportunity to learn from experts and our colleagues in the industry. This year, the IBBA's event was converted into a virtual conference which was a huge success.

Q: Name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you. How did this person impact your life?

A: Both of my parents had an impact on me. They both immigrated to Canada with little education, no assets and no English. Nothing I have to deal with is difficult compared to what they overcame in their lives.

Q: What is one characteristic that you believe helped you through your career?

A: Persistence has helped me get to where I am today. Especially as a business broker. Our industry has a long sales cycle. The time between first contacting a prospect and closing on the sale is measured in months or years. It is one of the reasons there are few successful business brokers.

Q: Where is the most interesting place you've been to?

A: Cairo, Egypt.

Q: What is your favourite quote?

A: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." - Napoleon Hill.

Contact Information:

E-mail: s.fylypchuk@murphybusiness.ca

Website: www.MurphyBusinessAlberta.ca

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BusinessBrokerCalgary

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MurphyBusiSales

#151, 234-5149 Country Hills Boulevard. NW

Calgary, Alberta, T3A 5K8

SOURCE: Consumer Choice Award

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602095/Meet-Steve-Fylypchuk-From-Murphy-Business-Alberta-First-Time-Consumer-Choice-Award-Winner-in-Southern-Alberta
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio

Burglary: Lomond Boulevard

At 12:55 a.m. Aug. 15, police were summoned to a home in response to an alarm sounding at a residence. Officers set up surveillance of the home and went on to arrest a Maple Heights woman, 36, who had entered the home.

The woman initially provided police with false information. It was later learned that the woman had broken into the home and stolen $100 worth of property.

Fleeing and eluding: Van Aken Boulevard

At 12:35 p.m. Aug. 14, an officer spotted a car bearing fictitious license plates and attempted to make a traffic stop. The suspect vehicle fled the scene. The officer did not pursue the car.

Police later gained intelligence on the car and its driver, found to be a Cleveland man, 22. The man was wanted by Cleveland police on a domestic-violence charge. Shaker Heights police summonsed the man for the fictitious plates and for fleeing and eluding.

OVI: Lee Road

At 10:25 p.m. Aug. 15, police saw a car make an illegal turn onto Van Aken Boulevard from Lee Road. A traffic stop was conducted and it was found that the driver, a Garfield Heights woman, 39, was intoxicated.

The woman had a blood-alcohol content of .142, above the state minimum for drunk driving of .08. The woman was arrested and charged with OVI.

Obstructing official business: Warrensville Center Road

At 11:20 p.m. Aug. 15, a woman, 32, reported that her boyfriend, a Cleveland man, 33, had damaged property at her home and was no longer welcome at the residence. The man had left the scene before police were called.

Shaker Heights police officers located the man, issued him trespass admonitions and summonsed him for obstructing official business.

Warrant arrest: Shaker Boulevard

At 2:55 a.m. Aug. 15, police were called to a home, where a man reported that a car had trespassed on his property. Police located the suspects car and learned that the driver, a Cleveland man, 30, was wanted by Cleveland police on a warrant for aggravated burglary. Police arrested the man on the warrant.

Domestic violence: Warrensville Center Road

At 2:10 a.m. Aug. 15, a woman, 21, reported that the father of her child, 25, had threatened her with a knife, then left the home. Police were able to locate the man and charged him with domestic violence.

OVI: Warrensville Center Road

At 10:20 p.m. Aug. 16, an officer saw a pickup truck weaving and, after conducting a registration check, found that the trucks license plate belonged on another vehicle. A traffic stop was conducted. The driver, a Cleveland man, 35, was intoxicated.

The man submitted a breath sample showing his blood-alcohol content to be .095. The man was arrested and charged with OVI, and cited for weaving and for a license plate infraction.

Domestic violence: Hildana Road

At 11:40 p.m. Aug. 16, a woman, 49, reported that her live-in boyfriend, 51, had choked her. The man had left the home before police arrived, but officers were able to find him. Police charged the man with domestic violence.

Domestic violence: Van Aken Boulevard

At 7:40 p.m. Aug. 15, a Shaker Heights woman, 57, flagged down an officer to tell him that her husband, 61, had punched her in the face as the two argued. The woman declined medical attention. The man was arrested on a domestic-violence charge.

Assault: Chagrin Boulevard

At 6:10 p.m. Aug. 17, police were called to A Touch of Italy restaurant, 16822 Chagrin Blvd., where a male employee, 47, reported that he had been assaulted by a fellow male employee, 32.

The 47-year-old, of Cleveland, said he was struck as he attempted to intervene in a fight between the 32-year-old, also of Cleveland, and a customer, a 57-year-old Cleveland man.

Injuries were reported, but medical attention was declined. No charges were filed.

Read more from the Sun Press.
Apple is reportedly working on its own cloud gaming service at the same time it's refusing to let Microsoft and Google offer their own cloud gaming apps to iOS users.

Cloud gaming is the centre of a massive controversy involving Apple with the iOS-gatekeeper refusing to let Microsofts xCloud and Google Stadia into the ecosystem. Primarily, Apple is not okay with cloud gaming services adding new games to Apples platform with the scrutiny and review of the company. Yet, at the same time, Apple is reportedly working on its own cloud gaming service.

A new patent published by Apple, as spotted by the folks at Patently Apple, reveals Apple is working on its own cloud gaming service. Titled Enabled Interactive Service for Cloud Rendering Gaming in 5G Systems, the patent outlines a blueprint about how 5G networks can be leveraged to provide on-demand gaming.

Apple already offers a subscription-based gaming service called Apple Arcade, and with all that is happening in the anti-competition front for Apple, now is surely not the best time to announce plans of a cloud gaming service, at the same time as Apple battles its key rivals from offering the same to its users.

At the same time, a patent filing isnt a strong indicator that the service will indeed launch, as many patents are filed but never see a tangible outcome. The one in question simply shows how a service like that would work on 5G networks.
SEOUL, South Korea  South Korea is banning large gatherings, shutting nightspots and churches and removing fans from professional sports nationwide in an attempt to slow a resurgence of coronavirus infections.

Health Minister Park Neung-hoo announced the measures Saturday after officials reported 332 newly confirmed cases, marking the ninth straight day of triple-digit increases.

Most of the new cases were in the Seoul metropolitan area, which has been at the centre of the viral surge of recent weeks. But infections were also reported in practically every major city and in towns across the country.

The government had already imposed the tighter restrictions in the capital region earlier this week, a move they resisted for months out of economic concerns. Park said it has become inevitable to expand the same measures nationwide with the virus spreading more broadly.

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HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

 WHO chief hopes pandemic ends within 2 years

 Several aging U.S. veterans will gather in Pearl Harbor next month to mark the 75th anniversary of Japans surrender, despite the coronavirus pandemic

 University of Wyoming reports 61 cases of the coronavirus

 A U.S. count of deaths from all causes during the seven-month period yields what experts believe is a fuller  and more alarming  picture of the disaster and its racial dimensions.

 California added more than 140,000 jobs in July and lowered its unemployment rate to 13.3%. But the unemployment rate is still higher than it ever was during the Great Recession a decade ago.

 Major League Baseball has postponed this weekends Subway Series to allow time for more testing and contact tracing after two members of the New York Mets tested positive for the coronavirus.

___

 Follow APs pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

___

HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

BEIJING  Health officials in China say in their Saturday report on the coronavirus that the country had no locally transmitted infections in the latest 24-hour period, though 22 cases were confirmed in Chinese arriving from abroad.

While the local spread of the virus appears to have been contained in mainland China, the semi-autonomous southern city of Hong Kong continues to struggle with its worst outbreak since the pandemic began.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Friday that free coronavirus tests will be offered to residents during the first two weeks of September, in hopes of restarting the heavily services-dependent local economy.

A new surge in infections that started in July has more than tripled the number of cases in Hong Kong to 4,632, with a total of 75 deaths.

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WASHINGTON  Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he would do whatever was needed to keep the country safe amid the coronavirus pandemic even if that meant shutting down the country.

Biden made the comment in an interview with ABC. The interview airs Sunday night, but clips were provided Friday.

Biden says, I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. He adds that if scientists recommended shutting down the country, I would shut it down.

President Donald Trump is encouraging schools to reopen and people to get back to work. The U.S. has had more than 5.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 175,000 deaths.

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SALEM, Ore.  Oregon public health experts say the number of new coronavirus cases in the state has dropped over the past month, but the decline hasnt been enough for schools to safely open.

The state is averaging about 250 new cases a day, and health officials say that needs to drop to about 60 for schools to reopen.

Gov. Kate Brown said Friday that residents will have to continue to follow and enforce current statewide pandemic mandates or else bars and restaurants may have to close and travel restrictions will be implemented.

Brown says at the current rate, schools wont be able to reopen until April.

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HARTFORD, Conn.  Connecticut is doubling the amount of federal coronavirus money dedicated to rental assistance.

But housing advocates contend it falls far short of what is needed to help as many as 130,000 households estimated to face possible eviction between now and Dec. 31 because of the pandemic. In comparison, there were about 20,000 eviction filings in all of 2019.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced Friday that $10 million will be added to the original $10 million for the rent program. His office says the amount that can go to the rent program is limited by Congress.

Lamont said he also will soon sign an executive order extending the moratorium on residential evictions until Oct. 1.

OLYMPIA, Wash.  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is asking Canada for help with U.S. residents of a small peninsula who have been marooned by the pandemic-related closure of the U.S.-Canada border.

Point Roberts is part of Washington state, but it juts out from the Canadian mainland south of Vancouver and is not connected to the rest of Washington. About 1,300 people live there.

In a letter Friday to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Inslee suggests that residents of Point Roberts be given special travel permits allowing them to drive directly to and from the Washington state mainland.

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HARRISBURG, Pa.  The governing body for Pennsylvania interscholastic sports decided Friday to move forward with the fall season, rejecting the governors recommendation that all youth sports be postponed until 2021 to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The board of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association had delayed the start of fall sports by two weeks after Gov. Tom Wolf on Aug. 6 urged that scholastic and recreational youth sports be put off until January, citing the pandemic.

The PIAA had said it was blindsided and tremendously disappointed by Wolfs recommendation  which was not binding  and insisted that fall sports could be held safely. For his part, Wolf has pointed out that major collegiate leagues have independently cancelled fall sports.

The board voted 25-5 on Friday to allow high school football, soccer, tennis, field hockey and other fall sports to go on as planned, starting Monday. Among those voting no: board members representing professional associations of school boards, superintendents and principals.

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SALT LAKE CITY  The annual Christmas concert by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints choir has been cancelled because of lingering concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

The cancellation of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Squares holiday concert announced Friday by church officials is the latest sign that disruptions to normal religious activity will continue through the holidays. The Utah-based faith previously announced it would hold its twice-yearly signature conference in October without in-person audience as it did at the April conference.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Arkansas on Friday reported its largest single-day increase in deaths from the illness caused by the coronavirus as the state moved closer toward resuming in-person classes at public schools.

The Department of Health reported 22 people had died from COVID-19, bringing the states total fatalities from the illness since the pandemic began to 663. The department reported 887 new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing the states total to 55,652.

The department said half of the new deaths occurred in nursing homes. Four of the deaths occurred in July and were late reports.

The spike in deaths comes days before Arkansas public schools are scheduled to reopen. Schools are allowed to offer virtual classes or a hybrid option that includes some onsite classes, but the state is requiring schools to be open five days a week for students who need in-person instruction.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind.  The size of private gatherings in Bloomington is now limited to 15 people under an emergency executive order by Mayor John Hamilton. The order took effect immediately Friday. The previous maximum crowd size was 50.

Hamilton issued the order after photos and videos shared on social media showed Indiana University students gathering in large groups without masks or practicing social distancing. Hamilton urged residents to report any violations of the new order to the Bloomington Police Department.

The mayor also also ordered people attending gatherings to practice social distancing and to use face coverings.

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IOWA CITY, Iowa  Iowas largest school district cannot begin the year with fully remote learning and must offer at least 50% in-person instruction despite a worsening coronavirus pandemic, the state said Friday.

Des Moines Public Schools, which has 32,000 students and 5,000 employees, blasted the decision by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds administration to deny its request for a waiver to allow for 100% online learning. The district announced that it would file a lawsuit to challenge the states order to reopen schools, a prospect that it said was simply unsafe because of the coronavirus threat.

Unfortunately, the governor and her agencies have decided to ignore the local decision-making authority set out in the law to try and force their will on school districts to do things we all know are simply not safe at this time, said Kyrstin Delagardelle, the chair of the school board.

The Iowa Department of Education denied the districts waiver request on Thursday. The agency said the denial would still allow parents to choose 100% virtual learning for students, and the district could offer a hybrid approach in which students get 50% in-person learning and the rest online.

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DETROIT  Educators in Detroit concerned about exposure to the COVID-19 virus in classrooms and hallways have given their union the OK to call a potential safety strike in which teachers would agree to teach and work remotely.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers insists the strike would not be a work stoppage with the start of the school year looming, and said the aim is to press the public school district to implement science-based safety protocols during the coronavirus pandemic. Classes in Detroit are scheduled to start Sept 8.

Friday is the deadline for parents to complete a survey on whether they want online or face-to-face learning for the first quarter. A district spokeswoman says teachers also can choose face-to-face or online instruction.

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PHOENIX  Arizona has reported a 20% increase in deaths in the first seven months of this year.

Public health experts say not all have been directly linked to the coronavirus. They say possible explanations include overdoses and suicides by those struggling with isolation or unemployment during the pandemic.

Other possibilities are patients succumbing to chronic diseases after postponing hospital visits because of fears about contracting the virus there. Or deaths from Arizonas regular flu season in October to April.

A more complete understanding is expected after health officials review death certificates.

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TOPEKA, Kan.  The largest school district in Kansas moved classes online for its middle and high-schoolers while public health officials in Topeka imposed stricter crowd size limits to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

The Wichita school district, with more than 50,000 students, will give the parents of elementary students the option of taking classes in person or online. But older students will be online only when classes begin Sept. 8, the districts board of education decided Thursday in a 5-2 vote.

The district also is the latest to cancel sports and extracurricular activities. Wyandotte County called off football, volleyball and soccer, as well as marching band, last week. And the Shawnee Mission School District, which is the states third largest with 27,000 students, decided to suspend sports and extracurricular activities starting Friday.

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OKLAHOMA CITY  The Oklahoma State Department of Health reported an increase of 1,077 coronavirus cases and six deaths in the last 24 hours.

Also, the health department and the state Department of Education announced Friday a plan that provides public school teachers and school support staff with free coronavirus testing in their areas.

Gov. Kevin Stitt in July issued an executive order for the state health and education departments to develop a plan for teachers to be tested monthly for the virus.

Oklahoma has reported 51,746 coronavirus cases and 715 deaths.
Posted on August 21, 2020



We are collaborating with FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, in an effort to identify misinformation and to ensure news consumers get the facts. This story first appeared on FactCheck.org.

As the socially distanced convention came to a close, Joe Biden accepted the Democratic Partys presidential nomination with a speech that was largely accurate, but lacked context in some instances:

Biden claimed that America has by far the worst performance of any nation with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic. While thats true based on the raw totals of COVID-19 cases and deaths, the U.S. is not the worst when adjusted for population or on other metrics.

The former vice president referred to the tax cuts championed by President Donald Trump as the presidents $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1% and the biggest, most profitable corporations. Although those with higher incomes reaped greater benefits from the tax law, most households received a tax cut.

Biden said Trump was proposing to eliminate the payroll tax that funds Social Security. The president did say he would be ending that tax, but administration officials said he meant he would forgive a recently announced payroll tax deferral.

Biden said, More than 10 million people are going to lose their health insurance this year. A study did find that, but it also said most would regain insurance from another source, leaving 3.5 million of them uninsured.

Earlier in the night, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said Trump has lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs. True, but thats because of the pandemic. And not mentioned is that 192,000 were lost during the Obama-Biden years.

The Democrats wrapped up their four-day convention on Aug. 21. The Republican National Convention kicks off on Aug. 24.

Worst Performance With COVID-19

In critiquing Trump on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Biden pointed to the U.S.s high COVID-19 caseload and death toll.

Just judge this president on the facts, he said. Five million Americans infected by COVID-19. More than 170,000 Americans have died. By far the worst performance of any nation on Earth.

Biden is right that in both coronavirus cases and deaths, the U.S. has the most of any other country. As of Aug. 21, Americas totals stand at 5.6 million cases and more than 174,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys COVID-19 dashboard. The next-worst nation is Brazil, with 3.5 million cases and around 112,000 deaths.

But by other metrics, the U.S. does not have the worst record. When population is factored in, seven other countries, per Oxford Universitys Our World in Data for Aug. 20, have more cumulative COVID-19 cases. This includes Qatar, with more than 40,000 cases per million people, and Bahrain, San Marino, Chile, Panama, Kuwait and Peru. The U.S. places eighth, with 16,706 cases per million.

On deaths per capita, the U.S. also does not fare the worst. Our World in Data shows America with the 10th-highest death rate, better than San Marino, Belgium, Peru, Andorra, Spain, the U.K., Italy, Sweden and Chile. In a similar dataset from Johns Hopkins, the U.S. does better than an additional country, Brazil.

Although harder to interpret and heavily influenced by the number of coronavirus tests performed, the U.S. also does substantially better on its observed case-fatality rate, or the proportion of people identified with the virus who have died. In the U.S., 3.1% of those known to be infected with the virus have died  a lower rate than 55 other countries in the Johns Hopkins analysis.

While the COVID-19 statistics for the U.S. are certainly grim  and America is by no means leading the world with its superior COVID-19 performance  by a variety of metrics, it is not the worst.

GOP Tax Cuts

Biden referred to the tax cuts championed by Trump as the presidents $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1% and the biggest, most profitable corporations, some of which do not pay any tax at all. Although those with higher incomes reaped greater benefits from the tax law, most households received a tax cut.

Bidens dig at the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act  a Republican-crafted bill that the president signed into law on Dec. 22, 2017  came as Biden highlighted a list of priorities. such as investing in infrastructure, education, child care and addressing climate change. Those are all things Biden has promised during the campaign that he could pay for, in part, by rolling back the Trump tax cuts on households making above the $400,000 threshold and raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

Biden, Aug. 20: And we can pay for these investments by ending loopholes, unnecessary loopholes, and the presidents $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1% and the biggest, most profitable corporations, some of do not pay any tax at all.

The line hearkened back to one Biden used in his campaign kickoff speech on April 29, 2019, when he claimed that all of the tax cuts signed into law by Trump went to folks at the top and corporations that pay no taxes.



As we wrote then, the law provided tax cuts to those at all income levels, on average. The Tax Policy Center estimated that about 65% of households paid less in federal income tax in 2018 under the tax law than they would have paid under the old tax laws, while about 6% paid more.

A higher percentage of high-income taxpayers got a tax cut, and that tax cut was, on average, greater than the tax cuts for those with lower incomes (both in dollar amounts and as a percentage of after-tax income). But 82% of middle-income earners  those with income between about $49,000 and $86,000  received a tax cut that averaged about $1,050 in 2018, the Tax Policy Center estimated.

Most of the individual income tax provisions expire after 2025, which will then shift most of the tax benefits to the top 1%. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that the top 1% of income earners would get 20.5% of the tax cut benefits in 2018. That percentage would go up to 25.3% in 2025 and then jump to 82.8% in 2027.

At the time it was passed, the tax law was estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation to cost $1.46 trillion over 10 years through 2027. The Tax Policy Center noted that looking at a revised 10-year window  through 2028  the Congressional Budget Office later revised its projection, estimating the tax cuts would increase the primary deficit by $1.8 trillion. Taking into account some of the economic growth effects  what economists call dynamic estimates  the CBO projected the law would raise primary deficits by $1.3 trillion through 2028.

Social Security

Biden took aim at Trump by arguing that for our seniors, Social Security is a sacred obligation, a sacred promise made and that the current president is threatening to break that promise.

Hes proposing to eliminate a tax that pays for almost half the Social Security without any way of making up for that lost revenue, resulting in cuts, Biden said.

Trump, for his part, has argued that Social Security will be totally protected under me.

Bidens comments refer to statements made by Trump this month suggesting that he wants to permanently eliminate the payroll tax that funds Social Security. Trump administration officials, on the other hand, have said that the president was referring to the permanent forgiveness of a recently announced payroll tax deferral.

Well explain here.

On Aug. 8, Trump issued a memorandum to defer some employees portion of the payroll tax through the end of the year. Social Security is primarily funded by that tax (including employers portions): In 2019, the tax brought in $944.5 billion to cover Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance, or nearly 90% of its cost, according to the Social Security Administration.

Trumps memo also instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to explore avenues, including legislation, to eliminate the obligation to pay the taxes deferred pursuant to the implementation of this memorandum. In other words, the administration is looking for ways to potentially forgive that deferred amount  which could be upward of $100 billion, according to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

But Trump also indicated that he wanted to either cut or eliminate the payroll tax, permanently.

In remarks on Aug. 8, Trump said: If Im victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax. So Im going to make them all permanent.

Two days later, he said: I signed directives to give a payroll tax holiday, with the understanding that after the election  on the assumption that it would be victorious for an administration thats done a great job  we will be ending that tax. Well be terminating that tax.

Administration officials, however, said he was actually referring to forgiving the payroll taxes deferred this year.

When he referred to permanent, I think what he was saying is that the deferral of the payroll tax to the end of the year will be made permanent. It will be forgiven. The tax is not going away, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNN on Aug. 9.

And on Aug. 13, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters: What he was meaning yesterday is that he wants permanent forgiveness of the deferral.

Its unclear how exactly the hole left by the defacto tax cut would be covered. There are two options: The money would come out of Social Securitys trust funds, or from general revenues (which would need to be approved by Congress). The trust funds are estimated to be depleted by 2035.

The Bipartisan Policy Centers William Hoagland told PolitiFact that if the payroll tax deferral costs $80 billion and came from the trust funds, it would not gut the program, but would only impact the date of depletion, possibly a year or two earlier than expected.

Biden would have a point about Trump threatening Social Security if the president indeed plans on terminating a tax that funds the program. But its not clear what Trump would do, and his aides say he was referring only to making a short-term tax deferral permanent  which has less of an impact on Social Securitys finances.

Health Insurance

Biden went through some of the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, saying, More than 10 million people are going to lose their health insurance this year. That figure comes from an Urban Institute study, though its worth noting the study said most of those 10 million would regain insurance from another source.

The Urban Institute estimated the impact from job losses on those with employer-sponsored health insurance, finding that over the April-to-December time frame, 10.1 million people would lose employer-sponsored coverage. But many would switch to insurance through another family member, Medicaid or the individual market, leaving 3.5 million uninsured in the end.

Urban Institute, July 13, 2020: We find that 48 million people will live in families with a worker who experiences a COVID-19-related job loss in the last three quarters of 2020. Of them, 10.1 million lose employer coverage tied to that job. We estimate 32 percent of these people switch to another source of employer coverage through a family member, 28 percent enroll in Medicaid, and 6 percent enroll in the nongroup market, mainly in marketplace coverage with premium tax credits. Still, we estimate 3.5 million people in this group become uninsured.

The study further said that those changes would be offset somewhat by coverage transitions, namely about 500,000 people who were uninsured before the economic impacts of the coronavirus would become eligible for Medicaid and sign up for it. That would result in a net 2.9 million uninsured.

Other estimates give higher figures for the uninsured. Families USA, which advocates for health care consumers, estimated that 5.4 million laid-off workers had lost health insurance between February and May, adding that the estimate didnt include family members of those workers who also would have lost coverage.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 26.8 million could lose employer insurance as of May 2. The vast majority of those  79%  would be eligible for subsidized coverage, either through Medicaid or tax credits to help purchase coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. But its unclear how many would enroll in such coverage. We did not estimate take-up or enrollment in coverage options but rather only looked at eligibility for coverage, KFF said.

Bloombergs Manufacturing Jobs

Bloomberg oversimplified, inappropriately compared apples to oranges, and misled when he said, Biden helped save 1 million auto industry jobs Trump has lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs.

Note first that Bloomberg compared auto industry jobs with manufacturing jobs. They are not the same thing. The auto industry includes management, sales, service and transport jobs in addition to production-line workers. Thats comparing apples to fruit salad, actually.

It may be true that 1 million auto industry jobs were saved because of the auto bailout Biden supported in 2009. The Center for Automotive Research estimated that it saved 1.5 million jobs in 2010, including those at the automakers, auto suppliers and spin-off employment in other industries. But its a fact that despite the auto bailout, overall, 578,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Obama-Biden first term  and not all were regained during their final four years.

And the fact is that manufacturing jobs increased during Trumps term  prior to the COVID-19 crisis. They also increased for much of Obamas time  but only after huge losses in his recession-plagued first years, losses that were not completely regained until after Trump took office.

Its true that there were 257,000 fewer manufacturing jobs in July than there were when the president took office. Bloomberg is right to that extent. But thats a net figure  the momentary position of a roller-coaster that is still in motion.

As of February there had been a gain of 483,000 manufacturing jobs under Trump  significantly more than the 386,000 gain during Obamas final four years. Then nearly 1.4 million of those jobs went away, at least temporarily, in March and April. Nearly half of them were regained in May, June and July.


Election 2020 Only a Fraction of Myanmar Migrants Have Applied to Vote in November Election

Staff and volunteers of the Migrant Workers Rights Network based in Mahachai, Thailand help check early voter registration forms of Myanmar migrants in early August. / Nyein Nyein

More than 4 million Myanmar nationals are living overseas, but only about 100,000 have filed applications to vote in the upcoming general election, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

The 2020 general election will be held on Nov. 8 with an estimated 37 million eligible voters in the country, not counting military personnel.

But that total doesnt include over 4 million Myanmar nationals living abroad, who are also eligible to vote.

In early July, voter registration forms known as Form 15 (an official request from someone who is outside their home constituency to vote in advance) were distributed to citizens living abroad via the official websites of embassies, the Union Election Commission (UEC) and MOFA.

Previously, the UEC said Form 15 must be sent back to the relevant embassy between July 16 and Aug. 5.

Myanmar embassies abroad later gave nationals two additional weeks to submit the form because in countries like Thailand and Malaysia, where millions of Myanmar migrants are working, there had been difficulties in getting or downloading the registration form and in submitting it.

Most of the migrants are not familiar with the necessary tools on the internet, including email. Meanwhile they have not received voter education for the election, Myanmar migrant rights activists have pointed out.

On Wednesday, MOFA announced that it had handed to the UEC 109,470 registration forms (Form 15) of nationals living abroad after receiving those forms via the 45 Myanmar embassies including consulates across the world.

MOFA said that it also handed about 1,821 Form 3 documents (an official request from someone whose name has not been listed on the voters list of their home constituency to vote in the election) of nationals living abroad to the UEC.

The Form 3 can still be sent by citizens living abroad until Aug. 21, said MOFA.

U Aung Soe Win, director general of the planning and administrative department of MOFA, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that for the upcoming election, the UEC had received three times more voter application forms than in the 2015 general election.

In the 2015 general election, only around 30,000 out of the 4 million nationals abroad managed to submit the application forms necessary to cast a vote, according to the UEC.

No more Form 15s will be transferred to the UEC. We will transfer the Form 3s that are sent until Aug. 21 said U Aung Soe Win.

In the previous general election, only around 600 of nearly 4 million Myanmar nationals in Thailandrepresenting the majority of Myanmar nationals living abroadmanaged to vote.

Myanmar migrant rights activists and migrant workers said that in the 2015 general election, the Myanmar Embassy failed to inform its citizens in Thailand or set up sites to cast ballots.

However, for the upcoming 2020 general election, nearly 40,000 out of nearly 4 million migrant workers in Thailand have submitted the application forms to cast ballots, according to the data of the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok.

Out of an estimated 550,000 Myanmar migrants living in Malaysia, 6,450 have applied to the UEC for voting in the 2020 general election, according to U Aung Zaw Min, Myanmar labor attache at the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. In the previous election, only 504 Myanmar nationals managed to cast ballots in Malaysia.

However, in Singapore, where many well-educated Myanmar nationals are living and working, the numbers were better. Out of around 30,000 who applied to vote across the world, more than 19,000 Myanmar nationals living in Singapore managed to cast advanced ballots for the 2015 election, according to the UECs report.

For the upcoming 2020 general election, Myanmar migrant rights organizations in Thailand and Malaysia have asked the Myanmar government and UEC to open the sub-polling stations in some areas where most of its nationals are living and working.

On July 8, Myanmar President U Win Myint also instructed the electoral officials and ministers that they need to work to ensure the election is free and fair, and citizens living abroad can still exercise their right to vote.

The President said that this year, officials must safeguard citizens rights to vote as mandated by law.

It is important that eligible voters not lose their right to vote. Losing the right to vote is losing their rights as a citizen or their natural rights said President U Win Myint.

Myanmars UEC and MOFA told The Irrawaddy that they have requested that the Thai government allow the opening of sub-polling stations in some areas where most Myanmar eligible voters are living.

We would arrange the polling stations only at the permitted places because this [involves] our countrys affairs in other countries. We even need permission for the elections to be held at our embassies and consulate offices, said MOFAs director general U Aung Soe Win.

U Aung Kyaw, chairman of Thailands Mahachai-based Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN) where around 400,000 Myanmar workers are living and working, told The Irrawaddy that workers would face difficulties in voting if polling stations are to be placed only at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok.

This is because many Myanmar workers dont know where the embassy is located in Thailand, he added.

However, Myanmar Embassy officials in Bangkok have promised that they will arrange transportation for the eligible voters to cast advance ballots at the embassy if polling stations are not allowed to be opened at the places outside of the embassy, said U Aung Kyaw.

When asked about his comment that Myanmar migrant eligible voters are now in limbo because of the uncertain locations of polling stations, U Aung Kyaw said Dont underestimate the migrants role in general elections. They are citizens, and they have the right to vote. The Myanmar government and UEC are responsible for safeguarding their voting rights.

Another migrant rights activist, U Aung Aung, vice chairman of the Dhamasettka philanthropic society based in Johor in Malaysia, told The Irrawaddy that 400 applications out of a total of 700 they helped Myanmar migrants to submit were canceled due to being incomplete since their passports were kept by their employers.

However, they will arrange transportation for eligible voters from Johor to travel to the Myanmar Embassy for voting.

U Aung Aung added that the Myanmar government and embassy need to ask employers in Malaysia to allow the absence of Myanmar migrant voters on voting day.

Currently, Myanmar has 94 registered political parties. They will vie for a total of 1,171 seats that are up for grabs in both houses of the Union Parliament and in the state and regional legislatures.

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How Should Myanmar Citizens Vote This November?
Outlining his foreign policy priorities, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said that, if elected in the November elections, he will be a president who would stand with US allies and friends and not cosy up to dictators.

He also assured Americans that he would not leave them at the mercy of China to protect them from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Biden, 77, officially accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party on the last day of the four-day virtual Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.

I take very personally the profound responsibility of serving as Commander in Chief. I will be a president who will stand with our allies and friends. I will make it clear to our adversaries the days of cozying up to dictators are over, Biden said.

As a US senator for several decades and the vice president for eight years under former president Barack Obama, Biden played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the United States.

He travelled extensively and is known personally to the leaders across the world.

Under President Biden, America will not turn a blind eye to Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers. Nor will I put up with foreign interference in our most sacred democratic exercise  voting. I will stand always for our values of human rights and dignity. And I will work in common purpose for a more secure, peaceful, and prosperous world, he said.

The Trump administration has downplayed reports that there were Russian bounties for attacks on American troops. Russia has denied the allegation.

In his acceptance speech, Biden also referred to the controversy surrounding the 2016 US presidential election won by President Donald Trump. The Democrats have alleged that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election with an aim to harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Trump, a Republican.

History has thrust one more urgent task on us. Will we be the generation that finally wipes the stain of racism from our national character? I believe were up to it. I believe were ready. Just a week ago was the Third anniversary of the events in Charlottesville, he said.

Asserting that he will lead the fight against coronavirus from day one, Biden said the US will make the medical supplies and protective equipment the country needs.

Well make them here in America. So we will never again be at the mercy of China and other foreign countries in order to protect our own people. Well make sure our schools have the resources they need to be open, safe, and effective, he said.

The US has the highest coronavirus death toll in the world, with 174,248 deaths recorded, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country also has over five million confirmed cases of the disease.

Well put the politics aside and take the muzzle off our experts so the public gets the information they need and deserve. The honest, unvarnished truth. They can deal with that. Well have a national mandate to wear a mask-not as a burden, but to protect each other. Its a patriotic duty, Biden said.

The former vice president said he will do what should have done from the very beginning.

Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to this nation. He failed to protect us. He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable, he said.

As president, I will make you this promise: I will protect America. I will defend us from every attack. Seen. And unseen. Always. Without exception. Every time. Look, I understand its hard to have hope right now, he said.
(From L) Jill Biden, husband former vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Senator from California and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris greet supporters outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, held virtually amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, on Aug. 20, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

Joe Biden Accepts Democratic Nomination for President

Former vice president Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Aug. 20 during a speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

The Democrats formally elected the former vice president as their candidate on Aug. 18, months after he had become the presumptive nominee. Biden will face President Donald Trump in the election on Nov. 3.

Im a proud Democrat and Ill be proud to carry the banner of our party into the general election. So its with great honor and humility that I accept this nomination, Biden said in a speech broadcast as part of a convention held virtually due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19.

If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. Ill be an ally of the light, not the darkness. Its time for us, for we the people, to come together.

Bidens speech capped off the four-day 2020 Democratic National Convention, which featured speeches from the biggest names in Democratic politics, including former president Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), among others.

Biden, 77, criticized Trump for the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and blamed him for the economic impact of the numerous shutdowns meant to mitigate the spread of the disease. The Democratic candidate suggested that things would only get worse if Americans reelected the incumbent Republican president.

If this president is re-elected, we know what will happen. Cases and deaths will remain far too high. More mom and pop businesses will close their doors for good. Working families will struggle to get by, and yet, the wealthiest one percent will get tens of billions of dollars in new tax breaks, Biden said.

The vice president said he would make wearing masks mandatory nationwide. His other proposals for handling the pandemic were similar to those already carried out by the Trump administration.

The Trump campaign responded to Bidens acceptance speech with a statement focused on the major far-left proposals in the Democratic opponents platform.

By accepting his partys nomination tonight, Joe Biden has formally become a pawn of the radical leftists, Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, said in a statement.

Biden supports raising taxes by $4 trillion and forcing a government takeover of healthcare that will lead to the elimination of your employer-provided health insurance, Murtaugh added. He would kill 10 million energy jobs with the Green New Deal and bow to anti-police activists in cutting funding for law enforcement. He will sacrifice public safety and jobs for Americans by granting amnesty, taxpayer-funded healthcare, and work permits to 11 million illegal aliens.

Biden devoted only a brief portion of his speech to policy proposals but provided little in terms of specifics. He promised to lower premiums, deductibles, and drug prices by building on the Affordable Care Act and vowed to protect the Affordable Care Act and protect social security and Medicare.

The 2020 campaign is Bidens third run for president. He ran against Obama in 2008 and dropped out from the 1988 presidential race after being mired in controversy.
With food pantries still struggling to keep up with the rise in demand during the coronavirus pandemic, several groups and individuals across the country are stepping in to help fight hunger.

From hunters to farmers and even a wedding planner, many are using their skills to help those in need.

Earlier this year, business nearly came to a halt for Kambria Sims, an event planner based in Florida. These days, she's found a new way to put her skills to good use. After all of her spring events were canceled or postponed, Sims decided to spend her free time helping Feeding Tampa Bay, a local nonprofit that provides food to families in need.

Sims first volunteered with the group four years ago and looked for additional ways to partner with them when she started her own event planning business, Happenings by Kambria, a year later. After organizing a wedding at the FTB warehouse in 2018, Sims began planning the group's annual Fork Fight gala, an event attended by 600 people, the following year.

"When COVID-19 hit, we were in the planning stages of Fork Fight 2020 that was to be held in May. The event was quickly postponed so the group could dedicate more time to the new need in the community," Sims told TODAY Food. "After just a few weeks, FTB realized they had a huge need for staff to help implement the new programs."

Using her industry connections and organizational skills, Sims quickly got to work growing the group's mega pantry programs in Hillsborough and Pinellas, then later expanded it into three more counties. On a daily basis, the Floridian oversees site visits, supplies and volunteers for the program, which now feeds 10,000 families a week with the help of 500 volunteers in five counties.

Sims has been keeping busy during the pandemic. (Feeding Tampa Bay)

With her own industry in limbo during the pandemic, Sims said she is happy that she's been able to keep busy over the past few months.

"I can't imagine what I would be doing with my time or talents (right now) as so much of my industry's future is still unknown," she said. "I feel as if COVID-19 has caused so many problems in our community and country, and I feel blessed and thankful to be doing something that is productive and solution oriented."

Story continues

Related: The price of groceries increased by 2.6% between March and April.

Giving continues after the hunt

Since moving to Idaho in 2009, Jeff Schroeder has been actively involved with local food pantries and ministries. In 2013, he took on the role of Executive Director of Idaho Hunters Feeding the Hungry, a nonprofit organization that pays for the processing of surplus wild game meat that is then donated to food banks, soup kitchens and churches.

"Good quality protein is always a challenge for pantries to provide. Food banks (and) pantries get plenty of doughnuts donated, but very little good quality, red meat protein," he told TODAY.

When COVID-19 hit and families began quarantining at home in late March, IHFH witnessed the demand for food (and meat in particular) rapidly spike. His group is able to provide one-pound packages of processed wild game to families in need.

Idaho Hunters Feeding the Hungry provides meat to many local groups in need. (Courtesy Jeff Schroeder)

"For those that have not prepared wild game before they are, at times, reluctant to try it, but after tasting it, they are excited for more," Schroeder said. "Even more exciting are the seniors that relive past hunting memories when enjoying a meal. With the fluctuation of pricing and availability of meat, the timing for this has been a blessing."

Farmers are donating surplus crops

Since 1996, Farmers Against Hunger has been tackling food insecurity in New Jersey through its gleaning program. In conjunction with local farmers, the organization's volunteers harvest surplus produce from farms, wholesalers and distributors, then deliver it to hunger relief agencies and community organizations.

With an increasing number of families experiencing food insecurity due to the pandemic, the group has started to host direct-to-resident emergency distributions throughout the state.

"We received an upsurge of calls and messages asking for assistance, so we knew there was great need as a result of the increase in unemployment. We decided to think outside the box and try to get food to as many people as we could in a safe, socially distant way," Farmers Against Hunger Director of Programming and Outreach Elyse Yerrapathruni told TODAY.

Farmers and volunteers are working together to feed the hungry. (Farmers Against Hunger)

The group has distributed more than 1 million pounds of produce and milk to families in need across New Jersey over the last few months through its drive-up centers.

"Many families that have never experienced food-access issues now have to make tough choices between paying for food and paying for medical bills and housing. No one should have to make those choices," Yerrapathruni said.

Food insecurity is becoming more common during the pandemic. (Farmers Against Hunger)

Since the pandemic began, Yerrapathruni said over 400 new volunteers have partnered with Farmers Against Hunger, but the need for food is growing every day.

"We have had distribution events where hundreds of cars have been in line for food. Many of the events have reached upwards of 1,000 families," Yerrapathruni said.

Members of the organization are grateful for the opportunity to give back, but also recognize that they have a long road ahead of them.

"This experience has been rewarding, but also truly heartbreaking," the program's director continued. "We have run out of produce at a couple of events because the need is that great. It is so difficult to tell someone that you ran out of food. Its our mission to continue hosting distributions as long as there is need."

"Friendly Fridges" are popping up across New York

Nonprofit organizations aren't the only ones working to address hunger right now. After filling up one fridge with food and placing it in a Brooklyn neighborhood for community members in need, New Yorker Thadeus Umpster helped spark the free community fridge movement  they're now known as "Friendly Fridges."

Local volunteers have been filling and cleaning the fridges regularly and anyone is allowed to take what they need on a daily basis. There are now 38 fridges in the New York area. Fridge operators stay in contact with each other about how to distribute produce, generate awareness and take care of the fridges.

When Bronx residents Sara Allen and Selma Raven heard about the movement in May, the couple started their own Friendly Fridge after finding a used one on Craigslist. To get started, they asked local bodegas if they could plug the appliance into their outdoor outlets.

Raven's son died seven years ago, and this has been a particularly meaningful endeavor for her.

"Michael (her son) was very passionate about access to healthy food and advocated relentlessly for fresh produce to be available in food desserts," Allen told TODAY.

Raven, a special education itinerary teacher, and Allen, an analytics architect, have been overwhelmed by the positive response to their local fridge and are thrilled to see community members embracing the project.

"Two young men, Ben and Zach, embarked on a sandwich challenge and put together 115 wrapped and labelled sandwiches. They put them into two large trays and brought them to the fridge and the sandwiches were gone within two days," Allen said. "One woman regularly collects cartons of milk from various places that are not using them and brings them to the fridge. Those go almost immediately as well."

Local businesses are also lending their support. One bodega down the street from their fridge drops off buttered rolls almost every other day, while staff members from the Peruvian restaurant Claudy's Kitchen bring wrapped empanadas at night after closing. After their first fridge broke, New Jersey-based Yudin's Appliances even donated a new fridge to Allen and Raven.

Said Allen, "The project has given us both a way to continuously help our community in a sustainable manner and we are both super excited for more opportunities to grow this initiative into far reaching corners."
A 16-year-old boy touchingly proposed to his girlfriend on the day the pair re-united after being forced apart for six months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Steven Bagley and Lillie Dodd, from Colwyn Bay, North Wales, who both have autism, have been smitten since they met at school last year and have been an item ever since.

While shielding they could not see each other for six months but had up to five video calls a day to keep in touch.

Their families formed a 'bubble' to enable the pair to meet up for a date - and Steven got down on one knee with a ring to ask if Lillie would marry him 'in the future'.

Lillie, who also suffers from type 1 diabetes and a rare genetic condition which limits her physical movement, instantly said yes to Steven, who also has ADHD.

Sixteen-year-old Steven Bagley touchingly proposed to his girlfriend Lille Dodd, also 16, on the day the pair re-united at a local restaurant near their homes in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, after six months apart because of the coronavirus pandemic

Lillie, who also suffers from type 1 diabetes and a rare genetic condition which limits her physical movement, instantly said yes to Steven, who also has ADHD

Lillie's mother, Emma Dodd, 51, a school transport escort, said: 'They absolutely adore each other.

'They're very much in love, in their own little world, and they love spending time together. During lockdown they were missing each other terribly.

'They definitely bounce off each other, and both having autism, they also know how to support each other.'

Ms Dodd said Lillie is thought to be the only person in the UK with her exact condition, a chromosome abnormality which is so rare it does not have a name.

Humans ordinarily have 46 chromosomes, with each cell normally containing 23 pairs.

However, Lillie, who also has learning difficulties which are linked to the condition, has three copies of chromosome number 19, rather than two.

Lillie's mum, Emma Dodd, 51, a school transport escort, said: 'They absolutely adore each other. They're very much in love, in their own little world, and they love spending time together'

The physical impact of the abnormality means she cannot produce tears and has difficulty walking because she has low muscle tone.

The teenager also has an overactive bladder because its muscles do not work properly, meaning that she needs to wear a catheter to collect her urine.

She and Steven met in February 2019 at the special needs school they both attend and they've been together ever since.

The lovebirds met for lunch at a local restaurant, where Steven proposed, on August 12.

Emma said: 'Their relationship is very innocent.

Lillie's mother said the teenager is thought to be the only person in the UK with her exact condition, a chromosome abnormality which is so rare it does not have a name. Pictured: Her and Steven after his proposal

She and Steven met in February 2019 at the special needs school they both attend and they've been together ever since

'They both need a lot of support, and they always will - but it's lovely to hear them making plans for the future.

'It's so nice to see Lillie happy with Steven, and to have that little bit of normality in both their lives.

'Even though their relationship is unique to them, and is different to other relationships, it's lovely that they are able to be together.

'And of course, it would be a beautiful love story if they did end up getting married!'
A 99-year-old survivor of the Nanjing Massacre died on Wednesday, reducing the number officially registered to 73, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

The survivor, Ma Hongxiang, had testified that he witnessed Japanese soldiers dragging Chinese civilians to a square and shooting those without relatives with machine guns before burying the bodies in mass graves as the crime unfolded in the winter of 1937-38.

Ma said he had been learning to make ramen at a restaurant near Nanjing's Shuixi Gate. About seven people died at a neighboring barbershop, he said, adding that Japanese soldiers killed many people at what was then the Jinling Middle School Refugee Camp. Many women were raped and killed, he said.

Ma was the fourth survivor to die this year. Most of the registered survivors are in their 90s or late 80s.
- The local government of Manila has taken several actions against the people behind the hair product that labeled Manila as a province of China

- Manila Mayor Isko Moreno requested for the deportation of the Chinese nationals behind this

- He also asked the National Bureau of Investigation to probe the possible violations

- Mayor Isko also said that he will not let the issue pass amid the COVID-19 pandemic

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Mayor Isko Moreno requested for the deportation of two Chinese nationals who are behind the products that labeled Manila as a province of China.

KAMI learned that the Manila Mayor denounced the tag that the capital city is part of China.

Photo from Getty Images

Source: Getty Images

In a report by ABS-CBN News, Mayor Isko said that two stores and two stalls in Manila were shut down by the local government after its hair product listed its address in Manila, Province of China.

An examination of the registration papers of EFBPI reveals that two (2) Chinese nationals are its incorporators namely, Shi Zhong Xing and Shi Li Li. Being incorporators, and in effect owners of the corporation, the should be held responsible for the violations committed by EFBI, Mayor Isko wrote.

Their utter disrespect to the country as shown by the violations of EFBPI should not be countenanced. We cannot let these foreign nationals insult our nation and our people, he added.

The Manila Mayor also said that they are willing to submit necessary documents to process the deportation case.

In view of the foregoing, we are requesting that deportation proceedings be initiated against Shi Zhong Xing and Shi Li Li, he said.

In a Facebook post by News5, Mayor Isko said that he will not dismiss the issue even if there is a COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Kahit nasa gitna tayo ng pandemya, hindi ko palalagpasin ang isyu ng panghihimasok sa ating soberanya, he said.

As reported by CNN Philippines, Mayor Isko asked the National Bureau of Investigation to probe the possible violations regarding this matter.

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The case stemmed from a post of a netizen who shared a photo of a certain hair product that mentioned in its address that Manila is a province of China.

PBA Party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles said that the incident should be investigated. However, the Palace said that it was just a kalokohan.

After the Palace made its statement, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno ordered the closure of establishments that were selling the said hair product.

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Linkedin Ardila Syakriah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:45 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f71338 1 National COVID-19,children-health,school-reopening,malnutrition,death-rate,Indonesia,Asia-Pacific Free

Indonesias pediatricians have raised concerns over the governments plan to allow more schools to reopen, given that the share of children among COVID-19 fatalities is higher in Indonesia than in other countries.

With around 30 percent of Indonesias 270 million population being below the age of 18, at least 9,216 children have been infected with the disease in the country as of Aug. 6.

Child deaths accounted for 2.3 percent of the overall COVID-19 death toll, which exceeded 6,000 on Tuesday, official data show.

According to figures from the Indonesian Pediatric Society (IDAI), which are lower than those of the government, 59 COVID-19 deaths and 318 suspected deaths among children were recorded as of Aug. 10.

Forty-two percent of the 59 deaths are children who never got to celebrate their first birthday, followed by children aged 1-5 years (24 percent), 6-9 years (14 percent) and 10-18 years (20 percent).

"Some of the deaths occurred because the children had comorbidity factors, but for others it was because we acted too late, said IDAI chairman Aman Bhakti Pulungan.

Even with comorbidity factors, they shouldn't have died, he said during a press conference held on Monday in protest of plans to reopen schools.

In a separate statement issued on Monday, the IDAI noted that Indonesia was among the countries with the highest COVID-19 case fatality rates (CFR) among people aged 18 years and younger in the Asia-Pacific region.

The CFR among children in the country stood at 1.1 percent, the group said, citing data from the national COVID-19 task force as of Aug. 16. This was much higher than the rates in China, Italy and the United States, each of which stood below 0.1 percent, while in Europe it was 0.3 percent.

The CFR is the proportion of infection cases resulting in death.

Meanwhile, the incidence proportion among children stood at 9.1 percent in Indonesia, which compares to 0.9 percent in China, 1.2 percent in Italy and 5 percent in the US. Incidence proportion is the likelihood of children being infected with COVID-19.

The figures cited were collected by the IDAI from a number of publications, some of which used data prior to August.

One of the reasons why more children in Indonesia contract and die from COVID-19 is malnutrition.

The prevalence of stunting, malnutrition and pneumonia is still high here. There are also those with tuberculosis and other comorbidity factors.

Even before the pandemic, we didnt have a good report card [on health], so when the pandemic hit, the burden instantly tripled, Aman said.

The double burden of malnutrition in Indonesia has prompted concerns over childrens immunity.

Basic Health Survey (Riskesdas) data from 2018 show that 30.8 percent of children below 5 years of age were stunted, while 2013 data show that the prevalence of obesity among 5-12-year-olds was 18.8 percent.

Children below the age of 14 accounted for 8.4 percent of tuberculosis cases in 2018, while the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that pneumonia, congenital diseases and diarrhea were the main causes of death among young children.

Government data as of Aug. 6 show that, from a sample size of about 6,000 confirmed infections, as many as 34 children were found to have pneumonia, while four had tuberculosis and several others asthma or hypertension.

From a sample size of 1,000 deaths, some were children that had suffered from pneumonia, heart or liver problems or hypertension.

Aman said that, because COVID-19 symptoms may resemble those of other illnesses common among children, like diarrhea and pneumonia, and because of a lack of awareness, among other factors, such cases ended up being treated like other diseases.

Families would also be late in seeking treatment  in some cases, even a month after the onset of symptoms, he said. As a result, doctors would often discover that the children were already at a severe stage of illness when diagnosed; some passed away before receiving the optimal treatment, while others died even before undergoing tests.

Under such circumstances, and coupled with other concerns by parents and teachers, the decision to allow schools in low-risk areas to reopen raises questions about the governments preparedness for the possible emergence of new infection clusters from schools, as seen in some other countries.

With inadequate testing and tracing capabilities and a limited capacity for isolation and intensive care unit (ICU) beds, there is much at stake for the nations young population.

Indonesia has a total of 38,494 ICU and isolation beds, including for neonatal and pediatric cases, according to 2018 official data.

Meanwhile, national COVID-19 task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito acknowledged that tracing capabilities were still low and that the country was trying to reach 30 contacts per confirmed case. Low testing rates also persisted, especially outside Jakarta.

There are also concerns about transmission among schoolchildrens older family members. Riskesdas data from 2019 show that 40 percent of people aged 60 years and older in Indonesia live in three-generation households, meaning they live with their children and grandchildren.

Even as the decision to reopen schools would be left up to local administrations, and by extension to schools and parents, a lack of data transparency would not help lead to informed decisions, said Elina Ciptadi, cofounder of crowdsourced database KawalCOVID-19.

"It's not fair to shift the responsibility for reopening schools to parents when the decision itself is not based on data and they don't know the risks they face, she said.

Improve testing and tracing, and disclose the data to all the parents and teachers before they decide on whether to reopen schools or not, she demanded.

Much of the dilemma about reopening schools has been prompted by the severe digital divide among regions, which prevents effective distance learning in many cases. A recent study showed that the majority of people still find online learning too costly.

The Education and Culture Ministry's head of research and development, Totok Suprayitno, admitted that Indonesia was not at all prepared for distance learning, with teachers resorting to task-based learning instead of delving into more ideal teaching and learning processes.

However, a simplified curriculum that included only essential competencies was expected to help teachers deal with the limitations of time and interaction during distance learning, he said.

"Teachers are also allowed to map out their own curricula using the simplified curriculum as inspiration [...]. This can [allow for] a diversification of approaches, instead of using a top-down [approach]," Totok said.
The heartbreaking past of a man who was pictured slumped behind the wheel of a car with his girlfriend has been revealed in court.

Nicholas Arthur Procter, 33, and a female passenger were found unresponsive in a Toyota Rav4 in Mount Hawthorn, Perth on September 20 last year.

The harrowing picture went viral on social media with shocked Australians branding him a 'meth zombie'.

Witnesses said the pair 'looked like pretzels' and one took the key out of the car's ignition.

Procter was hauled before Perth's Magistrates Court this week on a string of charges where said he was desperately trying to get clean and had found a place in a private rehab clinic.

Defence lawyer Abigail Rogers said Procter had 'entrenched' drug issues which had been exacerbated by the tragic recent death of his father earlie.

Nicholas Arthur Procter, 33, and a female passenger were found unresponsive in a Toyota Rav4 in Mount Hawthorn, Perth on September 20 last year

Procter (pictured with his girlfriend) has been caught twice passed out behind the wheel of a car

Procter has been found passed out behind the wheel on three separate occasions.

In January Procter, who has been banned for life from driving, was found passed out behind the wheel with a replica gun in his lap, The West reported.

He later admitted to police he had taken the drug GHB, the street name for liquid ecstasy, before driving. A drug test also found meth, amphetamine and tramadol in his blood system.

A month later, Procter was once again found in a similar position but this time with pieces of a shotgun wrapped in a towel hidden in a bag.

Various charges saw him receive a lenient suspended prison term.

Two police officers spotted beside the car where Procter was found slumped behind the wheel

He has now been charged with giving false personal details to police, failing to obey a data access order, drug possession, using a mobile phone while driving and stealing.

Magistrate Elaine Campione said she feared that Procter would disappear if released on bail and decided he will be allowed out of jail if he was escorted to rehab.

'You must light up like a Christmas tree with all the substances you are consuming,' she said.

Procter is due back in court in October.

Procter and Thompson were also likened to an American couple who were found overdosed on opioids while their four-year-old child was in the backseat.

The pictures have been likened to an American couple who had overdosed on opioids while their four-year-old son was in the car

A survey conducted by the National Drug Strategy in 2019 found that up to 5.8 per cent or 1.2million Australians over the age of 14 had ever used meth including ice, speed or base.

The death rate involving meth was four times higher in 2017 compared to 1999, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 2.2 times more likely to consume the drug compared to non-Indigenous people.

Samantha Dillon from Narara on the NSW Central Coast was found to be dealing drugs on multiple social media platforms

Australia's meth crisis has been highlighted after a number of unlikely addicts appeared before the courts.

One was a doting mother-of-two who was living a double life using social media platforms to sell a range of drugs plead guilty to supplying illegal substances.

Samantha Dillon from Narara on the NSW Central Coast was captured by police when she was fleeing behind the Bon Bon Fire Chocolate factory in February.

The young mother was carrying two bags filled with drugs and another with stolen goods.

Her stash included two packages of methylamphetamine, a green balloon she told police contained 20 Buprenorphine tablets, cocaine, one Oxazepam tablet and three diazepam tablets, with no script for the prescription medication.

Dillon's phone was reviewed by officers, where they discovered the scope of her drug dealing through her Facebook account, which revealed she was selling drugs instead of attending her April court date.

'A review of the accused's mobile phone established the accused was in fact, supplying prohibited drugs in West Gosford on the date (of her court appearance),' the police facts read, as reported by the Central Coast Express Advocate.

When police examined Dillon's phone they found she was selling large quantities of methylamphetamine, as well as Xanax, ice, opioids and the 'date rape' drug GHB

'It was apparent that the accused was largely using this service to facilitate the purchase and supply of prohibited drugs and prescribed restrictive substances.'

When police examined Dillon's phone they found she was selling large quantities of methylamphetamine, as well as Xanax, ice, opioids and the 'date rape' drug GHB.

Dillon sold her drugs for cash and exchanged them for goods including a GoPro Hero 4 camera, a gold Adina Oceaneer watch and a Calvin Klein jumper, which were all found in her possession.

In August, a glamorous hairdresser was also charged after being caught with ice in her handbag as well as a switch knife and weighing scales.

Police raided Claire Elizabeth Gregory's Logan home in south Brisbane last November and found 0.7g of the drug along with a set of scales covered in powder.

The 30-year-old was unable to explain any of the items found in her bag and was charged with three offences, the Beenleigh Magistrates Court heard.

Claire Elizabeth Gregory, 30, (pictured) was caught with 0.7g of ice and a switch knife in her bag

Gregory was on probation at the time and had also been charged with travelling in a stolen car.

She pleaded guilty to the three charges in relation to the drugs as well as one offence related the stolen vehicle.

She has since moved in with her mother.

Magistrate Clare Kelly placed the hairdresser on a further nine months of probation and no convictions were recorded.
Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

HAMDEN  Two teachers have tested positive for the coronavirus, an education official said.

Superintendent of Schools Jody Goeler said two employees of the Adult Education program at Hamden High School were diagnosed with COVID-19 this week and both are quarantining per the districts coronavirus health plan.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.  A tropical depression in the Atlantic is expected to strengthen into either Tropical Storm Laura or Marco Thursday, and could become a hurricane as it tracks toward Florida by early next week, according to the National Hurricane Centers 5 p.m. update.

The storm is expected to move along a fairly quick west-northwest track over the next several days, approaching the southeastern Bahamas as a tropical storm during the weekend.

"We can't rule out it will, potentially, be a hurricane at that point," said meteorologist Robert Garcia, during a National Weather Service weekly briefing Thursday.

Another depression in the western Caribbean is also expected to strengthen into a tropical storm _ the first to form will be Laura and the next will be Marco.

South Florida is already experiencing scattered thunderstorms that are causing some flooding in low-lying areas but these are unrelated to the tropical disturbance.

Tropical storm watches were issued on Thursday for islands in the eastern Caribbean. The storm had sustained winds of 35 mph and was moving at 21 mph, according to the hurricane center.

Forecasts said South Florida residents should continue to monitor its progress. Whether or not the storm moves over the terrain of Greater Antilles this weekend will factor into its track and intensity. Storms generally lose intensity over land and may encounter storm-weakening wind shear.

The other storm, Tropical Depression 14, is forecast to move quickly through the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm, the hurricane center said. The coasts of Texas and Louisiana are in the forecast track.

"These are right on schedule," said Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. "This time of year, in August and into September, you get these tropical waves that roll off the coast of Africa on average about every three or four days."

When Tropical Storm Laura forms, it will be the 12th of the year, matching the record for the most number of tropical storms before September. The only other time that happened was in 2005, the year of Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

The hurricane center urged residents of Florida to monitor the progress of the storm but emphasized that the forecast still had a lot of uncertainty.

"Some of the models have no chance in the world of ever coming to be," Feltgen said. "The only thing we want people to focus on is the forecast track, and that's only going to happen once we get a tropical cyclone. Right now, there's absolutely no model consensus at all."

After Laura, the next named storms of 2020 are Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.

In July, there were five tropical storms: Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna and Isaias. Other named storms this year have included Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal and Dolly. Tropical Storm Arthur formed in mid-May, making this the sixth straight year that a named storm formed before the official start of hurricane season on June 1.

Virtually all estimates for this hurricane season predict an above-average number of storms, due to unusually warm ocean temperatures and global climate factors that are likely to reduce the high-altitude winds that can prevent the formation of hurricanes.

___

Robin Webb, Brett Clarkson and Brooke Baitinger of Sun Sentinel wrote this story. Staff writers Wayne K. Roustan and David Fleshler and contributed to this report.

___

(c)2020 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Linkedin Royce Tan (The Star/Asia News Network) Petaling Jaya, Malaysia  Fri, August 21, 2020 10:41 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f795a3 2 Business AirAsia,tony-fernandes,aviation,low-cost-carrier,Malaysia-Airlines,COVID-19,Asia-News-Network Free

Like most airlines across the globe, AirAsia Group Bhd is going through a tough time navigating out of the economic turbulence brought about by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

It was nothing short of a nightmare when it had to ground 95 percent of its fleet at the peak of the pandemic in March which saw travel restrictions worldwide.

The cash-strapped low-cost carrier now needs to raise around 2 billion Malaysian ringgit (US$478.81 million) for it to be able to see through 2021.

Earlier this month, StarBiz reported that AirAsia has secured a financing package of 1 billion ringgit that it can withdraw over time, put together by a consortium of local banks, according to industry sources.

Bounded by confidentiality obligations, AirAsia chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes declined to comment on the matter, but said that the government has been very supportive.

It knows that airlines are probably the most affected along with the hotel industry and theres the Danajamin loan which AirAsia is applying for.

I can say that weve made very good progress in both the loan side and in raising equity.

Hopefully in the next two months or so we can announce something positive but its looking very good and it secures the future for AirAsia and the 24,000 jobs that are linked to the group,  he said during a Facebook live session, hosted by prominent journalist Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai.

Fernandes added that a funding of 2 billion to 2.5 billion ringgit would be more than enough and his target was to have enough cash to last AirAsia until the end of 2021.

He pointed out that the airline was also receiving tremendous support from its lessor and bank counterparties for its fuel hedge.

If you take those two mechanisms out and with our cash flow, were just about breakeven.

With those two capital raising exercises, were good for a long time,  he said.

Fernandes also declined to talk on another news report which stated that AirAsia may sell 10 percent of its shares to a South Korean entity, only saying that the group is doing equity raising as well.

Wong, who is also the adviser of Star Media Group Bhd, raised another question on complaints by travellers on the request for refunds, to which Fernandes called for a bit of patience for AirAsia to get its business and cash back to where they were.

Weve lost four months of cash and averagely in the quarter we could do 3 billion to 4 billion ringgit (in revenue).

My number one job is to pay the salaries of my staff and my number two job is to (ensure AirAsia) stays alive.

Were asking for patience from our customers to give us time to recapitalize to get our cash back, well pay them bonuses for their problems

If we pay all the refunds now, we may not exist. We need the loan, we need the liquidity to come in.

Its not that Im trying to cheat anyone or run away from obligations. We will give you much more for the money that you have put in there,  he said, adding that 80 percent of the customers have opted for a credit shell and AirAsia is working on it for the credit to be allowed for other products like hotels or food deliveries.

Having to make his staff redundant was something incredibly tough for Fernandes, something he has not done in 18 years and he is committed to getting the airline back on its feet so the group can rehire as many of them as possible.

Wong also brought up the topic of a research note on AirAsias sister company AirAsia X Bhd that was issued by CGS-CIMB Research with an unprecedented target price of zero sen.

While Fernandes found no issue with the target price since the market is fair, he said the report was uncalled for as some of the comments have hurt many people in the company.

He deemed it disrespectful to the 2,000-strong staff that have worked very hard.

Its not their fault that COVID-19 is around. Its not their fault that Malaysia Airlines have received so much government support for the last 18 years that they were able to compete with AirAsia X.

They did a great job. AirAsia X has carried over 100 million people to places they have never thought of going and it has brought a lot of economic benefits to Malaysia.

Were battling hard against lots of obstacles and its tough. Well fight through, we have a great board of directors and Im very optimistic of AirAsia X.

Reports like that motivates me tremendously. Im not someone who gets angry or sore. I read that, I take it in and I say well, lets show him a thing or two,  Fernandes said.

This article appeared on The Star newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
Ecuador says Chinese fishing fleet off Galapogos has gone dark

August 21,2020 | Source: Al Jazeera

Ecuador's armed forces said on Tuesday that dozens of vessels from a predominantly Chinese fishing fleet that is operating near the Galapagos Islands have turned off tracking systems to prevent monitoring of their activities.



Of around 325 ships still fishing in the waters near the ecologically sensitive Galapagos, 149 have at some point in recent months cut off communications, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Darwin Jarrin told reporters.



Some had also changed the vessels' names to avoid supervision, he said.



"In this period, 149 ships have turned off their satellite systems ... we know the name of the ships," Jarrin said during a press conference. He declined to identify the vessels.



The complaint comes as the South American nation is seeking to prevent unsustainable fishing off its coast while also avoiding a confrontation with China, its largest financier and a major market for its shrimp export business.



A representative of the Chinese embassy declined to comment.



Ecuador says the fleet has not entered its territorial waters. But environmentalists say this type of fishing allows vessels to take advantage of the abundant marine wildlife that travels in the waters between the Galapagos and the mainland.



"It is a breach [of protocol] on the high seas, because they do not want us to know what they are doing and the activities they carry out," said Defense Minister General Oswaldo Jarrin.



He said turning off satellite equipment violated rules created by the local regional fisheries management organization (RFMO), a group of international agencies that promote sustainable fishing.



The New Zealand-based South Pacific RFMO (or SPRFMO), which provides guidance on fishing practices in the area, said in an email that vessels are required to continuously communicate their position data.



"The fleet you are referring to is being monitored by the SPRFMO Secretariat," wrote Acting Executive Secretary Craig Loveridge. "China has been forwarding the required information ... since midway through 2018."



Since 2017, the Chinese fishing fleet has arrived in the summer months on the outskirts of the Galapagos protected area, attracted by marine species such as the giant squid or the hammerhead shark, the latter of which is a threatened species.



China has promised a "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal fishing, and it has authorised Ecuador to supervise the vessels.

 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods.
She's known to millions of Aussies as a respected TV anchor, having hosted Nine's Today show for more than a decade before jumping ship to Channel 10 in 2018.

But before becoming a small screen star, Lisa Wilkinson, 60, was a successful magazine editor who oversaw the iconic teen publication Dolly.

On Friday, a long-forgotten article from 1984, which was originally published in an internal newsletter for Dolly's then-owner Fairfax Ltd., resurfaced online.

Inside Lisa Wilkinson's WILD week in Bali: A resurfaced article from the Project host's days as Dolly magazine editor hints she 'indulged in a few raw prawns' on a location shoot

The article was shared in a private Facebook group for ex-staffers of ACP Magazines, which purchased Dolly from Fairfax Ltd. in 1988.

The lighthearted piece documented the then-25-year-old Lisa's visit to Bali with the Dolly team for a location shoot.

The writer cheekily hinted that Lisa may have overindulged during the trip, saying that she became unwell after eating a 'few raw prawns'.

The article states: 'In Bali, no photographer meant no shots. Editor Lisa Wilkinson, fashion editor Patricia Mark, hair and makeup artist Richard Keagh and their three models were hard at work searching for locations...

'Then disasters one of the models sliced her leg open on a motorbike, someone else lost their passport and a certain editor indulged in a few, ah, raw prawns.'

Throwback: On Friday, a long-forgotten article from 1984, which was originally published in an internal newsletter for Dolly's then-owner Fairfax Ltd., resurfaced online. The lighthearted piece documented the then-25-year-old Lisa's visit to Bali with the Dolly team for a location shoot, and hinted that she may have overindulged on a 'few raw prawns' during the trip

The vintage article was accompanied by black-and-white photos of Lisa and her staffers. One picture shows her looking rather worse for wear wearing nothing but a striped towel.

At the age of 21, Lisa became the youngest editor of Dolly magazine, after working her way up from a junior role.

After four years, she moved on and became editor of Cleo, and eventually was made the publisher's international editor-in-chief.

Back in the day! At the age of 21, Lisa became the youngest editor of Dolly magazine, after working her way up from a junior role

She started her TV career in the late 1990s as a regular panellist on Channel 10, as well as a co-host on Seven's The Morning Shift.

In 2005, she started hosting Weekend Sunrise, before moving on to co-host Channel Nine's Today show two years later.

In 2017, Lisa resigned from Nine after a pay dispute and jumped ship to Channel 10's The Project and The Sunday Project the following year.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As the Trump administration heads to another showdown in the United Nations over the Iranian nuclear deal, the countries most at risk from the Islamic Republics malign ambitions are nowhere to be seen.

Given the clear and present danger Iran represents to its Arab neighbors, youd expect their leaders to be lobbying furiously with members of the Security Council to help the U.S. ensure that Tehran doesnt get its hands on more sophisticated weapons. But aside from a single statement from the Gulf Cooperation Council, calling for the extension of the arms embargo on Iran, there has been no visible Arab assistance for the American effort.

And even that GCC statement was undercut by one of its members: Officials in Doha said the language didnt accurately represent the Qatari view. The appearance of Gulf unity was only a mirage.

To a great degree, the Arab reticence represents a diplomatic failure on the part of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in rallying allies to the American cause. But there are several reasons why the Arab states have not fallen in line behind the Trump administrations Iran strategy. Some cant, others dont dare and still others are making alternative arrangements for their security.

There was never going to be any help from Iraq and Lebanon. In Baghdad and Beirut, Iran exerts decisive influence through its control of powerful Shiite militias and political parties. Iraq, additionally, is bound to its eastern neighbor by trade.

In Syria, the dictator Bashar al-Assad is beholden to the Islamic Republic for his very survival: Iranian soldiers and arms, as well as Iranian proxies in the form of Lebanese Hezbollah and Afghan militias, helped turn the tide of the civil war in his favor. Until recently, Iranian oil kept Assads home fires burning.

Arab states in the Maghreb are too far away to feel threatened by the Islamic Republic. Egypt, the largest of them, has tended to hedge its bets: It has no direct relations with Iran and is a participant in the Arab coalition fighting against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, but Cairo pulls its rhetorical punches against Tehran.

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On the Arabian Peninsula, views on Iran are far from uniform. Kuwait and Oman have been careful to maintain relations, waxing cool and cordial according to circumstance, with the regional giant on the opposite shore of the Persian Gulf. Both countries are within easy striking range of the missiles of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Kuwait, heavily dependent on oil exports through the Gulf, is additionally vulnerable to the threat of the Iranian navy.

Qatar, which historically adopted the same caution toward Iran as Kuwait and Oman, has more recently drawn  or, arguably, has been pushed  closer to the Islamic Republic. The Saudi-led embargo imposed on Qatar in 2017 has made Doha more dependent on Tehran, strengthening the countries economic and diplomatic ties. (Ironically, one of the explanations offered for the embargo was Qatars friendliness with Iran.)

That leaves Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Gulfs most powerful nations, and the most frequent targets of Iranian belligerence, in word and deed. (Tiny Bahrain tends to go along with Saudi Arabia in economic and foreign-policy matters.) Iran and its Houthi allies have launched rocket and drone strikes deep into Saudi territory, culminating in last falls devastating attack on the worlds biggest crude processing plant in Abqaiq.

Irans verbal attacks on the Emirati city-states have grown more frequent in recent years. Long before last weeks agreement between Israel and the UAE, Tehran was threatening them both in the same breath. Iran and its proxies have also attacked Emirati and Saudi shipping.

So youd expect the Saudis and Emiratis to be even more anxious than the Trump administration to deny Iran access to the advanced systems that Russian and Chinese arms manufacturers are so keen to sell. You might even expect Saudi and Emirati leaders to be engaging in vigorous shuttle diplomacy between the world powers to ensure the weapons embargo is extended well beyond October.

And yet, the two prominent crown princes  Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh and Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi  did little to support the American effort in the Security Council last week, and raised barely a murmur of protest when it failed. Nor have they been heard from this week, as the Trump administration plays its last card in the UN, invoking the snapback clause of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The silence can be explained at least in part by a reluctance to support a lost cause: The U.S., having pulled out of the deal two years ago, will struggle to make the case it retains the right to invoke the snapback. Or perhaps, the Saudis and Emiratis have every confidence that unilateral American sanctions will serve their purposes even if the other powers demur.

In either case, they have been making alternative arrangements to deal with the Iranian menace. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both been splurging on the latest military hardware from the U.S. and Europe  and even China and Russia. And the new Emirati agreement with Israel was inspired in no small part by a desire to box in the Islamic Republic.

The best the Trump administration can expect from its Arab allies if the snapback gambit fails is quiet commiseration.

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 Africa.

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In response to the suit, Annette Greenwood, Riverside Community Hospital chief nursing officer, said in a statement: No one takes the health and safety of our workers more seriously than we do, and, since day one, our top priority has been to protect them  to keep them safe and keep them employed  so they can best care for our patients. . . . Our safety efforts have included testing of colleagues, universal masking and other safeguards, in line with guidance from the CDC.
Srinagar, Aug 21 : A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper reportedly committed suicide on Friday by shooting himself in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

Police said a BSF trooper identified as head constable Ram Kumar of 169 battalion shot himself with his service rifle in the Branwari area of Kupwara.

"Preliminary investigations reveal the trooper was suffering from acute depression and hypertension. An FIR has been lodged into the incident," police said.
The USFDA has put on hold its decision to issue emergency approval for blood plasma therapy as a COVID-19 treatment, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

A group of top federal health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins, have argued that the emerging data on the treatment was too weak for the approval.

However, this isn't the end of the road for blood plasma therapy, as the USFDA could still grant approval in the near future based on more data.

Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force. Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

What happens in the US on the medical front is keenly observed across the world. Currently, plasma therapy is being tested in India and globally through the World Health Organization (WHO) Solidarity Trial.

What is plasma therapy?

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

Plasma is the yellow liquid that remains after cells are removed from blood. Plasma contains antibodies involved in regulating immune responses.

Convalescent Plasma Therapy involves transfusion of the plasma of a recovered COVID-19 patient to treat those critically affected by the coronavirus. Some of these antibodies, which may have helped the donor recover from COVID-19, could help the infected person kick-start his recovery.

Thousands of COVID-19 patients in India are now being treated with blood plasma. Social media frequently has messages from COVID-19 patients family members or friends seeking plasma donations.

Why did the USFDA put plasma therapy on hold?

The experts who have objected to the USFDA's emergency authorisation have pointed to the lack of robust data on the efficacy of the treatment through randomised control trials.

A randomised control trial (RCT) is considered the gold standard for any treatment, as it compares outcomes for patients who are randomly assigned to get the treatment with those who are in a control group or given a placebo.

The biggest study undertaken on plasma therapy, involving 35,322 patients who received transfusions, is an open-label observational study by the Mayo Clinic funded by the US government.

In an Open Label study participants and researchers both know which treatment is being given to the participant. In contrast, a Double Blind study is one in which neither the participants nor the researchers have this information. Blinding is not possible in a plasma therapy study.

The three-month open-label study found overall mortality lower for patients who received plasma. The report also said that in a subset of the cohort (3,082 patients), the lower mortality was associated with plasma transfusions that contained higher levels of antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19.

But one huge limitation with the study was that there was no control group or placebo group, which would have helped determine the efficacy of plasma therapy.

What is the status of blood plasma therapy in India?

Convalescent plasma therapy in India has been listed as an investigational therapy for off-label use in COVID-19 infected patients because there is no conclusive evidence as of now on its efficacy. Interestingly, India is conducting a phase-2 open-label randomised controlled trial called PLACID to assess the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma in limiting the complications associated with COVID-19.

Most institutions that took part in the Indian Council of Medical Researchs (ICMR) trial on plasma therapy have found blood transfusions from recovered COVID-19 patients to those with moderately severe illness to be effective. An Indian Express report says that out of 52 institutions participating in the ICMR PLACID trial, the daily spoke to principal investigators of 36 institutions, of whom 24 said plasma therapy was effective.

However, an interim analysis by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) of the randomised controlled trial found no benefit in reducing mortality. The study stated that mortality is similar, with not many clinical benefits in both arms (the one that received plasma and the one that didnt). The sample size of the study was 30 patients. The final report on the ICMR study is awaited.
Information security has drawn considerable attention as the exponential growth of information communication in the era of big data. The stimuli-responsive photoluminescent materials that can quickly switch among different states have been an effective approach to increasing the data security and storage density of such devices. Some smart photoluminescent materials (e.g., transitionmetal complexes, fluorescent supermolecules and dyes), capable of responding to external stimuli with reversible changes in chemical constitutions or superstructures, have been intensively explored as optical data storage media and document encryption systems. However, most of them can only provide broad band photoluminescence (PL) from limited luminescent states, resulting in a relatively low security level and limited coding capacity.

In comparison with broad band PL, stimulated emission with narrow linewidth for easily distinguishable readout, is promising in coding field as a novel cryptographic primitive. Nevertheless, owing to the limitation of the Franck-Condon principle, it has been a great challenge to broadly tailor the lasing wavelength, which is unable to generate multiple lasing states, and thus restricting their applications in high-density information storage and high-security optical encryption.

Very recently, Professor Yong Sheng Zhao's group in the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences propose a strategy to achieve multiple responsive lasing emission states for high-security optical encryption by modulating the competition between radiative rate of donor and the rate of energy transfer in FRET microlasers, which is published in National Science Review.

The competitive lasing from the donor and acceptor were reversibly switched by modulating the competition between radiative rate of donor and the rate of energy transfer (Figure 1). At a low pump fluence, there is no lasing emission as a result of insufficient gain. Because the KET is larger than Kr, FRET dominates the deexcitation processes, leading to spontaneous emission from the acceptor. When the pump fluence exceeds the acceptor lasing threshold, majority of the excitation energy captured by donor transfers to the acceptor and lasing from acceptor occurs when population inversion is created. Further increasing of pump fluence induce simultaneous lasing emissions from the donor and acceptor as a result of the approaching of Kr to KET. At an even higher pump fluence, the Kr outpaces the KET and radiative decay from donor begins to dominate the deexcitation processes, resulting in lasing from donor when corresponding population inversion is build-up. Consequently, energy transfer to the acceptor is suppressed and lasing emission from the acceptor disappears due to the inefficient gain. Dynamic lasing action could be well controlled through tailoring the balance between radiative rate of donor and the rate of energy transfer, thus resulting in multiple distinguishable lasing states.

On this basis, the authors realized a novel quaternary coding platform and a proof-of-concept demonstration of cryptographic application was exhibited with an inkjet-printed microlaser array (Figure 2). Data encryption and extraction were demonstrated using a 44 microlaser array, showing vast prospect in avoiding the disclosure of security information. The results not only offer a comprehensive understanding of the function-oriented construction of organic composite materials, but also open up a new way to the fabrication of flexible photonic components that can be used for optical recording and information encryption.

###

See the article:

Smart Responsive Organic Microlasers with Multiple Emission States for High-Security Optical Encryption

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa162
Apple has started selling refurbished 10.2-inch iPad models in select countries, including the United States, Canada, and others. Refurbished 10.2-inch iPad WiFi+ Cellular, 128GB is priced at $469, and this translates to nearly 15% discount as opposed to a new purchase. Apple updates the refurbished store regularly, and you might get to see other 10.2-inch iPad variants as well.

Apple Certified products are very close to new products. The company inspects, tests, and adds finishing touches before packing off the refurbished unit to the customer. As part of the process, Apple checks and ensures that you get all the accessories with the iPad. The only difference with a brand new unit is that refurbished units come in a plain white box. Otherwise, the experience one gets is the same as a new unit.

Just like a new product, certified refurbished comes with Apples standard one-year warranty. Furthermore, you can purchase AppleCare+ for the 10.2-inch iPad for $69 or a monthly payment of $3.49. This way, your iPad will be protected from accidental damages, and the standard warranty also gets extended by two years. Please note that AppleCare+ is available only in the US and Canada.

Apple announced the 10.2-inch iPad in September last year. Under the hood lies Apples 10 Fusion chip and storage options include 32GB and 128GB variants. Other features include the Touch ID home button, Apple Pencil support, 8 MP rear-facing camera, 10 hours of battery life, and support for Smart Connector and Smart Keyboard.

 Apple Refurbished Store

Our Take

Certified refurbished products are a great buy if you want to save some money. The experience is very similar to a new product, and you also get peace of mind with Apples standard warranty. That being said, retailers like Amazon and Bestbuy offer better discounts on the new iPad. Check out our deals section for amazing offers on iPads and other Apple products.

[via MacRumors
A cat died, and the Canadian Red Cross has been contacted to aid residents due to a Friday morning house fire in Niagara Falls.

Deputy fire Chief Jo Zambito said the Niagara Falls Fire Department received multiple calls about a fire at a 2 -storey, semi-detached home on Huron Street, between First and Second avenues, around 8 a.m.

It was a close one, he said.

When we have these fires that early in the morning, people could be sleeping  its not good.

Zambito said upon arrival, firefighters were confronted with fire and smoke coming from the second floor of the home.

We had two individuals that had some minor smoke inhalation, so Niagara Emergency Medical Services was on scene and helped them out, he said.

(The fire) was on the one side of the home and everybody did get out of the house  everybody was out upon our arrival, which was good.

Firefighters found two cats  one of which was safely recovered, but the other died, as firefighters were unsuccessful in their CPR efforts, said Zambito.

We have contacted Red Cross because (residents living in the area of the house impacted by the fire) will be displaced, to try to find some other accommodations and living arrangements, and to get them some clothing and food.

He said the room on the second floor where the fire originated has sustained extensive fire, heat and water damage, but that the department does not have a cost estimate.

When the firefighters arrived, the second-floor room had vented itself, which means that the window was already breached from the fire and there was fire and smoke coming out of the window.

Zambito said it took crews about an hour and a half to get the fire under control.

He said the cause of the fire remains under investigation, but officials dont believe it to be suspicious.
A new pilot study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai suggests that COVID-19 is causing significant dilation of the blood vessels of the lung, specifically the capillaries.

This vasodilation is contributing to the very low oxygen levels seen in COVID-19 respiratory failure and also helps explain why the disease behaves differently than classic acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

The study was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In classical ARDS, pulmonary inflammation leads to leaky pulmonary blood vessels that flood the lungs with fluid, making the lungs stiff and impairing oxygenation. Many patients with COVID-19 pneumonia demonstrate severe hypoxemia that is markedly out of proportion to the degree of lung stiffness.

This disconnect between gas exchange and lung mechanics in COVID-19 pneumonia has raised the question of whether the mechanisms of hypoxemia in COVID-19 differ from those in classical ARDS.

The discovery was serendipitous. Researchers were initially assessing cerebral blood flow in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients with altered mental status to look for, among other things, abnormalities consistent with stroke. They used a robotic transcranial Doppler (TCD), the Lucid Robotic System by NovaSignal, to perform a "bubble study," which is a non-invasive and painless ultrasound technique.

It is remarkable that a diagnostic machine used to study the brain could give us insight into the pathophysiology of a pulmonary disease. The benefit of using this particular system was that automated monitoring allowed providers to assess cerebral blood flow while minimizing the potential for exposure to COVID-19." Alexandra Reynolds, MD, Assistant Professor and Director, Department of Neurosurgery and Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine, TeleNeurocritical Care, Mount Sinai Health System

During this study, agitated saline--saline with tiny microbubbles--is injected into the patient's vein and TCD is used to determine if those microbubbles appear in the blood vessels of the brain.

Under normal circumstances, these microbubbles would travel to the right side of the heart, enter the blood vessels of the lungs, and ultimately get filtered by the pulmonary capillaries, because the diameter of the microbubbles is bigger than the diameter of the pulmonary capillaries.

If the microbubbles are detected in the blood vessels of the brain, it implies that either there is a hole in the heart, so that blood can travel from the right to the left side of the heart without going through the lungs, or that the capillaries in the lungs are abnormally dilated, allowing the microbubbles to pass through.

In the pilot study, 18 mechanically ventilated patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia underwent TCD with bubble study. Fifteen out of the 18 (83 percent) patients had detectable microbubbles, indicating the presence of abnormally dilated pulmonary blood vessels.

The number of microbubbles detected by the TCD correlated with the severity of hypoxemia, indicating that the pulmonary vasodilations may explain the disproportionate hypoxemia seen in many patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.

Previous studies have demonstrated that only 26 percent of patients with classical ARDS have microbubbles during a bubble study; furthermore, the number of these microbubbles does not correlate with the severity of hypoxemia, implying that pulmonary vascular dilations are not a major mechanism of hypoxemia in classical ARDS.

"It is becoming more evident that the virus wreaks havoc on the pulmonary vasculature in a variety of ways. This study helps explain the strange phenomenon seen in some COVID-19 patients known as 'happy hypoxia,' where oxygen levels are very low, but the patients do not appear to be in respiratory distress."

"If these findings are confirmed in larger studies, pulmonary microbubble transit may potentially serve as a marker of disease severity or even a surrogate endpoint in therapeutic trials for COVID-19 pneumonia."

"Future studies that investigate the use of pulmonary vascular constrictors in this patient population may be warranted," says senior author Hooman Poor, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of Pulmonary Vascular Disease at the Mount Sinai - National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute.

The pilot study has since expanded to collect data from approximately 80 patients, including those with less severe disease, and will evaluate the severity of microbubble transit and how it varies during the course of the disease.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Milwaukee: As the host city of this year's Democratic National Convention, Milwaukee was supposed to have been the bustling epicentre of American politics during the past week. Instead, the city's downtown streets resembled a ghost town. Concrete barriers and fencing were erected to block off traffic from the Wisconsin Centre, the conference venue where the convention is technically taking place. But such precautions weren't really necessary. During the convention there has usually been only a handful of protesters outside the venue rather than the throngs usually encountered at such an event. Because of concerns about the coronavirus, the Democrats scrapped plans to hold a traditional in-person convention. The Trump campaign has been trying to stir up anger at the decision in this key battleground state, paying for electronic billboards around town that read: "Where's Joe?" Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris are joined by their partners, Jill Biden and Douglas Emhoff, at the Democratic National Convention. Credit:Bloomberg On Thursday night US time, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and his running mate Kamala Harris, accepted their nominations with speeches from Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Meanwhile, a large contingent of "Bikers for Trump" crashed the Democrats' non-existent party by gathering outside the Wisconsin Centre. The decision to move the event online came as a blow to local businesspeople in Milwaukee, who had already been hit hard by the pandemic-induced recession. "We had been planning the biggest, best summer ever," a Milwaukee bartender sighed this week, looking out at a sea of empty tables. An Uber driver lamented: "I was already counting the money before it hit my pocket." On the third night of the convention, only one speaker appeared at the Wisconsin Centre: the state's Democratic Governor Tony Evers.

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Meanwhile, a crowd of around 200 people was gathered outside the the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. It had been announced earlier in the day on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) that Barack Obama would deliver his convention speech from there, and fans had come out in the hope of catching a glimpse of the former president. Some of them had not been in a crowd since the pandemic began, but wanted to participate in the moment. Like most other convention speakers, Obama could easily have filmed his speech from the comfort of his home. But he travelled to the museum to make a point. Philadelphia is regarded as the birthplace of American democracy: both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were signed there. Obama picked it as the backdrop to his speech in order to emphasise his core message: democracy itself is at stake in this election. Urging Democrats to participate in the November election, Obama warned supporters that Trump "will tear our democracy down if thats what it takes to win". "Do not let them take away your power, dont let them take away your democracy," Obama said. "I am also asking you to believe in your own ability - to embrace your own responsibility as citizens - to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure."

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Befitting its setting, Obama's speech was itself a historic moment in American political history. In living memory no former president has delivered such a scathing denunciation of a successor. It has been a long-standing norm of US politics that ex-presidents avoid criticising those who follow them. But Obama decided that in the era of Trump and COVID-19, such niceties are out-of-date. "Donald Trump hasnt grown into the job because he cant," Obama said. "For close to four years now, hes shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves." Obama's speech came two nights after another headline-grabbing convention address: the one delivered by his wife Michelle. In her widely praised speech at the Democrats' 2016 convention, the former first lady famously said: "When they go low, we go high." She did not mention Trump by name, referring to him only in veiled terms. Searing: former US first lady Michelle Obama speaks during the virtual Democratic National Convention. Credit:Bloomberg It was different this time around. The Becoming author said she still stood by the dictum, but added a caveat: going high does not mean keeping your mouth shut. Like her husband, she stressed that she does not just disagree with Trump's policy decisions but considers him fundamentally unfit for high office.

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"Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country," Obama said, in her harshest comments yet about the President. "He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us." The urgency of the Obamas' speeches showed how high they believe the stakes are for the election. And how, despite Biden continuing to hold a lead of around eight points in the polls, they by no means believe that a Trump defeat is guaranteed on November 3. 'Nobody cares to tune in' As well as officially confirming the presidential candidates, the Republican and Democratic conventions have provided the parties a priceless opportunity to spruik their message to voters. Since 1968, a candidate's share in the national polls has increased by an average of 5 percentage points after their party's convention - a sizeable bump. Loading But the poll bounces have gotten smaller over recent years - a product of increased polarisation and the fact Americans have far more viewing options than they used to. Going into this year's conventions there was widespread scepticism about whether either party would get an increase in the polls. The pandemic means that Americans have a lot on their minds, and it was assumed the absence of a live audience would make for less compelling television.

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This year the main commercial broadcast networks have carried just one hour of the Democrats' two-hour broadcast. It seems their scepticism of viewer interest has been justified. The six biggest TV networks averaged a combined total of 19 million viewers during the 10pm hour on night one of the convention - a 25 per cent drop on the same timeslot in 2016. Ratings for the second night dropped by a similar amount although, reflecting changing media habits, digital streaming has increased. Nevertheless, Republicans and conservative media figures leapt upon the ratings drop as evidence that Democrats are not enthused about their party's nominee. "The main thing to realise is the reason the ratings are down is Biden isnt exciting," right-wing talkback host Rush Limbaugh said. "Nobody cares to tune in." Even in the host city of Milwaukee, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age struggled to find many people who had watched the event live. Most people had just heard snippets of the speeches on the radio and TV news. Hits and misses Which is not to say Democrats have been distraught about how the experiment had gone.

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As the US-Iraq Strategic Dialogue continued with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis visit to Washington, yet another activist was gunned down in her car Aug. 19 in southern Iraq.

A few days before, another female activist and others narrowly escaped an attempt on their lives. A friend of both women had been killed Aug. 14, sparking protests.

Killings and abductions have been a constant for years in Basra, Iraqs second-largest city and driving force behind its economy due to its oil industry and port. But many suspect that persistent accusations of US support for protests that led to the resignation of the previous prime minister late last year and that online campaigns to discredit specific activists by implying they are being paid by the United States have played a part in the recent killings.

One of the first moves by Kadhimi, sworn in as prime minister in May, had been to arrest members of a little-known Shiite armed group in Basra, Thaar Allah. In June, he ordered a raid of the headquarters of Kataib Hezbollah in southern Baghdad.

In response to the Aug. 14 killing of activist Tahseen Osama and ensuing protests, Kadhimi removed several officials from their positions, including the Basra police chief.

Kadhimi, who is also director of Iraq's National Intelligence Service, has been accused by Iran-linked groups of passing on information to the United States leading to the Jan. 3 killing by US drone strike of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Solaimani and Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Basra native Riham Yacoub, a doctor known both for her role in womens empowerment activities and for rallying protesters to demand better services, was shot and killed Aug. 19. Both the United States and the European Union have since issued statements against the escalation of violence against Iraqi civil society activists.

Later on, 18 other embassies in Iraq, including those of Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, condemned the series of killings in a joint statement.

Hanaa Edwar, head of the Iraqi Al-Amal Association and co-founder of the Iraqi Womens Network, told Al-Monitor in a phone interview Aug. 21 that Yacoub and many other activists had been threatened after protests in the city in 2018, during which the Iranian Consulate had been set on fire, and that there had been a huge campaign accusing them of relations with the US Consulate.

"Many fled from the city afterward  to other Iraqi provinces, Turkey, other countries  but she later returned, Edwar said, saying the online smear campaign had resumed after the latest protests.

For 17 years Basra has been out of control of the government. The militias are doing this now because the government has been trying to regain control, she added.

Photos of Yacoub standing next to the US consul general in Basra had previously been used to stoke anger against her, a pattern seen in other abductions and killings, including that of well-known security and counterterrorism expert Hisham al-Hashimi in early July. He had served as adviser to the Iraqi government.

Hashimis photo had, prior to his killing, been placed on social media posts claiming he was receiving money from the US government.

Edwar said that Yacoub wasnt the first woman targeted, but that there does seem to be more of a focus on them recently, signaling that there is no red line anymore for the militias as concerns women.

Yacoub was from an important family in Basra, and so we are hoping that this will help to prevent any cover-up, she said.

The results of an investigation into the killing of female human rights activist Suad al-Ali in 2018 were never released, nor were the perpetrators ever named in all the other cases of activists and journalists who were clearly targeted for their work. The same thing with Hashimi; we have not been told who the suspects might be, she said, though clearly the militias were involved in so many of these cases.

This journalist reported from Basra during the protests late last year, amid repeated internet shutdowns and widespread fear among the population due to what were widely held to be deflated death tolls of protesters killed. Two brothers of one man killed in Basra said they had relatives who had fought with Iran-linked factions in both Syria and Iraq. Some of these relatives had been killed, they said, fighting against IS with these factions. Nonetheless, their brother had taken part in protests for better services and against these very armed groups.

Ali al-Bayati, head of the Iraqi Independent High Commission for Human Rights, told Al-Monitor in a message Aug. 21 that from October 2019 to mid-June, there had been 53 attempts on the lives of activists and 25 had been killed, while in August alone there had been nine attempts  in Basra, Maysan and Dhi Qar  with two activists killed.

The recent killings seem intended as a warning to Iraqis in general and Kadhimi in particular that anyone seen as amicable toward the United States will be treated as an enemy. The timing  during the Iraq-US Strategic Dialogue, with the prime minister in Washington DC  seems planned for maximum effect.

The Shiite politician and former prime minister candidate Adnan al-Zurfi called Aug. 19 for Iraqs Counter Terrorism Service to be sent to Basra to restore order. The counterterrorism service is known for having received extensive training and support from the United States and was employed in the June raid of Kataib Hezbollah headquarters in Baghdad.

Zurfi said the spate of killings was tantamount to a declaration of war against the state and warned that these criminals are more dangerous than the Islamic State.

Edwar said, We need pressure from the international community on Iraq to cleanse the security forces of unprofessional people whose loyalty is to political parties or armed groups, adding, This assassination will most certainly not be the last.

We have seen evidence that the security forces have been infiltrated by the militias and this is of serious concern, she said.

Any call for help from abroad will spark more accusations of connivance with a foreign power. However, many Iraqis seem to see an appeal for outside support as one of few options available to increase rule of law in their own country.
South Sudan, battered by years of conflict and corruption, has run out of foreign exchange reserves and cannot stop the pounds depreciation, a senior central bank official in the oil-producing nation said on Wednesday.



South Sudan gets almost all of its revenue from crude oil, but current output, at about 180,000 barrels per day (bpd), has plummeted from a peak of 250,000 bpd before the outbreak of conflict in 2013, according to official figures.



It is difficult for us at the moment to stop this rapidly increasing exchange rate, because we do not have resources, we do not have reserves, Daniel Kech Pouch, the banks second deputy governor, told a news conference.



South Sudan has three exchange rates  one from the central bank, from commercial banks, and from the unofficial market. Pouch said the rate for the pound from the central bank is 165 a dollar, from commercial banks about 190, and 400 from the parallel market.



In addition to lower oil production, corruption is also driving the crisis, said Brian Adeba, the deputy director of policy at United States-based watchdog The Sentry, which has released several reports documenting high-level corruption. The government has denied the findings.



For a long time, egregious corruption and the deliberate destruction of institutional mechanisms for checks and balances have resulted in officials using the central bank as their personal ATM, so this [running out of foreign exchange] is not surprising, Adeba told the Reuters news agency.



South Sudan ended five years of civil war in 2018 but disagreements between President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar, who led the main rebel group, have stalled the conclusion of the peace process.



The war  marked by ethnic cleansing, extreme sexual violence and pockets of famine  displaced around a third of the population from their homes. The conflict killed an estimated 400,000 people and created Africas biggest refugee crisis since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.



The Bank of South Sudan and ministry of finance have created serious economic blunder by taking out the SSP reserve from the treasury and giving it to businessmen.



This is dangerous for the peace agreement because it will create fear, said James Okuk, researcher at the Juba-based Center for Strategic and Policy Studies.

Source: reuters.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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STRONGSVILLE, Ohio -- During these unsettling times, the United States Army is recognizing members of our communities who go above and beyond by serving their community in creative and compelling ways.

The Army has posed the important question, How do we respond when our country is faced with fear and uncertainty? While social distancing has forced many to isolate, it has also sparked others to demonstrate strength and resilience and Answer the Call.

The Army is sponsoring the Answer the Call campaign to recognize individuals who have taken extraordinary action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals are encouraged to nominate those who rise up to Answer the Call. The community will then vote on those nominated, with the top choice winning a donation to continue their efforts.

Safety for our soldiers, civilians, family members and communities remain our primary goal during the COVID-19 crisis, said Lt. Col. Douglass KN Fullerton, Commander, U.S. Army Cleveland Recruiting Battalion.

As weeks have stretched to months in this pandemic, weve learned ways to reduce risk and increase safety by using masks and practicing social distancing, Fullerton said. Weve also recognized keeping in touch with others and helping our neighbors is critical to our communities getting through this crisis.

"In the Army, we love acknowledging and rewarding excellence, and right now excellence means individuals who are reaching out and helping others in their time of need.

Nominations can be submitted now at www.answerthecall2020.com. Online voting will then take place to select the Armys Answer the Call honor recipient. You can follow the campaign on Facebook (@answerthecall_community), Instagram (@answerthecall_community) and Twitter(@americanrivalry) to nominate and vote for your Answer the Call candidate.

The Army is the oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military and is displaying its versatility and importance by participating in the development of vaccines and employing Army resources to help combat COVID-19 around the world. For more information on how to Answer the Call with the U.S. Army, follow them on Facebook @GoArmyOhio.

Virtual walk/run: The Huntingtons Disease Society of Americas Northeast Ohio Chapter is hosting the Northeast Ohio Virtual Team Hope Walk/Run on Saturday, Aug. 29.

A virtual walk is a real walk, but on your terms: You get to choose your own course; you can walk in your driveway, neighborhood, in your house or even on a treadmill.

Team Hope is HDSAs largest national grassroots fundraising event. Thousands of families, friends, co-workers, neighbors and communities walk together each year to support HDSAs fight to improve the lives of people affected by Huntingtons Disease and their families. Huntingtons Disease is a fatal genetic disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain.

In Ohio, the total Huntingtons Disease population is more than 11,000. Chapter President Jesse Lis is one of those diagnosed with the disease.

For more information, go to http://northeastohio.hdsa.org/about/2020-cleveland-team-hope-walk-5k-run and HDSA Center of Excellence at Cleveland Clinic: http://hdsa.org/hdsacoecleveland/.

Museum reopens: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2929 Richmond Road in Beachwood, is now reopened to the public. Shuttered since March due to COVID-19, the museum connected with audiences by offering free online programs.

Future plans include continuing to offer free online programs, as well as introducing new digital tours and virtual Stop the Hate classroom workshops. For more information about these free online resources and updated museum hours, times and pricing, visit www.maltzmuseum.org or call 216-593-0575.

We are living through a remarkable time in our history, said David Schafer, managing director of the Maltz Museum. We are proud to open our doors once again and welcome back visitors into our physical space.

Our safety protocols are in place and we are confident that visitors will feel comfortable with the limitations weve put on attendance to honor the 6-feet distancing guidelines. But, if anyone is wary, we have great things happening online, too.

We hope Northeast Ohio -- and beyond -- will take advantage of these options.

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage introduces visitors to the beauty and diversity of Jewish heritage in the context of the American experience and seeks to promote an understanding of Jewish history, religion and culture with people of all ages and backgrounds.

Through the museums flagship program, Stop the Hate, visitors also explore the history of bias and discrimination and take the opportunity to reflect on injustices they experience in their own lives in order to recognize and prevent hate in all its forms in the present and future.

Connect with the Maltz Museum online www.maltzmuseum.org, call 216-493-0575, or on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with the handle @MaltzMuseum

Let the Strongsville community know what is going on with your organization, church, school, business or family. Email me at shirleymac48@att.net.

Read more from the Sun Star Courier.
Testing of over-yeared hybrid barley seed that last year's washout autumn prevented growers from drilling has shown high levels of germination have been retained  averaging 96% across all samples.

The tests, conducted by Syngenta, were in recognition of the challenging season being faced on-farm.

Of the more than 300 samples tested, nearly three-quarters were of the popular hybrids SY Kingsbarn and Bazooka  each of which averaged 97% germination.

A further one-fifth of samples were made up of the hybrids Belmont, Belfry, Libra and SY Kingston, each of which also averaged 97% germination.

Three seed samples of the hybrid SY Baracooda averaged 94 percent germination.

The lowest average germination level achieved, which was from just five samples of a specific batch of an older hybrid, Sunningdale - which had been over-yeared for three years - was 74%.

Guidance will be given to growers who submitted these samples on how to respond, according to James Taylor-Alford, Syngenta head of seed crop sales for UK.

After the challenging growing season it is nice to share some good news with growers that the high-quality seed supplied maintained such high levels of germination after a year in storage.

Anyone who didnt take up this offer of free hybrid barley seed testing when it was available, we would still urge them to have their over-yeared seed tested at their local laboratory before planting, according to best practice.

By knowing your percentage germination and your target plant population and taking account of other factors, such as the normal plant losses you experience, the number of seeds that should be planted per metre squared can be more accurately calculated."

He said taking into account potential plant losses becomes even more important if planning to drill later and in poorer conditions.

A recent poll conducted indicated that while 90% of hybrid barley growers who took part were planning to drill their hybrid barley at their normal time, 7% were planning to drill later.

Mr Taylor-Alford said: Hybrid barley offers numerous advantages, not least high yields and grain quality, early maturity to help with timely establishment of following crops, and excellent suppression of grass weeds.

"Accurate seed rates provide the foundation for many of these benefits, he added.
Media entrepreneur Mia Freedman will be allowed sufficient time to move out of her $12 million home in Sydney's east after a judge found a contract to buy the property was validly torn up by the owner amid various disputes about money.

Freedman, also known as Mia Lavigne, and her husband Jason Lavigne moved into the prestige property in Bellevue Hill in January 2015 in an arrangement that gave them the option to buy the home at a later date.

Mamamia founder Mia Freedman, pictured in 2015. Credit:Damian Bennett

The pair  who founded the Mamamia media group  exercised the option to buy the property in late 2019, but settlement negotiations with the owner Somna Lala Kumar fell apart and the contract was withdrawn.

One sticking point was who would pay for repairs to the leaking slate roof, which the Lavignes contended was in a state of "dilapidation" that would cost $251,800 to fix.
New modelling shows how much the average Aussie will lose without a vaccine. Image: Getty

The average Australian will be thousands of dollars worse off every year if a suitable vaccine isnt delivered within two years.

Thats according to KPMG analysis modelling the economic ramifications of continuous border closures. It found firm travel restrictions would cut $117 billion from Australias economy over the next decade, with the average Australian feeling a $2,856 annual sting.

The research comes as National Cabinet prepares to meet to discuss border closures. In recent days, business has come out swinging against the state border restrictions with Qantas CEO Alan Joyce calling for a clear set of rules.

There seems to be no reference to the level of cases that we see. Surely, that should be the driver. Surely that should be what is determining this and the medical advice should be that determinant, Joyce said while announcing Qantas devastating yearly results.

And on Friday morning, Wesfarmers CEO Rob Scott also called for more clarity.

I think in a way the state borders are somewhat arbitrary and what we need to be doing is thinking about it in a risk-management sort of way, Scott said.

KPMG found that if a vaccine becomes available within the next year, migration would begin to recover, boosting Australias population.

Without it, the consulting firm predicts the countrys population will be 1.1 million people fewer by 2029-30, a major headwind on growth.

But even with the vaccine, Australias Gross Domestic Product will still be $45.3 billion below pre-pandemic forecasts by 2030, with the population still falling by 420,000.

KPMG chief economist Dr Brendan Rynne said the solution is to boost student migration.

Our modelling found that even a modest 40,000 additional skilled working-age migrants would boost GDP by up to $4.7bn by the end of the decade. Overseas students, if given a clearer pathway to residency, would be a means to achieving that end, Rynne said.

Extra incentives will be needed to make them choose Australia, as in the post-COVID-19 world competition for international students will be intense, so we propose an accelerated and targeted intake program.

Story continues

The Government is hopeful Australia will have a vaccine by the beginning of 2021, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday announcing the Government had signed a letter of intent with Oxford drug company AstraZeneca which will see the country supplied with the vaccine once it passes trials.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is considered one of the most promising vaccines currently being pursued, and will be supplied to Australians free of charge.

However, there is no guarantee that this, or any other, vaccine will be successful, which is why we are continuing our discussions with many parties around the world while backing our own researchers at the same time to find a vaccine, Morrison said.

Today's a day of hope. Australia needs hope, the world needs hope.

Currently, borders look to remain closed until July 2021, with both Qantas and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) flagging that date as the earliest possible opening.

Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, news and tech news.

Follow Yahoo Finance Australia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
CAIRO: Libyas U.N.-supported government Friday announced a cease-fire across the oil-rich country and called for demilitarizing the strategic city of Sirte in an initiative supported by the rival parliament in the east.

The development could mark a breakthrough following international pressure amid rising fear of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war as rival sides mobilize for a battle over Sirte. The gateway to Libyas major oil export terminals has been under the control of forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter since January.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

The chaos has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year. Thousands of mercenaries including Russian, Syrians and Sudanese are fighting on both sides of the conflict.

Hifter, who is allied to the parliament in eastern Libya, is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli have backing from Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle, as well as from the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture Tripoli. But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with heavy Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of the city and other western towns.

Fighting has died down in recent weeks, but both sides were preparing for a possible battle over Sirte. Emboldened by Turkeys support, Tripoli-allied forces vowed to retake Sirte and the Jurfa area, which includes a vital inland military base, from Hifters forces, prompting Egypt to threaten to send troops to Libya.

Achieving an effective cease-fire requires the demilitarization of Sirte and Jurfa areas, and that police forces from the two sides agree on security arrangements there, said Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

In a separate statement, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival eastern-based House of Representatives, supported Sarrajs proposal of demilitarization of Sirte, an idea floated earlier this month by the United States as a compromise to prevent an escalation.

A cease-fire blocks the way for foreign military interventions and ends with the expulsion of mercenaries and dissolving the militias in order to achieve comprehensive national sovereignty, Saleh said.

There was no immediate comment form Hifters army, but Hifter agreed on an Egyptian initiative in June that included a cease-fire.

Sarraj also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March according to a a constitutional base agreed on by the Libyans.

Saleh, the parliament speaker, called for Sirte to be a temporary seat of the new government.

Both Saraj and Saleh said they want an end to an oil blockade imposed by Hifters camp since earlier this year. They also called for oil revenues, the countrys main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

The National Oil Corporation urged for oil revenues to remain frozen until a comprehensive political agreement is reached.

Full transparency and effective governance are required as well as the return of security management of oil facilities to NOCs exclusive control, it said in a statement.

Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to Hifter closed oil export terminals and choked off major pipelines at the start of the year in an effort to pressure the Tripoli-based government, which is accused of using oil revenues to fund militias and mercenaries.

The U.N. support mission in Libya welcomed both statements and called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya.

The two initiatives have created hope for forging a peaceful political solution to the longstanding Libyan crisis, a solution that will affirm the desire of the Libyan people to live in peace and dignity, said Stephanie Williams, acting head of the U.N. mission.

Retweeting the U.N. mission statement, the U.S. Embassy in Libya also welcomed the two statements as important steps to all Libyans." Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Twitter welcomed both statements as an important step on the path of achieving the political settlement.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas who visited Tripoli on Monday to talk with the government there before heading to the United Arab Emirates to encourage it to urge Hifter to negotiate welcomed the development. He called it a solid basis for a permanent ceasefire and urged a lifting of the oil blockade.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said in a tweet that the cease-fire announcement was an important step toward restarting a political process that favors stability in the country and well-being among its people.

Previous efforts to secure lasting cease-fires have stalled. But this time could prove different with heavy foreign interference in the conflict-stricken country, and the possibility of direct military confrontation between Egypt and Turkey, both allies to the U.S.

It sounds more like an announcement that tried to tick all the theoretical boxes, with a clear American influence, said Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at The Netherlands Institute of International Relations. But is it fully implementable? That will be hard.

___________

Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber contributed from Berlin.

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
Well, the row has now intensified into a full-blown war, with the two main parties in India--the and the Congress-- making allegations and counter-allegations over the issue.



The political slugfest started after Tharoor's announcement that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology would like to hear Facebook's views on the report published in Wall Street Journal on Saturday. The report mentioned that overlooked its hate speech policies in the cases of Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party MLA T Raja Singh and three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups in order to safeguard the social media platform's business prospects.



Singh had said on that Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot, and had threatened to destroy mosques.

It also stated that one of Facebook's top public policy executives in India opposed applying hate-speech rules to individuals linked with the even though they were flagged internally for promoting violence.



Current and former Facebook employees told that the decision was part of a pattern of favoritism by Facebook toward the as it seeks more business in India. Facebook also took no action after BJP politicians made posts accusing Muslims of intentionally spreading Covid-19, an employee said.



Listen to the podcast for more


MetService is forecasting a continued period of unsettled conditions, with several lows and associated fronts bringing wet weather for many in the coming days.

The upper North Island got a brief taste of yesterday's active weather in the morning as the first of a series of fronts swept across, bringing thundery weather for some.

A couple of frontal rain bands had thunderstorms embedded in them, and there was some accompanying lightning activity over Northland and Auckland," says MetService meteorologist Mmathapelo Makgabutlane.

Rain and showers feature for most of the North Island today as the fronts move over, gradually spreading down the western South Island, where some areas are under a Heavy Rain Watch.

The ranges of Buller and northern Westland could get a period of heavier falls on Friday."

A few showers linger over the western parts of the country into Saturday. However, by the end of the day attention turns back to the upper North Island as the next wave of weather progresses from the Tasman Sea.

Sunday looks to mirror todays template, with the rainy weather spreading across the North Island and upper South Island, bringing a close to what has been an unsettled weather week.

Those in Canterbury who have been waiting for anything more than the scraps of drizzle of late may get a brief respite early next week with hints of some rain from a low to the east of the country
According to the Banfield Hospitals Applied Research and Knowledge team (BARK), over 20% of Americas 183 million pet dogs and cats over the age of one are diagnosed with arthritiswhich is the leading cause of pain for pets. Yet when these beloved members of a family experience chronic pain, anxiety or seizures, pet owners find themselves with few natural, safe and effective therapeutics. Now, VETCBD, the #1 veterinarian-formulated pet cannabis brand, has launched a full line of premium, hemp-based CBD pet productsavailable to ship to homes nationwide via http://vetcbdhemp.com.

Our new veterinary-formulated hemp CBD line will allow pet owners across the country to provide their pets the therapeutic benefits of CBD, states Dr. Tim Shu, founder and CEO of VETCBD. Our hemp line builds on over five years of experience in formulating our award-winning pet cannabis products in California.

VETCBDs hemp product line will initially focus on dogs and cats. However, VETCBD products will soon be available for equines.

Founded in 2015, VETCBD quickly established itself as a trusted leader in the pet cannabinoid (CBD) therapeutics industry due to its vet-formulated premium products, industry-leading support team and commitment to the safety and well-being of its clients. VETCBD hemp products are:



Formulated specifically for pets  by veterinarian Dr. Tim Shu, an expert in medical cannabis

Sourced from responsibly-grown American hemp

Full spectrum hemp extract that provides a full bouquet of beneficial cannabinoids

Triple-tested by accredited, third-party labs to ensure safety and quality

Supported by a team of experienced, veterinary professionalsincluding free veterinary nurse support via phone, email or direct message.

Thousands of pet owners credit Dr. Shu and VETCBD for helping their pets. VETCBD has truly done wonders, shares pet owner Kelly, whose dog was on harsh anti-inflammatory medication and muscle relaxers due to severe, chronic pain. [The medication] caused our baby to be constantly drugged up and sleeping. He was not the same dog. We decided to try VETCBD. Since then, our little man has not been on any hard medication, he is in no pain, and is back to being a happy and playful puppy.

An advocate for happy, healthy pets everywhereparticularly those without loving familiesVETCBD is launching a new program for giving back. Im most excited about our One Fur One program, says Dr. Shu. For every bottle of CBD sold through our website, well donate a bottle to charity, so that we can help animals in need get back on their paws.

About VETCBD

VETCBD was established in 2015 by Dr. Tim Shuveterinarian and renowned pet cannabis expert. Dr. Shu founded VETCBD so pets can safely benefit from the multiple therapeutic uses of cannabis and hemp. Today, the California-based company is the #1 veterinarian-formulated pet cannabis brand in America, and has been featured on TODAY, CNBC, The New York Times, WebMD, NBC News, New York Magazine, NPR and many more. VETCBD offers premium, therapeutic cannabis and hemp CBD products to help support joint mobility, support normal brain function, help maintain normal GI health and to help keep pets calm. VETCBD cannabis CBD products can be purchased at dispensaries throughout California. VETCBD Hemp CBD is available to ship to Pet owners nationwide http://vetcbdhemp.com.

For media inquiries, contact Anita Lane at 313.447.9083 or AnitaSLane@SenseiCommunications.com.
Former Crown Resorts chief executive Rowen Craigie has told a public inquiry that the casino group did not have a "cosy" relationship with consulate officials in China and that it was ultimately up to visa officials to decide who could travel to its Australian casinos.

The NSW government probity inquiry into Crown heard on Friday that its China-based staff would indicate one of three levels of "support" when lodging applications for its patrons under a unique visa fast-tracking scheme.

Former Crown Resorts CEO Rowen Craigie says the casino group did not influence which of its patrons received visas. Credit:Josh Robenstone

When Crown could not vouch for a Chinese high-roller, the forms it used from around 2011 advised the consulates to "process as normal" and grant a visa "at the consulate's discretion only."

Mr Craigie, who left Crown in 2017, rejected the suggestion from counsel assisting the inquiry Scott Aspinall that this showed Crown expected the visa to be processed based on Crown's recommendation.
Brazil prosecutors accuse two in alleged Petrobras-Maersk corruption scheme FILE PHOTO: A logo of Brazil's state-run Petrobras oil company is seen at their headquarters in Rio de Janeiro

By Marcelo Rochabrun and Sabrina Valle

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian prosecutors pressed charges on Friday against two people for an alleged scheme to obtain confidential market information from Petrobras <PETR4.SA> to benefit A.P. Moller-Maersk <MAERSKb.CO>, the world's largest shipping company.

The case stems from an investigation that started in 2014 as part of Brazil's sprawling Car Wash scandal, which has since included suppliers like Maersk and uncovered corruption throughout multiple countries in more than 70 police operations.

A statement released by prosecutors on Friday said former Maersk executive in Brazil Viggo Andersen inflated contract prices with Petrobras.

Andersen would then allegedly transfer a share of the proceeds from the inflated billing to Maersk commercial representative Wanderley Gandra, the prosecutors said, adding that Gandra acted as a financial operator for the corruption scheme.

Gandra would send some of the money received from Andersen to Paulo Roberto Costa, a former Petrobras top executive, who would supply confidential information on the state oil company's shipping needs back to Maersk, the statement said.

Costa was arrested in 2014 and was the first of more than 100 people who entered a plea deal with prosecutors. He has supplied investigators with information on multiple Petrobras contracts he oversaw and recognized as illicit. The contracts include Maersk and other international offshore suppliers.

A judge must still decide whether to start a criminal case against Andersen and Gandra or drop the charges. Lawyers or representatives for the two could not be reached for immediate comment.

Andersen left Maersk in 2017, according to his LinkedIn page.

Maersk said it takes the "allegations very seriously and remains committed to cooperating with the authorities." Petrobras has been collaborating with officials since 2014 and will continue to do so, the company said in a written response.

Story continues

The alleged crimes relate to the period 2006 to 2014, the prosecution statement said.

Last year, Maersk's offices in Brazil were raided by prosecutors.

Representatives of the Danish company met with Brazilian investigators as far back as 2014 in relation to its dealings with Petrobras during the early stages of the corruption investigation.

(Editing by Frances Kerry and Tom Brown)
Diaspora remittances continue to play an important role in Zimbabwes economy, posting a 33 per cent increase to 466.2 million dollars as of July 31, compared to 349.7 million dollars during the same period in 2019, the latest central bank figures show.

The surge could be a result of many Zimbabweans in nearby countries such as South Africa and Botswana opting to use formal money transfer channels because of complications posed by COVID-19.

With travel across borders curtailed, people in the diaspora can no longer use informal couriers such as cross-border bus and truck drivers and passengers to send funds.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya said the diaspora community has greatly assisted the economy by injecting more foreign exchange in the first seven months of the year, The Herald newspaper reported on Friday.

Over the past months, in spite COVID-19, the amount of money that is coming from the Diaspora to Zimbabwe has never gone down, he was quoted as saying.

Mangudya said monetary authorities would not stop recipients from using the foreign currency in its form.

We cant say dont use that money. So, when we put Statutory Instrument 185 of 2020 (use of free funds and Forex trading) we were recognising that our people are bringing in money.

We call it free funds, and we are saying businesses should pay tax using the same currency when trading, he said.

He reiterated that the green-light to use foreign exchange when trading locally does not mean the country is returning to dollarisation.

Instead, he said, Zimbabwe is in the medium term dollarised category of economies like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, which use both local currency and foreign exchange in domestic trading.

Zimbabwe is among the leading recipients of remittances in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region alongside Egypt, Kenya, Tunisia and the DRC.

The country also leads in terms of contribution of remittances to gross domestic product, at 13.5 per cent, according to the COMESA secretariat.

Also in Zimbabwe, a court on Friday denied bail for the third time to an opposition politician, who called for anti-government protests in July, ruling he could be a danger to the public if released.

Jacob Ngarivhume has been in detention for a month after his arrest along with a journalist, Hopewell Chinono, on charges of inciting violence.

This was after he called for protests on July 31 against corruption and the governments mishandling of the economy.

Critics accuse President Emmerson Mnangagwas government of persecuting its opponents amid the worst economic crisis in more than a decade, a charge the authorities deny.

Magistrate Utahwashe said the fact that July 31 had come and gone without the violence, the state had feared was not sufficient to guarantee the safety of the public if the accused is granted bail.

Mr Ngarivhume, who arrived at court in leg irons and handcuffs, will return to court on September 4 for a routine appearance.

His lawyer, Moses Nkomo, said he was stunned by the courts decision but would appeal at the High Court next week.

Another magistrate is expected to rule on Chinonos third bail application on Monday.

(Reuters/NAN)
Dilip Buildcon rose 1.36% to Rs 409.70 after the company's joint venture with the engineering firm HCC (HCC-DBL) executed an agreement with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for an EPC project in Bihar.

The project involves the construction of new link in Jharkhand including Ganga Bridge and construction of Manihari bypass and widening of NH-131A from Km 5.500 (Km 34.100 of NH-131A) to Km 6.000 (Km 34.600 of NH-13 1A) in Bihar to 4 lane standards.

The bid project cost is Rs 1,900.08 crore and completion period is 48-months, the company said in a BSE filing made during market hours today.

Dilip Buildcon is engaged in the business of infrastructure facilities on engineering procurement and construction (EPC) basis. The firm undertakes contracts from various government and other parties and special purpose vehicles promoted by the company. It operates through construction and engineering contracts segment.

On a consolidated basis, Dilip Buildcon's net profit jumped 127% to Rs 190.98 crore on a 6.1% rise in net sales to Rs 2729.66 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Since 2010, mutual friends had been trying to set up Permele Doyle with William Robinson, who is known by his middle name, Garner.

Despite those efforts, Ms. Doyle, 33, the president and founder of Billion Dollar Boy, a digital marketing agency with offices in New York and London, and Mr. Robinson, 37, the chief executive of the Robinson Lumber Company of New Orleans, shared nary a phone conversation, text or email until early 2016. Mr. Robinson, tired of waiting, took it upon himself then to call Ms. Doyle when he arrived in Manhattan for a work-related function.

She initially missed the call but listened to his message. He asked about taking me to dinner and when I later suggested lunch, he told me that he would be speaking at the University Club and asked me to come by, Ms. Doyle said.

She accepted his invitation, found a seat, and as she watched and listened to Mr. Robinson speak, visions of dating him began dancing in her head. He was very handsome and spoke very well, she said. I was indeed very, very impressed.
Writer Chetan Bhagat, calling actor Kangana Ranaut a far braver person than him, has said that Sushant Singh Rajput was probably affected by what was written about him in the press. Chetan, who has a book coming out, did not take names.

He said in an interview to Times Now, They broke him, the media reports broke him. It mattered to him when they called him a TV actor. He said that he, too, used to be affected by negative press, despite being the top-read author in the country for several years, but added that he had developed a maturity about it. When you have allegations that he had done things to women without consent that is devastating for a man, he said.

Chetan said that the blind items written about Sushant were being read by everyone in the film industry. He questioned why the person behind the blind items was still being allowed to write, and why several actors continue to appear in interviews with them. The same stars who talk about mental health all day are giving interviews to this filmy journalist, he said.

Also read: Rhea Chakrabortys WhatsApp chat with Mahesh Bhatt on day she left Sushant Singh Rajputs house revealed: Youve unclipped my wings

The writer credited Sushant and director Abhishek Kapoor for giving his film career a boost. No one wanted to produce Kai Po Che as it was based on Godhra riots in Gujarat. Then Abhishek decided that we will get newcomers in the film. But even for Sushant, it was a very risky move as it wasnt a love story or there was no lead in particular, he said. Chetan also noted that he was supposed to collaborate with Sushant again on Half Girlfriend, but the actor departed from the role, which went to Arjun Kapoor.

Chetan said that till 2017, when Sushant came to his house for his birthday party, he was fine. The writer was responding to questions about the actors mental health. He said that a psychiatrist would be better qualified to comment on the matter, but also added that the Sushant he knew was quiet and had an adorable gullibility to him.

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GCSE Results 2020

Students received their GCSE/Level 2 results today at the Gibraltar College, Westside and Bayside Schools. Like the A Level/Level 3 results issued last week, the results were issued electronically.

The issuing of GCSE results was affected by a worldwide outage affecting the Google Gmail Education platforms used by all three institutions. This outage delayed the start of issuing of results by approximately one hour.

Despite the challenges that this academic year has provided for our students and teachers, they have once again risen to the occasion with a remarkable total of 268 grades at level 9 (the top grade attainable at GCSE) being obtained, 127 at Bayside and 141 at Westside. This represents a doubling from last year of the number of top grades being awarded to students in our 2 secondary schools.

Equally impressive are the 2691 grades 9-1 obtained by students out of a maximum of 2694 grades awarded, representing a 9-1 pass rate of 99.9%.

Our GCSE/Level 2 students have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the summer examination session cancelled. In order to be able to issue results, the UK examination boards asked all examination centres to make teacher assessments of what grade students would be most likely to receive had they had the opportunity to sit their exams (Centre Assessment Grades - CAGs), and to place candidates in rank order. Our teachers worked diligently to provide these centre assessment grades for students and to place them in rank order as fairly and accurately as possible in order to enable the UK examination boards to issue results. The results the students have received today have been awarded by the UK examination boards on the basis of what their teachers submitted to the boards.

As in previous years, the Department of Education will be reporting the 9-1 pass rates as opposed to the traditional A*- C pass rates that individuals might be accustomed to see. It is important for students, parents, prospective employers and members of the public to recognise that every grade is valuable in the context of each student's education. Every grade attained by our students during their examinations represents a milestone in their learning journey and it is important that we celebrate the successes of all of our students and see the value in all of their grades.

It is also important to recognise the achievements of those students who have attended the Gibraltar College. Year on year, the Gibraltar College offers students an opportunity to build on their educational experiences and add value to their academic portfolio after leaving our secondary schools. This year, students at the Gibraltar College have received a 100% 9-1 pass rate.

Our schools and the Gibraltar College are still waiting for results for a small number of Level 2 and iGCSE courses to be issued by the examination boards. All schools across the UK who have completed these same Level 2 and iGCSE courses are also in the same position. There are 8 courses for which our institutions are awaiting confirmation of the students final results, representing 492 outstanding grades. All the students who find themselves in this position have been informed about the pending results and have been provided with the details regarding when these results are expected. It is understood that these results will be provided to the centres within the next week and will be issued to students as soon as those centres receive them.

The Director of Education Jackie Mason commented, We are glad to see that the grades awarded by the exam boards reflect the centre assessed grades that the schools and college submitted, with a few students awarded a higher grade. This year we have seen a very large proportion of top grades and we would like to congratulate these students for their achievements particularly in light of the challenges they have had to overcome this year. Indeed today we see the culmination of two years hard work for these students as teachers and parents have supported them through their learning journey. All students who have passed their GCSEs are to be congratulated on their educational journey and every single journey will be a stepping stone for these students to follow a pathway of their choice whether they choose to continue in education or seek employment and become valuable contributors to our society."

Minister for Education Gilbert Licudi said, We have welcomed the decision in the UK whereby grades are awarded on the basis of the grades submitted by teachers. This has removed the unfairness which we saw in many cases with the A level results last week. GCSEs are an important milestone in any childs education. I congratulate our students on their achievements and wish them well on their next stage.
David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and his wife Susan are quarantined at their Houston home after testing positive for COVID-19, according to Bakers spokesman John Williams.

Williams said the couple believes they contracted the virus during a recent trip to Wyoming, where they visited family. They tested positive earlier this week. Williams said they feel crummy but have not required hospitalization.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 12:49:59|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- A spokesperson of China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations (UN) on Thursday accused the United States of staging a "political show" by beginning to activate a snapback mechanism to restore UN sanctions against Iran.

"The U.S. demand has no legal ground and common sense. It is nothing but a political show staged by the United States. It receives no support of the Security Council members and no acknowledgment of the international community," said the spokesperson when commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's demand for the initiation of the snapback mechanism against Iran by the UN Security Council (UNSC).

Pompeo also said that the United States would sanction Russia and China if the two countries disregard the U.S. demand for reimposing UN sanctions on Iran.

"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), endorsed by UNSC Resolution 2231, has the force of international law. In May 2018, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and reinstated illegal unilateral sanctions against Iran. This violated the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231," said the spokesperson.

"Having quit the JCPOA, the United States is no longer a participant to the JCPOA and has no right to demand the Security Council invoke a snapback as stipulated in Resolution 2231," the spokesperson noted. "In the meantime, a snapback mechanism should never be invoked until all efforts are made to exhaust dispute resolution process specified in the JCPOA."

"Therefore, the JCPOA participants and overwhelming majority of the Security Council members believe that the U.S. demand has no legal basis, and a snapback mechanism has not been invoked," the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson said that China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Zhang Jun has sent a letter to the UNSC president to express China's opposition to the U.S. demand.

"China will work with relevant parties to continue to uphold the just position, resolutely preserve the JCPOA and UNSC resolution, safeguard multilateralism, the authority of the Security Council, the international non-proliferation regime and regional peace and stability, and seek a political and diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue," the spokesperson said.

"At the same time, we are firmly against U.S. unilateral sanctions and 'long-arm jurisdiction' against other countries in the name of the Iranian nuclear issue, and will continue to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests," the spokesperson added. Enditem
The guard said the DHHS did not check on the children at the time to see whether there had been any signs of violence. "He really put it back on DHHS saying it was their fault because they weren't getting enough breaks," the guard said of the father. Luke Ashford appears before the inquiry on Friday. He quit his post as an authorised officer over fears for his health and safety. The DHHS representative "assured the father that the family would get more breaks and that was it," he said. DHHS has been approached for comment about the allegations.

The security guard was a supervisor at the Pullman Hotel and Crowne Plaza. He said some staff not only worked across multiple hotels, but also had front-line jobs at supermarkets and hospitals. The guard said when he was working at Crowne Plaza he had to send another guard home as he was working 12-hour shifts in security, and shifts at a Coles supermarket on the same day. At the Pullman Hotel, he overheard a nurse talking about a shift she had at the Austin Hospital that week. He said guards he knew "were not the best" were moved on from working at Crowne Plaza.

A week later, he saw one of them on the tram, who told him he was working at the Pan Pacific. Mr Ashford, who worked as an authorised officer in hotel quarantine, told the inquiry that he resigned on June 18 after working across seven hotels over about four weeks. In one case, he said a woman quarantined at the Pan Pacific Hotel had been allowed to visit her sick mother from 8am until 5pm every day and the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions paid for her taxi there and back. When he asked the department team leader if they could check where detainees were going, he said he was told Victoria Police "would not want to deal with it."

Mr Ashford resigned after a close colleague was told they needed to isolate after an outbreak at the Stamford Plaza hotel. Mr Ashford alleged DHHS told him to still turn up for his shift at the Mercure Welcome, where they were expecting 150 arrivals from Delhi, even though he expressed concerns he was a COVID-19 risk. "It certainly made me think about my role with DHHS and how much I wanted to put myself at risk, and not just myself, but more my family," Mr Ashford said. Mr Ashford said DHHS never responded to the concerns he had expressed about infection control. Quarantine detainees said their rooms were dirty when they arrived. One found a discarded face mask on the ground. "I am used to working in dangerous environments, having worked in firefighting and the military but I could not rely on the system or people around me to keep the environment safe," Mr Ashford said.

Scientists told the inquiry this week that more than 99 per cent of Victoria's current COVID-19 cases have been linked to travellers quarantined at two hotels  the Rydges on Swanston and Stamford Plaza hotels  after the virus spread to hotel staff and contractors, including security guards. Health practitioner Liliana Ratcliff, who was in hotel quarantine at the Stamford Plaza, said DHHS did not respond to a written complaint she submitted on May 18, during her stay, about a lack of infection control. "We are more likely to catch COVID-19 by being locked in a hotel with other returned travellers than if we were allowed to quarantine at home," Ms Ratcliff said. Part of Liliana Ratcliff's submission to the inquiry. Credit:COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry A week later, the first security guards and workers at Rydges on Swanston were infected with COVID-19, sparking Victoria's second wave. The first positive test among staff at the Stamford occurred on June 10.

Genomic sequencing data that traces Victoria's second wave to quarantine hotels will finally be made publicly available after Premier Daniel Andrews ordered its release, a spokesman confirmed on Friday. The data became the centre of the unfolding hotel quarantine in Victoria, with the Premier refusing for weeks to release it. It was the star witness of the inquiry into the state's hotel quarantine program on Monday, when scientists revealed it linked 99 per cent of current cases in Victoria back to travellers in the quarantine hotels. The Premier has requested that the Department of Health and Human Services prepare the genomic sequencing data for publication, a spokesman for the Premier said. The Department is currently preparing explanatory material to accompany the data which will be published on the DHHS website next week.
KITCHENER  The Highwaymen first hit the road in 1961, a handful of young guys with a shared love of old cars.

There were other car clubs around back then, established groups with members this younger crowd looked up to. We followed their influence, said Donny Hishon. Those guys were heroes, as far as we were concerned.

But a few years difference in age made all the difference, and Hishon and his pals werent allowed to join the existing clubs. So we thought wed start our own, said Jerry Kay.

The Highwaymen Car Club was born, the basement of Hishons home serving as its first clubhouse.

Determined to put a different spin on the hell-bent-for-leather reputation of the hot rodders of the day, club members created their own roadside assistance program. Theyd stop to help stranded motorists with extra gas or water they carried in their cars, handing out courtesy cards that promoted the club.

As the club grew, so did the desire to give back to the community. Proceeds from its annual Graffiti Car Show have long supported the Childrens Wish Foundation of Canada, now amalgamated with Make-A-Wish Foundation and known as Make-A-Wish Canada. Other charities have also benefited from the Highwaymens generosity over the years, with funds raised through club dances, rallies and cruise nights.

Now, as the Kitchener-based club nears its 60th anniversary, its longevity, reputation and good works have earned it a place in the Canadian Street Rodding Hall of Fame.

They really made it easy for us this year, said Gary Weldon, a member of the halls steering committee. As hobbyists, were very proud of what theyve done.

Created in 1993, the Hall of Fame recognizes individuals, clubs and corporations that have been instrumental in developing and promoting street rodding in Canada. Kay, a founding member of the Highwaymen, was inducted as an individual last year; his brother, Ken, renowned for his custom paint work, was inducted in 2005.

We consider it a great honour, current Highwaymen club president Ken Chappell said. I call it our time to shine.

A street rod is, loosely speaking, an old car thats seen some, or a lot of, upgrades  such as newer steering and braking systems, a newer motor and wiring  and added creature comforts. Defining old is tricky as well. You can ask nine people and get 10 answers about whats old, Weldon said.

The hot rods of the Highwaymens youth are often referred to as street rods today, though some make the distinction between cars meant for the track, and those meant for the street.

The Highwaymen themselves arent overly picky. We represent antiques, customs, street rods and classic cars, said Clare Pomeroy, a member since 1968.

Some of their cars have graced the pages of magazines, like Jerry Kays 1932 Ford five-window coupe  by hot rod standards, that is the car, said Larry Hackbart. Others represent works-in-progress, looking like theyve only just been saved from the barn or field where they languished for years.

Thats actually where Kays coupe originated, an engineless rescue from a farmers field near Caledonia 55 years ago. My wife bought that car for me for $300, he said. It hits the road these days with a 330-horsepower Corvette engine under the hood.

Club membership has hovered around 30 people in recent years, and while there have never been any female members, anyone interested is welcome to contact them. Spouses and partners often help out with club events.

We are looking for younger members, Pomeroy said. Weve got about four young guys, but theyre all 50, Hackbart added with a laugh.

Having moved out of Hishons basement decades ago, the Highwaymen eventually bought a former church on Lancaster Street, outfitting it with a hoist, a wash bay and 10 stalls for members to work on their cars.

Vehicles in various states of repair and restoration are lined up along the ground floor, some peeking out from under protective covers. Members lean on each other for the mechanical know-how, and the motivation, to keep the extensive projects going.

I know just enough to get myself in trouble, said Chappell. His 66 Mustang was one of those collaborations. Theres a dozen guys who helped me put it together.

Upstairs, up a spiral staircase, theres a large room and kitchen where members socialize, share dinners and hold meetings twice a month. We stopped it for COVID-19, explained Chappell. We havent been able to do shows, but a lot of guys just enjoy going on runs.

Putting the annual Graffiti Car Show on hold was disappointing, though, as it means pausing the contributions theyve made to Make-A-Wish Canada.

The Highwaymen are always there to lend a hand whenever needed and all I have had to do is ask and they have been right there doing whatever they can, plus more, the foundations regional development specialist, Anne Boehm, said in an email. Knowing that they are in our corner has always been a comfort that words cannot begin to describe.

Boehm said the club has been supporting her organization for nearly two decades, raising more than $53,500 in the process. For their club to be inducted into the Canadian Street Rodding Hall of Fame is so richly deserved and we are so incredibly happy and proud of them.

There are already a lot of plaques and awards on display in the Highwaymens clubhouse, in recognition of the groups efforts and achievements over the years. None quite carry the weight of the Hall of Fame induction.

Theyre the Highwaymen. People can say that and be proud of it, said the halls Weldon. They set pretty high standards, they live up to them. Theyre a good asset to the community.
(TNS)  When the Reading School Board voted to start the school year as a remote learning experience, it brought to light the lack of broadband internet access in the city.The district made some moves to provide broadband internet to students like adding outdoor Wi-Fi to 14 district buildings.Wednesday night, the school board took a big step in closing the digital divide. The board voted 9-0 to spend up to $700,000 to provide broadband internet access to Reading students.Its a unique agreement that Comcast came forward with two months of free broadband internet in this agreement, said Dr. Khalid N. Mumin, superintendent. It helps us out tremendously. The price tag will be no more than $700,000 and will connect as many as 10,000 homes, Mumin said. The cost will be $9.95 a month for each participating household.This is an opportunity where we are advertising for partners and donors which will bring the (cost) down, he said. This is a huge move for us to provide access to our families. Were excited about it.Board member Becky Ellis was pleased to see the action taken.It is my hope that this service agreement with Comcast will be effective in narrowing the digital divide within the school district, she said.Reading ranks as one of the most connected cities in the state, 99.2 percent of the city has internet access, according to, a website that helps consumers find and compare broadband internet service providers in their area.However, about 32% of households in Reading do not have broadband, according to National Digital Inclusion Alliance, an organization that advocates for home broadband access, public broadband access, personal devices and local technology training and support programs.Reading resident Christopher Ellis, husband of school board member Becky Ellis, started a petition to have Comcast provide free access for Reading. The petition had more the 1,200 signatures.He was pleased with the boards vote.This is a win for the education of our city's children, and I hope this shows the importance of low-cost or free publicly held Wi-Fi, he said.Ellis plans to continue the petition with the goal of bringing free broadband internet access to all Reading residents.Comcast announced last week it was rolling out an Internet Essentials Partnership Program to offers households low-cost, broadband internet service for $9.95 per month. The program relies on public-private partnerships to coordinate funding to help connect K-12 students to broadband internet.Weve seen firsthand that low-cost internet access is an important part of improving digital equity and creating positive opportunities for low-income students and families, Dana Strong, President of Xfinity Consumer Services, said in a press release. Through this new partnership program, we are accelerating the efforts of cities, schools, philanthropies, nonprofits and private citizens to collaborate and open the doors of internet access for more families in need.Comcast made similar partnerships with schools in Chicago; Atlanta; Pittsburgh; Sacramento, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; and Arlington, Va. to provide more than 200,000 students with access to broadband internet.This is how the program will work:It will take up to four weeks for Comcast to create PIN numbers for the school district, Mumin said. The district will distribute the numbers to students when they come in to pick up their computers and the district is able to determine who needs the broadband internet he added.The codes will be given to the families, the families will call Comcast, provide the code and a self-install kit will be shipped to the family, said Dr. Yamil Sanchez, assistant superintendent.The district will only be billed for codes that are used, he added.There are a few caveats.Anyone who has had a Comcast account for the last 90 days does not qualify for the program, Sanchez said.Sanchez added that if a person has an overdue bill with Comcast they should not cancel their account. Comcast is not shutting off service and is working with people who have overdue bills, he said.Mumin suggested the broadband program may continue post-pandemic.This will take us through the school year, he said. It should give us enough time and space to gather more data to see if its something we can continue to do and sustain for future years.Well be able to have some good data to see not only if the connectivity is helpful but also if that connectivity is impacting achievement in a positive way.
Police arrested two suspects on Thursday in connection with a hate crime against three transgender women on Los Angeles' Hollywood Boulevard.

The violent incident was caught on video on Monday, with a man yelling derogatory slurs, allegedly robbing them and attacking one woman with a bottle. Others in the video could be seen looking on, joking about the attack and filming it. The department described the primary suspect as homeless man based in the Hollywood area who police officers said they recognized from previous encounters.

Carlton Callway has been charged with robbery with a hate crime enhancement, while Willie Walker was charged with extortion.

A third suspect, Davion Williams, has yet to be arrested, police said. He is wanted for assault with a deadly weapon.

MORE: Disturbing video shows man attacking 3 transgender women on Hollywood Boulevard

"As soon as our officers saw the video, they knew who it was," Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Steve Lurie said at a press conference to announce the arrests. "He's a homeless person here in Hollywood that some of our officers recognized."

The department posted video of the incident that showed the face of the man, but later removed the video due to its disturbing nature. Instead, officials posted screenshots from the video, highlighting the suspect in the hope of tracking him down.

Sources with knowledge of the investigation told ABC News on Wednesday that the department knew the identity of the suspect and was working to locate him. Social media users on Instagram and Twitter also shared tips on the man's identity.

PHOTO: Los Angeles Police posted this image of a suspect involved a hate crime that they are seeking the publics help in identifying. On Aug. 17, 2020 on Hollywood Blvd, the suspect threatened and assaulted transgender women. (Los Angeles Police Dept.)

The victims said the man first approached them inside a store and offered to buy them some items, but then he refused to pay.

They said the same man later returned and approached one of them.

"He held a crow bar to my face and threatened to kill me unless I stripped my shoes off and gave him my jewelry and all my processions," Joslyn Allen, one of the three transgender women targeted, wrote in an Instagram post.

Story continues

"He said if i was trans he would kill me," Allen wrote. "He then forced me to hold his hand while he looks for my friends to kill them for being trans."

MORE: Doctors concerned about complex legal landscape for transgender patients: ANALYSIS

Police said the suspect led Allen away and they walked together for a short distance before she managed to break free.

Once she escaped, Allen said the suspect stuck her friend, Jaslene Busanet, with a bottle, knocking her to the ground, and then made derogatory remarks about her. The other victims said their purses, cellphones and money were stolen.

"I just collapsed to the floor," Busanet told Los Angeles ABC station KABC. "There were men saying 'Oh, she's dead,' laughing at me."

Allen said others gathered around and shouted anti-transgender slurs.

"Meanwhile men and WOMEN screaming that I'm a man and telling him to beat me," she posted to Instagram. "Please help us find them. PLEASE."

The group said bystanders watched and recorded for more than five minutes as they pleaded for someone to call 911.

The attack comes amid rising concerns from LGBTQ rights advocates, who have accused U.S. law enforcement agencies of being too lax when it comes to crimes involving transgender victims.

"The transgender community, especially women of color, are so often marginalized, assaulted and even murdered," LA City Councilman Mitch O'Farrell said at Thursday's press conference. "It is an epidemic that can be seen across the country."

At least 26 transgender or gender nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. so far in 2020, with transgender women of color making up the bulk of those victims, according to data provided by the Human Rights Campaign.

The group reported 25 killings in 2019 and 29 in 2018, the most it had ever recorded in a year.

ABC News' Robert Zepeda, Matt Gutman and Alex Stone contributed to this report.

Police arrest 2 suspects in Los Angeles hate crime targeting 3 transgender women originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Q. I bought these four pottery pieces in a Stratford-Shakespeare area antique shop to decorate my house with a Canadiana theme. They are heavy pottery with a ribbed design and most have BRANTFORD CANADA stamped on the base. The basin diameter is 35 cm (13.75 inches). The wash pitcher has a V chip out of the spout. Otherwise they are in good shape. I dont remember what was paid for the pieces but I am curious what they might be worth today. Thanks very much.

Elizabeth, London, Ont.

A. You chose well. The Brantford Stoneware Manufacturing Company began where William Welding left off in 1894. Welding was the last of a long line of potters in Brantford, Ont., and production ceased totally by 1906. This line was also made with a blue glaze and a mottled glaze. Your toilet set pieces include pitcher and basin, scarce chamber pot and soap dish base (missing the lid). A rare lidded tall waste or slop bucket exists. The company also made hanging flower pots, jardinieres, umbrella stands and many other decorative items. All of these pieces are very hard to find. The primary value lies with the basin and chamber pot. But the other pieces do add to a total value of $850.

Q. I was so struck by the colour of this butter dish lid that I bought it about 40 years ago from my favourite antique dealer, who had been looking for a bottom for it for about 30 years. It took 20 years for a friend of mine, who also liked matching parts up, to walk through the door with the bottom. I didnt let him walk out with it. There are no visible marks and it has about a 14-cm diameter (5.5 inches). There is one scallop chip on the lid edge. Id like to learn more about it. Thanks very much.

Joan, St. Marys, Ont.

A. A long and patient hunt has rewarded you with a perfect match. This pattern of pressed glass is scarce and has been listed by many similar names  Stylized Flower, Panelled Flower and Flower and Panel catalogued and patented in 1886 as Ware No. 23 by the large company Challinor, Taylor & Co. of Tarentum, Penn. The known forms are your butter dish, a sugar bowl, spoon holder, cream pitcher and two sizes of water pitchers. They listed the line as Made in Colors, Crystal and Mosaic, meaning opal (milk glass), clear and marble glass or purple slag. The quality of the glass is crisp and mimics cut glass in places. Pressed glass is an opportunity for new collectors these days since prices are quite reasonable. It is worth about $90.

Q. I have finally dusted off two old wood marionettes. I had to restring the lady. I think my mom made new clothes for the lady  his are original. I am now 64 and remember these from my childhood. I believe an aunt gave them to my sister and me  I have no idea where she got them from. She did travel to Europe for work. They are marked on the top hand-operating cross PELHAM PUPPETS  made in England and stand 29 cm tall (11.5 inches). Any idea as to their age and value? I would like them to find a better home than my drawer. Thank you.

Janis, Kitchener

A. In 1947 Bob Pelham started out making toy donkeys and called his company Wonky Toys Ltd. But a year later he decided to concentrate on making marionettes for children, and Pelham Puppets was born, in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. The company operated into the early 1990s and new lines of the puppets are still made under new ownership. The size, half-ball feet and round ball heads on both distinguish these to be from the LS series from the 1950s or very early 1960s. The hand-painted features are simple but charming. These have a stronger following in Britain and your dancing couple is worth $125.
Tata Consultancy Services on Friday said a US Court of Appeals has held that the punitive damages award of USD 280 million (around Rs 2,098 crore) on the Indian IT major in an intellectual property rights case with Epic Systems was "constitutionally excessive". In the EPIC Systems Corporation matter, the US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, Chicago, returned a verdict on the appeal filed by TCS, reducing the damages award.

"The Court held that the punitive damages award of USD 280 million is constitutionally excessive and directed the Trial Court to reassess the punitive damages," Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said in a regulatory filing. The Court has however, upheld the compensatory damages award of USD 140 million (approx Rs 1,049 crore), the filing added.

"TCS is exploring the options available to it, as it believes that there is no evidence of misuse of EPIC information by TCS. TCS will vigorously defend its position before the relevant court," the filing noted. The matter relates to a US grand jury order that slapped two Tata group companies " TCS and Tata America International Corp" with a USD 940 million fine in a trade secret lawsuit filed against them by Epic in April 2016.

Also read: HCL Tech, TCS, Wipro make India proud! Rank in top 10 global engineering service companies

On April 16, 2016, TCS made a disclosure to the stock exchanges regarding a US court verdict related to an intellectual property rights case with Epic Systems. On October 1, 2017, TCS said the court significantly reduced the compensatory and punitive damages of USD 940 million to USD 420 million.

In May this year, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had warned TCS to be careful in dealing with disclosure of material information to investors after the watchdog found that the IT major did not prominently display the extent of damages related to a case in the US.

The regulator has also asked the company to ensure that disclosures provide adequate, accurate, explicit and timely information to the investors. Shares of TCS were trading 0.20 per cent lower at Rs 2,247.60 apiece on BSE.

Also read: How global financial giants can help BFSI recovery of Indian IT firms
Author

Stacey Zhu is a Manager at HVS Shenzhen, providing a range of consulting and advisory services for the hospitality industry in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining HVS, Stacey has work experience in hotel operations in both Switzerland and China hospitality industry with the Clinique La Prairie and JW Marriott, as well as hotel design and development in international hotel management group. Stacey holds the degree of Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality Management with Honours from Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne in Switzerland. For further information, please contact [email protected]

More about Stacey Zhu
By Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS: Someone has defaced a giant mural of George Floyd at the Minneapolis intersection where he died in May.

Someone sprayed black paint on the mural on the side of a food market, the Star Tribune reported. A Minneapolis police spokesman says the department hasnt taken any reports about the vandalized mural, however.

ALSO READ | Won't forget George Floyd daughter's words 'Daddy changed the world', says Joe Biden

Other Floyd murals around the country have reportedly been defaced, including in Rochester, Minnesota; Long Beach, California; and Portland, Oregon.

Floyd, who was Black, died on Memorial Day after four Minneapolis police officers arrested him for allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill at the food market. The officers held him down on his stomach in the street while he was handcuffed. A white officer pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes even as Floyd said he could not breathe.

His death sparked global protests against racism and police brutality.
Ispace, a Tokyo, Japan-based space startup, raised $28m in Series B funding.

The round, which brought startups total funding to date to $125m, was led by IF SPV 1st Investment Partnership (through Incubate Fund), with participation from Space Frontier Fund, Takasago Thermal Engineering Co. and Mitsui Sumitomo.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop its commercial lander ahead of planned launches in 2022 and 2023.

Led by founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada, ispace is developing a small commercial lunar lander and miniature lunar rovers to delivery customer payloads to the Moon and explore the lunar surface.

In conjunction with its Series B investment announcement, the company also launched a new lunar data business concept, labeled Blueprint Moon, a planned data-centric platform through which the company aims to support customers with lunar market entry. ispace outlined its vision to collect lunar data (i.e., imaging, environmental data, telemetry, resources information, etc.) and apply it to tools and applications, which can be provided as a service to potential customers (i.e., government space agencies, universities, research institutions, and private companies) for mission planning and lunar surface development. The company has already begun to develop tools using publicly available data from government space agencies as a basis for this platform, which can be enriched with data from ispaces future missions, starting with its first mission.

ispace has over 100 staff and operations in Japan, the United States, and Europe, and has signed partnerships with JAXA and the Government of Luxembourg.

FinSMEs

21/08/2020
Workers essential to sustaining the ongoing response to coronavirus disease (Covid-19); people maintaining core societal functions; and those at greatest risk of severe illness and death and their caregivers should be vaccinated first whenever a vaccine is approved but is still in limited supply , according to a new report released in the US on Wednesday.

The report, written by public health experts led by the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, proposes establishing tiers of high-priority candidates who will receiving a vaccine first.

Also read: ICMR looks at private medical colleges to ramp up Covid-19 testing infra

First responders and those at risk are in tier one, with tier two including those providing non-Covid healthcare, people supporting maintenance of important societal functions such as police and fire personnel, transportation and delivery workers, food system workers, teachers, and workers involved in the maintenance of electricity, water, information, finance and fuel infrastructure, among others, those who may not be able to access health care if they become ill, and those working in sectors that raises their risk of infection.

Apart from health and frontline workers, people over the age of 65, and those with chronic diseases, the report recommends protecting workers needed to maintain public safety, such as police and fire personnel. It also recommends vaccinating those who can spread infection, such as workers in high public contact jobs like transportation, grocery shops workers, teachers, and childcare workers, school-going children and children living with high-risk adults.

Also read: 68.7k fresh Covid-19 cases take tally near 3 million

The report, the Interim Framework for Covid-19 Vaccine Allocation and Distribution in the United States, can be applied in every country.

There are 29 candidate vaccines undergoing human clinical trials, with eight vaccines in late stages of clinical evaluation around the world, according to the latest World Health Organisation Draft Landscape of Covid-19 candidate vaccines. Another 138 experimental vaccines are in preclinical evaluation -- all adding to hope that one or more of these candidates will be available at scale in 2021.

The purpose of this report is to offer an additional ethics framework for use in making decisions about allocation of Sars-CoV-2 vaccine during this initial period of scarcity in the United States and make related suggestions about vaccine distribution. Our approach takes into account considerations of medical risk, public health, ethics and equity, economic impact, and logistics, said authors.

Also read: Serum Institute registers its Covid-19 vaccine trial

India has not placed global pre-orders for a Covid-19 vaccine yet, but has begun talks with made-in-India vaccine producers on production and procurement.

The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration will meet the countrys leading vaccine developers and producers for the second time this week for information on their production capacity and plans on pricing.

No vaccine will be 100% effective, but with scientists working on many experimental vaccines, more than one is likely to be available next year. To ensure their timely availability for our population, including priority populations such as our Covid warriors, the expert group has begun consultations with vaccine manufacturers to plan ahead for the production, pricing and distribution of the vaccine, whenever it is ready, said Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

There is a lag from the time of vaccine administration to the production of a robust immune response, and many vaccines may need more than one dose to offer protection, say experts. Even with a highly effective vaccine, it will take at least two weeks after the first dose for some immunity to develop, with full protection appearing around two to four weeks after the second dose. This means it may take six to eight weeks to develop immunity after vaccination, which can be short-lived. We still dont know, said a scientist at Indian Council of Medical Research, requesting anonymity.

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Sushant Singh Rajputs tragic demise is way more complicated than it looks like. Big names like Kangana Ranaut fought for justice for the actor. Many Bollywood names have been associated with the tragic death of the actor and one of the names that popped in connection to the alleged murder of the Dil Bechara actor is Sooraj Pancholi.

Now, Soorajs father Aditya Pancholi has finally spoken up in favour of his son and debunked all the theories of his involvement in the case. He told Aaj Tak as quoted by Hindustan Times,

One foolish guy posted and all these major media houses picked it up and made it into an issue. This is not fair. Everyone has to be responsible, we had to go through so much pain. He added, I am not on social media but they are trolling Sooraj that he is a murderer. This is the reason he had to turn his comments off. What is this?

He also lashed out at Kangana Ranaut for spreading negativity and giving different narratives of Sushants death.

Jis thaali mein khate hain usme chhed nahi karte hain (Do not dig a hole in the same plate you eat in), he said. He added, Kya bol sakte hai uss aurat ke baare main, uspar humara defamation case bhi chal rha hai, (What can we say about this woman. We have a defamation case going on against her). She is not supposed to talk about me and my family.

He went on to say that Kanganas theory of nepotism factor in Sushants death has also been proved wrong and asked her to return Padma Shri, as she had promised to do so if proven wrong.

He said,

Tell her to return it now because she is wrong about Sushant Singh Rajput. His father filed a report in Patna in which there is no angle of nepotism mentioned. He clearly said that Section 306 is on Rhea. When Kangana was naming industry people, she actually wasted everyones time.

Kangana had told Republic TV in an interview,

I am telling you, if I have said anything, which I cant testify, which I cant prove, and which is not in the public domain, I will return my Padma Shri.

What do you have to say about this?
US Formally Demands UN Restore Iran Sanctions as Several JCPOA Members Reject Proposal

Sputnik News

19:14 GMT 20.08.2020(updated 21:13 GMT 20.08.2020)

The US has formally attempted to invoke the "snapback" function at the United Nations that would automatically restore the arms embargo against Iran in 30 days if the body takes no further action to halt it.

On Thursday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft said in a letter to Indonesia, currently president of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), that international sanctions against Iran dropped in 2015 must be reimposed, as the US was invoking a function designed to do so.

"In accordance with paragraph 11 of the United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015), I write to notify the Security Council, on behalf of my government, that Iran is in significant non-performance of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)," Craft said.

"Pursuant to this notification, which the United States makes as one of the JCPOA participants identified in paragraph 10 of resolution 2231, the process set forth in paragraphs 11 and 12 [on the return of all UN sanctions on Iran] of that resolution leading to the reimposition of specified measures terminated under paragraph 7(a) has been initiated."

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced his intention to invoke the "snapback" conflict resolution function in UNSC Resolution 2231, despite continuing debate about whether or not Washington has the ability to do so.

The 2015 resolution endorsed the eight-party JCPOA that lowered sanctions against Iran in exchange for strict limitations placed on the country's nuclear program. The arms embargo against Iran is set to expire in October by the terms of the deal.

Trump has maintained since May 2018 that Iran is secretly violating the terms of the JCPOA, by which Trump justified unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 agreement and reimposing strangling sanctions against Iran designed to "bring to zero" Iran's petroleum exports, which form the bulk of the southwest Asian country's economic output.

Earlier on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted what he called a "factsheet on the illegitimate and felonious US attempt to re-impose UN sanctions on Iran," which argues the US has no right to invoke the "snapback" function of Resolution 2231.

"The term 'snapback' is never employed in either the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or UN Security Council Resolution 2231," the fact sheet states. "Rather, the US has intentionally used the term to connote rapidity and automaticity. The wording in UNSCR 2231 is actually 'reapplication of the provisions of terminated resolutions,' which requires an elaborate time-consuming process - intended to preserve the JPCOA and not destroy it."

Tehran's position is supported by Russia and China, two nations with permanent seats and veto power in the Security Council, and Craft has moved to pressure a third, the United Kingdom, which is also a US ally, to back Washington's position.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) also said on Thursday that in light of the latest US move, Iran will resume storing higher levels of enriched uranium than those allowed by the JCPOA. The Iranian government maintains that, contrary to US and Israeli pleadings otherwise, the country is only in pursuit of nuclear power generation, not a nuclear weapon.

Later on Thursday, the foreign ministries of the UK as well as France and Germany, two other US allies who were party to the JCPOA, released a joint statement rejecting the US attempt to invoke "snapback" sanctions.

In the statement, the E3 countries note they cannot "support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPoA." However, they also call on Iran to "reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay" in order to preserve the agreement.

A Sputnik

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KITCHENER  A Kitchener mother charged with killing her eight-month-old son is in hospital and returns to court next week.

Her lawyer Steve Gehl told a Kitchener courtroom on Thursday that the woman would not be able to appear in court. She is scheduled to return Aug. 26.

The woman, 26, was charged with second-degree murder on Aug. 9 after Waterloo Regional Police found the boys body in an apartment on Cedarwoods Crescent behind Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener.

Police were initially called outside to Fairway Road South and Wilson Avenue for a medical incident involving the woman. Officers then went to the apartment building for a well-being check and found the deceased infant child.

The woman was arrested and is facing a charge of second-degree murder.

Police have said that they are not seeking any other suspects.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) began its probe into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput on Friday, two days after the Supreme Court asked the agency to take over the case, as it questioned a former staff of the Bollywood actor and collected documents and reports from Mumbai Police.

The agencys special team, which is being lead by superintendent of police (SP) Nupur Prasad comprising officers, other personnel and forensic experts, had landed in Mumbai on Thursday evening to take over probe into the high-profile case which had triggered a war of words between Maharashtra and Bihar governments.

News agency PTI reported that CBI officials brought Rajputs cook for questioning at Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Air Force guest house in suburban Santa Cruz, where the visiting probe team members are staying, on Friday morning. A vehicle, in which the cook was seen sitting next to an official, was spotted entering the guest house in a video tweeted by ANI.

Watch l Sushant death case: CBI collects documents from Mumbai police; cook questioned

Another CBI team, which was led by a superintendent of police-rank officer, reached the Bandra Police station, where an accidental death report (ADR) was registered after the alleged suicide by the actor, reports said. The team collected case diary of the ADR and other important documents related to the investigation of the case, which included autopsy and forensic reports, they said.

The CBI officials also met Abhishek Trimukhe, the deputy commissioner of police who was heading the Mumbai Police probe team. It will also visit Rajputs flat where he was found dead, he said.

PTI cited sources as saying that the probe team will record statements of people connected with the case. It will also scan financial transactions of the 34-year-old actor, who was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra, it added.

Officers from the special investigation team and a forensic expert will visit the crime scene which is Sushants residence in Mumbai where he was found dead. The SIT will recapture the crime scene, ANI quoted a source as saying.

CBI officials said they will not be arresting any suspect in the death case until any concrete and solid evidence is found against them.

The Supreme Court had on August 19 directed the central agency to investigate the case while holding that the first information report (FIR) registered in Patna over the death of the Bollywood actor was legitimate. An FIR was registered in Patna on a complaint filed by KK Singh, Rajputs father, under sections related to abetment to suicide.

The single-judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy also said the Bihar government was competent to recommend transferring the case to CBI. The top court had also asked the Mumbai Police to hand over all evidence collected so far in the case to the CBI. Maharashtra refused the option to challenge the order, Justice Roy said.

The CBI has registered an FIR against actor Rhea Chakraborty, Rajputs former girlfriend, and others in connection with the actors death after the Centre accepted the Bihar governments recommendation to transfer the probe in the matter from Patna.

Rajput was found dead at his apartment in Bandra on June 14.

(With agency inputs)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 13:33:53|Editor: huaxia

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SUVA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Fiji's Ministry of Health is ramping up quarantine measures due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the Pacific region.

According to Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), Fiji's Health Ministry Permanent Secretary James Fong said Friday that they are expecting some high-risk repatriation flights in the next few weeks and they need to be prepared.

"We are taking preventative measures to ensure the quarantine protocols will be adhered to at all times. In the long run, what we are trying to look at is trying to make sure that we can get a more sustainable service delivery model with regards to quarantine."

Fong confirmed four border quarantine cases remain in isolation while more than 200 Fijians are at various quarantine facilities.

Fiji reported its first death from COVID-19 infection on July 31.

The 66-year-old Fijian man, who had a history of cardiac problems and returned from India early July, died in the hospital in Lautoka, Fiji's second largest city.

The man was the island nation's first border quarantine case of COVID-19.

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 maintains a nationwide curfew effective from March 30 this year. Enditem
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San Francisco, 21 Aug 2020: The Report Lipstick Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Shimmer, Matte), By Applicator, By Age, By Distribution Channel, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2019 - 2025

The global lipstick market size is expected to reach USD 18.9 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 7.4% over the forecast period. Increasing number of female working professionals is expected to remain a key factor driving the market in the near future. Furthermore, rising awareness regarding appearance among the young and working class women has been fueling the demand for the product over the world.

Shimmer lip colors dominated the market in 2018, accounting for over 35.0% share of the total revenue. These types of products have gained remarkable popularity due to their high moisture content, which provides comfort on lips. Matte lip colors are anticipated to witness the fastest growth in the upcoming years owing to the natural look and long-lasting features associated with the product forms.

Based on the applicator, the liquid segment is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 7.9% from 2019 to 2025. Increasing demand for matte finish product forms on a global level is projected to upscale the utility of liquid applicators.

As of 2018, the under 20 age group holds the largest share of the lipstick market in terms of age. More than 75% of teenage consumers use lip color. Use of social media such as YouTube, Instagram, and fashion blogs has been influencing this age group to experiment with new makeup products. The 20 - 30 age group is projected to witness the fastest growth owing to increasing spending among working class women on beauty care in emerging economies including China and India.

Europe emerged as the largest regional market on account of predominant consumption in key countries including Germany, U.K., France, and Italy. Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness the fastest growth in the world due to high concentration of middle-income consumer groups in developing economies including China and India. Lipstick is one of the fastest growing beauty products in China. Around 95.0% of the urban women in China use lip color. Key manufacturers are expanding their business in the above-mentioned developing countries in order to cater to the growing demand for the product.

Key competitors of this industry include L'Oreal S.A.; Shiseido Company, Limited; The Estee Lauder Companies Inc.; Coty, Inc.; Revlon, Inc.; Avon Products, Inc.; AmorePacific Corporation; Oriflame Holding AG; Chanel S.A.; and Christian Dior SE.

Access Research Report of Lipstick Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/lipstick-market

Lipstick Market Report Highlights

Europe led the market and held the largest share of 31.0% in 2018

By product, matte lipstick is expected register the fastest CAGR of 7.9% from 2019 to 2025

Based on applicator, the tube/stick segment held the largest share of 60.9% in 2018

The online distribution channel is expected to expand at the fastest CAGR of 10.6% from 2019 to 2025

Browse more reports of this category by Grand View Research at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry/beauty-and-personal-care

Grand View Research has segmented the global lipstick market on the basis of product, applicator, age, distribution channel, and region:

Lipstick Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Shimmer

Matte

Cream

Longwearing

Lipstick Applicator Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Palette

Pencil

Tube/stick

Liquid

Lipstick Age Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Under 20

20 - 30

31 - 50

Over 50

Lipstick Distribution Channel Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Offline

Online

Lipstick Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Central & South America

Middle East & Africa

Access Press Release of Lipstick Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-lipstick-market

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

For More Information:www.grandviewresearch.com
In two unrelated shootings, a man and woman were killed, a toddler was injured, and another man was injured in Vallejo Thursday evening, police said.

Officers responded around 7:30 p.m. to a report of a shooting in the area of Trinity and Louisiana streets and arrived to find a man and a woman dead.

A toddler at the scene was taken to a hospital to be treated for gunshot wounds. Police did not immediately release an update on the child's condition Thursday night.

An unrelated shooting at 7:41 p.m. at Richardson Park left a 31-year-old man injured. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Police have not released the identities of any of the victims or provided any information about suspects in either shooting.

California residents with insurance who are evacuating wildfires may have coverage for relocation costs, even if their properties are not damaged or destroyed.

More than 10,000 weekend lightning strikes caused hundreds of fires that are still active across the state, leading to continuing orders for tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.

As well as food and housing costs, coverage for "additional living expenses" during a fire may extend to furniture rental, relocation, storage and transportation.

Residents should keep all evacuation-related receipts and check with their insurance company or the state insurance department to learn how their renter's or homeowner's insurance might apply to a wildfire evacuation.

For more information and resources, read the full release at http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2020/release074-2020.cfm

Two East Bay men have been arrested for separate offenses including a fatal stabbing in San Leandro, police said Thursday.

Hayward resident David Herrera, 22, was arrested Wednesday in Hayward as a suspect in the stabbing that took the life of 24-year-old Roman Pagan of San Leandro.

According to police, Pagan was inside a white Camaro suffering from at least one stab wound when police found him Saturday in the 700 block of Billings Boulevard. Police previously said Pagan was stabbed in the 1500 block of Billings Boulevard. Pagan died where police found him.

Around 11:35 p.m. Saturday, police got a call about a shooting in the 1100 block of Tulip Lane, in the same general area as the stabbing.

There, Pittsburg resident Kyle Jefferson, 25, had apparently fired at least eight bullets into a home. No one was hurt, police said.

Jefferson, the boyfriend of the home's resident, allegedly made threats to kill the resident after the shooting, according to police.

Jefferson was arrested in Pittsburg on Sunday. Jefferson has been charged with shooting into an inhabited dwelling, criminal threats and possessing a gun.

Alameda County prosecutors Thursday afternoon were reviewing the police report about the stabbing to decide whether to charge Herrera.

Both men are being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

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.
Michael Clarke said the county program is not designed to take homes from the elderly or unemployed who are facing economic struggles, but to collect taxes owed by serial delinquent taxpayers who may own multiple properties but fail to pay their property taxes on some of them.

Bucks County is letting tax-dodging property owners know that they soon will be charged for the costs of not paying.

The Bucks commissioners authorized the countys Tax Claim Bureau to charge delinquent property taxpayers 106% percent of the taxes owed.

The extra 6% includes 5% toward the cost of running the bureau and 1% to the attorney handling the case. Previously, the 5% was taken from the amounts owed to the municipalities and school districts, so taxpayers were footing the bill for those in delinquency.

Under the new method, its going to return 100% of the taxes owed back to the municipalities and school districts, said Michael Clark, solicitor for the Tax Claim Bureau.

Clarke, of the law firm of Rudolph Clarke of Trevose, explained the advantages to the new program at the commissioners meeting Aug. 12.

He said the new hybrid method uses provisions from both the Real Estate Tax Sale Law and recent revisions to the Pennsylvania Municipal Claims and Tax Liens Act to not only charge the delinquent taxpayer for the costs involved in collecting the debt but also to put liens not only on the property in question but on all properties owned by the person until the delinquent taxes are paid.

Montgomery County adopted a similar program about eight years ago and Clarke, who is also solicitor for that countys Tax Claim Bureau, said it is paying big dividends for municipalities like Norristown that are seeing more revenue coming in and delinquent properties being sold quicker so they can be renovated if they are blighted and returned to contributing to the tax roles.

He said one official in Montgomery County told him our business manager loves this program.

Clarke said the program is not designed to take homes from the elderly or unemployed who are facing economic struggles, but to collect taxes owed by serial delinquent taxpayers who may own multiple properties but fail to pay their property taxes on some of them.

Theres almost sort of a little game that is played, he said, where someone will have several delinquent properties but only pay their back taxes on a property about to be sold at a sheriffs sale by the county because of delinquent taxes owed.

Story continues

Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo wanted assurances that the program is not targeting residents who are in financial distress.

Clarke said anyone currently receiving counseling or assistance from the county would not be included and, going forward, any homeowners seeking governmental assistance with a tax debt would not be targeted by the hybrid plan.

He stressed the purpose is not to put anyone out of their home who is having trouble financially, but to have serial delinquents pay what is owed so that municipalities and schools districts are not left with revenue shortfalls.

Were now getting properties back on the tax roles, he said.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks to charge tax delinquents
Two foreign students have been arrested in Brisbane, accused of being part of an international syndicate using a cold call scam to steal about $3 million from more than 150 Australian victims.

Queensland police allege victims generally lost between $10,000 and $20,000 but the highest amount stolen from one victim had topped $600,000 and the oldest victim was 95 years old.

The two foreign students were led out of their Albion accommodation in handcuffs on Tuesday. Credit:Queensland Police Service

Two male foreign nationals, aged 24 and 26, were arrested in the Brisbane suburb of Albion on Tuesday. They were charged with recklessly engaging in money laundering and were due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on September 28.

Since the police operation targeting the alleged criminal syndicate began in May 2019, there have been 11 arrests and 25 charges laid in total.
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The Siberian hospital where Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny is being treated while in a coma said on Friday it had found no evidence he had been poisoned.

"No poisons or traces of poison have been found in his system. I suppose a diagnosis of poisoning is still at the back of our minds. But we do not think that the patient has been poisoned," deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko said, state news agency TASS reported.

A representative of Navalny said previously that medical staff had told him that a trace of a poison had been found. The hospital has refused to let Navalny be evacuated to Germany for treatment, saying that it could be too dangerous to transport him.

Navalny's spokesperson, Kira Yamysh, alleged that Russian authorities seem to want to keep Navalny at the hospital for at least a couple days to make sure that potential traces of poisoning would be out of his system.

---GNA
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(Newser)  More than two dozen major fires were scorching California on Thursday and taxing the state's firefighting capacity, sparked by an unprecedented lightning siege that dropped nearly 11,000 strikes over several days. More than 10,000 firefighters are on the front lines, the AP reports, but officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours, and the state has requested 375 engines and crew from other states. "That's going to allow our firefighters that have have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest," a state official said. In Marin County, the fire chief said he is waiting for assistance from Montana to arrive this weekend. "Our agency is taxed to the limit," said Incident Commander Mike Smith at the fire near Santa Cruz. Officials there are awaiting help from other states but are having to look further afield than usual, meaning it will take days for crews to arrive, he said.

story continues below

The US Forest Service can't help because it's busy fighting fires on federal lands. Most of the activity is in Northern California, where fires have chewed through about 500 square miles of brushland, rural areas, canyon country and dense forest surrounding San Francisco. Tim Edwards, president of the union representing 7,000 Cal Fire firefighters, said lawmakers need to allocate more money at a time when firefighters are working 40 to 50 days at a time without real relief. "Here we are, were not even into our peak fire conditions, and we dont have enough resources throughout the whole state because were stretched so thin," he said. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who pulled out of speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, said his state received a federal grant to reimburse some of its firefighting costs. In Southern California, firefighters worked in high heat to increase containment of fires in mountains north and east of Los Angeles. A huge fire also burned in the remote Mojave National Preserve. (A helicopter pilot was killed fighting a fire in Fresno County.)
Conditions at a notorious immigration removal centre where detainees were locked in their rooms for 11 hours every night have been ruled lawful by the High Court.

Three Afghan refugees took legal action over conditions at Brook House IRC, near Gatwick Airport, where they say detainees were locked in their 'cells' between 9pm and 8am every day.

The three men - who have all now obtained refugee or humanitarian protection status - were detained at Brook House in 2017 or 2018, when the centre was run by G4S.

They claimed the 'lock-in regime' at Brook House, which the Home Office refers to as 'the night state', breached their right to liberty and privacy.

Conditions at a notorious immigration removal centre Brook House (pictured) where detainees were locked in their rooms for 11 hours every night have been ruled lawful by the High Court

A 2017 BBC Panorama report showed undercover footage of alleged assaults, humiliation and verbal abuse of detainees at the hands of Brook House officers

It was also said the regime subjected them to 'an unlawful, discriminatory and/or disproportionate interference' with practising Muslims' right to religious freedom as they had to pray in their cells overnight.

But in a judgment delivered remotely on Friday, Mr Justice Cavanagh dismissed their claim on all grounds.

He ruled that 'by deciding that there should be a night state, the (Home Office) was striking a lawful balance between the statutory purposes of security, safety and good order and the statutory purposes of providing a relaxed and humane environment'.

Three Afghan refugees took legal action over conditions at Brook House (pictured) where they say detainees were locked in their 'cells' between 9pm and 8am every day

Fourteen members of G4S staff were dismissed or resigned following the broadcast (one grab pictured)

Mr Justice Cavanagh also found the Home Office 'took reasonable and appropriate measures to secure Muslim detainees' rights', and that 'having to pray during the night state in a shared room, and in close proximity to the toilets, did not completely prevent Muslim detainees from manifesting their religion'.

Conditions at Brook House have been under intense scrutiny since a BBC Panorama programme broadcast in September 2017 uncovered footage showing alleged assaults, humiliation and verbal abuse of detainees by officers.

Fourteen members of G4S staff were dismissed or resigned following the broadcast and Home Secretary Priti Patel later announced a public inquiry to investigate the 'mistreatment of detainees' at the centre.

G4S - which made 14.3 million in profit from Brook House between 2012 and 2018, according to the National Audit Office - pulled out of running any more immigration removal centres last September and the Brook House contract has since been taken over by outsourcing giant Serco.

Upon taking over, Serco said it will substantially increase staff numbers, give detainees access to educational and skills-based activities every day and boost the number of welfare staff.

It also said staff will get new safeguarding and vulnerability training.
Alarming: Womens Aid chief executive Sarah Benson publicises how the Covid-19 emergency has forced up calls to her organisation. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

Domestic abuse refuges and direct provision centres will have to be "Covid-proofed" in future, the minister for equality has said.

Roderic O'Gorman said the State lost a "significant number" of refuge spaces at the start of lockdown.

He was speaking at the launch of a new Women's Aid report which said contacts from victims were up 43pc at the height of Covid-19. The charity said amid rising reports of domestic abuse from victims trapped in lockdown with their attacker, the number of emergency refuge spaces available was down by almost a quarter because shelters needed to ensure social distancing.

Mr O'Gorman said Covid-19 had highlighted some of the problems with shared accommodation like abuse refuges and direct provision centres, which were "not fit for purpose".

"We've seen how the pandemic is telling us something we already knew - the direct provision system is not fit for purpose because of the congregation of people and the inability of people to social distance," Mr O'Gorman said.

"Covid is going to change how we do things in a lot of areas. And I think following on from the Tusla review, any new refuge space has to be Covid-proofed."

There was already a shortage of domestic abuse refuges before Covid-19 hit. The Istanbul Convention - the European domestic abuse treaty Ireland signed up to in 2015 - states it should have one refuge space for every 10,000 people. Ireland is claiming it only needs to have one refuge space for every 10,000 adult women, but it is not meeting this number.

Mr O'Gorman said Tusla was carrying out a national review of refuges.

"I'm aware of what the Istanbul Convention says about the needs of specific numbers of refuge spaces to a country's population. As a state, we have signed up to the Istanbul Convention so I believe that absolutely needs to be what guides the Government's approach and my own department's approach to this particular issue," Mr O'Gorman said.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said Covid-19 had caused "almost an immediate increase" in domestic abuse incidents.

He said lockdown "had the potential and the reality to allow abusers to increase the intensity of their abuse and their control over their victims".

This year, gardai have dealt with 27,174 instances of domestic abuse.

"It's a huge number and it's a really significant policing issue for us," Mr Harris said.
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Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 08:22 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f693d8 1 National Papuan-Lives-Matter,antiracism-rally,Papua,Racism,West-Papua,police,arrest,civilians Free

Tapol, a UK-based human rights NGO, has recently reported on the numbers of deaths, injuries and arrests that occurred during the antiracism protests in Papuan and West Papuan in August last year.

Today marks the first anniversary of the West Papua Uprising that swept across 22 towns in West Papua, 17 cities in Indonesia and three cities overseas from August 19 to September 30, 2019, the NGO said in a press release on its website Wednesday.

Tapol reported that at least 61 civilians had died during the protests, 35 of whom were indigenous Papuans. Among the Papuan deaths, 30 died from bullet wounds, while the other five deaths died from stab wounds.

The NGO also reported that at least 287 civilians were injured as a result of violence. Police also arrested as many as 1,013 people, including 133 political prisoners, 22 of whom were charged with treason and sentenced to between six months to 10 years imprisonment.

Read also: Papuan activists rejoice after completing prison sentences for treason

This includes seven people known as the Balikpapan Seven  Buchtar Tabuni, Ferry Kombo Irwanus Uropmabin, Hengki Hilapok, Agus Kossay, Stevanus Itlay and Alexander Gobai  who were sentenced to between 10 and 11 months imprisonment.

When asked whether they could confirm the data by The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, the National Police said they would seek further information on the matter. Otherwise, I will state my reply in a press release later on, National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Argo Yuwono said.

Coordinating Legal, Political and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD did not respond to the Posts request for comment.

Furthermore, Tapol claimed a total of 22,800 civilians had been displaced during the protests, including 6,000 Papuan students in Java and other places who returned to their homeland. To date, at least 2,000 of these students have remained in Papua to study.
When Joe Biden announced that Kamala Harris would be his VP pick, Donald Trump immediately began criticizing her as being too far left. I hope the leadership of the Democratic Party does not decide that this criticism of Trumps needs to be answered by pressuring her to move further toward the center.

There is a substantial body of people in the Democratic Party that is left of center, as the enthusiastic support for Bernie Sanders showed. Those of us who supported him gave the Party more interest and excitement than it has had in years. We deserve to be represented. Kamala Harris is the very least we deserve.

When the Biden/Harris ticket wins in November, as I believe it will, we will be watching very closely to see that what the Democratic leadership does that goes beyond pretty speeches and representation on the convention floor. We want to see major change on issues ranging from climate change to racial inequality to income inequality to endless wars and nuclear weapons to health care and much more.

If the party is scared of the power wielded by corporate elites and the very rich, we expect action to remove the influence of money from our political process. If the Democrats do not deliver on the center-left agenda that should define the partys policies, expect people like me to be out in force putting as much pressure on them as we ever have on Trump and his administration.

We will no longer be silent in the face of inaction on critical issues as we often were in the Obama years, colluding with his administration as he delivered far less than he promised.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the movement to ensure that Black Lives Matter, the inadequacies revealed in our health care system, the movement to address climate change and the growing disgust our people feel for the U.S.s ongoing foreign wars and international bullying, the time has come for systemwide changes.

Our loyalty is not to a party nor to a candidate. It is to seeing America become a better, more equal, more respectworthy nation that is fulfilling its promises to all its people and to the rest of the world. The Democratic Party must be a means toward this end in order to command our ongoing support.

Peter Bergel is a lifelong activist, nonviolence trainer and peace musician.
Google took quite a while to finally unveil the Google Pixel 4a but if reports are true, we have some more devices in the pipeline. According to a fairly reliable source, Google is planning to officially announce the Pixel 5 5G and the Pixel 4a 5G by the end of next month. Now during the official unveiling of the Pixel 4a, we saw a certain teaser by Google showcasing two smartphones which were assumed to be the above-mentioned devices.

According to tipster Jon Prosser, the two smartphones will be officially unveiled on September 30. Customers in Europe can expect to pre-order these starting October 8, as suggested by Google France said in a blog post, although that date has been removed at the time of writing this article. Prosser also suggests that the Pixel 5 would come in two colour variants - black and green. Recently a press render of the Pixel 5 leaked online confirming a similar punch-hole display like the Pixel 4a along with a similar square camera module with two cameras inside.

Now while the Pixel 4a 5G is expected to primarily come with similar specifications but probably a different processor with 5G as well. The Pixel 5 5G on the other hand is expected to feature a Snapdragon 765 processor. This means that it is comparatively going to be a less powerful device considering the fact that the Pixel 4 and 4 XL came with the Snapdragon 855 flagship chipset.

Looks like Pixel 5 5G (black and green?) is coming September 30th.Pixel 4a 5G in October  Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) August 19, 2020

It is noteworthy that neither the Pixel 5 nor the Pixel 4a 5G are going to launch in India. The two devices are going to be available in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. The Pixel 4a however is expected to arrive in India by October. While there is no confirmation of the Indian price it retails at $349 (~Rs 26,100) in the US. We are expecting the smartphone to launch around Rs 35,000.
La ministra Pilar Mazzetti se reunio con la congresista Tania Rodas, representante de La Libertad, para revisar la situacion sanitaria en dicha region y evaluar acciones rapidas como parte de la lucha contra el #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/uYIKyyGq1t
By Nerijus Adomaitis and Terje Solsvik

OSLO (Reuters) - Oil and gas investment in Norway, Western Europe's top producer, will rise more this year and decline less in 2021 than predicted a few months ago, an industry survey by the statistics office (SSB) showed on Thursday.

Petroleum companies, including Equinor, have revived several projects after the Norwegian parliament in June granted tax incentives to spur investment and safeguard jobs after a crash in oil prices sparked by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Investments in the country's main economic sector are now projected at 184.6 billion Norwegian crowns ($20.7 billion), up from the 180.3 billion crowns forecast in May, SSB said, and up from 177.6 billion crowns in 2019.

Next year, however, investment is expected to decline to 148.6 billion crowns, compared with the previous view of 145.6 billion crowns, SSB added.

Analysts at Handelsbanken said the expected drop next year will dampen Norway's overall economic recovery, while DNB Markets said it reflected a lack of large oilfield projects to develop in the years ahead.

The figures for the next year could still be revised up, with oil companies planning several smaller developments, including Equinor's Breidablikk and Aker BP's Frosk, SSB said.

Projects approved by the end of 2022 are eligible for tax breaks that shield a greater portion of income.

Norwegian Oil and Gas, an industry association that lobbied for the tax cuts, said the updated forecasts were proof that the package was having a positive impact.

But while oil firms will spend more overall on field development, drilling for new reserves appeared to be declining, SSB said.

"A possible explanation for the downward revision to exploration estimates for 2021 might be that the tax support package ... has, in relative terms, provided a more favourable framework for the other investment categories," SSB said.

"This may indicate that the oil companies are revising some of their initial plans, by moving some of their leased rigs from exploration drilling to production drilling."

($1 = 8.9323 Norwegian crowns)

(Editing by Jason Neely and David Goodman)
Police have accused a Sydney truck driver of "sneaking" a woman, who did not have a border pass, across the Queensland-NSW divide.

Police are unable to confirm when the pair got through the Coolangatta border checkpoint but the truck was stopped about 130km north, on the Bruce Highway at Murrumba Downs, on Wednesday afternoon.

The truck carrying the Sydney couple was stopped on the Bruce Highway in the Moreton Bay region, north of Brisbane. Credit:Queensland Police Service

It will be alleged the truck crossed the border using a freight category border declaration pass but the woman, who was also travelling in the truck, did not have a border pass.

When an officer from the road policing task force stopped the truck on the Bruce Highway about 1.30pm on Wednesday, he noticed the alleged discrepancy.
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The boss of Ofqual threatened to quit unless Education Secretary Gavin Williamson gave his public backing to the embattled exams regulator, it was reported last night.

Roger Taylor, Ofqual's chairman, made a humiliating televised apology to the nation's teenagers last week after the regulator's algorithm caused havoc to A-level results.

But believing that Mr Williamson was blaming him for the fiasco, Mr Taylor threatened to quit, according to The Guardian.

Students protested outside Marble Arch Station today over the over the government's handling of A-level and GCSE results. This protestor's sign reads: 'Don't be shy quit your job'

Students who were protesting marched through central London. This protestor's sign reads: 'Are you gavin a laugh?' using the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson's name to mock how the government has handled the situation

Another sign playing on the education's name reads: 'Want a good education system? Just take Gaviscon. Gets rid of incompetence'

A mother wearing a jumper that reads 'mamabear' marches through Whitehall with students. Signs read 'My future matters', and 'let us appeal CAGs'

On Wednesday, he demanded a public statement of support from Mr Williamson, the newspaper reported. It duly arrived, saying the Department for Education had 'full confidence' in Ofqual.

The statement also revealed for the first time that Ofqual had decided to pull the plug on standardisation, not Mr Williamson  despite impressions the minister had given in interviews over previous days.

'The decision they took to move from moderated grades to centre assessed grades was one that we agreed with', the DfE said.

A protester holds a sign, with the logo for the leftist newspaper the Socialist Worker, that reads: Sack Tory Exam Cheats' demanding that Mr Williamson is fired

Students hold signs calling out 'classism' in the Government's method of marking exams and more signs urging the Education Secretary to resign

Despite Mr Williamson (pictured) saying he received multiple 'assurances', his department were unable to inspect Ofqual's work until it was released to the public last week

Roger Taylor, Ofqual's chairman, threatened to quit unless Education Secretary Gavin Williamson gave his public backing to the embattled exams regulator

In the immediate aftermath of the crisis Mr Williamson repeatedly refused to declare his 'confidence' in the regulator until Mr Taylor reportedly forced him to change his tune.

The first sign that Ofqual would refuse to take the blame lying down came last Monday, after the mayhem of A-level results saw thousands get rejected from their first choice universities.

Rather than announce he was quitting, Mr Taylor apologised but described how 'Ofqual was asked by the Secretary of State to develop a system for awarding calculated grades'.

The roots of the system lie in a letter which Mr Williamson sent on March 31 cancelling summer exams.

He instructed the regulator to come up with a system that ensured 'qualification standards are maintained and the distribution of grades follows a similar profile to that in previous years'.

As in Scotland, Ofqual understood this meant they should preserve existing educational inequalities, rather than seek to stamp them out.

Despite Mr Williamson saying he received multiple 'assurances', his department were unable to inspect Ofqual's work until it was released to the public last week. Ofqual did not respond to a request for comment.
Tashfiq Sadeque was a high school senior in Round Rock, bound for the University of Texas at San Antonio, when he and a friend went through the university housing process in April to sign up for a two-bedroom apartment on campus.

The University Oaks student complex offered full kitchens, and without a meal plan, Sadeque figured hed save money when compared with living in a dorm. Everyone assumed that the coronavirus pandemic would ease over the summer.

Instead, cases surged. UTSA decided that the overwhelming majority of fall classes would be online. Sadeque, 17, decided that staying with his parents was safer. He and his roommate called Campus Living Villages, the company that owns and manages the apartments, to ask for release from their monthly rent of $753 each.

They were told the leases were binding if they remained enrolled  so Sadeque withdrew from UTSA. He still paid a $900 fee to cancel his lease.

Its just tough, because its my freshman year of college, he said. I just didnt expect it to happen like this. I dont want to fall behind.

Even without in-person classes, a small fraction of UTSAs 30,000 students are moving into campus housing this week. But it will be about half the normal contingent.

Even with public health procedures in place, students said the ongoing pandemic made the close quarters feel risky. Some didnt see the point of living on campus while all their classes were online. Some had lost jobs  and rent money.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

UTSA this summer allowed its 2,300 dorm-dwelling students to be released from their housing contracts upon request, but Campus Living Villages, with more than 1,800 spots at University Oaks and Chisholm Hall, did not.

The university and the company will each house slightly more than 1,000 students this semester. Sadeque knows hes not the only one to drop the school to get out of a Campus Living Villages lease, though its unclear how many others have done so.

The company declined an interview request but released a statement that said, in part, We rely on monthly installments from our leaseholders to meet our financial obligations, including operational overhead costs and payroll for our team members.

Serena Hirani, 18, a freshman from Corpus Christi, said the housing application UTSA sent her in March listed only University Oaks or Chisholm as options. Before signing a lease, Hirani said, she asked a financial manager at Campus Living Villages whether shed get a refund or cancellation if the university were to shut down in the fall and was told the university would decide.

So she signed.

I thought maybe Id lose a spot or something, Hirani said.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

She decided to major in public health and epidemiology, then found out last month that all her classes would be online. She was seeing conflicting messages about the safety precautions at University Oaks, and her household in Corpus Christi includes a high-risk relative.

If I were to go to campus, I would not be able to come home at all, Hirani said.

The pandemic has affected her familys income, and shes no longer sure where her $750 monthly rent will come from.

Campus Living Villages denied her request to cancel her lease. Hirani said she advertised for a sublet on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and everywhere else she could think of, but no one is interested in a lease because everything is online.

On ExpressNews.com: Closed for coronavirus and teaching remotely, San Antonio schools hunt for missing students

Shell stay in Corpus Christi and has applied to the university for an emergency grant from federal coronavirus relief funds. Maximum awards are generally around $1,500. Hirani will also try to figure out a part-time job, although those are now in reduced supply.

Itll be hard, but I have no other choice, she said. Im not looking to fall back a year because of a rent thing.

Many students who lived in nearby off-campus apartments not affiliated with the university also are stuck in leases the pandemic has rendered inconvenient or impossible. The financial difficulties can halt students progress, so UTSA has publicly encouraged those facilities, as well as Campus Living Villages, to follow its lead and let them cancel or defer leases.

Our focus, beyond the health and well-being of the students, is to advance their academic careers, said Joe Izbrand, university spokesman.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

But UTSA doesnt have the authority to demand its partner in student housing give students a break, Izbrand said.

Campus Living Villages is a private business that conducts its leasing and operations in the way that it chooses, Izbrand said. The frustration that we see and feel is the inability to tell a private company what to do.

A line of cars formed outside the gated University Oaks complex Thursday morning for move-in. Lauren Kammerer, 19, a sophomore public health major from Austin, said she considered trying to cancel her lease but decided against it.

I think its going to be easier to focus on my online classes from anywhere but home, she said.

Baylee Hudspeth, an 18-year-old freshman, lined up in a white Honda Civic with a gray cat in the front seat, her mother in a car behind her and her father in a U-Haul completing the convoy. Hudspeth said she chose University Oaks for her own appropriately sized room and because its the only campus housing that would take her cat.

Also because I signed a lease, Hudspeth said, and I cant get out.

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
St. Louis-based independent insurance agency network organization, Valley Insurance Agency Alliance (VIAA), has named Susan Piccione as its regional manager for Missouri.

Piccione will oversee new business development and cultivation of the companys Independent Strategic Member (ISM) alliance. This includes driving growth through strategic partner recruitment while maintaining relationships with alliance members through ongoing communication and personalized opportunities.

Prior to joining VIAA, Piccione worked in the small commercial sector and more recently in claims solutions and analytics for a Fortune 500 insurance company. She previously was a community living trainer and program coordinator for a nonprofit that serves the developmentally disabled.

VIAA has more than 130 independent insurance agency members in Missouri and Illinois.

Source: Valley Insurance Agency Alliance

Topics Missouri
In an unprecedented case, a former chief security officer for Uber Technologies was criminally charged on Thursday with trying to cover up a 2016 hacking that exposed personal information of about 57 million of the ride-hailing companys customers and drivers.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Joseph Sullivan, 52, with felony obstruction of justice, saying he took deliberate steps to keep the Federal Trade Commission from learning about the hack while the agency was monitoring Uber security in the wake of an earlier breach.

The case was believed to be first time a corporate information security officer has been charged with concealing a hack.

Sullivan, himself a former federal prosecutor, arranged to pay the hackers $100,000 under Ubers program for rewarding security researchers who report flaws. That amount was by far the most Uber had paid through the bounty program, which was not meant to cover theft of sensitive data.

A former chief of security at Facebook, Sullivan now works as chief information security officer at Cloudflare .

In past interviews, security staff said the Uber payout was intended to force the hackers into the open to accept the money and to ensure that the data, especially drivers license information on Uber contractors, was destroyed.

The complaint says Sullivan had the hackers sign non-disclosure agreements that falsely stated they had not stolen data. It alleges that then-CEO Travis Kalanick was aware of Sullivans actions.

A spokeswoman for Kalanick declined to comment. A spokesman for Sullivan said he had worked with his colleagues on the case and that disclosure matters were decided by the legal department.

If not for Mr. Sullivans and his teams efforts, its likely that the individuals responsible for this incident never would have been identified at all, said spokesman Brad Williams.

Kalanicks successor as CEO  current Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi  disclosed the payoff, then fired Sullivan and a deputy after learning the extent of the breach. Uber then paid $148 million to settle claims by all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. that it had been to slow to reveal the hack.

The Uber case will resonate for the increasing number of companies that deal directly with hackers.

Many have bounty programs like Ubers, which are generally seen as a tool to improve security and provide an incentive for hackers to stay within the law. But some participants do not play by the rules.

In the Uber case, the FBI noted, the two main hackers went on to attack other companies, which the agency said could have been averted if Sullivan had gone first to law enforcement. Both have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

The case also suggests that companies that pay hackers to get rid of ransomware, malicious programs that encrypt their files, are not exempt from requirements to report losses of personally sensitive information.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Eric Beech in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Mohammad Zargham, Aurora Ellis and Cynthia Osterman)

Topics Cyber USA Abuse Molestation Sharing Economy Ridesharing
Heavy rains in Delhi and the satellite cities of Gurugram and Noida has thrown life off-balance for many in the region.

Authorities sealed off a four-storeyed under-construction building in Gurgaon after it tilted towards one side after developing cracks. Light rain was recorded at several place including Karnal, Ambala and Panchkula in the state.

The under-construction building in a residential locality in Gurgaon's Sector-46 developed cracks following heavy rain which lashed the city on Wednesday. The building was sealed and people living in some adjoining houses were asked to move out as a precautionary measure, officials said.

They said that a few police personnel were also deployed in the area to ensure that no one goes near the building.

Haryana: Police vacated a four-storey building in Gurugram's Sector-46 after it bent on one side, following heavy downpour in the region. https://t.co/VgdYqvYacn pic.twitter.com/D6vJlZyPo2  ANI (@ANI) August 20, 2020

A five-storey building in sector 46 in #Gurugram tilted onto one side after its basement was water-logged. "Water has filled up in the basement since Wednesday morning. We are helpless since it is raining and can't drain the water out," said Rajesh Kumar, owner of the property. pic.twitter.com/Am8OR63BZm  IANS Tweets (@ians_india) August 20, 2020

As visuals of flooded roads in Gurugram went viral, several damages were also recorded.

A nearly 10-feet stretch of road near IFFCO chowk in Gurgaon caved in. The road stretch was later cordoned off.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved Gov. Gretchen Whitmers request for an extra $300 per week for Michigan residents receiving unemployment.

Whitmer made the request earlier this week after President Donald Trump approved an extra $400 per week, with the federal government paying $300 and states kicking in $100. States, however, were allowed to request federal money without chipping in on supplemental payments.

The federal government approved that request, meaning Michiganders on unemployment will be eligible for $300 per week on top of the maximum $362 per week typically provided.

The states Unemployment Insurance Agency estimates 910,000 Michiganders will be eligible for the supplemental payments, retroactive to Aug. 1. Its not clear how long the extra money will continue for, according to the governors office. Claimants who receive more than $100 in unemployment benefits will see the additional funds automatically and do not need to take any action.

This additional $300 a week will provide some much needed support to those who are still struggling to make ends meet during this time of extreme need, said Steve Gray, Director of the Unemployment Insurance Agency, in a press release.

Our goal now is to work as quickly as possible to implement this new program to get people the benefits they need.

Whitmer welcomed the news of her requests approval.

This additional $300 a week will provide some much needed support to those who are still struggling to make ends meet during this time of extreme need, said Steve Gray, Director of the Unemployment Insurance Agency. Our goal now is to work as quickly as possible to implement this new program to get people the benefits they need.

This is good news for the thousands of Michiganders who are still without work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but its still a short term band aid that falls short of whats needed, Whitmer said in a press release announcing FEMAs approval.

She said there was a need for further federal funding as the state works to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The state is facing a budget shortfall due to lower-than-expected revenues. State financial officials meet to peg the exact number next week.

Unemployment has climbed during the pandemic in Michigan and nationally. Michigans seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate climbed to 24% in April and has declined since then, sitting at 8.7% in July, according to data from the state Department of Technology Management and Budget.

The supplemental unemployment payments fall short of the extra $600 per week people received in the earlier stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

Note: This story has been corrected to note that President Donald Trumps plan allotted for up to $400 extra unemployment dollars per week. This story has been changed to note that $362 is the maximum the state provides in non-pandemic circumstances.

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/.

Related stories:

Michigan opts in on an extra $300 a week in federal unemployment money

Dont bank on the $400 extra unemployment pay yet from Trump executive order

Michigan cut off unemployment for thousands of eligible residents. Its not the first time.

Michigan hires accounting firm to help investigate unemployment fraud
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Hillary Clinton criticized her former Republican colleagues for their responses to the explosive findings in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on 2016 Russian interference, accusing them of giving up "their principles, their values, their backbone" to follow President Trump.

Why it matters: The fifth and final volume of the committee's report released this week went further than the Mueller report in showing the extent of Russia's connections to members of the Trump campaign. But the reactions to the findings were starkly divided along partisan lines, with Republicans claiming that the report puts an end to any claims of Trump campaign "collusion" with Russia in 2016.

What she's saying: "I don't understand what has happened to the people that I served with, I worked with, I traveled with, who literally seem to have had like a lobotomy or something," Clinton said on MSNBC, moments before the start of Night 4 of the Democratic National Convention.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. The Artsakh Foreign Ministry issued a statement in response to Azerbaijani speculations regarding the economic activities, in particular, the construction of safe roads, the use of water- and mineral resources, as well as migration processes in Artsakh.

First of all, it is important to stress that conducting economic as well as any other creative activity in the entire constitutional territory of the Republic of Artsakh, is the sovereign right of the authorities and citizens of Artsakh. Azerbaijan's claims to the so-called "illegal economic activities of Armenia" in Artsakh are nothing else than another manifestation of escaping the reality by the Azerbaijani authorities, who persistently try to ignore the existing independent and sovereign Republic of Artsakh.

Behind the pretended concern of the Azerbaijani authorities about the process of peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict, official Baku hides its desire to isolate Artsakh and hinder its economic development.

We have repeatedly stated that the accusations of alleged damage to the ecological situation and deprivation of water of the Azerbaijani population living in the territories bordering Artsakh are groundless. The reference to the politically motivated PACE resolution 2085 (2016) concerning the Sarsang reservoir only confirms the unfounded and fictitious nature of all these insinuations by the Azerbaijani side. Suffice it to mention that the PACE Rapporteur refused to visit the Sarsang reservoir and completely ignored the conclusions of an expert specially hired by the Council of Europe Secretariat to study the issue as part of the preparation of the report. Moreover, the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh have repeatedly offered the Azerbaijani side mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of joint use of water resources. Official Baku has consistently rejected all such initiatives of the Artsakh side, despite the fact that they received the support of the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs.

In such circumstances, the Republic of Artsakh cannot wait indefinitely for the Azerbaijani side to mature for a constructive dialogue. We consider it unacceptable that the process of peaceful settlement of the conflict or the position of one of the parties to the conflict should be used as a pretext for countering the economic, social and cultural development of Artsakh.

Within the framework of their powers and in accordance with the provisions of the President's program for 2020-2025, the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh will continue to make efforts aimed at the proportional development of all regions of Artsakh, their post-war rehabilitation, improvement of infrastructure, and construction of housing so that every citizen of the Republic can equally enjoy all universally recognized rights and freedoms and realize their potential.

The Republic of Artsakh is part of a single homeland for all Armenians, regardless of where they live, and is ready to render all possible assistance, including provision of refuge, to the compatriots who are in a difficult situation and in need of support, the Artsakh foreign ministry said.
Heads of maritime agencies in Nigeria have agreed to work on modalities for the movement of cargo by barges from Lagos ports to Onitsha, in Anambra state so as to ease traffic in Apapa.

Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, disclosed this at a recent meeting of all heads of maritime agencies in Lagos

Jamoh said the meeting constituted a committee to produce a work plan for the 24-hour port system, and agreed to carry communities around the port environments along in order to ensure safe operations within the port vicinities and beyond.

We also agreed to work with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) on how the movement of cargoes from the ports can be done by rail to reduce the pressure on our roads.

Our focus is also to ensure containers are moved by barges to dry ports outside the port environments. All these would help in the efficiency and effectiveness of our ports.

Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman, also emphasised the need for an intermodal transport system in and around the port environments. Usman said Nigeria must prioritise intermodal transportation to reap the benefits of shipping and port activities.

She said the heads of maritime agencies agreed to work with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to facilitate the movement of cargo from the ports by rail.

Managing Director of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Dr. George Moghalu, said safety formed a major part of the discussion.
Lucknow, Aug 21 : Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad has taken strong exception to the blanket ban on all Muharram rituals by the Lucknow Police Commissionerate.

The Maulana, who is the 'mutawalli' (caretaker) of Imambara Ghufranmaab in the old city has called the guidelines issued specifically for Muharram 'unconstitutional and illegal'.

Jawwad has said that he will be holding the 'majlis' (sermons) at the Imambara, following Covid-19 protocols, and if the administration wanted, it could arrest him.

The cleric has submitted a written statement to the police commissioner, saying that their order was not just misleading but was also creating unrest in the community.

"It is against the guidelines issued by the WHO, Central and state governments on Covid-19. This new guideline should be repealed immediately since Covid-19 protocols are already in place. At the 'majlis' from Friday, the number of people will be limited to 50 along with thermal scanning, sanitisations, social distancing and masks," Jawwad said.

Jawwad also said that permission to hold majlis inside Imambaras with Covid norms has been given in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and in Kashmir.

Meanwhile, as 'taziya' makers set up shop for Muharram which begins on Friday, several clerics including Maulana Kalbe Jawwad and All India Shia Personal Law Board general secretary Maulana Yasoob Abbas have alleged that the police are threatening taziya makers, asking them not to make and sell the taziya.

The taziya is a replica of the tomb of Husain, the martyred grandson of Muhammad, that is carried in processions during Muharram.

These paper taziyas are traditionally kept at homes during Muharram as a replica of Imam Husain's mausoleum.
The sale, involving 40,000 tonnes of billet, was concluded in early June for August shipment. It is expected to arrive at the eastern Chinese inland port of Jiangyin, located along the Yangtze River, by the end of September.The transaction is the first time that Aceros Arequipa has sold the billet it produces for export and is also its inaugural export of self-produced steel across the Pacific Ocean.Aceros Arequipas capacity is currently at 850,000 tonnes per year but it will start up a new electric-arc furnace (EAF) at its Pisco works in 2021 to replace its existing facility, which will be kept in reserve. The new 1.25-million-tpy unit was first announced in 2018 The steelmaker will be able to export more billet from the second half of 2021, the company official said.Chinese buyers have regularly paid more for steel billet this year than their competitors in Southeast Asia, which tempts an increasing number of steelmakers to export the semi-finished product to China.The most-recent billet deal to China was concluded earlier this week and involved Vietnamese blast furnace-produced billet priced at $433 per tonne fob. The sale has led to a rise in offers to Southeast Asia up to levels that buyers in that region will not contemplate In the first six months of 2020, China imported 3.06 million tonnes of billet under HS code 72071100, which is 33 times higher than the 92,448 tonnes imported in the same period of last year, according to Chinese customs data.Market participants expect China to continue purchasing large quantities of the product over the remainder of 2020 amid steelmaking restrictions in the Tangshan region and rising demand for long steel as a result of new housing projects.
Suspect in Brutal Attack in Portland Arrested

The man accused of beating another man unconscious in Portland over the weekend was taken into custody on Friday.

Marquise Keese Love, 25, was booked on charges of assault, coercion, and riot, jail records show.

All three crimes are felonies. If convicted of all three, the defendant faces as many as 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.

Love, a black man who weighs 150 pounds, was captured on camera beating Adam Haner, a white man, downtown on Sunday, authorities said. The assault took place after Haner crashed his truck into a tree.

Haner said Wednesday that he believes he was targeted because of his race. Love has attended at least two Black Lives Matter protests, according to his social media profile and video footage reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Witnesses told The Epoch Times that Black Lives Matter activists were behind the multiple assaults that took place on the night in question, pointing to video footage that showed the chain of events beginning when activists, including the man authorities say was Love, ejected a male from a protest outside the Multnomah County Justice Center.

That soon led to the assault of the male and a transgender female. When Haner intervened, he was targeted.

Adam Haner, who was assaulted in Portland, Ore., over the weekend, in a photograph taken on Aug. 20, 2020. (Adam Haner Fund/GoFundMe)

Loves attorney coordinated with detectives and prosecutors and the suspect surrendered to the authorities on Friday morning, the Portland Police Bureau said.

I am pleased the suspect in this case turned himself in and appreciate all of the efforts to facilitate this safe resolution, Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement. Thank you to all of the members of the public who have provided information and tips to our investigators. Your assistance is very much appreciated.

According to court records from Washington County, Oregon, Love was found guilty of interfering with public transportation in 2012, causing unreasonable noise with a vehicle and four driving charges in 2016, and violating the speed limit through a failure to appear in 2019.

Even in the context of near-nightly violence taking place in Oregons largest city since late May, the beating of Haner stood out.

Amid calls for a federal probe into the matter, Oregons U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said the unrest could lead to someone getting killed.

Like many Oregonians, I was sickened by the video circulating online showing a man being pulled from his truck in Downtown Portland and beaten and kicked until he lies on the pavement unconscious. While the circumstances leading up to this brutal assault are still under state and federal review, I must condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this depraved violence, Williams said in a statement.

Billy Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, speaks to reporters in a 2016 file photograph. (Rob Kerr/AFP via Getty Images)

We must all continue to work together to achieve peace in the streets of Portland. If we are not successful, I fear one day soon we will wake up to news that a Portlander has been killed. We cannot let this happen, he added.

Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, hasnt responded to a series of inquiries about how he plans to quell the unrest. State troopers withdrew last week after the district attorney who oversees Portland announced his intention to presumptively decline to pursue a range of charges against demonstrators.

Federal officers and Portland officers were seen for the first time in weeks late Thursday working in concert, dispersing a riot outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in south Portland.

Department of Homeland Security officers and other federal agents spent much of July clashing with rioters, bringing worldwide attention on the Pacific Northwest city. Rioters have largely ignored the courthouse since early August, but have switched focus to other buildings, including a police union office and a sheriffs office.
Central Tibetan Administration President Dr Lobsang Sangay waits to appear at the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in Ottawa on Feb. 26, 2013. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Canada-China Committee Unanimously Passes Motion to Support Sino-Tibetan Dialogue

The Special Committee on Canada-China Relations (CACN) unanimously passed a motion in support of the Sino-Tibetan Dialogue on Tuesday before Parliament was prorogued.

The motion calls for talks between the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) with the intention of allowing Tibet to exercise genuine autonomy within the PRCs constitution.

The motion was initially proposed by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis on Aug. 6, when CTA president Dr Lobsang Sangay testified before the CACN.

Sangay recommended the committee to support a middle-way approach, a policy that allows genuine autonomy for Tibet while being part of the PRCs constitutional framework. In order for that to happen, he said, a dialogue between the representatives of the Dalai Lama and the PRC must take place.

He also compared the recent national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong and the unity laws in Tibet.

These laws are simply to undermine democratic values, undermine freedom of speech, and allow political oppression of the Tibetan people, environmental destruction of the Tibetan Plateau, and the economic marginalization of the Tibetan people, Sangay said.

All this is taking place primarily because the Chinese government has imposed, like Hong Kong, security laws, unity laws. These are used to undermine the freedom of the Tibetan people.

Sangay further urged the Canadian government to join its democratic allies and pressure the Chinese regime to respect the human rights of the Tibetan people, Uighurs, people of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and East Turkestan.

The committee voted to adjourn the motion on Aug 6. Since then, the Canada Tibet Committee and the Office of Tibet in Washington, D.C., led Tibet groups and associations in Canada to lobby for all-party support.

The motion will be brought to the House of Common after the prorogation ends on Sept. 23.
Tens of thousands of displaced Californians huddled under mass evacuation orders in the midst of a heat wave and a pandemic on Friday as lightning-sparked firestorms raged across tinder-dry landscapes in and around the greater San Francisco Bay area.

At least six people have died in the fires, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) reported Thursday night.

With firefighting forces badly depleted from the heaviest spate of incendiary lightning strikes to rake California in over a decade, some ground crews labored through grueling 72-hour shifts against the deadly onslaught, despite efforts to muster reinforcements from out of state.

"With no reserves coming, they just do what they've got to do," CalFire spokesman Scott Ross said by phone, referring to firefighting teams that normally work in 24-hour shifts. "We're stretched very thin."

An estimated 11,000 lightning strikes, mostly in northern and central California, ignited more than 370 individual fires this week, spawning nearly two dozen major conflagrations that threatened thousands of homes and prompted mass evacuations.

"Everything is gone," resident Nick Pike told CapRadio in Sacramento, the state capital, after he and three neighbors lost their homes near the town of Vacaville, about 55 miles (88 km) northeast of San Francisco.

As of Thursday night, the biggest fires statewide had collectively scorched more than 630,000 acres, or 980-plus square miles, an area twice as large as the entire land mass of sprawling Los Angeles. Hundreds of homes and other buildings were left in ruins.

A utility crewman died on Wednesday while on duty helping clear electrical hazards for first-responders. Earlier that day, the pilot of a firefighting helicopter contracted by the state was killed in a crash during a water-dropping mission in Fresno County.

CalFire officials late on Thursday reported four civilian fatalities in the same fire zone, dubbed the LNU Complex, where the utility worker had perished, though no details on the circumstances of their deaths were immediately available.

Story continues

Hard to breathe

Plumes of smoke and ash fouled air quality for hundreds of miles around fire zones, adding to the misery and health risks of residents forced to flee or those stuck inside sweltering homes that lacked air conditioning.

Medical experts warned that the coronavirus pandemic has considerably heightened the health hazards posed by smoky air and extreme heat, especially for older adults and those already suffering from respiratory illnesses.

One of the greatest immediate threats was posed by a squall of fires roaring through the Santa Cruz mountains south of San Francisco, forcing some 48,000 residents to flee their dwellings and destroying at least 50 structures, CalFire said.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California's oldest state park with redwood trees up to 2,000 years old, sustained extensive damage to historic buildings, the state parks department said. The nearby community of Boulder Creek, the park's unofficial gateway town, was also evacuated.

As the fire moved south, the University of California at Santa Cruz called for voluntary evacuations from its campus on the northern flank of that coastal city.

To the north, another group of fires raced through hills spanning several counties in northern California's wine country, about 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Sacramento, destroying at least 480 homes and other structures, according to CalFire.

A number of wineries in the region were forced to cease operations in mid-harvest as evacuations expanded in Napa and Sonoma counties, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Collectively known as the LNU Complex Fire, that conflagration had blackened 215,000 acres (87,000 hectares) by Thursday night, a day after residents of communities overrun by flames had to flee, four of them suffering burns.

A third batch of fires named the SCU Lightning Complex grew to about 157,000 acres on Thursday some 20 miles east of Palo Alto, with containment reported at just 5%.

The fires raged amid a record-breaking heat wave that has baked California since last Friday, resulting from a dome of atmospheric high pressure hovering over the American Southwest.

Meteorologists say that same high-pressure ridge has also been siphoning moisture from remnants of a now-dissipated tropical storm off the coast of Mexico, creating conditions ripe for thunderstorms across much of California.

(REUTERS)
Iran Jailed, 'Coerced' Canadian Facebook Whiz To Turn Informant, He Says

By Golnaz Esfandiari August 20, 2020

Thirty-seven-year-old Facebook engineer Behdad Esfahbod has made the same wintertime trip every year since 2015.

Yet this past January, the 37-year-old programming whiz's visit to Iran to see his family took a wildly different turn.

Within days of his arrival, the Iranian-Canadian dual national and graduate of Tehran's top Sharif University had been thrown in jail and was being pressured by Iranian security forces to become an informant.

Esfahbod said that on January 15 he was approached on the street in the Iranian capital by four plainclothes agents. The men showed him a judiciary warrant for his arrest on charges of acting against the clerical establishment's security and working with the country's enemies.

Esfahbod froze when he saw the name of the feared intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as the plaintiff on the warrant. That unit has been behind the arrests of scores of activists, intellectuals, environmentalists, dual nationals, and others, some of whom have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms on what many dismiss as trumped-up charges.

He said he felt there was no point in resisting. "I thought, 'I will never leave this tunnel' and my life was over," he said.

Contacts Stripped

The agents took him to a ward of the notorious Evin prison controlled by the IRGC where he was held in solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world for a week.

His captors confiscated all of his devices and downloaded his private information and contacts from all his social-media accounts and communications applications, like Telegram.

He said he was subjected to daily interrogation sessions and asked mainly about his contacts with groups that provide anti-filtering tools to help Iranians bypass the country's strict Internet censorship.

Esfahbod, a renowned software engineer who used to work for Google, believes photos he posted of himself next to activists at the 2016 RightsCon human rights conference in San Francisco put him on the radar of the IRGC's intelligence branch.

"I had posted a photo on social media with several political activists who are seen by the Islamic republic as opposed to the establishment, and the sensitivities started there," he said.

After a week, he said, his interrogators let him go only after he agreed to become an informant. "Stay friends with your [contacts] and let us know what they're up to," he said he was told.

Not Going Away

He left Iran a few days later. Esfahbod said the experience left him paranoid and traumatized for months. He quit his job at Facebook and moved in with his family in Canada. "My life was turned upside-down, and I wasn't able to do my job anymore," Esfahbod said.

In mid-June, the IRGC contacted him on Instagram. "I'm a friend of your cousin in Tehran. You were our guest in Darakeh" -- a neighborhood in northern Tehran -- "and we had soltani," the message said, referring to a popular Iranian dish that includes lamb and chicken kebab.

Esfahbod ignored it. He said he never intended to collaborate with the IRGC. He just wanted to escape their clutches. "I agreed to that deal under coercion because I knew I needed to get out of that country alive in order to have a chance to survive and tell my story. Also to reunite with my partner," Esfahbod said.

The IRGC went on to message him on Whatsapp, Telegram, and Signal. He kept ignoring them. They even contacted his sister, he said. She told them that she had passed on their messages but that she didn't have any control over her brother's activities.

Meanwhile, Esfahbod was getting ready to publicize his ordeal and expose "his professional abusers."

On August 17, he posted his account on Medium, where he detailed what he had been through and shared a screen grab of the message he said the IRGC sent him on Instagram.

He later also spoke to Persian-language media based outside the country, including RFE/RL's Radio Farda and Netherlands-based Radio Zamaneh.

He said he never expected to become a victim of Iran's intelligence services. "I always thought, 'I'm not politically active and if they arrest me I will explain it to them and they will let me go,'" he told RFE/RL's Radio Farda on August 18.

What's Next?

Esfahbod's plight echoes other accounts of the repressive methods used by Iran's intelligence bodies to pressure citizens -- including Iranians living abroad -- with little or no accountability.

"While they aim to scare people, to paralyze activists, to chill the populace, this story tells you how they are frightened of cyberspaces and [the] resentment of brave Iranian youth who fight the regime's censorship," Saeid Golkar, an assistant political-science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a senior fellow on Iran policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told RFE/RL.

"The cycle of arresting people, putting them under pressure, getting their username and passwords, using their information against them and others, and based on that information arresting others. And the cycle goes on. Some collaborate, others not -- like Behdad [Esfahbod]," Golkar added.

For his part, Esfahbod said he didn't know how the IRGC might react to his claims and his public refusal to collaborate. "I posted bail with a two-bedroom apartment I own in Tehran that is my sister's family residence. That I have written off," he wrote earlier this week.

"But what inhumane thing they will do to my friends & family I don't know," he added.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-jailed- coerced-canadian-facebook-whiz-to-turn- informant-he-says/30792291.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 04:30:47|Editor: huaxia

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Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki speaks during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, on Aug. 20, 2020. Morawiecki on Thursday announced that Adam Niedzielski would replace Lukasz Szumowski as the new health minister while Zbigniew Rau would replace Jacek Czaputowicz as the new foreign minister, Polish Press Agency reported. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/Xinhua)

WARSAW, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday announced that Adam Niedzielski would replace Lukasz Szumowski as the new health minister while Zbigniew Rau would replace Jacek Czaputowicz as the new foreign minister, Polish Press Agency reported.

Szumowski announced his resignation on Thursday, saying that he wished to return to medical work. Czaputowicz handed in his resignation on Thursday.

Morawiecki said the two new ministers would be officially appointed to their posts in the coming days.

Morawiecki stated that Niedzielski would continue Szumowski's policies regarding measures against COVID-19 epidemic. He added that Niedzielski, an economist by profession and currently head of Poland's National Health Fund, is a "much needed" person in the health ministry, in view of the health service's modernisation needs pending a prospective second wave of the epidemic.

Introducing Rau as the new foreign minister, Morawiecki noted that he was broadly experienced in foreign affairs and currently headed the Sejm's (Polish lower house) Foreign Affairs Committee.

The prime minister also thanked Szumowski and Czaputowicz for their work. Enditem
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Karnataka govt wants ban on SDPI, PFI, but waits for police report

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Bengaluru, Aug 21: The Karnataka Cabinet has in principle agreed that there should be a ban on the Popular Front of India and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). However, the decision would be formalised only after a comprehensive review of the evidence against the two outfits.

The Cabinet has asked the police to submit a detailed report detailing evidence on the organisations' suspected role in communal riots and anti-social activities.

The Cabinet discussed the riots and the alleged role of the groups in question. But we did not take any specific decision as there was no report or recommendation from the police to take a call. We will surely act against them after getting a report from the police said law and parliamentary affairs minister, J C Madhuswamy.

ISIS 'Incite the Believers theory: Understanding motive behind Delhi-Bengaluru riots

The law minister also said that they are checking if the provisions of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act are sufficient to hand out a punishment to the culprits and make them pay for the losses they caused. If needed the government will even amend the act and ensure that the losses are compensated, Madhuswamy also said.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

The government is only trying to protect its interest as it should be in a position to defend and substantiate the action before the Centre and court, the law minister said when asked, if the government was being too cautious on the issue.

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Story first published: Friday, August 21, 2020, 16:31 [IST]
Mother bats use 'baby talk' with their offspring, much the same way humans do, scientists discovered.

The sac-winged bat has a wide-ranging vocal repertoire, using different 'songs' to court mates and defend its territory.

Scientists have recently discovered that females also use a special high-pitched voice to encourage their pups to start 'talking.'

The study also found that males communicate with offspring, but in a way of teaching the pups how to speak the 'accent' of the social group to help with development.

Mother bats use 'baby talk' with their offspring, much the same way humans do, scientists have discovered. Female greater sac-winged bats responded to pups when they 'babbled' by using a higher pitch than the one they used with adult bats

A team of researchers examined the vocalizations of the greater sac-winged bat (Saccopteryx bilineata), a species common in Brazil, Colombia and other parts of Central and South America.

The team included researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the Museum of Natural History Berlin and the Free University of Berlin.

Analyzing recordings of parent-offspring interactions, they found that mother bats responded to pups when they 'babbled,' or began experimenting with vocalizations, usually in the first few months of life.

And like their human counterparts, these mammalian moms used a different pitch, or 'color,' with their offspring than they did with other adults.

Male bats also communicated with the pups, said Smithsonian research associate Mirjam Knornschild, who co-authored the paper.

Male bats also communicated with pups but they seemed intent on transmitting the vocal signature of their social group

A sonogram of a babbling bout by a young greater sac-winged bat. Pups have been reported jumbling up various calls and sounds as they're learning to vocalize. They may mimic a territorial challenge, followed by a few echolocation clicks and a courting trill

But they seemed intent on transmitting the vocal signature of their social group.

In other words, they wanted to teach their children the local 'accent.'

'Pup isolation calls are acoustically more similar to those of males from the same social group than to those of other males,' Knornschild said.

'These results suggest that adult male vocalizations may serve as guidance for the development of group signatures in pup calls.'

Researcher Mirjam Knoerschild studying bat behavior in Panama. Her team's research suggests familial relationships among bats are more complex than previously thought, and could lead to a deeper understanding of parent-child dynamics in humans

Sac-wing pups have been reported jumbling up various calls and sounds as they're learning to vocalize.

They may mimic a territorial challenge, for example, then issue a few echolocation clicks followed by a courting trill.

It's the only known example of baby babble in non-primate mammals.

The study suggests familial relationships among bats are more complex than previously thought, and could lead to a deeper understanding of parent-child dynamics in humans.

The greater sac-winged bat isn't the only species that exhibits humanlike behavior. Vampire bats form long-lasting 'friendships' and can rescue hungry roostmates from the brink of starvation by regurgitating their blood meals into their mouths

'These results show that social feedback is important during vocal development, not only in humans but also in other vocal-learning species,' said Ahana Fernandez, a researcher at the Natural History Museum.

'I believe that bats are a very promising taxon to investigate key shared features of language, such as the vocal learning ability, and that this study will inspire further studies in the biolinguistics field.'

The greater sac-winged bat isn't the only species known to exhibit humanlike behavior. Vampire bats form long-lasting 'friendships' and will rescue hungry roostmates from starvation.

If a bat is hungry, his roostmate may regurgitate blood into its mouths, a sign of a true bond that can build trust among unrelated vampire bats, researchers say.

'If they starve three nights in a row there is a high chance they'll die,' said ecologist Gerald Carter of Ohio State University. 'Because of this, vampire bats with close social ties can rescue their weakened partners from the brink.'

The tiny bloodsuckers also practice social distancing: If a roostmate is sick, they'll stop grooming them and keep their distance.

They'll continue sharing blood, though. Preserving the larger social system by keeping their friends alive is more important than the risk of contagion, scientists say.
JUNEAU, Alaska - A key federal permitting decision on a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaskas Bristol Bay region could still be weeks away as work continues on a wetlands mitigation plan, a spokesperson for the company behind the Pebble Mine said Thursday.

Mike Heatwole, with the Pebble Limited Partnership, said the company is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to finalize a wetlands mitigation plan. Given there is still some work to conclude, he said by email, a final decision isnt likely to come for another month or so.

The corps has said it will have one of three options with the so-called record of decision: issue a permit, issue a permit with conditions or deny it.

The corps has said a decision would be written no sooner than 30 days from the July 24 public release of its final environmental review of the project. A message seeking comment on the expected timeline for completing the process was sent to a corps spokesperson Thursday.

Pebble CEO Tom Collier has seen the corps analysis as a positive for the project, while Pebble critics have assailed it as deficient.

President Donald Trumps eldest son has been among those critical of the project.
: The Saturday virtual launch of a book on the February Delhi riots has turned controversial with Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra being named in invitations as one of the guests of honour at the event, and the publisher claiming it was not organising or sponsoring the event.

The clashes between Hindus and Muslims in different parts of north-east Delhi left at least 53 dead and around 400 injured.

A copy of the invite, doing the rounds of social media, says that two other guests of honour are filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri and OpIndia editor Nupur Sharma. It adds that BJPs national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav will launch the book.

Responding to the comments on social media about his role in the book launch, Mishra said: Freedom of Expression ke thekedar ek kitab se darr gaye (the custodians of freedom of expression are getting scared of a book). Because they know this book will expose their lies and will bring the truth of Delhi riots. He also tweeted about the event on Friday.

While Mishra has not been charged by the police, he delivered a speech ahead of the riots -- between pro- and anti Citizenship (Amendment) Act protestors that snowballed into a Hindu-Muslim communal riot -- that people would take matters into their own hands if the police did not remove anti-CAA protestors from near the Jafrabad Metro station.

Sonali Chitalkar, one of the authors of the book took, to Twitter to urge people to read the book before criticising it . The book is available for pre-order. I would love to debate side after you have read the book, she tweeted. She also said that Mishras speech was unobjectionable.

I have heard his speech. He has only told the police officials that if they did not clear the stretch occupied by anti-CAA protesters within two days, then they would take matters in their own hands. There is nothing inciting or objectionable in it. The police in its affidavit has found that Kapil Mishras speech did not incite the violence. Then whats wrong in him being in the guest list?

Monica Arora, another author of the book said the messiahs of freedom of speech are criticising a book even before it has released.

No one has read the book, then how can anyone decide its tone or tenor? At least, read the book first and then we can have a debate.

.While the book is being published by Bloomsbury India, the publishing house denied organising the launch event. Bloomsbury India is publishing the book Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story by advocate Monica Arora, Sonali Chitalkar, Prerna Malhotra in September 2020. We are not organising any launch event for the book tomorrow and there are no events being planned yet. If you have come across any event information for the above book, please note it is not being organized or sponsored by Bloomsbury India, read a statement from Bloomsbury India on Friday.

Senior advocate Rebecca John, who has represented several of those accused in various cases related to the Delhi riots said: At least 53 people lost their lives in the riots and they deserve better than this. Those who made inciting speeches or were held responsible for the violence as per the account of several victims, should be investigated for their roles and not allowed to use platforms to further their agenda. Bloomsbury said that their logo was inappropriately used but the fact is that they published the book and this, to me, amounts to further lowering of standards in public life. 
No progress, then, in the latest round of Brexit talks, with both sides blaming the other.

Would you really want it any other way? How quaint to think that, once upon a time, this kind of thing used to be maddening. Now it serves as a comforting reminder of times past.

Absolutely zero advancement in the Brexit talks is the only constant in our lives. Once upon a time, Britains Trident submarine commanders were instructed to listen out for the BBC World Service, and if it could not be picked up, it was reasonable to assume the country no longer existed, and it would be up to them to retaliate.

Today, complete Brexit paralysis is the most reliable certainty out there, to the extent that should any meaningful breakthrough actually occur, it could accidentally trigger a nuclear war.

We know where we are with Brexit, which has already become a kind of I Love the 2016s late-night Channel 5 nostalgia fest, in which the last 19 remaining members of Goldie Lookin Chain sit in front of a green screen background spitting scripted lols about the Breaking Point poster.

The never-ending Brexit s**tshow is all so reassuringly familiar, even though the curtain still hasnt actually gone up.

Back when we chose to shoot ourselves in the foot, shooting oneself in the foot was considered a stupid thing to do. Now, its barely worth even worrying about. From the range of available options these days, youd probably take it.

Michel Barnier gave a press conference saying he was disappointed and surprised by the lack of progress, as he has done almost every month since he was appointed the European Unions chief Brexit negotiator, shortly after the 1815 Congress of Vienna, when he was just 28 years old.

His UK counterpart, David Frost, doesnt give press conferences. Instead, he issues statements, then holds anonymous conference calls with journalists on which the things he says cannot be attributed to him. This is the Johnson-Cummings method: blatant untruths can be namelessly inserted into the general information ecosystem, for which no one can ever actually be held accountable, because no one ever actually said them.

The last time anyone from the UK government gave an actual press conference about Brexit was on 24 January, when Boris Johnson went to Brussels to sign his oven-ready deal, for which it turns out the oven is not ready.

 Pascal Lamy on a no-deal Brexit

The UKs current strategy is to make unreasonable demands then brand the EU unreasonable. All Frost can ever say is that all he is asking for is the same terms the EU has given to Canada, Japan and various others with whom it has signed a free trade agreement.

And all Barnier can ever point out is that the UK is not Canada, is not Japan. This time, he explained that the UK wont sign up to EU standards on haulage, wont have EU tachographs fitted, wont obey rules on working hours, it just wants to make its own rules then come into the EU and do its own thing, undercutting EU businesses, and cant understand why the EU isnt having it.

Because trade still remains all about proximity, and it will always be so. In 2015, the UK exported more goods to Belgium than it did to China, and it is why the ever-unquotable Frost is talking disingenuous garbage when he says that all the UK wants is a simple free trade agreement and the EU wont do it.

Johnson and co still want to have their cake and eat it. Failing that, they want to blame the EU for the straightforward impossibility of their being able to deliver on the lies they told four years and a hundred thousand lifetimes ago.

And when it all goes wrong, will anyone even care?
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 22)  The United Nations' human rights body said it has raised concerns with the Philippine government over the recent killing of two activists - peace consultant Randall "Randy" Echanis and rights defender Zara Alvarez - calling for transparent investigations.

"The UN Human Rights Office stresses the need for independent, thorough and transparent investigations into the killings and for those responsible to be held to account," said Liz Throssell, spokesperson for UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, in a statement.

The body acknowledged the administration's statement denouncing violence against activists. But it called for measures to protect human rights defenders, adding that it also reached out to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

It also said that the situation was alarming since the two victims were previously tagged as terrorists because of their work.

"We have raised our concerns with the Government and the Commission on Human Rights on these cases, and look forward to continuing to engage with them," the statement said.

Echanis was killed in his home last week with his autopsy recently revealing signs of torture. Just a few days later, Alvarez was gunned down in a private village in Bacolod city.

In a statement on Saturday, Malacanang denied claims that President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the Philippine National Police to withhold from the CHR any information on these attacks.

The administration is equally interested to unmask those behind these brazen killings, which are being blamed to state agents, and we will leave no stone unturned to put these people behind bars, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.

CHR previously lamented denial of access to police case files on alleged extrajudicial killings linked to the government's war on dugs.
Juan Guaido is calling for a total boycott of the elections, arguing that fraud is inevitable.

In Venezuela, opposition leader Juan Guaido is planning a boycott of the upcoming legislative elections.

He is appealing to fractured opposition parties to unite in what has been seen as a last-ditch effort to maintain recognition at home and abroad.

Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman reports.
Mongolia to Restore Assyrian-based Traditional Alphabet

Assyrian Christian stele from Southern China in 3 languages (Syriac, Uyghur and Chinese) and two scripts (Syriac and Chinese). The Mongolian government on March 18 announced plans to restore the use of its traditional alphabet by 2025, replacing the Cyrillic script adopted in the 1940s under the Soviets in a move away from Russian influence.

The Times of Australia reports that the Mongolian government will take transitional measures to prepare for the full restoration of the traditional alphabet. It will start with using traditional Mongolian in the "electronic environment". Scientific, literary and state registry offices were asked to establish a system for Mongolian names. Media are required to publish in both scripts until 2024, and schools must increase learning time to study the writing.

The difference in alphabets has split the Mongolian people, with three million living in Mongolia and writing in Cyrillic, and nearly six million in Inner Mongolia, a Chinese region where the traditional script written in vertical lines is used.

Mongolian (Uighur) script (www.linguamongolia.com): Over the last 800 years Mongolian has been written with a variety of different scripts, but the first of those and the most enduring is the one which the Mongols borrowed from the Uighurs. The Uighurs themselves had acquired this script as a result of their contacts with the Sogdian's, an Old Iranian people who had in turn borrowed their script from Syriac. Those who are already familiar with Syriac will easily see the similarities. However, where Syriac and Sogdian were written horizontally right to left, Uighur and Mongolian are written vertically left to right.

According to Mongol tradition, this script was instituted at the order of Chinggis Qaghan in 1204. Many attempts were made to supplant it, with various scripts, mainly under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism and several scripts were adopted as variations of Tibetan and Sanskrit. The old script was eventually abandoned in the former Mongolian People's Republic where, in 1941, it was replaced by a variation of the Cyrillic alphabet. This loss of status has extremely weakened its position in Outer Mongolia, where generations have now grown up knowing nothing but Cyrillic; there have been attempts to revive its use, but these have not been overly successful. However, it is still used by a relatively large section of the Mongolians living in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China, where the script can be found everywhere including bilingual road signs and on almost every storefront and fast-food outlet.
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Linkedin Sausan Atika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21 2020

Hundreds of trees on roadside green belts in Central Jakarta are to be cut down to make way for the phase 2 development of the MRT line, which is currently under way, the developer has said.

A total of 867 trees growing along Jl. MH Thamrin, the National Monument (Monas) complex and Jl. Museum will be relocated or replaced, PT MRT Jakarta construction director Silvia Halim said recently.

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Market Research Future published a research report on Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Market Research Report - Global Forecast To 2023. Report gives a clear picture of current market scenario which includes past and estimated future market size. The report provides detail information and strategies of top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study about different markets segments and regions.

Market Research Futures (MRFR) report on the global acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatment is expected to grow at a moderate CAGR of 5.3% over the forecast period of 2017 to 2023 and culminate in a value above USD 1 Bn by the end of the assessment period. This type of cancer is comparatively rare and progresses at a rapid pace thus creating significant demand for effective treatment and diagnostic options.

Market Segmentation

The global Acute Myeloid Leukemia Market is segmented on the basis of disease type, treatment, and region. By disease type, the market is segmented into promyelocytic, myeloblastic, myelomonocytic, monocytic, megakaryocytic and erythroleukemia.

By treatment, the market is segmented into chemotherapy and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The chemotherapy segment is further segmented into post remission and induction.

The regional segmentation of the AML treatment market divides the globe into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa.

Regional Analysis

Led by the US, North America accounts for the largest share of the global market. The presence of various market-leading players and increasing investments in R&D for drug development drives the market. The region has favorable reimbursement policies and high healthcare expenditure which bring it to the forefront of the global acute myeloid leukemia treatment market. Europe follows the North American market due to a large number of hospitals present in the region combined with high disposable incomes. North America and Europe follow similar growth patterns.

The Asia Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the review period due to large unmet potential present in the region. Countries such as India and China are anticipated to drive demand for AML treatment. The rapid growth in the region's economy combined with a growing demand for advanced healthcare is expected to encourage considerable growth for the APAC.\

Global Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Market Information; by Disease Type (Myeloblastic, Promyeloctic, Myelomonocytic, Monocytic, Erythroleukemia, Megakaryocytic); by Treatment (Chemotherapy (Induction, Post Remission), Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation) - Forecast to 2023 @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/acute-myeloid-leukemia-treatment-market-3223

Key Players

The competitive analysis of the global AML market reveals key strategies used by various leading market players. Prominent players included in the report are Ambit Biosciences Corporation, Novartis AG, Sanofi, Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals Inc., Bristol Myers Squibb, Celgene Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer Inc.

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Friends in need, friends indeed.

Spooked by a shortage of N95 masks early in the pandemic  and rattled by U.S. President Donald Trumps threats of cutting off vital supplies  Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have banded together.

On Friday, Ford and Trudeau each announced more than $23 million in funding for 3Ms $70-million plan to manufacture the respirator masks in Brockville.

The former political foes, who have worked closely since COVID-19 hit in March, also heaped accolades upon one another.

You wonder why Im always up here praising him? Because he did an incredible job as prime minister, said Ford, adding Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also did an incredible job.

People expected us to put our differences aside  to put the politics aside and work together  and thats exactly what we did, he said.

Trudeau, whose Liberals won re-election last year largely by attacking Fords Progressive Conservatives, appeared genuinely moved by the premiers comments.

Thank you, Doug, for those kind words and your partnership, the prime minister said in Brockville. hailing Ford for his collaboration on this project and on many other things.

Todays announcement is yet another example of the important progress we can make by working together, he said.

In a veiled shot at Trump, who has undermined the American coronavirus response by feuding with some state governors, Trudeau noted all orders of government have come together, and Canadians have come together to manage this pandemic better than many of our neighbours.

The leaders agreed that Canada can no longer rely upon U.S. imports.

The terrifying reality is at one point back in April, Ontario was left with less than one-week supply of N95 masks, said Ford, vowing that the province would never, never again be left at the mercy of other countries for critical personal protective equipment.

Trudeau noted the expanded 3M facility would be able to export masks to other countries.

We will be able to cover domestic supply, but because Canada as a country has never brought in limits or protectionist measures on ensuring that our projects, our products can help the world as well, he said.

3M is also investing more than $23 million in the five-year accord, which will see it manufacture 50 million respirator masks annually beginning early next year.

The initiative is expected to create 30 jobs in Brockville, including production operators, maintenance technicians, process engineers, supervisors and quality assurance professionals.

Penny Wise, the president of 3M Canada, noted the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of increasing the availability of N95 respirators in North America.

We are extremely proud to deliver a made-in-Canada solution that strengthens the North American regions supply of PPE for health-care workers, first responders and those in critical infrastructure and industry roles, said Wise.

In May, Ottawa struck a deal with Quebec-based Medicom to produce 20 million N95 masks and 24 million surgical masks each year for the next 10 years.

That came a month after Canadian officials were blindsided by an order from Trump that threatened to halt a shipment of N95 masks to Canada at the U.S. border.

The president, faced with a difficult re-election bid in November, invoked the Defence Production Act to restrict exports of pandemic-fighting supplies.

That prevented American manufacturers from shipping essential medical equipment abroad

Minnesota-based 3M fought the president on the edict, warning there would be significant humanitarian implications that could cause other countries to retaliate, potentially ricocheting on the U.S.

After much wrangling, Canada and Mexico won exemptions from the order.

But Trumps move so infuriated Ford that he vowed Ontario would never again be reliant upon foreign suppliers of essential equipment.

When the cards are down, you see who your friends are, and I think its been very clear over the last couple of days who our friends are, the premier said in April.

You know who our friends are? Every Canadian, look in the mirror, thats who are our friends are right now.

With files from Tonda MacCharles

Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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High-profile employment lawyer Josh Bornstein says AMP's approach to the sexual harassment case levelled against top executive Boe Pahari is unacceptable and unprecedented, as negotiations for transparency over the corporate governance crisis at the troubled wealth manager reaches a stalemate.

AMP bowed to investor and political pressure on Wednesday for more information over the handling of the sexual harassment case that was overlooked by the board in its decision to promote Mr Pahari to chief executive of AMP Capital.

AMP has agreed to release the full report into the workplace investigation that resulted in Mr Pahari being fined $500,000  or a quarter of his annual bonus  and his former colleague Julia Szlakowski leaving the company.

"Its the first time Ive seen a company say we will publicly release the details of a workplace investigation into sexual harassment. Usually workplace investigations are shrouded in secrecy in the private sector," Mr Bornstein told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
Bella Hadid cuddled up to her brother Anwar and his girlfriend Dua Lipa's pet goats for a photo-shoot in May.

And she fired up her Instagram page this Thursday to upload a few throwback 'outtakes' from the project.

The 23-year-old supermodel cuddled up to her bovine buddies, named Funky and Bam-Bam, in a string of pictures included in her album.

Company: Bella Hadid cuddled up to her brother Anwar and his girlfriend Dua Lipa's pet goats for a photo-shoot in May

She was modeling a split cold-shoulder backless turtleneck dress that emphasized her enviably svelte figure as she lay on the grass.

At that point she was hunkering down with her sister Gigi Hadid and mother Yolanda Hadid on the family farm in Pennsylvania.

Gigi is currently pregnant by her on-again boyfriend Zayn Malik of One Direction fame and he joined the group in self-isolation.

In her caption Bella revealed that Gigi herself took the goat pictures, which were part of a Bottega Veneta shoot for the British magazine i-D.

So sweet: And she fired up her Instagram page this Thursday to upload a few throwback 'outtakes' from the project

Pals: The 23-year-old supermodel cuddled up to her bovine buddies, named Funky and Bam-Bam, in a string of pictures included in her album

She called herself 'funky and bam-bams auntie' and gushed: 'thank you to their lovely parents ~ @sbdanwar @dualipa ~ for allowing them to take place in such a huge production. they were absolutely charming / great work ethic.'

Bella also expressed her gratitude to stylist Julia Sarr-Jamois and i-D editor-in-chief Alastair McKimm for their role in the shoot.

'Extra special thank you to @sarrjamois for the best remote styling , @alastairmckimm for letting us wing it and my very very special Sister for making me feel beautiful. I love you lottt,' she wrote.

When you got it: She was modeling a split cold-shoulder backless turtleneck dress that emphasized her enviably svelte figure as she lay on the grass

While the Hadid sisters remained stateside throughout lockdown, Anwar was initially self-isolating in London with his English pop star girlfriend.

After a few months in Britain they returned to America but first had to spend a quarantine period in St. Lucia as Dua does not have U.S. citizenship.

They visited Yolanda on the farm and then spent some time in New York before decamping to Los Angeles.

Bella appears to have returned to New York herself recently, and Gigi arrived there this week in the run-up to delivering her firstborn child.
15/01/2020 (L to R) Deputy Leader & Director of Elections Dara Calleary Leader Michel Martin along with Deputy Leader during the Opening Press Conference by Fianna Fail for General Election 2020 on South Cumberland Street, Dublin. Photo:Gareth Chaney/Collins

Following the resignaiton of Dara Calleary as Minister for Agriculture calls have been made for a replacement Minister to be appointed immediately.

Mr Calleary's resignation from Cabinet comes just 37 days after he was appointed to the Department of Agriculture after Taoiseach Micheal Martin sacked his predecessor Barry Cowen from the role amid controversy over a drink-driving offence.

Mr Martin has now lost two Agriculture Ministers in just 54 days.

The Taoiseach will be Minister of Agriculture until the Dail returns in the next three weeks.

The President of ICMSA said that farmers will learn of Minister Callearys resignation with something approaching disbelief.

Pat McCormack said that it was unacceptable that the states biggest indigenous economic activity was without cabinet representation and that must be rectified immediately.

Mr McCormack said it was difficult to remember a time when there was more pressing issues for a Minister with such a key role in farming, food production, Brexit and the environment to address.

"A Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine would have to be appointed immediately and the appointment must reflect the importance of the farming and food sector as the economic engine of most of the state outside the cities, he said.

Sinn Fein spokesperson on Agriculture Matt Carthy TD has said that the resignation of Dara Callery reinforces the chaos at the heart of the Fianna Fail/ Fine Gael/ Green government which has been keenly felt by farmers, fishers and rural communities.

This is a crucial period for Irish agriculture and fishing. Rural communities need focus and resolve in facing the challenges presented by Brexit, Coronavirus and the long-standing inequalities in these sectors. Instead they have got chaos and dysfunction.

We need an Agriculture Minister in place immediately. The suggestion that the Taoiseach can moonlight in that role when the Brexit talks recommence next week is nonsensicalThe Dail must be reconvened so that all Ministers can be held accountable for their actions. Especially we need an appointment of a new Minister for Agriculture who will work with us to deliver fair prices, fair play and a fair CAP for our farmers, fishers and rural communities, he said.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  A man who convinced a young girl to send nude photos of herself online pleaded guilty Thursday, Aug. 20, to federal charges.

Dustyn Olmstead, 31, of Vermontville, pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor, which carries a penalty of at least 15 years, and up to 30, in prison, and distribution of child pornography, a five- to 20-year felony.

He will be sentenced Dec. 1 by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Grand Rapids.

The investigation began in February when an Allegan County school district found improper text messages on a school-owned laptop it had loaned a student.

Police determined that Olmstead solicited nude photographs of a 13-year-old Allegan County girl and sent nude photos of his own to her. He tried to convince a 14-year-old Ottawa County girl to send her own photos, too, authorities said.

In an effort to desensitize the girls, he shared a video of a girl, about 9 years old, being sexually assaulted by a man.

Olmstead had communicated with many others believed to be children, the U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said. said. Federal prosecutors said those who may be victims or know victims should call the FBI 616-456-5489.

Allegan County sheriffs Deputy Michael Brown, who investigated the case with the FBI, said in court documents that Olmstead first contacted the Allegan County girl when she was 12.

Brown said the girls grandmother saw an inappropriate conversation between Olmstead and the girl. She confronted Olmstead and asked if he knew she was only 12. Olmstead continued to pursue the relationship, Brown wrote.

A reference to the Ottawa County girl was contained in online conversations with the younger girl. The older girl confirmed to police that the two girls had been talking to Olmstead, who told them he was 25.

She said that Olmstead would ask her for dirty pictures which she later clarified as nudes, or pictures with her clothes off, Brown wrote. The older did not send any but she was aware that the younger girl had.

Investigators sent a request to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for any information regarding Olmsteads social-media activity.

Using his IP address, investigators found evidence that Olmstead had used another name while contacting others online.

The investigation is part of the West Michigan Based Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task.

Read more:

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Authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media and protesters seemingly without a leader. Thats where Telegram  which often remains available despite internet outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been used in other protest movements  came in. (Photo | AP)

Moscow: Every day, like clockwork, to-do lists for those protesting against Belarus authoritarian leader appear in the popular Telegram messaging app. They lay out goals, give times and locations of rallies with business-like precision, and offer spirited encouragement.

Today will be one more important day in the fight for our freedom. Tectonic shifts are happening on all fronts, so its important not to slow down, a message in one of Telegrams so-called channels read Tuesday. Morning. Expanding the strike. 11:00. Supporting the Kupala (theater) ... 19:00. Gathering at the Independence Square.

The app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the unprecedented mass protests that have rocked Belarus since Aug. 9, when election officials announced President Alexander Lukashenko had won a landslide victory to extend his 26-year rule in a vote widely seen as rigged.

Peaceful protesters who poured into the streets of the capital, Minsk, and other cities were met with stun grenades, rubber bullets and beatings from police. The opposition candidate left for Lithuania  under duress, her campaign said  and authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media and protesters seemingly without a leader.

Thats where Telegram  which often remains available despite internet outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been used in other protest movements  came in. Some of its channels helped scattered rallies to mature into well-coordinated action.

The people who run the channels, which used to offer political news, now post updates, videos and photos of the unfolding turmoil sent in from users, locations of heavy police presence, contacts of human rights activists, and outright calls for new demonstrations  something Belarusian opposition leaders have refrained from doing publicly themselves. Tens of thousands of people all across the country have responded to those calls.

In a matter of days, the channels  NEXTA, NEXTA Live and Belarus of the Brain are the most popular  have become the main method for facilitating the protests, said Franak Viacorka, a Belarusian analyst and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

The fate of the country has never depended so much on one (piece) of technology, Viacorka said.

In the days following the vote and the subsequent internet outage, NEXTA Lives audience shot from several hundred thousand followers to over 2 million. Its sister channel NEXTA has more than 700,000 followers. Belarus of the Brains following grew from almost 170,000 users in late June to over 470,000 this week.

Their influence in a nation of 9.5 million is hard to underestimate, and authorities have taken notice and are pursuing those behind the channels.

Last week, officials opened a criminal probe into NEXTA and its founder, 22-year-old blogger Stepan Putilo, on charges of fomenting mass riots  an offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Blogger Igor Losik, who founded Belarus of the Brain, was arrested before the election, but the channel continues to operate.

We have indeed become the bullhorn of the situation that is unfolding in Belarus right now, Putilo, who is Belarusian but lives in Warsaw, Poland, said in a recent interview with Lithuanian news outlet Delfi. We have become the voice of this revolution, but by no will of our own. It just happened.

Putilo first created NEXTA _ which is pronounced NEKH-ta and means somebody in Belarusian _ as a YouTube channel in 2015, when he was just 17. His profile rose last year when his 30-minute video about the countrys iron-fisted leader, Lukashenko. Criminal Records, was viewed almost 3 million times. A court in Belarus declared the film extremist, but it is still available on YouTube.

Putilo turned to Telegram in 2018. His two channels focused mostly on Belarusian politics. His team received thousands of messages from users sending in photos, videos and news items each day and posted the most newsworthy, taking pride in often sharing information from sources inside the government or law enforcement.

After the demonstrations began, thousands of messages turned into hundreds of thousands, and the underground operation now appears inundated. In response to a request from The Associated Press for an interview, NEXTA editor-in-chief Roman Protsevich wrote: Sure, its possible, but the question is when...  and then stopped responding.

Putilo hasnt responded to requests for comment.

When the protests began, the NEXTA channels were often the first places anywhere on the internet to carry grisly pictures of police violently clashing with demonstrators. This week, they were filled with videos of workers protesting at industrial plants.

Journalists in Belarus have praised the channels for breaking news  but note that traditional media also played an important role.

Telegram channels did help to pierce the information blackout, but I have to say that it wasnt just them, said Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists. Telegram channels (run by bloggers) played a mobilizing, an organizing role, while more balanced information could be found on Telegram channels of media outlets.

Social media platforms have played major roles in previous uprisings, including in the Arab Spring, anti-government protests in Hong Kong and demonstrations against racial injustice in the United States.

But, since 2016, when Russia was accused of using Facebook and other platforms in an effort to influence or interfere in the U.S. election, many have seen social media in a more dystopian light, said Hans Kundnani, senior research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House.

Whats happening in Belarus right now is kind of a reminder that actually social media can be used in a positive way from a democratic perspective, Kundnani said.

Protesters in the streets echoed his sentiment.

Telegram channels and websites that dont belong to our government are the main source of information today as we cannot at all rely on state media, said Roman Semenov, who follows the NEXTA channels and joined a rally in central Minsk on Wednesday evening. Its a Telegram revolution.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
The owner of the Carrigacunna Castle in Killavullen has issued an invitation to members of the local community to join him in celebrating the rich and colourful heritage of the imposing medieval 16th-century tower-house.

Native New Yorker John Landy purchased the Castle and the adjacent stately 18th-century Manor House situated on 50 acres of stunning North Cork countryside next to the River Blackwater in January of last year for a sum he joked was nobodys damn business but my own.

On Saturday, August 29, John was to have welcomed up to 200 members of the local community to his home estate for an evening to celebrate the 500th anniversary of this magnificent architectural symbol of our shared history and culture.

However, the re-introduction of restrictions this week limiting outdoor gatherings to 15 people until further notice has meant the event has now been postponed indefinitely.

It will take place when the restrictions are lifted and it is safe to do so, said John.

The 56-year-old, who retired from the commercial and real-estate business in New York five years ago, said it had always been an ambition of his to move to Ireland, having spent most of his summers holidaying in the country as a child.

My mothers family hails from Gneeveguilla in County Kerry, and my fathers family from Carlingford in County Louth, so from a very young age I have been steeped in the Irish tradition. So for me the idea of moving to Ireland was, in a manner of speaking, a sort of homecoming, he said.

John said that he initially had looked at relocating to Wicklow to be near his sister in Dublin. However, for various reasons, he decided to look further afield and fell in love with Carrigacunna Castle and the surrounding estate at first sight.

I was looking for somewhere with a slower pace than New York, and Killavullen fitted that bill perfectly, he grinned.

After purchasing the estate, John set about updating the interior of the Manor House, which he now proudly calls home.

While the Manor House, which was built around 1750 and embellished in 1826, had been restored and maintained in great condition by its previous owners, the interior was somewhat minimalistic. I have spent the past 18 months redecorating and reshaping the interior. This has included a new mahogany library and a new kitchen. The biggest expense has been collecting antique furniture, which required a lot of searching around antique shops and online research. One of the biggest problems was trying to find a set of 3.5-metre-long period curtains, said John.

With the refurbishment work complete, John decided to hire the Manor House out for weddings, just before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. While on the face of it the timing of this may have seemed somewhat unfortunate, John said it has actually worked in his favour.

With many venues either booked out or not open at all, couples are looking for somewhere special to celebrate their big occasion. The Manor House fits that bill perfectly. It proves the old saying that every cloud has a silver lining, said John.

While the Castle itself is not inhabitable, it has undergone major restoration work over recent years, with John saying that visitors will have the opportunity to mingle in its atmospheric ground and first floors.

They will get the opportunity to see its interior, get an idea of what life might have been like for its original occupants and discover some interesting aspects of its past. For example what a murder hole is and why it had one, said John.

He said the main reason for holding the outdoor event, which will include refreshments and live music as well as access to the landmark castle, was to give the people the chance to celebrate Carrigacunna Castles history and its place within the lives of generations of people from the local community.

In actual fact the castle was built sometime between 1520 and 1540, which technically means that its 500th anniversary is probably not for another two decades. However, I may not be around by then, so now is as good a time as any, laughed John.

He said his initial idea had been to invite the entire community in Killavullen to the event. However, COVID-19 restrictions meant he had to limit the number of invites to 200.

To be perfectly honest, I do not regard myself as the owner of the Castle and Estate. I am merely its caretaker for a period of time until that privilege is passed onto someone else. Carrigacunna was here long before me and will be here long after I have gone, he said.

It is the local community and future generations that will be the real keepers of the Carrigacunna tradition. That is why I felt it was so important to share that tradition and legacy with them through this 500th-anniversary celebration.
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Joseph Ax

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - Joe Biden accepted the Democratic Party nomination for the White House on Thursday, vowing to heal a United States battered by a deadly pandemic and divided by four years of Donald Trump's presidency.

"The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division," Biden said. "Here and now, I give you my word: if you entrust me with the presidency, I'll draw on the best of us, not the worst."

Biden's speech - the capstone of nearly five decades in politics - was delivered inside a largely empty arena in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, at the conclusion of a Democratic convention held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans.

Describing the current moment as one of the most difficult times the country has ever faced, Biden offered himself as a uniter who would work "just as hard" for those who do not support him - drawing a stark contrast with the Republican Trump, who has kept the focus on his base of voters.

"While I'll be a Democratic candidate, I'll be an American president," said Biden, who faces Trump in the Nov. 3 election. Thats the job of a president. To represent all of us, not just our base or our party. This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment. It's a moment that calls for hope, and light, and love."

Democrats used the convention to highlight the broad coalition working to oust Trump, showcasing liberals and moderates, elder statesmen and rising stars - and even some high-profile Republicans, who urged their fellow conservatives to place patriotism above party.

The event also put the Democrats' diversity on display, particularly the nomination of Senator Kamala Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American on a major-party ticket.

While Democrats laid out plenty of areas in which Biden would pursue dramatically different policies than Trump, including immigration, climate change and gun safety, much of Thursday was devoted to themes such as integrity and faith.

Story continues

The program also emphasized Biden's personal experience with tragedy - his first wife's and infant daughter's deaths in a car accident, and the death of his son Beau from cancer - to underscore his ability to empathize with suffering Americans. Critics accuse Trump, whose instincts are more combative than comforting, of failing to offer solace at a time of crisis.

Biden spoke directly to those who had lost someone to the pandemic and offered a withering assessment of Trump's response to the months-old health crisis.

"Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation: he's failed to protect us," Biden said.

Trump responded on Twitter, writing: "In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!"

After months of unrest over racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, Biden urged the country to address systemic discrimination.

"Will we be the generation that finally wipes out the stain of racism from our national character?" he asked. "I believe we're up to it. I believe we're ready."

After Biden spoke, he joined Harris and their spouses outside the arena, where they watched a fireworks display with cheering supporters who had viewed the speech on a drive-in screen - his first appearance in front of an in-person crowd of voters in months.

RIVALS UNITE

Earlier on Thursday, several Democrats who challenged Biden for the nomination, including U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, pressed the case for Biden, a former vice president.

Bloomberg said Trump had failed both as a businessman and as a president.

"I'm not asking you to vote against Donald Trump because he's a bad guy. I'm urging you to vote against him because he's done a bad job," said Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.

"And let me tell you a little secret. Donald Trump's economic plan was to give a huge tax cut to guys like me, who didn't need it. And then lie about it to everyone else," he said.

As they have throughout the week, Democrats emphasized the importance of voting amid the pandemic. Trump's repeated, unsubstantiated claims that mail-in ballots are rife with fraud, coupled with cuts to the U.S. Postal Service, have fueled fears that some voters may be disenfranchised.

"All elections are important, but we know in our bones this one is more consequential," Biden said. "This is a life-changing election. This will determine what America is going to look like for a long, long time ... Who we are as a nation, what we stand for - most importantly, who we want to be - that's all on the ballot."

The program offered some light-hearted moments from its moderator, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who portrayed a U.S. vice president in the comedy television show "Veep," and took some digs at both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

After a four-night virtual convention unlike any other in history, Biden aides and top Democrats voiced a sense of relief that the party had been able to pull off a production with only minor hiccups and a few ruffled feathers over speaker lineups.

Biden's speech and other major speeches were largely seen as a success after several uneven performances earlier in his campaign. But aides acknowledged it remained to be seen whether the event motivated volunteers or reached potential converts as effectively as a normal convention.

Biden, 77, heads into the general election campaign leading in opinion polls over Trump, 74, who will accept the Republican nomination for a second White House term at his own convention next week.

Trump has campaigned across the country to offer counter-programming to the Democrats, a break with tradition in which candidates limit their activities during their opponents' conventions. His party's convention is next week.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Wilmington, Delaware, and Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and John Whitesides in Washington and Michael Martina in Detroit; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Howard Goller)
Kelly Osbourne believes it's important to be open about her two-year weight loss journey.

The former "Fashion Police" co-host said in an interview with the Hollywood Raw Podcast that she realized a long time ago, "I had to fix my head before I could fix my body."

To do that, Osbourne explained that she quit drinking, did "tons of therapy" and learned how to meditate for 10 minutes, twice a day.

"I really wanted to fix the things that were broken in me," she said. "I'm not perfect. I still make a lot of mistakes. I have bumps in the road. I fall down. I get back up again. That's just how life works."

PHOTO: Kelly Osbourne attends adidas 'Prouder': A Fat Tony Project in aid of the Albert Kennedy Trust at Heni Gallery Soho on July 3, 2018 in London. (Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Osbourne, 35, shared on social media earlier this month that she'd lost 85 pounds and later clarified in her interview with the Hollywood Raw Podcast that she'd undergone gastric sleeve surgery. According to the Mayo Clinic, sleeve gastrectomy is a weight loss procedure in which 80% of the stomach is removed and the organ is reshaped. It is not typically done until after an individual has attempted to lose weight by using less invasive methods.

Osbourne, who also said injections for her jaw pain helped reshape her face, said that she's "proud" that she did the surgery nearly two years ago, calling it, "the best thing I have ever done." She also encouraged other women in Hollywood to be upfront about anything special they did to achieve a "glow up," and added that she has not had any other surgical procedures performed.

"People only pick up on your journey when you've arrived at your destination," she said. "This has been two years of me working on this and figuring it out."

Kelly Osbourne opens up about her 2-year weight loss journey originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Representative image

Prateek Patil* heads a teacher training institute that offers Bachelors in Education (B.Ed) and is set up on a public-private partnership (PPP) model in Maharashtra. This institute has been awaiting funds from corporate partners since 2018, but has not been lucky so far.

We started with an initial investment of Rs 50 crore on a PPP model. Now we are struggling to get more funds even as the class strength has dropped, over the last three years, to 180 from 450. Now we are hearing that we have to expand to teach other courses. How will we manage? he said.

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which was approved by the Union Cabinet on July 30, has said that stand-alone educational institutes teaching only one course stream will be gradually phased out.

This means that an institute teaching only engineering or B.Ed programmes will either need to expand to other academic streams or will have to be shut down.

Is B.Ed necessary?

B.Ed is an essential course for any candidate aspiring to be a teacher in state-owned and private schools. While a majority of the 700 international schools in India have done away with the requirement of having a mandatory B.Ed for teachers, this qualification is still necessary in the rest of the 1.5 million schools in India.

India has about 6,800 B.Ed colleges. About 5,200 are private colleges, 330 are public and the rest are set up on a PPP model, meaning both the government and private entities have an equal partnership/investment. The average fee stands at Rs 20,000 per annum.

Also Read: All your questions about NEP answered

Industry sources told Moneycontrol that funds crunch and shortage of teaching staff are the two main concerns of these colleges. Now, with NEP 2020 mandating all institutes to evolve into multi-disciplinary ones, the fear is that at least 10-15 percent B.Ed colleges will be the first victims.

No funds, staff or real estate

Nina Singhal, who heads a private B.Ed college in Bhilai, told Moneycontrol that their first response would be to suspend operations. This institute was set up close to two decades ago.

We neither have the funds nor the staff strength to evolve into an institution that offers courses across the board. If the government is ready to fund us and offer real estate, we will evaluate this proposal, she added.

The B.Ed colleges that are fully funded by the government are hopeful that the central government will help them in securing land at affordable rates.

Currently, the B.Ed programme is of two years but several state governments, like Maharashtra, are offering four-year integrated BA/B.Ed, BSc/B.Ed and B.Com/B.Ed programmes. From 2021, it is likely that the B.Ed programme will get clubbed with regular undergraduate degree programmes for teaching career aspirants.

Merely saying expand into a full-time university is not feasible. We function in less than half acre of land. There is no space, which is necessary to accommodate students, to expand in this location. So it is necessary that the government funds us to become multi-disciplinary, said Farheen Sheikh*, who is the assistant dean of a Bengaluru-based public teaching college.

NEP 2020 has not set any deadline for the transformation of single education-stream colleges into multi-disciplinary institutes. However, sources told Moneycontrol that once this policy starts getting formally implemented from FY22, institutes could be given up to five years to start adding programmes and admitting new students.

Shutting down only option

Delhi-based education consultant Pramila Guharoy told Moneycontrol that B.Ed colleges neither have the technical skills nor the resources to branch out to newer programmes. She said that the unfortunate result of the NEP proposal will be that several institutes will be shut.

About 10-15 percent shutting down is a conservative estimate. It is not easy for a B.Ed-focused college to simply branch out to offer arts, science and commerce programmes. Where will the faculty come from, what will be the building infrastructure and who will fund it are key questions that these institutes must ask the government, she added.

The question now is who will fund this initiative. Fee increase is ruled out because institutes fear that this will dissuade candidates from applying, which, in turn, will increase the vacant positions for school teachers.

Close to 0.7 million teaching jobs are lying vacant across the country in elementary and secondary schools. If B.Ed colleges are forced to shut down, it would only aggravate the problem.

*Names changed to protect identity
Kenyan teenager Bella Achieng Otieno wants nothing more than to return to her classroom, growing anxious about her future with every passing day her school is closed because of coronavirus.

"I feel bad because 'corona' has destroyed everything, and we cannot go to school. I pray so that the corona thing should be finished," said the 15-year-old, who spends her time wandering the narrow laneways of Kibera, a slum in Nairobi.

Schools across Kenya closed as a precaution in March as the pandemic swept the globe. But in July, as cases soared in Kenya, the government announced classes would not resume until January, declaring the 2020 school year "lost".

The decision upended life for millions of keen students like Otieno, who will be forced to repeat a year when she eventually does return, and endure months of worry and boredom until then.

"It's really frustrating for the girls," said Rachel Esther, the deputy director of the Kibera School for Girls, which teaches 330 girls between five and 15, including Otieno, during the January-October school year.

"They rarely stay at home for so long. I'm sure most of them don't like it."

The school, a large red brick building founded by local NGO Shofco, tried to set homework via WhatsApp but struggled with so many students lacking smartphones or unable to afford data.

For live updates on the coronavirus outbreak, click here

Even before abandoning the school year, the government admitted in its emergency response plan that many parents with low literacy levels or who may not have a television or radio may struggle with homeschooling, and that this may deepen inequalities.

Esther fears idle students will fall so far behind they may not return.

And her young girls are also vulnerable in other ways. Experts have reported a rise in teenage pregnancies since Kenya's lockdown began, with more girls pushed into transactional sex to survive while others have more sex as they stay home from school.

Poorer families, already suffering under the hardship of a months-long economic shutdown, are suddenly needing to scrape together more to feed their children, something usually provided by schools.

"It's not easy because I have to pay the rent (and) feed (my children)," says Otieno's mother Lilian Adhiembo, a widow who earns 200 shillings ($1.90) a day selling charcoal.

The pinch is also felt outside Kenya's cities.

Joseph Ochola Nzwa sold four bulls to pay for his children's education, a small fortune for the subsistence farmer in the western Kakamega region.

Even though the government has asked schools to refund fees or defer payments, Nzwa fears his investment is lost.

"I now fear my children may not finish their education," he said. The expectation that his older children would graduate, find work, and help pay for their siblings' tuition was also in tatters, he said.

The shutdown has heaped enormous pressure on Kenya's private schools, which deprived of fees have struggled to keep staff and maintain their campuses.

Some 2.3 million primary school students attend private institutions in Kenya -- some funded by donors -- taking the load off public schools which are underfunded and overcrowded, particularly in disadvantaged areas.

Read: Coronavirus also impacts young people: WHO

"The government alone cannot manage education for all its citizens," says Peter Ndoro, chairman of the Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA).

Some teachers in the private sector have not been paid for months and have sought out other work to survive.

As of early August, more than 120 private schools had announced they would not reopen in January.

"There's a great possibility that if we do not get support from elsewhere, from the government, then very many other private schools might not be able to reopen. And this would throw our education system into jeopardy," said Ndoro.

Managing classroom size is already a huge challenge in Kenya, where sometimes 100 students cram into a single lesson.

But maintaining social distance -- often futile at the best of times in Kenya's crowded urban settings -- would be next to impossible if public schools receive an influx of new students come January, he said.

"Do these schools have space to create these extra classes? Do they have enough facilities for these classes? Will they employ more teachers?" said Esther, the school director.

"There's some kind of confusion around that. Unless it is made clear, I'm also worried that we might not be ready to open schools in Kenya by January."
Pointing the way: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife Dr Jill Biden at the Democratic National Convention from the Chase Centre in Wilmington, Delaware. PHOTO: GETTY

On Joe Biden's big day, President Donald Trump was planning to show up in his rival's old backyard.

Yesterday afternoon Mr Trump was staging an event just outside the former vice president's birthplace in Scranton, Pennsylvania, mere hours before Mr Biden was due to accept the Democratic nomination for president.

The political tradition of a presidential candidate lying low during the other party's convention has eroded over the decades.

But - to the private delight of Mr Trump's advisers - his trip looked to be a particularly in-your-face piece of counter-programming designed to rattle an opponent.

The campaign said Mr Trump's speech would cover "a half-century of Joe Biden failing America".

The event points to the importance of Pennsylvania as a battleground state - and to the urgency of the president's effort to close the gap in the polls.

"Joe Biden is no friend of Pennsylvania - he is your worst nightmare," Mr Trump would say according to excerpts from his speech.

Mr Biden's speech was due hours later from his Delaware hometown and will surely dominate headlines and cable news ticker titles.

But Mr Trump has offered a robust slate of competing activity, holding multiple in-person events this week meant to draw a contrast with the largely virtual campaign that Mr Biden has conducted during the Covid pandemic.

He visited two other battlegrounds - Wisconsin and Arizona - as well as Minnesota, one of the few blue states from 2016 that Mr Trump's team feels like he may have a chance to flip this autumn.

But Mr Trump's campaign has been warily watching his standing falter in the trio of Rust Belt states that carried him to the presidency in 2016.

The so-called Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin was meant to provide electoral college insurance for Hillary Clinton.

Instead it all broke for Mr Trump by slim margins.

Many in the Trump campaign have all but written off Michigan, a state battered by the virus, and whose governor has repeatedly fought with the president.

But advisers believe Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, remains in play and Mr Trump will be returning to the northeast of the state.

Mr Trump did unexpectedly well there in 2016, winning Luzerne County and nearly winning in Lackawanna, both of which have a solid registration advantage for Democrats.

These bear the hallmarks of Trump country: They are whiter, with lower median incomes and fewer people with college degrees, than the rest of Pennsylvania.

But Mr Trump has stubbornly trailed Mr Biden, whose team aims to return Pennsylvania to the blue column, where it had been from 1992 until 2016.

The former vice president has deep ties to Scranton and aims messages at white working-class voters and black voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The Biden campaign dismissed Mr Trump's visit as a lame campaign gambit.

"This sideshow is a pathetic attempt to distract from the fact that Trump's presidency stands for nothing but crises, lies, and division," said Mr Biden's spokesman Andrew Bates.

But advisers believe Mr Trump has begun to reverse that momentum in part due to his efforts to link Mr Biden to radical left elements of the Democratic Party.

Mr Trump has also been campaigning as an avid supporter of fracking in Pennsylvania, where it has unleashed an oil and gas boom.

Mr Trump and TV ads by a pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, accuse Mr Biden of wanting to ban fracking. Mr Biden calls that entirely false and has said a ban would likely be politically and legally impossible.

He says he wants to bar permits for new oil and gas drilling on public lands, which account for less than a tenth of production.

It comes as Mr Trump sought to distance himself from former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was arrested yesterday on charges of defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a fundraising effort to support building Mr Trump's border wall.

Mr Bannon, who played a big role in shaping the president's 2016 campaign, was fired by Mr Trump in August 2017.

"I know nothing about the project, other than I didn't like what I read about it," Mr Trump said of Mr Bannon's fundraising efforts.
These Korean celebrity A-listers have been wearing timeless pieces of art watches in their recent drama series. Though it may just be an accessory, it adds accent to their whole look, accentuating elegance and sophistication.

Below are luxury watch brands that appeared in your recent favorite drama. We may not afford it now, but maybe someday, we will.

Hyun Bin

"Crash Landing On You" is one drama series that is light to the heart and would make one fall in love with men in uniforms. Hyun Bin as Capt. Ri made the series super romantic, especially on how he gazes at Yoon Se Ri (Son Ye Ji). The Chopard Apline Eagle watch he wore was so sentimental as he bought it when studying to become a pianist in Switzerland.

Son Ye Jin

When Yoon Se Ri crash-landed on the borders of North Korea after an unfortunate event when she was paragliding, the timepiece she was wearing was a Happy Sport watch by Chopard, knowing that you have a timepiece like this you can pawn it. It could you enough money to sustain you for a month. However, in the North, things go differently as they don't care what materials are used; rather, it was priced according to how heavy the item was. Guess what it was only priced for 25,000 Korean won approximately just USD 20.00

Park Seo Joon

"Itaewon Class" lead actor Park Seo Joon was wearing a watch in the memory of his loving father. A watch he never takes off after he inherited it from his late father, and a perfect ad placement as it was usually noticed several times by fans.

It is the Star Legacy Full Calendar model from the Swiss luxury brand Montblanc. This watch is incredibly unique is that it indicates the seconds in the middle of the dial, day-date feature, and a moon phase display.

Indicating the hours and minutes, it also shows the seconds in the middle of the dial. Aside from that, it also includes a day-date feature and a moon phase display. The simple yet elegant design features a stainless steel case and a silvery-white dial surrounded by black Arabic numerals adding a vintage touch.

Lee Min Ho

In the pilot episode, Lee was wearing the Longines' Master Collection Chronograph Calendar with moon phase and 24-hours indication. For the equestrian world, Longines has long been having great ties with them.

The Master Collection is for those who love a mix of retro and modern details. The watch worn by Lee Min Ho comes with a brown alligator strap with silver barleycorn dial and in Arabic Numerals.

And later on, was seen wearing Longines Conquest VHP (very high precision), and considered to be the most accurate wristwatches money can buy. Conquest VHP is the perfect time-traveler's watch that no matter how many times you put it through the wormhole, it will automatically correct the time.

Seo Ye Ji

During their family portrait pictorial, it was Moon Young's most expensive outfit as she accessorized by wearing a watch that costs more or less 60,500 Euros. It's Piaget Extremely Lady Watch. This delicately-crafted bracelet features an elegant hand-engraved finish with a "palace" decoration" that gives the bands an iridescent effect, just like a ribbon of raw silk wrapped exquisitely around the curve of the wrist.
Q: Will the province supply masks for schoolchildren?

Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen has said the provincial government will provide "several million dollars" to school divisions to facilitate the purchase of masks.

Plans for distribution vary by division.

Winnipeg School Division expects students and staff to provide their own non-medical masks, which will be included on itemized class-supply lists. However, masks will be available at schools and on division buses, and disposable masks will be given to anyone who develops symptoms while at school.

Louis Riel School Division will provide reusable masks to all staff and students at no charge and will provide non-reusable masks for individuals who arrive without one. Pembina Trails School Division is giving masks to staff and will have a limited number for students who arrive without. Families in that division are being told to purchase non-medical masks with their school supplies.

In St. James-Assiniboia, students in Grades 4 to 12 will be given two reusable masks at no cost, and the division will share its plan to distribute masks prior to the start of school.

Each school division and its back-to-school plan is listed on the Manitoba government website: www.manitoba.ca.

Q: When are masks required and who decides if a student can take off their mask?

Following the provincial government's mandate issued Wednesday, masks will be required for students in Grades 4 to 12, teachers, school staff and visitors when physical distancing of two metres is not possible.

Masks are not required when there is adequate distancing, but divisions are recommending they be worn.

The province is developing resources to help children learn how to safely put on, wear and remove a mask, and is planning to release further instructions on exemptions and exceptions for "specific mask-free time."

Q: What happens when a student shows symptoms at school?

While in class, if a student displays symptoms of COVID-19 staff must isolate the student in a separate room. If one isn't available, the student should be kept two metres away from others. A medical-grade mask will be provided for symptomatic students over the age of two.

Parents will be notified and are expected to pick up their child immediately and call Health Links or their doctor for direction. Children will be able to return to school after their health-care provider or public health has determined it's safe to do so.

Q: What evidence exists that children transmit the virus that causes COVID-19 less often than adults?

Chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Wednesday children are affected by COVID-19 but are under-represented overall in reported cases and are under-represented in severe outcomes.

"There is some evidence that shows the younger the child, the less likely they are to transmit it widely, but there is some conflicting evidence with that as well," Roussin said. "There's some thoughts that there might be cross protection between the circulating coronaviruses that we see every year that children get very often, but that's just a theory at this point."

 Danielle Da Silva
Seven Virginia Tech students were suspended Thursday after local law enforcement alerted the university to reports of large groups of students gathered off-campus.

"Virginia Tech remains steadfast in its commitment to expect all members of our community to follow all public health guidelines issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," Dean of Students Byron Hughes said in a message posted on Tech's website Thursday afternoon.

He noted that public health guidelines  which include a recent Blacksburg ordinance limiting gatherings to no more than 50 people  are necessary to keep people safe.

"Should the Dean of Students Office, the Virginia Tech Police Department, or the Blacksburg Police Department need to respond to concerns about noise violations or disruptive parties, a referral will be made to the Office of Student Conduct for their follow-up," Hughes wrote. "Recent off-campus incidents that have occurred over the past week have resulted in seven students being placed on interim suspension."

Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski said in an email Thursday that the university can impose interim, or immediate, suspensions "if such action is necessary to preserve the safety of persons or property."

"The Office of Student Conduct received a referral from local law enforcement related to large gatherings of students not practicing social distancing, not wearing masks and being disruptive to the community," Owczarski wrote.

A student who faces an interim suspension has five days to request a meeting with administrators, according to the student handbook.

"During the review, the student will be given an opportunity to demonstrate why his or her continued presence on campus does not constitute a threat to themselves, others, or property," the handbook states.

A separate student conduct hearing determines whether the student violated any university policies.

Owczarski said charges for the recent incidents could include "endangerment" and "disorderly or disruptive conduct."

Radford University has suspended three students for "endangering conduct" and failure to comply with the university's COVID-19 safety measures, The Roanoke Times reported Wednesday.

Community members in Blacksburg and Radford, as well as students themselves, have expressed concern that some students may not follow public health guidelines and could risk outbreaks of COVID-19, which has happened at universities nationwide.

Students living on campus at Tech began moving in Friday, and on-campus Radford students began moving in Aug. 1.

"As classes begin Monday, we must be unrelenting and uncompromising in our commitment to public health," Hughes said in his message addressed to "Hokie Nation."

"This includes you. We will succeed together  or we will fail together."
Comcast announced a new Xfinity Internet offer for K-12 teachers and administrators as well as university faculty and staff on Thursday aimed at helping connect Americas educators as they prepare for the upcoming school year.

Eligible faculty, staff and administrators in the Comcast footprint can now receive a $150 Visa prepaid card, which is worth about two months of Internet service, when they sign up for an Xfinity package, according to a press release.

As the school year begins, faculty and school administrators are adapting to new communications and remote learning options. Internet connectivity has never been more vital for todays educators, according to the release.

With learning looking very different this year across the country, we want to help give our educators the connectivity they need to support Americas youth during these unprecedented times, said Dana Strong, President, Xfinity Consumer Services, Comcast.

Eligible K-12 teachers and administrators and university faculty and staff can sign up for this offer at www.xfinity.com/teacher. There are no upfront fees and no installation costs, the release said. Within a few days of signing up they will receive a self-install kit, and then in just a few weeks later a $150 Visa prepaid card with a value of about two months of Internet service. This offer is available to faculty, staff and administrators who live in households that are not already Xfinity customers, today through the end of the year, the release said.

This offering comes on the heels of the launch of the new Internet Essentials Partnership Program, which is designed to help accelerate Internet adoption at a critical time, and Comcasts extension of two free months of Internet Essentials service to eligible low-income individuals that sign up through the end of the year, according to the release.

Further, the company is offering eligible university students who need connectivity and sign up for service by September 30th a $150 Visa prepaid card.
Tenet (12A)

Rating:

Christopher Nolans spy thriller Tenet is a mind-boggling and time-bending spectacle: A hugely anticipated blockbuster which should end months of darkness in cinemas.

Audiences will be high on the sheer energy of the no-expenses-spared action: A bullet-pumping bunker bust, a crash staged using a real Boeing 747 (well, thats one way of getting rid of those retired jumbo jets), and astonishing car chases that enter another dimension.

The film stars John David Washington as an American secret agent known only as The Protagonist and Robert Pattinson as his deceptively languid British counterpart Neil.

Christopher Nolans spy thriller Tenet is a mind-boggling and time-bending spectacle: A hugely anticipated blockbuster which should end months of darkness in cinemas

They try to foil Andrei, a psychotic ex-Soviet arms dealer (Kenneth Branagh with a hokey accent), who has dastardly plans.

So far, so Bond. But Nolan takes the spy game to chess grandmaster level, as time inverts in a parallel universe.

The British director of Dunkirk has played similar tricks in other films such as Interstellar, Inception and Memento, but there is almost a childish pleasure to be had here in seeing events reel surprisingly backwards.

Even the films title is a palindrome.

John David Washington (pictured) is a smart, muscular hero, as comfortable killing in SWAT team gear as he is in a Savile Row suit, walking out of carnage and casually fastening just the top button of his single-breasted jacket, as a gentleman should

Washington (who starred in BlacKkKlansman) is a smart, muscular hero, as comfortable killing in SWAT team gear as he is in a Savile Row suit, walking out of carnage and casually fastening just the top button of his single-breasted jacket, as a gentleman should.

Pattinson leaves Twilight firmly behind as a too-cool-for-public-school chap with a steely interior. Oddly, the spies code phrase is We live in a twilight world, which may be an in-joke.

The significance of bespoke tailoring in this movie is made clear when Michael Caine  who featured in Nolans Dark Knight Batman trilogy  turns up for five minutes to give The Protagonist espionage advice over steak and chips in a private gentlemans club in London.

Talking of tailoring, the films best clothes-horse is Elizabeth Debicki (pictured), who plays Andreis wife Kat, and gets to show off some achingly perfect couture while working in a posh English auction house

He explains to him that his American Brooks Brothers suit wont cut it in English society, and offers to recommend a tailor.

You British dont have a monopoly on snobbery, says The Protagonist. No, but we have a controlling interest, says Caines character, delivering the sartorial death blow.

Talking of tailoring, the films best clothes-horse is Elizabeth Debicki, who plays Andreis wife Kat, and gets to show off some achingly perfect couture while working in a posh English auction house.

No wonder Debicki  who also starred in BBCs The Night Manager - has been picked to play Princess Diana in The Crown.

At 6ft 2in, Kat is an English rose gone rampant, trapped in a marriage which takes coercive control to new heights of nastiness.

Nolan sometimes neglects the emotional heart of his films in his desire for breathtaking cinematography and grandiose action.

In Tenet, he attempts to create a poignant core with Kat and her young son, who is used as a pawn in Andreis games.

But theres something faintly unbelievable about the relationship. Debickis character seems too intelligent for victimhood.

Besides, there is barely time to catch your breath, let alone invest in a relationship, as Tenet bounces round the world from India to Estonia, Norway to London, with a stop-off on a superyacht moored off Italy.

For those of us fresh out of lockdown, and subject to new travel sanctions imposed every week, its thrilling stuff.

Even watching the opening scene, a cello-smashing showdown at the Kiev opera, had me thinking not Oh my goodness! Terrorists with bombs! but Wow! Thousands of people in a room without masks!

In fact, the film takes on unintentional resonances in the days of Covid-19.

Audiences will be high on the sheer energy of the no-expenses-spared action: A bullet-pumping bunker bust, a crash staged using a real Boeing 747 (well, thats one way of getting rid of those retired jumbo jets), and astonishing car chases that enter another dimension

As I understand it, were trying to prevent World War III, says a scientist to The Protagonist.

Nuclear holocaust? he asks.

No, something else she answers. At that point, I wanted to shout out: Global pandemic!

Youll have to wear a face mask for two-and-a-half hours, in a popcorn-free auditorium  but Tenet is worth the discomfort.

The film is the clever, exhilarating comeback that cinemas  and audiences  have been waiting for.

Tenet is released on Wednesday
TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V): GRG

Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE): G6A

OTCQB Venture Market (OTCQB): GARWF

VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Golden Arrow Resources Corporation (TSX-V: GRG) (FSE: G6A) (OTC: GARWF), ("Golden Arrow" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has retained Michael Baybak and Company, Inc. ("Baybak") to provide financial relations, media relations and market development consulting services to the Company. Baybak has been engaged for a term of three months at a monthly fee of US$4,000. The agreement is subject to regulatory approval.

Baybak is at arm's length to the Company. Principals of Baybak currently own 830,333 shares of the Company as of the date hereof and may purchase securities in the Company from time to time for investment purposes.

About Golden Arrow:

Golden Arrow Resources Corporation is a mining exploration company with a successful track record of creating value by making precious and base metal discoveries and advancing them into exceptional deposits. The Company is well-leveraged to the price of gold, having recently monetized its Chinchillas silver discovery into a significant holding in precious metals producer SSR Mining Inc.

Golden Arrow is actively exploring a portfolio that includes advanced projects in Chile, a district-scale frontier opportunity in Paraguay, and more than 185,000 hectares of properties in Argentina.

The Company is a member of the Grosso Group, a resource management group that has pioneered exploration in Argentina since 1993.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Joseph Grosso"

______________________________

Mr. Joseph Grosso,

Executive Chairman, President and CEO

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 Golden Arrow Resources Corporation
A youthful man pleaded guilty to stealing his female employers panties and selling them for Ksh100 each to an elderly man in Machakos.

The youthful suspect and his accomplice were arraigned at the Kithimani Law Courts.

Whereas the younger suspect, Boniface Mwania Michael, pleaded guilty to the offence, the elderly man, Nicholas Nguli Kithale, denied the allegations.

Kithimani Senior Resident Magistrate Gilbert Sikwe heard that on different dates, Mwania, a houseboy, stole six underwear belonging to his employer, Rose Mueni Kimonye, from her residence in Kwakitema Village in Yatta, Machakos County, Kenya and sold them to Nguli.

The court was told that Mwania stole the panties from Muenis bathroom every time she would leave them there after taking a shower.

Also stolen, were a T-shirt, Muenis blouse and boxer belonging to Muenis husband, all valued at Ksh2,000.

Mwania was selling the intimate clothes to Nguli, who allegedly used them for witchcraft purposes.

Nguli was found in possession of other underwear belonging to one Joyce Nzisa.

Nguli, who pleaded not guilty to the charges pressed against him, was freed on a Ksh2,000 cash bail. He will appear before the magistrate on September 15, 2020.

Mwania, on the other hand, admitted guilt, and will be sentenced on Monday, August 24, 2020.

Petty theft attracts an imprisonment of as low as 2 years.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
A day after the Kerala government announced it would explore legal options against the Union Cabinets decision to lease the Thiruvananthapuram airport, along with two others, to Adani Enterprises Limited, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday retorted by asking why the state government chose to participate in the bidding process.

If the Kerala govt is against privatization, then why did it participate in the bidding process? State govt was given a fair chance and the Right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10% below the range of the highest bid. However, they bid 19.64% below, Puri tweeted on Friday.

Then they approached Honble Kerala High Court which dismissed the petition in Dec 2019. Petitioners then filed a SLP in Honble SC. Apex Court remitted the matter back to Honble Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by Honble SC or Honble Kerala High Court, he added.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved proposal for leasing out three airports - Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram - of the Airports Authority of India through the Public Private Partnership model.

On Thursday, the Kerala government, controlled by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M), said it would explore legal options against the Union Cabinets decision. After an all-party meeting, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state assembly will also pass a resolution opposing the move. The chief minister had also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi deploring the move on Wednesday, announced soon after a Union cabinet meeting in New Delhi.

Kerala is the pioneer as far as airports under Public Private Partnership are concerned, Puri said.

First PPP airport in India came up in Kochi in Kerala. It is a successfully run airport with a capacity of 13 Million Passengers Per Annum and was handling 9.62 MPPA in 2019-20 before Covid-19. Another very successful example of PPP mode is Kannur, also situated in Kerala. In fact, it was during the UDF regime in Kerala that the foundation for Kochi airport was laid in 1994 & the airport was inaugurated in 1999 during the LDF regime. Now, the Kerala Government, running two very successful airports in PPP mode, is opposing the handing over of Thiruvananthapuram airport under PPP mode. It has come to my knowledge that an all-party meeting in Kerala has opposed the PPP model at Thiruvananthapuram airport, he said.

Puri said that the Union Cabinet gave its nod for awarding the airport to the private party subject to the outcome of the writ petition and in accordance with provisions of undertaking given by the Concessionaire.

If the petitioners succeed and the outcome of litigation leads to annulment/cancellation of the bidding process then the Concessionaire will hand over the possession of airport to AAI. They will be entitled to refund of the amount paid to AAI and additional investments made in the assets, Puri said.

The Concessionaire will also not demand any damages from AAI. Here it should be borne in mind that these airports will come back to AAI after the lease period of 50 years. Further, sovereign functions like Customs, Security, Immigration, Plant & Animal Quarantine, Health Services, Communication & Navigation Surveillance / Air Traffic Management services will continue to be provided by Government agencies, he added.

The Centres move also got support from Congress MP Shashi Tharoor who represents the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency.

My position on the airport has been consistent since before the elections. I am not a politician who says one thing to the voters and something else afterward for political convenience. Had my colleagues consulted me before taking a negative stand, I would have explained my views to them, he had tweeted on Thursday.
In the midst of the pandemic, I consider President Donald Trumps admission that he is refusing financial assistance to the United States Postal Service just because it would be beneficial to his opposition to November mail-in voting not only outrageous but treasonous (Trump says hes blocking postal funding for a reason, Aug. 14).

Our American privilege of free elections, where all are encouraged and enabled to voice their opinion, is a foundational cornerstone of our democracy. You take that away and America will never be great ever again. Our privilege to vote should be promoted, protected and encouraged among all our citizens and not called into question by our leaders.

Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and other Republican leadership in Congress must confront this outrageous assault on our American freedom.

Sen. Portman, with your silence, you are betraying the American people -- not Republicans, not Democrats, but all of us. You are endangering our democracy by not speaking up. I have written to you and you have responded, voicing your support of the U.S. Postal Service. But Ohioans need more than a letter. We need our senator to protect our health and our right to vote. Speak up publicly, not just in a letter to a constituent. Actively work for USPS funding, please!

Beverly Lund,

Shaker Heights
Netflix has finally released the new trailer for The Crown season 4.

The royal drama, starring Olivia Colman, will be released on the streaming service on November 15.

The trailer is narrated by Her Majesty saying: "Something as important as the monarchy simply cannot be allowed to fail." before cutting to our first glimpses of Emma Corrin as Princess Diana.

We also get to see a snippet of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher.

Fans of The Crown may want to savor Season 4 as it will be the final run of new episodes for two years. The show is taking a filming break until next year, meaning Season 5 will not premiere until 2022. Imelda Staunton will succeed Colman on the throne.
The world should be able to rein in the coronavirus pandemic in less than two years, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as European nations battled rising numbers of new cases.

Western Europe has been enduring the kind of infection levels not seen in many months, particularly in Germany, France, Spain and Italy -- sparking fears of a full-fledged second wave.

In the Spanish capital Madrid, officials recommended people in the most affected areas stay at home to help curb the spread as the country registered more than 8,000 new cases in 24 hours.

France also reported a second consecutive day of more than 4,000 new cases -- numbers not seen since May -- with metropolitan areas accounting for most of those infections.

But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sought to draw favourable comparisons with the notorious flu pandemic of 1918.

"We have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness, but an advantage of better technology, so we hope to finish this pandemic before less than two years," he told reporters.

By "utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccines, I think we can finish it in a shorter time than the 1918 flu", he said.

The WHO also recommended children over 12 years old now use masks in the same situations as adults as the use of face coverings increases to stop the virus spread.

With no usable vaccine yet available, the most prominent tool governments have at their disposal is to confine their populations or enforce social distancing.

Lebanon is the latest country to reintroduce severe restrictions, beginning two weeks of measures on Friday including nighttime curfews to tamp down a rise in infections, which comes as the country is still dealing with the shock from a huge explosion in the capital Beirut that killed dozens earlier this month.

"What now? On top of this disaster, a coronavirus catastrophe?" said 55-year-old Roxane Moukarzel in Beirut.

Story continues

Officials fear Lebanon's fragile health system would struggle to cope with a further spike in COVID-19 cases, especially after some hospitals near the port were damaged in the explosion.

- 'We lead the world in deaths' -

The Americas have borne the brunt of the virus in health terms, accounting for more than half of the world's fatalities.

"We lead the world in deaths," said Joe Biden while accepting the Democratic nomination for the US presidential election late on Thursday.

He said he would implement a national plan to fight the pandemic on his first day in office if elected in November.

"We'll take the muzzle off our experts so the public gets the information they need and deserve -- honest, unvarnished truth," he said.

Still, new daily cases of the coronavirus have been dropping sharply in the United States for weeks -- but experts are unsure if Americans will have the discipline to bring the epidemic under control.

After exceeding 70,000 confirmed infections per day in July, the country recorded 43,000 cases on Thursday.

Further south, Latin American countries were counting the wider costs of the pandemic -- the region not only suffering the most deaths, but also an expansion of criminal activity and rising poverty.

Without an effective political reaction, "at a regional level we can talk about a regression of up to 10 years in the levels of multidimensional poverty", Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva of the UN Development Programme told AFP.

But the WHO said the coronavirus pandemic appeared to be stabilising in Brazil -- one of the world's worst hit countries -- and any reversal of its rampant spread in the vast country would be "a success for the world".

- Economic fallout -

Economies around the globe have been ravaged by the pandemic, which has infected more than 22 million and killed nearly 800,000 since it emerged in China late last year.

New financial figures laid bear the huge cost of the pandemic in Britain, where government debt soared past 2 trillion ($2.6 trillion) for the first time in the UK after a massive programme of state borrowing for furlough schemes and other measures designed to prop up the economy.

"Without that support things would have been far worse," said Finance Minister Rishi Sunak.

Even Germany, famed for its financial prudence, was waking up to a new reality with Finance Minister Olaf Scholz conceding his country would need to continue borrowing at a high level next year to deal with the virus fallout.

While Spain has responded with confinement measures and Germany with updated travel guidelines, putting Brussels on its list of risk zones, the UK is now watching clusters in northern England and suggesting some towns could soon face lockdown.

"To prevent a second peak and keep Covid-19 under control, we need robust, targeted intervention where we see a spike in cases," said health secretary Matt Hancock.

burs-jxb/pma/bsp
Queensland police are investigating a fresh claim of fruit tampering after a Logan man found two needles in strawberries he was cutting up for his daughter's lunch.

"My daughter could have choked on that," Raymond Kelly said. Credit:Joshua Gane

Raymond Kelly of Meadowbrook, Logan, found needles in two strawberries while preparing his six-year-old's lunchbox for school on Thursday.

"I was gutted, my daughter could have choked on that," Mr Kelly told Seven News.

The find comes two years after a nationwide needle scare that saw the introduction of tough laws lifting the maximum prison sentence for food tampering offences from 10 years to 15 years.
The 2nd-generation Pixel Buds are getting their first feature drop. This update (first of [hopefully] more) will unlock new options and features for the Pixel Buds.

In a Blog post, Google highlighted three new features: bass boost, sharing detection, new translate transcription features, Attention Alerts, and a new Find My Device feature.

In addition, the colors are now available from Google in three new colors. After initially launching in Clearly White, the Buds can now be purchased in Oh So Orange, Quite Mint, and Almost Black.

The Pixel Buds werent known for delivering bass-heavy sound  a preference had by many consumers  so Google added a new bass boost option. Theres also a share detection mode that can be toggled in the Buds settings. This allows you each Bud to have individual control of the volume for those times you might be sharing a Bud with a friend or loved one. You can change the volume by swiping up or down on either Pixel Bud.

Attention alerts is a new experimental feature that will automatically lower the volume of your music when the Buds hear a triggering sound like a crying baby, barking dog, or emergency vehicle sirens.

Theres a new feature with the Buds that adds functionality to the Translate apps conversation mode. The translated speech from a device will be transcribed and fed into the Buds audio. The first languages supported will be French, German, Italian, and Spanish for translating speech in English.

The Pixel Buds will now support Find My Device. In addition to being able to ring your earbuds so you can hear where they are, Googles Find My Device will be able to show you a map of the last location your Buds were connected to an Android device.

Finally, youll be able to ask Google Assistant for the Buds battery life and ask it to disable the touch controls.

Source
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday night that there's 'no place' for people who prescribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory in the Republican Party.

He then said a Congressional candidate had disavowed it.

'Let me be very clear,' McCarthy told Fox News Channel's Shannon Bream. 'There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party. I do not support it and the candidate you talked about has denounced it.'

McCarthy had been asked by Bream about multiple GOP candidates who have been connnected to QAnon, with the most notably being Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who also questioned 9/11.

His rebuttal was likely in reference to Colorado U.S. House candidate Lauren Boebert.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (right) told Fox News Channel's Shannon Bream (left) Thursday night that 'there is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party'

GOP House candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia prescribes to the widely debunked QAnon conspiracy theory

But McCarthy mentioned that one of the GOP's QAnon-believing Congressional candidates had 'denounced it,' likely a reference to Colorado U.S. House candidate Lauren Boebert, who has walked back previous comments

Sincer her victory, Boebert has walked back May comments she made about the conspiracy in which she said, 'I hope that this is real.'

McCarthy's comments came after President Trump seemingly encouraged followers of the conspiracy theory earlier this week.

'I've heard these are people that love our country,' the president said Wednesday when asked about the QAnon followers. 'So I don't know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.'

'If I can help save the world from problems, I am willing to do it. I'm willing to put myself out there,' he added.

And during a campaign trip to Pennsylvania Thursday, Trump stopped at a pizza place, which holds meaning in that fringe community.

Earlier he had called Greene on Twitter a 'big winner.'

QAnon followers believe falsely that the world is run by a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against President Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.

Among those in on the plot, they falsely claim, are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, and Tom Hanks, among others.

Hence, in the 2016 presidential campaign, when Wikileaks published the emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, QAnon followers believed there were code words in there that indicated a child-sex ring was being run at Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington D.C. - a conspiracy theory that has been soundly debunked.

Vice President Mike Pence was asked about the conspiracy on CBS 'This Morning,' where after some prodding, he disavowed it

President Donald Trump went to a pizza parlor in Pennsylvania Thursday, which could signal to QAnon followers that he is in on the conspiracy

The followers believe Trump was elected to trigger 'The Storm' - which is when the Satan loving pedophiles will be rounded up and brought to justice.

They are constantly on the look out for signals from the president they can interpret as a clue that 'the storm' is coming.

The central figure in the conspiracy is Q, supposedly a high-level government official who leaves clues - or 'drops' - on message boards about the imminent 'great awakening,' when the pedophile cabal will be ended.

Followers have speculated that Trump is Q.

On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence was asked about the conspiracy on CBS 'This Morning,' where after some prodding, he disavowed it.

'I don't know anything about that conspiracy theory, QAnon. I dismiss it out of hand,' Pence said.

In his interview with Fox, McCarthy segued from QAnon-supporting Republicans to Muslim Democrats.

He pointed fingers at Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the only two Muslim women in Congress, who have both been accused of making anti-Semitic statements.

McCarthy suggested that the Democrats didn't adequately punish them while Republicans took care of their own problem - the racist Rep. Steve King - by stripping him of his committee assignments.

'When a member of the Republican Party said something that we believe is not about the party of Lincoln, we removed them from committee, but in the Democratic party, not only can you be anti-Semitic, you can spend your campaign money giving it to your husband,' McCarthy said, a dig at Omar who married her political consultant boyfriend Tim Mynett in March.

She and Mynett were quietly dating when they were both married last year.

Beyond Greene's support of QAnon, she's made anti-Muslim comments, making a trip to the U.S. Capitol Building in February 2019 in order to interrogate Omar and Tlaib.

The Georgia House candidate says that she believes they're illegitimate members of Congress because they took the oath of office atop the Koran.

In a video of ther trip, Greene said Omar and Tlaib should 'really should go back to the Middle East if they support Sharia.'
Pompeo Warns Russia, China Against Opposing US Move To Reimpose Iran Sanctions

Radio Farda August 20, 2020

Ahead of his planned U.N. visit on Thursday to trigger the mechanism for re-introduction of all U.N. sanctions on Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened Iran's allies Russia and China with sanctions if they refuse to endorse the U.S. move.

When on Wednesday asked by Fox News if the United States would target Russia and China with sanctions if they refuse to back the U.S. move at the U.N. Pompeo said: "Absolutely."

"We have already done that, where we have seen any country violate ... the current American sanctions, we've held every nation accountable for that. We'll do the same thing with respect to the broader U.N. Security Council sanctions as well," Pompeo said.

Last week the United Nations Security Council rejected a U.S. proposal to extend Iran's long-standing arms embargo. Russia and China voted against, eleven other countries including the European members of the nuclear agreement with Iran  France, Germany and Britain, abstained and the Dominican Republic voted in favor of the U.S. draft resolution.

Pompeo released a statement after the vote on Friday and called it "inexcusable".

According to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), any one of the six signatories  the U.S., Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain  can invoke its "snapback" provision to bring back all U.N. sanctions on Iran. The mechanism has come to be known as the "trigger mechanism".

The administration of President Donald Trump is pushing for support in invoking the provision and the return of U.N. sanctions. "My administration will not allow this Iran nuclear situation to go on," Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "Iran will never have a nuclear weapon".

Opponents have challenged the legality of such a move, arguing that the nation, which left the JCPOA agreement in May 2018, relinquished its right to invoke the provisions of the agreement. However, the U.S. says it has the right to do so as one of the original parties to the agreement.

The complicated legal process following the invocation of the provision will reintroduce all sanctions after 65 days.

According to Reuters, diplomats say Russia, China and other countries are likely to ignore the U.S. move.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/pompeo-warns- russia-china-against-opposing-us-move-to-reimpose -iran-sanctions/30793461.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of Libyas Tripoli-based Government of National Accord called today for an immediate cease-fire in his sides conflict with eastern Libyas forces and a resumption of the fractured countrys political process.

The cease-fire call was reciprocated by Aguila Saleh Issa, speaker of eastern Libyas parliament, in a move hailed by the United Nations.

Sarrajs stand-down order reverses his governments vow to press its counteroffensive against the coastal city of Sirte and airbase at Jufra, both held by eastern forces aligned with Gen. Khalifa Hifter.

The final goal of the cease-fire is to restore complete sovereignty over Libya and expel foreign forces and mercenaries, Sarraj said in a statement published online.

Sarrajs announcement called for a withdrawal of foreign forces from Sirte, a restoration of Libyas domestic oil production and for national elections to be held in March. The prime minister of the UN-recognized government also called for equitable sharing of oil revenue between the rival sides via the Tripoli-based National Oil Corporation.

Saleh issued a statement in support of the cease-fire and also voiced support for a resumption of production from Libyas oilfields, most of which are under the influence of Hifters forces.

Hifter has not yet spoken publicly on the cease-fire announcement.

The move is likely to be well received by US and Germany, which have pushed for a resumption of talks to resolve the conflict. It is also seen as a reprieve for Egypt, which has threatened military intervention in Libya if Tripolis forces, militarily backed by Turkey, continue to advance eastward toward the Egyptian border.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi welcomed the cease-fire announcement in a statement today.

Sarrajs call came just days after a senior Turkish official unexpectedly softened his governments rhetoric on the conflict, saying Ankara did not want to confront foreign fighters in Libya. Military hardware and contractors from Russia, as well as fighters from Syria and sub-Saharan African countries, are reportedly on the ground in support of Hifters forces, raising fears in Washington of looming international conflict over the North African country.

Turkeys presidential adviser and spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told Al Jazeera on Monday that his government was open to working with Hifters backers Russia and Egypt toward a political solution to the fighting.

Kalin said Turkey would see a withdrawal of weapons and foreign mercenaries from Sirte and Jufra as a step toward resolving the conflict. Turkish officials had previously insisted the Government of National Accord would not halt its offensive until Hifters Libyan forces withdraw from Sirte and Jufra.

After turning back Hifters yearlong offensive against Tripoli, the Government of National Accord rejected an Egyptian-backed proposal for a cease-fire with Hifters forces in June.

The head of the UNs political mission in Libya, Stephanie Williams, and the United States also praised the cease-fire. US Ambassador to Libya Richard Norland said last week that US officials had discussed with other governments the possibility of demilitarizing Sirte, and that he saw an opportunity for common ground with Sisi in pushing for a potential cease-fire.

Russia and the United Arab Emirates, which bankrolls Hifter's alliance, did not immediately comment.

So far, the rival Libyan sides have not articulated concrete plans for the fate of Sirte and Jufra. Sarrajs statement calls for a demilitarization of the coastal city and joint security cooperation.

Ahmed al-Mismari, a spokesman for Hifters Libyan National Army, said today that its forces will not withdraw from the coastal city.
In the minutes after Jacqueline Vigil was shot at close range in her driveway before dawn last November, her assailants sped away from her two-story West Side Albuquerque home so fast they blew a tire on their Jeep Cherokee.

Just around the corner in the darkness  while her husband, paramedics, police and others responded to the crime scene  the alleged shooter and an accomplice in the stranded Jeep realized they had no spare tire.

So they managed to steal a tire from a parked vehicle in the neighborhood, change out the flat, and make their getaway without ever getting caught, according to newly filed criminal complaints.

Only the telltale blown tire remained for Albuquerque police to analyze hours later, and the alleged shooter, Luis Talamantes, feared they would find his fingerprints on it, according to details alleged in federal criminal complaints filed this week in Albuquerques U.S. District Court.

To date, neither the Albuquerque Police Department nor federal agents have filed criminal charges in the homicide.

But Talamantes two sisters, a nephew and an alleged criminal gang associate are now facing an array of federal charges related to immigration crimes, firearms and drugs, according to criminal complaints filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. All are being held in federal custody.

Meanwhile, Talamantes, 33, a Mexican national, is awaiting sentencing on illegal re-entry charges in federal court in San Antonio, Texas. Hes been detained since January when Albuquerque police notified ICE in Texas of his suspected involvement in the Vigil homicide. His involvement is alleged in government sentencing documents filed earlier this week in the immigration case.

The scope of the recent federal investigation into Vigils death became clearer on Thursday with the filing of the related criminal complaints in Albuquerque.

One complaint states that beginning last month, the Albuquerque FBI violent crimes task force partnered with APDs homicide unit and the office of Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez to investigate Vigils slaying and several specific violent crimes, including a string of firearm-related crimes that occurred in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in and around the time of the homicide.

The investigation focuses on firearm-related crimes perpetrated by a group of repeat offenders who are affiliated with a violent southeast Albuquerque gang known as the Juaritos Maravilla, another complaint states.

Those charged were Talamantes sisters, Elizabeth Zamora and Veronica Villela-Romero; both are charged with illegal re-entry. Zamora is also charged with drug and firearms offenses.

Villela-Romero is also accused by Bernalillo County sheriffs investigators of intimidating a witness in Vigils homicide.

Zamoras son, Ricardo Barron Jr., is charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana and knowingly leasing, renting, using or maintaining a place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing or using any controlled substance.

The fourth defendant, Eduardo Aguilar, aka Lalo, is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Tire blowout slows getaway

In the criminal complaints against the four, investigators provided additional details about events before and after Vigil was killed, as she sat in her 2006 Cadillac intending to drive to the gym Nov. 19, 2019.

One criminal complaint alleges that Talamantes and another subject, who had earlier attempted to burglarize or steal a Cadillac in a nearby neighborhood, drove up to the Vigil home in the Las Lomitas neighborhood with their Jeep blocking her car from leaving.

Talamantes approached the drivers side door and likely tried to open the car door. Because the vehicle was in reverse, the doors were locked and Talamantes could not open the door. For reasons unknown, Talamantes stood just outside J.V.s driver side window, leveled his pistol at her head, and pulled the trigger. J.V. was struck in the head and succumbed to her wounds, the complaint states. Her husband, Sam B. Vigil, ran out as the Jeep pulled away. He called 911 after finding his wife slumped over in the drivers seat.

Meanwhile, Unbeknownst to Vigils husband, or first responders, Luis Talamantes and his associate had a tire blowout as they fled the scene and became disabled a short distance away. Talamantes and his associate stole a tire from a nearby parked vehicle, placed it on Talamantes vehicle, and fled the scene, the complaint states.

Days later, Zamora, who has been deported from the United States to Mexico twice since 2007, is alleged to have helped her brother, Talamantes, flee to San Antonio, Texas, after the fatal shooting. They traveled with another woman. She denied doing so in a recent interview with federal investigators.

But last year, with APD seeking the publics help in locating the Jeep, Zamora retained an attorney in Albuquerque to contact the APD about turning over the SUV. But before doing so the family had the vehicle cleaned and disinfected to try to remove any evidence of the crime, the affidavit states.

Nevertheless, the APD found bullet casings inside and outside the Jeep that are now entered into evidence in the homicide investigation.

Zamoras criminal complaint filed this week states that Talamantes was deported to Mexico for the third time in early September 2019, but returned a few days later to live with his sisters in Albuquerque.

On Oct. 13, 2019, he and fellow gang member Aguilar are accused of chasing an unidentified man in the Jeep Cherokee after an altercation at an Albuquerque apartment complex.

Aguilar or Talamantes used a pistol to fire several gunshots at the man during the chase, a federal criminal complaint alleges. APD officers who responded recovered a .40 caliber casing that later matched another .40 caliber casing found inside the Jeep Cherokee authorities believe was used in the Vigil homicide.

Aguilar has not been ruled out as a suspect in that homicide, states a federal criminal complaint filed Monday. However, the complaint adds that the other gang member involved in the chase, later identified as Talamantes, is the primary suspect.

Meanwhile, federal and county sheriffs investigators contend a witness to the homicide was threatened and assaulted by Villela-Romero in July.

The witness and his/her young children were injured when (she) ran them off the roadway in Albuquerque. The witnesss vehicle was also damaged, states the complaint, which adds that the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office investigated and subsequently filed felony charges against Villela-Romero that included aggravated battery, child abuse and criminal damage to property.
Police in Kakamega County, Kenya have arrested a middle-aged man accused of s.e.xually preying on his female juniors at work.

The manager of Frodak company, which has been contracted to offer cleaning services at Butali Sugar Mills Limited, was allegedly caught luring his colleague, Elemina Katam, to sleep with him on Thursday afternoon.

The top administrator had gone to the womans house in Malava, when her husband was away, police said.

He is using his position to frustrate women at the company. Every time he approaches a female worker that he is interested in, he often tells her to sleep with him or else she loses her job, alleged Elemina.

The first time he made advances at me, I rejected him. He, however, kept on persisting to the extent of coming to my house when my husband was away.

There was this day he had come to my residence, and even accessed my bedroom. When he was in the process of attempting to undress me, my husband arrived.

My spouse asked him to commit in writing that he will never harass me s.e.xually again, which my manager did.

However, recently, he started pestering me again, saying he wanted to see me. I asked him to come to my place on Thursday afternoon, which he did.

While in the house, he seduced and ordered me to sleep with him. I refused. He, however, used force to pull me to the bed, forcing me to scream. Luckily, my husband, who had returned home from visiting his parents, found him in the house.

Eleminas husband, Tom Lando, told police that the suspect had, in previous occasions, s.e.xually preyed on his wife without success.

After failing to entice my wife to sleep with him, he sent her on a 3-month mandatory leave. Yesterday (Thursday, August 20), he told my wife that he wanted to see her.

Because my partner feared losing her job, she allowed him to come over. While he was attempting to pin her to the bed, I arrived and forced him to stop what he was doing. I am now urging police to charge the suspect with s.e.xual harassment, said Lando.

However, a section of staff members at Frodak company allege that Elemina and her husband trapped the suspect so that they could extort money from him.

For a while now, the alleged victim has been targeting the manager for extortion. She recently said she would obtain Ksh100,000 from him by all means, said Felistus Wasula, an employee of Frodak.

Eleminas relative, Boaz Wanami, said culturally, the suspect should pay a fine of three cows, several sheep and Ksh200,000 for attempting to sleep with a married woman in her house, an act which never goes unpunished according to Luhya customs.

The suspect, who was badly beaten before being handed over to police Thursday evening, is being held at the Malava Police Station.

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With analysts predicting that around 60% of South African small and medium-sized enterprises might close before the Covid-19 crisis is over, the UK-South Africa Tech Hub will be launching a virtual training programme starting 21 September 2020 to help tech entrepreneurs prosper and achieve sustainability during this challenging time.

Shirley Gilbey, UK-South Africa Tech Hub Director

The UK-South Africa Tech Hub builds high-end digital and entrepreneurial skills, forging partnerships between local tech sectors and international businesses to stimulate digital economies and capacitate the South African tech ecosystem. It forms part of the International Tech Hub network delivered by DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) under a UK government initiative designed to promote digital inclusion and inclusive growth of the digital ecosystems in partner countries.The programme will help entrepreneurs build financial sustainability and adaptability into their business models. According to UK-South Africa Tech Hub Director, Shirley Gilbey, Our aim now is to empower entrepreneurs with relevant skills, tools, and knowledge to help them better respond to the unprecedented challenges posed by Covid-19 and simultaneously turbocharge their entrepreneurial journey.Currently, the UK-South Africa Tech Hub is pinpointing gaps and opportunities in order to create specialised and definitive training for tech entrepreneurs who require specific support since they are in a different phase of adapting to Covid-19. At the same time, the organisation is identifying partners, experts and enablers - both locally and globally - that have a vested interest in supporting these businesses and can offer relevant solutions.The training will equip entrepreneurs with access to tools and resources that can be drawn upon after the programme has concluded. Whats more, after each workshop, participants will have the opportunity to indicate their mentorship needs or areas in which they require further support. These will then be matched with specific mentors and/or mentorship programmes to enhance the training.Entrepreneurs building technology businesses, or businesses that are digitally enabled are encouraged to apply. Diversity is a key consideration for the UK-South Africa Tech Hub which strives to support female and young entrepreneurs, as well as entrepreneurs from rural communities.Only entrepreneurs with formally registered businesses and a clear technology or digital enablement element are eligible for this programme.Sign up for the Virtual Training Workshops for Tech Entrepreneurs to stay in the loop.
COVID has kept us apart like never before but on Saturday night in front of the Lourdes grotto in Nicker it brought people together.

Around 50 people stood solemnly beside tea lights  all socially distanced and all wearing masks  in the pouring rain as Fr Jimmy Donnelly led the rosary. They were there to support seven locals doing a 24 hour sleep-out and fast for the Irish Cancer Society.

For the past five years Mike ODonoghue, Pallasgreen, has been holding the longest coffee day in Ireland. This wasnt possible in 2020 due to Covid so this was the replacement.

However, it took on a life of its own. The prayers in front of the grotto were to symbolise he cancellation of the annual Lourdes pilgrimage. And on Sunday, after the fast was over they climbed the hill of Nicker and lit candles at the Mass rock  first time a group had done it in hundreds of years.

Mike ran the coffee day with the help of Saoirse Corbett, Tara Campbell, Sarah Dillon and Aine Looby. They were back and two more volunteers joined the group  Ellie Phelan and Maurice Barrett.

From 5pm on Saturday the fast commenced and after the rosary they settled down for the night. But there wasnt much sleep! The chats and craic went on late into the night and before they knew it dawn had broken.

I slept the next day! We had an absolutely fantastic night, said Mike. Last year, the coffee day raised 7,331 for the Irish Cancer Society.

We never thought that we would surpass that but we are currently at 8,420, said Mike.

Were absolutely gobsmacked. It is about 2,000 from the Just Giving page and the rest is from people driving in, dropping money into the bucket and before and after Masses. It is incredible generosity, he continued.

No corners were cut. They counted down by the second to 5pm when they could break their fast. The tea and sandwiches followed by apple tart at Ellie Phelan's family home never tasted so good.

Mike is full of praise for Saoirse, Tara, Sarah, Aine Looby, Ellie and Maurice.

They are the most amazing people, A lot of young people if they were asked to do a 24 hour fast and sleep-out and climb up Nicker Hill afterwards and light candles  they'd laugh at you.

These people, no matter what you'd ask them to do, they'd do it and they are all doing it for the one cause. We all know somebody affected by cancer, said Mike.

This was Ellies first involvement with the group. She signed up for a charity day dishing out buns and cake but found herself fasting for 24 hours!

But it was no bother to Ellie. Im really enjoying it. It is such a good cause, she said.

For more Limerick news click here
It appears things are over for good between Scott Disick and Sofia Richie. Following a whirlwind on-and-off-again romance that lasted three years, the couple has reportedly ended their relationship once and for all.

Now that theyve gone their separate ways, both Richie and Disick have been spending quality time with those in their tight-knit inner circles. But given their recent breakup, we wonder, has the couples relationship issues impacted Richies once irreplaceable bond with Kylie Jenner?

Kylie Jenner and Sofia Richie | Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for New York Fashion Week

Scott Disick and Sofia Richie first called it quits in May

When the world first got wind that Disick and Richie were dating, despite their 15-year age difference, the reactions were generally mixed.

Though some were onboard with the couple embarking on a relationship, others were convinced that the romance was headed for disaster. But despite many people believing that the pairs romance would only last a few months, they ultimately proved everyone wrong and maintained a loving relationship for three years.

RELATED: Scott Disick Is Making Same Relationship Mistakes With Sofia Richie As He Did With Kourtney Kardashian

However, in May 2020, sources confirmed that Disick and Richie had called it quits after the Keeping Up With the Kardashians stars short-lived stay at a Colorado rehab facility.

Though insiders claimed the couples relationship had ran its course, they also noted that other issues, including Disicks past traumas, contributed to the split.

Scott had gone back to his old ways, and Sofia got fed up, a source told Page Six. The insider also claimed Disicks close bond with ex Kourtney Kardashian may have been a factor in the breakup. Kourtney didnt make it easy for her, and you can only tolerate that kind of treatment for so long, the source added.

Scott Disick and Sofia Ricke broke up again after reconciling

After news broke of Disick and Richies split, insiders revealed that the reality star was spending quality time with Kardashian and their three kids in Utah.

Following their family vacation, rumors began to surface that Disick and Kardashian were rekindling their relationship after Us Weekly reported that the Flip It Like Disick star was still in love with the Poosh founder.

Scott is always going to be in love with Kourtney, and thats something Sofia has had to face since even before she got serious with him, a source told the outlet.

However, People reported that Disick and Kardashian were not back together, just incredibly close.

After doing their own things for two months, Richie and Disick reconciled, with media outlets reporting that they were hanging out again romantically. Its back on.

But following a brief reconciliation, sources confirmed that the couple had called it quits once again, citing their age difference as a factor in the breakup.

They have been off and on for two months, an insider told E! News on Aug. 19. Sofia really pushed to make things work between them after they initially broke up, but Scott officially called it off recently and they are no longer speaking.

The source added, Friends attributed their 15-year age difference becoming an issue. Hes in a very much different place in his life, really focused on a more quiet lifestyle, his kids and his investment businesses. And Sofia, at 21 years, really still trying to figure what she wants to do which drove them apart over time.

Where does Sofia Richies relationship with Kylie Jenner currently stand?

Now that Disick and Richie have broken up for good, the question of whether the model is still close with Kardashians half-sister, Kylie Jenner, remains.

Before Richie started dating the Lord, she was friends with the Kylie Cosmetics founder. Though they werent extremely close during the early days of their friendship, the two established an irreplaceable bond after Jenner cut ties with former BFF Jordyn Woods in February 2019.

From then on, Richie and Jenner were often spotted going on lavish vacations together, attending exclusive events, and even hanging out inside the makeup moguls massive Hidden Hills mansion.

RELATED: How Sofia Richie Is Helping Kylie Jenner Heal After Jordyn Woods Betrayal

Though a few people recently speculated that Jenner and Richie were no longer close, insiders claim the two are definitely still friends, despite the models recent relationship drama.

They have a lot of friends in common and theyve always had fun together, a source explained to E! News. Scott isnt going to stand in the way of their friendship. Kylie and Sofia have a long history and a bond. Whether or not Sofia is dating Scott, she will be friends with Kylie.
For years, companies have complained that they pay good money for online ads, only to see them end up near a racist post or an article promoting a conspiracy theory.

Now major advertisers like Clorox and Coca-Cola, along with a number of large advertising agencies, are pushing the Big Tech companies to give them more control over where and how their ads show up.

The effort follows the advertiser boycott of Facebook last month, when more than 1,000 companies stopped buying ads on the platform to protest its handling of hate speech and misinformation.

Ben Hovaness, an executive at Omnicom Media Group, a company that manages $38 billion (U.S.) in global marketing spending, said it was time for the tech giants to go by the rules that applied before digital platforms were dominant.

Advertisers buying TV ads, print ads, radio ads have for many decades had control over which programs or which pieces their ads appear next to or within, Hovaness said. Now that social advertising is a major portion of a lot of our clients budgets, having control over adjacency is just something that we see as essential as the ecosystem matures.

Omnicom Media Group, known as OMG, has demanded that Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies do more than make promises that ads will be kept away from inappropriate content. It wants the big digital platforms to put systems in place to make sure that online ads will appear where companies are comfortable, and it wants proof that the systems work.

Hovaness also said that the reports on ad placement and ad performance provided by the tech companies were insufficient and should be supplemented by independent quarterly audits.

Greater control of ad placement and the independent measurement of ad performance were included in a list of proposals submitted recently to tech companies by the Council on Accountable Social Advertising, a lobbying group formed by OMG, along with dozens of clients, including Clorox.

Facebook, Reddit, Snap, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube have agreed to most of the proposals in principle, and OMG is monitoring the platforms to see if they update their practices.

The OMG campaign comes during a summer when tech companies have fallen under new scrutiny. In a congressional hearing last month, lawmakers interrogated the leaders of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. Criticism has mounted over the proliferation of misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic and the coming election on various digital platforms.

The ad industry is adding its grievances to the mix. In addition to the OMG-led effort, a newly formed coalition of trade groups, ad firms and companies, the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media, is pushing back against planned changes from Apple and Google that are expected to disrupt how companies reach potential customers. IPG Mediabrands, an ad group, released an audit of nine tech companies last week.

But some industry watchdogs are skeptical of the efforts, especially at a time when companies spend more than half of their marketing budgets on digital platforms.

Its for optics, so they can appear to be doing something, said Augustine Fou, an independent ad fraud researcher. The only thing thats really going to have a long-term effect is when consumers or marketers revolt and actively stop using the platforms.

Tech executives have defended their dealings with advertisers and pledged to do better.

We fundamentally believe that our advertisers should have control over what content a user sees before and after their ad, said Andrew Abbott, who is Reddits liaison to OMG.

Facebook cited its work with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an advertising trade group created last year to address toxic online content, and said that it had spent billions of dollars to keep hatred off its platform.

Tara Walpert Levy, vice-president of agency and brand solutions for Google and YouTube, said: It is terrific to see Omnicom and others leaning in even further.

Does that mean there will be peace between the advertisers and the tech companies? Hovaness sounded optimistic. Sort of.

Now the really fun part starts, he said. The platforms are saying, philosophically, we agree with your construct of advertiser rights and remedies, and we think your clients are entitled to these features.

He added, We see this as a months-long effort. Getting these partners to agree in principle is a key but early step. The odds of these platforms first pass at solutions being perfect is pretty low. And thats fine.

Read more about:
Zareen Khan says people still assume Salman Khan helps her find work: "I cannot be a monkey on his back"
She is the doting mother of three children.

And Stacey Solomon shared a heart-warming snap of her brood, sons Zachary, 12, Leighton, eight, and 14-month-old Rex alongside beau Joe Swash, 38, to Instagram on Friday.

The Loose Women panellist, 30, declared that she 'love[d] these humans more than they will ever know' before they set off on their British weekend break to Butlins.

'I love these humans more than they will ever know': Stacey Solomon shared an adorable snap of Joe Swash and her sons on Friday before they headed on a staycation to Butlins

She posted a sweet picture of her three boys cuddled up together on the bedroom floor of her Essex home.

The picture perfect trio were decked out in stylish and coordinated beige clothing as they smiled for the picture taken by their mother.

Stacey and her partner Joe could be spotted in the corner of the image through the mirror's reflection, and her EastEnders beau pulled a cheeky face as he gatecrashed the photo.

Fab five: The Loose Women panellist, 30, has two sons, Zachary, 12, and Leighton, eight, from a previous relationship and 14-month old Rex who she shares with her partner Joe, 38

The Loose Women host thanked her Instagram followers for all their support during recent months and announced her 'heart-bursting' love for her family.

She captioned the image: 'I took this picture earlier and I dont know what it is but it just makes my heart burst.

'I cant believe we are all in it (even if me and Joe are pea heads in the corner)

'I love these humans more than they will ever know and I just feel so lucky to have them in my life and by my side.

'I cant wait for our weekend of adventures. I hope youre all ok. Ive been reading your messages on our journey and all I can say is thank you.

'Thank you for being so kind to us and always sending the loveliest wishes.

'It honestly is such an amazing feeling that I cant begin to describe. It means the world. We love you to the moon and back. From our family to yours... '

At the beginning of August, Stacey enjoyed a last-minute break to Devon with Joe and their child, Rex.

Picking pebbles: At the beginning of August, Stacey enjoyed a last-minute weekend break to Devon with her beau and their son Rex which she shared to her Instagram followers

This weekend, she intends on hosting another family break, but this time she will be joined by her eldest sons, Zachary and Leighton, who she has from a previous marriage.

She revealed on Instagram that they would be heading to Butlins for another UK-based break and Stacey spent all of her Friday morning packing the essentials and preparing an endless supply of snacks for their car ride.

The five musketeers arrived at the destination on Friday afternoon and unpacked as soon as they got to their rooms so that they could head out and make the most of their evening at the child-friendly resort.
Delivery Hero replaces disgraced Wirecard in German DAX index Delivery Hero, a German rival to Deliveroo and Uber Eats, has become a member of the blue-chip DAX index

Berlin-based food delivery company Delivery Hero has become the newest member of Germany's blue-chip DAX index after scandal-hit payments firm Wirecard was kicked out.

The move, announced late on Wednesday, came about after exchange operator Deutsche Boerse tweaked its rules in order to quickly expel insolvent companies.

Delivery Hero is worth around 20 billion euros ($23.7 billion), about three times its value when it debuted on the German stock market in June 2017.

Delivery Hero is a somewhat surprising entry into the elite index because, despite trading in more than 40 countries, it has no sales in Germany -- unprecedented for a DAX company -- even though it was founded in Berlin in 2011.

"Entering the DAX is an acknowledgement that the capital market believes in our platform", said chief executive, Niklas Ostberg.

The company's first day of trading on the DAX 30 will be August 24.

Delivery Hero originally specialised as an online intermediary between customers and restaurants. It later set up its own delivery fleets, expanding its services to include groceries, pharmaceuticals and even flowers.

Questions remain over the viability of its business model as the company has never made an operating profit.

It has also attracted criticism as a face of the "gig economy" in that it classifies many of those that work for it, such as delivery drivers, as independent contractors and not employees.

- Competitive field -

It also must survive in a crowded field that includes Deliveroo and Uber Eats.

Delivery Hero has acquired a number of operations in other countries, most recently South Korean competitor Woowa in 2019 for $4 billion, and plans to launch in Japan under the Foodpanda brand in the third quarter.

It lost its German operations when it sold Foodora, Lieferheld and Pizza.de to Dutch rival Takeaway in 2018 for close to one billion euros.

The company has raised its full-year revenue expectations for this year to $2.6-2.8 billion.

Story continues

In the second quarter of 2020, at the height of the coronavirus lockdowns, Delivery Hero reported an order growth of 95 percent year-on-year and delivered 100 million orders in one month.

At the current pace, it will deliver one billion orders in 2020, it said.

As the risk of a second COVID-19 wave and further lockdowns increases, Delivery Hero could become even more attractive to investors and hungry customers.

"The shares will continue to benefit from the long-term trend for people to stay at home more" to eat their meals, said Christoph Stanger, head of Equity Markets Europe at Goldman Sachs.

German payments firm Wirecard suffered a spectacular fall from grace after it was forced to admit to a 1.9-billion-euro hole in its accounts.

Its share price has fallen 99 percent in the year to date and its former chief executive has been arrested on fraud charges.

edf/mfp/spm
By Express News Service

Last week, on the occasion of 74th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised all the music composers who were part of the new version of Vande Mataram released by the Music Composers Association of India (MCAI). He also tweeted the video of the song which has been put together by 100 leading music composers across India at a time when the nation is battling with rising cases of Covid-19 pandemic.

While the new version of the iconic song conceived and composed by Aashish Rego is trending on YouTube, it is also a moment of pride for Malayali composer Justin Yesudas (of Justin and Uday duo) who was one among the 100 composers involved in its making. It was a fantastic experience to be a part of this team of musicians. The kind of unity we have tried to exhibit during such a tough time makes it unique, said Justin.

He also thanked the support of other composers from Kerala including Rex Vijayan, Gopi Sunder and M Jayachandran. The music video features acclaimed and popular musicians of the country like Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan, Kailash Kher, Adnan Sami, Daler Mehndi, Bappi Lahiri, Ram Sampat and Amit Trivedi among others.

The video ends on a good note of creating a new self-reliant India or Atmanirbhar Bharat together.The songs message coupled with the occasion of Independence Day makes its an inspiration. We realised the power of music to convey a very important message of building a new self-reliant India, said Aashish Rego.
Rajeev Ravisankar, a University of Oregon GE as well as VP for external relations at GTFF, speaks on the stairs of Johnson Hall. Following the vote to authorize a strike, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation holds a rally to demand a fair contract at Johnson Hall on Oct. 18, 2019. (Marissa Willke/Emerald)
Under pressure on the last day of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden hit a home run with an enormously effective speech that blew a big hole in Donald Trumps efforts to paint him as a mentally faltering captive of his partys left wing.

And that was to hear Fox News hosts Dana Perino and Chris Wallace tell it.

Related: Biden gives the acceptance speech he's been waiting decades to deliver

It was a very good speech, added Karl Rove, a Republican strategist respected and reviled on either side of the aisle.

Democratic hopes were riding high that when Biden rose to accept the presidential nomination on Thursday night, he might deliver the kind of speech to get voters nodding their heads instead of nodding off, and cable pundits talking about momentum.

Broadcast to tens of millions, Bidens speech marked the first truly national moment of the 2020 campaign, with the formal conclusion of the Democratic primary on one hand, and the first clear picture of the presidential showdown  Biden v Trump, Uncle Joe v Maga Don  on the other.

At a minimum, Democrats hoped, Biden would avoid the kind of verbal slips the Trump campaign has been using eagerly, if ironically given their own candidates cha-chas with incoherence, to attack him.

But when Biden was done speaking on Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, with one arm around Dr Jill Biden, fireworks in the background and his smile as wide as the country, Democrats were not alone in realizing that their nominee had not only connected  he had nailed it.

I went in there with expectations of adequate, and he knocked it out of the park, said longtime Republican strategist Mike Murphy, a harsh Trump critic, on an overnight podcast Hacks on Tap. It was so authentic to who Biden is, and  it caught the mood of the country, which is unity, steady, competence, We can rise above this.

I thought Biden had the moment of his life, and he ought to feel really good about that.

Trump sought to steal Bidens big moment with campaign stops outside Bidens home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, that afternoon. After a speech at an airstrip the president visited a pizza parlor, where he was filmed hoisting a pie, without a face mask, as staff members, all wearing masks, snapped photos and waved excitedly.

Story continues

They supposedly have the best pizza, Trump told reporters. Well let you know in about a half-hour.

Donald Trump supporters await his arrival in Scranton, Joe Bidens home town. Photograph: Chris Tuite/Rex/Shutterstock

Alert on Friday morning to a need to nip Bidens moment in the bud, the Trump campaign deployed Vice-President Mike Pence on five morning shows, where he argued that Biden, a known quantity in Washington for 50 years, was a lurking socialist.

Its a choice between President Trumps record and agenda of freedom and opportunity, versus a Democrat agenda driven by the radical left and Joe Bidens vision that will result in socialism and decline for America, Pence told Fox News.

In reply to criticism by Biden of Trumps handling of the coronavirus, Pence demonstrated the extraordinary ability of the two parties to talk past one another.

The president keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear, Biden said in his speech. He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him, no miracle is coming.

Pence told CNN: We think there is a miracle around the corner.

The biggest near-term opportunity for Trump and Republicans to draw a contrast with Biden will be through their own convention, which is scheduled to begin on Monday with more in-person, physical elements than the all-virtual Democratic event.

Controversially, Trump plans to accept the nomination on the grounds of the White House on Thursday, in apparent violation of laws requiring that political campaigning be kept separate from the conduct of office.

The president and vice-president are exempt from the law, but broad party participation in such a major campaign event is inevitable. Trump has invited most Republican lawmakers (though not Senator Mitt Romney, who voted for his impeachment and removal from office) to the White House lawn to watch his speech. The campaign plans to set off fireworks on the National Mall.

Unlike Democrats, Republicans also plan to convene delegates in-person in Charlotte, North Carolina. Trump had unconfirmed plans to visit the 336 delegates on Monday, although the Democratic governor of the state has led an effort to ensure that Republicans abide by public health guidelines.

We were not going to let the governors partisan politics come between us and our commitment to North Carolina, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee  and Romneys niece  told the New York Times.

That commitment had wavered. Trump announced earlier this summer that the convention would be moved to Florida, where a Republican governor had proposed no coronavirus restrictions. A large Covid-19 outbreak in that state returned the event to Charlotte.

Related: Fox host blames deep state for Bannon arrest  Bannon says that's for 'nut cases'

With the force of his speech on Thursday night, Biden, 77, was seen as implicitly rebutting Trumps accusation that he had lost a step. But Bidens rebuttal of Trumps other attack  that the former vice-president and six-term senator is a Trojan horse for the terrors of socialism  was explicit.

While I will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president, Biden said. I will work as hard for those who didnt support me as I will for those who did. Thats the job of a president. To represent all of us, not just our base or our party.

Biden appeared to have won some converts. Joe wows critics, the Drudge Report, usually a clearinghouse for the most astringent conservative messaging, exclaimed on Friday morning.

Its banner headline? Biden Barn Burner.
Following Angelina Jolie's request to disqualify the judge in her and Brad Pitt's child custody trial, the "Ad Astra" actor is gearing to retaliate. According to a source, "Brad says Angelina has gone way too far this time. He's left with no other option but to dig in and fight back -- hard," reported Us Weekly.

Court documents filed on August 10 indicate that the "Salt" actress stated that Judge John Ouderkirk was not able to disclose that he has a working relationship with one of Brad's lawyers.

The former married couple's legal battle has not witnessed signs that indicate that it is reaching its conclusion.

Brangelina

The Hollywood A-listers' professional and personal lives have consistently been in the news lately.

The pair was fondly labeled "Brangelina" since they fell in love on the set of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" in 2004 and got married in 2014.

Their two-year marriage reached its boiling point in September 2016 during an argument on a private jet. They share six children -- Maddox, 19, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and 12-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.

A 180-Turn from Recent Reports of Making Up

Despite the latest reports suggesting that Brangelina had been working out their co-parenting relationship, the source asserted that Pitt is ready to fight for the custody of their children.

Brad Pitt's lawyers pointed out that the aforementioned judge indeed had a "well-documented history" with him and Angelina Jolie, rendering Jolie's argument in the court battle inconsequential.

Also Read: Brad Pitt Reunited With Angelina Jolie? Actor Seen in Ex-Wife's House for the 2nd Time in 2 Weeks

The latest turn of events hints at a long-winding custody battle between the pair just when the "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" actor's recent visits to his former wife's home were sending positive signals to their fans.

The 56-year-old's legal team also affirmed that the judge had presided over the former power couple's wedding in August 2014.

There were signals previously that the court battle was going in a favorable direction and that there is a probable cordial outcome.

Pitt's lawyer claimed that the delay will hurt the children in response to Jolie's request. According to the court documents, "Jolie's abrupt cry of judicial bias reeks of bad faith and desperation, not to mention careless disregard for the procedural rules intended to root out legitimately conflicted judicial officers," reported Bulletin Mail.

According to Jolie, she attempted to remove the judge from her divorce case because he has "failed to disclose the cases that demonstrated the current, ongoing, repeat-customer relationship between the judge and Respondent's counsel," reported International Business Times.

Pitt's attorneys responded, "The individuals hurt most by Jolie's transparently tactical gambit are the parties' own children, who continue to be deprived of a final resolution to these custody issues."

Angelina believes that the judge is too close to Brad Pitt that may hinder him from deliberating an unbiased decision in the court battle.

Related Article: Brad Pitt Matches Jennifer Aniston's $1M Donation to Anti-Racism Charity

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A 25-year-old student who allegedly molested his co-tenants 11-year-old son at Teshie has been put before an Accra circuit court charged with defilement.



Samuel Offei Kwaku Gyan, in the company of his lawyer denied the offence.

Gyan has been admitted to bail in the sum of GH60,000 with three sureties, one of whom must be a public servant earning not less than GH2, 000.



The court presided over by Mrs Christina Cann ordered Gyan to stay 100 metres away from the 11-year-old victim.



Prosecution was also ordered to file its witness statements and all documents they intended to rely on for the trial of the accused.



The case has been adjourned to September 16 for Case Management Conference (CMC)



Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Agnes Boafo said the complainant is Sierra Leonean and mother of the victim and they both resided at Teshie.



DSP Boafo said Gyan was a co-tenant to the complainant and that on August 8, this year, while the complainant was at work, her son went to Gyans room to play television game but later fell asleep in a couch there.

The prosecution said Gyan took advantage of that and had sexual intercourse with the boy through his anus and warned him not to tell anyone.

She said on August 9, this year, the victim visited Gyan again and he repeated the act.



She said the victim, not happy with the situation, informed her mother and the mother reported the matter to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service at Nungua.



The prosecution said the complainant was given a police medical report form to seek treatment at the hospital and report back.



The prosecution said Gyan was later arrested by the police.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The BBC has been forced to hastily re-edit a documentary into VIP abuse fantasist Nick after victims complained Tom Watsons role was airbrushed out.

An original cut of the hour-long programme, which will be broadcast on Monday, failed to mention the former Labour deputy leader.

Yet Mr Watsons claims to Parliament of a Westminster paedophile ring are credited with whipping up the hysteria that allowed Nick  real name Carl Beech  to be believed.

An original cut of the hour-long programme, which will be broadcast on Monday, failed to mention the former Labour deputy leader, pictured above

Beech, a 50-year-old paedophile, accused innocent Establishment figures of child rape and murder, leading to police raids on the homes of former armed forces chief Lord Bramall, former home secretary Leon Brittan and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor.

He was jailed for 18 years last summer for perverting the course of justice and other offences.

Shortly before he made his claims to Scotland Yard in 2014, sparking its disastrous Operation Midland investigation, he met Mr Watson in his Westminster office. The following year Mr Watson had a meeting with a Met detective to discuss Beechs allegations.

Beechs Newcastle Crown Court trial heard that he described Mr Watson, alongside journalist Mark Conrad of disgraced website Exaro, as being part of a little group that supported him.

The documentary has also been criticised for providing a platform for Mr Conrad, who talks of the deep impact the case had on him.

Angry victims said his articles for Exaro and failure to scrutinise Beechs wild allegations enabled him to peddle his lies.

Last night, Mr Proctor, falsely accused by Beech of being a serial child killer, said: Not including Tom Watson is like writing Hamlet without Hamlet. Tom Watson set the hare running when he put his question to Parliament about the existence of a VIP paedophile ring.

Beech, a 50-year-old paedophile, accused innocent Establishment figures of child rape and murder, leading to police raids on the homes of former armed forces chief Lord Bramall, former home secretary Leon Brittan and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor

Tom Watson is central to this. He invited Beech to the House of Commons. Daniel Janner QC, whose father, the late Labour peer Lord Janner was also falsely accused by Beech, was interviewed for the documentary  The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech  but was left out.

He said: All of this was spearheaded by Tom Watson. I find it totally unacceptable and startling that his role should be airbrushed because it was as a result of him whipping up the hysteria that led to people like Carl Beech being believed by the police.

A BBC source suggested Mr Watson, who is now chairman of UK Music, had declined to take part in the documentary.

But it is understood that the former MP will now be mentioned in the final version, which will be broadcast on BBC2 at 9pm.

A BBC spokesman said last night: This film examines how Carl Beech constructed his lies, and contains important new information on the impact and suffering his actions brought to his victims and their families.

Mr Watson could not be reached for comment.

Mr Conrad did not respond to a request for comment.
On the Democratic National Conventions second night, Joe Bidens wife, Jill, took America inside her longtime marriage to the presidential nominee.

These things usually strike me as schmaltzy and inauthentic  pre-packaged montages about political leaders and their families, their personal trials and triumphs, their normal lives, old photos of first starting out.

But as much as we know Joe  indeed, hes been in public office on and off for the past 50 years  we saw more of the Bidens than ever before. The life they rebuilt after the tragic deaths of Joes first wife and daughter, their support of one another through decades of failure and successes, the agonizing loss of another child, their commitment to giving back. And whatever you think of Bidens politics, the bottom line is clear: Theyre good people.

That might not always be a leading priority in presidential politics. Being a fundamentally good person wasnt enough to keep Jimmy Carter in the White House. Being a fundamentally bad person wasnt enough to stop Richard Nixon from winning the White House. Americas warmed to George W. Bushs goodness since leaving office. And it seems to have accepted Bill Clintons patent awfulness. Voters compartmentalize.

But this year, it feels like merely being a good person takes on more weight. After four years of a corrupt, unethical, narcissistic, racist, sexist, bullying, shaming, vengeful, spiteful, greedy, needy, lying jerk in the White House, goodness has been gone for too long.

And, ultimately, Bidens goodness is why hes getting my vote.

Our policies dont always align. As a conservative, theres much I disagree with. But we need to make America good again, and I know that Joe Biden wants that, too.

If that sounds unserious or vague, consider that Trumps lack of goodness has mattered in nearly every respect. With his ego his only moral compass, it has led America down some very dark paths  from impeachment to an out-of-control pandemic that we cant crawl out of.

Trumps lack of goodness is evidenced in his knee-capping and silencing of his critics, including in the media. Its in his sexist attacks on women. Its in his shameful smears against his own public servants, military heroes and American leaders  even dead ones.

Trumps disregard for goodness has seeped into the fabric of the nation, as he has encouraged Americans to turn against Americans, to blame our neighbors for our lots, to hate the media, the establishment, the left, the right, immigrants, foreigners, the NFL, the FBI and anyone else who makes a useful target for him.

It has led to corruption at nearly every level of government, in nearly every branch of government. It is currently leading to attempts at voter suppression and could result in elections that are neither fair nor free.

The fact that Trump is a terrible person with no sense of whats right and whats wrong has tainted his entire presidency and everything hes done during it.

We need to be good again. We need a president who will respect the rules of basic common decency, as well as the rule of law, the Constitution and the separation of powers. We need a president who, even when hes pushing policies half the country doesnt support, wont demonize his opponents as enemies of the people.

We need a president who believes deeply in democracy and the institutions it values  someone who will work within the confines of the democratic system instead of trying to weaken it for his advantage.

We need a president who when he is against the wall wont berate his opponents with sexist, racist, incendiary invective  who will take his inevitable lumps like an adult and get back to work for us.

We need a president who believes America is already great not because it looks like him but because it doesnt, and who will celebrate and honor the hardworking people who came here to find a better life.

We need a president who thinks kids belong in classrooms, not cages, who thinks our men and women in uniform deserve better than to be used as props, who thinks our allies are our great advantage and that our enemies deserve our scorn, not admiration.

Goodness matters more than ever before. It is an urgent agenda. I know I wont agree with everything Joe Biden does, and Im OK with that. Because no matter what he does, I know his fundamental goodness will guide him  and the country  down a better path.

S.E. Cupp is the host of S.E. Cupp Unfiltered on CNN.

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Five months after the UK government warned against travel to Portugal, holidaymakers are once again able to travel there  and not have to quarantine on their return.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, revealed the change in government policy in a tweet: Data also shows we can now add Portugal to those countries INCLUDED in Travel Corridors.

It means that travel firms can once again sell holidays to the Algarve, Lisbon, Madeira and the Azores.

But Mr Shapps warned: As with all air bridge countries, please be aware that things can change quickly.

Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required (I speak from experience!).

The transport secretary spent two weeks in quarantine after it was suddenly reimposed on Spain on 26 July.

The decision takes effect from 4am on Saturday 22 August, meaning that passengers from Portugal touching down in UK airports from that time onwards will be exempt from quarantine.

But those who have already landed are expected to complete 14 days in self-isolation.

The Foreign Office has also updated its advice.

It said: "Portugal is now exempt from the FCO advice against all non-essential international travel; from 4am on 22 August, Portugal will be added to the list of countries where self-isolation on return to the UK is not required."

Mandatory quarantine was imposed on Portugal, and every other country in the world apart from Ireland, on 8 June.

On 10 July the government announced that dozens of countries and territories would be exempt from quarantine  but controversially Portugal was not included.

The country has lobbied intensively to be awarded no-quarantine status.

Luis Araujo, president of Turismo de Portugal, said: "We are now delighted to have arrived at a decision which we feel far better reflects the reality of the situation in Portugal.

Portugal has been welcoming guests from the United Kingdom since the beginning of July, therefore this is not the case of a country just opening its doors after battling the worst of the pandemic, but the case of a destination which has been operating with the capacity for international visitors for some time now following effective early action in the battle against the virus.

While this has been a period which nobody will ever forget, a period of time which has left behind a trail of destruction, sorrow, and pain  we are so thankful to be able to open our arms, even wider than before, to the people of the United Kingdom.

Within minutes of the transport secretarys announcement, air fares to the Algarve started to soar.

Fares from Manchester to Faro tracked by The Independent showed the Saturday morning easyJet flight almost doubled in price within half an hour, from 50 to 98, as holidaymakers sought short-notice escapes.
A 43-year-old man has been charged with offences including harassment and threats to kill after alleged malicious comments were made on social media against Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann.

The man will appear at Newtownards Magistrates' Court on Thursday September 17.

The charges follows the arrest of the man in the Newtownards area on Thursday afternoon in relation to malicious comments made on social media the previous day.

Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken condemned the alleged threats.

"The torrent of abuse and lies which Robin has had to put with from some anonymous trolls and others who should know better has been abhorrent."

He called on social media platforms to take responsibility for the threats by banning anonymous trolling online.

"If the social media giants aren't prepared to act voluntarily, then Government needs to intervene," he said.

"He took on a job which no-one else wanted and he has committed long days and nights making difficult decisions, working with his colleagues in the Department of Health and the NHS, to protect the public during a global pandemic, the likes of which we haven't faced in 100 years," he added.

"He has been verbally attacked, threats of physical violence made against him and his family, and attempts made to undermine his good character.

I commend the PSNI who have acted swiftly to make an arrest," he said.
New moderate income housing program could be on the way to Long Beach
By Lee Hyo-jin







A lack of capacity in immigration detention centers here has raised concerns over possible mass COVID-19 infections, according to migrants' rights group Friends of Asia (FOA), Friday.







Unregistered foreigners facing deportation are temporarily held in one of three detention centers  Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province; Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province; and Yeosu, South Jeolla Province.



The immigration detention center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. / Yonhap





"Mass virus infections can occur anytime in the facility through new detainees or officials carrying the virus from outside," FOA head Kim Dae-kwon told The Korea Times.







The number of detainees keeps increasing as they cannot return to their home countries due to limited air travel amid the pandemic, Kim said.







According to the Korea Immigration Service, as of Aug. 13, 760 foreigners were in the facilities. The number stood at 300 in March.







About 406 detainees have been staying at the Hwaseong center, up from 345 in June. As of Aug. 13, the number of detainees in Cheongju was 200, compared with 183 in June.







In May, the authorities announced a temporary suspension of crackdowns on undocumented foreigners in a bid to contain the virus, but the plan appears to have changed.







In July, a special investigative team at the Seoul Immigration office apprehended 166 unregistered foreigners working at delivery service agencies. Many were transferred to detention facilities.







Migrants' activists said the authorities should take measures to ensure the detainees' human rights and protect their health.







"The detainees are under huge stress as more than 10 adults are being held per 66 square-meter room," Kim said. "The Ministry of Justice should come up with appropriate measures rather than cracking down on undocumented foreigners and transferring them to detainment centers.







"They need proper medical facilities. In the long term, fundamental measures such as enhanced labor laws should be established."


Tehran routinely unveils technological achievements for its armed forces, space programme, and its nuclear efforts. Iran displayed locally made ballistic and cruise missiles - a move certain to anger the United States as it prepares to demand that all UN sanctions be reimposed on the country, Al Jazeera writes in the article Iran shows off new ballistic, cruise missiles as US tensions rise. State-run TV said officials unveiled the two new missiles on Thursday - National Defence Industry Day in Iran.

They are named after top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed outside Baghdad's international airport in a US strike in January. Defence Minister Amir Hatami said the ballistic missile had a range of 1,400km (600 miles) and the new cruise missile had 1,000km (400 miles), ignoring US demands that Tehran halt its missile programme. Images of the missiles were shown on state-run TV, which it said was "the newest Iranian cruise missile that will further strengthen Iran's deterrence power". "Missiles and particularly cruise missiles are very important for us... The fact that we have increased the range from 300km to 1,000km in less than two years is a great achievement," said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. "Our military might and missile programmes are defensive." Also on Thursday, Iran unveiled a fourth-generation light turbo-fan engine for its advanced drones. Iran also inaugurated the production line of its domestically produced Owj engine for the Iranian-made twin-seat Kowsar fighter jet. Iran routinely unveils technological achievements for its armed forces, its space programme, and its nuclear efforts.

Snapback sanctions

The announcement comes as Washington is pushing to extend a UN-imposed arms embargo against Iran, which is due to expire in October under Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Tensions have been high between Tehran and Washington since 2018, when President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran. Washington says its aim is to force Tehran to agree to a broader deal that puts stricter limits on its nuclear work, curbs its ballistic missile programme and ends its regional proxy wars. Iran has rejected talks as long as US sanctions remain in place. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday Trump has directed him to trigger a "snapback" - a return of all sanctions on Iran - at the UN Security Council in New York on Thursday, after the council rejected Washington's bid to extend Tehran's arms embargo. Pompeo warned Russia and China not to disregard the reimposition of all UN sanctions on Iran. Pompeo will meet with Indonesia's UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani - council president for August - to submit a complaint about Iran's non-compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, even though Washington quit the accord in 2018.

'Held accountable'

The nuclear deal between Iran, Russia, China, Germany, Britain, France and the US aimed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. That accord is enshrined in a 2015 Security Council resolution. Russia, China and other countries are likely to simply ignore it and not reimpose the sanctions on Iran.

When asked if the US would target Russia and China with sanctions if they refuse to reimpose the UN measures on Iran, Pompeo told Fox News on Wednesday: "Absolutely." "We have already done that where we have seen any country violate ... the current American sanctions, we've held every nation accountable for that. We'll do the same thing with respect to the broader UN Security Council sanctions as well," he said. Russia described statements by the US on reimposing UN sanctions against Iran as "absurd", adding Washington has no legal or political grounds to do so, the RIA news agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday. Ryabkov added that such a step would result in crisis at the UN Security Council, the Interfax news agency cited him as saying. Diplomats say the so-called sanctions snapback process will be messy as Russia, China and other countries question the legality of the US move given that Washington itself is no longer complying with what Trump called the "worst deal ever".

Pompeo said it was unfortunate that European members of the council abstained on the US attempt to extend the arms embargo and the move "makes the European people less safe". "They just are wedded to this crazy nuclear deal, they're trying to hang on to it," he said. Once Pompeo submits the complaint about Iran to the Security Council, the body has 30 days to adopt a resolution to extend sanctions relief for Tehran, or else the measures will automatically snap back. Any attempt to extend the sanctions relief would be vetoed by the US.
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Over the past few years, Vietnam has proven to be a rising star, being not only an attractive investment destination but also an active partner in international treaties.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment's statistics highlighted 2019's total inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) (including newly registered capital, additional capital to existing projects, and share purchases) amounted to nearly $38.02 billion, representing an on-year growth of 7.2 per cent. In the first seven months of 2020, amid the pandemic, a total sum of $18.82 billion was poured into over 2,000 projects in Vietnam.

Throughout the years, with the increase in total investment value, the role of FDI and foreign indirect investment (FII) to Vietnams socio-economic development are also strengthened. The investment has driven economic growth and restructuring, stimulating trade activities, as well as introducing and transferring new technologies, labour, and management skills.

To make Vietnam even more attractive to foreign investors, the Vietnamese government has been improving its legal framework and regulations. Circular No.06/2019/TT-NHNNissued on June 26, 2019 ushered significant regulation and guideline in governing the foreign exchange of foreign investment activities in Vietnam. In particular, any transaction related to direct or indirect investment transaction by a foreign investor must be implemented by an investment capital account opened by a licensed bank which is permitted to trade and supply foreign exchange.

As one of the largest local banks in Vietnam, VietinBank pioneers in supporting foreign investors from various industries. With the motto of being the strong partner to support foreign investors business in Vietnam, the bank has broadened its nationwide network, deepened its understanding of regulations, strengthened its relationship with the local authorities and businesses, which in turn will massively benefit foreign investors during their business journey in Vietnam. By the end of July 2020, VietinBank was proud to be the trusted partner of over 3,000 foreign investors.

VietinBank is amongst the licensed banks that provides the investment capital account service for international investors

Quickly adjusting to the new regulations, VietinBank provides a full package of services for international investors. Apart from investment account services (including but not limited to direct investment account, indirect investment account, escrow account), the package also includes other services such as deal structure advisory, domestic and international remittance, FX SPOT and structered FX services at competitive fee and rate.

Under the mission of becoming The Local Bank for International Businesses, VietinBank is committed to becoming foreign investors trusted companion throughout every step of their journey in Vietnam, and bringing them satisfaction by providing the most professional banking experiences.

Should you have any queries, please do contact VietinBank via email: fdi@vietinbank.vn for further assistance.
The Google Pixel 5 has just surfaced in several renders. This leak comes from @OnLeaks and Pricebaba, and it is CAD-based, by the way. These renders give us a really good look at Googles upcoming phone.

The design can be checked out via images (gallery below the article), or a video which is embedded below the article. These renders leave very little to the imagination.

The Google Pixel 5 renders appear showing a familiar design

The Google Pixel 5 resembles the Pixel 4a quite a bit, as you can see. It has really thin bezels, with its bottom bezel being a hair thinner than the rest. A display camera hole is also here, and its placed in the top-left corner of the phones display.

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The phone seems to offer a flat display, just like the Pixel 4a. On the back, youll be able to find a capacitive fingerprint scanner, along with Googles branding.

The phones rear camera module is placed in the top-left corner, and it contains two camera sensors. An LED flash is also included in that camera module, by the way.

The source reports that the phones display will measure between 5.7 and 5.8 inches. That is kind of surprising considering that pretty much every rumor claimed were looking at a larger display.

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The Google Pixel 5 is the only rumored Pixel 5 devices at this point, so a larger display was expected. If this handset ends up sporting a 5.7-5.8-inch panel, a Pixel 5 XL may launch after all.

The phone will be smaller than expected

The source also notes that the phone will measure approximately 144.7 x 70.4 x 8.1mm (8.5mm with camera bump). The power / lock button is placed on the right, along with the volume up and down buttons.

Youll notice separate speaker grills on the bottom, along with a Type-C USB port. A noise-canceling microphone can be found at the top of the device.

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Whats odd here is that it seems like this phone comes with a plastic back. That is, at least, what it looks like on these renders. It may not be, though, well have to wait and see.

The Google Pixel 5 is rumored to arrive in September, and it will be fueled by the Snapdragon 765G SoC, it seems. Google gave up on the Snapdragon 865 (Plus), based on pretty much every piece of information that surfaced in the last couple of months.

More than one RAM and storage option may be available, while the phone will include an OLED display. That display will offer 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate, and were still not sure about its resolution.
(Natural News) Households in Singapore respond to ambient air pollution by increasing energy consumption, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

Researchers who conducted the 2020 study found that increased electricity demand also increases the carbon emissions co-produced when supplying power to these homes.

According to Alberto Salvo, an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the National University of Singapore (NUS) who conducted the study, making changes to improve air quality will result in climate co-benefits such as reducing electricity generation by also lowering household demand. In turn, this can help reduce carbon emissions.

Salvo explained that a lot of energy consumers live in bustling cities in developing Asian nations like Singapore. But unless major technological or regulatory shifts are enforced, energy supply will probably remain carbon-intensive for the years to come. (Related: Greener and cleaner: Can green roofs planted with vegetation minimize indoor air pollution?)

He also added that finding out what increases energy demand throughout the socioeconomic distribution of Singaporean households will help researchers find ways to address the future energy demand of urban populations in the regions cities as incomes rise. This information can also help policymakers when forecasting and influencing future emissions paths.

Household energy demands effect on air pollution

For the study, researchers analyzed the utility meter readings of 130,000 households, gathered via a 1-in-10 random sample of all households in Singapore, from 2012 to 2015.

Each households energy consumption was tracked over time and compared with concurrent PM2.5 measurements or fine particles that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter from the air-monitoring network, considered the standard for measuring air pollution.

The study results revealed that overall electricity demand increased by 1.1 percent when PM2.5 also went up by 10 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) because:

Homeowners stayed indoors due to increased air pollution. The presence of PM2.5 pollution meant homeowners closed windows and used air conditioners and air purifiers more to reduce indoor particle levels or cool off because of indoor heat.

Households exposed to air pollution dont just increase their electricity consumption, they also consumed more natural gas.

According to a separate 2018 study also conducted by Salvo, households consumed more water from the grid after being exposed to air pollution. Even though people from different socioeconomic groups used water and electricity in different ways to cool down in hot weather, the study showed that water provides heat relief for lower-income households.

At the same time, higher-income households consumed more electricity through the use of air conditioning when the weather was hot.

For the 2018 study, the researchers conducted a 300-person survey to complement the observational evidence. The survey helped determine the heat relief behaviors of homeowners in Singapore.

The results revealed that 39 percent of respondents took longer showers more often on a very hot day. Meanwhile, 36 percent of the respondents would turn on air conditioners. The survey also showed that taking more showers, washing ones face more often and washing clothes were some of the most common water-based cooling behaviors practiced by households in Singapore.

Air pollution as a product of fossil fuel use

For the 2020 study, scientists noted that air pollution drives electricity demand and that it is a product of fossil-fuel-based electricity generation. To separate cause from effect, the research team used periodical land burning across Southeast Asia that result in a transboundary haze as a study instrument.

After examining data from the survey respondents, the researchers also discovered that PM2.5 had a larger percentage impact on electricity demand like factors such as household income and air conditioning access increase. Based on the study data, when PM2.5 increased by 10 ug/m3, electricity consumption among people who lived in condominiums went up by 1.5 percent, unlike the 0.75 percent increase in those who lived in one- to two-room apartments.

This income differential was attributed to PM2.5 inducing higher-income households who often used air conditioners and air purifiers when staying at home. This 1.5 percent increase in electricity consumption is equivalent to running an air conditioning unit for 10 more hours every month.

During the study period, only 14 percent of one- and two-room apartments in Singapore had air-conditioning, compared with 99 percent of condominium apartments.

Scientists also reviewed product catalogs on air conditioners to complement the observational evidence from utility meters. According to the catalog review, air conditioner manufacturers often promote indoor air quality as an additional product attribute to cooling.

The results of a 311-person survey on home energy behavior revealed that in the presence of haze pollution, more homeowners sleep with closed windows. Singaporean homeowners also dined out less and increased their use of the air conditioners and air purifiers because of haze pollution, which is an air-borne mixture of pollutants like soot particles, carbon dioxide and other toxic gases.

Haze pollution regularly affects some Southeast Asian countries, particularly Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The condition is caused by the burning of large tracts of forested land in Indonesia. Haze pollution occurs during the southwest monsoon season between June and September, and it becomes more severe in dry weather.

Air quality and homeowner utilities

At least 40 percent of the developing worlds population lives in the tropics, where PM2.5 pollution ranges between 20 and 200 ug/m3.

But only eight percent of the three billion people who live in the tropics currently have air conditioners, unlike 76 percent of homeowners in Singapore.

According to Salvo, the study showed how households care about air quality and that people will often spend more on utilities and increase the use of air conditioners. Measures that promote cleaner urban air can help reduce energy demand as households consume less energy, which in turn helps lower carbon emissions.

Improving air quality will also benefit lower-income households who cant always afford utilities like air conditioning and air purifiers. The stark difference in defensive behavior can also widen the gap in health inequalities, particularly for homeowners in developing countries.

Salvo hopes that the study findings can be used to improve the longer-term forecasting of energy demand to help developing Asian countries face obstacles such as constant exposure to air pollution.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com 1

ScienceDaily.com 2

EResources.nlb.gov.sg
Mario Balotelli has had five new tattoos inked amid his search for a new club this summer.

The maverick Italian has treated himself after a miserable 12-months at his hometown club Brescia, having been frozen-out after clashing behind the scenes, having been relegated to Serie B.

Balotelli showed off his new body art on Instagram, posting close-ups with five emoji's symbolising each one.

Mario Balotelli has shown off new tattoos on his Instagram, including the words 'black power'

The maverick striker added a series of emoji's to his post to symbolise each of his new tattoos

The striker has endured a miserable 12-months at his hometown team Brescia and is clubless

The striker has added the words 'black power' above the his eye, a cross symbolising his Christianity, an eagle's feather on the left side of his face plus a gorilla's head and the letter 'm' on the 30-year-old's neck.

Balotelli already has a large number of tattoos, including a quote from Mongol warlord Genghis Khan on his chest.

The former Manchester City, Liverpool and AC Milan star has been linked with Galatasaray, Romanian side Cluj and Serie C side Como after seeing his career spiral.

Balotelli is linked with a move to Romanian side Cluj and Serie C club Como this summer

The striker was refused entry to Brescia's training ground in June after a fall-out at the club

The centre-forward played for three clubs in 2019, leaving Nice for Marseille only to make 15 appearances before signing for Brescia in August.

Balotelli scored just five goals in 19 games for the Italian side, hardly benefitting their push to avoid relegation with various training ground fall-outs, eventually being refused entry to the club's grounds in June.
Monster munch: Ancient marine reptile died after dining on fellow titan An ichthyosaur specimen with its stomach contents visible as a block that extrudes from its body is displayed near the entrance of the Xingyi Geopark Museum in Wusha District, Xingyi City, Guizhou Province, China

More than 230 million years ago, a giant, dolphin-like marine reptile known as an ichthyosaur devoured its final meal -- a creature almost its own size -- then died a short time later.

Inside its belly was the body of a lizard-like aquatic reptile called a thalattosaur, shorn of its head and long tail but undigested.

Paleontologists digging in a quarry in southwestern China were surprised to discover the remains in 2010: it's almost unheard of to find the stomach contents of marine fossils.

A decade on, in a paper published in iScience Thursday, researchers concluded that rather than feeding on much smaller cephalopods like squid, the five-meter (16-foot) long ichthyosaur was probably a megapredator.

What's more, this particular specimen might have died while ingesting its prey, literally biting off more than it could chew.

"The most likely cause of death is the neck breakage, which likely prevented the predator from breathing," co-author Ryosuke Motani, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Davis told AFP.

The ichthyosaur may have sustained injuries while fighting the thalattosaur, he added, or while trying to swallow it -- or both.

But, Motani cautioned: "The interpretation of the death process involves speculation, because nobody was there filming it for us."

- Crocodile-like teeth -

The team are a bit more confident that the thalattosaur, which was slightly smaller than its foe at four meters in length, met a violent end, rather than being scavenged after dying of natural causes.

"There are no signs of rotting of the prey -- if it was a rotten carcass, you would not expect to see the fingers still attached to the body," said Motani.

The thalattosaur's disconnected tail was found 20 meters (65 feet) away, leading the team to believe it was ripped off and left behind by the ichthyosaur.

The ichthyosaur's stomach contents didn't show signs of advanced digestion by acid, meaning it likely perished soon after its final meal.

Story continues

"At first, we just didn't believe it, but after spending several years visiting the dig site and looking at the same specimens, we finally were able to swallow what we were seeing," added Motani.

Because the discovery of stomach contents in marine fossils is so rare, scientists generally rely on tooth and jaw shapes to discern what they may have eaten.

Ancient apex predators are typically thought to have had large, very sharp teeth -- even though some modern predators like crocodiles use blunt teeth to consume large prey using grasping force instead of cutting.

Ichthyosaurs have blunt teeth, but because there was no direct evidence of large prey consumption, researchers previously thought they must feed on small prey.

"Now, we can seriously consider that (Ichthyosaurs) were eating big animals, even when they had grasping teeth," added Motani.

These events took place after the end of the Permian period, some 250 million years ago, when land vertebrates started moving back to the sea following a mass extinction event.

The fact that predators arose shortly afterwards in the Middle Triassic was a sign that ecosystems were bouncing back, said Motani.

ia/ft




Police arrested 1 232 people countrywide on Wednesday for violating national lockdown regulations, amid concern over the high numbers of people who continue to break the curfew, especially motorists who are seen driving around late at night.





Of the 1 232 arrested, 181 had violated the Road Traffic Act, 20 for operating businesses without exemption documents, 625 for unnecessary movements, 213 for not wearing masks, while 187 were for other miscellaneous offences.





National police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi, said they will remain firm on the ground and will continue to arrest anyone caught breaking the law.





We have noted that there are still some movements during the night, he said.

People should take note of the curfew order that was made. The 8pm to 6am curfew should be strictly observed.





Some private vehicles are seen driven around night, while some people frequent beerhalls and shebeens.





Asst Comm Nyathi said social distancing was not being observed by many people, with others not properly wearing masks, if at all.





Since March 30 when Zimbabwe got into lockdown, 145 802 people have been arrested countrywide for violating lockdown regulations, with almost all of them paying admission of guilt fines, although more serious offenders went to court.





Police and other security services are, however, deployed to ensure that all the safety measures are complied with, said Asst-Comm Nyathi. They will remain firm on the ground and continue manning roadblocks until there is sanity.





We have, however, also noted that some criminals are moving around during the night, taking advantage of the current situation. Let them be warned that they will be arrested and face the full wrath of the law.





On Tuesday, curfew hours were cut to between 8pm and 6am, while business hours were restored to between 8am and 4:30pm to ease the plight of the public and lower the risk of Covid-19 infections by cutting crowding.





At the same time, returning residents can go home as soon as they have a negative PCR test and promise to self-quarantine for 21 days.





Businesses and their customers had been complaining that the restriction of operating hours for exempted businesses and the retail end of many essential services had resulted in crowding outside the business premises.





Industrial businesses in non-essential areas also needed more time to meet orders.




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She recently revealed that she underwent secret gastric sleeve surgery two years ago, which helped her achieve her recent 85lb weight loss.

And Kelly Osbourne flashed her taut midriff in a black button down crop top as she grabbed lunch at King's Road Cafe in West Hollywood on Thursday.

The 35-year-old star was joined by a handsome male friend who towered over her 5foot2inch frame.

Fit: Kelly Osbourne flashed her taut midriff in a black button down crop top as she grabbed lunch at King's Road Cafe in West Hollywood on Thursday

In good company: The 35-year-old star was joined by a handsome male friend who towered over her 5foot2inch frame

Osbourne paired her crop top with a vintage midi skirt that featured a colorful floral pattern and black trim.

In order to make sure her skirt remained her outfit's focal point, Kelly slipped her feet into a pair of brown leather loafers.

Her faded lavender hair was softly swept back into a ponytail and secured it with a printed scarf.

She kept her mouth and nose concealed behind a black cloth face mask and she wore her chic cateye glasses.

Vintage vibes: Osbourne paired her crop top with a vintage midi skirt that featured a colorful floral pattern and black trim

Cute! The pair embraced in a sweet hug as they walked along together

Strolling: Kelly also happened to be carrying a few small items in her hand as she strolled next to her male pal

Happy lady: The reality star beamed with happiness as she spent time with her friend

Osbourne accessorized her look by dangling a slew of chains around her neck and by draping a multi-toned purse across her body.

Kelly also happened to be caring a few small items in her hand as she strolled next to her male pal.

Kelly's fashion forward friend donned an oversized white tee and a pair of khaki pants for his outing with the daughter of rock legend Ozzy Osbourne. He also had on a bright red beanie and a black cloth mask.

Osbourne has been spotted out with the unidentified male on numerous occasions, but has yet to reveal the status of their budding relationship.

Style: Kelly's fashion forward friend donned an oversized white tee and a pair of khaki pants for his outing with the daughter of rock legend Ozzy Osbourne

Safety first: He also had on a bright red beanie and a black cloth mask

At ease: The duo looked at ease as they strolled along in the sunshine

Covering up: Kelly kept her mouth and nose concealed behind a black cloth face mask and she wore her chic cateye glasses

Though she may be remaining silent about her romantic pursuits, Kelly recently opened up about having secret gastric sleeve surgery during an interview on Hollywood Raw with Dax Holt and Adam Glyn.

'I had surgery,' said Kelly. 'I don't give a f**** what anyone has to say. I did it, I'm proud of it, they can suck s****. I did the gastric sleeve.'

She added: 'All it does is change the shape of your stomach. I got that almost 2 years ago. I will never ever ever lie about it ever. It is the best thing I have ever done.'

Kelly also spoke about having injections to change the shape of her face, and make her jaw look 'skinnier', after suffering with TMJ (temporomandibular joint dysfunction).

New look: Kelly Osbourne has revealed that she underwent gastric sleeve surgery two years ago in a new interview

'One thing I did that changed my face,' she added. 'I had really bad TMJ. One of the things they did to stop it was they gave me injections in my jaw. It kinda made my jaw look skinnier.'

'That's when people started to notice that I had really lost weight because it changed the shape of everything. I found out Its called buckle fat. It changed everything on my face! How the f*** did I not know about this sooner?'

Earlier this month, Kelly had boasted about her weight loss on her social media, telling fans that she had 'worked hard' on getting her new shape.

'Yes...I'm bragging because I worked hard and it feels good!' she wrote alongside a photo of a 'small' size clothing tag.

In her 2017 memoir, Kelly wrote about her struggles with weight gain, as well her substance abuse issues, and described herself as having had 'a little dumpling body' which put her off going to the gym and exercising around thinner people.

Before she decided to get surgery, Kelly said that she had to fix her mind and get sober before she made any big decisions.

She explained on the podcast: 'The number one thing I had to do was get happy. I had to fix my head before I could fix my body. You can never go into this if youre not in a good mindset.'

Difference: Kelly - pictured in 2018 (left) and 2019 (right) - has been on a weight loss journey after revealing she had gastric sleeve surgery two years ago

'I stopped drinking, which is the best thing I've ever done. I really wanted to fix the things that were broken in me. I'm not perfect. I still make a lot of mistakes. I have bumps in the road, I fall down, I get back up again.'

Kelly also admitted that since showing off her weight loss, she has received more attention from men than ever, even being asked out seven times in one day.

'I woke up one day and I was all over the newspapers and sites. I had literally hundreds of text messages. I got asked out 7 times in one day. I said no thanks to every single one of them,' she said.

However, Kelly maintains that she hasn't had any plastic surgery work done on her face.

'I've never f***** with my face. I'm too scared. My t*ts are saggy, and I want to get them fixed, but I'm scared of the surgery. All my friends I've helped recover from it. It looks so painful and they can't move their arms I'm like nah, I'm good,' she says.

Transformation: Kelly showed off her slim physique in January of this year in Las Vegas

Kelly then describes a moment in 2017 when she had hit rock bottom with her drinking, and decided that she needed a lifestyle change, calling her brother Jack Osbourne to say she wanted to become a 'skinny winner.'

'I was a functioning alcoholic,' Kelly admits. 'Full blown functioning alcoholic. I kept my job; I kept my friends. What it was for me, what I reached a spiritual low where I was just so morbidly unhappy and lost and directionless and just broken in every way.'

'I took a really hard hit when Joan [Rivers] died. It's still hard for me to even talk about it. She was my family; she was my mentor. When that ended and Fashion Police stopped, I was like, what am I? It was my identity, I felt destroyed.'

She continued: 'I hated myself in every way. I remember I picked up the phone August 8, 2017, and called my brother and I said "Im done, I need some help, can you come to get me? I don't want to be a fat drunk loser anymore; I want to be a skinny winner." I was ready to work on myself and I did it.'

Kelly's mother Sharon Osbourne is known for having had extensive plastic surgery, showing off the results of her fourth face lift last December.

Sharon, 67, underwent gastric bypass surgery in 1999 after years of fluctuating with her weight, losing around 125lbs in weight. She decided to get the band removed in 2006.
Technavio has been monitoring the assisted reproductive technology market and it is poised to grow by 6.31 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 4% 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/20200821005104/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Assisted Reproductive Technology 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:

What are the major trends in the market?

Increasing use of antibiotic-loaded bone cement is a major trend driving the market growth.

Increasing use of antibiotic-loaded bone cement is a major trend driving the market growth. At what rate is the market projected to grow?

The year-over-year growth for 2020 is estimated at 4.34% and the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be 6.31 bn during the forecast period.

The year-over-year growth for 2020 is estimated at 4.34% and the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be 6.31 bn during the forecast period. Who are the top players in the market?

Anecova SA, CRITEX GmbH, Esco Micro Pte. Ltd, FUJIFILM Holdings Corp., INVO Bioscience Inc, Merck KGaA, Monash IVF Group Ltd., The Cooper Companies Inc., Virtus Health Ltd., and Vitrolife AB, are some of the major market participants

Anecova SA, CRITEX GmbH, Esco Micro Pte. Ltd, FUJIFILM Holdings Corp., INVO Bioscience Inc, Merck KGaA, Monash IVF Group Ltd., The Cooper Companies Inc., Virtus Health Ltd., and Vitrolife AB, are some of the major market participants What is the key market driver?

The increase in the rate of infertility and obesity related cases is driving the market growth.

The increase in the rate of infertility and obesity related cases is driving the market growth. How big is the European market?

The Europe region will contribute 33% of the market share

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Anecova SA, CRITEX GmbH, Esco Micro Pte. Ltd, FUJIFILM Holdings Corp., INVO Bioscience Inc, Merck KGaA, Monash IVF Group Ltd., The Cooper Companies Inc., Virtus Health Ltd., and Vitrolife AB are some of the major market participants. The increase in the rate of infertility and obesity related cases will offer immense growth opportunities. To make 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.

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Assisted Reproductive Technology Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Assisted Reproductive Technology Market is segmented as below:

Application Fertility Clinics Hospitals Others

Geography Europe North America APAC South America MEA



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Assisted Reproductive Technology Market Size

Assisted Reproductive Technology Market Trends

Assisted Reproductive Technology Market Industry Analysis

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Assisted Reproductive Technology Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist assisted reproductive technology market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the assisted reproductive technology market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the assisted reproductive technology market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of assisted reproductive technology market, vendors

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five Forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Application

Market segments

Comparison by Application

Fertility clinics Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Hospitals Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Application

Customer Landscape

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

Volume Driver Demand led growth

Volume Driver External factors

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Anecova SA

CRITEX GmbH

Esco Micro Pte. Ltd

FUJIFILM Holdings Corp.

INVO Bioscience Inc

Merck KGaA

Monash IVF Group Ltd.

The Cooper Companies Inc.

Virtus Health Ltd.

Vitrolife AB

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

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The scene on the Birmingham Road in Stratford after the latest accident. Photo: Mark Williamson

EMERGENCY services have been on the scene of an accident on the A3400 Birmingham Road in Stratford-upon-Avon this evening. The incident involving a motorcycle was on the stretch of road between The Avenue and St Peter's Way. An air ambulance attended the accident with the police closing the road in both directions.
Early yesterday morning, Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart and the Trump campaign, was drinking coffee on the deck of a $35-million yacht off the coast of Connecticutas populist rabble-rousers are wont to dowhen federal agents came on board and arrested him. Bannon stands accused of defrauding hundreds of thousands of people who gave money to We Build the Wall, a fundraising organization that claimed to help Trump prevent passage across the US-Mexico border. Prosecutors allege that Bannon put nearly $1 million from the initiative to personal use. (He pleaded not guilty.) The team that arrested Bannon included inspectors from the United States Postal Service, an agency that has been in the news a lot lately. There has been a meme going around USPS social media forums for weeks with photos of mail trucks/mail boxes with the caption This Machine Defeats Fascists, Motherboards Aaron Gordon, who has covered Trumps recent assaults on the USPS, tweeted. Never thought it would be so literal.

In addition to Bannon, law enforcement officers also arrested Brian Kolfage, a military veteran and amputee who created We Build the Wall, and two other alleged co-conspirators, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea. As BuzzFeed and NBC News have previously reported, Kolfage, like Bannon, is a right-wing media entrepreneur; he wrote for TheBlaze, then ran fake-news sites with names like FreedomDaily and WoundedAmericanWarrior, which he used to spread conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, and others. FreedomDaily shut down in February 2018, when it was sued by a liberal on whom the site had blamed the murder of Heather Heyer, who was slain during a white-supremacy rally in Charlottesville; in their indictment of Bannon, Kolfage, et al, prosecutors listed a bank account in FreedomDailys name as a possible recipient of funds from We Build the Wall. Other right-wing media darlings were involved, too, including Kris Kobach, Erik Prince, David Clarke, and Curt Schilling, the Red Sox pitcher turned ESPN pundit turned bigoted memesmith turned Breitbart contributor turned conservative talk-show host. Donald Trump, Jr. was a booster of We Build the Wall, as were personalities on Fox News; Laura Ingraham called it a story of the can-do American spirit in action. (Theres no suggestion that these figures knew of any wrongdoing, and none of them has been indicted; a rumor spread yesterday that Schilling had been indicted and arrested, but he has since denied it.)

ICYMI: Israeli medias one-woman show: Or-ly Barlev on covering the anti-Netanyahu protests

Bannon was arrested four years and four days after he joined Trumps 2016 presidential campaign as its chief executive. As Joshua Green reported in his 2017 book, Devils Bargain, Bannon was influential in Trumps rise for two main reasons. Trumps dark campaign agenda drew heavily on Bannons worldview, and Bannon, over many years, had created a professional network of anti-Clinton websites and groups that attested to her malign intent. Bannons insight, Green argues, was in understanding that to be effective, the Clinton-is-evil narrative needed to reach beyond the outraged fever swamps of right-wing media. Bannon and his allies successfully injected tales of supposed Clintonian corruptionthe Uranium One story, which made A1 of the New York Times, for exampleinto the bloodstream of major outlets campaign coverage, and nourished a pattern of false equivalence between Clinton and Trump. We all know how that worked out.

Since then, Bannon has fallen (several times) from the presidents grace, Breitbart has lost much of its cultural influence, and the Trump project is on the ropes. Its tempting to see Bannons arrest as the culmination of his career and tempting, on such terms, to juxtapose it with yesterdays other big storyJoe Bidens speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, which took as its major theme the end of this chapter of American darkness. Figures tied to Trump and Bannon have tried desperately to do to Biden exactly what they did to Clintonaccusing him (without evidence) of crooked dealings in Ukraine; casting him as frail and mentally deficientbut unlike in 2016, neither smear has really stuck in the reality-based press. Bidens performance at the convention was widely praised, including on Fox News, where many hosts have been singing the Biden-is-infirm line for months. I thought he blew a holea big holein that characterization, Chris Wallace said, after the speech.

Bannons brief reappearance in the news cycle, in other words, has underscored how much his profile has diminished since 2016. These days, the Trump campaign has neither Bannon nor a Bannon stand-in and, unlike with Clinton, he lacks a long-stewing Biden conspiracy narrative to ladle out. Still, we should be careful not to downplay Bannons enduring influence on our media and politics. Many of the tactics he helped pioneer remain effectiveand the mainstream press still, all too often, falls for them. This week, Laura Loomer, an Islamophobic troll, won a Republican Congressional primary in Florida, and Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart star who Bannon discovered, emceed the victory party. Yiannopoulos, like Bannon, is yesterdays man. But we still live in an information climate that they did much to create. The Bannon narrative may not end with his arrest. It may still end in darkness.

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Below, more on Bannon, the election, and right-wing media:



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: As America retreats from the long war, Afghan and Pakistani journalists come under attack

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Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
Representative Image

Crude oil futures declined to Rs 3,189 per barrel on August 21 as participants increased their short positions. Prices fell on worries about the demand outlook and a strengthening dollar.

Crude oil continues to trade in a narrow range amid lack of fresh cues and squaring of positions near contract expiration.

In the futures market, crude oil for September delivery touched an intraday high of Rs 3,229 and a low of Rs 3,186 per barrel on the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX). So far in the current series, black gold has touched a low of Rs 2,945 and a high of Rs 3,285.

Crude oil futures for September delivery slipped Rs 22, or 0.69 percent, to Rs 3,189 per barrel at 15:10 hours IST on a business turnover of 2,945 lots.

The same for October delivery fell Rs 20, or 0.62 percent, to Rs 3,225 per barrel on a business volume of seven lots.

The value of September and Octobers contracts traded so far is Rs 505.89 crore and Rs 0.19 crore, respectively.

Crude oil continues to trade in a narrow range amid lack of clear cues. Demand concerns amid increasing challenges to the global economy is capping the gains, whereas continuing strength in the US and global equity markets are putting a floor below prices. OPEC expressed concerns about slower demand recovery amid prolonged pandemic, but also sees rebalancing in the market. We expect the range move in crude to continue amid mixed cues, Ravindra Rao, VP- Head Commodity Research at Kotak Securities.

Tapan Patel- Senior Analyst (Commodities), HDFC Securities, expects oil prices to trade sideways to down for the day with support at $41 and resistance at $43.50 "MCX September Crude Oil futures has support at Rs 3,150 and resistance at Rs 3,270."

West Texas Intermediate crude slipped 0.70 percent at $42.52 per barrel, while Brent crude, the London-based international benchmark, was down 0.62 percent to $44.62 per barrel.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Supreme Court on Friday while allowing Jain temples to remain open in Maharashtra this Saturday and Sunday, told the state government that the court found it very strange that although economic activities were being allowed in the state, but when it came to opening of temples then Covid-19 risks were being cited.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian told the state counsel that the Maharashtra government is willing to take the so-called risk where money is involved, but brings up Covid-19 and its risks wherever religion is involved.

"Lord Jagannath forgave us, your gods will forgive you too," noted the bench.

The court observation was made during a hearing of the matter involving the opening of Jain temples in Maharashtra during the Paryushan period. The apex court allowed the Jain community to visit these temples in Dadar, Byculla, and Chembur in Mumbai.

The temples will remain open to worshippers on the last two days of Paryushan on August 22 and 23 to allow the devotees to worship the Jain Tirthankaras.

The Sri Parshwatilak Shwetambar Murtipujak Jain Trust had moved the apex court against the Bombay High Court's August 14 ruling declining permission to allow offering of prayers during the Paryushan period.

The apex court said that the Centre's SOP on opening religious places should be followed.

Earlier, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Maharashtra government, contended that Covid-19 cases have increased exponentially in the state.

The bench said it is not treating this as an adversarial matter, to which Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, said that neither is the central government doing so.

The Chief Justice, citing the Rath Yatra issue, then said this is exactly the criticism and the choice we had with the Yatra in Odisha. "We were faced with a difficult choice. But we believed that if social distancing is followed, merely pulling the chariot will not be damaging," he remarked.

Singhvi insisted that the state government is not against any religion. "I myself am a Jain. But, this is a state matter and we should be allowed to take the decision," Singhvi contended.

In response, the Chief Justice replied that a blanket prohibition cannot be instituted.

Chief Justice Bobde questioned what was wrong if only five people were congregating at one time. "If that is the case, we don't mind going beyond the Jain community." Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the petitioners, said that they were seeking visits by only 250 devotees per day for their temples in Mumbai.

Singhvi insisted that the apex court should consider the consequences as the coronavirus cases are rising.

The bench insisted that there is no harm if prescribed Standard Operating Procedures are followed.

The apex court, however, made it clear that the permission given to the Jain temples should not become a precedent for demands for permission to Ganpati festival or any other religious festival coming up in Maharashtra. The permission for the Ganpati festival will have to be taken on a case-to-case basis by the state disaster management authorities.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Recent reports from a CBC journalist citing anonymous and RCMP sources of difficult staff relations within Rideau Hall, inconvenient travel logistics and prospective renovations planned for Rideau Hall are reminiscent of some of the criticisms of other governors general.

Subsequently, CBC journalist Aaron Wherry (not the journalist who broke the staff relations story), provided a helpful and balanced review of criticisms levelled at other governors general over the years  claims relating to alleged spending excesses (usually trips GGs were asked to undertake by the government), decisions regarding Rideau Hall grounds, alleged political leanings of the vice-regals spouse, and so on.

Not surprisingly, his review revealed that the criticisms, such as they were and whatever their validity, were directed only toward female governors general. One might conclude that female vice-regals were flawed and their male counterparts were flawless. Highly unlikely.

Being more intensely critical and of women in positions of prominence or leadership is not a new phenomenon. Maggie Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Kim Campbell, Judy LaMarsh and Kathleen Wynne were treated roughly in comparison to what their male counterparts faced. The blatant misogyny we criticize elsewhere does not mean that the discriminatory criticism of women in leadership is absent here.

Julie Payette is not, thankfully, the typical former diplomat, politician, journalist, university president or high-ranking civil servant we are used to in the role of governor general. The prime minister, to his credit, chose a women, younger than her predecessors, a single mom with a focused and highly regarded background in engineering and the many skills required of an astronaut. She is not of the Ottawa bubble, as are most Canadians. The bubble often is uncomfortable with those from outside its often incestuous confines.

It is the responsibility of the machinery of government unit within the Privy Council Office to attend to initial staffing requirements when the previous governor general departed. Was the level of PCO engagement and the seniority of remaining staff adequate? Were there senior officials with the institutional memory needed to help the new GG navigate her role as the Queens representative and provide sage advice regarding her role? An Ottawa and government outsider taking on the role of governor general deserves experienced staff and detailed briefings on her duties and the expectations of the position.

Rideau Halls website indicates an intense level of official business, at home and abroad, that points to an enthusiastic pursuit by Mme Payette of the governor generals traditional mandate. It includes the support of Canadian Forces deployments around the world, visits to all provinces and territories and much appreciated attendance at battlefield ceremonies and other duties worldwide. She also attended the Olympics in Seoul and the funerals of key international leaders  with sometimes three events on two continents in less than two days.

The governor general has welcomed a review of complaints of Rideau Hall staff reflecting her commitment to ongoing quality improvement. Staff deserve to be respected and appreciated for their efforts, just as any underperformance needs to be addressed. Alleged harassment or humiliation in the workplace is intolerable and enquiry in important.

The Privy Council Office, in collaboration with Rideau Hall, is right to jointly oversee an independent inquiry. But the inquiry must address all possibilities  including the possibility that the machinery of government division of PCO did not sufficiently engage on initial staffing requirements. In any inquiry, context matters.

Rideau Hall is not just another government department to be poked because of a midsummer slow news day story driven by anonymous sources, however well-intentioned. A balanced inquiry into the allegations of some anonymous employees and self reverential RCMP must reflect the constitutional independence of the Crown and its representative in Canada. It should also determine if Ottawa bubble forces inimical to a different kind of governor general are feeding the controversy.

Despite the commentary from some academics who have offered the sort of nudge nudge, tut tut expertise about what the governor general should or should not do, Her Excellency should simply carry on in the discharge of her many duties.

The prime minister picked an outstanding high-achieving woman of science, technology, engineering and space research and travel to symbolize the best of Canadas today and tomorrow. He is right to have made that kind of appointment, whatever the Ottawa bubble may think.
Having failed to achieve the slightest semblance of success in the two oil price wars that it started  the first running from 2014 to 2016, and the second running from the beginning of March to effectively the end of April this year  it might be assumed that key lessons might have been learned by the Saudis on the perils of engaging in such wars again. Judging from various statements last week, though, Saudi Arabia has learned nothing and may well launch exactly the same type of oil price war in exactly the same way as it has done twice before, inevitably losing again with exactly the same catastrophic effects on it and its fellow OPEC members. At the very heart of Saudi Arabias problem is the collective self-delusion of those at the top of its government regarding the Kingdoms key figures relating to its oil industry that underpins the entire regime. These delusions are apparently not discouraged by any of the senior foreign advisers who make enormous fees and trading profits for their banks from Saudi Arabias various follies, most notably oil price wars. It is, in the truest sense of the phrase, a perfect example of The Emperors New Clothes, although in this case, it does not just pertain to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) but to all of the senior figures connected to Saudi Arabias oil sector. One of the most obvious examples of this is the chief executive officer of Saudi Arabias flagship hydrocarbons company, Saudi Aramco (Aramco), Amin Nasser, who said last week  bewilderingly for those who know even a modicum about the global oil markets  that Aramco is to go ahead with plans to increase its maximum sustained capacity (MSC) to 13 million barrels per day (bpd) from 12.1 million bpd.

Quite aside from the sheer pointlessness of this posturing in a world already awash in oil as a result of the negative demand effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the output overhang from the oil price war just ended, this comment from Saudi Arabias third-ranking oil man (after MbS, albeit by the loosest possible definition, and Energy Minister, Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud), is extremely misleading. As such, it feeds into the oil markets collective understanding since the 2014-2016 oil price war that anything that Saudi Arabia says about its oil industry is not to be taken as true, without a lot of additional fact-checking. Regarding the maximum sustained capacity statement, to begin with, this term is one that has been repeatedly used by Saudi Arabia since the first oil price war disaster to cover for two other long-running delusions relating to the real level of its crude oil reserves and to the real level of its spare capacity.

Related: Is U.S. Shale Poised For A Comeback?

Before the 2014-2016 oil price war, Saudi had stated for decades that it had a spare capacity of between 2.0-2.5 million bpd. This implied - given the widely-accepted (but also wrong) belief that Saudi Arabia had pumped an average of around 10 million bpd for many years (it actually pumped an average of just over 8.162 million bpd from 1973 until 2020)  that it had the ability to ramp up its production to about 12.5 million bpd when required. However, even as the 2014-2016 oil price war dragged on and wreaked new heights of economic devastation on Saudi Arabia and its OPEC colleagues, the Kingdom could produce on average no more than just about 10 million bpd. Crucially here, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) defines spare capacity specifically as production that can be brought online within 30 days and sustained for at least 90 days, whilst even Saudi Arabia has said that it would need at least 90 days to move rigs to drill new wells and raise production by an additional 2.0-2.5 million bpd.

Instead, from that point onwards, Saudi Arabia began to attempt to obfuscate this spare capacity lie by semantic trickery. Senior Saudis spoke of capacity and of supply to the market rather than of output or production and these two groups of terminology mean very different things. Capacity (or its synonym, as far as the Saudis are concerned, supply to the market) relate to the utilization of crude oil supplies held in storage at any given time in the Kingdom plus the supplies that can be withheld from contracts and re-directed into those stored supplies. It can also mean oil clandestinely bought in from other suppliers (notably Iraq in the last oil price war) through brokers in the spot market and then passed off as its own oil supplies (or capacity). Exactly the same semantic trickery was used to cover up the actual supply shortfalls in the aftermath of the September 2019 attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis on Saudi Arabias Khurais and Abqaiq facilities, with the Energy Minister talking of capacity and later of supply to the market, which are absolutely not the same thing at all as actual production at the wellheads. Related: Low Prices Put The Brakes On Perus Oil Ambitions

The reason why Saudi Arabia seeks to obfuscate its real production and also spare capacity figures is that oil has been the only true foundation-stone of the Kingdoms geopolitical power since its discovery in the late 1930s and this is also why it lies about its crude oil reserves. Specifically, at the beginning of 1989, Saudi Arabia claimed proven oil reserves of 170 billion barrels but only a year later, and without the discovery of any major new oil fields, the official reserves estimate somehow grew by 51.2 percent, to 257 billion barrels. Shortly thereafter, it increased again to just over 266 billion barrels, a level that persisted until a slight increase in 2017 to just over 268 billion barrels, with, again, no major new oil field finds made, a figure which  depending on who you believe  has increased yet again. At the same time, as highlighted, Saudi Arabia took out of the ground an average of 8.162 million bpd from the beginning of 1973 to the beginning of 2020, which totals over 2.979 billion barrels of crude oil every year, or 137.04 billion barrels of crude oil taken out of the ground over that time period. Given this tangible and proven production, with no major new field finds (and declining production at many of its core oil fields as well, including Ghawar), it is mathematically very difficult to see how it is possible that Saudi Arabias crude oil reserves are not actually around 120 billion barrels (and that is using the highly-dubious 257 billion barrels base figure) and not the stated 268+ billion barrels.

Given the wider public realization that the core figures upon which Saudi Arabias remaining geopolitical and economic power is based are essentially nonsense, Aramcos share price might - in the normal circumstances of a correctly functioning market - be regarded as vulnerable. However, such was the absolute desperation on the part of MbS not to lose personal credibility by allowing the omni-toxic Aramco IPO to be seen to fail  at least in Saudi Arabia  that very few of the share purchasers have much to lose. In order to even sell the 1.5 percent stake finally offered (cut down from the initially-mooted 5 percent), Saudi banks were encouraged to offer to lend money to retail customers at a 2-to-1 ratio for every riyal they would invest in Saudi Aramco (compared to average leverage ratio limit for loans of 1-to-1). Additionally, the IPOs international adviser banks were there to take up any slack in the offering left after the sovereign wealth funds of neighboring states were equally encouraged to participate on the offering, as were various senior Saudis fearful of a re-run of their treatment in the Ritz Carlton in 2017.

Now, in addition to these levers, Aramco has also reassured this small cadre of investors that it will meet the minimum US$75 billion dividend payout that it was forced into promising in order to ensure that it sold even 1.5 percent of the company. As Aramcos share price is now intimately connected to MbSs standing at home, Aramco has little choice in the matter, despite the announcement last week that its net profit plunged by 73.4 percent in the second quarter of this year. This was entirely due, ironically, to Saudi Arabias starting yet another oil price war to destroy the U.S. shale sector by crashing prices through overproducing at a time when demand was already annihilated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such figures, of course, will become entirely meaningless if Saudi Arabia embarks on yet another oil price war in the not-too-distant-future, as is the clear implication of the announcement that it will increase its MSC to 13 million bpd from 12.1 million bpd, as the result for Saudi Arabia next time could be the end of the al-Saud dynasty in the Kingdom.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
A science teacher who has Tourette's syndrome has been branded 'inspirational' 'amazing' and 'empowering' after sharing her story in a new documentary.

Natalie Davidson, 38, from Birmingham, has Coprolalia Tourette Syndrome, which causes her to have tics and swear during lessons.

The syndrome has lead to her calling students a 'billy ball bag' and shouting 'f*** it, f*** it, you tart' while teaching chemistry.

She shared her story on a Channel 5's The Teacher with Tourette's which aired last night, where viewers branded her 'phenomenal' and 'brave'.

'The Teacher with Tourette's is an amazing empowering story of diversity. What an incredible woman.

'Astounding that its the teachers uncomfortable with her Tourette's making her eat alone in isolation yet the pupils are more than comfortable and accepting. What a role model she is,' wrote one.

Natalie Davidson, 38, from Birmingham, has Coprolalia Tourette Syndrome, which causes her to have tics and swear during lessons. She is pictured with her class

While the teenagers she teaches are understanding of the neurological condition adults aren't as forgiving, meaning Natalie often eats lunch alone as fellow teachers at Erdington Academy in the north of the second city don't tolerate her swearing.

'My Tourette's is quicker than me, smarter than me, funnier than me and will always try to get me in trouble. He's a little f***er,' Natalie joked in the show.

WHAT IS TOURETTE'S SYNDROME? Tourette's syndrome is a neurological condition characterised by a combination of involuntary noises and movements called tics. It usually starts during childhood and continues into adulthood. Tics can be either be vocal or physical. In many cases Tourette's syndrome runs in families and it's often associated with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Tourette's syndrome is named after the French doctor, Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who first described the syndrome and its symptoms in the 19th century. There's no cure for Tourette's syndrome, but treatment can help to control the symptoms. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

'Living with Tourette's is hard. It's shocking how many people still don't know how Tourette's is,'

'I've been arrested and treated quite badly in a sense of explaining I had Tourette's but it not being understood.

'I've been hit, chased. Anything you do outside of your normal routines and places you visit is going to be a challenge.'

Tourette's affects around 300,000 people in the UK, but only 10 per cent of sufferers - including Natalie- have Coprolalia, which causes the involuntary urge to swear.

Natalie is the only teacher in the UK with the condition.

For many, Tourette's begins in early childhood, around the age of seven, but for some - including Natalie - it's caused by an severe trauma in adulthood.

'It was just before my 21st birthday. Someone got into my university house and raped me,' Natalie explained.

'I was being interviewed [by the police] and it was on camera and I remember them having to keep pausing filming the interview because I kept having hiccup noises and strange sounds that I'd never made before.

'I honestly thought what had happened to me had made me go a little mad.'

Over the years, her tics got worse, but this didn't stop her dream of becoming a teacher, and she began her career supply teaching just a year later.

'I remember one of my earliest tics being "'f**k your mum," and then there was another bit that went "up your bum" and then it went "with" and then it would say, "a dildo".

While the teenagers she teaches (pictured together) are understanding of the neurological condition adults aren't as forgiving, meaning Natalie often eats lunch alone as fellow teachers at Erdington Academy don't tolerate her swearing

While, most of Natalie's fellow teachers support her, many feel uncomfortable around her and she often takes her lunch breaks alone in her classroom.

'I'm struggling to cope with it. Not to cope with the job or workload. I cope with that probably better than most teachers,' Natalie revealed in the documentary.

'But facing the feeling you need to be hidden away is a horrible feeling. It's put fear, anxiety and panic inside me and I don't know where I go from here.'

As is common with Tourette's, Natalie also suffers from ADHD and OCD which can cause obsessive thinking and paranoid thoughts.

The teacher has occasionally had panic attack and been forced to leave her class and take sick leave.

Viewers were touched by Natalie's story calling her an inspiration to the next generation, with dozens tweeting their support

Viewers were touched by Natalie's story calling her an inspiration to the next generation.

'Natalie you are a star and an inspiration lady. You have a challenging job, even without your Tourettes. You still try your best. I hope one day you can get some help that works for you, so you get some proper rest,' wrote one.

'Broke my heart when Natalie said she sits by herself for lunch because the other teachers dont like her swearing. Thought theyd be more understanding. Natalie seems like a lovely person,' added another.

'Natalie is teaching young people a very valuable life lesson of equality, what an inspiration! To anybody not agreeing with this, our young people deserve to see reality and resilience. Hardship is real life and she is a role model if ever Ive seen one,' a third tweeted.

Natalie is pictured with her wife Leigh-Anne who she married last year. She says her wife made her feel more comfortable in herself

'Natalie, you are amazing. Im a teacher too and I am so impressed - deeply saddened by the worries that you have shared of not being accepted by some however - You must make sure you never feel you have to hide away in your classroom - youre fab!' a fellow teacher tweeted.

'Natalie is amazing. Think its sad the other teachers don't accept her condition, yet the kids seem to deal fine! Secondary school yes but think the condition would be an issue in primary school. The kids probably swear more than her in Secondary school,' added another.

'Genuinely breaks my heart that Natalie eats lunch in her classroom on her own because the other teachers are uncomfortable around her. Teachers, not students. Grown adults. Adults that teach children to be kind, inclusive and understanding. Sad' said one.

As is common with Tourette's, Natalie also suffers from ADHD and OCD which can cause obsessive thinking and paranoid thoughts. The teacher has occasionally had panic attack and been forced to leave her class and take sick leave
WILMINGTON, Del.  At long last, after a bruising primary campaign and months of suspense, a senator from the nations largest state stood on a stage in one of the nations smallest and uttered 13 remarkable words: I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States of America.

It was the pinnacle of Kamala Harriss political career. And no one made a sound.

For nearly 19 minutes on Wednesday, Ms. Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, experienced a politicians dream, turned upside-down by a countrys nightmare.

With the coronavirus pandemic prompting Democrats to hold a virtual convention, Ms. Harris accepted her partys nomination not in front of a jubilant crowd, but in a quiet exhibit hall with about 30 journalists on hand.

The site of this grand moment was the Chase Center on the Riverfront, along the Christina River in Wilmington. Earlier this year, it hosted a bridal expo and a model train show, but on Wednesday it became the epicenter of Democratic politics, not that anyone would have wished for that.
The historically Black district of Albina in Portland, Oregon, due to racist real estate practices, faced multiple displacement events between 1960 and 1990 with the construction of Interstate 5 through the heart of the neighborhood as well as wholesale destruction of hundreds of homes to make room for the Memorial Coliseum and various other urban renewal projects. Gentrification in Portland saw a mass displacement of Black households from Albina, largely to East Portland, a suburban area that was unincorporated county land prior to the 1990's. As Black people were priced out of the Albina neighborhood, businesses and churches have also closed as a result of losing community members.

Supported by a fellowship from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), Steven Howland of Portland State University focused his doctoral research on examining the impacts of gentrification on transportation and social support for black working-poor families in Portland, both those who were displaced to East Portland and those who were able to remain in Albina. Through 27 in-depth interviews with parents of young children (13 Albina residents and 14 residents of East Portland), he sought to understand how they used transportation to make ends meet and how those strategies differ between inner-city and suburban neighborhoods.

Download the final report: "'I Should Have Moved Somewhere Else': The Impacts of Gentrification on Transportation and Social Support for Black Working-Poor Families in Portland, Oregon" https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/NITC-D-1079_I_Should_Have_Moved_Somewhere_Else.pdf

WHY DO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

Qualitative research plays an important role in equitable transportation policy. How does transportation directly affect people's daily lives and decision-making? Quantitative data are often used to make policy decisions, yet numbers only tell part of the story. Researchers can gain different knowledge from an in-depth interview than they might learn from a regional survey.

Jennifer Dill, professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and Howland's advisor, points out that qualitative research has the power to shine light on issues that transportation professionals may have not focused on enough.

"When you're trying to make change, it's always great to have a mix of the quantitative and qualitative. It's people's stories that help us understand and change minds," Dill said.

ALBINA: THE EROSION OF A PORTLAND COMMUNITY

"Ferrell's. Right here it was on Broadway. An ice cream shop. Pietro's was right next to that. There was like, you know, a couple black-owned businesses that's gone now. All of them basically are gone now."

"I would go see family more often if I had the gas money to get all the way over like that. But I don't be having the gas like that to get all the way over there."

"My son lives all the way out east Portland. So, I'm not going to drive out there. And I have two grandsons that live out that way too."

Overall, the cultural rootedness of Albina appeared to be eroding as more and more Black people and businesses left and were being replaced by high-end shops, restaurants, and white people.

Despite the significant cultural losses, the residents of Albina had easier transportation (including a higher rate of car ownership), better-resourced and easily accessed social support networks, and a higher density of nearby destinations to get around easier and accomplish more in a day. East Portlanders struggled far more.

"It really felt like the people in Albina, even for those that were still paying market rent, they still seemed on average to be doing slightly better than those living in East Portland. Even with the higher rents they still had a lot of resources nearby that they could tap into," Howland said.

EAST PORTLAND: A NEIGHBORHOOD OUT OF REACH

"It's either food or gas, a lot of the time."

"Trying to find shortcuts. Go straight there. I just do my triangle: work, home and school."

East Portland residents had to go the furthest for all their activities. Clustering of destinations around the western edge of East Portland put groceries, school and other activities out of reach for most residents. The longer distances between destinations meant more time traveling. That extra time meant they could not get as much done in a day as those living in Albina. Support networks for people in East Portland featured a lot of friends and family that had also been displaced, but everything was so spread out that they were more socially isolated. They often had to turn to their network living in Albina for their more critical needs like childcare, but it took a lot more effort to utilize.

GETTING AROUND: RELIABILITY OF DRIVING VS SAFETY CONCERNS ON TRANSIT

"The buses don't come when they say they're going to come. You have to wait for the bus, and they aren't going to stop. If you're having to be at a place at a certain time you can't depend on the bus to get you there on time."

"There was certain jobs that weren't along a transit line. Maybe a mile or two miles off the line. I didn't have a car to get there so I couldn't take the job."

Howland interviewed participants on how they made choices on getting around, the effects those choices had on their lives, and how they adapted to maintain their mobility. Data doesn't tell the whole story. The narrative behind the mobility experiences of low-income Black community members often gets washed out or misrepresented in the existing data. By understanding their lived experiences and challenges, policy makers and planners are better equipped to intervene.

Overall, the interviews revealed that Albina residents were more likely to drive than East Portlanders. Both populations shared a preference for driving over transit. East Portland in particular is transit-poor, so the lack of ability to get around without a car has upended many aspects of families' lives.

"Last time we rode public transportation there's this dude on there and he was just crazy. Tweaking out really bad. And he kept looking at my son and I'm like, you say something to him I'm going to jail today."

"My 18-year-old, he rode it all the time...But it's a point where I pulled up a time I was driving home and I seen this fight going on, on the platform of the TriMet [MAX stop]. This grown man fighting kids. I pulled up and it was my son [one of the kids]. Some Caucasian guy fighting some black kids and the black kids get in trouble."

Distance and time were factors, of course, that led participants to prefer getting around by driving rather than using transit. Another finding, which Howland had not anticipated, was that safety concerns were also a major deterrent to riding transit.

This was spurred in part by the 2017 racially-motivated murders on the MAX train, which happened the same summer that Howland was conducting interviews. More often however, the concerns had to do with participants' encounters with people experiencing houselessness as well as people with untreated mental illnesses and addictions, which often spilled over into racists outbursts or threats of violence against them or their children.

Highlights from the Findings:

Albina Residents (62%) were more likely to drive than East Portlanders (36%)

Nearly universal dislike of TriMet, and nearly everyone had safety concerns taking transit. No drivers expressed safety issues driving.

Drivers were more likely to use transit as an alternative, and transit riders were more likely to turn to getting rides as an alternative.

Albina residents struggled less in their daily life maintenance, giving them more means to own a car.

East Portland residents gained marginally more benefit from car ownership, but struggled more to own. East Portland residents also had more difficulty getting rides.

Albina residents had positive associations with walking, whereas East Portland residents would walk, but with higher cost due to distances and multiple safety issues.

Very few people rode a bike, but it was more common for their kids - mostly limited to Albina.

TAKEAWAYS FOR TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONALS

Marginalized individuals have said that they feel more vulnerable to harassment when biking or riding transit, and research has shown there is racism even at the crosswalk - so it feels like the safest place is in a car. If encouraging car-free travel is a priority, planners, engineers and policymakers need to come up with solutions to make transit, biking, walking and rolling feel safer for the most marginalized.

While East Portland has had a lot of investments in road safety, it is the distance between destinations that has really hurt people's ability to survive. As East Portland continues to grow with more low-income people of color, more attention needs to go to the urban development of the area to make daily life easier.

"We have to recognize how our plans impact people. It's not just the space, not just the environment; it's the people themselves. They are impacted. We need to recognize that what we think should be done will have consequences, and we need to be able to plan for those consequences," Howland said.

Implementing anti-displacement housing policies to prevent the dissolution of a community is key, but with that is also being proactively aware of where people might end up if they do get displaced from a newly gentrified area. Community ties are vital for quality of life, particularly as people get older and the design concepts behind aging in place become more critical to apply to transportation projects.

"It's nuanced, but recognize that if you can start to identify an area where a lot of people are being displaced to, you need to start implementing plans there as soon as possible," Howland said.

Howland graduated from Portland State with his PhD in Spring 2020. This summer he received a job offer from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to be an Assistant Economist. He will be working in their Community Development section doing research informed by community stakeholders.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities.

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is one of seven U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. NITC is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. This PSU-led research partnership also includes the Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, University of Texas at Arlington and University of Utah. We pursue our theme -- improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities -- through research, education and technology transfer.

###
Kanye West has missed out on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin after his campaign team arrived 14 seconds late to submit the paperwork.

A 5-1 vote by election officials on Thursday means West will not compete in a state which voted for Donald Trump by a margin of just 0.8 per cent in 2016.

The deadline to submit a petition was 5pm on August 4, but West's campaign team were still in the elevator 50 seconds later and officials did not have the paperwork in their possession until several minutes after 5pm.

The decision eases Democratic fears that West's long-shot campaign will siphon crucial votes away from Joe Biden, after Michelle Obama this week warned voters not to 'play games with candidates who have no chance of winning'.

On Friday, West tweeted 10 states where he will be on the Presidential ballot without mentioning Wisconsin.

Kanye West (pictured at a rally in South Carolina last month) has missed out on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin after his aides arrived 14 seconds late to submit the necessary papers

Kanye's tweet naming ten states where he is on the Presidential ballot

A group of Wisconsin voters filed a complaint with the state's elections commission after West's campaign submitted the required 2,000 signatures on August 4.

Commission staffer Cody Davies told a panel on Thursday that West's staffers had called him at 4.57pm saying they were three minutes away.

Davies said he let them in 14 seconds after 5pm and took them up to the commission's offices, but they were still in the elevator 50 seconds after the hour.

Another commission staffer, Riley Willman, said he was in the commission's lobby to accept papers.

He said West's representatives placed the papers on the counter at 5.01pm but had to organize them and he didn't take possession until several minutes later.

West campaign attorney Michael Curran argued during a hearing that commission staff had accepted the papers and that the filing was valid.

Commissioner Robert Spindell, a Republican, pushed the panel to give West the benefit of the doubt, saying the pandemic has made life harder and that the rapper's aides might have made it in time if the building doors had been open.

He also accused Democrats of unfairly trying to keep a black candidate off the ballot, saying and the commission should give African-American voters a choice.

'We are talking a matter of seconds here,' Spindell said.

But Spindell was outvoted in a 5-1 decision to keep West and running mate Michelle Tidball off the ballot, as commissioners argued that 14 seconds late is still late.

Wisconsin election officials ruled that West's petition was submitted late (pictured, an election commission worker in Milwaukee earlier this year)

Michelle Obama took a thinly-veiled swipe at Kanye West at the DNC this week (pictured) by urging voters not to 'play games with candidates who have no chance of winning'

'This is one of the closest call cases I've seen but consistency requires me to treat all candidates the same, regardless of their party or their color or any other characteristics,' said commissioner Dean Knudson, a Republican.

'I think the complainants have (presented clear) evidence that he was late,' Knudson said. West could still challenge the decision in court.

State GOP director Mark Jefferson accused Democrats of trying to clear Biden's path, even though two of the commission's three Republicans - Knudson and Marge Bostelmann - voted to keep West off the ballot.

The commission was tied in two 3-3 votes on whether to allow Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins on the ballot, which means he also won't appear.

The Green Party's 2016 candidate Jill Stein won 31,072 votes in the state, more than Trump's 22,648-vote margin over Hillary Clinton.

Trump was the first Republican to win Wisconsin in a presidential election since 1984, and the state is seen as a key battleground in 2020.

The most recent polls have shown Joe Biden ahead in the state by an average of 6.5 per cent, according to RealClearPolitics.

After previously backing Trump, West announced last month that he had broken with the president and was running under the banner of the Birthday Party.

At a rambling South Carolina rally on July 19, he ranted against abortion and raised eyebrows with his claim that 'Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slaves'.

His wife Kim Kardashian made a plea for compassion last month, saying Kanye is bipolar and that 'his words sometimes do not align with his intentions'.

Donald Trump (pictured at a Wisconsin rally last night) and his re-election campaign have denied involvement in helping West gain ballot access

Michelle Obama took a veiled swipe at West in her speech to the Democratic National Convention this week, urging voters not to 'play games with candidates who have no chance of winning'.

The former first lady told Democrats that 'this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest' as she urged voters to back Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

West is lobbying for a place on the ballot in several states, including other battlegrounds such as Colorado and Ohio.

Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner confirmed last week that he had recently spoken to West, and some Republican operatives have been helping him to secure ballot access.

West would have to expand his ballot access significantly to qualify for presidential debates in the fall.

To be eligible for the debates, candidates must be theoretically able to win 270 electoral votes - the number required for a majority.

West has already missed deadlines in several states, including South Carolina where he likewise failed to submit a petition in time.

Despite Republican hopes of eroding Biden's support among black voters, polls so far have not shown West making a significant impact on the race.

One Politico/Morning Consult poll published earlier this month showed West on only three per cent among African-American voters.

In addition, Biden's nine-point national lead over Trump was unchanged regardless of whether West was one of the options.
Boston police said Thursday they are seeking the publics help in locating a car involved in a fatal hit-and-run crash in Dorchester late last week.

A person was struck by the car shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 15 near Dorchester Avenue and Ashmont Street, according to a statement from the Boston Police Department.

Authorities did not publicly identify the victim of the crash Friday morning.

Police released an image of the car they are searching for. It is a light-green 2006 Kia Sportage with a Massachusetts registration of 7RN971, the departments statement said.

Law enforcement urged anyone with information related to car to contact Boston police homicide detectives at (617) 343-4470.

People can also reach out to the anonymous CrimeStoppers Tip Line by calling 1 (800) 494-TIPS or texting the word TIP to CRIME (27463).
A drug peddler involved in murder cases besides extortion, was allegedly killed in a police 'encounter' in Chennai on Friday morning when he made a frantic bid to escape after attacking a constable, a top city police official said.

The deceased Sankar attacked constable Mubarak with a sickle when he was brought to the place of the incident for 'recovery' (of drugs) by a police team following his earlier arrest, City Commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal said.

The commissioner said Sankar was also involved in three murder, four attempt to murder and 50 other cases, adding he had five non-bailable warrants pending against him and had been detained under the stringent Goondas Act nine times in the past.

"An encounter has taken place this morning. The drug peddler attempted to escape after attacking constable Mubarak. Ayanavaram police Inspector Natarajan had to open fire at the fleeing accused who was later declared dead," Aggarwal said.

Sankar, 49, was rushed to Kilpauk Medical College Hospital where doctors who examined him pronounced that he was "dead on arrival," he said.

The police, who fired three rounds at the accused, warned him after he attacked the constable and opened fire in "self-defence", Aggarwal later told reporters.

"There will be a magisterial inquiry as per procedure," and according to laid down Supreme Court

guidelines, he said.

Aggarwal said that vigil has been stepped up to prevent drug peddling.

"Last month we had seized about 800 kg of ganja. We are firm on not allowing drug peddling," he said.

Sankar was involved in drug peddling in Ayanavaram and also in other parts of North Chennai. The Ayanavaram police registered a case.
Scientists Thomas Edison versus Nikola Tesla has been one of the greatest debate in the science and technology world. One as the recognized 'real genius' and the other one as the so-called 'bully.' To know their stories, a biopic movie will be shown on Aug. 21 to present the story of 'Tesla' starring Hollywood actor Ethan Hawke. However, if we will ask Tesla CEO Elon Musk himself, who do you think will he choose over Edison or Tesla?

Sorry, Elon Musk doesn't like Tesla that much

How did the tech billionaire Musk come up with a name 'Tesla' for his car brand? Obviously, the name refers to the known scientist Nikola Tesla.

Nikola is not just famous for his creations, but with his rivalry with America's recognized greatest inventor Thomas Edison. Due to this, many of the known scientists and even tech groups found this topic most debatable.

But for Tesla owner Elon Musk, the answer on who's better between the two scientists is clearly Thomas Edison.

It turns out, Musk was actually a 'bigger fan' of Edison than Tesla. As explained by him in a 2008 interview, "Edison brought his stuff to market and made those inventions accessible to the world." Meanwhile, Tesla "didn't really do that."

Then, why is his brand named after Tesla?

According to the tech billionaire, Tesla deserves "a little more play than he gets in current society." "But "on balance," says Musk, "I'm a bigger fan of Edison than Tesla."'



Tesla vs. Edison: Who's the better scientist?

Nikola Tesla is a Serbian-American engineer that first designed the alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology. He also created the 'Tesla coil,' that is still being used in radios.

Despite his genius brain, history did not know him as popular as his colleague Thomas Edison. Edison was recognized as America's greatest inventor.

He was credited as the creator of the light bulb and the phonograph. Both of them were familiar with the electricity-current inventions.

However, according to history, Edison became more famous than Tesla, due to insufficient funds of the latter on pushing to create his inventions.

To know more about their story, Hollywood director Michael Almereyda created a biopic film about the story of 'Tesla' starring award-winning actor Ethan Hawke.

In the teaser, the movie shows how Tesla meets Edison and how he strives to collect funds for his inventions. The movie starts showing on Aug. 21 in the United States.

ALSO READ: Elon Musk's Neuralink Brain Chip Will Soon Allow Users to Take Charge of Moods and Emotions

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Jamie Pancho

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The chaos in the oil-rich country has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year

Libya's U.N.-supported government Friday announced a cease-fire across the oil-rich country and called for demilitarizing the strategic city of Sirte, which is controlled by rival forces.

In a separate statement Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival east-based House of Representatives, also called for a cease-fire. The announcements came amid fears of an escalation in the more than 9-year-old conflict.

Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in the capital Tripoli, also announced parliamentary and presidential elections would be held in March.

Both administrations said they want an end to an oil blockade imposed by the camp of military commander Khalifa Haftar since earlier this year. Hifter is an ally to the parliament speaker. They also called for oil revenues, the country's main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to Haftar closed oil export terminals and choked off major pipelines at the start of the year in an effort to pressure the Tripoli-based government.

The developments come amid international pressure on both sides and fears of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war, as the rivals mobilize for a battle over Sirte, the gateway to the country's major oil export terminals.

Both statements called for demilitarizing the city of Sirte and the Jufra area in central Libya, and for a joint police force to be responsible for security there.

There was no immediate comment form Haftar's army, but Haftar agreed on an Egyptian initiative in June that included a cease-fire.

The U.N. support mission in Libya welcomed both statements and called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya. Both sides of the conflict are supported by thousands of mercenaries.

``The two initiatives have created hope for forging a peaceful political solution to the longstanding Libyan crisis, a solution that will affirm the desire of the Libyan people to live in peace and dignity,'' said Stephanie Williams, acting head of the U.N. mission .

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Haftar's forces launched an offensive in April 2019 to try and capture the Tripoli. But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of Tripoli and other western towns.

The chaos in the oil-rich country has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

Haftar is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the U.A.E. in a broader regional struggle over political Islam, is the main patron of the Tripoli forces, which are also backed by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

Haftar's offensive on Tripoli deeply polarized the already divided country and aborted U.N. efforts to hold a peace conference more than a year ago.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi on Twitter welcomed both statements as ``an important step on the path of achieving the political settlement.''

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HKSAR govt condemns US move to suspend agreements, including extradition treaty, rejects being used as pawn

Global Times

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 14:07:26

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has strongly condemned the US decision to suspend or terminate three bilateral agreements, including the extradition treaty with the city, which is widely seen as a move to create trouble in China-US ties, using Hong Kong as a pawn.

As part of the so-called "ongoing implementation measures" following the US President's Executive Order issued on July 14, the US Department of State announced Wednesday the suspension or termination of three bilateral agreements signed between the HKSAR and US governments, namely the Agreement on the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders (SFO), the Transfer of Sentenced Persons (TSP) Agreement and the Agreement concerning Tax Exemptions from the Income Derived from the International Operation of Ships.

Contrary to what was alleged in the US President's Executive Order, these agreements are not US preferential treatment for Hong Kong, but bilateral agreements negotiated in good faith to benefit the peoples and businesses of both sides in the fields of law and order, shipping and tax treatment, said a spokesman from the HKSAR government.

The US' unilateral decision reflects its disrespect for bilateralism and multilateralism under the current administration and should be condemned by the international community, the spokesman said, stressing that the US is using Hong Kong as a pawn against China's central government.

On August 7, the US government imposed "sanctions" against 11 officials of the Central People's Government and the HKSAR government, which expressed strong opposition to the move.

Since the crimes committed by fugitive offenders are mostly of a serious nature, such as fraud, drug trafficking, murder, sexual offences, money laundering, corruption and theft, suspension of the SFO agreement will only allow such criminals to evade legal sanctions and thus fail to uphold justice for their victims. As such, the US will need to be answerable to the rule of law, both to the American people and to the international community at large, the spokesman said.

The spokesman stressed that the HKSAR has established a comprehensive cooperation regime for the surrender of fugitives. The HKSAR government will continue to uphold the principle of mutual assistance and reciprocity, and carry out law enforcement cooperation with other members of the international community in accordance with the law.

The spokesman pointed out that the HKSAR is an inalienable part of China and a local administrative region which enjoys a high degree of autonomy under "one country, two systems" and comes directly under the Central People's Government.

We urge the US to immediately stop interfering in HKSAR's internal affairs, and retract its baseless allegations against the national security law for HKSAR. We need to solemnly point out that the legislation preserves the principle of "one country, two systems" and restores much needed stability to the HKSAR, especially after the social chaos and violence that had taken place in Hong Kong in 2019, the spokesman said.

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The Kremlin said on Friday that the decision not to evacuate opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in hospital with suspected poisoning, was based only on medical grounds.







"This is a question of a purely medical decision," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists after doctors said it was not safe for Navalny to be flown out to Germany.







Navalny's supporters organised a private plane from Germany with medics aboard that has landed at the airport of the Siberian city of Omsk where he is hospitalized.







Doctors have said Navalny's condition is unstable and it is not safe to evacuate him, while Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh accused Russia of wanting to cover up the poisoning and put his life at risk.







Peskov said that "no one sees any obstacles" to Navalny being flown out of Russia, except health reasons, after saying earlier that the Kremlin would help with a transfer abroad if needed.







Russian doctors were in "full contact" with the German doctors and "continuing to do all that is possible", the Kremlin spokesman said.







Navalny is the most prominent opposition figure in Russia with his hard-hitting investigations of corruption among top officials gaining millions of views online.







He has dubbed the ruling party that supports Putin "the party of swindlers and thieves" and his supporters chant the slogan "Putin is a thief" at rallies. (AFP)


The Bucharest Court of Appeal (CAB) on Friday dismissed as unfounded, an appeal filed by Liviu Dragnea against a jail sentence handed to him in the case of fictitious employment at DGASPC Teleorman; the former Social Democratic Party (PSD) national leader requested his release from prison on the grounds that he is being held illegally.

The decision is final and binding.

This was the last extraordinary way of challenge used by Liviu Dragnea appealed to get his sentence of three years and six months of imprisonment, handed to him in May 2019 for inciting abuse of office in the case of fictitious employment at DGASPC Teleorman, quashed.

Earlier, Dragnea made several attempts to get out of the penitentiary, by making use of extraordinary remedies - appeal in annulment and appeal in cassation, but all his requests were rejected.

On Thursday, during the trial at CAB, Dragnea claimed to be innocent and that if he is kept in prison "for brutal violation of human rights", it means that the Romanian judiciary "does not resist political pressure."

"I say what I said before. I was sent to prison completely innocent. Basically, I was sent to prison by an illegal panel. The lawyer showed that Romania is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which is clear and unequivocal. I was sent to prison for non-compliance with the law and, if I am kept in prison through a brutal human rights violation, it means that in Romania the judiciary is not resisting political pressure," Dragnea said in court.

This enforcement appeal is the last challenge used by Dragnea to get out of prison earlier, after receiving an unfavorable decision on June 9 at the court of first instance - the Bucharest Tribunal.

In his court filings, Dragnea points to an appeal related to "habeas corpus" - a law of a constitutional nature, promulgated in 1679 by the English Parliament that guarantees a person's freedom.

Lawyers to the former PSD national leader claim that he is illegally detained in the penitentiary, because the panel of three judges of the Supreme Court that convicted him was not specialising in corruption. The lawyers referenced an October 2019 decision of the Constitutional Court.

On May 27, 2019, the Supreme Court handed Dragnea a final and binding sentence of 3 years and 6 months in prison for instigating abuse of office in the case of fictitious employment by DGASPC Teleorman.
This Missouri home for sale comes with a 9-cell jail attached. (Photo: House of Brokers Realty)

A home for sale in Missouri comes with room for nine inmates as photos reveal that the historic structure is connected to a former jail.

The Fayette, Mo., property is currently listed for $350,000 as a single-family home on House of Brokers Realty, where the listing boasts of the historic home built in 1875 and renovated in 2005. While must of the homes interior looks updated and rather homey with modern high end finishes with traditional architecture and character, its a secret steel door in the kitchen that leads to the listings standout feature.

THE BEST PART, the listing reads, connected to the home is a 2500 sq ft legitimate jail with 9 cells, booking room and 1/2 bath.

A secret door in the kitchen leads to the jail. (Photo: House of Brokers Realty)

There are nine unoccupied jail cells within the home's jail. (Photo: House of Brokers Realty)

Photos show the hidden entrance to the jail from the home, as well as a separate entrance directly into the jail from outside. The listing notes that the property used to be the Howard County Sheriff's House, which would explain the jail attached. The rest of the home contains two bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths and an unfinished basement.

Possibilities are amazing with this property, says the listing.

The page doesnt include any additional information about the jail or when it was last in use.

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An Indian was arrested in the United States on August 20 in connection with a $21 million H-1B visa fraud. Ashish Sawhney, 48, faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted.

In a press statement, the Department of Justice, Eastern District of Virginia, said that Sawhney allegedly used four companies to carry out the H-1B skilled worker visa fraud, namely, Value Consulting LLC, Value Software Products Inc, Business Pointers Inc, and E-Train ERP Inc.

The court documents allege that Sawhney filed fraudulent H-1B applications, claiming that the foreign workers named would fulfill specific jobs, where no such jobs existed at the time of filing. Through the visa fraud, his companies made profits to the tune of $21 million between 2011 and 2016, the statement said.

Additionally, Sawhney, who is an Indian national, also allegedly attempted to naturalise as a US citizen by submitting an application containing false statements.

The case is being investigated by the Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force, which is comprised of multiple agencies including the Department of Homeland Securitys Homeland Security Investigations, the US Department of States Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), US Department of Labors Office of Inspector General, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office of Fraud Detection and National Security that coordinate investigations into fraudulent immigration documents.
NEW HAVEN  In the end it all arrived on time.

One day before the scheduled reopening, the shelving lost in the mail was delivered, as was that critical stove part, and the Fire Department finished its inspection of the sprinkler system.

After five months and four days, Claire Criscuolo of Claires Corner Copia on Friday was back greeting old friends to her expanded vegetarian restaurant that will celebrate its 45th anniversary on Sept. 17.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

I havent been this happy in months. I havent been this happy since my great-nephew was born, since I became prozia , (thats Italian for great aunt,) Criscuolo said.

It started out as a pretty straightforward renovation plan for new walls and flooring, just in the kitchen, and a new counter. It quickly got complicated when her landlord, Yale Properties, asked whether she wanted to annex the small space next-door where the restaurant originally was located.

We are so over budget ... thank God for SBA loans, she said as the renovation took on a life of its own, not the least of which was discovering the wall that needed to come down was load-bearing.

With each unexpected turn, however, there seemed to be some compensation that kept her going.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

Half of a mural in the restaurants dining room some eight years ago was mistakenly painted over. But then Criscuolo realized it was the perfect place for her guiding motto:

The only compelling reason why we have been given more food than we need, more love than we need and more resources than we need, is so that we may share with those who have been given less, Criscuolo said, something that will greet customers as they come inside.

Nearby there will be another message: Be kinder than necessary.

The name Claires Corner Copia was the winning suggestion made by a graduate student, Jeff Hall, in a contest held in 1975. The prize was a hot fudge sundae for four people every week for a year.

Criscuolo is full of stories and will often interrupt one to tell another, or switch topics when something else distracts her. In this case it was the sensory overload.

Oh my God, I smell the bread. Oh my God, do you guys smell the bread?, Crisculo said to her staff, which was preparing lunch for customers. Oh, be still my heart. Oh, Lord. This is the first new loaf!

We are just so lucky to be back in this corner. This is a blessing, she said.

She then gave a shout-out to the painters, who do a lot of work for Yale, as they made sure everything was ready for her opening.

Thank you for making it happen. They squeezed us in. They didnt have to fit us in, Criscuolo said.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

Candice Klein and her sister, Laurie Klein, who have been customers since Claires opened, made a point of having lunch there on Friday. For Candice, she was sticking with the soup and salad combo, but she added a side of nachos. Lauries favorite are the fritters.

Of her 25 staff members, 21 are coming back and Criscuolo plans to replace those who moved away.

The remaining workers did all the prep work last night. We are a well-oiled machine, Criscuolo said of getting back into the swing of things.

One of them was Erin Guild, her manager for the past 17 years, who came in the see how the lunch hour was doing. Maria Felice, a 10-year veteran at the restaurant, was the baker responsible for the smell of bread wafting through the restaurant. She came into the dining room to say hello.

Asked to reflect on the big picture of New Haven over the last almost-half-century, Criscuolo compared local home-grown businesses with the big names that come and go.

She remembered one of them that was located across the street. As soon as a mini-recession landed here, they closed. That is what happens with corporate. Because corporate looks at sales only. ... Somebody like a small business, that stays here because they love this place, they make it work and they suck it up during the hard times.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

Criscuolo then ticked off the financial downturns she remembers starting in the 1980s, followed by the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 Great Recession and now the pandemic.

It is going to take more than a pandemic to get rid of us. You know, if you want something to work, you work it. If you want something to be successful, you work to make it successful. If you come from a place of love, then people are your bottom line, she said.

Editors note: An earlier version of this story referred to Claires Corner Copia as a vegan restaurant. While there are vegan options available, the business is a vegetarian restaurant.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.

com; 203-641-2577
Southeast Asian technology start-ups raised less money this year as the coronavirus pandemic roiled markets, but the decline was less acute than some other parts of the world, according to a new report. They raised $5.6 billion of investments in the first half of this year, down 13 per cent from a year ago, research from Singapore-based venture capital firm Cento Ventures released on Friday showed.

That compares with a 16 per cent drop in India and 21 per cent fall in the EU. North America saw declines of 8 per cent during the same period, according to the report, which covered almost 3,500 ...
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden hugs his wife Jill Biden after speaking during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention (Andrew Harnik/AP)

With Joe Biden securing formal nomination as his party's presidential candidate this week, he became the latest in a parade of Democratic vice-presidents to seek America's ultimate political prize.

Despite the hoopla of the virtual convention, a nagging question dogs the Biden campaign: can the two-term Number Two buck the losing trend set by his recent predecessors?

Since the 1960s, four Democrats have won races for president: Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Each served with a vice-president later nominated for the top job.

Three of these veeps - Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Al Gore in 2000 - lost in their attempt to move from second fiddle to chief conductor. Biden is the fourth to face that challenge.

Expand Close Bill Clinton and Al Gore on the presidential campaign trail in 1992. Photo: Getty / Facebook

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The office of vice-president, referred to as "a heartbeat away" from untold power, is difficult to define because each occupant, besides breaking tied votes in the Senate, does whatever a president wants: no more, no less.

America's first vice-president, John Adams, called his job "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived".

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More than a century later, Franklin Roosevelt's first running mate, John Nance Garner, assessed his role more colourfully: "The vice-presidency is not worth a bucket of warm piss." Garner was so despairing of second-banana status that he sought to replace his boss at the top of the Democrats' ticket at the 1940 convention. Roosevelt received 946 votes to Garner's 61.

Until recent decades, a chief concern in choosing a political sidekick was trying to achieve balance - geographically or generationally - in voters' eyes.

Concern for balance

That is why John F Kennedy, a Irish Catholic from New England, picked a running mate in 1960 with strong appeal to Southerners in the Bible Belt: Senate majority leader Johnson.

Expand Close Rivals: US presidential candidates John F Kennedy (left) and Richard Nixon after their debate at a Chicago television studio in 1960. Photo: AP / Facebook

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Whatsapp Rivals: US presidential candidates John F Kennedy (left) and Richard Nixon after their debate at a Chicago television studio in 1960. Photo: AP

In the popular vote, with 68 million votes cast, JFK beat Richard Nixon by a margin of just over 100,000. Johnson's home state of Texas ended in the Democratic column, as did several other states in the South, for an Electoral College advantage of 84 votes.

Since 1992, the concern for balance has shifted to practicalities of day-to-day governance. In most situations, a potential president is looking for someone to assume executive responsibilities rather than be merely a liaison with legislators, especially senators.

When Clinton chose Gore 28 years ago, a Southerner in his mid-40s was picking another Southerner of about the same age because Clinton wanted to project a team approach.

Clinton and Gore won in 1992 and 1996. During eight years as the Number Two, Gore guided the administration's work in protecting the environment, developing information technology and streamlining government.

Rather than being slighted as "standby equipment" - another derisive term for the post of vice-president - Gore played substantive roles in key areas and served as all-purpose White House adviser. (This arrangement was a far cry from his predecessor, Dan Quayle, George HW Bush's veep, who became a running joke.)

The two vice-presidents after Gore - Dick Cheney and Biden - continued the pattern Gore set in their active involvement in policy issues. Yet, unlike Gore, both entered the second office as Washington-wise senior figures to younger, less seasoned chief executives.

George W Bush, who had been governor of Texas for just five years, selected Cheney, a former Congressional leader and secretary of defence. Obama had been in the Senate only four years when he picked Biden, a six-term senator. Bush and Obama wanted advice, if not guidance, based on their sidekicks' experience.

Though understandable, the danger of bringing a veteran on to the ticket is that some observers accuse the older figure of having Svengali-like influence: the greyhair manipulating the greenhorn. Cheney, in particular, received criticism during Bush's first term for clout he wielded both overtly and behind the scenes.

By contrast, in today's White House, only one person counts: Donald Trump.

Expand Close Us Vice President Mike Pence arriving with his wife Karen and his Mother Nancy at Doonbeg Village to greet locals at Morrisseys Restaurant. Photo: Steve Humphreys / Facebook

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Whatsapp Us Vice President Mike Pence arriving with his wife Karen and his Mother Nancy at Doonbeg Village to greet locals at Morrisseys Restaurant. Photo: Steve Humphreys

That doesn't mean Mike Pence twiddles his thumbs as vice-president. Politically, the former Indiana governor and six-term member of Congress serves as a bridge to conservative Republicans, especially religious evangelicals. He is a conspicuous cheerleader for the Trump administration, with a travel schedule that would intimidate a nomad, and he is also head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

Pence makes sense for Trump, as does Senator Kamala Harris as Biden's vice-presidential candidate. Both come across to voters as serious, appropriate second-place choices.

That has not always been the case. The last woman to run for vice-president was Sarah Palin in 2008. At that time, she was the largely unknown Republican governor of Alaska. John McCain thought she would add energetic, political pizzazz to the Republicans' campaign against Obama and Biden.

Roundly ridiculed at appearances on the stump and during broadcast interviews, Palin generated more worry than assurance. Before too long, she drifted back into obscurity.

Expand Close Optimism: Kamala Harris after accepting her nomination as Joe Bidens vice-presidential candidate. PHOTO: AP/CAROLYN KASTER / Facebook

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This year is different. Harris, California's attorney general before going to the Senate in 2017, is 22 years younger than Biden and has endured media scrutiny over the past decade, including during her ill-fated bid for this year's presidential nomination. With a father from Jamaica and a mother from India, she is the first woman of colour chosen to compete for the vice-presidency, and her selection has additional importance in the realm of governing. Should he win in November, Biden will be 78 on Inauguration Day next January. There are whispers already that he might serve just four years.

Conventional wisdom in political science suggests that a Number Two doesn't mean that much to an election's outcome. In most cases, that's true. But the Kennedy-Johnson triumph 60 years ago did prove otherwise.

If Biden and Harris prevail, the president-elect will break the 52-year jinx of Democratic vice-presidents losing White House campaigns, and his running mate will become the first woman in history to be a "heartbeat away".

But winning won't be easy. The Trump-Pence ticket that will be on display at next week's Republican convention will noisily vaunt their own case for re-election. Their quest to become the fourth consecutive two-term administration could be groundbreaking too. Four-in-a-row has never happened in US history.

Robert Schmuhl is professor emeritus of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame and adjunct professor at Dublin City University. He is the author of 'The Glory and the Burden: The American Presidency from FDR to Trump'
Heal Like Me Brown Bandages began with a conversation between Joy Barbre and her son Joe Weinstein. Shes a registered nurse who recently retired from St. Louis County Department of Health. Hes a computer-savvy data analyst whose past work experiences included working for a company that imported and sold party goods.

She lives in St. Louis. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska. Although theyre far apart, the two share familial values of kindness, optimism and compassion. Joe witnessed his mothers goal-oriented get-it-done attitude when, as a single mom with three young children, she returned to school to become a nurse.

Inspiration and Joy  Her zeal for helping people through a career in nursing stemmed from a personal health crisis that required numerous delicate surgeries and numerous hospital stays. When I watched and interacted with the nurses who cared for me, I realized I could do this. I would like to do this, she says.

During her years as a public health nurse Barbre ministered to children and adults of all racial backgrounds. Sometimes an adult or a child would just need a bandage, all of which matched my skin, says Barbre, who is white. For people of color, there were few choices beyond the light colors.

I remember one day, I treated a young man, a junior in high school. He had very dark skin, and I put a light bandage on his cheek. He went into the restroom and looked in the mirror and I heard him say This looks awful! and it did.

Another time, when I gave a little one her options  red, blue, dinosaurs or princesses, and she said I want one like me, Barbre says.

Soon after, Barbre spoke with her son about the incidents. Thats when I came up with the idea to do something. My goal wasnt to retire from my day job and start a business, but to acknowledge the importance of doing something to address this.

More than just conversation  When mom talked, son Joe listened. So I had contacts from the party supply house and sent an email to a former coworker. I knew he spent a lot of time sourcing all over the world. A couple weeks later I got an email back from somebody who could do it. We got a quote, a little back and forth, and we had a starting point to look into the possibility of making brown bandages, Weinstein says.

Shades of difference  While Joe searched for manufacturers, Joy began market research. I spoke with several coworkers who gave me input into which shades would be most appropriate. We currently offer two colors: medium dark and dark. Both seem to be good options, Barbre says.

Affordable inclusivity  One of the things is there was one company already doing this when we started last year, but their bandages are nearly three times as much as ours. Were priced at about 7 cents per bandage; theirs are 20 cents a piece. A simple bandage is a commodity. It shouldnt be a premium product. If youre Caucasian its not an issue, but if you have any variation of darker or Asian skin tones anywhere around the world, youre limited as to whats available, Weinstein says.

The lure of a bandage for kids  Getting a bandage can be a thrill, a palliative for anxiety, and proof of a parents love as well as a balm for hurt. Children use bandages for all sorts of things in addition to ow-ies, Barbre says. I once found a shelf in my childrens room decorated with a border of bandages.

Weinstein concurs. Our 2-year-old uses one every day, Weinstein says. He comes into my office and hands me the box. He asks for brown bandages. All of the neighbor kids and friends use them now and only two of them have darker skin. They love them.

Representation and awareness  For Barbre, expanding representation in toys, dolls, books and products of all kinds is critically important. When I talk to my friends who are persons of color about the bandages, theres a little bit of awkwardness for me, but when I reach out, it furthers the conversation about racial equity, Barbre says.

Her son, who handles the logistics, keeping track of finances and order fulfillment, agrees. Awareness is big, Weinstein says. There was a Black man working on our neighbors house a few weeks ago. I gave him a few boxes. He said Ive never seen anything like this  thank you. People are learning our bandages are priced right, and available. It starts with awareness.

Its a family affair  This mother and son duo each put their money as well as their hearts into bringing Heal Like Me Brown Bandages to market with the full support of their families.

We heard about them when Joys husband, Rich, emailed the Post-Dispatch to tell us about both of their nearly year old venture. His appreciation for his wifes perspicacity shone through in his words. Daughter Jessica wanted readers to understand her mothers decision to make and sell Brown Bandages wasnt an opportunistic ploy to make money, but a compassionate response from a principled woman to address a need in the community shed served for many years.

Fairness in all things  Although Brown Bandages have sold well throughout the country to individuals, schools, community agencies, and even to street medics, anticipated sales didnt drive mother and son to pursue the business. My goal was to emphasize the importance of meeting this need. We need more equality in health care. As a nurse, I think everyone deserves fairness in health care. This business seemed to be a natural progression. Were just a small part; a little change, but if we all do the little things, bigger changes will happen, Barbre says.

Heal Like Me Inc.





Makers and distributors  The mother-and-son team of Joy Barbre and Joe Weinstein create and market Heal Like Me products.

Ages  Joy is 63; Joe is 37.

Families  Joy has been married to Rich Barbre for 28 years. She has three children, sons Joe and Jordan, one daughter, Jessica, and 6 grandsons who add energy and love to our lives, Joy says. Joe and his wife, Kristin, have three sons, Brayden, Teddy and Everett.

Homes  Joy lives in Ballwin; Joe lives in Omaha, Nebraska

What they make  Joy and Joe design, produce, and sell Brown Bandages, a line of skin tone bandages for brown skin.

Where to buy  Heal Like Me Brown Bandages are currently available for sale on Amazon.com.

How much  Brown Bandages are available in two colors, medium brown and dark brown. All orders ship free. 100 bandages are $7; 200 bandages are $13; 500 bandages are $32.
Or so I imagined. I actually didnt know because he couldnt tell me.

Months earlier, when we were still full-time college students, I realized how little I knew about the military, much less being a military girlfriend. On the night of our fifth date, he told me he had signed a contract earlier that day with the Marines, committing his last two summers before graduation to training and his first four years after graduation to serving as an officer.

[Sign up for Love Letter, our weekly email about Modern Love, weddings and relationships.]

My first thought: Will we still be fighting wars four years from now? My next: Will he and I still be together?

As our relationship deepened, I eased into the idea of military lingo and lifestyle. I did barre exercises while watching him run laps in lace-up boots. I read poetry while he studied the Marines core values. I listened, aghast, as he described the Quigley, a test of resilience that required candidates to swim submerged and gun-first, through pipes and barbed wire, clearing snakes and mud along the way.

I also had nightmares where he would go off to battle and a flag would return. He hadnt even started boot camp yet. We were college students, sheltered and privileged in many ways. Yet I would wake up in tears. I couldnt even fathom losing him for seven weeks to officer candidate school  a little over-the-top, I admit, when people all over this country are already dealing with lengthy separations, deployments or worse.

We hesitated to tell friends how committed we were, lest they write us off as falling too hard and too fast. Given what came next, they might have been right.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Tearful family members of people killed by Joseph DeAngelo assailed him Thursday for stealing away their loved ones as he escalated his attacks from burglaries and rapes to a series of horrific murders that terrorized California four decades ago.

Today the devil loses and justice wins, Debbi Domingo McMullan?, the daughter of one victim, said during the third day of a sentencing hearing for the 74-year-old man known as the Golden State Killer.

Earlier in the week, a judge heard testimony from rape victims who endured sadistic, hours-long assaults by DeAngelo, a former police officer whose serial crimes began in Northern California. He later moved to Southern California, where his rapes followed the same pattern of binding couples he surprised while they slept and assaulting the woman as the man lay helpless.

By then, his assaults routinely ended in murder and his identity  hidden behind a ski mask  remained a mystery until investigators used a new form of DNA tracking to arrest him in 2018.

DeAngelos ex-wife broke her silence in the case when she submitted an impact statement to the court saying she had been deceived by her husband and that living with the knowledge that his attacks harmed so many people has had a devastating and pervasive affect on my life and my family.

Many victims have wondered how Sacramento attorney Sharon Huddle could not have known about her husbands double life, but she said he simply lied to her.

I trusted the defendant when he told me he had to work, or was going pheasant hunting, or going to visit his parents hundreds of miles away, Huddle wrote.

DeAngelo pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges stemming from crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. A plea deal with prosecutors will spare him the death penalty when he is formally sentenced Friday to consecutive life prison sentences.

The sentencing will follow days of excruciating testimony from his victims and their loved ones.

Prosecutors walked through his slayings in near-chronological order on Thursday in what one relative called a timeline of horror  from three early Northern California victims killed when they interfered with his assaults on women, to his 10 known Southern California murders.

DeAngelo was dubbed the Visalia Ransacker when he killed 45-year-old Claude Snelling on Sept. 11, 1975. The journalism professor in the San Joaquin Valley was slain while thwarting the attempted kidnapping of his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Hupp.

My dad died saving my life that night and he is my hero, Hupp said as she broke down in tears.

DeAngelo was known as the East Area Rapist by Feb. 2, 1978, when he fatally shot Katie Maggiore, 20, and Brian Maggiore, 21, as they walked their dog around their Rancho Cordova neighbourhood in Sacramento County.

You lurked in the dark so you could prey on innocent victims, Katies brother, Ken Smith, told DeAngelo. Well, now you are prey, DeAngelo, and you can look over your shoulder the rest of your life in prison.

Debra Manning, 35, was raped and killed along with 44-year-old Robert Offerman on Dec. 30, 1979, in Santa Barbara County.

In a letter to the court, Mannings friends Natasha Holliday and Roseanne Howard remembered her as a beautiful and brilliant doctor while blasting DeAngelo for the obsessive madness that led him to beat and shoot the couple before he bizarrely ate some of their Christmas turkey leftovers.

Cheri Domingo, 35, and Gregory Sanchez, 27, were killed on July 27, 1981, also in Santa Barbara County.

I had watched my mom and Greg dance carefree across our living room for the last time, Domingos daughter, McMullan?, who was just 15 at the time, recalled through tears while DeAngelo sat expressionless, as he has throughout the hearings.

The bodies of Charlene Smith, 33, and Lyman Smith, 43, were found March 16, 1980, in their Ventura County home.

They are part of DeAngelos legacy of sadism, cruelty, moral and physical depravity, Jennifer Carole, the daughter of Lyman Smith, told the court even as she urged people to focus on making positive changes.

Finally, there were four slayings in Orange County.

Keith Harrington, 24, and Patrice Harrington, 27, were young newlyweds living in Dana Point when his father found them bludgeoned to death on Aug. 21, 1980.

Ron Harrington, a brother of the victim, called DeAngelo the poster child for the death penalty and criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom for imposing a moratorium on executions.

The slayings led Bruce Harrington, another brother, to champion Proposition 69, passed by California voters in 2004, that expanded the collection of DNA samples from prisoners and those arrested for felonies and has since led to more than 81,000 suspect identifications.

In DeAngelos case, however, investigators pioneered a new technique that builds family trees from publicly available DNA websites as investigators try to identify a suspect.

Manuela Witthuhn, 28, of Irvine was raped and murdered on Feb. 6, 1981. Her brother-in-law, Drew Witthuhn, said in court that DeAngelo pounced on the tiny woman in her bed as if she was nothing more than prey to the predator.

DeAngelos last and youngest known murder victim was 18-year-old Janelle Cruz of Irvine. She was raped and killed on May 5, 1986, after a five-year gap that DeAngelo has never explained.

Michelle Cruz recalled that DeAngelo beat her sister beyond recognition, forcing a closed casket funeral.

Hes a selfish, sadistic, calculating, cruel, pathetic piece of scum, she said.
New Delhi: The Economic Offence Wing (EoW) of Delhi Police has arrested two persons for allegedly donating Rs 2 crore to Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) through a shell company, sources said on Friday (August 21, 2020).

One of the two arrested by the Delhi Police has been identified as Delhi-based businessman Mukesh Kumar. The other one has been identified as Sudhanshu Bansal.

The two have been arrested on charges of allegedly donating the money to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals party through a demand draft on March 31, 2014.

Mukesh Sharma is a property dealer and tobacco trader based in Delhi.

It may be recalled that sacked Delhi minister and now a BJP leader Kapil Mishra had earlier alleged that the amount was paid to AAP by a shell company.

Mishra had also alleged "massive irregularities" in the funding of the AAP and raised questions about the "suspicious" donation of Rs 2 crore.

He had also claimed that several shell companies had given money to the AAP and the party knew it.
Democrats sought to rally their party faithful and some moderate Republicans by describing Trump as a threat to democracy, citing his attacks on mail-in voting in particular, and painting Biden as a good-hearted man who would restore integrity and decency to the Oval Office. They plan to continue going on the attack against Trump as he attempts to seize the narrative during four nights of prime-time television next week.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Britain's AstraZeneca <AZN.L> has received regulatory approval to conduct part of a Phase III trial of its potential COVID-19 vaccine in Russia, a filing in the Russian registry of clinical trials showed on Friday.

The trial of the AZD1222 vaccine will involve 150 participants and will be handled by four medical facilities in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the filing, dated Friday, showed.

Moscow has previously agreed a deal with AstraZeneca to manufacture the potential vaccine, developed in tandem with Oxford University, at the facilities of Russian firm R-Pharm.

The British drugmaker said in a statement last week that late-stage trials of its vaccine were ongoing in Britain and in Brazil, an early-stage trial was progressing in South Africa, and that further trials were planned in the U.S., Japan and Russia.

Russia is also developing several potential COVID-19 vaccines domestically, with late-stage trials of the front-runner candidate, nicknamed 'Sputnik-V', set to begin next week.

(Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Additional reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Susan Fenton;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
Former Union minister and United Democratic Alliance (UDA) convenor Yashwant Sinha on Thursday joined a host of political leaders to seek postponement of the Bihar assembly polls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Polls are due in the months of October-November in the state, which has, till date, witnessed 1.15 lakh COVID-19 cases, including 574 fatalities.

The Election Commission, however, has not made any official announcement about the poll schedule.

Sinha said that it was an "irony" that political activities have been put on hold for now owing to the rise in number of coronavirus cases, but nothing was being done to delay the elections.

"I am of the view that assembly elections should not be held in the current scenario. Polls should be conducted later," Sinha told reporters here.

Except Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and the BJP, of which Sinha was once the national spokesperson, almost all major political parties in Bihar, including NDA constituent LJP, have demanded that elections be postponed.

"What sort of elections would be held under these circumstances? Every polling station will turn out to be a coronavirus infection centre after elections, and it is difficult to predict the extent to which the disease might spread," he cautioned.

The former Union finance minister charged the state government with "hiding actual COVID-19 figures" to impress upon the Election Commission that the infection rate is low.

"Nitish Kumar is afraid that if elections go beyond November 29, President's rule will be imposed on the state and he will have to relinquish the CM's post," Sinha claimed.

In reply to a query on virtual meetings and rallies, as undertaken by the BJP in several states, Sinha said, "I do not believe in virtual, I believe in actual.

"Virtual meetings, rallies are for parties which have huge resources. These are not meant for parties which are financially not that strong," he added.
German Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will pay a working visit to Kyiv on August 24 to hold talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

According to the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the parties will discuss issues of interaction between Ukraine and Germany in order to restore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression.

"The ministers will outline common steps in the Normandy format to achieve progress in a peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas," the ministry said in the statement.

Kuleba and Maas will also discuss practical measures to strengthen the Ukrainian and German cooperation and interaction between the foreign ministries. Particular attention will be focused on the issues of European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine, taking into account the German presidency in the EU.

Thus, following the talks, it is planned to hold a joint press conference of the ministers.
A lethal combination of thousands of lightning strikes and a record-breaking heatwave has sparked hundreds of new wildfires depleting the firefighting resources and prompting the mandatory evacuation of thousands of residents from California fires.

CAL Fire division chief Jeremy Rahn said: "Over the past 72 hours, California has experienced a historic lightning siege." He reported of 10,800 lighting fire strikes which started 367 new fires. As new fires continue to ignite, firefighting resources are depleted.

The wildfires are now raging the populated areas of Northern California.

The fires are burning during a record-breaking heatwave, with 45 million people across the West are given heat advisory.

Here are the latest updates on the fires in the Bay Area:

Area: San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties

Acres burned: 48,000

Containment: 0%

Structures threatened; 6,000

Houses burned: 20 ( as of Wednesday night)

Casualties: Three firefighters suffered non-life-threatening injuries while fighting a fire in Santa Cruz County. As per San Mateo County Official's report, 48,000of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties residents have been evacuated.

Evacuation Centers :

Santa Cruz County: The Santa Cruz Fairgrounds at 2601 E. Lake Avenue in Watsonville; Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium at 307 Church St.; and the 7th Day Adventists property on Soquel-San Jose Road.

San Mateo County: Pescadero High School at 360 Butano Cutoff Road.

READ: Michigan State Will Pay 600 Million Dollars in New Development of Flint Water Crisis





Area: Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Yolo and Lake counties

Acres burned: 215,000 acres

Containment: 0%

Structures threatened: 30,500

Structures damaged: 605

Casualties: Three Napa County residents and one person died in Solano County

Hennessey Fire

The fire broke out near Hennessey Ridge Road and Chiles Pope Valley Road. CAL Fire reported on Monday that the "crews are dealing with rugged terrain, adverse weather, and unfavorable fire conditions".

Acres burned: 192,000

Containment: 0%

Walbridge Fire

Acres burned: 20,000

Containment: 0%

Meyers Fire:

Acres burned: 3,000

Containment: 0%

Napa County:

Crosswalk Community Church at 2590 First Street

For animals, the Napa County Animal Shelter at 942 Hartle Ct.

Solano County:

Solano Community College

Rodriguez High School

Fairfield High School

The Ulatis Community Center and McBride Community Center

Large animals can be taken to the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo

Small animals can be dropped off at the Solano County animal shelter on Claybank Road





READ ALSO: New Study Shows Sea Level Rise Will Devastate Cities in California

Sonoma County:

2400 Westshore Rd., Bodega Bay

13839 Old Redwood Highway, Healdsburg

2375 West 3rd St., Santa Rosa

4351 Old Redwood Highway, Santa Rosa

500 Ragle Rd., Sebastopol





Area: Deer Zone, Calaveras Zone, and Canyon Zone

Firefighters are having a hard time containing this area as fires are burning in steep, dry areas. The cause of the fire is believed to have started from lightning.

Acres burned: 137,475Containment : 5%

Evacuation centers: Creekside Middle School at 535 Peregrine Dr., Patterson, Calif., 160 N. Main St., Milpitas; Ann Sobrato High School, Performing Arts Building, Morgan Hill

4. Woodward Fire

Area: Marin County

Acres burned: 1,500

Containment : 0%

Structures threatened: 1,600

READ NEXT: 2 Tropical Storms, Possible Hurricane: Landfall in the US Soon

Check out for more news and information on Wildfires on Nature World News.
Election 2020 Chief Minister of Myanmars Kayah State Targeted for Impeachment Over Spending, Land Allegations

Kayah State Chief Minister L Phaung Sho in December 2019. / Kayah State Government Office / Facebook

YANGONKayah State Chief Minister L Phaung Sho of Myanmars ruling party is being targeted for impeachment by local lawmakers for allegedly misappropriating state funds and failing to return a land plot to the state for public use as ordered by the legislature.

Five of the 20 lawmakers in the state legislaturetwo from the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), two from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and one from the Kayah State Democratic Party (KySDP)signed and submitted the impeachment motion against the chief minister on Aug. 12, although one of the NLD lawmakers has since said he no longer supports the motion.

According to Article 263 of the Myanmar Constitution, an impeachment motion against a chief minister can be submitted to the speaker of the state/regional parliament provided it has the support of at least one-fourth of lawmakers. Once the impeachment letter is received, the law requires that an investigation body is set up within a specific timeframe to conduct an inquiry, and that the chief minister be given a chance to defend himself. An impeachment motion against a chief minister requires the support of at least two-thirds of state/regional lawmakers to pass.

The Kayah State parliament formed an investigation committee to probe the allegations contained in the impeachment motion on Aug. 14. The committee has been told to present its findings to the parliament by Aug. 28.

Citing an audit report, Khu Theh Reh of the KySDP, who chairs the investigation committee and is among the five who signed the impeachment letter, said one of the accusations the lawmakers made is that L Phaung Sho misappropriated funds earned by the states heavy-machinery rental service.

Another accusation in the letter is that the chief minister leased a land plot that is the site of annual state day celebrations to businesses for up to 50 years, despite the parliaments decision that the plot is to be kept as a public place.

The effort to impeach L Phaung Sho hit a snag on Thursday, however, when NLD lawmaker U Thein Aung, who signed the impeachment letter, submitted an objection letter against the motion, saying the accusations against the chief minister were false.

In his objection, the lawmaker said he was forced to sign the impeachment letter by the speaker. He added that he recklessly signed the letter without properly reading its contents and said he was withdrawing his name from the complaint.

It is not possible that he [U Thein Aung] didnt know what was in the letter; there were some typos and omissions in the first impeachment letter, so we made some corrections. Thus, we all signed the letter twice. How did he sign it both times without reading it? Khu Theh Reh said.

He added that despite the NLD lawmakers withdrawal from the complaint, the committee would continue its investigation into the chief minister and present its findings to the state parliament.

The Irrawaddy made several calls Friday to the state parliament speaker and chief minister, as well as U Thein Aung, but they could not be reached for comment.

L Phaung Sho is the second chief minister to face an impeachment motion following Yangon Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein, who is also a member of the NLD. In June, one-fourth of Yangon parliamentarians submitted a motion to impeach U Phyo Min Thein. However, their attempt to impeach him failed to garner enough support in the NLD-dominated regional parliament to pass.

In the Kayah State parliament, the NLD holds 50 percent of seats and the USDP, the military appointees and then KySDP jointly hold the other half.

L Phaung Sho was elected to the state parliament in the 2015 general election from Mese Township. He has announced that he will run in the same constituency in Novembers general election.

He will meet with the investigation committee on Aug. 25 to defend himself against the accusations, according to the investigation committee.

Zue Zue contributed to this report.

You may also like these stories:

Myanmars NLD Unveils Election Candidate Lineup With More Women, Muslims

Kokang Party Vows to Make Friends With All if It Wins Seats in Myanmars Election
Justice Gogoi is the first person from the northeast to reach the top of judiciary

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea seeking setting up of a three-judge panel to inquire into the conduct of former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as a judge of the apex court. Gogoi is now a Rajya Sabha MP.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra termed as infructuous the public interest litigation (PIL), and said the petitioner did not press for a hearing in last two years and moreover, now Justice (retd) Gogoi has already demitted office.

Why did not you (petitioner) press it for hearing in the last two years? This plea has become infructuous as he has demitted office, the bench, also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Krishna Murari, said.

Sorry we can't entertain, the bench told petitioner Arun Ramchandra Hublikar, who had sought inquiry into the alleged omission and commission by Justice (retd) Gogoi as a judge of the apex court.

The petitioner claimed before the bench that he had met the secretary general of the top court for listing of his plea but it was not listed.

Justice Gogoi, the first person from the northeast to reach the top of judiciary and credited for bringing the curtains down on the decades old politically and religiously sensitive Ayodhya land dispute, had retired as the CJI on November 17 last year.
The White House moved the Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse a lower court order to let the US President block critics on Twitter. Since 2019, Trump has been prohibited from blocking critics on Twitter based on their political views. The ruling was passed by a 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on the basis that Trump uses Twitter as an official channel of communication. The main argument kept forth when the case was brought in was that Trump uses his @realDonaldTrump account for official announcements through which he has essentially created a public forum.

CNBC cited solicitor general Jeffrey Wall's petition who said that blocking people through Trump's personal account @realDonaldTrump should be a personal choice. He also asserted that users could still view tweets, take screenshots and criticise the president despite being blocked through other accounts. If the order is reversed, Trump will be able to block users from his personal account and not his official account @POTUS.

"President Trump's ability to use the features of his personal Twitter account, including the blocking function, are independent of his presidential office. Blocking third-party accounts from interacting with the @realDonaldTrump account is a purely personal action that does not involve any right or privilege created by the State," Wall stated.

The case was brought in by The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University which sued on behalf of seven students whom the president had blocked after they replied to his tweets.

Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of Knights Institute said that the case stands for a principle that is fundamental to democracy and basically synonymous with the First Amendment: "Government officials can't exclude people from public forums simply because they disagree with their political views."

The case is Trump v. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, No. 20-197, as noted by CNBC.

Trump, in May, signed an executive order which limits the protections of social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and search giant Google over the content on its platforms. The order came after Twitter added fact-checking labels to the US president's tweet claiming the 2020 elections will be rigged through mail-in ballots. This was the first time Twitter flagged the president's posts.

Twitter also labelled Trump's tweets in the backdrop of Minneapolis protests when Trump had tweeted: "Any difficulty and we will assume control, but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts." This infuriated Trump who then tweeted "Revoke 230."

Section 230 is part of a law called the Communications Decency Act, The Independent notes. The law shields any website or service that hosts content such as news outlets' comment sections, video services like YouTube, and social media services like Facebook and Twitter from lawsuits over content posted by users.
Photo taken on Jan. 22, 2020 shows an exterior view of the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. (Xinhua/Liu Qu)

The World Health Organization, or WHO, warned on Tuesday against pinning hopes on herd immunity as a salvation to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the foreseeable future.

The New York Times reported on Monday that more than a dozen scientists interviewed by the paper said that the threshold to reach herd immunity is likely to be much lower than the 70 percent previously suggested.

The report said "50 percent, perhaps even less". "If that's true, then it may be possible to turn back the coronavirus more quickly than once thought," the report said.

Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program, pointed out that so far no-one knows the level required to reach herd immunity for COVID-19.

"There is no question in my mind that we are a long way from that. And it will remain a long way in the absence of an effective vaccine," he told a virtual press conference from Geneva.

"What we can say with certainly is that right now as a global population, we are nowhere close to the level of immunity required to stop this disease from transmitting."

Ryan said people need to focus on what they can do now to

suppress transmission, and "not live in hope of herd immunity being our salvation".

"Right now, that is not a solution, and not a solution we should be looking to for our salvation," he said.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said that when people talk about herd immunity, it means the use of a vaccine, and how many people need to be vaccinated to be able to reach the right proportion so that the virus will not have an opportunity to circulate between people.

She said there are now more than 100 sero-epidemiological studies globally for SARS-CoV-2, referring to the virus that caused COVID-19. The WHO has been working with at least 50 countries on these studies.

But she said that studies conducted so far show that less than 10 percent of the population has evidence of antibodies against SARS CoV-2. That level could go up to 20 to 25 percent for high-risk groups, such as frontline healthcare workers.

"But again, that means a large percentage of the population remains susceptible," she said.

While people infected usually develop an immune response, Van Kerkhove said that it is still unknown how strong and how long the response is, adding that this study is currently still taking place.

She said that people should focus on the basics, such as case finding, isolation, contact tracing and quarantining the contacts.

Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that when half of the world's population are in lockdown and the economy has ground to a halt in many places, people should plan for a very high level of herd immunity because "we don't want to take chances, we don't want to be wrong".

He suggested that the vaccination rate must be much higher because the vaccine may work in only 50 percent or 80 percent of people.

He echoed the messages by Ryan and Van Kerkhove that people should focus on the basics. "You need the full package, they are our silver bullets," he said.

The Guardian reported on Monday that Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden's no-lockdown strategy, has come under fire after emails came to light showing him appearing to ask whether a high death rate among old people might be acceptable if it led to a faster herd immunity.

Tegnell has repeatedly insisted the government's objective was not to achieve rapid herd immunity but rather to slow the spread of the coronavirus enough for health services to be able to cope.

However, email exchanges obtained by Swedish journalists under freedom of information laws show that Tegnell was discussing herd immunity as an objective in mid-March, days after the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

With a population of 10 million, Sweden has reported more than 84,000 cases and 5,783 deaths. About half of those deaths occurred in nursing homes.
Nazar Kholodnytsky's resignation letter has already been approved.

Head of Ukraine's Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Nazar Kholodnytsky has filed for resignation.

His resignation letter has already been signed by Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, as seen in a photo Kholodnytsky posted on Facebook.

"Today I can say with confidence that the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office and the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine will fulfill their mission. I thank my team for their dedication, honesty, and incorruptibility  we have been doing our job with dignity," Kholodnytsky wrote.

Over the first five years of work, the SAPO has been tackling corruption schemes in the gas, oil, mining and nuclear energy, banking, public procurement, and at large state-owned enterprises, Kholodnytsky wrote, adding that the volume of investigated damage to the state budget amounts to over UAH 200 billion.

I thank my team for their dedication, honesty, and incorruptibility

At the same time, SAPO and the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine managed to prevent losses amounting to about UAH 50 billion, Kholodnytsky wrote. In the first half of 2020 alone, UAH 765 million was returned to the budget, he added.

Among the accused and prosecuted are "influential politicians, people's deputies, and highest state officials."

These include 16 people's deputies, 22 top officials, 47 judges, 68 heads of state enterprises, and 17 senior officials of state bodies.

What is SAPO

The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) is an independent structural unit of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, created in 2015, and is primarily responsible for supporting and overseeing criminal investigations launched by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), that's per Wikipedia.

The prospect of visa liberalization (visa-free travel to the Schengen Area) between Ukraine and the European Union was closely linked with the process of creating the SAPO.

In the latest memorandum with the International Monetary Fund signed over the approval of the Stand-by Arrangement, Ukraine committed to advancing good governance efforts and combatting high-level corruption. "We will ensure that the countrys new anticorruption institutions  the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Special Anticorruption Prosecutors Office (SAPO), and the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC)  maintain their independence and integrity (including by providing them with adequate resources), to be able to effectively and credibly investigate, prosecute and adjudicate high-level corruption cases.
U.K. students due to attend college this year have shared their concerns and frustration after a computer algorithm initially used to standardize grades put their places in jeopardy.

Despite the British government announcing Monday that it was reversing its use of the algorithm to adjust grades, which determine admission into U.K. colleges, students are still angry.

Ell Thomas told CNBC the U-turn was "a bit too little, too late."

The algorithm was used to moderate teacher grading, as students were unable to take exams due to the coronavirus pandemic, so predicted grades were used as a basis.

Thomas missed out on her place to study human, social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge because her grades were lowered by the algorithm.

She previously attended Lord Williams's Upper School, a "run-of-the-mill" state school, in Oxfordshire and would be the first in her family to go to college.

Thomas was previously predicted 3 A*s  the equivalent of an A+ and therefore the highest grade a student can achieve. She got two A*s and an A in her mock exams, which are like the PSATs in the United States, and she was precited three As for her summer exams.

On results day last week, however, she was awarded with two As and a B grade, meaning she missed out on her place at Cambridge.

Thomas' B grade was sociology, a subject that she claimed was popular at her school and one it historically had not performed as well in.

The U.K.'s exam body, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), said that it asked teachers to submit predicted grades, as well as to rank students in each subject.

Ofqual then applied a statistical standardization model to ensure "fairness" nationally. This took into account the historic performance of a school in particular subjects. But for subjects with a smaller class size the standardization calculation put more weight on teacher-predicted grades.

Nearly two-fifths of students saw their predicted grades lowered by this standardizing "algorithm."

Indeed, Thomas said that two close school friends who studied a more specialist math course and subsequently had a smaller class size, did not see their predicted grades lowered by the algorithm, and secured their places at Cambridge.

"So two of my best friends basically got in and I didn't purely because of some algorithm," she said.

The algorithm has therefore been accused of widening existing inequality within the college admissions system, by basing its calculation on the school and class size.

Tweet 1

In fact, Britain's opposition Labour party called the algorithm "unlawful" in an open letter to U.K. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson and Ofqual, on Wednesday, alleging that it breached "a range of anti-discrimination legislation."

The debacle has also seen calls for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to fire Williamson or questions as to whether the education secretary would resign.

Williamson said he's "incredibly sorry" for the exam distress and said his main priority now is to ensure students get fair results.

Thomas said the whole situation had left her feeling "powerless"  "It's just luck ... and I don't think my future should be decided by a lucky computer."
Vasyl Khrushch, lawyer, member of Ukrainian National association of lawyers, social activist

Why the new justice reform will not correct existing problems of justice system and why it is still essential.

Reforming of justice system in Ukraine has been a matter for the last 20 years. Perhaps it is the longest and unfinished reform in our history. Unfortunately, each new trial to reform courts makes crisis bigger and brings chaos and collapse to the justice system. With the help of big words and mottos concerning changes of personnel they are trying to get rid of high-qualified specialists, letting the most odious ones remain at their places. The new reform has been recently presented by the head of the National Reform council Mikhail Saakashvili, can also not become an exception to the rule. It can possibly bring new problems to the existing ones.

The idea of this reform has some common features with the old Poroshenkos justice reform that brought some destructive effect. Yet, the shortening of the amount of courts as well as requalification of courts has not been conducted. Certainly, the necessity of justice system reform has been discussed for a long time. Sociological surveys regularly demonstrate critically low level of trust to it. Not paying attention to this requirement of society must be a hastiness of the authority. But while starting reform one must understand that courts are one of the elements of justice system that include law-enforcement body and legal profession. Only if they all work in a right way, citizens can count on protection of their rights, freedom and equitable justice.

The authority of State has recently begun reforming of each of these systems, but the quality of them has been still questioned. For instance the system has almost been wiped out at Police and the prosecutions office but the building of the new one has not been finished yet. As a result, some of the key state organs have been in "under reformed" condition and cannot fully perform their functions. Instead of completing reforms, new law-enforcement bodies are being made but cannot investigate cases in a good way, collect by legal means good evidence base concerning accused by them people, and as a result their cases are being discussed for years. The absence of resonance verdicts is the best indicator for the situation. Social expectations have not been met.

The only one institution that was saved from so called "reforming" was the legal profession. In 2018 the whole 45-thousand lawyer society voted against 9055 draft law. The Office of the President was trying to make changes through parliament that denied lawyers independence in a process and indeed left without defense every person in court. Now they paid attention to the courts, or something that was left after 6 waves of reforms.

The first fruit of the reforming of courts can be observed on the example of the High Anti-Corruption Court. It has a huge level of trust among society and has to provide objective review of high-profile corruption cases but in fact abuses its power. The head of the Ukrainian National Association of lawyers Liliya Izovitova declared that in her report. According to her, they have already got complaints pressure from the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine. Judges ignore the principle of competition process, do not provide implementing the provisions of Constitution on the defense of the accused, press on them as well as on their defenders wanting to change preventing measure. Using mottos of struggling against corruption they violate basic principles of human right to a fair trial. Anyway, Ms Izotova was not the only one who declared the idea. Many lawyers that took part in the process of UNAL complained about prejudice against by the board of judges, failure to apply and even blackmail. Anti-Corruption Court is not the only group of people that have to approve their decision with accused act from specialized anti-corruption prosecutors. Court has to be independent body but not a continuation of National Anti-corruption office or specialized anti-corruption prosecutors. If cases continue to be examined in this manner we will face massive appeals against sentences in international instances. 90% of decisions in UNAL can be cancelled as cases are examined with procedural irregularity, irregularity of rights of accused and lawyers. This way justice system becomes repressive system, which is not right. All the other courts have to be reformed the same way.

Reforming of courts the way it is proposed, may in fact deprive court system its independence. This risk is caused by the proposition to resolve the High Council of Justice, High Judicial Selection Commission, State Judicial Administration and to create the single monitoring body. It is important to understand that the powers among three bodies have been divided for a reason. In such combination it is more difficult to influence. None of these bodies was able to suspend judge from his position. Anyway there was still a risk of pressure on judges. If only one monitoring body is left it will be at risk of becoming fully dependent on the Authority. Who will appoint members of this body? Who will it report to?

In his own time Saakashvili proposed something similar in Georgia. He created a single control centre -the High Council of Justice. It somehow had a sense as at the beginning only president of the country could apply judges. Otherwise it looks like powers were given to an independent body. But the question concerning influence of authority Council has never been resolved. Still one of the main problems of Georgian judicial reform is that judges are dependent on prosecutors. That is why there is a very low level of acquittals. In such system citizens are almost left without right to be protected.

The same way risks of losing independence create an influx of personnel. Actually, some of the judges, which work in the system, cannot be called independent. In fact they are dependent on specific proposals than authority itself. Judges still have quite a lot of defense mechanisms that can possibly keep them of influence. New personnel together with elimination of some defensive elements can make the judicial system actually "hand-made". Then the question arises is not it an objective of reforming?

Additional chaos to Ukrainian justice can bring the system of precedents, so called case law. If two different systems are mixed we will get hybrid as a result and this know-how is unlikely to give any positive results. They tell that it will help us to avoid situations when different courts make not different decisions on the same case. Firstly, there are not so many similar cases. Secondly, there is a special mechanism for solving such questions. These are competences of the Supreme Court in particular the Grand Chamber, which makes decisions on law enforcement concerning specific categories of cases. It is enough for not having discrepancies in application of the same law while judgement delivery. It is not essential to "break" the system.

All in all it is important to understand that justice is a common mechanism. You cannot reform separately each of its elements. Moreover, if we borrow model of justice system from one country, and prosecutors office from another, they will not be able to work. I am sure that such reform must be a complex one. We must create common constitutional body to reform justice, which will include members of judiciary, prosecutors, lawyers and the High Council of Justice. Each group of specialists must write draft revisions to their own law and propose President to submit it to the Parliament. Only working together we can make a judicial reform, which will renew balance in system of justice and return trust of citizens to judicial system.
More snow on the way in Pennsylvania; here's how much to expect
Nadia Hallgrens work as a cinematographer, camera operator and photographer has appeared in more than 70 documentaries, including Trouble the Water, RBG and Fahrenheit 9/11. The South Bronx native has shot in 35 countries, so youd think thered be little to rattle her on her first feature documentary as director. After all, she was just following an author on a book tour. A tour that included 17,000-seat arenas. And a Secret Service detail. And being up close and personal with the author, former First Lady Michelle Obama.

She has this incredible eye contact that never wavers, says the director of the Emmy-nominated Becoming. She makes you feel like youre the only person in the room, youre so special, and she believes it. And that continues every single day.

Of being thrown in with the crowds and motorcades, she says, It was wild. It still sometimes feels like a dream. I think back to  getting over being intimidated by her. Shes Michelle Obama. She has this place in all of our minds as, you know, this extraordinary person. Shes (5-foot-11), shes beautiful; Im, like, 5-foot-4. She has this presence in a room that Ive never experienced. So I just kept thinking, Stay focused. "

Hallgren was called in after having directed Shes the Ticket, a series of shorts about female candidates in the years following the election of Donald Trump; she met with Mrs. Obama for about half an hour and they clicked. As thrilled as she was to document her subjects transition to a post-White House public existence, she was less excited to see, for instance, a signing at a bookstore on the schedule.

As a filmmaker, you wouldnt expect a book signing would be that interesting. One of the young women who works with her came in with a tissue box. I said, Why are you holding this? She said, Because when people meet her, they get really emotional. Hallgren scoffs. Im like, Oh, come on! Thats ridiculous, who does that?

So I go in and I start filming and 10 minutes later, I come out in tears, looking for the tissue box, she says, laughing heartily.

Among admirers, there does seem to be a special fondness for Michelle Obama (currently ranked by the British site YouGov as the second-most-popular political figure in America, to Queen Elizabeth II  four places above her husband, former President Barack Obama. )

You felt this buzz (in the arenas). You felt like you were in a room with people who wanted to share optimism for the future among one another. Ive never seen a group of happier strangers in my life.

Hallgrens film doesnt attempt to directly translate Obamas autobiography to the screen. Its more of a companion piece to the book, almost an epilogue that finds its subject returning to public life a couple of years after leaving the White House (where the memoir ends). It contains some stories from the book, often captured as Obama relates them to those packed arenas. The success of the tour mirrors that of the book, which became the biggest seller of 2018 after just over two weeks of release and has sold more than 10 million copies.

There was this huge opportunity to be with Mrs. Obama in the present moment, to film her in her interactions with her family and people she meets on this journey, says Hallgren, nominated for her direction and cinematography of Becoming. I wanted to lean into the verite element of storytelling as much as possible.

I wanted to consider her internal life while she was in the White House while all these tumultuous things were happening  specifically, the murder of many young Black people by law enforcement or vigilantes, if you will. Theres a specific part of the book where she talks about that and all the emotions that stirred up from her specific position. I knew I had to include that in the film.

Theres also the story we have in the film where she talks about having these highs and lows. She talks about going to the funeral of the church members who were murdered (when a gunman fired on a South Carolina congregation in June 2015, killing nine), and then they fly home and the same day, gay marriage passes. I remember when I read that, I got emotional. I heard her tell that story on stage and I got emotional again. This has to be in the movie. "

There were unguarded moments which Hallgren found revealing, as when Obama acknowledged (as she does in her book) that the relentless, bad-faith criticism she received did hurt. Or when she discusses how understanding that she is the descendant of slaves has influenced her.

Her family members came to Chicago through the Great Migration. The photos we use in the film to represent that story are her actual ancestors that were on slave plantations.

Theres this one shot of this family on a porch. Those are her actual ancestors. When you look into the eyes of the individuals, and theres a little girl in the photo: If these folks could have even dreamed their great-great-great granddaughter would be the first lady of the United States  that gives me chills.



2020 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The Uttarakhand Human Rights Commission on Friday asked inspector general (IG), human rights to probe allegations that a senior IPS officer, posted in the Dehradun, stripped a class 11 student inside a police check post in the city to dissuade the boy from speaking to his daughter.

The father of the boy had lodged a complaint with the Commission on August 12.

On Friday, member of the commission, Justice Akhilesh Chandra Sharma, asked IG human rights Pooran Singh Rawat to probe the matter and submit a report to the commission on the same.

Confirming the development, IG Rawat said, I have received the letter from the Commission on Friday asking me to probe the matter and submit a report to it. Usually there is a time frame for such probes, but there is no timeframe in this letter.

I will soon probe the matter by speaking to the IPS officer as well as the boy, said Rawat.

Also Read: Two Uttarakhand women killed in rain-related incidents, timely escape for a family

The incident came to light after the father of the18 year old class-11 student of a Dehradun-based school, lodged a complaint against senior IPS officer, PVK Prasad, who is deployed as the additional director general (jail) on August 11. The complaint alleged that Prasad had beaten and tortured the boy inside Bindal police check post of the city while objecting to him speaking to his daughter over phone.

Following his complaint, Prasad lodged a counter complaint against the boy accusing him of harassing his daughter by sending objectionable messages on social media platforms.

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A federal judge in Texas has dismissed an independent insurance agency from a lawsuit brought by a Dallas restaurant group seeking reimbursement for business income losses stemming from the civil authority enforced shuttering of businesses in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Vandelay Hospitality Group LP had named Dallas-based Swingle Collins & Associates and agent Brandon Cass as additional defendants in a suit against Cincinnati Insurance Co. over the insurers denial of the restaurant groups claim for reimbursement for losses sustained as a result of forced business closures by both Dallas-area and state authorities.

Vandelay filed its lawsuit against Cincinnati and Cass on April 23; it added Swingle Collins to the suit on May 21.

Vandelay had claimed more than $1 million in damages among its three Dallas-area restaurants due to the government mandated closures and filed for recovery under its commercial insurance policy from Cincinnati Insurance. Cincinnati Insurance denied the claim.

The restaurant group asserted in its lawsuit that Swingle Collins and Cass had misrepresented that the groups commercial property all risk policy would cover the losses brought on by the pandemic.

In Swingle Collins plea for dismissal from Vandelays suit against Cincinnati filed on June 12, the agency asserted that Vandelay has not shown, and cannot demonstrate, a distinct, concrete injury caused by Swingle Collins apart from the damages it claims it suffered as a result of Cincinnatis purported breach of contract.

The agency also asserted that the negligent misrepresentation claim against Swingle Collins also fails as a matter of law. Plaintiff merely engages in a formulaic recitation of elements against Swingle Collins without identifying the who, what, where, when, why, or how regarding how such representations were made, and to whom from Plaintiff those representations were made.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Allen Fitzwater agreed, finding that Vandelay had failed to prove that Swingle Collins or Cass had misrepresented the terms of the Cincinnati Insurance policy.

Fitzwater also denied Vandelays attempt to remove the lawsuit from federal to state court. The judge found that Vandelay had failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted in state court.

In its pitch to have the case remanded to state court, Vandelay had asserted a claim of negligent misrepresentation against Swingle Collins and sought the amount in damages the restaurant group had claimed under its commercial property insurance policy.

Judge Fitzwater said the damages sought by Vandelay are not available under the restaurant groups claim against Swingle Collins. The court concludes that Vandelay has failed to state a negligent misrepresentation claim because the damages it seeks are not available under this claim as a matter of law, Fitzwater wrote in his opinion handed down on Aug. 18.

In dismissing the case against Swingle Collins, Fitzwater said Vandelay had to pay the agencys court costs.

Vandelays case against Cincinnati Insurance Co. is still alive. Cincinnatis June 2, 2020 motion to dismiss is still pending and will be decided in due course, Fitzwater wrote.

Related Cases Judge Tosses Texas Barbershops Suit Against Insurer Over Coronavirus Losses A federal judge has agreed with an insurer that a group of barbershops in the San Antonio, Texas-area have no basis for claims seeking coverage under their commercial insurance policies for business interruption losses stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge Allows Businesses Lawsuits Against Insurer Over Coronavirus Losses A federal judge in Missouri allowed a lawsuit by various businesses against their insurer over business interruption losses to proceed. State Judge Rejects Michigan Restaurants COVID-19 Business Interruption Claim A trial court judge in Lansing, Michigan, handed a victory to insurers in what may be the nations first final ruling on the question of whether a property insurer is liable for financial damages caused by a coronavirus closure order. Celebrating Insurers Warned Michigan COVID Ruling Not Knockout Punch They Wanted The Michigan pleading may have been defective, a lawyer cautions. COVID Business Interruption Suits Top 700. Yep, Thats A Lot.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against insurers seeking reimbursement for Covid-19 closure business losses under commercial property insurance policies.

Vandelays addition of Swingle Collins and Cass as defendants in an action against insurer seems to be one of the first attempts to add agents to such lawsuits but more are expected, according to Jim Redeker, vice president and claims manager at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions.

In a presentation on agency errors and omissions best practices and the Covid-19 pandemic during the Virtual Insurcon held by the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas in June, Redeker said claims or potential claims against agents were trickling in.

Weve only had two lawsuits  most of these are reported as potentials agents have reported those out of abundance of caution, he said.

The current cases were mostly centered in East Coast and Ohio Valley jurisdictions. We think they are going to be much more widespread than this, Redeker said.

While the primary targets of the BI lawsuits will be insurers, agents will be added as policyholders fail to find relief from their insurance companies. The first target of these lawsuits is not going to be the insurance agents. The first target is going to be the carrier who denies the business interruption claim, he said.

However, we are expecting many claims to be made against agents and brokers, said Susan Taylor Wall with Gordon & Rees, who serves as national coordinating counsel for Swiss Re in Covid-19 related E&O lawsuits.

Speaking as part of the IIAT Insurcon panel on E&O, Wall warned that plaintiffs lawyers are very creative. And claims against agents and brokers may include novel allegations that weve rarely seen or may have never seen in the past.

Topics Lawsuits Carriers COVID-19 Agencies Texas Claims Profit Loss Michigan Property
The states police certification agency was ordered Thursday to investigate whether retired West Linn Police Chief Terry Timeus should retain his police certification after directing the 2017 wrongful arrest of a Black man in Portland at the request of his fishing buddy.

The Police Policy Committee of the state Department of Public Safety Standards and Training voted unanimously for the staff to initiate the investigation to determine if Timeus violated the moral fitness standard to be a police officer in Oregon.

Timeus, 59, didnt submit any challenge or mitigating information to the committee. He didnt return a message seeking comment Thursday.

Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote in June filed a complaint about Timeus with the state police certification department after his office found that a West Linn detective colluded with then-Chief Timeus to pursue an unsupported arrest of Portland resident Michael Fesser for a personal friend of the police chiefs. The friend was Fessers employer at the time, Eric Benson, owner of A&B Towing in Southeast Portland.

Fesser said the arrest was in retaliation for his complaints about a racially hostile work environment at the towing company. In February, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported that West Linn paid Fesser $600,000 to settle a wrongful arrest and racial discrimination suit against West Linn police. Fesser also reached a $415,000 settlement in a separate suit against Benson and the towing company.

Timeus had then-West Linn Detective Tony Reeves initiate the investigation into Fesser. Timeus retired Nov. 1, 2017, but his police certification was never revoked despite questionable conduct throughout his career. The district attorney recommended that Timeus lose his certification.

Timeus failure of leadership created a culture that allowed this to happen, the district attorneys report said.

For years now we have heard of unrest and dysfunction in the West Linn Police Department under the leadership of Chief Timeus, Foote wrote in May to West Linn Acting Police Chief Peter Mahuna. However, the level of misconduct that has been uncovered in this matter is deeply disturbing and totally unacceptable.

Chris Owen, Clackamas County chief deputy district attorney, wrote to the state certification agency on June 5, recommending the state revoke the police certification for both Timeus and Reeves, who had been promoted after Fessers arrest but was fired in June.

The state agency already has opened a similar investigation into Reeves. Mahuna, the acting chief, found that Reeves violated law enforcements code of ethics by betraying public trust, discriminated against Fesser, engaged in careless police work and suppressed evidence.

According to Reeves lawyer David Lesh, Reeves was acting at the direction of Timeus in the investigation of Fesser. In a mitigation hearing with West Linns acting chief, Reeves said command staff in the police department had expressed support for the quality of his investigation of Fesser and that he relied on the direction of his supervisors, including then-West Linn Lt. Mike Stradley. Reeves claimed Stradley told him that Fesser was a bad guy,' a con man' and a thief.'

Stradley, a retired Portland police lieutenant who left West Linn police department in January 2018 to take a job training new recruits at the states basic police academy, remains on paid leave, said Eriks Gabliks, director of the state police certification agency. Stradley was placed on leave in mid-February.

An outside lawyer hired to investigate Stradleys role in the Fesser case is just wrapping up the inquiry, and its going to be reviewed by the Oregon Department of Justice, Gabliks said.

While still at West Linn, Stradley got a verbal reprimand for failing to initiate an investigation into Timeus after two officers reported the chief appeared drunk as he was leaving a local restaurant in May 2017, according to internal affairs records released this year. Timeus, who ultimately resigned over the encounter, was off duty but driving his unmarked city police car after he left the West Linn Pub with a girlfriend and made inappropriate comments to two of his officers who happened to be in the parking lot, the records indicate.

Timeus received more than $123,000 in a separation agreement that now is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

A confidential report released earlier this year and provided to West Linn City Council in 2008 accuses Timeus of making racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic statements and sleeping with an informant when he worked as a Lake Oswego police officer. The report was submitted to the council three years after West Linn hired Timeus as its chief without a background check.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
US Sanctions 2 UAE-Based Companies for Aiding Iranian Airline

By Sirwan Kajjo August 20, 2020

The U.S. government has imposed new sanctions against two companies based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for providing material support to Iran's biggest airline.

The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday the two companies, Parthia Cargo and Delta Parts Supply FZC, have provided parts and logistic support to Iranian airline Mahan Air, which is blacklisted under U.S. sanctions.

The Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on UAE-based Iranian national Amin Mahdavi for owning or controlling Parthia Cargo.

"The Iranian regime uses Mahan Air as a tool to spread its destabilizing agenda around the world, including to the corrupt regimes in Syria and Venezuela, as well as terrorist groups throughout the Middle East," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday in a statement. "The United States will continue to take action against those supporting this airline."

The services provided by Parthia Cargo and Delta Parts Supply FZC helped Mahan Air to carry out activities in support of Tehran's harmful agenda, including "the transportation of terrorists and lethal cargo to Syria" in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Treasury said.

Iran has been a major backer of the Assad regime since the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011.

Criminal charges

Mahdavi, 53, and his company were charged in a U.S. District Court with participating in a criminal conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws and sanctions against Iran.

"Iran evades the U.S. embargo resulting from their malicious activities with the collaboration of those who pose as innocent buyers, but who are ready to send the products on to their forbidden destination," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said Wednesday in a statement.

"These charges against Parthia Cargo LLC and its managing director should put on notice all freight forwarders and others who facilitate illicit transshipments to Iran that their conduct will not be tolerated," he added.

The criminal complaint against Mahdavi says he facilitated the illegal shipment of U.S.-manufactured goods to Iran. If convicted, Mahdavi would face up to five years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000, and his company would face a fine of up to $500,000.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, says this development puts "the spotlight not just on continued Iranian procurement in service of sanctioned entities, but on Iran's preference for using carve-outs like the UAE, as well as jurisdictions of weak central authority, to bust sanctions."

"These circumvention efforts are aimed at supplying Iran with whatever commodity it needs to outlast sanctions until, of course, they are exposed and shut down," he told VOA.

Maximum pressure

The latest designations are part of the continued U.S. "maximum pressure campaign" against Iran since the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May 2018.

The U.S. considers Iran a rogue state and says its sanctions against Tehran are a response to Tehran's destabilizing role in the Middle East.

"One school of thought behind targeted sanctions is that the more common the exposure of bad and illicit behavior becomes, the harder it is for actors to continue this sort of work," analyst Ben Taleblu said.

For Iran, "the more Washington disrupts Iranian procurement efforts through publicity, lawfare, and economic pressure, the more time and resources Iran will have to spend doing this, and for marginal returns," he added.

The U.S. has been advocating for a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran after the U.N. Security Council rejected a U.S. proposal to extend an arms embargo on the Iranian government.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S. will seek a "snapback" of all international sanctions on Iran at the United Nations, one week after Security Council members decided against extending an expiring arms embargo beyond mid-October.

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Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem! In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

Muslims across the globe observe the Islamic New Year on the first day of the month of Muharram. This year is the 1442 Islamic Hijri New Year. It is a significant month because it marks the migration of Prophet Muhammed (saw) from Mecca to Medina. And it is also one of the most sacred months of the Islamic Lunar calendar.

Muharram or Hijri New Year is celebrated by Muslims as the day symbolises two important events in the Islamic year.

Muharram is the name of the first month in the Muslim calendar. The first day of Muharram is therefore the Islamic New Year's Day and on this date the Hijra, the historic journey from Mecca to Medina began. The event provides the answer to the call of hal minnasireen yansuroona (who is there who would help us?)

Aza (lamentation) of Imam Hussain (AS) during Muharram and Safar 1436, let us remind ourselves that when leaving Madinah, Imam Hussain declared, Wa innama kharajtu li talabi-l islahi fi ummaati jaddi (Indeed, I am leaving Madinah to reform the ummah of my grandfather). There can be no better guidance for us all than our responsibility to answer the call of hal minnasireen yansuroona.

Islam has a calendar based on the revolutions of the Moon rather than the sun. Thus, it is only 354 days long. Islamic New Year is celebrated on the first day of Muharram, the first Islamic month. Compared to Western calendars, the Islamic year goes backwards by about 11 days every year.

Islamic New Year represents the starting point of the Muslim era as it coincides with the Hijrah, the Prophet's journey from Mecca to Medina on the first of Muharram in 622 CE. Umar ibn Al-Khattab, a close companion of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and the second caliph, subsequently adopted Hijrah as the reference point for the Islamic calendar.

Prophet Mohammed (SAW) needed to relocate because somebody had intentions to execute him. Consequently, the Prophet chose to go to a town known as Yathrib, some 320 km north of Mecca. Yathrib is known today as Medina, in modern-day Saudi Arabia, which translates to 'the city'.

Today, centuries later, the remembrance of the tragedy of Karbala continues to draw ever-increasing crowds to the many Islamic centers round the world as soon as the Muharram crescent is sighted.

Hijrah gave freedom from suffering for the Muslims in Mecca. When the Prophet immigrated to Medina, Muslims there were indirectly saved from further persecution by the pagans in Mecca. After the Hijrah, it was then declared by the Prophet in the Constitution of Medina that Muslims are a universal brotherhood with a unique identity in faith and ideology.

The customs of Muharram vary from country to country, though they generally involve attending various religious activities, spiritual singing and religious meetings. The traditions and customs for Muharram also vary between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

The marking of the beginning of the New Year is usually quiet, unlike New Year's celebrations associated with other calendars. It is a time for Muslims to reflect on the passing of time and their own mortality. To mark Muharram, Muslims will recite Koranic verses and hold special prayers and sermons at public halls and mosques.

Let us ensure we send a loud and a clear message this Muharram that when we see the rights of people being trampled upon, we will support them to stand for their rights because that is the constant lesson we draw from the events of Karbalarefuse to tolerate genocide against Palestinian and Yemeni people. We should reject the blockade against Qatar and never reconcile with an unjust authority, whether a Muslim or a non-Muslim.

Muharram is the second most holy month of the Islamic year, after Ramadan. On 10 Muharram, many Muslims mark Ashura which commemorates the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

On the auspicious day of Muharram, may Allah bless all Muslims of the world with health, wealth, peace and happiness! May your faith in Allah always bring you peace and prosperity.

May Allah accept our efforts in answering the call of hal minnasireen yansuroona!

Sender:

Fatmata B. Bangura

Acting Programme Coordinator

The Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Foundation (STBHF)
Traci Blackmon organized ministers to pray outside police headquarters in Ferguson, Missouri, the day after a young black man named Michael Brown was killed by a white officer in 2014. When the clergy got to the police station, though, a protest was already happening.

Hundreds of young people had been there all nightthe nascent Black Lives Matter movementchanting, shouting, and opposing white supremacy with their physical presence. The protestors welcomed the clergy and their prayers, but then quickly lost patience. Thats enough praying, one activist shouted. What are we going to do?

Some of the ministers tried to tell the young people what to do, instructing them on the proper boundaries of protest and warning of the dangers of being too provocative. But the clergy were, as activist DeRay Mckesson told journalist Jack Jenkins, roundly ignored.

The scene from Ferguson undercuts the most significant claim of Jenkinss new book, American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country. As Jenkins writes in his introduction, not only is the Religious Left alive and well in contemporary Americait is the beating heart of modern progressivism. In the story he tells about Ferguson, though, and in many other stories from the book, religious activists arent central. Theyre more like an awkward extra appendage to progressivism than its beating heart.

A Strong Corrective

Jenkins is an outstanding journalist. His coverage of politics for the Religion News Service is the gold standard among religion reporters. Those skills are evident in the 12 mostly disconnected stories he tells here about religious activists advocating for progressive causes, from Obamacare to the Green New Deal.

If the argument of the book is just that faith-based progressives exist, then Jenkins more than makes his case. He offers a strong corrective to anyone who thinks the American Left is uniformly atheist and militantly secular, or that when religion and politics mix in the US it always looks like Robert Jeffress and the First Baptist Church in Dallas making a hymn out of Donald Trumps 2016 slogan, Make America Great Again. In the pages of American Prophets, we meet liberal and left-wing Christians, including black Protestants, white Protestants, and Catholics, as well as religious Native Americans, Jews, and Muslims, all motivated by their experiences of God to work for change on earth.

In fact, anyone paying close attention to the Left in recent history will notice the religious actors who dont make it into Jenkinss book. The Catholics who ritualistically desecrate nuclear submarines, the peace churches that help soldiers go AWOL, and the witches who hexed the president are not here. But their absence only strengthens the books argument that the Religious Left exists.

American Prophets promises something more, though. The subtitle, first of all, asserts a claim about progressivisms religious roots. Theres certainly a case to be made that modern progressivism has a religious history, even if one only goes back to Jimmy Carters ideas about a spiritual crisis, Jesse Jacksons belief in the power of a rainbow coalition, or Stacey Abramss childhood in one of the first Methodist churches to affirm LGBT people.

But Jenkins quickly tells the reader he is not interested in writing history. My aim is to home in on the iterations that are having the greatest impacts on modern politics, he writes, later adding, this is a larger-than-average journalistic work. Fair enough.

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The other promise is harder to cast aside. The book seems to want to argue that religious actors are central to progressivism. As Jenkins puts it, the Religious Left is a secret weapon, hiding in plain sight, and a core component of progressive social movements that exerts growing influence on modern Democratic politics. Yet the stories Jenkins tells dont quite show that.

In the opening chapter, for example, Jenkins reports on a Catholic woman who fought for Obamacare. Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughters of Charity nun, called members of Congress to urge them to support the Affordable Care Act on critical votes. Her organization, the Catholic Health Association, came out in support of the plan at a key moment, publicly making the case that Catholics could support Obamacare (even if the bishops did not). Keehans contributions were important, of course, but she doesnt seem like the central player in the drama.

In another chapter, Jenkins reports on the Religious Left and the LGBT-rights movement. He focuses on the struggle for affirmation within religious traditions. He writes about Gene Robinsons ordination as the first openly homosexual bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the many people who helped carve out a theological space for people of faith to affirm LGBTQ relationships and identities in public, including the Jesuit priest Jonathan Martin, the Presbyterian Matthew Vines, and the Seventh-day Adventist Eliel Cruz. Jenkins notes that 2020 Democratic Presidential primary candidate Pete Buttigieg was able to run as a deeply religious married gay man because of the successes of Martin, Vines, and others. Robinson tells Jenkins how impressed he is with the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and says, I just donated the other day.

But Buttigiegs failed campaign doesnt seem like the most significant event in the 20th-century struggle for LGBT rights. Jenkins would have had a stronger argument that religious activists were the beating heart of the movement if he had focused on why marriage was considered a higher priority than legal protections against employment discrimination.

When activists went door to door in Maine urging voters to support same-sex marriage, they were instructed to be open about their faith. Before they went out, the Christians working with Freedom to Marry got in a circle and practiced saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Organizer Amy Mello insisted the activists not speak vaguely about being good to your neighbor but talk explicitly about their personal relationship to Jesus. We can say this word, she said, according to activist Marc Solomons account, Winning Marriage.

Theres an argument to be made that religious progressives were essential to the historic push for same-sex marriage. But its not made in American Prophets.

Lingering Questions

Jenkins comes the closest to defending his thesis when he writes about the Standing Rock protests. The Native Americans opposition to oil pipelines running through tribal land in North Dakota was shaped by indigenous faith commitments. Why people protested, what, and how, were all religious decisions. One of the young people who travelled to join the protest was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young Catholic woman. For her, the experience was transformativespiritually.

Ocasio-Cortez went on to run for Congress and become one of the architects of the Green New Deal. She has defended the program with Bible verses that speak about the goodness of Gods creation and the importance of caring for the land. Ocasio-Cortez has unbelievable political talent and is a rising star on the Left. If she plays a significant role in the future of American progressivism, that will be evidence that Jenkins is right about the heart thing.

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There are, however, some big, outstanding questions about the Religious Left in America. What is its relationship to the growing segment of non-religious and anti-religious people on the left? What is the depth of its commitment to pluralism and religious liberty? Does the prophetic approach to politics leave room for doubt, discussion, and reasonable disagreement? And why, with the long history of progressive religious politics in this country, do so many people not even know that the Religious Left exists?

American Prophets doesnt answer those questions. But it does capture a moment in religious activism and progressive politics. It tells the stories of diverse people motivated by their faith to pray with their feet and their hands and their bodies. It shows how and where these advocates of progressive politics are showing up, even if, like the ministers at the Black Lives Matter protest in Ferguson, theyre showing up to a movement that has begun without them.

Daniel Silliman is news editor for Christianity Today.
INJECT THE LIGHT!!!

Joe Biden Opens DNC Speech With a Soaring Appeal for Unity, Rejection of Trump's 'Darkness' Joe Biden accepted his party's nomination for president on Thursday night at the DNC - delivering an upbeat message aimed to unite a divided nation. At the outset of his remarks, the former vice president went after President Donald Trump for stoking fear, and exploiting partisan rifts.

Against The Darkside

Biden vows to unite America, end 'season of darkness' WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - Joe Biden vowed to unite an America torn by crisis and contempt Thursday night, accepting the Democratic presidential nomination that had eluded him over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

DNC Play By Play

Here are the highlights of the final night of the Democratic National Convention The fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention culminated Thursday with Joe Biden accepting the party's presidential nomination. In his address, Biden not only eviscerated President Donald Trump's handling of his first term but also portrayed himself as the best candidate to combat overlapping economic and health-care crises.

Prez Trump Provides Postscript

Trump says Biden speech is 'just words' at DNC close President Trump and his Republican allies were quick to pan Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's acceptance speech on Thursday night - with the president accusing the former vice president of making false promises as the Trump campaign reiterated their claim that Biden is "a pawn of the radical leftists."

Comic Relief Controversy

Julia Louis-Dreyfus' comedy as Democratic National Convention host stirs debate Comedy and politics are sometimes a difficult mix. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the Emmy-award winning star of "Veep," opened a spirited debate on social media Thursday during the final night of the Democratic National Convention with a series of jokes that stung and at times seemed inconsistent with the emotion party organizers were hoping to convey.

Over Rated?!?!

Shockingly, Americans Don't Find the Democratic Convention to Be Must-See TV | National Review Political journalists, including myself, are watching, analyzing, and debating the Democratic convention, produced with unparalleled restrictions and complications from the pandemic and trying to assess its effectiveness. I have tried to keep in mind that in a lot of cycles, the convention is not much of a factor in the long run, even if it's widely considered a good one.

Remote Control Aftermath

Democratic National Conventions should always be remote-just no waving Won't somebody please think of the goofy hats? The Democratic National Convention has long been a bloated four-day event that's come to be known for a few mainstays: impassioned speeches from rising party stars, deafening applause and balloon drops that extend those speeches far too long, and-of course-the goofy hats.

Perspective and the first round of reporting at the conclusion of the Democratic Party virtual celebration to start their bid to reclaim the White House.Check the links from "many sides" of the ongoing debate . . .You decide . . .
West African leaders gathered in Bamako on Thursday in a fresh push to end an escalating political crisis in the fragile state of Mali.

In an exceptional one-day summit, the presidents of Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Niger have scheduled meetings with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and leaders of a protest movement clamouring for his resignation.

The unrest deeply worries Mali's neighbours and allies, who fear a country bloodied by a jihadist insurgency could slide into chaos.

Presidents Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast and Macky Sall of Senegal were greeted at the airport by Keita, AFP journalists there saw. They were due to be followed by Nigeria's Muhammadu Buhari, Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger and Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana.

A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the airport.

"We're here to demand IBK's resignation and ensure our comrades who have been killed are not forgotten," said Yaya Sylla, a young protester, using the acronym by which Mali's leader is known.

The June 5 Movement, named after the date when the protests began, has tapped into deep anger over Keita's perceived failure to tackle the dire economy, corruption and the eight-year jihadist revolt.

Malians are also incensed at the disputed outcome of long-delayed parliamentary elections in March and April that handed victory to Keita's party.

A protest in Mali capital's Bamako earlier this month, as the country's opposition demands the president resign /  AFP/File

The summit comes on the heels of a five-day mediation mission from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which ended on Sunday without reconciling the two sides.

"It is this Thursday that the last act is played, the curtain will fall," said a Malian opposition politician who declined to be named.

The West African leaders will weigh on proposed solutions that have been crafted in behind-the-scenes talks between the president and opposition this week.

- Deepening crisis -

Keita, who came to power in 2013, has come under increasing pressure to end Mali's long-running jihadist conflict.

The poor nation of some 20 million people has been struggling to contain an insurgency that first emerged in the north in 2012 before spreading to its centre, as well as neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict, and hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes.

Mass protests have called for the resignation of Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who hosts five African leaders for talks on Thursday /  POOL/AFP

But much of the current tension was sparked in April, when the constitutional court tossed out 31 results from the parliamentary elections, benefiting Keita's party and sparking protests.

Tensions then ratched up into a crisis on July 10 when an anti-Keita rally organised by the June 5 Movement turned violent.

Protesters blocked bridges in Bamako, stormed the premises of the state broadcaster and attacked the parliament.

Three days of clashes between protesters and security forces followed, leaving 11 dead and 158 injured in the worst political unrest Mali had seen in years.

Seeking a way out, ECOWAS mediators suggested forming a new unity government including opposition members and appointing new constitutional court judges who could potentially re-examine disputed election results.

But the June 5 Movement had already rejected any outcome that did not involve Keita's departure -- a demand opposition leaders have repeated for weeks.

- Possible compromise? -

Bespite the apparent failure of the ECOWAS mediators, the president's camp and opposition figures have quietly been talking all week and the June 5 Movement notably suspended protests ahead of the forthcoming Eid festival.

A map of Mali /  AFP

Brema Ely Dicko, a sociologist at the University of Bamako, suggested the opposition may be prepared to accept Prime Minister Boubou Cisse's resignation instead of Keita's.

"The M5-RFP is obliged to keep up the pressure to at least get something," he said, using the opposition coalition's formal acronym.

A European diplomat in Bamako who declined to be named said that the opposition may have overplayed its hand in demanding Keita's departure.

"Nobody wants to open the door to a period of political instability in Mali, which remains the epicentre of the Sahel security crisis," he added.
The emergency medical team provides first aid to the simulated wounded. Photo by Huang Liming.

By Liu Xiongma, Huang Liming and Chen Kengwu

BEIRUT, Aug. 21 -- On August 18, local time, the second batch of the 19th Chinese peacekeeping force to Lebanon arrived in Beirut. So far, 410 peacekeepers of the 19th Chinese peacekeeping contingent to Lebanon have all been deployed.

They will undertake one-year peacekeeping tasks including demining and explosive ordnance disposal, blue line piling, engineering construction and maintenance, sanitation and epidemic prevention, humanitarian rescue, and the sick and wounded site treatment and medical evacuation for United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

The Chinese peacekeeping troops conduct comprehensive debugging and replacement of key sentry cameras, night vision devices and alarms.

"At present, the security situation in Lebanon is very complicated due to multiple factors, which poses a severe test for our peacekeepers," said Jiang Sihang, the engineering staff of the Chinese peacekeeping contingent. Considering the mission's professionalism and particularity, the contingent immediately conducted an integrated inspection on the barrack after deployment. They debugged cameras, night vision devices and alarms at key positions and sentinel points, and maintained a 24-hour all-round combat readiness to ensure that the peacekeepers on duty can detect and deal with emergencies without delay.

At the same time, in response to the Beirut Explosion in Lebanon and local tensions, in order to effectively respond to possible emergencies, the 19th Chinese peacekeeping engineering contingent to Lebanon organized an emergency drill on the second day after completing its deployment.

The emergency response team members use the bunker to shoot. Photo by Huang Liming.

The scenario of the emergency defense drill was that the barrack was attacked by militants, which aimed to strengthen the awareness of safety precautions of peacekeepers and improve the team's emergency response capabilities.

It is reported that China has so far dispatched more than 6,500 peacekeepers to Lebanon since it first sent peacekeeping troops to the Middle East in April 2006.
Joe Wagner had just come down from checking on the Hennessey and Gamble fires, which had been sparked by lightning and were burning on Monday in northeast Napa County. The plan had been to talk about his new tasting room, Quilt & Co., opening on Main Street in Napa on Aug. 27.

Yes, he said, they would be open.

Napa is resilient, said Wagner, a fifth-generation Napa winemaker, who grew up in Rutherford. I believe there will be a return to normalcy. And this includes the pleasures of exploring wines.

Wagner, whose grandparents founded Caymus Vinyards in 1972, has gone one to establish his own wine legacy. Born and raised in Napa Valley, he launched his Belle Glos Pinot Noir in 2001, followed in 2006 by the phenomenally successful Meiomi, also a Pinot. He sold the Meiomi brand to Constellation in 2015 for $315 million.

Today, he is the owner of Copper Cane Wines and Provisions, which includes the wine brands Belle Glos, Quilt, Beran, Elouan, Boen, Carne Humana and Steorra.

His Quilt, he said, is classic Cabernet Sauvignon the way my family has made it. It takes its name from the patchwork of Napa Valley vineyards from which he sources the grapes.

Beran, the bear is Zinfandel sourced from old-vine plantings and and up-and-coming vineyards in Sonoma County, Napa Valley, and other places he has discovered to make a wine that pays tribute to the variety often described as Californias grape.

Elouan is a Pinot Noir made from Oregon grapes, while Boen is Pinot from Russian River Valley.

Carne Humana is a red blend, named for the Napa Valley land grant, given in 1841 by Gov. Juan Alvarado to Edward Turner Bale. Rancho Carne Humana, included land from what is Rutherford today to Tubbs Lane in Calistoga. Carne Humana means human flesh in Spanish, and one theory about the origins of the strange name is that the land was known to the native residents as Huilic Noma or Colijolmanoc, and Bale converted Colijolmanoc into Spanish.

Steorra is a Russian River Valley brut sparkling sparkling wine.

Ive always believed that when folks are exploring wine, they should go with their palate, Wagner said, adding that his goal is to provide a relaxing, enjoyable way of trying his different wines and discovering personal favorites.

The tasting room will open in the building adjacent to Wagners restaurant Avow, in the space formerly occupied by Velo Pizzeria, across from Veterans Memorial Park.

The larger-than-life bronze statues of pioneering farmworker rights activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, which stand over the entrance to the new tasting room, will remain, Wagner said.

Wagner bought the Main Street property from previous owner Steve Hasty for $3.7 million in February 2016. In 2019, he opened Avow restaurant in the building that, from the 1940s until the mid-70s, was Fagianis, the bar that closed soon after its co-owner, Anita Andrews, was found murdered inside. After the murder was finally solved decades later, owner Muriel Fagiani sold the building to Hasty, and the long-dormant site reopened in August 2012 as The Thomas restaurant, with a bar named Fagianis at The Thomas. After this restaurant failed, a second restaurant, Nine Bark, opened, and closed within a year.

After he purchased the building, Wagner got permission from the city to remove the blue tiles that had been added to the site, with a goal of returning the the building to its original appearance.

Wagner said his plan is to coordinate service between Avow and Quilt & Co., to offer food and wine pairings and charcuterie boards with the wines.

The citys decision to close the block of Main Street where his new tasting room and his restaurant are located has been an enormous boost for him as well as other restaurateurs, he said. His neighbors on the block include Zuzu, La Taverna, and Napkins.

Quilt & Co. will open in accordance with the present social distancing guidelines and reservation-only appointments. Guided virtual wine tasting experiences are also available, as are Quilt & Co. Wine Club memberships, that offer two options and include waived tasting fees, complimentary food options, access to the Quilt & Co. lounge and membership discounts.

Despite all the challenges life is throwing at Napa this summer, Mother Nature continues to produce grapes, and, Wagner said he believes people continue to need experiences that remind them that life is to be enjoyed  a thought as comforting as a fine old quilt.

Quilt & Co. is open by appointment from 11 a.m to 6 p.m. on Thursday through Sunday, at 807 Main St. Visit QuiltAndCo.com to schedule reservations.

Watch now: Joe Wagner opens Quilt & Co. in Napa
Visit MSUs green campus is 5,300 acres of beautiful scenery, academic and sports facilities, performance spaces and more. Experience it for yourself!
By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 35 times, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

Armenian armed forces were using large-caliber machine guns.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The cancellation of the huge annual Malaga Fair, due to have been held this week, has dealt another massive blow to the city's tourism sector and brings with it an estimated loss of more than 60 million euros, according to the latest figures published by the city council.

Bars and restaurants estimate that income will be more than 60 per cent lower than for the same period last year, while hotels, usually close to full occupancy during this week, are barely half full. Some haven't even opened.

The president of the Hoteliers Association of Malaga (Mahos), Javier Frutos, says that the losses "are tremendous" and explains that this fall in activity not only affects employers and workers directly but also many other sectors: "Suppliers, distributors, taxi drivers, hoteliers and all those who live from tourism are all losing out. I know that there are businesses that have closed due to the pandemic and others that are on the brink."

New measures recently brought in, such as the ban on smoking if you can't keep a minimum distance of two metres or the closure of bars at 1am, has added "uncertainty" to the hospitality industry, a sector that relies heavily on the fair: "There are three massive periods: Easter, the Feria and Christmas. All of them are needed for businesses to end the year with any profits."

Request for aid

The week of the fair is the most profitable for hotels in Malaga, a sector which is calling for a public aid package similar to that granted to the banks a decade ago (around 65 billion euros).

Especially delicate is the situation of the hundreds of fairground stallholders and ride owners in Malaga province. Their association's president, Rafael Blazquez, is calling on town halls to exempt them from taxes such as vehicle tax and IBI now that almost every event in which they were going to participate in the province has been cancelled.

The Feria de Malaga was for many "the first chance to make any money" this year as previous events covered costs and little else.

Blazquez criticises town halls for their lack of will in facilitating summer events that could comply with the health regulations. "It's just the same as in an amusement park and yet they're allowed to open," he says.

The cancellation of the fair also has an "emotional" impact, says Malaga city councillor for Festivities, Teresa Porras. "But given the recommendations of the health authorities we had no choice."

But will there be a fair in August 2021? Porras is clear: "Of course. And we'll have to celebrate it twice as much."
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has urged people to take precaution while using 13 bridges that are in a dilapidated condition during the upcoming 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival, which will start from August 22.

The civic body had urged devotees in its August 15 advisory not to wait on these bridges for a prolonged duration, avoid dancing on these structures and ensure fewer people participate in the immersion processions.

Officials said the advisory was issued taking note of the deteriorating structural stability of these bridges  Ghatkopar rail overbridge (ROB), Curry Road bridge, Chinchpokli bridge, Marine Line bridge, Sandhurst Road bridge, and Dadar Tilak bridge, important for east to west connectivity over the years.

The civic body and the police have also appealed to people to not travel in herds during the festival in a bid to avoid accidents which might cause due to the condition of the bridges. The civic officials said the load on Currey Road and Chinchpokli bridges should not exceed 16 tonnes due to their dilapidated condition.

Last year, the civic body had issued an advisory for 20 bridges that were found dilapidated in a structural audit, prompted after the Himalayan bridge collapse at CSMT.

The BMC has also urged Ganesh mandals in prominent areas of Mumbai to follow the concept of one ward-one Ganpati during this years Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in view of the coronavirus outbreak. Vishwas Mote, the assistant municipal commissioner of K-West ward which covers Andheri, Juhu, Versova and other such areas, made the appeal through a letter to the mandals.
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A brawl involving Manchester United captain Harry Maguire began after rival fans shouted 'F*** United' before the footballer allegedly attacked police and five officers wrestled him to the ground, it was claimed last night.

The 85million England international was allegedly involved in a bust-up with a group of other Englishmen before becoming 'very abusive and aggressive' towards officers who arrived to intervene last night on the island of Mykonos.

A source told The Sun: 'There was a group of guys who had been chanting at Harry on Wednesday night, but it was a bit of banter. On Thursday they were more aggressive, saying, 'F*** United'.

'They were trying to wind him up. They were also trying to mess around with a group of girls there. Harry got upset. They told Harry, 'F*** United' again and a brawl started with Harry's mates.

'Two or three more police came but Harry was so strong and upset that they couldn't pin him down. It took more than five officers to get him down.'

Maguire, 27, has now spent two nights in a cell along with two other men thought to be fellow players, aged 28 and 29, and the trio have been transferred to the neighbouring island of Syros where they will appear before the state prosecutor tomorrow at 11am on charges including aggravated assault, verbal assault and attempted bribery.

'Until then,' the spokesman Petros Vassilakis told the Daily Mail, 'he will remain in police custody. That means in the holding cell of the Syros precinct.'

The decision deals a blow to Maguire's lawyers who insisted earlier that he would be released.

The maximum sentennce for bribery in Greece is three years in prison but Maguire's lawyer said he denies all wrongdoing. She said: 'Maguire denies the allegations against him. Fortunately, we will get rid of it tomorrow.'

The chief prosecutor told local media that he expects Maguire to make an apology at the hearing.

Maguire, a father-of-two, was seen this evening being taken into Syros police station by plain-clothes officers after an hour-long ferry crossing to his new jail cell with the two other men.

Police said that two of their officers suffered facial injuries during the initial scrap after they were allegedly hurled to the ground, punched and kicked.

In a statement released yesterday afternoon, Mykonos police accused the three men of another violent altercation once they had been taken into custody. On arrival to Mykonos police station, according to the statement, the men continued to resist, 'pushing and beating three police officers'.

The statement also said that 'one of the detainees tried to offer money so that the trial against them would not be completed' but did not name Maguire.

Two days ago, Maguire was pictured drinking at a pool party at SantAnna Bar with fellow United youngsters Marcus Rashford, 22, and Brandon Williams, 19, as well as Love Island star Chris Hughes, 27, and snooker player Judd Trump, 31 and his brother Joe Maguire. It is not clear if anybody at this party was with Maguire later that evening.

Harry Maguire (baseball cap) is escorted by plain clothes police officers to the central police station on the island of Syros, west of Mykonos, after her was arrested on Thursday night for allegedly assaulting officers during a raucous night out

Maguire, wearing a baseball cap and a pair of Gucci trainers, is escorted into Syros police station this evening after taking a one hour boat ride to his new jail cell

One of the three men involved in the brawl was transferred to the island of Syros today while wearing a mask and dark sunglasses while hiding his face from the camera

Footage taken yesterday by Maguire's sister Daisy shows the group lounging in the sun at the SantAnna bar in Mykonos. Also in attendance were fellow United youngsters Marcus Rashford, 22, and Brandon Williams, 19, as well as Love Island star Chris Hughes, 27, and snooker player Judd Trump, 31

Maguire (left) was earlier on Thursday picture knocking back drinks by a pool with fellow Manchster United stars Brandon Williams (right, sitting to the left of the young woman) and Marcus Rashford (sitting to her right)

Maguire was on Thursday night pictured at the Bonbonniere Bar in Mykonos sat around a shisha table with other young men and women

Maguire's poolside party earlier on Thursday included snooker player Judd Trump (left), as well as fellow football colleagues Marcus Rashford and Brandon Williams (right)

Harry Maguire's girlfriend Fern Hawkins posted this Instagram snap on Thursday night with the caption: 'Holidays with you ... '

Harry Maguire appeared on Love Island star Chris Hughes' Instagram stories on Wednesday and was seen drinking shots

Daisy Maguire, the footballer's sister, at the bar in Mykonos yesterday afternoon

Maguire, 27, was also pictured yesterday at a drinks party for snooker player Judd Trump, whose 31st birthday was on Wednesday

The SantAnna Bar where Maguire and his friends were drinking yesterday afternoon. The party included fellow United youngsters Marcus Rashford, 22, and Brandon Williams, 19, as well as Love Island star Chris Hughes, 27, and snooker player Judd Trump, 31. It is not clear if anybody at this party was with Maguire later that evening.

Maguire was pictured at the SantAnna Bar on the Greek island on Thursday afternoon with the group that included Marcus Rashford, Brandon Williams and Judd Trump, before making his way to the Bonbonniere bar later in the evening. He ended up in a brawl outside Fabrica and was arrested. Two other men, aged 28 and 29, were also detained. They are expected to appear in court later today on the nearby island of Syros

Police have said that two groups of Englishmen were brawling outside Mykonos' Fabrica bar in the early hours of Friday morning and when they tried to intervene they were rounded on by three men, including the centre-half.

'When the brawl was all sorted out, one of the two groups - with the football players - started verbally abusing officers. There were several policemen there. At some point, one of the three members of the group - they were aged 27, 28, and 29 - threw a swing at one of the policemen and a fight ensued.' Petros Vassilakis a police spokesman said.

'All of the three were arrested but during the effort to do so, the other two, including the football player, got violent also. They threw down at least two policemen, hit them with their fists and kicked them.' The police spokesman continued.

'I can't tell you what they were telling us. All English swear words against the authorities and against the work of the police. All three, including the football player, are being held in custody, locked up in Mykonos cell. They will appear before a state prosecutor on the island of Syros later today to be charged with aggravated assault.'

In an official statement, Greek police said: 'Three foreigners, aged 27, 28 and 29, were arrested in Mykonos by police officers of the Mykonos police department.

'Patrolling police officers in the area of Mykonos intervened and normalised a dispute between citizens, however, three foreigners involved in the incident turned against them, insulting and hitting a police officer with fists.

'The three foreigners were taken to the Mykonos Police Station, where upon their arrival they strongly resisted, pushing and beating three police officers.

'One of the detainees then tried to offer money so that the trial against them would not be completed. The arrested (men) were taken to the Syros Prosecutor's Office.'

Maguire, who earns 190,000-a-week plans to cut short his holiday and return to the UK, according to a source at Manchester United.

Lawyers for the club have been in contact with their player and they are awaiting clarification from police on the island over what charges he might face.

'We are expecting more information from Mykonos as clarification is needed over exactly what happened and what charges he will face, if any.' The lawyers said.

Manchester United said in a statement: 'The club is aware of an alleged incident involving Harry Maguire in Mykonos on Thursday night.

'Contact has been made with Harry, and he is fully co-operating with the Greek authorities.

'At this time we will be making no further comment.'

The Manchester United captain Harry Maguire posing with a fan on Thursday night in Mykonos town

Instagram snaps posted by Chris Hughes showing a group of lads in the back of a mini bus on Thursday night

Trent Alexander Arnold and Dele Ali both seen on a beach in Mykonos the day after their England team mate Harry Maguire was arrested for assaulting a police office on the Greek Island (Picture taken today)

Dele Ali is seen on a beach in Mykonos today, a day after his England team mate Harry Maguire was arrested for assaulting a police office on the Greek Island

Brandon Williams, 19, is also on holiday in Mykonos and was earlier on Thursday attending a pool party with Maguire

Shanice East, Williams's girlfriend, yesterday posted this snap with Maguire's girlfriend Fern Hawkins

Footage posted on a Greek website shows Maguire on Thursday night chatting with fans in the Matogiannia area of Mykonos town.

Britons were singing his name in the street and posing for selfies with the soccer ace before things went awry.

His girlfriend Fern Hawkins posted an Instagram picture on Thursday night with the caption: 'Holidays with you ... '. She has since made her profile private.

United players are taking time off after their Europa League exertions earlier this month before the resumption of the Premier League at the end of September.

The club were eliminated by Spanish side Sevilla last Sunday. Had they won that fixture they would be up against Inter Milan in the final tonight in Germany.

Maguire said he was 'devastated' by the semi-final exit against the Spanish side last week.

He added: 'We deserved to go through but ultimately we fell short at the semi-final stage, for the third time this season.

On Thursday, Chris Hughes shared pictures of himself with a cut above his eye which was sustained on a night out for Judd Trump's birthday on Wednesday. 'I look hard,' he joked

An Instagram picture of Judd Trump - Chris Hughes was partying with the snooker star on Wednesday night for Trump's 31st birthday. Drinks celebrations continued into the following day and Trump's party joined Maguire's

A selfie picture taken on Thursday night from a hospital bed in Mykonos by a friend of Judd Trump's

'It means a lot to us, the boys are devastated. We have a good group of lads who know what it means to play for this club and losing isn't acceptable. Getting to semi-finals isn't acceptable and we now have to look at taking it another step.

'Maybe that little bit of inexperience cost us in the end. Even when we are on top, creating chances we shouldn't concede that second goal.

'They worked it well down the right but we have to do better. We conceded from two crosses and it's not good enough.'

Maguire is next due to play at Old Trafford for their first game of the season on September 19 against Crystal Palace.
INDIANAPOLIS  A federal judge has ruled that Indiana law governing the process of approving or rejecting absentee ballots based on signature matching is unconstitutional because it doesn't require that voters be notified and doesn't offer a means to contest such a decision.

In Indiana, county election boards compare the signature on an absentee ballot application with the signature on a provided affidavit printed on the outside of a return envelope.

If a board determines the signatures don't match, the ballot is rejected. Boards are not required to notify the voter of the rejected ballot and there is no procedure for contesting the decision.

States are seeing surges in applications to vote absentee by mail as the coronavirus pandemic marches on. In the 2020 primary election, when excuses were not required to vote absentee, more than 500,000 people applied to vote by mail in Indiana.

More: President Trumps vote-by-mail ballot received by elections office in Florida

In May 2019, long before the pandemic began, four voters and Common Cause Indiana, a grassroots organization that advocates for eliminating barriers to voting, sued Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson over the signature matching practice. They say it violates due process and equal protection.

U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker agreed, issuing an order Thursday barring all Indiana election officials from rejecting mail-in absentee ballots on the basis of mismatching signatures without giving proper notice to the voter and without providing means to contest the decision.

Barker also ordered Lawson to inform all Indiana election officials of the ruling and to instruct them on how to proceed in time for the Nov. 3 election.

Survey: Biden voters twice as likely than Trump supporters to vote by mail in November

IndyStar has left messages for Lawson's office. A spokesperson for the attorney general's office, which represented the state, said they are reviewing the order and considering next steps.

Story continues

In an emailed statement, Common Cause of Indiana Director Julia Vaughn called the ruling "a historic win for Indiana voters."

This victory helps ensure no Hoosier voting by mail will be disenfranchised by Indianas flawed signature matching law," she said. "Election laws should protect peoples right to vote and the integrity of our election system. Indianas signature matching law failed to do either, and wrongly disenfranchised Hoosiers."

Follow Elizabeth DePompei on Twitter: @edepompei

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Vote by mail: Indiana can't reject absentee ballots without notice
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.
Mali coup leaders promise civilian government, credible elections

Malis military leaders, who forced out elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Tuesday, said they will form a transitional, civilian-led government and organise credible elections.

Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita resigned after being detained by soldiers on Tuesday. The President and PM Boubou Cisse were taken to a military camp near the capital Bamako, drawing international condemnation.

In a brief address on state television, the ousted President said he was also dissolving the government and parliament, adding: "I want no blood to be spilled to keep me in power."

"If today, certain elements of our armed forces want this to end through their intervention, do I really have a choice?" he asked.

"I hold no hatred towards anyone, my love of my country does not allow me to," he added. "May God save us."

A spokesman for the soldiers called for "a civil political transition leading to credible general elections".

Keita won a second term in elections in 2018, but there has been anger over corruption, the mismanagement of the economy and a dispute over legislative elections. It has prompted several large protests in recent months.

There has also been anger among troops about pay and over a continuing conflict with jihadists.

A televised statement was read out early on Wednesday on behalf of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People.

"Civil society and political social movements are invited to join us to create together the best conditions for a civil political transition leading to credible general elections for the exercise of democracy through a roadmap that will lay the foundations for a new Mali," Air force deputy chief of staff Col-Major Ismael Wague said.

"Our country is sinking into chaos, anarchy and insecurity mostly due to the fault of the people who are in charge of its destiny,", Col Wague said.

"As of today, all air and land borders are closed until further notice. A curfew is in place from 09:00 to 17:00 until further notice," he added.

It is still unclear as to who are behind the mutiny and who will now take charge.

A BBC Afrique report by Abdoul Ba in Bamako said the coup was likely led by Col Malick Diaw, deputy head of the Armys Kati camp, and another commander, Gen Sadio Camara.

After taking over the camp, about 15 km from Bamako, the mutineers marched on the capital, where they were cheered by crowds who had gathered to demand Keita's resignation.

On Tuesday afternoon they stormed his residence and arrested the President and the prime minister.

The soldiers also detained the President's son, the speaker of the National Assembly, the foreign and finance ministers among other officials.

Soldiers, especially at the Kati camp, were angry at the inability of the senior commanders to stop jihadists and Tuareg rebels taking control of northern Mali.

The United Nations and African Union called for the release of those held by the soldiers. The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the West African regional bloc condemned the coup.

Ecowas, a regional body, said its 15 member states had agreed to close their borders with Mali, suspend all financial flows to the country, and eject Mali from all Ecowas decision-making bodies.

France, the former colonial ruler of Mali, condemned the president's detention, and urged the soldiers to return to barracks. Mali is a key base for French troops fighting Islamist insurgents across the Sahel region.

A member of Mali's opposition M5 movement, which has held protests against Keita for the past few weeks, welcomed his resignation.

The desert regions of northern Mali are home to various militant groups, some of whom are linked to al-Qaeda, which have also spread into neighbouring Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.

French troops, working with a regional force known as G5 Sahel, and a 10,000-strong force of UN peacekeepers are based in Mali, trying to tackle the militants.

The Indian mission in Mali has advised caution for Indian nationals. Indian envoy to Mali Anjani Kumar said, "All embassy members are at home and safe. We sent them back after the first indication of disturbance. Requested all Indians to stay home in view of developments."

Around 250-300 Indians are present in the country. Most of them are in the retail business, mining, power, and steel.

Ousted Malian President Keita had visited India twice, one in 2018 to attend the Founding Conference of International Solar Alliance (ISA) and before that in 2015 to take part in India Africa Summit. Mali is the eighth-largest country in Africa.
The Siberian hospital where Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny is being treated while in a coma said on Friday it had found no evidence he had been poisoned.



"No poisons or traces of poison have been found in his system. I suppose a diagnosis of poisoning is still at the back of our minds. But we do not think that the patient has been poisoned," deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko said, state news agency TASS reported.



A representative of Navalny said previously that medical staff had told him that a trace of a poison had been found. The hospital has refused to let Navalny be evacuated to Germany for treatment, saying that it could be too dangerous to transport him.



Navalny's spokesperson, Kira Yamysh, alleged that Russian authorities seem to want to keep Navalny at the hospital for at least a couple days to make sure that potential traces of poisoning would be out of his system.

Source: GNA









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JEFFERSON CITY  The secretary of states office ordered 85 ballot drop boxes this year at more than $500 apiece, but wont use them for the Nov. 3 election because of concerns that voter confusion over a new state law could lead to invalidated ballots.

The worries are due to a new no-excuse, mail-in voting option that is open to any voter.

Unlike traditional absentee ballots, the new mail-in ballots must be mailed back to local election authorities.

That means if someone with a new mail-in ballot deposits their envelope into a drop box instead of using the U.S. Postal Service, their vote wouldnt count under Missouri law.

Absentee ballots  which are still available and require voters to cite one of seven excuses  may be mailed out but returned in person.

Maura Browning, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, said the office ordered the vast majority of boxes before the Legislature approved the new mail-in voting option, and ordered all of them before Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed the measure.

We were operating under a whole other set of rules, she said, noting that previously, all alternative ballots available to Missouri voters could be returned in-person, and, theoretically, deposited into a drop box.

This is not about us trying to make it difficult for voters, Browning said. Were trying to ensure that their votes count.

Browning said Ashcroft was not involved in negotiations over the legislation that ultimately passed.

Election authorities around the country have deployed drop boxes as doubts about the Postal Services ability to deliver all ballots this fall continue to circulate.

Browning said the office placed four orders  three in April and one in May  in an effort to reduce person-to-person contact when voters cast their ballots. She said the boxes were to be distributed to local election authorities that requested them.

Browning said the office hasnt yet been billed for the boxes. At $501 per box, the order will cost $42,585. Browning said the secretary of states office will use money from the Help America Vote Act to pay for the boxes.

Because the no-excuse, mail-in voting option is only in effect for elections this year, Browning said the office plans to distribute the boxes for future elections.

On Thursday, three Missouri voters and the Washington-based voting rights organization American Women sued the state, challenging the constitutionality of five laws, including the requirement that mail-in ballots must be mailed to officials.

Under the Mail-Return Mandate, a well-intentioned and otherwise qualified Mail-In voter who reasonably decides to drop off her ballot at her local polling place on Election Day  perhaps because a family member, an Absentee voter, plans to do the same  would be completely disenfranchised, the lawsuit says.

It also says that because voters using the new method have no other option but to return ballots by mail, a flood of ballots risks overwhelming the Postal Service.

The Postal Service has recommended voters send ballots back by mail no later than Oct. 27, a week before the election, to align with the services delivery schedule.

Another Missouri law the lawsuit challenges prevents ballots that arrive after 7 p.m. on Election Day from counting, even if the ballot is postmarked by Election Day, leading to concerns that a surge of late ballots would be invalidated.

Compared to past elections, the number of ballots rejected due to the Election Day Deadline is sure to grow drastically, the lawsuit says.

While Parson has waived more than 450 statutes during the pandemic-related state of emergency he has declared, he has not waived the requirement that mail-in ballots must be returned by mail.

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Credit unions saw a victory in court Thursday as the U.S Court of Appeals for the Fourth District ruled in favor of Navy FCU in Navy FCU v. LTD Financial Services. CUNA filed a brief in support of Navy FCU in the case, which involves access to federal courts via diversity jurisdiction.

Todays ruling in the 4th Circuit is a huge victory for Navy Federal and its members, and ensures that federal credit unions will have the same access to federal courts that all state-incorporated companies have enjoyed for decades, said Mary McDuffie, president/CEO of Navy FCU. Special thanks to our partners at the Credit Union National Association and National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions for their support in this case.

Diversity jurisdiction is one of two methods a federal court can have jurisdiction. A previous court decision found that a section of the U.S. Code on diversity jurisdiction does not apply to federally chartered credit unions.
Here's what one of the best performing funds of the last decade is buying

Published Fri, Aug 21 2020 6:58 AM EDT Updated Fri, Aug 21 2020 9:09 AM EDT
A drug support worker accused of dealing heroin to vulnerable addicts outside Melbourne's controversial safe injecting room has won a major court battle.

Matthew Honey, 50, was one of eight people charged with drug trafficking after police swooped on an alleged heroin ring operating near the North Richmond Community Health Centre.

Operation Sievers detectives allege Mr Honey had carried out over 100 drug deals in the area between September 5 and October 24, 2019.

Prosecutors argued on Thursday his charges should be heard in the County Court where the maximum penalty for drug trafficking is 15 years.

But the Yarra Drug and Health Forum Alcohol and Drug Worker of the Year in 2018 was granted summary jurisdiction to have the case heard in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, where the maximum penalty is just five years.

The court battle comes as local residents grow increasingly frustrated about the number of drug addicts in the area shooting up in public, pooing in the street and gathering in large groups.

Drug support worker Matthew Honey, 50, (pictured) is accused of dealing heroin to vulnerable addicts outside Melbourne's controversial safe injecting room

Magistrate Keiran Gilligan agreed to have the case go ahead at a lower court due to Mr Honey's limited criminal history and the amateurish nature of his alleged crimes, the Herald Sun reported.

'It was unsophisticated offending,' Mr Gilligan said.

'He used his own work phone and his name. There is no significant evidence of enrichment.'

Prosecutor Lachlan Cameron argued that Mr Honey's offences should be considered much more seriously given there were allegedly more than 100 instances of drug dealing and that he was employed to help people in the throws of addiction.

But Magistrate Gilligan disagreed and the case will return to local court on September 16.

The legal injecting room in North Richmond has sparked fury in recent weeks, with Metropolitan Melbourne currently under a Stage 4 stay-at-home order to slow the spread COVID-19.

Witnesses have reported as many as 20 people congregating in a park for a birthday party near the inner-city injecting room

A large gathering is pictured outside a safe injecting room in North Richmond in Melbourne's inner-east. Locals have complained about groups congregating in high numbers outside the facility not wearing masks

But despite the lockdown, the community centre remains open and locals have reported seeing meth and heroin addicts shooting up in public, defecating in the street and gathering in large groups.

Residents have also reported used syringes discarded on sidewalks a short walk away from the safe injecting room.

One man said those injecting in the street appeared to be 'immune' to the lockdown and the rules did not apply to them.

'We're in a stage 4 lockdown and they act as if nothing is happening  they could be the ones spreading the virus for all we know,' the resident told NCA News Wire.

'We've seen syringes and human faeces in the streets. Children live around here, it's disgraceful  we're supposed to be minimising the risk of spreading disease.'

One photo shared to a local social media group campaigning to have the injecting room moved showed a syringe discarded in a children's playground.

Pictured: Syringes left discarded in North Richmond. The suburb has its own bespoke safe injecting room where drug users can shoot up under supervision

WHAT IS THE NORTH RICHMOND COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE? North Richmond Community Health Centre has a medically supervised injecting room. It opened in June 2018 for an 18-month trial and has recorded more than 60,000 visits and managed more than 1,800 overdoses without a death. Before the room was opened staff would attend 59 overdoses a year in carparks and gutters without any notice. In the first week 400 people went to the room. A review of the trial was due in June 2020 to help decide of it would continue to operate. There has been loud public opposition to the centre since it was established. Locals want it moved to another area as they claim it has created more drug use within the community. Some claim to have seen heroin users take the drug near schools. Advertisement

In a flagrant disregard for lockdown rules preventing no more than two people from gathering outside at once, witnesses reported as many as 20 people congregating in a park for a birthday party.

Complaints about drug users not wearing face masks in North Richmond have become so vocal state Liberal MP Craig Ondarchie has asked for more police to patrol the area.

'That is unacceptable during this pandemic when so many Victorians are obeying the rules,' he said in state parliament.

In June, mother Charlotte Spencer-Roy revealed she regularly found people using drugs in the laneway beside her North Richmond home.

Her nine-year-old son, Angus, was traumatised after discovering a man who had apparently overdosed laying unconscious outside their home just 10 minutes from the injecting room.

'He said ''mummy, mummy there's a dead body'',' Ms Spencer-Roy told Nine News at the time.

Mother Charlotte Spencer-Roy (pictured right with her son Angus) lives just streets away from the controversial injecting room in North Richmond

Ms Spencer-Roy said she was spat on and threatened by a drug addict (pictured right and left) who had been shooting up outside her home in November

Ms Spencer-Roy opened her door as two men scrambled to pick up their drug paraphernalia.

'Why are you choosing to inject here? This isn't the injecting room,' she asked as the pair quickly scurried away.

The men told the furious mother the queues at the Lennox Street injecting room were too long and the 10-minute walk was 'too far away'.

Mr Honey remains on bail and is banned from going within 50m of the North Richmond Community Health Centre.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrive for the weekly cabinet meeting on August 19, 2020 at the Chancellery in Berlin. Photo: Michael Kappeler/ AFP via Getty Images

Germany, well-known for its historical aversion to debt, is set to keep borrowing next year to help the economy survive the devastating fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

The government in Berlin waived its constitutional rule against taking on no new debt earlier this year as the pandemic spread rapidly and lockdowns were imposed on all sectors of the economy and social life.

The government will borrow nearly 218bn (195bn, $258bn) this year, but will need to take on additional debt next year too, meaning it cannot reinstate its Black Zero (Schwarze Null) debt-brake law for a second year running.

"Next year we will continue to be forced to suspend the debt rules and spend considerable funds to protect the health of citizens and stabilise the economy," Olaf Scholz, the finance minister and Angela Merkels vice-chancellor, said in an interview with Funke media group today.

READ MORE: German finance minister to run as chancellor candidate in 2021

The German economy contracted by just over 10% in the second quarter of this year, and GDP is forecast to shrink by more than 6% overall in 2020.

Scholz said in the interview that he expects the economy to rebound to pre-crisis levels by the end of 2021, or start of 2022.

As a whole, Berlin has earmarked over 1trn to help Europes largest economy recover from the pandemic. It unveiled a 130bn financial stimulus package in June.

Scholz had predicted in March that the government would not need to take out more loans in 2021. However, he pointed to the governments efficient budget management in the years running up to the 2020 as reassurance that the huge new debt could be paid off.

The finance minister also noted that the government was doing everything it can to avoid a second lockdown. He is also pushing for an extension of the countrys short-time work programme, or Kurzarbeit as it is called, to a total of 24 months, until 2022.

READ MORE: Central bank expects very strong German economic growth this summer

Germany, like many of its EU neighbours, is experiencing spikes in coronavirus cases not seen since April, sparking worries that a second lockdown stage could be inevitable.

Merkel on Thursday (20 August) urged EU countries to coordinate to avoid fresh lockdowns, saying: We want to avoid closing borders again at any cost.
The future for delivering printed newspapers inside peoples homes is by using wireless facsimile transmissions over a local radio stations airwave. At least this is what many folks thought during the 1930s. It began with a local radio station sending news bulletins over their airwaves directly into a newspaper office. A facsimile machine inside the newspaper office tuned to the radio stations frequency printed the announcements onto paper. It may surprise you that this method was used 83 years ago by city radio stations and newspaper outlets  including one from Minnesota. I recently obtained a copy of the April 1934 Radio-Craft magazine, and read an article titled Radio Set Prints Newspaper! written by Hugo Gernsback, the editor of Radio-Craft. In his piece, Gernsback described a radio newspaper. The idea of using your radio set in your own home, to print a complete tabloid newspaper and deliver it to you, is not original with me. The idea has been mentioned by many well-known radio engineers ever since 1925, and perhaps even before that, Gernsback writes. His piece included photos of a scanning unit used in the transmission of photographs manufactured by the Radio Corporation of America, better known as RCA. The article also contained photographs of an RCA facsimile reception device and radio facsimile receiver from the 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair. Inventor William G.H. Finch, a radio engineer and an editor with the International News Service, is credited for creating the technology used with wireless facsimile transmission and reception. Finch proposed using a local radio stations radio spectrum that went silent when regular on-air programs ended, which occurred during the late-night hours when most Americans were sleeping. The first experimental tests of his radio facsimile system took place in 1933 over station W10XDF, transmitting from the Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Radio stations became very interested in Finchs idea of using wireless radio frequencies to send news information and photographs directly to newspaper offices. Many newspaper outlets were receptive to the idea  but not all. During 1937, RCA manufactured the wireless facsimile scanner and printer equipment to be used with Finchs technology. Radio broadcasters received FCC special license permission to transmit radio facsimile signals between midnight and 6 a.m., starting in September 1937. The first successful transmissions of radio facsimile printed news were made the week of Oct. 15, 1937, by the Minneapolis-St. Paul area radio station KSTP. By the end of 1937, Finch had three radio stations testing his radio printer system: WGH in Newport News, Virginia; WHO in Des Moines, IA; and KSTP based in St. Paul, MN. In 1938, St, Louis MO radio station W9XZY, using a facsimile scanner manufactured by RCA, transmitted a news bulletin over its radio frequency to the local St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper. The newspaper office received a paper hard copy bulletin message from an RCA printer tuned to W9XZYs transmitting frequency. The newspapers printer and paper expenses were paid by the radio stations, while the local newspaper company would perform the distribution of the news and information. In 1938, this setting was in operation between radio station W9XWY in St. Louis, MO and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Eventually, radio stations staff began thinking, Why not bypass the local newspaper and send the news information directly to the home user? It would eliminate the radio stations printing and distribution costs and directly move those costs to the end-user, who would purchase the printers and paper. Finch envisions local radio stations delivering news over-the-air directly to customers radio facsimile printers during the overnight hours to homes in the city. As folks woke up, they would walk over and pull the six pages of typed information from their newspaper printer and take it to the kitchen table to read while having their eggs, toast, and coffee. The 1938 Finch facsimile radio receiver housed in a 1-foot-square wooden box sold for $125 ($1,900 in todays dollars). It uses AC power and connects to the speaker of any radio receiver with at least 3 Watts audio output. Finch also developed a talking newspaper process that would produce a soundtrack from newsprint. A subscriber using a radio newspaper could have the printed information reproduced and audibly read using specialized equipment in their home. I consider myself better informed and appreciate having my local town newspaper reporting on the local city news, businesses, sports, and community activities. A printed newspaper needs no batteries or electricity to operate; it only needs a curious reader flipping through its pages to keep up-to-date with the goings-on in their community. Sipping freshly-brewed coffee is also a part of my newspaper reading habit. Finchs wireless radio facsimile technology for distributing news and information to a device in our home never became popular; however, it may have influenced later inventions, such as the fax machine plugged into a telephone line. Finch, inventor of the radio facsimile system used by several radio broadcasting stations, and holder of many US patents in radio technology, passed away Nov. 13, 1990, at the age of 93. According to his family members, Finch was actively working on several new inventions up to his death. Be safe out there.
(RNS)  Pam Schulz has never seen anything like it.

Just about every home in the Cedar Rapids area has been impacted by the storms that swept across the Midwest last week with hurricane-force winds, according to Schulz, the executive director of St. Marks Lutheran Church, a congregation in Marion, Iowa, affiliated with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.

Some have trees downed in their lawns. Some have trees through their houses and on their cars.

Some, more than a week later, still dont have electricity.

And unlike the flooding that swept Cedar Rapids about a decade ago, the damage is too widespread to escape.

Its going to be a long recovery, Schulz said.

When we had the flood here in 2008, most people who went to serve could come home to a house with air conditioning and what looked normal. Well, you cant even drive down the street without seeing damage now anywhere in the entire community.

In Iowa, churches are working together and partnering with faith-based organizations from across the country to offer aid after the unusual windstorm, called a derecho, left a trail of devastation from South Dakota to Ohio on Aug. 10.

I feel really blessed that we have the ability to talk to one another and work together in this, Schulz said.

President Donald Trump surveyed the damage from Air Force One on Tuesday (Aug. 18) after signing part of Iowas disaster aid request, and the storm came up that night, too, at the Democratic National Convention.

With wind gusts up to 112 mph, the derecho not only destroyed homes and knocked out power to millions across the Midwest, it also flattened cornfields and toppled grain bins. Its been blamed for three deaths in Iowa, as well as one in Indiana.

Many of the volunteers working to repair damage, remove debris and distribute aid are community members who themselves have been impacted by the storm, Schulz said. They tell her others have it worse than them, that theyre happy to help.

But, more than a week in, she said, People are getting tired. You can just hear it and see it in their faces when they come through our distribution site.

St. Marks, one of the largest churches in the area, was incredibly blessed, Schulz said. There is some damage to the exterior of its building and the cross that stands outside, she said, but other churches are so badly damaged, you can see their sanctuaries as you drive past.

The Lutheran church is acting as a distribution site for Linn Area Partners Active in Disaster, handing out meals, water and other needed items in its parking lot.

It also is hosting a team from Eight Days of Hope, a nondenominational Christian organization the church has partnered with for years, sending volunteers around the country to assist after disasters.

Whats surreal, Schulz said, is that a team from Eight Days of Hope was already planning to come to St. Marks to finish work on a warehouse in Cedar Rapids that it will use to coordinate responses to disasters across the Midwest.

Then disaster struck the church.

Other faith-based organizations partnering with churches in the area include Samaritans Purse, the evangelical disaster relief organization headed by Franklin Graham.

Keeth Willingham, the program manager on the ground in Cedar Rapids for Samaritans Purse, said the coronavirus pandemic has added more considerations for organizations coming to the area from across the country.

That means sending out smaller groups of volunteers, Willingham said.

Samaritans Purse staff and any volunteers traveling from more than an hour away must test negative for COVID-19 to prevent bringing the virus to the community, he said. And all volunteers must wear masks and keep 6 feet between themselves and others, even as theyre praying with homeowners, cutting wet drywall and carpet out of houses and dragging tree limbs off property.

Were doing everything we can to ensure were not being a part of any of the problems associated with COVID, he said.

When it comes to the role faith plays in the aftermath of a disaster, the Rev. Sherrie Ilg said her church  historic St. Marks United Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids  is figuring that out as it goes.

Definitely theres a physical response, and we can be the hands and feet of Christ in this community, Ilg said.

Like St. Pauls, the Methodist church has been collecting and distributing resources to its neighbors.

In addition, the pastor said, Theres a lot for people to process on an individual level  What do I need to do to care for myself first?  putting that oxygen mask on first before you can help other people.

On Sunday, with power and cellphone outages impacting much of her congregation, Ilg filmed a short reflection on her phone, sitting at her dining room table, and then went over to the church to meet anybody who wanted to drop off donations or just talk about how they were doing.

God continues to be our shelter after this storm, she said.

Weve made it through that storm. Now God continues to be a center and a place of grounding ourselves.

Related:

Trump Sends Relief, Prayers to Iowa following Derecho Storm That Left 4 Dead

READ THIS STORY AT RELIGIONNEWS.COM,

Article originally published by Religion News Service. Used with permission.

Photo courtesy: RNS/Eight Days of Hope
(JNS) - As it conducts its mission to defend southern Israeli communities and vital strategic sites, the Israel Navy is also engaged in a quiet arms race with Israel's adversaries in the Gaza Strip - namely, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

A senior IDF source told JNS about the ongoing activities of the Ashdod Naval Base, which is responsible for a substantial part of Israel's coastal waters, stretching from central Israel to southern Gaza.

This area of jurisdiction, known as the Ashdod Arena, sees naval vessels securing Israel's borders and keeping a watchful eyes on developing threat...
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Delhi High Court while hearing the bail plea filed by Pinjra Tod activist Devangana Kalita asked the Delhi Police to show videos of her allegedly making instigating speeches during the violence that took place in the North East district of the national capital in February this year.

The Delhi Police informed the court that they did not have the videos of the time when Kalita was delivering such speeches while the riots were underway. The police however, said that videos of her allegedly instigating people through her speeches before the riots were available.

"I want to know what she said which instigated the mob," said a single judge bench of the high court presided by Justice Suresh Kumar Kait.

The court said that the media was everywhere at that time and was also recording everything.

"Show me any portion of any speech recorded by media or anyone else which showed that the petitioner instigated the mob to commit a crime," said Justice Kait.

During the course of hearing, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju informed the bench that the media was not present there on February 25 when the said incident took place but the testimonies and accounts of the witnesses showed the Pinjra Tod member's role in instigation of the mob.

He further argued that the same was done to tarnish the country's image during the visit of Donald Trump, President of the United States of America.

"Public property was destroyed and a large number of people were injured and one person died," the ASG argued.

Opposing the ASG's arguments, senior advocate Kapil Sibbal said that the Delhi Police was only relying on the statements made by others. "Police were recording the protest site but aren't showing the videos," he added.

The arguments took place while the bench was hearing a petition filed by Kalita challenging a trial court's order which had dismissed her bail application. The petitioner and another member Natasha Narwal were arrested in the case in May by the Crime Branch of the Delhi police and booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including rioting, unlawful assembly and attempt to murder.

After hearing the arguments from both the parties, the court has now reserved its order.

The two women were also booked under the stringent sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a separate case related to the communal violence.

Initially, Kalita was arrested on March 23 in an anti-CAA protest case related to Jafrabad in North-East Delhi but was granted bail thereafter. But soon after getting bail, she was arrested by Delhi Police on March 24 in another case and is now undergoing judicial custody.

Recently, a separate bench of the high court restricted the Delhi Police from issuing any press note regarding Devangana Kalita or any other accused in connection with the Delhi riots case till trial commences.

The police said that both Natasha and Devangana were actively involved in hatching the conspiracy to cause riots near the Jafrabad Metro Station in Delhi.

"They were also part of a larger conspiracy and were found to be connected to the 'India Against Hate' group and Umar Khalid. The message, found in the phone of an accused, on Whatsapp chat, reveals the conspiracy and the extent of preparation for causing riots," the statement by the police added.
Sages financial director in Africa and the Middle East, Jordaan Burger, is one of South Africas leading finance and technology executives.

Burger started his career at Meintjes Vermooten & Partners in 2003 and then went abroad in 2006, serving as a product controller at RBC Capital Markets in London.

Upon his return to South Africa in 2008, he joined TAG Incorporated as an audit partner, where he focused on multinational, technology, and services clients.

He then spent four years as financial director for MWR InfoSecurity where he was also responsible for finance operations in New York, Singapore, and Poland.

Burger joined Sage last year where he oversees the finance function for Sage Africa and Middle East, driving business performance, supporting business development, and setting the commercial strategy.

Whats Next in Finance

In his Whats Next in Finance interview, Burger discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses and what they can do to weather the storm.

Burger comments on the evolving role of chief financial offers in the data-driven future and how automation is changing the field.

He also sheds light on the acceleration of adoption of cloud services among South African businesses.

The conversation then moves to digital transformation and artificial intelligence and what the future holds.

The interview ends with Burger sharing his Aha-moment with host Aki Anastasiou.

The full interview with Jordaan Burger is embedded below. You can see all Whats Next in Finance interviews here.
As India's relations with China continue to get sour amid the ongoing border tensions, the Centre has decided to add extra scrutiny for visas and will also be reviewing Beijing's links with local universities.

According to a report in Bloomberg, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) will now have to issue prior security clearance for visas of Chinese businessmen, academics, industry experts and advocacy groups. The measures are similar to those that have long been employed with Pakistan.

The review was launched after security agencies voiced their concerns to the government around the growing Chinese influence in higher education and culture.

The report states that the activities of Indian universities with tie-ups to Chinese institutions are likely to be drastically scaled down. The government is reviewing a total of 54 memoranda of understanding signed between educational institutions of the two countries.

The Indian government recently announced a review of educational institutions with links to Hanban, the official Chinese language training office, which runs Confucius Institutes in various countries. Reports said that Indian chapters of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in seven colleges and universities are under the scanner.

The move assumes significance as it comes nearly two months after Chinese and Indian troops clashed at the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, leading to the death of 20 Indian soldiers.

Meanwhile, India and China have agreed to resolve outstanding issues in an "expeditious manner" and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols, the MEA said after the two sides held a fresh round of diplomatic talks on the border standoff in eastern Ladakh.

MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the two sides had a "candid and in-depth" exchange of views on the existing situation on the Line of Actual Control(LAC).
A screen plays a video of former US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and wife Jill as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Tom Perez speaks during the last day of the Democratic National Convention at its hosting site in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 20.





Joe Biden takes to the biggest stage of his life on Thursday with a speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the White House in which he will promise a divided, traumatized nation a "new path" if he defeats President Donald Trump.

Speaking in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, but with an audience almost entirely online or on television, Biden's acceptance speech reflects the enormity of the shutdown that has upended life across the United States in the battle against the novel coronavirus.

And Biden is urging Americans to punish Trump for the chaos.

"Donald Trump is not responsible for COVID-19, but he does bear full responsibility for the failed national response," Biden said ahead of his live television speech wrapping up the Democratic convention.

"We've got to hold him accountable this November," the 77-year-old former vice president under Barack Obama and long-time senator from Delaware tweeted.

Biden  on his third White House bid after failing to win the nomination in 1988 and 2008  said he will expand on his plans to "build back better and set this nation on a new path."

Trump hits Pennsylvania

Biden leads in almost every national opinion poll, and in most of those in the swing states.

But in a reminder of how hard Trump intends to fight, he tried to steal Biden's thunder earlier on Thursday with a visit just outside his challenger's birthplace in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

In a remarkably dark speech, Trump falsely claimed that Biden had abandoned the blue-collar town  he in fact moved out with his family when he was a child  and warned that Democrats would usher in an era of "violent mobs" and "blood-stained sidewalks."

Pennsylvania is exactly the kind of place that used to be reliably Democratic but has now divided, with many seduced by Trump's economic nationalism and vows to defend traditional white, working-class values. The state will be fiercely contested on November 3.

The Democratic convention, however, has demonstrated that Trump faces a more united foe than in 2016.

He is also weighed down, as throughout his first term, by ever more distractions and scandals, the latest being Thursday's arrest of his 2016 campaign manager Steve Bannon for alleged fraud.

In more bad news for Trump, a New York judge rejected the president's bid to block the release of his financial records to the Manhattan district attorney in another inquiry.

'Failure of leadership'

Biden's acceptance speech will be the final salvo in a convention that was originally planned to take place with the usual big crowds in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

The Democrats have responded to the online challenge with a flurry of speakers giving shorter speeches, sprinkled with musical acts and highly produced videos.

Emphasizing their unity, other speakers on Thursday include politicians who had challenged Biden for the party's nomination  former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

On Wednesday, it was the turn of Kamala Harris to accept the vice presidential nomination, making her the first black woman ever to make it onto the White House ticket of a major party.
A newborn elephant calf, which got stuck in a swamp, has been was rescued by the forest department on Friday in Gariyaband district.

Forest officials said that an elephant, which is a part of a herd of 21 elephants roaming in the district, gave birth to a calf.

The forest department of Gariyaband was informed in the morning that an elephant calf is stuck in a swamp. A team swung into action and found out that the calf was stuck near Bangawa village, Arun Pandey, additional principal chief conservator of forests (APCCF) (wildlife) told Hindustan Times.

Pandey said that when they reached the spot they found that the mother was trying to rescue her calf but in vain.

When the mother elephant went into the jungle, the team swung into action and rescued the calf safely. We will try to unite the calf with the herd in the next few days, said Pandey.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ritesh Mishra State Correspondent for Chhattisgarh. Reports Maoism, Politics, Mining and important developments from the state. Covered all sorts of extremism in Central India. Reported from Madhya Pradesh for eight years. ...view detail
LOBAMBA  The Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) is deliberately withholding just over E4 million which it owes government.

The reason allegedly being forwarded by EPTC is that government itself owes the parastatal about E4 464 001.

This was revealed by the Principal Secretary in the Deputy Prime Ministers (DPM) Office, Makhosini Mndawe, yesterday when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The PAC was making a follow-up on whether the DPMs Office had been able to recover an initial sum of about E12 million, which was held at EPTC under the elderly disbursement grant account.

The committee, which was chaired by its Deputy Chairperson, Gege MP Musa Kunene, heard that instead EPTC had remitted about E8.4 million back to the government coffers.

EPTC wrote to us and informed us that since we owed them roughly the balance, which was in the region of E4 million, they would not transfer it until we paid them, said Mndawe.

Mndawe said they had since written a Cabinet paper asking the latter to approve the facilitation of the payment.

MP Kunene said no matter what the two institutions owed each other, EPTC was expected to remit the entire amount.

Invoices

He further asked the DPMs Office to furnish the committee with the invoices.

However, Madlangempisi MP Sibusiso Nxumalo asked if there had been no contract agreements entered into by the two entities.

Mndawe said the money which was owed by government to the corporation dated back to 2015 and it was for a pilot project conducted by the telecommunications company for the disbursement of the grants. He said it was agreed that EPTC would use its own finances to conduct the pilot project.

Mndawe said that was also why they had engaged government because they felt they were now being held to ransom by EPTC.

Sesibanjwe ngabhongwane, said Mndawe in vernacular.

Mntfongwaneni MP Roy Fanourakis said both the DPMs Office and the corporation were government entities and therefore should fix the matter amicably using the necessary paperwork.

It was reported that the delay in the payment to EPTC was that the parastatal had not delivered on some components of the Service Level Agreement which were requirements of the pilot project. On a related note, however, the PS revealed that government still had a contract with EPTC on the disbursement of the elderly grants.

He said they hoped that the new service providers would be able to take over by the end of September.

Mndawe said although when COVID-19 hit, the services of electronic money transfers were used and it did not mean that EPTC was not on board.

Gatherings

He said both MTN Mobile Money and Eswatini Mobiles e-Mali were engaged because they were trying to avoid the large gatherings caused by the manual distribution of the E500 monthly elderly grants.

Mndawe said the elderly seemed to appreciate that they received their money through their cellphones as they were flexible to collect it at their own convenience.

He said on Wednesday, they had narrowed the potential future vendors from eight to four and by September 11, they hoped the entire process would have already been reviewed by the Tender Board.

He said the contract for the chosen vendor would be for a period of five years. The PS further revealed that the vendors would show them their proposed systems, which would eventually be owned by government.

He added that they were also considering the payment of the grants on a monthly basis instead of the quarterly disbursement.

We are still going to engage the Ministry of Finance to see if this is possible given the cash flow challenges in some instances, said Mndawe.

On another note, it was revealed that Nedbank Swaziland had repaid the DPMs Office an amount of about E312 700, which was for elderly grants.

However, the bank had highlighted that there had been a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two parties on who would cover costs such as bank charges.
I recently did an experiment: I used my bookstores postage software to generate three quotes for shipping the same hardcover book to the same address. I knew how it would end up, but the results still shocked me. FedEx Home Delivery: $14.03. UPS Ground: $23.87. USPS Media Mail: $2.94. The results of my experiment are a clear reminder that without the United States Postal Service, independent bookstores have little chance of making it. The USPS enables the innovations indies need to survive.

My bookstore, the Raven, in Lawrence, Kans., has survived this far into the pandemic thanks to a few adaptations. One of the most crucial changes has been learning how to better ship books. While most of our business remains in eastern Kansas, without our long-distance orders we would have faced difficult decisions, like furloughing staff or cutting operations. Because we were ready to make shipping a bigger part of what we do, weve sent books to all 50 states. Even better, our team is intact and rent is paid. This would have been impossible without the USPS.

When the reality of the pandemic set in, the first thing the Raven did was offer free shipping on website orders. It was a desperate decision, one made out of fear and uncertainty. After it became clear our customers and community would follow us into a new bookselling reality, I ran a Twitter poll asking if people would be willing to pay $2.50 to cover shipping99% of people said theyd pay. A poll asking people if theyd be willing to pay $15 for shipping would have had much different results.

Every decision we make at the Raven is informed by the fact that what we sell is available elsewhere at a cheaper price. In our new bookselling reality, we also have to consider that the monopolizing e-commerce competition offers free and fast shipping for those much-cheaper books. The widespread availability of free next-day shipping has permanently changed what consumers expect.

Amazon, the company largely responsible for these new expectations, can offer shipping as a loss leader. Amazon has also built its own shipping network from scratch. Independent bookstores can do neither of these things. Still, we have to somehow get a slice of the online book sales market without these cutthroat anticompetitive strategies. The USPS, by offering its inexpensive Media Mail option, provides independent bookstores a way out of this bind.

According to the office of the USPS inspector general, lower rates for educational materials originated in the first federal postal policy, which recognized that disseminating newspapers at below-cost postage would advance the important social goal of educating the electorate. In 1938, more than a century later, Morris L. Ernst, a lawyer and friend of President Franklin Roosevelt, ran a comparative-postage experiment not unlike my own. Ernst, working for the National Committee to Abolish Postal Discrimination Against Books, sent President Roosevelt two packages of equal weight. One contained books written by Shakespeare; the other contained dirty magazines. Shipping the Shakespeare cost 300% more. FDR was thereby convinced of the need for lower postage for books, and the book rate he subsequently implemented survives today as Media Mail. So Media Mail is more than just a cheap book rate; its the governments show of confidence in the importance of well-read, well-informed citizens.

Perhaps its no surprise that the current presidential administration, so keen on dismantling truth itself, would attack the USPS. After all, with Media Mail, the USPS demonstrates a built-in faith that books should move freely and easily among all the countrys citizens.

I posted the results of my own shipping-quote experiment on Twitter. Some folks told me to negotiate better rates with the private carriers. But even if UPS or FedEx would be willing to negotiate with a tiny Kansas bookstore, the resulting rates would certainly still be higher than Media Mails. Part of the magic of the USPS is that individuals dont have to negotiate rates. The USPS is required by law to offer the same rates to every person and address in the United States. Rather than think of the USPS as a business that needs to turn a profit, lets treat it as the essential government service that it is.

On August 13, President Trump admitted on Fox News that his efforts to curb voting via mail have led him to block emergency funding for the USPS. As a result of this act of voter suppression, the USPS is facing an existential threat. Action must be taken to save it. Among so many other things the Post Office supports (jobs, the democratic process), saving the USPS means saving independent bookstores.

Danny Caine, owner of the Raven Book Store, is the author of three books of poetry and the zine How to Resist Amazon and Why.
(Reuters) - A 25-year-old man turned himself into police in Portland on Friday and was charged in connection with a beating caught on videotape near Black Lives Matter protests in the citys downtown.

Marquise Love had been sought since police identified him earlier this week as suspect in the Sunday night attack by a group of people on Adam Haner, who had crashed his pick-up truck near the protests.

The beating came during rising tensions between left and right-wing protesters that have roiled downtown Portland each night for nearly three months following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in police custody.

President Donald Trump called the demonstrations in Portland crazy" on Friday, as he said cities run by Democrats had become lawless and chaotic. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is a Democrat.

Thank you to @PortlandPolice investigators and the District Attorneys office for working to bring Mr. Love in peacefully. This case is now in the hands of the District Attorney and the justice system," Wheeler said on Twitter.

Love was booked into jail on suspicion of assault, police said.

Video footage of the incident shows a group of people pulling a young man from his truck, which had crashed near Black Lives Matter protests near the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. He was later identified by family members as Adam Haner.

Protesters chased Haners Ford pickup before it crashed and dragged him out of the vehicle, with around 10 people beating him, police said.

The attackers are seen kicking, punching and pushing Haner as he collapses to the ground, his head bleeding. Haner was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and has since been released, police said.

On Thursday night in Portland about 100 people blocked traffic, vandalized an immigration building, set fires to dumpsters, and threw rocks and glass bottles at police. The night before they clashed with federal forces.

The Trump administration last month deployed federal forces from various agencies to deal with the nightly protests, which have often turned violent since the death of George Floyd on May 25 during an arrest.

Demonstrators and local officials see the deployment of the agents in Portland as a ploy by Trump to drum up a law and order campaign as he faces an uphill re-election battle.

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
A calf born with two heads has shocked farmers in south-eastern China.

Video footage of the cow in a village in Dejiang County, Guizhou Province, shows the mutant baby animal with two heads, two ears, two mouths and four eyes.

The calf's mother gave birth to it last Saturday after a difficult seven-hour labour, according to their owner known as auntie Zhang.

The unusual baby cow has two heads, two ears, two mouths and four eyes. It was born on August 15 on a farm in a village in Dejiang County, south-western China's Guizhou Province

The clip, filmed one day after the calf's birth, shows the baby animal lying on the ground.

Auntie Zhang said it was unable to stand up on its own, but could drink milk from both mouths.

The woman said she was awestruck upon seeing the calf.

She told Chinese video news outlet Pear Video: 'I am more than 70 years old, and I had never seen any cow like this in my life.'

The cow's owner said it could not stand up on its own, but could drink milk from both mouths

The calf's owner (left), auntie Zhang, said: 'I am more than 70 years old, and I had never seen any cow like this in my life.' Her neighbours have flocked to her home to meet the calf (right)

The unusual calf has attracted the attention of many residents of the village, who flocked to auntie Zhang's home to see it.

One neighbour told the reporter that she had come to see the animal because she could not believe the news.

'Now that I have seen it with my own eyes, I know it's true,' she added.

An expert said that the two-headed cow shared the same throat and could grow four horns.

He claimed that the calf was healthy and hoped that it could keep growing.

It is believed the cow was affected by a genetic mutation while still inside its mother's uterus.
Iran Unveils Two New Missiles Amid U.S. Tensions

By RFE/RL's Radio Farda August 20, 2020

Iran has displayed what it described as two new ballistic and cruise missiles, in defiance to U.S. calls that Tehran halt its missile program.

The surface-to-surface ballistic missile has a range of 1,400 kilometers while the cruise missile has a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, Defense Minister Amir Hatami said in a televised speech on August 20.

President Hassan Rohani said on state television that Iran's "military might and missile programs are defensive" and "do not present a danger to other countries."

Pictures of the two missiles -- named after Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis -- were shown on state TV.

Soleimani, a major general who led Iran's elite Quds Force, and Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander, were killed in a U.S. strike in Baghdad airport in January, resulting in a dramatic escalation in tensions between the United States and Iran.

Iranian officials routinely unveil what they describe as technological achievements for the country's armed forces.

The country's latest announcement comes as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to formally notify the UN Security Council later in the day that the United States intends to begin the process of restoring UN sanctions on Iran.

The move comes after the Security Council rejected Washington's bid to extend an arms embargo on Iran that is due to expire in October under the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

Washington says it wants Iran to agree to a new pact that would put stricter limits on its nuclear work and curb its missile program.

Iranian officials have rejected talks as long as U.S. sanctions remain in place.

With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/30793858.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Pakistan has reopened the Chaman border crossing between its Balochistan Province and the Afghan province of Nangarhar.

The border crossing was closed in March following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan.

Officials said on August 21 they decided to reopen the crossing after talks between Balochistan regional authorities and residents on the Pakistani side of the border.

Local residents have been demanding the reopening of the crossing, which is frequently used by traders and laborers.

Six people were killed on July 31 when a protest rally to demand the reopening of the border post turned violent, resulting in clashes between protesters and security forces.

The 2,430-kilometer-long Afghan-Pakistan border was created in 1893 between then-British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan.
The race for the White House has begun and the outcome of the 2020 US general election will have an impact around the world. On November 3, 2020, Americans will head to the polls and render their verdict on the Donald Trump presidency. A record number of Americans are expected to cast mail-in ballots this year because of the pandemic. Democrats have accused Trump of trying to sabotage the US Postal Service to help his re-election bid, while the president has already begun to try to sow public doubt about any outcome that results in a Joe Biden victory.

Heres your quick guide to the US presidential election 2020:

Election Day, as set by the US law, is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year it is November 3. The presidential election starts with a primary process for the major political parties, Republicans and Democrats, to pick their nominees (Donald Trump and Joe Biden this year).

Unlike many other countries, the US political system is dominated by just two parties, so the president always belongs to one of them. The Republicans are the conservative political party in the US and their candidate in this years election is President Donald Trump. The Democrats are the liberal political party and their candidate is Joe Biden.

The winner is not always the candidate who wins most votes. The candidates compete to win electoral college votes. Each state gets a certain number of electoral college votes based on its population and there are a total of 538 up for grabs, so the winner is the candidate that wins 270 or more.

Anyone who is a US citizen and 18 years of age or over, is eligible to vote in the presidential election. However, lots of states have passed laws requiring voters to show identification documents to prove who they are before they can vote.

It can take several days for every vote to be counted, but it becomes clear who the winner is by the early hours of the following morning.

The new president is officially sworn into office on January 20 in a ceremony known as the inauguration, which is held on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC. After the ceremony, the new president makes their way to the White House to begin their four-year term in office.

Most Americans vote for president and Congress, but November ballots will also include state and local elections, so they will differ from city to city and state to state. Every person voting in a US state can vote for president. But the options will be different depending on the state. Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be on every ballot, but there will be other smaller party options that vary depending on a states rules.
CLEVELAND (AP)  Environmental groups have asked an Ohio appeals court to revoke drilling permits granted by a state agency for construction of massive underground salt caverns to store natural gas liquids along the Ohio River, according to a lawsuit.

The complaint filed Thursday with the 10th District Court of Appeals in Columbus accuses the Ohio Department of Natural Resources of not following its own rules by failing to require public notice of company drilling applications, create draft copies of the permits or allow for a public comment period before granting permits July 20.

The lawsuit asks the appeals court to order ODNR to restart the application process and follow its rules.

ODNR spokesperson Stephanie O'Grady said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

The caverns will be created by injecting millions of gallons of fresh water underground into an underground salt formation in Ohio's Monroe County. After construction, Powhatan Salt Company will turn the project over to Denver-based based company Mountaineer NGL Storage to store ethane, propane and butane, which are byproducts of natural gas drilling.

Salt solution created during construction would be transported by a pipeline beneath the Ohio River to an alkaline plant in West Virginia.

Mountaineer NGL Storage is finalizing a deal with a U.S. subsidiary of a Thailand-based company, PTT Global Chemical America, to provide ethane storage for a proposed multi-billion dollar petrochemical plant that would produce plastic pellets in nearby Belmont County.

Whether the petrochemical plant will be built is uncertain. PTT Global's partner, a U.S. subsidiary of South Korea's Daelim Industrial Co., quit the project in mid-July. A long-delayed decision on whether PTT will move forward with a new partner is expected sometime next year.

The Ohio lawsuit was filed on behalf of individuals by Concerned Ohio River Residents, FreshWater Accountability Project, Buckeye Environmental Network, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Sierra Club.

The complaint says construction and operation of the caverns could lead to spills that would harm private and public water supplies, become a hazard for potential explosiveness after natural gas liquids are stored, and would create an eyesore along the Ohio River.




A MILITARY helicopter carrying Vice-President Kembo Mohadi was yesterday forced to abort landing at the Josiah Tungamirai Airbase, formerly Thornhill in Gweru and return to Harare under unclear circumstances.





Mohadi was supposed to officiate at the handover ceremony of a 30-bed COVID-19 isolation wing at Gweru General Hospital that was refurbished at a cost of R15 million by platinum miner, Unki.





The VP was reportedly in the company of Local Government minister July Moyo in the helicopter and was also supposed to officiate at the handover of water pumps bought by government for the Gweru City Councils Gwenhoro Dam.





Today, Mohadi was supposed to commission the Nyamatikiti Bridge in Mvuma. All programmes were immediately cancelled after the helicopter turned back to Harare under unclear circumstances.





The helicopter arrived at the Josiah Tungamirai Airbase at around 9am, made rounds in the air and turned back to Harare. State Security minister Owen Ncube and Midlands Provincial Affairs minister Larry Mavima as well as Zanu PF Midlands provincial executive were already at the airbase.





Some officials immediately claimed the helicopter failed to land because of bad weather, and would return back in an hour.





An hour passed and Ncube and Mavima left with other guests in tow, while those waiting at the Gweru General Hospital were also told to disperse and wait for another day when Mohadi would be able to come back.





This triggered speculation about the failed landing.





A source at the Gweru Air Force said: Some pilots I spoke to and military aviation officers told me that the official reason for the choppers failure to land in Gweru was bad weather.





But you never know with the fights happening in our political space and inside Zanu PF itself. Its rare that a VVIP chopper fails to land at a military camp.





Another source claimed it was rare for a helicopter to abort landing due to this prevailing weather, I think there is another reason.





According to the source, it was foggy but not enough to cause the aborted landing.





Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa told NewsDay that she did not have information about the incident.





Sorry, I havent got any information on what you are asking, she said. Mavima said he was in a meeting. I cant talk, he curtly said.





Fabian Mashingaidze, the Gweru Provincial Hospital medical superintendent confirmed that the event at the institution where Mohadi was supposed to oversee had been cancelled at the last minute.




Jim Gaffigan in a scene from his Amazon Prime Video comedy special "Jim Gaffigan: The Pale Tourist." Read more

Comedian Jim Gaffigan will play the parking lot of Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 29 as part of Live Nations Live-In Drive-In Concert Series.

Gaffigan, an actor (Chappaquiddick, Drunk Parents) and best-selling author whose most recent concert special, The Pale Tourist, premiered on Amazon on July 24, is the latest addition to the socially distanced drive-in concert series. The series kicked off on Sunday with a sold-out appearance by comedian Bert Kreischer and runs through Labor Day weekend.

 READ MORE: How to summer in Philly: Our 2020 summer guide

Concertgoers at the drive-in shows are required to stay in their cars, with the show broadcasting from the stage to a frequency on their FM radio. Merchandise, food, and non-alcoholic beverages can be purchased through a contactless online ordering system. The venue has been configured to accommodate 850 cars.

Tickets are on sale at Phillies.com/drivein for $159.50 per vehicle, with a maximum of four people per vehicle.

 READ MORE: The drive-in concert craze comes to Citizens Bank Park

During one of his regular segments on CBS Sunday Morning, Gaffigan recently spoke about another drive-in show, his first since the pandemic began, in the parking lot of a horse track in New Jersey.

Was it ideal? No. Were the laughs as loud? Definitely not. But it was a show ... a community was built. Did that community look like a traffic jam? It sure did. But Ill take it.
Out of work hotel workers are putting pressure on the province to ensure they are given a legal right to work when their employers recover.

Beginning on Aug. 15, members of UNITE HERE Local 40  a North American union which represents workers in a number of B.C. hotels  have been engaged in a hunger strike as a way to pressure the government into action.

According to Michelle Travis, a spokesperson for the union, over 90 per cent of hotel workers in the province have been laid off due to COVID-19. She said these jobs will come back, and its imperative for the province to make sure the original employees are first in line when it comes to filling them.

We want the province to provide some legal protection so that if you are laid off because of COVID you will have a pathway back to your job as the industry recovers, rather than be replaced by folks for less (money), she said, adding that B.C. might not see a full recovery of its hotel industry until 2022.

(Workers) want to be able to go back to their original hotel jobs because a lot of folks have invested years there, she said. They are earning decent wages and benefits, and they dont want to lose everything theyve worked for over the years.

According to Travis, each of the hunger strike participants decides how long they want to fast for. They do consume water and a medic is available to make sure they are OK, she said.

As part of its protest, union members held a demonstration at the BC Legislature on Wednesday, Aug. 19. They delivered a petition, signed by hundreds of supporters, to ministers Lana Popham and Rob Fleming urging them to enact the protections.

Travis said she would like to see the proposed provincial tourism sector stimulus plan tied to the new protections.

In July, the Tourism Industry Association of BC put forward a proposal that would see the province allocate $680 million from its $1.5 -billion recovery package towards the tourism sector, which employees more than 300,000 workers in the province.

Were saying, look, the tourism sector should not be allowed to receive that money if theres no sort of provision to ensure that workers have an opportunity to get their jobs back, said Travis.

In the Thompson Okanagan region, UNITE HERE Local 40 represents hotel workers at the Coast Capri Hotel (Kelowna), Delta Hotels Kamloops and the Plaza Hotel (Kamloops), and Village Green Hotel (Vernon).

Since COVID-19 restrictions came into place in late March, many B.C. hotels have chosen to temporarily lay off staff, effectively allowing them to take workers off their payroll and avoid paying severance while maintaining the right to recall them to work.

In June, the province extended the temporary layoffs provisions to a maximum of 24 weeks, expiring Aug. 30, 2020.

Under the B.C. Employment Standards Act, employers may extend a temporary layoff beyond that point if a majority of its employees agree to such an extension.

According to Patrick Braspennning, general manager of the Sun Peaks Grand Hotel, the hotel was able to rehire all of its temporarily laid off staff in mid-June.

He said that while occupancy remains considerably lower than last year, the hotel is actually hiring, with positions open across most of its departments.

At this point we have such a business level that we are looking for people to work for us, said Braspenning.

Read more about:
The issue of cost raises another key question for home workers, because, on average, individuals must work three hours, 48 minutes a month to pay for even the cheapest broadband connection. However, this duration varies dramatically by location: In Nigeria, it is nine hours, 42 minutes; in America, 52 minutes; and in Canada, 7 minutes. As companies around the world save money on rent and other office overheads, will they ensure their staff are fully compensated for the expense of working from home?
EDWARDSVILLE  A Wisconsin man has been cited for Scotts Law following a Thursday afternoon accident on Interstate 55 near Edwardsville.

At 1:34 p.m. Thursday, Curt Kruckerberg, 58, of Edwardsville was stopped on the left shoulder of I-55 near milepost 23. Kruckerbergs pick-up and trailer were disabled, and he was standing between the two units.
Ryanair plans to cut significantly fewer jobs than the 3,000 it originally estimated, after 97% of pilots and over 90% of cabin crew have signed up so far to pay cuts and work practice changes, its director of operations said on Friday.

Europe's biggest budget airline had warned it would have to cut one in five of its pilots and cabin crew if they did not agree to pay cuts of up to 20% after the COVID-19 crisis ravaged its business.

The Irish airline struck a pay deal with Spanish pilots on Thursday, leaving agreements outstanding with pilots in Belgium and cabin crew in Italy and Germany.

"We haven't finalised the number yet, we originally said there was going to be 3,000 redundancies but we have been able to reduce that significantly," Neal McMahon told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Broadly speaking they (pilots and cabin crew) recognise the grim situation we are in and they have been pragmatic."

Ryanair's Italian cabin crew union has put an agreement out to ballot, while there were further talks in Germany on Friday and the airline is in the middle of a collective redundancy process in Belgium, Ryanair People Director Darrell Hughes said.

While cabin crew in Spain failed to join pilots in agreeing terms this week, the collective bargaining system there allows Ryanair to implement the changes and Hughes was confident its position would stand up to challenge.

The executives added the airline had managed its pilot numbers without redundancies to date through a mixture of voluntary part time work, voluntary unpaid leave and spreading shifts around.

Low-cost rival easyJet confirmed the loss of up to 670 jobs this week, part of a planned total of 4,500 that will also likely be trimmed due to agreements on part time contracts, base transfers and unpaid leave.

British Airways, owned by IAG, said in April it would need to axe up to 12,000 of its 42,000 staff to survive.

Ryanair this week reduced its capacity by a further 20% for September and October after a reimposition of some travel restrictions hit bookings.

McMahon and Hughes said the number of redundancies would depend on how winter booking fare and how much the pandemic disrupts travel next year. Ryanair increased flights to 60% of its normal schedule this month after resuming services in July.

"Airlines have for a long time relied on business traffic, visiting friends and relatives and maybe an older non-family market for travel in September, October, November," Hughes said.

"It's a big question as to what that level of demand is going to be, but it's not looking good at present." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
New Delhi: GMM Pfaudler Limited has announced that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire a majority stake in the global business of its parent, the Pfaudler Group from the private equity firm Deutsche Beteiligungs AG Fund VI.

As per the agreements, GMM (directly and through its subsidiary Mavag AG) and the Patel family will acquire, a 54% and 26% equity stake respectively in the Pfaudler Group. DBAG will continue to retain the balance 20% stake. The consideration for the 54% stake acquired by GMM, which is expected to be around USD 27.4 million, will be funded by the Company through a mix of internal accruals and debt.

Pursuant to the acquisition, GMM shall become the ultimate holding company with the entire business of Pfaudler being consolidated into the Company. The Company will have a consolidated revenue of Rs. 20 billion and EBITDA of approximately Rs. 2.5 billion.

GMM will become the world leader in corrosion-resistance technologies, systems and services with 12 manufacturing facilities across 8 countries and 4 continents and employing around 1,500 people, a company statement said.

Subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions and regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close in November 2020. Alvarez & Marsal and Trilegal acted as the exclusive financial and legal advisors respectively to GMM Pfaudler.

Tarak Patel, Managing Director, GMM said, Over the last 5 years, we have shown an unparalleled track record of growth at GMM and it is now time to take our Company to the next level through this transformational acquisition.

Thomas Kehl, CEO, Pfaudler said, Together with the GMM management and DBAG, who we have worked closely with over the last 5 years we expect to complete a seamless integration and hit the ground running.
File image of Alexei Navalny (Reuters)

Doctors treating Alexei Navalny, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for suspected poisoning have refused to allow him to be taken out of the country for treatment, his press secretary has said. According to doctors, Navalny is too sick to be moved.

The development came just an hour before an aircraft was due to arrive in the Siberian city of Omsk, where Navalny is currently in a coma in a hospital. He was to be taken to a hospital in Germany.

The plane we have organised for Alexeis evacuation should land in an hour, The Guardian quoted Kira Yarmysh, Navalnys press secretary as saying. The ban on transporting Navalny is an attempt on his life.

The hospitals chief doctor told Navalnys team that his condition was unstable but did not give more details.

On August 20, Yarmysh had announced that Navalny is in a serious condition after suffering severe symptoms of what she said she believed was deliberate poisoning.

Navalny, a fierce critic of Putin, started feeling ill while returning to capital Moscow from Siberias Tomsk on August 19. His aircraft had made an emergency landing in Omsk so that he could be rushed to a hospital. Before boarding the flight, Navalny had drunk tea at a cafe at the Tomsk airport.

"We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea. It was the only thing that he drank in the morning. Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid. Alexei is now unconscious," Yarmysh said.

Navalny is a lawyer and anti-corruption activist and has served several stints in jail in recent years for organising protests against Putins government.

The 44-year-old has helped release investigations into what he has said are outrageous examples of official corruption.

Russia will be heading for regional elections in September. Navalny and his allies have been preparing for these polls and trying to get support for candidates they back.
Dakar: Officials at the port of Senegal's capital Dakar have requested the removal of about 2700 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate stored in its complex - the same volume of the chemical that caused Beirut's devastating port explosion.

The unidentified owner of the stockpile has found a warehouse to store the industrial chemical outside the city, according to the general directorate of the port, which sits next to Dakar's densely populated downtown.

A fisherman dries a sheet next to fishing boats on the beach in Dakar, Senegal. Credit:AP

"He is currently working with the Environment Ministry to obtain approval to urgently remove this cargo," it said in a statement that did not say how long the port had stored the goods destined for Mali.

The port strictly adheres to international rules for the management and storage of dangerous materials, it said.
Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo debuted his David Ortiz Big Papi costume cleats during a game against the Phillies on Tuesday.

Verdugo grew up in Arizona both a fan of the Red Sox and Ortiz.

I told my agent I would like to have some costume cleats, something to kind of give Big Papi a little throwback, Verdugo said via Zoom on Friday. Hes my favorite player so obviously to be able to rock some cleats that I think came out really, really good. You can kind of see him finishing his swing in the middle of Big Papi.

When I wear them, I think of him, Verdugo added. I think about me as a kid watching him play for Boston. And just how much I looked up to him and how much I loved watching him play. It gives me a little extra motivation to kind of go out there and compete.

Verdugo hugged his childhood idol when they met during spring training.

During the whole COVID break, we reached out a few times, sending hitting videos, Verdugo said. He would say its looking good or just give me some pointers. I havent reached out to him lately since Ive been hitting the ball a little better, but Im sure Ill be able to contact him at some point.

Verdugo is batting .282 with a .358 on-base percentage, .518 slugging percentage, .876 OPS, five homers, five doubles, 10 RBIs and 14 runs in 24 games (95 plate appearances) this season.

Verdugo said his timing is back after he struggled with it at the beginning the regular season. He has hit the ball in the air more often recently.

People want to think Im swinging up and thats why Im hitting home runs right now, or hitting fly balls Verdugo said. Thats not the case. My swing is the same. My contact point is different now. Im able to get the barrel, get my hands out in front of me and now Im lifting the ball but it has nothing to do with swinging up. Its just about where I make contact with the ball.

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Father speaks out on daughters death at Phuket university

PHUKET: Khanong Iaddam, the 43-year-old father of Pornpiphat Mint Iaddam, a 20-year-old first-year student at Phuket Rajabhat University who collapsed after being told to keep running during a training session with the cheerleading squad on Wednesday, today (Aug 21) spoke to the press about his daughters death.

death

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Friday 21 August 2020, 07:02PM

Mr Khanong speaking at the family home in Koh Kaew earlier today (Aug 21). Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Speaking from the family home in Koh Kaew, Mr Khanong explained that at around 7pm on Wednesday (Aug 19), he was informed that his daughter was taken to Vachira Phuket Hospital and that her heart had stopped beating for 16 minutes before reaching the hospital.

Despite the best efforts of doctors and other medical staff at the hospital, they were not able to revive her, Mr Khanong said.

My daughters friend told me that senior students ordered them to run five laps around a pond [speaking in Thai, Mr Khanong used the word ], but my daughter could not finish it. She fainted and started convulsing, he explained.

Then two friends took her on a motorbike to Vachira Phuket Hospital by having her sitting in the middle between the rider and another friend. he said.

When I reached the hospital, I saw some scratches on her body which may be from when she fell to the ground, Mr Khanong noted.

I have already asked doctors for the cause of her death, and the doctors said that she was exhausted, leading to acute heart failure and she died while still at the university, he added.

Mr Khanong explained the deep grief that Nong Mints death has brought.

She always worked hard on her studies. Every day when I took her to the university, I always told her to be careful when joining any activities, he said.

I have already informed Phuket City Police that I will not sue the university. I just want the university president to tell the truth. I do not want this kind of incident to happen again and leave this case as a lesson for the senior students and university staff, Mr Khanong said.

Please pay more attention to student activities and take care of students more closely, he said.

Mr Khanong noted that after Nong Mints body has been released by the authorities, her funeral will be held at Wat Tha Ruea in Srisoonthorn.

President of Phuket Rajabhat University, Hiran Prasarnkarn, earlier today insisted that the death had nothing to do with a hazing ritual. She collapsed during a warm-up run for cheerleading practice, reported the Bangkok Post.

The university had expressed its deepest condolences to the family, he said.

However, Mr Hiran did not explain whether or not the students chosen to perform the laps as a warm-up were only the first-year students joining the cheerleading squad.
A Tianjin-based trader told Fastmarkets that at least 100,000 tonnes of Chinese HDG were stuck at Thailand ports recently due to the costly tax, forcing buyers there to export the material to other countries.Several traders said most of these Thailand-based buyers signed deals with Chinese sellers between April and May, with the goods being of June/July delivery.

Thailand hadnt levied the 35.67% duty on...
Michael Satris, a criminal defense attorney and co-founder of a nonprofit that achieved historic legal victories for prisoners in California, has died at age 70.

Satris spend most of his 44-year career representing defendants challenging their convictions and sentences. His clients included more than a half-dozen Death Row inmates, including Clarence Ray Allen, whose execution in January 2006 was the last held in California. At the time of Satris death, he was preparing for a state Supreme Court hearing in a major case involving the rights of sex offenders to be considered for parole.

But his most enduring legacy may be the project he and a UC Davis law school classmate, Paul Comiskey, launched after graduation in 1976: the Prison Law Office, first located in a converted hot dog stand next to San Quentin State Prison.

The office, now based in Berkeley, was the nations first private organization dedicated to representing inmates in their challenges to prison conditions and terms of confinement. It was established in a state with the nations largest prison population and some of its longest sentences. Comiskey left shortly after for a religious career, but Satris remained in charge for six years, filing suits that led to improvement of conditions at San Quentin and on its Death Row.

Under its current executive director, Donald Specter, whom Satris hired out of law school, the office pursued cases that resulted in breakthroughs  a federal judges appointment of a receiver in 2006 to supervise health care in California prisons, where shoddy treatment and conditions were killing an inmate a day; and a 2011 Supreme Court ruling requiring the overcrowded prisons to lower their population by more than 40,000 to help bring health care up to minimal standards.

Without Michael, the Prison Law Office would not exist, Specter said. He was tireless in his advocacy for people involved in the criminal justice system. ... His work touched thousands of peoples lives and many would still be in prison, but for Michaels efforts.

Satris was among a small group of attorneys dedicated to the rights of a group of highly unpopular human beings, prisoners serving life sentences, said J. Anthony Kline, a state appeals court justice in San Francisco whose court assigned numerous cases to Satris.

His daughter, Marthine Satris, said she asked him why he represented someone like Allen, who while serving a life sentence in Folsom prison for murder, was sentenced to death for arranging the murders of a prosecution witness and two others outside prison. At the time of his execution a quarter-century later, Allen was 76, the oldest person ever put to death in California, and moved mostly by wheelchair. Satris family said he had worked day and night imploring then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency.

He said, You have to make sure the guilty have justice just as much, his daughter recalled.

He saw the best in everyone, said Bonnie Jones, his wife of 43 years. She said Satris called himself an old hippie.

Like most lawyers specializing in criminal appeals, Satris lost more cases than he won. But in 2004 and 2005, he persuaded a California appeals court that neither the state parole board nor Schwarzenegger could base their denial of parole to a San Mateo County man, Walter Scott, on the circumstances of his 1986 murder of a drug dealer who was having an affair with Scotts wife.

The rulings were forerunners of a 2008 California Supreme Court decision, in a case not involving Satris, that barred both the parole board and the governor from relying entirely on the facts of a prisoners past crime to deny parole.

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.

Another Satris case involved Proposition 57, the 2016 initiative that made thousands of inmates eligible for parole consideration after serving the primary sentence for their crime, before serving additional years or decades for such things as prior convictions and gang membership.

Prop. 57 did not apply to prisoners convicted of specific violent crimes. State prison officials adopted rules saying inmates convicted of sex crimes were also ineligible for early parole consideration, but Satris won a state appeals court ruling in January 2019 that said the states regulations were unauthorized by Prop. 57.

The state Supreme Court then agreed to review the issue, and had scheduled a hearing in September. Jones, his wife, said Satris filed his last arguments on the case on July 29 from their home in Bolinas, where they had lived since 1986.

An avid surfer, he then rode his bicycle into town to check out the surf. After having a lemonade, he started pedaling back and collapsed on a dirt road 300 or 400 feet from home and was found without a pulse, his wife said. She said the cause of his death was not determined.

Survivors include Jones and two daughters, Marthine and Gigi Satris, and two grandchildren. The family requests donations to the Prison Law Office or other nonprofits for inmates: the Humane Prison Hospice Project, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children or the Prison University Project at San Quentin.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar shared the motion poster for the upcoming episode of the adventure show Into the Wild with Bear Grylls on 21 August.

Akshay can be seen matching his steps in the forest alongside host Bear Grylls in the teaser. The episode will premiere on Discovery Plus App on 11 September, and will be shown on the Discovery Channel on 14 September at 8 pm.

British survivalist Grylls also shared the poster through his official handle.

Check out their posts here

Life is an adventure that is best lived boldly, and there are few better (madder ) adventure buddies than the legendary @akshaykumar #KhiladiOnDiscovery #IntoTheWildwithBearGrylls @DiscoveryPlusIn @DiscoveryIN pic.twitter.com/HzfSpkddWe  Bear Grylls (@BearGrylls) August 21, 2020

The Discovery show is hosted by Bear Grylls and is inspired from the popular show Man Vs Wild, which also featured Grylls. In every episode, Grylls aces difficult terrains and dangerous locations with celebrities from around the world.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South superstar Rajinikanth are the other Indian celebrities who have previously appeared on shows with Grylls.

Earlier, Akshay was spotted at the Mysuru airport back in January this year, when he was on his way to shoot for the adventure episode at the Bandipur National Park.

Into The Wild with Bear Grylls is produced for Discovery Communications India by The Natural Studios and Banijay Asia. Grylls is an executive producer of the show, along with Delbert Shoopman and Deepak Dhar.
Ancient Mars is believed to have had planetwide storms that filled lakes and rivers with rainfall on the planet  sometimes enough to flood the surface.

Using satellite images and topography, the team looked at the catchment and watersheds of Martian 'paleolakes' to quantify how much precipitation filled lake beds and river valleys 3.5 billion to 4 billion years ago.

Researchers found there must have been between 13 and 520 feet of rainfall or snowmelt in a single event, which caused flooding across the Red Planet.

However, the team notes it is now working on determination how long a single episode lasted, saying it could be days, years or thousands of years.

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Using satellite images and topography, the team looked at the catchment and watersheds Martian 'paleolakes' to quantify how much precipitation filled lake beds and river valleys 5.5 billion to 4 billion years ago

The climate of ancient Mars has been a mystery to astronomers, but geologists say the riverbeds and paleolakes show there was a significant amount of precipitation.

But quantifying the amount has been a challenge, as there is not enough liquid present long enough to study.

Lead author Gaia Stucky de Quay, a postdoctoral fellow at UT's Jackson School of Geosciences, said: 'This is extremely important because 3.5 to 4 billion years ago Mars was covered with water. It had lots of rain or snowmelt to fill those channels and lakes.'

'Now it's completely dry. We're trying to understand how much water was there and where did it all go.'

Researchers found there must have been between 13 and 520 feet of rainfall or snowmelt in a single event, which caused flooding across the Red Planet. However, the team notes it is now working on determination how long a single episode lasted, saying it could be days, years or thousands of years

The researcher were able to quantify an amount, but the range is great  they determined there must have been between 13 and 520 feet that fell to the surface during a single storm.

'Although the range is large, it can be used to help understand which climate models are accurate,' Stucky de Quay said.

'It's a huge cognitive dissonance,' she said.

'Climate models have trouble accounting for that amount of liquid water at that time. It's like, liquid water is not possible, but it happened. This is the knowledge gap that our work is trying to fill in.'

The team selected 96 open-basin and closed-basin lakes, along with their watersheds for their investigation.

They were then able to measure the lakes, lake volumes and watersheds using satellite images of the surface.

This data also helped them account for potential evaporation to figure out how much water was needed to fill the lakes.

By looking at ancient closed and open lakes, and the river valleys that fed them, the team was able to determine a minimum and maximum precipitation.

The closed lakes offer a glimpse at the maximum amount of water that could have fallen in a single event without breaching the side of the lake basin.

The open lakes show the minimum amount of water required to overtop the lake basin, causing the water to rupture a side and rush out.

The study comes as NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars, which is set to explore the Jezero Crater, which was once a lake some three billion years ago

In 13 of the selected formations, the team found coupled basins that consisted of one closed and one open basin, which fed by the same river valleys.

These findings, according to the experts, offered key evidence of both maximum and minimum precipitation in one single event.

However, Stucky de Quay notes that they have yet to determine how long a single storm lasted - it could be days, years or thousands of years.

The study comes as NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars, which is set to explore the Jezero Crater, which was once a lake some three billion years ago.

There the vehicle will search for signs of past microbial life and will gather rock core samples in metal tubes that will make their way back to Earth to be studied further.

Co-author Tim Goudge, an assistant professor in the UT Jackson School Department of Geological Sciences, was the lead scientific advocate for the landing site.

He said the data collected by the crater could be significant for determining how much water was on Mars and whether there are signs of past life.
South Africa: Commission welcomes withdrawal of appeal by Dis-Chem

The Competition Commission has welcomed the withdrawal of the appeal lodged by Dis-Chem Pharmacies after being found guilty by the Competition Tribunal on 7 July 2020.

On Thursday, Dis-Chem filed a notice of withdrawal to appeal at the Competition Appeals Court.

I am pleased that Dis-Chem has made this decision. The price increases that occurred during the state of national disaster were regrettable. We believe that the Tribunal made the right call by condemning the conduct.

We have been consistent in arguing that price gouging in a pandemic deprives consumers, particularly poor consumers, of access to essential goods that are necessary to prevent a further escalation of the pandemic, said Competition Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele.

In its investigation, the Commission found that Dis-Chem has charged excessive prices on essential hygienic goods to the detriment of customers and consumers, in contravention of Section 8(1)(a) of the Competition Act read together with Regulation 4 of the Consumer Protection Regulations.

These essential items are surgical face masks blue 50PC, surgical face masks 5PC and surgical face masks folio dress blue.

From at least 28 March 2020, the Commission received several complaints from the public against several retail stores owned by Dis-Chem for engaging in excessive pricing of face masks.

The Commissions investigation established that prior to the declaration of a national state of disaster, Dis-Chem was selling the three types of masks, namely, surgical face masks blue 50PC, surgical face masks 5PC and surgical face masks folio dress blue at far lower prices.

For surgical face mask blue 50PC, the average price was inflated from R43.47 (excl. VAT) per unit (50 masks) in February 2020 to R156.95 (excl. VAT) per unit (50 masks) in March 2020, a price increase of 261%.

The surgical face masks 5PC, the average price increased from R13.27 (excl. VAT) per unit (5 masks) in February 2020 to R19.03 (excl. VAT) per mask (1 mask) in March 2020, a price increase of 43%.

Dis-Chems surgical face masks folio dress blue prices increased by 25% while costs declined by 0.1%.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Roman Abramovsky and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Moldova to Ukraine Ruslan Bolbocean discussed the current situation in the Dniester River basin and the preparation for the 3d meeting of the Dniester Commission.

Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova have always built bilateral relations that meet the declared interests of the countries and are aimed at cooperation and partnership. Cooperation in the field of protection and sustainable use of the Dniester River basin is one of the key issues for both countries, Abramovsky said, the press service of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine informs.

In turn, the Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova noted that he considered it important to maintain good neighborly partnership and dialogue with Ukraine.

"The Dniester River unites Moldova and Ukraine. This is a very important artery for both Chisinau and Odesa as it supplies drinking water to these cities. And it is a very positive fact that the Commission for Sustainable Use and Protection of the Dniester River Basin has been working in our countries in recent years. We would be grateful for the opportunity to hold the 3d meeting of this Commission in autumn," Bolbocean said.

Minister Abramovsky also noted that the Ukrainian side would contribute to the continuation of initiatives and consider the possibility of holding the Commissions meeting in October 2020.

"The environmental problems our countries face have a common ground. Therefore, our task is to work out solutions that will meet national interests and improve relations between states," the official said.

As noted, the parties also discussed the issue of cross-border transportation of unusable pesticides and agrochemicals through the territory of Ukraine and cooperation in attracting financial assistance.

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A model with 751,000 followers on Instagram has proved just how drastically social media filters can alter your appearance with the swipe of a finger.

In a bid to to stop impressionable young girls from aspiring to an unattainable appearance, Brazilian swimwear model Julia Muniz, 22, on Friday posted two identical 'natural' selfies, one masked with a filter and one taken under natural light.

Red blotches are visible across her nose and cheeks in the unedited original, while in the filtered image her skin tone appears utterly flawless, without a single blemish.

Ms Muniz - who lives on the Gold Coast in Queensland with her husband, Western Australian surfing champion Jack Robinson - captioned the post: 'Let's normalise the normal.'

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Instagram vs reality: Brazilian model Julia Muniz, 22, posted these photos to prove just how drastically social media filters can alter appearance

The South American model (pictured on a beach in Queensland) said she believes Instagram sets 'unrealistic beauty standards' for young women

She said she was posted the photos to encourage women to embrace their natural beauty.

'We are all perfect in our own ways. Instagram sets unrealistic beauty standards and I have so many young girls following me,' she wrote.

'I want you all to know that ALL of you are pretty. You are enough and you don't need to compare yourself to any Instagram model.'

Professional surfer Anastasia Ashley replied calling Ms Muniz 'a true beauty' that doesn't need filters or editing apps.

Others praised the South American model for being 'inspirational' and honest with her followers in an age where falsity is rife online.

Julia with husband Jack Robinson, a surfing champion from Western Australia

Ms Muniz called on people to 'normalise the normal', writing: 'You are enough and you don't need to compare yourself to any Instagram model.'

One woman said: 'This concept is rad (sic). Angel face no matter what.'

But some feel Ms Muniz and her fellow influencers are not doing enough to normalise 'real' complexions and promote body positivity on their much-followed platforms.

One man said: 'I think it's up to all you IG (sic) models to only post non-filtered images all the time.'

Ms Muniz responded that the majority of edited images she shares come from professional photoshoots where they have been retouched for magazines.

She said: 'I work as a model. I don't edit all my photoson my iPhone photos, I post natural photos.'
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP)  Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a vow to be a unifying ally of the light who would move an America in crisis past the chaos of President Donald Trumps tenure.

In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Biden spoke Thursday night both of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life. Virtually every sentence of his 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast with the Republican incumbent.

Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. lll be an ally of the light, not the darkness, Biden said. Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

For the 77-year-old Biden, the final night of the Democratic National Convention was bittersweet. He accepted a nomination that had eluded him for over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

But the coronavirus denied him the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

Afterward, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena, where supporters waited in a parking lot, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the event.

The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Trump in November. Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Bidens mental capacity and calls him Slow Joe, but with the nation watching, Biden was firm and clear.

Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost her legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has common decency.

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Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in U.S. history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage as vice president even before President Barack Obama.

Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans, Buttigieg said. Its the struggle to call out what is good for every American.

Above all, Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Bidens positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trumps policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centered and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nations mounting crises and policy challenges.

Vice President Mike Pence, interviewed Friday on several morning talk shows, criticized Democrats as presenting a very grim picture of the United States and said the Republican National Convention next week will focus on what Trump has accomplished, including on the economy and with his coronavirus response.

Voting was another prime focus of the convention on Thursday as it has been all week. Democrats fear that the pandemic -- and Trump administration changes at the U.S. Postal Service -- may make it difficult for voters to cast ballots in person or by mail.

Comedian Sarah Cooper, a favorite of many Democrats for her videos lip syncing Trumps speeches, put it bluntly: Donald Trump doesnt want any of us to vote because he knows he cant win fair and square.

Bidens call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Trump down, that Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. Thats easier said than done in a modern Democratic Party made up of disparate factions that span generation, race and ideology.

Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Bidens background before he began serving as Obamas vice president in 2008.

Thursdays convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.

I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes, Biden said. He added: I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.

As a schoolboy, Biden was mocked by classmates and a nun for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. And just five years ago, he buried his eldest son, who was stricken by cancer.

From such hardship, Biden developed a deep sense of empathy that has defined much of his political career. And throughout the convention, Bidens allies testified that such empathy, backed by decades of governing experience, makes him the perfect candidate to guide the nation back from mounting health and economic crises.

His allies Thursday included Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy from Concord, New Hampshire. The boy said he and Biden were members of the same club, each with a stutter theyre working to overcome.

He noted that Biden told him about a book of poems he liked to read aloud to practice his speech and showed the boy how he marks his speeches so theyre easier to read aloud.

Im just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about a thing thats bothered me my whole life, Harrington said.

The end of the carefully scripted convention now gives way to a far less-predictable period for Biden and his Democratic Party as the 2020 election season speeds to its uncertain conclusion. While Election Day isnt until Nov. 3, early voting gets underway in several battleground states in just one month.

Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominees approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition hes courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.

Biden summed up his view of the campaign: We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal.

___

Peoples reported from New York.
WA Premier Mark McGowan has defended his handling of a legal dispute with Clive Palmer after the Queensland mining magnate revealed details of a new action aimed at claiming the $30 billion he says the government admitted it owes him.

Mr Palmer lodged a writ for unconscionable conduct in the Federal Court on Friday, claiming damages caused by the McGowan government's emergency legislation which removed the rights his companies had to compensation under the Mineralogy iron ore state agreement.

Clive Palmer has lodged another claim. Credit:

"The amount of damages is likely to exceed the damages claimed in the arbitration the state had previously agreed to but legislated to terminate," Mr Palmer said.

Mr McGowan said Mr Palmer had launched a "nuclear attack on our state" with his multi-billion dollar compensation claims, trying to remove the state's border restrictions and launching a personal defamation action against the Premier.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 21 said that the Foreign Ministers of Vietnam and China will co-chair activities to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the land border treaty.

Vietnamese and Chinese border guards (Photo: VNA)

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Chinese State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will co-chair celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the signing of the VietnamChina Land Border Treaty and the 10th anniversary of the implementation of three legal documents on land border, in Mong Cai City, the northern province of Quang Ninh on August 23.

The event affords both sides a chance to review achievements and experience after 10 years of implementing the three legal documents on land border and 20 years of the signing of the Land Border Treaty, as well as cooperation and development in border areas.

They are scheduled to outline orientations to launch key tasks to further improve management in land border areas, contributing to promoting the bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Thanh Nam
The US media announced that Michigan State has agreed to pay a settlement of 600 million dollars to the victims who suffered due to the Flint water crisis.

According to reports, the majority of the payment will be given to the city's children exposed to the water.





The Crisis

Twelve people have died after Flint changed its supply in favor of the Flint River last 2014.

The switch caused Legionnaires' disease in many, and almost 100,000 people were exposed to contaminated water with no access to safe drinking tap.

READ: EPA to Declare Ameren's Largest Coal Plant as Air Quality Compliant, Critics Disagree





The Settlement

The formal announcement of Michigan's agreement is expected to occur later in the week, according to media outlets the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. They cited sources who are familiar with the case. However, no official announcement has come from the state government as of the present.

According to the US media, everyone who resided in the Flint area from 2014 to 2016 may be qualified to accept settlement money. Nonetheless, nearly 80% of this fund, as stated previously, will be given to individuals who were aged below 18 during that time.

According to experts, children are especially vulnerable to poisoning from lead, specifically infants and children below five years old. They are susceptible to brain damage because their brains have not yet been fully developed.

According to statistics, one out of three kids is exposed to contamination from lead all over the world.

The city of Flint's majority of residents is African-Americans. Forty percent of its inhabitants are living are poor.

READ ALSO: Kiribati President Plans to Raise Islands to Address Sea Level Rise





How and Why it Happened

The year was 2014 when Flint stopped getting its water supply from the system in Detroit, which has Lake Huron as its source of water. Instead, it shifted to using Flint River for its water source.

The reason for the switch was Flint City's state of financial emergency, as they intended it to save millions of dollars for the government. Unfortunately, the river's water was corrosive, even more so than Lake Huron. Furthermore, it was not adequately treated, which caused lead leaching in the pipes. Lead is known to be a potent neurotoxin.

The residents began to notice how their tap water will sometimes be a yellow or blue color. A lot of people started losing hair and developing rashes on their faces and arms.

For more than a year, however, the local leaders and officials continued to say that nothing was amiss, even if city residents have complained about how tap water had an unusual appearance and taste.

The city now shifted back to relying on the water system of Detroit. Still, a lot of locals use bottled water for cooking, washing, and drinking. They say the government has lost their trust.

The Lawsuit

The thousands filed lawsuits against Michigan. According to reports, the current settlement will resolve those claims filed against the state and not private companies or individuals, such as past governor Rick Snyder.

Last 2019, prosecutors dropped the criminal charges filed against local officials. They say the matter still needs more investigation.

READ NEXT: Australia: Student Files Lawsuit Against Government Concerning Risks From Climate Change

Check out for more news and information on Water Crisis on Nature World News.
UK public borrowing under chancellor Rishi Sunak has soared. Photo: PA

Britains public debt has burst through the 2tn ($2.65tn) mark for the first time, according to official figures.

New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday shows public debt at the end of July was bigger than the size of the entire UK economy for the first time in more than half a century.

Analysts said UK government borrowing this year was on track to hit its highest share of GDP since the Second World War, despite coming in lower than expected in recent months.

The government has ramped up spending on support for firms, workers, and public services to alleviate the devastating economic damage of the coronavirus and lockdown measures this year.

Several business loan programmes, the furlough scheme, grants for the self-employed, a temporary stamp duty holiday, and emergency cash for public transport operators are among the crisis measures to have pushed up spending.

But GDP and tax receipts have taken a heavy hit as firms and workers incomes have plummeted, with many tax payments also deferred.

READ MORE: UK retail sees stronger-than-expected rebound in July

It has forced UK chancellor Rishi Sunak to significantly raise government borrowing. Total borrowing between April and July was almost three times higher than the entire previous financial year.

UK government borrowing in July came in at 26.7bn, the fourth highest in any month since records began in the early 1990s.

But it was still 1.9bn lower than expected by analysts, while June borrowing was also revised down.

Public sector debt as a percentage of GDP. Chart: ONS

The ONS said July was also the first time debt had exceeded GDP since 1961. It totalled 100.5% of GDP, a surge of 20.4 percentage points compared to a year earlier.

The statistics body had previously said May was the first time debt was larger than the size of the economy. But the GDP figures for May have since been revised up, taking debt below the 100% mark.

READ MORE: Economist warns post-crisis austerity would spark almighty backlash

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Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said borrowing was likely to jump again in August. The government will make its second round of self-employment income support scheme (SEISS) grants, and is funding restaurant discounts through the Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

Borrowing costs are near historic lows and the crisis continues to hammer the economy, but the chancellor has already signalled his desire to put the public finances on a more sustainable footing. He has asked government departments to look for savings.

The furlough scheme is one of the most expensive policies and is still subsidising millions of workers wages, costing 6.9bn in July. Many workers have returned to work but support is also being gradually tapered off and will end in October.

Firms, unions and economists have warned the wind-down of the scheme is already triggering job losses, and there are calls for it to be maintained for sectors unable or only partially able to re-open.
Iran summons UAE envoy to protest shooting incident, seizes trespassing Emirati vessel

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 1:39 PM

Iran summons the United Arab Emirates' charge d'affaires in Tehran over a recent deadly shooting by the Emirati coast guard against Iranian fishing dhows, and an Emirati vessel trespassing the country's waters in a separate development.

Two Iranian fishermen were killed and one of the fishing vessels was captured by the Emirati forces during the Monday incident. The same day saw Iranian coast guards being forced to seize an Emirati vessel and detain its crewmembers after it ventured into the Iranian territorial waters.

The Foreign Ministry informed the Emirati envoy that the Islamic Republic considered Abu Dhabi to be the party "bearing responsibility for the illegal and unconventional" incidents, the ministry reported on Thursday.

It insisted on release of the Iranian dhow and detainees, handing over of the bodies, compensation for the survivors, and prevention of such incidents in the future.

The UAE envoy was summoned by Foreign Ministry again in less than 24 hours as the Islamic Republic kept pursuing the outcome of the first meeting.

UAE voices 'deep regret'

The Emirati government responded by expressing its "deep regret" through an official note, and expressed its readiness to try and make up for all the losses that have occurred.

The Iranian vessel and its crew were also released, while official procedures are underway to enable repatriation of the bodies.

Separate procedures have also been launched to address the situation of the Emirati vessel.

Iran's warning

"The Foreign Ministry considers it necessary to declare this to all parties in the Persian Gulf that the Islamic Republic does not tolerate any act of transgression targeting its interests and nationals in the region," the ministry, meanwhile, said.

Accordingly, the country "will take all necessary precautions and due measures in support of its vessels and nationals," it added.

Relations between Tehran and Abu Dhabi have been strained to some extent due to the latter's way of largely aligning its policies concerning Iran with those of the United States. The Emirates' support for the ongoing US-backed and Saudi Arabia-led war on Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians has also worked against the relations.

What has delivered the biggest damage to the ties so far, however, was the United Arab Emirates and Israel's announcement of a deal on August 13 that laid the groundwork for full normalization of their relations.

The agreement was met with uniform condemnation of all Palestinian factions, who called it a stab in the back of the Palestinians and sheer betrayal of their cause. Tehran has also pledged to substantially revisit its Emirates' relations in view of the normalization agreement.

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2020) - Bam Bam Resources Corp. (CSE: BBR) (OTC Pink: NPEZF) (FSE: 4NPA) ("Bam Bam" or the "Company") is pleased to report high-grade copper and silver assay results from copper oxide exposed on new access roads and drill sites at its flagship Majuba Hill Nevada Property (the "Property"), a copper, silver, gold porphyry project located in Pershing County, Nevada.





Figure 1

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/62290_106d38ff44a93839_002full.jpg

Eighteen chip-channel samples were collected from outcrop along the new road cut exposures.

Sample assays returned 37 to 16,950 ppm copper and 0.6 to 166 ppm silver. Sample MHR-413 returned 1.7% Cu and 14.5 ppm Ag and sample MHR-403 returned 193 ppm Cu and 166 ppm Ag (4.8 oz Ag/ton). Sampled lengths ranged from 2 to 20 feet (0.6-6.1 m).

Sample Length FT length M CU ppm Ag ppm MHR-400 2 0.6 37 0.6 MHR-401 10 3.0 198 25.7 MHR-402 15 4.6 263 24.3 MHR-403 20 6.1 167 166 MHR-404 16 4.9 193 26.8 MHR-405 10 3.0 127 10.9 MHR-406 12 3.7 1,485 33.2 MHR-407 20 6.1 248 5.8 MHR-408 2 0.6 693 33.9 MHR-409 10 3.0 1,125 25.9 MHR-410 10 3.0 295 2.9 MHR-411 10 3.0 286 40.4 MHR-412 10 3.0 1,180 8.2 MHR-413 10 3.0 16,950 14.5 MHR-414 10 3.0 135 7.0 MHR-415 10 3.0 99 4.9 MHR-416 15 4.6 535 18.9 MHR-417 5 1.5 882 11.9 MHR-418 2 0.6 432 7.7



The Company completed 3,000 feet (914m) of reverse circulation (RC) drilling in four vertical holes on the Majuba Extension Zone. Copper oxides were observed in MHB-5 between 750 and 810 feet. All samples have been submitted to the ALS Geochemistry prep facility in Elko, Nevada for sample analysis.

Mr. David Greenway reports: "I am pleased to see the high copper and silver grades from the oxides outcropping along the top of Majuba Extension Ridge. I am looking forward to getting the analytical results from our recent RC drilling. The potential to extend the known oxide mineralization eastward on Majuba Extension Ridge is very promising for the project. The deep core holes planned for Phase 2 will help us outline the large scale potential that we think Majuba has."

Story continues

About Majuba Hill Property

The Majuba Hill Property encompasses 4,822 acres of surface and mineral rights that includes 3 patented lode mining claims and 632 acres of privately owned surface and minerals. The property is easily accessed via 23 miles of well-maintained dirt roads leading from U.S. Interstate 80.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control ("QA/QC") Measures, Chain of Custody

The Company has implemented a QA/QC program using best industry practices at the Majuba Hill Project. Drill core, RC chips, and rock samples are delivered by the company consulting geologist to the secure warehouse facility in Elko, Nevada. Drill core samples are sawn in half lengthwise and one half is placed in labeled cloth sample bags. All samples are then transported directly to the ALS Sample Prep Facility in Elko, Nevada. ALS will then transport the prepared pulps to their analytical lab in Reno, Nevada or Vancouver, B.C. All samples are analyzed for copper, gold, silver, and 31 other elements. Gold is determined by ALS method Au-AA23 which is a fire assay with an AAS finish on a 30 gram split. Copper, silver and the remaining 31 elements are determined by ALS method ME-ICP61 which is a four acid digestion and ICP-AES assay. Approximately 5% of the submitted drill samples are copper-gold-porphyry commercial standard reference material pulps, which are inserted in the analytical sample sequence. The sample rejects and remaining pulps will be retrieved from ALS.

Cancellation of Stock Options

The Company announces that it has cancelled an aggregate 3,370,000 incentive stock options, issued to various consultants and directors of the Company, between October 2019 to July 2020 at exercise prices ranging from $0.07 to $0.16 per share.

Share Consolidation

The Company further announces it plans to consolidate all of the Company's issued and outstanding common shares on the basis of ten (10) pre-consolidation shares for one (1) post-consolidated share.

Bam Bam currently has 54,141,510 common shares issued and outstanding and, upon the consolidation being completed, will have 5,414,151 common shares issued and outstanding. The Company does not intend to change its name in connection with the consolidation, although its CUSIP number and ISIN will change.

The Company will issue a further news release notifying shareholder as to when the effective date of the consolidation.

Qualified Persons

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed by E.L. "Buster" Hunsaker III, CPG 8137, a non-independent consulting geologist who is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43- 101").

About Bam Bam Resources Corp.

Bam Bam Resources Corp. (CSE: BBR) (OTC Pink: NPEZF) (FSE: 4NPA) is engaged in the identification, review and acquisition of latter stage copper and copper/gold assets. With its flagship project being Majuba Hill copper gold project located 156 miles outside Reno, Nevada, USA. Management has been mandated to focus on safe, mining friendly jurisdictions and government regulations supportive of mining operations.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

On Behalf of the Board of Bam Bam Resources Corp.

"David Greenway"

David C. Greenway

President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

E: dg@bambamresources.com

P: (604) 318-0114

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking" statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Bam Bam Resources Corp. believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Bam Bam Resources Corp. management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Bam Bam Resources Corp. undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

###

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62290
- A Texas man was hospitalised with coronavirus on the same week he was supposed to tie the knot

- He was, however, still able to say I do thanks to a group of thoughtful hospital workers

- After finding out about the couple's cancelled wedding, the hospital staff wanted to do something special

A Texas man hospitalised with the COVID-19 on the same week he was scheduled to wed the love of his life got a chance to say I do thanks to a group of thoughtful hospital staff.

Carlos Muniz and Grace Leimann were supposed to marry in mid-July 2020 when their nuptial plans were put on hold after the groom became ill with the virus.

READ ALSO: 9-year-old boy's heartbreaking plea for a mum and dad goes viral

Carlos Muniz and Grace Leimann on their wedding day. Photo: CNN

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Wuhan wave: Chinese state media defend viral pool party images

After finding out about their engagement, CNN reported, Matt Holdridge, a nurse at the health facility, said the hospital decided to do something special for the couple.

We try to be creative tobring some life back into people and help them continue to fight through what is one of the worst hospitalizations I have ever seen, Matt said.

That creativity led to a wedding like no other on Tuesday, August 18, as staff hosted a ceremony for the couple in the hospitals hallways.

READ ALSO: COVID-19 fears grip Kericho GK Prison after 48 inmates, officials test positive

That was the most difficult part for me. I was just letting him go into the ER and not knowing when I would see him again," Leimann said.

The groom-to-be was admitted to San Antonios Methodist Hospital on July 15 and was in the hospitals COVID-19 unit for almost 10 days before his health deteriorated.

He was transferred to the hospital's Intensive Care (ICU). There, he was placed on an ECMO machine as a last effort to save his life, according to the hospital staff.

READ ALSO: Prolonged school closure is harmful to learners, UN agencies

Muniz, who is on the life-saving machine at the time of their wedding, was able to leave his room with the help of a team of hospital workers.

While it was not the wedding neither of them imagined, it was something they were truly grateful for.

It was a beautiful moment and all I could see was him as I was walking down the aisle," said the bride.

READ ALSO: Elephant shrew found in Africa after 50 years of hiding

The heartwarming wedding ceremony not only lifted the spirits of the newly weds but also the hospital staff during a difficult time.

It meant a lot to us because it was kind of a ray of sunshine and it has been a pretty dark period for us as a whole," Matt said.

Leimann was thankful for the support and love the hospital staff showed them saying they will be praying for the frontline workers for the risk they were taking to take care of others.

Muniz still remains in the hospital and has a long road to recovery ahead of him but for now, the couple is holding onto the memories they made on their special day.

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
A special court here on Friday dismissed the bail plea of Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the Kerala gold smuggling scandal, in a case registered by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the money trail of the illegal trade.

The special PMLA court dismissed her bail plea on the ground that the accused, in a statement given to the ED under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), has admitted that she had roles in hatching the conspiracy and smuggling the gold from the foreign country.

Also read: Gold price rises after two days; silver rates at Rs 68,500

Opposing the bail application moved by Suresh, the ED had said that the accused had disclosed to it her association with other accused and also of some others who are involved in the crime. Noting that the revelations made by her indicates that she had 'considerable influence' in the office of Kerala Chief Minister, the ED said if she is released on bail, there is a chance of tampering with evidence and also influencing the witnesses.

The Investigating Agency said it apprehends hurdles in the progress of investigation, if the petitioner is enlarged on bail now. The investigation is progressing and persons connected with the crime and having influence have also to be questioned, the ED said.

Also read: Kerala gold smuggling case: NIA questions suspended IAS officer for second time

Earlier, an NIA court and an Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Economic Offences, had also dismissed her bail pleas in separate cases registered by NIA and Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate. Multiple agencies including NIA, Customs and Enforcement Directorate are probing the case of smuggling of gold worth over Rs 100 crore through diplomatic baggage addressed to the UAE consulate at Thiruvananthapuram since November last year.

Also read: US-China rift over Hong Kong suits India's gems and jewellery sector; exports to see rise
The mayor and city attorney of a Florida Panhandle city are the latest to be charged in the theft of $5 million in Hurricane Michael debris removal funds, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Lynn Haven Mayor Margo Anderson and City Attorney Adam Albritton are the subjects of a 64-count indictment returned Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Panama City, according to court records. They were both arrested Wednesday morning. Lynn Haven is located just north of Panama City.

After Hurricane Michael Hit the Florida Panhandle in October 2018, prosecutors said Albritton and Anderson indefinitely extended a debris removal contract with a private company for the city. Both then had work done by the company at their homes, as well as the homes of friends and relatives, and charged it to the city, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said Anderson and Albritton also received kickbacks from projects that they approved.

Among other charges, the two have been accused of theft concerning federal programs and conspiring to commit wire fraud and honest services fraud.

This case is an example of what happens when public servants becomes complicit in corrupt behavior rather than standing up to it, Rachel L. Rojas, the special agent in charge of the FBI Jacksonville Division, said in a news release. Anyone who puts personal greed above their responsibility to protect the public should be held accountable, and that is why rooting out corrupt public officials remains the FBIs number one criminal investigative priority.

Five others who previously pleaded guilty in the case are former City Manager Michael White, former Community Services Director David Horton, Erosion Control Specialist owner David White, ECS bookkeeper Shannon Rodriguez and Greenleaf Lawn Care of Bay County owner Joshua Anderson. Theyre scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 29 in Tallahassee.

Court records didnt list attorneys for Margo Anderson or Albritton who could comment.

Lynn Haven officials held an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss the new arrests. The Florida governor has the authority to suspend local elected officials charged with serious crimes, and a spokesman said his office was reviewing the mayors case. The city attorney wasnt elected by voters and isnt under the governors authority.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Florida Fraud Abuse Molestation Hurricane
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 15:21:40|Editor: huaxia

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The first cross-river tunnel in China's island province of Hainan was put into use on Thursday. The Wenming East tunnel connects downtown Haikou and the Jiangdong New Area across the Nandu River. Construction of the 4.38-km long project, which includes a 2.72-km long tunnel section, began on Dec. 28, 2018, with a total investment of more than 3.09 billion yuan (447.7 million U.S. dollars).
Reports of strain in relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been doing the rounds ever since Riyadh declined to toe Islamabad's line on Kashmir

Pakistan on Thursday may have denied reports of a rift with Saudi Arabia, but its recent actions and comments tell a different tale.

Note how Shah Mahmood Qureshi rushed to China on Thursday for a two-day summit with its "all-weather friend" just days after army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was denied an audience with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman during his visit to the Kingdom.

Add to that Prime Minister Imran Khan's recent remarks that news of a breakdown in relations with Saudi Arabia is "completely baseless", but in the same breath adding that Pakistan's future is connected to China.

Imran added that China had stood by Pakistan through good and bad times. "We are further strengthening our ties with China. China also needs Pakistan very much. Unfortunately, Western countries are using India against China," Imran said.

Reports of strain in relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been doing the rounds ever since Riyadh declined to toe Islamabad's line on Kashmir.

Pakistan has been pushing the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN, for a meeting of foreign ministers since India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir last August.

Islamabad's attempts to garner international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status have not been successful, to say the least.

A large part of this can be chalked up to the Jeddah-based OIC, the largest bloc of Islamic countries in the world, which is dominated by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, not giving Pakistan an opportunity to take aim at India from their perch.

India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution was its internal matter and advised Pakistan to accept reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.

Qureshi, a key player

Qureshi seems to be at the centre of this drama.

The foreign minister recently criticised the Saudi government in a TV interview (a first) and threatened to sidestep the Kingdom by calling an OIC meet.

Qureshi had said, "Today, I am telling the OIC to convene the meeting of the council of foreign ministers. If they cannot do it, then I will be compelled to ask the prime minister [Imran Khan] to call a meeting of Islamic countries [Iran, Turkey and Malaysia] that are ready to stand with us on the issue of Kashmir."

While the Saudis did not respond directly to Qureshi's remarks, they did stop renewing an oil credit of $3.2 billion to Pakistan and also demanded the repayment of a loan given to Islamabad in 2018 after a visit from Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Part of that loan was duly repaid with an assist from its deep-pocketed benefactor: China.

Pakistan draws China closer

In a video message ahead of his departure to China, Qureshi gushed about his very important trip to China.

"I am leaving on a very important visit to China. I had a discussion with the prime minister regarding this visit yesterday. My delegation will represent the stance of the political and military leadership of the country. I am hopeful that my meeting with Foreign Minister Wang will prove to be beneficial for both countries, Qureshi said.

The Chinese and Pakistani foreign ministers, meeting at the island resort of Hainan, are slated to discuss a host of issues, including the progress of the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Islamabads request for a $1 billion loan.

Meanwhile, Islamabad's relations with the Kingdom seem to be on a downward slope.

Kingdom puts distance

There are plenty of reasons for the Kingdom wanting to put space between itself and Pakistan.

Jeremy Garlick, author of The Impact of China's Belt and Road Initiative: From Asia to Europe, told Nikkei Asian Review Saudi Arabia's hesitance stems from its desire to avoid becoming part of China and Pakistan's attempts at containing India.

"Saudi Arabia is closely allied with the US, which may also be [applying behind-the-scenes pressure on] Saudi Arabia to stay away from Chinese initiatives," said Garlick, an assistant professor with the Jan Masaryk Center for International Studies at the University of Economics in Prague.

This snub to the all-powerful army chief Bajwa, whose visit to Riyadh was aimed at containing the fallout from Qureshi's explosive remarks, is sure to send a message to the Pakistani establishment, who are already said to be unhappy with Imran.

As per this Economic Times piece, "While Imran Khan has sought to expand traditional close ties with Turkey riding on its president's ambitions to emerge as a leader of the Islamic World, Saudi Arabia continues to matter for Pakistans most powerful institution: Army."

The piece argued that it is inconceivable that Qureshi did not have Imran's backing and that the entire episode did not sit well with the generals in Rawalpindi, and has left Imran in an unenviable situation.

Pakistan has historically been a strong military ally of Saudi Arabia.

But it seems that Beijing has, for the moment at least, supplanted Riyadh as Islamabad's main backer.

With inputs from PTI
AKRON, Ohio  Federal authorities say a suspect in the shooting of a man Monday night at homeless camp near downtown also is accused of shooting a family in Indiana Wednesday night.

A warrant on charges of attempted murder, felonious assault and weapons under disability has been filed against Timothy Sargent, 41, in connection with Mondays shooting in Akron. Police were called to 20 block of West North Street, which is near Cascade Park just north of downtown, just after 9 p.m. They found the victim, a 29-year-old man, with multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was taken to Summa Health Akron City Hospital and is expected to recover, according to police.

The U.S. Marshals Service says Sargent also is a suspect in a shooting Wednesday night in New Albany, Indiana, which three people were injured. A news release from Indiana State Police says the family had just left OBannon State Park after hiking when the shooting occurred.

The family was driving on Indiana 462 in a 2016 Hyundai Santa Fe when a Dodge Avenger quickly pulled up from behind and turned on its high beams, state police say. The Santa Fe moved over to allow the Avenger to pass.

Police say the Avenger pulled up next to the Santa Fe and an occupant opened fire. The male driver of the Santa Fe tried to escape but ended up crashing after a short distance.

The Santa Fes driver was wounded several times by gunfire, police say. He was taken to University Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Reports say he is in stable condition.

A female passenger in the front seat also was wounded and was taken to University Hospital and reportedly is in stable condition. A 16-year-old female in the back seat was not shot, but she was injured in the crash, police say.

The Avenger was found abandoned in a cornfield about 15 miles away, police say. Police believe the Avengers driver then stole a silver 2000 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with Indiana plates TK667LJB.

Authorities are searching for Sargent and a female person of interest, Savanna L. Emich, 20, also of Ohio, in connection with the shootings. Sargent also is a suspect in another shooting in Akron, according to U.S. Marshals.

Reports say Emich had been listed as missing and endangered by authorities in Ohio. State police say both Sargent and Emich are considered armed and dangerous.

Sargent is 5-foot-10, 190 pounds, with short brown hair and hazel eyes. Emich (photo below) is 5-foot-6, 245 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes.

A $5,000 reward is being offered by U.S. Marshals for information that leads to the arrest of Sargent. Anyone with information can contact the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force at 1-866-4WANTED (1-866-492-6833) or can send a web tip. Anyone with information also can 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.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : A private tourist company based in Gurugram has announced a bus service from Delhi to London where the travellers will cover 18 countries and 20,000 km in 70 days.

Adventures Overland on August 15 announced the "first-ever hop-on/hop-off bus service between Delhi and London", named "Bus to London". People taking this tour will travel through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France.

A special 20-seater bus, equipped with business class seats, is being built for this trip. Apart from the 20 passengers, there will be a driver, an assistant driver, a guide and a helper. The guide will change at regular intervals during the trip.

The company will also take care of the visa arrangements of the passengers.

The trip will be divided into four categories and passengers can choose different destinations according to their liking and convenience while they will have to pay as per the particular package. However, if they avail of the whole trip from Delhi to London it will cost them Rs 15 lakh per person.

Image Source: IANS News

The idea materialised after two travel enthusiasts, Tushar Agarwal and Sanjay Madan, took a road trip to London in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Adventures Overland co-founder Tushar Agarwal told IANS, "We planned this trip after a lot of people passionate about travelling expressed their wish for a road trip to London. This was announced on August 15 and we hope that the first bus to London will be flagged off in May 2021. We have not started the registrations due to the coronavirus spread. The registrations will start after taking stock of the coronavirus situation in all the countries." "All the facilities will be provided during the 70-day trip. Arrangements for stay will be made in 4-star or 5-star hotels and passengers will also be provided Indian food in all the countries," he added.

-- Syndicated from IANS
SHOWS: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 20, 2020) (ATP MEDIA/IMG - NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE)

1. USTA BILLIE JEAN KING TENNIS CENTER - WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN SIGN AND MASK/SOCIAL DISTANCING SIGN

2. TENNIS CENTER GROUNDS

3. VARIOUS OF ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM AND WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN SIGNS

4. PLAYER WALKING PAST SIGN ASKING PEOPLE TO PRACTICE SOCIAL DISTANCING

5. VARIOUS OF ALEX ZVEREV PLAYING SOCCER ON SMALL TENNIS COURT

6. STEFANOS TSITSIPAS PLAYING SOCCER ON SMALL TENNIS COURT

7. FOUNTAINS AND WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN SIGN

STORY: Former champions Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal and Serena Williams are scheduled to play this week at Western & Southern Open in New York City, which will serve as a tune-up for the U.S. Open.

The Aug. 20-28 event, which was relocated from Cincinnati this year because of COVID-19, will also see defending champions Daniil Medvedev and Madison Keys among the entries.

The Masters 1000 event will be the first on the men's calendar since play was suspended in March because of the virus.

Among the men's entries, that will see 40 of the top 43 ranked players, are world number three Dominic Thiem, 2017 champion Grigor Dimitrov and Marin Cilic.

World number three Karolina Pliskova, who won the event in 2016, is the highest-ranked player on the women's side that will feature 39 of the top 53 players in the world.

The women's WTA Tour played the Top Seed Open, won by Jennifer Brady, last week in Lexington, Kentucky.

(Production: David Grip)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Just before receiving multiple consecutive life sentences, Joseph James DeAngelo, the former California police officer who lived a double life as the murderous sociopath dubbed the Golden State Killer, broke his silence to tell a hushed courtroom filled with victims and their family members that he was truly sorry for the crimes.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo is arraigned in Superior Court in Sacramento, Calif., in a file photo. (Randall Benton/The Sacramento Bee via AP, Pool, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Just before receiving multiple consecutive life sentences, Joseph James DeAngelo, the former California police officer who lived a double life as the murderous sociopath dubbed the Golden State Killer, broke his silence to tell a hushed courtroom filled with victims and their family members that he was truly sorry for the crimes.

It was such an unexpected moment that it brought gasps from those in the gallery, many of whom sat through an extraordinary four-day sentencing hearing filled with graphic and heart-wrenching testimony from dozens of victims. It also reinforced that nobody ever seemed to know what DeAngelo would do and who he was, which helps explain how he eluded detection for four decades while committing at least 13 killings and dozens of rapes.

The 74-year-old DeAngelo spoke for only a few seconds after rising from a wheelchair that newly released jail video shows he doesnt need.

"I listened to all your statements, each one of them, and Im truly sorry for everyone Ive hurt, he said, putting aside the weak, quavering voice he used to plead guilty and also admit to multiple other sexual assaults for which the statute of limitations had expired.

Prosecutors and victims said it was more evidence of a manipulative and vicious criminal who fooled investigators and his own family until he finally admitted victimizing at least 87 people at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties. He was finally unmasked in 2018 with a pioneering use of DNA tracing.

Debbi McMullan, left, and Melanie Barbeau confront Joseph James DeAngelo at the Sacramento County Courthouse during the third day of victim impact statements on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. DeAngelo, a former California police officer, has admitted to being the infamous Golden State Killer, committing 13 murders and nearly 50 rapes between 1975 and 1986. DeAngelo killed McMullan's mother, Cheri Domingo, and Domingo's boyfriend, Gregory Sanchez. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, Pool)

I think that he is truly diabolical and he is constantly masked, whether its a physical mask, a disguise in the voice, the role of a decent guy in the community and having people around him who love him, said Debbi Domingo McMullan?, the daughter of murder victim Cheri Domingo.

One hundred per cent Jekyll & Hyde, added Jane Carson-Sandler, one of DeAngelos first rape victims. Its like he was living two completely different lives. ... He probably, somehow in his mind, didnt feel that he was committing these crimes  it was someone else, almost compartmentalized.

DeAngelos family members broke their silence in the case, writing in letters read to the judge that the monster, devil, beast and madman described by prosecutors is the polar opposite of the man that one niece saw as a loving father figure and another as her hero who took her camping and fishing.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman was unmoved. He said DeAngelo should die in prison with no mercy from his jailers after pleading guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges that spanned much of California between 1975 and 1986. The plea deal spared him the death penalty.

When a person commits monstrous acts, they need to be locked away so they can never harm an innocent person, the judge said to applause from DeAngelos victims.

Investigators in the case pioneered a new method of DNA tracing that involves building a family tree from publicly accessible genealogy websites to narrow the list of suspects.

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. apologizes to his victims and the families of the victims he killed more than four decades ago during his sentencing hearing in Sacramento County Superior Court held at CSU Sacramento, Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. DeAngelo, 74, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, under a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death sentence. The California former police officer admitted killing 13 people and raping nearly 50 people in the 1970s and 1980s. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, Pool)

They linked nearly 40-year-old DNA from crime scenes to a distant relative of DeAngelo and eventually to a discarded tissue they surreptitiously lifted from DeAngelos garbage can in suburban Sacramento.

The same technique has since been used to solve 93 murders and rapes across the nation, said Ron Harrington, whose family has been obsessed with solving the 1980 slayings of youngest brother Keith Harrington and his new wife, Patrice Harrington.

It led oldest brother Bruce Harrington to champion a ballot measure passed by California voters in 2004 that expanded the collection of DNA samples from prisoners and those arrested for felonies and has since led to more than 81,000 identifications.

Bowman told DeAngelo he was moved by the courage and strength of the victims and their family members  all qualities you clearly lack  who told how they endured sadistic, hours-long assaults.

DeAngelo's rapes and eventual murders followed the same pattern of binding couples he surprised while they slept and assaulting the woman as the man lay helpless. He would place dishes on the man's back, warning that he would kill them both if the dishes rattled.

DeAngelo's relatives said that conflicted with their image of the man they loved.

I personally feel that someone else is inside him who I do not know, a niece said in a letter read by defence attorneys.

DeAngelos sister and a close friend each wrote that he was abused as a boy by an emotionally distant, disciplinarian father.

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Prosecutors said they had found no evidence of abuse, but Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said they learned he was a teenager who was blowing up animals, who was breaking into homes.

His ex-wife, Sacramento attorney Sharon Huddle, said in her own court filing that she was fooled by his excuses of working nights, leaving for pheasant hunts and visiting his parents, though many victims have wondered aloud how she could not have known of her husbands double life.

No compassion, no empathy, no remorse, Schubert said. He has and always will be a sociopath in action.

Former fiance Bonnie Colwell Ueltzen said, I didnt see a criminal in him, but I know now he was a burglar and a Peeping Tom before I ever knew him.

She broke off their teenage engagement when DeAngelo became abusive. Investigators have said one rape victims recollection that her assailant shouted I hate you, Bonnie helped lead them to DeAngelo.

Maybe Im part of his cover. Maybe his family's part of his cover," Ueltzen said after DeAngelo was sentenced. Were all props in his big story, where he's always been a criminal underneath.
President Donald Trump will have family and friends join him Friday at the White House for a funeral service for his brother, Robert Trump, who died last Friday.

Robert Trump's body will also be driven to the White House from New York for the ceremony, according to sources familiar with the arrangements, which are expected to remain private.

The last time a deceased body was brought to the White House was for the funeral services of President John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963.

PHOTO: In this Nov. 3, 1999 file photo, Robert Trump, left, joins then real estate developer and presidential hopeful Donald Trump at an event in New York. (Diane Bondaress/AP, File)

The last time that remains were brought to the White House for a funeral there for a private citizen was in 1936 for Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Trump family has invited 200 people to attend the services though it's unclear how many plan to attend. The service is expected to be held in the East Room of the White House and a source familiar with the arrangements told ABC News any costs would be covered by the president personally.

MORE: Donald Trump's younger brother, Robert, dies at 71

The White House declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.

Robert Trump, like his brother, was in the New York real estate business, running a majority of the remaining company founded by Fred Trump Sr., his father.

PHOTO: Robert Trump hugs his brother, Republican president-elect Donald Trump, after Donald Trump delivered his acceptance speech at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of Nov. 9, 2016, in New York City. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, File)

Trump visited his brother just one day before his death, calling him his "best friend" in a statement reacting to his passing.

"His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest In Peace," the statement concluded.

Donald Trump to host funeral for brother Robert Trump at White House originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Friday to step up the search for energy in the Mediterranean by the end of the year, despite tensions with Greece and the rest of the EU.

"We are going to speed up our operations in the Mediterranean with the deployment by the end of the year of the Kanuni (drilling ship), which is currently in maintenance," Erdogan said in a keynote address in Istanbul.

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August 21 : Veteran actor Anupam Kher is feeling overwhelmed to receive the first copy of the book Who Killed Shastri by Vivek Agnihotri.

Taking to his Instagram handle the Wednesday actor thanked the writer, Vivek Agnihotri for opting him. Expressing his gratitude Anupam in his post stated he loves Tashkent files and is looking forward to reading the book.

The feed of Anupam read, Thank you dearest @vivekagnihotri for giving me the first copy of your new book #WhoKilledShastri? I loved #TashkentFiles. Looking forward to reading it my friend. Jai Ho!!

Thank you dearest @vivekagnihotri for giving me the first copy of your new book #WhoKilledShastri? I loved #TashkentFiles. Looking forward to reading it my friend. Jai Ho!!  pic.twitter.com/O9biuV6ymH  Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) August 21, 2020

Meanwhile, on the work front, Anupam Kher was last seen in the movies Hotel Mumbai, One Day: Justice Delivered and The Accidental Prime Minister.

Last week, Anupam released the trailer of his new play Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hain on his Instagram. It is the play about the failures, disasters of Anupams life. It's an autobiography. He released his autobiographical play Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai on his new website. He feels the play will give some hope to people during these stressful times.

Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai, directed by Feroz Abbas Khan, offers a glance at Anupam's failures, triumphs, and life lessons, as the actor sets out to depict ordinary people.
B oris Johnson has been urged to commit to a "zero-Covid" approach across England by a group of MPs and peers.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus called on the Government to maintain compulsory social distancing measures across the country until zero-Covid is achieved.

The MPs said working from home should be actively encouraged and Covid-19 screening should be introduced at transport hubs, shopping centres and supermarkets, in order to meet the goal.

The zero-Covid measure would provide clarity and reassurance to the public, said the group of politicians.

It follows an inquiry into the Governments response to the pandemic by the group, who have warned of the risk of a second wave of the virus in winter.

As well as calling for a zero-Covid approach, the group recommends that ministers set a target to reduce the number of new cases seen in England over a seven day rolling average to no more than one new case per million population per day.

Measures proposed to help meet the target include accelerating the development of a locally lead and locally coordinated, but nationally supported Find, Test, Trace, Isolate and Support (FTTIS) programme in England.

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 group also suggests devolving public health outbreak control efforts in responding to local flair-ups, as well as reinstating daily coronavirus briefings  which were ended in June.

Introducing enforceable post-travel requirements such as a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of arrival and screening on all UK entry points combined with quarantine at a regulated locations, has also been suggested by the group.

Group chairwoman, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, said that the Prime Minister must now get a grip.

She said: The Government has failed abysmally to put a clear strategy in place to eliminate coronavirus from the UK.

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This lack of clarity has left the public confused and our NHS and care staff flying blind. The Prime Minister must get a grip and introduce a comprehensive plan to control this deadly pandemic before this winter.

We urgently need an effective communications strategy with clear messaging to the public, including by immediately reinstating daily press conferences.

This must be accompanied by a fully functioning Find, Test, Trace, Isolate and Support (FTTIS) system and ensuring local authorities have the power and resources to contain local outbreaks.

It comes after a further 1,182 new coronavirus cases were confirmed on Thursday, the second highest number of Covid-19 infections in the UK for two months.

Daily Government coronavirus data reveals that the new infections reported on Thursday were only topped by figures on August 14 - when 1,441 people were infected - over a period stretching back to June 21, when 1,221 cases were reported.

Additional reporting by PA Media.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 18:34:15|Editor: huaxia

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HO CHI MINH CITY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A boat carrying eight people has capsized in Vietnam's southern Ben Tre province, leaving two dead and two others missing, Vietnam News Agency reported on Friday.

On Thursday afternoon, eight people took a wooden boat to Ba Lai river in Ba Tri District in the province to go fishing. The boat later capsized due to strong winds and waves, the news agency quoted local authorities as saying.

Four people on the boat managed to swim back to the river's bank, according to the report. Bodies of two men who aged 25 and 32 were found Thursday night while two others, aged 32 and 33, remained missing.

Part of the river, which was located between Ba Tri and Binh Dai districts, was deep with strong flow of water, making it difficult to search for the victims, said local authorities. Enditem
CAMBRIDGE  Police have arrested a 22-year-old Cambridge man in connection with a child pornography investigation.

Waterloo Regional Police launched an investigation in July after receiving a tip from the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre about a person uploading child pornography to a social media account. Armed with a warrant, police searched a Cambridge home for digital devices on Wednesday, and discovered child pornography and evidence related to the alleged luring of two American youths.

The Cambridge man was arrested on Friday, and is facing two charges of possession of child pornography and two counts of luring a child. Waterloo Regional Police are working with American authorities to determine the identities of the victims, and to ensure theyre safe.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:18:58|Editor: huaxia

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People offer prayers at a mosque in Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Aug. 21, 2020. Local authorities have allowed the reopening of mosques and other religious places recently after months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Impactian, a San Francisco-based Extraordinary Talent On Demand platform, is recruiting top-notch technology and legal writers who are interested in working remotely on a range of interesting projects. Launched in 2019 to match employers with software developers, the EToD platform is now expanding its service to the field of technical and legal writing. Impactian is actively looking for prolific and effective writers who are skilled at digesting complex scientific information and presenting them in an accessible way.

Initiated as a business division within Impactio, Inc., Impactian empowers companies to scale their remote developer teams dynamically on demand, Impactian has designed a tested and rigorous screening process to identify the most uniquely qualified talent for each company's needs.

"With the global COVID-19 pandemic, many companies are looking for talent that can be flexible and employed as needed while adhering to health and safety guidelines of working from home," says Lawrence Shay, CEO and Co-Founder of Impactio. "This is where Impactian's strictly-vetted line-up of writers and other professionals come in." Through its intensive selection process, Impactian is proud to say that it only recruits the top 2% of professionals in any given industry. The newly recruited technology and legal writers will be no exception.

Successful candidates will have excellent writing, editing, and critical thinking skills, and will be vetted according to Impactian's strict standards before joining its network. Hired writers will be drafting technical and legal documents based on provided materials, revising documents according to internal standards and client feedback, and performing research on a wide range of scientific topics to supplement said writing.

Professional writers interested in applying for the position should submit their resumes and writing samples to [email protected] or [email protected] for review. For more information on this role, please visit Impactian's website via the following link https://www.impactian.com/technical-writer-jobs

Learn more about Impactian at: https://www.impactian.com

About Impactio

Impactio Inc. is an American internet technology company based in San Francisco, California, that operates several online data analytics aggregators in different application domains and owns a remote extraordinary talent network including namesake and flagship Impactio.com, LeaseTalk and Impactian. Its flagship Impactio.com is America's leading platform of academic impact analytics and professional reputation management designed for PhDs, scientists, researchers, and engineers. Launched in early 2020, the platform offers its members visualized impact analytics reports, citation management tools, academic resume builder, and network capabilities.

Impactio also owns Impactian, which offers Extraordinary Talent on Demand (EToD) service empowering companies to dynamically scale their remote developer teams on demand. Impactian is a premier elite talent network consisting of the world's top 2% of extraordinary developers and other talents who have been pre-vetted by Impactian and will be connected to well-established companies in the globe to offer remote and agile development services on demand.

Impactio is made with love and passion for technology and founded by alumni from the EECS Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Stanford University, and Rice University.

History of Impactio

As a PhD candidate and research fellow at the EECS department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Lawrence Shay realized the needs and advantages of using visualized charts and quantitative metrics to demonstrate the academic impact of highly achieved individuals. However, there was no such tool available at the time. Shay later founded Impactio with his technology team in 2017 and launched its flagship website service in early 2020. The vision of Impactio is to integrate various innovative online services within its flagship platform catering to technological professionals to help them be more productive and succeed. Shay was admitted to patent bar and is an active patent practitioner licensed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to practice in patent cases.

The ripples around the Impactio logo represent the research contributions that impact the scientific and academic community.

CONTACT:

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He's recently jetted to Marbella after completing a juicing retreat.

And James Argent cut a laid-back figure as he arrived at pal Elliot Wright's restaurant to perform on Thursday.

The former TOWIE star, 32, who recently endured an extremely acrimonious split from on-off love Gemma Collins, was seen heading into Olivia's La Cala eatery, after recently completing a juicing retreat in Portugal.

Happy: James Argent, 32, cut a laid-back figure as he arrived at pal Elliot Wright's restaurant Olivia's La Cala in Marbella to perform on Thursday

Arg looked happy and carefree in a pale blue summer shirt with a white palm tree print as he arrived at the restaurant for the performance.

The reality star opted to team the simple shirt with camel-coloured chinos and tan leather loafers.

Elliot, 38, also cut a casual figure as he arrived at the restaurant for the evening with his glamorous wife Sadie, 28, who displayed her tanned physique in a taupe ruche mini dress.

Jovial: The former TOWIE star looked happy and carefree in a pale blue summer shirt as he arrived to perform at the eatery

It comes after Argent and recent ex Gemma ended their relationship in July after she revealed a string of abusive messages, purportedly sent to her by the TV personality prior to their split.

It's understood James had made derogatory remarks abut her weight after she suggested that he had bought another woman dinner.

The self-proclaimed diva 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.

Mr and Mrs: Elliot, 38, also cut a casual figure as he arrived at the restaurant for the evening with his glamorous wife Sadie, 28

Juicing retreat: Arg recently revealed he'd completed a 10-day juicing retreat in Portugal, and after sharing a photo of a healthy green smoothie said he felt 'so much better'

In a screenshot obtained by MailOnline, the Diva On Lockdown star contacted her fellow reality star in the early hours of the morning.

'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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 19:07:30|Editor: huaxia

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Video: Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Aug. 20, 2020 formally accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, laying out his vision for building the nation back better in a speech that caps off the four-day virtual Democratic National Convention. (Xinhua)

Biden highlights "four historic crises" facing the United States:

- The coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 5.5 million people and claimed over 170,000 lives in the country

- The national economy that is reeling from the worst recession since the Great Depression

- Sweeping protests across the nation for racial justice

- The rapidly worsening climate change

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, portraying the nation as being in a "season of darkness," while offering his remedies to rebuild it.

Though his actual name was never spoken, attacks on "this president," "the current president," or "the current occupant of the office" were omnipresent throughout Biden's 25-minute acceptance speech.

Almost from the beginning, Biden directly took aim at his rival in the upcoming election, saying "the current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division."

"If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not of the darkness," Biden said from the Chase Center in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, pledging that while he is a Democratic candidate, he will be an American president, and he will work as hard for those who don't support him as he will for those who do.

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden reacting in a video feed from Delaware is displayed on screens in Arlington, Virginia, the United States, on Aug. 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Biden, 77, who is running for the White House for the third time in his political career that has lasted for almost a half century, highlighted "four historic crises" facing the United States: the coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 5.5 million people and claimed over 170,000 lives in the country, the national economy that is reeling from the worst recession since the Great Depression, sweeping protests across the nation for racial justice following the death of African American man George Floyd by police brutality, and the rapidly worsening climate change.

"Now history has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced. Four historic crises. All at the same time. A perfect storm," Biden said, stressing that the upcoming election "is more consequential," as "America is at an inflection point, a time of real peril, but of extraordinary possibilities."

Biden spent a big chunk of time during his speech detailing what he would do to tackle the coronavirus from day one as president, including making COVID-19 testing widely available with immediate results, giving schools necessary resources for them to safely reopen, stocking the country with adequate U.S.-made medical supplies and personal protective equipment, as well as requiring a national mandate on mask-wearing.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden takes selfie with supporters during a rally in Philadelphia, May 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

"The tragedy of where we are today is it didn't have to be this bad," Biden said, contrasting his country's world-leading cases and deaths with the lower numbers in European and Asian countries. "And after all this time, the president still does not have a plan," Biden said of Trump.

To sum up his response to the pandemic, Biden said he "will do what we should have done from the very beginning," adding that "our current president has failed in his most basic duty to this nation. He failed to protect us. He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable."

Turning to other issues, Biden promised an economic plan that will rebuild the nation, a healthcare system expanded on the basis of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act that Trump vowed to undo, and an education system that better trains students for jobs and makes tuition payments and debt no longer burdens for young people.

Biden also talked about bridging the income gap, turning the challenges posed by climate change into job-creating opportunities, reversing Trump's tax cuts by taxing the wealthiest and the biggest corporations, and protecting seniors' social security, which he said Trump had threatened to disrupt by cutting the tax that pays for almost half of it.

A woman at a house in Arlington, Virginia, watches news showing U.S. presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (R, on the screen) speaking at a campaign event together with Kamala Harris in Wilmington, Delaware, the United States, on Aug. 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

He then made an appeal to the young progressives -- the most difficult group for him to win over -- by saying he heard their voices against inequity and injustice that existed in economic, racial and environmental spheres. He vowed to "restore the promise of America to everyone."

On racism, Biden seized upon Trump's claim at the time of the march on Charlottesville, Virginia, by white supremacists in August 2017 that there "were very fine people, on both sides," saying Trump's assertions are "a wake-up call for us as a country," and that the America led by him is ready "to do the hard work of rooting out our systemic racism."

The speech not only capped off the convention in its culmination, it was also the pinnacle of Biden's long career of public service, a hard-fought journey marked by devastating personal tragedy: namely, the loss of his first wife and infant daughter to a car crash in his early Senate career, and then his son, Beau Biden, to brain cancer in 2015 when he was vice president.

"I understand it's hard to have hope right now," Biden said. "I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes. But I've learned two things: first, your loved one may have left this Earth, but they'll never leave your heart. They'll always be with you. You'll always hear them. And second, I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose."

People vote at a polling site in Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, June 23, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

Trump, who hours before Biden delivered his speech was in the former vice president's birthplace slamming him at a campaign event, gave a real-time reaction to Biden's words.

"In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks," Trump tweeted. "He will never change, just words!"

Calling Biden "a puppet of the radical left movement" at the campaign event near Scranton, Pennsylvania, Trump claimed that trade policies adopted by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president, killed manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania, and that the Green New Deal -- a proposal centering on clean energy that is championed by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to counter climate change, but something Biden has actually never explicitly endorsed -- will strip Pennsylvanians of their energy supply.

Voters line up to cast ballots at a polling station in Los Angeles, California, the United States, March 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

He also slammed Biden for hiking taxes on Americans, implementing stricter gun control rules that would "eviscerate the Second Amendment," providing "free healthcare for illegal aliens," and expanding "deadly sanctuary cities," while touting his own policies, ranging from cutting taxes and building the U.S.-Mexico border wall to propping up workers in the traditional energy sector and emphasizing "law and order."

The president's highly political speech was part of his grander counterprogramming, which was not only scheduled to coincide with the Democratic National Convention running Monday through Thursday, but was also chosen to be rolled out in key swing states that, in addition to Pennsylvania, also include Minnesota, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Adding to the speeches delivered by the president himself in the battlefield states is the Trump campaign's multi-million-dollar ad blitz occupying the homepages of YouTube and other major media outlets this week, aiming to smear the Biden campaign. 
Are you in the mood for a great short movieor a lineup for a double feature in the home theater? Check out this list of the best movies that clock in on the short side.
Holidaymaker Peter Griffiths, 58, (pictured) who lost 1.5 stone after contracting a violent stomach bug at a luxury five-star hotel has won 29,000 compensation from TUI

A holidaymaker who lost 1.5 stone after contracting a violent stomach bug at a luxury five-star hotel has won 29,000 compensation from TUI.

Peter Griffiths, 58, was staying at the Aqua Fantasy Aqua Park Hotel and Spa, in Izmir, Turkey, when he was struck down by stomach cramps, a fever and diarrhoea on an all-inclusive family holiday in 2014.

The IT worker spent two days in bed before he was able to get to a pharmacy.

But he was hit again by illness three days later and ended up on a drip and in hospital for the rest of his stay.

He blamed the food at the hotel for his illness, which saw him lose 21 lbs in weight, and sued holiday giant TUI. He said he still has stomach cramps more than five years later.

His case was originally rejected by a judge at Birmingham County Court last September, but after an appeal at the High Court, Mr Justice Martin Spencer awarded him nearly 30,000 compensation.

The judge said: 'As a result of this illness he lost about 1.5 stone in weight, his appetite was affected for five to six months, and by the time of the trial he was still suffering with stomach churning and bubbling, cramping pains in his stomach, increased stomach bloating and increased frequency of bowel movements.'

The court heard Mr Griffiths, of Fleet, Hampshire, was on holiday with his 58-year-old wife and then 12-year-old son in August 2014 when he was struck down by the bug.

He said he took all of his meals at the hotel, which boasts six restaurants and nine bars along with a huge water park.

The only time he ate out was during his brief trip to a local pharmacy.

His lawyers said his hygiene concerns included food being left outside and not in fridges, sometimes being served lukewarm, as well as birds and cats frequently eating food left over from guests.

Peter Griffiths, 58, was staying at the Aqua Fantasy Aqua Park Hotel and Spa, in Izmir, Turkey, (pictured) when he was struck down by stomach cramps, a fever and diarrhoea on an all-inclusive family holiday in 2014

He first became ill on August 4, he said, and spent two days in bed before going to the pharmacy for medication on August 7.

He then fell ill again on August 10 and was hospitalised three days later.

Mr Griffiths was treated with intravenous fluids and antibiotics and was well enough just in time to fly home on August 16.

During the trial last year, TUI denied liability, insisting there were other potential sources of his illness.

It was impossible to establish the precise source, the court heard, and TUI's lawyers pointed out that gastric illness is a 'common feature of overseas travel'.

In Mr Griffiths' case, he had eaten a burger while waiting for his flight out at Birmingham Airport, and defense lawyers suggested his meal out in Turkey might well have caused his second bout of sickness.

The county court judge rejected Mr Griffiths' claim, saying she was unconvinced by expert evidence from a gastroenterologist who pinpointed the hotel as the likely source of contamination.

The expert said it was possible Mr Griffiths had contracted two separate infections, but thought it was probable that the illness was caused by 'the consumption of contaminated food or fluid from the hotel'.

But the judge said it was unclear why the professor had dismissed eating out at the local restaurant as a source of infection and there was no 'clear train of logic'.

However, Mr Justice Spencer at the High Court overruled her decision, pointing out that the professor's report stood alone as expert evidence.

He said he 'took the view that the court below was not entitled to reject the report because of its perceived deficiencies'.

He said he took all of his meals at the hotel, which boasts six restaurants (once pictured) and nine bars along with a huge water park

'By ascribing effectively nil weight to the report, the learned judge was ruling that the report did not meet the minimum requirements for it to be accepted as evidence in the case, and in that respect I take the view that she was wrong,' he said.

He allowed Mr Griffiths' appeal and awarded him 29,000 in compensation.

Speaking after the ruling, Mr Griffiths said he had been 'really looking forward' to his holiday, but it had been 'completely ruined.'

'It was the most unwell I have ever been, and I was worried that I wouldn't even be able to fly home,' he said.

'Thankfully the hospital discharged me in time for our flight, but I had to take a lot of medication including antibiotics.

'I went to see my GP several times after getting back home and I am still suffering to this day. It is concerning to think that this could affect me for the rest of my life.

'To this day I still have a number of questions and concerns about how and why I became poorly.

'Thankfully, my medical insurer stepped in to help me with the hospital bills in Turkey otherwise I really don't know what I would have done. I would rather not be in this position but I felt that I had been left with no other option but to pursue my legal case.

'All I wanted is to be given answers to the questions I have so I can try and put what happened behind me. This judgment means a lot to me and it finally gives me the answers I deserve and be able to move on with my life finally.'

His solicitor, Jatinder Paul, of Irwin Mitchell, later commented: 'Going on holiday is meant to be an enjoyable time, but Peter's time away with his family turned out to be anything but enjoyable.

'The last six years have been incredibly difficult for Peter. He has had to cope with the ongoing effects of his illness while also striving for answers regarding the concerns he has about how he became ill.

'We are pleased to have secured this important judgment for Peter which will bring greater clarity for holidaymakers who wish to pursue legal claims as to what is expected from the medical experts who assist in proving these claims.

'This judgment is a major milestone in Peter being able to secure answers to an issue which has had a significant impact upon his life over the last six years and we will continue to support him in finalising the legal process.'
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.




Ozone across northern hemisphere increased over past 20 years

In a first-ever study using ozone data collected by commercial aircraft, researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder found that levels of the pollutant in the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere have increased across the Northern Hemisphere over the past 20 years. That's even as tighter controls on emissions of ozone precursors have lowered ground-level ozone in some places, including North America and Europe.

Tropospheric ozone--ozone between Earth's surface and 12 to 15 kilometers above Earth--is a greenhouse gas and air pollutant that, at high levels, can harm people's lungs and damage plants.

In a study published today in the journal Science Advances, the team found an overall increase in ozone levels above the Northern Hemisphere. "That's a big deal because it means that as we try to limit our pollution locally, it might not work as well as we thought," said Audrey Gaudel, a CIRES scientist working in the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory and the study's lead author. She and her colleagues documented the greatest ozone increases in the tropics, Gaudel said, noting that ozone exported from the tropics may be driving increases above other areas of the Northern Hemisphere.

Gaudel and her co-authors, CIRES scientists in NOAA and international colleagues, also found the most striking increases in areas where ozone levels were once lowest: Malaysia/Indonesia, Southeast Asia and India, for example. Those regions had very low ozone values between 1994-2004, and very high levels in recent years, between 2011-2016.

Previous studies could not draw firm conclusions on Northern Hemisphere ozone trends, according to Gaudel, because there are too few long-term monitoring locations and because new satellites with near-global coverage have provided conflicting results on ozone trends.

So the researchers turned to aircraft data from Europe's In-Service Aircraft for the Global Observing System (IAGOS) program. "Since 1994, IAGOS has measured ozone worldwide using the same instrument on every plane, giving us consistent measurements over time and space from Earth's surface to the upper troposphere," Gaudel said. Between 1994 and 2016, commercial aircraft captured 34,600 ozone profiles, or about four profiles each day.

Gaudel and her colleagues used these measurements to calculate changes in tropospheric ozone from the mid-1990s to 2016 above 11 regions in the Northern Hemisphere. They found an overall increase in ozone in all regions where they looked, including four in the mid-latitudes, two in the subtropics, two in the tropics and three equatorial regions. On average, median ozone values had increased by 5% per decade.

In the so-called "lower troposphere," which is closer to Earth's surface, ozone has decreased above some mid-latitude regions, including Europe and the United States, where ozone precursor emissions have decreased. The researchers found those reductions were offset by increases higher in the troposphere--with the net result being an overall ozone increase from the surface to 12 km.

To understand what was causing the observed ozone changes, the researchers looked at the emissions inventories of one of the main ozone precursors--nitrogen oxides (NOx)--used as input for the global chemistry transport model MERRA-2 GMI, which reproduces accurately the IAGOS measurements. The model showed that increased anthropogenic emissions in the tropics were likely driving the observed increase of ozone in the Northern Hemisphere.

Next, Gaudel wants to take a closer look at ozone in the tropics. Africa may be emerging as a global hotspot for air pollution precursors, for example, and IAGOS data will let her dig deeper into that continent's role in recent trends. She'll also compare tropical ozone measurements from IAGOS, taken above polluted regions, with measurements from the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) field campaign, which measured trace gases and aerosol particles in more remote, less polluted regions including the tropics. And she'll look at measurements from TROPOMI, an instrument on board a European Space Agency satellite gathering information on atmospheric composition.

"We want to understand the variability of ozone and its precursors and the impact of polluted regions on remote regions," Gaudel said. "So we're using the best tools we have, including IAGOS, ATom data and TROPOMI data, to get profiles and columns of ozone and its precursors from different kinds of human activities and natural sources."

###

Authors of "Aircraft observations since the 1990s reveal increases of tropospheric ozone at multiple locations across the Northern Hemisphere" in Science Advances are Audrey Gaudel, Owen R. Cooper, Kai-Lan Chang and Ilann Bourgeois from CIRES and NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory; Jerry R. Ziemke from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Morgan State University; Sarah A. Strode from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Universities Space Research Association; Luke D. Oman from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Pasquale Sellitto from Universite de Paris, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace; Philippe Nedelec, Romain Blot and Valerie Thouret from Universite de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS; and Claire Granier from CIRES, NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory and Universite de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS.

Funder: Authors Audrey Gaudel, Owen R. Cooper, Kai-Lan Chang, and Ilann Bourgeois are supported by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder. Authors Valerie Thouret, Philippe Nedelec, Romain Blot are supported by IAGOS which receives funding the European commission, national research programmes in Germany (BMBF), France (INSU-CNRS, MESR, CNES) and UK (NERC).

The MERRA-2 GMI simulation was funded by the NASA MAP program. S.A.S. was supported by the NASA MAP and ACMAP programs. In its last 10 years of operation, MOZAIC was funded by INSU-CNRS (France), Me?te?o-France, Universite? Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France), and Research Center Ju?lich (FZJ, Ju?lich, Germany). IAGOS has been additionally funded by the EU projects IAGOS-DS and IAGOS-ERI. The MOZAIC-IAGOS database was supported by AERIS (CNES and INSU-CNRS).

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
President Donald Trump blamed California for the wildfires ravaging the states northern and central regions and threatened to withhold federal funds.

I see again the forest fires are starting, he said at a Pennsylvania rally on Thursday, according to Politico. Theyre starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests  there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and theyre like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.

Maybe were just going to have to make them pay for it because they dont listen to us, he added.

The LNU Lightning Complex, one of the wildfires caused by lightning strikes, has killed at least four people and destroyed around 500 structures, The Sacramento Bee reported. Tens of thousands of homes are in danger as of Friday and the complex is among the more than 300 wildfires burning across California.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approved using federal funds on Aug. 17 to help battle the LNU Lightning Complex. FEMA will cover up to 75 percent of firefighting costs.

Ive been telling them this now for three years, but they dont want to listen, Trump said.  The environment, the environment, but they have massive fires again.

Trump has criticized the Golden State for its wildfires in the past. In November 2018, Trump blamed the state for its gross mismanagement of the forests and threatened to pull back on federal aid.

There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor, Trump tweeted. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

Of the 33 million acres of forest in California, 57 percent is managed by the federal government, 40 percent by private landowners, including families, and three percent by the state, according to the University of Californias Forest Research and Outreach center.

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In January 2019, Trump doubled down on his comments, threatening to tell FEMA to pull back on aid.

Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money, Trump tweeted.

Trump blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom in November 2019 for wildfires, saying he was doing a terrible job of managing forests.

The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management, Trump tweeted. I told him from the first day we met that he must clean his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers.....

Newsom criticized Trump for his recent comments during his remarks at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Just today, the president of the United States threatened the state of California  40 million Americans happen to live here in the state of California  to defund our efforts on wildfire suppression because he said we hadnt raked enough leaves, he said, according to The Hill. You cant make that up.

Climate change is real. Gavin Newsom checks into Democratic convention from California wildfires
Photo credit: alantobey - Getty Images

From House Beautiful

Hold a piece of kente cloth between your fingers, and the first thing you notice is likely the bright, saturated shades of yellow, red, blue, and green. You might observe several rows of patterns, which are identical on the front and back of the cloth. That lets you know it was made by hand on a wooden loom. If you know what to look for, you may even be able to read it, gleaning a proverb or political statement from its threads.

Kente cloth comes from a textile practice that originated in Ghana centuries ago. The fabric has come to symbolize cultural affiliations from West Africa across the diaspora, but legend has it that a spider spinning a complex web inspired the earliest kente techniques and designs.

Weaving kente cloth is a cultural tradition of the Asante (also known as Ashanti) people, and these fabrics were originally used exclusively to dress kings and their courts. Each block, pattern, and color has a distinct name and meaning, and the cloth often includes adinkra symbols, which represent concepts or sayings. For example, an oft-used kente pattern is, in Twi, Woforo dua pa a na yepia wo. It means "when you climb a good tree you are given a push;" put another way, when one takes up a worthy cause, one will be supported by their community.

The Ewe people of western Africa have also woven kente cloth for centuries, though according to kente master weaver Kwasi Asare, who is often commissioned to create unique kente pieces and teaches workshops in the U.S., their designs are typically more representational, where Asante kente designs tend to be more abstract.

Photo credit: Jacob Silberberg - Getty Images

Here are a few colors commonly found in kente cloth, and their meanings, per Sankofa Edition and Adinkra Brand.

 black: spiritual strength, maturity; mourning and funeral rites

 red: blood, death, political passion, strength

 blue: peace, love, unity, and harmony

 gold or yellow: wealth, royalty

 green: growth, harvest, renewal

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 white: purity, cleansing rites, festive occasions

 purple or maroon: Mother Earth, healing, protection from evil

A tell-tale identifier of kente cloth is its vertical strips of fabric, which are typically four inches wide. These strips are then cut and sewn together to create larger swaths which can be worn on the body. By placing blocks of pattern next to one another, a meaning for the whole piece emerges. Historically, when kente was used solely for royal courts or prestigious occasions, the strips were made of silk; today youll also find kente made of cotton or rayon blends. While weaving kente is traditionally mens work, it is common to see both men and women donning these beautiful, wearable artworks.

Kente cloth is arguably the most well-known textile export from the African continent to the western world; mud cloth and African wax prints are also widely available, especially in cities where West Africans have settled across the U.S. and Europe. Kente has also come to symbolize a sort of solidarity with an African heritagemost recently, and controversially, displayed by the group of senator who wore kente cloth while kneeling for nine minutes in remembrance of George Floyd.

More typically, those kente stoles are worn with pride by Black college graduates every spring. In 1960, upon the occasion of Ghanas independence, the nations first president Kwame Nkrumah commissioned a kente cloth to be displayed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In 1995, Kwasi Asare was asked to create another rendition to replace the one originally woven by his father. As such, kente cloth has been a symbol of Black sovereignty in the U.S. for many decades, with its eye-catching designs and stories woven into each section of silky fabric.

As E. Asamoah-Yaw, author of Kente Cloth: History and Culture, has noted, every culture has its textile tradition, and kente is that of Ghana and West Africa. This weaving tradition continues to live on, and new designs and innovations emerge with each passing year. When you look for your own kente, remember to think beyond the stunning aesthetic appeal and consider the meaning behind the cloth.

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The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps was the recipient of a substantial food donation from The Turkish Cultural Center of Staten Island, an organization that provided boxes of frozen meat to be distributed to those in need.

The donation will serve more than 100 individuals and families in need throughout the community.

The Turkish Cultural Center donated cartons of meat to The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps. Congressman Max Rose stands fourth from right. (Staten Island Advance/Carol Ann Benanti)Staten Island Advance

As food pantries across the borough are depleted as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the donation couldnt have come at a better time.

The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps has served more than 38,000 meals and more than 5,000 people since March 18.

Several individuals who are regularly served through the Corps Food Pantry were on hand to receive the donation, as well as representatives from the Salvation Army Stapleton Corps.

The Turkish Cultural Center donated cartons of meat to The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps. From left, Assemblyman Charles Fall (D-North Shore), Congressman Max Rose and Veysel Ucan, director of the Turkish Cultural Center. Staten Island AdvanceStaten Island Advance

Speaking from the podium in the chapel of the Stapleton Corps were Congressman Max Rose, Assemblyman Charles Fall (D-North Shore) and Veysel Ucan, a director of the Turkish Cultural Center.

We are so proud and honored to work with the Turkish Cultural Center and to organize this donation during COVID, said Rose. It takes all of us to get through. Assemblyman Falls office and mine know this is what it takes to get everyone out of this pandemic and to help those who need it the most. We will overcome this silent killer, overcome the economy and provide food on tables. You are all our heroes.

The Turkish Cultural Center donated cartons of meat to The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps. Veysel Ucan, director of the Turkish Cultural Center is second from right. (Staten Island Advance/Carol Ann Benanti)Staten Island Advance

Thanks for your leadership congressman, said Fall. And this is not the first time the Turkish Cultural Center has given out food and PPEs. Theyre incredible. This is an effort to give back to the community. And the Salvation Armys doors are always open to those in need.

We try to continue the tradition of Eid Al Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, right here in the United States  that we commemorated about two weeks ago, said Ucan. And this is the right place. Thanks to Katie and Jack of The Salvation Army and to the Turkish Cultural Center families who made donations. We are happy to be part of the Salvation Army. Thanks to Congressman Rose and Assemblyman Fall and to the volunteers. We so appreciate your help.

The Turkish Cultural Center donated cartons of meat to The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps. Lt. Katie Tripari, corps officer/pastor and her husband Jack Tripari, corps officer. (Staten Island Advance/Carol Ann Benanti) Staten Island AdvanceStaten Island Advance

I always attend these donation events, said church member and volunteer Tabatha Jensen. The Salvation Army is a Christian based organization that does a lot of charity work in Christs name. We believe in servicing the community, feeding spiritually and physically.

Church soldier Felicia Givens: Its a wonderful organization and a wonderful ministry. Im here when they need me. When all goes back to normal well resume our programs. We welcome people any time and anywhere.

When we have a program I come to volunteer in the soup kitchen downstairs usually twice each week for the last few years, volunteer Diana Vegas chimed in.

The Turkish Cultural Center donated cartons of meat to The Salvation Army Stapleton Corps. (Staten Island Advance/Carol Ann Benanti)Staten Island Advance

Salvation Army Lt. Katie Tripari, a Corps Officer/Pastor who together with her husband Jack oversee the operation, was overwhelmed by the generosity of the Turkish Cultural Center and delighted to accept the cartons of frozen meat.

Because of COVID we have scheduled appointments from Food Pantry clients in order for them to pick up donations. Today we have a couple of families here who will received the food packages as well as others, she said.

Rose added: The Turkish Cultural Center is a great contributor for those who cant protect themselves. And the Salvation Army has been there for many years in our society. When people enter these doors there is no explanation and they let them know they are not alone.
At least two women were killed while a family of five was rescued from a car trapped in an overflowing rivulet in different rain-related incidents in Uttarakhand in the last 24 hours.

In one of the incidents, a 46-year-old woman was crushed under a tree, uprooted in heavy rains, on Thursday evening in Almora district.

Officials, said, the woman identified as one Vimla Negi was outside her home, when the tree fell on her while it rained heavily with an accompanying storm. She was rushed to the nearby hospital but was declared brought dead by doctors.

In another incident, the state disaster response force (SDRF) recovered the body of a 32-year-old woman buried under the debris brought down by a landslide on Friday afternoon in Pithoragarh district.

Praveen Alok, media in-charge, SDRF said, The woman identified as one Bhagirathi Devi got buried under the debris of landslide on August 17 while she was going to a cowshed near her house to milk a cow. Since then, an SDRF team was involved in searching for her body which was found on the Friday afternoon.

In another incident, five people including two children were rescued from a car which got trapped in an overflowing rivulet in Nainital district on Thursday afternoon. The incident came to light after a video of the trapped car with passengers inside, went viral on social media.

Also Read: Rain and topography triggering flash floods, landslides in Uttarakhand hills, say experts

According to police, Kamal Singh, a resident of Bhikiyasain village in Almora district was going to Almora from Ramnagar in Nainital with his wife, sister-in-law and two children on Thursday afternoon. While on their way, they tried to cross the overflowing rivulet near Dhangarhi area when their vehicle got stuck in the heavy water flow.

The family was rescued when some passersby pulled them out of the car and a few minutes later, the car got washed away only to be pulled out after a few hours when the water level receded to some extent.

Meanwhile, the Dehradun centre of India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast light to moderate rainfall with some intense spells in many places in Dehradun, Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Pauri Garhwal, Nainital, Pithoragarh and Bageshwar districts on Friday and on Saturday. No weather-related warnings have been issued for Saturday and Sunday.

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It is a triple challenge for government doctors waging a grim battle against Covid-19 in Uttar Pradesh. First, they have lost eight of their colleagues to the coronavirus disease. Second, numerous others are under treatment for the same infection. Third, several doctors have retired from service this year. The result: the number of doctors Uttar Pradesh has is gradually reducing but their work pressure is increasing.

Our number is reducing in three ways. The third (way) is doctors retire from service. Every year, 250-300 doctors retire in Uttar Pradesh, said Dr Amit Singh, secretary of Provincial Medical Health Services Association (PMHSA), a body of government doctors.

Also Read: With 68,898 Covid-19 cases, Indias tally surges past 2.9 million; recovery rate over 74%

He said against the need of 33,000 specialists and 14,000 MBBS doctors as per Indian public health standards, there are only 3,000 specialists and 8,000 MBBS doctors in permanent positions in Uttar Pradesh. The state has a sanctioned strength of 18,382 doctors. Uttar Pradesh has a population of about 23 crore (230 million) and a bed strength of 76,000 (as calculated in February 2020).

The risk is increasing every day as the number of fresh cases goes up and our strength is limited, said Dr Amit Singh.

Also Read: Deworming drug a supporting medicine for Covid-19 patients, say doctors

The government doctors who died of Covid-19 are: Dr SP Gautam, chief medical superintendent of the Ambedkarnagar district hospital on June 9; Dr Ajeezuddin of Lucknows Avantibai Hospital on July 15; Dr Ganesh Prasad, former district surveillance officer, Prayagraj, on July 25; Dr Subodh Kumar of the Alchhada community health centre at Auraiya on July 25, Dr PN Gupta, Kasganj district TB officer on July 30; Dr RP Mishra (surgeon) of the Joint Hospital, Balrampur, on August 1; and Dr Jung Bahadur, additional chief medical officer, Varanasi on August 12. Dr Nizamuddin, a doctor working on contractual service at Tajpur Moradabad, died on April 20.

In India, 200 doctors have lost their lives after getting infected by Covid-19 on duty, said Dr PK Gupta, former president of Indian Medical Association, Lucknow.

Also Read: 3 in 10 Delhi residents have antibodies against Covid-19: New sero result

In Lucknow alone, about 150 medical staff members have been infected since the pandemic started. About 100 such instances were reported at King Georges Medical University (KGMU), the first hospital to start a Covid-19 facility for patients in Uttar Pradesh. Four faculty members, 25 resident doctors, nurses and other staff were among the 100 who got infected.

Vacancies in the Provincial Medical Services have increased the pressure on doctors during the fight against the pandemic, leading to a tussle between the government doctors and administrative officers. This situation is also affecting the functioning of doctors.

Also Read: Bihar polls may cost Rs 625 cr, one fifth of funds for Covid-19 preparations

In Varanasi, the disquiet came into the open on August 12 when 27 government doctors resigned from their administrative posts alleging harassment by bureaucrats.

Uttar Pradesh Provincial Medical Health Services Association (PMHSA) demanded a check on bureaucratic interference in the functioning of government doctors posted in Covid hospitals in all 75 districts of the state.

While the government doctors were working round the clock to save lives, some bureaucrats were breaking their morale, the PMHSA said.

Also Read: Serum Institute registers its Covid-19 vaccine trial

The state health department should ensure that administrative officers do not misbehave with government doctors, office bearers of the PMHSA said.

Dr DR Singh, a former president of PMHSA, said successive governments in the state had not given priority to health services.

Covid pandemic had exposed the health facilities, forcing the state government to mobilise its resources to improve the condition in government hospitals, procure modern equipment and establish laboratories, he said.

Also Read: Daily deaths best way to assess Covid-19 pandemic | Opinion

A large number of posts, including that of directors, additional directors and joint directors were lying vacant and promotions pending.

Doctors should be given free hand in running health facilities and providing treatment to patients, he said.

When asked, director general, medical health, Dr DS Negi said the risk was more for doctors in certain conditions.

In emergency cases, you cant wait for Covid-19 test report, hence medical care is given, keeping all precautions in place. But exposure to a positive case for about 30 minutes puts doctors at risk of getting infected and this has happened in several cases.

Also Read: Ghaziabad: Phone survey finds only 14 Covid-19 cases since June 1, residents concerned

He said utmost care was taken to ensure the highest protocol level for doctors on Covid-19 duty, but people were not adhering to protocol.

At a Covid-19 hospital, you consider everyone a positive case and work as per protocol but in general hospital, people move around and you never know who is a carrier of infection, said Dr Negi.

Another issue was fresh appointment, said Dr Singh. This year, no process has been done to make a fresh appointment. Amid the pandemic situation, about 250 doctors have retired this year, said Dr Singh.

The state has 1605 doctors working on contractual basis and there are 4,416 vacancies at present.
Firefighters made some progress Friday in containing the LNU Complex fires, a series of blazes that have clobbered swaths of five Northern California counties.

The wildfires that make up the LNU Complex torched 302,388 acres by Friday night in Sonoma, Lake, Yolo, Napa and Solano counties and were 15% contained. The complex was the second biggest fire recorded in California history, according to Cal Fire.

There is some progress and some growth, but we are not out of the woods, Cal Fire Unit Chief Shana Jones said at a Friday press conference. There are still some areas threatened, some communities threatened some peoples homes are threatened. ... I hope for good news, but its going to take a long time.

The LNU Complex has claimed four lives: three of the victims were found at a burned home in Napa County. The fourth victim died in a home in Solano County. Meanwhile, 480 structures have been destroyed and another 30,500 still threatened. New evacuation orders were issued Friday morning in Sonoma and Lake counties.

The state is sending as many resources as it can with 1,059 fire personnel working to put out the massive blaze. Gov. Gavin Newsom said there are more than 12,000 fire personnel battling the 560 fires that have erupted all around the state.

These fires are stretching our resources, stretching our personnel, Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Friday press conference. These lightning strikes came as we were epxeriencing some of the hottest temperatures in human history.

The LNU destroyed more than 100 homes in Vacaville alone, where flames raced in early Wednesday morning and prompted frantic, last-minute evacuations and rescues. But residents Bob and Linda Schwartz were among those who didnt wait until the official call to evacuate Tuesday night. Their home is surrounded by trees and dried vegetation  a sitting tinderbox that could burn at a moments notice if the wind picks up.

Linda Schwartzs father was a firefighter, and he taught her to respect the unpredictability and danger of wildfire.

We dont play with fire, she said Thursday, as she and her husband stood outside their motorhome that was parked outside the Vacaville Cultural Center. The Schwartzs home was still standing by Thursday, but their neighborhood was still under a mandatory evacuation.

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Despite the balmy temperatures and lack of air conditioning, the couple has stayed in their motorhome since evacuating Tuesday. For them, it beat having to sleep in a cot six-feet away from a stranger in a public evacuation center during a deadly pandemic.

As hundreds of people evacuate from their homes, many have turned to parking lots for refuge from the fire and the coronavirus pandemic. The colliding crises of a pandemic and a wildfire has created a nightmare scenario for those who must flee their homes and risk being around other evacuees who could infect them with the deadly virus.

I feel that they still truly dont understand it and I would rather err on the side of caution, said Bob Schwartz.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

But many are just worried about their lives and whether their homes will survive the blaze, pushing the threat of COVID-19 to the back of their minds.

Opening evacuation shelters during the coronavirus pandemic is complicated, as sites must enforce social distancing, prevent overcrowding and make sure everyone is wearing masks. The other complication is smoke exposure, which can cause coughing and shortness of breath.

Its why Bela Matyas, the Solano County public health officer, recommends evacuees to stay their vehicles. Its also why some stores, like Lowes, have put signs outside their parking lots that read, Camping OK at Lowes.

We basically are telling people, if you have a vehicle you can be in, you can take that to a friends house and be in their driveway, he said. Or if you have a vehicle like that you can bring it to an evacuation center.

Chronicle staff writers Danielle Echeverria and Erin Allday contributed to this report.

Sarah Ravani and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @SaRavani, @TrishaThadani
On Wednesday, US Attorney General William Barr held a press conference in Kansas City, Missouri, flanked by police and prosecutors, where he announced that nearly 1,500 people had been arrested as part of Operation Legend, a federal initiative formally launched on July 8 of this year.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump boasted on Twitter regarding the arrest of over 1,000 criminals as part of Operation Legend, proclaiming, I STAND FOR LAW AND ORDER AND I TOOK ACTION! Trump claimed his law-and-order crackdown contrasted with Sleepy Joe Biden and the Radical Left, which excuses violence and crime in their Democrat-run cities. I want safety and security, Joe allows CRIME!

Attorney General William Barr (Credit: US Department of Justice)

Operation Legend, cynically named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot in June while asleep in his Kansas City home, is a development of Operation Relentles Pursuit which targeted many of these same cities last year as part of a quasi-occupation of working class neighborhoods by federal agents in conjunction with local police and district attorneys.

Contrary to what Trump says, Operation Legend has been warmly embraced by the Democratic political leadership in the targeted cities, including by mayors, police chiefs and district attorneys. During a Tuesday press conference in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit as he did also in Kansas City the next day, Barr stated that the nine cities currently targeted were chosen because theres strong police departments with strong leadership, mayors that back the police, where we thought we could increase our efforts, and have an impact on crime.

US District Attorney Matthew Schneider agreed with Barr that federal intervention into major cities was nothing new, stating, I did this back when I was an assistant US attorney and my boss was President Barack Obama; weve been working with state and local partners for decades.  The difference is, were doing more of it, and its more effective.

Operation Legend, like Pursuit before it, involves flooding major cash-strapped cities with millions of dollars earmarked for police use only, which includes hiring more officers, purchasing enhanced surveillance equipment and expanding federal task-forces composed of agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in each city.

Barr confirmed in his press conference that over 1,000 agents from the DEA, ATF and FBI are now embedded in police units in the nine cities targeted, which include Kansas City and St. Louis in Missouri; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Cleveland, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee and Indianapolis, Indiana.

Some of these agents are embedded as part of temporary operations while others are being permanently assigned. Barr confirmed that embedded agents are working shoulder to shoulder ... I mean literally shoulder to shoulder with local police, including in so-called assault squads. Barr refused to state how long the operation would last, stating as long as we are making arrests, well be here.

During Wednesdays conference he touted the supposed efficacy of Operation Legend, claiming to have arrested 91 people wanted for homicide-related charges. Barr boasted that federal task forces working in conjunction with local police had seized over 400 guns as images of the weapons allegedly seized as a result of the operation flashed on television screens behind him.

The images included crudely modified semi-automatic rifles, six-shooters, extended magazines and an assortment of pistols, nothing more lethal than could be found in any of the armories of thousands of police stations, patrol cars or in unmarked police vans rolling through working class neighborhoods and urban cities at this very moment. Similar weaponry will likely be delivered to departments as part of the continued infusion of federal assets into local departments.

Operation Legend is the heart of the federal governments response to this upturn in violent crime, Barr said. Its mission is to save lives, solve crimes and take violent offenders off the streets before they can claim more victims.

Of the nearly 1,500 arrests made, 217 have been charged with federal crimes, a vast majority of which are for felony possession of firearms, narcotics or for distribution of narcotics. Barr stressed throughout the conference, and in subsequent promotional stops in the cities taking part in the program such as in Cleveland and Detroit, that part of the benefit of charging suspects with a federal crime is that it allows for longer sentences. Also defendants are rarely released from pretrial detention, in essence allowing the legally innocent to be held in detention until their trial, without bail, regardless of the evidence against them.

As with Relentless Pursuit, Barr attempted to blame increasing homicide rates as a justification for the increased federal occupation. At the time Barr first made these claims last year, almost every major crime that the FBI kept statistics for was in decline.

And while there has been an uptick in violent crime, especially beginning at the end of May 2020 and throughout the summer, Barr cited without a shred of evidence that the increase in homicides was due to pent up aggression as a result of state and local quarantine orders.

He also hypothesized that the premature release of dangerous criminals by the courts, coupled with popular demands to defund the police had also led to a spike in crime.

His supposed solution, as his own statistics show, has done little to curb violent crime. Nearly all of the cities, which received federal funding and agents since last year, recorded dramatic increases in violent crimes. The only exception was Albuquerque.

It is no coincidence that working class cities suffering double-digit unemployment rates, mass hunger, homelessness and increasing COVID-19 fatalities, all social problems with their root cause in the capitalist system, have likewise seen an uptick in homicides. Millions are pushed into increasingly desperate situations, while an indifferent ruling class ignores demands for more income, housing, food, health care, and safe workplaces and schools.

During the press conference, Barr sought to further clarify the difference between Operation Legend and the federal occupation of cities by Department of Homeland Security agents, such as BORTAC in Portland, Oregon, or Special Response Teams which were held in reserve in Seattle, Washington.

There has been a lot of confusion in the media, some of it not unintentional, conflating two different aspects of law enforcement, Barr said. One is dealing with civil unrest, rioting, and the other is the classical traditional work that law enforcement does.

He refused to elaborate what part of classical traditional work he was engaged in this past Tuesday, along with District Attorney Schneider and Detroit Police Chief James Craig. After a morning press conference, the three met at ATF headquarters where they were briefed, with reporters specifically out of earshot, before proceeding to take flight over the city in a US Army UH72 Lakota helicopter.

When a Detroit News reporter asked about the purpose of the trip, Craig responded it was for something else I cant tell you about. Schneider likewise refused to discuss the nature of the trip to reporters, saying, It was a law enforcement matter (involving the operation) which the Attorney General was able to observe; thats all I can say about it.
Laois is among 13 counties in Ireland with new cases of Covid-19 this Friday evening, August 21.

The total number is now at 364 cases. There were no new cases yesterday and just one the day before in Laois.

Meanwhile a sigh of relief is being breathed countywide with the lifting of local restrictions to take effect immediately this evening. Offaly is also lifted from the measures, but Kildare is not. Read more here.

There are 79 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in Ireland, but no new deaths.

There is now a total of 27,755 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today;

39 are men / 40 are women

73% are under 45 years of age

30 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case

21 cases have been identified as community transmission

43 are in Dublin, 9 in Kildare, 6 in Cork, 6 in Tipperary and the remaining 15 cases are in Clare, Donegal, Laois, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Roscommon, Wexford and Wicklow.

The most recent county breakdown of figures refers to two nights ago.

In those:

Laois has 364 cases up one from the previous day.

Offaly: 605 up three.

Kildare: 2,116 up by 32 from the previous day.

Carlow: 216 up by eight.

Tipperary: 620 up by 17 cases.

Kilkenny: 387 up by 11.

Dublin: 12,871 up by 62 cases from the previous day.

Dr. Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health has thanked the three counties that had been restricted.

Firstly I would like to thank the people of Kildare, Laois and Offaly, you have shown an incredible example of solidarity and social responsibility by following the enhanced public health advice for your region. Your actions have saved lives. The epidemiological situation in Kildare means that we must extend the public health measures for a further two weeks. While there is some cause for optimism, the 7 and 14 day incidence rates in Kildare remain very high. Evidence suggests that the measures are working, but more time is required to reduce the number of cases in Kildare.

As Ireland starts the last weekend before kids return to school, the message is to protect each other.

We as a nation must show solidarity with Kildare in our collective efforts, especially over the next two weeks, by working together to suppress this virus. We can protect each other by following the public health advice. I am asking all households across Ireland to play your part, reduce your social contacts, wash your hands, keep a 2m distance from each other and wear a facecovering in shops and on public transport. These actions are vital to protect our families and safeguard those who are most vulnerable to the disease.

The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread.

Download the Covid-19 tracker app here.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 13:54 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f87d6a 4 National antasari-azhar,KPK,police,djoko-tjandra,fugitive,graft-convict Free

The National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) has questioned Antasari Azhar, former chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission, regarding the escape of notorious graft convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra.

Antasari, who chaired the antigraft commission between 2007 and 2009, said that the police questioned him regarding the high-profile 1998 Bank Bali graft case, which he handled during his time at the Attorney Generals Office (AGO).

[Bareskrim asked] about 10 questions. They wanted to know the details of the case because I was the investigator and in 1999, I was also appointed to prosecute him in court, he said as quoted by kompas.com on Thursday, adding that he stopped handling the case in 2001.

The Supreme Court sentenced Djoko to two years imprisonment in 2019 for his involvement in the Bank Bali case. However, Djoko fled the country days before his conviction. Authorities later discovered that he had returned undetected to file a case review for his sentence in early June.

National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Argo Yuwono confirmed the questioning. We ask for information related to the investigation of [Djokos] suspected legal problems, particularly about the background of [his] legal issues, Argo said Thursday.

Read also: AGO looks into possible crimes in prosecutor's alleged meetings with Djoko Tjandra abroad

Bareskrim is currently investigating two cases related to Djoko. The first is regarding his escape, in which the police named the Bareskrim Civil Servant Investigator Supervisory and Coordination Bureau head, Brig. Gen. Prasetyo Utomo, and Djokos lawyer, Anita Kolopaking, suspects for allegedly assisting the convict and issuing documents that allowed him to travel abroad.

The police eventually arrested Djoko in Malaysia on July 30 and sent him back home.

Prasetyo and Insp. Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, the National Polices international relations division head, were also named suspects for allegedly accepting bribes to remove Djokos red notice status, allowing the graft convict to freely enter the country despite having been on the most-wanted list since 2009. (mfp)
It may well be the biggest catch yet by the Montgomery County Precinct 2 Constables Office. And the recent seizure of a 60-foot-long jet at the Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport required deputies take a different route.

It is not a common thing for us to do, although we have seen airplanes in the past during seizures, said Pct. 2 Lt. Greg Thomason, adding, this is the biggest plane that weve ever seen.

No taxes were paid by the planes purchaser, leading to it being levied July 30 by deputies, according to Thomason.

But the 1977 Lockheed 13 Jetstar II was not removed from where it was stationed as usually happens with property levied by the constables office. Instead, it was locked down in place at an airport hangar.

Airport personnel were aware of the seizure thanks to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security contact there. Pct. 2 had six members on site, Thomason explained.

We didnt have to move it or carry it somewhere else, he said.

Cable was put through the landing gear to keep it in place and complicate efforts to take it out. Since flight and maintenance logs were removed by deputies, tampering with the aircrafts placing would be a violation of Federal Aviation Administration regulations, he added.

That plane cannot move an inch without those on board, Thomason said of the logs.

The aircraft appeared to be grounded for about three to four years and was in polished condition, Thomason observed.

The jets luxurious cabin fits around 12 to 16 passengers, and is filled out by retro-style navy corduroy seats, dark wood trim and carpeting embellished with fleur-de-lis.

Though this plane was an exceptional seizure, Precinct 2 regularly levies big, mobile property. Only some time ago, Thomason pointed out, deputies seized dump and scraper trucks from a road construction company.

Seized property is usually taken to a storage facility while a court determines ownership with the winning party paying moving and housing expenses, Thomason explained.

Other than tax liens, Precinct 2 also seizes property in civil suit cases.

By law, deputies can try to levy on 10 times the amount ruled against a defendant in a judgment since seized property does not auction off for its actual worth, Thomason explained.

However, the law limits what can be seized, Thomason continued. Exemptions include a defendants house if it is their main homestead or their vehicle if it is their only one.

Theres some steps put into place that were not gonna leave somebody destitute, he said.

In his 19 years heading up Precinct 2, Constable Gene DeForest has never been sued for his deputies seizing property, according to Thomason. This is extraordinary because the highest rate of lawsuits against agencies in the area and the county stem from property seizures, Thomason said.

Measures by deputies in seizing property are very strict and stringent because it is the highest area of liability for (a) constable, he said.

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

twitter.com/jrgzztx
MBABANE  Finally, it is back to school for Form III and Grade VII pupils.

This follows governments confirmation of the reopening of these two grades.

On Monday, Form III pupils are expected to be back in class, while those in Grade VII will open the following week (September 1, 2020).

Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini announced the dates of the grades reopening yesterday at Cabinet Offices during a press conference.

Government ordered the closure of schools in March following the outbreak of the coronavirus.

According to the PM, the return of learners on the aforementioned dates will give them adequate time to prepare for their examinations, whose dates are yet to be confirmed by the Examinations Council of Eswatini (ECESWA).

Dlamini said following the reopening of Form Vs on July 6, 2020, government continued to monitor their safety amid the coronavirus pandemic and to implement stringent mitigation measures.

Institutions

He said in view of the current stable situation, as observed with the Form Vs and completing classes at tertiary institutions, government had decided to reopen more levels.

Dlamini added that the situational analysis emanating from their inspections indicated that schools were a safe place for learning even in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ministries of Health and Education (and Training) are working closely with schools and have developed tools, operational procedures and guidelines on how schools can cope and continue operating under the prevailing COVID-19 situation. Continuous training is being conducted for all stakeholders to increase safety in schools, he said.

He stated that preventative measures such as screening, wearing of face masks, cleaning using disinfectants, regular washing of hands and continuous learning about COVID-19, were implemented on a daily basis in schools.

In addition, he said government was providing meals for learners within the confines of the COVID-19 regulations and guidelines to minimise risk of transmission.

Further, he stated that health teams had been deployed in all the countrys four regions to monitor and attend to schools concerns with regard to the pandemic and a national schools health team, which consisted of doctors, was in place to assist all schools. Dlamini said it was, however, disheartening to learn from the situational reports that a noticeable number of learners had not returned to school mainly due to pregnancy.

Other learners have taken illegal and informal jobs. We kindly encourage these learners to prioritise their education. It is no secret that education provides a strong foundation for a better and successful future for themselves, communities and the country, he said.

The PM said the school environment still provided a safety net for pupils to refrain from immoral and illegal activities.

He said government recognised that education remained critical to the realisation of development objectives as a country.

We will therefore continue to prioritise education and closely monitor the situation in schools and tertiary institutions to ensure the safety of both learners and teachers, he said.

Dlamini expressed governments gratitude to all teachers and education stakeholders who are committed to helping pupils achieve their educational aspirations, despite the nagging challenges and threats of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, he stated that more levels at tertiary institutions would be allowed to return to class and resume face-to-face instructional learning on Monday (August 24, 2020).

Complete

Dlamini mentioned that second-year students were expected to complete content and practical subjects between August 24, 2020 until September 4, 2020, while first-year students would finish content and practical subjects from September 14, 2020 to September 25, 2020.

He said the new academic year for 2020/2021 for tertiary institutions would begin on October 5, 2020. The PM said government continued to upscale its fight against COVID-19 with an increased door-to-door campaign in hot spot areas. Dlamini said they were grateful to His Majesty King Mswati III whose efforts had allowed a number of international friends and partners to assist the country in this fight.

On Wednesday we received a team of very experienced doctors from the Republic of Cuba, who are here to aid our COVID-19 interventions, especially to prevent deaths, he explained.

Dlamini said they were proud that the current health teams consisted of 12 newly-graduated emaSwati doctors, who returned late last year from different countries such as South Africa, Russia and Ukraine. He said the doctors were already on the ground working in the COVID-19 response. This year, he said they had received an additional 23 emaSwati doctors, who recently graduated from Taiwan and Cuba.

Dlamini said they welcomed them home and were looking forward to their valuable expertise in helping the country improve the health system. He further appealed to all emaSwati to remain vigilant and never allow complacency to creep in as the country intensified the COVID-19 response and engage in an accelerated drive to revive the economy.
A Mankato man was thrilled to be asked to be his brother's best man in a unique way while at the family cabin. (Will Claussen via Storyful)
Chicago Mayor Defends Ban on Protesters on Her Block, Asserts Right to Safety

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday defended the Chicago Police Department banning protesters from demonstrating on the block where she lives, saying that she has been receiving threats on a daily basis.

I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure, the Democratic mayor said, reported the Chicago Tribune, regarding threats against her, her partner, and her home.

Her remarks were made at a news conference unrelated to the matter. She was asked about a recent report from the outlet about how police were instructed to arrest any protester near her home in the Logan Square neighborhood.

According to the report, the order came from a July email from Commander Melvin Romanwho was at the time overseeing the Shakespeare District where Lightfoot livesto officers under his command. The order did not make a distinction between peaceful protesters that Lightfoot says she supports and those who intend to riot. Roman, who has since been reassigned to a different division, said in the email that after demonstrators are given one warning, the area should be locked down.

Since the order, the outlet noted that protesters have been repeatedly blocked by police from accessing Lightfoots block.

Lightfoot told reporters on Thursday that this is a different time like no other, so comparing her situation to that of former mayors is unfair. The Chicago Tribune noted that activists and police sources could not cite instances where her predecessor, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, had his home protected by police from protesters.

Given the threats I have personally received, given the threats to my home and my family, Im going to do everything I can to make sure theyre protected, Lightfoot said. I make no apologies whatsoever for that.

She declined to elaborate on the specific nature of the threats, WTTW reported.

According to the station, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown told reporters that there have been very violent people that are embedded in each of the protests even though they have mostly been peaceful.

Theyre embedded. They put up umbrellas. And they come for a fight. So we have to prepare for what weve seen, he said.

Wiggle Room

Both Lightfoot and Brown noted that laws exist that ban protests in residential areas. The city doesnt always enforce the laws, Brown said, adding that it tries to give wiggle room for protesters and that it is committed to protecting their First Amendment rights.

Illinois has a 1967 public demonstrations law that bans picketing in residential areas. The Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University noted that a 1998 Supreme Court case ruled that municipalities cannot ban general marching through a neighborhood. However, they can do so for instances of picketing targeted at a specific residence.

Chicago recently faced widespread looting in early August that resulted in more than 100 arrests. Lightfoot told reporters at a press conference on Aug. 15 that residents and businesses deserve to feel safe.

Whether its in our downtown commercial district or in one of our other 77 neighborhoods, there can never be any place in Chicago where businesses are afraid to open, where residents and visitors are afraid to travel and shop, Lightfoot said, according to ABC7. She added that the city would send an extra 1,000 officers downtown that weekend to prevent more violence.

The city continues to suffer from violence, with 64 shot5 fatallyjust over the most recent weekend. More than 480 homicides have been recorded so far in Chicago this year.
Belarusian opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya holds her first news conference since fleeing to Lithuania.

Belarusians will never accept President Alexander Lukashenkos leadership, opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Friday at her first news conference since fleeing to Lithuania.

Tikhanovskaya also said she planned to return to Belarus when I feel safe there, adding: It should be clear to the president that there is a need for change.

Meanwhile, inside Belarus, authorities arrested a leader of striking factory workers on Friday, raising pressure on the opposition.

Belarusian investigators also summoned three leading opposition activists for questioning as part of a criminal probe into the creation of a coordination council intended to facilitate the transition of power.

The move follows Lukashenkos warning that the opposition leaders could face criminal charges.

The interior minister said Yevgeny Bokhvalov, who organised the strike at the huge Minsk Automobile Plant, was arrested, but gave no further details.

The factory, which makes heavy trucks, has remained on strike since Monday along with many other industrial plants across the country.





The strike has cast a tough challenge to 65-year-old Lukashenko, who had relied on blue-collar workers as his core support base throughout his iron-fisted rule.

In a bid to halt the strike, the Belarusian leader warned the participants would face dismissal and ordered law enforcement agencies to protect factory managers from opposition pressure.

Most of all, Lukashenko fears the factory workers protest, so he tries to scare strike organisers and stop the strikes, said Sergei Dylevsky, the leader of the strike-organising committee at the Minsk Tractor Plant.

Dylevsky, a member of the oppositions Coordination Council created earlier this week to facilitate the transition of power, was summoned for interrogation along with two other council members, ex-culture minister and ambassador to France, Pavel Latushko, and lawyer Maxim Znak.

Even if they arrest us, it will not stop the protests and make Lukashenko look legitimate, Dylevsky said.

Activists questioned

Early on Friday, police deployed to block the streets around the headquarters of the Investigative Committee where the opposition activists were to be questioned.

Several dozen demonstrators rallied nearby to protest the authorities actions as the post-election protests entered their 13th straight day.

Hundreds of KGB operatives came to factories to question and scare the workers, said 53-year-old engineer Andrei Yelkin who works at the Minsk Automobile Plant. We are calling for dialogue, but the authorities are responding with threats and new repressions.

The Belarusian Prosecutor Generals office said the creation of the Coordination Council, which met for the first time on Wednesday, violated the constitution and threatened national security.

The council members have rejected the accusations and insist their actions fully comply with Belarusian law.
(TNS)  Two items on the agenda for Thursday's Hamilton County Schools board meeting are aimed at closing the digital gaps among students.In late July, the school district introduced the Chattanooga area to HCS EdConnect , an initiative in partnership with EPB to provide free internet to all students in need. Educators have stressed internet connectivity as a key issue in closing achievement gaps for disadvantaged students."In 2020, if it wasn't obvious before, it's more apparent than ever: High-speed broadband is a baseline need for American families," Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke told the Times Free Press on July 28.The board is expected to vote on two funding appropriations to pay for HCS EdConnect-related items: $1 million for its share of the $8.2 million, 10-year funding commitment alongside other community partners and $170,000 for hot spots for 450 disadvantaged students who live outside of EPB's service area. Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga committed to contribute $1.5 million each.The school district's $1 million share will include $450,000 from the federal CARES Act designated for coronavirus relief, $200,000 from the district's cell tower technology fund, and $350,000 from the district's fund balance that was assigned to the technology department.The hot spots also will come out of the fund balance. The estimated total amount of the district's fund balance is $30 million.In other matters, the school board will bid farewell to board member Kathy Lennon. The District 2 representative had qualified to run for re-election but pulled her name off the ballot in April citing health issues."I regret that as a result of recent health issues that I wish to withdraw my name as a candidate for county school board District 2," Lennon said in early April. "My life has been dedicated to the service of others in my community as I am driven by my faith to do so. Serving on the school board for the past four years has been the culmination of that service."Lennon assumed office in 2016. Her current term ends on Sept.1.Newcomer Marco Perez won Lennon's seat in the Aug. 6 election over Tom Decosimo, with 5,272 votes to 3,850.Incumbents Rhonda Thurman and Joe Wingate kept their seats.According to the district's communications director Tim Hensley, the newly elected members will be sworn in sometime next month.The livestream meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. on the district's Facebook page.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 12:20:38|Editor: huaxia

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NEW YORK, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The number of flights between China and the United States will double this month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC).

An order from the DOT announced on Tuesday said that it will allow "the four Chinese airlines currently performing scheduled passenger services to the United States to increase their services to eight weekly round-trip flights."

On Monday, CAAC said that the U.S. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are able to double their weekly China services to two round-trip flights.

The Trump administration had threatened to ban Chinese passenger airlines flying to and from the United States in early June, allowing only limited services between the two countries. Enditem
Danny Cipriani's new fiancee Victoria Rose O'Callaghan has shared a very sweet picture with her granddaughter following reports she is a nan at aged 39.

Taking to Instagram Stories on Friday, the beauty posted a picture of herself and the little girl, four, at the park writing: 'Very proud granny to the most amazing little girl.'

In the picture, Victoria's bond with her granddaughter is clear to see as they hold hands on their fun day out, sporting a strong family resemblance.

'Very proud Granny': Danny Cipriani's new fiancee Victoria Rose shared a sweet picture of her granddaughter, 4, on Instagram on Friday following reports she's a nan aged 39

Rugby ace Danny, 32, announced his engagement to Victoria this week.

He will become a stepfather to her two children, Jade Austin, 24, and a teenage son, 14, when the pair marry in October.

The sportsman will take on the role of step-grandfather after Victoria's daughter Jade became a mum four years ago.

Danny's fiancee gave birth to her first child when she was just 14, with the pair often mistaken for sisters now that Jade has a daughter of her own.

Granny Cipriani! MailOnline revealed on Thursday that Danny Cipriani's fiancee is a gran and she seems to be a very family orientated and loving person on her social media account

The pair went public with their relationship in June, with Danny saying the mental health campaigner makes him 'the happiest man in the world.'

Danny, who's previously had long-term relationships with Kelly Brook, 40, and Katie Price, 42, referred to Victoria's children on Instagram, saying: 'You make me want to be the best man I possibly can for you and our family.'

The rugby player found love again four months after expressing his heartache over the tragic death of ex-girlfriend Caroline Flack, who he described as 'so kind and so beautiful' in an emotional video on social media.

Danny's new fiancee was born Victoria Rose O'Callaghan and is from Derby, but has also used the surnames Hare and Newbold throughout her life.

Family: Danny 32, will become a stepdad to Victoria's children, Jade Austin, 24, and a son, 14, when the pair marry this October (Victoria pictured with daughter Jade)

Engaged: Danny and Victoria went public with their romance in June, with Danny saying the mental health campaigner makes him 'the happiest man in the world'

Victoria has had two long-term relationships before falling for Danny, including with Steven Austin, who is the father of her daughter, and ex-boyfriend Gavin Dunnicliffe.

Danny's future wife also had a brief fling with Alex Reid, 45, in 2012, shortly after his split from ex Katie Price.

Victoria welcomed her first child when she was 14 with former partner Steve, who tragically died aged 22 in September 1999, leaving the young mum to raise their baby on her own.

Zara Newbold, 31, who's Victoria's half-sister, told MailOnline of her sibling's difficult past, and said her and Danny are lucky to have found each other.

Speaking at her home in Derby, Zara said: 'She was very young when she had her first baby.

Close: Victoria recently shared on her Instagram a picture of her teenage son, describing him as her 'sonshine'

'She wanted bigger and better things': Victoria's half-sister Zara Newbold told MailOnline of her sibling's difficult past, after she welcomed her first child age 14

'She and Steve were happy together and I think they would have had a long lasting relationship. But he died in not a very nice accident leaving Vicky with a young baby, which was hard for her.

'We grew up in Derby but Vicky later ventured out, she wanted bigger and better things. She moved to Essex and then London.

'I hope Danny will provide a good, solid and loving relationship for her. That's all she wants, not the fame and fortune.

'She had been single for a while and when she said they were together I wasn't surprised. She knows a lot of A-listers. And we spoke again after he proposed.

'I've not met Danny yet but looking forward to. We've spoken and he sounds very nice, very chilled. She couldn't have met a better person.'

'She knows a lot of A-Listers': Zara said she wasn't at all surprised after Danny had popped the question and she hopes he will 'provide a good, solid and loving relationship' for Victoria

Danny revealed he had popped the question to Victoria on Instagram this week, telling his 258K followers that he 'can't wait' to marry her in October.

On Instagram he said: 'You are now my wife-to-be. You're my lover, my best friend, you are so loyal, incredibly intelligent, sexy with so much class.

'I learn from you all the time. I will never get complacent, you deserve the greatest love every day.

'My dream of finding The One I never thought would come true. And it has. I vow to you I am going to turn up every day. Love and support you for the rest of our lives.'

Celebrity pals of Danny's such as Chloe Madeley and Aston Merrygold wished him congratulations after he posted about the happy news.
Millions of readers in thrall to Elena Ferrante, the secretive and wildly popular Italian novelist, must accept certain conditions.

They wont be meeting her, virtually or in-person, at any sort of book signing or literary festival. Her stories will be rooted in Italy, and often focus on women trying to tame the chaos of their lives through writing.

And if they are reading Ferrantes books in English, they are absorbing, whether they realize it or not, the nimble translation work of Ann Goldstein.

Goldstein has never met Ferrante and communicates with her through her publisher, but she has become one of the best known and most celebrated literary translators in the world as a result of her work on My Brilliant Friend and the rest of the authors Neapolitan quartet. In many ways, their relationship is reciprocal: While Italian readers have known Ferrante for years, it was the translation of her books into English and other languages that catapulted her to international fame.
Macron and his wife, Brigitte, greeted Merkel on the grounds of Fort De Bregancon, on the French Riveria -- France's southeastern coast on the Mediterranean. The leaders exchanged bows instead of handshakes, posed for a socially distant photo op, then put on masks as they went inside for their talks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron met Thursday at the French presidential retreat on the Mediterranean Sea to discuss the post-COVID-19 economy and other pressing issues facing the European Union.

An official with Macron's administration said, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, the talks were expected to include Lebanon, the contested election in Belarus, Mali's coup d'etat and tensions between Greece and Turkey.

The two leaders led discussions last month that resulted in EU leaders agreeing to an US$887 billion COVID-19 recovery plan designed to revive the economies of its member states.

Attention is now turning to what else the duo can deliver in the time left before they get distracted by the German chancellor's succession and France's 2022 presidential election.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the highest-ranking Catholic in Texas and the South, arrived in Beaumont on Thursday to prepare for Fridays ordination ceremony, to express solidarity with local leaders and to emphasize that the church is growing statewide.

In my own archdiocese, I have dedicated 26 new church buildings in the last 14 years, DiNardo told The Enterprise ahead of a vesper service at St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica. People are coming from lots of parts of the country, but there are also lots of immigrants coming.

DiNardo, archbishop for the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese, will ordain Bishop-elect David Toups on Friday as Toups takes over for Bishop Curtis Guillory after more than two decades of service.

The immigrant growth in both the Houston area and in Southeast Texas includes not just Hispanics but also people from the Philippines, Vietnam and African countries, DiNardo said. And Toups, who is fluent in Spanish, also has noted the value of such diversity.

The Catholic Church is good, because it is so diverse, DiNardo said. We have people from everywhere. 

The cardinal acknowledged the challenges of meeting the pastoral needs of diverse communities.

When it comes to the Hispanic immigrants, because many of them are undocumented, there is a great deal of fear, he said. We have to regularize there situation, not that that will be easy. I see that as a challenge.

DiNardo also pointed to the dearth of priests and the churchs difficulty in keeping college-age Catholics engaged as areas he would like to see improvement.

We want to get our people, who become secularized, to also keep religious faith, he said. That is a tricky thing to do.

While Texas 13 dioceses and two archdioceses collaborate on common issues, DiNardo said, each also acts as its own entity to better serve parishioners.

West Texas does not have the same issues that we do in Southeast Texas, he said. In that sense, I have more in common with Bishop Guillory and Bishop-elect Toups, than Bishop (Michael) Sis in San Angelo. We all are together on pro-life stuff. Were big on immigration and working, to the extent that we can, with the Legislature. We also try to work on Catholic education.

Toups arrives from Florida. DiNardo said he looks forward to getting to know the new bishop better and to working with him.

One area the Galveston-Houston archdiocese and the Diocese of Beaumont must collaborate on is hurricane preparedness, DiNardo said.

He said he admires the regions resiliency in that regard.

Beaumont has been hit so much, he said. They come back from things and are building again so fast.

chris.moore@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/chris_moore09
The Trump administration on Thursday formally notified the United Nations of its demand for all UN sanctions on Iran to be restored, citing significant Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the notification to the president of the UN Security Council, setting the stage for a showdown in the world body that could lead to a crisis of credibility for its most important and powerful institution. Even before Pompeo presented the council president with the notice, other members rejected the step.

None of the other council members believe the US has the legal right to demand the re-imposition, or "snapback," of sanctions because President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018.As such, the demand is expected to further isolate the US at the UN and test the Security Council's credibility. In a letter presented to Indonesia's ambassador to the UN, Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the council, Pompeo said the US was notifying the body of "significant non-performance" by Iran related to the nuclear deal. As a result, Pompeo said the process leading to the re-imposition of UN sanctions had been initiated.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has reported some Iranian violations of the agreement, but Tehran says those are the result of the US violating the accord by withdrawing from it and then re-imposing harsh unilateral sanctions. Pompeo noted that the European participants in the deal had attempted to bring Iran back into compliance. But he said "despite extensive efforts and exhaustive diplomacy on the part of those member states, Iran's significant non-performance persists."

"As a result, the United States is left with no choice but to notify the council that Iran is in significant non-performance of its JCPOA commitments," Pompeo wrote, using the acronym for the deal's formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Pompeo's letter was accompanied by a six-page explanation of why the US believes it retains the right to invoke snapback, a mechanism afforded to participants in the nuclear accord by the Security Council resolution that enshrined the deal.

The U.S. maintains that its withdrawal from the nuclear deal does not obviate its right as an original participant and a permanent Security Council member to demand the restoration of sanctions. That argument, however, has already been rejected by the other members of the council, including U.S. allies Britain and France, along with China and Russia.

"We do not take it that they have the legal right or the reason to initiate this thing," the Russian ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said Thursday before Pompeo's notification. "So, of course, we will challenge it." China has said it agrees with the Russian position, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told U.N. chief Antonio Guterres in a Thursday phone call that the Security Council must resist the U.S. demand.

"This would have dangerous consequences for international law, it will bring nothing but the destruction of international mechanisms and it will discredit the Security Council," Zarif said. Under the terms of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal, Thursday's notification starts a 30-day clock after which pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran that were eased will be re-imposed unless a resolution specifically extending their suspension is passed. The U.S., however, would use its veto power to block any resolution extending the sanctions relief. Because of the legal debate over U.S. standing, it is possible that the snapback demand will simply be ignored by the other members, which could call into question the Security Council's relevance and ability to enforce its own legally binding decisions.

Trump and Pompeo had made no secret of their intention to pursue snapback, particularly after the administration's embarrassing defeat last week at the Security Council on extending the arms embargo on Iran that expires in October. The U.S. won just one other "yes" vote, with China and Russia opposed and the 11 other members abstaining. As with the arms embargo, Russia and China bitterly oppose reimposing other U.N. sanctions on Iran. So do U.S. allies Britain and France, which are hoping to preserve the nuclear deal in the event Trump loses his bid for a second term in November's presidential election. Democratic Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.

The Europeans fear that the reimposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons. The Trump administration says it withdrew precisely because it eased sanctions, opening major revenue streams for Iran while gradually easing restrictions on its nuclear activities that money could pay for.

Also read: China, US agree to hold trade talks in 'coming days': Chinese commerce ministry

Also read: Iran holds military drill near UAE airbase where Indian Rafales are on halt
Opposition leader calls for boycott of 2018 vote after poll committee cites his fraud conviction to hand down ruling.

The Russian election committee has barred opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in the 2018 presidential elections.

In a unanimous 12-0 ruling with one person abstaining, the committee cited a conviction for fraud as the reason Navalny could not take part as a presidential candidate.

Directly after Mondays decision, Navalny called for a boycott of the March elections.

We are declaring a strike by voters. We will ask everyone to boycott these elections. We will not recognise the result, he said.

In a pre-recorded message, released shortly after the election committee made its ruling public, Navalny, 41, also criticised current president Vladimir Putin.

Only Putin and the candidates he has handpicked are taking part in it.

Going to the polls right now is to vote for lies and corruption, Navalny said in the recording.

{articleGUID}

Vladimir Putin, who has been in power since 1999, announced earlier this month he intends to run for another six-year term.

On Sunday, at a rally in front of about 750 supporters, Navalny called out Putin publicly.

Its you, Vladimir Putin, who turned this country into a source of personal enrichment for yourself, your family and your friends. Its why you shouldnt be president any more, its why youre a bad president, Navalny told the crowd that had gathered on a river bank on the outskirts of Moscow.

A staunch Kremlin critic, Navalny rose to prominence in Russian politics in 2008.

{articleGUID}

He started blogging about alleged corruption at some of Russias large, state-controlled corporations, using social media to reach out to predominantly young followers.

Navalny was the driving force behind massive anti-Putin protests in 2011 and 2012, rallying tens of thousands of people across the country.

In 2013, he was first sentenced on embezzlement charges, after being accused of defrauding the Kirov regional budget of about $270,000.

The European Court of Human Rights last year quashed the ruling.

As a result, Russias Supreme Court ordered a retrial.

Last February, in a retrial of the 2013 case, Kirov city court handed down a five-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of about $8,500 to Navalny.

Navalny has always maintained that the conviction was politically motivated.
Highlights:

Revenue and underlying EBITDA more than 10% higher than last year

Order book remains healthy at  2.0 billion

Strong cash position, credit facility unused

Home sales comparable with 2019

Impact Covid-19 effectively absorbed in H1, uncertain impact in the medium term

Expected revenue, underlying EBITDA in 2020 at least equal to 2019

Ton Hillen, Chairman of the Executive Board/CEO Heijmans:

"Over the past few years, Heijmans has made a number of changes and made some critical choices, thanks to which the company is now in good shape. Our efforts and our change of course are now paying off. Thanks to the efforts of all our employees on our project sites or working from home, we have managed to deliver a solid performance in the first half of 2020. Revenues were higher than in the same period last year, while underlying EBITDA has also improved.



Of course, the Covid-19 outbreak has affected us too, in particular because it has been more difficult to obtain materials and labour from outside the Netherlands. This has been particularly evident in the finishing phase of non-residential projects. However, no projects came to a halt, and one way or another we also managed to arrange the availability of people and materials. Nevertheless, the impact of the virus on our business operations remains uncertain. Our medium-term prospects will depend on the speed of economic recovery. Despite all the market challenges, we have a well-filled order book and I am confident about the future."

About Heijmans

Everyone wants clean air, to live in a nice neighbourhood, to work in a good workplace and to be able to travel safely from A to B. By making things better, more sustainable and smarter, Heijmans is creating that healthy living environment. Jan Heijmans started as a road builder in 1923. Today, Heijmans is a stock exchange-listed company that combines activities in property development, building & technology and infrastructure. In addition to this, we work safely and we add value to the places where we are active. This is how we build the spatial contours of tomorrow together with our clients: www.heijmans.nl/en/

For more information / not for publication:





Media

Jeroen van den Berk

Spokesman

+31 73 543 52 17

jberk@heijmans.nl

Analysts

Guido Peters

Investor Relations

+ 31 73 543 52 17

gpeters@heijmans.nl

Attachment
(Newser)  Getting a university grant sometimes requires an extraordinary amount of work. In this case, not so much. The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany, is handing out three "idleness grants" of $1,900 each, reports UPI. The name is accurate: The university will pay four people to do nothing. And to get the grants, participants must make the case that their particular version of nothing is worth it. Doing nothing isnt very easy, Friedrich von Borries, an architect and design theorist behind the program, tells the Guardian. We want to focus on active inactivity. If you say you are not going to move for a week, then thats impressive. If you propose you are not going to move or think, that might be even better.

story continues below

The bigger picture behind the program is this: to examine the idea that refraining from specific actions can reduce the negative consequences we have on the lives of others. Those interested have until September 15 to submit applications in which they will try to sway judges with their answers to four questions, per the Guardian: "What do you not want to do? For how long do you not want to do it? Why is it important not to do this thing in particular? Why are you the right person not to do it?" (Read more strange stuff stories.)
Since March AstraZeneca has inked three significant deals with some lesser lights of the drugs sector quoted on the LSEs alternative investment market.

Remember, the Anglo-Swedish giant, which is now the FTSE 100s largest company, has one of the industrys most productive drugs pipelines and is noted for some innovative industry collaborations.

Its interest in AIM started with an out-licensing agreement with Silence Therapeutics worth up to 303million per disease area in commercial development milestones and tiered royalty payments.

Deals: Since March AstraZeneca has inked three significant deals with some lesser lights of the drugs sector quoted on the LSEs alternative investment market

This came coupled with an upfront payment and equity investment of 61million that means the gene silencing specialist wont have to worry about its bank balance for many years.

RedX Pharma was the next to feel the AZ love with a transaction like Silences, but worth slightly less at 283million (plus a 13million down-payment).

RedX shares are up more than 400 per cent in the year to date at 38p, while Silence has enjoyed a rather more modest 27 per cent uplift in that time to 456p.

Friday saw the drug giant deepen its association with AIM after striking a collaboration with artificial intelligence-driven diagnostics specialist, RenalytixAI, whose stock shot up 14 per cent to 645p.

The pair will work on precision medicine strategies for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases.

AZ also has longer-standing ties with Hutchison China MediTech, one of AIMs largest companies, and Circassia Group, the asthma management specialist, where it is the largest investor.

Turning to the wider market, the AIM All Share was more or less flat this week at 956 points, which meant it outperformed significantly the top stocks benchmark, with the FTSE 100 down almost 1.5 per cent in that period.

Sticking with the AIM winners, it was another stellar week for 7Digital, which rocketed 180 per cent higher to 3.21p.

So hot has the stock been recently that a 1,000 investment a month ago would be worth 13,600. The springboard for this weeks movement was a music deal with an unnamed tech giant.

Before looking at the weeks losers, worth an honourable mention is HC Slingsby, up 79 per cent to 220p after reporting bumper demand for its industrial equipment.

But down 24.5 per cent at 13.9p this week was Europa Metals, though this was purely technical after the company raised 2million of new cash to do something positive  to fund the completion of key components of a pre-feasibility study for its Toral lead-zinc-silver project in Spain.

Europas was one of a number of fundraisers on AIM over the week that included share placings by Active Energy, Equatorial Palm Oil, Immedia, Eurasia Mining and One Media IP.

Digital rights specialist One Medias 6million funder stood out as it was heavily over-subscribed, suggesting there is still plenty of cash out there for companies with interesting ways in which to deploy those funds.

CEO Michael Infante and his team are investing heavily in Harmony iP, which borrows from the equity release plans that dominate the ad slots on daytime TV.

Rather than acquiring whole music catalogues, Harmony has set itself up buy between 10 per cent and 30 per cent valued on a multiple of the income the music generates. The shares ended the week down 9 per cent at 6.75p.

'The level of demand for the lacing reflects the confidence existing and incoming investors have in One Medias Harmony iP model and the ongoing strategy to capitalise on a market benefiting from significant tailwinds,' said Infante.

Eurasias institutional cash call was another that garnered a great deal of interest  so much so the miner was able to raise 7.6million without having to discount the price of the new shares.

The funds will be used to ramp up production of palladium, platinum, rhodium, iridium and gold at the Urals mine it owns in the Urals region of Russia.
(Photo : (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)) NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 13: Signage for the CBS Broadcast Center is displayed outside the building on August 13, 2019 in New York City. Following years of on-and-off talks and negotiations, CBS and Viacom have agreed to merge. The new company will be called ViacomCBS, and Viacom CEO Bob Bakish will be the CEO of the new combined company. (Photo : Unsplash)

Apple TV+ is gearing up to be the next big streamer of television video and movie content with its new launch that offers a massive discount with CBS All Access bundles for their subscribers.

The Streamable shares that Apple's bundle for new premium content is offered at an "insanely" lower price than television cable providers. The company's premium TV+ package will include streams from ViacomCBS' CBS All Access and Showtime.

Subscribers who will supposedly pay a combined $25.67 is offered an enormous price slash of just $9.99 for all subscriptions. Currently, Apple TV+ subscription is solely offered at $4.99, CBS All Access $9.99, and Showtime with $10.99 monthly.

This new "insane" bundle by Apple offering monthly content from both networks only priced at $9.99, having a whopping discount of $16. The offer is discounted at around 61.5 percent that bundled with three separate subscriptions, all-in-one.

Apple TV+ launched this discounted bundle just last week, in collaboration with ViacomCBS, a multinational mass media company responsible for bringing film and television series in their channels. Subscribers are also entitled to have full access to Apple Originals currently on their platform and an ad-free CBS All Access recently relaunched by the company.

ALSO READ: How to remove iCloud Activation Lock or iPhone Screen without Passcode

Apple TV+ massive bargain

Apple TV+ has been around for quite some time but has not exactly made noise in the sidelines. Streaming was recently popular, and the entry of the COVID-19 pandemic made the business a huge success.

Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services campaigns of the company's new offer, saying that it is bundled at a great value with the best of both Apple TV content and CBS.

The technology company's plans are not entirely clear because of the limited releases that they share with the public. However, this move by Apple may be perceived as their gateway to the streaming business that is skyrocketing in sales and offering a premium cable box experience.

Streaming Statistics and where Apple takes its place

Variety focused on Apple's bundle and broke it down with the use of statistics and information surrounding the new service of the company. They attributed this move by Apple to understanding that economic hardship is experienced by many of the subscribers. The dilemma of having lots of streaming hours but lacks in paying for those.

In a survey by YouGov with Variety, the public was asked to answer which streaming platforms have they used during July. Netflix topped the result with 52 percent, with Amazon Prime Video in the second place amassing 36 percent. In this survey, Apple TV+ received only six percent of the US' video streaming audience. Apple's entry with ViacomCBS' All Access and Showtime is said to potentially attract customers with their massively low monthly price with all of the bundled content to offer.

ViacomCBS' relaunch

CBS All Access is a relaunch of the company aiming to provide ViacomCBS' content in a premium new addition to the previous cable. CBS All Access is now being offered in the digital platform that will feature its most popular releases with Star Trek: Discovery and The Stand.

The relaunch of the CBS All Access is not an "all access" opportunity to get Showtime, BET+, and Noggin all-in-one, as these platforms will still be standalone.

On the other hand, Apple TV+ received both subscriptions from ViacomCBS and offered it on their streaming platform at a massive price slash of $9.99. New users are also entitled to receive the 7-day free trial for the subscription that seems to be an extension to the monthly plan.

Dive into the latest series and films on Apple TV+. https://t.co/dlDpiNLaG3 pic.twitter.com/kz5CULWRba  Apple TV (@AppleTV) July 18, 2020

ALSO READ: Elon Musk Wants Tesla Cars Play Elevator Music Including 'Snake Jazz' From Rick and Morty

This article is owned by Tech Times





Written by Isaiah Alonzo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After an air ambulance was dispatched to fly seriously ill Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny to Germany, his spokesperson said that he could not be moved, as his condition was "unstable".

Navalny was battling for his life in a Siberian hospital on Friday. A 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who is among President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, was hospitalised in the city of Omsk after he lost consciousness while on a flight and his plane made an emergency landing.

"The doctors are really working now on saving his life," the hospital's deputy head doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko told journalists in Omsk.

Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said he was on a ventilator in a coma and his condition was serious but stable.

"Alexei has toxic poisoning," Yarmysh wrote on Twitter, describing how he was taken ill during the flight from the city of Tomsk to Moscow.

The hospital has not released any diagnosis while the regional health ministry said Navalny's coma was not medically induced.

An air ambulance left Nuremberg early Friday to collect Navalny after Chancellor Angela Merkel extended an offer of treatment, German media reported.

"I hope that he can recover and... he can receive from us all the help and medical support needed," Merkel said in a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Navalny's team had said earlier that the hospital in Omsk was ill-equipped and his doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva said she had asked for the Kremlin's help to transfer him to a European clinic.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov wished Navalny a "speedy recovery" after pledging Kremlin help to secure him treatment abroad if needed.

Peskov said claims of poisoning were "only assumptions" until tests proved otherwise.

Yarmysh claimed Putin was responsible for poisoning Navalny, saying: "Whether or not he gave the order personally, the blame lies with him."

'Something in his tea'

Navalny's wife Yulia travelled to visit him in the city about 2,200 kilometres (1,400 miles) east of Moscow.

Yarmysh said police and investigators had also arrived and journalists reported seeing FSB security service agents at the hospital.

"We think that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed in his tea. That was the only thing he drank in the morning," Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.

She told the Echo of Moscow radio station that she was "sure it was intentional poisoning".

State news agency TASS cited a sceptical response from a law enforcement source.

"We can't rule out that he drank or took something himself yesterday," the source said, a claim Yarmysh dismissed as "complete rubbish".

She said that Navalny seemed "absolutely fine" when they went to Tomsk airport.

"Straight after take-off he quite quickly lost consciousness."

Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said that Navalny had "hundreds of enemies including some hardened individuals", pointing to his anti-corruption investigations that attract millions of views online.

Amnesty International urged Russia to hold a "prompt and independent investigation" into the incident while European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said "those responsible must be held to account" if the suspected poisoning was confirmed.

Muscovites said they suspected Navalny was poisoned over his political views.

"I think this is a deliberate attempt on his life because he has fought so fiercely with the government lately," said 18-year-old student Yaroslav Lyangasov.

Previous attacks

Navalny has suffered physical attacks in the past, including a 2017 incident where he endured chemical burns to his eye after green dye was splashed on his face.

Last year Navalny said he suspected poisoning when he suffered rashes and his face became swollen while serving a short jail term after calling for illegal protests.

A charismatic lawyer and whistleblower, Navalny has been travelling the country to promote a tactical voting strategy to oppose pro-Putin candidates in regional elections in September.

Navalny went to Siberia to help opposition candidates.

He has been the target of multiple criminal probes and spent numerous stretches in police cells for organising illegal protests, while his Anti-Corruption Foundation is regularly raided by police and investigators.

Thursday's incident follows several infamous poisonings of Kremlin critics in the past.

Britain named two Russian spies as suspects after Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in the city of Salisbury in March 2018.

Former Russian security service agent Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium in a cup of tea in London. Russia refused to extradite chief suspect Andrei Lugovoi, who became a nationalist MP after the 2006 attack.

Several other opposition figures have suffered severe illnesses in Russia that they blamed on poisoning.
Landlords who didnt receive rent or reduced payments amid the coronavirus pandemic can now apply to a federally-funded grant program , as long as they forgive outstanding rent and fees.

The Small Landlord Emergency Grant Program opened Wednesday to owners of residential properties in New Jersey with three to 10 rental units who werent paid full rent between April and July due to COVID-19, according to the New Jersey Mortgage and Finance Agency, which is overseeing the program.

Winners will be randomly chosen via computer for a chance at the $25 million bucket, which came from the CARES Act. The grant amount will vary depending on number of rental units for low- and moderate-income tenants, and how much income was lost.

There is no cap on the amount of aid the landlords can receive from the program. But properties cannot be seasonal or vacation rentals. And landlords will not have to pay money back unless the state finds falsified information.

Applications, which can be found here or at nj.gov/dca/hmfa, will be accepted through Aug. 26 at 1 p.m. The review process is expected to start Aug. 27, and winners will be posted on the website. Tenants will also relieve letters if their landlords are selected.

Because the grant will cover any outstanding rent payments, landlords must forgive any back rent and late fees accrued since April.

Thousands have struggled to make rent payments in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which saw nearly 1.5 million New Jersey workers filing for unemployment benefits and businesses across the state closed for months to curb the spread of the virus.

When tenants are unable to pay their rent, landlords are unable to pay their mortgages, increasing the risk of foreclosure and eviction. While the SLEG program is outside of our usual scope of work, our team developed the grant, as well as a suite of resources to assist applicants, with one clear goal in mindthat no New Jersey family should be without a home in the middle of a global pandemic, said Charles Richman, executive director of New Jersey Housing Mortgage and Finance Agency.

Roughly 35% of New Jersey residents are renters, and about 1 in 3 renters live in buildings with three to 10 units.

And about 25% of renters didnt pay their rent in June, up from 12% in April, according to the housing agency overseeing the program.

Given the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 emergency, both landlords and tenants across this country are facing prolonged economic hardship. With reports that New Jersey is leading the nation with a 20% delinquency rate for Federal Housing Administration mortgages and an 11% rate in late payments, make no mistake, we are in a crisis, Richman said.

Gov. Phil Murphy froze rent for 36,000 low- and moderate income renters and enacted a moratorium on lockouts during the pandemic for up to 60 days after the end of the public health emergency, commonly referred to as the eviction moratorium.

But landlords have continued to file eviction notices, with more than 15,000 filed between April and June, according to court statistics. Advocates warn that number is expected to multiply in months, and that eviction filings could increase as much as 600% in the next four months.

The lack of payments hurt landlords, who in turn have less money to pay for mortgages and upkeep of their property.

We know that by assisting small landlords we are helping to secure quality rental housing by protecting their investment in the maintenance of their properties. Many of these smaller buildings arent just personal investments for their owners, theyre also investments in neighborhoods in communities, Murphy said while announcing the initiative.

This is the second round of rental program the state is overseeing, following a high-demand $100 million rental relief fund received more than 60,000 applications in July  about 8,000 renters made the cut in a pre-selection process.

Another form of mortgage and rental aid could come in the form of legislation referred to as The Peoples Bill, which would allow mortgage lenders to delay payments until 60 days after the public health emergency, and give tenants time to agree to a rent repayment plan for missed rent.

However, the two chambers of the state Legislature passed different versions of the bill. Its unclear what the final piece of legislation will be.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

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Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz.

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YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. President Armen Sarkissian has formalized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans recommendation on bestowing 199 servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces with state awards.

The servicemen were awarded for valor, selflessness and courage in battles for defending the country.

With the same order, the President officially bestowed Captain Ruben Sanamyan with the Order of the Fatherland and the National Hero of Armenia title.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
The CBI on Friday formally launched their probe into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. Within the first few hours the federal team collected the late actor's diary, laptop and mobile phone among other crucial documents, and sources said they have now set off to collect the close circuit television camera (CCTV) footage from the Bandra flat where Sushant was found dead.

The central agency will examine if the camera recording was "tampered" with on the day of the 34-year-old actor's death (June 14) or if there were any "technical glitches". Top CBI sources said that the agency will collect the CCTV footage and examine all the people who arrived there before his death.

The CBI team will also collect the CCTV's DVR and send it for forensic examination. The source said that the agency will examine if the CCTV was working on the day of the actor's death or if it was switched off by someone intentionally.

The source further disclosed that the agency will also communicate with the company which installed the CCTV cameras and the company which carried out the maintenance of the CCTV cameras.

"If required, the CBI will record the statement of the CCTV camera company and the maintenance company," the source added.

The source further said that the agency will also study the call detail record of at least one week of the building area before Sushant's death. "The CDR of every person whose numbers were active in the building area will be examined and they will be studied by the CBI," the source said.

The team of CBI's SIT officials arrived in Mumbai from Delhi on Thursday evening along with the forensic team to probe the death of the late actor, after it got the nod from the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Earlier on Friday, the CBI team met the Mumbai Police officials and collected all the documents pertaining to the death of Sushant and also his diaries seized from his Bandra flat and Lonavala farmhouse, mobile phone and laptop.

The CBI team also collected photographs of the crime scene, autopsy report and the statement of 56 people recorded in last two months from the laptop of the Mumbai Police, the source said.

The CBI team also recorded the statement of Sushant's cook Neeraj and his former servant Dipesh Sawant earlier in the day. The source said that the agency is also questioning Sushant's flatmate Samuel Miranda.

The federal agency is planning to question several others named in the CBI FIR registered on August 6 after it got the nod from the central government on the recommendation from Bihar government following an FIR lodged by Sushant's father K.K. Singh at Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station.

The case was registered against Rhea Chakraborty, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's ex-manager Shruti Modi and flatmate Samuel Miranda and unknown persons on the basis of Sushant's father K.K. Singh's complaint filed on July 25.
Former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon was back on the air on his internet radio show Friday just hours after being hauled away in handcuffs aboard a mega-yacht owned by a Chinese billionaire.

Bannon was arrested Thursday as part of an alleged fraud scheme to defraud hundreds and thousands of donors to the 'We Build the Wall' campaign and get funds for Bannon and others that they used for personal expenses totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But he certainly wasn't keeping his head down Friday, appearing on his radio show and blasting his prosecution as a 'hit job'  a term President Trump has used to disparage the Mueller probe.

'This fiasco is a total political hit job,' he said at the top of his show.

'I am not going to back down. This is a political hit job.'Everybody knows I love a fight,' he said on his 'War Room' program.

Former Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon called his arrest Thursday a 'political hit job,' and vowed to fight prosecutors. He conducted his podcast Friday just hours after his release on $5 million bond

He even referenced an early Internet meme about the tenacious honey badger to describe his will to fight.

'I was called 'honey badger' for many years. You know, 'Honey badger doesn't give.' So, I'm in this for the long haul. I'm in this for the fight,' he said. 'I'm going to continue to fight.

He tied himself to the border wall  a top political cause of President Trump's that bannon helped elevate as a key campaign advisor.

'This was to stop and intimidate people that want to talk about the wall,' he said.

He called Brian Kolfage  an Iraq vet who headed the fundraising effort and also was indicted Thursday in Florida, 'an American hero.'

Bannon referenced Trump's recent comments where the president distanced himself from Bannon. He said Trump was right that 'building the wall is a government function.'

A red 'Make Families Great Again' hat, similar to MAGA hats worn by Trump supporters, could be seen in the background of his show, which broadcasts from a townhouse in Washington, D.C.

Bannon said his focus has been the 'sovereignty of the Chinese people.'

Early in the program, Bannon also pointed out when he was released from his hearing there were flags from the 'Federal State of New China'  an exile government being proclaimed by the Chinese billionaire who was hosting Bannon during his arrest.

The "Lady May" yacht, where former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was arrested for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, is seen underway in the Long Island Sound near Westbrook, Connecticut

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon listens during his arraignment hearing for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering inside Manhattan Federal Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. August 20, 2020

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon leaves U.S. District Court - Southern District of New York located at 500 Pearl Street in New York City after he was arraigned for alleged scheme to defraud the non-profit on August 20, 2020. Three other men, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, were also arrested in this alleged scheme to defraud the non-profit, which authorities said raised more than $25 million

'They had all those flags there. That's the flag of the New Federal State. It was incredible,' Bannon told listeners.

Bannon was arrested aboard the 150-foot yacht owned by Guo Wengui, a fugitive Chinese billionaire.

Chinese authorities have accused Guo of fraud. He has been pictured with Bannon aboard the megayacht, and this summer they were behind an effort to declare a new 'Federal State of New China' that flew flags towed by planes around New York Harbor.

According to the Associated press, Guo paid $68 million in 2015 for his 9,000 square foot apartment overlooking Central Park and joined Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach.

In a livestream, Guo said with Bannon alongside him: 'From today the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will no longer be the lawful government of China' in July.

Forbes estimated Guo's wealth at $1.1 billion in 2015. He has frequently irked Chinese authorities with his public statements.

Bannon was released after putting up $5 million bail, secured by $1.75 million in assets.

Magistrate Judge Stewart Aaron approved Bannon's release. Two 'financially responsible' co-signers will have to guarantee his bail and he was ordered to surrender his passport and is banned from traveling outside Washington D.C. or contacting his co-defendants without permission. He was specifically banned from private planes and yachts.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have accused Bannon and others defrauding hundreds of thousands of people as part of a group pledging to use private donations to build a section of border wall.'

The We Build The Wall scheme raised $25 million to fund its own barriers in Texas and New Mexico, some of which have been built. The group's online appeal for funds included a picture of President Trump and a stamp that said 'Trump Approved.'

But prosecutors say it was a scam: donors' cash was also funneled to its founder Brian Kolfage and to Bannon.

He claimed he did not get a cent from the scheme but instead got $100,000 up front and $20,000 a month salary, prosecutors allege, living a lavish lifestyle at Miramar Beach in the Florida panhandle.

Kolfage, an Iraq war veteran who had both legs amputated and lost his right arm in a rocket attack, was arrested at his home in Florida.
An assistant police inspector (API) of Mumbai Police was suspended on Wednesday after an investigation found him guilty of cheating and forgery in a first information report (FIR) registered against him and two others at Azad Maidan police station.

Also read: Cop suspended for misbehaving with locals

API Vilas Vasant Sutar is suspended after an FIR was registered against him at Azad Maidan police station, said S Jaykumar, additional commissioner of police (ACP), local arms (LA), Mumbai Police.

An FIR was registered by Irphan Mogul, a resident of Mumbais Vile Parle, against his former wife, her lawyer and API Sutar for allegedly fraudulently obtaining his bank account statement in connection with a pending maintenance case.

Sutar had obtained Moguls bank documents in a fraudulent manner, the FIR had alleged.

Earlier, the family court at Bandra had granted maintenance only to the two children of Mogul and denied such relief to his former wife.

Moguls former wife challenged the family courts decision in Bombay high court (HC) last year, and in February she also filed an affidavit that disclosed her husbands income. The affidavit contained Moguls bank account details.

Mogul questioned his bank on how they had shared his personal details to a stranger without his knowledge. Bank officials informed him that API Sutar had allegedly visited their branch in Fort on August 16, 2019, and sought account details saying that he was investigating a fraud case registered against him at Agripada police station, said a police official requesting anonymity.

Later, Mogul filed a right to information (RTI) petition to ascertain whether Agripada police station authorities were investigating any case against him.

Mogul filed the complaint under sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) 420 (cheating) 465 (punishment for forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will) 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 120-B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against his wife, her advocate and API Sutar at Azad Maidan police station after he found that no case was registered against him at Agripada police station.

A departmental probe was initiated against API Sutar following Moguls complaint. The investigation found him guilty, which led to his suspension from Mumbai Polices Worli unit of LA department.

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South Africa: No load shedding forecast for the weekend

[Read] President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as the African Union (AU) Chairperson, has assured African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretary General, Wamkele Mene, of his unwavering support in the execution of his duties to promote the AfCFTA tinyurl.com/y5uzhwxa

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 17:09:57|Editor: huaxia

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The Capitol and a stop sign are seen in Washington D.C., the United States, on Feb. 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

- The world's sole superpower has an unshirkable responsibility to join the rest of the world in making positive contributions to the world's nuclear non-proliferation cause

- But the current U.S. administration has unilaterally pulled out of the hard-won nuclear deal, regardless of strong opposition from other signatories and the fact that Tehran has abided by the accord all along

- Washington's obsession with bullying others will further isolate itself

by Xinhua writer Jiang Li

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Washington, in an attempt to invoke the "snapback" mechanism of the Iran nuclear deal, formally notified the United Nations on Thursday of its demand for restoring all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Tehran.

The White House's latest move defies global consensus on the Iranian nuclear issue, and has once again exposed its nature of a bullying superpower which willfully does whatever it deems fit.

"The U.S. demand has no legal ground and common sense. It is nothing but a political show staged by the United States," a spokesperson of China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said on Thursday.

Signs are seen during a rally against war with Iran outside the Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, Jan. 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

As the world's sole superpower, the United States has an unshirkable responsibility to join the rest of the world in making positive contributions to the world's nuclear non-proliferation cause. Yet the current U.S. administration has unilaterally pulled out of the hard-won nuclear deal, regardless of strong opposition from other signatories and the fact that Tehran has abided by the accord all along.

Washington's capricious moves have not only taken a toll on the common aspiration for a world free from nuclear threats, but also greatly widened America's credibility deficits on the world stage. Yet it seems those decision-makers in Washington do not care.

Washington has already departed from the pact, yet it is shameless and reckless enough to declare that it still enjoys all the rights endowed by the deal, and demand other nations impose punitive measures on Iran, all under the excuse of "standing as an original participant in the accord."

People attend a rally against war with Iran outside the Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, Jan. 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Washington has also tried to extend its arms embargo against Iran, which is set to expire on Oct. 18, and was rejected by the UN Security Council last Friday. It went further to try to coerce other countries into following its footsteps to throw sanctions on Iran with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowing recently to sanction whoever stands in the way.

In response, China's foreign ministry's spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the United States should "earnestly observe Security Council resolutions, fulfill its international obligations, heed the concerns of the international community and respect other countries' legal rights and interests."

In this world of growing global interconnectedness, the best way to protect one country's major interests is to help preserve everyone's shared interests, and the most viable path to dealing with global security challenges such as the Iranian nuclear issue is through broad international collaboration.

Washington's obsession with bullying others with its seemingly unmatched power will only make matters worse and further isolate itself in the international community. 
Since the order, and even for a time just prior to its writing, Chicago cops have repeatedly blocked protesters access to the block with groups of officers and barricades. Police have often kept protesters contained at the nearby corner of Kimball and Wrightwood avenues, though one standoff between activists and officers last month saw police go as far as bringing in an armored vehicle in case things got out of hand.
CLIMAX, MI  A crash blocked all lanes of traffic on eastbound Interstate 94 near Climax, the Michigan Department of Transportation reports.

The crash happened at 10:09 a.m. near exit 88, MDOT said. A MDOT traffic camera shows emergency vehicles at the location, and congestion as cars appear to move around the crash on the shoulder.

Read more:

Michigan claims PFAS makers concealed firefighting foam danger in new lawsuits

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Shooting in Kalamazoos Northside leaves one person hospitalized, police say
Payroc has demonstrated strong performance through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, said Kevin Hodges, Payrocs CFO, I look forward to working with the entire Payroc team to build on the companys momentum and positioning as a strong leader in the payments industry.

Payroc, a leading merchant acquirer and global payment processing organization, today announced the appointment of Kevin Hodges as Chief Financial Officer. Based in Payrocs Atlanta office, Mr. Hodges will serve as the leader for Payrocs expanding financial team and brings to Payroc his significant public and private company experience in leading and integrating strategic acquisitions, raising debt and equity capital, and transforming financial organizations.

We are thrilled to welcome Kevin to the Payroc family, said Payrocs CEO & President, James Oberman. His experience will add significant capability, sophistication and strength to our executive team. Hes proven his skills at the highest quality companies and is well respected within the industry.

Payroc has demonstrated strong performance through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, said Kevin Hodges, Payrocs CFO, and I am excited to join its outstanding leadership team in the CFO role. I look forward to working with the entire Payroc team to build on the companys momentum and positioning as a strong leader in the payments industry.

Prior to joining Payroc, Hodges served as a member of the executive team at EVO Payments where he served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before joining EVO, Hodges held various senior leadership positions at Global Payments Inc.

About Payroc

Payroc and its affiliates, with offices in Chicagoland, Atlanta, Toronto, Whitefish, Montana and Salt Lake City is a high-growth North American, Canadian and international merchant acquirer, processor and payment facilitator powerhouse operating in 46 countries, processing over $29 billion in annualized volume for more than 66,000 merchants. Payroc offers best-in-class sales enablement and merchant processing technology on a global basis, delivering proprietary, innovative and full-service merchant acquiring solutions together with key card brand network payment sponsorship registrations. Payroc LLC, together with its wholly-owned affiliate Payroc Processing Systems, LLC, is a registered Visa third party processor (TPP), Mastercard third party servicer (TPSV), payment facilitator and encryption support organization (ESO) for Fifth Third Bank, an Ohio-chartered bank, Cincinnati, Ohio (Fifth Third). Payroc LLC is a registered independent sales organization (ISO/MSP) for Fifth Third and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Concord, California (Wells). NxGen, one of Payrocs companies, is an Elavon payments partner and registered as an ISO/MSP of Elavon, Inc., Georgia, a wholly owned subsidiary of US Bank Minneapolis. The companys Canadian business unit is a registered ISO/MSP of Wells and Peoples Trust Company, Vancouver, Canada. For more information, please visit payroc.com.


Governor Bullock has issued another edict. This time, its taking away your right to choose how you vote in the November general election.

While I didnt publicly oppose an all-mail ballot for the June primary election, it was a different time  we were still evaluating the Coronavirus and its effect on Montana. Today, doctors have improved treatment and thousands of businesses across Montana have been able to operate by taking precautions to keep their customers safe. Surely, if you can safely go to the store to buy groceries you should be able to safely vote in person if you desire. If not, you have the option of voting with an absentee ballot. Yet, the Governor wants an all-mail election.

What concerns me, and should concern all of us, is the inherent conflict of interest of the Governor being on the ballot this November while simultaneously suspending election rules and rewriting them. The Governor should be removed from any decisions regarding Novembers election, but as weve seen, hes already set the wheels in motion.

There are claims that we cant get enough people to serve as election judges, yet thousands of employees go to work each day serving the public. Why dont we offer increased compensation to election judges from Montanas COVID-19 $1.25 billion relief pot? Plenty of individuals would be willing to work. But we know this is a long-shot with Governor Bullock, who continues to keep $1 billion safe under his desk ready to disburse to a worthy cause to help him get elected. Meanwhile, thousands of businesses and families continue to suffer due to his commands  commands which have been made without consulting the legislature.

Governor Bullock has always spoken publicly about his bipartisan record in Montana, but those of us involved know thats only the case because the Republican legislature held him back from his true liberal agenda. During this difficult time in Montana, Bullock has failed to meaningfully work with anyone in the legislature  Democrat or Republican. He has also dictated to the people of Montana without consulting Montanas elected statewide officials, like our Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Auditor, and Secretary of State.

Ironically  on the all-mail ballots  he told press that he would consult with the legislature on the decision. Conveniently, that happens to be required by the U.S. Constitution, where our founders made clear that all election rules shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof. Nevertheless, I didnt receive a call, email or text. Why, you might ask? He doesnt think he needs tothe U.S. Constitution is optional when you are Steve Bullock. State law gives our Governor specific disaster-related powers during short-term emergencies, but that has no bearing on Montanans fundamental right to vote. Leaders bring people together  especially those who might disagree with them  to make sure the best decisions are made for all of Montana. That has unfortunately not been the case for the duration of this pandemic.

But this is the Steve Bullock that many of us have gotten to know while watching him operate in Helena over the last 12 years. He and his loyalists have done their best to keep the corruption, fraud, intimidation, and scandals of the administration behind closed doors. However, we know that he has paid out record millions of dollars in state employee settlements without disclosing what the settlements are about and requiring employees to sign non-disclosure agreements. We also know that one of our most qualified Lieutenant Governors, Angela McClain, was forced out of the Bullock administration for unknown reasons. Weve all heard the rumors, yet the former Lieutenant Governor has remained silent. Perhaps its time for the former Lieutenant Governor and the many terminated state employees to tell us about all that Steve Bullock is hiding.

After telling us time and time again that he didnt want to run for the U.S. Senate because he didnt want the job, New York Senator Chuck Schumer flies into Montana and magically Bullock reverses course. What did the liberal New York Senator promise Bullock? Nobody will ever know; however, we do know that it will come with a price that will not benefit Montana, but the liberal agenda of Democrat party bosses.

Even during this difficult time, there must be a check on Steve Bullocks power. He continues to make unilateral decisions during an election year which invites outside factors to influence the decisions he makes, increasing the likelihood that they are not best for the people of Montana.

It is time to send the truly liberal Steve Bullock home for good before he is allowed to expand the D.C. swamp. Those who truly know Bullocks misdeeds in Montana should speak up before we create another lifelong liberal politician with an attitude of doing anything to get elected.

Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, represents House District 12 in the Montana Legislature and is Speaker of the House.

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Two young toddler brothers died on Saturday after they crawled into a blazing hot car and got trapped inside for 90 minutes, as temperatures exceeded 130 degrees inside the vehicle.

Deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff's Department responded to a home near Montevallo on Saturday afternoon at around 2.35pm to respond to a call about two missing children.

There, they found brothers Daniel Garcia, 3, and Ivan Salazar Jr, 1 unresponsive in a vehicle parked at the home, according to a release from the sheriff's department.

Daniel Garcia, 3, and Ivan Salazar Jr, 1, were found unresponsive in a car parked at their family home near Montevallo, Alabama, on Saturday

Southeast Shelby Rescue assisted in transporting the pair to the Shelby Baptist Medical Center, where the brothers later died.

Sheriff John Samaniego said: 'Our hearts and prayers are with the family of those two little boys during this unimaginable tragedy'

'Our hearts and prayers are with the family of those two little boys during this unimaginable tragedy,' Sheriff John Samaniego stated in the release.

Authorities are still investigating the death of the children.

According to Shelby County Coroner Lina Evans, the two boys death were consistent with Pediatric Vehicular Heatstroke.

Outside air temperatures on the day were approximately 91 degrees, AL.com reports. Inside air temperatures would have been well over 135 degrees.

Family members for the boys built two large crosses outside the car that sat parked at the house.

A double funeral service will be held on August 22 at 11am at the Ellison Memorial Funeral Home in Clanton, Alabama.
Police have confirmed that their investigations are ongoing into the circumstances surrounding the death of Lamont Monty Dickson of Murrays Village, Kingstown, proprietor of Mad Ras Bar in Arnos Vale.





Dickson died on the spot in a vehicular accident involving motor vehicle R9866, owned by Khalique Haywood of Kingstown and which he was driving, and motor vehicle R4359, driven by Azeila Jack of Riley but owned by Kenmore Robertson also of Riley.





The vehicles are reported to have collided between 2:00 -2:15 am, on Saturday 15th August, just outside the entrance to the Public Works Stores at Arnos Vale.





The other occupants of both vehicles were said to have sustained injuries. Both vehicles were extensively damaged.





Lamont Dickson

Lamont Dickson had a stint at THE VINCENTIAN as one of the press operators, during the early period of Mr. Edgerton Richards ownership of the newspaper.





It was the time when THE VINCENTIAN operated its own press, albeit an outdated one.





Keisha Phillips, who served as Editor of the newspaper while Lamont was employed there, remembers, as per a Facebook posting, " he was always able to get it (the outdated press) to run so the paper could be on the streets come Friday morning. I remember many times he would get upset and walk out, but before, in the blink of an eye, he and Carlos (a co-worker) would be fighting up to fix his old girl.





Like many others who got to know him well, Keisha remembers Monty as having "a love and dedication to family.





The Management and Staff of THE VINCENTIAN extend sincere condolences to Lamonts family. May he rest perpetually and peacefully in the bosom of his Lord.




LONDON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Barings, one of the world's leading financial services firms, today announced that it has served as lead arranger of a senior secured credit facility to support Hg in its acquisition of F24. Headquartered in Germany, F24 is a leading provider of emergency notification, crisis & incident management, and critical communications solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"F24 provides software that is essential to business continuity teams in being prepared and acting promptly in response to critical incidents. A company's ability to effectively respond to crises is more important today than ever, and F24's best-in-class solutions and reputation as Europe's leading provider gives its clients the peace of mind to do so," said Sebastian Lorenz, Director in Barings' European Private Finance group.

"We are delighted to support Hg's investment in F24, further strengthening our two firms' long-term relationship. This marks our second transaction together this year, following Barings' support of Hg's acquisition of smartTrade Technologies in March," added Mark Wilton, Managing Director of Barings' European Private Finance group. "In the current market environment, we remain focused on opportunities to invest in high-quality companies backed by top-tier sponsors, which F24 certainly represents."

F24 is the Pan-European leader for alerting and crisis management solutions, as well as business communications. It has an international customer base of more than 2,500 clients in more than 100 countries. Its innovative SaaS-based solutions are considered best-in-class and help customers to successfully and efficiently manage incidents, emergencies, and critical situations.

About Barings

Barings is a $346+ billion* global financial services firm dedicated to meeting the evolving investment and capital needs of our clients and customers. Through active asset management and direct origination, we provide innovative solutions and access to differentiated opportunities across public and private capital markets. A subsidiary of MassMutual, Barings maintains a global presence across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

*As of June 30, 2020

Barings Global Private Finance is a 60+ investment team globally, with a 40-year track record of successfully financing middle-market buyouts, acquisitions, and recapitalizations. With product capabilities that range from traditional senior debt to bespoke junior capital securities, and hold sizes of 200 million+, Barings is focused on providing capital solutions that help our private equity clients complete their deal on time and as expected. Our long-term commitment to the asset class, local origination in each region, consistent team, and broad range of investment capabilities, are designed to provide investors an absolute spread premium to broadly syndicated loans as well as an attractive risk-adjusted return potential.

About Hg

Hg is a leading investor in software and services, focused on backing businesses that change how we all do business. Deep technology expertise, complemented by vertical application specialisation and dedicated operational support, provides a compelling proposition to management teams looking to scale their businesses. Hg has funds under management of over $30 billion, with an investment team of over 140 professionals, plus a portfolio team of more than 35 operators, providing practical support to help our businesses to realise their growth ambitions. Based in London, Munich and New York, Hg has a portfolio of over 30 software and technology businesses, comprising over 30,000 employees across the UK, US and Europe. For further details, please visit the Hg website: https://hgcapital.com/.

Media Contact:

Cheryl Krauss, Media Relations, Barings, 980-417-5858, cheryl.krauss@barings.com

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 20:05:26|Editor: huaxia

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STOCKHOLM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish Cancer Society calls on the government to bring in a soft-drink tax in a bid to reduce overweight and obesity among the general public.

The call came after a study showed that soft drinks sold in Sweden contain more sugar than the same drinks sold in other countries. For instance, a bottle of orange-flavored Fanta sold in Sweden contains nearly three times as much sugar as the same drink in Britain or Spain. That is the equivalent of 18 sugar cubes in Fanta Orange bottles in Sweden, compared to seven in the British bottles, Swedish Television (SVT) reported on Friday.

The sugar levels in Swedish Fanta bottles are also higher than those in other Nordic countries; 12.3 grams per deciliter in Sweden compared to 7.2 grams in Denmark and Finland, SVT said, quoting on Friday a recent study carried out by the Swedish Cancer Society and the Swedish Consumers' Association.

Britain and Ireland are among the countries that have imposed soft-drink taxes in order to bring down sugar levels, with producers preferring to change the recipes of sugary drinks over raising costs for consumers, SVT reported.

"Many countries take this matter seriously and have made an effort to reduce overweight and obesity in the population, for instance by introducing a soft-drink tax," Ulrika Arehed Kagstrom, secretary-general of the Swedish Cancer Society, told SVT.

Arehed Kagstrom said that while sugar is not carcinogenic in and of itself, it does contribute to overweight and obesity, which in turn increase the risk of developing cancer. She insisted that the tax has had a positive impact on public health in other countries and suggested that it could have the same effect in Sweden, where more than half of the population is overweight or obese. Enditem
TARINKOT, Afghanistan  Ehsanullah Wulasmal, a freelance journalist in Afghanistans remote southern province of Uruzgan, is feverishly typing up a story about the restive region where the Taliban control the countryside and have practically besieged its capital, Tarinkot.

He says reporting stories in the dangerous region is not a problem for him. He enjoys chasing leads, talking to people, and visiting villages for on-the-ground coverage. Even the armed Taliban and uncooperative government officials are not major hurdles for him.

Rather, its the lack of reliable Internet in Uruzgan that poses a major problem. Wulasmal says he faces a real struggle whenever he tries to file a story to the radio station and website he writes for.

Sometimes, I spend a day or several days reporting a story, but then filing that story is an uphill task, he told Radio Free Afghanistan.

Wulasmal frequents half a dozen government offices around Tarin Kot to email his stories from their connections. As a journalist, I frequently report critical stories about the government, which prompts officials to deny me their Internet, he said.

The mobile phone industry is often seen as one of Afghanistans major successes after the fall of the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001. The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) estimates that more than 18 percent of Afghanistans more than 35 million people are now connected to the Internet. While the telecommunications sector has grown exponentially, remote provinces such as Uruzgan are still lagging far behind because of poor infrastructure, a Taliban ban on Internet access, and attacks on telecom facilities.

I appeal to the Taliban that the ban on Internet access for journalists is preventing us from highlighting critical problems facing the residents of this region, Wulasmal said.

Taliban restrictions in the region mean that currently mobile operators only offer 2G Internet while their overall mobile telephone service is limited to a few hours during the daytime.

The only reliable Internet service in Tarinkot is offered by a couple of Internet cafes. But at nearly $7 for 1 gigabyte, it is simply too expensive for most residents.

While using his mobile phone to access the web in the blazing sun outside Uruzgans Hewad Internet Cafe, Naqibullah, a young resident, complains about the price of satellite Internet. Even when you pay a lot of money for the Internet, you can hardly use it for a couple hours because the 1 GB packet lasts briefly, he said.

Said Wali, the owner of Hewad cafe, says Internet service providers in the city have no choice because they too spend a lot of money purchasing satellite Internet. We do not have a fiberoptic cable here or [3G or 4G] Internet access, he told Radio Free Afghanistan. How can we sell the Internet cheaply when buying it is so expensive?

Mohammad Saeed Shinwari, a spokesman for the government regulator ATRA, says the government plans to connect Uruzgan to the countrys fiberoptic network. He says that as a stop-gap solution authorities attempted to provide Tarin Kot with microwave Internet, but the insurgents destroyed eight of the aerials.

What can we do about such insecurity? he asked. We appeal to the armed opposition and the security forces to provide security to us so we can provide all our compatriots with telecommunications facilities.

It was not possible to immediately reach the Taliban for comment. But targeting telecommunications infrastructure has been a favorite insurgent tactic since the Taliban insurrection gradually strengthened after 2006. By 2008, targeting the newly installed mobile-phone towers became a frequent Taliban strategy. In later years, the Taliban forced mobile companies to shut or limit their coverage. To disrupt the presidential election last year, the Taliban resorted to destroying cell towers.

Abubakar Siddique wrote this story based on Sharifullah Shahrafats reporting from Tarinkot, Afghanistan.
New research from The Business School (formerly Cass) has shed light on how Mirandola, a small town in the North East of Italy, became a major hub for the production of medical devices and sets a roadmap for the origins of industrialisation in small, quiet communities.

The study, led by Professor Simone Ferriani, Professor in Management, looked into the story of Mario Veronesi with a view to framing how anchor entrepreneurship - an individual's generative role in galvanizing economic change - can act as a catalyst for rapid development.

As recently as the 1960s Mirandola was a town without any significant tourist attraction, with poor access and transport to major cities.

Through a combination of one man's intuition, a slice of fortune and the entrepreneurial spirit of its community, it quickly became home to one in five medical device manufacturers in Italy, generating 30 per cent of the country's medical equipment revenues.

Mario Veronesi began manufacturing simple medical kits with disposable plastic tubing for blood tests and transfusions from his parents' garage, after learning about the risks of applying disinfectant to reusable tubing.

He harnessed the skills of friends and built networks, encouraging people in the community to diversify from their normal trade activities to scale manufacturing. He also leveraged competitive advantages such as loyal residents who were reluctant to leave the town for bigger cities, and lower-than-average salary levels.

The authors outlined three stages of anchor entrepreneurship by conducting interviews with Veronesi, his friends and key figures in the local community. They also gathered evidence from journal articles and local press clippings.

The three stages are described as:

Genesis: ideas and formulae are conceived, but a lack of resources means taking more chances and increased 'bricolage' - or 'making do'. Veronesi harnessed his network of scientists and a small team of skilled workers, training them to diversify their line of work. For example, he taught electricians and telecommunications experts how to apply their trades specifically to the production of medical machinery.

Expansion: a shift from individual-level to organisational-level outcomes. In bringing together groups of people to apply their skills to an industry, Veronesi inspired partners and collaborators to form their own independent companies or take senior positions in multinational firms that were by now acquiring his companies. This led to subsequent expansion as they in turn inspired others, creating a virtuous cycle of productivity and economic stimulus.

Attraction: as operations exponentially expand, regions gain an international reputation for proficiency in their field - the manufacturing and distribution of medical devices, in Mirandola's case - and alerts multinationals, customers and entrepreneurs as an attractive hub for investment. The output of superior, in-demand products coupled with a skilled labour force made Mirandola an attractive proposition for global medical machinery providers to set up headquarters and subsidiaries.

Professor Ferriani said the growth of Mirandola proved the existence and impact of the anchor entrepreneur.

Mario Veronesi himself was not a specialist in the medical field but he had a vision, and he knew how to persuade others to buy into this vision. He plugged gaps in his own medical knowledge by developing relationships with medical specialists and encouraged tradesmen to leverage their skills towards the production of medical equipment. He also taught and inspired a generation of entrepreneurs." Simone Ferriani, Professor in Management, City University London

"This knowledge transfer across firms set in place a rapid economic expansion of Mirandola which remains prevalent today.

"The story of Veronesi and Mirandola shows us how charismatic leadership and a strong sense of community can revitalise entire regions.

"Although Mario Veronesi is no longer with us, his legacy has put a small rural town on the map as an industrial hotbed for medical supplies. He has done this by simply recognising the raw potential of an idea and the talents of residents, using every resource at his disposal to get this idea off the ground."
Chef Pierre Calmels with daughters (from left) Jeanne, Julie, and Eloise outside of Bibou in June 2020. Read more

Bibou, one of Philadelphias most acclaimed restaurants, has fallen victim to the coronavirus pandemic after 11 years, and owners Pierre and Charlotte Calmels are converting the 22-seat BYOB into a French charcuterie called Bibou Boutique expected to open next month.

Bibou, where Philadelphians brought their best bottles and some of their grandest expectations, served its last $125 prix-fixe meal on March 14, two days before the romantic trappings of white-glove service gave way to latex.

Bibou Boutique, at Eighth and Kimball Streets, will sell Pierre Calmels terrines, sausages, pates, breads, quiches, as well as specialty items and dry goods, but not cheeses. We are going to leave cheese to the cheesemongers, said Charlotte Calmels. To me, cheese is a live product and needs to be handled very specifically. Were a block from the Italian Market. Let them do it on Ninth Street.

The change, though tinged with emotion, has them super excited, she said. Were going to be home every night [for their three daughters, ages 15, 13, and 8]. Its time for a switch. Its also going to be good for our customers, who will get products they cant get anywhere else. She said customers who have Bibou gift cards can apply the balance to purchases from the shop.

The citys decision to allow restaurants to reopen their dining rooms at 25% of capacity, announced Thursday, sealed the deal, she said: We had been talking about it for quite a long time, but when you see 25%, yes, that was it.

At the start of the pandemic, the Calmelses began offering $45 three-course dinners to go Thursday to Saturday and in June put tables out on the sidewalk to create a casual setup called LApero on Thursday and Friday evenings.

The last night of LApero will be Aug. 29. Bibou Boutique will open after Labor Day and will still offer its pickup dinners. The shop will be open Thursday to Sunday initially.

Charlotte Calmels said Bibous furniture was in storage and held out the possibility of offering private dinners in the space, but only after health concerns have abated.

Bibou was the quintessential mom-and-pop BYOB. Eleven years ago, Calmels, the longtime chef at Le Bec-Fin, , was closing in on 40 and eager to become a chef-owner. His wife, Charlotte, whom he met on the job at Le Chateau dOuchy in Lausanne, Switzerland, was working in the front of the house for Le Bec-Fin owner Georges Perrier at Brasserie Perrier.

Bibou hit the food radar immediately with an affordable menu in snug environs. A renovation five years ago eliminated nearly 10 seats and opened the dining room. The move to a tasting menu that changed every week helped the bottom line.

The couple opened a bar-restaurant called Le Cheri, which had a 4-year run at the Art Alliance just off Rittenhouse Square through May 2018.

The Inquirers Craig LaBan, who first awarded Bibou his top rating of four bells nearly nine years ago, wrote in his 2019 dining guide that Calmels delivers spontaneous artistry and channels French gastronomy with a rare ease that always feels current.
The meeting will be chaired by the EU and attended by representatives of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran, the EU said in a statement

The joint commission on the Iran nuclear accord will meet in Vienna on September 1, the European Union announced Friday, after the US and its European allies sparred over Washington's bid to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran.

The meeting will be chaired by the EU and attended by representatives of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran, the EU said in a statement.

The US on Friday accused China and allies Britain and France of "abdicating their duty" as it held firm on its solitary push to maintain an arms embargo and restore broader UN sanctions on Iran dating back to 2006.

Britain, France and Germany had on Thursday rejected the US move, calling it "incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA," the 2015 accord that aimed to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.

The US administration of President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran accord in 2018 but controversially maintains it has the right to force the reimposition of sanctions through the agreement's "snapback" mechanism.

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A devout suffragette, Virginia Brooks earned her nickname from the newspapers for her youthful crusade to rid Chicago and its suburbs of graft and vice. Case in point, as the Tribune wrote with a touch of hyperbole in 1914: The city of West Hammond, which became known as an integral part of the United States by the war of Miss Virginia Brooks on grafters, is said to be face to face with the possibility of going into bankruptcy as a penalty for its sins.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:53:33|Editor: huaxia

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MALE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Maldives will import 10,000 new COVID-19 test kits in order to expand testing capacity, local media citing the Health Emergency Operation Center (HEOC) reported here Friday.

HEOC Spokesperson Dr. Nazla Rafeeq was quoted by state media as saying that the country has 15,000 PCR test kits in stock. The current stock was sufficient to meet testing demands for the next two weeks, as each kit was capable of conducting 200 tests, Rafeeq said.

According to the Health Protection Agency (HPA), 100,233 samples have been tested so far at testing facilities in the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), ADK Hospital, Laboratory of Maldives Police Service, Addu Equatorial Hospital, and Kulhudhuffushi Regional Hospital.

Meanwhile, HPA Epidemiologist Dr. Ibrahim Afzal was quoted by local media sa saying that 359 patients confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 have yet to be transferred to isolation facilities due to administrative bottlenecks. He said 85 individuals have refused to be put in isolation.

Azal added that unemployed persons and frontline workers have been among those predominantly infected with COVID-19 in recent weeks, with at least 500 from each category having tested positive.

Construction workers, retail workers, and education sector workers have also been highly susceptible to infection too, Azal said, adding that the highest number of infections have been found in youth between the age of 20 to 30. Enditem
Zayid Muhammad yelled out the names of the state Supreme Court justices who voted to strip Newarks civilian complaint review board of its subpoena power to investigate allegations of police misconduct.

You are on the wrong side of history! shouted Muhammad, of the Newark Communities for Accountable Policing, on the steps of Newark City Hall on Thursday.

The high courts 6-1 decision Wednesday came as a blow to city officials and activists who have been fighting for decades to craft a civilian complaint review board. The court ruled that a civilian review board with subpoena powers is not allowable under current state law.

But activists and Mayor Ras Barakas administration arent letting up their fight for a review board with teeth. They still want the board to have the ability to subpoena records and be part of the police discipline process - based on review board findings.

Mayor Ras Baraka speaks at the protest, on Thursday, August 20, 2020.John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

Baraka called the courts decision a blow to our humanity in the midst of the civil unrest that was spurred by Minneapolis police killing George Floyd this May. He vowed to take the legal battle to federal court and called on state lawmakers to create legislation that gives subpoena power back.

We are also asking for our Attorney General here in the State of New Jersey to make the pathway easier, to help us, said Baraka. Change the AG guidelines to make it necessary and possible for us to have parallel investigations, to make it necessary and possible for us to have subpoena power.

State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal wrote in a legal filing for the case that he did not support Newarks civilian complaint review board since it could influence cops discipline.

The Newark City Council in 2016 passed an ordinance to create a civilian complaint review board, or CCRB, but the measure was challenged in court by police union Newark Fraternal Order of Police( FOP) Lodge No. 12. The police unions president noted the department has improved ever since the city entered into a list of reforms known as a consent decree about four years ago.

The city has lost in two court appearances over the legality of subpoena power, so now they want politicians to change the law in Trenton, FOP Lodge No. 12 President James Stewart told NJ Advance Media. I wish the mayor had as much enthusiasm in getting a contract done for the men and women of the police department, who have been working without one since 2017.

The city entered into the consent decree after the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing report that found a pattern of unconstitutional practices among Newark police. A federal monitor was appointed to oversee the consent decree reforms, all which have not yet been reached.

While Wednesdays ruling hampered the civilian complaint review boards ability to investigate claims of misconduct, it is still allowed to review cases. And it will begin to do so, city officials say.

The board can still make discipline recommendations for cops based on its findings, but it is essentially a paper tiger since the citys public safety director does not need to explain why a different type of discipline was issued. The board also cannot conduct investigations at the same time as the police departments own internal affairs unit.

Newark city attorney Kenyatta Stewart speaks at the protest, on Thursday, August 20, 2020.John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

City lawyer Counsel Kenyatta Stewart urged residents to come to the civilian complaint review board first before lodging a complaint against an officer with internal affairs. Baraka has already appointed people to the 11-member board.

It aint perfect, but we still have power, Stewart said. The court said yesterday that if a person from the community goes to IA - internal affairs - that they have to do the investigation. But what they did not say is, if they come to the CCRB, we can still do the investigation.

Activists have been calling for a civilian complaint review board for more than 50 years - and even before the 1967 Newark Rebellion. Peoples Organization for Progress Chairman Larry Hamm said interest in the oversight board began to pick up momentum in 1964, coinciding with the Harlem race riots.

This fight, for Newarks police review board, this is not just Newarks fight, Hamm said. This case will set the precedent for the entire state. If Newark wins, the whole state is gonna win. Towns and cities all over this state will be able to create police review boards with subpoena power.

A bill sponsored by state Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, D-Hudson, would allow municipalities to create their own civilian complaint review boards, but it does not mention subpoena powers. Other municipalities, like Jersey City, have shown interest in creating boards similar to Newarks.

Lawrence Hamm, founder and chairman of the Peoples Organization for Progress, speaks in front of City Hall in Newark to condemn the decision by the NJ Supreme Court that strips the Newark Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) of its subpoena and investigatory power, on Thursday, August 20, 2020John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

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Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

Business Insider Weekly spoke to more than 200 women who believe their breast implants made them sick.

Their illness is not officially recognized, and is contentious within the plastic surgery community. Experts say it requires more research before conclusive diagnoses can be made.

We followed three women through their journeys with discovering and living with what they are certain is breast implant illness.

View more episodes of Business Insider Weekly on Facebook.

More than 200 women told Business Insider Weekly they believe their breast implants made them sick with something called breast implant illness.

The condition is not officially recognized or diagnosed by the medical community, but it's one that has sparked debate among doctors and patients over the last three decades.

While the vast majority of plastic surgeons still put implants in, some have begun dedicating their medical practices toward their removal.

David Rankin is one of those doctors. He doesn't put implants in at all anymore; instead, he's fully booked with explant surgeries through July 2021.

Still, it's a contentious debate in the plastic surgery community.

Business Insider Weekly three women through their journeys with discovering and living through what they are certain is breast implant illness. Read on to learn about breast implant illness, and see their stories here.

Debbie Andrews said she spent more than two decades suffering from rashes, inflammation and chest pains. She was diagnosed with a multitude of autoimmune conditions including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

She got her implants removed in July 2019. When she woke up from surgery, she said she remembers the first thing she said: "Oh, my God. I can breathe." We met her about six months later, when all of her symptoms had gone away.

Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

Andrews is one of thousands of women who believe they had breast implant illness. Like Tracie Mohler, pictured below, she learned about it through a support group on Facebook, where members share their experiences and support each other through their explant journeys.

Story continues

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

Mohler has been trying to get her implants removed since the fall of 2019. Of all of the women who shared their stories with us, her symptoms appeared to be the most severe and the most life-altering.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

She attributes symptoms such as a body rash, chronic panic attacks, severe indigestion, brain fog, vision problems, insomnia, a swollen eye, and heart palpitations to her breast implants, which she got 15 years ago.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

Finding a surgeon to remove her implants was harder than she'd expected.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

Some doctors told us they don't want to strain their working relationships with implant manufacturers, and others said that they are skeptical about breast implant illness, which is not an officially recognized diagnosis.

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

"It's been a very controversial issue because most of the breast implant illness symptoms seem to be rheumatologic in nature," said Mark Sultan, a New York plastic surgeon. "There are so many women in the population that do have rheumatoid diseases, and so many women that do have breast implants, that cause and effect have been very hard to nail down."

Samara Abramson/Business Insider Weekly

But, as more and more women move to explant, researchers are studying the link.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

"We recognize increasingly that there are problems with implants, but they're affecting a very small percentage of the patients," said Nicholas Husni, a plastic surgeon in Ohio. "That doesn't mean those patients need to be discounted or ignored. In fact, we're listening to them increasingly."

Samara Abramson/Business Insider Weekly

There are plastic surgeons out there who say they've connected the dots.

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

"Most of my patients have a certain degree of what we call 'brain fog,' just not thinking straight," surgeon David Rankin said. "I see a tremendous amount of thyroid issues, a tremendous amount of skin rashes, skin irritations, and food allergies that develop of unknown cause. You name it and I've seen it."

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

In March, Rankin removed Chelsea Harrison's implants at his clinic in Jupiter, Florida.

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

"I see improvement in more than 90% of my patients," Rankin said.

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

Harrison was one of those patients. After having her implants removed, she stopped having migraines, body rashes, brain fog, and fatigue.

Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

"The biggest change for me after explant surgery is waking up ready to go," she said. "I have a lot more energy, and it makes doing things with the kids a lot easier. Also, my brain fog is gone."

Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

To cope with her pain, Mohler takes about seven different types of medications each day.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

She had gotten used to reading stories like Andrews and Harrison's on Facebook, so she was thrilled when she was finally able to schedule an explant.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

It was going to cost more than $10,000, about the same amount she paid to have them put them in 15 years ago. Health insurance wouldn't cover it, so she started saving. Tracie felt too sick to work, so her husband picked up more hours. But things fell apart three days before Christmas, when, suddenly, he left her.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

I needed another $1,800 and that would have come from his employment," she said. "But then he left.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

Tracie took her $700 down payment back from the doctor to pay rent, and prays every day for surgery.

Richard Loria for Business Insider Weekly

Breast implants are still the most popular cosmetic procedure in the United States, and most women don't get them removed.

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

But even Pamela Anderson has said goodbye to the surgical enhancement that made the signature shot of one of the most popular television shows in history, saying they "just didn't feel right anymore."

NBC Universal

Other celebrities, like Victoria Beckham and Crystal Hefner, and more recently, Chrissy Teigen, have also made the decision to explant.

Getty

"Seeing my implants outside of my body and being able to hold them makes me feel an immense amount of gratitude," said Harrison, three months post-op. "I'm grateful for the message that I'm able to relay onto other women.

Armando Gallardo for Business Insider Weekly

"I hope that, eventually, beyond Facebook and beyond social media, women learn about this and stand up, speak out," said Andrews. "Some of it's embarrassing. Some people don't want to admit they've ever had implants."

Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

"I'm not past the self-image. I didn't end up with the cute little boobs," said Andrews. "I ended up with two really big holes. I'm not past that. That's very hurtful and painful and hard for me. It will come with time."

Claire Molloy/Business Insider Weekly

Read the original article on Business Insider
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 18:02:12|Editor: huaxia

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MANILA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday said it has approved a 300 million U.S. dollars policy-based loan to support the Philippine government's efforts to implement reforms to expand poor Filipinos' access to financial services, especially in unserved and underserved areas across the country.

According to the Manila-based bank, the ADB's loan is supporting reforms to help the Philippine government reach targets linked to the national strategy for financial inclusion.

It said these measures will strengthen the institutional and policy environment for financial inclusion, improve financial infrastructure, and increase the capacity and reach of service providers, especially rural banks and non-bank financial institutions.

"The Philippine government's anti-poverty strategy aims to equip Filipinos in the bottom 40 percent of the income strata with education, skills, and livelihood assistance so they can break away from a vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty," ADB Vice President Ahmed Saeed said in a statement.

Citing the 2017 Global Findex Survey, the ADB said the Philippines ranked among the lowest in Southeast Asia on almost all financial inclusion indicators. "Only 34 percent of Filipino adults have an account at a formal financial institution, compared with 49 percent in Indonesia, 82 percent in Thailand, and 85 percent in Malaysia," it said.

The ADB said the Philippines can expand financial access to poor Filipinos through credit, savings, insurance, pensions, and remittances.

The ADB said reforms supported by the loan will focus on the poorest 40 percent of the population and rural residents and aim to more than double the number of Filipinos holding an account at a formal financial institution by 2023. Enditem
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: As COVID-19 cases touched 52,129 mark in Haryana, the state government has ordered closure of all public and private offices, non-essential commercial and business establishments on weekends. As 1203 were reported today across the state.

The state government has decided to close all public and private offices except those dealing with essential services and all shopping malls and shops in the market area, except those dealing with essential goods and services on Saturday and Sunday.

An official said that all other National Directives and SOPs issued by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) for COVID-19 management that are currently in force shall continue to be strictly followed. These orders shall remain in force till further orders.

CLICK TO FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES OF COVID-19

He said that it is hereby clarified that this order will have no effect on public and private transport and on tests or exams being conducted by Haryana Public Service Commission and Haryana Staff Selection Commission.

State Health Minister Anil Vij said, "All offices and shops except those dealing in essential services will remain closed in the state on every Saturday and Sunday till further orders due to COVID-19. We have taken this decision as there has been a sudden increase in cases during past few days." He said that besides Haryana, a few other states have also enforced weekend lockdowns.

During the past couple of weeks, Haryana has registered a big spike in cases. The infection tally today touched 52,129 with 585 fatalities. As per the medical bulletin issued by the state government as 1203 cases reported today of these 127 in Faridabad and 120 in Gurugram, 132 in Panipat and 111 in Rewari.

Also a sudden surge in the number of doctors, paramedics and other health workers at the PGIMS in Rohtak testing positive for COVID-19 in the past few days.

Some 52 doctors and 17 health workers tested including staff nurses, operation-theatre technicians, bearers and sweepers positive for the virus to date. The doctors from anaesthesia and gynaecology departments of the institute are among the worst affected.

This move by the Haryana government comes a day after the Punjab government announced daily night curfews and weekend lockdown till August 31 across the state starting today, as part of a strict response to the worrying surge in coronavirus cases.

Meanwhile last month Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar had said that weekend lockdown serves no purpose in the fight against COVID-19 and there were no plans to impose any more lockdowns. "A lockdown will not serve any purpose unless it is imposed for a fourteen day period. Imposing a lockdown over the weekend or for two days merely gives the impression that something is being done," Khattar had earlier said.
Two best friends have revealed how they banked an impressive $15,000 in just 30 minutes after launching a clarifying red wine face mask on Thursday night.

Simona Valev and Shannon Lacey are the Queensland co-founders behind the vegan skincare brand Rawkanvas, and when they launched the $54 mask, it wasn't long before shoppers snapped it up in their thousands.

'We had a waiting list of 25,000 before we launched at 6pm, and when the red wine mask went out, we were selling a product every 20 seconds totalling $15k in just 30 minutes,' co-founder Simona told FEMAIL.

Two best friends revealed how they banked $15,000 in just 30 minutes after launching a clarifying red wine face mask on Thursday night (Simona Valev and Shannon Lacey pictured)

The $54 red wine mask (pictured in use) is made with Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc grapes, which work together to detoxify and purify the skin

'Shan and I are so overwhelmed with the response.

Simona added: '2020 has proven to be a difficult year from a stock supply and manufacturing perspective, but on the flipside, it has also allowed the brand to grow by 500 per cent.'

One of the reasons why the businesswomen think the mask has sold so well is because many are looking for healing and restorative skin products that help to look after the skin when so many of us are wearing masks on a daily basis.

'Mask-ne' is a word that has been coined to describe the pimples that come in areas where your mask touches your face.

'It took us 12 months to perfect the formula, but we are really proud of the results,' Simona said.

The mask is self-heating, which helps in drawing out pore-clogging dirt and oil, and combats the appearance of breakouts (pictured in use on Keira Maguire)

What makes the red wine mask special? * It contains active ingredients including Halloysite Clay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes, as well as Kiwi Seed Oil. The mask (pictured) buffs away dead skin cells to uncover a smoother, brighter skin texture * The mask is self-heating, which helps in drawing out pore-clogging dirt and oil, and combats the appearance of breakouts. * It buffs away dead skin cells to uncover a smoother, brighter skin texture and allows increased absorption of other skincare products. * It tones, tightens and boosts collagen to reduce the appearance of fine lines for a refreshed glow. * It is scented with Vanilla, Sweet Orange and Clove essential oils. * It is described as microdermabrasion in a bottle, insofar as it works on the texture of the skin. Source: Rawkanvas Advertisement

Rawkanvas was founded by two Australian friends Simona and Shannon in 2018 - and since the natural, eco-conscious, vegan and cruelty-free range launched, it has enjoyed huge success

The mask is different to others on the market insofar as it is made with Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc grapes, which work together to detoxify and purify the skin.

'It is like microdermabrasion in a jar: it is a heat warming mask that helps to draw out congestion, refine pores and give your overall complexion a boost,' Simona said.

The $54 product also boasts Kiwi Seed Oil and Halloysite Clay among its impressive ingredients, which work to buff away dead skin cells and uncover a smoother, brighter skin texture.

Before-and-after photos shared online illustrate just how powerful the natural line is, even though the range doesn't include harmful artificial ingredients and scents (pictured: one transformation)

While there aren't many who have tried the mask just yet, it already has a five-star rating on the Rawkanvas website, where it has been described as 'divine'.

'I was lucky enough to receive this early and review it!' one woman posted.

'With lockdown in Auckland, I had a bit of a stress breakout arising but using this legitimately made my breakout shrink by the next morning and disappear.'

Another said it has swiftly become her 'weekly mask' of choice.

'I love how fresh and clear my skin looks without using any harsh chemicals,' she posted.

Women are raving about a 100 per cent natural skincare line, claiming it has helped them to get rid of acne, eczema and red skin (Sulemeta pictured before and after)

Rawkanvas was founded by two Australian friends Simona and Shannon in 2018 - and since the natural, eco-conscious, vegan and cruelty-free range launched, it has gone on to enjoy huge success - with one product now selling every 15 minutes.

More impressive still, hundreds of women have credited the beauty brand with transforming their complexions.

Some credit the natural line with ridding them from eczema, redness and dryness.

'With continued use of Rawkanvas, I can see quite clearly that my skin has settled,' Emily, from New Zealand, said.

'I have a lot of scarring on my face from earlier years, but the majority of redness has gone, and I am less prone to breakouts now.'

Others say it has rid their skin of oil.

Before-and-after photos shared online illustrate just how powerful the natural line is, even though the range doesn't include harmful artificial ingredients and scents.

For more information about Rawkanvas, please click here.
If the recent firing of the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan was intended to quell criminal investigations into President Donald Trump's close associates, as some have accused, federal prosecutors in New York appear to have missed the memo.

Thursday's arrest of Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, served as a stark reminder that no one who has been within the president's inner circle is automatically immune from federal scrutiny.

Bannon, 66, and three others are charged with defrauding online donors in the name of helping build the president's cherished southern border wall. Bannon pleaded not guilty at a hearing Thursday in Manhattan.

The indictment came just two months after the abrupt dismissal of Geoffrey S Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York who had overseen several investigations with tentacles into Trump's orbit including one involving the business dealings of Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney.

The same office prosecuted former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for campaign finance crimes, as well as two Giuliani associates tied to the investigation that led to Trump's impeachment investigation in December. Giuliani himself has not been charged with any crime.

Berman's unceremonious removal decried by some critics as a Friday night massacre in June fueled longstanding concerns among Democratic lawmakers that the Justice Department has become politicised under Attorney General William Barr.

But the wire fraud and money laundering charges against Bannon confirm the ongoing professional independence of the Southern District of New York, said Bruce Green, a former prosecutor in the office.

The Manhattan prosecutors' office, known as SDNY, has long been nicknamed the Sovereign District of New York for its independence from Washington The office, older than the Justice Department itself, has been home to famous mob trials, terrorism prosecutions and, increasingly, probes involving Trump's allies.

It shows that the Trump administration cannot fully protect the president's former associates from federal criminal prosecution simply by firing US attorneys like Geoffrey Berman who honor their responsibility to seek impartial justice, said Green, who now directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at the Fordham University School of Law.

Green said in June that Berman's firing certainly wasn't a routine decision, and the only fair inference is that there are some cases where the office is proceeding too independently.

The charges against Bannon came as Trump himself faced renewed legal perils, as a federal judge rejected Trump's latest bid to shield his tax returns from a state grand jury investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney.

Trump, who is appealing the ruling, blasted the subpoena as the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country a refrain he has used to deride several criminal cases targeting him and his associates. He has criticized many of the criminal cases as politically motivated.

The president also sought to distance himself from Bannon on Thursday, saying he knew nothing about the We Build The Wall fundraiser. Bannon served as chief strategist during the early days of Trump's administration but clashed with other top advisers and was pushed out after less than a year.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A person was brought in for questioning in connection with the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput by a team of officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Mumbai on Friday, news agency ANI reported.

The news agency reported citing an unnamed source that the meeting of CBI officers, who arrived from Delhi on Thursday, to investigate the Rajput death case, is underway at the airforce transit facility in Santacruz area of Mumbai. The CBI team brought the person to the guest house where they are staying, ANI added. He was later identified as Rajputs cook.

The Supreme Court had on August 19 directed the central agency to investigate the case while holding that the first information report (FIR) registered in Patna over the death of the Bollywood actor was legitimate. An FIR was registered in Patna on a complaint filed by KK Singh, Rajputs father, under sections related to abetment to suicide.

The single-judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy also said the Bihar government was competent to recommend transferring the case to CBI. The top court had also asked the Mumbai Police to hand over all evidence collected so far in the case to the CBI. Maharashtra refused the option to challenge the order, Justice Roy said.

The CBI has registered an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty and others in connection with the actors death after the Centre accepted the Bihar governments recommendation to transfer the probe in the matter from Patna.

Rajput was found dead at his apartment in Bandra on June 14.
As years go by, Bella Thorne is getting bolder and sexier.

In the past couple of years, Thorne has been known for her racy and naughty social media posts that flaunt her curves. This time, she took another bold step to make everything about her exclusive for fans.

On Wednesday, the 22-year-old former Disney Channel star announced to her 23 million Instagram followers that she has joined the adult content site "OnlyFans."

OnlyFans is a subscription content service based in London that allows sex workers to interact with their fans exclusively. As of writing, the app has 30million users, and Thorne just became one of its biggest additions.

Bella shared a video of herself, saying, "Excuse me, I have an announcement." The footage then transitioned to a few clips of herself showing off her body while donning a pink bikini with a diamond choker necklace featuring the word "sex."

In a follow-up post, she showed a screenshot of an article promoting and welcomed her as the newest member of OnlyFans.

"Thank u @paper I'm excited to talk about the politics behind female body shaming & sex!!!" Bella captioned the post. "With the amazing director sean baker who I'm proud to call my friend."

Currently, her OnlyFans bio reads: "I'm your b***h." Each subscription to Bella's OnlyFans is $20 per month, but subscription bundles are also offered.

Why Did Thorne Join OnlyFans?

In an interview with Paper Magazine, the "Midnight Sun" actress said that she signed up to the adult subscription service since it is the only platform where she can "fully control" her image without worrying about bullies.

"OnlyFans is the first platform where I can fully control my image; without censorship, without judgement, and without being bullied online for being me," she told PAPER magazine. "OnlyFans is a safe place for me to be Bella. To be who I am without judgement. Without censorship."

Thorne is indeed no longer a stranger to hate and criticisms due to her online posts. However, she never stopped sharing photos despite that.

Previously, she posted a video on Instagram that caused a stir among her followers.

The said video was recorded while she was taking a shower. The young actress showed off her hair. However, many fans looked at it differently and called her out for being sultry.

Her Halloween look also caused a huge online commotion when she posted a video of her wearing make-up that appeared like she had been physically beaten and abused. Many of her fans and netizens thought she did it to glorify and approv domestic violence.

Moreover, Thorne released her own nude photos once. An insider claimed that a hacker threatened that they would release her topless pictures. In pursuit of reclaiming her authority against the unknown hacker, she posted them instead.

"I'm putting this out because it's MY DECISION NOW U DON'T GET TO TAKE YET ANOTHER THING FROM ME," she wrote at that time.

However, "The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg slammed and condemned her decision before saying, "If you're famous, I don't care how old you are. You don't take nude pictures of yourself."

But with OnlyFans, Thorne truly no longer needs to worry anymore.

READ MORE: Miley Cyrus Shock: Singer Drops Bombshell Hint About Future Project!
WITH 70% of organisations looking to offer more employees the chance to work remotely in the future, the likelihood that we will be spending more time than usual looking at screens is bad news for our eyes.

Dry eyes and eye strain

Increased laptop use, constantly checking our mobiles and unwinding in front of the TV in the evening adds up to a lot of screen time in a 24-period. But our eyes are not meant to work in this way.

Kerril Hickey, Chairman of Specsavers Ireland says: Our eyes are not designed to be fixed on a single object for a long period of time. When we focus on our screens, especially smaller format laptops, tablets or smart devices, eyes become stressed and strained. Eye strain has seen a spike during Covid-19 restrictions as our lifestyles have changed. But the good news is that you can prevent eye strain and irritation with some simple tips.

What are the symptoms of eye strain?

Mr Hickey says: Symptoms to look out for include general eye discomfort, headaches, sore, tired, burning or itchy eyes, difficulty focusing, watery eyes, dry eyes, blurred or double vision and increased sensitivity to light.

Who does it affect?

Dry eyes and eye strain can also affect children, as well as adults who spend a lot of time looking at screens, as we often do so without blinking. This can cause disruption to the eyes tear production. However, dry eye can also be caused by environmental, health and hormonal factors too, such as air-conditioning, allergies like hay fever or the menopause.

What can you do?

There are a number of measures you can take to prevent eye discomfort. Mr Hickey advises people to:

Rest your eyes - Follow the 20:20:20 rule: look up from your screen every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Looking into the distance helps relax the focusing muscles of your eyes, which in turn reduces eye fatigue.

This rule is also important for parents who have children spending a lot of time on screens, whether playing games or home schooling online. Monitor how much screen time they have each day and make sure that they have regular breaks.

Reduce glare  Reflections on your computer screen can cause glare and lead to eye strain. Try reducing this by attaching an anti-glare screen to your monitor or windows to avoid external light shining onto the screen.

Stay hydrated  Its also good general health advice to keep your water bottle topped up, particularly when you are stuck indoors, the weather is particularly hot, or if you have air-conditioning, as good hydration can help avoid dry eye.
Trustees with the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board (HWCDSB) approved motions to stagger reopening dates for elementary schools and to make masks mandatory for all students, from Junior kindergarten to Grade 12, at an emergency board meeting Thursday afternoon.

The new changes mean that all elementary students will now require masks come September, while elementary schools can open any time over the first two weeks of classes to afford students the time to learn new protocols and for health and safety practices to be reinforced.

Pat Daly, chair of the HWCDSB, said the board is working to produce final details regarding staggered reopening and how it will affect different schools across the board.

The board discussed a few possible models for staggered reopenings at Thursdays meeting.

One is to create cohorts of smaller numbers of students coming into school on different days during the first two weeks to give teachers an opportunity to teach them about safety protocols and hygiene, said HWCDSB director of education David Hansen.

This is all preliminary thinking, but, for example, grades one and two classes could come in on one day, and then the grades 3 and 4 on the next day, and so on, to get training from teachers. Alternatively, we could have half of all students come in on one day, in a cohort model, and then the other half comes in the next day to do the same, Hansen told the board.

Those are two of the models were looking at, but well let trustees know when we decide.

Daly has noted that the staggered reopening could also offer an opportunity for professional development for teachers and staff.

The option to delay elementary school reopenings was first broached in a memo circulated by the education ministry on Tuesday, when the province announced that Ontario schools could opt to stagger the restart of classes in elementary grades over a two-week period to accommodate class sizes and enrolment issues.

The decision offers more time for elementary schools to prepare reopenings and limit the number of students and staff who initially enter schools.

Both the public and the Catholic boards said they would consider staggered reopenings, before the Catholic board confirmed the decision to do so on Thursday. The public board has yet to announce whether it will do the same.

The planned delays have not come without concerns from trustees.

John Valvasori, a trustee for Wards 8 and 14, said he hopes the staggered reopening dates will not vary widely from school to school.

If one school decides not to stagger, and the other staggers all their classes, it might create difficulty for parents in terms of understanding why schools are acting differently from each other. If two close families go to different schools and notice a wide variance, they may begin to wonder why, Valvasori said.

The variance between schools reopening dates depends on several issues, including school enrolment sizes and physical space available. A school with large classroom sizes may need more time to get its students acquainted with health and safety protocols than a smaller school, Daly said.

The delay in school reopenings also raises the question of child care, and whether parents will need to make new accommodations for their children if theyre not attending school as soon as initially thought.

There may be some school communities where parents are particularly reliant on child care, and staggering the start of the school year may cause some undue anxiety around this, said Phil Homerski, trustee for Wards 12 and 13.
Los Angeles, Aug 21 : The official James Bond Instagram page has introduced the character portrayed by Rami Malek in the upcoming 007 adventure, No Time To Die, along with an image.

Malek plays the villain in the film, and the latest introduction reveals his character is called Safin. No other detail is out yet.

"Are you ready to meet Safin (Rami Malek) in NO TIME TO DIE?" read the caption alongside the image.

In the photo, Malek is seen standing in a forest. The caption was tagged with the film's name, #NoTime To Die.

Daniel Craig returns as the dapper British spy James Bond one last time in "No Time To Die", the 25th film in the 007 franchise. Co-starring with Craig and Malek are Lea Seydoux, who reprises her role of Dr. Madeleine Swann from the 2015 release, "Spectre". Among other cast members who return from recent films in the franchise are Ben Whishaw as Q, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Christoph Waltz as Blofeld, Ralph Fiennes as M, and Naomie Harris as M's secretary Moneypenny.

Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch are new additions to the Bond family in "No Time To Die".

The film was slated for an April 2020 release, but has been pushed back owing to the ongoing Covid pandemic that has forced the closure of cinema theatres all over the world. As of now, the film is scheduled for a November release.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
WILTON  In a last-minute decision, Superintendent of Schools Kevin Smith canceled next weeks student orientation days, pushing the student start date to Aug. 31.

Concerns from staff members about their own readiness  as well as whether all safety precautions were in place  helped prompt Smith to make an 11th hour announcement that he said was a surprise to his own principals and the Board of Education on Thursday night during its special meeting.

This is going to sound like a shock because youve had no forewarning, he said.

I understand for our parents and our families this may be a further setback, he said, asking for 24 hours to consolidate a plan to orientate students  particularly those who will begin the first day in distance learning as part of Cohort 2 in the hybrid plan.

I apologize to our community but I do feel very strongly that thats whats necessary, he said.

Smith said about a weeks worth of preparation time was lost to the recent tropical storm and subsequent power outages. Also, he said, technical operating problems with the new database the district is implementing  Schoology  as well as other software programs needed for distance learning have delayed things.

I think by delaying the school year a couple of days we will take a lot of the pressure off, said Wilton High School Principal Robert ODonnell.

In an online public comment emailed to the board just prior to Smiths announcement, Peggy Meurer, one of ODonnells math teachers, expressed apprehension and a strong desire to stall the school opening, which she said was shared by many at the high school.

The teachers, schools and district are simply not ready, she said, citing no sanitizer nor masks, no training in Schoology, and no understanding of how to use the new camera equipment that was recently delivered to execute the distance learning plan.

The stress and anxiety that this is causing teachers is palpable, she said.

We understand there are concerns and trepidations and anxiety and even disagreements, Chair Deborah Low said following the reading of the comment.

All of those concerns are serious and we hear you, she said.

Shes expressing the sentiment of many and shes right, Smith said, indicating that the bulk of the additional time next week would go toward training staff.

It was pointed out that other districts have gone so far as to push the start day for students back an additional week or two, but Smith said it would not be cost-effective to do so as staff would have to be compensated beyond their contracts.

We dont really gain anything with that (but) I think taking the time thats available to us next week, he said, would be beneficial.

I think youre absolutely right on target with this, Vice Chair Glenn Hemmerle said, noting he harbored concerns about issues relating to the technical changeover to Schoology.

If were not ready were not ready, he said. Its no ones fault. We lost seven days, eight days with the storm.

Fran Kompar, director of digital learning and information technology, explained how Schoology and other tech systems were freezing up due to nationwide overload.

We were sinking major files over from PowerSchool to Schoology, she said, and I would imagine across the country that was happening.

I think as we go through this hybrid model we just have to keep in mind that everybodys using the same tools that we are, she said, noting there were similar issues during distance learning in the spring.

She said the storm also slowed the into curriculum units into the system.

So we were behind and then we got even more behind, Kompar.

First and foremost, we want the schools and the teachers to be ready, agreed member Mandi Schmauch.

Asked, however, exactly how students will receive their orientation  particularly those starting the week at home in Cohort 2, Smith asked the board to give him a day to work on it.

I want you to give me 24 hours because I need them, he said, acknowledging that they were brewing myriad questions following his announcement but that he just needed that time before answering.

Now our building folks are going to have to scramble a little bit with it, Smith said, noting that the districts favorite F-word this year is flexibility.

They agreed.

Somehow orientation will get baked in in some way, shape or form in the first week, Low said.
Lawrence A. Rosen appointed by Supervisory Board as new Chairman with immediate effect

Appointment comes after Dr. Hakan Bjorklund decided to step down as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and as a Supervisory Board member

QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced today a transition in the leadership of its Supervisory Board after an extraordinary meeting of the Supervisory Board and Managing Board.

Lawrence A. Rosen, a member of the QIAGEN Supervisory Board since 2013, was appointed by the Supervisory Board as the new Chairman with immediate effect. Mr. Rosen, a U.S. citizen who spent more than 20 years in senior leadership positions in Europe, also serves on the Supervisory Board of Lanxess AG. He was a member of the Board of Management and Chief Financial Officer of Deutsche Post DHL Group in Germany until September 2016. Prior to that, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Fresenius Medical Care AG Co. KGaA in Germany from 2003 to 2009. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President and Treasurer for Aventis SA in Strasbourg, France. Between 1984 and 2000, he held various positions at the Aventis predecessor companies Hoechst AG and American Hoechst Hoechst Celanese Inc.

The appointment comes after Dr. Hakan Bjorklund decided to step down as Chairman and as a member of the Supervisory Board, and will not stand for re-election at the next Annual General Meeting planned for June 2021. Dr. Bjorklund was appointed as a new Supervisory Board member in March 2017 and as Chairman in June 2018. The number of Supervisory Directors has been reduced to six.

"As the leadership and composition of the Supervisory Board changes, and also in light of the recent outcome of the proposed acquisition by Thermo Fisher, the Supervisory Board wants to express its full commitment to QIAGEN pursuing a growth strategy focused on execution and greater value creation. We also look forward to working on a long-term basis with the Managing Board members. The contributions of QIAGEN to society have never been more critical due to the unprecedented magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic," said Mr. Rosen. "On behalf of my colleagues in the Supervisory Board, I would like to thank Dr. Bjorklund for his contributions to QIAGEN during his time on the Board and wish him all the best in his future endeavors."

"It has been a pleasure to be part of QIAGEN, a company having a critical role in modern molecular testing," said Dr. Hakan Bjorklund. "I wish my colleagues on the Supervisory Board and Managing Board, and above all the more than 5,200 QIAGEN employees who are truly making a difference during this public health crisis, continued success in helping to improve the lives of people around the world."

About QIAGEN

QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. Our sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA and proteins from blood, tissue and other materials. Assay technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. Bioinformatics software and knowledge bases interpret data to report relevant, actionable insights. Automation solutions tie these together in seamless and cost-effective workflows. QIAGEN provides solutions to more than 500,000 customers around the world in Molecular Diagnostics (human healthcare) and Life Sciences (academia, pharma R&D and industrial applications, primarily forensics). As of June 30, 2020, QIAGEN employed more than 5,200 people in over 35 locations worldwide. Further information can be found at http://www.qiagen.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to QIAGEN's outlook, products, launches, pipeline, regulatory submissions, collaborations, markets, strategy, employees, taxes or operating results; QIAGEN's plans to continue its growth strategy and the execution of its strategy; QIAGEN's commitment to support the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic; QIAGEN's ability to address molecular testing needs in the life sciences and molecular diagnostics; the magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic; QIAGEN's ability to increase its value through its growth strategy and initiatives; QIAGEN's commercial initiatives, including initiatives to support the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to strengthen its leadership in sample technologies, to further its leadership in tuberculosis detection, to accelerate commercialization of the QIAstat-Dx and NeuMoDx systems, and to enter the digital PCR market with the QIAcuity launch; impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on QIAGEN's business; and the proposed acquisition of NeuMoDx and the potential benefits of such acquisition; are forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with the breadth and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic; the availability of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the demand for our products and other aspects of our business; management of growth and international operations (including the effects of currency fluctuations, regulatory processes and dependence on logistics); variability of operating results and allocations between customer classes; the commercial development of markets for our products to customers in academia, pharma, applied testing and molecular diagnostics; changing relationships with customers, suppliers and strategic partners; competition; rapid or unexpected changes in technologies; fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN's products (including fluctuations due to general economic conditions, the level and timing of customers' funding, budgets and other factors); our ability to obtain regulatory approval of our products; difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN's products to integrated solutions and producing such products; the ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to differentiate and protect our products from competitors' products; market acceptance of QIAGEN's new products and the integration of acquired technologies and businesses; actions of governments, global or regional economic developments, weather or transportation delays, natural disasters, political or public health crises, or other force majeure events; as well as the possibility that expected benefits related to recent or pending acquisitions, including the pending acquisition of NeuMoDx, may not materialize as expected; and the other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in Item 3 of our most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F. For further information, please refer to the discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200821005385/en/

Contacts:

QIAGEN

Investor Relations

John Gilardi

+49 2103 29 11711

Phoebe Loh

+49 2103 29 11457

e-mail: ir@QIAGEN.com

Public Relations

Thomas Theuringer

+49 2103 29 11826

e-mail: pr@QIAGEN.com
Indias regulator has called for state governments in the nation to consider telecoms infrastructure as an essential service that operators should not be obliged to fund entirely.

As reported in The Economic Times, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) Chairman RS Sharma entreated: The telecom infra must become as essential as water pipes, electricity or the television infrastructure However, when it comes to telecom, you start charging money from telecom service providers, which isperverse.

State governments should be brought on board to understand that telecommunications is such an important and essential infrastructure, he added. Sharma was speaking at a conference organised by the Broadband India Forum, and discussing updating construction bylaws to better accommodate telecoms infrastructure.

TRAI also recently confirmed its final recommendations for determining fair spectrum usage charges in instances where two operators are sharing frequencies, noting that additional usage fees would only be charged on shared airwaves rather applying to both operators full spectrum holdings.

Spectrum licensees will be obliged to pay a usage fee on the shared spectrum band amounting to 0.5% of their AGR (adjusted gross revenue), in line with current rate calculations. Additionally, TRAI recommended that partners in spectrum sharing deals should be able to terminate agreements unilaterally in order to manage their spectrum based on requirements.
Nekpen Osuan doesnt waste time mobilizing when she finds a cause that moves her. She is a founder and chief executive of WomenWerk, a nonprofit organization that helps empower women of color, as well as an active volunteer for organizations including SEO Scholars, an education enrichment and mentoring program. But when it comes to romance she is not quite as quick on her feet.

Im aloof sometimes, she said, which may account for her reaction when Eric Wilson tried to flirt with her at the Park at 14th, a Washington nightclub, in the summer of 2016. Ms. Osuan, 34, a strategy and analytics manager at the consulting firm Deloitte who lives in Manhattan, was in Washington helping a friend hunt for an apartment. Mr. Wilson, 35, an Army officer from Clarksville, Tenn., was attending a conference about military mentorship.

She was pretty cute, he said, so after introducing himself and making small talk, he asked for her number. Ms. Osuan, then working as a vice president at Morgan Stanley, thought he was networking. I was like, OK, I met this other Black professional, lets keep in touch, she said. When he saved her contact under the future CEO of Morgan Stanley, she still didnt realize he was flirting. His next attempt to woo her, in a different city, fell flat, too.

Mr. Wilson is a graduate of West Point who led a platoon of 30 soldiers as an infantry officer in Iraq in 2010, followed by deployments to Kuwait and Afghanistan. He was in the process of starting a new assignment training future military officers at his alma mater when he met Ms. Osuan. One of the requirements for his new position was completing a graduate program in organizational psychology and leadership at Columbia. A month after they met, and after several text exchanges, Ms. Osuan agreed to show him around campus. She had received a certificate in economics and education from Columbia in 2010.
The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has fined The Signal, LP, an Assurant Company, $2.8 million for failing to comply with New York insurance laws.

A DFS press release alleged that The Signal provided inadequate consumer disclosures for insurance offerings for mobile phones, tablets and other wireless communication equipment and improperly bundled wireless insurance with the sale of a service contract or other non-insurance benefit. The release also contended that Assurant offered identity theft insurance underwritten by an unauthorized insurer.

Assurant is a New York-licensed insurance producer that assists wireless communications equipment vendors by packaging insurance programs and designing brochures and other materials. The company is an indirect subsidiary of Assurant Inc.

Licensees must make proper disclosures so that New York consumers can effectively assess the offering, said DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell in the release. Assurant failed to provide these disclosures while also offering a product that included unauthorized insurance. These types of failings can cause serious harm to consumers.

Indeed, DFS stated in the release that Assurant provided brochures that failed to properly disclose, among other things, how Assurant was compensated and how consumers could receive a premium discount that put third-party service contacts on the same footing as first-party offerings.

Additionally, the release explained that Assurant bundled wireless insurance with the sale of a service contract or other non-insurance benefit because of a failure to properly disclose the availability of a discount. Assurant also offered a program that contained group identity theft insurance underwritten by an unauthorized insurer. These violations continued after DFS issued guidance that addressed these shortcomings, the release stated.

An Insurance Circular Letter issued by DFS identified six improper practices in the industry, including failure to provide required notices and disclosures and tying insurance with non-insurance. The letter advised wireless communications equipment vendors and their producers that all companies selling this type of insurance must disclose to consumers, in brochures or other written materials, information like how the producer is compensated, the availability of premium credits for holders of third-party service contracts and fees imposed upon failure to return a device after replacement.

As part of the settlement, Assurant has agreed to continue complying with all laws and regulations addressed in the circular letter.

Source: New York State Department of Financial Services

Topics New York
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Law enforcement agencies cracked down on what Ontario Provincial Police described as an international criminal enterprise last week, seizing an estimated $42 million in drugs, equipment, weapons and other items, and arresting eight suspects.

A Jordan greenhouse surrounded by police Aug. 13 was likely one of 26 locations searched by officers last week that also included places in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Welland, Simcoe, Markham, Canfield, Leamington, Scarborough, Richmond Hill and British Columbia, at the culmination of a year-long investigation dubbed Project WOOLWICH.

Police says members of the criminal enterprise had been exploiting Health Canada medical, personal and designate cannabis production, instead growing the plant to sell illegally, including in the U.S.

Det. Insp. Jim Walker, from the OPPs organized crime enforcement bureau and provincial joint forces cannabis enforcement team, said investigators have learned criminal enterprises are abusing Health Canada registration, using it as a loophole to grow well over what their allotment is.

Theyre flagrantly overgrowing that amount, so now you have these large-scale cannabis farms under the regime of Health Canada that they hide behind, Walker said in a video released Friday by the OPP.

Investigators say shipments of U.S.-bound illegal cannabis were also seized, as well as two shipments of U.S. currency being shipped to Canada  leading to the involvement of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations offices in Buffalo and Toronto.

Michael Buckley, the Homeland Security Investigations attache at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, called the joint investigation an excellent example of the ongoing collaboration between the Homeland Security Investigations  the Ontario Provincial Police and Niagara Regional Police.

It clearly highlights that the critical sharing of information can successfully lead to the dismantlement of criminal organizations in both countries, he said in a media release.

Police say large shipments of illegal cannabis were also being sent across the country from British Columbia to Ontario.

Walker said there has been a dramatic increase in the illegal production and distribution of cannabis in the two years since the drug was legalized in Canada.

Its such a profit-driven market right now, he said. The demand for illicit cannabis far exceeds what they can supply at this time.

Project WOOLWICH has dismantled a very sophisticated criminal enterprise that spanned from B.C. to Ontario and into the United States.

Police say the provincial joint forces cannabis enforcement team investigation  including law enforcement officers from the OPP, the provincial asset forfeiture unit, the clandestine laboratory investigative response team, Niagara, York, Waterloo and Hamilton police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and others  began with information uncovered by Niagara Regional Police.

Police say the identities of the suspects, who have been released pending a Sept. 17 court appearance in St. Catharines, will be released at a later date.

$42 million in seized items include:

101,049 illegal cannabis plants;

1,921 pounds of illegal cannabis bud;

21 pounds of illegal cannabis shatter;

Two ounces of cocaine;

Three pounds of illegal cannabis hash;

22 pounds of illegal cannabis oil;

RELATED STORIES Niagara Region Large police presence at Jordan greenhouse unexplained by OPP

Hundreds of illegal cannabis vape pens;

Six firearms including two .22 pistols, one 9mm Glock, one AR 15 assault rifle and two shotguns;

Grow equipment worth more than $1 million;

Numerous high-end jewelry items;

Four vehicles;

More than $2.5 million in Canadian currency;

$580,828 in US currency; and $379,383 in Chinese and South Korean currency
The review of Church governance was recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

By Robin Gomes

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) and Catholic Religious Australia (CRA), the apex body of heads of womens religious congregations in the country, on Friday released what they describe as an important and substantial report on the review of diocesan and parish governance and management in Australia.

The report, entitled, The Light from the Southern Cross: Promoting Co-responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia, makes an important and substantial contribution to the life and mission of the Church in Australia, said ACBC president, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane. The bishops and leaders of religious institutes, he said, thank those responsible for its preparation and delivery.

Recommended by government

An ACBC-CRA joint press release explained that the report is in response to the review recommended by the Australian Governments Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Church accepted that recommendation, entrusting the task to the Implementation Advisory Group, which engaged the Governance Review Project Team (GRPT) to research and study Church governance and prepare the 208-page report, which includes 86 recommendations.

CRA president Br Peter Carroll, FMS, added: As leaders in the Catholic Church responsible for hundreds of Church entities, CRA and the Bishops Conference are working through numerous governance reforms and practices as outlined by the recommendations of the Royal Commission.

I am hopeful that The Light from the Southern Cross will illumine a future path of contemporary good governance for the Church in Australia, and possibly beyond.

Official version

The GRPT had presented an earlier version of the report, marked confidential, to the bishops conference and the CRA for review in May 2020, but which unfortunately was leaked to international Catholic media and published online.

The bishops had noted a number of errors that would need to be corrected and some clarifications made before releasing the report officially. They took on the task of providing feedback to inform those corrections and clarifications.

The final version of the report was officially published online on August 21, along with an accompanying Reading Guide.

Bishops' Plenary Council

Archbishop Coleridge said the bishops have previously asked that any feedback on the final version of the report be sent to the local bishop in each place, who will discuss it at the ACBC Plenary Council in November.

He said, The bishops will discuss the report and the broader issue of governance at our meeting later this year, but many of the matters raised are ones that can be implemented at the local level, rather than requiring national consensus.

Equally, many of the issues will be best considered during the upcoming Plenary Council and what will follow from the Council in each diocese.

The ACBC president recommended that anyone wishing to read The Light from the Southern Cross, should do so with the accompanying reading guide. He urged that the whole report be read, rather than just the recommendations.

The publication of The Light from the Southern Cross brings to completion one of the IAGs final projects, prior to concluding its service at the end of 2020.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  Coronavirus disease can be considered as a blessing in disguise as it has put a spotlight on the urgent need to introduce health reforms, Health chief Francisco Duque III said Friday.

Duque told a webinar hosted by the University of the Philippines that the current health crisis has also somehow paved the way for faster implementation of the universal health care law, which was enacted in February last year.

This can also be some kind of blessing in disguise, serendipitous. Kasi parang na-accelerate iyong universal healthcare because of COVID-19. It is a catalyst, he said.

[Translation: It seems COVID-19 was able to speed up the implementation of a universal healthcare system.]

Although COVID-19 has exposed the fissures or the cracks, weakness of our health system, it has brought to (the) fore the areas, provisions of UHC that need to be accelerated in terms of their implementation, he added.

The UHC law aims to ensure all Filipinos have access to quality and affordable health services.

It also seeks to have a paradigm shift -- from hospital care to primary care, veering away from the American style in which individuals bypass primary care providers in community-based health centers and seek treatment from specialists in bigger hospitals.

DOH earlier noted that bypassing lower-level healthcare facilities make Filipinos vulnerable to spending from their own pockets.

Under the UHC system, every Filipino would be assigned to a health worker who shall be their first point of contact. Primary care providers will guide patients through different healthcare facilities.

In the context of COVID-19, Duque said they urge health care workers and local governments to do active case finding by visiting local communities to monitor peoples health conditions and compliance to minimum health standards.

The government has also set up a One Hospital Command Center to ensure efficient health facility referral for coronavirus-hit individuals in Metro Manila and avoid decongestion in hospitals. The command center also facilitates medical transport and patient pick-up arrangements.

Duque said there must also be a separate command center for isolation centers for a better referral network.

Let us broaden the context by which we are responding to the pandemic. And that context is universal healthcare, Duque said.
A former California police officer who lived a double life as the 'Golden State Killer' has been sentenced to life in prison for a string of murders and rapes in the 1970s and 80s that were solved through the use of public genealogy websites.

Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, was jailed for life on Friday following four days of emotional hearings in Sacramento during which his victims or their family members confronted him in open court.

Before learning his fate, DeAngelo, who had sat silently in his wheelchair throughout his trial, stood up for the first time and removed his mask before apologizing to his victims and their families.

'I've listened to all your statements. Each one of them,' he said. 'And I'm truly sorry for everyone I've hurt.'

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Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, - aka the Golden State Killer - stood up from his wheelchair and removed his mask before apologizing to his victims and their families in court on Friday

DeAngelo told the court he was 'truly sorry' for everyone he has hurt before being sentenced to life in prison without parole

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman handed him a life sentenced after DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges between 1975 and 1986

DeAngelo in June pleaded guilty to 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping that occurred between 1975 and 1986.

He also confessed to 161 other crimes - many of which were rapes - that he couldn't be charged for because they took place outside the statute of limitations.

DeAngelo is pictured in the early 70s when he worked with the Exeter Police Department. He married Huddle in 1973

Prosecutors called his more than decade-long spate of crimes 'simply staggering,' encompassing 87 victims at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties.

The case set several hallmarks.

To finally identify and arrest him in 2018, investigators pioneered a new method of DNA tracing that involves building a family tree from publicly accessible genealogy websites to narrow the list of suspects.

They linked nearly 40-year-old DNA from crime scenes to a distant relative, and eventually to a discarded tissue they surreptitiously sneaked from DeAngelo's garbage can in suburban Sacramento.

The same technique has since been used to solve 93 murders and rapes across the nation, said Ron Harrington, the brother of one of DeAngelo's victims.

'It is probably the most important (recent) advancement by law enforcement in solving cold case murders and rapes,' he said.

His family has been obsessed with solving the 1980 slayings of youngest brother Keith Harrington and his new wife, Patrice Harrington.

It led oldest brother Bruce Harrington to champion Proposition 69, passed by California voters in 2004, that expanded the collection of DNA samples from prisoners and those arrested for felonies and has since led to more than 81,000 identifications.

DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer, sat with public defenders Joseph Cress (L) and Diane Howard at his sentencing hearing held at CSU Sacramento

Jane Carson-Sandler, who was raped by the serial killer in 1976, confronted DeAngelo during the second day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse on Wednesday.

Gay Hardwick, left, is comforted by her spouse Bob Hardwick, center, and San Joaquin County's District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar during the second day of victim impact statements with Joseph James DeAngelo present

The brothers were among family members and survivors who gave three days of often heartbreaking testimony before DeAngelo is formally sentenced Friday by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman.

Most said they will never be the same, even as they told of their resilience and the bond they have formed since DeAngelo's arrest.

The sweep of his crimes is measured by the mysterious stalker's nicknames over the years, prosecutors said: the Visalia Ransacker, thought to be responsible for about 100 burglaries and one slaying in the San Joaquin Valley farm town; the East Area Rapist; the Original Night Stalker; and finally, the Golden State Killer when investigators linked the crimes that stretched across much of the state.

'He started off as a Peeping Tom, a voyeur, somebody lurking around womens bedrooms at night peering in. He then became a two-bit burglar, breaking into women's bedrooms, stealing trinkets and womens underwear,' Ron Harrington recalled.

That escalated to raping single women, then to humiliating couples.

Debbi McMullan (left) and Melanie Barbeau also came face to face with DeAngelo during the third day of victim impact statements on Thursday. DeAngelo killed McMullan's mother, Cheri Domingo, and Domingo's boyfriend, Gregory Sanchez, in 1981

Elizabeth Hupp, daughter of Claude Snelling, breaks down in tears as she reads her victim impact statement in court on Thursday. Snelling died thwarting DeAngelo's attempted kidnapping of his daughter Hupp when she was 16 in 1975

His technique became his trademark: He would force his victims at gunpoint to bind themselves with shoelaces, then balance plates on the mans back with a warning that he would kill both victims if he heard the plates rattle while he raped the woman.

He killed three early Northern California victims when they interfered with his assaults on women. But he escalated again when he moved to Southern California, to 10 known murders.

Even DeAngelo's ex-wife, Sacramento attorney Sharon Huddle, said in a court filing Thursday that she was fooled, though many victims have wondered aloud how she could not have known of her husbands double life.

'I trusted the defendant when he told me he had to work, or was going pheasant hunting, or going to visit his parents hundreds of miles away,' Huddle wrote.

Many victims asked Bowman to make sure DeAngelo is sent to a remote prison and housed among other inmates instead of in protective custody, though state corrections officials said they will make the final decision on where and how he is housed.

'You are finally going to prison and will remain there until you die,' Jane Carson-Sandler, who was raped in 1976, told DeAngelo this week.

She recalled that he famously left behind a roast in the oven when police moved in to make their arrest on April 24, 2018. His survivors, she said, now plan to celebrate each anniversary of his arrest with a similar feast 'in memory of your capture.'

'Too bad you won't get to enjoy it,' she said.

THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER: HOW A VIETNAM VET TURNED COP GOT AWAY WITH RAPE, BURGLARY, KIDNAPPING AND MURDER FOR DECADES BEFORE BEING BROUGHT DOWN BY A GENEALOGY WEBSITE

DeAngelo Jr., a former cop, eluded law enforcement for decades until his DNA was linked to the crimes through GEDMatch.com, a genealogy website that one of his relatives had submitted their DNA to.

While his real identity remained a mystery until then, his crimes earned him a series of ominous names.

DEANGELO'S CRIMES 1974-1975: 120 burglaries in Visalia and surrounding areas June 18, 1976: Sexual assault/rape, Rancho Cordova July 17, 1976: Sexual assault/rape, Carmichael August 29, 1976: Burglary, attempted sexual assault, Rancho Cordova Sept. 4, 1976: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael Oct. 5, 1976: Sexual Assault/rape, Citrus Heights Oct. 9, 1976: Sexual Assault/rape, Rancho Cordova Oct. 18, 1976: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael Oct. 18, 1976: Carjacking, Rancho Cordova Nov. 10, 1976: Kidnapping, Citrus Heights Dec. 18, 1976: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael Jan. 18, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento Jan. 24, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Citrus Heights Feb. 7, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael Feb. 16, 1977: Assault, attempted murder, Sacramento March 8, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento March 18, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Rancho Cordova April 2, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Orangevale April 15, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael May 3, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento May 5, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Orangevale May 14, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Citrus Heights May 17, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael May 28, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento Sept. 6, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Stockton Oct. 1, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Rancho Cordova Oct. 21, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento Oct. 29, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento Nov. 10, 1977: Sexual Assault/rape, Sacramento Dec. 2, 1977: Attempted sexual assault, Sacramento Jan. 28, 1978: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael Jan. 29, 1979: Sexual Assault/rape, Carmichael Feb. 2, 1978: Brian and Katie Maggiore were killed, Rancho Cordova March 18, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Stockton April 14, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Sacramento June 5, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Modesto June 7, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Davis June 23, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Modesto June 24, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Davis July 6, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Davis Oct. 7, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Concord Oct. 13, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, Concord Oct. 28, 1978: San Ramon Nov. 4, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, San Jose Dec. 2, 1978: Sexual assault/rape,San Jose Dec. 8, 1978: Sexual assault/rape (DNA link), Danville Dec. 18, 1978: Sexual assault/rape, San Ramon March 20, 1979: Sexual assault/rape, Rancho Cordova April 4, 1979: Sexual assault/rape, Fremont June 2, 1979: Sexual assault/rape, Walnut Creek June 11, 1979: Sexual assault/rape (DNA link), Danville June 25, 1979: Sexual assault/rape, Walnut Creek July 5, 1979: Attempted sexual assault, Danville Oct. 1, 1979: Attempted sexual assault/murder (no DNA) Goleta Dec. 30, 1979: 2 people killed, Goleta March 13, 1980: Sexual assault/rape, Lyman and Charlene Smith were killed (DNA link), Ventura Aug. 19, 1980: Sexual assault/rape, Keith and Patrice Harrington killed, Dana Point Feb. 5, 1981: Sexual assault/rape, Manuela Witthuhn killed (DNA link), Irvine July 27, 1981: 2 people killed (DNA link), Goleta May 4, 1986: Sexual assault/rape, Janelle Cruz killed(DNA link) Irvine Advertisement

First, he was the Visalia Ransacker, a burglar who ravaged people's homes from 1974-1975, stealing personal items and scattering women's underwear around the crime scenes.

Next, he was the East Area Rapist, a shadowy predator who assaulted dozens of women between 1976 and 1979.

Between the burglaries and rapes, he started killing, earning himself the name of the Golden State Killer and the Original Nightstalker.

What triggered his sadistic tendencies remains largely a mystery.

DeAngelo grew up following his US Airman father around with his mother and sister.

Little is known about his upbringing beyond that they were, at one time, stationed in Germany.

His sister's son, Jesse Ryland, has told in the past how DeAngelo would often see his father beat his mother, Kathleen.

He also claimed that he witnessed his sister being raped by two airmen when she was just seven and he was nine.

Ryland speculated that may have been the catalyst for his obsession with rape later in life. DeAngelo has never commented on it.

The family returned to the US and settled on the West Coast by DeAngelo's teenage years.

His father was posted overseas in Korea later but he and his mother and sister stayed. His mother, according to a profile in the Los Angeles Times in 2018, started seeing a married man who had his own family.

It left DeAngelo in charge of caring for his younger siblings.

Former childhood friends told how he would try to fit in to their families as if they were his own.

He graduated from Folsom Senior High School in 1964 and joined the Navy, working as a damage control man aboard the Canberra during the Vietnam War.

No other details of his military career are known.

A 1967 article in The Auburn Journal, the local newspaper where his parents live, describes him as a 21-year-old due home on leave.

After returning to the US from Vietnam, he met Bonnie Colwell, a science student who ultimately broke his heart.

He and Bonnie were at one time engaged but she broke it off in 1971.

When he was arrested in 2018, Bonnie went into hiding.

DeAngelo's next known milestone was not until 1972, when he graduated from California State University with a degree in criminal justice.

From there, he joined The Exeter Police Department where he worked as an officer on the burglary unit.

It's in this job that he learned how to commit seemingly perfect burglaries himself.

It was also while he was working there that he married Sharon Marie Huddle.

The pair had three daughters, who are now all adults.

Between 1974 and 1975, a figure who became known as the Visalia Ransacker carried out more than 120 burglaries in the area. For decades, his identity was unknown.

When DeAngelo was arrested in 2018 for the murders and rapes of dozens of others, he was quickly tied to the Visalia Ransacker crimes and blamed for them.

His signature, when burglarizing, was to leave women's underwear scattered at his crime scenes.

In 1975 was when he graduated from burglarizing to attempted kidnapping and then killing, shooting dead Claude Snelling who was protecting his teenage daughter, Elizabeth, from being kidnapped.

Elizabeth, 16, woke up at 2am on September 11, 1975, to see a man in a ski mask, standing over her bed, telling her to go with him or be killed.

He dragged her from her room and out of the family's backdoor towards their carport but was stopped by Snelling who happened to be in the kitchen at the time.

Elizabeth later recalled: 'I heard a yell and saw my dad charge out the back door.

'The kidnapper] threw me down and shot my dad twice. Then he pointed the gun at me.'

DeAngelo hit her with the gun and kicked her but fled. Snelling died on his way to the hospital.

In 1976, he left the Exeter Police Department and started working for the Auburn Police Department.

That is when his relentless raping began.

Between 1976 and 1979, he raped dozens of women in the area.

It terrorized the neighborhoods where he picked his targets and earned him the name East Area Rapist.

One of the victims recalled how he lay down next to her after the attack and sobbed: 'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you Bonnie.'

DeAngelo was fired by the police department in 1979 after being caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent from a drugstore in Citrus Heights, one of the areas where he would attack women.

He then spent 27 years working at a Save Mart Supermarkets distribution center, fixing trucks, before retiring in 2017.

It's unclear when but he and his wife separated some time before his 2018 arrest which came as a shock to his neighbors and relatives.

It was the first time police had tested samples of DNA found at some of the crime scenes against DNA being stored by GEDMatch.

One of DeAngelo's relatives had willingly submitted their sample to find out more about their ancestry.

Since his case, it has been used as a crime-solving technique hundreds of times.

DeAngelo's neighbors described him as 'cantankerous', unlikable and a 'curser'.

While he has been blamed for 88 crimes, he has also been exonerated in others.

Among his rapes is the attack of a 13-year-old girl who recalled in detail being assaulted while he shone a flashlight in her face.

'In a very harsh whisper, he would say, "Do you want to die?

'Do you want me to kill your mother? Do you want me to slit her throat?"' Wardlow said.

'I answered him immediately, "I dont care," and hed say, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"' Margaret Wardlow, who was raped by him in 1977, recalled to Inside Edition after his arrest last year.

DeAngelo's wife and children have never spoken of his crimes.

His sister was stunned when he was arrested.

'As stunned as I am - because I've never seen him display any kind of madness or anything like that - I just can't believe it.

'I've never seen anything to allow myself to think he could do such things,' Rebecca Thompson, his older sister, told The Sacramento Bee at the time of his arrest.
Having challenged her parents, she went a step higher and challenged their God. They had told her that if she prayed to God, she would do well at school. One morning, on her way to an exam she was sure she could pass, she declined to kiss the mezuza, a holy parchment on the doorjambs of devout Jews. She not only passed the exam but with the best result in her class. She reckoned she no longer needed Gods help and became a lifelong atheist.
The campaign for the 2020 US presidential elections is heating up with Americans set to vote on November 3, 2020.

Both Democrats and Republicans are leaving no stone unturned to attract the Indian-Americans, who account for about 1.3 million of the total American population.

While Democrats seemed to have gained support with the announcement of African-American and Indian origin Kamala Harris as their Vice-Presidential nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump has won over Indian supporters with events like Howdy Modi and open support and friendship for India.

He has created four coalitions to woo Indians  Indian Voices for Trump, Hindu Voices for Trump, Sikhs for Trump and Muslim Voices for Trump.

So, both parties have Indians in their campaign team.

Sabrina Singh, Press Secretary to Kamala Harris

Image: Twitter

Lets start with Sabrina Singh, who was recently appointed Press Secretary to Democrats VP candidate, Harris.

The 32-year-old Singh is the first Indian-American to be appointed as Press Secretary to a VP candidate for a major political party. However, this is not her first presidential campaign. Before her elevation, she has worked as a Press Secretary for Cory Booker, a Democrat who dropped off the race in 2020. She was also spokesperson for Michel Bloombergs presidential campaign. She was also the regional communications director for Hilary Clintons Presidential campaign in 2016.

Amit Jani, Joe Bidens political campaigner and director, Asian American Pacific Islanders

Image: Twitter

The controversial political campaigner in Bidens team was expected to create a divide in the South Asian community in the US due to his close ties with the BJP in India.

Janis father, Suresh Jani, was the founder of the Overseas Friends of BJP in the US. This created a backlash and he was relieved from his role as the Muslim Outreach Coordinator, and was replaced by Farooq Mitha, a former Muslim advisor to the Clinton campaign.

He joined the campaign in 2019 and will continue to be the AAPI Outreach Coordinator. On the political front, Jani is not new. Jani has earlier worked in New Jersey Governor Phil Murphys office.

Sanjeev Joshipura, Director of newly formed Indians for Biden National Council

Image: Twitter

To woo Indian-American votes for Harris, the council was launched a week ago. The council, which comes under the organisation, South Asians for Biden, is headed by Joshipura and will campaign for Biden-Harris across the country, targeting Indian-Americans of different faiths.

Joshipura, Executive Director of Indiaspora, a not-for-profit organisation, is engaged in public policy, and global government relations since 2008. According to reports, he has managed a US Senate election campaign, worked as a staff member on Capitol Hill, advising Congressmen and Senators on economics and international affairs.

Dewan, who will now be mobilising South Asian votes for Biden, has been involved in politics for a while. A litigation associate, she was part of Obamas 2012 presidential campaign.

Back then, Dewan chaired the New York Chapter of South Asians for Obama for his re-election campaign. She has also served on the Steering Committee for Lawyers for Obama in New York.

Sampat Shivangi, National President of Indian American Forum for Political Education

Image: sampatshivangi.com

This Karnataka-born physician has been a supporter of the Republican Party and is also a lifelong member. He has been elected five times in a row as a delegate to the partys Republican National Convention (RNC). He would formally nominate Donald Trump at the RNC, scheduled between August 24 and August 27.

According to reports, he is quite an influential figure in the circles and a top fundraiser for the party in Mississippi, where he hails from. With his three- decade-long career and network with US Senators and Congressmen, he would now assist Trump is his re-election this year.

Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, co-chair for Indian Voices for Trump

Image: Facebook
Beaus prominence isnt new for his father. On the campaign trail during the primaries, Joe Biden often explained his decision to run in 2020 by recalling a conversation he had with his son just before he passed away, when Beau asked him to promise he would be all right after his death. Biden says he knew what his son really meant was that he should not let grief push him out of public service.
BAY CITY, MI  A Bay City woman has been charged with stabbing a man five times in his head.

Bay City Department of Public Safety officers on Thursday, Aug. 20, arrested 24-year-old Kore J. Earegood on an outstanding warrant that had been issued for her on Aug. 12.

Earegood on Friday afternoon appeared from the Bay County Jail via Zoom before Bay County District Judge Mark E. Janer for arraignment on single counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, and entering without permission. The most serious count is the first charge, a four-year felony.

Earegood joins two codefendants  Jordan W. Johnson, 31, and Anthony N. Arocha, 30  who face the same charges stemming from the same incident, which occurred July 25 but was not reported by the victim to police until July 31.

The male victim told police that he had been in his apartment in the 600 block of North Van Buren on the citys East Side when Earegood, Johnson, and Arocha barged in.

The man said he went into the buildings hallway where he knew there are surveillance cameras. Shortly after, Johnson slapped him in the back of his head and then he and Arocha began punching and beating him, he said.

As the assault went on, Earegood picked up a knife from somewhere and proceeded to stab the resident five times in his head. The trio also stole the mans cellphone so he could not call 911 and then they all fled, he told police.

Police reviewed footage from the surveillance cameras, which supported the mans account, court records show.

Police also noted the man had five puncture wounds to his head, but he declined medical attention due to the gap in time from when the assault occurred to when he filed a report.

Police later interviewed Arocha as he was already in the jail. He told them he didnt remember the occurrence, as he and his codefendants had been using methamphetamine, court records state.

Defense attorney Matthew Hewitt, appearing at the arraignment on Earegoods behalf, asked Judge Janer to set a reasonable bond so she could leave jail and start working at a new job she was scheduled to begin Friday.

The judge said Earegood was free on bond pending sentencing on a domestic violence conviction when the stabbing occurred and ended up setting bond at $15,000 cash-surety.

Earegoods next court date is pending.

Read more:

Bay City man stabbed five times in his head leads to charges against 2 men

Bay City man gets probation in home invasion, gun theft case

Sex offender from Bad Axe pleads guilty to having hundreds of images of child porn

Man, woman plead no contest in robbery of Bridgeport Township credit union
(JNS)  Heading into the 2020 presidential campaign, centrist Democrats as well as those who are supporters of Israel had good reason to be worried about the future of their party. After Hillary Clintons defeat in 2016, Bernie Sanderss wing of the party was still nursing a grudge about being supposedly robbed of the presidential nomination by the establishment. They were confident that the rise of a new generation of radical politicians marked a changing of the guard, and that they were poised to take over.

That seemed likely earlier this year when the campaign of the leading mainst...
The federal government will invest another $171 million into the country's aged care sector, bringing its total investment during the pandemic to $1 billion.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said national cabinet had also agreed to establish a federal aged care emergency response centre that state or territories could call upon to help manage aged care coronavirus cases.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said "jobs is the number one economic issue" for Australia in the pandemic. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The aged care royal commission last week urged the government to consider setting up a dedicated aged care national co-ordinating body to advise on the sector's pandemic response.

The new funding includes $103.4 million for the already announced COVID-19 aged care preparedness measures, including national call centre capacities for communications with families and covering quarantine costs for interstate staff employed, as well as mental health support for residents and their families.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 20:48:47|Editor: huaxia

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MACAO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Macao dropped by 67.8 percent year-on-year in real terms in the second quarter of 2020, representing a greater decline compared to the first quarter, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistic service said here on Friday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that with the continued control against the COVID-19, exports of services showed a sharper fall of 92.3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, of which exports of gaming and other tourism services dropped by 97.1 percent and 93.9 percent respectively.

In addition, exports of goods went down by 26.4 percent. Domestic demand saw a smaller decrease of 8.2 percent year-on-year, mainly attributable to a slower rate of decline in the investment in fixed assets.

Imports of goods and services slid by 29.6 percent and 47.6 percent respectively, the DSEC report added.

The implicit deflator of GDP, which measures the overall changes in prices, increased by 0.6 percent year-on-year in the second quarter.

As the SAR government introduced a consumption subsidy scheme to encourage domestic demand in the second quarter, household final consumption expenditure in the domestic market showed a smaller decline of 9.8 percent.

Meanwhile, household final consumption expenditure abroad reduced by 71.2 percent owing to the entry restrictions worldwide. The overall private consumption decreased by 16.5 percent year-on-year.

The SAR government's economic relief measures and pandemic control efforts drove up government final consumption expenditure by 14.0 percent, an acceleration from the 5.0 percent growth in the previous quarter.

The SAR government's net purchases of goods and services rose by 34.5 percent while compensation of employees went up by 2.3 percent.

Investment in fixed assets declined at a much slower pace compared to the previous quarter, down by 8.1 percent year-on-year. Construction investment and equipment investment dropped by 4.6 percent and 23.9 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, public construction investment rose by 29.6 percent year-on-year due to increased investment in infrastructure by the government, whereas equipment investment reduced by 56.0 percent.

Total demand decreased and merchandise trade remained flat as compared to the previous quarter. Imports of goods dropped by 29.6 percent year-on-year due to reduction in private consumption, investment and visitor spending. External demand slowed down, with exports of goods falling by 26.4 percent.

Visitor arrivals to Macao continued to decrease amid the travel restrictions, with the number of arrivals in the second quarter plummeting by 99.0 percent year-on-year. This pushed down exports of gaming and other tourism services by 97.1 percent and 93.9 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, imports of services slid by 47.6 percent year-on-year owing to a decrease in outbound trips made by residents and a slowdown in other economic activity. Enditem
Attorney General William Barr said he would be vehemently opposed to President Trump pardoning former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, a move Trump suggested over the weekend that he was mulling.

He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people, Barr told the Associated Press. He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We cant tolerate that.

Snowden was charged with espionage in 2013 after he stole and leaked documents to the media containing classified details about U.S. surveillance programs. The former CIA contractor fled to Russia where he remains since charges of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property were announced against him. Among the information Snowden disclosed were details about U.S. surveillance on Chinese telecommunications company Huawei as well as details about Australias spying in Asia.

There are many, many people  it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things, Trump said Saturday at a press conference about Snowden. And Im going to take a very good look at it.

Snowden has defended his actions as an effort to expose constitutional violations and to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.

I took an oath to support and defend the constitution and what I saw was the constitution being violated on a massive scale, the whistleblower said in 2014.

I realized that I was crazy to have imagined that the Supreme Court, or Congress, or President Obama, seeking to distance his administration from President George W. Bushs, would ever hold the IC legally responsible  for anything, Snowden wrote in his memoir published last year, referring to the intelligence community.

However, critics warn that a pardon for Snowden would send the message to leakers that their actions disclosing sensitive information and potentially threatening U.S. national security will not have consequences.

More from National Review
The UKs state-funded National Health Service (NHS) on Friday issued an urgent call for people of Indian and South Asian heritage who have recovered from Covid-19 to donate their plasma to help save lives of others infected with the deadly virus.

According to experts, people from a South Asian background are around twice as likely to have high enough antibodies for their donations to be used in life-saving treatment trials, compared to white people. The NHS said that this antibody-rich plasma, which could save the lives of people with coronavirus, is being sought urgently ahead of a feared second wave of the pandemic in the country later in the year.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

We have had a fantastic response from the Asian community. Covid-19 is attacking the Asian community more than the wider community and donating plasma could save a life, said Rekha Anand, a Consultant Haematologist for NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), which is a Special Health Authority in charge of blood and organ donation.

NHSBT said that its data shows that people of an Asian heritage have been donating in strong numbers, at over 7 per cent of all plasma donors so far, and also sought to highlight the donation as a safe and easy procedure.

Plasma donation is safe, clean and easy. It takes about 45 minutes and your body quickly replaces the plasma and the antibodies, explains Dr Shruthi Narayan, a Consultant Donor Medicine for NHSBT. Because your red blood cells are returned to you, you can carry on with your day as normal, she said.

A Public Health England (PHE) report had concluded that people from South Asian communities who have Covid-19 have a higher risk of becoming seriously ill and the emerging evidence is that the more seriously ill people become, the more antibodies they produce.

This seems to be borne out in statistics as NHSBT found that among first-time donors from an Asian background, 44.1 per cent (330 out of 749) had high enough antibodies for the trial, compared with 22.4 per cent (2,126 out of 9,509) of white donors.

Some people may feel nervous about donating, particularly if theyve had a tough time with coronavirus. Our donation team will look after you and people usually feel fantastic after donating, knowing they are doing something to help the community, said Dr Suhail Asghar, from NHSBTs Clinical Support Team.

Plasma donor centres have been set up across all major towns and cities of the UK, especially those with a significant South Asian population, including London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester.

Dr Naim Akhtar, a Consultant in Donor Medicine for NHSBT, added: Plasma donation is a way to help those who are in need. By donating plasma, you could help someone to survive from Covid and spend more time with their family.

The NHSBT campaign involving experts from a South Asian heritage for more plasma donors follows the UK governments appeal earlier this week for more people of Indian and South Asian origin to sign up for Covid-19 vaccine trials, after a low rate of sign up from these communities to the Vaccine Research Registry.

A targeted recruitment programme broadcast in Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and Urdu is among the measures being deployed to reach out to different communities to ensure any future vaccine that clears all trials works for everyone.
CHICAGO (AP)  Funding for police officers in Chicago Public Schools will be cut by more than half, while other major reforms' will be implemented for the way police operate in the school district, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and district CEO Janice Jackson said.

The Chicago School Board voted to keep its contract with Chicago police while cutting the budget for school resource officers from $33 million to $15 million, WGN-TV reported.

The question of whether Chicago police officers should be on duty inside public schools has been a debate by local school councils after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis ignited protests worldwide against racial injustice and police brutality.

Activists have called for all officers to be removed from schools in Chicago. Lightfoot said individual schools can decide if school resources officers will remain in their premises but the changes do not remove them from the district.

I understand the concerns and questions that many have surrounding policing, particularly when it involves our youth, Lightfoot said. We have heard you, and we have taken major steps to respond.

Lightfoot and Jackson said Wednesday that changes also will be made in the way school resource officers are hired and how complaints are handled.

In recent weeks, elected local school councils have been deciding whether to keep officers in schools. So far, 17 schools have decided they dont want Chicago police, while 55 are keeping resource officers.

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Washington, Aug 21 : The number of initial jobless claims in the US topped the 1 million mark last week, casting shadow on the recovery of the labour market ravaged by the Covid-19 crisis.

In the week ending August 15, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 135,000 to reach 1.1 million, Xinhua news agency quoted Labour Department as saying in a report on Thursday.

Initial jobless claims spiked by 3 million to reach a record 3.3 million in the week ending March 21, and then doubled to reach a record 6.87 million in the week ending March 28.

After that, the number had been declining for 15 weeks consecutively, though they were still at historically high levels, before the trend was reversed in the week ending July 18 amid a resurgence in coronavirus cases.

The number then fell to 963,000 in the week ending August 8, the first time it has dipped below 1 million since mid-March, but the trend was reversed again last week, another setback for the struggling job market.

With the latest numbers, a staggering 57 million initial jobless claims have been filed over the past 22 weeks, indicating a mounting economic fallout related to the pandemic.

An extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits expired at the end of July, but Democratic lawmakers and President Donald Trump's administration remain deadlocked over the next Covid-19 relief package, with both sides blaming each other for making little progress.

As negotiations stall, President Trump signed a series of executive orders to extend certain Covid-19 economic relief, but analysts believe that they are unlikely to provide a meaningful boost to the overall economy.

One of the actions will extend extra unemployment benefits through the end of the year at a reduced level of $400 per week, instead of the $600 approved by Congress in late March.

The new order also demands states cover 25 per cent of the $400 weekly benefits, but only a handful of states have approved the funding.

But amid the grim milestones, the number of people continuing to collect state unemployment benefits declined by 636,000 to 14.8 million in the week ending August 8.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending August 1 also declined 197,601 to 28 million.

Earlier data showed that US employers added 1.8 million jobs in July, and the unemployment rate dropped to 10.2 per cent amid reopening efforts.
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 16:16 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f97874 1 Business waskita-karya,bonds,Pefindo,construction,revenue Free

State-owned construction company Waskita Karyas (Waskita) maturing Rp 1.15 trillion (US$78 million) bonds have secured a BBB+ investment grade from Indonesian rating agency Pemeringkat Efek Indonesia (Pefindo).

The builder is expected to collect Rp 35 trillion in project payments this year.

Pefindo expects Waskita to repay its 2015 series B bond, which will be due on Oct. 16, using its internal cash obtained from construction projects, according to a Pefindo publication released on Wednesday.

Waskita finance director Taufik Hendra Kusuma said the company had received Rp 12.5 trillion in infrastructure payments in the first half of 2020, mostly from turnkey projects.

Weve received Rp 7.1 trillion from turnkey project payments, with the biggest portion coming from the Jakarta-Cikampek II elevated [toll road] project, he said in a press release on Thursday.

Construction on the Jakarta-Cikampek elevated toll road began in July 2017 and was inaugurated by President Joko Jokowi Widodo in December 2019. The elevated road spans around 36 kilometers and costs around Rp 16.2 trillion.

Furthermore, Taufik said the company was also expecting a Rp 4 trillion land acquisition repayment from the State Asset Management Agency (LMAN) by the end of the year, as well as Rp 3.3 trillion from varying projects in the near future.

We will use the funds to repay our maturing debt. Our BBB+ rating shows that Waskita can minimize any financial risks amid pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.

As of March 31, Waskita has a cash balance of Rp 6.1 trillion, compared to Rp 4.1 trillion in maturing debts and Rp 7.9 trillion in unused credit facilities, according to Pefindo.

The World Bank, through its public expenditure report, had urged the government to reduce its dependence on state-owned construction companies for toll and national road development projects, as the companies are already overleveraged.

According to the report, Waskita, toll road operator Jasa Marga and state builder Hutama Karyas average liability-to-equity (LE) ratio stood at 3.8 in 2017, more than twice the average LE ratio for comparable private firms in emerging markets.
You know, somebody asked me recently, Did you personally experience any racism in the Marine Corps? I was like: Yes. I mean, Im Jewish. And as soon as people found out I was Jewish, then all the jokes became about me being a Jew. Theyd leave a Star of David made out of pennies on my cot and say: Thats your Jew gold. Youll pick it up. When things like that happened, I became very aware of my own privilege as a white guy, because typically, I had never been targeted by any racist.

The whole scene that revolves around a specific racial slur in Battle Born comes from one of my own experiences in the Marine Corps. And you know, its not about putting the military on blast, but about having an authentic conversation about it. Its about being honest about where were at and how these issues are being dealt with within the ranks. I dont even consider that a political thing. I dont think racism is a political issue. I think thats a human issue that we all need to deal with.

In Battle Born, Sergeant Kings stoicism and Lance Corporal Forrests bigotry provide a stark contrast. Once divided by race and creed, and then fused by empathy, they find common ground to accomplish their mission. What should readers take away from this relationship?

I knew Forrest needed to be a character that was going to butt heads with King. I didnt want the audience to necessarily hate Forrest, because I knew guys in the Marine Corps who were pieces of [expletive], but somehow you live with them and you work with them and you deal with it. I dont think theyre necessarily horrible people. Theyre just ignorant, and they dont know what they dont know. Theyre miseducated. So I feel like its important, as we see with King and Forrest, to find common ground with each other.
The US Special Envoy to Syria has invited both the US and Russia to the upcoming round of talks for the Constitutional Committee in Geneva writes Anadolu Agency.

The US and Russia welcomed an invitation from the UNs special envoy to Syria on Wednesday to participate in a third round of Syrian Constitutional Committee talks in Geneva later this month.

At an online meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC), Geir Pedersen urged parties to attend the meeting in good faith and without preconditions.

I continue to encourage all committee members to come to Geneva ready to engage in earnest on the substance, on the basis of the agenda that the co-chairs have agreed, without of course any preconditions, he said.

He praised Turkish-Russian coordination in northwestern Syria, warning of human and social effects of the coronavirus on civilians.

American UN envoy Kelly Craft invited delegations to go beyond the previous discussions and directly discuss constitutional reforms.

She stressed that the Donald Trump administration fully supports Pedersen in his efforts to facilitate the committees desire to draft a new constitution.

Also, Russias envoy to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, underlined the importance of maintaining political dialogue and said Russia continues to have a special representative in the committee and provide necessary support to Syrians.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, a new round of Syrian peace talks is set to begin Aug. 24.

The last round of talks failed to start on Nov. 29 because an agreement on the agenda could not be reached, Pedersen told journalists at the time.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

More than 5 million civilians have become refugees. Turkey hosts 3.6 million, more than any country in the world.

The constitutional review committee is made up of 150 delegates divided equally among the regime, the opposition and civil society and its small body, which consists of 45 members, will take part in next weeks meeting.

Constitutional review is a central part of the UNs peace plan for Syria, which was defined by Security Council resolution 2254, adopted in December 2015.

The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic party nomination for president Thursday, the last day of the first ever virtual convention held in the shadow of a raging Covid-19 epidemic, with a promise to heal and unite the nation and help it overcome this season of darkness.

Biden, a former vice-president and six-term senator before that, directly criticized President Donald Trump for his handling of the epidemic that has infected more than 5 million Americans and killed 170,000 and the cratering of the economy.

Biden said Trump had cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.

Biden offered himself as a contrast: Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not of the darkness. (and) United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.

Calling the upcoming elections in November 3 life-changing with the potential to determine Americas future for a long time, the Democratic nominee laid out his case for the White House in stark terms: Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot.

Biden accepted the partys nomination in a speech from a hall in Wilmington, Delaware. He was joined by wife Jill Biden on the stage after he finished, and by his running mate Kamala Harris and her spouse Doug Emhoff. They stood socially distant before walking out for celebratory fireworks.

Biden waited 32 years for this moment, having first run for the party nomination in 1987. He had dropped out then even before the primaries over plagiarism allegations. He tried again in 2008, but pulled out after a poor showing in the first of the nominating contests, the Iowa caucus.

The 2020 race did not start well either. He fared poorly in the first two nominating contests, Iowa and New Hampshire. He did somewhat better in Nevada, the third contest and went to South Carolina, the fourth, with the fate of his campaign in balance. He crushed it with the overwhelming support of the states Black Democrats and went on to sweep the Super Tuesday contests, winning 11 of the 14 states, toppling Senator Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner. He never looked back.

Also Read: In moving speech, boy says Joe Biden helped him overcome stutter

Biden turned the Democratic presidential ticket historic with his pick for running mate: Kamala Harris. She is the first Indian American and Black woman to run for vice-president. In fact, she is the first woman of color to run for this high office.

She accepted her nomination on Wednesday with a rousing tribute to her Indian-born mother and values inherited from her.

Biden leads Trump by 7.6 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls nationally and by 8.8 points in FiveThirtyEights weighted average of national polls. He also leads the incumbent in all the swing states.

Trumps mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak is his key vulnerability in his re-election bid  58% of Americans disapprove of it in a new high, according to a CNN poll. And 68% felt embarrassed by the US response to it. The United States is the country hit the hardest by the virus.

Also Read: Joe Biden says would implement Covid-19 plan on Day 1 if elected

Democrats have thus chosen to attack Trump singularly on Covid-19.

Just judge this president on the facts, said Biden in his acceptance speech. 5 million Americans infected with Covid-19. More than 170,000 Americans have died. By far the worst performance of any nation on Earth. More than 50 million people have filed for unemployment this year. More than 10 million people are going to lose their health insurance this year. Nearly one in 6 small businesses has closed this year.

President Trump will make his case for a second term at the Republican party convention starting Monday, which might, or not, be a mix of in-person and virtual.
Lori Van Buren/Times Union

GUILDERLAND  The town of Guilderland has announced the formation of a police reform committee whose main task will be developing a plan to combat racial bias in policing.

The committee was formed in response to an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in June in the wake of the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests. It directed each local government with a police department in the state to adopt a policing reform plan by April 1, 2021 that addresses concerns over racist and violent policing of minority communities.
Items About Areas That Could Break Out Into War

August 20, 2020: On August 11th several hundred gunmen belonging to the local Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Sunna seized the northern Mozambique port town of Mocimboa da Praia. This is the third time Ansar al-Sunna has attacked this town. A 2017 attack was repulsed but an attack in March 2020 briefly succeeded. The August attack worked because the army garrison withdrew after several days because the troops had run out of ammunition. The army says it will retake the town but so far that has not happened. Mozambique has always been poor, with a per capita GDP of under $500. The military has 15,000 personnel, 80 percent of them in the army which is organized into ten light infantry battalions and some support units. The air force and navy are much smaller and have few operational aircraft and ships. The army received a lot of weapons from Russia from 1975 until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. China has since been selling Mozambique some weapons and ammo but most of the military gear is elderly and often unusable. Running our of ammunition is not unlikely here, especially with the corruption associated with the government budget.

While the port town of 30,000 is not itself very important, the nearby natural gas fields are. Thats why the government has hired several hundred Russian military contractors (experienced veterans, often with combat experience) to safeguard the natural gas facilities. These Russians have clashed with Ansar al-Sunna but the main job of the Wagner force is protecting the natural gas operations.

Ansar al-Sunna has been particularly active since 2017, carrying out several hundred operations, mostly in Cabo Delgado province. This has left over a thousand dead and over 100,000 driven from their homes to avoid the fighting. The four factions that comprise Ansar al-Sunna finance themselves via smuggling, extortion and outright theft. The recent defeat of the army garrison in Mocimboa da Praia provided the Islamic terrorists with a lot of abandoned military gear, including some weapons. Ansar al-Sunna can afford to buy ammunition.

Since Ansar al-Sunna was formed in 2015 it has operated in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. This province of two million people is majority Moslem. Cabo Delgado is adjacent to Tanzania, a nation of 56 million and a larger (35 percent) Moslem minority. Islamic radicals from northern neighbors Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia were the key to creation of Ansar al-Sunna. Moslems are a minority in East Africa but an aggressive one when it comes religious matters. Thats a major reason why most East Africans are either Christians or follow ancient local religious practices.

What gave the Mozambique Islamic terrorists a major boost was the failed promise of prosperity from the offshore natural gas fields that were discovered in 2010 and have only seen major development and production in the last few years. Long-term the government expects to obtain nearly $100 billion in revenue from natural gas and oil in the next 25 years. Thats for a country with an annual GDP of $14 billion. Those optimistic forecasts are already fading because of the decline in world oil prices that began in 2014 and have not recovered much at all. The price of natural gas is linked to the price of oil and all producers of these fuels are suffering. The current covid19 recession only made it worse.

Residents of Cabo Delgado province were led to believe that the natural gas would bring quick benefits like more jobs, roads and other infrastructure. That was not the case. The foreign companies developing the offshore natural gas deposits have had to borrow $15 billion to build the facilities to extract the oil and get it to foreign markets. Many of the new jobs went to foreigners who had skills none of the locals possessed. Too many of the unskilled jobs for locals went to friends or family of politicians and government officials. In other words, Cabo Delgado residents are angry about their continued poverty despite all the money being spent on the new oil facilities, which are near the port town of Mocimboa da Praia. This pattern is not unique in Africa, where most nations with oil or natural gas or any valuable exportable raw material see most of the export income stolen by corrupt politicians. This is the rule, not the exception in Africa.

Because of this Mozambique seems to be headed for yet another civil war. There are the usual causes; corruption, poverty and newly discovered natural gas fields. Mozambique has been suffering wars or threats of war since the 1960s. Mozambique is a largely coastal country north of South Africa and south of Tanzania. Most of the coastline runs parallel to the large island of Madagascar. The population of 30 million is a lot larger, and less prosperous, than the six million living there in 1950. For over a thousand years Mozambique has, like many other parts of East Africa, consisted of coastal cities that prospered by serving as a market places where people from the interior could obtain all manner of foreign goods. Mozambique was part of a vast trading network using dependable seasonable winds to allow ships to move good from East Africa to the Persian Gulf, India and Indonesia.

In the 1500s Portugal, using new technologies (cannon and superior sailing ships) created the borders for Mozambique, which explains why the country consists largely of coast and interior areas reachable via rivers. What ended Portuguese rule was an anti-colonial rebellion that lasted from the early 1960s, when other European colonizers were departing, until 1975 when Portugal finally got rid of its colonies. This meant nearly 300,000 Portuguese left Mozambique, taking with them a major portion of the new nations technical personnel and skilled administrators. In Mozambique a local government was elected and only lasted two years before fifteen-year long civil war began. This civil war was far more damaging than the shorter, and less successful anti-colonial war. The civil war killed over a million people and drove more than 20 percent of the population from their homes for months or years. Nearly two million of those refugees fled the country.

Mozambique never recovered from all the violence it has suffered since the 1960s. The rebellion against the Portuguese colonial government left about 60,000 dead, 94 percent of them rebels and civilians. The rebels were never a real threat to the colonial government. Mozambique became independent in 1975. Its first government was socialist and run by politicians who wanted to establish a communist police state for the greater good. This triggered a civil war in 1977 that killed over a million people, most of them civilians, before it ended in 1992. With collapse of European communist governments and the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991, the Mozambique communists agreed to restore democracy. Some tensions between communists and democrats remained and there were brief outbursts of violence in 2013 and 2018. A 2019 agreement eliminated most of that tension just as a new threat, from Islamic terrorists, was developing.

The civil war was mainly about politics and tribal alliances. Religion was not a major factor because more than four centuries of Portuguese rule had left the population mostly (60 percent) Christian, with about 20 percent animist (ancient local religions) or not religious at all. About twenty percent were Moslem, mostly in the north, where huge natural gas deposits were discovered and are about to make Mozambique one of the largest natural gas producers in the world. That will make some people in Mozambique very rich and that is what got the current Moslem-led rebellion in the north is all about. In 2019 some of the Ansar al-Sunna factions pledged allegiance to ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) for reasons still unclear. One thing that is clear is that the fighting is all about whether corrupt Moslem or corrupt Christians gain control of the natural gas. An Ansar al-Sunna victory is unlikely as the Mozambique Moslems are outnumbered. The Islamic rebels say they are out to eliminate corruption. All Islamic rebels say that and none ever deliver. That has been demonstrated many times in the last few decades and Moslems have noticed.

The Enemy Within

Mozambique certainly needs a change in attitudes, and goals, among its elected officials and government bureaucrats. The primary problem is the pervasive corruption throughout the country, particularly in the government. Corruption and misuse of government funds are the main reasons Mozambique is such a wreck economically. The global aspect of this can be seen in the international surveys of nations to determine who is clean and who is corrupt. For 2019 Mozambique ranked 146th out of 180 nations in international rankings compared with 158th in 2018. Corruption in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index is measured on a 1 (most corrupt) to 100 (not corrupt) scale. The most corrupt nations (usually Yemen/15, Syria/13, South Sudan/12 and Somalia/9) have a rating of under 15 while of the least corrupt (Finland, New Zealand and Denmark) are over 85.

The current Mozambique Corruption Perception Index score is 26 (versus 23 in 2018) compared to 26 (27) for Nigeria, 30 (30) for Ukraine, 45 (44) for Belarus, 58 (60) for Poland, 80 (81) Germany, 65 (61) for Taiwan, 39 (40) for Turkey, 41 (40) for India, 28 (28) for Russia, 59 (57) for South Korea, 14 (17) for North Korea, 37 (35) for Vietnam, 85 (84) for Singapore, 73 (73) for Japan, 40 (37) for Indonesia, 38 (38) for Sri Lanka, 29 (33) for the Maldives, 34 (34) for the Philippines, 32 (32) for Pakistan, 26 (28) for Bangladesh, 26 (30) for Iran, 16 (15) for Afghanistan, 29 (30) for Burma, 71 (71) for the UAE (United Arab Emirates), 60 (64) for Israel, 69 (75) for the United States, 41 (39) for China, 44 (43) for South Africa, 20 (18) for Iraq, 39 (40) for Turkey, 53 (49) for Saudi Arabia and 28 (28) for Lebanon.

The Mozambique corruption score has gotten worse since 2012 when it was 31. All that corruption and fifteen years of civil war sharply reduced the living conditions in most of Mozambique. The extent of this can be measured compared to the rest of the world. The effectiveness of governments and the societies they represent is rated each year in the Human Development Index. The UN has compiled these ratings for 29 years. The index ranks all the world nations in terms of how well they do in terms of life expectancy, education and income. In 2019 Mozambique was 180 out of 189 nations. The rank of 0ther nations puts this into perspective; United States is at 15 (tied with Britain), China 89, Israel 22 (tied with South Korea), Saudi Arabia 36, Iran 65, India 129, Pakistan 152, Afghanistan 179, Bangladesh 135, Nigeria 158, Russia 49, Venezuela 96, Colombia 79, Mexico 76. Egypt 116, Lebanon 93, Syria 154 and Jordan 103. The top ten nations are Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Singapore and Netherlands. The bottom ten are Mozambique at 180th place (there are a lot of ties) followed by Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Mali, Burundi, South Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic and in last place, Niger. Most of the bottom ten have problems with Islamic terrorists, which usually includes an ISIL faction or two.

Africa is currently home of six major ISIL factions. These are currently present in Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Nigeria. Mali, and Mozambique. There are smaller ISIL factions in other African countries, some so small that they regularly cease to exist because of heavy casualties and are sometimes revived with reinforcements from a larger ISIL faction in a nearby country. The Mozambique ISIL affiliation was not universally accepted by all members of Ansar al-Sunna . That sort of response is not unusual and sometimes leads to the demise or reduction in the size of an ISIL faction and weakening of all Islamic terror groups in the area.

Ansar al-Sunna has one major disadvantage; its religious affiliation means it can only depend on about ten percent of the Mozambique population for support. Many Moslems do not support Ansar al-Sunna because the experience of the last few decades has made it clear that Islamic terror groups tend to kill more Moslems than non-Moslems. All that wont eliminate the possibility of Ansar al-Sunna damaging the natural gas facilities and limiting exports. That will also be very unpopular nationwide because so many people see a chance to get a piece of the natural gas income. In other words, its not a war coming to Mozambique but rather another malignant side effect of the culture of corruption that prevails in the country.
Britain is the most overweight country in Europe  and the overweight are more at risk from the virus, doctors believe. I was too fat, Johnson said, about his physique back in April when he was hospitalized with covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Lenders are racing against time to prepare guidelines to determine eligibility and ensure borrowers do not misuse a one-time loan restructuring package to be offered to stressed individuals and companies once the repayment moratorium ends in a little more than a week.

Many lenders are setting up internal groups to vet debt recast applications, and plan to divide them into two bucketscustomized and standardisedfor quicker resolution of proposals.

Corporate borrowers will be offered customised solutions because of the complexity of their contracts and the involvement of multiple banks. Individual borrowers will be given a standardized package if they can show substantial loss of income because of Covid-19.

There is a need for proper checks to prevent any misuse of the restructuring package. During the moratorium period, there were many instances of borrowers with necessary resources to repay failing to do so, a senior banker said, requesting anonymity. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to restructure some loans to support economic recovery and help hard-pressed individuals and companies tide over the ongoing coronavirus crisis. With production still to recover to pre-Covid levels after the lockdown, lack of demand and job losses, bad loans are expected to surge to the most in 20 years after RBIs loan moratorium ends on 31 August.

RBI set up a five-member panel under the chairmanship of former ICICI Bank chief executive KV Kamath on August 7 to recommend eligibility parameters for restructuring stressed loans. On August 6, RBI said that every lender must put in place a board-approved policy on how to assess recast proposals.

Banks are framing the policies, subject to the final recommendations of the Kamath committee. We dont want to wait for the recommendations and then frame our policies, said the banker with a state-run bank. By next month, the broad contours of the restructuring package and the stressed portfolios will be clear.

Under RBIs new resolution framework, lenders have been allowed to offer a one-time restructuring of stressed accounts without classifying them as non-performing.

Borrowers loan accounts must be classified as standard and not in default for more than 30 days with any lender as on 1 March to utilise the recast package.

My view is, not many retail borrowers will seek loan recast. Broadly, lenders are inclined to give a six-month extended moratorium in case of job losses and for three months if there is a wage cut in case of retail loans, a second banker said, also seeking anonymity.

According to the banker, the Kamath committee will focus on the viability of the entity and whether a recast would give it a breather. If a borrower does not have a decent interest-coverage ratio and is not able to service interest even with the re-scheduling, it has got a bigger problem and, therefore, needs to be restructured under the 7 June circular (without the NPA benefit), he added.

India Ratings and Research expects 7.7% of total bank loans to need debt recast, including 5.8% of corporate loans.
By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - In the biggest speech of his nearly 50 years in public life, Joe Biden will spell out his vision for the presidency on Thursday when he accepts the Democratic nomination to challenge Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

Biden's speech on the fourth and last night of the Democratic National Convention will be a crowning moment in a long political career for the former U.S. senator and vice president, who fared poorly in two previous runs for the White House in 1988 and 2008.

It will conclude a nominating convention that was held virtually amid the coronavirus pandemic, with the party's biggest names, rising stars and even prominent Republicans lining up via video to support Biden and attest to the urgency of ending what they called Trump's chaotic presidency.

Biden's vice presidential choice, Kamala Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American on a major presidential ticket, accepted her nomination on Wednesday and accused Trump of failed leadership that had cost lives and livelihoods.

Former President Barack Obama, who Biden served as vice president for eight years, delivered his harshest critique of Trump yet at the convention, saying his hopes that Trump would grow into the job had been dashed.

He blamed Trump for the 170,000 people who had died in the United States from the coronavirus, the millions of jobs lost to the ensuing recession and a diminishment of the country's democratic principles at home and abroad.

Biden, 77, heads into the general election campaign with a clear and steady lead in opinion polls over Trump, 74, who will accept the Republican nomination for a second White House term at his own convention next week.

Democrats have worked to expand Biden's support during the convention, particularly by showcasing prominent Republican supporters such as former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Ohio Governor John Kasich, as well as Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 but now blame him for the economic and health toll of the pandemic.

The acceptance speech will give Biden his biggest audience since he was largely sidelined from the campaign trail by the coronavirus in March.

Story continues

He will speak directly to camera in a mostly empty event center in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, not in front of a roaring crowd of convention delegates, adding to the unusual nature of a convention conducted remotely through live and pre-recorded video feeds.

A close ally of Biden's, U.S. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, said he expected the speech to offer a unifying theme about the country and not to focus on Trump.

"He recognizes this isn't about Donald Trump, it's not about Joe Biden, it's about us, and it's about who's going to move us forward in a way that reminds us of the best in America, not the worst," Coons said.

Trump will continue his counter-programming to the Democrats, holding a campaign event on Thursday near Biden's birthplace of Scranton in the political battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Late on Wednesday, Trump issued three tweets in all capital letters during the last half of the Democratic convention program, angrily criticizing Harris and Obama and questioning their allegiance to Biden.

Other scheduled convention speakers on Thursday include Biden's 2020 primary rival, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, along with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, both of whom were on Biden's short list of possible running mates.

Biden captured the nomination by convincing Democratic primary voters he was the best bet to beat Trump.

Despite questions about his age and criticism of his moderate stances in a party that has lurched leftward, he was able to quickly unite the Democrats' sometimes fractious liberal and moderate wings with the goal of defeating Trump.

His last primary rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, ended his campaign in April, clearing the way for the showdown between Biden and Trump. Sanders urged his supporters to back Biden during a speech to the convention on Monday, saying Biden would end the "hate and divisions" fostered by Trump.

Biden became a U.S. senator from Delaware in 1973, and rose to become an influential chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Senate Foreign Relations committees before becoming Obama's vice president.

(Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Wilmington, Del.; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Howard Goller)
Former political consultant for the Trump campaign, Roger Stone, replied karma is a b**** when he was asked his reaction to Steve Bannons arrest.

Stone, a veteran Republican operative who has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, served as an adviser to Mr Trump during the 2016 campaign. He has been accused of collaborating with WikiLeaks to discredit Hillary Clinton in the build up to that election.

In November 2019, following Robert Muellers investigation into the Trump campaigns involvement in Russia hacking the 2016 election, Stone was indicted by federal prosecutors on seven counts, including witness tampering and lying to federal investigators.

He was found guilty and sentenced to 40 months in federal prison, but on 10 July 2020, Mr Trump commuted Stones sentence after he publicly pleaded for him to do so.

Bannon, who previously served as the presidents campaign chairman in 2016, was indicted on Thursday, alongside two others, for allegedly funnelling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the We Build the Wall online fundraising campaign to the founder of the organisation Brian Kolfage, who was also indicted.

We Build the Wall started as a GoFundMe campaign in 2018, and was created to help raise money from public funding to go directly towards building the the US-Mexico border wall at a time when the president was struggling with Congress pushback.

Recommended Steve Bannon charged with wire fraud and money laundering

In a press release, acting US attorney Audrey Strauss said: As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalising on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretence that all of that money would be spent on construction.

After Bannon was arrested, New York Magazine asked Stone his thoughts, to which he replied: Karma is a b****. But I am praying for him.

Bannon, who worked with Stone during the 2016 election, testified during the former advisers trial in November 2019, and contradicted his testimony in regards to WikiLeaks.

Stone had denied to the investigation and to Congress about being in contact with WikiLeaks, prior to the group releasing emails of Ms Clintons campaign chairman John Podesta.

However, during his testimony, Bannon said: He had a relationship, or told me he had a relationship with WikiLeaks, and added: I was led to believe he had a relationship with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

In reaction to the arrests on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany released a statement, where she attempted to distance the president from the campaign and Bannon.

As everyone knows, President Trump has no involvement in this project and felt it was only being done in order to showboat, and perhaps raise funds, she said.

A follow up statement from the White House read: President Trump has not been involved with Steve Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the administration, and he does not know the people involved with this project.

However, Trump ally Kris Kobach told the New York Times last year that he had spoken to Mr Trump about the project, and added that the president said the project has my blessing, and you can tell the media that.
Pakistan has reopened the Chaman border crossing between its Balochistan Province and the Afghan province of Kandahar.

The border crossing was closed in March following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan.

Officials said on August 21 they decided to reopen the crossing after talks between Balochistan regional authorities and residents on the Pakistani side of the border.

Local residents have been demanding the reopening of the crossing, which is frequently used by traders and laborers.

Six people were killed on July 31 when a protest rally to demand the reopening of the border post turned violent, resulting in clashes between protesters and security forces.

The 2,430-kilometer-long Afghan-Pakistan border was created in 1893 between then-British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan.
Aquarion Water Company / Contributed Photo

CANAAN - Aquarion Water Company will purchase the Town of Canaans municipal water system, according to a statement from Aquarion issued Friday.

The acquisition was formalized through the signing of an Asset Purchase Agreement with the town in June, officials said, for $345,000. The purchase includes all existing water infrastructure in Canaan such as water mains, hydrants, storage tanks, and water supply wells. Upon approval from state regulators, Aquarion will begin providing water service to Canaans 124 customers, according to Aquarion.
A painter has been jailed in New Zealand after he broke lockdown rules by entering a coronavirus quarantine facility and hugging a friend who was isolating.

Jesse Courtney Welsh, 33, from Morningside, Auckland, received a six week prison sentence after hugging a friend who was isolating after returning home from Australia, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Welsh appeared at Whangarei District Court yesterday after previously pleading guilty to being unlawfully in an enclosed yard.

Jesse Courtney Welsh, 33, (pictured appearing in court via video link on Wednesday) from Morningside, Auckland, received a six week prison sentence after hugging a friend who was isolating after returning home from Australia

He also faced charges of careless driving and failing to stop.

Police withdrew the charge for failing to comply with a Covid-19 order because it had been wrongly laid.

Sentencing judge Keith de Ridder said: 'This was not an example of people under severe stress because of a family death or some other reason. You knew full well about the quarantine rules and was not just content with talking to him, but hugged him as well.'

Judge de Ridder also said that Welsh had been out celebrating with friends in Auckland on August 7 before going to visit his friend at the Crowne Plaza hotel, who had arrived back in New Zealand on July 29.

When police spotted Welsh talking with his friend at the hotel he refused to engage with them and then drove off.

Welsh had been out celebrating with friends in Auckland on August 7 before going to visit his friend at the Crowne Plaza hotel (pictured), who had arrived back in New Zealand on July 29

He was arrested the next day in Whangarei.

John Day, the lawyer representing Welsh, said that his client fully accepted responsibility for his actions.

He also said: 'His own words to me were 'it was a real dumb thing to do.'

Welsh was also sentenced to a concurrent six week jail term on the charge of failing to stop and he was convicted and discharged for careless driving.

Welsh is now isolating and has had three coronavirus tests, all of which have returned negative.

New Zealand is currently facing a second wave of coronavirus cases after they reported 11 more today.

The country now has 105 active cases, most of which have been linked to the Auckland cluster which sparked the nationwide lockdown.

The country, which is due to ease restrictions next week, will remain lockdown over the weekend as the number of cases continues to rise.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Cabinet will meet on Monday to discuss the possibility of extending the lockdown.
4:50pm: The Twins dont seem overly concerned about Buxton, whos dealing with soreness, manager Rocco Baldelli said (via Park). Baldelli added Buxtons surgically repaired labrum is in good shape.

3:55pm: The Twins have placed catcher Mitch Garver (right intercostal strain) and center fielder Byron Buxton (left shoulder inflammation) on the 10-day injured list, per Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com. In other moves, they selected catcher Ryan Jeffers and recalled both righty Zack Littell and outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr.

Already down third baseman Josh Donaldson for the past three weeks, the Twins are now missing a couple more regulars in Garver and Buxton. But Garver, who was quietly one of the majors elite offensive performers in 2019, has started slowly this year with a .154/.262/.212 line and just one home run in 61 plate appearances. Fortunately for Minnesota, backup Alex Avila, who has played frequently thanks to Garvers struggles, has gotten on base at a 41.5 percent clip through 41 PA, though he hasnt hit for average (.200) or power (one homer).

With Garver down, Jeffers will join Avila to make up the Twins top two catchers. Jeffers, 23, joined the Twins as a second-round pick in 2018 and has posted great numbers at all four minor league levels at which he has played (rookie ball, Single-A, High-A, Double-A). MLB.com ranks Jeffers as the clubs sixth-best prospect, crediting him for his all-around game and positing that he looks like the Twins catcher of the future.

Buxtons injury looks rather troubling when you consider he underwent season-ending surgery on the same shoulder last September. Theres no word this time on whether hell require an absence of more than 10 days. Like Garver, Buxton has not begun well at the plate (.221/.225/.456 with five HRs in 71 attempts). The defensive standout has once fared splendidly in that area, though, and has played center in every Twins game over the past couple weeks. Max Kepler, Jake Cave and Wade took the reins there last season when Buxton went down. Theyre candidates to do so again now.
Lawyers for Megrahis family said it is in the interest of justice that the defence get to see the two documents, which are covered by a public interest immunity certificate.

An appeal against Megrahis conviction was lodged after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the case to the High Court in March, ruling a possible miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103, travelling from London to New York on December 21 1988, killed 270 people in Britains largest terrorist atrocity.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Megrahi  found guilty in 2001 of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years  was the only person convicted.

A virtual hearing took place on Friday before the Lord President Lord Carloway, Lord Justice Clerk-Lady Dorian and Lord Menzies.

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Claire Mitchell QC, representing the Megrahi family, said the defence should have access to the protected documents.

She told the court: Given the passage of time these documents should fall now to be disclosed.

As the court will understand, the public interest immunity claimed in 2008 when the proceedings were ongoing in 2008, I would respectfully submit that should not be held to apply in 2020, the reason for that primarily is the passage of time must have an effect, particularly when one is talking about the ever changing world of international relations.

The information contained within the undisclosed documents must relate to events or actions that occurred prior to the 21st December 1988, that is the documents must relate to events or actions that occurred at least 32 years ago and it is respectfully submitted that given such a lapse it is also in the interest of justice that disclosure is made in respect of these matters.

In its decision published in March, the SCCRC ruled a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in his case on two of the six grounds it considered in the review  unreasonable verdict and non-disclosure, saying the Crown ought to have disclosed certain information to the defence.

Ms Mitchell also said there had been a systemic failure of disclosure over a range of other documents.

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She told the court: Looked at in the round, the question is whether or not there was a miscarriage of justice because that trial wasnt fair because the failure to disclose was just systemic.

Advocate Depute Ronald Clancy QC said the Crown had gone out of its way to be transparent and provide material, and that part of the problem with the systemic failure argument is that no attempt was made to define what the proper system should have been at the time.

Ian Duguid QC, representing the Advocate General, said the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs continues to assert public interest immunity over the two protected documents.

He said the Secretary of State has given consideration to the argument over the passage of time and has lodged an updated public interest immunity certificate with the clerk of court, dated August 2020.

Mr Duguid said the validity of the certificate would need to be considered at a court hearing.

Lord Carloway said the judges would issue a written decision on Fridays proceedings in due course, while the full appeal court hearing is provisionally scheduled to start on November 23 before five judges.

Megrahis first appeal against his conviction was refused by the High Court in 2002 and referred back five years later following an SCCRC review.

He abandoned this appeal in 2009, shortly before his release from prison on compassionate grounds. He died in 2012.
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Good news to farmers particularly fruits and vegetable growers in Offinso North and beyond as an NDC parliamentary aspirant Nana Yaw Baffour Frimpong assures of roping in a big profitable trading package to boost confidence and motivation.

Nana Frimpong announced this on the Cruz Kokrokoo morning show annex with SK DE Broadcaster on Monday August 20, assuring orange farmers of total buy out of produce without measure and at a good price for more profit while promising tomato farmers of same assistance later upon finality of studies with partners abroad.

The businessman intends to prioritize the improvement of vegetable/fruits farming and business in the district with his foreign partners, Eastfield farms Ltd to do more buying.

"by God's grace this year, no orange would be left in the bush, we are buying every single orange so farmers should take note," he assured.

He also hinted of plans to get an extraction plant in this district quite soon in order to further increase production and buying capacity of the product. This would also lead to price increase and encourage more participation in farming among youth thereby improving economic condition in Offinso north.

Again the NDC activist disclosed customer packages for farmers to smoothen their bit of the business by helping them with pruning, products to boost yield, sacks for parking during harvest among others to motivate them.

Nana Baffour Frimpong, a native of Akumadan is a strong business minded young politician who contested for the Offinso North NDC Parliamentary candidate but lost to Hon. Ofosu Acheampong Caesar in the primaries.

However, the young politician remains committed to the welfare of Offinso North as he recently contributed quite immensely in the district with regards to the covid-19 fight with distribution of thousands of PPEs to health workers and other departments in the district.

This latest development to farmers comes in handy as constant complaints of lack of buyers of farm produce year in year out by orange and tomato farmers would be put to rest.
The has extended the term of three Administrative Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal for a period of two months.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde passed the order after noting that connected matters were posted for hearing in the next month.

The term of three administrative members of the Armed Forces Tribunal was extended for a period of one month by an Order of this Court dated July 16, 2020.

As all the connected matters are scheduled to be listed for hearing on September 9, 2020, we deem it appropriate that the term of three administrative members of the Armed Forces Tribunal is extended for a period of two more months, the bench said.

According to section 5 of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, the tribunal shall consist of a Chairperson, and such number of Judicial and Administrative Members as the Central Government may deem fit.

A person shall not be qualified for appointment as the Chairperson unless he is a retired Judge of the or a retired Chief Justice of a High Court, as per the Act.

The Armed Forces Tribunal Bar Association had written to the apex court in 2016 seeking appointment of judicial members of AFTs claiming that the work there has almost come to a "standstill".

In the letter to then Chief Justice T S Thakur, copies of which was sent to Defence Minister and Law Minister, Secretary of the AFT (Principal Bench) Bar Association, said there were only five benches functional out of a total of 17, which had resulted in a lack of access to justice to military personnel, disabled soldiers and even widows of defence personnel.

(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.)
Covid-19 patients in home isolation and their contacts can use the deworming agent, Ivermectin, as a supporting medicine, doctors here said.

It is not a treatment for Covid-19, but yes, as a supporting medicine, its role has been identified to boost immunity. It can be taken under a doctors guidance for a proper dose, said Dr PK Gupta, former president of the Indian Medical Association, Lucknow.

Doctors said the medicine was found effective against the virus in a lab in-vitro study (study on a microorganism outside its normal biological context).

In Australia, researchers claimed the viral load went down 5,000 times in 48 hours with this medicine taken in combination. Also a Bangladesh scientist claimed a similar effect. At present, research on this medicine is going on at 28 places, said Dr Kauser Usman, senior faculty at King Georges Medical University (KGMU).

Doctors said people who tested positive for Covid-19 and were in home isolation and their contacts may take the medicine. But children and pregnant women should avoid taking it, Lucknows chief medical officer Dr RP Singh said in a press statement on Thursday.

Dr Sandeep Kapoor, director, Healthcity Hospital, said, It would be better if anyone consuming this medicine takes doctors advice first.

Ivermectin is a medication that has been used to treat worms for years. There are no known side-effects. But its consumption should not be taken as a complete safety against infection as research is still going on, said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general, Association of International Doctors.

Residents are finding it difficult to purchase the medicine from chemists, but traders say the situation is temporary. In the next two or three days, at least 1,000 chemist shops in Lucknow will have this medicine, they added.

Sale of Ivermectin has been limited (previously) as it is required for deworming by people once in six months or even more. Hence, not all chemists keep it. But with its role in Covid-19, we have placed orders and at last 400 chemists shops have this medicine, said Giriraj Rastogi, president of the medicine traders association.

He said at least 2,000 chemists in Lucknow will have the medicine by Monday and even more would stock it later next week. Lucknow has about 4,000 retail medicine shops.
Major generals Moetaz Al-Sharkawi and Magdi Shehata, both 73, were invited this week to relate their stories on how they wore down Israeli forces between 1967 and 1970. Al-Sharkawi and Shehata, who now oversee the establishment of the New Administrative Capital in New Cairo, were also known as the Eagles of the Commandos.

The generals were recounting the War of Attrition which involved artillery duels and small-scale incursions between Egypt and Israel from 1967 to 1970. The War of Attrition followed the 1967 War between the two countries, after which no serious diplomatic efforts were made to resolve the issues at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The event, organised by the Al-Safwa Cultural Forum of Alexandria, was originally scheduled to be held in April to mark the liberation of Sinai, but was postponed because of Covid-19, said businessman Abdel-Fattah Ragab, the events host. Now, with life gradually getting back to normalcy, we decided to hold the event, to listen to their amazing war stories and have the opportunity to honour them for their contribution in defending Egyptian land, Ragab said.

Major General Shehata spoke about the deadly battles he fought with his soldiers in Sinai where they were in very close proximity to the Israelis and how they often times faced death in the rugged terrain. He presented to the audience, on screen, the situation and the plan and how they managed to extricate themselves from dangerous positions.

Al-Sharkawi was dubbed The Ghost by the Israelis during the War of Attrition because he was almost invisible. They knew of his existence only when he left his trademark signature in their camps: they would often find dead bodies of their soldiers, their left ears cut off.

I was very young then, in my early 20s. During the war, our commanders would ask us to prove we killed Israelis. Since we couldnt carry dead bodies, we had to bring other kinds of evidence. I cut off their left ears as proof. I collected 56 ears and delivered them to my commander. He was stunned, but it was proof, Al-Sharkawi told symposium participants.

In another instance he collected the identity chains and bracelets of Israeli soldiers because he knew that if their families didnt receive their bodies, they would remain in grief and mourn forever.

Al-Sharkawi recalled his military journey and his three meetings with the late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser. The first was a surprise visit to our home in Port Said, where my father was the governor and also president Nassers colleague and friend, he said, adding that at the time, he was still a student in the Military Academy.

The other two meetings were official, in Nassers office, he said, explaining that he was summoned by Nasser who wanted to hear the story of how he [Al-Sharkawi] killed General Yeshayahu Gavish who was leader of the Israeli Southern Military Zone.

He then asked me to ask for anything I wanted. I told him that I wanted to take a photo with him to show it to my children and grandchildren in the future. We took the photo but he felt it wasnt enough so he asked me again to seriously name something I wanted. So I asked him for a letter of appreciation in his handwriting to show to my family. He wrote it and stamped it. Then I saw tears in his eyes because he believed that what I asked for in return for my services and what he called heroic battles was too little for the effort done.

Al-Sharkawi said his participation in the War of Attrition and the 1973 October War against Israel would remain the most cherished and most noble days of his life. The connection and responsibility that emerged and grew between the Egyptians and their army was the main reason for the victory, especially since almost every home in Egypt had someone in the war.

Al-Sharkawi also spoke about the role of Egypts soldiers in the clashes from 1967 to 1973. He recalled how they used the names of their wives, sisters or mothers as code names instead of the names of cities or checkpoints, so that if someone had been listening in by radio he would not know which direction the battalion was coming from or going to.

He noted that war correspondents were not allowed to join any battalions on their missions which were conducted in complete secrecy. No one was allowed in, he explained.

However, Al-Sharkawi showed the audience pictures of himself with two famed war correspondents: Gamal Al-Ghitani of Al-Akhbar newspaper and Gamal Al-Konaissi, who later became head of Egyptian Radio. They joined us in the camps but not on the missions. They were very knowledgeable, knew their limits and understood how things worked and what and how to report.

Al-Sharkawi believes that the younger generation faces a tougher enemy than in the old days. We, the older generation, fought an enemy we could see and fight against with guns and machines. But now you [youth] face tougher challenges as this generation fights unknown or invisible enemies that have emerged through technology, he said, adding that todays enemies spread their venom causing depression and frustration among the younger generation who, he added, represent around 60 per cent of the population.

Besides Al-Sharkawi and Shehata, Major generals Gamal Rostom and Mahmoud Kabil were honoured. Kabil is also known for his extensive acting roles on screen.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 20 August, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Delhis second sero survey (blood test for Covid-19 antibodies) has shown that 29.1% of the roughly 15,000 people surveyed across the Capitals 11 districts have been exposed to the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes the coronavirus disease  and are, therefore, immune. Thats a 6.2 percentage point jump from the last survey (which was conducted in late June and early July; this one was conducted in early August). In a sign of how our understanding of Covid-19 is increasing by the day, at the time when the first results were declared, it wasnt clear what kind of immunity these antibodies would provide against the disease.

At least four studies since then have added to our knowledge on immunity. As HTs Binayak Dasgupta put it in an article summarising the key findings of several immunity-related studies, and their importance: a person once infected may be immune to reinfection; this protection may last for at least 3-6 months; the immune system is likely to remember the virus to offer protection in a highly infectious situation; and the level of protection may be strong even if the infection was mild.

Also read: ICMR looks at private medical colleges to ramp up Covid-19 testing infra

The 29.1% number should be cause for some cautious celebration  just as Mumbais 57% (in slums), and Punes 36%-65%, both the results of similar surveys, albeit with smaller samples should be. For it means almost a third of the Capitals population has immunity against the infection, and will likely be protected when the second wave of infections emerges (that one will, is a given).

Delhi has decided to conduct a sero survey every month (in the first week). It should also consider expanding the sample. Earlier this week, New York City published the results of 1.46 million antibody tests (yes, 1.46 million of a population of roughly 8.4 million, around 17.5%) that showed that while a disproportionate number of people in low-income neighbourhoods were exposed to the virus, far fewer people in the richer ones were. Overall, 27% of those tested were exposed to the virus  based on the presence of antibodies. That qualifier is important. This column has referred to a study from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that showed that some people exposed to the virus develop T-cell based immunity, but do not test positive in antibody tests.

Also read: Front-line workers must be vaccinated first, says report

According to the study (published in Cell), the number of people with such immunity is around double those who show antibodies. To be sure, the sample of the study was small (only 200), but this is a finding of phenomenal significance. And it could explain why Covid-19 infections appear to taper off when the proportion of those exposed to the virus reaches roughly 25% (again, this writer has put forth this hypothesis before, with a caveat that still holds  it needs to be studied). Interestingly, a mathematical model developed by researchers at the University of Nottingham and Stockholm University (it has been referred to in this column before, as have most things to do with Covid-19; this is, after all, instalment 137) argues that the herd immunity level for Covid-19 could be around 40%.

Also read: Serum Institute registers its Covid vaccine trial

How reliable are antibody tests? From the perspective of assessing the prevalence of disease in a population, they are very reliable. Sure, they may not pick antibodies (which show up a few days into the infection) in some cases, but this only means a high false negative rate of 20-30%. A false negative means the test identifies someone who has been infected as uninfected. This means that such tests typically understate exposure (and therefore immunity)  which is always better than overstating it.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

Last word: While Delhis sero survey results are good news, it is important that the state government and people guard against complacency. The latter would do well to maintain mask discipline and practise social distancing. And the former would do well to continue to test aggressively  using molecular tests such as the RT-PCR ones.

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Naason Joaquin Garcia, leader of the Guadalajara-based La Luz del Mundo church, at his bail hearing in downtown Los Angeles on Aug. 5. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

One after another, the agents from the California Department of Justice took the witness stand and related what the teenage girls and young women had told them: Naason Joaquin Garcia, the leader of La Luz Del Mundo, an international church headquartered in Mexico, had raped them.

After five days of testimony, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen on Tuesday found that prosecutors from the California Attorney General's office had gathered enough evidence to bind over for trial Garcia and two co-defendants, Alondra Ocampo and Susana Oaxaca, on all 36 counts of rape, child pornography, sex trafficking and extortion lodged against them.

All three have pleaded not guilty, arguing through their lawyers that the prosecution's case rests on the untested, uncorroborated word of accusers whom the authorities have refused to identify.

Garcia, a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, succeeded his father in 2014 as the leader of La Luz Del Mundo. The church's followers, said to number in the millions, consider Garcia an "apostle" of Jesus Christ.

La Luz Del Mundo, Spanish for "The Light of the World," was founded nearly a century ago by Garcia's grandfather, Aaron Joaquin. In court papers, prosecutors said they believe sexual abuse has been perpetrated within La Luz Del Mundo since the 1970s.

When he took control of the church six years ago, Garcia "found himself at the head of an organized sex ring originated by his father (or perhaps grandfather),'" Troy Holmes, a special agent for the California Department of Justice, wrote in a declaration.

In a statement, Jack Freeman, a minister and spokesman for the church, said the attorney general's office has presented only "suspicions" based on "anonymous witnesses alleging outlandish claims."

"Blatant hearsay does not amount to truth," he said, predicting that as the case moves through the courts, "the innocence and honorability of the Apostle of Jesus Christ Naason Joaquin Garcia will be proven."

Story continues

Over five days, Holmes and several other agents related the accounts of Garcia's unnamed alleged victims. These "Jane Does," several of whom attended a La Luz Del Mundo church in East Los Angeles, described a circumscribed religious community outside of which they had no friends or social life. Some of the girls' families had belonged to the church for generations, the agents said.

Such an insular congregation made leaving the church  and escaping Garcia's abuse  extremely difficult, Deputy Atty. Gen. Amanda Plisner told the court.

Garcia's attorneys, Caleb Mason and Alan Jackson, disputed that account. They protested that prosecutors were offering testimony from their central witnesses  Garcia's accusers  through surrogates depriving Garcia's defense the chance to find inconsistencies in their accounts or pinpoint biases and motives. Coen ordered that Garcia had no right to confront his alleged victims at a preliminary hearing, but said that ruling is not going to go on forever.

The accounts of the Jane Does, as related by the agents who interviewed them, followed a similar line: In their teens, they were invited by Ocampo, a parishioner at the East Los Angeles church, to join a "service group" that did chores at Garcia's home. The girls told investigators their parents felt proud and considered it an honor to be near the head of the church.

At 14 or 15, the girls were solicited to join a more exclusive group, they told agents. Some knew it as "the dancers"; others, the "fruteros," or "fruit servers," Holmes testified. A girl referred to as Jane Doe 1, who joined the group at 15, said they first danced and performed skits for Garcia, according to Thomas Donohue, a former special agent who interviewed the girl.

One day, while practicing a dance at a La Luz Del Mundo church in Whittier, Ocampo told Jane Doe 1 and several other girls a story about God allowing a king to take a woman to serve him, to please him," Donohue testified. Ocampo told them it would be "an abomination" to deny Garcia's desires, Donohue said the girl recalled.

Prosecutors described Ocampo, a student at Cal State University Dominguez Hills at the time of her arrest, as a groomer, someone who enticed young girls into Garcia's orbit, then coerced them into sex and pornographic photo shoots in hotel rooms in Whittier and El Monte.

A second girl, Jane Doe 2, told agents that Ocampo instructed her to undress and serve Garcia coffee, Holmes testified. The girl walked into his office, naked and carrying a cup of coffee, and was raped by Garcia, the agent said she had told him. She was a virgin at the time, he testified.

Jane Doe 2 had previously felt uncomfortable dancing for Garcia in lingerie, but she remembered how proud her mother was of her being part of the "service group," Holmes testified. The church would see that as a shameful thing, to be kicked out, he said.

Questioned by Jackson, Garcia's attorney, Holmes acknowledged that none of the girls recalled Garcia using violence in the encounters.

No gun? Jackson asked.

Correct.

No zip ties?

No zip ties.

No duct tape?

She didnt tell me that.

Jackson grilled Holmes about a tryst the agent had described in a Beverly Hills hotel room with Garcia, Ocampo, an alleged victim he called Jane Doe 5, and a co-defendant who remains at large, Azalea Rangel Melendez. Holmes had testified that Rangel held Jane Doe 5's hands behind her head as Ocampo penetrated her with a sex toy and Garcia looked on.

The agent conceded Jane Doe 5 was an adult at the time of the liaison. "Four adults with a dildo in Los Angeles isnt illegal," Jackson remarked. "Its not really noteworthy, is it?

Jackson criticized Plisner for her dealings with an alleged victim dubbed Jane Doe 4. Agents had described Jane Doe 4 as a onetime victim of Garcia, who eventually assumed a role in Mexico similar to Ocampo's in Los Angeles, grooming a circle of girls for sex and pornographic photoshoots.

Jane Doe 4 has helped agents identify potential victims in videos seized from Garcia's phone and given them hundreds of graphic text messages that she said she exchanged with Garcia, discussing sex with children and bestiality, according to copies of the messages filed in court.

Plisner, Jackson told the court, had offered Jane Doe 4 immunity in the U.S. and an assurance she would intervene in any Mexican prosecution. He read aloud a WhatsApp message she had sent Jane Doe 4: "If they make you look like a defendant, it will be hard for us to make you look like a victim." Jackson tried to call Plisner to the stand as a defense witness; Coen denied the attempt, saying it seemed intended only to embarrass the prosecution.

Jackson told the court that Jane Doe 4 was an embittered ex-parishioner with an ax to grind. After having a consensual sexual affair with Garcia for years, "now, shes mad at the church  her words, shes mad at the church  and shes going to cry foul," he said.
This years flood season in the Mekong Delta is likely to arrive late and if there is insufficient rain in the months to come, drought and saltwater intrusion may plague the region again during the next dry season, experts have warned.

A resident in Ben Tre Province in southern Vietnam prepares a tank to store fresh water before the rainy season arrives.

Ky Quang Vinh, former head of the Climate Change Coordination Office in Can Tho City, told the Vietnam News Agency that over the last two weeks, water levels on the Mekong River have risen just a little and are equal to those in 2019 when they hit record lows.

He noted water levels recorded on the Mekong River at Cambodias Stung Treng and Kratie hydrological monitoring stations will predict the scale of the flood season in Vietnam.

According to the Mekong River Commission, water levels recorded on August 17 were 5.82 metres at the Stung Treng station and 14.11 metres at Kratie, only 0.5 metres and 1.59 metres higher than in 2019, respectively.

The water levels at the two Cambodian stations are still lower and only slightly higher than in 2016 and 2019 respectively, when severe drought and saltwater intrusion hit the delta.

In downstream areas of Vietnam, water levels of 1.55 metres were recorded at Tan Chau station on the Tien River, a major tributary of the Mekong River, on August 17; twice as high as those last year (0.83 metres) and close to levels in 2016 (1.61 metres). Levels measured at the Chau Doc station on the Hau River, another tributary, were 1.57 metres, or 0.08 metres higher than in 2016.

These figures indicate a lack of conditions for a flood season, which is important for local agriculture and aquaculture, Vinh said.

Nguyen Huu Thien, an independent expert on the Mekong Deltas ecology, noted that rain in the Vientiane and Pakse regions of Laos will decide the scale of flooding in the delta.

Based on data recorded so far, he said this years floods will come later than average and are unlikely in August. Whether they come in September or later will depend on if the La Nina weather pattern, which triggers a lot of rain, is in place.

Smaller floods will lead to serious water shortages and saline encroachment in the dry season, and if water levels remain low through mid-October, these two phenomena may happen in March next year in coastal localities, according to Thien.

The Mekong River basin is currently facing the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather pattern, which is neither El Nino nor La Nina, he added.

The US Climate Prediction Centre has forecast that there is a 55 per cent chance of La Nina taking shape in September, Thien said, and he believes drought and saltwater intrusion in early 2021 will not be as severe as in the 2020 dry season. VNS

Severe drought, saline intrusion can be predicted months in advance: expert Nguyen Huu Thien, an independent expert on the Mekong Delta, said he warned of severe drought and saline intrusion in mid-2019 after observing the flood season and the salty-fresh water boundary of the river.
The Delhi Police on Friday reached Assam to bring back Delhi violence accused JNU student Sharjeel Imam. The Delhi Police Special Cell team is likely to return to the national capital by August 24 (Monday).

This is the second time in exactly a month that the police team arrived in Assam to bring Imam back to Delhi. On July 21, the police was scheduled to bring him to the national capital but just ahead of his departure for Delhi, he tested positive for COVID-19.

Imam is an accused in a case related to alleged inflammatory speeches during the protests against CAA and NRC and is currently lodged in Guwahati jail in a case related to Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) registered by the Assam police.

Delhi Police on July 25 had filed a charge sheet against Imam in connection with a case related to his alleged inflammatory speeches during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at several places. The 600-page charge sheet was filed, under section 124A (Sedition), 153(A) (Promoting enmity), 153 (Assertion prejudicial to national integration) (promoting enmity, Hatred between different communities, 505 (spreading rumours) IPC and Section 13 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, in Delhi`s Patiala House court.

Imam is accused of delivering seditious speeches and inciting a particular section of the community to indulge in unlawful activities, detrimental to sovereignty and integrity of the nation. In the garb of protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, he exhorted people of a particular community to block the highways leading to the major cities and resort to "Chakka Jam", thereby disrupting normal life.

In its charge sheet, Delhi Police claimed that Imam also openly defied the Constitution and called it a "fascist" document. In the name of opposing 'CAA' he also openly propagated blocking the 'chicken neck connecting mainland India with the North-East. He also showed contempt and disregard for the democratic means of protest.

Imam is being probed for his alleged inflammatory speech at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13 and subsequently on January 16 at Aligarh Muslim University, where he allegedly threatened to "cut off" Assam and the rest of the Northeast from India.

The Delhi High Court had on July 10 had dismissed the plea by Imam, who was arrested on January 28, challenging the trial court's June 25 order granting three more months to the Delhi Police, beyond the statutory 90 days, to complete the investigation in the case under the stringent UAPA.

Imam was arrested on January 28 from Bihar's Jehanabad district in the case related to violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) near the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University in December 2019. The statutory period of 90 days from the arrest had concluded on April 27.

He had also sought default bail in the matter on the ground that the probe was not concluded within the statutory period of 90 days and when the police had filed an application for more time to complete the investigation, he was not given a notice as required under the law. The trial court had dismissed the bail plea.

Initially, a case under section 124 A (sedition) and 153 A IPC (promoting enmity between classes) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC was lodged by the Crime Branch, pursuant to the alleged speeches addressed by Imam, allegedly instigating a particular religious section of the society to disrupt/block the access to North East region of India from rest of India, police had claimed.

Imam was allegedly involved in organising protests at Shaheen Bagh but came into limelight after a video showed him making controversial comments before a gathering at Aligarh Muslim University, following which he was booked under sedition charges. Separate cases have also been registered against him in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

The police had earlier submitted before the court that after his speech on December 13, widespread arson and violence took place in various parts of Delhi and that several protest sites emerged after his January 16 speech.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:36:35|Editor: huaxia

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Demonstrators hold an EU flag outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, on June 10, 2020. (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)

"We have just concluded the seventh round of negotiations with the EU. As I said last week, agreement is still possible, and it is still our goal, but it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve," said the British government's chief negotiator David Frost.

LONDON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A post-Brexit deal between Britain and the European Union (EU) will not be easy to achieve, the British government's chief negotiator David Frost said Friday after the latest round of talks ended.

"We have just concluded the seventh round of negotiations with the EU. As I said last week, agreement is still possible, and it is still our goal, but it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve," Frost said in the statement released Friday.

At the conclusion of the latest round of talks in Brussels, Frost said substantive work continues to be necessary across a range of different areas of potential Britain-EU future cooperation if an agreement is to be delivered.

"We have had useful discussions this week but there has been little progress," Frost said.

A pigeon is seen near placards demanding extension of Brexit transition period outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, on June 10, 2020. (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)

"The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts," he added.

Frost said the EU stance made it unnecessarily difficult to make progress. There are other significant areas which remain to be resolved and, even where there is a broad understanding between negotiators, there is a lot of detail to work through, he said, adding: "Time is short for both sides."

Frost said Britain will continue to work hard to reach an agreement with the EU, adding that chief negotiators and their teams have agreed to remain in close contact over the next two weeks before the next round of talks in London in the week of Sept. 7.

On fisheries, one of the sticking points, London says its position remains unchanged, insisting that it will not accept any proposals which compromise British sovereignty over its own fishing waters.

People walk past a banner demanding extension of Brexit transition period outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, on June 10, 2020. (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)

Local media reported that there was no progress during the latest round of talks on quota sharing. The EU reiterated that British position was a no go for Brussels, and the EU was only prepared to accept minor changes at best.

On the other major issue of a so-called level playing field, a key challenge remains on subsidy control.

Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31 but is still following EU rules during the transition period until Dec. 31 to enable a permanent future trade deal to be reached. During this period, Britain would have to pay into EU funds but have no say in laws imposed by Brussels.

The EU's chief negotiator for relations with Britain, Michel Barnier, has said a draft agreement needs to be in place by October to enable it to be ratified by the EU's 27 member states.

Speaking during a press conference in Brussels on Friday, Barnier said he was "disappointed, concerned and surprised" and the latest talks were "going backwards" rather than forwards.

If Britain and the EU fail to secure a trade deal before the transitional period expires, both sides will trade under the World Trade Organization terms, under which new border controls and tariffs will mean extra cost for their trade. 
A Texas-based pharmacy marketer has been charged by federal in a conjunction to a scheme to collect more than $60 million in healthcare kickbacks.

Vinson Woodlee, owner and president of Med Left LLC, has been charged with violating the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, Northern District of Texas First Assistant U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah said.

According to Woodlees LinkedIn profile, he is based in Rockwall, Texas.

A federal grand jury indicted Woodlee on one count of conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks and three counts of soliciting and receiving healthcare kickbacks.

According to the indictmentWoodlee, 68, served as a marketer for NextHealth, a pharmacy and laboratory services company controlled by Andrew Hillman and Semyon Narosov.

NextHealth allegedly identified the industrys most profitable prescriptions  including compound pain cream, scar cream, pain patches, and wellness supplements  then illegally paid physicians to prescribe those medications through NextHealth pharmacies, funneling some of the kickbacks through marketers like Woodlee.

In exchange for enlisting physicians to participate in the scheme, Woodlee allegedly demanded roughly 50% of the profits from each prescription and refill written by the doctors he recruited. He then funneled a portion of the money on to prescribing physicians and sub-marketers, keeping the rest for himself.

From 2012 to 2018, Woodlee allegedly collected more than $60 million in kickbacks. Of the $60 million, he passed $16.8 million on to his physicians and $30.6 million on to sub-marketers who likely passed a portion along to their physicians. (Over that same period, NextHealth fraudulently billed insurers more than $700 million and received hundreds of millions of dollars in tainted proceeds.)

Because NextHealth billed federal insurers like Medicare, TRICARE, CHAMPVA, and FECA in addition to private insurers, NextHealth and its marketers were subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), which prohibits the knowing and willful payment of remuneration to induce or reward referrals for drugs or services payable by federal healthcare programs.

An indictment is merely an allegation of criminal conduct, not evidence. Like all defendants, Mr. Woodlee is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

If convicted, he faces up to 35 years in federal prison.

In a separate case, NextHealths Andrew Hillman and Semyon Narasov pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy. According to court documents, the pair admitted NextHealth used marketers to funnel illegal kickbacks to physicians, attempted to conceal the payments, and submitted fraudulent claims to insurers. Hillman was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison; Narasov was sentenced to 76 months.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations Dallas Field Office, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, DODs Defense Criminal Investigative Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management Office of Inspector General, and HHSs Medicaid Fraud Control Unit conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Chad Meacham and Andrew Wirmani are prosecuting the case.

Source: U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Texas

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Kim Jong Un issued a dire warning for North Koreas economy amid reports that he delegated some power to his sister, including responsibility for relations with the US

Kim told a gathering of ruling party leaders that the country faced unexpected and inevitable challenges in various aspects and that his development goals had been seriously delayed, state media said Thursday. The unusually candid assessment came as sanctions, flooding and the coronavirus pandemic pushed the North Korean economy toward what was expected to be its worst contraction in more than two decades.

Hours later, South Korean lawmakers told reporters that the countrys spy agency determined that Kim had delegated responsibility for relations with Seoul and Washington to his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong. While she had taken an increasingly public role in diplomatic matters, such as responding to a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year, one lawmaker described a more formal power-sharing arrangement.

Intelligence committee member Ha Tae-keung, who was among National Assembly lawmakers briefed by the spy agency Thursday, said the move didnt indicate that Kim was adopting a collective leadership system similar to Chinas Communist Party. The absolute power of Kim Jong Un is being shared under the current leadership style of North Korea, Ha said, adding that Kim still retained ultimate control.

North Korea also announced plans for the first national congress of the ruling Workers Party of Korea since 2016 next year. The key party meeting in January would provide another platform to promote prominent officials such as his sister, and purge others. Last week, Kim replaced the premier he appointed a little more than a year ago, in another sign of political tension in Pyongyang.

Duyeon Kim, a senior adviser for Northeast Asia and Nuclear Policy at the International Crisis Group, expressed skepticism that Kim would relinquish authority as supreme leader. To say there is a partial transfer of power seems to be an exaggeration, given the system in North Korea, she said.

The statement on the economy was the latest in a series of complaints by Kim Jong Un about the pace of key policy goals. In recent months, he has lashed out at cadres over what he saw as lax virus management and blasted the people responsible constructing his showcase Pyongyang General Hospital, saying they were flouting party policies and being careless with spending.

The North Korean leader also pledged to unveil a new five-year economic development plan at the upcoming party congress. The last meeting in 2016 of what is ostensibly North Koreas highest-level decision-making assembly ended a 36-year lull when Kims father, Kim Jong Il, ignored party rules requiring such a gathering every five years.

Planned attainment of the goals for improving the national economy have been seriously delayed and the peoples living standard has not been improved remarkably, Kim told a gathering of the partys Central Committee, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

While state media made no mention of the U.S.-led sanctions regime on the country, Pyongyang has repeatedly lashed out at the campaign. In December, Kim similarly told the Central Committee that the conditions of the national economy have not turned better, adding the role of the state as the organizer of the economic work has not been enhanced.

Kim is facing difficulties on various fronts, and a reported health scare earlier this year raised questions about succession. His nuclear discussions with Trump have ground to a halt without him winning any sanctions relief, and the U.S. and South Korea this week kicked off joint military drills.

At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, Trump repeated his claim that the U.S. would have been at war with North Korea if not for him. Democrats have accused Trump of fueling tensions with Pyongyang to a point where conflict seemed possible.

The economy was already under pressure from his decision to shut borders in January due to the coronavirus, which slammed the brakes on its minuscule legal trade. This year, the troubles could send the economy into its biggest contraction since 1997, according to Fitch Solutions.

Torrential rains that hit his state this summer have wiped out farmland, increasing food insecurity in the country where the United Nations World Food Program says about 40% of the population is undernourished. North Korea has boasted that it doesnt have any confirmed cases of Covid-19, a claim doubted by U.S. and Japanese officials.

Unless there is a major change -- such as pushing for economic reform or improving relations with South Korea, China and/or Russia -- it would be difficult for North Korea to deliver the economic prosperity it vowed, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul who has advised the South Korean government over the years.
This announcement comes amid allegations that the firm did not apply hate speech rules for posts by certain ruling party politicians.

Social media giant Facebook has finally cleared the air and has given its stance on the Indian politics. On Friday, the parent company of WhatsApp and Instagram confirmed it is a non-partisan platform, meaning it doesn't support any one political party. Also mentioned was that Facebook will continue to remove content posted by public figures in the country.

However, the content will only be removed if it violates its standards. This announcement comes amid allegations that the firm did not apply hate speech rules for posts by certain ruling party politicians.

The statement also comes after a Wall Street Journal report that alleged Facebook's content policies to favour the ruling party in India. Ever since the report came out, both the political parties in India - BJP and Congress, have been attacking each other over Facebook's alleged bias.

Also read: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioned by FTC investigators

"Facebook is and always has been an open, transparent and non-partisan platform where people can express themselves freely. Over the last few days, we have been accused of bias in the way we enforce our policies. We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form," Facebook India Vice President and Managing Director Ajit Mohan said in a blog post.

Mohan added that Facebook is impartial to dealing with content and strongly follows its Community Standards.

"We enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone's political position, party affiliation or religious and cultural belief. We have removed and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India when it violates our Community Standards," he said.
A bank manager stole $4.2million from Westpac and duped a couple who attended his own wedding to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Andi Lee, 39, had been working as the branch manager of Bank of Melbourne, a subsidiary of Westpac, in Doncaster, the County Court heard on Thursday

He offered a number of his customers bogus term deposit deals and would transfer their money into false accounts controlled by him between August 2015 and April 2019.

Among the customers were two couples and a person who had left their job to care for their elderly mother, The Herald Sun reported.

The County Court heard on Thursday Andi Lee, 39, (pictured) had been working as the branch manager of Bank of Melbourne, a subsidiary of Westpac, in Doncaster

The court heard Lee directed $3.8million into the false accounts and used the money to shower his girlfriend in gifts, as well as gambling and travel.

The court also heard how he used the money to spend on people he knew.

He bought two Porsches for $280,000 and gifted one of them to his girlfriend.

His partner also spent almost $300,000 on 26 designer watches before she gave them to Lee, the court heard.

Lee put down a $51,000 deposit on his sister's apartment, which he rents, and also made mortgage repayments for his ex-wife's home.

Lee's business partner also received almost $1.4million, the court heard.

Police caught Lee in December and seized a number of electronic devices and notes with logins and passwords for false accounts.

The court heard his mother now financially assists Lee while he drives a shuttle bus for Ronald McDonald house.

Barrister Peter Morrissey SC said his client's 'financially disadvantaged background' led him to pursue a high-flyer lifestyle.

'He was posing as "Mr Successful",' Mr Morrissey said.

Prosecutor Matt Cookson said Lee knew the system well as a branch manager.

Lee pleaded guilty to three charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception and will be sentenced in September

'He was a bank manager, he knows the system, he knows the anti-laundering methods.'

Judge Frances Hogan condemned his actions as 'unpalatable' and said Lee was likely to be sentenced to jail.

Lee pleaded guilty to three charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception and will be sentenced in September.
There are two more casualties with the economic downturn due to the novel coronavirus and both companies have said the layoffs will be permanent.

Seadrill Americas, Inc. at 11025 Equity Dr., announced on Aug. 11 their plans to lay off 168 employees assigned to the West Auriga drilling rig beginning in the month of October.

The company provides personnel supporting the operation of a mobile offshore drilling unit, the West Auriga Rig. The West Auriga is a sixth generation ultra-deepwater drillship with operational history in the Gulf of Mexico.

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According to their WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988) letter to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner of their intentions, the West Auriga will soon complete operations under its current contract and is anticipated to be cold stacked or mothballed, a cost reduction step taken when a rigs contracting prospects look bleak or the operation does not justify an adequate return on the investment.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston economy reverses course, shedding jobs in July as region struggles to contain COVID

The inability to secure additional work for the West Auriga in the face of the current market and other conditions is sudden, unexpected, and outside of Seadrills control, the letter read.

Under those business circumstances, preparations are already underway to shut down the West Auriga over the next two to three months.

According to Claudia Londono, head of human resources for the company, a small number of employees may receive offers to transfer to other Seadrill positions or locations, but no transfer offers have been extended at this time, and any employees who receive such an offer but reject it will be laid off.

Affected employees have already been notified of their separation dates and that their separation from employment will be permanent. All separations will be complete by Dec. 31, 2020.

No bumping rights, or senior employees displacing junior employees out of their job positions, as a result of the closure of West Auriga.

On Aug. 13, 2020, REX Staffing, LLC provided notice of layoffs for all employees at Country Fresh Products, LLC located at 2008 W. W. Thorne Blvd.

According to their WARN letter penned by company president Tinh Tieu, the layoffs were prompted by Country Fresh leadership to curtail its operations at the facility due to a decline in sales volume and reduction in demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The layoffs mean the permanent elimination of 310 REX Staffing LLC employees who are assigned to work at the facility. The last day of employment for the affected employees is anticipated to be Oct. 11, or within 14 days thereafter. Like Seadrill, none of the affected employees are represented by a union, and no bumping rights will exist for Country Fresh Products employees.

The company got into trouble last year with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when they received a warning letter from the agency because of serious violations with the Ready-to-Eat (RTE) fresh cut produce manufacturing facility.

The letter, sent on Dec. 12, 2019, noted FDA inspectors collected environmental samples from various areas of the facility, including areas near food processing operations. Analysis of the samples found the presence of Listeria monocytogenes, a human pathogen, in the facility.

Based on FDAs inspectional findings and the analytical results for the environmental samples, we determined that your RTE products are adulterated within the meaning of Section 402(a)(4) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C.  342(a)(4)], in that they were prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health, the letter read.

The company did take action and responded to the FDA in emails sent including summaries of sanitation and cleaning procedures, a supplier approval review, training documentation, and other supporting documentation.

However, they did not provide supporting documentation of all their corrective actions.

We will verify the adequacy of your corrective actions during our next inspection, the FDA official wrote in their return letter.

Among the violations was a retail product sample of watermelon spears collected at Wal-Mart on May 9, 2019 by the FDA that tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes.

The watermelon spears were manufactured at the Country Fresh location in Grand Prairie. Whole Genome Sequencing of the sample revealed that it matched an environmental sample collected by the State of Texas in 2013 at the Country Fresh location in Houston, and historical clinical isolates. According to the company, the two Country Fresh locations (Grand Prairie and Houston) shared product, equipment, and suppliers.

The letter ended, You should take prompt action to correct the violations noted in this letter. Failure to do so may result in regulatory action by FDA without further notice, including, without limitation, seizure and injunction.

It is not known if the violations contributed to the closure of the facility as well.

Neither company representatives responded to requests for an interview.

dtaylor@hcnonline.com
Egypt has been pushing for a political settlement in Libya and calling for a ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of militias and halt to foreign intervention in the country, as well as a fair distribution of wealth

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has hailed statements by the Libyan parliament and the Libyan presidential council of the Government of the National Accord (GNA) declaring a ceasefire in the country.

I welcome all the statements issued by the Presidential Council and the House of Representatives in Libya on ceasefire and stopping military operations in all Libyan territories, considering this an important step in achieving a political settlement and the aspiration of the Libyan people in restoring stability and prosperity in Libya, as well as preserving the Libyan peoples wealth, El-Sisi said in a statement published on his official social media accounts on Friday morning.

The GNA, which is based in the west of the country, issued a statement on Friday morning announcing a ceasefire across the country and calling for the demilitarisation of the contested strategic city of Sirte, which is controlled by rival forces.

In a separate statement, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival east-based House of Representatives, also called for a ceasefire.

Both administrations called for an end to an oil blockade imposed by rival forces earlier this year.

The Tripoli-based government also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March.

El-Sisis statement is the first from an Arab or Middle Eastern leader supporting a political solution in the war-torn country.

Egypt has been pushing for a political settlement in Libya and calling for a ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of militias and halt to foreign intervention in the country, as well as a fair distribution of wealth.

In June, Egypt proposed a peace initiative dubbed the Cairo Declaration, which was based on the conclusion of the Berlin conference. It proposed a ceasefire and the election of a leadership council.

A month later, the Egyptian parliament granted its approval for a potential deployment of the countrys armed forces abroad for the purposes of national security in the strategic western direction against the work of armed criminal militias and foreign terrorist elements.

The decision came after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi warned the country will not stand idle in the face of any attack on Libyas Sirte, which he earlier described as a red line for Egypts national security.

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Almost 30% of Ukrainians have positive attitude towards Russia, and half consider ban on Russian TV channels as mistake - poll

KYIV. Aug 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) 29.7% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards Russia, and half consider it wrong to ban Russian channels, actors, films and social networks. Such data of the all-Ukrainian sociological survey of the population, conducted by the Social Monitoring Center from August 8 to 15, 2020, were presented at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday.

When asked how the respondents generally relate to the Russian Federation, 4.4% answered that it was very positive, 25.3% - rather positive, 31.4% - rather negative, 26.5% - very negative, and 12.4% found it difficult to answer.

In addition, 40.8% of the respondents believe that the ban of Russian TV channels in Ukraine is a necessary step to protect the state, 50% - that it is a mistake that only leads to restricting citizens' rights.

Also, 36.8% of the respondents believe that the ban on certain Russian artists and films was necessary, 53.5% consider this step to be wrong.

Some 38.2% spoke out in support of the ban on Russian social networks in Ukraine, 49.9% of respondents consider it a restriction of citizens' rights.

In the course of the survey "Opinion and Views of the Population of Ukraine, August 2020", 3012 respondents were interviewed, the sampling error was 1.1-1.83%.
Kindred Hospital is accused of firing an ICU nurse in retaliation for reporting patient safety concerns to authorities, according to a civil lawsuit filed this week in state District Court in Bexar County.

Kindred Healthcare, which is a limited partnership owned by a company based in Louisville, Ky., has not yet responded to the lawsuit involving one of the companys two San Antonio locations.

In the suit, registered nurse Sean Kinnie alleges that the hospital suspended him twice and ultimately fired him after learning he had made the reports about patient safety at the companys 59-bed transitional care hospital at 3636 Medical Drive. The freestanding facility treats chronically, critically ill patients.

He first raised concerns about patient safety in November in an anonymous complaint to the Joint Commission, according to the suit. The commission is an independent agency that accredits U.S. health care organizations based on national standards of health care quality. Organizations voluntarily seek its accreditation.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio specialty hospital to close

According to the suit, Kinnie reported that patients were put in grave danger with inadequate staffing, not bathing patients, soiled unclean mattresses, poor lighting, cold environment when temperature falls.

A call was made to the hospitals CEO, Abiola Anyebe, asking for comment Thursday, but she said she hadnt seen the lawsuit. She was emailed a copy of the petition but had not responded as of Thursday evening.

In his November complaint, Kinnie says he also told the commission that when nurses were passing out medications, there was no staff available to assist other patients in emergencies, which led to patients pulling out IV lines or falling and suffering injuries.

Kinnie also alleged that the night monitor tech goes to sleep from 1 to 3 a.m., leaving the monitor unattended. He also reported that one patient died because of the hospitals slow response times.

In December, the commission conducted an on-site review of the hospital. A report on the commissions website shows that the hospital and its lab retained its accreditation after that review.

But Kinnie says in the lawsuit that he continued to have concerns. He also describes a workplace culture in which employees were afraid to stand up for the patients.

On ExpressNews.com: Major San Antonio hospitals relax no-visitor rules

On Jan. 7, the intensive care unit was closed so that the hospital could decorate. Patients were moved to non-ICU rooms, which Kinnie considered unsafe. When Kinney moved equipment from the ICU area into his patients room, he was reprimanded, according to the suit.

He then wrote another letter to the Joint Commission complaining that employees were unable to effectively work under constant threat of management retaliation and that there was a severe staff shortage on nights and weekends.

Kinnie also placed an anonymous call to his employers compliance hotline, according to the suit, and notified corporate that he believed that the hospital was putting financial considerations above patient care and risking patients lives and health as a result.

He put in his resignation notice Jan. 8, but that evening he was asked by Chief Clinical Officer Sharon Danieliewicz to return under the promise that changes would be made.

The next day, he disclosed to her that he was the employee who had reported the patient safety concerns. He alleges that in the following weeks, he noticed Danieliewicz was scrutinizing his work.

Kinnie was suspended twice before being terminated Feb. 24 for violating facility policy. The hospitals administrators told him it was because he drew a culturally insensitive doodle on his clipboard, which he denies.

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The suit says Kinnie previously worked for Texas Health and Human Services Department of Aging and Disability Services, where he conducted investigations and licensure inspections used to determine whether facilities were in compliance with federal and state regulations. Hes been a nurse for 25 years.

Kinnie is seeking damages for mental anguish, suffering or emotional distress, in addition to court costs and attorney fees, reinstatement or severance pay, and compensation for wages lost.

Hes also seeking a trial by jury and $1 million in monetary relief.

Kindred should have applauded Mr. Kinnie for his efforts to make the hospital safer; instead, they fired him because he would not look the other way, said attorney Lawrence Morales II, who is representing Kinnie.

Laura Garcia covers the health care industry. To read more from Laura, become a subscriber. laura.garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @Reporter_Laura
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:39:19|Editor: huaxia

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by Dana Halawi

BEIRUT, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hoda Jaafar, a Lebanese lady in her 60's, lives with her family of nine members in a small room in the ground floor of a building in Bourj Hammoud, northeast of the capital Beirut.

The family uses a small space facing their room to store blankets and few other needs in a small closet, in addition to some basic food items in an old refrigerator.

The lady's family uses one small toilet installed behind their room.

The explosions that rocked Beirut's port on Aug. 4 did not spare Jaafar's small living space from damage.

"We were capable of rebuilding our room but we cannot afford to fix our toilet," she told Xinhua.

Jaafar, whose husband is disabled, has one son who does some cleaning work for a monthly salary of 900,000 Lebanese pounds (about 130 U.S. dollars, according to the black market rate for U.S. dollar).

"My son gives me 300,000 pounds a month to feed the family which is insufficient given the hike in prices," she said.

Most of her daughters are either married or jobless and they have no capabilities to provide any financial support to their parents and family.

The explosions that hit Beirut's port on Aug. 4 destroyed at least 8,000 buildings in the city, while 300,000 people have become homeless with many of them unable to fix their houses due to the financial crisis prevailing in the country and the loss of thousands of jobs.

This has prompted several foreign countries to step in and offer their reconstruction support for the most vulnerable families in Lebanon ahead of winter.

Peaceland Foundation and Common Future Fund, two Chinese civil groups, among other international organizations, have been working on supporting both Lebanese nationals and Syrian refugees in their reconstruction efforts following the explosions.

Zhan Weizhen, project manager working with the two groups, has created an online platform to attract donors in China to do the fundraising.

"We have Chinese people donating through our platform. People also check the photos on our social media accounts so they approach me and send money to help with repairing damaged houses," Zhan told Xinhua.

Zhan said she is keen to help the most vulnerable in repairing their shattered glasses and doors before winter.

"I am keen to use my limited budget to protect people by providing them with their basic needs ahead of the cold winter season," she said.

Zhan explained that she is working in cooperation with Sama Center to locate people who are in need for help and support in rehabilitating their houses.

Sama Center is originally an education center, but they also help with supporting the fight against COVID-19 in camps and now, in reconstruction following Beirut's explosions.

"Zhan was providing the Syrian refugees' families with food after the outbreak of COVID-19, but when the explosion happened, we asked her for help in houses rehabilitation so she secured some money for this purpose," Kadriya Hussein, director at Sama Center in Chatila Camp, told Xinhua.

Hussein explained that Sama Center tries to focus on important cases while allocating around 700 dollars for each house.

She explained that some houses require more than 700 dollars while others require less money to be fixed.

"We have started our repair work since Monday and we will hopefully rehabilitate more than 15 houses before winter; our work should be over within one month," she said.

Hussein explained that Sama Center, in cooperation with Zhan, will help in repairing Jaafar's house.

"I am lucky to have been picked by Zhan and Kadriya to fix my toilet and our house's doors before winter," Jaafar told Xinhua.

"My bones hurt so bad during winter; we're lucky to have found someone to help us ahead of the cold season," she added.

Two explosions rocked Beirut's port on Aug. 4, destroying buildings in the capital while killing at least 177 people and wounding over 6,000.

Investigations into the explosions are still ongoing and search for missing people through the rubble has not stopped yet. Enditem
Majority of 19,000 People to Be Placed in Jobs are Xinjiang Camp Detainees

2020-08-20 -- The majority of tens of thousands of people from a southeastern prefecture of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) who will be hired to do construction work in coming years are currently detained in internment camps, according to a source from the job center that is placing them.

RFA's Uyghur Service recently obtained a copy of a document which was circulated by the government of Bayin'gholin Mongol (in Chinese, Bayinguoleng Menggu) Autonomous Prefecture on July 13, stating that it plans to put 19,000 people in construction jobs over the next three years.

The document says that the plan was prepared by the XUAR government under the "guiding light" of China's President Xi Jinping as part of a strategy to bring stability and peace to the region, which has seen unrest and tensions between Uyghurs and a growing population of Han Chinese since the 1990s.

While it is not stated explicitly, certain details in the document suggest that the plan is, at least in part, a way of dealing with detainees from the XUAR's vast network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017.

RFA called several government offices in Bayin'gholin and was able to speak with a Han Chinese representative with the prefectural Party Committee, who refused to comment on the work program unless it was in person.

"If you need help with anything, bring your work authorization card to come see us," the representative said, adding, "Let's not talk about this on the phone!"

However, a Han Chinese staffer from the job center listed on the July 13 document confirmed the existence of the program and said that most of the 19,000 would comprise camp detainees, in addition to workers from several different fields and institutions.

"Yes, there are people from the internment campsof course there would be people from the camps," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.

"[But] there are also people from all kinds of institutions and schools."

When asked what percentage of workers will be from the camps and which ones, the staffer said he was unsure.

But asked whether the majority will be from camps, and if the plan was designed with the goal of relocating detainees from camps into the workplace, he answered, "Yes, that's correct."

"This program has not been officially launched on a large scale," he told RFA, adding that further details should be available by the end of the year.

"If you want more information, ask the Housing and Construction Department. It was their decision to hire 19,000 people. We're just following the government's laws and policies."

RFA also asked the staffer which of four known camps in Korla (Kuerle), a county-level city in Bayin'gholin and the XUAR's second-largest city, would provide the workers, but he said he was unable to answer because it was unrelated to his job duties.

He also referred a question about whether the plan was being executed because there isn't enough space for people to be held in internment camps to XUAR government officials, saying, "we don't arrange these particular matters."

Over the past several years, RFA has received several tips that the number of detainees in Korla camps had grown so excessively large that jails and prisons had been repurposed to house the overflow.

Camp network

Beijing describes its three-year-old network of camps as voluntary "vocational centers," but reporting by RFA and other media outlets shows that detainees are mostly held against their will in poor conditions, where they are forced to endure inhumane treatment and political indoctrination.

Amid pressure from the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, the European Union and the United Nations, experts believe that China has begun sentencing Uyghurs held in internment camps to prison, providing legal cover to the detentions.

However, growing evidence suggests some Uyghurs and other detainees are being relocated to factories inside and outside of the XUAR as forced labor, under the guise of gaining employment connected to their purported vocational training.

In a July 2019 press conference, XUAR Chairman Shohret Zakir told reporters that more than 90 percent of internees from so-called "vocational training centers" had graduated from their "studies" and been placed into jobs. In later statements, the Chinese authorities claimed that all "centers" had been closed.

However, the confirmation from Bayin'gholin that camp detainees will be part of a new work placement scheme directly contradicts these year-old claims, suggesting that camps are still operational and that many citizens are being held involuntarily inside them.

RFA's previous reporting has shown that Bayin'gholin was a center of "vocational training" in the XUAR.

'Residential areas'

It was not immediately clear whether the detainees to be placed in jobs under the Bayin'gholin program will be moved into forced labor settings or into "residential areas" like one RFA reported on earlier this month in the seat of Makit (Maigaiti) county, in the XUAR's Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture.

In that report, sources told RFA that a special, restricted-access residential area had been established to relocate internment camp detainees accused of lighter "offenses," which requires study of Mandarin Chinese, while employing detainees in several on-site factories.

Known as the "14th Neighborhood Committee," the zone permits detainees to live with their families, but otherwise differs little from the camps.

Residents are strictly monitored and made to attend mandatory political indoctrination classes, sources said, as well as sessions involving "self-examinations" and "confessions," while entry and exit are prohibited without special permission.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA's Uyghur Service. Translated by Elise Anderson. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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 August not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Universities minister Michelle Donelan wrote to vice-chancellors requesting their flexibility around admissions and asking them to honour all offers accepted

The Government is asking universities to prioritise students from disadvantaged backgrounds for admission 'where possible' following the U-turn on A-level grades - meaning Middle-Class pupils may be forced to take gap years.

Universities minister Michelle Donelan wrote to vice-chancellors requesting their flexibility around admissions and asking them to honour all offers accepted.

She wrote that once admissions capacity is reached and additional places cannot be provided then institutions should 'where possible try to prioritise those from disadvantaged backgrounds for admission this year'.

She added that providers should see if a student 'would like a suitable alternative course or offer a deferred place'.

The head of an independent education think tank said prioritising one group over another may not be easy.

The Higher Education Policy Institute's Nick Hillman told The Times: 'If I was a vice-chancellor, or running admissions, I would worry that the wording is open to all sort of challenges, even legal ones.

'Do they have sufficiently robust information to make that fine judgment? Is it based on parents' salaries, or ethnicity, or other characteristics?'

It comes as universities were told they would receive extra funding to help increase capacity on a number of courses after warning they had limited space for students who saw their results increase.

Students discuss their A-Level results after getting them at the Norwich School last Thursday

Vice-chancellors and doctors had called for the cap on student numbers in medical schools to be removed amid the grading chaos.

Record GCSE grades are 'likely to prompt more students than ever to attend college' More students than ever are likely to progress to A-levels and vocational courses following steep rises in the GCSE pass rates for maths and English, college leaders have said. Nearly three in four (71.2 per cent) entries in England received a grade 4 or above - broadly equivalent to a C or above - in English this year, compared with 61.8% last year, according to data published by exams regulator Ofqual. The pass rate for maths has increased by 7 percentage points. Two in three entries received a grade 4 or above, compared with 59.6 per cent in 2019. David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said course choices for those finishing school 'may be different' this year due to the GCSE results. He said: 'With an increase in top grades and passes, it is likely that more students than ever will progress to Level 3 vocational courses or A-levels. 'At the same time there may be fewer apprenticeship opportunities for school leavers because of the pressures in the labour market.' Mr Hughes said that while colleges could see an increase in applications, he is 'certain' there is enough capacity to ensure students can get on to the right course. However, he said 'concerted' Government support is needed to ensure 'colleges have the confidence that they will be funded to meet the demand'. GCSE results published on Thursday showed the proportion of entries that received a 7 or above - equivalent to an A or above - in maths rose from 15.9 per cent to 19 per cent, while in English it jumped from 13.9 per cent to 18.7 per cent. The proportion of entries receiving a 9 - the highest grade under the new numerical grading system - increased in English from 2.2 per cent to 3.4 per cent and in maths from 2.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent. Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, said the Government needs to 'fix the mess' around the issuing of results for Btec students. Exam board Pearson asked schools and colleges on Wednesday not to publish Level 1 and 2 results in the vocational qualifications on Thursday to give them more time to recalculate the grades. Ms Grady said: 'If we see a similar increase in Btec pass rates as we have seen in GCSEs then many more students will be able to go to college.' Overall, 76 per cent of entries in England received a grade 4 or above, up 8.9 points from 67.1 per cent in 2019. Traditional A*-G GCSE grades have been scrapped and replaced in England with a 9-1 system with 9 the highest result. A 4 is broadly equivalent to a C grade, and a 7 broadly equivalent to an A. Following a U-turn by the Government on Monday, this year's exam results were based on teacher-assessed grades, so long as they were higher than grades calculated by an algorithm devised by Ofqual. It was initially intended for exam boards to moderate the grades using the algorithm to ensure this year's results were not significantly higher than previously and the value of grades was not undermined. Advertisement

The U-turn on Monday - which meant A-level results would be based on teachers' estimated grades - came too late for many students who had already made choices about universities based on the grades they were initially awarded.

Leading universities have warned students who have higher grades may still be asked to defer their place if there is no longer space on their preferred course, a move signalled in Ms Donelan's letter.

The Government's Higher Education Taskforce - made up of university sector leaders - agreed on Wednesday to honour all offers across courses to students who meet their conditions this coming year wherever possible or, if maximum capacity is reached, to offer an alternative course or a deferred place.

It comes after the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service revealed around 15,000 students who were rejected by their first-choice university will now meet the offer conditions after the grading U-turn.

Figures from Ofqual show the proportion of A-level entries in England which received top grades increased to a record high following the changes to the system this week.

It comes as education experts criticised the 'staggering' number of A grades in the revised A-level results as modern foreign languages, maths and classics are revealed as the subjects with the highest rate of A or A* grades in England.

Results based on teachers assessed grades showed more than 10 per cent of entries have been upgraded following a U-turn on the way results are awarded, with 38.1 per cent of students gaining an A or A* this year, compared to 25.2 per cent of original grades.

The surge follows Education Secretary Gavin Williamson scrapping the controversial algorithm system for A-levels and GCSEs following a mass outcry from students and parents.

The backlash prompted ministers to concede teachers' predicted grades must be used to mark pupils who could not sit their exams due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ministers also announced today that it will scrap the cap on numbers of students admitted to take medical degrees and every student will be guaranteed a place at their first choice university if they have the right grades.

Nearly three in four (74 per cent) pupils taking A-levels in languages other than French, German or Spanish achieved an A* or A - the biggest figure of any subject.

Other languages available for students to study at A-level include Italian, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Gujarati, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Turkish and Urdu.

One of the reasons for this being at the top is that many students are likely to already have the subject as a native language, and so would be expected to perform well.

And subjects that attract academically bright students also recorded high numbers of As with 71.1% of students getting an A in Further Mathematics and 49.15 in Mathematics,

After other modern languages, the next subject with the highest A/A* rate is further maths at 71 per cent, a figure which might be expected because it is often taken by students who are expected to perform very well in the standard maths A-level.

Following behind are the three standard modern foreign languages of German (58 per cent), Spanish (55 per cent) and French (54 per cent).

Other subjects towards the top included the classics - compromising Latin, Greek and classical civilisation - which had an A*/A rate of 53 per cent.

Further subjects not far behind include standard maths at 50 per cent, performing arts at 44 per cent, chemistry at 41 per cent and art and design subjects also at 41 per cent.

Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, described the percentages of top A-level grades as 'staggering and no help at all to university admissions tutors having to take difficult decisions'.

Other modern languages have the highest rate of A/A& grades at 73.8 per cent, followed by further maths at 71.1 per cent, German at 58.3 per cent and Spanish at 54.5 per cent

More than 10 per cent of A-levels were upgraded after a U-turn on how results are awarded, with 38.1 per cent of students gaining an A or A* this year, compared to 27.6 per cent in 2019

The education expert told MailOnline: ''Other modern languages' is at the top, because these languages are often taken by native speakers, but the exams have been set for those learning them as a second language.

Which A-level subjects have the highest rate of A or A* grades in 2020? Other modern languages (Italian, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Gujarati, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Turkish and Urdu) 73.8%

Further Mathematics 71.1%

German 58.3%

Spanish 54.5%

French 53.6%

Classical subjects (Latin, Greek and classical civilisation) 53.1%

Mathematics 49.5%

Performing / expressive Arts 43.8%

Chemistry 41.9%

Music 41.4%

Art and design subjects 41.3%

Physics 41.2%

Economics 41.0%

Other sciences 40.0%

Political studies 39.7%

Drama 39.2%

English literature 37.7%

Biology 36.8%

History 36.7%

Computing 36.2%

Religious studies 36.1%

Geography 36.0%

Design and technology 32.6%

Physical education 31.2%

Psychology 29.0%

All other subjects 27.6%

Sociology 27.5%

Law 26.9%

Business studies 25.1%

English language & literature 23.4%

Media, film and TV studies 23.4%

English language 21.8% Advertisement

'German, Spanish and French are so high because the exams have been made easier in order to encourage more to take them. Languages, like maths and classical subjects, which also have very high percentages, are exams where there are right answers so it is possible to see whether someone is good at the subject.

'Those taking them also tend to be brighter. The subjects at the bottom tend to be subjective and taken by the less brainy - English language (the brighter do English literature), media, PE etc.

'The rank order of the subjects by grade tends to be very similar year by year, and this year the teachers have been extraordinarily generous. We do need exams to be able to tell who really deserves the grades.'

Education adviser and former Kent headteacher Peter Read also told MailOnline: 'Modern foreign languages will have a proportion of native speakers taking the A-level of their own language and so will tend to perform highly.

'In order to be fair to other candidates, grades have to be set high. Otherwise they would perform badly in those subjects and apart from other consequences entry numbers would fall sharply.

'Further maths will primarily be taken by highly able mathematicians who are likely to perform well across the board and again, to keep their grades balanced, a high proportion of A grades are awarded.'

But at the other end of the scale, the lowest rate of A*/As in A-levels was in England language (22 per cent), then media, film and TV studies (23 per cent).

Others towards the bottom of the A*/A range included English language and literature (23 per cent), business studies (25 per cent) and law (26.9 per cent).

The subjects with the biggest change in A/A* grades this year were other modern languages (up 22.3 percentage points), followed by music (up 22.1 points) and drama (up 21.2 points).

Others just behind were performing and expressive arts (up 19.8 points), Spanish (up 19.6 points), classics (up 18.7 points) and computing (up 18.6 points).

It comes as thousands of A-level entries have been upgraded following a major U-turn on the way results are awarded.

The subjects with the biggest change in A/A* grades this year were other modern languages (up 22.3 percentage points), followed by music (up 22.1 points) and drama (up 21.2 points)

More than 10 per cent of A-levels were upgraded after a U-turn on how results are awarded, with 38.1 per cent of students gaining an A or A* this year, compared to 27.6 per cent in 2019

Lewes Old Grammar School students smile after receiving their GCSE results on August 20

The proportion of A-level entries receiving an A grade or higher has increased to a record high for England, with 38.1 per cent awarded the top grades.

When this year's results were first released last week under the controversial moderation system, some 27.6 per cent of entries achieved an A or above.

Meanwhile, the overall pass rate for grades A* to E has also risen to an all-time high at 99.7 per cent achieved the same in last Thursday's results, figures provided by the exams regulator Ofqual show.

It comes after the Government announced students would be able to receive grades based on assessments by schools or colleges, rather than an algorithm, after thousands of results were downgraded on August 13.

Bristnall Hall Academy pupils in Oldbury in the West Midlands receive their GCSE results

Prior to the Government's U-turn, exam boards had downgraded nearly two-in-five (39.1 per cent) grades in England, according to data from Qfqual - equating to about 280,000 entries being adjusted down after moderation.

A total of 35.6 per cent of grades were adjusted down by one grade, 3.3 per cent were brought down by two grades and 0.2 per cent came down by three grades.

Teachers were told to submit the grades they thought each student would have received if they had sat the papers, alongside a rank order of students, after exams were cancelled amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, exam boards moderated the grades to ensure this year's results were not significantly higher than previously and the value of students' grades were not undermined.

Meanwhile, about 15,000 students who were rejected by their first-choice university will now meet the offer conditions set for them to study after the grading U-turn.

Ucas (the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) said universities had 'exercised flexibility' after it analysed the results from the four largest awarding bodies for 160,000 students who received upgraded A-level marks in England.

They showed that around 100,000 of those students had already secured a place at their first-choice university on results day last Thursday.

Of the remaining 60,000 students, around one in four will now meet the A-level offer conditions of their original first choice university, Ucas said.

In addition, the proportion of GCSE entries in England awarded top grades has surged to a record high after a U-turn meant results could be based on teachers' estimated grades amid cancelled exams.

Sixth form students look at their A-level results at the Hemel Hempstead School last Thursday

Hundreds of thousands of youngsters received their GCSE results today following major changes.

More than one in four (25.9 per cent) GCSE entries in England scored one of the three top grades this year, up from just over a fifth (20.7 per cent) last summer, figures from exams regulator Ofqual show.

The proportion receiving at least a 7 - the equivalent of an A grade - is a record high based on available data following the decision to award grades based on teachers' assessments, rather than an algorithm.

Figures from Ofqual show that 6.3 per cent of entries in England were awarded a 9 - the highest grade under the new numerical grading system - this year.

More than three in four (76 per cent) entries were awarded at least a 4 - which is broadly the equivalent of a C - in England, which is up 8.9 percentage points on last year when 67.1 per cent achieved the grades.
First Minister says action will be taken against venues where customer tracing data is not accurately recorded

This article is old - Published: Friday, Aug 21st, 2020

The First Minister Mark Drakeford has issued a strong warning to venues that have reopened to ensure their data collection to help any Test Trace & Protect effor is accurate.

As people increasingly come into greater contact with others, there is a higher risk of transmitting COVID-19 in some sectors. Welsh Government explain this is because customers and visitors will spend a longer time on these premises than in other surroundings, and will potentially come into close contact with people outside of their household. As a result hospitality businesses are asked to record and maintain personal data of customers, staff and visitors in support of the test and trace scheme if it is ever required.

As the First Minister has pointed to other countries, and specifically Australia before, we noted locations and venues associated with confirmed COVID-19 cases are published down under, for example, New South Wales publish a range of information complete with times and dates and categorised into if people need to self isolate or just monitoring for symptoms.

At the time of asking we were under the impression the local Wetherspoons issue was first known about locally on Monday 17th August, however this afternoon Public Health Wales said the timeframe of alert is as early as the 9th of August.

We asked the First Minister why Wales policy of not informing the public in such a manner was a better method than what happens in Australia and elsewhere.

The First Minister was not keen on that question, saying I really dont think that I agree with you. I struggle sometimes to keep up with the volume of information that the Welsh Government publishes every single day on aspects of Coronavirus. In the Wetherspoons example it does take a couple of days to make sure that an incident management team can be put together, that it can make sure its collecting the right information.

The team met earlier this morning it will publish a press release later today, setting up the results of everything that it has considered and the steps that will be taken from now on.

I have said to you and I am happy to say it again, I am a believer in providing as much information as early as we can to people in Wales and I think our track record on it is a bit more creditable than maybe your question would give them credit for.

The press release subsequently was published, asking anyone who visited the North and South Wales Bank pub in Wrexham between 9th and 20th August to be vigilant for the symptoms of Coronavirus. (more here)

On Monday Deeside.com first reported how a pub in Flintshire had a visit from Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Frank Bruno and Adolf Hitler as entered into their customer data log for any track and trace efforts.

Amendments to the regulations have made it obligatory for hospitality businesses and other high-risk settings to collect contact details of customers, data that Welsh Government say is essential information, and is now a requirement to collect not optional.

We pointed to poor information collection locally, and the above public example of poor data, and asked what is being done to ensure quality of data collection, and if there be random sampling taking place. We noted that issues will not formally surface until the data is actually required, and by then it is too late.

The First Minister said, Thank you for that question because it really does highlight the seriousness of that issue. When outbreaks take place as in Wetherspoons in Wrexham our ability to get on top of that depends crucially on that venue having accurately collected information on the people who have been at it, I will see that play out.

Now in that particular example the responsibility lies with the premises and the person who is in charge of that premise. As you said, we moved from this being part of our guidance to be being part of our regulations last week, so local authorities will have and do have powers to make sure that that is being done properly.

Our TTP system will be using that information and where we find that it isnt accurate, and when its blatantly not accurate, then action will be taken because unless we have that information, and unless its accurate, then our ability to go on protecting the public is compromised.

Venues that have reopened on the basis that they will put all those safeguards in place, have to make sure that they honour those commitments.

You can view the full briefing, along with the Q&A that some media attend, via the below video:
An infamous Chicago-born mobster whose exploits in Las Vegas in the 1970s inspired the film Casino has died of coronavirus and other complications, aged 81.

Frank Cullotta in his later years gloried in his past, running his own YouTube channel and organizing both a 'Vegas Mob Tour' and a Casino Tour, reveling in the 1995 Scorcese film.

Cullotta was a consultant on the film, which told the story of his associate Anthony 'The Ant' Spilotro, played by Joe Pesci.

Cullotta also had a brief cameo, playing a hit man.

Frank Cullotta, pictured in his later years, was a Chicago mobster. He died on Thursday aged 81

Cullotta in later life ran 'Vegas Mob Tours' for tourists, reminiscing about his life as a gangster

The Chicago-born mobster admitted to two murders as part of his plea deal in 1982

'It's like fighting a war,' he said, in a 2015 interview with the Las Vegas Sun. 'I hate to use the military as a comparison, but that's how it felt; I was carrying out an order.'

He said he enjoyed telling stories of his past.

'People are fascinated by me, and I understand that, but there's a big difference in me today than there used to be.

'I mean, I used to be surrounded by celebrities, showgirls, politicians, a lot of money, people wanting to attach themselves to you. But it came at a price.

'I lost my freedom. I had to change my life completely.

'But I have paid my debt to society. I'm under no pressure. I used to have headaches all the time, from tension, and I don't have headaches anymore. I'm clean today. I'm very clean.'

The mafia operator is best known for his membership of a group of Las Vegas thieves known as the 'Hole in the Wall Gang', and his life-long friendship with Spilotro.

Cullotta was one of the most senior figures in Chicago's 'Outfit' during its Vegas reign

Cullotta and Spilotro, pictured with other mafia figures, in a photo on Cullota's Facebook page

Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro was a childhood friend of Cullotta's, until he turned on him

Spilotro and Cullotta's first big 'score' was in 1957, when they used sledgehammers, acetylene torches, and other heavy equipment tools to break into the basement of a bank over a weekend - walking away with $50,000 each.

In 1971 Spilotro, a member of Chicago's crime 'Outfit', moved to Las Vegas to run his organization's operations there.

During the 1970s, the Outfit moved into the Las Vegas casino business after an agreement with the East Coast Families to take over all rackets in Atlantic City.

Chicago, being the leader of the Midwest cabal of crime families, led the way into Vegas, and Spilotro was at the forefront.

Cullotta followed him a few years later.

Cullotta wrote a series of books detailing his time in Chicago's Outfit - the mafia from the city

Nevada's regulation of the casino industry at the time was sketchy, and the FBI had not yet ramped up its Las Vegas office - leaving room for mobsters to enjoy secret ownership of casinos and to skim the profits.

Another of their childhood friends, Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, began running a series of casinos - inspiring the character of Ace Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro.

Cullotta by 1979 was putting together several of his old Outfit comrades into a burglary gang, which specialized in drilling into the walls of a building to avoid the alarms on doors and windows.

The gang targeted homes and businesses all over the south west, sometimes making their own 'hits', and sometimes carrying out Spilotro's orders.

Cullotta ran the day-to-day operations and made sure a percentage from each 'score' was given to Spilotro, in the usual Outfit protocol.

Spilotro would also ask Cullotta to carry out murders for him.

One of the most famous was the killing of Jerry Lisner, who was feeding information to police about Cullotta and Spilotro's activities.

This scene was depicted in the Scorsese film.

During the filming of this scene, Scorsese reportedly complained that it did not feel right.

Cullotta, legend has it, told him that they were not doing it right.

Scorsese asked: 'Who are you?'

Cullotta replied: 'I am the guy who done it.'

Cullotta, wearing a hat, made a cameo in the film Casino, shooting dead an informant

Joe Pesci's character Nicky Santoro in the 1995 film Casino was based on Spilotro

Spilotro, pictured in 1983, was the inspiration for Joe Pesci's character in the film Casino

The end came on the evening of July 4, 1981, when, using the Independence Day celebrations as cover, the Hole in the Wall Gang set out to rob Bertha's Gifts.

With the noise of fireworks and traffic in the background, several of the gang members used cutting torches and sledge hammers to smash through the ceiling of Bertha's in anticipation of hoisting up as much as $1 million.

In vehicles below, Cullotta and two other gang members, including ex-cop Joe Blasko, all armed with police scanners, were serving as lookouts.

But they didn't know that they had a mole in their group, who had tipped off FBI agents and Metro Police intelligence officers.

All three of the burglars were taken into custody without incident - and without having a chance to steal anything.

At the same time, agents on the street arrested Cullotta and the other lookouts.

'We felt a real sense of accomplishment,' said Dennis Arnoldy, a former FBI agent, in 2005, speaking to KNPR.

Spilotro (right) and his brother Tony, pictured in March 1983. The pair were killed in 1986

'You often plan things, and they don't work out the way you want them to. But this one worked out perfectly. It was damn good.'

Cullotta was in custory, and Spilotro came under intense federal and local law enforcement attention.

By April 1982 the pressure of the Bertha's bust had rattled Cullotta, who feared that Spilotro wanted him dead.

He decided to testify against his longtime boss, and agreed to admit to two murders.

Cullotta gave agents a gold mine of information - including a blow-by-blow account of how he killed an informant for Spilotro in 1979.

His testimony led to racketeering indictments against Spilotro and his top lieutenants in 1983.

'He was the glue that put it all together for us,' said retired FBI agent Mark Kaspar, who pursued Spilotro for a decade.

'He corroborated all the evidence we needed to move forward with indictments.'

Arnoldy, the lead agent in the racketeering case, calls Cullotta 'the single-most important witness' in the breakup of Spilotro's organization.

Authorities suspected Spilotro of participating in as many as two dozen murders, yet he was never convicted of homicide.

The racketeering case ended in a mistrial in April 1986, much to the dismay of FBI agents.

But two months later, as the retrial was about to get under way, the bodies of Spilotro and his younger brother Michael turned up in an Indiana cornfield.

'In the end Spilotro was taken care of by his own people,' said Kaspar.

The 81-year-old died on Thursday in Las Vegas from COVID-19 and other complications

Cullotta was sentenced to eight years, and then entered the Witness Protection Program; moving away, assuming a new name and running a small business.

In the mid-'90s, when he felt comfortable he would not be killed, he left Witness Protection and resumed living as Frank Cullotta.

The five-hour mob tours ran monthly and cost $180, including a champagne toast and pizza dinner.

His YouTube channel, Coffee with Cullotta, featured the aging mobster reminiscing about his life - 'revealing things that have not been revealed,' he promised.

He also sold coffee mugs.

'On this channel you will find videos of Frank Cullotta recalling incidences involving Chicago Outfit players including; Tony Accardo, Joseph Aiuppa, Paul Ricca, Tony Spilotro, Joseph Lombardo, Willie Messino, Jack Cerone and Mad Sam DeStefano,' the blurb reads.

'Frank gives his take on people including Michael Franzese, John Gotti, Sammy Gravano, Hugh Hefner, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis jr., The Rat Pack, Dean Martin, Barbara McNair and Rick Manzie.'

Author Dennis Griffin, who worked with Cullotta on four books, said he asked Cullotta many times over the years about how he reconciled his previous life with his later life.

'Actually, he told me he had found God,' Griffin told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

'He believed in God and said he had made peace with God. He knew he had been a bad guy who had done bad things but he addressed the issues and said he was comfortable with the way he was now.'

Griffin added: 'When I met Frank I made the error of using the word 'informant.'

'He was adamant he was not an informant. He was a government witness. He never wore a wire and never went out trying to entrap anybody. So there was a distinction in Frank's mind.'

Geoff Schumacher, vice president of exhibits and programs for the Mob Museum, said he was, within limits, 'a really nice guy.'

'You had to remember in the back of your mind he did some very bad things,' Schumacher told the paper.

'He committed murders. He committed robberies and burglaries. He beat people up. He was generally not someone who most people would want to associate with.

'But as long as you understood that, he was a gentleman. He was fair-minded. He always wanted to make sure people were taken care of.

'And he was very forthcoming and honest about what he had done.

'Also, in his later years, he definitely showed remorse.

'Not every killer showed remorse of what they did. But he did.'
If the two storms headed toward the Gulf of Mexico track closely enough, it could set off a rare moment involving an intense dance around their common center.

A National Weather Service post described the phenomenon  known as the Fujiwhara Effect  in those terms after two instances in 2017.

Their circulations sort of detect each other, said Lance Wood, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services Houston/Galveston office, and they can start to move around a common point between them.

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Forecasters are keeping an eye on this as Tropical Depression 14 (expected to be named Marco once it strengthens) and Tropical Storm Laura head toward the Gulf of Mexico. As of Friday, Laura was expected to move toward Florida and the northeastern Gulf, while Tropical Depression 14 was headed toward the coast of Texas and/or Louisiana. Both are expected to be in the Gulf of Mexico early next week.

The Fujiwhara Effect is a possibility, Wood said, but it also may not happen. Its too soon to know.

The phenomenon was named for Sakuhei Fujiwhara, who was director of the Central Meteorological Observatory of Japan and first described the interaction of vortices in water in a 1921 paper. He observed the properties of spinning phenomena such as whirlpools and cyclones and saw when two or more drew close to one another they could affect each others the speed, strength and track. The effect can occur when two tropical cyclones get within roughly 900 miles of each other.

It happened twice in 2017, according to the National Weather Service  between hurricanes Hilary and Irwin in the East Pacific and between Typhoon Noru and Tropical Storm Kulap in the West Pacific.

When two hurricanes spinning in the same direction pass close enough to each other, they begin an intense dance around their common center, a NWS post from that year said. If one hurricane is stronger, it could absorb the weaker storm. Two storms closer in strength can be drawn toward each other, spinning each other around before shooting off on their own paths or reaching a common point where they merge. Sometimes, the effect is additive when the hurricanes come together and can create one larger storm instead of two smaller ones.

The Fujiwhara Effect was also credited with changing the course of Hurricane Iris in 1995. The change in heading was probably a consequence of a Fujiwhara interaction between Iris and Humberto located about 750 (nautical miles) to the east, a National Hurricane Center post noted.

Wood is not expecting such dramatic results if the two storms interact next week in the Gulf of Mexico. Hypothetically, he described a situation where both storms strengthen to Category 1 hurricanes (meaning their wind speeds are between 74 mph and 95 mph) and were about 900 miles apart. In this scenario, the common point between the two storms would be in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. This would cause Tropical Depression 14 to slow down a little bit. Tropical Storm Laura would speed up a little.

This potential change in pace is not expected to make Tropical Depression 14 a slow, rainmaking storm like Hurricane Harvey, Wood said.

Its probably going to be pretty subtle, he said.

Wood said the Fujiwhara Effect doesnt happen very often in tropical cyclones. If it occurs this time, it would be next week, closer to when the storms could make landfall.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/a_leinfelder
Tributes have been paid to Chi Chi DeVayne after the drag queens death at the age of 34 (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Tributes have been paid to kind and beautiful soul Chi Chi DeVayne after the drag queens death at the age of 34.

DeVayne, whose real name was Zavion Davenport, appeared in the eighth series of RuPauls Drag Race and the third series of spin-off RuPauls Drag Race All Stars.

She was diagnosed with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease, in 2018 and was reportedly admitted to hospital in the last month with pneumonia.

DeVayne recently shared a video on her Instagram Story from her hospital bed.

A statement from DeVaynes family posted on her Instagram account said: It is with tremendous sorrow that my family and I announce the passing of my beloved son, Zavion Michael Davenport, the world renowned Chi Chi DeVayne.

It added: His final words to his family and fans, Never give up!

Chi Chi was so kind to me. At a time I was really low. Im just sat here in tears. R.I.P you beautiful angel.  Bagatha (@ChipShopBird) August 20, 2020

Drag queen Baga Chipz, who appeared in the inaugural series of the UK version of Drag Race, said the news was absolutely devastating.

She added: Chi Chi was so kind to me. At a time I was really low. Im just sat here in tears. R.I.P you beautiful angel.

RIP ChiChi  What a powerful soul, whos light will continue to shine bright   Blu Hydrangea (@BluHydrangea_) August 20, 2020

Fellow UK contestant Blu Hydrangea added: RIP ChiChi. What a powerful soul, whos light will continue to shine bright.

 Chi Chi was truly one of the most supportive queens. Please keep her family and friends in your thoughts, and try to work towards being the symbol of kindness that she exemplified for so many. We all love you and will miss you. pic.twitter.com/pOLjEN5pPJ  Aquaria  (@aquariaofficial) August 20, 2020

Aquaria, who won the 10th series of RuPauls Drag Race, asked fans to keep DeVayne in their thoughts.

She said: Chi Chi was truly one of the most supportive queens.

Please keep her family and friends in your thoughts, and try to work towards being the symbol of kindness that she exemplified for so many.

We all love you and will miss you.

Im literally so devastated and sick to my stomach. Wake me up when its all over   Shea Coulee (@SheaCoulee) August 20, 2020

Shea Coulee, who won the most recent series of RuPauls Drag Race All Stars, said: Im literally so devastated and sick to my stomach. Wake me up when its all over.

I am incredibly shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of Chi Chi Devayne. What a ray of light and beautiful soul we just lost. Rest in so much power beautiful. You will be missed forever. pic.twitter.com/Gp2Fu14Fly  Scarlett BoBo UNDERNEATH THE EMPIRE! OUT NOW! (@ItsScarlettBobo) August 20, 2020

Scarlett BoBo, who appeared in Canadas Drag Race series one, said: I am incredibly shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of Chi Chi Devayne.

What a ray of light and beautiful soul we just lost. Rest in so much power beautiful. You will be missed forever.

We're devastated to hear the news about Chi Chi DeVayne, an incredible performer and such a bright light. Our hearts are with all of Chi Chi's loved ones today. https://t.co/8gmgAYPPZ3  GLAAD (@glaad) August 20, 2020

GLAAD, a US media organisation for LGBT people, also paid tribute.

A message said: Were devastated to hear the news about Chi Chi DeVayne, an incredible performer and such a bright light. Our hearts are with all of Chi Chis loved ones today.

The official Twitter account of RuPauls Drag Race initially announced the news and shared a tribute from lead judge RuPaul.

"I am heartbroken to learn of the passing of Chi Chi DeVayne.

I am so grateful that we got to experience her kind and beautiful soul.

She will be dearly missed, but never forgotten. May her generous and loving spirit shine down on us all." RuPaul (1/2) pic.twitter.com/iN3oT3R2dG  RuPaul's Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) August 20, 2020

It said: I am heartbroken to learn of the passing of Chi Chi DeVayne.

I am so grateful that we got to experience her kind and beautiful soul.

She will be dearly missed, but never forgotten.

May her generous and loving spirit shine down on us all.

On behalf of VH1, World of Wonder and the cast and crew of RuPauls Drag Race, I extend my deepest sympathy  from our family to hers.
LINDSAY  City of Kawartha Lakes Police have made an arrest after more than $50,000 was misappropriated from the Kawartha Lakes Housing Corporation.

Police began investigating in February and determined that an employee of the public housing agency had stolen more $50,000 from cash deposits between July 2019 and February, police said Friday.

An arrest was made Thursday.

Bernadette Huron-Legate, 41, of Lindsay, was charged with theft over $5,000.

She is to appear in the Ontario Court of Justice in Lindsay on Oct. 29.
Film buffs, rejoice.

Hundreds of vintage movie posters will be available for auction at a historic Decatur theater on Saturday, from the private collection of Steve Allen.

The posters include movies from the 1930s through the 1980s and are available for preview on the auction house website: www.stevensauction.com. The posters range from notable classics like Gone with the Wind (1939) and to lesser-known titles featuring famous entertainers like Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges and Jerry Lewis. They include old Westerns, biblical epics, screwball comedies and more, mixing familiar and obscure films with amazing retro designs.

The fun part here is some of the coolest designs come from the most obscure movies like Goliath and the Dragon, The Saracen Blade or El Paso Stampede. See the full collection.

Admission is free. A portion of the proceeds from the auctioned items goes to help keep the Princess Theatres marquee shining.

The auction will begin at 10 a.m. on-site at the Princess Theatre (located at 112 Second Avenue NE in Decatur) with both liveauctioneers.com and will debut a new private bidding platform through Stevens Auction Company.

WHNT reports the theater says social distancing and masks are required and proper sanitization protocols are in place.

Pre-arranged phone bids will also be accepted. Phone bids must be set up by calling the auction house at (662) 369-2200 at least 24 hours in advance of the live auction event.

Learn more.
Britain is in the throes of a nationwide grading debacle after an automated algorithm lowered the A-Level results of nearly 40% of students who could not sit exams due to the coronavirus pandemic.

To determine each student's results, the U.K. decided to use an algorithm that looked at their mock exam results, as well as their school's track record in the exams. Lawmakers said the software would give students a "fairer" result after concluding teachers could potentially try to inflate their pupil's grades.

But the model ended up favoring students from private schools and affluent areas, leaving high-achievers from free, state-schools disproportionately affected. Many students have had their university places revoked as a result of the downgraded exam results, and there have been protests as a result.

There is no direct equivalent to A-level exams in the U.S. but these are the tests students in Britain take when they are aged 17-18, often to help them get into university, and are similar to SATs and PSATS. Some employers look at them when considering new applicants and they are widely viewed as the most important exams in British schools.

U.K. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said he's "incredibly sorry" for the exam distress and said his main priority now is to ensure students get fair results.

The grades awarded by the algorithm have been withdrawn in favor of teacher predictions, marking one of the biggest ever U-turns in U.K. education history. The Department for Education said it is continuing to work with exam regulator Ofqual to try to deliver fair results for young people during this unprecedented time.

But many students have already lost their places at their preferred university and the admissions process is now in chaos. Students that applied to Oxford and Cambridge were told they may have to wait a year before they can begin their courses after they successfully appealed against the results they were awarded. Oxford's Worcester College said it would accept all students that it had made offers to regardless of their grades.

The opposition Labour party described the algorithm as "unlawful" on Thursday, arguing that it breached anti-discrimination legislation as well as laws requiring it to uphold standards.

Catherine Breslin, a machine learning consultant who used to work for Amazon, said: "Algorithms can bake in and surface the unfairness and discrimination of systems they're automating."

She added: "So while Ofqual's algorithm was clearly the wrong way to go, and has caused a lot of anxiety up and down the country, perhaps this will lead to a re-evaluation of our exam system."

Labour's Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, Steve Reed, said on Wednesday the "fiasco" was far from over. "It was right that the Government U-turned on Monday, but thousands of families are still having to deal with the consequences," Reed said.

"We need a cast iron guarantee from ministers that no student will lose out on their first choice because of government incompetence. And they must ensure all students have their final grades by the end of the week," he continued.

"It beggars belief that students are still in limbo, with no clarity over their futures because of a mess the government created. Families deserve better than this."
The mutant strain D614G was found in at least three of the 45 cases in a cluster

Malaysia has detected a strain of the new coronavirus thats been found to be 10 times more infectious than the strain currently circulating.

Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah said it could imply that present research on vaccines may be incomplete or ineffective against the strain.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said no evidence suggests that the mutation could cause more severe disease.

The mutant strain D614G was found in at least three of the 45 cases in a cluster that started from a restaurant owner returning from India and breaching his 14-day home quarantine. The man has since been sentenced to five months in prison and fined. The strain was also found in another cluster involving people returning from the Philippines.
The regulatory-driven digital asset trading platform, designed by finance veterans and traders, will harness Solidus' solutions to remove market manipulation, protect investors and comply with regulatory requirements

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 19, 2020 / Solidus Labs, provider of crypto-native market surveillance and risk monitoring solutions, and BlockQuake, a regulatory-driven digital asset exchange based in New York, announced today they are partnering ahead of the exchange's upcoming launch. By partnering with Solidus Labs, BlockQuake will be adopting the highest standards of digital asset market surveillance and risk monitoring.

Solidus Labs' tailored software will allow BlockQuake to proactively detect, investigate and prevent market manipulation and compliance threats, in order to protect the integrity of BlockQuake's markets. The partnership will help ensure all trading activity on BlockQuake's platform is legitimate and that its users are protected from suspicious and artificial market activities and manipulation.

Solidus Labs' solutions are tailored to address traditional market threats, such as wash-trading, pump-and-dump and spoofing, as well as abuse schemes unique to crypto. Crypto-specific concerns include, for example, cross-market and cross-asset manipulation, and fraud associated with account-takeover scams - which have been increasingly afflicting the crypto landscape during the Covid-19 pandemic. Solidus will also assist in bridging regulatory gaps, allowing BlockQuake to satisfy current, and anticipated, governmental requirements for market surveillance and risk monitoring.

"We are proud to partner with Solidus Labs to provide BlockQuake's users with trading activity transparency and maintain the integrity of our regulatory-driven exchange," says Antonio Brasse, CEO, and Co-Founder of BlockQuake.

Brasse added that "Solidus is a true leader in market surveillance and like BlockQuake is built by financial veterans who understand the complexities of the modern digital asset space, even as it rapidly evolves. This partnership puts us at the forefront of global compliance and is integral to protecting our users by operating an exchange that is built on security, transparency, and trust."

Studies consistently estimate that as much as 90% of crypto trading volume may be subject to manipulative activity. Due to the current lack of high market surveillance standards across the crypto industry, it is difficult to account for the exact amount of funds manipulators are able to swindle from legitimate crypto traders, but the number is estimated at tens of billions of dollars annually - and growing. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal in August 2018, as one example, estimated that pump & dump schemes in crypto markets accounted for $825 million in trading activity in only six months, translating to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost funds.

Market integrity is one of the biggest hurdles to increasing institutional adoption and regulatory approval of digital assets. Citing concerns about high levels of manipulation, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has so far consistently rejected Bitcoin-ETF applications, with Chairman Jay Clayton stating the agency will need to see effective market surveillance. Regulators globally are introducing compliance guidelines and intensifying licensing requirements. Leading agencies like the New York Department of Financial Services, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and the Malaysia Securities Commission listing detailed requirements for market surveillance and automated risk monitoring.

Asaf Meir, Solidus Labs' Chief Executive, added that "Like BlockQuake, Solidus was developed by a team of blue-chip financial veterans who are using over 30 years of financial, compliance, and engineering experience from leading financial institutions to improve the cryptocurrency landscape."

"It is thanks to exchanges like BlockQuake - which are committed to market integrity, compliance, and user protection in actions and not just words - that the crypto industry is able to continually raise standards and accelerate institutional and mass adoption," Meir Added.

About BlockQuake

New York City FinTech startup BlockQuake is a regulatory-driven, one-stop-shop digital asset trading platform that will support 6 fiat currencies (USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, JPY, AUD) at launch, as well as major cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (e.g. BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, XRP, XLM, ETC, TUSD, USDT), representing over 90% of the existing markets. Created by a team with over 100 years of collective experience in blue-chip financial services, the BlockQuake Exchange aims to be an industry-standard in global compliance. For more information, please visit BlockQuake.com.

About Solidus Labs

Founded in New York in 2017 by Goldman Sachs FinTech veterans, Solidus Labs offers a crypto-native market surveillance platform built from the ground up for the unique compliance challenges of digital assets and crypto data. Harnessing advanced technologies like machine learning and SaaS principles, Solidus Labs' mission is to help crypto businesses grow faster - and safer - by reducing the operational costs of compliance and minimizing regulatory risk. The firm currently serves a global client base including exchanges, brokerages, regulators, self-regulatory organizations and others.

For Inquiries:

Chen Arad

Chief Operating Officer

Solidus Labs

chen@soliduslabs.com

SOURCE: Solidus Labs

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602410/Gearing-Up-For-Launch-BlockQuake-Taps-Crypto-Risk-Monitoring-Firm-Solidus-Labs-To-Ensure-Market-Integrity-and-Compliance
The novel coronavirus shows no signs of slowing down as it rips through the United States  the worst hit country in the world.

And with schools returning, and winter approaching, there are grave warnings of third waves and a deadly new surge in cases.

The US has recorded more than 5.58 million known cases of COVID-19 and more than 174,000 deaths. But despite the grim record, the spread is far from contained in much of the country.

We had a lack of response at the beginning, and weve being playing catch-up ever since, says Dr Melissa Hawkins, an epidemiologist and Director of the Public Health at the American University in Washington DC.

Weve been playing catch up getting information, and on what that information means and who do we trust.

A medic with the Houston Fire Department adjusts a mask on a patient with Covid-19 symptoms before transporting him to a hospital. Source: Getty

The virus did not hit the country evenly. New York was devastated early in the pandemic but the state has now managed to get the virus largely under control  a rare story in the country of 330 million.

As it spread across the US, lockdown measures were introduced. However as many states were starting to catch-up to the virus spread, the stringency of the measures was reduced and case numbers surged upwards.

As a result, the US is staring down the barrel of a long and deadly winter.

21 states still have uncontrolled spread

A group of public health and crisis experts have launched a project tracking the countrys pandemic response. Those involved have experience working at the White House, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

It shows the worrying baseline of cases that America is dealing with as 21 states still have uncontrolled spread in what has become a disturbing new normal for the nation.

We are going into the cold weather season in this country ... when the virus is more likely to spread as people stay indoors, Dr Hawkins told Yahoo News Australia.

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COVID fatigue, or quarantine fatigue  whatever you want to call it  that is also happening at the same time ... when this could be a potentially significant problem going into the winter months.

The worst affected states right now include California, Texas and many southern states. Source: COVIDexitstrategy.org

The project also maps the case trend in each state tracking the percentage change in new cases over the past 14-day period.

It shows a handful of states continuing to head in the wrong direction, such as California (+19%), Delaware (+40%), Hawaii (+84%), Illinois (+15%), Kansas (+17%), Michigan (+11%), Wyoming (+26%), South Dakota (+29%) and North Dakota (+14%).

Mistrust of science fuelling Americas broken system

The deep divisions in the country  both political and economic  have been laid bare during this pandemic as those in poorer areas have been more affected by inefficient testing regimes and greater community transmission.

In public health we say your zip code predicts your health better than your genetic code, Dr Hawkins lamented.

The politicisation of the pandemic has also seen one side of politics, egged on by the president, become resistant to messages from public health experts.

I think that has been a fundamental breakdown in our response and in our ability as a public to do our part, she said.

Because science needs to do its part, our leaders need to do their part, we as individuals need to do our part as well, but that is contingent on trust.

A teacher wears a face shield while handing out papers to students at a public charter school in Utah this week. Source: Getty

Trusting the science, trusting the people who are communicating the science to you and this is where weve gotten into serious challenges and barriers in our country, she said.

Coupled with a dysfunctional healthcare system, in which health insurance for many people was tied to their job that disappeared when the pandemic hit, the wounds of the country have been painfully exposed.

The lack of trust in information has really interfered in an already broken system, that has become clear  a broken medical system in many ways and a fragmented public health system, Dr Hawkins said.

Despite the second uptick in cases since June, she said Americas failure to get the initial wave under control means the country is still very much in the first wave of the pandemic. With a Victorian-style lockdown largely out of the question for much of the country, all hopes are pinned on a vaccine.

At a national level, the US never really depressed the number of new daily cases. Source: CDC/New York Times

On Thursday (local time), the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said he was tentatively optimistic that cases in southern states were seeing a progressive drop.

Hopefully, by this week and next week we will see the death rate really start to drop (across the country), CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

However he warned that data from the 21 trouble states continued to show there was no drop in coronavirus cases, including a number of states in the midwest such as Nebraska and Oklahoma.

We dont need to have a third wave in the heartlands, we need to prevent that, he warned.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
The family and friends of two Carlisle women who died last month weeks apart  who police say died at the hands of their childrens father  will gather for a candlelit vigil Saturday in their honor.

Members of the community are encouraged to meet in Carlisle Square at 6 p.m. Saturday with candles, flowers and memorabilia, according to the Domestic Violence Services of Cumberland and Perry Counties.

Those who plan on attending are asked to wear face masks and follow social distancing guidelines.

Police said Sydney Parmelee and Kaylee Lyons were each shot and killed at the same borough home last month by Davone Unique Anderson, with whom both women shared children.

Parmelee and Lyons were 23 years old and both 2014 graduates of Carlisle High School, police said.

Anderson told authorities he shot and killed Parmelee at a home on the 100 block of East Louther Street because he thought she was cheating on him, according to an affidavit of probable cause charging him with first-degree murder.

Police said he killed Lyons three weeks later out of fear shed turn him in for killing Parmelee. She was six weeks pregnant at the time, the affidavit said.

Parmelee and Anderson had two children together but were going through a separation, police said.

Parmelee was taking classes at Harrisburg Area Community College at the time of her death with the goal of becoming a pediatric nurse, according to her obituary.

Lyons also attended HACC and worked at North Dickinson Elementary School, her obituary said.

A GoFundMe was created to raise money for Lyons young son. It has received more than $20,000 toward its $25,000 goal as of Friday morning.

The families of Kaylee Lyons and Sydney Parmelee, Cumberland County's two most recent victims of domestic violence,... Posted by Domestic Violence Services of Cumberland and Perry Counties on Thursday, August 20, 2020

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Rescue teams to search for Amish woman Linda Stoltzfoos near Welsh Mountain this weekend

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Tropical Storm Laura could prove a powerful punch along the Alabama Gulf Coast, and Gov. Kay Ivey acknowledges that it could hit Mobile and Baldwin counties on the same day as the municipal elections.

Ivey, like others in the state, say its too early to consider postponing Tuesdays elections.

Until we feel more certain about an imminent threat of dangerous weather, we will not make changes to the elections at this time, Ivey said in a statement Friday. However, we are having discussions and making preparations, should we decide that moving the election or making any adjustments is necessary. We will be prepared to act quickly and effectively. My team and I are staying in close contact with emergency managers and local officials and we will continue closely monitoring the approaching systems.

So far, the overarching response from the city clerks in the coastal counties is similar to the governors statement: It is far too early to have city councils assemble for special meetings and to reschedule the elections. The National Weather Service in Mobile has indicated that Lauras exact path might not be known until Monday, one day before the polls open for hundreds of cities in Alabama.

The Alabama League of Municipalities, in a memo sent to city clerks, suggested that if it becomes necessary to postpone the election, that cities reschedule as soon as possible. The runoffs, which are needed in races in which no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, will take place on October 6.

According to the League, the deadline for absentee voting was Thursday and there is no need to extend the deadline. The League says that any ballots received by noon on the new election day would still be counted.

Developing storm

Tropical Depression 13 has strengthened into Tropical Storm Laura as of Friday thanks to info from a reconnaissance flight. It is still forecast to be a hurricane and move toward the U.S. Gulf Coast next week, however the track and intensity forecasts are still very uncertain.

Worries about a delayed election might be premature.

The decision really doesnt have to be made until Monday, said Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill. At this point, its not even something wed recommend.

City officials are on a wait-and-see pattern on whether Tropical Storm Laura  which is expected to increase in strength once it moves into the Gulf of Mexico on Monday  will impact the Alabama coast.

We are all aware of what is going on, said Candace Antinarella, clerk with the city of Daphne where three candidates are vying for the open mayoral seat. As of right now, were going ahead as schedule.

Foley City Administrator Mike Thompson said a special council meeting could be called to discuss the potential of moving or postponing the election day, but that a decision would not be made until Sunday at the earliest. Foley is also having an election for an open mayoral seat.

The hope is that the storm either tracks away from us over the next day or two, or perhaps slows sufficiently such that the Tuesday elections are not affected by weather conditions, he said.

Joe Maniscalco, a meteorologist with the NWS in Mobile, said that Tropical Storm Laura could develop into a Category 1 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 75-90 mph. While landfall might occur until Wednesday, Maniscalco said that powerful wind gusts could occur on Tuesday.

The main thing right now is what is its structure going to look like? said Maniscalco. We wont know that given its forecast track until Monday. Of course, the forward speed is another thing. Then there is the size. Is it going to be small? Will it be larger? There are just a lot of things and its really too soon to determine the main impact.

Poll workers

Election-wise, the only order pushed out on Friday had nothing to do with tropical storms. Instead, the governors office continued to make updates to the ongoing public health emergency related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ivey, in a morning announcement, issued her sixteenth supplemental emergency proclamation as part of the ongoing health crisis and included two provisions: Expand the geographic boundaries for recruiting election workers during the municipal elections, and to allow for online election-worker training.

Current state law limits municipalities from recruiting election workers to those who live within the municipal boundaries where the election is being held. Iveys proclamation will allow municipalities to recruit poll workers from anywhere within the county where the municipality is located.

Merrill said he pursued the same change in legislation that didnt get voted on in the Legislature this past spring. We want to broaden and deepen the pool of poll worker availability, he said.

Past impacts

The poll workers, however, could be waiting out a storm in Southern Alabama. But if the municipal elections are postponed due to weather, it would not be the first time that has happened. The August 28, 2012, municipal elections were postponed in most coastal cities because of Hurricane Isaac. The postponed elections also occurred after then-Gov. Robert Bentley ordered mandatory evacuations for Mobile and Baldwin counties. He later changed his order to voluntary evacuations affected by Isaacs expected impact.

But not every municipality postponed their election  Daphne, Spanish Fort and Satsuma held their municipal contests as originally scheduled. Other cities  Bay Minette, Prichard, Robertsdale, Elberta and Bayou La Batre  postponed their contests for two weeks.

Merrill said he was hopeful that decisions to postpone or progress with the election would be consistent, though he emphasized that those decisions were independent decisions that will be made by a municipality based on what they think is in the best interest of their constituents.

State Rep. Margie Wilcox, R-Mobile, was involved in a weather-related election day delay in the coastal area in 2014. She won a special election race for the House District 104 seat over Democrat Stephen Carr, one week later than she originally expected. A rare winter storm with ice and snow blanketed coastal Alabama on the day of the election, forcing its postponement.

This neighborhood street in west Mobile, Ala., is coated with frosty ice Wednesday, January 29, 2014. The winter weather forced postponement of a special election to House District 104. State Rep. Margie Wilcox won the election that was delayed by one week. (file photo).

At the time, the Legislature was in session while Wilcox, and the rest of coastal Alabama, was focused on dealing with an unusual weather event.

I think everyone was focused on the weather that you could not do anything but wait it out, she recalled. When you have a weather event like that, its not as if you can distract people about the election. People only want to talk about what Is affecting them right here and now. The roads were shut down and people were at home and it was really no campaigning you could do other than call people on the phone.

The biggest difference between the 2014 delay and the potential for a 2020 pause is the prevalence of social media and for candidates to easily reach their constituents, Wilcox said.

That is what I would be planning  how to utilize that time if (the election) is postponed, said Wilcox. Once we get focused on the weather, thats all we do around here especially during hurricane season.
TORONTO, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Magnolia Colombia Limited (Magnolia or the Company) (TSXV: MCO) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Neil Said as the new chief executive officer of the Company, effective immediately.



Neil Said is a businessman and corporate securities lawyer who has worked as an officer and legal consultant to numerous Canadian listed companies in the technology, cannabis, mining, oil & gas and healthcare industries. Mr. Said began his career as a securities lawyer at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, where he worked on a variety of corporate and commercial transactions. In addition to serving on the Companys board of directors, Neil is currently the head of legal for the Forbes & Manhattan group of companies. Mr. Said obtained a Juris Doctor from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and he received a Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours) with a minor in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University.

The appointment of Mr. Said follows Mr. James Lanthiers resignation as the chief executive officer and a director of the Company, also effective immediately. The board and management of the Company express their gratitude to Mr. Lanthier for his efforts and extensive contributions and wish him well in his future endeavours.

About Magnolia Colombia Limited:

Magnolia Colombia Limited is a Canadian independent oil exploration company.

For further information, please contact: Neil Said, CEO

Email: nsaid@fmresources.ca

Phone: 416-861-1685

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding the resignation and appointment of members of the Companys board and management team. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Magnolia, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Although Magnolia has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Magnolia does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

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Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:09:09|Editor: huaxia

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MUMBAI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- India's capital market regulator has issued revised guidelines on reporting of statement of accounts for entities listing their debt securities in International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), in a bid to attract foreign companies to raise funds on Indian soil.

A circular issued by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Friday said that the revised guidelines will allow companies listing their debt securities in IFSC (International Financial Reporting Standards) to prepare their statement of accounts in accordance with IFRS or US GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) or Indian accounting standards or accounting standards as applicable to them in their place of incorporation.

Currently, an issuer of debt securities in IFSC needs to prepare its statement of accounts in accordance with Companies Act. India's only IFSC is located in GIFT City, 539 km North of Mumbai in the country's western state of Gujarat.

Commenting on the circular, Henil Jain, Partner, Wadhwa & Shah, Chartered Accountants, said, "The revised framework by SEBI has eliminated the hindrance for overseas companies and global financial institutions desirous of raising funds at IFSC from preparing financial statements as per Indian regulations i.e. Companies Act 2013. The move will make India an attractive destination for global entities to raise fund and list their financial instruments on Indian exchanges."

In case an entity does not prepare its statement of accounts in accordance with IFRS or US GAAP or Indian accounting standards, a quantitative summary of significant differences between national accounting standards and IFRS will be prepared and incorporated in the relevant disclosure documents to be filed with the exchange, the circular said. Enditem
Ann O'Hara

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HUHTAMAKI OYJ STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE 21.8.2020 AT 9:30

Changes in Huhtamakis Global Executive Team

Clay Dunn, (63), President, North America business segment has decided to retire at the end of 2020 after successfully leading Huhtamakis business in North America since 2005. Ann OHara, (49), MBA, BSE (Chemical Engineering), has been appointed President, North America business segment and a member of the Global Executive Team. Ann will join Huhtamaki on November 1, 2020 and will assume the role of President, North America on January 1, 2021 following a two-month transition period with Clay Dunn.

I would like to thank Clay for his outstanding contribution to Huhtamaki over the past 15 years, says Charles Heaulme, President and CEO of Huhtamaki. Under Clays leadership Huhtamakis turnover in the United States has essentially doubled, passing the USD 1 billion milestone in 2014. During this time the segments product portfolio has expanded to include drink cups, pressed paper plates and folded carton products, allowing the company to serve a significantly larger and growing market. Clay also successfully led the two largest investment projects in the Groups history, namely the building of our state-of-the art manufacturing units in Batavia, Ohio and Goodyear, Arizona, Charles Heaulme continues. On behalf of the whole Huhtamaki team, I wish him a well-deserved, happy retirement.

Ann OHara joins Huhtamaki after a series of significant general management roles at major multinational companies such as Intertek Group, Amcor and General Electric. In the packaging industry Ann held several leadership roles with Amcor in Australia and North America. Her most recent position was Vice President and General Manager, Rigid Plastic Diversified Products for North America. Prior to Amcor, Ann worked with General Electric in the U.S. and Sweden, with McKinsey & Company in the U.S. and Germany, and with Procter & Gamble in the U.S., Argentina and China.

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I am extremely pleased to welcome Ann to Huhtamaki and the Global Executive Team, says Charles Heaulme, President and CEO of Huhtamaki. She has an impressive record of leading both businesses and people, and I am convinced she has the experience, drive and capability to further grow our business in North America, he continues.

I am honored to join the Huhtamaki team given the companys substantial history, its current leadership and refreshed values and direction, says Ann OHara, newly appointed President of Huhtamaki North America. Clay has positioned the business well with building a strong team, completing the significant organic investments and adeptly navigating the current market challenges. I look forward to working with the North America team to take the business into its next chapter.

Following the aforementioned changes, the members of the Global Executive Team are as of January 1, 2021:

Charles Heaulme (chairman), President and CEO;

Arup Basu, President, Flexible Packaging;

Eric Le Lay, President, Fiber and Foodservice Europe-Asia-Oceania;

Ann OHara, President, North America;

Thomas Geust, Chief Financial Officer;

Thomasine Kamerling, Executive Vice President, Sustainability and Communications;

Marina Madanat, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development;

Sami Pauni, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Legal, Group General Counsel;

Teija Sarajarvi, Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Safety; and

Antti Valtokari, Executive Vice President, IT and Process Performance;



For further information, please contact:

Charles Heaulme, President and CEO, tel. +358 10 686 7801

Teija Sarajarvi, EVP Human Resources and Safety, tel. +358 10 686 7027

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New Delhi, Aug 22 : Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday that Kerala government's bid for Thiruvananthapuram airport under PPP was 19.64 per cent lower than Adani's winning bid.

The revelation by the minister came afer the Kerala government opposed the handing over of Thiruvananthapuram airport under public-private partnership (PPP) to Adani Enterprises.

In a statement, the minister said: "If Kerala government is against privatisation, then why did it participate in the bidding process? The state government was given a fair chance and 'Right of First Refusal' (RoFR) if their bid was within 10 per cent below the range of the highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 per cent below.

"Then they approached the Kerala High Court which dismissed the petition in December 2019. The petitioners then filed an SLP in the Supreme Court. The apex court remitted the matter back to the Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by SC or Kerala High Court." According to the minister, the Union Cabinet has given its go-ahead for awarding the airport to the private party subject to the outcome of writ petition and in accordance with the provisions of the undertaking given by the concessionaire.

"If the petitioners succeed and the outcome of litigation leads to annulment/cancellation of bidding process, then the concessionaire will handover the possession of the airport to AAI. They will be entitled to refund of amount paid to AAI and additional investments made in the assets.

"The concessionaire will also not demand any damages from AAI. Here it should be borne in mind that these airports will come back to AAI after the lease period of 50 years," the statement said.

On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal to lease out Jaipur, Guwahati, and Thiruvananthapuram airports through the PPP mode to Adani Enterprises.

The approval is for their operation, management and development by Adani Enterprises, which was declared the successful bidder in a 'global competitive bidding' conducted by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for a period of 50 years.
The global arms race in green technology is escalating fast. The Democrats' $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) blitz on clean energy is as much a bid for superpower supremacy as it is about climate change. It is aimed directly at China.

The words "Buy America" pepper the text of the Democratic Party platform. The Joe Biden plan may look like the earlier Green New Deal of America's radical Left, but is nothing of the sort. It is muscular and reeks of Great Power politics, almost a mirror image of Xi Jinping's nationalist strategy documents.

Should Mr Biden achieve a clean sweep in November - probable, if not assured - the US will commit to net-zero emissions by 2050, and net-zero in the electricity sector by 2035. It will do so as a weapon of trade policy and in order to prevent the US losing its footing in the 21st century market for clean technology.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's plan is to bring "global economic outlaws" to heel. Credit:AP

The US and the EU will again be aligned on the Paris Agreement, already an order of magnitude more achievable today after five years of galloping gains in technology. Both plan a carbon border adjustment tax to shut Paris violators out of their markets, policy that was deemed - revealingly - to be economic warfare by Chinese officials earlier this year.
The global energy business has been battered and several oil companies have declared bankruptcy due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many players opted to slash dividend payments and some decided to reduce headcounts. The measures so long taken were intended to survive the downturn. With weak oil prices and world-wide energy demand still tepid, only those companies will be able to weather commodity-price weakness that can lean on their balance sheet. American oil majors have a less levered balance sheet than European peers, and hence are well positioned to sail though the virus outbreak as well as protect dividend payments.

European Oil Majors Dividend Vulnerable to Covid-19

The weak oil pricing scenario owing to the coronavirus pandemic is hurting the overall businesses of big energy players. BP plc BP  which announced second-quarter results on Aug 4  reported adjusted loss of $1.98 per American Depositary Share (ADS) on a replacement cost basis, excluding non-operating items. The quarterly loss was much wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 99 cents per ADS. Owing to a drop in oil equivalent production, commodity prices and refining marker margin, the British energy firms bottom line also deteriorated from the year-ago earnings of 83 cents per ADS.

BP also announced that it has halved its dividend from 63 cents per ADS to 31.5 cents, given the strain in cash flow stemming from low oil price and relatively more debt laden balance sheet than peers. Royal Dutch Shell plc RDS.A is another key energy firm that slashed dividend by 66%, citing pandemic-induced gloomy upstream business outlook.

Importantly, BPs balance sheet is not strong enough  with more debt exposure than the U.S. peers  to combat the pandemic induced-energy business downturn for a long time. Also, with crude prices unlikely to recover fully to pre-pandemic levels in the coming quarters, the British energy giant will continue to witness large cash burn. Owing to this gloomy outlook, BP was convinced to slash dividend in half.

Story continues

Royal Dutch Shells balance sheet is also relatively more debt laden than the U.S. oil biggies. Thus, to provide additional financial flexibility amid the pandemic, the company slashed dividend, thereby reducing annual dividend payments by $10 billion. Last June, it planned to return $125 billion in capital to stockholders from 2021 through 2025. However, with the recent cut in dividend and the stock repurchase program suspension, although for a short term, Royal Dutch Shell is likely to return considerably lower cash than planned, as opined by many analysts.

U.S. Oil Biggies Dividend More Resilient to Pandemic

The U.S. oil biggies, with very strong balance sheet, are better placed than European peers to combat the pandemic. With considerably lower debt exposure, Chevron Corporation CVX is less vulnerable to the virus-led energy downturn and hence, is in a better position to protect dividend. The company last raised its dividend in January 2020 by 8%. However, owing to low crude pricing scenario, the company has suspended further share repurchases and is unlikely to increase dividend till there is a rebound in commodity prices.

Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM, another energy giant with headquarters in Irving, TX, also has a strong balance sheet, on which the company can rely on to combat the pandemic. In late July, the integrated energy firm announced that it has kept its third-quarter dividend unchanged with the second-quarter level. However, due to ExxonMobils huge counter-cyclical capital spending program, which has been deteriorating its cash flow generation capabilities, the company may need to compromise balance sheet strength in the medium term. Once its balance sheet strength gets compromised, ExxonMobil may be compelled to lower dividend, as believed my most of the analysts. However, some analysts believe that the company is unlikely to take a rash step to lower dividend in the near term since it has a long track record of increasing dividend.

Both Chevron and ExxonMobil currently carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.

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Jimmy Lai stands trial as protesters outside court call him 'traitor'

Global Times

By Leng Shumei Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 20:42:54

Hong Kong secessionist media tycoon Jimmy Lai encountered indignant local protesters calling him a "traitor" as he went on trial on Thursday for suspicion of threatening a journalist in 2017, which showed a sharp contrast to the US President Donald Trump's comments on him one day before when Trump called Lai a "wonderful gentlemen" and "brave man."

The trial finished around 13:30 pm and will continue on Friday, according to Hong Kong media.

The comparative difference in the two side's comments further reveals the US never respects facts or the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), but its only aim is to contain China, Chinese experts said.

China is a nation ruled by laws and the HKSAR is a society ruled by laws. The HKSAR law enforcement agencies must perform their duties according to laws, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on Thursday in response to Trump's comments on Lai.

Lai was charged with threatening a journalist in June 2017 in Victoria Park.

The journalist has been diagnosed with adjustment disorder, according to Hong Kong media.

The trial was held in English and the court allowed two key prosecution witnesses to remain anonymous.

When Lai arrived at the court at around 9 am, he encountered a number of protesters holding banners and calling him a "traitor." They called for Lai to be severely punished and accused him of harming Hong Kong and local youngsters.

One day before the hearing, US President Donald Trump called Lai a "wonderful gentleman" and a "brave man" and sent his best wishes to Lai when asked at a White House press conference if he had a message for him.

Lai is one of the main forces that received support from the US to conduct anti-government actions in Hong Kong. Trump's comments, which sharply contrasted with local residents' comments on Lai, fully reflect that the US has never cared about what is really happening in Hong Kong, neither does the US respect the laws of the Hong Kong region, Tian Feilong, an associate professor at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Trump's comments on Lai only show the US' ideological and strategic aims against China, Tian said, noting that he believed that Lai's crimes would be fully revealed through court trials and he would receive punishment accordingly.

"The justice is in the people," he noted

Trump's "messages" were mocked by some Twitter users who suggested that "Trump also called himself a hero for the world."

Users on China's Twitter-like social media platform Sina Weibo also criticized Trump's comments. They saidthat Trump's words were the equivalent of praising terrorists in the US as "brave men."

Lai, 72, will face a maximum of two years in prison and a fine of HKD$2,000 if convicted.

Lai was earlier released on HKD$4,000 bail but was not allowed to leave Hong Kong during the bail period. He has tried multiple times to apply with the courts to cancel the restriction, but was refused.

He has involved himself in five criminal cases with seven charges. On August 10, he was arrested for violating the national security law for Hong Kong, around 40 days after the law was enacted in the city.

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Photo: (Photo : Pexels)

In a story shared in the TODAY, three moms from South Carolina, Cincinnati, and New Hampshire were expecting moms when they contracted the coronavirus. Instead of being excited to see their newborn babies for the first time, the three moms were all battling against the coronavirus when they gave birth.

READ ALSO: Mom Gives Birth at a Hospital Car Park During a Freezing Night

Mom from South Carolina

Shaquilla James is from Summerton, South Carolina.

She delivered a baby girl to this world and named her Aubrey. This baby girl is her firstborn.

Shaquilla gave birth two weeks earlier than her due date. After giving birth, the mom from South Carolina went into a coma.

When she was interviewed by the TODAY, Shaquilla shared how worried she was that the first time she saw her newborn baby would also be the last. Shaquilla said, "So I thought about it, and I prayed, and I told them just go ahead and take her."

READ ALSO: Preterm Baby Helps Dad in Proposing to Mom

Mom from Cincinnati

Alicia Kappers from Cincinnati had no idea she has already given birth. She just woke up from a coma with her son, baby Laith, already out in the world.

She shared that she was already at the hospital because she was rushed to the emergency room. Later during that day, she was put on a ventilator.

For more than a month, Alicia had to stay on oxygen. When she delivered her baby through a C-section, the Cincinnati mom was in a coma.

When Alicia woke up, the hospital staff told her about what happened in the delivery room. She shared, "I shed a big crocodile tear and smiled."

The mom thinks it is all part of the power of her subconscious.

READ ALSO: A Three-Year-Old Girl Whose Mom Died Due to Coronavirus Wants to Know When Her Mom Is Coming Home

Mom from New Hampshire

Rocio Casalduc is from Nashua, New Hampshire. Like Alicia, Rocio also gave birth while in a coma.

When New Hampshire was in her fifth month of pregnancy, she contracted the coronavirus.

Before she was intubated, the doctors asked her whom she would choose, herself, or her daughter's life.

Three weeks later, Rocio woke up from a coma and had already given birth to her baby girl, Victoria.

Rocio's baby girl is still in the NICU, but the New Hampshire mom is hopeful that her baby will be coming home soon.

The recoveries

After the moms' excruciating battle against the coronavirus and giving birth, the moms are now home recovered.

Alicia is not just home with her baby boy, and she is also juggling work and taking care of her baby.

Meanwhile, Shaquila and her now-four-month baby girl are also home.

Rocio is also already out of the hospital, waiting for her baby girl to come home.

READ ALSO: Nursery checklist: 5 things parents should not miss when preparing the nursery
A north Alabama emergency room nurse described as being on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic has died from the disease.

Bonita Long, 63, passed away on Thursday, according to a Facebook post on the Alabama Emergency Nurses Association page.

Long worked at Marshall Medical Center South in Boaz, the post said.

The hospital issued a statement Friday morning acknowledging the loss of a special, compassionate caregiver but did not identify her. Condolences were also being posted to Longs personal Facebook page Thursday and Friday.

Until she became ill, she had been on the front lines of this pandemic caring for others, the AENA Facebook post said.

Tonight, the Alabama ENA grieves for one of our own. Bonita Long was an ED Nurse at Marshall Medical Center South and... Posted by Alabama Emergency Nurses Association-ALENA on Thursday, August 20, 2020

More than 1,900 people statewide and more than 172,000 nationwide have died from complications of COVID-19.

Long lived in Snead in Blount County, according to her obituary. The family will receive friends Monday from 10 a.m. to noon at Lemley Funeral Home in Oneonta. A graveside service will follow at Antioch Church of Christ Cemetery in Snead at 1 p.m.

In a statement from the hospital, Chief Nursing Officer Kathy Woodruff said, This is a tremendous loss for our health system. This special nurse made a difference in the lives of so many people. She will be remembered fondly with deep respect for her contributions to patient care. Please keep this family in your prayers as well as all of our staff members who worked closely with this exceptional nurse.

The hospital also said that it is a tragic reminder of being vigilant about everyone doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The full statement from Marshall Medical Center South:

GUNTERSVILLE, ALABAMA August 21, 2020 With tremendous sadness we are letting our community know a special, compassionate caregiver at Marshall Medical Center South lost her battle to COVID-19 yesterday.

Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and colleagues. The outreach of so many in the days leading up to her death and all of their prayers are a testimony to how beloved she was to everyone who had experienced her love, kindness and care.

Kathy Woodruff, Marshall Medical Centers Chief Nursing Officer said: This is a tremendous loss for our health system. This special nurse made a difference in the lives of so many people. She will be remembered fondly with deep respect for her contributions to patient care. Please keep this family in your prayers as well as all of our staff members who worked closely with this exceptional nurse.

This is a tragic reminder of the importance of being vigilant about everyone doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The loss of a member of our Marshall Medical Center family is evidence of the countless number of front line employees who leave their loved ones every day to protect your loved ones.

Please do your part to stop the spread.

Updated today, Aug. 21, 2020, at 3:09 p.m. with funeral arrangements.
I have been in puzzled countenance ever since I read that former President Mahama has gone back on his word and promised to stay away from the restored Nurses and Teachers Allowances he deliberately cancelled in somewhere 2015 and only for the incumbent president, Akufo-Addo to restore on assumption of power in 2017.

Apparently, some well-meaning Ghanaians, rightly so, have condemned and challenged former President Mahama and his brassbound supporters to cease the needless political rhetoric and the seeming bickering and instead come up with alternative policies and programmes to counter Akufo-Addos numerous, albeit well-received poverty interventions such as the Free SHS, One District One Factory, One million per Constituency, One Village One Dam, Planting for Food and Jobs, Planting for Export and Rural Development, Rearing for Food and Jobs, National Builders Corp (NABCO), among others.

Let us, therefore, extend our absolute respect to all the patriotic Ghanaians for urging the former president to come up with credible electioneering campaign message and put a stop to the needless criticisms.

Although former President Mahama hasnt officially come up with 2020 electioneering campaign message, upon a critical assessment of his numerous pronouncements, we can invariably glean a cornucopia of feasible messages.

Let us however remind ourselves that it was former President Mahama who found it somewhat convenient to cancel the Teachers and Nurses Allowances while in office.

In fact, if you may remember, Ex-President Mahama vowed, somewhat unequivocally, not to restore the allowances and that he would rather prefer to lose the 2016 general elections than to offer stipends to the Trainees.

Suffice it to stress that despite the countless supplications by the Trainee Teachers and Nurses, the former president decided to spurn their earnest pleas anyhow.

But lo and behold, the dispirited Trainee Nurses and Teachers found a redeemer in Nana Akufo-Addo, who promised wholeheartedly to restore the allowances if voted into office in 2016.

As it was expected, the disheartened Trainee Teachers and Nurses reposed their absolute trusts in the candidate Nana Akufo-Addo to set them free from the untold economic hardships and massively voted him into power on 7th December 2016.

True to his word, a few months into his administration, President Akufo-Addo graciously restored the allowances to the utter delight of the Trainee Teachers and Nurses.

Dearest reader, what is Mahamas message here then? Your guess is as good as mine.

If we revisit memory lane, one particular campaign message that dominated the 2008, 2012 and 2016 general elections was the poverty alleviation Free SHS.

While candidate Akufo-Addo and his NPP were promising on all those occasions to implement Free SHS if voted into power, candidate Mahama and his NDC were all over the place campaigning vigorously against the policy.

Interestingly, however, Ghanaians mistakenly bought into NDCs message in two consecutive elections (2008 and 2012) and turned down the seemingly advantageous Free SHS offer.

Nevertheless, on 7th December 2016, the good people of Ghana saw the light and gave the Free SHS promiser (Akufo-Addo) a massive endorsement.

To his credit though, within a year into his four year mandate, President Akufo-Addo commendably implemented the Free SHS to the delight of Ghanaian parents and their children.

It is also true that no less a person than Ex-President Mahama has conveniently and persistently been criticising Akufo-Addo for implementing the Free SHS policy, allegedly, at the expense of other developmental projects (see: Free SHS crippling other sectors-Mahama, classfmonline.com/ghanaweb.com, 24/02/2018).

Former President Mahama was quoted to have lamented during one of the NDCs unity health walks: The problem this government is facing and it is in their own interest, is that, Free Senior High School is absorbing all the fiscal space they have and so almost every money you have, you are having to put it into Free Senior High School. So you cant pay District Assemblies Common Fund, you cant pay NHIS (National Health Insurance Scheme), you cant pay GET Fund (Ghana Education Trust Fund), you cant pay other salaries and things because all your money is going into Free Senior High School.

Dearest reader, what is the message here? Your guess is as good as mine.

Deductively, observers can draw and adverse inference from the preceding criticisms that Mahama does not fancy the Free SHS, and therefore he is not ready to spend huge amount of money to run the policy.

It is, therefore, not the least surprising that Mahama and the minority NDC operatives prefer progressively free (whatever that means) to NPPs comprehensively free.

In fact, unless I come across as the worst performer in mathematics, I cannot fathom how and why the NDCs Progressively Free SHS of GH48 per student is better than the NPPs GH1844.27 per student a year.

There is no denying or hiding the fact that NDC has a penchant for running down or cancelling crucial social interventions. It is a sad case of social democrats who do not know how to initiate and manage social interventions.

Indeed, the erstwhile NDC government wilfully cancelled/collapsed the Nurses Allowance, the Teachers Allowance, SADA, GYEEDA, NHIS, the Maternal Care, the School Feeding programme, the Mass Transport System, amongst others.

Since the inception of the Fourth Republican Constitution, the self-proclaimed social democrats have been opposing social interventions that have been proposed by the successive NPP governments such as the Free Maternal Care, the NHIS, the Metro Mass Transport, the School Feeding Programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), , the Free SHS, amongst others.

The introduction of Free SHS was not built on some pompous political agenda to grab social democratic narratives from those who surprisingly have shunned their ideology for quick wins (Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta 2019).

Given the circumstances, it will not come as a surprise at all, if the future NDC government decides to cancel the Free SHS, NABCO and the Teachers and Nurses Allowances altogether.

Growth, development, and poverty reduction depend on the knowledge and skills that people acquire (World Bank 2011).

Thus, it is somewhat forward-thinking for Akufo-Addos government to seek to bridge the ever widening social inequalities gap through rational distribution of national resources in the form of Free SHS.

K. Badu, UK.
MINSK, Belarus (AP)  Prosecutors in Belarus opened a criminal investigation Thursday against opposition activists who set up a council to negotiate a democratic transition of power amid massive protests against official election results that extended the 26-year rule of the countrys authoritarian leader.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has dismissed the protesters demanding his resignation as Western puppets, had threatened opposition leaders with criminal charges. Following up on his warning, prosecutors opened an inquiry against the new council's founders on charges of undermining national security.

The Belarusian Prosecutor Generals office said the creation of the Coordination Council that met for the first time Wednesday violated the constitution.

The creation and the activities of the Coordination Council are aimed at seizing power and inflicting damage to the national security, Prosecutor General Alexander Konyuk said.

The council members have rejected the accusations and insist their actions fully comply with Belarusian law. The United States on Thursday urged the authorities to engage in a dialogue with the opposition council and described the Aug. 9 presidential election that handed Lukashenko a sixth term as neither free nor fair.

The post-election protests continued in the capital of Minsk and other cities for the 12th straight day. About 1,000 protesters rallied on Minsk central Independence Square, chanting Go away! to demand that the country's leader since 1994 leave office. .

The Belarusians have changed, Olga Matusevich, a 29-year-old entrepreneur, said. The protest will not end until Lukashenko steps down.

During the first four days of protests, police detained almost 7,000 people and injured hundreds with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs. At least three protesters died.

The crackdown fueled massive outrage and swelled protesters ranks, forcing authorities to change tactics and stop breaking up crowds that grew to an unprecedented 200,000 on Sunday.

Story continues

I was born and grew up under Lukashenko and I heard nothing but threats, said 26-year-old biologist Maria Fando. But its impossible to scare the majority, and they wont be able to jail everyone.

After standing back for days, police again beefed up their presence on the streets of Minsk on Wednesday, blocking access to some government buildings and also deploying outside major factories where workers have been on strike since Monday while backing the anti-Lukashenko protests.

They are again trying to scare us, Maxim Shukevich, 32, who works at the Minsk Tractor Plant, said. The authorities are striking back. Our factory is being flooded with law enforcement agents."

The industrial action that has engulfed major factories across the country cast a tough challenge to Lukashenko, who had relied on blue-collar workers as his core support base.

In a bid to stop the strike from spreading, the Belarusian leader on Wednesday said that the participants would face dismissal and ordered law enforcement agencies to protect factory managers from opposition pressure.

Hundreds of state television employees have also gone on strike, shaking the governments control of the media.

The Belarusian leader warned members of the Coordination Council that they could face criminal responsibility for their attempt to create parallel power structures.

The council has called for a new presidential election organized by newly formed election commissions, as well as for an investigation into the protest crackdown and compensation for victims of police violence.

The group's goals drew increasing support from governments in Europe and beyond this week. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that Washington remains deeply concerned by serious flaws in the the Aug. 9 election and strongly condemns the violence against protesters.

Pompeo said the vote in Belarus didnt meet the standards for free and fair elections. He urged officials there to actively engage Belarusian society, including through the newly established opposition council, in a way that reflects what the Belarusian people are demanding.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union was ready to play a mediating role in Belarus if Belarusian protesters want that. EU leaders on Wednesday said they were preparing sanctions against Belarusian officials responsible for alleged election fraud and for police brutality against protest participants.

Macron, who discussed the situation in Belarus with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, said Putin was favorable to the idea of mediation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the top trans-Atlantic security and rights group.

We are ready to bring all our assistance and our mediation, the French president told reporters. We insisted on the need to have a democratic, inclusive transition in Belarus that passes via dialogue.

The Belarusian opposition body consists of top associates of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was Lukashenkos leading challenger in the Aug. 9 election, as well as rights activists and representatives of striking workers. It also includes Belarus' most famous author, Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature.

The only former senior official on the council, Pavel Latushko, who headed a leading national theater and was fired earlier this week for siding with protesters, said he wouldn't leave the country despite being threatened with arrest. The facade of his house in Minsk was splashed with red paint overnight.

Another opposition council member, Sergei Dylevsky, the leader of striking workers at the Minsk Tractor Plant, also dismissed the official accusations as total nonsense.

There is a sharp conflict between the people and the government, and we only represent a body that would try to mediate it, Dylevsky said. We aren't aiming to overthrow the government and seize power, our goal is peaceful dialogue."

Prosecutors summoned Tsikhanouskaya's lawyer, Maxim Znak, who also sits on the council, to come for interrogation Friday as part of the probe.

Tsikhanouskaya, 37, a former English teacher who went to neighboring Lithuania after the election in a move that her campaign aides said was made under pressure, met Thursday with Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, who promised to help "achieve free and fair elections in Belarus.

Facing Western criticism, Lukashenko, 65, has turned to Russia for help, saying that Putin promised him security assistance if Belarus needs it. The two nations have an agreement that contemplates close political, economic and military ties.

Asked about the EU's decisions, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Moscow's warning against foreign meddling.

We continue to convey our stance that we consider any foreign influence on the developments in Belarus unacceptable, he told reporters.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Matthew Lee in Washington, Angela Charlton in Paris and Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania contributed to this report.

___

Follow APs coverage of the political turmoil in Belarus at https://www.apnews.com/Belarus
Political Decision to Be Recorded as Another Special Event in Militant Course of Glorious WPK: On Convening 8th Congress of WPK

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK

6th Plenary Meeting of 7th Central Committee of WPK Held

Pyongyang, August 20 (KCNA) -- The 6th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea was held at the office building of the Central Committee of the Party, the supreme general staff of the Korean revolution, on Aug. 19, Juche 109 (2020).

Supreme Leader of the Party, the state and the armed forces of the DPRK Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, guided the plenary meeting.

Attending the meeting were members and alternate members of the WPK Central Committee and members of the Party Central Auditing Commission.

Officials of departments of the Party Central Committee were present as observers.

The meeting discussed as the major agenda the issue of convening the 8th Congress of the WPK to set forth a new line of struggle and strategic and tactical policies on the basis of the requirements of our developing revolution and the changed situation, and to further strengthen the Party organizationally and ideologically.

Upon authorization of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the WPK, the respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un presided over the meeting and made a historic speech.

In the speech he analyzed the subjective and objective environments this year in which we faced unexpected and inevitable challenges in various aspects and the situation in the region surrounding the Korean peninsula, and assessed achievements and shortcomings that have been seen in the Party and the state affairs for the past four years since the historic 7th Party Congress.

He made a detailed report on the accomplishment of goals of various sectors of the national economy for this year, the last year of attaining the goals of the five-year strategy for national economic development set forth in the 7th Congress of the Party, in particular, and analyzed the results.

He said that the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee suggested convening the 8th Congress of the WPK to analyze and review in a comprehensive, three-dimensional and anatomical way the deviations and shortcomings in the work for the implementation of the decisions made at the 7th Congress of the Party and to discuss and decide on the strategic tasks for the Party and the government in the new phase of struggle in the crucial period of our revolution.

Calling for regularly convening the congresses of the Party, the supreme guidance organ of the Party, in order to confirm the line, strategic and tactical measures for steering the development of the times and the revolution and adjust and reinforce the leadership body for guaranteeing their execution, he advanced the important guidelines for the operation of the congress.

He said that the 8th Congress would review this year's work and the work of the Central Committee of the Party in the period under review and set forth a new 5-year plan for national economic development including next year's orientation of work.

Noting that the 8th Congress should become the congress of struggle, the working congress and the congress that will comprehensively review the Party work, he detailed the agenda items to be discussed at the congress and the issues arising in the preparations for it.

The Supreme Leader stressed the need for all the sectors and units including the Party organizations at all levels, power organs and organs of the armed forces to regularly in time sum up the results of the work so as not to deviate from the implementation of the Party's basic lines, policies and decisions. He also said that they should encourage and develop good successes, overcome shortcomings and take rectification measures at the double and thus achieve new progress in advancing the revolution and construction and in strengthening the Party.

The Supreme Leader called on all the participants to greet the 8th Congress of the WPK with high political zeal and shining feats of labor by pushing forward the work of developing the internal potentiality and the motive force as required by the offensive for making a breakthrough head-on along with the major tasks set forth at this year's meetings of the Political Bureau of the Party.

The Supreme Leader read out a draft decision of the plenary meeting on convening the 8th Congress of the WPK.

After he read out the draft decision on convening the Congress which will be recorded as another special event in the path of our glorious Party, all the participants fully supported and approved the agenda that had been taken up in the meeting with thunderous cheers and applauses.

The plenary meeting decided to convene the 8th Congress of the WPK in January, Juche 110(2021).

The historic decision is an indication of the self-confidence of our Party leading the overall activities of the Party and the state to the new higher phase as required by the developing revolution, and an expression of the strong will and solemn pledge of our Party to live up to the great trust and expectation of our people by fulfilling its duty while shouldering upon itself the future of the country. -0-

(2020.08.20)

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MileOne Autogroup is the largest automotive sales and service delivery network in the Mid-Atlantic region, representing 27 automobile brands with 80 dealership locations

MileOne Autogroup is the largest automotive sales and service delivery network in the Mid-Atlantic region, representing 27 automobile brands with 80 dealership locations

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla., Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- JM&A Group, one of the largest independent providers of finance and insurance (F&I) products in the automotive industry, has expanded its 15-year partnership with MileOne Autogroup to include its new Virtual F&I model.

Already pioneers in the Virtual F&I space, JM&A Group is significantly expanding its footprint by delivering the process within the MileOne infrastructure. During the initial phase of the partnership, which is expected to last approximately 90 days, JM&A Group will manage and conduct MileOne's Virtual F&I operations while training the dealer group's internal team on how to sustain a successful Virtual F&I program, before turning the reins over to the MileOne F&I Manager and providing continued support.

The potential for time savings and new revenue streams through Virtual F&I is an exciting proposition for our industry as consumer preferences and buying habits shift, said Scott Gunnell, group vice president, Business Strategy and Operational Excellence, JM&A Group. Virtual F&I has been proven to increase customer satisfaction by creating a seamless and modern way to conduct F&I at a time and place thats convenient for them.

While this new service model is an evolution and a learning process, JM&A Group dealers utilizing Virtual F&I have reported great gains both from a business profitability standpoint and in customer satisfaction. The companys initial testing of its Virtual F&I service with various dealership partners began October 2018, and has delivered more than 5,500 deals since that time. The collaboration with MileOne will be the first mass roll-out of its kind, providing valuable learning opportunities about the viability and scalability of this service going forward.

Story continues

As the largest automotive sales and service delivery network in the Mid-Atlantic region, MileOne represents 27 automobile brands with 80 dealership locations throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. The partnership with JM&A Group will initially go live at 15-18 dealerships with the possibility of future expansion.

We, along with JM&A Group, are being very strategic and intentional in how we have been implementing this offering during its pilot phase, which is critical to the process of launching something new in the automotive industry, said Bill Baker, Division President, Hall MileOne Autogroup. Together we continue to refine the approach to deliver an efficient, customer-centric experience.

Interested in learning more about JM&A Groups new service and its efficacy? Find out how dealers are successfully selling F&I online and helping customers buy from anywhere. Manage your F&I office in a way that seamlessly integrates with your sales process and retains profitability. The future of automotive retail is Virtual F&I. Learn more at info.jmagroup.com/virtual-fi.

About JM&A Group

JM&A Group, a leader in the F&I industry for more than 40 years, serves more than 3,800 automotive dealerships nationwide. Comprised of Jim Moran & Associates, Inc. (JM&A), Fidelity Warranty Services, Inc. (FWS), Fidelity Insurance Agency, and Courtesy Insurance Company, it provides a variety of products and services such as F&I training and consulting, vehicle protection plans, used vehicle certification programs, pre-paid maintenance plans and GAP programs. Additionally, the company has nearly 750 associates, including a dedicated sales force of 300+ associates who support process implementation for dealer operations and digital sales strategies. JM&A Group is a division of JM Family Enterprises, Inc. a diversified automotive corporation headquartered in Deerfield Beach, Fla. JM Family is ranked No. 20 on Forbes list of Americas Largest Private Companies and has been ranked on FORTUNEs 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 22 consecutive years. For more information about JM&A Groups products and services, contact us at 1-800-553-7146 or visit us online at www.jmagroup.com.

About MileOne Autogroup

MileOne Autogroup represents 27 automobile brands with 80 dealership locations under the Hall, Heritage, Herb Gordon, Mercedes-Benz of Annapolis and MotorWorld groups. MileOne Autogroup also operates 9 body shops and provides leasing services through Allstate Leasing. The MileOne Autogroup model provides for all the automotive needs of its customers conveniently, on their own terms. MileOne Autogroup is the largest automotive sales and service delivery network in the Mid-Atlantic region with dealerships located throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina.

Attachment

CONTACT: Lauren Fyke JM Family Enterprises 9544203279 lauren.fyke@jmfamily.com




Apple continued to lead the smartwatch market but with a record 51.4% market share, according to Counterpoint Research.

Unlike the smartphone market, the smartwatch market has seen a 20% revenue growth in H1 2020, according to the latest data from Counterpoint Research. Almost 42 million smartwatches were shipped in the first half of 2020 owing to the growing demand of health conscious users.

Apple still took the lead with a 51.4% market share as it witnessed a strong demand for the Watch Series 5. This makes Apple occupy a record half of the smartwatch market globally. Its biggest markets were Europe and North America where it saw a growth of 22%. Following Apple is Garmin with a 9.4% market share as its Forerunner and Fenix smartwatches saw a health demand. Like Apple, Garmins key markets are also Forerunner and Fenix.

Huawei also witnessed a notable growth as its Watch GT2 grabbed the third spot in the smartwatch market. The demand for Huaweis smartwatches increased in China and other Asian markets where shipment volumes grew by 90%. Counterpoint Research also highlighted Amazfit and Xiaomi as fast-growing brands in the smartwatch market.

Amazfit (+51% YoY) and Xiaomi (+47% YoY) made healthy strides during the first half with expanding portfolios and better geographic reach. China, India and the rest of Asia remain central to these brands growth story, said Neil Shah, Vice President Research.

In terms of software, Apples watchOS still leads the race followed by Googles Wear OS which has a 10% hold in the smartwatch market. Huawei Lite OS and Amazfit OS are also slowly going up. Consumer trends show a growing demand for LTE smartwatches while fall detection and SPO2 are expected to see mass-adoption in future models. Counterpoint Research expects this trend on fitness and wellness apps to continue in the future.
Ibrahim Magu was itching to respond again Thursday after a Wednesday melodrama between the Justice Ayo Salami panel and two witnesses expected to nail Magu, but they refused to, in an unsubstantiated audio record allegation an EFCC suspect brought him in Abuja on Wednesday.

The two young lawyers put the manipulated facts straight and challenged the petitioner, Donald Wokoma, his collaborator AGF Abubakar Malami, and the panel to justify the misinformation and falsehood the panel claimed to be probing.

Victor Giwa and Fatima Hassan, both counsels to Wokoma, a company owner caught in the Amnesty Programme misappropriation in 2018, further expressed their disappointment in Salami and his panel.

The panel, afterwards, excused Giwa and Hassan, only for the two to be bundled away by the EFCC.

But leading to their arrest, according to a report by Sahara Reporters, was the current episode in the ongoing conspiracy to nail Magu at all cost as Malami rakes up all sorts of petition against the former boss of the anti-graft commission.

In the audio evidence before the panel on Wednesday, Wokoma claimed he met and recorded conversation and correspondence with certain operatives of the EFCC known as the Magu Boys,

According to him, the EFCC froze his companys account holding N250m. Despite a court order his counsel Giwa obtained to unfreeze it, the Magu Boys negotiated with Giwa for 40 percent of the amount, N75m, to be paid into three accounts.

He then petitioned Malami in July, and the effort to retrieve the recorded conversation and other evidence between him, Giwa, and the Magu Boys became an issue. Wokoma said the EFCC officers browbeat Giwa into silence.

To unravel it all when Malami brought the petition to the Salami panel, Giwa came Tuesday to testify.

First, Giwa challenged the panel to point out issues of bribery in the audio evidence.

According to the lawyer, the EFCC appealed the court order unfreezing the account then, and Wokoma decided to get another lawyerHassan.

Hassan, thereafter, was invited on Wednesday, and she told the panel the three accounts Wokoma tried to palm off as Magu Boys belong to her three children. She urged the panel to go verify the accounts.

To cap it all, she said the N75m was her professional fee, adding she has never met Magu or his Boys except watching him on TV.

The vehemence with which the lawyers challenged Salami and his panel led to asking the two to step out for a while.

But behind them, Malami had ordered IGP Mohammed Adamu, according to the report, to send police officers to pick up Giwa and Hassan.

The panel used the police to arrest Magu and detained him for 10 days in July. Neither the panel nor the police took responsibility for the breach when Magus lawyers challenged it.

Adamu, however, refused to heed Malamis order on Wednesday.

Soon after, officers from the EFCC came and whisked the two lawyers away, only to be granted bail on Thursday.

Magu, however, wrote the panel again to defend himselfsince he has never been told why the panel is investigating him, and has not been allowed to see or hear petitioners testifying against him.

Many Nigerians following the investigation by the presidential panel are wondering why Salami and his members are carrying on like a kangaroo panel.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 11:21:15|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A drop in young, skilled migrants coming to Australia due to COVID-19 could have a significant impact on the country's economy if no vaccine is found and travel bans persist, a report released Thursday by financial services giant KPMG stated.

The report recommended encouraging more international students to Australia in order to offset the potential population slump.

KPMG Chief Economist, Dr Brendan Rynne explained that the issues arise from the nature of Australia's immigration program, being deliberately tilted towards skilled migrants including university students and graduates, as well as younger people required to support Australia's ageing population.

Projections showed that if no vaccine is found for COVID-19 within 12 months, by the end of the decade Australia's population would fall short of a predicted 29 million people by 420,000. And with no vaccine within the next two years, the shortfall would be 1 million people.

The resulting loss in GDP was calculated at 117 billion Australian dollars per year (84 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030 which would have a direct impact on the living standard of Australians, projected at 2,800 Australian dollars (2,017 U.S. dollars) less disposable income per person.

The KPMG report argued that boosting international student numbers would increase the living standard of Australians, through the value they bring to the local economy during and after their period of study.

Those who stay on permanently add even more value through ongoing spending and tax payments, as well as reducing the age dependency ratio and strengthening the nation's skills base.

However, Rynne said that more incentives would be required to attract students to Australia, in a post-COVID-19 world where competition for international students would likely intensify.

KPMG's Global Lead for Education, Dr Stephen Parker said that long-term residency as a drawcard for overseas students should be more openly stated and encouraged.

"If international students make the sacrifices to come to study here, supporting our educational institutions and adding to our diversity, then we will look favorably upon them if they wish to stay," Parker said.

The report suggested that the Australian government should make post-study work rights last longer, add further permanent residency points for those staying on to work particularly in vocations experiencing skill shortages, and introduce an accelerated pathway to residency program for students, especially those in regional locations. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 04:50:40|Editor: huaxia

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A woman wearing a face mask walks on the street in Nice, southern France, Aug. 20, 2020. As of Thursday, France recorded 4,771 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the biggest daily increase since early April. Since the coronavirus outbreak, a total of 229,814 people have caught the respiratory illness, while the number of clusters being investigated had increased by 33 to 266 from Wednesday, the Health Ministry's data showed. (Photo by Serge Haouzi/Xinhua)

PARIS, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Despite stricter anti-coronavirus measures in recent weeks, France is witnessing higher infections and faster virus transmission, fuelling fears of a second epidemic wave and raising concerns particularly over uncertain sanitary situation when millions of students will return to schools in less than two weeks.

SOARING INFECTIONS

As of Thursday, France recorded 4,771 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the biggest daily increase since early April.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, a total of 229,814 people have caught the respiratory illness, while the number of clusters being investigated had increased by 33 to 266 from Wednesday, the Health Ministry's data showed.

"In Metropolitan France, the situation is worrying: all indicators continue to progress and the transmission of the virus is increasing. It concerns all age groups and particularly young adults," the ministry's health agency said in its latest update.

It noted that a third of French departments have exceeded the vigilance threshold which indicates the number of infected people per 100,000 inhabitants. The figure reached 24.3 compared with 4.4 registered in early June, and above the limit of 10 patients.

Nationwide the "R" number indicating the viral transmission rate now stands at 1.33, up from 0.77 percent reported when France returned to normal life months ago. That means 10 infected people will spread to an additional 13 on average.

MORE MASK WEARING

The surge in the number of patients with COVID-19 has led the government to impose face covering in outdoor public spaces where physical distance cannot be respected. It had already ordered face masks in public transport and enclosed places for all people older than 10 years.

On Friday, masks will be mandatory everywhere in Toulouse, southwestern France, from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m. the next day, for all people aged 11 and above. People riding bikes and scooters will also be required to wear masks, a first for a large city in France.

"The extension of compulsory mask wearing outdoors is a necessary measure in the face of an increasingly worrying situation in Haute-Garonne and notably in Toulouse," Etienne Guyot, prefect of Haute-Garonne, said in a statement released on Thursday.

"The responsibility of everyone in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 is essential to stop the current epidemic's trend in order to avoid a new containment whose consequences would be very serious," he added.

As the virus spread shows no sign of abating, workers should also cover their faces starting from Sept.1, in all collective workplaces such as meeting rooms, open offices, canteens, while those at private offices could take the mask off.

In a further move to contain the rapid viral circulation, local authorities in Paris and Marseille, which are classified as red zones, are able to, following a government decree, place the city under lockdown by limiting travel, restricting transport traffic and closing non-essential businesses.

"We know perfectly well that the fight against the virus will only be won in one way: prevention, application of barrier gestures, mask-wearing, protection of the most vulnerable, and respect for isolation instructions," Prime Minister Jean Castex said in a recent speech.

CONCERNS OVER SCHOOL REOPENING

Amid worsening sanitary indicators, there are rising concerns over how it would be possible to resume learning amid uncertain sanitary situation and relaxed health protocol when millions of students will return to schools on Sept. 1.

Under the government's updated sanitary plan, the one-metre rule has been scrapped both inside and outside the classroom.

Keeping a one-metre distance inside the school is recommended, but it is no longer compulsory when "it is not physically possible or if it means all pupils cannot be received," according to the plan.

Schools have to "organise activities to limit large groupings of people" by "limiting as much as possible" the flow of pupils and parents in the arrival and leaving rush, the plan states.

Only students above the age of 11 have to wear a face mask. Teachers and other school personnel must wear a mask when social distancing of one metre cannot be maintained, according to the government's health protocol.

"The protocol is now very relaxed in a way that it becomes obsolete. We know that the virus has resurged and will further increase when students return to schools," said Guislaine David, co-secretary general of SNUIPP-FSU, the country's main school teachers union.

"We are not ready to start the school year," she told BFMTV news television.

Sophie Venetitay, deputy secretary general of the National Union of Secondary Education, struck a similar tone, arguing that the Education Ministry's instructions no longer fit the epidemic situation.

"This protocol no longer corresponds to the current situation, with a virus circulating more actively. It should be greatly strengthened," she told Europe 1 local broadcaster.

Speaking to Paris Match Magazine on Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron regarded French people's concerns over the epidemic as "legitimate."

"We are living in real time a completely new epidemic phenomenon," he said. "We must (...) allow scientists to move forward, speed up vaccines, guarantee their access, test, trace, isolate, organize our emergencies, prevent, generalize the wearing of a mask when necessary." Enditem
In arguing for a new song, Raskin echoed House Speaker Jones, who said earlier this summer that she wanted to get rid of the longtime Maryland anthem. Similar to a plaque in the State House that was sympathetic to the Confederacy, which was removed at her request earlier this year, Jones said she considers the song to be offensive and inappropriate.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Australia's Westpac Group (WBC.AX, WBK) said that it agreed to sell its Vendor Finance business to Angle Finance, a portfolio company of Cerberus Capital Management L.P. It did not specify the deal value. The company expects to complete the transaction at the end of April 2021. The transaction is expected to result in the transfer of around A$500 million of customer loans. Vendor Finance supports third parties to fund small ticket equipment finance loans to around 42,000 Australian businesses. Westpac expects a small accounting loss on the sale and negligible impact on its balance sheet and capital ratios. Vendor Finance currently operates out of the Westpac subsidiary Capital Finance Australia Limited or CFAL. Westpac said it will continue to retain and manage the remaining CFAL Equipment Finance business in its Business Division. 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 high-ranking delegation of the Vietnam Peoples Army (VPA) on August 20 left for the International Army Games 2020 and the International Military-Technical Forum (ARMY-2020) in Russia.

The Army Games will be held from August 23 to September 5 in multiple countries, including Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka. The ARMY-2020 will run from August 23  39.

The two events are expected to help Vietnam maintain high-ranking military exchanges with Russia, contribute to strengthening the two countries long-standing friendship and comprehensive strategic partnership, and reinforce the bilateral strategic trust and military-technical cooperation.

Seven Vietnamese teams will take part in six categories of the Army Games 2020, such as Tank Biathlon (Tank Crews Competition), Safe Route (Combat Engineering Units Competition), True Friend (Dog Handlers Competition), Emergency Area (Competition among Emergency Rescue Units) and Sniper Frontier.

Vietnamese snipers team has completed the quarantine time in Belarus and become ready for the competition.

Held for the first time in 2015, Army Games 2020 is expected to be the largest multilateral military event this year with over 440,000 soldiers from over 30 countries and territories taking part. The number of combatants this year are eight times higher than in 2019.

Vietnam joined the Army Games for the first time in 2018 with three teams./.VNA
On Friday, the big Australian insurance firm Suncorp announced it would no longer invest in, finance or insure any new oil and gas ventures. That's on top of its policy banning dealings with new thermal coal. It has pledged to phase out all its thermal coal exposures within five years. Loading Also on Friday, it was reported that Australia's biggest electricity generator, AGL, had lodged planning documents disclosing its first concrete steps towards shutting its coal-fired Liddell power station in 2022. The big Liddell generators in NSW's Hunter Valley are almost 50 years old. The plant is past its useful life. AGL, Australia's No. 1 emitter, has committed itself to net-zero emissions by 2050. It, too, will link executive pay to meeting its emissions target. New renewable energy projects are placed to take over Liddell's workload of making electricity, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator. All of these outfits  BHP, the Farmers Federation, Suncorp insurance, AGL energy  have been mainstays of the status quo and part of the infrastructure of the carbon-based economy. They are not early movers. Far from it. They are laggards. Even some of the world's biggest fossil fuel companies, including BP and Shell, and the world's most rapacious Wall Street financiers such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan were ahead of them in announcing big commitments to cut emissions and begin moving away from coal and oil.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: These businesses are the foundations of the carboniferous age. They recognise they face a question of commercial survival. BP's chief executive, Bernard Looney, said: "We are aiming to earn back the trust of society. We have got to change, and change profoundly." Loading And it's not just trust, not just the social licence to operate. You can't make a mighty carbon capitalist repent of his ways unless his billions are directly threatened. And they are threatened by price competitiveness. In much of the world, but especially here: "In Australia, renewables are by far the cheapest new source of bulk generation," says a Sydney-based energy analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Lara Panjkov.

"All the big oil companies, the big car companies, the big utilities are hedging their bets," observes Giles Parkinson, founder and editor of Australia's Renew Economy website. "Each one is going to split itself into two companies  one good, one bad, one dirty, one clean. The dirty ones will gradually die and the new ones will take over unencumbered by their dirty pasts." Parkinson points to the market capitalisation of electric carmaker Tesla. It's the most valuable US car manufacturer of all time. And it's now valued at three times the combined market cap of all three biggest US automakers, GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Tesla isn't the only one that makes electric vehicles  all the big three are working on multiple EV models too. But Tesla is the only one that does not make petrol-powered cars. Australia has lost a decade courtesy of Canberra. The Australian transition started pretty well. For a while, both major parties accepted reality. Recall that John Howard and Kevin Rudd both went to the 2007 election committed to a carbon emissions trading scheme. The bipartisan consensus was broken by the partnership of Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce. They skilfully created a fantasist populism. As a political manoeuvre, it was brilliant. Each used the issue to take the leadership of his party and to bring down a Labor government. Two Labor governments, actually. Scott Morrison exuberantly embraced their style, holding aloft a lump of coal in the House of Representatives. It probably helped him win last year's election.

Loading The Morrison government knows that it must move on, but it has so far moved very slowly, cautiously and stealthily. It has enabled the states to get on with multi-billion-dollar renewables plans, for instance, but remains inert on its own policies. Labor, recovering from the trauma of last year's election, has yet to decide its policy for the next. But in the interim its Hunter Valley MP Joel Fitzgibbon has embarked on a one-man campaign to force Labor to dump its energy and emissions policies to move closer to the government's. Labor is most unlikely to follow his lead. He's re-litigating the last election. But, like Abbott and Joyce from the other side of the chamber, he's marking out his own populist political brand at the expense of his party. And the future of the country. And it's driving many in Labor crazy with frustration. In the real world, Australia's lost decade now presents it with a set of urgent problems. First is keeping the lights on.

"There's a big problem in NSW," Matt Kean explains. "It took NSW 60 years to build the existing power grid. All the generators, all the substations, all the poles and wires, everything. In the next 15 years, four of the five existing power stations will close. It has nothing to do with climate change. These are old pieces of machinery. "I'm going to have to replace the majority of that in 15 years. It's huge. And we have fiddled while the whole thing burned. Sitting on our hands has failed for the last decade." What of the argument that only coal or gas can make up the looming shortfall in reliable electricity? It's flat wrong: "Our analysis," says Bloomberg NEF's Panjkov, "suggests that co-locating renewables and batteries can be attractive for the provision of new dispatchable power. Today we estimate that approximately 711 megawatts of new renewable energy plants with paired storage have secured financing." Everyone knows that Tesla built a "big battery" in South Australia to help with back-up power. Did you know that France's Neoen is proposing to invest $3 billion in a solar and wind project in South Australia with a battery 10 times the size of Tesla's? The technology is moving on apace.

The other problem is economic survival. Kean again: "Take climate change out. There are global megatrends moving. If you are still producing goods high in carbon intensity, you won't be able to export," a reference to the move for countries to impose trade tariffs on carbon offenders. "Can you imagine the impact on our national prosperity if we can't trade? Certain politicians are screaming and shouting the populist line but the reality is it's holding our economy back." So this presents Australia with urgent problems, but also urgent solutions. As the country looks to emerge from the COVID-cratered economic disaster it's now in, renewable energy presents tremendous opportunity. Loading Australia's renewables, properly exploited, offer the cheapest power source on the planet. The eminent economist Ross Garnaut said this week: "Investments over the next few years will have to make economic sense in the low-carbon global economy of the future. The good news is that there is immense opportunity for profitable investment to build a prosperous place for Australia in that future world economy. The prize from post-pandemic reconstruction is huge." Enormous amounts already have been invested in the sector, but the pace is faltering. Kean is frustrated with the Morrison government's renewables policy constipation under Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor: "Industry needs certainty. Right now, people won't invest. They need to know the RET [renewable energy target] won't be ripped up. They need a long-term energy policy so they can have confidence when they invest."
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed limited entry of devotees to three Jain temples in Mumbais Dadar, Chembur and Byculla on August 22 and 23 (Saturday and Sunday) to offer prayers on the occasion of Paryushan festival.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde said that entry into temples will be subject to the undertaking given by the petitioner - a trust dedicated to Jain community - as per which they agreed to allow only five people at a time inside the temple with an upper limit of 250 people per day.

We are of the view that if the undertaking of faithfully complied with, it would not be hazardous to permit prayers at the three temples, the bench which also comprised justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said.

It cited the example of allowing Odisha Rath Yatra and said, This is exactly the choice we had with Odisha Rath Yatra. We believe that if we can ensure that distancing is maintained and people do not gather then merely putting the Rath is not damaging.

The court also made it clear that its order will not apply to any other temples or festivals involving large congregation.

We are referring in particular to the congregation that happens during Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai and other places, the court noted.

The Maharashtra government had opposed the plea saying that the state is worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and it will be difficult for authorities to ensure adherence to precautions to check the spread of the coronavirus disease.

The bench was, however, critical of the stance by the state pointing out that the government was allowing other economic activities but disallowing religious activities.

We find it strange that you are allowing every activity involving economic interests. But if it involves religion, you say you cannot do it because of Covid, CJI Bobde said.

The Bombay high court had earlier rejected the interim prayer by petitioner to allow entry to Jain temples during the days of Paryushan festival from August 15 to 22.
Facebook spent years preparing to ward off any tampering on its site before Novembers presidential election. Now the social network is getting ready in case President Donald Trump interferes once the vote is over.

Employees at the Silicon Valley company are laying out contingency plans and walking through post-election scenarios that include attempts by Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimise the results, people with knowledge of Facebooks plans said.

Facebook is preparing steps to take should Trump wrongly claim on the site that he won another four-year term, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Facebook is also working through how it might act if Trump tries to invalidate the results by declaring that the Postal Service lost mail-in ballots or that other groups meddled with the vote, the people said.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, and some of his lieutenants have started holding daily meetings about minimizing how the platform can be used to dispute the election, the people said. They have discussed a kill switch to shut off political advertising after Election Day since the ads, which Facebook does not police for truthfulness, could be used to spread misinformation, the people said.

The preparations underscore how rising concerns over the integrity of the November election have reached social media companies, whose sites can be used to amplify lies, conspiracy theories and inflammatory messages. YouTube and Twitter have also discussed plans for action if the post-election period becomes complicated, according to disinformation and political researchers who have advised the firms.

The tech companies have spent the past few years working to avoid a repeat of the 2016 election, when Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to inflame the American electorate with divisive messages. While the firms have since clamped down on foreign meddling, they are reckoning with a surge of domestic interference, such as from the right-wing conspiracy group QAnon and Trump himself.

In recent weeks, Trump, who uses social media as a megaphone, has sharpened his comments about the election. He has questioned the legitimacy of mail-in voting, suggested that peoples mail-in ballots would not be counted and avoided answering whether he would step down if he lost.

Alex Stamos, director of Stanford Universitys Internet Observatory and a former Facebook executive, said Facebook, Twitter and YouTube faced a singular situation where they have to potentially treat the president as a bad actor who could undermine the democratic process.

We dont have experience with that in the United States, Stamos added.

Facebook may be in an especially difficult position because Zuckerberg has said the social network stands for free speech. Unlike Twitter, which has flagged Trumps tweets for being factually inaccurate and glorifying violence, Facebook has said that politicians posts are newsworthy and that the public has the right to see them. Taking any action on posts from Trump or his campaign after the vote could open Facebook up to accusations of censorship and anti-conservative bias.

In an interview with The New York Times this month, Zuckerberg said of the election that people should be ready for the fact that theres a high likelihood that it takes days or weeks to count this  and theres nothing wrong or illegitimate about that.

A spokesman for Facebook declined to comment on its post-election strategy.

We continue to plan for a range of scenarios to make sure we are prepared for the upcoming election, he said.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said, President Trump will continue to work to ensure the security and integrity of our elections.

Google, which owns YouTube, confirmed that it was holding conversations on postelection strategy but declined to elaborate. Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, Twitters vice president of public policy, said the company was evolving its policies to better identify, understand and mitigate threats to the public conversation, both before or after an election.

Facebook had initially focused on the run-up to the election  the period when, in 2016, most of the Russian meddling took place on its site. The company mapped out almost 80 scenarios, many of which looked at what might go wrong on its platform before Americans voted, the people with knowledge of the discussions said.

Facebook examined what it would do, for instance, if hackers backed by a nation-state leaked documents online, or if a nation-state unleashed a widespread disinformation campaign at the last minute to dissuade Americans from going to the polls, one employee said.

To bolster the effort, Facebook invited those in government, think tanks and academia to participate and conduct exercises around the hypothetical election situations.

An idea that came up during one exercise  that Facebook label posts from state media so users know they are reading government-sponsored content  was put into effect in June, said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, who joined the session.

We can see that their policy decisions are being affected by these exercises, he said.

But Facebook was less decisive on other issues. If a post suggested that mail-in voting was broken, or encouraged people to send in multiple copies of their mail-in ballots, the company would not remove the messages if they were framed as a suggestion or a question, one person who advised the company said. Under Facebooks rules, it takes down only voting-related posts that are statements with obviously false and misleading information.

In recent months, Facebook turned more to post-election planning. That shift accelerated this month when Trump said more on the issue, two Facebook employees said.

On Aug. 3, Trump questioned whether the Democratic primary in New Yorks 12th Congressional District should be rerun because of long delays in counting mail-in ballots.

Nobody knows whats happening with the ballots and the lost ballots and the fraudulent ballots, I guess, he said.

The next day, Trump broadened his attack, falsely stating that mail-in ballots lead to more voter fraud nationwide.

Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters, he said. They go collect them. They are fraudulent in many cases.

Trumps comments alarmed Facebook employees who work on protecting its site in the US election. On the groups internal chat channels, many wondered whether Trump would launch even more attacks against mail-in voting, one employee who saw the messages said. Some asked whether the president was violating Facebooks rules against disenfranchising voters.

Those questions were ultimately sent to Zuckerberg, as well as top executives including Joel Kaplan, the global head of public policy, the employee said.

In a staff meeting later that week, Zuckerberg told employees that if political figures or commentators tried declaring victory in an election early, Facebook would consider adding a label to their posts explaining that the results were not final. Of Trump, Zuckerberg said the company was in unprecedented territory with the president saying some of the things that hes saying that I find quite troubling. The meeting was reported earlier by BuzzFeed News.

Since then, executives have discussed the kill switch for political advertising, according to two employees, which would turn off political ads after November 3 if the elections outcome was not immediately clear or if Trump disputed the results.

The discussions remain fluid, and it is unclear if Facebook will follow through with the plan, three people close to the talks said.

In a call with reporters this month, Facebook executives said they had removed more than 110,000 pieces of content between March and July that violated the companys election-related policies. They also said there was a lot about the election that they did not know.

In this fast-changing environment, we are always sort of red teaming and working with partners to understand what are the next risks? said Guy Rosen, vice president of integrity at Facebook. What are the different kinds of things that may go wrong?

c.2020 The New York Times Company
A federal judge turned down President Donald Trump's newest move Friday to keep New York City prosecutors from getting his tax records, but Trump's lawyers have already asked higher courts to step in.

The developments came a day after U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled - as he had before in a case that has been to the U.S. Supreme Court and back - that Manhattan's top prosecutor could subpoena the records for a criminal investigation. Trump's lawyers immediately appealed Thursday's ruling.

They also asked Marrero to delay enforcement of the subpoena while the appeal plays out. Marrero said no to that Friday.

'The president has not demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm' if the records are turned over for a grand jury probe that would keep them secret, he wrote.

However, Trump's lawyers noted in a court filing Thursday that they were making the same request of an appeals court and the Supreme Court.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. investigating extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization

A page from Trump's 1995 tax records

'The president raises serious arguments,' Trump attorney William Consovoy wrote in an appeals court filing Friday, adding that it's 'implausible' that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. 'needs these records so badly that there's no time for appellate review.'

Vance's office, which has agreed to hold off enforcing the subpoena for a week, declined to comment Friday.

Messages seeking comment were sent Friday to Trump's lawyers.

Marrero has refused multiple times to block the subpoena. The U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld one of his rulings, finding that the presidency in itself doesn't shield Trump from Vance's investigation.

But the high court returned the case to Marrero's courtroom to allow Trumps lawyers to raise other concerns about the subpoena. They did, arguing that it was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment.

Vance's attorneys countered that they were entitled to extensive records to aid a 'complex financial investigation,' citing public reports of 'extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.'

Those arguments led to this week's flurry of rulings and appeals.

Trump blasted the long-running quest for his financial records Thursday as a 'continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country.'

Vance, a Democrat, began seeking the Republican president's tax returns from his longtime accounting firm over a year ago, after Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the president had misled tax officials, insurers and business associates about the value of his assets.

The president has said he expects the case to end up back before the Supreme Court.

Even if the tax records ultimately are subpoenaed, they would not automatically be made public, as they are being sought as part of a confidential grand jury investigation.

Congress is also pursuing Trumps financial records, though the Supreme Court last month kept a hold on the banking and other documents that Congress has been seeking and returned the case to a lower court.

Trump is the only modern president who has refused to release his tax returns. Before he was elected, he had promised to do so.

The DA's investigation covers records in the time frame a hush money payoff was given to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump; the president has denied the allegation

Trump had called the case a 'witch hunt' when he spoke to reporters Thursday in the Oval Office at the White House.

'Well, the Supreme Court said if it's a fishing expedition, you don't have to do it, and this is a fishing expedition. But more importantly, this is a continuation of the witch hunt, the greatest witch hunt in history,' he said.

'There's never been anything like it, where people want to examine everything you've ever done to see if they can find that there's a comma out of place. No president has ever had to go through this,' he added.

The president predicted the case would end up back in the hands of the Supreme Court, which last month ruled the president could not claim immunity in the case and sent it back to the lower court.

'We'll probably end up back in the Supreme Court. But this is just a continuation of the most hideous witch hunt in the history of our country,' he added.

Trump complained prosecutor want to 'inspect every deal he's ever done.'

'This is the ultimate fishing expedition. Nobody has anything. We don't do things wrong.

'But they'll say let's go in and inspect every deal he's ever done. Let's get papers from 10 years - every paper, every deal he's ever signed, maybe we can find with some lawyer made a mistake, where they didn't dot an 'i' where didn't put a comma down someplace, and then we can do something. This is a disgrace. This should never ever be allowed to happen again,' he said.
Not every doctor is motivated to continue a job that involves 80 unpredictable hours a week and getting up in the wee hours of the night. But Dr. Lalita Malhotra is not every doctor.

Dr. Malhotra, an obstetrician and gynecologist originally from Delhi, India, has been in Canada since 1975. That was the year she relocated to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan with her husband, who was a pediatrician. She has been working in obstetrics there for more than 40 years now, so is essentially on her third generation of babies.

I should cut down my hours, she says, but obstetrics has been my whole life, and I love what I do.

She was a trained physician and living in the UK with her husband at a time when immigrants could not become medical consultants in the UK, so the choice was clear to come to Canada. They first arrived in Ontario, where her husband was recruited by other British-trained doctors to practice in Prince Albert.
MINNEAPOLIS (dpa-AFX) - Hasbro is recalling 52,900 Nerf Super Soaker water guns sold at Target and urging consumers to stop using them immediately, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a statement. The water guns were sold exclusively at Target between March and July 2020. Products were sold at various retail outlets across Europe, including Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, and the UK; and Indonesia. The products being recalled included the Super Soaker XP20 (E6286) which is a green and orange hand-held water blaster, and the XP 30 (E6289) which is an orange and blue hand-held water blaster. 'Nerf Super Soaker' and the model number are printed on the sticker on the side of the water blaster. The decorative sticker on the water tank of the water blaster toys 'contain levels of lead in the ink that exceed the federal lead content ban.' Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can impact health. Consumers have been asked to unscrew the tank from the blaster and return the tank to the manufacturer using a postage prepaid label, for a full refund. So far, no injuries or adverse incidents have been reported. 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.
COLUMBIA  Gov. Henry McMaster on Friday ordered state health officials to release guidelines for South Carolinas nursing homes to allow limited family visits, but despite the long-awaited move theres still no telling when the visits may begin.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control has been putting together such plans since June. But there was no timetable Friday for when the states roughly 190 nursing homes can actually reopen their doors. A spokeswoman said the agency cant say for sure.

McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said the governor expected DHEC to release its guidelines early next week, but its not clear how quickly nursing homes could implement them.

McMaster and health officials both stressed that the visits must be done safely. While DHEC did not detail its expected plans Friday, spokeswoman Laura Renwick said the guidelines will include rules for facilities to meet certain testing requirements and have an adequate supply of protective gear on hand.

In a letter Friday to DHEC Chairman Mark Elam, McMaster lifted restrictions that had been in place since COVID-19s initial outbreak in March. He called the states visitation ban a "heartbreaking necessity" aimed at protecting nursing home residents who are most vulnerable to the deadly virus.

Now, McMaster is emphasizing that nursing homes must comply with DHECs guidelines before they are allowed to reopen their doors. He also demanded that the state health agencys enforcement of its guidelines be comprehensive.

McMaster had asked DHEC to begin developing plans for allowing visits more than two months ago. He seemed poised to ask for the release of the guidelines in early July, before delaying his decision as the state's rate of COVID-19 infections was mounting.

Advocates and families have been calling all summer for the state to safely reopen the homes for visits. They've said that families must be allowed to observe their loved ones' care in person, to keep an eye out for abuse or neglect.

Caleb Connor, an Aiken Attorney, told The Post and Courier that the reopenings should be done as soon as possible, but said McMasters announcement was a step in the right direction.

Im glad to hear were at least moving toward ensuring these people who are vulnerable and often overlooked are getting a little bit of attention, Connor said. Especially, given what seems to be happening in the absence of a familys presence.

McMaster acknowledged the concerns Friday. The lack of visits has caused "depression, stress and anxiety" among residents, he wrote, and led to more frustrations for those "worried about "a parent, grandparent or other loved ones well-being."

Renwick, the DHEC spokeswoman, added, We recognize that social isolation can have serious negative impacts on the health and well-being of residents in long-term care facilities and their loved ones.

For families, a lack of detailed state health reporting on nursing home outbreaks has only made matters worse. The virus, which preys upon the old and frail, has coursed through the states long-term-care facilities.

As of Wednesday, more than 4,800 people have been infected at 165 South Carolina nursing homes. The virus killed 704 of them.

But in many cases, families are left in the dark on their loved ones' safety. While DHEC in its twice-weekly reports updates its tallies of infections at nursing homes, the agency in many cases does not indicate whether outbreaks are current.

DHEC also does not require virus testing at nursing homes, and the agency in its reporting says nothing about how many tests the homes are actually conducting.

In DHECs new plans for visitation, its unclear how strict the agencys testing mandate may be.

Either way, for Summerville resident Tracey Kaplan, the prospect of again being allowed to see her loved ones was welcome news.

Both her parents have lived at Wellmore of Daniel Island for the past two years, her father in skilled nursing and her mother in memory care.

The ban on visitation has at times left Kaplan in tears. Although she worries about increased risk of spread once visitation reopens, she cannot wait to sit on her mothers bed again, hug her, comb her hair and talk about Elvis, like she used to.

One of the last times she saw her mother more than two months ago, she peered from a distance through a fence. But her mother, 73-year-old Jody Chesley, didnt fully understand why visitation had changed. So, she stood up, walked to the fence and wanted to kiss Kaplan through it.

Kaplan missed it when her father, Earl Chesley, turned 77 years old in May. She couldnt hug him on Fathers Day, either.

It has frustrated her that the facilitys staff, while obviously essential, can come and go wherever they want in their personal lives and then come into contact with residents while even the most careful of residents families cannot.

She desperately hopes that she can visit her parents soon.

Can I go today? she asked. I know thats not realistic, but I hope its not like months until they figure it out.

Jennifer Berry Hawes contributed to this report.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has delegated some powers to his younger sister Yo-jong as well as other largely obscure officials, according to the National Intelligence Service. The NIS said the leader still wields "absolute power" but is letting them handle inter-Korean and U.S. business as well as economic and military affairs.

What is going on? The NIS said the main reason for the power-sharing arrangement is that Kim Jong-un has been under a tremendous amount of stress while single-handedly leading the reclusive state over the past nine years. But the spy agency also said he may be seeking to pass the blame around if his policies fail. North Korea is barely sputtering along right now as its moribund economy was ravaged by sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and recent flooding. The embarrassing failure of Kim Jong-un's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi last year continues to rankle. There seems to have been a need to ensure that he does not end up bearing the brunt of any public discontent.

There has never been any power-sharing in North Korea before. Chinese-style leadership by committee is unthinkable. Nation founder Kim Il-sung consolidated the one-man leadership, and his son Kim Jong-il purged his half-brother and quickly eliminated any subordinates who were rumored to be his second-in-command. It is therefore quite unusual to see Kim Jong-un delegate authority to someone else, even for show.

Until recently only the supreme leader handled international and military policies, but now Kim Yo-jong has risen to the fore, spewing out invective against South Korea and the U.S as her brother remained behind the scenes for so long that there were even rumors he was at death's door. Meanwhile economic affairs have been handed to the prime minister, and military matters to two other officials about whom little is known. To top it all, Kim Jong-un as good as admitted the failure of his economic policies and promised to convene a Workers Party congress next January, which is unprecedented. Unfortunately outsiders can only speculate, but large developments seem afoot and fill them with as sense of foreboding.


He's one of the most memorable stars to ever appear on Married At First Sight.

And on Friday, Nasser Sultan looked to be appreciating the smaller things in life, spotted holding an adorable puppy in Sydney.

The 52-year-old reality star showed off his playful side while talking to a mystery brunette.

Out and about: Married At First Sight star Nasser Sultan, 52, (right) was all smiles as he held onto an adorable puppy in Sydney on Friday, while talking to a mystery brunette (left)

Nasser appeared to be good friends with the brunette, resting his head on her shoulder.

He dressed for comfort on the outing, opting for a navy T-shirt, black jeans and coordinating sneakers.

Meanwhile, his companion dressed in a black singlet top, striped trousers and sneakers, and accessorised with round-rimmed sunglasses.

Joy: Nasser appeared to be appreciating the smaller things in life, cradling the pooch in his arm

Content: The reality star showed off his playful side while enjoying the sunshine in Sydney

Distracted: Nasser couldn't wipe the smile off his face while holding the adorable dog

The sighting comes after it was revealed Nasser recently landed a new television gig which will see the controversial reality star host his own talk show, Dab or Fab!

While it's unclear if the show will be picked up by any Australian television networks, Nasser previously told Daily Mail Australia his show 'will air in Belgium, Italy and the UK'.

'It's raw and no scripted stuff,' Nasser explained.

At one stage, Nasser rested his head on his companion's shoulder while on the Sydney streets

Coming soon! The sighting comes after it was revealed Nasser recently landed a new television gig which will see the controversial reality star host his own talk show, Dab or Fab!

Nasser will join two co-hosts each week as they discuss and debate trending topics.

The TV personality rose to fame on the 2018 season of Married At First Sight.

He 'wed' Gabrielle Bartlett, but they called it quits before the finale episode.
The Prime Minister (left) yesterday announced plans to scrap all Covid restrictions by the spring as the Omicron wave continued to recede, with Covid cases, deaths and hospitalisations all down on last week. While measures such as Covid passports and compulsory face masks are to be dropped from next Thursday, staff are being encouraged back to offices and other workplaces immediately. Within minutes of his announcement, civil servants were told via a Cabinet Office email that they should being to return to work, with other departments expected to communicate similar memos today. There are no plans for targets, however, on how many staff are back at desks and how many days a week they are expected to be in the office. The PM insisted the move was vital for younger workers in particular, who would struggle to build up the necessary skills, experience and networks from home. Mr Johnson said that 'across Whitehall, we need to show a lead and make sure that we get back to work, everybody gets back to work'.
On the second Saturday of August, about 100 protestors gathered at the "Big Red Wagon," a well-known attraction in downtown Spokane, Washington. Men, women and children marched through the streets chanting, Save the children. It was ostensibly an effort to raise awareness and start a conversation about child trafficking, according to a local television reporter at the scene.

Many of the marchers held signs that would be expected at such a rally: "Save our kids," "Your silence is deafening," and "Wake up 4 our children," to name a few.

But other signs were less clear, and suggested that something darker was going on during an event that otherwise seemed organic and sympathetic. "Symbolism will be their downfall," one read. Another featured the hashtag "#Pedowood." Yet another was a strange acronym: WWG1WGA," short for "Where we go one, we go all."

These signs, similar to those found at many such rallies now taking place around the U.S., are references to QAnon, the conspiracy theory that has surged in popularity in recent months. It turned out that the rally had nothing to do with the century-old humanitarian charitable group Save the Children.

QAnon is a sprawling and baseless conspiracy theory alleging that President Donald Trump is engaged in a secret war against a cabal of Satanist child abusers in government, entertainment and the media. The conspiracy  which has spread to millions of users in Facebook groups during the pandemic  has been linked to several violent crimes and was last year labeled a potential domestic terror threat by the F.B.I.

HAPPENING NOW: A rally to end child trafficking is starting at the Red Wagon in downtown Spokane. Organizer Mia Gray says this event is to raise awareness and start a conversation. They just started marching down Spokane Falls Blvd chanting save the children. @KHQLocalNews pic.twitter.com/BikxrD0upr  KHQ Noelle Lashley (@noellelashley) August 9, 2020

The scene in Spokane was just one of many rallies planned on Facebook by QAnon supporters or sympathizers that have brought the conspiracy theory offline and into the town squares of dozens of cities in recent weeks. On Saturday, more than 200 Save the Children events are scheduled to take place across the country, organized by a constellation of individuals and newly formed groups, according to an NBC News analysis of Facebook events.

Story continues

The events themselves tend to follow a familiar pattern. People march along the main streets and chant, usually sticking to the broader topics of child abuse and human trafficking. When talking with local reporters, marchers rarely mention QAnon or wider conspiracy theories, sticking instead to demands like stricter laws against pedophilia and greater media attention on sex trafficking. The marches are neighborly and peaceful. Often young children are marching, too, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with bloody handprints and carrying tiny signs with messages like I am not for sale.

QAnon spent years on the fringes of the internet, with the theory evolving and often growing less specific. What was originally a conspiracy theory that centered on an anonymous internet poster has now become something of a catchall for a variety of beliefs about a hidden group of child abusers in positions of power.

That's helped create a palatable entry point for many people who might not spend much time in dark parts of the internet but are active on Facebook. It's a strategy that has led to a significant growth in people who might not necessarily be among the most ardent QAnon die-hards, but are beginning to warm to some of its ideas.

"This is not about pedophilia," said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University and co-author of the book, "You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories and Our Polluted Media Landscape." "This is not about child protection. This is about a conspiracy theory that's trying to couch itself in other terms to get more people involved and sympathetic.

And those sympathetic people are showing up at rallies and trying to take action. People who have spent years working for organizations that fight human trafficking and child abuse say that they have been flooded by bizarre claims and tips, as well as criticism and sometimes threats.

Amplify and co-opt

In early August, the hashtag #SaveTheChildren seemed to be everywhere. As it spiked, Facebook briefly disabled the hashtag, with a warning that it went against community standards. That action poured gasoline on the QAnon community, which rallied to circumvent what they claimed in groups was censorship.

The hashtag was reinstated and continued to take off but lost steam when QAnon believers moved to #SaveOurchildren after realizing Save the Children, the humanitarian organization founded in 1919, was funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates has been a constant target of unfounded conspiracy theories spread by QAnon groups since the coronavirus pandemic began.

The nonprofit organization Save the Children did not respond to a request for comment.

While 3.5 million users across thousands of groups were talking about #SaveTheChildren and #SaveOurchildren by Friday, according to Facebook data, the most engaging conversations were happening in Facebook groups and on Instagram accounts related to QAnon, according to an analysis by First Draft, a nonprofit that tracks misinformation online and provides research and training for journalists.

QAnon groups make up only 18 percent of those posting about #SaveOurChildren. But they accounted for nearly 70 percent of the total interactions on the hashtag in August, according to First Draft. On Instagram, QAnon-related accounts posting about #SaveOurChildren accounted for 75 percent of the interactions. Most of the top hashtags from #SaveOurChildren posts in August are QAnon-specific.

"The data suggests that a relatively small number of QAnon-related Facebook groups and Instagram accounts were able to amplify and co-opt #SaveOurChildren and its related language by creating a large and unprecedented flurry of posts and activity around the hashtag, said Rory Smith, the research manager at First Draft who wrote the analysis.

Facebook cracked down on QAnon on Wednesday, removing or restricting more than 13,000 groups, pages and Instagram accounts that pushed QAnon content and discussed potential violence.

That action did not seem to affect the rallies planned for this weekend, events that largely remain on Facebook.

A Facebook spokesperson told NBC News that the company was continuing to review QAnon content against the new policy, including Save the Children events.

Organized and active

While many of the Save the Children events do not openly espouse QAnon beliefs, the groups connection is never far.

On their personal social media pages and in their mostly private Facebook groups, organizers of the largest upcoming rallies openly embrace QAnon ideology and push its content. Facebook pages for the events are often swarmed with conspiracy theories involving vast child trafficking rings and baseless accusations about the involvement of Hollywood actors and politicians.

Scotty Rojas, a musician and social media manager who goes by Scotty the Kid, was the force behind an Instagram campaign to rally protestors in 100 cities on Aug. 22. Rojas organized one of the first rallies, a July 31 march in Hollywood that ended with dozens of people with signs with messages that included Hillary Clinton Is Satan and others fashioned into pizza slices  a reference to "pizzagate," the unfounded claim that the child trafficking ring is being led out of a Washington pizzeria  storming a CNN building. Rojas led the rally wearing a T-shirt with a large Q emblazoned on the front and carried a bullhorn through which he led chants of QAnon cries like Where we go one, we go all.

Shauna Blen, a California activist behind a team effort to unite hundreds of Saturdays rallies, noted the heavy presence of QAnon believers at the previous rallies but said all were welcome.

There were a lot of Trump supporters, a lot of Q supporters," she said. "But there were also a lot of Democrats, and people that do not like Trump and that don't even follow Q.

As for her personal stance, Blen said, I guess you could say I support Q.

Image: People participate in a

Other organizers were less willing to claim QAnon, but unwilling to deny it. Amy Coon and Isaac Miller are founders of Wheres Our Children, a new Nashville-based organization, and planners of more than 25 rallies for next Saturday, Aug. 29. They said that they were working to clean up the descriptions for their rallies, many of which contained hashtags belonging to the QAnon conspiracy.

Every person is going to have their own freedoms and beliefs, Miller said of the marchers.

When asked whether the organization believes that pizzagate is real, echoing one of the hashtags on its many events, Coon demured.

We will neither confirm nor deny that, Coon said.

One group that formed in July, Freedom for the Children, has organized more than 60 rallies in 26 states and Canada, according to their website, where they accept donations. Until Wednesday, personal Facebook profiles for co-founders Bhairavi Shera and Tara Nicole seen by NBC News contained posts with conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, the coronavirus and QAnons precursor, pizzagate. By Thursday, Sheras personal profile had been either removed or deleted, and Nicole deleted or made previous posts private.

Shera and Nicole did not respond to a request for comment,

Their communication strategy seems to be working. Regardless of their public online postings and event pages, local media coverage of the events has been widespread and credulous, almost never mentioning the events' QAnon connections. A few local television and radio stations have advertised lists of the events on their news websites.

The Colorado Times Recorder served as an outlier with its report last week: Denver Anti-Child Sex Trafficking March Rooted in QAnon Conspiracy Theories.

All six of the rally organizers who spoke with NBC News said the point of their protests was to get media attention. Indeed, many of the signs seen at rallies ask why the media is reporting on COVID-19 or Black Lives Matter protests instead of the real pandemic of missing children.

It's a tactic that can help attract more followers.

The media often acts as an interlocutor between movements and politicians, said Joan Donovan, director or Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy. And media attention can also be a strong recruitment strategy.

'We're leaving those kids behind'

People who have spent much of their lives fighting human trafficking and child abuse have borne the brunt of the surge in popularity from the "Save the Children" movement.

Rochelle Keyhan, the CEO of the anti-trafficking nonprofit Collective Liberty, has been bombarded in the last few months with text messages, Facebook messages and LinkedIn requests, all pointing her to conspiracy theories and YouTube videos about Satanic cabals. She mostly gets sent a 10-part YouTube video about how Trump is secretly rounding up all of the Satanists and in turn stopping child trafficking.

Keyhan is a former prosecutor of gender-based crimes for the Philadelphia District Attorney's office. She designed a Disruption Strategies division at the anti-trafficking organization Polaris. She said the incoming messages are incessant.

Theyre like: Have you seen this? What are you doing about this? she said. All day, every day, were doing a lot about this.

Before QAnon adherents took over the #SaveTheChildren hashtag, QAnon followers invented the conspiracy theory that the furniture site Wayfair was trafficking missing children in overpriced shelves and pillows last month.

Keyhans group, which was inundated with Wayfair tips, put out a statement explaining that the exorbitant prices were due to search engine optimization gone wrong, and not proof of a Satanic cabal. So did Polaris, which was forced to put out a statement, hoping QAnon followers would stop sending in false Wayfair tips.

While Polaris treats all calls to the Trafficking Hotline seriously, the extreme volume of these contacts has made it more difficult for the Trafficking Hotline to provide support and attention to others who are in need of help, the company said.

Keyhan said these conspiracy theories often wildly misrepresent what trafficking most frequently looks like, which can make it harder for real victims to get help.

Their kids friend could have all the warning signs of those same girls that Epstein victimized, Keyhan said, referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier who was accused of federal sex trafficking. If we're not paying attention to that, then we're leaving those kids behind, and letting them fall into the hands of predators.

Thats also the worry of Eliza, a human trafficking victim who now works in aftercare for trafficking survivors. (Her last name is being withheld to protect her identity from former abusers.)

There's nothing more terrifying to me as an advocate than thinking about a survivor not being able to get through to the Human Trafficking Hotline or National Human Trafficking Hotline because it's being inundated with Wayfair calls, she said.

Eliza, who is hosting a virtual event on Saturday with survivors who were abused by Epstein, was initially disheartened by QAnon supporters drowning out real calls to action to stop child sex trafficking and said she considered ending her efforts due to "constant misinformation.

Although Eliza is hopeful that the new surge of attention can raise awareness among people who want to stop real-world human trafficking, the picture of sex trafficking painted by QAnons version of the "Save the Children" campaign does not tend to reflect reality, she said.

We do run into this issue where we see the imagery of little white girls with chains on. And, just speaking from personal experience, I did not step forward sooner  this is me, speaking as a survivor  because I thought, I hadn't been transported in the back of a semi truck, Eliza said. I wasnt aware of what human trafficking meant.
Absolute majority of Ukrainians would support the country's independence if faced with such question today, poll says.

If the referendum on the proclamation of Ukraine's independence were held today, it would see absolute support for the move, says a recent nationwide poll conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the Razumkov Center.

"If the referendum on the proclamation of state independence of Ukraine took place today, it would certainly have been won by independence supporters with 84.4% against 15.6% against," noted the report presented at a press conference on August 21, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

If the referendum on the proclamation of state independence of Ukraine took place today, it would certainly have been won by independence supporters

Taking into account data on respondents who found the question difficult to answer or those who would not come to the polls, less than 13% of citizens would oppose independence, while almost 68% would vote for it.

Survey results: differences by region and party affiliation

Despite such absolute support for independence, significant regional, age, and party differences can be traced, the authors of the poll note.

In Ukraine's western region, opponents amount to under 1%, and in the east  to almost 30%.

Also, the younger the respondents, the more they support the country's independence.

Read alsoExpert explains threats to Ukraine stemming from Russia-Belarus union stateThe highest level of support for independence was voiced by the European Solidarity Party supporters (more than 90%), while the smallest  by those supporting the pro-Russian Opposition Platform  For Life Party.

Survey details

A nationwide poll was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation along with the Razumkov Center Sociological Agency on August 14-19 in all regions of Ukraine with the exception of Crimea and the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

A total of 2,018 respondents aged 18 and over were interviewed face-to-face.

The theoretical sampling error is within 2.3%.

Independence Day

On Monday, August 24, Ukrainians will celebrate the 29th anniversary of independence.
A driver who was allegedly racing his van on a Clark County road has been arrested after he struck and killed a motorcyclist on Wednesday, sheriffs officials said.

Deputies and medics responded about 5:20 p.m. to a collision at Northeast 47th Avenue and Minnehaha Street, the Clark County Sheriffs Office said in a news release. A Ford Econoline work van driving west on Minnehaha struck a motorcycle, instantly killing the motorcyclist, 59-year-old Mark Holm of Vancouver, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Witnesses reported seeing the driver of the van, 26-year-old Carlos Hoyos-Gonzalez, racing a purple Lexus sedan, according to the Sheriffs Office.

When the Lexus made a right turn to the north at the intersection of Northeast 47th Avenue, Hoyos-Gonzalez made a sweeping turn into the intersection, witnesses told investigators. As he did so, Holms motorcycle, which had been behind the two vehicles, struck Hoyos-Gonzalezs van, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Hoyos-Gonzalez showed obvious signs of impairment, sheriffs officials said in the news release, but didnt offer any details. They also said his van had been reported in at least two other hit-and-run collisions recently.

Investigators are searching for the driver of the Lexus and say they want to interview that person.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

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A group of property owners challenging the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authoritys failure to maintain or replace a series of dams can proceed with their lawsuit, a judge ruled Thursday.

The 278 plaintiffs suing the GBRA say its decision to let six aging dams deteriorate or collapse amounts to an unconstitutional taking of their Guadalupe River waterfront property without compensating them for their loss. Their property values have declined by 28 to 35 percent since the river authority stopped maintaining the dams last year, the lawsuit states.

GBRA has argued that the law doesnt require it to replace the dams at Lake Dunlap, Lake McQueeney, Lake Placid, Meadow Lake, Lake Gonzales and Lake Wood. A spill gate collapsed at Lake Dunlap in May 2019, draining that reservoir, while a similar gate failure four years ago drained Lake Wood. The authority has said the four other dams, each about 90 years old, have reached the end of their life spans.

After hearing several hours of arguments online Thursday, visiting Judge Stephen Ables ruled that the lakefront homeowners have legal standing to pursue their property taking claims. But he agreed with the authoritys defense that it is immune from other aspects of the lawsuit, such as claims against the agencys individual officials and directors.

Both sides are expected to appeal.

I think this gives you the opportunity to take this to the court of appeals to see if we can get a bright line on the immunity issue before we take off and get into the trial, Ables told the attorneys.

The judge also said he believed that the chances of a plan to hold a jury trial in October or November probably are slim to none because of the coronavirus pandemic.

On ExpressNews.com: GBRA and property owners reach compromise in separate lawsuit on aging dams

Attorneys for the lakefront owners called Thursdays ruling a win.

Everybody said we wouldnt even survive this, said Houston attorney Doug Sutter, a Lake McQueeney property owner and one of two lawyers representing the plaintiffs for free. We can go after GBRA for our property damages. So were very happy with that.

GBRA officials stressed that most of the plaintiffs claims were dismissed, noting in a statement that the appellate process wont be finished until next year or later.

Todays results should encourage the lake residents to work with GBRA to find a sustainable solution in addressing the necessary replacement of the spill gates on the hydroelectric dams, said Kevin Patteson, GBRAs CEO and general manager.

Express-News file photo

In court filings, GBRA said it doesnt have the money to replace the dams, which it purchased along with the water rights in the 1960s. That would cost around $180 million, it said.

GBRA also argued that the residents living nearby have no ownership or property interest in the man-made lakes, the dams or the water and have never paid any taxes, fees or assessments to repair or replace the dams. The agency doesnt have authority to levy property taxes.

Because the four remaining dams are in poor condition and deemed unsafe, GBRA announced last year that it would lower their spill gates, predicting a 12-foot drop in the water behind each dam. The lawsuit halted those plans.

What the plaintiffs are asking this court to do is something unprecedented under Texas law  asking to order a Texas government agency that has no taxing authority to pay approximately $180 million that it does not have to rebuild or replace six man-made lake dams, said Travis Sales, a Houston-based attorney for the firm Baker Botts who represents GBRA.

Who pays for the plaintiffs continued enjoyment of those man-made lakes adjacent to their properties is a policy and political decision  not a legal decision.

Nothing in GBRAs enabling act requires the agency to maintain and repair dams, Sales said. But the river authority has the power to dispose of its own property, he told the judge.

On ExpressNews.com: Courtroom quest to limit GBRAs spending fails

Attorneys for the property owners said the Texas Administrative Code declares GBRA shall be responsible for operating and maintaining the dams in a safe manner. But the agency has intentionally mismanaged the dams for almost 60 years and allowed them to degrade to where they can no longer be repaired, they argued.

This was a self-inflicted wound for which GBRA is entirely responsible, the homeowners attorneys wrote in court filings.

Express-News file photo

They also said the plaintiffs paid permit fees to the GBRA, which contributed to dam maintenance, and that the agency demanded homeowners follow construction requirements while encouraging them to make hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements to their waterfront properties.

In court filings, Sutter noted that GBRA cant dispose of or abandon its dams without decommissioning them as required by state law, which is not an easy task. Such a move, he said, requires feasibility studies, hearings before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and public notice.

Sutter said the agency has spent millions of dollars on other pursuits and large salaries during the nearly 58 years it has owned the dams. He told the judge the agency prefers to let them fail and is de facto destroying them by halting maintenance in a bid to avoid the decommissioning process.

Homeowners at Lake Dunlap have created a water control and improvement district that, if approved by voters in November, will impose a tax to pay for that dams replacement. GBRA has also reached preliminary agreements for such districts to be established around Lake McQueeney and Lake Placid. Those also will go to voters for approval in November.

A separate lawsuit filed against GBRA by five Lake Placid residents and five Lake McQueeney residents was recently settled, contingent on voter approval in those respective districts. Those property owners were represented by San Antonio attorney Ricardo Cedillo.

Peggy OHare covers demographics, the census and occasionally crime and general assignment stories in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Peggy, become a subscriber. pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: @Peggy_OHare
NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GoldenTree Loan Management II ("GLM II") and its affiliated investment manager GoldenTree Asset Management (along with other affiliated investment managers "GoldenTree"), announced the closing of a $443 million collateralized loan obligation ("CLO") to be managed by GLM II. With the closing of this CLO, GoldenTree Loan Management US CLO 8 ("GLM US CLO 8"), GoldenTree has issued 13 CLOs totaling $7.5 billion under its GLM CLO strategy. Since its inception in January 2017, the GLM strategy was intended to be compliant with applicable Risk Retention regulations. While a US Court of Appeals ruling on February 9, 2018 led to repeal of risk retention for open market CLOs, GLM CLOs are intended to continue to comply with European Risk Retention regulations.

GLM US CLO 8 will initially be backed by a 93% ramped $419 million portfolio of senior secured loans as of closing and will have a three-year reinvestment period and a one-year non call period. The CLO was arranged by a bank syndicate including Wells Fargo Securities as structuring lead, and BofA Securities and Morgan Stanley as co-leads. The syndicate globally distributed the investment grade rated notes issued by the CLO, while GLM II invested in the CLO's equity and lower rated notes.

GLM US CLO 8 issued $279 million of AAA rated senior notes with a coupon of L+1.55%, along with lower rated senior, mezzanine and junior notes, for an overall weighted average floating rate coupon of L+2.12%. The CLO also issued $14 million AA fixed rate notes with a coupon of 2.44%.

Since its inception in 2000, GoldenTree has issued over $17.5 billion of CLOs/CBOs, with $10 billion currently outstanding. GoldenTree's investment team is comprised of 60 individuals covering over 20 industries and having, on average, 16 years of experience. In addition, GoldenTree has been an active investor in structured credit since 2007 and currently manages over $5.5 billion of structured products investments across the firm.

About GoldenTree

GoldenTree is an employee-owned, global asset management firm that specializes in opportunities across the credit universe in sectors such as high yield bonds, leveraged loans, distressed debt, structured products, emerging markets, private equity and credit-themed equities. GoldenTree was founded in 2000 and is one of the largest independent asset managers focused on credit. GoldenTree manages over $34 billion for institutional investors including leading public and corporate pensions, endowments, foundations, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds. For more information, please visit www.goldentree.com.

SOURCE GoldenTree Asset Management

Related Links

https://www.goldentree.com/


File photo

A man identified as Collins Osagie has been killed by about five naval officers over a dispute on N250.

According to SaharaReporters, Osagie, 34, a mechanical engineer, was trying to settle a dispute between a naval officer, Awosanya Olufemi, and a spare parts seller when he was killed.

The naval officer with tag number X8921 was angry that Osagie tried to settle the dispute and called his colleagues to brutalise him, eyewitnesses explained to SaharaReporters.

Osagie was severely assaulted and left for the dead by the officers before he was rushed to a hospital where he eventually died of complications and internal bleeding.

Sunday, a relative of Osagie, who spoke with SaharaReporters, narrated the incident, saying Osagie was working in the area when he heard a noise and stepped in to intervene and settle the matter.



While he was working for one of his customers in the area, the naval officer and a spare part seller were arguing over a plug of N250. The naval officer came to return a plug he bought the previous day but the seller did not want to collect it.

Osagie went there to settle the fight, he brought out N250 from his pocket to settle the matter but the naval officer said he embarrassed him by trying to give him the money.

He then called four of his colleagues to come to the place. The seller got to know that he has called his colleagues and quickly ran away.

When the colleague arrived, the naval officer, Olufemi, pointed to Osagie, that is how they started beating him.

People told them that Osagie was not involved and he only came to settle the fight, so they rescued him, Sunday explained.

He added that not satisfied with the assault on Osagie, the soldiers waylaid him at night when he was going home and further brutalised him and left him for the dead.

He said, When he was going home at night, unknowingly to him, the soldiers hung around and waylaid him.

They descended on him again and beat him mercilessly, hitting him with sticks.

They left him there bleeding while some Hausas who sleep around rushed him to Kena Hospital, Isashi, but he did not survive as he bled so much and sustained internal injuries.

Sunday said the issue had been reported with the naval officer arrested and currently detained at the Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, for further interrogation.

He, appealed to the government to ensure that the naval officer, Olufemi, produced his colleagues and they are all made to face the full weight of the law.

He added that the family had lost fate in the Investigative Police Officer, who was simply identified as Lukmon, due to his unnecessary financial demands.



We reported the matter to the police and Olufemi has been arrested.

Since the arrest was made, the police had kept quiet, they did not say anything again and the Navy has not reached out to us about anything.

We want the government to intervene and ensure that we get justice.

The matter should be moved to court and he and his colleagues should face the law, he said.

Confirming the incident, Bala Elkana, spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, said they were aware and investigation on the matter was currently ongoing.



We have commenced investigation into the case. Investigation is ongoing, he said.
To many spirit drinkers, Jack Daniels is a legendary Tennessee whiskey named after the man who founded the best-selling drink.

When Daniels was a kid, he worked for a distiller named Dan Call and, for years, many believed that Daniels learned the art of making whiskey directly from Call. However, over 150 years after the famous whiskey brand was founded, it was revealed that Daniels did not learn distilling from his employer  he learned how to make the prized spirit from Nathan "Nearest" Green, a Black man who was enslaved by Call.

According to Fawn Weaver, an author and entrepreneur, Green was the country's first African American master distiller. When the story was first made public, however, many wondered why Green was left out of the history books. The answer remains unclear.

"When (Jack and his descendants) owned the distillery, everyone knew who Nearest Green was," Weaver told Al Roker during an interview for the 3rd hour of TODAY. "After the last of his descendants to run the distillery, Reagor Motlow ... died in '78, the story disappeared immediately after. I could not tell you how or why. The only thing I know is it didn't happen under Jack Daniel's watch."

Weaver first learned about Daniels' teacher four years ago when the New York Times published an article about the 150th anniversary of the beloved American brand when Jack Daniels' historians finally revealed the true story about its founder.

Story continues

The article featured a photo of Daniels sitting next to a Black man. Weaver worked with the town of Lynchburg, where Green and Daniels lived, to find out exactly who the man was.

During Al's interview with Weaver, he learned about how she is cementing Green's legacy for generations to come. In 2017, Weaver connected with Victoria Butler, a descendent of Green, and they decided to start a distillery: Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.

Based in Shelbyville, Tennessee, the distillery makes premium whiskies using a recipe from the 19th century.

Related: Ryan Reynolds is the latest famous face to make a ton of money by selling a premium spirits brand.

Weaver founded the brand three years ago and spoke with Green's family about how best to honor their ancestor.

"And the consensus was, his name should be on a bottle," Weaver said.

In September 2019, the Nearest Green Distillery opened for visitors. While it is temporarily closed to the public due to coronavirus pandemic, future visitors will be able to book founders' tours, bus tours and VIP tastings.

Even though the property makes alcohol, Weaver said the distillery has something for people of all ages.

"The distillery itself was envisioned not just as a place for people who are going to go to drink whiskey, she said. If you have a grandmother whos a teetotaler or you have an 11 year old, there is going to be something for everyone no matter the age.

Butler also spoke with Al and revealed that she had known for her "whole life" Green mentored Daniels.

"As odd as it might seem, I really believe that whiskey is in my blood," she said.

Butler said reflecting on her great-great-grandfather and his legacy was "very emotional."

"I would like to think that he is proud of that fact that, after more than 160-plus years, the world if finally knowin' his name, and his contribution to the spirits industry," she said.
Rules on the run I can get on a bus or train, or go to the pub, club, the footy, Bunnings or Woolies, but not to my son's graduation ("Calls for COVID-safe graduations", August 21). Though I appreciate all of the safeguards which stop the spread of COVID-19, too many of these rules appear to be made up on the run and without any scientific basis. Peter Mahoney, Oatley The solution for holding year 12 formals is clear. The NRL is talking about a 50,000-plus crowd for the grand final. Obviously, students should hold them at football games. Pam Newton, Dee Why Who in the world should be the first to receive a vaccine when it is ready (Letters, August 21)? The answer is obvious. It is our footballers, of course. They play such an important role in society and need to be protected. (Tongue firmly in cheek). Neil Quinn, Vincentia

Fix your own house first Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: Scott Morrison should not shove responsibility to Daniel Andrews for COVID-19 outbreaks in aged care facilities (''Secret report flagged age care workforce woes in April'', August 20). He should be asked to explain why the rates of infection were so much higher in private facilities, for which Canberra is responsible, than in state-run homes. Perhaps staffing levels have something to do with it. Madeleine McPherson, Wollstonecraft Coalition wilfully blind to the writing on the wall In the space of one week, BHP announces divestment of its coal mining interests, the National Farmers Federation sets ambitious carbon emission targets and AGL starts work on replacing its coal-fired power station at Liddell with 500 megawatts of battery storage ("AGL prepares to pull plug on Liddell site", August 21). Meanwhile, our federal government babbles obsolete arguments in defence of doing nothing of substance to combat climate change. The National COVID-19 Commission Advisory Board, hand-picked by the Morrison government to plan our economic future, is stacked with ties to the fossil fuel sector. If the federal government is so set on flouting the wishes of both the public and big business, just whose interests is it representing? There is no herd immunity to climate change. Bruce Spence, Balmain

The NFF, an organisation not prone to the soy latte sipping persuasions of the inner city, is now officially committed to farming within global agreements on warming (Letters, August 21). An historic moment in the case against doing nothing. Lets hope this latest commitment to zero may trigger something beyond the standard zero response by this horribly nostalgic administration. David Gunter, Sydney Your correspondents take the view that the current PM does not "get" the importance of climate change. Maybe so. But what the PM really understands is the short-termism of the Australian political system and the need to fund election campaigns. First things first. John Hinde, Millers Point Robyn Lewis says agricultural land is being ruined by coal mines and the NFFs next step is to convince governments to not approve any more coal or gas exploration. There is a simple way for NFF members to achieve this: dont vote for Nationals candidates. As distasteful as this may be to NFF members, they would need to do it just once to get their message across and normal voting patterns could be resumed at following elections. Trevor McCarroll, Foxground STEM plan comes too late to be useful Why hasn't the Education Department carefully planned any strategy to "address the lack of maths, science and technology teachers in NSW" (''Fast track for older workers to teaching'', August 21)? It's doubtful that enough "mid-career" mathematicians, scientists and engineers would consider a "leap into education" of high school students, and undertake yet more training and education, and its costs or debts, with a teacher's salary in return. Further, the horse has bolted on improving STEM education by the time students are in high school. Robyn Dalziell, Kellyville

Good to read of efforts to attract new teachers. A simpler solution would be to attract back teachers who are already qualified and experienced, but due to career breaks or working overseas, have not remained registered. This is exactly the situation of my sister and myself. To be re-registered we have to complete several expensive university courses at our own expense. Needless to say, we both now work in other fields. Perhaps, if the fees were waived, many talented teachers could be re-employed.

Anne Halpin, Mt Riverview The plan to encourage mid-career workers into teaching deserves scrutiny before being put into practice. In the rush to halt the slide in our global STEM outcomes, the risk is that instead of gaining better results in these areas, children will be subject to learning from those who may be academically well-equipped but quite inadequate in an understanding of child developmental psychology or passion for teaching, without which it is possible to turn a child away from any interest in these subjects and worsen the current situation. Teaching is about far more than just getting good results. Judy Finch, Cedar Party Whatever the ATAR requirement, the salary of teachers should be up there with the highest in the land. For so many of our teachers, teaching is not just a job, it is a vocation.

Teachers have at their fingertips the power to change the world and transform lives. They are among the very best and yet they have to endure more scrutiny, more misjudgment and more abuse than the laziest of loafers in other professions. Rosalind Winterton, Maroubra Spend some time The suggestion for retirees to spend their money is sound (''Let's help retirees to spend more of their nest eggs'', August 21). The problem is, COVID-19 has stymied that plan. The economy, and future generations, need the money to flow. However, until a workable life and economic balance is struck, this will be very difficult. Sally Spurr, Lane Cove

Bannon fraud charge The news that Steve Bannon has been arrested and charged for fraud comes as no surprise (''Steve Bannon, architect of Trump's 2016 win charged over alleged border-wall fraud'', smh.com.au, August 21). He always struck me as a conman with the gift of the gab. That's why he and Donald Trump had such a natural affinity. They are birds of a feather. Rajend Naidu, Glenfield Democratic overreach Does anyone seriously believe that democracy is in peril should Donald Trump be re-elected president of the United States (''Democracy is at stake: Obama, Harris take the fight to voters'', August 21)? Such ridiculous hyperbole has the potential to backfire on the Democratic Party in its chase for enough votes to defeat Trump. Riley Brown, Bondi Beach Poisoned, naturally

Another critic of Vladimir Putin is mysteriously poisoned (''Putin rival in coma, tainted tea suspected'', August 21). The doctor who attended to him says that one of the possibilities is ''natural poisoning''. I think a more accurate assessment would be that, naturally, he was poisoned. Edward Lange, Ashfield Russia, with about 145 million people, ranks world fourth in per capita tea consumption. A huge amount every day and unlike vodka, we dont hear many reports of adverse health effects. The only person reportedly becoming ill after drinking tea in Russia is the unfortunate leader of the opposition. Surely that must be a statistical abnormality. Geoffrey Williamson, Woollahra Some like it hot Yes, Karen Andrews, good news for those whose livelihood depends on the ocean temperature (Marine heatwave warning system a boom for aquaculture, August 21). Although a clever use of technology, isnt it akin to building sophisticated watchtowers to give early warning to advancing bushfires? The political spin Minister, is a little obvious. Great news would be the incumbent government doing an about-turn, dumping its entrenched ideology, reading the evidence, listening to scientists warnings and addressing the causes of climate change. Surely not too much to ask of our elected leaders. Cleveland Rose, Dee Why

A new word order I have recently been made aware of additions to the language whereby I can ''ventriloquise'' and thus use someone's words in a different context or indeed offer an ''apologism'' on their behalf if they have failed to do so. But just this week it seemed I might be ''decanted'' from my retirement village. Fortunately, I have just had a phone call and I am to be ''onboarded'' to a carer. Relief as I update my dictionary. John Crowe, Cherrybrook Worth repeating There are many terrific women writers (and their books) to revisit (''Here's one for the pages'', August 20). Eleanor Darks Storm of Time, Elyne Mitchells Silver Brumby, Chris McCourts The Cleansing of Mahommed and Kate Grenvilles Secret River are just a few that I have re-read every few years. And they never fail to move and delight me. Jane Waddy, Boronia Park FriDAy, my favourite

I hemmed and hawed this morning. So much so, my coffee went cold. Adore Fridays (Crossword, August 21). Marion Dinan, Heathcote Holey trinity Michael Deeth, you forgot to request a pair of white Y-fronts to go with your Stubbies and blue singlet for Father's Day (Letters, August 21). Con Vaitsas, Ashbury Sounds of nostalgia To Allan Gibson's list, could I add the scratch of the pencils on our slates and the swish of the nun's ruler heading towards our reluctant hand (Letters, August 21)? Louise Dolan, Birchgrove

Step away from the avocado When dealing with anyone likely to impair an avocado, dont speak to them in Hass tones, just Shepard them away (Letters, August 21). Doug Walker, Baulkham Hills OK, you avocado police: If one can't touch them, how does one test the ripeness?

Ian Aldridge, Goulburn Postscript A new era began for The Sydney Morning Herald this week, as we moved into our new headquarters across the harbour in North Sydney. It's the masthead's fourth move in 25 years, moving from 235 Jones Street, Broadway to 1 Denison Street, North Sydney, with stopovers at Darling Park and Pyrmont in-between. Many of us continue to work from home, to ensure our colleagues who need to be in the office are in a COVID-safe environment.
A top U.S. health regulator who will help decide the fate of a coronavirus vaccine has vowed to resign if the Trump administration approves a vaccine before it is shown to be safe and effective, Reuters has learned.

Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, made the statement in response to concerns raised on a conference call late last week of government officials, pharmaceutical executives and academics who serve on a vaccine working group organized by the National Institutes of Health, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

When contacted by Reuters, Marks confirmed the account.

Scientists, public health officials and lawmakers are worried that the Trump administration will pressure the FDA to authorize a Covid-19 vaccine in advance of the November presidential election, even if data from clinical trials do not support its widespread use.

Marks told Reuters he has not faced any political pressure and that the FDA would be guided by science alone. Should that change, "I could not stand by and see something that was unsafe or ineffective that was being put through," Marks said.

"You have to decide where your red line is, and that's my red line," he said. "I would feel obligated (to resign) because in doing so, I would indicate to the American public that there's something wrong."

He added that he would equally object if someone sought political gain by holding up approval of a vaccine that was shown to work, and that was safe.

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees FDA and NIH, said the government aims to identify a safe and effective vaccine by January 2021.

Speculation about the FDA approving a vaccine under political pressure "only undermines confidence in the public health system," Caputo said in a statement. "I've never met one FDA regulator who wouldn't resign over improper pressure, and that's how America knows their seal of approval is the gold standard."

The FDA declined to comment on the meeting.

President Donald Trump's approval ratings have fallen sharply in the wake of a pandemic that has killed more than 173,000 Americans and infected over 5.5 million. The race to produce a vaccine has become the centerpiece of his administration's response.

Earlier this month, Trump said a vaccine was possible before the Nov. 3 vote.

In a statement on Thursday, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said that under Marks' leadership, the agency's scientists are monitoring the Covid-19 vaccine trials, "the data from which will be the deciding factor for any FDA approval."

Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has also said publicly that political considerations will not influence any decision on a coronavirus vaccine.
Aditya Pancholi Reminds Kangana Of Her Promise

The actor told the news channel, "Tell her to return it now because she is wrong about Sushant Singh Rajput. His father filed a report in Patna in which there is no angle of nepotism mentioned. He clearly said that Section 306 is on Rhea. When Kangana was naming industry people, she actually wasted everyone's time."

Aditya Pancholi On Kangana Ranaut's Statements Post Sushant's Death

The actor took a jibe at the Queen actress and said, "Jis thaali mein khate hain usme chhed nahi karte hain (Do not dig a hole in the same plate you eat in).

Aditya Says Kangana Is Not Supposed To Talk About Him And His Family

Aditya said, "Kya bol sakte hai uss aurat ke baare main, uspar humara defamation case bhi chal rha hai, (What can we say about this woman. We have a defamation case going on against her). She is not supposed to talk about me and my family."

For those who don't know, Kangana Ranaut had accused Aditya Pancholi of assault. In an interview with NDTV, she had claimed that the actor had hit her hard and left her bleeding. Later, Aditya filed several defamation cases against Kangana and her sister Rangoli Chandel.

Aditya Pancholi Also Reacted To His Son Sooraj Pancholi's Name Dragged In Sushant Singh Rajput And Disha Salian's Death Case

The actor lashed out, "One foolish guy posted and all this major media picked it up and made it into an issue. This is not fair. Everyone has to be responsible, we had to go through so much pain." He further said that his son had to turn his comments off as he was heavily trolled and called a "murderer."
8VC, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm, named Dr. Francisco Gimenez as partner.

Gimenez originally joined predecessor firm Formation 8 in 2014 as the Data-Scientist-in-Residence and has been a key member of the team since 2016 when 8VC launched. Alongside his work with data and smart enterprise platforms, he has helped develop and execute the firms focus on the convergence of biology and technology. Gimenez and colleagues have helped 8VC partner with companies defining technology powered innovation in the biosciences including Synthego, Mantra Biosciences, Sirona Medical, Unlearn.ai, Cambium Biomaterials, BigHat Biosciences, Senti Biosciences, and SyntheX.

Gimenez previously was the Data-Scientist-in-Residence at Formation 8 where he worked with portfolio companies to strategize, prototype, and recruit for data products. He was the founder of Catenus Science, a data science consulting and recruiting firm that used an apprenticeship model to help early stage companies build data science teams.

Gimenez received his Ph.D. from Stanford in Biomedical Informatics, where he was a Ruth L. Kirchstein Fellow. His research focused on clinical decision support for radiology which won him the Martin Epstein award for best paper at the American Medical Informatics Association in 2014. He was the commencement speaker for the Stanford School of Medicine in 2015.

Prior to that, he received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley while doing research in Parkinsons disease at UCSF.

Founded by entrepreneur and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale with $3.5 billion in assets under management, 8VC is a technology investment firm backing industry-transforming companies in smart enterprise platforms across industries including financial services, healthcare, logistics and others, and Bio-IT. The predecessor firm Formation 8 was founded in 2012 and today, manages $1.1 billion in committed capital. 8VC was founded in 2016 and manages $2.4 billion in committed capital.

FinSMEs

20/08/2020
Brad Pitt and Harry Styles sharing one screen for a film are like collaborating two epic worlds in one.

Brad Pitt is one of the biggest names in Hollywood and one of the greatest actors in history. On the other hand, Harry Styles is a great musician who recently ventured into acting and succeeded in his first role.

Harry debuted his acting career when he joined the 2017 blockbuster film "Dunkirk" and starred alongside Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, and Tom Hardy. The movie gained a massive $500 million gross and also earned several recognitions.

Having both men in one movie would not only be a blockbuster dream come true but will also result in endorphin fireworks from millions of girls going gaga over Brad and Harry.

That is why when Vertice Cine announced that Brad Pitt and Harry Styles would star alongside each other for an epic movie, fans could not help but go wild.

According to the Latin-American and European movie distributor, the 56-year-old A-list actor and 26-year-old former "One Direction" member will star in a movie called "Faster, Cheaper, Better."

Vertice Cine announced the collaboration on Wednesday as they reveal the casting for the upcoming film on the virtual Cannes Film Festival.

Based on the announcement, the film will highlight the trucking industry and how artificial intelligence will transform the world.

The film synopsis suggests that it will tackle the "inevitable changes that are coming in the trucking industry, weighing the possibility of an industry without humans onboard the vehicles."

"The film spans 20 years in multiple locations with intertwined stories of countless characters including a union boss, a young businessman, an inland farm manager, and a tech millionaire whose lives are cut short when the automation and artificial intelligence transform the world as we know it," the synopsis continued.

Aside from Brad Pitt and Harry Styles, the film distributor also confirmed that "Faster, Cheaper, Better" will be directed by Dan Gilroy.

As soon as the announcement went viral on social media, fans of both hotties went wild over the excitement of seeing these good looking men together on one screen.

"Brad Pitt & Harry Styles in one movie. Just imagine the power. The excellence," one fan wrote.

"'Brad Pitt and Harry Styles. Together in a MOVIE. Do y'all know the POWER it will hold. The most attractive cast me thinks," another one added.

And in true Twitter fashion, the Brad Pitt-Harry Styles collaboration also gave birth to tons of memes and funny reactions from excited fans.

But after a few hours after turning the Twitter world upside down, representatives of both Brad and Harry broke the heart of fans after clarifying their participation on the said film

According to ET Canada, Brad Pitt's representative said that the movie collaboration report is "false."

At the same time, Harry's camp told Vanity Fair that there is no truth that he will appear on the said movie.

READ MORE: Jennifer Aniston Admits Irrational Fear of Red Carpet Events During Private Break Down
Over the past few months, Scott Disick has seemingly been spending more and more time with Kourtney Kardashian. The former couple is often seen hanging out and has even been going on vacations along with their three children: Mason, 10, Penelope, 8, and Reign, 5. With the way things are going, one might wonder: Where does this leave his relationship with his on-off girlfriend Sofia Richie? Find out where these two stand and more, ahead.

Scott Disick and Sofia Richie at an event in October 2018 | Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images

A quick timeline of Scott Disicks relationship with Sofia Richie

Disick began dating Richie about two years after his split from Kardashian, which came in 2015 after photos emerged showing him with other women. He and Richie were together for nearly three years until their split in May 2020. The breakup came a few weeks after Disick spent some time in a Colorado rehab facility for what his lawyer said was emotional issues.

There wasnt a fight or anything bad that happened between them, Richie just wants to do her own thing while Disick take[s] care of his health, a source told E! News at the time.

Sofia thinks Scott has a lot on his plate right now and thinks its best for them to be apart so he can focus on himself, the source continued. She is only looking out for him and his best interest and it was primarily her decision for them to split. Sofia has been spending time with her family and has taken majority of her stuff out of Scotts house.

RELATED: Report Says Scott Disick and Sofia Richie Broke Up Due to His Love for Kourtney Kardashian

Scott Disick has been spending more time with Kourtney Kardashian

In the weeks after his split from Richie, Disick has been seen with Kardashian on multiple occasions, including on a May trip to Utah. Recently, they allegedly joined Kylie Jenner on a getaway to Turks and Caicos for her 23rd birthday on Aug. 10, before jetting off to Idaho for a family trip with their kids.

Sources have said that Disick has simply been relying on close family and friends like Kardashian as he works through his issues. But their closeness has spawned rumors that they are secretly back together. Neither of them has addressed the speculation so far, but sources have said that they are nothing more than co-parents and best friends.

RELATED: Fans Think Kourtney Kardashian Is Wearing Scott Disicks Shirt in New Instagram Photo

Where Scott Disicks relationship with Sofia Richie stands now

Amid Disicks hangouts with Kardashian, a source spoke to E! News in a report published on Aug. 18 and said: Things havent been great between them. Scotts been spending every day with Kourtney and the kids and has been vacationing with her. Things are always tense between Scott and Sofia when he goes away without her. But at the same time, the insider said the model has become more independent of Scott.

The news comes after July reports that they were possibly on the verge of a reconciliation. Of those rumors, the insider added that Disick and Richie are still in contact and have seen each other multiple times in the last month, but are not as inseparable as before. The source also noted that the two arent taking their relationship as seriously this time around.

As of writing, none of them have addressed the report. But regardless, we wish them all the best.
NAIROBI, Kenya  Doctors in public hospitals say they have not been paid, some for as long as six months. Theyre furious that theyve been given faulty protective gear, or none at all. Hundreds of government health workers have fallen sick with the coronavirus, and yet many say their medical insurance was cut in July, just when hospitals became overwhelmed with cases.

The situation in Kenyas public hospitals is so dire that thousands of doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians in at least three counties walked off the job this month. On Friday, they were joined by more than 300 doctors working in 20 public facilities in Nairobi, the countrys capital, and thousands more across the country are threatening to strike in September if their demands are not met.

The crisis comes as infections are surging, particularly in cities like Nairobi, and intensive care units in hospitals are filling up with coronavirus patients. The pandemic is now straining medical workers to the breaking point in a country known for having one of the better health care systems in Africa, experts say.

Doctors are not martyrs, Thuranira Kaugiria, secretary-general of the Nairobi branch of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, said in an interview  a line he has since adopted as a hashtag. Doctors are not children of a lesser God.
Photo: The Canadian Press Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair responds to a question during a news conference in Ottawa.

Ottawa is appealing a court ruling that struck down a key agreement on refugees between Canada and the United States, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said Friday.

The Federal Court of Canada ruled last month that elements of the law underpinning the pact violate the constitutional guarantee of life, liberty and security.

The declaration of invalidity was suspended for six months, leaving the law in place until mid-January.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, which took effect in 2004, Canada and the U.S. recognize each other as safe places to seek protection.

It means Canada can turn back potential refugees who arrive at land ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they must pursue their claims in the U.S., the country where they first arrived.

In a statement, Blair said Friday there are factual and legal errors in some of the Federal Court's key findings. "There are important legal principles to be determined in this case, and it is the responsibility of the Government of Canada to appeal to ensure clarity on the legal framework governing asylum law."

Canadian refugee advocates have firmly opposed the deal, arguing the U.S. is not always a safe country for people fleeing persecution.

Several refugee claimants took the case to court along with the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches and Amnesty International, who participated in the proceedings as public interest parties.

In each case the applicants, who are citizens of El Salvador, Ethiopia and Syria, arrived at a Canadian land entry port from the U.S. and sought refugee protection.

They argued in court that by returning ineligible refugee claimants to the U.S., Canada exposes them to risks in the form of detention and other rights violations.

In her decision, Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald concluded that the Safe Third Country Agreement results in ineligible claimants being imprisoned by U.S. authorities.

Detention and the consequences flowing from it are "inconsistent with the spirit and objective" of the refugee agreement and amount to a violation of the rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the charter, she wrote.

"The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the U.S. by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty."

The public interest parties who took part in the case immediately called on the federal government to stop sending people back to the U.S. under the agreement, and to not appeal the court decision.

In his statement, Blair said the agreement with the U.S. "remains a comprehensive vehicle" to uphold a compassionate, fair and orderly refugee protection system, based on the principle that people should claim asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive.

Canada "continues to engage actively" with Washington on the refugee pact, ensuring the agreement reflects Canada's commitment to its international obligations, "while continuously co-operating on how we manage our shared border," he added.
A grandmother who married her illegal immigrant lodger who is half her age is now campaigning to bring him back to the UK because she's not seen him since their honeymoon nine years ago.

Divorced mother-of-two Rita Keddle, 62, of Brecon, South Wales, was in her early forties when she rented a room to Mahendra Jugjali who was just 22 and visiting from Kathmandu in Nepal.

They became lovers and lived happily together for nine years until Rita discovered Mahendra was an illegal immigrant with a wife and three children. He was deported back to Nepal where he got a divorce so that he could marry Rita and be with her in Britain.

But the Nepalese Government banned him from leaving the country for five years as punishment for coming to the UK illegally in 2001 and the British Government blocked his visitor's application because of concerns he wouldn't leave the UK.

Rita has now revealed that it has been nine years since she saw her husband, revealing: 'We've tried everything but the governments of both countries have blocked my husband from coming here. I worry sometimes that I'll forget what he looks like.'

Divorced mother-of-two Rita Keddle, 62, of Brecon, South Wales, was in her early forties when she rented a room to Mahendra Jugjali (pictured together on their wedding day) who was just 22 and visiting from Kathmandu in Nepal

Rita said: 'We speak on the phone all the time and he wants to come here so we can spend the rest of our lives together.'

The pair have been advised to apply for a Partner's Visa and are hoping both governments will finally reunite them in the UK.

Morrisons supermarket worker Rita said their love has grown stronger despite spending their nine-year marriage more than 5,000 miles apart.

The pair were living at Rita's quaint cottage in 2010, with Mahendra working at a nearby hotel when she discovered he was a married man living in the UK illegally.

They became lovers and lived happily together until Rita discovered Mahendra was an illegal immigrant with a wife and three children. He was deported back to Nepal where he got a divorce so he could marry Rita (pictured recently) and be with her in Britain

Rita said: 'I was mortified, just gobsmacked - he'd hidden it so well.

'I had no idea he'd entered the UK illegally. He did once say he'd come to Britain on a lorry, but I had no idea that he had no legal right to be here.

'After he flew home I didn't hear from him again for six months. My two sons told me to forget about him, because I would never hear from him again.

'I told myself I'd have to face it. I had no contact details for him, no way of getting in touch with him.'

But six months later Mahendra rang to say he had divorced his wife because he was still in love with Rita and wanted to marry her.

Rita saved up the 1,000 air fare for her first ever long-haul flight and Mahendra was waiting to greet her at the airport with a garland of flowers, a traditional Nepalese welcome.

They were wed at a register office in Kathmandu on 3 May 2011 and, after a week's honeymoon, Rita flew home to wait for her new husband to join her in Wales.

The mother-of-two said: 'That was the last time I saw him - we are still man and wife but we live our lives together on the phone.

'He tells me he still loves me and wants to be here with me to spend the rest of our lives together.

'He is a really lovely man - the kind most women spend all their lives looking for and never find.

But the Nepalese Government banned him from leaving the country for five years as punishment for coming to the UK illegally in 2001. Then the British Government blocked his visitor's application because of concerns he wouldn't leave here. Pictured, Rita recently

'He is so caring, gentle and thoughtful and had wonderful manners. We have a deep and loving relationship - we just want to be together.'

Rita, who lives alone with her pet Jack Russell called Gerry, is battling to get her 42-year-old husband to the UK in time for their 10th wedding anniversary.

She said: 'We can't work out if it is the Nepalese authorities being difficult or the UK government. I don't think they'll ever forgive him because he came over illegally.

'Because of the age gap they think we just had a marriage of convenience to get him a visa. But it's not like that.

'We lived together for nearly nine years before we got married. Surely this is about our human rights now.'

Rita has lobbied Brecon MP Roger Williams and and Welsh Senedd member Kirsty Williams but says her efforts are being blocked and the cost of lawyers and the constant disappointments have left her with nowhere to turn.

She said: 'I've told him I'm going to get him over here one day, even if it's over my dead body. He might have to come to my funeral but I'll get him here.'

A Home Office spokesperson said: 'Mr Jugjali applied twice for a standard visitor visa, and was refused entry because we were not satisfied that he intended to leave the UK after his visit.

'Mr Jugjali has previously been returned to Nepal on a voluntary basis at public expense for illegally entering and working in the UK.'

Rita has been advised to apply for a Partner Visa for her husband but must ensure the requirements of immigration rules are met.
Close watch needed on sudden change in NK



The country's intelligence agency triggered a controversy by reporting that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has partially delegated his authority to his younger sister Kim Yo-jong. The National Intelligence Agency (NIS) also said Kim was sharing some of his power with close aides.



Lawmakers belonging to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee quoted the NIS as saying the aides include Pak Pong-ju, vice chairman of the State Affairs Commission, and the new premier Kim Tok-hun who will be in charge of economic affairs. Others are Choe Pu-il and Ri Pyong-chol, who were tasked with domestic and military affairs. Kim Yo-jong, currently first vice director of the Workers' Party's Central Committee, will be in charge of overall affairs with South Korea and the United States, according to the NIS.



The disclosure came during a closed-door briefing to the Assembly committee, Aug. 20. The lawmakers quoted the NIS as saying Kim Jong-un's recent move, however, had nothing to do with his health, adding the partial power transfer did not necessarily mean Kim had picked his sister as his successor.



The NIS said Kim was apparently sharing power to relieve him of some of the stress entailed in controlling state affairs and to avoid responsibility in the event of policy failures. Kim has been ruling the reclusive nation for nine years since 2011 following the sudden death of his father Kim Jong-il. Kim Yo-jong has continued to raise her voice on issues related to South Korea including the threat to destroy the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesung.



The agency's explanation seems feasible as Pyongyang acknowledged its shortcomings in economic affairs; in particular the North has been complaining of the ongoing sanctions imposed by the United States. In addition, it has been suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic and heavy rain, which have wreaked havoc on its economy. Kim Jong-un said his country faces "unexpected and inevitable challenges ahead" and will come up with a package of measures to heal the economic debacle early next year.



Though the NIS denied Kim had health problems, some experts raise this possibility, citing the rareness of power delegation in North Korea. For instance, former lawmaker and North Korea expert Jang Sung-min asserted Kim Jong-un has been in a coma, unable "to rule" the North. "Kim's leadership has been missing and the delegation of power cannot be imagined in such a country," he said in a statement on Facebook.



It remains to be seen whether the power delegation in the North is taking place as the NIS claims. But we also need to keep a close watch on the possibility of any sudden change in the reclusive state such as a collapse of Kim Jong-un, which will have a huge impact upon regional security.


Two Philippine bishops are calling on the Catholic community not to stigmatize those hit by Covid-19 but to show them support and care with prayers and messages.

By Robin Gomes

As cases of Covid-19 continue to surge in the Philippines, two bishops have appealed to Catholics to put an end to discrimination against those who have been hit by the virus.

Stigma of leprosy and coronavirus

Bishop Broderick Pabillo, Apostolic Vicar of Manila Archdiocese, noted there is a growing stigmatization of people with COVID-19 similar to leprosy at the time of Jesus.

While leprosy can be seen externally and the new coronavirus is invisible to the human eye, they both have the same effect on people, he said.

Both keep the infected away from other people. They are avoided by others, even by people close to them. There is a strong fear of infection in both cases, largely because of the unknown nature of the disease.

Bishop Pabillo explained that the infection is often blamed on the supposed carelessness of those who acquired the disease. In both [leprosy and COVID-19], he said, there is a stigma attached.

Prayers and support for those infected

The 65-year old bishop, who himself has recovered from Covid-19, recalled he was overwhelmed with messages of sympathy and promises of prayer when he tested positive.

I truly believe that these prayers really helped. They did not only boost my spirit, but I am sure God heard them, said the bishop.

Bishop Pabillo said that even while following health protocols, the Church community should not shy away from those infected but find creative ways to ensure the infected and the healed are not stigmatized.

He appealed to the public to instead send messages of solidarity and care to those who are infected, as well as provide them food and reading material.

Bishop Babillo underscored the spiritual help that the Christian faith provides, saying, In all this, God loves us and our life is in His hands.

End discrimination

Bishop Patricio Buzon of Bacolod also appealed for an end to Covid-related hate, which casts patients as modern lepers.

All over the world, he noted, people are discriminated against because of colour, culture, belief, religion, and all kinds of differences.

Prayers for healing of the country

The 70-year old bishop appealed for prayers for the countrys healing and for frontliners as cases of the new coronavirus disease continue to increase in the country.

The Philippine health ministry on Thursday reported 4,339 new coronavirus infections and 88 additional deaths. With this, the total number of confirmed cases in the country has risen to 178,022, while deaths have totaled 2,883. The Philippines has the most COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia and the region's second-highest death toll, after Indonesia.

Currently, the Catholic Church in the Philippine is in the midst of a month-long of collective prayer campaign for the end to the pandemic, the healing of the country and an end to the lockdown. With these intentions in mind, the Commissions on Seminaries and on Catechesis and Catholic Education of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) urged teachers, educators, seminary professors, seminarians and the Catholic faithful to pray ten "Hail Marys" every day at 12.00, from August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption, to September 15 the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The Philippine government on Wednesday relaxed a strict lockdown in the capital and nearby provinces, allowing more business establishments to resume operations. However, a curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. was implemented in Metro Manila, as mayors sought stricter measures to contain the rise in coronavirus infections.
The Western Union Company WU recently collaborated with CARD Bank, which is renowned as a microfinance-oriented rural bank in the Philippines. CARD Bank, being a member of CARD MRI, offers financial services for supporting socially and economically challenged families in the Philippines.

Western Union and CARD Bank together will benefit customers in the Philippines, who will be able to send and receive money across more than 200 countries and territories. The collaboration will enable customers to easily engage in money transfer transactions using Western Unions services at more than 200 CARD Bank locations across the country. Customers will also be able to conduct such transactions at more than 1,500 other CARD MRI Offices.

Western Union believes that adequate financial services are a necessity for all as a result of which it intends to serve underprivileged customers in rural and remote regions via this tie-up. In fact, this collaboration is in sync with the companys aim as CARD Bank was primarily established with the sole purpose of helping socially and economically challenged families across the Philippines and improve the quality of their lives.

We believe the abovementioned collaboration highlights Western Unions efforts to strengthen presence in the Philippines, which has been recognized as the fourth-largest remittance recipient country in 2019 according to the World Bank.

Notably, Western Union already has a strong network of Agent locations in the Philippines through which it has been able to serve customers efficiently. By joining forces with CARD Bank, the company will be able to offer more locations for engaging in money transfer services across the country.

Last month, the company also teamed up with TrueMoney, a renowned financial services provider in the Philippines. The collaboration will enable customers to easily engage in money transfer transactions at more than 5,000 TrueMoney Locations across the country.

Story continues

Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 8.8% in a year compared with the industrys growth of 5.9%. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The price performance looks decent in comparison to its peers, including Repay Holdings Corporation RPAY, PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL and MoneyGram International, Inc. MGI. Repay, PayPal and MoneyGram have gained 110.8%, 75.2% and 1.2%, respectively, in a year. While PayPal and MoneyGram carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), Repay has the same rank as Western Union.

Other Initiatives Bode Well

Notably, Western Unions Western Union Business Solutions division has extended its partnership with Banco SEMEAR in Brazil this month. Per this deal extension, the company will offer financial institutions its WU GlobalPay for FI platform, a solution to help customers make seamless international payments with greater efficiency.

The company has also been proactive in providing assistance to small businesses, which are integral to the U.S. economy and have been adversely impacted by pandemic-induced financial woes. With startups being no exception to this trend, the second class of the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator was launched last month, which is likely to provide required impetus to several startups.

These strategic actions bode well for Western Union, considering the present situation of the remittance industry that is likely to remain stressed under the coronavirus pandemic. We believe the companys solid digital money transfer platform has somewhat helped the company to recover amid the pandemic.

Case on point, digital money transfer revenues surged 48% on a reported basis year over year in second-quarter 2020, which was released this month.

Customers preferring digital modes of money transfer over physical means amid the pandemic has reinforced the importance of online digital trading, which positions Western Union well for growth.

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A US appeals court has upheld the trade-secret theft verdict against Indias largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) along with the compensatory damages of $140 million awarded to American medical software firm Epic Systems.

The US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, Chicago, however, said $280 million in punitive damages was excessive and asked the trial court to reassess it, TCS said in a regulatory filing on August 20.

Punitive damages are awarded as punishment to the defendant, TCS in the case, and compensatory damages are awarded as a benefit to the plaintiff here Epic Systemsto help them cover the cost.

What is the lawsuit about?

Epic System filed the lawsuit in 2014 but the relationship between the two companies goes back further.

Epic Systems had hired TCS to test its healthcare management system it was implementing for Kaiser Permanente, an American healthcare company.

Epic Systems alleged that TCS staff used a KP employee's credentials to steal more than 6,000 documents that contained its development information. A TCS whistleblower alerted KP and Epic about the alleged theft of intellectual property.

In 2014, Epic Systems took TCS to court.

What happened in the lawsuit?

In 2016, a lower court in Wisconsin found TCS guilty and slapped $940 million in damages. This was later brought down the sum to $420 million to comply with the legal limit on punitive damages. According to legal websites, in Wisconsin, punitive damages are limited to two times the compensatory damages or $200,000, whichever is the higher.

TCS challenged the order in the Chicago appeals court, which upheld the guilty verdict but reduced the penalty.

The court held that the punitive damages award of $280 million is constitutionally excessive and directed the trial court to reassess the punitive damages. The court upheld the compensatory damages award of $140 million, TCS told the Bombay Stock Exchange on August 20

The company was exploring its options as there was no evidence of misuse of Epics information by TCS, it said.

"TCS believes that the evidence presented in the trial court doesn't support the charges made against it, and will vigorously defend itself in the relevant court," the company told Moneycontrol.

What next?

The case is likely to go back to Wisconsin district court, where the case was first filed, said a source.

Since the trial court will now have to look into $280 million punitive damages as directed by the appellate court.

TCS can also appeal to the larger bench in the same court or the US supreme court, the source said.

Has TCS faced similar complaints?

Yes. After Epic, TCS faced two more trade-secret theft lawsuits.

In a case filed in 2018, Simonelli Innovation Inc accused the IT major of wrongful and improper use of its intellectual property and trade secrets to build its consulting practice. The case was dismissed.

TCS faced yet another lawsuit from another US-based tech firm in 2019. CSC accused the Indian company of improperly accessing its proprietary code to build an insurance platform for the American market.

Responding to the allegations, TCS told the court that the lawsuit lacked evidence and was aimed at disrupting its $2-billion business deal with Transamerica. The case is still being heard.

Have there been other cases of intellectual property theft?

In 2007, erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Limited, which is now Mahindra Satyam, settled an IP infringement lawsuit filed by UPaid, which offered solutions for payments via mobile phone, for $70 million.
Police are seeking witnesses to a robbery in Niagara Falls Thursday.

Niagara Regional Police said at approximately 5 p.m., officers were called to Dixon Street and Locus Avenue area for a report of a robbery.

They located a male victim who had been robbed by two males who fled prior to police arrival.

The victim was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for minor injuries and later released. Police said the victim and suspects were known to one another.

At the time of the incident, the victim was believed to have been assisted by someone in the area who has yet to be identified by investigators, said police, adding they are looking to speak with anyone who may have witnessed the incident have any information.

Police said detectives can be contacted at 905-688-4111; option three, badge number 9994.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:03:55|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The United States unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and has no right to demand the United Nations Security Council launch the snapback mechanism to restore sanctions against Iran, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday.

Noting that the United States is no longer a participant to the JCPOA, spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press briefing that the participants of the JCPOA and the vast majority of members of the Security Council believe that the U.S. request had no legal basis, and the mechanism has not been activated yet.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday officially notified the UN that the United States was asking to activate the snapback mechanism, endorsed by UN Security Council, Resolution 2231. He claimed that the Security Council will restore all UN sanctions on Iran in 30 days.

China noted the letter sent by the United States, the Permanent Mission of China to the UN already stated China's position, the spokesperson said, adding pertinent participants including China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Iran have sent letters to the Security Council chair. British, French and German foreign ministers also issued a statement to express opposition to the U.S. move.

"The U.S. demand of re-imposition of United Nations sanctions on Iran is nothing but a self-serving political manipulation," the spokesperson said.

The United States has walked away from commitments, withdrawn from international organizations and treaties, harmed multilateralism and the authority of the Security Council, and undermined international non-proliferation regime. Its move to push for a resolution or send a letter to the Security Council cannot justify its above-mentioned behaviors, he said.

The spokesperson noted that on Aug. 14, a U.S.-sponsored draft resolution to extend arms embargo on Iran was put to vote at the Security Council, which was voted against by 13 members unequivocally with only one member voted for it, leaving the United States isolated like never before.

"This fully demonstrates that the U.S. unilateral position runs counter to the wide consensus of the international community and its attempt to sabotage the JCPOA will never succeed. We urge the United States to stop going down the wrong path, otherwise it will only meet further opposition," Zhao said.

It takes equal-footed dialogue and candid consultations rather than sanctions, pressuring or even military threat, to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, the spokesperson said.

To uphold the JCPOA and the authority of the UN Security Council resolution, maintain the international non-proliferation regime and safeguard regional peace and stability, China stands ready to work with other parties to find a proper solution and move forward the political and diplomatic settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue, he added. Enditem
Islamabad:

Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain claimed that he was home schooled due to various reasons and never attended a school. Hussain was speaking at a function at the Cadet College Hassanabdal near Islamabad on Wednesday where he told students to follow in the footsteps of Pakistans founder M A Jinnah to better meet the challenges that the country is facing.

When asked about the presidents comment regarding his own education, alumni relations officer at the cadet college Syed Mohammad Ali said the president was home schooled due to various reasons, the Dawn reported.

Hussain belongs to Pakistans financial hub Karachi where he settled after his family migrated from Agra during the partition. He rose from humble beginnings to become the president of the country.

He is considered as confidante of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who approved his appointment to the top job due to his loyalty to Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party.

Soon after his appointment as President, Hussain said in one of his interviews that he had also attended a religious seminary in Karachi. It is for the first time that he said that he was deprived of formal modern schooling.







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US President Donald Trump has called for a boycott of tyre manufacturer Goodyear, which has an important base in Luxembourg.

The spat follows a Fox News report that the company's employees were banned from wearing MAGA-themed clothing at the workplace, while Black Lives Matter and LGBT+ slogans were acceptable.

Unfortunately for Trump, however, a boycott of Goodyear would require him to change his presidential fleet of heavily-armoured Cadillacs, which use Goodyear Regional RHS II tyres manufactured in Luxembourg.

Dont buy GOODYEAR TIRES - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS. Get better tires for far less! (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do. Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!).  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2020

Goodyear employee says new zero-tolerance policy, barring items like Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, MAGA Attire, is discriminatory. https://t.co/9UYeW8BqoL pic.twitter.com/TUITFBGvk6  NBC15 News (@nbc15_madison) August 18, 2020

A company spokesperson later denied that the instructions came from corporate headquarters, laying the blame on its Topeka, Kansas branch, and clarifying that pro-police clothing was allowed.
Dai Qwane Rickey Burgin-Goodson, 26, a serial offender from Alabama, faces a dozen counts, including rape, stemming from two home invasions last month

Disturbing new details have emerged about a suspected serial rapist who was shot by cops and arrested in Alabama last month after allegedly assaulting two women in their homes two days apart, with one of the victims being asleep just steps away from her husband and daughter.

Dai Qwane Rickey Burgin-Goodson, 26, was apprehended on July 23 in Jefferson County and jailed on a dozen charges, including two counts of rape stemming from two separate attacks, counts of burglary, home invasion, assault, theft and probation violation.

Three months prior, Burgin-Goodson had been released from prison after serving seven years for committing a series of sexual assaults, home invasions and armed robberies.

One of the victims of Burgin-Goodson's latest alleged crime spree spoke to Al.com on Friday about her harrowing experience last month.

Kimberly Clayton, 35, who is married and has an 11-year-old daughter, lives with her family in Jefferson County.

DailyMail.com normally does not name victims of sexual crimes, unless they decide to come forward and identify themselves.

Clayton told the local news outlet that at around 4am on July 21, she woke up to find a stranger laying on top of her in her bed and raping her.

Burgin-Goodson was arrested on June 23 after allegedly breaking into a home in the 600 block of Elm Street SW in an area known as The Junction and assaulting a woman

A deputy shot the suspect after he allegedly pointed a stolen rifle at him

'The look in his eyes was pure evil, she recalled.

Clayton's husband had already gotten up to get ready for work, and her daughter was sleeping in another room with two friends.

'I called for my husband to help me, but I didnt let the panic set in right way because there were three kids across the hall from me, she told Al.com.

Clayton said her attacker was wearing a bandanna to conceal his face, which she tried to rip off, prompting him to restrain her.

When the woman did not hear her husband and did not see him enter the room, she became gripped by fear that the intruder had killed her family.

Clayton began screaming and managed to scare off the rapist, who jumped off the bed and fled.

She ran out of the bedroom and crashed into her husband. She told him what happened and called 911.

While waiting for police to arrive, Clayton's husband got his gun and went outside to look for the intruder. At first, he was nowhere to be found, but then a figure appeared in the pre-dawn light holding a brick.

Clayton said her husband fired on him, but the perpetrator escaped unharmed.

'I believe in my heart he was coming back to finish me off, Clayton said. 'If my husband wouldnt have been here, it would have been worse.'

Two days later, Clayton's suspected assailant, later identified by police as Burgin-Goodson, struck again, this time allegedly breaking into a home in the 600 block of Elm Street SW in an area known as The Junction and assaulting a woman.

Burgin-Goodson had been released from prison three months earlier after serving seven years for sexual assault and home invasion offenses

The victim called 911 and deputies arrived on the scene while the suspect was still inside the house.

Burgin-Goodson allegedly pointed a rifle he stole from the victim's home at a deputy, who opened fire and wounded him, reported WBRC.

Despite being injured, Burgin-Goodson managed to escape through a back window, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

Deputies eventually tracked him down to a supermarket in Bessemer and arrested him. As of Friday, he remained in the Jefferson County Jail.

Burgin-Goodson has a vast criminal record, including 23 felony charges stemming from a spate of sexual assaults, burglaries and armed robberies that were reported in the course of eight months back in 2013 near Center Point.

His luck ran out on September 5, 2013, when Burgin-Goodson was captured. He ultimately pleaded guilty to nine criminal counts, including sexual abuse, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with only five years to serve.

According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, Burgin-Goodson walked out of prison on May 4.

Clayton was indignant when she learned of Burgin-Goodson's history, saying that he never should have been released.

'You cannot rehabilitate a rapist,' she argued.

A month after the attack, Clayton said she is still haunted by it and does not like being home alone because she no longer feels safe there. She has sought mental health treatment to help her process her traumatic experience.

'Im putting this out there because we dont know if there were more women before me since he got out, she said, explaining her decision to speak out. 'Im not going to be a silent victim. I am a survivor.'
Rep. Annette Glenn, R-Midland, a member of the House Appropriations K-12 School Aid Subcommittee, applauded Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for signing into law a bipartisan package of Return to Learn legislation that includes Glenns bill to ensure local public schools continue to receive their state per-pupil funding regardless of whether parents choose to enroll their children for in-person learning in the classroom or for remote instruction online.

I appreciate Gov. Whitmers signing of this bipartisan safe schools package, which makes student health and safety our highest priority while ensuring they're not missing out on the quality education every child deserves, stated Glenn, who serves on the House Appropriations K-12 School Aid Subcommittee. My legislation in particular ensures that schools in Bay and Midland counties will have local control  in consultation with local public health experts  to do what's best for students in each of our communities while continuing to receive the same state funding whether students are sitting in a classroom or learning online.

The legislative package, which Glenn helped craft and lead to bipartisan support in both the state House and Senate, allows each individual school district to determine the best means of educating its students  online, in person, or a combination of the two  based on mandatory consultation with local public health departments.

As both a lawmaker and grandmother of school-aged children, coming up with a safe and practical plan to ensure students can safely return to learning this fall has been one of my top priorities in Lansing, Glenn stated in a news release.

Glenns House Bill 5913, a lead element of the plan, redefines the word attendance for purposes of allocating state per-pupil funding to mean engaged in instruction rather than physically present in the classroom, allowing schools to innovate and offer students a wide array of options for learning both in the classroom and online.

I am proud of this bipartisan package and will continue working with everyone who wants to ensure our schools are safe during COVID-19, Whitmer said Thursday upon signing Glenns legislation and two other bills in the package.

Glenn noted that since this school year will impose significant additional costs to local school districts as they implement new safety standards and innovative teaching methods, the Legislature has dedicated a total of $583 million in federal Coronavirus Relief Funds to Michigan schools, including:

 $350 per student across the board, ensuring schools have the resources they need to educate children.

 More than $50 million in hazard pay for educators.

 $18 million for safety measures and local benchmark assessments to ensure students stay on track with learning.

Parents, educators, school administrators, and students have waited patiently, Glenn said. Now, we can finally move forward with this bipartisan, common-sense safe schools plan. I wish all students, teachers, and support staff in Bay and Midland counties a great start to their academic year, and as always, my office is always available for any student, parent, teacher, administrator, or school board member who has any questions or would like to express any concerns.

Glenn can be contacted via email at AnnetteGlenn@house.mi.gov or by phone at 517-373-1791.

-- Processed by Mitchell Kukulka, Mitchell.Kukulka@mdn.net
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer once famously listed "litigation" as a hobby in his Who's Who entry. While he has racked up his fair share of legal activity over the past month thanks to an epic stoush with the state of Western Australia, Premier Mark McGowan and his Labor government are working overtime to stop him having his day in court. Not only is Palmer challenging the constitutionality of WA's strict border restrictions after he was denied entry into the state, he has lobbed a $27.8 billion compensation claim over an iron-ore dispute dating back to 2012. The unedifying battle has become political and personal, with McGowan labelling the billionaire an "enemy of the state" and WA Attorney-General John Quigley using parliamentary privilege to call Palmer a liar and hypocrite. Palmer, in turn, has responded by calling for the Premier to be jailed. On August 20, he filed a defamation action against McGowan in the Federal Court. The WA government has also rushed through "emergency legislation" rubbing out Palmer's legal rights to claim compensation from the government. All of this has the state's political commentators furious, lawyers worried, and the public bemused over the possibility Palmer could double WA's already enormous debt with the biggest win in Australian legal history. So what are these legal actions? How did they come about? And why is a new WA law relating to Palmer so controversial?

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WA Premier Mark McGowan, left, and Attorney-General John Quigley in a press conference about their law relating to Clive Palmer. Credit:Nathan Hondros How did the trouble start? In April, WA closed the state's borders to stop the spread of COVID-19. The move enjoys popular support, especially since the state has virtually eliminated the virus with no community transmission detected for months. (The dwindling handful of cases have been returned international travellers in hotel quarantine.) But the hard border restrictions still allowed exemptions for some people to cross into WA, especially those on business. Enter Clive Palmer, who has significant business interests in the state. In May, he applied to enter WA on business grounds but was knocked back. Unhappy, and armed to the teeth with QCs, he lodged a constitutional challenge to the border restrictions with the High Court. Section 92 of Australia's constitution says "trade, commerce, and intercourse among the states ... shall be absolutely free". Not much wriggle room there, as WA Senator Mathias Cormann put it. Although the border restrictions were overwhelmingly supported by voters, as federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said, "what is constitutional and what is popular is not the same thing".

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It will be months before the High Court delivers a decision. How did a second legal battle begin? In the early evening of August 11, WA's Attorney-General got to his feet in Parliament and dropped a bombshell: Palmer had lodged an arbitration claim on the state government that could be worth $27.8 billion. Quigley said the figure was as much as the entire state budget for a year and almost as much as the government's state debt. In WA, mining companies sign "state agreements" with the government where they agree to pay royalties in exchange for the right to extract resources. State agreements are written into legislation, and have underpinned WA's reputation as a safe haven for international investment. Once a state agreement is inked, it is law and gives mining companies rights that can be worth billions. If there are disagreements, they are dealt with by arbitration rather than through the courts. In 2002, WA's then-Labor government granted Palmer's Mineralogy a state agreement, which is the source of much of his wealth. His companies own the rights to extract iron ore in the north of the state at the Sino Iron Ore mine, operated by Chinese conglomerate CITIC, who pay his companies $400 million a year in royalties.

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Under the Mineralogy state agreement, his companies also have rights to a proposed Balmoral South iron-ore mine 80 kilometres south-west of Karratha in WA's Pilbara region. But in 2012, then-premier Colin Barnett refused to assess a proposal from Palmer's companies under the state agreement. Palmer's company Mineralogy had the matter sent to an independent arbitrator, former High Court justice Michael McHugh, who ruled against the government in 2014, a decision that has sparked an unsuccessful government appeal and the arbitration that is now the subject of legal controversy. The parties were set for mediation by former WA Supreme Court chief justice Wayne Martin before heading back to arbitration later this year. It was while preparing for that legal process that Palmer's companies lodged their ambit claim in May, which totalled $27.8 billion as compensation for being unable to progress their iron ore project which requires government approval under the state agreement. The dispute has been in and out of legal forums for eight years, including five years in abeyance, before Palmer restarted proceedings. Quigley, a former lawyer, said the state had been unsuccessful in the past in relation to the claims and therefore a successful outcome in arbitration was not guaranteed. The nature of the arbitration also meant there would be limited avenues for appeal for the government and even if Palmer was partially successful, it could put the state's financial capacity to deal with the coronavirus pandemic in jeopardy. "The government is taking steps to protect the state from the rapacious nature of Mr Palmer [and his companies]," Quigley told Parliament.

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The arbitration proceedings continue. WA Governor Kim Beazley signing the anti-Clive Palmer legislation into law. Credit:Nine News Perth What did the WA government do next? McGowan has argued the government was forced to act. If Palmer's claim were to succeed, it would mean "mass closures of hospitals, of schools, of police stations, mass sackings of public servants, of child protection workers, of police officers". After Quigley outlined the financial risk to the state, he tabled legislation that he said would snuff out Palmer's claims. The law, which was rushed through Parliament in just two days, meant the billionaire and his companies would indemnify the state against any compensation claims he could bring under the state agreement and included a provision that "the rules known as the rules of natural justice (including any duty of procedural fairness) do not apply". The legislation also explicitly exempted government decisions about the dispute from being made public through Freedom of Information laws.

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Media release on 2020 half-yearly results

Adval Tech achieves a balanced result despite Corona and difficult market environment

Niederwangen, August 21, 2020, 7.00 a.m. -The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a major blow to the automotive and automotive supply industries. And this at a time when they are undergoing a difficult transformation process.By applying targeted measures, Adval Tech has - even under these difficult circumstances - succeeded in achieving a balanced result.Overall, the Adval Tech Group posted total income of CHF 61.5 million in the first half of 2020 (1H 2019: CHF 96.5 million) an EBITDA of CHF4.4million (1H 2019: CHF10.4million) an EBIT of CHF 1.3 million (1H 2019: CHF 6.3 million) and a net profit of CHF 48,000 (1H 2019: CHF 4.2 million).The EBITDA margin was 7.2% (1H 2019: 10.8%), and the EBIT margin 2.1% (1H 2019: 6.6%). Net of exchange rate effects, EBITDA came to CHF 4.6 million and EBIT to CHF 1.3 million.

The Adval Tech Group also clearly felt the impact of the corona pandemic and the upheavals in the automotive industry in the first half of 2020. Technical, social and economic developments have fundamentally affected demand and the buying behavior of market participants. In Germany, for example, the number of vehicles built in the first half of 2020 was lower than at any time since 1975, and new car registrations fell by around one third. Interrupted supply chains and order cancellations at short notice led to delays and sharp falls in new orders. Total income fell by 36% compared with the corresponding prior-year period. By applying targeted measures, Adval Tech has - even under these difficult circumstances - succeeded in achieving a balanced result and in ensuring liquidity at all times.

Totalincome

In the first half of 2020, the Adval Tech Group posted total income of CHF 61.5 million (1H 2019: CHF 96.5 million). Adval Tech generated most of its turnover (77%) in the first half of 2020 with customers in Europe (1H 2019: 76%). The Group achieved 10% of its turnover with Asian customers (1H 2019: 8%), 8% of its turnover with Latin American customers (1H 2019: 11%) and 5% with customers in North America (1H 2019: 5%).

Profitability

The Adval Tech Group generated operating earnings before interest, tax and depreciation (EBITDA) of CHF 4.4 million (1H 2019: CHF 10.4 million), which corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 7.2% (1H 2019: 10.8%). Operating earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) amounted to CHF 1.3 million (1H 2019: CHF 6.3 million) and the EBIT margin to 2.1% (net of exchange rate effects: 2.0%) (1H 2019: 6.6%).

The Adval Tech Group's net profit for the first half of 2020 came to CHF 48,000 (1H 2019: CHF 4.2 million).

Outlook

The major uncertainties surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with the extensive upheavals taking place in the automotive industry, make it extremely difficult to assess the outlook for the second half of 2020. Adval Tech does not expect the pandemic to end soon and anticipates that general economic conditions will remain difficult. The Group has taken all necessary measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis as far as possible. The health and safety of the employees and the delivery capability for the customers remain Adval Tech's top priorities. In addition, even in the current challenging situation, Adval Tech is doing its utmost to ensure the Group's liquidity at all times. A very large number of automotive sector projects already secured by Adval Tech have been postponed. Thanks to the introduction of short-time working and the temporary suspension of production operations, Adval Tech has so far succeeded in avoiding job losses. However, the company cannot rule out the need for a restructuring programme and job losses in the second half of 2020. The Adval Tech Group is not giving specific guidance on total income and EBIT in the 2020 financial statement.

Key figures 1st half of 2020 1st half of 2019 2nd half of 2019 Total income1) (CHF million) 61.5 96.5 82.4 Net turnover (CHF million) 58.8 94.4 79.2 EBITDA1) (CHF million) 4.4 10.4 8.0 EBIT1) (CHF million) 1.3 6.3 4.0 Net profit (CHF million) 0.05 4.2 4.5 Operative free cash flow1) (CHF million) -1.1 -2.5 -1.3 Number of employees (full-time units) as per balance sheet date 1,095 1,245 1,179

1) Alternative Performance Measures, see note 3, pages 78 and 79 of the Annual Report 2019

Contact

Markus Reber, CFO, phone +41 31 980 82 70; markus.reber@advaltech.com

Valeria Poretti, Head Corporate HR/Communication, phone +41 31 980 82 66, valeria.poretti@advaltech.com

Brief portrait of the Adval Tech Group

Adding value through innovation - that's what Adval Tech stands for. Adval Tech is the partner of choice - for high-volume components manufactured in metal and plastic. Adval Tech focuses on the automotive market and on related applications. Adval Tech covers the entire value chain as a one-stop-shop, from product development to prototyping, to mold and tool development, and through to component production and assembly.

Download media release

www.advaltech.com/en/group/investors/company-news/ad-hoc-notices

Publication of 2020 semi-annual report

The 2020 semi-annual report will be published at the same time as this media release:

http://www.advaltech.com/en/group/investors/reports/

Agenda

End of March, 2021 - Announcement of the results for the 2020 financial year

April 27, 2021 - Conference on the 2020 Annual Report

April 27, 2021 - Publication of the 2020 Annual Report

May 20, 2021 - General Meeting of Shareholders 2021

Except for the historical information contained herein, the statements in this media release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.
Work is progressing on the John Agyekum Kufour estates in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.

The project is one of those the Vice President, Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia highlighted during the recent town hall meeting on the infrastructural achievements of the Akufo-Addo administration on Tuesday.

Citi News checks also revealed that the construction of two housing units which were also mentioned during the presentation has also been completed.

Some contractors were on regular supervision of work when Citi News visited the site.

The Vice President at the town hall meeting in Accra said the Akufo-Addo government initiated over 17, 000 infrastructural projects in various parts of the country.

More than 8,000 of them completed while the remaining are ongoing.

Parts of the projects he mentioned were the construction of two housing units at Kwadaso and the John Agyekum Kufuor Estate at Kagyasi in the Ashanti Region.

Workers were also busily putting finishing touches to the Kwadaso projects.

In 2018, President Akufo-Addo cut the sod for the construction of the120 housing units made up of houses and apartments.

The project which has been named after former President Kufour is aimed at addressing the country's housing deficit.

It is being constructed by the State Housing Company Limited.

Roads leading to the site are being constructed while electricity and water sources are also being extended to the facilities.

---citinewsroom
Serious stress, serious stress.

An industry in its last days.

Steady decline [in growth, demand] for the past decade.

Cratering.

Those are a few of the characterizations of todays oil, natural gas, and coal industries put forward by several independent journalists, writers, and analysts in the new edition of the This is Not Cool video series.

 And then, along came the coronavirus and the COVID-19 challenges, providing one more blow to the energy industry.

Even pre-pandemic, the conventional energy sector already had plans to cancel major infrastructure projects like pipelines, independent journalist Keith Schneider told Yale Climate Connections. And with the pandemic, oil and gas experienced the worst body blow in its modern contemporary history, he said.

Journalist and writer Antonia Juhasz agrees, pointing to an industry in its last days, its just getting hit from too many sides.

Most of the new electricity generation coming online today is coming from wind and solar, says Houston Chronicle reporter Chris Tomlinson. And professor Dan Kammen of the University of California Berkeley says solar and wind have been the cheapest energy options worldwide for at least the past three consecutive years.

Kammen also says that he believes solar and wind energy initiatives can advance two to three times as many job opportunities as traditional fossil fuel projects: That would be critical to help long-time coal and other fossil fuel industry employees whose decades of work has been critical to economic development  and who society cannot simply leave stranded as momentum turns toward a clean economy. Tending to the plight of those workers whose jobs are lost will have to be part of the energy-options puzzle, interviewees say.
US President on Thursday reiterated his intention to withdraw US troops from but gave no detailed timeline.

Speaking to reporters in the White House with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Trump said that "we have been taking our troops out of fairly rapidly, and we look forward to the day when we don't have to be there," Xinhua reported.

"At some point, we obviously will be gone. We've brought it down to a very, very low level," Trump added when asked if the US would pull troops out of in three years.

Pressed by reporters on the timeframe of the full withdrawal from Iraq, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vaguely replied that a complete pullout would take place "as soon as we complete the mission."

The chief diplomat noted that Washington is working with Baghdad "to get our forces down to the lowest level as quickly as we possibly can."

Commander of US Central Command Kenneth McKenzie said at a think tank event earlier this month that he expected US military to maintain a long-term presence in Iraq to help fight Islamic extremists and to check Iranian influence in the country.

The two countries held a strategic dialogue this June, the joint statement of which said that the US would reduce forces from Iraq over the coming months.

Currently, there are over 5,000 US troops deployed in Iraq to support Iraqi forces in battles against remnants of the Islamic State, mainly for training and advisory purposes.

Citing US officials, The New York Times reported last week that US and Iraqi officials had resumed discussions this month that could lead to a reduction to around 3,500 US troops.

US killing of Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, at Baghdad airport in early January strained its relations with Iraq. The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution on January 5 requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq.

The military bases housing US troops across Iraq and other US facilities have been frequently targeted by mortar and rocket attacks in recent months.
Updates listed below in EST:



11:20 p.m.

Joe Biden closed his speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention with a call to action to Americans this November to get "united in our love for each other."

"Let us begin you and I together one nation under God, united in our love for America, united in our love for each other. For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear, and light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission," Biden said.

The former vice president wants history to "say that the end of this chapter of American darkness begin here tonight as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation."

"And this is a battle we will win, and we'll do it together," Biden said.



11:05 p.m.

Joe Biden laid out his plan to combat coronavirus on Thursday, telling voters that President Donald Trump has failed in his most basic duty to protect Americans from the virus.

Ever since the first cases of coronavirus broke out in the United States earlier this year, the 2020 campaign has been dominated by the pandemic, forcing both Biden and Trump to pivot their campaigns to the issue.

Biden dedicated a significant portion of his acceptance speech on Thursday to how he, as president, would combat the virus.

Biden, in a stark rebuke of Trump, said he would deploy rapid tests for the virus, make personal protective equipment in the United States so we will never again be at the mercy of China or other foreign countries, make sure that schools have the resources they need to reopen and put politics aside, take the muzzle off our experts.

Biden also pledged to impose a national mandate to wear a mask.

In short, we will do what we should have done from the very beginning, Biden said. Our current president has failed in his most basic duty.  That is unforgivable.



10:55 p.m.

When Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, he said in Delaware that "united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America."

"The current president's cloaked America in darkness for much too long," Biden said in an opening that targeted President Donald Trump.

"Too much anger, too much fear, too much division. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness. It's time for us  for we the people  to come together," Biden said.



10:45 p.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has accepted the nomination as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States of America.



10:20 p.m.



When Joe Biden, in a nationally televised interview, said he supported same-sex marriage, he put President Barack Obama, who had not publicly backed gay marriage, in a tough position and later had to privately apologize to him.

For Pete Buttigieg, Bidens statement was a sizable step in making his marriage possible, a fact he recalled in his speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.

The very ring on my finger  a wedding we celebrated here where Im standing  reflects how this country can change, Buttigieg said, speaking from the event space where he held his wedding reception with his husband.

"Love makes my marriage real, but political courage made it possible  including that of Joe Biden, who stepped out ahead of even this party when he said that marriage equality should be the law of the land," he said.



Buttigieg, the first out gay candidate in American history to win a major partys presidential primary contest, said that the changes in LGBTQ acceptance and rights between 2010 and 2020 show the broader progress America can make together if Biden is elected in November.

It starts here  with the choices we are going to make in just a few weeks, Buttigieg said. Decisions not just about who will lead us, but about who we are."





10:15 p.m.

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth did not mince words when hitting President Donald Trump on Thursday: He is the coward in chief, she said.



Duckworth, a finalist to be Bidens running mate, used her speech to the Democratic convention to tout Bidens understanding of the sacrifices made by military families.

It was a personal message for Duckworth, a US Army veteran who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq. Her speech opened with a shot on her two prosthetic legs.

Military service doesnt just take courage and sacrifice from those in uniform  theyre required from their families, too, Duckworth said Thursday. Joe Biden understands these sacrifices, because he has made them himself. When his son Beau deployed to Iraq, his burden was shouldered by his family as well.





10:10 p.m.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin made a progressive populist argument for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Thursday night, talking about the illness she suffered as a child and how it left her with the label, child with a pre-existing condition.

That was before the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, which required insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The law is being challenged now in court with the Trump administrations backing.

We all have stories like this. Stories about a time when the system was rigged against us. When we were counted out, left out, pushed out, Baldwin said.

10:05 p.m.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. surgeon general under President Barack Obama, said the nation is missing leadership in combating the coronavirus pandemic in a DNC speech Thursday night.

Murthy has advised Biden's campaign on policy proposals to respond to the pandemic, as well as how Biden and his staff can safely hold events and reach out to voters during the crisis.

Featuring a doctor was unusual for a political convention, but it was part of Biden's campaign's effort to underscore that he if elected, he would be guided by experts on policy matters.

He said he has seen "how he sits with people in their pain and holds them in his heart; how he pores over COVID briefings, asking smart questions, letting science guide his way, just as he did when managing the Ebola crisis."

"We need a leader who works with states to ensure that everyone who needs a test gets one and gets results quickly; a leader who secures a safe, effective vaccine and distributes it quickly and fairly; a leader who inspires us to practice distancing and wear masks, not as a political statement but as a patriotic duty, a commitment we make to one another," Murthy said.





9:55 p.m.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker assailed the economy under President Donald Trump, saying that "he has failed us."

"Working people are under attack, the wealth gap grows, our middle class shrinks, and poverty persists," the one-time 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said. Pointing to millions of Americans who have lost their health care and face economic hardship as a result of the pandemic, he said of Trump, "He has failed us."

Booker spoke of his grandfather, who he said left the South during the Jim Crow era and moved to Detroit, where he got a union job on an assembly line during World War II.

"Together, with Joe and Kamala in the White House, well raise the minimum wage so no one who works a full time job lives in poverty. Together, well fight for those who keep us healthy; who keep us safe; who teach our kids," Booker said. "Well stand for those who cook, and serve and clean; who plant and harvest; who pack and always deliver, whose hands are thick with callouses like my grandads, who held mine when I was a boy."





9:45 p.m.

Rep. Deb Haaland, one of the first Native American women ever elected to Congress, urged Americans to vote this November because "our Constitution is under attack."

"I know we can't take our democracy for granted, especially now, as people are dying, as our land is abused, as our Constitution is under attack. We must work for it by getting involved, by registering voters, by voting. Voting is sacred; my people know that," she said during tonight's Democratic National Convention programming.





9:20 p.m.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a close Joe Biden ally, called the former vice president "a man of faith and conscience" who "knows the power of prayer" in a speech that focused on Biden's Catholic faith.

"I'll never forget how Joe took the time to offer me words of comfort as my father lay in hospice," Coons said. "Time and again, I've seen him stop everything and listen, really listen to someone who needs a shoulder to cry on or a partner in prayer. That compassion, that empathy is part of his character."





9:05 p.m.

Former Democratic candidate Andrew Yang followed up endorsing Joe Biden, and encouraging voters skeptical of real change that Biden is the candidate for them.

I know many politicians promise and then fail to deliver, Yang said. I have gotten to know both Joe and Kamala on the trail over the past year  the way you really get to know a person when the cameras are off, the crowds are gone, and its just you and them. They're real people. They understand the problems we face.

9:00 p.m.

Tom Perez, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, opened the evening. He thanked the staff and production for putting the virtual convention together, and said he hoped the Republican National Convention kept public health in mind as much as the DNC had.

He then advised Americans to consider their vote in November, and the consequences of whom they vote for, before turning it over to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom talked just 1 mile away from the wildfires raging in his state, and said that climate change has worsened the blaze. He criticized the administration of President Donald Trump for its relaxing of environmental regulations, and blaming previous forest fires in the state on not raking leaves, a claim he reiterated today.

Original story:



Democratic Party luminaries, rising stars, former presidents and presidential contenders have been making a pitch for Joe Biden over three days of an atypical convention. Now the presidential nominee will make his case himself.

Biden will speak Thursday night from Wilmington, Delaware, as he closes out the fourth night of the virtual Democratic National Convention, starting at 9 p.m. ET.

The novel coronavirus forced organizers to put on a remote event with delegates and politicians beaming in via video from around the country, zapping the energy from whats usually a political jamboree. But the event has also given Biden a chance to present a curated vision of his party and principles, showcasing a diverse Democratic coalition and a still-open door to bipartisan governing that many see as a relic of a different Washington.

The theme for Thursday night is Americas Promise and the programming includes musical performances by The Chicks, John Legend and Common.

What to watch on the last night of the convention:

BIDENS MOMENT

With no physical gathering place, Biden will deliver his speech as the Democratic presidential nominee without a cheering crowd, a standing ovation or waves of balloons and confetti breaking over his head. Bidens been boxed into a more subdued position because of a virus that has shocked the U.S. economy and killed over 170,000 Americans. To persuade voters to put in him charge, expect him to use his speech to underline the gravity of the virus and the moment and draw on lessons of tenacity over tragedy that hes experienced in his own life.

TRUMP

Throughout the week, President Donald Trump has worked to counter the Democratic program with trips and jabbing at Biden. On Thursday, he traveled to Pennsylvania, the state of Bidens birth, ahead of the Democrats acceptance speech.

Trump wasn't laying low during the Democratic National Convention. Hes mocking Biden and blaming him for supporting trade policies that he says resulted in manufacturing job losses.

Trump also attempted to frighten voters about the future of their retirement investments if Biden is elected.

Hes also evoking images of violence in some of the nations biggest cities during his own presidency, saying it will only spread if Biden is elected.

BLOOMBERG

Billionaire and former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, who spent more than $500 million of his own fortune on a short-lived presidential run, is billed to speak shortly before Biden.

The 78-year-old moderate and former Republican being given a spot to help to close out the Democratic convention is striking. The party has promoted its diverse coalition and embraced a national reckoning on systemic racism and sexual misconduct.

One of the former New York mayor's most notable appearances during the presidential campaign came as he was pilloried on the debate stage by Democrats over his past support for the controversial stop-and-frisk policing practice and its disproportionate effect on minorities and nondisclosure agreements his company struck with women alleging discrimination or harassment.

The businessman has built up goodwill on the left for having poured hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting climate change and gun violence, two issues he will likely touch on.

FORMER CANDIDATES AND CONTENDERS

Three of the Democrats who also sought the White House this year will speak. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg will speak early, followed later in the evening by Andrew Yang, whose outsider presidential campaign was marked by a buzzy online following and a platform to give Americans a universal basic income. Several women who were considered potential running mates for Biden are also slated to appear: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Other speakers include California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons and members of the Biden family.
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The USFDA has put on hold its decision to issue emergency approval for blood plasma therapy as a Covid-19 treatment, according to a report by the New York Times. This step may affect India, as thousands of patients are now being treated through plasma therapy.

Meanwhile in Malaysia, a mutant form of coronavirus was found and was reported as being "10 times more infectious." However, scientists have said that this is not a concern for India as the strain is already widely prevalent in the country and is not any more virulent than the Wuhan strain. Another scientist confirmed that the strain is new for Malaysia but not for India.
Kansas City's regional climate change effort soldiers on despite pandemic | KLC Journal With the federal government steering clear of policy priorities on climate change, action on the topic has been shifting to the local and regional levels in Kansas. In the Kansas City area, two city officials from Johnson County have exercised leadership by launching an effort that has turned into a bistate coalition to combat climate change.

Here's a lovingly crafted bit ofthat offers insight into an election year protest movement that earned a few resolutions that aren't worth the paper their written on, in addition to glowing coverage from the mainstream media.It's not quite news but close enough to fool social media friends who just want to garner a few likes, affirmations and self-esteem.Read more:
Cobalt, a San Francisco, CA-based cybersecurity platform that connects human penetration testers (also known as ethical hackers) with companies looking to test their software, raised $29m in Series B funding.

The Series B round, which brought total funding to $37m, was led by growth-stage experts Highland Europe. In conjunction with the funding, Gajan Rajanathan joined the board from Highland.

The company intends to use the funds to continue its global expansion and develop its platform.

Founded in 2013 by four Danish co-founders  Jacob Hansen, Esben Friis-Jensen, Jakob Storm and Christian Hansen, Cobalt provides a Penetration test as a Service (PtaaS) platform which leverages human cybersecurity experts, who work to find vulnerabilities in software  a process known as penetration testing or pentesting.

With a globally distributed team and offices in San Francisco, Boston and Berlin, Cobalt is providing streamlined processes, developer integrations, and on-demand pentesters who have undergone rigorous vetting. With Cobalt, customers can start a pentest in 24 hours.

The company now has more than 500 clients, including GoDaddy, Vonage, Axel Springer and MuleSoft, and around 300 pentesters on its platform. Customers are globally distributed, with the US as Cobalts largest market.

FinSMEs

20/08/2020
New York, Aug 21 : Armed with the Democratic Party's nomination, former US Vice President Joe Biden formally launched his battle against President Donald Trump in a "life-changing election", asserting that he would lead the nation out of "this season of darkness".

"Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness," he said on Thursday night while accepting his party's nomination.

"United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America," he said speaking to the party's virtual convention from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

Like every speaker before him during the four-day convention, Biden accused Trump of plunging the nation into the darkness of divisiveness, hatred and a health and economic crisis.

He said Trump was "a President who takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cosies up to dictators, and fans the flames of hate and division".

"He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable.

"America is at an inflection point. A time of real peril, but of extraordinary possibilities "We can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light," Biden added.

The country was facing a "perfect storm" of four historic crises: the coronavirus pandemic, the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, climate change and call for racial justice.

He said that he would unite the nation and face the crises, which he said Trump had mismanaged.

"I won't have to do it alone. Because I will have a great Vice President at my side. Senator Kamala Harris. She is a powerful voice for this nation," he said.

His suggestions for fighting the coronavirus crisis were nationally mandating the wearing of masks, which in the US may be impossible to enforce, and bringing back manufacturing of essential medical supplies and equipment "so we will never again be at the mercy of China and other foreign countries".

That was the only mention of China in a speech light on foreign policy which, besides warnings for Russia, had only generalities.

"I will stand always for our values of human rights and dignity. And I will work in common purpose for a more secure, peaceful, and prosperous world.

"I will be a president who will stand with our allies and friends. I will make it clear to our adversaries the days of cosying up to dictators are over.

"Under President Biden, America will not turn a blind eye to Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers," he added but made no mention of Pakistan that helped the Taliban and other terrorist organisations that targeted US troops.

"Nor will I put up with foreign interference in our most sacred democratic exercise - voting." Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy criticised Trump's handling of the COVID-19 crisis by ignoring science and contrasted it with Biden's response to earlier health crisis.

Some of his former rivals for the presidential nomination spoke, rallying support for Biden from their backers.

Former candidate Michael Bloomberg, who owns the financial and news organisation that bears his name, recalled calling Trump a "conman" at the last convention and said: "When Trump says he wants to 'Make America Great Again', he's making a pretty good case for Joe Biden." New Jersey Senator Corey Booker brought together some of the candidates who had withdrawn after being outgunned by Biden and likened their group to a meeting of those kicked off the island in the TV reality show "Survivor".

They pledged their support to Biden.

As is customary, his children and grandchildren put in an appearance to highlight his family values.

Biden himself spoke of his late son Beau, a decorated military veteran of the Iraq War who died of a brain tumour.

"While he is no longer with us, Beau inspires me every day," he said.

His other son, Hunter, who has been controversial, made an audacious appearance seemingly to challenge the campaign against him meant to embarrass his father.

Hunter was behind the impeachment proceedings against Trump as the president was accused of abusing his powers to make Ukraine investigate his business dealings there.

His business dealings with Chinese government entities that got him a tranche of investments worth about $1.5 billion have also been mentioned by Trump.

Religion, which openly and legally plays a role in US elections, was on display at the session.

Biden spoke of his Catholic faith and how it guides him in a video interview with a protestant clergyman. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the emcee, noted that he was a regular church-goer.

A Roman Catholic nun who said the opening prayer of the session spoke of the commonality of the creation story of the three Abrahamic faiths, Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

The convention concluded with prayers said by an imam, a rabbi and a priest.

The opening prayers and the final blessing at each of the four days of the session was confined to only the representatives of these three religions.

Before Biden's acceptance speech, Trump showed up near the former Vice President's birthplace Scranton in Pennsylvania to denounce him.

Preemptively he said that there would be a breakdown of law and order and taxes would go up, bringing down the economy.

Biden had spent his nearly half century in Washington politics "selling out our country" and would impose a permanent lockdown, Trump said.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)
New study genetically sequences the oral microbial communities of Japanese university students to reveal more microbes that could cause dental cavities

The human body is home to trillions of microbes. Through its natural functioning, much of the time, this ecosystem regulates our health. But like the environment of the world at large, this bodily ecosystem is delicate, and any change in the composition of the microbial community, also called the "microbiome," can cause an overall imbalance in their collective functioning, resulting in disease.

Now, advances in research in this field have yielded a technique called next-generation DNA sequencing, which allows for very accurate identification of the members of this microbial community, thereby offering insights into microbial community composition. For several diseases, knowing which microbes densely populate the organ/tissue in question or become absent from it during disease can help develop effective treatments. Such is the case for dental caries, a type of tooth decay in which acid-producing bacteria eat away at the out layer of teeth and cause cavities.

A type of bacteria called the mutans streptococci are the most commonly implicated microbes in dental caries. Their increase causes dental decay. But, could other microbes be responsible as well?

Scientists globally have looked into this question. However, focus on the younger demographic has been low. Meanwhile, in Japan, the number of young adults developing dental caries is increasing.

Spurred by this increase and this insufficient literature, a team of researchers from Japan, led by Dr. Uchida-Fukuhara from Okayama University, called for Japanese university student volunteers for oral examinations at the Health Service Center in Okayama University.

The students answered a survey about their dental health at the beginning of the study and during a follow-up after three years. This told the researchers which students had significantly increased dental caries after this time and who didn't. The researchers grouped the students accordingly during the follow-up (let's say, Groups A and B respectively). They then collected saliva samples of randomly selected students from these groups, which they analyzed via next-generation DNA sequencing to obtain microbial profiles.

It turned out that very similar oral microbial diversities existed in both groups. But in Group A, the abundances of the bacterial families Prevotellaceae and Veillonellaceae, and genera Alloprevotella and Dialister, were greater than those in Group B. These two families are known to comprise species that produce acid as well. This finding, therefore, suggests new prevention possibilities for dental caries that does not focus on keeping mutans streptococci populations in check.

Interestingly, both groups had low levels of mutans streptococci. Should the focus of research on what causes dental caries change?

The striking results of the study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, underscore the necessity of updating current knowledge on the oral microbial community and its role in the development of dental caries. But Dr. Uchida highlights limitations in the study's applicability and advises taking these findings with a pinch of salt. "Among other things, all our participants were from Okayama University, so our results may not be generalizable to the wider population," she says.

Yet, Dr. Uchida is hopeful, "For many years our group has been conducting population studies to reduce oral diseases. We believe that the results of this new study will help us develop novel strategies to prevent dental caries and our students will achieve greater life satisfaction because of better teeth and oral health."

Perhaps, in the future, students' teeth will be clean as a hound's tooth.

###
UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi speaks with Syrian refugee Makhoul Al Hamad, 43, and his daughter Sana, 14, at their home, in the aftermath of the explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, August 19, 2020.  UNHCR/Sam Tarling

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, today concluded a visit to Lebanon during which he affirmed UNHCRs immediate support to over 100,000 people who were severely affected by the blast that devastated the capital, Beirut, on 4 August.

This support aims to provide emergency housing repairs and trauma counselling to Lebanese, refugees and other affected populations.

During his visit, Grandi observed the devastating impact of the blast, and listened to the plight of Lebanese and refugee families. From Beirut, he called on the international community to continue their generous support and stand by the people of Lebanon at this trying time.

The situation is very difficult. Lebanon is enduring multiple challenges - the swirling economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of the Syrian conflict - and now, this horrible explosion. All of us have a role to play in the response  we cannot let people sleep in the open, without a roof and privacy, exposed to food insecurity, lack of water and medicine.

He added: Let us not forget that Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees per capita in the world. The people of Lebanon have sheltered Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian refugees for decades. It is not the time for the international community to leave Lebanon alone in its own hour of need. I am here to say to all affected communities  Lebanese, refugees, and many others - that we will do everything we can to help them overcome this hardship.

UNHCR is mobilizing a total of US$35 million for its emergency response to the hardest-hit and most vulnerable households in Beirut. This package includes US$32.6 million for shelter interventions and US$2.4 million for protection activities for the next three months.

The High Commissioner discussed the situation with the President of the Republic, the caretaker Prime Minister, and several local and central officials.

Grandi also met with the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) to reaffirm to the two organizations partnership, notably on the emergency shelter response. UNHCR is targeting 100,000 most severely affected individuals and has immediately dispatched its existing in-country stockpile of emergency shelter kits to distribute both directly and through partners including Medair, ACTED, Intersos, Save the Children, Solidarites International, Concern, PU-Ami, and Leb Relief.

During a visit of the devasted neighbourhoods in the capital, Grandi witnessed the emergency response delivered by UNHCR and partners. Over 3,140 shelter kits have already been distributed to the worst-affected households, benefiting over 10,000 people so far.

It was shocking to see first-hand the scale of the destruction, but it is the human cost of this disaster that is truly heartbreaking, Grandi said. The families I met have suffered terrible physical and psychological injuries, but despite everything they remain determined to rebuild their homes and their lives.

UNHCR and partners are also providing legal aid to recover lost documents and above all, psychological first aid and psychosocial support to help people heal from the trauma caused by the blast.

During his visit, the High Commissioner also assessed UNHCRs support to the national COVID-19 response in Lebanon. He visited Tripoli Governmental Hospital where UNHCR funded a 43-bed COVID-19 expansion. Grandi also visited an isolation center supported by UNHCR in Akkar, northern Lebanon, which was fully equipped to receive individuals from all nationalities who need to self-isolate and do not have the capacity to do so at home.

UNHCRs COVID-19 support to hospitals will cover 800 additional beds and 100 additional ICU beds in total, including ventilators and other advanced equipment, as well as medicine stocks. Since February, UNHCR teams deployed all efforts to build dedicated hospital expansion facilities or rehabilitate existing unused sections and refurbish them with new medical equipment. The latter will remain the property of the hospitals after the pandemic, with the aim to cure many more patients long after COVID-19.

In light of the rapid spread of the virus in recent weeks, UNHCR is currently fast-tracking the deployment of ventilators and other ICU equipment to hospitals across the country to help them face the increase in patient admissions.

During his visit, Grandi decided to allocate an additional US$3million to reinforce UNHCRs COVID-19 response, in addition to the previously allocated US$40 million.

Throughout the visit, the High Commissioner met with refugee families, and heard accounts of growing hardship and challenges. In recent months and as a result of the deepening economic and financial crisis that was exacerbated by COVID-19, the proportion of refugees living under the extreme poverty line jumped from 55 per cent to over 75 per cent today.

Refugee and Lebanese communities are pushed further down into poverty and vulnerability as a result of the economic crisis, the consequences of the pandemic and now the tragic explosion in Beirut, and need our urgent help today, said Grandi. We are working with humanitarian partners and the donor community to ensure that all people in Lebanon are not forgotten  they need our help now more than ever before.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
Police say theyve seized more than $42 million worth of illegal cannabis in the Niagara Region, much of which was destined for the American underground market.

The bust comes out of a year-old operation called Project Woolwich, run by the Ontario Provincial Police and several policing partners.

Many of the suspects arrested were from the GTA and Niagara Region, police said, adding that their names will be released soon.

Criminals are exploiting the Health Canada medical cannabis personal and designate production regime by diverting the cannabis to the illegal market and are profiting greatly from this illegal activity, Det. Insp. Jim Walker of the OPP Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau said in a prepared statement.

A large amount of their cannabis came from B.C., police said on Friday.

The accused are scheduled to appear at a St. Catharines Ontario Court of Justice on Sept. 17.

The accused were involved in the production, wholesale distribution and sale of illegal cannabis, police said.

Investigators say items theyve seized include 101,049 illegal cannabis plants, 1,921 pounds of illegal cannabis bud, 22 pounds of illegal cannabis oil, hundreds of illegal cannabis vape pens; six firearms, including an AR-15 assault rifle, grow equipment worth more than $1 million, more than $2.5 million in Canadian currency, $580,828 in U.S. currency and $379,383 in Chinese and South Korean currency.

Police say that recent testing of illegal cannabis products shows lower than advertised THC levels and also the use of banned pesticides.
The Assam Public Service Commission (APSC), under Govt. of Assam, has called for applications in a prescribed format from eligible and interested candidates', who are permanent residents of Assam, for filling 637 vacancies to the post of Junior Engineers and Assistant Engineers in Civil, Mechanical and Electrical streams through direct recruitment on a fulltime basis to be posted under Irrigation Department in Assam, India. The offline application process towards the same started on August 19, 2020 and closes on September 22, 2020.

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Junior Engineers and Assistant Engineers Organisation Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) Educational Qualification B.E/B.Tech/Degree/Diploma in Civil, Mechanical and Electrical engineering disciplines Experience Freshers can apply Job Responsibilities null Skills Required null Job Location Assam Salary Scale In the range of Rs. 14,000 to Rs. 1,10,000 per month as per the designation Industry Assam State Service Application Start Date August 19, 2020 Application End Date September 22, 2020

APSC Recruitment 2020: Age Criteria And Fees

Candidates interested in applying for Junior and Assistant Engineers through APSC Recruitment 2020 must have completed 18 years of age (21 years for Assistant Engineers) and not be more than 38 years as on January 1, 2020 with relaxation (upper age limit) up to 41 years (OBC/MOBC) and 43 years (SC/ST) respectively as per the Assam Govt. norms.

Candidates must pay a prescribed amount of Rs. 250 (Gen/UR) and Rs. 150 (SC/ST/OBC/MOBC) respectively as examination fee for JE & AE posts under APSC Recruitment 2020 either through online (net-banking/credit/debit etc.) mode or through Offline (cash mode) as applicable.

Oil India Limited Recruitment 2020 For 36 Operator (HMV) Grade-VII, Apply Online Before September 18

APSC Recruitment 2020: APSC Vacancy Details

Post Name No. Of Vacancies Junior Engineers 388 Assistant Engineers 269 Total 657

APSC Recruitment 2020: Educational Eligibility

Desirous candidates applying for Junior and Assistant Engineers through APSC Recruitment 2020 must possess a B.E/B.Tech/Degree/Diploma in Civil, Mechanical and Electrical engineering disciplines from a recognised University/Institute and must have adequate knowledge of at least one official language of the State of Assam (i.eAssamese/Bengali/Bodo) other than English.

APSC Recruitment 2020: Selection And Pay Scale

The selection of candidates Junior and Assistant Engineers through APSC Recruitment 2020 will be done through a direct recruitment to be notified later.

Shortlisted candidates for Junior and Assistant Engineers through APSC Recruitment 2020 will be paid emolument in the range of Rs. 14,000 to Rs. 1,10,000 per month as per the designation.

ECIL Recruitment 2020 Notification For 350 Technical Officers Post, Apply Online Before August 30

APSC Recruitment 2020: How To Apply

Candidates applying for Junior and Assistant Engineers through APSC Recruitment 2020 must fill the application form in a prescribed format post-download, and submit the same along with relevant supporting documents to the "Deputy Secretary, APSC, Jawaharnagar, Khanapara, Guwahati-781022" on or before September 22, 2020.

Download APSC Recruitment 2020 PDF Application Form

Download APSC Recruitment 2020 PDF for Jr. Engineers and Asst. Engineers
US carriers Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T are all preparing to end support for 3G and relinquish its spectrum. The decisions, spanning the next several years, follow the initial launch of the technology by Verizon back in 2002. And, as with every other new generation of the technology, each company reportedly has its own plan in place to bring that generation to a close.

Verizons plan is to end by the end of 2020

Verizons plan to end 3G support may be the most straightforward of the carriers. It will drop support by the end of 2020 after ceasing to activate any new phones on 3G as of 2018. The gap there appears to have given its customers time to switch over to new devices. Especially since the company has indicated that virtually all data traffic on the carrier runs over 4G LTE.

Verizon also indicates that customers who are still concerned about it can reach out to its service team.

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T-Mobile will end 3G support soon too

Now, T-Mobile is something of a quandary amid its competitors. The company, unlike other carriers, has reportedly indicated that it hasnt got an official timing for the end of 3G support. Leaked documents potentially give away a different story. But the companys official line is that there is no official timing thats been released. The change will happen over the next several years, the self-proclaimed un-carrier indicates.

T-Mobile has also indicated that it will ensure that any customers who will be impacted by the change are given advance notice.

As with other carriers, T-Mobiles reasoning is fairly straightforward. It hopes to phase out the older technology and associated technologies. That will, it says, free up more for 4G LTE and 5G.

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In the interim, the above-mentioned documents indicate that consumers will need a 4G VoLTE device by the first month of 2021. That change will also apply to MVNOs associated with T-Mobile if the documents are correct. And users will be contacted directly about the change.

AT&T is playing a longer game to end 3G but with a set timeline in place

Like T-Mobile, AT&T is planning to shutter its 3G services for consumers by the end of 2022. At least for devices that dont support 4G VoLTE. It also plans to release the spectrum and technologies associated with 3G in favor of freeing up spectrum for next-gen tech. And, of course, for the services to be brought with it.

But AT&T is playing the longest game here so not everybody will be impacted by the end of the year. 3G will continue into early 2022. And it will phase out the network, working with consumers throughout the process to ensure a smooth transition.

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This probably wont affect you negatively

Now, none of the carriers have been activating new devices on 3G for some time anyway. So, obviously, most users wont be utilizing the almost 20-year-old technology at any rate. Most users, unless they are using 3G for IoT purposes, have long-since moved to a 4G gadget.

With regard to that one exception to the rule, as has happened with past transitions, those users who are still on 3G arent likely to be on their smartphones. Those that remain will mostly be utilizing hotspots made expressly for 3G and enterprise consumers. As noted above, those who are still concerned about how this will impact them should reach out to their carrier for more details.
Adam Haner, who was assaulted in Portland, Ore., over the weekend, in an photograph taken on Aug. 20, 2020. (Adam Haner Fund/GoFundMe)

Portland Assault Victim Believes He Was Attacked For Being White

The man who was recently beaten in Portland until he lost consciousness suggested he was targeted in part because of his race.

I wasnt the enemy, Ill tell you that. I was just the guy standing there, and I was white, evidently, Adam Haner told KATU.

Haner was among a number of people brutally assaulted in downtown Portland on Sunday night.

Witnesses told The Epoch Times that those responsible for the assault and several others were Black Lives Matter activists. A number of the assailants used language that supported that version of events.

Haner said he was in the area to go to 7-Eleven to get a drink when he saw a transgender female being attacked.

Video footage showed the person having her bag stolen and being punched several times.

I wasnt trying to do anything but get a drink, Haner said. But there was a confrontation going on there, and I ended up in the middle of it.

Haner told Fox 12 that people in the crowd called him a white supremacist before he was beaten.

He said hes attended Black Lives Matter protests before.

Marquise Love in an undated photograph. (Portland Police Bureau)

Marquise Love, 25, was identified as the man who kicked and punched Haner repeatedly.

Love posted a picture wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt and said he attended a protest for the movement last month. His Facebook profile was taken down this week.

Love, who was wearing a security vest while allegedly committing the assault, was employed by Star Protection Agency as an unarmed security guard from January to March of this year, the firm said in a statement. The tactical vest isnt from the firm.

Police officers are still looking for Love, who hasnt heeded calls to surrender himself.

Haners girlfriend, Tammie Martin, was also assaulted.

Haner told KATU that hes not seeking vengeance and that karma will take care of Love, either through the justice system or in another way.

He suffered numerous injuries, including several broken ribs, a retina that may become detached, and lacerations on his head that required stitches.

Black Lives Matter protesters march past the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore., in a July 31, 2020, file photograph. (Noah Berger/AP Photo)

Police officers are still looking for the transgender female to ask her questions about what happened. On Thursday night, detectives released a photograph showing a man they say is a witness in the case.

The shocking nature of the violenceeven in the context of near-nightly riotswas enough to elicit strong condemnations from a range of city and county officials.

Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, whose office is declining to pursue some charges against demonstrators, issued a statement condemning the assault, as did the Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty.

U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said he was sickened when he watched the video and fears someone will be killed if the unrest isnt quelled.

Unrest has continued on a near-nightly basis since May 28.

Wheeler and his office havent returned a series of emails seeking insight into what plans are being considered to end the violence.

Police Chief Chuck Lovell said Wednesday that the solution is having a critical mass of people denouncing the criminal activity and broad support for police, as well as elected officials and people in positions of power coming together in support of the real change.

He said these people have to come together against those who continue to feel empowered to act in a way that devalues our City with every brick thrown, every fire lit, and every crime committed.

Hours later, another riot took place.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai on Friday gave approval to initiate bankruptcy proceedings against Anil Ambani over failure to repay debt. In 2016, State Bank of India (SBI) had given credit facilities to Reliance Communications and Reliance Infratel, part of Reliance ADAG group headed by Anil Ambani.

Ambani had offered about Rs 1,200 crore of personal guarantees while seeking loans in 2016 for now insolvent RCom and RITL. SBI had earlier moved the NCLT Mumbai to recover the given amount from Ambani under the personal guarantee clause of the bankruptcy law.

NCLT Mumbai has observed, "The RCOM and RITL committed default in repayment in and around January 2017. The accounts were retrospectively declared as Non-Performing Account (NPA) with effect from 26.08.2016 i.e. even before loan agreements had been entered into."

In early 2019, RCom had filed for bankruptcy after which its secured debt was estimated at nearly Rs 33,000 crore. However, its lenders had submitted claims of nearly Rs 49,000 crore in August 2019.

In March, SBI board had approved a resolution plan for RCom that envisaged lenders recovering around Rs 23,000 crore of their money, entailing a haircut of nearly 50 per cent.

Also read: HQ gone, Anil Ambani to return Reliance Group to Ballard Estate

Also read: NCLT to decide on Anil Ambani's RCom resolution plan on Aug 19
Slovenia, nearly 300 migrants stopped in police operations

(ANSAmed) - ROMA, 21 AGO - Seven human traffickers arrested.



Migrant flow increases along the Balkan Route Police stopped 257 migrants in a huge operation that took place in recent days between Ljubljana and Novo Mesto, while another 35 migrants were stopped in the Slovene Littoral region during routine border inspections. The Ljubljana central police said in a statement that since Tuesday evening, special canine units, along with drones and state border agents, were at work concluding seven different operations in areas of Ljubljana and the capital of southeastern Slovenia, along roads that lead to the borders with Italy and Croatia. The statement said the goal of the operations was to prevent and to detect illegal border crossings in the areas with the highest traffic.



Migrants found in baggage areas During operations, seven people were arrested and charged with human trafficking, aggravated by the hardship they forced upon the migrants, some of whom were found in the baggage storage areas or near the mechanical parts of the cars, suffering serious respiratory difficulty. In an inspection in Metlica Nature Park, a group of nine Afghan citizens entered Slovenia on foot. Then, with the help of an Afghan and a Cuban, the group boarded two private vehicles with Italian license plates to reach Italy. Recently, migrant flows have increased along the so-called Balkan Route. In 2015, this route saw the crossing of more than a million refugees headed towards Western Europe.



Figures released by Slovenian security forces show an increase in illegal crossings over the past two months compared to the same period last year. The increase coincides with the resumption of movement following restrictions due to coronavirus. Since the start of the year through now, a total of 8,762 illegal migrants have been stopped, 40% fewer than the same period in 2019, but figures from the past two months show a marked increase. The majority of the migrants are citizens from Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan.



(Slovenian police and health workers approach a driver for questioning at the Slovenian-Italian border crossing of Fernetici, Slovenia. Photo: EPA/IGOR KUPLJENIK) (ANSA).




New Delhi: Public sector banks will need external capital of up to Rs 2.1 trillion over the next two years and the most likely source to plug this shortfall will be government support, Moody's Investors Service said on Friday.

According to Moody's, the sharp slowdown in India's economic growth, exacerbated by the virus outbreak, will hurt the asset quality of public sector banks (PSBs) and drive up credit costs.

"We expect to see PSBs' already weak capital buffers to be depleted, with Rs 1.9 trillion - Rs 2.1 trillion (USD 25 billion - USD 28 billion) in external capital needed over the next two years to restore loss-absorbing buffers," Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer Alka Anbarasu said.

PSBs dominate India's banking system, meaning any failure could jeopardize financial stability, Anbarasu added.

"As such, we expect government support will remain forthcoming," she said.

In a report titled 'Coronavirus fallout will leave banks with capital shortages again', Moody's said asset quality will deteriorate, led by retail and small business loans.

According to Moody's, Indian economy will contract sharply in fiscal year ending March 2021 (fiscal 2020) before returning to growth, though modestly, in fiscal 2021.

"As a result, formation of new non-performing loans (NPLs) will accelerate substantially, driven by the retail and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) segments.

"Although one-time loan restructuring allowed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will prevent a sudden increase in NPLs. NPLs and credit costs will increase in the next two years, hurting PSBs' already weak profitability and depleting their capitalization," it said.

It said, banks will face large capital shortfalls again as credit costs rise. Of the total capital requirement amount, PSBs will need about Rs 1 trillion to build loan-loss provisions to about 70 per cent of NPLs, which will leave them with enough capacity to grow loans 8-10 per cent annually, faster than the 4 per cent in fiscal 2020.

Moody's said to maintain financial stability, government will continue to provide capital support for PSBs.

Uncertainty surrounding India's economic recovery as well as the ongoing clean-up of balance sheets are making it difficult for most PSBs to raise equity capital from markets.

"This means PSBs will continue to need support from the government to plug their capital shortfalls, and we expect the government to infuse fresh funds into them as it has done in the past.

"If PSBs, which dominate the banking system in India, fail to function properly in the absence of state capital support, the country will face a deepening credit crunch, hampering its economic recovery," Moody's added.
CHICAGO  Rap artist, entrepreneur and aspiring presidential candidate Kanye West, a Chicago native, did not qualify to appear on Illinois' Nov. 3 ballot, the Illinois State Board of Elections decided Friday.

Board members, acting to finalize the fall ballot, voted 8-0 that West, whose independent campaign has been associated with a number of Republican operatives in other states, fell far short of filing the required number of signatures needed to appear on the ballot.

The move by the eight-member board, made up equally of Republicans and Democrats, was not surprising after two separate binder checks reviewing the authenticity of West's candidacy petitions found they fell far below the minimum needed.

Kanye West facing petition challenge to make Nov. 3 ballot Kanye Wests bid to make the Nov. 3 Illinois ballot as an independent presidential contender and Willie Wilsons effort to run as a third-part

Of the 3,128 signatures West filed with the elections board on July 20, one review found 1,928 of them were invalid, leaving him 1,300 signatures short of the 2,500 needed to become an independent candidate on the Illinois ballot.

The 2,500 signature standard is actually 10 times lower than usually required under a federal court order prompted by challenges to state law by third-party and independent candidates who cited personal restrictions due to the pandemic hindered their efforts to circulate petitions. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the modified filing rules on Thursday.

West's campaign can appeal the election board's ruling in court. Representatives for his campaign were not available for comment.

West's efforts to make ballots in a variety of states, where his campaign did not miss already expired deadlines, have met with mixed success.

He has qualified for the ballot so far in Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah and Vermont. Earlier this week, he filed petitions for the ballot in Minnesota and Wyoming, where he lists his residence.

But on Thursday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted to kick him off the battleground state's ballot for submitting candidacy petitions after a 5 p.m. deadline on Aug. 5. Also on Thursday, Montana officials tossed his name off the ballot for insufficient signatures. His ballot status is pending in Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

West, who was a supporter of President Donald Trump, had said he had a falling out with the Republican chief executive. But Democrats contended West's late bid for the White House was an attempt to take Black votes away from Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

In an interview with Forbes on Aug. 6, West acknowledged he was playing a spoiler role since his campaign would not appear on ballots in enough states to gain the 270 electoral votes needed to run a successful campaign for the presidency.

Trump has said that he likes "Kanye very much," but "I'm not involved" in his campaign. The New York Times reported that West met with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump in Colorado in early August. Kushner said they did not talk about the campaign and West told Forbes the two speak "almost daily."

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Danny Davis of Chicago said he doubted West would have much of an impact on syphoning Black votes from Biden in states where he appears on the ballot.

"I don't think there are many individuals who are viewing Kanye West's efforts to do whatever he's doing seriously," Davis said. "So I don't think it will have much impact at all. As a matter of fact, he's a good entertainer and he ought to stick to it."

In mid-July West held a bizarre kickoff rally in North Charleston, S.C., where he occasionally wept, pledged that mothers should receive $1 million per child and criticized Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist icon who helped free slaves from the South through the Underground Railroad, as merely moving slaves to "go work for other white people."

West's wife, Kim Kardashian West, has raised concerns about her husband's history of mental illness. In an Instagram post, she asked for understanding about the rapper suffering a bipolar episode in late July and said that "those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words sometimes do not align with his intentions."

West's presidential bid surfaced as he promoted the release of a new album last month named after his late mother, Donda.

Gov. J.B. Pritzkers graduated-rate income tax: Heres what you need to know

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 00:54:46|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Egypt expressed on Thursday its deep concern about the rapid political developments taking place in fellow African state Mali, calling on all Malian parties to denounce violence and maintain restrain, said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in a statement.

"Egypt stresses its condemnation of all forms of violence in the context of the ongoing crisis, while calling on all Malian parties to exercise restraint and adhere to peaceful methods and dialogue to settle the crisis," it added.

On Tuesday, military putschists seized power in Mali and forced detention of senior officials, including the country's president and prime minister.

The move was condemned by the United Nations Security Council the next day.

Egypt stressed the need "to seek swift restoration of the constitutional order in Mali as soon as possible."

Cairo also expressed support for all political efforts that aim at resolving the crisis in Mali, including those of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States. Enditem
A pair of announcements on Friday at Amazon and Facebook suggests big changes at some of the tech companies that are driving todays e-commerce.

Jeff Wilke, chief executive officer of Amazons worldwide consumer business, will retire sometime early next year, according to an Amazon regulatory filing Friday.

More from WWD

Its a notable move for a key figure in the e-tailers leadership team, as Wilke was the once-presumptive successor for chief executive officer Jeff Bezos. Instead, he will step away at an arguably critical time for the company as it transitions away from emergency mode, thanks to the coronavirus igniting online shopping, to an expansive growth phase.

Wilke will hand the reins to Dave Clark, senior vice president of retail operations.

In a message to staff, Bezos said, Jeffs legacy and impact will live on long after he departs. He is simply one of those people without whom Amazon would be completely unrecognizable. But, of course, hes also confident in Clark as he takes over as Amazons global consumer chief.

The past six months brought a bevy of unique challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis, with crushing e-commerce traffic and logistics obstacles amid warehouse workers health and safety concerns. Now Amazon, having achieved some operational efficiencies, is looking to open more locations and hire thousands of new employees, with concentrations in New York and Arizona, among other places.

New York City is expected to see as many as 2,000 new technical and corporate staff, along with new office spaces, while Phoenix will play host to more than 3,000 additional full- and part-time jobs in 11 new fulfillment centers by the end of the year.

Now Wilke, who rose through the ranks after starting out in logistics, is apparently leaving any relevant aspects of those initiatives to Clark, a fellow member of Bezos elite S-team inner circle of executives.

Story continues

The storied group of Amazon leaders itself is ripe for change, as the ceo is reportedly adding three more members to the club. Among the new entrants is Alicia Boler Davis, vice president of global customer fulfillment. Shes the latest woman to make the elite team  after Colleen Aubrey, vice president of performance advertising, and Christine Beauchamp, vice president of Amazon Fashion. Notably, Boler Davis is also the first Black female S-team member.

Meanwhile, at Facebook, chief marketing officer Antonio Lucio said that hes exiting the social media company, effective Sept. 18. Lucio, who has only been in the post for two years, wants to move on and work on the broader effort of diversity and inclusion in marketing and advertising, he said in a blog post.

He explained, It is a time for reckoning for the nation and my industry and it is time for me to play a more active part in accelerating change.

Social media pundits and strategists may remember Lucio as the executive in charge of Facebooks push to brand its family of apps under the parent companys umbrella.

Dogged by negative attention and criticism, executives were apparently concerned about not getting enough credit for popular apps like Instagram and WhatsApp. Both now carry the Facebook name and more integrated features  such as the single dashboard for Facebook Shop and Instagram Shop.

Facebook hired Lucio in August 2018, just before Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger resigned the following month, in a move largely viewed as a revolt against the parent companys push to unite the apps.

The broader controversies stem from Facebooks approach to data privacy and disinformation on its own platform, though. And in his parting remarks, the soon-to-be former marketing chief seemed to empathize with its executive team, calling it a remarkable group of leaders, sometimes misunderstood by the external world, but deeply caring and committed to ensuring these platforms have a positive impact on the world.
The department of science and technology (DST) under Ministry of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences has decided to discontinue the project of Centre for Glaciology (CFG) in Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG) in Dehradun, officials said.

The decision was communicated with the WIHG officials in a letter dated June 25 which was received in July. Under the letter, the DST also mentioned that CFG to be merged with WIHG from July 1 and all its activities to be managed by the existing staff of WIHG. The letter also asked WIHG to relieve all the staff involved in the project from July 1. HT has a copy of the letter.

The Centre for Glaciology was set up in 2009 during the UPA regime in WIHG, which was appointed as its nodal agency. It had aimed to carry a coordinated research initiative on Himalayan glaciology to understand the effects of climate on glaciers in order to develop strategies for climate change adaptability.

The Centre for Glaciology was also assigned to carry programmes in setting up a specialised institute on glaciology named Indian Institute of Glaciology in Mussoorie. The then government had planned a fund of about 500 crore to develop the institute of which about 23 crore was released.

Confirming the development, director WIHG, Kalachand Sain, said, We were asked to discontinue the project in a written communication from the DST. It has asked us to carry all its activities in WIHG and relieve the non-permanent staff involved in the project.

Sain, however, said that the research on glaciology will not be stopped as they will continue in WIHG.

The move doesnt mean that scientific researches on glaciology will stop. Apart from the Centre, researches were also being done in WIHG which will continue and the researches done in the project will now be done in our institute, said Sain.

The director also said that the project which was started in 2009 was initially for about 4-5 years after which it was extended every year.

As in the case of other scientific research projects, this was being extended every year on our request as the desired output was received. This has now stopped with the Centres letter on which we cannot comment anything as it is purely the prerogative of DST, said Sain.

The experts, however, feel that the move will affect the studies on Himalayan glaciers in the country, because the Centre would have been the first such institute in the whole country.

Dr BR Arora, former director of WIHG who was involved with the CFG project from the starting said, Discontinuing it will surely affect the glaciology research. It will slow down glacial researches, as it was a completely scientific project to study the dynamics of glaciers which were not known yet.

Arora said the major implication will be the loss of trained manpower for glaciology study.

When the project was started, we at WIHG were tasked to train manpower to study glaciology as it is not being taught in the country anywhere. The trained manpower was to be then deployed in the glaciology institute to be set up in Mussoorie for which land was also earmarked. We trained about 7-8 people for the institute since last 6-7 years who will now be lost as the project itself is discontinued. Loss of trained human resource will be the biggest implication of this move, said Arora.

He said that till the project was continued, there were many significant studies being done under him.

We all say that the Himalayan glaciers are melting but nobody exactly knew why they are melting. Whether its all because of only global warming or any other man-made factors also? Under the CFG project we were studying all this. We had also studied the difference between North facing glaciers and South facing glaciers and the reason of their melting accordingly, he said.

He also said that there were plans to invite foreign scientists working on glaciology to the Centre in Mussoorie.

There was plan to send our trained researchers for training to countries like China, Norway and Switzerland which have expertise in studying glaciers and ice-scoring in which frozen gas particles in glacial ice are being studied to analyse the climatic conditions in earlier years and ages. There was also a plan to invite the researchers from there to help is develop laboratories in the centre in Mussoorie under the project, said Arora.

I hope there will be a solution to be brought up at WIHG after this recent move to compensate the loss in glacial research. But the loss of trained manpower couldnt be compensated as this study needs in-depth knowledge and expertise which comes after years of training, he said.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kalyan Das Kalyan Das covers crime, transport, human rights and central government offices from Bhopal and Indore. ...view detail
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 18:34:56|Editor: huaxia

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MOGADISHU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Somali President Mohamed Farmajo and three regional leaders have agreed on a new election model for the 2020/21 polls, which is seen as crucial for the country's stability.

Farmajo, who joined leaders of the regional states of Galmudug, South West State and Hirshabelle, as well as the governor of Banadir in Dhusamareb, the capital of Galmudug agreed on Thursday evening to form Electoral Constituency Caucuses, with each caucus consisting of 301 delegates who will vote for a seat in parliament.

The agreement, which was reached at the end of the third round of talks, must be approved by the Lower House of Parliament.

"We have reached an electoral agreement with the leadership of federal member states and the Banadir region, which we hope will pave the way for free, fair, multi-party, and timely elections," Farmajo said at the end of the six-day meeting. "We extend a brotherly hand to those who are yet to join us."

Leaders from Jubaland and Puntland states did not attend the meeting, which also agreed that the election will be presided over by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) and that elections will involve multiple parties.

"The leaders agreed that the INEC in collaboration with the state governments facilitate the formation of an all-inclusive selection committee of elders and civil society from the seat-sharing community," they said in a joint statement.

The four leaders also resolved to establish at least four constituencies in each regional state where the elections take place and that the elections will be held nationwide on the same day.

The leaders also resolved to hold indirect elections in Somaliland, regional assemblies to elect members of the Upper House.

"The leaders of the conference are committed to continuing their efforts to address the concerns of the 2020/21 elections in the two states (Jubaland and Puntland) that are absent from the conference, and we look forward to (them) joining us in any task that remains to be done," they said.

Both sides met mid-July and agreed to appoint a joint technical committee to provide guidance on the process and model of the election. The committee submitted its report at the meeting, which the leaders later adopted.

The meeting took place amid pressure from the international community which said preserving the recently cultivated trust among the leaders and sustaining the consensus-building process initiated during the last Dhusamareb summit is imperative to keep Somalia on a stable political path.

The leaders also agreed with a 30 percent quota for women to be observed. The agreement needs to be approved by parliament.

Analysts see the 2020 universal vote as critical to entrenching the federal system of governance, which is required to appease communities and regions claiming systematic exclusion and marginalization for decades.

The Horn of Africa nation last held one-person, one-vote elections in March 1969 when the government was overthrown in a bloodless military coup.

Parliamentary and presidential elections took place in late 2016 and early 2017 through a system of indirect suffrage. Enditem
International

Russia to let Alexei Navalny fly to Germany for treatment

Alexei Navalny

Moscow, Aug 21 (AP) | Publish Date: 8/21/2020 10:19:31 AM IST

Russian doctors gave a dissident who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning permission to be transferred abroad for medical treatment, a senior physician said on Friday.

The reversal came after more than 24 hours of wrangling over Alexei Navalnys condition and treatment.

Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday. His supporters believe he was poisoned and that the Kremlin is behind it.

His family and supporters wanted him brought to a top German medical clinic, but his physicians in Omsk said he was too unstable to move, even after a plane with German specialists and advanced equipment arrived.

Navalnys supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison would no longer be traceable in his system. A senior doctor in Omsk said the team did not believe he was poisoned.

The German doctors later examined Navalny and said he was fit to be transported. I understand hes still unconscious, but theyre used to such special assignments and they say very clearly he can fly and they want to fly him, film producer Jaka Bizilj, of Cinema For Peace, told The Associated Press after being in contact with the German doctors.

The Russian medical team then relented and deputy chief doctor of the Omsk hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko told reporters on Friday that he would be allowed to leave.

The flight was scheduled for Saturday morning, Russias RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing airport officials.

Earlier, a Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the resistance to the transfer was political. He said he wasnt aware of any instructions to stop the transfer and that it was purely a medical decision. It may pose a threat to his health, Peskov said. Navalnys wife told reporters that hospital staff and men she suspected were law enforcement agents didnt let her speak to the German specialists, who she said were brought into the facility in secrecy, through a back door.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents and insisted that the transfer is paramount to saving the politicians life.
LG Display's 55-inch transparent OLED display is installed in a subway car in Shenzhen, China, in this photo provided by the company, Friday. / Courtesy of LG Display



By Baek Byung-yeul



LG Display has supplied its state-of-the-art "transparent" 55-inch OLED display panels for use on subways in China, the display-making affiliate of LG Group said Friday.



The company said it has provided its displays to subways operated in Beijing and Shenzhen, the first time that it has provided such display panels for use inside subway cars.



"The 55-inch transparent OLED displays installed on Beijing subway trains on line No. 6 and Shenzhen subway trains on line No. 10 provide transportation information such as subway times and transfer information and even airline schedules. They also offer real-time weather forecasts and news," a company official said.



LG has developed the transparent OLED displays to mainly target the business-to-business (B2B) market. The company said the new display is suitable for retail stores and other commercial venues that want to promote their products or provide information



The company said actual products can be clearly seen if placed behind the transparent display while video or images overlay the object.



The official said the company is not able to reveal the exact details of the display supply contract and how many it has supplied.



But, the company is currently discussing additional contracts with Chinese subway operators and those in other countries.



"The transparent OLED display business for the B2B market is just in its initial stages. We are currently negotiating with many other customers to supply our cutting-edge displays," the official said.





Passengers on a subway train in Shenzhen, China look at LG Display's transparent OLED display in this photo provided by the company Friday. / Courtesy of LG Display
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Employees at Newark Liberty International Airport can now get tested for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) without leaving the worksite.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in partnership with XpresCheck, have announced the opening of a new COVID-19 testing facility at Newark Airport.

Across the agency, we have employed various preventive measures to ensure the safety of travelers and airport personnel, and are continually exploring ways to further enhance these measures, said Kevin OToole, Port Authority chairman. We remain committed to implementing additional measures and policies, as well as expanding and exploring various pilots, such as this new on-airport testing site, to further safeguard those at our facilities.

The Newark testing site will initially be used to screen up to 350 employees per day for the novel coronavirus. However, following an unspecified initial launch period, the Port Authority said the testing site will also be made available to Newark passengers.

The new testing facility builds on a pilot program launched earlier this summer, when the Port Authority and XpresCheck launched the first in-airport coronavirus screening and testing facility in the United States at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The Port Authority has taken proactive measures to provide a safe environment for both employees and customers, including piloting a partnership with XpresCheck to bring testing right into our airport terminals, said Rick Cotton, Port Authority executive director.

The new testing site, located on Level 3 of Terminal B, consists of nine separate testing rooms equipped to administer both COVID-19 testing and antibody testing.

Tests are sent to outside laboratories for analysis and all insurance plans are accepted.

We are thrilled to be launching in Newark Liberty International Airport, our second XpresCheck testing facility in the NY Metro area, said Doug Satzman, XpresSpa CEO. We are also hopeful that we can bring XpresCheck to additional U.S. airports over time, leveraging our learnings to date in setting up and administering a testing facility so that we can do our part to keep safe those who work in the airline industries as well as travelers.

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

RESTRICTED TERMINAL ACCESS

As another means of addressing the coronavirus, in late-April, the Port Authority began restricting airport terminal access at John F. Kennedy, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia airports.

Only ticketed passengers, airport employees and those who can demonstrate a need to enter the facility for airport-related business are currently permitted to enter the terminals.

Port Authority police are monitoring access to the terminals and may ask prospective entrants to provide evidence of their reason for entry.

Passengers may be asked to show a ticket, boarding pass, flight reservation or some comparable confirmation that they are taking a departing flight from that airport.

Airport employees may be asked to show their airport identification badge, while others conducting business within the facility may need to provide documentation that they are a vendor, contractor, or are otherwise performing authorized airport business.

ENHANCED CLEANING MEASURES

The agency has also ramped up its cleaning efforts at the regions airports and bus stations in response to the ongoing spread of the novel coronavirus.

At the regions four airports -- John F. Kennedy, Newark Liberty, LaGuardia and New York Stewart International -- all terminal operators have been instructed to intensify cleaning procedures.

This includes increased wipe-downs of frequently touched surfaces, such as doors, countertops, handrails on stairs and escalators, elevator cabs and buttons, information kiosks, ticket vending machines, ticket counters, seating areas, charging stations and water fountains.

Additionally, restrooms are receiving increased cleanings using EPA-approved and CDC-endorsed cleaning products. Terminal operators have also deployed additional hand-sanitizing stations near federal inspection areas.

The agency has also increased the frequency and intensity of all cleanings at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, George Washington Bridge Bus Station and the Oculus World Trade Center Transportation Hub. All frequently touched surfaces are being sanitized on a regular basis with EPA-approved and CDC-endorsed cleaning products, similar to the measures being undertaken at the airports.

Enhanced cleaning measures have also been deployed on all PATH cars and stations, as well as at the Journal Square Bus Terminal. Disinfecting is taking place on all commonly touched surfaces, including seating, doors, handrails, turnstiles, emergency gates, elevators, information kiosks, SmartLink and MetroCard ticket machines.
- Uhuru had joined the African Union and other African presidents in demanding the immediate release of detained Mali President Boubacar Keita who has since dissolved his government

- While the president urged for a speedy, peaceful and democratic resolution, his fellow citizens could hear none of it saying the situation was worse back at home

- African Union Chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa who is also South Africa's president called for dialogue to restore peace and stability in the West African country

Kenyans have reacted swiftly to President Uhuru Kenyatta's statement on the coup in Mali urging him to instead worry about the rising rate of corruption in the country.

The head of state had strongly condemned the Tuesday, August 18, takeover by the military in the West African country during which President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was seized by mutinying soldiers leading to his resignation.

READ ALSO: Mutahi Ngunyi declares Ruto's 'hustler nation' dead

Uhuru speaking at an African union meeting. Photo: State House.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Jowie's wife Ella says she met him through divine intervention

While Uhuru urged for a speedy, peaceful and democratic resolution, his fellow citizens could hear none of it saying the situation was worse back at home.

Here were some of the reactions sampled by TUKO.co.ke.

Kayman George: "First, Malians got fed up with their incompetent and corrupt government which is not different from yours..What is it that makes you think you are different from their despots?"

READ ALSO: Orodha ya wasanii wenye utajiri mkubwa duniani

Peter Mwangi: " Uhuru aka Jayden shouldn't demand anything. This guy has completely finished us. There's rampant corruption everywhere. Useless. He should be next."

Karuhi: "Point of correction, Uhuru in his personal capacity and the entire Ngina family condemn the coup but Kenyans in general support the military action in Mali 100%."

READ ALSO: 9 breathtaking photos of Jowie's lover and baby mama Ella that prove she is a goddess

David Chege: "How do you expect foreign soldiers to respect their constitution while you yourself don't respect yours."

John Kunyu: "That's the only solution to corruption. Not what we see in the Senate and Maraga's network."

Uhuru had joined the African Union and other African presidents in demanding the immediate release of detained President Boubacar Keita who has since dissolved his government.

African Union Chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa who is also South Africa's president called for dialogue to restore peace and stability in Mali.

Ousted Mali president Ibrahim Keita. Photo: Ibrahim Keita.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Sergio Romero: Man United to include Argentine in deal for Jack Grealish

President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on the other hand rallied African countries to take a firm position on the matter saying the coup was "dangerous for democracy in Africa".

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.

Jowie's wife on how they met and why she will love him forever | Tuko Talks | TukoTV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
China General Nuclear Power (CGN) is working alongside France's EDF in the construction of a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point, in southwest England, which is due to be completed in 2025

After Britain ordered the phased removal of Huawei from its 5G network, attention has now switched to China's role in other areas of the UK, particularly its involvement in key nuclear power projects.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries are already fraught as a result of Beijing's introduction of a controversial security law on former British colony Hong Kong.

But the rows over first Huawei and now the nuclear issue are adding to the pressure.

Among those leading the charge against China is former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, who wants China's role in Britain's nuclear future to be reassessed.

"Our energy policy is in the hands of the Chinese," the Tory MP said in a recent article in British daily, The Telegraph.

"Just in that one sector, we have complete domination by China when we should be strategically reviewing it."

China General Nuclear Power (CGN) is working alongside France's EDF in the construction of a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point, in southwest England, which is due to be completed in 2025.

The pair are also awaiting formal approval for a new plant at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast in eastern England.

In both cases, CGN is the minority partner.

But in another project, the Bradwell nuclear reactor in southeastern England, it is CGN which will hold the majority stake.

CGN has not indicated whether it plans to pull the plug itself on its UK nuclear involvement.

But the group is investing 3.8 billion ($4.9 billion, 4.2 billion euros) and supporting thousands of jobs in the sector.

Steve Thomas, a professor of energy policy at London's University of Greenwich, said CGN's nuclear ambitions in Britain were "an important step" in showcasing the Chinese group's technology to the rest of the world.

"All CGN wanted from the UK was the prestige and endorsement," he told AFP.

With China the lead partner in the Bradwell project, Thomas said UK approval "will be a political decision".

Story continues

Blocking the plant's construction could threaten CGN's involvement in Hinkley or Sizewell, he added.

"It depends how angry the Chinese government is... and whether it wants to punish the UK," Thomas said.

Such action would be extremely costly also in terms of numbers, with the final bill for Hinkley estimated at up to 22.5 billion.

- Nuclear importance -

Should the Chinese exit Hinkley, a British state-bailout may be needed to salvage the project, which is key to the government's long-term energy plans.

It wants to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, using nuclear power to help meet the country's electricity needs.

Britain's ambitions won a boost Monday from Hitachi, when the Japanese group announced it was ready to relaunch a nuclear power project in northwest Wales.

The Wylfa Newydd development on Anglesey island, spearheaded by Hitachi's Horizon Nuclear subsidiary, was put on hold early last year because of wrangling over financing.

It is now awaiting the publication of a new government energy strategy, which could include a more attractive financing model, including sharing the cost with consumers via a levy.

Japanese rival Toshiba, though, has not revised its 2018 decision to pull the plug on a nuclear power plant project in Cumbria, northwest England.

The government is banking on renewable energy such as wind power to meet its target, moving away from coal, but with a continued reliance on nuclear.

Currently, nuclear provides some 20 percent of the country's electricity, a ratio that ministers are keen to maintain, even as existing plants come to the end of their lifespan.

"New nuclear has an important role to play in providing reliable, low-carbon power as part of our future energy mix as we tackle climate change," the government said this week.

But with political pressure from within its ranks, it remains to be seen whether the Chinese will help to deliver it.

jbo-bcp/phz/spm/gle
Project Management Officer, Yangon, Myanmar

Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme

Country: Myanmar

City: Yangon, Myanmar

Office: UNDP Yangon

Closing date: Friday, 25 August 2020

Job ID: 32145

Practice Area - Job Family: Management - SUPPORT TO EFFECTIVE & RESPONSIVE INSTITUTIONS PROJECT

Vacancy End Date: (Midnight New York, USA) 21/08/2020

Duty Station: Yangoon, Myanmar

Education & Work Experience: G-Bachelors Level Degree - 2 year(s) experience, I-Masters Level Degree - 1 year(s) experience

Languages: English

Grade: SB4

Vacancy Type: Service Contract (SC)

Posting Type: External

Bureau: Asia & the Pacific

Contract Duration: One Year

Background

Job Title: Project Management Officer, Support to Effective & Responsive Institutions Project (SERIP).

Duty Station: Yangon with eventual relocation to Naypyidaw

Duration and Type of Assignment: One year Service Contract with potential for renewal

Myanmar has embarked on a major transition towards democracy, market style economy and peace. Myanmar has low middle-income status (LMIC) and is committed to lifting itself out of Least Developed Country (LDC) status within the next seven years. Following the implementation of the first ever UNDP Country Programme during 2013-2017 and as a key development partner of the government of Myanmar, UNDP will implement a new UNDP Country Programme for the period 2018-2022, striving to deliver on a large and relevant programme portfolio that is responsive to the main development challenges facing the country.

The UNDP Country Office in Myanmar is a key interlocutor and advisor to the union government on evidence-based and integrated planning and policy making, rule of law, civil service reform, parliamentary capacity and institution building, and expanding its programme at the state, region and township levels in order to ensure stronger institutions at all levels of government as well as broader public engagement as part of the effort to build and sustain peace.

The new UNDP Myanmar Country Programme (2018-2022) has been finalized and a new structure will be implemented to support a more integrated and collaborative way to help Myanmar achieve sustainable development and sustained peace. The Country Office has aligned the new office structure with the new CPD and designed new ways of working that will facilitate more collaboration across the office, create the foundations for more sub-national level work and higher delivery, facilitate the relocation of the country office from Yangon to Naypyidaw during the upcoming CPD period, and emphasize learning and support to national staff capacity development.

The Support to Effective and Responsive Institutions Project (SERIP) is a 5-year initiative that aims to strengthen the effectiveness of state executive and legislative institutions in understanding the needs and aspirations of the Myanmar people, in all their diversity but also growing inequalities, and in formulating, implementing and evaluating policies as well as in appropriating public resources in a way that provides effective, timely and equitable responses to these aspirations. The centrepiece of the Projects approach is to provide dovetailed support to:

(i) core government functions that are essential building blocks of the machinery of government, i.e. the chain of decisions and actions that are needed to make policies deliver concrete results for peoples lives; and (ii) parliamentary processes as Parliaments define laws that organize a countrys public sector management system and are meant to make government more responsible and accountable. The Project is organized into 4 key intervention areas: (1) Data for Development; (2) Policy Management; (3) Parliamentary Law-making; (4) Subnational Governance, and will ensure throughout all activities, in line with principles of the Agenda 2030, the imperative of leaving-no-one-behind by introducing and supporting innovative and effective approaches to mainstreaming gender equality, environmental resilience and conflict-sensitivity and, more broadly, to fighting vulnerabilities. Also, with SERIP, UNDP seeks to assist government authorities shift gradually to a more decentralized system of public sector management, in accordance with the governments vision for a federal arrangement.

The Project adopts a multi-level approach, from the Union down to Township level and is area-based, as it will land its different workstreams in 5 Regions & States: Bago, Mon, Thanintaryi, Rakhine & Mandalay, where UNDP has a solid track-record of achievements and is a trusted partner of subnational authorities.

Under the overall supervision of the Project Manager, the Project Management Officer supports the Project Manager on all aspects of the project management cycle. The main role is to support project management including continued monitoring of implementation. The Project Management Officer supports coordination of day-to-day implementation of the project contributing to consistency of implementation and timely delivery.

S/he works in close collaboration with the Programme Support Unit and other project teams, Government officials, technical advisors and experts, implementing partners, donors, beneficiaries and civil society to successfully implement the project.

The Project Management Officer will be based in Yangon with eventual relocation to Naypyidaw.

UNDP Myanmar is committed to achieving 50/50 gender balance in its staff. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply for this position.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of key functions:

Supports day-to-day management of the project

Facilitation of administrative, procurement, recruitment and logistical processes in coordination with Programme Support Unit:

Monitoring of Project Management performance indicators:

Facilitates knowledge building and sharing

1) Supports day-to-day management of the project:

Support the SERIP Project Manager in formulation and design of the programme and preparation and revision of the SERIP Annual Work Plans (AWPs), including preparation of budget estimates and budget revisions, procurement plans, HR plans, M&E plans, Risks & Issus logs, etc.

Ensure timely updating of UNDPs results-management systems including ATLAS project management module.

Prepare cost-sharing and other agreements; Monitor cost-sharing agreements;

Monitor project resource balances, expenditures and accurate use of funds; Provide guidance to the project management support team to prepare monthly expenditure reports and other financial analysis as required;

Facilitate audit, spot check and evaluation exercises, including by preparing documentation, liaising with auditors and evaluators, providing clarification and ensuring the implementation of audit recommendations;

Ensure project asset list is updated and facilitates timely actions for asset management;

Assign leave monitors and coordinates timely submission of leave monitor records;

Ensure full compliance with UN/UNDP rules and regulations of financial processes, financial records and reports and audit follow up; Supports effective implementation of the internal control framework.

2) Facilitation of administrative, procurement, recruitment and logistical processes:

Coordinate procurement and recruitment plans; Facilitate timely organization of administrative, procurement, recruitement and logistical arrangements in collaboration with UNDP Country Office, Area Offices, and SERIP project teams in Region/State and townships; Facilitate trouble-shooting for operational issues.

Facilitate procurement activities, including by overseeing procurement processes including: uploading procurement plan details to UNDP procurement system (PROMPT), raising e-requisitions, ensuring timely disbursement of payments for ongoing contracts; Provide strategic solutions to ensure value for money and liaise closely with procurement unit to resolve bottlenecks;

Facilitate human resource management activities, including ensuring recruitment processes are timely managed, liaising closely with human resources unit to resolve bottlenecks, and designing induction programs for new project staff;

Provide support to SERIP project teams and consultants/contractors, including by ensuring visa, protocol, travel arrangements and any other administrative and logistics issues are timely prepared;

Manage translator/interpreter arrangements for SERIPs key documents including reports and Project Board submissions, and ensure high-quality of translated products;

Ensure effective management of logistical arrangements for implementation of SERIP project activities such as trainings, workshops, meetings, etc.; liaise with counterparts to agree on division of labour and budget; analyze any operational issues and recommend solutions;

Ensure full compliance with UN/UNDP rules and regulations.

3) Monitoring of Project Management performance indicators:

Ensure project management performance indicators for UNDP results system and financial/procurement/HR/asset dashboards are regularly monitored and corrective measures are implemented in a timely and effective manner;

Provide guidance to the project management support team to establish project management tracking tools for SERIP teams to monitor project events, use of budget lines, contractors delivery timelines, payment schedules, and logistical timelines;

Provide regular analysis on projects operational performance including activity issues/risks, budget resources and expenditures, procurement, assets, and recruitment; Identify operational issues and proposes innovative solutions;

Lead financial forecasting and budget revision exercises in collaboration with the project management support team; ensure timely, efficient and strategic monitoring of financial performance of the SERIP and provide guidance to the project management support team for actions required.

4) Facilitates knowledge building and knowledge sharing:

Coordinate inputs for SERIPs reports and Project Board documents;

Provide guidance to project management support team to manage filing system and correspondences with counterparts; ensure accessible, accurate and comprehensive filling and archiving;

Identify best operational management practices and propose ideas for achieving operational efficiencies; Share knowledge with SERIP project teams; Promote culture of operational excellence;

Organize trainings and learning events for project staff on relevant topics;

Facilitate preparation of knowledge products, as requested.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

Results-Based Project Development and Management

Level

2: Contributes into results through primary research and analysis

Assesses project performance to identify success factors and incorporates best practices into project work

Researches linkages across programme activities to identify critical points of integration

Monitors specific stages of projects/programme implementation

Innovation and Marketing New Approaches

Level 2: Developing new approaches

Seeks a broad range of perspectives in developing project proposal

Identifies new approaches and promotes their use in other situations

Tags asset management capacity development civil service reform division of labour enterprise resource planning ethics human resource management human resources information systems information technology institution building international relations interpersonal communication knowledge management knowledge products knowledge sharing local governance logistics management information systems political science prince2 procurement project implementation project management project manager public sector rule of law sustainable development trainings translator

Creates an environment that fosters innovation and innovative thinking

Makes the case for innovative ideas from the team with own supervisor

Promoting Organizational Learning and Knowledge Sharing

Level 2: Developing tools and mechanisms

Makes the case for innovative ideas documenting successes and building them into the design of new approaches

Identifies new approaches and strategies that promote the use of tools and mechanisms

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise

Level 2: In-depth knowledge of the subject-matter

Demonstrates comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the current guidelines and project management tools and utilizes these regularly in work assignments

Understands more advanced aspects of primary area of specialization as well as the fundamental concepts of related disciplines

Keeps abreast of new developments in area of professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop him/herself professionally

Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments

Global Leadership and Advocacy for UNDPs Goals

Level 2: Analysis and creation of messages and strategies

Performed analysis of political situations and scenarios, and contributes to the formulation of institutional responses

Uses the opportunity to bring forward and disseminate materials for global advocacy work and adapts it for use at country level

Client Orientation

Level 2: Contributing to positive outcomes for the client

Anticipates client needs

Works towards creating an enabling environment for a smooth relationship between the clients and service provider

Demonstrates understanding of clients perspective

Solicits feedback on service provision and quality

Core Competencies:

Promoting ethics and integrity, creating organizational precedents

Building support and political acumen

Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation

Building and promoting effective teams

Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication

Creating an emotionally intelligent organization

Leveraging conflict in the interests of UNDP & setting standards

Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning. Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member.

Fair and transparent decision making; calculated risk-taking

Prince2 training and certification, RMG would be an advantage.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Masters or Bachelor Degree in Management, Business or Public Sector Administration, International Relations, Political Science, Economics, Development Studies, or other relevant discipline.

Experience:

Minimum of 2 years of progressive experience in project development and management with Bachelor Degree or less than two years with Master Degree in relevant fields.

Experience in designing project implementation and financial tools, using office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.).

Experience in providing operational support for a complex project.

Experience in coordinating with a wide range of project partners.

Experience in information and knowledge management is an asset;;

Knowledge in the area of democratic governance and in one or more of the areas of the project focus (parliament, local governance and data/evidence-based planning and policy making) is an asset

Experience in using Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, such as ATLAS is a desirable asset.

Excellent interpersonal communication skills.

Computer literacy - MS office applications, web-based management information systems.

Experience working with international organizations, UN or UNDP is a desirable asset.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in English and Myanmar

Disclaimer

Only those candidates who has qualifications and experience the Organization has further interest will be contacted for subsequent interview(s).

UNDP is an equal opportunity employer. UNDP regrets its inability to reply individually or attend to telephone queries on the advertised posts.

Thanking you for your kind cooperation.

Kind regards,

Human Resources Unit

UNDP-Myanmar
Four males charged with murder after an NHS worker, who was stabbed in an unprovoked attack outside his home, have denied the murder.

David Gomoh, 24, was allegedly chased and stabbed eight times by a group of four males after he left his house in Newham, east London, to go shopping on April 26 at around 10.25pm.

The marketing graduate, who worked for the NHS in supplies and procurement, was on the phone to his girlfriend at the time.

David Gomoh, 24, was allegedly chased and stabbed eight times by four males on April 26 around 10.25pm a short distance from his home

Three teenagers - one who is 16 years old - and one man in his early twenties have been charged with the murder.

David Ture, 18, of no fixed address, Vagnei Colubali, 22, Muhammad Jalloh, 18, of no fixed address, and a 16 year-old boy, from Telford, Shropshire, are charged with Mr Gomohs murder.

A post-mortem examination found that Mr Gomoh died of stab wounds to the chest and abdomen.

They are also accused of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent in connection with another alleged incident shortly before Mr Gomoh was found with knife wounds in Freemasons Road.

Mr Gomoh's killing came just days after his father (pictured) passed away with coronavirus

Mr Gomoh was killed just days before he was due to attend the funeral of his father, who died after contracting coronavirus.

His mother, Marian Gomoh, 53, who works as a labour ward matron, spoke exclusively to Mail Online, of her double tragedy losing her son just days after the death of her husband from Covid-19.

The defendants have denied the charges against them and are facing a possible trial in the new year.

At the Old Bailey on Friday, Judge Wendy Joseph QC indicated a possible five-week trial slot on January 4, to be confirmed.

A further hearing was set for October 2.

The defendants, who attended court by video link, were remanded into custody.
The Queens English could soon be a thing of the past. I hear the Queens English Society is considering taking the unprecedented step of dropping the royal connection from its name.

The charity, which exists to promote the correct use of English and strives to halt the decline in standards in its use, is worried that including mention of the monarchy in its title may be elitist and outmoded.

A source tells me: Its the Meghan effect. The Duchess of Sussex has so annoyed some of our members, who are instinctive royalists, that its putting them off the monarchy altogether.

The proposal is disclosed by Debbie le May, editor of the societys newsletter, Quest. In her autumn editorial she notes that the society will probably need to alter its name when the Queens reign comes to an end.

I hear the Queens English Society is considering taking the unprecedented step of dropping the royal connection from its name

Committee members have already been discussing changing the name to The Kings English Society, she reports, but there were several suggestions that something more radical should be considered.

Perhaps, writes le May, the society should move away from royal connotations and change the name to The Better English Society or The Good English Matters Society or The Society for Better English.

It is considered that all these express what the society stands for and do not link it to outmoded customs nor to an elitist and exclusive cabal.

The proposal is disclosed by Debbie le May, editor of the societys newsletter, Quest. In her autumn editorial she notes that the society will probably need to alter its name when the Queens reign comes to an end. (Pictured: Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in July)

Members are being asked to tell le May what they think of the proposal, which may be taken further at the societys next annual general meeting.

The move would disappoint Prince Charles, a great lover of language who has had a lifelong preference for using older spellings considered correct by the Oxford Dictionary of English.

But we will still speak the Kings English when Charles is on the throne, whatever this society chooses to call itself.

Mamma Mia! star Dominic Cooper has appealed for help finding his Range Rover, which was stolen in a suspected keyless theft in Londons swanky Primrose Hill.

Hed been using the car to deliver cooked meals to NHS staff with his actress girlfriend, Gemma Chan.

Not much petrol  they cant have got far, he wrote to residents in a social media group. Let me know if you see it.

The black car would be hard to miss: it has distinctive pink writing on the front and side with the name of the relief group hed been working with  Cook-19.

The former City lawyer launched a business, Aya Luxury Travel, amid great fanfare in 2016. But it has slipped farther into the red.

Chelsy: lady in the red

Prince Harry has great hopes for Travalyst, the sustainable travel initiative he launched with his wife Meghan.

Lets hope he has more success than his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy.

The former City lawyer launched a business, Aya Luxury Travel, amid great fanfare in 2016. But it has slipped farther into the red.

Newly filed accounts disclose that Aya had an almost 72,000 deficit in capital and reserves in the year to last October. Thats almost double the 38,000 deficit in 2018.

Perhaps Harry could sprinkle her company with some of his stardust?

Stylish Stella has a masked ball on Ibiza

Looking chic during a pandemic is a sartorial challenge too far for most of us, but Stella McCartney seems to have pulled it off.

The fashion designer wore a billowing floral kaftan on the beach on Ibiza with her family recently. She also wore a face mask, although these are not compulsory on Spanish beaches.

McCartney, the 48-year-old daughter of Sir Paul, will have to quarantine on her return to Britain, where she lives with her publisher husband Alasdhair Willis and their four children.

Her fashion label could be forced to cut jobs and close stores soon. According to an internal note written by her chief executive, Gabriele Maggio, the firm is planning a number of measures to slash costs.

The fashion designer wore a billowing floral kaftan on the beach on Ibiza with her family recently. She also wore a face mask, although these are not compulsory on Spanish beaches

Tie Rack heiress Karen Bishko is so fed up with her first name being used as a term of abuse that shes written a song about it, My Name Is Karen.

In America, a Karen has become a stereotype of a white woman who uses her privilege to demand her own way at the expense of others.

Bishko, whose former boyfriends include Take Thats Jason Orange, says: To hear my name spoken of as an insult saddens and infuriates me. Its very telling that there is no male equivalent.

She takes the Mickey . . . but Kates in Bens pack

It appears there are three in the marriage of television adventurer Ben Fogle and his wife, Marina. Step forward Fogles long-time on-screen colleague Kate Humble.

It appears there are three in the marriage of television adventurer Ben Fogle and his wife, Marina. Step forward Fogles long-time on-screen colleague Kate Humble (pictured together)

Weve shared our lives for two decades. Animal Park is the glue, says Fogle, referring to the BBC1 series filmed at Longleat, the Wiltshire wildlife park.

They are so close  Humble is godmother to Bens son  that he even left Marina after their honeymoon to stay with Humble in a rented house in California to film a new programme.

I went to live with her for a month straight after our wedding, he recalls. She takes the Mickey out of me, but also makes sure I keep my feet firmly rooted to the ground.
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Town & Country

On Thursday morning, Russian political opposition leader Aleksie Navalny was hospitalized in Siberia for what his family and supporters say was a case of intentional poisoning. He had consumed a cup of tea before boarding an airplane and soon after became severely ill. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Omsk and Navalny was rushed to a hospital.

Photo credit: Anadolu Agency - Getty Images

Navalny is one Vladimir Putins highest-profile and vocal critics and has claimed, among other things, that Putins party is sucking the blood out of Russia and is made up of crooks and thieves. He is also the latest in a long line of Russian political dissenters who have ended up in the hospital. Last year, the United States, along with 19 other nations, expelled dozens of Russian diplomats from their respective countries in response to the March 4, 2019 poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England.

While the brazenness of that attack was shocking, the use of poison, it turns out, was not. Poisonings have made their political and social mark throughout history

399 BC After being found guilty of impiety and the corruption of youth, Greek philosopher Socrates is ordered to drink a fatal dose of hemlock.

Photo credit: Florilegius - Getty Images

60 BC King Mithridates VI of Pontusnervous about being poisoned by political rivalsdiscovers that if he ingests small amounts of certain toxins every day, he can build up an immunity to their effects. This process becomes known as mithridatism.

1590 Lucrezia Borgia, one in a long-line of poison-obsessed Borgias, is rumored to have murdered her second husband using a family recipe for a poison called cantarella. In jewelry terms, a Borgia poison ring is a ring with a hinged bezel covering a hidden compartment that can hold powder.



1682 A five-year inquiry into the mysterious deaths of prominent members of French King Louis XIVs court ends with 36 people found guilty and executed for poisoning enemies and rivals. Many others, including one of Louiss mistresses, were implicated in what became known as laffaire des poisons.

Story continues

Photo credit: Heritage Images - Getty Images

1700s After a string of wives and offspring are found guilty of poisoning their well-to-do husbands and fathers, the French take to calling arsenic poudre de succession, or succession powder.

1836 James Marsh, a London chemist, develops the first reliable process to detect the presence of arsenic in tissue samples. The Marsh Test is used in forensic toxicology for the next 100 years.

1878 Englands newspaper business embarks on its first poison-related media frenzy when Mary Ann Cotton, aka the Black Widow, is tried, convicted, and hung for murder. For months, daily front-page accounts described how she poisoned three of her four husbands and a stepson so she could collect life insurance payouts and how she was suspected of poisoning 17 others.



1916 Russian courtiers, including one of Tsar Nicholas IIs nephews, attempt to poison Grigori Rasputin, the influential mystic and advisor to the monarch and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra. When the cyanide-laced cakes and wine have no effect, they shoot him and dump his body in the Malaya Nevka river.

Photo credit: Historical Picture Archive - Getty Images

1953 While serving as U.S. ambassador to Italy, Clare Booth Luce, author and widow Time Inc. founder Henry Luce, becomes seriously ill with arsenic poisoning. At first the CIA believes it is a Soviet plot but then discovered that flaking plaster in ceiling of her ancient villa contained the poison.

1978 Bulgarian dissident and defector Georgi Markov is jabbed in the leg with a ricin-tipped umbrella by a stranger while walking to work on Londons Waterloo Bridge. He dies shortly after in a hospital. Authorities suspect the Bulgarian secret service and the KGB.

2004 Ukrainian opposition leader and vocal Russia critic Viktor Yushchenko falls ill in the middle of the campaigning for the office of president of Ukraine. When he returns to public life a few weeks later, his face is scarred and disfigured, a sign of dioxin poisoning.

2006 Former KGB agent and frequent Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko dies of radiation poisoning after being served tea in a London hotel that contains the isotope polonium 210. A 2016 British inquiry rules that the murder was probably sanctioned by Vladimir Putin.

Photo credit: Scott Barbour - Getty Images

2011 English businessman Neil Heywood is found dead in a Chongqing hotel room of what was first reported to be alcohol poisoning. But then a local police chief flees to the West and tells authorities that Heywood had been given cyanide by Gu Kailai, wife of prominent party official Bo Xilai, with whom Heywood had dealings. Gu and Bo are found guilty, respectively, of murder and corruption.

2017 Kim Jong-Nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, is assassinated by two women who walk up to him in the Kuala Lumpur airport and rub the nerve agent VX on his face.

Photo credit: AFP Contributor - Getty Images

2017 Betty Miller, a 70-year-old resident of Wake Miller retirement community in Shelburne, Vermont, whips up a homemade batch of ricin with which she said she planned to harm herself. But before taking it herself, she tested it out by putting in the food of other residents.

2017 Slobodan Praljak, retired general in the Croatian Army and the Croatian Defence Council, is convicted for war crimes. Upon hearing the verdict upheld after appeal, Praljak stands up and drinks a bottle cyanide hes smuggled into the courtroom. He dies a few hours later.

2018 Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, are found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, England. Doctors discover that they have been poisoned with Novichok, a weapons-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet military.

Photo credit: Richard Baker - Getty Images

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The Sandiganbayans sixth division found former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos, Sr. not guilty of graft in connection with his alleged irregular purchase of vehicles in 2003.

The anti-graft court acquitted Abalos in an online hearing on Thursday, saying the prosecution failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Abalos was charged with graft in 2016 for supposedly favoring a specific branch in the purchase of two Toyota Revo units worth 1.7 million without public bidding when he was poll commissioner.

That same year, the Sandiganbayan cleared Abalos in another graft case where he was accused of brokering the anomalous national broadband network project with Chinas ZTE Corp. for a fee. The cases against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo over the botched NBN-ZTE deal were also dismissed.

CNN Philippines' AC Nicholls contributed to this report.
Day by day, the death toll and acreage total climb as fire officials deliver the grim news. A trio of fire complexes have combined to burn more than 831,000 acres of California and the complexity of the situation has only been fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Extreme fire growth has caused the SCU Lightning Complex to become the second-largest fire in California history, and the LNU Lightning Complex now ranks as the third-largest in the state's history, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).

Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires leap above Butts Canyon Road on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020, as firefighters work to contain the blaze in unincorporated Lake County, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

"California is battling two of the largest fires in our history and has seen nearly 600 new fires in the last week caused by dry lightning strikes. These are unprecedented times and conditions, but California is strong -- we will get through this," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press release last weekend.

The fires burning across the state have claimed seven lives in the last week, according to The Associated Press. Nearly a quarter of a million people were placed under evacuation orders and warnings, the AP reported.

On Aug. 22, President Donald Trump approved of a disaster declaration regarding the fires. Doing so allowed for federal funding to be granted to affected individuals in Lake, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Yolo and Solano counties. Federal aid will also be granted to state, tribal and local recovery efforts.

Thomas Henney, left, and Charles Chavira watch a plume spread over Healdsburg, Calif., as the LNU Lightning Complex fires burn, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020. Fire crews across the region scrambled to contain dozens of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Throughout the state, the majority of the fires were ignited by a "historic lightning siege," according to Jeremy Rahn, a spokesperson for Cal Fire.

Story continues

As if the infernos weren't enough of a problem, firefighting crews are historically undermanned this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LNU Lightning Complex Fire is already the third-largest fire in California's fiery history and shows no signs of slowing down. The blaze has consumed over 370,000 acres as of Aug. 29.

Spanning across five countries and having destroyed 1,080 structures and damaging 272 more as of Saturday, the group of blazes is expected to continue to continue growing rapidly, according to Cal Fire.

"Significant fire growth is expected throughout the rest of the operational period," the organization said in its Sunday night update last weekend. "Extreme fire behavior with short and longe range spotting are continuing to challenge firefighting efforts."

During a news conference, Solano County Sheriff Thomas Ferrara said the fire had completely destroyed at least 222 homes, while many others were left severely damaged.

Photos from in Solano County capture the widespread devastation and complete ruin left in the wake of deadly wildfires. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

Monterey Herald reporter Tom Wright reported that seven firefighters have faced injuries, one being a bee sting that caused anaphylactic shock. All injured firefighters have since been treated and released.

The LNU Lightning Complex is comprised of three fires: The Hennessey Fire, which is the largest and has burned over 315,000 acres and is at 39% containment, the Walbridge Fire which has scorched over 55,000 acres and is 42% contained and the Meyers Fire, which has burned another 2,360 acres and is 99% contained. Combined, the fires are 41% contained at more than 373,000 acres.

Between the three fires, five confirmed fatalities have been reported, both civilian and fire personnel, according to CalFire.

For many residents, evacuations became dire and immediate due to rapid growth. In Vacaville, AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Waddell spoke with residents of the smoke-choked town.

"It's awful and you can still see the air quality," Jennifer Jones-Prothro told Wadell. "So many people are losing their homes. It's devastating."

The dreadful air quality was emphasized by satellite images showing the smoke traveling hundreds of miles into the Pacific Ocean and registering at levels recognized as "very unhealthy" and "hazardous" in the central and northern parts of the state.

Smoke from the Californian wildfires drifted over the Pacific Ocean last week and was shown via satellite images. (Satellite image 2020 Maxar Technologies)

The SCU Lightning Complex fires have charred hundreds of thousands of acres farther south. In totality, the blazes have scorched over 374,000 acres, as of Saturday. The blaze is spanning the counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus and is currently at 40% containment.

Air quality concerns have also been rampant in the southern half of the state.

A charred vehicle is parked in front of a home after the CZU Lightning Complex Fire went through Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020, in Boulder Creek, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

In San Joaquin Valley, an air quality alert was raised by officials. According to ABC30, a reading of particulate matter from the city of Merced showed air quality levels hitting Level 5 on Wednesday, meaning residents should avoid all outdoor activity.

Meanwhile, the CZU Lightning Complex fires have burned over 83,000 acres and destroyed nearly 900 structures while firefighters have gained 29% containment as of Aug. 29. Burning in Santa Cruz and southern San Mateo County, the fires have forced the evacuation of more than 48,000 people.

A structure is damaged by the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, in Bonny Doon, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Early Friday morning, firefighting crews had to make frantic rescues of numerous residents in the San Mateo area who refused to evacuate.

"I know they're trying to do the right thing for their property and their neighbors, but in the long run it's created a bigger problem for the first responders," Chief Mark Brunton said, according to The Mercury News. "Because of that, it took our firefighters away from the firefight to rescue them and put first responders and firefighters or law enforcement brothers and sisters into danger to rescue them out of that situation."

Peter Koleckar reacts after seeing multiple home burned in his neighborhood after the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire passed through on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, in Bonny Doon, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

On Sunday officials announced that there had been one civilian fatality due to the CZU Lightning Complex fires.

"Firefighters are making progress, however it's the weather conditions that really are not working in our favor," Berlant stated in the update.

AccuWeather meteorologists aren't forecasting for conditions to grow any more favorably for firefighters in the short-term. In addition to continued heat in the Southwest, the risk of dry thunderstorms sparking new lightning-induced wildfires will be on the increase into midweek.

The extreme heat had been a contributing factor to the difficulty in containing the fires over since the past weekend.

Firefighters make a stand in the backyard of a home in front of the advancing CZU August Lightning Complex Fire Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Boulder Creek, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

"It was those triple digit temperatures that made it so difficult over the weekend in the beginning part of the week to battle these fires," Berlant said. "That combined with the winds and dry conditions."

Berlant noted, however, that the most concerning factor going forward was the potential for more dry lightning during the beginning of the week, setting fire personnel "on high alert."

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
The Mission of the Diaspora African Forum (DAF), in partnership with Gradian Health System, has donated 300 airway kits worth $15,000 dollars to the Ministry of Health to help in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.



The donation is done to support the government of Ghanas Covid-19 response efforts to build critical care capacity in the countrys health system.



The dignitaries who graced the occasion were Ambassador Dr. Erieka Bennett, Head of Mission Diaspora African Forum; Dr. Juliette Tuakali, DAF Board Member, and Chair of United Way World Wide; Nurse Brenda Powell, DAF Board Member; Akwasi Awua Ababio, Director of the Diaspora office of the President.



Those who joined the donation via zoom was Ms. Lina Sayed, Chief Executive Officer of Gradian Health Systems-New York and Rati Bishnoi, Communications Manager at Gradian Health Systems-New York.



According to the Head of Mission of the Diaspora African Forum H.E Ambassador Erieka Bennett, the support began this week with the 300 airway kits donation the Health Ministry in order for the physicians and the nurses across the country to help patients receive life-saving breathing and oxygen support during Covid-19, other respiratory illnesses, and critical medical procedures.



Speaking to the media after the donation, H.E Ambassador Erieka Bennett explained the reason behind the gesture that while vast majority of the people infected by Covid-19 experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 20 percent of people with the virus develop difficulty breathing and require hospital care; hence, the donation of the 300 airway kits.



Every donated airway kit includes more than 20 critical supplies that the physicians and nurses can use to provide breathing support and oxygen therapy for Covid-19 patients, such as oxygen masks, endotracheal tubes, stethoscopes, and ventilator circuits. Each kit also includes a pulse oximeter which is a device critical for monitoring the amount of oxygen in a persons blood and detecting when advanced care is required for Covid-19 patients, she elaborated.



Ambassador Bennett stressed that the partnership with Gradian Health Systems is another example of the Diaspora African Forums stated mandate of supporting member state of the African Union toward full integration of Africans in the Diaspora, while also strengthening engagement among African nations.



We Know that the Covid-19 pandemic currently raging around the world has had a devastating impact on peoples lives and the global economythe Diaspora Africa Forum and Gradian Health Systems are collaborating to increase awareness on-the-ground, the governments, across healthcare systems, and African media to get the word out and be prepared to secure people, Ambassador Bennett stated.



The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Gradian Health Systems, Lina Sayed on the other hand said her outfit is honored to partner with the Diaspora African Forum to share experiences and resources to help support Ghanas Covid-19 response.



As a non-profit medical technology company that develops, distributes, and sustains world-class medical equipment for health care systems across Africa and Asia, we know equipping health care providers with the equipment, training, and support they need can transform care and the ability to respond to Covid-19. Gradian desires every anesthesia provider to have all the tools necessary to care for each patient, from high-quality anesthesia machines to every piece of equipment the patient deserves for optimal safety, she stated.



Receiving the donation on behalf of the Ministry of Health, the Deputy Minister of Health Dr. Okoe Boye expressed the gratitude of the sector ministry to have received the 300 airway kits from the Diaspora African Forum and Gradian Health Systems.



He however wished that the donation will not be a one-time experience, looking forward to establishing a strong relationship with them that will be sustainable, progressive, and cherished along the line by all stakeholders of the relationship.



The Leader of Risk Communication for the Covid-19 National Response Team, Dr. Da Costa Aboagye who facilitated the donation also thanked the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders involved in making the donation possible.



He however said that the airway kits donated by the Diaspora African Forum and Gradian Health Systems will go a long way to help patients and also help in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.





Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Police in Indore are banking on experts to evaluate facial features, culture, favourite food and liking of regional songs of different states in their efforts to find the parents of speech and hearing impaired Geeta (29), who was repatriated in India from Pakistan in 2015.

Former foreign affairs minister late Sushma Swaraj, who had played an important role in the repatriation of Geeta had admitted her in a shelter for speech hearing impaired people at Indore. For the past five years, a local NGO and district administration had been trying to find her parents but they didnt succeed. Many couples claimed themselves as her parents but they failed to establish their parenthood due to DNA mismatch, said Monica Purohit, whose NGO is taking care of Geeta for the past one month.

Purohit said, In a conversation with Geeta, we tried to know about her childhood memories. With some important information regarding her childhood, we approached Indore police and they have taken a scientific approach to find her parents.

Police have short-listed Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as Geetas possible home but her responses so far have not given the police any concrete indication of her place of origin.

Deputy inspector general (DIG) of police in Indore, Harinarayanchari Mishra said, We are seeking help of food, culture and face features experts who can tell us about the area or state which she may belong to. As of now, we have zeroed in on three states- Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. This will help us in inquiring about missing children from these states at the time when Geeta went missing.

After having an idea that she may belong to any of these states, we showed some pictures of these areas, local movies, regional songs, food and traditional dresses. She identified paddy fields, some south Indian superstars and also showed familiarity with Telugu and Chhattisgarhi music but her memories related to culture matched with that of Jharkhand, said Mishra.

The Indore police will also seek data from these three states of hearing and speech impaired children who went missing in 2000.

Now, we are going to write to all these states to share old data related to missing deaf and speech impaired kids. As she says that she boarded a wrong train in New Delhi and reached Pakistan we will also write to government railway police (GRP) in Delhi to check old data to see the complaints of missing kids related to these states, he added.

Geeta had gone missing 20 years ago. According to documents provided by Edhi foundation of Pakistan which took care of her for 13 years, she was found sitting alone in Samjhauta Express in Lahore in 2000. She was then about 9 years old.

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Commercial property owners and tenants in Vietnam have been facing uncertain times as they take hits from the blows of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Experts forecast that the market of rental retail space in the Southeast Asian country will not recover soon and must depend on other economic sectors, especially tourism and retail which have been hampered by travel restrictions and social distancing rules.

At least until the end of 2020, the domestic commercial rental rates will continue declining with the number of vacancies remaining high, according to the experts.

In Ho Chi Minh City

Data by real estate service provider Savills Vietnam showed that retail rental supply in Ho Chi Minh City was approximately 1.5 million square meters by the end of this years second quarter, up five percent year-on-year.

The average occupancy stayed high at 95 percent, stable but slightly down one percent year-on-year, due to non-CBD (central business district) cancelations, alongside predominantly F&B (food and beverage) and fashion tenants choosing not to renew contracts.

According to Savills Vietnam, most landlords offered up to 30-percent rent reductions in April and May.

When footfall recovered in June, non-CBD retail centers offered 15-percent discounts or up to US$2 service charge reductions, while CBD landlords, buffered by 3-5-year lease terms, extended more limited support.

For street retail chain tenants, the pandemic has forced them to adjust business strategies.

Particularly, F&B and fashion chains have closed underperforming outlets, increasing prime street retail vacancies, while CBD street retail focused on the tourism market which was suffering as travel bans forced further closures, on top of the resumption of the metro project in District 1.

A recent Savills Vietnam survey found that potential occupiers in Ho Chi Minh City request up to 40-percent rental discounts compared to the maximum 20 percent at the end of 2019.

Nguyen Thuy Linh Cat, director of Nguyen Sa Fashion Company in the city, said that all 15 stores in its network saw a combined decline of 50 percent in revenue in July, while their total rentals cost more than VND400 million ($17,200) a month.

Cat added that the company has sought bank loans to cover employees salaries, office expenses, and rentals.

If the landlord shares our difficulty by cutting the rent by 20-30 percent during this period, it will greatly help our business, Cat said.

A bar in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City is suspended as per an order for COVID-19 prevention and control. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

In Hanoi

Retail rental supply in Hanoi was approximately 1.6 million square meters by the end of this years second quarter, up five percent year-on-year.

The average occupancy fell two percent from the previous quarter and four percent year-on-year to a three-year low.

Footfall and sales at retail spaces in the Vietnamese capital city slumped under the enhanced social distancing implementation in April and only recovered slightly in May and June.

Landlords and tenants remained cautious, keeping COVID-19 safety measures strictly applied.

Hoang Tung, CEO of Hanoi-based food chain Pizza Home, said that some landlords of its outlets have agreed to lower rents by 30 percent. But such reductions are rare.

A recent Savills Vietnam survey found that more than 50 percent of tenants in Hanoi's Old Quarter have returned rentals.

Two-paced market

While some commercial property businesses are facing challenges, others have seen a surge in interest.

A representative of a leading supermarket chain in Ho Chi Minh City said that it is looking for new property assets for rent to expand its system.

The rentals of these commercial properties, especially those in densely-populated neighborhoods, tend to slightly rise as people are afraid to go far and choose to shop near their homes, according to the representative.

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BASRA, Iraq: Protesters torched parliament offices in Iraqs oil-rich south on Friday following days of inaction by the government after two activists were assassinated.

Demonstrators burned the outer gate of the entrance to the parliament building in Basra province, the area that produces the lions share of the crude exporting countrys oil. The building holds the local offices of Iraqs main parliament buildingin the capital Baghdad.

It is the most violent incident in Basra since the October mass anti-government demonstrations, when tens of thousands took to the streets to decry government corruption in Baghdad and across the south. Destabilizing protests also erupted in Basra in the summer of 2018.

An Associated Press photographer witnessed demonstrators clash with security forces by hurling molotov cocktails.

The violence comes after activist Reham Yacoub was gunned down in Basra on Wednesday by unidentified gunmen. Days before activist Tahseen Osama was killed by armed men, which first prompted dozens of protesters to take to the streets. Police responded by firing live rounds at the demonstrators.

In response, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had Basras chief of police sacked.

But protesters said this was not enough, decrying inaction by the Iraqi government over the two killings.

Al-Kadhimi is on an official visit to Washington D.C. to conclude strategic talks expected to shape the future of U.S.-Iraq relations, and the future of the U.S. troop presence in the country.

___

Associated Press writer Samya Kullab contributed from Istanbul

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
ABC NewsBy LUKE BARR, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- More than 70 former Republican national security officials, including some former members of the Trump administration, came out in support of Joe Biden's bid for president Thursday, according to an open letter that also offered a scathing rebuke of President Donald Trump's first term in office.



"We are profoundly concerned about the course of our nation under the leadership of Donald Trump," the officials wrote. "Through his actions and his rhetoric, Trump has demonstrated that he lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as President."



Some signers include former FBI Director William Webster, former Defense Secretary under President Obama Chuck Hagel and former CIA Director Michael Hayden.



The letter outlines 10 reasons the signers believe Trump isn't fit for the Oval Office.



"Donald Trump has gravely damaged America's role as a world leader," the first point in the letter says. Other items include declarations that Trump is "unfit to lead during a national crisis," "solicited foreign influence," "aligned himself with dictators," "disparaged our armed forces, intelligence agencies, and diplomats," "undermined the rule of law," "dishonored the office of the presidency," "divided our nation," "attacked and vilified immigrants" and "imperiled America's security."



"While we  like all Americans  had hoped that Donald Trump would govern wisely, he has disappointed millions of voters who put their faith in him and has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term. In contrast, we believe Joe Biden has the character, experience, and temperament to lead this nation," the letter reads.



One of the former officials who signed the letter told ABC News that she hoped Trump would rise to the occasion of being president, but in her view, he did not.



"Many of us hoped that Trump, like those before him, would rise to the honor of the office. That the mantel of leadership would weigh heavy on him and lead to a change of behavior. That perhaps the tweeting, the bullying, the coarse language would be set aside behind closed doors and that he would treat the office with the dignity and gravity it deserves. That did not happen," Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary of Homeland Security, told ABC News.



"[Trump's] leadership style is chaos; and if you study him -- this is a style that he has used for decades in business," she added. "But chaos at the top of our federal government leads to chaos throughout the government. Some see this as a way to weaken the so-called 'deep state' -- but what it actually does is weaken our security agencies' ability to secure and protect our nation. The botched COVID response is merely the latest example -- but also one of the gravest with the cost being American lives."



The Trump campaign did not immediately comment on the letter.



"Donald Trump's four years in the White House have left America isolated abroad, our alliances in tatters, and autocrats like Xi and Putin emboldened," Biden campaign spokesperson Michael Gwin said in a statement. "This endorsement is a clear sign of both how weak Donald Trump has left the United States globally, and of Vice President Biden's unique ability to pick up the pieces next January by rebuilding critical relationships and standing up for American values and interests against the adversaries that Trump has coddled."



Earlier this week, the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff under former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Miles Taylor, came out in support of Biden.



"Given what I've experienced in the administration, I have to support Joe Biden for president," Taylor said in a video posted and produced by the group Republican Voters Against Trump. "And even though I'm not a Democrat, even though I disagree on key issues, I'm confident that Joe Biden will protect the country, and I'm confident he won't make the same mistakes as this president."



Acting Secretary Chad Wolf blasted Taylor in a statement, accusing him of reversing course for "five minutes of fame."



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
The Fundamentum Partnership & KB Global Platform Fund Invest In FarEye

FarEye accelerates its global expansion as enterprises move towards customer-centric supply chains

SINGAPORE, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- FarEye, a leading logistics SaaS platform for predictive visibility , today announced that it has raised additional USD 13 Mn as an extension to its Series D investment led by The Fundamentum Partnership, the growth-capital fund for mid-stage technology companies in India backed by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal and KB Global Platform Fund, one of the leading investment firm of Korea. The investment will accelerate FarEye's global expansion to address the steepening digital curve for logistics transformation. The need is being further accelerated by enterprises and end consumers demanding a high level of transparency, faster and more convenient delivery experiences. There is also an increased need for flexible supply chains to meet these demands.

FarEye works with its enterprise customers to provide higher control on their supply chains and offer a superior delivery experience to their end customers. The company's technology platform digitizes the way enterprises dispatch, execute, track, and optimize the movement of goods, enabling enterprises to lower logistics costs while delighting end consumers.

"The support and trust of our investors, customers, and partners underpin our deep desire to make logistics better for brands, their customers, and the environment. We are seeing a surge in the need for real-time visibility in logistics for businesses to build customer-centric supply chains. With recently raised funds, we will continue to invest in the best talent in the Americas, Europe, and APAC to support our hyper-growth in these regions. With a vision to make FarEye one of the most customer-centric organizations globally, we aim to make every delivery delightful for the consumers," said Kushal Nahata, CEO, FarEye.

Commenting on the investment Sanjeev Aggarwal, Co-founder of Fundamentum, said, "Investment in the logistics space is essential for the economic growth of any nation. FarEye has captured the pulse of this industry and has all the ingredients to head towards global leadership. I believe in the founders and the team has the clarity of vision. We are excited to partner with FarEye in its journey to create a global technology leader in the logistics space."

This is the second time this year that FarEye has been able to raise funds to support its hyper-growth in global markets, making it a total of USD 51 Mn investment so far. In April, FarEye had raised USD 24.5 Million in Series D from M12 (Microsoft's venture fund) with participation from Eight Roads Ventures, Honeywell Ventures, and existing investor SAIF Partners.

With a clear mandate to establish Singapore as their hub for international expansion, FarEye recently named Singapore-based ex-Blue Yonder Veteran Amit Bagga as its Chief Revenue Officer. His appointment comes as FarEye undertakes aggressive plans for global expansion. Bagga has established FarEye's field headquarters in Singapore with investments in sales, solutions, services, and customer success teams, and continues to accelerate investments in the company's expansion into Europe and the Americas.

"Logistics is the backbone of any given economy, and yet it has been a difficult space to innovate. We are excited to partner with FarEye as it paves the way for its enterprise customers such as DHL and Walmart to gain flexibility as well as visibility in logistics by providing the easy-to-use platform to manage all moving parts. The newly raised capital will allow the team to deliver additional value to its enterprise customers by bringing in more global talents who will ultimately contribute to the advancement of the platform's predictive capabilities and customer services. We look forward to FarEye's contribution to its enterprise customers around the globe both during and post the current pandemic as seamless logistics has never been more vital to their business. We have been deeply impressed with FarEye's response during the pandemic as a global leader in the logistics SaaS space," saidChunsoo Kim, Managing Director (Head of Global Investment Group) at KB Investment.

About FarEye- https://www.getfareye.com/

CONTACT:

Ms. Komal Puri

komal.puri@getfareye.com





Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1231863/FarEye_Logo.jpg
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By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and the UK Minister for European Neighborhood and the Americas of the United Kingdom Wendy Morton discussed development of mutual cooperation and recent Armenian provocation on the border, the ministry said on August 20.

During the telephone conversation, Bayramov informed the British minister about the latest military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces in the Tovuz direction of the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border. He pointed out that this provocation clearly showed that the Armenian leadership seeks to obstruct the negotiation process on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In turn, Morton emphasized the significance of decreasing tensions in the region. Wendy Morton is also Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, the ministers held discussions on a number of areas of the bilateral cooperation agenda and prospects for the development of mutual cooperation.

It should be noted that at the beginning of the Armenian provocation on the border, on July 13, the House of Commons of the UK Parliament prepared a Motion that called on the UK Government to condemn the recent actions of Armenia which represent a serious hindrance to the progress of the peace process and which have violated international law as well as the ceasefire agreement signed in 1994.

The House of Commons also urge the UK Government to support the call for the OSCE Minsk Group to investigate thoroughly to prevent the current military action escalating into an all-out war, and further calls on the UK Government to urge for the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as stated in UN Security Council resolutions adopted in 1993.

On July 6, Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom discussed bilateral energy cooperation in a video conference held between co-chairs of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on economic cooperation, Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and Parliamentary Representative of the Secretary of State and Minister of Export Graham Stuart.

On May 1, the UK Minister Wendy Morton discussed the negotiations process of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict with the former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

The cross border clashes with Armenia started on July 12 after Armenian forces shelled Azerbaijan's positions in Tovuz, Azerbaijan's strategically-important district on the border. The Armenian attack killed 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including an army general, as well as a 76-year-old civilian. Armenian forces retreated after suffering losses in Azerbaijan's retaliation.
Tens of thousands of doctors nationwide will strike again for the third time next week.

The three-day strike starting on Aug. 26 comes in protest against the government's plan to increase the quota of students admitted to medical school. The decision to down stethoscopes again came after two hours of talks with the Health Ministry on Thursday failed.

The government believes there is a shortage of practicing doctors, but the medical community says the problem is only that too many doctors are concentrated in a few lucrative fields like plastic surgery and dermatology.

Since the country is currently experiencing a resurgence of coronavirus infections, there is likely to be increased anxiety over the lack of doctors on duty.

The Korean Medical Association made it clear that it will only resume talks when the government scraps its new medical workforce program. The plan is to expand admission quotas at medical schools by 4,000 over the next 10 years starting in 2022, and to open a new public medical school.
The federal regulator of nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, had said that during the pandemic states should focus on investigating concerns about infection control  which Illinois did continue to do  as well as serious complaints of abuse and neglect, which state officials acknowledged did not happen when it should have. Regardless, the state law requiring timely investigations of all cases remained in effect.
Multiple companies have expressed interest in acquiring TikToks US business since President Trump issued an executive order earlier this month requiring the apps Chinese owners to shutdown operations in America. Should a sale not go through by the end of September (within 90 days of the order dated Aug. 14th), Trump said TikTok will have to close down in the US. Yet, general manager of TikToks business in the US Vanessa Pappas has told Bloomberg that the app will continue to operate in the country regardless of the potential ban.

We believe we have multiple paths forward to ensure that we continue to provide this amazing app experience to the millions of Americans who come to rely on it every day," Pappas told Bloomberg. Pappas also oversees TikToks business in Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Trumps executive order cited national security concerns arising from a report by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Weve made it clear that we strongly disagree with the conclusions of CFIUS and we're certainly disappointed in the outcome that we saw there, Pappas said. We still haven't been presented with any evidence to back up those claims and assertions.

TikTok has fought against claims that it could be forced to hand over data to the Chinese government, saying it has an American CEO and that it doesnt take orders from China. Meanwhile, Microsoft confirmed that it had begun discussions with TikToks Chinese owner ByteDance to acquire the US operations, and Oracle is reportedly in similar talks as well.

Whether its through an acquisition by a major American company or dogged persistence on the part of TikToks US employees, it appears the app wont be leaving the country anytime soon. Until the 90-day deadline is up though, TikToks future in America is foggy at best.
Global health authorities said Thursday European countries should be able to ride out a surge in coronavirus cases without reimposing full lockdowns, as the World Bank warned the crisis could push 100 million people into extreme poverty.

Worrying spikes in cases reported Thursday in France, Italy, Spain and Germany showed the pandemic was rebounding across the continent -- often due to travel, summer holidays and parties.

While Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily tally since May, France reported 4,700 fresh infections -- a massive increase on the previous day. Spain's daily increases topped even those of France, and Germany was concerned about its own resurgence.

Graphic showing the highest national death tolls around the world since the start of the coronavirus crisis.. By John SAEKI (AFP)

Despite the rise in cases, a top World Health Organization official said additional lockdowns should not be necessary.

"With the basic nationwide and additional targeted measures, we are in a much better position to stamp out these localized virus flare-ups," the head of the WHO's European branch, Hans Kluge, told reporters.

"We can manage the virus and keep the economy running and an education system in operation," he added.

The coronavirus pandemic may have driven as many as 100 million people back into extreme poverty, World Bank President David Malpass warned Thursday in an interview with AFP.

The Washington-based development lender previously estimated that 60 million people would fall into extreme poverty, but the new estimate puts the deterioration at 70 to 100 million, and he said "that number could go higher" if the pandemic worsens or drags on, which is possible.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the virus in Latin America surged past 250,000.

Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily tally since May. By Vincenzo PINTO (AFP)

Nine months after the virus began sweeping across the world from China last December, the pandemic has hit the Americas harder than anywhere else.

Latin America and the Caribbean recorded nearly 6.5 million infections and 250,969 deaths by 2200 GMT Thursday, according to an AFP tally based on official national figures. Globally, the virus has claimed at least 788,242 lives.

Brazil is the region's worst-affected country with 3.5 million cases and more than 112,000 deaths.

The South American giant is second only to the United States as the world's worst-hit country.

Peru, where figures released Thursday showed a 30 percent fall in GDP in the second quarter, has registered more than 26,000 deaths.

Economic toll

The crushing economic damage has sprung not just from the virus itself but also from the lockdowns that largely halted business activity across the world.

Workers unload coffins from a truck outside a funeral home located in front of the General Hospital in Mexico City. By ALFREDO ESTRELLA (AFP)

The United States -- where 174,000 people have died -- continues to bear the brunt in health terms and is suffering grim economic fallout.

The number of Americans filing claims for joblessness each week topped one million again, US officials said on Thursday, an increase on the previous week's figures.

Germany will need to take on yet more debt in 2021 to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on the economy, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.

"Next year we will continue to be forced to suspend the debt rule and spend considerable funds to protect the health of citizens and stabilise the economy," Scholz said in an interview with the Funke media group, referring to Germany's cherished policy of keeping a balanced budget.

The full extent of the virus spread in India was once again under the microscope as a new study suggested more than a quarter of Delhi's 20 million people may have been infected without showing symptoms. By Dibyangshu SARKAR (AFP)

The government has pledged over a trillion euros in aid to shield companies and citizens in Europe's top economy from the pandemic fallout, including through loans, grants and subsidised shorter-hours programmes.

Vaccine hopes

Worrying trends emerged in India as a new study suggested more than a quarter of Delhi's 20 million people may have been infected without showing symptoms -- backing up several similar studies.

Health workers check on a COVID-19 patient at the Intensive Care Unit of the General Hospital, in Medellin, Colombia. By JOAQUIN SARMIENTO (AFP)

The figures added urgency to the desperate bid to find a vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 22 million and killed hundreds of thousands since it first emerged in China late last year.

Russia announced on Thursday it was pushing forward with testing on more than 40,000 people of its candidate drug, known as Sputnik V, which has already been hailed by Russian officials as a success even as experts questioned the rigour of the testing regime.

Several drugs are approaching the mass-testing phase, and countries around the world have been pre-ordering many millions of doses.

The EU said on Thursday it had concluded talks with a German pharmaceutical firm to secure 225 million doses of a potential vaccine -- the fourth such agreement the bloc has reached.

French President Emmanuel Macron hailed European cooperation on the issue and said he was hopeful that a vaccine would come online with the next few months.

"This will not solve the problems of the next few weeks, but of the next few months," he said.

However, while a vaccine remains elusive, governments are left trying to control the spread through social-distancing measures, quarantines, travel bans and restrictions on businesses.

burs-db/ft
A lawyer sobbed as she was cleared of beating a bouncer over the head with her stiletto after a court found she was trying to protect herself and her boyfriend.

Vahideh Hojatoleslami, 28, left Oluwakemi Tayo with blood dripping down his face after striking him with her heel at a Halloween party last October 27.

But the solicitor said she struck the bouncer, at the Loft Studio in Willesden, London, over the head because he had her boyfriend in a headlock and she was terrified.

Vahideh Hojatoleslami, 28, right, was cleared of assaulting bouncer Oluwakemi Tayo over the head after he had her boyfriend Nima Masoor, left, in a headlock

She told the court Mr Tayo was acting like a thug before he grabbed hold of her partner, Bentley technician Nima Masoor.

After the not guilty verdict, the solicitor sobbed from the dock as her family rushed to hug her.

She told Westminster Magistrates' Court she was 'surrounded' by security staff and felt frightened.

She said: 'I didn't at any point think I was a threat to them, I don't think they could say that they were scared.

The solicitor sobbed after the not guilty verdict after she told Westminster Magistrates' Court she was 'surrounded' by security staff and felt frightened

'The aggression they used, it felt like a sudden attack - I didn't have time to think about what I'd do next.'

She continued: 'I just acted instinctively. I wasn't just going to let them do that to him. I remember seeing a lock around his neck.

'I felt like we were dealing with a street fight. I don't remember having the intention of hitting him over the head with the shoe.'

Asked if she had hit the bouncer, Hojatoleslami replied: 'I clearly did. I didn't mean to hurt him.

'We were attacked and I felt scared by what was happening.

'I didn't think - 'I've got my shoes in my hand, I'm going to hit him', it's really unfortunate that my shoe was in my hand.'

The solicitor explained she was holding her shoes because she'd taken them off as her feet were aching.

She added: 'I'm not holding it like a weapon, I never intended to use it like a weapon, it was just in my hand.'

She said she struck the bouncer at the Loft Studio in Willesden, London, pictured, as the scene escalated outside the door of the night club

Jo Sidhu, defending, said: Mr Tayo had 'embellished' his story by exaggerating what had happened.

He said: 'You're left with a picture of a man who claims he has been assaulted when he is the true aggressor.

'We're dealing with a woman who has reacted - it's clear that she felt a sense of responsibility towards her partner, to protect her partner and to protect herself.

She said she 'didn't mean to hurt' the bouncer and her shoes were in her hand because she'd taken them off as her feet were sore

He added: 'She felt threatened and so reacted and she used the only thing she had in her hand - and that was a stiletto shoe.

'Given her professional occupation, one can only imagine how important it is for her to tell the truth.'

Bench Chair Jane Smith said that the 'key incident was the sudden escalation of activity' at the door of the night club.

She said: 'We found the defendant's evidence credible. We believed the defendant was getting scared.

'We find her raising her hand and hitting out was instinctive, she is a small woman of 5ft 2 inches and she was surrounded by a group of men.

'It is under what triggered that escalation but we find that the action was in self-defence.'

Addressing the magistrates, Mr Sidhu added that she is in the 'early stages of her career' and this could have meant it would have came to a 'shuddering halt'.

Hojatoleslami, of Silverworks Close, Edgware, was cleared of assault by beating.

She qualified for the legal profession in May 2018 and has worked for Axiom Stone Solicitors since March this year.
About eight in 10 of the coronavirus infected people entering Singapore between June 18 and August 6 following the reopening of borders to long-term pass holders were from India and the Philippines, according to a media report on Friday. Singapore reopened its borders to more long-term pass holders on June 19.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) told The Straits Times newspaper that there were more than 83,000 arrivals in the country by land, sea and air between June 18 and August 6. Only 152 imported cases were reported during the same period. About eight in 10 of those infected had arrived from India and the Philippines  two countries which provide a large proportion of Singapore's foreign workforce, the report said.

Meanwhile, Singapore reported 117 new COVID-19 on Friday, including 13 imported infections, said the MOH. The 13 imported cases had all been placed on stay-home notice after arriving in Singapore.

There were six cases from the community, three of whom are foreigners on work passes and the other three are Singaporeans (citizens) and permanent residents (foreigners). Friday's COVID-19 cases brought the country's tally to 56,216.

In all, 53,119 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.
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Nordstrom sells Fjallraven, the popular Scandinavian design for $70. This trendy bag is long been known for offering practical, functional pieces that are beautiful to behold but are meant to be used. Originally designed in the 70s for Swedish school children, a now-iconic backpack is crafted from durable, water-resistant Vinylon F fabric and features a stylish, contemporary silhouette.

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To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq

By Robert Draper

Penguin Press. 480 pp. $30

- - -

The world feels all too full of current, urgent catastrophes. From a deadly pandemic to China's violent repression of the Uighurs, from resurgent authoritarianism to escalating climate change, it can seem impossible to keep up with, let alone fully understand, the dangers afflicting the planet today. So a reader might be forgiven for wondering why, at this particular moment, he or she should spend more than 400 pages retreading the path the United States took to war in Iraq in 2003.

But the detailed, nuanced, gripping account of that strange and complex journey offered in Robert Draper's "To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq" is essential reading - now, especially now. Draper exposes key points about the relationships among an American president, the executive branch he leads and the intelligence he receives that burn as fiercely today as they did almost two decades ago, when the United States hurtled into a war from which it has yet to extricate itself fully.

Animating Draper's account is a simple yet often overlooked fact about America's war in Iraq: "The decision was George W. Bush's." That may sound like a truism, but the standard telling of the path to war sometimes skips over it, instead dwelling on the push for war by Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. But there's only one commander in chief and indeed, in Bush's own words, only one "decider." Draper thrusts Bush back into the Iraq narrative, because in the end it was Bush alone whom Cheney, Wolfowitz and Feith had to convince. With Bush would come the American people and Congress, but the president had to buy in first.

Yet Bush didn't start his presidency hellbent on war with Iraq - unlike key advisers such as Wolfowitz. After 9/11, Bush didn't insist that Iraq somehow must have been behind the attacks - unlike key advisers. Bush didn't even initially buy the notion that, regardless of responsibility, a full response to 9/11 had to include attacking Iraq - again, unlike key advisers.

So: What changed the one mind that could change the fate of nations?

Here, too, Draper's narrative complicates the standard answer: that the intelligence on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was politicized. It was; but what that actually means - that's complex, it turns out. There was no single moment when, for example, Cheney told CIA Director George Tenet to skew the agency's analysis and Tenet complied. Instead, there was a far more subtle and gradual process. There were genuine errors, with analysts drawing mistaken inferences from Saddam Hussein's apparent refusal to explain what they believed was a gap between the weapons Iraq had and the weapons United Nations inspectors could account for. But there was also an insistence by Tenet on maintaining the CIA's relevance to Bush, which led to overstatement, suppression of contrary views, and a skewing of who wrote which analyses and who briefed whom - all trending toward painting a more ominous picture. There was a parallel commitment to sustaining relevance by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who traveled the path to war with unease yet believed he was at least being rigorous in how he approached the intelligence, without realizing, it seems, the consequential imprimatur that his voice provided to an already faulty analysis. And, less subtly, there was an insistence at key moments by Cheney and his fellow hawks on reinserting into speeches language that others had deleted because the intelligence did not back it up.

It all adds up to what we've come to call politicized intelligence, but it's complex and multilayered. And, as Draper demonstrates, the steady alignment of the intelligence analysis behind the case for war reflected a deeper phenomenon within Bush's executive branch: the steady alignment of Cabinet members behind going to war. It's not, in Draper's rendering, that Powell, Tenet or national security adviser Condoleezza Rice ever became gung-ho on war with Iraq themselves. It's that, consciously or otherwise, they began to assume, rightly or wrongly, that Bush had decided to go to war, regardless of what he said about his mind not being made up. And so they got on board, bringing the intelligence case along with them.

That makes Draper's account one for the ages, one to study not just to understand a war whose repercussions loom large given the Americans, Iraqis and others who've perished - and given the through-line from Bush's decision to the continuing U.S. presence in Iraq and the persistent threat from terrorists there and in Syria in the wake of the U.S. invasion. Draper's story is ultimately an account of the complex dynamics of the American presidency, especially when it comes to major decisions of war and peace. Presidents affect those around them simply by the questions they ask - and the ones they fail to ask. Their power is so extraordinary that even their most independent-minded Cabinet members can reorient their own positions, even their genuinely held beliefs, thinking they're serving faithfully, when in fact faithful service would mean asking the president tough questions and candidly telling him their concerns, even their disagreement. What's more, presidents can infect the very intelligence coming to them by giving the impression that only certain answers are welcome, then hardening their views based on what - surprise! - appears to be intelligence confirming those views.

The lessons that emerge from Draper's book for any American president are profound, making it a must-read for all who care about presidential power. I'd say President Trump should read it - but, well, you know. But future presidents should. And so should those who serve those presidents. Because, in the end, it may be the questions they don't ask that make it into the history books, having changed the fate not just of a country like Iraq but of America as well.

- - -

Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism and a deputy legal adviser at the National Security Council, serves as executive director of Georgetown Law's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
David Wilcox I edit The Citizen's features section, Lake Life, and weekly entertainment guide, Go. I've also been writing for The Citizen and auburnpub.com since 2006, covering arts and culture, business, food and drink, and more. Follow David Wilcox Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Robert Otterstatter has taken to calling it "Octane Social Distancing House."

A combination restaurant, coffeehouse, bar and more, Octane Social House will open Monday, Aug. 24, at 41 Genesee St. in the Nolan Block in downtown Auburn.

But it opens later than planned, limited in capacity and without some of its features, including the bar, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's definitely been a challenge to open a social house during social distancing," said Robert Otterstatter, who owns the business with his wife, Joni, during an interview with The Citizen Thursday.

Still, Octane opens with much of what the Otterstatters envisioned when they announced it in late 2016.

Rob, a ninth-generation Auburnian, and Joni moved back to his hometown from the Washington, D.C., area to open the business. At first they planned to do so in October 2018, but were delayed by the Nolan Block's extensive renovation process before COVID-19 delayed them further. The 2,000-square-foot business is located in the rightmost storefront of what used to be Nolan's Shoes.

Octane also occupies a lower level with secondary access from behind the block, on Loop Road. That isn't open to the public yet, but Joni, the head chef, will use the kitchen there to prepare food.

If you go WHAT: Octane Social House WHEN: Opening Monday, Aug. 24, with hours of 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays WHERE: 41 Genesee St., Auburn INFO: Call (315) 660-3656 or visit octanesocialhouse.com or facebook.com/octanesocialhouse

The menu is highlighted by smoked meats and vegetables, including a smoked meat of the day. But bacon will be available every day  "bacon deserves every day," Joni said  for breakfast and for lunch in the form of BLTs and club sandwiches. There will also be two types of crepes each day, one savory and one dessert, as well as waffles made to order, avocado toast, a southern-style cinnamon toast that she said "looks like a cinnamon roll and French toast had an affair," and pastries that are made, along with the bread, by an in-house baker.

Octane's general manager, Beth Tomandl, will also import some signature dishes from the Old Erie Restaurant in Weedsport, which she owned until it closed in 2018. Among them are its hummingbird cake, a banana-pineapple spice cake. Some other treat options are the Otterstatters' Power Balls, a granola-like snack, and their version of a half-moon cookie.

"We've been perfecting ours," Robert said. "Since they're a New York specialty, we've developed our own that we'd love Auburn to be known for."

The beverage menu doesn't include the self-serve craft beer tap system Octane will eventually boast, as its installation has been delayed by New York's COVID-19 travel restrictions, Robert said. But the business will have 20 types of coffee at all times. Ranging in origin from China, South America and elsewhere around the world, most of the coffee at Octane will come from New York roasteries. Among the exceptions are the chicory coffee from New Orleans' famed Cafe du Monde. There will also be espresso drinks like cappuccino and Americano, and tea and chai drinks.

Other parts of Octane are also yet to come. When the lower level opens, customers will be able to use the technologically equipped meeting room and library/used book store there. The latter will donate 50 cents from every sale toward the purchase of new books at Auburn's Seymour Library. In about a month, Robert hopes, a vinyl lounge will allow guests to listen to a selection of 5,000 records he has sitting in his barn. Also downstairs, in front of Joni's kitchen, customers will be able to sit at a counter and watch cooking demonstrations or take classes.

Live music is another part of Octane's business model that has been delayed by the state's COVID-19 guidance, as only "incidental music" is allowed for now. Robert called that "a game-changer."

But at least some music will fill the downtown business from its 1902 piano, made at the Wegman Piano Factory on Logan Street in Auburn. One of only 125 in existence, the piano has been completely refurbished and outfitted with a Bluetooth player piano module programmed with more than 1 million songs. The piano was given to Robert's great-grandmother as a gift, he said.

And it's far from the only artifact from Auburn's history inside Octane. There are also mirrors from the Osborne Hotel and Kalet's department store, restored stools from Poolos' Fountain Shop, and the original carousel and helium tank from Nolan's Shoes and Nolan's Sporting Goods. Robert called the carousel his "holy grail," as it took him three and a half years to track it down. He had help securing that and other items from the Auburn community, particularly on social media, where the Otterstatters have posted regular updates on their business.

"We're trying to do all we can to not only showcase the history of Auburn, but to move us forward," he said. "We want to be the place that's welcoming to everyone."

Some items came from within Nolan's, too. The Otterstatters repurposed some of its original wood and its tin ceiling within Octane, and exposed a barred window on the lower level, a remnant from its time as a speakeasy during Prohibition. Liquor bottles found in the floor have also been put on display. Contrasting all that old is new work by Auburn artists in a gallery space on the main level.

Though they're eager to open the rest of Octane  and its sibling cigar business and Nolan Block neighbor, Octane's Inferno  the Otterstatters are still "incredibly excited" to open Monday after years of anticipation and planning. They can't welcome everyone they want to, as guidance limits Octane to half of its 45-person capacity. But they will welcome who they can enthusiastically.

"We, like everyone else, are looking forward to a more normal style of life, but we've been dealt the hand we have and we want to make sure we do things appropriately," Robert said. "We just hope the people who've stuck with us, the people who've followed us, that they feel the same way and aren't going to be afraid to come out."

Lake Life Editor David Wilcox can be reached at (315) 282-2245 or david.wilcox@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @drwilcox.

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New Delhi: The Special Cell of Delhi Police on Friday (August 20, 2020) claimed to have busted an arms racket and seized a huge cache of ammunition from a suspected arms supplier from the Sarai Kale Khan locality.

According to reports, Abdul Salam who was arrested on Thursday night from the Sarai Kale Khan Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT), had tried to trick the cops by placing 20 semi-automatic pistols, 40 magazines and 50 live cartridges inside a 15-liter tin of refined oil.

However, the Special Cell officers became suspicious of the big oil tin in his hand and arrested him after searching the oil container.

Abdul Salam later told the police that he had received the consignment of recovered pistols and cartridges from an arms manufacturer in Sendhwa, Madhya Pradesh.

He also confessed to have supplied arms and ammunition to gangsters in Delhi-NCR and Western Uttar Pradesh for the past 10 years. His areas of operation included Ghaziabad, Hapur, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, among other places.

In 2010, he came in touch with a notorious arms supplier from Meerut who lured him to work for him as a courier boy. Later, Salam built his own network of procuring illegal firearms from Sendhwa, which he supplied in Delhi-NCR and Western UP.

"There are at least 10 cases against the accused, including for murder, attempt to murder and arms trafficking in Delhi and UP. He was handed a life sentence in 2016 by a trial court in a case of murder registered in Meerut but was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court after three years," PS Kushwah, DCP, Special Cell, said.

In 2013, Salam was arrested along with two of his associates by the Special Cell, which recovered 22 semi-automatic pistols from his possession.

Salaam has admitted to having supplied over 1,000 firearms in Delhi-NCR in the last six years. He used to bring arms from Madhya Pradesh after concealing them in various articles such as batteries, containers of refined oil, etc.

"He used to procure a pistol for Rs 10,000-12,000 from MP and then sell it for Rs 25,000-30,000 to criminals and small arms traffickers," the DCP, Special Cell, said.
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said "test, track, treat" was the government's strategy to move forward, and listed the progress stage of various vaccine candidates, adding that some of them could be available in the first quarter of 2021.

In an interview to the Hindustan Times, Vardhan talked about the current Covid-19 situation in the country, and provided details on the government's vaccine procurement plans.

On Thursday, India's Covid-19 caseload went past 28 lakh with a record single-day spike of 69,652 infections, according to the Union Health Ministry data. Asked about when infections are projected to peak across India, following a fall in fresh cases, the Health Minister said that it was difficult to predict that.

India being a large country, he said the outbreak was heterogeneous in different states with respect to their vulnerability, the maturity of outbreak, and the number of confirmed cases.

He added that the outbreak was likely to peak at different points in cities and states, and the variety in implementation measures, including the proportion of people taking preventive measures, played a role in this. He said these factors made it difficult to say when a drop in new cases would take place.

Various experts across the duration of the outbreak, have said that a vaccine is direly needed for the world to go back to some normality in its operations. Asked about when a vaccine would be ready for use in India, Vardhan said that vaccine trials against Covid-19 were being fast-tracked globally.

He said the efficacy of India-made vaccines would be known by the year-end, upon completion of trials. Adding that the Oxford vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India was already being produced on a parallel end, he said this would reduce the time needed to market it.

The Health Minister said that the other two vaccines would require at least a month extra for production, and phased introduction in the market. He pointed out that if the vaccine trial results were successful, it could be "ready to use" by the first quarter of 2021.

Developed by Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech, the human trials of 'COVAXIN' had started two weeks back and could be available by the end of 2020, Vardhan said.

He told HT the Serum Institute of India had informed that it was ready to begin human trials in India this month and was hoping to have the AstraZeneca vaccine available by the year-end. The ZyCoV-D from Zydus Cadila could complete its clinical trials in a few months too, he added.

Last week, the European Union agreed to buy at least 300 million doses of AstraZenecas coronavirus vaccine in its first such advance purchase deal. As other countries move towards similar advance procurement deals, Harsh Vardhan was asked to comment on India's plans for the same.

He answered that the details of the procurement plan were being developed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, adding that it was crucial to note that the country was home to the world's vaccine manufacturing industrial base, which provided two-thirds of childhood vaccines used globally.

He told HT the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was collaborating with Bharat Biotech, and had entered into an MoU which stated that priority would be accorded to provide vaccines, if it was successful, to the Indian Government, at an affordable and subsidised rate.

The Minister added that a similar agreement was in the advanced stages of negotiation with the Serum Institute of India for three Covid-19 vaccine trials to be supported by ICMR.

"Serum institute and ICMR are to undertake the trials of Oxford vaccine and two others  one produced by Novamox-Serum and another by Serum Institute by itself. Once the results of Phase I and II will be available, the detailed contours of plan to roll out will be finalised," he told Hindustan Times.

Harsh Vardhan said that infections had come down in Mumbai and Delhi, despite high testing, adding that this was corroborated by the downtrend in hospital admissions. He said the government was ahead of its set targets for Covid-19 testing, and said that the country's case fatality ratio was controlled by effective containment, aggressive testing with contact tracing and standardized clinical management protocols based on a "holistic standard-of-care approach".
Expressing the growth of popular anger towards the anti-worker policies of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its ruinous mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of workers have joined strikes and protests in recent weeks to oppose the governments attacks on their wages and working conditions.

Millions of scheme workers, mainly Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and those attached to the Anganwadi network (rural child care centres that are part of the Indian public health care system), took part in a three-day strike from August 7 to 9. Workers were opposing draconian changes to labour laws and disinvestment in and privatization of PSUs (Public Sector Units). They also demanded the transfer of 7,500 rupees to the bank accounts of all non-income tax paying families for six months, financial aid for farmers, a halt to retrenchments and closures, the payment of lockdown wages and the reinstatement of workers thrown out of work during the lockdown, and the provision of all families with subsidized grain and other foodstuffs.

The action, called by 10 Central Trade Union federations (CTUs), was the third nationwide strike or protest within three months. There was a nationwide strike on May 22 against major attacks on labour rights by different state governments. A nationwide protest on July 3 opposed the Modi governments pro-investor reforms, which the prime minister has vowed to dramatically intensify.

Showing the ruling elites fear of the protest movement, police arrested and detained participants in many states, according officials of the CTUs.

A joint statement issued prior to the August 7-9 protests by the 10 CTUs noted the conditions faced by the scheme workers, many of whom are frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19: It complained that none of the minimum requirements for their safety and security, including personal protective equipment (PPE), insurance and risk allowance, are being provided by the government. As a result many of the workers have died due to COVID-19.

The strike was joined by close to 90,000 ASHA workers in Bihar, who had been on strike since August 6 demanding PPE and the payment of delayed wages. One ASHA worker, Sarita Roy, told the Hindustan Times on August 8 that the workers are not provided with the (protective) equipment even as we carry out all immunization tasks and even document maternity rates. They are paid just 5,000 rupees ($US67) a month. However, even this paltry sum has not been paid for the last four months.

According to figures from the CTUs, nearly 10 million workers participated in the latest nationwide three-day action, which underscores the mounting popular anger towards Modi and his right-wing BJP. The growth of working-class struggles is not just an Indian phenomenon, but rather part of a worldwide upsurge of class struggle as workers express their opposition to social inequality and the ruling elites homicidal drive to reopen the economy as the pandemic continues to rage.

The strike took place as the spread of the virus across India continued to accelerate. Over the last two weeks, India has reported the highest number of daily cases in the world, surpassing the US and Brazil, according to the World Health Organisation.

Indias total reported COVID-19 cases has now surpassed 2.7 million. On August 17, the death toll surpassed the grim milestone of 50,000. Roughly 900 deaths are being reported on a daily basis.

The week of August 10-16 was the deadliest week of the pandemic in India thus far, with 434,003 new infections (an increase of 5.9 percent from the week before) and 6,555 deaths (an increase of 4.4 percent from the previous week). From August 1 to August 17, 1 million new COVID-19 cases were recorded.

The rapid spread of the disease is the direct product of the Indian ruling elites adoption of a murderous policy of herd immunity. During Modis two-month-long, ill-prepared lockdown, the ruling elite failed to use the time to do anything to strengthen the countrys chronically under-resourced public health care system. The government also refused to provide financial assistance to tens of millions of impoverished workers in the informal sector who lost their jobs, plunging them into destitution. Having created conditions of unbearable social misery for tens of millions of workers, the government began a premature and reckless reopening of the economy so as to allow big business to begin extracting profits from the super-exploited working class.

Following in the footsteps of capitalist governments around the world, the Modi government has seized on the COVID-19 pandemic to carry out long-planned economic reforms aimed at intensifying the exploitation of the working class, attracting international investment, and boosting the wealth of Indias super-rich. Measures being implemented include the privatization of public services, further cuts to social spending, and changes to labour laws, including attempts to lengthen the workday from 8 to 12 hours.

By forcing workers back into factories and other crowded workplaces with virtually no safety protection, Modi and the state governments, many of them opposition-led, bear responsibility for mass workplace infections and deaths. Reuters reported in July that workers at Bajaj Auto, Indias biggest exporter of motorbikes, were demanding the temporary closure of one of its plants after 250 employees tested positive for the coronavirus.

This is merely one example of the mounting opposition among various sections of the working class to the criminal indifference of the entire ruling elite towards their lives. The NewsClick website listed on August 6 at least 17 major workers protests over the preceding four months. They include:

On June 1, over 50,000 women protested across the country demanding income support for needy families and grain.





On June 25, nearly 100,000 ASHA workers held protest demonstrations across various states demanding better protective gear, better salaries and service conditions.





On July 2-4, over half a million coal workers participated in a three-day strike against the governments opening up of coal mining to private investors.





On July 13, over 200,000 construction workers protested against the merging of a law and fund specifically meant for their protection on the job with the general Labour Code and the funds diversion to other purposes.





On July 23, a workers-peasants joint demands day was observed with over 200,000 people participating. They were protesting against proposals to privatize agricultural trade, scrap labour laws, and for basic needs.





On August 4, over 80,000 defence production employees held demonstrations at the gates of their production units protesting against the impending privatization ordered by the Modi government.





On August 5, thousands of road transport workers held protests across India demanding the revocation of a new law that favours big transport companies over small providers.

Each week brings new protests. On August 10, about 700,000 truck and small commercial vehicle operators in Madhya Pradesh went on a three-day strike against a tax hike on diesel. They also demanded insurance coverage for truck drivers, as they are exposing themselves to health risks while operating during the pandemic.

Under such explosive conditions, the 10 CTUs which called the three-day strike of scheme workers earlier this month did so with the aim of maintaining control over the mounting social opposition and directing it behind their own reactionary political agenda. The CTUs involved in calling the strike were the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), which is affiliated to the opposition Congress Party, the Stalinist Communist Party (Marxist) or CPM-led Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the Stalinist Communist Party of India or CPI-led All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), and the right-wing Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or DMK-led Labour Progressive Federation (LPF).

In a display of their right-wing orientation, which includes demands for a dialogue with the BJP government, they invited the Bharatiya Mazdur Sangh (BMS), which is affiliated to the Hindu supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of Modis ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to participate in the joint union action, but it declined.

A joint statement issued by the CTUs on July 18 noted that COVID-19 has resulted in 140 million workers losing their jobs within three months. This figure increases to 240 million if casual employees and contract workers are included. The statement pointed to the catastrophic outcome of these job losses, including an increase in malnutrition and hunger related deaths. It also warned of depression and suicides among desperate jobless workers.

In spite of these horrific conditions, all the CTUs could muster was a pledge to submit a petition to the Modi government calling for improvements. Needless to say, such appeals will fall on deaf ears.
Steve Bannon's arrest in connection with an alleged We Build The Wall fundraising scam was assisted by an unlikely group of law enforcement officers: armed inspectors from the US Postal Service.

Bannon, once one of President Donald Trump's top aides, was taken into custody on Thursday morning after a Coast Guard vessel stopped him on a yacht owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui off the coast of Connecticut.

The first officers to step on the deck of the yacht were gun-toting members of the US Postal Investigative Service (USPIS), who swept the boat before federal agents came in to put Bannon in handcuffs.

The central role USPIS played in the stunning arrest helped pull the agency out of obscurity as most Americans were likely unaware about its centuries-old arm that's tasked with investigating an array of crimes facilitated by the mail - including child exploitation, cybercrime, drug trafficking and financial crimes.

Steve Bannon's arrest in connection with an alleged We Build The Wall fundraising scam was assisted by an unlikely group of law enforcement officers: armed inspectors from the US Postal Service (file photo)

Bannon is seen leaving Manhattan federal court on Thursday evening after he pleaded not guilty to being part of an alleged crowd funded border wall scam

Bannon's arrest came after federal prosecutors accused him and three associates of defrauding hundreds of thousands of people out of $25million donated to a We Build The Wall campaign.

The former Trump campaign manager, who joined the White House in 2017 only to be forced out a few months later, allegedly raked in $1million in the alleged scheme and spent hundreds of thousands of that on 'expenses'.

We Build The Wall founder and poster-boy Brian Kolfage - an Iraq war veteran, Purple heart recipient and triple-amputee - is also accused of fraudulently pocketing $350,000 in donations.

Prosecutors said Bannon and Kolfage lied when they claimed they would not take any compensation as part of the campaign.

Both men are facing one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Bannon pleaded not guilty on Thursday afternoon and was released on $5million bail.

Hours earlier he was arrested in dramatic fashion whilst sunning himself on Wengui's 150-foot, $35million yacht called the Lady May off the coast of Westbrook, Connecticut.

Chief Warrant Officer Mariana O'Leary, a Coast Guard spokeswoman, confirmed to the Washington Post that a team of USPIS agents were the first to board Wengui's yacht as the arrest commenced.

USPIS joined the investigation because of its expertise in tracing records of financial transactions, of which there were many involved in the alleged We Build The Wall scheme.

Bannon was arrested on Thursday morning after a Coast Guard vessel stopped him on a yacht (pictured) owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui off the coast of Connecticut

Bannon, wearing his distinctive two shirts, is seen on deck checking his phone hours before federal agents, with a C-130 plane overhead, arrested him

According to an indictment, Bannon and Kolfage used shell companies and a nonprofit controlled by the former Trump aid to siphon money from the campaign to themselves.

'The US Postal Inspection Service is committed to identifying and investigating anyone who exploits others for their own benefits,' Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale said in a statement Thursday.

The arrests in this case could go down as one of USPIS's most famous throughout its 245-year history - perhaps shadowed only by that of Charles Ponzi in 1920.

USPIS is regarded as America's first law enforcement agency. It was founded in 1775 - the same year as the US Postal Service - when William Goddard was named as the nation's first Surveyor under Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin.

Goddard's role involved auditing postal accounts and investigating theft of mail or postal funds, according to a timeline on the agency's website.

The agency's role expanded into the 19th century as people began migrating out west and mail traveling further across the country became the target of criminals including Billy the Kid, who was interviewed by postal agents in 1881 about mail robberies in Santa Fe.

Over the next century and a half USPIS had a hand in investigating a number of high-profile criminals, including Lee Harvey Oswald, who allegedly used a mail-order rifle to kill President John F Kennedy in 1963.

In 1996, USPIS also helped hunt down 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured 23 others in a massive mail-bomb campaign from 1978 to 1995.

Alleged Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (left) and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski (right) are among the criminals who have been apprehended with help from USPIS

In 2019, the agency conducted 5,759 arrests that led to nearly 5,000 convictions - mostly involving mail theft, mail fraud or prohibited mailings.

Despite its wide-ranging responsibilities involving virtually any crime committed via the mail, USPIS receives much less exposure than the agencies it partners with, including the FBI and ATF.

USPIS sought to shed some light on its operations by helping produce a CBS drama called The Inspectors that ran from 2015 to 2019 and was financed by Postal Service seizures.

It also received some attention on the NBC comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which featured Ed Helms as an arrogant postal inspector intent on convincing everyone that his position is important.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. More than 130 people who recovered from the coronavirus have already volunteered since August 7 for participating in the COVID-19 antibody studies conducted by the Yerevan State Medical University, Vice Rector for Scientific Affairs Konstantin Yenkoyan told ARMENPRESS.

The first results are expected by the end of August, he said.

The study will last between 6 and 12 months.

When the virus enters a persons system it causes an immune response. The antibodies begin developing within several days. At the final phase of the illness the immunity IgG develops. Our objective is to find out how long it stays in the system, Yenkoyan said.

Yenkoyan says their researchers are also going to launch another study, the COVID-neuro, to study COVID-19s impacts on the nervous system.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Woman walks by an Xpeng Motors showroom at its headquarters in Guangzhou

By Noor Zainab Hussain

(Reuters) - Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer XPeng Inc said it hopes to raise up to $1.11 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) in New York, seeking to ride the enthusiasm for EVs even as U.S.-China relations remain strained.

The company said on Friday it intends to sell 85 million shares American depositary share (ADS), each representing two class A ordinary share, priced between $11 and $13 per share.

At the top end of the range, XPeng's valuation stood at $9.17 billion. (https://bit.ly/3hifxb5)

The IPO comes at a time when U.S.-listed Chinese companies are facing tightened scrutiny and strict audit requirements from U.S. regulators, as tensions escalate between two of the world's biggest economies.

The Chinese EV maker said existing investors Alibaba Group <BABA.N>, Coatue, and Qatar Investment Authority had indicated interest in buying up to $200 million, $100 million and $50 million, respectively, of the ADSs being offered.

Backer Xiaomi Corp <1810.HK> had also indicated interest in buying up to $50 million of the ADSs.

Alibaba will own all of XPeng's class C ordinary shares, representing 14.9% of the voting power of its total shares immediately after the completion of the offering, XPeng said.

XPeng's IPO comes after rival Li Auto Inc <LI.O>, another Chinese electric vehicle startup, raised $1.09 billion in its IPO on Nasdaq last month.

Share prices of EV makers including Tesla Inc <TSLA.O> and Nio Inc <NIO.N> have surged in recent months.

"Investors can't seem to get enough exposure to electric vehicle stocks. We are comparing Xpeng with Li Auto, which went public in July and is up 28% from its IPO and to Nio," Kathleen Smith, Principal, Renaissance Capital, provider of institutional research and IPO ETFs, said.

Founded in 2014, Guangzhou-based XPeng delivered its first Xpeng G3 vehicle to customers in December 2018 and launched a second model in April this year. The company manufactures cars in two factories in China.

BofA Securities, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse are among the underwriters for the IPO.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As the school year approaches, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced a Department of Education COVID-safety pledge on Thursday.

The pledge commits the Department of Education to certain safety standards, frequent cleaning, and five-day-a-week class scheduling no matter what.

With our record-low infection rate, New York City is the safest major city in America, de Blasio said. Our plan to reopen our schools is the most rigorous in the country, and I want parents to know that we are taking absolutely every precaution to keep their children healthy and safe.

The commitments made in the Back to School Pledge are:

Health and Safety Always Come First

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and cleaning supplies will be supplied to all schools, and the New York City Department of Education (DOE) will have a 30-day supply on hand at all times  with a hotline for principals to call for immediate resupply for their schools

There will be a full-time nurse in every public school building

Any school building or room found to have inadequate ventilation will not be used by students or staff

Students and staff will practice physical distancing in all school buildings

Students will remain in pods for as much of the day as possible

Students and staff will wear face coverings throughout the school day; if they do not have them, they will be provided for free

We will place hand sanitizer in every classroom

City-run testing sites will prioritize free COVID testing and expedited results for school staff; free testing is also available to all students, families, and New Yorkers citywide

We are encouraging all DOE employees to be tested monthly

NYC Department of Health and Test + Trace Corps will immediately investigate confirmed cases to prevent spread of the virus

Schools will communicate with all students and families when there are confirmed cases in schools

When necessary, classrooms or school buildings will temporarily close to maintain safety of school communities and prevent spread of the virus

School buildings will close if the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests in New York City is 3% or more using a 7-day averagethe most aggressive threshold in the nation

NYC Public Schools Will be Cleaned and Disinfected, Day and Night

All school buildings will be disinfected overnight, every night

High-touch zones will be cleaned multiple times throughout each day

Electrostatic disinfectors will clean surfaces daily with zero physical contact

Students Will be Learning Five Days a Week, No Matter What

Whether in-person or online, students will study in supportive environments with rigorous academic standards

Remote students will interact with their teachers every day

Student schedules  both remote and in-person  will be preset and consistent to allow families to plan

Academic instruction will integrate social-emotional learning and trauma-informed care to support students holistically

Teachers will have time each day to engage one-on-one with students and families

UFT OPPOSED TO OPENING SCHOOLS

Schools are set to reopen in September after Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave the green light to districts around the state if they produced comprehensive safety plans.

The United Federation of Teachers said no school in the five boroughs should be able to reopen if it doesnt meet all the criteria of a safety report the union released Wednesday.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said he doesnt believe its possible for schools to open on the tentative first day of school on Sept. 10. He has called for more substantial testing strategies before the return to the classroom.

Even without the testing piece, it is our judgment at this point, as well as the principals union, that if you open schools on September 10th, it might be one of the biggest debacles in the history of the city, Mulgrew said.

Carranza said Thursday that if officials arent confident on safety then schools will not be reopened.

Were a few weeks away from the first day of school, and PPE deliveries are happening every day, families are getting their schedules, and schools are organizing their classrooms, he said. Parents deserve to know our commitment to them, and that means health, safety, and a high-quality education, no matter what.
The story about the "Ukrainian plot to lure and detain Wagner PMC troops" is a Russian hoax aimed at compromising Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has for the first time commented on recent rumors stemming from an unverified report based on unnamed sources about a "disruption of the Ukrainian special operation" to detain troops with the Russian private military company Wagner.

In a comment to RFE/RL, Zelensky called the rumors "nonsense."

"Nonsense. I read about it. It says some mass media reprinted Komsomolskaya Pravda "(it seems, a Russian [newspaper]), and sensationalized it in Ukraine. I'm unaware of any 'leaks' in any kind of operation," said Zelensky.

In response to a clarifying question on whether the operation had indeed been planned, Zelensky responded: "Why are you asking such a provocative question? Why are you telling the President of Ukraine now that the operation has been planned?"

I'm unaware of any 'leaks' in any kind of operation

Read alsoUkraine decries allegations of "special operation" to arrest Wagner PMC troops as "fake story"Earlier on Thursday, August 20, Head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak said the wave of reports about the alleged leaks that led to a disruption of some operation was "a well thought out and planned disinformation campaign."

Wagner PMC in Belarus

On July 29, 2020, a group of militants with the Wagner PMC were detained in Belarus, 32  outside Minsk, another one  in the south of the country. Among them were those who fought against Ukraine in the Donbas war.

According to Belarusian law enforcement, they had been tipped about the deployment of over 200 militants to destabilize the country amid the election campaign.

Belarus turned to the Ukrainian authorities to verify the involvement of the detainees in crimes committed in Ukraine. On July 30, Ukraine began consultations with Belarus on the extradition. On August 7, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said Ukraine must prove the guilt of the detained mercenaries to seal extradition.

On August 9, Lukashenko said he had received a five-page letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin with information on the situation around the detention of Wagner troops.

On August 11, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine sent inquiries to their Belarus counterparts appealing for the extradition of 28 fighters with the Wagner PMC. All 28, including nine citizens of Ukraine, had been charged with participation in a terrorist organization.

On August 14, Belarus handed 32 Wagner troops over to Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Belarus' move a "strange, politically incorrect, and definitely unacceptable thing to do in friendly interstate relations."

Allegations of "Ukrainian trace"

Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Alexander Kots on August 6 claimed it was the SBU security service of Ukraine, not Russian government as is widely believed, was behind the emergence of Wagner PMC troops in Belarus.

Read alsoAdvisor to President's Office chief dismisses as "fiction" reports on alleged disruption of classified intel operationOn August 18, editor-in-chief of Ukraine's Censor.Net outlet, Yuriy Butusov, picked up on the spin, taking to Facebook to allege, citing unnamed sources, that a secret operation had been conducted by the SBU Security Service of Ukraine and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, aimed to arrest and prosecute the mercenaries for crimes committed in the Donbas warzone.

The plan allegedly was to first trick them into boasting of own crimes and then lure them into one group under the pretext of another contract job overseas where they would travel transiting Belarus before eventually make a plane carrying the group land in Ukraine to detain the men.

The mission, Butusov alleges, has failed after Belarusian law enforcers arrested the whole group as they were waiting for a transit flight after a rebooking.

The delay and the subsequent arrest, it is alleged, were a result of a leak to a foreign power from Ukraine's Presidential Office following a last-minute report at the mission's final stage.

The story of Ukraine's involvement fits Russia's line of defense in the Belarus meddling case claiming Moscow had no plans to destabilize Belarus in the heat of election campaign, using mercenaries with combat experience in acts of provocations and sowing chaos.

Reactions in security, intelligence community

The SBU Security Service of Ukraine has refuted the rumors and noted the agency never conducts operations on foreign soil.

The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SZR) pointed to the Russian origin of the special information operation titled "Wagner Group in Belarus".

As per the SZR, the goals of such operation are as follows:
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- New research suggests that transmission of COVID-19 coronavirus aboard a crowded flight might not be as likely as travelers have feared.

The study out of Germany dealt with a 4-hour, 40-minute flight last March carrying 102 passengers, none of whom were wearing masks. Seven passengers, part of a tour group of 24 people, were unaware they had the virus. The others in the group were negative.
It is universally acknowledged that Greta Thunberg is among the youngest and most powerful environmental activists of her generation.

Thunberg, who is suffering from Asperger's syndrome at a young age, began championing climate change after she first heard about it when she was 8 years old. She instantly got worried about the environment to the point that she fell into depression because of it.

At the age of 15, the young climate change activist started protesting alone in Sweden and launched the "fight climate change" movement.

Thunberg became renowned for holding a now-recognized sign "skolstrejk for klimatet," which means "School Strike for the Climate" in front of the Swedish parliament on Fridays.

Her initiative indeed woke up hundreds of people, particularly students, to strike for climate justice until the march became known as the "Fridays For Future" movement.

Gigantic magazines and award-giving bodies recognized her attainments, including TIME Magazine and even the Nobel Peace Prize.

Last year, the news magazine announced through NBC\s "TODAY" that Thunberg scored the 2019 Person of the Year award.

TIME Magazine's Editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said that the notable climate change activist became the defendant of the world at a very young age.

Aside from TIME, Thunberg also got nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize and became one of the youngest nominees ever. Unfortunately, she lost the award to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali.

It is never a straight road for the young activist. However, people still think that Greta Thunberg's net worth is notable enough not to be mentioned anywhere.

What Is Greta Thunberg's Net Worth?

Despite having a towering number of activities that offered her a huge sum of money, Thunberg never put them inside her pocket.

Per Idol Persona, Greta Thunberg's net worth is $1 million. No media outlet can reveal her exact earnings yet since she has been reportedly giving away the money she receives from different organizations.

For instance, BBC reported in July that Thunberg garnered 1 million ($1.1 million) from Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity for her humanitarian initiative. However, the young activist herself revealed that she did not spend even a single penny of it to herself

"We're in a climate emergency, and my foundation will as quickly as possible donate all the prize money of one million euros to support organisations and projects that are fighting for a sustainable world," she said.

But last year, MediaMass put her in the headlines after the company made a fake cover claiming Thunberg was one of the highest-paid activists on Earth.

It was a good thing Snopes took a look into it and revealed that the magazine cover was not reliable or genuine.

Despite those instances, there is a massive possibility that Greta Thunberg's net worth is silently rocketing through the years.

Given that she has 4.1 million and 10.6 million followers on Twitter and Instagram, respectively, it is safe to say that she could utilize her influence to support her environment initiatives.

While people are asking Greta Thunberg's net worth, one thing is clear: her value to the world and to the environment cannot be measured with money.

READ MORE: Meghan Markle Tops Embarrassing Polls -- From No. 1 Social Climber To Most Unfairly Treated Person
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  August 21, 2020  Zacks Value Trader is a podcast hosted weekly by Zacks Stock Strategist Tracey Ryniec. Every week, Tracey will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. To listen to the podcast, click here:

Making Sense of Warren Buffetts Coronavirus Stock Moves

Welcome to Episode #202 of the Value Investor Podcast

Every week, Tracey Ryniec, the editor of Zacks Value Investor portfolio, shares some of her top value investing tips and stock picks.

The 13-Fs for the second quarter are finally in and Berkshire Hathaways filing tells the tale of what Warren Buffett and his lieutenants were doing with the portfolio during one of the most volatile quarters of the last decade.

A Gold Miner for Buffett?

First, Buffett shocked value investors everywhere by buying shares in Barrick Gold Corporation GOLD, a large cap gold miner.

Buffett has spoken out against gold in the past.

No one saw this one coming.

But it might not be that big of a deal, once you dig down into the why and how around the purchase.

Should value investors be taking another look at gold stocks?

Shuffling the Financials

The more interesting trades were in what was sold from the portfolio.

Berkshire sold out of its entire position in The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS, which was already small to begin with, but its been in the portfolio since 2013.

He also reduced his holdings in Wells Fargo & Company WFC, which used to be among his favorite banks and which has been in the portfolio since 2001, by 26%. The sale reduced the weight of the holding in the portfolio from 5.28% to just 3%.

Similarly, he sold shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, which was only added in 2018.

The sale reduced JPMorgans position in the portfolio from nearly 3% to just 1%.

Still Believes in Bank of America

Bank of America Corporation BAC remains one of his top holdings, however, at 10.85% of the portfolio.

Story continues

He also reduced his shares in several other banks in the portfolio.

The financials have been anywhere from 40% to 55% of the portfolio the last few years.

What statement were these sales making for value investors?

Find out the answer to this, and more, on this weeks podcast.

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>>

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By Njeri Mwangi

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Purity Amleset Lakara has spent the year capturing armed poachers, running from an aggressive buffalo, and relaxing around a campfire reading "A Day Before my Wedding" as she prepares for her own marriage this month.

The 24-year-old works as part of an elite all-female ranger unit named "The Lionesses," who patrol a conservation area near Kenya's Amboseli National Park. The recruits are drawn from the Maasai community who live around the park.

Sharon Nankinyi, another ranger, said the day she was chosen to enter the team was the best day of her life.

"It's rare for a woman in our community to be a ranger. With us being the first women rangers we are changing the taboo and men and our dads respect us. We have fought for the rights of girls in our community," the 20-year-old said.

When Kenya confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus in March, the unit was already out on patrol in the bush, and chose to stay away from their families in the bush for four months rather than risk coming in and getting infected and leaving the animals vulnerable to poaching.

"A few weeks ago during our patrol we came across people slaughtering a giraffe," Lakara said as she brushed down her boots in the dying rays of the sun.

The women, who patrol unarmed, captured the two men armed with bows and arrows and handed them over to rangers from the government-run Kenya Wildlife Service.

On another occasion, the patrol was ambushed by a buffalo - whose sharp horns can cause deadly injuries - and scattered, with one Lioness forced to scramble up a tree.

The unit of eight women - one from each of the local clans - patrols the Olgulului community conservancy conservation area, 150,000 acres of land shared by wildlife and human beings.

It is funded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which helped form the unit in 2017 to encourage more women to take part in conservation.

Story continues

The fund says they managed to stop almost all poaching in the area last year. Sometimes the women are accompanied by male rangers, and sometimes they go by themselves.

As the women patrol, their bonds are clear - they chat and joke on the long walks in between visits to residents, who they ask whether predators are bothering cattle or if any strangers are moving through the area.

Cattle - the foundation of Maasai cultural life - and wildlife mingle freely here, with herds grazing not far from where a mother elephant and her baby lovingly intertwine their trunks.

(Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Katharine Houreld)
By Don Thompson, Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif.  A former California police officer dubbed the Golden State Killer told victims Friday hew was truly sorry before he was sentenced to multiple life prison sentences for a decade-long string of rapes and murders that terrorized a wide swath of the state.

Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges under a plea deal that avoided a possible death sentence.

The punishment imposed by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman means DeAngelo will die in prison for the crimes committed between 1975 and 1986.

Before sentencing, DeAngelo rose from a wheelchair, took off his mask and said to the court: "I listened to all your statements, each one of them, and I'm truly sorry for everyone I've hurt."

DeAngelo also publicly admitted dozens more sexual assaults for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors called the scale of the violence "simply staggering," encompassing 87 victims at 53 crime scenes spanning 11 California counties.

So many were his victims that Bowman sentenced DeAngelo in a university ballroom large enough to hold the survivors and their families, after an extraordinary three days of hearings in which they told in often heart-rending detail how he had upended their lives.

DeAngelo sat silently through those hearings, expressionless in a wheelchair that prosecutors contended is a prop to hide his still vigorous health.

He eluded capture for four decades until investigators used a new form of DNA tracking to unmask and arrest him in 2018.

Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty, but settled for a life term given California's moratorium on executions, the coronavirus pandemic, and the advancing age of DeAngelo, his victims, and witnesses they needed to make their case.

Bowman sentenced DeAngelo under a plea deal that called for him to be sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, plus 15 life terms with the possibility of parole and eight years for other enhancements.
The ordinance was aimed at anti-abortion activists who were camping outside the home of a doctor who performed abortions. The protesters were not seeking to exercise their undeniable right to disseminate a message to the general public, but to intrude upon the targeted resident, and to do so in an especially offensive way, OConnor wrote. And, although, in many locations, we expect individuals simply to avoid speech they do not want to hear, the home is different.  There simply is no right to force speech into the home of an unwilling listener.
Texas Republicans defended their new slogan on Friday, dismissing claims that it has ties to an internet-driven conspiracy theory whose adherents President Donald Trump has praised in recent days.

The slogan, We are the storm, uses nearly identical language to a popular rallying cry among followers of the debunked theory, known as QAnon. On Thursday, The New York Times cited the partys new motto as an example of how QAnon has permeated official Republican circles.

The slogan can be found all over social media posts by QAnon followers, and now, too, in emails from the Texas Republican Party and on the T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts that it sells, the Times wrote. It has even worked its way into the partys text message system  a recent email from the party urged readers to Text STORM2020 for updates.

Allen West, the Texas GOPs newly elected chairman, has said previously that the slogan has no connection to the theory, and instead comes from a quote he often recites at speaking events: The devil whispers into the warriors ear, You cannot withstand the coming storm. The warrior whispers back, I am the storm.

The we are the storm poem is one of Chairman Wests favorite quotes to use in speeches, The Republican Party of Texas said in a statement. He and the entire Texas GOP will not be bullied by partisan leftists in the media into ceding powerful phrases with biblical roots  taken from Psalm 29  to Internet conspiracy groups.

NEW CHAIRMAN: Texas Republicans oust party chairman James Dickey in favor of former U.S. Rep. Allen West

A spokesman for the party said West was unavailable for comment, and declined to comment on whether it was aware of the overlap or concerned that the slogan could raise the stature of a conspiracy group that the FBI has labeled a potential domestic terrorist group. He also did not say whether the party planned to replace the slogan going forward.

The party tweeted Thursday that its merchandise featuring the slogan was flying off the shelves.

Austin-based KXAN news reported Friday that one of its reporters asked West about the slogan earlier this month, to which he replied, I dont know about anybody else and Im not into internet conspiracy theories.

The Texas Democratic Party issued a statement condemning the slogan: The Republican Party is being led by an internet cult that believes in dangerous, extreme far-right conspiracy theories, spokesman Abhi Rahman said. West can try to deny its connection, but its there in plain sight for everybody to see.

Among QAnon believers, the storm signals a coming clash between President Trump and a vast group of deep-state, sex-trafficking Democrats. The theory gained renewed attention after a Republican candidate and outward QAnon adherent recently won her congressional primary runoff in Georgia.

Asked about the theory this week, President Trump offered empathy for its adherents and declined to question its validity. If I can help save the world from problems, I am willing to do it, he told reporters. Im willing to put myself out there.

Social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook have scrambled in recent weeks to tamp down a growing number of QAnon-related accounts and posts. Several prominent Republicans have come out against the theory.
The worlds largest cruise operator Carnival has revealed that it suffered a ransomware attack and security breach that could affect customer and employee data. The company disclosed the information in a US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) 8-K filing (via ZDNet), saying that it occurred on last weekend on August 15th. We expect that the security event included unauthorized access to personal data of guests and employees, which may result in potential claims, the form states.

Carnival added that attackers accessed and encrypted a portion of one brands information technology systems, without providing further details like the type of ransomware. The company suffered a separate breach last year which also potentially involved stolen customer data.

The massive cruise company owns a fleet of 100 or so ships with 120,000 employees and brands including Princess Cruises, Holland America, Costa Cruises and others. The security breach comes on top of the COVID-19 crisis that has essentially put a complete stop to all of its operations. However, Carnival said that it doesnt expect the attack to have a material effect on its business, operations or financial results.

Update 8/20/2020 9:50 AM ET: The post originally stated that Carnival has 600 ships and 150,000 employees, but those numbers werent correct. The post has been updated with correct information. Thanks, Stewart!
Prof. MENG Wenxiang's group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently reported a new mechanism by which microtubule networks instruct neuronal polarity.

The study, published in PNAS, deepens the understanding of the fundamental question of neuroscience, "What microtubular factor is decisive in the establishment of neuronal polarity?"

A typical mature neuron has one axon and multiple dendrites, forming the physical basis of neuronal function. In neurons, the establishment of axon/dendrite polarity is regulated by a variety of factors, including the polarization of signaling regulators and cytoskeletons. Microtubules are the final performer in this process. However, how microtubules instruct axon/dendrite differentiation has been unclear.

In this study, the researchers found that CAMSAP1, a microtubule minus-end binding protein, is an indispensable factor in neuronal multipolar-bipolar transition and radial migration.

Collaborating with WANG Yingchun's group, the researchers demonstrated that the polarity regulatory factor MARK2 kinase phosphorylated the serine at amino acid 1485 of CAMSAP1 and thereby regulated the ability of CAMSAP1 to bind and protect microtubule minus-ends.

This finding shows that the asymmetric distribution of microtubule-associated CAMSAP1 is a trigger in neurons and controls neuronal polarization by creating an unbalanced distribution of microtubules among neuronal processes.

"In fact, in the early stage of neuronal polarization, it was the unbalanced stability of the noncentrosomal microtubule minus-ends that caused the asymmetric distribution of microtubules, which in turn promoted the changes of stability or modification of microtubules," said Dr. ZHOU Zhengrong, the first author of the study. "Our research answers a question that has long plagued neuroscientists, that is, whether the stability and acetylated modification of microtubules are the decisive factors in establishing neuronal polarity."

###

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Basic Research Program of China.
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Congress, Hindutva and Indian Nationalism | Barun Das Gupta

August was an important month for India in the twentieth century. It was on August 9, 1942, that the Congress passed the momentous Quit India resolution. It was on August 15, 1947, that India attained independence. And again it was on August 16, 1946, that the Muslim League started the Great Calcutta Killing that culminated a year later in the partition of India. We blame the Muslim League and its leader, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, for unleashing communal violence and for the partition of India.

However, there is no denying the fact that at present there is a surge of militant Hindu nationalism which is not only anti-Muslim but also anti-science, anti-history and against the very idea of India being a plural polity with diverse language, culture, costume, food habit, etc. It is unity in diversity that is the essence of Indian civilization. The emphasis is on unity, not uniformity. So strong have the Hindutva forces become that even the Indian National Congress which fought for Indias freedom and supposedly championed Indian nationalism, is being forced to adopt a soft Hindutva line, particularly during election time when Hindutva forces pose a strong challenge to Indias Grand Old Party.

But there is no denying the other fact either that in the pre-independence days, with the exception of Mahamta Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, most other Congress leaders also cherished a strong Hindu identity and had a strong sympathy for Hinduism (whatever that may mean). Name any prominent Congress leader of those days  Pandit Motilal Nehru, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Pandit Bhulabhai Desai, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak  and you will find a strong Hindu identity characterizing them all.

Both Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, two of the three famous Lal-Bal-Pal trio, had a strong Hindu sentiment. Though Lajpat Rai once said that To require India to coalesce into a nation with one religion and one tongue . . . would revive the medieval idea of one empire, one people, one church, he joined the Hindu Mahasabha. Babu Rajendra Prasads India Divided brings out both his Hindu identity and his anti-Muslim sentiments.

As A. G. Noorani has pointed out in his book The RSS: A Menace to India (p. 18):

He [Lajpat Rai] was the first to propound the two-nation theory and also the first to suggest partition of India, . . . In 1899, he wrote: Hindus are a nation in themselves, because they represent a civilization of their own. So, it was Lajpat Rai who first propounded the Two-Nation Theory. He also suggested the partition of India.

M. R. Jayakar, a prominent Congress leader and a member of the Constituent Assembly, was also a member of the Hindu Mahasabha.

Sardar Patel, who ordered the RSS to be banned after Gandhi murder, wrote a letter to the then RSS chief M. S. Golwalkar, on September 11. 1948. In that letter he addressed Golwalkar as Brother Sri Golwalkar. While strongly criticizing the RSS for its communal activities, the letter had words of praise for the RSS as well. In course of his letter, the Sardar said: There can be no doubt that the RSS did service to the Hindu Society. In the areas where there was the need for help and organization, the young men of the RSS protected women and children and strove much for their sake. No person of understanding could have a word of objection regarding that.

What the Sardar did not elaborate in his letter was that the women and children whom the RSS protected, were Hindu, the organization did not come to the aid of the Muslims who were also massacred in the tumultuous days preceding, during and following Independence.

A serious study needs to be made to find out why the pre-independence Congress virtually became a party of the Hindus. Leaders like Khan Abdur Ghaffar Khan and Moulana Abul Kalam Azad were the exceptions rather than the rule. An answer has also to be found why Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a Congress leader and a nationalist, broke with the Congress and became, to quote Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal, the sole spokesman of the Indian Muslims.

In 1905, Bengal was partitioned. Next year, on December 31, 1906, the founding conference of the Al India Muslim League was held in the palace of Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka. The League demanded separate electorate for the Muslims. Jinnah was in Calcutta on that day. He not only refused to join the Dhaka conference, his reaction to the formation of the Muslim League was extremely hostile.

Rafiq Zakaria, in his book The Man Who Divided India writes (p. 12):

Jinnah reacted strongly against it. He organized, along with a few friends of his, a countermove in Calcutta at the same time to warn the Muslims not to succumb to the British policy of Divide and Rule` which was being endorsed by the newly formed League. He said it would eventually harm the Muslims and deprive them of participation in national life.

The Aga Khan, who was elected as the first President of the League, pointed out subsequently that Jinnah was our doughtiest opponent in 1906. He had publicly denounced the the Leagues communal move. In the words of the Aga Khan, Jinnah came out in bitter hostility towards all that I and my friends had done and were trying to do. He opposed the Leagues stand of favouring separate electorate for the Muslims and described it as a poisonous dose to divide the nation against itself. (Italics mine  BDG.)

It was a prescient prophecy of the future. It is a tragic irony that the same Jinnah became historys instrument for fulfilling his own prophecy.

But it was not Jinnah alone. One by one, all the Muslim leaders of the Congress left the party. They included the famous Ali Brothers, Shaukat Ali and Mohammed Ali  both devoted disciples of Mahatma Gandhi and both leaders of the Khilafat movement which was supported by Mahatma Gandhi. Shaukat Ali is known to have supplied revolvers to the revolutionary Sachindra Nath Sanyal.

But the Ali Brothers also deserted the Mahatma. Syed Saad Ahmed, in an article in Oulook, wrote: It was during his tenure as Congress President (in 1923) that Mohammed Ali began drifting away from the Congress. The scholar Mushirul Hasan attributes this to the worsening Hindu-Muslim relations and the feeling in some Muslim circles that the Congress was aiding communal forces in order to establish Hindu Raj.

And how did the Congress treat Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, whose unflinching loyalty to the ideal of secularism remained till the last breath of his life? He told Mahatma Gandhis secretary Pyarelal that by agreeing to divide India and accept Pakistan, the Congress had thrown him to the wolves.

The All Parties Conference in Lucknow in 1928, this writer believes, was a watershed in the politics of India. From the attitude and words of the Congress leaders taking part in the conference, the Muslims somehow came to the conclusion that in independent India they would have to live under Hindu dominance. Therefore, they must have a separate homeland for themselves. This conviction led eventually to the adoption of the proposal at the Lahore Conference of the Muslim League in 1940 which read:

That geographically contiguous units are demarcated regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.

Although the word Pakistan was not mentioned in the Lahore resolution, it soon became the war cry of the Indian Muslims. The seeds of the partition of India were sown.

Looking back, the questions arise: was the alienation of the Muslims inevitable? Could not the vivisection of India be averted? It is likely enough that future historians will hold the Congress more responsible than the Muslim League for the partition of India. The Congress leadership of those days had become tired old men who were unwilling to wage another battle against the British and maintain the unity of India. They had become impatient to get into power. They accepted Mountbattens partition plan without even taking Mahatma Gandhi into confidence.

When the Mahatma went back to Delhi from Calcutta in September, 1947, Acharya Kripalani was the Congress President. At his very first meeting with Kripalani, the Mahatma lamented: Professor, even you did not think it necessary to consult this old man! He was alluding to the Congress assent to the partition proposal behind his back.

In a letter dated 9.7.1948 to the Nawab of Bhopal, Nehru wrote: Partition came and we accepted it because we thought that perhaps that way, however painful it was, we might have some peace to work along our own lines. Perhaps we acted wrongly. It is difficult to judge now. And yet, the consequences of that Partition have been so terrible that one is inclined to think that anything else would have been preferable. (Quoted in A Study of Nehru, edited by Rafiq Zakaria, pp. 7-8)

Penderell Moon, in his book Divide and Quit has noted that Jinnah was never serious about the Pakistan demand. He used it as a bargaining counter with the Congress. When the demand was accepted, he was taken by surprise.

D. C. Jha, in his book Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress and the Partition of India, has given this interesting anecdote (p. 105):

In his book The Shadow of the Great Game, Narendra Singh Sarila has quoted Col. Elahi Baksh, the physician who attended on Jinnah during his last illness in August-September of 1948, that he had heard Jinnah saying I have made it (Pakistan) but I am convinced that I have committed the greatest blunder of my life. And around the same period, after meeting Jinnah on his sick-bed, the Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was heard to have muttered: The old man has now discovered his mistake.

*

Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were the only two Congress leader who remained steadfast to the ideals of secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity throughout their lifetime. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, in his book Nehru & Bose, Parallel Lives, (Page 42) has recorded that shortly after Nehru became the chairman of the Allahabad municipality in 1923, under his guidance the Municipal Board rejected the suggestion to prohibit cow slaughter. So, from the very beginning of his political life, Nehru never yielded to the sectarian Hindu demand for banning cow slaughter. Indeed, he never ceased from warning the country in general and the bureaucracy in particular, of the danger that Hindu communalism posed to the unity and integrity of India.

Unfortunately, during the fateful days of transfer of power, Jawaharlal the politician got the better of Jawaharlal the statesman.

As for Mahatma Gandhi, he wrote in Young India as far back as May 11, 1921: If not during my life-time, I know that after my death both Hindus and Mussalmans will bear witness that I had never ceased to yearn after communal peace.

Today, when Hindu communalism is threatening to transform India from a secular, democratic State to a Hindu theocratic State and a weak and enervated Congress is finding it tempting to play soft Hindutva politics for immediate electoral gains, the future, indeed, seems gloomy. There is time yet. The electoral fortune of the Congress has considerably dwindled. Let it go back to its original moorings of socialism, secularism and democracy without a thought for electoral gains. In the long run, it will pay and save the country from a disaster.
Ukraines budget deficit is currently about UAH 300 billion, but the figure is moderate and absolutely feasible for the budget, there is no cash gap.

Our level of budget deficit is really approaching UAH 300 billion, but the figure is moderate for Ukraine and absolutely feasible for the budget. There is no cash gap. We are clearly aware of the sources to cover such a deficit, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal said in an interview with Ukrinform.

According to him, this year the situation is complicated and is linked to the coronavirus and the economic crisis.

At the same time, Shmyhal assured that there is no hole in the budget, noting that the planned budget deficit stands at 7.5% of GDP. This sum has been agreed with our international partners and creditors. It is relatively low compared to some European countries where the budget deficit reaches even 10-14%, the Prime Minister said.

Currently, the country adheres to the budget schedule set by the law.

Among the sources of coverage, Shmyhal mentioned tax revenues, dividends from state-owned enterprises, loans on domestic and foreign financial markets.

Ukraine does not have debt threats or arrears and fulfills all its obligations to creditors on time and according to the schedule, the Prime Minister said and added there would be no problems with finding funds.

As reported, experts' forecasts for the future situation with public finances differ from moderately positive (for the current conditions), according to which Ukraine will not go beyond the budget deficit (UAH 298 billion) with GDP drop of 5-7 % at the end of the year, to extremely negative - a big "hole" in the budget, non-payment crisis, and economic decline of 11-12% or more.

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China has violated Vietnams sovereignty and complicated the regional situation by deploying a bomber to an island in the Vietnamese Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago earlier this month, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We have repeatedly affirmed that the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa [Spratly] archipelagos are inseparable parts of Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang said at a regular press conference on Thursday.

Vietnam has sufficient legal basis and historical evidence proving its sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa in line with international law, Hang stated,

The deployment of weapons and bomber aircraft to Hoang Sa is a violation of Vietnams sovereignty and further exacerbates the situation in the East Vietnam Sea.

We call on parties to make responsible contributions to maintaining peace, stability, and security in the maritime area, the spokesperson stressed.

Earlier in August, leaked information and pictures showed that China had deployed its H-6J bomber on Phu Lam (Woody) Island, part of Vietnams Hoang Sa.

China has yet to release any official information on this incident.

It would be the first time China has sent a bomber to Phu Lam Island.

In an article published on August 13, Chinas Global Times quoted a Chinese naval expert as saying that the deployment of the H-6J in the East Vietnam Sea is of strategic significance.

The bomber will help prevent U.S. military provocations in the region thanks to its superior maritime combat capabilities, the expert was quoted as claiming.

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CLIFTON PARK, N.Y.  State Police in Clifton Park, with the assistance of the Troop G Computer Crimes Unit, and the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, arrested a Clifton Park man and charged him with felony promoting a sexual performance of a child and felony possessing a sexual performance by a child.

Luke P. Dashnaw, 20, is accused of possessing and promoting images consistent with child sexual exploitation via the internet. His arrest followed an investigation stemming from a cyber tip received by the New York State Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

He was taken into custody at his residence.

Dashnaw was arraigned in Halfmoon Town Court and released on his own recognizance. He is due back in court on a later date.
On August 21, Sensex closed 214 points, or 0.56 percent up at 38,434.72 while Nifty settled 59 points, or 0.53 percent, up at 11,371.60. BSE Midcap rose 0.57 percent while BSE Smallcap outperformed, rising 1.41 percent.

State Bank of India | CMP: Rs 198.10 | The stock gained almost 2 percent after CLSA maintained buy and raised target price to Rs 310 from Rs 270 per share. It believes that the company presents a deep value opportunity. It is relatively better positioned on asset quality post-COVID.

Jindal Stainless | CMP: Rs 51.65 | The share price jumped 9 percent after the company said India Ratings affirmed its ratings. "...credit rating agency India Ratings and Research, a Fitch group company, has affirmed Jindal Stainless' long-term issuer rating at 'IND 888' with a 'stable' outlook," the company said in a BSE filing on August 20.

Strides Pharma Science | CMP: Rs 614.90 | The stock jumped over 8 percent after the company received US FDA approval for Ursodiol tablets. Strides Pharma Science Limited on August 21 announced that its step-down wholly-owned subsidiary, Strides Pharma Global Pte. Limited, Singapore, has received approval for Ursodiol Tablets USP, 250 mg and 500 mg from the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA). The product is a generic version of Urso 250 Tablets, 250 mg and Urso Forte Tablets, 500 mg, of Allergan Sales, LLC, the company said in an exchange filing.

Aarti Drugs | CMP: Rs 3133.70 | The share price surged 10 percent hitting a new 52-week high. It has jumped over 28 percent in the last two days after the Board of Directors approved the issuance of fully paid-up bonus share. The Board of Directors at its Meeting held on August 20, 2020, have approved the issuance of fully paid-up bonus shares in the ratio of 3:1 i.e. 3 (Three) bonus equity shares of Rs 10 each for 1 (One) fully paid-up equity share of Rs 10 each, the company said in an exchange filing.

Max Healthcare Institute | CMP: Rs 111.75 | The stock price jumped 5 percent as the scrip made a decent debut on bourses on August 21 as it got listed at Rs 107 on BSE and jumped 5 percent soon to get locked at the upper circuit at Rs 112.35. The stock is part of the 'T' group of securities on BSE and it will be in the trade-for-trade segment for 10 trading sessions.

Finolex Cables | CMP: Rs 302 | The share price gained over 2 percent after global brokerage firm Jefferies maintained buy call in the stock, citing that company's Q1 revenue was ahead of its estimates. It has a target price of Rs 415 per share.

Indian Overseas Bank | CMP: Rs 11.70 | The stock was up 2 percent after the state-owned lender posted a net profit of Rs 121 crore for June quarter 2020 mainly due to a fall in bad loans. The bank posted a net loss of Rs 342.08 crore in the same quarter a year ago.

GMM Pfaudler | CMP: Rs 6009 | The share price gained 2 percent after the company acquired 54 percent stake in its parent firm Pfaudler Group for a consideration of around $27.4 million. It has signed definitive agreements to acquire a majority stake in Pfaudler Group from the private equity firm Deutsche Beteiligungs AG Fund VI (DBAG) for the stake.

Premier Explosives | CMP: Rs 135.85 | The stock jumped 5 percent after the company received an order from Israel Aerospace Industries, Israel (IAI) for development and supply of EDRM rocket motors for a total value of USD 520,000 (about Rs 3.90 crore). Order is expected to be delivered within 9 months.
Jayakumar Madala By

Express News Service

MADURAI: An order from the Tiruchy City Corporation took netizens by surprise, with the civic body ordering all meats shops and slaughter houses to remain shut on Saturday on account of Ganesh Chathurthi.

The Tiruchy City Corporation on August 18 issued an order asking meat shop owners within the city limits to remains shut on account of Vinayaka Chathurthi.

These restrictions came as a surprise to the public, meat sellers and various stakeholders in the city.

Neelamegam, State Advisor, Makkal Sakthi Iyyakam said, "This is the first time meat shops are being asked to be closed on account of Ganesh Chathurthi. We do not why they are being asked to close down and also no proper information regarding the same is issued to the sellers. The Civic body needs to intervene and immediately clear the confusion."

ALSO READ | Madras HC bats for artisans, asks whether Vinayaka Chaturthi restrictions can be relaxed

Meat sellers on the other hand opined that although they have received no official intimation till now, there has been a buzz among shopkeepers and customers following the reports on various news channels.

"Meat shops were are never asked to be closed on Ganesh Chathurthi in the past. This is the first time such an order is being passed. Although we are yet to receive an official intimation, there is a high sense of ambiguity as several customers are coming and asking us. Due to this we are totally unsure on what to expect, as we cannot function even on Sunday due to lockdown," said shop owner Fakriudeen and former member of the Trichy Meat Shop owners Association.

ALSO READ | BJP-AIADMK war of words reaches crescendo over denial of nod for Vinayaka idols installation

It is to be noted that Tiruchy district hosts over 450 shops with almost 75 of them located within the city limits.

As a result of the controversy, many meat shop owners also opined that they would chose to keep their shops closed even if the civic body allows to open as there are no clear instructions and they don't want any trouble.

However, when The New Indian Express contacted S Sivasubramaniam, Commissioner, Tiruchy City Corporation, he said, "We will not revoke the order but the closing will be specific only to slaughter houses. Meat shops can continue to function like always".
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Thursday night's Democratic National Convention emcee, cracked a very awkward joke on the heels of a touching film on Joe Biden's faith.

The clip featured Biden, at a CNN town hall, talking about loss with Rev. Anthony Thompson, the pastor at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, where Thompson's wife was one of the nine black worshippers who was gunned down by a white supremacist.

'Joe Biden goes to church so frequently he doesn't need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there,' the 'Veep' star said.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus cracked a very awkward joke directly after a touching clip of Joe Biden talking to the pastor whose church was shot up by a white supremacist, killing the pastor's wife

The back-and-forth came during a CNN town hall, in which Rev. Anthony Thompson, the pastor at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston asked Biden a equestion

Rev. Anthony Thompson (left) and Joe Biden (right) appeared together at a CNN town hall in advance of the February 29 South Carolina primary

It was a dramatic shift in tone, as the Democrats tried to make an appear on the final night of their four-day virtual convention to church-going voters.

The segments before featured a nun, Sister Simone Campbell, a nod to Biden's Catholic faith, as well as Sen. Chris Coon, who won Biden's old Senate seat.

Coons said of Biden's positions in politics: 'For him, they're rooted in faith,' a faith 'that's sustained so many ordinary Americans.'

And then came the clip of Biden's back-and-forth with Thompson, which was filmed at a CNN town hall in South Carolina in February, days before the state's primary.

'Reverend, I kind of know what it's like to lose a family and my heart goes out to you,' Biden said.

'You may remember after Barack and Michelle and I were there with my family, I came back on that Sunday because I had just lost my son. And I wanted some hope,' Biden continued. 'Because what you all did was astounding.'

The former vice president then addressed the crowd.

'I don't know if ya'll know that. All of those who died, who were killed by that white supremacist. They forgave him,' Biden said, calling it the 'ultimate act of Christian charity.'

Cue, Louis-Dreyfus' joke about Trump's June 1 photo-op.

Black Lives Matter protesters were gassed and pepper balled in the moments before Trump crossed Lafayette park to hold up a Bible in front of St. John's church, which had been damaged by fire the night before.

Julia-Dreyfus continued to make jokes through the program.

'I couldn't be prouder to be a loyal union member, a passionate climate activist and a patriotic Democrat, or as Donald Trump will call me in a tweet tomorrow: a washed-up, horse face, no talent, has been with low ratings,' she said at one point.

'Well, with all due respect, sir - it takes one to know one,' she said.
At the Thane mental hospital, which houses 807 patients, so far 17 patients and 22 staffers have been afflicted by the coronavirus disease

As many As 21 patients and 50 staffers at state-run four Mental Hospitals of Maharashtra got infected with Covid-19 till date. The four hospitals in the state are at Thane, Nagpur, Pune and Ratnagiri. The BJP has filed a petition with the Human Rights Commission accusing the state government of completely ignoring these hospitals.

The hospital management has suspended group therapy and called off family visits to prevent the virus from spreading further. The health officials also mentioned that maintaining social distance and making the mentally ill patients wear a mask is difficult. Restrictions on travel during the lockdown, meanwhile, have also forced a large number of patients, declared fit for discharge, to continue to wait at the facilities inducing restlessness in some, they said.

At the Thane mental hospital, which houses 807 patients, so far 17 patients and 22 staffers have been afflicted by the coronavirus disease. In May, a female staffer had succumbed to the virus, while two patients died in June.

According to staffers, at least 40 patients share a ward at the hospital, sleeping within a foot of one another, some on mattresses others on the floor, which makes maintaining three-foot distance impossible.

Medical superintendent Dr Sanjay Bodade said, Serious patients of psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorders do not understand how or why to wear a mask. They keep throwing it away.

Dr Sadhana Tayade, the director of Directorate of Health Services, said there was a risk that mentally ill patients can swallow hand sanitisers if dispensers are installed in the wards, hence a caretaker makes them wash hands before every meal.

At Nagpur mental hospital, a patient and eight staffers have been infected with the coronavirus while, at Pune and Ratnagiri, one patient and at least 20 staffers and two patients respectively have tested positive so far.

At least 110 patients at the Thane facility are fit to go home, records show, but their families either live in a containment zone or do not have means to travel since local trains allow only government employees to travel. We have been calling the family members of these patients. But since March we are hearing the same excuse, superintendent Bodade said.

Meanwhile, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya said, We have filed a petition with the Human Rights Commission for the justice of these poor souls. The government has failed to look after these patients and tackle the pandemic. There is no proper testing done in these hospitals and these patients are deliberately ignored.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR/JHARSUGUDA: A 68-year-old British-born man running a shelter home for the children here was arrested by the Jharsuguda Police on Wednesday for sexual abuse of a minor boy.

The accused John Patrick Bridge, founder of Faith Outreach children home located at Cox Colony, is charged with abusing a 16-year-old boy of Kandhamal district.

The victim was staying in the shelter home and studied at the institute set up by the British-born man who took Indian citizenship in 1992. Bridge is accused of sexually abusing the minor several times while he was residing in the shelter home way back in 2015.

Similar allegation was also levelled by another person of Bhabanipur area in Sundargarh district. He allegedly was sexually abused while coming to the shelter home for Bible classes.

Sources said, Bridge provided education to many poor tribal students of Kandhamal district residing in his shelter home. Taking advantage of the gullible minors, he allegedly exploited them.

In fact, Bridges actions were first flagged by New Zealand Government to Indian High Commission which alerted the Centre. Following a communication from the Government of India, the State Government had asked the Jharsuguda administration to investigate the matter. During the probe, statements of a victim was recorded basing on which the complaint was drawn.

Jharsuguda Town IIC Savitri Bal said, police registered a case under Section 341 of IPC, 10 POCSO Act and SC/ST (PoA) Act and arrested the accused. He was produced in court and remanded to judicial custody after his bail plea was rejected.

In 2013, a French national, Mathieu Furic, was booked for allegedly indulging in unnatural sex with children on Penthakata beach in Puri. Apprehending trouble, Furic flew back to his home country before police could nab him.
Technavio has been monitoring the seamless copper tubes market in MENA and it is poised to grow by 69.18 thousand tons during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 9% 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/20200821005045/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

Frequently Asked Questions-

At what rate is the market projected to grow during the forecast period 2020-2024?

Growing at a CAGR of almost 9%, the market growth will accelerate in the forecast period.

What is the key factor driving the market?

Growing consumption in key economies is one of the key factors driving the market growth.

Who are the top players in the market?

Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group Inc., KME Germany GmbH Co. KG, Kobe Steel Ltd., Luvata MMC Copper Products Oy, MetTube Sdn Bhd, Mueller Industries Inc., Multimetals Ltd., Shahid Bahonar Copper Industries Co., and Wieland-Werke AG are some of the major market participants.

Which region is expected to hold the highest market share?

Middle East

What is the year-over-year growth rate of the global market?

The year-over-year growth rate for 2020 is estimated at 8.43%.

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group Inc., KME Germany GmbH Co. KG, Kobe Steel Ltd., Luvata MMC Copper Products Oy, MetTube Sdn Bhd, Mueller Industries Inc., Multimetals Ltd., Shahid Bahonar Copper Industries Co., and Wieland-Werke AG are some of the major market participants. To make 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.

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA 2020-2024: Segmentation

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA is segmented as below:

Application HVAC Industrial Heat Exchanger Plumbing Electrical and Others

Geography Middle East North Africa



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=IRTNTR41191

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA 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 seamless copper tubes market in MENA report covers the following areas:

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA size

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA trends

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA analysis

This study identifies the rising adoption of cupronickel tubes as one of the prime reasons driving the seamless copper tubes market growth in MENA during the next few years.

Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of vendors operating in the seamless copper tubes market in MENA, including some of the vendors such as Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group Inc., KME Germany GmbH Co. KG, Kobe Steel Ltd., Luvata MMC Copper Products Oy, MetTube Sdn Bhd, Mueller Industries Inc., Multimetals Ltd., Shahid Bahonar Copper Industries Co., and Wieland-Werke AG. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the seamless copper tubes market in MENA are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Seamless Copper Tubes Market in MENA 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist seamless copper tubes market growth in MENA during the next five years

Estimation of the seamless copper tubes market size in MENA and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the seamless copper tubes market in MENA

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of seamless copper tubes market vendors in MENA

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five Forces Summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Application

Market segments

Comparison by Application

HVAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Industrial heat exchanger Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Plumbing Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Electrical and others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Application

Customer landscape

Overview

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Middle East Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North Africa Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd.

Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group Inc.

KME Germany GmbH Co. KG

Kobe Steel Ltd.

Luvata MMC Copper Products Oy

MetTube Sdn Bhd

Mueller Industries Inc.

Multimetals Ltd.

Shahid Bahonar Copper Industries Co.

Wieland-Werke AG

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.

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Issues raised in the report

Report also had positives

(TNS)  Merced Countys Elections Department has several snags to work out in advance of the Nov. 3 general election, according to a report released this week by the Merced County Civil Grand Jury.Grand jury observation during the special Merced Irrigation District election on Nov. 5 and the primary election on March 3 concluded a mixed analysis of local election practices.On those dates issues arose with ballot privacy, emergency preparedness and inadequate signage, according to the grand jury.The concerns prompted the grand jury to request that before the upcoming Nov. 3 election, county officials conduct training for poll operations to prepare for emergency situations.The grand jury also recommended that poll workers get training for handling ballots securely, away from public eyes.I appreciate them looking at the operation, said Merced County Registrar of Voters Barbara Levey of the grand jury report. I was disappointed when I saw this, because we didnt have the opportunity to give input before they published, she added.The issues stem from Marchs election, when ballots were observed being removed from the privacy folder before being fed into machines by a poll worker, thus exposing ballots to public view.Privacy concerns were likely spurred by voters being hesitant to remove their own ballot from its privacy sleeve and place it in the precinct tabulator machine themselves, Levey said. Such individuals may have asked a worker to do so, which would briefly display the individuals ballot to the public, she said.Some signage flaws and confusion over emergency protocols were also evident during both March 2020 and November 2019 elections, according to the report.When questioned about procedures to ensure vote integrity in an emergency, poll workers provided a variety of answers regarding training and procedures, the report said. Some workers indicated they had received some training, while others specified that they had not.Several poll workers said they were told to take voting materials with them during an emergency only if it was safe to do so. If the materials had to be left behind for safety purposes, the workers were instructed to call the warehouse for instructions, the report said.I do understand where the grand jury, they kind of hit on this one, Levey said of emergency preparedness.Levey noted that during the November 2019 election, a fire alarm went off at a polling site at an assisted living facility and mandated evacuation of the entire building. The grand jurys concerns likely stemmed from that incident, she said.Levey said that while an immense amount of training  including emergency protocols  is provided to poll workers, actually responding during an emergency is difficult. The sheer amount of information about how to run equipment, types of ballots, voting eligibility and more can also contribute to certain details getting lost, she said.The bottom line, Levey said, is that poll workers safety comes first during an emergency. Protecting voting materials is encouraged if possible, but is not the priority, she said.The concerns will be addressed during the upcoming election by providing emergency instruction that is location-specific for workers, in addition to increased training, Levey said.Despite the criticism, the grand jury also highlighted positives about how elections staff conducted business.On the plus side, for example, poll workers were found to be competent and helpful with the voting process, and accessibility at most voting locations was deemed reasonable.Also, the grand jury found that new technology transitioned well into local election procedures and that poll workers responded well to voter needs, which Levey said she appreciated.Levey noted that any ballot privacy issues like those with the precinct tabulators will not be an issue come November, on account of the election taking place by mail per Gov. Gavin Newsoms statewide order due to the coronavirus pandemic The order and subsequent legislation mandates that each registered voter be mailed a ballot.Ballot drop boxes will be open throughout the county beginning Oct. 5 until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Drop box locations list will be included with the county voter information guide.Voters should drop ballots in the mail no later than Oct. 27 to reach the elections office on time. Levey said she has received assurance from the U.S. Postal Service that it will be a sufficient partner in ensuring the elections integrity.Still, some Merced County residents are not pleased with voting by mail.My office has fielded quite a few complaints about it, Levey said, noting that many are unaware of the voting format being a statewide order. We need to do it because of COVID, because of safety.Levey said that during past elections, up to 75% of Merced County voters submitted their ballot through the mail, meaning the change will not significantly affect a majority of registered voters.More information about the Nov. 3, 2020 general election can be found on the Merced County Elections Department website.
California residents who have been ordered to evacuate due to the hundreds of wildfires burning across the state my be able to recoup their evacuation costs from their insurance company, the California Department of Insurance says.

Thousands of California residents have been ordered to evacuate due to wildfires in recent days. They may have homeowners or renters insurance coverage to help with evacuation and relocation costs, even if their homes are not damaged or destroyed, according to the CDI.

With more than 367 wildfires sweeping the state, I want evacuees to know additional living expense coverage can be available to help ease the financial burden of mandatory evacuations, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a media release. Residents who have been evacuated should contact their insurance agent or the Department of Insurance to find out what their renters or homeowners policy covers and other resources that may be available to them while the mandatory evacuation orders are in place.

Many homeowners are unaware that they may have coverage under their homeowners and renters insurance policies to help them with evacuation and recovery expenses. Additional living expense coverage, known as ALE, typically includes food and housing costs, furniture rental, relocation and storage, and extra transportation expenses.

Lara is urging evacuees to contact their insurance company to verify their ALE coverage provision and limits and learn about requirements to use the coverage. It is critical to keep all receipts and document the date, time, and names of any insurance company employees spoken to regarding coverage and details of the conversation, the department said.

Lara also is looking at other options to assist wildfire survivors and evacuees, including his sponsorship this year of Senate Bill 872 authored by Sen. Bill Dodd, which expands the scope of ALE coverage in homeowners insurance policies after a declared wildfire emergency, clarifies policyholder rights if the policyholder decides to relocate rather than rebuild the destroyed home, and adopts other meaningful consumer protections to help ease the burden for homeowners and renters as they rebuild their homes and lives after a major catastrophic event.

Source: CDI

Topics Carriers California Wildfire Homeowners
WASHINGTON  In his first appearance before Congress, new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy tried to tamp down concerns that he was making it more difficult for Americans to vote by mail in the upcoming presidential election, which many will do as the coronavirus continues to spread in their communities.

A resident of North Carolina, DeJoy told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that he votes by mail himself. I think the American public should be able to vote by mail, he told the committee. He is expected to testify before the House on Monday, as the furor continues over recent changes he has overseen, including the removal of mailboxes and sorting machines, as well as the curtailment of overtime pay.

Earlier this week, DeJoy informed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that there would be no further changes before the election. She called his assurances insufficient, telling members of the chamber to return to Washington to consider ways to prop up the U.S. Postal Service before Election Day.

President Trump helped create the current concern about the fate of the USPS by admitting he wanted to hold up funds for the agency in order to stop universal mail-in voting, which he believes would help Democrats. He has also repeatedly asserted  without offering any meaningful evidence  that voting by mail is subject to fraud. Those accusations come as states try to devise means for people to vote safely during a pandemic that has killed at least 174,000 of their fellow Americans.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies during a virtual hearing before a Senate panel on Friday. (Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee via AP)

There is little debate that the USPS is in a deteriorating and unsustainable situation, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO says that the post office has lost $69 billion over the past 11 fiscal years as a result of operational inefficiencies and Americans changing communication habits, which rely much less on envelopes and stamps than they did in previous generations.

DeJoy arrived at the USPS in June with no government experience, one of many Trump appointees asked to use his private-sector expertise to revive some aspect of the federal bureaucracy. A major donor to President Trump in particular and the Republican Party in general, DeJoy worried some as an overly political and insufficiently experienced pick to serve as the overseer of the nations entire mail system.

Story continues

Little that followed dispelled those concerns among the critics of Trump and DeJoy. In early July, documents published online revealed that DeJoy was seeking to cut overtime by keeping mail carriers from waiting for late-arriving trucks. He has also removed both mailboxes and sorting machines, while purging the Postal Services senior leadership ranks.

Fridays turn before the Senate was meant to reassure Congress, with DeJoy claiming that he was very, very confident that the USPS could meet all demand related to the Nov. 3 election. Theres slack in the system, he told lawmakers. The Postal Service stands ready.

As for the removal of mailboxes and sorting machines, DeJoy depicted those moves as ongoing processes beyond his control. I havent reviewed it, he said of the mailbox removal initiative. But he also told Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the committees ranking Democrat, that neither the mailboxes nor the sorting machines would be returned. Theyre not needed, sir, he said.

The committee is chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., an ally of the president. In his remarks, Johnson charged that calls to his legislative offices from constituents complaining about the Postal Service were highly scripted.

Johnson accused Democrats of waging a political campaign to foment outrage.

I have no doubt the Democrats are ginning these issues and these problems up into something that its not, he said as the hearing came to a conclusion.

Johnson similarly tried to downplay the investigation into Russias electoral interference in the 2016 election. He visited Moscow in 2018.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
ISTANBUL : President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Turkey discovered its biggest ever natural gas field holding 320 billion cubic metres (11.3 trillion cubic feet) in the Black Sea, and more could be found as the country works to provide it by as soon as 2023.

If the gas can be commercially extracted, the discovery could help Ankara cut its current dependence on imports - from countries such as Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan - for a substantial amount of its energy needs.

"Turkey has realised the biggest natural gas find of its history in the Black Sea," Erdogan said, adding that Turkey aims to become a net energy exporter.

The Fatih drill ship began work late last month in the Tuna-1 zone, about 100 nautical miles north of the Turkish coast in the western Black Sea. All tests and engineering work has been completed, Erdogan said.

"This reserve is actually part of a much bigger source. God willing, much more will come. As a country that depended on the outside for gas for years, we look to the future with more security now," he said. "There will be no stopping until we become a net exporter in energy."

Any reduction in Turkey's energy import bill, which stood at $41 billion last year, would boost government finances and help ease a chronic current account deficit which has helped drive the lira to record lows against the dollar.

The currency has strengthened since Erdogan first told energy executives on Wednesday that he had "good news" to announce. The lira slid however as he detailed the find and was down 0.4% at 1247 GMT.

Officials and analysts have cautioned that it could take up to a decade for any gas from the Black Sea find to come online, and would need billions of dollars of investment to build up the infrastructure for production and supply.

Turkey has been exploring for hydrocarbons in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean - where its survey operations in disputed waters have drawn protests from Greece and Cyprus.

Erdogan said Turkey will accelerate operations in the Mediterranean.





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President Moon Jae-in, right, greets Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, archbishop of Seoul, ahead of a lunch meeting with Catholic leaders at Cheong Wa Dae, Aug. 20. The president and the guests all showed up wearing masks for protection against the COVID-19./Yonhap



The South Korean presidential office was set to start running in around-the-clock contingency mode starting Friday to better counter the spiking coronavirus cases in the greater Seoul area.



"Cheong Wa Dae has (decided) to operate a contingency system in the face of a severe new coronavirus situation," Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kang Min-seok said in a written press briefing.






AOC: The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

By Lynda Lopez

St. Martin's. 218 pp. $26.99

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's vertiginous ascent from millennial bartender to one of the most talked-about political figures in the nation has spotlighted the deep divides in our public life on issues ranging from gender and generation to race and religion. In "AOC: The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," broadcast journalist Lynda Lopez eschews both-sidesism and instead resolves to "check in with people from the communities to whom she has meant the most." As the book's editor, Lopez has collected smart, briskly written and often inspiring essays about the Bronx-born Boricua phenom. The pieces largely concentrate on two central themes: identity and policy. "AOC is not just culturally symbolic," Lopez explains in the volume's introduction. "She is a symbol meeting a moment, a particular American moment that is massively important to communities not used to having their voices heard."

Ocasio-Cortez has become an instant political star, Lopez writes, by using her mastery of social media and political rhetoric "to force the media to cover and politicians to address some of the most pressing - and most pushed aside - issues of our time, including poverty, gender and racial economic disparities, massive and unsustainable income inequality, and the urgency around environmental issues."

Apparent throughout the collection is how profoundly many of its essayists identify with AOC, how they revel in her success after years of feeling unrepresented in a political system dominated by people who are wealthy, male, White and connected. English and ethnic studies professor, novelist, and essayist Jennine Capo Crucet revisits the night she watched AOC upset longtime incumbent Joe Crowley, the fourth-most-powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives. "I watched your brilliant, ambitious campaign from half-way across the country," she writes, "with much hope and with a kind of dread, thinking I already knew the ending; like you, I'd often been exactly the right person for an opportunity, and many times I'd been kept from it because of forces outside my control - my Latinidad, my working-class roots, my gender, my youth." And when AOC emerged victorious, Capo Crucet shared in "that feeling of astonishment that comes when our hope and brilliance really and truly pay off (against all odds and the expectations of those who purport to know better). . . . The night you stared at the screen, in a shock stemming from the true extent of the revolution you'd started, I saw in your face my own face."

A similar sentiment animates Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez's recollection of AOC's response to President Trump when he suggested that she and three other congresswomen of color should go back where they came from. Mojica Rodriguez, a Nicaraguan American who has a master's of divinity from Vanderbilt University, remembers AOC's retort to the president: "You are angry because you can't conceive of an America that includes us," adding: "I felt that. I felt that in every inch of my body, because she said what many women of color have wanted to say but have been afraid to."

Equally important to these authors is AOC's advocacy for working-class people.Tracey Ross, a director at PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity, reminds readers that "Representative Ocasio-Cortez often repeats a simple yet powerful phrase: 'No person should be too poor to live.' " With her election, Ross adds, "people living in poverty gained another ally in Congress."

But righteous indignation and good intentions go only so far. AOC's economics degree and her seat on the House Financial Services Committee have prepared her to delve into policy issues and helped her hold wealth and power accountable. "To not know how money and the system work is to fall prey to them," writes business journalistCarmen Rita Wong. "The financial system all too often exploits our lack of knowledge." Wong celebrates AOC's aggressive questioning of figures like Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and the way she lays bare the advantages accorded the wealthy by the finance and technology sectors.

The essayists worry about the expectations that they and others have laid upon Ocasio-Cortez, especially knowing the entrenched interests and vocal opposition she faces. "My fear," writes Capo Crucet, "is that knowing how much you mean to us will put too much pressure on you."

AOC's significance is hard to assess because she is still new to the national stage, and the contributors are appropriately tentative in their conclusions. Urban historian Pedro Regalado contextualizes Ocasio-Cortez as part of a long tradition of Puerto Rican activists in New York and casts her as essential to her party's future. "The Democratic Party's rejuvenation, if it is to have one at all," he writes, "partially lies in tapping into the voices of those who have been historically neglected but who have fought for today's most pressing social issues."

AOC's role in any such rejuvenation will depend on the breadth of her political appeal. Her progressive platform is highly popular in deep-blue New York, but will it play in Peoria? The Democratic Party's selection of Joe Biden as its 2020 standard-bearer shows that it remains more center than left. But if AOC's allies can win districts in suburbia, they will have a stronger claim to future leadership.

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Sandoval-Strausz is the director of the Latina/o studies program at Pennsylvania State University and the author of "Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 20:06:28|Editor: huaxia

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LANZHOU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Standing in front of his clinic, An Guoqin often fills his mind with two things: the vastness of the snow-capped mountains in the distance and the feeling of immense loneliness deep within.

For 21 years, An has been the only doctor in Xichahe Village of Sunan Yugur Autonomous County, northwest China's Gansu Province.

An's medical practices are no easy job in the nomadic village that covers about 36,300 hectares of mountain steppes. Often he needs to travel long distances to reach his herders patients that are scattered in the area.

"I now ride a motorbike, but I used to ride a horse to visit patients' homes. Sometimes it took half a day on horseback to see one patient, and I had to sleep at their houses if it got late," the 42-year-old doctor said.

After graduating with his medical degree in 1999, An, a local of Sunan, was assigned to the village clinic as the government worked to extend medical services to all remote areas. Upon arrival, the young graduate was greeted by three shabby rooms that would leak when it rained and stayed cold in winter months.

Equipment and medicine were also in short supply, but the main challenge he faced was traveling far and wide over unfamiliar terrain to reach his patients.

"My first home visit was from a villager who had a sudden bout of illness at night. After tending to the emergency, I couldn't find my way back to the clinic and got lost in the grassland."

Even more distressing for An was helping with home births. As the area is far from other towns and city hospitals, many local mothers must deliver their babies at home and call on An, who is not an obstetrician by training.

Despite the odds, An continues to stand by the clinic and serve the 470 villagers. An's wife, however, lives in the county seat, and in the winter, they may not see each other for a month when mountain passes are blocked by snow.

"If I left, long-distances and insufficient transportation would again separate these villagers from medical services," An said.

For decades, village doctors like An have been the main healthcare providers in China's vast and impoverished countryside. They shoulder miscellaneous responsibilities ranging from the diagnosis and treatment of common diseases to fighting epidemics, saving patients in remote areas the trouble of trekking to hospitals in faraway towns and cities.

This rural medical system has been overhauled in recent years with the injection of more government funds, and many lonely village doctors receive new training and new colleagues.

Since 2004, An's clinic has been renovated six times, funded by the local government. The dirt road in front has been replaced by an asphalt one, and the inventory of the clinic has expanded to more than 120 types of drugs.

Zhang Zhijun, director of the Dahe township hospital, said apart from improved infrastructures, China's rural medical service also benefited from the ongoing campaign to eradicate poverty.

"Especially the strategy of reducing poverty by improving healthcare has raised the capability of rural medical institutions, and needy families can have their medical fees reimbursed," said Zhang, who has been a grassroots medic for 32 years.

After leaving tracks all over the steppe, An said the loneliness is being offset by his close connection with the villagers.

An Xinyu, a 68-year-old villager in Xichahe, is grateful that Doctor An has chosen to stay. Suffering from high blood pressure and arthritis, the villager needs periodic examinations but used to be daunted by the difficult trips to urban hospitals.

"An is like a family doctor who stays on call around the clock, and we are like true family members who care for each other," she said. Enditem
The Nigerian army said it was in full control of a north-eastern town on Thursday where hundreds of people had been taken hostage by militants linked to the Islamic State armed group. Many of the victims had just returned to the town after fleeing a bloody attack there two years ago.

"The situation in Kukawa is now calm with troops in full control," defence spokesman John Enenche said in a statement.

Hours beforehand, fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) had stormed the town in the Lake Chad region, taking hundreds of people hostage.

The hostages' whereabouts remain unknown despite the Nigerian army's reassurances that everything is under control.

Many of the victims seized late on Tuesday had just gone back to their homes after spending nearly two years in displacement camps, according to local militia leader Babakura Kolo.

Enenche said: "The attack by the terrorists was a deliberate attempt to reverse the milestone achievements regarding internally displaced persons in the areas of peace building and resettlement."

Growing threat

Three soldiers died and two were wounded during the gun battle in which eight jihadist fighters were killed, Enenche added.

A splinter group of Boko Haram, the ISWAP has grown in power and influence in recent years, waging a guerrilla war across north-eastern Nigeria and elsewhere on the lake's periphery.

The decade-long jihadi conflict in the country's north-east has forced some two million people to flee their homes, with many of them moving to displacement camps in the regional capital of Maiduguri.

Authorities have been trying for the last two years to get them to return to their home towns even though international charities have insisted it is not safe to do so.
Screenshot from the CASEL website, one of the leading outfits promoting social and emotional learning (SEL). (schoolguide.casel.org)

Trading Academics for Far-Left Social-Emotional Learning

Commentary

This is part 16 in a series of articles examining education in the United States.

Academics are fast becoming a thing of the past in public schools.

In their place are behavioral psychology and social and emotional learning (SEL) designed not to educate but to transform childrens core values, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior.

Once upon a time, education meant learning how to read, write, do math, and think. It meant learning history and science as well.

That is barely happening now, as government data show.

Perhaps more importantly, once upon a time, school children all over the nation also learned the Ten Commandmentsdo not murder, do not lie, do not steal, and so on.

They learned the Golden Rule, too: Treat others as you want to be treated.

But those good old days are largely gone.

Today, government schools use advanced methods including SEL to instill in children a radical new and oftentimes contradictory politically correct value system: radical environmentalism, radical feminism, critical theory, Marxism, social justice, LGBTQ-plus, population control, socialism, hyper-racialism, class struggle, and more.

Theres also an occult connection to it all that would shock most secular observersnot to mention Christians, Muslims, Jews, and adherents of other traditional faiths.

SEL: The Mechanism for Transformation

In public schools across the United States today, from pre-K through 12th grade and beyond, children are being subjected to what is seemingly just the latest educational fadsilly, perhaps, but no more harmful than anything elseat least on the surface.

The education establishment refers to it as social and emotional learning, social-emotional learning, or just SEL for short. Generally they speak only in vague generalities using soothing language while dealing with the public.

And its true, some of what falls under the SEL umbrella is fairly harmless.

But then again, the food pellets that contain rat poison are fairly harmless, tooat least until the poison, which is just a trace component in the pellets, is digested by the intended victim.

Similarly, SEL all seems innocent enough at first glance.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions, explains the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), one of the leading outfits promoting SEL.

The way proponents explain it, SEL is simply aimed to help children do well emotionally and succeed.

What could be wrong with that?

Well, CASELs website, a review of SEL programs, and educators themselves reveal a great deal more about the agenda. And its not pretty.

Political Extremism and Radical Values

Behind the nice public facade lurk swarms of psychologists, psychiatrists, educators, and radical leftists hoping to exploit a century of psychological research for the purpose of molding childrens beliefs and deconstructing the values parents seek to instill.

With a growing number of partners, CASEL is creating a more comprehensive approach to education, one that will lead to a more equitable, just, and productive society, the organizations website boasts under the headline SEL as a Lever for Equity, hitting multiple key buzzwords associated with the far-left social justice movement.

In other words, one of the purposes of SELas its leading promoters admitis to reform society.

Among the webinars offered there are SEL as a Lever for Equity and Social Justice, and also a lecture on how to use SEL to support antiracist practices. Another webinar outlines how to use policy to dismantle inequities.

Again, the leftist buzzwords are everywhere. And that isnt an accident.

Under SEL Competencies, CASEL drops multiple bombshells acknowledging the far-left globalist indoctrination taking place under the guise of social and emotional learning.

SEL competencies can be leveraged to develop justice-oriented, global citizens, and nurture inclusive school and district communities, it states, adding that the programs will involve getting children to assess power dynamics and confront issues of race and class across different settings.

The children are also expected to develop an understanding of systemic or structural explanations for different treatment and outcomes.

In short, they are expected to believe the highly controversial hypothesis that America is awash in systemic and structural racism, and that only massive government-led social engineering can fix it.

The children are also expected to accept and agree with the artificial divisions being fomented along race and class lines as part of the now-obvious effort to divide and conquer America.

Put simply, this is all blatantly Marxist critical theory rhetoric masquerading as education.

Its extremely dangerous.

In Practice, Educators Shine the Light

A review by The Epoch Times of a wide range of SEL programs used across the United States found that all contain similar extremism, along with highly controversial teachings on sex, sexuality, gender, race, racism, class, economic liberty, family, marriage, and more.

Interviews with educators and a review of their writings on the subject were also very revealing.

In short, the real goals of SEL go far beyond helping children socially and emotionally. And it isnt difficult to find that out.

In fact, in practice, SEL is frequently and explicitly used in public schools to instill certain attitudes and values in children that many parents, if not most, would find controversial at the very least.

For example, public-school teachers in Florida, to comply with SEL mandates, were ordered to show a number of videos to their middle school students.

These included propaganda videos promoting homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, diversity, inclusion, and more.

Regardless of ones views on these subjects, countless parentsespecially those from faith traditions including Christianity, Islam, or Judaismwould find the effort to obliterate traditional sexual morality and even biological sex in childrens minds to be objectionable.

Numerous other highly controversial political, religious, economic, and worldview positions are treated as correct by the forces behind SEL.

More than a few self-styled SEL educators are very open about how they intend to use SEL to brainwash children.

Open Circle Director Kamilah Drummond-Forrester, who supports social and emotional development for children, wrote openly at EdSurge.com about weaponizing SEL to indoctrinate children with her hyper-racialist views.

Teaching [white children] to be aware of their racial identity would allow them to better understand the privileges that accompany that identity, she wrote, adding that this would help them dismantle the concept of whiteness.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has an important role to play in that education.

One of the core competencies we focus on, as a necessary foundation for the others, is self-awareness. That self-awareness must include race, she continued, without acknowledging that many parents probably dont want their children obsessing about race or being propagandized by a far-left activist posing as an educator.

In an article for EdTech Magazine on peddling SEL to students amid coronavirus-inspired online learning, writer Adam Stone touts SEL-oriented teaching materials from the Zinn Education Project.

Howard Zinn, of course, is the far-left pseudo-historian whose dishonest and politically motivated narratives were most recently debunked by historian Mary Grabar in the book Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America.

Zinn described himself as something of a Marxist, his biographer recounted.

According to EdTech, though, the SEL-oriented propaganda from Zinn is supposedly aimed at nurturing empathy and compassion.

In the real world, Marxism has everywhere and always nurtured hatred, death, slavery, torture, starvation, shortages, political repression, religious persecution, and other evils.

And yet under the guise of SEL programs and nurturing empathy and compassion, millions of children are having their minds poisoned by being force-fed actual Marxist propaganda and fake history.

And perhaps even more alarming, Stone urges educators to use surveillance tools that give insight into students online behaviorsboth inside and outside the virtual classroomto enhance SEL.

One of the recommended total surveillance tools offers educators a holistic view of online activity across search engines, social media, email and web apps, Stone said, adding that an artificial-intelligence engine would perform real-time assessments to flag online behaviors that indicate emotional distress.

As explained in an earlier segment of this series, Orwellian technology is used to monitor and track progress on adjusting childrens attitudes, too. That data is being compiled and saved forever under the label of emotional intelligence.

The Big Brother technology is also used to determine whether further interventions are needed to coerce the child into holding the desired attitudes, values, and beliefs about the issue in question.

And, as U.S. Department of Education documents make clear, it will also be used to predict future behavior and interests of the children.

Educators Speak Out

Of course, educators who have seen through the agenda reject SEL as a massive threat to Americas children.

One of those who spoke out against the SEL abuses taking place in her school, Jennifer McWilliams of Indiana, was even fired for being too vocal about it.

The thing I find to be the most disturbing about social emotional learning is how well it disguises its true sinister motives, she told The Epoch Times. Parents do not understand that SEL psychologically manipulates children to question (and eventually rebuke) any Christian or conservative beliefs that may be taught in the home.

While parents are led to believe that SEL is like teaching children The Golden Rule, it is quite the opposite, McWilliams said.

Social emotional learning is rooted in progressive, social justice ideology that divides anyone who questions the radical groupthink agenda, she said. From my personal experience, not only do parents not understand it but teachers and administrators dont either.

SEL also represents the brainwashing of our children, McWilliams continued, noting that it trains children to compromise on everything with no consideration of what is taught in the home.

These programs rely on a bombardment of propaganda, conditioning, and role playing to separate children from God and the nuclear family, she said, saying SEL was the vehicle used to get children to accept as truth the narratives behind Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and Black Lives Matter (BLM).

The popular SEL program used in McWilliamss school, Leader in Me, was designed to shift the culture of the school to influence childrens morals and values based on progressive social justice standards, she said, adding that it became ubiquitous on campus.

When she began publicly speaking out about it on social media, she was fired for supposedly making the school look bad.

Parents must speak up and take back control of the influence in their childrens lives. If not, the kids will pay with their freedom, McWilliams said.

The Occult Origins of SEL

The story behind SEL is even more troubling.

According to a history of SEL by CASEL, the term social and emotional originated in a meeting at the Fetzer Institute, a shadowy New Age powerhouse created by wealthy New Age guru and late media baron John Fetzer.

One of the founders of the SEL movement, David Sluyter, served as president and CEO of the organization.

Our mission is to help build the spiritual foundation for a loving world, the group states on its website, adding that it is working toward a transformative sacred story for humanity in the 21st century.

According to Brian Wilsons book John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age, Fetzer was, among other things, a public and fervent devotee of Alice Bailey, the controversial occultist who founded the Lucifer Publishing Company (now known as the Lucis Trust).

So obsessed was Fetzer with Bailey that he and his people would regularly recite her Great Invocation, which she claimed was given to her by spiritual beings known as ascended masters, Wilson documents in his book.

The Fetzer Institute didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. CASEL initially suggested it would make somebody available for an interview, but didnt follow up despite multiple requests.

More than a few other prominent names in education were similarly enamored with Baileys bizarre teachings from supposed spiritual entities.

United Nations World Core Curriculum author Robert Muller, for instance, who served as assistant secretary-general of the U.N., said in the teachers manual that his U.N.-backed global school curriculum was based on the teachings of Bailey and one of her ascended masters.

The values being taught to children under Fetzer-inspired SEL programs feature remarkable similarities to those taught by John Dewey, a man almost universally known among educators as the founding father of Americas progressive education system.

Dewey, who was inspired by the Soviet educational system, was a co-author and signer of the Humanist Manifesto, a religious document rejecting God and prescribing collectivism as the cure for societys ills.

For at least 12 yearsmore if they go to collegeAmerican children are indoctrinated into the collectivist values of Deweys religion, which was essentially just warmed-over communism and atheism hiding behind a religious facade.

Interestingly, as early as 1898, Dewey himself expressed an understanding of the need to utilize psychology, a discipline then still in its infancy, if the plan to re-shape Americans through education was going to succeed.

Even more interesting, perhaps, is the fact that Bailey, citing her ascended masters, recognized the importance of Deweys educational schemes in achieving her goal of a one-world order with a global religion.

Our problem is to attain the kind of overall synthesis that Marxism and neo-Scholasticism provide for their followers, but to get this by the freely chosen cooperative methods that Dewey advocated, Bailey wrote in her book Education in the New Age.

Funding and People

Even a brief review of the funding and individuals behind SEL also reveals a great deal about the agenda.

On its website, CASEL lists, among other financiers, billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Gates, who has a friendly relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, put almost $300 million behind the Obama-backed Common Core standards, which formally nationalized and helped globalize Americas education system.

Before that, Gates signed a deal with UNESCO, the subject of part nine in this series, to work on globalizing the worlds education systems.

Also listed among the financiers of CASEL is Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which CASEL said provides generous funding to CASEL to support school districts and their capacity to promote social and emotional learning.

For some background, the recently deceased patriarch of the family, David Rockefeller, wrote in The New York Times in 1973 that the social experiment in China under Chairman Maos leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.

Rockefeller also boasted in his autobiography Memoirs of conspiring with a secret cabal of globalists, against the best interests of the United States, to build a One World political and economic system.

Aside from its financiers, CASELs leading super-stars also suggest something is amiss, to put it mildly.

Consider the involvement of radical Stanford educator Linda Darling-Hammond, a board member emeritus of CASEL and known associate of communist terrorist turned educator William Ayers.

Ayerss Weather Underground group set off bombs across America in cooperation with communist Cuban intelligence. The FBI operative who infiltrated the groups leadership, Larry Grathwohl, revealed that the organizations leadership was plotting to exterminate millions of Americans in camps.

Interestingly, Darling-Hammond had an opportunity to test out her educational quackery unimpeded in the Stanford New Schools. The results are now in: In 2010, Stanford New Schools placed in the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools in California, according to multiple reports.

More than a few other colleagues of Ayers are or were also involved with CASEL and SEL, with his University of Illinois at Chicago being central to the scheme. At least 3 of 13 members listed on CASELs website came from that universitys Department of Education and Psychology.

SEL was formally unveiled in the late 1990s. However, the real history behind it goes way back to Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist who studied how to effectively brainwash children to become good communists.

Vygotskys contributions in laying the foundations for SEL are widely acknowledged among practitioners and even in the academic literature (pdf).

Interestingly, Vygotsky was a close colleague of Ivan Pavlov, the Soviet psychologist famous for his behavioral-conditioning experiments on dogs.

Vygotsky had been inspired, in part, by American psychologist and educational researcher E.L. Thorndike, a student of close Dewey-ally and associate James McKeen Cattell of Columbia University.

In fact, Vygotsky wrote the foreword to the Russian translation of Thorndikes Principles of Learning Based Upon Psychology published in Moscow in the mid-1920s.

Thorndike didnt bother to conceal his views on education: Children should be educated like circus animals, and it should be so arranged that the child will be incapable of not doing what the trainer wants.

Vygotsky, too, had grandiose ideas about how Soviet education and psychology would be used to fundamentally transform the individual, and ultimately, mankind.

It is education which should play the central role in the transformation of man this road of conscious social formation of new generations, the basic form to alter the historical human type, Vygotsky wrote in 1930 in the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR.

New generations and new forms of their education represent the main route which history will follow whilst creating the new type of man, he added.

SEL is simply the latest tool of the collectivist education establishment in its fiendish drive to create this new type of mana collectivist man who will mindlessly submit to the tyranny of his overlords, without the intellectual ability to effectively resist.

Conclusion

Today, while most educators and parents have little understanding of what is going on, SEL has become ubiquitous in government schools across the nation.

National Education Association (NEA) Foundation Global Learning Fellow Wendy Turner, a second-grade teacher and self-styled SEL warrior quoted in an article on the NEAs website, explained that SEL is now the top priority for schools.

SEL is the foundation, the heartbeat of the classroom, she said. Its about connecting everybody and making them feel safe and secure before you get to the academics.

In a U.S. Department of Education report, a review of existing studies called for subjecting the entire student body to constant SEL programming in order to reinforce social and emotional learning not only in the classroom but also on the playground, in the cafeteria, and in hallways. Parents should also reinforce it at home.

But the facts are now clear: The SEL craze is an extreme threat to Americas youthand to individual liberty.

The scheme isnt about helping children at all. Instead, its about manipulating and conditioning Americas youth to hold the values and beliefs that the education establishment wants to instill.

Unfortunately, those values and beliefs are incompatible with individual liberty, Western civilization, the U.S. Constitution, the nuclear family, religious liberty, and other key values that underpin the United States.

Parents and policymakers must urgently protect the nations children from this dangerous threat.

Alex Newman is an award-winning international journalist, educator, author, and consultant who co-wrote the book Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy Americas Children. He also serves as the CEO of Liberty Sentinel Media and writes for diverse publications in the United States and abroad.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) served legal notices to two companies -- Khadi Essentials and Khadi Global  for ''unauthorised' and 'fraudulently' using the 'Khadi' brand name.

A statement released by KVIC on August 21 stated that the two companies had been selling cosmetic and beauty products through e-commerce platforms using the brand name 'Khadi', thereby misleading consumers.

Issuing the legal notices to the two companies in the first week of August, the KVIC directed them to stop selling and promoting their products using the Khadi brand name immediately. Khadi Essentials and Khadi Global were also told to discontinue using the domain names www.khadiessentials.com and www.khadiglobalstore.com. On the same lines, they have been told to discontinue their social media handles on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

KVIC further told the two firms: The adoption of your mark is being used to sell products online...clearly the adoption of your mark is in bad faith and is aimed at misappropriating the goodwill and reputation of Khadi trademark. Apart from Khadi India, the trademark 'Khadi' can only be used by authorised licensee or franchisee holders.

They added: The use of a mark which completely subsumes KVICs trademark for identical goods will undoubtedly lead to confusion and deception in the market. Use of your mark amounts to misuse and misrepresentation of the 'Khadi' trademark.

Khadi Essentials and Khadi Global will have to destroy all their product packaging, labels, publicity material, signboards, etc, where the Khadi brand name had been used. If they fail to comply with the KVIC orders in the next seven days, legal action will be taken against them.

KVIC has sought damages from several companies for harming its reputation and causing Khadi artisans to lose their wages by selling fake Khadi fabric. Over the last few years, KVIC has issued legal notices to more than 1,000 private firms including Fabindia for misusing its brand name.
skyNext/iStockBy MINA KAJI, GIO BENITEZ, and SAM SWEENEY, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- A mother and her six children were kicked off of a JetBlue Airways flight Wednesday after her 2-year-old daughter refused to wear a mask.



"It was extremely traumatizing for me and my family," the mother, Chaya Bruck, 39, from Brooklyn, said in an interview with ABC News.



Bruck said she tried to put a mask on her youngest child, Dina, but she pulled it off.



"Should I tie her hands, what should I do?" Bruck asked the JetBlue flight attendant according to a video of the incident. "We have to deplane," the attendant responded, explaining that the airline has a zero tolerance policy.



Other passengers onboard the flight to New York from Orlando attempted to stick up for Bruck, according to the video and passengers.



"All of the passengers were up, screaming, and hollering saying 'that's not fair, don't do that to that mother,'" passenger Anny Taveras, from Kissimmee, Florida, told ABC News. The flight eventually took off after everyone deplaned.



U.S. airlines continue to strengthen their mask requirements, and have even banned passengers who don't comply.



JetBlue, along with most major airlines, requires any child age 2 and over to wear a face covering in order to fly, the airline said in a statement.



A JetBlue spokesperson said the airline's policy was last updated on Aug. 10 "to ensure everyone is wearing a face covering -- adults and children alike" and is consistent with CDC guidelines, which say children under 2 should not wear masks.



However, Taveras and Bruck claim that during the announcements, the flight attendant said children who cannot wear a mask are exempt.



Another passenger, Chardette Poinsette, who was traveling with her young son, claims her family was also kicked off the flight.



I stuck up for her, and I think I was the one who stood out the most because what I was saying was correct," Poinsette said.



MORE: Airlines may ban passengers who refuse to wear masks

Both Bruck and Poinsette's families flew home on different U.S. airlines.



"I need some time to recover from this," Bruck said. "My kids need to recover from this."



ABC News' Amanda Maile and Jennifer Leong contributed to this report.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
As the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic puts Houstonians at risk of losing their homes, the Houston Tenants Union and others protested in front of one of Harris Countys 16 eviction courts.

About 50 protesters spread out along the sidewalks outside of the Precinct 5, Place 1 courthouse in Gulfton. They held signs like HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT, STOP EVICTIONS NOW and TENANT POWER. They whooped at every car that honked its approval. In the parking lot behind them, a constables deputy watched in his car.

Were here to cause a disturbance in the court, said grassroots organizer Antonella Henao, 21, who darted along the protest lines handing out chant cards. Our number one goal is to stop all the evictions.

The eviction crisis looms nationwide as people with jobs and hours slashed by the pandemic burn through their savings to pay rent  if they had savings to begin with. The federal eviction moratorium expired, as did a moratorium imposed by the Texas Supreme Court. While some Texas cities implemented an eviction grace period, Houstons Mayor Turner has not put one on the City Council agenda.

Judge Russ Ridgway, whose court served as the protest site, has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Just before the docket was set to begin, protesters began a call-and-response chant through their face masks. (As loud as you can, instructed Henao. Make sure they can hear us. Make sure their eardrums hurt by the end of the day.)

HEY HEY.

HO HO.

JUDGE RIDGWAY HAS GOT TO GO.

Henao said the group picked Ridgways court because it had one of the days busiest eviction dockets.

Mayor Turner and the City of Houston have failed its tenants, she said. Theres no reason why during a pandemic over which we have no control, people should be worried about losing their livelihoods.

The group swelled to around 100 by 8:30 a.m. and moved from the sidewalk to circling the parking lot outside of the courthouse entrance, chanting: NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! FYOUR RENT F YOUR LEASE!

The protesters stood in a line in front of the courthouse entrance, still chanting. A protester named Austin who declined to give their last name shouted into a megaphone: Judge Ridgway is up for election. We want him to know that hes accountable to us as voters.

The crowd took up the chants again.

What we need is a judge to hold landlords accountable. Its as simple as choosing not to hold eviction cases, said Austin, pacing the line.

Maya Nicole, 24, came out to the protest after she saw it advertised on Instagram. The pandemic has turned her into an activist: Shes attended protests against the police budget and the city reopening, and the marches for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

I just have the desire to feel like I have the power to do something about this huge injustice, she said. I mean, its just been like thing after thing after thing on top of another that keep piling up and its really burying people.

Felix Kapoor, 32, is an organizer with advocacy group West Street Recovery and a native Houstonian. He came out to (short term) stop the days evictions and (long term) urge the city to put more resources toward helping landlords and tenants through the pandemic.

I think its funny that theyre telling people to stay at home, but theyre also not providing enough resources, he said. So theyre essentially telling people to move out and onto the streets.
Gurugram: All

shopping malls, market complexes, public and private offices except those dealing with essential goods and services will remain shut on every Saturday and Sunday in Haryana till any further orders to contain the spread of Covid-19, according to an order issued by the state government on Friday.

Senior state officials, however, clarified that it is not a weekend lockdown as there is no restriction on the movement of people and traffic.

The decision was declared by the state home minister, Anil Vij, on Twitter on Friday evening. All offices and shops except essential will remain closed in Haryana on every Saturday and Sunday due to Covid-19.

Keshani Anand Arora, chief secretary, who is also the chairperson of the executive committee of the state disaster management authority issued an order in the evening in this regard.

A senior state official privy to the matter said that the decision has been taken as citizens are taking a callous approach in dealing with the pandemic. No curfew has been imposed. Since gatherings are taking place and huge rush of people is seen in market complexes, we are noticing citizens are taking the pandemic lightly, the official said.

The state tally has reached 52,129, with the death toll at 585.

In a press statement issued from Chandigarh, an official spokesperson said that these orders shall remain in force till any further notice is issued. It will have no effect on public and private transport.

Shopping malls and market associations in the city, however, expressed disappointment on the move. Aman Bajaj, member, Metropolitan Mall Association, said that they never anticipated the move by the state government. Shop owners are disappointed with the step taken by the state government to close shops on weekends. The business is already affected as malls opened in the later stages of the unlock phase. In a week, there are nearly three to four days with no sale at all. We were gradually regaining our customers on Saturdays and Sundays as people are occupied during the weekday due to work from home. The decision will affect us badly.

Harinder Rana, president, Palam Vyapar Kendra Market Association, said that the business will be affected. But nothing can be done as it is a government order and we cannot go against them. We have been informed that challans will be issued if shops except those dealing in essential goods are opened on weekends, said Rana.
Enforcer: Helen Dixon has warned that her office must tread carefully to avoid lengthy appeals

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner says a preliminary ruling on a Twitter data breach will now be subject to a majority decision in Europe after objections were raised by other EU regulators.

Twitter had looked set to become the first big technology company to face a fine by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) under tougher EU data protection rules after it submitted the decision to other member states in May.

"A number of objections were raised by CSAs [concerned supervisory authorities] and the DPC engaged in a consultation process with them," said Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner at the Irish DPC.

As a number of objections were maintained, the DPC has now referred the matter to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), he said.

The EDPB now has one month to reach a two-thirds majority among member states and if that fails, a further month to seek an absolute majority. If it still can't find agreement, the chair of the board will cast the deciding vote.

The Twitter ruling relates to a bug in its Android app where some users' protected tweets were made public, and whether it notified the regulator in a timely manner. The DPC had 20 other probes open into big technology firms at the end of 2019.

Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation's (GDPR) "One-Stop Shop" regime introduced in 2018, regulators can impose fines of up to 4pc of a company's global revenue or 20m, whichever is higher.

A separate enquiry into WhatsApp has been sent to Facebook for a formal submission process.

The Irish DPC office has faced criticism from some European privacy advocates and regional regulators for being too slow in enforcing GDPR rules against major tech firms based in Ireland.

But Helen Dixon's office has warned that it must tread carefully when dealing with enforcement, or decisions will get bogged down longer in appeals.

Ireland hosts the European headquarters of a number of US tech companies, making its the EU's lead regulator for firms including Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Google.

But it must share its preliminary decision with all concerned EU supervisory authorities and consider their views in its final verdict.

Additional reporting: Reuters
New Delhi:

Eight persons were on Thursday named by NIA in a charge sheet for allegedly attempting to carry out a terror strike by using explosive devices similar to those used by ISIS cadres during last years Paris attacks.

The charge sheet was filed before a special NIA court at Hyderabad under various sections of IPC, Explosive Substances Act, Arms Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

They have been charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy to wage war against the country by collecting weapons and explosive materials to target public places including religious sites and sensitive government buildings in various parts of the country.

Those named in the charge sheet are Abdullah Bin Ahmed Al Amoodi alias Fahad, Mohammed Ibrahim Yazdani alias Abu Abdurrahman, Habeeb Mohammed alias Abu Shaibah, Mohammed Ilyas Yazdani alias Abu Mansoor, Muzaffar Hussain Rizwan alias Abulhasan, Yasir Naimathullah alias Naimath Ullah Hussaini, Mohd Ataullah Rahman alias Ghouse and Abdul Raoof alias Mohammed Almashrifi.

The NIA said that during raids at various premises on June 29, several electronic gadgets, mobile phones, hard discs, semi-automatic pistols, air rifle, pellets, target boards, explosive precursor chemicals were recovered.

These can be used for preparation of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive material used in the Paris attacks.

As many as 129 people were killed on November 13, 2015 when ISIS cadres used TATP substances while carrying out terror strikes at three places in Paris. TATP is easy to make, easy to set off, and susceptible to accidental detonations.

The NIA also found urea, nitrate explosive and equipment for manufacturing like pet jars with liquids, capacitor, gas stove with cylinder, weighing balance, nails, knives, quartz alarm time pieces, bundle of wire.

Forensic analysis of electronic gadgets seized from the accused showed online radicalisation of the accused by watching videos of ISIS, discourses and lectures of radical Islamic preachers, such as Anwar Awlaki, Abdu Sami Qasmi, Meraj Rabbani, Tausif ur Rehman, Jerjees Ansari and Zakir Naik, the agency said.

Investigation has established that the members downloaded and followed ISIS propaganda videos, ISIS magazine ? Dabiq, which convinced them that ISIS was fighting for the rights of the Sunni Muslims, it said.

The group associated with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (the ISIS) and pledged their allegiance through the Bayah to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State and formed a group called Jhund ul Khilafa Fi Bilad Al Hind (Army of the Caliph from the South India), it further said.

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Facing lawmakers on Friday for the first time as head of the U.S. Postal Service, embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy strongly disputed allegations that hes making changes to the agency's operations to help boost President Donald Trumps reelection in November, calling such claims outrageous.

Instead, DeJoy, a former logistics executive and longtime Republican financier, framed the changes as necessary to reverse years of significant financial losses incurred by a continuing drop in mail volume.

While he refused to undo cost-saving measures that have already been implemented as Democrats have demanded, DeJoy vowed that the Postal Service is fully capable of securely handling millions of ballots and delivering them on time, as pandemic-wary voters look for a safer way to pick their next president.

The internal changes at the heart of DeJoy's testimony coincided weeks earlier with a full-on attack on "mail-in voting" from President Donald Trump, sparking the allegations of improper political influence.

DeJoys testimony on Friday came on the eve of a House vote Saturday to provide billions of dollars in additional funding to the Postal Service and to block certain changes at the agency.

PHOTO: An elections worker sorts unopened ballots at the King County Elections headquarters on Aug. 4, 2020, in Renton, Wash. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

Here is how the virtual hearing unfolded:

11:20 a.m. Hearing adjourns after GOP chairman says DeJoy target of 'political hit job'

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson wrapped up the hearing with another defense of DeJoy, who largely deflected Democrats' questions, saying he has been the target of a "political hit job."

10:52 a.m. DeJoy: 'Plenty of cash' for election

DeJoy declares: "We have plenty of cash to operate for the election."

But he said that is a "separate thing" from whether the Postal Service has "cash to operate the business in the future."

He said that the Postal Service has already taken a $10 billion hit due to COVID-19, and to remain viable in the future "the biggest thing we need is legislative reform." He said he would also like to "get long-term financing by new vehicles."

Story continues

10:41 a.m. DeJoy: COVID-19 causing delays

DeJoy suggested that urban areas hit hard by COVID-19 might experience more delays than other areas. He said that in "more urban areas" the pandemic "scares our workers."

While "our employee availability average has dropped across the country" by about 4 percent, "hotspots" like Philadelphia and Detroit are experiencing drops as high as 20 or 25 percent, according to DeJoy. "We have days where we're short 200 carriers, and this can go on for a while."

10:20 a.m. DeJoy says no 'bailout' needed before election

DeJoy just said that the Postal Service does not need "a massive federal bailout" to be able to handle all the mail tied to the election, but he did say that believes the agency needs to be reimbursed for costs incurred during the pandemic.

Asked if he feels he needs a massive federal bailout to be able to deliver the mail on Election Day, DeJoy responds: "No, I do not need a massive -- I don't need anything to deliver mail on election night. But we do need legislative reform. ... And we do need to be reimbursed for our costs," especially those costs stemming from the pandemic.

DeJoy also called it "a farce to sit here and believe" that the Postal Service can survive without making internal changes.

PHOTO: In this image from video, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies during a virtual hearing before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Aug. 21, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (US Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs via AP)

10:10 a.m. DeJoy insists 'Postal Service will deliver' while conceding 'no complete plan'

Dejoy commits to a goal of delivering 95 percent of election mail within one to three days, but he also indicated that the Postal Service has yet to put together a "complete plan" for making sure the system can handle the expected surge of voting by mail.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, asked DeJoy: "Do you have a detailed plan about how you're going to ensure the kind of delivery that Americans count on for their voting by mail? Do you have a more detailed plan than what's in your letter, yes or no?"

DeJoy: "There are detailed processes that we are going through, and there are going to be expanded plans to that ... I don't think that we will have the complete plan by Sunday night, we're just putting [advisory] committees together."

Nevertheless, DeJoy insisted: "The American people can feel comfortable that the Postal Service will deliver on this election."

9:56 a.m. DeJoy says removal or boxes, sorting machines 'insignificant'

Asked by Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, whether he will be restoring the Postal Service collection and processing capacity impacted by removal of collection boxes and shutting down of machines, DeJoy said he would not be doing that, saying, "It's insignificant, it's not material to anything that we do. And we're sticking to where we're at right now."

Meanwhile, asked if he has any advice for voters, DeJoy said: "Vote early, vote early."

Earlier, he said: "We will deploy processes and procedures that advance any election mail, in some cases ahead of first-class mail."

9:41 a.m. DeJoy: Will not replace decommissioned mail-sorting machines

Under questioning from Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman, DeJoy insists that he will not replace any of the mail-sorting machines that have been decommissioned so far, saying, "There's no intention to do that, they're not needed."

He denies that the Postal Service is eliminating overtime pay for employees, but he didn't dispute that overtime is being limited.

He also said that the move to implement post office closures began before he arrived, but since concerns were raised he suspended the closures until after the election.

Nevertheless, DeJoy acknowledged that the changes he's made have caused delays and that those delays should have been addressed in a matter of days, but it's taken weeks. He said that he now expects 97 to 98 percent of mail to be delivered on time.

DeJoy also said the pandemic's impact on the Postal Service is contributing to delays: "Our employees are experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic also, and we have a significant issue with employee availability in many, many parts of the country that are leading to delays in delivering the mail."

As for alleged political influence, DeJoy said he has "never spoken to the president about the Postal Service, other than to congratulate me when I accepted the position." He said he previously told Treasury Secretary Mnuchin that he was "working on a plan, but I never discussed the changes that I made."

NEW: "I have never spoken to the president about the Postal Service other than to congratulate me when I accepted the position," embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies. https://t.co/TxKFCvZHFD pic.twitter.com/o22j1gFJML  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 21, 2020

DeJoy just said those who allege he is "trying to have any negative impact on the election is an outrageous claim."

"We are very committed, the board's committed, the postal workers are committed, the union leadership is committed, to having a successful election, and the insinuation [otherwise] is quite frankly outrageous."

"I voted by mail for a number of years. The Postal Service will deliver every ballot and process every ballot in time, that it receives."

NEW: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy denies he has taken any actions for political reasons or at the suggestion of the Trump administration, adding, "the insinuation is, quite frankly, outrageous." https://t.co/TxKFCwhj4d pic.twitter.com/dYn1Rpm6JF  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 21, 2020

9:18 a.m. DeJoy: Postal Service 'fully capable' of delivering election mail

"I want to ensure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and Election Day," DeJoy says.

Postmaster General DeJoy: "I want to ensure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and Election Day." pic.twitter.com/6O8FIg0XUp  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 21, 2020

DeJoy delved into the specific concerns that have been raised in recent days and weeks.

On the removal of blue collection boxes at locations around the country, he described it as "a data-driven method" that's routine and based on usage rates in communities. He said that there are about 140,000 boxes across the country, and over the past decade 35,000 have been removed. "This is a normal process that's been around 50 years." Since he became postmaster general, 700 boxes have been removed -- which he only found out about when news outlets started covering it, according to him. "I had no idea that that was a process."

On sorting machines being decommissioned, he said it's because "mail volume is dropping, and sorting machines are running at about 35 percent utilization because while mail volume dropped "so rapidly" package volume has jumped. "We really are moving these machines out to make room to process packages," he said.

But, he emphasized, "both the collection boxes and the machine close-down I was made aware of when everyone else was made aware."

DeJoy continued to defend the changes he's made within the agency, without so far offering details about what he's actually done. He conceded that the changes have caused delays and that those delays should have been addressed in a matter of days, but it's taken weeks. He said that he now expects 97 to 98 percent of mail to be delivered on time.

"Will you be bringing back any mail sorting machines that have been removed since you've become Postmaster General?" Louis DeJoy: "There's no intention to do that. They're not needed, sir." "So you will not bring back any processors?" "They're not needed, sir." pic.twitter.com/38f5DihH9s  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 21, 2020

PHOTO: U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is sworn in to testify via video feed during a virtual hearing of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington, Aug. 21, 2020. (U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee via Reuters)

9:14 a.m. DeJoy defends his actions

Embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is defending his actions over the past 67 days at the top of the Postal Service.

As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the postal service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time. He also said there have been "no changes in any polices with regard to election mail for the 2020 election," he insisted.

He said that the Postal Service suffered a loss of $9 billion this past year, and "it is vital" that Congress help the Postal Service address its deep, long-standing financial problems.

We must adapt to the realities of our marketplace and generate more revenues, he said.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy: "Our business model, established by the Congress, requires us to pay our bills through our own efforts. I view it as my personal obligation to put the organization in a position to fulfill that mandate." https://t.co/TxKFCwhj4d pic.twitter.com/PZvMzM1BCR  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 21, 2020

PHOTO: In this image from video, Committee Ranking Member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., speaks during a virtual hearing before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Aug. 21, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (US Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs via AP)

9:09 a.m. Democrats claim DeJoy has not 'delivered'

In stark contrast to his Republican counterparts opening statement, the top Democrat on the Senate panel, Gary Peters, D-Mich., warned that -- just months away from an election where we expect record numbers of Americans to vote by mail  the country is facing a mail crisis.

Peters accused DeJoy of failing to fulfill his obligations as postmaster general, telling DeJoy, The operational changes you implemented, without consulting with your customers or the public, have caused significant delays  delays that have hurt people across the nation.

Peters said DeJoy owes the American people an apology and very clear answers about what hes done.

The country is anxious about whether the damage you have inflicted so far can be quickly reversed and what other plans you have in store that could further disrupt ... timely delivery from the Postal Service, Peters said.

DeJoy is sworn in from what appears to be Postal Service headquarters and begins his opening statement.

PHOTO: In this image from video, Committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson speaks during a virtual hearing before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Aug. 21, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (US Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs via AP)

9:05 a.m. As hearing starts, GOP chairman says DeJoy victim of 'character assassination'

At the start of today's hearing, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee, Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, accused DeJoy's critics of engaging in a "character assassination," saying Democrats "have put him in the crosshairs of another hyperbolic false narrative perpetrated to gain political advantage."

Johnson dismissed any concerns about the recent changes implemented by DeJoy, insisting the new postmaster general deserves "credit" for "taking on the very thankless task of trying to maintain the United States Postal Service as a financially viable entity."

Though he acknowledges that "the long-term financial reality of the postal system is bleak" due to a drop-off in mail volume, Johnson called "false" any suggestion that failing to provide more funding to the Postal Service "will undermine the election."

According to Johnson, "The Postal Service has $15.1 billion in cash following a better than expected financial performance during the pandemic."

PHOTO: In this Jan. 20, 2017, file photo, billionaire Louis DeJoy, former CEO of New Breed Logistics, arrives for the 68th President Inaugural Ceremony of President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Richard Ellis/ZUMA Wire via Newscom, FILE)

Facing grilling amid uproar, postmaster general insists election mail will be delivered 'on time' originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
There are all sorts of people across the globe and while most of us want someone who loves us completely. There are a few people whod look for something opposite. Recently, in another bizarre incident, a woman from Uttar Pradeshs Sambhal district has decided to divorce her husband due to something unbelievable.



Try to make some guesses? This woman was unhappy because her husband loves her too much and doesnt fight with her at all. How will she pass her time if she wont have anything to fight about? Just imagine her struggle!

 Unsplash

So, this woman approached the Sharia court for divorce just after eighteen months of her marriage. The Sharia court cleric was confused and couldnt understand the womans predicament and the cleric later had to reject her plea. He also called her plea frivolous.



According to reports, after her plea was rejected by the cleric of the Sharia court, she reached the local panchayat to ask for justice.

In the plea to the Sharia court, she expressed how she couldnt digest her husbands love. She said, Neither he (husband) ever shouted at me nor he ever disappointed me over any issue. I am feeling suffocated in such an environment. Sometimes he cooks for me and also helps me in performing household chores."

 Unsplash

The woman said that she had never fought with her husband and said, "Whenever I make a mistake, he always forgives me for that. I wanted to argue with him. I do not need a life where the husband agrees to anything."



When she was asked if there was anything else that she was seeking a divorce, she responded by saying, no.

 Unsplash

However, the womans husband said that he just wants to keep his wife happy and so the Sharia court requested the couple to sort out the matter mutually.



This just wants to make us scream Pyaar tune kya kiya!
Russia Will Not Recognize US Notice to UNSC as Sanctions Snapback Against Iran, Envoy to UN Says

Sputnik News

19:54 GMT 20.08.2020(updated 20:44 GMT 20.08.2020)

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - Russia will not recognize US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's notice to the UN Security Council on Iran as the beginning of the procedure to re-impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on Thursday.

"A [sanctions] snapback can be triggered by a country that is a participant of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], of which the United States is not. They officially withdrew from the JCPOA. That's a question that inevitably every other delegation at the Security Council agree on", Nebenzia said. "We consider a snapback nonexistent, we will not take it as a snapback - what they will presumably notify today the presidency of the Security Council".

Meanwhile, a diplomatic source at the United Nations said on Thursday that Russia had requested a UN Security Council meeting to be held on Friday, following the US move to invoke the reimposition of all UN sanctions on Iran.

"Yes, the meeting has been requested for Friday", the source said.

Pompeo is expected to notify the UN Security Council later on Thursday that the United States intends to initiate a snapback of all United Nations sanctions against Iran.

Pompeo is currently visiting the UN headquarters in New York, where he is set to meet with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Security Council President for the month of August Dian Triansyah Djani.

The United States announced plans to trigger the snapback mechanism to re-impose all UN sanctions against Iran - previously lifted under the JCPOA - after failing to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran. The UN arms embargo is set to expire in October under the terms of the nuclear agreement.

The snapback procedure is outlined in resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear agreement, and stipulates that if one of the signatories finds another to have taken actions which constitute significant non-performance of commitments under the accord, the UN Security Council would have a vote on whether to continue with the suspension of the sanctions against Iran.

The get the sanctions reinstated, a signatory needs to veto the UN resolution. The United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on 8 May 2018.

A Sputnik

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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.

This article was developed as part of a series of papers by the WikimediaYale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information to capture perspectives on the global impacts of online platforms content moderation decisions. You can read all of the articles in the Moderate Globally, Impact Locally series on the WIII blog, or on Twitter.

Until last year, a majority of Sudanese had lived their entire lives under the presidency of Omar al-Bashir. Africa has 16 of the 48 longest-serving leaders in the world, including the worlds longest-serving nonroyal leader, Equatorial Guineas Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been in power since 1979. These regimes also share a common feature of gross violations of human rights, including those regarding digital rights and freedom of expression online.

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But things are changing. On April 11, 2019, the people finally succeeded in dislodging al-Bashirs regime after protracted mass protests, mobilized through campaigns on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, that spotlighted grave economic hardship. Similar protests that took place between February and April 2019 prevented Algerias president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, from running for a fifth term. These protests, too, were supported by social media.

However, the continents dictators have adopted their own digital strategies. A 2019 study from the Oxford Internet Institute revealed that governments in at least seven African countriesAngola, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwehave started deploying information-control tactics to suppress, discredit, or drown out dissent on platforms. The study found similar social media manipulation by major political parties in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. For example, in Nigeria, the government carried out online attacks on opposition parties and conducted smear campaigns, while in Zimbabwe such oppression consisted of a combination of pro-government and pro-party propaganda, attacks on the opposition parties, and suppression of participation.

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When they are unable to control the discourse through manipulation, such governments often employ more illegitimate tools. A 2019 report by Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa found that at least 22 African countries had carried out an internet shutdown in the prior four years. The Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit categorizes 17 of those countries as authoritarian, while the rest are hybrid systems with poor records on democratic rights.* Governments typically claim that these network disruptions are necessary to protect against disturbances to public order, especially during major political events. However, such shutdowns are never justified.

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Much grassroots political activism in Africa relies on U.S.-based social media platforms. However, these platforms also play host to state-backed manipulation efforts and can be subject to draconian shutdowns if the political dialogue goes awry for African governments. As a result, these companies get caught up in a tenuous position. To make matters even more difficult, there is an inescapable tension between the platforms desire to apply global standards to content moderation adjudication on one hand and to defer to local contexts when moderating content on the other. For example, Facebook had stated that it would comply with local laws upon their reviews of requests by governments. This further raises questions as to instances when countries may have problematic laws that are incompatible with international standards.

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These are complicated challenges everywhere in the world, and there are no easy answers. But a combination of factors may make content moderation particularly difficult in most African countries, including colonial legacies, authoritarian governments, and the shrinking civic space. In many African countries, due to questionable colonial laws that are now being transplanted into cybercrime legislation, platforms are now faced with complying with problematic laws that clearly violate online free speech. For example, Ethiopias Computer Crime Proclamation is tethered to its criminal code, which was adopted in 1949 and has telltale colonial criminal law provisions, like criminal defamation and criminalization of false news. Furthermore, Ethiopias Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation of 2020 requires platforms to police content by giving them 24 hours to take down disinformation or hate speech. Nigeria is currently considering a bill on disinformation that would also place undue pressure on platforms to police content.

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Social media companies lack of transparency around content moderation decisions can exacerbate existing political tensions. For instance, in June, Facebook deactivated the accounts of as many as 60 activists in Tunisia, where the social network is extremely popular. Some were later restored, and Facebook issued a statement to the Guardian saying: Due to a technical error we recently removed a small number of profiles, which have now been restored. We were not trying to limit anyones ability to post or express themselves, and apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. But in a country where, as activist and journalist Emna Mizouni told the Guardian, the internet equals Facebook, describing the removal of activists accounts as inconvenienceintentional or notis troubling. Content moderation in African nations is also difficult because of language barriers. As a 2019 Reuters report described, Facebook community standards are not always translated into local languages. In fact, Facebook didnt have an office on the continent until 2015.

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Given that authoritarian governments are on the rise in Africa, platforms might also have to deal with even more state-sponsored coordinated attacks like we have already seen in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. While those sorts of attacks are happening around the world, they pose extra threat here given the already shrinking civic space in Africa, as governments tend to combine these bad laws and authoritarian practices to pressure platforms.

Therefore, we need a more nuanced approach to ensure a rights-centered model for content moderation in African countries. A number of regulatory models have been suggested so far, including legislation, self-regulation, and co-regulation (which is basically self-regulation with a regulatory backstop). However, the most popular one has been the multistakeholder approach, which looks to drive participation in content moderation policies at a more granular level. Human rights experts tend to prefer this approach because it gives citizens more opportunity to take part in the process.

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An example of this approach is Article 19s Social Media Councils. Ideally, these councils would offer governance system with diverse range of expertise and perspectives that involves key stakeholders like governments, civil society, private sector, academia, and others. This system hasnt been deployed yet, but it is promising and would work well with the regional human rights system in Africa. For example, in 2019, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights published a new declaration on freedom of expression and access to information in Africa, including calls for multistakeholder engagement to settle key governance questions and for both states and private companies to adhere to a strict human rightsbased approach in designing content moderation policies.

Considering the Ethiopian and Nigerian examples, platforms will be in for a difficult time in moderating content in Africa. It is promising that Facebooks new Oversight Board includes some members from Africa. But that is just a start in the long process of making sure that the people whose voices are being moderated have a say.

Correction, Aug. 21, 2020: This piece originally misidentified the Economist Intelligence Unit as the Economic Intelligence Unit.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Terrorist groups are conspiring to create and spread riots by spoiling the communal atmosphere in the country, according to a report by intelligence agencies on Friday. In a report sent to the government by intelligence agencies, it has been said that terrorist organizations can target leaders associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Sangh and other Hindu organisations.

In view of the report of intelligence agencies, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked the states to tighten the security of leaders associated with the BJP, Sangh and other Hindu organisations.

The agencies fear that Pakistan's intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may conduct these attacks through the criminals present in the country. According to sources connected with intelligence agencies, in view of the programme of Ram temple construction, a conspiracy has been hatched to target the Hindu organizations. The ISI is also plotting to use Dawood Gang for terrorist attacks.

Recently, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad arrested a sharpshooter who was allegedly sent to Ahmedabad by gangster Chhota Shakeel to kill BJP leader Gordhan Zadafia. Gujarat Home Minister Pradeepsinh Jadeja had said that information was received that two sharpshooters will come to attack Gujarat BJP leader.

The shooter was staying in a hotel on Relief Road in Ahmedabad and fired one round at the ATS team during the operation following which he was nabbed. "Based on a tip-off that Chhota Shakeel has sent a sharpshooter to kill a BJP leader, our team raided the hotel late last night. The accused fired one round at us when we tried to catch him. Luckily, no one was hurt," according to a statement.

Jadeja had said he asked the state director general of police to beef up Zadafia's security. The accused has been identified as Irfan Shaikh, 23, a resident of Chembur in Mumbai, an ATS officer said. "The ATS found Zadafia's information on the mobile phone of the arrested person. A video of the state BJP headquarters 'Kamalam' was also found in it," Jadeja had said.

Shaikh, who landed in Ahmedabad on August 18, was staying in a hotel on Relief Road in Ahmedabad. He fired one round at the ATS team during the operation following which he was nabbed, a senior ATS official said, adding that two pistols were recovered from his possession.

After checking in the hotel, Shaikh first went to Gandhinagar to conduct a recce of the state BJP headquarters, another official said. "He came back to the hotel after making a video of the BJP office from outside. He was waiting for his accomplice when we raided his room. We have learnt that the accused was in contact with his handler, whose location is unknown," the official had added.

Zadafia, was Gujarat's Minister of State for Home during the 2002 Godhra riots. He is currently on a four-day tour of the Saurashtra region with state BJP chief C R Paatil.
Partygoers watch a music performance from a swimming pool at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park in Wuhan, China, on August 15, 2020. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Thousands of partygoers attended a music festival in Wuhan, China, on Saturday, an event that seemed to symbolize a return to normal life.

But Wuhan locals say that for the most part, the city is still enforcing strict public-health measures.

Residents continue to wear masks and some businesses remain closed or are operating at half capacity.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Mbali KaShongwe Gcabashe moved from South Africa to Wuhan, China, just six months before it became the origin site of the coronavirus pandemic. She stayed under strict lockdown with her three children for 76 days starting in January.

Officials checked her temperature every time she left her apartment. After placing an online order, she was assigned a number that indicated her turn to retrieve packages outside her building. The streets were so empty, she said, she almost forgot the sound of traffic.

For a time, Gcabashe wasn't allowed to leave her home at all.

"Even the elevators were deactivated," she told Business Insider. "That's how intense our quarantine was. It wasn't a quarantine like I've seen in most places where people are still free to move about and go to certain places. Here, when it was locked down, that meant everything was locked down."

Wuhan officially lifted its lockdown on April 8. By that time, the city of 11 million had only reported three new infections in the prior 21 days. A month later, after six new cases cropped up in one weekend, Wuhan officials unveiled a massive campaign to test every resident. That effort revealed just 206 new infections  a clear indication that the outbreak was under control.

So when thousands of partygoers flocked to a music festival at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park on Saturday, some local residents weren't particularly concerned.

"These are young people that have been tested on the regular in their communities, in their colleges, etcetera," Gcabashe said. "If you would ask me where I'd feel safer between my own country in South Africa or in the US, I'd still choose Wuhan."

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Gcabashe said Wuhan is now reaping the benefits of its rigorous three-month lockdown. In photos circulating on social media, the music-festival attendees can be seen congregating in a pool without distancing or wearing masks.

"People can go and have some form of fun, because you can't lock the city down forever," she said. "At some point they are going to have to test to see if everybody is as healthy as they think."

Still, the city hasn't thrown caution to the wind. Local officials continue to enforce strict public-health measures, including temperature checks, face masks, and the use of codes to indicate whether residents are symptom-free.

Normal life is still on pause

For the most part, Gcabashe said, Wuhan hasn't returned to normal.

Mbali KaShongwe Gcabashe at her daughter Zoe's birthday party on July 18, 2020. The restaurant was reserved just for her party, she said. Mbali KaShongwe Gcabashe

The city still isn't accepting international flights. Healthy Chinese citizens must install a "digital pass" on their smartphone that permits them to board public transit or visit hotels and restaurants. Shopping malls have reopened and traffic has come roaring back, but gyms, libraries, and museums are only operating at half capacity. Movie theaters require masks and only 30% of seats can be occupied. Bars and nightclubs remain closed.

"In the first half of the year, we only opened some projects that had been decided before the outbreak," Hu Zeyu, an employee at a local real-estate company, told AFP. "Business volume has been greatly reduced."

Only high school seniors have returned to school so far, though the city is preparing for all schools to reopen in September.

Gcabashe, who teaches 3rd through 5th grades at an international school in Wuhan, said she's confident in the precautions schools have put in place, including temperature checks, mask-wearing, hand sanitizing, and better air flow in classrooms. In China, she added, older citizens often take their grandchildren to school while parents are at work, so Wuhan is performing additional health checks on its senior population.

"They are really, really working around this virus just to ensure that everybody gets comfortable enough and feels safe enough to send their kids back to school," she said.

Gcabashe added that she has been tested for the coronavirus three times. Her children have been tested as well  and no one in their family has gotten sick so far. Still, they're being cautious about leaving their home.

A jumping park at a mall in Wuhan post-lockdown. Mbali KaShongwe Gcabashe

The family ventured to the mall for the first time last week. They bought tickets to an indoor bounce house, where the staff sanitized the play area every 30 minutes. Gcabashe said she's observed similar cleaning practices on escalators and trains throughout the city.

"The new normal is that everything gets sanitized on a regular basis," she said. "The cleaning is just more intense than it was before."

Wuhan residents hope to avoid another lockdown

Unlike in the US, where efforts to limit capacity at restaurants and businesses and enforce mask-wearing have met resistance, Gcabashe said the majority of Wuhan residents are obediently following health protocols.

On occasion, she added, she'll spot someone taking an evening walk without a face covering or with their mask over their chin, but masks are the overwhelming norm in her city.

Compare that to the US, where a July Gallup poll found that 14% of respondents said they never wore face masks, and only 44% said they always wore a mask outside.

Mbali KaShongwe Gcabashe buying street snacks post-lockdown. Mbali KaShongwe Gcabashe

"What people need to understand about China is that when China has a bigger goal, individual comfort is not of concern," Gcabashe said. "Without that system, they wouldn't be able to control over a billion people."

Wuhan residents also want to avoid another lockdown. So they're cautious about doing anything that could fuel the virus' spread, Gcabashe said.

She added that although some couples were quick to get married after the lockdown lifted, others  including her own friends  have postponed their weddings.

"When we talk about possible freedom, we always refer to spring next year, because that's when I think most of us will feel relatively comfortable after we've gone through the winter to see if the virus is really, really gone," Gcabashe said. "Until then, we will still be exercising some caution."

Read the original article on Business Insider
A finance student who filmed up women's skirts on the Tube has been spared jail and will not be put on the sex offenders register.

Kalvin Patel Martin, 22, preyed on three victims as they stood in front of him on the escalators at Victoria, Bond Street and Oxford Circus stations on August 10, 2018.

He was only caught when a passenger spotted his phone veering towards the skirt of one of the victims.

Upskirting did not become a criminal offence until 2019 so Martin was charged at the time with outraging public decency.

Kalvin Patel Martin, 22, filmed up women's skirts on the Tube but has been spared jail and will not be put on the sex offenders register

Anna Hindmarsh, prosecuting said: 'At 10pm the defendant was travelling at Oxford Circus tube station.

'He was witnessed by another person to be standing very close to a female with his mobile phone, upskirting her basically.

'He is arrested then de-arrested and reported for the offence.

'Six months later he attends an interview and his phone is seized and on the phone there are three incidents of upskirting.

'The first one is at London Victoria station where he started recording a female's legs on the escalator. She had bare legs and was wearing a short black dress.

'He filmed up her skirt and bottom and that can be seen on the video for a few seconds.

'On the second occasion he was unable to film up the skirt as she was wearing a knee length dress and he couldn't record it and on the third one he was also unable to film up the skirt.

The finance student preyed on three victims as they stood in front of him on the escalators at Victoria, Bond Street and Oxford Circus stations on August 10, 2018

'He has been interviewed twice and he admits it was wrong. He is not charged now with the new legislation (of upskirting) as in 2018 it was still the outraging public decency offence.'

Magistrate Ian Cole asked: 'Is there a requirement to go on the sex offenders register?'

Mel Kelemework, defending, said: 'Not in this case, but there is now legislation in force under which he would.

'He is a young man, he has a level two and three in ICT business finance and accounting. He knows he is lucky this doesn't lead to a notification requirement.'

Mr Cole told Martin: 'For the three charges of outraging public decency you will receive a community order for a period of 24 months.'

Martin, of Wattendon Road, Croydon, admitted three counts of outraging public decency.

He was handed a 24-month community order in which he will have to complete a 100-day programme, 20-day rehabilitation requirement and pay 170.
This is the first picture of tragic Sudanese migrant Abdulfatah Hamdallah with the teenager he was with when their 3ft dinghy sank in the Channel for their doomed journey to the UK.

Ahmed Al-Somali, 17, was with his best friend Mr Hamdallah as the pair rowed towards Britain using oars as paddles.

But as Mr Hamdallah couldn't swim and drowned when their boat burst a mile from the beach at Sandgatte, Ahmed was able to swim to safety.

Friends of the pair said they were desperate to reach the UK and start a new life there.

This is the first picture of tragic Sudanese migrant Abdulfatah Hamdallah (left) with Ahmed Al-Somali, 17, (right), the teenager he was with when their 3ft dinghy sank in the Channel for their doomed journey to the UK

Today Ahmed, who is being cared for by French social services also paid tribute to his friend and said he hoped he had reached heaven

Mr Hamdallah (pictured) couldn't swim and drowned when their boat burst a mile from the beach at Sandgatte

Friends of the pair said they were desperate to reach the UK and start a new life there. Pictured: Mr Hamdallah's desperate journey to Europe

Before setting off on their fateful journey, Mr Hamdallah told his friends: 'I don't know if we will meet again in life. But Inshallah we will meet one day '

Today Ahmed, who is being cared for by French social services also paid tribute to his friend and said he hoped he had reached heaven.

He wrote on Facebook: 'We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.

'He moved next to his Lord brother, friend, colleague and beloved Abdel Fattah (and Grandpa), may God grant your family, friends, loved ones and all your relatives around the world

'You were always with us in front, behind, right and north. I was late hours with me (sic), but today he did his duty

'May God have mercy on you and forgive you and make you among the people of Paradise.

'I swear we will never forget you

Mr Hamdallah came to Calais around two months ago, according to fellow migrants. He had taken a boat from Libya with two friends, and the journey took about three days before he landed in France

Pictured: The beach where the body of Mr Hamdallah washed up. Mr Hamdallah's dinghy burst when he and his friend rotated their makeshift oars backwards

Friends say Mr Hamdallah had dreamed, like them, of reaching England and obtaining acceptance in contrast to what they said was hostility in France.

'Mercy, forgiveness and steadfastness, Lord of the worlds. May God have mercy on you.'

Their friend Yusuf Juma spoke with the dead man hours before they embarked for England in the stolen rubber dinghy with shovels as oars.

Yusuf, 25, who studied English in Darfur and reached Calais by boat from Libya a month ago said: 'I didn't know he was going to go on the boat shortly after we met

'But he was fed up of being here. He said nobody wanted him and he needed to reach England where he thought he could make a home and a life.

'Now he is no more. But I have to ask the English government and the French government, how many more people have to die?

A friend of Mr Hamdallah posted a touching tribute to him on Facebook earlier today

'I came here from Libya by boat and the three day journey was torturous. But having gone through that journey, I can see why people think nothing of trying to get across 20 miles to England.

'We can see England from the beach. It looks so near. And I know that many of the men around me with come from Africa will make that journey.

'I am perhaps one of the few who are not because I know how dangerous it is. But I will try to get into a lorry or a car. I need to get to England. I speak very good English and I can get a good job there and I can be a good asset to that country.'

Claire Mosey of the charity Care4Calais said: 'It is time our government decided that they should have an office in Calais to assess claims for of political asylum.

'That would mean the assessments could be carried out before people try to get across the English Channel in very dangerous conditions as we have seen from this tragedy.

'People could then be assessed and they could be returned home if they were not proven to have cases of critical asylum. But more lives will be lost if something isn't done soon.'
EDWARDSVILLE  A number of financial issues  ranging from more than $2.3 million to replace aging 911 equipment to approval of an emergency appropriation that would fund contact tracers for the Madison County Health Department  were among items acted on by the County Board at Wednesdays meeting.

The board approved a $4.9 million emergency appropriation to allow the use of a grant to pay for contact tracing by the Madison County Health Department.

The money comes from state and federal coronavirus-related sources, and will pay for the hiring of temporary contact tracers through May 31, 2021. Some of the money will also be used for other Health Department-related COVID expenditures.

Madison County Health Department Director Toni Corona said earlier this week she plans to start by hiring 10 people, who could begin work by the end of the week.

Three other emergency appropriations  $12,601 to the courts for a self-represented litigant coordinator program for domestic violence, and $7,489 for the Child Advocacy Center  were also approved.

The board also took action on several items relating to improvements to the existing 911 system totaling about $2.3 million.

The Emergency Telephone System Board plans to replace the existing 911 systems at eight of the countys 911 centers, called Public Service Answering Points.

The project had been on hold for some time because of the ongoing delays in the approval of a 911 consolidation plan, but the ETSB decided to move ahead because the existing system is outdated.

The current system dates from around 2010.

The plan is to upgrade the systems at the eight PSAPs that are part of the current consolidation plan.

Madison County must reduce the number of PSAPs to eight from 16. The Illinois State Police has rejected the countys plan, but that has been appealed in court.

Also approved was reimbursement to local police departments for 911 services. The ETSB began reimbursements about a year ago, in part because local departments balked at taking on additional responsibilities for 911 services without compensation for increased costs.

The reimbursements are twice per year. The latest is for $710,424.

In other business the board:

 Approved seven zoning requests that had gone through the Zoning Board of Appeals and the County Boards Planning & Development Committee.

 Approved a resolution approving lists of election judges submitted by the countys Republican and Democratic parties. The lists are good for about two years.

 Approved the countys annual $30,000 payment for its commitment to the St. Louis Regional Chamber.

 Approved a $45,000 park and recreation loan to the village of Worden. The money will be used to improve sewer infrastructure at Community Park.

 Approved payment of not to exceed $42,000 to Securus Technologies for electronic ankle monitors for people who have upcoming cases. This is part of the effort to keep people out of jail, both because of coronavirus and the ongoing jail renovations.

 Approved up to $150,000 for a contract with Heritage Environmental Services of Wood River to operate hazardous waste collection sites.
By Laman Ismayilova

Huseyn Javid's "Sheikh Sanan" will be presented at Bukhara Theater of Musical Drama and Comedy in Uzbekistan.

The play will be staged as part of agreement reached between Azerbaijan Cultural Center in Uzbekistan and the leadership of Bukhara region.

"Sheikh Sanan" is a verse play, tragedy in five acts about love of a Muslim sheikh - Sanan to a Georgian-Christian girl Khumar. It is based on an old story first made famous by the Persian poet Attar Neyshapuri in The Conference of the Birds.

The Uzbekistan Ministry of Culture has approved the stage production to be funded by the state.

Huseyn Javid was one of the founders of the progressive romanticism movement in the contemporary Azerbaijani literature.

His works bear the ideas of humanism, love for homeland, philosophical poems, historical drama, opening a new page in Azerbaijan's literature and drama.

Javid's first book of lyrical poems, titled "The Past Days" was published in 1913.

However Huseyn Javid was known more as a playwright. In his literary tragedy Sheikh Sanan (1914), he philosophized about the idea of a universal religion to lift the inter-religious barrier between human beings.

Huseyn Javid wrote a number of historical epics, such as "The Prophet" (1922), "Timur" (1925), "Sayavush" (1933) and "Khayyam " (1935).

In his plays, Huseyn Javid brilliantly used dialogues as a tool to make confrontations between opposing views.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
August 21 : After the Supreme Court gave its nod to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take forward the Sushant Singh Rajput case, the CBI Special Investigation Team (SIT) started work in Mumbai.

The 15-member CBI team, led by CBI Superintendent of Police Nupur Prasad, has formed three teams to investigate the case, it is reported. The first team will examine all the case diaries related to the case that it will receive from the Mumbai police, including the forensic report and post-mortem report. The Supreme Court on Wednesday had ordered the Mumbai police to hand over all collected evidence and statements to the central investigating agency.

The second CBI team will look into the statements of the people taken by the Mumbai police and will take new statements of people associated with the case. The third team will go to Sushants Bandra flat with the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) experts and reconstruct the entire scene once again. The CBI team also includes three physicists and six scientists from three chemistry divisions, who will study the hanging incident as reported by the Mumbai police.

After reaching Mumbai on Thursday evening, the CBI team reached the DRDO guest house in the Santa Cruz area of the city, where they will stay. The team has already held a meeting last night which lasted for 4 hours.

Deputy Commissioner of Mumbai police, Abhishek Trimukhe, will coordinate with the CBI team today and hand over all relevant documents to them.

The BMC has granted exemption from quarantine to all CBI officers who landed in Mumbai on Thursday to investigate the case following an application by the central agency.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
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.
Nothing less than the survival of our democracy will be on the ballot in November, the countrys most high-profile Democrats warned the public in four days of stirring messages at this weeks Democratic National Convention. And unprecedented numbers of those ballots will be cast by mail, meaning the main threat to the integrity of the upcoming election may be the sudden widespread slowdown of the postal system, backed by President Donald Trumps promise to deny post office funding in order to hamper mail-in voting.

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Yet on Friday, as the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee questioned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, Sen. Kamala Harristhe newly chosen Democratic nominee for vice presidentwas absent. And without her focused, prosecutorial style on their side, the committee Democrats struggled to make DeJoy explain why hes launched a disruptive overhaul of postal operations just as voting by mail is about to begin, and whether he plans to do anything to restore normal delivery.

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There was historical precedent for Harris to skip the hearing. Its normal for a vice presidential nominee to put aside some of their congressional duties to campaign. In 2004, Sen. John Edwards stopped appearing at hearings after he was selected to be John Kerrys running mate. The same was true of then-Sen. Joe Biden after he was selected as Barack Obamas running mate in 2008.

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But in those past years, those candidates had to choose between actual physical campaigning and attending the hearings in person. Under the current coronavirus pandemic conditions, campaign events and hearings alike are being held by videoconferencing. And few of those hearings in the past were as important as Fridays showdown with a former top Trump donor and now postmaster general who in his first few months in office has slowed mail service to a crawl while his boss has directly promised to starve the post office to harm the election.

Harrisa former prosecutor and attorney general who is often lauded as perhaps the best cross-examiner in the Senateis just one of six Democratic members of the committee. Left to grill the witness on their own, the five remaining Democrats mostly watched as the members of the Republican majority used their time to literally praise DeJoy for his disastrous changes to the USPS. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the committee chairman, told DeJoy, I think you should be commended for this type of initiative, not condemned.

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Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada did a good job of pushing back on DeJoys complete refusal to explain the dataif anybehind his decisions to curtail overtime, remove high-powered mail sorting machines, and start leaving mail behind on the workroom floor. Democrats for the most part, though, failed to elucidate what was behind those moves. This allowed the GOP members of the committee to attempt to portray the postmaster as a humble public servant being wrongfully targeted by a smear campaign, eliding the mail disruptions over the past month that have resulted in lengthy delays for prescription drugs for veterans, delayed arrivals of bills and paychecks, and even the deaths of baby chicks intended to be sent to small rural farms.

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Harris submitted to DeJoy a five-page list of questions she wanted answered. Her Democratic colleagues did ask some of the questions Harris had put forward, such as whether he would continue to curtail overtime during the election season and whether he would treat election mail with expedited priority service as in years past. The problem was that DeJoy did not give direct answers to critical questions, for instance falsely denying that USPS has curtailed overtime. And theres nothing to stop his written responses from being even more evasive.

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Heres where Harris skill as a follow-up questioner would have helped Democrats on the committee pin down DeJoy directly on what changes he intended to keep in place and what continued impact they are going to have on mail service headed into the election season. Instead, they got the postmaster generals vague and mealy-mouthed responses that allow for potential continued disruptions of mail service.

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So, what explains Harris absence? It seems as though the Biden-Harris ticket is very much planning to continue the campaign strategy that seemed to work so well for the Biden campaign throughout the summer: staying as out of sight as possible and letting President Donald Trump self-destruct amid the worst dual crises in recent American history.

Bidens acceptance speech on Thursday received wide acclaim, even from normally critical Fox News. So it is understandable, perhaps, that the campaign wouldnt want the No. 2 person on the ticket stepping on that positive buzz one morning later, even with her own positive buzz. Theres also the likelihood that if Harris were to have taken a starring role in Fridays hearing, she would have been criticized no matter how well she performed. It seems likely that conservative media would have cast such an appearance as outside of normal precedent and chastised her for using her position in the Senate to advance her campaign.

Given, though, that this is literally the accusation against Donald Trump and Dejoythat they are using the power of their offices not just to advance Trumps campaign but to diminish the post office and threaten the vote that is the very core to our democracyHarris would have been more than justified doing her important job of congressional oversight.

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- WHO and UNICEF has called on African governments to promote the safe reopening of schools

- They said the prolonged closure of schools is harmful to students

- According to them, the extended stay at home has exposed the students to poor nutrition, teenage pregnancies and violence

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

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), have called on African governments to promote the safe reopening of schools during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to them, the prolonged closure of schools is harmful to students.

In a report filed by peacefmonline.com, they, however, expect the governments to invest in improving sanitation facilities in the schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in institutions.

Nana Akufo-Addo is the president of Ghana Source: aljazeera.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Akufo-Addo vs Mahama: 5 things NPP and NDC have assured Ghanaians ahead of Dec 2020

The two organizations revealed that per their research, they found out that the extended stay at home has exposed the students to poor nutrition, teenage pregnancies as well as violence.

The WHO Regional Director, Matshidiso Moeti, said schools in Africa are a "safe haven" for children.

" Just as countries are opening businesses safely, we can reopen schools," she said during a virtual press briefing on Thursday, August 20, 2020.

A recent survey of 39 countries conducted by WHO and UNICEF revealed that only six African countries have fully opened schools

Countries like Ghana reopened for final year students to sit for crucial examinations as well as other institutions for students to complete the academic year.

READ ALSO: Education Minister breaks silence on reopening of schools; lists conditions

Meanwhile, in Ghana, the Minister of Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has said the reopening of schools in Ghana will be dependent largely on how the rate of COVID-19 in Ghana changes.

According to him, the decision would be based on science and data available on the COVID-19 situation in Ghana.

He made this known while speaking in an interview on TV3 on Thursday, August 13, 2020.

READ ALSO: Mahama challenges Akufo-Addo; says he is ready to debate him any day

Vox Pop: Mahama or Akufo-Addo? Who deserves to win Election 2020? | #Yencomgh

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Its back-to-school season, yet millions of children wont return to in-person instruction for the foreseeable future. But this fall, some families are improvising to provide some kind of in-person instruction for their children. Earlier this year, when school districts proved unwilling or unable to meet families desires for safe, in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, parents across the nation banded together in pandemic pods to take their childrens education into their own hands. In many places, the pods are continuing this school year. And some school districts are not amused.

In recent weeks, discussions have surfaced on creating well-meaning pandemic pods and micro-schools that un-enroll children and hire private teachers, read an August 13 statement from the Denver Board of Education. We want to strongly encourage our families to keep the connection they have to their school and educators.

The statement also asked families to consider the equity implications of creating or joining pandemic pods, noting that for pods to reflect the demographics of the district, there must be three students-of-color for every one white student, two students who qualify for free-and-reduced price lunch for everyone who does not . . .

Families have an absolute right to work together and pool resources to provide instruction or tutoring, reads a Fairfax County, Va., public-school press release to families forming pandemic pods. It should have stopped there.

The district  which will be online-only this fall  is quite displeased that parents are finding alternative learning arrangements for their children. Although the district conceded it cant control these private tutoring groups, it wanted parents to know that it does have concerns that they may widen the gap in educational access and equity.

This argument is curious. Public-school proponents generally argue that education is a public good  an individuals level of education affects others in the community beyond themselves. Americans have broadly agreed to socialize the cost of education because a functioning republic requires an educated citizenry capable of self-government and of the republics maintenance. Another societal benefit is that better-educated individuals are more likely to be productive workers who pay taxes and less likely to be dependent on welfare. The proliferation of education also fosters advancements in science and technology that benefit everyone, and leads to a more enlightened society overall.

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Yet in arguing that pods will exacerbate inequity, public-school proponents are not only treating education primarily as a private benefit, but theyre also treating education as a zero-sum game: If some children know more, that will hurt other children.

Buried in this argument is an implicit admission by the districts that the crisis online learning the districts are providing is inferior to the education students could be receiving in pods. Inequity is only an issue if the pods are superior to what the district schools provide while simultaneously being inaccessible to some students based on their socio-economic status. Yet rather than expand access to the pods, districts are trying to shame better-off parents into refraining from providing their children with a superior education.

If education truly benefits the public at large, then it makes no sense to hold some kids back from achieving their true potential. Disadvantaged kids need to be lifted up. They arent helped by keeping other kids down. The best way to improve the lot of disadvantaged kids is to empower their parents to choose the learning environment that works best for them. Having educated citizens is in the public interest; it shouldnt matter where that education occurs.

Indeed, those concerned about educational inequity should turn a critical eye to the existing district system. In Virginia, children from low-income families are more than two and a half grade levels behind their non-poor peers in eighth-grade reading, and black students are nearly three grade levels behind their white peers. What about education equity for these children?

Fairfax County currently spends more per pupil than the national average of $15,000 annually. Denver is slightly under national figures at $12,200, and, astonishingly, Washington, D.C., spends $31,000 per child per year. If those education dollars followed the child, low-income families would have much greater access to a wide variety of learning options.

Yet defenders of the status quo have worked incessantly to prevent families from accessing alternatives to the residentially assigned district system  the doors to which are largely closed at the moment to in-person instruction. Thats because, due both to school-district myth-making and status-quo bias, weve come to believe that this is how education must delivered. Any failure of the one-size-fits-some system to achieve its stated goals is blamed not on a flaw in the system but rather on a lack of sufficient funding, as though D.C. schools would perform at the level of Massachusetts if only they spent $35,000 or $40,000 per pupil instead of $31,000.

Pods reject the assumption that residentially assigned and government-run schools are the best way to educate kids. Indeed, the near-infinite variety in the approach to podding calls into question the very notion of a one best way.

Kids cant wait for district schools to reopen. States should immediately provide emergency education savings accounts (ESAs) to families, allowing them to take a portion of the money that would have been spent on their child in school to the learning environments of their choice. Five states  Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee  already empower families with ESAs to use for private-school tuition, tutors, textbooks, online learning, special-education services and therapies, and a host of other options. In Arizona, applications for ESAs this summer are triple what they were last year. Theyre the perfect policy pairing with pandemic pods.

Adults should be doing everything in their power right now to provide education continuity to children. That goes for school-district officials, too. Embracing families decision to use pods or any other option that fits their childrens needs would demonstrate that districts really are interested in the public good of public education  regardless of where it takes place.

Lindsey M. Burke, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Education Policy and Will Skillman Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, and Jason Bedrick is Director of Policy at EdChoice.

More from National Review
Joe Biden led a socially distanced fireworks party to celebrate the end of the Democratic national convention (DNC) on Thursday night, after accepting the partys nomination for president and promising to end what he described as Americas period of national darkness.

In what was arguably his strongest performance of the campaign so far, the former vice president, 77, delivered a powerful acceptance speech to bring proceedings to a close, as he vowed to be a unifying ally of the light who would move a US in crisis past the chaos of president Donald Trumps tenure in the White House.

Positioning himself as a president who could unite the nation, Mr Biden said he would draw on the best of us (Americans), not the worst  a subtle rebuke to the Trump campaign, which has sought to sow division and distrust, with the president himself recently appearing to praise the support he receives from adherents of QAnon, a conspiracy theory which falsely claims the world is controlled by a satanic cult of paedophiles who eat babies.

Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America, Mr Biden added, on the final night of a convention that has been conducted virtually due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Having spent five decades in political office  and overcoming a number of personal tragedies  the end of this years convention will have been an emotional affair for Mr Biden, who missed out on the Democrat nomination for president on two separate occasions; once in 1988 when he pulled out of the race, and again in 2008, when he was beaten by Barack Obama, whom he would later serve under as vice president.

Recommended Joe Biden formally accepts Democratic nomination

An unprecedented global pandemic denied the Pennsylvania-born lawmaker the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Mr Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

Afterwards, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena where supporters waited in a car park, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the evening. The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Mr Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Mr Trump in November.

Mr Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts his opponents mental capacity and calls him Slow Joe, but with the nation watching, he was firm and clear. Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energise his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Mr Biden has common decency. Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in US history, said Mr Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, a 38-year-old former mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Mr Biden came out in favour of same-sex marriage as vice president even before former president Barack Obama.

"Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans, Mr Buttigieg said. Its the struggle to call out what is good for every American.

Mr Bidens positive focus on Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by Mr Obama and others the night before.

The 44th president of the US warned that American democracy itself could falter if Mr Trump is re-elected, while Mr Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Mr Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Mr Trumps policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centred and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nations mounting crises and policy challenges.

Recommended 73 former national security officials endorse Biden

Mr Bidens call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Mr Trump down, that Mr Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Mr Bidens background before he began serving as Mr Obamas vice president in 2008.

Thursdays convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes, Mr Biden said. He added: I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.

As a schoolboy, he was mocked for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. Five years ago, he buried his eldest son who had suffered from cancer.

Mr Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Mr Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominees approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition he is courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
Shanghai Sets Up Food Waste Tip-Off Hotline Amid Food Security Concerns

2020-08-20 -- Local authorities in China are scrambling to implement a presidential political campaign against food waste, as the country struggles to address food security concerns.

Authorities in Shanghai recently set-up a reporting hotline for anyone to inform on wasteful practices at restaurants, banquets, or lavish catering events.

The move came after ruling Chinese Communist Party secretary Xi Jinping ordered local governments to begin a nationwide crackdown on food waste under the party's "spiritual civilization-building" program.

Spot-checks, tip-offs, and inspections will target business banquets, weddings and funerals, celebrity-related events, and other potentially wasteful events, the Shanghai municipal spiritual civilization-building committee said in an announcement on Aug. 16.

A Shanghai resident surnamed Ma said much of the wastefulness at official and corporate events is linked to corruption.

"There is a lot of corruption that is hidden ... and it's hard to go after the rich and powerful," she said. "Ordinary people are very economical."

"It's not that we want to be. We simply can't afford to be wasteful," Ma said.

Independent scholar Wu Zuolai said largesse is a key part of official entertaining, whether in official institutions or commercial companies, and could be addressed through market forces, rather than through a political campaign reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

"Xi Jinping was born in the Cultural Revolution and has background in the Red Guards," Wu said. "Now he is employing the same sort of political campaign approach to supervising things."

"He could have picked a market-oriented, more civilized way of solving the problem, but this is likely to be crude and political," he said.

The legislative work committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) standing committee is to study how best to prevent food waste, including whether criminalization and coercive penalties like administrative detention are appropriate, media reports indicated.

Broader concerns over food security

The food waste campaign comes against a broader background concerns about food security.

While China recently reported a bumper grain harvest in spite of disastrous flooding in the Yangtze river basin, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has also warned that the country will see a food deficit of 130 million tons by 2025.

According to U.S.-based economist He Qinglian, Beijing's concerns about food security date back to 2014, when China was the world's largest importer of grain, but have been sharpened by recent world events.

In a commentary broadcast on RFA's Cantonese Service, He said that the country is still easily able to meet food demand using imported sources.

But the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommends a 90 percent self-sufficiency rate for major grains, and China's rate is currently at 82.3 percent, He said.

China ranks 40th out of 113 countries in the World Food Security Indicators and 17th out of 25 countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit's ranking of sustainable agricultural development.

"China's food security is a problem, but because there has been no major international conflict for nearly 30 years, the food supply has been stable," she wrote.

China has established agricultural supply chains around the world with the United States, Brazil, and more than 100 countries and regions, including Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

It does this increasingly by investing in overseas agricultural land and facilities, and is one of the three most active agricultural investors worldwide, He said.

But she said international instability caused by the trade war and the coronavirus pandemic have hit China at the same time as disastrous flooding, putting food security once more at the top of the government's agenda.

Reported by Gao Feng and Wang Yun for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Copyright  1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content August not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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The US Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court's recent decision to quash the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, officials said.

"Our hope is that this will result in reinstatement of the original sentence and avoid a retrial of the death penalty phase," Massachusetts prosecutor Andrew Lelling said in a statement late Thursday.

Tsarnaev, 27, was sentenced to death in 2015 for planting two home-made bombs near the finish line of the race in 2013, killing three people and injuring 264 others.

He has admitted carrying out the attack as a 19-year-old with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died four days after the atrocity in a gunfight with police.

Lawyers for Tsarnaev had asked for a new trial, claiming that it should not have been held in Boston because the city was so traumatized by the attack.

They also questioned the neutrality of two jurors, who lied during jury selection about whether they'd had conversations about the case on social media.

Last month, the federal appeals court in Massachusetts upheld most of Tsarnaev's convictions but instructed a district court to hold a new penalty-phase trial to determine his fate for crimes that carried the death sentence.

President Donald Trump criticized the decision.

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The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a Romanian loan guarantee of up to around 62 million in favour of Romanian airline Blue Air. The measure aims at compensating the airline for the damages suffered due to the coronavirus outbreak, as well as providing it with urgent liquidity support, reads a press release of the Community Executive.

The measure was approved partly based on Article 107(2)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and partly under the Commission's 2014 Guidelines on State aid for rescue and restructuring.

Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: 'The aviation sector has been severely hit by the coronavirus outbreak. This 62 million Romanian loan guarantee will in part enable Romania to compensate Blue Air for the damage suffered as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. At the same time, it will provide the airline with the necessary resources to address part of its urgent and immediate liquidity needs. This will avoid disruptions for passengers and ensure regional connectivity in particular for the significant number of Romanian citizens working abroad and for many small local businesses that depend on affordable tickets offered by Blue Air on a network of routes aimed at addressing their specific needs.'

Blue Air is a private Romanian airline with bases in Romania, Italy and Cyprus. With a fleet of 18 planes, Blue Air has been serving 92 routes and 15 countries, carrying over 4 million passengers in 2019.

Blue Air qualified as a company in difficulty before the coronavirus outbreak, i.e. on 31 December 2019. More specifically, the company was loss making due to the extensive investments it undertook since 2016 to improve its network of routes. The airline had returned to profitability in 2019 and early 2020, but, as other companies active in the aviation sector, it suffered significant losses due to the coronavirus outbreak and the travel restrictions that Romania and other governments had to impose to limit the spread of the virus. The company is currently facing urgent liquidity needs.

Romania notified to the Commission, under Article 107(2)(b) TFEU and the 2014 Guidelines on State aid for rescue and restructuring a 62 million aid measure to support Blue Air, with the aim of compensating the airline for the losses directly caused by the coronavirus outbreak and of providing the company with resources to address its urgent and immediate liquidity needs until January 2021.

Blue Air qualified as a company in difficulty before the coronavirus outbreak, i.e. on 31 December 2019. More specifically, the company was loss making due to the extensive investments it undertook since 2016 to improve its network of routes. The airline had returned to profitability in 2019 and early 2020, but, as other companies active in the aviation sector, it suffered significant losses due to the coronavirus outbreak and the travel restrictions that Romania and other governments had to impose to limit the spread of the virus. The company is currently facing urgent liquidity needs.
In this image from video, Brayden Harrington speaks during the final night of the Democratic National Convention. Read more

Twenty seconds into his speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Brayden Harrington started to stutter.

He knew he would  it was the whole reason the 13-year-old was addressing millions of viewers from his bedroom. As hed explained to kick off his speech, his life had changed after meeting Democratic nominee Joe Biden in February.

He told me that we were members of the same club. We  " Brayden said, shutting his eyes as he drew out an s sound, willing the word to emerge: ... stutter.

And then, he kept going  smiling, poised, and delivering a powerful message about how Biden, who has spoken openly of his own battle with a speech impediment, had inspired him to reach higher.

On a night when Biden accepted the nomination and a parade of Democratic notables offered their visions for America, Braydens two-minute speech may have had the most visceral impact. A video of his address shared on Twitter by the DNC had been viewed more than 3 million times by early Friday.

Speaking is hard for me too, Brayden. But as you know, practice and purpose help, tweeted former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who spoke Wednesday at the DNC about her own fight to speak again after being shot in the head in 2011. Thank you for your courage and for the great speech!

For many viewers, and for Bidens campaign, his story not only suggested the Democratic nominees tenacity and compassion, it drew a stark contrast with President Donald Trump, who mocked a journalist with a disability in 2015 and has been oft critiqued for an apparent lack of empathy.

 READ MORE: Joe Biden vows to be an ally of the light, not our darkness in accepting Democratic presidential nomination

Bidens stutter, a neurological condition that affects roughly 70 million people worldwide, emerged when he was a child, he told The Atlantics John Hendrickson earlier this year. At times, he was tormented for it. He recalled one nun at school calling him Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden and demanding that he repeat a passage from a book, and high school classmates nicknaming him Dash  as in Morse code staccato.

As a young teen, though, he learned ways to cope: reciting poetry in his room, learning full phrases instead of individual words.

Biden shared many of those same tips with Brayden. They met on Feb. 4 at campaign event in Concord, N.H., where Biden offered him words of encouragement on the rope line. When Brayden grew visibly emotional, the nominee invited him backstage, where he showed him how he marked up his speeches to remember where to break between words.

Brayden used the same tips in his speech on Thursday.

He showed me how he marks his addresses, to make them easier to say out loud. So I did the same thing today, Brayden said, holding up a copy of his speech.

As he spoke, he regularly paused, visibly fighting to produce several words. But he never lost his cool as he delivered the whole speech.

Im just a regular kid, he said, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about something thats bothered me my whole life.

His performance, and his message of perseverance, were met with wide acclaim on social media and elsewhere  particularly from others who have worked to overcome a stutter.

Brayden Harrington, the 13-year-old boy with a stutter. Pure, unvarnished, courage, tweeted journalist and former television anchor Dan Rather.

Hendrickson, the Atlantic journalist, who has written about his own stutter, called it the best speech of the DNC. Consider the emotional maturity it takes at Braydens age to talk about his personal struggle-let alone when that personal struggle is talking, when its hard to even talk at all, when it hurts to speak, he wrote in the Atlantic.

A few hours after the speech, which hed practiced with his sister ahead of time, Brayden told The Washington Post that he was still riding high on the emotions.

 READ MORE: Trump says Biden abandoned Scranton in Pa. visit just before Bidens DNC speech

I feel very energetic right now. Im very happy that I got to give the speech, he said. I have trouble talking and that just makes me feel way more happy to be able to talk to the people who have a stutter.

He said he hasnt really spoken to Biden since their meeting, noting that the nominee has things to do. But when Brayden starts 8th grade next month, he said hell bring a new strength to the classroom thanks to Bidens help.

It gave me lots of confidence. It made me feel like I was noticed in the world when I talked to Joe Biden, he said. It made me feel like I felt the same thing that he felt. We felt the same fear. I just felt like I wasnt the only person.
President Xi Jinping addresses military forces tasked with flood control and relief missions during his visit to a floodwater diversion zone in Feidong county, Anhui province, on Wednesday. YAN YAN/XINHUA

President Xi Jinping on Thursday urged China's military to make unremitting efforts to fulfill follow-up tasks in the ongoing flood control and disaster relief work.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, greeted members of the People's Liberation Army, the People's Armed Police Force, the militia and the reserve service who had taken part in flood control and aid efforts. He told them to continue contributing to flood control and reconstruction work.

The president, who had been in Anhui province since Tuesday for an inspection tour, gave the instruction after hearing reports from the military on its cooperation with local governments in battling floods across the country.

Commanders from the Central Military Commission's Joint Staff Department, the PLA Eastern Theater Command, the PLA Anhui Provincial Command and the People's Armed Police Force's Anhui Provincial Service briefed Xi about their troops' roles in the fight against the floods.

By Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of military personnel had been mobilized to take part in flood control and aid operations in 17 provincial-level regions. They helped local authorities relocate over 170,000 residents, handled more than 3,900 emergencies, reinforced over 900 kilometers of dikes and dams, and repaired about 350 km of damaged roads, according to the officers.

Xi acknowledged the contribution of the armed forces, saying that they have won a significant victory in the battle against the floods.

He ordered them to work with local governments to strengthen the monitoring and forecasting of floods so their forces could be deployed more efficiently and effectively.

They must strive to keep their troops in good condition, detect and remove hazards in a timely manner, safeguard people's lives and property, and assist with relief and reconstruction efforts, Xi said.

He ordered the military to strictly manage its troops, in order to honor its good reputation and image.

The fight against the floods can also be regarded as an opportunity to examine the military's command and operational capabilities, the fighting spirit of officers and soldiers, and the relations between the military and local governments as well as the public, Xi said, asking the military to summarize its experiences gained in the operation and use this to improve its work.

In addition, the president demanded that the armed forces must achieve this year's goals in the fields of national defense and military building and realize the missions set by the Party and the people.

The military's crisis preparedness, bottom-line thinking and combat training must be enhanced to ensure it can respond to any contingencies and win a war, he said.

Moreover, key work such as the making of long-term plans and reforming policy systems must be intensified, Xi ordered.
About 72 hours after a military coup in Mali overthrew the civilian government, President Ibrahim Keita, who was arrested alongside others, is still in detention.

The mutineers have, however, released two of his officials.

Since Tuesday when Mr Keita announced his resignation from government and the dissolution of the parliament on television after being held at gunpoint, no news was heard of him until United Nations human rights officials met him and other officials midnight Thursday, the UN mission in Mali tweeted on Friday.

There was no further information about the ousted presidents condition or what was discussed.

But on Friday, the mutineers freed two of the captives while still detaining the 75-year-old president, an ally of Mr Keita told Reuters.

They were freed but I dont know in what condition, the head of Keitas party, Bocary Treta, told Reuters.

It remains unclear whether the UN peace mission to the mutineers resulted in the release of the two officials  the finance minister, Abdoulaye Daffe, and the presidents private secretary, Sabane Mahalmoudou. The coup orchestrators had earlier rejected foreign interference, particularly ECOWASs demands of restoring Mr Keita to power.

The military leaders had on Tuesday promised to create a transitional government as they held discussions with an opposition coalition and civil society groups.

They pledged to oversee a transition to elections within a reasonable amount of time.

Despite the calm that followed the coup, many people are not sure of what the future holds for the troubled West African State that has had two coups in eight years amidst struggles to fend off a ravaging insurgency in the north.

As it is, for now, we dont have a clear view of their (mutineers) plans and vision. The people of Mali are currently navigating in some kind of darkness, Cheick Doumbia, a political analyst from Mali told PREMIUM TIMES.

ECOWASs struggle

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mali has been mired in a months-long political stalemate after the opposition rejected results of local elections held earlier this year. They had called for Mr Keitas resignation for perceived government corruption and incompetence.

Tensions escalated in July when at least 11 people were killed during three days of unrest following a protest.

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The opposition group rejected attempts at mediation and vowed to continue staging rallies against him.

In July, Nigerias former president, Goodluck Jonathan led a delegation of ECOWAS leaders to broker peace in the country where a unity government was recommended.

But the crisis persisted until it resulted in a military takeover on Tuesday.

In response to the coup, ECOWAS suspended Malis membership, shut off borders and halted financial flows to the country.

Now, as the 15-nation ECOWAS aims to reverse the regime change by force in Mali after demanding that Mr Keita be returned as the president, military junta and many Malians have rejected the blocs demands.

Ahead of the arrival of a delegation of ECOWAS in Malis capital, Bamako, a mass demonstration is planned by an opposition coalition that led protests against Mr Keita, AFP reports.
Gajendra Kothari

The following excerpt is a quote from a First Federal Savings newspaper advertisement in the St. Petersburg Times from the early 1960s. This is one of the finest print advertisements I have seen in a long time on money. It has a powerful social message.

Your savings, believe it or not, affect the way you stand, the way you walk, the tone of your voice. In short, your physical well-being and confidence.

One of my advisor colleagues shared it a few days back, and I was utterly overwhelmed with the deep meaning of the message. The timing couldnt be better.

So here I am. But first, lets read the whole advertisement at least three times.

I am sure you must be mesmerised too.

Savings and body language

As an advisor who has met thousands of individual investors over the last 16 years, it is easy to spot a person who is very confident, backed by his/her high savings. And vice-versa too. People with meagre savings, coupled with a loan burden, are the most vulnerable as COVID-19 has proved. A few of our investors who had very high savings and have lost jobs are the least worried because they know they have a good corpus to back them up. They are now spending quality time with family which could not have been earlier possible and are also learning stuff to keep them relevant and occupied. And there are an unfortunate few who lost their jobs and have very slim savings in these tough times, resulting in their stress levels going up 10 times.

I remember when I first started my serious savings in the form of a Rs 10,000 SIP in August 2010, I didnt realise the power of savings. But today, whatever little wealth I have created is all because of a disciplined regime of increasing my savings year after year. I continue to bump up my savings every year come what may. At present, my familys SIP is Rs 8.70 lakh per month, and hopefully, by March 2021, it should cross the Rs 10 lakh SIP mark. And, I will not stop until I chase my dream of touching the coveted Rs 100 crore mark by age 50 and become One Idiot . And that reminds me, whenever I talk about the One Idiot goal, the first question people ask me is where I am investing my money and what is the expected return and very few people ask how much I am saving in the first place. Always remember how much you save and how long you save for is in your control; returns are not. So we should control what is controllable and leave the returns to markets.

When I look at many of my MBA friends (I did my MBA in 2004), they must easily be earning in the range of Rs 30 lakh to Rs 1 crore p.a., but sadly the savings have not kept pace with their earnings while the expenses surely have. This can be attributed to the below phenomenon. They have all been victims of the normal approach of savings while the short movie One Idiot made sure I take the smart approach. This doesnt mean I dont spend. I do enjoy all the pleasures of life after making sure that my saving for the month has happened. By doing this, I dont feel guilty at all, mainly when I am on a shopping spree on Amazon.

Planned saving

This pandemic has highlighted the importance of planned savings even more. Most investors do not have an emergency fund (6-12 months of monthly expenses). People want to plan for their childrens education or a house purchase, but will not think about maintaining a contingency fund. In fact, this should be the first goal of any saver/investor. A sound emergency fund will help them precisely in these difficult times, so they dont have to pull out from long-term investments, especially when markets are volatile.

I have personally seen many people who have taken a housing loan being comfortable working in the same company even if they are not enjoying it (mostly due to a terrible boss), simply because they have an EMI burden on their.

As mentioned in the print advertisement, a person with high savings will always be confident about his/her work and will never become a victim of office politics and indeed not a Yes man to his/her boss.

The importance of savings also takes centre-stage today because we have a finite period to earn money and this pandemic has proved that business models can change overnight and there is nothing called job guarantee. One of our doctor clients had to work overtime in a reputed hospital with a 20 per cent salary cut (never heard doctors taking pay cuts and that too in a pandemic when they are required the most!). As a result, the person had to curtail/stop SIPs, and we know that once there is a break in something, its challenging to build the momentum again.

May be, this advertisement can push us into building our savings all over again if we have not done so already.

(The writer is Managing Director and CEO of Etica Wealth Management)
Russias deposit insurer demands over $80 mln more from Yugra bank ex-management

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

10:50 21/08/2020

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) has filed several applications with the Moscow Commercial Court seeking to recover over $29 million and about 4 billion rubles ($54 million) from ex-owner of Bank Yugra Alexey Khotin, ex-board chairman Dmitry Shilyayev and several other individuals and legal entities, according to the DIAs papers.

The court in August granted a DIAs application seeking to seize assets worth over 4.9 billion rubles (about $67 million) from Khotin, Shilyayev and several others. The request for injunctive remedies has been lodged as part of the DIAs claim for the collection of this sum from the defendants.

In July, the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) filed two more claims seeking to collect over 6.5 billion rubles ($90.5 million) in damages from Khotin, Shilyayev and several other individuals and legal entities.

Earlier, the court seized over 21.5 billion rubles (about $300 million) belonging to Khotin, Shilyayev and others. A relevant injunctive remedies petition has been filed by the DIA as part of its claim to collect this amount from the former bank managers.

In June, the court attached their assets in the total amount of more than 77 billion rubles (over $1 billion).

Previously, the same court ruled in favor of the DIA as to attachment of cash assets and other properties of former Bank Yugra managers worth several dozens of billions.

At that time, DIA petitioned the court to grant it interim relief by seizing the aforesaid property in the framework of a claim by which it sought to hold the defendants civilly liable and recover from them the damages.

In the period from April 9 through April 16, the court ruled in favor of DIA as to the recovery of about 8 billion rubles (about $113 million at the current exchange rate) from the defendants, holding them civilly liable, and the seizure of their assets.

This February, the court dismissed a request of Yugra bank acting on behalf of Shilyayev to review the ruling, by which the banks license had been revoked in 2017, basing upon new evidence.

An earlier petition to review the order of Russias Central Bank of 2017 revoking Yugra license was dismissed in cassation in September 2019.

In July 2017, Russia's Central Bank said withdrew the license of Yugra bank, one of the top 30 banks. It imposed temporary administration represented by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) in the bank. The DIA was ordered to conduct Yugras status inquiry.

In October 2018, the Moscow Commercial Court declared Yugra bankrupt.

This April, the Moscow City Court extended house arrest of the majority stockholder of Yugra bank Alexey Khotin charged with embezzling 7.5 billion rubles from the credit organization until July 18. Other defendants in the embezzlement case, ex-bank board chairman Dmitry Shilyayev and ex-president of the bank Alexey Nefedov, will also stay under house arrest until mid-July.

Investigators believe that banker Khotin and his alleged accomplices have been involved in stealing the money from Yugra. The fact of the embezzlement is confirmed by the documents of Russias Central Bank, Deposit Insurance Agency and other evidence, according to the investigation.
Iran Increases Capacity to Enrich Uranium Amid US Plans to Reimpose Sanctions

Sputnik News

11:53 GMT 20.08.2020

TEHRAN (Sputnik) - The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) on Thursday announced that the Middle Eastern country has increased capacity to enrich uranium in light of Washington's plan to reinstate sanctions against Tehran.

"It does not matter if the snapback mechanism [which envisages restoration of sanctions] will be activated or not, the atomic energy organisation has taken big steps to increase the capacity to 190,000 SWU [Separative Work Units]", the AEOI tweeted.

The capacity increase was announced after US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the United States intends to restore all "snapback" sanctions on Iran in the United Nations. The State Department said that the sanctions will be re-imposed 30 days after the UN receives Washington's notification.

After the US unilaterally abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tasked the AEOI to increase the capacity for enriching uranium to 190,000 SWUs. Tehran has repeatedly said that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Washington has announced plans to trigger the snapback mechanism to reimpose all UN sanctions  previously lifted under the JCPOA  after failing to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution aiming to indefinitely extend the arms UN embargo on Iran. The arms embargo is set to expire in October under the terms of the nuclear agreement.

A Sputnik

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The road to Arecibo Observatory in northwestern Puerto Rico winds upward through farms and rainforest. Chickens run across the road. Then, suddenly, you reach the top: a fence, guards and gleaming white buildings and towers, as if you had stumbled into the lair of a James Bond supervillain.

Hanging in the sky like a skeletal flying saucer, suspended by cables from three mountaintop towers, is a giant triangular structure of girders. Five hundred vertiginous feet below, nestled in a sinkhole valley, is an aluminum dish 1,000 feet wide  an antenna to catch radio waves from the cosmos or to beam them out.

In early August, hearts sank throughout the universe when news surfaced that a falling cable had ripped a 100-foot-long gash in that antenna, temporarily putting it out of commission. For more than half a century, the Arecibo telescope has been one of the great icons of interstellar longing.

Built in 1963, it served as the flagship for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, the optimistic quest for radio signals from alien civilizations. In 1974, astronomers sent their own message out into the void, toward a cluster of stars known as Messier 13. (Travel time is 25,000 years, so we should not expect a reply for at least 50,000.)
OFX Daily Market News





Posted by OFX



AUD  Australian Dollar

The Australian Dollar struggled to regain its momentum yesterday after falling a full cent from eight-month highs following the release of US Federal Reserve minutes. Declining from Wednesday night highs of 0.7275, the local currency opened at 0.7180 and continued its shift lower yesterday to intraday lows of 0.7135 during the Asian session amid falling oil prices. Equities were also under pressure seeing a 0.8% drop on the ASX 200 following the soft lead on Wall Street.

Overnight losses were clawed back as the tide swung back into Aussie dollar strength, retesting the 72 cent handle. AUD/USD reached a high of 0.7203 during the North American session following a recovery in equity prices as markets saw the resumption of pressure against the greenback, hovering around two-year lows. With our Trans-Tasman neighbour facing further lockdown pressures, the AUD/NZD jumped to a brand new two-year high this week and remained above the 1.10 handle on Fridays open.

The Australian dollar opens this morning at 0.7190 ahead of the latest Flash Manufacturing and Services PMI print. We expect support levels to hold on moves approaching 0.7140, while any upward push will likely meet resistance at 0.7270.

Key Movers

Commodity linked currencies were broadly lower over the past 24 hours with the New Zealand dollar seeing the biggest losses on weaker oil prices overnight. Oil prices dropped on concerns for the worlds largest offshore oil rig company  Valaris Plc who filled for voluntary bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas as they looked to restructure $7 billion in debt.

The US Dollar Index (DXY) was largely unmoved seeing a 0.28% loss on the day and the greenback was 0.2% lower against the Japanese Yen. Unemployment Claims were higher than expected as 1.1 million Americans filed for unemployment claims for the week ending 15th August. The large number places unemployment above 10% and puts further pressure on congress to provide further stimulus to the worlds largest economy.

Story continues

The Great British Pound looked to test eight-month highs that investors saw on Wednesday evening, gaining 0.8% on the day to 1.3220. Markets saw strong buying on dips into the 1.3050 region. A round of European and United Kingdom Manufacturing and Services PMI is due for release this evening to close off the week.

Expected Ranges

AUD/USD: 0.7150  0.7260 

GBP/AUD: 1.8100  1.8550 

AUD/NZD: 1.0950  1.1050 

AUD/EUR: 0.6020  0.6090 

AUD/CAD: 0.9450  0.9530 





Posted by OFX

The post Australian Dollar looks to retest 72 cent handle appeared first on .
Vaccinations against Tuberculosis administered in the last 15 years may provide additional protection against COVID-19 to people under 24 years of age, according to a new study published recently in the medical journal Vaccines.

Dr. Nadav Rappoport of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev collaborated with colleagues from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to analyze the correlation between different countries policies for the Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine for tuberculosis and countries COVID-19 outcomes.

As explained in a BGU press release Monday, the researchers discovered that BCG...
By Kim Bo-eun





The Bank of Korea (BOK) said Thursday it had promoted Deputy Governor Lee Seung-heon to senior deputy governor, succeeding Yoon Myun-shik.







Korea's president names the senior deputy governor after the central bank's governor recommends a candidate. The senior deputy governor is a member of the central bank's monetary policy board and oversees human resources, and budgetary and organizational management.







The BOK said Lee has expertise in global affairs. He was sent from the bank to the International Monetary Fund's Executive Director Office and headed the international department at the BOK.







Lee was promoted to deputy governor in June 2019 and has been in charge of planning, human resources and public relations.







He earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Seoul National University and an MBA from Emory University. Joining the BOK in 1991, he has worked for key departments including those in charge of monetary policy and financial markets.







Lee will serve a three-year term through Aug. 20, 2023.


President Donald Trump abandoned his normal all-caps attacks on his rival Joe Biden's mental fitness to say all the Democrat was promising was 'just words.'

'In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!' Trump tweeted as the Democratic nominee closed out his speech.

Biden concluded the four-day Democratic convention by flaming Trump's record, telling Americans that 'character is on the ballot.'

One hour before Biden accepted the nomination, Trump called in to Fox News' Sean Hannity in one of a series of appearances intentionally clashing with the closing night of the Democratic National Convention in efforts to draw interest away from his rivals.

President Donald Trump abandoned his usual attacks on Democratic nominee Joe Biden's mental fitness to say that his nomination acceptance speech was 'just words'

Trump tweeted, 'In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!'

The president took aim at Biden claiming his Democrat rival will 'kill our country and kill the economy' if he gets in to power.

'You could forget about the Second Amendment if we lose this election,' he blasted.

'And your taxes will be doubled, tripled and quadrupled. Your jobs will be gone. I mean, you're going to have a depression, if that happens.

'The biggest single headwind [to the stock market] is if he got in.'

Trump also blasted Biden's competence saying he would not be a match for 'very sharp' foreign leaders like North Korea's Kim Jong-un, China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

'If you're not at the top of your game, it's not going to be a pretty picture,' he said.

'It's like chess masters. And if you're not a great chess master, you're going to have a problem.'

Biden had just given a speech to the livestreamed convention audience in which he proclaimed 'character is on the ballot'

Biden positioned himself as the candidate who was the side of goodness, empathy, and inclusivity in his speech Thursday night, as he reminded viewers of the livestreamed convention about Trump's words following the racial unrest in Charlottesville in 2017 and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

'Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot,' Biden said.

'Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst,'he pledged.

'I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness.'

He concluded his remarks by saying, 'love is more powerful than hate.'

'Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark,' Biden said.

'May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation,' he stated.

And while much of what Biden said during the address, where he properly accepted the Democratic nomination, he had said in his stump speeches, he put a new polish on it.

He addressed a darkened room, filled only with reporters and some staff, using a teleprompter, with lines under some words - likely the trick Biden taught a young stutter-er who appeared earlier in the convention to talk about how the ex-vice president had become his mentor.

Jill Biden, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff finished the DNC with the kind of fanfare Trump loves, with fireworkers and cheers from supporters

Supporters of Democratic nominee Joe Biden watch a fireworks display at the end of the DNC in parked cars outside the Chase Center of Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware

One night earlier, Trump was blasting former Democratic President Barack Obama, who had delivered a more blistering indictment of the president's record.

'HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!' Trump roared.

'WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?' Trump wrote.

Biden also concluded the DNC in a Trump-ian fashion - with supporters and a made-for-TV moment.

He walked to the parking lot outside to greet supporters who had parked cars to view the night's programming like they were at a drive-in movie theater.

They honked, yelled and held up signs and American flags as Biden and his wife Jill and his running mate Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff watched fireworks overhead.

'Welcome to Wilmington,' Biden said, grinning, as he had pulled down his mask.
A former Navy SEAL who has said he killed Osama bin Laden has been banned by Delta Air Lines after removing his face mask during a flight.

Robert ONeill tweeted about his ban on Thursday, and the airline confirmed the action. ONeill posted a selfie showing himself, with no mask, on a Delta Connection flight Wednesday from Minneapolis to Newark, New Jersey.

Part of every customers commitment prior to traveling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask," the airline said in a statement. "Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future.

All major U.S. airlines require passengers to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Delta says it has banned more than 100 passengers for violating the rule.

Other passengers in the photo, including a man across the aisle who was wearing a Marine Corps hat, were wearing masks. The tweet was later deleted. (You can see the tweet, which is still circulating on social media here.)

In another tweet Thursday, O'Neill said, Thank God it wasnt @Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden... we werent wearing masks...

After a viral tweetstorm ensued, O'Neill later said, "I had my mask in my lap. Everyone has gone crazy.. "

One of several replies to the O'Neill's tweet included this one from comedian Steve Hofstetter:

"Hey Robert, just some legal advice. If someone robs a store and then posts a picture of themselves robbing the store, they don't get arrested for posting the picture. They get arrested for what is IN the picture."

ONeill first said in 2014 that he fired the shots that killed bin Laden during a 2011 raid on the terrorist's compound in Pakistan. The U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied the account. O'Neill later wrote a book about his time in the SEALs. He has 375,000 followers on Twitter.

SFGATE's senior travel correspondent Chris McGinnis contributed to this story.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States  Fri, August 21, 2020 17:11 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f9bce8 2 Entertainment Taylor-Swift,GoFundMe,donation Free

US pop icon Taylor Swift has donated more than 23,000 (US$31,000) to a London schoolgirl raising funds to go to university.

Vitoria Mario, 18, won a place to study mathematics at Britain's University of Warwick but could not afford to support herself.

She asked hundreds of companies for help and even posted notes through the letter boxes of homes in affluent areas, but in desperation turned to online crowdfunding -- and Swift got in touch.

"Vitoria, I came across your story online and am so inspired by your drive and dedication to turning your dreams into reality," the pop star wrote after donating 23,373.

"I want to gift you the rest of your goal amount. Good luck with everything you do! Love, Taylor."

Swift made no public statement about the donation but her official Twitter account liked a tweet about the story posted by one of Mario's friends.

Mario said the donation "blew my mind", telling BBC television: "I call it a blessing."

Read also: Taylor Swift changes it up with 'Folklore' and earns rave reviews

According to her GoFundMe page, Mario moved to London four years ago from Portugal speaking no English, but got top marks in all her exams.

She set herself a target of raising 40,000 for university accommodation and living costs over four years -- which she has now exceeded.

"Sadly, my father has passed away, and my mother remains in Portugal. Moving away from her was a challenge but it was a sacrifice worth being made, in my family's eyes," she wrote.

According to US media, Swift has previously made impromptu donations to fans and since the coronavirus outbreak began, has sent a box of merchandise to a nurse in Utah and helped support workers at a shuttered Nashville record store.
Prominent black NC Bishop Patrick Wooden says Kamala Harris aint good for black folk

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Firebrand North Carolina Bishop Patrick Wooden Sr., of the conservative Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, slammed newly minted Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris as aint good for black folk in a politically charged sermon Sunday.

In his impassioned sermon during which he took aim at the Democratic Party and its presidential ticket, Wooden pointed to Harris controversial record on criminal justice as well as her support for the LGBT agenda.

You know Kamala, oh shes running for the vice presidency. I call her Miss lock up a brother for when she was the AG in California. A negro knew; a black man knew that he was dead in the water  if you appear before her because she took pride in locking up black folk, and all of a sudden shes trying to be sister girl, Wooden said.

Last week, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced Harris as his running mate, making her the first black and South Asian American woman to run on a political party's presidential ticket.

Wooden argued, however, that the black community should not see her as any kind of savior.

Check out her record. She locked us up left and right, yes she did.  She boasted she was one of the first to perform same-sex marriage, he said before showing a clip of Harris performing a wedding for two lesbians.

Now that  is who is supposed to deliver us? Are you crazy? I like what Maya Angelou says. She says when people show you who they are, believe them. Thats Kamala. And let me tell you, anybody whos trying to turn America into Sodom and Gomorrah is not good for this nation. Shes not good for the state and she aint good for black folk. ... We need real people, he said.

Rush Limbaugh is not the only one calling out Kamala



Black Pastor exposes Kamala after she locked up THOUSANDS of black men for weed & extended their sentences so they could be used for cheap labor.

Plse Share this video is being censored by YouTube & Facebook pic.twitter.com/FyDcU5th5B  Melissa Tate (@TheRightMelissa) August 17, 2020

Wooden also slammed Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force as a backslidden Catholic and self-professed humanist who is being used as a political tool by the left.

Humanists do not believe in prayer, humanists do not believe that God intervenes, humanists do not believe that we need help from the Lord at all. That may be one of the reasons he could easily recommend that churches be closed, but he fumbled and waffled when they suggested perhaps the protests should be curtailed because they spread the virus, he asserted.

He told congregants that while he believes that the coronavirus pandemic is real, he thinks it is being exploited in order to keep people depressed and vulnerable so they can be easily manipulated in accepting the Marxist agenda of liberals.

It appears their goal is to keep us in fear until after the election.  The truth is, after the election, the coverage will change. Now the virus may not change, but the coverage on the virus will change, he said.

These people have an agenda. And their agenda, one of the things is to get rid of the Church; to have abortion on demand; to the promotion of all things LBGTQ, he said. They want to bring in socialism and Marxism  forms of government that teach that God is not the deliverer and that our rights do not come from God, but that government is God. And that we must serve the state. It is Antichrist. Thats whats behind keeping all this stuff going.

He also said that Black Lives Matter was being funded by billionaire investor George Soros and suggested that liberals dont really care about the flourishing of the black community.

Hes been giving Black Lives Matter millions of dollars. Any black businesses seen all that money? he asked doubtfully.

Any of the black communities seen all that money, any black kid trying to go to college?  If you read what they say therefore, they dont mention the black male one time. They are not for the black male, and you cant have a black community without the black male. ... This is the spirit of the Antichrist and I will not allow the devil to break my mind, he declared.

He also criticized Biden for eulogizing now deceased former Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who was once active in the KKK. He then noted that President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act into law to improve criminal justice outcomes, as well as to reduce the size of the federal prison population while creating mechanisms to maintain public safety.

Trump passed legislation and I did an op-ed on it to help black folk get out of jail. ... She (Harris) put us in jail, Wooden said.
1. Yes. Too many kids are staying home. They need a virtual learning option to keep up.

2. Yes. Teachers are out sick and subs cant handle the load. Online learning is needed.

3. No. Its too late in the school year to make a wholesale switch in teaching platforms.

4.No. Many parents arent in a position to stay home while their kids learn virtually.

5. Unsure. It may seem like a good idea from a health standpoint, but it has shortcomings.

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Many of the schemes detected by the task force incorporate fear and anxiety into their pitches by promoting safe returns independent of the stock market and the economy. Others offer unrealistically and guaranteed high rates of return. Many promoters refer to returns as passive income or cash flow and promise to pay it on a monthly basis, which may appeal to unemployed retail investors or victims who are or may be negatively impacted by changes in the economy.

Common schemes also often exploit trendy assets such as crypto currencies or mysterious programs involving forex trading. These types of products may sound appealing, but they also are the types of products unfamiliar to inexperienced retail investors, said Borg.

There are several ways investors can protect themselves from fraud, for example:

1. Before sending any money make sure the person offering the investment, and the investment itself, is properly licensed or registered. You can check easily by contacting the ASC at 1-800-222-1253.

2. Dont fall for claims of guaranteed returns. All investing involves risk, and no one can guarantee a return.

3. Dont fall for unreasonably high rates of return.

The ASC is Alabamas state government securities regulatory agency. The mission of the ASC is to protect Alabamians from investment fraud and preserve legitimate capital markets in Alabama. To access investor education materials or request a virtual presentation visit the ASC website.
The 2 countries agree to resolve all outstanding issues in an expeditious manner, New Delhi says, after border talks.

India and China have agreed to resolve all outstanding problems in an expeditious manner and in accordance with the existing protocols, New Delhi said on Thursday after border talks between the two Asian giants.

The two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector, Indias foreign ministry said in a statement.

The two countries have deployed thousands of troops across their 3,500km (2,200-mile) disputed frontier since late April after Chinese troops entered into territories that New Delhi claims its own. China denies it has transgressed the LAC  the de facto border between the two countries.

Tensions have flared since June 15, when at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in Galwan Valley located in Indian-administered Ladakh (in the Western sector) in the deadliest violence in more than 40 years.

In the meeting of the India-China Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) the officials agreed on the restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

Candid exchange of views

The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the existing situation in border areas, said spokesman Anurag Srivastava in a statement.

A satellite image taken over Galwan Valley in Ladakh parts of which are contested with China [Planet Labs Inc via Reuters]

They reaffirmed that in accordance with the agreements reached between the two Foreign Ministers and the two Special Representatives, the two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector, said the statement.

MEAs Srivastava last week said New Delhi was looking forward to work jointly for complete disengagement of troops at the LAC.

The Chinese embassy in New Delhi in a statement said the two sides agreed to cool down the border situation and jointly maintain peace and tranquility at the contested border.

On August 11, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said maintaining bilateral ties with New Delhi was his countrys priority.

For the China-India relationship, the two sides should jointly safeguard peace and security in the border areas and maintain a steady and sound development of bilateral ties, Zhao was quoted as saying by Indias PTI news service.

Long-standing border issues

The two Asian rivals have already held about a dozen rounds of talks, including at the military level, to soothe tension, but analysts say the meetings so far have not borne fruit as China has refused to pull back its troops to the pre-April position and cut down on border reinforcement. Analysts in India say the Chinese continues to occupy border areas perceived by India as its own territory.

The two countries have long-standing border issues, with Beijing claiming territory in Indias northeast, while New Delhi accuses Beijing of occupying its territory in the Aksai Chin plateau in the Himalayas, including part of the Ladakh region.

Experts say Indias stripping of the disputed Kashmir region  which lies between India, Pakistan and China  of its autonomy a year ago exacerbated existing tensions with China and culminated in the deadliest clash between the Asian giants in more 45 years.

New Delhi also downgraded Indian-administered Kashmir to a federal territory, and clamped down on dissent. India also carved out Ladakh as a separate federal territory.

China saw this as a unilateral move that threatened its territorial sovereignty and condemned it at the United Nations.
Summer intern Austin Frick works at his desk Wednesday at the Community Learning Center. He completes his internship today and will start classes next week for his senior year at the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne.
The nectar of New Mexico apples is captured in the latest release by New Mexico Hard Cider.

The cidery turned thousands of pounds of apples from El Rancho de las Golondrinas into cider. New Mexico Hard Cider owner and cider maker Craig Moya approached El Rancho de las Golondrinas after participating in a number of festivals at the living history museum south of Santa Fe. Moya began pruning apple trees on the museum grounds about four years ago to restore the orchards little by little. His hard work paid off.

We got our first harvest and did a cider two years ago, Moya said. And then last year we harvested about 12,000 pounds, and so we pressed about 400-500 gallons from that for this year. This year, right now, I released five flavors out of that batch, and then on the flip side, were donating back a percentage of each pint, growler and crowler that we sell back to the museum.

The New Mexico Hard Cider crew picked six varieties of apples from the museums orchards. Moya allowed a wild ferment to happen. He allowed the wild yeast to ferment for three to four days to give it the extra character with a little bit of funk for a farmhouse-style cider. He added a champagne yeast to kill the wild yeast to keep the flavor from being too funky.

It actually came out really nice, like, really bright, Moya said. (Its) a really bright cider with, like, hints of that little bit of funk that you want that, you know, its a fresh-pressed cider, because a lot of ciders made now are all concentrate. So they are all reconstituted and kind of lack that intensity you would get from a natural wild ferment.

The other ciders range from dry to tart to slightly sweet.

I did a dry, which is fully fermented, Moya said. Basically, theres just a little bit of residual sugar, unfermentable sugar from the apples that light it up, and then I have semisweet, which we back-sweetened lightly with the apple juice just to bring out the notes and aroma and character. And then I did a tart cherry cider, and that one is a semisweet cider with the tart cherry flavor just to bring out the extra tartness in those apples. My last cider, I did a strawberry cider, and that added that subtle sweetness to that farmhouse-style cider, so its a little bit for everybody.

The cider-making process is longer because Moya doesnt filter the cider.

This cider is about almost a year, he said. Its almost about 11 months right now. The fermentation process is in the winter, basically, so its about 2-3 weeks fermentation process, and then we aged it on the apple skins to give it that extra little bit of flavor and basically let it sit on that for, its been about 10-11 months now. So now the cider is super-clear, super-refined, and then you didnt send it through a filter, so it still retains the flavors that you really want to come out in it.

The Las Golondrinas ciders can be purchased only at the New Mexico Hard Cider Taproom, 505 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe. Patrons can buy 16-ounce crowlers or 64-ounce growlers of the cider.

Moya plans to change the flavors of the cider throughout the summer.

I want to do some cool herbed kind of stuff that goes with the Las Golondrinas theme, like local herbs and spices and kind of play around with it, he said. We basically have an inline flavor infuser at the taproom so we can kind of pack with whatever we want and just run the cider out of the keg and flavor it that way as well so we can change it up daily.
The disastrous wildfires blackening hundreds of thousands of acres in the Bay Area and around Northern California are threatening one of the states most cherished natural treasures  old-growth redwood trees.

The massive infernos raging north and south of San Francisco burned through Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County and on Friday threatened Armstrong State Natural Reserve in Sonoma County.

The two parks are home to some of the last remaining groves of ancient coast redwoods in the South and North bays and, even though old-growth trees are extremely fire-resistant, many of the giant trees and their younger cousins may be in danger as the fires continue to burn out of control, authorities say.

The CZU August Lightning Complex fires destroyed the Big Basin park headquarters and scorched most of the giant redwoods in the grove, which was established in 1902, and is the oldest and largest preserved old-growth forest south of San Francisco.

Now Playing: Chronicle photojournalist Gabrielle Lurie captures the smoke from California State Route 1 on Thursday, August 20. The CZU August Lightning Complex fires have burned about 50,000 acres, 0% containment as of Friday afternoon, Aug. 21, 2020. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Sam Hodder, president of the conservation group Save the Redwoods League, said the fire engulfed the historic visitors center, gift shop and nature museum. Those structures acted like kindling for the fire, which then raced through the Big Basin grove.

Weve not been in the parks to be able to quantify the damage to the forest itself, but we know that nearly all of the structures in Big Basin have been burned, Hodder said. Certainly there has been an impact.

In the North Bay, the fast-moving LNU Lightning Complex burned into the Austin Creek State Recreation Area and looked ready Friday to engulf the Armstrong reserve.

The 805-acre grove, which features the 1,400-year-old Colonel Armstrong Tree and the 310-foot-tall Parson Jones Tree, was facing possible destruction because fire officials decided Thursday they did not have enough resources to protect it while also saving peoples lives and property.

Michele Luna, executive director of Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, learned Friday morning that flames were on both the east and west sides of the state reserve but hadnt yet burned any trees.

The fire is still in the area, (so) it is not out of the woods, said Luna, whose headquarters are inside the reserve, which has historic buildings, a visitors center and a forest theater built during the Great Depression. Weve evacuated what we could. Were hoping for the best.

Luna said the park superintendent told her the fire destroyed at least one adjacent home and some outbuildings, and burned into a campground and woods inside the Austin Creek recreation area, which is adjacent to Armstrong Redwoods.

Whatever happens, it is unlikely many old-growth trees will be killed by the fires. Thats because the trees, with their thick bark, tremendous girth and high canopy, have adapted to fire over millions of years and can live through all but the most intense fires.

We have seen old-growth trees blackened by fire come back the next year full of life, Hodder said, noting the large fire scars that visitors may see on many old-growth trees. So we are hopeful that they will not only survive but thrive through these fires.

The concern is less about the old-growth than the second-growth and third-growth trees, the conifers that grew up after the originals were cut down starting in the 19th century. Ecologists believe the reconstruction of Californias once-mighty forest ecosystem is dependent on the regrowth of the previously logged giants, which make up 95% of the redwood acreage across the state.

These trees are much more susceptible to fire, Hodder said.

But as the climate has warmed and wildfires have gotten bigger and hotter, even the ancient trees have shown some vulnerability, he said.

Recent wildfires burned so hot that they killed both old-growth giant sequoias and coast redwoods. One fire, in the southern Sierra, left several trees blackened, including the charred corpse of a giant sequoia that was 14 feet wide and 213 feet tall.

The groves in Santa Cruz and Sonoma counties attract visitors from around the world to see the ancient trees, some of which predate the Roman Empire and are as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

As helicopters dropped water from above Friday afternoon, fire trucks raced up and down Armstrong Woods Road just outside the redwood reserve. The gray-brown smoke from the fire, which was burning on a ridge northwest of the entrance to the grove, thickened as the afternoon wore on, blanketing the valley full of old growth in a thick haze.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

No trees appeared to be burning near the entrance, where police turned away cars, but Luna said the fire appeared to be moving on the western side of the grove. If it entered there, she said, it would have a clear path into Guerneville, which is still recovering from a devastating winter flood in 2019. The town is only 2.2 miles from the reserve.

Firefighters are desperately trying to stop the fire before it reaches Guerneville or Rio Nido or jumps the Russian River, where flames would then have free rein across miles of overgrown woodlands.

Hodder said the recently preserved Harold Richardson Redwoods Reserve, a 738-acre grove that is larger than Muir Woods and has 47% more old-growth trees, is also in the path of the fire. He said the fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains is also threatening other old-growth redwoods, including groves in Ano Nuevo, Portola Redwoods, Castle Rock and Butano state parks.

They arent the only natural preserves and groves facing flames after 11,000 lightning strikes in Northern California ignited 367 fires. Lake Berryessa and 20 other parks and preserves have been closed by fire activity, smoke or dangerous fire conditions.

Hodder praised the firefighters for choosing to save lives, and expressed belief that the forests will survive.

Even as we have brought them to their most vulnerable, with climate change and nearly 200 years of clear cutting, we hope that that natural resilience in the forest carries through, he said.

But, in the end, he said, there needs to be a reckoning.

When we can take a breath, there is a conversation we need to have about how we respond to this as a state, Hodder said, to restore Californias forest land, build fire resilience and grow back the old-growth forests that weve lost.

Chronicle staff photographer Jessica Christian contributed to this story.

Peter Fimrite and Chase DiFeliciantonio are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @ChaseDiFelice
Member of the pro-democracy political organization Demosisto and disqualified lawmaker Nathan Law speaks to reporters in Hong Kong on June 19, 2020. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

Hong Kong Activists Call for Sanctions Wins Support in UK Parliament

A pro-democracy activists call for sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials has been supported by British lawmakers from across the political spectrum.

Nathan Law, a former Hong Kong legislator and pro-democracy activist currently living in exile in London, wrote to British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Friday, urging him to impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other Hong Kong and Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses in the former British colony.

Secretary of State for Foreign affairs Dominic Raab leaves 10 Downing Street on April 9, 2020. (Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

As a party to the legally binding Sino British Joint Declaration, the United Kingdom holds a unique position in advocating for Hong Kong, Law wrote in the letter, which was released via NGO Hong Kong Watch.

I earnestly hope that the UK government would take the important step to sanction Ms. Carrie Lam and other officials involved, so to send a clear signalnot just to Beijing, but also to other countries in the free world that we ought to stand firm against an oppressive regime which disrespects both their citizens rights and the international norms.

Please safeguard our shared belief in freedom and human rights as well as the pursuit of democracy in Hong Kong. Please stand with Hong Kong, he urged.

Protesters hold up blank papers during a demonstration in a mall in Hong Kong, on July 6, 2020. Hongkongers are finding creative ways to voice dissent as police began making arrests for people displaying now forbidden political slogans. (Billy H.C. Kwok/Getty Images)

Laws letter is supported by a cross-party group of 19 British lawmakers from both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, who issued a separate letter to the foreign secretary.

We stand with Nathan in this appeal, and hope that you will too and that the United Kingdom will apply targeted sanctions to individuals responsible for the dramatic erosion of Hong Kongs freedoms, autonomy and the rule of law, they said in the letter.

We also urge you to apply such sanctions to officials responsible for atrocity crimes against the Uyghurs and others in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) as well, they said.

A riot police officer (2L) points at a woman (C) laying down after being searched during a demonstration in a mall in Hong Kong on July 6, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

Signatories to the letter include former Conservative Party Leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael, and the former Green Party leader Baroness Bennett.

The Trump administration on Aug. 7 sanctioned Carrie Lam and 10 other Hong Kong and Chinese officials for undermining the citys autonomy and freedoms.

UK lawmakers have repeatedly called on Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government to follow suit. Earlier this month, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong called for urgent sanctions on Lam and the Hong Kong police commissioner for permitting the excessive police violence against protesters.

Cathy He and Eva Fu contributed to this report.
Medical tests on Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny have found no traces of poisoning, Russian doctors said Friday, before they later agreed that he could be transferred to Germany for treatment.

Navalny, 44, remains in a coma in a hospital in the city of Omsk in Siberia after his supporters say he was poisoned.

Having initially said that he was in too unstable a state to be safely transported out of the country, Russian doctors said Friday afternoon that they would not object to him being moved after a German medical team was granted access to Navalny and said they thought he was fit to travel.

The German doctors flew in on Thursday at the request of Navalny's wife Yulia and supporters who said they feared authorities might try to cover up clues as to how he fell ill. They also claimed the hospital treating Navalny was badly equipped.

On Friday morning, Yulia appealed to the Kremlin directly, asking it to intervene and grant permission for her husband to be allowed to fly out.

She published a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on social media, requesting that he allow her husband to be transported to Germany, where the Cinema for Peace Foundation, a Berlin based nonprofit, said it would facilitate his medical care.

Her request came after doctors at the hospital in Omsk insisted that Navalny had not been poisoned.

"Poisoning as a diagnosis remains on the back burner, but we don't believe that the patient suffered from poisoning," deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko told reporters Friday.

Alexander Murakhovsky, head doctor at the hospital, later said Navalny had been diagnosed with a metabolic disease that may have been caused by low blood sugar, adding that traces of industrial chemical substances had been found on his clothes and fingers.

The 44-year-old lawyer fell ill on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk.

Story continues

A prominent member of Russia's opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. He has frequently been detained by law enforcement and in 2017 was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic on his face, damaging his eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him the following day.

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The Cinema for Peace Foundation said Thursday that Berlin's Charite hospital was ready to treat him.

Allies of the stricken Navalny had earlier accused the Kremlin of thwarting his evacuation, saying the decision placed his life in mortal danger because the Siberian hospital treating him was under-equipped.

"The ban on transporting Navalny is an attempt on his life being carried out right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities that have authorized it," his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.

"This decision, of course, was not made by them, but by the Kremlin," she added.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that an investigation would be launched if it turned out Navalny was indeed poisoned, according to the state-run TASS news agency.

Image: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny addresses supporters during an unauthorized anti-Putin rally in Moscow. (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP - Getty Images file)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russia to "clear up" the circumstances of Navalny's illness, quickly and transparently. She spoke Thursday alongside French President Emmanuel Macron who added that France was ready to give Navalny all necessary assistance, including asylum, and would closely follow the investigations.

The White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien also said Thursday the suspected poisoning was very concerning and could affect U.S.-Russia relations.

"He is a very courageous politician to have stood up to Putin inside Russia, and our thoughts and our prayers are with him and his family," O'Brien said in an interview on Fox News.

"It's extraordinarily concerning and if the Russians were behind this ... it's something that we're going to factor into how we deal with the Russians going forward," he added.

Navalny spent time in the United States on a fellowship at Yale University, something pro-Kremlin critics have seized on as evidence that he is a foreign agent.

A small group of Navalny's supporters gathered outside his hospital Friday, demanding his medical evacuation.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Goodyear is offering a clarification of its policy on employees' support for political candidates as President Trump calls for a boycott.

Trump in a tweet on Wednesday urged his supporters to not buy Goodyear tires because, he wrote, "They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS." He was referring to a report showing an image of what appeared to be a Goodyear training slide in Topeka, Kansas, listing "MAGA attire," "Blue Lives Matter," and politically-affiliated material as "unacceptable" at work, while "Black Lives Matter" and "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender pride" was listed as "acceptable."

Goodyear in a statement on Wednesday said that this image "was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate, nor was it part of a diversity training class." The company's policy, it explained, is that employees are asked "not to engage in political campaigning of any kind in the workplace," and it discourages "forms of advocacy" at work "that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues."

In reference to the presence of Blue Lives Matter on the "unacceptable" list in the viral image, Goodyear addressed beliefs the company is "anti-police." "Nothing could be further from the truth," the statement said, "and we have the upmost [sic] appreciation for the vital work police do on behalf of our shared communities."

The company's statement didn't respond directly to Trump's call for a boycott, but shortly after the president posted his tweet, Goodyear's stock fell three percent. CNN notes the irony of the president going after Goodyear after previously railing against "cancel culture" and takes note of the fact that Goodyear, according to a 2009 statement from the company, is "the exclusive tire for the presidential limo and the standard tire of the U.S. Secret Service."

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It has been a norm for years now. Young Kashmiri boys would disappear one day, turn to social media within hours, pose with an assault rifle, whisper a brief prayer and sign up for militancy. But it seems militants have now taken their propaganda efforts to the next level by releasing a video of a real shootout with security forces.

Two days after a gruelling encounter in Kreeri near Baramulla in which five security men and three militants were killed, militants have circulated a video on internet where they are evidently showing their guerrilla prowess.

Peoples Anti-Fascist Front (PAAF), a new outfit which Jammu and Kashmir Police believes is a front for Lashkar-e-Toiba, has released the actual shootout video of the attack.

The video, purportedly shot by one of three militants who are part of the attack, shows them waiting to carry out a 'hit-and-run' ambush in an orchard that apparently gives them access to the movement of security patrol.

The three slyly emerge from behind the apple trees and fire continuously on the security forces. They keep on firing till they hit a pucca road where a security vehicle is positioned. While two militants are firing continuously, the third, it seems, is providing cover fire from behind. On one occasion, he is seen fitting a fresh magazine. The video has now gone viral on social networking sites.

Edited with bits of music, devotional song and special effects that introduce the outfit and three attackers, the five-minute clip shows two CRPF men shot in the head and killed on spot. But it is unclear what happens near the security vehicle where the trio and paramilitary men trade fire. The ambush ends when a militant shouts out to his colleague in Kashmiri saying 'thavo', meaning stop.

Responding to the video, police said that it killed all the militants involved in the Baramulla attack within 72 hours.

Police tweeted "By releasing video of attack, militants want to glamourise militancy. But they cant. We replied by actions & killed 04 top commanders, Sajjad @ Haider & FT Taimur Khan @ Abu Usman (seen in said video/attack) & Naseer @ Sad bhai & FT Ali bhai @ Danish within 72 hours, the tweet ends".

By releasing video of attack, #terrorists want to glamourise #terrorism. But they cant. We replied by actions & killed 04 top cmdrs, Sajjad @ Haider & FT Taimur Khan @ Abu Usman (seen in said video/attack) & Naseer @ Sad bhai & FT Ali bhai @ Danish within 72 hours.@JmuKmrPolice Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice) August 21, 2020

While young recruits have been using social media to announce entry into militant outfits over the last 10 years, similar shootout feeds have been released on internet once or twice before.

But it is for the first time that body cameras  like the GoPro - have been used to film an actual gunfight. The last time footage of militant attack on Indian forces became viral was in 2013. A local militant commander named Irshad Gania and his associate carried out an attack on the Army in Hyderpora bypass near Srinagar.

At least 8 Indian soldiers were killed by 2 Kashmiri militants affiliated with LeT. Gania was killed months after the attack in an encounter with police and Army.

A feed of militants attacking a CRPF bus in Pampore, 14 km from Srinagar, also went viral few years back. Two militants were seen firing at the bus and then one of them mounted on a roadside bump and fired volleys of AK fire inside the bus.

The new-age militancy as it came to be known was birthed by Burhan Wani, the militant commander of Hizbul Mujahideen. He was the one who glamourised militancy by using the social media platforms from 2010 onwards.

Wani ensured acts like militant walking in orchards, saying a prayer in jungles, training and congratulating young recruits were filmed and pushed on social media. This 'popularisation' of militancy on mobile screens ensured a steady flow of recruitment in that era.

The recruitment numbers have only fluctuated and not gone drastically down after his killing in an encounter in 2016. This year, police claims the figures have shown a decrease.
While that was happening, the officer noticed the puppy was panting and crying. The windows on the SUV were open slightly, so he gained access to the vehicle and rescued the dog. The dog was placed in the air-conditioned squad car and given water. When the owners came out of the store, police had been on the scene for 30 minutes, according to the report. The owners said they were only in the store for a little while and were buying supplies for the new puppy. They said the did not hear the pages.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Supreme Court allows prayers in 3 Jain temples in Mumbai amid Covid-19, cites Rath Yatra example

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed limited entry of devotees to three Jain temples in Mumbais Dadar, Chembur and Byculla on August 22 and 23 (Saturday and Sunday) to offer prayers on the occasion of Paryushan festival. Read more

Mumbai, neighbouring areas likely to receive heavy to very heavy rains in next 24 hours: IMD

Mumbai and neighbouring districts of Thane, Raighar and Palghar are likely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next 24 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday. An orange warning has been issued for the Vidarbha region for the next 48 hours, Deputy Director General of the IMD (Mumbai), KS Hosalikar, said. Read more

UP doctor feted for saving Indian Army officers life

In a rare gesture of gratitude, the mother of a colonel in the Indian Army honoured chest specialist Dr Anil Kapoor in an event organised at the Indian Medical Associations (IMA) hall in Uttar Pradeshs Meerut on Thursday for saving the life of her son who was seriously injured in a road mishap recently. Read more

Amazon removes shirts with derogatory references to Kamala Harris

Online retail giant Amazon has removed shirts from its platform that featured derogatory references to Kamala Harris, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee. Read more

Pooja Bhatt gets death threats, makes Instagram account private: People hurl abuses and goad you to go die

Actor and filmmaker Pooja Bhatt has made her Instagram account private after receiving death and rape threats on social media. She says that if her fans wish to know what is happening in her life, they can send her follow requests.Read more

Lego launches bricks with Braille for children

Danish toymaker Lego is launching a new version of its iconic plastic bricks featuring Braille for the visually-impaired across seven countries. The bricks will have the same shape as the regular Lego bricks, but the studs on top are rearranged. Read more

The one in which Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox played pool and gave us major Friends flashbacks

If youre a Friends fan (who isnt), you probably remember how competitive Monica got during any game. Well, this video shared by both Courteney Cox, who played the character of Monica on the legendary series, and Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel in it, is giving people similar Friends flashbacks. Read more

IPL 2020: Delhi Capitals announces JSW Group as teams principal sponsor for upcoming season

Indian Premier League franchise Delhi Capitals on Friday announced JSW Group as the teams Principal Sponsor for the upcoming season of the IPL to be held in UAE between September to November 2020. JSW Group comes in place of Daikin Air-Conditioning who had been the Delhi franchises Principal Sponsors since 2015. Read more

Watch: Emmanuel Macron greets Angela Merkel with Namaste amid Covid crisis
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.
Twenty-nine witnesses are expected to provide statements to police in the criminal case against two midwives charged with the alleged manslaughter by negligence of a Melbourne mother after a home birth in 2012.

Melody Ballanda Bourne, 43, from Mullumbimby in NSW, and Gaye Marion Demanuele, 59, from Preston in Melbourne's north, fronted Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link for the first time on Friday, after being charged over the death of Caroline Lovell, 36, at her Watsonia home on January 23, 2012.

Caroline Lovell, who had two children, worked as a photographer and massage therapist.

The court heard the two accused women's statements to police, used in an earlier coronial inquest into Ms Lovell's death, would need to be amended.

Magistrate Jack Vandersteen was told the statements on file were "not sufficient for criminal proceedings".
General Electric has signed two agreements with Iraqs Electricity Ministry. The deals with the US conglomerate could help resolve some of Iraqs chronic electricity problems and came shortly before Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited the White House.

Under the agreements, which are worth more than $1.2 billion, GE will perform maintenance work on Iraqi power plants and bolster the country's transmission network, Reuters reported Wednesday.

There were other deals between US companies and Iraq announced Wednesday as Iraqi leaders visited Washington, including an agreement with the American energy giant Chevron involving exploration of the Nasiriya oil field in the south.

Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein held a press conference with US Secretary of State of Mike Pompeo on Wednesday. Today, Kadhimi met with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Iraqs leader praised the contracts his government inked with US companies.

Iraq is open for American business and investment and for a better future for Iraq and Iraqi people, said Kadhimi, according to the White House transcript .

Relations between the United States and Iraq fell to a low following the US airstrike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January. Pro-Iran militias had attacked the US Embassy in the Iraqi capital days earlier and these groups are suspected of attacking US military targets in the country since.

Ties have improved somewhat since Kadhimi came to office in May. In June, Kadhimi began a dialogue with the United States on the status of US forces in Iraq. The US military is in Iraq as part of the global coalition fighting the Islamic State.

There are daily power cuts for several hours a day across Iraq, making people rely on generators. The outages are particularly an issue in the summer. Baghdad recorded an all-time high temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 52 Celsius) in July.
As millions of Americans lost their jobs and fell sick with the coronavirus this summer, hospitals in some of the hardest-hit states were getting back to the business of suing their patients.

Why it matters: The Americans least likely to be able to pay their medical bills are the same people who are vulnerable to the virus and its economic fallout.

The big picture: Almost all of the roughly two dozen Community Health Systems hospitals in Florida, Texas and Arizona have sued patients since the pandemic began. Many paused or slowed down in the spring, but then resumed business as usual over the summer  when these states were being hit hardest.

These hospitals have filed dozens  sometimes hundreds  of cases per county between Jan. 1 and Aug. 14 of this year, according to Axios review of court records in the counties that make them available online.

A random sampling of those lawsuits show that hospitals have sued to collect medical bills ranging from less than $1,000 to, in one case, $125,999.53.

Case in point: In June, the Western Arizona Regional Medical Center filed a lawsuit against Blair Smiley  for the third time in two years. She thought the hospital was only pursuing one lawsuit against her until she spoke with me on the phone.

Smiley isnt sure what medical care the latest lawsuit involves, or how much the hospital is suing for. She suspects it might stem from taking her daughter to the hospital twice last year when she was uninsured. Her daughter, who just turned 10, now uses a feeding tube.

Smiley works for a funeral home, and her husband is a disabled veteran. She said her hours have been reduced, partially because of pandemic-related limits on funerals, and she doesnt make enough to pay off her medical bills. She tried to figure out a payment plan with a debt collector, but couldnt afford that rate, either.

In another case, Lake Granbury Medical Center, a hospital located near Fort Worth, Texas, is suing a patient, Richard Piper, for nearly $35,000, plus court fees, attorneys fees and interest.

I am [writing] this response to inform you of my inability to [pay] this outstanding medical Debt, I only bring home a check of 525 dollars a week and [am] helping two daughters with my grandkids, Piper wrote earlier this month in a letter to the judge in the case.

He added that he was in the hospital for 4 or 5 days. When I went to the hospital I told them I had no insurance and I could not afford it, every day I asked to leave and was told no...When I was discharged, I asked for some kind of relief to help pay this[,] and was not given an option.

Piper said in an interview that his daughter lost her job during the pandemic, and that his hours at work have been cut "way back." He also thinks the prices charged by the hospital are outrageous. If I had money, and I could afford a lawyer, I would countersue the hospital for price gouging," he said. "When they want to charge you $19 for a band-aid, thats ridiculous.

Where it stands: Hospitals aggressive legal actions against former patients was already deeply controversial before the pandemic  before millions of people lost their jobs, and in many cases their health insurance at the same time, or had their wages cut.

The other side: It is the strong preference of our affiliated hospitals to work directly with patients to resolve their bills, and financial assistance programs are available. Legal action is always the last avenue considered, and it is only considered after evaluating a patients ability to pay, CHS said in a statement.

Our affiliated hospitals offer resources to help patients understand their financial responsibilities and the support available to pay their bill, such as charity care, discounts and flexible payment plans Sometimes legal action is the only path through which patients will engage in a conversation about the amount they owe for healthcare services that have already been provided.

Individuals who are currently a defendant in a collection suit and who have had a change in their financial status due to COVID-19 are urged to call 866-450-0044.

The bottom line: The health systems pre-pandemic issues havent gone away, and in some ways, theyve only gotten bigger.
Ron Bel Bruno had at least 27 years of experience with internet dating, he said, when he encountered Dr. Edward Goldberg online in September 2016.

Both were on Fire Island at the time, though Dr. Goldberg (left), an internist and gastroenterologist in private practice in New York, was on call at a local clinic, so was on a sort of busmans holiday. Unfortunately  maybe fortunately, the couple later decided  a tropical storm got in the way of their meeting up.

So, instead, just a few days after they found each other on Grindr, a gay dating app, they met for the first time at a Turkish restaurant in New York.

It was instant. It was instant. It was instant, Dr. Goldberg said.

Mr. Bel Bruno, now 56, said he had become jaded by the kind of dead-end dates he had found through social media, so had vetted Dr. Goldberg, now 58, for potential by talking to him as a human being rather than just saying the stock, cliche phrases.
The man who printed the fake RCMP decals used by the gunman during April's mass killing in Nova Scotia is back in prison and could be facing charges for his role in helping outfit the mock cruiser, according to Parole Board of Canada documents.

Peter Alan Griffon, 40, was convicted of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking in 2017, but was paroled the following year.

He was living in Portapique, N.S., and working at a sign shop in nearby Truro, N.S., in 2019 when he produced the stripes and RCMP logo that were later placed on the vehicle Gabriel Wortman used to masquerade as a Mountie.

The denturist killed 22 people and torched homes and vehicles over a 13-hour period on April 18-19. The rampage started in the small community of Portapique and ended when police shot and killed Wortman at a gas station in Enfield, N.S.

Police interviewed Griffon about the mass shootings in April and he initially told his parole officer that he didn't know anything that would be relevant to the case and denied making the decals, according to the parole board decision.

"You would later advise your parole officer that you had misled police and lied outright to your parole officer when first contacted and queried about knowledge of the shooting suspect," the decision states.

CBC

After RCMP searched the sign shop where Griffon worked, investigators determined he printed the decals without his employer's permission in 2019. The parole records characterize the production of the decals as "workplace theft" and said police also found a photo of them on Griffon's phone.

The July 15 Parole Board of Canada decision, which was released this week, states that "charges are being contemplated, be they theft and or obstruction of a police investigation."

'Convinced he wasn't aware'

This appears to contradict statements RCMP have made previously about Griffon. In an interview with CBC News in June, RCMP Supt. Darren Campbell described him as "co-operative."

Story continues

Campbell said investigators didn't consider the act of printing the decals themselves criminal, beyond there potentially being copyright infringement issues.

"He's obviously someone we have discussed at length and we're convinced he wasn't aware of any type of plan that the gunman had," he said in that June interview.

CBC asked the RCMP for comment, but no one from the force was immediately available to comment Friday afternoon.

Griffon linked to organized crime

On May 5, three days after RCMP searched the sign shop, Corrections Canada suspended Griffon's parole and took him back into custody. As a result, the parole board reviewed his case and took into consideration the recommendation by Griffon's case management team that his parole be revoked because they believed his actions amounted to reoffending.

In a video hearing, the parole board also considered his criminal past. He landed on police radar in Edmonton in 2014 when they were investigating the La Familia gang, which has ties to Mexican drug cartels.

Police pulled Griffon over and seized 800 grams of cocaine, multiple cellphones, a hard drive and cash. They determined he lived in a warehouse. There, they found an additional $30,000 in cash, four kilograms of cocaine, guns and ammunition.

Worked for gunman doing cash jobs

Though Griffon maintained he wasn't linked to drug cartels and had only been selling for a year to support his own addiction, the parole board said to Griffon that "the amount of drugs trafficked and the cash seized clearly suggests that you were a central player in the operation police brought down."

When he went back to Nova Scotia, which was in violation of his bail conditions, the documents from the parole board show that Griffon pleaded ignorance since he thought he was allowed to go home for Christmas  he was arrested in Nova Scotia in March 2015.

Ultimately, he was sentenced to six years and four months in 2017, but given credit for time served.

RCMP

After being granted full parole in 2018, Griffon had been living with his parents, who own a property on Faris Lane, not far from Wortman's cottage on Portapique Beach Road.

During his parole review after being taken back to prison, Griffon told board members that he did work for cash on Wortman's properties and he described his neighbour as "hobbyist."

The board ultimately concluded that Griffon's actions showed a pattern of "a lack of transparency, poor decision-making and minimization."

"The consequences of your most recent flawed decision-making contributed to a horrific end that touched every life in your province," the decision said, noting that Griffon and his family lost friends and family in the tragedy.

Griffon is continuing what's left of his sentence and was ordered to stay away from anyone involved in criminal activity, refrain from using drugs and disclose his finances to his parole supervisor after his federal sentence has finished.

MORE TOP STORIES
Oregon students, from kindergarteners to high school seniors, will not see the inside of a classroom or receive in-person instruction unless the state can substantially curb the spread of COVID-19, Gov. Kate Brown said Friday morning.

The state has essentially flattened the rate of infection and test positivity, but Brown said Oregon has yet to begin trending downward  as of the latest Oregon Health Authority update, 5.4% of tests are coming back positive and the state is seeing an infection rate of 50 per 100,000 residents.

Unfortunately, its still not enough. Our infection rate is still too high to get our kids safely back into the classrooms in most of our schools this fall, Brown said.

In order for schools to reopen statewide, test positivity must be at 5% or lower and 10 cases per 100,000 residents or lower, state officials say. The governor, flanked by Oregon Health Authority Director Pat Allen and state epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger, used those metrics as a measuring stick to illustrate Oregons progress in curbing the spread of COVID-19.

We have stabilized at roughly 300 cases per day in Oregon. We need to get down to 60 cases per day, Brown said.

At the rate cases are currently declining, Brown said it would take more than 200 days for all of Oregon to meet school reopening metrics. And to that end, the governor said the state has two paths to consider.

Either Oregonians  specifically those who have downplayed the viruss effects and the severity of its spread  can more strictly adhere to social distancing guidelines and opt to wear masks, or Brown will hand down a new statewide order to shutter bars and restaurants.

There have been law enforcement officials, there have been elected officials, that have been lackadaisical in complying with public safety protocols, Brown said.

School district officials across the state have spent the summer cobbling together reopening plans amid what some superintendents and parents describe as a whiplash-inducing series of changes handed down from the Oregon Department of Education.

The agency earlier this month released county-specific metrics that would allow smaller districts to green-light in-person instruction even if the state at large doesnt qualify.

For districts with fewer than 76 students, for example, officials may consider in-person instruction if their catchment area does not see a single case. Neighboring communities where childrens families live, work or shop must also not see a spread of the virus in the three prior weeks.

In counties where population density is equal to or less than six residents per square mile, districts may work with local health officials to plot a reopening plan if there are 30 or fewer cases per 100,000 residents if fewer than half of those cases come the week before students enter classrooms.

According to the most recent data provided by the Oregon Health Authority, Wheeler County would qualify for in-person instruction, with Gilliam County close behind if this weeks infection rates either match or fall below last weeks.

The health authoritys data is current through last week.

And in counties with total populations of 30,000 or fewer, education and health officials may consider school reopenings if they see 30 or fewer coronavirus cases if few of those cases came in the prior week.

Southwest Oregons Curry County meets that threshold, with Crook County close behind.

So far, Oregon has seen 24,241 confirmed and presumed cases of COVID-19, 259 of which were announced Friday.

Many Portland-area districts announced their students will not receive any in-person instruction until at least November. Other, largely rural, districts put out plans to start younger children  primarily those in kindergarten, first, second and third grade  in classrooms, some as early as Aug. 31.

While Fridays announcement seemingly puts plans for in-person instruction on hold, most districts across the state have long had contingencies for a return to distance learning full-time should coronavirus cases spike.

Districts in Eugene, Hillsboro, Newport and Portland, among others, also announced all-digital academies families can enroll their children in if they do not feel safe returning to classrooms at all.

Portland Public Schools, the largest district in the state, has yet to reach an agreement with its teachers union on what a safe reopening looks like.

Browns original school closure order was preceded by a series of conversations with superintendents representing the largest districts in the state who said their teacher and substitute corps, many of them belonging to demographics particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus, did not feel safe in the classroom.

News of outbreaks related to school reopenings has made headlines across the country this summer, most recently when at least 14 Michigan schools announced students and teachers tested positive for COVID-19.

For Oregons working parents, a return to in-person classroom instruction symbolized not only a return to some semblance of normality after six months of strict limits on social gatherings and business shutterings wrought by the spread of the novel coronavirus, but a reprieve from the added burdens of seeking child care and assisting children with their coursework.

Hundreds of parents told The Oregonian/OregonLive in a survey that theyd have to piece together child care solutions, in particular, if their districts did not return to in-person learning come fall.

Brown and public health officials on Friday acknowledged those struggles, repeatedly urging Oregonians to adhere to social distancing guidelines and mask mandates.

The virus remains prevalent across the state of Oregon and remains a risk to everyone. Were on the right path and we need to step on the gas, Allen said.

--Eder Campuzano | 503-221-4344 | @edercampuzano | Eder on Facebook

Do you have a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Eder at ecampuzano@oregonian.com or message either of the social accounts above.

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police identified another militant killed in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district on Wednesday (August 19), in which a top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) commander was also gunned down, as a Pakistani ultra named Ali Bhai alias Danish.

A police spokesperson told PTI that Ali Bhai was instrumental in receiving members of various infiltrating terror groups and was also involved in recruiting local youngsters for militant outfits. He added that Ali Bhai, along with Sajjad alias Haider, who was killed earlier this week, was involved in several terror attacks on security forces and security establishments.

On August 19, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir Vijay Kumar said one of the two slain militants was LeT commander Naseer-ud-din Lone alias Saad Bhai, who was involved in the killing of three CRPF jawans in Sopore on April 18 and three more jawans of the paramilitary force in Handwara on May 4.

The IGP said an AK-47 rifle, which was snatched from a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan after the attack at Handwara's Vangam on May 4, was recovered from Lone.

The encounter in the Ganipora Kralgund area of Handwara in north Kashmir's Kupwara district started after security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation. This was the second such operation on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, security forces killed two militants in south Kashmir's Shopian district.

As the presence of the militants was established during the search operation, they were given an opportunity to surrender. However, they fired indiscriminately on the joint search party, which was retaliated, leading to the encounter, the spokesperson said.

Security forces have so far killed at least 150 terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir this year. A total of 26 top commanders of various terror outfits, including Lashkar and Jaish, have been neutralised since January this year. In the last three days, four top commanders have been killed in two separate encounters  in Kupwara and Baramulla in Kashmir.
Estate planning documents (wills, trusts, financial and medical powers of attorney, and advance directives) should be reviewed every few years or when changes in family, medical or financial circumstances occur. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to be certain that you have these critical documents in place. Even if your documents are newly drafted, it is important to review them to make sure they function as you wish should you suffer ill effects from this virus.

There are key provisions that you should look for in your documents.

Many clients are concerned about how their advance directive, also known as a living will or physicians directive, works in times like these. Recall that living wills are effective when you are unable to make an end of life decision for yourself, when you are either terminally ill or have an irreversible condition which will end in death, and you need life support. It is important to review your living will to see how intubation would be treated should the living will go into effect. Many patients with COVID-19 have to be intubated to recover. Some clients are adamant that intubation never takes place; other clients want to make sure that they can be intubated even with their living will in place. In either scenario it is worthy to review your decisions.

One should also make sure their medical power of attorney and HIPAA medical authorization are up to date. The agents chosen should be ones that are readily available and capable to make an informed and wise decision for you. While you are in the hospital, it is likely that your agent will not be permitted to visit you or your medical provider in person, so they will need to be able to handle decisions for you by virtual means. The HIPAA medical authorization will allow the individuals you name to easily communicate with your medical providers and receive updates regarding your care.

The financial power of attorney is one of the most important documents to have in place in these uncertain times. It is important to have an agent in place who can transact business for you if you fall ill, or if you are quarantined at home or in a high risk group who needs to avoid the public. It is important to review your power of attorney to see if it is effective immediately or if it is springing, meaning it springs into effect only upon your incapacity. A springing power of attorney requires a physician to declare in writing that you are unable to handle your financial affairs. Perhaps this impediment should be considered to be lifted during the pandemic so your agent can handle your affairs while you have capacity but are unable to freely move about the community.

Perhaps you are reticent about meeting with an attorney due to health and safety reasons. Most estate planning work can be handled while you are at home. You can meet with your attorney telephonically or via video conference to discuss creating or updating your estate plan. Drafts of documents can be sent to you via email or trackable delivery service for review.

There are also many options for executing your estate planning documents. You should be able to meet in the attorneys office with proper personal protection equipment (masks, gloves, shields) for the document signing. Some law firms are also offering parking lot signings so that you may maintain appropriate social distance while remaining in the safety of your vehicle.

Making the time to review your estate plan to be sure that it is ready to be put into action is an important task during the pandemic. Acting now will alleviate worrying later. Seeking the advice of a credentialed estate planning attorney is key. There are a lot of do-it-yourself projects that you can undertake while you have time on your hands, estate planning should not be one of them.
President Klaus Iohannis on Friday referred to the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) the bill on the amendment of Law No. 165/2013 on measures for the completion of the process of restitution, in kind or by equivalent, of buildings improperly taken over during the communist regime, as well as the amendment and completion of Law No. 46/2008 - Forest Code.

The law adopted by the Chamber of Deputies on 28 July 2020 provides that, in a situation where the return of forest land on the old sites is not possible, the recreation of ownership is done on other sites belonging to the state.

The Silva Forestry Trade Union Federation recently warned that if this law is enforced, the Romanian state would lose about 5 pct of its forests.

Therefore, president Iohannis calls on the CCR to admit the complaint of unconstitutionality and to find that the bill on the amendment of Law No. 165/2013 on measures for the completion of the process of restitution, in kind or by equivalent, of buildings improperly taken over during the communist regime, as well as for the amendment and completion of Law No. 46/2008 - the Forest Code is unconstitutional.
Celebrities share the stories behind their favourite photos. This week its TV and radio host Edith Bowman, 46.

TV and radio host Edith Bowman, 46, shares the stories behind her favourite snaps

2002: My great friend Cat Deeley and I had the idea for the BBC series Roadtripping while watching Thelma & Louise with some wine. We filmed in places like Mexico and France, driving a different car for each. This was us in Italy in our Alfa Romeo Spider. We split the driving and Cat got us pulled over in Morocco when she overtook on a solid line. It was terrifying, but we apologised and they let us go. Cats just moved back from the States and were desperate to work together.

1988 I was 14 here when I took part in the TV talent show, The Big Break, but they made me look 40! I sang Venus by Bananarama but I came last and I realised singing wasnt the career I wanted to have. After school, I did a video and radio production course, then a communications degree in Edinburgh. I did work experience at the local radio station, and spent my last student loan on presenter training. MTV was launching here so I did screen tests and got my foot in the door in 1996 along with Cat Deeley, June Sarpong and Richard Blackwood.

1977: Im three in this photo with Grandad Bowman  look at my trousers! Every weekend until I was 11 or 12 I lived at Grandads house. My parents ran a hotel called The Craws Nest in Anstruther, Fife, and weekends were the busiest. So on Friday nights I went to Grandads and my dad would pick me up Sunday teatime. On Saturdays, Dad would drop off a Sporting Post for Grandad and a Cornetto for me.

2003: Davina McCall was a mentor to me at MTV  I looked up to her, and she was a sweetheart. This photo is with her and Kate Thornton at the Brits. Davina was the host and I was doing the red carpet arrivals. One interview mishap I remember was at a Q&A in 2015 for The Revenant with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Leonardo DiCaprio. Off stage, Leo was smoking an e-cigarette while I was practising the directors name. As I went on, a safety curtain came down due to Leos vaping and I stumbled over the name.

2010: This is my son Rudy and me watching my husband Tom [Smith] and his band Editors from the side of the stage at V Festival in Reading. We even took Rudy to Glastonbury in 2008, when I was presenting and Tom was playing, a few weeks after he was born. We packed the car with stuff, even a little fridge I could plug in so I could express milk for my mum to feed Rudy while I was working. Weve always taken our boys  Spike, seven, and Rudy, 12  on the tour bus too. They love music.

2019: You can tell by the look on my face that getting to talk to Quentin Tarantino for my film and music podcast Soundtracking was a treat. Hes such fun and music is a big part of his film-making  the way he used music in Reservoir Dogs way back in 1992 really changed things for the film industry. At university, for my film studies module, I chose his movie Pulp Fiction and they paid for me to see it six times at the cinema. So interviewing Quentin about Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was an amazing and weird full-circle experience.

1983: I love this photo of me, aged nine, with my brother Alex, two. I was desperate for a brother but Mum had sadly had miscarriages. One day we were doing a school project about Egyptian history and wishes. I wrote my wish for a brother in hieroglyphics. And the very next day Mum told me she was pregnant.

2020: This photo of me with my parents, Eleanor and Sandy, was taken when they drove down after lockdown and were with us in Gloucestershire for ten days. It was an emotional reunion for us all. Wed been Zooming every second day, but I hadnt seen my dad physically since Christmas. Mum came down in February to help with the kids while I was at the BAFTAs. Theyre brilliant grandparents.

The Play Next podcast, in partnership with BMW, is available now on all major streaming platforms
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David Dobrik has purchased a new $9.5 million mansion in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley after struggling to keep his widely-recognized party home in Studio City private from his fans.

The 24-year-old Slovak YouTube star has upgraded to a 7,800 square foot property located in the desirable Longridge Estates neighborhood in Sherman Oaks and even got a deal on the home, which was previously listed for $12 million, according to Variety.

Located on a quiet cul-de-sac, the newly constructed mansion features six bedrooms, seven bedrooms, luxury amenities  and panoramic city, canyon, and mountain views.

Upgrade: YouTube star David Dobrik, 24, has purchased a new home Los Angles mansion for $9.5 million

Stunning: The 7,800 square foot property is located in Sherman Oaks, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley

Plenty of space: The modern mansion features six bedrooms and seven bedrooms

Privacy was likely on David's mind when he bought the two-story property, which has double gates and a private driveway with a four-car garage.

The mansion's grand entry and open living room will make quite an impression on guests thanks to its Fleetwood walls of glass that overlook the city and terrazzo floors.

The large glass doors fully open, making the home perfect for seamless indoor-outdoor living and entertaining. Meanwhile, the family room has a large fireplace that is encased by crocodile embossed leather.

There is also an at-home movie theater for quiet nights in, a home gym, and a custom-crafted temperature-controlled wine room that holds 300 bottles.

Amazing: The mansion's grand entry and open living room will make quite an impression on guests thanks to its Fleetwood walls of glass

Irresistible: The two-story property features an airy, open floor plan with a focus on the view

State-of-the-art: The gourmet chef's kitchen features a center island, state-of-the-art Miele appliances, and Italian-made cabinets

Private views: David likely took the master bedroom, and it's easy to see why. The suite features a sitting area, mini-bar, and a marble-encased fireplace

More marble: The master bathroom is fit for a king with a steam shower, Graff rain showerheads, and body sprays for the ultimate spa experience

The gourmet chef's kitchen features a center island, state-of-the-art Miele appliances, and Italian-made cabinets. In keeping with the minimalistic design, an Italian book-matched marble backdrop complements the hidden functional amenities.

With five bedroom suites and one office, the Vlog Squad leader has plenty of space for himself and rooms for guests.

David likely took the master bedroom, and it's easy to see why. The large open floor plan features ceiling suede panels, a mini-bar, and a living area with a marble-encased fireplace.

The opulent suite has its own private views of the valley and pocket-door balconies that can make the YouTuber at one with nature  from the comfort of his own home.

Famous: David has more than 18 million YouTube subscribers, 21 million TikTok followers, and 14 million fans on Instagram

Luxury: The family room has a large fireplace that is encased by crocodile embossed leather

What a view: The large glass doors fully open, making the home perfect for seamless indoor-outdoor living and entertaining

Impressive: The custom-crafted temperature-controlled wine room holds 300 bottles

Lounging: The at-home movie theater is the perfect place to curl up on the couch

Looking for a workout? Like any other mansion in LA, there is a spacious home gym

The master bathroom is fit for a king with a steam shower, Graff rain showerheads, and body sprays for the ultimate spa experience.

There is also a free-standing tub that is situated by the balcony, so David can soak up the views while enjoying a soak.

The outside of the mansion is just as impressive as the inside and offers an infinity pool and spa, a lounge area with a fire pit, an outdoor kitchen with a BBQ station, and grassy lawn space.

David's new home also has plenty of security features, including interior and exterior cameras throughout and a secured automated gated driveway.

Swim time: The outside of the mansion is just as impressive as the inside and offers an infinity pool and spa

So much space: There is an outdoor lounge area for when David and his pals want to hang out outside

Glass house: There are plenty of floor-to-ceiling glass doors in the modern mansion

Covered: David's new home also has plenty of security features, including interior and exterior cameras throughout and a secured automated gated driveway

Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker and Craig Knizek of The Agency jointly held the listing, while Weston Littlefield of the Aaron Kirman group at Compass represented David in the sale.

Privacy has been an ongoing issue for the YouTube star, who has more than 18 million subscribers to his channel.

Since 2017, David and his team members had lived in his Mediterranean-style house in Studio City, which he had purchased for about $2.5 million.

The home, which also overlooked the valley, was where he pulled off many of his pranks. It was also photographed for Architectural Digest last year.

Twilight: The view from the home is just as spectacular at night thanks to the twinkling city lights

Everything you can want: The outdoor lounge area has a fire pit to keep David warm on cool nights. There is also an outdoor kitchen with a BBQ station and grassy lawn space

Win for him: David got a deal on the home, which was previously listed for $12 million

Old pad: Since 2017, David and his team members had lived in his Mediterranean-style house in Studio City, which he had purchased for about $2.5 million

Hard to handle: Privacy has been an ongoing issue for the YouTube star, whose old home was widely-known by fans. David and his assistant Natalie Mariduena faced ongoing intrusions even after he begged for them to stop

The location became widely-known by fans, and David and his assistant Natalie Mariduena were plagued by unwanted intrusions.

Back in December, David posted an Instagram Story video begging his fans not to come to his home anymore.

'This is crazy that I'm still making these stories,' he said. 'I literally feel like a broken record  I sound like my parents. But stop coming here, please. I don't wanna have to move, but this is terrifying.'

The plea didn't seem to work, however. In March, someone shared the address to David's old home in a since-deleted Reddit post.

While his house hunt may have been temporarily halted by the coronavirus pandemic, it looks like he was able to find his dream home at just the right time.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:26:59|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran reported on Friday 2,206 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total number in the country to 354,764.

Overnight, 112 people died in Iran from the virus, taking the death toll to 20,376, according to figures provided by The Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education on its website.

Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the ministry, said during her daily briefing that so far, 305,866 patients have recovered and 3,794 are in critical condition.

According to the health spokeswoman, 2,987,117 lab tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in Iran as of Friday.

At present, 15 Iranian provinces out of 31 remain in high alert of COVID-19 infection, while 11 others are on alert situation.

Iran announced its first coronavirus cases on Feb. 19.

Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China.

In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran. On Feb. 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic. Enditem
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is flanked by US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft as he speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the UN Security Council about Iran's alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran at United Nations hradquarters in New York. (AFP)

United Nations: The United States moved on Thursday to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran, including an arms embargo, arguing Tehran was in violation of a nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015 even though Washington itself abandoned that agreement two years ago.

The United States submitted a letter to the 15-member U.N. Security Council accusing Tehran of non-compliance, starting a 30-day clock that could lead to a snapback of U.N. sanctions.

All the remaining parties to the nuclear deal - Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China - immediately notified the Security Council, in letters seen by Reuters, that they did not recognise the U.S. move.

The United States acted after the Security Council resoundingly rejected its bid last week to extend an arms embargo on Iran beyond its expiration in October.

It is an enormous mistake not to extend this arms embargo. Its nuts! Pompeo told reporters at the United Nations as he harshly criticized what he described as the one-sided, foolish nuclear deal negotiated by former U.S. President Barack Obama.

President Donald Trump has called it the worst deal ever. The pact aimed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief and is enshrined in a 2015 Security Council resolution. Washington argues that it can trigger the snapback process because the resolution still names it as a participant to the nuclear deal.

Germany, France and Britain on Thursday described the U.S. attempt to trigger a sanctions snapback as incompatible with their efforts to support the already fragile nuclear deal, while Russia and China said it was illegitimate.

Chinas U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun asked Indonesia, council president of August, not to identify and circulate the U.S. communication as a notification to trigger the snapback process and to consult with all council members on how to proceed.

Earlier on Thursday Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia rejected the U.S. plan as nonexistent. Russia called for the council to meet on Iran on Friday but diplomats said that Washington blocked the request.

ACTING LIKE A CHILD

Along with an arms embargo, a snapback of U.N. sanctions would include a ban on Iran developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and a halt to Irans nuclear enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. Countries also would be urged to inspect shipments to and from Iran and authorized to seize any banned cargo.

Irans U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi said Tehran was confident that the Security Council would reject the U.S. move.

A permanent member of the Security Council is acting like a child, is being ridiculed by the other members of the international community, he told reporters after Pompeo spoke.

Three senior Iranian officials told Reuters this week Irans leadership is determined to remain committed to the nuclear deal, hoping that a victory by Trump rival Democrat Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election will salvage the pact.

Biden, who was Obamas vice president, said he would rejoin the deal if Iran first resumed compliance.

If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement and build on it, while working with allies to push back on Irans destabilizing actions, Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Reuters.

In response to what the Trump administration calls its maximum pressure campaign of unilateral sanctions - a bid to get Iran to negotiate a new deal - Tehran has breached central limits of the 2015 pact, including on its stock of enriched uranium.

In his letter to the U.N. Security Council, Pompeo referenced those violations but did not mention that the United States quit the deal in 2018.

Given questions over the U.S. move on Thursday, diplomats said Russia, China and other countries are unlikely to reimpose the sanctions on Iran. Pompeo warned Russia and China against that on Wednesday, threatening U.S. sanctions if they refuse to reimpose the U.N. measures on Iran.
Exporters from Vietnam and other countries are urged to look for new markets to ramp up business again, Photo Le Toan

In its latest forecast a few weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that global economic growth for 2020 may drop 4.9 per cent, worse than the projection it released in April.

Other big economies are also predicted by the IMF to suffer from negative economic growth this year, such as the US (-8 per cent) and the EU (-10.2 per cent), while China is expected to grow only 1 per cent.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has just forecast that the global economy will decrease 5.2 per cent this year, when gloom-ridden growth may also hit developed economies (-7 per cent), and emerging and developing economies (-3 per cent).

The World Trade Organization predicted that global trade will decline 13-32 per cent on-year, depending on COVID-19 developments while the World Bank and the IMF projected the rate to drop 11.9-13.4 per cent this year, respectively.

These unfavourable conditions, in addition to the pandemics resurge in Vietnam will dampen the countrys export-import activities and economic recovery, stated Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Cao Quoc Hung.

Solutions for businesses

The past three months have witnessed Vietnamese authorities busy with working out methods for the country to attract more foreign investment and expand trade with foreign countries and territories, especially in the context that Vietnam is entering a new normalcy, with local production beginning to bounce back and enterprises in critical need of boosting exports overseas.

Over a week ago, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc held talks with Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe. This was the second batch of talks within three months between the two leaders, with one of the focuses laid on expanding both countries trade and investment relationship backed by bilateral agreements including the Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement also comes into play, with Japanese companies seeking to boost export-oriented investments in Vietnam and then export products to the European Union.

The two nations two-way trade hit $40 billion last year and $22.1 billion in the first seven months, including $10.9 billion earned by Vietnam from exporting to Japan, down 5 per cent on-year.

The two prime ministers agreed that both nations could soon resume commercial flights, helping swell trade ties. PM Abe said some big Japanese investors are receiving support from the Japanese government to expand their supply chains and half of them have selected Vietnam to boost investment. PM Phuc said he will soon have a meeting with Japanese investors.

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh also had talks with South Koreas Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung Wha, announcing that Vietnam is considering the resumption of commercial flights with some nations including South Korea, with the aim of upping trade and investment ties.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vietnamese leaders are expected to have telephone discussions with leaders of many nations and markets to beef up trade and investment ties. Talks have already been carried out with Russia, Canada, the United States, Kuwait, China, and the EU.

Vietnams Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) said that the ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks may make it hard for Vietnam to reach its initial export-import targets.

The National Assembly last year set the target of a 7-8 per cent rise in export turnover for 2020, with a trade deficit of under 2 per cent of total export turnover.

In 2019, total export turnover hit $253.5 billion. This means that in 2020, total export turnover will be $281.9-284.5 billion, and total import turnover will be $287.5-290.2 billion, with a trade deficit of $5.63-5.69 billion. In total, the export-import revenue for 2020 will be $569.4-574.7 billion, far higher than last years $517 billion.

However, the targets may not be easy to reach. Difficulties can now be seen in almost all sectors, said Nguyen Bich Lam, former head of the General Statistics Office.

Saving themselves

Over the past three months, Joo Hye Sook, sales representative of Hoan Anh Trade Co., Ltd. in Hanoi, has been working hard to help her company, a Vietnam-South Korea joint venture trading in industrial equipment and electronics, out of difficulties. The company exports products to South Korea, Japan, and some European nations.

Many of the European markets have still been closed, so we must increase the exploration of new partners in South Korea and Japan, and some Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia and Thailand, Sook said. A big sum of money has been spent on marketing activities. We are also boosting marketing online, with initial positive results.

Hong Sun, vice chairman of the Korea Chamber of Business in Vietnam (KorCham), told VIR that about 20-30 per cent of over 9,000 South Korean businesses in Vietnam currently have to seek new markets, both in Vietnam and overseas. Not only big businesses, but also many other smaller ones in all sectors, from industry, garment and textiles, and services, are also facing great woes in seeking markets, he said. Their outlets have significantly reduced.

The MoIT reported that in the first seven months of 2020, Vietnams garment and textile sector earned an export turnover of $16.2 billion, down 12.1 per cent on-year.

It is expected that in the second half of the year, the sector will suffer a 14-18 per cent decline in export turnover, with total export turnover for the whole year forecast to be $32.75 billion, down 16 per cent on-year.

Elsewhere, Nguyen Viet Thang, head of the Planning Division of X29 JSC, told VIR that his company exports wood, and garment and textile products to China, and is now planning to boost exports to Japan and South Korea, also its traditional markets. Almost no goods container has been exported to China since late January, and we are working with new partners from Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Europe to sell goods, Thang said.

X29 also imports many types of materials from China, and is hunting for new sources from Bangladesh, South Korea, and India.

In another case, Minh Ngoc Equipment and Trade Ltd. in Hanoi has been unable to export any of its containers of cotton buds and shavers to China, a market creating 40 per cent of the companys export turnover. We are working with some new partners from South Korea and Japan to boost exports and offset the losses from exports to China, said vice director Nguyen Thi Tuat.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investments Department of Enterprise Development, hundreds of thousands of businesses in Vietnam suffering from woes caused by COVID-19 are advised to find new markets to export their products.

According to Sun of KorCham, many South Korean companies are also finding it difficult to expand to new markets due to various hurdles. One of the obstructions is that new partners must be reliable, while nothing shows that they are. Thus, it can take time before new contracts are signed, and much money must be spent on studying and surveying markets.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-12 06:08:43|Editor: huaxia

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BUENOS AIRES, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Argentina's main challenge amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is to strike the right balance between safeguarding public health and resuming economic activity, the deputy director of Health Emergencies Department at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Sylvain Aldighieri, said on Tuesday.

The PAHO representative told Xinhua, during a videoconference, that the South American country faces the "challenge of ensuring the necessary balance between the needed strict implementation of public health measures and ... restarting aspects of the economy and economic exchange."

In that sense, "Argentina faces the same challenges as several other countries in the region," he noted.

The Argentine economy could shrink 10.5 percent this year as a result of the pandemic and lockdown measures, according to a recent forecast by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Argentina has reported a total of 253,868 cases of infection and 4,785 deaths from the disease since the beginning of March.

Some 60 percent of Argentina's cases were reported in July, as the outbreak spread from the capital Buenos Aires toward less populated areas, such as the northernmost province of Jujuy, said Aldighieri, indicating strategies to contain the virus must change along with the path of the virus.

Lockdown measures in place since March are due to end on Aug. 16, but may be extended, depending on the latest statistics, the government said on Monday.

The measures include mandatory social distancing and self-isolation, suspension of school classes, closing the borders, and banning large private and public gatherings, which have had an impact on the economy. Enditem
By Akbar Mammadov

President Ilham Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan fully meets its electricity demand and has strong export potential in this field due to the government care and state investments.

The president also said that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to the renewable energy in the country and there are large-scale plans in this filed.

Aliyev made the remarks while laying the foundation of a new Power Plant Station in Qobu settlement near Baku on August 21.

Aliyev described the Gobu power substation as another important step in the field of power engineering in the country, saying that it will be commissioned in early 2022.

The generation capacity of the station is 385 megawatts. The station will find a worthy place among the large power stations built in our country. Of course, the creation of new generating capacities is a manifestation of our overall development because the modernization of our energy system is consistent with the overall development of our country, and all this work is carried out in a planned manner, Aliyev said.

Aliyev pointed out that the world's leading companies will participate in the construction of the station, adding that there will be very strong international control.

Aliyev stressed that the station will play a significant role in the organization and future development of the countrys energy system.

As you know, the construction of power plants has a special place among infrastructure projects, and I can say that we have started to deal with this issue in the first place. It is no coincidence that the first State Program on socio-economic development of the regions, adopted in 2004, pays special attention to the construction of power plants, the president noted.

He also highlighted that over 30 power plants have been built in the country since 2004.

He reminded the construction of the 525-megawatt Sumgayit Power Plant, the "South" station with the capacity of about 800 megawatts, "North-2" station with a capacity of about 400 megawatts, "Sangachal" Power Plant with a generation capacity of 300 megawatts.

Five modular stations have been built in different parts of the country, each with a generation capacity of about 90 megawatts.

Furthermore, the president underlined that Azerbaijan has strong export potential in the electric power field.

We have developed strong export potential. Despite the growth of our domestic demand, our export potential is growing every year. Since 2004, our economy, including our industrial potential, has increased over threefold so far. As a result of the application of modern technologies, generational forces are emerging in Azerbaijan, and losses are decreasing, he added.

The president highlighted that over the past two years, up to 1,300 megawatts of lost generation capacity has been restored in existing stations. He also noted that the biggest work was done at the Mingachevir Thermal Power Plant where 600 megawatts of generating capacity has been restored.

Today, this plant, operating at full capacity at 2,400 megawatts, is the main source of energy for us. The life of this station has been extended and it will serve us for decades to come, Aliyev said.

Additionally, the president pointed out that as a result of the renewal of the "South" Power Plant, 200 megawatts of generating capacity have been restored there.

Over 200 megawatts of generating capacity was restored at modular stations. 230 megawatts of generating capacity was restored at Mingachevir and Shamkir hydropower plants. Work has also been carried out at other stations, and in a total of two years we have restored 1,300 megawatts of lost capacity. I think this is a great historical event, the president said.

Aliyev emphasized that building new 1,300-megawatt stations could cost billions of dollars, however, Azerenergy regulated them with a very limited budget.

Thus, the work done in this area in recent years is commendable. The Gobu Power Plant, which we are laying the foundation stone for today, will also strengthen our overall energy potential, expand our export opportunities and, at the same time, meet domestic demand. Because the demand is growing, the population of Azerbaijan is growing.

Speaking about Azerbaijans economy, the president said that the countrys economy has decreased by only 2.8 percent in the first in seven months of 2020. He reminded that oil production slightly deceased in 2020 as a result of OPEC+ agreement, adding that however, there is growth in industry, including the non-oil industry, and this growth constitutes 13 percent in the first seven months of this year. These are the realities of today's Azerbaijan.

Aliyev said that Azerbaijan must continue to use our energy potential to the maximum.

It is gratifying that the world's biggest energy companies are interested in producing renewable energy in Azerbaijan today, and this interest is already being realized. At the beginning of the year, relevant documents were signed with two large international companies on the construction of solar and wind power plants with a capacity of 440 megawatts The creation of 440 megawatts of renewable energy in Azerbaijan, with the state of Azerbaijan not spending a single manat of its own, is a manifestation of confidence in us, a manifestation of confidence in the future, stable future and development of Azerbaijan, he went on saying.

Furthermore, the president reiterated his countrys determination to continue to work on the production of traditional energy sources.

We are inviting foreign and local investors to build thermal power plants, we want to attract them. We also want to involve them in the construction of hydropower and other renewable energy plants. If there is such an interest, I think that this issue can be resolved in a short period of time, the president said.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
"Special thanks to Star Jones, the emcee of the celebration, for her unflagging support of the Law Center and her lending her "star" appeal to the celebration."

Star Jones, a 1986 alumna of the Law Center, will serve as host. Jones began her legal career as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office before becoming a senior district attorney for New York City. She gained recognition as a legal commentator for the cable network "Court TV" in the early 1990s. She then worked as a legal analyst and correspondent for NBC's Today and NBC Nightly News. She later was a co-host of the ABC talk show "The View" from 1997-2006.

The 2020 Gala Chairs are Yvonne Ho '06, a partner at Bracewell, and Allen Rice. The theme of the event is "La Musica della Notte: A Masquerade Ball." Attendees are encouraged to participate in the "Best Mas(k)erade Contest," where they can take a photo in a virtual photo booth and be entered into a drawing for special prizes. Other festivities will include the honoring of 2019-2020 alumni award winners and an online auction.

Proceeds from the 44th Annual Law Gala and Auction will fund scholarships, advocacy programs, faculty research, student organizations, library acquisitions, technology advances, student recruitments, and student activities that enrich life at the Law Center.

Attendees who have purchased a table, tickets or underwriting are asked to consider rolling the full amount of their gift into a tax-deductible donation. The Office of Law Alumni Relations will be in contact, or inquiries may be directed to Hope Young, Executive Director of Law Alumni Relations, at [email protected].

Click here to register.

Click here for more information about the 44th Annual Law Gala & Auction.

For additional event details call 713-743-2201.

Media contacts: Carrie Anna Criado, UH Law Center Assistant Dean of Communications and Marketing, 713-743-2184, [email protected]; Elena Hawthorne, Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing, 713-743-1125, [email protected]; and John Brannen, Media Relations Rep, 713-743-3055, [email protected].

About the University of Houston

The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter for excellence in undergraduate education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation's fourth-largest city and one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse regions in the country, UH is a federally designated Hispanic- and Asian-American-Serving institution with enrollment of more than 46,000 students.

About the University of Houston Law Center

The University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) is a dynamic, top tier law school located in the nation's 4th largest city. UHLC's Health Law, and Intellectual Property Law programs rank in the U.S. News Top 10. It awards Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees, through its academic branch, the College of Law. The Law Center is more than just a law school. It is a powerful hub of intellectual activity with more than 11 centers and institutes which fuel its educational mission and national reputation. UHLC is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools.

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OOUTH

No fewer than 20 medical laboratory staff of Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Ogun State have tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Another family of four was reported to have also contracted coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The family of four was said to have contracted the viral disease from their father who happened to be one of the staff working in the hospitals main laboratory.

This incident was said to have caused great confusion in the teaching hospital while those confirmed to be having the virus have been told to proceed on self-isolation.

One of the staff of the hospital who spoke to Vanguard correspondent on the condition of anonymity heaped the blame of the incident on the insensitivity of the management of the hospital to the plight of the medical laboratory staff dealing with COVID-19 patients

He said the OOUTH management under Dr Peter Adefuye should be blamed for whatever happened to the laboratory staff because of their refusal to provide us with sufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that we needed to have as health workers having direct dealing with the samples of COVID-19 patients

When they started bringing the samples of COVID-19 patients to us last month, the Director of Medical Laboratory Services Department wrote letter to the management demanding for those things to be put in place so that in the course of caring for others, we will also not be jeopardising our lives but the management did nothing.

They are always quick to say there is no money, yet we know that we are generating money for the government

The management of the hospital were equally told to get a separate laboratory for COVID-19 test just as it was done during the time of Ebola but this they also turned down.

Vanguard also gathered that the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) OOUTH chapter has equally written letters to the management of the hospital twice demanding the discontinued processing of COVID-19 samples at the main laboratory because of its attendant risk, setting up of a different lab for COVID-19 test and ensure that the lab workers were provided with sufficient personal protective kits.

The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Peter Adefuye reportedly did nothing on the concerns of the lab workers as expressed in the two letters.

It was alleged that he told them that if they like, they can join the resident doctors of the hospital who have been on strike for about two months now.

When contacted on phone, Dr Adefuye said, I dont talk to faceless people. If you need any reaction, go and take permission from the Ministry of Health. After all, we are at the community transmission stage of the pandemic.

On her part, the State Commissioner for Health, Dr Tomi Coker said she has not received any report of such in her office.

***

Source: Vanguard
While influenza related deaths were close to the five-year average between January and March, between April and June there were fewer than five influenza related deaths, according to official statistics, down from the historic average of between five and 10 a week in April and May. In Victoria influenza cases are down 90 per cent compared to the same time last year. Safe Work Australia figures show workplace deaths have fallen 12.5 per cent with just 104 workers killed nationally compared to 117 at the same time in 2019. Last year was itself a low fatality year compared to the average of 199 workplace deaths per year in the past decade. The figure is slightly up in Victoria, partly due to a broadened criteria of what defines a workplace death to include cases such as traffic accidents. Nationally pedestrian, passenger and driver fatalities all decreased between 14 and 24 per cent for the period from April to July compared to the same period over the past five years. Victoria has recorded 142 road deaths this year, a decrease of 21 per cent compared to the same time last year.

Global funeral company Invocare told investors on Wednesday that death rates appeared to be down between 2 per cent and 4 per cent this year. Funerals were down 6.6 per cent partly because of social distancing rules. "For most of the pandemic the death rate slowed due to isolation and social distancing," Australian Funeral Directors Association president Andrew Pinder said. But he said deaths had risen in other areas like suicide, possibly due to the impact of isolation and economic strain on mental health. Double funerals for husband and wives had also increased. "Its tragic for the families and even more difficult for our funeral directors to absorb the heightened level of family grief," he said. Carly Dalton owner of Greenhaven Unique Funerals said her small business had managed to maintain its activity through the social distancing restrictions in Melbourne.

""Theres an increase in demand for smaller, more intimate boutique services. I know overall a lot of bigger funeral homes have not been as busy. Theres not been so many influenza and road toll deaths, but services for other normal chronic illnesses," she said. Epworth spokesman Professor Ron Sultana said emergency doctors and GPs were concerned people with serious health conditions werent seeking treatment. Presentations to Epworths Richmond emergency department were down 24 per cent between April and June compared to the same time last year. "The number of people coming to Epworth Richmonds Emergency Department, experiencing chest pain or having a heart attack, is down by five per cent on this time last year," Professor Sultana said. "Sadly, for some people, delaying treatment could potentially become life-threatening." Influenza and influenza-like illnesses (excluding coronavirus) have also been at a historic low in recent months across all age groups, states and territories.

Emergency physician Ron Sultana at Epworth Richmond Emergency Department: worried those with health problems are not seeking treatment. Credit:Joe Armao A Department of Health spokesperson said "current COVID-19 related public health measures and the communitys adherence to public health messages are likely having an effect on transmission of acute respiratory infections, including influenza". Victorian and NSW authorities have told the public that if they have flu-like symptoms it is more likely to indicate coronavirus than the flu. 'I've never seen Australian influenza rates so low in recorded history.' Doherty Institute deputy director Ian Barr Australian Medical Association chair Richard Kidd warned the figures on flu-like illnesses might not be entirely accurate, because unlike previous years, testing rates were lower as resources were prioritised for the coronavirus.

"Part of the low document rate is the fact that we havent been able to test in the way we would normally test," he said. "Weve tested five million Australians for COVID and positive cases have been less than 1 per cent," he said, suggesting other viruses were still circulating at a low level in the community and urging Australians to get vaccinated. Dr Kidd said medical practitioners had given the same messaging for years about hygiene practices to reduce influenza rates and protect the vulnerable. "At least this year weve got traction," he said. "If we can keep the foot on the pedal thats a good thing." Dr Kidd said he was "quite certain" factors like physical distancing, improved hygiene and staying home when respiratory symptoms had led to a lower rate of influenza and influenza-like illness.
By Jeremy Hay

Bay City News Foundation

More air tankers will support the pitched battle against the Walbridge Fire in Sonoma County, a Cal Fire official said Friday.

"We have a robust fixed wing air tanker presence" staged at air bases in Ukiah and Sacramento, Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said. "We don't anticipate any fixed wing aircraft shortages today."

With major fires burning around California in the wake of Sunday morning's lightning storms, firefighting resources have been stretched paper-thin statewide. The LNU Lightning Complex fires, which include the Walbridge Fire, have burned nearly 220,000 acres in Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Solano and Yolo counties people and killed four, according to Cal Fire.

But the 21,125-acre blaze on Thursday was made the top firefighting priority in the LNU Lightning Complex. Since then the firefighting effort has been bolstered by welcome additional engine crews and air attack.

That support will continue to grow, Nicholls said at a Friday morning news conference.

"We're happy to see anything at this point," he said "We're starting finally to get into a cycle where we can actually start to get some of the firefighters who have been on the line for 72 hours just a little bit of rest so we can get them back into the fight so that they're safe and effective."

Some 19,000 people in Sonoma County - including the Russian River communities of Guerneville and Rio Nido, towards which the fire has been progressing - have been ordered to evacuate or warned that they may be ordered to soon.

About 1,900 people south of the Russian River, near Guerneville, were ordered to evacuate Friday morning, said Chris Godley, the county's emergency management director.

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said she believes most residents in her west Sonoma County district have been heeding evacuation orders.

"I actually do feel pretty confident that those communities that are closer to the lines of the fire, the vast majority of the residents have moved on," Hopkins said.

She said residents looking out for one another have played a big role in convincing people to leave their homes.

"I do believe that as the fire line grows closer locals are continuing to push other locals to get out now, which is really good," she said. "There's becoming sort of a public peer pressure element in all of our small communities saying, 'You know what, I know you didn't think it was a big deal before but the fire's coming over the ridge line and you need to leave now."

Late Friday morning, a mandatory evacuation order was also issued for areas surrounding Forestville, a community of about 3,300.

The order applies to all areas south of River Road from Martinelli Road to the intersection of River Road and Trenton Road; west of Covey Road; north of Front Street or Hwy. 116; and east of Martinelli Road.

Mandatory evacuation orders were also issued for the areas near Lake Sonoma: those apply to areas north of Stewarts Point Skaggs Spring Road to the eastern edge of Lake Sonoma.

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.
SalesX is honored to receive recognition for their clients success, earning several spots on the 2020 US Search Awards shortlist. Once again, SalesX has proven that it is a leader in the digital advertising industry. By working with their clients, they help them determine their digital goals and help them grow through Google Ads optimizations along with real time custom reporting. They utilize a custom library of 100+ scripts, comprising over 100K lines of code, (collectively known as X-Vault) to help them review and update Google Ads accounts in near real time. They also have internal and external reporting to help track and manage the progress and success of the clients goals and KPIs regardless of how many they may have.

SalesXs nominations include both agency and campaign categories:

Best Small PPC Agency

Best Use of Search - Health

Most Innovative Campaign (PPC)

Best PPC Campaign

Best Use of Data (PPC)

The 2020 US Search Awards will celebrate the very best in PPC, SEO and Content Marketing from across the United States. Judges will be looking to acknowledge and reward the best agencies, campaigns and individuals working in the search industry. To view the complete shortlist, visit https://ussearchawards.com/2020-shortlist/. The 2020 winners will be announced via live stream on Thursday, October 29, where SalesX will look to repeat in taking home another award.

About SalesX:

SalesX, an award winner from US Search Awards, is a professional digital marketing agency located in San Jose, central to Google, Facebook, Apple and SFO. Its services include Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Paid Social, Mobile, Video, Display, Programmatic, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Landing Page Optimization (LPO), and Business Value of Advertising Technology (BVAT) consulting.

For more information please visit SalesX.com. Or check us out on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/salesxppc/
Denver offers a wealth of talent to support Contentfuls continued growth

DENVER and SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Contentful today announced it will expand its North American presence with a new office hub in Denver, Colorado. The SaaS company currently has hubs in San Francisco and Berlin, and approximately 400 employees. It plans to hire 50-100 people in Denver over the next year, with further expansion in the future.



Contentful, a pioneer and global leader in headless content management systems (CMS), is now leading the industry with its next-generation content platform, which enables builders  developers, designers and content creators  to create and deliver digital experiences for any channel or device. Contentfuls Denver expansion is part of a strategic growth plan fueled by an $80 million Series E investment, led by Sapphire Ventures in June.

Brands are increasingly investing in digital channels and experiences, and Covid-19 has accelerated that trend. Contentful helps brands build digital experiences for their customers faster than they could with a traditional CMS, said Laurence Trifon, Contenfuls SVP of Customer Experience. He is based in Denver and will be the executive sponsor of the office. Were accelerating our own expansion to support this demand for digital-first capabilities.

Denver boasts one of the best tech ecosystems in the US, with more than 4,000 tech companies, according to BuiltIn. In a 2020 survey of Bay Area CEOs, Denver was the No. 1 next top tech hub, outpacing Austin and Salt Lake City. Globally, Denver ranked 21st out of 150 in the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking last year, due to the quality talent it attracts.

Colorados thriving tech scene and community of top talent made it the perfect location to support our customers with the best technology solutions and support services, said Trifon. Im excited to lead this new office and invite Denvers talented tech community to join Contentful in redefining how digital products and experiences are built.

Story continues

The Denver hub will hire go-to-market talent across sales, partnerships, customer success, professional services and marketing, as well as roles on the Finance, Legal and People teams. Contentful is rated 4.2 on Glassdoor and cultivates a positive workplace culture that empowers people to do their best work. It places a special emphasis on inclusion and diversity in hiring, with progressive hiring practices that include not requiring college degrees for certain roles, and considering applicants regardless of their length of unemployment. Contentfuls workforce currently includes people of more than 70 nationalities.

Contentful values the strength that comes from a diverse community of people working together, especially as we serve a global mix of customers, said Vanessa MacIlwaine, SVP of People at Contentful. Our diversity-focused hiring practices have been shown to attract a more diverse workforce, and a higher-performing one. We are excited to enter the Denver talent market and community.

Contentful will hire remotely until it is safe to return to in-person work. Contentful is also hiring at its other offices, including at its product and engineering hub in Berlin and its first US hub in San Francisco. Contentful is also hiring distributed employees across Western Europe and the United States as part of a long-term global growth strategy. See all currently open roles at contentful.com/careers.

About Contentful

Contentful, the global leader in omnichannel content platforms, powers digital experiences for 28% of the Fortune 500 and thousands of leading global brands. It enables enterprises to deliver omnichannel digital experiences with greater speed and scale than with a traditional CMS. Contentful unifies content in a single hub, structures it for use in any digital channel, and integrates seamlessly with hundreds of other tools through open APIs. Companies such as Telus, Atlassian, Alpro, Clover, Intercom, Chanel and many others rely on Contentfuls content platform. For more information, visit https://www.contentful.com/.

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Media Contact



Tanya Carlsson

Offleash PR for Contentful

contentful@offleashpr.com

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A 22-year-old Willingboro man was arrested Thursday and charged with the Aug. 7 murder of a man inside a Hoboken apartment building, authorities said.

Tahjae McDougald is accused of fatally shooting Marquise Davis  also of Willingboro  inside an apartment at 300 Grand St. earlier this month, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said.

McDougald turned himself into authorities on Thursday and was charged with murder and weapons offenses.

Police found Davis, 26, at 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 7 with gunshot wounds to the abdomen. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The Regional Medical Examiners Office subsequently determined the manner of death to be homicide, Suarez said.

Authorities did not say why the two Burlington County men were in Hoboken or provide a motive for the crime.

The Hudson County Prosecutors Office Homicide Unit, the Hoboken Police Department, authorities from South Jersey and the Philadelphia Police Department all contributed to the investigation and arrest, Suarez said.
According to Quantzig, digital twins in manufacturing is no longer a far-flung promise. As per the predictions by leading analytics experts, more than 70 percent of manufacturing companies will deploy digital twins by 2022, resulting in an additional 10-15 percent improvement in manufacturing efficiency. While forerunners have already embarked on this transformational journey, few players are still in the phase of conducting feasibility studies to analyze the scale of its impact on the organization's growth, employees, and society as a whole. Book a FREE Demoto know more about Quantzig's analytics capabilities.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200821005012/en/

Digital Twins in Smart Manufacturing: Key Business Benefits (Graphic: Business Wire)

Digital twins are set to redefine the manufacturing landscape as it helps interconnect machines, enabling orchestration, and execution of the end-to-end production processes. Though increasing connectivity, computing power, advanced simulation tools, IoT, and new levels of automation pave the way for the implementation of digital twins in manufacturing, companies often struggle due to manufacturing complexities and the lack of consistent frameworks. At Quantzig, we understand these challenges, and to help our clients make the most of the new digital opportunities, we've designed a holistic end-to-end digital transformation solutions portfolio that focuses on merging data-driven insights with technology to drive smarter decisions.

Using a combination of predictive analytics, data visualization, and machine learning, we enable improvements in service levels, reduction of downtime risks, and deployment of better predictive maintenance strategies. Request a FREE proposalto learn more.

Why Quantzig?

120 + 1500+ 550+ 15 + Global clients including Fortune 500 companies Comprehensive projects Data scientists and analytics experts Years of experience

Detailed information about Quantzig's manufacturing analytics capabilities can be accessed at https://bit.ly/2Cr9Bx4

Digital Twins in Smart Manufacturing: Key Business Benefits

1: Interconnect machines and disparate systems

2: Enhance operational efficiencies

3: Create queries for what-if analysis

4: Minimize equipment downtime

5: Improve the reliability of production and equipment lines

A detailed study helped Quantzig understand the factors impacting the adoption of digital twins in today's tech-savvy business world. These factors predominantly revolve around the need to meet customer and market needs in the shortest possible time frame during delivery and fulfillment processes.

Moreover, to meet the unique demands of their customers, manufacturers are often forced to make considerable investments to accelerate both their quality delivery and decision making. To avoid these investments and to make the most of available resources, its crucial to ensure visibility and collaboration on a cross-functional basis. Digital twins in manufacturing can help drive cross-collaboration by enhancing digital awareness on a real-time basis. It also helps stakeholders and value-chain partners manage and govern assets and products more holistically and systematically.

At Quantzig, we have a cross-functional team that comprises of researchers, analytics experts, and data scientists who assist our clients in implementing solutions that can move the needle. Speak to our analytics expertsright away!

Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep abreast of the emerging trends in data and analytics.

About Quantzig

Quantzig is a global analytics and advisory firm with offices in the US, UK, Canada, China, and India. For more than 15 years, we have assisted our clients across the globe with end-to-end data modeling capabilities to leverage analytics for prudent decision making. Today, our firm consists of 120+ clients, including 55 Fortune 500 companies. For more information on our engagement policies and pricing plans, visit: https://www.quantzig.com/request-for-proposal

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Photo: (Photo : Instagram/sincerelyemerson)

In May, an 11-year-old South Dakota girl, Emerson Weber, went viral after writing a letter to her mailman, Doug. Her sweet gesture has captured the hearts of many, so thousands of other mail carriers thanked her for appreciating how hard they work during these trying times. Soon, her story will be in a children's book.

Sweet gesture turned into a book

Emerson told TODAY via Skype why she needs postal service. She explained that since this year, she will be doing school virtually, she needs it to stay in touch with her friends. Now, HarperCollins is immortalizing her story into a children's book, which focuses on a love letter to the United States Postal Service. It will include the essential role of the mailman and other people who sacrifice their lives now that there is a pandemic.

See also: Pregnant Colombian Woman Thanks People for Helping Her Raise Money for Delivery

People need thanks

The soon-to-be Sioux Falls grade six student said that it is what the working people need right now. She explained that while these people pass by your house daily, they do not get to hear people's thanks because they do not see them a lot. She is happy to thank them because they are very grateful upon knowing that they are being appreciated. She explained that even though she did not write to them directly, they felt the connection.

Hugh Weber, the girl's dad, explained that not only did the mailman feel appreciated, but even their families have sent their gratefulness for his daughter. He said that they have heard from so many mailman family members whose parents were also a part of the US Postal Service. Weber added that the people felt seen in their work so it has become a pretty rewarding exercise now.

See also: Atlanta Mom Shares Feeling of Isolation Due to Pandemic, Created "Corona Mamas: to Support All Moms

Her love of writing inherited from her mom

Emerson has inherited her love of writing from her mother, who was also her fifth-grade teacher in writing. She shared that she has been writing letters for a while. Since third grade, she has been in a long time pen pals with her librarian, Mrs. Versteeg. Along with her pen pals Kristin and Sherry, the librarian was one of the real ones. She sometimes leaves little notes around her home too.

She already had six or seven pen pals even before her story went viral; now, it has reached 25. Emerson said that some people write to her and she writes back once or twice, but some stuck around her.

See also: Police and Community Help Illinois Teen Boys Raise Almost $4k After Lemonade Stand Got Robbed

Spreading the love

Hugh explained the significance of his daughter's viral story. He said the best thing people could do right now is to spread the love by writing letters and buy stamps. He also said the Emerson has a fond memory of the postal carrier of when she was younger, which made her fond of Doug.

He believes that this is a time when people need to be connected physically. For him, the postal service is one true non-partisan entity in the world because they serve people everywhere.

On Thursday, HarperCollins announced that on January 5, 2021, it is releasing a picture book about Emerson's viral story. The title of the book is "Sincerely, Emerson." A description of the book reads that it is a story of gratitude, hope, and recognition for all the essential people we see every day who goes unnoticed.
EDWARDSVILLE  The Illinois Attorney Generals Office has determined Madison Countys Finance and Governmental Operations Committee violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act by not allowing public comment at its April 8 meeting.

The letter, dated July 15, was from Joshua M. Jones, deputy bureau chief of the IAGs Public Access Bureau, to Assistant Madison County States Attorney Jeff Ezra and David Amerson, a staff attorney with the Policemens Benevolent & Protective Association. It gave several recommendations but noted no further action was being taken and the case was closed.

Part of the issue was that the county, along with other governmental agencies, was attempting to work out ways to hold public meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, including allowing public comment.

The Illinois Open Meetings Act regulates how public government meetings should operate.

As part of his executive orders on COVID, Gov. J.B. Pritzker loosened some of the rules regarding the act to allow remote meetings. Some of those changes involved public access and comments.

Since the April 8 meeting the county has set up specific guidelines regarding public comment at its meetings.

Amerson filed a complaint with the IAGs office after the meeting. The issue stems from the failure to read emailed letters, or allowing other public comment.

The letters dealt with the issue of comp time for Madison County Sheriffs Department workers during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several elected countywide officials had given comp time to workers who came in between March 16 and April 1.

The biggest issues were with the sheriffs department, in part because of a large amount of comp time accrued. Officials in other offices have said they expect workers to take the time off, but it is likely some of the sheriffs department comp time will have to be paid out in some form at a later date.

A total of 42 letters in support of the sheriffs department had been submitted. However, all the letters were submitted after the close of business on Monday, and Committee Chairman Don Moore, R-Troy, was not made aware of them until more than an hour into the committee meeting. He read one picked at random.

All of the letters were included in the official minutes of the meeting. Many appeared to be copy and paste as part of a letter-writing campaign.

Members of the public participating in the April 8 meeting via teleconference were also muted and unable to participate.

In his letter, Jones noted the complaint listed a Madison County Public Call-In Line and telephone number, and that comments to the committee could be emailed and would be read by the committee chairman.

Later public meetings included information on how the public could listen in via twitch.TV, and noted that letters must be submitted no later than 24 hours prior to the meeting, and only the first five would be read publicly.

Jones noted that the Open Meetings Act required allowing the public an opportunity to comment, but there could be rules regarding reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.

The letters in question were all received between 4:59 p.m. April 7 and 9:03 a.m. April 8, and forwarded to Moore, who was informed of the letters about 75 minutes into the meeting, after the matter the letters were addressing had been voted on.

There was some discussion about what to do, with Moore finally reading one aloud and noting the rest would be included in the minutes.

According to the letter, at one point in the meeting Moore acknowledged the committee did not have an established and recorded rule requiring public comments to be submitted 24 hours in advance.

Jones said the committees actions effectively gave the public no chance to comment.

Although attaching the public comments to the minutes does preserve a record of the publics intended input, it does not suffice as a substitute for public officials hearing comments during the meeting, he stated.

While he concluded the committee had violated the Open Meetings Act, he noted it did not require the state to issue a binding opinion. The letter gave several recommendations, but concluded that the file was closed.

The issue was discussed briefly at last weeks Finance Committee meeting, with several members suggesting the county explore ways to provide for live public comment.

Deputy County Administrator Bruce Cooper said they are already looking into it, but there are some technical issues they have to work out.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Best Lawyers recognizes two Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd & Conway, PSC attorneys in the 2021 Edition for their exemplary work in their respective legal practice areas. Attorney Tyler S. Thompson was elected to The Best Lawyers in America, and Attorney Jordan A. Stanton attained a Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch recognition.

The Best Lawyers in America strives to represent the consensus of the well-respected legal community. To be eligible for a listing, an attorney must first be nominated by a third-party, such as a peer or client. Secondly, the nominee's career history and legal skills are diligently reviewed by their peers. If an attorney scores exceptionally well during the peer review, then they are featured in the publication alongside the top lawyers in the United States.

As a senior partner at Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd & Conway, PSC, Attorney Thompson has represented the victims of personal injury, medical malpractice, products liability cases, and more, winning many million-dollar verdicts.

Attorney Thompson's previous accolades include the following:

Selected to the Super Lawyers list from 2007 to 2020

Elected as a Top Ten Attorney in Kentucky more than once by Super Lawyers

more than once by Super Lawyers Member of the Inner Circle of Advocates since 2008

Holds an AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell

Impressively, Attorney Thompson has been recognized by Best Lawyers since 2011. In the 2021 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, Attorney Thompson was honored for his conscientious work in Personal Injury Litigation - Plaintiffs.

Recognition in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch is granted via the same peer-review process as the one employed for The Best Lawyers in America. The only variation between the two is that only lawyers in the first decade of their legal careers qualify for a Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch recognition.

Attorney Stanton practices in litigation concerning medical malpractice, wrongful death, products liability, and personal injury. Prior to becoming an associate at Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd & Conway, PSC, he worked at two renowned defense firms and was a Production Editor for the Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law while in law school.

Attorney Stanton's previous accomplishments include:

Selection to the 2020 Super Lawyers Rising Stars list

Admission to The National Trial Lawyers: Top 40 Under 40

Attorney Stanton was elected to Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch 2021 for his exceptional work in Medical Malpractice Law - Plaintiffs. This is the first year he was recognized by Best Lawyers.

Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd & Conway, PSC has represented clients in personal injury litigation since 1986. For more information, visit the firm online at kytrial.com. Or visit bestlawyers.com to learn more about Best Lawyers.

SOURCE Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd & Conway, PSC

Related Links

https://www.kytrial.com


Pune, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global 5G infrastructure market size is projected to reach USD 50,640.4 million by the end of 2026. Increasing smartphone penetration and rising internet usage are the primary factors that will contribute to the growth of the market. According to a report published by Fortune Business Insights, titled 5G Infrastructure Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis By Component (Fibers, Cables, Antenna, Transceiver, Wireless Backhaul, Modem, Router), By Communication Infrastructure (Small Cell, Macro Cell, Radio Access Network (RAN), Distributed Antenna System (DAS)), and Regional Forecast 2019-2026, the market was worth USD 720.6 million in 2018 and will exhibit a CAGR of 76.29% during the forecast period, 2019-2026.

The 5G technology is the 5th generation mobile network that will deliver speeds at the rate of a few gigabytes per second (GBPS). The network is developed in a way that will connect virtually everyone and everything, including devices, objects, and machines. The primary aim of 5G infrastructure development is to create an inter-connected network platform that will allow data transfer and communication at faster rates. Recent advances in 5G network have opened up a huge potential for telecom service providers across the globe. The massive investment in the development and integration of 5G network and infrastructure by companies from domains other than telecom and ICT, will aid the growth of the overall 5G infrastructure market in the coming years.





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An Overview of the Impact of COVID-19 on this Market:

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. There are some industries that are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic.

We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.

Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this Market.







Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/5g-infrastructure-market-100869





Despite Claims of Being a Source of Coronavirus Outbreak, 5G Infrastructure to Rise in the Coming Years

The recent coronavirus outbreak has created a stir among healthcare professionals across the world. Due to the rapid spread of the disease, researchers are putting in extended efforts to determine the cause of the disease as well as treatment options. Several claims had indicated that the 5G infrastructure is related to the spread of the virus. Despite the negativities surrounding 5G network, scientists have ridiculed the rumors and provided practical evidence stating this network has no links to the coronavirus. The 5G infrastructure market is set to rise at a high CAGR in the coming years, driven by the huge potential held by the product across the world.

Company Mergers are an Increasing Trend Among Telecom and Smartphone Companies

The report encompasses several factors that have contributed to the growth of the overall market in recent years. Due to the huge potential held by 5G infrastructure across the world, companies are looking to collaborate in order to establish a wide consumer base. In July 2018, Nokia announced that it has signed a contract with T-Mobile US Inc. for the development of 5G infrastructure network across the United States. The company signed a 3.5 billion multi-year agreement with T-Mobile. Despite the recent stagnancy in business operations and decline in smartphone sales, Nokias merger with T-Mobile will help the company re-establish itself as one of the leading companies across the world. Nokias multibillion dollar contract with T-Mobile will not just benefit the companies, but will have a positive impact on the growth of the overall 5G infrastructure market in the forthcoming years.





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High Investment in 5G Network Will Aid Growth of the Market in North America

The report analyzes ongoing trends across regional markets of North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. Among these regions, the market in North America is likely to emerge dominant due to the higher investment in 5G development as compared to other regions. The rapid advances in 5G implementation especially in the United States, is attributable to the presence of several large scale companies. As of 2018, the market in North America was worth USD 247.6 million and this value is projected to increase further in the coming years.

The market in Asia Pacific will also rise at a considerable pace driven by the constantly rising demand for faster network and increasing smartphone users. The rising population in countries such as China and India will bode well for the growth of the regional market.

List of Key Companies Profiled In 5G Infrastructure Market Are:

AT&T

Verizon Ltd.

Corning,

Fujikura.co

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE),

Belden

Intel Corporations

Ericsson

Qualcomm Technologies

Huawei Technologies Co.

Samsung Electronics

Industry Developments:

June 17, 2019  Ericsson announced the launch of a new 5G standalone New Radio(NR) software that will help organizations achieve low latency and better coverage.





Quick Buy  5G Infrastructure Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/100869





Detailed Table of Content

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Drivers, Restraints and Opportunities Emerging Trends of Market

Key Insights Macro and Micro Economic Factors Key Technological Developments Industry SWOT Analysis

Global 5G Infrastructure Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2026 Key Findings / Summary Market Sizing Estimations and Forecasts  By Component (US$ Mn) Fibers Cables Antenna Active Antenna Passive Antenna Transceiver Wireless Backhaul Modem Router Market Sizing Estimations and Forecasts  By Communication Infrastructure (US$ Mn) Small Cell Macro Cell Radio Access Network (RAN) Distributed Antenna System (DAS) Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Geography (US$ Mn) North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa Latin America







TOC Continued..





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About Us:

Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in.



Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.



At Fortune Business Insights, we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We therefore offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges.
What you need to know today:

Politcs

-- Vietnam said on Thursday that China's deployment of bombers to Vietnamese Hoang Sa (Paracels) jeopardizes peace in the region.

Society

-- Police in Vietnam have arrested four men for allegedly defrauding more than 5,000 Americans trying to buy COVID-19 protective equipment online out of nearly US$1 million, Reuters quoted the Ministry of Public Security as saying on Thursday.

-- Vietnam reported no new coronavirus cases on Friday morning, with the national tally standing at 1,007 and virus-related deaths reaching 25.

-- Ho Chi Minh City authorities will spend around VND404 billion (US$17.5 million) doubling the width of the Hang Ngoai Bridge in Go Vap District to ease congestion, according to a municipal board charged with managing transport projects. The expansion will last 11 months from September, the board said.

-- Thousands of users in India, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam reported a brief outage in accessing Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Meet services on Thursday, according to tech news site TechCrunch.

-- A man in Hanoi has been fined VND7.5 million ($324) for saying without any proof on Facebook that 80 percent of young people and public servants in Ho Chi Minh City are on drugs, a source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Thursday.

Business

-- An online workshop was held on Thursday, providing training and networking activities for helping connect Vietnamese companies with foreign distributors, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

World News

-- Japan plans to ease COVID-19 entry restrictions on foreign nationals with resident visas starting next month, according to NHK.

-- Over 22.8 million people have caught COVID-19 while almost 397,000 have died of the disease around the world, according to Vietnam's Ministry of Health. A total of 15.5 million have recovered from the virus.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Natalie Morales, left, joined the cast of "Dead to Me" in Season 2 as the love interest for Linda Cardellini. (Saeed Adyani / Netflix)

Actors often think casting directors hardly even pay attention during their auditions. But what they don't realize is that not only are they watching closely, they might actually be looking straight into the actors' souls.

We had been fans of Samira [Wiley] from Orange Is the New Black, '" notes Sharon Bialy, who is part of the team that casts Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale." "She read with me .... There was something she found  the strength in that character, the fearlessness in her eyes.

"We werent identifying what roles would be people of color," adds her colleague Sherry Thomas. "It was the soul of the actor and what [showrunner Bruce Miller] was looking for."

Wiley plays the rebellious Moira on "Handmaid's" and has one Emmy win in three nominations for the role.

The Envelope spoke with some of TV's top casting directors about their part in helping stories get told and actors get Emmy nominated. Among them, theyre responsible for five of the shows nominated for casting Emmys this year as well as a host of others that have received acting nominations in the past.

Bialy, Thomas and Russell Scott are nominated twice this year, for Dead to Me along with "Handmaids Tale. Another of their shows, Better Call Saul, now has 11 acting nominations. For Dead to Mes second season, Scott said the main task was finding the new love interest for Linda Cardellinis character.

Natalie [Morales] was someone [showrunner Liz Feldman] had in mind from the beginning, but she was working on a movie. Production was able to move around a lot of stuff, he says.

Well, Russell was able to work with production to make it happen, adds Thomas. He was a huge part of why we got her  it was a lot of working out schedules; we dont just get to read in a room with actors all the time. Did Scott have to break some legs to get it done? "No. That's me," Thomas says. The others laugh ... a little.

Story continues

Samira Wiley plays Moira in "The Handmaid's Tale," a performance that has brought her a third supporting actress Emmy nomination. (Hulu)

For Season 2 of "Handmaid's," we were surprised with Sydney Sweeney [as Eden]. That was a very, very challenging role," Thomas says of the eager young "econowife" character who comes to learn just how divorced love and marriage are in the Gilead dystopia. Thomas called Sweeney "wise and mature beyond her years. What she did to prepare for that role was incredible. She read the whole book in like 48 hours. She created a book this big between her read with casting and her read with Bruce, of her story as the character. Shes the real deal."

As continuing shows, all three series have established universes and tones, says Thomas.

Bialy says, For Better Call Saul, we have an inside joke in the office that theyre a Vince-Peter type of an actor [co-showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould]. Every actor that comes in, even if they dont get the job, we keep a lot of notes .... Well often write notes like, Remember for BCS because theres a naturalistic approach to the acting on the show; its not showy at all.

You really want to buy into that environment. There would be years where people would be like, Where did you get all these drug addicts? 

Thomas adds that they sometimes develop relationships with actors, calling them in time and again for reads. Sauls Rhea Seehorn was one they called in many times before she booked the key Kim Wexler role.

Scott says Dead to Me is a comedy, but its very down to earth. Liz responds to actors who arent hitting the jokes but ... have a sense of humor, not typical sitcom, playing-to-the-audience types you might see on traditional multi-camera shows. A lot have to be able to do comedy, drama, all of it.

It's good to be (Regina) King: The Oscar winner might win her fourth Emmy for her portrayal of Angela Aybar/Sister Night in "Watchmen." (Mark Hill / HBO)

Secrets of the 'Watchmen'

Victoria Thomas, who is nominated this year for casting both Insecure (with Matthew Maisto) and Watchmen (with Megan Lewis), said the latter had unusual secrecy concerns: There were dummy sides or fake names on a breakdown. [Showrunner Damon Lindelof] is pretty specific about what he wants, but if he cant really explain it, hell know it when he sees it.

I feel like I get him. He once told me, Youre weird too. 

One of the limited series biggest secrets  spoiler alert: If you havent seen Watchmen, skip down several paragraphs  was that perhaps the most iconic character from the comic would indeed appear in the show, set years after the source material. But who to play the enigmatic Dr. Manhattan?

Thomas says of the then-not-so-well-known Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, I kind of always knew Yahya was it. One day, Damon said, Hey, theres this guy, Yahya! I went, Yeah. Hes coming in this week. 

But not even Thomas and Lewis knew who the character, a nice guy married to Regina Kings vigilante character, would later be revealed to be.

Thomas says, Damon tried to give me a hint: He should be  a little unusual. My associate, Elizabeth, who knows the comics very well, she guessed it.

The Doctor is in: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was a surprise choice to play Dr. Manhattan in HBO's "Watchmen." (Mark Hill / HBO)

Even the actor didnt know until that episodes script rolled around.

Thomas says, His agent called me: Oh my God, Vicky, we just learned who he was!  and they screamed. Yahya took a leap of faith. He was playing a husband. He was kind of signing on to play the girl part.

As to King (she and Abdul-Mateen II are nominated, along with costars Jovan Adepo, Louis Gossett Jr., Jeremy Irons and Jean Smart), the Oscar winner and three-time Emmy winner who worked on Lindelofs The Leftovers wasnt a slam dunk  precisely because shed worked on Lindelofs The Leftovers.

He doesnt necessarily work with people twice in a row, so we didnt immediately go to Regina, says Thomas. We had readings for that part. We thought wed cast an unknown.

Then he went to dinner with Regina and came back and said, Why didnt I just  I feel so ashamed. Because here, on a plate, is this great actress.' 

Jeremy O. Harris was cast in a small role in FX's "What We Do in the Shadows." Co-showrunner Jemaine Clement then wrote an episode just for him. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Actors coming out of the 'Shadows'

For the vampire mockuseries What We Do in the Shadows, nominees Gayle Keller, Jenny Lewis and Sara Kay find themselves looking for actors who don't look like typical actors.

Kay says, I met with [showrunners Jemaine Clement and Paul Simms] in the beginning, and they were like, You know, just bring us  good  faces. And people. 

Keller says, They said they wanted boring. Like if you were to go to a town meeting to talk about zoning.

Sometimes Clement will become inspired by the actors.

In Season 1, says Keller, Harvey Guillen, who costars as Guillermo, familiar to one of the vampires, "starts talking to this other familiar at a party, and it was a very nondescript part. I brought in this guy from New York, hes actually a playwright, his name is Jeremy O. Harris. Hes like 6-foot-5, hes got this huge fro. We sent the audition, and Jemaine fell in love with him: We have to have him! And the next season, they wrote an episode for him, but he couldnt do it. He was tied to a play in New York.

Jemaine does that so much, says Kay. She cites the scenes with Mark Proksch as energy vampire Colin Robinson in his workplace. Like with Colins office mates; they have like one line here and there and Jemaine said, I need them all back. You dont see loyalty like that a lot.
WASHINGTON: The number two U.S. diplomat will visit Russia and Lithuania soon for talks on Belarus, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, as Washington seeks a peaceful resolution to that countrys election crisis that averts Russian intervention.

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Bieguns planned mission signals a greater U.S. role in trying to settle the strife that erupted when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters rejecting his claim of a landslide Aug. 9 election win.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One source, a former senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Biegun was expected to leave in the coming days for Moscow and the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where Belarusian opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya took refuge after Lukashenko launched his crackdown.

The United States and European Union have condemned the election as marred by irregularities. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged Lukashenko to accept international help in opening talks with the opposition and implicitly warned Russia, Belarus massive neighbor, not to intervene.

Lukashenko has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for help salvaging his 26-year rule. Belarus is bound to Russia by a mutual defense treaty and deep economic, political and cultural ties.

Putin has offered assistance, if required. Moscow on Wednesday said it saw no need to help for now, but has warned against outside involvement in Belarus and said the crisis should be settled internally.

The second source said he did not know Bieguns planned message but thought he would aim to prevent further violence in Belarus or Russian intervention.

I would guess the administration is trying to dissuade Moscow from either intervening on its own or using its influence with Lukashenko to encourage him to have a (more) violent crackdown," said this source, also on condition of anonymity.

EU member Lithuania, which has sought backing from Washington, has been an outspoken critic of Lukashenkos crackdown on the demonstrations by tens of thousands of Belarusians in which his security forces have beaten, teargassed and arrested thousands of people, many of whom say they were tortured.

Experts say Washington seeks a larger role in a search for a negotiated resolution to the crisis. The turmoil disrupted a U.S. effort to exploit tensions between Putin and Lukashenko, with Pompeo visiting Minsk in February for talks on normalizing diplomatic relations.

Protesters are not demanding closer ties with the West, experts noted, but a redo of the vote and respect for human rights, which Washington has a strong interest in promoting.

Moreover, the crisis gives Washington an issue on which to unite with European allies amid serious tensions over the Iran nuclear deal and U.S. President Donald Trumps expressions of disdain for the trans-Atlantic alliance, they said.

From the U.S. perspective, theres a whole host of issues both in terms of human rights and democracy, but theres also a security component," said Jonathan Katz, a former U.S. official and expert on Eastern Europe with the German Marshall Fund, a thinktank. Belarus borders the Baltic allies and Poland."

At the same time, he said, Washington wants to avoid giving Putin an excuse to intervene militarily in Belarus as he did in 2014 in Ukraine, when Russian forces seized Crimea and backed separatists in the countrys east after the ouster of a pro-Moscow government.

There are concerns about the potential for Moscow to act militarily," said Katz. You cant dismiss it even if you think the likelihood is not there."

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
A judge who decided a man acted in self-defence when he punched a stranger and caused brain damage was relying on case law from another Hamilton matter heading to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Justice Amanda Camara found Loren Perrin not guilty of assault causing bodily harm on Thursday. In her reasons, Camara drew heavily from the Peter Khill murder trial, which was given leave to the Supreme Court earlier this month. Khill was found not guilty of second-degree murder when he shot Jonathan Styres in his driveway in the dark. Khill argued it was self-defence. Styres was unarmed.

The Supreme Court will decide what constitutes self-defence and how a persons level of fear, their background and their own actions prior to the offence should be considered.

These highly contested legal issues were also at the heart of Perrins judge alone trial in the Ontario Court of Justice.

On Sept. 8, 2018, Bryan Hood, then 23, was at Sizzle nightclub in Hess Village with friends. At 2 a.m., they left and ran into Perrin.

Perrin heard Hood make a disparaging remark to a woman, according to the judge.

Perrin told Hood to chill.

That started a scuffle and Perrin fell. He got up and went down a dark alleyway into a parking lot. Hood followed.

Perrin punched Hood in the head, knocking him unconscious.

Hood had a skull fracture and a subdural hematoma. He was in a coma and needed emergency surgery to save his life.

Hood now has an acquired brain injury  He has lost large gaps in time in his memory, including his entire time in high school, Camara said.

There was no dispute Perrin caused the injuries. The issue for Camara to decide was whether Perrin acted in self-defence.

Perrin, 28 at the time, was five-foot-nine and 135 to 140 pounds, according to his testimony. He has a criminal record from 2010 for two counts each of assault with a weapon and theft under $5,000.

He told court that the night of the fight he drank two beers at the Lazy Flamingo in Hess. (Other witnesses said he was very intoxicated.) He said when he heard Hood mouthing off to a woman, he told Hood to stop and a scuffle started.

Perrin said he did not consent to a fight and tried to get away by running down an alley. He came to a fence, but thought it was too high to climb. When he turned around, Hood was charging toward him with clenched fists.

Mr. Perrin felt intimidated and scared, the judge said. He believed he was being attacked.

Hood swung first, according to Perrins evidence.

Camara told the court she accepted that Perrin had a reasonable belief he would be assaulted. He struck back to prevent that.

Camara said there were no other options available to Perrin.

This was  a fast-moving event, the judge said. It would be wrong to sit back, with the luxury of time, to second guess and think of alternative routes of escape.

One punch by Perrin was reasonable under the circumstances, said Camara.

The punch was to Hoods head. It is unknown if it caused the skull fracture or if his fall did.

There is no evidence that the force used was gratuitous, concluded the judge, before finding him not guilty.

In court with his mother, father and lawyer, Perrin quietly left the moment the verdict was in.
Aug 21 (Reuters) - The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Energy Transfer LP's Sunoco Pipeline unit again this week for spilling drilling fluid during construction of its long-delayed Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline.

The $355,636 fine assessed Thursday for violations in 2018 and 2019 was just the latest in a long series of sanctions against the company for spills and other violations of its construction permits.

The biggest fine was for $12.6 million in 2018.

In addition to fining Sunoco, Pennsylvania has also stopped construction work on the pipe several times in the past due to spills and sinkholes. Several politicians and local groups have long urged the state to stop work again and shut the pipe.

Officials at Energy Transfer were not immediately available for comment.

Since May 2017, Pennsylvania has issued 113 notices of violation to Mariner East, mostly for drilling fluid spills, including 13 so far in 2020.

In its latest fine, the DEP said Sunocos horizontal drilling activities resulted in unauthorized discharges of drilling fluids consisting of bentonite clay and water in several streams and wetlands between August 2018 and April 2019.

Energy companies use horizontal drilling to burrow under waterbodies, roads and other obstacles when building a pipeline.

Mariner East transports liquids from the Marcellus and Utica shale in western Pennsylvania to customers in the state and elsewhere, including international exports from Energy Transfer's Marcus Hook complex near Philadelphia.

Sunoco started work on the $2.5 billion Mariner East expansion in February 2017 and had planned to finish the 350-mile (563-kilometer) pipeline in the third quarter of 2017.

But completion of Mariner East 2 was delayed until December 2018 due to several work stoppages by state agencies following numerous permit violations.

Energy Transfer is currently working on the Mariner East 2X expansion of the pipe.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Getting Wisconsin Cheese and dairy products featured on television is a big initiative for Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin (DFW). By engaging with authentic advocates like national television broadcasters, Food Network chefs, and popular lifestyle experts who share our love for award-winning Wisconsin cheese varieties, we achieve many free and powerful stories that help grow the demand for our products with consumers nationwide. These advocates give our states cheese instant credibility and heightened attention, which drives retail sales across the U.S.

Celebrity endorsements boost brand awareness

In October, "The Kelly Clarkson Show" accepted our pitch to feature Liz Thorpe, national cheese expert and author, for an interview on wine and Wisconsin cheese pairings during the winter holidays. Recently, DFW arranged broadcasts in June, showcasing the many uses for Wisconsin cheese.

Chef Kevin Gillespie, an Atlanta restaurateur and former "Top Chef" contestant, appeared on more than 2,000 news segments across the nation, mostly on morning and lifestyle shows. Gillespie, who is a James Beard Award finalist, shared recipes using Wisconsin cheeses  aged Cheddar and Blue cheese, varieties he has used in his restaurants for years  that also displayed the Proudly Wisconsin branding. He mentioned several Wisconsin cheesemakers by name and explained how to arrange a summertime cheese board by using cheese with the Proudly Wisconsin badge.

These celebrity mentions and endorsements of our Proudly Wisconsin Cheese and dairy products immediately add value and brand awareness. When a local or national celebrity mentions or showcases a product, an element of legitimacy is suddenly present in the products produced using your milk, simply because of the power of the name backing it up.

In the last fiscal year, DFW efforts reached more than 400 million American viewers to share messages about Wisconsin cheeses. The media outreach prompted broadcast airings in all 50 states, educating about Wisconsins cheese heritage and commitment to excellence, while identifying the Proudly Wisconsin Cheese badge.

With 90% of the states cheese sold outside of Wisconsin, DFW coordinated nationwide broadcast media campaign by tapping into the growing interest in foodie culture  cooking shows, food blogs, podcasts, and farm-to-fork eateries. National public relations efforts earned $40 million in unpaid media, a marketing term that measures the value of the media stories as if they were paid with advertising dollars.

This outreach leads to a growing awareness and desire of consumers nationwide to seek out the Proudly Wisconsin Cheese badge at their local retail location. This growth in demand for the award-winning cheese made in Americas Dairyland increases the need for your high-quality milk. View all the earned publicity at www.wisconsindairybuzz.com.

About Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin: Funded by Wisconsin dairy farmers, Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin is a non-profit organization that focuses on marketing and promoting Wisconsins world-class dairy products. Follow us on Facebook and sign up for the farmer newsletter at WisconsinDairy.org to learn more about your dairy checkoff.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2020

August 17, 2020
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The luxury and premium segment of wines and spirits have been expanding at a brisk pace in recent years. Luxury wines & spirits experience heightened demand from the High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and affluent consumers who are attracted by attributes such as good brand reputation, premium quality, and premium price which provide a sense of privilege and prestige to the buyer. North America and Europe recorded a sizeable HNWI population of 5.7 million and 4.8 million in the year 2017. A notable increase in the global HNWIs population is fueling the demand for luxury wines & spirits.

Also Read: https://www.abnewswire.com/pressreleases/toothpaste-market-overview-size-value-share-competitive-leaderboard-business-growth-covid19-analysis-global-opportunity-by-forecast-to-2025_494073.html

The global luxury wines & spirits market is registering rapid growth due to the rise in per capita income of consumers on a global scale, especially in the emerging economies. Consumers are increasingly becoming sophisticated and shifting towards absolute quality products. The elevating standard of living has raised consumer aspiration to consume luxury food, wines, and spirits. Moreover, fine dine restaurants also play a key role in influencing consumer choice to indulge in premium beverages by offering such options in their menu.

Although luxury wines & spirits remain popular among niche consumers, shifting consumer preference towards non-alcoholic beverages is expected to restrain the growth of the market over the forecast period. With rising awareness regarding the adverse effects of alcoholic beverages and surging popularity of functional drinks, the sales of luxury wines & spirits can witness a decline. Additionally, inspection, production, and certification of luxury wines & spirits are subject to stringent regulations imposed by regulatory authorities which limits its availability to a mass consumer base, restricting the growth of the market in regions where wine laws are tight. Nevertheless, the market players are adopting various growth strategies such as product differentiation through packaging, digitization, and branding which is anticipated to reflect favorably on the growth of the global luxury wines & spirits market.

Tourism and luxury spending has become highly interwined. Consumption of luxury wines & spirits is a pervasive phenomenon in luxury aircrafts, ships, and hotels. The Luxury Wine Industry is growing in line with the rise in extravagant spending on luxury travel. Also, China remains a luxury spot for the global luxury wines & spirits market. "Guanxi', a tradition of Chinese culture involves the exchange of gifts for establishing and maintaining relationships. Since luxury wines & spirits score high among gifts, millennials in China prefer gifting luxury wines & spirits in order to build prestige which generate demand for luxury wines & spirits.

Segmentation

The global luxury wines & spirits market has been segmented based on type and distribution channel.

By type, the global luxury wines & spirits market has been segmented into wine, whiskey, brandy, rum, vodka, gin, tequila, and others.

By distribution channel, the global luxury wines & spirits market has been segmented into food retail and food service.

Regional Analysis

By region, the global luxury wines & spirits market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and the Rest of the World (RoW).

APAC accounts for the lion's share of 39.07% of the global luxury wines & spirits market. China and India are the key contributors to the APAC luxury wines& spirits market. Increase in the number of small boutique wineries along with improving quality of wine in China is expected to boost market growth. India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia are also exhibiting noteworthy growth. Rise in per capita income, exposure to western culture, and growing interest in luxury indulgences is influencing the growth of the APAC market.

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The military officer who declared himself in charge of Mali after leading a coup that ousted the West African nations president this week received training from the United States, according to military officers from both countries.

Colonel Assimi Goita, who emerged on Thursday as the head of the junta in power, worked for years with US Special Operations forces focused on fighting extremism in West Africa. He spoke regularly with US troops and attended US-led training exercises, said the officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

Mr Goita, who also received training from Germany and France, headed Malis special forces unit in the countrys restive central region, where fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State have established a stronghold that has alarmed global leaders.

By making this intervention, we have put Mali first, Mr Goita said in a broadcast on Thursday alongside top government officials. Mali is in a sociopolitical and security crisis. There is no more room for mistakes.

The US Africa Command and the Defence Department did not immediately respond to questions about the nature of Mr Goitas training and relationship with US troops.

The United States strongly condemns the ongoing mutiny and any attempts at a military seizure of power, Pentagon spokeswoman Nicole Kirschmann said in a statement.

It is not unusual for senior officers in the Malian military  a force of roughly 12,000 meant to protect a population of about 20 million  to receive training from the US and other foreign allies.

Malian officers are usually involved in several foreign trainings  meaning they may leave for Russia, go to France and then end up part of Flintlock, a US training exercise in West Africa, said Marc-Andre Boisvert, a former UN expert who has spent years researching Malis military.

Helping the nations troops fight rapidly spreading extremism is critical for regional stability, US military officials said. Al-Qaida and Islamic State loyalists have cooperated in West Africa in pushes to dominate the countryside in Mali, a country nearly twice the size of Texas.

What weve seen is not just random acts of violence under a terrorist banner but a deliberate campaign that is trying to bring these various groups under a common cause, brigadier general Dagvin Anderson, head of the US militarys Special Operations arm in Africa, told the Post in February. That larger effort then poses a threat to the United States.

The coup came after months of protests in the capital, Bamako, which brought tens of thousands of Malians into the streets to demand the resignation of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Video showed people cheering as mutinous soldiers stormed Bamako on Tuesday and took Keita, along with several of his top officers, into their custody.

Recommended Mali president resigns and dissolves parliament after armed coup

The African Union, the United Nations, France and the United States swiftly condemned the rebellion, urging the coup leaders to release Keita, whose term was due to end in 2023.

A politically stable Mali is paramount and crucial to the stability of the sub-region, Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari tweeted on Thursday.

The protesters, led by an influential imam, Mahmoud Dicko, accused the 75-year-old Keita of corruption, mismanaging the crumbling economy and allowing extremists to spread in the countryside. The embattled leader resigned on state television Wednesday, saying he wanted to avoid more bloodshed.

Malis new rulers, who call themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, said they aim to build a civilian-led transition government and hold a new election.

Mr Goita, the juntas leader, is a commander of the countrys Autonomous Special Forces Battalion, which is one of the first lines of defence against the extremists.

He had expressed frustration to colleagues about the rising violence in Mali, according to a former US military officer who worked closely with him, sending out videos of torched villages on WhatsApp.

Mr Goita, who is in his early 40s, spent most of his military career in the areas rife with extremists  the northern deserts and the central garrison towns. His spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Recommended Mali president and prime minister detained by mutinying soldiers

The number of deaths from terrorism in the country, as well as in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, have skyrocketed in recent years, according to the United Nations, surpassing 4,000 in 2019.

Hundreds of Malian soldiers have died in the fight. They have also faced accusations of killing innocent villagers on the search for extremists, according to Human Rights Watch.

The leader of Malis last coup in 2012  captain Amadou Haya Sanogo  also received military guidance from the US, including professional military education and basic officer training.

The actions of the mutineers run contrary to everything that is taught in US military schools, where students are exposed to American concepts of the role of a military in a free society, Hilary F Renner, a spokeswoman for the State Departments Bureau of African Affairs, said at the time.

The Washington Post
Six-month review of phase one US-China trade deal had been planned for August 15 but was postponed as tensions mount.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has declined to acknowledge any plans to meet with China over their phase one trade deal after the commerce ministry in Beijing said bilateral talks would be held in the coming days to evaluate the agreements progress.

Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng made the comments about the forthcoming discussions at a weekly briefing held online on Thursday, but did not elaborate.

The videoconference meeting, originally envisioned for August 15  marking six months after the trade deals launch  had been delayed, and Trump said it was his decision.

Two US sources familiar with the plans told the Reuters news agency on Thursday no new meeting date has been scheduled.

The US Trade Representatives (USTRs) office and US Treasury did not respond to queries by Reuters about plans to review the trade deal, a regular six-month review by high-level officials called for in a chapter on enforcement.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow did not comment on possible talks with Chinese officials. But he said the Trump administration remains engaged with Beijing on the phase one trade deal and USTR Robert Lighthizer was pleased with the progress so far.

Behind the curve

Chinas purchases of US goods are running well behind the pace needed to meet a first-year increase of $77bn specified in the deal, according to official data. But China has increased the pace of farm product purchases in recent weeks.

Trump, who has frequently expressed anger at China over the coronavirus pandemic, said on Tuesday he had postponed talks with China because: I dont want to deal with them now.

As his re-election campaign ramps up, Trump has turned to tougher talk and actions against China, including sanctions over Chinas Hong Kong security crackdown and attempting to force the sale of Chinese-owned video-sharing platform TikTok.

Trump told supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday his administration would offer companies tax credits to bring jobs back to the US from China.

And if they dont do it, well put tariffs on those companies, and theyll have to pay us a lot of money, Trump said.
A federal judge denied an emergency motion sought by three Christian schools in Oregon that want to reopen this fall, finding Gov. Kate Browns executive order for K-12 schools during the coronavirus holds up constitutionally.

In my view the religious institutions here in K-through-12 arent being treated in any way differently than public K-through-12 institutions, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled Thursday after hearing nearly two hours of testimony.

Attorney John Kaempf, representing Horizon Christian School, McMinnville Christian Academy and Life Christian School, had urged the judge to grant a temporary restraining order that would have halted the governors order and allowed the three schools to reopen with in-person classes this fall.

We want to be treated the same as universities and daycare centers, Kaempf said.

Zoom learning is not what Christian learning is about, he said. My clients are called to communal in person faith-based learning.

Attorney Marc Abrams, for the governor, argued that health concerns are paramount and the temporary limitations on in-school learning are necessary to avoid the potential loss of life and a potential super spreader site.

The judge found the Christian schools made it clear that they have been and will be irreparably harmed, adding theres near certainty that one or more of the schools might fold.

Yet Mosman said he needs to examine the law in place and finds the states public health concerns due to the pandemic outweigh the schools interests.

The harm the state is trying to prevent is death and not just death as in a few, but the possibility of a widespread pandemic killing our most vulnerable citizens, Mosman said.

According to the state, the governor on June 24 issued Executive Order 20-29, which provided that on-site instruction may take place in public and private K-12 schools only if it meets guidance issued by the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Department of Education.

That order was extended by a subsequent one called Executive Order 20-30. Public and private schools may reopen for on-site instruction after 5% or less of COVID-19 tests are positive statewide for three consecutive weeks; 5% or less of COVID-19 tests are positive in the schools county for three consecutive weeks; and there are 10 or fewer new cases per 100,000 population, according to the Oregon Health Authority and Education Department.

For K-3 on-site instruction to resume, the schools county must have positive COVID-19 tests of 5% or less and fewer than 30 new cases per 100,000 population for three consecutive weeks and no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among school staff or students in the prior 14 days.

Mosman said he recognized the positive role of religious education in public life.

Its an understandable position and surely frustrating to see marijuana dispensaries and taverns granted the right to open and church schools told theres serious limitations before opening, the judge said.

But he said he couldnt compare the Christian K-8 schools to the governors orders that affect other facilities, such as laundromats, bars or universities.

Universities and day cares are qualitatively different and arent covered by this general rule of neutral terms and general applicability to the group it attempts to govern, Mosman said.

Kaempf had submitted a sworn statement to the court from Yamhill County Commissioner Mary Starrett, who shared that during a July 29 weekly call with two of the governors representatives, one answered her question when she asked why private and parochial schools werent allowed to reopen.

According to Starrett, Leah Horner, the governors jobs and economic policy adviser, told her there was a concern about a mass exodus from public schools if private schools were permitted to reopen and public schools werent.

Lawyers for the governor responded that Horners statement was taken out of context.

I did not mean to imply that there would be an exodus from public schools if private schools reopened and public schools did not, Horner wrote in her own response to the court. I was merely mentioning the possibility that if, for whatever reason, students disenrolled from a public school, that school would lose some of its state school funds. I was just trying to educate the officials on the conference call as to what these decisions look like on broader scale.

The judge found the back-and-forth irrelevant to his decision. He called the remarks double hearsay' and insufficient to show a motivating factor for the governors order.

The three churches named as plaintiffs in the federal suit are McMinnville Christian Academy, which offers K-8 classes; Horizon Christian School, a pre-K-12 private school within 30 miles of Hood River, and Life Christian School in Aloha, which offers K-12 classes.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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The coronavirus accelerated a "work from anywhere" revolution faster than anyone anticipated. This has significant implications for the real estate market. Employers and workers are embracing the freedom of where to live and work; and if that trend holds, a shift in real estate demand will occur on a global scale.



Investors sense an opportunity to buy/relocate in areas away from the urban office. With millions of workers now given the choice of where to live - the migration trends will be towards lower cost, safer and potentially more exotic, lifestyle-rich communities. As the tide shifts from expensive, dense urban cores, a flood of capital is expected to wash over places that were already garnering visits from digital nomads and the like.



The remote work revolution has already transformed the way we think about real estate and the possibilities for living: the telecommuting workforce has grown by 140% since 2005, nearly 10x faster than the rest of the workforce. However, the worldwide pandemic has hyper-accelerated everything. A spike in demand in less-urban, lower cost, amenity-rich locations both home and abroad will continue to accelerate.



Domestic Trends



New York City is experiencing the loss of hundreds of people a day. Smaller towns will reap the benefits of this shift. A small town in Northwest Arkansas called Bentonville is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. Offering safety, good schools, lower cost of living and an array of outdoor and cultural activities.



Stephanie Strasnick, a digital marketing consultant in the art industry, was living in New York City for the past 10 years. Last month, she uprooted and made the move to Bentonville, population 50,000. She moved into a master-planned community near restaurants, mountain bike trails, farm to table food options, and nearby lakes and art museums: "Life is just easier here than in New York City. If there is a second wave of the virus, I feel like I'm in a safer place, having more space and so many outdoor amenities to enjoy on a day to day basis." Stephanie's experience is that a New Yorker can move to Bentonville, continue to work, and enjoy an enhanced lifestyle at a more affordable price.



The ability to work remotely creates a significant economic shift in real estate demand, and a place like Bentonville and other similar towns will continue to gain momentum.



Moving the Home Office to the Beach



For generations, Americans have dreamt about lower cost real estate options in exotic beach locations. This option was formerly reserved for a second home or retirement destination buyer, but now, this option is possible for younger millennials with newfound flexibility.









Blue Venao Resort, Panama



For Dekel, building resort communities in Panama is about offering a lifestyle that recharges and inspires the worker. In this way, living on the beach is seen as an enhancement to productivity--not a distraction. Employers are expected to become more and more comfortable with remote work supported with evidence of increased employee productivity (even as their employees go surfing during lunch breaks). This all can be viewed as a powerful shift in the workplace with a direct impact on real estate trends -- enabling people to work where they want while still being productive. Investors take note.



An exotic beach in paradise is going to be extremely attractive at a fraction of the cost of living in an overpriced condo in Seattle or D.C. Dekel is betting this revolution could potentially turn the corporate real estate world on its head.



The Emergence of the Shared Economy in Real Estate



Another trend that has accelerated due to the Pandemic: a mobile lifestyle among second homebuyers and owners. The rise of the digital nomad, an idea once confined to a younger demographic, has shifted to co-opt that mid-50 professional. Home exchanges are exploding in popularity. Affluent homeowners that used to enjoy the status of hanging out at the local country club in the 80s and 90s, are now preferring lifestyle experiences in multi-dimensional locales over a single static residence.



Elite Alliance, a real estate and hospitality company based in New York, has built an exchange network of 130 upscale resort properties around the world. A vacation homeowner can place their home into the portfolio and gain access to iconic destinations in stunning resorts: Cabo, Italy, Telluride, Bermuda, Florida Keys, Morocco, Greece and more - thus maximizing the utility of their vacation property. Developers are using this concept and offering real estate with a membership to access the network of Elite Alliance properties when an investor buys a vacation home. "Affluent vacation homeowners are much more comfortable sharing their residence today than when we first started the luxury exchange program 15 years ago," says President of Elite Alliance, Rob Goodyear.



This exchange/sharing concept will grow in popularity as affluent buyers value experiences over status more than ever before.



The Future of Real Estate is the Future of Lifestyle Investing



Not all businesses are going fully remote right away - workers may work from home, but the boss may want to meet in-person regularly. Either way, there's a great deal more flexibility on the horizon, and places like Bentonville, Blue Venao, and the Elite Alliance Home Exchange are well positioned to capitalize on these trends.



The truth is, many new real estate options are already harvesting the benefits of remote work. According to GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com, approximately 20-25% of the workforce teleworks at some frequency, and 4.3 million employees work from home at least half the time. Again, the pandemic will significantly increase these numbers, and the phenomenon of the rise of the digital nomad is predicted to continue to grow exponentially.



So, while it may initially seem like a giant step to abandon the status quo of traditional real estate offerings in traditional real estate markets, new realities are in play that pushes the future forward at an ever-faster pace. Moreover, it is happening on digital platforms that allow for rapid adoption and velocity even if real estate is a brick and mortar business. This quickening pace is due to consumer driven demand from the massive existential shock that has upended expensive "work based" cities. To be on the front end of this curve is exciting and liberating. It gives the consumer unprecedented choices in where and how to live.



We may all be living on the beach or in some rural mountain town sooner than anticipated.

Foreign resort communities in exotic places are attracting buyers looking for a more affordable lifestyle in an ideal, amenity-rich setting. Companies like Dekel (a Panamanian real estate company) have leveraged their real estate offerings to capitalize on the "working from anywhere" revolution. Having built a number of mixed-use residential resorts in tropical beach locations, they offer beachfront condos from $249,000 at a resort community in Panama called Blue Venao.With the adoption of applications like Zoom and Google Meet, employees can seamlessly collaborate from anywhere in the world. This powers the notion that work is where you want it to be, especially as expensive super star cities like San Francisco and New York City lose their luster. Live in paradise, keep more take home pay, and perhaps pick up a new foreign language along the way...on a beach in Panama for instance.For Dekel, building resort communities in Panama is about offering a lifestyle that recharges and inspires the worker. In this way, living on the beach is seen as an enhancement to productivity--not a distraction. Employers are expected to become more and more comfortable with remote work supported with evidence of increased employee productivity (even as their employees go surfing during lunch breaks). This all can be viewed as a powerful shift in the workplace with a direct impact on real estate trends -- enabling people to work where they want while still being productive. Investors take note.An exotic beach in paradise is going to be extremely attractive at a fraction of the cost of living in an overpriced condo in Seattle or D.C. Dekel is betting this revolution could potentially turn the corporate real estate world on its head.Another trend that has accelerated due to the Pandemic: a mobile lifestyle among second homebuyers and owners. The rise of the digital nomad, an idea once confined to a younger demographic, has shifted to co-opt that mid-50 professional. Home exchanges are exploding in popularity. Affluent homeowners that used to enjoy the status of hanging out at the local country club in the 80s and 90s, are now preferring lifestyle experiences in multi-dimensional locales over a single static residence.Elite Alliance, a real estate and hospitality company based in New York, has built an exchange network of 130 upscale resort properties around the world. A vacation homeowner can place their home into the portfolio and gain access to iconic destinations in stunning resorts: Cabo, Italy, Telluride, Bermuda, Florida Keys, Morocco, Greece and more - thus maximizing the utility of their vacation property. Developers are using this concept and offering real estate with a membership to access the network of Elite Alliance properties when an investor buys a vacation home. "Affluent vacation homeowners are much more comfortable sharing their residence today than when we first started the luxury exchange program 15 years ago," says President of Elite Alliance, Rob Goodyear.This exchange/sharing concept will grow in popularity as affluent buyers value experiences over status more than ever before.Not all businesses are going fully remote right away - workers may work from home, but the boss may want to meet in-person regularly. Either way, there's a great deal more flexibility on the horizon, and places like Bentonville, Blue Venao, and the Elite Alliance Home Exchange are well positioned to capitalize on these trends.The truth is, many new real estate options are already harvesting the benefits of remote work. According to GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com, approximately 20-25% of the workforce teleworks at some frequency, and 4.3 million employees work from home at least half the time. Again, the pandemic will significantly increase these numbers, and the phenomenon of the rise of the digital nomad is predicted to continue to grow exponentially.So, while it may initially seem like a giant step to abandon the status quo of traditional real estate offerings in traditional real estate markets, new realities are in play that pushes the future forward at an ever-faster pace. Moreover, it is happening on digital platforms that allow for rapid adoption and velocity even if real estate is a brick and mortar business. This quickening pace is due to consumer driven demand from the massive existential shock that has upended expensive "work based" cities. To be on the front end of this curve is exciting and liberating. It gives the consumer unprecedented choices in where and how to live.We may all be living on the beach or in some rural mountain town sooner than anticipated.





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Former United States Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill at The Majestic Downtown in Los Angeles, California, on March 14, 2015. (Jason Merritt/Getty Images for NFMFS)

Delta Bans Navy SEAL Who Shot Bin Laden After He Refused to Wear Face Mask

The former Navy SEAL who claims to have shot dead Osama bin Laden has been banned from flying with Delta Air Lines after refusing to wear a face mask.

Robert ONeill, 44, posted a picture of himself on Twitter on board a flight on Wednesday without a mask on, captioning the image, Im not a [expletive].

The tweet was accompanied by a slew of other complaints over dumb [expletive] masks and the pandemic sent to you by China, which were later deleted, along with his initial post, by his wife.

In a set of follow-up Twitter posts, ONeill insisted the tweet was a joke, adding, This was not a dig at the Marine behind me. I love marines.

He also wrote on Twitter, Thank God it wasnt Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden we werent wearing masks.

However, on Thursday, the ex-Navy SEAL, who is now a Fox News contributor confirmed on Twitter that he had been banned from flying with the airline.

I just got banned from @Delta for posting a picture. Wow, he wrote.

A spokesperson for Delta confirmed that ONeill is no longer welcome aboard in a statement to the New York Post.

Part of every customers commitment prior to traveling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask, the airline said.

Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future.

A Delta Airlines airplane is seen at gate at Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Va. on April 11, 2020. (Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing a mask when flying and maintaining social distancing of 6 feet from anyone who is not from your household. It also recommends washing hands often or using hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol and avoiding touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.

ONeill first joined the Navy in 1995 and participated in the rescue of the last survivor of a four-man team who was attacked in 2005 while tracking a Taliban leader in Afghanistan. The rescue was later made into a movie, Lone Survivor.

He also participated in the 2009 rescue of the captain on a merchant ship overrun by Somali piratesthe subject of the Tom Hanks film Captain Phillips.

A woman takes a picture of an Osama bin Laden wanted poster at an exhibition at the National 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City on Nov. 7, 2019. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2014, he told The Washington Post that he was the U.S. special operator who fired the shot that killed al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden during a 2011 raid.

However, his claims have been disputed by another Navy SEAL involved in the raid, Matt Bissonnette, who claimed in his 2012 book that he killed bin Laden.

ONeills Twitter bio reads: I shot a famous guy. Thrice.

According to previous Pentagon reports, it is unclear whose shots killed bin Laden.
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Bengaluru-based startup Ather Energy is looking for another round of fundraising, after raising Rs 84 crore from Hero MotoCorp, Indias largest two-wheeler manufacturer, through a Series C round, in the last week of July.

The electric scooter makers plans for expansion and a new factory are on track for the year. Speaking to Moneycontrol, Tarun Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, Ather Energy, said: We look forward to raising more funds from investors, including Hero. You should hear something in the next six months. Mehta declined to share the size of the target fund.

Ather manufactures the 450 and the 450X, both of which are priced above Rs 1 lakh.

Hero now controls nearly 39 percent of Ather after the latest funding round, up from the earlier 35 percent. The latest transaction values Ather Energy around Rs 2,100 crore. In FY20, Ather clocked revenues of Rs 35.3 crore, an eight-fold increase, compared to Rs 4.2 crore in FY19.

Hero increasing stake in Ather is a sign of their increasing confidence in us. Though Hero has a substantial stake in Ather, we have a vision that is distinct from Hero Motocorp. Since December 2016, they have participated in all the fundraising we have done and I expect them to continue to support us, added Mehta.

Also Read: Bengaluru startup claims its e-scooter crosses 250-km-barrier on full charge

Ather wants to position itself as a premium brand, whereas Hero Motocorp is known for its mass market image.

Market expansion

Centred in Bengaluru, Ather entered the Chennai market a few months ago. Next would be Hyderabad, followed by Pune, Mumbai and the NCR. About 10-11 cities are to be added in FY21.

Owing to the disruption caused by COVID-19, there has been a delay in entering new markets by a few months. By August, Ather should have added four more cities but its newly appointed dealer partners were not able to start because of the lockdown.

There was concern that because of COVID, we would have deferred things by a lot, but luckily all we are seeing is only a 3-4 month delay. We are sticking to the 10-city expansion for this financial year, Mehta added.

New factory

Despite the steep pricing and the general sluggishness in demand for new vehicles, Mehta is going ahead with the planned factory in Tamil Nadu.

The factory should be up before the year ends. We are hoping to start production from the new plant from December itself, added Mehta.

The greenfield plant will have an initial output capacity of 5,000 a month. This would be scaled up to 100,000 per year in Phase 1 in 12-18 months. The plant's eventual capacity would be 500,000 units a year over multiple years. Athers current manufacturing capacity is 35,000-40,000 units a year.

Indias electric two-wheeler market has seen a nearly three-fold growth in volumes as of FY20. From 54,800 units in FY18, sales of electric two-wheelers stood at 152,000 units in FY20, as per data shared by the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, the apex lobby body of electric-vehicle makers.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden delivers his acceptance speech on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. AP Photo

Much has been made of Americas Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidens remarks at a diaspora event three days ago that he is standing with India in confronting the threats it faces in its own region and along its borders.

This is what the Democratic Partys 2016 platform, where there was precisely one sentence to do with India, said: We will continue to invest in a long-term strategic partnership with India -- the worlds largest democracy, a nation of great diversity, and an important Pacific power.

If you were hoping for a significant advance on this, here is the single sentence that embraces India in the 2020 draft: And we will continue to invest in our strategic partnership with India -- the worlds largest democracy, a nation of great diversity, and a growing Asia-Pacific power. Note carefully the highlighting of the geographical preciseness.

Strategic partnership is one of those overblown phrases that the more it is thrown about, indicate a situation that is often inversely proportional to the reality it purports to convey.

It is unclear, for instance, exactly how many times India and the United States have met for a strategic dialogue ever since the US-India strategic and commercial dialogue was kicked off with much fanfare in 2015. Maybe once? Twice?

Yet Joe Bidens supportive statement comes as New Delhi faces, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out in his Independence Day speech, that there is a simultaneous situation both on the Line of Control as well as the Line of Actual Control. Unfortunately, both are joined at the hip with the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Irrespective of whether the LAC situation is the result of poor chowkidari or substantial vigilance, it is a two-in-one situation that is going to provide the strategic overhang as New Delhi manoeuvres itself out of its nonplussed state.

Though both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have spoken warmly of their support for India vis-a-vis China and Pakistan, there are practical limits to how much Washington can or will swing its weight exclusively behind India and in what manner.

Its record remains patchy irrespective of the politics of the occupant of the White House, even on core Indian interests such as effective prevention of terrorism in any form emanating from Pakistan.

Given Americas continued stakes in the stability of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the next US Presidents approach to regional issues will be tempered by many factors, considering that all three major players -- India, China, and Pakistan -- operate under the nuclear umbrella.

The situation is unique and unparalleled, with Chinese troops sitting in presumptive Indian territory, and the United States having little or no leverage over China to moderate its strategic goals.

Some previous instances blow like straws in the wind. Whether it was our response to the attack on our Parliament in 2001, the 1999 Kargil intrusions, the July 2018 response to the attack on the Army camp at Uri or the February 2019 Balakot airstrike after a car bomb killed around 40 paramilitary jawans in Pulwama, the American emphasis has been strictly to hasten de-escalation.

The situation has not been helped with our leaders using phrases like qatal ki raat -- or a night of slaughter, for those requiring translation -- to describe a putative rain of missiles on Pakistan, which Prime Minister Modi did after Balakot. Nor such boasts as Pakistan ke paas nuclear button hai. To hamare paas kya hai be? Yeh diwali ke liye rakhe hai kya? Again, this was the Prime Minister.

Remarks of this kind make the threat of the use of nuclear weapons more likely, not less likely, and reactions unpredictable.

American war gamers at the Pentagon and at their various war colleges are certain to be busier now than ever before with more hitherto improbable scenarios. And consequently, much more worried.

Any analysis of Americas coming to New Delhis aid vis-a-vis China should thus start with the Indian governments spurning any offer at mediation, which US President Donald Trump continues to hold out at the drop of a hat.

It is another matter that Mr Trump thinks that he has enough leverage with China to knock some sense into it, even as he pivots his countrys relationship with China into free fall.

It is worth pointing out that if the US turned tail from Afghanistan after years of trying to fix it, it is largely because it was unable to prevail effectively over Pakistan even where its core national interests are concerned.

How wise would it then be to trust the US to intervene effectively in our interest? Indian policymakers know this is only a chimera which only strengthens instincts and conditions for mediation. In the end, our self-interest trumps all other interests.

Though the Americans have indeed tried, whatever Americans have tried with Pakistan have not worked so far, except de-escalation.

Even when we mobilised our entire armed forces during Operation Parakram, in January 2002, neither were the Pakistanis frightened nor did the Americans yield to faux brinkmanship, which ultimately with Americans controlling the sea lanes and air over Pakistan, was plain silly and had very bad outcomes for hundreds of our soldiers and others who died collaterally due to the rigours of mobilisation. Are we still so short of policy options?

All that the LAC situation gives the Americans is the wherewithal to sell us more and fancier, not to mention urgently required, military hardware and software to prepare us to better defend ourselves under the rubric of deeper strategic ties, while we still continue to battle the Chinese at the LAC with stones and clubs for fear of escalation.

How this can be done openly with all the talk of atma nirbharta going on, is worth pondering over. Whether all this will effectively improve chowkidari also remains a matter of inspired speculation at best.

Curiously, the Prime Minister felt it pertinent to point out in his Independence Day speech that as many as 184 out of the 192 countries in the United Nations backed India for the rotating non-permanent Security Council seat. That is neither here nor there.

How many more countries support do we need to throw the last Chinese PLA soldier out of our territory and keep them permanently out? Or in other words, if only the USS Nimitz could be brandished more effectively, say in the Himalayas?
Philadelphia college students who couldn't return to their campuses because of the coronavirus are now grappling with the city's soaring gun violence. Pictured clockwise, from upper left, are Milaj Robinson, Darrien Johnson, Marayah Roher and Horace Ryans III. Read more

Milaj Robinson should be in Atlanta right now, reveling in being far away from Philadelphia for the first time as he begins his freshman year at Morehouse College.

Chances are pretty good he would have run into Horace Ryans III on campus, also an incoming freshman.

Darrien Johnson planned to be in New York to begin her graduate work in nonprofit management at Columbia.

And Marayah Roher was headed back to Lincoln University in Chester County to continue studying the environmental justice she hopes to one day bring to Philly.

College students everywhere have had their school years disrupted because of the coronavirus. But for students in this city, the disruption can feel more like a trap.

Not going away to college also means not escaping the citys relentless gun violence. It means being cheated out of a much-needed reprieve from the ever-present fear that this longtime epidemic will claim them or someone they love.

The pandemic robbed them of their chance to get out, even for a little while, to not have to look over their shoulder, to breathe.

This was my opportunity to leave, to just be in a different environment and, Im not going to lie, to get away from the gun violence, said Robinson, who just turned 18.

In Southwest Philly, his Morehouse classmate Ryans, also 18, was taking in the news of the citys surge of gun violence and feeling the same way. I feel trapped. I was almost out.

This city has been my birthplace, the place that has shaped me into the leader and the young man that I am, but Aug. 9 would have been my day out, said Ryans, who is majoring in education with a focus in African American studies. I would have gotten out, grown into a different type of person and came back and did something different. So it feels debilitating and sad because sometimes I am scared to walk in my own city.

That fear extends to parents who agonize over their childrens safety.

Every time I go outside, my mom, she prays that I dont get shot or killed, or oppressed or hurt by the police, said Robinson, who plans to study political science.

Johnsons mother would try to convince her and her siblings growing up in Strawberry Mansion that the sound of gunfire they heard was fireworks. But children in Philly learn the distinction early.

She didnt want to traumatize us, Johnson, 22, recalled. There werent many nights that I didnt go to sleep to the sound of gunshots.

The other night, Johnsons mother called in tears after a shooting in the neighborhood left one teenager dead and four others wounded.

My mother called me crying because shes so anxious about the crime, said Johnson. Its sick.

This is the ongoing shame of our city: For too many Philadelphians, violence is the backdrop of their lives  even if it miraculously doesnt directly affect them. If youre lucky to be untouched, you almost certainly know others who werent.

Robinson was only 5 when he watched two men argue in front of his aunts house before one man shot the other in the head.

Thats something I will remember the rest of my life, he said.

This summer, a cookout he attended was interrupted by gunfire. No one was hurt, but at a pool party he went to last year, two young women were shot, one nearly fatally. That same year he went to back-to-back funerals for his cousin and a close friend, killed three days apart. His friend Eric Perry, 23, had just recently graduated from college. He was gunned down right outside his home.

A stark reminder that not even a college education is a shield against gun violence.

On the very day that a Northeast Washington teenager was supposed to be leaving for Temple University this month, the Washington Post reported, he died at a hospital after being shot a week before. Richard Bangura, 18, was shot less than two blocks from home, close enough for his father to hear the gunshots that killed his son.

At Lincoln University, where Roher, 20, is studying environmental science and biology, she said classmates from other cities share similar stories, and fears.

Its sad, she said. You shouldnt have to run away from where you were raised just to get away from the violence.

But heres the thing: Even when they do, its often part of a larger plan to return in the hopes of making their city better.

It was never a I need to leave Philadelphia because I hate it here,  said Johnson. It was more like I know there are people out there who want to make a difference. Its just getting those people in the right spaces  about becoming one of those people.

For now, the students are trying to make the best of their new reality. Johnson and Robinson are growing nonprofit organizations to empower city youth. Remote classes, or a combination of remote and in-person instruction for Johnson, who will travel periodically to New York, have started. Earlier this month Robinson was front and center at a rally at City Hall against gun violence, urging leaders to do more to stop the violence.

Maybe next year theyll have a chance to get away, step back, and breathe a little. They deserve at least that.
Rohingya refugees from Myanmar shout slogans against repatriation at the Unchiprang camp near Cox's Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh, Nov. 15, 2018.

Myanmar must address citizenship policies and other barriers to the return of ethnic Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh three years ago to escape a deadly military crackdown on the Muslim minority, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement on Friday.

Three years on from the latest exodus of Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar and sought sanctuary in Bangladesh from August 2017 onwards, challenges persist and continue to evolve, UNHCR said, noting that the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has added additional complexities.

The international community must not only maintain support for refugees and their host communities, but adapt to critical needs and expand the search for solutions, the refugee agency said.

More than 740,000 Rohingya fled to southeastern Bangladesh from Myanmar after government security forces launched a brutal crackdown in August 2017 in the wake of deadly attacks by Rohingya insurgents on police and army posts in Rakhine state.

Various U.N. and international agencies and NGOs describe the campaign as ethnic cleansing, if not genocidal, and top Myanmar military figures have faced Western sanctions and war crimes charges in international courts.

In a precursor to the big exodus from the scorched-earth military campaign three years ago on Aug. 25, about 100,000 Rohingya also fled to Bangladesh after an army campaign in 2016.

Since then, over 860,000 Rohingya have been individually registered by UNHCR and the Bangladesh government as refugees in Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar refugee settlements alone, UNHCR said, adding that Bangladesh has demonstrated a profound humanitarian commitment to Rohingya refugees, ensuring their protection and extending humanitarian support.

Repatriation efforts fail

Myanmar and Bangladesh have tried twice to repatriate Rohingya refugees who fled during the 2017 crackdown, but their efforts failed after no one showed up at the border for re-entry processing. Rohingya refugees said they feared for their safety and didnt see citizenship policy changes that would entice them back.

The Rohingya, a Muslim minority group in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, have long struggled against discrimination, being widely viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh though many have lived in Myanmar for generations under ancient kingdoms in lands later conquered by the Burmese and which became part of the British Empire in the 19th century.

After the former Burmas independence from Britain in 1948, Rohingya received National Registration Cards issued by the government that carried full citizenship rights.

But in 1982, Myanmar enacted a Citizenship Law that decreed that only members of the national races seen as having settled in Myanmar prior to beginning of British colonial rule in 1824 were entitled to citizenship. The Rohingya were not included among the 135 official ethnic groups and were suddenly excluded from full citizenship.

Ultimately, the solution to the plight of the Rohingya lies in Myanmar, UNHCR said, urging Myanmars full compliance with recommendations made by the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, to which the government of Myanmar has committed.

Following a year-long review of ethnic strife in the western Myanmar state, the nine-member Commission led by late former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called in August 2017 for a review of Rohingya citizenship rights, equality before the law, freedom of movement, and improved conditions in Rakhine allowing Rohingya to return.

Creating conditions that are conducive to the Rohingya peoples safe and sustainable return will require whole of society engagement, resuming and enhancing the dialogue between the Myanmar authorities and Rohingya refugees, UNHCR said.

Conditions not conducive to return

Conditions have not been conducive for a return to Rakhine State, which has since early 2019 become embroiled in a war between the ethnic Rakhine-based Arakan Army and the national army that has created 200,000 more internal refugees.

The state, a mix of river delta and hilly farmland the size of the Netherlands or the U.S. state of Maryland with a population of 3.2 million, has been scarred by sectarian violence between ethnic Rakhines and Rohingya Muslims since riots in June 2012 killed more than 200 people.

Most of the 120,000 Rohingya who were burned out of their homes in 2012 recently marked eight years in the roughly 14 camps that house the Muslims in the region around the state capital, Sittwe.

A fire on Friday in Ohndawgyi camp, one of the three largest Rohingya camps near Sittwe, destroyed more than 70 homes, according to Ba Sein, a Rohingya resident in the camp. The fire started from a home that was selling fuel, and burned for three hours, he said.
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny will be flown out of Russia after his wife begged President Vladimir Putin to release her comatose husband amid claims of a cover-up by Russian doctors who claimed he has a heart disease.

Navalny's wife Yulia, begged arch-rival Vladimir Putin to allow him to leave the country for treatment after he fell into a coma amid suspicion he was poisoned with a cup of tea.

Yulia , who has been barred from seeing her husband since he fell unconscious on a flight from Siberia to Moscow yesterday, said it is vital he is taken to Germany for specialist treatment.

This afternoon, doctors at the Siberian hospital where Navalny is being treated, permitted his transportation to a top German medical facility.

A medical plane chartered from Berlin by Navalny's allies arrived in Omsk, the Siberian city where he is being treated, on Friday - but Russian doctors had initially denied them permission to move him, saying his condition is too unstable.

German medics were briefly allowed to see the 44-year-old and ruled he was fit to fly, Navalny's press secretary said, before they were marched into a nearby car and kicked out of the hospital.

Alexander Murakhovsky, the hospital's head doctor, has flatly denied claims that Navalny was poisoned - saying he is suffering from a heart condition caused by low blood sugar.

He also said that 'industrial chemicals' were found on his hands and clothes, but did not say what they were.

Medics at the hospital insist they are more than capable of treating the condition, even as pictures laid bare the grim interior of the Soviet-era building.

Yulia Navalny, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei, has begged arch-rival Vladimir Putin to allow her husband to be taken out of the country for treatment after he fell into a coma amid suspicion he was poisoned with toxins mixed into his tea

Doctors at the hospital where Putin critic Alexei Navalny is being treated say that no trace of poison has been found in his body - though a chemical was found on his clothes and hands

Alexei Navalny remain in a coma in a Russian hospital after allies say he was poisoned with a 'deadly' substance that was slipped into his cup of tea (pictured drinking it)

Yulia, in a letter to Putin, said it is vital her husband is flown out of the country to be treated by specialists - as pictures revealed the filthy interior of the hospital where he is being treated

Navalny was taken to Ormsk hospital, in Siberia, yesterday after he fell unconscious on a flight. Since then the hospital has been flooded by security guards and Russian police (pictured)

Medics at the hospital, who insist Navalny was not poisoned and is suffering a metabolic condition caused by low blood sugar, insist they are more than capable of treating his condition - even as pictures revealed the grim conditions (left and right)

Images showed paint peeling from the walls, signs of water damage, rusted sinks and doors, an unclean toilet and parts of the building covered in plywood.

Another image showed two Russian security personnel in suits marching down a dimly-lit corridor towards a masked doctor coming in the opposite direction.

Yulia, Navalny's wife, accused the Kremlin of forcing doctors to delay the evacuation until all traces of poison have disappeared from her husband's body, making it impossible to prove that he was attacked.

The Kremlin has denied involvement, insisting that the decision to keep Navalny in Russia was a 'purely a medical decision'.

Kira Yarmysh, his press secretary, said doctors and the Kremlin had both agreed to the move but at 9.45am - 15 minutes before the evacuation plane arrived - medics suddenly changed their minds.

'Until now, doctors have said that they are ready to authorize transportation,' she tweeted early Friday. 'That is why we organized it in the shortest possible time.

An air ambulance was chartered from Germany to Ormsk on Friday to take Navalny to Berlin for treatment, but doctors denied permission for him to travel at the last moment

Ivan Zhadnov, director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said anyone coming into contact with him is being told to wear a hazmat suit due to 'deadly dangerous' substance

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, (pictured outside hospital today) accused the Kremlin of making a second attempt on his life after refusing to let him leave the country

How Alexei Navalny has been punished for defying Putin 2011: Navalny is arrested and jailed for 15 days for 'defying an official' after leading protests in Moscow 2012: Jailed for 15 days after leading an anti-Putin protest in the wake of presidential elections. His apartment is subsequently raided, and some of his private emails posted online 2013: Put on trial for embezzlement, amid claims he tried to steal wood from a state-owned company. He is convicted and sentenced to five years, but allowed out on bail. The conviction is subsequently overturned 2014: Placed under house arrest, again charged with embezzlement alongside brother Oleg. Again, the conviction is overturned 2017: He is re-convicted in the first corruption case, and ordered to repay millions of rubles of compensation in the second While leaving his office, a pro-Kremlin activist throws green disinfectant dye in his face, partially blinding him 2018: Arrested twice for leading protests against presidential elections he was barred from running in. Jailed for a total of 50 days in jail 2019: Arrested and jailed for a total of 40 days for leading protests during Moscow Duma elections. While in jail he was rushed to hospital, suffering from what medics called an allergic reaction. Others believe he was poisoned 2020: Navalny is rushed unconscious to hospital and placed on a ventilator after falling ill on a flight. His allies say he was poisoned Advertisement

'Now, at the last moment, doctors are not giving permission. This decision, of course, was not made by them, but by the Kremlin.'

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said German doctors who arrived on Friday had been invited to join Russian doctors treating Navalny.

Speaking on a conference call, Peskov said it was still unclear what caused Navalny to fall ill while flying back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday morning.

Medics later suggested that Navalny's blood pressure was low, and that traces of chemicals had been found on his fingers and clothes - without saying what chemicals they were.

Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and Putin's most threatening political rival, became gravely ill after falling suddenly sick on a plane from Tomsk to Moscow.

His aides and family believe his tea was spiked with an unidentified 'toxic poison' at Tomsk airport before his flight.

The aircraft made an emergency landing in Omsk and he was rushed to hospital.

Hospital chiefs today indicated his condition was too grave to be moved either to another Russian hospital or - as his family and aides wish - onto an air ambulance due to arrive from Germany.

His press secretary Kira Yarmysh said: 'The ban on transporting Alexei means a direct threat to his life.

'It is deadly to remain in the Omsk hospital without equipment and without a diagnosis in the current situation.'

She said Putin's deputy chief of staff and spokesman Dmitry Peskov had promised to allow Navalny to be moved if needed.

'Yesterday Peskov promised to provide help in treating Navalny and in transporting him to a different clinic.

'Today doctors are refusing to give permission for his transportation.'

She warned: 'Navalny's life now depends on the fact that the chief physician of the intensive care unit has refused to 'bear responsibility' - by allowing him to be moved, ideally abroad, in a well equipped flying intensive care unit.'

Navalny fell sick on a plane which was forced to make an emergency landing as fellow passengers heard him screaming in pain, before he was taken unconscious into an ambulance

Police officers detain a protester as he comes to support Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in front of the building of the Federal Security Service in Moscow

A protester stands in front of a police officer holding a poster reading 'Putin stop poisoning people!' during a picket in support of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

Anatoly Kalinichenko, deputy chief doctor of the hospital, speaks to members of the media who have been camped out there for two days awaiting news of Putin's rival

Yulia Navalny, the campaigner's wife and mother of his two children, added that she believes the delay in transport is to allow the toxin to reduce to levels that would be undetectable after he is moved.

That means his supporters will never be able to confirm that he was poisoned, or what he was poisoned with.

Zhdanov added: 'All relevant documents have been submitted.

'There was an application from a family member, consent from a clinic in Germany and documents for transportation (by air ambulance).

'The clinic's decision is inexplicable and monstrous.'

He said: 'The doctors have now locked themselves up in the chief doctor's office.

'No-one is allowed to see them.'

Navalny's camp say they are not being given proper details of his condition and have demanded he is allowed onto the air ambulance and flown to Berlin.

The chief doctor in Omsk, Alexander Murakovsky, denied any knowledge of a poison in Navalny's body, saying tests are underway and will take two more days.

'We cannot allow for the patient to be transported even under the responsibility of relatives unless the patient's clinical condition is stable,' he said.

'His current state causes our concern in relation to transportation.'

If he was moved 'anything can happen including the saddest thing possible'.

Navalny's doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva, who has been forbidden from seeing him, is seen outside the hospital in Ormsk where he is being treated

Navalny has been campaigning against corruption at Russian state-owned companies since 2008, and vowed to oppose Putin at the 2018 election but was banned from running

Omsk transport police spokeswoman Yulia Shwartz refused to confirm a deadly substance had been found.

'The analysis is still ongoing and so far we do not have any results.'

Russia has dispatched intensive care specialists, neurophysiologists and anaesthetists were sent to Omsk from two top Moscow clinics, the Pirogov Medical and Surgical Centre and the Burdenko Centre of Neurosurgery.

Navalny's wife Yulia flew yesterday to be at his hospital amid claims that relatives were not being given the full facts of his condition.

German chancellor Angela Merkel offered treatment in Germany for the Putin foe.

'I hope that he can recover and... he can receive from us all the help and medical support needed,' she said.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov wished Navalny a 'speedy recovery' and said the Kremlin. Would help secure him treatment abroad if needed.

He claimed the poisoning allegations were 'only assumptions' until tests proved otherwise.

Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said Navalny had 'hundreds of enemies including some hardened individuals', pointing to his anti-corruption investigations that attract millions of views online.
Germanys vice-chancellor Angela Merkel and France president Emmanuel Macron greeted each other with a namaste or folded hands when they met at Fort de Bregancon in Paris on Thursday to discuss issues concerning Europe and coronavirus relief measures.

The world leaders greeting each other with the namaste comes as Europe continues to struggle with curbing the coronavirus pandemic. French first-lady Brigitte Macron also was seen exchanging bows with the German head of state in a video shared on French president Macrons Twitter account. Following this, both leaders donned their surgical masks and began the discussions regarding crucial issues that concern the European Union.

Willkommen im Fort de Bregancon, liebe Angela! pic.twitter.com/lv8yKm6wWV  Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 20, 2020

The meeting comes in the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis, anti-government protests in Belarus following the re-election of Alexander Lukashenko, Lebanon port blasts, Malis coup detat and the deteriorating health condition of Vladimir Putin critic and political prisoner Alexander Navalny.

According to Reuters, Macron and Merkel also discussed Sino-European relations post Covid-19 and Britiains exit from the European Union. France also called the meeting a testimony to the exceptional level of Franco-German engagement on the bilateral, European, and international level.
We're sorry, but we're pretty sure that by simply by clicking on an article about presidents nearly dying, every single one of you joined a list monitored by the Secret Service. But hey, did you like hearing about how Lincoln could have joined the Donner party and Roosevelt almost died in the Amazon? Then sit back and listen next to how ... Advertisement

5 A Rioting Mob Tried To Kill Nixon In Venezuela In 1958, Venezuela decided it was that time of the decade again and rose up. They crowds of revolutionaries grew so big and scary that dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez took the first flight out of there and found himself in the United States. A few years later, America would send him back to Venezuela to account for all the hundreds of millions of dollars he'd stolen from there, but for now, it seemed a lot like the US was siding with the enemy of the new nation. And amid this climate, the United States thought it was a good idea to send Vice President Richard Nixon down to South America for a "goodwill" tour. U.S. Government Pictured: "Goodwill." When Nixon and his wife Pat landed in Caracas, a crowd at the airport threw stones and spat them with tobacco-flavored spittle. The Secret Service formed a wall to protect the Second Couple as best as they could, but it was still a struggle for them just to get into their waiting car. The plan had been to visit a national memorial and lay a wreath down, but someone informed Nixon, "Sir, there are already protesters at the memorial, and they found the wreath and tore it to shreds," so the new plan was to seek safety at the US embassy. The mob only grew on the way, now armed with pipes and clubs. The car had to stop, and the assailants tried to flip it -- they were pretty clearly going to tear Nixon apart if they could get their hands on him. The Secret Service got outside the car and tried to push the locals back, and 12 agents got injured (all later received awards or medals). They were about to open fire, but Nixon told them not to, showing off that Nixonian calm for which we of course remember him today. He was just lucky that they had chosen a closed vehicle rather than the open car he'd used during the trip so far. He was also fortunate that the car had shatter-proof windows. U.S. Government Pictured: "Shatterproof" glass. They made it to the embassy, where the Venezuelan military needed to come out to keep the crowd from storming the place. The US happened to have a military of its own, and killing a vice president was a good way to start a war, so President Eisenhower mobilized 1,000 troops to invade the country if necessary, in a maneuver called Operation Poor Richard. The Venezuelan president, Wolfgang Larrazabal, had been okay with the protests up to this point, but he now said Nixon would have the country's full protection. And so Nixon got the hell out of the country without dying. He'd go on to always dislike Latin America, as well as the world in general.

4 John Tyler And Half His Cabinet Were On A Pleasure Cruise That Blew Itself Up With Its Own Cannon In 1844, John Tyler threw a party on a boat, because he was president and no one could tell him what to do. The boat was the USS Princeton, a warship, and though America was engaged in a dozen or so minor wars around this time, the Princeton's only job on February 27 was cruising along the Potomac with the president aboard. Also aboard were cabinet officials, military leaders, a Missouri senator, and 400 other guests. Captain Robert Stockton had the perfect way to entertain them all: He'd fire his gun. N. Currier It was a boat party. There were no rules. We don't mean he'd aim his pistol in the air. He'd fire a long gun called the Peacemaker, sending a 225-pound shot flying 5 miles. Stockton had overseen the design of the gun himself, and he'd overseen this poorly. While the ship's other gun had gone through over 100 test fires before getting attached to this ship, this one had been tested just a couple times. During the cruise, Stockton fired the gun twice, to the watching crowd's great satisfaction. Then he fired it a third time. The back of the gun exploded, throwing shrapnel into the crowd. The secretary of state happened to be aboard. The explosion killed him. The secretary of the navy was there as well, and he died too, as did a state senator from New York. Eight died and another dozen were injured, but luckily most of the crowd, including President Tyler, had gone below after the second of the three shots to get refreshments, probably of the liquid variety. N. Currier You watch a 12-ton cannon fire twice, you figure you've seen all it has to offer. That dead state senator's daughter, Julia Gardiner, was among those below deck, and when the explosion rocked the ship, she fainted. She awoke while being carried out of the ship by none other than John Tyler. The two knew each other before this, and Tyler had proposed to her repeatedly, but it was this incident that convinced her to say yes the next time he asked. As First Lady, she started the tradition of the band welcoming the president with "Hail to the Chief," and she introduced the country to the polka. So what we're saying is, if President Tyler had died on the ship that day, we may never have got the polka, and American history would never be the same.

3 A Cherokee Named Junaluska Saved Andrew Jackson's Life. Guess How He Returned The Favor? Fifteen years before he became president, Andrew Jackson was a major general taking a little break from the greater War of 1812 to hop into a civil war between the Creek Indians. One Creek faction, the Red Sticks, were super against the presence of white settlers, while the other more or less okay with it. So the Red Sticks attacked Fort Mims in Alabama, killing everyone there, meaning both white settlers and Creek Indians. Jackson responded by facing the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend, a battle where, sadly, he died. via Wiki Commons RIP Andrew Jackson. 1767 - 1814. Wait, hold on, that can't be right. No, he almost died, but along with the pro-United States Creek Indians, his men were backed up by a Cherokee army who suddenly showed up and attacked the Red Sticks from the other side, while that music from The Lord of the Rings played. Jackson specifically was all set to be fatally sliced open, but a Cherokee named Junaluska stepped in and saved him. "As long as the sun shines and the grass grows, there shall be friendship between us," said Jackson. So, what fate awaited Jackson's eternal friend Junaluska? Jackson confiscated Cherokee land as president, and sent Junaluska on the Trail of Tears. That meant arresting him for a while and then sending him to go 1,000 miles on foot to the new lands where America was forcibly resettling them. Unlike many, Junaluska survived the Trail of Tears, and he even ended up walking 1,000 miles back east again to return to his home of North Carolina. But he said that he'd have let Jackson die in that battle given a second chance: "Oh my God, if I had I known at the battle of the Horse Shoe what I know now, American history would have been differently written." Dsdugan/Wiki Commons On the other hand, then, you'd never have got this spiffy statue. Maybe he should have realized earlier that Jackson was not a man to be trusted. Back during the battle where Junaluska saved him, Jackson's men killed hundreds of the Red Sticks as they fled, which isn't exactly sportsmanlike. Then he skinned the slain men to make reins for his horses, which isn't exactly something any human should do ever. And he stripped the dead men so he could send their clothes to the ladies of Tennessee, as souvenirs. So, on top of everything else, Jackson was terrible at picking out gifts.

2 Before He Settled On Reagan, Looks Like His Assassin Targeted Jimmy Carter Say what you like about John Hinckley Jr., but at least he never got too concerned about politics. Sure, you might think that trying to assassinate the president of the United States would be the ultimate political act, but he wasn't acting out of some deeply held convictions about tax policy or anything like that. He just thought his heroics would impress Jodie Foster, because he'd watched the movie Taxi Driver too many times. Just like that shooter who was inspired by watching Joker, except that Hinkley actually existed outside of the media's masturbatory fantasies. FBI The less said about masturbatory fantasies featuring Hinckley, meanwhile, the better So, Hinckley had no reason to kill Ronald Reagan specifically. He just wanted to kill "the president." And he in fact pulled off the shooting just two months into Reagan's first term, not very long since the president had been someone else entirely. If he had gone forward with the shooting a little earlier, might he have gone ahead and aimed his gun at Jimmy Carter instead? Answer: Yes. It seems like he was planning to do just that. No one really put two and two together at the time, but Hinckley was caught stalking Jimmy Carter during the run-up to the election. At one campaign event, he got within six feet of him, and prosecutors ended up sharing footage of this at his trial. He went on following Carter right up until he was arrested on a weapon charge in Nashville, the very day Carter was coming to the city. If he did shoot Carter that day and Carter survived, surely voters would have switched sides to him, and he would have won in November 1980 if the election was at all close. Was it at all close? via Wiki Commons No. No it was not. Okay, Carter wasn't exactly in spitting distance of winning, but if anything could get people to rally around an incumbent, his surviving a shooting one month before Election Day would surely do it. On the other hand, if the assassination succeeded and Carter died, Walter Mondale would have been immediately inaugurated as the 40th president. Exactly as scheming VP Walter Mondale had planned.

1 Reagan Was Almost Strangled By His Chimp (And Then By A Peanut) If you have somehow gone this far without knowing that Ronald Reagan starred in a chimpanzee movie called Bedtime for Bonzo, well, you're in for a treat. The entire film is available on YouTube. Watch it to see actor Ronald Reagan raise a chimpanzee, while declaring, "A lot of people think they were born better than others. I'm trying to prove it's the way you're raised that counts. But even a monkey brought up in the right surroundings can learn the meaning of decency and honesty." Ronald Reagan did not actually like his costar, and the chimp (whose name was Peggy, though a chimp actually named Bonzo replaced her for the cerebral sequel Bonzo Goes to College) didn't like him either. One time on set, she grabbed at his tie and tightened it around his throat till someone had to cut it off with a knife so he could breathe again. By some accounts, the chimp pulled the tie so tight, the knot was as small as a fingernail, and Reagan was just seconds from dying. But you should keep in mind that Reagan was an actor in a movie, and actors in movies tend to be a little too ready to call every single filming mishap a terrifying accident that just barely missed killing them. A little later in Reagan's life, though, and we have a brush with death that's more closely documented. The culprit here was even less scary than a trained chimp: It was a single peanut. A peanut that found its way down his trachea to choke him. His campaign aide, Mike Deaver, happened to be on hand and gave him that forceful thrust known as the Heimlich maneuver, sending the peanut flying back out his mouth. Jesus Orizales Weird. We would have pegged Mr. Peanut as a total a Reagan supporter. Today, this would be a tense situation for a presidential candidate to go through, but it wouldn't be so surprising that someone managed to save him. Everyone's heard of the Heimlich maneuver. You routinely hear of even little kids using it on each other after seeing it on TV. But in 1976, the maneuver was brand-new and was yet to be endorsed by experts. And still Reagan had heard of it and had forced baffled aides to learn it. Had he not, that nut would have killed him. Exactly as peanut farmer Jimmy Carter had planned. Follow Ryan Menezes on Twitter for more stuff no one should see.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  Stricter quarantine measures have contained COVID-19 infections among healthcare workers in hospitals, according to data.

At a University of the Philippines town hall forum on Friday, Philippine General Hospital director Gerardo Legaspi said the hospital has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases among doctors and nurses when Metro Manila was placed under general community quarantine in June to July.

He added that most positive cases are healthcare workers not assigned to the COVID-19 wards, even as PGH is a referral hospital.

We saw a rapid rise in our healthcare worker infection and this is mainly due to the exposure in the community, Legaspi said.

According to their data from July 1 to 24, 66 out of 140 COVID-19 positive heath care workers contracted the virus from their communities. Only 25 had direct contact with patients at the hospital.

Legaspi said cases have begun to decline in August when the Inter-Agency Task Force imposed a modified community quarantine in Metro Manila and in four other provinces in response to the cry of health workers for a timeout.

Another referral hospital, the Philippine Lung Center, shared the same concern.

It said it also saw a rise in positive cases in July with 24 patients, and it began to also decline in August now at 11 cases.

Legaspi said it is important to craft hospital guidelines after consulting with their entire medical staff for proper intervention and medical care for frontliners.
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The figures of those admitted to hospital for coronavirus during the peak of the pandemic were over-reported, it was revealed last night.

Britons who were suffering from other illnesses were included in data collected to monitor the virus outbreak, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The Government's Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) found patients were categorised as Covid-19 hospital admissions if they had ever tested positive for the disease.

And they were included in the number of people who were admitted specifically for coronavirus.

Around 20,000 people a week were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 at the peak of the crisis in April, according to government statistics. The correct figure is not yet known.

It comes after a recent review into the way Public Health England (PHE) calculated coronavirus deaths. More than 5,000 people who died from causes unrelated to the virus were initially included in the statistics - a tenth of the overall death toll.

One top expert today said the statistical error was more widespread for hospital admissions than deaths - but told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it was only a 'minor inflation'.

The NHS denies the figures were being over-reported nationwide and claimed the miscounting only occurred at one trust.

Around 3,000 people a day were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 at the peak of the crisis in April, according to government statistics. The correct figure is not yet known

Government figures show around 20,000 were in hospital every day during the darkest days of the crisis in April

And around 3,000 coronavirus-infected patients were being treated on ventilators each day between April and May

Paramedics and staff at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital wearing PPE on April 18

Professor Graham Medley, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was asked to examine the situation by Sage

The UK's coronavirus death toll was then revised and fell by more than 5,000 as it only included those who died within 28 days of a positive test. Before, it counted anyone who had ever died in England - meaning no-one could ever truly recover.

Professor Graham Medley, an infectious disease modelling expert from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was asked to examine the situation by Sage.

Professor Medley told the Daily Telegraph: 'By June, it was becoming clear that people were being admitted to hospital for non-Covid reasons who had tested positive many weeks before.

'Consequently, the NHS revised its situation report to accommodate this.'

He told BBC Radio 4 Today's programme this morning that it was 'inevitable' hospitals would over-count admissions.

Professor Medley said: 'You don't want to undercount and so the definitions made at the start will always result in minor inflation of numbers of people going in and then inevitably that gets corrected. The definitions of what is a covid case will continue to change.'

When asked if it was possible to ever know the true figure, he said: 'When it was revised, the difference was very minor. Early in an epidemic most of people who have been infected will have been infected recently.

'By the time you get to June, there are people coming in with a twisted knee which is clearly unrelated to Covid-19.'

Experts have warned that the over-counting is a worry because the hospital admission figures had been used to look at the current circumstances of the crisis.

GOVERNMENT KNOCKS OFF 5,000 DEATHS FROM OFFICIAL TOLL BECAUSE OF 'STATISTICAL FLAW' The discrepancy is just one in a string of issues with the Government's coronavirus data. Officials this month confirmed they were changing the way they count the number of Covid-19 deaths because PHE had been including anyone who died of any cause after a positive test for the disease. Even someone who was diagnosed in March, then recovered and died after getting hit by a bus in August would have been included in the Covid-19 death toll. Now the Department of Health only includes people who die within 28 days of their diagnosis, in an attempt to reduce the number of people included wrongly. NHS England and the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had been using the 28-day cutoff throughout the outbreak. As a result of the change the official death count dropped by 5,000. PHE still publishes weekly stats showing how many people died within 60 days of a positive test, to try and include people who have long stays in hospital or long-lasting Covid-19 illness. Advertisement

Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: 'The admissions data is a crucial point.. I'd say it is more important than the death data because it is the best marker of the impact of the disease.'

The problem was first noticed on June 18, when government scientists made their worries clear that non-Covid patients were being added to the outbreak statistics, according to Sage minutes.

Public Health England, the NHS Medical Director and Professor Medley were asked to assemble a group.

'So, we saw with the death statistics, that initially a "Covid death" was defined as any death in which the person had previously tested positive,' Professor Medley said.

'The same is true, but even more so, for hospital admissions. In order to capture all the potential manifestations of the disease at the start of the epidemic, all admissions of people who had tested positive were counted as "Covid-related admissions".'

The NHS claimed it told hospitals trusts in June that they should only count admissions as any patient who had tested positive for Covid-19.

It claimed it then found out from government advisers that Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust was recording anyone who had ever tested positive for Covid-19.

The discovery prompted them to issue further guidance to urge health bosses to only include patients who were diagnosed 'recently'. But it did not specify what classed as recently.

NHS England then sent out repeated guidance on July 1 urging trusts to only count patients who had recently tested positive.

NHS England said there had not been a change in the trend line for admissions from July.

It is not known how many people were wrongly registered as coronavirus patients before July. Around 450 people were admitted to hospital at Imperial Trust between the start of the pandemic and July 1.

Experts say the correct number is needed to also work out death rates.

Professor Heneghan added: 'If admissions are going up, then that should drive the lockdown. But currently you have people with active infections, those who have tested positive but have been discharged, and those who have contracted it in hospital, so it isn't helpful.

'This really does need sorting out as we go into the winter, otherwise we get into this noisy position where we can't understand what's going on.

'There will be loads of people coming in with different conditions who have survived this, so it's a huge problem. It's clouding our judgment as to whether the disease is having a significant impact.'

Professor Stephen Powis, National Medical Director of NHS England said: 'It is completely untrue to claim there has been any ambiguity in the data on Covid positive hospital inpatients.

'For the safety of both patients and staff it is obviously sensible and important that NHS trusts monitor, track data on patients in their hospitals that have Covid, whether admitted as a Covid patient, or for another condition.

'The instructions to hospitals in England have not fundamentally changed since the start of the pandemic, with updated advice to hospitals being published as scientific evidence has developed, as hospitals and sage requested further advice, and as the availability of testing has become more widespread.

'Data on hospital admissions, people in hospital with Covid and people on mechanical ventilation in England were published and presented daily at the Downing Street press conferences, along with clear and transparent explanations online, including for example clarification that some admissions in devolved administrations had to be reclassified and included suspected and not just confirmed cases.

'Throughout the pandemic we have worked with Sage and follow their advice to ensure data is collected in a manner that supports their important work including through mutually agreed changes to existing guidance.'
A federal judge has ordered a second investigation into the Farmville Detention Center after a 10-member Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) team of scientists issued a report on Friday detailing numerous ongoing staff and administrative practices that are facilitating the spread of COVID-19 inside the privately-run prison and nearby communities.

The prison has the worst coronavirus outbreak of any immigrant detention facility in the country, with 290 out of 312 inmates testing positive, along with 27 staff members. On August 5, a Canadian inmate, James Thomas Hill, died from the virus after having been transported to a nearby hospital with breathing problems several weeks prior.

Dorm room at Farmville ICE Detention Center that sleeps over 80 people. (Credit: CAIR April Lawsuit)

According to the CDC report, employees are not using essential personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks. Guards have been showing up to work after displaying symptoms of the virus, and there was a complete inability for inmates and employees to practice social distancing when not isolated in their cells. Cafeterias, hallways, waiting rooms, sleeping areas, and break rooms are all tight, confined spaces. Inmate seats and bunks are bolted into the floor making social distancing impossible.

According to the lawsuit filed by current inmates, the outbreak at Farmville began when several dozen detainees were shipped to the facility in June and July from prisons in Arizona and Florida, two centers of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the investigation after previously preventing further transfers into the prison.

The order, and the lawsuit that sparked it, come after months of stonewalling by Immigration Centers of America (ICA), which is a federal contractor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The prison has blocked any attempt at independent oversight, and even rejected offers of cost-free assistance from the Virginia Department of Health for controlling the spread of coronavirus.

Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, for his part, denied any ability to intervene directly, making legally dubious claims that the state does not have authority over its own territory when it contains a businessin this case the prison owned by the for-profit ICAoperated under a federal contract.

Despite the agencys egregious findings, which have not been made public, the CDC did not recommend any major changes to stem the flow of virus between inmates, guards, and the surrounding community. Dr. Homer Venters, a public health expert hired by the plaintiffs attorneys, was allowed to listen to the teams oral debrief, and testified in court documents that the CDC found most of the prison to be in compliance with its guidelines.

This was seized upon by the ICA in its own court filing. Jeffrey Crawford, the director of Immigration Centers of America-Farmville, declared ICA Farmville was largely in compliance with CDC recommendations, with only a few minor operational recommendations offered at that time, all of which I intend to implement at the facility. At a Farmville town council meeting the week before, Crawford said that we understand the stories look terrible.

Crawford and ICAs lax attitude toward health and safety was denounced by members of the public at the town council meeting, with a city councilman declaring We could have had massive deaths (in the community) because of it. And, youre sitting here talking about everything youve done and Oh, dont worry about it. Its a big deal.

Among ICA and ICEs more criminal policies is its practice of quarantining its detainees at local jails upon transfer, rather than at its own centers, increasing the likelihood of outbreaks throughout the community.

Judge Brinkema was far less satisfied with the CDCs conclusion, and ordered a second investigation to be conducted, without specifying how the new investigations mandate will differ from the one just concluded. Her statement at the conclusion of Mondays hearing declared: This is not rocket science. Its amazing to me that this would not have been done in a facility, which, because of the large inmate population, should have been on clear notice that youve got to have people distanced in order to prevent spread of the virus. The fact that not all employees are wearing masks, or PPE, correctly is very problematic.

In fact, the abuse of immigrants at the detention center, and the unwillingness of the Democratic Party-controlled state of Virginia to meaningfully oppose the extraordinarily reckless practices of ICA, shows in a concentrated form the general attitude of indifference that the ruling class in America has adopted to the threat which the COVID-19 pandemic poses to the population, both native-born and immigrant.

Republican President Donald Trump, speaking at an Arizona campaign rally on Tuesday, reprised fascistic themes that his Democratic opponents would seek to abolish Americas borders. In fact, as is clear from the treatment of detainees in Farmville, Trump and his border agents at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security as a whole are not the least bit concerned with protecting the population from the spread of COVID-19. In fact, it is US detention facilities, often run by profit seeking corporations like ICA, that have become the primary vectors of the disease, to immigrants and citizens alike.
A Florida man is dead after opening fire on his neighbors, killing an 11-year-old girl and her father and leading to a shootout with police, authorities there say. A total of 62 rounds were fired in the July incident, which also wounded two police officers.

The suspect, 82-year-old Ronald Delserro, had former addresses in both the Nazareth and Bethlehem areas, as well as Palmer Township, public records show.

The mother and widow of the victims also identified Delserro as being from the Bethlehem area, in a Facebook post this week calling for more widespread attention to the tragedy and the events that led up to it.

Authorities in Port St. Lucie, where the incident occurred, and St. Lucie County said they could not verify Delserros previous addresses. Efforts by lehighvalleylive.com to reach survivors of Delserro for comment were unsuccessful.

The shooting occurred July 6 in the Southeast Morningside Boulevard home where 55-year-old victim Guy Hansman and his now-widow, Monique Hansman, lived with their children, including shooting victim Harper Hansman, according to police accounts posted on the City of Port St. Lucie website.

Delserro and the Hansmans had been embroiled since March 4 in a dispute over Delserros Italian Mastiff, Roxy. Monique Hansman on that day reported she was walking her familys poodle mix, Rucca, when both she and the dog were attacked and bitten by Roxy.

After a hearing, a special magistrate on June 24 declared Roxy to be a dangerous dog. Animal control officers on July 1 went to Delserros home in the 2400 block of Southeast Morningside Boulevard with the declaration, which he refused to sign.

At 12:24 p.m. July 6, Harper dialed 911 to say a neighbor was shooting inside her home. City police arrived two minutes later, joined by the school resource officer from Southport Middle School across the street, according to a timeline shared July 22 by Port St. Lucie Police Chief John Bolduc in a news conference carried live on Facebook.

The call for an active shooter was so out of place for the quiet community that St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said he thought it might be a prank.

It was not anything youve ever seen on TV, Bolduc said of the ensuing crime scene.

Delserro, armed with two 9mm handguns, entered the Hansmans home with six people total inside and fatally shot Guy Hansman in the garage before shooting Harper.

The responding law enforcement officers encountered Delserro inside the home and exchanged gunfire, as a sheriffs deputy managed to remove the critically wounded Harper from the home. She was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead.

A Port St. Lucie officer suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the arm and was also shot in the chest, with the bullet stopped by a ballistics vest. A second officer was also injured, according to the police chief.

The four others who had been in the home were able to escape to safety.

Just after 3 p.m., the citys SWAT team entered the home and found Delserro, still armed with the two handguns, dead in Harpers bedroom of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

The autopsy showed Delserro had two non-life-threatening gunshot wounds from the law enforcement officers gunfire, but that the fatal wound was from a 9mm, Mascara said. The officers were armed with .45-caliber handguns, with one officer also bearing a .223-caliber rifle.

The sheriff stressed that Harper also died from a 9mm round fired by Delserro, and not from stray bullets fired by law enforcement.

Investigators counted 22 9mm rounds fired by Delserro, 12 rounds from the officers .45-caliber handguns and 28 rifle rounds. They found 109 bullet holes throughout the Hansmans home.

These actions were completely justified, Mascara said of the officers use of force to protect their lives and the lives of others.

Investigators determined the crimes committed by Delserro included two counts of murder, seven counts of aggravated assault, three counts of attempted murder and four counts of attempted murder of law enforcement officers, in addition to kidnapping and burglary.

Port St. Lucie, Florida, Police Chief John Bolduc appears alongside a photo of Ronald Delserro, 82, during a St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office news conference July 22, 2020, carried on Facebook Live, concerning allegations Delserro shot and killed neighbors Harper Hansman, 11, and her father, Guy Hansman on July 6 inside the victims' Port St. Lucie home.Facebook screenshot | For lehighvalleylive.com

In her Facebook plea Wednesday, Monique Hansman said the family was held hostage in their home by Delserros dog before his violent outburst, all over a ($)400 fine and a requirement to put up signs on the fence saying the dog was dangerous.

He murdered my husband and child over 400 bucks and a sign , she wrote.

Monique Hansman, 53, called on readers of the post to contact media in the Lehigh Valley to report the story, and lehighvalleylive.com received multiple tips about the incident this week. She did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.

According to the police account, Delserros widow, who is not named, contacted animal control July 7 saying she was leaving town and wished to surrender Roxy. She further gave consent for euthanasia and Roxy was put down the following day at a veterinary clinic and cremated. She is identified in an Associated Press article as Sandra Delserro, 78.

Guy Hansman and Harper were buried July 18, according to their obituaries.

Delserros obituary was not immediately available.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
LEVERKUSEN (dpa-AFX) - Bayer agreed to pay $1.6 billion to settle most of the U.S. lawsuits alleging that the company's birth control device 'Essure' caused excessive bleeding and pelvic pain or failed to prevent pregnancies. The settlement will resolve about 90 percent of the nearly 39,000 claims by women. The company is in discussions with counsel for the remaining plaintiffs, Bayer said in a statement. There is no admission of wrongdoing or liability by Bayer in the settlement agreements. Bayer said that in 2018, it voluntarily discontinued sales and distribution of Essure in the United States, which followed a similar action in all other markets a year earlier. The decision was taken due to a decline in sales of Essure, and not based on safety concerns. In June, Bayer had reached an agreement to pay up to $10.9 billion to settle thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging that the company's Roundup herbicide causes cancer. Bayer inherited thousands of lawsuits against Roundup inventor Monsanto when it acquired the U.S. agriculture giant for $63 billion in 2018. 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 August 19, the World Bank Chief David Malpass said that the coronavirus pandemic may have driven as many as 100 million people back into extreme poverty. Reports suggest that previously he had estimated that 60 million people would fall into extreme poverty due to COVID-19. However, now the number has changed. He added that the number would go higher if the situation worsens.

Read: Malaysian Economy Shrinks 17% In Worst Contraction On Record

Coronavirus takes a toll on the world economy

According to Malpass, it is important for creditors to reduce the amount of debt held by poor countries. He said that more and more countries would be compelled to restructure their debt. Malpass said that the vulnerabilities due to debt are extremely high and it is important for new investors to come in. Reports suggest that various advanced economies have considered the measure of suspending debts from the poor nations by the end of this year. There is also a chance that more and more countries will be added who will follow a similar policy. However, according to Malpass, this is not sufficient. He said that the amount of debt reduction will differ from country to country but the policy, according to him, makes a lot of sense.

Read: Thailand's Economy Shrinks Most In More Than 20 Years Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

According to data by Thai authorities, Thailand's economy suffered its worst decline since the Asian financial crisis more than two decades ago. One of the main reasons cited behind this contraction is the shattered tourism sector because of the coronavirus pandemic. As per the Office of National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), the economy shrank 12.2 per cent in the second quarter because of the pandemic spurred lockdown, which brought the economy to a staggering halt. In the month of April-June, Japan also recorded the worst contraction of all times as the economy shrank by 27.8 per cent at an annual rate, as per government data released on August 17. The economy of Japan is hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic with declining trade and consumption cycle. Reports suggest that the World Bank will be distributing $160 billion in funding to 100 countries by June 2021. Also, about $21 billion had been released through the end of June. Even after these measures, the poverty continues to rise.

Read: Japans Economy Shrinks At Annual Rate Of 27.8%, Worst Contraction On Record

Also Read: Dutch Economy Shrinks By 'unprecedented' 8.5% As Virus Hits

(Image Credits: Unsplash)
Chattanooga-based Rockridge Venture Law has organized and sponsored a virtual workshop entitled "Corporate Social Responsibility in the South: Insights from Tennessee Leaders." The event will feature Tennessee leaders from academic, faith, industrial, and life science communities, stretching from Memphis to Kingsport, as well as global sustainability leader Vincent Stanley from Patagonia.

Jonathan Ingraham of Chattanooga Faith + Work + Culture will represent the Chattanooga area as a panelist, discussing what role the faith community plays in advancing better corporate citizenship. Other panelist participants include Farrell Calabrese of Eastman speaking on industrial scale sustainability in products and supply chains, and Emily Landry of B Academics and the University of Tennessee.

Registration is free, with suggested donations to green | spaces and Urban Green Lab, Tennessee nonprofits focused on building sustainable communities. Registration is open now on Eventbrite.

B Tennessee is is an initiative led by Tennessee B Corps Newly, Nisolo, Patagonia-Nashville, Rockridge Venture Law, and Whiteboard to foster advancement of CSR and sustainability frameworks, emphasizing B Corps and benefit corporations. The Aug. 27 event follows B Tennessee's inaugural event held at Patagonia-Nashville's store, attracting over 100 attendees interested in using business as a force for good. Looking ahead, B Tennessee has partnered with other social enterprises in the Southeast to host a virtual regional conference exploring ways that the region can become the leader for mission-oriented business. The conference is intended to take place in November.
D ebt has exceeded 2 trillion for the first time as the government continues to borrow vast sums of money to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

At the end of July, debt was 2,004.0 billion, 227.6 billion more than at the same point last year.

It means debt at the end of last month was 100.5% of gross domestic product, an increase of 20.4% compared with 12 months ago.

Borrowing for July came in at 26.7 billion, down from 34.8 billion last time out, but 28.3 billion more than in July 2019 and the fourth highest borrowing in any month on record.

Central government receipts have fallen / www.ons.gov.uk

The debt surge reflects a huge increase in government spending, ranging from its massive furlough scheme and tax cuts to discounts for restaurant diners.

Debt has leapt by about 200 billion since the coronavirus crisis engulfed Britain.

The Office for National Statistics said: "The coronavirus pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on borrowing.

"These effects arise from both the introduction of public health measures and from new government policies to support businesses and individuals."

Perhaps even more worrying is tax receipts are going down, making it harder to service the debt. The figures reflect the loss of tax revenue after the lockdown imposed in March plunged the economy into a record recession and the vast cost of government spending programs deployed to keep businesses and jobs afloat amid the pandemic.

A breakdown of the huge 2 trillion debt figure shows gilts made up the largest proportion of the figure.

Borrowing could increase to 322 billion for the financial year ending March 2021 / www.ons.gov.uk

At the end of July there were 1,681.2 billion of central government gilts in circulation - including those held by the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund.

The ONS added: "There has been a substantial month-on-month increase in gilts issuance in the current financial year, partially reflecting the need for extra funding to support the governments coronavirus relief schemes and to compensate for the fall in tax revenue."

The ONS estimates that if the Bank of England's current quantitative easing programme were removed then debt would reduce by 194.8 billion.

Debt as a percentage of gross domestic product / www.ons.gov.uk

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: "This crisis has put the public finances under significant strain as we have seen a hit to our economy and taken action to support millions of jobs, businesses and livelihoods.

Without that support things would have been far worse.

Todays figures are a stark reminder that we must return our public finances to a sustainable footing over time, which will require taking difficult decisions.

Debt as a percentage of GDP / www.ons.gov.uk

It is also why we are taking action now to support the growth and jobs which pay for our public services, by helping businesses to reopen safely and, through our Plan for Jobs, protecting, supporting and creating jobs to ensure that nobody is left without hope.

Sunak is due to announce his latest plans for the economy in an annual budget speech in the autumn when unemployment is expected to be rising sharply.

His job protection scheme, which has so far cost 35 billion, is due to expire at the end of October and he is facing calls from unions, the opposition Labour Party and many business leaders to come up with alternative forms of support.

Borrowing is substantially higher than last year / www.ons.gov.uk

The priority for the Chancellor (finance minister) going forward should be to prioritise limiting the depth of the economic crisis, particularly given record low borrowing costs and the risk of a post-furloughing rise in unemployment, Charlie McCurdy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation think tank, said.

Only once the recovery is secured should the Chancellor turn to tackling the deficit, with tax rises needing to be a key plank of that plan, he added.
India has been in the midst of the coronavirus vaccine development space globally. The fact that the largest vaccine maker Serum Institute of India is based in the country and also the concerning fact that India continues to see a rise in the number of coronavirus cases have made India a point of interest.

Serum Institute of India that is manufacturing the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine is set to begin Phase 3 of clinical trials across the country from August 22. The trials would be conducted on 1,600 healthy volunteers with no history of coronavirus. Delhi's AIIMS is one of the 17 sites selected for this purpose. The trials would be observer-blind, randomised and controlled and would assess the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. The Oxford vaccine is believed to be the frontrunner among the COVID-19 candidates.

Andhra Medical College (Visakhapatnam), JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research (Mysore), Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital (Mumbai), KEM Hospital Research Centre (Vadu), B J Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital (Pune), PGIMER Chandigarh, apart from AIIMS Delhi are some of the few selected sites.

Also read: Russia looks for partners in India for production of COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is assisting SII in conducting the Phase 2 and 3 of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as well as US-based company Novavax's, as mentioned in a report in Livemint. Novavax had also recently signed a deal with SII for production of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN and Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D vaccines are also in the early stages of trial. India's Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that he expects COVAXIN to be out by end of the year. Both the vaccines, he added, would require a month extra for production.

The government had constituted the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration to select a vaccine and to offer required support for mass administration.

Also read: Coronavirus vaccine: Russia produces first batch; CanSino receives patent approval in China

Additionally, Russia is eyeing a partnership with India for vaccine production. During an online press briefing on Thursday, Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund said, "The production of the vaccine is a very important issue. Currently, we are looking for a partnership with India. We believe that they are capable of producing the Gamaleya vaccine and it is very important to say that those partnerships to produce the vaccine will enable us to cover the demand that we have." They are also considering the possibility of clinical trials in different countries, including India.

However, when it comes to mass administration, the government will be faced with a lot of logistical challenges. To the question, who will receive the initial doses, the government is considering inoculating the front line workers, army personnel and certain categories first. The most vulnerable might be given the initial doses in the country.

Moreover, vaccine makers have also asked the government estimates for an assured market. The government has assured them that a large demand is estimated.

Meanwhile, the ICMR is undertaking a study in Mumbai to evaluate whether the BCG (Bacille Calmette- Guerin) vaccine is usually used against tuberculosis. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said that Seth G S Medical College, civic-run KEM Hospital and the public health department of the BMC will jointly conduct the study for the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). "The study will also look at degree of severity of the disease and development of immunity using immunological markers," the BMC said.

Also read: Coronavirus vaccine: Serum Institute to start Phase 3 trials of Oxford vaccine on Aug 22
CARACAS, VENEZUELAVenezuelan officials are denouncing people who may have come into contact with the coronavirus as bioterrorists and urging their neighbours to report them. The government is detaining and intimidating doctors and experts who question the presidents policies on the virus.

And it is corralling thousands of Venezuelans who are streaming home after losing jobs abroad, holding them in makeshift containment centres out of fear that they may be infected.

President Nicolas Maduro has tackled the coronavirus much as he has any internal threat to his rule: by deploying his repressive security apparatus against it.

In commandeered hotels, disused schools and cordoned-off bus stations, Venezuelans returning home from other countries in Latin America are being forced into crowded rooms with limited food, water or masks. And they are being held under military guard for weeks or months for coronavirus tests or treatment with unproven medications, according to interviews with the detainees, videos they have taken on their cellphones and government documents.

They told us were contaminated, that were guilty of infecting the country, said Javier Aristizabal, a nurse from the capital, Caracas, who said he spent 70 days in centres after he returned from Colombia in March.

In one major city, San Cristobal, governing party activists are marking the homes of families suspected of having the virus with plaques and threatening them with detention, residents said. In another city, Maracaibo, police are patrolling the streets in search of Venezuelans who re-entered the country without official approval. Local opposition politicians whose constituencies register an outbreak say they are threatened with prosecution.

This is the only country in the world where having COVID is a crime, said Sergio Hidalgo, a Venezuelan opposition activist who said he had come down with symptoms of the disease, only to find police officers at his door and government officials accusing him of infecting the community.

As the pandemic tore through neighbouring countries, overwhelming health care networks far more prepared than Venezuelas collapsed system, Maduro took a hard-line approach, treating the coronavirus as a national security threat that could destabilize his bankrupt nation and jeopardize his grip on power.

The pandemic clearly presents a threat to the government because it shows the precariousness of its resources, said John Magdaleno, a Venezuelan political scientist in Caracas. The priority is not dealing with the pandemic. It is short-term political survival.

In his seven years in power, Maduro has overseen the collapse of Venezuelas health care system, the destruction of the national economy and a marked increase in the countrys international isolation.

With dwindling resources to prepare the nations broken hospitals or help its already impoverished population survive the crisis, Maduro has turned to bare-bones detention facilities, repression and coercion to try to stop the virus from overwhelming the country, political analysts said.

The governments heavy-handed approach may be keeping more people at home and slowing the virus spread, but it is also discouraging those who may be sick from seeking help. That, in turn, is making the pandemic even harder to fight, doctors in Venezuela said.

When people feel sick, they think they have a legal or a police problem, as if they were delinquents, said Julio Castro, a Venezuelan doctor who advises the opposition-controlled Congress on health care. So they prefer to hide.

The true scope of the pandemic in Venezuela, a country that stopped releasing health statistics as basic as infant mortality years ago, is nearly impossible to determine.

But with 20 top officials reporting that they had tested positive and some doctors warning that their hospitals were near capacity, the situation may be far worse than the official tally of 288 deaths in a country of about 30 million people suggests.

Doctors and journalists who have questioned official statistics say they have been threatened. At least 12 Venezuelan doctors and nurses have been detained for making public comments on the coronavirus, according to medical unions.

Venezuelan migrants who return home after losing their jobs abroad in the wake of the pandemic are particularly targeted.

According to the Colombian government, about 95,000 Venezuelans have crossed back into their home country since March, and 42,000 are waiting their turn along the border.

Only 1,200 are allowed to return each week through the main border crossing, under Venezuelan government guidelines, forcing others to wait for months in makeshift camps. Those who use illegal trails to cross the porous land border are publicly labelled threats.

On Twitter, the armed forces of Venezuela urged the population to report so-called bioterrorists, referring to Venezuelans who had evaded government border controls and returned home.

The Times interviewed seven Venezuelans who were held in containment centres. Several said they had been crammed into rooms without beds, hot food, windows or sufficient drinking water.

You couldnt ask anyone for help, because the only thing you got was abuse, said Aristizabal, the nurse, who was shuttled among several centres after he returned from visiting his mother in Colombia.

During his detention, Aristizabal said he had slept on the ground at times  on the asphalt of a bus station or on the floor of a windowless hotel room that he shared with five other people.

Some said that they had been detained with babies just one year old, with no special provisions made for the children. Others said that they had been obliged to take the medications outlined in Venezuelas official protocol for treating anyone who has, or is suspected of having, the coronavirus, even without showing any symptoms.

The drugs listed in the government guidelines are unproven for treating the coronavirus and could have dangerous consequences. The treatments include hydroxychloroquine, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned can cause dangerous heart rhythm abnormalities in coronavirus patients, and an anti-parasite drug called ivermectin, which the World Health Organization said should not be used to treat the illness.

Videos taken by Venezuelans in confinement centres showed unsanitary conditions. Several people said they were not getting treatment for pre-existing conditions, were given a single mask for their stay and were unable to practice social distancing.

But the worst part, they said, was that they had no idea of how long they would be held.

In one video published by an opposition lawmaker, five older men and women wrapped in dirty blankets are shown crammed into a small, windowless room with dilapidated chairs and one bunk bed without mattresses in what they said was a government-run first-aid station in Caracas.

Please take me out of here, said one visibly distraught man. Im dying here. I feel worse every day.

Maduros crackdown on returning Venezuelan migrants contrasts with the freedom enjoyed by the countrys governing elite, who are weathering the lockdown on closed Caribbean islands, hillside mansions and lavish, invitation-only restaurants.

Top party officials who contract the coronavirus seek treatment in private clinics or at Caracas reliable military hospital. For a few thousand dollars, wealthy returning travellers can skip the mandatory quarantine and go straight home.

Luxury bulletproof SUVs without license plates zip through Caracas upmarket neighbourhoods at night, while a few miles away, armed pro-government militias enforce the lockdown in the poorest communities.

Maduro claims that his rapid response  he locked down the country March 17, right after the first two coronavirus cases were confirmed  has prevented the devastation endured by nearby countries.

Officially, Venezuela boasts one of the regions lowest infection rates. Five months after the virus was detected, the number of daily deaths, according to the government, has never surpassed 12.

Youre given care thats unique in the world, humane care, loving, Christian, said Maduro in a national address Aug. 14.

But health experts say the low official figures are the result of extremely low testing rates. Accurate coronavirus tests are scarce and take weeks to process in one of the two laboratories approved by the government, according to eight doctors in three Venezuelan states interviewed for this article. The doctors did not want to reveal their names for fear of government persecution.

Most patients with COVID-19 symptoms are never tested or die before they receive their results, so they are never included in the official statistics, the doctors said.

In the western state of Zulia, the government said 70 people had died from COVID-19 by the second week of August. But a group of doctors who track mortality in the state said that in a single hospital  Zulias largest  294 patients had died with coronavirus symptoms by then.

Days before Venezuela confirmed its first coronavirus case, the governor of Zulia, Omar Prieto, said in a public address that he ordered military counter-intelligence to question a prominent doctor for alerting about potential infections.

This is an issue of national security, and this man has to be investigated, Prieto said about the doctor, Freddy Pachano.

Zulias capital, Maracaibo, has since become the epicentre of Venezuelas pandemic.

One crematory in Maracaibo went from processing its usual average of five bodies a day to 20 bodies by June, before its oven broke from overwork, according to the facilitys manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Officials in Maracaibo have since opened a common grave in the municipal cemetery.

Prieto, the governor, tested positive for the coronavirus but recovered at a private clinic.

Pachano, who tried to sound the alert about the impending crisis, has fled to Colombia to avoid arrest.

Its not possible to take adequate measures to fight the disease if you dont really know what is happening, he said.

Read more about:
BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 21

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Russia's exports of palm and sunflower oils to Turkmenistan by 8.1 times in 1H2020 compared to the same period of last year, Trend reports citing statistics from the Eurasian Economic Commission.

More than 240 tons of palm oil were exported from Russia to Turkmenistan during the first six months of 2020, which is 5.7 times more than during the same period last year, for a total of $222,382, which is 5.4 times more than the amount in 1H2019.

During the reporting period, more than 20 million tons of sunflower oil were exported from Russia to Turkmenistan, which is 2.4 times more than the same period last year, for a total of $17.339 million, which is 2.3 times more than the value of sunflower oil exported from Russia to Turkmenistan in 1H2019.

Turkmenistan also imported 2 tons of olive oil worth $6,480 from Russia in 1H2020.

Furthermore, Turkmenistan imported 54 tons of soy oil totaling $51,376 oil from Belarus.

As reported, Russia also exported a large volume of vegetable oil to Turkmenistan from January through May 2020. The total value of olive oil exported by Russia was $6,480, palm oil - $183,695, and sunflower oil - $14.336 million.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Rating Action: Moody's assigns Aa1 to Memphis, TN's Gas Revenue Bonds

Global Credit Research - 21 Aug 2020

New York, August 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Aa1 rating to the City of Memphis, TN Gas Enterprise's $70 million Gas System Revenue Bonds, Series 2020. Moody's maintains a Aa1 on the gas system's outstanding revenue bonds at Aa1.

RATINGS RATIONALE

The Aa1 on the system's gas revenue bonds reflects its very strong and regionally significant service area and historically strong debt service coverage levels that are expected to remain strong in the near-term. The Aa1 also reflects below-average customer wealth and income levels and weak bondholder protections.

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 gas system despite suspending disconnections and waiving late fees beginning in mid-March. The gas system maintains strong debt service coverage levels and has planned rate increase in 2022. 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 gas system changes, we will update the rating and/or outlook at that time.

RATING OUTLOOK

Moody's typically does not assign outlooks to local government issuers with this amount of debt outstanding.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE

- Material improvement in customer wealth and income levels

- Significant improvement in liquidity

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE

- Contraction of service area

- Material increase in leverage

- Declines in liquidity and debt service coverage levels

LEGAL SECURITY

The gas bonds are secured by a senior lien on gas system net revenues and are on parity with the outstanding Series 2016 and 2017 bonds.

Story continues

USE OF PROCEEDS

The gas revenue bonds will be used to finance improvements to the gas system's operations.

PROFILE

The gas division of Memphis Light, Gas and Water provides natural gas to 314,213 customers in Memphis (Aa2 stable) and surrounding municipalities in Shelby County (Aa1 stable).

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.

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.

Susanne Siebel Lead Analyst Regional PFG Northeast Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 7 World Trade Center 250 Greenwich Street New York 10007 US JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Douglas Goldmacher Additional Contact Regional PFG Northeast JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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If it takes five days, were talking Halloween that people are going to get that ballot, the 31st of October, and the election is on the 3rd, Overstreet said. If you wait until the last day that we can mail out a ballot, well have time to mail you out a ballot, but you will not have time to mail it back. Theres no way it will get back in time. Youll have to use the dropbox.

For the 2016 election, about 70 ballots were not counted because they came in after the deadline, Overstreet said.

Some of that is because people put them in the mail the Saturday before or the day before, she said. We even had some people who even put ballots in the mail on Election Day.

It is not the case that, as long as a ballot is postmarked by Election Day, it still counts, she warned.

I havent heard any plans to decrease the number of mailboxes and the number of staff, Overstreet said. But if people are concerned about those issues, be proactive as a voter and just use the dropbox.

Overstreet anticipates a high volume of requests for mail-in ballots this year.
President Trump's claims of ignorance to the private border wall could not be further from the truth.

On Thursday, four organizers of a campaign to build a private border wall were arrested on fraud charges for allegedly rerouting crowdfunded dollars to their own pockets. Trump has since pulled out a familiar line and claimed he knew nothing about the project or the people working on it, even though that's incredibly and obviously false.

For starters, Stephen Bannon, who is accused of taking more than $1 million to fund his "lavish" lifestyle, was literally Trump's chief strategist for his first few months in the White House. Timothy Shea was also arrested Thursday, and a year ago, his wife tweeted that she had met with Trump to discuss the project, HuffPost reports.

Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. has been a very public supporter of the project, calling it "private enterprise at its finest." A $75 donation to We Build the Wall would once secure you a signed copy of Trump Jr.'s book that just came out this year, and the group boasted that its foreman met with Trump Jr. once. A spokesperson for the Trump Organization claimed Trump Jr. didn't know he was quoted on We Build the Wall's website, and that he only spoke on their behalf once.

But it's not just Trump's family that supported We Build the Wall. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf recently visited its build site and met with board members, HuffPost notes. The former head of Trump's voter fraud commission Kris Kobach served on We Build the Wall's board, and once said Trump approved of it.

These are just a small handful of the ways We Build the Wall has tied itself to Trump in an attempt to prove its legitimacy. Read more about the campaign's Trump connections at HuffPost.

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Nine people including seven employees of Telangana state power generation corporation (TSGenco) were killed and eight others injured-- three of them seriously-- in a major fire mishap at the Srisailam Left Bank Hydel Power Station (SLBHP) late on Thursday night, officials said.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has announced an ex gratia of 50 lakh to the family of deputy engineer Venkatesh Goud and 25 lakh each to the families of the eight other deceased. He also assured that one member of every bereaved family will be given a job, apart from other departmental benefits.

The SLBHP is on the Telangana side of the Srisailam reservoir on Krishna river-- a joint irrigation project between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The power house was constructed inside a two-km long tunnel under the Nallamala hill range adjacent to the reservoir.

Though the authorities initially said there were 30 employees inside the power plant when the accident occurred at 10.30 pm, an official statement from TSGenco said there were only 17 employees inside.

Eight of them managed to come out of the station with injuries, nine others remained trapped inside as they were trying their best to put out the fire and save the power plant from being burnt completely, the statement said.

The deceased employees of TSGenco were identified as deputy engineer Srinivas Goud, assistant engineers Venkat Rao, Mohan Kumar and Uzma Fathima, plant attendant Rambabu, junior attendant Kiran and Sundar Kumar. Two other employees of Amaron Batteries, Hyderabad  Vinesh Kumar and Mahesh Kumar-- were also trapped inside the power plant and were among those found dead.

All of them tried to come out of the escape tunnel, but they did not succeed due to the thick plumes of smoke that engulfed the entire tunnel, the statement said.

Also Read: President Kovind, PM Modi condole loss of lives in fire at Telangana hydroelectric plant

Telangana power minister G Jagadeeshwar Reddy, agriculture minister S Niranjan Reddy, TSGenco chairman and managing director D Prabhakar Rao rushed to the spot along with other senior officials.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has ordered a comprehensive probe by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) into the fire accident at SLBP. He appointed CID additional director general Govind Singh as inquiry officer to probe into the cause of the accident and submit a report to the government.

The chief minister expressed deep shock over the loss of nine lives in the mishap and said despite best efforts, those trapped inside could not be rescued. Describing the accident as the most tragic, he conveyed his condolences to members of the bereaved families. He wished speedy recovery to those critically injured in the accident.

Jagadeeshwar Reddy, who supervised the rescue operations, said the fire possibly erupted due to a short circuit in one of the electric panels of the power house and it spread to other parts. Thick smoke engulfed the tunnel, making it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the place, the minister said.

Fire extinguishers could not control the fire and ambulances could not reach the area. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) were pressed into service. Rescue teams from Singareni Collieries also joined the rescue operations.

According to TSGenco authorities, the power plant is located inside the tunnel at about 1.2 km from the entrance and the only way to reach the plant was through the tunnel. But because of flames and heavy smoke, it was not possible to enter the tunnel. The rescue teams could enter the power house only by Friday afternoon. But by that time, all the nine employees were unfortunately found dead, the official statement said.

Out of the eight persons who managed to escape in the initial hours, three persons were seriously injured and they are being treated, the statement said.

The rescued employees include deputy executive engineer Pawan Kumar, plant junior assistant Ramakrishna, junior engineers Mathru, Krishna Reddy and Venkataiah and driver Palankaiah. They were shifted to TSGenco hospital at Eegala Penta closer to the powerhouse for treatment.

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Ethiopia arrested thousands of protesters, opposition members, and journalists during July's sectarian unrest. Health workers and local officials are now concerned Covid 19 is spreading in overcrowded prisons and makeshift detention centers. Simon Marks reports from Ziway, Ethiopia.
MOSCOW - As Russias most determined and durable opposition figure, Alexei Navalny has employed an astute understanding of social media and an accountants ability to wade through financial data, a knack for sardonic humour and fierce resolve in the face of repeated threats.

Navalny, a lawyer by training, earned a reputation as a Kremlin enemy writing about official corruption. His activism expanded to organizing anti-government protests and seeking political office, and over the years hed experienced frequent jailings, a chemical attack and an unexplained illness.

Now, his family, friends and supporters have a new reason to worry. The 44-year-old opposition remained in grave condition in a Siberian hospital Friday more than a day after he became ill on a flight back to Moscow and fell into a coma. His allies suspect he drank poisoned tea before boarding the plane.

His wife wants him moved to a clinic in Germany that has treated other Russian dissidents. After announcing that they found no poison in Navalnys system, doctors in Siberia refused to authorize the transfer, saying his condition was too unstable. But when German specialists later examined the politician and said he was fit for transfer, the Russian doctors reversed themselves and said he could go.

His suffering is a shock and a worry to supporters who see him as a stalwart in Russias beleaguered opposition.

Many times I was asked publicly and privately how I can support this terrible Navalny ... I always answered the same way: Alexei Navalny risks his life every day for his beliefs, Grigory Chkhartishvili, a dissident author noted for detective novels written under the pen-name Boris Akunin, said on social media after Navalnys illness was announced.

Navalny began his rise to prominence by focusing on corruption in Russias murky mix of politics and business. In 2008, he bought shares in Russian oil and gas companies, so he could push for transparency as an activist shareholder.

Navalnys work to expose corrupt elites had a pocketbook appeal to the Russian peoples widespread sense of being cheated. Whether he was writing for his website or running for public office, his target likely better resonated with potential supporters than more abstract goals such democratic ideals and human rights.

Russias state-controlled television channels ignored Navalny, but his investigations of dubious contracts and officials luxurious lifestyles got wide attention through the back channels of YouTube videos and social media posts. The information uncovered by his Fund For Fighting Corruption mostly overrode the reservations raised about Navalnys nationalist streak and his advocacy for the rights of ethnic Russians, even in opposition circles.

Navalny also understood the power of a pithy phrase and a potent image. His description of President Vladimir Putins power-base United Russia party as the party of crooks and thieves attained instant popularity. A lengthy investigation into then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs lavish country getaway boiled down to the propertys well-appointed duck house; yellow duck toys soon became a way of deriding the prime minister.

The founder of two opposition political parties, he also also be flippant in the face of difficulty, tweeting sarcastic remarks from police custody or courtrooms on the many occasions he was arrested. In 2017, after an assailant threw green-hued disinfectant in his face, seriously damaging one of his eyes, Navalny joked in a video blog that people were comparing him to comic book character the Hulk.

Navalny frequently was jailed for participating in protests  or sometimes even as he headed to them. Online video reports of protests broadcast from Navalnys studios sometimes were enlivened by on-camera police raids.

He also faced more serious legal troubles. In 2013, on the day after Navalny had registered as a candidate for Moscow mayor, he was sentenced to five years in prison for an embezzlement conviction. He was accused of stealing timber from a company in a region where he was an adviser to the reformist governor.

But in a hugely surprising move, the prosecutors office appealed the sentence hours later.

The opposition attributed his release to the massive protests that greeted news of Navalnys imprisonment, but many observers thought it was a calculated move by authorities to make sure the mayoral election two months later carried a tint of legitimacy.

Navalny ended up placing second, an impressive performance against the incumbent mayor with the backing of Putins political machine and who was popular among Muscovites for improving the capitals infrastructure and esthetics.

The embezzlement conviction was eventually reinstated, and Navalny was convicted, along with his brother Oleg, in another embezzlement case in 2014. His brother received a 3 1/2-year prison sentence, while Navalnys sentence was suspended.

Although he did not get sent to prison, the conviction blocked Navalny from being able to carry out his plans to run against Putin in Russias 2018 presidential election. His own legal obstacles and the widespread obstruction authorities set before other independent candidates seeking public office led Navalny and his organization to adopt a new strategy for the 2019 Moscow city council elections.

The Smart Vote initiative analyzed which candidate in each district appeared to have the best chance of beating United Russias pick and tried to drum up support for that candidate.

The initiative appeared to be a success, with nearly half of the city council seats going to systemic opposition candidates, although its effectiveness could not be quantified. Navalny intended to redeploy the same strategy in next years national parliament elections.

But the Moscow city council races may have foretold even worse troubles for Navalny. While jailed last summer for taking part in a pre-election protest against the exclusion of many independent candidates, Navalny became ill and was taken to a hospital.

The official version was that he had suffered an allergic reaction. His supporters and some doctors said at the time that poisoning appeared to be a more likely explanation.

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Police in Ondo State are investigating the cause of a bloody clash between the supporters of the All Progressives Congress and the African Democratic Congress on Friday in Ondo town, Ondo West Local Government Area.

A similar incident has also been reported in Ilaje local government where members of the All Progressives Congress were allegedly attacked by hoodlums.

The incidents occurred 24 hours to the council election, scheduled to hold on Saturday, August 22.

The police spokesperson, Tee Leo-Ikoro, who confirmed the incident on Friday, said, so many people were injured.

Although details of the incidents are scanty, PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the parties supporters clashed during campaign outing.

No fewer than 15 cars were reportedly vandalised during the Ondo mayhem, as their windscreens were smashed.

Many were said to have sustained varying degrees of injuries in the clash.

About 10 parties are contesting the elections, but the Peoples Democratic Party withdrew after it questioned the credibility of the process of the election.

The spokesperson for APC, Alex Kalejaiye, said on Friday, he could not ascertain the groups that masterminded the attack in Ilaje.

I cannot mention the group that attacked our supporters in Ilaje, but what I know is that we do not support violence in the process, he said.

I hope this is not a prelude to the coming governorship election and we are calling on the security agencies to take charge and fish out the perpetrators.

Officials of the ADC could be reached at the time of filing this report, as efforts to do so failed to yield results.

Meanwhile, Mr Leo-Ikoro said security operatives had been deployed to the scene of the incidents while efforts were on to arrest the perpetrators.

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We are yet to ascertain the root cause of the clash, because so many people were injured, he said.

We have commenced investigation into the matter to know those involved and why the clash happened.

The Social Democratic Party on Thursday announced its withdrawal from participating in the LG polls after its members were attacked and badly injured by thugs in Idanre.

The party also suffered losses in property and the destruction of its posters and billboards.
The academicians and the business executives from China may find it difficult to travel to India as New Delhi is contemplating to tighten the visa rules for people coming in from China, as the relation between the two nations has reached a new low of late.

The visa applications of the business executives and the academicians seeking to travel from China to India are likely to go through more stringent scrutiny by the security agencies in future, sources in New Delhi said.

The move comes amid continuing military stand-off between India and China along the disputed boundary between the two neighbours in eastern Ladakh. The aggressive move by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to unilaterally alter the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) strained the relations between the two nations.

While the Indian Army responded to the transgressions by the Chinese PLA along the de facto boundary between the two nations, New Delhi took several other measures to convey it to Beijing that the overall bilateral relations could not remain unaffected by Chinas expansionist move into the territory of India.

The DH on August 4 reported that the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India would review the functioning of the Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms jointly established by China and seven universities and colleges in India. The ministry will also review 54 pacts inked by Indian and Chinese higher education institutions for academic cooperation.

Besides, New Delhi on June 29 banned 59 apps linked to China, alleging that they were used in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order. The government on July 28 banned use of 47 more apps  mostly the clones and the different versions of the previously banned ones.

New Delhi of late also decided to bar Chinas companies from participating in highway construction projects in India. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and the Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) of late cancelled tender inviting bids from companies for supply of equipment for upgrading its network to 4G  a move, which is apparently aimed at keeping away Huawei Technologies Company and ZTE Corporation of China away from the project and stopping them from expanding footprints in the telecom sector of India.

The Modi Government also moved to restrict entities of China from participating in commercial coal auctions in India, implementing a revision in foreign investment policy introduced in April  just days before the military stand-off between the two nations came to the public domain.
Islamabad, Aug 21 : Almost 11 per cent of Pakistanis have developed protective immunity against the novel coronavirus, according to a study conducted in 25 cities across the country.

The "National Seroprevalence Study" was initiated in July this year by the Health Services Academy in collaboration with multiple partners, including Aga Khan University, and with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dawn news reported on Friday.

It is part of the WHO Unity Study being conducted simultaneously in 25 other countries, the Ministry of National Health Services said in a statement on Thursday.

The study revealed that the population of urban areas and people up to middle age are more protected against the disease.

However, population in rural areas and senior citizens are at highest risk from a possible second wave of the deadly virus.

The virus was more common in young adults and significantly less in children and older people.

It was also found out that areas with lower immunity rates may be at higher risk for future outbreaks.

Speaking to Dawn news, microbiologist Professor Javed Usman said detection of antibodies in 11 per cent of the population was much less than his expectations as it meant that Pakistan was still far away from the concept of herd immunity.

He said that the ratio of antibodies also depended on the sensitivity of testing, but 89 per cent were still vulnerable to the deadly virus, which has so far infected a total of 291,588 people in Pakistan and killed 6,219 others.


The CBI was handed over the critical case of Sushant Singh Rajput by the Supreme Court a couple of days back. Yesterday CBI officers from New Delhi travelled to Mumbai to begin probe. Soon after there were reports this morning that five teams have been formed for a systematic probe in the case. One of the teams who was supposed to recreate the scene of Sushants death and question people around the residence reached the actors home earlier today.





We gotto begin their work. With CBI finally being involved in the case, many well-wishers and loved ones of the late actor are now relieved as they believe the truth will come out sooner or later. Keep watching this space for more updates on the case.
NJ Cannabis Insider produces premium, exclusive weekly content and monthly events geared toward those interested in the marijuana and hemp industries. Here are the headlines in Issue 128, published on Aug. 20. To subscribe, visit njcannabisinsider.biz

Forum: Cannabis Legalization & Your Town

Join the NJ Cannabis Insider on Aug. 25 at 10:30 a.m. for the livestream symposium, Cannabis Legalization and Your Town presented by The BGIll Group. Moderated by NJ Cannabis Insiders Justin Zaremba, the program will feature introductory Q&A with the head of the states cannabis program at the Department of Health, Jeff Brown.

This forum will count on industry power players wholl answer questions about the rules and regulations currently in place as it pertains to serving medical patients as well as whats ahead after adult-use/recreational cannabis is legalized, if voters approve the November ballot referendum.

The 90-minute session is designed to help inform city leaders and stakeholders on what their best options are ahead of legalization. The event is open to the public. To reserve tickets, visit https://njcannabisinsider.nj.com/wp/conferences/

A look at the cashless payment options dispensaries are using.

Some dispensaries  including Curaleaf, the states largest medical cannabis operator  have found workarounds to allow medical marijuana patients more options than simply paying for their medicine in cash. But those workarounds still lack the simplicity of straight debit and credit transactions.

At Curaleafs dispensary and Harmony up in North Jersey, customers are able to use a cashless ATM, as well as a regular ATM, to purchase their products. Customers simply input their card into the card reader and can process the transaction without cash, paying a surcharge of $2.25 for the transaction along with whatever service charge the customers bank charges for using an out-of-network ATM, said Bridgette Fonseca, Curaleafs director of dispensary operations.

This is something that patients have asked us before, Fonseca said. Theres something that they can use instead of bringing cash with them or going to an ATM. (By Justin Zaremba | NJ Cannabis Insider)

Read the full story by subscribing to NJ Cannabis Insider.

Tracking what cannabis companies are doing to improve diversity & inclusion.

The Black women who founded Cannaclusive in 2017 to promote BIPOC representation and defeat racist stereotypes took note of the social media messages companies posted lamenting the brazen murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer over the Memorial Day weekend.

They catalogued the pledges to make the cannabis industry more welcoming to people of color. If you dont know about the Accountability List, you should  especially if you own, lead or work for a cannabis business in America.

Cannabis consumers and industry players are invited to examine the racial makeup and actions taken by 323 companies (as of Aug. 17) toward building equity for people of color. Did they also contribute to legal defense funds to defend protesters? Do they have a paid social responsibility officer? Its all there in the spreadsheet they pledge to update regularly.

Companies are somewhat on notice, Mary Pryor, a Cannaclusive co-founder and the chief marketing officer for two companies, Tonic CBD and Tricolla Farms in New York. Some have started the conversation, some have not followed through.(By Susan K. Livio | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Read the full story by subscribing to NJ Cannabis Insider.

Poll: 55% of N.J. voters support taxing adult-use cannabis more than the state sales tax.

A new Brach Eichler Cannabis Poll, which sampled 500 registered New Jersey voters, found 55% supported taxing adult-use cannabis at a rate higher than the current 6.625% state sales tax, with 30% opposed.

On Nov. 3, voters will decide whether or not to legalize cannabis for adults who are 21 and older, and its clear from the polling support remains strong  66% of those polled support cannabis legalization, 27 % opposed and 7 % unsure, along with a high degree of awareness of the upcoming vote  71 % to 29 % who were unaware.

Most people dont favor higher taxes, but we believe this reflects both an awareness of the fiscal needs of the state, as well as an understanding that other states that have legalized cannabis have imposed taxes and surcharges of up to 25%, said Charles X. Gormally, co-chair of Brach Eichlers cannabis law practice that commissioned the poll. (By Justin Zaremba| NJ Cannabis Insider)

Read the full story by subscribing to NJ Cannabis Insider.

The D.C. Report: What does the Dem platform mean for federal legalization?

As proposed by the task forces comprised of supporters of presidential nominee Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic platform approved during the partys national convention talks about decriminalizing and rescheduling cannabis on the federal level, not legalizing it.

That doesnt sit well with advocates of legalization.

Rescheduling of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act would continue to make the federal government the primary dictators of cannabis policy, and would do little if anything to address its criminal status under federal law, Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said when the plank first was proposed. (By Jonathan D. Salant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Read the full story by subscribing to NJ Cannabis Insider.

Opinion: Will a Kamala Harris vice presidency be good or bad for legalization?

Since the announcement of Senator Kamala Harris as Joe Bidens VP pick, there has been a lot of speculation within the cannabis community as to whether its a good or bad sign for federal legalization efforts.

Many point to her years as a prosecutor and attorney general and the many thousands of arrests for cannabis possession under her watch. Others explain that she was just doing her job and that her more recent sponsorship for legalization initiatives is where she will remain.

Personally, I dont think it will make a big difference to the inevitability of legalization at the federal level.

Regardless of who wins, we will see historical movement at the federal level in 2021. The voters overwhelmingly support legalization and our economy will demand new streams of economic opportunity. (By Scott Rudder, president of the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association)

Read the full story by subscribing to NJ Cannabis Insider.

NJ Cannabis Insider is a weekly subscriber-based trade journal produced by NJ Advance Media, which provides content to NJ.com and The Star-Ledger. Learn about NJ Cannabis Insider and its monthly live events and forums here.

For more information, you may reach us via email here.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP)  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is asking Canada for help with U.S. residents of a small peninsula who have been marooned by the pandemic-related closure of the U.S.-Canada border.

Point Roberts is part of Washington state, but it juts out from the Canadian mainland south of Vancouver and it is not connected to the rest of Washington. About 1,300 Washington residents live there.

In a letter Friday to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Inslee noted that the residents of Point Roberts are isolated, but they are usually are able to drive through Canada and back into Washington state to obtain goods and services or to see family and friends. With the border closed to nearly all travel since March 21, that hasn't been possible.

Inslee suggested that residents of Point Roberts could be given special travel permits allowing them to drive directly to and from the Washington state mainland. Canada has granted similar travel permits to Americans driving between the Lower 48 and Alaska.
MUMBAI: Actress Rhea Chakraborty has been in news ever since her alleged boyfriend and actor Sushant Singh Rajput passed away in June and his family accused her of abetment to suicide apart from other charges.

Now, transcript of a WhatsApp conversation that Rhea apparently had with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt on June 8 has gone viral. The chat seems to suggest that the actress informed the filmmaker of the fact that she was leaving her boyfriend, late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, on that day.

The WhatsApp conversation between Rhea and Bhatt also hints at the fact that her father might not have been happy about her relationship with Sushant, and that Bhatt had advised her against it.

The content of these chats is quite shocking as the filmmaker reportedly advises Rhea on her relationship. Also, it is to be noted that Rhea's character in film 'Jalebi' was Ayesha. The actress reportedly wrote something related to this in her chat with the filmmaker.

"Aisha moves on..sir..with a heavy heart and sense of relief," she wrote. In the next message, she wrote: "Our last call was a wake up call." The message that followed read, "You are my angel You were then And you are now."

In two separate messages, Bhatt replied: "Dont look back. Make it possible what is inevitable", and "My love to your father. He will be a happy man."

To this, Rhea replied, "Have found some courage, and what you said about my dad tht day on the phone pushed me to be strong for him. He sends you love and thanks you for always being so special."

Bhatt replied, "You are my child. I feel light".

Rhea then wrote, "Aaaah no words sir. The best emotions i feel i feel for u."

In reply, Bhatt wrote, "Thank u for being brave."

To this, Rhea stated in separate messages: "Thank you destiny that I met you"; "You are right", "Our path met for this day"; and "Not for a film, but something very different, every word you have said to me Echoes in me and feel a deep impact of your unconditional love".

Rhea also shared emojis of a rainbow and a dancing girl to express her happiness at various stages of the conversation. The conversation on WhatApp goes on, with Rhea writing, "I love you my best man"; and "Will make you proud".

Bhatt replied, with emojis of folded hands, "You have. Truly. It takes guts to do what you did. Don't look back."

Rhea's boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his home on June 14. The late actor's family subsequently filed an FIR charging the actress and her family members with abetment to suicide among other charges.

The CBI has taken over investigation of the case. On August 20, an SIT of the Central Bureau of Investigation arrived in Mumbai to initiate the probe in Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

A source in the CBI said the agency officials will collect the documents from the Mumbai Police and meet the investigation officer, who handled the Sushant case.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Bank Group (@GlobalBankGroup) has offered humanitarian and development assistance to Lebanon following the massive August 4 explosion that rocked its capital, Beirut, and killed more than 220 people, injured more than 7,000, and left an estimated 300,000 homeless. The Global Bank's regional office for the Middle East and North Africa Region is working with partners, including Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab, to respond to the "urgent needs of Lebanon" following the "devastating explosion that rocked Beirut on Tuesday, August 4, 2020," said Ron Nechemia, President of the Global Bank Group, in a statement today.

Global Bank's President Ron Nechemia Offers Humanitarian and Developmental Assistance to Lebanon in Response to the Deadly Explosion - "We share the pain and sorrows of the Lebanese people"

"The Global Bank Group extends our deepest condolences to the people of Lebanon and the families and victims of the blast that rocked Beirut and we stand ready to offer all possible assistance as they recover from this tragedy," said Nechemia.

"Lebanon has faced important challenges impeding its economic and human development," Nechemia adds. "Lebanon needs the full support and solidarity of the Global Bank Group and other members of the international community at this crucial juncture, as the disaster continues to inflict horrendous suffering and threatens to wipe out decades of hard-earned development gains."

The immediate objective of the Global Bank Group is to support the development and strengthening of the Lebanese economy as part of a comprehensive plan for reform, infrastructure investments, and investment in disaster risk reduction for resilience.

The Global Bank Group has taken note of the urgent need for the Lebanese authorities to respond to the aspirations of the Lebanese people by implementing meaningful economic reforms  notably the commitments made in the framework of the CEDRE Conference, as well as the International Support Group for Lebanon meeting held in Paris on the 11th of December 2019. The Global Bank Group also recognizes the additional challenges posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic on the Lebanese economy. It commends the preventive measures taken jointly with the Government of Lebanon in that regard.

The Global Bank Group's Country Partnership with the Republic of Lebanon is focused on scaling up access and quality of service delivery and expanding economic opportunities to all. Through these two focus areas, the Global Bank Group will help Lebanon mitigate the economic and social impact of the Syria crisis, safeguard the country's development gains, and enhance stability and development prospects in the coming years. The Country Partnership will contribute to strengthening the relationship between the state and its citizens, a critical ingredient for peace and stability.

The Global Bank Group, along with other international partners, has been working very closely with the Lebanese government to scale up assistance in this area, including through the Global Bank Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility.

In a fragile and conflict-prone environment, the Global Bank Group aims at mitigating the immediate as well as the potentially long-lasting impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon, while strengthening state institutions, addressing existing vulnerabilities, and bolstering efforts on longer-term development challenges, all through interventions that foster inclusion and shared prosperity. When an extreme environmental hazard strikes, infrastructure can be a deciding factor in whether or not the situation becomes a disaster. Roads, for example, can provide access to supply relief aid to affected communities quickly; but if roads are destroyed, entire regions can be cut off from support.

The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund  An Umbrella Trust Fund (GB-DRRRF) helps strengthen the security and resilience of critical infrastructure, for the continuity of essential national functions, and to organize itself to partner effectively with and add value to the security and resilience efforts of critical infrastructure owners and operators.

The objective of the GB-DRRRF in infrastructure is to improve alignment and coordination between established and new infrastructure initiatives, as well as among multilateral and national development banks, national institutions, and the private sector; to bridge the "infrastructure investment gap"; and to facilitate the implementation of sustainable, accessible, and resilient infrastructure, particularly for developing countries.

The GB-DRRRF will prepare projects in a manner that fits the developmental-driven mandate of Global Bank in the infrastructure sector; namely, to deliver outcomes focused on commercialized approaches, private sector participation, strong environmental and social standards, and energy efficiency improvements across the sectors.

ABOUT GB-DRRRF

The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund  an Umbrella Trust Fund (GB-DRRRF), established in 2017, is a multi-donor partnership and grant-making financing mechanism. Its purpose is mainstreaming climate change into development to help achieve the Sendai Framework targets by 2030  a decade-long plan to help make the world safer from disasters caused by natural hazards, to support the implementation of the Global Climate Agreement in Paris, and prevent disasters undermining progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The rapid and flexible support offered by the Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund makes it a central pillar of the Global Bank Group agencies' humanitarian response architecture.

More detailed information can be found on the GB-DRRRF's website www.gbdrrrf.org/

ABOUT GLOBAL BANK

Global Bank is the Global Bank Group's long-term sovereign lending institution. As a development bank with an agenda driven by G-7/G-8 and G-20 priorities, its leading priority is to promote global economic and social development. Unlike the multilateral development banks (MDBs), Global Bank is not restricted to operating only in developing countries.

The Global Bank Group represents, develops, and supports the collective interests of the Global Bank and its business interests globally. Global Bank is a full-fledged private sector global development bank, in formation  the world's second global development bank  positioned next to the World Bank Group and next to the preeminent regional development banks. It combines the characteristics of a multilateral development bank with those of a private financial institution. The primary objective of the Global Bank is to reduce poverty in middle-income countries and credit-worthy poorer countries by promoting sustainable development. To this end, Global Bank finances primarily public sector infrastructure projects and sustainable development through the provision of sovereign loans to developing countries. Global Bank's financial objective is not to maximize profit, but to earn an adequate income to ensure its financial strength and to sustain its development activities.

For information about the Global Bank, please visit www.global-bank.org/

For more information, contact Global Bank Public Affairs: [email protected]

Media Contact:

Bruce Harbin

7147612000

[email protected]

SOURCE The Global Bank Group

Related Links

http://www.gbdrrrf.org


(TNS) - Deadly wildfires that ringed the Bay Area and other parts of California have left a path of destruction in their wake this week as overwhelmed firefighters struggle to keep up.The fires have killed at least five people, destroyed more than 500 structures and scorched hundreds of square miles. More than 60,000 people were under evacuation orders Friday morning as firefighters hoped to use a break in the extreme heat to try to make progress against the raging blazes.Authorities ordered the evacuation of the UC Santa Cruz campus late Thursday. Scotts Valley, a hub of Santa Cruz County's tech industry, was also ordered to evacuate, with some residents heading to the Santa Cruz boardwalk for refuge.More than 18,000 students are enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, although it is unclear how many were on campus or in Santa Cruz before the evacuation order. The university is working with local hotels to find rooms for students.The fire also seriously damaged Big Basin Redwoods State Park, northeast of Santa Cruz, prompting a conservation group on Thursday to openly mourn the loss of California's oldest state park."We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone," said the Sempervirens Fund in a statement. "Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed much of the park's historic facilities. We do not yet know the fate of the park's grandest old trees."California's Department of and Recreation confirmed in a news release that the park "sustained extensive damage" Tuesday from the CZU August Lightning Complex fire and would be closed until further notice.In all, more than 694,000 acres have burned in Northern and Central California  the equivalent of 1,085 square miles, or more than twice the size of the city of Los Angeles.So many fires burned in the numerous low mountain ranges surrounding the San Francisco Bay that the region was home to the world's worst air quality Wednesday night and Thursday morning, according to the website PurpleAir.At least 539 structures have been destroyed, and the fire-fanning weather conditions that have brought record temperatures and thousands of lightning strikes in the past few days are not expected to abate soon.One major cluster of fires is in wine country. The LNU Lightning Complex fire has blackened a combined 215,000 acres, destroyed 480 structures and triggered the evacuation of nonessential personnel from Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and patients from Adventist Health St. Helena hospital in Napa County. It was 0% contained."Extreme fire behavior with short- and long-range spotting [is] continuing to challenge firefighting efforts," officials wrote in an update Thursday morning. "Fires continue to make runs in multiple directions ... impacting multiple communities."There have been fatalities  including four civilian deaths tied to the LNU Lightning Complex fire and a pilot who was killed when his firefighting helicopter crashed in Fresno County on Wednesday, briefly sparking another brush fire.On Thursday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced the death of a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. employee who was found in his vehicle in the Gates Canyon area outside Vacaville., where crews were working. Cal Fire Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Berlant later said that the employee's death was determined to be unrelated to the fires, so it is not included in the agency's fatality count.From the Salinas Valley to wine country, thousands fled to shelters and hotels. In the Sonoma County town of Healdsburg, under an evacuation warning, residents prepared to leave, some for the third time in four years.Harvest Echols said Thursday that she's tired of running from fires, tired of packing up her kids, tired of her wine country town that seems to come close to burning every year."I want to move," she said. "There are lots of more relaxing places to live."Times staff writers Luke Money and Leila Miller contributed to this report.2020 the Los Angeles TimesVisit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden. Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA

Hunter Biden, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's middle child, was at the center of a dubious New York post article based on purported juicy emails and photos found on a laptop sent to the outlet by Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney.

Hunter Biden was previously mentioned by Trump in the first presidential debate for his business dealings, including his connections with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and profiting in China while his father was vice president.

Despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, Hunter Biden's entanglement in the administration's contact with Ukraine proved to be controversial, but it remains to be seen how this may impact his father's bid for the presidency.

Here's how he rose through the ranks of Washington.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's middle child, was the subject of a dubious story published by the New York Post that aired unverified claims about juicy emails and embarrassing images it said were found on the younger Biden's laptop. The story was widely discredited, but not before it raised questions among lawmakers and US intelligence about a possible Russian disinformation effort ahead of November's presidential election.

Biden's son was also a major topic amid chaotic discourse during the first Trump-Biden debate, Trump mentioned his business dealings, including his connections with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and profiting in China while his father was vice president. Hunter was previously at the center of Trump's Ukraine scandal that launched an impeachment inquiry.

Before being referenced by Trump, he took the spotlight in an emotional speech with younger sister Ashley Biden on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention.

The 50-year-old's personal life has created tension as it has played out amid his father's political life for years, and is now coming into sharper focus as his dad has led the field of Democratic voters for months.

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The controversies escalated on November 20, 2019, when DNA results confirmed he fathered a child with a different woman while dating Hallie Biden, his brother's widow. While he dismissed the claims by the child's mother, Lunden Alexis Roberts, earlier in the year, court filings now assert that he accepts the child is his.

See how Hunter Biden rose through the ranks of Washington, found himself involved in Trump's latest scandal, and discovered he was a father again in 2019.

Joe Biden's sons have been well-known fixtures in his public life since they were children.

hunter joe biden

Sen. Joseph Biden takes the oath of office from the US Senate's secretary, Frank Valeo, with his father-in-law Robert Hunter and son Joseph Beau Biden at his side, in Beau's hospital room. Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images

Joe Biden was sworn into office for a Delaware Senate seat in a Wilmington, Delaware, hospital where his two young sons, Hunter and his brother Beau, were taken after being severely injured in a car accident that killed Biden's wife and baby daughter, Naomi, in 1972.

The senator's daily 90-minute train commute to Washington, DC, and back to Delaware to care for his sons earned him the nickname "Amtrak Joe."

Biden later married Jill Jacobs, Hunter and Beau's stepmother, in 1977. The brothers' half-sister, Ashley, was born on June 8, 1981.

Hunter Biden followed in his father's political footsteps and worked his way up in Washington.

the bidens

Sen. Joe Biden with his family after announcing his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Cynthia Johnson/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Image

Hunter Biden studied at Georgetown University and graduated in 1992. It was while earning his undergraduate history degree that he began to differ from his teetotaler father as he began to ramp up his social drinking habit into smoking Marlboro Reds and occasionally using cocaine, according to a 2019 interview with The New Yorker.

After graduation, he spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, working in Portland, Oregon, before graduating from Yale Law School in 1996.

In 1997, Hunter Biden returned to the family's roots in Wilmington, Delaware, where he began a career that immediately caused conflict-of-interest questions.

wilmington delaware amtrak

A view of Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Railroad Station, an Amtrak train station, July 21, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

Hunter Biden bought a historic estate in Wilmington in 1997, where he lived with his wife, young daughters, and brother Beau. He assumed a role as an executive vice president at MBNA bank but later said he disliked the stiff corporate culture.

"If you forgot to wear your MBNA lapel pin, someone would stop you in the halls," he later told The New Yorker.

His role at the bank raised eyebrows as MBNA was known as a massive donor to several of Joe Biden's campaigns over the years, but he stayed with the company for nearly five years.

In 1998, he reached out to William Oldaker, a Washington, DC-based lawyer who had worked on Joe Biden's 1987 presidential campaign about getting a job in President Bill Clinton's administration, according to The New Yorker.

Hunter Biden flexed his connections and rose up the ranks in the Washington scene.

bill clinton

Former President Bill Clinton. Time Life Pictures/White House/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Oldaker connected Hunter Biden with Commerce Secretary William Daley, who had worked with Joe Biden and bonded with Hunter over being from political families, according to The New Yorker.

Hunter Biden was then appointed to the department by President Bill Clinton and served from 1998 to 2001 as a director in the Department of Commerce focusing on e-commerce-policy issues.

Hunter Biden moved his young family to a tony Washington, DC, neighborhood for the role, where he began to establish himself as a DC player, even though he later revealed his salary barely covered the family's house, the children's schooling, and the living expenses that kept them in pace with high DC society.

From 2001 to 2008, he worked at Oldaker, Biden, and Belair LLP, a federal lobbyist firm he cofounded but resigned from to preserve the optics of his father's campaign.

Washington DC

Getty/Chip Somodevilla

CNN reported that Hunter Biden resigned from the firm when then-Sen. Barack Obama, who said he would refuse donations from lobbyists, asked Joe Biden to join his presidential ticket.

Hunter Biden later told The New Yorker that no one from the Obama campaign had directly told him to break his lobbying ties but that he knew "the writing was on the wall," so he resigned from the firm and from an unpaid seat on the Amtrak board in preparation for the election.

"I wanted my father to have a clean slate," Hunter Biden told the outlet. "I didn't want to limit him in any way."

As his father found his place at the top of Washington, Hunter Biden launched several new business efforts that raised eyebrows.

bidens

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden with Hunter Biden at a campaign stop in Dubuque, Iowa. Scott Olson/Getty Images

In September 2008, Hunter Biden launched a consulting firm, Seneca Global Advisors, and in June 2009, Hunter cofounded the private-equity firm Rosemont Seneca Partners. The New Yorker said that through his companies and his partners, Hunter Biden established various business connections to figures in China and Russia.

His blooming international business relationships came to a head when his father adopted policy priorities to crack down on corruption in Ukraine, but he was not accused of any formal wrongdoing.

Into adulthood, Hunter Biden became known for his tumultuous personal life.

the bidens

Beau Biden, Hunter Biden, and Ashley Biden while Joe Biden speaks at the Democratic National Convention on September 6, 2012. Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Hunter Biden's tumultuous personal life became tabloid fodder during and after his father's time with the administration.

He sparked confusion when he, then 44 years old, enlisted in the Navy Reserves in 2012, less than two years before reports broke that the Reserve discharged him in 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine.

Hunter Biden eventually confirmed the news and said in a statement that it was "the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy, and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge. I respect the Navy's decision. With the love and support of my family, I'm moving forward."

After tragedy struck the family through 46-year-old Beau Biden's death from cancer in 2015, Hunter Biden's personal life remained in the headlines.

After he divorced his first wife and the mother of his three daughters, Kathleen, the Biden family acknowledged he was dating Hallie Biden, Beau's widow.

Hunter Biden raised eyebrows with a candid New Yorker interview in which he said he spent the aftermath of his brother's death on a bender that included him buying crack from homeless people. He also said that he and Hallie Biden discovered they were "sharing a very specific grief" and spent a lot of time together in 2016 before they became a couple.

The couple apparently tried to keep the relationship secret, but the former vice president found out when Page Six called him for comment on a story on the relationship, after which he and Jill Biden issued a supportive statement.

"We are all lucky that Hunter and Hallie found each other as they were putting their lives together again after such sadness," the statement said. "They have mine and Jill's full and complete support and we are happy for them."

It's unclear when Hunter and Hallie Biden stopped dating, but their breakup was reported in early May, shortly before TMZ reported the "secret" wedding between Hunter Biden and the South African model Melissa Cohen, which happened on May 16.

Despite his personal affairs, Hunter Biden's biggest public troubles came from questions into his business dealings.

joe and hunter biden

Joe Biden, right, and his son Hunter Biden. Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA

In May 2014, Hunter Biden signed on as a board member of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine's largest gas-production company. He found the company through his business contacts at a controversial time, and as part of the board's anti-corruption efforts, he recommended the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, where he was "a counsel."

A press release announced upon Hunter Biden's hiring said he was in charge of the company's international legal relations with different companies, but he later denied that characterization.

The appointment caused concerns as it came at a tense time between the White House and Russia over Ukraine and its energy dependence, sparking criticism that Hunter Biden's role with the energy giant was a blatant conflict of interest.

But the Bidens dismissed the controversy, telling media outlets that Hunter Biden is a private citizen and his business interests don't represent or affect the views of the government.

The controversy was revived nearly five years later.

Rudy Giuliani Donald Trump

Rudy Giuliani and President Donald Trump. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Within one month of his term on the board expiring, a bombshell New York Times story published on May 1 detailed Joe and Hunter Biden's ties to Ukraine and said the former vice president had successfully gotten a Ukrainian prosecutor removed from office.

The move raised questions about a possible conflict of interest and if Joe Biden was trying to shield his son from an investigation into the company, whose founder faced multiple investigations into allegations of tax evasion and money laundering.

The former vice president was reported to be just one part of a larger push coming from former President Obama's administration for the Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin to be removed over concerns of corruption in his office. Joe Biden has since publicly detailed his threat to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees from the country if Shokin wasn't fired.

However, it's since been reported that there was not an active investigation into Hunter Biden when the former vice president made the push for Shokin's firing, and Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine's prosecutor general, later said that he had no evidence of wrongdoing against either Biden.

Despite the absence of proven wrongdoing by the Bidens, the back-and-forth has been used by the Trump administration to obscure Rudy Giuliani's communications with Ukraine that were made public earlier this year and the growing concern that Trump actively collaborated with a foreign power to gain political leverage.

Read more: The Joe and Hunter Biden Ukraine investigation, explained

As Trump ramped up his hits against the Bidens, House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.

Hunter Biden

Family members gather for a road naming ceremony with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, centre, his son Hunter Biden, left, and his sister Valerie Biden Owens. AP

On September 24, House Democrats announced they were opening an impeachment inquiry amid revelations about Trump's conduct with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the former vice president and his son.

A bombshell whistleblower complaint revealed days earlier put a finer point on the administration's contact with Ukraine, as the report alleged Trump had acted inappropriately in pushing for a foreign power to take aim at the Bidens, specifically in a July 25 phone conversation between the leaders.

The call reportedly came just days after Trump withheld nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine. A memo released by the White House about the specifics of the call quotes Trump urging Zelensky to launch an investigation and instructing him to speak with US Attorney General William Barr and Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer.

Another damning detail from the call was identified when Zelensky promised Trump that "the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person" and "will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue."

As support ramped up among the public and lawmakers for impeachment proceedings, Trump and Giuliani lashed out at Democrats and media reports.

On October 4, Ukraine's top prosecutor, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, announced that authorities were reviewing past investigations into Burisma as part of a larger probe that will take a second pass at several previous investigations by the agency that was plagued by corruption concerns.

Then, on his father's 77th birthday, and in the middle of the impeachment hearing, a DNA test confirmed Biden fathered a baby with another woman while he was dating his brother's widow.

Hunter Biden in 2012.

Hunter Biden in 2012. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

On November 20, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported DNA tests had confirmed "with scientific certainty," that Biden was the father of a baby with a woman named Lunden Alexis Roberts.

Despite the timing of the news, Roberts told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in June that she didn't want to cause a media spectacle, nor for the news to interfere with Joe Biden's presidential campaign.

She filed for a paternity test and child support in May. In August, Biden denied the child was his, and asked the courts to dismiss Roberts' complaint, The Daily Beast Reported.

Since the baby's DNA has been confirmed, Biden hasn't commented publicly. But according to the court filing, he isn't expected to challenge the results or the process.

The court filing also pointed to the fact the Biden family is protected by the US Secret Service, indicating Biden's child might need the same protections.

Hunter Biden delivered a speech on August 20, on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention, endorsing his father's candidacy for the presidential election.

Hunter Biden addresses the virtual Democratic National Convention

Hunter Biden addresses the virtual Democratic National Convention Handout/DNCC/Getty Images

Ashley and Hunter Biden delivered an emotional speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, where his father accepted the nomination for the Democratic presidential nominee.

"He's been a great father," Hunter Biden said. "And we think he'll be a great president," his sister followed. The two addressed the death of their older brother Beau, who introduced their father at the 2008 and 2012 conventions.

Hunter was at the center of controversy again when the New York Post on October 14 published unverified claims about shady emails and embarrassing images that were said to be found on his laptop.

hunter biden

World Food Program USA Board Chairman Hunter Biden speaks on stage at the organization's Annual McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony on April 12, 2016, in Washington, DC. Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA

The story claimed the Post had found a "smoking-gun email" detailing Hunter's contact with a Ukrainian official about meeting with his father. However, the article contained a number of red flags, including its sources behind these claims, and was immediately questioned by more reputable outlets.

But Republicans rallied behind the story as evidence of Biden's wrongdoing with his Ukrainian contacts. President Donald Trump used the story to claim discrimination against conservatives by Big Tech after Facebook and Twitter tamped down the story's spread.

Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani told The New York Times that he gave the New York Post a copy of a hard drive that led to its story on Hunter Biden because other news outlets would "spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out."

After the story was widely discredited, more than 50 former intelligence officials said in an open letter they were "deeply suspicious" that Russia could have been involved in the story, as the article's publishing had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

NBC News reported shortly after the story was published that the FBI was investigating, but John Ratcliffe, Trump's director of National Intelligence, told Fox Business Network "there is no intelligence that supports" the claim that the laptop and emails are "part of a Russian disinformation campaign."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez has claimed that Venezuelas administration under the leadership of President Nicolas Maduro is attempting to buy missiles from Iran.

Marquez also accused the Venezuela government of supplying armed groups in Colombia with weapons made in Russia and Belarus. If these claims hold ground, these developments are likely to infuriate the United States.

Colombia, Venezuela at loggerheads

As per BBC reports, the Colombian President during a virtual event said international intelligence organisations that were allied with Colombia have informed of Nicola Maduro's great interest in acquiring medium and long-range missile systems from Iran.

The Colombian President further claimed that the missile systems have not arrived in Venezuela but there has definitely been contact between relevant parties under the explicit instructions of Venezuela Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

Read: A Visual Impaired Radio Host Faces Pandemic From Venezuela

Colombia, like the United States, does not recognise the Maduro administration as Venezuelas legitimate government and have thus branded him a dictator who is exercising powers illegally. Similarly, many countries have refrained from ties with Maduros government and had backed Juan Guaido's bid to leadership during 2019 upheaval.

In response to Marquez's accusations, Venezuelas Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza termed them baseless. She claimed the accusations were made up in an attempt to distract people from the fact that Colombia still suffers from constant massacres, uncontrolled violence, and drug trafficking.

In Colombia, massacres, violence & uncontrollable drug trafficking are rampant. If you add his catastrophic and unpopular management and having his boss in jail for being a paramilitary, @IvanDuque returns to the infamies and anti-Venezuelan fiction to distract public opinion. pic.twitter.com/7Heea2Ji73  Cancilleria Venezuela  (@CancilleriaVE) August 20, 2020

Read: Venezuelans Turn To High Sea On Tubes To Fishing

Colombia's accusations against Venezuela come as Iran unveiled two new weapons on Friday, one of which is named after Iranian General Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a US drone strike earlier this year.

The two new weapons systems were unveiled on Iran's national television by defence minister Amir Hatami who stated that the new surface-to-surface missile system named after the Iranian general has a range of 1,400 km. The other weapon system that was unveiled is the cruise missile named 'Martyr Abu Mahdi' has a range of over 1,000 km, as per reports.

Venezuela and the surrounding region have been in a volatile state for years now. In the last national election, the results were contested with led to both Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido declaring themselves as Venezuela President.

The move was followed by political turmoil in the country forcing thousands of people to flee from Venezuela. Currently, more than 1.7 million Venezuelans reside in Colombia. Venezuela also contains one of the largest reserves of oil in the world making the country extremely strategically important.

Read: US Seizes Four Iranian Fuel Shipments Bound For Venezuela Amid Heightened Tensions

Read: Venezuela's National Assembly Investigates Mysterious Oil Spill, Demands Information
A day after President Donald Trump's former White House strategist was charged with defrauding donors to a border wall fundraising operation, Steve Bannon fired back Friday at federal prosecutors, vowing to challenge the criminal case lodged against him.

"I am not going to back down," Bannon said on his War Room podcast, referring to the prosecution as "a total political hit job."

Bannon, who pleaded not guilty Thursday prior to his release on a $5 million bond, was charged with three others in connection with a private effort to assist Trump's signature campaign program, raising more than $25 million to build parts of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The charges accuse Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea with "defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors" in the "We Build the Wall" GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign.

Steve Bannon (L), former adviser to President Trump, is joined by Brian Kolfage, founder of 'We Build The Wall,' and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Koback, during a public discussion of border issues in Green Valley Friday night.

"Everybody knows I love a fight," Bannon said. "I was called honey badger for many years. A honey badger doesn't give. I'm in this for the long haul."

Bannon was arrested early Thursday morning by federal authorities while aboard a 150-foot yacht just off the Connecticut shore.

On Friday, a brash and defiant Bannon was back at work, doing what he has done for years: promoting Trump and the hard-line immigration enforcement that he helped shape while at the White House.

"This (the fundraising effort) was to show support for President Trump," Bannon said. The charges, he said, are "to stop and intimidate people that have President Trump's back on building the wall."

But prosecutors have alleged that the border wall project merely capitalized on the interest of those who supported it "under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," acting Manhattan U.S Attorney Audrey Strauss said.

As part of the alleged scheme, according to federal prosecutors, Kolfage, the founder of the campaign, "repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would not take a penny in salary or compensation and that 100% of the funds raised ... will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose.

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"Those representations were false," prosecutors said, asserting that hundreds of thousands of dollars were secretly routed to the four men.

More than $350,000 was allegedly routed to Kolfage, and Bannon received more than $1 million.

Trump immediately sought to distance himself from Bannon and the wall project, saying that he felt "very badly" for his former adviser.

A history of trouble: How many Trump advisers have been criminally charged? Manafort, Stone and Steve Bannon makes 7

"I haven't been dealing with him for a very long period of time," he said, adding that he didn't "know anything about the project at all."

At the same time, however, he claimed to have opposed the project because he thought it was being done for "showboating reasons."

"It was something I very much thought was inappropriate to be doing," he said.

In 2019, Trump ally Kris Kobach told The New York Times that the president gave the wall campaign his "blessing."

Donald Trump Jr. stops by the Symposium at the Wall: Cartels, Trafficking and Asylum, hosted by WeBuildTheWall founder Brian Kolfage, left, Friday, July 26, 2019, in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The symposium, which was streamed live on the internet, seeks to tell the public of the need for a border wall.

Earlier that year, Donald Trump Jr. also lauded the project at a rally featuring Kolfage in New Mexico, near a section of wall funded by the project.

"This (privately funded border wall) is what capitalism is all about," the president's son told the crowd. "This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is amazing.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Steve Bannon fires back at border wall fraud indictment on podcast
Fifth-grade teacher Jessica Equils greets her students on the first day of class from her home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., on Aug. 3, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

SoCal Teachers Talk Challenges as Online Classes Begin

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif.Jessica Equils is a fifth-grade teacher in Rancho Cucamonga, California, guiding her students through classes from home while taking care of her own childrenthree of them, all under the age of 6.

I thought teaching was tough, then I taught with three kids at home, she told The Epoch Times as her 4-year-old daughter circled her chair in the search for a lost coloring book.

Fifth-grade teacher Jessica Equils teaches her class online from her home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., on Aug. 3, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

It was the first day of school for her district, the San Bernardino Unified School District, on Aug. 3, and she started the day helping her students through technical difficulties.

It was a lot for them technology-wise, she said. They had a lot of questions about how to use the programs and computers. They have never had to be solely dependent on technology before.

The tech problems were minor, however, and they got into a timed writing exercise as their first task without a very long delay.

Many of them have parents who work during the day, often outside of the home. Equils worries about her students being on their own and she saw last semester that, without help and monitoring, many of her students werent present for their studies.

We are not with them for eight hours a day anymore, so we cannot keep an eye on them throughout the week, she said. Only eight of her 33 students were consistently present during spring distance-learning.

Another big factor in poor attendance last semester was lack of access to computers and WiFi. No internet means no school right now, she said.

Ahead of the fall semester, more than 56,000 laptops and 94,000 WiFi hotspots have been distributed by the government to families statewide.

So far this semester, Equils has seen better attendance, but not 100 percent. She said all of her students now have computer access, but a couple of them still lack consistent WiFi access.

She has 32 students this semester, and as of Aug. 21, one of them had never attended class. Another has persistent connection issues in a home with four school-aged siblings also using the internet for classes. Shes had other students occasionally absent.

In her school district, 43 percent of parents had selected distance learning as the preferred option, according to a video message from Superintendent Harold J. Vollkommer.

Equilss husband, Brandon Equils, is also a teacher. Hes a highschool teacher at Monrovia Unified School District in Los Angeles County, and his classes started online Aug. 19.

He is meeting with his students one hour on Mondays and three hours per day Tuesday through Friday.

Between their online meetings, the students have carefully structured assignments Equils has given them to work on, and students can connect with him during his online office hours for help with schoolwork.

He begins each school day with a mandatory student check-in, including a questionnaire. Part of the daily check-ins I have with my students features a multiple-choice question with options on how they are doing. They can select how they are feeling, he told The Epoch Times.

If a student has been having a hard time with school or at home, I can connect with them after and see if they are OK and would like to share more.

His first day of school also started with tech problems, but they were all resolved.

A file photo of empty hallways in El Segundo High School in El Segundo, Calif., on July 29, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

In Orange County, a high school teacher who preferred to remain unnamed, told The Epoch Times he is worried about his students.

Many students look to teachers for mentorship, security, advice, and reassurance of personal insecurities, he told The Epoch Times. When I held check-in Zoom [meetings] with my kids, they told me they were bored and sad.

The Centers for Disease Control has reported on the mental impacts of school closures on students: Extended closures can be harmful to childrens mental health and can increase the likelihood that children engage in unhealthy behaviors.

An environment where students feel safe and connected, such as a school, is associated with lower levels of depression, thoughts about suicide, social anxiety, and sexual activity, as well as higher levels of self-esteem and more adaptive use of free time.

Orange County officials announced Aug. 20 that the county would likely come off the states watch list soon due to downward trends in COVID-19 cases, meaning schools could open for in-person learning. Some schools in the county that applied for a waiver already have the go-ahead to open.

An Orange County middle school teacher, who also preferred to remain unnamed, told The Epoch Times, Most of the teachers I work with are against going back to school right now, mostly for concern of personal health or putting family members at risk of illness.

She said its been a lot of work preparing three possible learning models for the fall (online, in-person, and a hybrid). But she has been up to the challenge.

I am excited about learning different ways to create rapport and relationships online so that we can make the best of the situation, and when we get to meet in person in the coming semester.

Brian Lin, a professional tutor and former math teacher in Los Angeles, told The Epoch Times, I feel that the kids are behind. Its harder for them to learn virtually.

I even know of some families moving just to get their children to attend in-person schools elsewhere, he said.

Like Orange County, Los Angeles County has announced it may soon allow some schools to reopen for in-person classes, if COVID-19 trends continue downward.
A group of former US national security officials from across four Republican administrations have endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race against Donald Trump, who has demonstrated that he lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in corrupt behaviour that renders him unfit to serve as president, the group said in a statement.

The group had previously assembled in 2016 to warn of the dangers of a Trump presidency.

Returning four years later, hours before the former vice president is scheduled to accept his partys nomination, the group  organised under conservative political campaign Defending Democracy Together  now includes 73 former former officials, including former senior-level Trump administration officials Miles Taylor and Elizabeth Neumann from the Department of Homeland Security.

The group also includes William Webster, the only person to have directed both the CIA and FBI, as well as former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden and dozens other officials from the executive branch and Congress.

In a 10-point statement, the group condemned the presidents grave damage to the nations world standing, as well as his response to the coronavirus pandemic, Russian involvement in his 2016 campaign, attacks against the US military and immigrants, attempts to undermine national security, and a dark and pessimistic view of America that consistently seeks to incite political, racial and ethnic divisions, weakening our nation and delighting our adversaries.

While we  like all Americans  had hoped that Donald Trump would govern wisely, he has disappointed millions of voters who put their faith in him and has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term, the group said in a statement. In contrast, we believe Joe Biden has the character, experience, and temperament to lead this nation. We believe he will restore the dignity of the presidency, bring Americans together, reassert Americas role as a global leader, and inspire our nation to live up to its ideals.

The group has spent $20 million on an ad campaign, including publishing the letter in Fridays Wall Street Journal, aimed at swing voters.

Signatories allege the president has imperilled US national security and focussed on his own self-interests against the needs of Americans in the middle of a public health crisis.

They accuse the president of soliciting foreign influence, undermining US voting rights, and using rhetoric that pits Americans against each other and stokes fears that angry mobs and anarchists are destroying our country.

The statement was released on the final day of the Democrats nominating convention, which has notably featured several Republican officials and voters voicing their support for the former vice president, including former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Ohio governor John Kasich, and Cindy McCain, the widow of longtime senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

While some of us hold policy positions that differ from those of Joe Biden and his party, the time to debate those policy differences will come later, the group said. For now, it is imperative that we stop Trumps assault on our nations values and institutions and reinstate the moral foundations of our democracy.
Three years ago, doctors gently advised Therese Lupton that her son Jordans life-support machine should be switched off. His brain damage was too severe to sustain life.

Sitting by his bedside at Kings College Hospital in London and holding his warm, limp hand, Therese told him how much she loved him, whispered her last goodbyes  and vowed she would do everything she could to stop others losing their lives in the same way he had.

The sports-mad 25-year-old was killed in an accident involving a jet ski ridden by a friend near the family home in Herne Bay, Kent, in May 2017.

While Jordan, a plumber, had been on jet skis before and, says his mother, understood the dangers involved, it was his friends first time on the high-powered watercraft.

Travelling at up to 60mph, he was unable to avoid hitting Jordan, who was being towed on an inflatable ring behind another jet ski and was pushed into his friends path by a freak wave.

Joran Lupton was killed in a jet ski crash in 2017 while his friend was riding for the first time

The jet ski hit Jordan, causing head injuries, breaking ribs and puncturing his lungs.

In recent months, Therese has been forced to relive the events of her heart-breaking loss with three deaths linked to jet skis in British coastal waters.

Last week, a 49-year-old off-duty police officer (who was also an RNLI crew member) at the seaside resort of Pwllheli in North Wales fell off a jet ski and died.

Earlier this month, a 52-year-old woman was killed in a collision between a jet ski and a powerboat in the Menai Strait, North Wales, while in May, a 22-year-old man from Torquay was pulled from the water after falling off a jet ski he had bought that morning. He died in hospital.

Inexperience isnt always a factor. In 2015, a proficient jet ski rider, Beki Hellens, 22, died on a lake in Cambridgeshire after crashing into another rider. The impact tore the main artery from her heart, causing massive blood loss.

As for accidents involving jet skis, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents reports six deaths from 2009 to 2019, with no data available on the number of injuries.

The RNLI recommends everyone wears a lifejacket while using a jet ski and, if possible, a kill cord  which stops the engine if a person is thrown out of their seat.

A spokesperson from the RNLIs water safety team said they would welcome changes in the law to improve jet ski safety.

This summer is a particular cause for concern, with more Britons opting for staycations because of Covid-19.

Anecdotally there are reports of jet skis taking over the waters off beaches in Cornwall and Devon, making it almost impossible for swimmers, surfers and other water sport devotees to stay in the water.

In fact, anyone who has spent time on a busy British beach this year  especially along the South Coast  will probably tell you about the incessant irritating drone, like a swarm of angry bees, which punctuates the peace of the seaside as scores of jet skis race up and down the coast.

While some beaches have swimming areas marked out with buoys, others do not  which puts swimmers in potential danger.

In popular recreational areas such as Poole Harbour, dozens of jet skis can be seen in marinas waiting to be taken out on the water.

Therese Lupton says she has seen more jet skis near beaches in Kent this year than ever before.

Every single day from my house, a few minutes from the sea, I hear the jet skis revving their engines and going at breakneck speeds, knowing full well most of the riders will have had no training, with no insurance requirements either.

Jordan knew to take precautions, she adds, but concedes that on the day he died he wasnt wearing a helmet or any other protection, save for a life jacket.

After her sons death, Therese was horrified to discover the dearth of regulatory control over these potentially dangerous machines after a Portuguese friend told her how surprised she was at the UKs lax approach. Anyone who rides a jet ski in Portugal without a licence can incur a fine of over 2,000.

Here, there is no training requirement or licensing system governing jet skis and the minimum age to use one is just 12.

If his friend had been given some basic training before he got on the jet ski, Jordan might still be here today, Therese says.

You need to complete Compulsory Basic Training in the UK before you can drive a 50cc moped and there is an age limit of 16.

'But go to many beaches or lakes and you can hire a jet ski with an engine as big as 1800cc with no experience.

During the pandemic, reports of jet skis crowding the country's coasts have soared as Britons seek out recreational activities during their staycations instead of heading abroad (file photo)

These arent toys, theyre dangerous and unregulated. Add in that youre not required to wear a helmet as you are on a moped or motorbike, then its a recipe for disaster.

Jet skis typically cost from 8,000 to buy new, or from around 3,000 second hand, with engine sizes varying from 700cc up to 1800cc.

While newer models are limited to 65mph, older models can travel at up to 70mph. The most powerful jet skis can go from a standing start to 30mph in less than two seconds.

So with some 12,000 jet skis in use in the UK, how has this state of affairs has been allowed to prevail?

According to campaigners, the problem is that jet skis are classified as PWCs  personal watercraft  not vessels, which would make them subject to at least the very few maritime laws (compared with driving on roads) which govern those in speed boats.

It is left to local bodies, councils and harbour authorities, to regulate jet ski use, but in the absence of any legal imperative, few have taken action.

What is true is that some recreational waters have a speed limit for all vessels in the whole area, such as Chichester Harbour at 8 knots (about 9mph), so you rarely see jet skis there as this deters them.

Debbie Hales feels as strongly as Therese. Some years ago she was on the back of a jet ski with her husband Ian when they crashed into Blackpools North Pier.

They were retrieved unconscious from the water by the RNLI, but Ian died on the way to hospital.

Debbie, now 64, from Bolton, Lancashire, cant remember the crash, relying on her sons memory of the day as they watched from the seafront. The Hales had bought the jet ski just two months beforehand.

We never thought how dangerous they could be, she recalls. We were offered some optional and basic safety training, which we did, but because it was such a nice day we werent wearing the helmets wed bought.

Debbie suffered head injuries, a broken jaw and spent two weeks in intensive care.

To give a 12-year-old access to one of these incredibly powerful machines is insane  and to let an adult out on one without any training is simply asking for trouble, she says.

Since Ians death Debbie has raised over 20,000 for the RNLI in gratitude for saving her life.

Ian Hale was killed after crashing the family jet ski into Blackpool's North Pier back in 2003

Catherine West, Labour MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Swimming, is only too aware of the dangers after being contacted by a constituent who lost her 14-year-old son in a jet ski accident in 2014.

Its not just the safety of those riding them, she says, there is the safety of others in the water.

Having spent a week near Sandown on the Isle of Wight this summer, she says, she saw first-hand how jet skiers put others off venturing into the water.

We really dont want to ban these vehicles, but we need to give them the care and respect they deserve so unnecessary accidents dont happen ...

We need specially demarcated areas away from all bathers and other, slower water craft like paddle boards, as well as a formal training system, she says.

Some sellers and renters of jet skis do offer training, as does the Royal Yachting Association, but it is up to the user whether to take advantage of such guidance.

Some jet ski hire companies or clubs insist on a training course and a competency certification, but others are just interested in taking the money and give the hirer a quick talk through the controls and then they let them go, says Dorset-based Noel Hutchinson, an instructor at Get Lost Power Boat Training.

Its a very irresponsible attitude but unfortunately its allowed. In EU countries, training is mandatory.

'The bottom line is that its like anything else. Training makes the user safe. Jet skis are great fun and very safe when managed by a trained rider.

In the absence of official intervention, it is left to local campaigners to seek change.

Two years ago, the Reverend Jo Thomas, 53, an avid sea-swimmer from Penzance, Cornwall, joined other local swimmers to log incidents involving jet skis.

Now she has launched a campaign to change local policies on jet skis in the area, and has gathered 6,000 signatures on a petition.

She says she is sent video footage on a daily basis of near misses. To date approximately 200 incidents have been logged by 35 campaigners in the town.

Ive been outdoor swimming since I was a child and the effect jet skis are having on the huge number of us who want to enjoy the water in safety and peace is nothing short of criminal, she says. We have to wear bright coloured hats in the water and swim towing small buoys with us or the jet skis drivers wont see us.

Everyone is passing the buck, she claims.

The Government has passed the whole issue of jet ski usage to local authorities, who then pass it onto the local police, she says. But if you call the police and say theres someone on a jet ski causing havoc, they say its on water, so not in their jurisdiction.

The coastguard says its not a vessel, so theyre powerless. Everyone agrees something needs to change, but right now, nobody can do anything.

If someone drove through a shopping mall on a motorbike there would be outrage. If someone is reckless on a jet ski, there need to be rules in place which mean they are fined or have their jet ski confiscated.

Jo Thomas is working with Chris Jones, a maritime manager in charge of local authority harbours in Cornwall.

This is an increasing trend, he says. Sadly, alongside all those jet ski users who are considerate and respectful of other sea and beach users, there is a small element who behave anti-socially, even dangerously.

Jo claims one way of limiting the use of jet skis in Penzances harbour, near the swimmers, is to raise launch fees. While there are many places users can launch free of charge, accessing beaches with a jet ski and a trailer can be problematic, and so many jet ski users choose to use slipways and harbours for which there may be a charge.

In Penzance, for example, it is 10 per launch, 40 per week or 150 annually for jet skis.

We really dont want to stop jet skiers enjoying themselves, says Jo. They just need proper training and specific, allocated areas where they wont risk their and others lives.

Its like child protection or Surfers Against Sewage, she adds. We need a joined-up, UK-wide, multi-agency approach, or jet skiers will just go to the next place thats cheap and doesnt have regulations.

The Department for Transport says it will be consulting on further legislation to tackle the dangerous use of jet skis shortly.

However, that is little immediate comfort to Therese Lupton. For too long, the Government has said it is taking this seriously but nothing changes.

Therese also started a petition to demand the introduction of a law on the use of jet skis in Britain, but didnt have the resources or time to drum-up the 100,000 signatures needed to take it to Parliament.

I wanted it to be called Jordans Law: to require training and a licence to use a jet ski, to raise the minimum age to 18, and to require marshals and lifeguards to be present in areas where they are used, she explains.

Every time I hear about another jet-ski death or accident in the UK Im appalled at how nothing has changed.

How many more deaths will it take before people sit and take notice? Were behind virtually every other country in the world when it comes to jet ski safety, and that has to change.

Holding my sons hand while he passed away is a memory that will never leave me.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and wife Jill watch fireworks after the Democratic Convention, Thursday in Wilmington, Del. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

The Democratic National Convention is over and  no surprise  Joe Biden accepted his party's nomination for president on Thursday night.

In all the decades he coveted the presidency, Biden probably didn't picture the moment quite as understated as it played out. But the all-virtual video format was fitting for these times amid a pandemic, and the convention's tone of high-stakes urgency underscored Democrats' desperation to beat President Trump.

Here's what you need to know about the final night of the DNC.

A promise to end the 'darkness'

These are not jubilant times and Biden did not deliver a jubilant acceptance speech. Instead, he portrayed himself as the nation's protector and comforter, offering empathy for those feeling unmoored in these scary times and barely veiled disgust toward the incumbent president.

Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, Ill draw on the best of us, not the worst," he said. "Ill be an ally of the light, not the darkness.

Such was his theme throughout: a contrast of hope and despair, good and evil. His stern delivery  sometimes flashing anger when discussing his rival  matched what he called "this dark moment." Biden never uttered Trump's name.

Still, he ended on a note of hopefulness, offering a pep talk to a weary nation that this could be "the end of this chapter of American darkness."

All in the family

Biden considered eldest son Beau Biden to be "Joe 2.0," and predicted he would be president someday. Beau Biden's death five years ago from brain cancer at 46 was a defining tragedy of Joe Biden's already loss-scarred life.

Though Beau did not live to see his father accept the nomination, he appeared and spoke repeatedly -- in video clips played throughout the convention, particularly on Thursday night.

He was featured in a video about his father's "moonshot" initiative to find a cure for cancer, and in another on his deployment to Iraq, intended to underscore Biden's bond with military families. There was also a video solely dedicated to Beau's memory, including a snippet from President Obama's eulogy.

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Later, Joe Biden's surviving children  Hunter and Ashley  introduced a biographical film about their father, preceding his speech accepting the presidential nomination. Hunter's appearance, though brief, was noteworthy, given how Republicans have tried to make him a lightning rod in this election. Trump's quest to dig up dirt on Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine ultimately led to the president's impeachment.

After Hunter and Ashley took turns delivering the lines of their testimonial to their dad, they gave the last word to Beau, shown speaking at the 2012 convention: "My father, my hero, Joe Biden."

Comic relief

The overall tone of this week has been achingly earnest, but on Thursday, Democrats tried to inject some comedy into the mix.

Host Julia Louis-Dreyfus  television's "Veep"  peppered her commentary with jokes, straying from the solemnity of the previous night's celebrity emcees. In one recurring shtick, she deliberately mispronounced Vice President Mike Pence's last name, a jibe at his repeated mispronunciations of Kamala Harris' first name.

Her comedy didn't always work. The actress' declaration that Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesnt need tear gas and heavily armed troops to get there"  a swipe at Trump's awkward pose at a church near the White House after the area was tear-gassed to clear protesters  struck a dissonant note after a moving segment on Biden's faith.

Louis-Dreyfus wasn't all snark, however. She sounded genuinely touched in recounting how Biden offered comfort when she was diagnosed with cancer. Also featured was comedian Sarah Cooper, whose short videos lip-syncing Trump's more outrageous comments have made her a breakout star. Cooper mouthed along to one of Trump's recent riffs against mail-in ballots. Then she spoke in her own voice, surprising many on social media who'd never heard it.

"I've heard Donald Trump say some pretty unhinged things," she said. "But nothing is more dangerous to our democracy than his attacks on mail-in voting during a pandemic."

Vote in the name of a hero

The four convention nights were full of exhortations to vote. To give those pleas particular punch, Democrats often invoked the spirit of the late Rep. John Lewis.

Thursday's final program dedicated substantial time  particularly given the packed schedule  to honor the Georgia congressman and civil rights hero, who died last month after battling pancreatic cancer.

By emphasizing what Lewis endured during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to secure his right to vote  including brutal beatings and more than 40 arrests  Democrats sent a pointed message to viewers: Don't let Lewis' efforts be in vain.

"Congressman Lewis would not be silenced," Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said. "And neither can we. Our votes can be our voice."

Improvising, California-style

California Gov. Gavin Newsom had scored a prime speaking slot on the last night of the convention. Then hundreds of wildfires exploded across the state.

The governor scrapped his original plans, but appeared anyway  by cellphone video from the state's redwood forests that have been devastated by fire. The setting proved a politically perfect one for Newsom to respond to news of the day: Trump, in Pennsylvania, had blamed California for failing to "clean the floors" of its forests and threatened to withhold disaster aid.

"You can't make that up," Newsom drily remarked.

His Plan B approach to his prime-time appearance felt appropriate for the Democrats' week  with their entire convention upended by pandemic, they were left scrambling to adjust.

Democratic Party Chair Tom Perez acknowledged this was a nominating convention like no other, but he said he saw a silver lining in its unconventionality: The proceedings were "a more accurate reflection of where our country is than any traditional convention could've been."
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed concern on the possibility of over Rs 57,000 crore in AGR dues owed by bankrupt telecom operators being wiped out in the IBC process. During the days proceedings, the SC bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and M R Shah continued examining the status of the companies under insolvency, such as Anil Ambanis Reliance Communications (RCom), Aircel, and Videocon Telecommunications.

These, and other smaller license-holders, owe a cumulative Rs 57,000 crore as AGR dues. Observing that trading in spectrum is different from selling it under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the apex court questioned whether a liability like AGR dues could be wound up, under the guise of selling spectrum. It also noted that telecom firms could not use their licenses if they do not first pay the dues.

Without paying for the horse, telecos are taking a ride. Unless dues are paid, nobody can start using the spectrum, bench said. It had earlier noted that it was extremely worried that almost entire AGR dues will be wiped out in the IBC process. The bench pointed out that after the spectrum is sold under a resolution plan under the IBC, the new user of the license will extinguish any pending demand against the spectrum assets in question.

Meanwhile, the hearing also saw the court direct the Department of Telecom (DoT) to all details of spectrum allocated to Reliance Communication (RCom) and Aircel since 1999, including all instances of spectrum sharing.

Senior advocate Ravi Kadam, appearing for Aircel Monitoring Committee, also told the court that the right to use spectrum is an asset, and in order to keep the company running, this right will be sold up the on approval of the resolution plan. He also argued that Aircels resolution process has been concluded, since UV Asset Reconstruction Company (UVARCs) plan has been approved. The dues of the DoT has been recognised by the Committee Of Creditors (CoC). He also submitted that the company has the power to transfer the right to use.

Divided opinion

The Centre had earlier told the top court that there was a difference of opinion between the telecom department and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on the sale of spectrum during NCLT hearings
Last year, pastor Charlie Dates led Progressive Baptist Church, a historic, black congregation on Chicagos South Side, to affiliate with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The 100-year-old church is still part of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a mainline, African American denomination, and convincing his social justice-minded members to join the SBC was one of the hardest lifts of Dates 10-year pastorate, he said.

Dates is among several high-profile black pastors whose churches have become Southern Baptist in recent years.

Others include H. B. Charles of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2013, and Bartholomew Orr of Brown Missionary Baptist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, in 2015. Charles served as president of the SBC Pastors Conference in 2018.

Progressive began cooperating with the SBC, Dates said, for two main reasons: its relationship with Adron Robinson, a fellow black Chicago pastor who serves on the SBC Executive Committee, and its desire to work with North American Mission Board (NAMB) in establishing a residency program to help train young black pastors.

Southern Baptists have seen growth among ethnic minorities, including African Americans, while the denomination overall is in decline. But Dates understands why some black churches dont want to partner with the SBC.

Hes troubled that no SBC entity is led by a non-Anglo. Every time there is a selection and they say, Gods man is , its a white man, the Chicago pastor said. Over the past two years, nearly half of the denominations major entitiesmissions bodies and seminarieshave appointed new presidents. Despite encouragement to consider diverse candidates, all five were white.

Dates is also bothered that the convention seems to have an over-infatuation with President Trump and the Republican Party, and that all entity heads havent joined SBC president J. D. Greear in declaring black lives matter.

A 39-year-old pastor, Dates enthusiasm about SBC missions but reservations about its racial climate reflect the denominations complex relationship with African American leaders right now.

Atlanta pastor John Onwuchekwa, an African American who planted a church through NAMB, voiced some of the same concerns when he announced earlier this summer that his congregation would be withdrawing from the SBC.

I trust God that none of our labor was in vain, but I do not see the utility of our church made up predominantly of ethnic minorities remaining in the SBC, he wrote. Because rather than being an agent of change, I fear our presence has largely been an advertisement for other churches of similar makeup saying Come inthe waters fine. The sign Id rather hold up is, Enter at Your Own Risk!

African American churches are continuing to join the SBC, somewhere between dozens to more than a hundred a year for the past decade.

The most recent denominational numbers come from 2018, and until then, there werent signs of a trend of majority-black churches leaving, though the rates of growth year-over-year had slowed after shooting up in the early 2000s. The SBC experienced a 43 percent jump in majority-black churches between 1998 and 2002, compared to 11 percent over the most recent four years.

The leveling-off of black churches affiliating with the SBC may be generational, Dates said, as younger black pastors grow impatient with what they perceive as a disparity between the conventions statements about racial justice and its actions.

As you get more pastors under 40 assuming the reins of black churches, fewer of them are going to want to have anything to do with the Southern Baptist Convention, he said, because of the racial tension and the lack of courage in the present moment.

At times, that tension has come up around SBC annual meetings. In Birmingham, Alabama, last year, messengers adopted a resolution on critical race theory and intersectionality that provoked some objections from the floor and later a documentary alleging a social justice agenda in the convention. The previous year, a convention address by Vice President Mike Pence drew criticism as mere Republican politics, and in 2017, a black pastor proposed a resolution condemning the alt-right that initially didnt make it to the SBC floor, but was eventually approved.

Nonetheless, the SBC continues to become increasingly diverse. Both the National African American Fellowship (NAAF) of the SBC and the domestic church-planting entity, NAMB, have focused over the years on building relationships with black churchesNAMB with a designated black church relations department until 2012. The two are partnering to launch a new outreach effort to black churches, with details to be rolled out early next year.

A variety of factors have contributed to the increase of black churches over SBC history. The conventions 1995 resolution apologizing for its racist formation and history brought an uptick in African American church affiliations, said Willie McLaurin, vice president for Great Commission relations and mobilization at the SBC Executive Committee. So did the election of Fred Luter in 2012 as the first black SBC president.

The SBC has come a long way, said Marshal Ausberry, SBC first vice president and president of NAAF. The convention is doing some deep soul searching about its past, its positioning, and its long-held purpose to win souls around the world for Christ.

When the convention was established in 1845 by pro-slavery Southerners, about 100,000 of the 350,000 Southern Baptist church members were African American, according to Baptist historian William Whitsitts estimate published in the 1895 SBC Annual.

Mostly slaves, they were permitted to vote on church business items and serve on church committees, Baptist historian Gregory Wills wrote in Democratic Religion. But they were forced to take the worst seats during worship, and many received incomplete biblical teaching aimed largely at securing their subservience on the plantation.

During Reconstruction, when African American Baptists began to form their own state and national conventions, the SBC experienced an exodus. Between 1880 and 1883, the SBC reported losing 766,000 of its 1.7 million church members, according to statistical tables published in the Baptist Sunday School Boards 1992 Southern Baptist Handbook.

I am convinced that the primary reason [for the drop] is the loss of African American members, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary historian Lloyd Harsch said.

By 1900, all black churches had withdrawn from the SBC. A trickle of African American congregations began to rejoin the convention in the 1950sinitially in non-Bible Belt areas like Alaska and California. By 1981, there were 600 predominantly black Southern Baptist Churches with 220,000 members, Baptist Press reported at the time.

Over the next four decades, the number of black Southern Baptist churches grew (though African Americans represent only 6 percent of the SBCs total church members, according to the Pew Research Center). By 2000, the number of majority black churches had jumped 196 percent to 1,778, according to data from NAMBs Center for Missional Research. In 2018, it was up another 90 percent to 3,382. That growth has come from both black SBC church plants and existing African American churches beginning to affiliate with the SBC.

Convention statistician Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, said those figures give us some guidance. But they are not a true total of black churches because they only include churches that indicate on their annual statistical report that the largest ethnicity in their congregation is African American. Some churches dont report, and others dont note their ethnicity.

Still, the SBC is probably the most ethnically diverse religious body in America, said Mark Croston, national director of black church ministries at LifeWay Christian Resources, echoing a claim first made in 1970 by missiologist C. Peter Wagner. And we continue to grow in that way.

The number of black Southern Baptist churches has increased from zero in the mid-20th century to nearly 3,400 today, accompanied by a corresponding increase of African Americans in SBC leadership.

African Americans serve on SBC entity staffs, as state convention leaders, and on convention boards and committees. The trustee boards of two SBC entitiesGuideStone Financial Resources and the Executive Committeeare chaired by African Americans. Greear declared that black lives matter in his 2020 presidential address.

The Southern Baptist Convention is one of the places where we can make progress in creating a denomination that looks like the ethnically diverse crowd around Gods throne in Revelation 7:9, Croston said. All Christians pray, Thy kingdom come, but the SBC is one of the places where we get to press in to make that happen.

David Roach is a writer in Nashville.

Editors note: A previous version of this article referenced a claim that no SBC entity head had joined J. D. Greear in stating that black lives matter. Multiple Southern Baptist seminary presidents had done so in June. CT regrets the error.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Jindal Global Law School has launched India's first 'Corporate Lawyering Advancement through Immersion & Mentoring (CLAIM) Programme.

The Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) of O.P. Jindal Global University has taken a pioneering initiative to appoint twelve corporate partners of leading corporate law firms in India and abroad as Honorary Adjunct Professors of Law and Professors of Corporate Legal Practice.

The 12 Honorary Adjunct Professors will associate with the, 'Corporate Lawyering Advancement through Immersion & Mentoring' (CLAIM) Programme of JGLS.

The Programme aims to connect theory to practice in response to the problem of "disconnect" that many new entrants to the legal profession face. Through the broader framework of participative pedagogy, the CLAIM Programme creates the opportunity for students to apply their knowledge real-time, thereby enhancing their ingenuity and heuristic skills that are much needed in professional legal practice.

The CLAIM Programme broadens the scope of legal education from knowledge oriented-curriculum to the tools and processes of legal practice with a view to empowering the graduates of JGLS to become knowledgeable legal professionals as they enter the world of corporate legal practice.

The vision of this pathbreaking initiative, according to C Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor, O.P. Jindal Global University and Dean, Jindal Global Law School is "To identify some of the most outstanding corporate lawyers and partners of the leading corporate law firms to teach courses on relevant areas of corporate legal practice to the students of law, with a view to educating and inspiring them".

"The larger purpose of this effort is to instill in the minds of law students an imagination to become part of corporate legal practice and better equip them with knowledge, skills and perspectives to take up successful careers in law firms and corporations in the future. I am grateful to the 12 outstanding corporate partners of the most reputed law firms in India and abroad who have consented to teach these courses, including two inspiring leaders, who are also founders and Managing Partners of reputed Indian law firms, Mr. Lakshmikumaran and Mr. Suhail Nathani.

"The launch of India's First 'Corporate Lawyering Advancement through Immersion and Mentoring' (CLAIM) Programme by Jindal Gobal Law School will reimagine the institutional efforts and initiatives to impart world class legal education. It will also augment the capacity building efforts that will ultimately help and support the aspirations of law students and law graduates to seek meaningful opportunities in the corporate legal sector," said Raj Kumar.

Each Honorary Adjunct Professors will teach a 1-credit course on an advanced area of corporate law and practice. These courses will span over a period of 8 weeks starting from September 5.
The TB Free Workplaces Campaign is a 3 year-long campaign that will catalyze Private sector engagement and consciousness in facilitating TB free workplaces.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recognises the major role companies can play in fighting TB and actively supports the government towards its national mandate of eliminating TB 5 years ahead of the targeted SDG completion.

CII has signed an MoU with the Central TB Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to catalyse private sector participation and involvement in this mission.

CII is committed to ending TB in India and augment the Governments endeavour. In this effort, CII has commenced the TB Free Workplaces Campaign with multiple critical stakeholders who will help us reach to the ground level as well as make this a management agenda for companies.

The TB Free Workplaces Campaign is a 3 year-long campaign that will catalyze Private sector engagement and consciousness in facilitating TB free workplaces.

The Campaign will begin with a sign up on Industry Commitment followed by a phased introduction to a toolkit. This tool kit for Industry includes a teaching app, a web portal to engage the industry and a best practices compendium which will be a live document to which corporates will continue to be added and may draw inspiration from on how to carry out small initiatives in their workplaces that impact behavior change.

The Confederation through its TB Free Work Place campaign, hopes to reach the over 10,000 direct members and its indirect membership of three hundred thousand companies and their workforce and further their extended families thus adding the Government of Indias efforts in eradicating TB by 2025.
On Tuesday, as she took part in an online meeting of the Native American Caucus, she liked that there was a chat feature on the screen that let her interact with others at the event without speaking. But she noticed the text box filled up with comments from people she described as trolls, and then the box disappeared. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts  who once claimed Native heritage but now acknowledges that shes White  was speaking at the meeting, and the Trump campaign blasted out a link to it, asking supporters to comment, which prompted the chats to be closed, as first reported by the Washington Examiner.)
MILFORD  Bridgport Hospital is hosting a virtual presentation about its Milford campus at 5 p.m. Aug. 31.

June 9 marked the one-year anniversary of Milford Hospitals full integration as a campus of Bridgeport Hospital. The partnership came about after years of struggle for Milford Hospital, which was seeing a decline in patient volume and low reimbursement rates

During the upcoming forum, Bridgeport Hospital leadership will present information about the key investments and accomplishments at the Milford campus since the integration was made official. The report, which will also include updates on clinical services and future plans for the campus, will be followed by the opportunity for questions and answers. Questions must be submitted in advance.

Members of the public are invited to join by phone or electronically using a computer, tablet or smart device.

To join the meeting by phone, dial: 929-205-6099 or 301-715-8592 and follow prompts. The meeting ID is 997 4042 2684 and the passcode is 971715. To join electronically via Zoom go to https://ynhh.zoom.us/join and use the meeting ID 997 4042 2684 and the passcode 971715.

If you wish to ask a question to be answered during the forum, email ynhhpublicrelations@ynhh.org. Include Milford Public Forum in the subject line. Questions may also be submitted via mail to Milford Campus of Bridgeport Hospital, 300 Seaside Ave., Milford, CT 06460, Attn: Lisa Cascio.

The forum is being held in compliance with requirements established by the state Office of Healthcare Strategy as a condition of the Bridgeport Hospital acquisition of the former Milford Hospital.
Months into the pandemic, facing mixed plans for reopening churches and starting another school year, white evangelicals are still worried about the coronavirus.

They are as concerned about the spread of COVID-19 as the rest of the population and as likely to know someone infected with the disease, according to a recent survey. Previous predictions that some segments of the population would feel isolated from the risks of the virus, or that evangelicals concerns may have been dwindling, have not borne out.

This trend may have political implications. The outbreak has become one of the top issues in the upcoming election, so evangelicals continued worries over the coronavirus are expected to be a factor in how they vote.

Among both white evangelicals and the general population, 7 in 10 people personally know someone who had been hospitalized due to COVID-19, according to a Data for Progress survey conducted in late July. Half say that they knew someone who has died from the virus.

White evangelicals have not been insulated from the consequences of COVID-19. For both questions, the differences between the general sample and the evangelical subsample is not statistically significant.

And though evangelicals level of concern over the coronavirus dipped during some weeks over the course of the pandemic, most are still as worried about the virus as they were back in April.

The share of white evangelicals who said they were very concerned about experiencing the coronavirus was around 35 percent from mid-April to mid-May before retreating to 25 percent by the end of June. The number has since crept back up over a third by the end of July. Over 7 in 10 white evangelicals said that they were either very or somewhat concerned.

The distribution of concern among white evangelicals is not that different from the general population. There are weeks when the gaps become larger, but in aggregate, their levels of worry tend to be close to the rest of Americans (7 in 10 also very or somewhat concerned).

This translates to only small differences in behavior. For instance, by late July, 20 percent of white evangelicals said that they were socializing in public places compared to 15 percent of the general population.

But, theres another area where the personal impacts of COVID-19 might be felt: the upcoming presidential election.

When asked who they intended to vote for in the 2020 election, more than two-thirds (68.5%) of white evangelicals who did not know someone who had been infected by COVID-19 said that they would cast a ballot for Donald Trump. Among those who knew someone who contracted the coronavirus, it was only 60.4 percent.

This 8 percentage-point drop in support for Trump, correlated with how people have experienced the impact of the coronavirus, carries over into the general population. Of Americans who knew someone with COVID-19, Trumps share of the vote was 33.9 percent in the survey. His support among those who did know not someone with the virus was 41.1 percent, 7.2 percentage points higher.

Trumps baseline of support has always been robust among white evangelicals. Many have been pleased with the administrations response to the coronavirus, including the presidents remarks declaring churches essential during the pandemic. A majoritywhether they have seen the viruss impact firsthand or notstill say they will vote to re-elect the president.

The survey is one piece of evidence, however, that some white evangelicals, feeling the brunt of the pandemic, may be rethinking their stance in 2020. Ahead of a contentious election, voters may see the response to the coronavirus become an even more central issue in the final months of the campaign.

Ryan P. Burge is an instructor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. His research appears on the site Religion in Public, and he tweets at @ryanburge.
Parents who rely on the Tech Tykes day care center in Forks Township say theyre heartbroken and blindsided by the decision to close the center indefinitely on Aug. 28.

Two parents told lehighvalleylive.com they learned about the closure on Friday, Aug. 14. They say they are scrambling to find alternative day care for their children.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam has affirmed many times and reiterated that the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos are inseparable parts of its territory, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang has said.

She made the statement at a regular press conference of the Foreign Ministry on August 20, in response to media questions on Vietnams stance regarding China deploying an H-6J bomber to Phu Lam Island in the Hoang Sa archipelago in early August.

Vietnam has sufficient legal basis and historical evidence affirming its sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa in line with international law, she said, adding that the deployment of weapons and fighter aircraft to Hoang Sa not only is a violation of Vietnams sovereignty but also further exacerbates the situation in the East Sea.

We call on parties to make responsible contributions to maintaining peace, stability, and security in the East Sea, Hang said.

Commenting on information that thousands of Chinese fishing vessels could flock to the East Sea after Chinas fishing ban expires, Hang said Vietnams stance on the so-called fishing ban has been clearly stated.

On May 8, the spokesperson said in reply to questions about Chinas fishing ban in the East Sea from May 1 to August 16 that as a coastal country in the East Sea and a member of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Vietnam has sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction in waters as defined in the convention, and enjoys other legitimate rights in waters in accordance with the convention.

She made it clear that Vietnam rejects Chinas unilateral decision. In the current global and regional context, Vietnam asks that China not further complicate the East Sea situation, she said.
T he coronavirus R value in the UK has risen to between 0.9 to 1.1, new figures show.

The reproduction numbers from the Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) suggest there is a risk that the overall coronavirus epidemic in the UK is growing, Government scientists say.

The latest growth rate for the whole of the UK is between minus 3 per cent to plus 1 per cent, a slight change from between minus 4 per cent to minus 1 per cent last week.

The growth rate of coronavirus transmission reflects how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day.

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

It comes as new restrictions were introduced in towns in the north of England to help curb the spread of the virus.

People in Oldham, Blackburn and parts of Pendle have been told not to socialise with anyone from outside their household from midnight on Saturday to help curb the spread of coronavirus.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "The only way we can keep on top of this deadly virus is through decisive action led by the people who know their areas best, wherever possible through consensus with a local area.

"Working with local leaders we agreed further action in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn.

"Our approach is to make the action we take as targeted as possible, with the maximum possible local consensus."

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Elsewhere, the Department of Health said measures will be relaxed in Wigan, Rossendale and Darwen, while Birmingham is added to a watchlist as an "area of enhanced support" and Northampton becomes an "area of intervention".
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 14:42:53|Editor: huaxia

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Myanmar State Counsellor and chair of National Reconciliation and Peace Centre Aung San Suu Kyi makes concluding remarks during the fourth session of Union Peace Conference-21st Century Panglong in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, Aug. 21, 2020. The session concluded here on Friday with the signing of the third part of the Union Accord. (Xinhua/Zhang Dongqiang)



YANGON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The fourth session of Union Peace Conference-21st Century Panglong concluded on Friday with the signing of the third part of the Union Accord in the Myanmar capital of Nay Pyi Taw.

On the final day of the three-day conference, the delegates signed the Union Accord Part III, comprising of three parts which are framework agreement on the implementation of Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), implementation of step-by-step processes and phase-by-phase implementations in the post-2020 and principle guidelines for the establishment of a democratic federal union.

Fifteen agreed points were inked under the framework agreement on NCA implementation, eight points under the post-2020 activities and five points under the principle guidelines for the establishment of a democratic federal union, respectively.

As the concluding remarks, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, in her capacity as chair of National Reconciliation and Peace Centre, stressed the need of continuing dialogues and exchange of views to find solutions among the stakeholders in the peace process in post-election as well as in post-2020.

The peace conference was held in August 2016, May 2017 and July 2018.

A total of 51 federal-related basic principles were inked in the second and third sessions of the union conference.

Ten ethnic armed organizations have signed the NCA with the government since it was initiated in October 2015. Enditem
US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster expressed happiness over United States Agency for International Development being recognised during Swachh Survekshan 2020 award ceremony.

Taking to Twitter, Juster on Thursday said, "So pleased that @MoHUA_India & @SwachhBharatGov recognized @usaid_india at the Swachh Survekshan 2020 award ceremony. Through our partnership with the Government of India, the U.S. is committed to transforming water & sanitation services."

After the award ceremony, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated all those cities who have secured top positions in the Swachh Survekshan 2020. Indore is India's cleanest city in Swachh Survekshan 2020, the fifth edition of the annual cleanliness survey of the country. The city has bagged the spot fourth time in a row. Gujarat's Surat is on the second spot and Maharashtra's Navi Mumbai is on the third position.

The event also saw felicitation of Urban Development Ministry's partner organisations including the United States Agency for International Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google.

(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.)
Mumbai, Aug 21 : Shweta Singh Kirti, sister of Sushant Singh Rajput, on Friday invited fans of the late actor to participate in a global prayer meet on Saturday to purge all negativity.

"Feel free to register: https://prayforsushant.com #GayatriMantra4SSR Gayatri Mantra helps in purification. Let's all pray that the negativity is destroyed and God bestows us with the courage to fight for the right! #Warriors4SSR #JusticeForSSR #FaithInCBI #GlobalPrayers4SSR," Shweta tweeted.

On Thursday, the CBI took over the case after a Supreme Court nod on Wednesday. A team of the central probe agency is already in Mumbai investigating into the death of the actor, who was found dead in his Mumbai residence on June 14.

The CBI has registered a case against Sushant's girlfriend, actress Rhea Chakraborty, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's ex-manager Shruti Modi and flatmate Samuel Miranda and unknown persons on the basis of his father KK Singh's complaint, which was filed with the Bihar Police on July 25.

Shweta feels a CBI probe will bring out the truth. "#CBIInMumbai The whole world has relentlessly fought for CBI Enquiry and now it is the responsibility of CBI to uphold our trust in them, we have full faith that CBI will most definitely bring the truth out and justice will be served. #CBIForSSR," tweeted Shweta.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Governor Roy Cooper Announces $12 Million for High Speed Internet Access in Rural NC

COVID-19 Updates: Staying Informed & Prepared

North Carolina Announces New Partner to Offer More Access to Free COVID-19 Testing

Child Care Hotline Extended to Families Seeking Child Care for School-Age Children

Free Community Testing Events Around NC

Complete the 2020 Census

Get All of the Latest Information in Spanish

Tweet of the Week

People who have made mistakes deserve a second chance and fair opportunities to reenter the workforce. This executive order will reduce recidivism in North Carolina and get rid of employment barriers in state government for people with criminal records.https://t.co/LcjayLKSLM pic.twitter.com/Dbwq61dzue  Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) August 18, 2020

This week, Rural Broadband Week, Governor Cooper announced $12 million for internet expansion projects in 11 rural counties through the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grant and COVID-19 Recovery Act.said Governor Cooper.The funds from the two programs will provide 8,017 families and 254 businesses, farms, and community institutions better access to high-speed internet.For more announcement information read the Press Release For more information on NC broadband connectivity It's important to rely on trusted sources of information about COVID-19. Keep up with the latest information on Coronavirus in North Carolina HERE Texttoto receive general information and updates about COVID-19 and North Carolina's response. Dial 2-1-1 provides free, confidential information and is available 24 hours a day to help you find resources within your community. They can connect you with people and groups that can help with questions about access to food, shelter, health care, employment and child care.Families who need food assistance for their children can texttoto find free meal sites in their communities.Make sure to prioritize your overall wellness and don't hesitate to seek additional help. Optum has a toll-free 24-hour Emotional Support Help Line atfor people who may be experiencing anxiety or stress due to Coronavirus.You can track the disease in real time through the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services' COVID-19 NC Dashboard . It includes detailed information about the state's COVID-19 confirmed cases, hospital capacity and more.The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced a new partnership with a high-capacity vendor to offer additional COVID-19 testing sites in Forsyth, Guilford, Iredell, Mecklenburg, Onslow, Orange, and Randolph counties. The sites will be free and the counties have been selected based on need for increased testing and other metrics.said Governor Cooper.North Carolina families in need of childcare can call the child care hotlineto be connected with child care options in their communities for school-age children up to age 12.said Governor Cooper.The hotline is open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Licensed child care professionals meeting the NCDHHS health and safety guidelines are available to provide care through this service. For more information about child care during COVID-19, visit covid19.ncdhhs.gov/information/child-care/child-care-information-families The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) has announced community free testing events in Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Johnston, Northampton, Sampson and Wake counties. For an up-to-date list of events, visit the Community Testing Events page. People who may not currently have symptoms but may have been exposed to COVID-19 should get tested, especially people from historically marginalized communities.If someone tests positive for COVID-19, the COVID-19 Community Team will reach out to connect them with needed resources. People should answer when the Community Team reaches out, via phone, text from 45394, or email from NC-ARIAS-NoReply@dhhs.nc.gov with further instructions.Find a nearby testing site Find My Testing Place For more information visit the NCDHHS FAQs about Testing and FAQs about Contact Tracing Completing the census will help us count the number of people in our state, which is how the federal government divides tax dollars to states and communities. As of July, more than 40% of North Carolinians, over 4 million people, had not been counted, which could mean a loss of $7.4 billion dollars per year for North Carolina for health care, education, highways, and community and economic development is at risk.An incomplete count puts representation in Congress and and federal funding our state needs in jeopardy.The count is lagging behind in Eastern North Carolina where many of our military families live and where so many have been hit hard by recent storms. Encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to participate in the count. Census workers will begin knocking on doors on August 11th to ensure we all are counted.You can complete the 2020 Census safely at home online at my2020census.gov and by phone (8443302020 in English, 8444682020 in Spanish), or submit by mail.During this time it is imperative that everyone is informed about what is going on in our state. Governor Cooper's administration has been working to get information and resources translated for the Spanish speaking population in our state. Many of the Governor's press conferences press releases , and executive orders are available in Spanish. Resources are also available in Spanish on the DHHS website.
Washington, Aug 21 : US President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his intention to withdraw US troops from Iraq but gave no detailed timeline.

Speaking to reporters in the White House with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Trump said that "we have been taking our troops out of Iraq fairly rapidly, and we look forward to the day when we don't have to be there," Xinhua reported.

"At some point, we obviously will be gone. We've brought it down to a very, very low level," Trump added when asked if the US would pull troops out of Iraq in three years.

Pressed by reporters on the timeframe of the full withdrawal from Iraq, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vaguely replied that a complete pullout would take place "as soon as we complete the mission." The chief diplomat noted that Washington is working with Baghdad "to get our forces down to the lowest level as quickly as we possibly can." Commander of US Central Command Kenneth McKenzie said at a think tank event earlier this month that he expected US military to maintain a long-term presence in Iraq to help fight Islamic extremists and to check Iranian influence in the country.

The two countries held a strategic dialogue this June, the joint statement of which said that the US would reduce forces from Iraq over the coming months.

Currently, there are over 5,000 US troops deployed in Iraq to support Iraqi forces in battles against remnants of the Islamic State, mainly for training and advisory purposes.

Citing US officials, The New York Times reported last week that US and Iraqi officials had resumed discussions this month that could lead to a reduction to around 3,500 US troops.

US killing of Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, at Baghdad airport in early January strained its relations with Iraq. The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution on January 5 requiring the government to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq.

The military bases housing US troops across Iraq and other US facilities have been frequently targeted by mortar and rocket attacks in recent months.
Eakins said it was a tragic afternoon for firefighters, as well. The firemen are all heartbroken. They did the best they could under the circumstances. My heart goes out to the family, said Eakins. You never get used to this. We all have families.
(JNS) - A joint statement by U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, announcing the "Abraham Accord," a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, is the first since Jordan signed such an agreement in 1994. What does this deal include, and what does it portend for the future?

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that "the peace agreement paves the way for full normalization of diplomatic, trade and travel relations between Israe...
Philippines protests against China's actions on fishermen, aircraft

August 21,2020 | Source: News18

The Philippine government filed a diplomatic protest after Chinese forces seized fishing equipment set up by Filipinos in a disputed shoal in their latest territorial spat in the South China Sea.



The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said in a statement Thursday night that the Philippines also resolutely objected to China continuing to issue radio challenges to Philippine aircraft patrolling over the disputed waters.



There was no immediate comment from Chinese officials.



The Philippine government has protested Chinas increasingly aggressive actions in the contested sea despite a dramatic improvement in relations under President Rodrigo Duterte, who has nurtured friendly ties with Beijing while often criticizing the United States, which has raised alarm over his deadly anti-drugs crackdown.



The Philippine foreign affairs department did not immediately provide other details on what it said was the Chinese coast guards illegal confiscation of the fishing equipment. The devices, locally called payaos, were seized in May after they had been set up by Filipino fishermen in the disputed Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippine province of Zambales.



China seized the shoal after a tense sea standoff in 2012, and the Philippines brought its disputes to international arbitration the following year. The tribunal in 2016 invalidated Chinas claims to virtually the entire South China Sea, but Beijing continues to ignore and defy the decision.



Radio warnings by Chinese forces against Philippine air force patrol aircraft have increased around missile-protected Chinese artificial islands, Philippine officials said.



U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused China of taking advantage of the intense preoccupation of governments over the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.



Last month, the U.S. government rejected nearly all of Beijings South China Sea claims and in effect sided with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei in each of their territorial spats with Beijing. China responded by saying the U.S. was trying to sow discord and was meddling in an Asian dispute to flex its muscle and incite a confrontation.



Separately, Manila city officials said they have closed four stores selling Chinese beauty products with labels that identified the Philippine capital as a province of China. They accused the stores of misrepresentation and violating other business regulations.



Manila Mayor Francisco Isko Moreno has taken steps to have two Chinese businessmen associated with the beauty products investigated and deported.



This is unacceptable, Moreno said, vowing he would not allow the countrys sovereignty to be disparaged: "I'm not a governor of China."

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A Cambodian union leader has expressed alarm after major clothing makers earlier this month penned a joint letter warning that increased coal consumption could make the country less competitive than more environmentally conscious neighbors in the eyes of green-minded investors.

Factories in the Southeast Asian country make clothes for the worlds top brands, who are drawn by relatively low labor costs, but also face international scrutiny of their envoronmental and labor practices.

We know that key buyers like Nike, Adidas, and H&M are very cautious of their obligation to the principals of fair trade, Ath Thun, president of the Cambodian Labor Confederation, told RFAs Khmer Service.

Due to their respect for the environment, they are encouraging green energy like solar, wind and water power, he said.

These big clients policies could make it hard to ignore Cambodias plans to boost power generation from coal by building new coal projects and signing a deal with neigboring Laos to purchase more electricity, also from coal-fired plants.

Cambodia suffered severe droughts in 2019 and 2020 that decimated hydropower output.

Looking to solidify its power grid against possible future droughts brought on by climate change, Cambodia plans to bring four coal-fired power plants into operation. Two of the plants are under construction and expected to be completed in 2021 and 2022.

The Nikkei Asian Review recently reported that by 2020, Cambodia would rely on fossil fuels for 80 percent of its power needs.

The Tokyo-based outlet also reported that major companies wrote a letter to the Cambodian government saying that "various regional free trade agreements" could make Cambodias competitors more attractive, given differing national commitments to renewable energy."

The coal power plants bring another layer of concern to us on top of the unsolved EBA partial withdraw, said Ath Thun, referring to the EUs everything but arms scheme, through which Cambodian products enjoyed duty-free, quota-free access to the blocs market which accounted for 20 percent of the countrys exports.

But the Cambodian garment industry suffered a blow to its competitive position this week, when the EU withdrew from the scheme in response to the governments failure to reverse rollbacks on democracy and human rights required under the trade arrangement.

We are worried when buyers are worried. Now that they have raised this concern, I think the government should reconsider its source of energy by looking into greener energy, Ath Thun said.

RFA attempted to contact Cambodian Government spokesman Phay Siphan, and Director-General Victor Zona of the Ministry of Industry Mines and energy, but neither could be reached for comment.

Zona told local media that the government was aware of coals potential impact.

We have balanced the environmental impacts and sustainable energy in Cambodia, he said.

Renewable energy like solar power depends on the daylight. At night it cannot generate energy. How could we rely only on such a power source? This is why we have to resort to various sources of energy, including coal power plants, he added.

Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, an environmental activist who founded the Mother Nature Cambodia NGO, told RFA that Cambodias coal strategy was a mistake.

I dont understand why Cambodia cannot do as what Vietnam, Japan and other countries do. Those countries have regarded coal power as an outdated dirty technology, that is detrimental to the environment and public health, he said.

Why does the government not find better alternative sources of energy that are greener to the environment? he added.

Health and human rights

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, air pollution from coal-fired power plants can be linked to asthma, cancer, heart and lung ailments, neurological problems, acid rain, global warming, and other severe environmental and public health impacts.

Human rights abuses related to Cambodias coal power plants have also occurredthe government allowed the plants to be built on or near land occupied by rural villagers.

At least 30 families in two villages in Thma Sar commune, Botum Sakor district, Koh Kong province, face future eviction from their lands due to the nearby coal power project, one of the two plants currently under construction.

A spokesperson for the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) expressed her dismay that the government ignore

If the government cared about the livlihood of workers and the general public, they would have conducted an independent feasibility study and research before granting licenses to those companies, the CNRPs deputy president, Mu Sochua, told RFA.

She said Cambodia lacks an adequate checks and balance system under its one party government, especially since the opposition party was unconstitutionally dissolved in 2017.

If the government paid attention to the impacts of the coal projects, they would be able to make the most of all available reports and studies by scientists around the world, she said.

We need nothing less than absolute transparency for each project. We need the government to not suppress people who raise their concerns about these issues. Cambodia does not belong to just the ruling party. It belongs to all Cambodians, she added.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
I would have no problem with it, even with limited trials, said Barrett, who was born and raised in Chicago but now lives in the Chesterton, Indiana, area. Weve got way more to gain at our age than to not try it. Its crazy not to. Hopefully if everyone gets it, life can go back to normal.
Also on Friday, the Ohio secretary of states office tossed West from that critical presidential states ballot due to botched paperwork. A day earlier, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted to kick him off the battleground states ballot for submitting candidacy petitions after a 5 p.m. deadline on Aug. 5. Also on Thursday, Montana officials tossed his name off the ballot for insufficient signatures. His ballot status is pending in Missouri, West Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Vietnams Ministry of Health recorded two COVID-19 cases on Friday, the lowest daily count in three weeks.

Both patients were registered in Da Nang, a beach city in the central part of the country.

Patient No. 1,008 is a 75-year-old woman living in Hoa Vang District while patient No. 1,009, a man, is 47 years old and resides in Son Tra District.

They came into close contact with their family members who had been infected with the new coronavirus.

The two are being isolated for treatment at a field hospital in Hoa Vang.

Friday saw the lowest daily increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in 20 days, said Nguyen Trong Khoa, an official from the health ministry.

Those confirmed as coronavirus patients in recent times had had direct contact with detected cases and thus been quarantined, Khoa added.

Vietnam also announced three recoveries in Hanoi on Friday, taking the number of recovered patients to 545, according to the health ministry.

The Southeast Asian nation has reported 1,009 coronavirus cases, including 667 domestic infections, since January 23, when it confirmed the very first patient.

Twenty-five patients have died so far, most having had serious pre-existing conditions, while another passed away on August 12 after having tested negative for the virus four times.

A total of 527 community cases have been documented since July 25, when Da Nang detected the first local transmission after Vietnam had gone 99 days without any locally-transmitted case.

The beach city is the country's outbreak epicenter as it has logged 369 cases from that date.

Vietnam has shut its border to foreigners since March so as to curb COVID-19 but the country grants exemption to foreign experts and skilled workers who are to be quarantined upon arrival.

The Vietnamese government has arranged for many flights to take home citizens stranded in other countries over virus-related travel restrictions.

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Atik Mohammed has asked Ghanaians to disregard attempts by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and their flagbearer to discredit the Electoral Commission (EC).



According to him, the notion that EC is planning to rig the 2020 elections is an illusory idea by the NDC to deceive Ghanaian electorates.



Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Atik Mohammed stressed that neither the Electoral Commission nor any individual can rig elections in Ghana in this new electoral dispensation.



He explained that the electoral system of the nation has been reinforced to make it extremely difficult for any person to steal ballots of the electorates.



To him, the NDC will never appreciate the work of the EC if they do not change their mindset about the Electoral Management body.



"With such a mindset, there's nothing they can do for you to appreciate because your mindset is that they were appointed to rig the elections, forgetting nobody can rig the elections. This is not 1992 or 1996 elections; this is 2020 elections. No individual or group, whether they work in the Electoral Commission or not, can rig the elections in favour of any candidate. It will never happen. When you lose, you lose. So, it is better for us to appreciate that at this point, nobody can rig any elections," he stated.



He advised the NDC to stop attacking the EC saying the Commission is not a "polling agent" and that the NDC should heed the advice of former EC Chairman, Dr. Afari Gyan, that "elections are won at the polling station".



Watch full submissions below:





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Jammu:

In a setback to the state government, Jammu and Kashmir High Court has quashed its order of compulsory retirement of six officials under its policy of weeding out the so called deadwood.

Justice Alok Aradhe set aside the June order of compulsorily retirement and directed the state to reinstate the petitioners and award all consequential benefits, within a period of one month.

Justice Aradhe delivered the verdict on Thursday after hearing a battery of lawyers who had argued for the petitioners on Wednesday, whereas Senior Additional Advocate General (AAG) Seema Shekhar appeared for the state.

As many as 29 petitions were listed and six were heard at length and decided by the court which quashed the governments compulsorily retirement order of the employees.

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In a rare gesture of gratitude, the mother of a colonel in the Indian Army honoured chest specialist Dr Anil Kapoor in an event organised at the Indian Medical Associations (IMA) hall in Uttar Pradeshs Meerut on Thursday for saving the life of her son who was seriously injured in a road mishap recently.

Dr Neera, the colonels mother is a lecturer in a degree college in the state. Her son met with an accident on the night of August 16 and sustained serious injuries besides getting trapped inside his car. Dr Anil Kapoor, who was returning home, happened to see the damaged car and stopped. He tried to seek help from passersby but no one halted.

Then Dr Kapoor somehow pulled out the injured person and took him to the nearby civil hospital where he was given first aid. He also informed his family about the accident and thereafter accompanied them to the military hospital where the injured colonel was admitted.

Also Read: In Uttar Pradesh, doctors grapple with triple challenge in war against Covid-19

Expressing her gratitude for Dr Kapoor, Dr Neera said timely medical assistance provided to his son saved his life. She called upon people to extend their help to accident victims during the Golden Hour (the first hour of the mishap) which enhances their chances of survival.

Also Read: UP: FIR lodged against SDM for thrashing people

Addressing the gathering, Dr Kapoor said road accidents have been a major cause of concern in the Indian subcontinent. He said 50 percent of fatalities could be avoided if the victims were taken to a hospital in the first hour of the accidents. Speaking on the occasion, IMA secretary Dr Anil Nausaran said Dr Kapoor had saved the lives of many accident victims in the past too.

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(Natural News) In an effort to prevent the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), public health officials in Massachusetts have decided to mandate flu vaccines for any children, teenagers and young adults who want to attend child care, preschool, kindergarten, K-12, college and universities in the state. The rule was announced on Wednesday, August 19, and it applies to children as young as six months.

The new vaccine requirement is an important step to reduce flu-related illness and the overall impact of respiratory illness during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the states Department of Public Health (DPH) in a statement.

Every year, thousands of people of all ages are affected by influenza, leading to many hospitalizations and deaths, said Larry Madoff, the director of the DPHs Bureau of Infectious Disease, in a statement.

It is more important now than ever to get a flu vaccine because flu symptoms are very similar to those of COVID-19, and preventing the flu will save lives and preserve healthcare resources. (Related: MEDICAL FASCISM: Australian Prime Minister says everyone will have to get vaccinated for coronavirus, whether they like it or not.)

Students need to be vaccinated by year-end

While students will still be allowed to attend classes for the time being even if they have not gotten the latest flu vaccine, the new mandate states that they need to get vaccinated by December 31 of this year in order to finish the rest of the academic year. Any other vaccine requirements mandated locally still apply.

Furthermore, students in districts that are holding all of their classes online through remote or distance learning models will not be exempted from the vaccine mandate.

The flu vaccine requirement also applies to all full-time undergraduate and graduate students who are under 30, as well as all full- and part-time students in health sciences courses. International students attending classes and programs in the state will also need to get the flu vaccine.

K-12 students who are homeschooled will be exempted, along with college, university and other higher education students who will exclusively attend classes online and never visit campus in person. For everyone who does not fit into either category, only medical and religious exemptions will be considered.

In the case of a medical exemption, the student must receive a document from a licensed physician detailing why the person cannot medically receive the flu vaccine. Religious exemptions must come from the students parent or guardian, and it must clearly state that taking the vaccine conflicts with a persons sincerely held religious beliefs.

According to the statement, doctors may recommend a second dose of the flu vaccine depending on the childs age and flu vaccination history, but this second dose will not be mandatory.

Several states have already put in place certain flu vaccine requirements, such as for children attending daycare and preschool. All states already have mandates for public school students to have certain childhood vaccines. However, Massachusetts is the first state to require a flu vaccine for all of its students, including those attending college.

Vaccine mandate already stirring up controversy among people in Massachusetts

Several protests are already being organized against Massachusetts vaccine mandate. One such event, organized through social media, will bring together hundreds  possibly even thousands  of people to stage a protest outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

What has flu got to do with COVID? This is so wrong on many levels and we need to show up, wrote the organizer of the event.

Other people in the state are expressing their concerns as well. Jennifer Gaskin, a resident of Worcester, who describes herself as pro-vaccination and says that her whole family gets the flu vaccine annually, is worried about the slippery slope that comes with requiring people to get vaccinated.

I understand why this mandate was put in place given the current pandemic and potential impact on hospitals, said Gaskin. However, I think it is morally wrong to take away the right to a choice for parents for a vaccination that has minimal efficacy in most cases.

Gaskin worries that the vaccine mandate will set a precedent and that her children may be required to take the COVID-19 vaccine which would not have been fully tested prior to release.

Candice Edwards, executive director of Health Choice 4 Action MA, a non-profit that promotes the ability of Americans to make informed choices regarding their own health, believes that the mandate could have a negative impact on the education of many people across the state.

With the new flu vaccine mandate, Edwards said, children might miss out on the ability to get a decent education if their parents make the reasonable decision to forgo influenza vaccination, especially since homeschooling is not a viable option for many people, such as children with special needs and children from families that currently have less than ideal economic circumstances.

Medical decisions, Edwards said, should not be crafted by politicians but by patients, parents and physicians.

Even elected officials have raised their concerns regarding the vaccine mandate. State Rep. Michael Soter, a Republican representing the 8th Worcester district in the states House of Representatives, called the requirement extremely scary.

We need to stop using scare tactics to put an agenda forward, said Soter. Many of you know Im blunt, Im straight to the point. This vaccine mandate should not and cannot move forward  Im calling on the governor to step back from this mandate, step out of the room of the DPH and think about the average person.

Soter said that he fully supports the work that Gov. Charlie Baker, another Republican, has done for the state. However, he does not support the mandate and will be writing a strong letter to the governor to not move forward with the vaccine requirement.

He added that while he is not against vaccines, he does not believe in mandating vaccinations. People should have control of whats injected into their body, he said.

Local, state and national governments across the country and the world are trying to use the pandemic to push forward with tyrannical policies under the guise of protecting public health, such as Massachusetts flu vaccine mandate. Learn about other ways this is being done by reading the articles at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

BostonHerald.com

CBSNews.com

FoxNews.com

WHDH.com

MassLive.com
Bluezone, a Bluetooth-based app that helps determine if a person has come in contact with a COVID-19 patient, has tracked 1,391 cases of people having close contact with an infected or suspected Covid-19 infection.

The use of Bluezone helps to detect early cases of people having close contact with a Covid-19 infected person (suspected of infection) who are asymptomatic - that is, do not show signs of disease, or are unaware they may have the disease. Photo: Trong Dat

The number of people downloading and using Bluezone has increased dramatically in the last three weeks, since the second Covid-19 outbreak in Vietnam. As of 11am, August 20, the Bluezone app had exceeded 20 million downloads, reported the Department of Information Technology under the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Da Nang, Hanoi, Quang Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City, and Binh Duong are the top five provinces and cities in the country with the highest percentage of Bluezone users.

Around 456,000 Bluezone users in the central city of Da Nang (40.4% of the population), the countrys Covid-19 epicenter, downloaded the app.

There were 2.4 million people (29.8%) in Hanoi, 371,000 people (28.1%) in Quang Ninh, 2.4 million people (26.7%) in HCM City and 398,000 people (23.4%) in Hai Duong.

The provinces of Ha Giang, Dien Bien, Bac Lieu, Son La and Tra Vinh had the lowest percentage of Bluezone users, with less than 8% of the population.

Based on mobile operators, Viettel has the highest percentage of Bluezone users, with 23.16% of the total subscribers, followed by MobiFone (22.45%), VinaPhone (18.98%) and Vietnamobile (7.41%).

To encourage subscribers to install Bluezone apps, the four carriers - Viettel, MobiFone, VinaPhone and Vietnamobile  have launched a promotion for free data to new Bluezone users. Prepaid and postpaid customers of Viettel, MobiFone, and VinaPhone, after successfully installing Bluezone application beginning on August 11, will be offered 5GB data for free. Vietnamobile offers up to 10GB of free data to new users of Bluezone.

The contract tracing app, developed by tech firm Bkav, uses Bluetooth Low Energy, a wireless personal area network technology, to link with smartphones within a two-meter distance.

If a user is positive for SARS-CoV-2 (known as person F0), health authorities can identify those who had close contact with that person (known as F1), and the system will alert them about the risk of infection.

They will be provided with instructions on contacting health authorities for assistance.

The app is completely confidential, anonymous, and transparent, as it only stores data on the users phone and does not transfer a users information or locations to the system.

Trong Dat
Ham radio exams in USA during pandemic Amateur radio license testing continues during the pandemic, with a combination of remote Volunteer Examiner (VE) test sessions and careful in-person session planning



The ARRL report:



In Hawaii, VE Team leader and Section Manager Joe Speroni, AH0A, said he and his team passed the 100-candidate mark on August 10 for video-supervised remote test sessions. Speroni said the most recent session administered exams to 10 candidates simultaneously.



Candidates from all Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, and US military bases in Okinawa have had an opportunity to sit for licenses, he told the ARRL Volunteer Examiner Coordinator. The high pass rate of 95% is most likely due to candidates having had time to prepare for the exam. Speroni also said his VEs willingness to contribute their time has made the program a success and available to a wide geographical range.



Zoom meeting video lends itself to handling three candidates per session, and each requires three VEs, Speroni explained. The 1:1 ratio of candidates to VEs makes planning important. Fortunately, the team of 15 VEs has volunteers from Oahu, Maui, the Big Island, California, and the Pacific. Often, hams from Okinawa and Guam are helping license and upgrade hams in Hawaii.



ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, reports that through the end of July, overall FCC license activity was down by 15% compared to the same period last year. New amateur licenses are down by 12% so far in 2020, with 15,849 new licensees compared to 17,947 in 2019. Upgraded licenses are down by a staggering 23%  6,501 versus 4,984, Somma said. The year-end prediction of 7,500 upgrades is much lower than in previous years, which have averaged around 9,500.



Read the full ARRL story at

http://www.arrl.org/news/technology-and-technique-making-ham-radio-testing-possible-during-pandemic


Yves here. Aside from the occasional Trump-driven Middle Eastern development making the headlines, a lot of important Middle Eastern developments havent gotten the attention they warrant due to Covid-19 dominating the news. Yet the Middle East remains a geopolitical flashpoint, and arguably more wobbly than ever due to the fragile state of Saudi Arabia. Experts were already worried about the danger of political instability when the former king, Abdullah, died; the old king was well liked and all of his successors were seen as problematic. Without belaboring the details, in a development alarming to the West, the new king designated Mohammad bin Salman (MbS)as Crown Prince, and a series of changes in portfolios resulted in MbS having unprecedented power.

MbS has managed to validate concerns about his leadership, from a costly and unproductive war with Yemen, to imprisoning fellow members of the Royal Family, apparently to extort them, to delusional grand schemes (diversifying the economy away from oil, not a bad idea in the abstract, on an wildly unrealistic timetable, particularly given the lack of other domestic capabilities) to the assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia not understanding how little sway it has in a world awash with oil, and nevertheless considering self-destructive action, seems par for the course.

By Simon Watkins, a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for Credit Lyonnais, and later Director of Forex at Bank of Montreal. He was then Head of Weekly Publications and Chief Writer for Business Monitor International, Head of Fuel Oil Products for Platts, and Global Managing Editor of Research for Renaissance Capital in Moscow. He has written extensively on oil and gas, Forex, equities, bonds, economics and geopolitics for many leading publications, and has worked as a geopolitical risk consultant for a number of major hedge funds in London, Moscow, and Dubai. In addition, he has authored five books on finance, oil, and financial markets trading published by ADVFN and available on Amazon, Apple, and Kobo. Originally published at OilPrice

Having failed to achieve the slightest semblance of success in the two oil price wars that it started  the first running from 2014 to 2016, and the second running from the beginning of March to effectively the end of April this year  it might be assumed that key lessons might have been learned by the Saudis on the perils of engaging in such wars again. Judging from various statements last week, though, Saudi Arabia has learned nothing and may well launch exactly the same type of oil price war in exactly the same way as it has done twice before, inevitably losing again with exactly the same catastrophic effects on it and its fellow OPEC members. At the very heart of Saudi Arabias problem is the collective self-delusion of those at the top of its government regarding the Kingdoms key figures relating to its oil industry that underpins the entire regime. These delusions are apparently not discouraged by any of the senior foreign advisers who make enormous fees and trading profits for their banks from Saudi Arabias various follies, most notably oil price wars. It is, in the truest sense of the phrase, a perfect example of The Emperors New Clothes, although in this case, it does not just pertain to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) but to all of the senior figures connected to Saudi Arabias oil sector. One of the most obvious examples of this is the chief executive officer of Saudi Arabias flagship hydrocarbons company, Saudi Aramco (Aramco), Amin Nasser, who said last week  bewilderingly for those who know even a modicum about the global oil markets  that Aramco is to go ahead with plans to increase its maximum sustained capacity (MSC) to 13 million barrels per day (bpd) from 12.1 million bpd.

Quite aside from the sheer pointlessness of this posturing in a world already awash in oil as a result of the negative demand effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the output overhang from the oil price war just ended, this comment from Saudi Arabias third-ranking oil man (after MbS, albeit by the loosest possible definition, and Energy Minister, Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud), is extremely misleading. As such, it feeds into the oil markets collective understanding since the 2014-2016 oil price war that anything that Saudi Arabia says about its oil industry is not to be taken as true, without a lot of additional fact-checking. Regarding the maximum sustained capacity statement, to begin with, this term is one that has been repeatedly used by Saudi Arabia since the first oil price war disaster to cover for two other long-running delusions relating to the real level of its crude oil reserves and to the real level of its spare capacity.

Before the 2014-2016 oil price war, Saudi had stated for decades that it had a spare capacity of between 2.0-2.5 million bpd. This implied  given the widely-accepted (but also wrong) belief that Saudi Arabia had pumped an average of around 10 million bpd for many years (it actually pumped an average of just over 8.162 million bpd from 1973 until 2020)  that it had the ability to ramp up its production to about 12.5 million bpd when required. However, even as the 2014-2016 oil price war dragged on and wreaked new heights of economic devastation on Saudi Arabia and its OPEC colleagues, the Kingdom could produce on average no more than just about 10 million bpd. Crucially here, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) defines spare capacity specifically as production that can be brought online within 30 days and sustained for at least 90 days, whilst even Saudi Arabia has said that it would need at least 90 days to move rigs to drill new wells and raise production by an additional 2.0-2.5 million bpd.

Instead, from that point onwards, Saudi Arabia began to attempt to obfuscate this spare capacity lie by semantic trickery. Senior Saudis spoke of capacity and of supply to the market rather than of output or production and these two groups of terminology mean very different things. Capacity (or its synonym, as far as the Saudis are concerned, supply to the market) relate to the utilization of crude oil supplies held in storage at any given time in the Kingdom plus the supplies that can be withheld from contracts and re-directed into those stored supplies. It can also mean oil clandestinely bought in from other suppliers (notably Iraq in the last oil price war) through brokers in the spot market and then passed off as its own oil supplies (or capacity). Exactly the same semantic trickery was used to cover up the actual supply shortfalls in the aftermath of the September 2019 attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis on Saudi Arabias Khurais and Abqaiq facilities, with the Energy Minister talking of capacity and later of supply to the market, which are absolutely not the same thing at all as actual production at the wellheads.

The reason why Saudi Arabia seeks to obfuscate its real production and also spare capacity figures is that oil has been the only true foundation-stone of the Kingdoms geopolitical power since its discovery in the late 1930s and this is also why it lies about its crude oil reserves. Specifically, at the beginning of 1989, Saudi Arabia claimed proven oil reserves of 170 billion barrels but only a year later, and without the discovery of any major new oil fields, the official reserves estimate somehow grew by 51.2 percent, to 257 billion barrels. Shortly thereafter, it increased again to just over 266 billion barrels, a level that persisted until a slight increase in 2017 to just over 268 billion barrels, with, again, no major new oil field finds made, a figure which  depending on who you believe  has increased yet again. At the same time, as highlighted, Saudi Arabia took out of the ground an average of 8.162 million bpd from the beginning of 1973 to the beginning of 2020, which totals over 2.979 billion barrels of crude oil every year, or 137.04 billion barrels of crude oil taken out of the ground over that time period. Given this tangible and proven production, with no major new field finds (and declining production at many of its core oil fields as well, including Ghawar), it is mathematically very difficult to see how it is possible that Saudi Arabias crude oil reserves are not actually around 120 billion barrels (and that is using the highly-dubious 257 billion barrels base figure) and not the stated 268+ billion barrels.

Given the wider public realization that the core figures upon which Saudi Arabias remaining geopolitical and economic power is based are essentially nonsense, Aramcos share price might  in the normal circumstances of a correctly functioning market  be regarded as vulnerable. However, such was the absolute desperation on the part of MbS not to lose personal credibility by allowing the omni-toxic Aramco IPO to be seen to fail  at least in Saudi Arabia  that very few of the share purchasers have much to lose. In order to even sell the 1.5 percent stake finally offered (cut down from the initially-mooted 5 percent), Saudi banks were encouraged to offer to lend money to retail customers at a 2-to-1 ratio for every riyal they would invest in Saudi Aramco (compared to average leverage ratio limit for loans of 1-to-1). Additionally, the IPOs international adviser banks were there to take up any slack in the offering left after the sovereign wealth funds of neighboring states were equally encouraged to participate on the offering, as were various senior Saudis fearful of a re-run of their treatment in the Ritz Carlton in 2017.

Now, in addition to these levers, Aramco has also reassured this small cadre of investors that it will meet the minimum US$75 billion dividend payout that it was forced into promising in order to ensure that it sold even 1.5 percent of the company. As Aramcos share price is now intimately connected to MbSs standing at home, Aramco has little choice in the matter, despite the announcement last week that its net profit plunged by 73.4 percent in the second quarter of this year. This was entirely due, ironically, to Saudi Arabias starting yet another oil price war to destroy the U.S. shale sector by crashing prices through overproducing at a time when demand was already annihilated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such figures, of course, will become entirely meaningless if Saudi Arabia embarks on yet another oil price war in the not-too-distant-future, as is the clear implication of the announcement that it will increase its MSC to 13 million bpd from 12.1 million bpd, as the result for Saudi Arabia next time could be the end of the al-Saud dynasty in the Kingdom.
NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet authorised a $4 billion bailout of the workers' compensation insurance scheme for public servants at the last minute, as his department scrambled to ensure it was solvent before the end of the financial year.

A flurry of emails between Treasury officials on June 30 reveal the urgency in the department as they waited for Mr Perrottet's sign-off on an immediate $2 billion cash injection before a 3pm deadline that day.

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet approved a late $2billion bailout of icare. Credit:Kate Geraghty

The $2 billion, with the option of another $2 billion by the year's end, was needed to ensure the Treasury Managed Fund (TMF), which insures public sector employees, including police, nurses and teachers, was fully funded by the close of the financial year.

Treasury's director of financial risk Katherine Palmer emailed colleagues at 2:26pm on June 30 requesting the initial $2 billion be transferred that day "due to complications with the expiry of appropriation today that we were relying on".
KEY POINTS Thailand's economy could be one of Asia's worst performing this year after the pandemic caused a slump in tourist arrivals, said economists.

Adding to concerns are intensifying anti-government protests that some analysts said could distract authorities from their priority of keeping the economy going.

Thailand on Monday reported its economy shrinking by 12.2% on-year in the second quarter  its deepest economic contraction since the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

Thai dancers in traditional dresses wear face masks while performing at a temple on May 5, 2020. Chaiwat Subprasom | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images

Thailand's relative success in containing the coronavirus may do little to chart a smooth recovery for its economy, which could be one of Asia's worst performing this year after the pandemic caused a slump in tourist arrivals, said economists. Adding to concerns are intensifying anti-government protests that some analysts said could distract authorities from their priority of keeping the economy going. Thailand on Monday reported its deepest economic contraction since the Asian financial crisis in 1998. The Southeast Asian economy shrank by 12.2% on year in the second quarter  better than the 13.3% contraction forecast by a Reuters poll.

The upshot is that despite getting the virus under control quickly ... the outlook for Thailand's economy remains one of the worst in the region Alex Holmes Capital Economics

The Thai economy relies heavily on tourism for growth. But foreign tourist arrivals have come to an almost complete stop and is not likely to recover soon, with the government reportedly shelving plans to open its borders to travelers from selected countries. "The upshot is that despite getting the virus under control quickly, with tourism set to remain a massive drag on growth, the outlook for Thailand's economy remains one of the worst in the region," Alex Holmes, Asia economist at consultancy Capital Economics, wrote in a Monday note. Holmes noted that "Thailand has gone over 80 days without a single case of community transmission," but his forecast of a 9% annual contraction in the Thai economy this year is among the most pessimistic.

As of Monday, the country has reported over 3,300 confirmed coronavirus cases and 58 deaths, according to the department of disease control. In addition to the tourism collapse, Thailand's other growth engine  trade  has also been weak, said Barnabas Gan, economist at Singaporean lender United Overseas Bank. Gan wrote in a Monday note that he expects the economy to shrink by 7.5% this year, worse than his previous projection of a 5.4% contraction. "The twin drivers, tourism and trade, have been lackluster at least in the first half of 2020. That could actually persist into the rest of the year," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Tuesday.

Anti-government protests that have intensified in recent weeks could further dampen Thailand's economic recovery, said economists. The country is no stranger to political uncertainties, having experienced one of the highest numbers of military coups in modern history. But over the weekend, more than 10,000 protesters gathered in the capital city of Bangkok in what some observers said is the biggest anti-government demonstration since a 2014 coup.
Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli will be sentenced today in the college admissions scandal case.

The sentencing comes more than a year after the pair were charged with paying half a million dollars in bribes to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California.

Both have pleaded guilty to participating in the cheating scheme.

Loughlins plea deal with prosecutors calls for her to spend two months behind bars, while Giannullis calls for him to serve five months.

They will be sentenced in separate hearings held via video conference because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The judge said at their plea hearings that he would decide whether to accept their unusual deals with prosecutors after reviewing the presentencing report, a document that contains background on defendants and helps guide sentencing decisions.

Unlike most plea agreements, in which the judge remains free to decide the defendants sentence, Loughlin and Giannullis proposed prison terms are binding if the judge accepts the deals.

Under the plea deal, Giannulli would also pay a $250,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service. Loughlin would pay a $150,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

The couple are among nearly 30 prominent parents who have admitted to charges in the scheme. Ten parents are still fighting the charges.

Lawyers for Loughlin and Giannulli had insisted for more than a year that the couple believed their payments were legitimate donations. They also accused prosecutors of hiding crucial evidence that could prove the couples innocence because it would undermine their case.

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Loughlin and Giannullis about-face came shortly after the judge rejected their bid to dismiss the case over allegations of misconduct by federal agents.

The couple has not made any public statements since their arrest and  unlike every other parent sentenced to far in the case  they did not submit letters expressing regret or notes of support from family and friends to the judge ahead of their sentencing.

Loughlin pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Giannulli pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and honest services wire and mail fraud. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss charges of money laundering and federal programmes bribery that were added after the case was filed.

Prosecutors told the judge this week that Giannulli deserves a tougher sentence because he was the more active participant in the scheme, while Loughlin took a less active role, but was nonetheless fully complicit.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Dear Michelle,

Forgive the open letter but I need to respond directly to your kitchen-table takedown of the incumbent at the Democratic National Convention. Listening to your speech, the world, already pandemic-quiet, went silent. Every word, delivered with weary intimacy, brought me closer to catharsis, Id say to revelation if we were that way inclined down here. Donald Trump, Simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.

Former first lady Michelle Obama. Credit:AP

Your I-hate-politics-too spin only highlighted your political skills. What preys on my mind, however, is your political strategy minted in 2016 and reprised this week. Over the past four years, you said, a lot of people have asked me: When others are going so low, does going high still really work? My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanising others, we just become part of the ugly noise that's drowning out everything else.

Such a fraught subject this going low and high, right? So hard to name race baiting and misogyny without recalling Hillary Clintons infamous swipe against Trump-leaning deplorables. Like you said, not everyone will heed the advice of a black woman speaking at a Democratic convention: that very fact is provocation for some. And youre right to caution liberals against reverting to degrading tactics, which Id suggest creates more problems than mere ugly noise.
Social media influencers play a major role in voicing about socially relevant issues. Through them, many significant issues easily reach out to the concerned authorities and hence they garner immense support from the people across the places.

Recently, popular influencers like Bhuvan Bam, Ashish Chanchlani and CarryMinati took to social media to stand in solidarity with the students demanding the postponement of JEE Main and NEET UG. They have come forward to say that conducting exams for around 25 lakh aspirants during the coronavirus pandemic may put the lives of students at risk. Well, that absolutely makes sense.

Taking to his Twitter account, Bhuvan Bam wrote, are NEET and JEE exams getting postponed? While everyone is required to stay home and work, why to put student life at risk and not wait for situation to get a bit normal?

Are NEET and JEE exams getting postponed? While everyone is required to stay home and work, why to put student life at risk and not wait for situation to get a bit normal?  Bhuvan Bam (@Bhuvan_Bam) August 20, 2020

Besides, popular YouTuber CarryMinati also said that requests being made by aspirants to postpone JEE Main and NEET UG scheduled in September are not excuses but a genuine call, given the COVID-19 situation in India.

He wrote, "Request to postpone the JEE & NEET exams by the majority of the students is not merely an excuse but the genuine call in current scenario to avoid COVID-19 risks!"

Request to postpone the JEE & NEET exams by the majority of the students is not merely an excuse but the genuine call in current scenario to avoid COVID-19 risks! #postponejeeneet  Ajey Nagar (@CarryMinati) August 20, 2020

In addition, YouTuber Ashish Chanchlani too showed his support for the students. Referring to a recent incident in Tamil Nadus Coimbatore, where a 19-year-old NEET aspirant took her own life, allegedly due to fear of exams, Chanchlani asked Are exams more important than the lives of students?

A girl committed suicide in the fear of NEET exams being conducted.

Are exams more important than the lives of students?

I request the govt to please not conduct any exams of JEE/NEET

The students are already going through enough

Its our genuine request #NEET #JEE #CancelExams  Ashish Chanchlani (@ashchanchlani) August 20, 2020

Point to be noted here is that these influencers tweets, in support of students, come days after a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking the postponement of JEE Main and NEET UG till the situation returns to normal.

The bench, on the contrary, had said that students would lose an entire academic year if exams were not held in time. If exams are not held, wont it be a loss to the country? Students will lose the academic year, the court noted.

As per the schedule, JEE Main examination will be held between 1 and 6 September, JEE advanced on 27 September and NEET (UG) 2020 on 13 September.

Heres How Students Reacted To Them For Their Support

Being sad at the court's dismissal of their petition, students found a ray of hope after garnering immense support from these popular influencers and thanked them with memes.



Thanks bai for your support it really means a lot  Ayaan (@AnjumYousuf786) August 20, 2020

The true social media influencer   Shanaya sharma (@shanaya060) August 20, 2020

Carry bhai ka support milgya....wow   Neha kachare (@kachare_neha) August 20, 2020

Thankyouu so much Ajeyy for your concern towards is  Nancy.Sadia (@NancySadia1) August 20, 2020

Ha bhai kya kre yha phati pdi h exam k liye or ye exam wale or dara rhe h kya kre pic.twitter.com/deCJl8mAcs  Sumit (@Sumit81169925) August 20, 2020

Thank you! Literally thank you so much for posting about this .!  I S H E E T A (@isheeetas10) August 20, 2020

However, there were also few who didnt agree with this. While many supported CarryMinatis stand, there were few who did not agree with the idea of getting exams postponed. Check it out.

Brother are you ready to give exams for same no. Of seats with double the aspirants.?  Vishal (@Vishal42419904) August 20, 2020

Padhai Likhai Karne wale Hi Jaane Exam na Hone ka Dard kya hai.. Hume to Youtube pe Gaali de de ke Pet nai Palna na... Those who want Selection are Studying Rest are Doing Tweets on Social Media #PostponeJEENeet  Mona (@Moana_V_) August 20, 2020

Kab hogi situation normal ? ... Saal waste kar de ? Waise hi exam 4 mahine se jyada delay ho chuki h . Isse overall baccho ko hi nuksaan h . Batch bana k ek class m 10 bacche rakh k test karwaya jaa sakta h . Ye koi university Exam ya board exam nhi h. jise taal diya jaye.  dichkayu (@di0989) August 20, 2020

Do you think the exams should be held during this pandemic time? Tell us in the comments below.


By PTI

LUCKNOW: The CBI on Friday submitted its written arguments in connection with the Babri mosque demolition case in a special court here.

After taking it on record and supplying its copies to the counsel for the accused, special CBI judge S K Yadav asked the defense counsels to submit their written arguments in response to CBI's arguments by August 24.

The special CBI court will pronounce its judgment after submission of written arguments by defense counsels.

There are a total of 32 accused in the case including former deputy prime minister L K Advani, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, BJP leaders M M Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiar and Sadhvi Ritambhara.

The special CBI court is trying its best to meet the August 31 deadline set by the Supreme Court to conclude the trial of the case.

The Babri mosque was demolished in December 1992 by 'kar sevaks' who claimed that it was built on the site of an ancient Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Swedes perceive the tone of reporting on the coronavirus in the media as less hyped/alarmist than they did prior to the summer. Public confidence in the media is decreasing but has strengthened for government officials.

These are the latest findings of a study on reporting of the coronavirus in the Swedish media being conducted by the Swedish non-profit organisation VA (Public & Science).

In collaboration with researchers from the Karolinska Institute and Sodertorn University, VA (Public & Science) is conducting a study of how people are receiving and interpreting information about the coronavirus and the ongoing pandemic. Here, we present the findings from the seventh wave of the survey, which was undertaken between 17 and 21 July 2020.

Less alarmist tone of reporting

The tone of reporting on the coronavirus in the Swedish media is perceived to be less hyped or alarmist compared to when this was previously measured. Three out of ten Swedes (31 percent) now perceive the tone to be fairly or very hyped/alarmist.

This is a decrease of ten percentage points since the end of May/beginning of June and 36 percentage points lower than in March. The proportion of Swedes who perceive the tone to be fairly or very cautious/watchful has gradually increased from 5 percent in March to 15 percent in this wave.

Supporters of the Moderate Party perceive the reporting to be hyped to a greater extent than others, with 41 percent responding fairly or very hyped/alarmist. Supporters of the Left Party perceive the reporting to be the least alarmist, with a corresponding figure of 23 percent.

Reduced news consumption during the summer

A decrease in the consumption of corona-related news can be seen in July for most media channels, compared to when this was previously measured. Swedish Television (SVT) is, as previously, the most common source of news about the coronavirus, followed by the tabloid Aftonbladet, TV4, Sveriges Radio and local morning newspapers.

One in ten Swedes (10 percent) has not consumed any news about the coronavirus during the preceding two-day period, which is the largest proportion since the survey began. It is predominantly younger people who have not consumed any news.

Among people aged between 18 and 29, one in five (20 percent) has not accessed information about the coronavirus in the preceding two days, compared to one in fifty (two percent) among people aged 65 or older.

Confidence in the media's reporting is declining

Confidence in various media's reporting on the coronavirus is declining across all media. The largest decrease, by 14 percentage points, can be seen for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter and local morning newspapers, followed by Svenska Dagbladet, which has decreased by 13 percentage points. This is most likely due to less news being consumed during the summer.

Notably, the proportion of Swedes that say they have low confidence has not actually increased, but instead a larger proportion respond that they don't know/don't have an opinion compared to in previous waves.

Some differences can be seen between men and women's confidence in different media. Men have less confidence in Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet, Swedish Television (SVT), Swedish Radio and TV4, but greater confidence in foreign/international media compared with women. There are no differences for local morning newspapers and the tabloid Expressen.

Confidence in government officials is increasing

Following a decline in confidence in government officials at the end of the spring, confidence has strengthened by nine percentage points since the beginning of June.

There is greater confidence in government officials among women compared with men, and among supporters of the parties in government compared, in particular, with supporters of the Christian Democrats and the Sweden Democrats.

For other professional groups that comment on the coronavirus in the news media, no significant differences in confidence can be seen in the last two waves.

Confidence is still highest for doctors and other healthcare professionals as well as for researchers. Confidence in researchers who comment on the coronavirus is greater among women than men and among supporters of the Green Party and the Left Party compared with those of other parties.

Agreement among professionals

Agreement within different professional groups with regard to the handling of the pandemic in Sweden is perceived in the same way as in the penultimate survey undertaken in June.

Doctors and other healthcare professionals are still perceived as the group that is most in agreement, followed by government officials and researchers. Men perceive politicians, journalists and government officials to be less in agreement compared to women.
Cargo moved on the 3,700-kilometre-long St. Lawrence Seaway in July was down 7.95 per cent compared to the same time last year, figures released recently show.

Thats a slight increase compared to this years April to June figures, where cargo shipped was down 8.37 per cent compared to 2019.

The total number of vessel transits  lakers, tugs and barges, and ocean-going ships through the system  was down 13.42 per cent, or 246 fewer ships over the same time last year.

The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. said all cargo shipped dropped 1.347 million tons.

Year-to-date shipments of liquid bulk were down 20.44 per cent, followed by coal down 16.38 per cent, and iron ore down 12.99 per cent.

Dry bulk shipments dropped 12.45 per cent. Meanwhile, grain shipments were up 6.72 per cent and whole general cargo climbed 3.64 per cent.

Its great to see the continued strong numbers for Canadian grain shipments, which has helped offset significant declines in key cargo sectors such as iron ore, dry bulk and petroleum, said seaway president and chief executive officer Terence Bowles in a release from the Chamber of Marine Commerce..

He said the seaway has been a vital export corridor for Canadian farmers to reach world markets during the pandemic.

Were hopeful that grain numbers will remain strong with the new crop harvests in the autumn, he added.
On June 27, 2019, viewers of the second night of the first round of the Democratic presidential debates enjoyed what appeared to be a light diversion. There were 10 candidates crowded onstage, including the future presidential and vice presidential nominees, and they tended to get in one anothers way. Amid the confusion and early campaign fumbling, the most entertaining figure was the long-shot candidate and bestselling author Marianne Williamson, who combined a startling boldnessThe Democratic Party should be on the side of reparations for slaverywith some fuzzy-seeming spiritual poetic rhetoric, in a way that sounded wholly out of place.

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Her closing remarks, in particular, were nothing like what anybody else was saying:

Im sorry we havent talked more tonight about how were going to beat Donald Trump. I have an idea about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is not going to be beaten just by insider politics talk. Hes not going to be beaten just by somebody who has plans. Hes going to be beaten by somebody who has an idea of what this man has done. This man has reached into the psyche of the American people and hes harnessed fear for political purposes. So, Mr. President, if youre listening, I want you to hear me, please. You have harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out. So, I, sir, I have a feeling you know what youre doing. Im going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.

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It was oddly stirring, but self-evidently kooky. Not something youd hear from a real, professional politician. The campaign season carried on, and Williamson, as expected, got bumped off the stage when the debate qualifying rules tightened up. The more normal candidates, with their more normal messages about legislative records and policy proposals, took over. It was time to be serious about the election.

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Thirteen months after that debate, Joe Biden gave his speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, as the overwhelming choice of the voters and the party establishment. He opened by warning the viewers that the president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division. Twenty-some minutes later, he circled back to that image for his grand conclusion:

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With passion and purpose, let us beginyou and I together, one nation, under Godunited in our love for America and united in our love for each other. For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation. And this is a battle that we, together, will win. I promise you.

Marianne Williamsons message is what the Democrats are carrying into November.

For more of Slates political coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Technavio has been monitoring the enteral feeding devices market and it is poised to grow by USD 1.07 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 6% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200820005511/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Enteral Feeding Devices Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire).

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please request the Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

Frequently Asked Questions-

What is the year-over-year growth of the enteral feeding devices market in 2020?

Technavio says that the year-over-year growth of the market is 5.80% in 2020.

Technavio says that the year-over-year growth of the market is 5.80% in 2020. At what rate is the market projected to grow during the forecast period 2020-2024?

Growing at a CAGR of over 6%, the market growth will accelerate in the forecast period of 2020-2024.

Growing at a CAGR of over 6%, the market growth will accelerate in the forecast period of 2020-2024. What is the key factor driving the market?

The growing number of strategic alliances.

The growing number of strategic alliances. Who are the top players in the market?

Abbott Laboratories, Avanos Medical Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Becton, Dickinson and Co., Boston Scientific Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., CONMED Corp., Cook Group Inc., Fresenius SE Co. KGaA, and Nestle SA. are the top players in the market.

Abbott Laboratories, Avanos Medical Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Becton, Dickinson and Co., Boston Scientific Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., CONMED Corp., Cook Group Inc., Fresenius SE Co. KGaA, and Nestle SA. are the top players in the market. Which region is expected to hold the highest market share?

North America.

North America. What is the major trend for the enteral feeding devices market?

Increasing demand for wireless enteral feeding devices.

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Abbott Laboratories, Avanos Medical Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Becton, Dickinson and Co., Boston Scientific Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., CONMED Corp., Cook Group Inc., Fresenius SE Co. KGaA, and Nestle SA. are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

A growing number of strategic alliances have been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the risks and complications associated with enteral feeding might hamper market growth.

Enteral Feeding Devices Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Enteral Feeding Devices Market is segmented as below:

Product Accessories Enteral Pumps

Geographic Landscape Asia Europe North America ROW



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR40765

Enteral Feeding Devices 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 enteral feeding devices market report covers the following areas:

Enteral Feeding Devices Market size

Enteral Feeding Devices Market trends

Enteral Feeding Devices Market industry analysis

This study identifies the increasing demand for wireless enteral feeding devices as one of the prime reasons driving the enteral feeding devices market growth during the next few years.

Enteral Feeding Devices Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the enteral feeding devices market, including some of the vendors such as Abbott Laboratories, Avanos Medical Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Becton, Dickinson and Co., Boston Scientific Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., CONMED Corp., Cook Group Inc., Fresenius SE Co. KGaA, and Nestle SA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the enteral feeding devices market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Enteral Feeding Devices Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist enteral feeding devices market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the enteral feeding devices market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the enteral feeding devices market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of enteral feeding devices 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 size and forecast 2019-2024

Market outlook

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY PRODUCT

Market segmentation by product

Comparison by product

Accessories Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Enteral pumps Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by product

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Asia Market size and forecast 2019-2024

ROW Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Growing number of strategic alliances

Increasing demand for wireless enteral feeding devices

Guidelines for designing and manufacturing enteral devices

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Abbott Laboratories

Avanos Medical Inc.

B. Braun Melsungen AG

Becton, Dickinson and Co.

Boston Scientific Corp.

Cardinal Health Inc.

CONMED Corp.

Cook Group, Inc.

Fresenius SE Co. KGaA

Nestle SA

PART 14: APPENDIX

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors

PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200820005511/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/
On Thursday, the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Department of State Health Services released data on confirmed COVID-19 cases at the public school district level for the first time.

Public schools are required to report positive COVID-19 cases on school campuses. The data is updated each week on the DSHS website.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus updates: 155 new cases, no new COVID-19 deaths in Bexar County

Since Aug. 2 through the week ending Sept. 20, DSHS and TEA reported 3,445 cumulative positive student cases and 2,850 positive staff cases statewide.

In San Antonio, three of the largest school districts reported more than 80 COVID-19 cases combined for students and staff. In Bexar County, public schools were allowed to return to in-person instruction starting Sept. 8. However, virtual learning is still an option.

Scroll below for a breakdown of the COVID-19 cases for all the major San Antonio-area public schools. Districts are listed in alphabetical order. There was no data on Brooks Academy of Science & Engineering, Lackland ISD and School of Science & Technology Discover.
A village in southern Italy that offered tourists free lodgings to boost the local economy has been inundated with 8000 holiday requests from across the world.

At the end of June, the remote medieval hamlet of San Giovanni in Galdo, around 90 miles northeast of Naples, decided to offer travellers a free one-week stay in one of its quaint village homes in a bid to boost the area's tourism industry.

The small village, which has the capacity to house 12 visitors each week, is now sorting through 8,000 holiday applications, some from as far away as Kazakhstan, after the campaign went viral.

The initiative, translated as Give Yourself to Molise - the southern Italian region in which the village sits - was so successful that requests were flooding in from 'all over the world'.

Pictured: The remote medieval mountaintop commune of San Giovanni in Galdo, around 90 miles northeast of Naples, which has seen demand for holidays skyrocket after offering tourists the chance to stay for free

Pictured: One of the first groups of tourists to arrive at San Giovanni in Galdo after the scheme was introduced. The small village, which has the capacity to house 12 visitors each week, is now sorting through 8,000 holiday applications from across the world

Pictured: A locator map shows San Giovanni in Galdo, which is around 90 miles northeast of Naples

'We did not expect such a response,' said Stefano Trotta, who lead the campaign.

'We had about 70 requests from Kazakhstan, some from remote Russian towns ... from all over the world really.'

The campaign has set aside three village properties for the remaining summer months for the individuals successful in their applications.

In order to choose from the sheer volume of requests, campaign leaders are asking each applicant why they wanted to visit the mountaintop village, with the best answers being awarded the places.

The success of the scheme has led neighbouring villages to ask whether the initiative could be extended to include them.

Pictured: One of the first groups of tourists to arrive at San Giovanni in Galdo under the new scheme

The region, as in other areas of Italy, has been the victim of a decades-long population decline with young residents usually leaving home to find work in nearby Naples, or Rome.

It is thought that by boosting local tourism, jobs will be created, meaning that young Molisanos will no longer have to leave.

Other incentives have been implemented in the country in a bid to turn back the damage caused to local economies by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Sicilian government is offering to slash air fares by 50 per cent for tourists who book flights and accommodation together for a holiday on the island this summer.

Low-income households have also been handed 450 (500) by the Italian government to spend on a domestic holiday, the Telegraph reported.

However, other towns and villages have resorted to more extreme measures, selling off their uninhabited properties for ridiculously low prices.

Pictured: A view of the small commune of San Giovanni in Galdo, Italy. Applicants are being asked why they wanted to visit the medieval hamlet and those with the best answers are being awarded a place in one of the homes

Some, including Fabbriche di Vergemoli - a village in the Garfagna region of northern Tuscany - have put their abandoned homes on the market for just 1 (90p).

Fabbriche di Vergemoli has been a success story in the scheme, attracting investments of around 4million (3.6million).

All the available properties have been purchased, with interest reported from the US, Russia and China.

The village's newfound fame, and the promise of investment, has seen other homes being bought for up to 40,000.

Around 40 restoration projects are due to start in the village next year, the Telegraph reported.
Rolls-Royce has partnered with aerospace firm Reaction Engines to create a propulsion system for a new supersonic business jet designed by Virgin Galactic.

Richard Branson-owned Virgin Galactic this month unveiled the plane's design that will fly up to 19 passengers at up to three times the speed of sound.

Reaction Engines, based in Oxfordshire, signed a 20 million partnership with Rolls-Royce that will include sharing of the technology.

If it goes ahead as planned, the cutting-edge plane will fly at more than 60,000 feet - twice as high as a traditional commercial plane - and complete a trip from London to New York in 90 minutes.

Reaction Engines employs 200 staff and has been researching next generation space propulsion systems since it was founded in 1988.

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The sleek airplane is capable of shuttling nine to 19 passengers, while traveling at speeds of Mach 3 - three times faster than the speed of sound.

Virgin Galactic first revealed its plans for a supersonic jet earlier this year, by announcing a partnership with NASA.

Through this partnership, the craft design passes a mission concept review  it can 'meet the high-level requirements and objectives of the mission.'

Rolls-Royce is the main engine partner on the project but with work with Reaction Engines to create more efficient engines capable of such high speeds.

This will include using the firms thermal technology - designed to reduce the temperature of compressed air rushing into an engine from over 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit to room temperature in a 20th of a second.

They will integrate this technology into their gas turbine engine and hybrid-electric systems to make them more efficient while carrying larger payloads.

Reaction has a number of projects in development including a single-stage-to orbit space plane, and a number of hypersonic engine technologies.

Its Sabre engine is capable of operating at more than 2,500mph and combines a gas turbine with the properties of a rocket - its not known to what extent the sabre engine will be used by Rolls-Royce in the Virgin Galactic aircraft.

Mark Thomas, CEO of Reaction, told the Times that their technology was transformational - something completely recognised by Rolls-Royce.

'My assumption is they think there will be a battleground for technology on the other side of this pandemic,' he said when talking about the partnership.

The agreement between the two firms has been dubbed a 'strategic partnership' designed to investigate how designs by Reaction can help Rolls-Royce.

Thomas told the Telegraph: 'Our design has demonstrated cooling of 900C in less time than the blink of an eye. We can take air from temperature of molten lava to a level where you could comfortably stand in it.'

He said the deal - which includes a further 20 million investment from Rolls-Royce which already holds a stake in the Oxfordshire firm - was an endorsement of their technology from one of the biggest players in the industry.

The craft is said to travel in altitudes of 60,000 feet and can be customized to fit customers' needs

George Whitesides, chief space officer, Virgin Galactic said, 'We are excited to complete the Mission Concept Review and unveil this initial design concept of a high speed aircraft, which we envision as blending safe and reliable commercial travel with an unrivaled customer experience.'

'We are pleased to collaborate with the innovative team at Rolls-Royce as we strive to develop sustainable, cutting-edge propulsion systems for the aircraft, and we are pleased to be working with the FAA to ensure our designs can make a practical impact from the start.'

'We have made great progress so far, and we look forward to opening up a new frontier in high speed travel.'

The firm is set to designed customized cabins to address customer needs, including business or first class seating arrangements.

Virgin Galactic is aiming to lead the way for of state-of-the-art sustainable aviation fuel, the firm explained.

The aerospace company also announced a new partnership with Rolls-Royce to collaborate in designing and developing engine propulsion technology for the high speed commercial aircraft. The team is set to start the next design phase shortly

The Virgin Team continues to work on its aircraft and are gearing up to start the next phase of design - including specific system architectures.

They will also look at determining which materials to use in the design and manufacturing of the aircraft and its cabin.

Virgin designers will also work to address key challenges in thermal management, maintenance, noise, emissions, and economics that routine high speed commercial flights would entail.

Pricing for seats have not been revealed, but Virgin Galactic is selling spots on its tourist spaceplane - VSS Unity - for $250,000.

The deal between Rolls-Royce and Reaction could go beyond just the Virgin Galactic aircraft, according to Thomas.

Rolls has been working with Reaction Engines since 2018 after a contract by the Ministry of Defence asked them to investigate high-speed military aircraft.

The new move widens the arrangement to include civil aircraft including the new Virgin Galactic aircraft - with flights possible within a decade.
(Newser)  The Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in central Japan has a display that shows how "ninjas infiltrated undetected by anyone, and escaped as well." Stealthy thieves managed to do the same thing at the museum earlier this week, the Guardian reports. Authorities say the thieves broke in with a crowbar early Monday, stole a heavy safe containing the weekend's revenue of 1 million yenaround $9,500and made their getaway in under three minutes. The thieves triggered an alarm but they were long gone by the time police arrived at the museum in Iga city in Mie prefecture, around halfway between Osaka and Nagano.

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When police arrived, the 330-pound safe was missing. "It was a three-minute job," a museum official says, per CNN. "It was planned, they must have scoped us out and singled us out." A security camera at the secluded museum captured a man climbing out of the passenger seat of a vehicle and tilting the camera down to face the ground. "While there is no word on the suspects appearance, there are no suggestions that they were clad head-to-toe in black and armed with shuriken throwing stars," the Guardian notes. (Read more Japan stories.)
The COVID-19 pandemic might have significantly impacted the operations of the recently concluded 2020 Shanghai Book Fair, but organizers and visitors alike showed no lack of enthusiasm for the annual event.

The event was the first large-scale book fair to take place in China following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in late January.

Despite the crowd restrictions-municipal epidemic-prevention protocols mandated that the fair's visitor limit had to be capped at a third of its usual figure-organizers nevertheless sought to expand the fair's offerings by building temporary tents outdoors to showcase more books and publications.

This year, the organizers launched a new project that paired authors with renowned restaurants in Shanghai to help the embattled food-and-beverage industry.

The Writers' Gourmet Menu project took seven authors and their guests to seven restaurants, where they shared their thoughts about life, literature and cuisine. Video recordings of these sharing sessions were then showcased at the fair. Visitors who bought books at the fair or at designated bookshops also received discounts for dining at these restaurants.

"The project was launched as the joint effort of the cultural and tourism administrations of Shanghai to bolster the business of the dining and tourism industry," says Sun Ganlu, a renowned novelist and deputy director of the Shanghai Writers' Association, who chose to dine at the Fengze Lou restaurant at Park Hotel.

Writers are often strong advocates of their city, and anecdotes about their favorite dining and drinking spots can add a cultural touch to the city, explains Xu Jiong, head of the municipal administration of press and publication.

"We also hope that this new project will introduce more good authors to new readers," he adds.

More than 100 new books about the pandemic were introduced at the fair. Fudan University Press, which presented more than 1,100 new publications, introduced a new book about the economic impact that COVID-19 would have on the world in the long term.

According to Jiao Yang, the Party chief of Fudan University, the new book was an example of "Fudan University's contributions to the fight against COVID-19", noting that the university had rendered assistance to those in the medical, science, research, education, consultancy and public-service sectors.

Visitors to the Shanghai Book Fair are interested in cultural products related to publications. [Fang Zhe/Xinhua]

Going Online

In line with the response by many industries to leverage the power of digital technologies to overcome challenges presented by the epidemic, the Shanghai Book Fair held an unprecedented number of online book launches and reading events.

Fifteen online platforms, including video-sharing application Douyin and the web community of Little Red Book, joined hands to form an online community where book launches, book-signing sessions and other reading events were livestreamed to the public.

Many publishing houses had also developed their own online platforms and held online events to introduce their authors and publications. While more than 700 reading events took place offline during the book fair, even more such events were held online.

These online interactions among authors, editors and readers resulted in an increased interest in the books, as illustrated by record sales.

Sales from major online shops affiliated with the Shanghai Book Fair raked in more than 17.3 million yuan ($2.5 million), according to Xu. Fan Deng, a popular vlogger who focuses on books, made 1.12 million yuan worth of sales on the online platforms.

A young reader concentrates on a book at the fair. [Fang Zhe/Xinhua]

Sold-out Event

Enthusiasm for the physical event was just as overwhelming. According to the organizers, the average amount spent by visitors at the fairgrounds rose by 23 percent compared to last year.

The visitor cap had also done little to dampen interest. Tickets to the fair were sold out within hours after they were made available online and at 12 physical book stores.

Xu says that the new visitor limit imposed this year might have even helped with boosting sales, pointing out that the reduced crowd figures had resulted in a more comfortable fair experience. Furthermore, this pleasant experience could even enhance the confidence that people have in book editors and publishers.

Another innovation that the fair debuted this year was a new ticket system that was made possible by the Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai, which was a co-host of the event.

The institution, which usually helps Chinese enterprises hold international exhibitions, made sure that every visitor at the fair was given an identification number that could be used for contact tracing should the need arise.

The council also helped to optimize the design of the exhibition area so that visitors could maintain social distancing while browsing.

"The fact that this annual celebration of books in Shanghai has continued to take place despite the current situation underlines the public confidence in the municipality's administrative capabilities and people's good manners," says Xu.

(Source: China Daily)
Doomsday author Chad Daybell this morning pleaded not guilty to all charges related to the deaths of his wife Lori Vallows two children and had his trial set for early next year.

Daybell's defense attorney entered the pleas on his behalf to two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, and two counts of conspiracy during an arraignment that was held via Zoom due to coronavirus restrictions.

Daybell, 52, did not speak during the hearing beyond uttering 'yes' or 'no' in response to Judge Steven Boyce's questions concerning procedural matters.

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Chad Daybell, 52 (left), on Friday pleaded not guilty to two counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, and two counts of conspiracy

Judge Steven Boyce set Daybell's trial for January 11, 2021. It is expected to last three weeks

Daybell is accused of hiding the bodies of Vallow's children, JJ Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17

Daybell is accused of hiding the bodies of his dead step-children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and seven-year-old Joshua JJ Vallow on his property in Salem, Idaho, where their remains were unearthed in June, leading to his arrest.

The judge scheduled Daybell's trial for January 11, 2021. It is expected to last three weeks, reported USA Today.

If convicted as charged, Daybell could face up to 20 years in prison. He is due back in court for a pre-trial conference on December 10.

Neither Daybell nor his wife, Vallow, have been accused of harming Tylee and JJ. Authorities have yet to say how the children died, or whether homicide charges will be filed in the future.

Vallow has been jailed for the past five months on two felony counts of conspiracy to destroy or conceal evidence for allegedly helping Daybell hide her childrens bodies. She is scheduled to be arraigned on those charges on September 10.

Vallow was arrested in March. Daybell was arrested in June after the discovery of the bodies

In this Tuesday, June 9, 2020, aerial photo, investigators search for human remains at Chad Daybell's residence in the 200 block of 1900 east, in Salem, Idaho

She previously pleaded not guilty to three misdemeanors charges for contempt, resisting and obstructing and criminal solicitation to commit a crime.

Tylee vanished on September 8, 2019, just days before her 17th birthday. Investigators said her body was burned and dismembered before being buried sometime the following day on Daybell's property in rural Idaho.

Her half-brother JJ, Vallow's son from her deceased husband, Charles Vallow, was last seen two weeks later on September 23. His body clad in a red pajama and black socks was tightly wrapped in duct tape and plastic and buried the same day in Daybell's yard, investigators said.

Authorities believe Lori's now-deceased brother, Alex Cox, brought the children's bodies to Daybell's home to bury them.

Vallow previously pleaded not guilty to three misdemeanors charges for contempt, resisting and obstructing and criminal solicitation to commit a crime

Daybell is pictured at a preliminary hearing on August 3, which saw a detective describe in excruciating details how investigators unearthed the remains of Tylee and JJ

There are still many unanswered questions in this case concerning a series of strange deaths of relatives surrounding Vallow and Daybell.

The saga began last summer after Cox fatally shot Vallows estranged husband, Charles, in suburban Phoenix in what he asserted was self-defense. Vallow had been seeking a divorce, saying Lori believed she had become a god-like figure who was responsible for ushering in the biblical end times.

A short time later, she and the kids moved to Idaho, where Daybell lived. He ran a small publishing company and had written many fiction books about apocalyptic scenarios loosely based on the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Friends said he claimed to be able to receive visions from 'beyond the veil.'

At the time, Chad Daybell was married to Tammy Daybell. The 49-year-old woman died in October of what her obituary said were natural causes.

Authorities grew suspicious when he married Vallow just two weeks later on a beach in Hawaii. Police had Tammys body exhumed last December in Utah for further investigation; the results of that autopsy have not been released.

Around the same time, Vallow's brother, Cox, was found dead after overdosing on the drug Narcan.

Police began searching for Tylee and JJ in November after relatives raised concerns.
(JNS)  Israel is set to sign a historic agreement with the United Arab Emirates that would see the two Middle Eastern nations officially strike diplomatic relations and exchange embassies.

The move represents a major validation of the Netanyahu inside-out regional peace doctrine. For years, Israels senior statesman has argued that it would not be a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that would be the key to peace in the greater region, but rather that peace with the greater Arab world will increase the chances of an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

Netanyahu...
As a candidate, Donald Trump surrounded himself with a loyal coterie of advisers who he praised as only the very best people. But for a growing number from that original inner circle, the bosss presidential term has been bruising.

With a fraud indictment handed down Thursday, former campaign CEO and chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon became the latest in a succession of Trump insiders to face criminal charges.

Bannon, who pleaded not guilty, joined a roster that has included longtime adviser Roger Stone, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his deputy Rick Gates, and personal attorney Michael Cohen  all of them charged over the past four years.

MORE: Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon indicted for fraud as part of crowdfunding campaign to build border wall

PHOTO: In this Dec. 5, 2017, file photo, Steve Bannon speaks before introducing Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore during a campaign event in Fairhope, Ala. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images, FILE)

Another personal attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is reported to be the subject of an investigation for his business relationship with two men arrested in an alleged campaign finance scheme. Giuliani has professed his innocence.

It is a record that burns the president  who has called his team the most investigated in history.

What they did to that man -- what they did to Paul Manafort, Trump ruminated at a Fox News town hall in June. Roger Stone -- what theyve done to Roger Stone because he knew me What they did to General Flynn my job was made -- just to say -- My job was made harder by phony witch hunts.

Manafort, Cohen and Stone were all convicted on a range of federal charges, and Gates pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. The Justice Department withdrew charges against Flynn after he had initially pleaded guilty.

MORE: Appeals court holds rehearing on DOJ effort to drop Flynn case

For some of the Trump insiders, the gauntlet of criminal court was life-altering.

Cohen, who remains in home confinement, wrote in the foreword of a forthcoming book that he made choices along the way -- terrible, heartless, stupid, cruel, dishonest, destructive choices, but they were mine and constituted my reality and life.

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MORE: Cohen's book foreword: Trump 'wouldnt mind if I was dead'

PHOTO: In this Dec. 12, 2018, file photo, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, exits federal court after his sentencing hearing in New York. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images, FILE)

Others have maintained their steadfast allegiance. Manafort, also released to home confinement in May from a 7-year sentence, has maintained his silence. Stone only grew more effusive in his praise of the president as he awaited a prison sentence  and became the recipient of executive clemency from Trump.

PHOTO: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is escorted into court for his arraignment in New York Supreme Court in New York, June 27, 2019. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters, FILE)

Stone, still angered that Bannon testified against him at his trial in November, offered this frosty message to his former political ally on word of his arrest: I wish him well and will be praying for him as the Bible tells us to pray for those who trespass against us.

MORE: Justice Department releases Stone clemency grant after inquiry from judge

PHOTO: In this Feb. 20, 2020, file photo, Roger Stone, former adviser and confidante to President Donald Trump, leaves the federal court in Washington, D.C. after being sentenced to 3 years in prison. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images, FILE)

As Trump seeks re-election, he and his allies have dismissed the allegations of criminal conduct against those who have been in his circle  calling the allegations evidence of persecution of Trump by entrenched political interests.

His opponents and critics see evidence of a rot that starts at the top. Biden spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield unsparing in her reaction to the Bannon arrest.

Donald Trump has run the most corrupt administration in American history, she said. So is it really any surprise that yet another one of the grifters he's surrounded himself with, and placed in the highest levels of government was just indicted? Sadly it is not.

Trump is by no means the only national politician who has seen those in his orbit -- friends, advisers and political donors -- face criminal charges.

The Watergate burglary, which led to Richard Nixons downfall, resulted in a number of Nixons associates, including his campaign operative G. Gordon Liddy, being convicted. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger, who was convicted of cocaine possession in the 1980s. And on his last day in office, Clinton made the controversial decision to pardon financier and major Democratic donor Marc Rich, who had fled overseas to escape indictment for alleged financial crimes. In 2009, a top donor to Democrats John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama -- New York financier Hassan Nemazee  was sent to prison after being convicted of financial crimes.

Richard Painter, an attorney and frequent Trump critic who served as ethics counsel in the administration of President George W. Bush, said he considers this presidents record to be more problematic than others in the recent past. In an interview with ABC News, Painter said he wonders if the president simply doesnt seem to care who he hires, describing the staffing decisions as epic disasters.

Even some of the presidents most reliable allies are loathe to disagree. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has been an informal Trump adviser and serves as a consultant to ABC News, said Thursday that when it comes to hiring, Trump has a blind spot.

Its an indictment of his selection of the people around him, Christie said.

ABC News reporter Ali Dukakis contributed to this report.

Trump's checkered hiring record widens as Bannon joins list of indicted insiders originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Lucid Motors has announced a new luxury sedan called the Air.

The company has made some bold claims when it comes to the performance of the car and is going head-to-head with Tesla's EVs on the market. Here's everything we know about Lucid Air.

First off, the company claims that it's the fastest charging EV on the market. Looks like the Lucid Air can charge up to 20 miles a minute thanks to its 900-volt charging architecture, which when hooked up to 350kW fast-chargers, could produce 300 miles of range in just 20 minutes of charging.

 Lucid



Lucid's charging speeds top Tesla's, which clocks in about 15 miles per minute when it's plugged into Tesla's V3 Supercharger. If the claims turn out to be true, then it means one can essentially get a driving range of up to 483km in just 20 minutes.



Besides the charging time, the Lucid Air also claims a record-breaking driving range of 832kms. This is 28% more than the range of Tesla Model S Long Range Plus, which is currently knowns for its driving range. It'll be interesting to see how Lucid Air performs in the real-world against Tesla.

 Lucid



The company also noted that it's working on a home charger with bi-directional charging. This is something we've never seen before and it'll be interesting to see how it works. This type of charger will allow the electricity to flow two ways i.e. from the grind to vehicle and vice-versa.



How will help? Well, think of situations where you'd need power from your car. It could be very helpful to power your "off-grid vacation" or a picnic.

The Lucid Air sure seems like an interesting EV but it remains to be seen how it'll compete in the market against a well-established player. After all, this is the first Tesla rival to come out with an EV.

Source: Lucid
President Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their joint news conference in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)

To the editor: Now that the Senate Intelligence Committee has released its report confirming Russia's interference in our 2016 election, what do the Republican members of the committee plan to do?

I'm talking about the acting chairman, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.). I'm talking about Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Richard Burr (N.C.), James Risch (Idaho), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Ben Sasse (Neb.).

Will they publicly correct the president when he continues to yell, "hoax, lies, fake news"? Will they squirm on their soft cushions, fearful of his attacks, his bullying, denigrations and putdowns? Or will they stand up for truth, to keep this from happening again and to protect our 2020 election from interference?

What words will they sputter to their children and grandchildren when, years from now, the kids ask, "How did you let this happen?"

Roz Levine, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: I was not surprised by the Senate Intelligence Committee's findings. The question that no one seems to ask is this: Why does Russian President Vladimir Putin put so much effort into getting Trump elected?

I think the answer lies in the fact that Trump is easily manipulated. Rex Tillerson, Trump's former secretary of State, reportedly called Trump a "moron." In his new book, former national security advisor John Bolton depicts Trump as an incompetent.

In his dealings with the leaders of China, North Korea and Russia, Trump has raved about the great progress he's made. In reality, North Korea has not curbed its nuclear program, China has not come to any significant trade deal with the U.S. and Russia has not retreated from its aggression.

Authoritarians have played Trump like a yo-yo. I think we can see why Putin supports our president.

Robert Friedman, Palm Desert

..

To the editor: The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report provides very strong evidence that Trump lied in writing to former Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a crime that probably would have sent anyone else to prison.

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The idea that Trump simply did not recall talking to his political advisor Roger Stone about WikiLeaks doesn't even meet the standard of plausible deniability. Trump commuted Stone's prison sentence to cover up for his campaign's conduct in the 2016 election, which with his lies show his effort to obstruct justice.

Your article notes that Mueller's report failed to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia; however, it should always be noted that the Mueller report also said that efforts to obstruct the investigation interfered with its ability to reach a conclusion. Trump and his operatives were not exonerated.

The additional evidence that former Trump campaigns chairman Paul Manafort was in close and secret contact with Russian military intelligence is a red flag if ever there was one.

Trump welcomed Putin's interference in our democracy. He needs to be held accountable and removed from office.

David Bendall, Aliso Viejo
A Delhi court on Friday summoned former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and nine other people as accused in the murder of Intelligence Bureau officer Ankit Sharma, who was killed on February 25 during the north-east Delhi riots.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purshottam Pathak took cognizance of the police chargesheet in the case and directed the accused to appear before him through video conferencing on August 28.

The court said prima facie it shows that Hussain had provoked and instigated people to promote enmity between Hindus and Muslims, by claiming that Hindu people had killed a number of Muslims and that they should not let them go scot-free.

On his provocation/ instigation, the Muslims turned violent on February 24 and February 25 and started burning shops and pelting stones and petrol bombs houses belonging to Hindus situated in that locality.The uncontrolled mob turned into rioters and in process of rioting caught hold of Ankit Sharma and dragged him to Chand Bagh Pulia and attacked him using sharp and blunt objects/ weapons in a brutal manner and threw his body in the drain, the judge said.

The judge said that the circumstances indicated that the riot took place in a planned manner resulted from a well hatched conspiracy and it was abetted by the leader of the mob, accused Tahir Hussain.

The judge said Hussain had facilitated the rooptop of his house and provided logistical support to the rioters. The court also said Hussain was leading the mob and that there is sufficient evidence to take cognizance against Hussain and others.

Police had charged Hussain and others on June 3 under sections of murder, rioting, robbery among other sections.

But the court did not take cognizance under sections of 505 ( intent to incite, or which is likely to incite, any class or community of persons to commit any offence against any other class or community), and 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race etc) because of lack of sanction from the competent authority.

Even though cognisance has been taken and the case has been committed to sessions court for trial, it does not mean that offence is committed by the accused. It shows that the evidence given in the chargesheet is sufficient to start the trial. Moreover, the prosecution has to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt during the trial said advocate Javed Ali, who is represnting Hussain in the case.

MM Pathak also took the cognizance of another charge sheet filed in the murder case of one Hashim Ali against nine persons. The judge said that the accused persons had lost their individuality and started working with the mob minds. Police had said that the accused person created a whatsapp group named - Kattar Hindut Ekta -- to mobilise rioters.
Amy McGrath, the Democrat trying to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, challenged him on Thursday to three debates focused on health care and the economic crisis facing the nation amid the coronavirus pandemic.

One debate must address the health care crisis in Kentucky that has been so dramatically exacerbated by Washingtons unwillingness to control this pandemic, Ms. McGrath wrote in a letter to Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader. And as more than 1 million Kentuckians have filed for unemployment during this crisis, one debate must also address pulling our country out of this economic catastrophe.

Ms. McGrath also insisted for the sake of our democracy that a libertarian candidate in the race who could siphon votes away from Mr. McConnell, a Republican, be allowed to join them onstage.

Mr. McConnell had invited Ms. McGrath, a former fighter pilot, a day earlier to a one-on-one Lincoln-Douglas style debate with only a neutral time-keeping moderator.
Monique Hernandez registered nurse at Riverside community hospital is overcome with emotions during a memorial and candle light vigil for Hollywood Presbyterian Nurse Celia Marcos who died two days after testing positive for Coronavirus at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 6, 2020.

A group of health workers and their union sued the nation's largest hospital chain, accusing an HCA Healthcare medical center of recklessly endangering staff and patients by violating federal coronavirus guidance on protective equipment.

The suit filed Thursday alleges that management at HCA's Riverside Community Hospital in Southern California failed to provide workers with adequate protective equipment, such as masks and gowns, and pressured staff to ignore safety precautions to meet quotas. It says the hospital also failed to alert staff to possible Covid-19 exposures and pressured staff who had symptoms to return to work.

The hospital "failed to take reasonable and necessary precautions to protect their employees, patients, visitors, and the community from the harmful effects of COVID-19, thereby facilitating the spread of the virus and putting the surrounding community at an unnecessarily heightened risk of infection," the suit says.

The case, filed in the Riverside County Superior Court, is the first against a national health-care company, according to the Service Employees International Union, which initiated the suit on behalf of its 97,000 members.

Riverside Community Hospital said it disputes the claims, and "we will defend it vigorously."

"No one takes the health and safety of our workers more seriously than we do, and since day one, our top priority has been to protect them to keep them safe and keep them employed  so they can best care for our patients," a spokesman for the hospital said. "Any suggestion otherwise ignores the extensive work, planning and training we have done to ensure the delivery of high quality care during this pandemic."

Dave Regan, president of the union's California-based western chapter, said they decided to take action against HCA because they have been "particularly lax, and particularly sloppy and irresponsible" throughout the crisis. He added that the union represents staff in five HCA-owned hospitals in California and the company has "minimized and evaded responsibility."

"There are millions of health care workers out there who are risking their lives, who understand that this is part of what they signed up for and they're willing to do it, but they deserve their employers to be as accountable to them as they are to their patients and the facilities they work for," he said in an interview with CNBC. He said the suit takes on even more importance because Congress is negotiating whether to give legal protection to employers, including hospital owners, to shield them against coronavirus-related workplace hazard complaints.

"It would be an absolute moral failing and outrage to say, you can do anything you want, and you're not responsible, which is what the debate is in Congress," he said.

The four people in the suit include three hospital workers who were infected with Covid-19 and one whose mother, also an employee of the hospital, died of Covid-19.

"These individuals also believe they unknowingly spread the disease to family members or others in the community," the suit says. "Each of the individual Plaintiffs is a member of a racial minority group, making them statistically more likely to contract COVID-19, and more likely to suffer serious symptoms, including death."

The suit alleges that the "policies and practices" of the hospital "created or substantially assisted in the creation" of a public nuisance violation. The suit also says the hospital was negligent.

The hospital caused "substantial, life-threatening harms to the health and safety" of the workers as well as to the community, the suit alleges. It also "led to the death of a worker from COVID-19, depriving her family of future economic and non-economic benefits."

Hospital management allegedly pressured one plaintiff, Ray Valdivia, into working despite exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms, the suit says. It says Valdivia tested positive for Covid-19 "hours after finishing this shift." Over a month after Valdivia initially tested positive for Covid-19 and was still experiencing symptoms, he was directed to return to work unless he tested positive for the virus again, the suit says. It adds that Valdivia got tested, worked one shift, and then received the second test results, which showed a positive reading.

The hospital and corporate parent "fell far short of the CDC recommendations," the suit says, adding that some hospital workers were "verbally abused" by supervisors for requesting masks and face shields.

HCA's stock price was up more than 1% Friday afternoon. The company reported net income of about $1.08 billion for the second quarter, including $822 million in government relief that was provided to offset costs to hospitals caused by the pandemic.

As of June 30, HCA operated 186 hospitals and about 2,000 other care sites in 21 states and the United Kingdom, according to the company's second-quarter earnings report.

The suit follows a similar suit filed by the New York State Nurses Association in April when hospitals across New York and especially New York City were overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny attends a protest in Moscow on July 20, 2019. (Pavel Golovkin / Associated Press)

Russias most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, is hardly the first foe of President Vladimir Putin to suddenly suffer a life-threatening medical emergency, or a lethal one, under suspicious circumstances.

The 44-year-old dissident  a target of a number of attacks over the years  was in intensive care after being stricken Wednesday while on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. Allies believe he was poisoned; his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said that shortly before boarding, he had a cup of tea at an airport coffee shop.

Soon after, she recounted on Twitter, he was sweating, asking her to speak to him so he could focus on the sound of a voice, finally groaning in pain and staggering to the planes toilet. By the time the flight made an emergency landing in Omsk, another Siberian city, he had collapsed.

If proof emerges  and it may, because Navalnys family and supporters were trying to get him to a toxicology unit in Europe for specialized treatment  his fate would be grimly reminiscent of a string of cases in which dissident figures ended up sickened or dead of apparent poisoning.

Putin critics such as Bill Browder  the U.S.-British businessman who has spearheaded international Magnitsky Act legislation to help foreign governments target oligarchs after Russian whistleblower lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in 2009 under jailhouse torture  say the point of such attacks is not only to surreptitiously remove figures the Russian president finds nettlesome, but also to do so with a brazenness that lays down warnings to others and reveals a terrifying degree of impunity.

Navalny  who has likened Putin and his party to a gang of crooks and thieves  was well aware of the risks. Twice before, he had been doused in public by unknown assailants with a green-tinted antiseptic. After the first assault, he made a defiant appearance with his face painted green, calling on supporters to help him fight Kremlin-backed corruption. The second assault was more serious, leaving him with chemical burns.

Story continues

Decades ago, Russian intelligences penchant for poisonings was the stuff of Cold War legend. In 1978, on Londons landmark Waterloo Bridge, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was jabbed in the leg with a toxin-tipped umbrella, dying days later. The intelligence services of the then-Soviet Union and Bulgaria were suspected.

Even Nobel laureates were not immune. In 1971, Russias most famous dissident author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who later found refuge in the United States, survived a suspected poisoning attempt at a department store candy counter.

Here is a look at some high-profile poisonings in recent years in which Putin's hand was suspected. In all cases, the Kremlin denied involvement.

A family photo shows Alexander Litvinenko in his hospital bed in November 2006. He died days later.

Alexander Litvinenko

Litvinenko was a onetime operative for Russias FSB security service who found shelter in Britain after blowing the whistle over alleged state-sponsored assassinations. He died an agonizing death in November 2006 after lingering for several weeks gravely ill in a London hospital. The fatal dose of polonium was administered in a cup of tea, investigators learned.

Photographs from Litvinenkos final days showed him bald, wan and hollow-eyed, staring out from his hospital bed. While he could still speak and communicate, Litvinenko, who had worked as a consultant to British intelligence, laid the blame for his death on Putin. A British inquiry eventually concluded that the Russian president had most likely personally ordered the poisoning.

Just two weeks before his poisoning, Litvinenko tried to warn another potential target: journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose assassination he said had been ordered by the Russian leader.

Russian human rights advocate and journalist Anna Politkovskaya in March 2005. She was killed in Moscow in October 2006. (Jens Schlueter / AFP/Getty Images)

Anna Politkovskaya

The writer and activist aroused Putins ire with her journalistic coverage of the bloody conflict in Chechnya, including internationally acclaimed investigations of Russian human rights abuses. She was shot to death in 2006 in an elevator at her apartment block, but before that, she had been the victim of an apparent poisoning attempt.

Politkovskaya fell ill on a flight to the western city of Rostov to cover the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia's North Ossetia republic, a horrific episode in which at least 330 people, including 186 children, were killed after Chechen rebels seized hostages and a standoff with Russian forces ensued.

In an account for Britains Guardian newspaper, she offered a description of her poisoning that was chillingly similar to what would befall Navalny 16 years later.

The plane takes off. I ask for a tea, she wrote. At 21:50 I drink it. At 22:00 I realize that I have to call the air stewardess, as I am rapidly losing consciousness.

She eventually recovered, but her assassination was a scant two years later.

Vladimir Kara-Murza

In May 2015, Kara-Murza, a journalist turned opposition leader, fell abruptly and dramatically ill while meeting with fellow dissidents in Moscow, slipping into a coma from which he emerged a week later. Doctors told him his symptoms were consistent with poisoning, but they were unable to identify the toxin.

The same symptoms struck again in February 2017, sending him into organ failure, and this time, the team treating him  the same as during his earlier bout  placed him in a medically induced coma. Once again he survived. His lawyer tried, without success, to force the opening of a criminal case into his alleged poisoning.

Kara-Murza was a close associate of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who became a fierce Putin critic and an icon of dissent. He was gunned down in 2015 just outside the walls of the Kremlin.

Sergei Skripal

The former spy was imprisoned at home in Russia as a double agent, but eventually traded to Britain in a prisoner exchange. He made a peaceful life for himself in the English cathedral town of Salisbury, making the unusual decision to live under his own name. He seemingly believed himself safe, but former spymaster Putin was reported to take betrayals such as his very personally.

Along with his daughter Yulia, Skripal was nearly killed in 2018 by exposure to a military-grade nerve agent. Father and daughter eventually recovered.

And although British authorities painstakingly reconstructed the movements of his alleged assailants, identifying them as Russian intelligence operatives and naming them, Moscow never relented in its insistence that the pair were innocent tourists taking in the sights of Salisbury.




CHESTER COUNTY, PA  School districts in Chester County were awarded grant funding to help provide services for students with special needs, and learning complications related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf Thursday announced 678 education agencies across the state are receiving a portion of $20 million from the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund and the Pennsylvania Department of Education's federal funding from the CARES Act.

Chester County districts and charter schools were was awarded a total of $472,073.

These funds will allow the district to provide enhanced real-time instruction and services and support to students with complex needs, and provide services and supports to students with disabilities who may have fallen behind in some way due to the mandatory school closures. The funds will help schools address student losses in skills and behavior.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, an additional $5 million in Governor's Emergency Education Relief grant funding will be available to Preschool Early Intervention programs to provide compensatory educational services. This is federal funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act authorizes governors to determine the educational use of Governor's Emergency Education Relief Funds, which can be used towards the safe reopening of schools in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

The funding award amounts for school districts and charter schools in Chester County are:

Phoenixville Area School District, $40,112

Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, West Chester, $9,211

Renaissance Academy Charter School, Phoenxiville, $5,000

Chester Co Family Academy CS, West Chester, $1,000

Owen J Roberts School District, $66,051

Great Valley School District, $45,459

Collegium Charter School, Exton, $5,594

Insight PA Cyber Charter School, Exton , $5,958

Kennett Consolidated School District, $24,802

Oxford Area School District, $62,898

Avon Grove Charter School, West Grove, $5,000

Avon Grove School District, $37,355

Coatesville Area School District, $163,629.

This article originally appeared on the West Chester Patch
Tokyo & Singapore, August 21, 2020 - Orient Link Pte. Ltd. (OLL) and NEC Corporation (NEC) announced that they have signed an agreement to build the MIST Cable System (MIST). MIST will directly connect Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and India (Mumbai and Chennai) and deliver a design capacity of more than 216 terabits per second (Tbps). Construction of the nearly 8,100-kilometer optical submarine cable is targeted to be completed by the third quarter of FY2022.



The Asia region has experienced accelerated digital investment driven by data center growth, the proliferation of mobile, 5G services and business expansion of digital platforms, such as SNS, e-commerce and cloud services for enterprises. These advancements have contributed to an increasing amount of data traffic across submarine cables. MIST will further enhance and contribute to the much-needed expansion of communications networks from Asia, thereby improving network redundancy, ensuring highly reliable communications and expanding onward connectivity options in the Bay of Bengal.



"Globally, India and Southeast Asia are among the world's fastest-growing economies. I am very pleased to announce the launch of MIST, providing a truly connected India to our clients around the world, delivering high-quality, low-latency networks to the people in India as the nation charges forward with its digital transformation roadmap," said Yoshio Sato, CEO, OLL "Not only will MIST respond to the growing demands for inter-DC-connectivity across countries in the Southeast Asia region, but it ultimately allows for OLL to grow its offering and expand into India and beyond. OLL has selected NEC as a supply partner whose extensive experience in expeditiously implementing submarine cable systems will play a key role in our project's success."



"We are honored to be selected as the supplier for MIST together with our local affiliate in India (NEC Technologies India Private Ltd (NECTI)). In recent years, we have been supplying the majority of submarine cables in the region and this project enables NEC to continue contributing to advanced infrastructure for serving growing traffic demands," said Atsushi Kuwahara, General Manager, Submarine Network Division, NEC. "Together with NECTI, we intend to fully capitalize on our regional expertise in Southeast Asia and India to ensure the successful completion of this project."
Hyderabad, Aug 21 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Friday announced compensation and other aid to the families of nine people killed in the fire at a hydroelectric station at Srisailam.

The chief minister announced Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia to Divisional Engineer Srinivas Goud's family and Rs 25 lakh each to the families of the other dead. He also announced one job each to families of the deceased and other department wise benefits.

The nine employees were trapped after a huge fire broke out last night at Telangana State Generation Corporation (TS Genco) plant at Srisailam left bank canal in Nagarkurnool district.

The rescue workers have pulled out bodies of eight of the deceased. They were identified as Divisional Engineer Srinivas Goud (Hyderabad), Assistant Engineers Mohan Kumar, Uzma Fatima (Both Hyderabad), Sunder Naik (Suryapet), Venkat Rao (Paloncha), Junior Plant Attendant Kiran and a battery company employee Mahesh (Hyderabad).

Short circuit is believed to have caused the fire at unit one of the under tunnel power house. Of the 30 persons reported to be present at the spot, 15 escaped to safety through a tunnel while six were rescued by rescue personnel. They were admitted to a local hospital.

The chief minister ordered a probe into the fire incident by the Crime Investigation Department (CID).

Meanwhile, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi conveyed his condolences to the families of those killed in the fire at Srisailam hydel power station. He prayed for speedy recovery of the injured.

Owaisi tweeted that one of the victims Assistant Engineer Uzma Fatima, was a resident of Malakpet in his constituency.
The deadline for completion of Jet Airways (India) Ltds insolvency resolution process, which was earlier extended till August 21 due to the national lockdown, will be extended further because of the pandemic.

In a letter to Jet Airways employees on Thursday, a day before the end of the latest deadline for the insolvency process, the lenders-appointed resolution professional (RP) Ashish Chhawchharia said it is difficult to give a time frame for completion of the insolvency process because of the Covid-19 crisis.

While the CoC (Committee of Creditors) and the RP are taking all necessary steps to expedite the insolvency process, it is difficult to exactly predict when it will be completed, Chhawchharia said in the letter. The complications are multiplied due to the prevalent pandemic situation, but please be assured that the CoC and I are doing everything possible to conclude the process at the earliest, he added. A copy of the letter has been reviewed by Mint.

The insolvency process for Jet Airways, grounded since April 2019 due to a severe cash crunch, was earlier supposed to be completed by June 13. This was extended to August 21. When contacted, the RP said the deadline for completing the insolvency process has been extended due to the Covid-19-related restrictions. He said also that a fresh deadline for completion of the process hasnt been announced due to Covid-19 related uncertainties.
Michael Kelly, of Syracuse, is a graduate student at Syracuse Universitys Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

On Aug. 19, 2020, roughly 100 Syracuse University students gathered on the campuss quad, many without masks or social distancing. The next day, Vice Chancellor of Strategic Initiatives and Innovation J. Michael Haynie sent an email to the university community condemning the selfish and reckless behavior of students who participated in the gathering. He claimed that they jeopardized whether students can remain in-person or on campus for the remainder of the semester. While some may blame any potential coronavirus outbreak on the people who chose to gather on the quad, focusing on individual students deflects blame from the context, policy and institutional priorities that made the gathering possible.

Syracuse University likely chose to bring students back to campus this fall, and continue to tout residential or in-person instruction, to justify the schools extremely high cost of attendance and recent tuition increase. (The total cost of attendance now tops $76,000. Since 2014, tuition has increased from $40,380 to $53, 849.) As the Daily Orange reported last month, 65% of Syracuse Universitys 2020 revenue comes from tuition and the administration puts a high priority on maintaining that flow of tuition dollars.

The universitys tuition increases have not gone uncontested. Last semester, organizers from #NotAgainSU, a Black-led movement, demanded a tuition freeze. During negotiations, the chancellor said that the Board of Trustees would follow its own process for setting tuition, not listen to a particular group of students. Apparently, this process determined to raise tuition during a pandemic characterized by high unemployment and financial hardship for workers around the country.

It is also worth investigating who on the Board of Trustees sets the process for determining tuition. The 44 voting members of SUs Board of Trustees include Wall Street executives, real estate developers and corporate lawyers. The current chairperson was executive Vice President of a Koch Industries affiliate. The former chairman was a Bain Capital executive. Board members overwhelmingly belong to the class of people most likely to weather the pandemic, not suffer from the social inequities it has laid bare. Economic and financial incentives, as well as top-down university governance, are the crucial pieces of context that a narrow focus on individual student behavior ignores.

Haynies email contains no meaningful public health information. (What was the nature of the gathering? Was anyone infected? Will there be additional testing or contact tracing? If someone were there, what measures should they now take?) Rather, the email creates a paper trail in which the administration is blameless, does not take responsibility, and preemptively blames students for any potential outbreak.

The Vice Chancellors email states that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) is reviewing security footage and individuals identified will be referred to a student code of conduct process. It was only six months ago that the university administration used the code of conduct process to suspend 30 (primarily Black) students for sitting in at Crouse-Hinds Hall as part of the #NotAgainSU movement. During that same sit-in, DPS officers denied food, medicine, hygiene products and religious counsel from entering the building. The administration also falsely identified four Black women who were not present in the building after it closed. Why should anyone trust the universitys code of conduct process to be fair or impartial, or DPS officers to safely enforce social distancing or identify particular students?

The email concludes by stating that SU prioritizes the health and well-being of the Central New York community. Does bringing thousands of students to Syracuse during a pandemic prioritize the health and well-being of city residents, including campus workers? Does not formally paying property taxes to a tax-starved city contribute to city residents well-being? Do prohibitively high tuition costs make higher education accessible to people in the city? Does creating a market for luxury apartments that receive tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks from the city government contribute to the well-being of long-time city residents or tenants?

As we debate the universitys response to Covid-19 and its decision to bring students back to campus, we should continue to interrogate larger institutional structures and histories.

RELATED:

Syracuse University puts 23 students on interim suspension following quad gathering

Syracuse University responds to large gathering, says it may have done enough damage to shut down campus

It didnt seem that urgent: Hundreds of students gathered right under Syracuse Universitys nose
<p>Long-time critic of President Vladimir Putin, 44-year-old <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/alexei-navalny-6698" target="_blank">Alexei Navalny</a> </strong>was left "screaming in pain" during a flight to Moscow.</p><p>He was taken off the aircraft by stretcher and is now on a ventilator, unconscious "in a grave condition" in intensive care in the city of Omsk, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.</p><p>But Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation said they were sending an aircraft with a coma-specialised team on board after a request from anti-Kremlin activist Pyotr Verzilov, a member of protest punk rock and art group Pussy Riot.</p><p>Mr Verzilov was himself taken to the German capital by the organisation for treatment after being poisoned two years ago.</p><p>Cinema for Peace Foundation's founder, Jaka Bizilj, said the plane would land at around 10am local time (5am UK time).</p><p>"It seems like it's going to work unless Navalny won't be able to fly because he's in a critical condition," he said.</p><p>"He is on ventilation and obviously they had to compare the risk of flying him, or staying there, and his doctors came to the conclusion that the risk of flying him for five hours on ventilation is lower than keeping him there in this hospital.</p><p>"They have great, great trust in the charity hospital in Berlin to have the right treatment to save his life.</p><p>"I cannot judge if he's in danger for political reasons, we can just say that we believe here in Berlin he can get the best possible treatment."</p><p>Meanwhile, doctors at the hospital where he was being treated in Siberia reportedly said preliminary investigations indicated Mr Navalny had been poisoned by antipsychotics, or neuroleptics.</p><p>Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he was "deeply concerned" about the reported poisoning, adding: "My thoughts are with him and his family."</p><p>And French President Emmanuel Macron had previously offered France's help, saying: "We are clearly ready to provide all necessary assistance to Alexander Navalny and those close to him in terms of healthcare, in terms of asylum, and protection, that is clear."</p><p>"I hope he can be saved."</p><p>Le Monde newspaper has reported that France is ready to "welcome" Mr Navalny.</p> <p>It comes after one of the doctors treating Mr Navalny told the Novaia Gazeta newspaper the patient should be evacuated from Omsk because of the limited facilities at the hospital, and in order to confirm whether he was poisoned.</p><p>Tatyana Shakirova, a regional health ministry spokeswoman, confirmed that Mr Navalny was in hospital and his condition considered serious.</p><p>She refused to confirm Ms Yarmysh's belief, saying: "The poisoning version is one of several versions being considered. It's not possible now to say what the reason was."</p><p>A Kremlin spokesman said doctors were doing all they could to ensure he recovers, adding that they wish him a "speedy recovery".</p><p>Dmitry Peskov said any poisoning would need to be confirmed by laboratory tests and that authorities would be ready to consider a request for Mr Navalny to be treated abroad, should one be made.</p><p>The pro-democracy campaigner was taken ill during a flight to Moscow from the city of Tomsk, his condition forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Omsk, so he could receive medical attention.</p> <p><strong>:: Listen to Polonium and the Piano Player on <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcasts.apple.com%2Fgb%2Fpodcast%2Fpolonium-the-piano-player%2Fid1522548553&data=02%7C01%7CAlessandra.Rizzo%40sky.uk%7C7af8f189f2214a1d5baa08d844dd88cb%7C68b865d5cf184b2b82a4a4eddb9c5237%7C0%7C0%7C637335065552989630&sdata=motolSe5z3YnhQPfdUWYkB5N41y%2BCkMcWHXh1J%2BDAO8%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fshow%2F64H2dN9OPg6fKywbYi35UX%3Fsi%3DQtpYWyWVT8mxyXxKAZc4Iw&data=02%7C01%7CAlessandra.Rizzo%40sky.uk%7C7af8f189f2214a1d5baa08d844dd88cb%7C68b865d5cf184b2b82a4a4eddb9c5237%7C0%7C0%7C637335065552989630&sdata=FN%2B%2B3%2F9DOL9eoTXpZb8zia92BOXjBMdxBNjjdtImo40%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="hhttps://www.spreaker.com/show/polonium-the-piano-player" target="_blank">Spreaker</a> or wherever you get your podcasts </strong></p><p>A fellow passenger described hearing him "screaming in pain" before he was taken off the plane on a stretcher.</p><p>Ms Yarmysh tweeted: "Alexei has a toxic poisoning."</p><p>She added: "We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into the tea. It was the only thing that he drank in the morning.</p><p>"Doctors are saying the toxin was absorbed quicker with hot liquid," she said, adding that Mr Navalny's team called police to the hospital.</p><p>But Anatoliy Kalinichenko, deputy chief doctor at the Omsk hospital, would not confirm Ms Yarmysh's assertion, saying poisoning was one of a number of causes medics were considering.</p> <p>He said the activist, whose wife Alexis arrived at the hospital later, was in a grave but stable condition, but refused to give details because of confidentiality laws.</p><p>A passenger on the flight, Pavel Lebedev, said: "At the start of the flight he went to the toilet and didn't return.</p><p>"He was really sick and is still screaming in pain. They didn't say what exactly happened to him. We landed in Omsk. Ambulance arrived."</p><p>Ms Yarmysh later tweeted: "Police demand to inspect Navalny's personal belongings, including his luggage."</p><p>A staunch critic of the Kremlin, Mr Navalny was jailed for 30 days last year for violating strict protest laws and calling for unauthorised demonstration in Moscow which led to the <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/russian-police-arrest-more-than-1-000-at-moscow-election-protests-11771840" target="_blank">arrests of more than 1,000 people</a></strong>.</p> <p>Whilst being held, he contracted an illness diagnosed as <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/alexei-navalny-doctor-not-ruling-out-russian-opposition-leader-has-been-poisoned-11772548" target="_blank"><strong>"contact dermatitis"</strong></a>, but which he said could have been a poisoning.</p><p>He attempted to stand in the 2018 presidential race but was barred because of previous fraud convictions in a case he again said was politically motivated.</p><p>He has described the country's main party, Mr Putin's United Russia, as a "party of crooks and thieves".</p> <p>In June, the anti-corruption campaigner described a vote on constitutional reforms, which allow Mr Putin to serve another two terms in office, as a "coup" and a "violation of the constitution".</p><p>The day before Mr Navalny was taken ill, he met a group of young supporters who asked him 'why aren't you dead?'</p><p>According to witnesses, he joked that he has to make excuses because he hasn't been killed yet, and went on to say that his death would not benefit President Putin.</p> <p>Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level.</p><p>Last week he was accused of stirring mass protests in Belarus by the country's authoritarian leader, President Alexander Lukashenko.</p><p>Kremlin foes have been poisoned or fallen ill after suspected poisonings before. Moscow has always denied any involvement.</p><p>In March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, and his daughter, Yulia, were left critically ill after being targeted in Salisbury by Russian agents using novichok, a nerve agent, but recovered.</p><p>Mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess died from novichok poisoning after her partner Charlie Rowley found a contaminated bottle discarded by the perpetrators, believing it to be a perfume bottle.</p><p>In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko died in London after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, believed to have been administered by agents working for the Kremlin. The suspects have denied any wrongdoing.</p> <p><strong>Analysis: Alexei Navalny has made enemies in a regime that thrives in dark corners - and 'poisoned tea' has its precedents</strong></p><p><strong>By Diana Magnay, Moscow correspondent</strong></p><p><em>As the Kremlin's most prominent domestic critic, with a long back catalogue of widely read and forensically investigated exposes of Russia's corrupt bureaucracy to his name, Alexei Navalny has made himself a lot of enemies.</em></p><p><em>He has suffered endless arrests and prolonged periods in detention as well as regular street-level harassment. In one incident in 2017, his sight in one eye was permanently damaged after green antiseptic dye was thrown at him.</em></p><p><em>And last year, in detention, he suffered an allergic reaction his doctor said might have been the result of poison.</em></p><p><em>This latest incident - a suspected poisoning - appears to be far more serious.</em></p><p><em>Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman at his anti-corruption foundation, Kira Yarmysh, who was sitting next to him on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow when he fell ill, says he is in a coma and hooked up to a ventilator.</em></p><p><em>She believes the evasive manner of the hospital doctors - now that the place is crawling with police - only confirms that he was poisoned.</em></p><p><em>Based on his Instagram account, Navalny had been in the Siberian city of Tomsk, in part at least, to support the campaigns of local deputies taking on the ruling United Russia party in this September's regional elections.</em></p><p><em>It is part of his call for "smart voting", to encourage people to vote for anyone other than United Russia.</em></p><p><em>Who knows who the next target of his anti-corruption campaign was set to be, but all those he has profiled to date have hefty grudges to bear.</em></p><p><em>Poisoned tea - which Ms Yarmysh assumes to be the cause here - has its precedents. Think no further than Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who directly accused Vladimir Putin of his own slow murder from his deathbed.</em></p> <p><em>Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned drinking tea on a flight on her way to cover the school siege in Beslan in 2004. She recovered, but was assassinated two years later - most probably because of her investigations into Chechnya's wars and its warlords.</em></p><p><em>If this is indeed a poisoning, it once again highlights the nature of the Russian system.</em></p><p><em>Whoever is directly responsible, it is enabled by a regime which thrives in dark corners - where there is minimal accountability and where too many stand to benefit from harming those who seek the truth.</em></p>
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 18:34 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fa00cf 1 National pregnant,woman,West-Nusa-Tenggara,NTB,COVID-19-rapid-test,rapid-test,rapid-testing Free

Gusti Ayu Arianti, a resident of Pejanggik subdistrict in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, was forced to accept the reality that her baby had died in her womb on Tuesday, which her family say happened because she was late to receive help while in labor because of the COVID-19 test requirement.

On Tuesday morning, after her water had broken, the 23-year-old went to the Wira Bhakti Mataram Army Hospital (RSAD) and requested that the medical team immediately handle her. However, she was asked to first take a COVID-19 rapid test.

My water had broken, I had lost a lot of blood since I was at home, but I was not immediately treated, Gusti said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

Gusti said the RSAD did not provide a rapid test service and thus she was asked to go to a community health center (Puskesmas) to take one.

She said she was disappointed, because she had not been informed about the rapid test requirement during her prebirth pregnancy examinations.

Gusti then returned home to change her sanitary napkins and headed for the Pagesangan Puskesmas with her husband and her mother for a rapid test.

Read also: Experts disapprove of govt's COVID-19 handling, survey says

Arriving at the Puskesmas, Gusti entered the delivery room but was not immediately checked. She was even asked to join the lineup of test takers before her husband complained and she was allowed to proceed immediately.

As she was waiting for the rapid test result, which would come out in 30 minutes, Gusti asked the doctor in the delivery room to check her womb, but the doctor asked her to wait for the test result.

Gusti returned home to change sanitary napkins, while her mother waited for the test result at the Puskesmas. She said the family asked for a referral letter to the Mataram RSAD, but the Puskesmas refused as she had returned home.

With the COVID-19 test result in hand, the family took Gusti to Permata Hati Hospital instead. However, the hospital did not acknowledge her test certificate as it did not attach the test kit. Gusti took another test.

Finally, the medical team at Permata Hati Hospital examined Gustis womb. Initially, Gusti said, the doctor said that the unborn baby's heart rate was weak, but it slowly went back to normal.

Gusti underwent a C-section. Unfortunately, the baby boy, who was to be named I Made Arsya Prasetya Jaya, was declared deceased.

The doctor claimed the baby had died in the womb a few days earlier, which the family denied.

If he died seven days ago, it would be dangerous for the mother, and there would be some putrefaction. But the [body] did not stink at all and looked fresh. The doctors diagnosis is questionable, said Gustis father, Ketut Mahajaya.

Read also: 'All 20 people tested positive': Journalist shares her family's struggles with COVID-19

Wira Bhakti Mataram RSAD head Yudi Akbar Manurung confirmed that Gusti had visited the hospital but claimed Gusti had not taken a rapid test at the hospital because the test was not free of charge.

Our officers explained to her that she is a public patient, so the rapid test is not free, unless [taken] at the Puskesmas or the Mataram Regional General Hospital. We told her that, and she finally went to the Puskesmas, Yudi said on Thursday.

West Nusa Tenggara Health Agency head Eka Nurhandini said that a rapid test was mandatory for pregnant women about to give birth in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Based on a circular from the COVID-19 task force, mothers who are going to give birth must do a rapid test, because pregnant women are susceptible to infection, Eka said.

She said the rapid test would determine how the medical workers handled mothers when giving birth.

If [the test shows] a reactive result, the mother will be taken to an isolation room and the medical team will use personal protective equipment, she added. (syk)
Preparations are underway for next return of Russian children from Syria  Kuznetsova

 The press service of Russia's Child Rights Commissioner

15:42 21/08/2020

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI) - Preparations are underway for the next return of Russian children from Syria, the countrys child rights commissioner Anna Kuznetsova announced on Friday.

All required documents are executed, she added.

This week, 26 minors returned from orphanages in Syrias Damask with the direct assistance of Kuznetsova. This was the first flight after the lifting of the coronavirus restrictions. The children were accompanied by doctors. After all quarantine measures they will be transferred to their relatives.

Currently, they are in a Moscow Regions observation. Then they will depart to 8 Russian regions where their relatives reside.
Scranton, PA (18503)

Today

Cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later in the day. Morning high of 28F with temps falling to near 15. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 6F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
As critics and fans wrote excitedly upon its release, Marvels Black Panther did an excellent job of creating sympathy for its villain. Many found Erik Killmongers radicalism more appealing than the heros moderation for some specific reasons, beginning with the heist at the Museum of Great Britain, a thinly fictionalized British Museum. In one scene, writes gallerist Lise Ragbir at Hyperallergic, the blockbuster superhero movie touches on issues of provenance, repatriation, diversity, representation, and other debates currently shaping institutional practices.

As a gallery director who is also black, I was awed by Killmongers declaration to an overconfident curator that she was mistaken. When the curator condescendingly informed Killmonger that items in the museum arent for sale, my hands began to sweat. And I was downright thrilled when the villain bluntly confronted her: How do you think your ancestors got these? You think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it like they took everything else?

He does not exaggerate. The scene describes a centuries-old truth, artist Deborah Roberts remarkscolonialists robbing black culture to put on display for European consumption. The issue, in other words, is not only who gets to tell the stories of African and other non-European people, but who gets to see and hear them, since so many non-white people have been excluded from museums and museum culture.





As Casey Haughin wrote in the Hopkins Exhibitionist, the film presented [the museum] as an illegal mechanism of colonialism, and along with that, a space which does not even welcome those whose culture it displays. So-called disputed museum treasures, the Vox video above shows, are essentially stolen artifacts, with claims of ownership that elide, omit, or fabricate the history of their acquisition.

Some looted treasures have been returned, but when it comes to the majority of the Museums disputed collections, so far, it isnt giving them back, Vox explains, despite calls from formerly colonized nations. Its easy to see why. If they were to honor historical claims of ownership, the British Museum would lose some of its most celebrated and significant holdings, like the Rosetta Stone or the Benin Bronzes, some of the most contentious items in the museum.

These bronzes, from the wealthy Kingdom of Benin, located in modern-day Nigeria, were looted by British soldiers during an 1897 raid, Sarah Cascone writes at Artnet. Faced with calls from Nigerias National Commission for Museums and Monuments to return them, the British Museum held meetings that lead to more meetings and a declaration that outlined an intentionall stalling tactics that have not produced results. Learn why these artifacts are important to Nigerians and how the 19th-century scramble for Africa created so much of the museum culture we know today, one still heavily mired in its colonialist roots.

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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Kurupt quit Marriage Boot Camp: Hip Hop Edition on Thursday's episode as he chose alcohol over his romantic relationship.

The 47-year-old rapper left the cast house after a fight with his girlfriend Toni Calvert, claiming she might get violent with him.

He later confirmed that it was the lack of available brown liquor that caused him to flee and he had no plan to come back.

Early exit: Kurupt quit Marriage Boot Camp: Hip Hop Edition on Thursday's episode as he chose alcohol over his romantic relationship

It was the third time that week that alcohol had caused a major issue for Kurupt, who'd even been taken to the hospital.

When show host Dr. Ish Major offered Kurupt a chance to go to rehab right away, the rapper turned it down.

'No, I ain't going to rehab,' he said, grinning. 'I did it already, and I don't like it.'

Ish, disappointed, told Kurupt that he would have to leave the show, explaining, 'I need you to get the help you need, and you're not getting it here. When you're ready to take that next step, I am here for you to do that.'

Alcohol problem: Toni Calvert accused her boyfriend Kurupt of leaving because brown alcohol was banned at the house

Show over: Dr. Ish Major told Kurupt that he would have to leave the show, explaining, 'I need you to get the help you need, and you're not getting it here. When you're ready to take that next step, I am here for you to do that'

Kurupt smiled and shook Ish's hand, and his car pulled away.

'I see people like Kurupt every day,' Ish reflected, saddened. 'His addiction is destroying him physically, but it's also destroying his relationship with Toni.'

'Kurupt may be happy to leave Boot Camp, but it breaks my heart. I know that unless he chooses to get sober, he may not survive another five years.'

Five years: 'Kurupt may be happy to leave Boot Camp, but it breaks my heart. I know that unless he chooses to get sober, he may not survive another five years'

Toni was informed that she would also need to leave the program, and everyone hoped that she might make a wise decision about her relationship with Kurupt.

She smiled broadly, seemingly free to be happy of her partner as she flew home to her kids in Las Vegas.

Just hours earlier, Kurupt had been shouting in a phone call with producer about how 'unsafe' Toni was to be around.

Not safe: Just hours earlier, Kurupt had been shouting in a phone call with producer about how 'unsafe' Toni was to be around

'I don't believe Kurupt is in any real danger from Toni,' Ish noted privately, explaining that his removal of the brown liquor in the housesomething he'd done to help Kurupthad sent his addiction 'off the fulcrum.'

It was Day 8 of Boot Camp, the show's most emotional day, and Kurupt wasn't the only one in crisis.

The rapper Vado, 35, was sequestered in a hotel because he had attacked his girlfriend Tahiry Jose, 40, at a house meeting three days before.

Reality star Hazel-E Baby, 40, was hunkered down in her room with boyfriend De'Von Waller, 30, after suffering a miscarriage.

Suffered miscarriage: Reality star Hazel-E Baby, 40, was hunkered down in her room with boyfriend De'Von Waller, 30, after suffering a miscarriage

To get everyone back on track, Ish asked Hazel-E and De'Von if they wanted to return, and they decided that they would.

Judge Lynn Toler, 60, who often spoke to couples on the show, then told Tahiry they were going to allow Vado back in the house, but she would never be alone with him.

'Anytime you feel uncomfortable, and you say the word, he is gone,' Lynn explained.

The judge: Judge Lynn Toler, 60, who often spoke to couples on the show, told Tahiry Jose they were going to allow Vado back in the house, but she would never be alone with him

As for Kurupt, Ish felt he was 'a destructive force in the house,' and that his alcoholism kept feeding Toni's rage.

'I think he's at a point where he needs immediate intervention, because it's leveling out of control for him,' Ish told Lynn, who suggested Toni might need to leave as well.

'I don't know how much progress we can make, because she doesn't have much insight,' she said.

Destructive force: As for Kurupt, Ish felt he was 'a destructive force in the house,' and that his alcoholism kept feeding Toni's rage

Kurupt and Toni subsequently left the show, both temporarily going their separate ways.

Vado then returned to the house, where he told Ish his mother had read him the riot act for his recent behavior.

He admitted that he'd been carrying anger around for a long time, and wrote an apology to Tahiry which read, 'After I hit a woman, I feel like the weakest man on earth.'

He's back: Vado then returned to the house, where he told Ish his mother had read him the riot act for his recent behavior

Ish was impressed by Vado's progress, and wanted him to participate in an activity about confronting the past.

Couples were asked to think of a personal trauma, then given art supplies so they could decorate a toy car and illustrate what happened to them.

Shanda Taylor depicted her life as a daddy's girl, remembering how her father, like her husband Willie Taylor, 39, made her feel 'not good enough.'

Personal trauma: Couples were asked to think of a personal trauma, then given art supplies so they could decorate a toy car and illustrate what happened to them

Willie described a life filled with violencehe'd been held up three timesand a grandfather who would have told him to make things right with Shanda.

Medina Islam said his mother had suffered from schizophrenia, and once tried to sell his little brother in a mall, after which she was institutionalized and he never saw her again.

Medina's girlfriend Phaedra Parks, 46, recalled life with her white-passing grandfather in Georgia, and how he was frequently asked, 'Who is this N-baby you got with you?'

Reality star: Phaedra Parks, 46, recalled life with her white-passing grandfather in Georgia, and how he was frequently asked, 'Who is this N-baby you got with you?'

'My aunt was like, ''Because you don't look like these people, you're going to have to be so well put-together'',' Phaedra shared, as Ish noted her still-immaculate presentation.

Hazel-E confessed that her mother had an abusive boyfriend who beat the two of them, even once breaking her noseand then went on to date other abusers.

'So when you grew up, you were gonna make sure you always had the control,' Ish mused.

Emotional exercise: Ish congratulated the participants for opening up about their trauma

De'Von described a spoiled childhood in which he often acted out, which led Ish to say, 'And you've got it pretty cush, and you still act out.'

Tahiry's car showed how unpredictable her life had been, with another abusive relationship and a father arrested for dealing drugs when she was in high school.

At five years old, she said, she had been shot at by people looking for drugs and money.

Vado grew up with a drug-dealing father who did jail time before being deported back to Jamaica.

Deported dad: Vado grew up with a drug-dealing father who did jail time before being deported back to Jamaica

'Years later, I ended up being in jail,' he shared.

That night, the lessons learned from the day's activity were hammered home when Ish had children drive the cars up a driveway before the celebrities.

One by one, the kids spoke as though they were the ones currently living their traumas, which made the celebs realize how much they had suffered through.

Child versions: That night, the lessons learned from the day's activity were hammered home when Ish had children drive the cars up a driveway before the celebrities

'Kids live what they learn,' Ish said. 'At some point, you've got to break the cycle.'

The only person who seemed to miss the lesson was De'Von, who seemed proud of the way that he'd gotten everything growing up.

'I'm blessed,' he said. 'There's nothing wrong with getting everything given to you. It's how you take it down the line.'

Lesson lost: The only person who seemed to miss the lesson was De'Von, who seemed proud of the way that he'd gotten everything growing up

'I wish he had to struggle just a little bit more,' Hazel-E opined. 'Cause he just doesn't get that somebody's blood, sweat and tears went into something that he's reaping his benefits from.'

After the exercise was over, Vado read his apology to Tahiry.

His words moved everyone when he told her that he knew he should be the one protecting her, not hurting her.

Public apology: After the exercise was over, Vado read his apology to Tahiry

At the end of the show, Hazel-E asked De'Von if she was his sugar mama, and joked about finding herself another guy.

The quip struck a nerve and made him warn her she might end up alone.

Marriage Boot Camp: Hip Hop Edition will return next week on WE.
SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Three years after the launch of CRANE 2, ZHIYUN officially brought CRANE 2S to the market, which provides all-around upgrades with balanced integration of strong performance, image transmission module, and quick release system. SmallRig announced 4 exclusive accessories immediately after the release of CRANE 2S, aiming to support filmmakers with impressive hand-held shooting experience.

Dual Handgrip for CRANE 2S: Designed to reduce arm fatigue during long shooting sessions and provide extra accessory mounts, the dual handgrip locks onto CRANE 2S via a quick release clamp and features rubber pads to prevent from scratching. The handgrip is horizontally adjustable with integrated NATO rail, which allows filmmakers to adjust the handle direction upside and down in inverted mode. The modular-designed handle can be disassembled into five parts for easy storage and transport.



Designed to reduce arm fatigue during long shooting sessions and provide extra accessory mounts, the dual handgrip locks onto CRANE 2S via a quick release clamp and features rubber pads to prevent from scratching. The handgrip is horizontally adjustable with integrated NATO rail, which allows filmmakers to adjust the handle direction upside and down in inverted mode. The modular-designed handle can be disassembled into five parts for easy storage and transport. Sling Grip for CRANE 2S : Enables filmmakers to hold CRANE 2S to enter a handy underslung position with additional mounting points. The handgrip allows 180-degree adjustment via the rosette joint to either serve as a side handle or be fixed to other customized position.



: Enables filmmakers to hold CRANE 2S to enter a handy underslung position with additional mounting points. The handgrip allows 180-degree adjustment via the rosette joint to either serve as a side handle or be fixed to other customized position. Mounting Clamp for CRANE 2S: Designed to boost accessory options, the clamp locks onto the neck of CRANE 2S via two captive m4 screws, and features multiple 1/4"-20 threaded holes and ARRI 3/8"-16 threads. Each side of the clamp incorporates a NATO rail that allows quick release of accessories to set up a dual handle. The interior of the clamp features rubber pads to prevent scratching.



Designed to boost accessory options, the clamp locks onto the neck of CRANE 2S via two captive m4 screws, and features multiple 1/4"-20 threaded holes and ARRI 3/8"-16 threads. Each side of the clamp incorporates a NATO rail that allows quick release of accessories to set up a dual handle. The interior of the clamp features rubber pads to prevent scratching. Side Mounting Plate for CRANE 2S: Features four 1/4"-20 threaded holes and an ARRI 3/8"-16 locating hole for additional mounts, and the built-in NATO rail enables quick release of accessories. The plate locks onto the side of gimbal via a captive 1/4"-20 screw and integrates rosette to prevent twisting.

This year, SmallRig has officially cooperated with ZHIYUN to develop the whole ecosystem for filmmakers regarding gimbal shooting, and we will further collaborate with more brands in the future. Feel free to check out SmallRig products on the websites:

Official Website: www.smallrig.com

Amazon: www.amazon.com/smallrig (US) https://www.amazon.de/smallrig (Germany)

Ebay: www.ebaystores.com/smallrig20092018

For Resellers: www.smallrigreseller.com

About SmallRig

Founded in 2012, SmallRig is an innovation-driven manufacturer that designs and builds premium camera rigs and accessories for all kinds of cameras. Our sales network is spreading to over 200 countries and regions while our products are well-supported by over 500k filmmakers and photographers worldwide.

Media Contact:

Joy Liu

liujingyi@smallrig.com

+86-15502187487

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1231761/SmallRig_ZHIYUN_CRANE_2S.jpg
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 22 2020

A drug convict, identified as Ami Utomo or AU, 42, is to be detained in a super maximum security prison after being caught producing ecstasy pills in the VVIP room of a private hospital in Central Jakarta.

Central Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Heru Novianto said AU was an inmate at the Salemba detention center who had been sentenced to 15 years for the possession of 15,000 ecstasy pills. He had only served two years.

AU was under medical treatment at the hospital on a referral from the detention center as he regularly complained of stomach pain.

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SHANGHAI, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Good Doctor ("Ping An Good Doctor", 01833.HK), the world's leading online healthcare platform, announced the revenue of RMB 2.747 billion for the first half of this year, according to the company's latest financial report.

Ping An Good Doctor performed strongly despite the economic headwind and market downturn with its online medical businesswhich grew by 106.8%now contributing RMB 695 million to the company's overall total revenue.

The company posted growth in both revenue and user traffic, while further strengthening its online medical service capabilities

The online medical service sector has played an important role in fighting COVID-19, with Ping An Good Doctor playing a prominent part in combating the disease by enhancing the speed at which online diagnosis and treatment services are being implemented, a move that has coincided with greater adoption of its platform by users.

In the first half of 2020, Ping An Good Doctor's core online medical business further strengthened its service capabilities and significantly enhanced its profitability. During the reporting period, the online medical business recorded a strong growth of 106.8% in revenue, accounting for 25.3% of the company's total revenue, surging 10.5 percentage points compared to 14.8% in the corresponding period of 2019. Driven by the strong growth of the core business, the company's total revenue reached RMB 2.747 billion, a rise of 20.9%. Net loss narrowed by 22.1% year on year to RMB 213 million. In addition, other businesses including consumer medical, the health mall and health management, all recorded year-on-year increases respectively.

Thanks to significant increases in the adoption of online diagnosis and treatment services among patients, Ping An Good Doctor's online platform continued to see strong growth in user traffic over the past six months. As of the end of June 2020, the company's total number of registered users reached 346 million, an increase of 30.98 million compared to the end of 2019 and accumulated increase of 56.9 million during the past 12 months. In June 2020, the number of monthly active users and paid users reached 67.27 million and 2.95 million respectively, up 7.3% and 32.3% over the prior-year period.

The financial performance of its online medical business and increased growth in user traffic demonstrates Ping An Good Doctor's expanding presence and enhanced user loyalty in the online healthcare market, as the company continues to meet the essential medical needs of patients through its mobile health app.

The company posts strong growth in sales of member products thanks to its enhanced medical service capabilities

Since early 2018, Ping An Good Doctor has been accumulating experience in product operation and strengthening medical service capabilities to enhance its membership-based services with the launch of Health 360, a membership-based service for the policy users of Ping An Life Insurance.

In early 2020, the company rolled out Health Guard 360, the upgrade version of Health 360. The new service has been highly praised by insurance policy holders, agents and users. In the first half of 2020, the sales of Health Guard 360 showed a significant year on year growth.

With its ongoing commitment to strengthening medical service capabilities, the company has established a good reputation among users while further expanding the user base with revenue from existing member products growing 200% year on year to over 420 million yuan in the reporting period.

Additionally, Ping An Good Doctor has to date provided the employees of over 500 corporate customers across the real estate, medicine and retail sectors with comprehensive services, including one-on-one online consultations with doctors practicing in the private sector and assisting or accompanying the patients throughout the entire process of their visits at physical healthcare organizations, from outpatient registration and payment to diagnosis. The survey has shown that Ping An Good Doctor's Private Doctor, an internet-based healthcare platform that provides all-round medical and healthcare services, has been well-received among its users. From the upgrading business operation to meeting the demands of user, the membership-based service is bound to unleash the huge market potential for the industry.

Accelerating the establishment of internet hospitals backed by the popularization of medical insurance

Online medical services have become a major driving force in the roll out of tripartite healthcare system reform in recent years. Since the onset of COVID-19, healthcare administrations in China have issued a series of guidelines to support online medical institutions, especially those that provide online medical services for follow-up and repeat visits by patients suffering from common or chronic diseases, and those who are covered by the country's national basic medical insurance programs.

Ping An Good Doctor has undertaken efforts to ensure its medical care services are covered by the national medical insurance fund, while expanding the development of its internet hospitals. As of the middle of August 2020, the company has signed contracts for constructing internet hospitals by working closely with offline hospitals, and 14 of them have already in operation. The rest will be gradually put into operations and actively connected to local SHI payment systems. Now, the company has already connected to the provincial platform in Hubei province as well as the platforms serving Dongguan in Guangdong province and Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, providing convenient, efficient and secure online medical services to local residents.

In addition, Ping An Good Doctor empowers public hospitals by, in large measure, facilitating access to online diagnosis and treatment as the online medical services provider has started providing virtual follow-up visits and prescription refilling services to patients who have been treated in person at a local hospital. Of note, the regional Internet hospital platform in Fuzhou set up by Ping An Good Doctor at the end of 2019 became operational in mid-July 2020.

Moving forward, Ping An Good Doctor plans to accelerate the establishment of internet hospitals independently or by collaborating with partners in an effort to extend its business ecosystem to multiple scenarios, and offer convenient, efficient and safe online medical services to a growing number of patients and users.

Ping An Good Doctor is firmly dedicated to its corporate social responsibility, with one of the results the firm's active response to the government's Health China 2030 Plan, which, at the same time, can serve as a vehicle for further business expansion. Of note, the company has worked closely with local governments to promote the country's rural healthcare programs. As of June 30, 2020, the company had upgraded over 900 health clinics in outlying and hard-to-reach areas, trained nearly 1 million doctors working in rural districts and provided free healthcare services to over 66,000 living outside of China's urbanized regions. By doing so, the company has greatly alleviated the shortage of medical resources in rural areas while effectively improving the quality of medical services and the health of populations in economically-disadvantaged zones.

Upgrading strategy for all operations to build core barriers to entry

With years of experience and accumulated expertise, the company now boasts a huge user base that continues driving traffic to its platform while continuing to consolidate its leadership position in the market. Online healthcare firms may benefit from an explosive growth in online consultations and visitor traffic in the short term. The daily average number of consultations reached 831,000 in the first half of 2020, up 26.7% year on year.

In the medium and long term, the growth driven by the pandemic will help further differentiate uniquely positioned firms from the competition and consolidate their leadership in the online healthcare sector. In view of this, Ping An Good Doctor decided to shift its focus to raising barriers to entry by implementing a new growth strategy backed by its unique resources.

In mid-2020, the company announced that it would take a strategic approach to the next stage of transformation. By leveraging favorable government policies and its core competitiveness, Ping An Good Doctor developed a new growth strategy with a focus on strengthening its leadership position by improving its health management and healthcare services while accelerating the construction of online and offline ecosystems. The company remains committed to connecting patients and physicians and building trust in its professional and easy-to-use lineup of services in anticipation of creating one of China's largest online healthcare service platforms enhanced by a cutting-edge business model and some of the industry's strongest barriers to entry.

Ping An Good Doctor plans to continue investing more resources in individual users (patients), insurance customers (policy holders), corporate customers (corporate employees) and internet hospitals (built in tandem with local hospitals) to strengthen online medical services and health management services, while actively expanding the offline cooperation network, a grouping of facilities that conduct annual and periodic checkups, lab testing, fitness training and beauty care, to create a one-stop closed-loop ecosystem.

Ping An Good Doctor will continue to increase investment, expand its own medical team, proactively identify and link up with well-known medical resources both in China and abroad. The company will build a global network for doctors with multi-sited licensed practice and further grow the online business, while widening the scope of collaborative efforts with offline medical institutions, to provide patients with more comprehensive and professional medical services.

SOURCE Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited
Electro-optic crystal shows great promise for extensive applications in laser, optoelectronics, and optical communication, such as high-speed E-O switch, modulator, deflector, laser mode-locking, photoetching, laser radar (LIDAR) and so on. With the prosperous development of Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy technique, E-O crystals are employed in this realm for generation and detection of the THz electromagnetic radiation. Although there are some commercial E-O crystals available in the market, further exploration of novel E-O crystals with superior properties is also in great demand for a variety of current applications. However, the discovering of novel electro-optic crystals is sporadic due to lack of theoretical method for the evaluation of E-O effect and the difficulties of large-sized crystal growth for electro-optic coefficient measurement. Hence, the strategy for exploration of novel E-O crystals should be improved.

Herein, to address such an issue, inspired by the well-known powder second harmonic generation (SHG) technique reported by Kurtz and Perry (J. Appl. Phys. 39, 3798 (1968). Times Cited: 4176) who open a highway for the exploration new NLO crystals, a high-efficacy evaluation method using accessible powder samples is proposed, in which second harmonic generation effect, infrared reflectance spectrum, and Raman spectrum are introduced to predict the magnitude of electro-optic coefficient. Particularly, the evaluation method is established on the material in powder form or small crystals in micron size, which can be easily obtained at the onset of experiment. Comparing to traditional method for the measurement of E-O coefficients with large-sized crystal which is difficult and time-consuming, the utilization of powders renders the exploring process to be more efficient.

The calculated electro-optic coefficients of numerous reported electro-optic crystals through this approach give universally agreement with the experimental values, evidencing the validity of strategy. Based on this method, CsLiMoO4 is screened as a novel electro-optic crystal and high-quality crystal is grown by the Czochralski technique for electro-optic coefficient measurement with half-wave voltage method, whose result is also comparable to the calculated value. Also, on account of the preferable calculated E-O coefficient and the relationship between E-O effect and macroscopic symmetry of crystal, CLM was selected as a potential E-O crystal. Consequently, this powder method for the evaluation of E-O crystals is not only significant for the further understanding of the E-O coefficient, but also have important implications for the high-efficacy screening of promising E-O crystals. The powder evaluation strategy presented in this work will pave a new avenue to explore promising electro-optic crystals efficiently.

###

See the article:

Feng Xu, Ge Zhang, Min Luo, Guang Peng, Yu Chen, Tao Yan* and Ning Ye*

A powder method for the high-efficacy evaluation of electro-optic crystals

Natl Sci Rev 2020, DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa104

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa104

The National Science Review is the first comprehensive scholarly journal released in English in China that is aimed at linking the country's rapidly advancing community of scientists with the global frontiers of science and technology. The journal also aims to shine a worldwide spotlight on scientific research advances across China.
The foreign ministers of China and Pakistan held their 2nd annual strategic dialogue on Friday during which they discussed ways to enhance their all-weather bilateral ties, the Kashmir issue, progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Afghan peace process.

Billed as highly relevant and very important by both the countries ahead of the meeting held in the southern Chinese island resort of Hainan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi discussed a host of bilateral, regional and issues.

A joint statement issued at the end of the meeting said that both sides underlined that a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous South Asia was in common interest of all parties. Parties need to settle disputes and issues in the region through dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

The Pakistani side briefed the Chinese side on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, including its concerns, position and current urgent issues, it said.

The Chinese side reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between India and Pakistan, which is an objective fact, and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully and properly through the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation, the joint press release said.

India has been maintaining that China has no locus standi in commenting on Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi has previously toldBeijing that the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir "has been, is and shall continue to be an integral part of India."



Earlier this month, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the issues pertaining to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir were solely an internal matter of India.

"As on such previous occasions, this attempt too met with little support from the community. We firmly reject China's interference in our internal affairs and urge it to draw proper conclusions from such infructuous attempts," the MEA said in a statement in New Delhi after China initiated a discussion in the UN Security Council on Jammu and Kashmir.

Ahead of the meeting between Wang and Qureshi, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian told the media here on Thursday that this time the strategic dialogue is highly relevant and the two sides will take the opportunity to discuss anti-epidemic cooperation, bilateral ties and the regional and issues of mutual interest.

Before leaving for Hainan, Qureshi told the media in Islamabad that "I am leaving on a very important visit to China. I had a discussion with the prime minister regarding this visit yesterday. My delegation will represent the stance of the political and military leadership of the country.

The meeting took place amid reports of crisis in Pakistan-Saudi Arabia relations which were regarded as the bedrock of Islamabad's foreign policy for decades.

Qureshi left for Hainan after the return of Pakistan Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa from Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with senior officials on the state of relations between Riyadh and Islamabad.

Pakistan Imran Khan said in an interview on Aug 19 that Pakistan's future was linked to China as Beijing defended Pakistan in all difficult times. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping would visit Pakistan in the winter.

Wang and Qureshi reiterated that the enduring China-Pakistan all-weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership is beneficial to international and regional peace and stability, and serves the mutual security and development interests of both countries as well as of international community and regional countries.

On Afghanistan, the joint statement said both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation on the Afghan issue and appreciated the efforts made by Afghan government and the Taliban to initiate the Intra-Afghan Negotiations.

China appreciated Pakistan's positive contribution to the Afghan peace process and efforts for promoting peace and stability in the region and beyond, it said.

Both sides agreed on continuing their firm support on issues concerning each other's core national interests.

The Chinese side reiterated that Pakistan and China are iron brothers and Pakistan remains China's staunchest partner in the region and that China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence."



Beijing also said it supported Islamabad independently choosing a development path based on its national conditions, striving for a better external security environment and playing a more constructive role on international and regional affairs, the release said.

The Pakistani side appreciated China for standing together with Pakistan in safeguarding its national security and sovereignty, and reaffirmed its firm support to China on affairs concerning China's core interests and issues of major concern, such as those related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, it said.

On the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) both sides have underscored that it has entered the new phase of high-quality development, and has played and will continue to play an important role in supporting Pakistan to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and achieve greater development,.

The two sides will continue to firmly advance the construction of the CPEC, ensure in-time completion of those projects under construction, focus on economic and social development, job creation and improvement of people's livelihood, and further strengthen cooperation in Specialised Economic Zones, industrial relocation, science and technology, medical and health, human resources training, poverty alleviation, and agriculture etc, it said.

India has protested to China over the as it is being laid through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

(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.)
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Sarah Wells was anxious about the boyfriend she hadn't heard from and the home she fled as the wildfires approached. And now, in the middle of a pandemic, the woman by the door of her evacuation center was not wearing a face mask.

"You're too close to us," Wells, 57, said as she emerged from the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, now home to about 80 people from Boulder Creek, Bonny Doon and other communities upended by this week's spreading blazes.

"You should worry about the fires," replied the maskless woman standing just outside the door.

Californians are facing duel crises now, as wildfires, still raging largely out of control across a large swath of the state, force tens of thousands of people from their homes during a similarly uncontrolled pandemic. People who have been told for months to stay in and avoid others are now fleeing to different cities, filling hotels and trying to maintain some semblance of social distancing at makeshift shelters, as officials find urgent relief efforts complicated by the ever-present threat of the novel coronavirus.

"It's just added an extra layer," said Rylan Hunt, an overnight supervisor at the Civic Auditorium, which filled up two nights ago as the need to space people six feet apart in tents drove down capacity.

Nearly 771,000 acres of land have burned across California during the past week, according to CalFire, as dozens of lightning-sparked wildfires continue to move quickly through dry vegetation and threaten the edges of cities and towns.

Although the weather appears to be turning more favorable - with higher humidity and generally light winds - the National Weather Service warned that Tropical Storm Genevieve, near the Baja Peninsula, is expected to release a pulse of moisture and instability this weekend into early next week that would increase the potential for more lightning "that may lead to further ignitions."

An earlier unusual summer storm during a record-breaking heat wave let loose more than 20,000 lightning strikes, which authorities say are responsible for the widespread fires in California.

Evacuations from several communities surged during the day and night Thursday into Friday, with some of the fires growing rapidly. Some might not be able to return to their homes for weeks.

Evacuees at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz line up to sanitize their hands and have their temperature taken each time they enter. Staff dispense masks and are constantly reminding people to keep them on, Hunt said. Emotions are raw - some people here lost their homes to the flames - but there is no hugging.

"Obviously, it's a totally wild situation to have this level of a fire on top of covid-19," Hunt said.

One evacuee who had a high temperature upon entering the shelter is still sequestered in a spare room that has become a "quarantine" area, Hunt said, and nursing staff are on hand to help. The person in quarantine has been tested for the virus and comes and goes through side doors, he said.

Most people in the shelter have been vigilant about coronavirus precautions. But some said they remain wary. With widespread community transmission in parts of California, experts have repeatedly warned against indoor gatherings as particularly risky.

"I'm very much worried" about the virus, said Anita Good, who plans to celebrate her 59th birthday this weekend by praying about her neighborhood back in Boulder Creek. She has COPD, which along with her age makes her particularly vulnerable to infection.

But she said other fears are more pressing. She can't stop thinking about her two collies, which a neighbor dropped off at a shelter while she hastily evacuated from a hospital where she had had eye surgery. She was still wearing an eye patch.

The most important thing, she said, was to get away.

At the Civic Auditorium now, she tries to spend as much time as she can outdoors. She found a nice spot across the street with a fountain that calms her, and she has refrained from tellings others at the shelter about it.

"Then there will be crowds," she said, half-joking.

Wells hears people coughing in the night and wonders if it is covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, or the smoky air that has dusted everyone's cars with ash. She is a cashier at CVS, so she is used to living with the virus looming.

"I think to myself, 'OK, they've got a tent, I've got a tent - I'm probably okay,' " Wells said.

Like many people flooding emergency centers, she has nowhere else to turn. The coronavirus outbreak has made each step of her journey more challenging.

First: the frustrating search for an open public restroom and the discomfort with the ones available as she drove away from Boulder Creek. "Sure, if I have a can of Lysol," she says of using one bathroom in a parking garage.

Then: the futile attempts to find a friend who would take her in. Some people did not respond. One household was off-limits because a family member is immunocompromised, raising fears that an outsider could bring in a lethal threat.

Like some others at the civic auditorium Friday, Wells said she can't afford a hotel room. She is not sure she could get one anyway. She called an inn in Santa Cruz earlier in the week only to hear that every room was booked.

The man who answered the phone "told me don't even bother calling or stopping at any hotels," Wells said.

The strains here are affecting nearly everything. Firefighters have warned that they are spread thin by the sheer number of blazes statewide, requesting hundreds of fire engines and accompanying personnel from out of state. The fires will probably put pressure on medical resources, something Wells says she found out Friday morning when a doctor's appointment was canceled because so many workers are not showing up.

So Wells was stuck without much to do, waiting to get a text back from the boyfriend who she says disregarded evacuation orders to spend the night dousing his house with water from a hose.

Officials have warned all week against trying to linger and protect property, hoping to prevent a loss of life on the scale of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. Five deaths are already connected to the latest blazes.

While Californians are no strangers to bad fire seasons, Boulder Creek-area evacuees said they have never had to worry much before. Several said they want leaders to do more about the climate change that is linked to the hot, dry weather behind California wildfires' growing threat.

"I never in my wildest dreams would think that I would be a refugee in my own hometown," Wells said.

- - -

Freedman reported from Washington.
YARMOUTH, MA  Massachusetts' 5th Barnstable District has been represented by Republican Randy Hunt for the past nine years, but with Hunt not seeking re-election, Steven Xiarhos is one of two Republicans vying for the seat.

Xiarhos is a native of the 5th Barnstable District who served as a Yarmouth police officer for 40 years.

Xiarhos is not the only Republican trying to replace Hunt. Thomas Keyes is also running for the seat. Patch has asked both Xiarhos and Keyes to answer our candidate questionnaires ahead of the Sept. 1 Democratic primary. The last day to register to vote in the primary is Saturday, which is also the day early voting gets underway. Here's how Xiarhos answered our questionnaire:

Age (as of Election Day): 61

Family

I am a Gold Star Father. My son, Nicholas, was killed in action in service to his country as a Marine in Afghanistan in 2009. I have another son, Alex, who currently serves as a police officer in the town of Yarmouth. I also have twin adult daughters, Elizabeth and Ashlynne, who serve in the hospitality industry.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

I served as Deputy Chief of Police in Yarmouth prior to my retirement in 2019. I worked as a police officer in that community for 40 years. My son, Alex, continues to serve as a police officer there.

Education

Associate's Degree (Criminal Justice) - Cape Cod Community College; Bachelor of Science (Criminal Justice) - Northeastern University; Master's Degree (Criminal Justice) - Anna Maria

Occupation

Retired, 2019. I served as a police officer in the Town of Yarmouth for 40 years prior to my retirement, most recently serving as Deputy Chief of Police.

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

I am an appointed member of the Town of Barnstable Human Services Committee.

Campaign website

www.XiarhosforRep.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am running to continue my proud legacy of public service, following 40 years of work as a police officer. I want to work hard to make Cape Cod a better place to live and work. I want to reform our criminal justice system to keep people safe, support our small businesses, and bring a greater sense of accountability and fiscal responsibility to Beacon Hill.

Story continues

How would you rate the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic on a letter-grade scale (A, B, C, D or F), and how would you explain that rating?

I would give Massachusetts a C for response to the pandemic. I acknowledge that this is an unprecedented situation that has been difficult for everyone, and that many people are working hard to see our state through this crisis. Our health care professionals and first responders top the list of unsung heroes and heroines. However, as of now, we continue to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Many of our businesses still can't get back to work. There is no solid plan to reopen many of our schools this fall. And, I have deep concerns about the heavy death toll for people in assisted living facilities during the height of the pandemic, particularly at the Soldiers Home.

Is Chapter 40B, the state's affordable housing law, working, and if not what would you change?

Creating affordable housing for people to live on Cape Cod is an important issue and we need to make sure that we are taking adequate steps to address housing needs. There have been many calls for the reform of Chapter 40B in recent years, and I think we should continue to place this law under scrutiny. The goal is that we need to make sure that people who want to live on Cape Cod and raise a family here have access to quality housing that is safe, affordable, and accessible to transportation. If elected I hope to work closely with state and local officials to achieve these goals in all of the communities I represent.

What steps, if any, should the state take toward police reform?

As a former police officer, I have grave concerns about the so-called police reform bills passed by the House and Senate. I do not support limitations to qualified immunity for police officers, nor do I support changes to our state's civil service structure. Having said that, I think that taking steps to certify police officers in a system that is fair and accountable is a reasonable step. I also support additional officer training (something I've supported and called for for many years), and I also support limits on tactics officers can use in non-life-threatening situations. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is disgraceful and serves as a powerful example of the need to make sure we implement proper police practices here in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

I support stronger public safety through reforming our criminal justice laws to keep violent criminals and drug dealers in jail. I support our first responders and our veterans. I oppose sanctuary cities and I oppose drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. I will always honor the Flag and our National Anthem. I support our small businesses who are looking for ways to thrive again, and I also support getting our kids back to school, safely. I oppose new taxes and tolls, and I believe in advocating for more responsible state spending and fiscal practices. I also believe for better accountability for politicians in office. And, I have the ultimate respect for our constitutionally-protected rights and freedoms, and for those who have served and continue to serve our country in uniform to protect them.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

It all comes down to experience. My 40 years of work as a police officer uniquely qualifies me to work on serious issues of law and order, and to work collaboratively with other officials on Cape Cod to keep people safe. I also have a deep understanding of how to build trusted relationships within the community, which is fundamental to supporting our businesses and helping them achieve success. And, as a former School Resource Officer, I've worked first-hand with teachers, students, and parents on difficult issues facing our schools. I have the knowledge, the training, and the experience needed to help make Cape Cod a better place to live and work.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

This is an open seat. I am proud to have the endorsement of the current State Representative, Randy Hunt (R), as well as his predecessor in office, Jeff Perry.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have forty years of experience working as a police officer in the Town of Yarmouth and serving as its Deputy Chief of Police. This experience provides me with unique perspective, insight, and ability to work on important issues of public safety which are on the top of residents' minds. My work also gives me a background working directly with small business owners in the community and with teachers, parents, and students in our schools. Our next State Representative needs to be in a position to get our small businesses open again and to help get our kids back to school, safely, and I'm the right candidate for the job.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Work hard, be honest, and always be yourself.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

Voters who wish to obtain more information about me, my background, and my positions on important issues can visit my website, www.XiarhosforRep.com, for additional information.

This article originally appeared on the Barnstable-Hyannis Patch
Bucking tradition, a group of climate activists has won three seats in an election to an important governing body at Harvard University, the Board of Overseers, the university announced Friday.

The slate of candidates ran on a platform that included calls for the university to drop fossil fuel investments from its portfolio, part of a divestment movement that has swept college campuses for the better part of a decade.

Harvard, with an endowment of more than $40 billion, has resisted those calls. In April, the universitys president, Lawrence Bacow, said that divestment paints with too broad a brush and instead announced that Harvard was setting a course to become greenhouse-gas neutral by 2050, a move that he correctly predicted would not satisfy those seeking total divestment.

Candidates for the six-year terms on the board are customarily nominated through the Harvard Alumni Association. These candidates were elected through a petition campaign, the first to successfully do so since 1989, when a group seeking divestment from South Africa put forward Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The incident brought to a head long-running tensions with Iraqs desire to manage good relations between the United States, its chief Western partner, and Iran, its neighbor to the east. The Trump administration has described Iran as its chief adversary in the Middle East, in particular vowing to use force to respond to attacks on U.S. personnel by Iranian-linked militiamen in Iraq or elsewhere.
US to Hold Accountable Violators of Reinstated UN Sanctions Against Iran, Pompeo Says

Sputnik News

02:47 GMT 20.08.2020

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is determined to enforce UN sanctions it intends to reinstate against Iran and penalize any violator, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview.

Pompeo will travel to New York on Thursday and notify the United Nations Security Council that the US is initiating the process to restore international sanctions. Under the snapback clause of resolution 2231, sanctions, including the arms embargo, will be back in place 30 days later.

"Absolutely, we have already done that when we have seen any country violate our current, the current American sanctions", Pompeo told FOX News, replying to a question if the US administration will hold China or Russia "accountable with sanctions too" if they refuse to comply. "We have held every nation accountable for that. We will do the same thing with respect to the broader UN Security Council sanctions as well".

The US announced plans to trigger the snapback mechanism to re-impose all UN sanctions against Iran - previously lifted under the 2015 nuclear agreement - after failing to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution aiming to indefinitely extend the arms UN embargo on Iran. The arms embargo is set to expire in October under the terms of the nuclear agreement.

The snapback procedure is outlined in resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear agreement, and stipulates that if one of the signatories finds another to have taken actions which constitute significant non-performance of commitments under the accord, the UN Security Council would have a vote on whether to continue with the suspension of the sanctions against Iran.

To get the sanctions reinstated, the US needs to veto the resolution. The procedure is complicated, however, by the fact that the Americans unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear agreement on 8 May 2018.

A Sputnik

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Mali's military junta has released two senior government officials detained during the coup against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, an ally of Keita said, as U.N. human rights officials met overnight with the ousted leader.

There has been no word from Keita since Tuesday, when he dissolved parliament and then resigned after being detained at gunpoint, deepening the crisis facing a country already struggling to fend off an insurgency by Islamist militants.

The release of Finance Minister Abdoulaye Daffe and the president's private secretary, Sabane Mahalmoudou, came as junta leaders held discussions with political leaders about creating a transitional authority.

"They were freed but I don't know in what condition," the head of Keita's party, Bocary Treta, told Reuters.

A United Nations human rights team visited Keita and other detainees late on Thursday, the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA, said. It provided no details on what was said or on the condition of the captives.

The streets of the capital Bamako were calm for the third straight day on Friday ahead of a rally planned by an opposition coalition that led protests against Keita before the coup and has since embraced the mutineers.

The coup leaders have said they acted because the country was sinking into chaos and insecurity, largely the fault of poor government. They said they wanted to rebuild stability and have promised to oversee a transition to elections within a "reasonable" amount of time.

But the military overthrow has dismayed international and regional powers, who fear it could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa's entire Sahel region.

A coup in 2012 helped hasten a takeover of northern Mali by al Qaeda-linked militants, and al Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates are active in the north and centre of the country.

Leaders of Keita's ruling coalition said they met senior coup figures on Thursday.

"It went well," Djibril Tall, the president of a party within the coalition, told Radio France Internationale (RFI), adding that he was not concerned the junta would cling to power.

Junta spokesman Ismael Wague said in an interview with France 24 television on Thursday that the officers were meeting political leaders and activists to chart a way forward.

"At the end of the meetings with the parties, we will put in place a transitional council with a transitional president," Wague said.

A delegation from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected to arrive soon in Bamako, after the bloc held an emergency summit on Thursday aimed at reversing the coup.

The mission, led by former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, intends "to negotiate the immediate release of the president and also ensure the restoration of constitutional government," Jonathan's spokesman said. The timing of the visit is not yet confirmed.

ECOWAS has already suspended Mali's membership, shut off borders and halted financial flows to the country.

France, which has troops in Mali to counter the jihadist threat, has joined other foreign powers in condemning the junta and calling for Keita's release. But in contrast to ECOWAS, it has emphasised the need for a return to democratic rule, rather than the reversal of the coup.

"Power must be returned to civilians as soon as possible and the transition guaranteed," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

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The Block's first three seasons took place in Sydney, before it moved to Melbourne for the following 13 seasons.

And according to judges, Darren Palmer, Shaynna Blaze and Neale Whitaker, the hit reno show won't be returning to Sydney anytime soon.

The trio explained to Domain that the capital of Victoria is the perfect place to film the show because of it's 'arts culture'.

Calling Melbourne home: According to The Block judges (from L to R), Neale Whitaker, Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer, the hit reno show will never return to Sydney

According to Shaynna, 57, not only does the city have easier access to a wider variety of homeware stores due to less traffic, but it is the perfect place to film because of the city's energy.

'We are an arts culture here, and architecture and design really comes into that,' she says.

Even NSW based Neale, 58, agrees with Shaynna, stating it's the 'best city.'

He added: 'Melburnians love The Block, and I think they love having The Block in their city.'

Big move: The Block's first three seasons took place in Sydney before it moved to Melbourne for the following 13 seasons. Pictured: The Sydney site used for the second season of the show

Melbourne mania: The sprawling site for upcoming season of The Block (pictured) is located in the city's suburb of Brighton

Darren, 42, also said that that building heritage-fronted homes with modern additions is generally easier to do in Melbourne, because of councils 'progressive approach' to planing.

'The Block is really about finding something old and then adding something new  it's really perfectly situated in Melbourne because Melbourne does it best.'

Of course, this year's season of The Block has been unlike any other due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Production was brought to a grounding halt in March, with the cast and crew returning to the show's new $15million site in Melbourne's Brighton in May.

Unsure: The Block host Scott Cam (pictured), 57, revealed his doubts on production of the 2021 season in an interview on Monday, after the show underwent major changes amid COVID-19

And speaking to Realestate.com on Monday ahead of Sunday's premiere, host Scott Cam revealed that he was unsure about what may happen to production of the 2021 season amid Victoria's second lockdown.

When asked whether there's been 'any word yet' on filming for 2021, the 57-year-old said: 'It's too early to tell - I have no idea about next year and what the story is.

'I don't even know about this year's auction. It's in November, and we still aren't sure! Hopefully, in three months time things are different, but you never know.'

The Block premieres Sunday at 7pm on Channel Nine
It is a difficult decision for voters in the United States, as it is in New Zealand. For Americans, it is on Nov. 3, 2020 that they will decide on whether Donald Trump should continue leading their country. For New Zealanders, instead of Sept. 19, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has moved the Parliamentary election to Oct. 17 because of the effects Covid-19 restrictions would have on electioneering.

Despite his many mistakes and numerous lies, diligently counted by critics, US President Donald Trump has the backing of God-fearing voters and conservatives. He is seen as the defender of Christian values and, if not for Covid-19, should have brought America back to greatness. For most Republicans, should Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, be elected, then the liberals will give priority to individual freedoms ahead of the moral standards that guided the founding fathers of the nation. They question the promise of Biden to restore the Soul of America, when in fact, it is Trump who has kept it close to his heart.

For Democrats, Biden is the only hope for a country that has lost its respect among the family of nations.

In NZ, the liberal Labour Party is predicted to govern alone without need of coalition partners, primarily because of the popularity of its leader, Jacinda Ardern, for her compassion in the aftermath of the bloody mosque killings in 2019; and her transparency and boldness in action against the pandemic. The opposition National Party is on an uphill climb against Ardern who was even called St. Jacinda by an Australian commentator. But she is no saint.

Christian electorates have faulted her for the passage of The Abortion Legislation Act 2020 in March this year that decriminalizes abortion, making this available without restrictions to any woman who is not more than 20 weeks pregnant. If Labour should govern again and both the personal cannabis consumption and the End of Life Choice Act 2019 will win the accompanying referendum, expect New Zealand to become a haven for marijuana users and for assisted dying.

Story continues

While there is no connection between the US and NZ elections, Trump made reference to Arderns handling of the pandemic in a speech on Aug. 19, saying, New Zealand, by the way, had a big outbreak, and other countries that were held up to try and make us look not as good as we should look and weve done an incredible job.

Of course, New Zealanders simply shrugged off Trumps comments. While NZ had 22 new cases at the time Trump referred to as a surge, the US reported more than 42,000 new cases.

The world is facing the pandemic today, but for US and NZ electorates, they are deciding about their future as well.
Libyan factions and their foreign backers have been mobilising as diplomats try to avert a military escalation in Sirte.

In Sirtes municipal offices, walls are adorned with pictures of renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar, commander of the eastern-based self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA). Out in the desert, troops keep watch from behind sandbanks.

Already scarred by Libyas 2011 uprising and a takeover by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group, Sirte now finds itself not only at the centre of a civil war but also a focus of geopolitical enmities that span the region.

Since Turkish intervention helped drive Haftars LNA back in early June from its 14-month offensive on the capital, Tripoli, the front lines have settled around Sirte, in the middle of Libyas Mediterranean coast and close to major oil terminals.

The city has seen wars and crises that have made people afraid, said Adel Mohamed, a 43-year-old resident shopping in a local supermarket in the city of 90,000. There is always anxiety about what is to come.

Libyas civil conflict pits the LNA and its allies against forces aligned with the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, in the west.

As the GNA and Turkey looked ready to make further advances, Egypt declared Sirte a red line and pushed through parliamentary approval for possible military intervention.

In recent weeks, Libyan factions and their foreign backers have been mobilising as diplomats try to avert a military escalation and secure a ceasefire.

On a rare tour of LNA military positions, Reuters reporters saw troops stationed at positions southwest of Sirte, some sheltering under awnings or in tents, others manning watchpoints.

A member of the LNA loads his rifle with ammunition at one of their sites west of Sirte [Esam Omran al-Fetori/Reuters]

Our armed forces are stationed around Sirte, even beyond Sirte. We are prepared, said Miftah Shaqlouf, head of the LNAs operations centre in the area.

Our fingers must remain on the trigger until Libya is purified from mercenaries and colonisers, and from everyone who has greedily sought our land and its riches.

During a visit to Tripoli this week, Germanys foreign minister echoed a US call for a demilitarised zone around Sirte and al-Jufra, a military base to the south. He also warned of a deceptive calm with both sides and their allies continuing to arm themselves on a massive scale.

Foreign meddling

Foreign powers have been involved in Libya since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ended Muammar Gaddafis 42 years in power. But in recent months, the meddling has reached new levels.

While Turkey has considered using military bases in western Libya, the US has accused Russia of sending fighter jets and military supplies to help Russian private contractors.

Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) has said the deployment of mercenaries has turned oil installations into military posts, and accused the United Arab Emirates  one of Haftars main backers  of upholding a blockade that for the last seven months has all but halted the oil production Libya depends on.

Russia has rejected US statements about its alleged military intervention, and the LNA denies it uses mercenaries.

We have no one with us. No Russians  nothing, said Shaqlouf, the LNA commander.

The UAE says it supports a diplomatic solution to the conflict and wants to see a return of Libyas oil production as soon as possible but with safeguards in place.

UAE authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Major oil terminals in Libyas oil crescent east of Sirte, repeatedly fought over and damaged in recent years, remain blockaded under LNA control.

Sirte itself is still partly in ruins from the battles of 2016 when GNA forces pushed ISIL from the city where the group had set up its North African stronghold.

The seaside neighbourhood that saw the heaviest fighting lies in ruins, abandoned. Elsewhere, shops and cafes are open, and the city does not suffer the crippling power cuts of other regions thanks to a power station nearby.

Abdelaziz Abdelrahim, a 27-year-old butchers shop employee, said there were still cash shortages, but fewer than before the LNA took control of Sirte in January.

More attacks on Sirte? We say God willing, no.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Anwar Gargash, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, doesnt understand why Israel would object to the U.S. selling his country the F-35 fighter jet. The UAE is one of the few Arab states that has never been at war with Israel, after all, and now its working to normalize relations with the Jewish state. Whats an advanced weapons system between new friends?

When asked this week at a conference sponsored by the Atlantic Council about Israeli objections to the F-35 sale, Gargash said it might have to do with domestic Israeli politics. He concurred with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus remarks that the arms sale was not part of the normalization agreement. Nonetheless, he also said he expected that signing the agreement with Israel would remove any hurdles with the U.S. government on the sale of the F-35s.

Yet that is far from clear. Since 1973, the U.S. has largely followed a policy designed to give Israel a qualitative military edge, or QME, over the other Arab states in the region when it comes to arms sales. In practice, this means that the U.S. will not sell weapons systems to Arab states that give them capabilities comparable to Israels. Israel has a role in this process and is influential in Congress, which also must approve such arms sales.

But Israel does not always get its way. In 1981, for example, the U.S. sold surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia over the objections of Israel, and Congress narrowly approved the sale.

Israel said this week that it disapproved the sale of the F-35s to the UAE. The U.S., however, has signaled that its open to it. David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, told the Jerusalem Post this week that future military sales to the UAE would go through the QME process. He also allowed for the possibility that one day, the U.S. might sell the F-35 to the UAE.

There are two good arguments for the Israeli position. First, todays friends can be tomorrows adversaries. The best recent example of this is what has happened in Turkey. As a NATO ally, Turkey was for decades armed with some of Americas most sophisticated weapons systems. Israel has also enjoyed a close relationship with Ankara for much of its history.

Story continues

But Turkey has more recently gone rogue, purchasing sophisticated air defense systems from Russia and signing agreements with Venezuela. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to suspend diplomatic relations with the UAE after it announced the normalization deal with Israel. The UAEs leadership today is moderate and reasonable, but there is no guarantee this will always be the case.

The second argument is that it sets a bad precedent to sell the UAE the fighter jet platform that Israel has also purchased. Other, more volatile Arab allies of the U.S. will want it too  and possibly demand it as a price for normalization with Israel. To this day, the QME process still applies to Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel.

Not everyone agrees. The UAE is a path breaker, said David Wurmser, a former adviser to the U.S. National Security Council under President Donald Trump. The path breaker has to get a reward. And while Wurmser said he did not believe it would be wise to sell the F-35s to Saudi Arabia, he had more confidence that the UAE would be stable in the coming years, and he saw no reason why selling F-35s to UAE would mean that the Saudis should get them too.

Add to this another pending concern: The U.S. is currently planning to snap back sanctions on Iran to keep in place a conventional arms embargo that expires in October. But this maneuver is risky. There is a very good chance that Russia and China will simply ignore any arms embargo imposed by the U.S., which is no longer a part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Strengthening the UAE with state-of-the-art fighter jets is one way to hedge against the very real possibility of Chinese and Russian arms sales to Iran.

Friedman hinted at this in his interview. Ultimately, under the right circumstances, both the U.S. and Israel would benefit greatly from having a strong ally situated across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, he told the Jerusalem Post.

Which highlights an irony about shifting alliances in the Middle East. By turning the UAE from foe to friend, Israeli is enhancing its national security. It may well be, however, that the price of that friendship will be the erosion of the military advantage its most important friend has provided Israel for nearly 50 years.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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A jailed murderer and child sex offender appealing for release says he is sorry for killing a 22-month-old toddler but he can't say why he did it more than three decades on.

Douglas Wade was 25 when he bashed his then-girlfriend's baby girl after she knocked over an ashtray full of cigarette butts while he was babysitting at a home in Tumut in 1988.

Douglas Wade says he is sorry for killing the 22-month-old toddler but he can't say why he did it more than three decades on. Credit:Suuplied

The girl died from a ruptured colon after suffering many blows to her stomach, while a post-mortem examination found multiple injuries on her body including bruises to her vagina and abdomen.

It has since been described by a court as the most "reprehensible" form of violence.
Democrats are trying to win back a key Midwestern battleground state that Trump won by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a stark reminder to Wisconsin Democrats on Thursday about the importance the Midwestern battleground state plays in the presidential election less than 11 weeks away.

No pressure, its all riding on Wisconsin, Pelosi told more than 100 Democrats during a virtual meeting tied to the final day of the Democratic National Convention. No pressure.

Democrats, as well as United States President Donald Trump, have made no secret how essential winning Wisconsin is to the race this year.

Wisconsin did not get the national attention it hoped for when the Democratic convention  originally planned for the states biggest city, Milwaukee  was moved online because of the coronavirus.

Trump and his surrogates have flooded the state this week, drawing a sharp contrast with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who decided against travelling to the state to accept the nomination due to concerns over COVID-19.

After Trumps narrow victory of fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016, and polls showing another close race this year, Democrats are pledging not to downplay the importance of Wisconsin in Bidens efforts to defeat Trump.





The road to the presidency runs through Wisconsin, said Holder, who was attorney general under former President Barack Obama.

The fate of the United States, the fate of the western world, is on your shoulders. Not too much pressure, Holder said.

Holder and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers also stressed the importance of denying Republicans the six seats needed in the Wisconsin Legislature to have a veto-proof supermajority headed into the once-a-decade process of redistricting next year.

Wisconsin has been at the front of the national battle over redistricting, with Democrats taking a challenge of the current maps to the US Supreme Court.

Republicans need to pick up three seats in the Wisconsin senate and three in the state assembly to have supermajorities that could override any Evers veto. That would enable the GOP-controlled legislature to enact any map it wishes after redistricting next year, just as it did in 2011 when Republican Scott Walker was governor.

Former US Attorney General Eric Holder is leading the Democratic Partys campaign against gerrymandering in US states [Yuri Gripas/Reuters]

Evers and Democrats have rallied around a Save the Veto message, with the first-term governor saying Thursday that he had temporarily suspended fundraising for his own re-election to focus on that effort.

Evers predicted that Republicans would convene within seconds to override his veto of the maps if they have the votes to do it.

Thats what this years election is all about for me, and I think for you also, Evers said.

Sure, its about defeating the Trumpster and making sure his brand of nonsense comes nowhere near the White House again. I know Joe is going to win in November, but its also about maps, Evers said.

Holder said Wisconsin had the most gerrymandered maps in the country.

We need to make sure that Democrats have a seat at the table, Holder said.

This is an existential presidential election, I get that. But so are the races happening down the ballot in Wisconsin as well, and across the country, he said.
The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has called for support from the public to stop irregular migration into and out of the country.



It said the task could be fulfilled with the support of Ghanaians, particularly border residents.



This was contained in a statement signed by Mr Ibn Yussif Duranah Abdul-Mumin Seidu, the Upper West Regional Public Affairs Officer (PAO) of the GIS, and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa.



Our position and determination on prohibited migration have not and will not change. beyond the closure of our territorial borders, the status quo on irregular, undocumented and prohibited migration into Ghana remains in force.



We, therefore, urge everyone to collaborate with the Ghana Immigration Service and all other agencies to end cross border crimes, the statement said.



The statement said the GIS would deal ruthlessly with any individual or group of people apprehended engaging in or abetting illegal migration into and out of the country.



The statement said the GIS officials at the Hamile Sector Command upon intelligence busted 15 illegal migrants, comprising 12 Burkinabes and three Nigerian nationals aged between two and 53 years.



It said the illegal migrants were on board a passenger bus with registration number GN-2357-10 enroute Techiman and Kumasi for farming and business purposes contrary to the government directive on the closure of the national borders.



Our preliminary investigations revealed that the migrants sneaked into Ghana through unapproved routes.



The ECOWAS NATIONALS were screened by the Port Health Personnel before being handed over to the Burkina Faso authorities on the other side of the border at about 0720HRS on 20th August 2020, the statement said.



The President, Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo-Addo, had directed that all territorial borders of the country be closed as part of measures to manage the spread of the COVID-19 in the country.



However, some unscrupulous foreign nationals still attempted entering into the country through unapproved routes.

Source: GNA









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Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa, who has just recovered from COVID-19, is facing the ire of government doctors over the suicide of a senior medical officer allegedly due to harassment by an IAS officer.

This incident has brought the doctors and the IAS lobby face-to-face. The medical staff have threatened to boycott work if the IAS officer is not suspended and arrested.

A panicked CM has announced an immediate compensation and an inquiry into the incident. But, the doctors are in no mood to relent.

Dr. Nagendra, a 43-year-old Taluk Medical Officer (TPO) at Nanjanagud in Mysore district, died by suicide on Wednesday due to alleged harassment by the local Zila Panchayat CEO Prashant Kumar Mishra.

Doctors claimed that Mishra was arrogant and abusive, and that he had set COVID-19 test targets for all that were impossible to achieve because of a huge resource crunch. They alleged that the officer used to abuse the deceased doctor and he ended his life as he was unable to take this humiliation beyond a point.

Medical Education Minister Dr. K Sudhakar, who rushed to Mysore to pacify the angry doctors, was booed by lady doctors and was shouted at. They alleged that Sudhakar was trying to hush up the entire incident and refused to listen to him.

They demanded that Mishra should be suspended, arrested and charged with abetment of suicide. The doctors who spoke to News18 feel that state government is endangering the lives of millions during coronavirus crisis by trying to shield an IAS officer.

We have decided to boycott work. The virus could spread to the entire state. Are these IAS officers above the law? Can they do the work we do? If he is not suspended and arrested, we will not return to work, said a government doctor who asked News18 not to name her.

Complaints of IAS officers misbehaving with the medical staff is not new in Karnataka. Two weeks ago, deputy commissioner of Bidar district, Ramachandran, was accused of hitting doctors with a stick. Despite Indian Medical Associations (IMA) demand for his suspension, Yediyurappa took no action allegedly under pressure from the IAS lobby.

These IAS officers think they are law unto themselves. Instead of supporting and appreciating the efforts of the medical staff in these testing times, they are harassing us. Threatening us with action etc. We want the CM to act quickly and decisively, said an officer bearer of the IMA.

The current crisis has also exposed many other things. The power tussle between Medical Education Minister Dr. K Sudhakar and Health Minister B Sriramulu has also hampered Karnatakas fight against coronavirus in the last two months. The CM, overburdened with work, is not in a position to rein in his quarrelling ministers, claim party insiders.

The opposition Congress and JDS have also accused the CM and these two ministers of minting huge amounts of money in the purchase and hire of medical equipment and medicines to fight the virus.

They have no moral right or face to order their subordinates to behave. Because everyone knows there is a huge scam. Sadly, the medical staff have now become a casualty, said Dinesh Gundurao, former president of Karnataka state Congress.

Several organizations have extended their support to striking doctors demanding an end to highhandedness of some IAS officers in the state.
Moscow expects negotiations on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to resume as soon as possible and is working on it jointly with its Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group partners, according to Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov.

In an interview with the Russian Trud newspaper published on Friday Lavrov was, in particular, asked to speak about reasons behind the July escalation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and evaluate the likelihood of its growing into a large-scale armed conflict.

A whole complex of reasons had led to the conflict. The basis of it, of course, was the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh problem plus the overheating of the public space on both sides of the border, the top Russian diplomat said.

The geographic factor also served as a kind of trigger: the decision of the Armenian side to reanimate an old border checkpoint located 15 kilometers from the Azerbaijani export pipelines caused heightened anxiety on the one side and an unjustified response from the other, and, as a result, it launched the flywheel of confrontation with the most unpredictable consequences, he added.

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of the escalation on July 12-16 in which at least five Armenian servicemen and 17 Azerbaijani servicemen, including a general, were killed.

The fighting along the border separating Armenias northeastern Tavush province and Azerbaijans northwestern Tovuz region proceeded with the use of heavy artillery, mortars and drones.

In his interview Lavrov pointed out that the clashes were the second largest violation of the Moscow-brokered 1994 ceasefire after 2016 clashes near Nagorno-Karabakh and the first such large-scale fighting at the state border of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the past 26 years.

Lavrov said that the Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, which also includes the United States and France, was in direct contact with the top diplomats of Armenia and Azerbaijan during the whole period of the escalation.

As a result, it was with active Russian mediation that, although not from the first attempt, but still we got to the agreement on ceasefire from July 16, he said.

The clashes at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border were followed by tensions between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani communities around the world, including in Russia.

Instances of fights and violent rampages involving Armenians and Azerbaijanis were reported in Moscow and other cities of Russia.

Lavrov stressed that both diasporas should be fully aware of their responsibility both for the observance of the laws of the Russian Federation and for helping to create an atmosphere conducive to the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan.

In his public statements after the clashes Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian called for the establishment of an international mechanism to investigate ceasefire violations in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict zone. He reiterated that call in his interview on BBC World News HARDtalk show on August 14.

Speaking at a session of the Security Council in Yerevan on Friday, Pashinian said that the victorious battles in July came to demonstrate that there is no military solution to the Karabakh issue.

I think the time has come for the Azerbaijani leadership to acknowledge this fact, he added.

I consider it important to state that Armenia continues with its constructive stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Our position is that the conflict should be settled through peaceful talks, the Armenian leader underscored in remarks publicized by his press service.
Olivia Pope and Selina Meyer are used to finding themselves on the political stage. Gaby Solis and Rainbow Johnson not so much. Yet this week, all four  or at least, the actresses who have played them  have presided over the Democratic Partys biggest political event of the year.

Celebrities have long been a fixture of politics, but never quite like this. During the Democratic National Convention, four women werent quite the leads, but perhaps the best supporting actresses.

The women  Eva Longoria, Kerry Washington, Tracee Ellis Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus  are all known for their activism, emerging as some of the most famous figures in the #Resistance movement to the Trump administration. Theyre also familiar American faces, having all starred in long-running television shows.

Each night, the four celebrities have guided the television audience through the program, introducing taped segments, montages and speakers from a soundstage in Los Angeles. After moving videos of victims of gun violence or the coronavirus, it has been the women helping television viewers process what they had seen.

On Thursday evening, Dreyfus opened her evening with an extended comedy riff  taking aim at Trump for mispronouncing Sen. Kamala Harris name and questioning the presidents literacy. She even tossed off one of Bidens favorite verbal tics  God love em  in expressing her support.

I am no policy expert and I certainly dont pretend to be one, but I have a gut feeling about fairness and whats right, and that is why I am so excited that in just a little while well hear from Joe Biden about his plans for America, she said. Plans for an economy that helps small businesses and people and plans to help the grocery workers and people getting us through this crisis  God love em.

We fight for a more perfect union because we are fighting for the soul of this country and for the fight of our lives, Washington said Wednesday night.

Howard Bragman, a Hollywood publicist and self-described spin doctor, likened selecting the four women  who both have broad appeal and represent a cross-spectrum of the partys diversity  to casting.

Theyre looking to sway the middle here, so theyre using popular faces and people that are going to appeal to suburban women who went to Trump last time, he said.

The Democrats handsomely rewarded the actresses participation with screen time: During a convention where nearly every speaker has been allotted only a brief time slot  with most receiving under five minutes  the actresses had more airtime than almost anyone else on each of the first three nights.

On the first night, Longoria spoke for 12.5 minutes, longer than everyone except Michelle Obama and about four minutes longer than Sen. Bernie Sanders. On Tuesday, Ross spoke for more than six minutes, longer than everyone except Jill Biden. On Wednesday night, Washington spoke for more than nine minutes, longer than everyone except former President Barack Obama and Sen. Kamala Harris, the vice-presidential nominee. Louis-Dreyfus is set to host Thursday night.

In contrast, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a rising star in the party and one of the most vocal progressive politicians, was given a 60-second slot to speak (she ended up speaking for just over a minute and a half).

None of the actresses were particularly eager to talk about their convention-night roles: Representatives for all four said the women were unavailable for interviews.

High-wattage celebrities are a mainstay of political conventions for both sides. At times their performances have been flops. In 2012, for instance, Republicans featured actor and director Clint Eastwood, who then memorably had a rambling conversation with an empty chair.

Four years later, Sarah Silverman, standing alongside Al Franken, a senator at the time, chided supporters of Sanders for refusing to back Hillary Clinton. To the Bernie or Bust people, youre being ridiculous, she told the raucous crowd.

Traditionally, the schedule of speeches starts in the early evening and continues late into the night, eliminating the need for a formal emcee.

This years convention, which is being held virtually, has essentially taken place in the ether of the internet. With no geographic heart, and lacking the emotional grounding that comes from a live audience, the actresses have served as the weeks anchor.

Democrats began considering whether to have a celebrity host in April as it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic would force changes to their convention plans, according to a person involved with the planning. Originally, they wanted to have the hosts travel to Milwaukee, but eventually settled on a soundstage in Los Angeles to minimize travel. They also wanted women to host, as a tribute to the female voters who have emerged as the backbone of the party during the Trump era.

All four women were involved in crafting their own remarks, working closely with the convention committee to draft a script that expressed their views along with those of the party, the person said.

Having actresses host the convention, of course, risks playing into a common Republican stereotype: that the Democratic Party is a party of Hollywood elites. After the first night, the Trump campaign blasted the event as a Hollywood-produced infomercial.

Personally, for me, being an actual real housewife from the middle of the country watching Hollywood housewives play real housewives, like Tracee Ross and Eva Longoria  its just too much Hollywood for me, said Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Im so tired of hearing Hollywood lecture me about how to live my life.

Unlike Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who had large and devoted followings of celebrity endorsers, Joe Biden isnt known for spending quite as much time schmoozing with the stars. Of the four actresses, he has the closest relationship with Louis-Dreyfus. The two filmed a spoof video for the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2014. When Louis-Dreyfus disclosed that she had breast cancer, in 2017, Biden tweeted his support. We Veeps stick together. Jill and I, and all of the Bidens, are with you, Julia, he wrote, referring to her starring role on HBOs Veep.

Hollywood is known for being liberal, and actresses and actors who choose to be involved in politics are likely to face very little risk to their reputations. When Democratic politicians need to refill their campaign coffers, they often head west to splashy fundraisers at mansions in Brentwood and Beverly Hills.

Its a one-politic town, and I think as long as youre on the correct side, youre probably OK, Bragman said. And he said acting as an emcee for the convention was less fraught for ones reputation than, say, hosting an awards event, which has backfired for some hosts in the past.

This isnt like hosting the Oscars or the Emmys, Bragman said. I think this is a totally different beast, frankly, because I think these women are doing this because they want to get out there and change the country.

That sentiment is not new. Longoria served as a co-chair of Obamas reelection campaign in 2012, speaking at the Democratic convention that year and campaigning for him in Florida. She is a co-founder of the Latino Victory Project, an organization working to expand Latino political power.

And when Hillary Clinton announced her second presidential bid, in 2015, Washington immediately offered her support. Im very thrilled. Im excited for her, and Im sure Ill be hitting the stump trail, she said at the time. (She and other celebrities, including television producer Shonda Rhimes, later appeared in an ad for Clinton.)

Still, political activism comes more easily to some than others. In 2016, Ross  who has been an outspoken advocate for womens rights and gender equality  wrote an op-ed article in Cosmopolitan in which she expressed her reluctance to engage in politics. I have had my own trepidation about speaking up and sharing my opinion over fear of alienating others, she wrote. But in facing my fears, I have decided to use my voice to remind people about the importance of voting and share why I have decided to support Hillary Clinton.

Washington has interacted with Biden before  at least his fictionalized version. She starred in an HBO film about Anita Hill, whose 1991 testimony in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas was overseen by Biden, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was widely blamed for her treatment during the hearing, in which she accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

Speaking at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2017, Washington suggested the roles of actor and activist were linked.

A lot of people are saying right now that actors shouldnt express their opinions when it comes to politics, she said. But the truth is, actors are activists no matter what, because we embody the worth and humanity of all people.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Pressure on Belarusian president, external interference 'counterproductive': Putin tells EU

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 4:35 PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any pressure on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko or external interference in the internal affairs of Belarus will be counterproductive.

The Russian leader made the remarks in a telephone conversation with European Council President Charles Michel on Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Russia pointed out that any pressure on the leadership of the sovereign Belarusian state and foreign interference in domestic processes taking place in the country were counterproductive," noted the statement, carried by TASS news agency.

The two sides agreed that an early normalization of the situation in Belarus suited the interests of "both Russia and the European Union (EU)", the Kremlin added.

The development came just a day after the European bloc announced that it rejected the results of August 9 presidential election in Belarus, claiming it was not "free and fair."

The EU also said that it would soon "impose sanctions against a substantial number of individuals responsible," for what it claimed as "violence, repression and the falsification of election results."

Lukashenko won Belarus' presidential election on August 9 by a landslide, securing a sixth term in office. But his political opponents organized riots and claimed electoral fraud. The allegations were echoed by Western states.

With backing from the West, the Belarusian opposition has formed a so-called coordination council to purportedly oversee a transition of power. The president has described the formation of the body as a coup attempt.

The EU and the US have long accused Lukashenko of human rights violations because of his close ties with Russia. The European bloc has also used those allegations to impose sanctions on the 65-year-old president but removed them in 2016.

The Belarusian president has voiced concerns about a potential military action by NATO against his country. On Tuesday, he put Belarusian troops along the country's western border on full combat alert.

Minsk opens criminal case against attempt to 'seize power'

Earlier on Thursday, Belarusian authorities launched a criminal case against the opposition-run coordination council, accusing it of an illegal attempt to seize power.

The so-called council held its first meeting this week and called for new elections.

"The creation and activities of such a council are aimed at seizing power and undermining the national security of Belarus," Prosecutor General Alexander Konyuk said in a video statement, adding that the body's establishment was "unconstitutional."

He further said that investigators were opening a investigation into "calls for actions aimed at undermining national security." Such a charge can carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

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New Delhi, Aug 21 : As part of its effort to end the practice of caste discrimination and untouchability in society, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has succeeded in training around 5,000 Dalits as priests across the country, a VHP leader claimed on Friday.

Navneet Mishra New Delhi, Aug 21 (IANS) As part of its effort to end the practice of caste discrimination and untouchability in society, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has succeeded in training around 5,000 Dalits as priests across the country, a VHP leader claimed on Friday.

VHP National Spokesman Vinod Bansal told IANS that due to the efforts of the organisation, many such priests have been taken on the panels of government-run temples.

"We have achieved a huge success in southern India. There is a large number of Dalit priests in southern states. In Tamil Nadu alone, 2,500 priests have been trained due to the efforts of the VHP. There are a large number of Dalit priests in Andhra Pradesh also. The VHP has achieved a huge success in training of 5,000 Dalit priests," he said.

Two wings of the VHP are involved in the matter, ensuring training in the conduct of different religious rituals to the Dalits interested in religious matters. They are even provided certificates at the end of their training.

Bansal pointed out that such priests in the south are given certificates by Andhra Pradesh-based Tirupati Balaji temple once they get proficient in handling different religious ceremonies and rituals.

The VHP leader said that five years after it was set up in 1964, the organisation started working to end caste discrimination and untouchability in society.

He pointed out that the decision to help end untouchability was taken at a VHP convention in Udupi in Karnataka in 1969, where Hindu seers had sent out a message that 'all Hindus are brothers and no one is untouchable'.

He added that in order to take this initiative further, VHP leaders and other saints had gone to the home of 'Dom Raja' to invite him to the 'Dharam Sansad' held in Kashi (Varanasi) in 1994 and had even had a meal at his house.

In 1989, the VHP got the foundation stone of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya laid by a Dalit, Kameshwar Choupal, to send out the message of an egalitarian society. He has since been taken on the trust set up to oversee the construction of the new temple.

( can be contacted at navneet.m@ians.in)
ROMEFirst, two German tourists took an unauthorized dip in the Grand Canal in Venice, under the Rialto Bridge. Then an Austrian tourist broke the toe of a plaster statue of Napoleons sister while posing for a photograph at a museum in northern Italy. After that, a French tourist was caught red-handed using a black felt-tip pen to immortalize her stay in Florence on the citys famed Ponte Vecchio.

Now Italian officials have set their sights on a young woman who took a selfie standing atop some newly reopened thermal baths in Pompeii, the fragile archaeological site.

An investigation has been opened, said Massimo Osanna, the outgoing director of the Pompeii site, adding that prosecutors in a nearby city were looking into the events.

The coronavirus pandemic may have crushed the tourism industry in Italy this year  delivering a significant blow to the countrys economy  but Italians say that should not give tourists who do come a free pass to run amok among the countrys cultural treasures.

Theres a question of vigilance, but also of the unpreparedness of visitors, read an editorial published Tuesday in the Rome daily La Repubblica. What happened in Pompeii shows that the path to educating those who visit museums is still dotted with difficulties and unforeseen events, a nod to countless episodes of vandalism and damage caused to cultural treasures by visiting tourists.

Past attempts to curb such behaviour have not always been successful.

Lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament introduced a bill last month that would toughen penalties for those convicted of destroying Italys artistic patrimony. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini has been trying to put such a law on the books since 2016 but has not managed to get approval from both houses of Parliament.

Were not in the Wild West; laws for damaging cultural heritage do exist, Franceschinis spokesman, Mattia Morandi, said Tuesday. But the minister said he hoped that tougher penalties would be a greater deterrent to people who might carve their names in the Colosseum or take mosaics from Pompeii, not appreciating that they were destroying something priceless, he said.

We have to make a better effort to educate tourists to respect our patrimony, to make them understand where they are, said Osanna, who is to leave Pompeii next month to take up a job at the Culture Ministry overseeing Italys state museums.

Pompeii is a huge site and hard to monitor, he said.

Even increasing security staff by the hundreds, there will always be some place that you can access without direct control, Osanna said.

Instead of limiting access to the site, Osanna said it would be better to inform visitors that they were treading on fragile ground that belonged to all of humanity, and that any harm done to the site is a harm done to the worlds patrimony.

In the case of the statue whose toes were damaged in July, local authorities tracked the man using museum visitor logs. Prosecutors will look through Pompeiis reservation system to try matching a name to the photograph that caught the selfie-taking tourist out of bounds. The incident took place July 24 but did not make news in Italy until this past weekend, after it was posted on several social media accounts.

The man who took the photograph, Antonio Irlando, said he thought the woman might have been unaware she was breaking the rules, as the rope that was supposed to block the brick stairs to the roof had been untied and cast to the side.

Irlando, an architect and president of a local association that monitors the Pompeii sites, said in an interview that after taking the photograph, he tried to reach the woman but she had gone by the time he got to the baths. Instead, he saw another family climbing the steps, unaware that they were off limits.

I told them it wasnt safe, he said. Who knows how many others went up and no one noticed.

Irlando said his database was full of very extreme photographs of tourists behaving badly at Pompeii, like walking along the protected ancient walls of the city, or leaning against frescoes created some 2,000 years ago.

Its an atavistic vice, he said. If you want other photos of people who vandalized the site, just let me know.
With COVID-19 pandemic taking a toll on the lives of people and other unforeseen challenges that have emerged in 2020, many people have been left feeling overwhelmed with the negativity. As the disturbing updates sometimes have a tendency to linger longer, the Good News can have tremendous benefits on the overall mood by infusing the positive vibes.

Engaging with the "encouraging" and "happy" updates not only gives hope amid the hardships but can also prove to be morale booster during the gloom-and-doom driven atmosphere. Therefore, in a bid to lift the spirits, heres a compilation of Good news stories that are blissful and can brighten the day amid the challenging times.

Georgia teachers welcome students with rap song

Two teachers from Georgia welcomed students back to the new normal of online classes with a rap video. The Teachers at Monroe Comprehensive High School in Dougherty County in Albany, Callie Evans and Audri Williams, motivated their students who joined back school via virtual classes with a popping rap song.

READ: Good News: Georgia Teachers Welcome Students To Virtual Classes With Impressive Rap Song

Rare golden turtle spotted in Nepal

For the first time ever, a rare golden-coloured turtle has been discovered in Nepal and it is now reportedly being hailed as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The Mithila Wildlife Trust identified the rare animal as an Indian Flapshell Turtle or Lissemys punctata andersoni and cited the reason of reptiles colour as lack of melanin that occurs due to rare genetic mutation affecting the pigmentation. As per the study published in researchgate, the condition that gave gold shell to the turtle is called chromatic leucism.

(Image: reserchgate.net)

READ: Rare Golden Turtle Spotted In Nepal, Being 'revered As An Incarnation Of God Vishnu'

Artist creates worlds largest painting on canvas to raise funds

Contemporary British Artist Sacha Jafri, recently took to Twitter to share glimpses of the worlds largest painting' created on canvas. Posting a series of photographs, each depicting a different section of his over 1800 square meters painting, Jafri revealed that the painting aimed at raising funds for underprivileged children.

READ: Artist Creates 'world's Largest Painting On Canvas' To Raise Funds For Children; See Pics

Penguin chicks go for their first swim

A video of four penguin chicks taking their first-ever swim has mesmerized the netizens. Uploaded by Shedd Aquarium the video beautifully captures a major milestone that the little penguins have achieved. According to the caption of the video, the little penguins will soon join the penguin colony, once they are fully ready.

The penguin chicks have started swimming!  The four young penguins were recently introduced to water and are ready to make a splasha major milestone! Once they are fully comfortable swimming, they'll join the rest of the penguin colony. pic.twitter.com/XjHj1DgFf0  Shedd Aquarium (@shedd_aquarium) August 19, 2020

READ: Video: Penguin Chicks Go For Their First Swim, Netizens In Awe Of 'adorable Moment'

Children climb tree to attend online classes

While online classes have kept the flow of education going, attending them has become a big problem especially for those living in remote areas. In one such case, students and their teacher in Dhadgaon village, Nandurbar district of Maharashtra were spotted climbing a tree to get better network connectivity. Photographs that have surfaced online show a group of children sitting on different branches of the tree along with a man who could be seen teaching them using a small blackboard.

Maharashtra: Man in Dhadgaon village, Nandurbar district gives lessons to children using smartphones while sitting atop a tree, in order to get better network connectivity.



Deputy Director Education Divisional Nashik Pravin Patil says, the area has fewer mobile network towers. pic.twitter.com/MqOoUXYaPN  ANI (@ANI) August 18, 2020

READ: Maharashtra: Children Climb Tree To Attend 'online' Class Amid Low Network
A 21-year-old woman was arrested and accused of giving nearly $8,000 in illegal discounts at an Ithaca-area Target, New York State Police said Thursday.

Mina M. Ferris, of Willseyville, has been charged with third-degree grand larceny and first-degree falsifying business records, police said.

An investigation started in March after employees at a Target in Lansing noticed Ferris marked down merchandise significantly while working as a cashier, according to police.

The markdowns amounted to over $7,800, police said. Troopers arrested Ferris on July 27 at the state police barracks in Ithaca, police said.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Chris Libonati via the Signal app for encrypted messaging at 585-290-0718, by phone at the same number, by email or on Twitter.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 13:04:51|Editor: huaxia

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HARARE, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe teachers have rejected the government's proposal to reopen schools for examination classes, said Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) on Thursday.

Zimbabwe's Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said Tuesday during a post-cabinet press briefing that the government will proceed with its preparation to reopen schools for final examination classes.

In response, ARTUZ said in a statement that many students were not prepared to sit for the examinations due to the short studying time they have had this year.

ARTUZ said the November examinations should be moved to May 2021 to give learners enough time to prepare.

"Examination candidates have lost five solid months of learning time in the critical final year of their studies. They are likely to lose more," said the statement.

"It is practically impossible to frog-march these ill prepared learners into the examination room and expect them to cough out good results. Apart from the minority elite learners, the rest will fail," the statement added.

While some students have continued classes through e-learning during lockdown, the vast majority of students in rural areas have been disadvantaged due to a lack of access to the internet.

ARTUZ said learners have also suffered psychological trauma as a result of the COVID-19 movement restrictions.

"Learners have been confined to their homes since 31 March to date. The confinement is highly traumatic and triggers mental health problems. It will be cruel to force such learners into an examination room without providing therapy for the learners," read parts of the statement.

Schools across Zimbabwe have been closed since the end of March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The move to reopen schools comes at a time when COVID-19 cases in the country are on a rise. As of Thursday, Zimbabwe has reported 5,745 confirmed cases and 151 deaths. Enditem
Ontario Sires Stakes standouts Beaumond Hanover and Tattoo Artist have been able to avoid each other thus far this year, but thatll change on Saturday night at Woodbine Mohawk Park when the pair of sophomore pacers will line up behind the gate together in the first of two $50,000 eliminations of this years $1 million Pepsi North America Cup.

While Beaumond Hanover comes into the elim riding a four-race win streak, Tattoo Seelster is on a five-race win skein. And while three of those wins for each came in OSS action, the pair drew into separate divisions. Beaumond Hanover is trained by Jack Darling, while Tattoo Artist is conditioned by Dr. Ian Moore. The two trainers are both based at Classy Lane Training Centre in Ontario and, ironically, the two standout pacers are virtually side-by-side.

Hes actually a little guy, laughed Dr. Moore when asked how The Big Guy in his stable is doing heading into the North America Cup elims. Hes not a big horse; hes quite small in stature. Compared to Beaumond Hanover. And those two horses are stabled about 20 feet apart.

Beaumond Hanover will start from Post 1 with driver Jody Jamieson, and Tattoo Artist will line up a little more than 20 feet away in Post 7 with driver Bob McClure. Dr. Moore will also send out Denali Seelster from Post 5 with driver Trevor Henry in the second North America Cup elim.

As for Tattoo Artist, the reigning Ontario Sires Stakes champion completed his freshman season with five wins in eight starts. Dr. Moore said Tattoo Artists disposition has completely turned around since he first hit the track in 2019.

He was very difficult as a two-year-old, to put it mildly, Moore said about the son of Hes Watching owned by Frank Cannon and Let It Ride Stables. But as time went on he got to be better and better and was a pretty nice horse at the end of the year. This year hes just a sweetheart. When hes on the racetrack hes all business.

Among Tattoo Artists five wins this year is a career-best 1:48.2 effort in an OSS Gold split on July 4 at Mohawk. Tattoo Artist then got a three-week break before winning an OSS Gold in 1:49.1 on July 25 at Mohawk, and then it was another three weeks before he raced and won an OSS Gold at Rideau Carleton last Sunday (Aug. 16) in 1:50.4 over a good racetrack.

The schedule maker up here should be shot, quite frankly, said Dr. Moore. There was no reason for it. The only reason I can see is that they were waiting to see what would happen at the border with the U.S. horses.

I really didnt want to truck him 10-11 hours to Rideau six days before the North America Cup but we couldnt get a start (at Mohawk).

With the gaps between races, Dr. Moore said he had to alter his training regimen,

and it paid off in his Rideau Carleton effort.

I trained him a lot harder this time around, he said. The first time around he almost got beat in the second to last race (at Mohawk Park). I think good horses need to be trained harder and trained to very close to where they are going to go race. If you dont do that, then they are not going to be as good when it comes to race time.

He raced very well last Saturday. Those were two monster miles (Beaumond Hanover also won his OSS division in 1:50.2) on the track that had got all chewed up on the inside because it rained heavily.

As for Denali Seelster, the son of Sunshine Beach has two wins in eight starts this year, including a career-best 1:50 effort in an Aug. 1 overnight at Mohawk.

Hes gone in 1:50 flat three times, noted Dr. Moore. The last time he did it (in his win) was quite impressive. He was parked to the quarter in :26 flat and came home in :26.3. Hes been very sharp lately.

Dr. Moore admits hes taking a gamble with Denali Seelster, but its a risk owner Dave Ratchford was willing to take.

Denali Seelster is a nice little colt but I dont think hes the caliber to race against some of these guys. But something could happen in a week, I guess

Dave Ratchford asked me if I would race him in there, I said no. But he called me (Tuesday) at 9:30 in the morning (an hour before the entry box closed) and said his three girls told him to spend some money so he spent $8,000 to enter him.

Neither Tattoo Artist nor Denali Seelster is eligible to the Little Brown Jug, a race Dr. Moore won in 2008 with Shadow Play and one he considers his favourite. A

North America Cup win would allow both colts to be supplemented to the Jug, which will be raced on Sept. 24 at Delaware, Ohio.

I love the Jug. I think its the best race, he said. I go every opportunity I

can go.

The winners of Saturdays eliminations will earn their connections the opportunity to select their post position for the final. The $1 million Pepsi North America Cup final is scheduled for Saturday, August 29.

Elimination 1 (Race 6 - 9:05 p.m.)

(Post - Horse - Driver)

1 - Beaumond Hanover - Jody Jamieson

2 - Warrawee Vital - Trevor Henry

3 - Tall Dark Stranger - Yannick Gingras

4 - Capt Midnight - Doug McNair

5 - Odds On Osiris - Sylvain Filion

6 - Beach Blanket Book - James MacDonald

7 - Tattoo Artist - Bob McClure

8 - Captain Barbossa - Louis-Philippe Roy

Elimination 2 (Race 8 - 9:55 p.m.)

(Post - Horse - Listed Driver)

1 - Captain Kirk - Bob McClure

2 - Velocity Rukkus - Randy Waples

3 - Moneyman Hill - Jonathan Drury

4 - Aneto - Chris Christoforou

5 - Denali Seelster - Trevor Henry

6 - Mayhem Hanover - Doug McNair

7 - Allywag Hanover - Louis-Philippe Roy

To view the entries for Saturday's North America Cup elimination card of harness racing at Woodbine Mohawk Park, click the following link: Saturday Entries - Woodbine Mohawk Park.

(Harness Racing Weekend Preview)




Published in El Peruano official gazette, the decree establishes that public entities participating in this protocol shall identify the agencies or directorates responsible for its implementation "and adopt the necessary measures for its execution, within the scope of their respective competencies."





It also states that the implementation, compliance, supervision and monitoring of its execution is responsibility of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights , through the General Directorate of Human Rights.





The document provides that public entities shall inform the General Directorate of Human Rights of the designations of the focal points of institutional and technical responsibility needed to implement the protocol within a time limit of 10 working days after the publication of the abovementioned decree.





Moreover, it indicates that the actions and interventions needed to implement this protocol will be financed from the budgets of the entities involved in accordance with the laws governing the matter without demanding additional resources from the Public Treasury.





Protocol





The preamble to the decree states that the effective and timely compliance with international human rights obligations requires a management instrument that can develop a national mechanism to promote coordination and articulation of State entities, so as to foster the implementation of Peruvian State's international obligations regarding human rights.





This will help standardize and simplify the inter-institutional coordination processes at the national, regional and local government levels. In addition, it will strengthen the data collection mechanisms to provide statistical information on the progress made towards the human rights perspective and will facilitate forms of partnership with civil society.





Furthermore, it will facilitate the processes of preparing reports, encourage the development of constructive dialogue skills and promote the follow-up of the recommendations suggested by the systems of international promotion and protection of human rights, with the aim of strengthening the national policies in this field.





(END) JCC/CVC/RMB/MVB

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The Executive Branch has approved, through a supreme decree , the intersectoral protocol for State participation in the systems of international protection of human rights.Publicado: 21/8/2020
Member of Parliament for Effutu constituency Alexander Afenyo Markin has handed over 11 libraries he built to the Ghana Library Authority for public use.

The libraries which are well stocked with books are located in different areas in Winneba with the latest one being the Opanyin Kwaku Dadzie Library at Essuekyir.

Speaking to Citi News the Member of Parliament for the area, Alexander Afenyo Markin indicated that the libraries were built with the intention of inculcating reading habits into the youth of Effutu.

This library is part of the libraries I built for the people Effutu and it is meant to serve the youth of Effutu and to improve their reading habits, the MP said.

He urged the people of Effutu not to relent in their support for the New Patriotic Party by voting massively for them in the 2020 elections.

People will criticize you but take it in good faith, people will say all sort of bad things about you but dont give up because today I am who I am because I want to get the job done. Lets work together, Afenyo Markin said.

According to the Effutu legislator, it is time for the youth of Effutu to come together and support him in bringing development to the area.

Members of the Ghana Library Authority were presented with keys to the eleven libraries at a ceremony at Essoukyire.

On their part, the library authorities promised to make good use of the library to benefit the people of Effutu.

--- citinewsroom
Charlottesville families can now register for the Piedmont Family YMCAs second virtual learning center location, which will be at Walker Upper Elementary School.

The program will serve students from kindergarten to fifth grade and is only available to Charlottesville students. Earlier this month, the YMCA announced plans to offer the program at its Brooks Family branch. The organization currently is hiring staff for both locations.

The city school division is partnering with the YMCA and Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Virginia to provide child care for students. The Boys & Girls Clubs is operating a similar program out of Buford Middle School.

As Charlottesville and Albemarle County school divisions prepare for an online start to the school year, child care has been cited as a key concern among families.

Students and staff members will be required to wear masks. The YMCA also is planning to keep students in small groups and sanitize surfaces hourly during the day. School division custodial crews will deep-clean the facilities nightly.

Those in the Walker program can receive a school breakfast, lunch and snack, which will be free to those who qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch. For others, breakfast will be available for $1.50, lunch for $2.50, and the snack will be free.

The virtual learning center will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays. Spots are being filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Program fees vary and depend on a familys income. Scholarships also are available to offset the cost.

No payment is required at registration though families will have to pay a non-refundable $50 enrollment fee before the program begins.

For more information, email youthandfamily@piedmontymca.org.

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Plans to hire 10,000 employees and open new offices in the country are being postponed, and brands and social media stars are inserting clauses into their contracts to address what happens if a proposed ban comes to pass, according to TikTok employees, executives and business partners. Virtual town hall sessions that were once held each month are now weekly affairs where worried employees ask top executives if their paychecks will keep coming if the app goes dark in the US In response, executives ...

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Estee Lauder will axe 2,000 jobs and close up to 225 stores after the pandemic caused sales to collapse.

The cosmetics company has more than 25 high-end make-up and beauty brands, including Clinique, Jo Malone and MAC, and sells make-up in 150 countries.

Customers stuck at home have bought more skincare and hair products, but the closure of offices and postponed parties mean make-up and perfume brands have floundered.

Shifting focus: Estee Lauder has more than 25 high-end make-up and beauty brands, including Clinique, Jo Malone and MAC

Women have been forced to buy make-up online, forcing brands to rapidly shift their focus to internet sales.

Yesterday, announcing its fullyear results, Estee Lauder said it would make between 1,500 and 2,000 shop staff redundant, but declined to specify where the cuts would fall.

The group said that sales in the UK fell by more than a fifth in the six months to the end of June.

'While gradual door re-openings began in mid-June 2020, retail traffic remained slow,' the firm said.

Globally sales fell by a third to 1.8billion in the three months to June 30, the company said.
Firefighters take refuge in a cleared field as a wildfire jumped Knoxville Berryessa Road, west of Sacramento, California (Kent Porter/The Press Democrat via AP)

Wildfires in California have killed at least five people and forced tens of thousands from their homes, straining firefighting resources by the sheer vastness of the battle lines.

Three major collections of fires  dozens in all  carved their way through forests, canyons and rural areas in the San Francisco Bay Area and central California.

Tens of thousands of homes were threatened by flames that drove through dense and bone-dry trees and brush.

Many of the fires were sparked by lightning strikes from brief thunderstorms this week as a high-pressure area over the west brought a dangerous mix of triple-digit weather and monsoonal moisture pulled from the south.

Some fires doubled in size within 24 hours, officials said.

And while some evacuations were lifted in the small city of Vacaville, between San Francisco and Sacramento, other areas expanded their evacuation areas.

The University of California, Santa Cruz was evacuated and a new fire burning near Yosemite National Park also prompted evacuations.

Santa Cruz itself, a coastal city of 65,000, was not affected but mayor Justin Cummings urged residents to be prepared to evacuate by filling up their vehicles and packing important documents, medicines and other belongings.

Prepare early so that you are ready to go at a moments notice, Mr Cummings said.

Although temperatures were predicted to ease slightly on Friday, they were also expected to be hot enough that firefighters will not be able to count on cool evening weather aiding them.

Expand Close Flames jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville, California (Noah Berger/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Flames jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville, California (Noah Berger/AP)

Erratic winds could also drive the blazes unpredictably in multiple directions, state fire officials said.

Theres so much heat in these fires that they create their own wind  and they may blow in any direction, and very erratically, said Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire.

Winds gusting to 20mph over ridge tops could challenge the overnight firefighting efforts in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, said the incident commander, Cal Fire assistant chief Billy See.

This country likes to burn at night, more so than during the day, and thats because of the wind patterns, he said.

Nearly 50,000 people were ordered evacuated in those counties.

The ferocity of the fires was astonishing so early in the fire season, which historically has seen the largest and deadliest blazes when gusty Santa Ana winds start blowing over the next two months.

Expand Close Thomas Henney, right, and Charles Chavira watch a plume spread over Healdsburg, California (Noah Berger/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Thomas Henney, right, and Charles Chavira watch a plume spread over Healdsburg, California (Noah Berger/AP)

But the death toll has already reached at least five since the majority of blazes started less than a week ago.

Mr Berlant said three civilians have died in Napa County and one in neighbouring Solano County since the fires began.

It was not immediately clear whether the fatalities included a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker who was found dead on Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area.

Also, in central California, a pilot on a water-dropping mission in western Fresno County died on Wednesday morning when his helicopter crashed.

At least two other people were missing and more than 30 civilians and firefighters have been injured, authorities said.

Smoke and ash billowing from the fires also fouled the air throughout Californias scenic central coast and in San Francisco.

The fires have destroyed at least 175 buildings, including homes, and threatened tens of thousands more.

More than 10,000 firefighters were on the front lines.

Expand Close A home burns in Bonny Doon, California (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP) / Facebook

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Some 3,000 firefighters had arrived in the past 24 hours, along with hundreds of fire engines from neighbouring states, and National Guard troops that were staffing hand crews and flying helicopters, Mr Berlant said.

Some C-130 military aircraft had also been outfitted as air tankers, he said.

More firefighters were sent to battle the complex of fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties but its still not enough, Mr See said.

Were still drastically short for a fire of this size, he said.

Cal Fire spokesman Dan Olson said there are concerns that some people are trying to organise through social media to create volunteer brigades and fight the fire themselves.

The dangers out there to their own lives outweigh anything they can accomplish, he said.

Theyre putting their lives in jeopardy.

In a last-minute video recorded for the Democratic National Convention, governor Gavin Newsom said if you are in denial about climate change, come to California.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Two heroes were reunited at Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) in Ocean Breeze on Wednesday.

U.S Army Corporal Daniel Elliot returned from a 10-month deployment and Iraq and Kuwait, and he made the event a special moment for his mother.

Registered nurse Regina Elliot has been serving on the frontlines in the fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) at SIUH.

Although she primarily works in the outpatient surgical center, she was shifted to the COVID-19 unit to care for critically ill patients during the surge in New York.

Registered nurse Regina Elliot was reunited with her son, U.S. Army Corporal Daniel Elliot at Staten Island University Hospital. (Courtesy SIUH)

In an attempt to surprise his mother, Cpl. Elliot waited outside, behind a vending machine near an SIUH exit.

The nurses motherly intuition kicked in, and she quickly realized her son was going to surprise her.

Immediately, the two embraced in a long-awaited hug.

Regina was brought to tears, she says in the video.
Canadian Muslim associations urge police to step up and offer protection against a series of attacks.

Toronto, Canada  The mosque in downtown Toronto that Hassam Munir, 25, visits regularly has been attacked by vandals numerous times in the past three months, most recently on Sunday, when its windows were found smashed again.

Although arrests have been made over the repeated attacks at the Masjid Toronto, which is part of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), Munir says he is still deeply concerned.

It seems to be that someone is trying to intimidate the Muslim community. This is unacceptable, Munir told Al Jazeera.

I am worried, not only for those that work and pray here but also for what these kind of attacks tell us about the ignorance and hate that exists in our society.

No Canadian should feel unsafe in their place of worship, said Munir, who also works for the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, which aims to break down Islamophobic narratives.

This week, the Masjid Toronto found its window broken for the third time in three weeks, making the incident  along with vandalism to another MAC mosque also located downtown  the sixth time local mosques have been attacked in three months.

In addition to the broken windows, there have been attempts to break into the mosques, and racist graffiti has been scrawled on the walls and windows, according to MAC.





These incidents are now occurring at a frightening rate and we cannot accept to wait any longer for police action, MAC said in a statement published on Sunday.

It added that local authorities should step up and offer the needed protection, noting that the attacks are meant to intimidate the Muslim community.

Mischief or hate?

In an emailed statement to Al Jazeera, Toronto Police said they are aware of several reports of mischief and damage since June 1 at the two mosques.

Currently there are six investigations and two arrests have been made so far, the statement said.

Masjid Toronto has been subject to a sixth attack in 3 months. We call on Interim @jamesramertps and @TPSOperations to address these attacks and further investigate these hate incidents and Islamophobic acts towards our community.https://t.co/fLV1Vr5Jsr pic.twitter.com/u453hcxQwB  Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) (@MACNational) August 17, 2020

Our Hate Crime Unit has been made aware of the incidents and continue[s] to support the investigations as needed, the police said, adding they will continue to work with members of the mosque.

But while arrests have been made in the last two instances, Mariam Manaa, MAC public relations manager, told Al Jazeera that MAC would like the case to be considered not as mischief, but as possibly hate related.

[The case] was under mischief, not under vandalism or intention to hurt or hate, Manaa told Al Jazeera, noting that the first four attacks have still not been solved to date.

The issue with that is that within three to four days, theyll be released again if they were apprehended and they can come back and again vandalise the mosque.

We want further investigations and want police to take further action. We dont want this to reoccur, Manaa said.





No clear plan

Mustafa Farooq, CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), told Al Jazeera that the response by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) has so far been insufficient as there has been no clear plan as to how these attacks will be prevented.

TPS has already ruled out hate as a motivation just days after the first arrest, and the attacks are continuing, Farooq said.

To us, six attacks in such a short period of time suggests a systematic pattern which is concerning and deserves further investigation.

Were urging TPS to fully investigate this as a potentially hate-motivated string of attacks and secondarily, to provide a clear plan so that no more attacks happen in downtown Torontos lot.

According to MAC, the Masjid Toronto is one of the most-visited mosques in the greater Toronto area. Manaa said MAC is concerned for the safety of both congregates and pedestrians as well.

Its a very busy street, Manaa said. So I imagine throwing a brick into glass on a prominent street  other folks could be hurt.

Eradication of Muslims

While there has been no conclusion about who or what is behind the attacks at Masjid Toronto, instances of Islamophobia have occured elsewhere in Canada.

In April during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a man drove to Al Rashid Mosque, the largest mosque in Edmonton, Alberta, surveilled worshippers and threatened to start a Ramadan Bombathon in a video while staking out the premises.

More than two weeks after his videos were posted to social media, the NCCM noted that the Edmonton Police Service had not charged him.

Last month, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) charged a Quebec man with advocating genocide  a first in the provinces history  after he allegedly published disturbing online posts.

Investigators found around 100 hate posts or threats inciting violence.

The accused called for the death of [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau and encouraged the eradication of Muslims, the RCMP said in a statement.
The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats incumbent Trump in November

Wilmington: Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a vow to be a unifying ally of the light who would move an America in crisis past the chaos of President Donald Trumps tenure.

In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Biden spoke Thursday night both of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life. Virtually every sentence of his 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast with the Republican incumbent.

Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. lll be an ally of the light, not the darkness, Biden said. Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

For the 77-year-old Biden, the final night of the Democratic National Convention was bittersweet. He accepted a nomination that had eluded him for over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

But the coronavirus denied him the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

Afterward, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena, where supporters waited in a parking lot, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the event.

The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Trump in November. Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Bidens mental capacity and calls him Slow Joe, but with the nation watching, Biden was firm and clear.

Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost her legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has common decency".

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in US history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage as vice president even before President Barack Obama.

Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans, Buttigieg said. Its the struggle to call out what is good for every American.

Above all, Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Bidens positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trumps policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centered and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nations mounting crises and policy challenges.

Voting was another prime focus of the convention on Thursday as it has been all week. Democrats fear that the pandemic  and Trump administration changes at the US Postal Service  may make it difficult for voters to cast ballots in person or by mail.

Comedian Sarah Cooper, a favourite of many Democrats for her videos lip syncing Trumps speeches, put it bluntly: Donald Trump doesnt want any of us to vote because he knows he cant win fair and square.

Bidens call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Trump down, that Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. Thats easier said than done in a modern Democratic Party made up of disparate factions that span generation, race and ideology.

Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Bidens background before he began serving as Obamas vice president in 2008.

Thursdays convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.

I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes, Biden said. He added: I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.

As a schoolboy, Biden was mocked by classmates and a nun for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. And just five years ago, he buried his eldest son, who was stricken by cancer.

From such hardship, Biden developed a deep sense of empathy that has defined much of his political career. And throughout the convention, Bidens allies testified that such empathy, backed by decades of governing experience, makes him the perfect candidate to guide the nation back from mounting health and economic crises.

His allies Thursday included Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy from Concord, New Hampshire. The boy said he and Biden were members of the same club, each with a stutter theyre working to overcome.

He noted that Biden told him about a book of poems he liked to read aloud to practice his speech and showed the boy how he marks his speeches so theyre easier to read aloud.

Im just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about a thing thats bothered me my whole life, Harrington said.

The end of the carefully scripted convention now gives way to a far less-predictable period for Biden and his Democratic Party as the 2020 election season speeds to its uncertain conclusion. While Election Day isnt until Nov. 3, early voting gets underway in several battleground states in just one month.

Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominees approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition hes courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.

Trumps Republican Party is expected to deliver a message next week squarely focused on the presidents most loyal supporters.

Biden summed up his view of the campaign: We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal.
Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) submits Communications to the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights in Somalia, Human Rights Council, and Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression concerning the attacks on journalism in Somalia.

The Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) has instructed international human rights barrister Michael Polak of Church Court Chambers and Director of Justice Abroad to submit formal communications and complaints with United Nations Bodies for the Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia, the Human Rights Council, and the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression regarding the attacks against journalists in Somalia and the failure to protect the right to Freedom of Expression which includes the right to receive information as well as the right to provide it.

The submissions which have been sent to the UN Bodies today, 20 August 2020, set out a range of acts which show that the Somali authorities have acted in breach of both their positive and negative obligations by attacking journalism through a number of acts and failing to protect journalists and create an environment conducive to freedom of expression within Somalia. The evidence presented to the UN bodies shows that the authorities are in breach of both their international obligations and obligations under the Somalian Constitution by:

 Imprisoning journalists simply for doing their jobs;

 Ordering the closure of television and radio stations;

 Confiscating journalists equipment;

 Serious assault against journalists;

 Preventing or limiting access to official events and information;

 Forcing journalists to flee into exile;

 Passing the Somali Media Bill currently awaits Presidential assent which uses a litany of sweeping terminology and purposely vague phrases to provide authorities unprecedented powers to arbitrarily target journalists for any reporting deemed critical of the government;

 The Online harassment of journalists by state actors;

 Creating an atmosphere by general intimidation, mistreatment, and attacks which does not allow the press to freely practise their trade and prevents the Somalian people from exercising their right to freely receive information;

 The prosecution of journalists, such as Abdiaziz Ahmed Gurbiye, editor and deputy director of the privately owned Goobjoog Media Group for publishing on his personal Facebook page and on Gurbiye Official that the Government has mismanaged the COVID-19 response; and

 The enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of journalists including Radio Hiigsi editor, Mohamed Abduwahaab Nuur Abuujas, who was unlawfully seized by the Security Police and held incommunicado without access to his lawyer or family from 7 March 2020 to 2 August 2020.

These communications call on the Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia, the Human Rights Council, and the Special Rapporteur for the Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression to require the Somalian authorities to:

 Allow press from all outlets to attend all governmental events or announcements;

 Allow access to the airwaves for radio and tv stations regardless of their position, dialect used, or style of reporting;

 Stop closing down or suspending the operation of newspapers;

 Cease Imprisoning journalists, both for short periods and for longer sentences simply for doing their jobs;

 Stop confiscating journalists equipment or raiding their premises;

 Desist from assaulting, harassing, threatening journalists, or acting in any way which forces them to flee into exile;

 Investigate the arrest and detention by the security forces and to discipline and prosecute those responsible for the unlawful detention of the following a large number of Somalian journalists;

 Investigate assaults carried out by the Police or security services, the seizure of journalistic equipment where this has taken place, and to prosecute the perpetrators and to return seized equipment from the individuals where this has been taken

 Investigate, discipline, and prosecute all state and non-state actors who make threats against journalists;

 Stop making anti-media public statements;

 Not to give assent to the Somali Media Bill which severely limits the ability of the media to freely report the news;

 Stop blocking website which publish news unfavourable to the authorities;

 Fully investigate the murders of Mohamed Omar Sahal, Hodan Nalayeh Said Yusuf Ali, and Abdiwali Ali Hassan (aka Abdiwali Onine) and hold those responsible to account;

 Investigate the closure of named press outlets, provide compensation for such closures, and allow their reopening and operation if they are still being prevented from operating:

 Stop making draconian orders seeking to influence which news items are covered and whether that coverage is favourable;

 Investigate the arbitrary detention and prosecute those responsible in regards to Radio Hiigsi editor Mohamed Abduwahaab Nuur Abuuja

 Immediately cease any remaining criminal prosecutions and set aside any convictions on his record, and end all harassment against Abdiaziz Ahmed Gurbiye.

Annexed to the complaints was the SJSs comprehensive report which sets out the evidence in regards to the attacks on journalism in Somalia for 2019 as well as an annex showing that such behaviour continues in 2020 by the Somalian Government and Somaliland authorities.

Barrister Michael Polak stated:

_The freedom of journalists to do their job without having to fear attacks and repression by the authorities is essential for the development of any country. The clear evidence shows that the Somalian Government and Somaliland authorities are failing to comply with their international and domestic legal obligations by continuing to attack, arbitrarily detain, and censure brave hardworking Somalian journalists. _

We hope that these communications to the United Nations bodies, which have been set up specifically to protect people in situations where State authorities are refusing to do so, will shine a light on what is taking place against journalists in Somalia and inform the authorities that their actions are being noted both by the Somali people and the international community.

We call on the international community, including NGOs and Somalias development partners, not to forget the importance of journalism in Somalia and the vulnerability of journalists there. It is our obligation to give them a voice at every opportunity and to demand that the authorities cease to breach their international obligations and the Constitution of Somalia.

Mr Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, Secretary General of the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) stated the following:

Attacks against the press has dramatically increased leading many journalists to self-censor or face arbitrary arrests. Press freedom and freedom of expression are basic constitutional right entitled to every Somali citizen. These rights must be preserved and protected in order for the journalists and media stations to be able to freely inform the public.

SJS has documented the violations against the press across Somalia round the clock and what we have been witnessing, if not stopped, would put the whole journalism profession in danger. We call on the Somali federal government, federal member states and Somaliland authorities to stop the gross violations committed by their security forces, police and organs of their administrations.

An online launch has been held today at 2pm BST/4pm Somalia Time, which can be viewed here
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed as infructuous a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking in-house probe against former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi into alleged "commission and omission" by him during his tenure as Supreme Court judge.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, while dismissing the PIL, said that Gogoi has demitted office now and nothing remains in this petition.

"Nothing can be done in this petition, it has become infructuous. The prayers cannot be allowed. We cannot consider anything because of lapse of time," the bench said.

The petition, filed by Arun Ramchandra Hublikar, sought an in-house inquiry against former CJI Ranjan Gogoi alleging bias and improper conduct in passing an ex parte order in July 2016.

The petitioner argued that he had filed a plea in the year 2018 but it was not listed by the registry despite dozens of reminder letters sent by the petitioner.
The Bay Area could see another round of dry lightning and thunderstorms beginning Sunday and lasting into Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service has issued a fire weather watch and is likely to issue a red flag warning for the entire San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast, according to Drew Peterson, a meteorologist for the weather service.

A similar weather pattern caused an explosive wildfire outbreak over the weekend, with hundreds of thousands of acres burned across Northern California and tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes, some at perilously short notice.

The potential lightning would likely affect the North Bay more than the East and South Bay, Peterson said.

Lightning will likely spark new fires across the region, including remote areas, according to a fire weather watch notice published Friday.

The weather service expects to finalize some of the predictions over the coming hours, and Peterson cautioned that usually the situation does not become clear until at least 48 hours ahead of time, so it is hard to predict through Tuesday. The fire weather watch, which includes the potential for gusty winds, extends from 11 a.m. Sunday to 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Things dont look as impressive as the previous event, but in many ways it does mirror it, Peterson said.

Cooler temperatures and a marine layer near the coast should prevent these upcoming thunderstorms from becoming as severe as last weekends.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

There are some silver linings here, he said.

Anna Kramer is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.kramer@sfchronicle.com
By Associated Press

MOSCOW: Every day, like clockwork, to-do lists for those protesting against Belarus' authoritarian leader appear in the popular Telegram messaging app.

They lay out goals, give times and locations of rallies with business-like precision, and offer spirited encouragement.

"Today will be one more important day in the fight for our freedom. Tectonic shifts are happening on all fronts, so it's important not to slow down," a message in one of Telegram's so-called channels read Tuesday.

"Morning. Expanding the strike -

11:00 - Supporting the Kupala (theater)

19:00 - Gathering at the Independence Square."

The app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the unprecedented mass protests that have rocked Belarus since August 9, when election officials announced President Alexander Lukashenko had won a landslide victory to extend his 26-year rule in a vote widely seen as rigged.

Peaceful protesters who poured into the streets of the capital, Minsk, and other cities were met with stun grenades, rubber bullets and beatings from police.

ALSO READ | EU leaders extend support to Belarus protesters, ramp up pressure on president Alexander Lukashenko

The opposition candidate left for Lithuania, under duress, her campaign said, and authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media and protesters seemingly without a leader.

That's where Telegram, which often remains available despite internet outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been used in other protest movements came in.

Some of its channels helped scattered rallies to mature into well-coordinated action.

The people who run the channels, which used to offer political news, now post updates, videos and photos of the unfolding turmoil sent in from users, locations of heavy police presence, contacts of human rights activists, and outright calls for new demonstrations, something Belarusian opposition leaders have refrained from doing publicly themselves.

Tens of thousands of people all across the country have responded to those calls.

In a matter of days, the channels, NEXTA, NEXTA Live and Belarus of the Brain are the most popular, have become the main method for facilitating the protests, said Franak Viacorka, a Belarusian analyst and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

"The fate of the country has never depended so much on one (piece) of technology," Viacorka said.

In the days following the vote and the subsequent internet outage, NEXTA Live's audience shot from several hundred thousand followers to over 2 million.

Its sister channel NEXTA has more than 700,000 followers.

ALSO READ | Belarus residents hit streets as EU chief calls for emergency summit after presidential election results

Belarus of the Brain's following grew from almost 170,000 users in late June to over 470,000 this week.

Their influence in a nation of 9.5 million is hard to underestimate, and authorities have taken notice and are pursuing those behind the channels.

Last week, officials opened a criminal probe into NEXTA and its founder, 22-year-old blogger Stepan Putilo, on charges of fomenting mass riots, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Blogger Igor Losik, who founded Belarus of the Brain, was arrested before the election, but the channel continues to operate.

"We have indeed become the bullhorn of the situation that is unfolding in Belarus right now," Putilo, who is Belarusian but lives in Warsaw, Poland, said in a recent interview with Lithuanian news outlet Delfi.

"We have become the voice of this revolution, but by no will of our own. It just happened."

Putilo first created NEXTA, which is pronounced NEKH-ta and means "somebody" in Belarusian as a YouTube channel in 2015, when he was just 17.

His profile rose last year when his 30-minute video about the country's iron-fisted leader, "Lukashenko. Criminal Records," was viewed almost 3 million times.

A court in Belarus declared the film extremist, but it is still available on YouTube.

Putilo turned to Telegram in 2018.

His two channels focused mostly on Belarusian politics.

His team received thousands of messages from users sending in photos, videos and news items each day and posted the most newsworthy, taking pride in often sharing information from sources inside the government or law enforcement.

After the demonstrations began, thousands of messages turned into hundreds of thousands, and the underground operation now appears inundated.

In response to a request from The Associated Press for an interview, NEXTA editor-in-chief Roman Protsevich wrote: "Sure, it's possible, but the question is when?" and then stopped responding.
A former member of an anti-corruption body has revealed his preliminary consent to be named a government candidate for a Constitutional Court judge soon.

Edgar Shatirian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service (Azatutyun) on Friday that discussions around his possible nomination were still at an early stage.

He said he did not meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. He also refused to name the government official that he had held negotiations with. At the same time, Shatirian said that he did not rule out that similar negotiations had been held with other individuals.

Shatirian, 40, is a candidate of juridical sciences and associate professor. He became known to the public when he was appointed member of the Corruption Prevention Commission last November upon the nomination of the ruling My Step parliamentary faction. However, when later he failed to be elected chairman of the commission, he left the body, considering his further work in it inexpedient.

Shatirian said today that he only had a preliminary conversation. Its all at the earliest stage yet. There will most likely be a meeting with representatives of the ruling faction, after which both they and the Government will clarify their position, he said.

The government had already once made a nomination for the post of a Constitutional Court judge in July. But senior law professor at Yerevan State University (YSU) Vahram Avetisian announced his withdrawal earlier this week after meeting with My Step lawmakers.

Armenian Minister of Justice Rustam Badasian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service on August 20 that discussions regarding a new candidate were underway. He said no decision had been made yet.

After the latest amendments to the Constitution, nominations for three vacant positions of Constitutional Court judges must be made within two months starting from June 26.

The names of two other candidates are already known. President Armen Sarkissian has nominated Artur Vagharshian, a chair of jurisprudence at YSU, whose nomination for a vacant seat in the Constitutional Court once already was rejected by parliament in 2019. The General Assembly of Judges, meanwhile, has nominated the incumbent Chairman of the Court of Cassation, Yervand Khundkarian.

To become Constitutional Court judges the three candidates will need to be approved by at least three fifths of the 132-seat National Assembly where My Step has 88 mandates.

Constitutional changes passed by the National Assembly in June call for the gradual resignation of seven of the Constitutional Courts nine justices installed before April 2018. Three of them were to resign with immediate effect. Also, the changes stipulate that Hrayr Tovmasian quit as court chairman but remain a judge.

Tovmasian and the ousted judges have refused to step down, saying that their removal is illegal and politically motivated. They have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to have them reinstated.
TORRINGTON  New linear fitness equipment is now available along the Sue Grossman Still River Greenway in Torrington, according to a statement from Fit Together.

The community based Fit Together, Northwest Connecticuts Healthy Eating and Active Living initiative has teamed up with Torrington Parks and Recreation to install six pieces of fitness equipment along the trail starting just after Harris Drive and ending before Pinewoods Road.

Fit Together encourages environmental changes promoting physical activity opportunities for the Northwest CT Community. Funding for the linear fitness equipment came from Fit Together and the Sue Grossman Still River Greenway Fund at the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, according to the statement.

Our goal is to provide all our community members from kids, families to older adults easy, inexpensive opportunities to get more movement into their lives, said Fit Together Executive Director Carla Angevine. The Sue Grossman greenway is one of the busiest greenways in Connecticut, and a perfect spot for linear fitness equipment.

We are so excited to provide permanent fitness equipment available to the entire community on the Sue Grossman Greenway, said Greg Brisco, Northwest CT YMCA CEO. Its our wish that these stations will be regularly used during the warm weather months as a part of a growing number of health focused residents. We hope to expand into Winsted in the years to come.

To learn more about the Fit Together contact Carla Angevine, Fit Together Executive Director at Carla.Angevine@hhchealth.org or 860-496-6676.

Fire academy receives $434 K grant

BOSTON - The Connecticut State Fire Academy will receive $434,782 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for an Assistance to Firefighters Grant. The grant will be used for the acquisition of vehicles-aerial apparatus.

The primary goal of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) is to meet the firefighting and emergency response needs of fire departments and nonaffiliated emergency medical service organizations. Since 2001, AFG has helped firefighters and other first responders obtain critically needed equipment, protective gear, emergency vehicles, training and other resources necessary for protecting the public and emergency personnel from fire and related hazards.

This grant is funded through FEMAs Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program. Eligible applicants include local fire departments, fire districts, nonaffiliated EMS organizations, tribal fire departments and State Fire Training Academies. The grant applications are submitted from each agency directly to FEMA, where the applications are reviewed and scored by fire service personnel from throughout the nation.

FEMA obligates funding for this project directly to the recipient agencies. It is the recipient agencys responsibility to manage their grant award within federal guidelines with technical assistance and monitoring provided by FEMA Fire Program Specialists.

Additional information about FEMAs Assistance to Firefighters grant program(s) may be found at https://www.fema.gov/firegrants.

Charter school providing breakfast, lunch at no cost

WINSTED - Explorations Charter School and EdAdvance Food Service are participating in the Community Eligibility Provision as part of the National School Lunch Program for school year 2020-2021, according to a statement. Under this provision, participating districts and schools provide free breakfast and lunch to all students at all times. All students enrolled in the schools listed below will receive meals through the School Breakfast Program (SBP) and National School Lunch Program at no charge. Household income applications are no longer required to determine eligibility for free or reduced-price meals at schools participating in the CEP, according to a statement.

Breakfast and lunch will be provided at no charge to all students who attend Explorations Charter School. For additional information, contact Becky Tyrrell, Food Service Director at EdAdvance, 355 Goshen Road, Litchfield, at 860-567-0863 or Tyrrell@EdAdvance.org

In accordance with Federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its Agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA according to the statement. .

Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g. Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.), should contact the agency (State or local) where they applied for benefits. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at 800-877-8339. Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other than English, according to the statement.

To file a program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, (AD-3027) found online at: How to File a Complaint, and at any USDA office, or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by:

Mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture , Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights , 1400 Independence Avenue, SW , Washington, D.C. 20250-9410;

Fax: 202-690-7442; or email: program.intake@usda.gov.
In this book we take a journey into American culture through the eyes of Mu Naw from Myanmar, and Hasna from Syria. Mu Naw arrived in 2007; Hasna in 2016, both as refugees and both unwittingly arriving as America is arguing the depth and breadth of immigration.

Author Jessica Goudeau employs a storytelling tactic called narrative nonfiction, derived from immersive reporting but containing scene-setting the author may not have witnessed. For example, one chapter concludes with Then she snapped the towel once briskly and laid it over the wooden dowel to dry.

That came not from direct observation but from hundreds of hours of conversations with the two women, both of whom settled in Austin, Texas.

Another potential reader hurdle is that Goudeau agreed to use pseudonyms for the two women she expertly draws out in this book. While the absence of pictures and real names makes it more difficult to mentally and emotionally connect with the two main characters, Goudeau rises to the reporting and writing challenge, showing how seemingly ordinary tasks such as struggling to operate a shower control amplifies loneliness and the loss of everything the refugees once knew.

More importantly, the book raises issues of refugee resettlement that the United States never truly has resolved. We like to think of ourselves as welcoming in the manner symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, but the reality is many of our citizens would rather Mu Naw and Hasna stayed home. For them and other would-be refugees tortured or killed in their countries, we offer a collective national shrug  its unfortunate but not of consuming interest to Americans bickering these days among ourselves about everything.

We werent always that way.

In 1948, the United States agreed to accept 400,000 refugees from Europe who were among the 10 million displaced by World War II. Then in 1951, the U.S. signed a United Nations agreement pledging not to send asylum seekers or refugees back to any country in which they face threats to their life or freedom.

And the need now is exponentially greater. As Goudeau notes, the number of refugees worldwide now is almost 71 million.

To Goudeau that number is an atrocity, a stain on our national conscience. Her book may not change national policy implemented by a president reflexively opposed to welcoming refugees, but in bringing the stories of Mu Naw and Hasna to us, the author shows that welcoming them doesnt just save their lives and their childrens, but that their contribution to the American story ultimately enriches us all.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The Sugar Regulatory Administration is looking into exporting some 44,000 metric tons of excess sugar produce for crop year 2020-2021 to stabilize supply and prices.

SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica said in a statement on Friday that they are studying the possibility of exporting surplus sugar to the US to take advantage of Washingtons preferential rate.

He said they are expecting a total sugar production of 2.190 million MT for 2020-2021 crop year, more than the previous crop years 2.145 million MT as of August 2.

The crop year for sugar is in September until August the following year.

Serafica said maintaining high sugar stocks may lead to lower prices, which might be further pulled down due to lower demand for the commodity as manufacturers, like beverage companies and restaurants, limit operations due to the pandemic.

"Export of domestic sugar will ease and help stabilize prices at levels that are reasonably profitable to producers and fair to consumers, he added.

The country has been allocating sugar supply for US quota for years. In the last crop year, 95 percent of total production was allocated for domestic consumption, while the remaining five percent for the US quota.

As for this year, Serafica told CNN Philippines that the Sugar Board has not yet deliberated about the matter. A sugar order will be issued in the new crop year He noted that this will be based on SRA crop estimate and historical data and analysis of current trends in consumption.

When asked if the 44,000 MT excess supply will be on top or part of the quota for the coming crop year, Serafica said nothing is definite yet since the board has to also consider position papers from sugar producers.
Irans FM says US lost the right to make demands when it withdrew from nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers.

The United States has no right to demand the restoration of United Nations sanctions against Iran, the foreign minister said.

In a letter to the UN Security Council (UNSC), Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US lost the right to make demands in 2018 when it withdrew from the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers.

Zarif also said the unilateral pullout by Washington violated a UN resolution that required signatories to avoid any damage to the deal.

It is clear that the US has no right to the reapplication of the provisions of terminated resolutions against Iran, wrote Zarif.

The Trump administration has never acted in good faith  an inseparable part of international relations  The Iranian people expect the UN Security Council to bring the US to account for the irreparable harm inflicted on the entire Iranian nation merely for reasons of personal aggrandizement or domestic political expediency.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday officially informed the UN it is demanding the restoration of all UN sanctions on Iran, but allies and opponents declared the American move illegal and doomed to failure.

Pompeo insisted the US has the legal right to snap back UN sanctions even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the historic 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the UNSC.

He said UN sanctions will continue the arms embargo on Iran, set to expire on October 18, as well as prohibit ballistic missile testing and nuclear enrichment that could lead to a nuclear weapons programme  which Tehran insists it is not pursuing.





The US insistence on snapping back international sanctions against Iran sets the stage for a contentious dispute on Friday when the UN Security Council meets. The USs demand could be ignored by other UN members  calling into question the councils ability to enforce its own legally binding decisions.

Zarif said the term snapback was never mentioned in the deal or in the UN resolution that supported the deal.The US intentionally has applied the word to suggest speed and [an] automatic return of sanctions, he said.

The Trump administration wants to reimpose all international sanctions that had been eased under the nuclear deal. Other nations claim the US has no standing to make the demand because the Trump administration pulled the US out of the deal.





Under the agreement, Tehran received sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. Thesnapback mechanism was created in the event Tehran was proven to be in violation of the accord.

The US imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran and sent the countrys economy into free fall following its pullout from the deal.

Two planets

A Russian official condemned the US effort to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

Looks like there are two planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where international law and diplomacy reign, said Dmitry Polyansky.

Three European nations  France, Germany and the United Kingdom  also rejected the move and stressed their continuing support for the nuclear accord, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The US ceased to be a participant to the JCPOA following their withdrawal from the deal, the trio said in a statement. We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA.

The behaviour of the United States European allies has been disappointing, Kelly Craft, US ambassador to the United Nations, told a German newspaper.

This is very disappointing, German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung quoted Craft as saying.

This matter is so important that we cannot wait until the arms embargo runs out on October 18. We cannot wait for the world to realise on October 18 that China and Russia have the ability to deliver weapons and Iran to buy them to pass them on to militias and other terror groups around the world that are steered by Tehran.


The Supreme Court Friday allowed devotees to offer Paryushan prayers in three Jain temples in Mumbai amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde however said that permission for Ganpati festival will have to be taken on a case-to-case basis from the Maharashtra Disaster Management Authority.

The apex court said that no permission for prayers would be given for any other temple in Mumbai.

"We direct the petitioners shall follow the SOP," the bench said, while permitting devotees to visit Jain temples at Dadar, Byculla and Chembur."

The bench was hearing an appeal against the Bombay High Court order which had said that it did not wish to interfere with the state's decision of not to permit Jain temples in Mumbai to open for devotees to mark the eight-day Paryushan festival from August 15 to 23 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When my husband woke in the night 13 years ago to be violently sick, I didnt think hed been poisoned.

I didnt think someone had deliberately set out to murder him for daring to speak out about state corruption. Even more, I didnt believe he would die. Why would I?

I didnt believe it as his hair started to fall out, as his face went yellow and his whole body was wracked with pain as his life ebbed away.

'I didnt think someone had deliberately set out to murder him for daring to speak out about state corruption. Even more, I didnt believe he would die. Why would I?', asks Marina Litvinenko

I was still clinging on to hope as I took our 12-year-old son Anatoly to his fathers hospital bed  an experience he later described, with the haunting simplicity of a child, as like seeing my Daddy, but not my Daddy.

It was London, 2006. We were a Russian family who had sought asylum in the UK six years earlier, and had recently been granted citizenship. We felt happy and secure in a civilised, tolerant, law-abiding country and I believed we were safe.

Now, of course, we know that is not true. My husband, Sasha, known to the rest of the world as Alexander Litvinenko  who left Russia for Britain after exposing Vladimir Putins corruption  was fatally poisoned after he drank from a pot of tea laced with radioactive Polonium in a London hotel. His killers were sent, it is widely believed, on the orders of Putin.

Neither of the two men accused of assassinating my husband has faced justice and requests for their extradition to the UK have been ignored.

One, Andrei Lugovoi, is even a prominent politician in Russia. It makes a mockery of the idea of justice.

So the apparent poisoning of a public critic of Putin this week did not surprise me. Poisoning  so cruel, so barbaric  should always be surprising.

But when I saw the news of what appears to be an attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny my first thought was a resigned, Not again.

I didnt believe it as his hair started to fall out, as his face went yellow and his whole body was wracked with pain as his life ebbed away. Alexander Litvinenko is pictured above in hospital

He fell ill after drinking a mug of tea before boarding a flight from Siberia to Moscow. It all feels sickeningly familiar.

Navalny is a 44-year-old father of two, and I know, more than anyone, what his wife Yulia, daughter Daria and son Zakhar are going through.

Typically, and not surprisingly, Moscow was quick to dismiss any suggestion that Navalnys illness was suspicious. A doctor declared no trace of poison was found in his body, and put his condition down to metabolic disease caused by low blood sugar.

Those close to the stricken man instantly said it was a cover-up.

Once again, the message has gone out that if you expose corruption in the Russian state, the price will be high; it will often be your life.

One of the last things Sasha did was to ensure everyone knew who he believed his killer to be.

As he was slipping away, in a statement addressing the man who ordered his murder, he said: You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

Navalny is a 44-year-old father of two, and I know, more than anyone, what his wife Yulia, daughter Daria and son Zakhar are going through. Navalny is pictured above with supporters in Tomsk

Yulias howls of anguish are only beginning. I wish I could reassure her they will be listened to.

Nearly 14 years ago, when my husband was murdered, state-sanctioned poisonings were still something heard of only in outlandish spy novels. No one thought Sasha was suffering anything worse than seasonal flu.

But Sasha, a former officer of the Russian FSB secret service, was convinced he had been poisoned and started drawing up lists of who he had met and how it could have happened. The next day, as he got worse, we called an ambulance. By then, my strong Sasha couldnt even walk unaided.

Doctors dismissed his suggestion of poison  it sounded outlandish. But then his immune system totally stopped working.

The days ticked by without explanation. One cancer specialist said he looked like someone who had had intense chemotherapy.

There have been so many other examples. Most notoriously, we saw it in this country two years ago when Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury

The police started investigating, with Sasha pinpointing the people he suspected of targeting him  his business associate and fellow former FSB officer, Andrei Lugovoi, and Lugovois friend, Dmitry Kovtun. They had met in a London hotel and Sasha had drunk a mug of green tea they had offered him.

The Polonium-210 had been in his system for more than three weeks when it was discovered, six hours before his death. Sashas last words to me were, I love you very much on the night of November 22, 2006.

The next evening, after leaving his side only briefly to put Anatoly to bed, I was called back to the hospital. He had passed away. It was only then, for the first time in weeks, that I was allowed to kiss him, to touch him without gloves.

Since then, it has become obvious that the Russian state will use poison to shut people up or punish those it deems traitors. There have been so many other examples.

Most notoriously, we saw it in this country two years ago when Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury.

Again, the Kremlin denied any involvement, dismissing the case as a British campaign to demonise Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky, the businessman turned Kremlin critic, was found hanging in the bathroom of his ex-wifes house seven years ago. I knew he was depressed but I dont think he would ever commit suicide. I believe he was killed

Sashas friend and fellow Putin critic, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was given a glass of water containing poison on an airplane in 2004.

She survived, but two years later she was killed in a more traditional way; shot dead in the lift of her apartment block. Sasha was devastated, not knowing that just a few weeks later they would come for him too.

More than a decade on from Sashas death, what happened to my family is still happening. It is both unbelievable but all too believable at the same time. Why would they stop when there is no one to stop them?

So many of Sashas friends have died in unusual circumstances. Boris Berezovsky, the businessman turned Kremlin critic, was found hanging in the bathroom of his ex-wifes house seven years ago. I knew he was depressed but I dont think he would ever commit suicide. I believe he was killed.

Another acquaintance, former Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov, was found strangled in London in 2018. To that ever-growing list of people being attacked by unseen enemies we now add the name of Alexei Navalny.

My heart goes out to Navalnys family. Theyve already had to be so brave because of the way he, as a prominent investigator, has unveiled the corruption of the Russian state and led marches.

He has been imprisoned several times and had chemicals thrown in his face. And now this.

While it is too early to lay the blame at Putins door, this mess is of his making. He has long spread the message that if someone says something you dont like, they should be neutralised.

There is no rule of law, no real opposition in Parliament, no democracy. If someone opposed to the state becomes too big or powerful, they will be dealt with. But this shouldnt stop the fight for change.

Former Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov, was found strangled in London in 2018

There are protests in Belarus against the pro-Putin government which are inspirational. They follow weeks of protests in the Eastern Russian province of Khabarovsk and demonstrations on the streets of Moscow; people want to live in a free country.

There hasnt been a day since when I havent thought about Sasha or stopped fighting for justice for him. I fought the British Government to ensure there was a public inquiry into his murder.

I had to take them to court to do it but in 2016 the inquiry report found Sasha was killed by Lugovoi and Kovtun and there was a strong probability they were acting on behalf of the FSB, which was probably approved by Putin.

I made sure we had some justice. And I feel stronger because of it.

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was given a glass of water containing poison on an airplane in 2004. She survived, but two years later she was killed in a more traditional way; shot dead in the lift of her apartment block

I miss Sasha every day but I feel he is watching Anatoly and me. I feel protected by him.

There are some people who think I should be more careful, and that I should have security. I am sure the Russians know exactly where I live and what I am up to, but I feel protected.

We all live with a sense of fear  especially now  but we cant let it ruin our lives.

Sadly, I can never return to Moscow: My father died in 2016 and my mother two years later.

I wasnt able to go to their funerals. I was their only child and I missed them so much.

For a long time, I was mostly worried about the impact on Anatoly. His whole world was turned upside down and he kept so much inside.

Now 26, Anatoly graduated from UCL with a degree in Eastern European politics. He is working as a paralegal in a law firm and is happy. We both know how important it is to have the freedoms we have here.

When people ask what I miss, it is hard to explain that I miss it all. I miss what we had and I miss what our life could have been and I am so sad that another family may go through what happened to us.

As told to NICOLE LAMPERT
BEIJING -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Friday denounced the Democratic Progressive Party authority in Taiwan for obstructing economic cooperation and exchange across the Taiwan Straits through various measures and excuses.

Following the steps of Western anti-China forces, the DPP authority went even further by obstructing mainland investment in Taiwan and prohibiting Taiwan companies from cooperating with mainland enterprises, said Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, when commenting on the DPP authority's further restrictions on mainland investment.

Such moves have once again exposed the DPP authority's intention to harm cross-Straits relations and jeopardize the interests of Taiwan compatriots, Ma stressed.

Cross-Straits economic cooperation and exchange have brought substantial benefits to Taiwan compatriots, Ma said, pointing out that the cross-Straits trade reached $134.94 billion from January to July, up 8.7 percent year on year, from which Taiwan had a trade surplus of over $70 billion.

Mainland enterprises offer nearly 25,000 jobs in Taiwan and pay more than 1.2 billion new Taiwan dollars (over $40.8 million) in taxes every year, Ma said.

The DPP authority's action will only squeeze the development space for Taiwan, and ruin the island's development opportunities, Ma said.
BAGHDAD, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) on Thursday strongly condemned the killing of two civil society activists in Iraq's southern province of Basra.

"The killing of Dr. Reham Yaqoub last night and Tahseen Oussama a week ago presents a serious threat to security and stability in Basra," Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq, said in a statement.

"The citizens of Basra should not live in such an atmosphere of terror and threat, and greater action by the authorities is urgently required to hold the perpetrators accountable, and to put an end to this cycle of violence," said Hennis-Plasschaert, who also heads the UNAMI.

On Wednesday, unknown gunmen opened fire on a sport utility vehicle (SUV) carrying four women on a street in the city of Basra, some 550 km south of Baghdad.

The attack resulted in the killing of Yaqoub, a female doctor who works in Basra Hospital and also a civil society activist who supports the anti-government protests in Iraq which demanded comprehensive reform, fight against corruption, better public services, and more job opportunities.

The attack also resulted in the killing of another woman and the wounding of the two others in the vehicle.

Two days ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi sacked the police chief of Basra province, as well as the head of the National Security Service, due to repeated security violations and assassinations in the province recently.

Last Friday, unknown gunmen assassinated another civil society activist, Tahseen Oussama, with silenced weapons in Basra, said the provincial police.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)  Bomb attacks in Kabul and in northern Afghanistan, as well as an ambush in the country's south killed at least five people on Wednesday and wounded 15, officials said.

Two sticky bombs targeted government employees in the Afghan capital, killing two people, including a police officer, and wounding two others, police said.

Meanwhile in Puli Khumri, the capital of northern Baghlan province, a bomb targeted a vehicle belonging to the provincial intelligence department, killing two service members and wounding 11 people, including both military and civilians, said Nazir Najem, the provincial governor's spokesman.

In southern Urozgan province, gunmen ambushed the vehicle of the intelligence chief in the city of Tarin Kowt, killing him and wounding two other service members, said Zelgay Ebadi, the spokesman for the provincial governor.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said one of the sticky bombs was attached to a police vehicle, while the other was attached to a car belonging to the education ministry. The police were investigating, he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said he was not aware of the explosions in Kabul.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a mortar attack the previous day in Kabul that killed three people, including two government employees, and wounded at least 16, including including four children and woman.

Tariq Arian, the Interior Ministry's spokesman, said militants fired a barrage of rockets from two vehicles toward different areas of the city. Earlier, reports said only that there were 10 wounded. The attacks came as Afghans on Tuesday marked their country's Independence Day.

The Islamic State group said it fired 16 mortar shells, targeting the presidential palace, embassies and Afghan government offices in Kabul. Authorities said most of the shells hit residential homes.

Story continues

The violence comes amid new uncertainties over the start of talks between the Taliban and the Kabul political leadership. The government said it would not release the last 320 Taliban prisoners it holds until the insurgents free more captured Afghan soldiers.

The decision went against that of a traditional Afghan council held earlier this month  the Loya Jirga  and is likely to further delay intra-Afghan peace talks sought by the United States.

___

Associated Press writer Tameem Akhgar in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
Auf wiedersehen, Oktoberfest.

Beaumonts annual celebration of German beer, food and music is the latest public event to fall victim to the coronavirus pandemic. Mayor Becky Ames on Friday formally called off what would have been the citys sixth Oktoberfest.

Although we have had a decrease in COVID-19 positive cases in recent weeks, just a few days ago, Jefferson County witnessed its highest number of COVID-19 related deaths so far, she explained in a news release.

Noting that Texas Oktoberfest celebrations already have been canceled in Addison, Galveston and Fredericksburg, Ames said the city determined it would not be safe to host and promote an event where thousands of people would gather.

The event had been scheduled for Oct. 17 at Rogers Park.

On Monday, Jefferson County recorded four deaths in a single day  a figure that had been logged only twice before since coronavirus first arrived here in mid-March. The county has logged a total of 88 deaths as a result of the virus and nearly 5,000 positive cases.

Related: Look back on Oktoberfest from years past

Oktoberfest, symbolized for many by lederhosen, Alpine hats and full-liter steins of beer, was also an opportunity for local wholesalers to sell and market craft beer and imports to the public, said Jeff Wheeler, marketing director Del Papa Distributing Co. Del Papa and Giglio Distributing typically sponsored the event.

Local craft brewers were hit hard by the virus-related economic slowdown, forced to pivot to to-go and other sales as Gov. Greg Abbott kept taprooms and wineries closed along with bars and nightclubs.

It is a real issue from our perspective in terms of brand awareness, Wheeler said. We cover 17 counties in Texas. Since we participated in Mardi Gras, every event has been canceled.

Top hits: Get Beaumont Enterprise stories sent directly to your inbox

Oktoberfest was the last event that Del Papa still had on the books for this year. Wheeler said the company had already made adjustments in the amount of beer it has ordered due to the economic downturn.

Its not a huge blow from a financial standpoint, he said, but its certainly not fun to lose those marketing opportunities.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com
Taiwan has decided to ban iQiyi (IQ) and Tencent (TCEHY) from operating streaming video services in their area. It is one of the latest moves of the government against Chinese tech companies.

Banning of Chinese streaming services

iQiyi and Tencent Video have been operating in Taiwan illegally. Both companies teamed up with Taiwanese broadcasters and distributors in order to get their content through the streaming services. This was discovered by the government and was placed in the notice that was published on August 18.

To end the illegal activity, Taiwan's National Communications Commission announced new rules that would prevent Taiwanese people and companies from providing services to mainland Chinese streaming operators and distributing their content, as stated in the notice.

The decision of the regulator is provisional, pending a 14-day public comment period. On September 3, the ban will take effect. Tencent declined to comment on the new rule, and iQiyi did not immediately respond to questions from the media.

Also Read: Huawei Struggles Amidst Coronavirus as Sales in China Plummet While Still in US Blacklist

Although Beijing continues to view Taiwan as a part of its territory, Taiwan continues to identify itself as a self-governing democracy.

Taiwan has a population of 24 million people, so the damage to the Chinese companies will not be as severe. However, the ban is evidence of the growing backlash against China's tech companies in global markets, as reported by Variety.

The relationship between Taiwan and mainland China have been having issues since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016. The Chinese government sees the Taiwanese president as someone who is in favor of the independence of Taiwan.

Washington has also moved closer to Taiwan. US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar visited Taiwan last week to convey President Donald Trump's support for the democratic island.

Chinese companies vs. the world

Taiwan is also now in the middle of the ongoing tech war between China and the United States, as numerous countries are becoming dependent on TSMC, a Taiwanese company, for advanced semiconductors.

Tencent Video and iQiyi have services that are just like Netflix. The companies allow streaming of licensed videos, and they also create and produce original shows that are very popular with the Chinese audiences.

According to the reports of their earnings last week, Tencent stated that its video service had 114 million subscribers, and iQiyi reported nearly 105 million. The majority of their subscribers are in mainland China.

Earlier this month, President Trump threatened to ban Tencent's popular messaging app WeChat and TikTok, a video sharing platform owned by ByteDance. Last week, Trump ordered ByteDance to divest interest in TikTok's US operations within the next three months, as reported by The Verge.

This week, the Trump administration further restricted Huawei's access to advanced semiconductors. According to analysts, this is a lethal blow to Huawei as it will affect their smartphone and telecommunications equipment.

British officials last month cited the disruption to Huawei's supply chain as a key reason it banned the company from the UK's 5G network, as reported by BBC.

Meanwhile, the Indian government in the past few months has banned TikTok and WeChat, as well as other popular Chinese apps. Government officials usually cite national security concerns for the restrictions, but companies such as ByteDance and Huawei have denied that their apps pose a national security threat.

Chinese companies that are listed on global markets are being monitored by financial regulators. US regulators are probing iQiyi after a short-seller in April accused the company of overstating its subscriber numbers and revenue.

iQiyi pushed back on the allegations, asserting in an official statement that the report contains "numerous errors, unsubstantiated statements and misleading conclusions and interpretations."

Related Article: China Will 'Nuke Bomb' US Companies in Response to Huawei Sanctions

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Brexit trade talks slipped further into acrimony today as Britain accused Brussels of failing to accept reality while the bloc said negotiations are actually going backwards.

The seventh round of talks between the UK and the European Union concluded this week without a major breakthrough.

And the lack of progress has prompted a furious blame game as each side pointed the finger at the other for the continuing deadlock.

The UKs chief negotiator David Frost said in a statement that Brussels was making it unnecessarily difficult to do a deal and it would be easier to make progress if the EU accepted the broad terms of what Britain wants.

But his EU counterpart Michel Barnier told a press conference too often this week it felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards and that a deal still seems unlikely.

He also claimed that 'British negotiators have not shown any real willingness to move forward on issues of fundamental importance for the European Union.

The UK Government has made clear it does not want talks to drag on and is keen for a deal to be done by September.

The UK's chief negotiator David Frost today claimed the EU needs to 'accept reality' during Brexit talks while EU counterpart Michel Barnier said a deal 'seems unlikely'. The pair are pictured in Brussels this morning

Mr Frost said in a statement he believed an agreement is still possible and it is still our goal but it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve.

We have had useful discussions this week but there has been little progress, he said.

The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts.

This makes it unnecessarily difficult to make progress. There are other significant areas which remain to be resolved and, even where there is a broad understanding between negotiators, there is a lot of detail to work through. Time is short for both sides.

A senior UK negotiating official was more blunt, saying of the talks: 'The block now is the EU's insistence that we must accept their position on state aid and fisheries before we can talk about anything else. Obviously we are not going to do that so it's frozen.'

Mr Frost said the UK had been clear from the outset about the type of agreement it wants - one that means Britain regains control of its laws, borders and waters.

When the EU accepts this reality in all areas of the negotiation, it will be much easier to make progress, he said.

The eighth round of talks is due to get underway in London in the week beginning September 7.

Mr Barnier said this morning that 'those who were hoping negotiations [would] move swiftly forward this week will have been disappointed'.

Unfortunately I too am frankly disappointed and concerned and surprised as well, I must say, because the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told us in June that he wished to speed up the negotiating process during the summer,' he told reporters.

But this week, once again, as in the July round, the British negotiators have not shown any real willingness to move forward on issues of fundamental importance for the European Union.

The two main sticking points in the talks remain the thorny issues of post-Brexit fishing rights and so-called 'level playing field' requirements, with the EU wanting the UK to stick to the bloc's rules and regulations to protect against unfair competition.

Mr Barnier said 'no progress whatsoever' had been made on fishing as he insisted 'the need for a level playing field is not going to go away'.

The EU wants to maintain its current access to UK fishing waters but Number 10 wants to give British trawlers priority.

The UK does not want to sign up to the 'level-laying field' and views it as a sovereignty issue.

But Mr Barnier said it is a 'non-negotiable pre-condition to grant access to a market of 450 million citizens as he warned the EU will not sign up to anything which results in 'competitive distortions'.

He said: Too often this week it felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards.

Given the short time left what I said in London in July remains true: Today at this stage an agreement between the Uk and the European Union seems unlikely.

Mr Barnier told a press conference that 'too often this week it felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards'

Britain this week reportedly tabled a draft free-trade agreement - the rough outline of what it wants to have in place after the Brexit transition period finishes at the end of the year.

However, EU diplomats believe the decision to put forward a formal legal text shows how desperate the UK is as time runs out.

An EU source close to the negotiations said of the move: 'It is the British under time pressure.'

The UK has made clear that if it is unable to strike a deal with the bloc in the coming weeks then it is willing to walk away without an agreement and to trade with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms from next year.

A UK Government spokesman said: 'We are engaging across all areas and want to have a deal ready by September.'
Union health and family welfare minister Dr Harsh Vardhan spoke to Sanchita Sharma about when Covid cases will peak in India, whether Delhi and Mumbai have already crossed their peaks, a possible second wave of infections, the low fatality rate in the country, and Indias vaccine procurement plan, among other Covid-related issues.

Edited excerpts:

Have Covid-19 cases already peaked in metro cities such as Delhi and Mumbai?

The current level of outbreak is showing a decline in new infections in both Delhi and Mumbai. This is also corroborated by the fact that hospital admissions of Covid-19 cases have come down. Moreover, the number of tests being offered continues to be high in these cities. Based on these evidences, it appears that the spread of Covid-19 has slowed down in these two cities. A big part of the credit goes to people practising precautions.

Is a second wave expected?

A second wave has not yet been observed with its prior intensity globally. This is a seven-month-old infection. We still have many gaps in understanding the natural history of the outbreak. So far, a few countries that were reported to have controlled the infection have reported smaller second waves in comparison to the first outbreak. It is still not clear whether the second wave of infection is smaller due to implementation of effective public health implementation and/or a proportion of people continuing to follow precautions.

When are infections projected to peak across India, following which there will be a fall in new cases?

It is difficult to predict. India is a large country, and the outbreak is heterogeneous in different states in terms of their vulnerability, the maturity of outbreak, and the number of confirmed cases. The outbreak is likely to peak at different points in different cities and states.

Also read: Why Delhi is not out of woods yet

Also, different states are continuing to implement different measures for containment, and the proportion of people following preventive precautions differs in different places. All this makes it difficult to say when the outbreak will peak, and when a drop in new cases will occur.

With multiple peaks, what is the strategy going forward?

Test, Track, Treat will remain our strategy to move forward.

When is India going to cross one million tests a day?

India has rapidly upgraded its Covid-19 testing capacity and is very near to crossing the mark of one million tests a day. In last past 24 hours, 918,470 tests have been done. When we promised to take testing to 1 lakh a day by 31st May, we achieved the goal on the 10th of May. Just a few weeks ago, I promised to reach the one million mark in 12 weeks, but within three weeks, you can see the progress. We are working ahead of targets.

The case fatality ratio (CFR) is under 2% and falling every day. What are we doing right on that front?

CFR depends on the number of tests conducted, test positivity rate, improved management strategies, and the improved health systems responses. On charting the seven-day moving average of CFR, it is observed that there was an inflection point on 23rd June, when the crude CFR was noted to be 3.27%. Beyond this point, there has been a steady, almost linear trend of reduction in the CFR. The current CFR (on August 20) is 1.9%.

Also read: What Delhi sero survey means | HT Editorial

The effective containment, aggressive testing with contact tracing and standardized clinical management protocols based on a holistic standard-of-care approach continues to result in a progressively reducing CFR and keep it well below the global average.

Three India-made vaccines have entered advanced stage trials. If successful, by when will a vaccine be ready for use?

Vaccine trials against Covid-19 are being fast-tracked globally. It is expected that the trials of India-made vaccines would be completed by the end of this year. We will know the efficacy of vaccines by then. The Oxford vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India is already being produced parallelly, so that the time required to market it will be reduced to a larger extent.

The other two vaccines may require at least a month more to produce it and introduce in the market in a phased manner. It is expected that if the vaccine trial results are good, we could be ready to use the vaccine by the first quarter of 2021.

Human trials of Covaxin, which has been developed and manufactured in Hyderabad by Bharat Biotech, started about two week back and it may be available by end of the year.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

Serum Institute of India said it is ready to begin human trials in India this month and is hoping to have the AstraZeneca vaccine available by the year-end.

ZyCoV-D from Zydus Cadila has started clinical trials with the first human dosing and is likely to complete clinical trials in few months.

Several countries have preordered millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines. What are Indias procurement plans?

The details of the procurement plan are being developed by the ministry of health and family welfare, but it is important to note that India has the worlds largest vaccine manufacturing industrial base that provides two-thirds of childhood vaccines used across the world.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is collaborating with Bharat Biotech and has entered into an MoU that clearly states that priority will be accorded to provide vaccines, if successful, to the Government of India at an affordable and subsidised rate.

A similar agreement is in the advanced stages of negotiation with the Serum Institute of India for three Covid-19 vaccine trials to be supported by ICMR. Serum institute and ICMR are to undertake the trials of Oxford vaccine and two others  one produced by Novavax-Serum and another by Serum Institute by itself. Once the results of Phase I and II will be available, the detailed contours of plan to roll out will be finalised.

Who will be vaccinated first?

Health care workers, front-line workers and vulnerable subgroups such as persons over the age 65 years and those with chronic morbidities will be prioritised. Then, depending on the number of available doses, a special drive to provide vaccines to all will be developed and implemented.

Editors Note: A previous version of this article gave the incorrect name for the company Novavax.

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Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > The Congress is Modis Big Advantage

IMPRESSIONS

Narendra Modi of course has gifts of leadership that put him above his challengers. But even his admirers will agree that the weaknesses of the Congress are a big factor behind his success. Consider how the Congress reacted to his victory in 2014. Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president, but the Congress was too confused to get out of its dynastic fixation. It refused to accept his resignation. How did the confusion end? By choosing Sonia Gandhi as interim president. Interim of course meant indefinite. Feeling embarassed, she said last week that a new party president would be elected in the "not too distant future." Read this alongside the report that "there is a clamour for Rahul to return to the helm."

In the circumstances, dont dismiss the recurring reports that the Congress Party is on ventillator. The good news is that ventillators are rather efficient these days. Especially when used by a Grand Old Party that is renowned for its ability to die and yet live on, to expire without becoming diseased.

When the party failed to win a single seat in the last Delhi elections (63 out of its 66 candidates lost their deposits), Congressmen refused to read the message. One leader said that the new 2020 was not a defeat because in the 2015 election also it scored zero and therefore there was no loss. Logic that beats all logic.

It was left to Sharmista Mukherjee to bring sanity back to the scene. In her customary no-nonsense tone, the daughter of Pranab Mukherjee said that the party was decimated in Delhi because of "inordinate delays in decision-making, a lack of strategy and unity at the state level, and demotivated workers." These were facts known to all, but acknowledged by the fewest of the few. Result: Yesterdays leaders rule with ideas from day before yesterday.

At one point Congressman Sandeep Dixit, a respected name in Delhi, accused the partys senior leaders of failing to find a new president for the party. Shashi Tharoor has been repeatedly airing the demand that the party elect a president. He said that "dozens of party leaders are saying privately" there must be internal elections within the Congress. Many Congress leaders are scared that if such elections end up with a non-Gandhi president for the party, groupism will knock down the party. That may well be the case. But wont it be better for groupism to play itself out while the Gandhis are around? The Congress can grow only when it stands on the strength of internal electoral fidelities.

Today the Congress is in a respectable position only in four states. In Punjab and Chattisgarh it is relatively comfortable. In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, tired-old wirepullers manage to stay in power but dirtying the name of the party in the process. In Maharashtra it hangs on the tails of the Shiv Sena. In Puthucherry it not only takes help from the DMK, but also agrees to cope with a Governor who imagines that she is some kind of a super chief minister. It is a pathetic plight for a party which, not long along, could boast that even a broomstick would be elected if it had a Congress ticket.

In the few spots where it has power, Congress does not enjoy a good name. Thats because it flaunts only the Gandhi name. It does not flaunt names that could have brought it more legitimacy, names like Mallikarjun Kharge, Manmohan Singh, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, A.K. Antony. There are other ignored names that could have brought it a touch of youthful glamour  Milind Deora, Jitin Prasada, Deepender Hooda. Ignoring them, the party almost lost one of its shining stars, Sachin Pilot.

Karnatakas Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao, holding the presidentship on interim basis for long, had to plead for an elected party chief in the state. "Our workers and leaders are in a state of confusion," he said. In Kerala, young voices are not heard in the Congress.

Sonia Gandhi herself has now realised that her sell-by date is over. But her party is nowhere near internal elections despite Shashi Tharoors proddings. This may seem like an internal Congress party problem. In fact, it is a problem that concerns all of India. Democracy has become a bit of a farce with the BJP having an unhealthy majority in Parliament and that leading to the Prime Minister pursuing an authoritarian line with no one to question him effectively. The alternative to a meaningful opposition is a one-party dictatorship.
Iranian FM Zarif Calls on UN Security Council to Prevent US From Reimposing Iran Sanctions

Sputnik News

22:26 GMT 20.08.2020

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sent a letter to the UN Security Council calling on the members to prevent the United States from attempting to re-impose United Nations sanctions against Iran because it is not anymore a participant in the 2015 nuclear agreement.

"The notification by the United States is inadmissible. The Dispute Resolution Mechanism is only open to the actual JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] participants", Zarif said on Thursday. "The UN Security Council should prevent the US - an unapologetic and serial violator of UNSCR 2231 - from unilaterally and unlawfully abusing the Dispute Resolution Mechanism, with the stated objective of destroying that very resolution - and along with it, the authority of the Security Council and indeed the United Nations".

Zarif has said the United States' move to trigger snapback sanctions under the terms of the JCPOA was illegal because Washington unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018.

Meanwhile, Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi told reporters that the US letter notifying the UN Security Council that Washington has started the procedure to invoke the snapback of sanctions on Iran has no legal standing, which makes the document inadmissible.

"The US is not a JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal] participant, and has no right to trigger the so-called snapback mechanism, and its arbitrary interpretation of resolution 2231 cannot change this reality", Ravanchi said on Thursday. "Thus, we are of the firm conviction that the letter sent by the US today to the Security Council's president, and all references therein, is not in a void and has no legal standing and thus inadmissible".

Ravanchi said that the US move attempted to mislead the global community and abuse the process to initiate the mechanism.

"This is nothing but illegal and political bullying", Ravanchi added.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed the UN Security Council president on Thursday that the United States is starting the procedure to invoke the snapback mechanism and re-impose all United Nations sanctions against Iran.

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he had asked Pompeo to notify the UN Security Council that the United States intended to restore all snapback sanctions against Iran. The State Department said the sanctions would be re-imposed 30 days after the United Nations received Washington's note.

The United States moved to re-impose all United Nations sanctions against Iran after failing to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to indefinitely extend the UN arms embargo on Iran.

The arms embargo is set to expire in October under the terms of the JCPOA nuclear agreement.

A Sputnik

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One of Donald Trump's most senior officials has launched a furious attack on Britain accusing it of 'siding with ayatollahs' after it helped block tough new sanctions against Iran.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked the UK along with Germany and France after they all refused to back an indefinite extension of an arms embargo against Tehran.

And last night the Trump administration ran into opposition after Mr Pompeo officially informed the UN it is demanding the restoration of all sanctions on Iran, with allies and opponents declaring the US action illegal and doomed to failure.

He insisted that the United States has the legal right to 'snap back' UN sanctions even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the Security Council.

In an astonishing outburst at the UN in New York Mr Pompeo attacked the US allies, accusing them of privately agreeing with Washington but lacking courage to say so publicly and proposing 'no alternatives.'

He added: 'Instead they chose to side with ayatollahs. Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of Syria and indeed their own citizens as well.'

His comments come just weeks after he was in London for talks with his counterpart Dominic Raab and in the middle of talks over a post-Brexit trade deal with the US.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked the UK at the UN (pictured) along with Germany and France after they all refused to back an indefinite extension of an arms embargo against Iran

The Trump administration ran into immediate opposition yesterday after Mr Pompeo officially informed the UN it is demanding the restoration of all sanctions on Iran, led by spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured)

Russia and China, along with European allies Britain, France and Germany, who often disagree, are united in declaring the U.S. action 'illegal' on grounds that you can't withdraw from a deal and then use the resolution that endorsed it to re-impose sanctions.

How this dispute plays out in the weeks ahead remains to be seen, but Thursday's US move set the stage for a showdown in the United Nations that could lead to a crisis of credibility for the Security Council, its most important and powerful body.

Pompeo came to the UN to deliver a letter to Indonesia's ambassador, Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating council presidency. It cited significant Iranian violations of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

Mr Pompeo said his message was simple: 'The United States will never allow the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles, and other kinds of conventional weapons ... (or) to have a nuclear weapon.'

And he said UN sanctions will continue the arms embargo on Iran, set to expire on October 18, as well as prohibit ballistic missile testing and nuclear enrichment that could lead to a nuclear weapons program - which Tehran insists it is not pursuing.

Following Pompeo's half-hour meeting, the council president began one-on-one consultations with its 14 other members on the legality of the U.S. action, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.

Under the terms of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal, Thursday's notification starts a 30-day clock after which pre-2015 UN sanctions on Iran that were eased will be re-imposed unless a resolution specifically extending their suspension is passed. The US, however, would use its veto power to block any resolution extending the sanctions relief.

Pompeo said a Security Council resolution will be introduced as required, but he wouldn't say which country would initiate it. Only the Dominican Republic supported last week's defeated U.S. resolution to extend the arms embargo.

He appeared confident the UN sanctions would be re-imposed in 31 days and indicated that the US may impose sanctions on countries that don't enforce them.

Diplomats said the likely outcome of the council president's consultations is that the majority of members inform him that the US is not legally entitled to invoke 'snap back.

In these circumstances, the council president would not be required to introduce a resolution to extend sanctions relief, which would face a U.S. veto, the diplomats said.

The Europeans are still hoping that an agreement might be reached before the October 18 expiration of the Iran arms embargo that could bridge the major differences between Russia and China, who support its lifting, and the United States, which seeks an indefinite extension, the diplomats said.

The Russians have been the most outspoken critics of the US. decision.

As soon as Pompeo delivered the lettee, Moscow's deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, tweeted: 'Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without ''cajoling'' anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.'

Britain and other Europeans fear that the re-imposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the nuclear deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons, and they are hoping to preserve the JCPOA in the event Trump loses his bid for a second term. Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.
In 1970, after campus antiwar protesters ransacked and set fire to the administration building at the University of South Carolina, the schools president appointed a task force to find a solution to student unrest. Many meetings, workshops, and encounter groups later, the university came up with an answer, and it was nothing so simple as expelling vandals and arsonists. No, the key was to teach students to love their university, starting with a new semester-long orientation course for freshmen.

An industry was born. John Gardner, an assistant professor of history and a social activist, made the course into an institution. He called it the Freshman-Year Experience, until he decided that the name was sexist and renamed it the First-Year Experience, now known commonly as FYE. He and his disciples promoted it so diligently that it has spread to 90 percent of American colleges and is rapidly growing overseas.

The programs often start with a common read, a book sent to everyone the summer before school starts, and proceed with lectures, discussion groups, seminars, courses, exercises, field trips, art projects, local activism, and whatever else the schools will fund. The programs are typically run not by professors but by cocurricular professionalsadministrators lacking scholarly credentials who operate outside the regular curriculum. They dont need to master an academic discipline or impart an established body of knowledge. They create a cocurriculum of what they want students to learn, which usually involves a great deal of talk about diversity and inclusion.

These professionals seem to lean even further left than the faculty, and in some ways they have more influence. They get to the students early, before classes begin, and theyre inescapable. By choosing your courses carefully, you can avoid the progressive sermonizing that passes for scholarship in some departments, but everyone has to undergo the orientation and first-year programs. You may have come to study computer science or literature or biochemistry, but first youll have to learn about social justice, environmental sustainability, gender pronouns, and microaggressions. You may have been planning to succeed by hard work, but first youll have to acknowledge your privilege or discover your victimhood. If you arrived at college hoping to broaden your intellectual horizons, youll quickly be instructed which ideas are off-limits.

Many professors are unhappy with the results of this training: the students primed to complain about imagined slights, the snowflakes who report their teachers for discussing unsafe topics, the mobs who shout down visiting speakers with dissenting views. Many scholars resent diverting so much time and money to a non-scholarly cocurriculum, but theyre losing the budget battles. For university presidents and treasurers, the selling point of these programs is the promise to keep freshmen happy enough to stay in school, because each dropout hurts not only the colleges budget but also its U.S. News & World Report ranking, which is based partly on the first-year retention rate.

Given the increasing number of freshmen ill-prepared for college, theres no doubt that they could benefit from learning basic skillsbut then, why do they so often get a mix of trivia and social activism instead of something useful academically? Why are these programs expanding while the tenured professoriat stagnates? To find out, I went to the industrys trade show, the First-Year Experience annual conference, which attracted more than 1,700 academics from 20 nations to San Antonio earlier this year. I dont recommend the experiencethe jargon was maddeningbut I made some sense of it by keeping in mind a principle known as the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

The Iron Law was promulgated by Jerry Pournelle, an American essayist and novelist, who maintained that any organization has two kinds of people: those dedicated to furthering the organizations original missionlike academics who want their university to turn out well-educated students; and those dedicated to furthering the bureaucracy by expanding their budgets and staffs. Pournelles Iron Law of Bureaucracy holds that the second group will inevitably take over the place.

Which authors should every college freshman read? If this choice were left up to serious scholars, you can imagine the candidates theyd suggest: Homer, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Austen, de Tocqueville, Dostoyevsky, Du Bois, Faulkner. And thats why professors usually dont get to make the choice. They dont understand these authors limitation. Sure, Plato and the rest did fine work in their day, but they all suffer from a fatal flaw: none is available to speak on campus.

You need a live author with a rousing speech to appeal to todays freshmen, or at least to the administrators of first-year programs who choose each years book. Thats why, when they convened in San Antonio, they were feted at lunches and dinners by publishers eagerly promoting not timeless wisdom but the fall catalog. Getting chosen as the common read means big sales5,000 copies at a big schooland the publishers trot out their authors to perform 15-minute auditions during the meals.

The ideal is a dynamic speaker with an inspirational story, provided its the proper sort of inspiration. Julie Lythcott-Haims, an author with a singularly savvy grasp of this market, was a hit at this years conference. As an undergraduate at Stanford, she had been required to take a course called Western Culture, but she and other students succeeded in eliminating the requirement by joining with Jesse Jackson in protests where they chanted, Hey-hey, ho-ho. Western Cultures got to go! She went on to Harvard Law School and a brief career in corporate law before returning to Stanford as the dean of freshmen, which enabled her to put her cultural philosophy into practice.

When a professor on Stanfords common-read committee recommended Possession, the bestselling novel by A. S. Byatt that won the 1990 Booker Prize and was made into a film, she acknowledged its literary merits but rejected it as too complex for Stanfords freshmen (never mind that Stanford is one of the worlds most selective colleges). As dean of freshmen, she insisted on choosing books that fostered a sense of community and belonging. And now, after leaving academia, she has written just such a book herself, Real American, which she calls a post-poetry memoir.

Mine is a memoir of being black and biracial in a country where black lives werent meant to matter, Lythcott-Haims tells the audience in the packed ballroom. But before going into details, she makes a confession. I am privileged, she says. I have privilege that Im aware of and more privilege that I dont even know. The daughter of a white British immigrant and black American doctor who was once assistant surgeon general of the United States, she grew up in good neighborhoods and thrived at school academically and socially. In high school, she was a cheerleader and president of her class as well as the student council. But despite those successes, despite the degrees from Stanford and Harvard, despite the well-paying jobs and a bestseller she published on how to raise children, her memoir is a saga of oppression.

She has discovered the awful cloud behind all those silver linings by dredging up an incident from her high school days. The great pivot point of the book, the moment that would haunt her for decades, was her discovery of graffiti on a birthday card that a friend had taped to her locker. Someone, presumably a classmate jealous of her achievements, had defaced the card by scrawling the N-word, misspelled as Niger.

This is the story of how despite all that privilege and opportunity, America made me loathe my black self, my brown skin, she tells the audience. Its not clear why one semiliterate teenage bigot should represent America, but Lythcott-Haims quickly segues into denunciations of the police, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and whites in general, to repeated applause from the (mostly white) audience. She explains why she has left a wide margin on each page of the book (As a black woman I do not have access to the full page) and reads a passage: You think your whiteness makes you better than the rest of us. You make us your scapegoat. Your excuse for your violent rage.

In her memoir, the well-meaning liberal whites are continually guilty of unintentional slights. Dont try suggesting that she overlook them, because she classifies Get over it as yet another microaggression. The nonliberals in the book are simply evil. When Peter Thiel and other classmates of hers launched the conservative Stanford Review, she is scared to death of these unhooded whites printing their disdain for our existence. When she sees Clint Eastwood speak to an empty chair representing President Obama at the Republican National Convention, she believes that it symbolizes the chair underneath the Black man about to be hanged from a Southern tree.

Yes, its all part of her mission to foster a sense of community and belonging, as long as the community doesnt include any Republicans. The writing is dreadful, but you have to give her credit for knowing her audience. The first-year administrators give her a standing ovation, and afterward they wonder to one another what she charges for a campus speech. The intercollegiate competition for black authors has driven up their speaking feesand maybe even induced that nasty feeling of privilege.

Racism has been the most popular theme for common-read books for the last three years.

Last year, when the University of Oregon assigned Between the World and Me for the common read, it paid Ta-Nehisi Coates $41,500 for a campus appearance (while also meeting his contractual requirement to be supplied with Nature Valley Oats n Dark Chocolate granola bars), and afterward students complained that the university hadnt gotten its moneys worth. Coates was scheduled for a speech and question-and-answer session lasting 75 minutes, but he left the stage after 40 minutes without taking questions. Somehow, it didnt feel very inclusive.

For colleges that cant afford Coates, the first-year conference is a chance to scout for cheaper alternatives. Besides Lythcott-Haims, theres another autobiographer, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, who gets a warm reception for her book When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. The administrators pack another ballroom to hear about All American Boys, a novel written to protest the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. The protagonist is an amalgam of the two martyrs, with a few details changed. Instead of pounding a white mans head against the sidewalk, as Martin did, or shoplifting and then assaulting a police officer, as Brown did, this young African-American man is a peaceful, law-abiding customer at a convenience store, wrongly accused of shoplifting by a white police officer who slams his head against the pavement. The novels coauthors, one white and one black, extol their collaboration as a model for how the races can learn to communicate with each otheror at least communicate in one direction, as the white author, Brendan Kiely, tells the audience. The most important thing I can do as a white man is listen, listen, listen to the truth coming from communities of color across the country, he says. I especially want to reckon with whiteness. Because as a white person I cant talk about racism or dismantle the system that supports it or eradicate racism itself without first grappling with whiteness. It is whiteness that perpetuates racism.

The crowd applauds and listens raptly as Kiely sketches the possibilities for using this book on campus. We should be talking about race consciousness in all our disciplines of higher learning, he tells the administrators. You can talk about it in your math classes. You can talk about in your education classes. You can talk about it in your humanities classes.

He doesnt explain the connection between calculus and Trayvon Martin, but then, he doesnt have to. This audience knows that racism is the all-consuming topic in higher education. It has been the most popular theme for common-read books for the last three years, according to the National Association of Scholars (NAS), which has tracked these programs across the country for the past decade. The latest report by the NAS, a group dedicated to reviving traditional liberal arts education (and a haven for nonprogressives in academia), analyzes some 350 schools common-read books and finds a continuing obsession with race as well as an infantilization of students. The three most frequently assigned books are by Coates, Bryan Stevenson, and Wes Moore, all dealing with Americas mistreatment of African-Americans. The rest of the top ten books almost all deal either with African-Americans or another social-justice identity group, whether its women, immigrants, Muslims, Latin-Americans, or Asian-Americans.

Multiculturalism is a buzzword in the mission statements of the common-read programs, but their version of it doesnt include past cultures or foreign authors. Virtually all colleges choose books by current American writers, mostly from the past decade. In the NAS national survey, only 6 percent of the common reads were published before 2000, and fewer than 2 percent before 1900. And the contemporary authors are rarely literary heavyweights. There are young-adult novels and graphic novels, but nothing from Martin Amis, Annie Dillard, Alice Munro, V. S. Naipaul, or Tom Wolfe.

Seventy percent of the common reads are nonfiction, much of it mediocre. If the theme is gender, students will read Roxane Gays Bad Feminist, or Janet Mocks transgender memoir, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, instead of Simone de Beauvoirs The Second Sex. As the NAS report sums up, the common-read genre is not introducing students to great literature, but then, thats not the point.

To an ambitious first-year administrator, assigning the common read to freshmen is just the beginning. The books message and other progressive themes must be amplified in cocurricular programming that fosters peer-to-peer dialogue and civic engagement through a social-justice-based learning experience, to quote from the PowerPoint presentations in San Antonio. During orientation, the students reflect on the book in discussion groups, essay contests, and exercises, such as filling out a white privilege checklist. The lessons continue during the academic year in workshops and lectures, and ideally in a separate first-year course, like the one at Texas Tech Honors College, enthusiastically described by its team of leaders at the conference.

All Texas Tech freshmen are required to get a passing grade in a weekly Learning Community Group devoted to topics like Gender and Sexuality, Sexual Assault Scenario, Microaggression and Privilege, and, of course, Race and Ethnicity. After doing exercises like the race card project, in which students write down six words on what race means to them, they demonstrate their mastery of the subject by filling out questionnaires asking if they agree or disagree with statements like, I understand how ethnic minority groups in the United States still experience underprivilege. (Can you guess the right answer?) The students take the implicit attitude test (IAT), which supposedly detects their unconscious racial bias by measuring their reaction time to words and pictures.

The reliability and applicability of this test have been so thoroughly debunked in the social-science literature that even its developers now concede that it doesnt predict behavior. Its limitations seemed obvious even to the Texas Tech first-year administrators, who ruefully told of how an otherwise enlightened studentvery much pro-feminist, left-wing, pro-race stuffwas devastated to discover that she scored high for unconscious bias against blacks. The administrators explained how they reassured this student: Its like, its okay, Farrah, thats not what that means. Youre not a racist. They didnt offer any coherent explanation of why the test should be inflicted on freshmen in the first place.

Once students have studied social justice in the classroom, the lessons are expanded in field trips and service projects. If the common-read theme is unjust incarceration, freshmen can visit a prison and collaborate on art projects, using pieces of inmates uniforms. For sustainability themes, they can set up composting piles at their dorms and take a field trip to the farmers market to buy local food. If the common read deals with the harsh treatment of immigrantslike Enriques Journey, by Sonia Nazario, a popular choicethey can participate in a hand-holding session with immigrants and create T-shirts expressing support for the Dreamers bill in Congress.

How does this activism help freshmen succeed in their college courses? The conference offered some wonderful rationales. In a session titled Understanding and Supporting Student Activists in the First Year, Carli Rosati and Quan Tran of Ohio University presented a study using interviews, photo elicitation and heat maps to analyze activists feelings of belongingness. They triumphantly reported that involvement in student college activism encourages personal, professional, and identity formation, which led them to a much-welcomed conclusion: Higher education professionals need to view themselves as allies to the cause of activism.

Whatever its doing for the students, the activism is definitely good for the administrators. Just as in 1970, when the riot at the University of South Carolina inspired the initial program, college presidents first response to student protests is to throw money at first-year programs and their colleagues in the cocurricular bureaucracythe offices with names like Student Life, Student Success, Diversity and Inclusion, and Multicultural Affairs. Thats one reason that the number of campus administrators has grown ten times faster than the number of tenured professors in recent decades, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The professors and students cant escape the Iron Law of Bureaucracy. While scholars worry about the lack of full-time jobs and students complain that half their courses are now taught by part-timers, the bureaucrats go on expanding programs to create more activistsand thus more proteststo expand their staffs.

This cycle was nicely illustrated with a chart, Campus Activism Timeline, presented by the administrators of the first-year program at the University of Kansas. The timeline began in late 2015 with a series of protests by students as well as by bureaucrats from the universitys Office of Institutional Opportunity and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. The protesters took over the stage at a town-hall meeting, barged into classrooms, and occupied the chancellors office, with predictable results. The university created yet another bureaucracy, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Group, which issued a report concluding that combating the universitys deep-seated racism required additional resources.

The student activists really opened the door, said Howard Graham, one of the Kansas administrators. Weve seen tremendous growth in our program. The school sponsored faculty and staff workshops in Difficult Dialogues and Deconstructing Privilege. It paid for dozens of speakers to come to campus for talks about race. The first-year program worked with the university art museum to put on an exhibit based on the next years common read, Coatess Between the World and Me, and persuaded professors to incorporate the book into almost 200 class sections. The next year saw another art exhibit celebrating the common read, Claudia Rankines Citizen, a book of poetry about microaggressions against blacks, which was incorporated into even more classes. Facilitators from the first-year program were sent out to dorms to lead discussions about the book, with optional sessions exclusively for students of color.

The Kansas administrators were clearly proud of their efforts, but they confessed to being disappointed by one result. In surveys taken after the group discussions about the Coates and Rankine books, more than 80 percent of the facilitators agreed that the discussion taught things that students could use in campus life, but a majority of the students disagreed. They didnt think that they had learned anything useful. Some even volunteered comments that race was a subject they were simply tired of talking about, which just proved to the administrators how much work remained to be done.

We know that students are not great at identifying their own learning moments, explained Sarah Crawford-Parker, another of the Kansas administrators. Theyd seen similar student ignorance in a survey a few years earlier, when the common read was Hemingways A Farewell to Arms. This unorthodox choice was rated a failure by the facilitators, who objected to Hemingways misogyny and hypermasculinity. Yet somehow, the students considered it a success. Most reported learning something useful from a book by a dead white male. How was this possible?

If thered been an award for the least popular speaker at the San Antonio conference, David Randall would have won hands-down. He is the author of the National Association of Scholars report on common-read programs, which concludes with recommendations anathema to first-year administrators. It urges universities to let professors, not cocurricular bureaucrats, choose the common read. Promote intellectual variety instead of progressive dogma. Emphasize fiction, and choose books based on literary quality instead of their accessibility or relevanceor the availability of their authors to speak on campus.

College students are capable of reading classical works, Randall told his audience, citing the few examples that have been used in common-read programs: The Iliad at Columbia University, The Winters Tale at Utah State, Pericles Funeral Oration at Florida College. If it works for them, it can work for you, he urged, and added recommendations for works by Dickens, Twain, and Tolstoy. But he didnt get anywhere. Just a few dozen people showed up to hear him, and the only comments they had for him were hostile, like the lecture he got from a British administrator. Its all books by white men, she said. We want students to feel empowered, to gain a sense that they can do this, too. Youre not offering a diverse experience.

Randall insisted that he was offering a diverse experience. To talk about diversity among modern audiences is as nothing compared to getting into the head of an ancient Greek warrior, he argued, and pointed out how little ideological diversity there is in the common-read programs. There are some conservative books, but they are remarkably few. You have the autobiography of Sonia Sotomayor. You never have the autobiography of Clarence Thomas.

No one disputed the ideological bias in the book choices, but no one seemed bothered, either. Progressivisms virtue seemed beyond debate, as I learned when I tried discussing it with people at the conference. I asked if theyd ever considered addressing racial issues by choosing nonprogressive black authors like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, or Jason Riley. I was met with occasional hostilityWhy would we promote the conservative policies that put minorities at a disadvantage?but the main response was puzzlement. They looked at me blankly: Who?

The ideological monoculture reminded me of another organizational principle, this one promulgated by conservative journalist John OSullivan: all organizations that are not actually right-wing will, over time, become left-wing. OSullivans Law is essentially a corollary of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, because left-wing principles so wonderfully promote the growth of bureaucracy. The problem with socialism is that it takes too many evenings, Oscar Wilde famously complained, but to leftists, those long evening meetings are a feature, not a bug. They thrive at meetings. They love forming committees to examine problems, real or imagined. With their zeal to reform and regulate, with their passion for empathizing, they have the stamina to outtalk and outlast everyone elseand then be put in charge of a program to solve the problem. If their solution creates even bigger problems, well, theyll just have to hold more meetings.

Thats the story of the first-year experience industry and the rest of the cocurricular bureaucracy. Academia has been taken over by leftists promising to solve problems that they created. The activists of the 1960s and 1970s demanded ethnic and racial fiefdoms on campus with the promise of promoting harmony, but instead theyve accentuated divisions, promoting poisonous tribalism and intolerance. Affirmative-action programs were supposed to help minority students flourish, but instead theyre setting up the students for failure by admitting them to schools where theyre competing against better-prepared peers. As demonstrated repeatedly in studies (and in Mismatch, by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr.), if minority students go to college planning a career in science or engineering, the ones admitted through racial-preference policies are disproportionately likely to drop out of those majors because of their difficulty with the competitive introductory courses in science and mathematics.

Similarly, the progressive vision of higher education for everyone has left campuses with many students of all races who arent ready for college, a problem that first-year administrators readily acknowledge. Its their first line of defense when explaining their choice of lowbrow books for the common read. Some of their incoming freshmen, they point out, have never read an entire book in their lives. Whats the point of assigning them a literary classic that theyd never finish?

But then, whats the point of collecting tuition from students unprepared for college-level work? The answer, as usual, is the Iron Law of Bureaucracy. Students may not be learning anything useful, and theyre wasting time on discussion groups and field trips and activism instead of studying, but their tuition is paying for bigger staffs and programs to keep them on campus. The more they struggle, the bigger the cocurricular budget.

Faculty and students can dream of diverting that money to more full-time professors teaching smaller classes, but the bureaucrats have other ideas. John Gardner, the founder of the first-year industry, urged his colleagues in San Antonio to attend a separate conference of his, the Gateway Course Experience, dedicated to helping more minority students pass introductory science and math courses. This effort, he explained, would require new programs to combat the institutional racism responsible for their low grades. So maybe freshmen calculus professors will end up using that Trayvon Martin novel after all.

It was also obvious to Gardner and his colleagues that students need for help doesnt end after the first-year experience. Fortunately, theres a whole new program to rescue them: the Sophomore-Year Experience. So far, it exists at just a few dozen colleges, but the rest are sure to catch up. Its the Iron Law.

Top Photo: You may have come to study computer science, but first youll have to learn about social justice and microaggressions. (HERO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES)
Bengaluru, Aug 21 : Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Friday ordered an investigation into the alleged suicide of Nanjangud Taluk Health Officer S.R. Nagendra, who was on coronavirus duty in Mysuru district.

"An impartial and thorough investigation will be conducted into the incident," said Yediyurappa.

He also ordered a compensation of Rs 50 lakh and a job to a family member of the deceased doctor.

"In line with Centre's guidelines, I have ordered Rs 50 lakh compensation to the family of late Nagendra on compassionate grounds," said the Chief Minister.

Nagendra, working as the taluk health officer in Nanjangud, allegedly committed suicide on Thursday because he could not bear the pressure on the job. His family has also given the same reason, sources said.

Meanwhile, Mysuru Police Commissioner Chandra Gupta declined to confirm if the death was a suicide.

Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar has also said that a thorough investigation will be held transparently.

Sources added that the doctor was facing pressure from the Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer to meet the target of rapid antigen tests.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:34:32|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese foreign ministry on Friday urged relevant U.S. parties to abide by the one-China principle, the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, and handle Taiwan-related issues prudently and properly.

The 2020 Democratic Party's platform for the upcoming election, adopted at its National Convention on Thursday, no longer includes an endorsement for the one-China principle, a change compared with 2016. The Republican administration has also taken a hard line on China-related issues, including those on Taiwan.

Responding to a query about whether China is concerned that the above-mentioned developments may signal a tougher stance on China from both U.S. political parties, spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a daily press briefing that China's position on Taiwan is "consistent and clear."

"The Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations. The one-China principle represents the political foundation underlying our bilateral ties, and also the common consensus of the international community," Zhao said.

"We urge the relevant parties to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, and handle Taiwan-related issues prudently and properly," said the spokesperson.

"China hopes both political parties in the U.S. can objectively view China and China-U.S. relations, take into account the common interests of people in both countries and the world, and work with China in jointly advancing a China-U.S. relationship featuring coordination, cooperation, and stability," Zhao added. Enditem
Phil Robertson says listeners of his podcast travel to Louisiana to be baptized by him

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During a recent appearance on a Christian podcast, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson said that people from all over the country have traveled to his hometown of West Monroe, Louisiana so that they could be baptized by the outspoken Christian activist.

The 74-year-old Robertson, the founder of Duck Commander duck calls, appeared on the Edifi With Billy Hallowell podcast Saturday to discuss his new book, Jesus Politics: How to Win Back the Soul of America.

Robertson and Hallowell discussed current events as well as Robertsons Unashamed podcast. Robertson explained the premise of his podcast to the Pure Flix journalist.

Were reaching out to our neighbor and were telling him to love their God, repent and turn to God, Robertson said. Love God and love your neighbor.

According to the reality television star, his podcast has had quite an impact. He said many listeners have gone to great lengths to embrace his call to affirm Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We convert them by the thousands, Robertson proclaimed. Theyre coming from that podcast  about nine or maybe 10 in the last three days. Theyve come all the way down here.

Ive baptized that whole little crew, he continued. Well, its that way every  day or two. I mean, they just keep coming.

In addition to baptizing a multitude of his listeners, Robertson explained that he has also offered to baptize President Donald Trump.

Robertson spoke about an exchange he had with Trump ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

During his meeting with Trump, Robertson said he told him that Jesus Christ died for Donald Trumps sins.

He conquered death for the human race, Robertson explained.

As their conversation came to a close, Robertson told Trump, who appeared interested in learning more about the Christian faith, to find somebody up here to baptize you. ... If you cant find anybody you trust, get a hold of me and Ill come up here and baptize you.

Following their exchange in 2016, Robertson said he and Trump have spoken on the phone.

Robertson said he asked the president whether or not he had been baptized since their conversation. Robertson said that the president responded by saying that he hadn't.

The last time I saw him, I gave him some verses on the new birth, being baptized and what it means, Robertson said. And Im convinced hes put his faith in Jesus and Im convinced hes a brother.

Throughout the podcast, Robertson maintained that if more people heeded the call to love God and love your neighbor, America would not find itself in a state of unrest.

You wouldnt see this mischief, mayhem, robbing, looting, [and] shooting, he said. Were at a tipping point. The forces of evil are going against the forces of good.

While he made it clear that were doing battle with the forces of evil, Robertson stressed that it was important to fight the battle in a loving way and offer the forces of evil a chance to repent.

Robertson contrasted the qualities that members of the kingdom of God subscribe to  namely love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control  with the anarchy, belligerence and vulgarity practiced by the forces of evil.

Listen to the full podcast with Phil Robertson.
United States' top infectious diseases expert and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed his skepticism about Russia claiming their COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, even calling the vaccine 'bogus'.

According to Fauci, he is not calling the vaccine itself bogus since it does exist. He clarified that what is bogus is Russian President Vladimir Putin claiming that it is effective and safe to use. Fauci gave the statement during a guesting on George Washington University's 'Healthy You: Surviving a Pandemic' podcast.

Fauci also stated that simply having a vaccine is different from having a vaccine that has proven effective in trials. He also stated that the trials should be well-designed, placebo-controlled, and randomized before anyone can say that the vaccine is already effective and safe to administer.

He also added that based on information that he has gathered, the Russians lack intensive study on their vaccine and the trials were not correctly designed.

Meanwhile, Newsweek reported that upon reaching out to Putin's office for any comment, no response has been received yet.

In addition, Fauci announced that at the moment, the US has six vaccine projects that are being done. He also emphasized that none of the vaccines are already approved since those are yet to be proven safe and effective. He also noted that unless the vaccine is proven effective no one can claim that they already have a vaccine just yet.

Read also: Seattle Fishing Boat Outbreak Offers Insight on Possible Role of Neutralizing Antibodies in Protection Against COVID-19

On top of this, the infectious diseases experts also stated that at least two out of the six vaccines have already entered the third phase of clinical trials by the end of July. He further explained that the first vaccine to enter Phase 3 of trials is a trial involving 30,000 people, while the second one looks into including 60,000 volunteers. He also clued in on a possible third vaccine that is set to enter Phase 3.

Fauci has also predicted that a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19 may be ready in the US early in January or by the end of December.

On the other hand, federal health officials have announced last week that the COVID-19 vaccine will be given for free to all Americans. However, as the vaccine seems to be finally within reach, many Americans have expressed that they will not be getting the vaccine even when it is available.

In a report by CNN, a recent poll has revealed that only 56% of Americans are willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 even if the vaccine becomes widely available. The number of those who do not want to get the vaccine has grown from 33% to more than 40%.

In line with this, Fauci stated that the reason many people do not want to get vaccinated is because of widespread disinformation. He also noted that these people should be educated more about the benefits of vaccines instead of being criticized.

It can be recalled that Fauci has previously stated that the US may fail to achieve 'herd immunity' due to the high percentage of those who refuse to get the vaccine.



Related article: Experts Urge People to Get Flu Shot, Fear a Possible 'Twindemic' as Flu Season Approaches

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Alexandria authorities said there is no noticeable rise in overdose deaths during the pandemic, but they recently responded to eight nonfatal overdoses in eight days  an unusually high number of incidents. Emily Bentley, the citys director of opioid response, said one danger for those struggling with drugs amid the pandemic is the idea that no one is available to help.
All you need to know about the ambitious Zojila Tunnel, coming up. Image Source: IANS News

All you need to know about the ambitious Zojila Tunnel, coming up. Image Source: IANS News

All you need to know about the ambitious Zojila Tunnel, coming up. Image Source: IANS News

All you need to know about the ambitious Zojila Tunnel, coming up. Image Source: IANS News

All you need to know about the ambitious Zojila Tunnel, coming up. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Aug 21 : In a bid to ramp up infrastructure in the Himalayan region, the government has finalised bids to construct the Zoji La tunnel in the Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh region.

National Highways and Industrial Development Corporation (NHIDCL) opened the bids on Friday as the government finally called for the tenders to complete the long-pending road tunnel, which will have to be constructed under critical conditions.

The bid for the project which will be constructed in two sections of about 33 kilometre has been won by the Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL).

The first section will involve the construction of a 18.50-kilometre road. The second section a horseshoe of 14.15 km Zoji La tunnel as a two-lane road of 9.5 meter width and 7.57 meter height.

The road from Srinagar to Leh in Ladakh is not suitable for vehicular traffic throughout the year. The Srinagar-Ladakh highway is completely closed for six months, especially during the winter season. So much so, that even the military vehicles are unable to move under these conditions.

"The project, in which MEIL has become L-1, will be constructed from the Z-Morh tunnel to Zoji La tunnel between Sonmarg-Kargil on national highway-1 in the Zoji La area. This project is the most complex one. The construction of this tunnel will come up facing unprecedented difficulties," said the company that won the bid, in a statement.

The tunnel has to be built at 700 meters below the surface. The project is also in the most complex hill terrain and snowstorms are a regular feature. As there is dense snow for at least eight months in a year, the execution will not be easy, accepts MEIL.

What makes it even more challenging is the river flowing adjacent to the proposed project site. These conditions are going to create severe problems with water and ice pouring during the construction.

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has decided to improve the road travel facilities to all commuters between Kashmir and Ladakh. As part of this plan, a highway tunnel will also be constructed from Srinagar to Baltal, which will improve the Amaranth Yatra of the pilgrims. Baltal base camp near Kargil is used for Amarnath yatra.

Ch. Subbaiah, Director, MEIL said, "A two-lane road with bi-directional traffic would have to be constructed on the Zoji La route, which will be a Single Tube tunnel. The road will consist mainly of shafts as well as portal structures and excavated areas. This complex project would have to be complete in just 72 months." The first part will involve widening the existing road form Judd-Morha to Zoji La tunnel about 3.018 kilometre. A 13.842 kilometre new road will be constructed. Of this, one of the twin tour tunnels, one 2.36 kilometre and the other one is 2.39 kilometre, and will also consist of five bridges.

Besides, two snow galleries will come up -- 300 meters and 150 meters each. India is making every effort to ramp up its Himalayan road infra. The total length of these works is 18.475 kilometres.

In Part-2, the construction will include a 0.16 km long cut and cover tunnel along with the above details regarding the tunnel. Even, ventilation cavern, three shafts will also be constructed. Two other shafts called the Longitudinal Ventilation System will then come up, including a special transport ventilation system.
But the issue is not a new one.

Brnovich first offered more than a year ago to help Ducey and the corrections department to get a new supply of lethal chemicals to begin executions on the more than 100 people on death row.

He pointed out at the time that U.S. Attorney General William Barr had just announced the federal government intends to resume executions and will use pentobarbital rather than the three-drug cocktail that had previously been used.

Arizona has not had an execution since 2014 because of its inability to get lethal drugs through legal means. Brnovich said that means the federal government had found a legal supply of the drug, meaning the state should be able to also get its hands on it.

At that time there were 14 death-row inmates who had exhausted all their appeals.

Brnovich wrote to Ducey again last month, repeating the same offer after the federal government conducted its first execution.

In both cases, Brnovich aide Ryan Anderson said there was no formal response.
The Lok Sabha, home to many shades of politics, is likely to add a new dash of colours in the uniform of its officials soon, according to officials with knowledge of developments.

Chamber attendants, who attend guests who come to meet the Speaker, will sport light blue safari suits instead of the current pale grey. Similarly, the Question branch and Table officetwo key sets of back room staff of the Lower House -- will see a change in their uniform from cream to blue safari suits.

It is a part of a big change in uniform policy initiated by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that will include senior House officials and those involved in public affairs receiving an annual allowance for uniform for the first time.

Earlier, Lok Sabha officials were handed over cut pieces of cloth once in two years, which they would get stitched from any of the 4-5 Delhi tailors empaneled with the House.

Now, women officers will get up to Rs 17,000 and men up Rs 16,000 depending on the nature of their jobs and ranks. Instead of every two years, House officials will sport a new uniform every year.

Five key branches of the Parliament secretariat -- reporting, table office, security service, drivers and chamber attendants -- are eligible for the new uniform allowance and they will also sport new colours.

The table office handles all paper work for the House, receiving notices for debates and introduction of bills, the question branch manages the background works for Question Hour. Parliament security is a special branch handling all security of the estate.

The reporting branch takes verbatim notes of all discussions inside the House and parliamentary committees. Chamber attendants are in duty of the Speakers chamber handing VIP guests and the drivers run the ferry service for the lawmakers to shuttle them between their residence in Lutyens Delhi and the House.

The new colour code may also make a distinction between senior and junior officers in the table office and question branch. While senior officers will wear blue safari suits, their juniors will sport either Prussian blue or charcoal-coloured uniform.

These branches deal with MPs and other visitors. They are the face of the Parliament secretariat in the public eyes and so, they have a set uniform that adds to the dignity and glamour of Indian Parliament, said a senior official on condition of anonymity.

The benefit of this allowance system, several officers pointed out, is that officials can buy their new uniform whenever they want, instead of getting it every two years. Also, they are free to buy clothes of better quality but which must adhere to the fixed colour patterns.

The lady officers are to wear a fixed pattern saree, while men can choose between a range of safari suitsblue, fawn, Prussian blue, charcoaldepending on the section employing the person. In the winter, there are options of blazers and buttoned up coats for both men and women.

Last year, the marshals of both Houses were relieved of their traditional attire but it stirred a controversy after the new uniform was found very similar to military uniforms. Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu suspended the new uniform within a week and the marshals went back to wearing the Indian bandhgalas.
"Since we first introduced Bandit wines in lightweight, eco-minded Tetra Paks in 2003, we've made protecting the environment our mission," said Charles Bieler, co-founder of Bandit Wines. "Partnering with 1% for the Planet in 2019 helped us continue that cause, and we're proud to help fund the environmental nonprofits that need our help. Looking toward next year, we hope to increase our donation with proceeds from our latest launch, Bandit Wine Seltzers."

Inspired by northwest flavors, Bandit Wine Seltzers are made by winemakers for fellow wine enthusiasts and adventurers with just a few primary ingredients: California Pinot Grigio wine, sparkling Napa Valley water and all-natural favors. Rainier Cherry  made with Rainier Cherry juice  and Honeycrisp Apple are gluten-free, vegan, 90 calories, 4 percent ABV and available now, at $8.99 SRP per four-pack.

One percent of proceeds from Bandit Wine Seltzers and the existing Bandit Wines lineup will continue to benefit organizations such as National Park Foundation and Protect our Winters  both organizations close to the hearts of founders Charles Bieler and Joel Gott. Bieler and Gott aim to make the brand's 2021 contribution even more impactful, with the help of Bandit's fans.

Bandit fans wishing to support and further 1% for the Planet's mission can purchase Bandit's Wine Seltzers and its seven existing wine varietals. The wines  spanning Pinot Grigio to Cabernet Sauvignon  are packaged in convenient, easy-to-tote, easy-to-seal Tetra Pak packages depicting a unique American outdoor landscape. Visit www.banditwines.com to learn more about how 1% for the Planet partner Bandit Wines contributes to environmental causes.

About Bandit Wines

Bandit Wines is the brainchild of Charles Bieler and Joel Gott, a rogue winemaking pair who forged a partnership in 2003 to bring their passion for great wine and their thirst for exploration together in convenient, easy-to-tote 1L and 500mL Tetra Pak cartons. Bandit's lightweight box design and twist-to-open cap make it an adventure-ready wine that stays fresh and uses natural resources responsibly. Bandit is available nationwide in seven popular varietalsPinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Dry Rose, Merlot, Red Blend and Cabernet Sauvignoneach featuring unique, custom illustrations that inspire outdoor adventure and appreciation of America's treasured landscapes. New to Bandit's portfolio are Bandit Wine Seltzers, available in Rainier Cherry and Honeycrisp Apple flavors in portable 12-ounce cans. For more information visit www.banditwines.com.

About 1% for the Planet

1% for the Planet is a global organization that connects dollars and doers to accelerate smart environmental giving. Through business and individual memberships, 1% for the Planet inspires people to support environmental organizations through annual membership and everyday actions. They advise on giving strategies, certify donations, and amplify the impact of the 1% for the Planet network.

Started in 2002 by Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, and Craig Mathews, founder of Blue Ribbon Flies, members have given more than $265 million to environmental nonprofits to date. Today, 1% for the Planet is a network of more than 4,000 members and thousands of nonprofit partners in more than 90 countries. Look for the logo to purchase for the planet and learn more at: www.onepercentfortheplanet.org.

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The owner of Irish Central and part owner of the Business Post Media Group has paid CA$7.5m (4.8m) for Darwin Assets, a proprietary subscription and membership management platform used by publishers.

New York-based Irish Studio, led by Liam Lynch, has emerged as an important investor in media, buying diaspora news site Irish Central from its long-time publisher Niall O'Dowd in 2016. That was followed by a deal to buy six publications from Norah Casey's Harmonia magazine publishers in 2017, including Irish Tatler Magazine.

Four of the Irish magazines were subsequently sold to Business Post Media Group under a deal that saw Irish Studio take a stake in the buyer alongside owner Enda O'Coineen.

This latest deal sees Irish Studio buy subscription software business Darwin from Canada based publishing company ZoomerMedia, a stock market-listed company which announced the details in a regulatory filing.

Following the deal, Darwin will continue to manage subscriptions for ZoomerMedia's flagship print publication Zoomer Magazine, and a membership scheme for the company's affiliated advocacy association CARP (formerly known as the Canadian Association of Retired Persons).

ZoomerMedia's products are aimed at the over 45s market in Canada.

"We're thrilled to be continuing the great work Moses [Zoomermedia founder Moses Znaimer] started," said Liam Lynch, co-chairman of Studio Media Group.

"We looked at every player in the space and Darwin's customer-centric software technology is head and shoulders above the rest in serving the needs of subscription and membership organisations. This will give our clients modern tools to develop new revenue streams and find innovative ways to grow their businesses."
Photos from the aftermath of a recent massive storm that flattened cornfields across Iowa and into Illinois and Indiana took me back 22 years.

The Aug. 10 storm also damaged grain bins as straight-line winds of up to 100 miles per hour cut a swath through farm country. The storm impacted about 38 million acres of farmland  including 14 million in Iowa, the Iowa Soybean Association said. An estimated 8.18 million acres of corn and 5.64 acres of soybeans in Iowa were affected.

That same morning a slightly less severe storm hit our farm. One tree limb smashed a few of our benches  narrowly missing an arbor  at one of our outdoor wedding sites. A few other trees were toppled, as was some of our patio furniture. Six plastic lawn chairs were smashed after the wind carried them several hundred yards.

The derecho that ripped across Iowa reminded me of June 27, 1998, when a line of intense thunderstorms swept in from Minnesota and caused widespread straight-line wind damage to many areas of central and western Wisconsin. The National Weather Service called it one of the worst storms to hit the region in more than 25 years.

There were two main paths of the storm where winds gusted between 90 and 120 mph. Our farm was on the northern track.

I lived in West Salem near La Crosse at the time, but my parents were still milking cows. I was city editor of the La Crosse Tribune and spent that Saturday night on the phone helping to direct our news coverage while keeping an eye on the radar.

The storm took down big maple trees in my parents yard, but they miraculously missed the house. One of them came straight down on their wellhead, knocking out their water. The power was out for several days. The milking equipment was powered by a generator, which my Dad hooked up to a tractor.

The second house on the farm where we now live also escaped damage with trees down. A large pine tree just brushed the side of the house.

My parents fared better than others. Several buildings, chicken storage facilities and grain bins were leveled in Trempealeau County.

I drove to the farm the next day to help with the cleanup and was astounded at the widespread swath of the storm, which flattened trees between Melrose and Cataract.

The storm came after a month of heavy rain and flooding. Trees were more vulnerable in the loosened soil. Many believed it was a tornado, but the damage was caused by straight-line winds. The National Weather Service said wind gusts of 101 mph were recorded in the Melrose area before equipment failed.

The southern track crossed the Mississippi River near the La Crosse-Vernon County line. Barns were destroyed and trees and power lines were blown down. In the Vernon County community of Christiana, one farmer was injured and his cattle had to be rescued by firefighters after his barn collapsed.

Ten counties in western Wisconsin were declared a federal disaster area with more than $5 million in damages.

Six southeast Minnesota counties also were declared disaster areas and there was more than $8 million in damages to Mower County.

Dad and I cut up trees all day with chainsaws. The well was repaired. There was some minor damage to the silo roofs. After the power was restored, the farm was back in business. There was not significant damage to the crops.

The long-term impact of the storm was how the woods and landscape were changed by the number of trees blown over. But 22 years later, trees have regrown and there is little evidence of how destructive the storm was.

For farmers in Iowa, damage from the recent storm will depend on whether the corn was broken off or just bent over. Any corn snapped off will need to be harvested for corn silage.

The impact on individual farmers will depend on the state of their crop insurance and damage to bins and elevators will affect storage this fall.

Either way, its a blow that farmers didnt need as we continue to cope in the strange and crazy year of 2020.

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I think about what happens when you take your eye off the ball. You know, we lost the governorship for one term with Rauner and Rauner got in there and just ... wanted to follow suit with what happened in Wisconsin. He was out to try to destroy labor. He had an anti-union agenda from day one, Stephenson told delegates, referencing Illinois neighboring state to the norths move to enact a so-called right to work law.
An estimated 20,000 Britons in Croatia are scrambling to get home with just hours before the new 14-day quarantine rules come into effect at 4am tomorrow.

The cheapest direct flight from Zagreb to Heathrow today was 286 on British Airways, while a Croatia Airlines flight between the two airports was 496.

The cheapest flight with a change that would get back before 4am tomorrow is 230 with Eurowings, via Stuttgart. There are also KLM flights via Amsterdam, but this would involve quarantining - with the Netherlands already off the air bridges list.

A British mother holidaying in Croatia said today she would not cut short her trip despite the new quarantine forcing her son to miss his first week of school.

Jennie Dock's 11-year-old son Cass Robertson-Dock will be in self-isolation when his new school starts back, after Croatia was removed from the UK's list of air bridges.

But Ms Dock, who is on holiday with friend Elle Mitchell, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'We're both lucky in that we can both work from home, both work remotely.

'Cass was year six last year, so he did manage to get in for around six weeks or so at the end, which he really enjoyed. So, yeah, it's unfortunate he's going to miss the first week, but he's a bright boy and he'll catch up, I'm not worried about it.'

Cass said of starting secondary school: 'I've been looking forward to it.' It comes as:

Holidaymakers who go to Portugal will no longer have to self-isolate when they return to Britain after it was removed from the Government's quarantine list;

Croatia's Covid case total over seven days  a metric closely watched by Downing Street  has risen to 27.4 per 100,000 people;

France, Germany and Italy all saw their biggest daily increase in cases since spring this week, adding to fears of a second wave;

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps also said the issue of whether testing for coronavirus could be implemented in airports is 'under active review'.

Jennie Dock (right), who is on holiday in Croatia with her friend Elle Mitchell (left) and 11-year-old son Cass Robertson-Dock (centre) will be in self-isolation when they return to Britain

Undated handout photo of Karl Whitburn, who is returning early from his trip to Split so that his wife, an NHS nurse who is originally from Croatia, will not miss work

Passengers wearing face masks as they arrive at Heathrow Airport after a flight from Dubrovnik, Croatia, landed

A tourist wearing a face mask waits at Split International Airport in Split, Croatia earlier today

Tourists wait at Split International Airport in Split, Croatia, earlier today. As the United Kingdom removed Croatia from the list of 'safe countries' to travel due to rising number of cases of COVID-19 throughout the country, many British tourists arrived at airport to return back to their country because of stricter measures when returning from Croatia

A passenger inspects the departures timetable at the international airport in Split, Croatia today. Due to latest Covid-19 situation, tourists returning to the UK from Croatia will have to self isolate for 14 days under changes revealed on Thursday

Two tourists embrace at Split International Airport in Split, Croatia earlier today

A sign at Heathrow today warns about self-isolating if they have visited a certain country

Passengers push their luggage through the arrivals at London Heathrow Airport this morning

Travel expert Simon Calder told Good Morning Britain that prices for flights from Croatia to Britain are now 'going through the roof' as people scramble to get home.

British Airways has laid on an extra flight from Zagreb to London Heathrow with seats costing 275.

No flights? How to travel home from Croatia by train British holidaymakers in Croatia are limited in their options for getting home to beat the quarantine with very few direct flights available on Friday. They could book a flight with a stopover on the way back to the UK, but that means a journey time more akin to a transatlantic jaunt than a short-haul European getaway. But those who do not mind a long trek could opt to shun planes altogether and travel the whole way home via the railways. A quick search online will bring up possible routes, timetables and prices, so there could well be a number of Britons unexpectedly discovering parts of Europe by train over the coming hours. One potential option, taking around 20 hours, is to board a train in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, and travel through Villach and Salzburg in Austria, Munich in Germany, and on to Paris to catch the Eurostar to London. Another option would be to leave Zagreb and travel to London via Brussels. There is also the possibility of leaving Croatia and travelling through part of northern Italy - Trieste, Venice and Milan - and on to the French capital before the final leg of the journey across the Channel to London. With train journeys from Zagreb to London taking in the region of 20 to 25 hours, holidaymakers would need to have set out on their European railway adventure by now to guarantee being home by 4am on Saturday. Advertisement

This is more than six times higher than the BA equivalent flight on the Friday four weeks from now, which currently costs only 42. An equivalent flight on the Friday two weeks from now is only 45.

Mr Calder urged people looking at flights with changes to avoid going via Paris or Amsterdam because they would also then have to quarantine.

But holidaymakers who go to Portugal will no longer have to self-isolate when they return to Britain after it was removed from the Government's quarantine list.

Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago were added to the 'red' list due to rising numbers of Covid cases.

Croatia's total over seven days  a metric closely watched by Downing Street  has risen to 27.4 per 100,000 people.

Britons who arrive back in the UK after the 4am deadline will have to spend 14 days under stricter measures than many faced in lockdown, as they are not even allowed to go outside for exercise or food shopping.

Croatia's ambassador to the UK has said it is 'a regret' that the UK Government did not implement regional quarantine rules rather than removing the entire country from its quarantine exemption list.

Igor Pokaz told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'What we are trying to do in our constant dialogue with the British Government on this particular measure of quarantine is to somehow see whether it would be possible, something that other countries do, to have a more nuanced approach.

'So we regret that it was not possible for the UK Government to consider a regional approach, because in Croatia we have, as I said, witnessed these spikes in certain areas - for example in Zagreb in the capital and maybe among the young population.

'But in Dubrovnik, its surroundings and the islands there were very, very few cases. And I deliberately mention Dubrovnik and the islands as that is where most of the British tourists go.

'And Dubrovnik has its own international airport and is naturally secluded from the rest of the country.

'Germany, as I said, has introduced this model, and has introduced measures for only two of the Croatian counties and we have 20 counties in Croatia.'

Air passengers arrive at London Heathrow Airport this morning wearing face masks

The Port of Dover in Kent is pictured today as the Transport Secretary rejected the idea of quarantining for arrivals from regions of countries

Cars and lorries drive away from a ferry at the Port of Dover in Kent this morning

People wait for planes at Split Airport in Croatia yesterday as they try to get home quickly

Air passengers are seen at Split Airport yesterday as the UK removed Croatia from the list of 'safe countries' to travel due to rising number of cases throughout the country

Liam and Jodie, a couple from Keighley, West Yorkshire, paid around 800 to travel home from northern Croatia via Munich in order to beat the quarantine deadline, after finding it impossible to book a direct flight in time.

Yorkshire couple pay 800 to travel home from northern Croatia via Munich to beat the quarantine deadline Liam and Jodie, a couple from Keighley, West Yorkshire, paid about 800 to travel home from northern Croatia via Munich, in order to beat the quarantine deadline, after finding it impossible to book a direct flight in time. Liam and Jodie from Keighley, West Yorkshire, who are travelling home from Croatia via Munich to avoid the quarantine 'There wasn't an alternative. There are no flights from Pula to the UK on Fridays, only a flight from Zagreb to London runs, but obviously that was fully booked,' Liam said. 'The only (other) flights available were with stops in Spain through Ryanair, but then we would have to quarantine anyway,' he added. Liam, a mechanical assembly engineer, said he had started a new job recently so 'didn't want to miss another two weeks work'. He added that they had tried to make the most of their trip despite 'the distraction of not knowing what's going to happen', and were treating their visit to Munich as a 'city break we got as an extra'. Advertisement

'There wasn't an alternative. There are no flights from Pula to the UK on Fridays, only a flight from Zagreb to London runs but obviously that was fully booked,' Liam said.

'The only (other) flights available were with stops in Spain through Ryanair but then we would have to quarantine anyway,' he added.

Liam, a mechanical assembly engineer, said he had started a new job recently so 'didn't want to miss another two weeks' work'.

He added that the pair had tried to make the most of their trip despite 'the distraction of not knowing what's going to happen', and were treating their visit to Munich as a 'city break we got as an extra'.

Graham Lloyd-Bennett and his wife Karla said they had been tracking the local coronavirus data closely while in Croatia to visit her family, making speedy plans to exit once it appeared likely it would be added to the exemption list.

'I came back on (August) 10 because I suspected Croatia may go into the red list and I couldn't afford to quarantine due to work, so changed my flight earlier.'

He added that they had also rearranged his wife's flight on Monday in order to meet the anticipated deadline of 4am on Saturday, having seen the same imposed last week on travellers from France and a number of other countries.

'We have been monitoring (the) situation daily and decided to move her flight also earlier by a week to today to avoid quarantine also.

'When we decided to fly out to Croatia we were aware there could be changes.

'I can't see why people complain as it is a personal decision to travel in these times. Of course it is annoying and stressful but it has to be done.'

Portugal has been given a clean bill of health, however, following months on the quarantine list.

Its number of cases over seven days is now 14.6 per 100,000 people. It remains above Greece, on 14.3, and the UK on 11.2.

The Government's quarantine threshold is said to be 20.

Yesterday's changes mean thousands of families could now enjoy a last-minute summer holiday in the Algarve, Lisbon or Porto before pupils return to school next month.

There are 719 flights between the UK and Portugal with a total seat capacity of nearly 128,000, according to aviation data analysts Cirium.

Despite the easing of some restrictions, industry leaders warned of dark times ahead.

Holidaymakers queue up at Split Airport in Croatia today to check in for their flights home

British family on holiday in Croatia had already cancelled a trip to Barcelona A British family on holiday in Croatia now face a 14-day quarantine despite already cancelling a holiday in Barcelona when the air bridge to Spain was removed. The Tucker family, from Cambridge, are staying on the island of Solta, off the coast of Split, and found out they would have to quarantine upon their return to the UK while at a waterfront cafe. Mother Luzita, 50, a childminder, told BBC News: 'We already cancelled a holiday in Barcelona because of quarantine rules. 'We've always wanted to come to Croatia so we looked at the infection rates and they seemed very low.' She added that the Government should carry out testing at the airport when people arrive back in Britain, adding that using public transport to get home is also a risk. Advertisement

Christopher Snelling of the Airport Operators' Association said: 'The removal of the quarantine for Portugal is welcome, but the re-introduction of blanket quarantine measures to a further tranche of nations reinforces the significant and continuing challenge facing the aviation industry.

'Our airports are facing pressures that were unimaginable six months ago and the Government must work urgently with the industry to introduce regional travel corridors to low-risk areas and agree financial measures that support our airports, who have already lost over 2billion since the start of the pandemic.'

The addition of more holiday hotspots to the red list will also pile pressure on ministers to back virus testing at airports to cut down on the need to self-isolate.

Heathrow this week unveiled a multimillion-pound Covid-19 detection area which is capable of testing thousands of arrivals.

However, the facility cannot be used until ministers endorse airport testing as a viable alternative to a blanket 14-day quarantine.

Heathrow chief John Holland-Kaye warned the travel sector  and wider economy  would enter 'terminal decline' unless the Government changes its approach.

Yesterday's update means the Foreign Office now advises against all but essential travel to Croatia, Trinidad and Tobago and Austria.

The changes followed a meeting with the UK's devolved administrations which saw Scotland adding Switzerland to its own quarantine list.

The country is currently on 18.1 cases per 100,000 people, meaning travellers from England and Wales may soon be ordered to self-isolate if the figure keeps rising.

France, Germany and Italy all saw their biggest daily increase in cases since spring this week, adding to fears of a second wave.

Britons dash for Bank Holiday break in Portugal after it is 'green-listed' as flight costs rise SIX-FOLD but hotels slash prices in scramble to fill rooms after summer of lost takings The cost of flights to Portugal have soared but hotels have slashed prices as Britons plan a late summer getaway now the country is back on the UK's 'green list'. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced yesterday that quarantine will not be required on return to the UK from Portugal, leaving travel companies expecting a surge in bookings over the coming days. The country is traditionally one of British holidaymakers' most popular destinations, attracting 2.1 million visitors a year, but has been banned during the lockdown. However, with the doors opened and a Bank Holiday at the end of the month, airlines are looking to take advantage of soaring demand. There are 719 flights between the UK and Portugal before pupils return to school next month, with a total seat capacity of nearly 128,000, according to aviation data analysts Cirium. Average fare prices to Faro - the airport used by holidaymakers heading to the Algarve - rocketed from just 35 to 190 in the hours after Mr Shapps' announcement yesterday. One website showed a BA flight fare from London to Faro had jumped from 90 to 580 - with a claim it had been reduced from 594 - in a day. Google searches by MailOnline also showed one BA round trip from London to Faro, leaving this Saturday - the day the quarantine rule is lifted for Portugal - and returning next Saturday - costing 1,069. Prices from London to Faro have also spiked for travel this Sunday, while flights to Lisbon, another popular city break destination, have also rocketed since the announcement, from around 55 to 185, according to Google. Advertisement

The Government has pledged to take 'decisive action' to contain coronavirus, including the rapid removal of countries from its list of so-called 'air bridges'.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps wrote on Twitter yesterday: 'Please be aware that things can change quickly. Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required... I speak from experience!'

Spain was added to the red list a day after Mr Shapps flew there for a family holiday last month  prompting him to fly home early to beat the quarantine cut-off.

Today, insisting that quarantine checks are being made, Mr Shapps said his wife received a phone call 'randomly' from Border Force after returning from their family holiday.

'I know other people who've had the same calls,' the Transport Secretary told BBC Breakfast.

Asked if anyone has been fined yet, he said 'yes' but was not able to provide figures.

Pressed on why he was unable to give detail on the data, he said: 'Because in this country we allow the authorities to get on with their job and they release the information, not ministers, that's why.'

Mr Shapps said it is important for people to realise that they can end up with a criminal record by not doing the right thing.

Mr Shapps also said the issue of whether testing for coronavirus could be implemented in airports is 'under active review'.

Discussing whether there is no possibility of testing at airports, the Transport Secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'That's not right. I spoke to John Holland-Kaye, who's the individual you're talking about, the boss of Heathrow, this week.

'That is not what I'm saying to him at all and we're working closely with him and other airports on potential measures.'

Mr Shapps said suggestions that airport testing could halve an individual's quarantine time are not necessarily true, adding: 'But we do review these things constantly and every month we review the month that we're taking to quarantining, so these things are under active review.

'It's just that I don't want to sort of bottle false hope by saying it's just as simple as test at the airport ... I often hear this: 'Why you don't you just test at the airport, be done with it?' The answer is because it won't tell you what you need to know.'

He added that testing at airports would not work 'on its own' and that airport bosses 'accept that as well'.

Mr Shapps also ruled out introducing regional quarantine travel rules to avoid blanket bans on entire countries, saying it 'just isn't practical'.

Conservative MP Rehman Chishti posted pictures on social media of himself on holiday in Croatia, though it was not immediately clear whether he was still in the country

Conservative MP Rehman Chishti posted pictures on social media of himself on holiday in Croatia, though it was not immediately clear whether he was still in the country.

He posted: 'Thank you Croatia for some wonderful time out to reflect and to work on a book about my home town of Gillingham & Rainham.'

Mr Chishti's office did not immediately respond to requests for further details.

Meanwhile holidaymakers returning to face quarantine in the UK could be coming home to towns or cities with higher coronavirus rates than the sun-soaked places they have left.

The Government's threshold for considering quarantine measures is when a country records a seven-day rate of more than 20 cases per 100,000 people.

But a number of local authority areas in England have much higher rates than that.

The latest figures yesterday showed that Oldham in Greater Manchester, which is already subject to restrictive measures on households being able to meet, had a rate of 78.9 per 100,000 people.

Northampton is almost level on 78.4, while Blackburn with Darwen is third, where the rate has fallen from 81.5 to 67.5.

In Leicester, which was subject to the UK's first local lockdown, the rate continues to fall, but was still at 52.5.

Meanwhile, according to the Croatian government, the rate of confirmed cases in Dubrovnik was 16.5 per 100,000 - well below the country's overall rate as indicated by the UK's Department for Transport this week of 27.4 per 100,000.

In the seven days to August 17, the rate of confirmed cases in Zagreb was 37.9 per 100,000.

Croatia's ambassador to the UK said he regretted that the Government here had not taken a regional approach, instead of enforcing quarantine for people returning from any part of the country.

Igor Pokaz told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'In Croatia we have, as I said, witnessed these spikes in certain areas - for example in Zagreb in the capital and maybe among the young population.

'But in Dubrovnik, its surroundings and the islands there were very, very few cases. And I deliberately mention Dubrovnik and the islands as that is where most of the British tourists go. '

The rates in Spain and France, which are subject to quarantine for returning travellers, are 60.6 per 100,000 and 30.8 respectively.

The UK's latest rate for the seven days to August 16 is 11.5 cases per 100,000 people.
Some nations tend to make more headlines than others. Its no secret that Beirut, Lebanons capital of many faces, is known for its joie de vivre. The Lebanese nightlife scene has, since the end of the civil war, been a boon for business in the country and a source of pride for locals. Boasting streets full of bars, coastal rooftops in summer and dingy warehouses in winter, the party scene in Beirut is a foundational pillar in the economic and social makeup of the city.

While Lebanese businesses are used to navigating challenges and surprises, an economic meltdown, coronavirus lockdown and the recent tragedy at the port of Beirut have made challenges existential. After the Aug. 4 explosion, the devastation feels all the grimmer. One of the many economic sectors suffering is the food and beverage industry, of which nightlife, and particularly electronic music venues, is a part.

Jad Abou Jaoude is a board member of the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Cafes, Night Clubs, Pubs and Pastries in Lebanon, a role he has occupied for the past four years. The syndicate is the official nonprofit organization bringing together entrepreneurs and owners of the most reputable food, drink and entertainment establishments in Lebanon, lobbying the government on their behalf on a wide range of issues.

The industry wont get on its feet anytime soon, he told Al-Monitor. Beirut was completely destroyed [after the recent explosion].

The syndicate estimates losses for the entire F&B industry at around $1 billion, $80 million of which, Abou Jaoude estimates, should be allocated to the nightlife scene to deal with rebuilding the sector after the horrific blast.

The clubbing industry generates $3.2 billion for the government, which they [government] dont even see as a priority. We have no support whatsoever, he added.

When speaking of large-scale, rave-like atmospheres, there are three main electronic hubs in the country. Uberhaus, which doubles down as The Garten in summer, The Ballroom Blitz, a winter venue, and the group Factory People, who run various outlets throughout the year, known for venues like Ahm, Reunion and The Grand Factory. As obstacle after obstacle has dogged the local market this year, these venues have had to innovate to survive, and also to do their part in responding to humanitarian situations as they have unfolded.

Nemer Saliba, co-founder of Uberhaus, The Garten and a host of other renowned establishments, will tell you it has always been this way, even if today it is a lot worse. This is the first summer since the first year they opened their doors in 2012 that The Garten is likely not to open. On a normal night, taking in the sunrise at the venue is a crowd of 3,000 people. The view of east Beirut, the now devastated port, and a cascade of coastal towns and frosty mountains  you would think that business would always be booming. Looks can be deceiving. Its been a bumpy ride since we opened. One step forward, two steps back because of this country, Saliba told Al-Monitor.

Saliba feels the pandemic did not only create a sense of camaraderie, it also might have leveled the playing field. With an ironic laugh, he said, For those who were trying to operate even during the unrest and crisis, COVID-19 was the cherry on top. You cant operate anymore, even if you want to. The coronavirus brought everyone to that level.

While The Garten has been up and running for the better part of a decade, The Ballroom Blitz, by contrast, was born just before the current crisis. Joe Mourani, co-founder and owner, told Al-Monitor, We opened in October 2018. Our first year was a huge success. The Ballroom Blitz is a winter venue, and though 2018 was a remarkable debut success, 2019 proved otherwise. We operated five days during the entire season.

Though only taking part in one entire winter season, The Ballroom Blitz is already a cultural mainstay in the country. Mourani has tried to maintain a sense of normalcy and continuity, especially with key team members. Until today I have not let go of anyone. When were not operational, its hard.

Mo Choucair, co-founder and acting director of The Ballroom Blitz, tries to strike a positive note. Choucair found little sympathy in the international market for the struggles they were facing before the coronavirus pandemic. However, when coronavirus lockdown measures were imposed in March that situation changed entirely. It opened a conversation that was never easy before. You felt like the whole world was struggling in almost the same way. After the outbreak, there was more friendliness in the scene, he said.

As food scarcity became a real problem, The Ballroom Blitz took on the issue. We did a charity called 'The Great Oven,' creating a massive oven and moving it around Lebanon, wherever it was needed. The newfound camaraderie was not only sentimental but proved to have practical consequences. Weve been working with Radio al-Hara in Palestine, and Radio Rahim in Milan.

Another initiative has been "Electronic Labor Day" (ELD), launched on International Workers Day earlier this year to combat the overwhelming economic crisis and lend support to nonmanagerial staff of the main electronic music venues in the country, who rely on the clubs to open their doors.

After seeing what others were doing in the market  such as Beatport, MixMag, Resident Advisor and the call to #saveourscene  because of COVID-19, the electronic music scene worldwide was taking clear steps to avoid a preventable catastrophe. The idea came to Nemer Saliba, of Uberhaus, recognizing the need to fill in where perhaps a healthier, more reliable government might. He decided to launch an initiative to coincide with International Workers Day.

In our case the nonmanagerial staff  people who live from those salaries  that was a major blow for them. No one thought of them. And we were like, May 1 is coming, he told Al-Monitor.

ELD was an enormous success, earning more than 2 million views and raising over $100,000 for those affected by the lockdown. A second edition is planned to coincide with the 40-day mourning period after the port blast.

The future is shrouded in uncertainty. Many F&B players will not get back on their feet. It may not be the time to think long term, but decisions will need to be made. After the grieving period has passed, and the world picks up the pieces from the year 2020, what will be left of the scene? So far, there is yet to be a comprehensive plan set forth by the caretaker government for the F&B sector. In the absence of governmental support, the Lebanese will be left to their own devices to salvage what they can.
Brethren Press is publishing a book in which Nigerian Brethren who have suffered violence at the hands of Boko Haram tell of their experiences and their heartache. Titled We Bear It in Tears, the book is a collection of interviews recorded by Carol Mason, with photographs by Donna Parcell. It may be pre-ordered from Brethren Press at www.brethrenpress.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=9780871782915 .

Mason recorded the interviews from Feb. 16-March 29, 2017. Each person who was interviewed was asked Where were you when the Boko Haram attacked? and How did it affect you? The people who were interviewed represented a wide variety of experiences and various populations and areas of northeast Nigeria. Together they are a significant effort at establishing a sustainable peace in Nigeria, said the Brethren Press description of the book.

Ekklesiyar Yanuwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) has suffered untold violence. Hundreds of thousands of EYN members have been displaced at one time or another over the course of the Boko Haram insurgency. Tens of thousands Nigerian Brethren have been abducted or killed, including the 276 girls abducted from the school in Chibok in 2014. Hundreds of churches have been looted and burned.

The outside world has seen the pictures and tallied the numbers but has not truly heard from those affected by the violence, said the Brethren Press description. This book attempts to share the experiences of those involved in the crisis of northern Nigeria and gives voice to the women, men, and children who have suffered. By hearing their stories, we share their burden of tears. By seeing their faces, we witness an enduring faith and a commitment to nonviolence. These are not merely symbols of violence, but individuals with real stories, real families, and real pain.

Go to www.brethrenpress.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=9780871782915 or call Brethren Press at 800-441-3712.

Go to www.brethren.org/Newsline to subscribe to the Church of the Brethren Newsline free e-mail news service and receive church news every week.
China makes multi-faceted efforts to ensure grain security

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 08:59, August 20, 2020

-- Rain-triggered floods have affected tens of millions in dozens of provincial-level regions in China, and destroyed vast stretches of farmland and agricultural facilities.

-- In the face of the floods, Chinese authorities have been mobilizing resources, using upgraded technology, and providing material support to ensure grain security and make up for losses in production.

-- China's summer grain output has reached a historic high in 2020. The increasing plantation area of autumn grain and the well growing crops have laid a solid foundation for another bumper harvest.

BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Since mid-July, Huang Xiaoping has been busy working in his 110-hectare paddy field, harvesting early rice and sowing for the next season.

Huang also runs a rental business involving farm machinery in a village near the Dongting Lake, China's second-largest freshwater lake in the central Hunan Province, helping local farmers during the "double rush" season.

"We need to fight the current flood and strengthen the embankments," Huang said.

According to China's Ministry of Emergency Management, rain-triggered floods had affected some 54.8 million people in 27 provincial-level regions as of late July, causing direct economic losses of 144.43 billion yuan (about 20.8 billion U.S. dollars).

Restrictions on food exports and panic hoarding in some countries and regions, as well as rampant desert locust, have adversely affected food production.

"The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020" report released by five agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, projected that COVID-19 could push up to 132 million people into starvation globally this year.

Though downpours and floods destroyed vast stretches of farmland and agricultural facilities, flood control situation in the hard-hit provinces of Jiangxi and Anhui is improving as the water level in major waterways continues to recede.

The flood control and drought relief headquarters of the two provinces have successively downgraded their emergency response level since early August.

In the face of the floods, the Chinese provinces have been mobilizing resources, using upgraded technology, and providing material support to ensure grain security and make up for losses in production.

For farmers like Huang, time is the essence. In the low-lying township of Liaonan near the Poyang Lake in Jiangxi, Wu Baolin was busy sowing seeds of late rice with two workers. He saw some two hectares of his crops damaged in the floods.

"The harvest is finally guaranteed even if it might be delayed," Wu said, adding that there is no time to lose when it comes to growing crops.

In Anhui, replantation of single-cropping rice has been carried out on every piece of farmland where the floodwater has receded. As of early August, more than 100,000 hectares of crops had been resowed, accounting for 38 percent of Anhui's total area of farmland needing replantation, according to the provincial department of agriculture and rural affairs.

China's total grain output consists of three parts -- early rice, summer grain and autumn production. Summer grain is the first season of the annual grain production, which accounts for more than a fifth of the annual output.

Various measures have been adopted by authorities to ensure stable grain output amid efforts to control the COVID-19 epidemic, such as fully implementing support policies like the minimum purchase price for rice and wheat and improving the quality of spring plowing.

As the world's top food producer and consumer, China saw its grain output reach a record high of 664 million tonnes last year, the 16th bumper year in a row.

The country's summer grain output reached a historic high of 142.81 million tonnes this year, up 0.9 percent from last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Autumn grain crops, which include corn, middle- and late-season rice and soybean, account for the bulk of China's grain production. The total plantation area of autumn grain has increased steadily this year and the crops are growing fine, thus laying a solid foundation for another bumper harvest.

In order to strengthen the prevention and control of plant diseases and pest, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has called for ramped up efforts against the invasion of fall armyworms, rice planthoppers and rice leaf rollers, the three migratory species of pest that threaten autumn grain production.

Pan Wenbo, a crop management official with the ministry, said despite severe floods in parts of the country, crop farming remains stable overall.

Efforts have been made in grain reserves and circulation, grain purchasing, local grain reserves, and improving the capacity for emergency supply.

The Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Finance have earmarked 935 million yuan in disaster relief funds to aid local disaster relief work in provinces including Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Anhui.

Agricultural authorities have built up a 50,000-tonne seed reserve to cope with disasters and crop failures, with more than 7,000 tonnes of seeds already handled to support crop farming for 320,000 hectares of farmland.

According to the department of agriculture and rural affairs in Hunan, the overall flood situation in the province is relatively stable compared with previous years, and the safety of grain production remains within a controllable range.

Wu Liquan, professor at Anhui Agricultural University, said the flooding is unlikely to cause a sharp decrease in grain production since the reinforced dikes and embankments along the Yangtze River have made farmlands safer. Besides, improved irrigation and drainage facilities coupled with advanced agricultural technologies, have further improved safety.

In Hubei, more than 4,000 sci-tech workers from agricultural research institutions have been providing online and offline technical guidance to local farmers, donating more than 700 tonnes of farming supplies and distributing some 300,000 copies of various technical materials.

"We will continue to listen to the needs of farmers and enterprises, help them solve problems and better serve the recovery of agricultural production," said You Aiqing, a rice breeding expert and deputy head of the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

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Principally, the companys Australian subscription video-on-demand business, ITV SVOD Australia, a wholly-owned indirect subsidiary of ITV plc, has now agreed to invest AUD 17.7 million in The BritBox Australia Partnership over a period of three years.On 27 July, and building on their success in the US and Canada, ITV announced with BritBox co-owner BBC Studios their intention to roll out their co-owned BritBox SVOD service globally with an Australian launch top of the agenda. BritBox claims to bring to viewers the greatest collection of British boxsets with homegrown talent. The collection includes brand new and recent programmes as well as classic British TV. The Australian venture will see equal funding from BBC Studios.Streaming and particular subscription VOD are hot in Australia right now. A recent survey from Telsyte found that by the end of June 2020, SVOD services boasted 16 million subscriptions in the country, a year-on-year increase of 32% from 12.3 million in June 2019. The analyst said that Covid-19 had sent the Australian SVOD services market to new heights as more people in the country spent more time at home, with over half (52%) of SVOD users believing their services have become essential since the pandemic.And in addition to backing the surging streaming arena, ITV has agreed to invest $1.375 million in cash for a minority shareholding in Cognitive Logic, Inc, the 100% owner of InfoSum . ITV says that alongside content and distribution, data is now an essential ingredient in the media ecosystem. A commercial partner of ITV , InfoSum is a data infrastructure business designed to help connect and activate separated datasets without putting customer data or personally identifiable information at risk. The company says that its identity infrastructure helps users achieve more with their customer data by breaking down trust, privacy and governance barriers, so that organisations can safely expand their customer knowledge.
WA taxpayers will foot the legal bills to defend Clive Palmer's defamation claim against Premier Mark McGowan.

The Federal Court action, which was launched against Mr McGowan on Thursday, relates to statements he made outside Parliament condemning the Queensland mining magnate over his multi-billion dollar claims against the state.

WA Premier Mark McGowan and billionaire Clive Palmer. Credit:The Age

Although Mr McGowan said he would not be silenced by the proceedings, he stepped back from the personal invective he had levelled against Mr Palmer in recent weeks and revealed the government would pay for his legal defence against the businessman's defamation allegations.

"The state engages a lawyer on my behalf to pursue the case. That's the way these things have always worked," he said.
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In an ideal world, no business would be disadvantaged because its owners and/or employees are minorities, women or members of another historically marginalized group.

We do not live in an ideal world.

Given systemic racism, gender and other inequities, minority-owned businesses face obstacles to success that others do not, simply because of the identity of their owners. The Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act may provide a means of fighting back.

A Minority Business Enterprise in Connecticut must have at least 50 percent ownership by one or more minority person(s) who exercise operational authority over daily affairs, have the power to direct management and policies, and receive the beneficial interests of the business. A minority is defined as a person(s) who is Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, has origins in the Iberian Peninsula, a woman, or an individual with a disability. While the formal definition of MBE includes these enumerated groups, the law protects other disadvantaged groups, such as the LBGTQIA+ community.

CUTPA prohibits unfair practices in trade or commerce. A practice is unfair if it: (1) offends public policy as it has been established by statutes, the common law, or other established concept of unfairness; (2) is immoral, unethical, oppressive, or unscrupulous; and/or (3) causes substantial injury to consumers, competitors or other business person.s All three criteria of this test, commonly referred to as the Cigarette Rule, do not need to be satisfied to support a finding of unfairness. A practice may be unfair because of the degree to which it meets one of the criteria or because to a lesser extent it meets all three. A prevailing party under CUTPA may secure injunctive relief to eliminate a discriminatory practice and recover both punitive damages and attorney fees.

Although CUTPA is the most litigated statute in Connecticut, with thousands of decisions, there are very few cases dealing with discriminatory business practices. This is because most discrimination cases arise in the employment context and CUTPA does not apply to the relationship between employers and employees.

CUTPA does, however, apply to dealings between businesses, including competitors and those in a contractual relationship. One business may decide not to do business with a minority firm because of racial or other discriminatory animus. Not only might such conduct be immoral, unethical, oppressive or unscrupulous under the second prong of the Cigarette Rule, it may also violate statutes or regulations that could establish a violation of public policy under the first prong.

By way of example: part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 guarantees all persons ... the same right ... to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens. The definition of persons includes business entities. This provision prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in connection with, among other things, the making and enforcement of contracts. Similarly, the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution directs that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike and prohibits selective treatment based on race, religion, intent to inhibit or punish the exercise of constitutional rights, or malicious or bad faith intent to injure the plaintiff. The public policy against unequal treatment may provide fertile ground to establish a violation of public policy under CUTPA, particularly when state action is involved.

Proving discriminatory conduct and that it has caused harm always presents challenges, as an offending business is likely to claim some other business reason as a pretext for its conduct. It is surprising, nonetheless, how frequently parties blindly include evidence of discrimination in emails, text messages and other communications. Plaintiffs can also look to utilize statistical information showing disparate treatment to meet their burden of proof.

Discriminatory business practices call for countervailing action. CUTPA may provide a means to right these wrongs.

Atty. David A. Slossberg leads the business litigation practice at Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg & Knuff. He is an editor of the definitive treatise on unfair trade practices in Connecticut. He can be reached at dslossberg@hssklaw.com.
Only one in six workers has returned to the office despite pleas to do so from the Government, according to analysis.

Worker footfall in cities was still just 17 per cent of pre-lockdown levels during the first two weeks of this month, despite guidance giving businesses the freedom to summon staff back to the office, according to the Centre for Cities.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Matt Hancock have all urged people to return to the office to boost the economy.

Staying away: Worker footfall in cities was still just 17 per cent of pre-lockdown levels during the first two weeks of this month

Thousands of city centre firms that rely on commuters for custom are feared to be on the brink of collapse because of virus lockdown measures that have kept people at home.

However, analysis by the think tank conducted for Sky News found that in Britain's 63 largest cities, the change in government guidance had little impact on footfall. In London it stood at just 13 per cent of pre-lockdown levels, while in Cardiff it was 14 per cent, in Edinburgh 14 per cent and Belfast 18 per cent.

Central London's figure budged just 1 per cent higher compared to July, before the guidance was altered.

The Government said in March any workers who could do their job from home should do so.

However from August 1 this was changed to give employers 'discretion' over whether staff should come in.

Many major firms have told workers to stay at home, however, with a Mail audit finding several were not expected to welcome them back until next year.

Andrew Carter, of the Centre for Cities, warned shops, restaurants, pubs and other businesses faced 'an uncertain future while office workers remain at home'.
The cracks within the Assam Congress seem to have widened following former chief minister Tarun Gogois announcement that the party was ready for an alliance with the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal ahead of the 2021 assembly elections.

Interestingly, it was Gogoi himself who snubbed Ajmal in the run-up to the 2006 assembly elections with his famous one-liner, Who is Badruddin Ajmal? Since then, the grand old party has not made any formal pact with the AIUDF that is seen as a party sympathetic to the cause of illegal immigrants.

It is believed that Gogoi has the backing of state Congress president Ripun Bora and former minister and senior party leader Rockybul Hussain for the tie-up plan with AIUDF.

A section of senior Congress functionaries, however, viewed this development as something that could spell more trouble for the party. They have now decided to write a letter to the Congress high command, seeking the removal of the partys state president.

They are of the firm view that the Hindu electorate across the state would vote against the party if the AIUDF is projected as a partner. In short, the proposed move by the Gogoi camp would end up benefiting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam.

A glimpse from the Assam Congress leaders' meet.

Gogois masterstroke in 2006

The Congress had won 53 out of 126 seats in the 2006 Assam assembly elections, and the AIUDF 10. However, it decided to join hands with the Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF) led by Hagrama Mohilary that bagged 10 seats. By keeping Ajmal at bay, Gogoi wanted to change the popular perception about the Congress being a pro-minority party. He also wanted to send out a message that the grand old party would stand by Assams indigenous communities.

Gogoi had managed to convince the party high command that the AIUDF could remain a part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance at the Centre, but he would prefer to go solo in the state elections. This strategy worked for the Congress, and Gogoi became chief minister for the third time in a row.

A shrewd politician as he is, Gogoi knew it too well that the Congress must shed its pro-minority image, especially in Assam where the issue of illegal Muslim immigrants could make or break the electoral prospects of any political party. The issue had triggered the six-year Assam Agitation, the culmination of which resulted in the signing of the historic Assam Accord in 1985. It highlighted the need for updating the National Register of Citizens to weed out illegal immigrants, provisions for constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to protect and preserve the language and culture of the people of Assam, land rights for indigenous people, among others.

By not aligning with Ajmal, Gogoi could position the Congress as a party sympathetic to regional sentiments, thereby blocking the growth of the BJP or reemergence of the Asom Gana Parishad which ruled the state twice prior to 2001.

Rift in the Congress

On Tuesday, Gogoi announced the possible alliance with the AIUDF and other non-BJP secular parties following a meeting of the partys core committee in Guwahati. Soon after this, senior functionaries, including leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia, Pradyut Bordoloi, Bhupen Borah, Rana Goswami and Abdul Khaleque held a separate meeting in which they decided to send a formal request to the party high command, seeking change of leadership. A letter is expected to be submitted within this week.

Some of the functionaries who attended the second meeting told this writer that they are opposed to an alliance only with the AIUDF. Instead, they have made a case for a broader coalition of secular and non-BJP forces such as the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Bodoland Peoples Front and Akhil Gogois Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS).

Last January, the Congress high command had almost decided to change the president. Then, some heavyweights pitched in to scuttle the move, said one of the party functionaries on the condition of anonymity.

Most of the Congress workers believe that there is large-scale revulsion against the ruling BJP in the wake of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, and that the people are looking for an alternative. But much would depend upon whether the leadership would be able to sway the votes in favour of the party.

On Tuesday, the core committee of the APCC had met at Hotel Gateway Grandeur on GS Road, instead of the party headquarters Rajiv Bhawan located just 500 metres from the venue. The panel was formed around two years ago, following a suggestion from Harish Rawat, then Congress general secretary in-charge of Assam, to ensure better coordination among senior leaders who otherwise met only during executive committee meetings.

However, the core committee has not functioned in the way it was supposed to work because Ripun Bora has a tendency of going it alone or doing it yourself, instead of sharing ideas with other senior leaders and taking decisions collectively, the party functionaries cited above said. As a result, over a period of time, meetings of both the executive committee and the core committee of the APCC have become rare, they added.

There were reports that Bora may be replaced as APCC president because ever since 2016, the Congress has fared very badly in all elections in Assam, be it the assembly bypolls, the panchayat elections or the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The party high command had wanted at least 50% of the seats in Assam  seven  in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019. However, the Congress won only three seats, all in the minority-dominated areas. Moreover, in two of these seats, the AIUDF preferred not to field any candidate, making it easier for the Congress to win.

It was only in the Barpeta constituency, that the Congress candidate had to contest against both the BJP as well as the AIUDF. Bora had then offered to resign taking moral responsibility for the partys dismal performance in the polls.

Since then, there has been some speculation of either Pradyut Bordoloi or Bhupen Bora being given the leadership of the APCC ahead of the 2021 assembly elections. But the party high command has so far remained undecided on this due to unknown reasons, according to the Congress functionaries.

The section campaigning for change in the leadership is apprehensive that the decision to join hands with the AIUDF could be approved by the core committee. But the core committee is not a legal entity. Such decisions must have the approval of the executive committee as well, said another functionary. He warned that there are long-term designs behind the proposal to tie-up with the AIUDF, but refused to divulge further details.

(The author is a senior journalist and writer based in Delhi. Views expressed are personal.)
The National COVID-19 Trust Fund has presented GH6.8 million to the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund as its contribution to the Ghana Infectious Diseases Centre (GIDC).



The centre, the first of its kind in the country, is the initiative of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, was inaugurated in Accra last month for use as a treatment centre for critically ill coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients.



The ultra-modern 100-bed facility will later be used as a treatment centre for other infectious diseases such as Ebola and cerebro-spinal meningitis (CSM).



Visit



The Chairperson of the National COVID-19 Trust Fund, former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo, who facilitated the transfer of the funds, said the donation was in support of the GIDC in recognition of the lead role the private sector played to help bolster the nations capacity to contain the COVID-19.



During a recent visit to the centre, Justice Akuffo commended the use of home-grown talents in the construction of the facility.



Looking at the centre, the way its been laid out for total safety of the medical staff, patients and the public, it looks very comfortable; it looks very clean.



Its very well thought out, a very humane installation. The beauty of it is that most of the inputs for the building and the skills are Ghanaian. Its home-grown, she added.





She said Ghana was blessed to have private sector operators who had the health of the nation at heart and decided to take the initiative.



Our elders say if you do a good thing, you get a good push. It is in this vein that we in the public sector fund deem it necessary to provide GH6.8 million to help pay off the cost of putting up this magnificent and useful edifice, she said.



In recognition of the support, one of the wings of a ward, including the centres laboratory, has been named for the National COVID-19 Trust Fund.



Gratitude



A managing trustee of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, Mr Senyo Hosi, expressed gratitude to the COVID-19 Trust Fund for the support.



He said it was a testimony of what Ghanaians could achieve if the public and the private sectors worked together.



We are one people with a common vision of a Ghana fit for all its citizens. Some of us work in the private sector, others work in the public sector, but the goal is the same, Mr Hosi said, adding: This is an example of Ghanaians from the two sectors working together, pooling resources to achieve the common objective of fighting a common enemy.



The private sector fund intends to build another infectious disease centre in Kumasi to serve the northern part of the country.



Mr Hosi expressed the hope that both corporate citizens and individuals would contribute generously towards the realisation of the nations second infectious diseases centre.

Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Clint Parry looked through every part of his kitchen during the stay-at-home period in Detroit, Michigan. He was looking for different foods and leftovers to put together meals.

The 33-year-old man is one of many people around the world who has cut food spending and waste during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say if these new behaviors continue, they will help fight another worldwide crisis: climate change.

Parry works as a model builder for a company in Michigan. He told the Reuters news agency that he and his wife have been finding use for all of their leftovers. In the past, they would forget to bring that food into work and instead buy fast food for lunch.



The food waste crisis

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one-third of the worlds food is wasted every year. That waste is responsible for about eight percent of the worlds greenhouse gases.

Forests are cleared, fuel is burned and packaging is produced. All of these processes put out greenhouse gases. When people throw food away, it sits on open areas of land and rots, putting more of these gases into the atmosphere.

Toine Timmermans supervises the sustainable food program at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. He told Reuters the next crisis will be the climate crisis and the best thing you can do is reduce food waste.

At-home food waste in Britain, for example, fell sharply in the early part of the pandemic in April. At the time, just 14 percent of four main foods was wasted: bread, chicken, milk and potatoes. That information comes from research by environmental group WRAP, which talked to thousands of people.

Before the lockdown in Britain, an average of 24 percent of those foods had been wasted.

The waste average there rose to 18 percent by June, WRAP found. But that is still below levels before lockdown.

Richard Swannell is director of WRAP Global, which works with governments to reduce food waste. He said, Although people are reporting wasting more food as restrictions lift, 70 percent of people want to keep their new low-waste behaviors long term.

Plan more, cook more

Food security has been a big concern during the pandemic. The public bought too many of some basic goods. Farm workers struggled to get to the fields. Meat-packing factories closed because of virus fears. And farm goods that were produced for closed restaurants rotted.

But the lower at-home food waste has been one bright thing.

Out of need, people have become more organized in planning meals. They have also gained new cooking skills. And they check their cabinets and refrigerators more before they shop. They also find better ways to use up leftovers, food waste experts say.

Laura Brooks is a mother of five children in Weymouth, Massachusetts. She said, [As] things go back to normal, I may continue with fewer shopping trips. When she goes to food stores more often, she notices the newly bought fruit and vegetables make her forget about older ones still in her refrigerator. So things get wasted more easily, she said.

More careful spending could prove a valuable skill in the economic and unemployment crises caused by the pandemic.

Dana Gunders leads a nonprofit organization called ReFED. The group works on reducing wasted food across the United States. She said a family of four in the U.S. was estimated to throw away food worth about $1,800 a year.

Too good for the bin

A survey by Germanys Food and Agriculture Ministry also found people have had more concern for food waste during the pandemic.

The government had already launched an anti-food waste campaign before the crisis. It urged people not to throw away food after the sell-by date but to smell and taste it to see if it was still good.

A survey during the pandemic found that 91 percent of Germans were checking food after its sell-by date. In a similar study from 2016, that number was 76 percent.

Food waste is not restricted to the home, but that is where most of it happens in many countries.

The European Union has published a study estimating that 53 percent of food waste was in homes and 11 percent in production. The rest was in areas such as processing and selling.

Chinas President Xi Jinping said this month that the amount of food wasted in China was shocking. That led to the launch of anti-food waste campaigns by many local governments.

For Parry and his wife in Detroit, and for many others, lowering spending is here to stay. He says food costs have gone down a lot in the last five months. And, they have plenty of good leftovers in their refrigerator.

Im Alice Bryant.

Reuters news agency reported this story. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

kitchen  n. a room in which food is cooked

leftovers  n. food that was not finished at a meal and that is often served at another meal

greenhouse gas  n. gases that cause warming of the Earths atmosphere

packaging  n. material used to enclose or contain something

rot  v. to slowly decay or cause something to decay

sustainable  adj. involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources

lockdown  n. a state of restricted movement put in place as a security or health safety measure.

cabinet  n. a piece of furniture that is used for storing things and usually has doors and shelves

refrigerator  n. a device or room that is used to keep things (such as food and drinks) cold

survey  n. an activity in which many people answer a series of questions in order to gather information about what most people do or think about something
New Delhi, Aug 21 : BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to direct the Education Ministry to postpone the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) till Diwali, and warned of suicides by youths otherwise.

In his "urgent letter" to Modi, Swamy said: "Holding the exams, in my opinion, may lead to a large number of suicides by youths around the country." He cited an example of Mumbai where, he claimed, "there is no public transport and people have to come from other areas, often 20 to 30 km away". This is because of the restrictions enforced at many places due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he argued.

"There is widespread desperation among the youth since this exam is a make-or-break affair for them and they have to take it when they are fully prepared," the Rajya Sabha MP wrote to the Prime Minister.

Earlier, Swamy spoke to Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal. Pointing this out to Modi, Swamy added that Pokhriyal was "sympathetic" to his suggestion to put it off beyond Diwali. However, it needs the Prime Minister's "concurrence", he wrote.

Earlier, Swamy tweeted on the Supreme Court order on the matter, saying that the apex court had "left the date (for the exam) to the government" to decide.

On Monday, the Supreme Court had rejected a plea for the postponement of the two entrance tests due to the coronavirus outbreak. The court said that life has to go on despite the virus outbreak and that it could not put the careers of students in jeopardy by interfering in National Testing Agency's decision to hold these in September.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has come out in defence of the government's move to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises in PPP (Public Private Partnership mode) for 50 years. Puri defended the Centre's move after the Kerala government opposed its decision.

The minister, in a series of tweets, said that the "parallel narratives can be no match for facts" adding that "a campaign has been launched against the decision to privatise the Thiruvananthapuram airport."

Detailing the complex process, Puri articulated that "it was stipulated that if the Kerela State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) bid comes within the 10 per cent range of the winning bid, they would be awarded the work." However, there was a variance of 19.64 per cent between the KSIDC and the next bidder when bids were open, he added.

Also Read: Cabinet approves leasing out of Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram airports to Adani Group

Further chronicling the specifics of how the contract was awarded to Adani Enterprises, Puri enunciated that the "winning bid quoted ? 168 per passenger, KSIDC quoted ? 135 per passenger and third qualifying bidder was at ? 63 per passenger." He informed that although the special provision of RoFR (Right of First Refusal) was given to the Kerala government, "they could not qualify in international bidding process carried out in a transparent manner."

The Aviation Minister expressed that the state (Kerala) government subsequently moved the Kerala High Court and Supreme Court and "all these facts are available in the public domain."

Meanwhile, the left government in the state, as well as the Congress-led United Democratic Front, have objected to the privatisation. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had, on Wednesday, written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting the Centre to rethink its decision to privatise the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.

Vijayan further stated in his letter that the (Centre's) decision overlooked Kerala government's numerous pleas that the airport's operations and management be transferred to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which the state dispensation is a major stakeholder.

Meanwhile, endorsing the Central government's decision, Congress MP Sashi Tharoor called the move "competitive". Thiruvananthapuram falls in his constituency.

Also Read: Kerala opposes Trivandrum airport transfer to Adani group, 'will not cooperate'

Taking to Twitter, Tharoor voiced, "this thread is quite accurate. GoK (government of Kerala) chose to participate in the bidding, under rules they agreed, and after losing in the fair process, started questioning the very game they had chosen to play. What really matters is the interests of the travellers of Thiruvananthapuram, not the government's".

The Centre had, on Wednesday, approved the award of airports at Guwahati, Jaipur and Trivandrum for redevelopment to Adani Enterprises Ltd.

The three airports will be leased for development, operation and management in the PPP mode to Adani Enterprises, which emerged as a successful bidder in a globally competitive bidding held last year, for 50 years, as per a government statement.

In February last year, Adani Enterprises bagged a contract to run six airports in the country after it emerged as the highest bidder.

The Centre had, in July 2019, given its nod to the proposal for leasing out three of them - Ahmedabad, Lucknow, and Mangalore - to Adani Enterprises.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When he took office early last year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had what looked like a plan: Crush corruption, rescue Brazil from social liberalism and revive the economy from the worst recession in a century. Nineteen months on, that bold agenda is mostly history.

Its tempting to blame the flop on the coronavirus pandemic  a meteor strike, in the words of economy minister Paulo Guedes  and its devastating toll on lives and livelihoods.

But that gets the story backwards. The virus is shaping up to be Bolsonaros unlikely salvation, allowing his government to swap out the errant reform agenda it never quite believed in for political deflection and the magic of emergency cash  that is, until the arrival of the inevitable ugly post-Covid fiscal reckoning.

A demagogue, denialist and illiberal provocateur  Bolsonaros adversaries have called him many names. Hes also a crafty politician. The right-wing culture wars he waged ran afoul of Congress, the courts and a public weary of vitriol. Sketchy dealings on his watch provoked the resignation of the corruption-busting Justice Minister Sergio Moro, and turned the First Family and cronies into persons of criminal interest. Headline market-friendly initiatives  privatization, administrative reform, economic opening and a foundational tax reform  have mostly gone nowhere.But the pivot from disaster has given Bolsonaros flailing administration a second wind. A recent poll found that 37% of Brazilians rated his presidency good or great, compared with 32% in mid-June, his best showing since taking office in January 2019. None of this owes to a change of heart by Bolsonaro, just damage control and a big checkbook. With little aptitude for reforms and even less for leadership, Bolsonaro has addressed the ravages of the pandemic by turning to the oldest Latin American expedient: government cash.

Brazils self-described political outsider is looking more like an insider every day, said Fernando Schuler, a political analyst who teaches at Insper, a Sao Paulo business school. He has no recognizable project beyond the traditional one of transferring public revenues and bargaining with traditional clusters of power.

Story continues

Of course, ramping up spending to mitigate the global economic collapse was the right call. But leave it to Bolsonaro to add a populist flourish. Trumping the normally profligate congresss best offer, Bolsonaro is sending emergency assistance checks averaging 600 reais ($109) per capita to 59 million Brazilians. A recent study by the Federal University of Pernambuco found that the stimulus bump nationwide reached to 2.46% of national gross domestic product through July. Thats the centerpiece of Latin Americas most ambitious pandemic response, totaling 11.8% of Brazilian GDP.

More impressive than the lump sum is how the windfall is being shared out, with the humblest homes in the least developed regions collecting the biggest payout. The emergency assistance kicks in better than 8.5% to the GDP of Maranhao state and 7.9% of GDP to neighboring Piaui state, two northeastern stragglers that traditionally trail the national human development index. Even as the Covid cash has boosted Brazilian household incomes by 7% nationwide this year, the chronically neglected north and northeast have seen double-digit increases (24% in Maranhao, 20% in Piaui and 14.3% in Amazonas).

The result: Unemployment may be soaring and the national economy set to contract by more than 5% this year, but some regions are thriving. A big part of Brazil has yet to feel the economic crisis, said Federal University of Pernambuco economist Ecio Costa, who co-authored the impact study. Retailers in the northeast are seeing surging sales of refrigerators, washing machines and microwaves.

Poverty has hit a 16-year low nationwide, with extreme poverty down by 41% from a year ago. The political dividends for Bolsonaro include a big approval bump from the northeast, long the comfort zone of his left-wing archrival, former Workers Party President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Since mid-June Bolsonaros rejection rate had tumbled the most (52% to 35%) in the northeast and among the poorest voters (44% to 31%).

Whether the good feelings can last is another story. Its part of Bolsonaros strategy to avoid the sort of chaos he feared could bury his government, Marcus Andre Melo, a political scientist at the Federal University of Pernambuco, told me. But under the health emergency pact passed in early April, the spigot runs dry on December 31, well before the pandemic ends and with the economy still reeling. Brazilian society is on ventilators and the government will have to turn off the oxygen, said Melo.

Unfortunately, Brazil cannot keep doling out aid without running the economy aground. Brazils internal debt is on track to hit 100% of gross domestic product, up 20% from December, and breach the government spending cap that the legislature wrote into the constitution after fierce floor battles in 2016. Without the budget cap, theres little to constrain interest groups from competing to outspend one another, so draining the countrys productive sector, the only source of wealth, Costa said.

Breaching the spending ceiling is also political folly. Former President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016 for gaming the budget in 2016. Guedes has proposed a less costly workaround, Renda Brasil (Brazil Income), for 21 million families at risk. Yet even that more modest alternative would require approval from a fractious congress and some complicated fiscal engineering, the budget and details for which are still a mystery. Bolsonaro himself has been evasive, now flirting with extending the generous stipend, now swearing parsimony.

Brazilians would be forgiven for doubting. Given Bolsonaros dismal record on reforms and public health, and spendthrift bureaucrats flogging a war budget of public works, renewing the promise of emergency assistance could be just another way to kite a check.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Over 220,000 aspirants who are to appear for Delhi University Entrance Tests (DUET) to get admitted to DUs various undergraduate, postgraduate, and MPhil/PhD courses will do so between September 6 and 11, as per the examination schedule released by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday.

Keeping in view the academic interest of a large number of students, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has agreed to the proposal of MHRD (now MoE) for conducting various entrance examinations in the month of September 2020, NTA said in the public notice.

The central government body has been conducting entrance tests for DU for since 2019. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court had rejected a plea seeking to postpone the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), which are also slated to be conducted by NTA in September.

DU conducts entrance tests for all postgraduate courses and nine undergraduate courses, including BA (Honours) Humanities and Social Sciences, BA (Honours) Multimedia and Mass Communication, and BTech IT & Mathematical Innovations.

Varsity officials said around 140,000 students had applied for the entrance tests to various postgraduate courses while approximately 70,000 had applied for the nine entrance-based undergraduate courses. Around 14,000 students have applied for MPhil and PhD programmes.

According to the bulletin on NTAs website, entrance tests will be conducted across 24 cities, including Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Jaipur, Patna, Chennai and Mumbai. The exams will be conducted online but the students will have to go to the test centres. It will be similar to how JEE exams are conducted. In a day or two, students will receive their admit cards as well, a senior DU official, requesting anonymity, said.

Hand-held metal detectors will be used for frisking candidates while maintaining a distance. These will be sanitised at regular intervals. Admit cards will have specific barcodes which will be scanned and rooms will be allotted to students accordingly, Vineet Joshi, director general, NTA, said.

We have prepared a standard operating protocol that will be followed to ensure safety, Joshi said. He also added that the number of exam centres are currently being finalised and each centre will have gloves and masks for all staff and students.

The exams will be conducted in three two-hour slots on all six days to reduce crowding. Dean (admissions) Shobha Bagai said, According to the NTA, there will be around 50-60% reduction in the number of students per centre to ensure social distancing. This will lead to an increase in the number of centres across cities. Students will have to wear masks and gloves and follow all protocols. Isolation rooms have been prepared for those feeling unwell.

JP Dubey, honorary director of Delhi School of Journalism, said, Students are willing to take the tests as there is no alternative available. When Parliament and Assemblies are running while maintaining protocols, exams too can be conducted. Parents and students are expressing concerns over exam dates clashing with other papers.

Students have expressed concerns over social media about two exams  the common law entrance test (CLAT) and IIM-Indores Integrated Programme in Management Aptitute Test (IPMAT)  that are scheduled for September 7, clashing with an undergraduate entrance test for DU.

Harshit Singh, 18, a resident of Kanpur, who applied for a undergraduate management course, said, My nearest centre is in Varanasi for which I have to go by train or road. If I go by train, there is a severe health risk. By road, the journey would be too expensive. My family is not keen on me appearing for the tests by risking my health.

Taddo Tayeng, a resident of Roing in Arunachal Pradesh, who applied for a postgraduate course, said, It is unlikely that I will be able to appear for the paper since my nearest centre is in a different state. If I travel to that state, I will have to quarantine myself there for 14 days and then again when I return to my state.

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A bodybuilding Lothario is accused of arranging to meet young women through dating apps and Facebook before bashing and robbing them.

John Dennis Gurney, 31, is wanted by police after numerous reports of him allegedly swindling his dates or assaulting them and running away.

He then allegedly used their credit and bank cards to make fraudulent purchases or large ATM withdrawals.

He is wanted by police after numerous reports of him allegedly swindling his marks or assaulting them and running away

CCTV allegedly shows him walk into a shop in West Gladstone, in Central Queensland, and use a stolen card to take out cash.

Police said he was linked to alleged crime including assault, robbery, fraud, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, and stealing.

Gurney's alleged crime spree started in July and targeted women between Brisbane and Rockhampton, Central Queensland.

'Police have received a number of reports of the man allegedly targeting women through social media, where he stays with them a number of days before stealing property and leaving,' police said.

CCTV allegedly shows him walk into a shop in West Gladstone, in Central Queensland, and use a stolen card to take out cash

'He has been allegedly detected using the womens credit cards at various locations following his departure.'

Gurney was last seen in the town of Agnes Water on Friday morning before getting on a bus.

An arrest warrant was issued and the public was urged to call police if they saw Gurney, but not to approach him.

Gurney is described as white, about 180cm tall with a muscular build, blue eyes and brown hair.

He has a rose tattoo on his neck as well as tattoos on his shoulders, arms and hand. The tattoo on his left arm reads 'one life one chance'.
The next series of Strictly Come Dancing, due to hit our TV screens in September, will be the 18th run of the UKs favourite dance show.

Only one professional dancer has appeared in every series and thats the ever-popular Anton du Beke, who finished as runner-up last time out.

If you have always wanted to meet Anton and see him perform live, then this is your chance to join him and his long-term dance partner and fellow Strictly favourite Erin Boag  on an exclusive eight-day Danube river cruise.

On this cruise, guests will enjoy a guided tour of Budapest, pictured, and see other cities on the Danube

OUR SPECIAL GUESTS You will be joined by Anton and Erin Anton du Beke and Erin Boag have danced together for 20 years and are two of the nations all-time favourite ballroom stars. Their charisma, chemistry and dazzling choreography have wowed audiences around the world. Anton, affectionately known as the king of ballroom, is the longest-serving professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing. YOUR ITINERARY DAY 1 Munich to Passau Day 2 Passau DAY 3 Linz to Cesky Krumlov DAY 4 Melk to Durnstein DAY 5 Vienna DAY 6 Bratislava DAY 7 Budapest DAY 8 Budapest Advertisement

Travelling on a stylish Emerald Waterways Star Ship, you will sail from Passau with stops at Linz and the Unesco World Heritage-listed town of Cesky Krumlov.

Youll pass terraced vineyards and apricot orchards on the way to Melk, before visiting three of Europes great capitals  Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest.

You will see Anton and Erin perform at an intimate and historic venue in the Austrian capital, plus the pair will take part in a special dance masterclass on board.

Anton and Erin will also host an entertaining Q&A session, during which you can ask them about their lives and careers and find out what goes on behind the scenes on Strictly.

One Mail on Sunday reader, who enjoyed this special trip when we previously offered it, said: Its been such a wonderful experience seeing Anton and Erin perform. I cannot imagine anything better.

REASONS TO BOOK

See Anton and Erin dance: Anton and Erin will give an unforgettable one-off performance in Vienna, the home of the waltz.

You will also join the stars for a cocktail reception and photo opportunity.

Join a dance masterclass: Perfect your waltz and finesse your foxtrot during a fun dance class on board with Anton and Erin.

You will also have the chance to hear them talk about their long-term partnership and love of dance during a private Q&A session.

Sail in style: Youll travel on the elegant Emerald Destiny, where youll find an indoor pool with retractable roof, open-air terrace, cinema and putting green as well as stylish staterooms and indoor and outdoor dining.

The cruise includes EmeraldPLUS and EmeraldACTIVE excursions in each city, such as a Hungarian folklore show in Budapest or a guided biking tour from Melk to Durnstein.

The best of the Danube: Enjoy a guided tour of Budapest, the enchanting Old Town in Bratislava and through the Wachau Valley, with a stop at Durnstein.
Embattled U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faced scrutiny from a Senate Democrats about how new policies causing mail delays could affect on the Nov. 3 presidential election.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, said the new postmaster general has undermined one of our nations most trusted institutions, while Republicans on Senate panel commended DeJoy for making efforts to cut costs. DeJoy said operational changes are necessary to keep the Postal Service financially sustainable, but no policies were changed related to election mail.

We must adapt to the realities of our marketplace, generate more revenue and control our costs, DeJoy said during the Senate hearing. As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully committed and capable of delivering the nations election mail securely and on time.

Michigan Democrats have accused DeJoy, a Republican donor and former logistics executive, of attempting to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service to impact the delivery of absentee ballots in the Nov. 3 presidential election. DeJoy said those claims are outrageous, and expressed confidence that USPS will deliver ballots in time for clerks to count them on Election Day.

Last week, the USPS sent letters to Michigan and 45 other states warning ballots requested near state deadlines may be delivered with early enough for them to be counted. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has urged voters to request a mail-in ballot and submit it to their local clerk as early as possible.

Peters, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, also raised concerns about the delivery of other items not related to the election. Peters said hes collected 7,500 comments from constituents and people all across the country about late deliveries of medication, benefits checks and other important items.

Mary from Redford said her daughter has been getting her epilepsy medication through the mail, usually in 3 to 4 days, Peters said. Because of changes you ordered, her latest refill shipped on July 20th, and took 9 days to be delivered. When Marys daughter realized the medication wasnt going to arrive on time, she tried to ration what few pills she had left. As a result, she suffered seizures and was transported to the hospital.

DeJoy acknowledged delays in mail delivery occurred, saying it was a temporary result of structural changes to improve on-time services and cut costs. The postmaster general also said USPS is facing a significant issue in employee availability due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is also causing delays in delivery.

Peters and DeJoy clashed over overtime cuts, with the postmaster general saying overtime has not been halted by his leadership team. Peters said postal workers have reported that overtime has been curtailed significantly.

A July memo released by multiple news outlets details cost-cutting efforts implemented after DeJoy took office, which includes eliminating extra mail delivery trips that ensure on-time mail delivery.

Postal unions have reported the removal of mail collection boxes and mail processing machines in offices around Michigan. Postal workers also said new policies that limit overtime and prevent letter carriers from taking multiple trips caused pileups of undelivered mail.

DeJoy said 35,000 mail collection boxes have been removed in the last decade based on declining mail volumes in particular communities. Another 700 boxes have been removed since DeJoy took office in June, but he stopped the process after he saw the excitement it was creating.

However, DeJoy said mail sorting machines that have been removed wont be replaced.

Theyre not needed, he said.

DeJoy, in a response to a question posed by Peters, said he did not discuss any policy changes or their potential impact on Nov. 3 election with Trump or anyone at the White House.

I have never spoken to the president about the Postal Service other than to congratulate me for accepting the position, DeJoy said.

DeJoy frequently noted several financial issues facing USPS, pointing to a review of the postal services pricing system that concluded changes were needed four years ago.

DeJoy pointed to unaffordable retirement payments as one reason for the losses and asked Congress to provide more relief to offset losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of the Senate panel acknowledged the financial strain facing USPS isnt new. The Government Accountability Office released a report in May showing the USPS lost about $78 billion between 2007 through 2019 due to declining mail volumes and increased costs.

DeJoy urged Congress to enact reforms that have been discussed and debated for years, saying much of the revenue losses since 2007 could have been avoided.

Peters said DeJoy avoided Congressional oversight and attempts by his office to learn more about mail policies.

It wasnt until I launched an investigation that you admitted that you have directed these changes yourself, Peters said.

READ MORE ON MLIVE:

Death index prevented invalid ballots from being counted in Michigan primary, election officials say

Snail mail and a pinky promise: Why Michigan is still suing after USPS walked back changes

Michigan Supreme Court asked to reconsider absentee ballot deadline in light of uncounted primary votes
Elle Fanning looked radiant in a puff-sleeved midi dress, as made a trip to a flower shop with her mother in Los Angeles.

The 22-year-old All the Bright star exuded elegance in a pair of studded Birkenstocks and her Victorian-inspired frock, which radiated femininity in an icy shade of blue.

As she strutted down the sidewalk next to her mother, her luxurious blonde tresses cascaded past her shoulders.

Stunner: Elle Fanning looked radiant in a puff-sleeved midi dress, as made a trip to a florist shop with her mother in Los Angeles

The Maleficent actress accessorized her summery look with a white leather Gucci purse and stayed safe with a beige CDC-recommended face mask.

Like her daughter, the mother of Elle and Dakota Fanning kept her nose and mouth safely covered amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In June, Elle opened up about feeling 'grateful to have her sister around with her during lockdown and is 'enjoying' her company.

Effortlessly chic: The 22-year-old All the Bright star exuded elegance in a pair of studded Birkenstocks and her Victorian-inspired frock, which radiated femininity in an icy shade of blue

While speaking to DuJour magazine, Elle revealed she lives with her mother and grandmother in California when not filming, while Dakota typically resides in New York.

'It's a rare occasion that we get to be together. So we're enjoying each other's company,' the Hulu star remarked.

While the famous siblings were meant to be in filming The Nightingale in Budapest before the COVID-19 pandemic, they're now passing the time learning TikTok dances together.

Bonding: As she strutted down the sidewalk next to her mother, her luxurious blonde tresses cascaded past her shoulders

Elle has also spent her extra rest time in the kitchen with her grandmother, Mary Jane Odum.

'My grandmother loves hearty Southern food,' she shared, adding: 'I've always loved cooking and helping her in the kitchen.'

And while they've been ordering groceries together, poaching eggs and making lamb chops, Elle's favorite is coming up with new ways to make a leftovers quesadilla.

No fighting: 'It's a rare occasion that we get to be together. So we're enjoying each other's company,' she said

Elle's upcoming project, The Nightingale, was meant to be released on Christmas Day 2020.

However, due to the pandemic, filming has been put on hold for the time being.

Elle and real-life sister, Dakota, were to play on-screen sisters in the coming of age story set on the eve of World War ll.
The Lehigh Valley will join other communities across the country Saturday in rallying to protect the United States Postal Service and calling on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to resign.

Cost-cutting measures have led to mail delays, sometimes lasting weeks, and raising concerns about mail-in ballots for the November election.

The #SavethePostOffice rallies are scheduled at post offices, and local participants will gather at 11 a.m. Saturday outside the post office at 131 W. Fourth St. in Bethlehem.

Groups that plan to participate include Indivisible, the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, MoveOn, NAACP, RuralOrganizing.org, the Service Employees International Union, Vets for the People and the Working Families Party.

Phila Back, who is helping to organize Bethlehems rally, said progressively reduced and delayed mail came after sorting machines and mail boxes were removed and overtime eliminated. This comes as the postal service deals with funding problems for itself and its essential workers.

It has become sort of an emergency, she said. We are particularly concerned about effective mail service to vote.

In addition to ballots, campaigns rely on the postal service to send campaign mailers, and supporters are turning to mail instead of going door-to-door during the COVID-19 pandemic, Back said.

The post service is vital. To just undo it at a time when people need it more than ever, because of (COVID-19), with the election coming up, people to vote safely need to vote by mail. We have to reverse this, we have to undo this, she said.

Organizers are looking to cap the rally to 50 people. There will be speakers outside the post office, and then participants will stand near West Third Street and Wyandotte Street (Route 378).

There will also be stamped and addressed postcards to Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey. Earlier this week, Sen. Bob Casey joined Gov. Tom Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro to demand action against President Donald Trumps efforts to defund the Postal Service.

Senator Toomey does not support even the insinuation of hindering or manipulating a governmental entity for political purposes. That being said, the United States Postal Service is funded through April of 2021. It also has access to a $10 billion loan fund that was established by the Treasury Department via the CARES Act and it is likely that the next COVID-19 bill will provide even more direct assistance. If there are supply chain issues that are causing medicines and financial aid to be delayed, that needs to be addressed, Toomey spokesman Steve Kelly said via email Friday.

Despite expected increases in mail-in voting, we anticipate election mail will account for less than 2% of all mail volume from mid-September until Election Day. Even with the challenges of keeping our employees and customers safe and healthy as they operate amid a pandemic, the American public should know that delivering Americas election mail is our number one priority between now and Election Day, Kelly added.

DeJoy on Tuesday suspended all mail service changes until after the Nov. 3 election, but in testimony Friday before the Senate he indicated he would again make operational changes after that date.

Vice reported Thursday that USPS instructed all maintenance managers via email to not reconnect or reinstall any mail sorting machines they had already disconnected.

DeJoy also committed to delivering ballots within one to three days, but officials including Sen. Elizabeth Warren are calling on him to be removed as postmaster general.

Earlier this week Shapiro announced multi-state federal lawsuits would be filed to stop nationwide operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service.

On Friday, Democratic attorneys general in six states and the District of Columbia sued the Postal Service over changes made that they say undermine mail-in voting ahead of the November election, the Associated Press reported.

Louis DeJoy flat-out lied to the Senate today about the changes hes implemented at the @USPS, refused to cooperate with requests for documents, and rejected the idea of fixing his damage. Enough is enough: the Board of Governors must remove DeJoy & reverse his acts of sabotage.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) August 21, 2020

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.
Another woman talked about waking from a nap as a 7-year-old in the mid-70s to find a masked DeAngelo standing near her mother, who had been gagged, bound and raped on a bed in their Sacramento-area home. The woman, who compared DeAngelo to fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, said he had told her mother at one point he might cut off her daughters ear and bring it to her if she woke the girl.
Fadi Sawans past points to his proximity to security forces and deference to political intervention.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat is married to Public Works Minister Ghazi Zaieter's sister. In fact, Oueidat's sister is married to Zaieter, as is now reflected below.

Beirut, Lebanon  Fadi Sawan was not the first choice to lead investigations into Lebanons single-most destructive explosion. Nor was he the second.

The 60-year-old military investigative judge was, in fact, the third name Caretaker Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najem proposed to a council of top judges to be approved for the powerful role of judicial investigator.

They finally accepted, thus empowering Sawan to shape the probe into the enormous explosion at Beiruts port that killed at least 180 people, left about 30 missing and injured more than 6,000 on August 4. The case he puts together will eventually be transferred to the Judicial Council, the highest court in the country, to which Prime Minister Hassan Diabs cabinet referred the blast investigation just hours before resigning last week.

The councils decisions are not subject to appeal  and neither is the investigation that Sawan will put together. This makes his work all the more crucial.

But the process that led to Sawans selection and his management of a number of high-profile cases raise questions about whether he is the right man for the job.





The case he is investigating has implicated dozens of security, administrative and political officials who were aware of the presence of some 2,750 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate at Beiruts port, which has been there for more than six years, but did nothing to remove it.

Many of these officials are either directly or indirectly affiliated with major political parties that hold the reigns of power in Lebanon.

Sawan will have to show great independence and perseverance, especially given chronic political interference in Lebanons judiciary  a practice so pervasive state media made it a point to note Sawan is known to visit neither politicians, nor even his fellow judges  he does not participate in social or political events and is known to not receive instructions.

Third times a charm

The process that led to Sawans selection is not encouraging.

Najem had first proposed Samer Younes, a judge who is not only independent, but proved he is one of the very few judges ready to get into a battle for justice, said Nizar Saghieh, a leading Lebanese legal expert and founder of NGO the Legal Agenda.

But the Higher Judicial Council (HJC)  a 10 judge panel appointed by the countrys ruling class  rejected Younes, without offering any explanation. Local media was awash with rumours that it was due to his political leanings. Younes responded in a statement listing prominent cases he had taken on for more than 10 years, some involving powerful politicians, in which, he says, I stood, alone.

He mentions the 2010 White House Restaurant case, where bodyguards of Anton Sehnaoui, the CEO of SGBL Bank and the brother of a soon-to-be-minister, exchanged fire with a businessmans bodyguards.

Then-Investigative Judge Ghassan Oueidat declined to interrogate Sehnaoui, but Younes appealed his decision and insisted on Sehnaouis interrogation, embarking on a long judicial confrontation.

Ten years later, Oueidat is Lebanons top prosecutor and the deputy head of the HJC  the council that rejected Youness candidacy to lead investigations into the blast.

Najem then proposed Tarek Bitar, a judge who Saghieh says was similarly qualified, but was made to bow out early. Bitar released a short statement saying he had declined to take on the role, without providing reasons. Again, local media reports speculated political pressure was behind his refusal to take on the prominent position.

Finally, Najem proposed Sawan. The HJC accepted.

The HJC issued a statement saying speculation over the process behind Sawans appointment does not correspond to reality, but offered no alternative explanation, saying its deliberations were secret.

Keeping public opinion and the media abreast of the course of the Beirut Port explosion issue is natural, but the council calls on everyone not to question the investigations that have taken place and are taking place, and to give the judiciary full confidence, the statement said.

Najem did not respond to several requests for comment on the process that led to Sawans selection. Sawan could not be reached for comment.

Theres no appeal in this case, so political authorities didnt want to have their hands tied with someone independent who could implement a courageous decision, Saghieh said. That could explain this process with no transparency that eliminated two brave judges, and instead selected a man known to accept work within the lines.

Those lines are especially important here: Oueidat, Lebanons top prosecutor, led investigations into the blast until the case was transferred to Sawan, and will continue to play a central role.

But there are concerns over the involvement of Oueidat himself in the case: He was informed of the presence of the highly explosive material months before disaster struck, and he allegedly ordered maintenance to the port hangar where the explosive material was stored. That maintenance, which included welding, is suspected of having lit the fire that eventually caused the blast.

Oueidats sister is also married to Public Works Minister Ghazi Zaeiter, who was in office from February 2014 till December 2016 and was nominally in charge of overseeing the port.

Sawan, so far, has shown no initiative to work beyond the case transferred to him by Oueidat  which includes 19 detainees and charges against 25 people, none of whom is a minister or political official.

Instead, Sawan has slowly worked his way through the names already handed over to him, interrogating them one by one and issuing orders to keep them detained.

Political stances

The vast majority of Sawans work in his capacity as military investigative judge has been related to terrorism charges levelled against Syrians and Lebanese.

State media said he had issued hundreds of indictments against alleged members of the ISIL (ISIS) group, the al-Nusra Front and other armed groups throughout his career. Official reports show that many of these charges were issued as summary judgements against a dozen, or sometimes more than two-dozen people at a time.

A lawyer with detailed, direct knowledge of Sawans decisions at the court over many years said the judge dealt with people in a brash, almost vicious manner if they are weak, poor or opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The lawyer declined to be named because they continue to practice in a field that Sawan has influence over.

Sawan has a clear political stance in his decisions. He would always write the terrorist Free Syrian Army (FSA) in his decisions and prosecute people opposed to the regime even if they were not shown to be directly involved in fighting the lawyer said. The FSA is a loose faction of Syrian armed groups that formed in 2011 to oppose al-Assads violent response to popular protests.

Meanwhile, the judge in the office next door wouldnt even file charges against people for belonging to the FSA, unless they committed serious crimes. Thats how big of a political difference there was, the lawyer said. It was collective punishment for opposing the regime.

That aligns Sawan with the pro-Assad political forces in Lebanon, namely Hezbollah and its allies the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and the Amal Movement who hold a majority in Parliament and named Diabs now-caretaker government.





The FPM was founded by President Michel Aoun, while House Speaker Nabih Berri is the head of Amal. Officials affiliated with both parties had knowledge of the presence of the highly explosive material at Beiruts port, including Customs Chief Badri Daher, who was appointed by the FPM, is a staunch supporter of Aoun and visits him on a regular basis.

Pro-FPM pundits celebrated Sawans appointment. Rest assured, his sword is the truth, pro-FPM writer Charbel Khalil tweeted.

Releasing the colonel

Aside from the terrorism cases that were a regular affair in Lebanon, especially following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Sawan took on a number of more high-profile cases in the past year.

Two of them stand out for the involvement of senior security forces and high-level politics.

The first case is the killing of Lebanese protester Alaa Abou Fakher in November 2019 by 1st Adjutant Charbel Ajeil, who was driving his commanding officer, Colonel Nidal Daou.

Protesters had been blocking roads across the country at the time in an effort to force out Lebanons corrupt, entrenched political class. One of those men was Abou Fakher, who was standing in a road south of Beirut when a car transporting Ajeij and Daou tried to push through the roadblock.

Protesters tried to prevent the car from getting through, and Ajeij shot Abou Fakher at point-blank range, killing him in front of his wife and young son in harrowing scenes that were caught on camera.

It was a massive event. Protesters gathered across the country, bathing streets and squares in the amber glow of candlelight vigils, proclaiming him the first martyr of their revolution.

Daou was ordered to be arrested by the military court on charges of involvement in the murder. Luay Ghandour, a lawyer representing Abou Fakhers family, said several witnesses had heard Daou say either shoot or shoot him, just before Ajeij fired the shots.

But Sawan ordered him released, pending investigation, just two weeks after the crime.

Abou Fakhers family were infuriated and threatened protests. An appeal was filed and in late January, the military court annulled Sawans decision to release Daou, based on testimony by witnesses. Daou was arrested once again.

Then, on April 6, Sawan once again ordered Daou released, this time based on a request by Daous lawyers. He took the decision during a nationwide lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic, which Abou Fakhers family said had been used to smuggle suspicious decisions, at a time when street-level pressure was no more possible. They also alleged intervention by politicians or security forces.

Sawan is a competent judge but hes very close to security forces. He let this colonel out even though he participated in a murder, Ghandour said. I dont know how objective he will be when it comes to the involvement of security forces in the case of the port explosion.

State media also noted Sawans unusually-intense support for security forces, saying he is one of the few judges who issued indictments against anyone who fought against the Lebanese army.

The Lebanese army and State Security knew about the presence of the highly explosive cache at Beiruts port long before it exploded, and members of both forces have been arrested in the continuing investigations.

Sawans role at the military court is quite literally to protect the military institution and soldiers, said Diala Chehadeh, a Lebanese human rights lawyer who regularly defends cases at the military court. There are questions of whether he can be objective here.





Eshmuns grave

In a separate case in the summer of 2019, Sawan was the military investigative judge presiding over investigations into a clash between supporters of rival Druze minority parties: the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) of Walid Joumblatt and the Lebanese Democratic Party (LDP) of Talal Arslan.

A minister affiliated with Arslan was driving through the mountain town of Qabrshmoun  which translates to The Grave of Eshmun, the Phoenician god of healing  when supporters of the PSP opened fire on his convoy.

Two of the ministers bodyguards were killed and a number of others injured.

Arslan and his allies Hezbollah and the FPM turned the case into a national issue to exert pressure on their political rivals, including the PSP. They paralysed cabinet for more than a month amid Arslans demand that the case be transferred to the Judicial Council, which would give it added weight.

A lead military judge transferred the case to Sawan, and ordered him to interrogate those accused of opening fire. But Sawan received a call from then-Justice Minister Salim Jreissati, asking him to transfer the case to a judge close to the FPM, Marcel Bassil, according to three lawyers familiar with the matter, including Saghieh.

In doing so, he helped the FPM secure control over a case that they had a direct interest in politicising.

Jreissati did not respond to a request for comment.





Its clear that he implemented the political order he got, even though it is his job to make decisions regarding the case and the justice minister has no role there, Saghieh said.

He lost his independence, Saghieh said, noting the political pressures associated with the Beirut blast investigation would likely be much greater.

No time for placing bets

The Beirut explosion case that Sawan is now leading is unprecedented in the history of Lebanon. It directly concerns tens of thousands of people who were either injured, had their homes destroyed, lost people close to them and will be picking up the pieces of their lives for years to come.

Its scale has also made the explosion a national and international issue.

So far, the Lebanese public has expressed little confidence in the investigation, owing to a long history of impunity for crimes that have left Lebanon crisis-ridden, bankrupt and forlorn  a country bathed in corruption, but with no one corrupt, as the sarcastic local saying goes.

Local and international rights groups and the families of some victims have called for an international investigation, or at least an investigation empowered by international experts, saying it is the only way to achieve accountability given the sad state of Lebanons judiciary.

Najem, the justice minister, previously told Al Jazeera the blast case was a chance for Lebanons judiciary to show they can do their jobs and win back the confidence of the people.

But few survivors have shown a willingness to place bets on those odds  especially when it concerns the lives of their friends and family, their capital city and their country.

From appointing high-level judges to making late-night phone calls in individual cases, the political class has undermined the independence of the judiciary at every possible opportunity  especially in cases involving official corruption or shortcomings, said Nadim Houri, the director of the Arab Reform Initiative and a lawyer specialised in human rights.

The net result has been a culture of total impunity for politicians and security officers.

Follow Timour Azhari on Twitter: @TimourAzhari
It might sound counter-intuitive, but the airbrushed, artificial and aspirational world of Instagram could be perfectly suited to the age of the coronavirus pandemic. Call it the triumph of #nofilter over narcissism.

Social media, in a way, is probably going to benefit from a pandemic, because people are not necessarily socialising, theyre not gathering  and they are socially isolating themselves, says Andrew Hornery, PS columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald. Perhaps our online digital community becomes an even greater platform for people to come together.

Our social networks are a fragmented and segmented space, adds Good Weekend senior writer Amanda Hooton, yet they also possess the advantage of being notably democratising. Once upon a time, if you didnt have the right surname, and you didnt have the right bank balance", establishment gatekeepers kept the doors to many places firmly shut. And now? You probably just have to have the right number of followers.
On this summer night, Biden said, his voice growing rough, let me take a moment to speak to those of you who have lost the most. I have some idea how it feels to lose someone you love. I know that deep black hole that opens in the middle of your chest, and you feel like you are being sucked into it. I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes. But I have learned two things. First, your loved one may have left this earth, but they will never leave your heart. . . . And second, I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose. As Gods children, each of us has a purpose in our lives.
Podimetrics, a Somerville, Mass.-based virtual care management company with a solution to help prevent diabetic amputations, closed its $8.6m Series B-2 funding round.

Backers included existing investors Polaris Partners, Rock Health, Norwich Ventures, and Scientific Health Development. The round brought the total Series B funding to $24.6m.

The company also announced that Dr. Foluso Fakorede, Doug Ghertner and David Joyner joined the advisory board.

Dr. Fakorede is an endovascular specialist and the CEO of Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi, which provides comprehensive cardiovascular care, and Fusion Vascular, an outpatient lab focused on preventive vascular medicine and limb salvage.

Mr. Ghertner is CEO of IVX Health, which provides biologic injections and infusions in a private, convenient, and comfortable setting for patients with a range of complex chronic conditions. He has over 20 years of experience in the health care industry, including senior roles at CVS Health, Change Healthcare, and Emdeon. Most recently, he was CEO of Change Healthcare, a technology company that provides data and analytics-driven solutions to improve clinical, financial and patient engagement outcomes, prior to its sale to Emdeon.

Mr. Joyner is the former Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing and member of the Executive Leadership Team for CVS Health. In this position, Mr. Joyner oversaw all sales and marketing functions, representing over $140 billion in annual PBM revenues. He has more than 34 years of healthcare experience with extensive knowledge of all payor markets including employer, health plan and government. He also has a proven record leading businesses and high performance teams through both rapid organic and M&A growth.

In addition to Dr. Fakorede, Mr. Ghertner, and Mr. Joyner, Podimetrics board of scientific and health care industry advisors includes:

Dr. David Armstrong, Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Southern California, and Professor of Surgery and Director, Southwestern Academic Limb Salvage Alliance;

Dr. Kenneth Kizer, former VA Undersecretary for Health, founding President and CEO of the National Quality Forum, former Chief Medical Officer for the California Department of Managed Health Care, and current Co-Chair of the National Quality Task Force;

Dr. Larry Lavery, Professor of Plastic Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Medical Director of UT Southwesterns Comprehensive Wound Care Center, and Director of the Amputation Prevention Program at Parkland Memorial Hospital; and

Dr. Paul Manberg, former executive of regulatory and clinical development programs at CSA Medical Inc. Covidien, Aspect Medical Systems, and EMD Serono.

Founded in 2011 by a physician, engineers, and graduates from MIT and Harvard, and led by Dr. Jon Bloom, CEO, Podimetrics provides a solution to help prevent diabetic amputations by combining technology with care management. The company provides its FDA-cleared SmartMat through partnerships with payers and at-risk providers, including the Veterans Health Administration. After placing their feet on the mat for just 20 seconds a day, patients data are automatically sent to the companys care management team, which helps address any concerning findings. Its services are used by patients across the country, including in more than 40 VA medical facilities. The SmartMat is FDA-cleared, has the American Podiatric Medical Association Seal of Approval, and is manufactured in Massachusetts.

FinSMEs

21/08/2020


Samphire Uranium Project - Transaction Status Update

Brisbane, Aug 21, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Alligator Energy ( ASX:AGE ) refers to the market announcement of 11 June 2020 titled 'Alligator to acquire 47 M lbs uranium resource in South Australia from Samphire Uranium' and subsequent status updates. The Company and Samphire Uranium Ltd (Samphire) also announced on 3 August 2020 that they have signed a Share Purchase Agreement to progress the purchase by Alligator of the Samphire subsidiary, S Uranium Pty Ltd, which holds the Samphire Uranium Project, through the issue of 679,561,608 AGE ordinary fully paid shares. These shares will be immediately in-specie distributed to Samphire shareholders.Alligator is pleased to confirm that Samphire has finalised their Notice of Meeting and Prospectus documents for their upcoming shareholders meeting, as part of the finalisation of the above transaction, and these documents are now available on their website -Preparation of Alligator Energy's Notice of Meeting for its shareholders EGM to approve the transaction and issue of shares is in final approval stage and despatch will be announced early next week. The respective shareholder meetings are planned for Thursday 1 October 2020.Alligator's technical, financial and legal due diligence has been successfully concluded, and will be reviewed and ratified at an upcoming Board meeting.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).
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

First a Utah activist faced life in prison after she allegedly bought red paint used at a protest. Now a Utah state senator is under investigation for giving her 10 bucks.

A controversial charging enhancement, handed down by a Salt Lake City district attorney this month, could mean life sentences for protesters accused of criminal mischief and rioting at a July protest over a fatal police shooting. District Attorney Sim Gill contends that, because the protesters allegedly acted in a group of two or more people, their mischief charges are subject to a gang enhancement. One of those protesters, Madalena McNeil, is accused of buying red paint that was splashed on the outside of Gills office building.

Now police have subpoenaed McNeils Venmo account and filed an affidavit targeting state Senator Derek Kitchenwho did not attend the protest in questionover a $10 Venmo payment with the caption paint the previous month. Its the latest bizarre turn in a series of crackdowns against protesters following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May, with experts suggesting this particular saga was veering toward a caricature of law-enforcement overkill.

On June 27, activists poured red paint on a Salt Lake City street in protest of the fatal police shooting of 22-year-old Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal. After that action, McNeil tweeted that she was soliciting donations to help compensate organizers for paint. Kitchen is accused of sending her a Venmo payment the following day.

Im Not Scared: She Faces Life in Prison After Allegedly Buying Red Protest Paint

The charges against McNeil and her co-defendants stem from a subsequent protest, on July 9, that took place when District Attorney Gill declined to charge the officers involved in the shooting of Palacios-Carbajal. Protesters allegedly splashed paint on Gills office building and broke windows, although McNeil is not charged with those acts.

Kitchen, the states Senate minority caucus manager, was one of the plaintiffs in a court case that led to the national legalization of gay marriage in 2015. He was elected to the state Senate in 2018. In a statement on his Instagram, Kitchen said he did not participate in either the June 27 or the July 9 protest.

Story continues

It is a matter of record that I support criminal justice reform. I love Salt Lake City and Utah, and I believe in progressive activism, Kitchen wrote. In this instance I responded to a solicitation on social media for financial support for what I understood would be a peaceful rally for justice.

I gave a small contribution to support the cause of justice, but I wasnt involved in the planning or organization of the event. I did not attend the protest and have only seen press reports of what happened. I will always advocate for the constitutional right to peaceful protest but I dont condone violence or vandalism.

Kitchen was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.

Unsanctioned street paintings have been a bipartisan hallmark of recent protests, including in Salt Lake City. As cities have increasingly permitted artists to paint Black Lives Matter on streets in recent weeks, opponents in New York City and D.C. have splashed paint on those paintings as a sort of All Lives Matter response. Police supporters in Tampa, Florida, also broke the law when they painted an unlicensed back the blue mural in city streets, as did people who poured paint on the unsanctioned mural. (Police arrested three of the people who allegedly damaged the unlicensed Tampa mural, but not the mural painters.)

Salt Lake City Policenot Gillhave implicated Kitchen in the $10 donation. A Gill spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the office had not been presented with evidence against Kitchen and that, even if it were, Gills friendship with the state senator would pose a conflict of interest that would likely force the case onto a different prosecutor. Salt Lake City Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, Gill is facing controversy for his charging decisions against activists like McNeil for their alleged role in the July 9 protest.

Shima Baradaran Baughman, associate dean of Faculty Research and Development at Salt Lake Citys Utah University, said shed never seen the gang enhancement used against protesters. Although criminal mischief charges are common for vandalism, she described Gills gang approach as, at the least, a waste of resourcesone consistent with overzealous prosecutions across the country.

"More broadly, it is important to remember that prosecutors have almost unlimited discretion in charging defendants, Baradaran Baughman told The Daily Beast. There are few constitutional checks on prosecutors. Sadly, prosecutor elections are often a sham with most going unopposed and most being reelected.

McNeil told The Daily Beast the $10 payment was revealed after police went to Venmo, an app-based transaction company, with a search warrant that revealed payments to and from her account. Several other unnamed people were found to have given her small donations, too, the Deseret News reported.

McNeil alleged that the search of her Venmo was due to investigators attempting to justify the use of the controversial gang enhancement. For his part, Gill previously told The Daily Beast the measure can be used broadly against people accused of a crime involving two or more defendants.

I think the district attorney and law enforcement is very committed to justifying use of the gang enhancement because they have received so much pushback on it, McNeil told The Daily Beast. I think they are related, and its part of a bigger message to people to not associate with people who might even be accused of protesting.

Gill is a Democrat, but has found himself in the political wilderness over the strange case. Other local Democrats, as well as a Republican state senator, have come out against the gang enhancements levied at protesters. That Republican, state Sen. Daniel Thatcher, has said he didnt believe in scrapping the enhancements altogether (a move McNeil and others on the left favor), but at least curbing them so they couldnt be used in what Thatcher described as a retaliatory manner.

There is a benefit to the public when we look at the risk and the threat posed by an offender, he told the Salt Lake Tribune. Some offenses are simply more dangerous and deserve a longer sentence. But the statute is intended to stop organized crime and criminal enterprises, not to punish people who have offended you.

Although Gill issued the charging enhancement, the handling of the case has since been passed to a special prosecutor, due to Gills potential conflict of interest over the protesters alleged role in damaging his office building. That prosecutor, an ex-judge named Dane Nolan, could not be reached for comment.

Some of the more reliably anti-protester forces in the state, however, have championed the use of gang enhancements against the protesters and called for their expansion against apparent sympathizers like Kitchenincluding at least one police union.

Utahs Fraternal Order of Police issued a press release on Wednesday calling for Kitchen to be named a co-conspirator in the case and charged with a first-degree felony for the $10 of his tax payer salary.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday (August 21, 2020) dismissed the bail application of Malkit Singh alias Shera, one of the accused in the blast which took place in Punjab`s Tarn Taran district in September last year.

A bench headed by Justice NV Ramana dismissed the plea saying it cannot grant bail to the accused.

The accused Malkit Singh had earlier applied for bail on health grounds in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mohali, both of which were dismissed by the respective courts.

Before the NIA court, he had sought bail contending that he was falsely implicated and that he was a patient of diabetes.

The prosecution had submitted before the NIA court that during the course of investigation incriminating role of the accused had emerged and that he was highly radicalised towards Khalistan movement and he was part of a gang that had planned terrorist activities.

The NIA court observed that evidence pointed to the accused was an active member of the pro-Khalistan terrorist gang, adding that it was of the opinion that there was sufficient ground for believing that accusation against the applicant/accused is prima facie true.

The NIA had in March this year filed a chargesheet against nine accused in connection with Tarn Taran blast case before a special NIA court.

Two persons were killed and one other was injured in the blast, which took place in Tarn Taran on September 4 last year, when the victims were reportedly digging a pit to retrieve a concealed explosive consignment.
Secretary of State Corey Stapleton said on Thursday  the deadline for him to certify the Montana general election ballot  that he would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a Montana Supreme Court decision issued a day earlier affirming the Green Party should be removed from that ballot.

The Montana Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision that Stapleton erred when he refused to accept signature withdrawal forms after he certified the Green Party to appear on the ballot, and by not accepting withdrawals submitted electronically. The lower court decision came from Helena District Court Judge James Reynolds.

Earlier this year, hundreds of people requested their signatures be removed from the petitions that qualified the Green Party. The requests, with help from the Montana Democratic Party, came after it became public that the qualification effort was financed by the Montana Republican Party.

Anthony Johnstone, a professor of law at the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana, said Thursday if the certification deadline is missed, it could mean military and overseas voters would not get ballots on time. The deadline for those ballots to go out is Sept. 18.

"(It) takes time to print ballots and code vote counting machines, and any delays now will be compounded by the other jurisdictions who already are lined up for ballots in a presidential election year," Johnstone wrote in an email. "The logistics of military and overseas voting requires additional advance work."

Johnstone also said the U.S. Supreme Court only hears cases that raise questions about federal law, and "lacks the power to decide questions of state law, such as the administrative procedures the Secretary did or did not follow in the withdrawal of signatures."

In a separate matter, the state Commissioner of Political Practices has said the Montana GOP broke campaign finance laws by not registering as a minor party qualification committee when it paid for the effort. The state GOP disputes the commissioner's findings.

The Montana Democratic Party and a handful of people who wanted their signatures removed from the petitions filed the lawsuit earlier this year against Stapleton, a Republican. After Reynolds' order, there were not enough remaining signatures to keep the Green Party on the ballot.

"Its become crystal clear that in order for me to enforce important election deadlines and for Montanas Constitution to be respected, were going to need a senior court to intervene and break the stranglehold the Montana Democratic Party has on Montanas legal system," Stapleton wrote in a three-paragraph press release Thursday morning.

"Retiring Judge Reynolds tortured logic of insisting that I retroactively decertify election milestones in order to eliminate political competition for the Democrats is an assault on the intelligence of all Americans."

Stapleton's office did not respond to repeated emails Thursday asking whether the secretary would certify the ballot by that day's deadline.

Reynolds is retiring in October. This year is the second time he has removed the Green Party from the ballot in the last two years, both times on challenges from the Montana Democratic Party. It's still unknown who paid for the 2018 signature-gathering effort that qualified the Greens.

The Montana Democratic Party released a statement Thursday criticizing Stapleton's announcement.

"Yesterday the Montana Supreme Court affirmed that the Secretary of State's office violated Montana law as it rushed to certify the Montana GOP's massive fraudulent effort to mislead Montana voters and tamper with our elections. If Secretary Stapleton wants to expose his embarrassingly partisan, illegal behavior to judgment from the highest court in the land, he has every right to do so," said executive director Sandi Luckey in the statement. "Montana Democrats will continue to defend the integrity of our elections."

The Green Party has said it was not involved in the petition effort. A handful of people were running under the Green Party name, including in the hotly contested U.S. Senate race.

Green Party candidates can be seen as drawing votes from Democrats, which the Montana Democratic Party pointed out in court makes it harder to get Democrats elected in a state where that can already be a heavy lift. Libertarians, who were already on the ballot, can draw votes from Republicans. In 2012, a liberal group spent $500,000 on ads for a Libertarian candidate in a move some argue helped elect a Democrat to the U.S. Senate by picking off enough votes from the GOP candidate.

It's unclear whether Stapleton has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's high court only accepts 100-150 of the more than 7,000 cases it is asked to review each year, according to the court's website. Four of the nine justices must decide to accept a case.

Missoula County Elections Administrator Bradley Seaman said Thursday he is waiting for guidance from the Secretary of State.

Seaman said that last-minute challenges to ballots are nothing new and that elections administrators have had to be extremely flexible this year. He also added it's too early to know if there will be concerns about meeting deadlines to get ballots to voters.

The District Court case Reynolds decided generally dealt with whether Stapleton followed his administrative duties laid out in state law. The state Supreme Court's full order is not available to see what they considered in their ruling.

Also Thursday, Stapleton asked the state Supreme Court to stay its own order, acknowledging the Thursday deadline and saying if ballots went out without the Green Party included, and if the U.S. Supreme Court later said the party should be on the ballot, there wouldn't be a way to remedy ballots. In the filing, the secretary said ballots including the Green Party could be remedied by "marking out or covering up listed Green Party candidates" if necessary. The state Supreme Court quickly denied that request.

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The Minister for Education Norma Foley said today that it's her hope that schools in Co Kildare will re-open as normal in coming days even if the Government decides to extend the local lockdown.

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, the minister said phenomenal work has being going on in schools across the country to ensure classes safely return.

When asked about schools in counties Kildare, Laois and Offaly, which currently remain under lockdown, the minister said:

"We will await the NPHET advice to come before Cabinet, but it is my hope that schools will operate as normal in these instances.

"People will continue to go to work and it is my hope and expectation that it will be the advice this afternoon that students will also attend school."

The minister said that her department is in discussions with Bus Eireann to roll out up to 1,600 extra buses as quickly as possible after it was decided this week to cut capacity on second level school transport by 50% to facilitate social distancing.

She said it was a logistical challenge but revealed that that parents will be "recompensed" for any transport arrangements they put in place if a bus service is not ready.

She gave no further details on this arrangement.

In July, the Government announced a 375 million school reopening plan which allocated funding for 1,000 additional secondary school teachers.

A 75m fund was earmarked to modify buildings and classrooms to ensure one-metre physical distancing.



Meanwhile the Department of Education told RTE that a school does have the right to refuse admission to any child who has been abroad to a country not on the Green List and is not observing the 14-day restriction rule.

The Department said schools have a duty of care to all of its pupils and staff members.

"If a school has reasonable grounds for believing that its duty of care toward its staff and pupils is being undermined in circumstance where a person - staff member or pupil - has not observed the mandatory requirement to self-isolate for 14 days following return from a non-green list country, it is reasonable for the school to refuse access to the pupil or staff member this period," a statement said.
Google on Friday sent an email to users reminding them that between October and the end of this year, access to Google Play Music would be removed permanently and the users have been asked to switch to YouTube Music.

Users will have an option to download any music that they have purchased or uploaded to Google Play Music, as well as a list of the tracks, playlists and radio stations in the library.

The company will notify the users before they lose access to their Google Play Music library and data. One can also delete their Google Play Music data.

"October and the end of this year, access to Google Play Music will be removed permanently. We know that you've spent time building your Google Play Music library, so we've made it easy to transfer your music library to YouTube Music with just one click, including playlists, uploads and recommendations,'' the email read.

YouTube Music offers over 50 million official tracks, albums and high quality audio, as well as deep cuts, B-sides, live performances, and remixes.

Users will be able to listen to their uploaded and purchased music from Google Play Music after the transfer, or add up to 100,000 personal tracks to their library in YouTube Music, an increase of more than 50,000 compared to Google Play Music.

Paying members can download any song, playlist, music video or let smart downloads (Android only for now) do it for you so you always have something to listen to, even when you don't have service.

The pricing will remain the same for YouTube Music.

Fans can stream the ad-supported version of YouTube Music for free, or enjoy YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership that gives listeners background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience for Rs 99 a month.
Representative Image

After rising for the past few weeks, the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $2.939 billion to $535.252 billion for the week ended August 14, RBI data showed on August 21. In the previous week ended August 7, the reserves had increased by $3.623 billion to reach a record high of $538.191 billion.

The foreign exchange kitty had crossed the half-a-trillion mark for the first time in the week ended June 5, 2020, after it had swelled by $8.223 billion to stand at $501.703 billion.

In the week ended August 14, the reserves declined due to a fall in foreign currency assets (FCA), a major component of the overall reserves.

FCA dropped by $743 million to $491.550 billion in the reporting week, the central bank data showed.

Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the foreign exchange reserves.

The gold reserves slumped $2.19 billion in the reporting week to $37.595 billion, as per the RBI data.

The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declined by $2 million to $1.479 billion.

The country's reserve position with the IMF also dipped by $4 million to $4.628 billion during the reporting week.
Allstate Corporation has reported that despite the impact of several catastrophe events during the month of July, losses were more than offset by the income it generated thanks to PG&E subrogation recoveries during the same period.

Julys catastrophic events led to losses of $145 million, pre-tax ($115 million, after-tax). Catastrophic events during the period included Hurricane Hanna and two severe wind and hail weather events that accounted for roughly 65% of the companys estimated losses for the month. There was also $29 million worth of catastrophe losses, pre-tax ($23 million, after-tax), from favorable prior period catastrophe reserve re-estimates.
New Delhi:

Following the Income Tax raid and undisclosed income of Rs 5 crore, Chief secretary of the Tamil Nadu Rama Mohana Rao has been sacked from the post on Thursday.

Senior IAS officer Girija Vaidyanathan has been appointed as the next Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu.

Officials from the Income Tax department questioned Tamil Nadu chief secretary Rama Mohana Rao, his son Vivek and his two personal secretaries on Wednesday after searching his residence and office.

The questioning came after Rao reportedly admitted undisclosed income of Rs 5 crore from unknown sources.

Tax officials said Rs 30 lakh in new Rs 2,000 notes, five kilograms of gold and documents with details of undisclosed assets worth about Rs 5 crore were recovered during the raids carried out at 11 places.

Also Read: I-T officials seize Rs 30 lakh cash in new notes, 5 kg of gold from Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary's place

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Police and locals gather outside Srisailam Left Bank Power Station (SLBP) after a fire broke out on Thursday night, at Srisailam in Kurnool district.  PTI photo

Hyderabad: Nine people including seven employees of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TS Genco) were killed and eight others injured in a major fire mishap at the Srisailam Left Bank Hydel Power Station (SLBHP) late on Thursday night.

The deceased are said to have tried their best to protect the power plant which is one of the prestigious power plants of the country till their lost breath.

According to the TS Genco there were 17 employees inside when the fire broke out in the plant and 8 of them managed to come out of the station with injuries, nine others remained trapped inside as they

were trying their best to put out the fire and save the power plant from being burnt completely.

Out of 8 injured there were sustained serious injuries and all the injured were admitted in the Genco Hospital at Srisailam.

According to Genco authorities fire erupted in the first unit of the hydel power generation unit in Domalapenta, of Amrabad Mandal in Nagarkurnool district in the late night of Thursday due to which smoke engulfed entire six power units in the underground power generation station.

While there were 19 workers inside the generation unit at the time of the fire accident, eight have escaped safely by running outside from the tunnel, remaining nine were trapped inside. Immediately power generation was stopped and firefighting units.

Though firefighting units and rescue teams worked hard, but they could not succeed in saving the lives of all 9 trapped inside of the plant. The deceased employees of TS Genco were identified as deputy engineer Srinivas Goud (Hyderabad), assistant engineers Venkat Rao (Palvoncha), Mohan Kumar (Hyderabad) Dharavath Sunder Naik (Suryapet) and Ms. Uzma Fathima (Hyderabad), plant attendant Rambabu (Khammam), junior attendant Kiran (Palvoncha) and Vinesh Kumar and Mahesh Kumar, employees of Amaron Batteries, Hyderabad.

The Power House was constructed inside a two-km long tunnel under the Nallamala hill range adjacent to Srisailam reservoir on the Telangana side of the reservoir on Krishna river.

A 39-member Fire Rescue and Disaster Management team led by Commandant

Siddharth Raha of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) recovered the bodies with the help of the fire brigade of the power plant on Friday evening. According to the rescue team bodies of the deceased were found at the emergency escape tunnels in the plant.

Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy and TS Transco Chairman and Managing Director D Prabhakar Rao expressing grief at the mishap said that all of them tried to come out of the escape tunnel, but they did not succeed due to the thick plumes of smoke that engulfed the entire tunnel.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao expressed deep shock over at the mishap. Describing the accident as the most tragic, the CM has conveyed his condolences to members of the bereaved family. He wished speedy recovery of injured.

KCR ordered a CID Inquiry into the mishap and CID Additional DGP Govind Singh appointed as the Inquiry Officer. The chief minister also ordered the CMD of TS GENCO and Transco to constitute a high-level committee with experts to probe into the reasons for Mishap.

The Chief Minister announced Rs 50 lakhs ex-gratia to the family of the DE and Rs 25 lakhs each to the family of the deceased including the two employees of the private company.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to those who have lost their lives in the Srisailam fire mishap and wished that those injured should recover at the earliest. In a tweet, he said Fire at Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest.

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy, TPCC Chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy and State BJP President Bandi Sanjay Kumar expressed grief over the fire accident in the power plant.
Amid the pandemic, our priorities have changed and most of us focus on putting together a functional outfit before stepping out. Now that the lockdown is over, we've started stepping out once in a while for our chores or even work for that matter. For the film industry, as work has started in a phased-out manner, celebrities have slowly started stepping out as well.



One of the celebrities whose style we admired pre-lockdown was Rajkummar Rao. As a fashion-forward actor, Rajkummar is a low-key sneakerhead too. He's always been spotted in the quirkiest sneaker collectibles. From bubble sneakers to translucent boots , his sneaker closet is full of such hidden gems.



Recently, when Rajkummar had stepped out with Patralekha for their dog's check-up at a pet clinic, he was spotted wearing another swell silhouette. Take a look at his outfit here:



 Viral Bhayani

The silhouette is the Louis Vuitton Run Away Black Monogram. The sneaker is priced at 850 dollars which comes down to Rs. 64,000 approximately.

 Louis Vuitton

The silhouette is designed with an oversized LV circle signature that adorns the side of the Run Away trainer in black suede calf leather. It also has the brand's monogram on the canvas trim.



 Viral Bhayani

Aside from the LV silhouette, he was also seen wearing a basic sweatshirt with a graphic print on it and a pair of adidas track pants. Aside from that, he was also seen wearing a pair of dark-toned sunglasses and a snapback to complete the look.

 Viral Bhayani

We believe that with a fanny pack, this look would've been truly complete, regardless it was definitely a functional outfit worth taking notes from.



 Viral Bhayani

Rajkummar Rao will next be seen in the film, Ludo along with Fatima Sana Shaikh which is going to be followed by Badhaai Do, Chhalaang, and Roohi Afzana.
France Launches COVID-19 Tax Settlement Scheme For SMEs

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

21 August 2020

France's General Directorate of Public Finance has launched a scheme that allows small companies to request a specific settlement plan for the payment of their taxes.

The scheme, included in Decree No. 2020-987 of August 6, 2020, is aimed at micro-, small- and medium-sized firms and sole traders particularly affected by the economic consequences of COVID-19.

Those claiming the relief must have started their business activity no later than December 31, 2019, and must be up to date with their tax reporting obligations. They must employ fewer than 250 employees on the date the claim is made. Their turnover for the last financial year must not have exceeded EUR50m and they must not have a balance sheet total in excess of EUR43m.

These same conditions apply to those subject to tax under the Article 233A tax consolidation regime.

The applicant must also attest to having requested from their private creditors a deferral of payment or additional financing facilities, excluding loans guaranteed by the state, for the payment of debts owed and payable between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020.

The settlement plan covers VAT and withholding tax due for the months of February to April 2020, which should have been paid from March to May 2020. It also covers balances of corporate tax and contribution on added value (CVAE), which was due to be paid between March and May 2020.

Tax debtors will be allowed up to 36 months to pay the tax debts.
Eight local activists are suing the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey over the rise in crime following the city's decision to defund its police department.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of local residents Cathy Spann, Aimee Lundberg, Jonathan Lundberg, Julie Oden, Audua Pugh, Georgianna Yantos, Sondra Samuels and Don Samuels, a former City Council Member.

The lawsuit stated that 'Minneapolis is in a crisis' and noted the increase in shootings and homicides, as well as Saturday's vandalization of the Fifth Police Precinct as proof.

Eight Minneapolis activists sued the city's mayor and city council Monday. Among the evidence in the suit was the August 15 vandalization of a Minneapolis police station (pictured)

Vandals graffitied Minneapolis' Fifth Police Precinct and also threw red paint on it, Officers are seen standing guard over the building after the vandalization on August 15

The soaring crime rate 'doesnt have to be this way. In fact, it would not be this way if the City Council and the Mayor did their jobs,' Upper Midwest Law Center attorney James V.F. Dickey wrote in the activists' lawsuit, according to the Star Tribune.

The lawsuit claimed that Minneapolis has fewer police officers working than is mandated by the City Charter, which states that the city must maintain a police department and have at least least 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents.

Census data indicates that the Minneapolis police force should have about 730 officers based on that ratio.

Dickey believes that since the last Census, population growth in the city would mean the police force should increase to at least 743 officers.

The Minneapolis Police Department has 856 officers and 147 civilian employees on staff, the newspaper reports, however it's unclear how many of those officers are actively working at the moment and how many are on medical leave.

The lawsuit names Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (pictured), as well as the city council

Among the eight people who brought the lawsuit are Audua Pugh and Cathy Spann, executive director of the Jordan Area Community Council

Jonathan and Aimee Lundberg are also among the eight local activists bringing the lawsuit

Also listed among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are former City Council Member Don Samuels (left) and his wife, Sondra Samuels (right)

More than 100 officers were said to have been on medical leave as of mid-July.

In the wake of George Floyd's death, which occurred in Minneapolis, and the ensuing protests - during which there were incidents of violence - some officers quit the force, while others have gone on medical leave with pending PTSD claims, according to the Star Tribune.

Dickey alleged in the lawsuit that, at the end of May, 'at least 80 officers' had retired or quit the force; more than 100 officers are expected to retire before the end of 2020 and that about 200 officers have currently applied for disability on the basis of 'hostile working conditions created by Frey and the City Council,' City Pages reported.

Among the exhibits presented in the lawsuit is an email from Interim City Attorney Erik Nilsson, who had told the suing activists that he disagreed with their interpretation of the charter's required number of officers per resident.

According to Nilsson's email, although the charter did require that the city fund a minimum number of officers for the police force, it 'does not require that all of those positions be filled at any given time.'

Minneapolis, like other major cities around the US, has seen a significant increase in violent crime this year, many of the incidents occurring over the last few months.

There have been 49 homicides in Minneapolis this year - more than in all of 2019 - and there are still four months left in the year.

In June, Minneapolis' city council voted unanimously to disband the citys police department, following the George Floyd death unrest.

In mid-August, the council's proposed city charter amendment to a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention - in place of the police force - which would take a 'holistic, public health-oriented approach' to city safety - stalled out.

One of the lawsuit's activists, executive director of the Jordan Area Community Council, Cathy Spann, told WCCO that they had 'tried every measure possible in order for the city council to listen to its residents.'

She added that 'We need the police We need a police force that is reformed, that does treat Black and brown people with dignity and respect' and noted that she doesn't think 'defunding and dismantling' the police is the way to go as getting rid of police would create 'chaos.'

'Our citizens are hearing gunshots on an everyday basis,' Spann said. 'Children are being shot. Innocent people are being killed.'

The city attorneys office is reviewing the lawsuit and has not commented on it yet.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press Conference on August 20, 2020

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China

As agreed by China and Pakistan, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will co-chair the second bilateral Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue in Hainan from August 20 to 21.

CCTV: US Department of State said in a statement on August 19 that they on the same day notified the Hong Kong authorities of their suspension or termination of three bilateral agreements. These agreements covered the surrender of fugitive offenders, the transfer of sentenced persons, and reciprocal tax exemptions on income derived from the international operation of ships. Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: The Hong Kong SAR government issued a statement where it strongly rejects and condemns the US government's unilateral decision to suspend or terminate the three bilateral agreements it signed with the Hong Kong SAR. In response to the US erroneous move, China has decided to suspend implementing the Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Hong Kong on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters.

I want to stress again that Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs and no external force has any right to interfere. China urges the US side to immediately rectify its wrong decision, stop having a hand in Hong Kong affairs and China's other internal affairs, and refrain from moving further down the wrong path.

RIA Novosti: US Secretary of State Pompeo said yesterday that the US will sanction Russia and China if the two countries disregard the US demand of re-imposition of United Nations sanctions on Iran. What is China's comment?

Zhao Lijian: As I repeatedly stated, as the US has withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has no right to ask the Security Council to launch the snap-back mechanism that allows the re-imposition of sanctions. This is a common position shared by most members of the Security Council and a wide consensus reached by the international community.

China firmly opposes unilateral sanctions and "long-arm jurisdictions" imposed by the US against other countries. We urge the US to earnestly observe Security Council resolutions, fulfill its international obligations, heed the concerns of the international community and respect other countries' legal rights and interests.

Associated Press of Pakistan: Further to your announcement about the second China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue which will bring Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi to China, could you share more information about it?

Zhao Lijian: I announced earlier that China and Pakistan will hold the second bilateral Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue. This dialogue is a mechanism established to coordinate exchange and cooperation in various sectors, put forward policy suggestions on bilateral relations and enhance communication and coordination in regional and international issues. On March 19 last year, the first dialogue was held in Beijing with positive consensus reached, contributing greatly to bilateral relations.

As the regional and international landscape is going through complex changes, in particular with the profound global impact of COVID-19, China and Pakistan, as all-weather strategic cooperative partners, need to further strengthen communication and cooperation to deal with external challenges, achieve greater development and bring more benefits to the people. This strategic dialogue is highly relevant and significant. The two sides will have in-depth exchange of views on anti-epidemic cooperation, bilateral relations and regional and international issues of common concern. China hopes and believes that the dialogue will further cement strategic mutual trust, promote practical cooperation in various sectors and lead to closer coordination on regional and international affairs.

Al Jazeera: According to reports, Israel and the US are concerned about the cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia on nuclear power, citing potential security issues. Can you tell us more about the cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia?

Zhao Lijian: Those concerns are completely unnecessary. China and Saudi Arabia enjoy a comprehensive strategic partnership. Recent years witnessed steady and sound development of our bilateral relations with fruitful cooperation outcomes in various fields. We also have normal bilateral cooperation in energy.

China has been working to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in the world with a responsible attitude. We will continue our strict fulfillment of international obligations in non-proliferation, and pursue cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy with other countries on the basis of mutual respect and shared benefit, so as to contribute to global sustainable development.

The Paper: On August 19, 2020, at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry, Zhong Nanshan, head of the high-level expert group of the National Health Commission and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, held an online discussion with representatives of the diplomatic corps in China to share China's experience in the prevention and control of COVID-19. Could you share more details?

Zhao Lijian: On August 19, invited by the Foreign Ministry, Zhong Nanshan, head of the high-level expert group of the National Health Commission and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, held an online discussion with representatives of the diplomatic corps in China to share China's experience in COVID-19 prevention and treatment. Representatives of 158 diplomatic missions in China attended the virtual conference, and Director-General of the MFA Protocol Department Hong Lei presided over the event.

By presenting practical cases and accurate data, Dr. Zhong Nanshan gave a detailed briefing on China's experience in fighting COVID-19 and measures to further contain the epidemic, shared the effective practices of early detection, early isolation, early diagnosis and early treatment, as well as the approach of integrating traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine in treatment. On the development of coronavirus vaccine, which is of great interest to the diplomatic missions, he noted that as President Xi Jinping pointed out at the virtual opening ceremony of the 73rd session of the World Health Assembly, COVID-19 vaccine development and deployment in China, when available, will be made a global public good, which will be China's contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. China stands ready to strengthen cooperation with other countries on vaccine research, development and production.

Members of the diplomatic corps expressed their appreciation to the Chinese side for holding the online discussion, saying that the experience of COVID-19 control and treatment shared by Dr. Zhong Nanshan is highly professional, scientific and practical, which gives them much to be learnt from in their own fight against COVID-19.

CNR: The Untold Story of the Meng Wanzhou Case, a CGTN exclusive, has caught wide attention for telling the reason behind Meng Wanzhou's detention. It reports that in 2013, Meng Wanzhou met with HSBC's senior management and made a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation was acquired by the HSBC and later became the "key evidence" in a U.S. case against her on fraud charges. However, HSBC said it didn't prompt the US investigation of Huawei. According to HSBC, when responding to the US Department of Justice's demand, it only provided factual information. It claims that it has not "fabricated evidence" or "concealed facts", nor will it distort facts or harm any customers for its own benefit. What is China's comment on this?

Zhao Lijian: China's position on the Meng Wanzhou case is consistent and clear. This has all along been a serious political incident that exposes US political intention to suppress Chinese hi-tech companies and Huawei, and Canada has been acting as an accomplice.

I must stress that the Chinese government is determined to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese nationals and companies. No foreign country or individual will get their way if they attempt to seek selfish gains by undermining the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.

China Daily: According to reports, Navarro said on August 19 that "the Democrat Party and the Chinese Communist Party have entered into a common cause to defeat Donald J. Trump (in the November presidential election) and their whole strategy is based on blaming this administration for a global pandemic created by the Chinese Communist Party". Does China have a comment?

Zhao Lijian: Navarro's allegation is pure fabrication. He's a habitual liar obsessed with concocting rumors and spreading political viruses and disinformation. He has long lost the last shred of credibility. As to the US administration's epidemic response, the American people are in the best position to judge and the international community all bears witness. We call on Navarro and the likes of him to stop their scapegoating farce. Otherwise they will end up humiliating themselves.

With regard to the presidential election, we've said time and again that it's an internal affair of the US where we have no interest to interfere and have never done so. We also urge certain US politicians to refrain from dragging China into election campaigns in pursuit of self-serving interests.

AFP: First, US President Trump called Jimmy Lai "a brave man" and expressed his support for Jimmy Lai who was briefly detained last week under the Hong Kong national security law. Does the Foreign Ministry have any comment? Second, officials in Taiwan said that Chinese hackers infiltrated at least ten "government agencies" in Taiwan and gained access to around 6,000 email accounts attempting to steal data. What is your comment?

Zhao Lijian: On your first question, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council has issued remarks on the Hong Kong police's lawful detention of the pertinent personnel. China is a country ruled by law, and Hong Kong is a society upholding the rule of law. The SAR law enforcement authorities fulfill their duties according to law. There's no room for any doubt.

On your second question, the DPP authorities' accusation is nothing but a vicious slander to instigate cross-strait confrontation and to seek political gains out of selfish motives.

I'd like to tell you that 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 this issue is consistent and clear.

AFP: There was a photo of Chinese Ambassador to Kiribati at a local welcoming ceremony circulating online. US and Australian officials have either criticized or expressed surprise over the move. Can you confirm when and where this incident took place? Do you have a response to comments circulating about the photo?

Zhao Lijian: I noted relevant reports and comments and worked to verify the reports. I believe what really deserves attention is the comments by the people of Kiribati. At the invitation of the council and MPs of Marakei Island in Kiribati, Chinese Ambassador to Kiribati Tang Songgen paid a visit to the island. This is the first visit by a Chinese ambassador after the two countries resumed diplomatic relations in September 2019. The local government and people received the ambassador with a warm welcome. Out of respect for the local culture and customs, Ambassador Tang eventually accepted and attended the traditional welcoming ceremony the gracious host insisted on. Many people on the Marakei Island expressed their firm support for the resumption of ties when interacting with Ambassador Tang. This illustrates the fact that resumption of relations is an irresistible trend with popular support.

Different countries have different traditional customs. As Marakei Island MPs, Kiribati's minister for agriculture and others have explained, the pictured welcoming ritual with the most humble posture is a traditional way to pay the highest respect to distinguished visitors, which has been passed down from generation to generation on the island. It was the joint decision by the council of elders, the island council and the local church to welcome Ambassador Tang with this ceremony. Back in 1998, when the then Australian high commissioner to Kiribati visited the island, local people welcomed him with the same ceremony. The Kiribati side is infuriated that some Australians smeared China and deliberately omitted their knowledge of the unique customs on each island of Kiribati. As for the reports you mentioned, among those releasing the photo is Drew Pavlou, who has been pursuing an anti-China agenda out of political motivations.

China always believes that all countries are equal regardless of size. In exchanges with Pacific Island countries, China fully respects their local culture and customs and practices the saying of "a guest should suit the convenience of the host." I'm sure you've noticed that many in Kiribati and other Pacific Island countries have spoken up on social media to appreciate the Chinese ambassador's respect for the local customs and condemn the few people who deliberately misrepresent local culture and attempt to sow discord between China and Kiribati. Some netizens criticized certain few people for having taken money from Taiwan and posting pictures and comments online with ulterior motives to drive a wedge between China and Kiribati. When confronted by facts, malicious smears on China's policy towards island countries and attempts to sabotage their relations are bound to fail.

Reuters: A music festival was held at a water park in Wuhan last Saturday. Have you heard of this? Do you have any comment on it?

Zhao Lijian: I watched news about this on television. It reflects a strategic victory achieved by Wuhan and the Chinese government in fighting the virus. AFP also reported this event. It is said that in Western countries people were surprised when hearing about it. So through your reports and lens, I hope people in those countries can get to know what is actually happening in China, the efforts we made and the outcomes we achieved in defeating COVID-19.

Reuters: You just mentioned the Chinese government's reaction to the US suspending or terminating bilateral agreements on the surrender of fugitive offenders and other matters with Hong Kong. Over the last few weeks, a number of countries have taken similar moves. Is China concerned that this may be a growing trend? Is China planning to do anything new about this?

Zhao Lijian: China's position on Hong Kong-related matters is consistent and clear. We have elaborated from many perspectives on why it's necessary to implement the national security law in the Hong Kong SAR. It is utterly wrong for those countries to sanction Hong Kong out of nothing more than selfish political motives. By imposing so-called sanctions, they wish to force the Chinese government to change our position, but it is only a pipe dream.

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Burak Sur/iStockBy KARMA ALLEN, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- Educator. Advocate. Mom.



Those are words that come to mind when one speaks with Michelle Parelleo, a New Jersey mom-turned-special needs advocate, who sprang into action earlier this year when COVID-19 shuttered schools across the country, forcing her to home school her 12-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy.



Parelleo is one of the many parents across the country forced to fill the gaps in learning as many schools around the country gear up to go virtual for at least another semester.



Wearing all of those hats is difficult for even the most capable parent, but the situation in the state and elsewhere, is now being complicated by considerable uncertainty surrounding the upcoming school year.



New Jersey, like other states, recently announced a plan that lets school districts decide for themselves how they want to conduct the school year -- allowing in-person learning, fully remote learning or a blend of the two.



The plan, announced last week by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, also puts the onus on districts to come up with plans to bring students and staff back to schools safely.



In the wake of the announcement, many school districts that had initially called for students and teachers to return to physical classrooms have been holding emergency meetings to approve revised plans, according to local news outlet NJ.com. At least 139 school districts had inquired with the Department of Education about making the switch as of Tuesday, the outlet reported, citing officials.



And some districts -- including densely populated public school districts in New Brunswick and Camden -- have opted to stay remote until early 2021.



The move has set up a showdown with educators, thousands of whom are now demanding that classes be virtual for the rest of the year due to safety concerns.



And critics say the plan, while allowing for flexibility, could exacerbate disparities between the haves and have nots and make the situation tougher for those with special needs, who rely on in-person services in many cases.



"A lot of the issues that have happened within virtual learning since the shutdown is a lot of the children are not receiving all the services that they're entitled to, and the things that are outlined in their individual education plans," Parelleo, whose children attend school virtually in Union, County, New Jersey, told ABC News. "So if you have a child, like my child who requires physical and occupational therapy, those are done remotely."

Not a one-size-fits-all plan



Murphy defended his plan in an op-ed earlier this week amid the ongoing backlash, which provides the option to reopen schools but maintains closure of gyms and indoor dining. Schools must meet safety requirements, including having social distancing measures in place in classrooms and solving any issues with ventilation systems, according to the governor's plan.



"We have worked alongside our districts to ensure they have the flexibility to meet their unique needs. There is no one-size-fits-all plan for this very difficult situation," Murphy wrote. "The simple fact that New Jersey is home to nearly 600 public school districts -- more districts than we have municipalities -- plus charter and Renaissance schools, non-public and parochial schools, and other specialized places of learning proves this point."



He said the Department of Education had put forward "strong guidelines" to allow the option for in-person instruction, but he noted that for some districts, "there are legitimate and documentable reasons why some of these core health and safety standards cannot be met on Day One."



Schools are also required to accommodate any parent who opts to keep their children home, according to the plan.



"New Jersey's education system has long been rooted in local control and decision-making, based on local input. I would not ask the students and parents in one community to decide what's best for the schools next door -- or vice versa," he said. "And so for the past six weeks, we have relied upon the work of local educational communities to determine the best way for their schools to reopen."

Concerns about structural inequalities



Many educators acknowledged the state's plan as a good-faith effort to give individual districts the flexibility to do what is best for their communities, but some say it could create grave inequalities that could force some kids to be left behind.



For example, some child safety advocates have complained about the lack of a statewide plan to mandate equal levels of personal protection equipment across all districts. Schools can implement some requirements, including one that mandates 6 feet of distance, in various ways depending on their resource levels.



"You can meet the 6 feet guidance in a lot of different ways. You can either have the 6 feet of distance say on a school bus, or if you couldn't have the 6 feet you would put plexiglass barriers, but if you couldn't put the plexiglass barriers, then you would have everybody wear masks on the bus. And that just is different degrees of health safety," Patricia Wright, of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, said. "So we were looking for more specific guidelines where we can be sure that we're not creating an inequity in health safety for students across the state."



"We also felt that there was also a need to ensure that schools had the funding for staffing, proper facilities and personnel protection equipment needed to adhere to these guidelines safely," she added.



The New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, which has nearly 7,000 members, composed of principals, supervisors, directors and other school district leaders, penned an open letter along with the New Jersey Association of School Administrators and the New Jersey Education Association last week, urging Murphy to go virtual.



"We're very concerned about just being able to fulfill the obligations of in-person learning," Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, told ABC News. "Number one, we have so many staff at all levels indicating that they will not be returning to school [because] they or their family members might be compromised or they're having childcare issues because of the pandemic."



"And that's clearly going to create an unhealthy and unsafe situation if we cannot cover classes, even in a hybrid model," he added.



'Inappropriate' to let superintendents make the call



Like many states, New Jersey's policy essentially leaves it up to local communities to determine if they can safely reopen school buildings, but Bozza said it's "absolutely inappropriate" to let superintendents make that call.



"I think it's absolutely inappropriate to say to a school superintendent that you have to make a decision about health and safety on a medical matter when our training is in education," Bozza said. "That's why we were all asking for clearer guidance when it comes to deciding which schools should stay closed, which should open and should it change by community or region."



"We're fine in determining what to do in any situation with regard to education -- whether it be remote, in-person or hybrid -- but I think any health standard shouldn't be community by community, they should be statewide," he added.

Bozza said his organization, and many others, have requested the state develop some sort of standard for how schools should operate -- one that could be applied to every school district in the state.



"Think about how hard it would if you're running a high school that's set to reopen its doors in less than a month," he said. "First, you have to ask your parents what students are coming in, then you'd have to ask your staff who's coming, and are your bus drivers, custodians, nurses, paraprofessionals and cafeteria workers going to be available. It's an almost impossible task."



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
The Government of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has allocated AMD 25,000,000 from the reserve fund of the 2020 State Budget to provide financial assistance to the Armenians of Lebanon devastated by the explosion that took place in Beirut, as reported the news service of the Government of Artsakh.

On August 9, the Government of Artsakh sent a plane carrying humanitarian aid to the Armenian community of Lebanon through the From the People of Artsakh to Lebanon special flight. For this same purpose, the President of Artsakh assigned to set up a special committee that is coordinating the activities being carried out in this direction.
WILMINGTON, Ohio, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The pandemic doesn't have too many positive stories when it comes to its impact on small business. Of the small business owners participating in the latest US Chamber of Commerce Small Business Coronavirus Impact Poll, just 52% are fully reopened with another 34% only partially open. At least half think it's going to take another 6 to 12 months to bounce back.

Says John Clary, "I think we fixed everything people hate about wearing a face mask." One & Done Mask - Made In USA US Navy Veteran John Clary owner of One & Done Mask

United States Navy veteran John Clary owns Tri-State Media in Wilmington, Ohio. Recognized as an official Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business by the Department of Veteran Affairs, his company makes labels for a variety of industries including healthcare and automotive.

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, John's company was impacted significantly. Automotive labels account for almost 60% of company revenue. Top customers quit ordering labels as car production slowed then halted. But the Navy taught him how to navigate chaos, think innovatively and stay on mission under extreme pressure.

Diana Clary was visiting a local fabric store where she had a chance encounter with two nurses scavenging for materials to make their own masks. Necessity is the mother of invention and Diana had a eureka moment. Her new idea and a national need inspired the couple to pivot rather than shut down the family business started nearly 20 years ago.

The entire Clary family huddled. Fueled to answer the call of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine's plea for additional PPE, they all pitched in to create a new type of face mask. One with no ear loops, elastic bands or ties that go around a wearer's head. Instead, the new face mask is held gently yet securely in place with a skin-friendly, soft gel adhesive. John retooled his medical label line to manufacture the innovative face masks. The outcome is a new type of lower-cost, high-quality face mask that comes on a roll rather than in a box, is considerably cooler to wear compared to traditional face masks and moisture resistant too.

Says the Clarys, "Demand from businesses has been very strong in Ohio where we're based and we've scaled up our manufacturing facility so we can now provide our Made In USA, One & Done Mask to customers nationally. The reception from the salon and barber industry helped us sell over a million masks in our first 60 days and we realized that every business or individual who tries a One & Done Mask wants them too. They're very comfortable, breathable, superior quality, and easy to use. I think we fixed everything people hate about wearing a face mask."

Veteran made and patent-pending, the family has launched a brand new website, www.OneAndDoneMask.com, where consumers can order directly online with complimentary shipping to home or business. With face mask-wearing mandatory in many towns, cities and states, One & Done Mask is currently expediting orders made before 3PM EST, to ship the same day.

Contact:

Troy Stacy

Email: [email protected]

(614) 357.1400

SOURCE John Clary
Notorious former Casey mayor Sam Aziz has returned to Australia from overseas last Monday and is in a Sydney hospital.

The Age can reveal Mr Aziz flew into Sydney 10 months after he left the country, following raids on his properties by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) and shortly before he faced public accusations of corruption.

Former Casey mayor Sam Aziz Credit:James Taylor

Mr Aziz is a key figure in the Casey land scandal and has been accused of accepting almost $1 million in bribes from controversial developer John Woodman. It seems likely he flew into Sydney because of the current ban on international flights into Melbourne, where he lives.

Since leaving in October, Mr Aziz has spent time in his birthplace, Egypt. He had a teaching contract at the Bloom Business School which ended in July 2020.
Personal stories about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden were a central part of his nominating convention this week but one of the more memorable moments was a speech Thursday by a 13-year-old boy who talked about connecting with the former vice president over their shared experience with a stutter.

Facing the camera, Brayden Harrington stood holding a piece a paper and began talking about how Biden helped him with his stutter after the two met at a campaign event in New Hampshire in February.

He told me that we were members of the same club, said Brayden of Concord, New Hampshire. We stutter.

Biden has spoken publicly of being teased throughout his childhood about his stutter. He was called Joe Impedimenta, Dash and Stutterhead by classmates, he said.

Biden told Brayden that he used to read aloud a book of Yeats poems to practice speaking. And he showed Brayden how he marks certain words and letters in speeches to make them easier to say out loud.

Brayden held up his paper showing hed done the same thing to prepare for his remarks at the Democratic National Convention.

Im just a regular kid," he said. And in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about something thats bothered me my whole life.

DNC wraps up: Democrats focus on Donald Trump now that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the ticket

Biden's struggle with stuttering: How Joe Biden went from 'Stutterhead' to senior class president

Last year, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologized for a tweet that appeared to mock Biden after a Democratic debate when he mentioned talking with children with speech impediments who have asked him for advice.

Huckabee Sanders apologized soon after and deleted the tweet, saying she did not realize he had a stutter.

"I actually didnt know that about you and that is commendable. I apologize and should have made my point respectfully," Huckabee Sanders said.

Story continues

After Braydons speech Thursday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway tweeted her support.

Way to go, Brayden! she said.

Former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who had her own poignant convention moment showing how hard shes worked to recover from being shot nine years ago, also commented.

Speaking is hard for me too, Brayden, Giffords tweeted. But as you know, practice and purpose help. Thank you for your courage and for the great speech!

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DNC: Brayden Harrington, 13, says Joe Biden helped with stutter
On June 30, Oklahomans voted to expand Medicaid, potentially giving some quarter-million Sooner State residents increased access to affordable health care. It's a timely win, given the shattering effects of COVID-19 on public health and employment.

And contributing to it was the Oklahoma AFP, which counted among its resources data and materials from the AAFP's Center for State Policy -- marshalled for what turned out to be a swift drive.

"One thing we ran into was not knowing whether expansion would be on the ballot," Oklahoma AFP Chapter Executive Kari Ames Webber told me this week. "Then we were in a two-month crunch once it got on the ballot."

Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, was pushing for his own health care plan but vetoed one of its funding mechanisms. Political observers suggested this was meant to sabotage the ballot measure. Regardless, it made for a hectic time.

"One hundred percent, it was a nail-biter," Webber said when I asked her about election night. "It went down to the last hour. The pre-polling suggested it would pass by a big margin, but as the night kept going on, we could see it wasn't getting as many of the votes in rural areas."

"It is more difficult to cover those rural areas, education-wise," explained Dawn Watson, the chapter's legislative consultant. "We had some legislators, especially in those rural areas, speaking out against Medicaid expansion. And Gov. Stitt's decision to put it on the June 30 ballot was a very last-minute announcement."

The curtain just fell on a similar drama in Missouri with a strikingly similar result: The voters who swung Medicaid expansion there this month were concentrated in the state's urban centers, while every rural county in the state -- including areas with high rates of poverty and uninsured individuals -- rejected the measure.

Following the vote in Oklahoma, the state recently withdrew a waiver application sent to CMS in May that sought to allow its SoonerCare program to levy work requirements and an income cap on Medicaid recipients. That may be less an acknowledgement of a new political reality than a shifting of the battle lines, but the morning after the vote, at least, an analysis by The Washington Post called Medicaid expansion in a Republican-leaning state "rich in political significance."

Certainly it should be rich in significance to state chapters.

"The group that gathered the signatures to get it on a ballot morphed into the campaign group, which we supported any way we could -- supplying doctors to talk to the media, trying to find places to do education -- while staying politically neutral," Webber said.

Those two things, education and nonpartisanship, dovetail and can lead to success when the facts support the mission.

"We stay very far out of anything that could be divisive, knowing that the majority of our members probably are conservative," Webber told me. "So we work to educate our members, and the Center for State Policy materials let us do that. They're always fact-based and black-and-white. For this issue, we weren't talking politics, just 'Here are the benefits of Medicaid expansion and here's why it benefits your patients.'

"We have a physician who's very involved and conservative, and the information came and he changed his opinion on it because it showed how clear-cut it was that Medicaid expansion was needed."

The chapter is now benefitting from the momentum of that engagement.

"We have a really great group, a small group of very active physicians who have strong relationships at the capitol," Webber said. "And on top of that, in the last little bit we have focused on starting what we call the OAFP strike force, trying to build on this win into the fall as we set our initiatives for next year."

Watson explained how the task force would work: "That's physicians who have interest in policy and who have or want to make connections with legislators in their areas, especially if those legislators are on the health committee."

The goal is to grow that team to 20 or so physicians, each ready to get on the phone or write an op-ed for a local paper or elbow into a lawmaker's office on short notice.

"It makes a big impact when legislators have physician contacts in their communities to seek advice from," Webber said. "We're trying to get our family physicians to build those relationships, to be a legislator's first call for medical issues. We're trying to take a targeted approach."

I asked Watson what other states can do, short of recruiting a strike force.

"Pay close attention to proposed sources of funding and how that could affect patients and physicians in unintended ways," she said. "Watch for a push toward privatized managed care and how that could affect provider rates and patient coverage."

"AAFP one-pagers have been a good resource for members and for legislative consultants with facts about Medicaid and block grants," she added. The data there can be cited in social media posts, which, said is "a great way to get info out quickly and encourage members to comment and to call legislators."

More calls and comments are on the way for the chapter. With the expansion adopted but not implemented, Stitt "is now pushing for Medicaid managed care on his own," Webber said.

"We expect the next legislative session to be full of Medicaid funding questions and battles," Watson added. "One funding source could be an increase from Supplemental Hospital Offset Payment Program funds, which could affect hospitals, and thus any of our members who are hospitalists."

Stitt has put out a call for stakeholders to offer input on a managed care program ahead of a formal request for proposals in the coming months.

"We'll be sending comments!" Webber said.

And that hasn't been the chapter's only complicated win lately. A new rule that could have reduced personal exemptions to vaccinations passed and was signed in June -- then set aside at Stitt's direction because of the pandemic.

"We don't know yet whether that's a permanent rule change," Webber said. "We have a presence in seven coalitions right now, trying hard to have a strong, cohesive message from the medical community on vaccines. Especially during COVID, we've made the coalition stronger and gotten results, such as mask mandates and school plans."

"And we expect to educate OAFP members also on a ballot question that's coming, on using Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust funds to pay the state's portion of Medicaid," Watson said. "The ballot does not say 'expansion.' It says 'Medicaid,' which could mean supplanting. And it's unclear the effect that redirecting future tobacco master settlement agreement funds could have on existing TSET programming, like physician loan repayment programs."

"It's a double-edged sword," Webber said. "We worked hard for this and we're glad it passed, but now we're going to fight a different battle."

She was again talking about the expansion vote. But of course there's always a next fight.

Stephanie Quinn is senior vice president of advocacy, practice advancement and policy.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 14:33:40|Editor: huaxia

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The African Union (AU) Commission on Wednesday suspended Mali from the pan-African bloc following the forced detention of senior officials, including the country's president and prime minister. The decision to suspend Mali from AU membership was made by the Peace and Security Council of the AU Commission during its latest meeting that dwelt upon the situation in the western Africa country.
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The government has extended its temporary ban on evicting tenants by a month after it was warned that letting the moratorium lapse would create a wave of homelessness.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government confirmed on Friday afternoon that the suspension of evictions would continue until 20 September.

Landlords will also be required to give six months notice to any tenants they want to evict, with this separate provision in force until at least 31 March 2021, ministers said.

But a senior Tory politician warned that the move did not go far enough and suggested the ban on evictions should have been extended until spring next year.

Evictions in England were due to start again on Sunday, with approximately 227,000 private renters known to have fallen into arrears as of the end of June, and 174,000 known to have been threatened with eviction by their landlord or agent.

The Scottish government has already extended a full ban on evictions to March 2021, while in Wales, where the new extension will also apply, any eviction will require a notice period of six months.

Lord Pickles, a former Tory cabinet minister, said he would have preferred to see an extension until spring.

That would allow the government time to make a number of changes that could ease the impact of any lift of the ban, he said.

As the governments furlough scheme winds down between now and the end of October it will also become more apparent the number of people who have lost jobs, he told the BBC.

A number of Tory MPs are also understood to have made their concerns known in recent days about this weekends upcoming cliff edge.

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, who had called for an extension in The Independent earlier this week, said: This eleventh-hour U-turn was necessary, but such a brief extension means there is a real risk that this will simply give renters a few more weeks to pack their bags.

He added that the prime minister had been warned for months about the looming evictions crisis, but stuck his head in the sand, and he called for Section 21 evictions to be scrapped, as the government has promised.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank also said the government should go further and extend the ban for six months.

Todays announcement provides renters with some breathing space. However, we know they are more likely to have been adversely affected by Covid-19, said Luke Murphy, IPPR associate director.

Even now, the government is withdrawing measures of support for private renters sooner than they are for landlords, who can obtain a mortgage holiday until the end of October.

Ministers must step in and extend the ban on evictions for another six months if they are to prevent a potential surge in homelessness.

The Lib Dems and Greens said the extension did not go far enough.

Housing charities welcomed the move but said more needed to be done. Polly Neate, chief executive of the charity Shelter, said the government had dodged a bullet on homelessness and that it must use this short window of time wisely to put proper safeguards in place for renters.

The Independent reported this week on families hit by the economic effects of the pandemic and who are set to be made homeless when the ban ends.

Ghazal Haqani, an organiser with the London Renters Union, said: This U-turn has been forced through by people power. But until theres a permanent evictions ban and rent debt is forgiven, the government will just be kicking the can down the road.

Weve had a series of short-term extensions, and thats caused enormous misery and stress for renters like me. Because so many of us are in arrears, we have been constantly worried for months that we are about to become totally defenceless against landlords who want to kick us out of our homes. It looks like that could happen all over again in September.

Rents have been sky-high for decades; the pandemic has cut our incomes, and this recession has only just begun. Of course were in arrears, and of course were not going to be able to pay off our rent debt for a very long time.

One group not pleased by the announcement was the National Residential Landlords Association, which said the extension was unacceptable.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures 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 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

Ben Beadle, the organisations CEO, said: An enormous amount of work as gone into finding a balance between supporting tenants who have been affected by the pandemic and preventing significant financial harm to landlords, in accordance with the governments promise. This announcement satisfies no one.

Announcing the move, the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, said: I know this year has been challenging and all of us are still living with the effects of Covid-19. That is why today I am announcing a further four-week ban on evictions, meaning no renters will have been evicted for six months.

I am also increasing protections for renters  six-month notice periods must be given to tenants, supporting renters over winter.

However, it is right that the most egregious cases, for example those involving anti-social behaviour or domestic abuse perpetrators, begin to be heard in court again; and so when courts reopen, landlords will once again be able to progress these priority cases.
Last night, the Democratic National Convention capped off four days of remote speeches, video montages and roll-call votes with a final address from the partys presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

Americas history tells us that it has been in our darkest moments that weve made our greatest progress, Biden said, in a speech that mixed a somber assessment of the state of the country with hopeful appeals to its values. And in this dark moment, I believe we are poised to make great progress again.

What did the convention tell us about the Democrats message for November? Our colleague Lisa Lerer, who writes the On Politics newsletter, suggested four big takeaways.

1. Character and the coronavirus. The convention pitched Bidens Washington experience and story of personal tragedy as a match for a moment of national crisis.
Police has arrested over 750 people on Thursday for violating lockdown norms on the first day of the 48-hour shutdown across West Bengal that has been enforced by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in a bid to contain the spread of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

Also read: How tribal women in West Bengal district got sanitary napkins, baby food for 1 in lockdown

People were confined to indoors in Kolkata and its surrounding areas on Thursday because of the lockdown that was accompanied by incessant monsoon showers.

Earlier, the Bengal government had announced that lockdown would be enforced on certain days in August. The state government changed lockdown dates at least five times in a bid to accommodate religious festivals and public holidays such as the 74th Independence Day that was observed on August 15.

Initially, though nine days were decided for the lockdown in August, later it was brought down to six.

We have arrested 756 people for violating lockdown norms in Kolkata on Thursday. At least 387 people were arrested for not wearing masks and another 64 for spitting in public, said a Kolkata Police official.

On Thursday, Kolkata recorded around 45 millimetres (mm) of rainfall. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) authorities have issued a warning for heavy rainfall in Kolkata and its surrounding areas until August 25.

Bengal has recorded 1.29 lakh Covid-19 cases until Thursday, including 3,129 in the last 24 hours.

North 24 Parganas district has overtaken Kolkata as the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak in Bengal.

On Thursday, North 24 Parganas district recorded 747 new Covid-19 cases, as compared to 583 in Kolkata.

There has been a surge in Covid-19 cases because of aggressive testing. However, the positivity rate, which had shot up to around 17% in mid-July, came down to 12% over the past few weeks. At present, it is less than 10%, said a state government official.
Illinois health officials on Friday said 20 counties are now considered at a warning level for coronavirus because of rising risk indicators, and that cases of the virus connected to schools are beginning to be reported.

The state also announced 2,208 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus, and 24 additional deaths. That brings the statewide total of known cases since the pandemic began to 215,929, and the death toll to 7,857.

Counties are put at warning level when they surpass a threshold for at least two coronavirus indicators, such as the number of deaths, weekly hospital admissions for people with COVID-19-like illness and the availability of intensive care beds.

The number of counties at warning level is up from 14 a week ago. The counties listed Friday are Bureau, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Franklin, Greene, Grundy, Hancock, Henderson, Jefferson, Logan, Madison, Monroe, Moultrie, Randolph, St. Clair, Union, White, Will and Williamson. Will County southwest of Chicago is among the counties that has been on the list two weeks in a row.

Heres whats happening Friday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

7:35 p.m.: A COVID-19 outbreak sidelined 6 therapists at a North Shore mental health clinic. Now, theyre treating hospital workers free of charge.

When a few employees of the Josselyn Center in Northfield began experiencing flu-like symptoms in mid-March, the close-knit group of therapists suspected they might have caught a seasonal bug from the director of the mental health clinic, who had left work earlier in the week after feeling feverish.

By the end of the week, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzkers COVID-19 stay-at-home order had shuttered the community mental health center, and clinic director Michael Scholl was in the hospital on a ventilator.

In total, six of the clinics roughly 70 employees ended up testing positive for the coronavirus last spring, with Scholl  an otherwise healthy, 56-year-old father of three teenagers  the only member of the group who was hospitalized.

Five months later, and at Scholls urging, the community mental health clinic is offering free therapy sessions for first responders.

Read more here. Karen Ann Cullotta

6:30 p.m.: World Business Chicago cuts 9 positions as pandemic cuts into revenue

World Business Chicago, the public-private partnership that serves as the citys economic development arm, will cut nine of its 39 positions as the agency faces a revenue shortfall this year. The not-for-profit organization laid off five employees earlier this month and will cut another four unfilled positions, Andrea Zopp, president and CEO, said.

The coronavirus pandemic has altered the way World Business Chicago operates, as business travel diminishes and firms have employees work from home. The agency typically relies on face-to-face interactions to recruit young talent and companies to the city, but in the past five months those efforts have become virtual.

Zopp also said the agency faces reduced revenue this year.

World Business Chicago receives about $1.7 million each year from the city, but raises the rest of its budget from contributions by board member companies and fundraisers like its November gala, which will be held virtually this year, Zopp said.

The economy is struggling and thats impacting peoples ability to contribute in the ways that they used to, Zopp said.

Read more here. Abdel Jimenez

6:15 p.m.: Coronavirus at Illinois long-term care facilities: 26,357 confirmed cases and 4,319 deaths

The Illinois Department of Public Health is releasing information on COVID-19 tied to long-term care facilities in Illinois.

The data shows outbreaks have occurred at 767 long-term care facilities in 69 counties. Of those, 523 facilities have an active outbreak, defined as a positive test result in the past 28 days.

In all, 26,357 confirmed cases can be tied to long-term care facilities, with 4,319 deaths, as of Aug. 21.

Read more here. Chicago Tribune staff

5:30 p.m.: Chicago postal unions rally in front of Bronzeville post office to attack Trump, postmaster general for mail delays

About 30 postal union and political leaders rallied in front of a Bronzeville U.S. Postal Service branch Friday afternoon to condemn President Donald Trump and the postmaster general for slowdowns in mail service as the nation prepares for a general election amid a pandemic.

Rallygoers wore black masks with the slogan Save the USPS! as they stood in front the Henry McGee station, 4601 S. Cottage Grove Ave. They carried signs encouraging voting by mail and for the passage of the HEROES Act, a second coronavirus stimulus bill that passed the U.S. House and would inject the Postal Service with $25 billion.

Keith Richardson, president of the Chicago-area local of the American Postal Workers Union, said he would not stand for any attempt to undermine mail delivery.

We stand here today with our allies, community partners and elected officials to send a clear message to the postmaster general to save the USPS, Richardson said, opening the rally with a swipe at Louis DeJoy, a top donor to Trump and the Republican Party who was appointed to lead the Postal Service in May.

Read more here. Alice Yin

4 p.m.: U. of I. expects hundreds of COVID-19 cases, but says its prepared to stop any surge

COVID-19 cases in the Urbana-Champaign area will rise as college students flock back to campus for the fall semester, but the University of Illinois says its prepared to handle the influx with quick saliva-based tests and quarantining procedures.

With move-in beginning this week, the university conducted more than 30,000 saliva tests on students, faculty and staff between Monday and Thursday and identified about 100 positive cases.

Hundreds more are likely to emerge, but that would be tens of thousands without the aggressive testing and other interventions in place, officials say.

Read more here. Elyssa Cherney

2:40 p.m. (updated at 4:40 p.m.): Where to securely drop off your mail-in ballot in Chicago and the suburbs

More registered voters are expected to request mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Though state law allows voters to apply for a mail-in ballot by Oct. 29, the Illinois State Board of Elections recommends voters interested in receiving a mail-in ballot apply as soon as possible.)

Ballots will be mailed to voters beginning Sept. 24, and should be returned to the election board that has jurisdiction over your area, such as the Chicago Board of Elections or the Cook County clerk.

Secured drop boxes will be installed around the Chicago metropolitan area where voters can drop off their completed mail-in ballots  instead of mailing them  but the placement of these drop boxes will vary.

One thing voters should not do with their mail-in ballots is take them to their polling place on Election Day.

If they plan to vote in person, they can surrender their mail ballot at the polling place and they will be given a ballot to vote in person, said Illinois State Board of Elections public information officer Matt Dietrich.

Use our map and listings to help find the drop box closest to you. Chicago Tribune staff

2 p.m.: Complaints about Illinois nursing homes not properly investigated during pandemic, state officials acknowledge

A month after firing the states top nursing home regulator without explanation and disciplining another, the Illinois Department of Public Health acknowledged Friday that the agency did not properly process or investigate complaints of neglect and abuse for 3 months during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a news release, the agency said it hired a consulting firm and a former federal prosecutor to conduct a top to bottom outside review of its Bureau of Long-Term Care. The bureau oversees regulation of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, which have been tied to many Illinois COVID-19 deaths.

Our top priority as a regulator of long-term care facilities in Illinois is ensuring vulnerable Illinoisans are kept safe by those responsible for their care, said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike in the release. Anything short of that is unacceptable, and our entire department is committed to getting this right as we move forward.

An agency spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

Read more here. Joe Mahr

1:15 p.m.: After nearly 18 years, Tin Fish restaurant closed permanently by coronavirus

The coronavirus claimed another high-profile restaurant victim with the permanent closure of Tin Fish, a highly regarded restaurant in south-suburban Tinley Park.

A sign on the front door of the seafood restaurant and oyster bar thanked customers for 18 great years, and said the decision to close came with a heavy heart.

The closure was first reported Aug. 11 by the Daily Southtown, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.

Im not happy, but its something a lot of us are going through, said partner Curtis Wierbicki, who launched the restaurant in September 2002 with partner Colin Turner. Both had significant restaurant experience at the time; Turner was a Shaws Crab House veteran and Turner helped launch North Pond restaurant (then North Pond Cafe). The two of them turned the Tinley Park restaurant into a destination for serious cooking, particularly seafood. An independent restaurant in a sea of chains.

Wierbicki said he tried different ways to maintain business after the shutdown. But we didnt have any patio, he said. We tried carryout, but seafood doesnt travel well, not compared to Italian.

Read more here. Phil Vettel

12:45 p.m. (updated at 1:25 p.m.): Illinois puts 20 counties on COVID-19 warning list

Illinois health officials on Friday said 20 counties are now considered at a warning level for coronavirus because of rising risk indicators, and that cases of the virus connected to schools are beginning to be reported.

The state also announced 2,208 newly confirmed cases of coronavirus, and 24 additional deaths. That brings the statewide total of known cases since the pandemic began to 215,929, and the death toll to 7,857.

Counties are put at warning level when they surpass a threshold for at least two coronavirus indicators, such as the number of deaths, weekly hospital admissions for people with COVID-19-like illness and the availability of intensive care beds.

The number of counties at warning level is up from 14 a week ago. The counties listed Friday are Bureau, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Franklin, Greene, Grundy, Hancock, Henderson, Jefferson, Logan, Madison, Monroe, Moultrie, Randolph, St. Clair, Union, White, Will and Williamson.

Will County southwest of Chicago is among the counties that has been on the list two weeks in a row.

State health officials said cases have been tied to long-term care facilities, travel, weddings and other gatherings.

Chicago Tribune staff

12:31 p.m.: AMC Theatres reopens: Did people get their 15 cents worth?

Safe and clean: Those are the bywords AMC Entertainment Group hopes can reassure moviegoers straight back into theaters that, until Thursday, had been closed since March because of COVID-19.

The AMC signage greets the customer on the doors and walls, next to the hand sanitizer next to the parking validation. Safe and clean. Enhanced cleaning procedures. Because we care about your health, masks are REQUIRED for all guests & crew.

One safe and clean sign reads: Not Feeling Well? Were excited to see you return to the movies, but if you have symptoms such as fever or cough, or have come in contact with someone who has symptoms, Please DO NOT see a movie today.

Its tough to stay afloat when your boat has been dry-docked for five months. At many of the AMC theater locations, including in the Chicago area, evidence of 2020s colassal retail struggles is everywhere, in the too-quiet malls housing some theaters, on the streets where not much is open for business.

But the worlds largest multiplex chain reopened for business Thursday at 113 U.S. locations, with a throwback, century-old 15-cent admission fee. New movies are coming, slowly, soon: New Mutants on Aug. 28, Tenet on Sept. 3, with sneak previews starting Aug. 31.

Read more here. Michael Phillips and Wendy Fox Weber

12:23 p.m.: Mounting US deaths reveal an outsize toll on people of color. New figures from the CDC highlight the stark disparity.

As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll. And half the dead were people of color  Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognized until now, Asian Americans.

The new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight a stark disparity: Deaths among minorities during the crisis have risen far more than they have among whites.

Read more here. The Associated Press

12:05 p.m.: 2,208 new known COVID-19 cases and 24 more deaths reported

Illinois health officials on Friday announced 2,208 new known cases of COVID-19 and 24 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 215,929 and the statewide death toll to 7,857 since the start of the pandemic. Officials also reported 51,736 new tests in the last 24 hours. The seven-day statewide positivity rate is 4.3%.

Chicago Tribune staff

11:08 p.m.: Notre Dame had to suspend classes days into the term as COVID-19 cases surged. Is that a cautionary tale for other college campuses trying to reopen?

Hours before the University of Notre Dame suspended in-person classes to quell a growing COVID-19 outbreak among students, Clay Goldman walked into a campus testing center that didnt have enough chairs for everyone awaiting results.

Goldman, a first-year law student, went to the center inside Notre Dames famed football stadium Tuesday afternoon because three of his track teammates contracted the virus, and he worried hed been exposed.

But booking an appointment wasnt easy.

The universitys sole testing site has been inundated since students returned in early August, identifying a total of 336 coronavirus cases as of Friday. Goldman said he called university health services multiple times beginning Monday afternoon to schedule a test but needed to leave messages when no one picked up. It wasnt until late the next morning that he received an email saying he could come in, he said.

Notre Dame contends that most infections stem from two off-campus parties thrown by seniors. But cases have surged as students introduce the virus to new social groups, straining the schools resources.

Im really just frustrated, said Goldman, 21, of Indiana. I feel like Notre Dame tried to put themselves out there, and it was really naive of the university to think students wouldnt do normal college student things because thats just what 18- to 22-year-olds do.

As the university outside South Bend, Indiana, scrambled to shift classes online for at least two weeks in an effort to salvage in-person learning this semester, its predicament could be a cautionary tale for other colleges inviting students back this fall.

Read more here. Elyssa Cherney and Kelli Smith

10:51 a.m.: Is Chicago tourism done until 2021? Facing fewer visitors and the possibility of losses, some venues are closing early.

Chicagos tourism season may wrap up early as hotels and some city attractions, struggling with fewer visitors and revenue losses, consider shutting down for the remainder of the year.

The Chicago Athletic Association hotel has shut down again, with plans to reopen in the first quarter of 2021. Wendella Sightseeing Co. said its considering winding down its seasonal boat tours early. And on Tuesday, Navy Pier announced it would close Sept. 8 until the spring. Industry leaders say the effect of the early closures will ripple through the local economy.

Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, said Navy Piers closure is a precursor to other tourism entities.

As in the case with Navy Pier, they tried to reopen but the math doesnt add up. Were heading into the winter months, and it wont make sense for some of these places to stay open, he said.

Jacobson said social distancing recommendations, which are likely to continue through the end of the year, and the coming colder weather will make it harder to attract travelers. Chicagos quarantine rules regarding states with high infection rates further hinders hotels chance to rebound, he said.

It wont surprise me if they dont open until next year. Some might choose not to reopen until the demand is there. Hotels might be losing more money to stay open, Jacobson said.

Read more here. Abdel Jimenez

10:32 p.m.: Working from home due to COVID-19 will remain the norm for many employees through 2020. Heres how to avoid burning out.

Without the commute to the office or lunch hours with co-workers thanks to COVID-19, the boundaries of a work day are blurring, leaving employees less sure of when to take breaks or log off at the end of the day.

A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that the average workday around the world is 48.5 minutes longer than before the pandemic. The study examined how work email and meeting patterns changed in the two months following a government-mandated pandemic lockdown in 16 cities, including Chicago.

Dr. Alexandra Solomon, a professor and licensed psychologist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, said work days can feel longer in such a stressful time.

I think time is doing very strange things, Solomon said. Even if the hours on the page are the same objectively, the feeling is that were working more.

For those whose homes have become their offices, with the potential for remote work sticking around for quite some time, here are some tips to better separate your work and home life.

Read more here. Milan Polk

6:35 a.m.: A COVID-19 vaccine still hasnt emerged  but some are already wary of it

Christina Glover gets a flu shot each year and has always ensured her daughters pediatric vaccines are on schedule.

Yet the 36-year-old from the South Side of Chicago said shed be nervous about getting a COVID-19 vaccine once one emerges and hits the market.

Its the fact that its new, Glover said. You have your right to be concerned about anything  vaccines, any type of medication  you have a right to be concerned with how its going to interact with your body.  You want to see the reaction its going to have on other people.

As scientists across the globe race to create a COVID-19 vaccine that is safe and effective, the American public appears sharply divided when it comes to the prospect of getting vaccinated against the new virus, which has so far infected roughly 5.5 million and killed more than 172,000 in the United States.

Read more here. Angie Leventis Lourgos

6:35 a.m.: Gerardo Victoria had big plans for the fall: culinary school. But he fell ill from COVID-19 and died at the age of 23. A horrible thing.

Gerardo Jerry Victoria was always coming up with new recipes and sharing them with his family in their South Holland home.

This fall, he planned to follow his love for cooking and attend culinary school. He was more than a brother-in-law. He was a friend. We were close, Vanessa Gusman said.

About a month ago, he became ill as COVID-19 spread through his family. He died on Tuesday at the age of 23, one of the youngest victims of the coronavirus in Cook County.
Mr Ambrose Dery, the Minister for Interior, has assured the Ghana Police Service that its personnel would continue to retire under the CAP 30 pension scheme and the Constitutional Instrument 76 (C.I. 76).



Speaking on behalf of the Vice President at a ceremony held in Accra to Commission the four-storey Cantonments Divisional Police Headquarters, he said the government would not make the Police Officer worse off after sacrificing so much for the country.



I want to state emphatically that its not true. Police personnel will continue to retire under CAP 30 pension scheme as well as the C.I 76. The President cannot make the Police officer worse off after sacrificing so much for the country, he said.



He appealed to Officers, who would work from the office complex, to take good care of the property by keeping to good maintenance practices to prolong the life span of the building.



He commended the Police Service, Goldkey Properties Limited and all stakeholders for their efforts and successful completion of the project.



Mr James OppongBoanuh, the Inspector General of Police, assured the government of the Polices effort to maintain the building and be more professional in the delivery of their duties to serve the community better.



He said as the lead security organisation the need for the infrastructural facility is crucial and would positively impact the work output of officers.



He said the police were committed to collaborating with other security agencies to ensure peaceful general elections.



He acknowledged the efforts of his predecessors who worked towards the completion of the new office complex.



Madam Fuseina Abu, Managing Director, Goldkey Properties Limited, expressed gratitude to the government, the Ghana Police Service and stakeholder for the cooperation from the inception to the completion of the facility.

Source: GNA









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The Queen's Grandfather King George V was euthanised with a lethal dose of morphine and cocaine, a new documentary has claimed.

George V: The Tyrant King, which airs tomorrow on Channel 5, explores the life of the monarch grandson of Queen Victoria, who was known as cruel and demanding in private circles, despite his pleasant image to the public.

Experts and historians reveal how the royal treated his wife 'like a slave' and refused to grant his Tsar cousin and friend Nicholas II of Russia asylum in the UK, which lead to him being murdered by the Bolsheviks.

But most shockingly of all, the documentary shares the diary entries of the King's doctor Lord Dawson, who admitted to killing the King at 11pm on 20 January 1936, so the death would be on the front pages of The Times newspaper the next day.

The Queen's Grandfather King George V (left) was euthanised with a lethal dose of morphine and cocaine. Diary entries of the King's doctor Lord Dawson (right) admitted to killing the King at 11pm on 20 January 1936, so the death would be on the front pages of The Times newspaper the next day.

The true nature of his death was unknown for 50 years, until the royal archives released Lord Dawson's diary in 1986, and with it a sensational secret.

'At about 11 o'clock, it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, I therefore decided to determine the end and injected three-quarters gram of morphia (morphine) and shortly afterwards one gram of cocaine into the distended juglar vein,' the entry reads.

Royal expert and biographer Angela Levin will explain in the programme: 'He also manipulated it so that he would die just before midnight so that his death would make the front page of The Times, which was the king's favourite paper.

'There's been this argument about whether it was murder of euthanasia, if you look at it objectively it was a huge decision to make to kill a king without absolute authority, it's a very dark but interesting mystery,' she adds.

The true nature of his death was unknown for 50 years, until the royal archives released Lord Dawson's diary in 1986, and with it a sensational secret. George V is pictured on his coronation with wife Queen Mary

The King is pictured with his granddaughter who he affectionately called 'Lillybet' who is now Queen Elizabeth II

Royal expert Ingrid Stewart adds: 'He fell ill with a cold and after five days he was bed ridden, he was obviously going.

'People are saying in effect he killed the king, it's a very controversial debate these days, the medical team certainly had more power than they do today.'

Dickie Arbiter, the Queen's former spokesperson also spoke to documentary makers about the death.

'Mary [his wife], is certainly not someone who could condone euthanasia she was highly religious and she said one thing or another, she let her feeling be known.

'Was it the right thing to do? It's not for us to judge. Would the King have survived? Probably not. Would he have suffered? Undoubtedly yes,' he says.

George V: The Tyrant King, which airs tomorrow on Channel 5, explores the life of the monarch grandson of Queen Victoria, who was known as cruel and demanding in private circles, despite his pleasant image to the public. He is pictured with his wife Queen Mary and granddaughters Princess Margaret and Elizabeth, who is now the Queen

Lord Dawson's diary isn't the first time a journal has revealed a secret about King George, who was the monarch to change the dynasty's name to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg amid growing anti-German during the First World War.

Diaries detailing how the future King George V had a dragon and a tiger tattooed on his arms, during a visit to Japan, will form part of a new exhibition at Buckingham Palace, set to be on display in 2022.

Japan: Courts and Culture - which was set to be on display this summer but has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic - will tell the story of the diplomatic, artistic and cultural exchanges between Britain and Japan from the reigns of James I to Queen Elizabeth II.

George and his brother, Prince Albert Victor, visited Japan as teenagers in 1881.

Diaries (pictured) detailing how the future King George V had a dragon and a tiger tattooed on his arms during a visit to Japan are to form part of a new exhibition at Buckingham Palace

The young princes were serving as midshipmen aboard HMS Bacchante and were granted shore leave to meet the Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken.

They returned with presents for their family, including a teapot and cups for their father, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and with diplomatic gifts from the Emperor  as well as their own permanent reminders of the trip.

According to the official diary of the tour, compiled by their tutor, the Reverend John Dalton, the princes had their arms tattooed during their stay to Japan  Albert Victor with a couple of storks and George with a dragon and a tiger.

Prince George's tattoos  one on each arm  were chosen to signify both the East and the West.

The Queen's grandfather, Prince George of Wales  the future George V who reigned from 1910 to 1936  and his brother, Prince Albert Victor, visited Japan as teenagers in 1881

In George's own handwritten diary  a facsimile copy of which will also be on show  he revealed he was inked with a 'large dragon in blue and red writhing all down the arm'.

He wrote: 'We have spent a very pleasant week on shore up at Nara & Kioto (sic), we saw a great deal in the time but we were not long enough, it was too hurried.

'Nearly every body on board has been tattooed. I have got a dragon on one arm done at Tokio (sic) & a tiger on the other arm done at Kioto (sic).'

No photographs of the princes' tattoos are held by the Royal Collection, but George's diary gave further details of his own experience, writing: '(The tattooer) does a large dragon in blue and red writhing all down the arm in about three hours.

'He first sketches the outline on the skin in Indian ink and water, and then pricks in the colours required, blue or red, with little instruments that look like camel-hairbrushes, only instead of hairs they consist of so many very minute needles.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.21

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

The value of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Croatia amounted to $273.8 million over 1H2020, compared to $112.9 million during the same period of 2019, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstans Statistics Committee.

The share of Croatia in the total value of Kazakhstans trade turnover stood at less than 0.6 percent during the reporting period compared to 0.2 percent during the same period of 2019 indicating it was flat year-on-year.

Kazakhstans export to Croatia amounted to $265.05 million over the period from January through June 2020, compared to $109.1 million during the same period of 2019.

Croatias share in the total volume of Kazakhstans export also amounted to 1 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.4 percent during the same period of 2019.

In turn, Kazakhstans imports from Croatia stood at about $8.7 million over the reporting period, compared to $3.7 million during the same period of 2019.

Croatias share in the total volume of Kazakhstans import amounted to 0.1 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to less than 0.1 percent during the same period of 2019.

The total volume of Kazakhstans trade turnover amounted to $42.5 billion over the period from Jan. through June 2020 which indicates a decrease from $46.1 billion during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export amounted to $26 billion during the reporting period of 2020 ($28.6 billion in the same period of 2019), whereas import amounted to $16.5 billion ($17.5 billion in 2019).

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Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
Libya: Sarraj orders ceasefire, elections in March Eastern-based parliament joins, Italy welcomes decision

(ANSAmed) - ROME, AUGUST 21 - Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj announced a ceasefire Friday on the Facebook page of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). "Based on political and national responsibility, in light of the current situation in the country and the region, and in light of the coronavirus emergency, the head of the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord, Fayez Al Sarraj, orders all military forces to observe an immediate ceasefire and to stop all combat operations in all Libyan territories," he said. "Arriving at an effective ceasefire requires that the zones of Sirte and Jufra be demilitarised and that security forces on both sides agree on preparations related to public order in both cities," he said. "Taking the initiative to announce the ceasefire, the president of the presidential council affirms that 'the definitive objective is to regain full sovereignty on Libyan soil and the withdrawal of foreign forces and mercenaries," he said. He said in the same way that "rights acquired by the Libyan people cannot be abandoned". "Therefore, we must resume oil production and exportation, provided that the revenue is deposited in a special National Oil Company (NOC) account at the Libyan Foreign Bank. In the same context, the president of the presidential council announces that he is adopting all measures needed to support efficient and ideal management of oil resources and repeats that NOC is the only one that has the right to supervise the securing of the oil fields and oil terminals across Libya," he said. Al-Sarraj then announced the next elections in the country, repeating "his request for presidential and parliamentary elections next March based on a sufficient constitutional foundation upon which the two sides agree". The eastern-based parliament in Tobruk joined in the ceasefire request. "We are calling on all parties to observe the immediate ceasefire and stop all military operations across Libya," said Tobruk Parliament spokesperson Aquila Saleh in a statement, cited by Al Jazeera. "The ceasefire cuts the road to any foreign interference and concludes with the withdrawal of mercenaries from the country and the dismantling of the militias," Saleh said. "We are trying to turn the page on conflict and we aspire to a future of peace and building a state through an electoral process based on the constitution," he said. A statement released by the Italian Foreign Ministry said Italy "greatly welcomes" the ceasefire in Libya and "will continue to carry out its active role as facilitator for a political solution to the crisis". "Italy calls on all the interested parties to give a quick and effective follow-up to the path outlined in statements by the Presidential Council and the House of Representatives" and "hopes for concrete application to all branches of the Libyan oil industry throughout the country".(ANSAmed). (ANSA).




Australia's biggest general insurer, IAG, has identified the Blue Mountains local government area as the region in NSW with the most property at risk from bushfires.

Separately, a new report by a dozen experienced firefighters has identified key problems, such as lack of proper research into how to supress fires, as a new fire season begins in the state's north.

The Blue Mountains tops the list of local government areas in NSW with a high bushfire insurance premium, IAG says. Credit:Nick Moir

The Blue Mountains region would "compete with some of the riskiest" anywhere in Australia because so many houses were built along ridge tops, surrounded by bushland on either side, said Mark Leplastrier, the insurer's executive manager for natural perils.

The next most at-risk regions in NSW were the Central Coast, Sutherland Shire, Wollongong and Wollondilly.
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in the upcoming US Presenditaial election. Biden gave the acceptance speech on the last day of the four-day Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.

Addressing Americans, Biden urged them to vote for new national leadership that will overcome deep US political divisions. He said, ''It is time for us, for we, the people, to come together. And make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.''

Taking to Twitter, Biden wrote, "It's with great honour and humility, I accept this nomination for president of the United States of America."

It is with great honor and humility that I accept this nomination for President of the United States of America.  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 21, 2020

Biden said that the ballot this November is about 'Who we are as a nation, what we stand for, and who we want to be.'

Speaking of his dedication towards the country, the 77-year-old said "I'm a proud Democrat and I will be proud to carry the banner of our party into the general election. But while I`ll be a democratic candidate, I will be an American president. I'll work hard for those who didn`t support me, as hard for them as I did for those who did vote for me. That`s the job of a president, to represent all of us, not just our base or our party.''

Lashing out at Donald Trump, Biden said that Trump has "cloaked America in darkness for much too long" and has unleashed "too much anger, too much fear, too much division.

Biden also thanked thank former President Barack Obama saying: "You were a great president."

Meanwhile, Barack Obama on Wednesday assailed his successor, Donald Trump, as deeply unfit for the office he occupies and argued that voting for his former No 2, Joe Biden, was necessary to ensure the very survival of American democracy.

Democratic Party on Tuesday officially nominated Joe Biden as candidate for US Presidential Elections 2020. Confirming the news, Biden tweeted, "It is the honor of my life to accept the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States of America."

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The former vice presidents address capped the final night of the Democratic National Convention, made virtual because of the coronavirus outbreak. Biden spoke to a largely empty room at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, with supporters parked outside watching on screens as if at a drive-in movie theater.

Bidens speech -- the most important of his nearly half-century in politics -- set the tone for a bruising general election battle against Trump. The former vice president said Trump had cloaked America in darkness for far too long.

I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness, he said.

Democrats have spent three nights mixing blunt criticism of Trump as an incompetent and corrupt threat to democracy with reassuring promises that Biden, 77, has the decency and experience to tackle the pandemic and other difficult problems. Theyve also sought to portray the partys moderate and liberal wings as largely unified, burying progressive concerns that Biden is too much of an establishment centrist.

At a small rally earlier in the day near Bidens hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Trump told his supporters that Biden would be their worst nightmare.

Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur who challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination, opened the conventions fourth night by urging Americans who voted for Trump or didnt vote at all in 2016 to consider the former vice president.
The British High Commission in Nigeria has announced that it will replace expired 30-day visas for free as it reopens its Visa Application Centres (VAC).

In a statement issued on its Twitter page on Thursday, August 20, 2020, the Commission said the replacement of the expired visas for free is due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The commission said the free visa replacement will be open till December 2020 and covers individuals who will be travelling to the UK for work, study or to join their families.

As a result of the disruptions to travel caused by COVID-19, we are experiencing high demand for replacement vignettes for 30-day visas to travel to the UK for work, study or to join family.

If an individuals 30-day visa to travel to the UK for work, study or to join family has expired, or is about to expire, they can request a replacement visa with revised validity dates free of charge until the end of this year. This does not apply to other types of visas. This process will be in place until the end of 2020. The replacement visa will be valid for 90 days. To request a replacement visa, individuals can arrange to return their passport to their Visa Application Centre in Nigeria without an appointment, the statement read.

Please read below for the latest information & advice on our visa application services in Nigeria ?. To request a replacement visa & find your local VAC in ??, visit: https://t.co/z27R2vaurG. For more guidance on visas, please visit: https://t.co/ICq5OEi8Do pic.twitter.com/L5Lw6UZbw6  UK in Nigeria?? (@UKinNigeria) August 20, 2020

This is coming a few days after, Nigerian Government announced that international airports would reopen for commercial flight operations effective August 29 after about five months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WILMINGTON, Del.  Joe Biden vowed to unite an America torn by crisis and contempt Thursday night, accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in an unfinished personal quest that has spanned three decades, and been marred by personal tragedy, political stumbles and more dynamic rivals.

The past hurdles fell away as Biden addressed his fellow Democrats and millions of Americans at home who he hopes will send him to the White House to replace Donald Trump  though his triumphant moment was drained of immediate drama by the coronavirus pandemic, which left him speaking to a nearly empty arena rather than to a joyously cheering crowd.

Here and now, I give you my word, if you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst, Biden declared. Ill be an ally of the light, not our darkness.

And make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

Fireworks lit the sky outside as the convention ended, giving a celebratory feel at last to the affair.

In his acceptance speech, Biden highlighted both his world view and a series of deeply personal challenges that shaped his life. On issues big and small, the 77-year-old Democrat presented a sharp contrast to the Republican president, but maintained a hopeful tone throughout.

His critics often lament his ability to speak under pressure, but, with the nation watching, Biden did not stumble.

The pandemic has shaken the nation and fundamentally altered the campaign. But Biden pointed to the public health emergency and the severe economic fallout to turn traits previously seen as vulnerabilities, notably a long career spent in elected office, into an advantage by presenting himself as a competent leader in a moment that Democrats say cries out for one in the White House.

The nights keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Trump in November. But his convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has common decency.

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in U.S. history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, a 38-year-old openly gay military veteran from Indiana, noted that Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage as vice president even before President Barack Obama did.

Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And, to me, that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans, Buttigieg said. Its the struggle to call out what is good for every American.

Above all, Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Bidens positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by former President Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator, and the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, addressed race problems in a way Biden could not.

Throughout their convention, the Democrats summoned a collective urgency about the dangers of Trump as president. In 2016, they dismissed and sometimes trivialized him. In the days leading up to Bidens acceptance speech, they cast him as an existential threat to the country.

Beyond Bidens highly anticipated speech, Thursdays program was designed to highlight the diversity of the Democratic Party and the nation he hopes to lead.

We know how important it is that we elect real leaders like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, people of honor and integrity, who hold justice close to their hearts and believe that the lives of my four Black children matter, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said. She spoke ahead of a tribute to the late John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and civil rights leader who devoted much of his life to ensuring African Americans are able to vote.

Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy.
dkaile Senior - BHPian



Join Date: May 2011 Location: Meerut, India Posts: 3,235 Thanked: 6,147 Times

View My Garage





Re: BMW R1250GS Adventure Pro MY2020 - Style HP - The Comprehensive Review The Process



At 51, with age catching up with me fast, and all this covid mayhem going one, I could have 2 ways to face it all. 1. Go in a shell OR 2. Break free of the rut mindset and expedite your pace. I chose the latter. With more than 1 lac kms of motorcycling now behind my back, the thirst for more only got stronger. No compromises this time around. But as they say, reality strikes! I could, for all financial purposes, keep this as the 3rd superbike in my garage, however parking space was a major constraint. And wifey put the foot down, as I mentioned in the 1st post. So one of the bikes had to go. And I chose that would be the Ninja 1000. More on that, some other time. These covid times saw all the resale market go for a toss. Even though it was a very low mileage bike but it was nearly 3 years old now. I was still able to sell off the bike at not such a bad price. Also sold off the panniers separately and ultimately just lost about a lac from my expected price. Earn another day, and moved on!



Just for retrospect, my other ownership threads of some of my bikes and cars are listed below -



Kawasaki Ninja 1000 MY 2018 -



Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic 2012 -



Harley Davidson 883 Superlow 2013 -



Royal Enfield Himalayan 2016 -



And I will be comparing it as such with these bikes on which I have had first hand experience.



Some of my other threads -



Skoda Superb 2012, which I still own and love -



Toyota Fortuner 2011, also still in the family -



Now with Ninja 1000 sold at a decent price, money was still a constraint, and with my son's education cost abroad lurking around the corner, I did not want to touch my savings. As I had said on my Himalayan thread, the 1200GSA costs nearly ~ to 12 Himalayans or maybe a little more. Thankfully interest rates had dropped considerably. So I paid off my Bank of India's Ninja 1000 loan which was going on at 9.2% and they gave me a fresh one for around 40% of the Beemer's cost at just 7.35% (Yes, you read that right), as I was having a high credit rating score. So the 16.9k per month installment just turned into 19.9k one which did not affect me financially. So with 80% of the cost now taken care of by the sale of the Ninja 1000 and the loan, I just contributed the rest and bought the bike home.



Financial quote that I got was nearly 26L on-road Delhi as this was the topmost variant of the GS range. I went for the R1250GS Adventure, Pro Variant in Style HP colour and kit with the additional Passenger Kit included, the BLUE BEAK version as they call it in GS terminology. The Passenger Kit replaces the lower Rallye Single Seat with the normal Adventure Dual (read higher) Seats and also the lower Rallye Windshield with the normal (read higher again) Touring Windshield of the Adventure Range. Rest of the Kit is similar with the HP Style, more on which I will elaborate subsequently. The Bike was also Euro 5 i.e. BS6 compliant, so the previous discounts of upto 4 lacs or more on the BS4 range had vanished. But I was still able to muster a decent deal and the bike costed me 22.75L with RTO and TCS and I did the comprehensive Insurance (1 year OD + 5 year TP) myself from United India at another 47k, so it went on to 23.25L on road and I further added around 2L of accessories, so the final landed cost was around 25L. Yes, it's ~ 12 Himalayans!



My dilemmas whether to opt for the GS or the GS Adventure were discussed here -



The Major Differences between the GSA and GS are -



- 30L Aluminum Tank vs 20L Plastic Tank

- 268 kgs vs 249, difference of 19 kg. Just for perspective, my Ninja 1000 was 240 kgs and my Heritage Softail is 340 kgs!!

- Engine specs are absolutely identical. More on the new VVT Twin Cam 1250 boxer motor later. And yes, that video by Fortnine criticizing VVT tech on 1250 should NOT let you change your mind. Thank God, I did not get swayed by it and am loving every moment on this new motor. All that talk about HSC kicking in automatically and VVT by him is just a person unfamiliar with how to use these features properly, talking. Don't, I repeat DON'T let that sway your decision, if that is what is keeping you from going for it.

- 0-100 timings (unofficial figures) are floating between 2.91s to 3.16s. Ninja 1000 was 3.3s.

- Price difference is around 1.9L variant to variant. In this difference you additionally get in GSA over the GS full Engine and Crash Protection (around 1L in aftermarket), Auxiliary Fog Lamps (25k), Rear Pannier Railings, removable (60k), Adjustable and spiked brake and gear levers, a more comfortable seat. Rear luggage rack is longer and fits top box directly, In GS you pay extra for top box mount.

- Radiator Guards are standard in GSA HP Style, you pay extra on normal GS

- Chassis Frame Protector is standard on GSA HP Style, again missing on GS

- Additionally you get Hill Start Control Pro version in GSA which automatically or manually holds your bike on an incline, on the GS you get only the manual HSC.

- No Chain maintenance is standard on both due to Shaft Drive.

- HP stands for High Performance Edition in BMW terminology and is to renamed as M Edition as in their cars.



Quote from Revzilla -



Quote: My initial gut reaction was that I liked the smaller, GS better. It was outfitted nearly identically to the GSA, but because of its size, it just felt tighter and nimbler. But after moving to the next off-road section, I found myself missing the GSA. The base GS didn't have the brake pedal extender, so like the F 850 GS, I found it nearly impossible to reach the rear brake pedal while in the standing position. The bigger boxer actually felt more stable and confidence-inspiring off-road when compared side-by-side with the standard GS. That was pretty impressive.

- Seat height GSA - 890-910 vs GS - 850-870. Shorter riders can opt for the GS. I am 5'11" 83 kgs (down from 105... Lolz) and I am able to flat foot both my feet on my GSA as shown here in this post -

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/super...ml#post4845202 (BMW R1200GSA or R1250GS?)



This is the Kalamata Matt Version of the GSA. I like to call it the Stealth or the Safari Version. Both feet are flat on the ground.





This is the Black Storm/Night Black Exclusive version of the GS with yellow highlights. More like the 40th Anniversay Editions launched in the 750 and 850GS's.





Test Riding the GS version of HP Style (aka The lighter White Beak)





- Suspension Travel - GSA : F - 210mm; R- 220mm ; GS : F - 190mm; R - 200mm



(Just to compare with my Ninja 1000, Suspension Travel F - 120mm, R - 144mm, Weight (as I mentioned) is 240 kgs and Seat Height is 815mm.

And to give further perspective, lets also add F850GS - Seat height 860 mm, Weight 229 kgs and also F750GS - Seat height 815mm, Weight 224 kgs)



-----------------------------



A little comparo photos of the R1250GS - HP Style (White Beak) with my bike R1250GS Adventure - HP Style (Blue Beak) that I did on the day of the delivery -



Both the bikes together in a line. Notice the shorter Rallye Windscreen and Rallye Seat on the GS (White Beak). These 2 items are swapped during the addition of the Passenger Kit at 25k additional swapping cost.







Closer Look at the Rallye Seat on the GS which is quite similar on the GSA - HP Style without passenger kit except the rear luggage rack







The 'normal' dual passenger seat on my bike, a part of the additional cost passenger kit. Notice the different SS Luggage rack which can fit the Top Box directly while the above GS one requires additional parts.







Side view of the GS - HP Style. Notice the lack of any engine or tank protection which has to be bought separately.







Side view of my bike, the GSA - HP Style







--------------------



I also talked to the Honda Goldwing guys for the new Africa Twin, just to hear them out. They said No Discounts and No Test Ride bike. Also no chance of Android Auto coming on the new screen, which was a big draw for me as it was not available on the GSA. But sadly I am not a Apple guy. Shell out 18 Lacs upfront and few months down the line we will reward you with the new Africa Twin. Lolz. No offense meant to any prospective or current owner, but it was not my cup of tea, as I would primarily be using my bike for touring and not for off-road, where the Africa Twin excels.



So the R1250 GSA it is. Like all my threads, this will start with the initial impressions and gradually progress into a comprehensive review.



Coming Up...



STATUTORY WARNING : The following few posts are very long with 200+ photos and only for hardcore enthusiasts. Proceed at your own risk. Lolz. At 51, with age catching up with me fast, and all this covid mayhem going one, I could have 2 ways to face it all. 1. Go in a shell OR 2. Break free of the rut mindset and expedite your pace. I chose the latter. With more than 1 lac kms of motorcycling now behind my back, the thirst for more only got stronger. No compromises this time around. But as they say, reality strikes! I could, for all financial purposes, keep this as the 3rd superbike in my garage, however parking space was a major constraint. And wifey put the foot down, as I mentioned in the 1st post. So one of the bikes had to go. And I chose that would be the Ninja 1000. More on that, some other time. These covid times saw all the resale market go for a toss. Even though it was a very low mileage bike but it was nearly 3 years old now. I was still able to sell off the bike at not such a bad price. Also sold off the panniers separately and ultimately just lost about a lac from my expected price. Earn another day, and moved on!Just for retrospect, my other ownership threads of some of my bikes and cars are listed below -Kawasaki Ninja 1000 MY 2018 - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/super...ve-review.html (2018 Kawasaki Ninja 1000 - The Comprehensive Review) Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic 2012 - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/super...ve-review.html (Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic FLSTC: The Comprehensive Review) Harley Davidson 883 Superlow 2013 - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/super...ve-review.html (Harley Davidson Superlow XL883L - The Comprehensive Review) Royal Enfield Himalayan 2016 - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...re-tourer.html (Royal Enfield Himalayan - Comprehensive Review of the 'Desi' Adventure Tourer) And I will be comparing it as such with these bikes on which I have had first hand experience.Some of my other threads -Skoda Superb 2012, which I still own and love - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-...t-destiny.html (Skoda Superb - A tryst with destiny) Toyota Fortuner 2011, also still in the family - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-...uilt-last.html (The Millennium Falcon - Toyota Fortuner - The Raptor that is built to last) Now with Ninja 1000 sold at a decent price, money was still a constraint, and with my son's education cost abroad lurking around the corner, I did not want to touch my savings. As I had said on my Himalayan thread, the 1200GSA costs nearly ~ to 12 Himalayans or maybe a little more. Thankfully interest rates had dropped considerably. So I paid off my Bank of India's Ninja 1000 loan which was going on at 9.2% and they gave me a fresh one for around 40% of the Beemer's cost at just 7.35% (Yes, you read that right), as I was having a high credit rating score. So the 16.9k per month installment just turned into 19.9k one which did not affect me financially. So with 80% of the cost now taken care of by the sale of the Ninja 1000 and the loan, I just contributed the rest and bought the bike home.Financial quote that I got was nearly 26L on-road Delhi as this was the topmost variant of the GS range. I went for the R1250GS Adventure, Pro Variant in Style HP colour and kit with the additional Passenger Kit included, theversion as they call it in GS terminology. The Passenger Kit replaces the lower Rallye Single Seat with the normal Adventure Dual (read higher) Seats and also the lower Rallye Windshield with the normal (read higher again) Touring Windshield of the Adventure Range. Rest of the Kit is similar with the HP Style, more on which I will elaborate subsequently. The Bike was also Euro 5 i.e. BS6 compliant, so the previous discounts of upto 4 lacs or more on the BS4 range had vanished. But I was still able to muster a decent deal and the bike costed me 22.75L with RTO and TCS and I did the comprehensive Insurance (1 year OD + 5 year TP) myself from United India at another 47k, so it went on to 23.25L on road and I further added around 2L of accessories, so the final landed cost was around 25L. Yes, it's ~ 12 Himalayans!My dilemmas whether to opt for the GS or the GS Adventure were discussed here - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/super...ml#post4830544 (BMW R1200GSA or R1250GS?) . I usually research for at least a year before placing my money on any vehicle, but with the GS it was a long and ongoing process. And YES, I was finally able to get my favorite BLUE! And not a ounce of regret for not going for the lighter GS. I was able to ride standing at speed limit highway speeds on DAY 1 on the Adventure. I took to it like duck to water. If you are built for it, just go for the GSA and you wont regret it. Once it starts moving, you will see the weight disappear.Theare -- 30L Aluminum Tank vs 20L Plastic Tank- 268 kgs vs 249, difference of 19 kg. Just for perspective, my Ninja 1000 was 240 kgs and my Heritage Softail is 340 kgs!!- Engine specs are absolutely identical. More on the new VVT Twin Cam 1250 boxer motor later. And yes, that video by Fortnine criticizing VVT tech on 1250 should NOT let you change your mind. Thank God, I did not get swayed by it and am loving every moment on this new motor. All that talk about HSC kicking in automatically and VVT by him is just a person unfamiliar with how to use these features properly, talking. Don't, I repeat DON'T let that sway your decision, if that is what is keeping you from going for it.- 0-100 timings (unofficial figures) are floating between 2.91s to 3.16s. Ninja 1000 was 3.3s.- Price difference is around 1.9L variant to variant. In this difference you additionally get in GSA over the GS full Engine and Crash Protection (around 1L in aftermarket), Auxiliary Fog Lamps (25k), Rear Pannier Railings, removable (60k), Adjustable and spiked brake and gear levers, a more comfortable seat. Rear luggage rack is longer and fits top box directly, In GS you pay extra for top box mount.- Radiator Guards are standard in GSA HP Style, you pay extra on normal GS- Chassis Frame Protector is standard on GSA HP Style, again missing on GS- Additionally you get Hill Start Control Pro version in GSA which automatically or manually holds your bike on an incline, on the GS you get only the manual HSC.- No Chain maintenance is standard on both due to Shaft Drive.- HP stands for High Performance Edition in BMW terminology and is to renamed as M Edition as in their cars.Quote from Revzilla -- I put this above statement also down to the 'shorter' wheelbase on the GSA of 1517mm (59.7") compared to 1525mm (60") on the GS. Also the rake is slightly different which contributes to stability off-road. Rake - 26.3 degrees (GSA) vs 25.5 (GS). Also the Trail is 4.1" on the GSA vs 3.9" on the GS.- Seat height GSA - 890-910 vs GS - 850-870. Shorter riders can opt for the GS. I am 5'11" 83 kgs (down from 105... Lolz) and I am able to flat foot both my feet on my GSA as shown here in this post -This is the Kalamata Matt Version of the GSA. I like to call it the Stealth or the Safari Version. Both feet are flat on the ground.This is the Black Storm/Night Black Exclusive version of the GS with yellow highlights. More like the 40th Anniversay Editions launched in the 750 and 850GS's.Test Riding the GS version of HP Style (aka The lighter- Suspension Travel - GSA : F - 210mm; R- 220mm ; GS : F - 190mm; R - 200mm(Just to compare with my Ninja 1000, Suspension Travel F - 120mm, R - 144mm, Weight (as I mentioned) is 240 kgs and Seat Height is 815mm.And to give further perspective, lets also add F850GS - Seat height 860 mm, Weight 229 kgs and also F750GS - Seat height 815mm, Weight 224 kgs)-----------------------------that I did on the day of the delivery -Both the bikes together in a line. Notice the shorter Rallye Windscreen and Rallye Seat on the GS (White Beak). These 2 items are swapped during the addition of the Passenger Kit at 25k additional swapping cost.Closer Look at the Rallye Seat on the GS which is quite similar on the GSA - HP Style without passenger kit except the rear luggage rackThe 'normal' dual passenger seat on my bike, a part of the additional cost passenger kit. Notice the different SS Luggage rack which can fit the Top Box directly while the above GS one requires additional parts.Side view of the GS - HP Style. Notice the lack of any engine or tank protection which has to be bought separately.Side view of my bike, the GSA - HP Style--------------------I also talked to the Honda Goldwing guys for the new, just to hear them out. They said No Discounts and No Test Ride bike. Also no chance of Android Auto coming on the new screen, which was a big draw for me as it was not available on the GSA. But sadly I am not a Apple guy. Shell out 18 Lacs upfront and few months down the line we will reward you with the new Africa Twin. Lolz. No offense meant to any prospective or current owner, but it was not my cup of tea, as I would primarily be using my bike for touring and not for off-road, where the Africa Twin excels.So the R1250 GSA it is. Like all my threads, this will start with the initial impressions and gradually progress into a comprehensive review.Coming Up...: The following few posts are very long with 200+ photos and only for hardcore enthusiasts. Proceed at your own risk. Lolz. Last edited by dkaile : 20th August 2020 at 18:12 .
New Delhi, Aug 21 : As the Covid-19 crisis forces micro, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) in India to stay afloat in the absence of incoming revenue and kick-start their business again, digital lenders have come of age as they have the advantage of speed and adaptability to assess and disburse loans faster, according to a new report.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) estimates the total addressable credit demand by the country's MSMEs at $490 billion and the overall supply from formal sources at $192 billion.

"This credit gap of up to $331 billion suggests that traditional lenders are either reluctant or unable to serve this segment of borrowers. In contrast, alternative lenders like FlexiLoans, Indifi, SMEcorner and ZipLoan see lending to MSMEs as a business opportunity," said a latest Forrester report.

These digital lenders offer a wide range of alternative lending options, such as working capital loans from Happy, lines of credit from Indifi, startup loans from Lendingkart, and merchant cash advances from FinBucket.

"They use technology such as digital applications, automated underwriting, digital verification, and digital disbursement to improve risk assessment, accelerate loan processing, reduce costs, and enhance experiences," said Arnav Gupta, Analyst at Forrester Research.

Digital business lenders use payment and accounting platforms to find borrowers.

BharatPe lets payment solution customers know that they can apply for a loan and repay it via a percentage of sales made on the payment platform. Lenders lacking their own payment or accounting platform partner with firms that do.

"FlexiLoans offers loans to small businesses based on their activity on Paytm's platform. Digital lenders such as Indifi and ZipLoan work with an ecosystem of companies and marketplaces to gather information on potential borrowers and assess risk before granting loans," Gupta elaborated.

Indifi is working with food delivery startups Zomato and Swiggy to assess a restaurant's credit risk by checking its borrowing history and customer feedback before issuing a loan.

So far, digital business lenders have proliferated thanks to little competition from incumbents. To compete with them, a few Indian banks and NBFCs have started to raise their game - reducing the time to lend, improving risk assessment models, and building end-to-end digital lending processes.

Digital lenders put more effort into fine-tuning credit risk assessments using data from alternative sources.

They also avoid the cumbersome paper-based application and approval processes that traditional lenders use.

Many MSMEs expect flexible loan repayment terms - which the Covid-19 crisis will make more important than ever.

Loan repayment flexibility is something that traditional lenders have always failed to offer to businesses. In contrast, many digital lenders offer repayment flexibility as a product feature.

"Lendingkart offers business loans that borrowers can repay in equal monthly or biweekly installments, allowing them to adjust their repayments to their sales and invoicing cycles," Gupta noted.

Many digital lenders are also extending credit for a cause.

"Capital Float offers educational institutions collateral-free loans to improve the quality of education by investing in educational infrastructure. Digital lenders such as FinBucket and Lendingkart offer preferential loans to women entrepreneurs," the report mentioned.

FinBucket matches MSME borrowers with lenders such as banks, offering loans under the national government's "Stand-Up India" scheme to help borrowers from different social strata and women entrepreneurs set up their own businesses.

Many startups have sought to disrupt India's business lending landscape, dominated by banks and NBFCs.

Firms such as BharatPe, FlexiLoans, Happy, and Paytm are offering credit to small businesses that already use their services and often tie loans to sales flowing through their platform.

FlexiLoans partnered with more than 100 merchant platforms to offer merchant POS-based loans; merchants repay these loans via automatic deductions from future sales.

To help MSMEs cope with the pandemic, Indifi partnered with PayU to offer lines of credit to merchants, which can borrow up to $66,000 in revolving credit; they can draw on it when needed, and interest is calculated on the outstanding amount on a given day, said the report.

"Digital disruptors threaten to make incumbents irrelevant by delivering more compelling products, services and experiences than traditional firms and at a lower cost. To avoid being disrupted, relentlessly focus on understanding your customers' needs so you can give them more of what they want faster," the report said.
All our lives have changed so much over the past few months, so it is no surprise that how we do church has changed as well. Overnight, we began tuning into our church from the comfort of our home. I am not going to lie, at first, I enjoyed not having to do the hustle and bustle to feed my family, make sure they are dressed and get them to church before it starts.

It was nice to make a nice cup of tea, pull up our couch and just sit down. It is easier to not have to commute to church, to make the effort to go and just to watch church in P.Js. And while it has been a necessity for us to do this for a little while, during this unprecedented time, I believe the necessity of staying at home, in our own family units is well past its expiry date and is not healthy for the church.

It is time for us to wake up earlier, get dressed and go to physical church. We were never meant to do church alone. We were meant for fellowship.

Function of the church

I know the Bible was written in a time the predates our Smart phones and Wi-Fi and surely Paul and Peter did not realize what amazing technologies we would have in the future. For example, all I must do is type church service into my search engine and 2,610,000,000 options for church services appear. Could you imagine what Paul or Peter would say to us about neglecting the fellowship of believers for the convenience of watching church from home?

Is it still church if I watch it from home? Truthfully (and biblically), the answer is no. You are only watching a message, or listening and worshiping, and that certainly isnt the only purpose for church. My pastor did a great job of explaining the importance of attending church (click here) from the text found in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25, And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Here the writer is telling us that the purpose of Church is to meet for fellowship, encouragement and to challenge each other. It looks like some people had been neglecting the meeting part and the writer is calling them back to church. This text could be easily written to us today, but no matter how inconvenient the new standards of washing hands, wearing masks, and sitting a few extra feet apart, we are not to neglect the gathering of the believers.

Instead, we are to provoke each other to good works. How are we to challenge one another in the faith if we are not walking together, examining each others lives? We are to be in each others faces, pointing each other to Christ and encouraging each other to run this race. The Christian life is hard, there are so many trials and temptations and we need the body to help us through. If you are only watching a pastor preach and a few people sing you are not participating in the body.

Also, the passage in Hebrews tells us that we should be meeting even more as the Day approaches (the great day of the Lord). The times are going to get more and more evil and the body is going to need to rely on the encouragement from other believers to pull through what lies ahead.

Be the true body

Though Zoom and Facetime are good, we need the physical body to be present. Sometimes we need to give a fellow believer a hug, an encouragement, let them cry on our shoulder and you cant do that if you are not physically present. Think of the great sacrifice it is for our brothers/sisters to meet in some of the closed nations of the world.

They have the real threat of the government to take them in and here we are being complacent because we like the convenience of our couch and having a relaxing Sunday. Yet, these fellow believers risk their lives to meet with each other to praise the Lord.

I do understand that there is a virus out there and that it is killing people. But we dont need to live in fear. We cant live in fear, we need to be the salt in this world. We need to be proclaiming Christ to a world when it is scared and fearful. We need to tell them that we have the answer to death and that is Christ. Its probable that going to church is no more going to increase your risk of getting Covid than going to the grocery store. Furthermore, God is in control of your health and He decides whether you get sick or not.

As a suggestion, if your state is not allowing you to go to church yet, or you find yourself in the high risk category for Covid (and it is even unsafe for you to go out to the store) make a cohort with some other families and individuals from your church. Get together to watch the service on Sunday then discuss what you heard, pray with one another, challenge each other on sin. Lets be the body that meets to hear the Bible preached and God glorified, and that encourages each other to look more like Christ every day.
An effort by TikTok users to troll President Trump's official campaign app with thousands of one-star reviews appears to have had an impact -- if not the impact the pranksters had wanted. In July, Bloomberg reported TikTok activists were flocking to the Official Trump 2020 app on the U.S. App Store to fill it with negative reviews. The prank's goal was to get the app removed from the App Store by lowering its star rating. The plan was misguided, however, as it's a common misconception that an app will be pulled from the App Store for having bad reviews. But the trolling has now led the Trump campaign to reset the app's rating using the infrequently used "reset rating" feature Apple offers app developers.

The prank against the app had begun in retaliation to the Trump administration's threat to ban TikTok from the U.S. market. Bloomberg reported a TikTok user, Juan Booker, posted a video for his 750,000 followers asking them to go leave one-star ratings on the Trump app to get it booted from the App Store. That post, and then many others like it, began to circulate on TikTok.

But the TikTok users were mistaken. The idea that you can downrate an app to get it removed from the App Store has become a popular urban myth. Apple confirmed to TechCrunch this is not how the App Store works, in reality. It said it will not pull down a one-star app because of its rating.

That doesn't seem to deter the kids, though. In China, Wuhan schoolkids downrated a remote learning app on the App Store by leaving bad reviews, hoping to avoid virtual school during coronavirus lockdowns. U.S. schoolkids tried the same more recently with Google Classroom, also thanks to a TikTok meme.

In the case of the Trump app, the pranksters left reviews saying the app was glitchy and buggy or stole their personal information. They sometimes shouted out to TikTok in their reviews, as well.

Image Credits: Data via Sensor Tower

At the time of Bloomberg's report, the Trump campaign said the TikTok users' trolling effort hadn't had any impact on the Trump app. "TikTok users dont affect anything we do. What we do know is that the Chinese use TikTok to spy on its users," a Trump campaign director, Tim Murtaugh, told the news outlet.

Story continues

In reality, the extent of the trolling lowered the Trump app's rating to the point where the Trump campaign made the decision to wipe out its rating history and start fresh.

Just before Bloomberg's news report was published, data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows that the number of ratings for the app had jumped sharply from July 7 to July 9, 2020.

The app had about 20,500 one-star ratings on July 7, which spiked to 216,500 one-star ratings on July 9. The timing of that seems to coincide with Pompeo's initial comments around potentially blocking TikTok.

The Trump app's bad reviews peaked during the week of July 13 when it received 5,383 one-star reviews compared with 896 five-star reviews. The app saw its lowest star rating on July 11, at 1.2 stars.

It appears the trolling picked up again in August, as news of Trump's executive order to ban TikTok made headlines. On August 10 and 11, the app received 490 one-star reviews versus 59 five-star reviews, for example.

The firm says the Trump app had never before wiped out its rating history. But it did so on August 14, 2020 on the U.S. App Store when it updated to its latest version.

The day before the ratings reset, the app was rated approximately 1.5 stars.

The ratings reset hasn't seemed to stop the trolling. But as a result of the reset, the trolling no longer has as significant an impact now that all the older negative reviews aren't being factored into the app's summary rating.

On August 15 and 16, the app received 172 one-star reviews and 130 five-star reviews. Then on August 17 and 18, it received 161 one-star reviews and 162 five-star reviews.

As of the time of writing, the app has pulled itself up to a 3.9 rating, across 3,330+ reviews.

Typically, app publishers don't want to reset their app's summary rating because it means having to remove their app's lifelong rating history and start over from scratch. It means even the app's prior good reviews can no longer contribute to the summary rating the app displays on the App Store. The move is considered something of a last resort. It's what a developer would use if it, for example, had released a buggy update and got slammed with one-star reviews for having a broken app and wanted a second chance with users after the bug was fixed.

Even Apple warns against using the feature unnecessarily. On the Apple Developer website, Apple explains how an app's summary rating can be reset and when to use it.

"...We recommend using this feature sparingly," Apple writes. "While resetting the summary rating can ensure that it reflects the most current version of your app  useful if an update addresses users previous concerns  having few ratings may discourage potential users from downloading your app. In addition, keep in mind that resetting your summary rating does not reset your apps written reviews. Past reviews will continue to display on your product page," Apple website says.

Of course, the Trump campaign isn't likely concerned its official app won't have enough ratings to confer legitimacy. It doesn't have other apps also pretending to be the "real" version -- a problem some other App Store publishers face. App publishers who are typically concerned with retaining their rating history are those aiming to give potential users an assurance that their app has been around for a long time and that it has a large user base, based on the number of reviews.

When the rating is reset, the ratings count starts at zero. This can sometimes be seen as a popularity metric, however, so Trump's campaign probably didn't pull the kill switch without some consideration.

This isn't the first time TikTok users have tried to prank the Trump campaign. Thousands of TikTok users, along with K-pop fans, registered for tickets to Trump's Tulsa rally in an effort to take away seats from Trump supporters. When it appeared the rally was under-attended, TikTok users and other online activists claimed credit. The Trump campaign disputed this, saying it had already weeded out tens of thousands of bogus phone numbers that were used for fake registrations.

While the results of these online pranks may not have the effect they intend, it's worth noting what TikTok users are capable of achieving when their ideas go viral in the very app Trump is looking to ban. One wonders, though, if the TikTok pranksters of age will take their activism to the polls later this year.

The Trump campaign didn't reply to requests for comment.
During our 74th Independence Day celebrations, the Prime Minister extolled the nation to become Aatma Nirbhar so that we produce in India -- for ourselves and the world. Implied in his message is the need to nurture local innovation and enterprises to bring about the much-needed impact in health, education, and employability. The governments renewed focus on innovation and entrepreneurship is expected to fuel the ambitions of our youth and develop new generations of job-creators.

The Indian startup ecosystem at large, and our incubators in particular, will have a large role to play in making this dream happen. Already, a growing number of academic and private incubators and accelerators, many supported by NITI Aayogs Atal Innovation Mission and the Department of Science and Technology, are serving as catalysts in this movement. These incubators provide much-needed business mentoring, domain advice, customer connects, and investor introductions to startups.

To contribute to national development, our incubators need to focus on the following areas:

Incubators must be inclusive and impactful

While we have exemplars like Deshpande Startups (Karnataka) and ALEAP (Hyderabad) that focus on rural and women-centric ventures respectively, for a country of the size and variety of India we will need incubators in every district that leverage the local knowledge/networks and provide global access to local entrepreneurs. In the final analysis, an incubators success is equal to the success of the startups it supports. So, in addition to input/process measures like number of programmes/cohorts/mentors/investor/graduates, incubators must develop management dashboards that help them track outcomes as well, e.g., startups that still exist after one year, funds raised, number of jobs created, etc.

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

Improve engagement with quality mentors

Most accomplished entrepreneurs will cite the timely and relevant support (and confidence) that they received from their mentors as a vital ingredient of their success. While incubators often have a large set of mentors listed on their websites, very few of them are active, and even fewer are effective. Startup mentoring is an intense activity that requires a deep commitment from both parties. Incubators need to cast a wider net (e.g., covering host institutions alumni/faculty, incubator alumni, local SMEs) to attract mentors, and create mechanisms to select and train mentors. Also, incubators and startups need to realise that often a combination of two or more mentors  covering strategy, industry, and technology, does the trick.

Self-sustainability

Most university-linked incubators depend on government or industry grants, and host institutions funds to meet their operating expenses. This is an acceptable seed support for the first few years of an incubators life, but they must proactively become aatma nirbhar themselves through relevant independent revenue sources like corporate training, joint projects with local industry, corporate innovation partnerships, sponsorships, events, etc. Fundamentally, incubators must think of themselves as startups and develop a discipline of generating revenues, managing costs, and offering value at scale.

Technology-enabled scalable support

Many incubators have a large ambition but are limited by their resources, and sometimes, by their mindset. Hence, they are only able to support a limited number of startups each year (in cohorts or independently). The reality is that with decades of learning from successful and failed startups, a vast body of knowledge exists that incubators can leverage to provide support to a much larger number of startups. Incubators need to leverage technology for providing ongoing evaluation, context-sensitive tools, and timely mentoring to help hundreds, and not just tens, of startups.

The current health crisis and geo-political conditions are a clarion call for incubators to collaborate more with each other, and for them to support each other in becoming viable engines of job creation, family well-being, and economic prosperity.
Israels celebrated songstress and unofficial poet laureate, who authored the classic melody Jerusalem of Gold, the late Naomi Shemer, subsequently wrote a far more melancholy tune called The Honey and the Thorn. It describes the heartbreak of the Jewish settlers in the Israeli town of Yamit, on the Egyptian border, who (in 1982) were forcibly dragged from their homes by the Israel Defense Force, as part of the land for peace deal that brought about the formal recognition of the Jewish state by Anwar Sadats Egypt back in 1979. The homes themselves were then bulldozed...
Story Highlights 13% of Americans are satisfied with how things are going in the U.S.

35% cite the coronavirus as the country's most important problem

Gallup's Economic Confidence Index remains low at -16

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. remains at the nine-year low recorded in July, with 13% feeling satisfied. This reading comes as the country continues to reel from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Line graph. Americans satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. Thirteen percent of Americans in August are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., unchanged from the 13% who said the same in July.

Americans' satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. has fluctuated greatly this year. In February, with the economy still strong and President Donald Trump acquitted on impeachment charges, Americans' satisfaction with how things were going in the country was relatively high at 45% -- a level not seen since 2005. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck, with its associated precipitous decline of economic and in-person social activity, there was a stark deterioration of satisfaction among Americans.

Most Important Problem Facing the U.S.

While the pandemic has remained the most important problem for Americans since April, the current 35% mentioning it represents an uptick from the previous two months. Twenty-two percent mention the government, similar to the level of mentions since April. Relatively few Americans, 12%, say any economic troubles, including the economy in general terms, unemployment or economic inequality, are the most important problem facing the country.

Recent Trend in Americans' View of Most Important Problem in the U.S., 2020 What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today? May 28-Jun 4 Jul 1-23 Jul 30-Aug 12 % % % NET ECONOMIC PROBLEMS 19 9 12 Economy in general 8 4 7 Unemployment/Jobs 5 2 3 Gap between rich and poor 3 1 1 Corporate corruption * * 1 NET NONECONOMIC PROBLEMS 82 83 89 Coronavirus/Diseases 20 30 35 The government/Poor leadership 21 23 22 Race relations/Racism 19 16 10 Unifying the country 4 6 4 Crime/Violence 3 5 4 Ethics/Moral decline; Dishonesty; Lack of integrity 3 2 3 Healthcare 3 2 3 Judicial system/Courts/Laws 2 3 3 Immigration 2 1 2 Lack of respect for each other 4 2 2 The media 2 2 2 Police brutality 2 * 1 Education 1 1 1 Elections/Election reform 1 1 1 Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness 1 1 1 Welfare * * 1 Environment/Pollution/Climate change 2 1 1 Other noneconomic 4 4 2 No opinion 2 2 1 Shown are responses with at least 1% mentions in the July 30-Aug. 12 survey Gallup

Race relations, which in June reached a generational high of 19% mentions in the wake of the George Floyd killing, declined to 10%, the lowest since this summer's protests and national focus on racial justice began.

Economic Confidence Remains Sluggish in August

Gallup's Economic Confidence Index is at -16 this month, essentially the same as the -15 reading from July. It remains well below the +41 recorded in February, the highest Gallup has measured in nearly two decades. However, the current reading is improved from the recent low of -33 in April.

Line graph. Gallup's Economic Confidence Index for 2020, year to date. The index currently stands at -16, little changed from -15 last month, and down from a two-decade high of +41 in February.

Gallup's Economic Confidence Index summarizes Americans' responses to two items: their assessments of current economic conditions and their perceptions of whether the economy is getting better or worse. It has a theoretical range from -100 to +100.

Currently, 28% describe current economic conditions as excellent or good, 41% say they are "only fair" and 30% poor. Thirty-two percent believe the economy is getting better and 61% say it is getting worse.

Bottom Line

The challenges currently facing the U.S. are numerous and multifaceted -- from the impacts of the pandemic to economic deterioration, and from political paralysis on Capitol Hill to a focus on racial justice, albeit waning. In every direction one looks, the U.S. is facing unique and historic challenges. In terms of the most important, the pandemic continues to be the most top-of-mind for Americans, but the impact of those varied challenges is perhaps best reflected in the persistence of a nine-year low in overall national satisfaction.

View complete question responses and trends (PDF download).

Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.
During a freewheeling phone-in interview with Fox Newss Sean Hannity on Thursday evening, Donald Trump declared that he will be unleashing the full force of law enforcement to monitor this Novembers election.

He made the comments during a discussion about widespread postal voting, which he once again claimed will allow Democrats to steal the election.

Its a fraudulent election. Everybody knows it. You dont even have to know politics to know it. Fifty-one million ballots are going to be indiscriminately be sent out to people who didnt even ask for them! People are just going to say hey, I got a ballot, thats great, let me vote. And its a terrible thing. Theyre trying to steal the election.

Mr Hannity agreed, then recited a long list of cases of voter fraud, most of which did not relate to postal ballots.

He then pivoted to in-person voting, asking whether Mr Trump would have poll watchers to check that voters have been identified and to ensure every ballot is a real vote from a real American.

Recommended Trump petitions Supreme Court to let him block people on Twitter again

Were gonna have everything, Mr Trump answered. Were gonna have sheriffs, and were gonna have law enforcement, and were going to have US attorneys, and were going to have everybody, and attorney generals  but its very hard!

He then returned to the theme of mail-in voting, repeating various dubious and false claims without being challenged.

While police are allowed inside polling stations in the US, the American Civil Liberties Union points out they are principally there to help prevent illegal voter intimidation  including aggressive questioning of voters about their citizenship or eligibility to vote. The police themselves are also subject to laws against such intimidation.

Nonetheless, as the Republican party recruits tens of thousands of volunteers to spot and dispute suspicious ballots in various key states, various advocacy groups have raised concerns that state-level party representatives are pushing to install police officers at polling stations in an intimidating manner.

The US has a long history of police interfering with both voter registration and in-person voting, particularly prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. While the legislation formally blocked many iterations of police interference, there have been multiple incidents since.

Most notorious was an incident in New Jerseys 1981 gubernatorial election, for which the Republican Party recruited armed off-duty police officers to patrol polling stations in minority areas. The officers wore arm bands reading Ballot Security Task Force and harassed Black and Latino voters, threatening them with fines. One voter reported being physically pulled out of a polling station by one of the officers.

The Republican National Committee was sued over the incident, and in the end was served with a consent decree that prevented it from using the same tactics again. However, in 2018, a federal judge allowed the decree to expire  potentially allowing the party to deploy armed agents again in the name of ballot security.

Mr Trump and Mr Hannitys exchange about electoral integrity, meanwhile, gave an indication that the threat of widespread voter fraud cited by Mr Trump and his allies is not well-founded.

Mr Hannity pointed to a report from the right-leaning Heritage Foundation think tank, which keeps a database of voter fraud incidents covering the last two decades. The host cited a total figure of 1,088, which in fact comes from a 2017 edition of the database; the think tank currently gives a tally of 1,296 proven instances of voter fraud.

The total votes counted in the last presidential election alone came to 136,669,276, but the right-wing foundation nonetheless calls its average of fewer than 70 cases per year stark evidence of a broken system in need of reform.
Patna, Aug 21 : Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Bihar have been unanimously pressing for a virtual campaign for the Assembly elections to be held later this year amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rajiv Ranjan, Vice President of Bihar's BJP unit, pointed out that connecting with voters through a normal campaign will be extremely difficult and dangerous amid the pandemic as the voters may hesitate to assemble at one place.

"Hence, it would be wise to come up with innovative ideas to connect with the voters through a virtual campaign", he said.

"Keeping in view the Assembly elections later this year, we have a national executive committee meeting coming up in the next two days and we have already put this point before the top BJP leaders. Our state leaders will elaborate on this idea at this meeting. The three-day meeting will also be held virtually," Ranjan said.

"We have limitations in this election campaign with arrangements for hand sanitisers and masks but adhering to social distancing norms is not easy, hence going towards the digital path is the only way to fight against the pandemic and at the same time connect with the voters," he said.

Ranjan added that the BJP has 75 lakh dedicated workers in Bihar.

The chief guest at the national executive committee meeting on Day 1 will be former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while BJP chief Jagat Prakash Nadda will be the chief guest on the last day.
Today we face multiple existential threats as a society and yet we stand frozen. Stuck in the same modes of thinking that have divided us and constrained our state and nation for decades. The simultaneous crises of a global pandemic, climate change, and social injustice are testing the limits of our capacity for unity and progress. We face the difficult trade-offs of short-term personal freedoms versus the long-term goal of growing a community where all may thrive.

Nowhere is this trade-off more evident than in the current state of our energy infrastructure. For years we have allowed dirty power plants to be built and operated next door to those who are least empowered to object. We have lost the political will to site clean generation in and around urban areas, clinging to the illusion that a cleaner and more just future would emerge from the remote corners of our state with no change required on the part of our community.

Just this week we witness further implications of our stubborn unwillingness to compromise to make common progress. While we quarantine at home due to the global pandemic, climate change is treating us to some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded. The result has been a return to rolling blackouts as the woefully underprepared electricity grid strains under the resulting demand for electricity. Failing to prepare for a public health crisis. Failing to acknowledge social injustice. Failing to invest in clean energy at a federal level. Years of failing to invest in transmission, distribution and storage. Years of making those clean energy investments that were made only in places that had little to no social compromises involved. This is the result. Were stuck. Stuck in our homes in overwhelming heat as the lights go out.

My company, Intersect Power, is a small Bay Area business with 23 employees. We are a tight group of friends and colleagues with a mission to preserve our planet for future generations. To date, weve built our larger scale solar and storage projects in locations well outside of the cities where most electricity is consumed. Weve been part of a tremendous success story in California building mega-scale renewables primarily in the deserts of Southern California. But as we produce more clean energy it begins to really matter where we put it. The transmission grid is not built to move every needed electron from A to B at the exact moment its needed. Basic engineering principles demand generation and capacity to store energy closer to where it is used for our grid to operate reliably.

Our companys proposed Aramis Renewable Energy Project is located in Livermore. It will be one of the only large-scale solar facilities in the Bay Area with a generation and storage capacity of 100 megawatts it will have the ability to generate enough energy to power 25,000 Bay Area homes at any given time and store enough energy to power these homes for over four hours when the sun is not shining. The project is sited on private property and is being permitted to not only meet the strict environmental permitting standards of the state, but goes above and beyond by including a dedicated public hiking trail opening up private land to public use and offering educational opportunities for local schools, pollinator-friendly landscaping to screen the facility from public roadways, and the integration of animal grazing and beekeeping on site.

Yet even the Aramis project finds itself stuck. There is no doubt that for those who live nearby, this development will represent a change and perhaps even a sacrifice in terms of their own immediate desires. However, it is the job of government to lay out exactly how projects like Aramis get built, what limitations will apply, and what standards will be upheld to ensure that local residents are not harmed, so that a reasonable compromise can benefit our community as a whole. This is how communities progress and thrive.

As a member of the Bay Area community, Intersect Power is committed to making the Aramis project a long-term success for all members of the community. We are working with the Alameda County Community Development Department, local residents, environmental non-profit groups, biologists, beekeepers, and others to put in place rigorous mitigation measures and standards to minimize any adverse impacts.

We have committed our state and our community to a path of growth and progress. There are more houses, cars and shops every day, and the impact of this growth must be mitigated. Clean, local energy production and storage at a scale large enough to matter is one of the largest steps we can take toward positive change. Many would have you believe that there is an easy answer, which is to do nothing. To leave things as they are. Do no harm. As you consider their case and the points Ive made above, I urge you to reflect on how we got here ... stuck in our homes in overwhelming heat as the lights go out, with our most disadvantaged community members bearing the brunt.

Sheldon Kimber is CEO and founder of Intersect Power, one of the largest solar developers in North America headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday described the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as a "landmark project" under the Belt and Road Initiative and said it is of great importance to promoting in-depth development of the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries.

IMAGE: Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the closing session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photograph: Reuters

Xi, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, made the remarks in a verbal message to Pakistani President Arif Alvi, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Replying to a congratulatory letter sent by the Pakistani president to the opening of the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, Xi said that it fully demonstrated that Alvi attaches great importance to and supports the China-Pakistan relationship and construction of the CPEC.

The USD 60 billion CPEC connecting China's resource-rich Xinjiang province with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar port in Balochistan is regarded as the flagship project of the multi-billion BRI, the pet scheme of President Xi aimed at furthering China's influence globally with Chinese funded infrastructure projects.

India has objected to the CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Xi's message to Alvi comes on the day Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi concluded their two-day 2nd strategic dialogue at China's island resort of Hainan on Friday.

In his message to Alvi, Xi said China and Pakistan are good brothers and partners who share special friendship.

The political parties from both sides often carry out friendly consultations and constantly build political consensus, which is conducive to steadily advancing the construction of the CPEC as well as high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, he said.

China stands ready to work with Pakistan to build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future, jointly promote regional solidarity and cooperation, and safeguard the good momentum of peace and development in the region, the Chinese president said.
According to the Trump Administration, the UK has been informed that the U.S. does not want the death penalty for the notorious ISIS members, referred to as the Beatles. The move is to make the UK consider more pervasive evidence.

The reason of the eclectic request is because more hard evidence is needed to try and judge the notorious Islamic State member in American courts. Much so, the Attorney General William Barr gave a letter to the Priti Patel, UK Home Secretary saying that the U.S. preferred that if a death sentence is imposed against Alexanda Kotey or El Shafee Elsheikh it will not be done, reported CNN.

They used to be composed of four members, the Islamic State members who got their moniker because of their British accents primarily. It is this group that executed hostages and prisoners. A few were videotaped and sent to press outlets as a gesture of barbarity.

Part of their notoriety and infamous reputation was the part they willingly played in an Islamic State execution group. The U.S. State Department has informed the press that these men have held captive with the beheading of 24 hostages. Some of their victims were James Foley, Steve Sotloff (press), and Peter Kassig (aid worker). Two of those beheaded were American nationals, cited USA Today.

One of the IS Beatles was killed with another one captured and arrested for his atrocities the placed on trial in Turkey. This happened all the way back in 2015, but the two other Kotey and Elsheikh were apprehended in Syria in 2018.

Also read: U.S. Retaliates 'Defensive Strike' Against Talibans After Attack on Afghan Checkpoint

The IS Beatles were rescinded of their UK citizenship in 2015. The UK is now reluctant to try Kotey and Elsheikh and carryout a verdict, making it hard is the complications of legality with returning former citizens to justice.

The American government prefer not to arrest non-U.S. nationals that are accused to be Islamic State, cited NBC News. Should AG Barr be successful in repatriating Kotey and Elsheikh to be tried in America, that will be a first. It will be a rare instance that a foreigner will be subject to American laws like them who were former terrorists.

To date, there are two IS militants that are incarcerated by the U.S. military in Iraq. They were transferred to American hands when Turkey invaded North Syria during 2019. Some questioned if the U.S. and Syria can detain dangerous men.

One of the points in AG Barr's letter is the need for hard evidence and information that can help in bringing the Two Beatles in by October 15. Americans cannot move without pervasive evidence to prosecute on U.S. soil. If the October deadline lapses, then Kotey and Elsheikh will be sent to Iraq and tried in the Iraqi justice process, noted Weny News.

Courts in Iraq have sent IS members to death, and the Beatles may be added to the sentenced IS.

Sources say that if the UK moved fast enough to try the pair without U.S. assurance which was stopped by a UK court that was not in agreement.

Both of the ex- ISIS members called the Beatles have apologized publicly for their parts and atrocities.

Related article: Taliban Takes Advantage of Pentagon Peace Deal by Attacking Afghan Allies, Killing Civilians

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Many residents living on a narrow street in a Laois town woke up to parking fines left on their cars on Wednesday morning, August 12.

Parking fines were left on about six vehicles parked along O'Moore Street in Mountmellick, all charged with obstructing the path.

Among those fined was a lady aged 95 who reared her family on the street.

Several of the residents contacted Laois County Council to complain about the 40 fines.

One resident contacted the Leinster Express.

Irene OReilly says she has been parking for the past three years outside her house after buying it.

There are no double yellow lines, its not a parking bay, theres no pay and display sign. I thought it was legal. We were all shocked, she said.

While her house comes with a shared gated access to the rear, Irene said it is narrow and only allows for drop offs, not parking.

I think its madness. We should be entitled to park. We got no warning, that would have been a gesture of good will. I obey the rules, I would have moved, she said.

Ms OReilly said her street has had enough upset.

We are still suffering from the flooding, a lot of homes have no insurance. I was not working in the lockdown and now Im off again on the Covid payment. The council say they are in partnership with the public, well this is pushing people away, she said.

Below: Irene's parking ticket.

Laois County Council has explained how the fines came about.

The Traffic Warden acted on foot of a complaint from two pedestrians who advised they could not access the footpath at that location and were forced to walk out onto the public road. The Warden was obliged to investigate the matter. Tickets were issued to those vehicles that were obstructing the footpath to which pedestrians had no access, an official said.

They will consider leniency given the current climate.

In an effort to resolve the issue locally, I was contacted by Cllr Paddy Bracken and my office has since spoken to a number of the fine recipients today. Laois County Council is aware of the difficulties people are experiencing in the current climate and consideration will be given to representations made in this instance. I will be issuing correspondence in this regard in the coming days.

The safety of road and footpath users is paramount and under Road Traffic legislation, a fine can be issued to a vehicle that obstructs a footpath/ walkway, most especially where there is a potential road safety issue for pedestrians, the council official said.
CAIRO  Rival political leaders in Libya announced an immediate cease-fire on Friday and called for talks to demilitarize Sirte, the seaside city that has become the focus of international efforts to break the stalemated conflict in the oil-rich but dysfunctional North African nation.

The announcement was welcomed by the United Nations, the United States and other Western countries scrambling to contain growing Russian and Turkish influence in Libya, which has been roiled in conflict since its longtime strongman ruler, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was toppled and killed nearly a decade ago in Sirte, his hometown.

The U.N.-backed government in Tripoli and Aguila Saleh, the head of a rival Parliament in eastern Libya, simultaneously proclaimed the cease-fire in coordinated announcements. It was a rare positive development in a notoriously chaotic war made worse this year by extensive foreign interference. But skepticism abounded about any possible breakthrough.

Analysts warned that, like an international conference in Berlin last January that aimed to pull Libya out of its political and military quagmire, the cease-fires prospects for success are deeply uncertain.
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There's a face mask hanging next to a front door; empty grandstands at sporting fields; a hotchpotch of working from home spaces.

They're images we can all relate to: the new "COVID norm".

But the 413 images in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale's Mass Isolation project are more than pretty pictures. They aim to connect people during the very time they're being forced to stay apart.

Grandmother Margaret Wheeler greets her granddaughter Alice Sarah-Lay through the glass at the Trentham Aged Care Facility. It's one of hundreds of images that make up Ballarat Foto's Mass Isolation project. Credit:Sandy Scheltema

It was obvious at the beginning of the pandemic that we needed to do something to tell the story of COVID-19 photographically, says Fiona Sweet, director of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

The isolation series has been a way to be able to connect people with that story while being separated.

Inspired by the Mass Observation project that captured life in Britain from 1937 until the mid-1960s, the Mass Isolation series is the Australian arm of a collaboration between Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Format International Photography Festival in the UK, and the Gallery of Photography in Ireland.
Upon reading the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular which introduces safeguards to prevent misuse of current accounts, I was transported back in time to 1986, when I was posted as a branch manager of State Bank of India in a project area branch. Every day I was flooded with requests for overdrafts in current accounts.

I had a choice to make  either take a risk or lose lucrative business for my bank. I chose to take the risk, but also took measures that reduced it to a bare minimum. The first thing I did was to ensure that any customer wanting to avail an overdraft could not have an account in any other bank. Back in the day, this was almost impossible to ensure, yet it was made possible by monitoring and controlling cash inflow from its origin.

An overdraft was given on the condition that the borrower writes to the client for whom they were executing the project to issue cheques drawn only at my branch. This would ensure that there would be no diversion of funds. Even if a customer tried to play smart, the branch would know as the cheque would come to the branch for collection.

Fast forward to 2020. Ensuring such financial discipline in the digital age is almost childs play. The question is: Why didnt the RBI think of it before? While it could be a lack of will or lack of appreciation or any other reason, all one can say is that it is better late than never.

The rules could be a game changer for the banking industry and its health. They would reduce cases of fund diversion, cheating and wilful default, provided they are implemented seriously. The present digital ecosystem certainly enables creating such a system where a common identifier could be PAN number/ TIN No/ GST Number/ Date of Birth or incorporation or CIN.

What more can RBI do?

Well, firstly, it could take some inspiration from the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) which periodically sends each demat account holder a statement which has details of all accounts held by that account holder.

The RBI must think of creating such a system to begin with for all borrower accounts and then move on to all accounts: savings, current, fixed, etc. This will be helpful not only to banks, but also for all stakeholders. For purpose of this article, we can call it RBI CAS (consolidated account statement).

This information must be shared with account holders only, so that there is no breach of confidentiality. It can also be shared with any statutory authority as and when required.

Any banker, when approached with a request to open a current account (or any account) must ask the prospective customer for a copy of their latest RBI CAS. Information of new accounts opened can be automatically sent to all the banks where the customer has an existing account(s). This will ensure that even if an account is opened without permission of the existing banker, the latter would immediately know.

At present, the NeSL (National E Governance Services Ltd.) has all the data of all borrowers in its system. The same can be extended to include all accounts in a phased and time-bound manner.

Contracts and Invoices & GST system: It must be mandated that all contracts and invoices must mention the bank account details, and it must be obligated to the payer of invoices that the payment must be made to only the account mentioned in the invoice. Unless there are valid reasons, the payment made to any other account shall not qualify as expenses. The GST system has stabilised now, and there must be a full integration of the GST system with bank accounts. This will enable matching unpaid items at both ends.

Audit: Integration of bank accounts with the GST system and the RBI CAS will act as a boon for audit professionals, who are under pressure to detect and report frauds, especially after they have been burdened (and rightly so) with responsibilities under the Companies Act and the SEBI LODR. The integrated system and the RBI CAS will surely prevent a Satyam-like fraud. It will also enable auditors to carry out reconciliation of bank accounts, debtors and creditors (using the GST system). This will improve audit reliability and quality of audit as well.

Transaction tracking: As all bank accounts get linked, it would be easy to trace the final destination of funds. A bank or an investigative agency or regulator will be able to download a statement of account and establish transaction history, funds movement journey, its final destination and end use. It will be able to trace the circular movement/round tripping of funds using data analytics. It will ensure that recent cases of fund diversion such as the ones involving DHFL, PMC Bank, Nirav Modi, HDIL, Mcleod Russel and CG power are caught much before they become a pain point.

Securities Market Integration: In the next stage, the system must be integrated with the security markets as well. A demat account and securities trading account, which are already linked with bank accounts, can be easily linked.

Real Estate Registration: Registration offices all over India must also be linked, and all registration must get reported in the system.

Counter Arguments

Any change in the existing system, be it in India or anywhere in the world, draws opposition from the affected parties. The most vociferous are those whose businesses prosper due to lack of transparency and lack of audit trail. Such a system will draw flak using loss of privacy as an argument.

The general public has had enough from motivated litigations, and opposition under the guise of loss of privacy. Today any regulator or any agency can collect all the data proposed to be centralised from different sources. All I am proposing is integration and ease of analysis.

The RBI has made a good start. Now it should put its foot down and work for an integrated system where dodging banks, regulators and the tax department becomes impossible. India has enough talent to put such a system in no time. Needless to say, such an integrated system should have proper safeguards to prevent data theft or misuse.
Jane Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said no amount of pomp or pageantry can hide from voters that the Republican Party is at war with women.

She said the GOP is out of step with women on issues from outlawing legal abortions to ignoring the science to effectively combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert, a Republican, said Bacon has many of the leadership qualities possessed by strong women leaders  a good temperament, the ability to work with others and reserve judgment, and listening skills.

Bacon said he and the president, and Republicans like them, will win this fall because of their emphasis on safety and security. He said people see protesters and chaos in the streets in many American cities and dont like the Democratic Partys vision for the country.

Omaha, he said, has benefited from the conservative leadership provided by Stothert. Bacon also pushed back against calls to defund the police. He asked women in the crowd to be bold about speaking up for their freedoms to worship and bear arms.
PLA special operations soldiers conduct island-landing training in East China Sea

PLA Daily

Source: China Military Online

Editor: Wang Xinjuan

2020-08-20 14:41:19

BEIJING Aug. 20 -- Recently, a special combat brigade under the 72nd Group Army of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the sea-crossing and island-landing training in waters of East China Sea, including maneuvering on rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB), swimming in battle gears, armed cross-country race, island-landing and cliff-climbing, etc., in a bid to test the comprehensive combat capabilities of the service members under extreme conditions.

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Hunter Biden appeared on behalf of his father at Thursday night's Democratic National Convention in a video with his sister Ashley.

The Bidens' two adult children said every other line of the video, with Hunter Biden describing his dad as 'honest' and 'the strongest shoulder you can lean on.'

'He'll listen. He'll be there when you need him. He'll never let you down,' Hunter Biden said, a subtle hint to his personal troubles.

Hunter Biden hinted as his personal troubles when he talked about how his father was 'the strongest shouder you can lean on'

Hunter Biden appeared alongside his sister Ashley in a video that served as one of the introductions to Joe Biden's nomination acceptance speech

He said his dad would 'make your grandkids feel that what they've got to say matters.'

'He'll get up no matter how many times he's been knocked down,' Hunter Biden continued. 'He'll be the best friend you've ever had.'

At the end of the quick video tribute, which was seemingly not filmed in Delaware where Ashley, the grandchildren and Joe and Jill Biden have been this week, but with no sign of Hunter, the two siblings poked fun at some of their dad's more goofy tendencies.

'And if you give him your cell phone number,' Hunter Biden said.

'He's going to call it,' Ashley Biden said.

'How do we know?' Hunter Biden said.

'Because he's been that way our whole lives,' Ashley Biden said.

Hunter's appearance at the DNC was announced earlier Thursday when the Democrats put out the schedule.

His business dealings in Ukraine and China have been political fodder for Republicans throughout Joe Biden's run for the White House, with Trump's impeachment based on the president's quest to have the Ukrainian president announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

Hunter Biden's personal life has also given the family unwanted attention as he dated Beau's widow Hallie after his brother's death, had a child out-of-wedlock with a former D.C.-based stripper and then quickly wed his latest wife, Melissa Cohen, who gave birth to a baby boy in April.

He's most recently been living in California.
Firefighters from Barstow tackle hotspots along Highway 9 during the CZU Lightning Complex fire Sunday in Boulder Creek, Calif. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

A series of wildfires burning an area larger than the state of Rhode Island have depleted California's firefighting resources and triggered requests for help from across the West, the East Coast and even as far as Australia.

Since Saturday, more than 918,000 acres of California's forests and shrub lands have burned, many of them sparked by a weekend lightning storm stretching hundreds of miles and stoked by one of the worst heat waves in recent memory.

The blazes include the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which at more than 302,000 acres is the second-largest fire in California history. The SCU Lightning Complex fire, currently covering more than 274,000 acres, is fourth largest.

"These fires again are stretching our resources, our personnel," Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Friday media briefing.

About 96% of the fire engines with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are already committed to wildfires, with little in the way of local assistance. Oregon, Arizona and Washington have all sent firefighters and equipment to help, and there's a pending request with Australia for their fire crews, Newsom said.

But not all requests from California for out-of-state resources are being granted. Officials with the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho, which coordinates interstate firefighting deployments, said they've been inundated with requests from across the West and have redirected some of California's requests back home.

"It's difficult with what's happening across Northern California right now," said Sean Kavanaugh, Cal Fire's incident commander on the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which is burning in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.

While the fires could not be predicted, the strain on firefighting resources was.

Cal Fire's union leadership began sounding the alarm about a depletion of resources in the spring, when the COVID outbreak triggered early releases from prisons and with that, a loss of hundreds of inmate firefighters who annually help set up defensive lines around wildfires. Inmate firefighters make up about 43% of Cal Fire's firefighting force.

Story continues

Since the outbreak began, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has released more than 800 inmate firefighters, with about 600 of those releases coming since July.

"A combination of expedited and natural releases have contributed to the recent decrease in the conservation camp population," CDCR spokesman Aaron Francis said in an email.

The state is down to 1,659 inmate firefighters from the 2,255 available in April.

Overall, 1,300 inmates are deployed across the state assisting with some of the most grueling work in firefighting: marching into rugged terrain with hand tools to cut away brush and scrape the earth free of anything that could burn.

The state hired some 800 seasonal workers "just in time" to offset the loss in inmates at the cost of about $72 million, Newsom said.

"We have more people, but it's just not enough. We have more air support, and it's still not enough," the governor said.

The fires in Northern and Central California have killed at least five people, destroyed 629 structures and scorched over 1,400 square miles, more than twice the area of the city of Los Angeles and more than three times what burned in the entire state last year. A Pacific Gas & Electric worker also died at the time of the fires, but Cal Fire officials say it was unrelated to the blaze.

"We can confirm that a Vacaville-based troubleman passed away while assisting first responders as they dealt with the LNU Complex Fire," PG&E said in a statement. "Out of respect for the familys privacy, we wont be sharing additional details at this time."

More than 60,000 people were under evacuation orders Friday in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties for the CZU Lightning Complex fire, as firefighters hoped to use a break in the extreme heat to make progress.

Mark Brunton, a Cal Fire operations section chief, said at an evening press conference that the fire weather had improved Friday in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties with cooler temperatures; firefighters did not observe erratic fire behavior. The areas of most concern are communities along the Highway 9 corridor north of Santa Cruz, which have the largest number of buildings in the direct line of fire.

Billy See, a Cal Fire incident commander, said nearly 100 more firefighters showed over the last day, bringing their force to about 1,000 people. The fire has burned at least 57,000 acres.

"Its still not enough," he said. "Were going to continue to bring additional personnel and resources in here.

Resources are coming in from other states, but it takes a matter of days for that manpower to arrive.

Theyre stretched very, very thin, See said.

See has said this fire is historic  so much that hes tired of saying it.

Im tired of saying that Ive never seen something like this in 34 years of fighting fire, he said. Its a dangerous situation.

The fire has burned through the mountainous Santa Cruz County communities of Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond, destroying a number of structures overnight.

One problem was residents who were refusing to evacuate, forcing firefighters to rescue them.

When people that do stay behind  try to take matters in their own hands with trying to suppress fires, it creates a bigger issue, Brunton said. We had, last night, three separate rescues that pulled our vital  very few resources  away to have to rescue those individuals, because they put themselves in peril. Theyre not trained firefighters.

He added: In the long run its created a bigger problem for first responders, because of that it took our firefighters away from the firefight to rescue them.

Firefighters must choose which buildings to save.

We cant save everything, Brunton said. We have to pick and choose our targets of opportunity the best we can. Properties that have a cleared layer of defensible space  no flammable vegetation in a zone around property  give firefighters the best opportunity to save a home, he said.

The intense smoke caused by the fire, which is burning through timber, has limited the use of firefighting aircraft. The smoke is so bad that the visibility would be akin to flying through fog or dense clouds, and it would be unsafe to have aircraft fly, Brunton said.

The evacuation zone for the fire stretches in the mountains from San Gregorio State Beach, south of Half Moon Bay, to the edge of the city limits of Santa Cruz. The orders reached the UC Santa Cruz campus late Thursday.

Brant Robertson, a UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist, lives 100 yards from the evacuation zone on the universitys campus.

He said that he had not received a warning but that he and his family  his wife, 11-year-old triplets and dog  were all packed and ready to evacuate at a moments notice.

He lives in a cul-de-sac at the edge of campus and said roughly half his neighbors had already left.

Standing on his porch, Robertson said the air was thick with dust and ash, as well as larger particles  burnt leaves and fibers suspended in the wind.

We have all the windows shut, he said. But you can still taste the smoke. Its unavoidable.

He and his wife have been constantly following Twitter and keeping an eye on NASAs satellite imagery.

Ive lived all over the place, Robertson said. Ive been through tornadoes and earthquakes. But this is different. You just react to those events. This is unusual in that we dont know when the alarm is going to go off. But theres a lot of tension. Its continuously stressful to hurry up and wait.

He said the schools have closed for at least the next week as families and teachers evacuate. Even though classes were being taught remotely, the evacuations have made teaching and learning impossible.

He said this last week has been exhausting, starting with the heat wave. His phone recorded a high of 108 degrees at his house one day.

Then there were the blackouts, as the electrical grid was overwhelmed amid the heat.

He said that the supercomputers he uses as a physicist were intermittently shutting on and off. He lost a ton of data.

Then the storms hit, he said of the lightning storms that moved across the region Sunday and Monday. It cooled off, but then the smoke began to build as a result of the fires.

And now his family is on the edge of evacuation.

With more than 18,000 students enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, the university is working to find hotel or other rooms for students, although it's unclear how many were on campus or in the community when the evacuations were announced.

The fire also seriously damaged Big Basin Redwoods State Park, northwest of Santa Cruz, prompting a conservation group on Thursday to openly mourn the loss of Californias oldest state park.

We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone, said the Sempervirens Fund in a statement. Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed much of the parks historic facilities. We do not yet know the fate of the parks grandest old trees.

Farther inland, in the mountains east of San Jose, the SCU Lightning Complex fire has grown to more than 274,000 acres, making it the fourth largest fire in recorded state history. It has destroyed five buildings.

So many fires burned in the numerous low mountain ranges surrounding the San Francisco Bay that the region was home to the worlds worst air quality earlier in the week, according to the website PurpleAir .

One major cluster of blazes is in wine country. The LNU Lightning Complex fire has blackened more than 302,000 acres, destroyed 480 structures and triggered the evacuation of nonessential personnel from Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and patients from Adventist Health St. Helena hospital in Napa County. It was 15% contained Friday evening as the area had cooled overnight.

The largest in the complex is the Hennessey fire, which is so big at more than 256,000 acres that on Friday it had nearly surrounded Lake Berryessa, one of Californias largest reservoirs. It has merged with a number of other fires.

The activity of the Hennessey fire on its southern edge  including in the direction of Vacaville and Fairfield in Solano County  has dropped off significantly, said Chris Waters, a Cal Fire operations section chief, on Friday. Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield has canceled its evacuations for nonessential personnel; evacuations for parts of Vacaville were also canceled.

The Hennessey fire, however, is still active on its northern edge, and threatening Pope Valley in Napa County. It has neared the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation tribal community in Yolo County, which operates Cache Creek Casino Resort.

The second fire, the 43,286-acre Walbridge fire, in northern Sonoma County, was moving Friday toward the town of Guerneville on the Russian River.

Right now we have engines, dozers, hand crews and law enforcement working in the Walbridge fire right now to try and slow the spread of the fire down, Waters said. Were also organizing evacuations and warnings for the community of Guerneville.

The third fire, the Myers fire on the Sonoma County coast, has stopped moving and should be contained fairly soon, Waters said.

These fires are burning in areas that have not burned in decades. The fuel load is extremely high. The conditions are very dry. And the winds will continue to pick up throughout the day, Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa) said of the fires burning in Sonoma County.

By Friday afternoon, there were more than 1,000 people fighting the LNU Lightning Complex fire in the North Bay, significantly above the 587 people working the fire on Thursday.

Looking ahead, there is a chance that another string of lightning storms could hit the coastal mountains over the weekend, San Jose State atmospheric scientist Alison Bridger said.

The dome of heat that crawled up from Arizona last week and baked Northern California is going to reestablish itself, although temperatures won't reach the same extremes, she said.

At the same time, another storm off the Mexican coast is poised to feed that heat dome moisture, which would destabilize it, laying the groundwork for thunderstorms.

"And then all you need is a little energy to spark it and you'll get more lightning and thunder," Bridger said.

The storms would develop fairly rapidly, so it won't be clear whether there will be lightning and where it would strike until possibly Sunday morning, she added.

The National Weather Service has issued a wide ranging fire weather watch for large swaths of Northern and Central California beginning Sunday morning through Tuesday, saying fast moving  thunderstorms may lead to a risk of dry lightning and new fire starts.

Residents Friday morning in the mountain town of Inskip in Butte County were told to pack up and leave ahead of the approaching fires. And in Monterey County, officials have issued an evacuation warning for the Carmel Valley  known for its rolling hills, vineyards and hotels  and the adjacent Laureles Grade area, which is close to the River and Carmel fires that have already destroyed at least 38 structures. Monterey County supervisor Mary Adams urged people to act early so that we dont have a glut of traffic on Carmel Valley Road should the order to evacuate comes.

Meanwhile, families evacuated from their homes for more than a week in Riverside County were told they can begin to return as crews gathered momentum against the Apple fire, the first big wildfire of the season.

For all the sweltering humidity Southern Californians have been experiencing lately, it's been extremely dry up north, experts say.

"The fire concentration, the challenge were facing in the state is now disproportionately affecting California," the governor said. Crews that were battling the Apple fire are now headed north. And when they get there, they'll be fighting fires on myriad fronts.

Rust reported from Santa Cruz, Lin from San Francisco and Serna from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Anita Chabria in Healdsburg and Stuart Leavenworth, Luke Money and Leila Miller in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Chinas extensive damming of the upper Mekong River has reduced water flows, threatening downstream countries Cambodia and Vietnam with environmental harm and food shortages, said experts in advance of a summit meeting of the multilateral Mekong-Lancang Cooperation group.

The summit, to be held on Aug. 24 as a virtual meeting, will be co-chaired by Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen participating. The group is widely seen as a rival to the separate four-nation Mekong River Commission (MRC) and as a forum controlled by China to promote its own interests.

Ham Oudom, a Cambodian consultant on natural resources and water governance, told RFA in an interview this week that downstream countries on the Mekong should confront China forcefully over the harm caused by Chinas control over water flows on their countries economies and environment.

It appears to me that China seemingly wants to avoid its responsibilities for the fact that it has contributed to devastation and impacts on downstream countries, as in the case of the Tonle Sap Lake, he said.

In the past, there were no mechanisms through which we could raise our concerns, and we could not identify anyone who was responsible, he said, adding, Now there are many mechanisms in place, but countries seem to talk only about sustainable development, and dont dare address the root causes of our problems.

We should carefully reflect on the negative impacts we have already seen in the past resulting from the construction of hydropower dams, he said.

Cambodias Tonle Sap, a large inland lake whose waters ebb and flow with the annual cycle of the river connecting it to the Mekong, has been drying at a rapid rate in recent years, threatening the fish stocks providing millions of Cambodians with their main source of protein.

The inland lake is one of the worlds biodiversity hotspots and is Southeast Asias most bountiful source of freshwater fish. The greater Mekong river system provides fish, water, and fertilizer for 60 million Southeast Asians.

Meanwhile, reduced water flows on the Mekong have even further reduced the volumes of water flowing back to the Tonle Sap, local fisherman and head of the Tonle Sap Fishing Community Alliance Long Sochet told RFA.

There seems to be no pulse pushing the natural flow from the Mekong River, and all we see now is a rise due to floods from the various streams surrounding the Tonle Sap, he said.

The Mekong River has not yet reversed its flow to the lake, and if not for the rain weve had in surrounding areas, the water level would not have risen at all.

The Mekong-Lancang group also competes with a 2009 U.S. program called the Lower Mekong Initiative, involving Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. China, which has ruled Tibet, the source of the Mekong, since 1951, refers to the waterway as the Lancang River and has built 11 dams on it.

'China holds all the cards'

Talks at the coming Mekong-Lancang summit are unlikely to effectively address questions about water security in the region, though, said Sophal Ear, an associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College in California.

China holds all the cards. It has the dams upriver and it hosts the meeting, Ear said. It has the gold and so it makes the rules.

China needs to stop building dams and needs to blow up some dams to release water back to the Mekong. This really is a zero-sum game. What is happening now to lower Mekong countries is attributable to China.

China has built 11 large dams on the river since the 1990s and has more planned or under construction on the 3,100 mile river that originates on the Tibetan Plateau and empties into the South China Sea in Vietnam.

Laos, aiming to become the Battery of Southeast Asia, is also building a series of dams on the Mekong to boost the generation of hydroelectric power which it plans to sell to other countries.

Vietnam also under threat

Vietnams access to water is also increasingly under threat, with almost 70 percent of its resources now coming in from rivers outside the country and water flows regulated more and more by upriver foreign dams, one government expert told the National Assembly in Hanoi on Aug. 17.

Around half of Vietnams 200 rivers enter the country from outside its borders, but these bring in 63 percent of the surface water used in Vietnam for domestic, agricultural, and industrial use, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said, according to state media reports.

The quantity and quality of water available to Vietnam is thus directly controlled by the growing number of hydropower projects managed by China and other countries upstream on the Red and Mekong Rivers, Nguyen said.

Vietnam is the last stop for water flowing into the country from China, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, Le Anh Tuana climate change and water resource expert at Vietnams Can Tho Universitytold RFAs Vietnamese Service.

The amount of rain falling into the Mekong River in Vietnam is very small compared to the total amount of river water flowing down from countries upstream, Le said, adding, This means that Vietnam depends almost completely on water resources from other countries.

The Mekong River Commission -- a regional group made up of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam -- has meanwhile issued several warnings about the impact on downstream countries of Chinas dams upstream, said Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment.

But China seems not to pay any attention, Dang said.

The countries along the lower Mekong have come together to require that China share information about its hydropower projects, but China has not responded so far to these requests, he said.

'Prepare for the worst'

Ho Phi Long, Director of the Water Management and Climate Change Center at the National University in Ho Chi Minh City, told RFA on Aug. 17 that countries on the lower Mekong must prepare for the worst, so that they are not made hostage later to political pressures from outside.

There is no lack of water coming into Vietnam, but the yearly distribution is not consistent, said Le Anh Tuan.

For example, when we dont need more water, the volume of water flowing into the country is too great, he said.

But when we need more water for our daily needs or for use in cultivation, the amount of water flowing into Vietnam is much less than expected, and this causes an increase of salt-water intrusion in the Mekong Delta region.

Because Vietnam is still a developing country, Ho Phi Long added, the country has not experienced the full impact of water shortages yet. But as we develop, and as we start to face real shortages, the countrys economy will have more trouble.



Reported and translated by RFAs Khmer and Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Carson Pyle with Boy Scout Troop 89 in The Woodlands is working on his Eagle Scout project at the Conroe Community Cemetery in conjunction with the Conroe Community Cemetery Restoration Project (CCCRP).

The Conroe Community Cemetery is a historic African American cemetery in Conroe that had all but been forgotten except by older African Americans in Conroe. Graves date back to at least 1892 and include not only former slaves, but some of the most influential African Americans in local and Texas history.
Wrexham MP Sarah Atherton left unsure why NHS pay protest was held outside her office as healthcare is devolved

This article is old - Published: Friday, Aug 21st, 2020

Wrexhams MP says she is unsure why an NHS pay protest was held outside her office.

Health workers and members of the Unite union gathered with banners outside her constituency office on Regent Street this afternoon. It forms part of calls for the next pay rise for NHS staff to be brought forward from April 2021 in recognition of their efforts during the coronavirus crisis.

However, the Conservative MP highlighted that health pay was a devolved matter in Wales.

She also drew attention to the fact she recently returned to the frontline by carrying out shifts as a nurse during the pandemic.

The parliamentary register of members interests shows she worked a total of 61 hours on a part-time basis from June 11 to July 3 this year, earning 876 in the process. Ms Atherton said all of her earnings had been donated to local charities.

I completely support the right to a peaceful protest. Im unsure why there is a protest outside my office, given I am clearly a strong supporter of the wonderful work that nurses do. Healthcare is devolved and therefore NHS pay increases are in the gift of the Welsh Labour Govt. pic.twitter.com/bRICL1jUn3  Sarah Atherton MP (@AthertonNWales) August 21, 2020

In a post on Twitter, she said: I completely support the right to a peaceful protest.

Im unsure why there is a protest outside my office, given I am clearly a strong supporter of the wonderful work that nurses do.

Healthcare is devolved and therefore NHS pay increases are in the gift of the Welsh Labour Govt.

I am a nurse myself and returned to the Maelor help in the fight against COVID-19. I have donated my salary from my shifts to local charities.

A representative for Unite Wales said the location of the protest had been chosen after they received no reply to calls for the Wrexham MP to sign up to an Early Day Motion (EDM) in Westminster.

He said the aim was to bring forward the UK-wide NHS pay anniversary and money would need to be passed on from the UK Government to the devolved administration to fund the uplift.

Dean Shone said: Unite Wales is fully backing its members and the groundswell of opinion that NHS staff want the pay rise brought forward from April 2021.

And these calls are justified to recognise the extraordinary commitment and sacrifice of NHS staff throughout the Covid-19 outbreak.

Unite Wales believes that the depth of public gratitude for this work must now be reflected by the UK Government bringing forward an early and substantial pay rise that reflects the aspirations of Unite members.

Sadly Sarahs wasnt at her office and surprisingly the office was completely closed, so Unite Wales along with Unite members working in the NHS were unable to convey the depth of feeling from NHS staff in her constituency that a pay rise is needed now, warm words and applause are appreciated but they go no way to paying the bills.

Unite said it would be asking all Welsh MPs to sign up to the EDM and more demonstrations are planned over the coming days and weeks.

By Liam Randall  BBC Local Democracy Reporter
W&M first in Virginia to offer bachelors degree in linguistics

Rapidly evolving field: The abundance of available technology provides opportunities to explore language structure and language use in many more sophisticated ways than was once possible. Submitted photo Photo - of - Hide Caption

William & Mary became the first school in the Commonwealth of Virginia to offer a bachelors degree in linguistics following a recent approval by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to make it a stand-alone degree.

A July 30 SCHEV letter to W&M Provost Peggy Agouris states that the new Bachelor of Arts in linguistics was endorsed to begin in the fall 2020 semester.

Although no longer an interdisciplinary program, linguistics will still be administered through the Roy R. Charles Center.

This is particularly important as more and more students come to college knowing that they want to study and major in linguistics, said Linguistics Program Director Anya Hogoboom. Offering a B.A. in linguistics makes William & Mary more visible to these students and accurately reflects the resources we have for students majoring in linguistics.

Linguistics was one of the earliest interdisciplinary programs at William & Mary, with a major first officially available in 1978. In May 2020, 24 majors and eight minors graduated from the program.

Linguistics students learn about speech sounds, word formation and sentence structure of the worlds languages, along with models for representing linguistic knowledge in the mind and tools for discovering the structure of different languages. They also study language change, including the history of English and language variation within communities, including social and political bases.

The field of linguistics has been evolving rapidly in the last 15 years or so, with the explosion of available technology that allows us to look at language structure and language use in more ways than used to be possible, Hogoboom said. For example, data sets can be made through web scraping of platforms such as Twitter to look at current language use. These newer methods, coupled with the strengths W&Ms Linguistics Program already had, allows us to offer students a grounded and dynamic major.

In the last eight years, the linguistics program at William & Mary has gained five new language labs and working groups in sound perception, syntactic processing, bilingual code-switching, discourse analysis and children's language acquisition, which give students research experience, Hogoboom continued. In the last four years, the program has had regular large lab meetings where faculty and students come together and share the progression of their research. We plan to keep building on this success and continue to expand hands-on research opportunities to more students.

W&M linguistics graduates have gone on to careers in a multitude of fields, from speech-language pathology and teaching to software engineering and journalism.

The linguistics education my amazing faculty, such as Professors Anya Hogoboom, Anne Charity Hudley, Ann Reed and Jack Martin provided me as an undergrad sparked the passion I still carry with me more than 10 years later in my career, and it deserves to be recognized as its own department, Kathryn Ticknor 07, director of research at inVibe Labs wrote in an endorsement letter.

Furthermore, linguistics is a fast-growing field outside of academia in areas such as consulting, healthcare, marketing, research, human centered design and technology. In the future, Id love to see W&Ms classes focus on these applications and celebrate the use of linguistics outside the university setting, since thats where many of us will end up when we graduate.

Hogoboom said the work of Martin, the programs director from 2016 to 2019, was critical in transforming linguistics into a stand-alone B.A. degree. He initiated the process and worked tirelessly to write and revise the proposal, she added.

Hogoboom said Associate Provost for Institutional Accreditation & Effectiveness Susan Bosworth guided the linguistics team at every step.

She worked to clarify both our needs to SCHEV and SCHEVs requirements to us, Hogoboom said. While Martin and Bosworth did the direct work involved, we are lucky to have faculty that bring so many different skills across different subfields to the table. The proposal reflects the expertise of our faculty, which allows us to offer a linguistics major with strong breadth and depth despite a relatively small number of faculty.

Much hard work went into the proposal process. W&M was tasked with demonstrating the demand for a B.A. in linguistics and gathering supporting data. For example, the university polled linguistics alums, who responded resoundingly of how their work in linguistics at W&M trained them in analytical problem solving and pattern finding while also giving them an appreciation for language diversity.

My degree is one of the tipping points that got me the job as an executive assistant at Disney, assisting the president of the theatrical group, and it was a principal topic in each of my interviews, wrote Barclay Sparrow 17, an executive assistant with the Disney Theatrical Group. The Disney execs running the hiring process were fascinated by the degree and loved discussing what it entails.

My experience in sociolinguistics comes into my day-to-day life in unexpected ways. I am able to assess, explain and account for possible instances of bias and prejudice because that is a critical part of sociolinguistics. It comes in handy at a company with a strong focus on representing many different cultures responsibly and faithfully.
RTHK: Bannon out on US$5mn bond after fraud charge

Steve Bannon, an architect of US President Donald Trump's 2016 election victory, was arrested on a Chinese billionaire's yacht on Thursday and pleaded not guilty after being charged with defrauding donors in a scheme to help build Trump's signature wall along the US-Mexico border.

As a top adviser to Trump's presidential campaign who later served as White House chief strategist, Bannon helped articulate the "America First" right-wing populism and fierce opposition to immigration that have been hallmarks of Trump's years in office. Trump fired Bannon from his White House post in August 2017.

Bannon, 66, was among four people arrested and charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They each face up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors accused the defendants of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors through a US$25 million crowdfunding campaign called "We Build the Wall". Bannon used hundreds of thousands of dollars of that money to cover personal expenses, according to the charges.

Bannon wore a protective white mask amid the coronavirus pandemic and two open-collared shirts at a federal court in Manhattan, where his lawyer entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf. He was freed on US$5 million bond and was barred by a federal magistrate judge from traveling internationally.

Bannon was arrested in Connecticut by agents from the prosecutor's office and the US Postal Inspection Service aboard a 45-metre-long yacht, according to a law enforcement source. That yacht, called the Lady May, is owned by Chinese fugitive billionaire Guo Wengui, with whom Bannon has had a working relationship.

The famously disheveled entrepreneur headed the right-wing Breitbart News website  a voice for the alt-right movement that spans hardcore nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-Semites  before joining Trump's campaign. Bannon, an anti-globalist, has since promoted a variety of right-wing causes and candidates in the United States and abroad.

Trump told reporters at the White House that he feels "very badly" about the charges but sought to distance himself from Bannon and the alleged scheme.

"I do think it's a sad event," Trump said. "I haven't dealt with him at all now for years, literally years." (Reuters)

______________________________

Last updated: 2020-08-21 HKT 04:43

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A Mali junta spokesman on Thursday has denied that President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was ousted from power by force, saying that he resigned of his own accord.

The junta behind Tuesday's military takeover said that 75-year-old Keita was only being held at an army barracks for his own protection.

Keita was last seen by Malians late Tuesday on state broadcaster ORTM where he announced his immediate resignation and the dissolution of his government and the National Assembly.

His speech came just hours after soldiers had surrounded his house and fired shots into the air before detaining him and the prime minister.

West African leaders escalated pressure on Mali's ruling junta, calling on them to allow President Keita to return to power.

Heads of state from the regional bloc known as ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) late Thursday called for the mobilising of a standby regional military force, saying Keita must be allowed to serve out the three years left in his term after this week's "coup attempt."

They said that they held the junta responsible for his safety and all other detained government officials.

ECOWAS previously invoked the potential use of its standby military force in 2017 after then-Gambian President Yahya Jammeh refused to acknowledge his election defeat.

Jammeh ultimately agreed to go into exile and no military action was taken.

ECOWAS said it would soon send a delegation to Bamako to try to help restore constitutional order.

The bloc already had suspended Mali's membership, closed its borders with the country and promised other financial sanctions against the junta leaders.

The UN and France also urged that Keita be released, amid fears that Islamic extremists could once again gain ground amid the political upheaval, derailing more than seven years of effort to stabilise the country.

French, UN and West African partners have been trying to stabilise Mali after a similar 2012 coup created a power vacuum that allowed jihadists to seize control of northern towns until a French-led military operation the following year.
KITCHENER  A homeless camp at the corner of Weber and Victoria streets in Kitchener has been told to move and a Kitchener woman is giving them a hand.

Julie Sawatzky has organized volunteers and secured a donated rental van to help the people at the encampment move on Saturday morning. About 50 people have been living in the makeshift camp since the pandemic started.

The camp is located on the vacated property of Fackourys Auto Service, near St. Johns Kitchen.

Sawatzky said some of the homeless will be going into shelter and others will have accommodations offered to them by Unsheltered Campaign, a group of local community advocates that helps provide emergency shelter alternatives for the homeless in Waterloo Region.

Sawatzky has periodically delivered food and other supplies to the people who have been living there.

Sawatzky, a wedding photographer pre-COVID-19, was out of work for awhile and decided to keep busy by helping others. She started 519 Community Collective on Facebook and soon was collecting plenty of donations of food, non-perishable items such as toilet paper and money.

Since mid-March, the mother of three has assembled and delivered 270 emergency hampers to single parents, seniors and others in need in the region.

Each day she makes meals, preparing 600 individual portions and delivering the food to those who need it.

Its a full-time job, chuckles Sawatzky. I didnt expect for this to blow up as it did.

In her garage in the Chicopee area of Kitchener she has collected 50 tents, 50 sleeping bags, pillows, sheets and comforters, along with bug spray and mosquito netting for those moving from the encampment on Saturday.

Its in my heart to do this, said Sawatzky, who describes herself as a missionary child.

Sawatzky spent more than six years as a child living in Papua New Guinea when her parents were missionaries. Her father lived in the Old Order Mennonite community.

The Unsheltered Campaign community has made presentations to regional council on the state of the homeless in the region. The group seeks to motivate local politicians to do better for those without shelter.

Donations are being accepted for Unsheltered Campaign at the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region at St. John Anglican Church, 23 Water St. N., in downtown Kitchener. Its open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Faculty leaders at two state universities asked state health officials on Friday to take a closer look at a testing company hired to test 10,000 college students across the state  a request the Virginia Department of Health has declined.

In a letter to the agency, six professors at Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University threw into question the qualifications of a company, with few ties to the state and a hazy online presence, that so far has received more than $750,000 from three state schools.

The company, Kallaco, has faced delays and other issues while delivering its services, but overall has been able to successfully test thousands of students, said representatives for VCU, GMU and William & Mary, another school contracting with the company.

We have serious concerns regarding testing for COVID-19 on our campuses, specifically with the qualifications of the companies and health professionals involved, and the appropriateness of the tests being used, the letter from faculty reads.

It was signed by the presidents of the VCU and GMU chapters of the American Association of University Professors, Everett Carpenter and Bethany Letiecq, as well as four other faculty leaders at both institutions.
Vietnam reported two new COVID-19 infections this evening, both in Da Nang city, bring the national tally to 1,009.

Both new cases have tested positive for the virus after having direct contact with their relatives who are COVID-19 patients.

One of the patients is a 75-year-old woman living in Hoa Vang District. She is the mother of another infected person, patient number 780.

Another patient is a 47-year-old man living in Son Tra District who has three relatives infected with the coronavirus. The two new patients are being treated at Hoa Vang Field Hospital.

Among the total, 667 are in the community, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Of the remaining 464 patients, 134 have tested negative for the virus at least once.

On August 21, the Hue Central Hospital in central Thua Thuen-Hue province announced that a COVID-19 patient has recovered, after five tests conducted between August 16 and 20 were negative for the virus.

Meanwhile, three patients recovered from COVID-19 at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases including a 76-year-old man living on Hoang Hoa Tham Street, Hanoi.

The two others are a 13-year-old boy in northern Lang Son Province living with three other family members infected with SARS-CoV-2; and a 35-year-old man from central Quang Binh Province who returned from Equatorial Guinea.

By now, 545 COVID-19 cases in Vietnam have recovered. Among those still under treatment, 41 have tested negative once for SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19, 62 twice and 27 three times.

As many as 100,569 people having close contact with confirmed cases or arriving from pandemic-hit regions are under quarantine at present.

Twenty-five fatalities have been reported in Vietnam since the epidemic broke out in the country in late January. All of them have been registered after the second outbreak started in Da Nang in late July.

The country has seen 25 deaths related to COVID-19. Most of the fatalities were elderly people who suffered from serious illnesses such as end-stage kidney cancer, severe pneumonia, diabetes and multi-organ failure.

Thuy Hanh
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:41:49|Editor: huaxia

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Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, presides over a bi-weekly seminar held by the CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese national political advisors contributed suggestions on efficient water use and water conservation at a bi-weekly seminar held by the top political advisory body on Friday.

Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), presided over the meeting.

It is necessary to put water conservation first, and accelerate the transformation from extensive and inefficient water use to economical and intensive use for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation, Wang stressed at the seminar.

Revolving around the implementation of the guiding principle for water governance, 11 political advisors and academics contributed their wisdom from the perspectives of legal and policy support, a supervisory system, and the role of market mechanisms.

More than 80 political advisors voiced their opinions through a mobile platform of the CPPCC National Committee.

Advisors proposed a mechanism to assess the carrying capacity of water resources to determine the amount of water that can be used for local development.

The amount of water used for each 10,000 yuan (about 1,447 U.S. dollars) of gross domestic product should be included in the 14th Five-Year (2021-2025) Plan for economic and social development as a major restrictive indicator, political advisors said.

Calling for water conservation efforts in the whole society, they also highlighted around-the-clock and dynamic supervision of water resources, the role of the market in allocating water resources, and supportive legal system for efficient and sustainable water use. Enditem
BEIRUT -With reddened eyes, 90-year-old Henri Azar surveys what remains of his family home. The traditional wooden-frame windows have been ripped out. Plaster was cleaved from the walls. Sunlight shines through gaps in the bedroom ceiling. A team of engineers tell him he needs make repairs before the winter rains.

"Complete disaster," Azar said, shuffling through the wrecked apartment, which occupies the top floor of a 100-year-old pink house in Beirut's Mar Mikhael neighborhood.

Beirut officials have estimated that the damage from the enormous blast that shook the city two weeks ago could reach $15 billion, though the true extent of the destruction remains unknown. At least 25,000 homes are so badly damaged that they are uninhabitable, according to the Beirut government.

And there are myriad hurdles for rebuilding, including a months-old financial crisis that has sent the value of the Lebanese currency plunging and prompted draconian banking restrictions that limit withdrawals even by those with money in their accounts.

Only a few homeowners have insurance, and they are being told they can't receive a payout until the cause of the explosion is established by the government's investigation, since damage due to war or terrorism is not covered. They say they have little hope of ever being compensated. In the meantime, landlords and long-term tenants are fighting over who should pay for repairs.

The Azar family estimates it might cost as much as $200,000 to restore their home, given the need for specialized craftsmanship and a requirement for iron supports to buttress the entire building. They have no insurance.

"I cannot afford it at all," said Azar's 60-year-old son Joe. "I have some savings but not enough. Besides, the bank is not giving us our money. It's catastrophic."

The Aug. 4 blast, which killed at least 180 people, laid waste to entire neighborhoods as the shock wave surged across the city. The impact sundered building facades, leaving rooms open to the street like giant dollhouses. Windows shattered for miles. Some structures collapsed, crushing their occupants.

The wave of immense pressure also coursed through sewers and vents, smashing open toilets and bursting pipes. Manholes popped off Ottoman-era wells under houses.

No one expects assistance from the bankrupt government, which has been largely absent from cleanup efforts. Private funding of repairs is hamstrung by the banking restrictions, put in place last year after it emerged that as much as $100 billion is missing from the banking system, a sign of the country's chronic mismanagement and corruption.

Foreign donors have so far focused their assistance to Lebanon on medicine and food aid, although the United Nations launched an appeal last week for an emergency $565 million fund to cover food, shelter, health and education. It also stressed the "critical need" to address recovery and reconstruction, which would probably require a mix of public and private financing.

Tenants with rent-controlled leases that in some cases span generations could be vulnerable to eviction as landlords use the damage as an excuse to get rid of them, according to Mona Harb, a professor of urban studies and politics at the American University of Beirut.

Activists who have long battled to preserve Beirut's traditional buildings fear that speculators will swoop in with offers and buy up property to build lucrative high-rises. Reconstruction would then come at the expense of the areas' traditionally diverse mix of residents.

"We really worry that there are people that are real estate sharks that are going to make use of this opportunity," said Harb. "People are very vulnerable; they might need to make quick decisions on selling. It's not just about buildings. We need to make sure the social fabric of the area remains in place."

- - -

It's too early to know how much rebuilding will cost, said Michel Chalhoub, who previously served on emergency engineering teams in California after nine different earthquakes, picking through rubble and checking the safety of buildings. Now he's doing this in his home country, after an entirely man-made disaster.

"It's disheartening," he said.

The emergency response has been slower in Beirut than in California, where engineering teams are immediately dispatched with firefighters to assess damage, he said. The good news, Chalhoub said, is that damage from an aboveground blast should not be as severe as that from a serious earthquake. But building regulations are not as strict in Lebanon and safety requirements are sometimes skirted.

Working with a private organization, he surveyed several historic buildings on a recent day. Most had already been crumbling before the explosion.

At one damaged building, a family was starting to rebuild after the structure suffered a partial collapse. Chalhoub said he was concerned by the way iron support struts were being erected to support new walls on the second floor. Instead of the struts running all the way up from the ground, they were pressing down on the floor below.

"It's dangerous," he said.

But one of the family members, Hayat Abi Chacra, said the repair work was being done at no charge and that she would take whatever assistance she could get. The workman doing the repairs had volunteered to help after her 38-year-old son, Shadi, was killed in the explosion. It had taken two days to recover his body from the rubble.

Through their grief, the Abi Chacra family was trying to rebuild with what little money they earned from working at a parking lot behind the house. The bill for new electrical wires alone would run the equivalent of about $400. For new glass and fixtures, workmen were asking to be paid in actual dollars.

But there was much more than windows and walls lost.

"No matter how much we rebuild the house," said Shadi's sister Nancy, "it will always be empty to me."

- - -

Just a mile across town is an example of how things can go wrong. After Lebanon's 15-year civil war decimated Beirut, the government expropriated land from owners downtown, compensating them with shares in Solidere, the development company tasked with rebuilding. Billions of dollars later, the result is a sanitized city center devoid of street life, with high-end designer stores beyond the reach of most residents.

"It's beyond gentrification," said Harb. "It's akin to a gated community."

Even before the explosion this month battered the neighborhoods of Mar Mikhael and Gemmayze, the areas were a battleground between real estate developers and activists. These quarters of eastern Beirut are home to some of the few remaining heritage buildings, with their iconic triple-arched windows, and were gradually being replaced by high-rise towers. Amid the financial crisis, investors with hard currency from abroad have gained a further advantage.

After the blast, the government barred the sale of real estate of a "historical nature" or the arrangement of any real estate transactions without approval of the Ministry of Culture, to prevent "exploitation" during the period of survey and reconstruction. But Harb has little faith this prohibition will fare any better than previous directives meant to protect Beirut's history.

On the street where the Azars live, Michel Bouchedid was recently leading a team of volunteer engineers and architects conducting an initial damage survey. He pointed to a high-rise building under construction.

"This is what [an investor] has to gain," he said. "This is prime real estate. Each apartment is worth more than a million. This is where the conflict comes, for the government, for the owners, for the renters."

A few hundred yards up the hill, near a badly smashed hospital, Francois Chahwan, 66, said he'd be open to selling the home his family has lived in for 100 years or working with a real estate investor to tear it down and rebuild. He said engineers have told him the top floor was damaged in the explosion and is a risk to the whole structure.

Chahwan said he drew up plans for a 13-story building a few years ago. But the investment fell through, and there were also questions about whether his house was protected as a heritage building, he said. If he proceeded with repairs and refurbished the eight apartments in the building, the most he could make would be a few thousand dollars a month, he said.

"Whereas [the high-rise] building can give me $50,000," he said. "Is it difficult to choose between this and that?"

- - -

The Washington Post's Sarah Dadouch and Nader Durgham in Beirut and Susan Haidamous in Washington contributed to this report.
'I knew he was in trouble'

Dominos delivery driver Jennie Besario, of Hobart, was delivering a pizza to a Ravinia Pines residence Thursday afternoon when she took a wrong turn.

Something told me to keep driving and circle around up ahead, thats when I noticed a boy, about 3 or 4 years old, on the porch of a trailer with a cellphone in his hand, Besario said. When I got closer, I saw flames in the windows. Thats when I knew he was in trouble, and I turned around.

Besario said she got out of her car and rushed to the boy, waving her arms and calling for help, attracting attention from neighbors.

After the delivery driver pointed out the 4-year-old boy on the porch of the mobile home, neighbor Austin Cyprian, 17, said he and others took the boy to a neighbor's home.

"He said, 'Mommy, my mommy is in there,'" Cyprian said.

Cyprian said his sister's boyfriend kicked in the front door of the trailer to attempt to get inside, but flames came out and he had to back away. Meanwhile, Cyprian ran to mobile homes to the north and south to alert the residents of the blaze.
SPRINGFIELD  Police are seeking the publics help in identifying a man who reportedly has been hugging strangers in Walmart and then telling them he has just given them COVID-19, police said.

According to police, the unidentified man walked up to a man in the Boston Road store, took an item from the mans hands, and then gave him a hug.

He reportedly told the victim, Just giving you a COVID hug. You now have COVID. He then laughed and walked away.

This was reported to have occurred Aug. 15 at about 7 p.m.

The victim, a cancer survivor, was not amused and reported it to police. He said he had never seen the man before.

The man reportedly repeated this activity with other customers in the store, according to police.

Police spokesman Ryan Walsh said police do not consider it a laughing matter.

The man is being sought for assault and battery and making terroristic threats. The charge of assault and battery combines threatening behavior with physical contact.

According to Massachusetts state law, anyone who communicates a threat either directly or indirectly, orally, in writing or by other means can be charged with making terroristic threats.

Even if the unknown man has not tested positive for COVID-19, saying he that he does could constitute a threat. Walsh said it is would be comparable to making a false bomb threat when there is not actually a bomb.

Surveillance footage from the store shows a Black or Latino man with short dark hair, dressed in gray camouflage shorts, black sneakers, and a black shirt with the word Aero printed on the front. He was also wearing a mask.

Those with information should call the Detective Bureau at 413-787-6355, leave a private message on the departments Facebook page, or send an anonymous Text-A-Tip to CRIMES (2-7-4-6-3-7), beginning the message with the word SOLVE.

Related Content:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made his younger sister Kim Yo Jong as de facto second-in-command, according to neighbouring South Koreas intelligence agency.

The sleuths of the agency said that Kim has delegated responsibility for relations with Seoul and Washington to his sister. The reports emerging from Pyongyang say that the move is directed towards reducing strain on Kim and help him avoid any blame in case of failures.

Ha Tae-keung, an Opposition party lawmaker on parliaments intelligence committee, told reporters that Kim was helping to run the regime with mandated authority from her brother.

Ha said that Kim still holds the absolute power.

Kim Yo Jong won fame ahead of her brothers 2019 summit with US President Donald Trump in Vietnam, when her efforts to ensure everything went well included holding an ashtray for the North Korean leader at a train station on his journey.

More authority on economic and military policy has also been delegated to several other senior officials, although at a lower level, South Korean officials said.

Kim Yo Jongs rising power

Her prominence in the campaign against South Korea this year highlighted a substantive policy role that goes beyond being merely Kims assistant, analysts say.

She issued her first public statements to spray criticism at the neighbouring nation, and the Norths state media portrayed her as playing a decision-making role.

In July, she offered personal views on diplomacy with the United States in an unusual statement in state media, saying her brother had given her special permission to watch recordings of that countrys Independence Day celebrations.

Kims most trusted advisor

The first statement issued in Kim Yo Jongs name came only in March this year, but in weeks and months after that, she has been at the forefront of Pyongyangs denunciations of defectors in the South sending leaflets across the border.

Officially, she is only an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, but Kim Yo Jong is one of her brothers most trusted advisors and among the most powerful women in the isolated regime.

Born in 1988, according to the Unification ministry, Yo Jong is one of three children born to Kims predecessor Kim Jong Il and his third known partner, former dancer Ko Yong Hui.

She was educated in Switzerland alongside her brother and rose rapidly up the ranks once he inherited power after their fathers death in 2011.

Her existence was barely known to the wider world until his funeral, when she was seen standing right behind Kim Jong Un on state television, looking tearful and ashen-faced.

But more recently she has seemed to be constantly at her brothers side.
The Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan has asked Ghanaians not to believe former President John Mahama's claim of not scrapping the free SHS policy.



The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has continuously denied claims that he will abolish the free SHS policy. He made a similar comment recently when he paid a courtesy call on the Overlord of Dagbon, Ya-Na Abukari II.



According to him, the free Senior High School education has come to stay. If anybody tells you that I, John Dramani Mahama, will abolish Free SHS when I come into power tell the person he is a bloody liar



However, Kwamena Duncan speaking in a panel discussion on Peace FM morning show 'Kokrokoo' queried: "do you want to hear Mahama say that I will cancel free SHS? Is that what they want to hear before they believe that he intends to cancel free SHS? It's amazing; it's as though the rest of the country; we have failed to be intelligent".



Listen to him in the video below





Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Newcore Gold Ltd. (TSX-V: NCAU) (the "Company" or "Newcore") today announced that all resolutions were passed by the requisite majority at its annual general and special meeting ("AGSM") held in Vancouver, British Columbia on August 19, 2020. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Chartered Accountants were re-appointed as auditors of the Company for the ensuing year. The Long-Term Incentive Plan ("LTIP") of the Company was approved by the Company's disinterested shareholders.



Shareholders voted in favour of setting the number of directors at nine and the following incumbent directors were re-elected: Luke Alexander, Omaya Elguindi, George Salamis, Ryan King, Douglas B. Forster, Edward Farrauto, Blayne Johnson, Douglas Hurst, and Michael Vint.

Following the AGSM, the board of directors re-appointed Luke Alexander as CEO and President and Kristian Dagsaan as CFO.

Newcore granted 1,500,000 stock options, 900,000 restricted share units and 400,000 performance share units ("Awards") to directors, officers, and an employee of the Company. The stock options were granted at a price of $0.79 per share for a period of five years. These Awards are subject to regulatory approval and are granted under the Company's LTIP and include vesting provisions.



About Newcore Gold

Newcore Gold is advancing its Enchi Gold project with a current 1.1 million ounce gold Inferred1 Resource (37.4 million tonnes grading 0.90 g/t Au) located in Ghana, Africa's largest gold producer. Newcore Gold offers investors a unique combination of top-tier leadership, who are aligned with shareholders through their 39% ownership, and prime district scale exploration opportunities. Enchi's 216 square kilometre land package covers 40 kilometres of Ghana's prolific Bibiani Shear Zone, a gold belt which hosts several 5 million-ounce gold deposits, including Kinross' Chirano mine 50 kilometers to the north. Newcore's vision is to build a responsive, creative and powerful gold enterprise that maximizes returns for shareholders.



Newcore Gold Website - www.newcoregold.com (http://www.newcoregold.com)

Investor Presentation - www.newcoregold.com/investors/presentation/ (http://www.newcoregold.com/investors/presentation/)

Please get in touch at info@newcoregold.com (mailto:info@newcoregold.com) if you would like to discuss Newcore Gold in more detail.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Newcore Gold Ltd.

"Luke Alexander"

Luke Alexander

President, CEO & Director

For further information contact: Luke Alexander

+1 604 484 4400

info@newcoregold.com (mailto:info@newcoregold.com)

www.newcoregold.com (http://www.newcoregold.com)

1Notes for Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate:

1. CIM definition standards were followed for the resource estimate.

2. The 2014 resource models used ordinary kriging (OK) grade estimation within a three-dimensional block model with mineralized zones defined by wireframed solids.

3. A base cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t Au was used for reporting resources with a capping of gold grades at 18 g/t.

4. A US$1,300/ounce gold price, open pit with heap leach operation was used to determine the cut-off grade.

5. A density of 2.45 g/cm3 was applied.

6. Numbers may not add exactly due to rounding.

7. Mineral Resources that are not mineral reserves do not have economic viability.

8. Technical Report and Update Resource Estimate on the Enchi Gold Project. Issue Date: July 15, 2014 with Effective Date: March 17, 2014. Prepared by Todd McCracken, P.Geo, of WSP Canada Inc. The author is independent of Newcore Gold Ltd. and a Qualified Person ("QP") as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
A mom who unexpectedly welcomed a baby boy on an airplane has given him a unique name to match his unique birth story.

Chrystal Hicks of Glennallen, Alaska, was 35 weeks pregnant when she started getting contractions. The mom of four said there was no neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital closest to her, so she boarded a plane to be medevaced to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.

Hicks told "Good Morning America" that 20 minutes into the flight, her water broke.

PHOTO: Lifemed Alaska is the Anchorage-based ambulance service in which Chrystal Hicks of Glennallen, Alaska, gave birth on. (Lifemed Alaska)

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"I said, Oh my gosh. I have to push,'" Hicks recalled. "I rolled over and he just came out."

Related: Woman gives birth to baby boy on plane

Since he was born 18,000 feet above the ground, Hicks named her son Sky Airon. Sky arrived on Aug. 5 weighing 5 pounds, 10 ounces and is currently in the NICU.

PHOTO: Chrystal Hicks of Glennallen, Alaska, gave birth on a Lifemed Alaska airplane on Aug.5. (Chrystal Hicks)

Lifemed Alaska is the Anchorage-based ambulance service where Hicks gave birth. Steve Heyano, the chief operations officer of Lifemed Alaska, told "GMA" that Sky's airplane birth is a "rare event," though it does happen from time to time.

On board were two pilots, a nurse, a paramedic and a neonatal nurse practitioner who specializes in newborns, Heyano confirmed. Medical staff had a transport incubator to keep the child warm.

PHOTO: Since he was born 18,000 feet above the ground, Chrystal Hicks of Glennallen, Alaska, named her son Sky Airon. Sky arrived on Aug. 5 weighing 5 pounds, 10 ounces and is currently in the NICU. (Chrystal Hicks)

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Despite some respiratory problems, Sky is doing well and is on track to go home to mom; dad, Matthew John; and three siblings.

Hicks said she's looking forward to telling Sky his birth story as he grows.

PHOTO: Chrystal Hicks of Glennallen, Alaska, was 35 weeks pregnant when she started getting contractions. The mother of four ultimately gave birth on an ambulance service airplane. (Chrystal Hicks)

"I think he will always be known as the baby who was born in the sky," she added.

Mom gives baby special name after giving birth at 18,000 feet on airplane originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
German discount giant Lidl has unveiled plans to further expand it footprint in Cork following the announcement that it has lodged a planning application for a new store in Blarney village.

The proposed new store will be part of a wider development on site by the village square, part of which was occupied by the former Blarney Park Hotel, which closed its doors for business in 2007.

The company said that if given approval the store, which will create up to 30 new jobs, will bring the total number of its outlets across Cork city and county to 21. The proposed development will also incorporate an on-site cafe, generating a further 10 jobs.

Cork County Council has previously said that the site occupied a strategic location on the western edge of Blarney.

Its proximity to Blarney Castle makes it a sensitive site, where any future development will need to protect and enhance the existing character and views of the castle, said the authority.

It said that any development would need to respect the special wooded and river nature of the setting, castle proximity and linkages/access and realignment of the R617.

With this in mind, a spokesperson for Lidl said the company, in conjunction with the landowners was working closely with architects and planners to create a bespoke design in keeping with the area to ensure that the new development will contribute positively to Blarney.

The spokesperson said the new store would incorporate a range of sustainability features including an ISO 50001 certified Energy Management System, electric vehicle charger spaces and a solar panel system.

The design also incorporates a green roof.

Partially covered in vegetation, the green roof absorbs rainwater and provides insulation reducing the need for in store drainage systems. Green roofs help to cool urban environments, improve air quality, sequester carbon and increase urban biodiversity by providing habitat for wildlife, said the spokesperson.

Meanwhile, Cork County Council have issued a request for further information in relation to Lidl plan to relocate its Mallow outlet to a new site 650-metres from its existing store on the Park Road.

The new application, lodged with the local authority on May 27, made provision for a new 2,254 sq m gross floor area licensed store on a 1.4 hectare site at West End Road and Park Road.

The application came four years after a proposal by Lidl to build a second store on the Park Road was shot down by County Council planners.

Planners were due to have made their ruling on the application on July 21. However, this has now been put back, with no new date set for a decision.
You are here: Arts

A hundred sculptures were unveiled recently in a new park in Shanghai.

The park in Pudong district's picturesque Dishui Lake area celebrates the evolution and diversity of Chinese sculptures throughout several decades.

Featured artists include pre-eminent figures in modern Chinese art, such as Liu Kaiqu, the first director of the National Art Museum of China, who was trained in China and France, Pan He and Sheng Yang.

Works by leading contemporary artists, such as Wu Weishan and Li Xiangqun, as well as up-and-comers, are also on show.

The park was built to make art more accessible for urbanites. It's intended to serve not only as a hot spot for photos but also for aesthetic education.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : An expert from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here has claimed that coronavirus infection during pregnancy is essentially asymptomatic and does not worsen much, while warning that there could be a small risk of giving preterm birth.

According to K. Aparna Sharma, Additional Professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in AIIMS, there has not been much evidence to suggest that pregnant women are more susceptible to coronavirus, unless there are comorbidities.

"We have seen that the coronavirus infection in pregnancy is essentially asymptomatic and does not really worsen a lot. There are no reports of an increase in the risk of miscarriage or early pregnancy loss. But there might be a small risk of preterm birth, i.e., birth before time," Sharma said.

She clarified that there is no increase in the risk of intrauterine fetal infection, congenital malformations, effect on fetal growth, vertical transmission or transmission through genital fluids to babies from a coronavirus positive mother.

Sharma insisted that vaginal deliveries can be carried out as vaginal secretion does not infect the baby. She further said that there is not enough evidence to conclude vertical transmission of virus through breast feeding or even placenta to infants.

"While breastfeeding, the mother should wear a mask, not sneeze or cough onto the baby, regularly disinfect the surfaces, and wash hands before and after touching the baby," Sharma said in a webinar organised by AIIMS.

Substantiating Sharma's point, Anu Sachdeva, Assistant Professor at the Department of Pediatrics in AIIMS, said that there is no doubt that the advantages of breastfeeding surpasses the risk of possible vertical transmission.

"If a baby is born from a mother who is Covid positive, there are two major concerns. First, if the neonate is stable, then it remains with the mother and how she practises rooming-in, observes hand hygiene and wears masks and continues breastfeeding. Second, if the baby is unstable, he/she has to go to a defined isolation facility." She added, "If the condition of an unstable baby is ready to accept feeds, then the mother should send breast milk to the baby." Alluding to the drugs which can be administered to coronavirus positive pregnant women, Neeraj Nischal, Assistant Professor at the Department of Medicine in AIIMS, said that except plasma therapy and Remdesivir, other therapies should be preferably avoided.

"Plasma therapy can be used, but we have to remember that the role of this therapy is still controversial and the data is still emerging. So we have to assess the risks and benefits before considering it for any pregnant patient," Nischal said.

He further added that Remdesivir has been found to be safe for pregnant patients. Besides this, he said that pregnant patients should avoid getting immuno-modulators unless it is a matter of life and death, while also pressing for the judicial use of steroids.
Mumbai:

A massive fire broke out at a hotel in Maharashtraas Gondia on Wednesday which left at least seven persons dead. Many people were reportedly trapped inside the building.

"Seven killed in Gondia hotel fire," Inspector General, Gadchiroli Range said.

The fire broke out at the Bindal Palaza hotel which is situated in a congested lane in one of the busiest markets in the city. 15 fire tenders were rushed to the spot to douse the flames.

More details are awaiteda

(With inputs from agencies)
BRIDGEPORT  A very public and violent feud between two city families ended in a courtroom Friday when Jayvell Washington was sentenced to 40 years for killing his ex-girlfriends brother during a shootout at a Reservoir Avenue gas station last year.

You embarked on a life of criminality and anti-social activities against the public at large and against your in-laws, Superior Court Judge Alex Hernandez chastised Washington, who was making a rare in-person court appearance since the pandemic. Firearms are the devils right hand and the devil was not letting go of you as you continued with this life of criminality and today the bill is coming due.

On March 12, the first day the pandemic was declared in the state, the 41-year-old Washington, of Bridgeport, was convicted by a jury of first-degree manslaughter with a firearm, criminal possession of a pistol and carrying a pistol without a permit in the Jan. 27, 2019, fatal shooting of 50-year-old Eugene Rogers.

Video from the gas station played for the jury during the trial showed Rogers approach Washingtons car. The drivers side door opened, Rogers pulled out a handgun and then tumbled backward onto the ground. The video shows bullet shells being ejected both from Rogers gun and from the open car door.

Rogers was shot once in the head, according to the autopsy report.

In his final argument, DeJoseph claimed Washington fired a total of four shots at Rogers and therefore the jury should discount any defense claim that Washington fired in self-defense. Rogers gun only fired one shot.

Washingtons lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Jared Millbrandt, argued Friday for a new trial for his client, arguing that the jury had been under too much pressure that day because the governor announced he was shutting down the state. Hernandez denied his motion and continued with the sentencing hearing.

Because of ill feeling between the Rogers and Washington families that previously led to a courthouse melee, security was tight in the Fairfield County Courthouse Friday. A dozen judicial marshals ringed the inside of the courtroom.

This is not Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1800s, this was Bridgeport on a Sunday afternoon, argued Senior Assistant States Attorney Michael DeJoseph. This was a callous, cowardly act  society needs to be protected from Mr. Washington; it needs to be protected from him for an awfully long time.

Washington smiled as he was sentenced by the judge.

Whenever there is a life lost, its tragedy, Washington said.

According to trial testimony, at one point Washington had been part of the Rogers family and had a daughter with the victims sister, Quesha Rogers.

But the breakup had been messy, according to court papers, and she got a restraining order against him.

Eugene Rogers death was the latest in gunfire exchange between the Rogers clan and Washington.

On July 1, 2017, Chaz Rogers was shot to death on Stratford Avenue. His older brother, Hassan Boobie Rogers, was later arrested for allegedly shooting at a friend of Washingtons whom he blamed for killing his brother. That case is still pending.

Mayor Joseph Ganim was nearly hit with gunfire while visiting the Rogers home on Trumbull Avenue to console them for Chaz Rogers death.

Then on July 23, 2017, Eugene Rogers was walking on Trumbull Avenue when, police said, he was shot twice in the abdomen by a man later identified as Washington. Rogers recovered. Washington was arrested in that shooting and charged with attempted murder, first-degree assault, illegal use of a firearm and criminal use of a firearm.

Washington was out on bail in that case and wearing a GPS anklet when the exchange at the gas station parking lot happened, according to police.

I pray that this all now comes to an end, Rogers uncle, Robert Whisnant, told the judge Friday.

I would like to thank the Bridgeport Police Department for a quick and speedy arrest and the state of Connecticut for this day when Jayvell Washington was convicted of killing my son, said Rogers mother, Diane Rogers.
If a person or entity has proven to be abusive or irresponsible with power, then it is the duty of the people, while freedom still prevails, to resist and to ensure that such a person or entity is never entrusted with such power ever again or, at least until they have regained the confidence of the people. Such is the case with todays Democrat party.

Americans have given their lives and blood to liberate people from fascism and Marxism/communism. But now it is unassailable that those oppressive political philosophies now have their home in the Democrat Party. In six months, with the pandemic and nationwide riots, Democrat leaders have revealed that their natural penchant is not for freedom, but tyranny.

The past six months have shown that we are long past the days of mere policy differences between the two political parties. Now our battle is against Democrats, a party that has been usurped by the radical left, is literally for the preservation of America as founded. This election is about whether America will remain a light of liberty or descend into the darkness of Soviet-style communism with elements of Nazism. This is not hyperbole.

The nations crucible has been steadily escalating. Neighbors are snitching against neighbors. Those who complain about the masks, lockdowns, etc. have been denigrated as the Other, worthy only of scorn, assault and ridicule. And recently we have had the spectacle of shoppers falsely imprisoned and later arrested by police for the crime of not wearing a mask in conservative Orange County, California. The police were just following orders when detaining the shoppers. Where have we heard that before? On a national and global level, the censorship of all information countering the Wuhan virus narrative (as with the demonization of hydroxychloroquine) is aided by journalists who long ago removed their guises as objective fact finders. Journalists have instead become willing know-nothings in their efforts to help the Democrats.

In the past 20 years, elected Democrats have paid lip service to loving America, but their actions have shown that they endear nothing about the patriotic tradition and foundational laws of this country. From their rhetoric and policies, the America they envision is one where police are weakened, racial wounds fester, immigration laws ignored and global emergencies trump fundamental Constitutional rights.

Tell some Americans these facts about Democrats and they may find it hard to comprehend that an American political party has policies that undermine its own country. Many people would also be shocked that many elected Democrats view the Constitution as an impediment to their plans of ultimate power. Uncomfortable truths, perhaps, but these are proofs.

Remember the Democrat reaction to the electoral college after Donald Trumps stunning victory over the inevitable Hillary Clinton? The party of slavery howled in outrage over Hillary winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college. Recently, Democrats have championed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would force state electors to vote in accordance with the national popular vote and rejecting their own state vote totals. This is just another example of the Democrats forcing legislation down peoples throats as opposed to changing the hearts and minds of voters to their way of thinking. A major foundation of our representative republic, the electoral college was an ingenious creation of the Founders to ensure that smaller populated states have just as much say as their larger counterparts when choosing the president. Of course, Democrats want to scrap this system of real equality because they are nothing but sore losers and because it is too difficult to rig the electoral college in their favor.

Democrats claim to be the party of equality but only as far as it disrupts America. Yet when it comes to the Constitutional rights of free speech and bearing arms, the two greatest equalizers to powerful elites, the party of segregation is a staunch enemy.

Only bullies want to shut people up from criticizing them and ensure they have no way to fight back. This sums up the Democratic Party. Instead of protecting the little guy, they want to lord over the average American who only wants to be prosperous, safe and left alone to pursue happiness.

But the left hates you exercising rugged individualism because it threatens their tyrannical form of governance. Instead of respecting your rights as an individual, the party of Jim Crow laws wants to force you to conform to the collective in your thoughts and speech. To achieve this result, all the impediments to conformity must be eliminated, such as the traditional family, the Christian church and patriotism.

If this sounds like Marxism, it is because todays Democrat Party has gone full Marxist. They champion policies like the Green New Deal that would destroy prosperity and transfer wealth; they embrace socialism that grows government into an all-encompassing behemoth, such as Obamacare; and are carving out a two-tiered system of justice that favors leftists and punishes their political enemies. Going full Marxist commands Democrats/leftists to disrupt the smooth transition of power whenever they lose a presidential election as unquestionably demonstrated in 2016. This is especially troubling because the peaceful transfer of power has made America unique in the annals of history and the left appears determined to upend that tradition. But when you are your own higher power, who cares about custom?

Godlessness is a major tenet of Marxism and this too has been embraced by the party of abortion. Remember that this is the party that booed God during the 2012 Democrat Convention when the question was posed of placing God on their platform. Their rejection of the Creator was punctuated with a rainbow-colored exclamation point recently when they deemed churches as non-essential during the Wuhan virus lockdown. The left hates the Judeo-Christian ethic that, historically, formed the moral foundation of the United States and they really loathe Bible-believing Christian churches. In their ongoing efforts to never let a serious crisis go to waste, the left seized an opportunity to keep Americans fearful and addled by preventing them from gathering in church. The big lie declared by the party of Margaret Sanger and backed up by the media, was that such blatant rejection of the freedom of religion clause of the First Amendment was needed to keep people safe. The reality of the proscription was for one reason and one reason alone: to sow seeds of chaos and to destabilize the citizenry.

This lack of deference to God also allows elected Democrats to blatantly ignore their oaths of office. Oaths appear to mean nothing to Democrats (and to certain left leaning Republicans). If affirmations were important to the left, there would be tremendous guilt and consternation by these particular elected officials in both houses of Congress for violating their basic oath of office which they do so with impunity on a daily basis. In case you are unfamiliar, here is the oath for the House of Representatives which is recited by every member upon taking office:

I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Now here is the oath for the United States Senate:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Identical oaths, yes, but both pledges indicate that the office holder in either house of congress swears before God that they will defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Yet the facts are abundantly clear, that where elected Democrats are concerned, oaths are an empty gesture to be mindlessly recited before undermining the very country, states and cities they are representing. Just ask the folks who live in the cities of Portland, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco about the failures of their mayors and governors to protect the rights, lives and property of the law-abiding citizens they were elected to serve. Yes, serve! Not rule over, frighten or intimidate, but serve!

The mayors and governors who became infamous during the virus lockdown and riots did not go rogue with their arbitrary dictates. All of their efforts have the distinct appearance of coordination, all for the sake of keeping the spirit of the nation anxious and to damage the economy heading into the November presidential election. The Democrats have been pulling out all the stops to demoralize this nation in their effort to recapture the presidency, and they have proven that their constituents are nothing but pawns in this effort.

This is the party that demands to lead the country after November. Democrats want you to cast a vote for a party that has proven that it will not defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and have no qualms about disregarding their oaths under God. Can a party that has these beliefs be trusted to lead a country whose motto is In God We Trust? I would argue that if the Democrats win in November then it will be the American people who will lose. You will lose all of your freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution under Democrat power. This will not happen all at once, but the erosion will begin under a Democrat administration and, the America that you love and cherished will be lost for decades to come, if not for good.

If a person or entity has proven to be abusive or irresponsible with power then it is the duty of the people, while freedom still prevails, to resist and to ensure that such a person or entity is never entrusted with such power ever again or at least until they have regained the confidence of the people. Remember this as we head into the most important presidential election since the founding of our country.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of logo, Wikimedia Commons public domain image.
FM Zarif: US effort to snap back Iran sanctions discredits UN Security Council

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 5:40 PM

Iran's foreign minister says an effort launched by the United States to restore UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic on the strength of the so-called "snapback" mechanism under a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers will undermine international mechanisms and discredit the UN Security Council.

Zarif made the remarks in a phone call with Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres on Thursday during which the latter presented a report on the world body's efforts to put an end to the devastating Saudi war in Yemen.

The top Iranian diplomat used the opportunity to point to an illegal underway push by the United States to invoke a "snapback" mechanism in the nuclear deal that was made between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of states -- the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany -- in Vienna in July 2015.

The US left the accord, which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018. The move, by extension, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorses the JCPOA.

Although by leaving the JCPOA the United States forfeited all of its rights under the nuclear deal, it launched a bid earlier this year to prevent expiry of an arms embargo against Iran that will expire in October under the accord.

A US-devised resolution to prolong the embargo was, nevertheless, recently defeated at the Security Council, prompting Washington to threaten to try and trigger the JCPOA mechanism that would restore all of the UNSC sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran has warned Washington that it would again be snubbed at the world body if it sought recourse to the mechanism.

Zarif reiterated during the conversation with Guterres that based on consensus among all of the JCPOA's remaining signatories, the Security Council members and international legal experts, Washington was no longer a JCPOA member and its intention to trigger the mechanism was not supported at all by either the nuclear deal or Resolution 2231.

"The push carries dangerous repercussions for the international law and will have no result, but undermining of [standing] international mechanisms and discrediting the Security Council," the foreign minister said.

The Islamic Republic, he said, expects the secretary general and the UNSC members to act on their "legal duties to confront the US administration's intransigence."

Guterres, meanwhile, offered a report on the UN's latest efforts to bring about an end to the now-five-year-old Saudi Arabia-led and US-backed war on Yemen.

He asked the Islamic Republic for help in resolving some environmental complications that have come about in the western Yemeni port city of al-Hudaydah that has been experiencing an all-out siege by the Saudi-led coalition since the beginning of the war.

Zarif assured the UN chief of Iran's readiness to offer its "good offices" in that regard.

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The global Halal Pharmaceuticals Market is anticipated to reach USD 34.82 billion by 2026 according to a new study published by Polaris Market Research.

The significant growth in the Halal Pharmaceuticals Market is primarily due to the rapid increase in the Muslim population, along with their improving disposable income. Increasing purchasing power and deepening belief in Shariah law together is responsible for creating a surge in demand for halal pharmaceuticals. Shariah law is derived from the Quran and is basically a collection of practices, words, habits, and silent approvals. As per the law, products containing the discharge of human beings or animals, and in direct or indirect contact with non-halal items. Moreover, it must not contain traces of things that are unfit for human consumption such as poison, and toxic elements.

The list of key companies that are operating in the Halal Pharmaceuticals Market includes Chemical Company of Malaysia Berhad, Rosemont Pharmaceuticals, Bosch Pharmaceuticals, Noor Vitamins, EMBIL Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Nutramedica Incorporated, PharmaniagaBhd, and SimporPharmaSdnBhd, among others.

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Halal pharmaceuticals are expected to be prepared under a controlled environment to avoid any cross-contamination with non-halal utilities, materials, and ingredient. Extra care is taken in the manufacturing of these pharmaceuticals as no contamination will be tolerated. Rapid growth in demand has encouraged the Halal Pharmaceuticals Market players to actively indulge in activities that are aimed at or new product development.

Growing Muslim population is showcasing a high interest in halal pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. This can be attributed to the increasing consumer awareness about the deepening beliefs and growing knowledge that pharmaceuticals contain alcohol, porcine-by products, and their derivatives, among other non-halal contents or ingredients that are against Islamic beliefs.

The Halal Pharmaceuticals Market experience tough challenge in defining proper regulation and standards. Recently, American pharmaceuticals companies expressed their concerns over the guidelines by Malaysias Ministry of Health (MOH). These guidelines were focused towards defining the permissible items in pharmaceuticals in accordance with Islam. The concern was highlighted in the annual submission to the United States Trade Representative by the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

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The Halal Pharmaceuticals Market has been segregated based on drug class, type, end-use, and region. By drug class, the market has been divided into allergies, endocrine drugs, pain medications, respiratory drugs, and others. By type, the market has been bifurcated into capsule, syrup, and tablet. The industry experience high demand for end-use applications such as drugs, cosmetics, healthcare, and others.

The Middle East and the Asia Pacific regions Halal Pharmaceuticals Market are expected to witness significant growth in the next eight years due to the presence of a large population of Muslims. Majority of the Muslim population of the world lives in these regions, and they also comprise of emerging nations such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Pakistan that have a high population that follows Islamic beliefs.

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JOS, Nigeria, August 21, 2020 (Morning Star News)  A 16-year-old girl, a father of nine children and a church pastor were among 11 Christians killed by Muslim Fulani herdsmen this week in southern Kaduna state, sources said.

On Tuesday (Aug. 18) in Zangon Kataf County, herdsmen attacked Unguwan Gankon village, killing a 16-year-old student, Takama Paul, and another Christian, 30-year-old Kefas Malachy Bobai, a father of three children, Luka Binniyat of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) said.

Armed Fulani militia invaded Unguwan Gankon village in Gora Ward, Zangon Kataf LGA, and killed two persons and burned seven houses, Binniyat said in a press statement. Wary neighbors, however, came to the rescue, and the murderers fled.

On Monday (Aug. 17) in Kajuru County, he said, herdsmen killed a Christian farmer and father of nine, Bulus Joseph, 48. His wife and three of his children were also attacked but survived, he said.

Bulus Joseph was murdered gruesomely on his farm at Sabon Gida Idon, along the Kaduna-Kachia road, by armed Fulani militia, Binniyat said. He stood up to the killers so that his wife and three children could escape, which they did. But he paid the price with his life, as he was sub-humanly butchered by the cold-blooded murderers.

Four Christians killed in an attack on a vehicle on Sunday, Aug. 16, (not Monday as previously reported) included a pastor with the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), according to SOKAPU.

The Rev. Adalchi Usman, pastor of an ECWA congregation in Unguwan Madaki village in Kajuru County, was shot dead in an ambush on him and three other Christians by Muslim Fulani herdsmen as they were traveling out of the community, Binniyat said.

Also slain were Christians Mariah NaAllah of Unguwan Madaki village, Shekari of Unguwan Ali, originally from Anchuna village in Zangon Kataf County, and Ezekiel Maikasa of Gadanaji in Kajuru County, he said.

Pastor Adalchi Usman, 39, and a father of two, was ambushed while in a commercial vehicle he had boarded with three others, Binniyat said. The killers came from the bush and just started shooting at the car. The driver of the vehicle, Danlami Dariya, was abducted and at the time of releasing this statement his whereabouts were still unknown.

Binniyat confirmed a previous report to Morning Star News from a Bugai village area resident of a herdsmen attack on the community on Sunday (Aug. 16).

Armed Fulani militia attacked the village near Banikanwa, Kachia County, killing village head Danazumi Musa, 67; his mother, Kande Musa, 97; and his siblings Aniya Musa, 60, and Angelina Irmiya, 45, Binniyat said.

Six others sustained serious injuries, he said: John Danazumi, Danbuzu Anita, Blessing Soja, Patricia Anita, Precious Friday and Mercy Yohana.

Part of the village was burnt after the attackers looted the village, he said. This is to further show that the siege on southern Kaduna communities is still ongoing. The genocide is still much on. For southern Kaduna, the past five years that Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai has been governor, it has been a grim horror tale of blood, destruction, and hopelessness which we shall never forget.

Enoch Barde, a resident of Abashiya village in Kaduna states Kachia County, told Morning Star News that the corpse of Godwin Jonathan Bakoshi, a village Christian who was kidnapped on July 29, was recovered by Christians on Monday (Aug. 17).

Bakoshi, 23, had gone to a farm with two of his brothers and the 12-year-old son of a local ECWA pastor when armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked them on July 29, Barde said in a text message to Morning Star News. Bakoshi was taken captive and killed, but the other three escaped, he said.

The two brothers who escaped were able to return to the village the following morning after sleeping in the bush, Barde said. The third escapee [12-year-olds name withheld for security reasons] only returned to the village after wandering in the bush for three days and told us that while he was hidden, he heard the gunshot sound when Godwin Jonathan Bakoshi was killed by the Fulani herdsmen.

Occupied Villages

Binnayat said that 50,000 Christians have been displaced from 109 villages now occupied by armed Fulani herdsmen in Kachia, Kajuru, Chikun and Kaura counties, all in southern Kaduna state.

Indigenous rural, Christian communities of southern Kaduna have been sacked by rampaging armed Fulani militia and displaced to various communities and Internally Displaced Persons camps, he said. These villages are now under the full occupation of Fulani some for over a year.

Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdoms All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a recent report.

They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP [Islamic State West Africa Province] and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity, the APPG report states.

Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigerias Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.

The APPG report noted that tribal loyalties cannot be overlooked.

In 2015, Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani, was elected president of Nigeria, the group reported.

He has done virtually nothing to address the behavior of his fellow tribesmen in the Middle Belt and in the south of the country.

On Jan. 30 Christian Solidarity International (CSI) issued a genocide warning for Nigeria, calling on the Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council to take action. CSI issued the call in response to a rising tide of violence directed against Nigerian Christians and others classified as infidels by Islamist militants in the countrys north and middle belt regions.

Nigeria ranked 12th on Open Doors 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution but second in the number of Christians killed for their faith, behind Pakistan.

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
Stephen Lam/Reuters

Google parent Alphabet reportedly considered taking a stake in TikTok as part of a group bid.

However, those discussions have since fallen apart, reports Bloomberg. It's not clear who else was part of the group.

Are you a Google insider with more to share? Contact this reporter using encrypted email (hslangley@protonmail.com) or encrypted messaging apps Signal/Telegram (628-228-1836).

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google parent Alphabet reportedly considered taking a stake in TikTok as part of a group bid, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

The report says Alphabet weighed a minority, non-voting stake through one of its investment arms, which would be GV or CapitalG, both of which live separately from Google but under the Alphabet umbrella.

Those discussions "fizzled out" however, according to Bloomberg's sources, with talks stopping in recent days.

Alphabet reportedly didn't lead the efforts, and the report doesn't identify who did nor who else was part of the group. But a source told Bloomberg that Alphabet had not ruled out participating in future bids.

Considering TikTok is a direct rival to Alphabet's YouTube platform there's a good reason the company would be interested.

The clock is ticking for TikTok to find a new home for its US operations. Just a week ago, President Trump set a deadline of 90 days for Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest its US operations.

Microsoft was the first major company named to be in talks to buy TikTok, while Oracle and Twitter have also been named as interested bidders.

An Alphabet spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Prince George Airport Authority braced itself for an economic tailspin when the pandemic grounded planes this spring but the president and CEO says now, despite some summer growth, it will take far longer for the airport to financially recover than initially predicted.

In a media statement released this week, the authority, which governs the non-profit airport in north central B.C., said passenger numbers are starting to show some positive growth. However, Gordon Duke, president and CEO, said it could take half a decade before the airport starts generating pre-pandemic profits.

"When COVID first hit, we planned for a rough [first quarter] and [a second quarter] with a recovery and that by the end of the year we would be close to recovered," said Duke. "Our planning horizon now is in the three-to-five year range before we return to 2019 passenger levels."

Prince George saw a 96 per cent drop in passengers in April and May, but the summer months have given Duke a reason to be somewhat hopeful for the future.

Cautious optimism

Three times more people travelled through the Prince George Airport (YXS) in July compared to June, he said, and while July 2020 was still 75 per cent less busy than July 2019, it is a vast improvement on previous months.

According to the airport authority, Flair Airlines began operating Sunday flights to Edmonton and Vancouver in August, and Air Canada, West Jet and Central Mountain Air have plans to increase the number of flights they operate in September.

"We remain optimistic that we are on the right track," said Duke, who added the authority is pursuing help from all levels of government through the Canadian Airports Council and the British Columbia Aviation Council.

Struggles in Smithers

While the airport in Prince George benefits from some commercial flights, the Smithers Regional Airport, located about 300 kilometres to the northwest, does not.

All commercial flights in and out of Smithers, B.C. have been cancelled until October and the terminal is currently only open for charter and private plane passengers.

Story continues

"It's going to get very difficult, we are going to have to have some very serious discussions with our town council and discuss options for what we must do," said airport manager Rob Blackburn.

Radio-Canada

An application has been filed with the federal government for a grant to work on airport improvements in Smithers, something Blackburn said would at least be an economic driver for workers in the area. For now.

"Unfortunately, there is not any light at the end of the tunnel," said Blackburn. "We probably will see some airports go under."

Province-wide problem

Across the province, airports are feeling the pandemic economic pinch.

On Thursday, the mayor of Dawson Creek pleaded with members of the community to book WestJet flights scheduled to resume in the city in October  to prove the need for the airline to service the region in the northeast of B.C.

CBC

"I honestly cannot understate the importance of this service to our community and region," said Mayor Dale Bumstead in a Facebook post. "If we as residents and business people do not support it we will not be able to sustain it with WestJet.

According to financial reports from the Kamloops Airport, the airport had approximately a 97 per cent passenger decrease between March and June.

In Kelowna, approximately 14 daily domestic departures left the Kelowna International Airport in June  down significantly from the daily average of 48 in July 2019.

Last year, two million passengers passed through the Kelowna International Airport, making it one of the busiest airports in the country.
An EastJet plane was forced into an emergency return to Liverpool this afternoon after a mid-air bird strike.

The aircraft was travelling to Jersey when it was spotted making a diversion, and then heading back to John Lennon Airport.

Emergency services were scrambled to the scene, with two ambulances called just before 1.30pm.

An EastJet plane, pictured, was forced into an emergency return to Liverpool this afternoon after a mid-air bird strike

Emergency services were scrambled to the scene at John Lennon Airport just before 1.30pm

Fire crews were put on alert for a 'potential emergency' landing but were later stood down, the Liverpool Echo reports.

Passengers affected by the disruption should be getting an alternative flight to their destination later today.

A spokesman for the airline said: 'easyJet flight EZY7023 from Liverpool to Jersey returned from airborne following a bird strike.

'The captain performed a routine landing in accordance with standard operating procedures. We have arranged a replacement aircraft to operate the flight to Jersey.

'Whilst this is outside of easyJet's control, we apologise for any inconvenience experienced and thank passengers for their patience and understanding.

'The safety of passengers and crew is easyJet's highest priority.'
Protesters are calling for a police investigation into the shooting death of a Black man over the weekend. (Raul Roa / Times Community News)

Following the police shooting of a Black man in Pasadena on Saturday night, protesters are demanding that city leaders hold law enforcement accountable for the man's death, but authorities say the law  and police body-camera video  justify the shooting.

Standing atop an SUV outside Mayor Terry Tornek's home on Wednesday night, Jasmine Richards, who heads the local Black Lives Matter chapter, led a group of protesters questioning the shooting death of Anthony McClain.

The 32-year-old was shot and killed during a traffic stop over the weekend. Police have said the man pulled a handgun while running from officers.

"They think killing Black people is a joke," Richards said.

Police Chief John Perez said that multiple investigations will be conducted, but noted that video from one of the officer's body cameras shows McClain had a gun in his hand. A semiautomatic pistol was recovered at the scene of the shooting near La Pintoresca Park.

On Thursday, authorities released several videos as well as a photograph of the gun that was recovered.

The fatal encounter began about 8 p.m. Saturday when two officers spotted a four-door Infinity that did not have a front license plate and pulled the vehicle over in the 1300 block of North Raymond Avenue. Police determined the driver had a suspended license, Perez said, and officers ordered McClain and the driver to step out of the vehicle.

Video shows that McClain, however, fled on foot with what appears to be something shiny around his waistband. In a description of the video, police said that it was a handgun and that in a slow-motion version, the object can be seen in his left hand as he runs away before turning his head back toward the pursuing officers.

"You can see the weapon begin to turn with the body," Perez said.

But Caree Harper, the McClain family's attorney, said what police saw on the video was a large metal belt buckle.

"We believe the area that police say it was a weapon was, in fact, his Michael Kors belt," Harper said.

Story continues

An officer who ran after McClain fired two shots, striking him once near his rib cage, police said.

McClain continued running for about 50 yards before tossing his weapon and collapsing about 20 yards later, Perez said. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries.

Police said an illegally assembled gun with different serial numbers was recovered nearby. A witness told authorities McClain was seen tossing the weapon as he ran. But the Police Department did not say Thursday whether they could forensically connect McClain to the weapon.

The officers involved in the shooting have less than five years on the force, authorities said, and one of their body cameras did not work during the fatal encounter.

The department has pledged to identify the officers but has expressed concerns about their safety. The law requires the names of law enforcement officials involved in fatal shootings be released but allows departments to withhold identities when a specific threat exists.

Perez said the shooting meets a state law enacted last year that changed California's standard for the use of deadly force from reasonable to necessary," noting that McClain posed an "imminent threat." The law allows officers to use deadly force to apprehend a fleeing person for any felony that threatens or results in death or serious bodily injury, and if the officer reasonably believes the person will cause death or serious bodily injury to another unless immediately apprehended.

In the aftermath of Saturday's shooting, a crowd gathered at La Pintoresca Park, breaking through police tape surrounding the scene. One man shouted and cursed at officers as protesters gathered nearby.

The outburst caused one officer to fire his stun gun into the man's chest, dropping him to the ground, body cam video shows.

Police then discharged pepper spray at the angry, surging crowd, striking a 10-year-old, whose mother, in turn, pepper-sprayed an officer who tried to check on the child.

In the days since the shooting, protesters have gathered outside Tornek's house as well as the home of Pasadena Councilman Victor Gordo to demand the release of body-cam video and security camera footage from the scene. They also want the officers charged in McClain's death.

The City Council next week will consider implementing a police oversight commission into the shooting, Tornek said. But critics are calling for an independent police audit, citing previous questionable shooting deaths of Black men in Pasadena, including the 2012 killing of 19-year-old Kendrec McDade.

McDade was shot seven times after a 911 caller falsely reported that the Azusa High School graduate was carrying a gun when he and a friend stole a laptop. The caller eventually pleaded guilty to falsely reporting a criminal offense, and the district attorneys office cleared Officers Jeff Newlen and Matthew Griffin of wrongdoing in the shooting.

A later independent report found that Pasadena police failed during their investigation to determine whether witnesses could corroborate or refute the officers claims that McDade had been clutching at his waistband as he fled from their squad car before being shot.
Canadian politics is always exciting, but it has been moreso than usual lately. Along with intermittent explosions, there has also been a smouldering controversy that is getting hotter and hotter with each new revelation: that of Governor General Julie Payette and her conduct in the role.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Canadian politics is always exciting, but it has been moreso than usual lately. Along with intermittent explosions, there has also been a smouldering controversy that is getting hotter and hotter with each new revelation: that of Governor General Julie Payette and her conduct in the role.

Mostly anonymous sources have levelled two sets of allegations against Payette: the first is that Payette and her deputy treat the staff at Rideau Hall abominably, with verbal abuse a regular feature of employment there (there is now a government investigation into these concerns); the second allegation, which is by now largely verified, is that Payette is utterly reckless with public funds, spending irresponsibly on new projects and organizing her travel in such a way as to maximize costs.

Just to use one example: hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent renovating Rideau Hall in order to protect Payettes privacy, including a series of gates and locked doors that restrict access to her office. More than $140,000 was blown studying and designing a private staircase for Payettes use, but it was never built. Meanwhile, more than three years into her five-year term and untold thousands of dollars later, Payette has yet to move into Rideau Hall.

Is this all vice-regal drama that will only be of interest to people who buy magazines with fawning profiles of the British royals? No, this all matters, for two reasons.

First, perceptions of the Governor General matter because most of the job is symbolic in nature. Even Canadians who are strongly opposed to the current government should be able to take pride in a non-partisan head of state who stands above the politics of the day. As political scientist Philippe Lagasse has observed, the Governor General wears a uniform, calls herself the commander-in-chief, and engages in other shows of national authority because the prime minister doesnt do so. This reminds us that politicians are elected to serve the country, not embody it.

This is an advantage parliamentary democracies such as Canada have over presidential systems of government, where the president is the head of state, and aversion to such figures as current U.S. President Donald Trump can lead to alienation from the regime as a whole.

Former governor general Michaelle Jean ran into controversy during her time in the office, but overall, she focused on themes that united rather than divided Canadians: youth, the arts, the North and violence against women. And she embraced her role as Canadas commander-in-chief by wearing military uniforms to attend Remembrance Day ceremonies and military funerals. There was a lot for Canadians to proud of.

Payette was most certainly an accomplished  in many ways, remarkable  person of whom Canadians could be proud when she was appointed to the role of Governor General. When the appointment was announced, I tweeted out that it was "very cool" that Canada was going to have an astronaut as Governor General, in part because my daughter loves all things outer space and I relished the idea of pointing to Payette as a role model.

But all that has been tarnished. Canadians should be able to take pride in their Governor General, and that is getting more and more difficult with each passing day.

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That brings us to the second reason why this matters: as the new federal finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, said when asked about Payettes spending, "All of us who have the privilege of serving Canadians have to really be mindful that when we spend money, we are spending the money of Canadians." Throwing money around recklessly is an excellent way for members of the political class to anger and alienate Canadians and drive them away from politics.

This is even more true of unelected political figures such as the Governor General and senators, because voters have no way of punishing them for perceived misbehaviour. At least voters can turf incumbent governments or their own MP in the next election if they feel they have been reckless with public money. But there is no such recourse for Payette, and frustration is therefore the only response available.

If Payette cannot be held accountable, then who can?

Under former prime minister Stephen Harper, a committee of experts consulted and deliberated on potential appointments to the roles of Governor General and the provincial lieutenant governors. This committee then gave a short list of candidates to the prime minister, who chose from among them. This process resulted in the appointment of former governor general David Johnston, who was remarkable in the role.

But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dropped this approach and, impressed with her credentials, appointed Payette without much in the way of consultation. Of course, Trudeau cannot see into the future. But a formalized method of recommending appointments to the position, informed by a variety of expert and diverse viewpoints, has worked well in the past. Trudeau would have been well advised to have stuck with it.

Royce Koop is head of the political studies department at the University of Manitoba.
Previously unknown mid-Holocene event led to major changes in human settlement, according to findings from University of California, Irvine, University of Pennsylvania and William Paterson University

Physical evidence found in caves in Laos helps tell a story about a connection between the end of the Green Sahara, when once heavily vegetated Northern Africa became a hyper-arid landscape, and a previously unknown megadrought that crippled Southeast Asia 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, University of Pennsylvania, William Paterson University of New Jersey, and other international institutions explain how this major climate transformation led to a shift in human settlement patterns in Southeast Asia, which is now inhabited by more than 600 million people.

"In this study, we provide the first proof for a strong link between the end of the Green Sahara and Southeast Asian monsoon failure during the mid- to late Holocene period," said co-author Kathleen Johnson, UCI associate professor of Earth system science. "Our high-resolution and well-dated record suggests a strong connection between Northern Africa and mainland Southeast Asia during this time."

To create a paleoclimate record for the study, Johnson and other researchers gathered stalagmite samples from caves in Northern Laos. In her UCI laboratory, they measured the geochemical properties of the oxygen and carbon isotopes, carbon-14, and trace metals found in the specimens. This helped them verify the occurrence of the drought and extrapolate its impacts on the region.

Johnson said they combined data from the analysis of these stalagmite-derived proxies with a series of idealized climate model simulations--conducted by co-author Francesco Pausata of the University of Quebec in Montreal--in which Saharan vegetation and dust concentrations were altered in a way that permitted them to investigate the ocean-atmosphere feedbacks and teleconnections associated with such an abrupt shift in precipitation.

The modeling experiments suggested that reduced plant growth in the Sahara led to increased airborne dust that acted to cool the Indian Ocean and shift the Walker circulation pattern eastward, causing it to behave in ways similar to modern-day El Nino events. This, ultimately, led to a large reduction in monsoon moisture across Southeast Asia that lasted more than 1,000 years, according to Johnson.

Anthropologists and archaeologists have previously studied the effects of the demise of the Green Sahara, also known as the African humid period, on population centers closer to Western Asia and North Africa, noting the collapse of the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, the de-urbanization of the Indus Civilization (near present-day Pakistan and India) and the spread of pastoralism along the Nile River.

But the link to the origin of the Southeast Asia megadrought and lifestyle pattern shifts in the region had not been previously investigated, according to lead author Michael Griffiths, professor of environmental science at William Paterson University of New Jersey.

"Archaeologists and anthropologists have been studying this event for decades now, in terms of societal adaptations and upheavals, but its exact cause has eluded the scientific community," said Griffiths, who was a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-supported postdoctoral scholar in Johnson's lab and has collaborated with her on this research topic for more than 10 years.

"Results from this work provide a novel and convincing explanation for the origin of the Southeast Asia megadrought and could help us better understand, to varying degrees, the observed societal shifts across many parts of the tropics and extra-tropics," he said.

The researchers suggest that the centuries-long megadrought corresponds to the "missing millennia" in Southeast Asia between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago, a time characterized by a noticeable lack of archaeological evidence in interior Southeast Asia compared to earlier and later portions of the Holocene.

They propose that the mid-Holocene megadrought may have been an impetus for mass population movements and the adoption of new, more resilient subsistence strategies, and that it should now be considered as a possible driver for the inception of Neolithic farming in mainland Southeast Asia.

"This is outstanding evidence for the type of climate change that must have affected society, what plants were available, what animals were available," said co-author Joyce White, adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. "All of life had to adjust to this very different climate. From an archaeological point of view, this really is a game changer in how we try to understand or reconstruct the middle Holocene period."

###

The collection of speleothem samples from Laotian caves was made possible by Johnson's collaboration since 2010 with the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project, managed by White, also a consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

This project also involved researchers from Oxford University and Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the University of New Mexico. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NOAA, the Swedish Research Council, and a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to the Penn Museum.
Al Jazeera speaks to Beirut residents in the aftermath of the explosion on August 4.

Beirut, Lebanon  This is greater than anything ever before.

It is not the first time I have heard this since we arrived in Beirut.

We are sitting with a government employee, his eyes are heavy, his usual, almost flirtatious energy, totally gone.

He looks tired. In fact, he looks completely broken.

He is broken. He tells us how, for the first time, he now wants his children to leave Lebanon  despite having put them through the best education to stay here. Nothing compared with this  not the years of civil war, assassinations, car bombs  this was different. It is different.

We have all been affected, he tells us. Family died, friends died, homes were blown up and businesses lost.

A sudden, violent blast that sucked the oxygen out of this city and its people.









It has left many gasping for air.

It came into our homes and took our happiness, our souls, another woman tells us. She lost her husband in the blast.

She was in the living room, he was in the kitchen. She still does not comprehend how she was unscathed, and he never made it.

In a few seconds, I lost everything I did in my life, my house, my business. But all that can be fixed  but my love? For what? For nothing?

The shops and restaurants are shuttered. Hamra, Mar Mikhail, Gemayzee  the few businesses that survived the economic crisis now blown to pieces.

Everything is gone

A Lebanese friend, who had just returned after the explosion told me how depressed he was  he is of the civil war generation.

Everything is gone  places, even people. There is nothing to be attached to any more.

Many feel that way. They have lost family, friends, homes, businesses. Everyone has a story. Few people have much hope right now.

We visit a hospital where a forensic doctor has been busy identifying the bodies of those killed in the explosion. We discuss what state the bodies are in, what he has seen  how he feels.

Im taking it badly, he tells us.

We were already struggling with corona, he says, and the economical situation, the political situation, too many things. This is very stressful for the Lebanese people  and then this explosion came.









While we talk to him, bodies are carried back and forth behind us. One wrapped in black, one in white sheeting, and basic coffins.

Death hangs in the air.

He continues: I think, until now, there is no real reaction. What you see is a stupor, people are still in stupor regarding their dead, regarding the country, regarding what is happening. And probably they are under stress syndrome, post-trauma stress syndrome  that will take some time, one year to appear.

He tells us that usually when there is an explosion in Lebanon, people rush to hospital emergency rooms  mobbing them and they have to hire security to be able to do their jobs.

Yes they came, of course  but they stayed outside by themselves. Its as if they wanted to know the truth  but at the same time they didnt.

Feeling emptiness

Denial or shock. The magnitude of what has happened here is difficult to comprehend.

Saleem is a diving instructor. He volunteered with the rescue in the early days. I ask him how he felt when he first approached the port from the sea, heading to look for survivors.

I think the real feeling was he pauses to think of the right word. The real feeling was emptiness, seeing all this.

It was chaos in these early days  and the visibility in the crater was zero  They had to feel their way with their hands.

He contemplates the bigger picture. He, like many of his generation  fought in the civil war and is no stranger to violence, to death, to political chaos.

What happened is very big.

He too tells us that this is bigger than anything ever before.

You know you have the capital of a country that is totally destroyed. I dont know how many years we need. You know Lebanon is passing through an economical situation that is very hard. We have problems with the international bank, and we have problems with the exchange rate, and 60-70 percent of people are not working, nobody can eat, salaries are bad, we have to deal with corona, and we have the revolution. And now we have this?

Will Beirut recover? I ask him.

Yes, the buildings will recover. The people I dont know. If they stay  maybe in like 20, 30, 40 years  because if you make a small calculation, nobody really recovered from the war of 75 yet. If they are still living, and nobody recovered from the war of the 80s and 90s, and 2006. Its hidden somewhere, you just need like a click and it will pop up. I dont think it will be easy to recover. This is a big thing. Its a big thing.

 I blame the whole state

But there is strength. And there is humour. And there is incredible solidarity between people coming together to help each other.

Feeding each other, providing shelter, patching up this shattered city. Any real official help on the ground has been notably absent.

We interview a family who is still waiting for news of their husband, their father, more than two weeks on. He worked at the silos and was in the operation room at the time of the blast.

After speaking to his wife and his son, we finish filming. I talk to his daughter. She is 19, so eloquent, smart, and beautiful.

I tell her how amazingly strong she is and how I do not think I would have been able to keep it together if it were me in this situation.

She tells me she used to think that she could not either, but it is different when it happens to you, she says. You find the strength.

Later that night, the family gets word that their father and husband was identified.

I blame the whole state, I blame the politicians, his wife told us earlier.





We attend the funeral. It is unbearably sad. His elderly mother strokes his coffin, her face creased in pain.

We can see a picture of him on her chest, held in place by her jacket. Close to her heart. No mother should have to bury their child.

His son wants an independent investigation, he wants answers.

He stands stoic but his eyes burn with pain, as his mother and sisters shake with grief.

Many here say they want answers, but in the same breath, they add they believe the truth of what happened will never come out.

Justice is another thing they question. Most people we speak to blame the entire system.

They say the explosion was the ultimate, incomprehensible symbol of decades of mismanagement, corruption and negligence  of power in the hands of a few  and admit it will be very difficult to change.
Heads always roll when political scandal spreads.

The WE Charity affair has already disposed of former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who resigned both his cabinet position and his job as MP this week, following prolonged criticism that he was part of the discussion to award a $900-million government contract to the same charity that employs his daughter and gave him a free trip (which he repaid three years later) to Kenya and Ecuador.

Will Bardish Chagger, Waterloo MP and the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Youth, be next for the chopping block?

Chagger has never taken payment or gifts from WE charity, she said in an interview Thursday.

She has no family ties to WE either, unlike Morneau or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, both of whom are being investigated by the ethics commissioner for their failure to withdraw from Cabinet discussions on the decision.

But an email to Chagger from WE co-founder Craig Kielburger, revealed this week amid thousands of pages of newly released documents, has put her undeniably closer to trouble.

It indicated that she had offered guidance to WE when it approached her ministry with a proposal about providing pandemic relief to young entrepreneurs.

Chagger told the parliamentary ethics committee that she had a phone call with Kielburger April 17 in which she said she talked about the importance of youth and service.

Five days later, in an email message to Chagger, Kielburger wrote: We appreciate your thoughtful offer to connect us with relevant members of your ministry. Over the weekend our team has also been hard at work to adapt your suggestion of a second stream focused on a summer service opportunity.

This service opportunity eventually became the program to give grants to students if they volunteered during the summer.

The program was announced on June 25, soon after the conversation between Chagger and Kielburger. It was cancelled eight days later, amid an uproar that neither Morneau nor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose family is intimately involved with the charity, had removed themselves from the discussion at Cabinet.

At first, Canadians were told that the impartial, professional civil service had decided WE Charity was the only organization that could handle a project of this magnitude because of its broad social media presence, its long experience with young people and its reach across Canada.

Given the need to get funds into the hands of students quickly, there was no time for a competitive process.

Chagger had said that the civil service had recommended giving the job to WE Charity, and she had accepted their recommendation.

The problem is that Kielburgers email, and other documents released this week, paint a different picture: One in which Cabinet ministers and their staff were smoothing the path for WE Charity, perhaps because it was favoured by people in power, like Morneau and Trudeau.

Under questioning from the ethics committee earlier this month, Chagger said she never asked WE to amend or adjust or add any proposal.

But had she made a suggestion, as Kielburger had described?

I think hes taken a lot of liberty in his statement, she told me Thursday.

That meeting was a listening exercise.

A lot has happened since that meeting.

We have learned that there was insufficient scrutiny by the public service of WE Charity, which was under financial stress according to watchdog Charity Intelligence Canada. The board chair of WE also resigned in March after concerning developments with the charity.

Since then, Trudeau has also prorogued Parliament, stopping the work of the ethics and finance committees in their tracks.

When Parliament resumes in the fall, Trudeau is widely expected to bring forward an economic recovery plan with a focus on the environment. He will have to contend with a recharged Conservative party under a new leader, and likely a vote of non-confidence that could bring down his minority government and force an election.

It will be to Trudeaus advantage to erase every trace of the embarrassing spectacle of the hastily conceived WE Charity project, with its echoes of insider elites lining one anothers pockets.

Chagger may be collateral damage.

I asked her if she thought she would lose her Cabinet position.

She responded: I do believe my focus on diversity and inclusion and youth is one I will continue to advance at the Cabinet table.

We will see.
By Alan Charlish and Anna Koper

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland has appointed Zbigniew Rau, the chair of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, to the post of foreign minister, as Warsaw seeks to play a leading role in the EU response to a political crisis in neighbouring Belarus.

At a news conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also said that economist Adam Niedzielski, the head of the national health fund (NFZ), had been appointed health minister.

The appointments come at a crucial time for both ministries, as Poland grapples with rising daily coronavirus cases and seeks to push the EU to take an active diplomatic stance towards Belarus, a close Russian ally whose borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are major NATO frontiers.

"Today both men are certainly mentally, intellectually and spiritually immersing themselves in the issues they will be responsible for," Morawiecki said.

The appointments come two days after the departure of previous Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski, and hours after Jacek Czaputowicz resigned as foreign minister on Thursday morning.

Czaputowicz had signalled in July he may quit, as the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party announced it planned personnel changes in the government during a reshuffle in the autumn that could see the number of ministries reduced.

Thousands of people have demonstrated in Belarus against official election results that showed President Alexander Lukashenko re-elected in an Aug. 9 vote the opposition says was rigged. The EU has announced financial sanctions against Belarusian officials it blames for vote fraud.

Belarus has blamed the protests on foreign interference and said it is reinforcing its Western borders.

(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko,Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Koper, Alicja Ptak; Writing by Alan Charlish, Editing by Jon Boyle, Peter Graff and Giles Elgood)
Irans foreign minister in a letter to the UN Security Council said the US has no right to demand the restoration of UN sanctions against Iran, the Foreign Ministrys website said Friday.

Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US lost the right to make demands in 2018 when it withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers. He also said Americas unilateral pullout violated a UN resolution that required signatories to avoid any damage to the deal.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday officially informed the UN it is demanding the restoration of all UN sanctions on Iran, but allies and opponents declared the US action illegal and doomed to failure.

Pompeo insisted the United States has the legal right to snap back UN sanctions even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the Security Council.

He said UN sanctions will continue the arms embargo on Iran, set to expire on Oct. 18, as well as prohibit ballistic missile testing and nuclear enrichment that could lead to a nuclear weapons program  which Tehran insists it is not pursuing.

The US insistence on snapping back international sanctions against Iran sets the stage for a contentious dispute. The US demand could be ignored by other U.N. members  calling into question the Security Councils ability to enforce its own legally binding decisions.

Zarif said the term snapback was never mentioned in the deal or in the UN resolution that supported the deal. The US intentionally has applied the word to suggest speed and (an) automatic return of sanctions, he said.

The Trump administration wants to reimpose all international sanctions that had been eased under the nuclear deal. Other nations claim the US has no standing to make the demand because the Trump administration pulled the US out of the deal.

Under the agreement, Tehran received sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. The snapback mechanism was created in the event Tehran was proven to be in violation of the accord.

Zarif said the Security Council should stop the USs unilateral misuses of council resolutions, saying the people of Iran expect the council to force the US to be accountable for its damages to Iran.

The US imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran and sent the countrys economy into free fall following its pullout from the deal.
Frustrated by anti-mask sentiment, a YouTuber combined the Second Amendment with healthcare.

YouTuber Allen Pan created a gun that will launch and stick a mask to a persons face. The comical 9-minute YouTube video shows anti-masking protests; the design and build process for the gun; and focus-group testing in Huntington Beach, Calif.

It feels like people just arent wearing masks, and they should be, Pan said in the video. What am I going to do about it?  If theres one thing that coronavirus protesters actually care about, its the Second Amendment.  And American problems demand American solutions.  Im going to put together the Second Amendment with healthcare. Thats right: Guns and public safety. Boom. Best of both worlds.

In Michigan, face coverings are required by executive order at public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. Masks have been proven to be effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Friday she will distribute 4 million free face masks to Michigan residents.

RELATED: Well likely be wearing masks until Easter, medical officer says

The video published Aug. 15 and had over 1.6 million views by Aug. 21.

Pan is described by MythBusters: The Search, which he was a contestant on, as an engineer, educator, YouTuber, hitchhiker and overall imagination man.

The mask gun  a combination bola-net gun  is loaded with a surgical mask fitted with adhesive to make it stick to a persons face if the weighted bola-like lines dont do the job.

After testing the gun on a dummy and himself  with varying degrees of success  Pan decided it was ready for human trials. For that, he went to Hampton Beach where he found more mask-wearers and less hostility than he expected.

He tested the gun on a dummy at the beach and received positive feedback from people who stopped to try it themselves.

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Two rowdy Brits have been arrested in Spain for refusing to put on their face masks whilst on a flight from Tenerife and ignoring even the pilot's plea.

The plane was on its way to Madrid when the trouble broke out, fuellled by alcohol, according to other distressed passengers, who said the men were repeatedly walking up and down the isle to the toilets while waving.

The flight from Tenerife to Madrid was being operated by Iberia which alerted the Civil Guard as they approached the Spanish capital, and Police were waiting at the airport in Madrid where both men were escorted off.

The incident has been widely reported by the Spain's media, including 20minutos.es which published a short video showing three air stewards walking down the aisle of the packed plane to speak to two men.

Masks are mandatory on flights to stop the spread of coronavirus and it appears that all the passengers are wearing them, although you video does not show two Brits alleged to be involved.

The stewards are seen leaning over to talk to two passengers sitting next to each other and then waving their hands in the air. No conversation is audible but you can hear the voices of young children.

In a short video shared by 20minutos.es, flight attendants on the flight from Tenerife to Madrid were seen talking with the two British passengers refusing to wear masks. The crew then told them to sit at the back of the plane, and were arrested on their arrival in the Spanish capital

According to other people on the flight, the two men had been making a nuisance of themselves, walking up and down the plane without masks and seemingly under the influence of alcohol.

One passenger told 20minutos.es: 'Some of the passengers asked to be separated or to be seated in another place.'

The Brits were told repeatedly to put on their masks by the steward and, at one stage, the pilot also left the cockpit to talk to them but they still refused.

It is mandatory for passengers to wear masks on flights to help stop the spread of the coronavirus in the close proximity of plane cabins. Pictured: British citizens arrive at the Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport wearing masks

They were said to have repeatedly walked up and down the aisle to go to the toilet, wearing face masks around their necks and 'waving' at other passengers.

During the flight, because of the commotion being caused, the two men were re-seated at the back of the plane.

According to another Spanish newspaper, their 'demeanor on flight IB3229 was rather unpleasant and not very exemplary. They were disturbing the other passengers throughout the trip.

'Their shouting caused discomfort to others, who could not rest or simply be calm for the time that the flight lasted.'

Rising in cases in Europe have in-part been blamed on increased levels of tourism. Pictured: people walk along the beach wearing face masks in Tenerieffe

Yesterday, Spain recorded 7,039 new cases, 6,671 on Wednesday and 5,114 on Tuesday. The country also saw 167 new coronavirus deaths across the three day

When the plane touched down at Madrid airport, the two Brits were warned not to get off until the Civil Guard arrived and boarded the plane. They were then arrested and escorted off.

Witness statements were taken from those on board. The two men are facing fines for refusing to wear a mask and possible public disorder.

The incident has prompted a huge reaction on social media, with people saying they should never have been allowed on board in the first place if they appeared to have been drinking too much.

Iberia has been asked for an official comment about the circumstances but on its website, the airline makes it perfectly clear that all the coronavirus safety regulations have to be respected, including the obligatory wearing of masks.

Yesterday, Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily tally since May, while France's 4,771 fresh infections was a colossal increase on Wednesday's 3,776 (pictured: a graph of the rolling 7-day average)

Coronavirus cases have continued to rise in Europe over the last week.

Today, France recorded another sharp rise is coronavirus cases yesterday with 4,700 infections - up by a thousand - while Italy has seen its highest daily tally since May.

There have also been worrying spikes in Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia - much of it blamed on holidaying Europeans and youngsters enjoying parties in the summer heatwave.

Yesterday, Spain recorded 7,039 new cases, 6,671 on Wednesday and 5,114 on Tuesday. The country also saw 167 new coronavirus deaths across the three day.

Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest figure for three months, while France's 4,771 fresh infections was a colossal increase on Wednesday's 3,776.

Britons were scrambling to return home from Croatia and Austria last night after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps declared that anyone arriving from the countries must self-isolate for 14 days.

British Airways economy flights from Zagreb to London are up at 276 today compared to 82 on Monday.

Residents and tourists go for a walk on seaside in La Concha beach, in San Sebastian, Basque Country, northern Spain, 19 August 2020

Around 20,000 British tourists are thought to be in Croatia.

In Vienna its a similar story, 482 to Heathrow compared to 109 for the same route on Sunday.

The Scottish Government has also announced that Switzerland is being added to its quarantine list.

Weekly coronavirus cases in Croatia have increased by more than 179 percent from 7.8 per 100,000 to 21.5 per 100,000.

In Austria, it's a 79.5 percent increase on the previous week from 8 per 100,000 to 14.4 per 100,000.

And in Switzerland - another nexus of European tourism - weekly cases have increased by 54.6 percent in the last week, from 11.1 per 100,000 to 17.2 per 100,000.

Germany is also experiencing an increase of 26.1% on last week, with particular concern in Berlin where the contagion is soaring wildly after overcrowding in its parks during the heat.

Much of the rise has been blamed on returning holidaymakers as well as summer parties and family gatherings.

The latest figures, from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases, bring to 228,621 the number of infections in the country since the start of the pandemic.
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As Tropical Depression 14 eyes Texas, Montgomery County officials are urging residents to be prepared as well as offering tips on how to best do that during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, TD 14 was near the coast of Honduras Friday morning with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. TD14 is moving northwest at 14 mph with a turn towards the northwest expected by Friday evening.

This storm is now expected to become a strong tropical storm or category one hurricane before making landfall most likely along the Texas or Louisiana coast around Tuesday, said Meghan Ballard Arthur with the MCOEM. This storm is expected to be named Marco in the next 24 hours. Impacts will depend on track and intensity which remain uncertain.

However, damaging winds and flooding from heavy rains are possible especially if TD 14 becomes a hurricane and makes a center or left side of the cone track.

Additionally, emergency officials are watching Tropical Storm Laura which will move into the gulf by early next week. Laura is expected to become a category one hurricane before making landfall.

Arthur said residents should give themselves more time to prepare in light of COVID-19 regarding food, water and medications. She also reminded residents to continue following CDC guidelines to continue to slow the spread of COVID-19 when preparing for the storm.

Home delivery is the safest choice for buying disaster supplies; however, that may not be an option for everyone. If in-person shopping is your only choice, take steps to protect your and others health when running essential errands, she said.

Lake Conroes water level was at 199.84 pool, which is below the normal pool of 201.

(The San Jacinto River Authority) is keeping an eye on the gulf and implementing its standard protocols for a severe weather event including 24-hour work schedules, equipment testing and activating our reservoir operations center, said SJRA General Manager Jace Houston. Due to the recent hot weather, Lake Conroe is about 14 inches below its normal full level, so there is already a lot of space to capture rainfall.

Houston added SJRA is coordinating with emergency operations personnel in both Montgomery and Harris counties.

We will stay on top of the weather throughout the weekend, and we urge the public to follow their local offices of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and to check SJRA social media channels and website for the most up-to-date information, Houston said.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
A groom was shot Thursday night at a home in the Copperfield area after his wedding during an altercation with someone in the wedding party, officials said.

Harris County Sheriffs Office deputies responded shortly before 11:30 p.m. to a shooting on the 16800 block of Anna Green Street, said Capt. John Shannon .
As soon as Pompeo delivered the letter invoking snapback, Russias deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, tweeted: Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.
Customers of Wrexham pub advised to be vigilant for Coronavirus symptoms

This article is old - Published: Friday, Aug 21st, 2020

Public Health Wales and Wrexham Council are advising anyone who visited the North and South Wales Bank pub in Wrexham between 9th and 20th August to be vigilant for the symptoms of Coronavirus.

Yesterday Wrexham.com broke the news that three members of staff tested positive, and a number were self isolating. Wrexham.com understands the issue was first known locally on Monday.

This afternoon Public Health Wales has said if customers develop symptoms, however mild, they should immediately self-isolate and apply for a Coronavirus test by visiting www.gov.wales/coronavirus, or by calling the national 119 phone service.

The advice follows the identification of three confirmed cases in staff at the pub. There is no evidence at this stage of transmission to customers, and no outbreak has been declared.

Anyone who meets the definition of a direct contact of the affected staff will be contacted as a routine part of the Test, Trace and Protect process, and customers are being advised to be vigilant as a precautionary measure.

Dr Graham Brown, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control for Public Health Wales, said: Public Health Wales is working with Wrexham Council to investigate three cases of Coronavirus in staff at the North and South Wales Bank pub in Wrexham.

There is no evidence of transmission to customers at this stage, but we are advising anyone who visited the pub between 9 and 20 August to be vigilant for the symptoms of Coronavirus and to book a test straight away if symptoms occur.

The identification of these cases is evidence that the Test, Trace, Protect strategy is working, and no outbreak has been declared.

As we move through the recovery phase of the Coronavirus pandemic, we expect to see clusters in different settings. We manage any clusters of Coronavirus appropriately, including by providing advice around infection prevention and control, and by supporting contact tracing where required.

We remind the public and business owners that Coronavirus is still circulating in the community. 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.
Experian South Africa CEO Ferdie Pieterse downplayed the seriousness of a data breach at his company which exposed the personal details of 23.4 million South Africans.

Experian is a consumer, business, and credit information services agency, whose major clients include several South African banks.

The South African Banking Risk Centre (SABRIC) said the data breach at Experian has exposed the personal information of as many as 24 million South Africans and nearly 793,749 businesses.

Banks have been working with Experian and SABRIC to identify which of their customers may have been exposed to the breach and to protect their personal information.

Experian South Africa said it continues to investigate an isolated incident in South Africa involving a fraudulent data inquiry.

Our investigations indicate that an individual in South Africa, purporting to represent a legitimate client, fraudulently requested services from Experian, the company said.

The services involved the release of information which is provided in the ordinary course of business or which is publicly available.

Speaking to The Money Shows Bruce Whitfield, Pieterse said in no way, shape, or form was Experian hacked.

He said none of their systems, databases or records was ever penetrated or hacked as many had reported.

He said the perpetrator used social engineering techniques to put himself forward as a known customer of Experian.

The fraudster then convinced Experian, in the normal cause of business, to provide him with the records of 23.4 million individuals.

Pieterse said the fraudster already had the names, surnames, and ID numbers of people, and that Experian only provided contact information to the fraudster  telephone numbers and addresses.

He told Whitfield it was not a colossal failure on the part of Experian.

Data was stolen months ago

J2 Software managing director John Mc Loughlin said this is indeed a serious data breach which should concern people.

Speaking to Whitfield, Mc Loughlin said the information breach already happened in May and has therefore been out there for months.

We live in a digital world. That data can be absolutely anywhere, and that is the information which hackers need to target people for identity theft, SIM swaps, and other fraud, he said.

He said this highly valuable and rich data set provides fraudsters with the means to launch attacks against people.

The full interview with Mc Loughlin is embedded below.

Now read: Personal information of millions of South Africans exposed in banking data breach
CAIRO - Libyas U.N.-supported government Friday announced a cease-fire across the oil-rich country and called for demilitarizing the strategic city of Sirte in an initiative supported by the rival parliament in the east.

The development could mark a breakthrough following international pressure amid rising fear of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war as rival sides mobilize for a battle over Sirte. The gateway to Libyas major oil export terminals has been under the control of forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter since January.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

The chaos has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year. Thousands of mercenaries including Russian, Syrians and Sudanese are fighting on both sides of the conflict.

Hifter, who is allied to the parliament in eastern Libya, is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli have backing from Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle, as well as from the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture Tripoli. But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with heavy Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of the city and other western towns.

Fighting has died down in recent weeks, but both sides were preparing for a possible battle over Sirte. Emboldened by Turkeys support, Tripoli-allied forces vowed to retake Sirte and the Jurfa area, which includes a vital inland military base, from Hifters forces, prompting Egypt to threaten to send troops to Libya.

Previous efforts to secure lasting cease-fires have stalled. But this time could prove different with heavier diplomatic efforts, including by the United States, aiming to avert the of direct military confrontation between Egypt and Turkey, both American allies, over Sirte.

It sounds more like an announcement that tried to tick all the theoretical boxes, with a clear American influence, said Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at The Netherlands Institute of International Relations. But is it fully implementable? That will be hard.

Crucially, there was no immediate word from Hifter on the announcements, though he agreed to an Egyptian initiative in June that included a cease-fire.

Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, said an effective cease-fire requires the demilitarization of Sirte and Jurfa areas, and that police forces from the two sides agree on security arrangements there.

Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival eastern-based House of Representatives, supported Sarrajs proposal of demilitarization of Sirte  but he did not mention Jurfa. The United States floated the idea of demilitarization earlier this month.

A cease-fire blocks the way for foreign military interventions and ends with the expulsion of mercenaries and dissolving the militias in order to achieve comprehensive national sovereignty, Saleh said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomes the calls for a cease-fire and an end to hostilities in Libya and hopes they will be respected immediately by armed forces from both sides, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The U.N. chief urged the Joint Military Commission to quickly take up the cease-fire call and called on all parties to engage constructively in an inclusive political process based on the outcome of a conference of world leaders in Berlin in January, Dujarric said. World powers and other countries with interests in Libyas long-running civil war agreed at the meeting to respect a much-violated arms embargo, hold off on military support to the warring parties and push them to reach a full cease-fire.

UAEs Foreign Ministry welcomed Salehs cease-fire initiative that did not include the demilitarization of Jurfa area, according the state-run WAM news agency.

The powerful interior minister of the Tripoli-based administration, Fathi Bashaga, hailed the cease-fire initiative, saying on Twitter: We are looking forward to develop co-operation with the U.S., Europe, Turkey, Egypt and the U.N.

Sarraj also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March according to a constitutional base to be agreed on by the Libyans.

Saleh, the parliament speaker, called for Sirte to be a temporary seat of the new government.

Both Saraj and Saleh said they want an end to an oil blockade imposed by Hifters camp since earlier this year. They also called for oil revenues, the countrys main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

The National Oil Corporation urged for oil revenues to remain frozen until a comprehensive political agreement is reached.

Full transparency and effective governance are required as well as the return of security management of oil facilities to NOCs exclusive control, it said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Hifters army said it would allow partial reopening of oil terminals to export stored oil to provide required gas amid power shortages in the east.

Last month, Hifter set conditions for ending the oil blockade, including that revenues flow into a bank account in a foreign country with a clear mechanism to distribute funds fairly among Libyas regions. He also demanded an audit of Libyas Central Bank in Tripoli to review the spending in the past years. The audit was approved late in July after months of international pressure.

Earlier this week, Hifters army said it would allow partial reopening of oil terminals to export stored oil to provide required gas amid power shortages in the east.

The U.N. support mission in Libya welcomed both statements and called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya.

The two initiatives have created hope for forging a peaceful political solution to the longstanding Libyan crisis, a solution that will affirm the desire of the Libyan people to live in peace and dignity, said Stephanie Williams, acting head of the U.N. mission.

Retweeting the U.N. mission statement, the U.S. Embassy in Libya also welcomed the two statements as important steps to all Libyans. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Twitter welcomed both statements as an important step on the path of achieving the political settlement.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas  who visited Tripoli on Monday to talk with the government there before heading to the United Arab Emirates to encourage it to urge Hifter to negotiate  welcomed the development. He called it a solid basis for a permanent ceasefire and urged a lifting of the oil blockade.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said in a tweet that the cease-fire announcement was an important step toward restarting a political process that favours stability in the country and well-being among its people.

___________

Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Read more about:
HASTINGS  Nineteen people were arrested after 1,874 marijuana plants were seized in a raid Wednesday on a marijuana grow op at a rural property just south of Hastings, along with marijuana bud with an estimated street value of $300,000 in a related bust.

A search warrant was used by the Ontario Provincial Police to raid the property in an investigation by community street crime unit officers from Northumberland, Peterborough and the City of Kawartha Lakes.

In addition to 1,874 marijuana plants, police also seized a John Deere farm tractor, video surveillance equipment and $920 in Canadian cash, police said.

OPP Central Region emergency response team officers and a canine unit also took part in the raid.

Charged with growing more than four marijuana plants at a time at a residence are Jin Feng Chan, 48, Shu Zhu Chan, 45, Yu Hua Chan, 53, Yong Chun Du, 36, Alfred Jing Gapo, 37, Jun Ping Hang, 32, Jun Li, 48, Pin Zhu Li, 54, Xi Mei Li, 48, Li Xin Lin, 62, Li Ling, 35, Li Yun Liu, 38, Zhu Xin Liu, 53, Xiao Yang, 33, Xiufeng Yang, 50, Yuxia Zheng, 57, all from Trent Hills, along with Ming Guang Wu, 55, of North York, and Hang Wang, 40, of Scarborough.

Alfred Jing Gao and Xiao Yang were also charged with possessing marijuana for the purpose of selling, possessing marijuana for the purpose of distributing and possessing the proceeds of property obtained by crime under $5,000.

Before the raid began, a rental truck was seen leaving the property and was then stopped by uniform officers, police said, with 610 pounds of marijuana bud with a potential street value of $300,000 seized from the rear of the truck.

The driver, Ququan Chen, 50, of Quinte West, was charged with growing more than four marijuana plants at a time at a residence.

All of the accused are to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Cobourg on Oct. 28.
Students and teachers called for more to be done to solve this years exam grades chaos as they protested outside Downing Street, chanting for the education secretary to quit and holding signs demanding a better appeals process for those unhappy with teacher grades.

Among the demonstrators were A-level students who had missed out on university places this year due to lower than expected teacher-submitted grades, or who are waiting to hear if they have to defer.

Other protesters held signs calling for more support for BTec students  tens of thousands of whom were due to get their results on Thursday, but must now wait while their exam board recalculates grades following the U-turn over GCSE and A-level marks.

The government said on Monday A-level and GCSE students would be able to take either their teacher-estimated or moderated grade  whichever one is higher  following public outcry and protests, after tens of thousands of A-level grades were lowered in a controversial moderation process.

However, the protests have not stopped, as students demand more action amid the fallout to this years grading.

People protest the governments handling of exam results outside Downing Street on Friday (Reuters/Henry Nicholls) (REUTERS/Henry Nicholls)

What you are showing to the world, what has been shown this year, through the BLM protests, is that actually protests work, one of the organisers, Elizabeth Adofo, told the crowd. Change doesnt come from the top.

A small group of demonstrators chanted Gavin Williamson has got to go outside the gates of Downing Street on Friday.

Anselm Winner, an 18-year-old student holding a sign calling for Mr Williamson to quit, said he wanted to see politicians take accountability for this years chaos.

The education secretary has resisted calls to resign over his handing of this years grading, but has apologised to thousands of students for the distress caused.

Even with the U-turn, there is still a lot of mess to clean up, Georgia Hewett  who said she initially missed her Cambridge University offer with downgraded moderated grades  told The Independent.

Georgia Hewett and Anselm Winner said they wanted to see accountability for what happened with exams this year (Zoe Tidman/The Independent) (Zoe Tidman / The Independent)

The 18-year-old said she is still facing uncertainly over her situation, and the past week had been really stressful.

Since the U-turn I got a place, Ms Hewett, who has now been accepted into Cambridge University, said. Im just not sure yet whether I will have to take a gap year next year.

While universities have vowed to do their best to accommodate everyone who met their offer this year, some institutions said they may have to ask people to defer after thousands of A-level marks were upgraded when teacher-assessed marks were allowed.

Around 15,000 students got rejected from their first-choice university with moderated marks handed out last Thursday, but now meet their offers following Mondays U-turn, according to Ucas data.

Meanwhile, other students have still missed out on offers due to teacher grades they said were lower than they expected.

Darren Ngasseu told The Independent he had lost his medicine offer at Imperial College London after his teachers submitted BBB grades for him  despite being predicted A*A*A when applying to university.

I sat admissions tests, interviews, I went through so much to get that offers, worked so hard to be underpredicted by my own school, the 18-year-old, who is also a young carer, said.

Darren Ngasseu (left) and Kush Bhalla said they both missed out on their top choice university this year (Zoe Tidman/The Independent) (Zoe Tidman / The Independent)

He held a sign calling for CAG appeals  which students can request if their school made an administrative error.

Fellow protester Kush Bhalla said he also wants a better appeals process for CAGs. He has lost his place at both his top universities this year, and told The Independent he is now looking at doing an online course instead.

Students can also take resits in autumn if they are unhappy with their moderated and teacher-assessed marks.

Other protesters on Friday held signs about delayed BTec results.

BTec shambles, read one. Be open and Transparent End the exam Chaos now! read another.

Students protested about the handling of BTecs, as thousands are still waiting for results (Zoe Tidman/The Independent) (Zoe Tidman / The Independent)

The qualifications were not included in the governments U-turn letting students take teacher assessments as grades, and a spokesperson for Pearson exam board said marks would be recalculated to address concerns about unfairness in relation to A-levels and GCSEs.

Students will hopefully get these results next week, the UK schools minister said on Thursday.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: In light of the education secretarys announcement on 17 August, appeals against A and AS level and GCSE grades will only be accepted from schools or colleges where they think they made a mistake when submitting a students centre assessment grade, or if they believe the exam board made a mistake when it communicated that grade.

They added: As in any other year, students will be able to raise a complaint to their centre if they have evidence of bias or that they were discriminated against in the grading process.

Ofqual, Englands exam regulator, said it had previously considered whether to let students challenge their teachers assessed grades and decided against it.

This is because we dont believe there is anyone other than the teachers at a students school or college who would be able to judge their likely grade if exams had taken place, an Ofqual spokesperson said.
By Lavie Tidhar

Tor. 416 pp. $27.95

- - -

There are no (BEG ITAL)parfit gentil knights(END ITAL) in Lavie Tidhar's Arthurian epic fantasy "By Force Alone."

It is a vicious, beautiful, profane and wickedly funny reimagining of the rise and fall of King Arthur without the chivalry, divine right or holy quests. No one is pure of heart, no one is destined by God to rule; the right of kings is determined solely by the might of kings. Arthur begins his career in a world that has moved on, a Londinium rebuilding itself from the wreck of Roman retreat, by establishing himself as a precocious gang leader and cornering the drug market; the sword in the stone is a publicity stunt. Guinevere - so far from the shy and delicate "white shadow" of Sutcliff or Lancelyn Green - leads her own all-female mercenary band, hired to take out King Pelles. Lancelot is a Judean assassin who studied Kung-Fu under martial-arts master Joseph of Arimathea. Galahad runs a brothel. Merlin, inhuman and deeply cynical, is only in it for the power, which creatures like himself desire above all else.

Tidhar is playing what-if with the legend: What if these people were just people, rather than long shadows thrown across invented history? What if King Arthur were not High King because he was chosen by destiny so much as that he fought for it and won? What if women were not just abstract objects to possess, but people with their own agency and motive force and career goals? What if the Grail were not a holy Christian relic but something entirely different, alien, with its own compelling and corrupting power?

This kind of retelling offers a wealth of opportunity to examine aspects of the familiar story in a completely new light, and is both exciting and enormously satisfying to read. It reminds me of Katherine Addison's recently released "Angel of the Crows" in the level of creative insight and detail involved in the reimagination of a well-known narrative. Of particular interest is the way Tidhar flips Arthur and Merlin on the moral axis: His Merlin is manipulative, parasitic, using both Uther and subsequently Arthur to get what he wants, drumming up xenophobic hatred among the locals to support Arthur's cause, while Arthur is a murderous gang leader who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Despite the complete break with the original version, their relationship still works: king to trusted magical adviser.

The prose style is half of what makes the book so powerful. Tidhar is both clean and poetic, elegantly sparse but deeply evocative. Every phrase is load-bearing. The profanity serves its purpose. He switches between point-of-view characters and authorial voice seamlessly, using short almost-choppy sentences to give a sense of inevitable forward movement, events lensing into one another. The frequent references to Greek philosophy in the narration both serve to underline the post-Roman intellectual landscape of the time and to create a kind of distance between the reader and the text, which increases that slightly dreamy sense of inexorable direction. This story is going to happen; the terrible ending is going to occur, and we - and the characters - are swept along with it.

The narrative slows down a little and becomes less clear once we approach the Grail, but picks up again afterward, accelerating toward Camlann: inevitable, not just because we know the plot but because by now Merlin and Arthur have fought, schemed, murdered, lied and antagonized their way into a corner. There is no way out but one, and that is the ending of the story.

- - -

Shaw is the author of "Strange Practice," "Dreadful Company" and "Grave Importance."
Radio ham picks up Argentine Antarctic base signal

New Delhi Television (NDTV) reports a radio amateur in West Bengal received a signal from the Argentinian base in Antarctica



They say:



An amateur radio operator from West Bengal, who intercepts radio signals from far away countries as a hobby, received one from Antarctica, the southern tip of the globe, over 11,835 km away.



The feat of 65-year-old Babul Gupta is unique as it is the first successful DXing - receiving and identifying distant radio signals - with Antarctica from the state in recent memory, Secretary of West Bengal Radio Club Ambaresh Nag Biswas VU2JFA told PTI on Thursday.



Babul Gupta, a member of the club, received a radio transmission from a camp set up by an Argentine team of scientists in Antarctica when he was in Bakkhali, a seaside spot in the South 24 Parganas district, on August 8, he said.



"The transmission was made from LRA 36 camp. It was transmitted from the scientists' camp in South Pole. I sent the recording of the audio to the Argentine team via email," Mr Gupta said.



The Argentines have sent an acknowledgement citation to Babul Gupta referring to his tracking their radio signal on 15.476 kHz.



Read the full story at

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/amateur-bengal-ham-radio-operator-intercepts-signal-from-antarctica-camp-2282700

A picture of Babul Gupta's receiving station can be seen at

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/358599189055138206/



West Bengal Radio Club

http://www.wbrc.in/

https://twitter.com/wbradioclub

https://www.facebook.com/Wbradioclub/
For those who, when they die, want to go quietly can do so quite literally now there's an electric Tesla that's been converted into a hearse for the UK.

Bolton-based funeral vehicle provider Coleman Milne has, with the help of German firm BINZ-E, launched a zero-emission and entirely silent hearse.

With an extended body, the removal of the rear seats and even a pop-out section for a handling trolley, the electric car is said to be the ideal choice for 'eco-funerals'.

Deathly quiet: This is the converted Tesla Model S hearse, now available for funeral from Bolton-based firm Coleman Milne

The hearse starts life as a standard all-wheel-drive Tesla Model S, which in the UK are priced from 77,980.

However, the specialist vehicle provider has made massive changes so it can accommodate a coffin.

The body has been extended from 4.97 metres to 5.82 metres. The roof height at the back has been raised to 1.72 metres (up from 1.45 metres), meaning a new roof panel to stretch from the top of the windscreen to the boot lid.

The wheelbase has also been lengthened to 3.8 metres, adding another 1.2 metres between the front and rear wheels.

With the rear seats now eliminated, the standard car's boot capacity of 748-litres has obviously increase somewhat.

Keeping with the electric theme of the Tesla hearse, it has a power-operated boot lid and an electrically extending coffin loading deck.

There's even a pop-out storage compartment for the coffin-handling trolley, which ejects from the side of the vehicle when the pallbearers need it.

 Slide me  The body has been extended from 4.97 metres to 5.82 metres. The roof height at the back has been raised to 1.72 metres (up from 1.45 metres), meaning a new roof panel to stretch from the top of the windscreen to the boot lid

The Tesla hearse has a power-operated boot lid and an electrically extending coffin loading deck

This pop-out stowage compartment which neatly stores the coffin-handling trolley

Coleman Milne quotes a driving range of 220 miles, though this will depend on which version of the Tesla Model S is used as the donor car.

Current versions of the plug-in US saloon car offer a range in excess of 367 miles, though the revised hearse figure does have to take into account the modifications and the additional weight of the vehicle's contents.

Further performance stats - such as references to any changes to the 2.3-second 0-to-62mph acceleration time of the Model S Performance - have not been clarified. Not that speed is a requirement for vehicles of this ilk.

The Bolton company states: 'With state- of-the-art technology and equipment, the new all-electric hearse makes a very clear statement: the future drives electric.'

It adds: 'Silent, stylish and ideal for customers operating in Ultra Low Emission and Clean Air Zones across the country. The all-electric hearse also fulfils the rising customer demand for Eco-Funerals.'

Coleman Milne quotes a driving range of 220 miles, though this will depend on which version of the Tesla Model S is used as the donor car

The cabin has been modestly finished with dark materials. It will also benefit from the brand's interactive touchscreen system, consisting of games and a seat-specific whoopee cushion, which we don't imagine will be used very often in this example

As with all new Teslas, it will have access to the firm's Supercharger network, which by the end of last year consisted of 55 sites with a total of 432 individual rapid charging devices in the UK.

It will also benefit from the brand's interactive touchscreen system, consisting of games and a seat-specific whoopee cushion, which we don't imagine will be used very often in this example.

No price has been confirmed, though funeral directors can arrange test drives of the demonstrator vehicle on request.
A video of Indore police making two men hold their ears while doing sit-ups has been shared online. The men were absconding after attacking a person with a knife when the latter refused to give away his vehicle on August 11. They were arrested on Thursday, following which they were paraded in Indores Dwarkapuri area.

According to police, the two accused, Ajai Thakur and Vijay Vishwakarma, were asked to apologise publically. The video also shows residents of the area watching from the balconies and terraces of their homes:

#WATCH Madhya Pradesh: Police in Indore's Dwarkapuri made two criminals do sit-ups and apologise to people for their crimes. (20/08/20) pic.twitter.com/j1zBBSKgff  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2020

The police was in search of both the accused after the incident. After arresting them, we took them to the area where they committed the crime on August 11. Both of them were made to do sit-ups and their procession was also taken out, Dharam Veer Singh, Dwarkapuri Police Station SHO, said.

They were asked to touch the ground with their foreheads where they had attacked the person. The step was necessitated as the locals were losing their faith in the police. It was done so that the people lose the fear of criminals and do not hesitate to come to police in cases of any crime, he added.
Law enforcement officials fatally shot a man after reports of an active shooter in San Luis Obispo County. (Los Angeles Times)

San Luis Obispo County sheriff's deputies shot and killed a man Friday afternoon after reports of an active shooter at a gas station near Nipomo, authorities said.

The Sheriff's Department received reports about a gunman at a Vons grocery and gas station parking lot just off Highway 101 about 11:15 a.m., according to the department's Twitter page.

Witnesses said a man was firing indiscriminately outside the shopping center, sheriff's spokesman Tony Cipolla said.

The man went into a gas station building in the parking lot when deputies arrived, Cipolla said.

He fired a few rounds inside the building before emerging and then began shooting at law enforcement personnel, Cipolla said. Two deputies and an officer from the California Highway Patrol returned fire, killing him.

BREAKING NEWS: Active shooting has taken place this morning at the Vons shopping center in Nipomo. According to an eyewitness, the suspect has been taken down by law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/kgOVmVZ1zs  Dave Alley (@KCOYDave) August 21, 2020

"Sheriffs Deputies and CHP engaged the active shooter and the suspect is deceased. There is no known threat to public safety at this time," the department tweeted.

It was not immediately known how many rounds the man fired. His identity was being withheld, pending notification of family.

Its quite the miracle but, at this time, we do not have any reports of anyone being injured, Cipolla said.

Authorities think the man acted alone.

We have no idea at this point what his motivation might have been, Cipolla said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

For the record:

3:29 PM, Aug. 21, 2020: An earlier version of this article said the shooting took place Wednesday. The shooting occurred Friday.


Lucknow, Aug 21 : Janmejai Singh, BJP MLA from Deoria, passed away late on Thursday night in Lucknow, following a massive heart attack. He was 75.

The MLA was taken to the Civil hospital and then to the Lohia hospital where he passed away.

Lohia hospital spokesman Dr. Vikram Singh said that he had tested negative for coronavirus.

Janmejai Singh won a by-election in 2000 on a BSP ticket. He joined the BJP in 2007 and was elected in 2012 and 2017 Assembly elections.

His mortal remains have been taken to Deoria where the cremation will be held on Friday.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, state president Swatantra Dev Singh and a number of Ministers and Legislators have expressed grief over the demise of Janmejai Singh.
Some journalists and politicians have been saying that we just need to let the virus run and only worry about protecting the elderly or vulnerable. Given that would mean a lot more community infections  limited, it is hoped, to those at lower risk of death or severe infection  lets look at what it would take to try to protect those who need protecting.

The vast majority of healthcare workers who look after the vulnerable would have to stop having any type of social life. Credit:Jason South

The residents of aged care facilities have been hit particularly hard, so we would obviously have to focus a lot of energy on trying to stop COVID-19 from getting into their facilities.

That would mean anyone working there would have to do everything possible to avoid taking COVID-19 to work, given that they could spread it when they are in an asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic phase of the infection.

They would need to avoid public places such as supermarkets, shopping centres, parties, restaurants, bars or cinemas. And if they have children who are back at school, they would have to avoid all contact with them too. In fact, they would have to avoid contact with anyone who is going out into public areas that would lead to potential exposure.
President Rouhani: Iran world's 14th military power

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Aug 20, IRNA -- President Hassan Rouhani, speaking on the occasion of Iran's National Defense Day on Thursday, said that in the past five years, the country has moved up in defense power from rank 23 to 14.

Speaking in a ceremony of unveiling Iran's most recent defense achievements that was held online, President Rouhani said that today's inaugurations showed that Iran is trying to achieve step-by-step progress in the defense industry.

He said that fortunately, Iran has made great progress in military vision and the country looka at the enemy from long distance and great height.

President Rouhani added that the Iranian radars have enhanced the country's eavesdropping and vision powers. Also, drones' vision has been improved vision.

Praising the missile power of Iran, he said, that was an Iranian missile that downed the stealth US RQ-4 over the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian president also said that cruise missiles are of great importance to Iran. "Cruise missiles can camouflage better and hit the target more precisely."

President Rouhani said the range of Iran's marine cruise missiles has reached from 300 kilometers to 1,000 kilometers in only two years, which shows Iran is self-sufficient in this issue.

The Iranian president also said that a great job has been done in defense; the country should make its airspace more and more secure.

Reassuring the neighbors that Iran's defense power will serve them too, he said that Iran does not intend to attack or occupy any country, or hurt any people and that Iran will use this power to defend its friends as well.

President Rouhani went on to say that in the past 40 years, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait were attacked and occupied.

Despite all the ups and down, Iran has not changed its decision; Iran's military strategy is based on defense and deterrence, he added.

On Thursday, Iran unveiled a fourth-generation of turbofan engines and two ballistic and cruise missile products. President Rouhani and Defense Minister Brigadier-General Amir Hatami participated in the unveiling ceremony through video conference.

In the ceremony, Owj turbofan engine assembly line was opened, a drones exhibition was inaugurated, and Shahid (Martyr) Qasem Soleimani ballistic missile and Shahid Abu Mahdi cruise missiles were unveiled.

Also a light-weight fourth-generation turbofan engine that is used in advanced drones was put on display. The engine will remarkably boost the Iranian aviation power and upgrade the engine of drones at least for one generation.

To honor four decades of self-sacrifice and efforts of Defense Ministry staff, Mordad 30 (August 20) has been named the National Defense Industry Day in Iran.

9417**2050

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One man has died and nine people were taken to hospital after a fire broke out last night in a hotel frequented by celebrities on the Costa del Sol.

Witnesses say they saw 'a great ball of fire' engulf the Sisu Marbella hotel around 6.15am with 'people jumping off balconies' to escape. Others reported hearing a large explosion.

Dramatic video showed people climbing down the building's wooden facade to save themselves. Firefighters sprayed the wood with water to cool it off so people could hold on long enough to be saved using ladders.

The four-star hotel, located five miles outside of Marbella, is a frequent haunt of stars including TOWIE's Lauren Goodger, Abi Clarke and Lauren Pope.

One person has died and at least ten have been injured after a fire broke out at the Sisu Marbella hotel, on Spain's Costa del Sol, around 6.15amy, with guests climbing down the outside of the building to escape (pictured)

Witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion before flames ripped through the hotel which had to be evacuated, along with a neighbouring building

Police have confirmed that the dead man is a French national, who died while trying to escape the flames. He has not been publicly identified.

A spokesman said the other nine injured people were taking to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, and eight had been released from hospital. The ninth was expected to be released on Friday afternoon.

Dramatic video coverage shows the intensity of the fire as horrified onlookers are heard saying: 'My God, people are throwing themselves down the balconies of the hotel.'

All guests staying at the low-rise hotel Sisu Marbella have been evacuated after the alert was raised early this morning.

Residents were also ordered to leave an adjacent building on Rio Volga street in the Nueva Andalucia area. About 100 people were evacuated.

The hotel is very popular with British tourists but it is not known if any were staying at the time.

The exact cause of the fire is not known, but bosses say an investigation has been launched

Firefighters battle flames at the Sisu Marbella hotel in the early hours of Friday morning

Firefighters had extinguished the blaze by midday Friday, after it had gutted much of the building and the pool area

The fire broke out at about 6.15am today. At the moment, the cause is not known but a full investigation is already underway.

The mayor of Marbella, Angeles Munoz, thanked 'the great work and quick action' of the Marbella fire brigades and local police to control and quell the fire.

'Their professionalism has prevented the spread to neighbouring developments,' she tweeted an hour ago.

Marbella's security councillor, Jose Eduardo Diiaz said it was 'a miracle' that people had escaped.

'The exterior latticework of the hotel, made of wood, has allowed customers to go down the facade by their own means,' he said.

At one stage, thick black smoke and flames could be seen pumping from the hotel, which is in the upmarket Puerto Banus district, as onlookers watched from the street and nearby balconies.

Amy Childs is seen relaxing on a sunlounger at the hotel, which was a favourite of TOWIE stars. It is not clear if any Britons were in the hotel at the time of the fire

Kate Wright and Michael Hassini (left), and Lydia Bright and Chloe Lewis (right), are seen at the hotel

Those injured have been taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

A spokesman for the Andalusian government said the emergency service remain on the scene.

A statement confirmed: 'Around 6.15am, the emergency line received the first call that warned of a fire in a hotel located on Rio Volga street, in the Nueva Andalucia area.

'The Marbella Firefighters, the National Police Corps, the Local Police and the Public Health Emergencies Company (EPES) have travelled to the scene of the events, since the emergency operations indicated that there were several people who had been affected by the fire.'

'Police sources have confirmed to 112 that the hotel has been evicted as well as the building next door. The emergency operations, which Civil Protection has joined, continue to work in coordination in the area.'
Poignant moments from the DNC

Im just a regular kid, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington told a national television audience during his two minutes in the spotlight at the Democratic National Convention. I beg to differ. He is exceptional and courageous, an inspirational role model for millions of Americans who are dealing with developmental challenges.

Brayden recalled meeting Joe Biden in New Hampshire, and how the Democratic nominee  who also had a stuttering challenge in his youth  offered tips for conquering it. In a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me feel more confident about something thats bothered me my whole life, Brayden said. No doubt Brayden will be meeting many people during his life who will say the same about him.

Another nonpolitician who made a mark was Kristin Urquiza, a 39-year-old with a masters degree from UC Berkeley, who recently lost her father to COVID-19. Her father had believed the presidents dismissive approach to a serious pandemic. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump  and for that he paid with his life.

John Diaz, editorial page editor
The United States on Thursday submitted a letter to the United Nations Security Council seeking restoration of international sanctions on Iran.

The three-page letter signed by the Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, was addressed to the President of the council.

Mr Pompeo accused Iran of non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement it reached with world powers in 2015.

This move was coming a week after the council rejected a U.S. proposal seeking indefinite extension of a UN arms embargo on Tehran.

The 2015 deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was struck between Iran and the P5+1 group of powers comprising the US, China, France, Russia, the UK and Germany.

Under the accord, international sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for limits on its nuclear weapons programmes.

However, the administration of President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018.

This had called to question the legality of the U.S. latest move to restore the sanctions under the SnapBack mechanism provided for by the JCPOA.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif noted this in a letter he submitted to the Security Council ahead of the U.S. notification

Mr Zarif said Washington had no right to trigger the snapback mechanism as it was no longer a party to the pact.

The U.S. push to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran will have dangerous consequences.

Now it is the international communitys turn to counter the unlawful push by the United States, he said.

Russias Permanent Representative to the U.N.., Amb. Vassily Nebenzia, argued in the same vein, describing Washingtons bid as nonexistent.

Mr Nebenzia said only a country that remained in the 2015 agreement could invoke the mechanism to seek return of the sanctions on Iran.

However, Mr Pompeo said his country was relying on the Security Councils Resolution 2231 of 2015, not the JCPOA, to initiative the SnapBack measures on Tehran.

Resolution 2231 provides the United States with the right to initiate the SnapBack of UN measures on Iran.

That right is available to the United States irrespective of its current position on, or activities in relation to, JCPOA, a legal brief submitted along with the letter stated.

The brief said the JCPOA was a non-binding political arrangement that was related to but distinct from Resolution 2231.

(NAN)
A long-awaited public hearing on a plan to add lodging next to Farmstead restaurant has been postponed to a special Planning Commission meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14.

An Aug. 18 hearing was postponed due to a widespread power outage that started 40 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start via Zoom.

Applicant Ted Hall of Long Meadow Ranch has said that adding 65 hotel rooms at the Farmstead property would have far less impact than building a brand-new hotel from scratch.

Hall estimates the project will generate $2 million a year in city revenue and attract much-needed customers to struggling downtown businesses. It would also fund improvements such as the realignment of Mills Lane with Grayson Avenue and new railroad and pedestrian crossings at the resulting Highway 29/Mills/Grayson intersection.

He says the project incorporates innovative solutions to address concerns about its impact on housing and water.

To offset the creation of 51 new jobs in the city, the developers propose to pay $3.2 million to the citys affordable housing fund.

Of that amount, $1 million would be earmarked for Our Town St. Helena to acquire the Phelps property along Highway 29 south of Mills Lane. That site could accommodate 30 or more workforce housing units.

To offset the annual consumption of 5.8 acre-feet of city water, developers propose to install 12-inch purple pipe  capable of transporting recycled water  along a new storm drain from the end of Mills Lane to Highway 29.

That pipe would be the first link in a system delivering recycled water from an upgraded wastewater treatment plant to St. Helena High School and Crane Park. Eliminating the use of potable water for landscaping and irrigation at those facilities is projected to save more than twice as much city water as the hotel would use.

The strategy is a new one in St. Helena, where developers have typically funded off-site toilet retrofits to satisfy the citys water neutral requirement.

Our project is better than water neutral, it is creating a significant incremental supply of potable water for the City, Hall wrote in a letter to a neighbor.

The developers will be responsible for installing the purple pipe at a cost of up to $256,549. The city will reimburse the developers for expenses exceeding that amount by allowing the hotel to keep half of its transient occupancy taxes (TOT) until the difference is made up.

If approved, the hotel could open by Christmas 2022, Hall said. Rents would vary widely according to the time of year, but the average daily rate would be $967, placing the hotel at the premium end of the Napa Valley lodging industry.

City staff is recommending approval of various entitlements relating to the project, including a use permit, design review, variance, water agreement, development agreement, and a mitigated negative declaration  an environmental review document thats less extensive than a full environmental impact report.

If approved by the Planning Commission, the project would head to the City Council at a date yet to be determined.

Watch now: Guenoc Valley Mixed-Use Planned Development Project

You can reach Jesse Duarte at 967-6803 or jduarte@sthelenastar.com.

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Almost 11 per cent Pakistanis have developed protective immunity against the novel coronavirus that has claimed 6,219 lives and infected 291,588 people across the country, a media report said on Friday. The figures were revealed in the "National Seroprevalence Study" conducted in 25 cities in July this year by the Health Services Academy in collaboration with multiple partners, including Aga Khan University, and with technical support from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It is part of the WHO Unity Study being conducted simultaneously in 25 other countries, the Ministry of National Health Services said. Seroprevalence studies are carried out with an objective to assess as to what percentage of population has developed protective immunity (antibodies) to the virus, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The study stated that nearly 11 per cent Pakistanis have developed protective immunity against the novel coronavirus, the report said. "The seropositivity was more in urban areas compared to rural areas; similarly those who had contact with COVID-19 positive persons were more likely to have antibodies in their blood," the study stated.

It reveals that the population of urban areas and people up to middle age are more protected against the disease. However, the population in rural areas and senior citizens are at highest risk from a possible second wave of the deadly virus. The virus was more common in young adults and significantly less in children and older people. It was also found out in the study that the use of mask and frequent hand-washing in July was up to approximately 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the population, respectively.

The study suggests that areas with lower immunity rates may be at higher risk for future outbreaks. Microbiologist Professor Javed Usman said detection of antibodies in the 11 per cent population was much less than his expectations as it meant that Pakistan was still far away from the concept of herd immunity.

"The concept of herd immunity arises if antibodies are developed in over 50 per cent of the population. Although 22 million people have been infected with the virus, it does not mean that all of them needed medical treatment as it is called 'Sub-Clinical Infection' in which patients may have minor symptoms or no symptoms," he was quoted as saying in the report. A health expert, who played a role in the study, said on condition of anonymity that the health ministry had shared preliminary findings and a number of findings would be shared within three to four weeks.

"There were around 80 variables of the study as the primary target was to find the percentage of antibodies in the masses. Other targets were to identify which age group was vulnerable, identify the ratio of cases in rural and urban areas and small and big cities, people of which profession were more vulnerable, what kind of symptoms were in them and if people were following the precautionary measures and wearing masks," he said. He said that one of the findings was that initially people were strictly following the standard operating procedures (SOPs), but later they stopped doing that.

The federal government has fast-tracked the process for provision of COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is available, the report said. "An expert committee had been tasked under the auspices of National COVID-19 Vaccine Committee with working on finalising recommendations for provision of the vaccine and its deployment in the country. The committee's recommendations shall be submitted to the prime minister this month, the Ministry of National Health Services said.

Six out of 10 vaccines currently being developed by leading global manufacturers are undergoing phase-3 trials. The committee has recommended engagement with Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation for support in procurement through co-financing. Also among the recommendations is enhanced collaboration with China including in clinical trials of the vaccine and efforts towards indigenous manufacturing of the vaccine," the report quoted the ministry as saying. Meanwhile, Pakistan's coronavirus cases reached 291,588 on Friday after 630 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours. Another 10 patients died in this period, taking the total death toll to 6,219 across the country, the Ministry of National Health Services said.

It said that 273,579 people had fully recovered while 722 were still in critical conditions. According to the ministry data, the number of active patients was 11,790. The authorities have conducted 25,613 tests in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of tests performed so far to 2,389,265, it said.

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A television series is edited at Hengdian World Studios in Dongyang, Zhejiang Province. [Xiao Da/China Daily]

Hustle and Bustle Returns to 'China's Hollywood'

With the midday temperature reaching 37 C, many tourists took a break from the summer heat by staying indoors or under the trees in Hengdian, a town in Zhejiang Province known as "China's Hollywood".

However, there was no rest for Wang Ling, an agent who helps movie and television crews find locations and book time for shooting scenes.

"I've been busy like crazy since work resumed in Hengdian and am now working with 50 percent more crews than I did previously," said Wang, who uses an alias.

He said he walks a considerable distance each day throughout the town, which is the country's biggest film and TV production center.

Some 25 percent of domestically made movies and 33 percent of the nation's TV series, including more than 64,000 episodes, have been shot in Hengdian.

For months, shooting was restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but since June as the outbreak in China was controlled, a frenetic pace has been set in Hengdian. More than 100 film and TV crews are currently working in the town, about 16 percent more than at the same time last year.

At the end of February, Xiangshan Film and Television Town in Ningbo, Zhejiang, was one of the first production bases to reopen.

Hengdian World Studios, one of the country's biggest movie and TV production centers, reopened five of its shooting locations on March 28, with more than 20 crews resuming work on productions, including the new TV series Legend of Fei starring Zhao Liying and Wang Yibo.

Work then resumed in quick succession at Shanghai Film Park, Oriental Movie Metropolis in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and Bai Lu Yuan Studios in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.

On July 29, shooting began on the online movie Shuiyue Jinghua, a production sponsored by Youku, the streaming company owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba and Shanghai Films and Media Corp. The fantasy/romance drama is being filmed in Hengdian and Shanghai.

Its producer, Ma Zhanyou, said, "We have spent more time and money than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on preparing the script, design, costumes, makeup and hairstyling, and are now rushing to start shooting in Hengdian as the film and TV industry recovers from the outbreak."

A lighting artist works at Hengdian World Studios. [Xiao Da/China Daily]

Ma cited "superb" infrastructure, advanced technologies and favorable policies in Hengdian as the main reason for deciding to shoot in the town, adding that he hoped more locations could be provided and accommodations improved.

However, as more crews arrive, the shortage of extras has become a problem.

Thousands are needed each day  most of whom are good-looking, young, hard-working and have dreams of stardom. They act as corpses in war scenes and play other supporting roles.

Labeled hengpiao, or Hengdian drifters, they travel long distances from their hometowns for the chance to realize their dreams, but they seldom speak lines or appear in credits.

There are more than 80,000 registered hengpiao, according to the Hengdian World Studios Performer Association, including 6,000 to 8,000 who remain in the town all year round.

Zhou Fenglai, vice-president of Hengdian World Studios Management Services Co, said that with the outbreak under control, extras can now apply to the Hengdian authorities for actors' passes by using their health QR code and travel records.

Local restaurants, hotels and guesthouses have welcomed the crews' return.

Zhejiang Daily reported that more than 90 percent of the Dongyang Qiyang Film and Television Equipment Rental Co's gear has been hired by crews since the middle of last month amid increased demand.

Sun Qiyang, the company's chairman, said that since mid-March business had gradually returned to the level of previous years. In addition, in early March the company and some of its competitors promised to provide rental services for the lowest prices possible until the end of this year.

A show depicting prosperity during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) is staged in Hengdian. [Xiao Da/China Daily]

High Occupancy Rate

Last month, the Changzheng Hotel, which has more than 950 guestrooms and caters solely to movie and TV crews, had an occupancy rate of more than 85 percent, up from about 60 percent in March. The hotel is a subsidiary of Hengdian World Studios.

Qiu Liuying, the manager, said the hotel is currently home to seven film crews and seven doing preparatory work, adding that occupancy is a little higher than in previous years. Another two crews have booked rooms for next month.

Huang Yan, deputy manager of the fast food center at Hengdian World Studios, said, "Our staff begin preparing lunchboxes as early as 6 am every day and send them to more than 50 shooting locations by noon." The center can cook food for more than 4,500 lunchboxes every day.

Li Haishan, 27, an extra in Hengdian, said, "My father always hopes that I will return to my hometown and land a steady job, but I insist on staying here to chase my dream."

Li, who has often ridden horses in scenes, is using an electric bike to pick up and deliver meals for the online food ordering platform Eleme. "This way, I'm still a rider," he said.

He plans to look for film or TV roles while continuing his delivery job. "I've been in Hengdian for months now, and the hard times will be over soon," he added.

The authorities in Dongyang have introduced a series of policies to support the resumption of work in Hengdian.

Some 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) has been allocated to subsidize venue and equipment rentals, along with the cost of accommodations. Taxes and fees have been cut or exempted for film and TV production companies.

Hengdian World Studios has offered extras cost-of-living subsidies, with some of these workers also being employed by local factories.

When producer Huang Jinmei arrived in Hengdian in mid-April, the streets were empty, but since then, the town has become a bustling center of activity.

"In the film industry, as long as you can control the budget and provide high-quality products, there must be room for you to survive," Huang said. Producer Bao Mengmeng is hopeful about the future.

In May, Xinhua News Agency quoted her as saying, "Although we are encountering more challenges, we can spend more time polishing our scripts and keeping good connections with big platforms.

"In such hard times for the whole industry, I believe the fittest will survive and quality will prevail."

To achieve its goal of becoming home to the world's most competitive film and TV industry base, Hengdian Group began work on an industrial park in July 2018.

With investment of 3 billion yuan and a total floor area of 65.1 hectares, the venue will be home to 41 international high-tech studios.

The park will be divided into two blocks, with one housing standard studios, a shooting area for modern-day scenes, a film and television service center, post production center and hotels. The other block will be occupied solely by studios.

The No 3 Studio will be the largest in the world, covering 12,000 square meters.

Xu Xiaoqin, deputy general manager of Hengdian World Studios, said the park is due to be completed by the end of 2023 and will be covered by the 5G network.

Cai Jingwen and Xinhua contributed to this story.

(Source: China Daily)
Phuket travel bubbles may begin from Oct 1

PHUKET: Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakan has announced that travel bubble tours to Phuket may begin from Oct 1.

tourismCOVID-19economics

By The Phuket News

Friday 21 August 2020, 04:27PM

Mr Phiphat revealed the news at the SMEs New Normal event held at Centara Grand at Central Plaza Ladprao Bangkok yesterday (Aug 20).

During his speech to attendees at the event, Mr Phiphat said that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had approved Phuket travel bubbles to begin from Oct 1.

He added that he hoped to do the same in main tourism provinces in other regions.

Minister Phiphat explained that at the latest meeting of the newly formed "Center for Economic Situation Administration on Wednesday (Aug 19), the committee unanimously agreed to open Phuket as the first destination in the travel bubble campaign and called the procedures to be set as the Phuket Model.

I have been explaining for the past three months that we need foreign tourists to come to the country in September or October. I presented Oct 1 to be the first day to let foreigners come to Phuket, and the PM has already approved to do so. Mr Phiphat said.

Minister Phiphat further explained that tourists arriving in travel bubbles will not be permitted to venture outside specified areas for at least 14 days.

For example, on the well-known Patong Beach, there may be three or four good hotels located near each other. Tourists will be allowed to go to certain areas around the hotel, but not more than one kilometre, and they must stay in the area for 14 days.

After the 14 days, if they want to go out of Phuket, they have to stay in the hotel for seven more days, he said.

Before coming to Thailand, they [tourists] have to be tested first, and they will be tested again on the last day of the 14-day quarantine. If they want to go out of Phuket, they will be tested again on the 21st day of quarantine, he explained.

Not only will the foreign tourists have to stay within the specified areas, but also hotel and restaurant staff [serving the foreign tourists]. If they leave the area, they will have to self-quarantine at their place for 14 days. he added.

The Prime Minister also asked me to research and choose six main provinces in each region to open up for travel bubbles, like Phuket. The main provinces may be Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Ubon Ratchathani, Chonburi, Ratchaburi and Krabi, Mr Phiphat explained.

However, one very important thing is the acceptance and readiness of local people. We have to listen to the local peoples opinions first before doing anything, he said.

Minister Phiphat together with officers from the Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Interior will inspect Phuket on Sept 5-6 to check the islands readiness, Mr Phiphat noted.
Following a meeting in Aleppo, the tribes and clans of Syria have expressed their rejection of foreign occupations and the theft of national resources writes SANA.

The final statement of the third meeting of Arab clans, tribes and national elites held Thursday in Aleppo stressed support for the popular resistance that was kicked off in the al-Jazeera region against the occupier, its mercenaries and tools.

Participants expressed their readiness to extend moral and material help to the popular resistance until the occupier and its tools are expelled from the Syrian territories.

They reiterated that Damascus is the capital of all the Syrians and their compass, hailing the victories achieved by the Syrian Arab Army in Aleppo, Idleb and other Syrian areas under the courageous leadership of President Bashar al-Assad.

They also expressed their rejection of any illegitimate foreign presence on the Syrian territories, adding that all natural and economic resources belong to the Syrian people alone and no-one has the right to tamper with them.

Meanwhile, locals in al-Jisr village in the al-Shadadi area, in Hassakehs southern countryside, took to the streets to protest against the illegitimate presence of the US occupation forces and the criminal practices of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

SANAs reporter in Hassakeh indicated that the locals in al-Jisr demonstrated in rejection of the US occupation and to demand the expulsion of the SDF, calling for the expulsion of foreign forces that are illegitimately present in Syrian territories and put an end to the violations and the looting of Syrian resources.

Also in Hassakeh, for the eighth day in a row, the Turkish occupation and its terrorist mercenaries in the Ras-al-Ayn countryside have turned off the Alouk Water Station, cutting off drinking water to Hassakeh city, threatening a million people with thirst and letting them suffering from repercussions of the spread of coronavirus.

Speaking to SANA, the General Director of Hassakeh Water Establishment, Mahmoud Ukla, said that efforts to restart the Alouk Water Station have failed, adding that the suffering of the locals continues in light of the increased temperatures and demand for water, particularly since there is no alternative to the Alouk Water Station in sight.

In Raqqa, two civilians have been injured in a car bomb explosion in Slouk town in Raqqas northern countryside where Turkish occupation forces and their terrorist mercenaries are spread.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The University of Illinois Chicago has received $5 million in funding to support the UIC-Shawnee Health Service Black Lung Clinics Program for five more years.

The grant will go to the UIC Mining Education and Research, or MinER, Center, which is housed at the UIC School of Public Health. The renewed funding, which is from the Health Resources and Services Administration, will allow the organization to provide evaluations, education, treatment and other resources to coal miners living in Illinois and Indiana.

Black lung disease is caused by the long-term inhalation of coal and rock dusts, which settle in the lungs and can cause severe difficulty breathing.

"While Chicago doesn't historically have many former coal miners, southern Illinois and Indiana are areas where there are still active mines and we do see miners and former miners with black lung who need specialized screening and treatment which may not be available where they live," said Dr. Leonard Go, the project director and UIC research assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences. "We evaluate miners for black lung at our clinic at Northwestern University and refer them for treatment and services. Providing a diagnosis also serves the very important function of helping affected miners successfully apply for disability benefits."

The UIC-Shawnee Health Service Black Lung Clinics Program is a consortium that includes UIC and Shawnee Health Service's Southern Illinois and the Southwestern Indiana Respiratory Disease Program. Its goal is to provide state-of-the-art diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and compensation counseling services to miners who lack these highly specialized resources. The consortium provides services at sites in Illinois and Indiana and serves as a national referral center for complicated and difficult cases of coal mine dust lung disease and other occupational lung diseases.

The MinER Center, in collaboration with National Jewish Health, also recently received a $625,000 five-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA, to support its Black Lung Data and Resource Center. The center serves as a national resource to other HRSA-funded black lung clinics to provide data analysis and educational services.

The MinER Center additionally has received a two-year grant from the Alpha Foundation. The $400,000 grant will allow the center to expand its research on health outcomes among former coal miners, including lung function decline and progression of coal mine dust-related lung disease.

###
(CNN)  Production has started in Germany on the first electric SUV from the Volkswagen brand, marking the latest push by the world's largest carmaker into cleaner vehicles.

Volkswagen announced Thursday that production of the ID.4 compact SUV has commenced at its plant in Zwickau, which has been converted at a cost of 1.2 billion (1.4 billion) to manufacture 300,000 electric vehicles a year.

The ID.4 could help Volkswagen compete with Tesla, which already offers an electric SUV called the Model Y. Audi, Volkswagen's luxury brand, has been producing an electric SUV called the e-tron at a factory in Brussels, Belgium, since late 2018.

Ralf Brandstatter, head of the Volkswagen brand, said in a statement that the ID.4 allows the carmaker to offer an electric vehicle in "the world's largest growth segment." He said the SUV will initially be built and sold in Europe and China, with US production slated to begin in 2022 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

According to Volkswagen, the SUV will have a range of up to 500 kilometres (311 miles). It will make its world premier in September.

The German group, which also owns Porsche, Bugatti, Skoda, Lamborghini and SEAT, plans to spend 33 billion ($39 billion) on electric mobility by 2024. It hopes to produce 1.5 million electric cars in 2025.

The ID.4 is the second vehicle built on the company's new modular electric car production platform, or MEB. The first, a small car called the ID.3, is also being produced at the plant in Zwickau.

"We are right on schedule with the Volkswagen brand's transformation process to e-mobility. The ID.3 is now being followed by the ID.4," said Thomas Ulbrich, the executive who oversees e-mobility at Volkswagen.

Auto factories around the world were forced to shut earlier this year as the coronavirus pandemic gathered pace. Volkswagen reopened its sprawling Wolfsburg plant in April and brought others back into production over the following months.

"Given the major societal challenges of recent months, the successful start of ID.4 series production is an exceptional achievement," said Ulbrich.

This story was first published on CNN.com Volkswagen now has another electric SUV to take on Tesla
Android developer Epic Games has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Google Play Store. As reported by Android Police, this lawsuit is in regards to the 30% transaction fee that the Play Store charges every app developer. Another law firm has also begun proceedings against the company to try and include all aggrieved app developers.

Many developers have complained about what they see as an extortionate fee. However, normally things do not get taken as far as a lawsuit. One law firm is now looking to pool together all aggrieved developers for legal action against Google.

In recent weeks Google has waged war with certain app developers. Firstly it removed the BlueMail app after its developer worked with an antitrust investigation into Google. Then it also removed Fortnite after Epic Games violated its policies.

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Now the developers are fighting back with this proposed lawsuit. It still needs approval from federal court. Here are the links to the full details on the case.

App developers begin legal battle with Google

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is the firm involved in bringing this lawsuit forward. They are a Seattle based firm that specializes in class actions. It has filed a complaint with the federal district court in San Jose against Google.

The complaint is for establishing an effective Android app store monopoly. It also concerns discouraging and making it difficult to sideload app stores without obfuscation measures. These include alarming Google Play Protect Prompts.

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All of this amounts to anti-competitive practices from Google. The most notable of which is the 30% split and a product pricing minimum of 99 cents.

Hagens Berman wants to seek monetary damages in this case. Epic Games is less concerned with this but has still taken legal action against Google and Apple. Both have cited antitrust and monopolies as issues in their lawsuits.

Developers can sign up with Hagens Berman here to become part of the class-action suit. As mentioned a federal judge will have to give approval to this action before things really start to happen.

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We have no word on any sort of timescale for this. The chances are that it could take some time before anything of any not comes of this. Some legal precedents exist in this area. Notably the case of Aptoide who sought an injunction to stop Google from detecting and deleting its third-party app store.

However, this did occur in Portugal so perhaps this may not hold as well in this instance. It will be really interesting to see how this plays out over the coming months, however.
By Harold Holzer

Dutton. 554 pp. $30

- - -

President Donald Trump and his political and media supporters have repeatedly attacked the press with extraordinary ferocity, even during the national crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic, economic dislocation and racial injustice. Could this threaten the uniquely American role of an aggressive free press that holds government accountable to the people? It can feel that way sometimes when listening to the president, watching cable television or perusing social media. At best, it has deeply divided Americans, leaving them unable to agree on what is factual about the serious challenges facing the country.

Now comes distinguished Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer of the City University of New York's Hunter College to tell us that this is only the latest chapter in "the endless battle between the White House and the media, from the Founding Fathers to fake news." His new book, "The Presidents vs. the Press," is a lively, deeply researched history of the roller-coaster relationships between presidents and journalists, from George Washington to Donald Trump.

Holzer recounts how Washington and Thomas Jefferson angrily castigated reporters and newspapers that opposed them at a time when the new nation's fledgling newsrooms were avowedly partisan. Yet both presidents repeatedly affirmed the freedom of the press enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution. John Adams, by contrast, oversaw the prosecution of opposition-party newspaper editors under the short-lived Alien and Sedition Acts. Andrew Jackson co-opted friendly editors by putting them on the government payroll. Abraham Lincoln also did so, in addition to censoring news and shutting down newspapers judged to be endangering or opposing the Union cause during the Civil War.

Over the next several decades, American newspapers modernized and became less partisan. At the beginning of the 20th century, journalists at some papers and national magazines pioneered what we now know as investigative reporting. They revealed corruption in local, state and national government, and exploitive monopolies in the oil, railroad, banking, insurance and food-processing industries. President Theodore Roosevelt initially befriended these journalists and championed reforms that included trustbusting and the Pure Food and Drug Act. But when the journalists investigated his allies in Congress, Roosevelt disparaged them as "muckrakers."

Investigative journalism receded during World War I, the Depression, World War II, the Korean War and the communist-hunting McCarthy years. Significant aspects of some presidents' lives known to journalists went mostly unreported, including Woodrow Wilson's incapacity during his last year in office, Franklin Roosevelt's lower-body paralysis, John Kennedy's womanizing and much of Lyndon Johnson's crude personal behavior.

Holzer recounts all this and much more in considerable colorful detail. He brings to life the loquacious Teddy Roosevelt's punishment of reporters who broke his off-the-record rules, FDR's adept use of frequent news conferences and occasional radio "fireside chats," and JFK's mastery of television. Holzer explains the effectiveness of Ronald Reagan's media management, and he blames a Newsweek magazine cover story, "Fighting the 'Wimp Factor,' " for George H.W. Bush's failure to win reelection.

Holzer credits the impact of skeptical newspaper and television reporting about the Vietnam War for Johnson's decision not to seek a second full term and The Washington Post's Watergate investigation for Richard Nixon's eventual resignation. But too often, he portrays the tension between post-Watergate presidents and the press as primarily a petty contest of wills. "Journalists after Nixon made 'gotcha' their credo," he writes. "And presidents ever since have reaped the whirlwind."

This distorts the post-Watergate role of investigative reporting in holding accountable presidents and most other powerful people and institutions in American society. For example, Holzer variously characterizes media investigations of Bill Clinton as "zealous," "titillating speculation," "cannibalistic feeding frenzies," "post-Watergate cynicism and careerist ambition," "red herrings" and a "record-high level of antagonism."

At The Post, I was a career-long practitioner and leader of accountability journalism, including when I was one of the editors on the Watergate story. I oversaw Post investigations of the behavior of many public officials, including Clinton's sexual escapades inside the White House with a young intern, Monica Lewinsky. As should now be clear from the #MeToo movement, a sexual relationship between a powerful boss and a young female employee, accompanied by an attempted coverup, is newsworthy, if not a firing offense. Clinton's political popularity, presidential accomplishments and escape from impeachment, all cited by Holzer, did not negate the news media's oversight responsibility.

In his chapter on George W. Bush, Holzer focuses on the often-petty news management struggles between Bush's press secretaries and the White House press corps. Holzer largely ignores the much more important accountability journalism issues over the administration's fallacious justifications for the Iraq War, its bungled postwar occupation of Iraq, and its secret detention and torture of terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.

Holzer details Barack Obama's unprecedented efforts to tightly control the flow of government information to the press and his effective use of the Internet to go around it. His administration forcefully fought against leaks to the press and prosecuted government sources who disclosed classified information, something the Trump administration has continued to do. Citing my 2013 Committee to Protect Journalists report on how Obama failed to fulfill his promise to make his administration the most transparent in American history, Holzer adds, "If Downie's view is correct, then Obama's failure to meet his original standards helped set the harsh tone made harsher by the president who succeeded him."

That president, Trump, poses a problem for Holzer, the historian. He chronicles the chaos of Trump's war with the media without a clear perspective about what it could mean for the future of presidential relations with journalists or the larger role of an American free press. Holzer strangely equates "the rogue belligerence of an independent media" with the "jarring bellicosity of a headstrong president," as though accountability journalism is somehow "rogue belligerence" and Trump's attacks are not aimed at the very existence of press freedom.

As Holzer concludes at the end of his engaging and enlightening book, however, "The Trump era may usher in a permanent upheaval in which Americans never again agree on basic information or trust in traditional sources of news." That would be a threat to our democracy.

- - -

Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, is a professor at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. His latest book, "All About the Story: News, Power, Politics, and The Washington Post," will be published in September.
To have sustained the level of growth needed to be named to the Inc. 5000 in four of the last seven years (2013, 2014, 2016 and 2020) is a reflection on our amazing team and the value they consistently deliver for our customers and partners.

Inc. magazine revealed that Strategic Systems & Technology Corporation (Strategic Systems) is No. 4648 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies the fourth time. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Strategic Systems is honored to be included in this years Inc. 5000 list. To earn this once is a tremendous accomplishment. To have sustained the level of growth needed to be named to the Inc. 5000 in four of the last seven years (2013, 2014, 2016 and 2020) is a reflection on our amazing team and the value they consistently deliver for our customers and partners, says David Bissonnette, President of Strategic Systems. We are incredibly proud of the enthusiastic, dedicated, forward-thinking people who have made Strategic Systems into the company it is today.

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.

With more than 20 years of innovation, thousands of successful implementations, and hundreds of thousands of devices deployed, Strategic Systems is one of the leading enterprise mobility solution providers in North America.

About Strategic Systems

Strategic Systems is a solutions company that focuses on enterprise mobility, RFID, and wireless networking. In addition to being a trusted resource for a full range of enterprise hardware, it also offers significant expertise through professional services. They provide everything from device selection, staging, and spare pool management, to mobile device management (MDM), site surveys, installation, and more. They also build software applications that create essential connections between a business' hardware and information needs. Strategic Systems helps companies become data-driven, smarter, and more connected.

Based in the Atlanta area, Strategic Systems is a certified woman-owned business and a four-time Inc. 5000 honoree (2013, 2014, 2016, and 2020). Learn more at http://www.sstid.com.

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, many companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media

The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels, including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 07:34:28|Editor: huaxia

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A farmer gathers fragrant pears at Shanghu Township in Korla, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Aug. 20, 2020. Covering an area of 455,000 mu (about 30,333 hectares), the cultivation of pear trees is expected to yield over 500,000 tonnes of fragrant pears in the city of Korla this year. So far, Korla has received orders for 121,300 tonnes of pears. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 04:59:10|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The impact of terrorism on victims can "last a lifetime and reverberate across generations," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday during a virtual commemoration for the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.

In remembering and honoring all victims of terrorism, the UN chief said that the United Nations stands by those who grieve and those who "continue to endure the physical and psychological wounds of terrorist atrocities."

"Traumatic memories cannot be erased, but we can help victims and survivors by seeking truth, justice and reparation, amplifying their voices and upholding their human rights," he noted.

KEEP SPOTLIGHT ON VICTIMS

This year's commemoration takes place against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, when vital services for victims, such as criminal justice processes and psychosocial support, have been interrupted, delayed or ended as governments focus attention and resources on fighting the pandemic.

Moreover, many memorials and commemorations have been cancelled or moved online, hampering the ability of victims to find solace and comfort together.

And the current restrictions have also forced the first-ever UN Global Congress of Victims of Terrorism to be postponed until next year.

"But it is important that we keep a spotlight on this important issue," said the UN chief.

"Remembering the victims of terrorism and doing more to support them is essential to help them rebuild their lives and heal," said Guterres, including work with parliamentarians and governments to draft and adopt legislation and national strategies to help victims.

The secretary-general vowed that "the UN stands in solidarity with all victims of terrorism - today and every day" and underscored the need to "ensure that those who have suffered are always heard and never forgotten."

TERRORISM UNJUSTIFIABLE

UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande saluted the resilience of terrorist survivors and called the day "an opportunity to honor the memories of the innocent civilians who have lost their lives as a result of terrorist acts around the world."

"Terrorism, in all forms and manifestations, can never be justified," he said. "Acts of terrorism everywhere must be strongly condemned."

The United Nations commits to combating terrorism and the UNGA has adopted resolutions to curb the scourge while working to establish and maintain peace and security globally.

Mechanisms for survivors must be strengthened to safeguard a "full recovery, rehabilitation and re-integration into society through long-term multi-dimensional support," said Muhammad-Bande.

"Together we can ensure that you live a full life defined by dignity and freedom. You are not alone in this journey. You are not forgotten," said the UNGA president.

Closing the event, Vladimir Voronkov, chief of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, maintained that victims represent "the very human dimension of terrorism."

While terrorists try to depersonalize victims by reducing them to mere numbers or statistics, Voronkov maintained that "we have a responsibility to do the exact opposite."

"We must see victims' hopes, dreams and daily lives that have been shattered by terrorist violence - a shattering that carries on long after the attack is over," he said. "We must ensure their human rights are upheld and their needs are met."

While acknowledging the "terrible reality of terrorism," Voronkov flagged that the survivors shine as "examples of resilience, and beacons of hope, courage and solidarity in the face of adversity."

In reaffirming "our common humanity," he urged everyone to raise awareness of victims' needs and rights.

"Let us commit to showing them that they are not alone and will never be forgotten," said the counter-terrorism chief.

SURVIVORS REMEMBER

At the virtual event, survivors shared their stories while under lockdown, agreeing that the long-term impact of surviving any kind of an attack is that the traumatic experience never really goes away.

Tahir from Pakistan lost his wife in attack against the UN World Food Programme (WFP) office in Islamabad.

"If you have an accident, you know how to cope with it. Terminal illness, you know how to cope with it. But there is no coping mechanism for a person who dies in an act of terror," he said.

Nigeel's father perished in the 1998 U.S. Embassy attack in Kenya, when he was just months old.

The 22 year-old said "When you are growing, it really doesn't have a heavy impact on you, but as life starts to unfold, mostly I'll find myself asking if I do this and my dad was around, would he be proud of me?"

And Julie, from Australia, lost her 21-year-old daughter in the 2017 London Bridge attack.

"The Australian police came to our house and said, 'we have a body, still not confirmed,' so they recommended that we fly to London," she recalled. "I can't describe how devastating as a parent to lose a child in these circumstances is for the rest of your life."

The International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism was established by the UNGA in 2017. It designated Aug. 21 as the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism in order to honor the victims and survivors of terrorism. Enditem
Just four weeks ago, Kimberly Clayton woke not from a nightmare but to a nightmare.

The 35-year-old Jefferson County wife and mother opened her eyes to find a masked stranger on top of her, in her bed, raping her. She would later find out that her accused assailant  previously labeled by authorities a serial rapist - was recently released from prison and would go on to attack another woman just two days later.

Clayton is far from over the ordeal, but she said she will not let this crime defeat her nor define her.

He did victimize me in my home, but Im not going to be victimized for the rest of my life,' Clayton said. I will take and somehow turn this negative into a positive. So, if I can help another woman come forward or anything like, that Im willing to do that.

Claytons life forever changed shortly after 4 a.m. on July 21. Her husband had already gotten up and gotten into the bathroom to get ready for work, his normal daily routine. Moments later, Clayton said, I woke up with this man on top of me raping me.

I called for my husband to help me, but I didnt let the panic set in right way because there were three kids across the hall from me,' she said.

Clayton didnt know the man, who was wearing a bandana to conceal his identity. She tried to unmask him, but he then restrained her. I couldnt hear my husband calling back to me because we have a window unit in our room and Im kind of hard of hearing. When I didnt see my husband didnt come in the room, panic set in and I thought this man done killed everyone in my house,' she said.

I just started to scream, I mean scream like bloody murder,' she said. It was horrible.

The intruder then jumped off of Clayton and fled. Clayton ran into the hallway, where she collided with her husband and her sister. Still in other bedrooms were Claytons 11-year-old daughter, the daughters best friend and the friends 7-year-old sister.

Im in a panic and still half asleep and Im telling my husband this man was on top of me raping me and he was like, What do you mean?

They quickly figured out the intruder had gained entry into the home by removing the window unit in the living room. Her husband and daughter had vaguely heard the commotion but assumed their puppy had knocked over a trash can or something.

They called 911 and then Claytons husband went after the attacker. He went around the back of the house and didnt see him,' Clayton said. When he came back and was standing in the yard, it was still dark, he saw a man that he thought at first was our neighbor. When the man got close enough to my husband, he realized it wasnt the neighbor and he shot at him. We guess he missed because he didnt show up at a hospital or anything.

The man had a brick in his hand when he was coming back towards my house and I believe in my heart he was coming back to finish me off,' Clayton said. If my husband wouldnt have been here, it would have been worse.

The entire ordeal lasted no more than about five minutes. Investigators descended on her home and began to process the scene for evidence. Clayton began the long road of beginning to process what had happened to her.

Two days later, Clayton was home when she saw a news alert that there was a heavy police presence on Elm Street, not far from her home. My heart dropped, and I was like, This man done did it again,' she said. At that point, I didnt know but thats how I felt. Then later it came on the news that this woman had been assaulted in her home.

That new attack happened on Thursday, July 23. It was about 5 a.m. when authorities say a man forced his way into a womans home in the 600 block of Elm Street S.W. in an area known as The Junction near the Woodland Hills subdivision.

Jefferson County sheriffs Sgt. Joni Money said the intruder forced his way into the womans home and assaulted her. Somehow, the woman was able to call 911 and deputies rushed to the scene. When they arrived, they were able to rescue her as she ran toward them.

She told them the suspect was still in the home. Seconds later, he appeared in the doorway and pointed a rifle at a deputy. The deputy fired on him and the suspect retreated back into the home, escaping out a back window. He left a blood trail, Money said.

Deputies and neighboring law enforcement agencies tracked him down at the Fourth Avenue Supermarket in Bessemer. They then took Rickey Daiquan Burgin into custody. He also goes by the name Dai Qwane Rickey Burgin-Goodson.

Burgin-Goodson was taken to a hospital and later booked into jail. The victim also was hospitalized with undisclosed injuries.

He was initially charged in the Elm Street attack and, more recently, charged in the attack on Clayton. In all, he is being held in the Jefferson County Jail on two counts of rape, three counts of burglary, one count of sex abuse, one count of assault and two counts of theft. He stole a gun from the Elm Street victim, authorities said.

Burgin-Goodson, 26, had been released from prison less than three months before the new attacks after serving time for a string of crimes that terrorized the northwest side of the Center Point area seven years ago. For eight months in 2013, a series of burglaries, armed robberies and sexual assaults happened in a half-mile radius of each other with as many as 12 different possible home invasions and sexual attacks. Burgin-Goodson was arrested Sept. 5 of that year and ultimately charged with 23 felony crimes.

He eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary, three counts of robbery, three counts of sexual abuse and one count of sodomy. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with five to serve. He was released from prison on May 4, according to an Alabama Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

For the rest of the crimes with which he was charged, Burgin was either acquitted or the charges were dismissed, court records show.

Clayton said she was shocked and livid when she saw his criminal history. Im angry at him. Im angry at the state. Im angry at the Department of Corrections. Im angry with his judge,' she said. They should have never let this man out.

The look in his eyes was pure evil,' she said. The man was locked up for seven years, got out May 4, and comes in my home on July 21. You cannot rehabilitate a rapist.

Im putting this out there because we dont know if there were more women before me since he got out,' she said. Im not going to be a silent victim. I am a survivor.

The aftermath, so far, has been challenging. I dont like being at home by myself. When I go out in public, if youre staring at me for too long, Im wondering if youre a bad guy,' she said. Im not sleeping good and I have flashbacks.

Initially she wouldnt go back into her bedroom but she believes redecorating it will help. I could not go in there with the way it was. That was my safe place, thats where I went when I felt down and wanted to feel safe and he took that from me,' she said. I dont feel safe when I go out in public, and I dont like being at home because this man came in my house and took something from me that I didnt give him permission to take.

Clayton is in counseling and preparing to also get counseling for her daughter. For the first couple of days, she was very mad because she thought she should have come out and helped me. I told her, No, that she did right,' Clayton said.

Theres times I want to break down and cry, but I dont because I feel like if I do, hes winning,' Clayton said. I try not to let my daughter see me cry. I just want to show her even though this bad thing happened, mom can still be strong and do my mommy duties and keep going like I always do, because thats all I know.

Clayton said she has a strong support system and for that she is blessed. God forbid theres other people before me and Elm Street but if there is, I hope this gives them enough courage to come forward because they shouldnt have to deal with it by themselves,' she said. They need some kind of support system. If I didnt have my support system, I dont know what Id do. Im very thankful, my husband, his mom, my mom, my stepdad and the girl who was here, her mom and another friend. Theyre who I talk to.

Clayton has a tattoo on her arm that says, Stay Strong. I have to look at it daily to remind me,' she said.

She said she plans to be there every step of the way through the court proceedings. I will do everything in my power to make sure he never gets out of a penitentiary again,' she said. Im going to have my day with him in court and when he sees my face, I want him to know Im not scared of him. And when hes sitting in prison, I want him to remember my face and know Im going to be one of the reasons hes in there.

Clayton said after shes fully processed and coped with her ordeal, she wants to become an advocate for other victims. I think a good advocate is someone whose been through it,' she said. I know this is going to be a long process and Ive got a lot of healing to do and well get there. "
'We are going to have plane crashes left, right and centre.'

IMAGE: Wreckage of the Air India Express flight which crashed at Kozhikode airport on the evening of August 7, 2020. Photograph: ANI Photo

"We are going for crashes after crashes until the world takes notice," aviation safety activist and advocate Yeshwant Shenoy tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com in the concluding segment of a two-part interview.

Are there no checks and balances on how the DGCA or the AAI functions?

I will tell you something very interesting here. These buildings cannot come up just like that because there are multiple safety audit tests carried out by the Airport Authority (of India) the DGCA.

So, without the DGCA and AAI coming together you cannot have these buildings around airports in violation of civil aviation safety rules.

Then you have the Big Daddy, the civil aviation ministry, which is also part of this syndicate.

To overcome these safety restrictions, what they did is they proposed something called the appellate committee on height clearance, which is headed by the joint secretary, ministry of civil aviation.

One of its members is from the Airport Authority of India, who is in charge of air navigation services.

Another member is a joint director general of the DGCA and there is an independent member, who till his death was Kanu Gohain, the former DGCA chief.

Now let's say if they allow extra height of some buildings around the airport I have to lodge a complaint with the DGCA.

According to the Aircraft (Demolition of obstructions caused by buildings and tress) Rules, 1994, the authority which can order demolition of such buildings is the joint DG of the DGCA, the same person who in the first place has allowed violation of the height clearances rules.

What naturally happens is people lodge a complaint with the vigilance officer in the ministry of civil aviation. He is also the chairman of the appellate committee for height clearances, the joint secretary.

That is your checks and balances system. It is finished, completely destroyed by this syndicate.

Aren't international aviation regulators concerned about these lapses, given that there are hundreds of international flights landing and taking off at airports like Mumbai and Delhi?

Take, for example, the recent Pakistan International Airlines crash (that happened in June 2020 which killed 97 people). Before the crash everything was hunky-dory with everybody, including international aviation regulators.

After the crash now, EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) has banned PIA and Pakistani pilots.

If you remember after the Mangalore crash, the FAA downgraded India for a year. So, international agencies get to know about the violations only when there are accidents.

When international civil aviation regulators audit, they go to the DGCA, the Airport Authority and the airline operators. All the documentation is done properly.

So, India is very safe on paper. In reality, we are not.

Won't these international aviation regulators know about these 467 obstacles at Mumbai airport and 369 at Delhi?

I have written about this to these international regulators and, in fact, they (the DGCA, AAI, etc) came to the Delhi high court asking the judge to stop me from sending these e-mails to international aviation regulators.

Justice Gita Mittal, then of the Delhi high court, and now the Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir high court, severely reprimanded the DGCA for even making such a request saying that how can she stop somebody from disseminating safety information.

That is what she did.

While these obstacles at Mumbai and Delhi airport are no secret to international regulators, India being one of the biggest aviation market, requiring huge aircraft fleets which come either from Boeing or Airbus, what happens is Boeing manages US regulators and Airbus manages European regulators.

While India's money power speaks so much when crashes happen, these people will come out feigning ignorance and surprise.

So long as India remains a very attractive market, these aircraft manufacturers or international aviation regulators will do what they have been doing: Remain a mute spectator.

How can this be corrected? How can safety of air passengers become paramount? There are so many flaws, so many lapses, but yet, things go on. We create a ruckus only when 2010 Mangalore happens or when 2020 Kozhikode happens.

Nothing happens in between and that too in spite of me going to the courts and getting orders.

All these 10 years I have been in courts and I have regularly got orders against the DGCA. In spite of that the system has not improved.

Is the DGCA then not adhering to judgments passed by various courts in India? Are they not in contempt of courts?

No. What they do is airport is a restricted zone. I cannot go there and check the runways. So, they provide documents saying they have complied with every court order, but nothing changes on the ground.

Can one prove that the DGCA has not been complying with the orders of various courts in India?

Don't these accidents prove it (that they have not been complying with courts' orders)?

In Mumbai, there have been three overshoots last year. This year too there has been one incident during the rainy season.

Now, I got an order from the Delhi high court throwing out the FDTL and the DGCA came out with an FDTL which is worse than what I had challenged.

And this pilot fatigue issue is still so serious that I am telling you, and that is where I am coming from, Kozhikode is only the first in the series.

We are going to have plane crashes left, right and centre.

Would these happen only during the monsoon?

Any time of the year, because every season brings with it, its own issues. Summers, winters, monsoons all bring their own issue.

Monsoons are a problem more in the south. Winters are a problem in the north and north east of India.

I am telling you this winter I am expecting a crash in north or north east India.

Why? What is your assessment based upon?

Why are all the crashes happening in the south of India during monsoon? Because weather conditions are bad here.

Of all the safety aspects, weather is very important and if in addition any of the other things are not in place then you are finished.

Is there any airport in India that fully complies with all the safety regulations?

I will happily say no. I will put it in a very different way.

The deadliest plane crash ever in the world killed 583 people (external link) in the US. That's the maximum fatalities in any aircraft accident in the world.

I am telling you India will break that record with a crash in Mumbai.

I would say because of those obstacles, but also because Mumbai airport probably is one of the most dangerous today.

Inside the airport there are no safety compliance; outside the airport no compliance.

So, Mumbai airport has several safety issues and the aviation safety officer in charge there, wrote a scathing report in 2018 on aviation safety at the airport.

You know what happened to her? Safety officer Mangala Narasimhan (Airports Authority of India's deputy general manager, aviation safety) was dismissed from service. Her husband (K S L Narasimhan, AAI, joint general manager, air traffic control), was also suspended from duty.

All these honest officers who have been highlighting aviation safety violations have been eliminated by these very people and therefore, I am telling with certainty that Kozhikode is only the first in the series.

We are going for crashes after crashes until the world takes notice.
Sophie Kasaei was admitted to hospital on Friday to treat her gastroenteritis after falling ill following her recent trip to Italy.

The Geordie Shore OG, 30, returned to the UK on Thursday in excruciating pain and is now bed-ridden following the diagnosis by doctors.

She took to Instagram to reveal the terrifying ordeal, and explained to fans why she had to take an emergency trip to the hospital.

Holiday horror: Geordie Shore's Sophie Kasaei was rushed to hospital on Friday to be treated for gastroenteritis after falling ill following her holiday in Italy (pictured earlier this week)

A day before her health scare she had partied alongside fellow Geordie Shore cast-mate, Abbie Holborn.

During her return to British soil, she began suffering from incomparable stomach pain that would return 'in waves'.

In her video she revealed her NHS wristband and hospital PJ's as she detailed what had happened: 'Well this morning was eventful. Honestly I've never felt pain like that.

Medical emergency: The Geordie Shore star, 33, revealed that she has 'never felt pain like that' after originally brushing off her stomach pain and assuming it was due to a hangover

'Yesterday when I was away I started feeling this awful pain in my stomach and I thought it was just a hangover, so I brushed it off, and then the pain started getting worse and worse, to the point where I was like "nah something isn't right here."

'It came in waves and then I started being sick and it's just awful, so then the doctors were like "you need to go to hospital".

'If anybody else has had it they will understand the pain, it comes in waves and overtakes, it's like acid coming up.'

Unbearable: Sophie told her Instagram followers on Friday: 'If anybody else has had it they will understand the pain, it comes in waves and overtakes, it's like acid coming up'

She finished her message with a drowsy farewell: 'Honestly I'm done. Ciao.'

Gastroenteritis is the inflammation of the stomach and small intestine.

There are a variety of symptoms including diarrhoea, fever, vomiting and extreme abdominal pain, and cases usually last under two weeks.

Gut feeling: Gastroenteritis is the inflammation of the small intestine and stomach and symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, vomiting and extreme abdominal pain

It was only in July that Sophie divulged her excruciating battle with endometriosis.

The MTV beauty compared her horrendous ordeal to someone 'stabbing you in your ovaries' when she shared her experience with her followers.

Endometriosis is a condition resulting from endometrial tissue outside the uterus which causes pelvic pain and is often related to menstruation.

The condition affects women of all ages with some of the main symptoms being pelvic pain, period pain and pain during or after having sex.

According to Sophie, she had been experiencing a flare up which resulted in extreme bloating and pain to the point that she couldn't perform her daily routine.

She had to use peppermint and ginger tea to heal her bloating, but to no avail, as the star was left distressed by the ongoing ordeal.

WHAT IS ENDOMETRIOSIS? Endometriosis occurs when cells in the lining of the womb are found elsewhere in the body. Each month, these cells react in the same way as those in the womb; building up, breaking down and bleeding. Yet, the blood has no way to escape the body. This causes pain and scar tissue to build up. Symptoms include pain, heavy periods and fatigue, as well as a higher risk of infertility, and bowel and bladder problems. Its cause is unknown but may be genetic, related to problems with the immune system or exposure to chemicals. The only definitive way to diagnose endometriosis is by a laparoscopy - an operation in which a camera - a laparoscope - is inserted into the pelvis Source: Endometriosis UK Advertisement

Sophie revealed that she had to leave a personal training session and come home because the pain became so unbearable and she let her followers know how she was feeling.

She said: 'I want to say to anyone who suffers from endometriosis, like it is so painful! I literally was just fine and I've started to cry again.

'I've just done a PT session and I had to leave because the pain that I just felt driving home, honestly I can't describe that pain.

'It's the most excruciating pain, it's like someone's got a knife and is just stabbing you in your ovaries.'

Sophie disclosed her struggle as she nestled into the sofa and her mother comforted her with a hot water bottle.

The TV personality vowed to help other girls who are suffering from the condition, after announcing that she suffers from endometriosis earlier this year.

She said: 'It's absolutely horrendous.

'I'm literally still shaking because it's so painful and I just want to talk about endometriosis because it is so painful when you are on your period.

'I'm usually alright in the month when this time comes, but I wouldn't wish this upon anyone.

'I can't wait to just get this sorted.

'I just need the COVID thing over so I can get this sorted because I can't live with this pain.'
(JTA)  No matter what happens in Ilhan Omars primary today, one thing is clear: Some Jewish voters in Minnesota and across the country will be deeply disappointed.

Omar has the support of some local and progressive Jews who are excited about supporting a member of The Squad, a quartet of prominent progressive freshmen congresswomen that also includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.

But Omar  who represents Minnesotas 5th District, which includes Minneapolis  has repeatedly angered a large segment of the pro-Israel community and other J...
But the government maintains that Florida election law functioned well. In court briefs, its lawyers argued in dismissive tones that deadlines are deadlines, and the discard numbers were negligible compared with the hundreds of thousands of voters whose mail ballots did count. At my deposition via videoconference in June, an assistant attorney general took a more belligerent approach: Youve determined that slow delivery of mail ballots is a systematic issue in South Florida just on one experience? You do have the option of voting in person, is that correct? Since February have you left your house for any reason? How many occasions have you left your home and headed outside? How many times have you been to stores other than the grocery store since March 30th? How many times have you been to relatives homes? Have you had any visitors in your home?
Mumbai, Aug 22 : Fans of Sushant Singh Rajput have been speculating about the mystery woman who was spotted outside his Bandra residence on the day of his demise, June 14.

Reports doing the rounds in the media and social media seem to suggest the girl could be Jameela Calcuttawala, rumoured girlfriend of Rhea Chakraborty's brother Showik.

The speculations stem from a pair of slippers! Jameela is a model, and her unverified private Instagram account has the late Sushant Singh Rajput, his girlfriend Rhea and her brother Showik among followers.

A group photograph posted on Instagram by Sushant in May last year (which is now deleted from the late actor's account), and which was reposted by Rhea on her verified Instagram account on May 4 last year, reportedly features Jameela alongside Sushant, Rhea and other friends. Not only this, several other posts on Rhea's Instagram credit Jameela as the photographer, hinting at the model's association with Rhea and her family.

Back to June 14, 2020, videos and photographs of a woman clicked outside Sushant's residence on the day of his death, have led to conjectures over who she might be. The woman was wearing a Covid mask, along with a sleeveless blue top with white stripes, paired with khaki lowers. She slips into the building premise and disappears inside.

It is her slippers that have been drawing attention. Many are certain that the woman in blue top wears the same slippers that she is seen wearing in the group photograph shared by Sushant and reposted by Rhea on May 4, 2019.

For the past few days, fans of the late actor have been sharing both photographs together on social media speculating Jameela could be the mystery woman spotted outside Sushant's residence on June 14.

The plot thickens.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
At least four people died of electrocution and one was seriously injured in Kolkata and Howrah on Thursday as intermittent heavy rain continued to lash the districts of south Bengal since Wednesday night.

In the coastal district and in the Sunderbans a few hundred families had to be shifted to local schools as many rivers breached their embankments and entered the villages. The heavy rain coupled with the spring tide triggered high waves in the sea which entered nearby towns and popular beach destinations.

The India Meteorological Department had warned on Wednesday of heavy rain in south Bengal because of two back-to-back low pressure systems over the Bay of Bengal. While one had formed on Wednesday, another is likely to form on Sunday.

Two labourers were killed inside the Alipore Zoo in Kolkata and one was seriously injured when they accidentally touched a live wire while repairing a hoarding near the elephant enclosure. Two more persons were electrocuted at Shibpur in Howrah when they touched an exposed live wire.

Many rivers across south Bengal swelled and the water gushed into some villages in South 24 Parganas, East Midnapore and Bankura districts.

The water of rivers Muriganga and Kalindi entered in a few villages over the embankments as there was heavy rain during high tide. Our officials have rushed to the spot to pump out the water, said a senior official of the irrigation department.

At Sagar block in South 24 Parganas, more than 250 families had to be shifted to schools after river water entered their houses through breaches in the embankments, said S Mondol, BDO of Sagar Island.

At Digha, a popular beach destination in East Midnapore, high waves crashed on the guard walls and entered the shops along the beach.

During high tide the sea water entered the marine drive running parallel to the beach in places like Shankarpur, Digha, Shyampur and Jamra after high waves crashed on the guard walls, said S Bhattacharya, SDO of Contai, a subdivision in East Midnapore district.

At Malda and Murshidabad districts, there has been large erosion by the Ganga amid the rain. While thousands are spending sleepless nights as the river is gobbling more land every day, a few hundred families have moved to safer places.

Even though erosion is an old problem in Murshidabad, this year it has taken a serious shape. The erosion at Hossainpur, Kulidear and Parsujapur has taken serious shape. We have requested the administration to shift some families from those villages. From the TMC party we have provided them relief materials, said Ejarat Ali, the Trinamool Congress block president of Farakka in Murshidabad.

In Bankura at least about a dozen villages were cut off after water started flowing over a bridge. People had to take a detour of more than 10 km to reach the village.

Heavy rains would continue in an intermittent manner till August 25 as another low pressure is expected to form. The monsoon trough is also very active which is triggering heavy rains in south Bengal, said an IMD official.
(Natural News) Beijing is selling tons of fish containing high levels of toxins and heavy metals to Kenya, a leading Kenyan newspaper revealed in a study.

According to Kenyan broadsheet The Nation, China has flooded the Kenyan fish market with high volumes of tilapia and other farmed fish for the past three years. This congestion, the paper said, has made it virtually impossible for locals to compete with the imports which are being sold at cheaper price points.

Aside from hurting to the African nations already beleaguered economy, an investigation conducted in 2018 suggested that the Beijing imports  repackaged together with stocks from Lake Victoria to fool consumers that it had all been sourced locally  have a more insidious effect on the Kenyan population: poor health from heavy metal poisoning. (Related: Half of farmed salmon found to be DEAF due to toxic effects of confined aquaculture.)

This discovery, coupled with a desire to protect the local fishing industry, has prompted Kenyan authorities to impose a ban on the consumption of Chinese fish in late 2018  a move branded by Beijing, through ambassador Li Xuhang, as a trade war.

The ban, as reported by the local press, barely lasted through February of that year  the result of immense pressure from Beijing, who threatened to cut off funding for projects under their Belt and Road Initiative. Not helping was an incredibly lax quality control department that cleared the Chinese imports of any problems in their heavy metal content despite several tests showing that the fish contained traces of heavy metals that could potentially threaten human health.

Imported Chinese fish highly unsafe

As detailed in their expose, researchers from The Nation bought a 10-kilogram box of imported, farmed tilapia fish which they then brought to the University of Nairobi for testing.

What they found was nothing short of shocking.

According to the researchers, the fish they bought contained dangerous pesticides, including the highly-toxic phosalone, which was detected at 0.07 parts per million (ppm). This amount, the researchers said, is seven times more than its maximum allowable limit which is pegged at 0.01 ppm.

The imported fish were also found to contain other pesticides, such as tolyfluanid, which was detected at 0.022 ppm; deltamethrin, which was detected at 0.026ppm; acrinathrin, which was found at concentrations amounting to 0.005ppm and tebufenpyrad, which was detected at 0.001ppm.

The report stated that these pesticides can cause several health problems such as cancers, mouth ulcerations, dysphagia and abdominal pain once ingested.

Aside from pesticides, the fish from China were also found to contain excessive amounts of several heavy metals.

According to the paper, the tilapia from Beijing contained 42.7 ppm of lead  427 times the 0.1ppm limit set by both the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization.

An extremely toxic element, excessive amounts of lead can decrease mental ability, damage the nervous system damage and impede physical development in children. It is also known to cause high blood pressure, anemia, general body weakness, kidney and brain damage and reduced fertility in adults.

In addition, lead is also carcinogenic, which means it can cause cancer and even immediate death when consumed in excessive quantities.

Aside from lead, the same fish samples were also found to have relatively high levels of zinc, although it is still below the prescribed limit of 30ppm.

Excess zinc, according to medical experts, can cause gastroenteritis, a common condition that is characterized by symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting.

Other metals detected in the imported fish were iron, copper and manganese. However, as per the researchers, these were found to be at relatively safe levels.

According to James Mbaria, a toxicologist and the lead researcher in the project, the fish they sampled for the project was far from being fit for human consumption as it contained heavy metals in amounts that were beyond the prescribed limits.

In their paper, the researchers noted that for products with that level of contamination to reach the market, two possible scenarios must have taken place, with one being that the Kenya National Bureau of Standards, the agency that sets safety standards, failed in carrying out mandated product testings.

The other scenario, the researchers said, is that Chinese importers presented clean fish for testing to get the necessary import certificates, before proceeding to bring in low-quality, tainted fish to the Kenyan market.

Chinese fish now killing the Kenyan fishing industry

Aside from the imported fish posing a health risk to its consumers, the unabated importation of fish from Beijing has also caused problems for the Kenyan fisheries industry. These problems compound the fact that the local fish populations in Lake Victoria have been steadily dwindling, an unforeseen effect of the introduction of the highly-invasive Nile perch (Lates niloticus) and Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in the 1960s.

In fact, according to recent data, fish harvests from Lake Victoria have effectively declined by 23 percent over the past five years, with the total catch for 2018 amounting only to 98,150 tons, compared to the 128,708 tons notched in 2014.

This decline in fish harvests, authorities said, has caused the value of local freshwater fish to plummet to Ksh19.4 billion or $179,550,897.31USD over that same period.

Fish imports, meanwhile, crossed the Ksh2 billion threshold, or roughly $18,509,150.44 in 2017, with the figure doubling every year.

For Kenyan fishermen, the situation is hopeless, with one fisheries official even noting that if the Chinese imports are not stopped, Kenyas fishing industry will disappear completely within the next five decades.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

Kenyans.co.ke

FarmersReviewAfrica.com

PulitzerCenter.org

Nation.co.ke

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

Link.Springer.com

BBC.com
A candidate in a crowded South Carolina mayoral race is accused of orchestrating an elaborate ruse for sympathy votes using a fake kidnapping and Facebook Live.

Sabrina Belcher, 29, was arrested and charged withconspiracy and filing a false police report after Sumter police say she filmed herself being kidnapped, beaten and robbed on Facebook earlier this week.

Christopher James Eaddy, 34, was also charged with conspiracy in the case, the Sumter Police Department said in a news release.

They staged a kidnapping and beating in order to garner publicity, sympathy and votes in the November election, police said.

Belcher met with officers just before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and told them she had been assaulted and kidnapped by an unknown man during an attempted robbery, according to police. She also said the man had knocked out the windows of her car.

Police said Belcher was taken to a nearby hospital for her injuries and was later released.

In the video, Belcher had tried to discredit a fellow candidate, according to police. They also said she had ongoing plans to smear other mayoral candidates prior to the election.

It wasnt immediately clear how the scheme unraveled, but police said investigators learned Belcher had given a fake name for the man she believed had attacked her.

Officers later determined she was in contact with Eaddy whom she had worked with days prior to concoct and stage the reported incident, police said.

Belcher was booked into the Sumter County Detention Center with a $10,000 bond, according to jail records.

This was simply an effort to create disorder and discontent in our community for personal gain, Police Chief Russell Roark said in the news release. As a result, a valuable number of resources, including personnel, man hours of the police department as well as local medical professionals, were wasted based on false information.

Sumter, about 45 miles east of Columbia, is home to roughly 40,000 residents. Current Mayor Joseph T. McElveen Jr., who was elected in 2000, is the citys longest-serving mayor.

Story continues

McElveen announced in January he would not seek re-election.

Belcher is one of six candidates seeking to replace him, according to the local newspaper, The Sumter Item. Her opponents include two city council members and a controversial former S.C. congressional candidate, Archie Parnell.

According to Belchers campaign page on Facebook, she is the first Black female candidate ever to run.

The page describes her as a decorated community activist and local volunteer as well as a volunteer firefighter in Sumter County. Her platform includes a bid for 24/7 police presence during school bus hours to help protect our children.

If elected, The Sumter Item reported, she would be the citys first Black mayor.

Its not so much about the race because I have actually lived here long enough to see that theres a lot of different injustices and things that could be better, Belcher told the newspaper in a June interview. We are learning to come together, and we are learning to show that its not about the color of your skin.
File image

The Reserve Bank of India is closely watching investments flowing from Mauritius into Indian non-banking finance companies and has in the past few weeks declined several applications by NBFCs due to their links to the island nation, The Economic Times has reported.

The report said the central bank is worried as Mauritius is on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is the global watchdog for anti-money laundering and terror financing.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

The RBI had not responded to its request for comments, the newspapers said.

Some of the applications that were rejected were in the financial technology space, the report said. Some were also for fresh NBFC registrations, using a structure linked to Mauritius.

The finance ministry had in April 2020 permitted Mauritius-based funds to apply for Category 1 foreign portfolio investor (FPI) licences to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

It seems regulatory authorities in India have been going harsh on Mauritius from time to time and also sending mixed signals, Tejesh Chitlangi, partner, IC Universal Legal, was quoted in the report as saying.

"On one hand, despite FATF grey-listing and proposed EU blacklisting, SEBI amended its laws to permit Category-I FPIs from Mauritius. On the other hand, RBI seems to be taking a tough stance," Chitlangi said.
'This Persecution is a Cultural Genocide': British Holocaust Educator on Rights Abuses in Xinjiang

2020-08-20 -- Jaya Pathak, 22, is a British national of Indian descent who studies pharmacy at Brighton University in London, U.K. She is a regional Ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust in the U.K. and also a co-founder and deputy editor of a youth initiative called Yet Again. Using her social media, Pathak often speaks out against modern atrocities and posts on past Holocaust victims. One of her recent Twitter threads was entitled "How to help the Uyghur community from the U.K.," which attracted nearly 1,000 retweets and some 1.6k likes. Jaya Pathak's organization Yet Again is a youth lead initiative that on the day of its launch published an article about the Uyghurs and detailed China's vast network of internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017.

During a recent interview with RFA's Uyghur Service, Pathak called the situation in the XUAR a "cultural genocide"referring to severe restrictions on religion, language, appearance, and the destruction of sites like mosques and cemeteriesand likened it to the Holocaust. Her assessment follows a recent report about a dramatic increase in recent years in the number of forced sterilizations and abortions targeting Uyghurs in the region, which the author, German researcher Adrian Zenz, said may amount to a government-led campaign of genocide under United Nations definitions.

As a minority in the U.K., Pathak experienced prejudice and discrimination in the past that led her to realize the importance of education and in creating an environment where the public can place their trust in politics. Pathak noted that many Uyghurs in the U.K. are scared of speaking out against China's abuses in the XUAR due to fear of reprisal from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and stressed the importance of speaking up on behalf of those who are unable to speak for themselves. Pathak also discussed concrete actions that others can take to assist the Uyghurs, including providing support for Uyghur activists by amplifying their message on social media, joining protests, and petitioning for change at the government level.

RFA: When did you first learn about China's treatment of the Uyghur people?

Pathak: I first learned about what was happening to the Uyghur people about four years ago. There were a couple of news articles that were released, and I keep up with current affairs, and as I was reading it, I felt sick because I was like, this is 2016. How is this happening? Is this real? Is this actually happening? Then BBC News in the U.K. did an exposethey went undercover to one of the [internment] camps [inside the XUAR] and that was on our evening news. As I was watching it, it sent chills down my spine. I was shocked and I realized this is real and it's not getting any better. It's just getting worse.

RFA: What was your first impression after learning about what Uyghurs are going through?

Pathak: I just felt like I had to do something. We have to try our best to raise awareness as to what's going on. At that time, I was involved in working in Holocaust educationI started when I was about 17. Using everything I had learned, I said to myself I'm going to really educate myself about what's going on [with the Uyghurs]. I told as many people as I could about it. And at that time that was all there was that I could do because I was still at school.

Yet Again initiative

RFA: You're co-founder and also a deputy editor at the Yet Again youth-led initiative that provides content on modern-day atrocities. On Aug. 1, Yet Again published an article introducing the Uyghurs and what is happening to them. What motivated Yet Again to publish this article?

Pathak: Yet Again  was set up to help people to understand how modern atrocities can happen, why they happen, and in the hope that this understanding allows us to prevent them from happening again in the future  And when we launched, we said that we have to address [the Uyghur issue] as soon we can. It's a present issue. It's current, and it's something that we need to be trying to stop right now. Everybody needs to be involved in trying to stop this problem from going any further. And so, it was incredibly important that we released this article at the time we also launched.

RFA: Can you talk about reader feedback?

Pathak: It was really a great response, great feedback, because so many people wanted to learn more. We had people reading our article who either didn't understand what went on before, because as we are all aware, the history of the Uyghur people in China is so extensive, it's so long. It's not just what has happened in the past four years. And so, they read this article that was so brilliantly written by one of our writers. They learned so much about what was going on. Then they were inspired to go and learn more in their own time. They went away and they were asking for resources, for books, documentaries, anything that they could find to help them. They were all wondering how they could show the support to the Uyghur community as well.

RFA: As a regional ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trustreading, studying, and then teaching about what happened to the survivors and victims of this tragic historic situationin your opinion is the CCP committing genocide in the Uyghur region?

Pathak: From a U.N. prospective, they have very specific ways to define genocide. If it's not and if it can't be called genocide right now, it will be at some point because this persecution is a cultural genocide, at the very least. Trying to strip away the cultural rights and freedoms of this community. Because of this, it's so important to understand that whether we can use the word genocide or not, what it is right now is as terrible as it. And I think that it's such a complicated issue because of the way that the U.N. and the way that the international law looks at the term genocide. But in my view, personally, it's a cultural genocide at the very least, and it's definitely persecution if you don't want to call it genocide. Now, it's very much leading to that point. It has been going on for almost four years now. It's terrifying.

'Use our voice for them'

RFA: Why do you think it's important to speak up for the Uyghurs?

Pathak: For a few reasons. In 2020, we've seen a lot going on. Well, we've learned that we are all responsible for one another's happiness, positivity, quality of life. It's not just one person who affects themselves. Everybody affects each other. Collective responsibility is a result of every individual's effort to try and be accountable for their words and actions. But for us to see what's going on right in front of our eyes and to not say something is to be complicit and to let it happen.

I think that personally from my experience as someone who's been involved in Holocaust education for a little bit, you don't draw comparisons, you don't draw parallels, but you can definitely see there are echoes of the past. That's what is quite chilling for a lot of us because we always said "never again. We will never let another genocide happen. We'll never let another persecution of minorities happen." In reality, it is happening. We all have a duty and a sense of responsibility to stand up for what's right and to support the Uyghur community. Lot of Uyghurs here in the U.K. are speaking up, but there are many who are also not speaking, because they're afraid of what will happen to their family in China, and we should be able to use our voice for them. That's what it's all about. And we can't let something like this happen when we have the power to do more.

RFA: Have you seen any results of your activism so far?

Pathak: I have. I've seen it in different ways. So, I posted it on my social media. I had random people contacting me, asking either to learn more or what resources they can have to learn more or asking me more directly if they are able to contribute to the work that I do, which is at the moment posting information, infographics, online so people know what the truth is without any misinformation, without any false information. And I've had people inspired to join this cause of activism. And I think that in itself is such a big result because I never expected it. What I'm doing to reach so many people and to see that it has shown that it's just one person that can do this. Imagine if so many of us came together to do it. We could reach so many people.

Reported by Shahrezad Ghayrat for RFA's Uyghur Service.

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 August not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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Historians may one day note that the only real difference between President Alexander Lukashenko of the Republic of Belarus in Eastern Europe and President Donald Trump of the United States of America is that one of them wore a moustache.

In Belarus, its beleaguered president  authoritarian, corrupt and contemptuous of the European alliance  rigged the countrys Aug. 9 general election, provoked an unprecedented wave of public protests and then appealed to his neighbour, Russias President Vladimir Putin, to bail him out.

In the U.S., a rattled Donald Trump  also authoritarian, corrupt and contemptuous of the European alliance  is already warning of a rigged election in November, labelling Democrats as fascists who threaten the survival of the nation and refusing to say whether he will step down if he loses.

Whether or not Putin will also be asked by his comrade-in-arms in the White House to help save Trumps skin, it is certainly time to wonder about what may happen as the vote approaches.

How will Donald Trump try to steal the November election? And how can he be stopped?

Let me count the ways.

1. Undermining overall trust

Trumps playbook from the first day he took office has been to undermine public trust in those institutions that could block him. He then has moved aggressively to weaken them. These include the public service, courts and the news media. His current target is the integrity of American elections. The only way were going to lose this election is if this election is rigged, he said this week. He repeated his false claims that election voting, particularly through the mail, has been rife with fraud. Polls suggest that many Americans are starting to believe him.

2. Wrecking the post office

Trump has claimed the U.S. Postal Service is not capable of handling all of the mail-in voting that is expected in the November election in this era of COVID-19, and he seems determined to ensure this is so. Postmaster general Louis DeJoy, a Republican donor recently appointed by Trump, has quietly put into effect operational changes that have slowed down mail delivery and jeopardized efforts to handle the November election. Democrats in Congress are attempting to get these changes reversed.

3. Creating election-day chaos

Russian intelligence agencies interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In fact, a report this week by a Republican-led Senate committee confirmed that Paul Manafort, when he was Trumps campaign manager in 2016, met frequently with a Russian intelligence agent to pass on confidential campaign data. Since then, the Trump administration has done little to protect U.S. election processes from more of the same this year, prompting fears that this upcoming election could be thrown into chaos by a more sophisticated round of Russian computer hacking. This could provide Trump with a pretext to label the election a fraud.

4. Endless court challenges

Chaos on election day, which can manifest itself in a multitude of ways, would delay the final result, likely well past Nov. 3 itself. That would invite a flurry of court challenges in any circumstance where mail-in or absentee ballots are not fully counted until after election day. This seems almost inevitable given the efforts by Trumps team to slow down the counting and suppress the vote whenever possible. What happens if the vote on Nov. 3 favours Trump, but the later ballots favour Democratic challenger Joe Biden? Who will be declared the winner? And will both sides respect the results  or, more likely, will they spill into the streets in protest?

5. Refusing to step down

If the result is disputed and tied up in the courts for weeks, if not months, what happens then? Most experts believe that Trump wouldnt actually try to remain in office beyond January if the Democrats clearly won. If that happened, Biden himself has said he is convinced military leaders will escort him from the White House with great dispatch. But without a clear victory, the road ahead is treacherous. According to the U.S. Constitution, the Speaker of the House of Representatives becomes the acting president if a presidential race is still in doubt. In this case, that would be Nancy Pelosi  hardly a unifying choice in this febrile environment.

There is, of course, a potential scenario that could mitigate, if not completely eliminate, all of these risks. If Joe Biden and the Democrats win the election in a landslide, this could smother the tribal instincts of Trump and the Republicans to try to go down fighting.

But even if current public opinion polls strongly favour the Democrats, that outcome is a long shot.

As Nov. 3 approaches, in spite of the bitterness and division in the U.S., there seems to be a consensus about at least one issue  that this election will be a critical turning point in the history of this broken country.

Not surprisingly, former president Barack Obama  sombre, scathing and at times appearing to be close to tears  said it best Wednesday evening when he spoke to the Democratic National Convention.

Americas future, he warned, hinges on ending Trumps rule.

Any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if thats what it takes to win  Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy.

Amen.

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: @TonyBurman

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Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Midlands unemployment continues to trend lower, recording a second monthly decline as the rate retreats from its high of 12.6 percent recorded in May.

The Texas Workforce Commission said Friday that unemployment in its Midland metropolitan statistical area  which includes Midland and Martin counties  dipped to 9.4 percent in July from 9.5 percent in June. That remains far above the July 2019 unemployment rate of 2.2 percent.
The Supreme Court has extended the term of three Administrative Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal for a period of two months. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde passed the order after noting that connected matters were posted for hearing in the next month.

"The term of three administrative members of the Armed Forces Tribunal was extended for a period of one month by an Order of this Court dated July 16, 2020.

"As all the connected matters are scheduled to be listed for hearing on September 9, 2020, we deem it appropriate that the term of three administrative members of the Armed Forces Tribunal is extended for a period of two more months," the bench said.

According to section 5 of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, the tribunal shall consist of a Chairperson, and such number of Judicial and Administrative Members as the Central Government may deem fit.

A person shall not be qualified for appointment as the Chairperson unless he is a retired Judge of the Supreme Court or a retired Chief Justice of a High Court, as per the Act.

The Armed Forces Tribunal Bar Association had written to the apex court in 2016 seeking appointment of judicial members of AFTs claiming that the work there has almost come to a "standstill".

In the letter to then Chief Justice T S Thakur, copies of which was sent to Defence Minister and Law Minister, Secretary of the AFT (Principal Bench) Bar Association, said there were only five benches functional out of a total of 17, which had resulted in a lack of access to justice to military personnel, disabled soldiers and even widows of defence personnel.

Also Read: New airplane for PM Modi to land in Delhi soon; check out details

Also Read: Coronavirus vaccine: Army, frontline workers may get it first; COVAXIN to be ready by year end
President Shannon welcomes first-time students to campus with his signature selfies! What an emotional blessing to see students return to Freed-Hardeman, their home away from home. They were asked to leave so abruptly last semester; these high retention rates show how excited they are to have the full college experience FHU provides.

In the midst of a pandemic, Freed-Hardeman University has again set enrollment records. Total headcount for Fall 2020 stands at 2,188 students, with 1,727 of those being undergraduates. Both are all-time highs.

First-time, full-time undergraduate students in Henderson increased by 8%. The total, 410 students, is the most since 2014, and the number of residential students, 1,132, is a 10-year high.

High school students beginning their academic careers early also boosted enrollment. A record 346 are taking college courses and completing high school requirements simultaneously.

Particularly gratifying are the 85% fall-to-fall retention rate and the full-time, first-time freshman retention of 82%, both near records. What an emotional blessing to see students return to Freed-Hardeman, their home away from home, David R. Shannon, FHU president, said. They were asked to leave so abruptly last semester; these high retention rates show how excited they are to have the full college experience FHU provides, he continued.

Graduation rates also are strong. The six-year rate of 65% set a new record, and the five-year graduation rate equaled the old record of 63%.

We are grateful to our enrollment management team members, who have worked so hard to stay in touch with prospective students in trying times, Dave Clouse, FHU vice president for community engagement, said, and for the faculty and staff who provide an experience that students are eager to have again.

Most of all, Shannon said, we are thankful to God who blesses again and again. We pray that we will honor Him and that those blessings will continue to advance the noble mission of Freed-Hardeman.

The mission of Freed-Hardeman University is to help students develop their God-given talents for His glory by empowering them with an education that integrates Christian faith, scholarship and service. With locations in Henderson, Memphis and Dickson, FHU offers bachelors, masters, specialists and doctoral degrees. More information is available at http://www.fhu.edu.
Zandu Chemicals Limited

The private equity arm of financial services powerhouse Morgan Stanley is looking to exit Mumbai-based ZCL Chemicals (formerly Zandu Chemicals) and sell its 20 percent stake in the active pharma ingredients (API) maker and exporter, people familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol.

The promoters of the firm, the Parikh family, may also evaluate an exit provided the transaction is struck at the desired valuations, these people added.

Investment bank Jefferies has been mandated for this proposed deal. ZCL Chemicals has a strong backward integrated API business, along with presence in advanced intermediaries and contract manufacturing and this deal is likely to see interest from both strategic and private equity players, one of the persons cited above told Moneycontrol.

The Parikh family and the Vaidya family were the erstwhile co-promoters of another company named Zandu Pharmaceuticals, which owned the popular brand Zandu Balm, among other Ayurvedic products. In 2008-09, Zandu Pharmaceuticals was acquired by the Emami Group for around Rs 730 crore after a protracted takeover battle with the Parikh family.

APIs are the raw material that give drugs the intended therapeutic effect and dometic players in this segment have thrived since COVID-19 rocked the global API hub China and the focus shifted to India. In December 2016, Morgan Stanley PE Asia picked up 20 percent of ZCL Chemicals for Rs 170 crore, valuing the firm at around Rs 850 crore.

The promoters are seeking a valuation of 15 times projected FY21 Ebidta (which is Rs 120-Rs 130 crore).This translates into a valuation of Rs 1,800 crore- Rs 1,950 crore for the firm. If they get this valuation, a majority stake sale is on the cards, a second individual told Moneycontrol. A third individual confirmed the same.

All the three individuals spoke to Moneycontrol on the condition of anonymity. Moneycontrol is awaiting an email response from ZCL Chemicals and has sent multiple reminders. This article will be updated as soon as we hear from the company. Jefferies and Morgan Stanley PE declined to comment in response to queries from Moneycontrol.

THE INDIAN API FRENZY

In the API space, there are a few tailwinds. Pricing has improved and there is a trend to switch to Indian firms with global players de-risking their dependence on Chinese suppliers. This has bumped up valuations both in the listed space and it is logical to expect some impact in the private space too, said Amey Chalke, vice- president, healthcare sector, Haitong Securities.

Recent deals like Advent-Ra Chem Pharma, Carlyle  Sequent Scientific and Carlyle Piramal Enterprises are examples of rising interest from private equity funds in the domestic API segment. The government is also pushing for greater domestic manufacturing with incentives for the segment and manufacturing in special API parks.

Established in 1991, ZCL Chemicals has a US FDA approved facility with a capacity of 214 kl along with research and development capabilities located in the industrial park of Ankleshwar, Gujarat. It is a 100 percent EOU (Export Oriented Unit) engaged in manufacturing and exports of advanced drug intermediates and APIs, focusing on the niche therapeutic areas of CNS (central nervous system), ARVs ( antiretroviral) and controlled substances. Up to 90 percent of the firms revenue comes from established markets (US and Europe) and it focuses on low to medium volume and high value products. More than 50 percent of its revenues come from products which are still under patent, its website says.

MORGAN STANLEY PES INDIA FOOTPRINT

Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia specialises in privately negotiated minority investments in companies with substantial business operations in the Asia-Pacific region. It invests across sectors, particularly in the areas of consumer products, industrial products, financial services, healthcare and telecom/technology. In India, its portfolio includes urban focused micro finance company Jana Small Finance Bank, NBFCs Kogta Financial India Ltd & Five Star Business Finance, packaged food products company Southern Health Foods & education services company Nspira.
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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 13:05 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f83cd0 1 National police,human-trafficking,prostitution,karaoke Free

The National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) has named six people suspects of an alleged human trafficking ring that offered prostitution services at the Executive Venesia BSD Karaoke parlor in South Tangerang, Banten.

We have named three [alleged] pimps and three company management officials suspects, Bareskrim general crimes director Brig. Gen. Ferdy Sambo told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The police also secured 47 victims, consisting of women working as karaoke hostesses in Jakarta, West Java and East Java. The police sent the women to the Watunas Mulya Jata social rehabilitation center in East Jakarta.

Bareskrim previously raided the karaoke parlor on Thursday under suspicion of sexual exploitation. They arrested 13 people, including seven pimps, three cashier workers, a supervisor, an operational manager and a general manager.

The venue had allegedly been running a prostitution service since June, pricing it at Rp 1.1 million (US$74.69) to Rp 1.3 million.

During the raid, the police also confiscated evidence, namely 14 kimono dresses, a voucher for the prostitution service dated Aug. 19, 12 boxes of condoms and hotel receipts. They also seized Rp 730 million in cash allegedly obtained through the service.
Fr Stephen Rooney who drowned in a boating accident in the US. Photo: Belfast Telegraph

A Belfast priest whose body was recovered from a river following a boating accident was the pride of his community, those who knew him have said.

Clergyman Fr Stephen Rooney (66), who had been a priest in the US for 30 years, went missing after a boating accident in the Detroit river on Sunday.

The incident occurred near Grosse Ile, an island between Michigan and Ontario, Canada.

It's understood the priest was on board a 39-foot speedboat which hit a rock in the river and overturned.

Ten people were rescued, three of them children.

Another man, Robert Chiles, also died in the accident.

Fr Rooney, who came originally from Belfast's Short Strand area, was a pastor at St Joseph's parish in Trenton in the Diocese of Detroit, and regularly returned to Ireland to visit his family.

His brother, Pilib O Ruanaidh, told RTE News the family has been notified that the body has been discovered.

Archbishop of Detroit, Allan Vigneron, offered his condolences, saying: "I am deeply grieved by Sunday's tragic boating incident and the loss of Fr Rooney and St Joseph parishioner Robert Chiles.

"Father Rooney was a beloved pastor and my deepest condolences go out to the parish community in this time of grief.

"Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them."

The Belfast priest's home parish of St Matthew's asked for prayers from parishioners on social media, as had the Passionist community at Tobar Mhuire, Crossgar, where Fr Rooney had spent time at the start of his training for the priesthood.

Parishioner Tricia Mohr said of Fr Rooney: "He always made you laugh. He served God with such joy. He was a great guy."

Sinn Fein's Senator Niall O Donnghaile and Mairead O'Donnell sent condolences to the Rooney family after the body of Fr Stephen was recovered.

"Our heartfelt sympathies are with our friends and neighbours in the extended Rooney family at this most difficult time," they said. "The entire community has been in solidarity with them over the arduous days since Fr Stephen went missing following a boating accident on Detroit River last Sunday evening.

"We will continue to offer any support the family may need in the coming days and weeks ahead. The Short Strand community is very proud of Fr Stephen and proud of the impact he had on so many others.

"Fr Stephen may have left the Short Strand to fulfil his vocation but the Short Strand never left him," they said.
Attending college from a laptop in your childhood bedroom might not be the experience you had in mind.

But just because youre not living in a dorm this fall doesnt mean that expenses disappear. Your cost of attendance might have changed if youre learning remotely due to COVID-19, but colleges will factor at-home or off-campus living expenses into your overall costs.

And you can still use financial aid  including student loans  to pay for them.

How cost of attendance works

Colleges determine their own cost of attendance for each academic year. This amount factors in all of your direct costs including tuition, fees, room and board, as well as estimates for books, supplies, technology and transportation. Schools often have different cost-of-attendance calculations for students who live in dorms, off campus or even in another state.

Your financial aid and student loans are applied first toward tuition and fees, then room and board. Any remaining funds are distributed to you to use for living expenses.

Your aid package might shift if your cost of attendance changes.

For example, you can borrow money only up to the total cost of attendance; if that number goes down, so does the amount you can borrow. And if any part of your aid package is pegged to living on campus and you no longer are, your aid could change.

How cost of attendance is different this year

Cost of attendance is adjusted annually, but some schools are modifying their calculations due to the pandemic. For example, Williams College, a private school in Williamstown, Massachusetts, reduced its cost of attendance for 2020-21 by 15%. Williams College is planning a hybrid of in-person and remote learning  students can live on campus if they want to.

Schools that go fully remote will have few  or no  options for on-campus housing. And that could mean heading back to your parents' house or finding off-campus accommodations.

Your school might break down the cost of attendance according to your living situation. Heres what 2020-21 looks like at the University of California, Berkeley, for example, where students will attend remotely for the start of the fall semester:

Living in a campus residence hall: $42,460.

Living in an on-campus apartment: $39,876.

Living in an off-campus apartment: $36,920.

Living with relatives: $29,492.

If your school goes remote, the cost of attendance will be modified for all students. But if you have the choice to return to campus and stay home instead, you must let the college know your plans so your cost is adjusted.

Its actually less expensive if students stay home and take classes remotely, says William Hudson Jr., vice president for student affairs at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, which is planning a hybrid approach.

Cost of attendance represents the ceiling on what you can borrow. Every dollar you dont have to borrow is a dollar you dont have to repay, with interest, down the road. That means if you stay home rent-free or share an apartment with others to save on living costs, youre way ahead in the long run.

Here are some possible college living arrangements youll have in the fall and how to pay for them:

Living on campus for in-person or online classes

If your school is operating an in-person or hybrid model where you live on campus, your cost of attendance wont change, which means your financial aid wont change either.

But your campus could close during the school year due to COVID-19. If this happens, as it did to many colleges last spring, your school will likely reimburse a prorated amount for nontuition costs like room, board and facility fees.

Multiple schools that are planning to open in person are also moving to remote instruction after Thanksgiving break. Some schools are also staggering move-in dates. Those factors could alter the total cost of room and board youre paying this semester.

For example, at Penn State University, students will start the fall semester in person but switch to remote learning in late November. To reflect this change, the cost of a standard double room was lowered by $607  from $3,427 to $2,820  and the midlevel meal plan was lowered from $2,449 to $2,193.

Living off campus on your own or with roommates

Living off campus, you wont have room and board taken into consideration, but you'll have additional expenses like rent, groceries and utilities. You can use financial aid to pay these bills.

Colleges often use regional data and student surveys to come up with estimates for off-campus rent and utilities, and oftentimes those amounts arent too different from living on campus, says Jill Desjean, policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. However, your school will always consider living off campus to be cheaper than living on campus.

Montclair State University in New Jersey, for example, estimates that housing and meals for in-state students who live off campus will cost $13,068 for the fall semester, compared with $16,193 for room and board on campus.

Living at home with your parents

Your expenses may be lower at home with your parents than living on your own or on campus, but colleges will factor into their estimates the costs your parents take on by having you home, Desjean says.

When you bring that student back in, the lights are on longer, you have to feed them so the cost of food goes up, heating  everything goes up, Desjean says. You can use financial aid to offset your contribution to increased home bills.

And remember that the schools cost of attendance impacts how much financial aid you can get, but it's an estimate rather than an exhaustive list. You might need additional technology and equipment to learn more effectively from home, such as a dedicated desk setup and laptop if you dont have one.

How to get more funds for living expenses

If you or your family run into financial difficulty during the school year, ask your school about getting more financial aid. This requires you to submit a financial aid appeal to your school with a letter and to update the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.

You might also qualify for emergency aid such as cash grants, completion scholarships, emergency student loans or vouchers.

Anna Helhoski is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: anna@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @AnnaHelhoski.

The article College Going Online? Student Loans Still Cover Living Costs originally appeared on NerdWallet.

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The Laredo Convention and Visitors Bureau had a presentation Thursday morning to launch a new logo it hopes will attract more people to the city.

The new logo comes at a time when the citys tourism his been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic like many places around the country and the world. The CVB hopes the new logo will generate attention from potential visitors all over the United States, Mexico and elsewhere.

Today, we launched the new logo for Visit Laredo, and from now on we will be using this logo for all of our promotion in the U.S. and we will start the transition in Mexico, Director for the Laredo Convention and Visitors Bureau Aileen Ramos said.

The new logo was created in house by members of the convention bureau and also in part by a study that reflected on the main target markets for the Laredo area in order to reach a large number of people. The new logo is intended to be encompassing enough to bring people from the United States and Mexico to the city.

The CVB team began working on this project last year. We recognized that our U.S. campaign and our look overall needed refreshing, Ramos said. We wanted the same flexibility and connection to our market that we have with our campaigns in Mexico, and in partnership with Relic, our current marketing agency, we have achieved our initial goal.

Relic traveled to Laredo during the Summer of 2019 to experience the destination firsthand. They met with stakeholders, partners, community representatives as well as city management and listened to the different perspectives, comments and expectations from the different groups. With that information they went back home and started working on our new campaign and overall brand.

Laredos economy has been hit hard by travel restrictions on Mexican tourists. The bureau hopes the logo helps attract these individuals and others in efforts to safeguard the tourism aspect of the city as Laredo is in a unique area that forms a gateway for people traveling, especially around holidays.

Tourism is key for the City of Laredo, not only because of the impact of the visitors staying at a hotel, but also due to the overall economic impact to the community when they shop, visit an attraction, participate in a tournament or a convention, Ramos said. Based on a study through the Office of the Governor, we know that as an example visitors from Nuevo Leon or Coahuila spend an average of $1,200 for the entire travel party with the majority spent in shopping, lodging and dining.

The affects of the pandemic on the local tourism and hospitality industry are already well felt throughout the city. Although there has been an increase in the number of hotels being visited compared to when the pandemic began, the numbers are still significantly lower than usual and are largely from business travel.

Unfortunately, due to the stay-at-home orders around the state and the rest of the U.S. and the travel restrictions for international travelers, tourism has seen a large decrease. We know and understand that health and safety is first, and we hope that things get better soon so that we can once again welcome our visitors to Laredo, Ramos said. The occupancy rate at the beginning of the crisis was in the 30s but has consistently increased, and we are currently in the high 50s and low 60s. This is due in part to our business and government travelers that continue utilizing the services at the local hotels.

Aside from the logo unveiling, the CVB has also initiated other projects to try to bring more tourism to the area once the pandemic is over or at least under control.

According to Ramos, part of the analysis made by Relic focused on the destinations of the city and helped define the personas and target markets to focus on to attract more people. The target demographics include retirees, the Hispanic market, the U.S. market outside of Texas and business travelers.

When the time is right, we will focus on these groups to increase the number of visitors to our destination, Ramos said.

The CBV said it is ready to launch its U.S. campaign to reach people throughout the country. The title of the ads will be Here We Rise Together and the The Place to be Together.

However, this project will only be launched once it becomes safer to travel around the country as COVID-19 cases remain high throughout the United States.

This is our general campaign, ready to launch as soon as it is safe to travel and the number of active cases in our community has declined, Ramos said. It highlights three key messages of unity, history and culture. This is what makes Laredo different than any other destination and what our potential visitors seek.

jorge.vela@lmtonline.com
By Hyon O'Brien





One day, years ago, when we lived in New Jersey, we were returning from Manhattan after seeing a Broadway show when I spotted a woman's pocketbook lying on the side of the road. We were able to stop the car and retrieve it. We called the woman using the identification in her wallet, and she came to meet us and reclaim her property. She was an Israeli without much English so she couldn't explain how she had lost her purse, which remains an intriguing mystery. But we were glad to be able to return her things to her.



I had another "lost and found" episode in Italy. Four of us, old high school classmates, decided to celebrate our 60th birthdays by going on a cruise. When we arrived at the airport in Rome, one of our suitcases was not on the carousel in the luggage claim area. We reported the missing item to the Lost and Found Department, and provided the name of our ship and its itinerary. We left the port that night without any news of the suitcase. I shared my clothing and toiletries with my friend, Soonja, who had lost her bag. Fortunately, the airline staff did a fabulous job, forwarding it to the next port of our cruise. You can imagine my relief as I didn't have enough to share for a 10-day journey.



Kakaotalk is one of the apps I use every day. One of the coolest features is free calling and texting to anyone around the world who has downloaded the same app. I am fortunate that my college classmates decided to create a group chat using Kakaotalk. Currently more than 60 of us are on it. Apart from a dozen or so close friends, I had lost touch with the majority of my classmates since graduation in 1969.



For me this has been a joyful case of "lost and found" as I regularly follow the discussions of the group. Once in a while I chat one-on-one with those in the States to enquire after their well-being during the pandemic. It is so gratifying to connect this way. I have found a treasure box.



We lost "in person" meetings because of the coronavirus but we have found "Zoom" meetings. I appreciate online Rotary meetings, our church's worship services, and book and film clubs. FaceTime also provides much needed virtual encounters with those we cannot meet in person.



I believe Zoom may replace many business trips even when the pandemic is behind us. Worldwide, our Rotary International organizations now have easy access to each other by clicking on the links for meetings. The other day I invited a Rotarian from Chennai, India to join our weekly meeting, a previously unheard of advantage.



We can also see the interplay of "lost and found" in our mental and spiritual life. "Amazing Grace", the famous hymn written by Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725-1807) was based on his personal spiritual awakening. Newton was involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm rocked his vessel on the coast of County Donegal, Ireland. It was so severe that he called out to God for mercy. That moment marked his spiritual conversion.



Once lost, now found thanks to God's grace, he ultimately repented and quit the slave trade, and went to a seminary to study Christian theology. Newton wrote the words to "Amazing Grace" to illustrate his sermon on New Year 's Day 1773. In 1835, American composer William Walker set it to the tune known as "New Britain," the version most frequently heard today. It has been estimated that this hymn is performed some 10 million times annually. Newton felt that his earlier life without God had been a life lost in darkness and selfishness, but once he had found God he became a new creation.



"The Second Mountain" by David Brooks (1961- ), a Canadian born American who writes for the New York Times, describes the two mountains we climb in our lives. The first mountain is our life of acquisition: getting an education, building a career and accumulating knowledge and wealth. Having climbed and conquered the first mountain, we human beings often feel empty when we discover that there is no ultimately meaningful purpose to be found there. So some of us start searching for meaning and purpose in our life on Earth.



That's when we start climbing the second mountain, in which we let go of "self" and integrate with others to help others, build up others and work for others. No longer seeking self-sufficiency and independence, we welcome interdependence and connections. We begin to learn how to yield for the common good, looking at the bigger picture. We join others in serving the community, and find satisfaction intermingling with like-minded people seeking a moral compass. In a way, we were "lost" after climbing the first mountain, but we "found" our true selves by climbing the second mountain.



I pray that all my readers will be engaged in climbing the second mountain and find a deep sense of well-being. I will meet you there.



Hyon O'Brien (hyonobrien@gmail.com) is a former reference librarian now living in the United States.


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A boat tour captain has captured the incredible moment a killer whale flipped an unlucky seal into the air using its tail.

Captain Andrew Lees, 51, snapped the breathtaking images on August 16 after he spotted a male Bigg's orca swimming in the water near Sidney Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Lees had been leading a Five Star Whale Watching tour, a company he has owned since 2017, when he came across the orca.

Captain Andrew Lees, 51, had been leading a boat tour near Sidney Island, British Columbia, Canada, on August 16 when he came across a pod of Bigg's orca

One of the male killer whales was seen swimming and splashing around in the water before accidentally catching a seal in its tail

With an powerful flick the Bigg's orca flung the unlucky seal high into the air leaving behind a large wall of water

The 51-year-old from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, observed a young male orca from the pod called T10 as it flicked its tail and flipped itself in the water.

However, with one final flick of its tail, the orca managed to fling an unlucky seal into the air in the Haro Strait.

The seal crashed back down into the water before two other killer whales arrived to feed the male.

speaking about the astonishing sight, Andrew said: 'It was truly breathtaking. Everyone on board was astonished by what we'd seen, including myself.

'Never have I captured something like this on camera before. I have been involved in whale watching since 2005 but have seen an orca do this to a seal or porpoise only a handful of times.

The seal was flung high into the air by the playful Bigg's orca near Sidney Island, British Columbia

Captain Lees has only seen a killer whale fling another animal into the air a handful of times in 15 years

After it had flicked the seal into the air, the killer whale was joined by two other whales who then fed it underwater

'It's not often we see them doing it with the tail like that. It happens but that's definitely one of those rarer activities we see out there.

'It was an unbelievable sight and showed the power and skill of these apex predators.

'The son and mum had been hunting seals near the rocks and kelp so we stopped. Then we noticed he turned upside down and all of a sudden I saw the tail fly up and I saw the seal mid-air.

'It was the height that the seal caught that particular day and the way the male had gone on his back to do it, which really struck me.'

Jackie Hildering, a director at the Marine Education and Research Society in Port McNeill, told the Vancouver Sun that orcas will often put on dramatic displays with their prey when learning to socialise with other animals.
PISCATAWAY, N.J., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Amplo Global Inc announced today that its AI-powered platform is now available on the MicrosoftAppSource and Microsoft Azure Marketplace  their online stores providing applications and services for use on Azure. Launched in Summer 2019, AmploFly4.0 platform, their proprietary design-led productized solution, is already helping an array of diverse organizations build the AI, machine learning and design-led strategy necessary to effectively identify, address and achieve their new normal.

The AmploGlobal Rocket soaring to the sky, celebrating now being available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace and AppSource. Includes logos for AmploFly4.0, Microsoft Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource.

Brian Bell, Director at Microsoft's Commercial Marketplace, said, "On Microsoft Azure Marketplace and AppSource, customers around the world can easily find, buy, and deploy partner solutions they can trust, all certified and optimized to run on Azure. We're happy to welcome Amplo Global and their AmploFly4.0 solution to the growing Azure Marketplace ecosystem."

The Microsoft AppSource & Azure Marketplace are online markets for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure, connecting companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed ready-to-use solutions. The availability of AmploFly4.0 on AppSource will make it easier for established Azure customers to purchase and use this innovative solution.

AmploFly4.0 is ideally suited for the Microsoft AppSource and Azure Marketplace. The platform provides an organization with greater ability to identify and frame their challenges, to engage in process decomposition and capability modeling, to establish KPIs and to benefit from augmented design thinking. Its roadmapping capabilities encourage the concept of continuous integration.

By providing a holistic approach to an organization's strategy, AmploFly4.0 helps to prioritize operational efficiency, provide for greater information transparency, foster interconnectivity, eliminate internal silos, fuel innovation, explore and refine new business models and revenue sources, all while supporting a commitment to continuous improvement throughout the journey.

Anirban Bhattacharyya, Amplo Global Co-Founder and CEO, expressed his excitement about the latest development for his company. "This news, coming just weeks after our acceptance into the prestigious Microsoft For Startups program, further confirms the respect and response AmploFly4.0 is receiving. We are appreciative of the opportunity to make our self-directed platform more readily available to those smart organizations focused on driving successful digital transformation."

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Holly Hansen

Email: [email protected]

Tel: 408-502-6063

About Amplo Global Inc.

Amplo Global Inc is an AI-driven company committed to empowering an organization to take control of its future in today's ever-changing digital world. Their proprietary, cloud-based, data-led and design-led platform enables a business to self-direct its strategy in a quantifiable manner, improve interconnectivity, achieve greater information transparency, reimagine its value chain, refine its customer/supplier relationships and recharge its company culture. Amplo Global Inc, founded in 2018, is headquartered in New Jersey, but has associates and partners throughout the globe, including Europe, India and Singapore.

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AmploFly4.0 now in Microsoft App Source and Azure Marketplace

The AmploGlobal Rocket soaring to the sky, celebrating now being available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace and AppSource. Includes logos for AmploFly4.0, Microsoft Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource.

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India is struggling as a nation to combat against the exhausting medical supplies and frontline warriors but it's also finding ways to curb the spread. Amid the surge in the coronavirus cases, city-based Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology and Modulus Housing, a startup incubated at IIT Madras, have jointly developed a technology for setting up portable and deployable hospitals for COVID-19 management.

IIT madras facebook

This is claimed to be a first such initiative in the country.

As a pilot project, a 16-bedded hospital has been set up at Varadoor in the remote Wayanad district of Kerala and a 30-bed unit at Chennai's Sugah hospital.

A 100-bed facility will soon come up in Karnataka, N N Subhash, Scientist Engineer of the BiomedicalEngineering wing of the SCTIMST, told PTI.

"The model is a collapsible cabin which when folded can be transported easily. A hospital of 1600 square feet can be folded and transported in just one trailer," he said.

SCTIMST, an institution of National importance under the Department of Science and Technology, and Modulus, signed an MOU for developing the four zone deployable field hospital structures which can be assembled in a few hours by four people.

The engineers of the biomedical technology wing of Sree Chitra came up with the deployable four zone strategy and design requirements of emergency hospital field units for COVID-19 management.

The design requirements for the 'negative pressure' deployable units were derived from international health facility guidelines (IHFG) and Guidelines for setting up ward and isolation facilities by the Central Health ministry.

The Engineering team also got the expert opinion from Dr Shareek PS, Infectious Diseases and Infection Control at SUT Hospital and PRS hospital before pilot installation, Dr Asha Kishore, SCTIMST Director said.

The four zone layout has facilities for doctors and nurses, suspected, positive and critical patients besides other health workers and also has ICU facilities.

"There is a pressing demand for deployable emergency response field units like field wards, ICU units, tents. among others. Collectively, these factors prompt us to work on a four zone strategy based deployable field hospital for COVID-19 management.

Also a network of such modular micro hospitals across the country can potentially become the backbone of rural health infrastructure in India post COVID-19," an Institute release said.

IIT madras facebook page

Subhash said the frame is made of galvanised iron and these are metallic structures which are fire, termite and water resistant panels made of mineral-polymer composite.
Police officers wearing protective gear head toward Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul for a search and seizure operation, Aug. 21. / Yonhap



Police on Friday raided the church at the center of the recent spike in coronavirus outbreaks following a failed attempt to secure a full list of its members.



A court issued a warrant for search and seizure for Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul. Police began the operation after an attorney for the church arrived, police officers said.



On late Thursday, officials from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention visited the church to obtain a list of its congregant but failed to do so due to a strong protest by church officials and followers.



The move comes as a recent spike in COVID-19 infection cases in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province is tied to the church.



Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon of the church took part in a massive anti-government rally attended by approximately 20,000 people at Gwanghwamun Square, central Seoul, on Saturday, leading church members and his political followers from around the country. It is not known exactly how many of the church congregants participated in the event. Jun and several of his aides tested positive after the rally.



The officials arrived at the church, located in the northern ward of Seongbuk, at around 5 p.m. Thursday, after they tried unsuccessfully in their first attempt in the morning.



Once they entered the church compound, they initially faced strong protest from church officials who demanded a search and seizure warrant. The search began at 8 p.m. and finished around 3:30 a.m.



Around 30 congregants gathered in front of the church while the search operation was going on. Some right-wing YouTubers who were at the scene spread misinformation that police were trying to tear down the church, which provoked angry responses from worshipers.



An official from the ward office said the original list of 900 congregants was not "correct."



But lawyers of the church claimed that they have already submitted the full list of the congregation to the authorities but they trespassed on the church compound without legal grounds.



"I checked the official document issued by the Seoul municipal government, but our church was not subject to the epidemiological examination," lawyer Kang Yeon-jae, who represents pastor Jun, said in a press conference on Friday. "But city officials demanded us to open the gate and police officers dragged citizens out from the church compound."



She said the church will take legal steps against the illegal execution, suing Seoul city's acting Mayor Seo Jeong-hyup for employing violence.



Pastor Jun released a statement on a YouTube channel earlier in the day, blaming "virus terrors by outside forces" for the massive outbreak in his church. He has been admitted to a Seoul hospital since he was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19.



"I'm sorry that I have caused health concerns," he wrote. "My church has fully complied with the anti-virus guidelines ... I am curious about the origin of the virus."



It is considered hard to know the exact size of its congregation. According to a person who is familiar with the church, the total number is estimated to be around 2,000-3,000. In one text message that the church sent out outside, the number was 4,000.



The church and pastor Jun have been magnets for conservatives critical of the Moon Jae-in government who flock to the church from around the country to attend Jun's sermons and political rallies.



As of Friday morning, 732 coronavirus infections have been tied to the church, and transmissions have continued through religious facilities and workplaces around the country, according to the KCDC.



The KCDC has been contact tracing and doing epidemiological studies in some 150 places linked to the church cluster, the country's second biggest since the outbreak in the Shincheonji Church of Jesus earlier this year.



The country reported 324 new cases Friday, the eighth straight day of triple-digit jumps and the first time that the number passed the 300 mark since March 8 when it recorded 367 infection cases. The country's total caseload is 16,670. (Yonhap)


Wang Nianyin was still asleep on the second floor of his Lulu Cat Cafe on Wednesday morning when water seeped onto the picturesque stone streets outside.

The waters around Chongqing city - where the Jialing River meets the arcing Yangtze - always rise with the summer rains. But never like this.

By midday, Wang and scores of businesses had evacuated. By afternoon, parts of their district, the ancient porcelain-crafting village of Ciqikou, was 5 feet underwater. Riverside highways vanished. Cresting waves threatened to reach elevated rail tracks.

As China enters a third month of devastating flooding, it is grappling with catastrophic damage that has spread from the central provinces to the upper Yangtze - a region that includes Chongqing, a city of 30 million - and Sichuan province, in the high-altitude southwest. So far, 63 million people have been affected and 15 million acres of farmland destroyed - an area the size of West Virginia. In official statements, the government has placed the floods on the same level as the coronavirus pandemic when describing shocks to China this year.

Earlier this week, the central broadcaster showed China's top two leaders, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, arriving from Beijing to inspect preparations and issue instructions ahead of a potential sixth wave of flooding that officials in Chongqing warn could strike in September if rainfall does not relent.

Although the People's Liberation Army regularly provides disaster relief for floods and earthquakes, the remarks by Xi, who has called the situation grim, and the sheer scale of the mobilization underscored the gravity of the crisis and the urgency of the all-hands response.

The Chinese military has mobilized 1.2 million troops across 17 provinces to evacuate about 170,000 residents and reinforce embankments and roads, according to state media. On Thursday, Yangtze water levels in Chongqing hit a record, as did the flood peak at the Three Gorges Dam, where dam operators pledged to stand on "wartime footing."

"This flood battle is a practical test of the leadership and command system of our army, and the army's combat readiness and ability to perform the tasks," Xi, dressed in olive drab, told officers Thursday in Anhui province, which is also suffering heavy losses.

In Chongqing, Wang and other residents said much of Ciqikou was still underwater on Friday and there was no electricity throughout the neighborhood.

Wang said he couldn't wade back to his cafe to check its condition. Down the street, the owner of the Wangjianglou restaurant, which typically boasts of its location overlooking the Jialing River, said the first floor of his eatery was still 5 feet underwater. The restaurant owner, who spoke by telephone and asked that his name be withheld, said he didn't bother to save his restaurant.

"It's pointless to move things outdoors," he fumed. "The street is flooded, too."

Zhang Faxing, a hydrologist at Sichuan University, said Sichuan is used to summer floods but it's highly unusual to see a disaster of this scale, and this level of rainfall well into August.

"We should stay on alert for further flooding in upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze until mid-September," Zhang said. "Extreme weather means more uncertainty for all those who live along major rivers in the south, but the possibility of more heavy rains in China's inland areas remains quite small."

For China, the story of battling yearly floods is the story of the nation itself: King Yu, according to the Chinese origin myth, overcame a great flood 4,000 years ago to found the first prehistoric dynasty.

But government officials have warned that increasingly extreme weather and flooding are worsening with climate change. In 2015, a joint report by several Chinese ministries said the country was particularly vulnerable to drought, flooding and sea-level rise. A number of Chinese papers, including the latest annual report by the China Meteorological Administration, have noted an increase in the frequency of extreme rainfall in the past 60 years.

Intense reclamation and development of wetland along the Yangtze River has also hampered the basin's ability to absorb floods, experts say.

Anders Levermann, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said he estimated that China's economic losses resulting from flooding will rise 80% in the next decades as a result of more extreme rainfall caused by climate change.

"It's really a basic physical law," he said.

Coming on the heels of the coronavirus outbreak in January, the floods are wreaking another round of economic disruption. The Yangtze, Asia's longest river, connects Shanghai on the Pacific coast with Wuhan and Chongqing. Its basin accounts for about 45% of China's economic output and a third of its population.

So far, the Chinese government has touted its flood control measures as significantly more advanced compared with even five years ago and predicted a relatively limited impact of $15 billion in direct losses. But those estimates have been steadily inching up in recent weeks.

On China's stock exchanges, a flurry of notices to shareholders this week showed a glimpse of the havoc in southern Sichuan: Leshan Shenghe, a publicly traded rare earth producer, Tongwei, one of the world's leading silicon producers, and a photovoltaic cell maker have all blamed flooded factories for their output grinding to a halt.

Although the floods began in some areas as early as March, they have been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and U.S.-China conflict, which continues to dominate social media chatter. The People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, began mentioning the floods on social media in June with lighthearted headlines, using repeated rain emoji and labeling an aerial photograph of a post-flood landscape "idyllic."

In Jiangxi, another hard-hit area, provincial officials also tried to put a positive spin on the situation in recent weeks as they described the floods as "not a thoroughly bad thing" in a Weibo post that was condemned by citizens.

Zhang Feng, a Beijing-based media critic who blogs on Tencent, noted that the coverage was all drone footage shot from afar.

"There is no room for suffering," Zhang wrote. "The images of floods sweeping away homes, pigs and humans drowning, corpses rotting and garbage spread all over after the floods will never be captured by drones in bird's eye views."

- - -

The Washington Post's Wang Yuan, Lyric Li and Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.
Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon's worldwide consumer business and widely considered to be a potential successor to Jeff Bezos, will retire next year, Amazon announced in a regulatory filing Friday.

Dave Clark, senior vice president of retail operations, will succeed Wilke after he retires, Amazon said.

In a memo to employees, titled "Hanging up the flannel," CEO Bezos called Wilke "an incredible teacher to all of us" and said Clark is well-suited to assume Wilke's role.

"Since Jeff joined the company, I have been lucky enough to have him as my tutor," Bezos said. "Jeff's legacy and impact will live on long after he departs. He is simply one of those people without whom Amazon would be completely unrecognizable."

Wilke, 53, has been with Amazon for over two decades, joining the company in 1999 to lead global operations. Since then, he's risen through the ranks and now oversees the company's core e-commerce and physical retail business. Wilke is one of the closest executives to report to Bezos and was widely considered to be a potential successor for Bezos should he ever step down.

Clark also has a storied history at Amazon, joining the company in 1999 as an operations manager. In 2013, Clark was tapped to become Amazon's global logistics chief, overseeing the company's growing network of warehouses, along with last-mile delivery operations spanning trucks, vans and airplanes. Clark's attention to detail and tough management style has earned him the nickname "The Sniper," due to his tendency to spot and fire workers slacking on the job in the name of ensuring fast delivery.

Wilke will leave his high-profile post at Amazon following one of its most challenging periods. Amazon, like many retailers, found itself grappling with a logistical nightmare at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, as its warehouses became quickly overwhelmed with online orders at higher levels than it typically sees during the holiday shopping rush. Clark helped Amazon navigate through the dual crises of delivery delays and rising tensions with warehouse workers who called for greater safety protections.

Both Wilke and Clark are members of Bezos' S-Team, a tight-knight group of over a dozen senior executives from almost all areas of Amazon's business, such as retail, cloud computing, advertising and operations. The S-team rarely sees its members depart and if they do, their roles aren't always replaced. Last year, another member of the S-Team, Jeff Blackburn, Amazon's SVP of business and corporate development, announced he was taking a one-year sabbatical starting in 2020.

Bezos on Friday made three new additions to the S-team, including Amazon's vice president of global customer fulfillment, Alicia Boler Davis, John Felton, vice president of global delivery services, and Dave Treadwell, vice president of Amazon's eCommerce Foundation, which oversees the core systems, services and infrastructure powering amazon.com.

Boler Davis is the first Black woman to serve on Bezos' S-team. Bezos has gradually diversified his circle of top executives, adding two women to the S-team last year, including Colleen Aubrey, vice president of performance advertising and Christine Beauchamp, vice president of Amazon fashion. Before that, Beth Galetti, vice president of human resources, was the only woman who held a position on Bezos' senior leadership team.

Amazon declined to comment further on Wilke's plan to retire.

Read Bezos' full letter to Amazon employees below:

From: Jeff Bezos

To: Amazon Worldwide employees

Subject: RE: Hanging up the flannel

Date: August 21, 2020

After more than two decades, Jeff Wilke is planning to retire from Amazon early next year. I've attached below the heartfelt note he just sent to his organization sharing that news.

Since Jeff joined the company, I have been lucky enough to have him as my tutor. I've learned so much from him, and I'm not the only one. He's been an incredible teacher to all of us. That form of leadership is so leveraged. When you see us taking care of customers, you can thank Jeff for it. And there's this important point: in tough moments and good ones, he's been just plain fun to work with. Never underestimate the importance of that. It makes a difference.

Jeff's legacy and impact will live on long after he departs. He is simply one of those people without whom Amazon would be completely unrecognizable. Thank you, Jeff, for your contributions and your friendship.

Jeff has also set us up to succeed in his absence. I can't think of someone more suited to step into Jeff's role than Dave Clark. Those of you who have worked with Dave know his incredible passion for serving customers and supporting our employees  I am excited for him to lead our teams and continue innovating for customers.

I'd also like to congratulate our new S-team members Alicia Boler Davis, John Felton, and Dave Treadwell. I look forward to inventing with you.

Jeff

Here's the memo Wilke sent to employees:

From: Jeff Wilke

To: Worldwide Consumer Employees

Subject: Hanging up the flannel

Date: August 21, 2020

Heading into my 22nd holiday season at Amazon, I'm once more looking at the flannel shirts that fill my closet rack. This holiday with Amazon will be different in many ways. And it will be my last.

In December 1999, I left work most evenings  along with most of my colleagues from the half of a floor of Key Tower that housed the entire corporate operations team  to head to the Seattle Distribution Center to pack boxes and gift wrap presents. We also traveled to our buildings in Nevada, Kentucky, and Kansas. I always packed flannel shirts for these trips to colder parts of the country. Our main purpose was to ensure we shipped all customer orders in time for the holiday. But we benefitted in other ways from these visits. We got to see how the physical operations connected to our digital store, and I got to personally inspect our safety culture. We made new friends (and a few of these friendships led to marriages). And, perhaps most importantly, we gained enormous respect for the dedication and customer focus of our fellow employees who worked away from headquarters.

A few years later  with the help of an operational excellence focus built on Lean, statistical process control, a clear understanding of our bottlenecks, and purpose-built software  we didn't need to send corporate employees out to fulfillment centers (FCs) to add much-needed bandwidth supporting our associates. Everyone cheered our improving operational capability, but I noticed something was lost. Holiday conversations in our frugal, but comfortable, Seattle offices increasingly turned to holiday parties and eggnog, and away from the stories of FC heroics. I didn't hear the same sharing of respect for the work being done in our FCs, and I was committed to reconnecting corporate employees to operations.

We created Customer Connections so that every new employee spent time in an FC or Customer Service. I doubled down on representing our Operations team in the corporate environment, including starting every meeting with a safety tip. And I started to wear my flannel shirts every day of Q4. The flannel gave me a chance to talk about our operations and remind everyone of how dedicated and customer-focused our colleagues in the field were, too.

COVID-19 has pulled me back to my roots in operations as I work with the teams building antigen testing capacity, which we'll deploy first to our front-line employees. I'm so proud of the dedication our people have shown as they pick, pack, ship, and deliver to hundreds of millions of customers around the world who depend on us. These employees deserve every ounce of our attention to ensure their safety, which is why we've spent so much time and money to keep them healthy and safe. This testing work is very much in the spirit of flannel, and is the latest example of our commitment to the people in our fulfillment centers.

I'm planning to retire in Q1 of next year. I don't have a new job, and am as happy with and proud of Amazon as ever. I treasure the deep relationships we forged as we grew this company. From Jeff Bezos and my S-team colleagues to the hundreds and hundreds of leaders throughout Amazon who apply our Leadership Principles every single day. We worked hard. And we had a blast. So why leave? It's just time. Time for Dave Clark to step in and lead the organization as CEO Worldwide Consumer. Time for Russ Grandinetti and Doug Herrington to expand their already considerable influence on our company's culture and performance. Time for me to take time to explore personal interests that have taken a back seat for over two decades.

As part of this transition, we are also adding John Felton, Alicia Boler Davis, and Dave Treadwell to S-team. This caps years of effort to develop incredibly capable leaders across our Consumer business.

John started as a senior financial analyst in Retail. He rose through the finance ranks to ultimately serve as the head of finance for Dave Clark's WW Operations team. In 2018, Dave asked John to jump from Finance to Operations. He did so enthusiastically, first leading Global Customer Fulfillment, and now Global Delivery Services, which includes our hugely successful AMZL expansion.

While she was at General Motors, Alicia and I were introduced by a mutual friend and agreed to have lunch. We hit it off right away. I was so impressed with her leadership experience, technical acumen, and especially her dedication to the workers on the shop floor. She wasn't wearing flannel, but I was sure we shared the same instincts. She's off to a great start running Global Customer Fulfillment.

I met Dave Treadwell during our freshman year of college. He was already way better at writing code than I was. After spending nearly 30 years rising through the senior ranks at Microsoft, I asked him if he might consider joining Amazon. He was intrigued, and I jumped at the chance to hire him. "Tread" has led our eCommerce Foundation tech teams since he joined Amazon, driving huge architectural change through Rolling Stone and our transition to native AWS, along with a significant improvement in our infrastructure costs. Dave has an unusual mix of deep technical acumen and empathetic leadership, and he'll be a great add to the S-team.

I didn't hire Dave Clark. Our MBA recruiting team brought him on board months before I joined. But soon after my arrival at Amazon, I knew he was special. He possessed a unique mix of raw intellect, systems thinking, sharp wit, and tons of leadership courage. I tested him. I "asked" him to go to Tokyo to start up our first Japanese FC (which he did after getting his first passport). I "asked" him to go to Campbellsville, KY, to take a Senior Manager role. I hoped that one day Dave might be my successor leading Operations, but I knew he would need significant plant leadership experience to complete his mental models. After helping to dramatically improve the operations in Campbellsville, I asked him to take the General Manager role at our Delaware FC. The operations there were relatively simple, so the leadership challenge was more about leading people than optimizing process. Dave excelled again. From there, Dave returned to Seattle to stay, assuming various roles in Operations that included designing our next generation FCs. Seven years ago, he took over leadership of WW Operations and joined the S-team. Dave thinks and leads boldly. He's the Big Thinking energy behind the scale of Amazon Robotics, our Prime Air fleet, and AMZL deliveries. In the last two years, we moved Prime, Marketing, and the Stores organizations to Dave, giving him a chance to broaden his leadership beyond operations. Dave is now ready to lead WW Consumer, and I'll be proud to turn it over to him early next year.

We have an important holiday season ahead as customers will be depending on us more than ever. We have so much to do in the coming months, so I'm not leaving yet. After this holiday season, we'll have time for Chime high fives and socially distant thank-yous and goodbyes, and I'll cherish each of them.

Thank you for caring about our customers and about each other. Amazon is a very special company, and it is my honor and privilege to help lead it for just a little while longer.

JAW
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Mitchell Kukulka.

Monday, Aug. 17

10:34 p.m.  A deputy arrested a 27-year-old Jerome Township woman at a Lee Township location who had a misdemeanor warrant out of Midland County.

10:23 p.m.  A deputy spoke with a 28-year-old man in reference to a 33-year-old Mount Pleasant man threatening him and his 28-year-old girlfriend over text messages. The 33-year-old told the complainants he was on his way over to their house. The 33-year-old man was contacted and advised to stop all contact with the complainant's, and that he was not welcome at their Geneva Township residence or he will face trespassing charges.

9:06 p.m.  Officers responded to a complaint of trespassing in the 7300 block of Lilac Street.

4:08 p.m.  A deputy responded to an in-progress domestic violence complaint in Lincoln Township to assist Michigan State Police. Two troopers and the deputy made contact with a 21-year-old Lincoln Township woman who reported being in a verbal argument with her 25-year-old boyfriend from Lee Township troopers informed the deputy that they would handle the investigation.

4:07 p.m.  Central Dispatch received a call from a 78-year-old Jasper Township woman. It was discovered she believes somebody is tapping her phones. She wanted it documented for the future.

2:54 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to the area of East Stewart Road near South Woodcock Road for the report of a two-vehicle traffic crash.

1:17 p.m.  Deputies were dispatched to a two-vehicle crash in Warren Township, causing minor injuries.

9:08 a.m.  Officers responded to a vehicle crash in the 100 block of North Saginaw Road.

5:43 a.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Lee Township location in reference to an 18-year-old male reporting his vehicle was stolen. The vehicle was later recovered in Greendale Township, and the suspects have been identified. The suspects are a 21-year-old Lee Township female and a 48-year-old Greendale Township male. The suspects have not yet been located and this incident is still under investigation until they are found.

1:09 a.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Hope Township address in reference to a 53-year-old stating his 30-year-old daughter was arguing in the road with her 31-year-old ex-boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend left the scene and was contacted down the road for a statement. There was no assault. The 31-year-old was escorted from the property and went home.
With smart policies in place, we will create thousands more good paying jobs, accelerate our efforts to build a more diverse and equitable workforce, and move Illinois forward on the path to 100% clean energy.

The Path to 100 Coalition of Illinois renewable energy businesses and trade groups announced its support for Putting Consumers and Climate First, a set of eight principles released by Governor JB Pritzker to guide energy reform in Illinois. The document outlines an approach to expanding renewable energy in Illinois that aligns closely with the goals of the Path to 100 Act, proposed state legislation that has been championed by the coalition.

Governor Pritzker recognizes the critical role that solar, storage and wind play in building Illinois economy, protecting consumers and creating a safer and more equitable future for our state. We are grateful for his leadership and look forward to working with the Governor, legislative leaders and other stakeholders to put these clean energy principles into practice, said Nakhia Morrissette, Central Region Director for the Solar Energy Industries Association and spokesperson for the Path to 100 Coalition. With smart policies in place, we will create thousands more good paying jobs, accelerate our efforts to build a more diverse and equitable workforce, and move Illinois forward on the path to 100% clean energy.

The Path to 100 Act was written to solve urgent funding issues in the states existing renewable energy policy while creating an opportunity to rapidly expand solar, storage and wind energy in Illinois and increase diversity in the renewable energy workforce.

Pritzkers framework describes eight principles ranging from utility oversight and carbon policy to transportation and energy efficiency. Principles three and seven directly relate to the renewable energy industrys priorities. The third priority recognizes that Illinois renewable energy industry is in desperate need of support. Thousands of industry jobs have been lost due to a lack of RPS funding to support procurement of renewable energy, structural flaws in the procurement of renewable energy, and COVID-19-related impacts on the industry.

The Governors reaffirmed his commitment to put Illinois on a path to 100% clean energy by 2050 and encourage developers to build more wind and solar in Illinois. The document discusses critical topics for Illinois solar and wind developers including changes to the Illinois Power Authoritys procurement process, net energy metering and interconnection costs.

The seventh priority in Pritzkers framework focuses on advancing diversity and equity in the clean energy economy, including incentives for developers to contract with diverse suppliers, and expanded reporting on diversity for businesses working in Illinois clean energy industry. The Path to 100 Coalition has embraced efforts to advance diversity and equity in the industry and supports the Governors equity goals.

Representative of the Path to 100 Coalition will join other stakeholders in working groups convened by the governors office to help shape the specific legislation laid out in this framework. Passing policy this fall that fixes the funding gaps in the states renewable energy program will be critical to preventing job losses across the hundreds of Illinois solar business.

Coalition members provided the following statements on the Governors energy priorities:

"AWEA praises Gov. Pritzker's vision for a new era of energy policy in Illinois, calling for transparency, innovation and inclusion, while keeping the consumers bottom-line affordability first. We agree, it's time for a new era of clean energy leadership in Illinois and Gov. Pritzker has given Illinois citizens a path to get there. We look forward to working with the Governor has he reconvenes the important energy working groups and leads the way for action with the legislature in 2020."

Jeff Danielson, Central States Director, American Wind Energy Association

Borrego Solar Systems thanks Governor Pritzker for his commitment to Illinois' renewable energy future. Our 40 permanent, full-time employees, the many hundreds of employees we've supported through the development and construction of community solar projects, and the thousands of subscribers that will save money on their electric bills all look forward to a bright future in Illinois. Illinois has come a long way in the past few years but Governor Pritzker correctly identifies the need to make some big changes to our policies to continue that trend. We look forward to working hand in hand with his administration to achieve this goal.

Sarah Wochos, Director of Policy & Business Development  Midwest, Borrego Solar

The solar industry is creating good union jobs across the state today, and with leadership from Governor Pritzker, we can make sure those benefits continue. We look forward to working with the Pritzker administration and the General Assembly to expanding the benefits of renewable energy across Illinois.

Brian Haug, president of the Illinois Solar Energy Association and president of Continental Electric Solutions

Governor Pritzkers priorities are excellent news for the hundreds of solar businesses across Illinois that need stable policy to continue creating jobs, consumer savings and clean energy. Solar businesses are ready to invest here and we look forward to playing a key role in making the Governors clean energy vision a reality.

Lesley McCain, Executive Director, Illinois Solar Energy Association

StraightUp Solar applauds Governor Pritzker's commitment to an equitable and regenerative clean energy Illinois economy that supports certainty in renewable energy job growth.

Shannon Fulton, VP of Development, StraightUp Solar

"Sunrun appreciates and supports Governor Pritzker's goals to advance more clean energy in Illinois. Sunrun looks forward to working with the Governor and policymakers to ensure rooftop solar and storage is part of the state's clean energy future, not only because it helps people manage energy bills at a time when it matters most, but because of the family-supporting jobs and economic investment it creates in the state."

Amy Heart, Public Policy Director, Sunrun

"We applaud Governor Pritzker on his vision to transition Illinois to a clean energy economy. With the right policy structures in place, Illinois can finally start building towards the renewable future it aspires to. Path to 100 is the first right policy and next step in this transition. It provides the necessary confidence to companies to invest in the state and is the common sense near-term strategy for combating climate change, protecting existing jobs and creating thousands more, and giving Illinois residents customer choice regarding their energy needs."

Andrew Christensen, Director, Markets & Regulatory Affairs, Vivint Solar

Path to 100 is supported by renewable energy organizations working to create jobs in Illinois. For more information, visit http://www.pathto100.net.
AUSTIN  Lame duck Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, leaving office after he was caught on tape plotting against fellow Republican legislators, boosted the taxpayer-funded salary of several top aides just as he was cutting the amount he gives them from donated campaign funds, records show.

Bonnens office said campaign work dried up after he decided to bow out of politics and noted his overall payroll expenditures dropped as staffers have departed and werent replaced.

Political watchdogs say the expenditures, while legal, suggest Bonnen is treating the state treasury like its his own money while ensuring the pot of cash he received in his campaign account  which he can control and use for years  remains as big as possible once hes out of office.

Bonnens campaign funds totaled about $3.4 million as of June 30, records show.

It's essentially trying to squeeze as much as you can out of your taxpayer-funded accounts so as to protect your campaign accounts, said Mark Jones, political scientist at Rice University. It's somewhat untoward to be paying these people that much out of your officeholder account, which is why you originally used your campaign account.

The new staff salaries range as high as $280,000 annually, records show.

Its not unusual for top state officials to boost the take-home pay of their top staffers by giving them supplemental salaries from campaign accounts. Watchdogs have criticized the practice, arguing that the politicians become more beholden to wealthy donors because they come to rely on the money to attract and retain talent at the Capitol. But the Ethics Commission long ago deemed the arrangement legal.

Bonnen, an Angleton Republican first elected to the House in 1996, was elevated to the powerful post of speaker in 2019. But a self-inflicted wound soon after the session ended left his political career in tatters.

Eric Gay, STF / Associated Press

In a meeting at the Capitol with far-right activist Michael Quinn Sullivan, Bonnen trash-talked fellow Republicans and dangled favors to Sullivan. In late October, after Sullivan publicly released the secretly recorded audio of the meeting, Bonnen announced he would not run for re-election this year.

Not long after, the speaker began boosting the state salaries of top aides.

Funding sources switched

Bonnen effectively replaced the money his aides lost from his campaign officeholder account with money from state coffers. The taxpayer money flowed in just as the donor money went out  all just a few weeks after Bonnen announced he would retire from the Texas House.

Case in point: In December of last year, Bonnen chief of staff Gavin Massingill saw his campaign salary drop from $10,000 a month to $5,000 a month. The same month, his state pay increased by the exact amount he lost: it went from $18,333 a month to $23,333, an annualized state salary of about $280,000.

Likewise, the Republican speakers top lawyer and policy adviser, Gardner Pate (now an aide to Gov. Greg Abbott) had his campaign salary reduced by $3,000 in December. His government salary went up by $3,083  to $17,666  the same month. Thats an annual state salary of about $212,000.

At least five more Bonnen aides  for a total of seven  got substantial state raises just as private campaign payments decreased by identical or similar amounts, records show. Another five got state raises after the taping scandal exploded but dont show up on campaign reports or had minimal payments there to begin with.

Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Adjustments included:

* District affairs coordinator Jessica Follett got a $1,000 monthly raise in December and lost her $1,000 monthly campaign salary the next month. She was making an annualized state salary of about $82,000 as of July.

* Digital media coordinator Caroline McKinney saw her monthly state salary rise by $1,250 in December only to lose her monthly campaign salary of $1,250 the same month. Her most recent annualized state salary was $80,000.

* Office director Shera Eichler got a $3,000-a-month state raise in December and had a campaign salary cut of $2,550 in January. Her most recently available annualized state salary was $201,000.

* Administrative coordinator Kimberly Tharel gained $300 a month from the state in December but lost the same amount from the campaign; her state salary has gone up twice since then, to a total of $5,834 a month, an annualized state salary of $70,000, records show.

Spokeswoman Cait Meisenheimer, who became the public face of the speakers office as scandal engulfed it, received two state salary bumps that coincided with similarly timed drops in campaign payments. In August 2019, just as the secret recording of Bonnen began to threaten the speakers reign, the speaker promoted Meisenheimer to communications director and raised her monthly salary by about $4,300, pushing it from $6,667 to $11,000 a month. The next month, Meisenheimers campaign salary dropped by $1,500 a month.

In December, a little over a month after the secret tape scandal forced the speaker to announce an early retirement from politics, Bonnen raised Meisenheimers state salary again, this time by $1,500 a month, to a monthly total of $12,500, which works out to an annualized state salary of $150,000, Texas House records show. The next month, state filings show, her monthly campaign salary dropped by $1,300.

Beginning in February, a separate political fund created by Bonnen, Texas Leads PAC, started paying both Eichler and Meisenheimer $400 a month, according to the most recent reports that go through June of this year.

A budget reduction

State ethics rules allow state politicians to hang on to their campaign money for years, and many of them use it to continue wielding influence at the Texas Capitol, donate to their favorite charities and pay for a variety of expenses, including travel and meals.

In written statements to the Houston Chronicle, Meisenheimer said Bonnens office expenses went down by almost a third as people have left and werent replaced, meaning existing staffers had to pick up the slack.

Speaker Bonnen made the choice to save taxpayer dollars and cut operational costs by asking members of our current team to take on greater responsibilities rather than rehiring for positions, and that decision has successfully led to a 31 percent reduction in our office budget, she said.

Rather than defend her own salary increase, which Meisenheimer said was awkward and a little bit insulting, she sent a statement directly from Bonnen, who accused the Chronicle of suggesting that a woman is not entitled to the same compensation as a male counterpart, despite having earned the same job title and responsibilities.

Nick Wagner, MBR / Associated Press

Meisenheimer was promoted to communications director from press secretary  and her salary shot up as a result  when her male predecessor, Gene Acuna, left the speakers office last summer.

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director for the non-partisan watchdog group Common Cause Texas, said the Legislature needs to tighten disclosure rules to ensure people who work for elective officials in Texas are giving the public more details about what theyre doing to justify both their state and political salaries.

It definitely doesn't sound like there is something illegal here but it certainly borders on unethical, Gutierrez said. Clearly what's happening here is you just decided you wanted to give some people some more money, and it's taxpayers who are footing the bill for these raises.

Meisenheimer responded: Would the so-called watchdogs prefer, she asked, that an outgoing speaker  in an interim (between sessions) no less  hire people to fill vacated positions, thus spending more taxpayer money on salaries?

jay.root@chron.com

twitter.com/byjayroot
More Drop Boxes Coming for Absentee Ballots

Seeking Legislative Cures to COVID-19

Georgia GOP names delegation to Republican National Convention

(TNS)  State set to shift voting status for many, but they can still cast ballotsThey will still be able to vote in Novembers presidential election  we cant stress that enough  but tens of thousands of Georgians could soon be shifted to inactive voter status.Thats because absentee ballot applications that were mailed to them in the spring could not be delivered. Again, those voters will be able to cast ballots in November, but unless they make some contact with their county election officials, they will be one step closer to seeing their registrations canceled.It all started back in April when Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, concerned about the prospect of voters flooding poll sites in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, sent absentee ballot request forms to Georgias 6.9 million active voters ahead of the states June 9 primary. After some ballot requests could not be delivered  possibly because their intended recipients had moved, their mailing addresses on record were incorrect or the U.S. Postal Service made a mistake  county election offices sent letters to those voters in July to the same addresses that may have been incorrect.So, how many voters are we talking about?The secretary of states office said this past week that it didnt know because some election offices have yet to provide information about undeliverable mail. But to give you some sense of scale, Gwinnett County by itself sent letters to over 20,000 voters.Voters who respond to the letters within 40 days will retain their active status.If voters dont respond, election officials say, thats a strong indication that they no longer live at their registered addresses and they should only be allowed to vote where they currently live.Voters are regularly moved to inactive status  which, again, does not prevent them from casting ballots  because the state is required to maintain accurate voter lists. They might be deemed inactive if they complete a change-of-address form, or they dont contact election officials or vote for five years.Once voters are declared inactive, they face cancellation of their registrations if they miss the next two federal general elections.The timing troubles the Democratic Party of Georgia, which recently warned the secretary of states office that shifting voters status so soon before a presidential election may be in violation of federal voting laws. The National Voter Registration Act requires states to complete any program with the purpose of systemically canceling voter registrations at least 90 days before a federal election, and the Nov. 3 presidential election is now less than 80 days away.It may make you believe youre no longer eligible to vote in the presidential election, said Matt Weiss, an attorney for the Democratic Party. Why does this need to happen right now, before a major federal election? Anything thats going to increase confusion among voters should be avoided.To check your voter registration, go to the My Voter Page at. New voters can register to vote for the presidential election until Oct. 5.Ballot will reflect the power of incumbencyRepublicans, thanks to a federal judges ruling, will continue to top the lists of candidates for each office on this years general election ballot. Under state law, its a perk that belongs to the party of the seated governor.How big a deal is that?Expert witnesses in the case, whose plaintiffs included the Democratic National Committee, told the court that Republicans received a 4.2 percentage point advantage, on average, from being listed first on the ballot in Georgia elections since 2004. By contrast, the margin of victory in Georgias 2018 race for governor between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams was less than 1.5 percentage points.U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg ruled Thursday that she was bound to uphold the law by an April decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a similar ballot order case from Florida.So whose idea was this law? Democrats.In Georgia, the governors political party has been listed first on ballots since 1964, when Democratic Gov. Carl Sanders was in office.More drop boxes are on the way to collect absentee ballots before Novembers election.Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that county governments can apply for grants worth up to $3,000 to offset up to 75 percent of the cost for the purchase and installation of the boxes.The boxes provide voters a way to return their absentee ballots without having to rely on the U.S. Postal Service, which has warned of potential delivery delays. Georgia law requires absentee ballots to be received by election officials before polls close on Nov. 3, although that deadline is being challenged in federal court.The State Election Board approved a rule in April requiring that the boxes be located on government property and monitored by video cameras for security. They also must be securely fastened and built with a slot that prevents ballot tampering, damage or removal.A first round of grants ahead of the states June 9 primary was used to install 144 boxes across the state, including more than three dozen in metro Atlantas four largest counties: Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett.But 61 of Georgias 159 counties hadnt installed any drop boxes as of last month, according to court filings. The only options for residents in those counties were returning their absentee ballots by mail or in person at local election offices.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon enthusiast and GOP nominee in the 14th Congressional District, has formed a political committee to raise money that she can use for certain campaign expenses and make donations to like-minded candidates or the Republican Party. The Save America Stop Socialism PAC bears the name of Greenes campaign slogan.This leadership PAC is different than Greenes official campaign committee, Greene for Congress. The SASS PAC has not yet reported any fundraising or expenditures.Greenes Democratic opponent, Kevin Van Ausdal, also made some news concerning campaign finances, reporting that he raised $38,000 over three days following Greenes runoff win. The funds mostly came as small-dollar donations that averaged $40.Thats a big haul for him, but it doesnt stand up well against Greenes financial resources. During the GOP primary and runoff, she loaned her campaign $900,000.State Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula, is working on legislation he plans to introduce in January aimed at various aspects of life in the time of the coronavirus.For virtual learning,reported, Efstrations plan includes help for parents who work but dont feel safe sending their children back to class yet. It would entail the state providing safe socially distanced daytime locations for children to do virtual learning.Efstrations plan would also make testing for the virus available to Georgians for free and provide results the same day the test is given.The Post also reported that Efstration wants to create a state certification program for businesses, so customers would know those companies comply with recommended COVID-19 guidelines and can verify if a business is safe to visit.Georgia Republicans have picked the team they will send to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the partys national convention.Making the trip up I-85 will be state GOP Chairman David Shafer, GOP Finance Chair Shawn Still, National Committeeman Jason Thompson, National Committeewoman Ginger Howard, former National Committeeman Alec Poitevint and ex-state Sen. Josh McKoon.Candidate gets 71 percent of vote, but Kemp has final sayTommy J. Smith won an election in June for a spot on the superior court for the Middle Judicial Circuit with support from 71 percent of the 22,302 voters who cast ballots in five counties. It meant nothing.He then won election to the same seat on the bench in a 1-0 vote.That lone voter? Gov. Brian Kemp.The governor is allowed to cancel an upcoming election or discard its results, according to a state Supreme Court ruling in May, if a judicial seat has been vacated at any point.That happened when Judge Kathy Palmer resigned in April to qualify to run for a state Senate seat, even though Smith and Tobe Karrh had qualified to run for Palmers post in March.A spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger toldthat lawyers in the office had determined that the election should have been canceled.As it stands, the spokesman said, the election was a nullity.That gave Kemp the opportunity to appoint someone to fill the opening on the court. Kemp picked Smith, but he could have chosen anybody.For Smith, the difference can be measured in years. If the June election, the one with 22,302 voters, had been allowed to stand, Smith would be preparing to serve a full four-year term. As an appointee, he will be up for election again in 2022. U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, running in Novembers special election for the seat the Republican gained through appointment, will start a statewide tour in the coming week, and she will have some big names as traveling companions. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will appear with Loeffler at a stop Aug. 28 in Cobb County. Then on Sept. 3, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas will join Loeffler on a swing through North Georgia. U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the former Democratic vice presidential contender, has endorsed Jon Ossoffs campaign against Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue. Kaine also sized up Democrats chances of flipping Georgia after years of Republican dominance. When I look at Georgia, he said, I see what Virginia looked like just a few years ago. Virginia now has a Democratic governor, two Democratic U.S. senators and a Democratic Legislature. TogetherFund, a political committee created by former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who was briefly a presidential candidate, has endorsed fellow Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock in their respective U.S. Senate races. Cobb Countys Fraternal Order of Police lodge is seeking change, backing the Democratic nominee for sheriff, Cobb Police Maj. Craig Owens, over the Republican incumbent, Neil Warren, according to
Emirates is offering UAE nationals and residents a chance to plan a quick escape this summer to Seychelles and unwind at some of the world's most pristine, white sand beaches and crystal clear water.



The airline was the first international airline to return to the island country, coinciding with its re-opening to tourists on August 1.



Covid-19 PCR tests are mandatory for all inbound and transit passengers arriving to Dubai (and the UAE), including UAE citizens, residents and tourists, irrespective of the country they are coming from.



Economy Class passengers can enjoy fares starting from AED3,705 ($1,008), Business Class passengers can enjoy fares starting from AED10,915, and First Class passengers can enjoy fares starting from AED22,045. The offer is valid for bookings made starting today until 7 September 2020, for travel until 31 May 2021.



Visitors to Seychelles will be captivated by its stunning white sand beaches and lush, tropical forests. Go on an adventurous hike, relax in five-star hotel resorts or enjoy exploring the island's diverse marine life. To visit the popular Indian Ocean holiday destination, UAE travellers must provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test, conducted within 72 hours of the date of travel. For more information on travel entry requirements to Seychelles, click here.



Emirates is offering customers convenient access to Seychelles with four weekly flights, utilising a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Emirates flight EK705 will depart Dubai at 02:10 am and arrive in Mahe at 06:45 am local time. The return flight, EK 708, will depart Mahe at 23:50 pm and arrive in Dubai at 04:20 am local time, the following day.



Covid-19 PCR tests are mandatory for all inbound and transit passengers arriving to Dubai (and the UAE), including UAE citizens, residents and tourists, irrespective of the country they are coming from. Emirates Holidays is exclusively partnering with hotels on the Island to help facilitate PCR testing either in the resorts or through transportation to testing facilities.



Emirates Holidays



For UAE travellers, Emirates Holidays offers great holiday packages with a selection of choice resorts in the Seychelles and the Maldives. The tour operating arm of Emirates has relaxed its booking policy to offer customers a chance to book a holiday package in advance with only a deposit of AED199, as well as introduced video appointments, enabling customers to plan ahead and enjoy a stress-free and personalised booking process from the comfort of their own home.



Travellers to Seychelles can enjoy a five-star holiday experience starting from AED5,359 per person, including hotel stays airfare with Emirates, and other exclusive benefits.



Stay at a 4-star hotel, Double Tree Allamanda or 5-star hotel, Hilton Northolme Resort and Spa and enjoy up to 30 percent savings on your hotel stay, complimentary half-board upgrade, and premium accommodation. Hotel resorts across Seychelles will also facilitate transportation for guests to/from a nearby testing facility to carry out the required PCR testing ahead of their return flight to Dubai.



Travellers who choose to visit Maldives will also enjoy a five-star holiday experience starting from AED4,489 per person, including a 3 night hotel stay and airfare.



Stay at a 4-star hotel, Paradise Island Resort and Spa Hotel and enjoy up to 40 percent off on your hotel stay, free upgrade to an all-inclusive package, and complimentary stay for children. . The 5-star hotel LUX South Ari Atoll is also offering customers up to 55% savings on their stay in a breath-taking Beach Pavilion with breakfast included.



Guests travelling to the Maldives can enjoy a stress-free journey as hotels across the islands are offering PCR tests within the resorts ahead of their return flight. Book now for a seamless, end-to-end customer journey, including hassle-free PCR testing from the comfort of your own hotel.



Customers planning travel to the Seychelles or the Maldives can explore a broad range of packages and avail discounts online at Emirates Holidays for a limited time starting today until 22 August.



Free, global cover for Covid-19 related costs: Customers can now travel with confidence, as Emirates has committed to cover Covid-19 related medical expenses, free of cost, should they be diagnosed with Covid-19 during their travel while they are away from home. This cover is immediately effective for customers flying on Emirates until 31 October 2020 (first flight to be completed on or before 31 October 2020), and is valid for 31 days from the moment they fly the first sector of their journey. This means Emirates customers can continue to benefit from the added assurance of this cover, even if they travel onwards to another city after arriving at their Emirates destination.



Health and safety: Emirates has implemented a comprehensive set of measures at every step of the customer journey to ensure the safety of its customers and employees on the ground and in the air, including the distribution of complimentary hygiene kits containing masks, gloves, hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes to all customers.



Flexibility and assurance: Emirates' booking policies offer customers flexibility and confidence to plan their travel. Customers who purchase an Emirates ticket by 31 August 2020 for travel on or before 30 November 2020, can enjoy generous rebooking terms and options, if they have to change their travel plans due to unexpected flight or travel restrictions relating to Covid-19, or when they book a Flex or Flex plus fare.- TradeArabia News Service
Twice a week, she is moved from her regular housing unit to isolation to comply with quarantine protocols. She is then taken to the sally port and loaded into the transport vehicle, admitted into the treatment center and, upon return, again placed in quarantine isolation. She is dying and, in her current state of fragility, poses no threat to anyone other than her potential to contract the virus and spread it inside prison walls.
New York State will allow most voters to cast their ballots by mail in the November general election, joining a growing list of states that have expanded mail-in voting to address the potential spread of the coronavirus at polling places.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, signed a bill on Thursday allowing voters to request an absentee ballot if they cannot show up at a polling location because of the risk of contracting or spreading an illness, effectively permitting the states more than 12 million registered voters to vote by mail.

Mail-in voting has expanded during the pandemic over the objections of President Trump, who has repeatedly made false claims that the practice leads to widespread fraud. At the same time, recent cutbacks at the Postal Service have slowed delivery and drawn heated condemnation and a bevy of lawsuits, and led to questions about its capacity to handle a crush of mail-in ballots.

While all voters will receive absentee ballots in at least nine states, including New Jersey and California, New Yorks system will be different: Voters will have to request mail-in ballots, either online, by phone, in person or by mail. The ballots can be requested immediately and will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day.
A defamation case involving decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith should go to trial as soon as possible because the Victoria Cross recipient is getting "continually crucified" in media reports, which is affecting his mental health, his barrister has told a court.

Mr Roberts-Smith, 41, is suing The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times over a series of stories published in 2018 which he says are defamatory because they portray him as someone who "broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement" and committed murder.

Barrister for the newspapers, Sandy Dawson, SC, returned fire against criticisms of a "continuing campaign" against the former soldier, arguing in court the reports were "addressing matters of public interest".

Ben Roberts-Smith, pictured in 2017. Credit:Darrian Traynor

Mr Dawson also submitted that Bruce McClintock, SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith, had taken part in an "ongoing campaign of criticism" against the "very experienced" journalists who wrote the articles.
I have lost count of how many times I have died. Juvenile soldier, dead. Drug dealer, deceased. Illegal fisherman, departed. To be honest, I have lost count of how many times I have died on screen.

My career as an actor so far has been playing a series of "redshirts" doomed to be discarded once they have delivered the obligatory exposition which enables other characters to fulfil their story arcs.

Bryan Brown and Lap Phan in Hungry Ghosts, which explores the lives of four families haunted by the Vietnam War.

I am not unique; my career has mirrored that of many Asian performers working in the Australian film and TV industry - until the success of productions such as Crazy Rich Asians, Always Be My Maybe and The Family Law shifted the zeitgeist and producers started realising audiences crave more than what was being dished up.

Enter Crazy Spooky Asians ... I mean Hungry Ghosts, an SBS mini-series that explores the lives of four families, three of them Vietnamese-Australian, all haunted by the lasting effects of the Vietnam War.
By PTI

MUMBAI: Malayalam superstar Fahadh Faasil's upcoming feature "CU Soon" will premiere on streamer Amazon Prime Video on September 1.

The project marks his reunion with filmmaker Mahesh Narayan with whom he previously worked on National Award-winning movie "Take Off".

The film, described as a gripping drama, also features Roshan Mathew and Darshana Rajendran.

The story is about a software engineer from Kerala who has been assigned by his family to help his Dubai-based cousin find his missing fiancee, after she leaves behind a video-based suicide note.

"CU Soon" is one of the few films that were shot during the countrywide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It was filmed through a phone in a controlled and restricted environment during the lockdown.

Faasil's filmography includes critically-acclaimed movies such as "Chaappa Kurishu", "Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum", "Bangalore Days" and "Njan Prakashan".

The actor said working with Narayan was an "inspiring experience" for him.

"We had an incredible stint with our erstwhile blockbuster 'Take-Off'.

Making 'CU Soon' was an interesting and exciting experience.

"Having shot the film entirely during the lockdown, we're immensely glad to be able to continue to entertain and bring exciting content for our audience even at a time like this and hope that fans across the world enjoy and share their love towards the film," Faasil, who also served as a producer, said in a statement.

Narayan said the concept of "CU Soon" is entirely new and has never been attempted before.

"People are attempting to stay virtually connected during these unprecedented times, and we wanted to take this concept a step further by exploring a unique format of storytelling through multiple screen devices.

This film would not have been conceptualised or created without the virtual communication softwares and their developers.

"I hope this will inspire many artists to realise their creativity during such times and turn these challenging situations into opportunities to discover a new narrative of storytelling," the director said.

Vijay Subramaniam, Director and Head, Content at Amazon Prime Video India, said the movie will be a great watch for audience in the festival season.

"Fahadh Faasil is synonymous with gripping Indian language blockbusters and a combination of him with director Mahesh Narayan in an experimental film format is definitely one to watch out for.

"With Onam around the corner, we are hoping to add a little more sweetness to the festivities with the release of 'CU Soon'," he added.
Iowa State prof. forced to change syllabus banning students from criticizing abortion, BLM

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An English professor at Iowa State University has been forced to change her syllabus after she prohibited students from expressing certain viewpoints on hot-button issues like abortion, gay marriage and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Corrections have been made to professor Chloe Clark's English 250 course syllabus after the university deemed her document to not be reflective of the institution's First Amendments standards.

Concern about the syllabus was raised by Young Americas Foundation, a national conservative youth organization.

In the class, students work on analyzing, composing, and reflecting on written, oral, visual, and electronic (WOVE) discourse within academic, civic, and cultural contexts.

As the course description explained, The University requires a minimum grade of C in ENGL 250 to meet the Communication Proficiency graduation requirement.

After explaining the course objectives, Clarks syllabus featured a giant warning listed in bold text.

Any instances of othering that you participate in intentionally (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, sorophobia, transphobia, classism, mocking of mental health issues, body shaming, etc) in class are grounds for dismissal from the classroom, she wrote.

Clarks boldface warning also applied to any papers/projects.

You cannot choose any topic that takes at its base that one side doesnt deserve the same basic human rights as you do, she stressed.

Clark made it clear that she would allow no arguments against gay marriage, abortion, Black Lives Matter, etc.

I take this very seriously, she added.

In response to the concerns surrounding Clarks syllabus, Iowa State University sent a statement to The Christian Post Tuesday declaring that the syllabus statement as written was inconsistent with the universitys standards and its commitment to the First Amendment rights of students.

After reviewing this issue with the faculty member, the syllabus has been corrected to ensure it is consistent with university policy, the statement read. Moreover, the faculty member is being provided additional information regarding the First Amendment policies of the university.

Iowa State is firmly committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of its students, faculty, and staff," the university added. "With respect to student expression in the classroom, including the completion of assignments, the university does not take disciplinary action against students based on the content or viewpoints expressed in their speech.

In an interview with CP, Spencer Brown, a YAF spokesperson, described Clarks requirements as unconstitutional.

When its a situation like this at Iowa State University, which is a public university, a government school, that runs afoul of the First Amendment of the Constitution, Brown said.

While Brown described Iowa States course of action as hopeful news, he remarked that its still shameful that there is a professor at a public university who thinks this is okay, that didnt think there would be a problem with this.

Obviously, this points to the fact that there is just not a great understanding or appreciation for free expression on campuses or among educators, he added. And so, ensuring that professors that do this kind of thing are held accountable, I think, will go a long way toward making them think twice before they try to just blatantly suppress the rights of conservative students.

YAF first became aware of Clarks syllabus after an anonymous student submitted a tip to the YAF Campus Bias Tip Line.

According to Brown, YAF gets anywhere between three to five tips per week on average.

The tips are all along the same line where its a lot of these situations where professors just act as though they get to decide what is considered acceptable speech in the class and what isnt, he said.

The banning of certain points of view on college campuses is more common than a lot of people realize."

This one is very clear that if you say anything that runs against what the professors personal beliefs are, youre going to be dismissed from the class, he stated.

As opposed to the explicit anti-conservative bias found in Clarks syllabus, Brown said many college professors have this implicit bias where a professor will just not call on conservative students in class or will, you know, potentially not give them the same opportunities as liberal students.
Photo: (Photo : unsplash/Zach Kadolph)

A witty mom, Geralyn Amy Yeh, gave her response to the rude neighbor who brutally complained about the "inconsiderate crying" of her five-month-old baby. The note tells the Malaysia-based mom of the person's complaints about her crying infant.





Asking the mom to be more considerate

Due to the pandemic, the neighbor is having a hard time concentrating since the neighbor is working from home. The neighbor asks in the note if the mom could close her door during the day so they could not hear her baby wailing.

The note also reads about asking the mom to be "more considerate" of others since they are working from home, as reported by The Sun. Yeh said that the neighbor visited her home and said complaints with her maid.

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The mom's witty reply

To respond to the note she received, Yeh wrote her reply and shared the post on her Facebook; it is now either been deleted or set to private. She started by apologizing that her little one's cries had disturbed the neighbor. Then she showed her empathy because, they too, experience the same frustrations as the note writer. She noted that they work from home too.

She wrote that infants could get irritating when they scream or cry with their high pitch voices. However, she explained that it is the way the little ones communicate with adults.

See also: Couple Got Angry When Teen Sesame Place Employee Advised Them to Wear Face Masks

Yeh added that she has no magical powers to stop her baby from crying. She also said that she could not make her baby grow up faster so she could talk to her without crying. The mom also jokingly adds that they have already given her baby a stern warning on the day they received feedback on her crying.

Yeh explained that they were not sure if the little one understood what they had said. However, she noticed that her baby did look serious after hearing their warning and replied with a pitiful, sad look.

See also: Stuntman Proposed to Girlfriend While on Fire to Reward Girlfriend

The mom's promise and advice

Yeh promised that she would give her best to keep her door closed during the day. However, she also said that her baby could become "cranky" due to the "stuffy" weather by doing so. Instead, she advised them to close their door and asked if they could consider wearing headphones so they could at least block out any noise.

Adding to that, Yeh wrote that she would appreciate it if the neighbor would not come over and shout nor scold her helper as it scared her and her baby. Finally, she advised her neighbor to contact the authorities for any other suggestions on how to stop the "noise pollution" that her baby is making.
Photo: (Photo : Screenshot from GoFundMe page)

A Houston mom's small SUV has turned into their family's home. For more than two months, Kenia Madrigal and her kids have been living and sleeping in her car. That is after they were evicted from their home for two years.

The Houston mom and her kids were living in a mobile home in north Harris County. Because Kenia was laid off from her job due to the coronavirus pandemic, she cannot afford to pay their rent.

READ ALSO: Father Gives Piece of Liver to Daughter Suffering from Biliary Atresia [Surgery Was Successful]





Living in the car for more than two months

Kenia has four children. They are eleven, eight, three years, and one year old.

Every night, when they have to sleep, Kenia and her oldest child sleep at the front seats of the car, while the younger ones squeeze in the back seats.

Most of their belongings are in the car since they were evicted last June.

According to Kenia, bearing the difficulty of seeing her kids suffer is one thing, but answering their innocent questions are more complicated.

In an interview with ABC7, Kenia shared, "It's hard because my daughter keeps asking me when are we going to go home, and we don't have a home."

READ ALSO: 4 Reasons Why Renting Is a Better Option [Leading Property Manager, GMH Capital Partners explains]





Things remain uncertain for the Houston mom and her family.

Kenia is back to working again. She only earns $11.50. This amount is barely enough for their daily needs and other expenses, let alone for an apartment. The Houston mom also says that she is still uncertain of what could happen next, so she tells her kids, "All I can tell them is 'One day at a time."

If the housing arrangements of the family remains uncertain, so does the education of her older children.

She said, "I can't say they can go to school, because I have no idea."

The Houston mom's only wish is to have a place that she and her kids can call home.

READ ALSO: Dad Explains Family and Parenting in 2 Minutes [a Lot of People Agree]





Looking for help

Since the day the family has been evicted, Kenia has been looking for ways to ask for assistance.

She was denied state assistance when she applied for it.

Also, Kenia has tried calling 211 and shelters to find a place for her and her kids.

One of her co-workers created a GoFundMe page for the Houston mom and her kids.

According to the page, the funds collected will be used to find a safe home for the family and the education of Kenia's older children.

As of writing, the GoFundMe page has already raised more than 50,000 US dollars. The initial goal of the campaign was only to rais 800 US dollars.

READ ALSO: Dad from California Makes Ice Cream to Keep His Family and Community Happy
As Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic nomination for vice president, her fellow Howard alumni and graduates of other historically Black colleges and universities are gearing up to support her historic run. The Biden-Harris campaign, however, has yet to reveal how they plan to tap this active segment of the Black community  a core demographic they desperately need to turn out in high numbers in November.

The campaign has acknowledged Harris nomination as a boon for Black colleges across the country. Yet, given the wide influence that Black college graduates boast, failure to fully galvanize them would be a missed opportunity, some advocates say  especially as Black Democrats who were once on the fence about Harris begin to warm to her.

Ahead of the 2020 primary season, the Biden campaign launched the HBCUs for Biden initiative, aimed at garnering support among young Black voters. Co-chaired by three current HBCU students, the plan also folds in more than $70 billion in additional funding for Black colleges and universities  a monumental sum of money for the institutions, whose median endowment sits at $12 million. Biden has also proposed free tuition for public, four-year HBCUs as part of his Build Back Better plan.

And his ticket has some built-in support: Howard alumni rallied behind Harris during her 2016 senatorial campaign and 2020 primary run. Bidens decision to add the California senator and former prosecutor to the Democratic ticket makes Harris not only the first Black woman to be a major partys vice presidential nominee, but also the first graduate of an historically Black college or university (HBCU). Its injected a new burst of energy into the HBCU communitys engagement with the presidential race.

Howard really paved the way for a lot of the HBCUs and the significance of (Harris) being at the top of the ticket just really shows the value of HBCUs and ... how transformational this would be for us, said Charlie Lewis, a 1989 Howard graduate. We have over 86,000 alums and we're not all monolithic, Lewis continued. We come from all over the diaspora, the African diaspora. That's unique. And she takes a part of that.

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Kamala is loving this roll call. pic.twitter.com/sQtGnrKLAx  Doug Emhoff (@DouglasEmhoff) August 19, 2020

Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick described seeing a Howard alumna on the Democratic ticket as both humbling and exhilarating. Harris and her team, he said, have demonstrated they are aware of the unique challenges facing the African American community and want to help remedy them, but they cant do it alone.

She clearly is going to be a champion and that's good, Frederick said. But we, as a population have to continue to push for more broader reforms, etc. and recognize that it's going to take all of our elected officials to participate at the federal, state and local levels.

Members of the Howard network maintain that the unique political and cultural education the university offers set the standard for their success as Black leaders in America. Its most notable alumni include Thurgood Marshall, Elijah Cummings and Stokely Carmichael. Harris time at Howard coincided with a pivotal era of Black political activism, from Jesse Jacksons first presidential run to the international protests against apartheid in South Africa.

However, even as Harris fellow Howard graduates recognized the historic importance of her selection, they emphasize that symbolism is not enough. In particular, they hope she and Biden are prepared to reckon with their past records  hers as a local prosecutor, his as the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill  and the way those policies helped pilot harmful systems that have been particularly detrimental to Black communities. Its perhaps the biggest obstacle to Biden and Harris efforts to rally the same voting bloc that has overwhelmingly supported Democrats for decades.

Jade Agudosi, a 2018 Howard graduate, said that while she is excited about Harris nomination, she doesnt subscribe to the mantra that's it enough to black faces in high places.

There has to be more that's involved in that, said Agudosi, who was the president of Howards student government association when students occupied the universitys administrative building in 2018. There's work that goes along with that.

After developing a reputation in California as a pragmatist on crime, Harris has shifted her approach to criminal justice in recent years. As a senator, her legislative record has been markedly more progressive than in the past, including sponsoring a number of pieces of criminal justice reform legislation alongside her Democratic and Republican colleagues. In June, she co-authored the Justice in Policing Act, which aims to standardize police force tactics and independently investigate instances of misconduct.

In my career, the conventional wisdom was that people were either soft on crime or tough on crime. But I knew we should be smart on crime, Harris said in her commencement address to Howards Class of 2017, explaining her work to reduce recidivism rates as a district attorney. Challenging the status quo while making substantive improvements to Black communities were not easy goals, but, she said, she learned the playbook through her Howard education.

This November 1982 photo provided by the Kamala Harris campaign shows her, right, with Gwen Whitfield at an anti-apartheid protest during her freshman year at Howard University in Washington. (Kamala Harris campaign via AP)

Her explanations of her prosecutor past were not enough to win over the coalition of Black, brown and young voters she had hoped to appeal to in the Democratic presidential primary in 2019. Her big bet on South Carolina, the early primary state thought of as a snapshot of Black voter preferences, paid off only marginally. Before suspending her campaign for president last December, Harris hardly broke through the top three choices among Black voters.

Yet, in the face of Novembers high stakes, even those who did not support Harris or her past policies are now giving her the benefit of the doubt. Thats echoed in recent polls, which have found her addition to the Biden ticket has the support of a majority of voters across races and ideologies. A flash poll of voters from Morning Consult revealed that 84 percent of all Democrats and 79 percent of Black voters approve of her.

I'm not trying to square it. She was a prosecutor. And hell, I can think of a bunch of things that I probably disagree with her about. And that's the same for probably any other elected official around here, said Ras Baraka, the current mayor of Newark who graduated from Howard in 1994. I do believe, however, that her idea of America includes us in it. And her idea of what should happen is different than what we're experiencing now ... and whatever issue I have with her, she deserves a pass. For right now.

Harris supporters say she is more than prepared to tackle issues about her record on law enforcement.

She has never chosen the path of least resistance, said Kirsten Allen, a Howard alumna who was Harris national press secretary during her presidential campaign. When she would do interviews, especially as we got in the swing of things [during the presidential campaign], she would start off a lot of questions about her prosecutorial record with the statement, I understand why black and brown people have a problem with prosecutors, I totally understand your concern.'"

Since Bidens VP announcement last week, questions about Harris loyalty to the Black community have returned as GOP talking points. Harris supporters say her choice of college answers many of them.

When you choose to go to Howard after living in Canada and coming from California, you're making an affirmative decision about Blackness, said Keneshia Grant, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University. When you choose to pledge and stay in the sorority, stay active with it after you leave school ... and all of these other things, like, she's making multiple affirmative decisions about Blackness. She's embracing it.

Grant, who had been quietly hoping that Biden would choose a Black woman for his vice presidential ticket in recognition of the value that Black voters bring to the Democratic party, said she was surprised by how immediate and vehement the critiques of Harris were.

People did not even take a moment to celebrate the historic nature of her being named to the ticket, Grant said. I understood why people had these feelings about critiquing her but I did not understand why they could not celebrate the progress.

To some, the unwillingness to recognize the gravity of her accomplishment reveals a more insidious trend among her detractors, who have pointed to specific career decisions to make sweeping calculations about how deserving of the Black vote she might be.

The reality is, we made this mistake in the Black community in 2016, said Ravi Perry, chair of the political science department at Howard. I think if we allow ourselves to forward these narratives, this time around again we're only shooting ourselves in the foot, whether it's Hillary Clinton and super predators or the crime bill or Anita Hill, or Kamala Harris' prosecutorial record.

In the absence of in-person campaign events and as college courses largely take place online, any campaigns engagement with students will be limited in the lead up to November. HBCUs for Biden remains active and has hosted events for the campaign in the wake of the announcement of Harris vice presidential selection. However, HBCU grads, in particular, remain an untapped resource for campaigning and fundraising.

Kamau Marshall, the Biden campaign's director of strategic communications, said in a statement that Biden and Harris recognize "the significant role that Black colleges and universities play in our society" and that, "America can expect that the Biden Harris administration is committed to ensuring a more equitable, sustainable, and prosperous future for these storied institutions." He said the campaign has plans to continue to expand the reach of HBCUs for Biden by leaning into Harris' connections to the HBCU community as an alumna.

While Bidens polling with Black voters tops 90 percent, making sure their enthusiasm translates to electoral support in November is crucial. With a Black woman and HBCU grad on the ticket, Democrats have a chance to close enthusiasm gaps that cost Hillary Clinton the White House in 2016.

HBCUs are a touch point in African American society. They mean a lot to all of us, said Lodriguez Murray, Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for the United Negro College Fund. The good education, the wraparound services, the economic empowerment  that creates loyalty in that community and galvanizing that loyalty for any candidate would be a game changer.
A protest was quickly organized Thursday afternoon after news circulated that 46-year-old Herbert Tilghman died while receiving medical treatment while in custody.

Dauphin County spokeswoman Amy Richards said Tilghman collapsed and suffered a fatal medical event while receiving treatment in the morning. Tilghman had been in custody since Aug. 13 on a drug-related offense.

District Attorney Francis Chardo said Tilghman had no signs of trauma and that an autopsy will be conducted to determine his cause of death.

Voices for the Voiceless CEO Kevin Maxson said he knew Tilghman from around the community.

Herbert Tilghman Photo provided by Kevin Maxson

When I knew him, he was a smiling person, he was always smiling, good-natured, Maxson said. He was always a good person. When I used to see him and engage him in the community, he always took time to talk about his addiction.

Maxson said he always tried to tell Tilghman that he needed to get help and that people loved and cared about him. He remembered Tilghman talked about how he was working on it, but that it would take time.

In light of Tilghmans death, Maxson said he knows unsavory things will be said about him, especially his addiction.

But he still was a human being. He didnt need to be neglected, Maxson said.

The group of protesters, about a dozen people, said they believe Tilghman was not receiving proper medical care while detoxing at the prison. Maxson said other inmates reached out to their families to get the word out about what happened to Tilghman.

Prison officials have not commented on the number of days Tilghman was in custody but did say he was receiving treatment at the time of his death.

Maxson and his group Voices for the Voiceless have been out at the prison regularly, protesting the treatment of prisoners. On Thursday, the parents of Tyrique Riley were present. Riley died in custody in 2019, prompting an investigation into the prison and officers involved in his arrest. His cause of death was determined to be medical. Rileys parents and estate eventually sued.

Anytime we lose somebody I think were all hurting, whether we knew the person directly or indirectly, Maxson said. And its essential that when stuff like this happens that we mobilize and be vocal about it to ensure that it doesnt keep happening.

Since Rileys death, Maxson said some progress has been made, such as body-worn cameras being purchased by the prison. That said, Maxson said at the end of the day he still doesnt know if the cameras will be used properly and who will be watching the videos taken.

He said he gets messages from family members of inmates daily who are sharing concerns about the treatment of inmates.

Protester Elias Clayton, 20, of New Cumberland, said he started coming out to all the Dauphin County Prison protests after meeting Maxson and learning about Riley.

Ive always been one to root for the underdog, or so I would think, and I cant think of any greater underdogs than inmates, Clayton said. They are dogged, treated like theyre dirt and just looked down upon by society and thats not something that I stand for.

Clayton said now that he has found his voice that he will continue to come out for these types of events. At the same time, he said that he mourned Tilghman and Riley, saying it is unfortunate that their deaths are what brings people out.

As long as attention is being brought to the issue, I feel like we can start doing some good work, Clayton said.

Maxson said he will continue to protest and do what he can to bring awareness to these issues.

Because at the end of the day, whether youre an addict, whether youre an inmate, whether youre a criminal, youre a human being, Maxson said. And when you stop caring about humanity, humanity fails.

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Pete Buttigieg flashed his wedding ring during his speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night and said it was proof "how this country can change."

"Just over 10 years ago, I joined a military where firing me because of who I am wasn't just possibleit was policy," Buttigieg, 38, said, referencing the U.S. military's infamous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which banned people who identified openly as LGBTQ from serving.

The law was repealed under former President Barack Obama's administration in 2011. (Buttigieg served as a U.S. Naval lieutenant in Afghanistan in 2014.)

"Now in 2020, it is unlawful in America to fire anyone because of who they are or who they love," Buttigieg said. "The very ring on my finger reflects how this country can change."

Buttigieg made history as the first openly gay man to run for president during the 2020 run, which saw his campaign pull off a surprising, though narrow, victory in the Iowa Caucus.

The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor's caucus win was also history-making, as he became the first openly gay man to win primary delegates as he hoped to win the Democratic nomination, which Joe Biden accepted on Tuesday.

Buttigieg married his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, a 31-year-old middle-school teacher, in June 2018.

"Love makes my marriage real, but political courage made it possible," Buttigieg said on Thursday.

"The day I was born, the idea of an 'out' candidate seeking any federal office at all was laughable. Yet earlier this year, I campaigned for the presidency, often with my husband Chasten at my side  winning delegates to this very convention."

 @PeteButtigieg #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/fojSuYjKVK  2020 #DemConvention  (@DemConvention) August 21, 2020

RELATED: Pete Buttigieg's 'Next Chapter' Is Starting a Family with Husband, No Matter What 2020 Brings

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Peter Ringenberg Pete (left) and Chasten Buttigieg

Chasten, who frequently accompanied his husband on the campaign trail, tweeted a photo of him and Pete together, wearing protective face masks, with the caption: "Are you ready, #TeamPete?"

His upcoming memoir, I Have Something to Tell You, is scheduled for release in September and will tell the story of his husband Pete's history-making presidential campaign.

Buttigieg's bid for the White House fell short when he announced he'd suspend his campaign in early March and endorsed Biden, before the 77-year-old nominee ran away with the Democratic race following a string of primary wins on Super Tuesday.

Soon after, the former Indiana mayor threw his support behind Biden, telling voters to elect Biden as the next president.

"Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation," Buttigieg said. "To me, that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans. It's the struggle to call out what is good in every American."
Burma Myanmar Peace Conference Ends With Participants Praising Meaningful Principles, Post-Election Plan

Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi addresses the closing ceremony of the fourth session of the Union Peace Conferencethe last round that will be held under the current NLD governmenton Friday. / NRPC

The fourth session of Myanmars peace conference came to an end on Friday with representatives of the government, military, ethnic armed organizations and political parties agreeing on principles and a plan to move the countrys stalled peace process forward under a new government beyond 2020.

The 20 agreed principles focus on solving misunderstandings surrounding the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and its implementation, and laying out guiding principles for what kind of union Myanmar wants. Also agreed was a plan that lays out a step-by-step process for implementing a democratic federal union-building process after 2020. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi dubbed it a new plan for building a democratic federal union beyond 2020 in her closing remarks.

With Novembers general election a mere three months away, the three-day event was the last session of the Union Peace Conference to be held under the current government led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD).

Because of the election, government negotiators and the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that are signatories to the NCA had pushed for setting guiding principles for the continuation of the peace-building process under the new government next year.

Currently, eight militarily active ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), most of them based in the north of the country, are still at the stage of negotiating bilateral ceasefires and are not part of the NCA process. The governments designation of the Arakan Army as a terrorist group this March has affected the negotiation process, however, with the groups boycotting this weeks Union Peace Conference (UPC), although they cited COVID-19 as the reason.

Sai Laeng, the leading member of the Peace-making Committee of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), told The Irrawaddy that the agreements reached on Friday make sense, because the latest session of the conference made it possible to fix a number of misunderstandings with the NCA, among other things. The RCSS is an NCA signatory, but as recently as last month it clashed with government troops in Kyaukme Township, Shan State.

It is meaningful to agree on how to build a federal union beyond 2020. We also agreed on some guiding principles of building the federal union, such as power sharing between Union and States, he said.

Some of the principles signed guarantee that the building of a democratic federal union will be based on political dialogue. They also ensure equal rights without discrimination based on race, religion, culture or gender.

One of the 15 principles of the framework for the NCA implementation is that all citizens shall collectively build a union reflecting union identity, which respects and recognizes the histories, traditions, literatures, cultures and identities of the various nationalities residing in Myanmar. In a note, union identity is defined as having a single union possessing unity and solidarity.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the note was significant.

We must prioritize implementing this collective union identity in the period beyond 2020, she said.

The fourth 21st-Century Panglong Union Peace Conference came at a time when peace negotiations were bogged down, following a stalemate in late 2018 when the Karen National Union and RCSS decided to postpone participation in political dialogue and ceasefire monitoring talks, saying implementation of the NCA had drifted from the original plan and that some of its terms needed further clarification.

On Friday, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi urged stakeholders to stay on the peace negotiation path, saying the peace process was now back on track and the principles signed were more sincere and have more substance than before.

Like the State Counselor, Lieutenant General Yar Pyae, the military delegate to the peace conference, who is also the chairman of the Joint Monitoring Committee on the nationwide ceasefire, said the negotiations needed to keep going.

Now we can draw a conclusion that countless negotiations have reduced the mistrust that has been deep-rooted on both sides, he said. Therefore, he added, stakeholders should not leave the negotiation table, whatever the reason.

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Nearly 45 million Vietnamese people now access online shopping. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Nearly 45 million Vietnamese people now access online shopping, a forum on domestic consumption trends on August 20 in Hanoi heard.

The Government aims to have 55 percent of the countrys 90-million-plus population shopping online by 2025, with revenues estimated at 35 billion USD.

The goal is perfectly feasible given the support coming from the Government, ministries, departments, and businesses.

Participants at the forum suggested making it easier for e-commerce enterprises to access capital to join online supply chains for Made-in-Vietnam goods.

It is also necessary to have policies for online payments and for guaranteeing the security of customers personal data, they suggested.

A representative from Nielsen Vietnam said the number of internet users in Vietnam is expected to reach about 60 percent of the countrys population this year, and 33 percent of Vietnamese consumers will make online payment while shopping.
Editors Note: The last time Jonathan D. Salant watched the political parties nominate their presidential candidates on television was in 1980. Since then, he attended 18 consecutive national conventions. But the coronavirus pandemic forced the Democrats to gather remotely rather than in Milwaukee. Here are 17 observations after watching a most unusual all-virtual Democratic National Convention.

1. Speeches by Joe Biden and Michelle Obama played better on television.

I have seen every major speech @JoeBiden has given - dating back to the 1988 campaign. He has always been a better speaker than the expectations and tonight was the best hes ever been. And once again virtual made it stronger than with a cheering crowd.  Joe Trippi (@JoeTrippi) August 21, 2020

.@OfficialJLD, veep to veep, you're crushing it!  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 21, 2020
The State of Israel and the Government of Uttar Pradesh have signed an agreement to establish the India-Israel Bundelkhand Water Project.

The project aims to demonstrate and implement the Israeli model for water management tailored to the water challenges of Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh. The project comprises three key-components of the value chain: water conservation, water efficient transportation, and advanced water practices for agriculture.

The agreement was signed by the Ambassador of Israel in India, H.E. Dr. Ron Malka and Alok Sinha, Agriculture Production Commissioner, Government of Uttar Pradesh. On the occasion, Ambassador Dr. Ron Malka said, This is another example of the multifaceted partnership between Israel and India. Israel is keen to share its most advanced, innovative, and cutting-edge water technologies with the Government of Uttar Pradesh. Water security is the top priority in our strategic water partnership with India.

In recent decades, cutting-edge innovations developed in Israel to tackle the water shortage have helped position Israel as a world leader in all aspects of water management. Israel is proud to share its expertise in water to promote water and food security around the world and especially with its precious friend India.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Israel in 2017, Israel and India signed two major water agreements to increase cooperation in water conservation and state water utility reform in India. In 2019 the Minister of Jal Shakti GOI Gajendra Singh Shekhawat conducted an historic visit to Israel in the framework of the WATEC conference in order to advance cooperation in the field of water between the two countries.

This agreement is a flagship project in the ongoing cooperation between the two countries and opens a new chapter allowing the countries to leverage our strategic cooperation in the field of water.
U.S. retailer Walmart Inc is anticipating a more "collaborative relationship" between China and the United States, after the global retailer said on Tuesday that its net e-commerce sales in China grew 104 percent on a yearly basis during the quarter to July 31.

"It is our hope that the two countries will work together in the years to come, to find ways to have a collaborative relationship," Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon told Fox News. "We want to be able to do business in China. I know a lot of U.S. businesses and farmers want to as well."

The executive also said that "about two-thirds of what we sell is made in the U.S.", which is a boost for U.S. manufacturers' products overseas.

Walmart said the growth in China e-commerce sales beat the 97-percent growth in the U.S. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said its Sam's Club membership stores saw double-digit comparable sales growth in China.

The U.S. firm has been investing heavily in China, from opening new Sam's Club stores to partnering with Dada, a local grocery-delivery platform, CNBC reported. Earlier this month, Dada announced that Walmart's 400-plus stores in China have been connected to the online platform, which promises delivery within an hour.

E-commerce for Walmart expanded by more than 200 percent in Canada, Mexico and Central America, according to the earnings release.

"Canada, China and Mexico led the way, as customers chose one-stop shopping and omnichannel solutions," McMillon said.

"During these challenging times, we continued to execute the strategy of building strong local businesses powered in China by Walmart and announced additional investments in China and India focused on positioning the portfolio for growth," said Brett Biggs, chief financial officer.

Jeffrey Williamson, director of California State Trade Expansion, told China Daily that "there are several strategic moves that are benefiting Walmart in China and their growth in e-tail".

"Trust, price, selection and convenience are important drivers for online shopping and Walmart has already gained 'trust' through its physical-store presence in China for decades, and has been positioning itself with attractive prices and vast selection (including both imports and popular local goods)," said Williamson, who is also a professor at the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship at California State University, San Bernardino.

"The partnership with JD provides important synergies for both JD to extend to offline, and Walmart to extend online, which may be contributing to the results," he said.

Walmart's profit jumped by 79 percent in the three months through June 30, as U.S. citizens spent more time at home during the novel coronavirus pandemic and ordered more goods online.

The company reported earnings of $6.48 billion, or an adjusted $1.56 per share, better than the $1.25 a share that Wall Street analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting, according to CNBC. Total revenue rose 5.4 percent to $137.7 billion, ahead of the $135.48 billion consensus.

Walmart also was No. 1 in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies released last week. The number of Chinese companies on the list exceeded U.S. companies for the first time.
The Trump administration is backing Iraqi Prime MInister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's efforts to urgently conclude a budget deal with Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

"I urged Baghdad to clinch a budget deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government," said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at a press conference Aug. 20 following a meeting in Washington with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein.

Iraq's Ministry of Finance announced Aug. 17 that Baghdad and Erbil had reached an agreement on some of the long-standing disputes between Baghdad and Erbil over the latter's share of the federal budget.

According to the terms so far, Baghdad will pay 320 billion dinars ($268 million) to Erbil monthly as a goodwill gesture, and Erbil in return promises to continue the ongoing negotiations with Baghdad over oil exports from the Kurdistan regional territory and to hand over control of the border crossings to Baghdad.

Kurdistan exports 450,000 barrels of oil through Turkeys Ceyhan pipeline every day. According to previous agreements, 250,000 barrels should go to Baghdad and the rest should go to the KRG budget. However, the Kurdistan Region has not been paying Baghdad its share until now.

Out of Iraq's 22 land border crossings, five are located in the Kurdistan Region and are therefore not under the control of the federal government. They include Haji Omeran, Parviz Khan, Ibrahim Khalil, Faysh Khabur and Bashmaq, as well as the main airports in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah. There are also some other unofficial border crossings from the Kurdistan Region into Iran and Turkey.

Kadhimi has approached this matter with a sense of urgency, seeing it as essential to both his political and economic agenda. The Kurdistan Region is also under pressure to compromise, as it has been experiencing protests by workers who have not been receiving their full salaries.

Kadhimi has sought to assert government control and oversights on border crossings. Many of the latter have been associated with corruption and lost revenues due to the interference of militias and political parties in crossing administration and funding.

The campaign has so far been a success. Iraq's revenues from the outlets has almost doubled after Kadhimi began his campaign, increasing from 36 billion dinars ($30 million) to 62 billion dinars ($52 million).

Iraqi politicians in the south and central parts of the country, however, would like to see the same control extended to the Kurdistan Region.

Despite Kadhimi's success so far with the budget deal, he is being criticized by those who oppose his governance and reform agenda. Parliamentarian Kate' al-Rikabi from Nouri al-Malikis State of Law Coalition criticized the prime minister Aug. 12 for his inaction on the Kurdistan outlets  an odd charge since Maliki's moves are actually action  and by complaining it was a concession to the Kurdish parties in return for their support of his government. Other lawmakers asked whether Baghdad can afford any "concessions" to the Kurdistan Region, given the country's overall dire economic situation, and without approval from the Council of Representatives (parliament).

In June, Baghdad transferred 420 billion dinars ($351 million) to the KRG, warning that it would be the last funding from Baghdad before a comprehensive solution to the disputed issues.

The Finance Ministry announced Aug. 17 that it will finalize the federal budget for the remainder of 2020 before October, saying the budget will provide a comprehensive solution to the Kurdistan financial issues including its commitments to Baghdad and its share of the federal budget.

This year, Iraq has been operating without an official budget due to the political crisis and government's transmission.

The Iraqi government is seeking to address the long-standing dispute with the KRG during a difficult political and economic time for the country, and opponents of the prime minister are finding fault with his solutions, while offering none of their own.
The Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has confirmed that the current lockdown restrictions will be extended in County Kildare, in a statement announcing that further business grants will be available for companies in the county hit by the Covid-19 shutdown.

He announced that the Government will "provide further assistance to businesses in Kildare, following on from todays decision to extend restrictions.

The Tanaiste said: I realise how disappointing todays news will be for the people of Kildare. It has been a devastating few months for business owners, their staff and families. By extending these restrictions now, we will avoid further, more damaging measures later on. We must do everything we can to protect people. The people of Kildare are making a sacrifice on behalf of the entire country. I recognise that and we are redoubling our efforts to help businesses.

One third of the country's 1,311 cases of Covid-19 over the last fortnight have occurred in County Kildare. NPHET is understood to have yesterday advised the Cabinet to ease restrictions, brought in a fortnight ago in Kildare, Laois and Offaly, in the latter two counties only.

No further details on the length of the restriction extension or whether any of its conditions would be eased, were contained in Mr Varadkar's statement. A full announcement from Cabinet is expected later today.

The raft of measures to assist Kildare businesses, announced this afternoon, are in addition to extra measures announced last week, and include:

Restart Grant top up: Kildare businesses will receive a further 20% top-up to the Restart Plus Grant, equivalent to a 40% uplift overall, bringing the new minimum grant to 5,600 and the maximum grant to 35,000. Increased Enterprise Agency Assistance: The Local Enterprise Office in Kildare will step up assistance to impacted businesses. One to one specialist expertise and mentoring will be provided to impacted businesses, helping them reassess their financial plans. A virtual Sustaining Business open day will be held early next week.

Marketing Grants: Marketing grants under the Technical Assistance for Micro Exporters (TAME) programme will be reinforced to help businesses to get their message out that they are open for business. Up to 2,500 is available. A publicity campaign will be run locally to ensure businesses are aware of all the funding options available to them.

Applications prioritised: Applications from Kildare for all existing schemes will continue to be prioritised.

The Tanaiste said: Im particularly concerned about small businesses and those in the hospitality sector. I have asked the Local Enterprise Office to make a list of recommendations for further measures that Government can take to help businesses in Kildare to maximise trade over the next two weeks. I look forward to their recommendations. Government will do everything we can to help.

Meanwhile, Kildare Chamber CEO Allan Shine has called for a tranche of funding intended to boost tourism in Kildare, Laois and Offaly to instead be redirected as a matter of urgency to the Kildare hospitality industry. It is understood that the restrictions are starting to bite in some sectors of the county's hospitality industry, with layoffs of staff occurring in the sector this week.
Four of the richest tycoons in Singapore, including Haidilao International Holding Ltd. co-founders Zhang Yong and his wife Shu Ping, are Chinese-born Singaporean citizens, according to the Forbes 2020 Singapore Rich List.

The hot-pot power couple remained the richest billionaires in the country, together taking the top spot on the list with a combined net worth of $19 billion.

New entrants who cracked the top 10 on this years list, which was published Wednesday, include Li Xiting, co-founder and chairman of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co. Ltd., and Forrest Li, group chief executive and chairman of gaming and e-commerce company Sea Ltd. Li Xiting has a net worth of $17.8 billion while Forrest Li is worth $7.1 billion, according to Forbes.

Zhang and Shu together debuted at No.1 on the list in 2019 with a combined net worth of $13.8 billion.

Their Hong-Kong listed hotpot restaurant chain isnt doing quite as well. Last month, it issued a profit warning that estimated a 900 million yuan to 1 billion yuan net loss for the first half of 2020 as the Covid-19 outbreak forced it to close down its Chinese mainland restaurants for three months. Haidilao reopened those restaurants in April.

Li Xitings Mindray, Chinas largest medical-equipment manufacturer, expects a 38% to 48% increase in profit for the first half as global demand for ventilators, electronic monitors and ultrasound scanners has surged amid the pandemic.

New York-listed Seas stock price is up 880% over the last 18 months, propelling its valuation to $69 billion and making it the most valuable listed company in Southeast Asia. Like other Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Sea has grown into an internet behemoth with subsidiaries specializing in a range of business, including gaming company Garena, e-commerce platform Shopee and digital payment firm SeaMoney.

Singapores 50 richest people saw their collective wealth rise 28% to $167 billion amid the pandemic-induced recession.

Still, Singapore remained the worlds most competitive economy, according to the latest report from the International Institute for Management Development, which was released on June 20. The country has for decades attracted billionaire Chinese immigrants thanks to its favorable immigration policy, solid infrastructure and business friendly environment.

In terms of billionaire friendly immigration policy, Singapores Global Investor Program (GIP) is designed to offer permanent residency to tycoons or entrepreneurs looking to invest or start businesses in the country.

Singapore has long been seen as an ideal place to do business because it exempts goods in transit from customs duties and allows capital trading without foreign exchange controls. The country also appeals to businesses and individuals with a tax system under which companies can take advantage of multiple tax holidays and deductions, while residents dont have to pay tax on income earned overseas.

A shared language has led many Chinese immigrants to choose Singapore over countries in the West. With 70% of its population of Chinese descent, the country has Mandarin as one of its official languages.

Over the years, Hong Kong and Singapore have been the two most favored places for Chinese billionaires to open personal bank accounts and run family businesses. But the political unrest in Hong Kong over the past year has tipped the balance in Singapores favor.

Contact editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)

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Mumbai, Aug 21 : Kushal Zaveri, one of the directors of the popular daily soap Pavitra Rishta, which made Sushant Singh Rajput a household name, has shared a throwback picture on Instagram. The picture features the late actor with his ex-girlfriend, actress Ankita Lokhande, and close friend Mahesh Shetty besides Zaveri.

In the photograph, Sushant makes a goofy expression sticking out his tongue, while everyone else smiles at the camera.

Zaveri captioned the image: "#Nostalgia", along with a heart emoji.

"Pavitra Rishta" was Sushant's second outing as an actor, and he shot to fame playing Manav Deshmukh on the show before Bollywood stardom beckoned.

On Thursday, the CBI took over investigation into the death of Sushant after a Supreme Court nod the day before. A team of the central probe agency is in Mumbai investigating the death of the actor, who was found dead in his residence on June 14.

The CBI has registered a case against Sushant's girlfriend, actress Rhea Chakraborty, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's ex-manager Shruti Modi and flatmate Samuel Miranda and unknown persons on the basis of a complaint filed by the late actor's father KK Singh with the Bihar Police on July 25.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Uzbekistan increased by 459 to 37,825, Trend reports with reference to the statistics of the Uzbek Ministry of Health.

To date, 33,442 (+448) patients have fully recovered in the country, while 256 have died.

Under the instructions of President of Uzbekistan, unlimited movement of vehicles as well as local air rail traffic in Uzbekistan was resumed since August 15, 2020.

In addition, from August 17, 2020, Tashkent resumes public transport traffic.

Citizens are required to wear a medical mask when entering the bus, otherwise, passengers will not be allowed on the buses.

Moreover, from August 20, 2020, clothing and building material markets, large shops, gyms, fitness clubs and swimming pools will resume operations.

The first case of coronavirus infection in Uzbekistan was detected on March 15 in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Virology; it was an Uzbek woman who returned from France. The Ministry of Health later announced that her son, daughter, husband and grandson also tested positive for coronavirus.

The outbreak in the Chinese Wuhan city - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
Libya's warring rival administrations announced in separate statements Friday that they would cease all hostilities and organise nationwide elections soon, an understanding swiftly welcomed by the United Nations.

The statements were signed by Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital Tripoli, and Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based parliament backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

The two have been at war virtually since the formation of Sarraj's government in December 2015.

The UN's top official to Libya, Stephanie Williams, called for "all parties to rise to this historic occasion and shoulder their full responsiblities before the Libyan people."

Sarraj called for the holding of "presidential and parliamentary elections next March", and for the "end of all combat operations".

On the other side, Saleh also backed elections -- though he did not specify a date -- and called on "all parties" to observe "an immediate ceasefire and the cessation of all fighting."

It is the first deal between rival Libyan factions since a UN-sponsored accord in Morocco in December 2015, when dialogue led to agreement on a unity government.

'Important step'

Map showing the positions of forces fighting in Libya. By (AFP)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he supported the ceasefire declarations.

"I welcome statements by Libya's presidential council and the House of Representatives calling for a ceasefire and halting military operations in all Libyan territory," Sisi said in a tweet.

Sisi, whose government has been a major supporter of the eastern-based administration dominated by Haftar, said the twin announcements were an "important step" on the path to restoring stability.

Libya has been in chaos since a Western-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Haftar launched an offensive in April 2019 to seize Tripoli from the GNA.

But the move prompted heightened intervention by Turkey and its regional ally Qatar in support of the Tripoli based administration.

After 14 months of fierce fighting, Turkish-backed pro-GNA forces expelled Haftar's troops from much of western Libya and pushed them eastwards to Sirte, a gateway to Libya's rich oil fields and export terminals.

As well as Egypt, Haftar has had the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Russia, prompting repeated calls from the United Nations for outside powers to stop meddling.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, on a surprise visit to Tripoli this week, had warned that Libya faced a "deceptive calm" since fighting stalled around Sirte.

The central Mediterranean coastal city -- a symbolic site as the hometown of Kadhafi -- is the gateway to Libya's eastern oil fields and export terminals, and to the key Al-Jufra airbase to the south.

In reaction to the rival parties' declarations, German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said Friday "this could be an important step towards establishing peace."

Italy also welcomed the announcement. "These developments constitute an important and courageous step towards the stabilisation of the Libyan crisis," the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

Sarraj said a ceasefire would allow the creation of "demilitarised zones" in Sirte and the Jufra region, currently under the control of pro-Haftar forces.

Saleh did not mention the demilitarisation of Sirte and Jufra, but proposed the installation of a new government in Sirte.

But while the agreement was widely welcomed, analyst Jalel Harchaoui, research fellow at The Hague-based Clingendael Institute, said there was a long road ahead before peace.

"The question is, is this announcement fully achievable? In all likelihood, implementation will be difficult," said Harchaoui, noting the multiple regional forces who could act as spoilers of a deal.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has said the nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic party's vice presidential candidate is very significant as she brings together multiple identities and also is a "flashpoint" for communities around the country that felt unheard till now.

Harris, 55, scripted history in US politics as she became the first Indian-American and Black woman to get a major party's vice presidential nomination on the third day of the virtual Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.

ALSO READ | Amazon removes shirts with derogatory references to Kamala Harris

Jayapal, 54, who entered the US House of Representatives in January 2017 as the first Indian-American to be elected to the lower house, said she was confident that Harris would fight for the policies required.

"Harris' nomination as vice president candidate of the Democratic party is very significant.

"It is not only because she brings multiple identities but is a flashpoint for communities around the country that have not felt themselves heard in a way the way that we would like, not felt themselves seen, and she touched on that at many moments and she also touched on the history of those whose shoulders we stand upon," Jayapal said in an interview to CNN.

Jayapal said Harris accepting the nomination to be the vice presidential candidate of the Democratic Party brought tears to her eyes.

ALSO READ | Kamala Harris thanks her late mother for making her proud of Indian heritage

"This was a historic night as we all know. I will admit that watching her saying the phrase "I accept the nomination to be the vice president of the United States brought me some tears", Jayapal said.

Jayapal and Harris, both good friends, trace their roots to Chennai, have worked together on several issues, in particular those related to the immigrants, human rights and women.

"It's about the policies she will fight for. We spent a lot of time trying to convince people of what the reality is on the ground.

The fact is, that Kamala Harris's multiple identities, as a black woman, as a child of immigrants, as the first South Asian-American woman to be elected to the Senate, and now, to be on a major party ticket allows her to have a different sort of insight into the issues of immigration into the issues of women of colour," Jayapal said.

"I have been able to work with her on a national domestic worker's bill of rights that we introduced together, all women of colour, many immigrant women, and it was just a delight, because neither of us have to explain anything to each other. Same thing with immigration," she said.

Jayapal said Harris is one of the only 14 naturalised citizens to serve in the US Congress.

"And I believe Harris is critical to that path forward," she said.
He bashed his wife over the head with a metal bar, buried her in the backyard and kept the crime secret for more than 40 years, and now Geoffrey Adams will finally be jailed over the killing.

A South Australian Supreme Court jury on Friday found Adams not guilty on a charge of murdering his then 24-year-old wife Colleen in 1973.

But the 72-year-old had already pleaded guilty to her manslaughter after revealing the location of her remains in 2018, under concrete slabs behind their former Maitland home on SA's Yorke Peninsula.

Geoffrey Adams (pictured) bashed his wife Colleen over the head with a metal bar, buried her in the backyard and kept the crime secret for more than 40 years

Adams (left) was found not guilty of murder because he pleaded guilty to manslaughter over his wife's death

Adams did not give evidence in his own defence, but in a police record of interview played to the court he told detectives he had struck his wife because of her 'continuously having a go at me over nothing -- yelling and screaming'.

'It had gone on for too long,' he said.

After the attack, Adams left her body on the kitchen floor overnight, and the next day began taking steps to conceal her death.

'Within a few hours he dug a shallow grave in the backyard of the matrimonial home where he buried Mrs Adams' body,' prosecutor Jim Pearce told the court.

'He then set about laying a false trail - a trail designed to conceal his guilt.

'The accused promulgated a story that had, at its epicentre, that one morning Mrs Adams got up, packed her bags and walked out of the marriage.'

Chilling footage captured the moment Adams, accompanied by detectives, walked into his former yard and pointed out a concrete slab, underneath is believed to be his wife's remains

Police are seen searching a property in the country town of Maitland, South Australia, Thursday, September 20, 2018

The prosecutor said on the night of the killing, Adams had come home from a night out and an argument had developed.

'It was an argument that culminated in the accused striking and killing Mrs Adams,' he said.

Mr Pearce said Adams told police that his wife left their home because she could not cope with their two children.

'He told police that when Mrs Adams left she paused to say goodbye,' he said.

'He told police that Mrs Adams said to them 'goodbye you little bastards'.'

Colleen (pictured) was bashed on the head with a metal bar and buried in the backyard by her husband

But defence counsel Bill Boucaut QC told the jury there was no issue with the fact that Adams caused the death of his wife.

'You would gather that from the very fact that he has pleaded guilty to manslaughter,' Mr Boucaut said.

No issue was also taken with evidence that Adams buried his wife's body and then told a series of lies about what happened.

But Mr Boucaut said just because someone had told what could be described as 'despicable lies', that did not necessarily make him guilty of murder.

Adams will return to court for sentencing submissions next month.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms paid tribute at the Democratic National Convention Thursday to civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, urging all Americans to "pass on the gift John Lewis sacrificed to give us" by registering and voting.

Why it matters: Voting, whether by mail or in-person, has been one of the most dominant overarching messages of all four nights of the DNC. Bottoms' powerful invocation of Lewis, who dedicated his life to securing voting rights for Black Americans, was following by a montage of clips and speeches from the life of the late Georgia congressman.

What she's saying: "The baton has been passed to each of us. We cried out for justice. We have gathered in our streets to demand change, and now, we must pass on the gift John Lewis sacrificed to give us."
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Fourteen passengers who travelled from Delhi to Hong Kong on an Air India flight on August 14 have tested positive for COVID-19 till Thursday, the Hong Kong government said.

Due to this incident, Air India's passenger flights have been barred from landing in Hong Kong till August-end, it added on Friday.

A passenger from India can arrive in Hong Kong only if he or she has a COVID-19 negative certificate from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, according to the rules issued by the Hong Kong government in July.

In a statement to PTI on Friday, a spokesperson of the Department of Health of the Hong Kong government said, "A flight operated by Air India (AI314) arriving Hong Kong from India on August 14 had 11 passengers confirmed to have infected with COVID-19."

As a result, the department invoked the "Prevention and Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances and Travellers) Regulation (Cap.

599H) on August 17 to prohibit landing of passenger flights operated by Air India for two weeks from August 18 to 31 in Hong Kong", the spokesperson noted.

"As of August 20, a total of 14 passengers on that flight were confirmed to have infected with COVID-19," he added.

The statement did not elaborate if these 14 passengers had COVID-negative certificates with them from the tests done 72 hours prior to their journey, as required by the aforementioned rules.

Besides India, a pre-flight COVID-19 negative test result certificate is mandatory for all passengers coming from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa and the US, according to the Hong Kong government's rules.

An airline operating a flight to Hong Kong from any of these nine countries has to submit a form before departure stating that all passengers on board have COVID-19 negative certificates, as per the rules.

Moreover, all international passengers are required to take a post-flight COVID-19 test at the airport premises in Hong Kong.

In a statement, Air India spokesperson said,"In the wake of recent developments related to flight operations to Hong Kong, Air India will not be operating its three flights scheduled for Hong Kong till August-end."

"One of these flights is scheduled to operate as a cargo-only flight without any passenger from India and will return from Hong Kong with passengers. Air India has been adhering to all the protocols and norms laid down for flying to the different destinations," the spokesperson added.

In India, the total cases of coronavirus infections mounted to 29,05,823, while the death toll climbed to 54,849 with 983 new fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, data updated by the Union Health Ministry at 8 am on Friday showed.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, special international flights have been operating with the approval of aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Air India has been operating special international flights since May 6 under the Vande Bharat Mission to help stranded people reach their destinations.

Since July, India has established separate bilateral air bubble arrangements with countries like the US, Germany, France, the UAE, the UK and the Maldives for international flight operations.

Under a bilateral air bubble pact, airlines of both countries can operate international flights with certain restrictions.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA)  The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) has asked the Defence and Security Forces of Mali to ensure creation of a conducive environment for an unimpeded return to civilian rule
Health departments of Ukraine have two days to establish effective hotlines in the sites, Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov said following a conference call with the regional authorities.

"I keep the issue under personal control. After all, the situation when a patient with symptoms of [coronavirus] COVID-19 is sent to a private clinic for a test (instead of sending a free mobile team of specialists to the person) or by mistake someone gives a patient the number of a detective agency (instead of a laboratory) just sounds ridiculous. In fact, such stories are unacceptable," Stepanov wrote on Facebook on Friday.

The heads of health departments were instructed to take into account all the problematic situations and urgently correct them.
An Irish woman has been jailed on the Isle of Man for a month after breaking quarantine rules.

Fraser Nolan (60) of Osborne Drive in Belfast had been given special permission to visit the Isle of Man to take care of her late mother's estate.

Arriving by ferry on Sunday, she agreed to abide by strict Covid-19 rules for non-residents and self-isolate for 14 days at an empty family home in Castletown on the south of the island.

Just two days later, she broke regulations by travelling around 10 miles on a bus to visit a locksmith in Douglas.

The BBC report that she was reported to police via an anonymous tip-off, with officers going to her house to find it empty and contacting her on her mobile.

Promptly arrested on her return, the court heard the company director told officers she had "taken a chance" by making the journey.

She had also wanted advice on how to open a safe to access documents relating to her mother's will.

The court was told that Mrs Nolan had not read the terms of her exemption certificate properly and had "made a very silly mistake".

During her sentencing on Wednesday, magistrates told her the journey had "no real urgency" and that she had "put many people at risk".

With visitors only allowed with an exemption certificate, breaking the strict rules can result in a fine of up to 10,000 or three months in prison.

Mrs Nolan's defence had called for a suspended sentence, saying she had not read all the detail of her exemption certificate and was not aware of the level of penalties on the island.

A spokesperson for the Isle of Man Courts Service listed Mrs Nolan's charges as including failure to comply with a direction under the Emergency Powers (Potentially Infectious Persons) Regulations 2020 between August 16 and August 31.

They added that all prisoners are taken immediately to Isle of Man Prison located in the northern parish of Jurby.

Nicknamed Jurby's Hilton, the mixed-use facility was featured in a 2019 ITV documentary, The Best Little Prison in Britain?

Housing around 120 prisoners with nearly as many staff members, it was reported that all inmates have their own cell and are allowed out for up to seven hours every day.

Other perks are said to include a personal shopper to help prisoners spend their weekly wages of 35.

Despite the apparent relaxed atmosphere, no prisoner is automatically eligible for parole.

Jail terms for drug offences are also three times longer than in England and Wales, however reoffending rates are also considerably lower at 12.5pc compared to 48pc.
Beijing, Aug 21 : The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday urged the United States parties to abide by the one-China principle, the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, and handle Taiwan-related issues prudently and properly.

The 2020 Democratic Party's platform for the upcoming election, adopted at its National Convention on Thursday, no longer includes an endorsement for the one-China principle, a change compared with 2016, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Republican administration has also taken a hard line on China-related issues, including those on Taiwan.

Responding to a query about whether China is concerned that the developments may signal a tougher stance on China from both the US political parties, spokesperson Zhao Lijian told the media that China's position on Taiwan is "consistent and clear." "The Taiwan's question is the most important and sensitive issue in China-US relations. The one-China principle represents the political foundation underlying our bilateral ties, and also the common consensus of the international community," Lijian said.

"We urge the relevant parties to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, and handle Taiwan-related issues prudently and properly," added the spokesperson.
Leela Devi (65), a resident of Chhoti Kothia village in Musahari block of Muzaffarpur district, last gave birth to a boy 21 years ago, her fourth child. She is one of the many beneficiaries of National Maternity Benefit Schemes (NMBS) under the National Health Mission (NHM) in the district.

NMBS is a scheme to boost institutional delivery of babies. Under the scheme, Rs 1,400 is given to the mother, while Rs 600 is paid to ASHA worker for assistance. Leela, however, is surprised. Her husband, a small farmer, is too. Documents in HT possession show Leela has given birth to babies eight times in the last 18 months.

My last baby is a boy and was born 21 years ago. I came to know I had been included as a beneficiary and money had been given to me nearly a week ago. When I approached the operator of a CSP (customer service point) centre, where my account is, I was asked by the operator not to lodge a case and that they will return the money withdrawn in my name, she says.

Leela is not the lone elderly woman to have benefited under the scheme. Money has been deposited into and withdrawn from the accounts of more than 50 women fraudulently in the district.

Another woman, Shanti Devi (66), has been shown having given birth to two babies the same day, within an interval of 10 hours, despite the fact the babies are not twins. Sabina Khatoon (59) of the same village also has been shown as a beneficiary of the scheme.

After the embezzlement came to light, district magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh on Thursday ordered a probe.

When approached for comment, Charanjit Kumar, branch manager of State Bank of Indias branch at Musahari the CSP center is attached with, feigned ignorance. I dont know how the CSP operator has managed all this even after the transaction system has been attached with finger print enabled system and Aadhaar identification. He can tell more about this, he said.

The CSP operator, Sushil Kumar, has gone into hiding soon after the matter came to the light.

The DM could not be contacted despite repeated calls and messages.

Civil surgeon and chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Shailesh Prasad Singh termed it a very serious matter. I, along with some of my subordinates, met the DM and discussed the matter. He expressed his concern over the entire episode and asked me to set up an inquiry committee, led by a senior doctor and account experts, he said.

Senior gynecologist Dr Indu Kumari said, No woman can give birth to baby after menopause.

However, superintendent of Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Dr Sunil Kumar Shahi, said woman older than 50 years giving birth to a baby cannot be ruled out altogether. It has been seen that some elderly woman have given birth. But these are rare cases, he said.
Press Release

August 21, 2020 STATEMENT OF SENATOR RISA HONTIVEROS ON THE 37TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY OF NINOY AQUINO This is my personal story of that fateful day, 37 years ago. On August 21, 1983, some of my Ateneo Sanggu Central Boardmates mobilized to meet Ninoy Aquino at the airport. I was one of those who had objected to meeting him because I felt that he was a trapo and had not fought with us the previous years. I had many opinions of Ninoy, but then I realized when they killed him that he had returned to the Philippines knowing well the risks. He ultimately was willing to give up his one and only life. He had said the Filipino was worth dying for, and he stood true to his words. On that day, Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. The rest, as they say, is history - and it became part of my personal history, too. I will never forget the tragedy and the inspiration of Ninoy's death as we must not forget the many who have died for us. Deaths like these are built on extraordinary hope and an unwavering love for the Filipino. Ito'y mga kamatayang bumuhay sa bansang nagkaisa laban sa diktador. Mga kamatayang bumuhay sa nasyonalismo, ng ating pagmamahal sa bayan at kapwa Pilipino. I try to remember these sacrifices every day I wake up to do my work as a citizen and as a senator. There was fear that day, 37 years ago. But there was also anger and a passionate desire to do something because things should not remain the same. Today, we are met with similar challenges. In the middle of a global pandemic, we are faced with threats to our democracy and liberties. Killing has become part of our daily language and we wake up with deaths by the thousands. Nakakatakot ang karahasang pumapaligid. Ngunit mas nakakatakot kung magmanhid tayo dito. Naniniwala akong pati si Ninoy noon ay natakot din minsan. But let us remember that the greatest act of hope is to return, even in uncertainty. May Ninoy's heroism challenge us to never accept the oppression and suffering as a given, to always be inspired by the Filipino and work towards building a future that works for all, and lastly, even if it meant fearful uncertainty, to hope. Dreams, after all, are most vivid in the dark. link: https://www.facebook.com/128801740656/posts/10164560091240657/
Libya: IOM, first migrant repatriation after 5-month pause The flight carried 118 Ghanaians

(ANSAmed) - GINEVRA, 21 AGO - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on Friday its first voluntary humanitarian flight to repatriate migrants from Libya following a temporary interruption of the Voluntary Humanitarian Return Programme (VHR) programme over the past five months.



The flight carried 118 Ghanaians - including seven women, three children, and two newborns - who were stuck in Libya due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and departed for Accra on Thursday.



All of the passengers underwent a health screening prior to boarding the flight and were given personal protective equipment including face masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer.



The migrants also received psychosocial support.



In a statement, IOM said it will continue to provide support during a 14-day quarantine period in Ghana and later, reintegration assistance.



IOM spokesperson Safa Msehli said conflict and COVID-19 have severely impacted the livelihoods of migrants in Libya, and IOM has received many new requests for assistance in voluntary humanitarian repatriation in recent months.



Other voluntary repatriation flights are planned, but a flight scheduled for next week to Mali had to be postponed.



The VHR programme, which began in 2015, helped 1,466 stranded migrants return home from Libya in the first quarter of 2020.



Last year, the programme helped 9,800 people return to 34 countries of origin in Africa and Asia.



(Archive: Ivorian migrants returning from Libya arrive in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, 20 november 2017. Migrants were repatriated from Libya by the Ivorian government in collaboration with IOM. Photo: EPA/LEGNAN KOULA) (ANSAmed).




Midwich Group Plc (LON:MIDW), is not the largest company out there, but it saw a double-digit share price rise of over 10% in the past couple of months on the AIM. Less-covered, small caps sees more of an opportunity for mispricing due to the lack of information available to the public, which can be a good thing. So, could the stock still be trading at a low price relative to its actual value? Lets take a look at Midwich Groups outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if the opportunity still exists.

Check out our latest analysis for Midwich Group

What is Midwich Group worth?

Midwich Group appears to be overvalued by 28% at the moment, based on my discounted cash flow valuation. The stock is currently priced at UK4.00 on the market compared to my intrinsic value of 3.13. Not the best news for investors looking to buy! But, is there another opportunity to buy low in the future? Since Midwich Groups share price is quite volatile, this could mean it can sink lower (or rise even further) in the future, giving us another chance to invest. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market.

What kind of growth will Midwich Group generate?

Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. In Midwich Groups case, its revenues over the next few years are expected to grow by 39%, indicating a highly optimistic future ahead. If expense does not increase by the same rate, or higher, this top line growth should lead to stronger cash flows, feeding into a higher share value.

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? MIDWs optimistic future growth appears to have been factored into the current share price, with shares trading above its fair value. However, this brings up another question  is now the right time to sell? If you believe MIDW should trade below its current price, selling high and buying it back up again when its price falls towards its real value can be profitable. But before you make this decision, take a look at whether its fundamentals have changed.

Story continues

Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on MIDW for a while, now may not be the best time to enter into the stock. The price has surpassed its true value, which means theres no upside from mispricing. However, the optimistic prospect is encouraging for MIDW, which means its worth diving deeper into other factors in order to take advantage of the next price drop.

So if you'd like to dive deeper into this stock, it's crucial to consider any risks it's facing. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs that you should run your eye over to get a better picture of Midwich Group.

If you are no longer interested in Midwich Group, you can use our free platform to see our list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

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.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden has chosen the right strategy in fighting the spread of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said on Friday, defending his government's decision not to adopt a strict lockdown as many European countries have done.

More than 5,800 Swedes have died of COVID 19, a much higher death rate than in neighbouring Norway, Denmark and Finland which adopted much tougher measures than Sweden, leading many to question the government's approach.

But Lofven said Sweden had made the correct choice.

"The strategy that we adopted, I believe is right - to protect individuals, limit the spread of the infection, etc," he said in an interview in daily Dagens Nyheter.

"What has been discussed most, and what we did differently in Sweden, was that we did not close schools. Now there are quite a few people who think we were right."

While many countries enforced strict lockdowns, Sweden has relied mainly on voluntary measures focused on social distancing, though public gatherings have been limited and care homes - which saw a heavy death toll - quarantined.

While Sweden has seen more fatalities than its neighbours, it has not been as badly hit as countries like Britain and Spain, which adopted much stricter lockdown measures.

Furthermore, while many parts of Europe are seeing a pick up in new cases as they gradually loosen restrictions on travel and social interactions, Sweden has seen a decline in both infections and deaths in recent weeks.

Lofven also defended the decision by the Public Health Agency not to enforce the wearing of facemasks, as many European countries have done, to fight the spread of the virus.

"What they are saying, and what I absolutely believe, is that they cannot be the main tool we use," Lofven said.

"What is important still is social distancing, testing and tracking. Those must be our main focus in order to reduce infection."

(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Alistair Bell)
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press Conference on August 21, 2020

2020/08/21

I. Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council will attend the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders' Meeting on August 24. The meeting will be co-chaired by Premier Li and Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith of Laos, the LMC Co-Chair, and attended by Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, President U Win Myint of Myanmar, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha of Thailand, and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam. The meeting will be convened via videolink.

II. China and Vietnam will hold an event at the China-Vietnam border on August 23 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of delimitation of the China-Vietnam boundary on land as well as the 10th anniversary of setting up pillars to demarcate the border. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh will attend the event.

CCTV: You announced that Premier Li Keqiang will attend the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders' Meeting. How does China see the current Lancang-Mekong cooperation and what does China expect from this meeting?

Zhao Lijian: China and Mekong countries are good neighbors, partners and brothers. The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) is a new type of sub-regional framework initiated and advanced by six countries through consultation, collaboration and benefit-sharing. Since its launch more than four years ago, it has achieved rapid progress with improved institution building, expanding cooperation fields and greater impetus for growth, which has brought tangible benefits to people in the six countries. Amid COVID-19, the six countries have been helping each other to effectively contain the virus and contributing to the fight against COVID-19 in East Asia and the world at large. While overcoming the difficulties in the pandemic, we are still engaging in practical cooperation to resume domestic work and production and advance the economic recovery in the region.

This meeting was supposed to take place at the beginning of this year in Vientiane, Laos, but was postponed due to the pandemic. All parties believe it is necessary to hold this meeting in a flexible manner as soon as possible so that it can provide strategic guidance for the LMC under the new circumstances. China attaches high importance to this meeting. Premier Li and leaders of other countries will review cooperation outcomes and experience, and make a comprehensive blueprint for future cooperation especially in the key areas like water resources, connectivity and public health. It will contribute to the well-being of people in the riparian countries and to regional peace, stability and prosperity.

Global Times: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on August 20 submitted a letter to the rotating chair of the UN Security Council for this month to request the triggering of snap-back sanctions as prescribed in Resolution 2231. He claimed that the Security Council will restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran in 30 days. Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: China noted the letter sent by the US. The Permanent Mission of China to the UN already stated China's position. Like we stressed many times, the US unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA means renunciation of its rights as a participant of the deal, and it is in no position to demand enacting the snap-back mechanism. Therefore, participants to the JCPOA and the overwhelming majority of the Security Council members believe that the US demand has no legal basis, and the snap-back mechanism has not been invoked. As I understand, pertinent participants including China, Russia, the UK, France, Germany and Iran have sent letters to the Security Council chair. British, French and German foreign ministers also issued a statement to express opposition to the US move.

The US demand of re-imposition of United Nations sanctions on Iran is nothing but a self-serving political manipulation. The US has walked away from commitments, withdrawn from international organizations and treaties, harmed multilateralism and the authority of the Security Council and undermined international non-proliferation regime. Its move to push for a resolution or send a letter to the Security Council cannot justify its above-mentioned behaviors. On August 14, a US-sponsored draft resolution to extend arms embargo on Iran was put to vote at the Security Council, which was voted against by 13 members unequivocally with only one member voted for it, leaving the US isolated like never before. This fully demonstrates that the US unilateral position runs counter to the wide consensus of the international community and its attempt to sabotage the JCPOA will never succeed. We urge the US to stop going down the wrong path, otherwise it will only meet further opposition.

It takes equal-footed dialogue and candid consultations rather than sanctions, pressuring or even military threat, to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.To uphold the JCPOA and the authority of the UNSCR, maintain the international non-proliferation regime and safeguard regional peace and stability, China stands ready to work with other parties to find a proper solution and move forward the political and diplomatic settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue.

TASS: According to US news portal Axios, US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea said that the US has changed its position on China's involvement in the nuclear arms control talks. He said that the Trump administration has abandoned its demand that China should be involved in any nuclear talks. It's now aiming to reach a political accord with Russia to extend the treaty, and then pressure China to join the next talks and eventually a treaty on nuclear arms control. What is your comment on this?

Zhao Lijian: It is our clear and consistent position that China has no intention to take part in a trilateral arms control negotiation with the US and Russia. The extension of the New START Treaty, the important and only existing bilateral arrangement between the US and Russia on nuclear disarmament, bears on not only strategic security between the US and Russia but also global strategic stability. China supports the US and Russia in maintaining dialogue on the New START and extending the treaty for the sake of international peace and security.

In the meantime, as a principle, the country in possession of the world's largest nuclear arsenal has the obligation to fulfill special and primary responsibilities in nuclear disarmament following the consensus of the international community, further drastically reduce its nuclear arsenal, and create conditions for other nuclear weapon states to participate in multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament.

CNS: A new study released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says China is targeting top scientific and technological expertise in the US and other advanced nations through its 600 "talent-recruitment stations" worldwide. The network is also used by the Chinese military for recruitment, the report claims. It is worth noting that the ASPI study is reportedly partly funded by the US State Department. Does China have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: We have repeatedly responded to the preposterously false reports on China compiled by this so-called institute. Media revelations have already exposed its source of funding and masters behind the curtains. Some in Australia revealed that it has long been receiving funds from the US government and arms dealers, and has been enthusiastic about cooking up and sensationalizing anti-China topics. As a deeply ideological organization that is essentially an anti-China "vanguard", the ASPI's academic integrity has come under serious question.

The institute has been widely criticized by people with vision in Australia for what it has done and has long been a laughing stock in the world. We hope and believe that Australia and other countries will be sharp-eyed to distinguish right from wrong, reject the absurd fabrications by such anti-China organizations, and look at China and its development in an objective and rational light.

Reuters: During the US Democratic National Convention which was closed on Thursday night, the Democratic shared their 2020 Party Platform for the upcoming US election. In a change from their 2016 Party Platform, they did not include endorsement for the one-China principle. Given the Republican administration has also taken a hard line on China and Taiwan, is China concerned that this could represent a toughest stance on China from both sides of the US politics?

Zhao Lijian: China has repeatedly made clear our position on the US presidential elections. On the matter you mentioned, China's position on Taiwan remains consistent and clear. The Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive issue between China and the US. The one-China principle is the political foundation of China-US relations and a common consensus of the international community. We urge relevant side to abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, and prudently and properly handle Taiwan-related issues.

China hopes that the Democratic and Republican parties in the US can view China and China-US relations in an objective way, and work with China to advance China-US relations featuring coordination, cooperation and stability, which serves the common interests of people in China, the US and the whole world.

Reuters: The Philippines said yesterday that it has lodged a diplomatic protest over what it said the "illegal" confiscation by the Chinese of the Filipino fishing equipment. It also protested China's continuing illicit issuance of radio challenges to Philippine aircraft which they say were conducting "legitimate" maritime patrols in the West Philippine Sea. What is your comment on this?

Zhao Lijian: It is beyond reproach for China Coast Guard to conduct law enforcement in Huangyan Dao waters as it is a lawful practice. The Philippines infringes on China's sovereignty and security by sending military aircraft into air space adjacent to Nansha islands and reefs garrisoned by China. China urges the Philippine side to immediately stop illegal provocations.

Reuters: According reports, Chinese workers who had been given an experimental Chinese COVID vaccine were denied entry to Papua New Guinea. Is the Foreign Ministry aware of this and do you have a comment?

Zhao Lijian: I am not aware of the situation you mentioned.

I would like to stress again that China's vaccine research and development strictly follows science-based and standardized procedures, and there's strict safety and effectiveness evaluation and ethical review. At the same time, in accordance with legal provisions and international common practices, emergency use of vaccines may be carried out on voluntary basis after scientific evaluation, verification and legal review so as to safeguard people's health to the greatest extent.

The following question was raised after the press conference: US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea, in an interview with a Japanese media outlet, stated that the US intends to discuss the deployment of land-based medium-range missiles with some Asian countries. Do you have a response?

Zhao Lijian: We noted relevant reports.

The US attempt to deploy land-based medium-range missiles is consistent with its increasing military presence in the Asia Pacific and so-called "Indo-Pacific strategy" over the past years, a typical demonstration of its Cold War mentality. Through its words and deeds the US has severely undermined regional and global peace and security, impacted international arms control and disarmament process, undercut mutual trust between major countries and eroded global strategic stability, which is detrimental to others and itself.

China firmly opposes US plan to deploy land-based medium-range missiles in the Asia Pacific and deplores its frequent moves to pressure China's neighbors and blatant provocations at China's doorstep. We urge the US to follow the trend of the times, behave in a responsible way and do things conducive to regional and world peace and stability rather than doing the opposite. If the US is bent on going down the wrong path, China is compelled to take necessary countermeasures to firmly safeguard its security interests.

We also call on countries in the Asia Pacific region to be soberly aware of the true intention behind and severe consequences of the US move, and refrain from acting as a pawn for the US.
FRANKLIN, Tenn., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HawsGoodwin Wealth, a Nashville area financial planning and investment management firm, was named to the annual Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy's most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000. The 2020 honorees have been very competitive within their markets, and the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior years' lists.

Nashville Firm Included for First Time Among America's Fastest Growing Private Companies and Maintains Position on Financial Times Top Registered Investment Advisers List

"We are thrilled to be included on this prestigious list," said CEO Art Haws, CFP. "Our primary focus has always been on providing the best possible service to the clients who depend on us. The growth for which we've been recognized is extremely gratifying as it has primarily come through referrals from trusting, satisfied clients and other business professionals in Tennessee."

"The companies on this year's Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business," said Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. "From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism."

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies had to meet the following requirements:

Must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016

U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent as of Dec. 31, 2019 (not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies) as of Dec. 31, 2019

(not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies) as of Have a minimum revenue of $100,000 in 2016 and $2 million in 2019

The complete list can be found at www.INC.com/Inc5000.

HawsGoodwin was also named to the Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers for the second consecutive year. This list recognizes top independent RIA firms from across the United States.

The seventh annual FT 300 list is produced independently by Ignites Research, a division of Money-Media, Inc., on behalf of Financial Advisor. RIA firms that met a minimum set of criteria were eligible to apply for consideration. Applicants were then graded on six factors: assets under management (AUM), AUM growth rate, years in existence, advanced industry credentials of the firm's advisers, online accessibility and compliance records. No fees or other considerations were required of those RIAs that applied for the FT 300.

The complete list can be found at www.FT.com/reports/300-Top-Investment-Advisers.

ABOUT HAWSGOODWIN WEALTH

HawsGoodwin Wealth, LLC is an independently owned and operated, SEC Registered Investment Advisory firm based in Franklin, TN. Founded in 2008 by Art Haws and Cam Goodwin, the firm serves as a fiduciary to individuals, families and businesses, committed to helping them achieve their financial goals, protect and grow their assets, and live their best life. HawsGoodwin was named to the 2020 edition of the Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers which recognizes top independent firms from across the United States (this is the seventh annual FT 300 list and HawsGoodwin has earned a spot on the list for two consecutive years). The firm has more than $500 million in client assets under management. For more information, visit www.HawsGoodwin.com.

The Financial Times 300 Top Registered Investment Advisers is an independent listing produced annually by the Financial Times (July 2020). The FT 300 is based on data gathered from RIA firms, regulatory disclosures, and the FT's research. The listing reflected each practice's performance in six primary areas: assets under management, asset growth, compliance record, years in existence, credentials and online accessibility. This award does not evaluate the quality of services provided to clients and is not indicative of the practice's future performance. Neither the RIA firms nor their employees pay a fee to The Financial Times in exchange for inclusion in the FT 300.

HawsGoodwin Wealth, LLC is an independent investment adviser registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about HawsGoodwin, including our investment strategies, fees and objectives, can be found in our Form ADV Part 2, which is available upon request.

Media Contact:

Karen Embry

Impact Communications, Inc.

913-649-5009

[email protected]

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HawsGoodwin Wealth Named to the Inc. 5000 List

Nashville Firm Included for First Time Among America's Fastest Growing Private Companies and Maintains Position on Financial Times Top Registered Investment Advisers List

SOURCE HawsGoodwin Wealth
A pupil introduces a wall with children's paintings at a school in Xiongxian County, Xiong'an New Area, Hebei Province, August 18, 2020. [For chinadaily.com.cn/Zhang Yu]

BEIJING  China's Ministry of Education has required efforts to restore normal teaching at the country's schools and universities with effective anti-epidemic measures in place.

A circular, issued by the office of the MOE's leading group for COVID-19 responses, asked local education authorities as well as colleges and universities to make plans in preparation for the reopening of schools and universities in the upcoming autumn semester.

Such plans must take local anti-epidemic situations and the schools' realistic conditions into account, the circular said, adding that the faculties should be prepared for the school reopening, and health monitoring measures for teachers and students should be properly in place.

It also required an overhaul of all kinds of safety risks on campus.

Anti-epidemic measures should be carried out in a scientific and targeted manner, the circular said, demanding a coordinated system among the schools and local health authorities for epidemic containment.

The schools should have contingency plans and material reserves ready for possible emergencies, and they should keep records for every student regarding their returning routes, the document said.

Containment measures at some key sites such as the schools' classrooms, canteens, dormitories, and laboratories should be strengthened, and epidemic-related information should be reported daily even if there are no relevant cases, according to the circular.

It also asked the schools to enhance their capabilities in handling possible emergencies with relevant well-trained personnel.

(Source: Xinhua)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark  August 19, 2020 - Bavarian Nordic A/S (OMX: BAVA, OTC: BVNRY) will announce its 2020 first half results on Wednesday, August 26, 2020.

The management of Bavarian Nordic will host a conference call at 2:00 pm CEST (8:00 am EDT) on the same day to present the interim results followed by a Q&A session. A live and replay version of the call and relevant slides will be available at https://bit.ly/3l1AetR .

To join the Q&A session dial one of the following numbers and state the participant code 9647956: Denmark: +45 32 72 80 42, UK: +44 (0) 844 571 8892, USA: +1 631-510-7495.

About Bavarian Nordic

Bavarian Nordic is a fully integrated biotechnology company focused on the development, manufacture and commercialization of life-saving vaccines. We are a global leader in smallpox vaccines and have been a long-term supplier to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of a non-replicating smallpox vaccine, which has been approved by the FDA under the trade name JYNNEOS, also for the protection against monkeypox. The vaccine is approved as a smallpox vaccine in Europe under the trade name IMVANEX and in Canada under the trade name IMVAMUNE. Our commercial product portfolio furthermore contains market-leading vaccines Rabipur/RabAvert against rabies and Encepur against tick-borne encephalitis. Using our live virus vaccine platform technology, MVA-BN, we have created a diverse portfolio of proprietary and partnered product candidates designed to save and improve lives by unlocking the power of the immune system, including an Ebola vaccine, licensed to Janssen. For more information visit www.bavarian-nordic.com .

Contacts

Europe: Rolf Sass Srensen, Vice President Investor Relations & Communications. Phone +45 61 77 47 43

U.S.: Graham Morrell, Paddock Circle Advisors (US), Tel: +1 781 686 9600




The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Friday announced its first round of citations to businesses violating coronavirus safety measures.

The MIOSHA investigations determined that these six employers were clearly not taking the appropriate steps to protect employees and their communities from the spread of COVID-19, MIOSHA Director Bart Pickelman said in a press release.

These citations are meant to reiterate the employers duty. Precautions are necessary to establish and maintain a work environment where everyone can return home safe and healthy.

MIOSHA, which regulates workplace safety in Michigan, issued the citations under the general duty clause requiring employers to provide workplaces free from recognized hazards causing or likely to cause death or physical harm. The citation carries a fine of up to $7,000.

The first round of businesses to be cited are:

United Shore Financial Services, LLC, based in Pontiac, allowed people to work in a shared space without masks or staying distanced at six feet apart, held a gathering of over 120 people without masks according to MIOSHA. They were fined $6,300.

The UPS distribution facility based in Livonia did not complete daily health screening of employees or ensure they wore masks if they werent able to stay six feet apart, according to MIOSHA. The business was fined $7,000.

The Speedway, LLC, gas station and convenience store in Waterford allowed employees to inadequately wear face coverings, didnt conduct health screenings, didnt provide free face coverings to employees and didnt train employees to recognize symptoms of COVID-19, according to MIOSHA. The business was fined $6,300.

Coops Iron Works, a fitness center based in Saginaw opened in violation of the governors orders, was fined $2,100 by MIOSHA for not having a COVID-19 preparedness response plan, not conducting health screenings, not requiring employees to wear masks when they could not stay six feet apart and not closing steam rooms or saunas.

Dan Freed, a residential contractor based in Eaton Rapids, allowed workers within six feet of one another when it was feasible to work six feet apart, did not require face coverings for people fewer than six feet apart, did not have a COVID-19 preparedness and response plan and had other violations. The company was fined $6,400.

Hills Roofing, LLC, based in Niles, was fined $5,300. The allowed workers within six feet of one another when it was feasible to work six feet apart, did not require face coverings for people fewer than six feet apart, did not have a COVID-19 preparedness and response plan and had other violations.

The businesses have 15 working days to contest the penalties. MIOSHA has provided suggestions on how to address the issues they were cited for, and businesses must provide proof to MIOSHA they have taken steps to abate the issues.

MIOSHA has seen a 500% increase in complaints due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pickleman said on a conference with reporters call Friday. In 2019, MIOSHA was getting around 200 complaints per month. Now, its 1,000 a month.

Another way to put this is, weve received more complaints since March than we did in all of calendar years 18 and 19 combined, Pickleman said.

The volume of complaints has forced the agency to triage responses. Some businesses get letters, while others get on-site inspections.

Employers with questions, or employees who want to report violations at their workplaces, including anonymously, can contact MIOSHA at a hotline specific to COVID-19 concerns: 855-SAFE-C19. Employees can also file a complaint online.

Employers can familiarize themselves with COVID-19 requirements online here.

The department is also working with local health departments to identify employers with outbreaks, said Sean Egan, Michigan COVID-19 Workplace Safety Director.

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/.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red White and Bloom Brands Inc. (CSE: RWB and OTC:RWBYF) (RWB" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, in connection with its previously announced bought deal offering, RWB and a syndicate of underwriters, co-led by PI Financial Corp. and Eight Capital (collectively the "Underwriters"), have agreed to increase the size of the offering. The Underwriters will now place, on an underwritten bought deal basis, 29,000,000 units of the RWB (the "Units") at an issue price of $0.75 per Unit (the "Offering Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of $21.75 million (the "Offering"). In connection with Offering, the Company has granted the Underwriters an option, exercisable in whole or in part at any time for a period of 30 days following the closing date of the Offering, to increase the Offering by up to an additional 4,350,000 Units for additional gross proceeds of up to $3.26 million for total aggregate gross proceeds of $25.01 million, assuming the full exercise of the over-allotment option. The Company has agreed to pay a cash commission of 6.0% of the gross proceeds of the Offering and will issue to the Underwriters compensation options (the Compensation Options) equal to 6.0% of the aggregate number of Units sold under the Offering (the Underwriting Fee). The Compensation Options will be exercisable into Units at a price per Compensation Option equal to the Offering Price for a period of 24 months from the closing of the Offering.



The Units will be offered by way of a short-form prospectus in all provinces of Canada except Quebec, and such other additional jurisdictions in Canada as agreed to by the Company and the Underwriter.

The Offering is expected to close on or about September 15, 2020, or such other date as agreed between the Company and the Underwriter, and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and other approvals including the approval of the CSE.

Story continues

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) or any state securities laws and 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 Red White & Bloom Brands Inc.

The Company is positioning itself to be one of the top three multi-state cannabis operators active in the U.S. legal cannabis and hemp sector. RWB is predominately focusing its investments on the major US markets, including Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, and Florida with respect to cannabis, and the US and Internationally for hemp-based CBD products.

For more information about Red White & Bloom Brands Inc., please contact:

Tyler Troup, Managing Director

Circadian Group IR

IR@RedWhiteBloom.com

Visit us on the web: www.RedWhiteBloom.com

Follow us on social media

Twitter: @rwbbrands

Facebook: @redwhitebloombrands

Instagram: @redwhitebloombrands

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements and information that are based on the beliefs of management and reflect the Companys current expectations. When used in this press release, the words estimate, project, belief, anticipate, intend, expect, plan, predict, may or should and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release includes information relating to the Offering and the exercise of the over-allotment option. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: risks associated with the implementation of RWBs business plan and matters relating thereto, risks associated with the cannabis industry, competition, regulatory change, the need for additional financing, reliance on key personnel, the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers or directors, and the volatility of the Companys common share price and volume. Forward-looking statements are made based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

There are a number of important factors that could cause the Companys actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to RWBs proposed business, such as failure of the business strategy and government regulation; risks related to RWBs operations, such as additional financing requirements and access to capital, reliance on key and qualified personnel, insurance, competition, intellectual property and reliable supply chains; risks related to RWB and its business generally. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of material factors is not exhaustive. When relying on the Companys forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company has assumed a certain progression, which may not be realized. It has also assumed that the material factors referred to in the previous paragraph will not cause such forward-looking statements and information to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors. While the Company may elect to, it does not undertake to update this information at any particular time.

THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS PRESS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE COMPANY AS OF THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AFTER SUCH DATE. READERS SHOULD NOT PLACE UNDUE IMPORTANCE ON FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY UPON THIS INFORMATION AS OF ANY OTHER DATE. WHILE THE COMPANY MAY ELECT TO, IT DOES NOT UNDERTAKE TO UPDATE THIS INFORMATION AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME EXCEPT AS REQUIRED IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE LAWS.








New Delhi: Fourteen passengers who travelled to Hong Kong from Delhi on an Air India flight on August 14 have tested positive for COVID-19 till Thursday, the Hong Kong government said. Due to this incident, Air India's passenger flights have been barred from landing in Hong Kong till August-end, it added on Friday.

A passenger from India can arrive in Hong Kong only if he or she has a COVID-19 negative certificate from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, according to the rules issued by the Hong Kong government in July.

In a statement to PTI on Friday, a spokesperson of the Department of Health of the Hong Kong government said, "A flight operated by Air India (AI314) arriving Hong Kong from India on August 14 had 11 passengers confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19."

As a result, the department invoked the "Prevention and Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances and Travellers) Regulation (Cap. 599H) on August 17 to prohibit landing of passenger flights operated by Air India for two weeks from August 18 to 31 in Hong Kong", the spokesperson noted.

"As of August 20, a total of 14 passengers on that flight were confirmed to have infected with COVID-19," he added.

The statement did not elaborate if these 14 passengers had COVID-negative certificates with them from the tests done 72 hours prior to their journey, as required by the aforementioned rules.

Besides India, a pre-flight COVID-19 negative test result certificate is mandatory for all passengers coming from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa and the US, according to the Hong Kong government's rules.

An airline operating a flight to Hong Kong from any of these nine countries has to submit a form before departure stating that all passengers on board have COVID-19 negative certificates, as per the rules.

Moreover, all international passengers are required to take a post-flight COVID-19 test at the airport premises in Hong Kong.

In India, the total cases of coronavirus infections mounted to 29,05,823, while the death toll climbed to 54,849 with 983 new fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, data updated by the Union Health Ministry at 8 am on Friday showed.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, special international flights have been operating with the approval of aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Air India has been operating special international flights since May 6 under the Vande Bharat Mission to help stranded people reach their destinations.

Since July, India has established separate bilateral air bubble arrangements with countries like the US, Germany, France, the UAE, the UK and the Maldives for international flight operations.

Under a bilateral air bubble pact, airlines of both countries can operate international flights with certain restrictions.
July unemployment came in at 10.2%, still above the 10% high in the 2007-09 recession. Now more than ever, every effort should be made to create and keep jobs for Americans across all professions to ensure that our country rights itself. That includes those professions that are, mistakenly, perceived to be recession-proof.

Media coverage in recent few months has bemoaned that some doctors on visas might have to leave the U.S., or not be allowed to enter the country with pandemic travel restrictions. But theres been scant attention paid to the thousands of recent American graduates of medical schools who remain unlicensed, and thus unable to practice medicine.

Why? One factor is that U.S. taxpayer-funded medical residencies have gone to doctors from other countries  more than 4,200 just this year  those that media is so concerned about.

As doctors and nurses work 12-hour shifts, nearly dropping from exhaustion and with no pandemic end in sight, there is another long-ignored conversation  the prolonged U.S. doctor shortage. That we would have a doctor shortage when we have thousands of newly minted doctors not working is certainly confusing.

An obvious solution to whats being consistently reported as too few doctors is to put our own talented, dedicated doctors to work and to eagerly recruit and encourage others to enter medicine, rather than pilfer, hijack and steal the physicians from other nations.

We as a nation hold the embarrassing 52nd spot in the world in our doctor-to-patient ratio, far behind dozens of other nations, including some developing countries. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Andorra outrank America. Cuba, with 8.19 doctors per 1,000 patients, has the highest doctor/patient ratio and contrasts to our 2.59 doctors per 1,000 patients.

We cannot continue to invest taxpayer and other dollars in training doctors only to then push them aside, effectively saying, Although you thought you had reasonable, fair and equitable expectations when you graduated from medical school, you were wrong. Fooled you! Its completely unsustainable, as has been our approach in other areas, including technology.

In the last decade, more than 36,000 non-U.S. citizen students and graduates of international medical schools have been granted U.S. residencies (remember, theyre taxpayer-funded), and in each of the last ten years, the number has gone up, from 2,721 to 4,222 this year. All this is happening as our U.S. citizen doctors may be left driving Uber, with eight years of education that doesnt easily transfer to another profession, and perhaps as much as half a million dollars in student loan debt.

By every ethical and moral standard, we are violating our social contract with our own citizens. It is nothing less than immoral and unethical to have medical students  students accepted into highly competitive schools  rise to meet brutal academic requirements and, in most cases, take on a huge debt load for their educations, all in the hopes of serving others, only to be shut out of the whole system. Sorry! Weve decided to hire the doctors from other countries instead.

This is a most brutal and unacknowledged form of discrimination.

The powerful American Medical Association, which has lobbied for more H-1B and J-1 visas to bring in foreign doctors, has a lot of explaining to do, as does the Association of American Medical Colleges. Ditto our elected officials in the House and Senate.

Our doctors are waiting to go to work.

Kevin Lynn is the founder of Doctors without Jobs and U.S. Tech Workers. He can be reached at klynn@pfirdc.org.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has delegated more responsibilities to his aides, including his sister Kim Yo-jong, South Korea's spy agency claims, BBC writes in the article Kim Jong-un gives sister Yo-jong 'more responsibilities'. Mr Kim still maintains "absolute authority", but handed various policy areas to others to reduce his stress levels, the spy agency reportedly said.

Ms Kim is now "steering overall state affairs", the National Intelligence Service added. However, Seoul's spy agency has been wrong about North Korea in the past. The claims were reportedly made during a closed-door briefing on Thursday to South Korea's National Assembly. Lawmakers then discussed the assessment with journalists. "Kim Jong-un is still maintaining his absolute authority, but some of it has been handed over little by little," the agency was quoted as saying. Ms Kim now has responsibility for Pyongyang's policy towards the US and South Korea, among other policy issues, and is "the de-facto number two leader," it added, although it stressed that Mr Kim had "not selected a successor." Mr Kim's decision to delegate was in part to "relieve stress from his reign and avert culpability in the event of policy failure," it said.

However, some analysts have been sceptical of the intelligence, with website NKNews noting that she appeared to have missed two important meetings this month, leading to speculation from some observers that she may have been demoted.

Who is Kim Yo-jong?

She is the younger sister of Kim Jong-un and the only one of his siblings considered a close and powerful ally. Born in 1987, she is four years younger than Mr Kim. The two of them lived and studied in Bern, Switzerland, at the same time. Ms Kim first gained international attention in 2018, when she was the first member of the Kim dynasty to visit South Korea. She was part of the delegation to the Winter Olympics, where North and South competed as a joint team. She also worked alongside her brother at international summits, including his meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, China's Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump.

There's no doubt Kim Yo-jong is on the rise. Some analysts believe the crisis earlier this year between North and South Korea which saw the inter-Korean liaison office blown to bits was manufactured just to give her a major platform. She issued her first public statement in March. It was a scathing verbal attack condemning the South. She later noted that she had been given "power authorised by the Supreme Leader, our Party and the state". She also wrote about the potential for a summit between Kim Jong-un and President Trump later this year, insisting that North Korea did not have the "slightest intention to pose a threat to the US".

All of which suggests she may have been given responsibility to influence policies toward the United States and South Korea. Let's caveat this a little. This does not mean she will succeed her brother as leader of North Korea. She is also not the only one to have been given extra responsibilities. Other aides have been handed some power too. It is also worth noting that the intelligence briefing specifically states that Kim Jong Un remains in overall control - he is merely delegating. He will still have the final say. But it is yet another indication that Kim Yo-jong has gone from hiding behind pillars at public events and carrying ashtrays for her brother to being at the forefront of North Korea's foreign policy.

How reliable is South Korea's spy agency?

North Korea is one of the world's most secretive societies. South Korea's National Intelligence Service may have more intelligence on the North than most other organisations, but it has still had a mixed record. For example, in 2016, South Korean media cited a similar briefing by the spy agency in which it was said that the chief of staff of the North Korean army, Ri Yong-gil, had been executed. Three months later, the South Korean government said that he appeared to be alive, as his name had appeared on a list of party officials. In 2017, the spy agency also admitted it tried to manipulate the result of the 2012 presidential election in the South.
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was prepared to apologize over his decision to allow Battisti to remain in Brazil

Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he regrets protecting communist militant Cesare Battisti from extradition to his native Italy, after the ex-fugitive confessed to four murders.

Lula, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, revealed in an interview he was prepared to apologize over his decision to allow Battisti to remain in Brazil.

On the final day of his presidency, the left-wing leader denied Battisti's extradition, enabling the militant to continue dodging the Italian authorities until he was captured last year in Bolivia after nearly four decades on the run.

Now serving a life sentence in Italy, Battisti confessed to the 1970s murders several weeks after his capture.

"All of us on the Brazilian left who defended Cesare Battisti feel frustrated and disappointed," Lula told online talk show TV Democracia in a segment that aired Thursday.

"I would have no problem apologizing to the Italian left and the victims' families."

He said he never met Battisti in person, and had merely followed the advice of then justice minister Tarso Genro, who believed the ex-militant was innocent.

Battisti, 65, committed the murders during Italy's so-called "Years of Lead," in a failed attempt to trigger a communist revolution.

Jailed in 1979, he escaped from prison two years later and reinvented himself as a crime writer during his life on the run.

He apparently fled Brazil after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro vowed during his 2018 election campaign to "immediately" send the ex-militant back to Italy if elected.

Lula, 74, has had his own run-ins with the law since leaving office.

Highly popular during his presidency, he has since been caught up in a massive corruption scandal, which landed him in jail for a year and a half and badly tarnished his image.

He says the case against him was trumped up to keep him from staging a political comeback.

js/jhb/ft
Personalized cancer treatments are no longer just options of the future. In the past few years, researchers have made significant progress in 'teaching' the body's immune T cells to recognize and kill specific cancer cells, and human clinical trials have shown that this approach can successfully eliminate tumors.

Cancer patients today can be a part of the following clinical scenario: a patient comes to the hospital where physicians and scientists analyze his or her tumor to identify cancer-specific markers that would serve as targets for the novel therapy. Blood is drawn from the patient and sent to Baylor College of Medicine's Center for Cell and Gene Therapy where the immune T cells are transformed into cells with a mission to identify and kill cells with the tumor-specific tags. The final cells are infused back into the patient to complete their job.

At the Center, we genetically engineer the patient's T cells to arm them with the tools they need to identify the patient's tumor-specific markers and eliminate the cancer." Dr. Maksim Mamonkin, assistant professor of pathology & immunology and member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor

Although this treatment can effectively eliminate tumors, the 'training' of the T cells is complex and expensive. "Sometimes, the trained T cells are not highly potent because the patient already received a number of treatments that weakened the immune cells we work with," Mamonkin said.

In addition, the process to manufacture the therapeutic T cells is time consuming. "Sometimes it takes weeks to get the T cells ready, and in this time the patient may take a turn for the worse," Mamonkin said.

The next step: off-the-shelf therapies

"Now that we know that this type of cell immunotherapy has a lot of promise, the next step is to streamline it, make it more accessible and make sure that the resulting T cells have the highest potency," said Mamonkin, who also is a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Researchers are developing ready-to-use, off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells. These are genetically engineered T cells that are manufactured from normal, healthy donors. The cells are expanded and well characterized, and have shown to be effective at killing cancer cells. The cells are cryo-preserved - stored frozen in liquid nitrogen - until it's time to use them. In this scenario, a cancer patient comes to the hospital and the tumor markers are identified. Then, with the identity of the tumor-specific tags in hand, the physician goes to a room filled with large below-zero freezers searching for the one that holds little containers with healthy immune T cells that have been genetically engineered to recognize and destroy cells with the patient's cancer-specific markers. These 'off-the-shelf,' ready-made cells are thawed, prepared and infused into the patient several days later.

"This approach solves two limitations of the original approach: it avoids the time-consuming, elaborate steps of training and expanding the patient's cells and results in therapeutic T cells of higher potency," Mamonkin said. "However, the novel approach presents a new set of limitations."

Dealing with rejection

One of the limitations of the off-the-shelf approach emerges when the therapeutic T cells enter the patient's body. The patient's own immune system recognizes the cells as foreign, such as it happens with organ transplants, and may reject the therapeutic cells.

"This is a major problem because rejection not only would reduce the duration of the T cells activity against the tumor, but also would preclude giving subsequent doses of cells. The immune system would reject subsequent doses of the cells right way," said first author, Feiyan Mo, graduate student in Mamonkin's lab. "To solve this problem we thought that the best defense was a good offense." The researchers gave the therapeutic T cells a tool that would enable them to fight back the attack of the patient's immune cells against them. They genetically engineered the therapeutic T cells to express a receptor called alloimmune defense receptor, or ADR. ADR recognizes a specific molecule, called 4-1BB, that is only expressed on the patient's activated T cells and natural killer (NK) cells that would attack them. 4-1BB is not expressed on resting T and NK cells that do not turn against the therapeutic T cells.

"Both experiments in the lab and animal models with blood cancers or solid tumors showed that ADR protected off-the-shelf therapeutic T cells from being rejected," Mo said. "Not only did they resist rejection, but they also expanded more and persisted longer than therapeutic T cells without ADR." The researchers are optimistic that this approach may also work in patients. They plan to conduct clinical trials on 2021.

Beyond cancer applications

"If successful, this approach can be extended to targeting other disease-causing T-cells, such as those rejecting transplanted organs, mediating graft-versus-host disease or perpetuating autoimmunity," said Mamonkin. "We are very excited to develop this concept for several applications beyond cancer therapy." This technology has been licensed to Fate Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that plans on integrating ADR into their clinical products.

"The BCM Ventures team is very pleased to partner with Fate Therapeutics in a licensing relationship to support their implementation of the ADR technology developed in the Mamonkin laboratory here at BCM. This approach promises to enhance the effectiveness of off-the-shelf cell therapies, and it will now be used more extensively in the clinical setting which stands to benefit patients," said Michael Dilling, director of Baylor Licensing Group. "BCM has been an innovator in the development of cell therapies and the commercial sector increasingly looks to BCM as a source for new innovations."

Feiyan Mo, who took the lead on this work, has received an NIH NCI F99/F00 Predoctoral-to-postdoctoral Fellowship Award to help facilitate the translation of ADR to the clinic and continue postdoctoral studies in cancer biology. She is a Baylor graduate student and is co-mentored by Drs. Mamonkin, Malcolm Brenner and Helen Heslop. Are you interested in learning all the details of this work? Find them in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
From putting a cap on the number of people involved in door-to-door campaigning to allowing the submission of nomination forms online to providing voters with gloves before they use electronic voting machines (EVMs)  the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday released a set of broad guidelines for holding elections in the time of the coronavirus disease pandemic.

While standard safety measures such as social distancing and wearing of masks, among others, will be followed, ECI also said those with high temperature will have to vote in the last one hour of the polling process and that there will be fewer voters at a booth.

HT reported on Wednesday that the poll watchdog was finalising the guidelines to hold the first set of elections, especially that in Bihar, in the wake of Covid-19.

In the guidelines, ECI also decided to decentralise the training of officials in charge of the polling process. This effectively means that their training will either happen online or will be conducted face-to-face in a staggered manner.

Hand gloves shall be provided to all the electors for signing on the voter register and pressing button of EVM for voting, the poll watchdog said, adding that face masks, sanitizers, thermal scanners, gloves, face shields and personal protective equipment kits shall be used during the electoral process ensuring social distancing norms.

Also, the number of tables in a counting hall has been slashed by half  from 14 to seven. The commission also said a maximum of 1,000 people will be allowed to cast their votes at a polling station, a significant reduction from the earlier figure of 1,500.

At polling booths, electors will stand six feet-apart, in line with health ministry guidelines. Soap, water and hand sanitizers will be made available at the entry point. Thermal scanners will also be there.

Covid-19 patients, those in quarantine for symptoms and those with temperature higher than normal will be made to wait and vote in the last one hour, in keeping with safety norms prescribed by the health ministry.

Extra face masks will be kept for those not carrying one. During the identification process, voters will require to lower the face mask, the document said.

Earmarking circle for 15-20 persons of 2 yards (6 feet) distance for voters standing in the queue depending on the availability of space. There shall be three queues each, for male, female, and PwD (people with disabilities)/ senior citizen voters, the guidelines said.

A group of just five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, is allowed to take part in door-to-door campaigning.

For road shows, a convoy of vehicles should have an interval after every five vehicles instead of 10 vehicles (excluding security vehicles, if any). The interval between two sets of convoys of vehicles should be half-an-hour instead of a gap of 100 metres.

The commissions guidelines added: In all, such identified grounds (where public rallies are to be conducted), the District Election Officer should, in advance, put markers to ensure social distancing norms by the attendees.

Nomination forms will be available online on the website of the chief electoral officer and district election officer. The number of persons to accompany a candidate for submission of nomination has been restricted to two. The number of vehicles for the purposes of nomination is also restricted to two.

While elections have taken place in other countries since the pandemic, including in Sri Lanka recently, elections in India have only been confined to polls to the Rajya Sabha and legislative council seats, which involve a limited set of voters. Experts believe that the election guidelines adopted for Bihar, where elections are due in October-November, will have significant implications for political contests.

ECI, which reviewed suggestions received from state officials and political parties before releasing the final guidelines, is also likely to hold polls to the Samastipur parliamentary constituency and 56 assembly constituencies (across eight states) from September.

The Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) were critical of the guidelines.

The Congress issued a statement saying that the guidelines were not enough for the conduct of free, fair and independent elections in the time of Covid-19, and in ensuring the smooth elections in free, non-partisan & fair fashion.

Despite having sought comments from political parties such as the Indian National Congress and in response to which detailed recommendations were given, the ECI has overlooked almost all the suggestions given and prepared guidelines that are inadequate in dealing with the challenge of Covid-19, said party general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal.

RJD spokesperson Manoj Jha said the guidelines appeared to have been formulated keeping a country other than India in mind.

These guidelines will not ensure maximum voter participation, said Jha. As an incentive, perhaps, a health insurance for voters can be offered, in case it is being offered to poll officials. An election with a 25% turnout is hardly an election.

It seems the ECI is more invested in the idea of an election, than in its democratic potential, he added.

There was no immediate response by the Centres ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi said the guidelines were very sensible and have drawn from the experience of other elections. They are in conformity with the health ministry guidelines..., he said.
Coronavirus deaths in the United States will hopefully start dropping by next week, according to CDC director Robert Redfield.

Deaths across the country have been plateauing for the last three weeks with an average of 1,000 Americans dying per day. The average number of deaths was 1,027 on Thursday.

The number of cases, however, have been declining steadily for a month.

The average number of COVID-19 cases across the country per day was at about 46,000 on Thursday, which is the lowest it has been in two months.

The current daily case average is down considerably from the record high of 77,000 cases reported on a single day back in mid-July.

Deaths are a lagging indicator and can potentially rise several weeks after new cases start to decline.

Deaths across the US have been plateauing for three weeks with an average of 1,000 Americans dying per day

The average number of COVID-19 cases across the country per day was at about 46,000 on Thursday, which is the lowest it has been in two months

The current daily death rate, while still high, remains below levels seen back in April when 2,000 people a day, on average, were dying from COVID-19.

'Hopefully this week and next week you're going to start seeing the death rate really start to drop,' Redfield said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association on Thursday.

CDC director Robert Redfield said on Thursday that death rates from COVID-19 would hopefully drop across the country by next week

He said it was a direct result of mitigation measures, including mask wearing and closing down bars.

Redfield said it can often take weeks before the effects of those measures are reflected in the daily numbers due to the lag between deaths and positive tests.

'It is important to understand these interventions are going to have a lag, that lag is going to be three to four weeks,' he said.

Redfield noted that the southern states, which have been the hardest hit amid the pandemic, are seeing a progressive drop in cases.

He warned, however, that data from 21 US states showed there was yet to be a drop in cases for states including Nebraska and Oklahoma.

'Middle America right now is getting stuck,' he said.

'That is why it's so important for Middle America to recognize the mitigation that we talked about... it's for Middle America too, the Nebraskas, the Oklahomas.

'We don't need to have a third wave in the heartland right now. We need to prevent that.'

Coronavirus infections in the US have now topped 5.5 million and more than 174,000 have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic started.

Coronavirus cases in the United States have now dropped steadily for the fourth straight week last week

It comes as former FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb warned that the US would have a third act of COVID-19 during the fall and it will likely be 'more pervasive'.

Gottlieb told CNBC's Squawk Box on Friday that even though the US saw a summer surge of infections across the Sunbelt states, he said the country is yet to see a 'true second wave' of COVID-19.

'I think most peoples' perception is we had one epidemic in New York... we came down the epidemic curve, we had another epidemic in the Sun Belt. That really looks like and feels like a second wave,' he said.

'I do think that we're going to have a third act of this virus in the fall and the winter and it's likely to be more pervasive spread in a broader part of the country.'

He predicted the the virus would spread among rural areas that have, so far, been 'largely unaffected'.

Gottlieb added that cases are starting to build in the West and Midwest after surging throughout June and July across the Sunbelt.

'Every community is vulnerable,' he said. 'Really, an outbreak can happen anywhere.'
US President Donald Trump reacted to his Democratic rival Joe Biden's acceptance speech with a subdued and succinct tweet, terming the former vice president's address as "just words". On the final day of the four-day virtual Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, Biden, 77, officially accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

"In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!" Trump tweeted his first reaction to Biden's acceptance speech on Thursday. This was in sharp contrast to a barrage of all-caps tweets the president fired as former president Barack Obama and Indian-origin Senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris spoke on Wednesday.

"HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT!" Trump said in an all-cap tweet about Obama. Trump continued with his tweets as Harris delivered her acceptance speech.

"BUT DIDN'T SHE CALL HIM A RACIST??? DIDN'T SHE SAY HE WAS INCOMPETENT??? the president said, referring to the criticism by Harris of Biden during the primaries. Trump and Biden face each other in the November presidential elections. Trump is seeking his re-election from the Republican Party and Biden is the rival Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

In another statement, Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, said that by accepting his party's nomination, Biden has formally become a pawn of the radical leftists. "His name is on the campaign logo, but the ideas come from the socialist extremists. Biden supports raising taxes by USD 4 trillion and forcing a government takeover of healthcare that will lead to the elimination of your employer-provided health insurance," he said.

"He would kill 10 million energy jobs with the Green New Deal and bow to anti-police activists in cutting funding for law enforcement. He will sacrifice public safety and jobs for Americans by granting amnesty, taxpayer-funded healthcare, and work permits to 11 million illegal aliens. Joe Biden is a twice-failed candidate for president and is, without question, a far worse candidate the third time around," Murtaugh said. In an interview to Fox News, President Trump earlier said that he will watch Biden's speech.

Trump will deliver his acceptance speech as the Republican Party's presidential nominee next week. He has said that he will deliver the speech live. "It's Biden. I don't think Biden knows what it even represents, but Bernie and everybody else  and Biden has totally accepted it  they're anti-fracking. They're anti-everything. They're anti-fossil fuel. Our nation would go into a massive depression if that ever happened. And when you talk about Pennsylvania and Ohio and Texas, by the way, and Oklahoma, they're anti-fracking. They don't want to do any fracking," Trump said.

Earlier in the day, Trump travelled to Old Forge city in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of Biden, and said that if Biden is elected as the next US president, it will be the worst nightmare. "Joe Biden is no friend of Pennsylvania. He's actually, for the reasons we just said, he's your worst nightmare. Biden supported every single globalist attack on Pennsylvania workers. NAFTA, China's entry into the World Trade Organization, which built China into a power. TPP, Korea, the Horrible, ridiculous Paris Climate Accord, he said.

Trump claimed that Biden was a puppet of the radical-left movement that seeks to destroy the American way of life. "They don't understand and probably when it happened they would say what did we ever do. Joe Biden has pledged to hike your taxes by USD4 trillion in the largest tax hike in history and they are going to waste the money on the green new deal, green new deal. You know what you get out of that? Nothing, nothing except debt and death, he said.

"They want to eviscerate the Second Amendment, they want to take away your guns, they want to take away your guns. Well, you remember that just that one point alone and they want to take away your guns. So who's going to vote for that? I mean we want our Second Amendment. I have held it strong and you think it was easy? I have held it totally strong," Trump said..

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Tamara Starblanket is the recipient of the 2020 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her book Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State. Starblankets book provides an international legal analysis of genocideintentional acts done to destroy a group of people. Her book proves, according to international law, that Canada committed genocide against Indigenous Peoples.

Canada has knowingly instituted policies and laws in relation to Indigenous Nations which can be termed genocidal which have led to irrecoverable destruction and loss, says Starblanket, Dean of Academics at Native Education College and a Cree woman from Ahtahkakoop First Nation in Treaty Six. It is fitting that a fully comprehensive dialogue on Canadas history and present be opened recognizing its culpability for the crime of genocide.

Starblanket will receive the Sterling Prize at an award ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 29 at the Native Education College in Vancouver.

How to watch/listen to Tamara Starblanket's presentation:

Register for a link to watch a livestream of the event where Starblanket will give a presentation on Canadas role in changing the definition of genocide and the legal ramifications internationally.

If youre a faculty member involved in Indigenous Studies, consider making this Zoom webinar part of your class activities this year.

To register, visit the Sterling Prize webpage.

The Sterling Prize was first awarded in 1993 and remains committed to recognizing work that provokes and contributes to the understanding of controversy, while presenting new ways of looking at the world and challenging the status quo. The prize recognizes work across disciplines and departments and is awarded annually by the Sterling Prize committee.
Nearly one in 10 cases of COVID-19 in Hamilton are connected to travel.

But does that mean weve got jet-setting risk-takers on our hands? Not necessarily.

According to Hamilton public health, a COVID case with direct travel history can include anyone who left Hamilton, usually overnight, travelling to anywhere  from cottage country to Italy  prior to a positive test. A total of 81 of Hamiltons 959 cases involve people who travelled.

Still, a travel-related COVID case doesnt necessarily mean they got sick from travelling.

We have no indication of whether they caught the virus while travelling, but rather that they had direct travel history, said Jacqueline Durlov, spokesperson for Hamilton public health.

Its unclear how many of Hamiltons travel-related cases are connected to international travel or domestic travel, or when the people tested positive. Durlov said public health is unable to provide that breakdown.

Durlov did say many cases were connected to international travel and that over a one-month period, from July 6 to Aug. 6, five cases were related to international travel. Two involved transportation-related work, meaning they work in a transportation-related industry, and three were connected to other travel. There is just one case in the last 10 days that involved travel  that person travelled within Canada, Durlov said.

Some people were on vacation.

We were seeing more of the leisure-related cases earlier on, Durlov said. As you can recall, the virus began spreading locally around March break.

The Quarantine Act requires any person entering Canada by air, sea or land to self-isolate for 14 days whether or not they have symptoms of COVID-19. Failure to comply could earn a fine of up to $750,000 and/or six months imprisonment. Those who cause a risk of imminent death or serious bodily harm to another person while wilfully or recklessly contravening this act or the regulations face a $1-million fine and/or imprisonment of up to three years.

It appears Hamiltonians are following the rules.

Jackie Penman, spokesperson for the Hamilton police, said police conducted 89 checks on people who travelled internationally as of Aug. 7. No charges were laid.

But should  or could  you travel right now? Experts say it depends where.

Its a moving target, said Dr. Zain Chagla, an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University and an infectious disease physician at St. Josephs Healthcare Hamilton. Some cities locally have higher numbers of COVID cases, making them higher-risk destinations, and some countries have higher numbers than others.

Those numbers can change quickly.

Your safest bet, Chagla says, is to avoid any non-essential international travel. Voyages abroad come with additional risks, including that you might not be allowed on a plane if youre sick, and your insurance might not cover you for COVID-related health care in a foreign country.

Unless its a life and limb situation, dont go, Chagla says.

Dr. Dominik Mertz, associate professor in the division of infectious diseases at McMaster University, notes there are additional risks domestically that come with travelling outside of your home bubble.

When youre somewhere else, you want to maybe meet people, you want to go out, you want to go to restaurants, bars, etc., Mertz said. Youre more likely to do those things when youre on vacation.

Even going to a cottage might increase your risk if you plan on gathering with new people. His advice, if you must gather, is to do so outside.

And then, of course, there are places you cant visit and those where you will face restrictions upon arrival.

Those looking to travel to provinces such as New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and others must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival. The Canada-United States border remains closed and many other countries have strict travel restrictions in place. The Canadian government advises Canadians to avoid non-essential travel.

When travelling domestically, Hamilton public health advises residents to consider the number of cases occurring in that area and the settings they are occurring in, and adjust their travel accordingly.

At all times we recommend that people continue to follow public health measures including limiting the number of close social contacts to their social circle of 10, washing their hands frequently, maintaining a physical distance of two metres, (as well as) wearing masks when indoors, (when) physical distancing is difficult or where required, Durlov said.
MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- QM Environmental (QM or the Company), a leading Canadian environmental and industrial services company, today announced a national launch of its Infection Prevention and Control service, which helps stop the spread of infections at healthcare facilities. The new service reduces the risk of healthcare-related infection caused by particulates, fungi, and bacteria spread through the environment through construction, renovation and maintenance activities.



In a country that has experienced a stark increase in the spread of infections, infection control has become a significant concern in Canada. According to research, one out of 20 patients that enter a healthcare facility develops an infection due to the facility, and one out of 20 of those infected will lose their lives, said Jeremy Robinson, Head of Hazmat and Emergency Management & Environmental Response Services. QM is the first company to provide infection control services across Canada. Our technicians include a national network of highly skilled and trained employees with the experience to perform this work safely, efficiently and cost-effectively.

To date, QM has provided infection control services as part of a number of complex projects in both acute and non-acute health care facilities including the Nanaimo Public Health Unit, Cowichan District Hospital and Delta Hospital.

The Companys infection control services include:

Developing infection control plans



Conducting an Infection control risk assessment



Developing hoarding wall plans



Assessing Air Handling Unit requirements



Containment design



Pressure monitoring

QM has the know-how, equipment, and nationwide support of all the major general contractors doing critical work in acute and non-acute healthcare facilities in Canada. Our reputation precedes us like no other company in the field, and our safety record proves we are up to the highest standards, added Mr. Robinson. Additionally, QM has the reach, reliability, financial support, and insurance coverage to approach every infection control project with risk management in mind.

Story continues

About QM Environmental

QM Environmental is a leading environmental and industrial services company with offices and qualified teams strategically located across Canada to provide end-to-end capabilities to the industries and customers it serves. QM Environmental is a customer-driven organization, backed by over 35 years of experience solving environmental challenges through its strong culture of excellence in health and safety, integrity, and quality. QMs services include Environmental Remediation, Demolition and Decommissioning, Hazardous Materials Abatement, Emergency Response and Management, Training, Waste Management and Facilities, and Water Treatment.

Learn more at www.QMenv.com.

For more information, contact: Akaash Khokhar 236.889.6822 Akaash.Khokhar@qmenv.com or info@qmenv.com 1-877-378-7745




Police will ensure justice for a Muslim woman from Bhopal who was allegedly divorced by her husband through 'triple talaq' over phone, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Friday. Triple talaq is prohibited under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019.

"A Muslim sister in Bhopal has filed an FIR with the police on the issue of her husband sending her a message of

Triple Talaq on her mobile for divorcing her," Chouhan tweeted. "I assured her that Madhya Pradesh police will make

all possible efforts to ensure that she gets justice."

"After years of struggle by Muslim women, a law was framed to ban the triple talaq in the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but few vile people are still playing with it," he said. "I have spoken to the Director General of Police (DGP) on the issue and asked him to coordinate with the Bengaluru police for taking proper action for getting justice to the Muslim sister."

The 42-year-old Bhopal resident in her complaint said her husband gave her triple talaq on a WhatsApp call on July 31, said Koh-e-Fiza police station in-charge Anil Bajpayee. The accused married the woman in 2001 and they have

two children. All three are citizens of Singapore. The man is currently working at a posh hotel in Bengaluru, the officer said.

The family shifted to Bengaluru in 2013. The woman alleged that her husband often harassed her for dowry.

In June he told her she would have to bring Rs 25 lakh from her parents if she wanted to stay with him, and later forced her to leave house, she said. He also refused to allow her to take the children along. The woman returned to her mother's house in Bhopal.

On July 31, the man called her brother and told him that she was giving him a lot of trouble, so he was divorcing her by uttering talaq thrice right away, the police official said. A case under the Dowry Prohibition Act and Muslim Women Act has been registered, he added.

The woman, who met Chouhan at his office in Bhopal on Friday, said she is feeling quite positive now. She claimed she was not allowed to enter her Bengaluru home or to meet her sons.

"I approached Bengaluru police but got no response from them. In an unjustified manner, I was booked by Bengaluru police on charges of trespassing whereas I complained that I was not allowed to enter my own home, so the case was completely contradictory," she said. "The Chief Minister has also assured me that he will ensure that my husband doesnt leave the country with my two sons in his possession."

(With inputs from PTI and Vivek Trivedi in Bhopal)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  While Philippine officials are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine, an official from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed that it has not yet received an application to hold a clinical trial in the country.

Jesusa Joyce Cirunay, head of FDA's Center for Drug Regulation and Research, said a vaccine manufacturer interested to hold the Phase 3 of the clinical trial in the Philippines has to submit an application and register for an import license before it can proceed.

"Wala pa kaming na-receive na clinical trial application... They cannot just have a clinical trial, they have to pass FDA," Cirunay said in an online forum.

The completion of the Phase 3 is required before the FDA reviews it for mass rollout.

Cirunay said it will take less than the regular 45-day process for the application to receive a go-signal from the FDA as long as the documents are complete.

Once a clinical trial is approved to be carried out in the Philippines, a member of the government's vaccine expert panel will identify the participants that will be first in line to receive the first dose of the vaccine through the research.

READ: Approval of Russia-made COVID-19 vaccine good news, but local use depends on laws, clinical trials  Palace

Dr. Maria Liza Antoinette Gonzales of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital said those "at risk"  healthcare workers, frontliners, and those exposed to COVID-19 patients  will be prioritized.

If an application is submitted by September, she said the earliest a clinical trial will be completed is March 2021. Officials earlier said around 1,000 healthy Filipinos will be allowed to join the medical research.

Vaccine clinical trialist Dr. Josie Carlos said the timeline for the rollout of a regular vaccine normally takes 10 to 15 years, but in times of a global health crisis, it can be sped up to be completed in two years as long as the safety and efficacy can be assured.

"If we are in a pandemic, this may be fast tracked but following of course the scientific investigation and all the necessary regulations," she said.
HYDERABAD: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Friday (August 21, 2020) ordered a CID investigation into the fire which broke out at the Srisailam hydroelectric power plant following an explosion late on Thursday and claimed the lives of at least nine people.

News agency PTI quoted Nagarkurnool District Collector as saying that nine people have died in the Srisailam hydel power plant fire mishap. Out o the nine deceased, seven were employees of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Limited and two from the Amaron Batteries.

According to reports, Additional DGP Govind Singh will head the CID investigation into the incident. Earlier, dead bodies of three employees of Telangana Power generation company were found while the search was on for six others feared to be trapped inside the plant complex.

CISF experts along with other officials of the Telangana government are carrying out the search and rescue operations.

The CISF had despatched a 39 member Fire Rescue and Disaster Management team led by Commandant Siddarth Raha. The team is equipped with fire-fighting equipment from the CISF's National Industrial Security Academy at Hakimpet to the Srisailem Dam fire site following a requisition from the DG, Fire Services, Telangana with the consent of DG, CISF and orders of Director NISA CV ANAND IPS.

The team left at 8:35 AM from NISA and covered a 245-km journey to reach the dam fire site at 1 PM. They have played an active role in removing the bodies from the tunnel and controlling the fire and smoke.

Initial reports indicated that a short circuit led to an explosion resulting in a huge fire and a thick layer of smoke later engulfing the entire spot.

Several persons were reported to be present at the spot when the fire took place, 8 out of them somehow escaped to safety through a tunnel whereas many others were believed to be trapped inside the complex.

Firefighters said that thick smoke which has been billowing out due to the fire was hampering the rescue operations. Telangana Minister Jagadish Reddy and TS Genco CMD Prabhakar Rao had also reached the spot to oversee the rescue efforts.

Reddy said that the mishap occurred in the first unit of the power station and four panels were damaged. He said that the rescuers were unable to enter the tunnel due to thick smoke.

CM K Chandrashekhar Rao also expressed shock over the Srisailam power station fire mishap. The Chief Minister said that he was in touch with concerned officials and taking updates on a regular basis.

Sources said that CM Rao had instructed officials to evacuate all workers who are trapped inside the plant. He also spoke to Minister Jagdeesh Reddy and Transco, Genco CMD D Prabhakar Rao, who was at the site, and the reviewed the relief measures taken so far.

Rescuers were also rushed in from the Singareni collieries to aid the ongoing rescue operation there. Power generation at the power station was suspended following the incident.

Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy also cancelled his scheduled visit to Srisailam after fire mishap.

The Srisailam dam is located across the Krishna river which serves as the border between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who spent millions from his fortune to run as a Democratic candidate in a crowded field to win only a handful of electoral college votes, received a prime-time speaking slot to ridicule Donald Trump moments before Joe Biden received the party's nomination and minutes after his former opponents rallied around the nominee.

The former Republican mayor of New York City received five minutes of speaking time at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, far more than any member of the party's left flank, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a week-long convention that has given significant airtime to Republicans pledging their vote to the former vice president, a discrepancy that has irked progressives.

While other Democrats admired Biden's empathy and compassion, Bloomberg  who owns a media empire and whose net worth is roughly $55bn  instead took aim at the incumbent from an economic perspective, hoping to get under the president's skin by highlighting his financial record and warning that the nation's recovery after collapse could be jeopardised by a second term.

"Four years ago, I came before this very convention and said New Yorkers know a con when we see one," he said in a virtual address. "But tonight I'm not asking you to vote against Trump because he's a bad guy. I'm urging you to vote against him because he's done a bad job."

He added: "Would you rehire, or work for, someone who ran your business into the ground? ... Trump says we should vote for him because he's a great businessman. Really? He drove his companies into bankruptcy six times, always leaving behind customers and contractors who were cheated and swindled and stopped doing business with him."

Bloomberg himself was accused of having stiffed his own staff members for failing to honour his financial commitments.

"Let me tell you a little secret: Donald Trump's economic plan was to give a huge tax cut to guys like me who didn't need it," he said, "and then lie about who it was for, to everyone else."

A virtual convention likely prevented the former mayor from enduring a cold reception from a crowded arena, after Mr Bloomberg  one of two billionaires in the race  faced intense scrutiny from Democrats furious that his fortune bought him a spot on the debate stage while his opponents sought to hold billionaires accountable. He was ripped apart during debates by Elizabeth Warren for his record of sexual abuse allegations and revived footage of his support for stop-and-frisk policies had crippled his campaign.

The president immediately jumped on Bloomberg's remarks.

He said on Twitter: "After the worst debate performance in the history of politics, Michael Bloomberg, commonly known as Mini Mike, is trying to make a comeback by begging the Democrats for relevance. They treated him like a dog - and always will. Before politics, he said GREAT things about me!"

A virtual roundtable conversation among the other former candidates spoke to Biden's humanity.

Senator Warren recalled Biden speaking with people who lost family members.

"He shifted to the parent who had lost a child, to the man who had lost a wife, to someone who had experienced loss very personally," she said. "He spoke to each of the families from the heart."

"The magic he does is everything he does becomes the new reasonable," said Andrew Yang, who also introduced the Thursday event following pressure from his supporters after it was revealed that he wasn't appearing at the convention.

"In Joe Biden, you have a human being who is empathetic, who is honest, who is decent," said Bernie Sanders. "And in this particular moment in American history, my God, that is something that this country absolutely needs."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

Trend:

Recent interview of Armenian Ambassador to Israel Armen Smbatyan once again exposed the hypocritical policy of the Armenian state, Head of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, MP Tural Ganjaliyev said, Trend reports.

In the interview, Smbatyan tried to pass himself off as a supporter of contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, Ganjaliyev noted.

The Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, as one of the parties to the conflict, has been proposing to initiate a dialogue between the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of the occupied Karabakh region for many years, he added.

However, the political leadership of Armenia, which has brought Azerbaijanophobia to the level of state policy, not only prevents this, but even cynically denies the very existence of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh region, said MP.

If Smbatyan really supports the dialogue between the two peoples, let him support the proposal of the Azerbaijani community," he stressed.

In the meantime, the message saying 'The settlement of the conflict does not depend on us, but on the OSCE Minsk Group,' voiced by the ambassador of the aggressor country that occupied part of the territory of Azerbaijan and subjected more than a million of our compatriots to ethnic cleansing, is Armenia's another attempt to evade responsibility, Ganjaliyev said.

The reason the conflict has not been resolved to this day is the illegal presence of Armenian troops in the territories of Azerbaijan. With the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from our occupied territories, relations between the two peoples will be restored, MP added.

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.
NASA astronauts and satellites have been monitoring Hurricane Genevieve for some time now. The formerly Category 4 storm moved rapidly towards California after passing through Mexico's Baja coast Thursday, Aug. 20. However, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy sent three pictures of the tropical storm on Wednesday, Aug. 19 from the International Space Station. The images show the eye and the overall size of Hurricane Genevieve. Read on to know more.

Source: NASA/Astronaut Chris Cassidy

Read | Scientists harvest eggs from last two northern white rhinos in hopes of saving the species

Hurricane Genevieve pictures from International Space station

The images of the tropical storm were captured beneath the robotic Canadarm2, which is the station's solar panels and a Soyuz spacecraft. In addition to this, the GOES-16 satellite also obtained a dramatic video of Hurricane Genevieve on Wednesday. The picture was tweeted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its official Twitter handle. The tweet also revealed that the sustained wind speeds reached a maximum of 115 mph which is 185 km/h.

Source: NASA/Astronaut Chris Cassidy

For our #ImageOfTheDay, @NOAA's #GOESEast used its hi-res visible band to view #HurricaneGenevieve's eye. As of Wednesday p.m., #Genevieve had a maximum sustained wind speed of 115 miles per hour. More: https://t.co/vCPKN24LBq pic.twitter.com/hUCYSGv0i0  NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) August 19, 2020

Read | Trail of bubbles leads scientists to new coronavirus clue

NASA has revealed in a statement that NOAAs Suomi NPP satellite has also been monitoring Hurricane Genevieves progress. The satellite has been observing the Hurricane in infrared wavelengths to give more information about the storm's strength, structure and size. NASA shared a nighttime image of Genevieve based on data from Suomi's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument. Describing the image, NASA revealed that the tropical storms eye was still visible and well defined. The space agency also confirmed that it was surrounded by powerful thunderstorms.

Source: NASA

Read | COVID-19: Scientists find how virus related illness affects immune system in kids

Has Hurricane Genevieve weakened?

According to a NASA report, Hurricane Genevieve has now weakened to a tropical storm. However, it still has the potential of inflicting substantial damage. Continued heavy rainfall from Genevieve can lead to life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides in the far southern areas of California.

Read | Scientists detect Gamma ray 'heartbeat' coming from gas cloud in sync with Black Hole

NASA Astronaut captures breathtaking pictures of Earth from Space

We think Earth looks beautiful from every angle. @NASA_Astronauts capture some of the most stunning pictures  of our home planet. For #NationalPhotographyDay, enjoy the view from space with @AstroDrewMorgan. https://t.co/9ud9ZkZv5h pic.twitter.com/FFMJtYOGmL  NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) August 19, 2020

On August 20, NASA shared a video of astronaut Andrew Morgan clicking stunning pictures of Earth from the International Space Station. The astronaut is seen using a wide-angle lens camera. The astronaut revealed that the ISS was flying North East and had just crossed the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia.

Read | Scientists successfully bounce laser from spacecraft orbiting the Moon

While clicking the stunning images of Earth from ISS, the astronaut is seen describing several locations on Earth that are visible from ISS. One of these locations in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. The full length of the Nile River was is also visible in the video. The ISS is seen moving towards Middle East Africa. As the video progressed viewers can see the Caspian Sea as well.
Gaza rapper Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti may only be 11 years old but his rhymes on war and hardship in the Palestinian enclave have reached thousands of people, conveying in English what he calls a message of peace and humanity.

A video of Shantti rapping outside of his school in Gaza City, surrounded by classmates wearing matching uniforms, has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media and was even shared by the popular British rapper Lowkey.

I am here to tell you our lives are hard. We got broken streets and bombs in the yard, go the lyrics of his song Gaza messenger, alluding to three devastating wars fought between Israel and Gazas Islamist rulers Hamas.

Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti, an 11-year-old Gaza rapper, uses a mobile phone as he stands by a window in his family home in Gaza City August 16, 2020. (REUTERS)

Though Arabic is his first language, Shantti raps in fluent, unaccented English - a skill he says he honed by listening to American rappers including Eminem, Tupac and DJ Khaled.

I want to be like Eminem - not to copy his style, I have my own style. But he is my favourite rapper, my idol, he told Reuters in English as he wrote lyrics and composed rap beats through an app on his cellphone.

In another one of his songs, Peace, Shantti evokes moments from a war with Israel in 2008-2009. I was born in Gaza City, and the first thing I heard was a gunshot. In my first breath, I tasted gunpowder, the lyrics say.

Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti, an 11-year-old Gaza rapper, lies on a sofa with his brothers after returning home from school in Gaza City August 16, 2020. (REUTERS)

Shantti says he hopes to shine a light on the challenges wrought on Gaza by an Israeli-led blockade, which economists blame for soaring poverty in the coastal territory. Israel cites threats from Hamas for the restrictions.

My message talks about peace, and I want to convey it to the largest number of people, he said.

I want to show (life) in Gaza to the outside.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was "fighting for his life" in a coma yesterday after what his spokesman said was a targeted poisoning.

Mr Navalny, the country's most vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, was flying to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk when he began crying out in pain and his plane was forced to make an emergency landing.

The only thing the opposition leader drank that morning was a cup of tea at the airport before boarding, Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, said.

"We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea... Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid. Alexei is now unconscious."

Dominic Raab, the British Foreign Secretary, said he was "deeply concerned" by the alleged poisoning.

Other MPs compared the case to the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who was poisoned by a radioactive substance in London in 2006, and the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury two years ago.

A representative of the Omsk hospital where the 44-year-old was being treated said he was on a ventilator in intensive care, and in a stable but serious condition.

"Doctors are really working on saving his life right now," hospital deputy head Anatoly Kalinichenko told journalists. "There is no certainty that the cause is poison but this is one potential version."

Ms Yarmysh accused doctors of "evasion".

"They are clearly playing for time and are not saying what they know," she said, adding that there was a heavy police presence at the hospital.

Mr Navalny's wife Yulia was initially prevented from seeing her husband, but hospital officials later allowed her into the ward. The opposition leader's personal doctor was not allowed to visit him.

Mr Navalny's team said their efforts to have him moved to a European hospital were being blocked by officials.

Police sources told Russian state media they were not investigating deliberate poisoning as a possible cause of his illness. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Navalny was being treated by the best doctors and wished him a "speedy recovery".

Mr Navalny is a Yale-educated lawyer with a wide following in Russia and a popular YouTube channel where he presents investigations into corruption by officials.

The father of two was barred from standing against Mr Putin in Russia's most recent presidential election and had been repeatedly jailed for organising anti-Kremlin protests.

"Whilst we await independent confirmation this incident bears all the hallmarks of the Russian security with its similarity to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and Alexander Litvinenko," Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the UK Defence Select Committee, told The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Navalny was taken to hospital last year with an acute allergic reaction that he and his doctor said could have been caused by a "toxic agent".

The official explanation was dermatitis.

In 2017 he suffered a serious chemical burn in one eye after an assailant threw green dye in his face outside his Moscow office.

Ms Yarmysh said she believed the alleged poisoning was linked to regional elections next month
VENICE, CA  Airbnb, one of the largest short-term rental companies in the world, announced Thursday it will ban all parties and events at its global listings, including capping capacity to 16 people, until further notice amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Airbnb stated that starting Friday, the party ban applies to all future bookings.

"We are currently scoping a potential exception process for specialty and traditional hospitality venues (such as boutique hotels)," Airbnb said in a statement. "Guests will be informed about Airbnb's party rules and informed that they may be legally pursued by Airbnb if they violate our policy. This work is currently being operationalized and will be rolled out in the near future."

The announcement comes after city and health leaders have made efforts to curb party houses, and Airbnb said it is committed to working with them on this issue.

Airbnb stated the move also comes on the heels of a party house crackdown in Los Angeles earlier this year, which resulted in the suspension or removal of 28 listings in the Hollywood Hills identified by the Los Angeles Police Department as "creating a substantial neighborhood nuisance."

"We are currently in the process of communicating this new policy to our global community. We are partners with our hosts on this important issue and we both feel the pain when an unauthorized party occurs during an Airbnb reservation," Airbnb stated. "We believe having a simpler, global policy will allow us to better support the vast majority of hosts who already ban parties in their homes."

Councilman David Ryu has advocated for the City Council to adopt enforcement against people who host large house parties during the pandemic.

"I'm glad to see Airbnb take this issue seriously and adopt some of the ideas I have been pushing for alongside Mayor Eric Garcetti and Council member Paul Koretz," Ryu said. "Party houses are unsafe, irresponsible and can have grave consequences, especially during a pandemic. All of us, from individuals to governments to global tech platforms, have a responsibility to shut these parties down for good."

Story continues

Airbnb stated that when the COVID-19 the pandemic was declared and social distancing became an important element in promoting public health and responsible travel, it updated its policies. At the time, most local governments were imposing strict limits on gatherings.

Some guests, however, chose to take "bar and club behavior to homes" that are sometimes rented through the platform.

"We acknowledge that there will always be those who attempt to break the rules," Airbnb stated. "This is why we've implemented steep consequences for hosts or guests who try to skirt them, including bans from our community and even legal action."

Garcetti said on Wednesday he authorized the city to shut off utilities to a Hollywood Hills home where several large parties were hosted despite the COVID-19 pandemic and Safer at Home orders as well as multiple warnings from law enforcement, although it's not clear if that home was rented through Airbnb.

Earlier this month, a longtime Venice resident sued the owners of an adjacent home, alleging the property is leased on a short-term basis for party purposes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Nina Menkes' Santa Monica Superior Court lawsuit against Palms Blvd. Venice Beach LLC alleges private and public nuisance, trespass, intentional infliction of emotional distress, unjust enrichment and violation of the Business and Professions Code.

PBVB has "made it clear that their short-term rental income stream is more important to them than compliance with the law or plaintiff's and her neighbors' concerns," according to the complaint. The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, and a court order preventing the landlord from continuing to rent out the property on a short-term basis.

Menkes has resided for nearly 20 years in her quiet neighborhood, located about two miles from the commercial areas of Venice, according to her court papers, There are no nightclubs, bars or restaurants on her block or in the vicinity, the suit says.

PBVB bought the home next to Menkes' residence last November, according to the suit, which says the PBVB property has seven bedrooms, 5 1/2 bathrooms, a guesthouse and a large outdoor pool and patio area.

From April until the present, PBVB has listed, marketed and rented the property for profit on a short-term basis, using online services such as Airbnb, according to the suit, which says guests typically stay at the home for less than a week and often for only one to two nights.

"In practice, PBVB has converted the property into an unlicensed and illegal, all-hours nightclub, bar and party house," the suit alleges.

Guests are charged well over $2,500 per night and PBVB has "apparently marketed the property as an open alternative to the still-closed bars and nightclubs where people can drink, smoke, dance, fight and party as freely and as loudly and for as long as they like, all to plaintiff's and her neighbors' detriment," the suit alleges.

PBVB's guests have "near continually held raucous, indoor/outdoor parties, frequently lasting through all hours of the day and the night," the suit says. "These parties routinely bring dozens of visitors to the property, upwards of 50 guests at a time on more than one occasion."

Guests occasionally hire DJs with professional, amplified sound systems and some in attendance use microphones to host events, give speeches, make announcements and sing along with "their already deafening music," the suit says.

Guests often smoke and drink to intoxication and block the plaintiff's driveway with their cars, according to the plaintiff.

"Defendants' guests rent the property on a short-term basis and do not live in the neighborhood, they do not care what effect their behavior has on (Menkes) and other neighborhood residents ... it simply is not their problem," the suit states.

PBVB's guests have used the home in violation of stay-at-home orders issued by Los Angeles County, which generally forbid any and all social gatherings with rare exception, the suit alleges.

Menkes has spent months trying to resolve the problem with PBVB without success, according to her court papers.

The full statement from Airbnb is available at news.airbnb.com/airbnb- announces-global-party-ban.

- City News Service and Patch Editor Nicole Charky contributed to this report.

Full coronavirus coverage: Coronavirus In California: What To Know

Don't miss updates about the coronavirus in California as they are announced. Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters.

See more:

This article originally appeared on the Venice-Mar Vista Patch
The two saw each other every other week, then weekly, then a few times a week, and by 2012, they had moved in together.

But legally acknowledging a long-term relationship was still a point of contention. Mr. Sardesh said that he saw marriage as a way of committing, and he was especially eager to take the step once gay marriage became legal in 2015.

I kept giving ultimatums  This summer or nothing!but then summer came and went, he said. I was still going through some frustration, but he was always there for me and that was another thing: He made it clear he would be there for me for the long haul.

On Aug. 8, in the backyard of their home in Belvedere, Calif., just outside San Francisco and overlooking a lagoon, the couple were married in a ceremony led by Mr. Sardeshs daughter, Nina R. Sardesh, who had become a Universal Life minister for the event. They had planned a much larger event, with a Hindu ceremony, but in a bow to the coronavirus pandemic, they had just eight participants.

Mr. Seidel, who describes himself as by nature a pretty conservative guy, said that while he may have been slower to come to a desire to formalize the union, he was never unclear about what the relationship meant to him.

I think there were moments when Raj felt I wasnt moving fast enough and was ready to throw in the towel, and I never wanted him to do that, he said. I didnt want to let go of him.
Figure 1

Grade-Tonnage Curve for Open Pit Resource at NSR Cut-Offs

Grade-Tonnage Curve for Open Pit Resource at NSR Cut-Offs

Figure 2

Grade-Tonnage Curve for Underground Resource at NSR Cut-Offs

Grade-Tonnage Curve for Underground Resource at NSR Cut-Offs

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GT Gold Corp. (TSX-V:GTT) (the Company or GT Gold) is pleased to provide notice that a National Instrument 43-101 technical report (NI 43-101 or Technical Report) has been filed with Canadian securities regulators to support the maiden mineral resource estimate (Mineral Resource) for the Saddle North project (Saddle North) on the Companys 100%-owned Tatogga property, located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada.



Paul Harbidge, President and CEO stated, We are delighted to file the technical report in support of the previously disclosed maiden mineral resources for Saddle North, which marks another significant step for the company. An updated sensitivity analysis supports the presence of the continuous higher-grade core of mineralization, which has the potential to drive the value for our next key milestone, the Preliminary Economic Study.

Highlights:

The large mineral resource comprises an Indicated resource containing 1.81 Blb copper and 3.47 Moz gold and an Inferred resource containing 2.98 Blb copper and 5.46 Moz gold.

Continuous higher-grade central core of mineralization within the deposit offers optionality and flexibility to be studied as part of the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) to drive value.

Good metallurgical results point to a simple process, with conventional flowsheet and clean concentrate.



Excellent local infrastructure with a main highway crossing the property, a hydro powerline within easy access and a nearby deep-water port at Stewart, British Columbia.



The topography of the property is highly favorable for the potential future development of the project both in terms of open pit and underground operations.



Highly prospective exploration with the Saddle North deposit remaining open along strike and at depth. Saddle South provides additional project potential, it is only three kilometres from Saddle North and consists of a precious metal rich sheeted vein system. There are additional untested targets in proximity to Saddle North and South. At the new Quash Pass target, where there are two multi-kilometre anomalous trends, phase 1 diamond drilling is underway.

Story continues

The Preliminary Economic Assessment is underway and will examine mining options, which are made possible by the size, grade and mineral distribution in the deposit. These will include:

A starter pit that accesses the easily mineable surface 150m which is situated at the top of a gently-sloping valley

An underground operation, accessing the higher-grade core through a decline and which uses lower cost bulk mining methods

The Technical Report, dated effective August 20, 2020, is titled " NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Saddle North Copper-Gold Project" and is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR ( www.sedar.com ).The Technical Report was authored by Richard Flynn, P.Geo., Principal, Next Mine Consulting Ltd., who is a qualified person within the meaning of NI 43-101, is independent of the Company and has reviewed and approved the disclosure regarding the resource estimate for GT Gold disclosed herein.

The Mineral Resource and Technical Report for the Saddle North gold-rich copper porphyry system is founded on the geological model completed in Q1 2020 (see press release dated April 28, 2020).

Saddle North Mineral Resource Estimate

The open pit and underground mine shape constrained Mineral Resources are summarized below in Table 1.

Table 1: Saddle North Mineral Resource

Tatogga Project Saddle North Mineral Resources Amenable to Open Pit Mining Methods NSR cut-off $9.00/t (0.13 % CuEq) Average Grade Contained Metal Material Type Category Tonnes Cu Au Ag NSR CuEq Cu Au Ag NSR CuEq (Mt) (%) (g/t) (g/t) ($/t) (%) (M lb) (koz) (koz) $M (M lb) Transition Indicated 21 0.15 0.16 0.5 17.09 0.24 72 108 340 364 112 Inferred 13 0.20 0.12 0.6 19.23 0.27 58 49 260 250 76 Fresh Indicated 196 0.26 0.30 0.7 30.15 0.42 1,105 1,906 4,210 5,903 1,808 Inferred 241 0.22 0.25 0.5 25.48 0.35 1,174 1,907 4,090 6,129 1,877 Total Indicated 217 0.25 0.29 0.7 28.87 0.40 1,177 2,014 4,550 6,267 1,920 Inferred 254 0.22 0.24 0.5 25.16 0.35 1,232 1,956 4,350 6,379 1,953 Tatogga Project Saddle North Mineral Resources Amenable to Underground Mining Methods Within NSR $16/t cut-off (0.22% CuEq) Bulk Tonnage Underground Mining Shape Average Grade Contained Metal Material Type Category Tonnes Cu Au Ag NSR CuEq Cu Au Ag NSR CuEq (Mt) (%) (g/t) (g/t) ($/t) (%) (M lb) (koz) (koz) $M (M lb) Fresh Indicated 81 0.35 0.56 1.2 47.14 0.65 632 1,457 3,030 3,814 1,168 Inferred 289 0.27 0.38 0.8 34.30 0.48 1,750 3,499 7,290 9,922 3,039 Tatogga Project Saddle North for Combined Mining Methods Average Grade Contained Metal Material Type Category Tonnes Cu Au Ag NSR CuEq Cu Au Ag NSR CuEq (Mt) (%) (g/t) (g/t) ($/t) (%) (M lb) (koz) (koz) $M (M lb) Total Indicated 298 0.28 0.36 0.8 33.83 0.47 1,809 3,471 7,580 10,081 3,088 Inferred 543 0.25 0.31 0.7 30.03 0.42 2,982 5,455 11,640 16,301 4,992

Notes to Table 1: 

Results are reported in-situ and diluted (underground resource) and are considered to have reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction, but not unplanned dilution. Dilution in the underground estimate is approx. 5 Mt Indicated and 27 Mt Inferred avg. $12/t NSR.

As Independence is defined under NI 43-101, the Qualified Person is Mr. Richard Flynn, P.Geo. of Next Mine Consulting Ltd. (NMC), who is independent of GT Mining and has reviewed, validated, and takes responsibility for the Mineral Resource Estimates.

The block model was regularized to 15 m x 15 m x 15 m whole blocks using mineralization.

The effective date of the Mineral Resource estimate is July 6, 2020.

The number of metric tonnes are rounded to the nearest million, gold ounces are rounded to the nearest thousand and silver ounces were rounded to the nearest ten thousand. Any discrepancies in the totals are due to rounding.

Pit constrained Mineral Resources are reported in relation to a conceptual pit shell above an NSR cut-off of $9.00/t.

Underground Mineral Resources assume block-cave mining method that does not allow selectivity. A bulk mining shape based on an NSR cut-off of $16.00/t was used to constrain the estimate and all blocks within the cave shape were tabulated irrespective of grade.

Block tonnage was estimated from volumes using an average density per lithological unit. Specific gravity had a range of 2.75 to 2.86.

All copper, gold and silver assays have been capped prior to being composited at 15m, breaking at lithology and alteration contacts.

NSR calculation is based on a price of USD 3.25 per pound of copper, USD 1,500 per ounce of gold, USD 18 per ounce silver, and copper recoveries of 88%, gold recoveries of 67% and silver recoveries of 58%. Foreign Exchange assumption was $0.76 C$/US$.

Net Smelter Return (NSR) ($/t) = (Cu% x 2204.62 lb/t x Cu Recovery x payable% x Cu CAD Price) + (Au g/t  31.1035 g/ounce x Au Recovery x Au CAD Price x payable%) + (Ag g/t  31.1035 g/ounce x Ag Recovery x Ag CAD Price x payable%).

Copper Equivalent in % (CuEq) = Cu% + Au g/t * 0.53 + Ag g/t * 0.005.

All values in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated.

Differences may occur in totals due to rounding.

Transition-Sulphide boundary determined from visual logging (weak oxidation in transition material limited to fracture plane surfaces).

The CIM Definition Standards (May 10, 2014) were followed for classification of Mineral Resource.

Figure 1: Grade-Tonnage Curve for Open Pit Resource at NSR Cut-Offs

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a5bc64c2-eac8-49fa-a52b-4f978d39fa2e

Figure 2: Grade-Tonnage Curve for Underground Resource at NSR Cut-Offs

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7859905e-4f06-4c55-9f04-d4eec53a62e8

Table 2: Open Pit Mineral Resource Sensitivity to changes in NSR Cut-Off.

Saddle North Open Pit Mineral Resource Sensitivity to NSR Cut-Off Changes Category NSR Average Grade Contained Cut-Off Tonnes Cu Au Cu Au ($/t) (Mt) (%) (g/t) (M lb) (koz) Indicated 7.50 222 0.24 0.28 1,183 2,027 9.00 217 0.25 0.29 1,177 2,014 10.50 210 0.25 0.30 1,164 1,992 12.00 201 0.26 0.30 1,144 1,959 13.50 187 0.27 0.32 1,109 1,908 15.00 171 0.28 0.34 1,064 1,845 20.00 131 0.32 0.39 923 1,645 25.00 97 0.36 0.46 773 1,423 30.00 70 0.41 0.53 628 1,202 35.00 55 0.44 0.60 531 1,054 40.00 44 0.47 0.66 452 927 50.00 24 0.55 0.84 291 650 60.00 15 0.59 1.01 195 487 Inferred 7.50 261 0.22 0.24 1,243 1,979 9.00 254 0.22 0.24 1,232 1,957 10.50 244 0.23 0.25 1,215 1,927 12.00 229 0.23 0.26 1,181 1,878 13.50 216 0.24 0.26 1,146 1,829 15.00 200 0.25 0.27 1,099 1,765 20.00 129 0.30 0.34 851 1,417 25.00 83 0.35 0.42 646 1,126 30.00 59 0.39 0.50 511 945 35.00 43 0.43 0.59 407 809 40.00 33 0.45 0.65 327 692 50.00 18 0.51 0.82 202 475 60.00 11 0.55 0.97 134 344

Notes to Table 2: See above notes for Table 1

Silver has been ignored in the sensitivity analysis below, in tables 2 and 3 for simplicity of reporting

Table 3: Underground Mineral Resource Sensitivity to changes in NSR Cut-Off.

Saddle North Underground Mineral Resource Sensitivity to NSR Cut-Off Changes Category UG Shape Average Grade Contained NSR Tonnes Cu Au Cu Au ($/t) (Mt) (%) (g/t) (M lb) (koz) Indicated 16.00 81 0.35 0.56 632 1,457 20.00 71 0.38 0.62 598 1,406 25.00 65 0.40 0.65 574 1,368 40.00 46 0.45 0.78 462 1,161 50.00 34 0.48 0.89 362 973 60.00 23 0.51 1.01 258 747 Inferred 16.00 289 0.27 0.38 1,750 3,499 20.00 228 0.31 0.44 1,563 3,212 25.00 188 0.34 0.48 1,397 2,930 40.00 93 0.40 0.64 824 1,911 50.00 46 0.45 0.80 457 1,177 60.00 23 0.49 0.95 249 702

Notes to Table 3: See above notes for Table 1

Data Verification

The data described above is supported by using industry standard QA/QC procedures consisting of the insertion of certified standards and blanks into the sample stream and utilizing certified independent analytical laboratories for all assays. Historical QA/QC data and methodology on the project were reviewed and are summarized in the NI 43-101 Technical Report. The qualified person detected minor but no significant QA/QC issues during review of the data.

All geological data used in the mineral resource estimate was reviewed and verified by Richard Flynn, P.Geo, of Next Mine Consulting Ltd. who made two site visits in June of 2020. Site visits included:

review of GT Golds logging and sampling techniques

viewing of core from seven Saddle North boreholes

confirmation of borehole collar field locations

Qualified Person

In accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Michael Skead, FAusIMM, Vice President Projects, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release.

Risk Factors

GT Gold is aware this project is subject to the same types of risks that large base metal projects experience at an early stage of development in northern British Columbia. The Company has engaged experienced management and specialized consultants to identify, manage and mitigate those risks. However, the types of risks will change as the project evolves and more information becomes available.

About GT Gold

GT Gold is focused on exploring for base and precious metals in the geologically prolific terrain of British Columbias renowned Golden Triangle. The Companys flagship asset is the wholly-owned, 46,827 hectare Tatogga property, located near Iskut, British Columbia, upon which it made two significant discoveries in 2017 and 2018 at its Saddle prospect: a precious metal rich vein system at Saddle South and a gold-rich copper porphyry system at Saddle North.

For further information, please contact:

GT Gold Corp.

Paul Harbidge

President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: (236) 427 5744

Website: www.gtgoldcorp.ca GT Gold Corp.

Shawn Campbell

Chief Financial Officer

Tel: (236) 427 5744

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as "plans", "expects, "estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes" or variations of such words, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed under the heading Risk Factors and elsewhere in the Companys filings with Canadian securities regulators, that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing these forward-looking statements are reasonable based upon the information currently available to management as of the date hereof, actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Readers are therefore cautioned not to place undue reliance 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 times frames or at all. Except where required by applicable 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 TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




LONDON  Netflix has changed the promotional image for Cuties, an award-winning French film, after it was accused of sexualizing girls.

Were deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Cuties, a spokeswoman for Netflix said. It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. Weve now updated the pictures and description.

Netflixs original artwork promoting Cuties on the streaming service featured a picture of four young girls posed provocatively, some twerking while wearing hot pants. Now, the promotional image shows the lead actress, Fathia Youssouf, looking over her shoulder.

The complaints  posted in part by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory  may have come as a surprise to some, given that Cuties, the debut feature by Maimouna Doucoure, has been praised for questioning how society and social media pressure young children into acting in sexually explicit ways. Doucoure was named best director in the world cinema category at this years Sundance Film Festival and received a special mention at this years Berlinale festival in Germany.
There is not enough money in Madhya Pradesh to feed cows. The state government has allocated just Rs 11 crore or Rs 1.6 per day for feeding over 1.80 lakh cows in government run shelters in the state and the Rs 22,000 received as donation from people is not helping much either, resulting in the department seeking immediate release of additional funds to feed the cows, said government officials.

In the budget for 2020-21 financial year, the state government slashed the allocation of the animal husbandry department to Rs 11 crore from Rs 132 crore in the previous financial year, a cut of 90%, show budget records.

A Madhya Pradesh government official, who asked not to be named, said, This budget of Rs 11 crore means Rs 1.6 per day only to feed a cow. A steep cut from the Rs 20 per day, per cow, given earlier. Not only this, the first of its kind scheme of inviting people for donation for cow-protection has led to collection of only Rs 22,000 so far and has proved to be a flop show.

After the failure of the scheme and the reduction in budget, the animal husbandry department, which has been given target to construct 7,000 new cow shelters, has been left in a lurch, said the officer.

The departments one month budget requirement for cow protection, which includes running of shelters, procuring cow feed, maintenance of bio-gas plants and vermi compost and other expenses, amount to Rs 11.5 core, but this year the government allocated the total budget of Rs 11.80 crores. With this budget, even if we stopped all other work except providing cow feed, we have just Rs 600 per year to feed a cow in the shelters, which house 1.80 lakh cows, said another officer who was also not willing to be named.

In the absence of the budget, we are taking help of NGOs and gram panchayats to run more than 1,300 cow shelters in Madhya Pradesh. The department is facing a budget shortage and we have requested an additional budget of Rs 129 crore from the state government and are hopeful that will get it, said RK Rokde, director, Animal Husbandry department.

Experts feel that the cow protection programme, always a priority for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government, has now taken a back seat as Congress hijacked the issue during the assembly elections in 2018.

Also Read: Ganesh Chaturthi 2020: Artists make eco-friendly cow dung Vedic Ganpati idols in Gujarat

The previous Congress-led state government might have failed in fulfilling so many poll promises but they efficiently hijacked the cow issue as far as cow-protection is concerned. The government doubled the number of cow shelters in MP with construction of 677 cow shelters. Now, BJP-led state government is not showing much concern about cows as reflected in announcements of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the budgetary allocation, said LS Hardeniya, a Bhopal based political analyst.

Also Read: Madhya Pradesh police rescue kidnapped 6-year-old boy within 24 hours

Former animal husbandry department minister and Congress MLA, Lakhan Singh Yadav, said, Just because former chief minister Kamal Nath came up with brilliant plan of cow protection by constructing cow shelters, BJP-led state government lost interest and withdrew the allocation. It clearly shows that the BJP leaders and ministers work only to earn name and fame in the name of cows. They are not really concerned about cows.

Animal husbandry minister, Prem Patel, said, We have requested the finance department to release the additional budget and we are very much concerned about cows and their protection. The previous Congress-led state government set a target of 3000 cow shelters and failed to construct even 1000 shelters but we will construct 7000 shelters.
When they followed up, investigators in Washington learned FBI agents had been investigating the case for about a month. "The victims that have been calling the FBI, FTC, and local police agencies have been reporting fraud for a failure to return on promised investments," the official said.

The Mercer Island PD incident report identified the suspect as Guo Wengui, describing him as a "billionaire" based out of New York, and noted there were other victims. When Mercer Island police contacted the FBI, local investigators learned that Wengui appeared "to be a target of a large investigation personally and pertaining to his business," according to an official familiar with the matter.

Last month, investigators with the Mercer Island Police Department in Washington state took an incident report from an unidentified victim who had become an investor in GTV Media Group Inc., with the promise it was launching a video-sharing platform, similar to YouTube, "that was supposed to go huge," according to an official familiar with the matter. The investor wired $500,000 to receive shares in the company by the end of May, but never received shares and wasn't able to get in contact with the reported suspect, the report stated. As of July 10, local authorities noted that no crime had been charged, and the FBI was investigating the matter.

Multiple people familiar with the matter tell NBC News there is a separate federal inquiry involving a company linked to both men, GTV Media Group. As the Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday, the FBI, the New York State Attorney General and the Securities and Exchange Commission are examining whether securities laws were violated during a $300 million private offering by the company this spring, the sources say. In a memo to potential investors, according to the Wall Street Journal, the company identified Bannon as one of several prominent directors.

On Thursday, Bannon was arrested by federal agents on that same yacht off Westbrook, Connecticut, and booked into jail on fraud charges. Though the charges appear to have nothing to do with the Chinese businessman, the arrest puts a new spotlight on Bannon's relationship with Guo, a controversial figure with his own history of legal entanglements.

A YouTube video shows Wengui putting his arm around Bannon as the former Trump campaign chairman denounces the Chinese government and extols the alleged benefits of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. The vessel's lavish interior gleams in the background.

Earlier this month, a sunburned Steve Bannon, holding a lit cigar and wearing a blue polo shirt with the collar turned up, stood in front of a camera on a yacht owned by his friend Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire.

Guo, who sometimes goes by Miles Kwok, is a mysterious and polarizing figure  a self-styled crusader against Chinese Communist corruption who has drawn the ire of the Chinese government but has also been sued by other Chinese dissidents. A former female employee alleges in an ongoing lawsuit that he repeatedly raped her, a charge he disputes. And a former Trump aide, Sam Nunberg, is among many who have sued Guo alleging defamation; he denies the allegations.

"Utilizing his world-wide publicity, high profile, social media accounts, and seemingly endless financial means, Defendant Guo regularly uses his public platform and power to defame and harass his enemies," Nunberg's suit says. "In this case, Guo set his sights on destroying Plaintiff Samuel Nunberg's reputation and livelihood by filing baseless litigation against him and slandering Nunberg with malicious, false lies which discredit Nunberg both personally and professionally." Nunberg's suit is ongoing.

Guo, who by all accounts made his money in real estate and securities, portrays himself in interviews and court records as an exiled whistleblower, proving an inside account of breathtaking corruption at the heart of the Chinese system.

"Guo is a pioneer of using YouTube and Twitter to fight for the rule of law, human rights, freedom and democracy in China," his lawyers wrote in court papers in a federal lawsuit in Maryland against a self-described Chinese democracy activist. "Guo has exposed widespread corruption in the Chinese Communist Party ("CCP"), multiple senior officials of the Chinese Government, and their family members."

That lawsuit itself offers an illustration of the divisions of opinion about Guo: The defendant, Hongkuan Li, a well known dissident who says he participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, accused Guo on social media of being a "gangster," a "communist spy puppy," "a rapist" and of "suffering from schizophrenia," Guo's lawyers wrote, charges they say are all false.

That lawsuit purports to recount Guo's history, which includes a 1989 incident he says turned him against the Chinese government.

As police sought to arrest him for supporting the Tiananmen protests, the suit says, "Two drunken policemen raided Guo's office and fired their weapons directly at his young wife, who was holding his three-month-old baby daughter. His younger brothertried to protect Guo's wife and daughter and was shot twice in the altercation," the suit says.

Guo's brother was sent to the hospital, the suit says, but "the policemen who shot him instructed the doctors to refuse him any medical care and locked the door." As a result, he died, and Guo "vowed to become a persistent and brave advocate against the Chinese kleptocracy," the suit says.

As a New York Times magazine profile pointed out in 2018, that timeline doesn't appear to explain why Guo spent the next two decades growing rich in China through real estate development, a business that typically requires close cooperation with government officials even in democracies, let alone an authoritarian state like China. In nearly three decades after his brother's death, there is no record of Guo taking a public stand against the party he says caused it, the Times wrote.

There are darker allegations against Guo than hypocrisy, however. A lawsuit filed in New York state by a 28-year-old Chinese woman says Guo lured her to the U.S. from China to work as his assistant and then kept her prisoner for three years, repeatedly assaulting and raping her. The suit says she escaped while in London and went to the Chinese embassy, and that she filed a criminal complaint with Chinese authorities.

Guo's lawyers have denied the allegations in court papers. A lawyer for Guo told NBC News that Guo reiterated his denial of the allegations.

In a statement, the lawyer for Guo also said, "Mr. Guo is aware of the situation involving Mr. Bannon who has been a strong ally in fighting for freedom and democracy in China. Mr. Guo's past efforts with Mr. Bannon in fighting for democracy in China had nothing to do with the We Build the Wall organization or Mr. Bannon's activities with that organization. Mr. Guo appreciates that unlike the Chinese Communist Party, the United States of America affords all individuals accused in the United States, including Mr. Bannon, the presumption of innocence and the right for a fair trial before an impartial judge."

In 2017, as Guo's public profile in the U.S. began to grow, a journalist from the Voice of America, a government-funded news service, arranged to interview him. The plan was to broadcast a live interview for three hours on social media, but top officials at Voice of America ordered it stopped after an hour and 20 minutes, according to documents and interviews, because they were concerned he was making unverified allegations.

Guo accused the VOA of having been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence, a serious charge that threw the agency into turmoil. But an investigation by independent journalism expertsand a separate State Department inspector general's inquiry  concluded that the decision was based solely on journalistic principles, VOA officials said. The journalist who arranged the interview, the chief of VOA's Mandarin Service, was fired.

In a 2019 tweet, the journalist, Sasha Gong, quoted Bannon as saying, "Voice of America tried to clear out all truth-tellers about China in Mandarin Service. VOA executives betrayed American people, Chinese people."

Earlier this year, a Bannon ally, Michael Pack, became the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which includes the VOA, after a long confirmation delay in his Senate confirmation.

The veteran journalists in charge of the VOA, Amanda Bennett and Sandra Sugawara  both of whom were involved in the decision to stop the Guo interview  immediately resigned.
(JTA) - Before the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City, Rabbi Avi Greenstein knew he needed to make a big push to have people in his neighborhood fill out the census.

In Borough Park, where Greenstein serves as executive director of the Boro Park Jewish Community Council, only 49.2 percent of residents filled out the census in 2010, the last year it was conducted, compared to 61.9 percent across New York City. Thus the neighborhood, where many Orthodox Jews live, lost out on federal funding that is allocated based on population.

A researcher at George Washington University estimated th...
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:25:53|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa surged to 1,158,217 as the death toll from the pandemic rose to 26,968, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Friday.

The number of people who recovered from their COVID-19 infections rose to 881,495 as of Friday, said Africa CDC, a specialized healthcare agency of the African Union (AU) Commission, in its latest situation update.

South Africa currently has the most COVID-19 cases, which hit 599,940. The country also has the highest number of deaths related to COVID-19, at 12,618.

Egypt came next with 97,025 confirmed cases and 5,212 deaths, followed by Nigeria with 50,964 cases and 992 deaths, Africa CDC said. Ghana and Morocco also represent the fourth and fifth spot in terms of positive cases, 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, it said.

On Thursday, the AU had launched a flagship campaign to intensify the continental fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic toward protecting African economies and livelihoods amid the easing of lockdowns.

The newly launched continental initiative, dubbed "Africa Against COVID-19: Saving Lives, Economies, and Livelihoods Campaign," mainly envisaged protecting borders and travelers, economies and livelihoods, as countries ease lockdown and resume economic activities, the AU announced on Thursday.

The initiative was launched jointly by the AU Social Affairs Commission, Infrastructure and Energy Commission as well as the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) during weekly virtual news briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.

John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC, said during the virtual briefing that as AU member states begin to ease lockdowns and reopen, "it is critical to prepare Africa for the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Noting "sign of hope" in terms of decrease in the number of new COVID-19 cases in Africa during the past week, Nkengasong, however, emphasized the need to avoid "prevention fatigue," and further intensify precautionary measures, such as the use of masks, social distancing as well as increase COVID-19 testing.

Recalling the continental Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing in Africa initiative that was launched on June 4 that envisaged testing 10 million COVID-19 targets across the continent, the Africa CDC Director stressed that more than 10.2 million tests have been conducted so far across the continent, exceeding the initial target.

According to figures from the Africa CDC, South Africa, Morocco and Ethiopia are among the African countries that have conducted the highest number of COVID-19 tests.

Amani Abou-Zeid, AU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, also said during the virtual briefing the need to expedite investments in the energy infrastructure sector, as she emphasized that challenges associated to the energy sector is greatly hampering the public health sector.

Noting that only 28 percent of health facilities in Africa have reliable sources of energy source, the AU Infrastructure and Energy Commissioner stressed that the need "to speak in one voice and turn around this crisis in Africa to do things better for the wellbeing of our people."

Amira Elfadil Mohammed, AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, on her part also emphasized the need to exert concerted efforts as a continent towards mitigating the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. Enditem
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Former President Barack Obama addressed the nation on the third night of the Democratic National Convention Wednesday in a chilling speech. And while Trumps predecessor is known as a warm, charismatic orator, he commanded the attention of the American people in a very different way this time. Obama gave his formal endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominees Joe Biden and his vice presidential pick Kamala Harris while also denouncing President Donald Trump in a nearly unprecedented way. But while the takeaway from his speech was largely around his strong words for Trump, many missed his true warning: Democracy itself is in danger.

I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously, Obama said, But he never did. He went on, Donald Trump hasnt grown into the job because he cant. And the consequences of that failure are severe. The former president continued that under Trump, democratic institutions have been threatened like never before.

While he understands the many reasons that Americans lack trust in government right now, he said, listing special interests groups lobbying Congress and offshoring jobs, Obama warned that the Trump campaign is also counting on your cynicism. This is because They know they cant win you over with their policies. So theyre hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesnt matter. As a result, he said that democracy will continue to wither until its no democracy at all.

While the existential message may have seemed lost on the masses in a speech where Obama skillfully criticized the entire Trump presidency, some pundits were eager to point out the real power in his message. He was talking about the end of democracy. Not complaining that Trump overturned some policies, Zerlina Maxwell, a writer and political analyst tweeted. I feel validated in the sense of existential dread that Ive felt for 4 years.

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Maxwell echoed concerns among some Americans that Trumps actions are steering the country toward fascism, something anti-fascist and anti-racist activists have been warning for the last five years. But as the country faces the doom of a flailing United States Postal Service, random law enforcement raids in cities like Portland and Chicago, and the mass detention of unauthorized immigrants, the fascism of Trumps presidency becomes impossible to ignore  especially for Obama.

Obama has been critical of Trump in the past, most recently describing the Trump administrations coronavirus response as an absolute chaotic disaster. But never has the former president made such a bold statement about the threats facing not only democratic institutions, but also our communities, as he did in his speech Wednesday night.

Do not let them take away your power. Dont let them take away your democracy, Obama warned. And Obamas point certainly drives merit: As Americans scramble to even make sure their votes are counted in November, the message is clear: We are facing an unprecedented political crisis, and one that we can no longer ignore.

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Aussie actor Olympia Valance has confirmed she is the victim of revenge porn, in a powerful public statement addressing the profound violation she suffered.

The Neighbours actress, who plays Paige Smith in the hit Aussie series, took to Instagram to confirm rumours she has had private, intimate images hacked and shared online without her consent.

Neighbours star Olympia Valance has confirmed she is the victim of revenge porn in a powerful statement. Photo: Ten

In Australia, revenge porn is a criminal offence and includes any distribution of intimate photos or video without the subjects consent.

The 27-year-old became the victim of the hideous cybercrime more than a year ago when her phone was hacked, explaining recent recirculation of the images has plunged her back into the deeply traumatic experience.

I am writing this as confirmation that I know I have become a victim of cybercrime, she wrote in a statement shared with her followers.

I have been dealing with this for over a year now since my phone was compromised by a hacking of private images, which were then published online.

I have since had to deal with this again recently, when new images were recirculated, retraumatising me and pushing my anxiety into a space it has never been.

Images stolen and hacked off private phone

Olympia explained the private photos were obtained when the perpetrator hacked her phone. Photo: Instagram/olympiavalance

Olympia explained her images had been hacked and stolen from her phone and then shared online, a criminal and abusive offence.

Image-based offences are considered abusive and criminal acts, she wrote.

Such offences involve leaking (in my case hacking) images without consent in order to humiliate, degrade, control and blackmail a person.

As a victim of this, I have had to fight to try and contain these images from reaching the broader public and for media not to publish stories using my name.

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Star says taking intimate snaps not shameful, but stealing them is

Olympia called for the focus to be put on perpetrators rather than the victims. Photo: Instagram/olympiavalance

The star went on to make a bold statement combatting the stigma often associated with intimate image offences.

2020 has been challenging for us on every level, and this time has really rocked me, she wrote. Taking intimate photos for yourself, or to share with a partner is not a shameful thing to do.

Stealing them and sharing them online without consent is. We should be allowed to embrace our sexuality without fear that someone will take those images and manipulate them for their own gain.

The star then made a plea to anyone who has the images to delete them, inviting them to imagine themselves or loved ones in a similar situation.

They were private images not meant for you or for the public eye, she wrote.

Imagine the level of profound violation if this happened to your daughter, your sister, or to you. I am a public figure, but I am also a human being. I am not immune to these scandals. I hurt and I certainly feel pain.

Olympia thanked AFL star boyfriend Tom Bellchambers for his support through the ordeal. Photo: Instagram/olympiavalance

She went on to thank her loved ones, including AFL star boyfriend Tom Bellchambers, for their support.

If I didnt have my incredibly supportive boyfriend, my loving family, my fierce friends, my lawyers, management, psychologists and the angels at Image Cyber Crime, I know I would have not coped through this, she wrote.

Finally, the star made a bold call to start shifting the blame onto the perpetrators, rather than the victims of cybercrime, particularly when it comes to naked images.

We have to figure out a way to stand together and say its hacking and destruction of illegally obtained images, not the taking of them that is shameful, she concluded.

Im not ashamed. Im not embarrassed. I will not apologise. I have done nothing wrong.

Following the passing of new legislation in 2018, revenge porn is criminally punishable by up to seven years in prison and civil fines of up to $525,000 for corporations and $105,000 for individuals in Australia.

For image-based abuse support, visit www.esafety.gov.au or you can call 1800respect on 1800 737 732.
CBI for SSR, CBI for Sushant and CBI for son of Bihar - these are just some of the hashtags that have been trending on Twitter for the last few days, each one being tweeted and retweeted by millions. Almost every politician in Bihar and Maharashtra has spoken in favour or against of a CBI probe in the case, and there has been wall to wall coverage on news channels.

It is in this backdrop that the Central Bureau of Investigation has started its probe into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. So how easy or difficult will it be for the agency, and what will be the biggest challenges in the probe?

Time lapse - In special crime cases (non-financial crimes), time is of essence to investigators. The greater the delay in the investigating team reaching the crime scene, the bigger is the challenge to unearth the truth. But CBI has a history of getting cases only after lapse of months, and in some cases, years.

CBI officials point out how in blind cases like the Jaya Bharti case where a Ranchi student was murdered, the agency managed to not just arrest accused Rahul Kumar but also secure the death sentence from the court. High profile cases from Delhi-NCR like the Gurugram school murder and the Aarushi Talwar case all came to CBI after the state police investigation led in a completely different direction.

Crime Scene/Place of occurrence  The crime scene or the place of occurrence in a death by suicide is at the heart of such investigations. All kinds of allegations have been made about tampering of crime scene, mishandling of body and even the post mortem.

If investigators reach the scene of crime two months after the incident, like in this case, the advantage of being the first responder is gone. CBI usually depends on forensic experts from AIIMS to tide over the disadvantage and officials say in this case, too, a forensic team will be formed. The team would comb through Sushant Singh Rajput's house to look for any evidence that could give them an insight into his last moments. The CBIs SIT, as per sources could recreate the events leading up to the death.

A challenge here could be that Mumbai Police - the first responder, the agency which was supposed to preserve evidence, itself has faced accusations. The agency would be hoping that the place of occurrence would have been preserved.

"The photographs and the videography of the body will be crucial to come to any conclusion. The post mortem report will provide evidence of whether the hanging was post mortem - leading to death or ante mortem - hanged after death," a former CBI director told News18.

The charge  The CBI FIR on this case are under sections 120B, 306, 341, 342, 380, 406, 420, 506 of IPC dealing with criminal conspiracy, abetment to suicide, wrongful restraint and confinement, theft, breach of trust, cheating and criminal intimidation.

As per officials the substantive charge here is 306 - abetment to suicide. "Abetment is a difficult charge to prove. It was brought in for cases like dowry and Sati. In this case if Rhea left the house a week earlier it will be difficult to prove abetment since in this charge, immediate trigger leading to suicide has to be established," a former CBI director told News18.

He added that absence of a suicide note could add to the challenge. In the VG Siddhartha case, where the Cafe Coffee Day owner jumped to his death, allegations were made against Income tax officials who were said to have pressured him. A note written by Siddhartha also surfaced, yet no abetment charge was made out," the former director said.

Recent cases where abetment to suicide charges were pressed were the Sunanda Pushkar case and the Jiah Khan case. Delhi police charged Shashi Tharoor for abetment and cruelty, a charge he called preposterous and is contesting at the trial.

The CBI charged Jiah Khan's then boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi with abetment to suicide under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The case is still in court. Jiah's mother, however, alleges this was a case of murder, which was watered down by CBI under pressure.

It is this pressure that former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar says will be most challenging for CBI. "There is an assumption in the minds of people that this is a case of murder. But no one should expect CBI to prove that this case is that of murder if it isn't. The lack of suicide note does not mean murder. Experts have given evidence suicide notes are not written in spur of the moment cases. Abetment also we are presuming - that financial fraud or outsider tag could be reason for suicide," Kumar, who served in the CBI earlier, told News18.

He pointed out that in Badayun case where murder of two girls was being passed off as suicide, CBI did unravel the truth even though they were handed over the case late. "Both in Badaun and Gurugram cases, they unearthed the truth but just because we assume something we can expect them to prove our assumption," he said.

All former and current police officers News18 spoke to said that the biggest challenge for CBI would be to convincingly answer the unanswered questions.

"People have asked where was Sushant's dog at the time of incident? Why were two ambulances called? It has been said that the cloth used to hang him could not have taken his weight. These have to be answered. A dummy test for example will answer the question of strength of cloth," Neeraj Kumar said.
While online property views dont necessarily translate to property sales, the report showed that 51% of views from urban residents of the 100 largest metros during the second quarter went to suburban properties in their areas, an all-time high.

With remote work more common and accepted, it seems that people are looking to locate further from the office either to enjoy more space at a better price, or get closer to nature in the mountains or at the beach. At this point, they are not venturing too far away, Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said.

In the Realtor.com report, buyers were still looking online for homes in urban ZIP codes, but the suburban and rural areas saw bigger increases.

Online listing views of rural areas rose 16% in May compared with a year ago while views of homes in suburban areas grew by 13%, Realtor.com reported. Views in urban areas were up 7% year-over-year.
C hancellor Rishi Sunak today faced calls to hold fire on raising taxes quickly as the national debt soared above 2 trillion for the first time.

Debt was 2,004.0 billion at the end of July, 227.6 billion more than at the same point last year as the Government spends big to tackle the impact of the Covid outbreak on the economy. At the end of last month, debt was 100.5% of GDP, an increase of 20.4% compared with 12 months ago.

Sunak said: Todays figures are a stark reminder that we must return our public finances to a sustainable footing over time, which will require taking difficult decisions.

His comments sparked fears that he would move quickly to repair the battered public finances by using tax rises, amid signs that the recession-hit economy is in a better state than feared at the start of the virus crisis.

Tej Parikh, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said: Sustainable public finances are important, but the priority right now should be getting the economy going again. Hiking taxes too early risks choking off the recovery. Many businesses are already facing uncertain demand and difficult balance sheets, and higher costs would further dampen investment.

Charlie McCurdy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: The priority for the Chancellor going forward should be to prioritise limiting the depth of the economic crisis, particularly given record low borrowing costs and the risk of a post-furloughing rise in unemployment.

Only once the recovery is secured should the Chancellor turn to tackling the deficit, with tax rises needing to be a key plank of that plan.

Economists said the public finances are in a better state than feared at the onset at the crisis, in part because some companies  including Ikea, William Hill and Taylor Wimpey  have paid furlough money back.

Retail sales rose a better-than-expected 3.6% in July and are now above pre-pandemic levels, official figures showed today. In the first full month that non-essential stores were allowed to reopen, sales were 3% above February, before the lockdown began.

However, the picture is mixed  areas such as DIY have been strong, but clothing and home sales remain 26% down on pre-crisis levels. Online sales fell by 7% from June but are still 50.4% higher than in February.

Panmure Gordon chief economist Simon French said that the initiatives such as furlough had protected household incomes, but added: I would caution on a relapse though as both pent-up and diverted demand are issues  if you cant spend it on two weeks in Benidorm you might buy a paddling pool and a BBQ.

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Separately, the early reading of the IHS Markit/CIPS UK Composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), covering the services and manufacturing sectors, shot up to a nearly seven-year high of 60.3 in August from 57 in July, far above the 50 threshold for growth. However, there are still widespread worries this will soon fade and jobs will be lost in these sectors.
Quarantine workers disinfect a bus at a local depot in Jungnang District, northeastern Seoul, Thursday, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the capital. /Yonhap



Seoul city to ban gatherings of 10 or more people from today



By Kim Se-jeong



The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 288 new COVID-19 infections for Wednesday, the third straight day of over 200, with an increasing number outside the Seoul metropolitan area, signaling that the nationwide spread is becoming a reality and that it will be a while until the number of cases decreases.



Locating participants in an anti-government rally held last Saturday in Seoul has become the biggest challenge for the authorities.



"We have found 53 so far and they were scattered through nine provinces and cities nationwide. Also, 70 percent of them involved people in their 60s or older," Kim Gang-lip, a senior official responsible for the government response to COVID-19, said Thursday morning. Later in the day, the government added eight more cases.



The authorities were continuing to track down the rally participants Thursday, using data provided by telecommunications and charter bus companies, but still fell far short of tracking the 10,000 participants.



A breakdown of the 288 cases also showed the nationwide spread of the virus.





Seoul to ban gatherings of 10 or more to contain virus spread Busan beaches to close from midnight to combat spiking virus cases S. Korea reports 288 new virus cases According to the KCDC, out of the 288, Busan reported 15 cases Wednesday, up six from the previous day; Daejeon eight, up three; North Gyeongsang Province five, up two; and South Gyeongsang Province three, up one.



The Seoul Metropolitan Government has banned all gatherings of 10 people or more across the city from today, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus.



The authorities said the cases were posing a big challenge to the quarantine authorities due to unclear transmission routes.



Speaking with the Munwha Ilbo, Dr. Chun Byung-youl from Cha University said the infection rate nationwide could be quite high. "If 100 random people from Gangnam Station took a virus test today, it would be impossible to predict the number with the infection."



According to the KCDC, the country's total caseload is now 16,346, with 307 fatalities to date.



Among the 288 new infections, 62 were linked to the Sarang Jeil Church, which now has 676 confirmed cases tied to it. The quarantine authorities are still trying to locate 700 other church members.



A scheduled strike by doctors is another challenge for the authorities. Interns and residents who work at big medical centers and their emergency rooms are expected to go on strike today, followed by another one Aug. 26 with a bigger participation by doctors across the country.



Meanwhile, Gyeonggi Governor Lee Jae-myung warned residents of the possible collapse of the healthcare system and advised people to stay home.



"The crisis is entering a new phase which could be as bad as a tsunami. We need to be prepared for the worst case scenario in which the healthcare system will collapse. The government is now trying whatever it can to provide basic medical services," the governor said.



President Moon Jae-in urged the religious community to cooperate with the government's measures actively.




You are clearly a super-user of NUVO.net. Thats a good thing. It means you depend on independent and local news sources to keep you informed. You are a smart person.



Coincidentally, independent and local news sources depend on you too. Youve read 25 articles this month and now, wed like you to be join our mission and become a NUVO Supporter. For as little as $4 a month, you can keep us alive and fighting -- and can have unlimited access to the independent news that cant be found anywhere else.
Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki speaks in a meeting on the real estate market with the chiefs of related ministries at the Seoul Government Complex, Wednesday. / Yonhap



By Kim Bo-eun



The Moon Jae-in administration has come under fire for attempting to modify statistics once again, this time to water down the apparent side effects of the latest real estate regulations.



Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki said at a meeting on the real estate market this week that renewed "jeonse" contracts should be counted as new contracts.



The remarks come at a time when jeonse prices have spiked and transactions hit a nine-year low due to a shortage in supply based on the latest regulations that were intended to better protect the rights of tenants.



Jeonse is a unique system in Korea, where tenants pay a large lump sum deposit instead of paying monthly rent for a fixed period. The deposit is returned to the tenants when they move out.



The government introduced regulations that guaranteed tenants up to four years at a property, up from the current two, with any hike in the deposit limited to 5 percent.



New jeonse contracts are being made at significantly higher price s.



According to data from KB Kookmin Bank, as of Aug. 10, the average jeonse price of apartments in Seoul rose 0.41 percent from the previous week. This is double the rate of increase a week earlier.



The government has come under criticism as the policy to protect tenants from hefty deposit hikes has backfired, causing jeonse supply to plunge and prices to spike, posing further difficulties for those seeking homes under the system.



Amid the criticism and higher jeonse costs, the government has attempted to water down the new jeonse contracts at higher prices, by counting those being renewed as new ones. Because renewed jeonse contracts are made at the same price as under the previous contract, this brings down the overall price of new jeonse offerings.



Regarding the issue, Rep. Choo Kyung-ho of the opposition United Future Party said "This is why mistrust in the government is growing."



Rep. Ki Dong-min of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea said at a National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee meeting, "Because people can say the government is seeking to escape criticism using statistics, the government should seek the consent and understanding of the public if it is going to revise the calculations involved."



Following the criticism, Hong said it was not the government's intention to cover up the current situation using statistics.



Yonsei University Professor Sung Tae-yoon said "To see the effects of the latest regulations, it would be correct to check only the prices of new contracts,"



"If the government wants to provide additional data on renewed contracts, it should do so in the form of complementary data."


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A raging fire engulfed a home in Great Kills early Friday morning, displacing a family and injuring nine firefighters.

Video from the scene shows flames and thick black smoke pouring from the upper floors and roof as FDNY members sprayed the inferno with hoses.

The three-alarm blaze was reported at about 3 a.m. for a two-story home at 8 Holly Ave., according to a spokesman for the FDNY/EMS.

The injured firefighters were transported to area hospitals, including six members to Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze, one firefighter to Staten Island University Hospital in Princes Bay, and two members to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, the spokesman said.

Four people inside the home were able to escape safely before firefighters arrived, according to ABC7.

Red Cross has been in touch with the displaced family and has offered assistance, according to a spokesman for the organization.

The fire, battled by about 33 units and 138 members, was brought under control in about two hours, at 4:58 a.m., the spokesman said.

The blaze is thought to have started in the basement and extended from the first and second floors and through the roof, according to information from the FDNY Twitter feed and the spokesman.

A woman who lived at the home declined comment on the scene.

It was really scary and fast [moving], said a woman who lives next door.

Firefighters remained on the scene after dawn Friday morning. At least one helicopter whirled over the neighborhood.

The house appeared to be completely gutted by the flames on the first and second floors.

The roof was all but gone and debris, including furniture, could be seen on the front lawn.

A heavy odor of smoke remained in the air several hours after the flames were extinguished.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, the spokesman said.

-- Jan Somma Hammel contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 19:42:06|Editor: huaxia

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HARARE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Diaspora remittances continue to play an important role in Zimbabwe's economy, posting a 33 percent increase to 466.2 million U.S. dollars as of July 31, compared to 349.7 million dollars during the same period in 2019, latest central bank figures show.

The surge could be a result of many Zimbabweans in nearby countries such as South Africa and Botswana opting to use formal money transfer channels because of complications posed by COVID-19.

With travel across borders curtailed, people in the diaspora can no longer use informal couriers such as cross-border bus and truck drivers and passengers to send funds.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya said the diaspora community has greatly assisted the economy by injecting more foreign exchange in the first seven months of the year, The Herald newspaper reported on Friday.

"Over the past months, despite COVID-19, the amount of money that is coming from the Diaspora to Zimbabwe has never gone down," he was quoted as saying.

Mangudya said monetary authorities would not stop recipients from using the foreign currency in its form.

"We can't say 'don't use that money'. So, when we put Statutory Instrument 185 of 2020 (use of free funds and forex trading) we were recognizing that our people are bringing in money and we call it 'free funds', and we are saying businesses should pay tax using the same currency when trading," he said.

He reiterated that the green-light to use foreign exchange when trading locally doe not mean the country is returning to dollarization.

Instead, he said, Zimbabwe is in the medium term dollarized category of economies like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, which use both local currency and foreign exchange in domestic trading.

Zimbabwe is among the leading recipients of remittances in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region alongside Egypt, Kenya, Tunisia and the DRC.

The country also leads in terms of contribution of remittances to gross domestic product, at 13.5 percent, according to the COMESA secretariat. Enditem
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is providing data management training for officers of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service.



The training, in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service, is to equip the officers with appropriate knowledge and skills in the collection and recording of data on sexual and gender-based violence onto the DOVVSU Online Data Management Tool (DODMAS).



The DODMAS tool is a data collection system, sponsored by the UNFPA, to assist the Unit in the collection, transmission and analysis of data across the country.



Mr Senanu Agbozo, the Data Management Consultant at UNFPA, said the training involved the use of Microsoft Spreadsheet and charts to input data, to import, and analyse data based on different offences recorded.



He was speaking to the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of training for officers of the DOVVSU Unit from the Ashanti Regional Police Command in Kumasi.

He said the tool is fast for data entry and submission and works both online and offline.



Mr Agbozo said the tool was a closed and secured one incorporated with a data analysis software for easy accessibility and analysis by officials at the district, regional and national levels.



Superintendent Mrs Susana Dery, the Ashanti Regional Coordinator of DOVVSU, said the training would help the officers to record and to analyse data accurately on various offences.



It would also help officers to identify the category of people involved or affected by domestic violence, calculate and analyse trends of cases.



Mrs Dery said DOVVSU had a big challenge in data collection, storage and analysis, adding that the tool and the training had come at an appropriate time to complement the efforts of the Ghana Police Service in addressing the challenge.



She commended UNFPA for the support and called on other development partners to support the Unit to offer efficient services to victims of domestic violence.

Source: GNA









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Two students of Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay have discovered an SUV-sized asteroid, that is known to be the closest asteroid to fly by Earth.

On 16 August, the SUV-sized asteroid soared just 2,950 km above the surface of Earth.

IIT Bombay students Kunal Deshmukh and Kritti Sharma, working on a research project, discovered this object just hours later using data from the robotic Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in California.

Also Read | Small asteroid becomes closest ever seen passing Earth: NASA

Designated 2020 QG, it is the closest known asteroid to fly by Earth without impacting the planet, an IIT-Bombay press statement said.

The last known record-holder is asteroid 2011 CQ1, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2011, which passed above Earth about 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) higher than 2020 QG.

It was Kritti Sharmas third day on a research project to find Near Earth Asteroids.

She and Kunal Deshmukh were analysing ZTF data on Sunday afternoon and reported five streaks in the data as potential asteroids. Little did they know that one of them was a record-breaking asteroid.

The data looked like all other Near Earth Asteroids we have seen so far, said Kunal, a final year student in the department of Metallurgy and Materials Science at IIT Bombay.

After the ZTF team reported their finding to the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center, several telescopes followed up to learn more about the asteroid's size and orbit, proving that it had passed very close to Earth.

Kritti was overjoyed: Helping make a discovery like this, so early in my research project, is beyond what I had ever imagined!, said the third-year undergraduate student of IIT Bombays Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Their advisor, Prof.Varun Bhalerao, said: It is wonderful to see these students coming from diverse backgrounds and contributing to astrophysics research. We are very excited about our next phase: studying such objects with the robotic GROWTH-India Telescope at Hanle, Ladakh.

Asteroid 2020 QG is about 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) across, or roughly the size of an SUV, so it was not big enough to do any damage even if it had been pointed at Earth; instead, it would have burned up in our planet's atmosphere.

"The asteroid flew close enough to Earth that Earth's gravity significantly changed its orbit," says ZTF co-investigator Tom Prince, the Ira S. Bowen Professor of Physics at Caltech and a senior research scientist at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.

Asteroids of this size that fly roughly as close to Earth as 2020 QG do occur about once a year or less, but many of them are never detected.

"ZTF's large-field of view and rapid data processing allows it to find rare asteroids like this that other telescopes might not find," says George Helou, ZTF co-investigator and director of IPAC, an astronomy center, at Caltech.

ZTF, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other collaborators, scans the entire northern sky every three nights in search of supernovas, erupting stars, and other objects that otherwise change or move in the sky.

As part of a NASA-funded program, ZTF team members search for near-Earth asteroids. When these space rocks speed across the sky, they leave streaks in the ZTF images. Each night, machine-learning programs automatically sort through about 100,000

images in search of these streaks, and then narrow down the best asteroid candidates to be followed up by humans. This results in about 1,000 images that team members and students sort through by eye every day.
Stately homes.

Hand-built schools.

Churches with spectacular architecture.

Or even a railroad right in the center of town.

On their own, each is a sight to see.

Yet, as young people move to larger cities, rural populations begin to decline.

As a direct effect, the structures in the small towns become neglected, leaving only a glimpse of a history.

With a click of a button, John Mulhouse tells a story through a photo.

He holds the key in telling the history of the various places across New Mexico.

Its something hes become accustomed to over the years.

I like tactile things, he says. Vinyl records. Having a book to grab and look something up. The physical things bring a sense of comfort to me. Sure, the internet is the way to get something out there, but you want something you can keep forever. I still have all my negatives in a fireproof storage.

This is why Mulhouse spent the past few years working on his book Abandoned New Mexico: Ghost Towns, Endangered Architecture, and Hidden History.

The book will be available Monday, Aug. 24, through retail outlets.

Chronicling history is part of Mulhouses DNA.

For years, hes been at the helm of the blog City of Dust, which captures the history of ghost towns and abandoned spaces.

He found his passion while he was studying botany in Georgia in 2003 and became captivated by the abandoned architecture of the South. The pull was so strong it moved

him to pick up a camera for the first time.

Since 2009, he has largely devoted his efforts to documenting ghost towns of the Southwest.

Mulhouse, who now lives in Nevada, called Albuquerque home for nine years.

During that time, he traveled to nearly every corner of the state.

The only place I havent been to is the Bootheel, he says. Its a fascinating place. This is an area that has seen so much life through immigration. Every region in New Mexico is so different, and this one is undiscovered to me.

During his travels, Mulhouse grew to love the eastern plains in New Mexico  towns such as Taiban, Causey, Yeso.

Something about the areas really struck me, he says. I dont know if its the ghosts of homesteaders or the feeling of the loss of the railroad. I dont know if could handle living out there.

In northern New Mexico, places such as Elizabethtown captured his attention.

The unincorporated community in Colfax County has a rich history. It began in 1866 with gold mines.

By 1870, the town had over 7,000 residents during the boom. The bust came two years later with about 100 residents left as the mines started to slow down.

Theres a whole different history up in northern New Mexico, Mulhouse says. Then you start getting into the details of all the land grants. Its super fascinating.

As Mulhouse looked at Albuquerque, it was the confluence of Route 66 and the railroad that piqued his interest.

The railroad was at the heart of the city in Downtown Albuquerque.

Today, we can see the relic of that life in the rail yards, he says. This area drove Albuquerque into becoming what it is. You dont get much better than this area, and its my favorite place to photograph.

Mulhouse spent a couple summers working with the Wheels Museum, which gave him plenty of access for photography.

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Everyone was so welcoming, because they say I was trying to capture pieces of history, he says. Im all for reinvention of areas as long as they try to keep the historical integrity. To remove a building just because is sad. This is why I spend my time telling the stories. Its important to know exactly what makes the area magnificent.

For the cover of the book, Mulhouse went with a photo of a Chevrolet Apache truck under the Ranch House Cafe sign along Route 66 in Tucumcari.

The truck once belonged to a man named Walter Carlson, who was originally from Amarillo, Texas.

Mulouse says Carlson had served in the Korean War and had a wife and kids. But by the time he got to Tucumcari he was living in that truck, which he would sometimes offer to sell for a price nobody would pay.

Walter was an artist who worked in any medium he could put to hand, such as wood, candles, and coffee grounds. Once he made an entire sailing ship out of wax, with rigging, gun ports, and everything, but it eventually melted. For years he was in the truck, sleeping underneath it when the weather was hot, and selling artwork to Things  an out-of-business antique store which is just to the right in this photo, Mulhouse says. Walter died a number of years ago, leaving his truck to be admired. I long wondered what might still be inside the truck, and one day the door had been broken open. If there was anything within, its not there anymore. Sadly, now the elements will all the more rapidly break down the last home of Walter Carlson.

Mulhouse says taking pictures of abandoned buildings has served as a sort of therapy for him.

In the midst of a stretch of bumpy years, I began to feel somewhat like an abandoned building myself, windows broken and occupants vanished, doors hanging off the hinges, perhaps now not much more than a fire hazard, he says.  On any given day in New Mexico, you can find evidence of ancestral Puebloans, perhaps a potsherd or stone wall, remnants of a vanished culture stretching back well over a thousand years. Or maybe you will see a Navajo pictograph in a remote cave, the work of a painter who passed that way hundreds of years earlier.

Mulhouse says many of the photographs in the book were taken with film  all stock types and expiration dates.

I prefer to use film, as it keeps me honest, taking as few photos as possible and making them count, he says. I also find my film shots more satisfying, possibly for those reasons, although I am not entirely convinced it is only that.  I try to be nothing if not resourceful, using whatever is at hand in my attempts to capture a little bit of my soul in a quiet one-room schoolhouse or lonely gas station. On the rare occasions when I am especially lucky, I hope I might capture something of the souls of those that have gone before me, as well.
India performed 900,000 tests for Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) for the second consecutive day on Thursday, taking the total number of tests in the country to 36,671,613 so far.

With 900,000 samples being tested in close to 1,500 labs spread across India, the country seems to be right on track to meet the target of performing one million Covid-19 tests in a day by August-end.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is in the process of making arrangements to further ramp up testing in the country.

Recovery of 2,096,664 patients has been made possible because of effective implementation of the policy of testing aggressively, tracking comprehensively and treating efficiently. Focus on Standard of Care protocol including use of non-invasive oxygen, better skilled doctors in the intensive care units (ICUs) and hospitals, and improved ambulance services have culminated in yielding the desired results, said the Union health ministry in a statement.

Also read:Serum Institute registers its Covid vaccine trial

At 109,516, Uttar Pradesh performed the maximum number of tests on Thursday. A close second was Bihar with 107,945 tests, followed by Maharashtra that performed 76,591 tests.

Among states or Union Territories with low testing, Meghalaya had zero tests performed on Thursday, followed by Andaman and Nicobar Islands (366), and Sikkim with 387 tests in a day.

Early identification through testing, surveillance and contact tracing along with focus on timely and appropriate clinical treatment of Covid-19 patients have ensured that not only is the Case Fatality Rate is lower than the global average and progressively declining (current figure is 1.89%), but also a small proportion of the active cases are on ventilator support, the ministry statement further read.

ICMR director general Dr Balram Bhargava, in a recent Covid-19 briefing, had also said that the research body had adopted an intelligent and calibrated approach as far as Covid-19 testing in India was concerned to meet the testing requirement.

All states in India are currently are performing at least 140 tests per day, per million population as prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as minimum requirement for adequate Covid-19 testing. Most states are performing much higher numbers, with the national average being 580 tests per day per million population.

Experts also agree that it is important to keep the testing momentum high to know the exact disease burden.

The more you test, the higher will be the number of infected that you will be able to identify. To curtail an infectious disease from spreading, one must be able to identify, through testing, as many infected individuals as possible in time so that they are isolated and put on treatment. It will also ensure they dont roam around freely within the community and transmit the infection, said Dr T Jacob John, former head of virology department, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

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T wo more people have died after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, in one of the lowest daily death tolls since lockdown began.

The Government said 41,405 people had died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of 5pm on Thursday.

Separate figures published by the UKs statistics agencies show there have now been 57,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

But new cases topped 1,000 again on Friday. The Government said a further 1,033 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the total infections since the start of the outbreak to 323,313.

Hospital staff with a patient / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

It comes after regional authorities said five more people died in UK hospitals after testing positive for coronavirus, taking total Covid-19 deaths in hospitals to 34,129.

The hospital death toll given by the regions is calculated differently from the Government's national figures and delays in reporting mean that some deaths are recorded at different times.

All five of the people who died were in England, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all reported no further deaths again.

A hospital worker with a patient / AP

A further 71 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday.

Public Health Wales reported another 34 cases of the virus, while Northern Irish authorities said 20 more people had tested positive.
Varun Tiwari has become a household name when it comes to dance and music. Not just in his hometown in Jalandhar, Punjab but also in Australia where he is currently based with his production house Friends World TV. Coming from a small town, he had an exceptional start starting young at the age of three. His dancing skills are exceptional and are more than enough to beat any adult. He had so many stage shows and even worked in several films and TV channels like Doordarshan as a dancer.

Soon he left for Australia and again showcased his talent making many youth as his crazy fans. He soon founded his production house called Friends World TV, which mostly deals with producing high quality music videos. He worked with top names in the music world embarking on exceptionally creative music videos, which garnered a huge amount of buzz around them. He managed to get millions of views for all his songs. This made him a great example before the young audience.

He is now considered as a role model for many in the youth community in both Australia and other countries including his home nation India. He keeps on encouraging the young and fresh talents along with grooming them with great perfection. He has interviewed many youngsters who are willing to make a mark with their talents in this industry. Today, he has become an exceptional source of inspiration for all calling millions of people close to him. He has achieved a lot which is hard for others. Thanks to his talents and diligence which have made him an example in the creative world.

Disclaimer: This is a company press release. No HT journalist was involved in the creation of this content.
An East Texas couple has been charged and indicted with conspiracy to unlawfully transfer, possess, and use a means of identification.

The East Texas couple reportedly stole identities to collect multiple checks provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

The East Texas couple, Dalton Brewer and Emilee Fenton of Gilmer, both 24-years-old, were indicted by a federal grand jury by Wednesday.

The indictment claims that the East Texas couple stole more than $3, 600 worth of stimulus checks from two victims.

It also said that two conspired from at least November 2019 through 2020 to use other people's identities, including names, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth.

All the victims' information was used to stole government money.

The couple is also facing other charges such as aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, theft of mail, and fraudulent use or possession of identifying information.

Fenton was also charged with theft of government money and aggravated identity theft to get two Economic Impact Payments using the means of identifying other persons.

"It's disheartening to see individuals and communities already facing challenges related to COVID-19 be targeted with crimes like these. Protecting the U.S. Mail and American public are priorities for Postal Inspectors, however. These arrests are a product of that commitment," Ketty Larco, Acting Inspector in charge of the Fort Worth Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, was quoted in a report.

If found guilty, the East Texas couple could face up to 15 years in federal prison.

The case is being handled by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathaniel C. Kummerfeld is prosecuting the case.

The CARES Act was passed in March to give financial assistance to the millions of Americans affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Congress has passed more than $2 trillion in relief programs, with around $560 billion for benefits to individuals.

Around $300 billion was allocated for EIPs.

Texas Unemployment Aid

The Texas Workforce Commission said on Aug. 10 that it is seeking guidance from the Labor Department on how to proceed with the implementation of the unemployment aid.

However, there is still a lot of confusion over the Texas unemployment relief since President Donald Trump took executive action in early August.

The executive order announced an extra $400 weekly payment.

Unemployed Texans are still unsure if they will receive the money. The confusion remains as the state and federal governments have not said when or whether they will be available in Texas.

The Texas Workforce Commission has not yet responded to jobless Texans, waiting for unemployment benefits.

Spokesperson Cisco Gamez said in a statement on Wednesday that the agency is waiting on further guidance from the Labor Department.

Cisco added that they would provide additional information once it is available.

A total of 3.2 million Texans have filed for unemployment aid since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Recently, 51,476 Texans filed for unemployment relief.

Check these out:

Texas County's Hospital Forced to Choose 'Who is Sent Home to Die' as COVID-19 Cases Spike

Texas Mayors Plead Congress for Coronavirus Relief amid Budget Loss

Texas Conference for Women to Grant $150,000 to Women-Owned Restaurants
The Rev. Mike McClure Jr., pastor of the Rock City Church in Birmingham and a musician popularly known nationwide as Pastor Mike Jr., won his first Stellar Award on Thursday in early announcements for the gospel music awards show set for Sunday night.

That means a lot to me, McClure said after winning the Rap Hip Hop Gospel Album of the Year award for his album, Live Free.

The Stellar Awards will air on BET on Sunday at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., featuring taped performances by McClure and others.

We filmed in Nashville about a month ago, McClure said.

McClure was nominated for five awards. So far, hes won one and lost in two categories. Hes still up for best new artist and song of the year, for his hit single Big. Those will be announced Sunday night, and McClure doesnt know the outcome yet.

Its crazy, he said. I havent seen my performance. I get to watch my performance and whether I won or not with everybody else.

McClure also found out this week hes nominated for a Dove Award, from the Gospel Music Association, for contemporary gospel song of the year, for Big. The Dove Awards are scheduled for Oct. 30 on TBN.

Rock City Church in Birmingham has been holding worship services by online video streaming only since March, when the coronavirus pandemic shut down in-person services. His increasing profile in Christian music has probably helped draw viewers from across the country.

Were still video-only but were averaging 70,000 viewers per week, McClure said. Its growing every week.

Update: On Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020, McClure won the Stellar Award for best new artist.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2020) - SLANG Worldwide Inc. (CNSX: SLNG) ("SLANG" or the "Company"), a leading global cannabis consumer packaged goods (CPG) company with a diversified portfolio of popular brands, today announced the launch of Craft RESERVE Live Resin cartridges under O.penVAPE, its leading vaporizer brand. The product represents the Company's entry into the hydrocarbon space.

Live Resin is produced using a hydrocarbon extraction method and fresh frozen whole-plant cannabis material from top-performing cannabis strains. Freezing cannabis material immediately after harvest allows for better preservation of the plant's desirable compounds such as terpenes and cannabinoids. This creates a richer flavor profile and delivers a more full-spectrum cannabinoid experience reflective of the plant's genetics.





Craft RESERVE Live Resin cartridges offer loud and robust flavor profiles with a full-spectrum cannabinoid experience



To view an enhanced version of this image, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6983/62234_OpenVAPE_Craft_RESERVE_Live_Resin.jpg

Live Resin cartridges will be rolled out across SLANG's Colorado distribution network, which includes approximately 300 dispensaries. The new product is expected to benefit from strong brand recognition and a significant existing customer base, in a state where O.penVAPE is the all-time top-selling vape brand, according to BDS Analytics data since tracking began in 2014.

"These pure live resin carts are not only delicious, but will build on our leadership position by offering new options to our rapidly growing base of customers in Colorado," said SLANG CEO Chris Driessen. "This launch is consistent with our strategy of innovating within our core product categories to further differentiate our best-in-class offering. We anticipate using the same extraction methodology to introduce live resin versions in other selected categories in the coming months."

Story continues

Craft RESERVE Live Resin carts will complement SLANG's existing Craft RESERVE Cured Resin carts. Cured Resin is made from dried flower using a low-pressure, subcritical extraction technique that creates a high potency extract. Since its launch in 2017, Craft RESERVE Cured Resin has won awards for best cannabis extract at events that include the High Times Cannabis Cup, Oregon Growers Cup and the THC Classic.

Live Resin carts are manufactured at the Allied Concessions Group ("ACG") facility in Boulder, Colorado. The Company continues to work towards the completion of its previously announced proposed acquisition of ACG, consistent with its strategy of consolidating supply chain assets in its core markets.

Media and Investor inquiries

Investors@SLANGww.com

About SLANG Worldwide Inc.

SLANG Worldwide Inc. is a global leader in the cannabis CPG sector with a diversified portfolio of popular brands distributed across the United States. The Company specializes in acquiring and developing market-proven regional brands as well as launching innovative new brands to seize global market opportunities. SLANG is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol SLNG. For more information, please visit www.slangww.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or developments in the industry to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the distribution of the SLANG-branded vape cartridges in Colorado, the anticipated launch of additional live resin products and the proposed acquisition of ACG.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management of SLANG at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive risks, uncertainties and contingencies that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Applicable risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to regulatory risks, risks related to the COVID-19 global pandemic, changes in laws, resolutions and guidelines, market risks, concentration risks, operating history, competition, the risks associated with international and foreign operations and the other risks identified under the headings "Risk Factors" in SLANG's final long form prospectus dated January 17, 2019 and "Risks and Uncertainties" in the management discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2019 and three months ended March 31, 2020, each as filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. SLANG is not under any obligation, and 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 expressly required by applicable law.

Third Party Information

This press release includes market and industry data that has been obtained from third party sources, including industry publications. The Company believes that the industry data is accurate and that its estimates and assumptions are reasonable, but there is no assurance as to the accuracy or completeness of this data. Third party sources generally state that the information contained therein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but there is no assurance as to the accuracy or completeness of included information. Although the data is believed to be reliable, the Company has not independently verified any of the data from third party sources referred to in this press release or ascertained the underlying economic assumptions relied upon by such sources.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62234
A tea plantation in Daning Village, Liubao Town. [For China Daily]

Fried, rolled and withered. Loose green leaves turn dark as the lingering aroma of tea spills from heated pots, filling the air of a workshop in the mountainous village of Tangping.

The process may look easy to a layperson but the ideal conditions such as timing and temperature are controlled by tea growers that take years if not decades of experience.

Wei Jiequn, 62, is a fourth-generation tea cultivator and resident of Tangping, which is located in Liubao Town in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region's Wuzhou City.

"Tea sustains my inner peace. When you are in a good mood, the tea you make will be tasty. If you lose your temper, the flavor will change," says Wei.

Wei Jiequn picks up tea leaves. [For China Daily]

In 2017, Wei was named as a national-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage for her tea-processing technique.

Though machines have been widely used in processing tea, Wei says the skills involved in hand-making are "irreplaceable".

"The aroma can only be fully aroused through natural fermentation when the tea is processed by hand," she says.

"And the shapes of leaves are better when manually rolled."

The signature tea of Liubao became known outside the area through the waterways, by ships that carried the tea across the Pearl River, finally setting off on its overseas voyage from Guangzhou, Guangdong province. The trade route was known as the "tea boat road".

Local records show that this famed variety has a 1,500-year history, and its popularity reached the peak during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. Liubao tea was given in tribute to Qing emperor Jiaqing.

Many Guangdong laborers who emigrated to Southeast Asia in the 19th century used the tea as a drink to counter humid and hot weather. It was particularly welcomed among Chinese miners.

Shi Rufei picks up tea leaves. [For China Daily]

Family Business

A collectively owned tea factory was established in Liubao in 1972. Four years later, Wei, then 18 years old, began to work there. She met her future husband, who became head of the factory.

Tea was not only the matchmaker for their romance and marriage but also the witness to their toughness. A fire broke out in the factory in 1986, and the huge loss led to its bankruptcy.

The couple returned to Tangping. They kept collecting samples of old Liubao tea-some were decades old-and further studied processing techniques. Once fermented, good-quality dark tea can be stored for years.

"Times are changing, but we never worry that people will lose interest in our tea as long as we keep working to ensure its high quality," Wei says.

Nevertheless, the mundane work, no matter how rich a tradition, may not attract everyone.

Two of the couple's three daughters have opted to work in cities. The youngest daughter, Shi Rufei, joined the family business in 2006, after finishing junior high school.

"When I was a kid, I followed my grandfather in picking herbs for traditional medicine in the mountains," Shi says.

"Herbs, including tea, are part of my everyday life. I can't turn away from my family duties."

Shi Rufei (L) and Wei Jiequn stick to traditional handmade technique to process Liubao tea. [For China Daily/Wang Kaihao]

Unfortunately, Shi's father died from an illness in 2008. The duty suddenly fell on her young shoulders, although she was still an amateur in processing tea.

Practice was painful. The work blistered her hands. But it paid off.

Like her mother, Shi became a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in 2014.

"Though you follow certain formulas, you cannot be sure to get the same aroma every time," she says."This is the charming part of processing tea. We can only create some conditions and let it be."

Liubao tea has 16 major types of fruity flavors that resemble such aromas as areca and litchi. Various aromas only appear during natural fermentation and mark different production years.

A cup of Liubao tea [For China Daily/Wang Kaihao]

Shi's workshop employs about 30 technicians, as more people understand the value of processing using traditional and manual methods.

Shi says 1 kilogram of Liubao tea sells for between 200 yuan ($29) and 400 yuan if processed by machine, but handmade tea can cost more than 800 yuan.

Today, almost every family in Tangping plants tea.

As an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, Shi says it is essential to pass the tradition down to the younger generations.

She has been teaching tea-related skills in the elementary school of the village.

Eyeing the future may also be indispensable to keep up with the market.

Although Shi calls Liubao tea a "drinkable antique", she says new methods are needed.

About 30 percent of the sales in her workshop now come from e-commerce.

Shi follows the trend of promoting tea by livestreaming. She has invited designers to create new packaging for the tea to appeal to young people, and opened a boutique teahouse in the village in July to create a better atmosphere for customers.

"In this quickly evolving era, if you miss information, you'll lag behind," she says.

Fermented Liubao tea leaves [For China Daily/Wang Kaihao]

Tourism Potential

According to government data, Liubao has about 2,800 hectares of tea plantations, accounting for one-third of the total tea-growing area in Wuzhou.

The gross value of this tea reached 6.8 billion yuan in Wuzhou in 2019. Over 360 hectares in the city were cultivated as new tea fields between January and April.

"People take more care of their health now," says Lin Zhuxiong, the mayor of Liubao, adding that cultural products themed on the local tea are also enhancing business.

"It can play a key role in reviving the rural market."

A research institute, a testing center and laboratories have been set up in Wuzhou in recent years to serve the industry.

The city also held a tea competition last year, encouraging cultivators to produce the best tea. An industrial park, covering nearly 70 hectares, is being constructed in Liubao.

Lin says it will become a new hub for the storage, logistics, financing and trade of Liubao tea.

"Hopefully, booming tourism will follow," Lin says.

"In addition to the industrial park, visitors can admire the historical glory of the 'tea boat road'."

(Source: China Daily)
By Express News Service

JAIPUR: The husband of BJP MP from Bharatpur Ranjita Koli has been accused of molestation by a young woman in Bayana.

The woman MP claims the victim was allegedly demanding money from her family and the case against her husband is only a bid to extract money from them.

The 25-year-old victim, a labourer, filed an FIR in the local police station in Bayana on Thursday alleging that Omi alias Hom Chand Koli, husband of Bharatpur MP Ranjita Koli, sneaked into her house late in the night on August 11 in an inebriated condition. He started molesting her and began indulging in obscene acts, the woman said in the FIR, and demanded strict action against the culprit.

When the MP's husband started misbehaving with her, she shouted out and all her family got together to save her. In the commotion, the accused managed to escape.

The victim claimed that her family spoke to Ranjita Koli about the incident. The MP, however, allegedly told the family that she was out of station and advised them not to lodge a case till she came back. But after this conversation, the victim claims that she and her family started receiving threats from the MPs family and finally they decided to file an FIR.

Reacting to the incident, Ranjita Koli said that the womans entire allegation is a fabricated story. She claimed that the woman used to work at their home and demanded money. She cooked up this tale of molestation in order to pressure her husband and family to give her the money she had demanded.

The Bharatpur Police registered a formal FIR on Thursday and began questioning people of the neighbourhood on Friday. The Police say they are probing all aspects of the case and will soon interrogate the prime accused in the case. The SHO of Bayana Police station Madan Meena said, "We have registered a case of molestation under sections 354 and 451 of the IPC. The statement of the victim will be recorded in front of a magistrate and the probe will continue."
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Uttam Kumar, a Delhi-based idol maker is running his artistic hands while giving final touches to a three-feet tall idol of Lord Ganesh.

Ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi (August 22), idol makers across the city have been in full zeal preparing Ganesh idols, in expectations of meeting demand.

Albeit artists have opened their stalls, shops and are continuously engaged in the making of idols, the business of these idol makers has been strongly hampered due to the uncertainties around coronavirus.

Unlike last year, the streets of A K Roy Marg, Matka Market, ahead of the festival, are noticeably empty with only a few families coming in and placing their orders.

Compared to last year, the sales have gone completely down. Making of idols is our family business, and we have been doing it for years. This might be the first time that we are facing such dip in orders from customers, said Uttam Kumar to ANI, an idol maker who has his stall in Matka Market, near Sarojini Nagar.

Sitting next to Kumar is his long-time friend Sonu, who too, has taken up the family business of idol making. During an interaction with ANI, the two took a trip down the memory lane, reminiscing about the rush, and swift orders of Ganesh idols that used to take place a week before Ganesh Chaturthi.

Talking about the preparation, the 30-year-old artist noted that the planning and supplies of materials began three-four months back. Most of the items and many Ganesh idols in their stalls are from Kolkata.

We started the preparation in April-June, but even the raw material and supplies to reach here in Delhi from Kolkata had issues due to the restrictions of movement owing to Covid-19, he added.

Another lady, while carefully taking her 4-feet-tall Ganesh idol made of mud, back to her stall amid the drizzling rain talked to ANI about how the majority of stalls in Matka Market have concentrated on avoiding idols made of PoP (Plaster of Paris).

The artist who did not wish to reveal her name said, after the decision to call off the use of PoP by the authorities, many among them have made a conscious effort to make idols of mud or clay or the ones that are not harmful to nature.

However, she mentioned that only families, who are ready to take home Ganesh murti are coming to place orders, but not many pandal organisers have approached them so far to buy or place orders for Ganesh idols for the festival.

There are no bulk-orders, unlike last year, and family is also conscious of purchasing idols that are of short-height.

Meanwhile, Ajay Shastri and Neelima Bhagwat, the husband-wife duo who runs eco-friendly Ganesh idols shop at Jankakpuri, Desu colony, are also facing slight problems in their sales for this year.

The couple, who have been running the shop for the last eight years have since then focused on making Ganesh idols, purely out of clay, and other eco-friendly substances that are in no way harmful to the environment.

ALSO READ: Ganesh Chaturthi 2020: History, significance, date and time of the festival

The 12-15 labourers, who are working for them from Mumbai are also facing consequences due to the hit of Covid-19. Not only because of the spread of the virus but also the heavy rain that the coastal state had to bear recently, brought gloom among the idol makers.

They are facing financial problems, and the labour cost has also increased, said Shastri to ANI.

Talking about his business, here in Delhi, the owner said: The main difference this year is that customers who used to get 18-24 feet Ganesh idols every year, have demanded 6-8 feet idols this year

Having a wide range in the size of idols from 6-feet to maximum 24-feet, the couples business, according to them is going fine, however they are focusing on bringing more small-sized idols to meet the growing demand.

The 10-day festivities of Ganesh Chaturthi, the birth anniversary of Lord Ganesha, will begin on August 22. The festivities will end with the final immersion of the Ganesha idols, called the Visarjan.

The festival is celebrated with much grandeur in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat among other states.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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An energy investment firm has launched with $250 million available for new U.S. oil and gas projects at a time when the historic industry downturn has squeezed available credit.

Andros Capital Partners, headquartered in Houston, plans to help fund oil and gas projects valued at $25 million to $200 million each.

Andros could fill a void left by banks that have widely stopped backing U.S. oil and gas company operations after years of lagging industry returns. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the credit crunch.

The fund will allow Andros to enter into credit agreements, invest in assets directly or make private equity deals in which it would loan money to companies in exchange for ownership stakes.

Drilling Down: Fort Worth oil company chooses downturn for first projects

Theres an extreme lack of capital availability in the energy sector today, founder and managing partner Phillip Gayle said. Both equity and debt markets are  for all practical purposes  closed for business. Yet, there are many attractive investment opportunities.

Gayle is joined on the firms investment committee by former Apollo Global Management senior partner Gregory Beard and Beemok Capital Chief Investment Officer Kurt Palmer.

The committee, Gayle said, plans to seek out small and medium-size domestic projects carried out by exploration and production companies and companies that build pipelines or storage facilities.

The lower to middle market is underserved, Gayle said. We hope that we can be a good partner to those companies.

Andros has already received interest since its Tuesday morning announcement, said Gayle, adding that there are no deadlines for the fund to disburse money. Partners also will be allowed to make additional investments into a promising project or company.

Fuel Fix: Get energy news sent directly to your inbox

Ed Hirs, an oil and gas industry expert with the University of Houston, said Andros launch follows the pattern seen during previous industry downturns when private equity firms financed promising companies.

But, Hirs said, smaller companies have been overlooked by large investment funds for years.

This makes them an attractive oasis, Hirs said. Theyve got fresh money and a newly put together team. For those management teams with good assets and good ideas, this will be very positive.

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WILLEMSTAD:--- On August 19, 2020, Brigadier General of the Marines Peter Jan de Vin transferred his position of Commander of the Navy in the Caribbean, also Director of the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard, and Commander Task Group 4.4 to Brigadier General of the Marines Frank Boots. The ceremony for the change of command took place at the Rima jetty at the Parera naval base inCuracao.

The weather was beautiful with a beautiful clear sky during the ceremony of the change of command. The ceremony on the Rima jetty went well and all the guests enjoyed it. BrigadierGeneral of the Marines Peter Jan de Vin, thanked everyone in his speech for the pleasant cooperation during the past three years. After Brigadier General de Vin's speech, the new General Boots addressed the guests. It is a great honor for me to stand here before you as the new Commander of the Navy in the Caribbean, Director of the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard and Task Force Commander 4.4. Despite the fact that cultures are different from each other, it

is beautiful to see that people can come together and work together on for a safe future for all the island residents. My aim is to understand your culture and to connect with you. Only together we can perform the tasks for which we are responsible. This is beautifully reflected in our motto: Together Strong. Let us form a team together to make all our countries within the Kingdom stronger and safer; said Frank Boots the new director of the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard.

The ceremony was attended by a number honorable guests. The Governor of Curacao, Lucille Andrea George-Wout, and Commander of the Naval Forces Vice-Admiral, Rob Kramer from the Netherlands were two of the honorable guests whom attended the ceremony. Due to COVID-19 measures, many guests were not able to fly to Curacao to attend the ceremony. Therefore the ceremony was broadcasted via Livestream on Facebook so that everyone could watch it. The ceremony ended with a reception in the long room at the Parera Naval Base. The Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard staff wishes the new director Boots the best of luck in his new position.




A house fire has killed five family members who were not able to escape the blaze in their home in Denver. Three suspects who wore face masks that hid their identity were caught on cam in the scene. This group is suspected of starting the lethal fire.

Police have released a photo to the public of the three felons responsible for the deaths of the family. The lethal arson also caused the death of an infant and a two-year-old toddler in the house. It was difficult to identify the suspects with their faces covered by masks, according to NBC.

On August 5, the fire that lit up the house took the lives of the residents who never got a chance to get out of the blaze. Those who were killed were identified as Djibril Diol, 29, his wife Adja Diol, 23, and their 2-year-old daughter, Khadija, as well as Djibril's sister, Hassan Diol, 25, and her infant daughter, Hawa Baye.

According to sources, the three masked felons were spotted breaking and entering the residence and was present when the fire started. They were able to get out of the flaming house by going up to the second floor and exiting from there.

A statement from Denver police asked the public for leads that will catch the criminals. They said that investigators uncovered evidence that the fire was set intentionally, leading to the five deaths. They were able to leave the scene of the crime in a dark-colored sedan.

A reward of $14,000 will be given to anyone who can provide information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the suspects.

Also read: Boxer Woman Kills Two Men: Rapes One With Shovel Handle , Kicks Another to Death

The victims were part of the Senegal community in Denver, and according to records, they have Senegalese origins. This incident has driven Muslim leaders, both local and national, to tag it as a hate crime, according to Religion News Service.

Press briefs from the Colorado Muslim Leadership Council stated that the fire has affected the entire Colorado Muslim Community. They also claimed that the crime should be looked into by both Denver Police and the fire department to see the extent of arson and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a press conference, after the fire happened days ago, one of the surviving family members was asking for answers. He was asking for resolution and why it had to happened to them, and also urged the officials for justice of his family's deaths.

One of the deceased in the house fire, Djibril Diol, immigrated from Senegal a while back to live in the U.S, said a press outlet. He moved to America with high hopes for himself and his family as well. Djibril worked as a civil engineer and was a respected member of the community. Before he died, a project was underway to restructure part of the Interstate 70.

To help the family with the funeral expenses, a GoFundMe was started to support the deceased. The Senegalese family's passing prompted the Senegal Consul to meet with relatives of the deceased in August, according to Associated Press. Macky Sall, the Senegal leader, tweeted condolences to the family.

Related article: Man Stabs Brother to Death Due to Heated Argument Overly Freshly Laundered Pillowcase

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
August 21 : Kangana Ranaut, who was interacting with her fans and well wishers through her team, has decided to enter the social media and interact personally. Taking to Twitter today, the Panga actress shared a special video, where she spoke to her Twitter family.

In the video, the 33-year-old actress talked about her films and some instances that pressurised her to join social media. Ranaut also mentioned that many ad agencies and brands are aware that she had turned down several deals worth crores, as they had one clauseto join social media. The Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi actress further said that Sushant Singh Rajputs death case helped to clear her vision about the power of social media, and inspired her to finally enter Twitter personally.

This is for my twitter family  pic.twitter.com/KGdJPPWrQ1  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) August 21, 2020

The actress asked netizens to extend their support to her as she is looking forward to this journey and this opportunity. I look forward to a great time being here, she said.

Ever since Sushant Singh Rajputs death on June 14, Kangana started talking about nepotism and movie mafia in Bollywood. She sharply commented on several actors and directors through her social media team.

Recently, the actress has questioned Aamir Khans decision to go to Turkey. It sets a kind of an example where he comes across as someone who has double standards, she said in an interview. Mentioning that she and Aamir share a great bond, the Queen actress said that does not mean that she is not allowed to criticise him.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Anwar Gargash, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, doesnt understand why Israel would object to the U.S. selling his country the F-35 fighter jet. The UAE is one of the few Arab states that has never been at war with Israel, after all, and now its working to normalize relations with the Jewish state. Whats an advanced weapons system between new friends?

When asked this week at a conference sponsored by the Atlantic Council about Israeli objections to the F-35 sale, Gargash said it might have to do with domestic Israeli politics. He concurred with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus remarks that the arms sale was not part of the normalization agreement. Nonetheless, he also said he expected that signing the agreement with Israel would remove any hurdles with the U.S. government on the sale of the F-35s.

Yet that is far from clear. Since 1973, the U.S. has largely followed a policy designed to give Israel a qualitative military edge," or QME, over the other Arab states in the region when it comes to arms sales. In practice, this means that the U.S. will not sell weapons systems to Arab states that give them capabilities comparable to Israels. Israel has a role in this process and is influential in Congress, which also must approve such arms sales.

But Israel does not always get its way. In 1981, for example, the U.S. sold surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia over the objections of Israel, and Congress narrowly approved the sale.

Israel said this week that it disapproved the sale of the F-35s to the UAE. The U.S., however, has signaled that its open to it. David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, told the Jerusalem Post this week that future military sales to the UAE would go through the QME process. He also allowed for the possibility that one day, the U.S. might sell the F-35 to the UAE.

There are two good arguments for the Israeli position. First, todays friends can be tomorrows adversaries. The best recent example of this is what has happened in Turkey. As a NATO ally, Turkey was for decades armed with some of Americas most sophisticated weapons systems. Israel has also enjoyed a close relationship with Ankara for much of its history.

But Turkey has more recently gone rogue, purchasing sophisticated air defense systems from Russia and signing agreements with Venezuela. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to suspend diplomatic relations with the UAE after it announced the normalization deal with Israel. The UAEs leadership today is moderate and reasonable, but there is no guarantee this will always be the case.

The second argument is that it sets a bad precedent to sell the UAE the fighter jet platform that Israel has also purchased. Other, more volatile Arab allies of the U.S. will want it too  and possibly demand it as a price for normalization with Israel. To this day, the QME process still applies to Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel.

Not everyone agrees. The UAE is a path breaker," said David Wurmser, a former adviser to the U.S. National Security Council under President Donald Trump. The path breaker has to get a reward." And while Wurmser said he did not believe it would be wise to sell the F-35s to Saudi Arabia, he had more confidence that the UAE would be stable in the coming years, and he saw no reason why selling F-35s to UAE would mean that the Saudis should get them too.

Add to this another pending concern: The U.S. is currently planning to snap back" sanctions on Iran to keep in place a conventional arms embargo that expires in October. But this maneuver is risky. There is a very good chance that Russia and China will simply ignore any arms embargo imposed by the U.S., which is no longer a part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Strengthening the UAE with state-of-the-art fighter jets is one way to hedge against the very real possibility of Chinese and Russian arms sales to Iran.

Friedman hinted at this in his interview. Ultimately, under the right circumstances, both the U.S. and Israel would benefit greatly from having a strong ally situated across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran," he told the Jerusalem Post.

Which highlights an irony about shifting alliances in the Middle East. By turning the UAE from foe to friend, Israeli is enhancing its national security. It may well be, however, that the price of that friendship will be the erosion of the military advantage its most important friend has provided Israel for nearly 50 years.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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Brussels, Aug 21 : Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced that exploratory talks with German biopharmaceutical company, CureVac to purchase a potential Covid-19 vaccine have concluded.

Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said on Thursday that "each round of talks that we conclude with the pharmaceutical industry brings us closer to beating this virus", reports Xinhua news agency.

It is anticipated that the Commission will have a contractual framework in place for the initial purchase of 225 million doses on behalf of all European Union (EU) member states, to be supplied once a vaccine has proven to be safe and effective against the coronavirus, according to a statement from the Commission.

It added that CureVac pioneers in vaccines based on messenger RNA, transported into cells by lipid nanoparticles.

The basic principle is the use of this molecule as a data carrier for information, and the human body would then produce its own active substances to combat various diseases.

The company had earlier received EU funding.

In July, the European Investment Bank and CureVac signed a 75-million-euro loan agreement for the development and large-scale production of vaccines, including CureVac's vaccine candidate against COVID-19.

CureVac is the fourth partner the Commission has announced to have been talking with.

So far the Commission has signed an actual advance purchase agreement with AstraZeneca, and published "positive steps" with Sanofi-GSK and Johnson & Johnson.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 17:37:42|Editor: huaxia

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NAIROBI, Aug. 21 Xinhua) -- African leaders have strongly condemned the Tuesday military coup in Mali during which President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was seized by mutinying soldiers.

The leaders who included Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his counterparts from South Africa, DR Congo, Rwanda and Mozambique among others also demanded the immediate release of Keita.

In a statement issued in Nairobi on Friday after a virtual meeting on Thursday evening, the leaders also called for the immediate release of senior members of his administration, among them the country's Prime Minister Boubou Cisse.

Kenyatta urged for a "speedy, peaceful and democratic" resolution of the crisis while South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for dialogue to restore peace and stability in the West African country.

President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) rallied African countries to take a firm position on the matter saying the coup was "dangerous for democracy in Africa".

Keita resigned on Wednesday after being detained in a coup launched by mutinous troops.

Meanwhile, the leaders who spoke during the virtual meeting of the African Union Bureau also discussed the continental response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of Regional Economic Communities (RECs), African special envoys on COVID-19 and the Director of Africa CDC John Nkengasong.

During the meeting, President Kenyatta said Africa needs to elevate its global partnerships in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine so as to "ensure that African countries are not further marginalized but are positioned to be among the first line of beneficiaries, once a breakthrough is made."

He commended the special envoys for their efforts in helping the continent deal with the health and socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19.

"The economic challenges we face require concerted multilateral effort, such as prioritizing debt cancellation and Bretton Woods led relief package that do not exacerbate emerging local challenges," he said.

In his report, Nkengasong informed the leaders that despite crossing the one million mark of COVID-19 infections, Africa had in the last two weeks witnessed a 37 percent reduction in reported daily infections.

Nkengasong said seven COVID-19 vaccine trials were nearing World Health Organization (WHO) approval. Four African countries among them Kenya are participating in the clinical trials for these vaccines.

He said Africa targets to vaccinate 60 percent of her population at an estimated cost of 10 to 15 billion U.S. dollars once the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available. Enditem
Beijing-backed media in Hong Kong recently began citing public opinion research findings from a previously unknown pollster, with a name that is confusingly similar to a well-known and trusted research body.



In early June, the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po cited research carried out by the "Hong Kong Public Opinion Survey Center" and commissioned by the pro-China Our Hong Kong Foundation as saying that the majority welcomed the recent imposition of a draconian national security law on the city.



"The latest survey results show that they agree that Hong Kong is responsible for safeguarding national security, and that 'Hong Kong independence' and foreign powers undermine social stability and harm the country," the Wen Wei Po reported on June 11.



According to the paper, the poll was based on a random sample of audio interviews with 1,366 Hong Kong residents carried out in early June, and formed part of a portfolio of pro-China reporting paving the way for the national security law, which has begun a crackdown on peaceful dissent and criticism of the government in schools and the media and on the streets since it took effect on July 1.



While its results were used as evidence of public support for the new law, professional pollsters questioned its methodology and data.



An investigation by RFA found that the organization cited has conducted at least three opinion polls on the national security law in the space of a month, all of which show that respondents overwhelmingly support the development.



But a paper trail clearly connects it to the ruling Chinese Communist Party's representatives in Hong Kong.



The organization which produced the research was initially hard to trace, especially as its name in Chinese is very similar to that of the well-established and respected Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), which was once run by the University of Hong Kong (HKU), but was recently made independent.



However, a July 21 PORI poll found that public ratings of the city for "freedom" and "stability" had fallen significantly compared with an earlier survey in April, while public perception of "prosperity" had reached a record low since July 2003, along with ratings of "civilization," "equality," and "fairness."



Public perception of academic, artistic, and journalistic freedom, as well as the freedom to protest and demonstrate also fell significantly, the PORI survey found.



Since its first survey was commissioned, the Our Hong Kong Foundation has issued three press releases claiming widespread public support for the law, each of which cited the center's findings, but with changing results that showed public support trending higher each time, from 57 percent in early June, to 64 percent, and then 67 percent more recently.



No details released to media



However, unlike the PORI research, which has been a staple of media reporting since before the 1997 handover to China, no detailed data has been released to the media.



An employee surnamed Lai at the Our Hong Kong Foundation confirmed that the research had been commissioned by his organization, but declined to comment further.



"Our latest public opinion research has focused on this issue," Lai said. "All of the material that is allowed to be made public is already in the press releases."



A detailed online search confirmed that unlike the detailed data released by PORI, there is no additional or more detailed information available on the polls.



However, some references cited the research as being under the aegis of the University of Hong Kong's social sciences department, while others had mislabeled it as originating with PORI, prompting heated debates about its origins in online forums and chat rooms.



No other references to the organization were found prior to late May.



A company search showed that it had indeed registered as a company, the only way for civic organizations to be considered legitimate in Hong Kong.



Among its registered directors is Ma Fung-kwok, a Hong Kong deputy to China's National People's Congress (NPC), the body charged with issuing political decrees on Hong Kong via "interpretations" made by its standing committee.



The Our Hong Kong Foundation is listed as a think tank founded by the pro-China Bauhinia magazine, which is in turn indirectly owned by a company under the aegis of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong.



Its founding chairman is former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa.



'This isn't normal practice'



Chung Kim-wah, assistant professor of social policy at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University who works with PORI, said he had recently been made aware that a pro-China pollster was using a similar name to PORI's to publish substandard research.



"I have noticed that they have never released their questionnaires or sampling methods to the public," Chung told RFA. "This isn't normal practice in the field of public opinion research."



"We [at PORI] openly disclose all of our survey data, the questionnaires are openly available to the public, and the sampling method can be seen by everyone," he said. "We even tell people how we calculate the weighting."



"For a survey to retain public respect in the long term ... it needs to be transparent, with a methodology that stands up to scrutiny, and which meets the requirements of the profession," Chung said.



He said the move was similar to an attempt by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to claim broad public support for the national security law through a signature campaign that garnered three million names.



"The Our Hong Kong Foundation was founded by Tung Chee-hwa a few years ago, and it's like the Hong Kong Coalition. They are all run by the same bunch of people, all of whom are interconnected," Chung said.



Political pressure on pollsters



Hong Kong's pollsters first came under political pressure in 2000, when Robert Chung, then director of the Public Opinion Programme at HKU, canceled a popularity survey of Tung's administration after being pressured by the then chief executive's aide.



PORI itself was raided by police on the eve of democratic primary elections in Hong Kong last month.



He said PORI's loss of university funding could also have been the result of behind-the-scenes pressure from Chinese or Hong Kong officials.



"Since the 2014 Umbrella movement in particular, I have had the feeling that the government may have some kind of tacit understanding with the management of some universities to limit freedom of expression as much as possible, and to limit their sense of social responsibility," Chung said.



He said PORI had lost funding from HKU and now shares offices with non-government groups.



But he said public opinion had meanwhile turned strongly anti-government since Lam first proposed allowing extradition to mainland China, sparking a year of anti-government protests that culminated in the permanent stationing of mainland Chinese state security police in the city.



"Both the government and the pro-establishment camp should take account of [genuine] public opinion in the process of taking decisions," Chung said.



Simple methodology



Sing Ming, an associate professor of social science at the University of Science and Technology, believes that pro-China opinion polls are likely to keep popping up with increasing frequency.



"The methodology of those polls is likely very simple, in order to rationalize some highly controversial policies of the government, especially those that suppress human rights in Hong Kong," Sing told RFA.



"I also think it is worth noting that the mainstream media, including TV stations, will be suppressed and manipulated more and more via their sources of funding," he said. "In that case, the manipulated opinion polls will start to take root via the mainstream media."



Chung said those in power should take account of genuine public opinion, but that their refusal to do so had led Hong Kong to its current situation.



He said he would have no regrets if he were jailed because of his public opinion research work.



Reported by Gigi Lee and Tam Yiu-chung for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
KITCHENER  Therza Kalunga sat on her porch with her daughter enjoying a summer breeze before her night shift.

As you know, housing is hard to find and rent is hard to pay, Kalunga said. As the sole income earner in her household, she provides for her entire family.

Her daughter Astrieh Mezi said that knowing her mother was working through the pandemic was challenging and stressful.

But quitting or abstaining from work is not a financially viable option for Kalunga.

Kalunga, who came to the region from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2017, has relied on the Working Together Employment Program to help her find work and get wraparound support through the pandemic.

Kalunga was one of nearly a hundred government-assisted refugees who found employment this year by participating in the research-based pilot program funded by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada.

Spearheaded by Reception House Waterloo Region, the project combines language learning with employment for government-assisted refugees. Carl Cadogan, executive director of Reception House, said that of all the categories of newcomers to Canada, government-assisted refugees often have the most complex needs and benefit enormously from targeted employment support.

Government-assisted refugees come from dire situations, Cadogan explained. Unlike other types of new immigrants, government-assisted refugees are chosen based on direction from the federal government and international humanitarian agencies.

Bashir Shahbaz, manager of employment services at Reception House, said government-assisted refugees do not get referred to the employment program immediately upon arrival.

Families need to register kids in school, get their feet on the ground. Then we meet to figure out how to get them in the program. We get their past work experience, assess, and then ease them into the workforce.

JD-Sweid Foods, Tigercat Industries Inc. and Accumetal Manufacturing Inc. are all companies that have signed on to employ refugees through this program. Shahbaz said he works with case managers, employers, and other agencies like KW Multicultural Centre to ensure that there is a good fit between program participants and employers.

Once participants start working, they also engage in a three month on-the-job language course offered by Conestoga College. These classes happen twice a week and are designed to help refugees excel in the workplace, Shahbaz said.

Since launching in 2018, the program has placed a total of 177 newcomer refugees in their first job in Canada.

Kalunga started the program with JD-Sweid and graduated in first week of August this year  the first person to complete the program since the pandemic began.

Shahbaz said the pandemic forced everyone involved with the employment program to innovate and provide necessary wraparound support for participants.

It made us figure out how to work together and collaborate better as a team, Shahbaz said.

Carolyn Beukeboom, interim manager of the Refugee Health Clinic at the Centre for Family Medicine, said they worked closely with Reception House to ensure that participants health care needs were met.

We can mobilize community support before we see them in-person, said Beukeboom. She said that they arranged for first assessments to be conducted via video conferencing, communicating with Reception House to involve interpretation and any other community services as needed.

Rich Janzen, co-director of the Centre for Community Based Research Centre  another partner of the Working Together Project  said that while the pandemic obviously had a substantial impact on parts of the program, the ability to pivot from in-person to virtual supports where possible was a testament to the capacity and creativity of agencies and employers.

Conestoga College was able to shift their English language lessons online, and the Kitchener Public Library donated twenty Chromebooks to be used by the program for three months while the library was shut down.

RELATED STORIES Waterloo Region https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2020/08/11/does-covid-attack-equally-the-answer-is-no.html

Kalunga said the shift to virtual language lessons at work was difficult at first, but ultimately found it beneficial. Of all the changes she adjusted to in the workplace, Kalunga said that she was most impacted by small, interpersonal things she had previously taken for granted.

We stopped shaking hands when we greeted people, she said wistfully.

As borders slowly open and international movement becomes less restricted, Waterloo Region can expect a small trickle of government-assisted refugees, beginning with one multi-generational family set to arrive here at the end of August.

Reception House, along with many other local social service and health agencies, have been preparing for this for months. Following public health guidelines, the family will have to quarantine for 14 days. Once social and health needs are met, local research from Immigration Partnership of Waterloo Region shows that employment support is a key element toward integration and a sense of belonging in the larger community.

The Working Together team hope Immigration Canada extends the funding so they can keep offering employment support for more refugees.

Were into the third year, Janzen said of the program. It seems to be working, and weve learned a lot.
Jerusalem Community Baptist Churchs 11 a.m. Sunday service can now be streamed from Abernathy to Clovis. Pastor Terry Wright and his wife, Sally, announced the addition of the broadcast on their Facebook pages this week.

Interested listeners will now be able to tune in to 106.9-FM KKYN and 94.7-FM KGRW for a livestream of the morning service on Sundays. The service will follow a nationally syndicated Christian Country Music program that runs from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. Those interested can visit The American Christian Music Reviews webpage at theacmr.com for additional information about that program. A list of the programs schedule for next Sunday is listed on a post by the Wrights on the Jerusalem Community Baptist Church Facebook page.
In just a few short years, Steve Bannon went from being the most dangerous man in American politics to being in federal custody.

The onetime champion of Americas forgotten man and an architect of Donald Trumps 2016 campaign, Bannon was arrested Thursday morning, reportedly aboard a Chinese billionaires yacht.

His indictment  on charges involving an alleged internet fundraising scam for helping build Trumps southern border wall  marks an era that has catapulted a series of unlikely figures to the highest reaches of politics, only to see them suffer spectacular falls.

In Bannons case, an itinerant entrepreneur with a mixed record in media and finance charged into the center of a turbulent presidential campaign and emerged as the White House chief strategist. Later, he was even rumored to be eyeing his own presidential run.

Instead, he has followed others from the presidents inner circle into serious legal jeopardy. The 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates; Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn; his longtime political mentor Roger Stone; and his former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen  all have been convicted of federal crimes since Trump took office.

My first reaction when I heard the news was that this was inevitable, said Kurt Bardella, who worked under Bannon as a spokesman for the far-right Breitbart News. For someone who traffics in greed and divisiveness and is part of a group of people who just have no regard for the law, this is the predictable outcome.

A spokeswoman for Bannon, Alexandra Preate, did not respond to requests for comment.

A self-described propagandist, Bannon has cited the German filmmaker and Nazi sympathizer Leni Riefenstahl as an inspiration, and has generally portrayed himself as a revolutionary. Im a Leninist, he reportedly told a new acquaintance at a party in 2013. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of todays establishment.

Story continues

Bannons devil-may-care attitude may have brought about his own destruction instead.

For Steve Bannon and his ilk across the ideological spectrum, politics is just another game to be exploited for maximum profit, said Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from South Florida who ran afoul of Breitbart for his support of immigration reform. In their dark world, dividing societies and destroying institutions are simply means to personal enrichment. For now, this appears to have caught up with him.

Bannon first gained notoriety in Washington as Breitbarts chairman during President Barack Obamas second term, making the far-right populist site a thorn in the side of the Republican Partys establishment leaders.

Leadership are all c***s, he wrote in one leaked email to a Breitbart staffer. Let the grassroots turn on the hate because thats the ONLY thing that will make them do their duty.

Bannon famously described the site as the platform of the alt-right, later backing away from that characterization.

Under the patronage of the hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, Bannon carved out a prominent place among conservative activists and worked for the Mercer-backed Cambridge Analytica. The controversial political data firm marketed its ability to compile psychographic profiles of voters to better micro-target messages. Rival firms panned its offering as snake oil.

But in August 2016, the megadonor father and daughter oversaw Bannons installation as chief executive of Trumps campaign.

He appropriated Hillary Clintons basket of deplorables description of Trump supporters as a badge of honor and referred affectionately to Trumps base as hobbits.

He received much of the credit for Trumps upset win and went on to serve as Trumps chief strategist in the White House, where he inserted himself into the deliberations of the National Security Council. He battled more moderate elements in the administration  he called them globalists  to push for the most extreme version of Trumps populist agenda, which critics condemned as xenophobic, racist and fascist.

Publicly, he dubbed the news media the opposition party, while cultivating reporters and leaking furiously against his rivals behind the scenes.

In championing initiatives like Trumps failed Muslim ban, he came to be viewed as a powerful, frightening figure.

Saturday Night Live portrayed him as the Grim Reaper in the Oval Office, and a Time magazine cover labeled him The Great Manipulator, implying that he was the real power behind Trumps throne.

Bannon embraced the image. Darkness is good, he told the Hollywood Reporter. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. Thats power.

In buttoned-down Washington, Bannon stood out for his shambolic personal appearance  his trademark look was to sport multiple collared shirts at once  and unorthodox personal life. After he vacated one residence in Florida in 2015, a landlord complained that the bathtub seemed have been disfigured by acid. During the heat of the 2016 campaign, he registered to vote from the Florida address of a friend with whom he also shared a checkered record of small-time business ventures. The friend, Andy Badolato, was indicted along with Bannon on Thursday.

Bannons high profile irked Trump, as did the chief strategists constant jousting with the presidents daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. Bannon lasted seven months in the White House before returning to Breitbart in the summer of 2017. He left days after encouraging Trump to embrace participants in a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that had turned deadly.

Traders on Wall Street cheered the news of his firing  Bannon had been a vocal critic of trade and a proponent of populist economics  and markets rallied in response.

Outside the White House, he continued to position himself as the leader of a populist movement, and at one point rumors swirled in Washington that he was considering a 2020 primary challenge to Trump. But his movement-building flailed, especially his backing of the Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore, who lost his Alabama race in December 2017 after allegations emerged that he had sexually pursued underage girls in his 30s.

Unlike other members of the presidents inner circle, Bannon emerged mostly unscathed from investigations of connections between Trump and Russia. His habit of leaking to the news media would catch up with him instead.

Bannon served as a key source for Michael Wolffs sensational 2018 book, Fire and Fury, which painted a damning  and in some cases exaggerated  picture of the dysfunction inside the West Wing.

The book quoted Bannon trashing the president and his family. Trump disavowed Bannon, who lost the backing of the Mercers and left Breitbart for good.

Undeterred, he attempted to knit together right-wing populist parties around the world into an international coalition and sought to kindle a new Cold War with China.

Unlike other high-ranking Trump lieutenants who went down for crimes closely related to their boss, Bannon has gotten into more trouble the farther he has drifted from the presidents inner circle.

After losing the support of the Mercers, Bannons agitation against Beijing led him to a new sponsor: the mysterious Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. Guo portrays himself as a dissident bent on exposing corruption in Chinas ruling party, but his exact motives remain a matter of debate. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI was investigating Guos funding and his relationship with Bannon.

In a statement, Guos lawyer, Daniel Podhaskie, said the fugitive billionaire stood by his American partner, calling Bannon a strong ally in fighting for freedom and democracy in China.

It was on Guos yacht, on Long Island Sound off Connecticut, that federal agents reportedly caught up with Bannon on Thursday morning. In the afternoon, after Bannon pleaded not guilty in a virtual hearing in U.S. District Court in New York, a federal judge made it a condition of his release on $5 million bail that he not board any more private jets or boats without the governments permission .

As Bannon sought to continue channeling pro-Trump populist energy without the presidents backing, he attached himself in late 2018 to the crowd-funded border wall project that ultimately led to his indictment.

As soon as the wall project launched, critics charged that it was a scam designed to make money off gullible immigration opponents.

Normally, the involvement of a former White House chief strategist would dispel concerns of fraud, but federal prosecutors arrived at the same conclusion as Bannons critics: that in the Trump era, political prominence does not preclude criminal mischief.

There seem to be a number of people grifting on the presidents name and positions right now, said Michael Steel, who served as a longtime press aide to former Republican House Speaker John Boehner, a frequent target of Breitbarts wrath. If he continues to lag in the polls, the grifts will get more and more desperate over the next few months, as they try to cash in before the party is over.


If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





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DUBLIN, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Diagnostic Tool; Application; End User; Service; and Geography" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare diagnosis market was valued at US$ 3,639.02 million in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 66,811.97 million by 2027; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 44% during 2020-2027.



The growth of the market is mainly attributed to factors such rising adoption of AI in disease identification and diagnosis, and increasing investments in AI healthcare startups. However, the lack of skilled workforce and ambiguity in regulatory guidelines for medical software are the factor hindering the growth of the market.



Artificial Intelligence in healthcare is one of the most significant technological advancements in medicine so far. The involvement of multiple startups in the development of AI-driven imaging and diagnostic solutions is the major factors contributing to the growth of the market. China, the US, and the UK are emerging as popular hubs for healthcare innovations.



Additionally, the British government has announced the establishment of a National Artificial Intelligence Lab that would collaborate with the country's universities and technology companies to conduct research on cancer, dementia, and heart diseases. The UK-based startups have received benefits from the government's robust library of patient data, as British citizens share their anonymous healthcare data with the British National Health Service. As a result, the number of artificial intelligence startups in the healthcare sector has significantly grown in the past few years, and the trend is expected to be the same in the coming years.



Based on diagnostic tool, the global artificial intelligence in healthcare diagnosis market is segmented into medical imaging tool, automated detection system, and others. The medical imaging tool segment held the largest share of the market in 2019, and the market for automated detection systemis expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.



Based on application, the global artificial intelligence in healthcare diagnosis market is segmented into eye care, oncology, radiology, cardiovascular, and others. The oncology segment held the larger share of the market in 2019, and the radiology segment is expected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period.



Based on service, the global artificial intelligence in healthcare diagnosis market is segmented into tele-consultation, tele monitoring, and others. The tele-consultation segment held the largest share of the market in 2019, however, tele monitoring segment it is further expected to report the highest CAGR in the market during the forecast period.



Based on end-user, the global artificial intelligence in healthcare diagnosis market is segmented into hospital and clinic, diagnostic laboratory, and home care. The hospital and clinic segment held the highest share of the market in 2019 and is expected to register the highest CAGR in the market during the forecast period.



Key Topics Covered



1. Introduction

1.1 Scope of the Study

1.2 Report Guidance

1.3 Market Segmentation

1.3.1 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By Diagnostic Tool

1.3.2 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By Application

1.3.3 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By Service

1.3.4 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By End User

1.3.5 Global Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By Geography



2. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - Key Takeaways



3. Research Methodology

3.1 Coverage

3.2 Secondary Research

3.3 Primary Research



4. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - Market Landscape

4.1 Overview

4.2 PEST Analysis

4.2.1 North America - PEST Analysis

4.2.2 Europe - PEST Analysis

4.2.3 Asia-Pacific - PEST Analysis

4.2.4 Middle East & Africa - PEST Analysis

4.2.5 South & Central America

4.3 Expert Opinion



5. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - Key Market Dynamics

5.1 Market Drivers

5.1.1 Rising Adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Disease Identification and Diagnosis

5.1.2 Increasing Investment in AI Healthcare Start-ups

5.2 Market Restraints

5.2.1 Lack of skilled AI Workforce and Ambiguous Regulatory Guidelines for Medical Software

5.3 Market Opportunities

5.3.1 Increasing Potential in Emerging Economies

5.4 Future Trends

5.4.1 AI in Epidemic Outbreak Prediction and Response

5.5 Impact Analysis



6. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - Global Analysis

6.1 Global Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market Revenue Forecast and Analysis

6.2 Global Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market, By Geography - Forecast and Analysis

6.3 Market Positioning of Key Players



7. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By Diagnostic Tool

7.1 Overview

7.2 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market Revenue Share, by Diagnostic Tool (2019 and 2027)

7.3 Medical Imaging Tool

7.4 Automated Detection System

7.5 Others



8. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market Analysis, By Application

8.1 Overview

8.2 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market Revenue Share, by Application (2019 and 2027)

8.3 Eye Care

8.4 Oncology

8.5 Radiology

8.6 Cardiovascular

8.7 Others



9. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By End-User

9.1 Overview

9.2 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market, by End-User, 2019 and 2027 (%)

9.3 Hospital and Clinic

9.4 Diagnostic Laboratory

9.5 Home Care



10. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - By Service

10.1 Overview

10.2 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market, by Service, 2019 and 2027 (%)

10.3 Tele-Consultation

10.4 Tele-Monitoring

10.5 Others



11. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - Geographic Analysis

11.1 North America: Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market

11.2 Europe: Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market

11.3 Asia-Pacific: Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market

11.4 Middle East and Africa: Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market

11.5 South & Central America: Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market



12. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market

12.1 North America: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.2 Europe: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.3 Asia-Pacific: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic

12.4 Rest of the World: Impact Assessment of COVID-19 Pandemic



13. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Diagnosis Market - Industry Landscape

13.1 Overview

13.2 Growth Strategies Done by the Companies in the Market, (%)

13.3 Organic Developments

13.4 Inorganic Developments



14. Company Profiles

14.1 General Electric Company

14.2 Aidoc

14.3 Arterys Inc.

14.4 icometrix

14.5 IDx Technologies Inc.

14.6 MaxQ AI Ltd.

14.7 Caption Health, Inc.

14.8 Zebra Medical Vision, Inc.

14.9 Siemens Healthineers AG

14.10 Koninklijke Philips N.V.



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/zd9sf9

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 12:50 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f80746 1 World Indonesia-China,vaccine-diplomacy,COVID-19-drugs,Sinovac-Biotech,SOE-Minister,foreign-minister Free

Southeast Asias largest economy has secured priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine bulk developed by China's Sinovac Biotech through a deal with state-owned pharmaceuticals Bio Farma.

A vaccine bulk is an aqueous form of the purified antigens, or vaccine, provided in a large container from which the individual vials are filled.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi announced the deal on Thursday evening at a virtual press conference in Sanya in China's south, where Bio Farma signed two agreements on the vaccine cooperation with Sinovac.

Under the first agreement, Sinovac is to start shipping the coronavirus vaccine to Indonesia in November.

First is the preliminary agreement [on] the purchase and supply of the COVID-19 vaccine [bulk], which is an agreed commitment to supply 40 million doses from November 2020 to March 2021, Retno said.

The second agreement is a memorandum of understanding that extends the cooperation until the end of 2021, under which Sinovac commits to providing priority access to Bio Farma to purchase more vaccine bulk.

Sinovac last week launched the final stage of the phase three clinical trial for the CoronaVac vaccine it is developing with Bio Farma, with the final stage involving 1,620 patient volunteers in Bandung, West Java.

The six-month clinical trial of the vaccine in Indonesia comes as the country continues to struggle with rising infection, recording 2,266 new cases on Thursday to bring the cumulative nationwide tally to 147,211 confirmed cases.

Read also: Sinovac launches late-stage trial for potential COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia

State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir accompanied Retno to the meeting with Chinese officials in the resort city on Hainan Island, the Chinese outpost in the South China Sea. The two ministers also met with representatives from China Railway during the overseas visit, Retno's first in six months.

Earlier this month, Erick claimed that Bio Farma would be ready to produce 250 million doses of CoronaVac per year once the trials had been completed by the year-end.

Retno is the first foreign minister China has received amid its ongoing COVID-19 response efforts on the mainland. According to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry, her reception shows that China and Indonesia both attach high importance to bilateral relations.

The Indonesian delegation also explored potential collaboration opportunities with other Chinese drug manufacturers, including Sinopharm. The state-owned Chinese pharmaceuticals has said that its candidate vaccine may cost no more than 1,000 yuan (US$144.27) for two injections once it had completed its clinical trials and began mass production, reports Reuters.

CanSino Biologics is another Chinese company that Indonesia is considering for possible cooperation. The company has started late-stage clinical trials for its candidate vaccine in a number of countries, while Beijing has already approved its use for the nation's military.

In a meeting with Chinese counterpart State Councilor Wang Yi to follow up a virtual meeting in late July, Retno stressed the importance of an effective, safe, timely and affordable vaccine for COVID-19.

Indonesia has seen strong commitment from a number of pharmaceutical manufacturers in China to collaborate on the vaccine [development] with Indonesia. We are also seeing the commitment of the Chinese government in supporting this cooperation, she said.

Meanwhile, Erick said that the visit intended to ensure that any transformation of Indonesias health industry through this cooperation would result in a win-win solution.

This is so Bio Farma wont just be seen as a tailor [whose job is just to piece together garments], but as a party to an agreement with Sinovac that includes transfer of knowledge and technology, he said. The minister issued similar remarks to CanSino and Sinopharm as well.

Hopefully, we can soon rise above COVID-19 in step with the time frame [...] and [achieve] mass immunization of the Indonesian people by early next year, Erick added.

Retno was quick to add that Indonesia would continue shopping around for initiatives with other countries and that it was already in touch with parties other than China, so that we can get better results amid the very tight competition".

Read also: Indonesia teams up with global manufacturers in vaccine hunt

Indonesia is also developing its own COVID-19 vaccine prototype, dubbed Merah Putih, toward achieving vaccine self-sufficiency.

With nearly 23 million confirmed cases around the world, hundreds of pharmaceutical research institutes are scrambling to come up with a vaccine while dozens of governments are taking aggressive steps to secure any future stockpiles.

The alarming pace at which pharmaceutical firms are fast-tracking vaccine development has prompted the World Health Organization to warn drugmakers that proper vaccine development could take 12 to 18 months.

To further clear the path in supply and distribution, Indonesia and China have also agreed to arrange a "travel corridor" for essential businesses.

This is the third travel corridor for essential businesses that we have made with other countries, after the United Arab Emirates on July 29 and South Korea on Aug. 17, said Retno, who is heading to the UAE with Erick after the China visit.

Other bilateral issues discussed during the visit included trade as well as the ongoing investigation over alleged human trafficking of Indonesian crew aboard Chinese fishing vessels. Regional issues included the China-ASEAN dialogue partnership, which will mark 30 years next year.

Indonesia is confident that the ASEAN-China partnership will stay strong as long as it is always carried out [according to] international law, including when we discuss the South China Sea issue, Retno said.
A US Navy SEAL accused of sexual assault after a Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq last year claims that he was the victim even though bruises were seen on the face of the woman who made the allegation.

A witness, US Navy intelligence specialist Colleen Grace, was asleep on a remote air base in Iraq when she was woken up by knocking on the door next to her room, and then a voice she recognized.

The voice belonged to a Navy corpsman she knew. He was upset and speaking loudly to the Army colonel who lived next door.

Grace heard the corpsman say that a sailor who attended a Fourth of July barbecue had just been raped by a member of the Navy SEAL platoon on the base.

The corpsman asked the colonel what to do because the victim was afraid that if she reported the incident, retribution would follow.

'And thats real,' Grace heard Hospitalman First Class Gustavo Llerenes tell Col. Thomas Collins, a physicians assistant with the Florida National Guard.

'Its a good ol boys network.'

She said she heard Collins urge Llerenes to keep his voice down, saying the walls between the rooms were thin.

Grace, who could no longer hear the conversation between medical professionals, looked down at her phone to check the time.

Just then Grace noticed a missed text from a friend asking her to come over.

'Urgent,' the message read.

When Grace got to her friend's room around 1:50am, she found her friend in bed with a bruised face and realized she was the person who said she'd been raped.

Rear Adm. Collin Green (pictured) fired three SEAL Team 7 leaders last year citing leadership failures which caused a breakdown of discipline within two deployed units last year

A squad of Navy SEALs takes part in special operations urban combat training in this 2012 file photo. n 2019, the Foxtrot platoon of SEAL Team 7, known as Trident 1726, was sent home early after an alleged sexual assault and drinking at a Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq in 2019 in violation of Navy rules barring deployed troops from consuming alcohol

She told Grace that she and the SEAL started out having consensual sex but then he started choking her and at one point she thought 'what is he going to do with my body when he kills me?'

Grace photographed her injuries, then hugged her and cried, unsure of what would happen next.

Within weeks, the entire Foxtrot platoon of SEAL Team 7, known as Trident 1726, was sent home early.

It was an extremely rare move to cut short the mission of a unit that was there to combat remnants of ISIS.

Navy officials have given few details other than to say there was an alleged sexual assault and drinking at a Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq in 2019 in violation of Navy rules barring deployed troops from consuming alcohol.

The story of the platoon being pulled from Iraq has been previously reported, but documents obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with nearly a dozen people give the first in-depth view into what led to that rare recall.

Records obtained by the AP from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service also reveal a previously unknown reported allegation of sexual misconduct against the SEAL platoon chief, Special Warfare Operator Chief Nicholas Olson, two days before the barbecue.

Olson denies any wrongdoing.

The platoon was withdrawn after the Navy made an unusually public push to strengthen order and discipline in its secretive elite force amid a series of scandals.

The Navy fired three SEAL leaders in the aftermath of the alleged rape and charged an enlisted SEAL with sexual assault, aggravated assault via strangulation and assault by battery for allegedly biting the victim on the face, among other counts.

He faces a court-martial in November. A hearing in the case will be held Friday at Naval Base San Diego.

His lawyer, Jeremiah Sullivan, said his client is innocent.

The SEAL, who was charged December 30, filed a counter claim in February against the sailor alleging she sexually assaulted him.

AP is not naming the SEAL despite his criminal charges nor the sailor because they both say they were victims of sexual abuse and AP has a policy of not identifying victims unless they choose to be.

Grace is the first service member to publicly talk about what happened in Iraq. She spoke to the AP in an exclusive interview.

AP spoke to other service members who asked not to be named or quoted for fear it could jeopardize their military careers.

The sailor who reported being sexually assaulted on July 4, 2019, declined to be interviewed.

Two days before the Fourth of July barbecue, a military jury in San Diego acquitted Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher of murder in the death of a captive Islamic State fighter and attempted murder in the shooting of civilians during a deployment to Iraq in 2017.

Gallagher - who was convicted of a single charge for posing with the dead teen militants body - got support from President Donald Trump, who prevented the military from taking disciplinary action against the former SEAL.

The Fourth of July incident led to a second ethics review of Americas commando forces in a year.

The review by the Special Operations Command found a problematic culture that overemphasized combat and put troops at times far from supervision.

The Fourth of July was a holiday and for some of the special operators, there was even more reason to pop open a bottle with the military jury in San Diego acquitting Gallagher, ending a war crimes case that had tarnished the commando forces image.

In July 2019, Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher (pictured) was acquitted of murder charges, but found guilty of posing for a picture with a corpse

Grace said only two days earlier, one of her friends had knocked on her door crying and said Olson exposed himself to her after they met at a makeshift lounge on Camp Freiwald.

According to a July 16, 2019, report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a male, whose name was redacted, met a female on July 2, and during the encounter, he reached into his pants and 'exposing his penis,' grabbed her from behind her neck and pulled her toward his groin area.

Despite the redactions, the AP was able to confirm the incident involved Olson and a sailor.

Olson's lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the July 2 allegation is false.

Seal Team 7 (file image) has faced several misconduct accusations in recent months, including a claim that a female service member was sexually assaulted during a party in Iraq

The case was closed after the victim signed a statement on July 13, 2019, saying she did not wish to participate in the investigation.

The woman told Grace she was concerned reporting Olson would hurt her career.

After the Fourth of July, Grace said she reported the July 2 assault despite the victim's desire to stay silent.

Grace said Olson also had warned her friends that everyone at the barbecue will get into trouble if the rape is reported.

Olson denies trying to stop anyone from reporting the allegation.

Back home, Olson was reprimanded and has since lost his Trident pin, the symbol of his membership in the SEALs. He is appealing the decision.

The Navy's top SEAL, Rear Admiral Collin Green, also fired SEAL Team 7s commanding officer, Commander Edward Mason, Command Master Chief Hugh Spangler, and Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Luke Im, saying their leadership failures led to a breakdown of order and discipline within two units in Iraq.

Mason and Spangler said they were being used as scapegoats and filed a complaint with the Department of Defense Inspector General but the independent agency said there was insufficient evidence to investigate the firings, said Dwerna Allen, an agency spokeswoman.

Grace said she underwent therapy because of what happened in Iraq. She left the Navy in February.

'It literally broke my heart because these were people that were my heroes,' she said of the SEALs.

'It was going to be the highlight of my career, and what do I learn? That these people would rather, you know, have each others backs and cover up a sexual assault.'
Congregation Sinai of Central Florida is sad to announce Lynn S. Goldovitz, 67, of DeBary, Florida, passed away on Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. She was born on July 10, 1953, in Wareham, Massachusetts, to Frank E. and Patricia J. Kaasinen.

After spending most of her life in New England, she moved here to Central Florida from Massachusetts in 2004. Lynn enjoyed a lifetime career in music, playing and teaching multiple instruments, as well as being a talented vocalist. She felt incredibly fortunate to be able to perform at such prestigious venues as the Ryles Jazz Club in Boston, Mass., the Sfat International Klezmer Festival in Sfat, Israel, the Governor's Mansion in New Jersey, as well as numerous festivals worldwide in such diverse locales as New Zealand and the Middle East. She also performed at hundreds of locations in the U.S. over the course of her career.

Her life of extraordinary musical talents combined with her deep faith, led her to a position as music director and spiritual leader for the Jewish community in Central Florida for more than 15 years, while also serving as a spiritual leader with her husband, Joe Goldovitz, at Congregation Sinai for the last 10 years. She taught music and Hebrew to hundreds of students of all ages. Lynn led an active life, full of exercise and a love of the outdoors. She was a certified Tai Chi/Qi Gong instructor, and especially enjoyed hiking and horseback riding. Travel was another love. She made frequent trips to Israel, the Middle East, New Zealand and many of America's states.

She is survived by Joseph, her husband of 49 years; and her three sons Jason, Jeremiah, Joseph; and her sister, Susan Nowotny; 10 grandchildren; and three Chihuahuas, which meant the world to her. She brought joy and love to many. All who knew her will miss her dearly. The world is a poorer, lesser place in her absence.

Memorial donations can be made in the name of Lynn Goldovitz to Advent Health Hospice of Central Florida. Condolences for the family can be sent to Altman-Long Funeral Home in DeBary, Florida, by contacting funeralservices@altman-long.com.
DNC2020

Julia Louis-Dreyfus took shots at President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as she moderated the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night.

Dressed in suffragette white, the actress, 59, roasted Trump and Pence in her opening monologue. Praising Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who formally accepted the nomination last night, Louis-Dreyfus purposely mispronounced Pence's name and said she was looking forward to watching Harris' debate against "our current Vice President, Mika Peince. Or is it Paints?"  an apparent jab at Republicans who have mispronounced the first name of Sen. Harris.

"Some kind of weird foreign name. That's what people are saying, strongly," the Veep star said, in an exchange with former presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

"Yeah, not very American sounding," Yang responded.

.@OfficialJLD, veep to veep, you're crushing it!  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 21, 2020

Elsewhere, she encouraged people to text "VOTE" to 30330 for voting information and said it was easy to remember the number because "that's the year Donald Trump will finally release his tax returns."

Story continues

In another hilarious moment, the Emmy winner referenced Russia's influence campaign during the 2016 presidential election, saying: "If we all vote there is nothing Facebook, Fox News or Vladimir Putin can do to stop us."

The mother of two took another jab at Trump, saying, "Just remember: Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he does not even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there."

Selfie from when we first met.



Love this guy and hes got my vote.



Text VOTE to 30330. We need you! #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/qQQtcMqXMW  Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) August 21, 2020

And she predicted what Trump would tweet in reaction to her jokes. "Tonight I couldn't be prouder to be a loyal union member, a passionate climate activist and patriotic Democrat. Or as Donald Trump will call me in a tweet tomorrow: A washed-up, horse-faced no talent has-been that has low ratings," she said. "Well with all due respect, sir, it takes one to know one."

Also on Thursday night, John Legend, Common and The Chicks were some of the celebrities to take part in the convention before Joe Biden formally accepts the presidential nomination.
New Delhi:

Banks on Wednesday began accepting the junked Rs 500/1000 notes in KYC-compliant accounts without any questions following RBIs rollback of its stiff conditions a day after customers were subjected to queries while depositing old currency.

With hardly 10 days to go before the deadline ends for depositing the scrapped notes, banks continued to witness rush with tempers flaring occasionally as the RBI notification came during the banking hours, not before the start of the day.

Banks were on Tuesday directed by the Reserve Bank of India to ask questions to customers depositing over Rs 5,000 as to why they had failed to deposit the old notes earlier.

People crediting money to such accounts were subjected to questioning, on record, in the presence of at least two officials of the bank before receiving a satisfactory explanation.

Under all-round attack, RBI on Wednesday did a U-turn on customers depositing demonetised notes over Rs 5,000 till December 30 by making it clear that there will be no questions asked either in case of one-time or repeat deposits if the accounts are KYC-compliant.

Banks in turn directed branches minutes after RBI issued the notification and bankers promptly started following it from the afternoon.

The RBI turnaround came as Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys assurance on Monday night and Tuesday that there will be no questions asked to customers who would make one-time deposit above Rs 5,000 failed to persuade bank officials who insisted that there should be fresh circular from RBI so that customers will not be harassed.

However, customers with non-KYC accounts will be subject to stiff conditions imposed by RBI on December 19 for deposit of junked notes.

The decision follows widespread criticism of the guidelines, with people saying the Prime Minister as well as the finance minister have asked people not to throng the banks as they have time till December 30 to deposit invalid notes in their accounts.

The December 19 notification of RBI had said tenders of old currency in excess of Rs 5,000 into a bank account will be received for credit only once during the remaining period till December 30, 2016.

Bankers were not comfortable with the investigative role being thrust on them.

All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) today registered a protest to RBI and demanded complete withdrawal of the order as the staff are facing public wrath.

Besides, they requested RBI for adequate cash availability to banks and to ensure that all banks are treated equally without any bias.

Officers union staged demonstrations all over the country in front of Reserve Bank of India offices in the evening to press for various demands.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
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The Supreme Court (SC) heard the AGR case on August 21. Telecom companies, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and others had appealed to the SC to allow them to make staggered payments of their adjusted gross revenue dues.

A bench led by Justice Arun Mishra heard the matter. The SC will resume hearing the case on August 24.

The top court on August 20 said it is worried that almost all of the AGR dues will be wiped out in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) process.

The SC had in October 2019 upheld the expanded definition of AGR as given by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Vodafone Idea owes balance dues of around Rs 50,399 crore, while Bharti Airtel's outstanding amount is Rs 25,976 crore, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said on July 20.

SC Observations:

> (To Videocon) As per trading guidelines, past dues need to be paid before transfer of spectrum. If you don't pay, Bharti Airtel, which acquired Videocon spectrum will have to pay.

> DoT has not shared the details we asked of it. We wanted to ascertain the dues payable by Jio based on use of RCom spectrum.

> We direct DOT to file details of spectrum shared by insolvent cos. DoT to file details of dues that arose on account of shared spectrum, and if relevant dues have been paid.

> DoT to also file details of spectrum arrears that are due for payment. DoT to file details of which cos are using spectrum allocated since 1999, subject to sharing and trading agreements.

Videocon's Resolution Professional (RP) to SC

> We are not liable to pay anything beyond the CIRP process. AGR dues will be addressed as operational dues under the IBC Process Waterfall mechanism will have to be followed as per IBC.

> DoT has not shared the details we asked of it. We wanted to ascertain the dues payable by Jio based on use of RCom spectrum.

Senior advocate Harish Salve to SC:

> (For Jio) We have not received any notice from the government on any additional dues claimed by the DoT.

> (For Reliance Communications CoC) In the NCLT, DoT is challenging the resolution plan on the ground that spectrum can be sold. SC holding that spectrum cannot be sold, will not help recover AGR dues. If spectrum sale is not allowed, Spectrum will be returned to DoT, auctioned for future use, wont help recover AGR. Issue of sale of spectrum should be left to NCLT.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal for Bharti Airtel:

> Even Airtel has not received any notice from the government over any additional dues.

> Spectrum is recognised as an asset, it is the most valuable asset with telecom companies. Spectrum is taken as security by the lenders. If SC refuses to recognise the sale of spectrum, banks will stop lending to telcos, will grievously hurt the telecom sector.

Here's a quick recap of the previous hearings:

> On August 19, Senior advocate Harish Salve said RCom it will have to go into liquidation if spectrum sale is not permitted.

> On August 10, the court had asked the government to prepare a plan for recovery of dues from telecom companies under insolvency.

> When asked about payment due on spectrum bought from Reliance Communications (RCom), Jio said it has already paid the relevant Spectrum Usage Charges (SUC).

> Both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, which owe the maximum amounts, had on July 20 revised their demand from 20 years to 15 years for the staggered payments after SC's stringent stance on payment period.

> The SC has made it clear that it will not permit any self-assessment by the companies or re-calculation, and the DoT's assessment will be final.

Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd., which also owns Jio, is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
JERUSALEMTerrorists fired 12 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip overnight, nine of which were intercepted, and Israel responded with three airstrikes on targets linked to the territorys Hamas rulers, the Israeli military said early Friday.

It was the most serious exchange of fire along the Gaza frontier in months, but there were no reports of casualties. Police said buildings and vehicles in Israel were damaged, and that bomb-disposal units had been dispatched to pick up shrapnel and rocket parts.

In recent weeks, groups affiliated with Hamas have launched incendiary balloons into Israel, igniting farmland in a bid to pressure Israel to ease the blockade it imposed on Gaza when the Islamic militants seized power in 2007. The rocket fire marks a significant escalation.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and several smaller battles over the last 13 years. Israel has warned Hamas of strong retaliatory action as incendiary balloons were flown across Israeli borders, lighting uncontrolled fires.

In response to the incendiary balloons, Israel has already closed Gazas only commercial crossing, causing the territorys sole power plant to shut down for lack of fuel and limiting the territorys 2 million residents to around four hours of electricity a day. Israel has also banned fishing in Gazas coastal waters.

Egyptian mediators were in Gaza earlier this week to try and shore up an informal truce but left without announcing any progress. Israel has allowed the Gulf nation of Qatar to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza in recent years to keep the economy from collapsing and preserve calm.

The latest exchange of fire began late Thursday when terrorists fired two rockets that landed near the security fence. A few hours later, a volley of three rockets was intercepted by Israeli missile defenses. Another seven rockets were fired early Friday, six of which were shot down.

The Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes targeting Hamas military infrastructure, including a compound used to manufacture rocket ammunition, in response.

It was the most serious cross-border exchange since February, when the smaller Islamic Jihad terrorist group fired dozens of rockets into Israel after one of its fighters was killed near the border while allegedly planting explosives. Israel struck dozens of targets across the territory.
TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Canntab Therapeutics Limited (CSE: PILL.CN) (OTCQB: CTABF) (FRA: TBF1.F) (the "Company" or "Canntab"), the leading innovator in cannabinoid and terpene blends in hard pill form for therapeutic applications, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding asset purchase agreement to acquire certain cannabis-processing equipment and leasehold improvements (the "CMAX Assets") located at its 223 Riviera Drive, Markham, Ontario facility from CMAX Technologies Inc. ("CMAX"), a related party of the Company for $1,018,000 (the "CMAX Transaction").

The purchase price of the CMAX Assets was based upon third party valuations ordered by Canntab. The purchase price will be satisfied through the issuance of 1,996,078 common shares of the Company (the "Common Shares") at a deemed price of $0.51 per Common Share. A deposit of 200,000 Common Shares will be paid to CMAX within 14 days of the execution of the purchase agreement.

The Company has also entered into a binding asset purchase agreement with Pharmagenerics Solutions Inc. ("Pharma") to purchase cannabis-processing equipment (the "Pharma Assets") owned by Pharma (the "Pharma Transaction"). The purchase price of the Pharma Assets of $300,000 will be satisfied through the issuance of 588,235 Common Shares at a deemed price of $0.51 per Common Share. Joshi Laxminarayan, Chief Scientific Officer of the Company is the sole officer, director and shareholder of Pharma. The binding asset purchase agreement replaces a letter of intent that Mr. Laxminarayan and the Company had entered into in March of 2020, and the deemed price of the Common Shares issuable to Mr. Laxminarayan were determined by reference to then-current closing price of $0.50 per share. This corresponds as well to the $0.50 unit financing completed at the same time.

The CMAX Transaction will constitute a related party transaction under Multilateral Instrument 61-101  Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"), but is otherwise exempt from the formal valuation and minority approval requirements of MI 61-101. The CMAX Transaction has been approved by the independent director of the Company.

Richard Goldstein, Chief Financial Officer and Director of the Company is a shareholder and the sole director and officer of CMAX Technologies Inc. In addition, Jeffrey Renwick, Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Issuer, Barry Polisuk, Secretary and Director of the Issuer, and Joshi Laxaminarayan , Chief Scientific Officer of the Issuer are shareholders of CMAX Technologies Inc. Mr. Polisuk holds 1.44% of CMAX's outstanding common shares, Mr. Goldstein holds 11.19%, Mr. Renwick holds 38.83% and Mr. Laxminarayan holds 18.04%.

The closing of the CMAX Transaction and the Pharma Transaction are subject to customary closing conditions contained in transactions of this nature.

About Canntab Therapeutics

Canntab Therapeutics is a Canadian biopharmaceutical company focused on the manufacturing and distribution of a suite of hard pill cannabinoid formulations in multiple doses and timed-release combinations. Canntab's proprietary hard pill cannabinoid formulations provide doctors, patients and consumers with medical grade solutions which incorporate all the features one would expect from any prescription or over the counter medication sold in Canadian pharmacies. These will include the following formulations: once a day and extended release, both providing an accurate dose and improved shelf stability.

Canntab holds a Cannabis Standard Processing & Sales for Medical Purposes Licence, a Cannabis Research Licence, and an Industrial Hemp Licence from Health Canada.

Additionally, Canntab through its wholly owned American subsidiary is in the process of establishing a CBD manufacturing and distribution business in Florida, USA.

Canntab trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol PILL, on the OTCQB under the symbol CTABF, and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol TBF1.

Cautionary Statements

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain information in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "may", "should", "anticipate", "expect", "potential", "believe", "intend" or negatives of these terms and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, and are based on management's current beliefs, assumptions, and expectations. While Canntab considers these beliefs, assumptions and expectations to be reasonable and based on information currently available, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies and they may prove to be incorrect. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements also necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions, adverse industry events, marketing costs, loss of markets, future legislative and regulatory developments, the inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms, the medical and recreational cannabis industry in Canada in general, income tax and regulatory matters, the ability of Canntab to execute its business strategies, competition, crop failure, currency and interest rate fluctuations, the closing of the CMAX Transaction and Pharma Transaction, regulatory approval of the CMAX Transaction and Pharma Transaction and other risks. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing is not exhaustive. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Except as required by law, Canntab disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise. Forward- looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

SOURCE Canntab Therapeutics Limited

Related Links

https://canntab.ca/


The Jewish Pavilion would like to welcome Watercrest Senior Living Group in Winter Park as one of its newest sponsors. The Jewish Pavilion volunteers look forward to celebrating Shabbats, holidays and many other events with the residents once again when all can safely visit. Until then, Jewish Pavilion's senior residents, such as Bernice "Bunny," are enjoying the Shabbat bags that were delivered to them.

- Julie Levitt, program director

...
The Coronavirus can harm the brain, heart, circulatory system, liver, pancreas, and kidneys, as well as the lungs. How can a single virus wreak havoc on so many organ systems? Read more

Philadelphia announced indoor dining can return on Sept. 8, but officials said the date could be delayed again if coronavirus cases dont continue to decline. So far, Philly is still seeing a decrease in confirmed COVID-19 cases. But these cases are not just another version of the flu. Science shows that unlike the flu, COVID-19 can harm many organs, including the heart and the brain, as well as the lungs.

If youre looking for something to do this weekend, check out the BlackStar Film Festival, a drive-through food truck festival, or our events calendar for even more ideas.

 Lauren Aguirre (@laurencaguirre, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

The coronavirus is not just another version of the flu. Its much more complex and deadly. Initially, experts thought COVID-19 was primarily a respiratory illness. But now, its clear this virus can hurt not only the lungs, but the circulatory system, liver, pancreas, kidneys, heart and even the brain.

My colleague Marie McCullough explains how COVID-19 can affect all these organs in your body, accompanied by illustrations from Cynthia Greer.

Philadelphia announced Thursday that indoor dining will be allowed to resume on Sept. 8, but its not set in stone. Outdoor dining has been allowed since June, but the city has continually pushed back the date for indoor dining. The virus is much more likely to be transmitted in indoor environments.

Health Commissioner Thomas Farley warned that allowing indoor dining is dependent on positive cases continuing to decrease over the next two weeks. So, its possible the date could change again.

Theres a lot of information out there about voting in the presidential election, and not all of it is reliable. But were here to help. We have a breakdown of everything you need to know about voting in Pennsylvania this year, by mail and in person.

But if you have a question that we havent answered yet, ask us. Our reporters will look into it and update the page, so be sure to bookmark it for later.

What you need to know today

Through your eyes | #OurPhilly

Love this serene shot of Independence Hall and the national historical park. Thanks for sharing, @shot_by_jim!

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

Overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic is a multifaceted challenge that will take high-quality inpatient hospital care, intense research, and preventive medicine. Assuaging the pain and suffering caused by gun violence demands a similar effort.  writes Corbin Pomeranz, a physician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, about how homicides arent the only tragic cost of Phillys gun violence epidemic.

What were reading

A new edition of Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky features illustrations from renowned Philly artist Charles Santore, who died at 84 last year. Philly Voice has more.

The U.S. Postal Service has released a new Thank You stamp. It was designed by Texas artist Dana Tanamachi, and the Houston Chronicle interviewed her.

Your Daily Dose of | Pennsylvania state parks

Trevor Nordquist, a graduate student at Slippery Rock University, north of Pittsburgh, visited every state park in Pennsylvania  all 121 of them, in 303 days. He embarked on this journey when he realized that he didnt really know his home state at all. My colleague Jason Nark asked him all about his adventure.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is working to assist those affected by the blast that tore through Lebanons capital Beirut earlier this month, including Lebanese, refugees and other victims of the disaster, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said during a visit to the city.

The explosion on 4 August claimed more than 180 lives, left over 6,500 people with injuries and caused widespread damage to around 200,000 households. The destruction came on top of a financial crisis that had already crippled the countrys economy, and which was further exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

We as humanitarian organizations and the whole aid community must stand alongside the people of Beirut in their hour of need, Grandi said during his first field mission since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. I have pledged UNHCRs full support to those whose lives were upended in the explosion, whether Lebanese, refugees or migrants.

"The scenes were horrific."

Grandi walked along ruined streets close to the epicenter of the blast and saw the terrible damage done to whole neighbourhoods, before meeting with Lebanese and Syrian refugee families whose lives have been affected. Included in the death toll so far are 14 confirmed refugee victims, with a further 61 still unaccounted for.

Among those Grandi met was Makhoul Al-Hamad, a refugee from Manbij in northern Syria, whose six-year-old daughter Sama lost the sight in her left eye in the blast.

This was the most terrifying thing, seeing her bleeding from her eye, Makhoul said. The scenes were horrific. All the hospitals were damaged, the doctors that helped us needed treatment themselves.

Grandi visits the badly damaged neighbourhoods in central Beirut close to the epicenter of the explosion.  UNHCR/Sam Tarling

Grandi meets Sama Al-Hamad, 6, a Syrian refugee whose eye was badly injured in the blast.  UNHCR/Sam Tarling

Sama wears a patch over her left eye after it was injured in the explosion.  UNHCR/Sam Tarling

Syrian refugee Makhoul Al Hamad (centre), 43, describes his experience when the family's apartment had its windows blown out during the blast.  UNHCR/Sam Tarling

Sama wore a large white patch over her left eye and showed signs of the lingering trauma of that day, visibly jumping at the sudden sound of a drill being used by their neighbours to fix a door.

Sama is my soul, life, hope and future, Makhoul added. I couldnt stand the thought of losing her.

It was shocking to see first-hand the scale of the destruction, but it is the human cost of this disaster that is truly heartbreaking, Grandi said. The families I met today have suffered terrible physical and psychological injuries, but despite everything they remain determined to rebuild their homes and their lives.

See also: UN High Commissioner for Refugees visits Lebanon, as UNHCR ramps up support to Lebanese and refugees alike

As part of its emergency response to meet the vast needs of people affected by the blast, UNHCR is mobilizing US$35 million to assist the most vulnerable households in the capital. This package includes US$32.6 million in support for 100,000 people whose homes were heavily damaged in the explosion, and a further US$2.44 million on protection services such as trauma counselling and legal aid.

Beirut and its people will bear the scars of this tragedy for years to come, Grandi said. Now is the time to offer them the support they need to try to heal. Our teams are working on the ground, helping those worst-affected to repair their homes and recover from the trauma.

You can contribute to UNHCR's relief efforts in Beirut here
Meghan Markles best friend Misha Nonoo is looking to buy a mansion in Montecito - the same upscale Californian town where Meghan and Prince Harry snapped up a $14.7 million mansion, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Fashion designer Nonoo, Meghans close friend who is credited with matchmaking her and Harry, has been renting a home for weeks in the star-studded town near Santa Barbara and viewed several multi-million dollar properties for sale, sources said.

She and her husband have been renting a place near the beach this summer and since they have fallen in love with Montecito, they are now looking to buy a place here, a source with knowledge of the couples plans told DailyMail.com.

Nonoo hinted at her Southern California location in a rare picture of her with her newborn son Leo that she posted on Instagram on Saturday, standing amid ferns in a Mediterranean-style courtyard with the sun on her back.

But on Thursday, the 35-year-old was spotted back in New York City, packing up a SUV and heading out of the city again with her Leo and nanny in tow.

Meghan Markles best friend Misha Nonoo is looking to buy a mansion in Montecito - the same upscale Californian town where Meghan and Prince Harry snapped up a $14.7 million mansion, DailyMail.com can reveal

On Thursday, the 35-year-old was spotted back in New York City, packing up a SUV and heading out of the city again with her newborn son Leo and nanny in tow

Fashion designer Nonoo, Meghans close friend who is credited with matchmaking her and Harry, has been renting a home for weeks in the star-studded town near Santa Barbara and viewed several multi-million dollar properties for sale, sources said. Pictured: The nearly $17 million estate Nonoo toured

She and her husband have been renting a place near the beach this summer and since they have fallen in love with Montecito they are now looking to buy a place here, a source with knowledge of the couples plans told DailyMail.com. Pictured: The other mansion Nonoo toured

Meghan and Harry's new pad: The former royals bought a $14.7 million mansion (pictured) in a secluded and leafy, gated estate outside Montecito, Southern California in June and joined an affluent town where homeowners include Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Ariana Grande

Meghan is sure to be delighted with Nonoo possibly putting down permanent roots in the town.

The move would give her a close friend and confidante living nearby and Nonoo's baby boy Leo, born in March this year, will be the perfect playmate for her and Harry's one-year-old son Archie.

Nonoo, who spoke out last month about missing her friends during lockdown, is searching for a luxury property to rival Meghan, 39, and Harrys lavish nine-bedroom home that they bought in June.

The fashion designer and her wealthy energy entrepreneur husband Mikey Hess, 34, have viewed two mansions worth $17 million in Montecito, sources told DailyMail.com.

One of the homes that caught the couples eye is a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom estate with ocean and mountain views, a pool and three acres of land about three miles from the royals' home.

The European-inspired Contemporary estate, is described as exceptionally private and secure, exquisitely luxurious and extensively remodeled and is on the market for $16,995,000.

The 35-year-old fashion designer and her wealthy energy entrepreneur heir husband Mikey Hess, 34, have viewed two mansions worth $17 million in Montecito, sources told DailyMail.com

One of the homes that caught the couples eye is a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom estate

The home has ocean and mountain views, a pool and three acres of land about three miles from the royals' home

The European-inspired Contemporary estate, is described as exceptionally private and secure, exquisitely luxurious and extensively remodeled and is on the market for $16,995,000

The more expensive home has a stunning infinity pool that offers views of the ocean and mountains

The Sussexes biography Finding Freedom credits Nonoo and Soho Houses global membership director Markus Anderson with matchmaking the former royal couple

A second property viewed by Nonoo and Hess, named Villa Ravello, sits just opposite the first house and is on sale for $16,900,000.

The home boasts a walled courtyard, an impressive foyer with French limestone and marble inlays, five bedrooms and eight bathrooms, a gym, guest house and office, all on 2.6 acres.

Meghan and Nonoo have been friends for years after meeting through a mutual friend in Miami and bonding over female empowerment and their love of dogs.

The Sussexes biography Finding Freedom credits Nonoo and Soho Houses global membership director Markus Anderson with matchmaking the former royal couple.

'Despite reports that Violet von Westenholz had set up the date, it was mostly Meghans pals Misha Nonoo and Markus Anderson who were in on the first meeting,' the book claimed.

In an interview last month, Nonoo confessed to 'massively missing her friends' while she had been quarantining in New York with her four-month-old son Leo. Pictured: Nonoo on Thursday leaving New York City

A second property viewed by Nonoo and Hess, named Villa Ravello, sits just opposite the first house and is on sale for $16,900,000 (pictured)

Villa Ravello: The home boasts a walled courtyard, an impressive foyer with French limestone and marble inlays

Villa Ravello: The mansion sits on 2.6 acres and has five bedrooms and eight bathrooms, a gym, guest house and office

Villa Ravello: Meghan and Nonoo have been friends for years after meeting through a mutual friend in Miami and bonding over female empowerment and their love of dogs

Villa Ravello: Meghan was chosen to give the only reading at Nonoos Rome nuptials with Hess in September last year

Villa Ravello: In an interview last month, Nonoo confessed to 'massively missing her friends' while she had been quarantining in New York with her four-month-old son Leo

Meghan helped thrust Nonoos signature Husband Shirt into the spotlight by wearing it in her first public appearance with Harry at the Invictus Games, and the couples went to each others weddings in 2018 and 2019.

Meghan was chosen to give the only reading at Nonoos Rome nuptials with Hess in September last year.

The event was dubbed the wedding of the year, with high-profile guests including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Karlie Kloss, Joshua Kusher, James Corden, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice.

In an interview last month, Nonoo confessed to 'massively missing her friends' while she had been quarantining in New York with her four-month-old son Leo.

The British-Bahraini designer, known for her eponymous clothing line, told People Magazine she 'needs her girlfriends to have a laugh with and make light of things'.

'Its very stressful not having your normal life to return to  I knew having a baby would change my life, but I never expected this,' she said.

'Ive massively missed seeing my friends. As soon as Leo was born we would have been in the store and seeing friends and been to London by now and, obviously, all of those plans are on hold.

Nonoo hinted at her new Southern California location in a rare picture of her with baby Leo that she posted on Instagram this week, standing amid ferns in a Mediterranean-style courtyard with the sun on her back

The British-Bahraini designer, known for her eponymous clothing line, told People Magazine she 'needs her girlfriends to have a laugh with and make light of things.' 'Its very stressful not having your normal life to return to  I knew having a baby would change my life, but I never expected this,' she said

Meghan is sure to be delighted with Nonoo possibly putting down permanent roots in the town. The move would give her a close friend and confidante living nearby and Nonoo's baby boy Leo, born in March this year, will be the perfect playmate for Archie

The fashion designer said she had been taking advantage of FaceTime, but admitted its not the same.

Being a new mom, you need a support network, and I definitely miss having in-person time with my new baby and my friends,' she said.

This is a challenging and stressful and discombobulating time, but we have to look forward to the time when we can all be together.

However, Nonoo said she has really enjoyed the family time shes been able to have since her husband wouldve been travelling for work under normal circumstances.

During her pregnancy, Nonoo told People that Meghan had been sharing her advice about becoming a first-time mother.

The designer explained: 'As with all friendships, you share lots of tips and everything.'
Jordans defense of the two-state solution as the only path for peace between Arab states and Israel has always been an uphill struggle that grew harder when Donald Trump moved into the White House. But the recent normalization agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel has made this objective more difficult to attain than ever. The UAE has claimed that the deal, announced by Trump on Aug. 14, has buried Israels plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to announce that annexation was still on the table.

For years Jordan has nervously watched Israel and a number of Gulf States engage in secret and sometimes open contacts, encouraged by Washington. Only the UAE, Bahrain and Oman sent their ambassadors to attend the unveiling of Trumps peace vision at the White House on Jan. 28. Jordans King Abdullah has ignored the proposal and reiterated his support for the two-state solution as outlined by the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. Under that plan, normalization between Arab states and Israel can only take place following Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank, paving the way for the creation of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Jordans reaction to the UAE-Israel deal was muted. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in an Aug. 14 statement, The deal will be tied to Israels actions in the post-agreement period, according to the Jordan Times. Safadi was quoted as saying, If Israel considers the agreement as a means to end the occupation and meet the Palestinians rights to freedom and the creation of a viable independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the pre-1967 borders, the region will move ahead towards realizing peace, or else Israel will deepen the conflict that will jeopardize the entire regions security.

His carefully worded statement, which avoided criticizing the UAE for breaking ranks with the rest of the Arab countries, reflected Jordans sensitivity over the sudden but unsurprising deal. King Abdullah and Abu Dhabis Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed have a close working relationship. The Jordanian monarch was in Abu Dhabi as recently as July 22 to discuss ways to improve bilateral ties and regional issues including the challenges facing the Palestinian cause. Both leaders rejected any unilateral steps in reference to Israels intention to annex parts of the West Bank, according to a royal court statement.

Newspaper columns avoided any mention of the UAE-Israel deal while the news received minimal media coverage. Only columnist Fahd al-Khitan, who is known for having close ties to the government, wrote on the subject for Al Ghad on Aug. 15. He said that the deal was a way for both Trump and Netanyahu to walk away from the annexation move, which was rejected by the entire world. Khitan added that normalization has become the objective rather than a just and lasting peace deal based on the Arab Peace Initiative, which is no longer valid.

But Jordanians were openly critical of the deal on social media, going as far as accusing Emirati leaders of treason and of abandoning the Palestinians. Though Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty 26 years ago, a vast majority of Jordanians, many of Palestinian origin, are against normalization with Israel.

With more Arab countries expected to follow the UAEs example before the November US elections, Jordans longstanding political approach to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will become a minority position. But there are no signs that Amman is changing course.

On Aug. 18, Safadi paid a surprise visit to the West Bank city of Jericho to meet with the secretary of the Central Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat. A Foreign Ministry statement read that Israel's halting of its plan to annex Palestinian lands and embrace of the two-state solution are necessary conditions for "opening a political horizon" and that the Arab Peace Initiative is the sole path to peace.

But while Netanyahu bragged about other Arab countries joining the UAE, Jordanian officials breathed a sigh of relief when after almost a week of silence, Saudi Arabia renewed its commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan was quoted by Arab News on Aug. 19 as saying that peace must be achieved with the Palestinians on the basis of the initiative before any changes can be made in ties with Israel. When we sponsored the Arab Peace Plan in 2002, we fully envisioned that there would eventually be relations between all Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, and Israel if the condition is met, Farhan said.

The Saudi reaction will boost Jordans position, but Amman knows that Washington will continue to exert pressure on Arab capitals to follow the UAE's example.

Unlike any other Arab country, Jordan has a unique relationship to the West Bank, which was under Jordanian administration when it was occupied in 1967. The kingdom hosts two million Palestinian refugees and its "open bridges" policy is the West Banks only gateway to the rest of the world. Furthermore, under the Jordan-Israel peace treaty, the king enjoys a special role as custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem, long a source of tension between Jordan and Israel. With Israel inviting Muslims to visit the mosque via Abu Dhabi or Dubai, Jordan fears that its special role may be compromised.

Head of the Jerusalem Center for Political Studies Orieb al-Rintawi told Al-Monitor that Jordanian officials were shocked by the UAE-Israel deal and had not been consulted before its announcement. Jordan is worried that the deal will set a new approach to resolving the conflict, one that departs from the two-state solution and replaces it with Trumps peace vision, he said.

The deal is more than just normalization of ties; it is close to a strategic alliance in the region which would introduce a new strategic agenda for the region that leaves Jordan and the Palestinians by themselves, Rintawi added.

Political analyst and head of the Middle East Center for Media and Political Studies Amer Sabaileh believes the damage to Jordans geopolitical role will be limited. Jordans ties to the West Bank are both geographical and demographic in nature. Its peace treaty with Israel benefits both sides, especially in the security area, and neither side will risk damaging bilateral ties, he said.

Sabaileh added, On the other hand, Jordan used to be the back channel for any contacts between Israel and the Gulf and that is now ending. With the new deal, that back channel is no longer needed.

The signing of the UAE-Israel normalization accord will reportedly take place in Washington next month. The question now is whether Jordan will attend the signing ceremony. There will be a price to pay for either choice.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump watch as the coffin of Robert Trump is carried out of the White House (Evan Vucci/AP)

The White House was a scene of mourning as President Donald Trump and his family held a private memorial service for the presidents younger brother, Robert, who died last week at 71.

The president has described Robert as not just my brother.

He was my best friend.

With bagpipes playing, the president and first lady Melania Trump followed his brothers coffin to a waiting hearse in the late afternoon.

They stood at attention and held hands for a couple of moments as the coffin was placed inside.

A few dozen family and friends stood nearby on the White House steps.

As the hearse drove away, the president and first lady returned to the residence and some in the group embraced in an effort to provide comfort.

Expand Close Robert Trump, left, joins then property developer and presidential hopeful Donald Trump at an event in New York (Diane Bondaress/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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At least 18 weddings have been held at the White House and at least 10 people have died there including two presidents and three first ladies.

Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge both mourned the loss of a son while serving as president, Willie Lincoln in 1862 and Calvin Coolidge Jr in 1924.

The memorial services for both children began in the White House.

The service for Robert Trump took place in the White House East Room.

Unlike Willie Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge Jr, Robert Trump did not live at the White House.

Nevertheless, it is completely within the presidents ability to honour him with a service there, said Anita McBride, who served in three presidential administrations, including as first lady Laura Bushs chief of staff.

The White House is a very complex place.

Its an office, its a museum and its a home, Ms McBride said.

We loan it to the president for the time he or she is living there.

Coming from that perspective, we need to be understanding of some decisions that they make in a case like this.

Expand Close President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump watch as the coffin of Robert Trump leaves the White House (Evan Vucci/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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When Mr Trump explained why he wanted to have a service for his brother at the White House, he said: I think hed be greatly honoured.

He loves our country.

He loved our country so much.

He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country.

So I think it would be appropriate.

Robert Trump, a businessman, died on Saturday after being taken to hospital in New York.

The president had visited his brother in the hospital the night before his death.

Robert Trump began his career on Wall Street working in corporate finance but later joined the family business, managing real estate holdings as a top executive in the Trump Organisation.

When he worked in the Trump Organisation, he was known as the nice Trump, Gwenda Blair, a Trump family biographer, said.

Robert was the one people would try to get to intervene if there was a problem.

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In the 1980s, Donald Trump tapped Robert Trump to oversee an Atlantic City casino project, calling him the perfect fit for the job.

When that project cannibalised his other casinos, though, he pointed the finger of blame at Robert, said Ms Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire.

A Boston University graduate, Robert Trump later managed the Brooklyn portion of his father Fred Trumps real estate empire, which was eventually sold.

Within a week of the memorial service, Mr Trump will use the White House for another unusual purpose: his nomination acceptance speech.

He had hoped to give the speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, or Jacksonville, Florida, but had to cancel because of the coronavirus pandemic.

He settled on the White House, and large amounts of scaffolding on the South Lawn indicated it will not be a simple affair.

Thats not going to go over well with everybody, but in this case, the president will be damned if he does, damned if hes doesnt, said Ms McBride, director of the Legacies of Americas First Ladies initiative at American University.

Expand Close Donald Trump waves to staff members of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort as they cheer him on before the grand opening ceremonies in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He attended the gala with his mother, Mary; father, Fred; and sister, US District Court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, right. On the left are Donald Trumps brother Robert Trump and his wife, Blaine Trump (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Donald Trump waves to staff members of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort as they cheer him on before the grand opening ceremonies in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He attended the gala with his mother, Mary; father, Fred; and sister, US District Court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, right. On the left are Donald Trumps brother Robert Trump and his wife, Blaine Trump (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

Its difficult, I think, for him to have any winning scenario, she said of his choice.
A judge Thursday sentenced a Columbia City man to probation for four counts of willfully failing to file tax returns after the court last year threw out his religious objection as a viable defense in an unusual second trial with no jury or witnesses.

Michael Bowman, 56, said the case has destroyed him financially and he accused the judge of causing him a grave injustice by denying his defense that he didnt want to fund abortion.

Im down to nothing and Im doing this on principle, Bowman said.

He declined to pay taxes because he said he believed the government owed him an accommodation based on his reading of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Oregon Constitution.

The case first resulted in a mistrial in August 2019 when a jury couldnt reach consensus. Bowman told the jury he objected to funding Planned Parenthood and paying for abortion and withheld his taxes on religious grounds.

The jury deliberated for nearly 11 hours over two days, stuck on the key question of whether Bowman intentionally failed to follow the law.

Six days after the hung jury, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman told lawyers from both sides that he had made a mistake in allowing Bowman to explain his religious objection to filing tax returns during the trial and that his instructions to jurors were poor.

At a second trial in December before only the judge, Mosman said he wouldnt allow Bowman to raise whats called a good faith defense that he believed the government owed him an accommodation.

Before sentencing Thursday, Mosman said he didnt believe Bowman was a con man trying to avoid his tax obligation. The judge said he believed Bowman holds a sincere belief that he shouldnt have to pay taxes based on his Christian opposition to abortion.

Mosman said that played a role in his decision to place Bowman on probation for refusing to pay taxes from 2011 through 2014. Mosman also ordered Bowman to pay $138,026 in restitution, file tax returns by April 15 each year and provide probation officers with access to his financial information.

He rejected Assistant U.S. Attorney Donna Madduxs request that Bowman be sent to prison for a year and two months.

Bowman, a self-employed computer software engineer, told the court hes been unemployed since mid-April, has lost $500,000 over three projects and is broke.

If the federal government would stay out of the abortion business, then I would file my return, and for 2019, I did file my return, because Trump ended the insanity, and I keep my word.

Bowman referenced a Trump administration announcement last August that it had adopted a new rule barring organizations that provide abortion referrals from receiving federal family planning money. Planned Parenthood announced it was leaving the federal Title X family planning program rather than comply with the rule that prohibited the family planning grantees from providing or referring patients for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency.

Matthew Schindler, Bowmans lawyer, plans to appeal the decision the judge made before the second trial that barred Bowman from using the religious accommodation defense.

In April 2018, the judge also dismissed a felony tax evasion charge against Bowman due to lack of evidence.

I believe the appeals court will rule that the prosecutor and this court made serious errors and one day I will be able to have a fair trial, Bowman said.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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Unlike neighbouring countries, the coronavirus crisis has not had an impact on the number of pets abandoned in Luxembourg, according to the Animal Protection League.

Some animal shelters, notably in France, have experienced a surge in the number of abandoned animals as a result of the pandemic.

Pet owners are getting rid of their four-legged friends, mistakenly believing they represent a risk of transmitting the virus to humans. Health authorities, including the National Health Security Agency, have reiterated that dogs and cats cannot transmit the virus.

Another reason for the high number of abandoned pets in France is the lack of sterilisation in March and April, particularly for cats.

From 11 May, the end of lockdown, to 2 August, 9,947 abandoned pets were rescued in France by 62 shelters.

IN LUXEMBOURG

The National League for the Protection of Animals (the Letzebuerger Deiereschutzliga), which has run the animal shelter in Gasperich since 2012, stated their surprise at the fact the number of abandoned animals had not risen during the health crisis in Luxembourg. Vice-president Liliane Ferron told RTL that apart from cases of mistreatment, no abandoned pets had been reported from mid-March to mid-May, when the country was in lockdown.

 Raphael Ferber/RTL 5Minutes

Although the shelter was closed to the public for two months, its residents benefited from additional attention courtesy of the volunteers. Ferron explained staff continued to care for and exercise the animals, as well as taking calls.

However, some calls were more concerning than most. Ferron cited one caller who wished to adopt a dog to stop his young son from spending time in front of screens during lockdown. When questioned on his plans for the dog once lockdown ended, he replied he did not know and would likely return the dog to the shelter.

Unfortunately, the summer period is traditionally when the number of abandoned animals rises exponentially, as holidaymakers do not make appropriate care arrangements for their pets.

In spite of this, it is not difficult for the shelter to locate owners of abandoned pets, particularly in Luxembourg where electronic identification is mandatory.

In 2016, the national asylum housed 1,016 animals, including 543 dogs and 473 cats. By 2019, the number had fallen to 842: 438 dogs and 404 cats. The Grand Duchy has several shelters, but no statistics have been established at the national level.
PM Phuc to attend virtual 3rd Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Summit

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will attend the virtual 3rd Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Summit on August 24, Foreign Ministrys Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang announced Thursday.









Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Photo: VGP



Phuc will deliver a speech at the event which is held biennially with the participation of high-level leaders from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam and China.



Under the theme "Enhancing Partnership for Shared Prosperity", the leaders will review the progress of cooperation since the previous summit, Hang said.



They will also chart the future directions for strengthening cooperation in containing COVID-19 pandemic, recovering economic growth in post-COVID-19 pandemic period, and managing and using the Mekong water resources in a sustainable manner.



The Mekong river, known as Lancang in China, is the 12th longest river in the world. The basin is home to around 1,700 fish species, making it the most diverse basin after the Amazon and Congo./
Years Later, ChipTic Founder Explains Company's Demise

August 21, 2020

Last month, PokerNews published a two-part feature detailing the oral history of ChipTic. A program that promised to revolutionize the way poker was presented to fans, ChipTic got off to an auspicious start before ultimately meeting a massively disappointing end well short of the expectations of nearly everyone involved.

Despite the well-documented fate of ChipTic, lingering questions remained unanswered for years. Everyone saw the failure, but why had it failed? How had everything gone so wrong, sinking a project with such promise?

One man who can answer those questions reached out to PokerNews in the aftermath of the oral histories: company founder John Beveridge. For years, a non-disclosure agreement forced his lips fully zipped. Finally able to open up, he expounded on ChipTic's rise and fall over an hour-long call.

An Idea and a Fateful Choice

Beveridge was just a recreational poker player participating in the WSOP when he had an experience common to many little-known players there.

He played a hand against Allen Kessler, wherein he said he busted "Chainsaw" with a flush over a straight. As he stacked his chips, reporters rushed over and asked him what happened.

"I tell them and they publish that Kessler was busted by a player in Seat 5," Beveridge says. "No mention of me, and I thought there has to be a way to allow the average recreational players to be recognized and to allow people who follow them at home to see some of the action instead of it being all about the known players."

As owner of an electronic solutions company called PageMail, the Canadian was uniquely suited to turn this idea into reality. While he isn't a programmer, he had the tools to get the job done thanks to his industry work and connections. Plus, he had the dough.

"Back in the day we were making huge money," he says.

It took three years to develop the software, which Beveridge named ChipTic  a reference to the way a stack rises and falls similar to a stock on a ticker.

Software in hand, it was time to find a tablet to run the program.

"The BlackBerry tablet offered an easy cradle charger, durability and a nice, bright screen," Beveridge says. "You can drop this sucker flat on its face and it's not gonna make any difference. It's tough. The screen was very, very tough and the touch screen was one of the best in the day."

It also likely didn't hurt that BlackBerry shipped them 900 tablets for free, according to Dan Carpenter, whom Beveridge had hired to head the operation.

However, that fateful decision would have devastating consequences down the line, for reasons nobody could have foreseen at the time.

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The Hidden Flaw

The trial in Iowa revealed no issues with the tablets, but another cog had to be added to the machine with the move to the Rio in order to cover the vastness of the rooms with internet signal.

ChipTic partnered with Xirrus, which Beveridge says produced the fastest and most powerful WiFi access points at the time. Amazon, Brasilia and Pavilion rooms at Rio were each equipped with a single 10-radio access point high in the scaffolding.

The inside of a Xirrus WiFi array (c/o Wikimedia Commons)

The "very sophisticated and extremely powerful" units, which measure about two feet across, have their 10 radios arrayed in a circle, each pointing in a different direction of the room and broadcasting a signal. The BlackBerrys would pick up the signal aimed at their sections. At the surface level, everything looked good  the tablets showed five bars of signal.

Beneath the hood, though, corruption spread, unbeknownst to the ChipTic team.

When the connection issues surfaced, a closed-door meeting occurred with reps from ChipTic, Xirrus, BlackBerry and the Rio. Everyone pored over the logs until the Xirrus engineer raised a question that remains rooted in Beveridge's memory.

"In this multi-radio landscape, how does the tablet choose what radio to use?"

The BlackBerry rep responded that the tablet chose the strongest signal, ignored the ones it couldn't sense and blacklisted the weak signals. The Xirrus rep asked how long the blacklist lasted. "Permanently," came the response.

"Everybody fell out of their chair," Beveridge says. "As the tablets were recharged and moved about the room, individual radios on the access points were steadily being blacklisted until the majority of tablets saw no valid radio. This wonderful tablet we were using was killing us.

"I think back on that moment and my back pocket hurts so much. We had half a million dollars floating down the drain with three lines of code."

Life as a Poker "Pariah"

According to Beveridge, that programming was far outside industry standard at the time. A "simple" fix came down more than a year later, but it was far too late to save ChipTic. They were sunk by a freak programming misstep.

And thanks to a non-disclosure agreement, Beveridge couldn't even tell anyone what happened. Not his own staff nor their new partners at WSOP, who were less than pleased that the promised revolution had fallen apart more quickly than a typical new development on the North side of the strip.

"I listened to them roast my ass and I had to take it," Beveridge says.

Beveridge became, in his own words, "a pariah." He had once lived a high-rolling poker life, chumming it up with poker celebrities in home games and flying to Macau to play high-stakes poker. Those days were over.

Beveridge, competing in an APPT event in 2018.

"I did my best to pay everyones salaries out of my own pocket and retired to lick my wounds," he says.

He considered giving it another go a couple of years later, but he found himself short on both capital and respect in the community. Now 72, he calls Fallsview his home casino but mostly plays small-stakes cash online. He has also been spotted playing events in the Philippines, where he spends some of his time as well.

Would ChipTic still be around if, as Charlie Ciresi guessed, they had used new iPads instead of BlackBerrys? Nobody can say for sure, but ultimately, the years have made Beveridge comfortable shouldering the blame.

"I take full responsibility for the colossal failure," he says. "The buck stopped with me."
Russia and its partners in the OSCE Minsk Group are working on the earliest possible resumption of negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Trud newspaper, TASS reported

"We are expecting early resumption of the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. We are working on this together with our partners in the OSCE Minsk Group," he said.

Lavrov noted that the July border conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was the second most widespread violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement.

The minister pointed out that the Russian Foreign Ministry made active mediation efforts to resolve the conflict. "The Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh Igor Popov has been in direct contact with the leadership of the foreign ministries of the two countries all this time. As a result, with active Russian mediation, a ceasefire has been reached since August 16, albeit not on the first attempt," he stressed.
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Linkedin Editorial board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 22 2020

For the Defense Ministry, the old adage If you want peace, prepare for war looks to hold true, as it is preparing to recruit 25,000 people, including university students and millennials, to participate in the military reserve program.

Under the program, Deputy Defense Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono said recently, students would undergo basic military training that would be included in their semester credit system. Upon completing their studies, they would be given the chance to join the armed forces.

The Education and Culture Ministry has welcomed the program. The ministrys higher education acting director general, Nizam, said university students would be allowed to enlist in the program only on a voluntary basis.

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MINSK, BELARUSAfter seeing multiple people with fractured bones, purple bruises and other injuries  the result of a brutal crackdown on protests against the widely contested reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus  Sergei Dylevsky, a worker at the Minsk Tractor Works, decided he had had enough.

Last Wednesday, Dylevsky, 30, drove several protesters who were released from a detention centre outside Minsk to hospitals in the area. One had lost an eye after being beaten at the facility. Shocked by what he had witnessed, Dylevsky put down his tools the next day and went through his giant factorys workshops calling for a strike.

Hundreds of workers joined him, demanding the release of political prisoners and new elections, and turning Dylevsky into a leader of a movement that has become a major challenge to Lukashenkos iron grip over a country he has ruled for more than a quarter century.

I hate what he does with every cell of my soul, Dylevsky said of Lukashenko on Tuesday as he led a group of about 1,000 workers from their factory to the city centre. I have overcome fear; my hatred for him defeated it.

After the presidential election in Belarus on Aug. 9  the results of which the European Union rejected Wednesday without calling for a new vote  Lukashenkos security apparatus has been ruthlessly trying to crush the protests. For several days, riot police officers beat protesters unconscious and sprayed tear gas indiscriminately, apparently stopping only after factory workers joined the demonstrations.

In just a week, Dylevsky turned from a factory worker (his job is tempering the steel from which tractors are made) with a passion for tinkering with cars (the Nissan Patrol is his favourite) into a political star. Wherever he appears around the city centre in Minsk, in his red sneakers, jeans and T-shirt, a crowd of people gather to listen to his calm, but commanding voice.

Folding his brawny tattooed arms, with a thoughtful look on his face, Dylevsky responded to questions from a crowd in Minsk on Friday. He was about to enter the offices of the Investigative Committee, the countrys internal security agency, which had called him in for questioning.

The main thing is that he has no fear, said Vadim Paivin, 25, an electrician, who works in the same factory as Dylevsky. Hes just a simple guy, not an opportunist, but he knows what he needs to do, he said. People see it and trust him.

A week earlier, Dylevsky had led a crowd of workers to Independence Square, the main public space in the Belarusian capital. The march seemed to catch Lukashenko off guard, and his security services were nowhere to be seen as the workers progressed through the city. Their appearance on the square was the first time that opposition supporters were allowed to protest peacefully in front of government buildings.

Dylevskys role in the marches has earned him a leadership position on a council set up by the opposition to co-ordinate actions against the government, alongside prominent Belarusians like Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, and Pavel Latushko, a former culture minister.

He has all the qualities of a good manager and leader, said Yan Gilevich, 29, a supporter and friend.

Lukashenko has called the councils members tricksters and wild Nazis.

During his 26 years in power, Lukashenko purged the countrys political field of competition. Those who sought to challenge him either disappeared mysteriously, were jailed or had to flee the country.

Most of those people either represented the pro-Western intelligentsia or business elites, or came from Lukashenkos own inner circle and had turned on him. Dylevsky represents a new type of leader, someone who, like Lukashenko himself, comes from a modest background.

Born to a family of workers in Minsk  his mother and father are also employed at the tractor company  Dylevsky studied machine-building at a technical college in Minsk. His mother wanted him to continue his studies and earn a degree, but he decided to leave the college and become a steel temperer.

He said, I have a head and two hands, why do I need anything else,  said his mother, Anna Dylevskaya.

Even though he represents workers, Dylevsky does not consider himself to be left-wing. He said he believes the system built by Lukashenko in Belarus, with giant Soviet-era factories subsidized by money the country gets from reprocessing Russian oil at its refineries, is grossly inefficient.

For instance, he said he was skeptical about Lukashenko taking credit for not allowing oligarchs to own and profit from Soviet-built industrial giants, as was the case in neighbouring Russia and Ukraine.

The fact that we dont have oligarchs in Belarus is far from being an achievement, Dylevsky said. On the contrary, it means that any sound businessman, be it a millionaire or billionaire, does not want to invest in Belarus and its enterprises.

While Dylevsky has successfully led several marches of workers, he said he was disappointed he had not managed to rally more to the cause. Many workers at his plant, for instance, feared losing bonuses for staying on the factory floor, he said.

To be honest I am disappointed about my fellow colleagues, he said. Still, I will lead my workers for as long as they follow me.

Asked about his potential future in politics, Dylevsky said he did not see himself as a political leader and did not have the education to become one.

Politics will be the last thing I would like to do, Dylevsky said. It is a dirty business. One day people smile at you; the next they stab you in the back.

Getting rid of Lukashenko is his first task, Dylevsky said, even though he worried that it might take a long time.

Three death sentences would not be enough for what this man did, he said.
President Receip Tayyip Erdogan unveiled Turkeys biggest-ever natural gas find in the Black Sea on Friday, a discovery he said will pave the way to energy independence for the country.

Turkey has discovered its biggest natural gas [reserve] in Turkish history in the Black Sea, Erdogan said during a televised address Friday at Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace. My Lord has opened the door to unprecedented wealth for us.

The president said Turkeys drilling ship Fatih had found some 320 billion cubic meters (11.3 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas in the western Black Sea. The vessel has been carrying out exploration work for the past month in an area known as Tuna-1 near a Romanian gas field.

Erdogan said Turkey plans to extract and make the gas available by 2023  the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic.

This reserve is actually part of a much bigger source. God willing, much more will come. As a country that depended on the outside for gas for years, we look to the future with more security now," he said. There will be no stopping until we become a net exporter in energy.

But amid the jubilation, some sources voiced skepticism over the 2023 production goal and whether the reserve contains enough recoverable gas to meet Turkeys energy needs.

A well-placed source who has a broad knowledge of drilling and production in Turkey told Al-Monitor that the 2023 [goal] is technically impossible, pointing out at the lengthy process that lies ahead, which includes the drilling of new exploration wells, further tests, development drilling and production. The initial production process will take at least six to seven years, the source added.

Tuna-1 is 3,500 meters deep, extending 2,100 meters into the sea and 1,400 meters below the sea bed.

This is a very difficult depth for the production process and there are only a number of companies that have the necessary equipment to produce gas in this depth, the source said, adding that most of these companies are based in the United States.

[320 billion cubic meters] only indicates a rough estimate, another well-placed source from the sector said, also pointing out that the gas still needs to be tested for its permeability, pressure and thickness.

This is a hopeful development, but at this point we cannot say that this discovery will pay off Turkeys account deficit in a few years, the source concluded. That will be seen in the upcoming years.

Ankara has been looking to reduce its dependence on foreign energy sources, particularly from Russia and Azerbaijan, that cost the country $41 billion last year. Turkey's finance minister, Berat Albayrak, expressed hope Friday that Turkey "will no longer post current account deficits after the discovery.

This month, Turkey resumed exploratory drilling in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, intensifying a territorial dispute with Greece and Cyprus over maritime rights and straining Turkish relations with the European Union. During his address Friday, Erdogan said Ankara has no intention of backing down from exploration in the contested waters.

We will accelerate our activities in the Mediterranean with the deployment by the end of the year of Kanuni, Erdogan said, referring to a Turkish drilling ship currently under maintenance. "God willing, we expect similar good news.
Moving up over 1500 spots on the Inc 5000s ranking of fastest growing companies list is a huge accomplishment," said CEO Jonathan Miller.

Inc. magazine revealed that Parsonex Enterprises is No. 2917 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Moving up over 1500 spots on the Inc 5000s ranking of fastest growing companies list is a huge accomplishment," said CEO Jonathan Miller. "We are honored to make the list again this year and appreciate the hard work and effort of everyone on the Parsonex team who contributed to our growth over the last several years."

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are also being featured in the September issue of Inc., available on newsstands August 18.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.

The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually from October 23 to 27, 2020. As always, speakers will include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.

Parsonex Financial Services has a network of affiliated independent advisors who have set individual records since joining the firm. Parsonex has plans for continued expansion as its core business continues to grow and is now coupled with broader institutional initiatives. In 2019 the firm launched Parsonex Capital Partners and Parsonex Capital Advisors, a private fund group and alternative asset manager that specializes in real estate and private equity with an initial focus on Qualified Opportunity Zones. You can learn more at http://www.pxcapgroup.com.

CONTACT: For additional information please contact:

Stephanie Logan at (303) 662-8700 x.104 or at stephanie(at)parsonex.com

For information on Parsonex visit: http://www.parsonex.com.

For information on Parsonex Capital Partners and Parsonex Capital Advisors visit: http://www.pxcapgroup.com

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media

The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com.

For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://conference.inc.com/.
Belarusian authorities have opened a criminal probe against opposition activists who set up a council to negotiate the transition of power amid massive protests challenging the extension of the 26-year rule of the country's authoritarian leader in a vote the opposition saw as rigged.

President Alexander Lukashenko has dismissed the protesters as Western puppets and threatened opposition leaders with criminal charges.

Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against the opposition activists on charges of undermining national security, and a leading opposition figure reported being threatened with arrest.

Mr Lukashenko (65) dismissed the European Union's criticism of the August 9 vote and told its leaders to mind their own business.

They have rejected the official results of the election that showed he won 80pc of the vote and expressed solidarity with protesters.

The EU said it's preparing sanctions against officials responsible for the post- election police brutality.

During the first four days of protests, police detained almost 7,000 people and injured hundreds with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs. At least three protesters died.

The crackdown fuelled massive outrage and swelled protesters' ranks, forcing authorities to change tactics and stop breaking up crowds that grew to an unprecedented 200,000 on Sunday.

Protests continued yesterday in Minsk and other Belarusian cities for the 12th straight day.

After standing back for days, police had again beefed up their presence in the Belarusian capital, blocking access to some government buildings and also deploying outside major factories where workers have been on strike.
Technavio has been monitoring the drilling mud desander and desilter market and it is poised to grow by USD 21.06 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/20200821005019/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter 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:

What are the major trends in the market?

Advances in solids control equipment is a major trend driving the growth of the market.

Advances in solids control equipment is a major trend driving the growth of the market. At what rate is the market projected to grow?

The year-over-year growth for 2020 is estimated at 2.75% and the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be 21.06 mn during the forecast period.

The year-over-year growth for 2020 is estimated at 2.75% and the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be 21.06 mn during the forecast period. Who are the top players in the market?

Derrick Corp., DFE, Double Life Corp., General Electric Co., GN Solids Control, Halliburton Co., National Oilwell Varco Inc., Schlumberger Ltd., Specialized Desanders Inc., and Triflo International Inc, are some of the major market participants

Derrick Corp., DFE, Double Life Corp., General Electric Co., GN Solids Control, Halliburton Co., National Oilwell Varco Inc., Schlumberger Ltd., Specialized Desanders Inc., and Triflo International Inc, are some of the major market participants What are the key market drivers and challenges?

The increasing global rig activity is the major factor driving the market. However, the increase in the adoption of renewable energy will challenge the growth.

The increasing global rig activity is the major factor driving the market. However, the increase in the adoption of renewable energy will challenge the growth. How big is the North America market?

The North America region will contribute 48% of the market share.

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Derrick Corp., DFE, Double Life Corp., General Electric Co., GN Solids Control, Halliburton Co., National Oilwell Varco Inc., Schlumberger Ltd., Specialized Desanders Inc., and Triflo International Inc. are some of the major market participants. The increasing global rig activity will offer immense growth opportunities. To make 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

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.

Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter Market is segmented as below:

Application Onshore Offshore

Geography North America MEA APAC Europe 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=IRTNTR43924

Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter 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 drilling mud desander and desilter market report covers the following areas:

Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter Market Size

Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter Market Trends

Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter Market Industry Analysis

This study identifies advances in solids control equipment as one of the prime reasons driving the drilling mud desander and desilter 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.

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Drilling Mud Desander and Desilter Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist drilling mud desander and desilter market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the drilling mud desander and desilter market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the drilling mud desander and desilter market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of drilling mud desander and desilter market, vendors

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Application

Market segments

Comparison by Application

Onshore Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Offshore Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Application

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market drivers

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Derrick Corp.

DFE

Double Life Corp.

General Electric Co.

GN Solids Control

Halliburton Co.

National Oilwell Varco Inc.

Schlumberger Ltd.

Specialized Desanders Inc.

Triflo International Inc.

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/20200821005019/en/

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Four Alabama universities are posting COVID-19 statistics online.

Auburn University, Jacksonville State University, Troy University and Samford University have online databases showing case and testing numbers.

Auburn University shows 41 total cases  32 students, 8 employees and 1 other at its main campus from Aug. 8-14. You can see AUs numbers here.

JSU shows 44 active cases; Samford has had 19 cases since July 9  12 students and 7 employees. You can see JSUs info here and Samfords here.

Troy University releases coronavirus case data as well. Its most recent report shows 10 COVID-19 cases, all students, with eight living off campus. You can see Troy Universitys data here.

The University of Alabama released new data on its coronavirus testing results yesterday. You can see more on that here.

Here are the latest coronavirus headlines from across the country:

Religious schools cant be forced to close

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said officials cannot close religious schools that are following rules regarding COVID-19.

The comments come after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear recommended that school districts delay in-person instruction until Sept. 28. In an opinion, however, Cameron said officials are prohibited from closing religiously affiliated schools because of the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The law prohibits the state from mandating the closure of religiously affiliated schools that are complying with recommended health guidelines, Cameron said.

Fauci undergoes surgery

Dr. Anthony Fauci underwent outpatient surgery Thursday to remove a polyp on his vocal cord.

Fauci is the direct of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leader on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He is now home resting from the procedure.

Second Senator tests positive

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy has tested positive for coronavirus.

Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, was tested on Thursday after being informed Wednesday he had been exposed to an individual with COVID-19. Cassidys office said he will quarantine for 14 days and notifying individuals he has been in contact with.

Cassidy is the second U.S. Senator diagnosed with the virus. In March, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced he had tested positive for coronavirus.

Syracuse suspends students over party

Syracuse University has confirmed 23 students will be suspended after a party on the colleges quad this week.

Officials said a small group gathered just before 10 p.m. and the crowd grew until it was broken up by police and university law enforcement.

Dean of Students Marianne Thomson and Department of Public Safety Chief Bobby Maldonado wrote in a letter to students that the behavior was incredibly reckless.

We assure you: anyone we are able to identify as attending that gathering will be held responsible. Our investigation is ongoing and includes reviewing security camera footage, interviewing witnesses and processing a number of tips we are receiving with information on who was in attendance, the letter noted.
The Old Town is against the proposed place, seeing it as indecent and inappropriate.

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Before the split of Czechoslovakia, state delegations used to pay homage to war victims in Prague at the national memorial, holding the remains of unknown Czech and Slovak soldiers. However, after the federation split in 1993, Slovakia lost this place of reverence, having no other as an adequate replacement. Venues like the memorial of the anti-fascist Slovak National Uprising in the city centre or the cemetery of Soviet soldiers killed when liberating Bratislava during WWII at Slavin do not conform to all foreign delegations.

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Last year the Defence Ministry, at that time led by Peter Gajdos of the Slovak National Party, came up with the idea of building such a venue in the form of the tomb of the unknown soldier. The government greenlighted the idea and allocated 820,000 for its construction.

As the most suitable place of the new memorial the Defence Ministry chose a small park between Leskova Street and the Government Office, close to the Namestie Slobody in the Old Town. It would replace the statue of a controversial politician of the previous regime, Marek Culen.

Related article

Related article Having survived countless lightning strikes, Slavin gets a makeover Read more

However, deputies of the Old Town local council turned this proposal down and even required the usage of the allocated money for different purposes, due to the COVID-19 pandemic reducing revenues of local administrations.
" " Saavik (portrayed by Kirstie Alley) is faced with a moral dilemma when she's contacted by the freighter the Kobayashi Maru. She must choose between rescuing its crew, a decision that would put Saavik's own ship at risk and potentially starting a war, or leaving the crew to die. StarTrek

A half-Vulcan Starfleet cadet is faced with a moral dilemma. While commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise, Saavik (portrayed by Kirstie Alley) is contacted by the Kobayashi Maru, a civilian freighter that's struck a mine and lost all power.

The situation is dire. Without assistance, those stranded souls are as good as dead. Yet the accident occurred in the Neutral Zone, an area of space dividing the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. Rescuing this crew means entering the Zone, a decision that would put Saavik's own ship at risk  and potentially start a war.

But can she bear the thought of letting innocent people suffer and die on her watch? Saavik decides she can't.

She orders the Enterprise into the Zone, violating a critical treaty. That provokes an immediate attack from Klingon warships. Within minutes, Saavik loses her vessel and its crew. And the worst may be yet to come.

So begins the 1982 blockbuster "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." Saavik, we soon learn, has just taken Starfleet's hardest training exercise. Simply called the Kobayashi Maru, it's a simulation that puts future commanders in a classic "no-win scenario."

Or at least, it's supposed to. The audience is told a certain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was the only person to actually "beat" the Kobayashi Maru test  albeit, on his third try. How'd he do it? Well, by all accounts, Capt. Kirk cheated.

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Winning a No-win Scenario

"Star Trek" has been a playground for philosophers ever since the original series launched Sept. 8, 1966. Introduced in "Wrath of Khan," the Kobayashi Maru is what ethicists might call a "trolley problem." When the only way to save some lives is by sacrificing others, what's the morally correct thing to do?

Most of us would try to find a loophole. When young Kirk didn't just find one, he invented one.

"I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship," he tells a curious Saavik. "I changed the conditions of the test, got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose."

Neither does his counterpart in the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot. This "Star Trek" shows Chris Pine playing an alternate-reality Kirk who bests the Kobayashi Maru with the same trick  only this time, he's reprimanded instead of rewarded. Both iterations of the character swear they "don't believe" in no-win scenarios.

Obviously, we can't pick the brain of a fictional space captain, but we can talk to a lifelong Trekkie: "Star Trek" superfan Jessie Earl, who contributes to The Advocate magazine and explores the history of the "Star Trek" franchise on her YouTube channel.

"Perhaps the biggest misconception about the test [speaks to] the mythos surrounding Capt. Kirk's solution to the problem," Earl says via email.

As she explains, Kirk thinks "there is always a way out of a no-win scenario, even if it involves cheating. Starfleet itself, as well as many Trek fans, praise Kirk's ingenious solution to the test."

" " A soldier with the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade assesses weapons systems. The force-on-force Kobayashi Maru exercise simulation gives soldiers an opportunity to develop cyber skills while operating alongside their civilian and sister service colleagues. U.S. Army

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To Boldly ... Cheat?

Good old Kirk has a real talent for thinking outside the box. By reprogramming the Kobayashi Maru, he avoided all the horrible outcomes it was designed to present.

Choosing between two bad options isn't always a necessity in real life. Americans love a good story about innovators who  when confronted by an unfair or narrow-minded industry  simply changed the rules to get ahead. Oscar-winning films like "The Social Network" (2010) and 2014's "The Imitation Game" arguably fall into that genre. Heist movies have a similar appeal.

Off-screen, we needn't condone cheating, but there's always something to be said for creativity.

Inspired by the Kobayashi Maru, Gregory Conti and James Caroland of the U.S. armed forces once encouraged their own IT students to cheat on an upcoming, one-question math quiz. But there was a caveat: Anyone caught cheating by the proctors would receive a failing grade.

That got everybody's creative juices flowing. One student painstakingly wrote the correct answer on a soda can. Another hid it in the near-exact duplicate of a textbook cover they'd made. Sometimes, cheating is hard work.

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A Test of Character

Getting back to Kirk, in the 2009 movie, he justifies cheating on the Kobayashi Maru by claiming the test "itself is a cheat" since it was "programmed to be unwinnable." Like the old proverb says, turnabout is fair play.

The problem, according to Earl, is that Kirk's solution "costs him an important lesson ... that there are some situations where you just can't get away unscathed."

"Humans are an incredibly binary-oriented species," she says. "No-win scenarios force us to acknowledge that often, there is no right or wrong answer, only differing answers with different results and consequences."

Pines' Kirk called the Kobayashi Maru unwinnable, but winning it was never the objective. "Wrath of Khan" posits that the test's real value lies in the way it forces Starfleet cadets to face death. Spock, as played by Zachary Quinto, repeats this sentiment in the 2009 film.

"The Kobayashi Maru is not at all about competence at technical skills, but a test of character," Earl says.

Leonard Nimoy's Spock proves his own mettle late in "Star Trek II." A showdown with the villainous Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) leaves the Enterprise crippled  and well within range of a devastating explosive. At the cost of his own life, Spock enters an irradiated engine room and makes the repairs necessary for his crewmates to escape.

"I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now," the dying Vulcan muses to Kirk. "What do you think of my solution?"

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Final Takeaways

"The entirety of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's plot is actually a rejection of Kirk's disbelief in a no-win scenario," opines Earl. "While Kirk's unwillingness to accept defeat allows him to continually push himself  even in the most desperate of situations  it sometimes makes him unwilling to sacrifice anything."

His tenacity has merit. Yet Spock's heroic death leaves a grieving Kirk to reconsider his philosophy. Though the Enterprise gets the better of Khan, it'd be hard to call the end result a "win."

"When weighing decisions, we must directly confront the ramifications of our actions," Earl says. "And the job of a leader is to understand that you hold the responsibility for others' lives in [your] hands."

Now That's Intimidating There's a rumor that Khan's massive, gratuitously exposed chest muscles in "Star Trek II" were prosthetic. Don't believe it. The pecs were real; Montalban was in fantastic shape for a guy who turned 62 in the year of the film's release.
Reading, PA (19601)

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.
Medallia Opens Singapore Data Centre

Customer experience management (CEM) specialist Medallia has opened a Data Centre in Singapore, adding to its existing hubs in Santa Clara, Seattle, Denver, Toronto, Montreal, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Sydney.



The firm's SaaS platform, the Medallia Experience Cloud, helps users understand and manage the experiences of customers, employees and citizens. This platform captures 'experience signals' created on daily journeys in person, on calls and via digital channels - including video and social media and IoT interactions. It then uses proprietary AI technology to uncover personalized and predictive insights. Earlier this year, the company acquired real time speech-to-text platform Voci Technologies, and video feedback platform LivingLens, having last year taken over behavioural analytics platform Cooladata.



The new data centre will host all Medallia Experience Cloud solutions including video, digital, speech, conversations and text analytics; along with the company's Athena product, which applies artificial intelligence to uncover hidden meanings in vast amounts of customer experience information. Gavin Selkirk (pictured), APAC VP and General Manager, explains: 'Medallia is investing across the APAC region, supporting expansion and helping our customers drive growth by understanding and managing customer, employee and citizen experiences. The Singapore data centre plays an integral part in ensuring we deliver on the data security and regulatory requirements of businesses who are scaling up customer and employee experience programs'.



Web site: www.medallia.com .




Indian Overseas Bank advanced 3.15% to Rs 11.79 after the bank posted net profit of Rs 120.69 crore in Q1 June 2020 as compared with net loss of Rs 342.08 crore in Q1 June 2019.

Total income rose 4.5% to Rs 5,233.63 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019. Pre-tax profit stood at Rs 124.63 crore in Q1 June 2020 compared with pre-tax loss of Rs 329.66 crore in Q1 June 2019. The result was declared post trading hours yesterday, 20 August 2020.

The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at Rs 18,290.84 crore as on 30 June 2020 as against Rs 19,912.70 crore as on 31 March 2020 and Rs 33,262 crore as on 30 June 2019. The ratio of gross NPAs to gross advances stood at 13.90% as on 30 June 2020 as against 14.78% as on 31 March 2020 and 22.53% as on 30 June 2019. The ratio of net NPAs to net advances stood at 5.10% as on 30 June 2020 as against 5.44% as on 31 March 2020 and 11.04% as on 30 June 2019.

The bank's provisions and contingencies dropped 16.26% to Rs 969.52 crore in Q1 FY21 over Rs 1,157.82 crore in Q1FY20. Provision Coverage Ratio (PCR) improved to 87.97% as on 30 June 2020 as against 72.24% as on 30 June 2019.

Total business was at Rs 4,40,609 crore as on 30 June 2020 from Rs 4,37,269 crore as on 30 June 2019. Total deposits increased to Rs 2,25,546 crore as on 30 June 2020 as compared to Rs 2,21,171 crore as on 30 June 2019.

Current Account-Savings Account (CASA) ratio of the bank improved to 41.02% as on 30 June 2020 as against 38.05% as on 30 June 2019. Total CASA has increased to Rs 92,514 crore as on 30 June 2019 from Rs 84,145 crore as on 30 June 2019.

Gross advances stood at Rs 1,31,565 crore as on 30 June 2020 as against Rs 1,47,606 crore as on 30 June 2019. The bank has evolved a policy of not taking fresh exposures in stressed sectors, below hurdle rated accounts and BB and below rated accounts. The bank has also exited from accounts in the stressed sectors to improve the quality of asset. Operating profit for quarter ended 30 June 2020 stood at Rs 1,094 crore as against Rs 828.15 crore for the quarter ended 30 June 2020 due to increase in interest on investments and reduction in interest expenditure.

Interest income stood at Rs 4302 crore in Q1 June 2020 as against Rs 4336.39 crore in Q1 June 2019, mainly due to decrease in MCLR. Net Interest Margin (NIM) stood at 2.08% in Q1 FY20 as compared to 2.01% in Q1 FY19.

The company said that the continued lockdown has resulted in significant decline in global and local economic activities. The situation continues to be uncertain and the state-owned bank is closely monitoring the situation. Despite these conditions, there would not be significant impact on the bank's financial statements, it said.

The Government of India held 95.84% stake in Indian Overseas Bank as on 30 June 2020.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
This article is the third in a series that focuses on your childs transition back to school. The series will run in the Limerick Leader and here at limerickleader.ie throughout August and into September. Go to loveparenting.ie to read earlier articles in the series and to access online supports and resources relating to your childs return to school.

I think we can all agree the last few months have been difficult and have thrown up many unforeseen challenges for us parents. We did our best in the circumstances and often this involved letting some of our good routines slide. If you are like me your teenage children are sleeping in until all hours and are often the ones turning off the lights at an ungodly hour!

Others will admit to the fridge constantly being open with a help yourself if youre hungry approach. For others screen time, play time, bath time and sleep time are all over the shop. BUT, the return to school is coming fast. If you are like me, this fills me with dread as I now have to address all these established habits.

So what can we do? When routines are in place children feel more secure. Parents feel calmer and more in control. By adjusting our summer routine, it will help children understand that the summer is coming to an end and help prepare them for the return of school. Easier said than done right? Where do you start?

Begin by having plan in your own head about what routines you would like to see happen. Agree this with your partner to ensure you dont have mixed messages. Set a time to have the chat about routines with your child. Get their views on this and agree a plan together. Make sure that they understand the plan. Remember Rome wasnt built in a day so put the plan into place gradually, making small adjustments daily. Talk to your child to see if the plan is working and make changes if they are needed.

Bedtimes will be the first on my list. It wont be easy as it is still bright at 10pm, but It needs to be done. Start by adjusting bedtimes gradually. Two weeks before the first day of school, start to move your childs bedtime earlier at night. Wake them a small bit earlier each morning. Continue this process every night until your child is waking at the same time that will be necessary once school starts.

Aim to create a relaxing wind-down routine. For about an hour before you want the lights turned off for the night encourage calming activities. For younger children this might be taking a bath or reading a book together. For older children this could be listening to music, taking a shower or meditation. By repeating this every night in the weeks leading up to the first day of school it will help your child to anticipate sleep time, making it easier for everyone once school starts again.

Next up, screen time. We know that less screen time before bed will improve the quality of their sleep. Yes, they love playing with their friends on line and who doesnt enjoy a game of Mario Cart? They can still do this, but - earlier in the day. Aim for no screen time an hour before your child goes to sleep. Avoid screens in their bedroom. Watch those smart phones too. Agreeing a plan in advance on technology will prevent problems and fighting in the long run.

Last but not least mealtimes. Plan to adjust mealtimes gradually in August to match up with school lunch breaks. Chat about the importance of eating well. Encourage your child to think of food as fuel for their body. Involve them in decisions about what they eat, the weekly shop, meal planning and preparation.

So we have a plan. One day at a time and the hard work will pay off. Dont forget that you are doing a great job in a very difficult time. Good luck!

_____________________________

This article was supplied by the Tusla Prevention, Partnership and Family Support team, a member of Parenting Limerick.

For more information and resources for parents on this topic, as well as local parenting and family support services, go to loveparenting.ie.
China and Pakistan are good brothers and good partners, President Xi Jinping said on Friday adding that the economic corridor between the countries, which passes through territory claimed by India, holds great importance in forging closer ties between Beijing and Islamabad.

In a recorded message addressed to his Pakistani counterpart, Arif Alvi, Xi said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a landmark project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is of great importance to promoting in-depth development of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and forging a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future.

New Delhi has consistently opposed the CPEC as it passes through Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir; Beijing has paid little attention to New Delhis serious reservations about the CPEC and has pumped in money and resources in building infrastructure projects under the flagship economic corridor.

The CPEC is among the new irritants and concerns for New Delhi in its ties with Beijing, which China has refused to address, arguing it is only an economic project.

Xis effusive message for Alvi was released at the end of the two-day 2nd China-Pakistan foreign ministers strategic dialogue held in the southern Chinese province of Hainan on Friday.

Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi co-hosted the meet.

In his message to Alvi, Xi was effusive about ties between the two iron brothers  a phrase often repeated by both countries to describe the snug bilateral ties.

Xi said he appreciates that Alvi sent a congratulatory letter to the opening of the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, which fully demonstrated that Alvi attaches great importance to and supports the China-Pakistan relationship and construction of the CPEC.

The consultation was held simultaneously with the foreign ministers dialogue.

The official news agency Xinhua released Xis statement.

China and Pakistan are good brothers and partners who share special friendship, Xi said.

He said the frequent meeting of political parties from both sides is conducive to steadily advancing the construction of the CPEC as well as high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Since the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, the global fight has fully demonstrated that mutual support, solidarity and cooperation present a sure way for humanity to defeat this novel coronavirus, Xi said.

China stands ready to work with Pakistan to build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future, jointly promote regional solidarity and cooperation, and safeguard the good momentum of peace and development in the region, the Chinese President added.

Fu Xiaoqiang, an expert on South Asian issues at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told state media on Friday that India has a narrow approach to Sino-Pakistan friendship.

India has adopted a hostile attitude toward the cooperation between China and Pakistan and believes that China and Pakistan will soon unite against India; its a rather narrow-minded perspective that does not conform to Indias position of a big country in South Asia, Fu told state media.

Wang and Qureshi met at a time when the ties of both Beijing and Islamabad with New Delhi are at an all-time low over the Sino-India border tension in eastern Ladakh, and (with Pakistan) on the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and terrorism.

This time the strategic dialogue is highly relevant and the two sides will take the opportunity to discuss ani-epidemic cooperation, bilateral ties and other regional and international issues of mutual interest, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian announced at the regular ministry briefing on Thursday.

The first China-Pakistan foreign ministers strategic dialogue was held in March, 2019.
The former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River, which Hilco Redevelopment Partners bought out of bankruptcy and plans to rebuild into a logistics hub. The Philadelphia School Board on Thursday rejected a proposal to extend a Keystone Opportunity Zone tax break to the property. Read more

In a surprise move, the Philadelphia school board rejected a proposal backed by Mayor Jim Kenney to extend an important tax break to the largest development project in the city, a former South Philadelphia refinery site that is to be rebuilt into a massive logistics hub.

The plan on Thursday night failed to muster the five votes needed to approve a 10-year extension of the sites Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) designation, which three progressives on the board opposed. Businesses in Keystone Opportunity Zones pay little to no state and local business taxes through an assortment of credits, waivers, and abatements.

Hilco Redevelopment Partners, a Chicago firm that bought the 1,300-acre Philadelphia Energy Solutions site out of bankruptcy in June for $225.5 million, pressed the city to extend the propertys KOZ status, which was granted in 2014 and was set to expire in 2023.

Hilco has said the tax breaks are important to its project, which will require hundreds of millions of dollars for environmental cleanup before the property can be rebuilt.

Kevin Lessard, a spokesperson for the city Commerce Department, said the administration was disappointed by the vote but intended to try again after talking with board members to try to address their concerns.

We remain confident that Hilcos plans represent an unprecedented opportunity to revitalize one of the largest and most important parcels in the city of Philadelphia, and we concur with the firms assessment that this Keystone Opportunity Zone designation is necessary to achieving their long-term plan, including hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands of jobs for Philadelphia residents, Lessard said in an email on Friday.

 READ MORE: Plans reveal Hilcos intent to reshape Philadelphia refinery landscape

Kenney, who appoints school board members, and Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, whose district includes the property, had asked the board to approve the KOZ status. The boards approval is required since the KOZ designation potentially impacts the School Districts revenue stream. Hilco has promised to pay a $1.25 million annual payment to the district in lieu of school taxes.

At Thursdays meeting, students and teachers said they doubted that Hilco would faithfully clean up the site and decried tax breaks in general. Neighborhood and environmental activists around the former refinery site have opposed extending tax breaks to the project.

Board President Joyce Wilkerson, who supported the designation, reminded the board that its primary responsibility was education, and said she trusted the city to vet issues like the Keystone Opportunity Zone.

Board members Ameen Akbar, Mallory Fix Lopez, and Angela McIver voted against the plan. McIver cited Inquirer reporting about Hilcos previous projects, including its role in the redevelopment of a former steel mill near Baltimore into a warehouse hub similar to what it envisions for South Philadelphia.

This is not a good partner, McIver said. This is not a good deal.

The citys acting city commerce director, Sylvie Gallier Howard, and a Hilco representative presented the case for the KOZ. The measure failed to get the required five votes, with four votes in favor and three opposed. Board member Lee Huang, who is president of Econsult Solutions, abstained because his firm has been hired by Hilco as a consultant.

Hilco said Friday that it remains optimistic about transforming the refinery into an environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art logistics hub that will generate thousands of jobs.

The extension of the existing KOZ for another 10 years is a linchpin in that plan and will provide vital, long-term funding for public education in the city of Philadelphia, a significant economic impact, and certainty for potential tenants in uncertain economic times, Jasmine Sessoms, a Hilco spokesperson, said in a statement.

 READ MORE: The massive Philly refinery site sale is about to close. Heres what we know about the developer buying it.

With one board seat vacant, Hilco could make another attempt when a full complement of board members is in place.

Hilco says it intends to redevelop the site into a multimodal industrial park with ancillary rail infrastructure, energy infrastructure, marine capabilities and commercial uses.

Hilco previously said the project to demolish and rebuild the site would create 8,000 union construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs. Ahead of the school board vote, Hilco on Tuesday boosted those numbers, saying a new economic impact study conducted by Econsult estimated the project would generate 19,000 full-time, permanent, direct and indirect jobs, and deliver an annual economic impact of about $3 billion to the region at build-out, after about a decade. It would also generate 13,000 construction jobs.

Keystone Opportunity Zones are abandoned, unused, and underused areas the state says would benefit from additional investment. The Commerce Department has designated about 500 properties as KOZs.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, which is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appointed Ashwani Bhatia as the Managing Director of the State Bank of India -- India's largest state-owned lender.

A notification was issued by the government on August 21 to make the announcement. It stated: The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the proposal of the Department of Financial Services for the appointment of Ashwani Bhatia, Deputy Managing Director (DMD), State Bank of India (SBI) as the Managing Director (MD) in SBI with effect from the date of assumption of office an up to the date of his superannuation, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.

Before joining the SBI's Mutual Fund Business, Bhatia was a whole-time director with SBI Capital Markets. He is currently serving as the Managing Director and CEO at SBI Mutual Fund and replaced PK Gupta, who superannuated on March 31, as SBI MD.

He emerged as one of the frontrunners for the SBI MD post after the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) had recommended his name for the same. The bureau members had made the recommendation after interacting with 20 candidates from public sector banks on May 30.

The BBB was constituted in 2016 to makes recommendations for the appointment of whole-time directors as well as non-executive chairpersons of nationalised banks.
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hoodas home city Rohtak has ranked 35th in the Swachh Survekshan 2020, lagging behind chief minister Manohar Lal Khattars Karnal in cities with population between 1 lakh to 10 lakh.

Karnal performed better than Rohtak and secured 17th slot. Even though Rohtak jumped to 35th position from last years 69th rank, locals are of view that this city has more potential than Karnal. Rohtak failed to perform better due to administrative apathy, they say.

Rohtak had grabbed 89th spot in 2018 and 295th rank in 2017.

Rohtak MLA BB Batra of the Congress pinned the blame on district administration and political indifference for Rohtaks poor performance.

The main factors are poor segregation and sanitation in the city. Residents are forced to consume contaminated water and this is a crime, which is being committed by the local municipal corporation. The water supply tanks are yet to be cleaned and interior roads are in poor condition, he added.

The administration has failed to utilise 13 crore properly, which was released through Amrit Yojana. Karnal has been developed as a cleaner city than Rohtak in the past years as chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar represents that constituency, the MLA said.

In Karnal, the chief minister has been allocating more funds than our city, he added.

Pratap Singh, a retired principal from Rohtak, attributed the reason of citys poor performance than Karnal to faulty planning.

Water supply lines in most of the colonies are damaged and roads are in bad shape. The GPS tracking of garbage collection vehicles and maintenance of public places and toilets need to be taken seriously. People in Rohtak are not getting clean drinking water, he added.

A worker cleans a road in Rohtak on Friday. (Manoj Dhaka/HT)

Rohtak additional deputy commissioner Mahender Pal, however, focussed on how the city has improved its rank from 295 in 2017 to 35 this year.

Due to the efforts of municipal corporation, administration, and citizens, our citys ranking jumped to 35 from last years 69. Our roads and streets are clean and the garbage collection facility is excellent. The civic bodies vehicles have been collecting garbage from doorsteps, he added.

We are ready to accept our mistakes

Rohtak mayor Manmohan Goyal said the city lagged behind Karnal as it performed poor on four parameters.

We will have to set up a crushing plant in Rohtak so that debris can be used again. We will have to stop people from throwing construction waste on the roadsides. The swachh survekshan indictated that Rohtak has poor waste management and segregation. We are ready to accept our mistakes and will try to improve the ranking next year, the mayor said.
CUBAN doctors and nurses who were sent to the TCI to help treat Covid-19 patients could stay longer, according to the health minister.





The Government has officially requested an extension of the brigades contract, Minister of Health Hon. Edwin Astwood told the Weekly News on Thursday (August 20).





The 20-member team that specialises in disaster situations and serious epidemics arrived in the territory on June 15.





Prior to the teams deployment, the TCI Government signed a three-month agreement with Cuba for the additional medical support - with the option to extend if the need arose.





The agreement was designed to expire sometime in September, but Astwood has said his ministry is deeply considering the dynamics of the pandemic.





In the bilateral agreement, the TCI Government is required to pay the teams salaries and cater for their accommodation, transport and other work-related expenses.





Speaking on Radio Turks and Caicos on July 20 with host Cheryl Foreman, Astwood said that given cases are increasing daily, the teams expertise will be needed longer.





"We will definitely have to look at extending the time frame for the Cuban health professionals that are here, he said, "and if we are able to do that, I do believe that we can withstand a long term punch and be in the trenches for some time.





"We need to extend if this pandemic goes on throughout the year, so we need to look at trying to retain them here so when those persons do get sick and we have about six or eight persons coming to the health facilities that need ventilation or oxygen or so, that we have those capacities.





He said the Cuban medical contingent provides a wealth of expertise and experience which has led to the expansion of the territorys critical care capacity.





The health minister added that although the team has enhanced the territorys medical proficiency, efforts are being made to recruit additional staff for the long term.





The team of medical professionals consists of eight medical specialists, a chief of brigade, 10 registered nurses and an administrative assistant.





They have already been assimilated by the local hospital and have familiarised themselves with the computerised system and other medical equipment.





Astwood said: "They have been doing all of their walk throughs in the hospitals, going through all the equipment and standard operating procedures of InterHealth Canada.





"They have done all their registrations for practising here in the Turks and Caicos Islands.





"They have far advanced and I do believe that now that they are helping with assisting some patients, so we have that capacity now.





The medical team received their licences to practice in the TCI on July 7. After receiving their licenses the team was officially oriented.





During the orientation process, the group shadowed clinical and medical teams at the hospital and engaged in a revision session on the functionality and features of Puritan Bennett 840 ventilators.





In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, similar medical teams from the Henry Reeves centre were deployed to Italy, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Surinam, Jamaica, Haiti, Belize, Dominica, and the island nations of Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, St Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda.





The TCI Government is not unique in its decision to extend the stay of the medical team as many of these countries have also announced the same.





Cuba has a long history of internationalism and humanitarian intervention.




The attorney for one of the Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing says he's going to prove the cops were just doing their jobs after claiming earlier this week that the black man killed himself by overdosing on fentanyl.

Thomas Lane, 37, is one of the three officers charged with aiding and abetting murder for holding down Floyd's legs during his May 25 fatal arrest.

Another officer, Derek Chauvin, is charged with murder after body cam showed him kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as he pleaded: 'I can't breathe'.

Lane's attorney Earl Gray, who has been fighting to get the charges dropped, has since outlined his defense argument, saying he doesn't believe there is enough evidence to convict his client.

'We are going to show that my client and the other cops were doing their jobs,' Gray told the Los Angeles Times.

'None of these guys - even Chauvin - actually killed him. He killed himself.'

In a memorandum filed in court on Monday, Gray claimed that Floyd swallowed a 'lethal dose' of fentanyl as he was resisting arrest.

An attorney for Minneapolis officer Thomas Lane, who is charged in George Floyd's killing, claims the black man contributed to his own death because he overdosed on fentanyl during his arrest

Thomas Lane, 37, (left) is one of the three officers charged with aiding and abetting murder for holding down Floyd's legs during his May 25 fatal arrest. Lane's attorney Earl Gray (right) has been fighting to get the charges dropped

He plans to use that as the basis for his defense argument, saying he will rely on toxicology and autopsy reports and bodycam footage to prove his case.

Legal experts have since said the high-profile case will not be a 'slam dunk' for the prosecution.

'This is not a slam dunk for the prosecution and not an easy case, especially for the higher-degree homicide charges,' Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University criminologist, told the outlet.

'If this case goes to trial and an officer testifies on his own behalf, it is possible there is reasonable doubt there for jurors.'

The attorney pointed to bodycam footage of the arrest in which he claims Floyd had a 'white spot on the left side' of his tongue when Lane and another officer first approached him following reports he had used a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a convenience store.

Gray has claimed in the memo that Floyd intentionally ingested '2 milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal dose' after Lane ordered him to put his hands up to be taken into custody.

'All he had to do is sit in the police car, like every other defendant who is initially arrested. While attempting to avoid his arrest, all by himself, Mr Floyd overdosed on Fentanyl,' the filing says.

'Given his intoxication level, breathing would have been difficult at best. Mr Floyd's intentional failure to obey commands, coupled with his overdosing, contributed to his own death.'

Lane's attorney Earl Gray has been trying to get the charges against him dropped, claiming there is insufficient evidence to establish the officer committed a crime. Lane was one of the two officers who were first on the scene following the reports that Floyd had attempted to pass a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes

Lane was one of the two officers who were first on the scene following the reports that Floyd had attempted to pass a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a convenience store

A medical examiner's report and a separate independent autopsy both ruled that Floyd's death was a homicide and that he died from asphyxiation.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner added in its report that Floyd had 'recent methamphetamine use' and 'fentanyl intoxication' - along with hypertension and coronary artery disease - all of which were possible contributing factors to his death.

In the court filing, Lane's attorney argued that the neck constraint used by Chauvin was not excessive as he argued that the tissue in Floyd's neck wasn't damaged.

He also pointed to Floyd's criminal background and past alleged drug use as to why his clients charges should be dropped.

Citing a May 2019 arrest in Minneapolis, Gray argued that Floyd had to be physically removed from a car where police found oxycodone, cocaine and rock cocaine.

The court records do not state if Floyd was charged in that arrest.

Lane's attorney has previously argued that Floyd should not have resisted arrest and that he should of obeyed the orders of the officers.

He has also previously said in interviews that it was 'clearly evident' Floyd was 'under the influence of some kind of drug' at the time of his arrest.

Lane was one of the two officers who were first on the scene following the reports that Floyd had attempted to pass a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a convenience store.

Chauvin and a fourth officer, Tou Thao, were called in to assist.

All four officers were fired the day after Floyd's death.

Lane's attorney is expected to argue a case for dismissing the charges against the fired officer during a court hearing scheduled for September 11.

It comes after a Minnesota judge ruled Lane's bodycam footage could be released publicly after DailyMail.com revealed leaked footage.

The judge had previously restricted the viewing of Lane - and Kueng's bodycam footage - allowing it to be viewed only by appointment in the county courthouse.
"East Moline Officer Staes and I took my squad to the overlook at that time. Upon pulling into the overlook we observed a charter bus parked in the southbound lane with its lights fully illuminating the cab.

"As we pulled next to the bus we observed a black male, wearing a black coat with his hood up approximately 50 feet from the bus. At this time I parked the squad with both Officer Staes and I drawing our weapons on the individual.

"The individual was advised to put his hands in the air and to get on the ground or that he would be shot."

In his response to the lawsuit, Bush denied any of the officers threatened to shoot Butler. He also denied Butler and the bus driver's claim that at least one officer placed a knee in his back, despite the fact Deputy Asquini wrote, "I placed my right knee on the subject's lower back" in his incident report.

Bush's report continued: "Once orders were given the individual dropped his cellphone from his right hand and placed his hands in the air. He went down to his knees and then was guided to the ground by both Officer Staes and I.
If you are looking to get in on the gold bull market, you can either buy gold bars or gold mining stocks. Warren Buffett prefers gold stocks because "bullion produces no income," as opposed to investing in gold mining stocks that may provide corporate profits.

Gold recently soared to a new all-time high of $2,063 per ounce. According to investment firm Berenberg, the increase was driven by investors looking for safe haven investments following the extraordinary fiscal and monetary actions taken to address the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Berenberg is of the opinion that as long as US real interest rates remain negative, precious metal prices should be sustained. Accordingly, gold mining stocks will maintain their upward momentum.

Bearing this in mind, we used TipRanks database to identify three gold mining stocks that have received Buy ratings from the analyst community. The cherry on top? These stocks have the potential to deliver double-digit upside gains from their current levels.

Eldorado Gold Corporation (EGO)

We start off with Eldorado Gold Corporation, a mid-tier gold and base metals mining company that has been in business for 25 years. The company has five producing gold mines that generated 395,000 ounces in 2019. Eldorado has operations in Europe, North America and South America.

The company posted strong second-quarter operating results driven by rising sales and higher gold prices. Gold production climbed 50%, totaling 137,782 ounces, compared to the same period from the year before. Moreover, adjusted earnings skyrocketed to $0.26 per share, from a loss of $0.02 per share the year before. The figure was in line with the consensus estimate.

CIBC analyst Cosmos Chiu was impressed with what he saw, noting, Eldorado Gold is one of the few companies that has been able to maintain its original guidance throughout 2020, and it has once again re-affirmed its target of 520k-550koz at AISC (all-in sustaining costs) of $850-$900 per ounce. Eldorado is well on track with first half 2020 production of 254koz. The analyst added, Eldorado Gold continues to be one of our preferred names to gain exposure and leverage to higher gold prices.

Story continues

Based on the above, Chiu has a Buy rating on EGO along with a $14 price target. This figure suggests a potential increase of 28%. (To watch Chius track record, click here)

As for the rest of the Street, EGO has been assigned 5 Buys, 1 Hold and 2 Sells. This translates to a Moderate Buy consensus rating. The average price target lands just above Chius at $14.01, and represents upside potential of 28%. (See Eldorado stock analysis on TipRanks)

Kinross Gold Corp (KGC)

Next on our gold miners list is Kinross Gold, a Canadian-based senior gold mining company with a diverse portfolio of mines and projects worldwide. The company has proven reserves of about 24.3 million ounces of gold and 55.7 million ounces of silver.

The company benefited from higher gold prices in the second quarter, with the average realized gold price jumping 31% to $1,712 per ounce, compared to $1,307 per ounce the year before. As a result, revenue in the quarter rose 20% to $1 billion, versus $838 million during the same period in 2019. Additionally, free cash flow soared to $63.4 million from $4.8 million, while adjusted earnings more than doubled to reach $194 million.

Scotiabank analyst Tanya Jakusconek weighed in on the earnings, commenting, The assets are performing well, and Kinross highlighted on its second quarter conference call that at current spot prices of $1,800 it expects to generate free cash flow in excess of $900 million in 2020 (in line with our forecasts).

Given the companys strong free cash flow, management believes the balance sheet is strong enough to reinstate the dividend. Jakusconek agrees: This puts Kinross in a position to reinstate a dividend policy as early as Q3/20 (last dividend paid in 2013) as soon as Kinross has more visibility on the full impact of COVID-19 on its operations, which could be as early as this fall. With significant free cash flow growing and potential dividend to come, combined with its low valuation (trading at a 9% discount to bullion), we believe Kinross shares offer a compelling risk/reward.

To this end, the Scotiabank analyst rates KGC a Buy along with a $9.50 price target. (To watch Jakusconeks track record, click here)

Turning to the rest of the Street, Kinross has a Moderate Buy consensus rating, with 5 Buys and 3 Holds issued in the last three months. Some of the other analysts are more optimistic than Jakusconek, with the average price target lands at $10.50. This figure implies upside potential of 22% (See Kinross stock analysis on TipRanks)

Alamos Gold Inc. (AGI)

Last but not least is Alamos Gold, which has market capitalization of just over $4 billion. The company currently operates two gold mines in Canada and one in Mexico. In addition, Alamos has development projects in Canada, Mexico, Turkey and the US.

Alamos second quarter operating results were negatively affected by COVID-19, which caused the company to halt operations at some of its gold mines. Revenue fell 25% to $126.2 million, from $168 million the year before. In addition, adjusted earnings plunged 45% to $9.8 million, compared to $17.7 million in the prior year.

Despite the poor earnings, the results were basically in line with the consensus estimate. Writing for Canaccord, analyst Dalton Baretto provided his take on the earnings: AGI reported financial results that were largely in line with our estimates, although production was above our forecast as the impact of disruptions at all three operating mines was less than we had anticipated.

At the same time, Alamos improved its standing by expanding some of its current mines and announcing new projects. AGIs balance sheet remains very strong, and despite the sanctioning of new projects at Island Gold and Mulatos we forecast the company to remain free cash flow positive, Baretto noted.

Therefore, the 5-star analyst rates the company a Buy and attaches a US$14.04 (C$18.50) price target, which suggests a potential gain of 40% from current levels. (To watch Barettos track record, click here)

What does the rest of the Street think? Looking at the consensus breakdown, 7 Buys, 2 Holds and 1 Sell add up to a Moderate Buy consensus rating. In addition, the US$13.00 (C$17.21) average price target indicates a 30% potential increase. (See Alamos stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for gold stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
Despite Aamir Khan Being A Friend, Kangana Says She Won't Ignore Something That Bothers Her About Him

Kangana Ranaut was quoted as saying by Pinkvilla, "Aamir and I share a great bond, and I have huge respect for him. But I have stopped responding according to my personal equations with people. As a human being, I have a responsibility towards my nation and its citizens. Just because he is my friend, and I have huge admiration for him does not mean I will ignore something that bothers me about him."

Kangana Ranaut Accuses Aamir Khan Of Having Double Standards

She continued, "Aamir has been complaining about intolerance in India, and yet he goes to Turkey, which is right now one of the most intolerant countries in the world. It sets a kind of an example where he comes across as someone who has double-standards. I, as a fan and as a well-wisher, want him to come clean on this matter."

Earlier, Kangana's Sister Rangoli Chandel Had Revealed That The Actress's Relationship With Aamir Khan Soured Because Of Differing Political Views

"She is a legend, has inspired an entire generation and not to forget at one point she followed Aamir sir as her role model, he too mentored her, sadly things are very different now but it's OK it's life,a friendship that can be affected by political views isn't strong enough anyway," Rangoli had said.

Aamir Khan's Turkey Visit Had Stirred A Controversy

The superstar's meet with Turkish first Lady Emine Erdogan didn't go down well with a section of netizens, who raised the issue of strained ties between India and Turkey. Earlier this month, Aamir flew to Turkey for the shooting of his upcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha co-starring Kareena Kapoor Khan.
CALGARY, AB, Aug. 20, 2020 /CNW/ - Pan Orient Energy Corp. ("Pan Orient" or the "Company") (TSXV: POE) reports an update on Thailand drilling.

THAILAND

Concession L53 Onshore (Pan Orient Energy (Siam) Ltd., in which Pan Orient has 50.01% ownership)

The L53-DD7 well was drilled from the DD oilfield wellpad to a total measured depth of 1,467 meters (1,113 meters true vertical depth) at a subsurface location 607 meters south-southwest. This well was drilled to a target location substantially down dip from the crest of the structure at the BB/CC and DD sandstone reservoir levels with the intention of using it as a water injection/disposal well, or a producer, depending on results.

L53-DD7 encountered a total of approximately 29.9 meters of net oil pay. This includes the thickest AA sand encountered to date with approximately 16 meters of net oil pay with the top sand approximately three meters high to the L53-DD1 well, the only other well currently producing from the AA sand located approximately 375 meters to the north east. No oil water contact was observed on logs and wireline pressure data indicated low depletion of approximately 35 psia. In addition, there was approximately four meters of net oil pay encountered in the upper BB ("BB1") sand with 15 psia of pressure depletion and approximately 6.6 meters of net oil pay in the lower BB ("BB2") sand with 25 psia of pressure depletion. Lastly, approximately 3.3 meters of net oil pay was encountered in the CC sand with observed pressure depletion of approximately 45 psia. In summary, the AA and upper BB1 sands were thicker and structurally higher than pre-drill estimates and the CC sand was as expected.

Once the rig has moved off location, completions will be run on the L53-DD7 and L53-DD8 wells, and production will commence from these two wells in addition to production testing of the L53-BB1 and L53-AA2 exploration wells. The L53-DD5ST1 well will also undergo a conversion from beam pump to electrical submersible pump and will be brought back onto production. It is anticipated that production and production testing results will be announced in approximately four weeks.

The L53-DD7 well marks the end of the second Thailand drilling phase in 2020 with a possible third phase, which would include the L53AC-E exploration well, that may commence prior to year-end 2020.

COVID-19 Coronavirus

The operations in Thailand of Pan Orient Energy (Siam) Ltd. ("POS") continue to be somewhat affected by the worldwide COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The Thailand government imposed a state of emergency in late March, giving it wide-ranging powers to address the crisis. Domestic travel restrictions have now been eased but a travel ban on most foreigners entering Thailand remains in effect. Overall, the infection and death rate has been much lower in Thailand than in most western nations.

Prudent measures have been taken by POS to help protect the health and safety of staff, which are of paramount importance. Fortunately, POS has been able to complete the first and second phases of the 2020 Thailand drilling program. POS and Pan Orient are well-positioned to withstand these unprecedented events. The Company is optimistic about a slow return to normal operations and less volatile market conditions but the outlook for world oil prices remains somewhat uncertain.

Pan Orient is a Calgary, Alberta based oil and gas exploration and production company with operations located onshore Thailand and in Western Canada.

This news release contains forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is generally identifiable by the terminology used, such as "forecast", "expect", "believe", "estimate", "should", "anticipate" and "potential" or other similar wording. Forward-looking information in this news release includes references, express or implied, to drilling plans, production commencement and well production tests in Thailand. By their very nature, the forward-looking statements contained in this news release require Pan Orient and its management to make assumptions that may not materialize or that may not be accurate. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which could cause actual results, expectations, achievements or performance to differ materially, including without limitation: changes in project schedules, regulatory changes and delays, operating and reservoir performance, the results of exploration and development drilling and related activities, supply, demand and resulting prices for oil and gas, the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus, other technical and economic factors or revisions and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Pan Orient. Although Pan Orient believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Pan Orient Energy Corp.

For further information: Pan Orient Energy Corp., Jeff Chisholm, President and CEO (located in Bangkok, Thailand), Email: [email protected] - or - Bill Ostlund, Vice President Finance and CFO, Telephone: (403) 294-1770, Extension 233

Related Links

http://www.panorient.ca


Pittsfield Planners Continue Homeless Shelter Hearing

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The Community Development Board continued a hearing for the second time having to do with the development of a homeless shelter in the United Methodist Church.

With new information from the shelter developers Tuesday, the board agreed to once again to continue, feeling not all their questions were answered.

"We have been presented at a late hour with a great deal of responses. Some answer our questions and some do not," Chairwoman Sheila Irvin said. "We may need to go through this much more carefully so we know what the answers are. We got some answers tonight, but they are somewhat piecemeal."

The proposed shelter at 55 Fenn St. would house 40 beds and replace ServiceNet's current facility Barton's Crossing.

The board members first heard the project last month . At that meeting, they heard concerns from abutters and downtown businesses. They also had some questions of their own

One of Downtown Pittsfield Inc.'s main concerns was that representatives were unable to properly meet with the shelter developers to pose questions and air their concerns. Many business owners specifically felt that a homeless shelter downtown would only deter business.

Tuesday, former DPI president Jesse Cook-Dubin said that since the original hearing, multiple meetings were held between the church, ServiceNet, DPI, and businesses. He said although stakeholders were unable to come to a complete agreement, the conversation was productive.

"Everyone agrees that Pittsfield needs a new homeless shelter that is safe and located nearby the services the homeless population needs," he said. "... Everyone is committed to solving the problem."

He went on to request that the board continue the hearing allowing them time to work with ServiceNet to find a different location. He said DPI wants to help ServiceNet find resources to help achieve this.

Branden Huldeen, current president of DPI, said both the shelter developers and the businesses are part of their membership. He said they understand both perspectives.

"While it may seem that these two groups are at odds with each other, they are both composed of equally valued members of DPI," he said. "They all agree there is a need to provide shelter and services to the local homeless population ... we represent parties on both sides."

He said DPI hopes to help "amplify" voices on both sides of the issue to help find a solution.

Jay Sacchetti, a senior vice president at ServiceNet, did go deeper into the project. He said they chose the Fenn Street location because it was the more affordable option that only needed minor changes to become a fully functioning shelter.

He addressed concerns of loitering and said users really only enter and exit the facility during certain times of the day. Many businesses are closed at these times and users never show up all at once. He said there will be a waiting area in the facility.

Sacchetti said staff will keep an eye on loitering and security cameras could be installed.

He said if a resident or potential resident poses a threat to other residents or staff, they are asked to leave. Substance abuse falls in the same zero-tolerance policy. Smoking is allowed but not wherever or whenever the residents want. He said there are opportunities to explore smoking mitigation such as screening on the property or working with DPI to establish designated smoking areas and noted that smoking downtown is a problem in general.

Residents are monitored and will be asked to leave if they do not meet expectations or build up a list of smaller infractions.

Sacchetti said ServiceNet has a good working relationship with the police and other agencies, and is also open to holding regular meetings with DPI to address future concerns.

Board member Elizabeth Herland said she felt optimistic about the process and the downtown community's willingness to find a solution for the homeless population.

"I think the compassion that we have in our community is remarkable," she said. "Everybody wants to see people sheltered, and I appreciate the spirit of that."

But she would prefer to see a management plan and was concerned about security. She advocated for perhaps installing more cameras.

Sacchetti said there would be cameras around the entire perimeter of the church but anything more would be pushing cameras onto city property. He also felt that because the shelter was not open 24 hours a day, it did not need to be monitored 24 hours a day.

Smoking was another point of contention and board member Floriana FitzGerald felt even with screening, smoke could bother adjacent businesses.

Board of Health member Brad Gordon said options are limited with smoking especially when it comes to smoking inside. He did say he felt it was a good opportunity to address the issue downtown.

"We could have a shared response," Gordon said. "Instead of looking at this as a problem, it could be a solution."

There was a quick consensus among the board members that they were not prepared to make a decision that night.

"We can come to an agreement and a path forward that will work for all parties," board member Gary Levante said. "I think it is possible; we just need a little more time. I am not prepared to vote either way."

Gordon said time is limited and there will be a need for this shelter in the coming months. He specifically feared the end of the state's moratorium on evictions.

"The impact really could be catastrophic," he said. "... It is about the folks that are the most vulnerable that are going to need some resources in the next couple of months."

The board agreed to hold a special meeting in early September.
TAMPA, FL / ACCESSWIRE / August 18, 2020 / Generation Income Properties, Inc. (OTCQB:GIPR) ("GIP" or the "Company") today announced its results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020.

Key Second Quarter 2020 Operating and Financial Highlights:

Revenues from operations increased approximately $600 thousand over the prior year quarter to approximately $877 thousand

Portfolio was 100% occupied and all tenants paid contractual rents on time

Approximately $1.0 million of cash remained on hand as of June 30, 2020

Net loss for the quarter was approximately $243 thousand as compared to the prior year quarter of $603 thousand

Core Funds from Operations ("Core FFO") was approximately $135 thousand as compared to a negative Core FFO of approximately $196 thousand in the prior year quarter

Core FFO per share was $0.064 for the current quarter as compared to a negative Core FFO per share of $0.097 in the prior year quarter

Cash distribution of $.0875 per share was authorized for common stockholders

CEO David Sobelman

"In light of current macroeconomic realities, I am particularly pleased that we maintained 100% occupancy and received all rents throughout the second quarter," said founder and CEO David Sobelman. "I believe our focus on tenant quality, strong underlying real estate, and an intelligent acquisition process helped us deliver strong results."

Financial Results

Revenue

Revenues from operations for the three months ended June 30, 2020 increased 216% to $877,604, as compared to $277,912 for the comparable period in 2019 due to three revenue generating properties acquired in September 2019.

Total Expenses

The Company's total expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2020 were $1,120,328, an increase of $239,208 over the quarter ended June 30, 2019 due primarily to increases in depreciation and amortization, interest, and building expenses as the result of the three properties acquired in September 2019, partially offset by nonrecurring costs of $305,000 and $85,000 relating to a stock based payment to an investment bank and a contract termination fee in 2019, respectively.

General, administrative, and organizational ("GAO") expenses for the three months ended June 30, 2020 decreased by $326,910 over the comparable period in 2019 due primarily to the non-recurrence of the above mentioned $305,000 stock based payment to the Company's investment bank.

Net Loss

Net loss for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 was $242,724 and $603,208, respectively. The improvement in net loss was due to increased revenues and decreased GAO expenses offset by increased building expenses, depreciation, amortization, interest expense.

Core Funds From Operations

Core FFO for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 was $134,509 and ($196,444), respectively; a $330,953 increase over the prior year comparable period. Core FFO is a non-GAAP financial measure. A reconciliation of Core FFO to GAAP net income is included in the schedules attached hereto.

Distributions

On June 23, 2020, the Company's Board of Directors authorized a $.0875 per share cash distribution for common stockholders of record as of July 2, 2020. On July 27, 2020, the Company also paid the Non-Controlling Redeemable Interest in the Operating Partnership $.0875 per unit.

Liquidity

As of June 30, 2020, the Company had approximately $1.0 million of cash on hand, total current liabilities (excluding the current portion of the acquired lease intangible liability which consists of accounts payable, accrued expenses, and insurance payable) of approximately $0.3 million, and current mortgage loans due within 12 months totaling $0.4 million.

Important Links

SEC Filings

The Company's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings and corresponding press releases can be found at https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001651721.

Additional Resources

The Company also publishes press releases on the following mediums:

https://gipreit.com/press/

https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GIPR/news

Finally, the Company has undertaken efforts to publish non-compulsory regular stockholder letters at https://gipreit.com/press/.

Company Contact:

Justin Gore - Director of Communications

Generation Income Properties Inc.

Tel (813) 448-1234

jgore@gipreit.com

About Generation Income Properties

Generation Income Properties, Inc., located in Tampa, Florida, is an internally managed real estate investment trust formed to acquire and own, directly and jointly, real estate investments focused on retail, office and industrial net lease properties located primarily in major United States cities, with an emphasis on the major coastal markets. GIP invests primarily in freestanding, single-tenant commercial retail, office and industrial properties.

Additional information about Generation Income Properties, Inc. can be found at the Company's corporate website: www.gipreit.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release, whether or not expressly stated, may contain "forward-looking" statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. It reflects the Company's expectations regarding future events and economic performance and are forward-looking in nature and, accordingly, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control which could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business, financial condition, and results of operations. Some of these risks and uncertainties are identified in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 1-K and its other filings with the SEC, which are available at www.sec.gov. The occurrence of any of these risks and uncertainties could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business, financial condition, and results of operations. For these reasons, among others, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements in this press release. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date hereof.

Generation Income Properties, Inc.

Consolidated Balance Sheet

As of June 30, As of December 31, 2020 2019 (Unaudited) Assets Investment in real estate Property $ 35,642,058 $ 35,462,653 Tenant improvements 482,701 482,701 Acquired lease intangible assets 2,829,382 2,858,250 Less accumulated depreciation and amortization (1,584,917 ) (864,898 ) Total investments 37,369,224 37,938,706 Cash and cash equivalents 837,667 974,365 Restricted cash 184,800 424,000 Deferred Rent asset 59,689 65,102 Prepaid expenses 124,836 78,008 Deferred financing costs 353,955 590,990 Accounts Receivable 74,016 73,848 Escrow deposit and other assets 35,721 10,607 Total Assets $ 39,039,908 $ 40,155,626 Liabilities and Stockholder's Equity Liabilities Accounts payable $ 64,535 $ 82,937 Accrued expenses 200,088 473,545 Acquired lease intangible liability, net 470,395 525,144 Insurance payable 73,270 55,200 Deferred rent liability 131,958 89,599 Note Payable - related party 1,100,000 1,900,000 Mortgage loans, net of unamortized discount of $722,026 and $182,255 at June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively 27,202,684 26,397,547 Total liabilities 29,242,930 29,523,972 Redeemable Non-Controlling Interests 8,198,251 8,198,251 Stockholders' Equity Common stock, $0.01 par value, 100,000,000 shares authorized;

2,100,960 shares issued and outstanding at June 30, 2020 and 2,100,960 at December 31, 2019 21,010 21,010 Additional paid-in capital 4,699,813 4,757,882 Accumulated deficit (3,122,096 ) (2,345,489 ) Total Generation Income Properties, Inc. stockholders' equity 1,598,727 2,433,403 Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity $ 39,039,908 $ 40,155,626

Generation Income Properties, Inc.

Consolidated Statements of Operations (unaudited)

Three Months ended June 30, Six Months ended June 30, 2020 2019 2020 2019 Revenue Rental income $ 877,604 $ 277,912 $ 1,758,242 $ 552,118 Expenses General, administrative and organizational costs 180,688 507,598 422,052 608,398 Building expenses 166,167 22,901 355,628 49,361 Depreciation and amortization 363,001 99,941 720,019 199,715 Interest expense, net 350,163 138,666 726,453 263,087 Other expenses - 85,000 - 85,000 Compensation costs 60,309 27,014 128,002 54,305 Total expenses 1,120,328 881,120 2,352,154 1,259,866 Net Loss $ (242,724 ) $ (603,208 ) $ (593,912 ) $ (707,748 ) Less: Net income attributable to Non-controlling interest 39,851 109,854 182,695 212,995 Net Loss attributable to Generation Income Properties, Inc. $ (282,575 ) $ (713,062 ) $ (776,607 ) $ (920,743 ) Total Weighted Average Shares of Common Shares Outstanding 2,100,960 2,018,182 2,100,960 1,929,467 Basic and Diluted Loss Per Share Attributable to Common Stockholder $ (0.13 ) $ (0.35 ) $ (0.37 ) $ (0.48 ) - -

Generation Income Properties, Inc.

Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (unaudited)

Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 2019 OPERATING ACTIVITIES Net loss $ (593,912) $ (707,748) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to cash used in operating activities Depreciation 514,788 152,755 Amortization of acquired lease intangible assets 205,231 46,960 Amortization of debt issuance costs 77,786 37,233 Amortization of below market leases (54,749 ) (7,062 ) Stock award compensation 47,032 305,965 Changes in operating assets and liabilities Account receivables (168 ) - Other assets (25,114 ) 8,352 Deferred rent asset 5,413 (12,599 ) Prepaid expense (46,828 ) (178,920 ) Accounts payable (49,667 ) 148,966 Accrued expenses 19,994 (121,580 ) Deferred rent liability 42,359 - Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities 142,165 (327,678) CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES: Purchase of land, buildings, other tangible and intangible assets (150,537 ) - Net cash (used in) generated from investing activities (150,537) - CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES: Proceeds from sale of stock - 1,000,000 Mortgage loan borrowings 11,287,500 - Mortgage loan repayments (9,942,592 ) (3,550 ) Mortgage loan repayments - related party (800,000 ) - Deferred financing costs paid in cash (77,851 ) - Stock costs paid in cash - (124,100 ) Debt issuance costs paid in cash (564,857 ) - Insurance financing borrowings 106,084 59,891 Insurance financing repayments (88,014 ) (24,103 ) Distribution on redeemable non-controlling interests (182,695 ) (103,141 ) Dividends paid on common stock (105,101 ) (119,676 ) Net cash generated from (used in) financing activities (367,526) 685,321 Net Increase (Decrease) in Cash (375,898 ) 357,643 Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash - beginning of period 1,398,365 642,132 Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash - end of period $ 1,022,467 $ 999,775 CASH TRANSACTIONS Interest Paid 634,285 218,499 NON-CASH TRANSACTIONS Deferred distribution on redeemable non-controlling interest - 109,854

Core Funds From Operations

Our reported results are presented in accordance with GAAP. We also disclose funds from operations (FFO) and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) both of which are non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these two non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors because they are widely accepted industry measures used by analysts and investors to compare the operating performance of REITs.

FFO and AFFO do not represent cash generated from operating activities and are not necessarily indicative of cash available to fund cash requirements; accordingly, they should not be considered alternatives to net income as a performance measure or cash flows from operations as reported on our statement of cash flows as a liquidity measure and should be considered in addition to, and not in lieu of, GAAP financial measures.

The following table reconciles net income (which we believe is the most comparable GAAP measure) to FFO and AFFO:

We compute FFO in accordance with the definition adopted by the Board of Governors of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, or NAREIT. NAREIT defines FFO as GAAP net income or loss adjusted to exclude extraordinary items (as defined by GAAP), net gain or loss from sales of depreciable real estate assets, impairment write-downs associated with depreciable real estate assets and real estate related depreciation and amortization, including the pro rata share of such adjustments of unconsolidated subsidiaries. To derive AFFO, we modify the NAREIT computation of FFO to include other adjustments to GAAP net income related to non-cash revenues and expenses such as amortization of deferred financing costs, amortization of capitalized lease incentives, above- and below-market lease related intangibles, non-cash stock compensation, and non-cash compensation. Such items may cause short-term fluctuations in net income but have no impact on operating cash flows or long-term operating performance. We use AFFO as one measure of our performance when we formulate corporate goals.

FFO is used by management, investors and analysts to facilitate meaningful comparisons of operating performance between periods and among our peers primarily because it excludes the effect of real estate depreciation and amortization and net gains on sales, which are based on historical costs and implicitly assume that the value of real estate diminishes predictably over time, rather than fluctuating based on existing market conditions. We believe that AFFO is an additional useful supplemental measure for investors to consider because it will help them to better assess our operating performance without the distortions created by other non-cash revenues or expenses. FFO and AFFO may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies.

We also use Core FFO and Core AFFO to adjust for non-capitalized costs incurred by the Company in relation to initial public company status and costs incurred with up-listing to Nasdaq. These costs will typically include non-cash stock compensation, consulting fees to investment banks, consultants for advice for public company status, non-recurring litigation expenses and distribution on redeemable non-controlling interest OP Units. Core FFO and Core AFFO may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies.

SOURCE: Generation Income Properties Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602163/Generation-Income-Properties-Inc-Announces-Second-Quarter-2020-Financial-Results
Ganesh Chaturthi has always been the most awaited and the most enthusiastic festivals. It has been a great occasion for brands to create engagement. Ganesha idols have always been the attraction for people from Lalbagh cha raja to societies Ganpati everyone made sure to have unique idols of Ganesha.

This year Amidist Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions Ganesh Chaturthi is witnessing drop of energy and enthusiasm.

While last year we witnessed some unique and social message concepts of ad campaign this year's focus is on Corona warriors.

Brand Campaign 2020

Tanishq

This film, is conceptualized on the current pandemic, it is an ode to all the Vighnahartas who have come forward and helped us in these troublesome times.

Mankind Pharma

Mankind pharms campaign salutes and pay tribute to cornona warriors for their endless efforts

Munchillious

Munchilicious is all set to welcome the lord of binge-eating with their healthier version of Modak through #MyGranolaModak social media campaign

Brand Campaign 2019

Berger paints

#Paintyourimagination

Tata Motors

Festivals lose their charm without the company of our loved ones tata motors #connecting aspirations celebrated the memories of being together.

Lokmat

Mera bharat Mahan showcased the nature of humanity inpsite of rlegion diffrences
Christi Carras Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Netflix issued an apology Thursday after thousands signed a petition demanding the immediate removal of the controversial French film "Cuties" from the streaming platform.

The movie, about an 11-year-old who rebels against her family and joins a "free-spirited dance crew," is accused in the online campaign of sexualizing young girls "for the viewing pleasure of pedophiles." Originally titled "Mignonnes," the project premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a jury award for directing.

On social media, people are calling Netflixs poster for the movie  which pictures its four preteen stars posing in costumes baring their legs and midriffs  disgusting, upsetting and sick. Netflix has apologized for its promotional materials but there are no plans to scrap the film, which is set to debut globally with a TV-MA rating on Sept. 9.

"We're deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties," Netflix said in a statement Thursday morning. "It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. We've now updated the pictures and description."

The original plot summary for Cuties, preserved via screenshot in the petition, introduced 11-year-old Amy, who becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew and starts to explore her femininity. The Change.org campaign to delete the title had amassed more than 49,000 signatures as of Thursday morning, and Netflixs apology did not go over well with those who believe altering the poster and synopsis is not enough.

In a recent interview with Cineuropa, director Maimouna Doucoure explained the inspiration for "Cuties," which is based in part on her own childhood experiences, as well as those of girls growing up today.

This isnt a health & safety ad, Doucoure told Cineuropa. This is most of all an uncompromising portrait of an 11-year-old girl plunged in a world that imposes a series of dictates on her. It was very important not to judge these girls, but most of all to understand them, to listen to them, to give them a voice, to take into account the complexity of what theyre living through in society, and all of that in parallel with their childhood which is always there, their imaginary, their innocence.

Ok so the Netflix Cuties movie.



I did some research and the director is a French Senegalese Black woman who is pulls from her own experiences as an immigrant and comments on the hyper-sexualization of preadolescent girls.



But look at the original poster vs the Netflix one pic.twitter.com/JVbaa5iueG  {Miggs...?} (@miggsboson) August 20, 2020
Larasatis Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art live auction on Aug. 22 will present 25 artworks of fine art to suit a range of tastes and budgets for sale. All lots go under the hammer from 2:30 p.m. and are available for inspection now. The online preview virtual exhibition allows the audience to navigate their way through digital display rooms and to appreciate the beautiful and diverse array of work by artists from Indonesia, Singapore and Europe. (http://larasati.com/media.php?module=home)

Works in a range of media are offered, including an etching, pencil drawings on paper, ink and color on rice paper, pastels on paper, watercolors on paper, along with works in oil and acrylic paint on canvas. A highlight of the auction are works by Singaporean artists, the renowned Liu Kang (1911-2004) and Cheong Soo Pieng (1917-1983). Both are pioneers of Singaporean art and leaders of the tropical Nanyang style, a term used to characterize the development of Singapore art in the 1950s and 1960s. Other prominent artists are Chen Cheng Mei (1927), a second-generation Singaporean female artist and graduate of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Teng Nee Cheong (1951-2013), a multiple award-winning artist known for his distinctly colorful and exotic aesthetics.

For people wishing to start collecting, the following works are worthy of consideration. Dutchman Auke Sonnega (1910-1963) first visited Bali during the 1930s and traveled throughout the Indonesian archipelago, later settling in Ubud, Bali, in the 1950s. His stylized depictions of the Balinese people and landscape have been compared to the iconic German Walter Spies (1895-1942). Sonnega had a significant influence upon his fellow countryman Arie Smit (1916-2016), convincing him to leave the Dutch colonial army and live out his dream of becoming an artist. Lot 802 Teng Tjin Hwa 1949 and Lot 803 Bali Torso 1950 are pencil drawings on paper that reveal Sonnegas prowess and distinctly fluid lines. Both works come with an estimated value of between Rp 7 million (US$472) and 10 million.

Paul Husner (b.1942) continues the long line of Dutch artists inspired by the vibrant colors and culture of tropical Bali. Four attractive watercolors on paper are available. Lot 804 Sanur Beach, Bali 1995, 27 x 37 cm; Lot 805 Sanur Beach, Bali 1995, 27 x 37 cm; Lot 806 Sumatra Musician 1995, 65 x 50 cm; and Lot 807 Fishermen in Sanur, Bali 1995, 28 x 37 cm all have an estimated value of between Rp 4 million and 6 million.

For intermediate level collectors of Indonesian art, the following paintings by renowned artists are worthy of attention. Lot 809 Balinese Dance 1992, by Arifien Nief, reveals his colorful signature style that delightfully exaggerates the figure and has an estimated price of between Rp 38 million and 48 million. Dadang Christanto (b.1957) is an international artist whose oeuvre includes painting, drawing, performance, sculpture and installations. His most iconic works speak eloquently for the victims of oppression and social injustice during the turbulent history of Indonesia. Lot 814 untitled, 2007, is a mixed media on canvas composition that has an estimated price of between Rp 40 million and 50 million. The Legend from Old Earth, 1992, Lot 816 is an oil on canvas picture by Ugo Untoro (b.1970, Purbalingga, Central Java). It comes with an estimated value of between Rp 18 million and 25 million.

Connoisseurs of Singaporean art will be interested in Lot 810 Balinese Ladies, 1970, by Liu Kang, that captures the colorful ambience of the Balinese culture and landscape. His oil on masonite composition by an artist who during his early years studied in Europe reveals the influence of some of the masters of western painting. It has an estimated price of between Rp 450 million and 550 million. Lot 82, entitled Still Life, 1992, by Cheong Soo Pieng is an ink and color on rice paper study that comes with an estimated price of between Rp 90 million and 120 million.

Paintings that will capture the attention of aficionados of Indonesian art are as follow. Lot 811 Inside a Temple Court, 2005 by Arie Smit has an estimated value of between Rp 220 million and 320 million and is accompanied with a certificate of authenticity from the Neka Art Museum, Bali.

Surabaya-born artist Fadjar Sidik (1930-2004) represented a new aesthetic language of the industrial age and made a significant contribution to the development of modern abstract art in Indonesia. Lot 823, a 65 x 65 cm oil on canvas entitled Dinamika Bidang has an estimated value of between Rp 65 million and 85 million.

Ahmad Sadali (b. Garut, West Java 1924- 1987) first studied at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and then was appointed as a lecturer at ITB. Awarded a scholarship to study fine arts in the United States in 1956, during his academic journey he earned the title of professor. Sadali is a pioneer of Indonesian modern abstract art and became known as a painter with religious Islamic calligraphy nuances and distinct coloration. He was highly productive working in various forms, including sketches, sculptures, murals, interiors and graphics. Lot 825 Symmetry in Violet 1967 is a 62 x 42 cm oil canvas abstract composition with excellent provenance from a private collection in Germany and has an estimated value of between Rp 300 million and 400 million.

The works of iconic Balinese woman artist Murni, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniashi (1966 - 2006), have over the past decade received increasing attention from national and international collectors. There is growing demand for her distinct paintings, which often reveal the darker elements of female experience within a traditional patriarchy, that equates to investment opportunities. Two works are available in this sale, Lot 815 Purnama Berdasi 1995 and Lot 818 Misteri 1998.

Artworks by other popular names in this sale include Willem Gerard Hofker (1902-1981, the Netherlands), Nashar (1928-1994 Indonesia), pioneering Balinese modernist Nyoman Tusan (1933-2002), leading Indonesian contemporary artists Agus Suwage (b.1959) and Entang Wiharso (b.1967) and one of the iconic Javanese painters of the 20th-century Widayat (1919-2002). Lot 822 Laut Dalam by Widayat is a vibrant oil on canvas undersea depiction. It has an estimated price of between Rp 120 and 150 million and comes with a certificate of authenticity from Museum Rudana, Bali.

Potential buyers bidding over the phone, absentee bidders or real-time internet bidders are advised to contact Larasati and enquire about the color reproduction accuracy of the images contained within the online catalogue to ensure that what they wish to purchase can be realistically appraised. The absence of reference to the condition of a lot in the catalogue description does not imply that the lot is free from faults or imperfections, therefore condition reports of the works, outlining the paintings current state and whether they have repairs or over painting are available upon request.

Provenance, the historical data of the works' previous owners, is also important and is provided. An information guide including before the auction, during the auction and after the auction details, including conditions of business, the bidding process, payment, storage and insurance and shipping of the work, is also available. A buyer's premium is payable by the buyer of each lot at a rate of 22 percent of the hammer price of the lot.

The online catalogue, complete with a guide for prospective buyers, is available to the public and should be studied carefully by anyone wishing to participate in this auction.

To comply with COVID19 pandemic regulations, there will be no public viewing days. Viewing will be on-line only and Larasati will provide bidders with any information concerning the lots offered. However, it may be possible for bidders who have already registered for phone or on-line bids as well as those who have placed written/absentee bids to view the artworks physically by appointment. Larasati can only provide a limited number of slots for physical viewing, and it will be on a first-come-first-served basis. By-appointment only physical viewing will not be available a day before auction day and on auction day.

Live bidding in this sale is available by phone or online. (wng) (www.invaluable.com)
By Gina Lee

Investing.com  Oil was up on Friday morning in Asia, looking to end the week with a third straight week of gains boosted by producer efforts to cut output as concerns over the global economic recovery from COVID-19 increase.

Brent oil futures rose 0.33% to $45.05 by 12:19 AM ET (5:19 AM GMT) and WTI futures were up 0.28% to $42.94. Both benchmarks saw losses during the previous session on the back of U.S. data released on Thursday that showed more than one million initial jobless claims during the past week.

Following its joint ministerial monitoring committee meeting on Wednesday, OPEC+ continues to focus on member compliance to agreed cuts, with a particular focus on members who have not done so, who could face production cuts of 2.31 million barrels daily as compensation.

Theyre really focusing on the compliance from OPEC members. Theyve called out Iraq and Nigeria for not complying. Thats all been very good for supporting prices, BetaShares Capital chief investment officer Louis Crous told Reuters.

An OPEC+ internal report said that oil demand is forecast to fall by 9.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2020, a 100,000 drop from its previous forecast.

But the report warned that the demand drop could increase by 11.2 million bpd if a prolonged second wave of COVID-19 hits countries such as the U.S., China, India and Europe in the second part of the year.

My expectation would be demand continues to be quite a bumpy recovery, National Australia Bank (OTC:NABZY) head of commodity research Lachlan Shaw told Reuters.

Some investors predicted that Brent futures could remain near the $45-mark but were pessimistic about a further climb in the short run.

Its difficult to see conviction either way. From a seasonal perspective, youd probably anticipate things to weaken a bit, Shaw added.

Meanwhile, Chinese buyers have reportedly chartered around 19 tankers for September to transport a record order of roughly 37 million barrels of U.S. oil to China. Should the order be placed as planned, it would smash Mays record of 35.2 million barrels, and would be an indication that China is ramping up purchases to meet its commitments under the phase one trade deal between the two countries.
We are pleased to recognize Dr. Ryan Nelson as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson

NeoTract, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE:TFX) focused on addressing unmet needs in the field of urology, today announced that Ryan Nelson, D.O., Michigan Institute of Urology in Utica, MI, has been designated as a UroLift Center of Excellence. The designation recognizes that Dr. Nelson has achieved a high level of training and experience with the UroLift System and demonstrated a commitment to exemplary care for men suffering from symptoms associated with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), also known as enlarged prostate.

Recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines, the FDA-cleared Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to BPH. The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue.

The UroLift Center of Excellence program is designed to highlight urologists who are committed to educating their patients on BPH and the UroLift System as a treatment option and consistently seek to deliver excellent patient outcomes and experiences.

We are pleased to recognize Dr. Ryan Nelson as a UroLift Center of Excellence for his commitment to providing consistent care to BPH patients using the UroLift System treatment, said Dave Amerson, president of the Teleflex Interventional Urology business unit. This achievement has helped many patients experience durable, long- term relief from the burdensome symptoms of BPH while preserving sexual function*1,2.

Over 40 million men in the United States are affected by BPH, a condition that occurs when the prostate gland that surrounds the male urethra becomes enlarged with advancing age and begins to obstruct the urinary system. Symptoms of BPH often include interrupted sleep and urinary problems and can cause loss of productivity, depression and decreased quality of life.

Medication is often the first-line therapy for enlarged prostate, but relief can be inadequate and temporary. Side effects of medication treatment can include sexual dysfunction, dizziness and headaches, prompting many patients to quit using the drugs. For these patients, the classic alternative is surgery that cuts, heats or removes prostate tissue to open the blocked urethra. While current surgical options can be very effective in relieving symptoms, they can also leave patients with permanent side effects such as urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and retrograde ejaculation.

About the UroLift System

The FDA-cleared UroLift System is a proven, minimally invasive technology for treating lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The UroLift permanent implants, delivered during a minimally invasive transurethral outpatient procedure, relieve prostate obstruction and open the urethra directly without cutting, heating, or removing prostate tissue. Clinical data from a pivotal 206-patient randomized controlled study showed that patients with enlarged prostate receiving UroLift implants reported rapid and durable symptomatic and urinary flow rate improvement without compromising sexual function*1,2. Patients also experienced a significant improvement in quality of life. Over 100,000 men have been treated with the UroLift System in the U.S. Most common adverse events reported include hematuria, dysuria, micturition urgency, pelvic pain, and urge incontinence. Most symptoms were mild to moderate in severity and resolved within two to four weeks after the procedure. The Prostatic Urethral Lift procedure using the UroLift System is recommended for the treatment of BPH in both the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology clinical guidelines. The UroLift System is available in the U.S., Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico and South Korea. Learn more at http://www.UroLift.com.

About NeoTract | Teleflex Interventional Urology

A wholly owned subsidiary of Teleflex Incorporated, the Interventional Urology Business Unit is dedicated to developing innovative, minimally invasive and clinically effective devices that address unmet needs in the field of urology. Our initial focus is on improving the standard of care for patients with BPH using the UroLift System, a minimally invasive permanent implant system that treats symptoms while preserving normal sexual function*1,2. Learn more at http://www.NeoTract.com.

About Teleflex Incorporated

Teleflex is a global provider of medical technologies designed to improve the health and quality of peoples lives. We apply purpose driven innovation  a relentless pursuit of identifying unmet clinical needs  to benefit patients and healthcare providers. Our portfolio is diverse, with solutions in the fields of vascular and interventional access, surgical, anesthesia, cardiac care, urology, emergency medicine and respiratory care. Teleflex employees worldwide are united in the understanding that what we do every day makes a difference. For more information, please visit http://www.teleflex.com.

Teleflex is the home of Arrow, Deknatel, Hudson RCI, LMA, Pilling, Rusch, UroLift and Weck  trusted brands united by a common sense of purpose

# # #

For Teleflex Incorporated: Jake Elguicze, 610.948.2836

Treasurer and Vice President, Investor Relations

Media:

Nicole Osmer, 650.454.0504

nicole@healthandcommerce.com

*No instances of new, sustained erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction

1. Roehrborn, J Urology 2013 LIFT Study

2. McVary, J Sex Med 2016

MAC00968-01 Rev A
21.08.2020 LISTEN

Immediate past Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, (NPP), Alhaji Ibrahim Muntala has appealed to Ghanaians and the people of the Upper East Region especially, to give the government another chance to continue the works it has started over the past three and half years.

According to him, the Upper East Region has had a fair share of developmental projects from this government and believes that given another opportunity, the government will do more.

Alhaji Ibrahim Muntala believes that the manifesto the New Patriotic Party will be unveiling on August 22, will be one that majority of Ghanaians will readily accept and associate themselves with, as the party gears up for election 2020.

Many of the projects this government started in the Bawku area for example, are near completion and am sure that the 2020 manifesto will still have other initiatives that the Upper East Region and the various districts and municipalities will all benefit from.

Alhaji Muntala was speaking with the Daily Guide in a interview, ahead of the launch of the New Patriotic Partys 2020 manifesto.

Even though other areas in the region are also benefiting from this government, I will like to talk about what is happening in Bawku. I cannot mention all, but the few that come to mind include a 3-unit classroom block for the Manga primary, 20 number lockable stores at Bawku Central Market. There is also a 2 number 4-bedroom Nurses accommodation in Bawku, there is also a 15 number boreholes across the Bawku Municipality, as well as supply of dual desks to schools and extension of electricity power to communities that hitherto had no light, despite the presence of electricity poles for years.

There are other projects being funded by the Northern Development Authority in the area of health, education and water in the region.

Alhaji Muntala has called on the regional executives of the party to extend invitation to other people that are willing to contribute in any way towards the partys campaign for victory in 2020.

Usually as executives, there is bound to be this feeling that the people voted for you to work so you must work. I agree, but if they share the burden for others to help, the outcome will be better than just a few people doing all the work.

----Daily Guide
Advocates say prisons and jails need to release more inmates to ensure proper social distancing. Protesters rallied in Philadelphia this April to make that demand. Read more

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HARRISBURG  A state task force is calling on the legislature to give corrections and parole officials greater flexibility to release incarcerated people during declared disasters like the coronavirus pandemic.

The recommendation, part of a broader report on COVID-19s disproportionate effect on communities of color, addresses a temporary reprieve program established by Gov. Tom Wolf that has released under 200 state inmates  a fraction of what advocates say is needed.

Though well-intentioned, the report states, many within the social justice and medical communities have noted that eligibility requirements for the program were too stringent and did not provide ... officials with much discretion to grant relief to inmates exhibiting a true medical necessity.

Still, advocates say the task force largely failed to tackle the real-time challenges faced by people who are incarcerated inside Pennsylvanias prisons and jails  a group that is overwhelmingly people of color, and particularly at risk because of their close quarters.

Wolf tapped Lt. Gov. John Fetterman to lead the group in April after reports across the nation showed Black and brown communities were disproportionately affected by the virus, both in hospital settings as well as economically. In Pennsylvania, 21% of people who have died from COVID-19 were Black, while Black people make up just 12% of the states population.

That same month, Wolf established a temporary reprieve program for certain non-violent inmates aimed at reducing the prison population to avoid potentially deadly outbreaks. At the moment, however, the state is reporting just 132 current releases through reprieves, even though the states prisons remain under modified lockdowns that dont allow for in-person visitation.

Overall, the state corrections department was able to reduce its prison population by more than 3,400 inmates between March and late June, in part, by expediting the parole and release processes in certain cases.

Advocates for incarcerated people and community leaders hoped the task force would address ongoing issues that have been well-reported inside corrections facilities, such as the lack of masks or cleaning supplies, poor social distancing due to overcrowding, limited access to quality health care, and an absence of widespread testing.

Instead, the reports Criminal Justice section recommended changing legislation on drivers license suspensions and criminal records, as well as moving the commutation process online.

These proposals are not the primary issues to deal with if you want to address racial disparities and the spread of COVID in Pennsylvanias criminal justice system, said Claire Shubik-Richards, director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the states unofficial ombudsman for prisoners and their families.

Prisons and jails continue to be hotspots for the virus spread. The Lancaster County Prison has experienced a recent surge in cases, while Dauphin County Prisons case count nearly doubled at the beginning of July.

Inside the states prisons, hundreds of inmates and staff have tested positive for COVID-19, and 11 incarcerated people have died. The state corrections and health departments are not tracking infections inside these facilities by race.

Shubik-Richards said the Pa. Prison Society was not consulted by the task force. If it had been, she said she would have pointed to a need for more testing of inmates when an incarcerated person or staff member tests positive.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released this month showed that prisons and jails that conducted mass testing found 12 times as many cases compared to those that did only symptomatic-based tests. The report recommended facilities conduct tests of asymptomatic inmates as well as reduce jailed populations to keep the virus from spreading.

Despite those recommendations, which have also been repeated for months by prisoners rights groups, the Department of Corrections has been hesitant to pursue mass testing. With a current population of more than 40,000 inmates, the department has administered 11,000 tests statewide.

Only a handful of counties have done mass testing of their inmates, including Dauphin, Fayette, and Montgomery.

Board of Pardons Secretary Brandon Flood, who helped author the section on criminal justice, said the Department of Corrections was involved in the report, while county jails did not participate in the task forces meetings or calls, despite the efforts of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania to get them involved.

Ken Kroski, director of media relations for the association, said counties were overburdened at the time of Floods request attempting to manage their jail populations. He said the lack of participation should not be interpreted as avoiding a focus on the disparate impact of COVID-19 on minority populations.

Flood said that the measures included in the equity report are ones that could have a significant effect on people of color who have been involved in the criminal justice system. He pointed to a proposal that calls on the legislature to make retroactive a law that allowed people who committed offenses that didnt involve a vehicle to keep their drivers licenses.

Its important to be able to have your own vehicle to go to some of the testing sites that may be out of the way, out of a mass transit route, going to a physician if you have symptoms, he said.

But with efforts to release vulnerable inmates coming up short, the report should have included  at a minimum  a proposal to significantly reduce the incarcerated population now, said Bret Grote, legal director of the Abolitionist Law Center in Pittsburgh: Jails and prisons do not permit social distancing.

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MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine government filed a diplomatic protest after Chinese forces seized fishing equipment set up by Filipinos in a disputed shoal in their latest territorial spat in the South China Sea.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said in a statement Thursday night that the Philippines also resolutely objected to China continuing to issue radio challenges to Philippine aircraft patrolling over the disputed waters.

A Chinese government spokesperson responded Friday that its coast guard was enforcing the law in Chinese waters, and that the Philippine aircraft had harmed Chinas sovereignty and threatened its security.

China urges the Philippines to immediately stop its illegal and provocative activities, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing in Beijing.

The Philippine government has protested Chinas increasingly aggressive actions in the contested sea despite a dramatic improvement in relations under President Rodrigo Duterte, who has nurtured friendly ties with Beijing while often criticizing the United States, which has raised alarm over his deadly anti-drug crackdown.

The Philippine foreign affairs department did not immediately provide other details of what it said was the Chinese coast guards illegal confiscation of the fishing equipment. The devices, locally called payaos, were seized in May after they had been set up by Filipino fishermen in disputed Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippine province of Zambales.

China seized the shoal after a tense sea standoff in 2012, and the Philippines brought its disputes to international arbitration the following year. The tribunal in 2016 invalidated Chinas claims to virtually the entire South China Sea, but Beijing continues to ignore and defy the decision.

Radio warnings by Chinese forces against Philippine air force patrol aircraft have increased around missile-protected Chinese artificial islands, Philippine officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused China of taking advantage of the intense preoccupation of governments with the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.

Last month, the U.S. government rejected nearly all of Beijings South China Sea claims and in effect sided with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei in each of their territorial spats with Beijing. China responded by saying the U.S. was trying to sow discord and was meddling in an Asian dispute to flex its muscles and incite a confrontation.

Separately, Manila city officials said they have closed four stores selling Chinese beauty products with labels that identified the Philippine capital as a province of China. They accused the stores of misrepresentation and violating other business regulations.

Manila Mayor Francisco Isko Moreno has taken steps to have two Chinese businessmen associated with the beauty products investigated and deported.

This is unacceptable, Moreno said, vowing he would not allow the countrys sovereignty to be disparaged. Im not a governor of China.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this story.
Will the Taliban takeover of Kabul play out in Kashmir?

Wang, Qureshi discuss Kashmir, progress on CPEC projects during strategic dialogue

International

oi-Deepika S

Beijing, Aug 21: The foreign ministers of China and Pakistan held their 2nd annual strategic dialogue on Friday during which they discussed ways to enhance their all-weather bilateral ties, the Kashmir issue, progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Afghan peace process.

Billed as "highly relevant" and "very important" by both the countries ahead of the meeting held in the southern Chinese island resort of Hainan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi discussed a host of bilateral, regional and international issues.

A joint statement issued at the end of the meeting said that "both sides underlined that a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous South Asia was in common interest of all parties. Parties need to settle disputes and issues in the region through dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect".

"The Pakistani side briefed the Chinese side on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, including its concerns, position and current urgent issues", it said.

LAC disengagement: 'China not serious, looking for face-saving exit'

"The Chinese side reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between India and Pakistan, which is an objective fact, and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully and properly through the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation", the joint press release said.

India has been maintaining that China has no locus standi in commenting on Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi has previously told Beijing that the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir "has been, is and shall continue to be an integral part of India."

Earlier this month, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the issues pertaining to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir were solely an internal matter of India.

"As on such previous occasions, this attempt too met with little support from the international community. We firmly reject China's interference in our internal affairs and urge it to draw proper conclusions from such infructuous attempts," the MEA said in a statement in New Delhi after China initiated a discussion in the UN Security Council on Jammu and Kashmir.

Ahead of the meeting between Wang and Qureshi, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian told the media here on Thursday that "this time the strategic dialogue is highly relevant and the two sides will take the opportunity to discuss anti-epidemic cooperation, bilateral ties and the regional and international issues of mutual interest".

Before leaving for Hainan, Qureshi told the media in Islamabad that "I am leaving on a very important visit to China. I had a discussion with the prime minister regarding this visit yesterday. My delegation will represent the stance of the political and military leadership of the country".

The meeting took place amid reports of crisis in Pakistan-Saudi Arabia relations which were regarded as the bedrock of Islamabad's foreign policy for decades.

Qureshi left for Hainan after the return of Pakistan Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa from Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with senior officials on the state of relations between Riyadh and Islamabad.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said in an interview on Wednesday that Pakistan's future was linked to China as Beijing defended Pakistan in all difficult times. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping would visit Pakistan in the winter.

Wang and Qureshi reiterated that the enduring China-Pakistan all-weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership is beneficial to international and regional peace and stability, and serves the mutual security and development interests of both countries as well as of international community and regional countries.

On Afghanistan, the joint statement said both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation on the Afghan issue and appreciated the efforts made by Afghan government and the Taliban to initiate the Intra-Afghan Negotiations.

"China appreciated Pakistan's positive contribution to the Afghan peace process and efforts for promoting peace and stability in the region and beyond", it said.

Both sides agreed on continuing their firm support on issues concerning each other''s core national interests.

"The Chinese side reiterated that Pakistan and China are iron brothers and Pakistan remains China's staunchest partner in the region and that China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence."

Beijing also said it supported Islamabad independently choosing a development path based on its national conditions, striving for a better external security environment and playing a more constructive role on international and regional affairs, the release said.

"The Pakistani side appreciated China for standing together with Pakistan in safeguarding its national security and sovereignty, and reaffirmed its firm support to China on affairs concerning China''s core interests and issues of major concern, such as those related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong", it said.

On the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) both sides have underscored that it has entered the new phase of "high-quality development, and has played and will continue to play an important role in supporting Pakistan to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and achieve greater development".

The two sides will continue to firmly advance the construction of the CPEC, ensure in-time completion of those projects under construction, focus on economic and social development, job creation and improvement of people's livelihood, and further strengthen cooperation in Specialised Economic Zones, industrial relocation, science and technology, medical and health, human resources training, poverty alleviation, and agriculture etc, it said.

India has protested to China over the CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Palestinian militants fired 12 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip overnight, nine of which were intercepted, and Israel responded with three airstrikes on targets linked to the territory's militant Hamas rulers, the Israeli occupation army said early Friday.

It was the most serious exchange of fire along the Gaza frontier in months, but there were no reports of casualties. Police said buildings and vehicles in Israel were damaged, and that bomb-disposal units had been dispatched to pick up shrapnel and rocket parts.

In recent weeks, groups affiliated with Hamas have launched incendiary balloons into Israel, igniting farmland in a bid to pressure Israel to ease the blockade it imposed on Gaza when the Islamic militants seized power in 2007. The rocket fire marks a significant escalation.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and several smaller battles over the last 13 years. Neither side is believed to be seeking war, but any casualties could ignite a wider conflict.

``We will not stand by while Hamas is out of control,'' Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement. The military ``will respond with force and determination, sortie after sortie, and will continue even if it requires patience and time.''

Israel has closed Gaza's only commercial crossing, causing the territory's sole power plant to shut down for lack of fuel and limiting the territory's 2 million residents to around four hours of electricity a day. Israel has also banned fishing in Gaza's coastal waters, measures it says are in response to the incendiary balloons.

Egyptian mediators were in Gaza earlier this week to try and shore up an informal truce but left without announcing any progress. Israel has allowed the Gulf nation of Qatar to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza in recent years to keep the economy from collapsing and preserve calm.

The latest exchange of fire began late Thursday when militants fired two rockets that landed near the security fence. A few hours later, a volley of three rockets was intercepted by Israeli missile defenses. Another seven rockets were fired early Friday, six of which were shot down.

The Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes targeting Hamas military infrastructure, including a compound used to manufacture rocket ammunition, in response.

It was the most serious cross-border exchange since February, when the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group fired around 80 rockets into Israel after one of its fighters was killed near the border while allegedly planting explosives. Israel struck dozens of targets across the territory.

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They came in the dead of night; no one saw them and nobody knew they were there. Moments later, the Japanese ninja museum was missing a safe full of cash.

Under cover of darkness, thieves vanished with the 150-kilogramme (330-pound) strongbox containing around $9,500, paid as admission fees to the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in central Japan.

The museum is dedicated to the legend of the ninja -- the covert martial arts masters and agents of sabotage who prowled the shadows in feudal times, and were famous for secrecy and stealth.

But police called to investigate the crime found that the culprits had been less than subtle -- having forced their way into the museum office with a crowbar, Kyodo News agency reported.

The safe, which was stolen in the early hours of Monday, contained takings from around 1,100 weekend visitors, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported.

The museum, in Iga, features a traditional ninja house and offers interactive experiences, allowing visitors to learn about ninja skills, throw star-shaped weapons, and watch ninja shows.

Iga, which is 350 kilometres (220 miles) southwest of Tokyo, is home to one of the two most famous ninja clans.

The city's Mie University set up the world's first research centre devoted to ninja in 2017, and opened a graduate course a year later.

kh/sah/hg
SAN DIEGO: U.S. Navy intelligence specialist Colleen Grace was asleep on a remote air base in Iraq in 2019 when she was woken up by knocking on the door next to her room, and then a voice she recognized.

The voice belonged to a Navy corpsman she knew. He was upset and speaking loudly to the Army colonel who lived next door. Grace heard the corpsman say that a sailor who attended a Fourth of July barbecue had just been raped by a member of the Navy SEAL platoon on the base. The corpsman asked the colonel what to do because the victim was afraid that if she reported the incident, retribution would follow.

And thats real, Grace heard Hospitalman First Class Gustavo Llerenes tell Col. Thomas Collins, a physicians assistant with the Florida National Guard. Its a good ol boys network.

She said she heard Collins urge Llerenes to keep his voice down, saying the walls between the rooms were thin.

Grace, who could no longer hear the conversation between medical professionals, looked down at her phone to check the time. Just then Grace noticed a missed text from a friend asking her to come over. Urgent, the message read.

When Grace got to her friends room around 1:50 a.m., she found the sailor curled up in her bed. A giant black bruise marred her jawline. Several other marks lined her neck. It was then that Grace realized the overheard conversation about a rape was about her friend.

Grace said her friend told her the sex started out consensual in the SEALs room but then he started biting and choking her. Her friend told her that at one point she thought what is he going to do with my body when he kills me? because she said he was strangling her so hard she couldnt breathe.

Grace gingerly asked her if it would be OK to photograph her injuries. She said she lifted her friends shirt to find more bruises on her breast, a shoulder, her stomach.

Grace sent the photos to her friends phone, and then hugged her and cried, unsure of what would happen next.

But she and her friend would not stay silent.

Within weeks, the entire Foxtrot platoon of SEAL Team 7, known as Trident 1726, was sent home early to San Diego. It was an extremely rare move to cut short the mission of a unit that was there to combat remnants of ISIS. Navy officials have given few details other than to say there was an alleged sexual assault and drinking at a Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq in 2019 in violation of Navy rules barring deployed troops from consuming alcohol.

The story of the platoon being pulled from Iraq has been previously reported, but documents obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with nearly a dozen people give the first in-depth view into what led to the rare recall. The documents and interviews show that women deployed with the SEALs say they were ogled and sexually harassed during the deployment. Records obtained by the AP from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service also reveal a previously unknown reported allegation of sexual misconduct against the SEAL platoon chief, Special Warfare Operator Chief Nicholas Olson, two days before the Fourth of July barbecue. Olson denies any wrongdoing.

The platoon was withdrawn after the Navy made an unusually public push to strengthen order and discipline in its secretive elite force amid a series of scandals involving SEALs. The misconduct has included cocaine use and tampering of drug tests by members of SEAL Team 10 based in Virginia, and last years conviction of Navy SEAL Adam Matthews, who was sentenced to one year in military prison for his role in the 2017 hazing-related death of an Army Green Beret in Africa.

The Navy fired three SEAL leaders in the aftermath of the alleged rape on the Iraq air base and charged an enlisted SEAL with sexual assault, aggravated assault via strangulation and assault by battery for allegedly biting the victim on the face, among other counts, according to his charge sheet. He faces a court-martial in November. A hearing in the case will be held Friday at Naval Base San Diego.

Jeremiah Sullivan, the lawyer for the SEAL, said he is innocent and we look forward to trying his case in a court of law." The SEAL, who was charged Dec. 30, filed a counter claim in February against the sailor alleging she sexually assaulted him, taking advantage of him when he was incapacitated."

AP is not naming the SEAL despite his criminal charges nor the sailor because they both say they were victims of sexual abuse and AP has a policy of not identifying victims unless they choose to be.

Grace is the first service member to come forward to talk about what happened at Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq. She spoke to the AP in an exclusive interview, detailing what she witnessed that night, describing what she said were attempts by Olson, the platoon chief, to stop the alleged sexual assault from being reported, and revealing other misconduct towards another female sailor working with the SEAL platoon during the 2019 deployment to Anbar Province.

AP spoke to other service members on the deployment who asked not to be named or quoted for fear it could jeopardize their military careers. The sailor who reported being sexually assaulted on July 4, 2019, declined to be interviewed. Llerenes, the Navy corpsman, also declined to be interviewed for this story. Multiple attempts were made to connect with Col. Collins but were unsuccessful.

The drinking at the Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq and the alleged sexual assault that same night came only two days after the acquittal of Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher, who was accused by his platoon members of killing a captive Islamic State fighter and shooting civilians during a deployment to Iraq in 2017. Gallagher was also a member of SEAL Team 7 in Iraq but with a different platoon and under different leadership.

Gallagher who was convicted of a single charge for posing with the dead teen militants body for a picture got support from President Donald Trump, who prevented the military from taking disciplinary action against the former SEAL, pitting the commander-in-chief against the Navys top brass.

The Fourth of July incident led to a second ethics review of Americas commando forces in a year. The review by the Special Operations Command found a problematic culture that overemphasized combat and put troops at times far from supervision, opening the door to inappropriate behavior.

Navy SEAL Capt. Todd Perry, the commander of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Iraq in 2019, blamed the Gallagher Effect, a term coined by leadership to denote the corrosive influence on a platoon such as the one Gallaghers behavior had on order and discipline.

It only took one bad platoon chief to influence the entire platoon, that the no-drinking rule did not apply to them and that the brotherhood was more important than the Navy just as Gallagher was able to do with the dishonorable members of his platoon during his deployment in 2017, Capt. Perry stated in an interview with an Army officer investigating the Fourth of July incident, according to military records obtained by AP. During the interview in Baghdad on July 29, 2019, Perry made no mention of any sexual assault allegations.

-

About a dozen female service members were attached to the SEAL platoon during a six-month deployment to Iraq that began in March of 2019.

On the air base, Grace and the other service members who supported Special Operations Task Force-West, the unit responsible for missions inside Anbar Province, Iraq, lived at Camp Fenin while the SEALs stayed at Camp Freiwald, about a 10-minute walk away.

The deployment Graces first with the SEALs was slow, she said. Others who had deployed previously to Iraq told her they had never seen it so quiet. She was asked to identify ISIS targets for the SEALs in an area that had been largely untouched for the past nine months.

Grace said the women worked hard to earn the respect of the SEALs. Were in there 18 hours a day. We wanted their respect. We were doing good work for these guys," she said.

But Grace said the intelligence staff was under a lot of pressure from the SEALs to do more. People were itching to get outside the wire at every opportunity, but not a lot of information was coming in that they could act on, Grace said.

Then she said she started receiving text messages from Olson, the platoon chief, late at night that were not work-related. At first, she thought it was because he thought highly of her work.

After Id been invited over to that side of the camp to have drinks on multiple occasions, I was like this is inappropriate, and thats kind of when he and I stopped speaking, Grace said.

The Fourth of July was a holiday and for some of the special operators, there was even more reason to pop open a bottle with the military jury in San Diego acquitting Gallagher, ending a war crimes case that had tarnished the commando forces image.

Grace said only two days earlier, one of her friends had knocked on her door crying and said Olson exposed himself to her after they met at a makeshift lounge on Camp Freiwald.

According to a July 16, 2019, report of the incident by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a male, whose name was redacted, met a female to talk privately on July 2. He told her how all of the team wants to sleep with you, and we all talked about who will be the first one to do it.

The male then reached into his pants and exposing his penis, grabbed her from behind her neck and pulled her toward his groin area, according to the report. Afterwards, the male drove the woman to a base cafeteria and asked her to walk back alone to her room so no one would see them together. Later, the woman received a text from the man apologizing for his behavior. The AP was able to confirm the incident involved Olson and a sailor through interviews with service members on the deployment.

Grace said her friend told her that Olson also said how everyone had noticed the nipples poking through the T-shirts of the female sailors during their daily briefings. She added that her friend said there were other vile comments. Olsons lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said his client denies making any inappropriate comments.

I feel violated on her behalf, Grace said. But also like wow, we are not respected. We are not members of the team. We are pieces of meat that these people ogle.

Parlatore, who also represented Gallagher, said the July 2 allegation is false and was made by an intelligence specialist who held back information necessary to kill ISIS.

These individuals have the motivation to lie about my client, Parlatore said.

The victim signed a statement on July 13, 2019, saying she did not wish to participate in the investigation. In the signed statement, obtained by AP, it states she understood the chances of the suspect being brought to justice would be greatly reduced without her assistance. The case was closed.

The woman told Grace she did not want to report Olson for exposing himself to her on July 2 because she was concerned it would hurt her career.

She was tough as nails and she didnt want anyone to know that anything affected her ever, Grace said.

After the alleged incident with Olson, the woman told Grace that she would only go to the barbecue for a short while, and she wasnt going alone. With her friends off to celebrate and the night to herself, Grace face-timed with her family in Michigan, watched Netflix, and then fell asleep.

Hours later, Grace was woken up by the knocking and rushed to help another friend, who said she had just been raped. The Navy corpsman and the female sailor who had been assaulted two days earlier were consoling the victim when Grace got to her room. They told Grace that Olson had stopped outside her room twice that night and warned that everyone at the barbecue will get into trouble if the second woman reported the rape, Grace said.

Parlatore, Olsons attorney, denies that the SEAL chief tried to stop anyone from reporting the rape.

The woman followed the advice of doctors on base who told her she would need to go to Baghdad to be examined and report the July 4 rape. She was told to not take anything off and put her uniform pants over what she already had on.

Grace rode with her in an ambulance to where a helicopter was waiting.

At about 4:25 a.m., Grace hugged her friend, who boarded the aircraft, and then returned to her room.

I was a wreck, so of course I called my mom, Grace said. She told me to block my door, have my gun by my bed and write everything down.

After the Fourth of July, Grace said she could no longer stay silent about the July 2 assault, even though the woman who told her about the incident with Olson was adamant that I dont tell, but I had to. I felt a duty. Her privacy mattered less because our other friend was raped.

Her only regret, Grace said, is she did not take notes July 2 like she did following the Fourth of July when she had the benefit of hindsight and went straight to my computer and typed everything up that I could remember, dates, times, who I talked to, all of it.

Grace said her work environment worsened after the Fourth of July barbecue.

She went back to work hours after seeing her friend off. No one mentioned why a member of the intelligence staff was not at her desk, Grace said.

On July 8, Grace grew concerned that the Navy would try to cover up things and wrote to U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, relaying her detailed notes and naming everyone she knew was involved that night. She told the California Democrat that Olson was sure he would have the power to convince her friend not to report the July 4 assault and that she was concerned that more than 24 hours had passed before the crime scene the enlisted SEALs room was secured.

I said to myself, if they try (to) cover this incident up, Ill tell the New York Times exactly how Eddie Gallaghers old unit is doing things, Grace wrote. Perhaps I should have more faith in my Chain of Command, and I pray that I am not overreacting. However, the more that I think about it, the more I see it is not totally outside the realm of possibility that higher-level leadership will get involved in order to ensure that this quietly disappears.

Almost a week would go by before it was brought up by the commanding officer, Cmdr. Edward Mason, of SEAL Team 7, who visited the base to discuss it on July 10.

It was nice to hear someone finally acknowledge that something had happened, Grace said.

Mason ordered the enlisted SEAL to be examined by a bio forensics specialist, his room swept for evidence, and his weapons locked up. He also had the SEAL and Olson sent home.

On July 11, investigators arrived in Iraq. Two weeks later the entire platoon was sent home after members refused to cooperate with the investigation without having a lawyer present, according to a person who spoke to members of the team. The person, who asked not to be named, said the SEALs were perceived guilty from the start.

Some of the SEALs blamed the female Navy sailors for the interruption in the mission, and the tension made it difficult to do their job effectively, Grace said.

We were ostracized and thats a very difficult position to be in when youre trying to feed people mission information, she said. We were treated like pariahs after the July 4th thing, you know, because we were the people that had lied  so that the team would go home.

In video conferences, Navy brass gave stern warnings that the SEAL teams cannot have any more bad press, Grace said.

Olson was reprimanded and has since lost his Trident pin, the symbol of his membership in the SEALs. Parlatore said the Navy cited his platoons drinking and the July 2 allegation. He is appealing the decision. The Naval Special Warfare Command declined to comment due to pending litigation.

The Navys top SEAL, Rear Adm. Collin Green, fired Mason, Command Master Chief Hugh Spangler, and Navy SEAL Lt. Cmdr. Luke Im, saying their leadership failures led to a breakdown of order and discipline within two units in Iraq.

Mason and Spangler filed a complaint with the Department of Defense Inspector General to demand the independent agency investigate the firings.

Both men, who have since retired, said in the complaint that they were being used as scapegoats because Green was upset over Navy prosecutors losing the Gallagher case. They accused Navy leadership of putting the SEALs at risk when they pulled the platoon immediately out of Iraq.

The inspector general determined there was insufficient evidence from the complaint to open an investigation, said Dwerna Allen, an agency spokeswoman.

Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, supports Greens actions, his spokesman Cmdr. Nate Christensen said. Green has made changes and taken a back to basics leadership approach to ensure that his community fully demonstrates both professional competency and character in all they do."

Grace said she underwent therapy because of what happened in Iraq. She left the Navy in February.

It literally broke my heart because these were people that were my heroes, she said of the SEALs. It was going to be the highlight of my career, and what do I learn? That these people would rather, you know, have each others backs and cover up a sexual assault.

_____

LaPorta reported from Delray Beach, Florida.

_____

Contact APs global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.

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
People watching a performance from a swimming pool in Wuhan, China, on Saturday. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese state media hit back at criticism of a busy music festival at a water park in the city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Global Times outlet called the reactions "sour grapes" and took the chance to celebrate the apparent success of Wuhan's lockdown.

Wuhan went under the world's first coronavirus lockdown  and also one of its strictest.

Hubei  the region where Wuhan is the capital  has not recorded any domestically transmitted cases since mid-May.

Most countries that have largely controlled their outbreaks still insist on face coverings and social distancing, both of which were absent in footage from the party.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Chinese state media dismissed foreign social-media criticism of a massive party in the city of Wuhan as "sour grapes" from places unable to get their COVID-19 outbreaks under control.

Thousands gathered in a water park in the city for an electronic music festival over the weekend, with photos of the event showing closely packed crowds and no face coverings.

AFP news agency (@AFP) August 18, 2020

The event received global media attention, with some reports calling the images "shocking" and noting the lack of distancing.

Social-media users compared the scenes with the starkly different situation in many other nations, with even countries that have got their coronavirus outbreaks under control still banning large gatherings while also enforcing other measures meant to limit infection.

The Global Times, a combative tabloid controlled by the Chinese state, noted the criticism and pushed back.

Partygoers watching the music performance at Wuhan's Maya Beach Water Park on Saturday. STR/AFP/Getty Images

It said the reaction "exposed overseas 'sour grapes' and also prompted some to reflect on epidemic control in their own countries."

And it countered that many viewed the party as a sign Wuhan's lockdown and other steps to control the virus had worked, allowing things to return closer to normal there.

Story continues

Chinese authorities say there have been no domestically transmitted cases of the coronavirus in Hubei, the province of which Wuhan is the capital, since mid-May.

People at Saturday's performance. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Some people highlighted the contrast between life in Wuhan and much of the rest of the world, while others appeared angry that the city where the virus was first recorded was experiencing normality.

Stacey  #KBF  Animal lover (@Love_Nature2020) August 20, 2020

Wuhan was the first place to record cases of the novel coronavirus, the virus that causes COVID-19. It was the first city in the world to be put under lockdown in an attempt to stop the virus' spread.

The city's 11 million residents were put into an unprecedented 76-day lockdown that ended April 7. The lockdown was one of the strictest implemented anywhere in the world, with people mostly required to stay in their homes.

Wuhan has not gone back into a full lockdown since, and normal life has largely resumed. But it has recorded localized outbreaks that meant some restrictions were introduced and some areas were locked down again.

A deserted Wuhan as Chinese officials put the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak on lockdown earlier this year. Getty Images

Wuhan's lockdown began when only a handful of countries had recorded their first coronavirus cases, and there were few signs the virus would result in a pandemic.

By the time Wuhan's lockdown was lifted, many countries had started to battle devastating outbreaks and were under lockdown themselves.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 15:44:16|Editor: huaxia

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ZHENGZHOU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A flock of yellow-breasted buntings, a critically endangered species, were recently sighted in central China's Henan Province, according to a local nature reserve.

Researchers at the administration center of Mengjin County of the Yellow River national nature reserve saw more than 80 yellow-breasted buntings in a rice field during a monitoring session.

The once-abundant species was classified as least concerned (LC) according to IUCN Red List criteria prior to 2004. However, it was uplisted to critically endangered in 2017 because of overhunting.

Thanks to the intensified wildlife conservation efforts and improvement of ecosystem in recent years, the number of wild birds has surged in the region. Steppe eagles, flamingos and mute swans have been spotted for the first time in the wetland. Enditem
The families of 35 Egyptian fishermen have been living in fear for the past nine months, not knowing the fate of their relatives who were captured by the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) while working in Libyan territorial waters, said the head of the Egyptian fishermen's union, Ahmad Nassar.

In a phone call with Al-Monitor, Nassar expressed his concerns about the detained fishermen's detention conditions amid the coronavirus outbreak. He said, The families of the fishermen lost contact with them in November, and after digging for information, we found out they were detained in Tourmina prison under the GNAs control in the Libyan city of Misrata. They have no knowledge of the charges against them. They work according to documented contracts and without violating any laws.

Nassar revealed to Al-Monitor that 35 fishermen from various Egyptian villages and governorates were arrested, including 13 from Sokari village in Metoubes city in Kafr el-Sheikh governorate, seven from Berj Mghayzel and 15 from Abu Qir in Alexandria. He said that they asked for help from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and wider government and that they contacted the consulate before falling silent.

Hopes were revived recently after a number of the captives managed to contact relatives in Egypt.

Ahmad Abou Chahine spoke to Al-Monitor about his brothers work in Libya and the circumstances of his arrest, saying, My brother Mamdouh was among the detained fishermen we lost touch with [in November]. He left for work on his boat in November in Misrata with several men from the neighboring towns and villages in Kafr el-Sheikh. After we lost hope in finding him over the past months, we received a call from him and the group with him to rescue them from Tourmina prison in Libya.

Khodrat Ibrahim, the mother of detainee Walid Mohammad Ibrahim, told Al-Monitor over the phone that her son traveled to Libya to work on a fishing boat he owned with a Libyan friend. While they were working in Misrata port, security forces arrested them for not having the required work documents, which the Libyan partner was working to obtain.

Khodrat added that she did not have any information until recently when her son, 24, called her from his detention center. The call lasted barely a minute before someone suddenly took away the cell phone. Her son said he is in poor health due to the inhumane detention conditions and that he and the other detainees are being mistreated. She said the call was not reassuring.

In June, 23 other Egyptians were released after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi directed the Foreign Ministry to handle the matter. The GNA had detained 23 fishermen after armed groups attacked them. A video circulated online shows Egyptians detained in western Libya by armed men. The detainees are shown raising their hands and standing on one foot.

The GNAs Ministry of Interior announced that those involved in mistreating the Egyptian workers had been arrested and would be prosecuted. The ministry said it identified the Egyptian workers who were assaulted in this crime and that they had all returned to working normally before they were repatriated to Egypt. It indicated that the fishermen's complaints will be heard and an investigation will be conducted into whether their rights were violated.

Ten years after the popular revolt and NATO intervention toppled Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya remains unstable and has become a battlefield of armed militias fighting for power. Regional and international forces have stepped in, turning the country into a stage for regional conflicts and proxy wars.

Tensions have been escalating between the Egyptian government and the GNA, which the Turkish government is actively supporting. There has been talk of an Egyptian military intervention in Libya to support forces loyal to eastern military commander Khalifa Hifter, after the Egyptian parliament approved the deployment of the Egyptian army abroad in the wake of Turkeys intervention to support the UN-recognized government in Tripoli.

Egypt's stance toward Libya is shaped by security and economic interests and ideological concerns around fighting political Islam, as Egypt considers the GNA tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypts western borders with Libya, which extend 1,115 kilometers (about 700 miles), are always a cause of concern for the Egyptian authorities. Many armed weapons and drug smugglers pass through as well as members of radical Islamist groups.
(MARYVILLE, Mo.)Northwest Missouri State University began its 2020-21 academic year with a 3 percent rise in its total enrollment from a year ago, marking a third consecutive year of increased headcount while maintaining its high retention rate.

Northwest began its fall semester Wednesday, marking a resumption of on-ground classes with COVID-19 mitigation measures at its main campus in Maryville as well as it Northwest-Kansas City location in Gladstone.

On the first day of classes, the University recorded a total headcount of 7,018, compared to 6,841 students on the first day of the 2019-2020 academic year. Additionally, 76 percent of Northwests 2019 freshman class returned to the University for a second year, which is even with the previous year. That retention rate is the second-highest in the institutions history after Northwest secured a record 78 percent retention rate in the fall of 2018.

The Universitys enrollment total includes a 29 percent increase in first-time graduate students and a 26 percent increase in overall graduate student enrollment. Online enrollment at the University also is up 15 percent.

Northwests freshman headcount is 1,248, with 44 percent of the class identifying as a first-generation college student.

All enrollment numbers are preliminary until Northwests official census occurs Wednesday, Sept. 16.

Our increased enrollment speaks to the work of our incredible teams and brand ambassadors who carry out Northwests objective to provide an affordable, high-quality educational experience, Northwest President Dr. John Jasinski said. Northwest is tuned in to the needs of its employer partners and its region, and we are focused on graduating students who are ready to launch their careers when they complete their degrees.

Illustrating Northwests high quality, the University boasts a graduation rate in the 89th percentile of its national peer group. In addition, 97 percent of Northwest bachelors degree earners and 99 percent of masters degree earners secure employment or continue their education within six months of graduation, according to the most recent data.

Northwest also places a high emphasis on profession-based learning to help graduates get a jumpstart on their careers. Students have opportunities to build their resumes with experiences on campus in nearly every area of study, including the Horace Mann Laboratory School, National Public Radio affiliate KXCV, the R.T. Wright Farm, Mozingo Outdoor Education Recreation Area or Knacktive, a student-driven integrated digital marketing communications agency.

In relation to value, Northwest includes textbooks and a laptop in its tuition costs, saving students an estimated $7,200 over four years. Northwest also offers 1,200 student employment positions, allowing students to earn money while building professional skills through the internationally benchmarked program.

Eighty-seven percent of first-time freshmen receive some form of financial aid, which includes the Northwests innovative Bearcat Advantage and American Dream Grant programs. The University also offers low-cost housing, and a rate structure for graduate students that is based on market demand and program offerings rather than a traditional residency-based model.

Furthermore, to help undergraduate students complete their degree in four years or less and accrue less debt, Northwests Complete 30 initiative encourages students to take a personalized approach to meeting their academic goals and complete 30 credit hours during the course of an academic year.
WASHINGTON  U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, will give a primetime speech at the Republican National Convention to defend President Donald Trump's "record of results" and attack Democrat Joe Biden's record as vice president and senator, the congresswoman announced Friday.

"Im honored to speak in support of the re-election of President Trump during the 2020 RNC Convention, Stefanik said. This election is a clear choice between President Trumps record of delivering results for the American people during this challenging time versus Joe Bidens 47-year failed record of far-left policies."

Stefanik has frequently acted as a champion for Trump over the past year, making news for her fierce questioning during House impeachment hearings and serving on his defense team during his Senate impeachment trial.

After the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, she offered her rebuttal to Biden's speech. She said the support for Trump is overwhelming in her North Country district.

The Republican National Convention will take place from Aug. 24 to 27 with most speakers making televised appearances from Washington, D.C. A Republican National Committee meeting and the vote to nominate Trump to officially run for a second term will still occur in the convention's host city of Charlotte, although the convention will be a mostly virtual affair, similar to the Democratic National Convention. Six Republican National Committee members from New York will head to Charlotte this week, but the state's delegates will remain home.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Trump will accept his nomination at the White House on Aug. 27 and has invited Congressional Republicans to attend.

Few details have been released about the multi-day Republican event, but according to media reports, speakers are expected to include U.S. sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Tim Scott, R-S.C., Richard Grenell, former acting director of National Intelligence; Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations; Andrew Pollack, the father of a Parkland School shooting victim; anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson; South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Pennsylvania congressional candidate Sean Parnell.

After grabbing headlines, the St. Louis couple who waved guns at Black Lives Matter protestors, and a teenager who appeared in a viral video from a March for Our Lives rally in the nation's capital in 2019, will also make remarks at the convention.
When Joe Biden takes the stage Thursday night as the Democratic Partys presidential nominee, he will offer himself to a wounded, meandering nation as a balm  and as a bridge.

A 77-year-old steeped in the American political establishment for a half-century, Biden cannot embody the kind of generational change that Presidents John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton represented. Even with wide-ranging proposals for government action on health care, taxation and the climate crisis, he will never be the face of a burgeoning progressive movement. As a white man, Biden cannot know personally the systemic racism now at the forefront of a national reckoning over centuries-old social and economic inequities.

But the former vice president, six-term senator and twice failed presidential candidate draws plenty on lived experience  two generations spent on each end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a record that mixes partisan street-fighting with bipartisan deal-making and bonhomie, and a personal journey of middle-class mores, individual struggle and family heartbreak.

That is how he is presenting himself as the person to lead the country beyond the tumultuous tenure of President Donald Trump.

Theres great seriousness of purpose here, said Valerie Biden Owens, the candidates younger sister and, until his current White House bid, perennial campaign manager. We are in a time of struggle. We are in a time a grief, she continued, nodding to the novel coronavirus, its economic fallout and the reckoning on race. All of this has come together. My brother appreciates it. He can feel it.

The electorate ultimately will decide whether Biden in fact offers a bridge back to a pre-Trump version of normal, a path forward to a more equitable society or some combination. Voters most immediate consideration, though, may be that he is not the incumbent.

Everything that Donald Trump is, my brother is the polar opposite. I dont have to make him bigger than he is, said sister Val. Joes the right person at the right time for all the right reasons.

Biden has used his convention to showcase what his campaign hopes will be a winning coalition.

A video highlighted Bidens friendship with the late Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich endorsed Biden and assured anti-Trump Republicans that he had no worries Biden might make a sharp left turn in office.

Biden, though, spent recent months working with primary runner-up Bernie Sanders and other progressives tweaking his policy slate leftward. Those moves reflect Bidens increasing emphasis on wide wealth and opportunity gaps he says have been laid bare by the pandemics economic effects.

Sanders repeated his support for Biden on Monday and emphasized Bidens agenda as he urged skeptical progressives to vote affirmatively for the Democratic nominee, not just against Trump.

Younger Democrats to Bidens left, several who are non-white, have helped fill out the program. Its a public projection of what Biden tells top Democrats privately in frank acknowledgment of his age: He wants to elevate a new generation, one that looks wholly different from the all-male, nearly all-white Senate Democratic Caucus he joined in 1973.

He underscored the point by selecting California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first Black woman to join a major partys national ticket.

Biden sees no inherent conflicts in his wide-net approach, arguing over nearly 16 months of campaigning that the country must relearn how to govern by consensus, and that starts with bringing varied voices to the negotiating table.

Part of Bidens ability to make seemingly disparate appeals is that his policy pitches remain secondary to the personal pitch, amplified during the convention, that he is a decent, compassionate man of faith, a practicing Roman Catholic.

While Biden likes to project an Uncle Joe persona, he still flashes the short fuse that was more common decades ago. In Iowa, he told one climate activist to vote for somebody else and challenged a man who questioned his age to a push-ups contest.

Still, empathy more than anger has defined Bidens life, as the vice president who buried an adult son stricken by cancer, the young widower and father who lost his first wife and infant daughter in a car accident, and the schoolboy mocked by classmates and a nun for a severe stutter.

His sister points to that childhood crucible as seminal  and newly applicable in Bidens campaign against Trump amid the backdrop of a changing electorate.

When you are bullied, you have a choice to make, Biden Owens said. You can become a bully yourself  Or you can choose to realize we are in this together and develop empathy, which is what Joe did. He appeals to your better instincts.

Bidens candidacy has met criticism since he launched his bid April 25, 2019, but he heads into the final 75 days of the campaign unscathed by second-guessing.

Its a truism there are no second acts in presidential politics. Biden is on his third. His first White House bid in 1988 flamed out over plagiarism allegations. On his second attempt 20 years later, he barely nudged 1% in Iowa and watched Barack Obama soar to the nomination.

When Obama tapped Biden as his running mate, it looked like his career capstone. Biden has said he wouldnt have run this time if Trump werent president. But he did, and he stood out immediately.

In a primary presumed to be about Democrats ideological rift between progressives and the center-left establishment, Biden took aim at Trump. Sure, Biden sided with the mainstream liberals and moderates on policy, but in his stem-winding, sometimes poorly focused speeches, he lamented that Trump was damaging the soul of the nation. He often referenced a 2018 book How Democracies Die.

None of his rivals, even with routine excoriations of the president, offered themselves quite so plainly as the antidote.

Biden will accept the nomination Thursday night without the usual trappings  the boisterous arena, the balloons. Hell speak instead directly into the camera as a relative handful of aides, family and media look on.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea seeking setting up of a three-judge panel to inquire into the conduct of former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as a judge of the apex court.

Gogoi is now a Rajya Sabha MP.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra termed as "infructuous" the public interest litigation (PIL), and said the petitioner did not press for a hearing in last two years and moreover, now Justice (retd) Gogoi has already demitted office.

"Why did not you (petitioner) press it for hearing in the last two years? This plea has become infructuous as he has demitted office," the bench, also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Krishna Murari, said.

"Sorry we can't entertain," the bench told petitioner Arun Ramchandra Hublikar, who had sought inquiry into the alleged "omission and commission" by Justice (retd) Gogoi as a judge of the apex court.

The petitioner claimed before the bench that he had met the secretary general of the top court for listing of his plea but it was not listed.

Justice Gogoi, the first person from the northeast to reach the top of judiciary and credited for bringing the curtains down on the decades old politically and religiously sensitive Ayodhya land dispute, had retired as the CJI on November 17 last year.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The Libyan minister of Interior of the National Government of National Accord (GNA), Fathi Bachagha, said here Friday that the ceasefire under the aegis and support of fellow countries is national gain that deserves to be praised"
They returned specimen to water but it must be brought to land and weighed

But despite shark weighing over current record, they will not be able to claim it

He spent 90 minutes fighting to bring shark to the surface after it took his bait

arry Pardoe, 30, was fishing off coast of Falmouth, Cornwall, with father Mike

A father and son have caught an enormous 251lb blue shark off the Cornish coast - one of the biggest ever in British waters.

Harry Pardoe was fishing off the coast of Falmouth, Cornwall, with his father Mike when the huge specimen took his mackerel bait.

The 30-year-old spent 90 minutes fighting to bring the 9ft long shark to the surface before heaving it onto the deck of their charter boat.

Harry Pardoe, 30, pictured above with his father Mike and the 251lb catch. The pair were fishing off the coast of Falmouth, Cornwall, when the huge specimen took the mackerel bait

Using a tried and tested method of measuring the shark's length and girth, they were able to calculate its weight at 251lbs.

That is 33lbs over the existing blue shark record that has stood since 1959.

But Harry and Mike will not be able to claim it.

Under the current rules, any specimen must be brought back to land and weighed - resulting in the death of the creature.

Harry pictured hooking the 251lb shark. He spent 90 minutes fighting to bring the 9ft long shark to the surface before heaving it onto the deck of their charter boat

The charter boat Anglo Dawn, which was 20 miles off Falmouth when Harry made his catch. The pair were out fishing to celebrate Harry's birthday when they made the spectacular catch

What is a blue shark? Blue sharks come to UK seas in summer months and are usually spotted around the South West. It is an open-ocean species and reaches up to 3.8m in length. The shark, which has a metallic blue back, is listed as Near Threatened globally and is a Priority Species in the UK. They feed mostly on squid and small fish but can also eat smaller sharks and seabirds. The largest blue shark ever recorded in Britain's waters weighed 256lbs and measured over 9ft. Source: The Wildlife Trusts Advertisement

As Harry and Mike returned the beast to the water they are unable to make an official application to the Angling Trust.

Mike, 60, said it was 'disappointing' but neither he nor Harry were ever going to kill the blue shark - Prionace glauca in Latin.

The pair were out on the Anglo Dawn charter boat skippered by Andy Howell from Falmouth to celebrate Harry's birthday when they made the spectacular catch 20 miles out to sea.

On the same trip Mike also secured another huge blue shark, which weighed 180lbs.

Mike, from Birmingham, said: 'We weren't specifically fishing for sharks. I didn't even know there were sharks of that size in that area so it was amazing to get two huge ones in the same day.

'When it first bit, Harry said straight away it was a big one and it took about an hour-and-a-half to get it on board.

'Once it was on the boat it was a case of measuring it with a tape measure then trying to calculate the weight before putting it back.'

He added: 'The ruling states that to be a record sadly you have to kill the shark and bring it back to be weighed.

'For any fish-loving anglers like ourselves that's always going to be a no-no. I suppose it is slightly disappointing.'

Blue sharks can grow to 13ft and 400lbs and are found in oceans across the world, especially the Atlantic but they do venture into British waters during the summer months.

Blue sharks, which rarely attack humans, are registered as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
New York, Aug 21 : Blood plasma therapy that is being touted as the final resort to treat Covid-19 has not convinced the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as it has put the emergency use authorisation for blood plasma to treat the deadly respiratory disease on hold, the media reported.

According to a report in The New York Times on Thursday, the FDA approval for plasma therapy is on hold and "more data is under review and the approval could still be issued in the near future, according to H. Clifford Lane, the clinical director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases".

According to the report, senior federal health officials said data supporting the plasma therapy was too weak.

Plasma donated by people who've survived Covid-19 has high levels of antibodies and is considered safe.

The proposed emergency approval was based on the history of plasma's use in treating other diseases, animal research, and a number of plasma studies, "including a federal government-financed Mayo Clinic research that's tested plasma in more than 66,000 COVID-19 patient and is the largest such study in the US".

However, top health officials including Dr Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert have cautioned that available data wasn't strong enough to support emergency approval.

The US FDA was yet to comment on the report.

Plasma is the pale liquid that remains after red and white cells are removed from blood.

The convalescent plasma therapy has gained much traction in several countries including in India, where several lives have been saved with the therapy.

In an ongoing study of more than 300 Covid-19 patients treated with convalescent plasma therapy in the US, researchers suggest that the treatment is safe and effective.

The study, published in the American Journal of Pathology, tracked 350 severely ill Covid-19 patients admitted to the Houston Methodist's system of eight hospitals from March 28 through July 6.

"Our studies to date show the treatment is safe and, in a promising number of patients, effective," said study author James M Musser from the Houston Methodist in the US.

"While convalescent plasma therapy remains experimental and we have more research to do and data to collect, we now have more evidence than ever that this century-old plasma therapy has merit, is safe and can help reduce the death rate from this virus," Musser added.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
A Russian disc jockey (DJ), who was arrested by the Goa Polices Crime Branch on charges of possessing drugs on August 15, has found support among her friends and well-wishers back home, as they have launched a crowd-funding campaign on social media to help raise funds for her bail, legal and other incidental expenses.

DJ Elena Emelyanova, who goes by her stage name Sunrise Dark, was a popular attraction at Russian rave parties in Goa. She was among the three foreigners and 20 Indian nationals, including an actor, who were arrested by the police at night on August 15 on charges of possession of narcotics.

The Crime Branch authorities had kept the local police in the dark and busted a rave party at a hired villa in Vagator. Altogether, 23 people were arrested and narcotics, including cocaine, hashish and ecstasy, etc, worth Rs 9 lakh were seized.

The arrested accused have been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.

The arrested accused include actor Kapil Jhaveri whose photographs with several ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) leaders such as Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant and state party president Vinay Tendulkar have gone viral on social media.

Also read: Cop shoots gym owner dead in Delhis Rohini

Shailesh Shetty, a close aide of independent Goa lawmaker Rohan Khaunte, was also arrested later.

Eva Ova (29), a Czech Republic national, and Ana Nucamendo (28) from Mexico are the other two arrested accused foreigners.

The social media campaign that has been launched in several Russian cities is appealing to the public to donate generously for the release of Emelyanova on bail. The drive claimed that she has been falsely implicated.

Our beloved friend Lena (Elena) is a good person. She is an incredibly bright DJ, who gives us only positive emotions and music  she was invited to play at a party on August 15 ... her love for music is boundless  suddenly, the police came and arrested her, said the appeal shared by Viktoriya Uvarovska, a Russian national.

I ask for your help in collecting money for the release of an innocent girl. She has been charged with organising an illegal party. But she is a DJ, who was invited to play at the party. She didnt even get a chance to be at the console, it stated.

The appeal contains three bank account numbers, including two in Russia and also the State Bank of Indias Porvorim branch in Goa, where the donations can be sent to get legal redressal for Emelyanova.

Agni Pavalonka, another Russian national, is also part of the social media campaign to ensure Emelyanovas release on bail.

There was a free-for-all at Pavalonkas farewell party in early August that had spilled on the streets in Goa. Later, police had booked the party organisers for the unruly scenes and violation of law and order.

The social media campaigners for Emelyanova have cited that the other two accused were released on a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh each, but the DJ would need more money because she has been held on charges of possession of cocaine.

However, the police contradicted Emelyanovas supporters version.

Shobit Saksena, superintendent of police (SP), anti-narcotic cell (ANC), Goa, said none of those booked under the NDPS Act, 1985, has been released on bail yet.
(Alliance News) - British Airways workers have backed the threat of industrial and legal action in a row over jobs and conditions.

More than 1,000 cabin crew, ground and other staff held a mass meeting near Heathrow airport, at which they instructed their union, Unite, to proceed to action against their employer.

Unite warned BA that its conduct has left it exposed to strikes and continuous litigation, claiming the airline has changed the terms of voluntary redundancies, leaving workers potentially thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said: "British Airways is reaping what it has sowed. Its systematic, brutal and needless attacks on its workforce will see it inevitably faced with strikes in the autumn along with the persistent threat of disruption through widespread legal action.

"This workforce was absolutely clear today a this fight will go all the way and it will last until BA stops behaving like an abusive Victorian mill owner.

"We will now instruct our legal specialists to proceed to industrial and legal action, which will hit BA in the autumn. BA has given these workers no other choice but with Unite by their side, we will fight this all the way."

Oliver Richardson, Unite's national officer for civil aviation, said: "BA's behaviour is inhumane but it is made worse because it is also needless.

"This business is sitting on billions, built on the hard graft of the very workforce that the airline is hellbent on treating so abysmally."

A BA spokesman said: "For more than 100 years British Airways has been flying millions of people around the world. Today that world remains largely closed.

"This is the biggest challenge the airline and our industry has ever faced. Sadly, the global pandemic has resulted in job losses across every industry. Many airlines have already made thousands of staff redundant.

"We are not immune to this crisis. We have to adapt to survive, so we will continue with the proper, lawful consultative process and we will keep inviting union representatives to discuss our proposals to the serious challenges we face.

"It is not too late to find solutions a as we have done with Balpa a and to protect jobs."

BA is part of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA.

By Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent

source: PA

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
" " While most people associate veiling with the Middle East, other countries like Eritrea in Eastern Africa also support the custom. Here, a portrait of a Rashaida tribe girl from the Northern Red Sea, Massawa, Eritrea, shows how she is veiled. Eric Lafforgue/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images

Every once in a while, veiling becomes a trending topic. The practice of covering the head and face for religious, cultural or customary purposes is one that has endured centuries and transcended borders.

But in contemporary debates, it's difficult to divorce veiling from polarizing issues like women's rights, morality, politics and feminism. That's why stories about bans and mandates on burqas  garments that cover the entire face and body worn by some Muslim women  make headlines.

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Veils are common in Islamic dress, though not all Muslim women wear them. And the practice isn't exclusive to Islam; some Orthodox Christians and Jewish people wear head coverings, as well.

But despite being a historical and worldwide practice, veiling remains a mark of difference, danger, extremism or oppression to people and governments that do not support the custom. Switzerland passed a ban in 2021 on certain facial coverings in public, joining a long list of Western European countries with similar laws. Even some Muslim-majority countries, like Chad, Morocco and Tunisia, have banned the wearing or sale of certain veils. And even in places where bans are not in place, discrimination against veiled people persists.

In 2021, the European Court of Justice upheld its ruling that companies in Europe can ban headscarves in the workplace. In the United States, the First and Fourth amendments to the Constitution, as well as federal civil rights laws, protect the rights of people who adhere to religious practices like hijab (the act of seclusion often expressed through the donning of a headscarf). But schools and employers have fired, suspended and otherwise punished or reprimanded students and employees for wearing hijab.

On the other hand, people have been penalized for not wearing their veils. Requiring women to wear a burqa in public is just one way that the Taliban has terrorized women in Afghanistan. Members of the Taliban have even beaten women for failing to don the garment.

To some people, the burqa is an enduring symbol of an oppressive and dangerous regime. But even outside of Taliban rule, women have chosen or been compelled to wear burqas, for protection or as an expression of their modesty, faith, culture and preferences.

Veiling means so many things to different people that it can be difficult to suss out its real meaning and purpose. Some people believe that the veil is a dehumanizing prison that turns women into second-class citizens. To others, the veil is a sign of modesty and piety as well as a badge of honor. It's possible to see the veil as a rejection of Western values and a symbol of empowerment. In fact, some people insist that veil bans are repressive and an affront to freedom of religion.

So what does the veil mean, exactly?
The rally began hours after DeJoy testified before the U.S. Senate amid an uproar over draconian cuts, sluggish service and disappearing mail equipment. After announcing earlier this week that he would suspend some operational changes until after the Nov. 3 election, DeJoy told senators Friday morning that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on time. But he did not promise to restore mailboxes or sorting machines that were already removed.
Keita  first elected in a 2013 landslide the year after a similar military coup  saw his popularity plummet after his 2018 re-election as the Malian army faced punishing losses from jihadist attacks. Then after dozens of legislative elections were disputed this spring, demonstrators began taking to the streets calling for his resignation. He offered concessions and regional mediators intervened, but his opponents who formed a coalition known as M5-RFP made clear they would accept nothing short of his departure.
Usually, the best way to react to an off-the-wall idea  "Hey, man, let's tie balloons to the dog. And when he floats up, then..."  is not to give voice to that screaming inside your head. In response to your friend's oddball notion, do not say, "Are you out of your friggin' mind?" No. You don't need an expert in interpersonal communication to tell you that reply will invite intransigence. Humans are a stubborn species.

Better to say something like what a wise old friend long ago suggested to me: "Well, there's something to what you say." That sounds neutral, right? It could lead to reasonable conversation, which might shift your friend's wackadoodle view.

But there are times when such a thoughtful approach is, to be quite serious, morally indefensible. When you are confronted with an idea that invites harm to oneself or to others, or when objective truth itself is threatened, the only appropriate response is clear rejection.

So we ought to be horrified that some political leaders, including President Donald Trump, are giving credence to the ridiculous conspiracy theories advanced under the banner of QAnon. The FBI considers QAnon a potential domestic terrorism threat, but the president praised its followers this week as "people that love our country," noting that "they do, supposedly, like me."

QAnon is a loose network of right wingers who claim the world is run by a group of celebrities, spiritual leaders and politicians  including Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Pope Francis  who are engaged in Satan worship and child sex trafficking. They believe some military figures recruited Trump to run for president to stop this group, but that a "deep state" chain of people aims to annihilate him to protect the operation. Of course, we who work in the media are beholden to the deep state and to financier George Soros  the far right always has him in mind, you know  which partly explains why the press is hostile to the president.

Some QAnon internet posts tie in other conspiracy theories  that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, that John F. Kennedy Jr. is still alive and poised to endorse Trump, and that the government is covering up contacts with UFOs. Cannibalism fits into all this somewhere. Other ideas of similar viability draw support from various QAnon members, but the overarching consensus involves the global pedophile cabal. The QAnon backers are eager for Trump's coming confrontation with the chain of bad players in what they call "The Storm," which will finally bring back America's greatness.

If all of this sounds outlandish to you, take note that, according to NBC News, Facebook investigated QAnon's presence on its platform, and uncovered thousands of QAnon groups with millions of members. A QAnon-affiliated candidate won a Republican congressional primary in Georgia; Trump called her "a future Republican star." Trump has retweeted more than 200 Twitter messages posted by QAnon followers, according to a Media Matters study.

To be charitable, we should understand why some people are drawn to conspiracy theories. People who feel powerless, anxious and threatened may find some comfort in something that looks like an explanation for their plight. Such insecurity may have spiked in the isolation forced by the pandemic.

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But let's be morally clear here: Such sympathy can only extend so far. Believers in conspiracy theories, experts say, become more prejudiced over time and are more likely to be attracted to violence. QAnon backers have plotted kidnappings, made terrorist threats and even committed murder, police say. As their numbers grow, QAnon followers threaten to become a political force that can't be ignored.

That's why the president's welcoming response is so ugly. His 2016 campaign was thoroughly anti-establishment, imbued with his own conspiracy theories  notably, that Barack Obama had actually been born in Kenya (so his birth certificate had been part of a conspiracy). No wonder those who believe in a pedophile cabal find in Donald Trump a kindred spirit.

These ideas deserve no quarter in our political establishment. This is not a moment for the president of the United States to offer a comforting response to the extremists. Trump and his allies ought to be denouncing QAnon right now, before it gains a toehold beyond what it already has established in the Republican party.

Of course, our political leaders ought to always stand up for what's true, but that sentiment sounds like foolish idealism these days  you know, just another oddball idea that you have to deal with politely. Still, there's something to it, isn't there?
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  Mayor Francisco Isko Moreno Domagoso has asked the National Bureau of Investigation to probe alleged violations of a Chinese-owned establishment, which sold hair treatment products with labels that claim the City of Manila is a province of China.

In a two-page letter dated August 20, addressed to NBI Director Eric Distor, Moreno said the shuttered Elegant Fumes Beauty Products, Inc. or EFPBI in Manila violated Sections 40(a) and 88 of Consumer Act of the Philippines and Section 10 of Food and Drug Administration Act of 2009. He said the merchant also engaged in online selling without a permit.

In view of the foregoing, we are requesting that an investigation be conducted on the business operations of EFPBI and if warranted, cause the filing of criminal complaints against the corporation and its officers and/or incorporation, Moreno's letter read.

On Thursday, Moreno ordered the closure of the establishment for distributing Ashley Shine Keratin Treatment Deep Repair, saying its product label information is an affront to the sovereignty of the Philippines and an insult to its duly constituted authorities.

The shutdown came shortly after the photo of the product label shared by Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta or PBA Party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles went viral. The packaging stated that the item was manufactured for Elegant Fumes Beauty Products, Inc. whose address is "1st floor, 707 Sto. Cristo Street, San Nicolas, Manila Province, P.R. China."

Nograles said based on information received by his office, they were made in 2018 and are still distributed throughout the country.

Manilas Bureau of Permits Director Levi Facundo has pointed out that the packaging of the beauty item does not contain minimum information required by law to appear on the immediate and or outer packaging of a cosmetic product.

The Manila mayor also sought the help of the Bureau of Immigration in deporting the owners of Elegant Fumes Beauty Products, Inc., noting they have shown disrespect to the Philippines by committing violations of its laws and regulations.

"We are requesting that deportation proceedings be initiated against Shi Zhong Xing and Shi Li Li. We are willing to submit relevant documents that may be used in the said proceedings, said Moreno in his August 20 letter to Immigration chief Jaime Morente.


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BANGALORE, India, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Food Safety Testing refers to the inspection of food items for bacteria, chemicals, and other harmful materials that cause disease. Three primary food contaminants, namely pathogens, chemicals, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), are commonly targeted.

The global food safety testing market size was valued at USD 13,144 Million in 2017 and is estimated to reach USD 23,204 Million by 2025, registering a CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period 2018 to 2025.

Implementation of various food safety regulations, especially in the developed economies and the implementation of stringent food safety regulations, drives the growth of the global food safety testing market size.

Get Detailed Analysis of COVID-19 Impact on Food Safety Testing Market:

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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE FOOD SAFETY TESTING MARKET SIZE

Changing government rules on GMO labeling is expected to increase the Food Safety Testing Market size. Approximately 175 million hectares of genetically modified crops are grown in more than 25 countries, with the United States leading global production.

Developing regulations on GMO's, requiring manufacturers to disclose the GMO's in their products, will create new growth opportunities over the forecast timeframe.

Rising economically motivated adulteration (EMAs) due to high competition among food producers, and growing food debasement instances such as adulteration, pesticides, artificial taste enhancers, and certifications, are fuelling the growth of food safety testing market size.

Due to the changing lifestyle and increasing popularity of quick-service restaurants, there is a surge in demand for packaged and processed food in developed and emerging economies. In turn, this is expected to increase the food safety testing market size during the forecast period.

In addition, the growing demand for quality tests for processed and unprocessed meats is expected to drive the growth of Food Safety Testing Market size.

The rise in consumer awareness about food safety is expected to increase the growth of Food Safety Testing Market size. Consumers have been educating themselves on issues related to food, such as various contaminants, allergens, toxin-related physiological reactions, and the effects of processed and stored food on the body through various social media platforms and consumer regulatory acts. The shifting demographics and growing consumer awareness underline the need to prioritize food safety.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-3L333/food-safety-testing

FOOD SAFETY TESTING MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS

Based on food type, the Meat, poultry, & seafood is expected to hold the largest Food Safety Testing Market share during the forecast period.

Based on the type of testing, the GMO testing segment is expected to experience the highest revenue growth rate over the forecast period. This growth is powered by increased consumer awareness of the existence of harmful GMOs in edible products. In addition, growth in the production of GMO edible products is expected to increase the Food Safety Testing Market size.

Based on the region, North America is expected to be the largest market contributing to more than two-fifths of the global food safety testing industry. Technologies such as real-time PCR or quantitative PCR can accelerate advances in the industry. Furthermore, increasing regulations on genetically modified organisms over the forecast period will support growth in the industry.

The Asia Pacific is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Market expansion will be powered by strong growth in the F&B industry backed by enhanced food safety emphasis. China, India, Japan, and Thailand are the region's largest F&B markets. Robust growth in meat production and trends towards processed food due to changes in lifestyle will positively influence the growth of Food Safety Testing Market size.

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FOOD SAFETY TESTING MARKET SEGMENTATION

By Contaminant

Pathogen

Genetically modified organism (GMO)

Chemical & toxin

Others

By Food Tested

Meat & meat product

Dairy & dairy product

Cereal, grain, & pulse

Processed food

Others

By Technology

Agar culturing

PCR-based assay

Immunoassay-based

Others

Key Players

SGS SA, Eurofins Scientific,

Intertek Group plc,

Bureau Veritas SA,

ALS limited,

TUV SUD,

AsureQuality Ltd.,

DNV GL,

Bio-Rad Laboratories,

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings

Other key players operating in the global food safety testing market include Agilent Technologies, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Shimadzu Corporation, PerkinElmer, Inc., and others.

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SIMILAR REPORTS :

?South Africa Food Safety Testing Market

The South Africa food safety testing market size was valued at USD 65,727 thousand in 2017 and is estimated to reach USD 145,995 thousand by 2025, at a CAGR of 10.4%.

Stringent food safety regulations, globalization in the food trade, increased consumer awareness of food safety, technological advances in the testing industry are the major factors that are expected to increase the South African food safety testing market size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-3K374/south-africa-food-safety-testing

?Dairy Testing Market

The global Dairy Testing market size is projected to reach USD 4075 Million by 2026, from USD 3898.2 Million in 2020

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-9E1962/global-dairy-testing

?Meat Testing Market

The global Meat Testing market size is projected to reach USD 6774.6 Million by 2026, from USD 6352 Million in 2020

In 2018 North America represented the largest Meat Testing Market share. This demand is motivated by the increased awareness among consumers for healthy food products, and the region's strict food safety regulations.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-10V1896/global-meat-testing

?Food Safety Testing Systems & Services Market

Food safety testing technologies are seeing increased use by food manufacturers and laboratories due to their rapid detection function, which in effect reduces the chances of food reminiscences leading to long product shelf life.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-0Y290/food-safety-testing-systems-and-services

?Food Safety Testing and Technologies Market

The global Food Safety Testing and Technologies market size is projected to reach USD 17600 Million by 2026, from USD 16440 Million in 2020

Increasing outbreaks of foodborne disease, enforcing strict food safety regulations, globalizing food supply, and the availability of advanced technologies capable of rapid testing are the major factors that are driving the growth of Food Safety Testing and Technologies Market size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-1Z2544/global-food-safety-testing-and-technologies

?Food Safety Testing Service Market

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-3D298/food-safety-testing-service

?Seafood Safety Testing Market

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-1C336/seafood-safety-testing

?Pathogen Food Safety Testing Market

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-37A1765/global-pathogen-food-safety-testing

ABOUT US:

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Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs.

To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources.

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UPDATE: Roseburg man arrested in string of I-5 shootings

A motorist was struck with a bullet Wednesday after someone shot at her vehicle on Interstate 5 in Jackson County, Oregon State Police reported.

It was the first known injury in a string of Interstate 5 shootings since May that state police believe are linked.

Police did not disclose the extent of the womans injuries or how many shootings have occurred. Similar shootings have previously been confirmed in Douglas, Jackson and Josephine Counties.

The driver was traveling north near milepost 37, between Gold Hill and Central Point, when she was shot, police said Thursday in a press release. She was taken to the hospital, treated for her injuries and released.

Troopers are asking for help identifying the person or people who have shot cars on I-5 in southern Oregon. They first asked for help in mid-July.

State police forensic scientists are assisting in the investigation and troopers are working with district attorneys in the counties where the shootings have occurred, police said.

Troopers urge people traveling on I-5 who think their car has been hit by a bullet to call 911 and note the time and location of the shooting. People whose cars have been shot should leave the area if possible.

Troopers also urge anyone who has information about the shootings to call 1-800-442-2068 or *OSP. Tipsters should reference case No. SP20-173444.

-- K. Rambo; krambo@oregonian.com; @k_rambo_

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

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
NEET, JEE 2020: Subramanian Swamy urges PM Modi to conduct exams after Diwali

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 21: Amid growing concern over the novel coronavirus cases, the Bhartiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal to conduct the entrance examinations of NEET, JEE and other competitive exams till after Diwali.

"I have just spoken to the Minister of Education suggesting that NEET and other exams be conducted after Deepavali. The SC ordered the other day is not a bar since the Hon'ble Court has left the date to the government. I am sending an urgent letter to the PM just now," tweeted Swamy.

"There is wide spread desperation amongst the youth since this exam is made or break for them and they have to take it fully prepared. Holding the exam in toy opinion you may lead to a large number of suicides around the country of youth," the letter stated.

After SC rejects deferment of NEET exam, 19-year-old girl from Coimbatore commits suicide

"Holding the exam, in my opinion, we may lead to a large number of suicides around the country of youth. The Supreme Court judgement doesn't mind the government at all.... on whether to now or two weeks later or two months later, the examinations. It is a policy decision of the government," he said.

JEE Main exam 20202 is scheduled to be held from September 1 to 6, while the date for conducting NEET is September 13.
Kejriwal govt should not cause hindrance in release of imprisoned Sikhs : Dhindsa 20 Jan 2022 | 1:42 AM Chandigarh, Jan 19 (UNI) Strongly opposing AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) President and Rajya Sabha Member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said on Wednesday that Kejriwal who is ignorant of Panthic ideology should refrain himself from causing any hindrance in the release of Prof Devinderpal Singh Bhullar and 20 other imprisoned Sikhs. see more..

AAP to implement pro-Punjab financial model for prosperity of state: Bhagwant Mann 20 Jan 2022 | 1:35 AM Chandigarh, Jan 19 (UNI) Holding the SAD, Congress, Captain and BJP responsible for the poor economic condition of Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab chief Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday said that these traditional parties and political families have looted Punjab for decades and used its resources, land and exchequer for their personal gains. see more..

Calling Omicron mild disease is misleading: Expert 20 Jan 2022 | 12:42 AM Hamirpur (HP), Jan 19 (UNI) Advisor for National Immunization Programme, Dr Naresh Purohit said on Wednesday that the Omicron may be less severe, on average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading, hurts the overall response, and costs more lives. see more..

Over 91 per cent licensed arms deposited ahead of assembly polls: Punjab CEO 20 Jan 2022 | 12:31 AM Chandigarh, Jan 19 (UNI) Complying with the directions of Election Commission of India (ECI), as many as 3,54,075 licensed weapons have been deposited in the state ahead of Punjab Assembly Elections, scheduled to be held on February 20, 2022, officials informed on Wednesday. see more..
Its probably safe to say that as summer vacation winds down, most kids dread heading back to school.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its probably safe to say that as summer vacation winds down, most kids dread heading back to school.

But this fall, there isnt just getting back into classroom routine and homework to worry about. COVID-19 is on everyones mind  students, parents, teachers, administrators, support staff and elected officials. One question looms over all other logistical and political considerations:

Can students head back to class safely?

Politicians and educators have spent the summer considering how to approach the coming school year. The province last week unveiled its plan, which is built upon the foundational assertion that getting kids back into the classroom is essential for a wide range of practical, educational, psychological and economic reasons.

The challenges involved have been massive. Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen put it succinctly: "Its been a summer like no other."

For schools and teachers, who were forced to adapt on the fly to distance learning in March and then pivot to a partial reintroduction of students into the classroom in June, there has been no one-size-fits-all model for teaching and learning during a pandemic. And despite the governments assertion that getting students back into classrooms is the main educational imperative for Sept. 8, the process and practices of the new school year will need to be similarly adaptive.

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Not all will be in class every day. Those in kindergarten to grade 8 are expected to attend school five days a week. Schools may organize students into cohorts to limit intermingling, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and aid in contact tracing. Grades 9 to 12, in which most students take elective classes and thus cannot easily be organized into cohorts, will attend school on a more limited, rotating schedule, with remote-learning strategies in place for days students are not in class. Plans may vary according to school divisions individual needs.

Mask-wearing has now been mandated by the province, when physical distancing is not possible, for students in grades 4 and up  a change adopted after an education town hall at which parents voiced concerns about "recommended" mask usage.

Education officials and parent groups applauded the governments willingness to adjust its position on masks, but concerns remain regarding class sizes, inadequate ventilation in older schools and the provinces insistence that remote-learning options will only be available to students with documented medical reasons for not being in class.

And then theres the issue of funding. Despite the daunting logistics of getting students back to school  safely  while the pandemic continues to unfold globally and Manitobas COVID-19 case numbers maintain their recent unsettlingly elevated levels, the government has to date committed precious little in terms of additional financial resources to education for the coming school year.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen

The provinces most recent pandemic-related mantra is "We have to learn to live with this virus." If thats the case, its incumbent on government to provide the resources and support needed for an educational system that isnt merely trying to hang on until the pandemic is over, but rather is forging a new path into a world in which a pandemic  if not the current one, then the one that arrives next  is part of schoolings day-to-day reality for the foreseeable future.

The current framework is a good start. But the province needs to build on its back-to-school plan with specific support for ongoing measures  including funding for school upgrades, additional staffing and new technology  that will enable students to learn and will keep everyone, in school and at home, safe.
In an opinion that could inform coronavirus business interruption claims now before various courts, a federal appeals court has ruled that a Florida restaurant is unable to collect on its insurance for business interruption losses that it says were caused by dust and debris from nearby road construction that began in 2013.

The court backed the insurers denial of insurance payments because, although the restaurant had to clean its premises, it did not suffer any direct physical loss of or damage to its property.

U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor, writing for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, concluded that under Florida law, an item or structure that merely needs to be cleaned has not suffered a loss which is both direct and physical.'

The appeals court ruling against the plaintiff upheld a ruling by the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in favor of Sparta Insurance Co., against the plaintiff, Mama Jos (doing business as Berries).

Florida attorney Joseph Miele expects the opinion will have an impact on business interruption insurance claims against insurers by business policyholders seeking payment of losses due to the coronavirus. Insurers have been arguing that a virus and related business shutdowns do not cause direct physical loss or damage and thus do not trigger business interruption coverage.

Impact on Others

Miele, an insurance coverage partner at Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck in Ft. Lauderdale, said insurers have cited the district courts decision in business interruption cases across the country and the fact that now a federal court of appeals has embraced that view further supports insurers arguments.

Miele said another important consideration is the courts reasoning that the plaintiff did not meet its initial burden of bringing the claim within the coverage of the policy.

It is a fundamental principle of insurance law that once this burden is met, the burden of proof shifts to the insurer to prove an exclusion, he explained. Under the reasoning of Mama Jos, an insurer never gets to that step. This will streamline resolution of these cases by eliminating protracted litigation over the various exclusions that could also apply to preclude coverage.

The Case

The plaintiff, Mama Jos, operated a restaurant at a Miami location where, from December 2013 until June 2015, there was roadway construction in the general vicinity of the eatery. The plaintiff claimed that during that time, dust and debris generated by the construction migrated into the restaurant, requiring it to perform daily cleaning using its normal cleaning methods, employing dust pans, hoses, rags, towels and blowers.

Although the restaurant was able to serve the same number of customers as it had before the construction began, customer traffic decreased during the roadwork.

The restaurant was insured by Sparta Insurance Co. under an all risk commercial property insurance policy. The policy included a Building and Personal Property Coverage Form and a Business Income (and Extra Expense) Coverage Form covering direct physical loss of or damage to Covered Property . . . caused by or resulting from any Covered Cause of Loss.

The policys business income form provides that Sparta will pay for the actual loss of business income sustained due to the necessary suspension of operations during the period of restoration.' The policy adds that the suspension must be caused by direct physical loss of or damage to covered property.

In April 2015, the plaintiffs public adjuster sent the insurer a claim, including a preliminary damage estimate in the amount of $13,775.58 (after deductible) plus a business income loss claim in the amount of $292,550.84. The plaintiff contended that its 2014 sales were lower than expected compared to its rate of sales growth in previous years.

Sparta denied the claim because it was not covered under the policy. Sparta said that the proof of loss form the public adjuster provided did not reflect the existence of any physical damage and it was questionable whether a direct physical loss occurred. Sparta noted that coverage is provided for the actual loss of business income sustained due to the necessary suspension of operations during the period of restoration. The suspension must be caused by direct physical loss of or damage to property at the premises, the insurer told Mama Jos.

The plaintiff sued in Florida state court in May 2017. Sparta removed the action to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

In February, 2018, the plaintiff identified for the first time new categories of damages totaling $319,688.57 that it said were due to replacement of the restaurants awning and retractable roof systems, HVAC repairs, and replacement of the restaurants audio and lighting systems.

The plaintiff offered expert witnesses to support its damaged equipment claims. But the district court found that they did not prove that construction dust and debris generated in 2014 caused the new damages to the awnings, retractable roof, HVAC system, and audio and lighting system.

The lower district court also determined that the plaintiffs initial claim for cleaning was not covered because property that must be cleaned, but is not damaged, has not sustained a direct physical loss. The district court concluded that direct physical loss refers to tangible damage to property, which causes it to become unsatisfactory for future use or requires repairs.

Finally, the district court decided that the claim for lower-than-expected sales in 2014 was not covered because the restaurant could not establish that it suffered a necessary suspension of its operations as the result of a direct physical loss.

The plaintiff unsuccessfully argued that the district court erred in concluding that direct physical loss does not include cleaning, but rather requires a showing that the property be rendered uninhabitable or unusable; in requiring the restaurant to show that a suspension of operations was the result of physical damage in order to establish business income coverage; and in dismissing the conclusions of its expert witnesses.

In its handling of the appeal, the 11th circuit court noted that in Florida, under the Daubert ruling, trial courts must act as gatekeepers and are tasked with screening out speculative, unreliable expert testimony.

The policy at issue is an all risks policy. However, as the Florida Supreme Court has noted, an all-risk policy is not an all loss policy, and thus does not extend coverage for every conceivable loss, Judge Proctor noted.

The appeals court concluded that the district court correctly granted summary judgment on the cleaning claim because, under Florida law, an item or structure that merely needs to be cleaned has not suffered a loss which is both direct and physical.

As to the business income loss claim, the claimant had not shown it suffered a suspension of operations nor did it put forward any evidence that it suffered a direct physical loss of or damage to its property during the policy period. Therefore, the appeals court said the district courts entry of summary judgment on the business income loss claim was also proper.

The plaintiff argued that the district court ignored evidence that it had been required to close sections of the restaurant for cleaning. Conceivably, the appeals court noted, a slowdown caused by closing parts of the restaurant for cleaning could be attributed to a period of restoration. But, even if the district court got this part of the analysis wrong, Sparta was still entitled to summary judgment on the business income claim because any suspension must be caused by direct physical loss of or damage to property. The plaintiff failed to show it suffered a direct physical loss.

Insurance coverage attorney Miele said that the fact that the restaurant remained open during the period of construction will likely be argued against the rationale of Mama Jos. However, he does not believe this difference would have compelled a different result. The typical scenario in COVID claims is that the businesses closed by governmental order with no showing of the presence of COVID. But, even if that showing were to be made, like in Mama Jos, the remedy is sanitizing the property, he said.

The opinion is Mama Jos, Inc. v. Sparta Insurance Company.

Topics Carriers COVID-19 Florida Claims USA Profit Loss Property Construction
General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, has shot down any hope of a debate on infrastructural achievements between the NDCs flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



He says the ruling party cannot be bothered by such calls



Former President Mahama had challenged the Akufo-Addo-led government to a debate over infrastructure in order to settle the issue of whose administration has performed incredibly well in the area of infrastructure.



His challenge was after Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, August 18, 2020, Dr. Bawumia said the NPP government has been economical with the little resource at its disposal, thereby, doing more infrastructure projects than the previous administration.



Mr. Mahama who believed his government did well with infrastructure called for a debate to settle issues but NPP Chief Scribe in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show 'Ghana Montie' said it's needless.



Tell the Papa No were not interested, John Boadu jovially said.

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
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday again attacked the government over the state of the economy and unemployment, accusing it of spending public money on "image correction".

Citing a news report which claimed the government is seeking to plan a media blitz for its 'image correction' to help improve India's rankings on various indices, Gandhi tweeted, "Economic slump, unemployment, Chinese aggression ail our country. GOI: Let's spend taxpayers' money on 'image correction'."

The Congress has also demanded answers from the government on its plan to "improve the economy and employment generation".
Russia requested a United Nations Security Council meeting on Iran on Friday, diplomats said, as the United States sought to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran in a move rejected by Moscow.



Russia requested a public virtual meeting of the 15-member body with regard to todays developments, Russias U.N. mission told council diplomats in a message seen by Reuters.
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Mini Refrigerator Market: Global Industry Analysis 2014-2018 & Opportunity Assessment 2019-2029

A recent market study published by Future Market Insights on the mini refrigerator market offers global industry analysis for 2014-2018 & opportunity assessment for 2019-2029. The study offers a comprehensive assessment of mini refrigerator market dynamics. After conducting a thorough research on the historical, as well as current growth parameters, the growth prospects of the market are obtained with maximum precision.

Market Segmentation

The global mini refrigerator market is segmented in detail to cover every aspect of the market and present complete market intelligence to readers.

Product Type Capacity End-User Single Door Refrigerator

Double Door Refrigerator Less than 1 cu. Ft.

1-1.9 cu. Ft.

2-2.9 cu. Ft.

3-3.9 cu. Ft.

4-5 cu. Ft. Commercial

Residential Price Range Sales Channel Region Economy

Mid-Range

Premium Wholesalers/Distributors

Hypermarkets/Supermarkets

Multi-Brand Stores

Exclusive Stores

Independent Small Stores

Online Retailers

Other Sales Channels North America

Latin America

Europe

East Asia

South Asia

Oceania

Middle East & Africa

For more insights into the Market, request a sample of this report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-11171

Chapter 01 - Executive Summary

The executive summary of the mini refrigerator market includes the market country analysis, opportunity assessment, and recommendations on the global mini refrigerator market.

Chapter 02 - Market Overview

Readers can find the detailed segmentation and definition of the mini refrigerator market in this chapter, which will help them understand basic information about the mini refrigerator market. This section also highlights the inclusions and exclusions, which help the reader understand the scope of the mini refrigerator market report. The associated industry assessment of the mini refrigerator market is carried out in this section. The macroeconomic factors affecting growth of the mini refrigerator market are provided in this section and the impact of these macroeconomic indicators on the mini refrigerator market is analyzed. The technological advancements in the mini refrigerator market is also provided. The drivers and restraints impacting the growth of the mini refrigerator market are explained in this chapter. Opportunities and ongoing trends in the mini refrigerator market are also comprehensively discussed.

Chapter 03 - Global Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 and Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes detailed analysis of the historical mini refrigerator market (2014-2018), along with an opportunity analysis for the forecast period (2019-2029). This chapter provides details about the mini refrigerator market on the basis of product type, capacity, end-user, price range, sales channel, and region. This chapter explains how the mini refrigerator market is anticipated to grow across North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Oceania and the Middle East and Africa.

Chapter 04 - North America Mini Refrigerator Market Size and Forecast, 2014-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the mini refrigerator market in the North America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the U.S. and Canada. This chapter provides details about the North America mini refrigerator market on the basis of product type, capacity, end-user, price range, and, sales channel.

Chapter 05 - Latin America Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the mini refrigerator market in the Latin America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America. This chapter provides details about the Latin America mini refrigerator market on the basis of product type, capacity, end user, price range, and, sales channel.

Chapter 06 -Europe Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

Important growth prospects of the mini refrigerator market based on product type, capacity, end user, price range, and, sales channel for all countries such as Germany, U.K., Spain, France, Italy and Rest of Europe are included in this chapter.

Chapter 07 - East Asia Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the mini refrigerator market in East Asia region including the important growth prospects of the mini refrigerator in several countries such as China, Japan, South Kore are included in this chapter.

Chapter 08 - South Asia Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the mini refrigerator market in the South Asia region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Rest of South Asia & Pacific.

Chapter 09 - Oceania Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the mini refrigerator market in the Oceania region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes, Australia and New Zealand.

Chapter 10 - Middle East and Africa Mini Refrigerator Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter offers insights into how the mini refrigerator market is expected to grow in major countries in the MEA region such as GCC Countries, Northern Africa, South Africa, and Rest of MEA, during the forecast period 2019-2029.

Chapter 11- Competition Assessment

In this chapter, readers can find detailed information about tier analysis and market concentration of the key players in the mini refrigerator market along with their market presence analysis by region and product portfolio.

For Information On The Research Approach Used In The Report, Request Methodology@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-11171

Chapter 12 - Competition Deep-Dive

In this chapter, readers can find a comprehensive list of leading companies in the mini refrigerator market, along with detailed information about each company, which includes company overview, revenue shares, strategic overview, and recent company developments. Some of the market players featured in the report are The Whirlpool Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Videocon Industries, Godrej Appliances, LG Electronics, Haier Group Corporation, Electrolux AB, Panasonic Corporation, Siemens AG, ARB Company, Highsense Infotech, Zhongke Meiling Cryogenics Co., Ltd., Danby Appliances Inc., Whynter, LLC, Engel, Koolatron Corporation, Dometic Group AB, EdgeStar Appliances Company, Midea Group, Uber Appliance Company, and others.

Chapter 13 - Disclaimer

This chapter includes a list of acronyms and assumptions that provide a base to the information and statistics included in the mini refrigerator report. This chapter helps readers understand the research methodology followed to obtain various conclusions, as well as important qualitative and quantitative information, on the mini refrigerator market.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Dubai, United Arab Emirates  Fri, August 21, 2020 10:10 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f7413b 2 World UAE,Israel-UAE,Israel-Palestine-conflict,Israel-annexation Free

The United Arab Emirates and Israel are gearing up to open their doors for business after the surprise announcement they will normalize relations.

Here are five key areas expected to bring the economies of the two countries closer:

Research

Even before the deal was announced last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was collaborating with the UAE on ways to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Research in various fields -- including medicine, disease and fertilizers -- is important for both countries.

Last month, before the agreement, two Israeli companies signed a deal with an Emirati firm to collaborate on the development of a non-invasive coronavirus screening test.

Another collaboration on coronavirus research between firms from the two countries was signed on Sunday, days after the deal was announced.

"It seems as if the immediate priority will be cooperation on research and development to combat COVID-19," said Kristian Ulrichsen, from Rice University's Baker Institute in the United States.

"This could be a popular way of normalizing people, both in Israel and the UAE, to the idea that coordination on such an urgent issue is in the greater good of both countries."

Tech and startups

Israel's high-tech sector -- an industry that has earned it the nickname "start-up nation" -- makes up more than 40 percent of the country's exports, according to the economy ministry.

The UAE, especially the glitzy emirate of Dubai, attracts such companies because of its accommodating environment, with government support and investment.

More than a third of start-ups in the Middle East and North Africa are reported to be based in the UAE, which seeks to be a powerhouse in the technology sector.

Smart farming

In 2016, Israel exported $9.1 billion (7.6 billion euros) worth of agriculture technology products, according to the agriculture ministry.

The UAE, with a population of over nine million people from all over the world, has seen its food needs grow and diversify.

But with little arable land and extreme temperatures, it wants to overcome its dependence on food imports.

"There are opportunities in medical and agricultural technologies, and scope for coordination in startups and innovation policy," said Ulrichsen.

Collaboration in agriculture could "later make it easier to expand the scope of cooperation into more overtly political and diplomatic arenas", he added.

Desalination

Israel has world-leading desalination firms, including IDE Technologies, which has 400 plants in 40 countries.

The arid UAE is dependent on desalinated water.

The amount of desalinated water used in the Gulf country is about 3,688 million cubic meters a year, but is expected to increase to 5,806 million cubic meters in 2025.

Security and surveillance

Israel is home to several leading surveillance companies, including spyware firm NSO Group, which developed the sophisticated eavesdropping Pegasus tool.

British watchdog Privacy International reports that, as of 2016, there were some 27 surveillance firms headquartered in Israel.

The UAE is also base for security, surveillance and data analysis companies.

It has set up a formidable network of cameras as part of its "Falcon Eye" security monitoring system.
President Moon Jae-in's chief of staff Noh Young-min, center, a former Korean Ambassador to China, greets Yang Jiechi, left, as China's top diplomat arrives at the Incheon International Airport on March 29, 2018. Korea Times file



By Do Je-hae



High-level talks between Korea and China to facilitate speedy results on primary bilateral issues, particularly Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Korea this year, are gaining speed despite the COVID-19 pandemic.



China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi arrived in Busan late Friday, to kick-off a much-anticipated meeting with President Moon's new national security adviser Suh Hoon, Saturday.



Cheong Wa Dae announced earlier in the week that Yang will be in Busan Aug. 21 and 22 at the invitation of chief of the presidential National Security Office (NSO).



The presidential office has underlined that the meeting is the highest-level in-person meeting among officials of the two countries since the outbreak of COVID-19, adding the two countries have maintained close contacts to discuss bilateral issues despite the pandemic. President Moon and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on the phone May 13, where the Chinese leader expressed his "firm determination to visit Korea this year," according to Cheong Wa Dae.



Yang, a member of China's powerful Politburo, is arriving in Busan following a two-day trip to Singapore, where the chief of the Chinese Communist Party's foreign affairs office met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.



The Straits Times of Singapore described Yang's successive visits to Singapore and Korea as a bid by China to "improve ties with its Asian neighbors amid deteriorating relations with the United States."



This is Yang's first visit to Korea since July 2018. The presidential office said Aug. 19 that the two officials will discuss "cooperation on COVID-19 and high-level exchanges and other bilateral issues as well as the Korean Peninsula and international situation."



Push for Xi's visit



Yang's visit comes at a time when public sentiment toward China is still negative following their dispute over Korea's national security decision during the previous Park Geun-hye administration to deploy a U.S. missile defense system here.



Despite the pandemic, the Moon administration has kept its focus on realizing Xi's visit to Korea within the year.



"The most important reason that President Moon wants to have good relations with China is primarily economic, and secondly, North Korea issues, now that U.S.-North Korea relations are virtually frozen. We know that China still has channels of communication with North Korea. Therefore we are hoping that President Xi Jinping will play a more active role in facilitating the resumption of South-North talks and North Korea-U.S. bilateral talks," a senior diplomatic source said. "The other reason is President Xi paid a visit to Pyongyang but he didn't visit Seoul. President Moon visited Beijing twice but he didn't reciprocate. Therefore from protocol point of view, it is time for President Xi to pay a visit to Seoul."



But concerns are rising that Moon's push for Xi's visit is premature when Seoul is not sufficiently equipped with a strategy to meet the complex challenges arising from U.S.-China competition in the region.



"Xi's visit to South Korea, if it materializes, will likely be a double-edged sword for Seoul, which has been feeling the pinch between Washington and Beijing," Lee Seong-hyon, a director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Sejong Institute, wrote in a recent column.



"The problem is that it is not clear what Moon can give to Xi in return. Since it's unlikely to be economic bargaining, Xi will look to the diplomatic and political sectors. And this is where things could get really complicated. Xi's request could be concrete, touching upon South Korea's position in U.S.-led initiatives such as the Indo-Pacific strategy, Economic Prosperity Network and the Clean Network Initiative. Xi may also ask Moon to formally declare South Korea's joining the China-led Belt and Road Initiative," Lee added.



There are also rising questions among some Koreans about why China is showing an interest in improving ties with Korea and realizing Xi's visit to Korea this year. Xi last visited Korea in July 2014 and has not reciprocated Moon's visit to Beijing in December 2017.



"Compared to Japan's recent provocations against China, South Korea, another US ally, has not followed the U.S. attacks on China," the Global Times of China said in a recent report.



Why Busan?



The choice of Busan as the venue for the meeting has drawn keen media attention.



"The decision for the venue was reached after consultations between the two sides on various factors, such as China's wishes and schedule," a senior presidential aide told reporters, Aug. 19. "As this is the first meeting between Yang and Suh since he took office as the national security adviser, the meeting will hopefully enable frank discussions in a comfortable atmosphere."



With a sudden surge of COVID-19 cases in Korea, there were some concerns that in the local media that Yang's visit may be affected. When the presidential office announced Busan, speculations were raised that this had to do with the pandemic situation in Seoul. But Cheong Wa Dae denied this. "The recent pandemic situation has nothing to do with the choice of the venue."



Yang's previous visit to Korea to meet with Suh's predecessor Chung Eui-yong in 2018 also took place in Busan, where China has a consulate-general.


Chetan Bhagat Says Sushant Was Deeply Affected By False Media Reports

The author was quoted as saying by Times Now, "False media reports deeply affected Sushant and he was worried about losing films over them, Bhagat said. He was vulnerable and everyone seemed to be using him. They were not supporting him. Everybody had their own agenda with him."

Chetan Bhagat Says Blind Items Broke The Actor

The writer questioned why the person behind the blind items was still being allowed to write, and why many actors continue to appear in interviews with him. "The same stars who talk about mental health all day are giving interviews to this filmy journalist," he told the news channel.

'It's Difficult To Believe Sushant Killed Himself,' Says Chetan Bhagat

Times Now quoted him as saying, "Just like Jessica Lal's case, people in the country are actively involved in justice for Sushant because they feel if he will not get justice, who will. Of his seven-year career, I knew him for four-five years. It is difficult to believe that he could have killed himself."

Further, Chetan cited his own example and spoke about how he was driven to suicide when he was not given due credit for Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 2009 blockbuster film 3 Idiots.

Chetan Bhagat On How Sushant Singh Rajput And Abhishek Kapoor Resurrected His Career

Talking about it, the writer said, "No one wanted to produce Kai Po Che as it was based on Godhra riots in Gujarat. Then Abhishek decided that we will get newcomers in the film. But even for Sushant, it was a very risky move as it wasn't a love story or there was no lead in particular." He also said that Half Girlfriend was initially offered to Sushant, but the actor couldn't take up the film because of date issues.

Chetan Bhagat Says Sushant Had An Adorable 'Gullibility' To Him

In his interview, Chetan further said that till 2017, when Sushant came to his house for his birthday party, he was fine'. When asked about the actor's state of mind, the writer said that a psychiatrist would be better qualified to comment on the matter. However, he also added that the Sushant he knew was quiet and had an adorable gullibility' to him.
Lightning at night View Photo

The National Weather Service has issued a Fire Weather Watch for the Mother Lode, the Stanislaus National Forest and the northern San Joaquin Valley from late tonight through Tuesday morning.

Remnant moisture from decaying hurricane Geneviev will spread northward over northern California late tonight and Sunday. This will lead to the increasing potential for isolated to scattered dry thunderstorms over much of Northern California. Lightning from dry thunderstorms will have the potential to start new fires. The dry sub-cloud layer may lead to gusty downdraft winds from thunderstorms.

The potential for isolated to scattered dry thunderstorms will increase late tonight and Sunday, and will continue on Monday. The potential for dry thunderstorms may linger into Tuesday.

Any new fires that develop will likely spread rapidly.

Meanwhile, an Air Quality Alert has been issued for both Tuolumne County and Mariposa County, as well as San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare Counties and the Central Valley portion of Kern County.

The Air Quality Alert will remain in effect until most of the numerous regional fires are extinguished.

Exposure to particle pollution can cause serious health problems, aggravate lung disease, cause asthma attacks and acute bronchitis,

and increase risk of respiratory infections. Residents are advised to use caution as conditions warrant. People with heart or lung diseases should follow their doctor`s advice for dealing with episodes of unhealthy air quality.

Additionally, older adults and children should avoid prolonged exposure, strenuous activities or heavy exertion, as conditions dictate.

For additional information, call your local Air District office. In Tuolumne County, the phone number is 209-533-5693. In Mariposa, the phone number is 209-966-2220. In Modesto, the phone number is 209-557-6400. Fresno, 559-230-6000. Bakersfield, 661-381-1809.
 Flash

Stephen Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign adviser, and three others were charged on Thursday by federal prosecutors with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a border wall fundraising campaign, according to the authorities.

Bannon and three other individuals - Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea - were indicted for their roles in defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as "We Build the Wall," which raised more than 25 million dollars, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York.

"As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said in a statement.

All of the defendants were arrested Thursday morning. Bannon is expected to be presented in federal court in New York later on Thursday.

Stephen Bannon was an architect of President Donald Trump's 2016 election victory and later served as chief White House strategist. Bannon left the White House in August 2017.
A few days ago, 1.5-year-old Kuvi helped rescue workers by spotting the floating body of its owner, Dhanushka, after a landslide and unprecedented rain wreaked havoc in Idukki, Kerala.

For almost a week, Kuvi was trying to locate the bodies of the family of four and on one morning in Pettimudy, he could finally spot Danushka's body floating on a river, 4kms away from from the landslide spot. However, the bodies of the father, mother and sister remain to be found, reports TOI.

Few days after, when Ajith Madhavan, Kerala Police Dog Squad trainer reached the spot with his dog squad, he met Kuvi, who byt hen had already become a social media sensation.

Kuvi had realised that his human will perhaps never return, hence he remained around one place refusing to eat any food for nearly a week.

RELATED NEWS IIT Delhi Clears Air after Facing Flak for Job Ad Seeking Dog Handler with B.Tech Degree and Car

I managed to bring her to the makeshift mess set up at the site for the NDRF team, rescue workers and the dogs in the squad. Kuvi refused to eat initially, but later, slowly started eating the yolk of boiled eggs. As she started eating more eggs, I gave her the food that we had brought for the police dogs. It was after this Koovi felt energetic, and started hanging around with me, he said as reported by The News Minute.

After getting over with his rescue operation work, Ajith left Kuvi under the care of an adventure group in Pettimudy. However, the pet would hardly eat.

It was then Ajith decided to adopt Kuvi as one of his own dogs and make his join his team of a beagle and French bulldog.

Remember Koovi, the dog who waited days for her 2-year-old owner and finally helped find the toddlers body in Kerala landslide? Koovi is being adopted by Ajith, a trainer with the Kerala police dog squad.  pic.twitter.com/8sM42AV38f Shiba Kurian (@shiba_kurian) August 20, 2020

Ajith has sought permission from the Idukki Collector and other district officials to adopt Kuvi.

As per reports, Kuvi was initially called Kutty by his human famliy and that naming a lande eventually became Kuvi.

A massive landslide had destroyed a row of 20 houses of tea estate workers in the high range Idukki district on August 7 and it has taken weeks to retrieve bodies from the debris.
The race to become the next federal Conservative leader is the biggest news story Canadians are ignoring this summer.

Considering how the countrys been shaken by a global pandemic, the worst recession in decades and a federal government in turmoil, thats no big surprise.

But with the mail-in votes soon to be tallied and the winner to be announced Sunday, its time for Canadians to pay close attention.

It doesnt just matter to the Conservative Party of Canada who its next leader is. It matters to the entire country because that individual could become prime minister before the years out.

Given these high stakes, Peter MacKay is far and away the best option for the Conservatives. His political roots as the last leader of the Progressive Conservatives before they merged with the Alliance point to a Red Tory heart that would be far more in sync with todays Canadian reality than anyone else running for the job.

As Canada moves through, and hopefully out of, the pandemic, it needs a government with the guts and wits to successfully tackle the massive economic, social and environmental challenges facing it. Thats sure to mean more expensive and expansive government. But thats also what stressed-out Canadians are demanding.

This is simply not the time for a Conservative leader with conservative ideas stuck in a time warp and obsessed with balanced budgets and tax cuts. Erin OToole, the Ontario MP considered the main contender for the Tory leadership after MacKay, strikes us as being too mired in such a past. Moreover, with his Trump-like slogan, A Call to Take Back Canada, OToole hints at a present most Canadians would shun.

The other two candidates  Ontario MP Derek Sloan and Toronto lawyer Leslyn Lewis  have largely made their names as social conservatives. However well that might resonate with a Tory splinter group, it will have no traction with the public at large.

In marked contrast, MacKay is articulating a plan for a Conservative makeover that would establish the party as a viable alternative to the Liberals. Whether or not youd even consider voting Conservative, our democracy needs such competition.

It wouldnt be easy for MacKay to deliver on his promises to make Canada more of a global powerhouse in technology, boost its advanced manufacturing and more smoothly move its natural resources to market. But these are positive ideas from a business-savvy individual who is not just a former MP but, these days, a high-profile lawyer in Toronto.

Beyond being well-suited to these times, MacKays the best fit for this specific moment. Parliament was prorogued this week and will not resume until late September when the Liberals deliver their next Speech from the Throne.

Should that throne speech fail to win majority support in the House of Commons, Justin Trudeaus minority government will fall and there will be another general election.

MacKay could hit the ground running under that scenario. His previous service as Canadas attorney general as well as minister of both defence and foreign affairs underlines his experience, depth and credibility in high office.

To say this is not to turn a blind eye to what many Canadians will consider to be his shortcomings, such as his stubborn opposition to carbon taxes. Nor is it at this time an endorsement of anything beyond the leadership of his party.

But whether its holding the Liberals to account in Parliament or opposing them in an election, MacKay is hands down the best option to become the next Conservative leader. Lets hope his party thinks so, too.
In recent decades, critics of the major parties attempts to bleed any drama out of their quadrennial conventions  and to tightly control the nightly messages  complained that they were turning into infomercials. The days of spirited floor fights over platforms, demonstrations and long-shot nominations that pushed featured speakers past prime time disappeared many cycles ago.

In 2020, by manner of necessity from a global pandemic, the Democrats put together an actual infomercial. In some ways, it was an improvement. The speeches were shorter and more focused than usual, the extravagant fundraising parties in which politicians pander to big donors werent happening, and the party was liberated to include voices that would not have necessarily thrilled the masses within an arena but are helpful to victory in November.

Much of the Democratic National Convention may not have been the most riveting television for Americans casually interested in politics  or worse, hate politics  but the infomercial certainly had its moments. Several of the speakers seized the format to speak eye-to-eye to voters in a way that would not be possible in a packed venue. None pulled it off more effectively than Michelle Obama in her emphatic opening-night salvo against President Trump as the wrong president for our country, citing his administrations ineptness with the coronavirus pandemic and the nations reckoning with racial injustice.

The former first lady set a high bar that wasnt quite matched until Wednesday night when her husband, former President Barack Obama, laid out the case that a second term for Trump would be an existential threat to American democracy. Obama delivered what was a rare and devastating critique of a sitting president from a predecessor.

I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence of the democracy that had been placed in his care, Obama said. But he never did.

Obamas takedown of Trump was a perfect setup for Sen. Kamala Harris in her speech accepting the nomination for vice president. She was thus freed from the traditional running mates role as chief attacker. Instead, she was able to use a good portion of the speech to introduce herself to the nation.

Her delivery was among her best ever, all the more impressive considering that it was at a mostly empty venue. There will be abundant more opportunities for Harris to demonstrate her prosecutorial chops against the Trump administration. For at least one night, she was liberated to introduce herself: the idealistic, determined and relentlessly upbeat Kamala Harris that those of us who have known her from her Bay Area days have observed.

The Democrats were not subtle with their talking points. They portrayed themselves as the party that celebrates diversity, stressed that their presidential nominee Joe Biden is a family man and font of genuine empathy and  of course  declared that the Trump administration has been a disaster that bears some responsibility for the extent of the pandemic and resulting economic shock. They even gave airtime to Republicans disenchanted with Trump  John Kasich, Colin Powell, Cindy McCain  to the consternation of some progressives but in a bow to the reality that crossover appeal may loom consequential in battleground states.

Biden was well served by his supporting cast. On Thursday night, the spotlight was all his, and he brought the unconventional convention to a strong finish. He covered the bases, delivering his acceptance speech with substance and passion, contrasting the differences in policy and empathy with the incumbent president. He characterized it as a battle for the soul of this nation.

The striking takeaway from the Democratic National Convention was the extent to which the messages stayed synchronized over four nights. The party employed the infomercial format to its advantage. It raises the question of whether the parties may ever want to go back to their old ways.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
Mysuru : , Aug 21 (IANS) Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa offered prayers and 'Bagina' to the brimming Cauvery river as thanksgiving for the filling up of the KRS and Kabini reservoirs with heavy rains, an official said on Friday.

"The chief minister flew to the Krishnarajasagar (KRS) dam near Srirangapatna in Mandya district in a helicopter from Bengaluru and offered 'Bagina', consisting of flowers, fruits, rice flakes, coconuts and a silk sari in a handmade open bamboo tray to the flowing river for thanksgiving," the official told IANS.

Srirangapatna is 130 km southwest of Bengaluru on way to Mysuru in the state.

Later, Yediyurappa flew to Kabini dam in Mysuru district and made similar offerings to the tributary of Cauvery, though it originates in the Waynad district of the neighbouring Kerala state.

Timely southwest monsoon and copious rains since June have filled the mighty Cauvery river, which originates at Talacauvery near Baghamandala in the adjacent Kodagu district and runs through Tamil Nadu to the Bay of Bengal on the east coast.

Cauvery and its tributaries, including Kabini, Harangi and Hemavathy are the lifeline of the river basin in the state's southern region where lakhs of farmers depend on them for irrigating their fields and the people for drinking water.

State Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mysuru district in-charge minister S.T. Somshekar, Mandya's Independent Lok Sabha member Sumalatha Ambareesh and top officials participated in the functions.

"It's the first time that septuagenarian Yediyurappa travelled out of Bengaluru since March due to Covid-induced extended lockdown and the pandemic keeping him occupied in the state capital," the official recalled.

The chief minister also recently recovered from the corona virus infection.

All who participated in the twin events, including Yediyurappa and others were seen wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing.

Yediyurappa offered a 'Bagina' to the river in the past too when he was the state's chief minister from 2008-11 and again in 2019.

Incidentally, Yediyurappa was born at Bukenakare in Mandya district though he shifted to Shivamoga in the Malnad region later.

Former Congress chief minister S.M. Krishna, who hails from Somanahalli in the same district, also offered prayers to the river but only once in his 5-year tenure (1999-2004), as consecutive drought for 3-4 years prevented him from doing it.

The practice of offering Bagina to the river at the KRS dam was started in 1979 by then chief minister D. Devaraj Urs and was followed by successive chief ministers of all the political parties as it is considered auspicious for the state.
By PTI

KOLKATA: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar on Friday called for an "independent probe" into the alleged irregularities in the purchase of medical equipment related to COVID-19 pandemic, and said that the Mamata Banerjee government should release a white paper on the issue to ensure transparency.

Dubbing the purchases a "multi-crore scam", Dhankar said he was appalled by the financial irregularities and dimensions of culpable gain to chosen people.

"A WHITE PAPER called for indicating total purchases, sourcing thereof and decision maker/s," the governor tweeted.

"Corruption breeds with lack of transparency. Lift iron curtain @MamataOfficial for facts to spill out," Dhankar said, training his guns on the chief minister.

The state government has already formed a three- member, comprising of Home Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Finance Secretary Hari Krishna Dwivedi and Health Secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam, to look into the alleged irregularities.

Terming the probe ordered by the chief minister, who also holds the Health portfolio, a "cover up", Dhankar claimed that it "lacks credibility".

He said the committee is a "Post facto saviour mechanism!" "Independent Probe can alone fasten culpability. Need Probe to track money trail and ill gotten gain (sic)," he added.

However, Dhankhar had on Thursday expressed hope that the panel will name the beneficiaries of the alleged irregularities, and that there will be no cover-up.

The governor had claimed that he was the first to have flagged the irregularities in purchases meant to upgrade the state's health infrastructure amid the pandemic.

"Indicated-scam was in making as usual HOT FAVORITE MAN FRIDAY was beneficiary," he had said.

On receiving complaints from different quarters, the chief minister formed the three-member panel to probe allegations of irregularities in purchases after the Finance Department relaxed norms of tender process amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state government has allocated over Rs 2,000 crore for health infrastructure upgradation.

A senior state government official said that the panel will submit its findings to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, and strict action will be taken against any person involved, if the allegations are found to be true.

Dhankhar, who has often crossed swords with the TMC government over a host of issues in the last one year, recently alleged that the Raj Bhavan has been placed under surveillance, drawing strong criticism from the ruling party.
Nine employees of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TSGenco) are trapped inside the under-tunnel Srisailam Left Bank Power Station (SLBP) when fire broke out in the electric panel late on Thursday night, officials said.

The SLBP is on the Telangana side of the Srisailam reservoir on Krishna river, a joint irrigation project between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The power house was constructed in the huge tunnel under the Nallamala forests adjacent to the reservoir, which is presently brimming with heavy inflows into the river forcing the authorities to lift all the gates to discharge water.

Telangana power minister G Jagadeeshwar Reddy, who rushed to the spot along with top TSGenco officials, told reporters that the fire erupted possibly due to short circuit in the electric panels of the power house and it spread to other parts of the power house.

The TSGenco engineers tried tripping the unit, but did not succeed. They isolated the unit as another alternative. Fire extinguishers could not control the fire.

There were a total of 30 employees inside the powerhouse when the accident took place. While six employees were rescued and brought out of the tunnel, 15 others managed to come out through the emergency exit route of the project.

However, nine others were trapped inside as thick smoke engulfed inside the tunnel, making it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the place, the minister said.

Ambulances were stopped half a kilometre away. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams were also summoned but they also made three unsuccessful attempts to enter the tunnel till now. Rescue teams from Singareni Collieries are also expected to join the operation, Reddy said.

As the power supply was stopped, it was completely dark inside the tunnel, making it difficult for the trapped staff to come out. This is the first of its kind fire accident in an under-tunnel power unit.

The plant has two entrances and one exit. Smoke engulfed the entire stretch. By Friday morning, it started scattering outside. Officials are hopeful that the teams could enter the tunnel, if smoke comes out further.

The rescued electricity employees, including deputy executive engineer Pawan Kumar, plant junior assistant Ramakrishna, junior engineers Mathru, Krishna Reddy and Venkataiah and driver Palankaiah were shifted to TSGenco hospital at Eegala Penta closer to the power house. They are out of danger.

Deputy executive engineer Srinivas, assistant engineer Sundar and other junior engineers Fatima Begum, Sushma, Venkat Rao, Kiran and Rambabu and two other employees of a private engineering firm from Hyderabad, among those trapped inside.

We are praying for their safety, said power minister Jagadish Reddy.

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NCPDP

NCPDP announced today the Call for Proposals for its 2021 Annual Technology & Business Conference, Reimagine, Reinvent, Reinvest, which will be held May 3-5, 2021, at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. NCPDPs national conference draws more than 700 attendees from across the healthcare industry, including technical, business and executive representatives from health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, retail and independent pharmacies, specialty pharmacies, long-term care providers, healthcare consultants, technology vendors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesale drug distributors, database management organizations and others.

Our 2021 Annual Conference theme, Reimagine, Reinvent, Reinvest, are calls to action for healthcare industry stakeholders to step into a new mindset where anything is possible  to envision what healthcare and the patient experience should be and could be explained Lee Ann Stember, NCPDPs President & CEO. The next step is to take our shared, altruistic aspirations and be creative by reinventing. For example, the great, foundational standards we have can be repurposed to facilitate data sharing in a new way or for a new purpose. Then we must ground ourselves in the work to make it happen by reinvesting our time in developing and enhancing standards and solutions for the common good. This means bringing more colleagues and competitors together in our forums to continue our important work.

NCPDP is accepting submissions for two different session formats:



Standard Track Sessions are 60-minute sessions, providing for a 45-minute presentation and 15 minutes of question and answer. These sessions are limited to a maximum of two (2) speakers.

Rapid-fire, Hot Topic Sessions are 30-minute sessions focused on a high-level overview of an emerging trend. These sessions are designed to be both cutting-edge and highly focused, requiring the presenter to share ideas and achieve learning objectives in 20 minutes, with the remaining 10 minutes open for interactive discussion.

NCPDP encourages the submission of proposals covering a broad range of educational, informative healthcare and pharmacy topic areas, such as:



Artificial Intelligence

Behavioral Nudges

Blockchain Technology

Compliance, Accreditation, Government Mandates and Audits, HIPAA

Data and Analytics

Digital Therapeutics, Technology

Emerging Pharmacy Treatments

Emerging Technologies

Food and Drug Administration Programs

Impact of Regulatory/Legislative Environment on NCPDP Standards, Membership, Priorities

Long-term Care, Hospice

Pharmacogenomics

Population Health Management

Precision Medicine

Medicaid and Medicare Programs

Medication Adherence, Medication Management

mHealth (mobile health)

Patient Experience, Patient Engagement

Pharmacist as Provider, Pharmacist Provided Patient Care

Pharmacy Quality Measures

Rebates, Chargebacks

Social Determinants of Health

Specialty Pharmacy

Standards & Interoperability

Telehealth

Value Based Care

Wearables Data

340B Drug Discount Program

Preference will be given to case studies, pilot results and emerging trends. The deadline to submit a proposal is October 5, 2020.

For more information or to submit a proposal, visit: https://ncpdp.org/ac/call-for-proposals-info.aspx. For real-time updates before and during the conference, follow us at http://twitter.com/ncpdp or join the discussion using NCPDPs 2021 Annual Technology & Business Conference hashtag: #NCPDP21.

About NCPDP

Founded in 1977, NCPDP is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited, Standards Development Organization with more than 1,700 members representing virtually every sector of the pharmacy services industry. Our diverse membership provides leadership and healthcare business solutions through education and standards, created using the consensus building process. NCPDP has been named in federal legislation, including HIPAA, MMA, and HITECH. NCPDP members have created standards such as the Telecommunication Standard and Batch Standard, the SCRIPT Standard for ePrescribing, the Manufacturers Rebate Standard and more to improve communication within the pharmacy industry. Our data products include dataQ, a robust database of information on more than 80,000 pharmacies, resQ, an industry pharmacy credentialing resource, and HCIdea, an innovative prescriber database that provides continually updated information on more than 2.5 million prescribers. NCPDP's RxReconn is a legislative tracking product for real-time monitoring of pharmacy-related state and national legislative and regulatory activity. For more information about NCPDP Standards, Data Services, Products, Educational Programs and Work Group meetings, go online at http://www.ncpdp.org or call 480.477.1000.
The apology from Netflix comes after a petition in Change.org demanded Cuties be removed from the streaming platform for 'sexualising an eleven-year-old.'

Netflix has issued a statement of apology following strong backlash around the artwork of its upcoming release Cuties.

As per a report by Forbes, the Maimouna Doucoure directorial made use of "inappropriate artwork" following which the streaming platform issued a statement saying, "It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance."

A poster released by Netflix shows the young girls of the film in suggestive dance poses. This led to a petition in Change.org to remove Cuties from the streaming platform, calling it, "disgusting as it sexualizes an eleven-year-old for the viewing pleasure of pedophiles and also negatively influences our children.

The petition added that there is no need for such content in that age group, particularly when sex trafficking and pedophilia are so rampant.

Cuties premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January with Doucoure, stating at that time the project was inspired after she witnessed a group of young girls performing a "sensual" dance for an audience of their parents, reportedVanity Fair.

As per the report, Doucoure stated it was fascinating but disturbing at the same time because the girls were only 11 years old.

Speaking at Sundance, she stated that the scene inspired her to write and direct Cuties, whichaccording to the description in Sundance focuses on an 11-year-old Senegalese girl named Amy who is torn between her familys rigid standards and the free-spirited dance clique led by the girl living next door.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said on Thursday that the United States would withdraw initiating snapback sanctions against if it could reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic, however, that is unlikely to happen within the next 31 days.

"As for the things that would cause us to change our mind, if we could get to a place where we got a full-on agreement with the Islamic Republic of to behave like a normal nation and live up to the commitments we've asked for - we have been prepared to have that conversation for a long time - were we able to achieve that, we would consider withdrawing this," Pompeo said. "I think it's unlikely within the 31 days between here and there but as a diplomat, I always live in hope."

Earlier on Thursday, Pompeo sent a letter to the UN Security Council requesting that it invokes the 2015 nuclear agreement snapback mechanism under Resolution 2231, claiming Iran's non-compliance with the accord.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on Thursday to deny support for the United States' initiative on reinstating UN sanctions against by invoking the snapback mechanism of the nuclear agreement.

(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.)
60 Minutes is teasing another newsy story from SMH / Age journalist Nick McKenzie, rumoured to surround a prominent political name.

Party Games

Its no surprise that politics is a dirty business, but rarely do we see just how grubby it is. An exception was two months ago when 60 Minutes, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age exposed the ALPs faceless man, Adem Somyurek, as a bully and a misogynist. As a result of reporter Nick McKenzies story, Somyurek was immediately expelled from the ALP and two other Victorian Ministers resigned from their portfolios. Now McKenzie has turned his attention to the other side of politics, where hes discovered its also not immune to dodgy dealing and dubious behaviour.

Reporter: Nick McKenzie

Producers: Joel Tozer, Paul Sakkal

The Good Doctor

You know these are strange days indeed when an immunologist, albeit a very good one, becomes a household name. But thats exactly what has happened to Dr Anthony Fauci. His expertise in fighting the Coronavirus pandemic has made him a hero to many, but not his boss, the United States President. Talk about shooting the messenger  Donald Trump continually undermines his chief scientific adviser, calling him alarmist, and scoffing when the doctor urges caution about reopening the economy. But Dr Faucis not worried. Instead hes getting on with trying to beat COVID-19. In an exclusive interview with 60 Minutes, he shares important news with Tara Brown about the race for a vaccine and the way Australia is tackling this nightmare.

Reporter: Tara Brown

Producer: Stefanie Sgroi

Despicable Him

If every mention of your name was preceded by the word conman, youd probably realise what a despicable person you are. For Peter Foster, thats been his lot in life for more than three decades. But in June, 60 Minutes reported how Foster was more than a career fraudster with accusations he had attempted to hire a hitman to take out one of his enemies. On Thursday there was a welcome development in the case. A police investigation into Fosters nefarious activities led to his arrest on the idyllic sands of a Port Douglas beach, and only 60 Minutes was there to catch the dramatic moment.

Reporter: Karl Stefanovic

Producer: Nick Greenaway

8:50pm Sunday on Nine.
Calvados brand Christian Drouin launches first spirit in experimental series

Family-owned Calvados brand Christian Drouin has released the first edition of a new experimental range in the UK.

Hampden Angels, the first edition of the Experimental de Christian Drouin series, will be exclusively distributed by Speciality Brands.

Hampden Angels is a 14 years old Pays d'Auge Calvados aged for eight months in American oak barrels which previously contained rums from the iconic Hampden distillery in Jamaica.

Christian Drouin says the cask finish brings powerful aromatic layers to the spirit with flavours of ripe banana, coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla and baked apples. Hampden Angel is classified as an Eau de Vie de Cidre, with only 1,296 bottles of the expression released globally. The 44% ABV spirit will be available at specialist retailers from August with a recommended price of 90 for a 70cl bottle.

Chris Seale, managing director of Speciality Brands, said: "There's a growing interest in Calvados at the moment with the French spirit starting to gain recognition as an approachable and dynamic drinks category. Brands like Christian Drouin which have a long-standing heritage combined with a modern vision are spearheading innovation and creativity in Calvados."

The Experimental de Christian Drouin series aims to demonstrate the house's craftsmanship skills and drive for innovation, with new limited editions set to be released each year.

21 August 2020 - Bethany Whymark
Hong Kong New Security Law Prompts Security Measures on US Campuses

2020-08-20 -- Universities in the United States are responding to a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by China with warnings about "politically sensitive content" for students who risk reprisals under the law.

Students studying at Ivy League schools including Harvard and Princeton will be warned of potentially "sensitive" class content ahead of time, the Wall Street Journal reported.

At Princeton, students will be offered anonymous codes to put on their assignments to protect their identities, while Harvard Business School is considering waiving participation in some discussions for students made newly vulnerable by the law, the paper reported.

At Amherst College, one professor is considering using anonymous chat rooms for class discussions to protect students.

The National Security Law for Hong Kong, which came into effect on July 1, 2020, bans secession, subversion, collusion with foreign powers, and terrorism, and has been criticized by foreign governments as being in breach of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's promise to maintain the city's freedom and autonomy.

Rights groups say the vaguely worded offenses, which carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, and cover speech or actions anywhere in the world, will enable the authorities to crack down on any form of peaceful criticism, active dissent, or political opposition.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many students from Hong Kong and the rest of China will be signing up for online classes, amid growing concerns that the chilling effect of the new law is already spreading far beyond China's borders.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some 370,000 Chinese students and around 7,000 from Hong Kong were studying at American universities during the 2018-19 school year.

In political science classes, Princeton assistant professor Rory Truex will use blind grading and content warnings to help students identify when they could run afoul of the new law, while Meg Rithmire said her class will offer similar measures, as topics include the mass incarceration of ethnic minority Uyghurs in "re-education" camps in Xinjiang.

The paper quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Avery Goldstein as saying that he would also put warnings on potentially "sensitive" topics for his students.

Neither Harvard nor Penn State had responded to requests for comment from RFA by the time of writing.

Ho-fung Hung, associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had already made inroads into academic freedom and censorship on university campuses before the advent of the new law, however, and that this process could now intensify further.

"The CCP's national security law has everyone very frightened," Hung told RFA. "If people are afraid, they will be very careful, and then they will stop speaking out, even if they can't touch you."

"This is how it works. We have to keep reminding ourselves to pay attention and not to self-censor," he said.

Hung said the prevalence of online learning during the coronavirus pandemic had made students and their families more vulnerable to political reprisals for things they do and say in a university setting.

Parents warned, harassed by police

Meanwhile, Chinese activists in the U.S. said their family members had recently been targeted in connection with their activities overseas.

Ji Jiabao, who co-founded a group supporting constitutional government for China in the U.S. earlier this year, said his parents and those of at least three other group members had been harassed by state security police back home, after the group spoke out against the national security law.

He said police in his hometown of Tianjin had contacted his parents after he attended an event commemorating the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre, after the group was set up, and again when it issued an open letter critical of the new law.

His father later called him and tried to warn him off his activism.

"Wang Dan is an enemy of the state, so why are you in touch with him?" Ji's father said in an audio recording of the phone call. "You shouldn't get mixed up with him."

Both of Ji's parents are subject to additional pressure because they are state employees, and weren't available to comment, he said.

"I have understood the nature of the CCP regime. It is a totalitarian state," Ji told RFA. "I think the only way to survive is resistance."

But he said many of his group's members are still maintaining anonymity for fear of affecting their loved ones back home.

Another U.S.-based Chinese student, who asked to remain anonymous, said his parents had also had a similar talk with him.

"They told me that if I continued like this, I might never be able to return to China, and they would never be able to go abroad," he said.

"In this kind of situation, it's meaningless to discuss political views. We can only talk about the consequences."

He said he would be taking additional steps to protect his family, while continuing his activism overseas.

Reported by Zheng Chongsheng and Jia Ao for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Copyright  1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content August not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use.

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OWENDALE  There may be a rate increase for municipal utilities for Owendale village residents in the future.

Last month, Owendale village Clerk Randall Howard and DPW Superintendent Steven Sweatland met with Michigan Rural Water Association representative John Monsees to do a water and sewer rate analysis of village rates.

During the August village meeting, Howard reported on the rate analysis that was performed and a copy of the report was distributed to the council for review.

The analysis revealed the need to increase both water and sewer rates in order to provide the funding necessary to maintain the systems properly, explained Howard, noting there were some recommendations in the report.

The council members decided they needed time to review and consider the Michigan Rural Water Associations recommendations before making a decision.

According to Howard, the council could take action on the proposed recommendations at the next village meeting in September.

The last increase was in April 2016, with an increase from $5 to $5.50 per 1,000 gallons, Howard said.

Because a recent request for a grant to help pay off the water tower was denied, the village still owes $98,000 on the principal balance. It will not be paid off until 2032.

Also, a request was presented to the council from the DPW superintendent to purchase a set of cordless power tools for the village at a cost of $875.

The council took no action on the request, and will wait until Sweatland returns from vacation to ask him questions on the proposed purchase.

In other village matters, Owendale Police Chief Anthony Wood reported he had six complaints last month, and all were ordinance related.

Wood also reported he had sent a letter to the property owner of the former tile plant instructing him to cut down weeds on the property.
An aerial view of Rex Airlines aircraft at Sydney Airport on April 22, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Rex Airlines Helps Western Australia Recover from Pandemic

Rex Airlines will deliver more flights in regional Western Australia in collaboration with the state government; helping to support recovery in tourism-reliant regional areas impacted by the CCP virus pandemic.

From Aug. 31, Rex will deliver several new services per week to Albany, Esperance, Carnarvon, and Monkey Mia (Shark Bay).

The additional services complement those announced in June when the number of services doubled on the Albany and Esperance air routes, and Carnarvon increased from 3 to 5 flights.

Its initiatives like these that help in the recovery of the aviation sector and play an important role in getting local businesses and the tourism sector back on track, said Premier Mark McGowan in a media release.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Western Australia had a bumper year in tourismbreaking visitor records and delivering on the premiers promise to diversify the economy through tourism.

Surfers catch some waves at Trigg Beach, Perth, Australia on April 10, 2020. (Paul Kane/Getty Images)

Coming out of the pandemic were more fortunate than any other state or territory in the country, and we need to use our isolation to our advantage, said McGowan noting it was essential to rebuild WA economy and get people back into jobs.

Rex General Manager Warwick Lodge said: In partnership with the WA state and Commonwealth governments, Rex is pleased to be increasing the number of flights in WA because we understand the importance of these flight increases to the socio-economic wellbeing of regional WA during these times of uncertainty.

Rex passenger numbers are growing strongly after the significant drop that came following government restrictions put in place to stem the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, back in March.

We hope that the increased frequency of flights and improved schedule convenience will aid in assisting the economic recovery, said Lodge in a media release (pdf).

Communities in the region have responded positively to the offer of discounted fares with more 1,870 fares sold in July, more than double the 914 sold in June.

The states Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said the new increases to regional air services is excellent news for locals who now have more choices for flying.

While flights havent quite returned to pre-COVID schedules, we are well on our way to improving aviation services to and from the regions, which is providing more choice and flexibility for regional residents, said Saffioti.

As part of the states recovery plan, Western Australians have been encouraged to Wander out Yonder and support local tourism operators amid the pandemic and restrictions of travel.

Reports from the States regional destinations indicate Western Australians are taking local holidays in high numberssupporting local tourism operators, small businesses, and regional economies, said Tourism Minister Paul Papalia.

These additional flights, available to locals and visitors, provide another incentive for people to experience some of the amazing adventures WA has to offerwith Monkey Mia, Carnarvon, Albany and Esperance all offering unique local holiday options.

The minister said securing more affordable flights is a crucial priority for many regional areas that rely on the tourism sector.

We are continuing to negotiate with a number of airlines on new partnerships for further destinations, Papalia said.

Rex (Regional Express) is Australias largest independent regional airline operating a fleet of 60 Saab 430 aircraft (pre-pandemic) on some 1,500 weekly flights to 60 destinations throughout Australia.
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks edged lower on Friday as a strong pound weighed on exporters. The pound rallied against the euro as retail sales data beat expectations and activity in the U.K.'s private sector grew at its sharpest pace since 2013 in August, alleviating some concerns over an extended economic slowdown. U.K. retail sales grew 3.6 percent month-on-month in July, driven by non-food store turnover, official data showed. That was slower than the sharp 13.9 percent rise in June and 12.2 percent increase in May, but beat forecasts for a 2 percent gain. The composite purchasing managers' index (PMI) reading from IHS Markit's closely watched survey came in at 60.3, beating forecasts and above July's figure of 57. The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 5 points at 6,008 after tumbling 1.6 percent on Thursday. Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca eased 0.6 percent while consumer goods company Unilever was marginally lower. Retailers were moving higher, with Marks & Spencer rising 1.4 percent and Morrison gaining half a percent. HG Capital surged 4 percent on news it will invest in Visma alongside other institutional clients. 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.
By Lars Hagberg

BROCKVILLE, Ontario, Aug 21 (Reuters) - A 3M Co Canadian plant capable of supplying 50 million N95 face masks a year will help stave off "terrifying" shortages during the coronavirus pandemic, the leader of Canada's most populous province said on Friday.

Ottawa and the province of Ontario decided to invest C$23 million ($17.5 million) each to expand the facility after experiencing serious problems as they tried to stock up on foreign-made personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers in the first weeks of the outbreak.

"We were left in a terrible, terrible situation ... and the terrifying reality is, at one point back in April, Ontario was left with less one week's supply of N95 masks," Premier Doug Ford told reporters.

"I promised the people of Ontario that we would never, ever again be left at the mercy of other countries for this critical PPE," Ford spoke at the plant in Brockville, a town about 110 km (70 miles) south of Ottawa.

Starting next year it will produce 25 million masks for the federal government and another 25 million for Ontario.

In April, Ford complained the United States had blocked the export of more than 3 million face masks Ontario had bought.

Canada has reported 123,873 total cases and 9,054 deaths. Ontario accounts for the 31% of the death toll.

Federal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the plant would help "ensure we have the capacity to make whatever we need, here in our own communities" and could one day export masks. ($1=1.3184 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by David Ljunggren Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 14:36 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f8d0c9 1 National Nusakambangan,salemba-prison,Nusakambangan-prison,NusakambanganPrisonIsland,Central-Jakarta,EcstasyPills,drug,drug-abuse,drug-courier,drug-raids Free

A drug convict, identified only as AU, 42, is set to be detained in a super maximum security prison after being caught producing ecstasy pills in the VVIP room of a private hospital in Central Jakarta.

Central Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Heru Novianto said AU was an inmate at the Salemba detention center who had been sentenced to 15 years for the possession of 15,000 ecstasy pills. He had only served two years.

AU was under medical treatment at the hospital on a referral from the detention center as he regularly complained of stomach pain.

The suspect argued that he was sick, but apparently he turned the hospital [room] into a factory. We conducted an investigation and raided his VVIP room after getting information from the public, Heru said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

The Sawah Besar Police in Central Jakarta said its team first arrested another suspect, MW, 36, who had served as AUs courier, and found 30 ecstasy pills.

From an interrogation, we found out MW is AUs courier who often went [to the hospital]. There were several production tools they ordered online, Sawah Besar Police chief Comr. Eliantoro Jalmaf said on Thursday.

In the VVIP room, the police found evidence of ecstasy pills, dyes, a cell phone and ecstasy printing kits to turn powder into granules.

Read also: Pandemic could put people at greater risks from illicit drug trade: UNODC

Our team is still investigating to identify the sales channels [for the drugs]. What is clear now is that [AU] sold the drugs for Rp 3 million [US$203] per package of 60 pills, Eliantoro said.

The police said AU had earned Rp 140 million from the business after over two months in the hospital.

The Corrections Directorate General is set to transfer AU to the Nusakambangan maximum security prison in Central Java.

With security considerations, AU will be transferred [on Thursday] to a one-man cell under super maximum security at the Karanganyar prison in Nusakambangan, said the directorate generals spokesperson, Rika Aprianti.

Heru said the police would investigate a number of prison guards in charge of overseeing AU and the nurses who delivered food and medicine to the VVIP room.

AU and MW have been charged under multiple articles of the 2009 Narcotics Law and will get 20 years in prison if found guilty. (syk)
No, this is not history repeating itself for our community of Latinos and other immigrants. This llorona can be corralled and controlled somewhat, but only with the help of science, medicine and common sense. It is common sense to most of us that continued testing is one of the keys to help South Omaha survive this deadly attack.

So why isnt anyone listening? he asked rhetorically. I hate to think we both know why. Is this what genocide looks like?

Ben Salazar, Omaha

Get the facts on Postal Service

So the president is conspiring to use the Postal Service to rig the election? Lets get some facts.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and all that it visited upon communities across North Cork, the Mallow Credit Union was able to proudly claim that it was able to maintain normal working house across its branches.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and all that it visited upon communities across North Cork, the Mallow Credit Union was able to proudly claim that it was able to maintain normal working house across its branches.

In fact, management were even able to bring a number of long-term project to fruition - among them the fact that they are now in a position to substantially increase the ceiling for loans to members.

The head of lending at Mallow Credit Union, Kieran OCallaghan, said that 2020 has been a challenge...to say the least.

Management would like to thank staff and members for their support and cooperation over the past five months. Thanks to the staff services at our branches in Mallow/Ballydaheen, Buttevant, Millstreet, Doneraile, Droncollogher and Charleville were largely uninterrupted, he said.

After receiving the green light from the Central Bank to increase our lending limit, we now also have the opportunity to lend larger amounts to our members who wish to extend or improve their homes.

Under the new provisions branch members can now borrow up to 100,000, plus the value of savings they may have, with a reduced rate for those borrowing over 60,000.

So whether theyre planning on converting the attic or adding an extension, we are now in a position to do more for our members, said Mr OCallaghan.

Approval for a loan is based on ability to repay, with Mallow Credit Union offering successful applicants free loan protection insurance for qualifying members, interest charged on the reducing loan balance and the provision to make additional payments with no penalty.

Loan applicants need to provide :

* Proof of address.

* A valid photo I.D. (i.e. passport, drivers licence)

* The three most recent payslips for all parties whose income is used to support the loan application.

* Three months bank account statements (up to date) for all parties whose income is used to support the loan.

* Most recent Credit Card statement for all parties whose income is used to support the loan.

In the case of the self-employed, we will require the most recent audited accounts together with a letter from your accountant confirming that your tax affairs are up to date, said Mr OCallaghan.

Members can apply in any one of our branches, all of which are adhering to Covid-19 governmental guidelines online or over the phone, he added.

For more visit www.mallowcu.ie.
BIG BAY, Michigan - For at least the last dozen summers, my wife and I have spent at least a week each summer in Michigans Upper Peninsula. Often, I write scribbles about sports. This time, its Faith & You:

1. I mentioned to someone I was writing a column about Michigans Upper Peninsula for Faith & You. He wondered if it was better for the travel section. No, because everywhere you go, you not only take yourself with you...but God also is there.

2. You can feel it on the shore of Lake Superior. It should be called The Greatest Lake. All the other Great Lakes combined arent as large as Superior. Most of the beaches along Superior are peaceful and empty. You can watch the sun set, the colors of the clouds change from puffy marshmallow white to yellow to pink to red and finally...darkness sets in.

3. In the city, our biggest problem is often people. We cant control them. We cant trust them. We cant understand them. Pastor Knute Larson (formerly of The Chapel in Akron) once told me, Youll feel better once you realize you really cant make anyone do anything.

4. Larson is right. Yes, can we influence them? Guide them? Certainly. But you cant force people in your life to always do what you want.

This unnamed waterfall is somewhere on the Little Garlic River not far from Big Bay, Michigan. Photo by Terry Pluto / Cleveland.com.

5. In most of the Upper Peninsula, people are not the problem. Thats because there are no people around. My wife and I were hiking part of the North Country Trail not far from a little town called Big Bay. Its north of Marquette in the Huron Mountains, one of those end of the road places. Driving up a dirt road called M-510, we didnt see a car or person for miles. No one was at the trail head, assuming you can find it. We did. Its a challenge: A little brown post in some very big weeds.

6. Cell service disappeared a while ago. The trail was up and down. It was stumps and bumps, rocks and roots. There were a lot of massive pines that had been seemingly been ripped out of the land and tossed aside by determined wind and waterfalls. Trees reached to the heavens. The sun sparkled though leaves on maple trees. Its Gods country and we cant control any of it.

7. Novelist Jim Harrison once wrote it was as if the land in the rural U.P. was angry. At the same time, the beauty is raw, untamed. Up here, the challenge isnt usually people. Its the weather, the wind, the wilderness -- with the emphasis on the wild part.

Geese swimming in Lake Superior. Photo by Terry Pluto / Cleveland.com

8. Yes, there are bears, but we havent seen them often. Yes, there are supposed to be moose, but weve never seen one. Yes, you see huge sandhill cranes that suddenly come out of nowhere like prehistoric birds. None of that is a real concern for us. The main thing is to stay on what sometimes is a poorly marked trail. My wife is far better in these situations, and I have learned to defer to her (not easy) when dealing with making sure we stay on the trail.

9. The North Country trail is marked with blue slash marks on trees. But the trees have sometimes been knocked down. The path in this place can grow faint. When getting lost, go back to where you were last on the right trail. It works out here, and it works in life. Its an important lesson in humility.

Perhaps the most rugged and remote part of Michigan is the Huron Mountains, west of Marquette and Big Bay. Photo by Terry Pluto / Cleveland.com

10. There are lots of easy trails with plenty of people along Lake Superior. We prefer solitude and a bit of a challenge for our hikes. The reward of coming to a waterfall or a roaring river and having it all to yourself reminds me of Psalm 46:10: Be still and know I am God.

11. We usually stay in Marquette. We rent a beautiful house. Eat whitefish and lake trout at nice restaurants. So were not sleeping under the stars, swatting bugs and wondering if a hungry bear will show up. At heart, Im a wimp. Down deep, Im thankful Roberta introduced me to the outdoors. It changed me in so many ways.

12. A word of warning: Do not come up here in May, June or even early July if you plan to head into the woods. They dont have bugs, the have reprobate mosquitoes. They have horseflies that take off from aircraft carriers. They have invisible bugs that somehow end up in your ears, nose and throat. Im not kidding. They swarm. They attack. They delight in taking your blood and making you miserable.

13. By the middle of the summer, many of the insects have gone to their justly deserved and I hope miserable deaths. August and the days after that are a great way to avoid most of them.

14. At night, we head out to the beach along Lake Superior for the sunset. Its not hard to get away from people and get alone with God. I think of Psalm 113:3: From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the LORD is to be praised.

15. Notice I didnt say anything about winter in the U.P. If you want 200 to 300 inches of snow, this your place. If you think zero is a heat wave, come on up. But no matter when you come, you really will get the sense God is in control.

It's not hard to find a spot to get alone with God and the sunset on Lake Superior. Photo by Terry Pluto / Cleveland.com

RECENT TERRY PLUTO FAITH & YOU COLUMNS

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Stories of parents, kids, pain and hope

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When you go the store, do you see the mask-wearing clerk as a person?

Some amazing prayers answered

The world today has me feeling like Howard The Duck

What do you think when looking at your fathers tombstone?

Father Walt Jenne: 50 years on Faiths Frontline

What can I say to an African-American friend as anger arises?

You want me to change?

Hey graduates, lets talk relationships!

Patient? What do you mean, Im not patient? Ill tell you who needs to be patient!
MIAMI: El Salvadors government signed a $450,000 contract to hire a well-connected Washington lobbyist only to immediately back away from the deal as President Nayib Bukele, a strong Trump ally, has come under criticism that his popular polices mask an authoritarian streak, The Associated Press has learned.

Robert Strykes Sonoran Policy Group registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. government on Thursday after signing a contract with Bukeles national intelligence chief, according to a copy of the contract provided by the Department of Justice.

But hours later, in response to a request for comment by the AP, Bukeles office said the president had never approved the contract, which is dated Aug. 15, and had it annulled. Despite multiple requests, his office and two aides wouldnt say when it was cancelled or what led to the abrupt reversal, but insisted that no money had been disbursed.

El Salvadors government has 194 portfolios and each director has discretion to direct funds for A and B situations, contracts, services or needs, his office said in a statement. But this type of contract the president has to approve, or not approve, directly.

Stryk on Friday wouldnt comment on the contracts status after El Salvador insisted it had been cancelled. Under the terms of the contract, either party can terminate the relationship, without cause, giving 30 days notice, but will be potentially responsible for any payments until it is effectively terminated.

The signing of this contract on behalf of the people of El Salvador continues my commitment to assist all nations in rooting out corruption, organized crime and terrorism so as to promote the sacred values of capitalism, which is the eternal flame that truly lights the world!, Stryk said in a statement.

Its not clear why Bukeles government was seeking influence in Washington. The five-page consulting agreement signed by Peter Dumas, El Salvadors director of national intelligence, only says Stryks firm will charge $75,000 a month for up to six months of government and media relations work. It also says Sonoran will provide economic development advice and outreach to trade organizations for the Bukele government.

The 39-year-old Bukele took office in 2019 as an independent vowing to rescue El Salvador from the deep divisions left by uncontrolled gang violence and systemic corruption in both right and left-wing governments that followed the end of a bloody civil war in 1992.

Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Salvadorans approve of his strong-handed approach. But human rights activists and some business leaders complain he has trampled on the countrys constitution, most famously in February, when he sent heavily armed troops to surround the congress to pressure lawmakers into approving a loan to fund the fight against gangs. His strict lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus has also proven controversial.

Hes nonetheless drawn close to President Donald Trump, expressing support for his hard-line immigration policies by signing a bilateral agreement that would allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers from other countries to El Salvador. The policy had not been implemented before the pandemic.

As part of Thursdays filing, Sonoran said it had hired Mario Duarte, the former head of Guatemalas intelligence service, to assist its work on behalf of El Salvador.

Stryk, a winemaker and former Republican aide who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Yountville, California, has soared to the top of the highly competitive influence industry in Trumps Washington.

A former unpaid Trump campaign adviser on the West Coast, his firm had no reported lobbying activity from 2013 to 2016 but has billed upward of $17.3 million to foreign clients since the start of 2017, according to data from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Stryk prides himself on being an outsider and disputes claims he has some special in with the White House.

Many of his past clients have bruised reputations in Washington or are under U.S. sanctions, such as the governments of Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently he represents Isabel dos Santos, Africas richest woman, who is fighting allegations that she accumulated vast wealth through state loans brokered by her father, Angolas former president.

In January he registered as a foreign agent to open doors for Venezuelas socialist government, which Trump and Bukele both fiercely oppose. But the law firm that had hired him as a consultant later terminated the $12.5 million contract with a close ally of President Nicols Maduro amid an outcry from Florida Republicans, who accused them of shilling for a dictator.

The last time El Salvador hired a U.S. lobbyist was in 2017, when its embassy in Washington paid law firm Dentons U.S. a total of $125,000 for five months of work aimed at strengthening bilateral relations.

AP Writers Marcos Aleman in San Salvador and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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
Meanwhile, the ED officials sought details and professional deals about which Rajputs sister Priyanka was in the loop

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) swung into action on Friday in connection with the probe in Sushant Singh Rajputs suicide and began recreating the scene at the actors residence in Bandra.

The CBI also questioned Rajputs cook Neeraj and house manager Samuel Miranda in connection with suicide, as they were present in the residence when the actor hanged himself to death on June 14. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) meanwhile recorded statement of Rajputs elder sister Priyanka Singh on Friday.

Multiple teams of the CBI are probing separate angles involved in the suicide. Ahead of the probe, the CBI officials met their counterparts in the Mumbai police and collected the set of evidences including the statement copies, electronic devices of the actor, case findings, CCTV camera DVRs and other documents along with the pictures and panchnama of the suicide spot.

The CBI teams consist of forensic experts who would revisit the electronic gadgets and analyse them in light of the suicide spot not having been left untouched.

The cook and house manager were questioned and the facts of the incident, as they were in the house, are being collected while also comparing them with their statement given to the Mumbai police, said CBI officials.

The officials grilled the two at the DRDO and Indian Air Force guesthouses in Santacruz where the visiting team has set up their base. The officials will also grill others, including Rajputs housemate Siddharth Pithani and locksmith who was also one of the first persons to visit the house soon after the actor was found hanging.

Meanwhile, the ED officials sought details and professional deals about which Rajputs sister Priyanka was in the loop. The agency on Thursday recorded the statement of filmmaker Rumi Jaffery. They are probing into the alleged money laundering as per the actors father. The family alleged that at least `15 crore was fraudulently transferred from his bank account.

The ED is investigating the companies that were floated with the actor, Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik being appointed directors in. The criminal case has named Chakrabortys as the main accused in it.
We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege, Biden said.

Each of those goals is important. Truth is fundamental to democracy. Lies are the stuff of authoritarian regimes, which is why Trump likes them. But fairness is the most relevant compass for Biden because the Democratic Party has failed in the 21st century to place fairness before privilege  and in 2016 Americans made clear they were done with that game.

Opinion Debate Will the Democrats face a midterm wipeout? Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond.

write that "only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022" and beyond. Matthew Continetti writes that time and again, the biggest obstacle to a red wave hasnt been the Democratic Party. Its been the Republican Party.

writes that time and again, the biggest obstacle to a red wave hasnt been the Democratic Party. Its been the Republican Party. Ezra Klein speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging.

speaks to David Shor, who discusses his fear that Democrats face electoral catastrophe unless they shift their messaging. Michelle Cottle examines two primary contests that will shake the parties well beyond the states in play.

Biden came across as genuine. He spoke not from calculation but his core. This was his task; he succeeded. On character, he delivered. The nomination came his way because Americans were not ready for a revolution. They wanted an anchor in a world upended.

Trump triumphed in 2016 as an impostor. He won as the voice of the dispossessed, the mouthpiece of the unsayable. Exploiting fear, he restored violence to a wan political stage of PowerPoint slides. He cut through the anesthetized language of globalized elites. He attacked money-wooed Democrats estranged from their white, blue-collar constituencies. He aimed a howitzer at what the Clintons Democratic Party had become.

Because Biden was so much a part of what the Democratic Party had become, I wrote in May last year that he was not the candidate to beat Trump. Three months later, I wrote that the who-can-beat-Trump test led to Kamala Harris, because shes tough, broadly of the center, has a great American story, is passionate on issues including immigrants, African-Americans and women. I quoted her calling Trump a predator and calling predators cowards.

In the end, a Biden-Harris ticket is the best pick for the Democratic Party, its best hope to fire Trump. Because the pandemic prioritized a safe pair of hands; because Biden, prodded by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, has adjusted leftward without losing centrist Democrats; because Biden no longer looks like the tired restoration of an old order but an essential pivot to sanity, decency and competence, and because the ticket embodies ideas of racial justice, generational balance and reconciliation (between the two candidates and all Americans).
Excelente! ?? La @NASA anuncia que la @UNIoficial ha ganado el Primer Premio del Concurso @RoverChallenge en la categoria Technology Challenge Award for Wheel Design and Fabrication ??

Felicitaciones al equipo #Tharsis por dejar el nombre del Peru en alto! ???? https://t.co/0c0vZWYEvw
Germany's Scientific Advisory Board for Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection (WBAE), an interdisciplinary body that advises the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture on a voluntary basis about policy development, today presents its new report "Promoting more sustainable food consumption: Developing an integrated food policy and creating fair food environments" to Federal Minister Julia Klockner in Bonn. In it, the WBAE formulates nine central recommendations for the transformation of the food system. These recommendations are oriented towards the four central targets of more sustainable nutrition, known as the "Big Four": health, social issues, environment and animal welfare.

Recommendations include the gradual introduction of free high-quality childcare and school meals, the abolition of the VAT rate concession on animal products, the introduction of a new excise tax on sugar-containing drinks and the introduction of a mandatory climate label for all food. The report shows that the public debate is too often dominated by symbolic political arguments, for example about plastic bags, instead of key environmental policy issues such as the need for a significant reduction in the consumption of animal products. In comparison with other countries, Germany is a latecomer in terms of developing its food policy. The WBEA report said that responsibility was being transferred too much to individual consumers; politicians must intervene and support the promotion of sustainable behaviour more strongly.

Three professors from the University of Gottingen - Professor Achim Spiller and Professor Matin Qaim from the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, together with Professor Jose Martinez from the Institute of Agricultural Law - played a significant role in the development of this report. "In the complex field of nutrition policy, which is characterised by strong lobbying influences, a cautious nutrition policy is the wrong signal," says Spiller, who co-directed the report.

The central themes of the report are also reflected by the research conducted at the University of Gottingen. Among other topics, Professor Spiller is working on the options to reduce meat consumption in the interdisciplinary joint project "Vegetable-oriented eating habits as the key to sustainability" (NES). Professor Qaim conducts intensive research on combating global malnutrition and on questions of sustainable agriculture. Professor Martinez studies in-depth the legal framework of a more sustainable food system (with a focus on environmental and animal protection and competition law).

###

Report from Germany's Scientific Advisory Board for Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection (WBAE) "Promoting more sustainable food consumption: Developing an integrated food policy and creating fair food environments" Executive summary is available online - https://www.bmel.de/EN/ministry/organisation/advisory-boards/AgriculturalPolicyPublications.html

Contact:

Professor Achim Spiller

University of Gottingen

Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development

Marketing for Food and Agricultural Products

Platz der Gottinger Sieben 5, 37073 Gottingen

Tel: +49 (0)151-42482716

Email: a.spiller@agr.uni-goettingen.de

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/11280.html
CAIRO (AP)  Libyas U.N.-supported government Friday announced a cease-fire across the oil-rich country and called for demilitarizing the strategic city of Sirte in an initiative supported by the rival parliament in the east.

The development could mark a breakthrough following international pressure amid rising fear of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war as rival sides mobilize for a battle over Sirte. The gateway to Libyas major oil export terminals has been under the control of forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter since January.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

The chaos has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year. Thousands of mercenaries including Russian, Syrians and Sudanese are fighting on both sides of the conflict.

Hifter, who is allied to the parliament in eastern Libya, is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli have backing from Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle, as well as from the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture Tripoli. But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with heavy Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of the city and other western towns.

Fighting has died down in recent weeks, but both sides were preparing for a possible battle over Sirte. Emboldened by Turkeys support, Tripoli-allied forces vowed to retake Sirte and the Jurfa area, which includes a vital inland military base, from Hifters forces, prompting Egypt to threaten to send troops to Libya.

Story continues

Previous efforts to secure lasting cease-fires have stalled. But this time could prove different with heavier diplomatic efforts, including by the United States, aiming to avert the of direct military confrontation between Egypt and Turkey, both American allies, over Sirte.

It sounds more like an announcement that tried to tick all the theoretical boxes, with a clear American influence, said Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at The Netherlands Institute of International Relations. But is it fully implementable? That will be hard.

Crucially, there was no immediate word from Hifter on the announcements, though he agreed to an Egyptian initiative in June that included a cease-fire.

Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, said an effective cease-fire requires "the demilitarization of Sirte and Jurfa areas, and that police forces from the two sides agree on security arrangements there.

Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival eastern-based House of Representatives, supported Sarrajs proposal of demilitarization of Sirte  but he did not mention Jurfa. The United States floated the idea of demilitarization earlier this month.

A cease-fire blocks the way for foreign military interventions and ends with the expulsion of mercenaries and dissolving the militias in order to achieve comprehensive national sovereignty, Saleh said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomes the calls for a cease-fire and an end to hostilities in Libya and hopes they will be respected immediately by armed forces from both sides, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The U.N. chief urged the Joint Military Commission to quickly take up the cease-fire call and called on all parties to engage constructively in an inclusive political process based on the outcome of a conference of world leaders in Berlin in January, Dujarric said. World powers and other countries with interests in Libyas long-running civil war agreed at the meeting to respect a much-violated arms embargo, hold off on military support to the warring parties and push them to reach a full cease-fire.

UAEs Foreign Ministry welcomed Saleh's cease-fire initiative that did not include the demilitarization of Jurfa area, according the state-run WAM news agency.

The powerful interior minister of the Tripoli-based administration, Fathi Bashaga, hailed the cease-fire initiative, saying on Twitter: We are looking forward to develop cooperation with the U.S., Europe, Turkey, Egypt and the U.N.

Sarraj also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March according to a constitutional base to be agreed on by the Libyans.

Saleh, the parliament speaker, called for Sirte to be a temporary seat of the new government.

Both Saraj and Saleh said they want an end to an oil blockade imposed by Hifter's camp since earlier this year. They also called for oil revenues, the countrys main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

The National Oil Corporation urged for oil revenues to remain frozen until a comprehensive political agreement is reached.

Full transparency and effective governance are required as well as the return of security management of oil facilities to NOCs exclusive control, it said in a statement.

Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to Hifter closed oil export terminals and choked off major pipelines at the start of the year to pressure the Tripoli-based government, which is accused of using oil revenues to fund militias and mercenaries.

Last month, Hifter set conditions for ending the oil blockade, including that revenues flow into a bank account in a foreign country with a clear mechanism to distribute funds fairly among Libyas regions. He also demanded an audit of Libyas Central Bank in Tripoli to review the spending in the past years. The audit was approved late in July after months of international pressure.

Earlier this week, Hifter's army said it would allow partial reopening of oil terminals to export stored oil to provide required gas amid power shortages in the east.

The U.N. support mission in Libya welcomed both statements and called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya.

The two initiatives have created hope for forging a peaceful political solution to the longstanding Libyan crisis, a solution that will affirm the desire of the Libyan people to live in peace and dignity, said Stephanie Williams, acting head of the U.N. mission.

Retweeting the U.N. mission statement, the U.S. Embassy in Libya also welcomed the two statements as important steps to all Libyans. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Twitter welcomed both statements as an important step on the path of achieving the political settlement.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas  who visited Tripoli on Monday to talk with the government there before heading to the United Arab Emirates to encourage it to urge Hifter to negotiate  welcomed the development. He called it a "solid basis for a permanent ceasefire and urged a lifting of the oil blockade.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said in a tweet that the cease-fire announcement was an "important step toward restarting a political process that favors stability in the country and well-being among its people.

___________

Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Friday ordered a CID inquiry into the fire accident at the Srisailam hydroelectric station.

He directed the officials to probe the cause of the fire and ascertain the facts.

Following the chief minister's direction, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar issued an order appointing CID Additional Director General of Police Govind Singh as the inquiry officer.

Singh was asked to conduct a comprehensive inquiry and submit the report to the chief minister.

The chief minister expressed his deep shock over the fire incident and termed it as 'very unfortunate'. According to a statement from the Chief Minister's Office, he expressed his sorrow over the efforts to rescue the trapped people failing to yield results.

KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, conveyed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased. He expressed his best wishes for the early recovery of those injured in the incident.

The chief minister directed officials to ensure the best treatment to the injured and added that the government would bear the entire cost of the treatment.

KCR was in regular touch with state energy minister Jagdish Reddy and Transmission Corporation (Transco) and Generation Corporation (Genco) CMD Prabhakar Rao to monitor the situation.

Nine people were trapped after a fire broke out at Genco's underground hydroelectric power station at the Srisailam left bank canal in Nagakurnool district of last night.

Officials said bodies of six persons were recovered while efforts were on to trace the remaining missing persons.

--IANS

ms/ptr/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, Aug 21 : The Fahadh Faasil-starrer Malayalam film, CU Soon, which has been shot on mobile phone during the lockdown, will release directly on OTT.

Also starring Roshan Mathew and Darshana Rajendran, "CU Soon" is about a software engineer from Kerala who has been assigned by his family to help his Dubai-based cousin find his missing fiancAe after she leaves behind a video suicide note. The film was shot with a phone in a controlled environment during lockdown.

"Working with (director) Mahesh (Narayan) has always been an inspiring experience. We had an incredible stint with our erstwhile blockbuster 'Take-Off'," said actor and producer Fahadh, added: "Making 'CU Soon' was an interesting experience." Talking about the film, director Mahesh Narayan said: "'CU Soon' is a computer screen-based drama thriller, a new concept that has barely been explored in Indian cinema. People are attempting to stay virtually connected during these unprecedented times, and we wanted to take this concept a step further by exploring a unique format of storytelling through multiple screen devices. This film would not have been conceptualised or created without the virtual communication software and their developers." "CU Soon", edited and directed by Mahesh Narayan, will release on Amazon Prime Video on September 1.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The functions of the state are eroding in Ukraine, while law enforcement are increasingly losing public support. Under such conditions, journalists and public figures are facing tougher attacks, finding themselves in various unpleasant situations. There are many examples, from the tragic story of acid attack victim Kateryna Gandziuk to the arson attack on anti-graft activist Vitaliy Shabunin's house and Skhemy investigative journalists' car. It should be noted that Skhemy had been under pressure for quite a while  it's not the first time their cars get damaged. Also, their top reporter Mykhailo Tkach recently found singes of eavesdropping equipment being installed in his apartment.

That is, on the one hand, we have weak government and state institutions, and on the other  a variety of criminal groups that have teamed up with law enforcement and prosecutors. Attempts to intimidate or threaten independent journalists and activists are likely to stem precisely from this kind of union.

In Ukraine, the functions of the state are eroding, while law enforcement are increasingly losing public support

Besides, due to the fact that law enforcement agencies have lost their authority, victims don't even expect any real assistance. They do report the attacks but they don't see how they can help them.

We're seeing a rollback to the 1990s, when the state lost its monopoly on violence. This setback began somewhere in the middle of Petro Poroshenko's presidential term and moved on through that of Zelensky. As a result, anarchy is returning to the streets of Ukrainian cities.

At the same time, it's not only journalists and public activists who become victims of arbitrariness and violence, but also businesses and representatives of local opposition forces. The dialogue is moving towards violence, which is very bad. This is the result of corrupt law enforcement, as well as the weak government. It seems that we have a president with high popular ratings, who is at the same time weak and unable to control the situation.

Besides, there are many objective factors: the ongoing war war, poor socio-economic situation, criminal gangs hired to do a dirty job, as well as unstable war veterans who could also be employed for some kind of reward.

Since there is no reason to expect that the law enforcement system will suddenly change, the situation will further worsen for journalists and public figures. If it all started with "innocent" acts like hurling paint at someone, now things are getting much more violent. And worst of all, there is no inevitable punishment for this violence.

If the trend prevails, we might even see a repeat of Gongadze's story

In Ukraine's regions, at the local level, the situation is even much worse. If there is still some publicity in Kyiv, it is easier to hide and hush things down at the local turf.

I can't rule out that, if the trend prevails, we might even see a repeat of Gongadze's story. Nobody is insured against this. Journalists are being killed not only in post-Soviet or "third world" countries  this is happening everywhere, even in more successful democracies. For example, a journalist was recently killed in Slovakia, which led to a deep political crisis. In Ukraine, the situation is more complicated as several structural crises are unfolding simultaneously: economic, ideological (a divide in society), and law enforcement (merging with the criminal world). This is happening against the background of an amorphous government, which tries not to interfere or respond to resonating incidents. This, in turn, is untying hands of regional elites, corrupt prosecutors, judges, and criminals.

Zelensky has been targeted by the Skhemy investigations as well, so I can't rule out that the arson attack is a signal to journalists from the authorities. However, Skhemy create problems to regional gang lords and corrupt officials, not only the government... So this could be anyone who could put pressure on the team

Anatoliy Oktysiuk is a political expert with the Democracy House think tank
Tulsa's effort to woo Tesla failed when the company decided to build a new Gigatruck factory just outside of Austin, Texas. The decision simply came down to some of his key employees wanting to move there over Tulsa, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said to the subscription-only site Automotive News. Its hard to imagine Tulsa ever really had a chance.

But according to the Tulsans who spent the past few months wooing Tesla, they made the company think twice and put an offer in front of Musk that dwarfed what was proposed in Texas. And they wouldnt have even been on the radar if it wasnt for a series of viral, made-to-be-memed ideas like slapping Musks face and Teslas logo on the Golden Driller or spinning up a website advertising the Big F------ Field that was being pitched for development. The group behind the site was a marketing firm called Gitwit Creative. Jacob Johnson, one of Gitwits co-founders, told The Verge his team created it on a whim after they saw Musk tweeting in March about scouting factory locations.
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2020) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today proposed amendments to the national market system plan governing the Consolidated Audit Trail (the "CAT NMS Plan") to bolster the Consolidated Audit Trail's ("CAT") data security. While the CAT NMS Plan currently sets forth a number of requirements regarding the security and confidentiality of CAT data, the proposed amendments to the CAT NMS Plan are the latest SEC action to limit the scope of sensitive information required to be collected by CAT and enhance the security of the CAT and the protections afforded to CAT data.

"Data security is an essential pillar of the CAT," said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. "The requirements outlined in the proposal, including requiring the removal of sensitive PII, are designed to both (1) significantly reduce the amount of sensitive data collected without affecting the operational effectiveness of the CAT and (2) provide market participants with greater certainty regarding how CAT data will be protected and used. We will continue to evaluate these matters, including to address changes in risks and other matters, as implementation and operation of the CAT continues."

The public comment period will remain open for 60 days following the date that the release is posted on www.sec.gov.

* * *

Fact Sheet

Action

Today, the Commission voted to propose amendments to the CAT NMS Plan that are designed to enhance the security of the CAT through increased security requirements as well as limiting the scope of sensitive information required to be collected by the CAT.

Comprehensive Information Security Program

The proposed amendments would explicitly define the scope of the CAT's information security program by adding the term "Comprehensive Information Security Program" (the "CISP") to set forth all elements of the information security program, inclusive of the proposed Secure Analytical Workspaces.

Security Working Group

The proposed amendments would require the permanent establishment of a security working group that will be composed of the CAT's Chief Information Security Officer ("CAT CISO"), and the chief information security officer or deputy chief information security officer of each self-regulatory organization that is a participant to the CAT NMS Plan (the "Participants"). The CAT CISO and the Operating Committee may invite other parties to attend specific meetings.

Secure Analytical Workspaces

The proposed amendments would define a Secure Analytical Workspace ("SAW") as an analytic environment account that is part of the CAT system, and subject to the CISP, where CAT data is accessed and analyzed. The proposed amendments would further require the CISP to establish data access and extraction policies. However, the proposed amendments would explicitly state that each Participant would be allowed to provide and use its own choice of software, hardware configurations, and additional data within its SAW, so long as such activities otherwise comply with the CISP.

The proposed amendments would require Participants to use their SAWs for analyzing CAT data accessed through user-defined direct query and bulk extract tools and for any customer and account data. Participants may only extract from SAWs the minimum amount of CAT Data necessary to achieve a specific surveillance or regulatory purpose. The proposed amendments also set forth a process by which Participants may be granted an exception from using the SAW related to data accessed via user-defined direct query and bulk extract tools.

Online Targeted Query Tool and Logging of Access and Extraction

The proposed amendments would limit the maximum amount of records that regulators can download using an online targeted query tool. The proposed amendments would also enhance logging requirements by requiring logging of extraction of CAT data.

CAT Customer and Account Attributes (Removing Sensitive Personally Identifiable Information)

The proposed amendments would modify the Customer-ID creation process and reporting requirements in accordance with the exemptive order issued by the Commission on March 17, 2020. Specifically, the proposed amendments would no longer require Industry Members to report social security numbers/individual taxpayer identification numbers and account numbers for natural person Customers, and would replace the requirement that the date of birth for a natural person Customer be reported with the requirement that the year of birth for a natural person Customer be reported to, and collected by, the CAT.

Customer Identifying Systems Workflow

The proposed amendments define the workflow for accessing customer and account attributes and establish restrictions governing such access. As described above, Customer Identifying Systems, which contain customer and account attributes, would have to be accessed through a Participant's SAW. Only Regulatory Staff may access Customer Identifying Systems and such access would have to follow role based access control ("RBAC") and the "least privileged" practice of limiting access to Customer Identifying Systems and customer and account attributes as much as possible. All queries of Customer Identifying Systems would have to be based on a "need to know" the data in the Customer Identifying Systems, and queries must be designed such that query results would contain only the customer and account attributes that Regulatory Staff reasonably believes will achieve the regulatory purpose of the inquiry or set of inquiries.

Access to Customer Identifying Systems would be limited to two types of access: manual access and programmatic access. For manual access, the proposed amendments generally provide that Regulatory Staff must have identified a Customer(s) of regulatory interest through their own regulatory efforts before they may use manual access to obtain additional information regarding such Customer(s). To use programmatic access, authorization would have to be requested and approved by the Commission pursuant to the process described in the proposed amendments, and Participants approved for such access may programmatically query the Customer Identifying Systems.

Participants' Data Confidentiality Policies and Regulator Access to CAT Data

The proposed amendments would require the Participants to establish, maintain, enforce and publish identical written data confidentiality policies. Each Participant would establish, maintain and enforce procedures and usage restrictions in accordance with these policies. In addition, the Participants would be required to make the data confidentiality policies publicly available on a website, and on an annual basis each Participant would be required to engage an independent accountant to perform an examination of compliance with the data confidentiality policies.

The proposed amendments would define the term "Regulatory Staff" and the data confidentiality policies adopted by Participants would be required to limit access to CAT data to Regulatory Staff, and certain technology and operations staff, except when there is a specific regulatory need and a Participant's Chief Regulatory Officer (or similarly designated head(s) of regulation), or his or her designee, documents written approval. The policies would also limit the extraction of CAT data, define the roles and regulatory activities of specific users, and require implementation of the Customer Identifying Systems workflow along with supporting requirements for monitoring and testing.

The proposed amendments would also require that CAT data be accessed only for surveillance and regulatory purposes and forbid the use of CAT data where such use may serve both a surveillance or regulatory purpose, and a commercial purpose (e.g., economic analyses or market structure analyses in support of rule filings).

Secure Connectivity and Data Storage

In addition to requiring connectivity to CAT infrastructure in a manner consistent with current implementation, the proposed amendments would require the Plan Processor to implement "allow" listing, which would limit access to CAT only to those countries where CAT reporting or regulatory use is both necessary and expected. In addition, the proposed amendments would require that data centers housing CAT systems must be physically located in the United States.

Breach Management Policies and Procedures

The proposed amendments would modify existing requirements related to breach management policies and procedures to explicitly require corrective actions and breach notifications to CAT Reporters be a part of the Plan Processor's cyber incident response plan, modeled after Regulation SCI obligations.

In addition to the security-related items above, the proposed amendments would, consistent with previously granted exemptive relief, explicitly require customer and account attributes to be reported for Firm Designated IDs that are submitted in allocation reports, as is required for Firm Designated IDs associated with the original receipt or origination of an order.

What's next?

The proposal will be published on SEC.gov and in the Federal Register. There will be a 45-day comment period following publication in the Federal Register.
We very much feel that if Iran should do anything, we will be there to help the Iraqi people, US President Donald Trump told Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in their Aug. 20 meeting in Washington.

They not only refrained from setting a schedule for withdrawing US troops from Iraq, but affirmed the need for a continued US presence in Iraq.

We definitely dont need combat troops in Iraq, but we do need training and capacity enhancement and security cooperation, said Kadhimi.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged Iraqi officials during his Aug. 19 meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein to increase efforts to contain pro-Iran militias in Iraq.

We're committed to helping Iraq achieve economic prosperity, freedom from foreign meddling in its internal affairs and improve relationships with its neighbors as well, Pompeo said, referring to Iran's influence and encouraging Iran rival Saudi in particular to open up with Iraq. This is what the Iraqi people want, too: a stable, prosperous, independent Iraq.

Kadhimi's visit has already resulted in several agreements. We signed many contracts with American companies [worth] over $10 billion. Iraq is open for American business and investment for [a] better future for Iraq and [the] Iraqi people, he said.

In a second round of US-Iraq strategic talks between the US secretary of state and his Iraqi counterpart, the two discussed a broad range of areas including energy, health, the environment, political issues, diplomacy, security, anti-terrorism, education and culture.

Pompeo also said the US Agency for International Development will provide about $204 million in humanitarian assistance for Iraq. This assistance will provide critical shelter, essential health care, emergency food assistance and water, sanitation and hygiene services across Iraq. It will also improve access to civil documentation and legal services, the capacity of health care facilities and increase access to education and livelihood opportunities, Pompeo said.

Kadhimi held separate meetings with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and members of the US Chamber of Commerce. He emphasized that Iraq is serious about economic reform and combating corruption, asking the two bodies for more economic support for his government.

Kadhimi also received a phone call from Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is among the top US allies against Iran in the region. They discussed Iraq and Saudi cooperation in OPEC.

Kadhimi's visit to the United States was extended by a day upon US request for meetings with congressional committees and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Kadhimi has had lengthy relationships with US Democrats in the previous administration, and has developed strong ties with Republicans as well in his role as director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service since 2016.

There was no word about US troops leaving Iraq, angering the militias who are demanding the United States' full departure from Iraq. The two leaders' statements on the matter were very vague.

So at some point, we obviously will be gone, Trump said. We look forward to the day when we dont have to be there, and hopefully Iraq can live their own lives and they can defend themselves, which theyve been doing long before we got involved.

It's clear that the independent Iraq free from foreign involvement Trump hopes for will not happen anytime soon, as Kadhimi clearly expressed his willingness to see US troops to stay longer in Iraq.

We need the support of the United States, Kadhimi said to the journalists in the White House. The war against [the Islamic State] is over, but sleeper cells for [IS] and other terrorist groups are still there.

Shiite militias and their affiliated political parties had sought Kadhimi's assent to the complete departure of US troops from Iraq.

Kadhimi had a special meeting with the Shiite militas attended by Iran's Quds Force commander, Ismail Ghaani, prior to leaving for Washington. The prime minister assured them that he is working on US troops' full departure from Iraq, Al-Monitor learned from a source who attended the meeting.

A group of the militias issued a statement Aug. 20, attacking the prime minister for breaking his promise, allowing the US president to dictate its orders, and to pave the road for US to continue expanding domination on the region and stealing Iraq wealth.

They slammed him for ignoring the Iraqi parliament vote early this year for expelling US troops and for not protecting Iraq sovereignty by allowing US troops to stay in the country.

They also threatened to increase their attacks against US troops and interests. A group of Iraqi lawmakers affiliated with the Shiite militias has asked for a special parliamentary session to discuss Kadhimis failure to eject US troops from the country.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has attacked Kadhimi, saying his trip was ineffective and calling for expanding ties with Russia rather than the United States.

Even before Kadhimi's return to Iraq, the Shiite militias resumed attacks against US interests there after a brief pause to allow Kadhimi to ask US troops leave peacefully.

Sabereen News, one of the main PMU media outlets, announced Aug. 21 that a US military convoy had been attacked in the Owairig area, 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of Baghdad. Soldiers protecting the convoy clashed with the militants, resulting in the killing of three Fijian nationals.

The news has yet to be confirmed by the United States.

Assassinations and abductions of protesters increased during Kadhimi's visit, a sign of the militias' dissatisfaction with Kadhimi.

In the background of Kadhimi's visit, the United States is pushing to activate snapback sanctions against Iran. Trump officially proposed to the UN Security Council on Aug. 20, the day of his meeting with Kadhimi, that the sanctions be reimposed.

Despite the criticism from militias and groups backed by Iran, Kadhimi will return bearing messages of renewed US confidence and respect for Iraq. The humanitarian and energy deals speak to short- and long-term needs. Kadhimi made his preference for an end to US combat missions clear, and Trump said he also wants troops to leave eventually, showing that the message was received in Washington.
THE Department of Health says a small number of new confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Limerick.

While the exact figure will be released over the weekend, the department says 15 additional cases of the disease have been identified across nine counties including Limerick and Clare.

Up to today, the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Limerick since the pandemic began was 682.

Nationally, 79 new cases have been reported by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre this Friday. 43 are located in Dublin, nine in Kildare, six in Cork and six in Tipperary.

There have been no additional deaths in Ireland.

Statement from the National Public Health Emergency Team



There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre @hpscireland today.



There has now been a total of 1,776 #COVID19 related deaths in Ireland.  Department of Health (@roinnslainte) August 21, 2020

Earlier this Friday the Government agreed to lift the restrictions which were introduced in Offaly and Laois earlier this month.

However, in the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team, restrictions are to remain in place in County Kildare for a further two weeks.

We as a nation must show solidarity with Kildare in our collective efforts, especially over the next two weeks, by working together to suppress this virus. We can protect each other by following the public health advice. I am asking all households across Ireland to play your part, reduce your social contacts, wash your hands, keep a two metre distance from each other and wear a face covering in shops and on public transport. These actions are vital to protect our families and safeguard those who are most vulnerable to the disease, said Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health.

For more Limerick news click here
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BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Estonia's producer prices declined at a faster pace in July, data from Statistics Estonia showed on Friday. The producer price index declined 3.4 percent year-on-year in July, following a 2.3 percent fall in June. Prices of manufacturing fell 2.0 percent annually in July. Prices for electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, and water supply declined 23.2 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, prices for mining and quarrying industry grew 0.8 percent. 'In July compared to June 2020, the producer price index was affected more than average by price decrease in electricity supply, manufacture of wood and food products and price increase in the production of electrical equipment, peat products and gravel,' Eveli Sokman, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said. On a month-on-month basis, producer prices rose 1.0 percent in July, after a 1.7 percent increase in the preceding month. Import prices rose 0.6 percent monthly in July and declined 6.1 percent from a year ago. Export prices decreased 0.2 percent monthly in July and fell 6.7 percent annually. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  Lawmakers are fast-tracking the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines through the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, Senator Sonny Angara said Friday.

The 165.5-billion stimulus plan includes a provision that lets the Department of Health proceed with pre-procurement for a coronavirus vaccine prior to its approval under phase 4 or final clinical trials for the rollout of the doses. The waiver will overrule the Universal Healthcare Law which prohibits the government from buying and distributing a medicine or vaccine without clearing phase 4 trials.

"Ang stage 4 trials, medyo tumatagal 'yan and it involves a big portion of the population... Ang reality on the ground sa pag-procure ng potential vaccine, unahan ito with the limited supply. It will take a few more months from the development of the vaccine, there's just an initial batch or supply of vaccines produced," Angara told CNN Philippines' The Source.

[Translation: Stage 4 trials take time and it involves a big portion of the population... The reality on the ground in procuring a potential vaccine is it's a race to be first to secure the supply. It will take a few more months from the development of the vaccine, there's just an initial batch or supply of vaccines produced.]

"Ang gusto natin, nasa unahan tayo. If we strictly follow the protocols  stage 4  kapag natapos na 'yun, wala ka na, ubos na 'yung vaccine [We want to be first. If we strictly follow the stage 4 protocol, there will be no more supply to buy]," he added.

The Bayanihan 2 bill ratified by the Senate on Thursday night and scheduled for ratification in the House of Representatives next week allotted a 10-billion standby fund to purchase vaccines once available.

RELATED: IATF approves guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials in PH

"For procurement, we distinguished... You can already start that kahit wala ka pang phase 4. Pero kapag dini-distribute mo na 'yung vaccine at ina-administer mo na, those are when they have to kick in. Kailangan at least simultaneous," he added, referring to approval by the Food and Drug Administration and the DOH through the Health Technology Assessment Group.

[Translation: "For procurement, we distinguished... You can already start that even without phase 4 trials. But when you're already distributing and administering the vaccine, the protocols have to kick in. (Phase 4 approval) should be at least simultaneous.]

Phase 4 trials seek to confirm if a vaccine is safe and effective for the long term after doses are administered to thousands of volunteers.

Meanwhile, House Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte reminded the DOH and FDA to choose COVID-19 vaccine brands that are accredited by the World Health Organization since such requirement is stipulated under the Bayanihan 2 Bill.

The Camarines Sur lawmaker made the call amid the poor track record of vaccine production in China and Russia, which both assured the Philippines it will be a priority in the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

The Philippines should not be left behind in terms of vaccine procurement. However in the law, we leave it up to the FDA and DOH to determine which brand. We just specified that whatever company whatever brand youre gonna procure, it should be within WHO standards, Villafuerte told CNN Philippines Rico Hizon on Friday night.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced earlier this month that their scientists have made a COVID-19 vaccine called Sputnik V, but these have not yet gone through phase 3 or efficacy trials.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered the national COVID-19 task force to buy at least 60 million doses of the vaccine once available. Prior to Russia, China committed to prioritize the Philippines in the supply of vaccines once their drug makers are able to secure regulatory approvals.

The FDA said it has not officially received a proposal for phase 3 trials of the Russian vaccine in the country. Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque has confirmed that the Philippines will join Phase 3 of the medical research, which will be fully funded by Russia.

RELATED: Philippines reviews 'accelerated' approval of Russia's coronavirus vaccine

The Department of Science and Technology Philippine Council for Health Research and Development earlier said that 1,000 healthy Filipino volunteers will receive the first doses of Russian vaccine by October. Duterte earlier said he will be the first to get the vaccine to boost confidence, but estimates for the clinical trials showed he could be getting the shot by May 2021 the earliest.

Drug makers in China, the United States, and the United Kingdom are also on phase 3 trials for potential vaccines.

The City of Manila has allotted 200 million as a standby fund to buy vaccines once available.
Efforts Under Way To Send Comatose Kremlin Critic Navalny Abroad For Treatment

By RFE/RL's Russian Service, Current Time August 20, 2020

Efforts are under way to evacuate outspoken Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny from Siberia to Germany for treatment after he has fallen into a coma, suspected of having been poisoned.

Navalny felt ill while on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, forcing the aircraft to make an unscheduled landing in Omsk, also in Siberia, where he was transported by ambulance to a hospital, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said.

The 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner is still on a ventilator, in a coma in grave condition in an intensive care unit in Omsk, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted on August 20.

Yarmysh said she believed the politician was poisoned after drinking a cup of tea he had bought at the Tomsk airport.

"We assume that Aleksei was poisoned with something mixed into the tea. It was the only thing that he drank in the morning. Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid," Yarmysh said.

Purported audio of Navalny moaning in pain on the flight:

Anatoly Kalinichenko, a doctor at the Omsk Emergency Hospital No.1 where Navalny is staying, told reporters that Navalny was in serious, yet stable condition, and that medics were working to "save his life."

However, he said there was "no certainty that the cause of his condition is poisoning," adding, "This is one of the possible reasons" and that several diagnoses were being considered as tests are carried out.

But Yarmysh complained that doctors "are obviously stalling and aren't saying what they know," adding the hospital was full of police officers.

"The hospital already has more police than doctors. Investigative Committee just arrived," she said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Navalny could get medical treatment in her country shortly after German media reported that activists supporting Navalny are working on getting him to Berlin.

She said Germany would provide medical assistance, including making its hospitals available, if it was asked to help Navalny.

"I hope he recovers quickly, and if asked to we will provide him with medical assistance, including German hospitals, but the request has to come from there," she told reporters at a joint news conference in southern France with President Emmanuel Macron.

"What is particularly important is that the circumstances behind this are cleared up very quickly," she added.

Macron said France stood ready to provide help in terms of Navalny's health, asylum or protection.

Navalny supporters have received permission for him to be treated at Berlin's Charite hospital, film producer and human rights activist Jaka Bizilj told the dpa news agency.

An ambulance aircraft with a team specialized in treating coma patients is ready to leave Germany to pick Navalny up at midnight, Bizilj said.

Meanwhile, Yarmysh said that the Russian health authorities had yet to grant permission for Navalny to be transported from the Siberian city of Omsk.

Navalny's wife, Yulia, arrived at the hospital in the afternoon, but doctors would not let her see her husband because she did not have their marriage certificate, according to Yarmysh, who quoted hospital officials as saying that her passport was not sufficient to prove they're married.

Later, a representative of the Alliance of Doctors, Irina Kwasko, said that Yulia Navalnaya was nevertheless allowed into Navalny's ward.

One of the doctors attending to Navalny, Anastasia Vasilyeva, told Meduza that she and Navalny's wife were trying to obtain medical records and arrange for the politician to be transported to Moscow.

According to her, Navalny did not receive the tests necessary for a diagnosis.

The Kremlin said it was aware that President Vladimir Putin's chief critic was ill and wished him well, but that there was no evidence yet to back claims he had been poisoned.

Amnesty International demanded in a statement that "authorities fully investigate the circumstances of the unexpected and critical deterioration of the health of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and allow him to immediately be diagnosed by and receive treatment from doctors that his family trusts."

Natalia Zvyagina, director of Amnesty International's Moscow office, said on August 20 that "given the grave allegations that have been suggested as the cause of Aleksei Navalny's illness, there must be a prompt and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding his hospitalization."

Navalny's illness conjures up images of a long line of similar incidents over Vladimir Putin's 20 years in power, where outspoken Kremlin opponents are suspected of having been poisoned.

Some of those, such as the case of Aleksandr Litvinenko, have ended in death.

Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer and vocal Kremlin critic who had been granted asylum in Britain, died after meeting with ex-KGB agents in a London hotel late in 2006. U.K. investigators later concluded that he had been killed after his tea was laced with the rare radioactive isotope, polonium-210.

The state news agency TASS quoted a source as saying that when the opposition blogger was admitted to the hospital, the preliminary diagnosis was "acute poisoning with psychodysleptics.

Navalny's physician, Yaroslav Ashikhmin, told Meduza that he "needs to be evacuated to Europe" for treatment, adding, "We're trying to reach an agreement with a hospital in Hanover or Strasbourg to take him."

Ashikhmin also said that Western clinics had a better chance of finding the substance that may have caused the alleged poisoning.

The cafe where Navalny bought the tea was in a tightly secured area after check-in and security controls.

A law enforcement source told TASS that interviews with workers from the shop showed they knew little about what happened.

A picture on social media appears to show Navalny with some other passengers as they took a bus to the plane for boarding.

Pavel Lebedev, a passenger on the flight where Navalny fell ill, said that at the start of the flight Navalny "went to the toilet and didn't return."

"He was really sick and is still screaming in pain. They didn't say what exactly happened to him. We landed in Omsk. Ambulance arrived," he added in a post on social media.

Navalny, a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, has exposed rampant corruption in Russia.

He has been jailed several times in recent years, barred from running for president, and had a bid to run for Moscow mayor blocked.

Navalny has suffered physical attacks in the past.

He endured chemical burns to one of his eyes in 2017 after he was assaulted with antiseptic dye.

In July 2019, Navalny was given a 30-day jail term after calling for unauthorized protests. During that jail sentence, he was taken ill to a hospital with severe swelling of the face and a rash, and later alleged he was poisoned.

"Obviously, they did the same to him now," said Yarmysh, the press secretary for the Anti-Corruption Foundation Navalny founded in 2011.

The head of the foundation's legal department, Vyacheslav Gimadi, wrote on Twitter, "There is no doubt that Navalny was poisoned for his political position and activity."

Navalny's lawyers are requesting a probe into attempted assassination, he added.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Donald Trump said U.S. officials were looking at the reported events.

EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell said he was "worried to hear about Alexei Navalny's suspected poisoning."

"If confirmed, those responsible must be held to account," he tweeted, adding that he wished the Kremlin foe a "swift and full recovery."

French President Emmanuel Macron said he would closely follow the investigations into the cause of Navalny's illness, while the Le Monde daily said France was ready to host Navalny so that he can receive the appropriate medical care.

British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said he was "deeply concerned" by reports on Navalny.

With reporting by TASS, ngs55.ru , AP, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-s-navalny-being- treated-for-suspected-poisoning- spokeswoman-says/30793191.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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A 16-year-old had wrongly accused her 21-year-old neighbour of raping her in Bhopal, said police on Thursday, adding that another person who had sex with the girl has been arrested on charges of rape. The police are also looking to file a case against the girl for wrongly identifying an innocent person of rape.

The neighbour was found innocent during police investigation. Another accused who was arrested on Wednesday later tested positive for coronavirus, said police. He was produced before the court through video conferencing and later hospitalised, said police.

Family members of the girl had filed a missing report with the police on August 4. She returned three days later, on August 7, on her own, said the police.

When a police team recorded her statement, the girl said she had been drugged and kidnapped by two persons, including her neighbour, who raped her for two days. Later, they let her go. On the basis of her statement, her medical examination was conducted and her neighbour was questioned intensely, said Nagendra Pateriya, City superintendent of police (CSP).

Shahjahanabad police found several discrepancies in the statement of the girl and upon investigation it was found that the man who was accused by the girl for kidnapping and raping her was in fact present in his office at the time when the crime took place as was alleged by the girl. This man had CCTV footage too to corroborate his statement, said Pateriya.

The girl was counselled and was asked to give a statement again.

The girl then said she had told a lie as she was scared. She said her brother had spotted her talking to another youth a few days back and thrashed both of them. Thats why when police asked her about the name of the accused who had kidnapped and raped her she took the name of her neighbour. She thought if she named her neighbour her family members would believe her statement as there had been a feud between the neighbour and her family, said the police officer.

Since the girl is a minor, the officer said, the youth arrested has been booked under rape charge. The girls medical report confirmed that the girl had sex.

Police are looking into the matter to decide if the girl should be booked for accusing an innocent person for her rape, said the officer.
During the early afternoon of September 12, 1960, an unmarked car drove along Great Portland Street in central London and drew up outside No 159, a branch of the Midland Bank.

The two men inside were from MI5, Britains counter-espionage service. They glanced up and down the street before they entered the five-storey building and asked for the manager.

He and a bank inspector, sent specially from head office, treated the visitors with intrigued deference: someone at the pinnacle of the bank had ordered full cooperation.

Peter and Helen Kroger are pictured in 1969. Peter Kroger posed as an antiquarian bookseller, always sending and receiving parcels. His wife was a flamboyant and free-spirited woman with a penchant for wearing trousers

They unlocked the strongroom and extracted a large paper parcel and two cases belonging to one of their clients, Gordon Lonsdale. Canadian businessman Lonsdale was under observation by the Security Service because he was suspected of being a Russian spy.

Just over a fortnight before, he had been seen by MI5s watchers to enter the bank and deposit an attache case, a briefcase and a deed box.

He told staff that he was leaving shortly for Canada and would return in a couple of weeks. Afterwards, the Security Service could find no trace of Lonsdale departing from Britain by land, sea or air. He had quite simply vanished.

But who was he? And what was he doing? The discovery of the attache case marked the beginning of the unravelling of the Portland Spy Ring, one of the most significant anti-espionage operations ever carried out in this country.

The full story of this top-secret investigation has now been told in a thrilling new book by Trevor Barnes, drawing on hitherto secret MI5 and FBI files as well as original research in the United States and Moscow.

Gordon Lonsdale is pictured in East Berlin. Canadian businessman Lonsdale was under observation by the Security Service because he was suspected of being a Russian spy. Just over a fortnight before, he had been seen by MI5s watchers to enter the bank and deposit an attache case, a briefcase and a deed box

Quite how important Lonsdale was can perhaps be judged by the fact that nearly 60 years after the visit to Great Portland Street, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid special tribute to him in a speech to mark the anniversary of overseas Russian intelligence.

Lonsdale was, said Putin, a legend. One of those people of special qualities ready to give up their life, their nearest and dearest, and leave the country to dedicate their life to the fatherland.

But on that autumn afternoon in 1960, the MI5 men needed to know what was in the attache case. It was taken to the secret MI5 lab near St Pauls where an expert picked the lock. What he found was a treasure trove of espionage: a camera, photographic equipment, film, letters, two books that when a light was shone on them were revealed to have indentations (probably code) and a cigarette lighter on a wooden base.

This was carefully picked apart and found to contain three miniature single-use cipher code books of a type used by Soviet intelligence. The MI5 agents had uncovered a complete set of Russian Cold War spying paraphernalia  and proof that Lonsdale was a deep-cover KGB officer.

The agents put it all back exactly as they had found it and returned the case to the bank so that Lonsdale wouldnt suspect MI5 were on to him.

This was at a time when the Cold War was at its chilliest (George Blake was unmasked at the same time). In an era before computers, CCTV and mobile phones, operatives on both sides had to rely on cunning and patience. Most people didnt even have telephones in their houses and had to use pay phones. Letters were steamed open with kettles and read while using rubber gloves.

Secret documents were written in invisible ink or documents photographed via a microscope to reduce them to the size of a typewriters full stop and sent as microdots. The security services were still locked into traditional public school attitudes: MI5 wouldnt use women as operatives, but since they were much less conspicuous as watchers, officers wives were drafted in to help with surveillance. Neighbours houses were used to watch suspects, with their owners being recruited as extra eyes and ears.

The investigation into one of the most serious examples of post-war deep-cover Soviet spying had begun in February 1960 when a man working at the Underwater Detection Establishment at Portland near Weymouth complained to Admiralty police about one of his colleagues, Harry Houghton.

He suspected Houghton was the author of a letter he received with a single word  JEW  and a swastika. Anti-semitism wasnt a reason to alert the Security Service, but it provoked the man into also revealing that Houghton had taken secret files from the strongroom at the UDE a few years earlier. In fact, MI5 had already been alerted to Houghton in 1956 by his wife Amy.

He was a drunken brute who beat and cheated on Amy: when reporting his violence to the Admiralty welfare officer, she also mentioned that her husband was divulging secret information to people who ought not to get it. This claim was passed up the chain to the head of the UDE who dismissed the allegations as nothing more than outpourings of a jealous and disgruntled wife. This was 1956, after all.

Similarly, the desk officer at MI5 who saw the latest report on Houghton dismissed Amys claims with casual misogyny as the spiteful accusations of a bitter woman.

Four years later, the Admiralty passed the latest claim from Houghtons UDE colleague on to MI5, with the extra information that when Houghton had been working in Poland for the British Embassy in the early Fifties he was often drunk and had to be sent home to Britain.

Amazingly, he had then been given a job at the UDE where top secret submarine technology was being invented and tested, not least for HMS Dreadnought, Britains first nuclear sub. So Houghton found himself close to highly sensitive material about that technology, the very purpose of which was to protect Britain from the Russians.

His luck finally ran out in April 1960 when a Soviet double agent working for the CIA, codenamed Sniper, revealed there were two Soviet agents operating in Britain, one in MI6 (George Blake) and one in the Navy. The second spy, thought Sniper, had worked in Warsaw, as had Houghton. So MI5 looked more closely at him.

They discovered that on his return from Poland he had bought a house near Weymouth for 500 and a flashy car. Around the same time a stash of money had also been found in the cistern of a public toilet in Weymouth: a favourite technique of Russians leaving a dead drop.

The agents started to intercept Houghtons calls, and a neighbour was co-opted to keep an eye on the house.

By now, Amy had left Houghton and remarried. She was belatedly interviewed by agents and confirmed not only that Houghton had beaten her viciously, breaking a leg at one point, but also that when in Poland he was always going out and returning with large sums of money. He claimed to be selling medicine on the black market.

Meanwhile, the neighbour in Portland reported that Houghton, an unlikely lothario, in his 50s with wispy hair, had several girlfriends on the go. One was Ethel Gee, a colleague at the UDE who had higher security clearance and might be stealing secret papers for him.

The MI5 watchers discovered that Houghton and Gee would travel up to London on the train together as husband and wife, often taking in a show, and meet their KGB contact to hand over naval plans and any other material they had stolen. This contact was Gordon Lonsdale, a senior KGB operative under deep cover.

In turn, close surveillance of Lonsdale led MI5 to a couple he used to visit in a bungalow in Ruislip: Helen and Peter Kroger, who claimed to be Canadian like Lonsdale.

They were codenamed the Killjoys. Peter Kroger posed as an antiquarian bookseller, always sending and receiving parcels. His wife was a flamboyant and free-spirited woman with a penchant for wearing trousers.

MI5 operatives stationed themselves with a family in a nearby house, always ready to take cover if Helen Kroger called round, which she often did.

Veteran spies, the Krogers were implacable Communists and highly skilled radio operatives. It was from their basement, the networks communications hub, that the secret documents were sent on to Moscow.

With Houghton, Gee, Lonsdale and the Krogers all being watched, MI5 wanted to let the operation run on to see who else was pulled in.

But Sniper suddenly defected to the West and it was time to move fast: the Security Service was anxious the KGB would pull Lonsdale out in case Sniper compromised him.

The decision was made to strike on Saturday, January 7, 1961. The watchers followed as Houghton and Gee  codenamed Trellis by MI5  arrived at Waterloo for another of their regular meetings with handler Lonsdale.

The watching police and agents saw Lonsdale near the Old Vic, studying posters for that nights performance of A Midsummer Nights Dream. Houghton and Gee ambled past and Lonsdale fell in a few paces behind.

The watching police fanned out unseen around them. After a short distance Lonsdale caught up with the couple, threw his arms around them as they exchanged greetings and took Gees shopping bag from her.

At that moment, Superintendent George Smith of Special Branch, an immensely tall and imposing officer who for the purposes of disguise was sporting a natty French beret, jumped in front of them shouting, Youre under arrest. Im a police officer. (MI5 officers are not allowed to make arrests themselves.)

Three MI5 cars swerved to a halt beside them, Smith snatched the bag from Lonsdales grip and bundled him into the nearest car.

As soon as they were speeding to Scotland Yard, Smith pulled the radio microphone to his lips and  with a barely suppressed smile of satisfaction  announced lock, stock and barrel. It was the code sign to MI5 and Special Branch that all three KGB agents had been arrested.

Inside Gees shopping bag he found four pamphlets from Portland giving confidential details of research tests and a sealed tin of undeveloped film.

A couple of hours later Smith and a group of police and MI5 officers sped out to Ruislip to arrest the Krogers.

The final pillars of the spy ring were about to fall. The Krogers would have been expecting Lonsdale that Saturday evening with his latest batch of secrets handed over by Houghton and Gee. Smith knocked on the door and introduced himself, then asked the Krogers to get ready to leave for the police station.

Helen Kroger said she needed to stoke the boiler and picked up her handbag. Smith, suspecting something was up, tried to grab her bag but she held on and the catch sprang open. Inside was a letter in Russian, a typed sheet of cipher code, two glass slides with microdots sandwiched in them and other links to the contents of Lonsdales briefcase.

Even at the last minute, she was resourceful enough to try to destroy the evidence. Down at the station they refused to give fingerprints, but when the prints were finally taken by court order two days later they turned out to match those of a pair of suspected Soviet spies called Morris and Lona Cohen, whom the FBI had been hunting all over the world for years.

American citizens but dedicated communists, the Cohens had been crucial parts of Ethel and Julius Rosenbergs spy ring that had divulged nuclear secrets from The Manhattan Project to the Russians, enabling them to develop their own nuclear bomb.

Their bungalow was searched revealing the hidden basement where they kept their secret transmitter and other equipment.

They had been Lonsdales conduit to and from Moscow, relaying to him instructions from the KGB as well as letters from his wife and children, via dead drops. Gee and Houghtons homes were searched too, and documents and drawings containing secret research into anti-submarine sonars were found.

A search of Lonsdales London flat revealed stashes of cash in ingenious hiding places, such as secret zipped pockets and a Chinese scroll.

MI5 surveillance operatives had already bugged the flat and heard him singing in Russian.

So who was Gordon Lonsdale? It turned out that he was a Russian spy, Konon Molody, who had been to high school in the U.S. while a teenager in the 1930s, hence his perfect English, before returning to the USSR.

During World War II he was an intelligence officer in an artillery regiment, making dangerous forays behind German lines.

After the war he was recruited by the illegal (deep cover) branch of the KGB, rising to the rank of colonel. The subsequent trial of the five defendants in Court Number One at the Old Bailey was a sensation.

The judge was Lord Chief Justice Hubert Parker, a sign of the importance of the trial.

To preserve the anonymity of witnesses from the Security Services, they were smuggled in by way of the judges bench to give evidence, then discreetly vanished.

So the Portland Spy Ring was broken, and the first deep-cover Soviet spies brought to justice. But the aftershocks would be felt for years. Gordon Lonsdale is pictured with Carla

Gee and the Krogers protested their innocence; Houghton tried to turn Queens Evidence, but the offer was refused. Lonsdale claimed the Krogers were innocent and tried to convince the jury he had simply used their home to hide his spying equipment.

Shortly after the jury returned the inevitable guilty verdicts, the defendants stood up to be sentenced. Lord Parker declared that for peacetime this must be one of the most disgraceful cases to come before the court. He described Lonsdale as the directing mind and, to gasps in the court, jailed him for 25 years.

The Krogers, said the Lord Chief Justice, were professional spies and in this up to the hilt.

They were jailed for 20 years each. Houghton and Gee were in some ways the most culpable, betraying their own country purely for the money. They were each sent down for 15 years.

So the Portland Spy Ring was broken, and the first deep-cover Soviet spies brought to justice. But the aftershocks would be felt for years.

The aftermath

In the post-trial inquiry, the Admiralty came in for most of the blame and the UDE was called out for its grotesque failure to follow up Mrs Houghtons accusations: had she been listened to in the first place then years worth of secrets would not have been handed over.

The Admiralty sought to downplay the value of the intelligence the spy ring passed on, but in fact it was incredibly helpful to the Russians, enabling them to get years ahead on their own nuclear submarine programme and aiding the manufacture of a more silent generation of Soviet submarines.

In March 1964, ringleader Konon Molody (Lonsdale) was flown back to Moscow in a spy swap, exchanged with Greville Wynne, a Briton held by the Russians.

Molody was installed in a comfortable flat and hailed as a hero. He helped to train future agents and his work with the Cohens was taught to new KGB officers as an exemplary case in creating and running a network of agents.

He was friends with other spies and they would drink together and play chess, but he eventually grew disenchanted with the lumbering nature of the Russian state.

In October 1970, while out collecting mushrooms for a picnic with his family, he drank a second glass of vodka and suffered a severe stroke and died. He was 48.

His body lay in state at the KGB officers club, and there is an elaborate tombstone commemorating him in Moscow. Like the Cohens, he was even honoured on a Russian stamp.

Morris and Lona Cohen (the Krogers) were flown back to Moscow in 1969 in another spy swap. Like Molody, they are revered as heroes of the Cold War and were regarded as KGB royalty. At a welcome party in their honour at a secluded dacha, all the KGB top brass were present.

The Cohens were given a luxurious apartment in an upscale district of Moscow and made Soviet citizens. They were described as true soldiers of the revolution.

Lona died in 1992 aged 79, leaving Morris devastated and in failing health.

He died in 1995, aged 85, and at his burial in a KGB cemetery a guard of honour fired a salute over his grave. On the orders of President Boris Yeltsin, he was made a posthumous Hero of the Russian Federation.

Even today, for Russian intelligence, and especially for Putins Russia, these three agents have resonance as illustrious examples of sacrifice and spycraft.

The only Britons in the spy ring, Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee, were released from prison in 1970 and married the following year.

Houghtons memoir, published in 1972, was a long whine of complaint about the incompetence of the Security Service, the unfairness of his trial and his harsh treatment in prison.

After publication, the couple dropped out of public sight. They ran their home as a guesthouse for a period then retired to a three-bedroom house on a nondescript 1970s housing estate in Dorset.

In 1984 Gee died aged 70. Houghton followed her the next year, just before his 80th birthday.

Dead Doubles by Trevor Barnes is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on September 3 at 20.  Trevor Barnes 2020.

To order a copy for 16 (offer valid until August 29; P&P free), visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193.
A 45-year-old man was arrested and accused of threatening two teenagers with a knife as they rode their bikes on Aug. 13, New York State police said Thursday.

Thomas A. Niznik, of Richfield Springs, was charged with two counts of second-degree menacing and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, police said.

Troopers were dispatched after receiving a report that a man threatened two teens on their bikes on James Street in the village of Richfield Springs, according to police.

One of the teens bike chain had broken, which is when Niznik threatened the teens, police said. He approached the teens with a knife, and the teens went home, according to police.

They told an adult about what happened and the adult identified Niznik to the troopers, police said. Niznik was later arrested at 1:32 a.m., police said.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Chris Libonati via the Signal app for encrypted messaging at 585-290-0718, by phone at the same number, by email or on Twitter.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday asked why the Kerala government participated in the bidding process for the Thiruvananthapuram airport if it has been against privatisation. His remarks come after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing the Union Cabinet's approval to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises under the PPP model for a period of 50 years.

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Puri stated that the state government was given a fair chance and Right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10 per cent below the range of the highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 per cent below. "If Kerala Govt is against privatisation, then why did it participate in the bidding process? State Govt was given a fair chance & Right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10% below the range of highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 % below," tweeted Puri.

Kerala is the pioneer as far as airports under Public Private Partnership are concerned. First PPP airport in India came up in Kochi in Kerala. It is a successfully run airport with a capacity of 13 Million Passengers Per Annum & was handling 9.62 MPPA in 2019-20 before COVID19.  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) August 21, 2020

He also said that the Kerala government is running two "very successful" airports under the public-private partnership (PPP) model and it is still opposing handing over the Thiruvananthapuram airport to a private operator. "Kerala is the pioneer as far as airports under PPP are concerned. First PPP airport in India came up in Kochi in Kerala," Puri tweeted.

The Kochi airport "is a successfully run airport" that handled 9.62 million passengers per annum in 2019-20 before COVID-19, he noted.

"In fact, it was during the UDF (Congress-led coalition) regime in Kerala that the foundation for Kochi airport was laid in 1994 and the airport was inaugurated in 1999 during LDF (Left-led coalition) regime," he said in a tweet.

Another very successful example of an airport operating in PPP mode is in Kannur, also situated in Kerala, he said. "Now, Kerala Government, running two very successful airports in PPP mode, is opposing the handing over of Thiruvananthapuram airport under PPP mode," he said. "It has come to my knowledge that an all-party meeting in Kerala has opposed the PPP model at Thiruvananthapuram airport," Puri added.

The minister said the airports in Delhi and Mumbai which handle around one-third of India's air passenger traffic were privatised using the PPP model during the first term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2006-07. "In comparison the 6 airports now being handed over, only handle less than 10% of the country's total passenger traffic," Puri mentioned.

Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports - Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati - through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019. In July 2019, the Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for leasing out three airports - Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow - to Adani Enterprises. On August 19, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for leasing out the other three airports.

After losing the bid for the airport, the Kerala government then approached the Kerala High Court on this matter which dismissed the petition in December 2019, Puri noted. "Petitioners then filed an SLP (special leave petition) in Hon'ble SC. Apex Court remitted the matter back to Hon'ble Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by Hon'ble SC or Hon'ble Kerala High Court," he said.

The Union Cabinet has given its go-ahead for awarding the Thiruvananthapuram airport to the private party subject to the outcome of the writ petition and in accordance with provisions of undertaking given by that party, he said. "If the petitioners succeed and the outcome of litigation leads to annulment/cancellation of the bidding process then the Concessionaire will hand over the possession of the airport to AAI," the minister mentioned.

"They will be entitled to a refund of the amount paid to AAI and additional investments made in the assets," he said, adding that Adani Enterprises "will also not demand any damages from AAI".
Mike Segar/Reuters

Federal prosecutors on Thursday arrested former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Brian Kolfage, the head of a nonprofit seeking to privately finance construction of a southern border wall, and accused them of illegally using that nonprofit to enrich themselves.

But the sums the two men allegedly extracted from the organization just scratched the surface of their grandiose plans to make money off the effort. As he was using his group, We Build The Wall, to compile millions of email addresses and phone numbers, Kolfage was also plotting ways to use that data to start a Republican fundraising firm. The venture had gotten far enough that earlier this year, he was already shopping around for potential clients.

Kolfage, a triple amputee Air Force veteran, described his plans to a Republican consultant in an email written early this year and seen by The Daily Beast. His previously-unreported efforts to start a political consulting business using the resources acquired and built by his nonprofit show the additional waysbeyond the direct cash payments alleged in the federal criminal complaint unsealed on Thursdaythat Kolfage planned to enrich himself using a group that allegedly duped donors with a promise to help fulfill one of President Donald Trumps signature proposals.

Efforts to reach Kolfage were not successful. An inquiry sent to We Build The Wall went unanswered.

Steve Bannon Arrested on Charges of Stealing From Build the Wall Fundraiser

In the email to the Republican consultant, who showed the message to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about Kolfages legal situation, Kolfage bragged that the voter contact list in his possession was likely the third biggest in Republican politics, surpassed only by those controlled by Trump himself and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). He said it contained names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other data points about donors to his nonprofit who Republican candidates could hit up for cash.

Story continues

Kolfage proposed a revenue-sharing agreement, whereby he would keep 50 percent of all the funds raised by the campaigns and groups that used his list.

Kolfages pitch to the Republican consultant, who does digital fundraising for Republican candidates, suggests that Kolfage was seeking to rent the list to other vendors that work with political campaigns, rather than to the campaigns directly. Thats a common arrangement for digital fundraising vendors, but it makes it difficult to track down which, or how many, campaigns have rented the We Build The Wall list.

But at least one political candidate appears to have done so. The Daily Beast reported last year that Kris Kobachthe former Kansas secretary of state and We Build The Wall general counselsent a fundraising email to that list asking for donations to his ultimately failed 2020 Senate campaign. Legal experts told The Daily Beast at the time that that solicitation almost certainly violated federal campaign finance laws, either by failing to disclose that the campaign had paid for its use of the list, or by constituting an illegal in-kind contribution from the nonprofit to the campaign. The ethics watchdog group Common Cause subsequently filed legal complaints against both Kobachs campaign and We Build The Wall over the fundraising appeal.

At the time, the Kobach campaign blamed the email on a vendor, which it refused to name. FEC records show that a few weeks after the Kobach fundraising email in question, his campaign began paying Stockton Strategies, the firm run by We Build The Wall aide Dustin Stockton, for online fundraising services and revenue-sharing fees.

Trump Favorite Is Under Investigationand Getting Big Bucks to Build the Wall

On Thursday morning, as federal agents scooped up Bannon and Kolfage, Stockton tweeted that he was raided by SWAT and that his phone was seized but that he was not arrested. He did not respond to inquiries about the We Build The Wall email list, the Kobach campaigns use of it, or about the wave of arrests and charges against others involved with the group.

Federal prosecutors accuse Bannon, Kolfage, and two of their alleged co-conspirators of raising money for We Build The Wall with promises that not a single penny would be paid to Kolfage, and that all of the money raised by the group would directly finance its construction of a southern border wall. But according to the criminal complaint, Kolfage and Bannon pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars, routing the funds through shell companies and a nonprofit that Bannon controlled in order to mask the transfers.

Kolfage used that money on various personal expenses, prosecutors say, including upkeep on his boat, Warfighter, which Kolfage proudly boarded during a record-breaking boat parade in Florida this week in support of Trumps reelection.

Though the $350,000 in We Build The Wall funds that prosecutors say Kolfage pocketed was no small sum, brokering a donor list as large as the one he described to the Republican consultant this year would likely have represented a significant source of additional income.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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ESSEX  The Essex Library is celebrating the release of the 15th Billy Boyle WWII Mystery with Soho crime author James R. Benn, who always provides his audiences with fascinating though little-known events from World War II, according to a statement.

Just days after the Liberation of Paris, US Army Detective Billy Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. British Major Cosgrove, asks Billy for help, unofficially, in solving what he thinks was the murder of a British agent recuperating at Saint Albans. The convalescent hospital is really a secret installation for those in the world of clandestine warfare to recover from wounds, physical and emotional. Some are allowed to leave; others are deemed security risks and are detained there. When a second body is found, it is evident that a killer is at work in this high-security enclave, accordign to the statement.

This event via zoom is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required. 860-767-1560 or go to www.youressexlibrary.org

Accomplishments, happenings at Gillete Castle State Park

EAST HADDAM  The following is a statement from the Friends of Gillette Castle State Park.

Visitors to the park continue in full force, undeterred by the COVID-induced closure of the castle and visitor center. It seems that beautiful vistas, woodland walks, and quirky architecture have a perennial appeal, and many visitors are especially drawn to outdoor adventures in these times.

Visitors can now see the castle online; there are 24 different videos on the Friends YouTube channel - built in collaboration with CT State Parks and the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The most popular video is the "Behind the scenes" episode, which goes to the very top of the castle and beautifully highlights the special nature of Gillette's architectural aesthetic. Our very own Paul Schiller, Vice President of the Friends and seasonal Park Supervisor of Public Education, is your tour guide, and we think that meeting him in person (online) is a special bonus for anyone who visits the channel.

The gift shop is open, and operating under CT-COVID guidelines, as you can see in this photo essay. Visitors can now purchase mementos of their visit, and an important funding source for the Friends is back in operation. We think it's a win-win.

Last, but not least, a significant renovation of the retaining wall for the castle and the stairs to the castle is complete. The project was funded and directed by the state park, so the Friends can't take credit for this, but we really had to mention it. The renovation is beautiful and completely in harmony with the rest of the castle, members said.

For full details go to www.gillettecastlefriends.org/

Emblem Club to meet; volunteers needed

MIDDLETOWN  The Middletown Emblem Club #452 will hold its monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Sept. 2 at the Elks Lodge, Crystal Ballroom.

President, Betty Pear is presiding. Refreshment hostesses are Kathy Young and Roz Cannata. Officers are asked to contact President Betty if they are unable to attend the meeting. Masks are required; and social distancing will be observed.

Members who wish to help bag socks for the Veterans Stand Down, Sept. 25, should be at the lodge by 5 p.m.; those who cant be there at 5 p.m. are asked to come as early as possible.  There are 1,000 pair of socks to be bagged. More hands make light work, members said. The usual format with members participating with the handout of the socks to the veterans, will be curtailed this year due to COVID. All distribution will be done by the staff on the Rocky Hill campus.

The fall 2020 Military Whist season has been canceled this year by coordinator Kevin Welch. Members hope to begin playing again in the Spring of 2021. There will be discussion regarding other ways of raising funds for 2020-21.

Veteran community service award nominees wanted

MIDDLETOWN The Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce is seeking nominations for the 2020 William J. Pomfret Veteran Community Service Award, according to a statement.

The award is presented annually at the Support the Troops & Honor the Veterans Member Breakfast Meeting, to a veteran of the United States Armed Forces in recognition of his or her distinguished service to the citizens of Connecticut and selfless commitment to public service. The recipient of this award is decided by a committee of its previous winners.

Members say candidates must meet the following criteria to be considered for the award: He or she must live or work in the following Middlesex County towns: Chester, Cromwell, Deep River, Durham, East Haddam, East Hampton, Essex, Haddam, Killingworth, Middlefield, Middletown, Portland or Westbrook; he or she must have served in a branch of the United States Armed Forces and continues to promote Veterans Affairs; and he or she must participate in local and state community organizations and/or initiatives.

To nominate a candidate for this award, visit https://www.middlesexchamber.com/awards-and-scholarships/, or contact Jeff Pugliese at 860-347- 6924 or jpugliese@middlesexchamber.com.

Nominations must be received at the Chamber office by Sept. 11 at 4:30 p.m.

Division seeks alumni for reunion

FOX LAKE, ILL  The Second (Indianhead) Division Association is searching for anyone who served in the Army's 2nd Infantry Division at any time. For information about the association and its 99th annual reunion in Kansas City, Missouri, Sept. 23-27. Visit www.2ida.org/99th-annual-reunion/ or contact Bob Haynes at 2idahq@comcast.net and (224) 225-1202.
August 21 : After the CBI team landed in Mumbai to investigate Sushant Singh Rajput case, it is speculated that Rhea Chakraborty will be taken into custody for questioning. While reporters asked the CBI team several times to comment on it when they came out of the Mumbai airport on Thursday, the team kept mum. However, the late actors family lawyer Vikas Singh also reportedly said that Rhea can be taken into custody for questioning.

Meanwhile, excerpts of a WhatsApp chat that Rhea apparently had with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt after leaving Sushant's house on June 8 has gone viral. The chat clearly indicates that she had herself walked out of the house and was not told by the late actor to leave. Lawyer Vikas Singh told a news portal that Rhea has said just the opposite in her statement. She said that Sushant had asked her to leave the house. Singh said that this will prove damaging for her.

The WhatsApp conversation hints that her father was not happy about her relationship with Sushant, and that Mahesh Bhatt had also advised her against it.

Times Now had shown screenshots of several conversations between Rhea and Bhatt. One message read, Aisha moves on..sir..with a heavy heart and sense of relief. Aisha was Rhea's reel name in the film Jalebi, co-produced by Mahesh Bhatt.

The filmmaker reportedly replied in two separate messages: Dont look back. Make it possible what is inevitable, and Thank u for being brave.

In one message Rhea wrote, Thank you destiny that I met you; You are right, Our path met for this day; and Not for a film, but something very different, every word you have said to me echoes in me and feel a deep impact of your unconditional love.

Rhea further wrote, I love you my best man; and Will make you proud. Bhatt replied, with emojis of folded hands: You have. Truly. It takes guts to do what you did. Don't look back.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Recession: Kim Jong-un has stated that the North Korean economy is struggling  a striking admission for a regime built on the infallibility of dynastic rule. PHOTO: AP

Kim Jong-un says North Korea's development goals have been "seriously delayed", a rare acknowledgment that shows the country's already brittle economy is under severe strain from sanctions, flooding and the pandemic.

At a gathering of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's Central Committee, Mr Kim said the country "faced unexpected and inevitable challenges in various aspects", according to state media.

"Planned attainment of the goals for improving the national economy have been seriously delayed and the people's living standard has not been improved remarkably," Mr Kim said.

The statement was the latest in a series by Mr Kim complaining about the pace of key policy goals, a striking admission for a regime built on the infallibility of dynastic rule.

In recent months, he has lashed out at cadres over what he saw as lax virus management and criticised the people responsible for constructing his showcase Pyongyang General Hospital, saying they were "careless" with spending.

He pledged to unveil a five-year economic plan at a party congress in January. The last meeting of North Korea's decision-making assembly, in 2016, came after a 36-year gap in which former leader Kim Jong-il ignored regulations in the Workers' Party to hold them every five years.

Key party meetings often lead to a shake-up of cadres, which could mean new powers for prominent officials such as his sister, Kim Yo-jong.

At a Politburo meeting last week, Mr Kim sacked the premier he appointed a year ago, removed the border city of Kaesong from virus lockdown and said he would not accept foreign food aid because of the risk posed by Covid-19.

Torrential rains that hit North Korea this summer have wiped out farmland, increasing food insecurity in a country where the UN says about 40pc of the population is undernourished.
A "remarkable" photograph of a Covid-19 sign being surrounded by the raging California wildfires has encapsulated the devastating events of the year in a single image, with some describing it as "2020 in a photo".

The "terrifying" picture, taken by Associated Press photographer Noah Berger, has been shared thousands of times and praised widely on social media for summing up two of the major events to have dominated the past 12 months.

As firefighters battle devastating wildfires across northern California, the photograph is a stark reminder of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which broke out at the end of last year but swept across the world in 2020.

The image taken outside a senior centre in Napa County shows flames surrounding a sign which says "wear a mask, wash your hands, social distance, stay safe".

It adds: "Come join us."

California Wildfires: August/September 2020 - In pictures 1 /90 California Wildfires: August/September 2020 - In pictures The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area Noah Berger/AP The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area Getty Images A man pulls out a garden hose as he helps Fire Fighters with Cal Fire protect the St. Helena Water Treatment Plant from the Glass Fire in Napa Valley, California AFP via Getty Images An air tanker drops retardant on the Glass Fire burning in Calistoga AP Firefighters knock down flames on a dog house while battling the Glass Fire burning in St. Helena AP Cal Fire Capt. Jesse Campbell works to save the Louis Stralla Water Treatment Plant as the Glass Fire burns in St. Helena, AP The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California Getty Images Embers fly from a tree as the Glass Fire burns in St. Helena AP Grape vines at Chateau Boswell Winery burn as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California Getty Images An air tanker drops retardant as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flat community in unincorporated Napa County AP Chula Vista firefighter Rudy Diaz monitors the LNU Lightning Complex Fire REUTERS Following the LNU Lightning Complex fires, a scorched VW Microbus rests in a driveway of the Spanish Flat community in Napa County AP Fire consumes land recently deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso AP Smoke rises from the LNU Lightning Complex wildfires as seen from an AlertWildfire camera looking east from Mount St. Helena, north of Calistoga, California via REUTERS Firefighters Cody Nordstrom, Kyle Harp and Robert Gonzalez, from left, of the North Central Fire station out of Kerman AP Fire consumes land recently deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires leap above Butts Canyon Road AP A charred vehicle is parked in front of a home after the CZU Lightning Complex AP Resident Alyssa Medina reacts after finding an intact cup amidst the burned remains of her home AFP via Getty Images Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires leap above Butts Canyon Road AP Howard Forest Helitack firefighters return to their helicopter after battling the LNU Lightning Complex AP Vehicles and homes have been burned by the CZU Lightning Complex Fir AP AP A vehicle drives along Knoxville Road, with flames from the LNU Lightning Complex in the background in Napa County AP Firefighters take refuge in their trucks in a cleared field as a wildfire also known as the Hennessey Fire jumped Knoxville Berryessa Road, west of Sacramento AP A resident hoses down a burning bicycle and tree as flames from the Hennessey approach a property in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, California AFP via Getty Images An outbuilding burns as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flat area of unincorporated Napa County AP Bill Nichols, 84, works to save his home as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through Vacaville AP Residents extinguish spot fires while protecting their property as the LNU Lightning Complex fire burns through the area in Fairfield, California Getty Images A bicycle and palm tree burn at a residence during the LNU Lightning Complex fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, California AFP via Getty Images Mobile homes burn at the Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burns through the area in Napa, California Getty Images Firefighters monitor flames as they approach a residence in the valley area of Vacaville, northern California during the LNU Lightning Complex fire AFP via Getty Images Horses stand in an enclosure as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flats community in unincorporated Napa County AP A CalFire crew from Coulterville takes a break while fighting the River Fire near Salinas AP A massive column of smoke rises above Highway 1 just north of the Santa Cruz County line as a section of the CZU August Lightning Complex burns above Waddell Beac AP Debris piles burn as the LNU Lightning Complex fire burns through the area in Fairfield, California Getty Images Fire burns along the closed Interstate 80 Getty Images In this long exposure photograph, flames consumes both sides of a segment of Lake Berryessa during the Hennessey fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa AFP via Getty Images In this long exposure photograph, embers fly off a burning tree during the Hennessey fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, California AFP via Getty Images Mobile homes burn at the Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burns through the area in Napa, California Getty Images Fire crews maintain a backburn to control the River Fire near the Las Palmas neighborhood in Salinas AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires burn in unincorporated Napa County AP A pickup truck drives on a freeway overpass as flames from the LNU Lighting Complex Fire approach Interstate 80 on the outskirts of Vacaville, California REUTERS Mobile homes burn at the Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burns through the area in Napa, California Getty Images Firefighter David Widaman directs water onto a tree that had exploded in flame as a fire crew defends a house northwest of Santa Cruz AP A home burns as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flats community in unincorporated Napa County AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires lick above a fire truck in unincorporated Napa County AP A flag flies as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires crest a ridge in Napa County AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville AP Fire crews maintain a backburn to control the River Fire near the Las Palmas neighborhood in Salina AP Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville AP AP AP AP AP AP AP AP Douglas Forest Protective Association AFP via Getty Images AP AFP via Getty Images Getty Images AP Butte County Sheriff Butte County Sheriff Butte County Sheriff Butte County Sheriff

The blaze went on to destroy multiple homes near Lake Berryessa.

One Twitter user said: "This photo should be in the running for a Pulitzer."

Another said: "Your reminder that the climate crisis hasn't stopped for a global pandemic."

A third described the photo as "surreal".

Hundreds of fires are burning across the US state, including 23 major fires which governor Gavin Newsom blamed on "all of these lightning strikes".

Wildfires have been raging in northern California for several weeks / AP

On Thursday, he said the state has recorded nearly 11,000 lightning strikes in 72 hours and knows of 367 fires.

The wildfires have now claimed at least five lives and threaten tens of thousands of homes, authorities said.

Three people have died in Napa County, while another was killed in Solano County.

A helicopter pilot died after the aircraft crashed an hour from New Coalinga Municipal Airport while dropping water in western Fresno County.

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus death toll is nearing 800,000.

The United States alone has recorded 174,283 deaths, followed by Brazil, where 112,304 people have died after contracting coronavirus.
FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market saw fairly directionless trade on Friday, bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before finally finishing in the red. It was the second straight day of losses for the Swiss bourse and third in four days. The SMI dipped 11.72 points or 0.11 percent to finish at 10,218.20 after trading between 10,169.66 and 10,286.22. Among the actives, Roche Holding tumbled 1.08 percent, while Compagnie Financiere Richemont skidded 0.58 percent, Novartis climbed 0.50 percent, Swiss Life Holding gained 0.49 percent, Swisscom and Adecco both fell 0.46 percent, ABB sank 0.38 percent, Swatch Group slid 0.33 percent, Zurich Insurance dipped 0.30 percent, Lafarge Holcim shed 0.16 percent, Credit Suisse eased 0.15 percent and UBS Group was unchanged. The weakness was in line with the rest of the European markets, who were weighed by economic data that showed Europe's economic recovery slowed in August. Germany's DAX shed 65.20 points or 0.51 percent to 12,764.80, while London's FTSE dipped 11.45 points or 0.19 percent to 6,001.89 and the CAC 40 in France fell 14.91 points or 0.30 percent to 4,896.33. The recovery was undermined by signs of rising virus cases in various parts of the euro area, with renewed restrictions impacting the service sector in particular. 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.
I think Richmond as a whole, and certainly RPS, did not quickly respond to the fact that the Spanish-speaking population has grown exponentially, Kamras said. When I started in this role, we had almost no bilingual people working in our schools. We are working our way out of a big hole, and we have a lot more work to do.

RPS outreach efforts include community walks, knocking on more than 6,000 doors, personally calling families, partnering with community organizations that serve Latino communities and using La Comunidad, a group made up of Latino parents and advocates, for outreach, said Matthew Stanley, the systems director of advocacy and outreach. Stanley said more than 100 computers and hot spots were distributed during neighborhood visits in efforts to track down families who had not received laptops.

Spanish radio has also been vital in sharing information, as well as social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook, he added.

School systems are doing what they can, said Cynthia Reyes, PTA president of Cardinal Elementary, but its nowhere near enough.
Alcohol sales at Colorado bars and restaurants will be required to stop at 11 p.m. rather than the previous cutoff of 10 p.m., Gov. Jared Polis announced Friday. The mandate is set to begin Saturday.

Bars and restaurants can remain open later than 11 p.m.  it's only the alcohol sales that must be halted, Polis said. Liquor is known to lower people's inhibitions and cause lapses in judgement, which can lead to crowding and the spread of the virus, the governor said.

The state's standard last call regulation requires alcohol sales to stop at 2 a.m.

Don't miss the latest coronavirus updates from health and government officials in Colorado. Sign up for free Patch news alerts and newsletters for what you need to know daily.



In July, Polis issued a 'last call for alcohol' order of 10 p.m. amid a spike in coronavirus cases.

Many restaurants and bars said they rely on late night drink orders for a large portion of their revenue, and a Denver bar filed a lawsuit against the state over the 10 p.m. cutoff order. The bar asked for a temporary restraining order that would allow the bar to serve alcohol after 10 p.m. while the lawsuit moves forward. The judge ruled against the request.





This article originally appeared on the Across Colorado Patch
A policy that excludes damages caused by physical abuse does not take a property insurer off the hook for a claim by an insured who agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from injuries caused by an alleged assault, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled.

The high court said in an Aug. 13 ruling that the term is too ambiguous to bar coverage for the incident, which involved a physical altercation that started during an argument about a record-breaking fish.

The case is Dorchester Mutual Insurance Co. v. Krusell.

Timothy Krusell was a 23-year-old trustee with an ownership interest in his parents house, which was insured by Dorchester Mutual. Shortly after midnight on Sept. 13, 2014, he and a college friend were walking in downtown Newport, Rhode Island and struck up a sidewalk conversation with 62-year-old Robert C. Haufler and Hauflers companion.

Haufler was discussing a record-breaking swordfish he had caught, but Krusell was skeptical. At some point he pushed Haufler, who lost his balance and fell onto a parked automobile before striking the pavement. The fall caused permanent injury to Hauflers right arm.

Krusell said he acted defensively because he was startled when Haufler suddenly raised his cellphone up to his face  although he later learned that the older man was trying to show him a photo of the fish. Haufler said the younger man ran from several feet away to attack him. Police charged Krussel with assault of a person over 60 causing grave physical injury.

The judge handling the criminal case hinted that he would be less likely to sentence Krusell to jail if a civil settlement was reached. He and his parents agreed to a settlement after being told that the case might go to trial within days. They agreed to pay Haufler $750,000, expecting $500,000 of that to be paid by Dorchester Mutual.

The judge reduced the charge to simple assault and put the case on hold for one year. The charge would be expunged in one year if Krusell did not commit any crimes during that period.

Dorchester Mutual denied the Krusells insurance claim because the policy excluded coverage for intentional acts and injuries caused by physical abuse were also excluded. A Superior Court judge found that no coverage was owed because of the physical abuse exclusion.

The Supreme Judicial Court took up the case from there, rather than allow the matter to go before the intermediate Appeals Court.

In its analysis, the high court said the history of policy language that excludes physical abuse, sexual molestation and corporal punishment is important to understand the meaning. Those exclusions were inserted into policies by insurers after they defended themselves from numerous claims against institutions that were accused of negligently allowing molesters to prey on children.

The court said the dictionary definition of abuse includes any actions that cause physical harm, but that meaning would make no sense in an insurance context. A homeowner who spilled hot coffee on a guest, for example, could be denied coverage for the injury because it was caused by abuse.

The high court said the term abuse is often used to connote misuse of power, such as by a teacher or a spouse.

The term routinely has been applied to conduct causing harm to a vulnerable type of victim, where the alleged abuser may be responsible for the vulnerable individuals care, the court said in a 6-0 decision written by Justice Barbara A. Lenk.

The court concluded that the policys use of the term physical abuse was ambiguous, so the wording must be interpeted in favor of the policyholder. The court reversed the trial courts ruling to dismiss the case.

The high court, however, rejected the Kusells counterclaim alleging that Dorchester Mutual had violated state laws that require insurers to settle claims in good faith. The court said the insurer was not aware that Kusell had denied he intentionally attacked Haufler until the familys attorney submitted a report from a forensic psychologist shortly before a settlement was reached.

The court said it has no opinion on whether the policys intentional acts exclusion applies. It remanded the case to the trial court, meaning that question may have to be answered by a jury.

Haufler, a family law attorney, died in January 2017, according to an obituary posted on Legacy.com. He had been a lifelong sportsman and was buried privately at sea.
21.08.2020 LISTEN

A group calling itself Coalition of Progressive Assembly Members (COPAM) has backed former President John Dramani Mahama's promise to put all Assemblymembers on monthly salary.

The group said failure to accept the reality and have Assemblymembers salaried for the performance of their national duties will compel them to kick against any future election of district assembly and unit committee elections.

This follows opposing views by the Hon. Minister for Local Government, Hajia Alima Mahama that it is not possible to pay Assemblymembers salary as promised by the former President.

Mr Mahama in his promise observed that not only do Assembly members attend to the day-to-day needs of the people, but they also serve as community development agents. As such, reiterated his pledge to tailor capacity building programmes to improve the lives of assembly members and also pay them monthly allowances to motivate them.

But, Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development has maintained, that the policy is impossible.

In a phone interview with Nathaniel Akyeampong Former/Assembly Member Elect, Odonkoyanmu/Obra Wogum Electoral Area, Effutu, he condemned the statement by the Hon. Minister, adding that the fact that the NPP promised in its 2012 manifesto and failed does not render it impossible in future.

According to the group, the constitution of the republic enjoins the payment of monthly allowances to Assembly members, just as it is done for Presiding Members pursuant to Article 250(2), and section 11(2) of the local governance Act 936 of 2016.

We fittingly conclude by calling for the future cancellation of the district Assembly and unit committee elections in our electoral process every four years, if the state perceive holders of that office to have nothing substantial to offer to the governance of their districts and corporate Ghana. If indeed they are truly important, and their presence compliments the governance architecture of the country through the organization of their elections with the limited resources of the country, then their poor conditions of service must be expeditiously addressed by policy makers at the top echelon relative to the management of the nation.

In a statement signed by Nathaniel Akyeampong Former/Assembly Member Elect, Odonkoyanmu/Obra Wogum Electoral Area, Effutu, endorsed the policy by the former President John Dramani Mahama.

To the former President, Mr John Dramani Mahama who made the promise and it has generated political debate - we proudly endorse and identify ourselves with the promise, and wish to assure him of our untiring defence for it against any political attack, chiefly when it was under his able stewardship as Vice President that the distribution of motorbikes to Assembly members to facilitate their operational functions was initiated; just as we will endorse and defend all Presidential candidates who will prioritise the welfare of Assembly members in their campaign message.

The statement admonished assembly members across the country to support the call since it addresses their topmost perennial concern since the inception of the fourth Republic, but has still not been addressed by successive governments.

It further said, That this is the opportune time for civil society organisation's such as the Institute for Democratic Governance(IDEG), Centre for Democratic Development(CDD), the legally sanctioned association for all Assembly members, the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana(NALAG) and the entire Ghanaian populace to support a pledge to remunerate our local legislators and offer their expert views on same.

Read full statement below:

PRESS STATEMENT BY THE COALITION OF PROGRESSIVE ASSEMBLY MEMBERS(COPAM) ON THE PROMISE BY FORMER PRESIDENT JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA TO PAY MONTHLY ALLOWANCES TO ASSEMBLY MEMBERS.

Thursday, 20th August 2020.

The Coalition of Progressive Assembly Members(COPAM), with key interest in advocating on issues concerning the welfare of Assembly members in the Central region and beyond, have taken note of the controversies that has surrounded the promise by the former President and elections 2020 Flagbearer of the NDC, H.E. John Dramani Mahama to pay monthly allowances to Assembly members if he is elected as President, God willing in the impending general elections. In this regard, we will like with this statement, share our nationalistic driven view on the contention.

We respectfully wish to state;

(1) That the supreme law of the country, the 1992 constitution of the Republic of Ghana enjoins the payment of monthly allowances to Assembly members, just as it is done for Presiding members pursuant to article 250(2), and section 11(2) of the local governance Act 936 of 2016. This fundamentally indicate how lawful, legitimate and deserving the promise is, since it has a legal basis.

Further, at page 494 of the Prof. Emeritus Albert Fiadjoe constitutional review commission(CRC) report of 2011, one of the popular matter presented by the citizenry to the commission on local government issues, was the emoluments and conditions of service of Assembly members, which it made a useful recommendation for its execution through the proposed independent emoluments commission by the CRC.

(2) That any opposing statement made about the promise, or is about to be made subsequently by an appointee of the current administration, particularly the local government Minister because the former President had made same promise in 2012 but couldn't deliver; would impugn lack of appreciation of government's functionaries on its own promises under local government, and what has been achieved so far. A fact check at page 142 of the 2016 manifesto of government then in opposition would reveal that, the latter equally made same promise before assuming office but has not been delivered as well. Sincerely speaking, no government can convincingly apportion blame to the other on the non-payment of monthly allowances to Assembly members, since all are complicit.

(3) That all well meaning Assembly members across the almost two hundred and sixty Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies(MMDA's) of the country must endeavour to associate themselves with this vow, since it addresses their topmost perennial concern since the inception of the fourth Republic, but has still not been addressed by successive governments. We entreat those who wish to object to the former President's promise, obviously for political expediency purposes, to be measured with their public commentary, and take a cue from how Members of Parliament from both sides of the august house speaks on issues about their conditions of service. Unity, devoid of partisanship in this context, is a proven prerequisite for achieving such an objective.

4) That this is the opportune time for civil society organisation's such as the Institute for Democratic Governance(IDEG), Centre for Democratic Development(CDD), the legally sanctioned association for all Assembly members, the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana(NALAG) and the entire Ghanaian populace to support a pledge to renumerate our local legislators and offer their expert views on same.

We fittingly conclude by calling for the future cancellation of the district Assembly and unit committee elections in our electoral process every four years, if the state perceive holders of that office to have nothing substantial to offer to the governance of their districts and corporate Ghana. If indeed they are truly important, and their presence compliments the governance architecture of the country through the organisation of their elections with the limited resources of the country, then their poor conditions of service must be expeditiously addressed by policy makers at the top echelon relative to the management of the nation.

To the former President, Mr. John Dramani Mahama who made the promise and it has generated political debate - we proudly endorse and identify ourselves with the promise, and wish to assure him of our untiring defence for it against any political attack, chiefly when it was under his able stewardship as Vice President that the distribution of motorbikes to Assembly members to facilitate their operational functions was initiated; just as we will endorse and defend all Presidential candidates who will prioritise the welfare of Assembly members in their campaign message.

We thank you for your time, and we hope to engage in the not too distant future.

God bless Ghana!

Signed,

Convener

Nathaniel Akyeampong

Former/Assembly Member Elect,

Odonkoyanmu/Obra Wogum Electoral Area, Effutu.

Co-convener

Abdul-Wahab Africa Zion

Research Officer

Nhyira Dadzie

P.R.O

Kow Kakra Jagadu
West African leaders headed to Mali to press their demand that ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita be reinstated, a call rejected by the junta that's assumed control of the country.

France and the United Nations, wary of the impact the coup may have on a Western-backed counter-insurgency effort in the country, appealed for calm and urged soldiers who detained Keita on Tuesday to free him.

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is leading the delegation that will attempt to meet the leaders of the Aug. 18 putsch, said two people familiar with the matter. They asked not to be identified because they're not authorized to speak to the media.

"We are going to engage in discussions with the leaders of the military junta to share our message and make them understand that our sub-region no longer accepts the forceful takeover of power," Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou, the current head of the Economic Community of West African States, said after a meeting of regional heads of state on Thursday.

Keita, 75, dissolved his government and resigned under pressure from soldiers who detained him hours after they staged a mutiny at an army barracks on the outskirts of the capital, Bamako. Previous mediation efforts by Ecowas failed to resolve the impasse between Keita's government and a popular protest movement that's demanded he step down.

Leaders of the protest have held talks with the junta since it seized power and insist that Keita, who's known as IBK, can't return to office.

"He cannot be reinstated," Mountaga Tall, a prominent member of the coalition of civil society groups and opposition parties, known as M5, said by phone from Bamako. "You saw the people dancing and cheering in the streets when IBK resigned. Right now, he's safer with the soldiers."

The junta, known as the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, said it will pick a successor to Keita from its own ranks or from the opposition.

Further instability in Mali could be exploited by Islamist insurgents in the north who have staged increasingly violent attacks in the region despite the presence of a 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force.

Keita assumed office in 2013 after winning an election on pledges to restore state authority nationwide, 16 months after his predecessor, Amadou Toumani Toure was ousted. That coup was staged from the same barracks where Tuesday's mutiny started and organized by junior officers angry about the lack of resources needed to fight Tuareg separatists. The subsequent power vacuum was exploited by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups who seized control of the north.

A French military intervention pushed back the militants, but some groups later returned and expanded to carry out attacks on civilians and peacekeepers. The insurgency has since spread across the region to countries including Niger and Burkina Faso.

The U.S. and the European Union have echoed the UN Security Council and others' condemnation of the army takeover. The African Union has suspended Mali's membership. French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday reiterated the call that Keita be freed.

"We have asked that he be released as soon as possible, and no violence takes place," Macron told reporters Thursday after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "We want stability."
Paddy Garritty was manning his celebrated bar at the Victorian Trades Hall in Carlton on a soft September evening in 2000 when protesters began limping in.

They were the walking wounded from a police baton charge outside the Crown Casino during an anti-globalisation demonstration at the World Economic Forum.

Paddy Garritty portrait by Alan Attwood Credit:Alan Attwood

The comedian Rod Quantock, battered himself though a mere observer, remembers Garrittys dismayed expression as young women arrived, blood streaming from their faces.

There he was, the bar open, free drinks for everyone, and suddenly Paddy burst into tears, Quantock says.
NEW DELHI, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Banque Populaire de Mauritanie (BPM), one of the leading banks in Mauritania has launched a state-of-the-art mobile banking service called Bankily earlier this year. The service has received a positive response from consumers. With banking penetration around 30%, Bankily is helping to modernize banking and payments in Mauritania and encouraging financial inclusion in the country. Bankily is powered by Comviva's mobiquity Banking Suite.

Bankily brings a digital revolution in the banking industry of Mauritania by enabling people to open and manage bank account, transfer money and make payments using mobile phones. The service is accessible using all mobile phones, smartphone or basic, via the Bankily mobile app or USSD code *888# for Mattel subscribers.

Consumers can open a bank account remotely by downloading the Bankily app from Google Play Store or Apple App Store or by dialling the USSD code and registering using the 10 digit national identification number (NNI) available on national identity card or residence permit. Opening the Bankily account is free and it has no account maintenance fee as well. Bankily users can deposit money into and withdraw money from Bankily account through Bankily agents, BPM Bank branches and BPM ATM spread across Mauritania. With Bankily, users can easily and instantly do host of financial transactions digitally including transferring money, paying electricity and water bills, buying phone credit, paying merchant, crowd-funding (mobile tontine), ordering a cheque book and bank card, checking account balance, and generating an account statement.

Bankily is an inclusive service. Bankily users can not only transfer money to other Bankily users, BPM bank accounts and other bank accounts in Mauritania, but they can also send money to non-Bankily unbanked consumers using the recipient's mobile number. Bankily offers diverse ways to make money transfer - using recipient's mobile number, or selecting recipient from Facebook contact list, or via contactless payments using NFC and QR Code. The recipients receive a notification or message with a transaction code. Non-Bankily users can withdraw the money transfer in cash using the transaction code at Bankily agents, BPM bank branches or BPM ATMs.

Bankily has been designed with complete focus on customers. For example, after first electricity and water bill payment, users are automatically notified about their next invoice. In case of financial emergency, users can request money from their family and friends and instantly receive money once approved by the sender. To enable wider service access, BPM has created extensive Bankily agent network aimed at facilitating last mile transactions such as deposits and withdrawals. Moreover, to boost digital payments at merchants via Bankily, BPM has registered multiple merchants from diverse categories such as supermarkets, grocery stores, pharmacies, fuel stations, travel agencies, hospitals, schools and restaurants. Payments at merchants can be made by scanning the QR Code or entering the merchant code in the mobile phone.

Elaborating on Bankily, Mohamed M'Rabih Rabou, Chief, Digital Banking Services at Banque Populaire de Mauritanie said, "Through Bankily, BPM aims to extend financial inclusion and banking penetration in Mauritania. The product aims to make the opening of a bank account accessible to all Mauritanian citizens regardless of their geographic location and purchasing power. This mobile banking service, fully supports the measures undertaken by the Central Bank of Mauritania to modernization and digitize the means of payments in the country. We are happy to partner with Comviva for offering Bankily service and meet the financial aspirations of our customers."

Srinivas Nidugondi, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Mobile Financial Solutions, Comviva said, "Digital technology is transforming the banking industry and Comviva is enabling this transformation for banks and financial institutions globally. In Mauritania, we are carrying forward this digital revolution with BPM through the Bankily service, delivering quick, convenient and secure digital banking and payment services to Mauritanians."

Banque Populaire de Mauritanie (BPM) is one of the largest banks in Mauritania. BPM offers individuals, professionals and businesses an innovative range of banking products and services ranging from deposits to loans. It has built a dense network of branches covering most of the major cities in the country. The BPM aims to meet the needs and expectations of its customers by offering innovative and quality banking products and services.

Comviva's mobiquity Banking suite is a comprehensive digital banking and payments solution for banks and financial institutions, to build, manage, optimize and deliver the omni-channel banking experience, as well as continuously iterate and engage the consumers, through instant configuration capability, personalization and experimentation engine. This empowers banks to deliver a hyper-personalized experience, thereby enhancing the customer's value, and, subsequently, profitably transition to the digital age. Moreover, the product also delivers seamless, swift and secure digital payments to the customers, by facilitating prepaid wallet and leveraging technologies such as HCE, tokenization and QR Code.

Note: mobiquity is registered trademark in India only.

About Comviva Technologies Limited

Comviva is the global leader in mobile solutions catering to The Business of Tomorrows. The company is a subsidiary of Tech Mahindra and a part of the $21 billion Mahindra Group. Its extensive portfolio of solutions spans digital financial services, customer value management, messaging and broadband solution and digital lifestyle services and managed VAS services. It enables service providers to enhance customer experience, rationalize costs and accelerate revenue growth. Comviva's solutions are deployed by over 130 mobile service providers and financial institutions in over 95 countries and enrich the lives of over two billion people to deliver a better future. For more information, please visit www.comviva.com

For further enquiries, please contact:

Sundeep Mehta

PR & Corporate Communications

Comviva Technologies Ltd.

Contact: +91-124-481-9000

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Comviva
Islands like the Canaries could be excluded from coronavirus travel quarantine restrictions even where their home country is included, the transport secretary has said.

Grant Shapps raised hopes that holidays could be made easier after he said the government was looking at ways of exempting low-infection areas of some countries from restrictions.

The inclusion of the Canaries in the measures imposed on Spain was controversial, with local authorities pointing to a lower infection rate than on the Spanish mainland and even parts of the UK.

The issue could raise its head again if Greece is added to the UK's quarantine list, given the island nature of its geography and its popularity with sun-seeking tourists.

But Mr Shapps said the government needed accurate data before it was able to separate out different regions within countries for different measures. Other countries in Europe are already imposing regional travel quarantine requirements.

Recommended Croatia added to quarantine list for UK holidaymakers

"The islands, particularly the Spanish islands, when Spain went into lockdown, we saw in one the numbers coming up and in the other set the numbers coming down - so we do need to be absolutely sure that you're capturing the disease as it actually is and sometimes it's not quite as straightforward as it sounds," the transport secretary told the BBC.

"However, I think there is a case for regionalisation. I think it's harder to do within a country  people say, with France for example, why don't you just do this region and not the other? The answer is it's quite easy to travel about the country so we're not able to do it like that."

But he added: "Where there are islands, that is something we've said before we will look at and we are looking at. Of course, then you get down to how good a level of detail you've got about individual islands which might be part of another country with a landmass somewhere else.

"Those are things that we're looking at in the review, along with how we could test at airports, we're also looking at how you could do regionalisation effectively. The main thing is here we just need to make sure we're keeping people safe."

The effectiveness of quarantine measures was however questioned on Monday morning after Mr Shapps admitted that he did not know how many people had been fined for breaking the restrictions. It comes amid reports of lax enforcement of the rules.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

But with few alternate options available, the measures appear here to stay: the transport secretary said testing on arrival at airports would offer little benefit because current tests still are unable to reliably detect infected by asymptomatic people.

"The incubation test is such that a single test on entry at the airport doesn't actually tell you what you think it does," he warned.

Portugal was added to the list of safe countries on Thursday after it recorded a drop in infections, while Croatia was removed after a spike. Passengers from Austria and Trinidad and Tobago will also be asked to quarantine.
Pompeo: US Stands by Belarusian People, Backs International Efforts to Examine Election

By VOA News August 20, 2020

The United States on Thursday defended Belarusian protesters and said it supported international efforts to examine the recent contested election, which gave President Alexander Lukashenko his sixth term in office.

"The United States has been inspired by the display of peaceful expression of the Belarusian people seeking to determine their own future," said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a written statement. "We stand by our long-term commitment to support Belarus' sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the aspirations of the Belarusian people to choose their leaders and to choose their own path, free from external intervention."

Lukashenko, who has been in office for 26 years, said he won the August 9 election with 80% of the vote. Opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya reportedly won just 10%. The election, however, has been dogged by reports that it was rigged. The U.S., European Union and others have refused to accept the results.

"The United States supports free and fair elections that reflect the will of the Belarusian people as a matter of principle," said Pompeo. "The August 9 elections did not meet that standard."

The European Union said Wednesday that it would sanction Belarusian officials it identifies as involved in vote-rigging and violence against protesters.

Belarusian security forces have arrested nearly 7,000 protesters in a violent crackdown on the massive demonstrations sparked by the election. There have been widespread reports of police brutality against those detained.

Protesters told BBC News that they had been thrown to the ground, placed in overcrowded cells, forced to sign statements they didn't understand and beaten black and blue with batons. They also said both men and women had been threatened with rape.

Pompeo said the U.S. stood behind international investigations into the election and its aftermath.

"We support international efforts to independently look into Belarus' electoral irregularities, the human rights abuses surrounding the election, and the crackdown that has followed," he said.

Tsikhanouskaya allies formed a Coordination Council this week to call for a new election and oversee a peaceful transition of power.

Prosecutor General Alexander Konyuk announced in a video statement that investigators were opening a probe into "calls for actions aimed at undermining national security," according to the French news agency AFP. The charge bears a maximum penalty of five years in jail.

Hundreds of state TV employees joined a strike Tuesday to call for Lukashenko's resignation. Lukashenko told factory workers Monday that the country would collapse if he stepped down.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Organic Flower Investments Group Inc. (CSE: SOW)(FWB: 2K6)(OTC: QILFF) (Organic Flower or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a letter of intent (the Letter of Intent), dated August 12, 2020, to acquire up to a 13% equity interest in a U.S.-based company, which owns certain hydrogen assets with global applications for a purchase price of CA$4,500,000 payable in cash. Under the terms of the arms-length acquisition, the Company also has an option (the Option) to increase its ownership to 90% of the assets, which primarily consist of small footprint, environmentally friendly IP for the modularized and lowest tier production cost of hydrogen.



Having successfully distributed its interest in AgraFlora Organics International Inc. (AgraFlora) to its shareholders, Organic Flower continues to be opportunistic in evaluating opportunities across all sectors both as an investor and operator, minority shareholder, or sole shareholder, as per its investment policy disclosed on October 1, 2018. As of the date of this press release, the Company has renewed the investment policy to include the renewable energy sector as a potential continuing area of focus for the Company. The renewed investment policy is available for review on the Companys website at ( h ttps://sowinvestments.ca/ ).

The Company now has 9 investments in a variety of sectors having successfully held CA$120 million in investments during the past fiscal year and returned capital to its holders through the distribution of its AgraFlora interest.

Completion of the investment contemplated by the Letter of Intent, including the acquisition of an equity interest in the U.S.-based company, remain subject to a number of conditions, including the successful completion of due diligence, receipt of any required regulatory approvals and the negotiation of definitive documentation which is expected to include warranties, representations, covenants, terms and conditions which are customary for transactions of this nature. No investment can be completed until these conditions have been satisfied. The contemplated investment is not expected to constitute a fundamental change for the Company within the meaning of the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

The Company confirms that there have been no material developments, other than those disclosed through news releases and Form 7 monthly progress reports filed on the Company's profile with the Canadian Securities Exchange. Additionally, the Company advises that management and other insiders of the Company are currently subject to a trading blackout policy, in compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations.

ABOUT ORGANIC FLOWER INVESTMENTS

Organic Flower is an investment company, that specializes in investing into private and public companies opportunistically that may be engaged in a variety of industries, with a current focus in the health and renewable energy industries. In particular, the investment mandate is focused on high return investment opportunities, the ability to achieve a reasonable rate of capital appreciation and to seek liquidity in our investments.

ON BEHALF OF THE ORGANIC FLOWER INVESTMENTS GROUP INC. BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Joel Dumaresq

Joel Dumaresq CEO

+1 (604) 687-2038

info@sowinvestments.ca



Learn more about Organic Flower by visiting our website at: h ttps://sowinvestments.ca/

THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.

Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information:

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively referred to herein as "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, forecasts, estimates, expectations and objectives for future operations that are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of Organic Flower. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur or be achieved. This press release contains forward-looking statements pertaining to, among other things, the timing and ability of the Company to complete any potential investments or acquisitions, if at all, and the timing thereof. Forward-looking information is based on current expectations, estimates and projections that involve a number of risks, which could cause actual results to vary and, in some instances, to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company and described in the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Although the Company believes that the material factors, expectations and assumptions expressed in such forward- looking statements are reasonable based on information available to it on the date such statements were made, no assurances can be given as to future results, levels of activity and achievements and such statements are not guarantees of future performance.

The forward-looking information contained in this release is expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements and is made as of the date of this release. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward- looking information to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise.
At the entrance of Hospital E on the first day it was put under lockdown. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  Vietnam reported 14 new COVID-19 infections on August 20 evening, including 12 in central Da Nang city and nearby Quang Nam province, and two imported cases.

Among the new cases, 11 were recorded in Da Nang, including a medical worker, a patient at Da Nang Hospital and six caregivers of people who received treatment at Da Nang Hospital and Da Nang Oncology Hospital, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The two imported cases are a 33-year-old Filipino expert flying in from the Republic of Korea and a 27-year-old Vietnamese man returning from Equatorial Guinea. Both were quarantined upon arrival in Vietnam.

The new cases raised the national count to 1,007, including 525 cases linked to Da Nang since the new coronovirus outbreak was detected in the city on July 25.

On the same day, 10 more COVID-19 patients, nine in Da Nang and one in Quang Nam province, were given all-clear, bringing the total number of recoveries to 543. Across the country, 44 cases have tested negative for the coronavirus once, 39 twice and 28 three times.

As many as 83,644 people having close contact with confirmed cases or arriving from pandemic-hit regions are under quarantine at present.
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 2.00 am ET Friday, the Office for National Statistics releases UK retail sales and public sector finance data. Retail sales are forecast to grow at a moderate pace of 2 percent on a monthly basis, following a 13.9 percent rise in June. Ahead of the data, the pound advanced against its major rivals. The pound was worth 1.3245 against the greenback, 139.85 against the yen, 1.2005 against the franc and 0.8970 against the euro as of 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.
Joe Biden is vowing to unite an America torn by crisis and contempt.

Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, achieving a pinnacle in an unfinished quest that has spanned three decades and been marred by personal tragedy, political stumbles and more dynamic rivals.

The past hurdles fell away as Biden addressed his fellow Democrats and millions of Americans at home who he hopes will send him to the White House to replace Donald Trump.

Biden declared, Here and now I give you my word, if you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. He said, Ill be an ally of the light, not our darkness.

The nights keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who at 77 would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats President Donald Trump in November.

___

HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THURSDAYS DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION:

 Takeaways from the final night of the Democratic convention

 Biden vows end of national darkness in convention finale

 AP FACT CHECK: Democrats on minimum wage and poverty

 For Biden, a long path to a potentially crucial presidency

___

Follow APs election coverage at https://apnews.com/Election2020

___

HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

The Democratic Party officially has its presidential nominee.

Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, a position he has sought for more than 30 years and through three White House bids. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, accepted the vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday.

Biden served three decades as a senator from Delaware before being tapped as President Barack Obamas vice-president. He first ran for president in 1988 and tried again in 2008 before launching his 2020 campaign last year.

President Donald Trump will formally be renominated as his partys candidate during the virtual Republican National Convention next week.

The general election is 75 days away. Trump has been struggling in the polls amid a confluence of health, economic and racial crises.

___

A boy whom Joe Biden bonded with on the campaign trail over their joint struggles with stuttering says the former vice-president is someone who cares.

Brayden Harrington met Biden at an event in New Hampshire and asked for help overcoming his stutter. Biden struggled with a stutter as a boy and continues to counsel youngsters who are going through the same.

Brayden said at Thursdays Democratic National Convention that Biden told him he improved his speaking by reading aloud verses by the poet Yeats.

Brayden says, Joe Biden made me feel confident about something thats been bothering me my whole life.

He added: Without Joe Biden, I wouldnt be talking to you today.

___

Businessman Mike Bloomberg is urging Americans to evaluate President Donald Trump like a coworker or employee when deciding whether to give him another term.

At Thursdays Democratic National Convention, Bloomberg asked: Would you rehire or work for someone who ran your business into the ground, and who always does whats best for him or her, even when it hurts the company?

He asked, If the answer is no, why the hell would we ever rehire Donald Trump for another four years?

Bloombergs addition to the convention lineup is another example of Biden trying to appeal to moderate and even Republican voters. Bloomberg has been a Republican, independent and a Democrat throughout his career.

Bloomberg was particularly effective at getting under Trumps skin. Hes now telling voters that Trumps slogan of Make America Great Again makes a pretty good case for Joe Biden.

___

Pete Buttigieg says his experience as an openly gay man and military veteran shows how far the U.S. has come in just a few years and how much farther it has to go.

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says when he was born in 1982, it was unthinkable for an openly gay person to seek any federal office. Yet he noted Thursday at the Democratic National Convention that he had campaigned for the presidency.

He says he did so often with my husband at my side, winning delegates to this very convention.

Buttigieg, a combat veteran in Afghanistan, also noted that when he joined the military, firing me because of who I am wasnt just possible  it was policy, because of Dont ask, dont tell.

He said theres still a long way to go in making America a place of healing and not exclusion, but he says if things changed so much in major social issues for the country over the last 10 years, imagine how much they could during the next.

Joe Biden is right, Buttigieg said. This is a contest for the soul of the nation.

___

Joe Biden is honouring his late son Beau as he prepares to accept the Democratic nomination for president.

A video tribute that aired Thursday at the Democratic National Convention recalled Beau Biden through his life as a major in the Army National Guard and as Delawares attorney general.

Beau died in 2015 of brain cancer. Biden often speaks of his son on the campaign trail as one of his heroes, and in the video he was described as an inspiration to his father even now.

The video featured President Barack Obama delivering Beau Bidens eulogy, saying that some folks may never know that their lives are better because of Beau Biden, but thats OK.

The videos voiceover declared of Beau that you never had to ask if hed do something the right way  he didnt know any other way.

The video closed with Beaus own words from his 2008 convention speech. He told the audience that he wouldnt be able to be with his father during the fall campaign and asked them to be there for my dad like he was for me.

___

Sen. Tammy Duckworth says Donald Trump is a coward in chief who has proved himself unfit to lead the U.S. armed forces.

The Illinois Democrat and military veteran lost her legs during a helicopter crash while serving in Iraq. She said at Thursdays Democratic National Convention that Joe Biden understands the sacrifices military families make.

Duckworth says, Joe knows the fear military families live because hes felt that.

Bidens late son Beau served as a major in the Army National Guard.

Duckworth says Trump, on the other hand, is uninterested, doesnt read his daily briefing and has been manipulated by dictators who are enemies of the U.S.

She says, Donald Trump doesnt deserve to call himself commander in chief for another four minutes, let alone four more years.

___

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin is sharing her struggles with a childhood illness to tout the importance of health coverage for preexisting conditions.

Baldwin said at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday that she was hospitalized for three months as a 9-year-old. Her grandparents were her caregivers, and their insurance did not cover her. Baldwin says she then struggled to get health insurance as an adult.

She asks: Do we want to be a country where medical bills bury people in debt?

Baldwin is touting her support under the Obama-Biden administration for the Affordable Care Act. It allows young people to stay on their parents insurance until they are 26.

Baldwin spoke from Milwaukee, the city where the convention was set to be held before the coronavirus pandemic forced most of the events to be held virtually.

___

The final night of the Democratic convention was designed to be Joe Bidens moment to soar.

But actor and comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the master of ceremonies on Thursday, gave him a run for his money, uncorking a brutal roast of President Donald Trump.

American carnage, she said, referring to the dominant theme of Trumps inaugural speech. I assumed that was something he was against, not a campaign promise.

Invoking Bidens Catholic faith, she mocked a recent Trump photo op outside a church during protests against police brutality.

Just remember: Joe Biden goes to church so regularly, that he doesnt even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there, she said.

Later, following a segment on voting, she quipped: If we all vote, there is nothing Facebook, Fox News or Vladimir Putin can do to stop us.

___

Cory Booker has evoked the memory of his late grandfather to argue that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can bolster unions and empower the middle class.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know the dignity of all working Americans, the New Jersey senator said Thursday on the final night of the virtual Democratic National Convention. They know the urgency and the demand of our dream.

Booker says the Trump administrations policies have left working people under attack and the middle class shrinking. Booker says, He has failed us.

Booker added of his grandfather, If he was alive, Joe and Kamala, he would be so proud of you.

And hed tell us, take another by the hand, and another, and lets get to work, Booker said. This dream aint free, you gotta work for it.

___

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has invoked the legacy of civil rights icon John Lewis as she encourages people to vote.

Congressman Lewis would not be silenced, and neither can we, Bottoms said. We cannot wait for some other time, some other place, some other heroes.

Lewis represented the Atlanta area in Congress for decades. He was among a group of freedom riders who were beaten by Alabama State Police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965.

Before he died of cancer in July, he published an essay encouraging people to exercise their right to vote.

Bottoms said Lewis was a God-fearing man who did what he could to fulfil the as-of-yet-unfulfilled promise of America.

And she urged others to live up to his call.

We must register and we must vote, Bottoms said.

___

Democrats are opening the fourth and final night of their convention with a not-so-subtle dig at Republicans mispronouncing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris first name.

I cannot wait to see her debate our current vice-president, Mika Pints. Or is it Paints? said actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus, referring to Vice-President Mike Pence. After Democrat Andrew Yang suggested it was Ponce, Louis-Dreyfus responded, Oh, some kind of weird foreign name.

Harris is the child of immigrants, and her first name reflects her Indian heritage. Her name is pronounced comma-la, like the punctuation mark.

But President Donald Trump and other members of his party have been saying it wrong, even after they have been corrected.

The bit came after brief remarks by Yang, who ran in the Democratic primary.

___

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says wildfires raging in his state should give pause to anyone who denies climate change.

Newsom spoke at the virtual Democratic National Convention on Thursday from a forest near Californias Central Coast after visiting a nearby Red Cross evacuation centre.

More than two dozen major wildfires were blazing across California, blanketing cities and towns in smoke and putting tens of thousands of people under evacuation orders.

Newsom recorded the video after choosing to scrap the prerecorded video he originally recorded.

I confess this is not where I expected to be speaking here tonight, he said in a video recorded on a cellphone.

He added, If you are in denial about climate change, come to California.

Newsom criticized President Donald Trump for working to roll back vehicle emission standards meant to curb climate change and for threatening to withhold funding from California.

___

President Donald Trump says Joe Biden is no friend of Pennsylvania as he criticizes the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee near his childhood hometown of Scranton.

Trump isnt laying low during the Democratic National Convention. Hes mocking Biden and blaming him for supporting trade policies that he says resulted in manufacturing job losses.

Trump is attempting to frighten voters about the future of their retirement investments as well if Biden is elected, and he bragged that markets are up despite the coronavirus.

Hes also evoking images of violence in some of the nations biggest cities during his own presidency, saying it will only spread if Biden is elected. He says that if voters want a vision of your life under a Joe Biden presidency, imagine the smouldering ruins of Minneapolis and the violent anarchy of Portland coming to every city.

Theres only one thing standing between your family and the radical left-wing mob, he says. And thats your vote this November.
This page is no longer being updated. As of mid-September, more than 30 states had begun paying benefits.

In early August, President Trump declared a plan to deliver $400 in extra weekly benefits to tens of millions of unemployed Americans  a short-term fix meant to replace the $600-a-week emergency federal supplement that expired in July. The program is known as Lost Wages Assistance.

What is now clear is that the federal supplement is $300 a week, not $400. And few states have started paying out.

Here is what we know.

Most unemployed workers will get an extra $300 a week.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which normally provides disaster relief, will provide $300 per recipient. An additional $100 was supposed to be supplied by states, but most are struggling to meet other expenses. Tax revenues have been sinking at the same time that costs  like precautions to curb the spread of the coronavirus  have soared. Ultimately the administration said the states basic benefit payments could be counted toward their $100 share.
In a Phase 1 study in the U.S., at 7 days after a second dose of 30ug, BNT162b2 elicited SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing geometric mean titers (GMTs) in younger adults (18-55 years of age) that were 3.8 times the GMT of a panel of 38 sera of SARS-CoV-2 convalescent patients, and in older adults (65-85 years of age) the vaccine candidate elicited a neutralizing GMT 1.6 times the GMT of the same panel, demonstrating strong immunogenicity in younger and older adults.





The companies previously announced that BNT162b2-vaccinated human participants displayed a favorable breadth of epitopes recognized in T cell responses specific to the SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen, and that BNT162b2 demonstrated concurrent induction of high magnitude CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses against the receptor binding domain (RBD) and against the remainder of the spike glycoprotein





Across all populations, BNT162b2 administration was well tolerated with mild to moderate fever in fewer than 20% of the participants





These results informed the selection of the BNT162b2 candidate for the pivotal Phase 2/3 global study in up to 30,000 participants that started in July 2020, which has to date enrolled more than 11,000 participants, including in areas with significant SARS-CoV-2 transmission





Assuming clinical success, Pfizer and BioNTech are on track to seek regulatory review of BNT162b2 as early as October 2020 and, if regulatory authorization or approval is obtained, currently 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

NEW YORK and MAINZ, Germany, Aug. 21, 2020, these data informed the companies' decision to advance a 2-dose regimen of the 30g dose level of BNT162b2, which encodes an optimized SARS-CoV-2 full-length spike glycoproteinand is concurrently undergoing scientific peer review for potential publication.

The companies are continuing to analyze data from the Phase 1 trials in the U.S. and Germany. T cell immune responses elicited by BNT162b2 are being evaluated in the German study and the companies expect to submit the data for peer review and potential publication. The companies previously announced that BNT162b2-vaccinated human participants displayed a favorable breadth of epitopes recognized in T cell responses specific to the SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen, as compared to the BNT162b1 candidate, and that BNT162b2 demonstrated concurrent induction of high magnitude CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses against the receptor binding domain (RBD) and against the remainder of the spike glycoprotein that is not contained in the BNT162b1 vaccine candidate.

"The totality of the clinical and preclinical data informed Pfizer and BioNTech's decision to select BNT162b2 as the lead candidate to advance into pivotal trials. We are proud to share our findings with the scientific community as we continue our work to deliver a safe and effective vaccine to combat this devastating virus," said Kathrin U. Jansen, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Head of Vaccine Research & Development, Pfizer. "We are especially pleased to offer these early data showing our vaccine candidate's promising safety and immunogenicity profile from the U.S. trial and we look forward to sharing T cell immune response data from the German trial in the near future."

"It is important to us to continue sharing data and related information on our COVID-19 vaccine lead candidate," said Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and Co-Founder of BioNTech. "The favorable safety profile of BNT162b2 and the breadth of T cell responses we previously announced have supported our decision to select this candidate for the pivotal Phase 2/3 study. As of today, we have already dosed more than 11,000 participants with BNT162b2 in that study."

The additional data from the ongoing U.S. Phase 1 randomized, placebo-controlled, observer-blinded study was utilized to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of varying dose levels of BNT162b1 and BNT162b2 in 195 participants randomized into 13 groups of 15 participants (per group, 12 received the vaccine and 3 the placebo). Groups of participants 18 to 55 years of age and 65 to 85 years of age received 10g, 20g, or 30g dose levels of BNT162b1 or BNT162b2 on a 2-dose schedule, 21 days apart.

In both younger and older adults, BNT162b1 and BNT162b2 elicited similar dose-dependent SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing antibody GMTs, which were substantially elevated after the second dose, showing clear benefit of a 2-dose regimen. Although both vaccine candidates elicited lower antigen-binding IgG (Immunoglobulin G) and neutralizing responses in older adults (65 to 85 years of age), compared to younger adults (18 to 55 years of age), the neutralizing antibody GMTs measured 7 days after Dose 2 of 30g of BNT162b1 or BNT162b2 in participants 65 to 85 years old were comparable to or higher than the GMT of a panel of SARS-CoV-2 convalescent sera from 38 patients (18 to 83 years of age) who had contracted SARS-CoV-2.

Participants 18 to 55 years old who received 10g, 20g, or 30g of BNT162b1 reported mild to moderate local reactions, primarily pain at the injection site, within 7 days after an injection which were more frequent after Dose 2. In participants 65 to 85 years old, BNT162b1 elicited similar, but milder, local reactions, with mild to moderate injection site pain reported by 92% after Dose 1 and 75% after Dose 2. A similar pattern was observed after vaccination with BNT162b2. No older adult who received BNT162b2 reported redness or swelling. No participant who received either vaccine candidate reported a Grade 4 local reaction.

Systemic events after administration of BNT162b2 were milder than those with BNT162b1. Overall, after Dose 1, systemic events reported by participants 65 to 85 years old who received BNT162b2 were similar to those reported by those who received placebo. After Dose 2 of 30g BNT162b2, only 17% of participants 18 to 55 years old and 8% of participants 65 to 85 years old reported fever (=38.0 to 38.9 C), compared to 75% of 18 to 55 year old participants and 33% of 65 to 85 year old participants administered a second dose of 30g of BNT162b1. Severe systemic events (fatigue, headache, chills, muscle pain, and joint pain) were reported in small numbers of younger BNT162b2 recipients and were transient and manageable. No severe systemic events were reported by older BNT162b2 recipients. There were no reports of Grade 4 systemic events by any BNT162 recipient.

The totality of data contributed to the decision by Pfizer and BioNTech to commence the global (except for China) Phase 2/3 safety and efficacy portion of the clinical study to evaluate BNT162b2 against COVID-19. The study is now actively enrolling in the U.S., Argentina and Brazil. Additional enrollment is planned in Germany, Turkey and South Africa. The study is an event-driven trial that is planned to enroll up to 30,000 participants between 18 and 85 years of age. The Phase 2/3 trial enrollment to date has exceeded 11,000 participants with a second dose underway.

Pfizer and BioNTech are committed to decreasing health disparities in underrepresented populations through the clinical trial process. To that end, many investigator sites are in diverse communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 so that individuals who have been most impacted have the opportunity to participate. The companies are also working together with investigator sites and advocacy partners to raise awareness about the importance of participation in this trial.

BNT162b2 remains under clinical study and is not currently approved for distribution anywhere in the world. Assuming clinical success, Pfizer and BioNTech are on track to seek regulatory review for BNT162b2 as early as October 2020 and, if regulatory authorization or approval is obtained, currently 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. Those interested in learning more about the study can visit ClinicalTrials.govusing the number NCT04368728.

About Pfizer: Breakthroughs That Change Patients' Lives

At Pfizer, we apply science and our global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. We strive to set the standard for quality, safety and value in the discovery, development and manufacture of health care products, including innovative medicines and vaccines. Every day, Pfizer colleagues work across developed and emerging markets to advance wellness, prevention, treatments and cures that challenge the most feared diseases of our time. Consistent with our responsibility as one of the world's premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, we collaborate with health care providers, governments and local communities to support and expand access to reliable, affordable health care around the world. For more than 150 years, we have worked to make a difference for all who rely on us. We routinely post information that may be important to investors on our website at www.Pfizer.com. In addition, to learn more, please visit us on www.Pfizer.comand follow us on Twitter at @Pfizerand @Pfizer News, LinkedIn, YouTubeand like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Pfizer.

Pfizer Disclosure Notice

The information contained in this release is as of August 20, 2020. Pfizer assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this release as the result of new information or future events or developments.

This release contains forward-looking information about Pfizer's efforts to combat COVID-19, the collaboration between BioNTech and Pfizer to develop a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the BNT162 mRNA vaccine program, and modRNA candidates BNT162b2 and BNT162b1 (including qualitative assessments of available data, potential benefits, expectations for clinical trials and timing of regulatory submissions, and anticipated manufacturing, supply and distribution), that involves substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including the ability to meet anticipated clinical endpoints, commencement and/or completion dates for clinical trials, regulatory submission dates, regulatory approval dates and/or launch dates, as well as risks associated with preliminary data, including the possibility of unfavorable new preclinical or clinical trial data and further analyses of existing preclinical or clinical trial data that may be inconsistent with the data used for selection of the BNT162b2 vaccine candidate and dose level for the Phase 2/3 study; the risk that clinical trial data are subject to differing interpretations and assessments, including during the peer review/publication process, in the scientific community generally, and by regulatory authorities; whether and when data from the BNT162 mRNA vaccine program will be published in scientific journal publications and, if so, when and with what modifications; whether regulatory authorities will be satisfied with the design of and results from these and future preclinical and clinical studies; whether and when any biologics license and/or emergency use authorization applications may be filed in any jurisdictions for BNT162b2 or any other potential vaccine candidates; whether and when any such applications may be approved by regulatory authorities, which will depend on myriad factors, including making a determination as to whether the vaccine candidate's benefits outweigh its known risks and determination of the vaccine candidate's efficacy and, if approved, whether it will be commercially successful; decisions by regulatory authorities impacting labeling, manufacturing processes, safety and/or other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of a vaccine, including development of products or therapies by other companies; manufacturing capabilities or capacity, including whether the estimated numbers of doses can be manufactured within the projected time periods indicated; whether and when additional supply agreements will be reached; uncertainties regarding the ability to obtain recommendations from vaccine technical committees and other public health authorities and uncertainties regarding the commercial impact of any such recommendations; and competitive developments.

A further description of risks and uncertainties can be found in Pfizer's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 and in its subsequent reports on Form 10-Q, including in the sections thereof captioned "Risk Factors" and "Forward-Looking Information and Factors That May Affect Future Results", as well as in its subsequent reports on Form 8-K, all of which are filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov and www.pfizer.com.

About BioNTech

Biopharmaceutical New Technologies is a next generation immunotherapy company pioneering novel therapies for cancer and other serious diseases. The Company exploits a wide array of computational discovery and therapeutic drug platforms for the rapid development of novel biopharmaceuticals. Its broad portfolio of oncology product candidates includes individualized and off-the-shelf mRNA-based therapies, innovative chimeric antigen receptor T cells, bi-specific checkpoint immuno-modulators, targeted cancer antibodies and small molecules. Based on its deep expertise in mRNA vaccine development and in-house manufacturing capabilities, BioNTech and its collaborators are developing multiple mRNA vaccine candidates for a range of infectious diseases alongside its diverse oncology pipeline. BioNTech has established a broad set of relationships with multiple global pharmaceutical collaborators, including Genmab, Sanofi, Bayer Animal Health, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, Genevant, Fosun Pharma, and Pfizer. For more information, please visit www.BioNTech.de.

BioNTech Forward-looking statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" of BioNTech within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may include, but may not be limited to, statements concerning: BioNTech's efforts to combat COVID-19; the potential number of sites and participants in our Phase 2b/3 trial; the collaboration between BioNTech and Pfizer to develop a potential COVID-19 vaccine; our expectations regarding the potential characteristics of BNT162b2 in our Phase 2b/3 trial and/or in commercial use based on data observations to date, including expected advantages over BNT162b1; the timing for any potential emergency use authorizations or approvals; and the ability of BioNTech to supply the quantities of BNT162 to support clinical development and, if approved, market demand, including our production estimates for 2020 and 2021. Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on BioNTech current expectations and beliefs of future events, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: competition to create a vaccine for COVID-19; the ability to produce comparable clinical results in larger and more diverse clinical trials; the ability to effectively scale our productions capabilities; and other potential difficulties. For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, see BioNTech's Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC on March 31, 2020, which is available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and BioNTech undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

Pfizer Contacts:

Media Relations

Amy Rose

+1 (212) 733-7410

Amy.rose@pfizer.com

Investor Relations

Chuck Triano

+1 (212) 733-3901

Charles.E.Triano@Pfizer.com

BioNTech Contacts:

Media Relations

Jasmina Alatovic

+49 (0)6131 9084 1513 or +49 (0)151 1978 1385

Media@biontech.de

Investor Relations

Sylke Maas, Ph.D.

+49 (0)6131 9084 1074

Investors@biontech.de
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The Anambra State Association of Town Unions (ASATU) has commended Governor Willie Obiano on Anambras emergence as the state with the lowest unemployment rate in the country based on the 2020 survey published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) three days ago which shows that only 13.1 per cent out of the 2. 25 million working people in the state are unemployed in a nation where the national average unemployment rate is 27.1 per cent.

Chief Alex I. Onukwe, ASATU national president, made the commendation in a letter to the Anambra State governor which he sent to journalists in Awka, the state capital, this morning.

He declared: Our state does not receive much from the federation account because it is not treated as an oil-producing state and it does not receive much from the organized private sector in form of taxes and levies like Lagos and Ogun states.

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Neither does it get special privileges from the Federal Government, yet it constantly comes tops in all kinds of competitions and performance assessments by respected national and international bodies.

This shows that Anambra State has more than a government which manages resources prudently but is also blessed with committed and visionary leadership.

ASATU, which comprises all 179 town development unions in the state, was formed in the late 1980s by a group of distinguished Anambra people led by Chief Arthur Mbanefo, the first Igbo accountant who was to become the chairman of the governing councils of both Obafemi Awolowo University at Ife in Osun State and the University of Lagos before becoming Nigerias Permanent Representative to the United Nations with the restoration of democratic governance in 1999.

The ASATU leader said that Anambra States employment performance came to no one as a surprise despite glaring disadvantages which the state faces.

Anambra remains the first state to pay both workers and pensioners before the end of every month throughout the federation, and this religious payment on the 24th or 25th of every month enables money to circulate within the state as markets do well and landlords recover their investments in properties and services provided by professionals like lawyers, pharmacists and doctors are paid for.

Chief Onukwe also thanked the governor for massive promotion of entrepreneurship in recognition of the fact that Anambra people are born entrepreneurs.

He recalled that Anambra was one of the five states identified by the Federal Government last year for a great improvement in the ease of doing business in the country, winning the first prize in the annual assessment of states which promote small and medium enterprises held at State House, Abuja, on August 1, 2019, with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo presiding.

The ASATU president general noted the massive influx of investments into the state in the last six years worth between four and five billion dollars and ascribed it to the Anambras new reputation as the countrys safest and most peaceful state.

He stated: Anambra State today has the largest livestock in the whole Southeast, thanks to Lynden Livestock, just as it has become one of the biggest rice producers and processors in Nigeria, even helping states like Lagos and Kebbi with rice milling.

Firms like Coscharis Farms, Stine Rice Mill, Anambra Rice Mill, Coscharis Rice Mill and Tiger Foods Ltd now dot the states agro-industrial landscape.

Chief Onukwe praised the state government for its aggressive export drive.

Yam, bitter leaf, pumpkin leaf, dried fish, egusi, spices and other foodstuffs from Anambra State are today exported to not just Europe but also the United States in large quantities.

All these things mean not just money for our people but also meaningful employment, hence the states lowest unemployment rate in Nigeria.

The ASATU leader also commended the Anambra State governments programme to improve on the states entrepreneurial competitiveness in the context of 21st century development by promoting entrepreneurial education more aggressively and by embracing not just information technology and communication but also the 4th Industrial Revolution.

This is the way to go in the modern world, and only national and sub national governments which start early can find a bearing in the brave new world unfolding before our very eyes.

This is why all our people rejoice that the state administration has set up a committee headed by an outstanding and very hardworking economist, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, the former Central Bank of Nigeria governor, to develop a strategic plan for Anambras emergence as a fully developed economy like Dubai or Taiwan within 50 years.

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Uladz Hrydzin (pictured below) has worked as an accredited photographer with RFE/RLs Belarus Service since 2017. The following is his account, edited for length and clarity, of what he witnessed while covering the unrest since Belarus's disputed August 9 presidential election.

When the election results were coming in, I was with colleagues covering an opposition press conference. We started hearing that people were out in the streets and moving toward downtown; that something big might be about to happen. Some colleagues and I drove into central Minsk, and as we got close to the Hero City Obelisk we could hear what sounded like shooting.

Initially there was a kind of standoff between a wall of riot police (OMON) and protesters who were putting up little makeshift barricades, if you could call it that. Then the police advanced and tried to disperse the crowds with water cannon. When that failed, they started firing rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades. From what I could see, the flash-bangs were spraying some kind of shrapnel. People were dropping to the ground after the grenades exploded with torn skin on their faces and bodies.

One flash-bang exploded right at my feet. I felt the shock wave like a big splash hitting my lower body. The bang screwed up my hearing for a couple of days and I felt weird afterward, just out of sorts. My colleague was hit by a fragment of that grenade, but he wasnt badly hurt. Its hard to explain, but I wasnt actually scared at that point. It was almost like some kind of autopilot kicked in. But I was being careful and trying to avoid being in the middle of things.

This image contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing. Click to reveal This image contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing - Click to reveal A wounded protester is tended to while awaiting an ambulance.

The clashes were repeating over and over: Police would advance, people would scatter then regroup, and it would start again. Anyone who was hurt was helped off to the side to wait for an ambulance. Thats where I saw the girl who was wounded in the face. I dont know what happened to her, or whether she's OK. Im going to try to find out about her soon. As it got more violent, I asked at a strangers apartment if I could shoot photos from their upper-story living room. They helped me a lot, because it was very dangerous at that point but I was able to safely shoot from a distance. The Internet blockage meant the only way I could get my photos published was to transfer images to my cellphone, then send them to my editors via Telegram. I asked random strangers at one point to help me with an Internet connection, and they did.

The second night felt the most ominous. I was near the first man who died. I didnt see the moment he was killed, but I saw the OMON rush at him after he fell to the ground. I was with a group of journalists, and one OMON troop saw us and we think he deliberately shot rubber bullets right at us. A few journalists were hit, including one female colleague.

That night I was scared to be going home alone. Police were just grabbing people off the streets, so it felt very uncertain. Ive never seen any protest movement like this in Belarus, or our police behaving so violently. Before, people would run away when the police advanced; this time they stood their ground behind barricades. For the first week, I was just sleeping three or four hours a night. Now Im able to rest a little more. The situation now feels less intense, but maybe people are just tired. In the evenings, people are still gathering, but not in such big numbers as before. But I think things may ramp up again over this weekend.
Last month, Twitter took down a video that had been retweeted by Trump because it included false claims that hydroxychloroquine was a coronavirus cure and that Americans did not need to wear masks. Asked about the doctor featured in the video, Trump said that he knew little about her but that she seemed very impressive.
Womens Suffrage Monument Co-created by WSU Art Professor Unveiled at Utah State Capitol

August 21, 2020

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - Framing the front steps of the Utah State Capitol building, a new monument titled A Path Forward commemorates the 100th anniversary of womens right to vote in the United States and the 150th anniversary of the first ballot cast by a woman in the state of Utah.

The monument, which is a permanent installation, is featured in Utahs 19th Amendment Centennial Celebration, a two-day, outdoor open house on the Utah State Capitol grounds Aug. 21 and 22. To learn more and register for the free event, visit this link.

The sculpture, commissioned by Better Days 2020, a nonprofit organized to bring awareness to womens history, was crafted by Weber State University associate professor of art and sculptor, Jason Manley, in collaboration with Memphis University assistant professor of art and sculptor, Kelsey Harrison.

The monument is made of bronze, stainless steel and concrete and is situated in front of the Salt Lake City Council Hall building, which is symbolic because that building is where the first female-cast ballot happened in the state of Utah. The sculpture encompasses 200 square feet, and stands 8-feet tall in places. It features a table, two chairs and four doorways, with quotes from Martha Hughes Cannon, Emmeline B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony and other womens suffrage leaders.

The bronze screen, composed of suffrage leaders' quotations, started from 3D printed wax and was then cast with the traditional lost-wax foundry process by Baer Bronze. One of Manleys former students Adam Smith completed the mold-making as an employee at Baer Bronze.

By paying tribute to these voting rights pioneers, we hope this will be a site for inspiration and congregation and to motivate voter turn-out, Manley said.

In an artist statement, Manley and Harrison wrote the piece reflects upon the communal and collective struggle for equal rights.

Manley earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Arizona and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Kansas. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including recent exhibitions at Art Center College of Design, UMOCA, and Torrance Art Museum, with public artworks in Utah, Iowa and California. He teaches sculpture and public art in the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities at Weber State University.

For photos, visit the following links.

wsuucomm.smugmug.com/Press-Release-Photos/2020-photos/August-2020/i-twdhZVF/A

wsuucomm.smugmug.com/Press-Release-Photos/2020-photos/August-2020/i-zSk2fXb/A

wsuucomm.smugmug.com/Press-Release-Photos/2020-photos/August-2020/i-CMLdcd8/A

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
A lack of firefighters and equipment has left crews barely able to contain the CZU Lightning Complex in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, as the historic blazes were just 2% contained Friday evening with 57,000 acres burned and two firefighters injured, officials said.

At the Ben Lomond Fire Protection District station along Highway 9 in the center of the smoke-clogged, abandoned town, Fire Chief Stacie Brownlee said the area has never seen anything like this.

None of us have slept. Weve had absolutely zero help from Cal Fire, Brownlee said, dressed in a fire suit covered in soot. Weve been told by Cal Fire were on our own.

By Friday night, law enforcement and fire officials had evacuated 77,000 people from both counties and 97 structures had been destroyed. But the number of firefighters grew by only 100 overnight to just over 1,000, according to Cal Fire. Officials said the response Friday remained insufficient as hundreds of lightning-sparked fires continue to rage across the state.

Its still not enough, Billy See, a Cal Fire incident commander, said at a news conference at base camp in Scotts Valley. Statewide, all of our crew numbers are down. Right now were stretched very, very thin.

The Fire Department for Ben Lomond, a mountain town of roughly 6,000, nearly doubled its personnel from about 25 firefighters to 40 with the addition of volunteers, some retired or from other departments. But they had only four engines Friday and said they needed 50. Local water sources were also running out.

Most of the homes in the area receive water from tanks and wells, but many residents left their sprinklers running to protect their houses, draining the supply by the time crews reached days later, Brownlee said. Crews have been forced to go down to the valley floor to shuttle water back up to the fire lines.

The blaze in Ben Lomond flared up at 1 a.m. Wednesday with a 2-acre spot fire on Alba Road next to two structures, Brownlee said. By around noon Friday, the flames had moved another mile down the winding road through the hills, destroying at least 50 homes.

Were trying everything we can to hold it, but we only have four engines and were doing the best we can with no water, Brownlee said.

The only Cal Fire representative on scene Friday afternoon was an agency photographer.

Local resident Edward Van Deman pulled up to the firefighters in a white pickup truck, wearing a San Jose State University bandana as a face mask. He was desperate to get through to his home on Sweetwater Lane just up the road after evacuating around midnight Tuesday.

Thats when things started to look grim, he said. A neighbor who returned Thursday told him that two of the 13 houses on the lane had already burned, so he went back to check for himself.

This is the worst fire weve ever had. Terrible, said Van Deman, who has another home to stay at in Mountain View.

The communities in danger Friday were mostly remote enclaves nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the fire raged on both sides of Highway 1, officials said.

Communities on the east side of the blaze, including Ben Lomond, were hit hardest Thursday and remain under mandatory evacuation orders. Fifty structures have been confirmed destroyed, but that number was expected to go up into the triple digits.

Cal Fire and sheriffs deputies have pleaded with residents to heed orders, especially with limited resources. Mark Brunton, Cal Fire operations center chief, said on Friday that the agency conducted three separate rescues of civilians who stayed behind overnight.

They pulled vital, very few resources away to have to rescue those individuals because they put themselves in peril, he said.

But some residents in the area were still refusing to budge Friday.

Allen Strong, a Ben Lomond resident, spent the morning spraying down the roof of La Placa Family Bakery, which is owned by his friends who evacuated.

Im not leaving, Strong said, pausing to light a cigarette. A lot of people are losing everything they own. Losing everything is not an option for me.

He did, however, flee his mobile home, which was surrounded by brush on a nearby road. Strong packed his Toyota with supplies and his 10-year-old dog, Anna, who went blind three months ago. They camped on an air mattress Thursday night at the restaurant.

Evacuation centers are set up in both counties and providing hotel vouchers to limit the number of people congregating in shelters due to COVID-19. Half Moon Bay High Schools evacuation center was full by Friday morning, forcing the San Mateo County Sheriffs Office to redirect people to the San Mateo County Event Center.

Chris Clark, chief deputy of the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office, warned evacuees that it might be weeks before they can return to their homes due to the unpredictable nature of the fire.

Firefighter shortages have persisted throughout the week since lightning-sparked fires  fueled by hot temperatures and dry vegetation left untouched by other fires in recent years  but some resources did come into the area Thursday to help fight the still raging CZU Complex.

Jesse Corwin, a firefighter with contracted company Inbound LLC, arrived from Oregon with a task force of five trucks. CalFire ordered 125 trucks, he said, but there werent enough crews to work them.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

Theres a lack of people this year, Corwin said, gassing up the truck at a fire station in Scotts Valley, where a shroud of taupe-colored smoke hung over the evacuated town just north of Santa Cruz.

Now Playing: Chronicle photojournalist Gabrielle Lurie captures the smoke from California State Route 1 on Thursday, August 20. The CZU August Lightning Complex fires have burned about 50,000 acres, 0% containment as of Friday afternoon, Aug. 21, 2020. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Corwin said the fire was actively burning on Pine Flat Road, which runs through the mountain community of Bonny Doon, about a 25-minute drive from where he stood. Crews saved a lot of houses Thursday night, Corwin said.

In Bonny Doon, where no cell service usually exists, power outages and lost internet connections occurred throughout the week.

Ryan Beauregard of Bonny Doon said he went around the neighborhood this week blaring his truck horn and banging on neighbors doors to warn them to get out.

The whole neighborhoods been burning down, Beauregard said Thursday, standing by his truck, which was packed near Highway 1 with a suitcases, hoses and a gas can.

The winery he owns was safe at that time, but up in the hill, under an orange sun and an ashen sky, firefighters said the blaze was less than a mile away  and moving in his direction.

Hannah Wilson-James, 24, said Friday that her 89-year-old grandfather, had lived his entire life on the 100-acre property on Swanton Road just east of Highway 1 until smoke from the CZU Complex flooded the canyon Tuesday and forced the family of six, as well as a friend, to evacuate the area.

Wilson-James mom, Carren Wilson, forged her way back past burning trees on the road Thursday to find their three houses were gone  and the commercial kitchen for their family bakery, Buttercup Cakes.

My granddad always said, I wanted to be able to say when I died, I have lived in the same house my whole life, but now I cant say that, Wilson-James said, choking back tears during a phone interview from her stepdads home in Pescadero, which on Friday also was listed in an evacuation area.

Wilson-James said the family was declared ineligible for fire insurance after a shed burned in 2009. She has started a GoFundMe page in hopes of building a new home for her grandparents, Ben Wilson, 89, and Jan Wilson, 81, and another for her mother.

Past the firefighters down on Alba Road in Ben Lomond, the turnoff to Sweetwater Lane was marked with painted signs for each resident. The messages were shrouded in smoke and the canyon was blanketed with ash and fallen trees.

The landscape, still smoldering and crackling faintly, offered a rare glimmer of hope by the afternoon. The sky brightened and the sun pushed through the haze. Firefighters said it was the first time they had seen sunlight in days.

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeking a high-level inquiry into the conduct of companys India leadership team over reports that the social media platform did not apply its hate speech rules on BJP leaders.

Accusing Facebook India of interfering with Indias electoral democracy, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, in a letter to Zuckerberg, also demanded that pending the internal investigation and submission of the report, the company should consider a new team to lead Facebook India operations so as to not influence the probe.

He said the Congress is joined by other leading political parties in expressing fear over Facebooks purported role in manipulating Indias electoral democracy. Set up a high-level inquiry by Facebook headquarters into the Facebook India leadership team and their operations and submit a report to the Board of Facebook within one or two months. The report should also be made public, he said.

The opposition has attacked Facebook following a report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last week alleged that senior Facebook executives had opposed applying hate speech rules to posts by certain BJP leaders, with the BJP and the Congress engaged in a bitter war of words for the last three days over the issue. The opposition is demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the matter, which has been rejected by the BJP.

ALSO READ | Opposition steps up demand for JPC, accuses Facebook of inaction

Asking the US firm to publish all instances of hate speech posts since 2014 that were allowed on the platform, the Congress leader further said that Facebook may be a willing participant in thwarting the rights and values that the founding leaders of the Congress sacrificed their lives for.

The WSJ article mentions hate speech of at least three other politicians that were wilfully permitted by Facebook India. The Congress has raised the issue of bias with many Facebook and WhatsApp executives. This is a very serious issue of Facebooks interference in the worlds largest electoral democracy, he wrote. In a tweet, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: Facebooks involvement in peddling fake and hate news needs to be questioned by all Indians.
As of Friday morning, face coverings must be worn in some of Easthamptons most congested public spaces after city officials passed a public health mandate earlier this week.

The Easthampton Board of Health voted at its meeting Wednesday in favor of an emergency order requiring that masks or other face coverings be worn in particularly busy areas of the city, regardless of ones ability to socially distance during the coronavirus pandemic. The mandate went into effect at 8 a.m. on Friday.

Easthamptons face mask order follows health officials in Amherst and Northampton passing similar orders mandating that people cover their faces when venturing into some of the communities busiest public spaces.

During the COVID-19 public health crisis, the Hampshire County city has been deemed a moderate-risk community by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health this week. The designation indicates a town or city has four to eight cases of the virus per 100,000 people.

In Easthampton, 110 cases of the viral respiratory infection have been confirmed in the city as of Wednesday, nine of which were identified in the past two weeks. The community has an infection rate of four cases per 100,000 people.

Statewide, 115,310 coronavirus cases and at least 8,657 deaths linked to the illness have been confirmed to date, the departments data showed.

The Western Massachusetts citys face mask order extends to Easthamptons downtown and mill areas as well as the Manhan Rail Trail and all city-owned parks and property, the board of health said in a Facebook post.

The BOH voted at their meeting on Wednesday the 19th to require masks to be worn, regardless of social distancing, in... Posted by Easthampton Health Department on Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The mandate also requires that people carry around face coverings on all public sidewalks outside of the areas encompassed by the order. Individuals must put the coverings on when passing or coming within 6 feet of others, officials said.

The board of healths order applies to everyone over the age of 5, though there are some exceptions laid out in the mandate.

A person does not need to wear a face covering if they are seated at an outdoor restaurant, if wearing a mask affects their ability to breathe safely, if they have a medical diagnosis or disability that prevents them from wearing a covering or if they depend on supplemental oxygen to breathe.

The use of face masks or coverings by children between the ages of 2 and 5 is at the discretion of the childs parent or guardian as well. Kids under the age of 2 years must not wear masks due to the risk of suffocation.

People who violate the order will be issued a $50 fine for a first offense, $150 for a second and $300 for any subsequent offenses.

Easthampton Health Agent Bri Eichstaedt told the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the citys goal is not to ticket people but instead to educate them.

Agents of the board are going to use common sense and discretion, Eichstaedt told the newspaper.

Those in need of a cloth face covering can contact the Easthampton Health Department at health@easthamptonma.gov or by phone at (413) 529-1400, ext. 430.

At this time, there are limited quantities, please only request one per person in your household, the board of health noted.

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State health officials on Friday announced another 13 coronavirus deaths, bringing the statewide death count to 8,670.

Officials also confirmed another 431 cases of COVID-19, for a total now of at least 115,741 statewide. Thats based on 26,758 new molecular tests reported on Friday, according to the Department of Public Health.

There are currently 322 people hospitalized with COVID, which includes 66 patients in intensive care, according to Fridays statistics.

There are now at least 5,551,793 COVID-19 cases in the U.S., and 173,490 total deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions latest statistics.

Massachusetts is one of 23 states where new COVID-19 cases have declined over the last two weeks, according to the New York Times. The rate of infection across the state has hovered around 1.4% over the last week or so. On Friday, it dipped to 1.2%.

Earlier this week, health officials announced that all children ages 6 months or older, who are attending Massachusetts child care, pre-school, kindergarten, K-12, and colleges and universities, must get a flu vaccine. The new requirement is meant to reduce the number of people hospitalized with the flu, while health care workers focus on caring for coronavirus patients.

Students are expected to be vaccinated by Dec. 31 for the 2020-2021 flu season unless either a medical or religious exemption is provided, officials said.

I hope people understand that this is an important part of how we continue to fight the virus here in Massachusetts, the Gov. Charlie Baker said on Thursday.

Baker also announced earlier this week that more than 70% of Massachusetts school districts are planning on hybrid or fully in-person learning in the fall. The other 30% say they are planning on only remote learning. Thats based on the 371 school districts that have reported plans as of Monday, Baker said.

Boston Public Schools is the latest district to announce plans to begin the school year remotely, officials announced on Friday.

Three more communities have been designated at high risk for coronavirus transmission on Wednesday based on new daily cases. They include South Hadley, Brockton and Winthrop.

Using average daily cases from Aug. 2 to Aug. 15, officials said that as of Wednesday, 10 communities are now at high risk, including South Hadley, Brockton, Winthrop, Saugus, Salem, Revere, Lynn, Lawrence, Everett and Chelsea.

Related Content:
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy arrives at a meeting at the office of Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Aug. 5, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Postmaster General Testifies, Says Hes Committed to Election Mail Delivery

'No intention' to bring back sorting machines that were removed

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday began his testimony on Capitol Hill in front of a Senate panel following complaints and criticisms about delivery delays and operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service. The testimony comes after Democrats sought to tie those allegations to a possible disruption to mail-in voting during Novembers election.

DeJoy, in remarks to the panel via a live stream, called on Congress to pass a bill that would provide the Postal Service with financial relief to account for the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our financial condition, while saying that it is his sacred duty to ensure election mail delivery.

I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on-time, the postmaster general stated, adding that it is his No. 1 priority between now and Election Day.

Later on in the hearing, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) asked about whether mail-sorting machines that were removed under his watch would be brought back. Theres no intention to do that, theyre not needed, sir, he replied, adding: We removed about 700 collection boxes, of which I had no idea that that was a process. He made similar comments about the removal of mail-sorting machines.

When I found out about it, he told the panel. We looked at the excitement it was creating so I decided to stop it and well pick it up after the election.

Democrats have alleged that DeJoys cost-cutting initiatives and other changes might create problems during Election Day, as some states have unveiled plans to expand absentee ballots and mail-in-voting in a bid to curb the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Following the outcry, DeJoy announced that he would halt some of the operational changes to the USPS until the election is over.

To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded, he said this week. He did not say what initiatives he would be suspending. DeJoy added he would also expand a task force on mail during the election.

The Postal Service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall, DeJoy assured in the press release. The agency also will have more resources ready starting on Oct. 1.

Mailboxes sit outside of a Morris Plains, N.J., post office, on Aug. 17, 2020. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, dismissed the claims on Friday that DeJoy and the Trump administration are trying to sabotage the election as a false political narrative manufactured by Democrats.

It is Postmaster DeJoys commendable attempt to reduce those excess costs that are now being cynically used to create this false political narrative, he said.

When DeJoy, a Republican donor, assumed the postmaster general position, the USPS was facing complaints from President Donald Trump and others that it was hemorrhaging money. It was also already facing complaints about delayed packages and mail, as more people started shopping online in the midst of the CCP virus pandemic.

While a number of lawmakers and media have painted DeJoy as having been chosen by the Trump administration, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a letter that he did not recruit or suggest that DeJoy take the job.

In fact, I was surprised to learn that Mr. DeJoy was a candidate for the position, Mnuchin wrote in a letter, according to The Associated Press.

David Williams, former USPS Inspector General and former Vice Chair of the USPS Board of Governors, said on Thursday he left the board when it became clear to me that the administration was politicizing the Postal Service with the treasury secretary as the lead figure for the White House in that effort.

The House, led by Democrats, is scheduled to hold a vote on Saturday on a bill that would prohibit operational changes to the Postal Service and provide the agency with $25 billion in funding. Then, on Monday, the House Oversight Committee will question DeJoy and board of governors chief Robert Duncan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) alleged to reporters that DeJoy, however, has no plans to reverse changes to infrastructure.

The Postmaster General frankly admitted that he had no intention of replacing the sorting machines, blue mailboxes and other key mail infrastructure that have been removed and that plans for adequate overtime, which is critical for the timely delivery of mail, are not in the works, she said, saying she spoke to him on Wednesday.
Iran Authorities Knew About Dissident Executions, 1988 Amnesty Appeal Reveals

Maryam Sinaiee August 20, 2020

A historical appeal of Amnesty International highlighted by one of the human rights watchdog's Iran researchers has proven that Iranian authorities were aware of the execution of dissidents between July 10 and August 16 in 1988, which set the scene for the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners later that year.

Raha Bahreini, an Iran researcher with Amnesty International, tweeted an image on Wednesday of an appeal to the Iranian authorities from August 16, 1988 to stop the executions. "We found the Urgent Action [appeal] of August 16, [1988] in the Amnesty archives," she wrote. "It was a shocking discovery that showed government and judicial authorities as well as Iran's ambassadors were aware of the executions at least since August 16 but the policy of [Prime Minister Mir-Hossein] Mousavi's Foreign Ministry was denial. Even today, with utmost dishonesty they claim that they did not know [about the executions]."

Over 5000 people were executed in Iranian prisons in the summer of 1988 for their membership or affiliation with leftist groups including the Marxist-Leninist Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas and Tudeh Party, the Maoist Peykar, the Islamic People's Mujahedin Organization (MEK) and several other dissident groups.

Iranian authorities have never been held accountable for the executions, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who served as president in 1988 after the massacre, saying that those who were executed "deserved it."

According to the historical document found by Bahreini, at least 19 members of the outlawed People's Mujahedin Organization (MEK) and Tudeh Party were hanged in public in Bakhtaran and Ilam or were executed by the firing squad in Evin Prison between July 10 and the time of the appeal on August 16.

The appeal also points out that 10 additional people were executed on allegations of being "counter-revolutionaries" and spying for Iraq during the same period, and 55 political prisoners were on death row awaiting execution.

The Amnesty appeal called on Iranian authorities to provide details of the procedures by which death sentences were being passed and approved, urging commutation of all outstanding death sentences and an end to executions in Iran.

The appeal was addressed to Chief Justice Ayatollah Abdulkarim Musavi Ardebili and Justice Minister Hassan Habibi, and was copied to diplomatic representatives of Iran in other countries.

Bahreini's tweet appears to be a jab at Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who served as Prime Minister to Khamenei at the time, as well as his supporters. Mousavi, who came out of semi-retirement to run for president in 2009, claimed during his election campaign that he neither knew of nor had a role in the executions. Mousavi disputed the outcome of the election and the presidency of the Khamenei-favored candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and has been under house arrest since 2011.

Most of the victims of the massacre were buried in unmarked and often mass graves in various places. In recent years, reports have emerged of the desecration and destruction of some of the mass graves in various cities.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the executions in December 2010, Amnesty International said in a statement that the organization had sent 16 urgent action appeals to Iran to stop the killings in the summer of 1988, but never received a response.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-authorities -knew-about-dissident-executions-1988-amnesty- appeal-reveals/30794224.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Mass MoCA Director Joseph Thompson at a preview of Building 6 in 2017. The museum's founding director announced he will be stepping down in October to become special consul.

Thompson Stepping Down as Director of Mass MoCA

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art's first  and so far only  director is stepping down after leading the nation's largest contemporary museum for more than three decades.

Joseph Thompson, who has been at Mass MoCA's helm since its founding in 1988, announced Friday his plans to step down as director. He will stay on for the next 12 months as special counsel to the Board of Trustees. In this new role, Thompson said he will focus on institutional advancement and special projects. The Board of Trustees plans to conduct a search for a new permanent director considering both internal and external candidates.

Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Tracy Moore has been appointed to serve as interim director beginning Oct. 29. Moore has more than 18 years of experience in contemporary art museum programming, management, and leadership. She joined museum in 2019 and has overseen finance and operations.

Thompson, in a statement issued Friday afternoon, said it was time for him to step away from the day-to-day management and that he would focus on transition planning, institutional advancement, and capacity-building.

"Mass MoCA has deeply talented staff, strong governance, a vibrant program, large audiences, and a starter endowment in place," he said. "While we've achieved much over the past few decades, there remains programmatic innovation, still to come. Our core work in commissioning and supporting the most important art of our time is  by definition  an endlessly renewable project. We've barely touched the 17 acres of outdoor grounds, and while we have an exciting and newly conceived Master Plan in place, two of our most important and strategically situated buildings remain to be programmed and renovated."

Thompson's involvement began when the museum was just the germ of an idea as an auxiliary exhibition space for the Williams College Museum of Art, where he began his career as preparator and exhibitions designer. With then-WCMA Director Thomas Krens, the sprawling and vacant Sprague Electric campus was reimagined as a home for large-scale contemporary art and changing exhibitions. It took more than a decade to raise funds and cleanup and begin the buildout on what would become Mass MoCA. Thompson was named founding director in 1988 and would be there to finally open the museum in 1999.

The institution hosted more than 10,000 artists, working across all media. Annual visitation has grown from 60,000 in the early years of the museum, to 300,000 per year (pre-COVID-19), close to 25 times the population of its hometown, according to museum officials. The developed footprint of the 24-building factory campus has grown from 200,000 square feet in five buildings, to 550,000 square feet in 17 buildings, making Mass MoCA the largest institution in the United States devoted to new art.

Major exhibitions include those by Sol LeWitt (co-organized with the Yale University Art Gallery and the Williams College Museum of Art with loans of 25 years from over 50 lenders), Laurie Anderson, Jenny Holzer, Anselm Kiefer (co-organized with the Hall Art Foundation with a loan of 15 years), and James Turrell (whose major 25-year retrospective installation includes examples from all seven decades of his career, and every major category of his work on loan for 25 years).

And the annual Teen Invitational that exhibits works in a range of media from high and middle schools students from across the region.

The museum would become known for the performers it hosts as much as the art that it displays. It's home to Solid Sound, an every other summer, three-day music event curated by the band Wilco, and the annual (except for this year) Fresh Grass festival. In conjunction with David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, Thompson co-founded the annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival. Performances have included both well-known and rising stars, including Beck, Benjamin Clementine, Annie Lennox, The Pretenders, The National, Patti Smith, Maggie Rogers, Sinkane, Dr. John, Flying Lotus, Car Seat Headrest, Vampire Weekend, Adia Victoria, and George Clinton.

MoCA under his direction has also nurtured an artist in residency program, created the popular KidSpace, and developed, in conjunction with the trustees and Jack Wadsworth, commercial real estate holdings that support 18 percent of the museum's programs and operating costs. Some of the holdings have been developed with community in mind, such as UNO Park and the greenspace created on Marshall Street at the former Mohawk Center.

Through Thompson's leadership, the museum has doubled in size and become a major economic catalyst to the region, something the director has stressed continually when speaking about MoCA's place in the community. The unemployment rate for North Adams was nearing 20 percent, seven times higher than the state average when MoCA opened; by 2019, pre-COVID local unemployment had fallen to 6.4 percent, or about 1.4 times the state average. The inventory of hotel rooms in North Adams has grown to 245 keys, up from a total of 16 motel rooms in the early 1990s. In addition to business activity generated by its commercial tenants, by 2019 the museum itself sparked $52 million in new economic activity every year (and over $700 million cumulatively, including investments in buildings and infrastructure), totaling many times the state's public investment of $60 million over 20 years.

"We are grateful for everything Joe has done to build and invigorate Mass MoCA," said Timur Galen, chair of the museum foundation's board of trustees, in the statement. "His dedication, innovation and leadership have made Mass MoCA a premier site for the creation and enjoyment of contemporary art, in all forms. On behalf of the entire Board and organization, we thank Joe for his decades as Director and his continued partnership in this new role. Mass MoCA's deep connections to the community through educational programs present endless room to innovate, as does our mission to be a place-maker and economic catalyst for North Adams."

Thompson said he would be devoting the next 12 months to working with colleagues on "several important initiatives underway" as the trustees seek a new director.

"I know of no other institution specifically founded with a two-fold mission to be a platform for new art, but also to use that creative energy to spark economic growth and community redevelopment," he said. "That's a noble mission in today's world. At the end of the day, strong, sustainable institutions are about people, values, shared passions, and a disciplined work ethic. We in the arts and culture business know how deeply and directly the arts  and creativity in general  can fuel community development and commercial vitality. Mass MoCA and North Adams demonstrate that every day.

"I've been lucky to work with so many spirited colleagues and supporters over the years who understand this dynamic deep in their bones. But that work is just getting started. If anything, MASS MoCA's future opportunities exceed its achievements to date  but that's for the next person to realize, someone with a fresh point of view, expanded social and cultural networks, and new energy."
COVID-19 does not spare anyone and international leaders are well aware of the indiscriminate nature of the deadly virus that has infected over 22 million people so far. French President Emmanuel Macron leaned forward and welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Namaste or folded hands at his Mediterranean holiday retreat, Fort de Bregacnon in Southern France. In keeping with the social distancing norms, the German chancellor also reciprocated with Namaste.

This is Merkel's first-ever visit to Macron's presidential summer residence. The two have met to discuss burning issues such as the coronavirus pandemic, post-election agitation in Belarus and growing friction with Turkey.

This, however, is not the first time that the French President has opted for the Indian style of greeting. Emmanuel Macron had also opted for Namaste when he greeted the Spanish king and queen in March.

Not only Emmanuel Macron, many global leaders such as the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and UK's Prince Charles have also ditched traditional handshakes and use Namaste to greet others. Netanyahu went a step ahead and urged Israelis to greet each other using Namaste. He also demonstrated the Indian way of greeting at a presser.

With hand hygiene becoming the most crucial preventive measure against COVID-19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had touted Namaste as an acceptable form of greeting. PM Modi also stated that the world is quickly adapting to the no-contact way of greeting one another.

Also read: Coronavirus: Israel PM Netanyahu asks citizens to greet with 'namaste'

Also read: Coronavirus update: Prince Charles spotted greeting people with namaste

Also read: Coronavirus alert: No handshakes, only 'namastes' for top shuttler PV Sindhu
A person delivers a computer payload while working on a laptop during the 11th International Cybersecurity Forum in Lille, France, on Jan. 22, 2019. (Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images)

DHS Cybersecurity Expert Says 2020 Election Threats Are Far Lower Than 2016: Like Night and Day

A top cybersecurity expert at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the threat of election interference in the upcoming November election is substantially lower than in 2016, according to reports.

Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, told CBS in an interview: From a cybersecurity threat landscape, [its a] significantly different threat landscape than 2016. Much, much lower, particularly when you talk about nation-state adversaries.

Krebs said that a bipartisan, nationwide effort is underway to ensure election security, adding that the difference between 2020 and 2016 is like night and day.

The 2016 election was targeted by Russia, which, according to an Intelligence Community Assessment cited by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in Senate testimony, used cyber operations against both political parties and that President Putin directed and influenced [a] campaign to erode the faith and confidence of the American people in our presidential election process. Russias meddling did not extend to actual vote tallying and no intelligence or evidence was found to suggest that any votes were changed as a result of the interference.

We took some lumps during and after 2016, Krebs told CBS, adding, but we really recommitted to this bipartisan, almost apolitical partnership of election security and making sure that 2020 is as secure as possible.

The full might of the United States governments national security apparatus is defending these elections, he added.

Krebs remarks come as the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council detailed some of the work being done to secure Novembers elections, while acknowledging that the threat of foreign interference remains.

The pandemic has changed the way some will cast their ballots this year and the threat of foreign interference remains. However, as an election community, we are practiced and prepared to take these challenges head on and ensure American voters decide American elections, the Council said in an Aug. 20 statement.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia, and numerous counties now have intrusion detection sensors protecting their election infrastructure, and public and private sector cybersecurity professionals have conducted hundreds of assessments on state and local networks, including penetration testing, phishing campaign assessments, and vulnerability assessments, the Council said.

We recently held a nationwide Tabletop the Vote exercise with participation from 37 states and 2,100 participants. Every state and more than 2,700 local jurisdictions are members of the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), allowing for technical information on threats to be shared in real-time, the Council added.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recently developed a resource to help election administrators address possible vulnerabilities in their election systems. It includes a step-by-step guide, a list of resources, and a template for establishing a successful vulnerability disclosure program.

Elections will look different this year, but we want voters to know our election community is ready and taking active measures to ensure every ballot is counted as cast, the Council said.
The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has been received with broad praise. The goal of universalisation of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and the focus on achieving universal foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) is especially laudable. The challenge now lies in translating policy into action on the ground at scale. Most policy suggestions are not new  several state governments have been trying hard to implement such reforms. However, the lack of consistent political will and the slow pace of adopting emerging technologies have stymied these efforts. We know how to educate children, as is evident in elite schools  our inability to do so for all children is due to the failure in understanding the role of politics and technology.

How are parents, from less-privileged backgrounds, expected to understand the value of the current reforms such as curriculum overhaul, teacher-training or activity-based learning in schools? These are all hidden behind school walls, parents are not involved, and the visible impact of better education manifests later in life. As a result, the public-school system has lost the perception battle to the private system. The latter takes huge pains to dazzle their most critical constituency  parents  through fancy brochures or computer labs. Public educators tend to be poor publicists.

Unfortunately, NEP ignores the political-economy aspects of education and the critical need to involve the parent as a teacher and voter. Parents are only mentioned 25 times, as compared to 221 mentions for teachers. The opaqueness of progress and lack of value realisation by the constituents is why politicians across the spectrum have, in turn, not paid attention to education, as compared to other sectors such as infrastructure and skills training. Education reform attempts come and go, based on the whims and fancies of officials and their unpredictable tenures.

Even beyond political incentives, it is vital that parents are involved directly in the learning process of their children. Such home effects have been shown to be key drivers of learning outcomes. Parent and community engagement is not just a political carrot, but also essential for the childs progress. Models designed to include teachers as key facilitators for parent interactions also increase community respect for teachers, another key objective of the NEP. Across the board, teachers are motivated by how parents value them more, realise the positive things happening in school, and express their admiration for their efforts  in comparison even to private schools.

Recently, we see that, when parents notice education improvements, it translates into political popularity  Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are all early examples. In this context, governments and politicians will only do the hard slog to translate NEP into reality if their efforts are easily visible and impressive to parents, a key voting bloc.

A natural question is, how? How can we bring parents on board and achieve universal FLN throughout India? How can government achieve this scale with a high Return on Investment (ROI)?

The answer has been staring us in the face all along  the digital revolution. India is expected to have 820 million smartphone users by 2022 and, for the first time, India has more rural Internet users than urban. This is the time to use these tail winds and adopt innovative low-tech to enable school-home connections and engage parents where they are.

Specifically, school systems need to leverage technology and mass media communication to show parents daily and directly that they are investing in their childrens success, and that the child is actually learning. Technology can play a key role in bringing about this behavioural change by implementing the Aspiration, Information & Measurement (AIM) framework. We can use social media platforms such as Facebook and Youtube to bring about awareness, we can leverage messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram to disseminate educational content to learning communities, and we can use Artificial Intelligence and Big-Data to measure these learning outcomes at scale. The possibilities are endless. Now is the time to commit to an approach spearheaded by technology and digital India.

There is evidence of the effectiveness and high ROI for tech-enabled information interventions. Many research studies have shown that low-cost interventions such as text message nudge the learning process along. In our organisation, Rocket Learning, we have seen that tech- and media-enabled models of leveraging government infrastructure to build parental aspiration, information gateways and, social motivation have led to up to 80% of parents conducting learning activities with children on a regular basis district-wide.

The writing on the wall is clear  for the system to change for the long-term, we need initiatives and technology that achieve both educational and political success, as was the case with the midday meal scheme. It is imperative that the recently announced FLN mission, which builds on NEP, both addresses the political economy problem and adopts technology quickly to achieve universal ECCE. It must be accompanied by a national mass media and social media campaign that specifically targets communities, as in Swachh Bharat or Skill India. The mission must create a virtuous cycle of governments pulling parents along and vice versa.

Azeez Gupta and Vishal Sunil are serial entrepreneurs with backgrounds from Pratham, McKinsey, Harvard Business School and IIT Delhi. They are the co-founders of Rocket Learning, an ed-tech social enterprise focusing on foundational learning for young children

The views expressed are personal
Sports

Marseille revoke PSG shirt ban for CL final

Marseille, Aug 21 (Agencies) | Publish Date: 8/21/2020 10:14:32 AM IST

A ban on Paris Saint-Germain football shirts in Marseilles city centre has been revoked just hours after it was imposed to avert clashes between rival fans during Sundays Champions League final.

PSG face Bayern Munich in Lisbon on Sunday evening, attempting to become only the second French winners after Olympique Marseille, who clinched the biggest prize in European club football in 1993.

Marseilles police prefecture on Thursday had announced a ban on the presence of PSG supporters or people presenting themselves as such and behaving as such around the historic Old Port  only to revoke it the next morning.

The ban was supposed to apply from 3pm local time on Sunday afternoon to 3am on Monday, with the evening match scheduled in between.

Tensions between fans of the two clubs are so strong that the French interior ministry regularly issues travel bans for away fans when the clubs meet.

Justifying its initial ban, the police said there is strong animosity on the part of some Marseille residents, supporters or not, toward the PSG team, in contradiction with any sporting spirit.

The aborted order followed incidents during the broadcast of Tuesday evenings Champions League semi-final, in which PSG beat RB Leipzig.

The police said gatherings of more than 250 people took place in Marseille and there were two assaults on people wearing PSG shirts, including attempts to intimidate them in order to interrupt the broadcasting of the match.

French authorities are also wary of possible unrest in Paris, where 36 people were arrested following Tuesdays semi-final when jubilant fans clashed with police on the Champs-Elysees.
More people, especially world leaders, are opting for the Indian greeting of Namaste rather than going for a handshake -- in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

IMAGE: French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she arrives at Fort de Bregancon, in Bormes-les-Mimosas, France. Photograph: Christophe Simon/Reuters

The latest addition to the list of leaders who opted for this no-contact way of greeting are France President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel. The two European Union leaders

met on Thursday to discuss travel restrictions related to the coronavirus.

The two leaders are meeting at the French president's summer residence to discuss a long list of burning issues including the coronavirus pandemic, post-election unrest in Belarus and growing tensions with Turkey.

US President Donald Trump and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are among some of the world leaders who have adopted the Indian style of greeting over the traditional handshake in the current

times of coronavirus.

IMAGE: The video of them adopting the Indian style of greeting has gone viral. Photograph: Christophe Simon/Reuters

The Israel prime minister was one of the first global leaders to endorse Namaste. "Just avoid shaking hands as I do. You can try to implement the Indian system of Namaste or say another word like shalom, but find a way, any way of not shaking hands," Netanyahu had said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the global audience during India Global Week 2020, lauded the mark India has left on the world during the global pandemic.

"You would have seen Namaste has gone global as a form of greeting. The pandemic has also seen the universal appeal of yoga, Ayurveda and traditional medicine world over. India's ancient culture and universal peaceful ethos are its strength," he was quoted saying at the event.
Pronab Mandal By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: A 63-day-old child, the youngest Covid-19 patient in West Bengal, returned home on Thursday after a 23-day battle against the infectious disease at a private healthcare unit in Kolkata. The infant from East Midnapore districts Contai area was on ventilator support for eight days.

The newborn was brought to the hospital when he was 40-day-old. Though his parents tested negative for Covid-19, his report came positive and doctors suspected the child might have got infected from the hospital where her mother was admitted or from the relatives of the family. The doctors struggled hard because there was no available protocol to treat a newborn who tested positive for Covid-19.

Apurba Ghosh, the director of the Institute of Child Health (ICH) at Park Circus, said the child is the youngest Covid survivor in Bengal and eastern India as well. "A newborn, who tested positive for Covid-19 with his mother in Pune, had to be put on a ventilator because of the infants immature lungs. But in this case, the childs lungs were infected by the coronavirus," said Ghosh.

Doctors at the ICH said the child was admitted with high fever and signs of convulsions. "We conducted tests and suspected the child was suffering from pneumonia. Though we dont treat Covid-19 patients here, but we conducted a test and the report came positive.

"Further investigations revealed the virus infected the infants lungs. The oxygen saturation level in his blood dropped to below 80. The infant was kept in a prone position in the Intensive Care Unit. We did not take any risk and decided to put him on a ventilator support system which continued for eight days," said a doctor.

Ghosh said the doctors followed the supportive treatment procedure to save the childs life. "It was the same treatment process which is followed to deal with adult Covid-19 patients. We administered steroids and antibiotics to the infant. At a time, we suggested the parents to take the child to a state-run hospital that exclusively treating Covid-19 patients. But the mother of the newborn said she wanted to continue her childs treatment at our healthcare unit," said the doctor.

The mother and child were released on Thursday and the parents left the hospital expressing their gratitude for the support of the ICH authorities and doctors.
'Help! I Work With People': Chad Veach releases new book, says everyone must learn power of influence

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Bestselling author and distinguished pastor of Los Angeles Zoe Church, Chad Veach, says he wants to help everyone tap into their leadership potential.

The pastor's new book, Help! I Work With People: Getting Good at Leadership, Influence, and People Skills, was birthed out of something God deposited into his heart a few years ago.



"God was speaking to me about writing my first leadership book. ... There's nothing that God loves more than humanity, Veach told The Christian Post in a recent video interview.

John 3:16, he said, is the most famous verse in the whole world because it resonates with everyone that God gave His only Son, for the whomsoever's, anyone.

I wanted to write a book that was all about people because we really need to turn our heart toward humanity," added Veach, who leads one of the fastest-growing young adult ministries in the United States. "I feel like in this political climate, in this culture that we're in right now, opinions are not going to change people, but the love of God will.

The spirit of it (the book) isn't, ugh ... 'Help! I work with people!' It's more like the Apostle Paul; I want to win with people. So I become all things to all people, only so that I can win them over to Jesus, the pastor explained.

Veach is a spiritual covering for many high profile celebrities, including award-winning actor Chris Pratt and reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian. The young minister said he's not fazed by criticism that might come from being seen out at events or parties in Hollywood because his leadership is modeled after Christ.

One thing we have to always remember about Jesus is that He was highly criticized for who He was associated with, he maintained. I don't think it really swayed Him or discouraged Him. I don't think it really moved His ministry. I think He knew His audience. It's always got to be something that alarms us if we're not being criticized for who we're associated with.

"I don't think Jesus was hanging around notorious sinners, famous sinners, worried about being contaminated. He was injecting them with faith, infusing them with love. They weren't contaminating Him. So I think either we're going to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, or we're going to hide out in our Christian kumbaya boxes, Veach maintained. This book is all about saying we love people from all backgrounds, from all ethnicities, no matter what sin cycle they're in. We love who God loves and God loves humans.

During times of political and social unrest, Veach said he wants everyone who reads his book to develop the people skills Christ had to help win over a hurting world.

"We've got to get really good at using our influence for good. Having leadership and people skills, he stressed. We've got to develop people skills; we can't win with people that don't like us. So in order for you to work with somebody, they got to first like you, so we can't just live off our faith.

Thats why they would come around Jesus and they would listen to Him talk. They marveled at His gracious words and His authority. So what was He? He had unbelievable influence and leadership and people skills. Even Pontius Pilate, he didn't follow Jesus, but he was influenced by Jesus. Nicodemus just the same, Veach added.

He went on to share some of the people skills listed in Help! I Work With People.

I think we've got to really work on our people skills. People skills is asking questions, learning people's names, expressing gratitude, building their confidence, not using them for our confidence. Just practical hacks to great people skills so we can win them and lead them, the 39-year-old father of four shared.

Veach further emphasized that for someone to lead anyone, people first have to work out their own personal issues.

"Leadership is so easy. It's just so natural if you first learn how to lead yourself. The hardest person to lead is not someone in my family or my company or organization, the hardest person to lead is me, Veach said. You and I are the same. There is always a difference between what we know we should do and what we actually do.

He then quoted the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:15, which says, The things I want to do, I never do, and the things I hate to do, it's what I always do.

"So the hardest person to lead is us. It always starts with me. If I can lead me, leading others is easy. I am the common denominator of all my problems. So I've got to learn how to deal with my insecurity, my wounds, my hurt, my disappointment. And if I can get healthy, then I'll naturally grow, Veach said.

The book, he added, begins with helping people work on themselves and then progresses to learning how to influence others.

"I think leadership starts with me, and then impacts my one on one relationships, and then impacts the group. I think churches, teams group, we got to learn how to build great morale and great chemistry, and we got to learn how to have conflict and resolution. Every team is going to have conflict. Every family has conflict. How do you bring resolution? he asked.

Veach hopes his book is a game-changer and impacts all people, not just Christians.

"Leadership, by definition, is influence  nothing more, nothing less. So what we're trying to convince every person is that you have influence. You might have influence over the stay at home kids that you're raising and developing. You might have influence over your co-workers. You might have influence over your family, influence on social media, all of us have a measure of influence. So we've got to get good at using our influence for the right things, he insisted.



Veach concluded by adding: "I'm broken, you're broken, everybody's broken. And we've got to do our best to bring encouragement and to bring strength and to bring love. Shame will not change people, but the love of God will. And so we've all got to do our part, to use our influence, to point people to the ultimate solution whose name is Jesus.

The foreword to Help! I Work With People was written by leadership expert John C. Maxwell. The book was also endorsed by business moguls Ed Bastian of Delta Airlines, Kourtney Kardashian, and DeVon Franklin, among others.
The British government says the current ban on evictions would be extend by four weeks to September 20.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced the extension Friday. Once the ban ends, landlords will be required to give tenants a six-month notice of an eviction to ensure tenants aren't homeless during the winter months.

Renters were first given protection from eviction in March, when the government issued a lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Charities have warned of a looming crisis, with the potential for tens of thousands to lose their homes after the pandemic triggered Britain's deepest recorded economic slump.

(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 supper of red snapper with homegrown vegetables looked delicious, so Mike Andrews and his wife could not wait to tuck in.

However, his mouth instantly filled with a searingly bitter taste.

Mr Andrews spat out his food and urged wife Sue Menhenick, 64  a former dancer with Pans People on Top Of The Pops  to do likewise.

But he swallowed a tiny amount  enough for him to join the dozens in the UK who have fallen victim this summer to a rogue batch of poisonous homegrown courgettes.

Music management company director Mike Andrews, 64, joined dozens in the UK who have fallen victim this summer to a rogue batch of poisonous homegrown courgettes (pictured: the courgette that led to the poisoning)

He suffered sickness, diarrhoea and even hallucinations as a result of toxic squash syndrome. Pictured: the plant the courgette plant

The 64-year-old music management company director suffered sickness, diarrhoea and even hallucinations as a result of toxic squash syndrome.

This is caused by unusually high levels of cucurbitacins  bitter-tasting chemicals found in vegetables including pumpkins and courgettes  that cause the extreme reaction.

The taste was instantly horrific, he said.

I felt that Satan himself had done his business on my tongue. My mouth was on fire. I told my wife to spit hers out and thankfully she managed to.

He lost 10lb in four days.

It comes after Mr Fothergill's withdrew its affected packets with batch code 'I', pictured above, from sales outlets and in-house stocks. Mr Andrews, of Wetwang, East Yorkshire, bought his as a baby plant from a private grower

'Cucurbitacins'  which give a bitter taste  are steroids produced by the gourd family including courgettes, cucumbers and pumpkins to deter predators.

I was desperately ill, shaking and sweating. I was having mad, hallucinogenic dreams, he said.

He did not realise the courgette was to blame until he looked online and saw similar cases this summer.

Most ate courgettes they had grown from seed, leading two firms to suspend sales of the seeds.

Mr Andrews, of Wetwang, East Yorkshire, bought his as a baby plant from a private grower.

Mr Andrews added: Its knocked me out. Its the worst illness that Ive ever had and really worrying that it isnt an issue that has been highlighted further - people need to be aware of it.

Last month Danielle Baxter, 38, from Southend, Essex, developed similar sickness symptoms after eating courgettes in a meal and went to hospital. It took her five days to recover

Danielle Baxter purchased and then planted the Unwins courgette seeds before then becoming ill

Mr Andrews said it took him four days to recover and the bitter taste remained on his lips for two weeks.

The courgette looked great, you would never have imagined there was anything wrong with it. But after that experience I dont think I will eat another ever again.

Last month Danielle Baxter, 38, from Southend, Essex, developed similar sickness symptoms after eating courgettes in a meal and went to hospital. It took her five days to recover.

Experts have warned not to eat courgettes that taste unusually bitter.

The Royal Horticultural Society says the problem is very unlikely to occur with shop-bought vegetables.
Bidens life is a parable of pressing forward. He did that after his young wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. He did it after two brain aneurysms. He did it after two previous, humiliatingly unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic nomination. He did it some six months ago, after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and a fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary cast his latest and surely last presidential campaign as yet another moribund one.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) San Francisco, United States  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:27 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f70619 2 Science & Tech Google Free

Popular Google services including Gmail, Docs and Drive were down for many users around the world on Thursday, but were restored after a few hours, the US technology giant said.

"We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support," the company said.

"System reliability is a top priority at Google. We are making continuous improvements to make our systems better."

Frustrated customers in countries including Australia, Japan, France and the United States complained online of the outage, and tracking website DownDetector reported Google services were down in every continent.

"Anyone else having issues with @gmail in Australia?" one person tweeted.

Read also: Google slams Australia law forcing tech giants to pay for news

Another Twitter user, in Brooklyn, New York, wrote: "Nearly 16 years in and this is the first time I can remember Gmail being completely down."

Google's @Gmail Twitter feed replied to the posts with: "Thanks for reporting. We are aware of a service disruption at the moment."

The G Suite Dashboard tracking outages in Google's services showed it was working on the issue, and had it fully resolved in under six hours.

As well as English, the Gmail Twitter feed replied to people in French, Japanese, Portuguese and German.

Topics : Google
Google is finally rolling out HDR10+ support for every compatible Samsung TV via Google Play Movies, SamMobile reports. The change, now noted as effectively going live everywhere, is available in at least 117 countries. That means that users of Samsung TVs should already have noticed an update to the Google Play Movies app. Or that the update should arrive sooner than later, otherwise.

What does HDR10+ bring to the table?

Media lovers around the globe can tell you about the advantages of an HDR10-compatible screen or television. But HDR10+ is something different entirely, even before it arrived in Google Play Movies for any compatible Samsung TV pretty much anywhere. Developed by Samsung, Panasonic, and 20th Century Fox, its open-source like its predecessor. Its also entirely free from licensing, unlike some competing platforms such as Dolby Vision.

In effect, its a different way to encode and decode HDR10 content but it works somewhat differently too. HDR10+ content sends dynamic metadata to TVs. That metadata allows the television to adjust color, brightness, and more on a more pixel-by-pixel, frame-by-frame basis. The result, in conjunction with up to 4000 nits maximum brightness over HDR10s 1000 nits, is a more realistic image.

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That is, of course, driven by a better contrast between light and dark areas, as well as clearer visibility across the spectrum.

Now, Google Play Movies users can take advantage of that too on Samsung televisions that support HDR10+.

HDR10+ support for Google Play Movies on Samsung TVs definitely took long enough

Now, Google initially promised support for HDR10+ in Google Play Movies back in January. That was followed by a promise to support Dolby Vision a few months later. But this is really arriving late no matter how its viewed.

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For instance, Amazon and Samsung partnered to ensure around 100 television shows and movies would work with HDR10+ a long time ago. Nearly three years, as a matter of fact, after announcing the bid in early 2017. And the library on that service and others has only grown since that announcement was made.

By comparison, Google didnt announce HDR10+ streaming for Play Movies until earlier this year.
When 33-year-old Derek Lopez was arrested by Springfield police Tuesday after authorities said he waived a gun at people outside his car window, it wasnt the first time officers had an encounter with the city resident.

Springfield police say it was amongst the more than dozen times officers ended up putting Lopez in handcuffs.

But after Lopezs most recent arrest, officials within the Springfield Police Department and the Hampden District Attorneys Office are now questioning how Lopezs bail was set at only $5,000.

Now, the district attorneys office is asking for Lopez to be brought to Springfield District Court for a dangerousness hearing. If found dangerous by a judge, Lopez can be held in custody without bail for 120 days.

Prosecutors also plan to request a judge to revoke Lopezs bail in a separate pending drug case.

He was released earlier on $5,000 bail.

Lopez was arrested by Springfield police on Tuesday for two charges of assault and battery with a weapon. In July, he chased two people around the Armory Street rotary while allegedly pointing a gun out his window of his vehicle, according to Springfield police spokesperson Ryan Walsh.

Its unbelievable, beyond frustrating and its turned into anger. We were able to tell these victims this dangerous repeat offender was arrested and within eight hours, hes back on the street to torment our citizens, said Springfield Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood. He is a dangerous man and should be held.

Walsh highlighted that Lopez has been arrested 16 times in his adult life, four of those arrests were for firearms. According to Springfield police, he has 60 arraignments.

In 2018, Lopez was arrested at 145 Cambridge St., where investigators seized nine bags of heroin and approximately $7,164 in cash. The case is still pending at Hampden Superior Court, according to Walsh.

This is not the first time Lopez has seen the ire of city and county officials. In the 2018 case, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni voiced disappointment at the relatively low bail amount for Lopez. The bail from the 2018 case was set by District Court Judge Jennifer Tyne at $1,000.

"Through repeated experiences, as recent as this week, it is becoming apparent that the judicial system has a different opinion regarding the seriousness and urgency of the opiate and addiction epidemic than the rest of us in the community," Gulluni said of the case in 2018.

Once again, our court system fails us, how can a district court clerk let this repeat violent criminal offender out on only $5,000 bail, said Sarno in a statement from the police department. If a bad guy like this doesnt get kicked up for a dangerousness hearing to be held, then who the hell does.

The mayor goes on to express his, and Clapproods worry about the victims of Lopezs

We just cant have our brave and dedicated officers putting their lives on the line to arrest individuals like this, just to have the revolving door court system let them right back out on our streets and neighborhoods to wreak havoc. This lawlessness must stop. Consequences and accountability need to be the rule of the day, Sarno added.

The Hampden District Attorneys Office has filed for a dangerousness hearing and is seeking to revoke his conditions of release on his pending drug conspiracy charges.

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.

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Four years after 50 of the nations most senior Republican national security officials warned that Donald Trump would be the most reckless president in American history, they are back with a new letter, declaring his presidency worse than they had imagined and urging voters to support former Vice President Joe Biden.

The new letter, released just hours before Biden formally accepts the nomination, lays out a 10-point indictment of Trumps actions, accusing him of undermining the rule of law, aligning himself with dictators and engaging in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president.

They also accused him of spreading misinformation and undermining public health experts, making him unfit to lead during a national crisis.

When we wrote in 2016, we were warning against a vote for Donald Trump, but many of the signatories were not ready to embrace his opponent, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, noted John Bellinger, a former legal adviser at the State Department and National Security Council who was among the authors of the past and current letters. This is different: Each of the signatories has said he or she will vote for Biden. Signatories are now even more concerned about Trump, and have fewer concerns about Biden.

Eric Edelman, a former senior Defense Department official under President George W. Bush, and a signatory to both the old and new letters, noted that the 2016 warnings were a prospective judgment about Donald Trumps fitness for office. Today the things that were cited in those letters have been vindicated by Trumps actual performance.

The result, he said, was that new Republican signatories joined  there are more than 70 in the new letter  people who undoubtedly hoped that Trump would grow in office and would take the responsibilities of office seriously. He didnt.

For the Democratic National Convention, Biden has invited a series of Republicans to speak, most notably Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Democrats are betting that these cross-aisle endorsements may bring over moderate Republicans who may have supported Trump four years ago, but are struggling with whether they can vote for a Democrat.

While some of us hold policy positions that differ from those of Joe Biden and his party, the time to debate those policy differences will come later, the new letter says. For now, it is imperative that we stop Trumps assault on our nations values and institutions and reinstate the moral foundations of our democracy.

The letter was released by DefendingDemocracyTogether.org, an advocacy group created in 2018 by anti-Trump Republicans and conservatives. They are spending about $20 million to oppose him, the group says, including placing the full letter in an ad in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Among the signatories are former officials from the Reagan administration; others who served both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush; and a few, like John Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, whose service extended over both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The letter also includes a handful of midlevel officials who served under Trump. But the list of signatories misses most of the biggest names in national security who entered the administration, only to be fired or resign. Among those missing are Rex Tillerson, the former secretary of state, and three former generals who served in high posts: John Kelly, the former chief of staff; H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser; and Jim Mattis, the former defense secretary.

John R. Bolton, who was fired as national security adviser last year, has said publicly that he would not vote for Trump, but has refused to embrace Biden, saying he would write in a conservative Republican instead.

When the first letter was released in 2016, it had some shock value: No one could recall when established national security leaders had abandoned the partys nominee. Today, the critiques sound more familiar, though the new letter picks through more than three years of international chaos to argue that Trump has gravely damaged Americas role as a world leader by mocking allies, and soliciting foreign influence in U.S. elections.

As the most recent letter laid out, Trump proclaimed his love and great respect for the North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un, endorsed brilliant leader Xi Jinpings move to serve as Chinas president for life, and repeatedly sided with Vladimir Putin against our own intelligence community.

Yet within the Republican national security establishment, there are arguments about whether such letters actually harm Trump or help him.

Peter Feaver, a veteran of the Clinton and Bush administrations, who helped draft several versions of the 2016 letter, decided not to sign the one released on Thursday.

I dont regret signing the 2016 letters, and I think the new letter is accurate in its critique of Trumps performance, Feaver, a professor at Duke University, said in an interview.

But he said he worried that letters like this have some unintended consequences. Trump was able to fundraise off the 2016 letter and buy himself some anti-establishment street cred, said Feaver. His team even thought the letters were a net plus for him.

In fact, Trump argued four years ago that the signatories had gotten the United States into Iraq and Afghanistan, or were globalists who put the interests of other nations ahead of the United States. He continued the theme this week, retweeting a message that called Powell a Neocon WMD hoaxer who had endorsed the Establishments puppet, Biden.

The 2016 letter had another effect: It disqualified a raft of Republicans from serving in the Trump White House, including many who would have provided a much deeper bench of experienced officials. Republicans split in 2017 between those who refused to served under Trump and others, like Tillerson and Fiona Hill, the Russia expert who joined the National Security Council and later testified at impeachment hearings about Trumps actions in Ukraine, who believed they had an obligation to try to guide his foreign policy.

But in private, they were often accused of quietly undermining his policies or acting as secret sympathizers with the Never Trump movement. Tillerson was finished, officials said, as soon as he was widely reported to have described Trump as a moron after a briefing  an account Tillerson never denied.

Feaver said that should Trump win in November, the pool of potential officeholders will be even thinner in 2021.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
UPDATED at 9:00 p.m. EDT 08/20/20

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she had demanded during a working visit to China that Beijing ensure Indonesian sailors are safe on China-flagged fishing vessels, after more than a dozen died aboard such boats in less than a year.



At a virtual press conference from Sanya city in Hainan province, on day two of a three-day working visit to China, Retno also said she had stressed to her Chinese counterpart that respect for international law in the South China Sea was necessary for strong ties between Beijing and Southeast Asian nations.



"I conveyed again our concern about the cases that have befallen Indonesian crew members who work on Chinese fishing vessels," Retno said. "I emphasized that this issue is no longer an issue between the private sector, but that the government must be involved to ensure that these humanitarian violations do not occur in the future."



During talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Retno said she also asked him for legal assistance in presenting witnesses as part of a transparent investigation into human trafficking aboard a China-flagged fishing boat, the Long Xin 629.



And this request was responded to positively by the Chinese state councilor and foreign minister, Retno said, referring to Wang by his different titles.



In April, Indonesian officials reported the deaths of four Indonesians who had served as crew on the Long Xin 629. It was the first publicized case of Indonesian nationals who had died aboard Chinese boats under working conditions said to be harsh and strenuous, according to labor activists and officials.

Soon after, Retno announced that Jakarta and Beijing were launching a joint investigation into allegations of abuse against Indonesian sailors.



Since April, more reports have surfaced about deaths among Indonesian crew members aboard China-flagged ships, with some of their bodies abandoned at sea. In all, at least 16 Indonesians have died while working on Chinese boats, amid allegations of abuse. It was not immediately clear why Retno asked for assistance with human trafficking aboard only one vessel.

South China Sea

In her latest talks with the Chinese foreign minister, Retno said, she expressed concern about escalating tensions in the contested South China Sea, while urging Beijing to abide by international laws.

China is one of ASEANs important partners, Retno said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. [This] partnership will continue to be strong as long as the partnership is always carried out with respect to international law, including on the issue of the South China Sea.

China, Taiwan, and four ASEAN states  the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei  have overlapping territorial claims in the strategic sea region, where Beijing has been expanding its military presence.

Indonesia is not among the countries with official claims to the sea, but in 2016 and late 2019 tensions rose between Jakarta and Beijing over the presence of Chinese fishing boats swarming in South China Sea waters near Indonesias Natuna Islands.

During talks with Wang Yi late last month, Retno urged China to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China claims it has historic rights to most of the sea, but in a landmark case in 2016, an international court of arbitration ruled against China and in favor of the Philippines in finding that Beijings claims demarcated by a so-called nine-dash line were not supported under UNCLOS.

As a signatory of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, a treaty set up by ASEAN that aims to establish a code of conduct in the sea region, China is obligated to try to resolve disputes related to the waterway, Indonesias foreign minister said.

Vietnamese protest

In recent weeks and months, tensions have risen in the South China Sea amid naval maneuvers and exercises conducted by China and the United States, with officials from the rival superpowers also engaging in heated rhetoric lately.

On Thursday, Vietnam signaled its displeasure with China over Beijings reported deployment of a group of H-6J bombers to the South China Sea in late July.

The warplanes were sent there to participate in anti-ship drills, according to Chinas Ministry of Defense and Chinese state media. At least one bomber landed on Woody Island, Chinas largest military base in the Paracel Islands, which are a chain of rocks and reefs disputed between China, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

The fact that relevant sides sent weapons and bombers ... not only violates Vietnams sovereignty but also jeopardizes the situation in the area, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told a press briefing.

We call for parties to responsibly contribute to the maintenance of peace, stability and security in the East Sea, she said, using the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea.

Chinas militarization of its bases in the sea region, however, is set to continue.

Satellite imagery showed three fighter jets at Woody Island on Aug. 13. What appear to be two Shaanxi Y-9 military transport aircraft landed on Woody Island on Aug. 17, along with a surveillance plane.

Another surveillance plane and military transport aircraft is visible at Fiery Cross Reef, one of Chinas biggest military bases in the Spratly chain of features in the South China Sea, on Aug. 16.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, with contributions from RFA's Vietnamese Service.
Ukraine has great tourism potential in terms of nature, but there is still work to be done in infrastructure.

Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko said this on the air of the 1+1 TV channel, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

We have a huge potential in terms of nature. But in terms of infrastructure, we have something to work on, Tkachenko said.

He recalled that on August 18, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree "On measures to support the cultural sector, protection of cultural heritage, development of creative industries and tourism."

The document is aimed at promoting the development of Ukraines cultural potential, preserving, promoting and the effective use of the national cultural heritage, creating conditions for the tourist attractiveness of cultural heritage sites and supporting the creative economy.

The program is designed for four years. At least UAH 55 billion will be spent on it, Tkachenko added.

ish
The Heights checked the boxes for Mizzen+Main, a Dallas-based retailer of dress shirts and casual menswear .

Its store, which sells clothing made of performance fabrics with a little stretch and wicking properties, opened at 707 Yale St. near Heights Mercantile on Aug. 17. The opening, originally planned in spring, was delayed due to the coronavirus.

It is the seventh brick-and-mortar location for the brand, which got its start in 2012 after founder Kevin Lavelle on a hot day in Washington, D.C., watched congressmen, staffers and interns sweat in their cotton dress shirts. He set out to create the worlds most comfortable dress shirt.

The company ramped up in 2014, selling both online and wholesale. Its products are available at more than 800 locations, including menswear shops and Nordstrom.

After opening its first Mizzen+Main store in Fort Worth in 2017, others followed in Dallas, Oklahoma City, Coral Gables, Fla., Tampa and Austin as part of the companys omnichannel strategy.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Sterling Group closes largest fund to date during pandemic

It is the latest retailer to grow its physical store presence after starting out online. Others include Warby Parker, an eyewear chain, Tecovas, a handcrafted boots store, and Madison Reed, a hair color products company.

Mizzen+Main looks at markets where sales have been strong through the other channels in selecting spots for its own stores.

We were really thrilled to get into the Houston market, said CEO Chris Phillips. Its one weve been eyeing for a long time.

On a trip to scout out locations last fall, Phillips noticed young professionals milling about the shops and restaurants in the Heights, and knew it was right on target for the brand.

The new modern-style building with glass store fronts on Yale Street in an affluent neighborhood near downtown fit the bill.

Radom Capital developed the multitenant building, which complements Heights Mercantile across the street. The Houston-based company also developed Heights Mercantile, but no longer owns it.

It was a no brainer to pick the Heights location because its squarely rooted where our customers are, Phillips said.

Sales from brick and mortar operations represent the smallest, but fastest-growing segment of the business for Mizzen+Main, Phillips said. He declined to disclose revenue.

The company, which closed all its stores from mid March until late May, received support from the governments Payroll Protection Program loan program, Phillips said.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Online hair color startup Madison Reed to open stores in Houston

The temporary closures gave Mizzen+Main a chance to develop strategies for reopening as well as new offerings such as curbside delivery that could be integrated into future stores, Phillips said. It also worked on technology to help build personal connections with clients by sending texts and emails about products, similar to a personal shopper.

We were able to take all of those learnings and bring them into the Houston opening, Phillips said.

Mizzen+Main follows local safety guidelines at all its stores, incorporating mask wearing, hand sanitizer and markers for social distancing.

The retail stores bring awareness to the brand, and once people try, they often buy.

Our retail stores are just incredible footprints where guys can experience the brand firsthand, Phillips said. The conversion rates are extremely high.

katherine.feser@chron.com

twitter.com/kfeser
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  A senior citizens advocate said there are elderly people who complain about not being allowed to go to work during this pandemic.

Elderly advocate Atty. Romulo Macalintal told CNN Philippines Newsroom Ngayon that one of the challenges senior citizens are facing for the last five months is their inability to earn a living.

He said in many areas, senior citizens are forced to stay home despite having the capacity to work.

Ang nirereklamo nga ng ibang kasamahan namin ay bakit pipigilian silang magtrabaho o lumabas ng kanilang tahanan gayong kaya pa naman nilang magtrabaho, said Macalintal in light of the celebration of World Senior Citizens Day every Aug. 21 to increase awareness of issues that affect the elderly.

[Translation: Some senior citizens complain why they are prohibited to go to work or even go out of their homes even though they are still capable of working.]

Macalintal cited President Rodrigo Duterte and other members of the Cabinet who are already senior citizens, but are allowed to go out and work.

Moreover, he noted that even though many seniors receive pension, it is not sufficient for their everyday living that is why there are those who still need to earn extra income especially now that the country is experiencing serious economic crisis.

He made an appeal to the government to at least relax restrictions for the older people.

Under the omnibus guidelines on the implementation of community quarantine in the country, anyone with age below 21 years old and those 60 years old and above are required to stay home at all times, except under certain conditions like buying essential goods and services or for work in industries allowed to operate depending on the community quarantine classification.

The health department has also encouraged the elderly population to remain in their residences since COVID-19 fatality rate among them is high.
Alexei Navalny's wife Yulia, center, and Navalny's colleague Ivan Zhdanov, left, arrive at the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk, Russia, on Friday. Read more

MOSCOW  The family and allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been in a coma for more than a day, were fighting Friday to get him flown to a top German medical facility from a Siberian hospital, but local doctors refused to authorize the transfer. After much wrangling, German physicians were allowed to see him, an associate said.

Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday, following a suspected poisoning that his supporters believe was engineered by the Kremlin.

A plane with German specialists and equipment necessary to transfer Navalny landed at Omsk airport on Friday morning, prepared to take the politician to a top clinic in Berlin. But doctors at the Siberian hospital said his condition was too unstable to transport him.

Navalnys supporters denounced the medical verdict as a ploy by the authorities to stall until any poison would no longer be traceable in his system. But a senior doctor in Omsk said no poison had been so far found in Navalnys body.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he wasnt aware of any instructions to stop the transfer and that it was purely a medical decision.

It may pose a threat to his health, Peskov said.

Leonid Volkov, a close associate of Navalny, said Friday that German doctors now have access to him after they were initially not allowed to see him.

Volkov said even though that was good news, Navalnys family and allies still lacked any reliable independent data on his condition and were standing by their demand that he needs to be brought to Germany.

We are still very far away from having this situation resolved, he said at a news conference.

Navalnys wife told reporters that hospital staff and men she suspected were law enforcement operatives didnt let her speak to the German specialists, who she said were brought into the facility in secrecy, through a back door.

I was forcibly kicked out in a rude manner, Yulia Navalnaya said, her voice shaking. This is an appalling situation. They are not letting us take Alexei. We believe that clearly something is being hidden from us.

She submitted a written request for a transfer on Friday to Putin.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents and insisted that the transfer is paramount to saving the politicians life.

The ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life, Navalnys spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted.

German officials have been in contact with both Russians and a private group that sent a plane to pick Navalny up.

Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Navalnys physician in Moscow, told The Associated Press on Friday that there are no conditions, with the exception of severe and multiple traumas, in which patients can not be transported these days.

Being on a plane with specialized equipment, including a ventilator and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, can be even safer than staying in a hospital in Omsk, Ashikhmin said.

Yarmysh posted pictures of what she said was a bathroom inside the hospital that showed squalid conditions, including walls with paint peeling off, rusting pipes, and a dirty floor and walls.

While his supporters and family members continue to insist that Navalny was poisoned, Omsk hospital deputy chief doctor, Anatoly Kalinichenko, said that doctors didnt find any trace of poison and dont believe the patient suffered from poisoning.

Omsk news outlet NGS55 published a video statement of the hospitals chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, saying that a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis and that a drop in blood sugar may have caused Navalny to lose consciousness.

Navalny will remain in Omsk until his condition stabilizes, Murakhovsky said on Friday evening after a meeting with German doctors.

Navalnys supporters questioned the diagnosis.

Theyre not allowing the transport of Alexei because of a metabolic disorder and a plunge in blood sugar?! Ivan Zhdanov, a close ally of Navalny, said in a tweet.

Another doctor with ties to Navalny, Dr. Anastasia Vasilyeva, who flew to Omsk with the politicians wife on Thursday, said poisoning with a toxic substance could have caused a metabolic disorder.

Ashikhmin, whos been Navalnys doctor since 2013, said the politician has always been in good health, regularly went for medical checkups and didnt have any underlying illnesses that could have triggered his condition.

European Union spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said Friday the the 27-nation bloc expects a swift, independent, transparent investigation into what happened to Navalny. The EU and urged Russian authorities to stand by their promises to allow Mr. Navalny to be safely and speedily transferred abroad in order to receive medical treatment in line with the wishes of his family, she said.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalny set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of the ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in the countrys Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the regions governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

_____

Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber and David Rising in Berlin, and Daniel Kozin in Omsk, Russia, contributed to this report.
One of the most exciting stories in the Bible has faded into obscurity. Likely due to some of its graphic content, we dont see this one often taught in Sunday school or preached in a sermon on Sunday.

After the Israelites had entered the Promised Land, they succumbed to idols and the practices of the world around them, and the countries which bordered theirs. Because of this, God placed rulers known as judges in the land (hence why an entire book of the Bible bears the name Judges, to show the accounts of these people). One such judge was the left-handed man Ehud, who turned out to be rather good with a weapon in his hands.

In this article, well dive into the nature of the rule of the judges, more about the man of Ehud, and why we should care about both subjects as Christians today.

Who Was Ehud?

Ehud only gets eighteen verses, but boy, does he make them count (Judges 3:12-30).

Scripture doesnt give us many details about him, other than that he hails from the tribe of Benjamin. God appoints him as the second judge of Israel, after Israel does evil and ends up taken over by Eglon, the fat king of Moab. The Bible also mentions that Ehud is left-handed. This plays an important role in the story.

Although the Bible doesnt tell us whether most people used their right hand, we dont find any other mentions of someone preferring their left hand in the Bible. The Biblical Archaeology Society suggests the recessive trait of left handedness came specifically from the tribe of Benjamin. This, of course, would make sense then why Ehud has this trait.

But we can hazard a guess, based on what happens in the narrative, that not too many people in the ancient world used their left hands dominantly.

Let's take a look at the Bible story:

Judges 3:12-20: "Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and because they did this evil the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years. Again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a delivererEhud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way those who had carried it. But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal he himself went back to Eglon and said, Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you. The king said to his attendants, Leave us! And they all left. Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, I have a message from God for you. As the king rosefrom his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the kings belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the palace. They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead. While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the stone images and escaped to Seirah. When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them. Follow me, he ordered, for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands. So they followed him down and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab; they allowed no one to cross over. At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not one escaped. That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years."

Why Did Israel Need Judges?

For those of us who have read past Judges in the Old Testament, we know that Israel eventually has kings rule over them. So why did God implement judges? Why didnt he start with kings first?

First, God recognized Israels sinful nature. Without a proper ruler in place, they would have succumbed to anarchy like they had back when Moses had gone to retrieve the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32). This meant he needed to put someone with authority over Israel to guide them back to the path of righteousness.

Second, as Chuck Swindoll explains, whenever God puts a judge in place, Israel has gotten itself into a pickle and has ended up oppressed by one of their neighbors (Moabites, Philistines, etc.). The judge would overthrow whatever foreign ruler had taken over Israel and restore the nation.

In Scripture we often see judges, prophets, and others work in a cyclical nature. Once the judge disappeared, Israels restoration would end and theyd revert back to their sinful ways until another judge appeared on the scene to rescue them from whoevers clutches the nation ended up in.

Third, God doesnt jump to kingship right away for a reason. We get hints of why when Israel demands a king in 1 Samuel 8, and ends up with the less-than-perfect King Saul. Every other nation had a king. Israel wanted to jump in on the fad.

But kings who didnt follow after Gods own heart had tyrannical tendencies, and God makes this clear. As we witness in the Old Testament narrative, the kings of Israel end up causing far more damage than any other ruler could. They split the kingdom, fight wars constantly, and end up getting themselves taken into a seventy-year captivity in Assyria and Babylon.

Nevertheless, God recognized the need for Israel to have a ruler to guide them back to the right way of living. Enter the judges.

What Happens in the Story of Ehud?

Ehud straps an eighteen-inch sword to his right side (where a left-handed person would grab a sword) and goes to the king of Moab, Eglon, to deliver a secret message and present tribute.

After guards likely checked his left side (where right-handed people would grab a sword) for weapons, he strides confidently into the palace with a weapon hidden underneath his clothing.

Once he convinces the king to get them secluded in the private upper room of the palace to hear the secret message, he stabs King Eglon with the sword. King Eglon is so large that his fat absorbs the hilt, and he dies.

Unfortunately for Eglon, he chose the inner room, which was synonymous with a restroom. So while Ehud makes his daring escape, after locking the doors to the room, the servants awkwardly wait outside for the king to finish relieving himself.

After some time of determining the king has spent far too long in the bathroom, they unlock the doors to check on the king  only to find he had died.

The Israelites take back their city and strike down tens of thousands of Moabites, thanks to Ehud.

What Can We Learn from Ehud?

This seems like a strange story to glean a life lesson from, other than dont lock yourself in the bathroom with an assassin. But we can actually learn a great deal from this left-handed judge.

First, God can use abilities and traits others might see as inferior or out of the norm. Although today wed argue that being left-handed is not an inferior trait, most of history did not hold the same view.

Nevertheless, because Ehud preferred his left hand, the guards who checked him didnt even think to look for a weapon on the side where he hid it. Because of this, he successfully carried out the assassination of the king.

Second, we learn that sin has consequences. Every time Israel fell prey to foreign worship practices, they ended up oppressed by a foreign power. In the case of Ehuds story, they wound up under the rule of the Moabites.

Still, God heard their cries and sent salvation in the form of a left-handed judge.

Finally, we can actually learn a lesson from Eglon too: be careful about pride and confidence. Eglon dropped his guard and let Ehud into his inner room upstairs to hear a secret message, from a stranger hed never encountered before. This led to his downfall and a rather gory death.

A great ruler has humility and exercises discernment. This we can learn as a warning from the large king of Moab.

Photo credit: Getty Images/Tomertu

Hope Bolinger is a multi-published novelist and a graduate of Taylor University's professional writing program. More than 1,200 of her works have been featured in various publications ranging from Writer's Digest to Keys for Kids. She has worked for various publishing companies, magazines, newspapers, and literary agencies and has edited the work of authors such as Jerry B. Jenkins and Michelle Medlock Adams. Her modern-day Daniel trilogy is out with IlluminateYA. She is also the co-author of the Dear Hero duology, which was published by INtense Publications. And her inspirational adult romance Picture Imperfect releases in November of 2021. Find out more about her at her website.
Neil Skilbeck (pictured) has been slugged with up to $5,000 in fees for using toll roads in Brisbane

A motorist has revealed how he has managed to avoid paying road tolls for more than three years.

Neil Skilbeck has been billed about $5,000 in tolls on Brisbane's roads.

But the retired chiropractor, who uses toll roads at least twice a week, hasn't paid a cent.

He says the best way to avoid paying is to fight them - using the Australian constitution.

Mr Skilbeck uses sections s115 and s92 of the Australian constitution, which makes it illegal to take away a person's right to pay a debt using legal tender and the right to free trade.

'I also said I was not obliged to pay the toll as I had not entered a legally binding contract with the company,' he told the Courier Mail.

The retired chiropractor uses toll roads in Brisbane (pictured) at least twice a week, but hasn't paid a cent

'For the fee to be legal, the company's terms and conditions have to be clearly displayed for the driver to decide whether to accept them or not  and that does not happen on the motorway.'

The dogged toll dodger explained that since companies don't allow drivers to pay the 'alleged debt' in coins, it is tantamount to them refusing the payment.

He then started charging Linkt $300 every time he was forced to send a reply to their letters.

His final letter to the company was in May 2019, when he told them to set up a court hearing, allowing both parties to argue before a tribunal.

A month later the Transport Department got in touch regarding his unpaid bills.

And again, Mr Skilbeck offered to argue the issue in court.

He says the best way to avoid paying is to fight the fees. He has done by citing sections s115 and s92 of the Australian Constitution, which makes it illegal to take away a person's right to pay a debt using legal tender and the right to free trade

But instead of taking the case to court, the department reviewed the matter and waived all fees.

Mr Skilbeck is encouraging others to fight their fees too as he believes Linkt's operations are unconstitutional.

He has joined a class action, launched by Hilton Bradley Lawyers, seeking compensation for those slugged additional administrative charges for not paying tolls on time.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Linkt for comment.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 14:29:33|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The premier of South Australia (SA) has urged the nation's COVID-safe states to open their borders and reunite families.

Premier of SA Steven Marshall said it was wrong that states with no community transmission of COVID-19 such as Western Australia (WA) and Tasmania were keeping their borders closed to SA, describing the closures as an impediment to economic growth and detrimental to mental health.

"We have opened up to Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania," said Marshall, according to the report form News Corp Australia on Friday.

"We are disappointed that Western Australians and Tasmanians can come into South Australia but, to date, we have not been able to go into their states. Many South Australians are dislocated from their families due to those states' border restrictions. It would be great to see those borders lifted for SA."

"Many people could live with it for weeks or months but now some states are saying they're not going to be open to South Australians until December and that is a body blow for many South Australians and I really feel for them at this time."

South Australia has had 462 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, which is fewer than every state except Tasmania which has had 230.

Its borders remain closed to Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) -- both of which have ongoing community transmission of the virus -- and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) because of the territory sitting within NSW.

Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham has repeatedly called for travel between states and territories to restart. He recently urged states and territories to consider adopting a similar approach in SA where there has been a willingness to open up to other states who have had similar success in suppressing the spread of COVID-19. Enditem
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Linkedin Jocelyne Zablit (Agence France-Presse) Los Angeles, United States  Fri, August 21, 2020 08:13 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6861e 2 World california,wildfire Free

Thousands of people fled their homes in northern California on Wednesday as hundreds of fast-moving wildfires spread across the region, burning houses and leading to the death of a helicopter pilot.

In Vacaville -- a city of about 100,000 people located between the state capital Sacramento and San Francisco -- residents were urged to evacuate during the night as the wind-whipped flames swallowed dozens of homes.

Many were awakened by neighbors or firefighters desperately banging on their doors, and rushed out dressed only in their pajamas. Several suffered burns as they ran for their lives.

Evacuation orders or warnings were also issued in other counties -- including the wine regions of Sonoma and Napa -- where fires sparked by lightning are raging unchecked amid a sweltering heat wave.

Cal Fire officials said the series of fires in that region, dubbed the LNU Lightning Complex, had destroyed 50 homes, burned through nearly 50,000 acres and were zero percent contained by early Wednesday evening.

They added that a helicopter pilot taking part in the firefighting efforts in Fresno County, southeast of San Francisco, had died in a crash as he was attempting to drop water.

In Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties a series of fires called the CZU Lightning Complex forced the shutdown of portions of the iconic coastal Highway 1 as flames came close to the road.

Officials said the region's rugged terrain and dry vegetation were making it difficult to combat the blaze.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who has declared a state of emergency to facilitate the release of emergency funds, said the wildfires had been caused by thousands of lightning strikes in recent days in the Bay Area.

'10,849 lightning strikes'

"CA has experienced 10,849 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours and WORLD RECORD heat temperatures," Newsom said in a tweet. "We're currently battling 367 known fires."

He told reporters that 23 of those fires were considered major blazes.

Newsom added that fire departments in other states, including Nevada, Arizona and Texas, were sending reinforcements to help fight the wildfires that are fueled by record-breaking heat and low humidity.

Cal Fire spokesman Jeremy Rahn said that in all, the fires had so far burned more than 300,000 acres across the state.

"Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite," he told a press briefing. "The size and complexity at which these incidents are burning is challenging all aspects of emergency response."

In the past week, California's Death Valley has been experiencing historic high temperatures, with the mercury rising as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius).

Nearly 45 million people across the western United States were under an excessive heat warning or heat advisory Wednesday.

The scorching temperatures have put a massive strain on California's power network, with blackouts leaving nearly 50,000 people without service, according to Poweroutage.us.

The fires have also affected air quality in the northern part of the state, where falling ash forced some residents to remain indoors.

"The air quality will be very poor for the foreseeable future given rapid spread of fires and stagnant air mass," the National Weather Service in the Bay Area tweeted.

Wildfires have become more frequent and bigger in California in recent years, in part driven by climate change.

The deadliest fire in the state's history -- the Camp Fire -- took place in northern California in November 2018 and killed 86 people.

Also Wednesday, Washington state Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency over a series of wildfires.

"Wildfires are threatening the safety and livelihoods of Washingtonians all across the state," Inslee said in a statement.

"And the COVID-19 pandemic has put additional strain on our resources, as some of our usual support is further limited due to international movement restrictions."

Several major wildfires were also burning in the state of Colorado, where hot, dry conditions were fueling the flames.

Topics : california wildfire
The wife of jailed Chinese rights lawyer Yu Wensheng has warned that he could face disability as a result of his continued detention, amid warnings that he is vulnerable to torture or other forms of mistreatment.



Yu was jailed for four years in June by Xuzhou Intermediate People's Court in the eastern province of Jiangsu, after it found him guilty of "incitement to subvert state power" in a secret trial.



He had already been held for nearly three years in pretrial detention, with no access to family visits or to a defense attorney.



"They haven't allowed me or our children to visit Yu Wensheng once in more than three years," Yu's wife Xu Yan told RFA in a recent interview. "This is inhumane in the extreme, and a violation of the law."



Xu repeated concerns for her husband's health.



"If he remains in detention, his right hand could be permanently disabled, and even his whole right arm, too," she said.



Fellow rights lawyer Wang Yu said Yu has been at high risk of torture throughout his detention.



"[Yu's] family members and fellow lawyers are very concerned that he has been abused and tortured during this period," Wang said in a message to RFA.



Yu was indicted on Feb. 1, 2019 and his case handed over to the municipal prosecutor in Jiangsu's Xuzhou city. His lawyers made dozens of attempts to visit him, but all requests were denied.



He was held under "residential surveillance at a designated location" (RSDL), a form of detention used in cases allegedly involving matters of state security.



The measure, which enables the authorities to deny access to lawyers or family visits, has been repeatedly used to target human rights lawyers, and is associated with a higher risk of torture and other mistreatment, rights groups said.



Torture commonplace



U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said the authorities had broken their own laws and trampled on due process, and that the torture of political prisoners under the ruling Chinese Communist Party is commonplace.



"This shows that China is a country without the rule of law or basic human rights protections," Teng said.



"Human rights defenders and dissidents are being constantly persecuted by the authorities... and the persecution has gotten more severe in recent years," he said.



Shortly before his detention, Yu's application to start a new law firm was rejected over comments he made "opposing Communist Party rule and attacking the countrys socialist legal system."



Yu had earlier described being beaten up and tortured in handcuffs by police in Daxing after he voiced support for the 2014 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.



Yu was also detained in October 2017 after he wrote an open letter criticizing President Xi Jinping as ill-suited to lead China due to his strengthening totalitarian rule over the country.



In August, United Nations human rights experts called on Beijing to repeal regulations allowing the use of RSDL, because they were in breach of Chinas international human rights obligations and commitments.



Previously, the Committee against Torture in its concluding observations had also expressed concern about RSDL.



Reported by Mia Ping-Chieh Chen for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Mumbai, Aug 21 : Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar will soon embark on a wild trip with TV host and adventurer Bear Grylls.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi and superstar Rajinikanth, Akshay is the next icon to feature in an upcoming episode of the show "Into The Wild With Bear Grylls".

Akshay shared the news on social media, with a motion poster of his episode.

"You thinking I mad... but mad only going into the wild. #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls," he captioned the picture.

In the teaser, the actor and the host are seen in a jungle environment, swinging towards each other on ropes.

The special episode will premiere on September 11 on Discovery+, and September 14 on Discovery channel.

The show features Bear Grylls taking prominent stars on 48-hour journeys into the wild, where they are faced with inhospitable conditions.

In 2019, PM Narendra Modi had joined Grylls for a special episode of the adventure-survival series as they visited and shot in the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand.

Later, Rajinikanth and Grylls explored Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Karnataka. They shot for the episode for six hours in a day in the forest area.

At the moment, Akshay is currently in the UK, where he has commenced the shoot of his upcoming film, "BellBottom".
MINSK -- Belarusian opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has filed an official complaint against the results of the August 9 presidential election, saying her compatriots "will never accept" the leadership of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka again.

Demonstrations and strikes have erupted across Belarus over the past 13 days in protest at what many have called a "rigged" presidential election in which Lukashenka claimed a landslide reelection victory -- posing the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule.

"It should be clear to the president that there is a need for change. I hope that good sense prevails and the people will be heard and there will be new elections," Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on August 21 at her first press conference since fleeing to Lithuania last week after a disputed presidential election.



Tsikhanouskaya told reporters in Vilnius that she plans to return to Belarus "when I feel safe there."

Tsikhanouskaya's lawyer Maksim Znak on August 21 filed a complaint with the Belarusian Supreme Court requesting the election be ruled invalid.

"A complaint has been submitted. A decision on when to start proceedings is due within three days," Znak, a leading member of the opposition's Coordination Council, said on August 21.

Znak and Syarhey Dyleuski, another member of the council, were summoned for questioning on August 21 at the headquarters of the Investigative Committee in a criminal case accusing the council of trying to seize power.

Dozens of supporters accompanied them.

Znak said on entering that he feared he might be arrested. But when he emerged later, he said he had "productive discussions" and would get back to work.

In a video address released earlier in the day, Tsikhanouskaya called on workers in the country's state-owned factories and companies to continue striking despite "intimidation" from the authorities.



"If we all stand together, this regime will not stand a chance," the 37-year-old political novice added.

Many of the country's biggest and most important state companies have seen work stoppages, as workers have joined thousands of anti-government demonstrators.

But addressing workers in the Dzerzhinsk region, Lukashenka said the protests "should not worry you" and accused the United States of "directing" demonstrators.

"This is my problem, which I must resolve and which we are resolving. And believe me, in the coming days it will be resolved," he said, according to state news agency BelTA.

Tsikhanouskaya ran in the August 9 election after other potential candidates, including her husband, were jailed or exiled prior to the election during a crackdown on the opposition.

Official results gave her about 10 percent of the vote, but she claims to have actually received between 60 and 70 percent.



Tsikhanouskaya has joined with some strike leaders, opposition activists, and cultural figures to form a Coordination Council aimed at negotiating a transition of power with the Belarusian government.



But Lukashenka has refused and rejected demands for a new presidential election, instead accusing the council of plotting a coup.

Two leading members of the Coordination Council -- Maksim Znak and Syarhey Dyleuski -- were summoned by investigators on August 21 for questioning, a day after the Prosecutor-General's Office opened a criminal inquiry against the councils founders on charges of threatening national security.



The council members rejected the accusations, insisting that their actions have been in full compliance with Belarusian law.



The popular protests that erupted after the August 9 vote gave Lukashenka a fresh six-year term have turned into the biggest challenge to his 26 years in office.



About 7,000 people were detained, hundreds were injured, and three people died in a crackdown on protesters. Some of those who have been released since have complained of beatings and terrible conditions while in detention.

Unfazed by the pressure, thousands of demonstrators on August 21 formed "chains of solidarity" across the capital before marching to the central Independence Square. Drivers honked and slowed down to block traffic in a show of solidarity.

The UN Human Rights Office raised alarm at allegations of the large-scale torture and ill-treatment of people including of journalists and particularly alarmingly of children, during arrests and in detention" and called for objective investigations into the claims.



"We are particularly worried that the fate and whereabouts of at least eight people remain unknown," the office said in a statement.

The European Union has said it does not recognize the result of the election because of irregularities and will soon impose sanctions on Lukashenka's government.



In a statement on August 21, the EU spokeswoman for foreign policy and security affairs urged Belarusian authorities to drop the criminal case against the Coordination Council and to instead "engage in a dialogue in view of moving towards a peaceful way out of the current crisis."

The previous day, EU Council President Charles Michel tweeted that he held another phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is Lukashenka's closest ally, and told him that the only solution to the Belarus crisis was "political inclusive dialogue & a peaceful and democratic process."



During the call, Michel said the bloc's goals for the crisis were to stop violence against protesters and ensure that the country does not slide into chaos, according to a senior EU official.



"Nobody wants a repeat of what happened in Ukraine," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.



"The EU is seeking to support stability, talks between authorities, the opposition and the broader society, economic prosperity, without tilting the geopolitical balance for Belarus between the EU and Russia."

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Belarusian counterpart, Uladzimer Makey, emphasized in a phone call that resolving the crisis in Belarus "did not require foreign interference," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on August 21.

"It was pointed out that foreign players needed to respect Belarus's sovereignty and independence and put an end to attempts to provoke confrontation within Belarusian society and undermine efforts to improve the situation," a statement said.

Makey issued his own statement, saying that EU sanctions would be viewed as unfriendly actions that damage the sovereignty of the country.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on August 20 that the United States remains deeply concerned by "serious flaws" in Belarus's election, adding that Washington was in support of international efforts to independently look into reported electoral irregularities and human rights abuses surrounding the vote.



Pompeo also urged the Belarusian government to actively engage" Belarusian society, including through the Coordination Council.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP
MELBOURNE/SINGAPORE, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Western Australia's industrial safety regulator said it will provide an update later on Friday on the outcome of Chevron Corp's inspections of two of the three processing units at its giant Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant.

Traders are keenly awaiting word as the Gorgon plant produces 15.6 million tonnes of LNG annually, or about 4.5% of the global trade in LNG in 2019.

The regulator ordered Chevron two weeks ago to carry out the inspections on propane heat exchangers on Trains 1 and 3 at the plant by Aug. 21, after weld problems were found on propane kettles in Train 2 during scheduled maintenance.

If problems are found in the kettle welds of Trains 1 and 3, Chevron may have to shut them for repair. Train 2 is due to be restarted in early September after maintenance was extended for two months for the weld repairs.

Chevron had no immediate comment on the outcome of the inspections.

The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety said it would provide an update on Friday.

Two Singapore-based LNG traders said Chevron has informed Gorgon customers it can supply them from Wheatstone and North West Shelf LNG, raising speculation Trains 1 and 3 will be shut.

The company is also in the market looking to buy LNG cargoes for October through December, the traders said.

"It will be a bullish winter if a big (supply) source like this has issues, especially if it is a cold winter," one of the traders said.

Chevron declined to comment on customer contracts, as they are confidential.

Chevron is operator and 47.3% owner of Gorgon. Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Group each own 25% stakes in the project, while Japan's Osaka Gas, Tokyo Gas and JERA hold the remainder.

(Reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne and Jessica Jaganathan in Singapore; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Kathmandu, August 21

Nepali women across the country are celebrating the annual Teej festival on Friday. However, outdoor celebrations have been massively curtailed this time due to the Covid-19 fears with prohibitory orders in effect in several districts.

Women fast and wish for a prosperous life of their spouses on this festival, which falls on the third day of the waxing moon in the lunar month of Bhadra. Women rejoice with various delicious dishes known as dar a day before Teej and fast on the next day as per the tradition.

Women on this day take ritual baths in the morning and offer worships in the afternoon and evening. They pay homage to Lord Shiva, light lamps and spend the night awake. The festivity comes to an end on the fifth day of the fortnight after worshipping the legendary Saptarshi (seven sages).

Whereas singing and dancing at temple premises and other public places used to be an essential feature of the festival, no public celebrations have been seen this year. Most of the temples are closed to avoid mass gatherings so as to prevent the virus spread. Consequently, most of the women are celebrating the festival indoors.
Since it has plenary legislative power, the normal challenge to Illinois Legislative action is not that the legislature exercised powers not granted to it by the Illinois Constitution. Rather the challenge is normally that the legislature improperly delegated its legislative power. But while the General Assembly may not give away its legislative powers, it may set up a general statutory scheme designed to reach a result and leave details for reaching it to a governmental agency. Such a delegation would be subject to oversight by the General Assembly and review by the courts to determine whether the agency has overstepped its authority. But an agency may not be left free to carry out the legislative purpose as it sees t without any standards, or allowed to determine to whom a law will apply.

Under the Illinois Constitution, the legislative and executive branches are separate, and "No branch shall exercise powers properly belonging to another," according to Article 2, Section 1. As such, there are limits to how much power the legislature can give to the Governor. Moreover, the Illinois Legislature cannot make laws or delegate powers where doing so would be prohibited by either Constitution or either Bill of Rights.
By Ayya Lmahamad

The volume of bilateral trade between Azerbaijan and Mexico amounted to $34.5 million during the period of January-July 2020, making Mexico one of Azerbaijans main trade partners among Latin America countries.

The bilateral trade between two countries showed positive dynamics despite the crisis over COVID-19.

Trade turnover in July increased by 13 percent compared to June, the Mexican Embassy in Azerbaijan told local media on August 20. However, the total value of trade turnover decreased by 5 percent during the first seven months of the year, compared to the same period in 2019

It should be noted that Mexico ranks 26th among the countries importing goods from Azerbaijan.

The main product exported from Mexico to Azerbaijan is related to to energy and transport sectors, mainly reflected in the sale of pipes for the oil sector and cars of various size used for urban transport.

Earlier, it was reported that the volume of Azerbaijans trade operations amounted to $15.3 billion in the period between January - July, 2020.

Some $5.9 billion of trade operations fell on imports and $9.1 billion on exports.

Likewise, during the first six months of the year, Ecuador, Mexico and Spain were top Spanish-speaking countries with which Azerbaijan conducted most trade transactions.

Trade turnover with Spain amounted to $158.9 million, with Mexico to $30.4 million and with Ecuador to $21.9 million.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Economists warn the federal budget will face even bigger deficits by the end of 2030 unless Australia adopts new policies to attract skilled migrants when international borders open.

The independent Parliamentary Budget Office on Friday released an updated analysis of coronavirus' impact on the economy, revealing net debt will be up to $800 billion higher in 2029-30 than it would have been without the pandemic and international travel restrictions.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will in October deliver his first budget since COVID-19 began. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

Seven weeks out from Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's first budget since COVID-19 began, the PBO has estimated the government will face a record $178 billion deficit this year and a $47 billion bigger shortfall in the 2021-22 election year.

The closest the federal government will get to being back to pre-coronavirus estimates, on these forecasts, is a $29 billion deficit in 2027-28.
Alexander Murakhovsky, Head Physician of Omsk Ambulance Hospital No 1, talks to journalists - TASS

An ambulance carrying gravely ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny arrived at Berlin's Charite hospital on Saturday, shortly after a plane that carried him from Russia landed at one of the German capital's airports.

Mr Navalny, Russias most outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was hospitalised on Thursday and remained unconscious after suddenly falling ill during a flight to Moscow from Siberia.

His wife Yulia personally appealed to Mr Putin to allow him to travel after doctors refused her request for most of the day, saying his condition was unstable, before reversing their decision.

Several of Mr Navalnys aides said the doctors deliberately delayed so that foreign medics would be unable to discover any toxins in his system, and were taking instruction from Russian officials.

Spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh called the delay an attempt on his life. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, have expressed concern over the apparent poisoning, while US Democratic candidate Joe Biden called it unacceptable.

After Mr Navalny's arrival in Germany, Ms Yarmysh said: "The fight for Alexei's life and health are just beginning. There is still much to do but this is at least a first step."

Ms Yarmysh said a team of German doctors were allowed to see Mr Navalny in the Russian hospital on Friday afternoon, but were barred from talking with his family. Supporters had been in contact with a German NGO which arranged for his transfer.

The hospital, in the Siberian city of Omsk where the plane was forced to make an emergency landing after Mr Navalny began crying out in pain on Thursday, saw a heavy police presence.

Georgy Alburov, who works at the opposition leaders anti-corruption organisation, wrote on Twitter: It feels like we are organising a jailbreak for Navalny, not trying to move him from hospital to hospital.

Story continues

Earlier in the day, Ivan Zhdanov, head of the anti-corruption organisation, said officials had found a substance in Mr Navalnys system that was dangerous not only to Alexei, but also for those around him, and that everyone should be in protective suits.

But doctors later appeared to backtrack, telling journalists no evidence had been found to suggest a poisoning. Hospital head Alexander Murakhovsky said Mr Navalny had been diagnosed with a likely metabolic disease caused by low blood sugar, which may have caused his collapse on a flight.

Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer and key ally of Mr Navalny who has worked with him for ten years, told the Telegraph her colleague was strong as an ox and had never suffered from the condition the Siberian doctors described.

Officials at the hospital were literally running away from Mr Navalnys team in order to avoid giving them any information, she said. Some protesters have held pickets in Moscow and other Russian cities in support of Mr Navalny, but Ms Sobol said there were no plans yet to call for larger demonstrations.

Mr Navalnys spokeswoman alleged he was poisoned from a cup of tea at the airport before boarding the flight to Moscow.

Video taken by another passenger on the flight shows stewards with first aid kits walking to treat a man crying out in pain. In another video, Mr Navalny is shown being transferred on a stretcher to an ambulance waiting on the tarmac. Activists and journalists have been repeatedly attacked in Russia, including former opposition leader Boris Nemtsov who was killed in a drive-by shooting near the Kremlin five years ago.

Berlin's Charite Hospital, where Mr Navalny is set to be treated in Germany, is one of the country's foremost teaching hospitals. It is where Russian activist Petr Verzilov was treated when he was flown out of Russia after falling ill from a suspected poisoning in 2018.
Michael de Adders cartoon depiction of a frightened child caught in the middle of a tug of war between parents and bureaucrats raises the question  how safe it is for Ontarios two million students to return to school in the middle of a global pandemic?

Education Minister Stephen Lecce has been stitching together a back-to-school plan that is constantly changing. Parents are uncertain whether they should send their children back or keep them home to pursue virtual learning.

Boards of education are in the process of deciding staffing numbers for their schools. Yet the Ministry of Education has rejected a return-to-school plan submitted by the Toronto District School Board, prompting a two-week delay to the start of classes in that board, the largest in this country.

This staggered approach pleases many school boards as they have more time to get their plans in order after returning to the drawing board. It will also mean less school time for students and more frustration for parents. In hindsight, the government should have had an organized plan in place months ago by committing to a more generous funding model for these unique circumstances.

The nervous expression on the face of the child in De Adders cartoon reflects the way everyone is feeling.

Lets hope for the best.

Robert Ariano, Scarborough

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A NEW art gallery will be opening in Henley tomorrow (Saturday).

A soft launch will be held from 10am to 5pm at Henley Fine Art Gallery, which replaces the former Louise Claire Millinery in Market Place.

Louise Walton left the town after 15 months in September 2016, saying there was too much uncertainty over the development of Market Place Mews.

Since then, the unit has only been used for pop-up businesses and as an office space for Catalyst Capital, which is carrying out the development.

The new gallery will be run by the owners of Barnes Fine Art Gallery in London and it will stock hundreds of paintings, which people can try out in their homes for free before purchasing them.

Jennie Stuart-Smith, the gallery owner, will divide her time equally between the two locations and has recruited Lee Dixon as the gallery manager.

She said: I was in Henley on Monday and the town has already taken to us. It was the first time we closed our London gallery and we were putting the final bits and pieces together.

We sell big landscape pieces and we are confident in allowing people to borrow them.

As well as bringing beautiful colour and atmosphere, it can really open up a room. We will always have something beautiful for people to look at.

We have hundreds of beautiful paintings available to try free of charge and we are experts at leading clients through the process of discovering and finding the perfect piece or pieces.

We blend the tastes of the household and bring the joy and uplifting sense of happiness and contentment that beautiful artwork generates in a home.

Lee is doing two days and I am doing the same and we hope to have someone else start with us soon to allow us to open on weekends. It is a really good opportunity to get this location.

Mrs Stuart-Smith says she chose to expand into Henley because she has friends who live locally and she is confident local people will welcome the new business.

The gallery will also offer a framing service, with a free consultation and quote.

It will be open on Tuesday and Saturday from 10am to 5pm, Wednesday from 10am to 8pm and Sunday from 11am to 4pm.

Mrs Stuart-Smith lives in Barnes with her husband Simon, a physics teacher, and their children Isobel, 18, and Thomas, 17.

She is not worried about the prospect of opening the gallery in the middle of a pandemic, as she feels people are spending more money on art this year.

She added: We only opened our Barnes gallery in October and people have completely taken to us into their hearts. We have done so well there and it has allowed us to think about a second location.

Having the friends that I have in Henley, I thought it would be a similar crowd and I was looking for a new location because of how well we have been doing.

People arent able to go on holiday this year and we are seeing that they are looking to put something beautiful in their homes to brighten up their lives.

It is a very challenging time. When we closed our London gallery, we changed the windows every day to give people something new to look at and it is important to be involved as much as possible with the community.

We arent worried  fortune favours the brave. My daughter is off to university and my son is doing his A-levels next year. I see this as an opportunity to throw myself into the new gallery and you only get one shot at things like this in your life.

The gallery will feature work from 22 artists, who are mostly based in the UK and produce landscape fine art.

Exhibitions have not been held at the Barnes gallery, but Mrs Stuart-Smith says she would be open to the idea of starting them in Henley.

Customers will be asked to follow social distancing rules when they visit the gallery and numbers will be managed if necessary.

Helen Barnett, town and community manager, said: I have been talking to her for a while about coming to Henley. She thinks that Henley fits her profile very well.

We have a lot of units under offer at the moment, which are being turned into very interesting destinations. When you look at a lot of towns in the current challenging situation, there are a lot of empty shops, but we are generating a lot of interest from destination retailers and galleries.

The state of retail is changing and it is more about experience shopping and having a lovely time when you come to Henley. It is becoming a place for people who are interested in art, which I think is a really good thing.

The unit has been used by Creative Duck for a lot of pop-up events and we had the Brownies doing Christmas activities in there. Catalyst have been generous in allowing the town to use it for community events and now theyve been persuaded to have a shop there.
If I dont buy masks or medicine, I may die or survive, but if I dont buy bread for the family, we will all die of starvation, says a retired 68-year-old teacher in Damascus, explaining why he does not have masks, sterilisers or medicines. We need two bundles of loaves every day which costs us at least 600 Syrian pounds (24 US cents), but if we buy masks, they will cost us about 1000 SP (40 cents). The choice is between bread and masks.

Millions of ordinary Syrians are having to choose between buying food to eat and taking precautionary measures against coronavirus, which local witnesses say is much more widespread than the Syrian government admits.

Poverty and deprivation have worsened dramatically since the US introduced all-embracing sanctions on Syria on 17 June under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which Donald Trump signed into law late last year. Named after the individual who documented the murder of thousands of Syrians by the Syrian government (Syrian officials deny the allegations), the legislation is supposedly intended to restrain it from carrying out further acts of repression.

In practice the Caesar Act does little to weaken President Bashar al-Assad and his regime, but it does impose a devastating economic siege on a country where civilians are already ground down by nine years of war and economic embargo. The eight in 10 Syrians who are listed by the UN as falling below the poverty line must now cope with a sudden upsurge in the coronavirus pandemic.

As with UN sanctions imposed on Saddam Husseins Iraq in the 1990s, the Syrian leadership will be least affected by the new American measures because it controls resources. The real victims are the poor and the powerless who suffer since the price of foodstuffs has risen by 209 per cent in the last year. The cost of a basic food basket is 23.5 times what it was before the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011 according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Beneath a hypocritical pretence that it is helping ordinary people, the Trump administration is stoking a humanitarian catastrophe in a bid to deny a victory to Russia and Iran, the two main supporters of Assad during the conflict. Confirming this aim, the US special representative for Syria James Jeffrey says that US policy is to turn Syria into a quagmire for Russia, like the one the US faced in Vietnam, and to give the US a degree of control over Syria similar to what it had in Japan at the end of the Second World War.

Such aims are dangerously unrealistic as Assad, Russia and Iran have already won the war militarily, but US wishful thinking does have the potential to further devastate the lives of millions of Syrians. Detailed and reliable information has been lacking about how they are surviving, or failing to survive, as the Caesar Act is implanted and the virus spreads. Access to Syria by journalists is limited and news from Syria, however dire, has largely dropped out of the international news agenda because everybody is preoccupied with the progress of the pandemic in their own countries.

A nurse at one of the largest hospitals in Damascus has given The Independent a detailed account of how coronavirus and the Caesar Act are combining to bring fresh disasters to Syria, a country already ruined by nine years of war. Muhanad Shami (which is not his real name) is 28 years old and works in the giant al-Mouwasat University Hospital in Damascus. He speaks graphically and convincingly of the worsening crisis in the Syrian capital and in his own hospital as the virus spreads amid crippling shortages and soaring prices.

Its an atmosphere of fear and panic in the hospital, says Muhanad. Every day hundreds of sick people come here, most of them suffering from coronavirus symptoms, but the hospital is already full. Its buildings hold more than a thousand patients, many of them sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

He says that the official numbers of infections announced by the Syrian authorities may be only about 10 per cent of the real figure: On Friday 14 August, the ministry of health announced only 72 cases in Syria, but in my hospital alone there were about 200 people crowded into the yard nearby and all of them were sick, coughing, with a high temperature, a need for oxygen, and no feeling of taste and smell. The hospital management only had enough equipment to test three people who all tested positive.

The swift rise in the number infected is scarcely surprising, given that, until recently, the government played down the threat from coronavirus, leading people to take few precautions to avoid catching it. Muhanad says: Every day, I go to work in a bus or minibus which should carry eleven people, but is mostly crowded with 15 people and I am the only one who wears a mask. He normally gets a mask and disinfectant from his hospital but, when these are not available, he walks 45 minutes from his flat to the hospital rather than risk being crammed into a bus.

I am surprised I am not sick so far, he says. Maybe it is because I am walking to work most days and sweating and that makes me more immune. Three doctors and several nurses, two of whom he knew, have died at the hospital, where there is a shortage of masks. I just wash my hands and drink water every 10 minutes. I spend the day in a state of anxiety.

Private hospitals are also full up and oxygen cylinders and ventilators often have to be purchased privately. Muhanad says that his aunt has four children and the whole family are sick with coronavirus, so our relatives living in the United Arab Emirates sent her some money to buy equipment. She spent about $450 (345) on medicine, ventilators and oxygen cylinders, but then faced the problem that there is no continuous supply of electricity in Damascus to keep equipment like a ventilator running all the time.

The pandemic strikes at a population already weakened during nine years of war and sanctions  already stringent and economically destructive before the Caesar Act provoked a collapse in the Syrian currency this summer. Muhanads monthly salary is the equivalent of $20, which he doubles by taking tips from patients for injections and other medical procedures. He can no longer afford the modest two-room flat he shares with two others, because the landlord is raising their rent by a third: About four months ago, before the Caesar Act, things were expensive but now they are unaffordable. He used to buy a kilo of tomatoes for 100 Syrian pounds (4 cents), but since the act the tomatoes are three or four times more expensive, while the cost of a taxi ride has tripled and that of a bus has doubled. There is a cheap government bread ration but enormous queues outside the bakeries.

Muhanad blames the Syrian government for pretending that coronavirus was less widespread than it really was, leading people to crowd together without masks in the markets. He sees the Caesar Act plunging an impoverished people deeper into misery.

The number of Syrians who are food insecure has risen in the last six months by 1.4 million to 9.3 million, more than half the population, according to the WFP. The Caesar Act and coronavirus do not appear to be weakening Assad, Russia and Iran, but there is every sign they are together plunging ordinary Syrians into a deep and lethal quagmire.
OMSK, Russia  A plane carrying a Russian dissident who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning left for a German hospital Saturday following much wrangling over Alexei Navalnys condition and treatment.

The plane could be seen taking off from an airport in the Siberian city of Omsk just after 8 a.m. local time. Navalnys spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, confirmed the departure on Twitter. The flight to Berlin was expected to take about five hours.

Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in Omsk on Thursday. His supporters believe that tea he drank was laced with poison  and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and the delay in transferring him to a top German hospital.

When German specialists first arrived on a plane equipped with advanced medical equipment Friday morning at his familys behest, Navalnys physicians in Omsk said he was too unstable to move.

Navalnys supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison in his system would no longer be traceable. The Omsk medical team relented only after a charity that had organized the medevac plane revealed that the German doctors examined the politician and said he was fit to be transported.

Deputy chief doctor of the Omsk hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko then told reporters that Navalnys condition had stabilized and that physicians didnt mind transferring the politician, given that his relatives were willing to take on the risks.

The Kremlin denied resistance to the transfer was political, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that it was purely a medical decision. However, the reversal came as international pressure on Russias leadership mounted.

It would not be the first time a prominent, outspoken Russian was targeted in such a way  or the first time the Kremlin was accused of being behind it.

On Thursday, leaders of France and Germany said the two countries were ready to offer Navalny and his family any and all assistance and insisted on an investigation into what happened. On Friday, European Union spokeswoman Nabila Massrali added that the bloc was urging Russian authorities to allow him to be taken abroad.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. Since then, he has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of the ruling party, United Russia.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. But he had to shut the foundation last month after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents.

Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Navalnys physician in Moscow, told The Associated Press that being on a plane with specialized equipment, including a ventilator and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, can be even safer than staying in a hospital in Omsk.

Yarmysh posted pictures of what she said was a bathroom inside the hospital that showed squalid conditions, including walls with paint peeling off, rusting pipes, and a dirty floor and walls.

While his supporters and family members continue to insist that Navalny was poisoned, doctors in Omsk denied that and put forth another theory.

The hospitals chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, said in a video published by Omsk news outlet NGS55 that a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis and that a drop in blood sugar may have caused Navalny to lose consciousness.

Another doctor with ties to the politician, Dr. Anastasia Vasilyeva, said that diagnosing Navalny with a metabolic disorder says nothing about what may have caused it  and it could have been the result of a poisoning.

Ashikhmin, whos been Navalnys doctor since 2013, said the politician has always been in good health, regularly went for medical checkups and didnt have any underlying illnesses that could have triggered his condition.

Western toxicology experts expressed doubts that a poisoning could have been ruled out so quickly.

It takes a while to rule things out. And particularly if something is highly toxic  it will be there in very low concentrations, and many screening tests would just not pick that substance up, said Alastair Hay, an emeritus professor and toxicology expert from the school of medicine at the University of Leeds.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from jail  where he was serving a sentence on charges of violating protest regulations. His team also suspected poisoning then. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and sent him back to detention the following day.

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent who died in London in 2006 after drinking drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210, said she understood why Navalnys family wanted him transferred abroad.

Marina Litvinenko told the AP via a video call from Italy that every day, every hour, sometimes every second is important.

She expressed her support for Navalnys family, saying: Particularly for his wife, Yulia, be strong, she said. And never give up. Believe he will survive.

___

Litvinova reported from Moscow. Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber and David Rising in Berlin, and Pan Pylas and Danica Kirka in London, contributed to this report.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (left) watches himself help deliver the Democratic National Convention keynote address from his home in Philadelphia on Tuesday with his fiance, Matt Miller. Read more

For State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, it was like hitting the lottery twice on the same night.

First, the North Philly Democrat got a huge national platform as a contributor to the Democratic National Conventions keynote speech Tuesday. Then President Donald Trumps campaign went after him on Twitter for his positions on environmental issues, further elevating his political brand.

The campaign also went after Brendan Boyle and Conor Lamb, two U.S. House members from Pennsylvania, who were part of what Trump World branded this band of 17 radicals delivering the speech.

Kenyatta was soon being interviewed by outlets around the country. He appeared on MSNBC on Wednesday.

His message about the Trump camps tweet: I dont think that was the burn you think it is.

It was pretty shocking to me for 17 folks who, with the exception of [former Georgia gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams, are not household names around the country, Kenyatta told Clout. But Trump is an online bully.

 READ MORE: Malcolm Kenyatta on his Democratic convention keynote: A poor, Black, gay kid from North Philly is about to be on this stage

Boyle sees the attack as confirmation he is pointed in the correct direction, since he considers Trump the worst president in history. But the attention can cut both ways, he said.

My fellow Democrats see me as someone fighting for our values and issues, said Boyle, who represents parts of Philly. There are downsides too. It brings out the crazies.

Lamb, who represents a Trump-friendly district outside Pittsburgh, largely shrugged off the Trump claim that he will make our communities less safe.

I am a former federal prosecutor that prosecuted violent crime and drug networks, he said. Im also a former Marine officer. My district knows ... that I support law enforcement even though I want to make it better.

Lamb is familiar with Trumps Twitter bashing. In May, Trump tweeted in support of Lambs challenger, falsely claiming Lamb had voted for Nancy Pelosi as House speaker.

 READ MORE: That girl from Philly Jill Biden says her husband Joe can heal America

One thing they always do is try to run their campaigns about someone other than me, Lamb said. They do it so often and in such a ridiculous and baseless way, I think it really has no effect at this point.

The campaign for Pennsylvania attorney general is heating up on TV

The election for Pennsylvania attorney general is getting chippy.

Clout told you last week that the Republican nominee, Pittsburgh trial lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh, took the first shot on television with a campaign ad including a not-so-subtle dig at incumbent Josh Shapiros widely known ambition to run for governor in 2022 (which would be in the middle of his second term if he wins reelection.)

Shapiro, a Montgomery County Democrat, returned fire this week with his own first television ad, knocking Heidelbaugh as a hack lawyer who is using negative ads to distort his record on behalf of special interests like insurance companies.

That prompted the Republican Attorneys General Association to accuse Shapiro of being clearly misogynistic for calling Heidelbaugh a hack. Does RAGA plans to air television ads to help Heidelbaugh? The group declined to comment.

Heidelbaugh, who trails Shapiro in campaign cash, is getting backup from the Commonwealth Leaders Fund, a political action committee founded and funded by conservative activists. That PAC, which gave her $50,000 in June, has already spent $144,000 airing TV ads supporting her, according to the ad tracking firm Advertising Analytics. It has booked a total of $435,000 worth of airtime in the race. Its first ad decries Shapiro as a career politician already looking to run for governor.

Heidelbaugh has spent almost $95,000 of the $162,000 in airtime her campaign has booked, according to Advertising Analytics. Shapiro has spent almost $130,000 of the $309,000 he has booked.

The Shapiro-Heidelbaugh race is shaping up to be the most interesting statewide down-ballot contest of this years presidential campaign. And Shapiro, always eager to build a national profile, sued the U.S. Postal Service Tuesday amid concerns that Trump is gutting the agency to damage mail voting.

DA Larry Krasner and retired Philly cops step up money fight

Theres almost nine months until the next race for Philadelphia district attorney. But the fund-raising for that May 18 primary is already fierce.

District Attorney Larry Krasner hit back this week against a group of retired cops who formed the Protect Our Police PAC, calling them disgruntled in a fund-raising email to supporters.

 READ MORE: Retired Philly cops want to counter-punch George Soros for boosting Larry Krasner in the 2017 DA race

The group believes no one should ever challenge the thin blue line, no matter the abuse and discrimination that occurs in our communities, said the Krasner campaign email. Larry has been fearless in holding officers who violate the law accountable, no matter the backlash.

The PAC, which earlier this month said it raised $750,000 in just three weeks, noted Krasners pitch came after yet another violent weekend in the city.

Let-em-go Larry is running scared because he knows Protect Our Police PAC will hold him accountable for the blood on his hands, PAC president Nick Gerace responded.
NEW YORK and GREENWICH, Conn., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- L Catterton, the largest and most global consumer-focused private equity firm, today announced a private placement of $150 million in aggregate principal amount of non-convertible preferred stock plus warrants to purchase ordinary shares by an affiliate of L Catterton in Despegar.com, the leading online travel agency in Latin America.

Despegar has over two decades of business experience and operates in 20 countries across Latin America through two well-recognized brands  Despegar, its global brand, and Decolar, its Brazilian brand. The Company's websites and leading mobile apps offer products from over 270 airlines, more than 690,000 accommodation options, as well as more than 1,260 car rental agencies and approximately 200 destination services suppliers with more than 7,500 activities throughout Latin America.

"As the leading online travel agency in Latin America with strong brand recognition, Despegar has significant potential to continue driving growth in a highly attractive market," said Dirk Donath, Managing Partner, L Catterton Latin America. "We believe Despegar is well positioned to succeed over the long term as the travel industry recovers. We look forward to partnering with the Company's talented team to expand Despegar's regional leadership and capture additional value through both operational and strategic initiatives."

L Catterton's investment in Despegar is the firm's third recent transaction in the global travel industry, which also included:

$400 million in aggregate principal amount of exchangeable senior notes due 2026 by an affiliate of L Catterton in NCL Corporation, a subsidiary of leading global cruise company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.; and

in aggregate principal amount of exchangeable senior notes due 2026 by an affiliate of Catterton in NCL Corporation, a subsidiary of leading global cruise company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.; and $75 million in common equity and warrants in OneSpaWorld Holdings Limited, the preeminent global provider of health and wellness services and products on-board cruise ships and in premium destination resorts around the world, through Steiner Leisure Limited, a company controlled by affiliates of L Catterton.

Ramiro Lauzan, Partner, L Catterton, said, "Despegar sits at the intersection of several deep, secular consumer trends that are emerging across Latin America. The global pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges for the travel industry, and throughout it Despegar has displayed remarkable resilience. We are pleased to partner with Despegar as it takes the next step in its journey to becoming the unrivaled partner of choice for customers, suppliers, and merchants across Latin America."

L Catterton's current and historic investments in the global travel and leisure industry include Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, OneSpaWorld, Getaway, and GetYourGuide. In addition to Despegar, other L Catterton Latin America investments include Petlove, OdontoCompany, Cholula, Grupo MYT, Laboratorio FEMME, Luigi Bosca, Susana Balbo Wines, Espacolaser, Rapsodia, Grupo St. Marche, and Bodytech.

About L Catterton

With approximately $20 billion of equity capital across seven fund strategies in 17 offices globally, L Catterton is the largest consumer-focused private equity firm in the world. L Catterton's team of nearly 200 investment and operating professionals partners with management teams around the world to implement strategic plans to foster growth, leveraging deep category insight, operational excellence, and a broad partnership network. Since 1989, the firm has made over 200 investments in leading consumer brands. L Catterton was formed through the partnership of Catterton, LVMH, and Groupe Arnault. For more information about L Catterton, please visit www.lcatterton.com.

Media Contacts:

L Catterton

Eric Brielmann / Tim Ragones

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher

212-355-4449

SOURCE L Catterton

Related Links

http://www.lcatterton.com


HONG KONG, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Meituan Dianping (HKG: 3690) (the "Company" or "Meituan"), China's leading e-commerce platform for services, today announced the unaudited consolidated results of the Company for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020.

Company Financial Highlights

Although the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact the daily operations of our merchants, including restaurants, hotels and other local services merchants, our businesses demonstrated resilience and recovered at a gradual pace. Total revenues for the second quarter of 2020 increased by 8.9% year-over-year to RMB 24.7 billion from RMB 22.7 billion for the same period of 2019. Operating profit improved to RMB 2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2020, increasing by 95.5% year-over-year, while operating margin increased from 4.9% to 8.8%. Both adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net profit experienced positive year-over-year growth and improved to RMB 2.6 billion and RMB 2.7 billion, respectively. Our operating cash flow also turned to positive RMB 5.6 billion for the second quarter of 2020 from negative RMB5 .0 billion for the first quarter of 2020. We had cash and cash equivalents of RMB 13.9 billion and short-term investments of RMB44.5 billion as of June 30, 2020, compared to the balances of RMB 14.1 billion and RMB 42.4 billion, respectively, as of March 31, 2020.

"Although we continued to see impacts from the outbreak of COVID-19 in the second quarter, our business demonstrated resilience and recovered at a good pace," said Xing Wang, Chairman and CEO of Meituan. "During the quarter, we helped our merchants to weather the storm, which created value for our vast community of consumers and merchants, and, as a result, stimulated the progressive recovery of the local services industry from the pandemic. We further boosted the competitive advantages of our core businesses while enhancing our ecosystem during our business recovery process. In the second quarter, we utilized advanced digital operations tools to enable more merchants, enhanced our on-demand delivery infrastructure to better facilitate the digital lifestyle of consumers, and accelerated the online penetration and digitization of essential local services on both the demand and supply side."

"As the leading e-commerce platform for services, Meituan will continue to fulfill our social responsibilities," Wang said. "We will help to further boost consumption growth and to recover local economies to the best of our abilities despite the uncertainties and challenges in the next few quarters. We believe that our philosophy of focusing on the long-term growth and rewards will continue to yield positive results for all participants in the Meituan ecosystem."

Company Business Highlights

Food delivery

For the second quarter of 2020, GTV of our food delivery business increased by 16.9% year-over-year to RMB108.8 billion. The daily average number of food delivery transactions increased by 6.9% year-over-year to 24.5 million. The average value per order of our food delivery business increased by 9.4% year-over-year. Monetization Rate[i] of our food delivery business decreased to 13.4% for the second quarter of 2020 from 13.8% for the same period of 2019. As a result, revenues of food delivery business increased by 13.2% year-over-year to RMB 14.5 billion for the second quarter of 2020. Operating profit from our food delivery business turned to positive RMB 1.3 billion for the second quarter of 2020, compared to operating loss of RMB70.9 million for the first quarter of 2020, while operating margin turned to positive 8.6% from negative 0.7%. Moreover, operating profit from the food delivery business increased by 65.7% year-over-year, while operating margin improved by 2.7 percentage points year-over-year.

Despite the pandemic's continuous impact, we further demonstrated the unique competitiveness of our business model and validated the essential needs for food delivery services from both consumers and merchants. Especially, our immediate response to the COVID-19 new cases that occurred in Beijing showcased our increasing experience in managing the recurring outbreaks of COVID-19. To ensure the safety of our delivery riders and consumers, among other measures, we immediately organized nucleic acid testing for all of our delivery riders in Beijing, expanded the use of "intelligent lockers" in the city, and further upgraded our contactless delivery process. For merchants, we rolled out targeted support and commission rebate programs to help them better survive the COVID-19 new cases that occurred in Beijing. We also created a portal for merchants to upload their green COVID-19 testing results so as to provide consumers with extra food safety assurance.

In the second quarter of 2020, we continued to launch various promotional campaigns to stimulate the recovery of our food delivery business. For example, we rolled out the "June 18 Food Delivery Festival" and engaged around 4,000 reputable restaurants and brands to provide consumers with a wide variety of attractive promotions in the period. We were also spot-on in identifying consumers' behavioral changes and used targeted promotions to actively increase the consumption of afternoon tea and late-night snacks. Moreover, we have further stepped up the portion of subsidies allocated to targeted repeat consumers through our effective food delivery membership program. As a result, the order volume of our food delivery business experienced positive year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2020, with the daily average number of food delivery transactions increasing by 6.9% year-over-year to 24.5 million.

On the merchant side, a further recovery in merchant operation and consumer consumption led to the strong marketing demand from merchants in the second quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, the pandemic has accelerated the restaurants' online migration, increasing the mix of high-quality merchants on our platform during the period. Notably, the number of newly-onboard branded merchants increased by more than 110% in the second quarter as compared to the prior year period. Their increased demand for online traffic has accelerated their adoption of our online marketing services. As a result, online marketing services revenues experienced rapid growth in the second quarter of 2020, increased by 62.2% year-over-year.

On the delivery front, we further improved our delivery efficiency in the second quarter of 2020, attributable to the refinement of our proprietary dispatching system algorithms and the continuous improvement of the operation of our delivery network. In addition, the sufficient delivery capacity and the favorable weather condition across the country enabled us to reduce the amount of seasonal incentives paid to delivery riders on a quarter-over-quarter basis. These factors together have allowed us to better control delivery cost per order on both a quarter-over-quarter and a year-over-year basis. Meantime, the importance of our on-demand delivery network as a critical component of society's broader logistical infrastructure has been substantially elevated post the outbreak of COVID-19. Our delivery network helped to ensure continuity in people's daily lives during the pandemic and served as a stabilizing force for society by creating abundant employment opportunities. We will continue to explore diversified delivery models and invest in the cutting-edge technology for autonomous delivery to further improve our operating efficiency and enlarge our capacity while striving to serve the needs of our merchants and consumers in more service categories.

In-store, hotel & travel

Revenues from our in-store, hotel & travel businesses decreased by 13.4% year-over-year to RMB4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2020. Operating profit of our in-store, hotel & travel businesses decreased by 11.9% year-over-year, but increased by 178.1% quarter-over-quarter to RMB 1.9 billion in the second quarter of 2020, while operating margin increased by 0.7 percentage points year-over-year and by 19.6 percentage points quarter-over-quarter to 41.6%.

During the second quarter of 2020, the in-store segment continued to recover at a slower pace than the food delivery business as consumers needed more time to rebuild confidence in certain discretionary in-store consumptions. In order to stimulate local services consumption and restore local economies, we cooperated with local governments to launch the "Safe Consumption Festival" in more than 60 cities and issued e-Vouchers during this quarter. These e-Vouchers were mainly for in-store dining initially, but we have since expanded them to cover hotels, shopping, and other local services. We also launched a series of promotional campaigns in the second quarter of 2020, including Labour Day promotions, Dragon Boat Festival promotions, and June 18 Marketing Festival promotions. These events covered all the aspects of our in-store services and helped to accelerate our collaborations with popular merchant brands to further improve our merchant base and offer consumers a wider variety of choices in turn. As a result, the recovery of transaction volume and merchants' marketing demand of our in-store segment was on the right track. The year-over-year decline in commission revenues and online marketing services revenues were significantly narrowed from the first quarter of 2020. Moreover, we published a new 2020 version of our reputable "Must List Series." This series has evolved into a comprehensive and professional local services guide over the years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we noticed that consumers became more price-sensitive and conscious of hygiene factors, which further compounded the ability of our trusted Must List Series to attract user traffic and guide consumers to quality merchants. It also created a positive feedback loop for merchants to upgrade their services and better meet the emerging needs of consumers.

Our hotel business continued to be significantly affected by the pandemic, with the number of domestic room nights consumed on our platform in the second quarter of 2020 decreasing by 17% year-over-year. Nevertheless, we kept increasing our partnership with more hotels via our "Safe Stay" program to provide travelers with accommodation options that are more conducive to their desires and the quarantine environment. Meantime, in light of the increasing demand for intra-city and short-distance local travel, we also launched the "Safe Travel" program to help expedite the recovery of the industry. More notably, the pace of development for our high-star hotel partnerships also picked up, and we established a significant increase in relationships with these types of hotels in the second quarter of 2020 by increasing their non-lodging revenues through our "hotel + x" program. As a result, the contribution from high-end hotels further increased year-over-year.

New initiatives and others

Revenues from the new initiatives and others segment increased by 22.1% year-over-year to RMB5.6 billion in the second quarter of 2020. On a sequential basis, operating loss from the new initiatives and others segment expanded by 7.0% to RMB1.5 billion for the second quarter of 2020 from RMB 1.4 billion for the first quarter of 2020, while operating margin improved by 6.8 percentage points to negative 25.9% for the second quarter of 2020 from negative 32.7% for the first quarter of 2020. Operating loss from the new initiatives and others segment narrowed by 11.3% on a year-over-year basis, while operating margin improved by 9.8 percentage points year-over-year.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for several of our new initiatives, and we saw a noticeable shift in the online shopping behavior on the consumer side and accelerated online penetration of traditional offline service businesses during the pandemic. During the second quarter of 2020, we maintained the rapid expansion of our key businesses, especially grocery retail business. Our marketplace model "Meituan Instashopping" achieved stellar revenue growth during the second quarter of 2020 on a year-over-year basis as we expanded our product variety and SKU categories to significantly grow our merchant base. "Caidaquan," our relatively nascent fresh produce-focused brand under "Meituan Instashopping," enabled more than 300 traditional wet markets to sell online and operate digitally. Our self-operated model, "Meituan Grocery," not only significantly expanded its coverage in key cities, such as Beijing and Shenzhen, but also began operations in new cities, such as Guangzhou, in July 2020. During the second quarter of 2020, we also established a new business division for community group purchase services, rolling out the "Meituan Selected" service brand accordingly in Jinan, Shandong in July 2020, which offers carefully selected fresh produce and daily necessities at attractive prices for local consumers living in different communities. Group leaders are appointed by us in each community to promote our discounted grocery products via WeChat groups. Group members can place orders through our WeChat Mini Program and pick up their products the next day at self-pickup points located in nearby convenience stores.

For bike-sharing services, we replaced around 1.5 million old bikes with new "Meituan Bikes" during the second quarter of 2020. The average turnover rate per bike improved incrementally and the unit economics also improved. Additionally, we launched more than 290,000 electric bikes. During this period, the average turnover rate per electric bike achieved better unit economics as compared to traditional bikes and demonstrated a clear path to independent profitability.

For the full announcement of Meituan 2020 interim results, please visit:

http://meituan.todayir.com/attachment/202008211704561761848748_en.pdf

About Meituan Dianping

Meituan Dianping (HKG: 3690) (the "Company" or "Meituan") is China's leading e-commerce platform for services. With the mission of "We help people eat better, live better," the Company's platform uses technology to connect consumers and merchants. Service offerings on the platform address people's daily needs for food, and extend further to broad lifestyle and travel services. Meituan is the world's leading on-demand food delivery service provider and China's leading e-commerce platform for in-store dining services. Meituan helps consumers discover merchant information, make informed decisions, complete online and offline transactions and enjoy on-demand delivery. The Company currently owns several household brands in China, including Meituan, China's leading online marketplace for services, Dianping, China's leading online destination for discovering local services, Meituan Waimai for on-demand delivery services, and Meituan Bikes for bike-sharing services. Meituan has 457.3 million Annual Transacting Users and 6.3 million Annual Active Merchants as of June 30, 2020. The Company operates in over 2,800 cities and counties in China.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to the business outlook, forecast business plans and growth strategies of the Company. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the Company and are stated herein on the basis of the outlook at the time of this press release. They are based on certain expectations, assumptions and premises, some of which are subjective or beyond our control. These forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect and may not be realized in future. Underlying the forward-looking statements is a large number of risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these risks and uncertainties is included in our other public disclosure documents on our corporate website.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Meituan Dianping

[email protected]

[email protected]

Edmond Lococo

ICR Inc.

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +86 138-1079-1408

[i] Monetization rate equals the revenues for the period divided by the Gross Transaction Volume for the period.

SOURCE Meituan Dianping

Related Links

https://www.meituan.com/


The Kerala High Court on Friday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the alleged custodial death of PP Mathai, a farmer who was found dead in a well hours after he was allegedly taken into custody by Forest Department officials.

A single-judge bench of Justice VG Arun, after hearing arguments from all the sides on a petition filed by Mathais wife, handed over the probe in the matter to the CBI. The State government submitted that it is ready to hand over the case to the CBI.

The bench also directed Mathais wife to do necessary requirements for the last rites of the deceased persons body, which has been kept at the Ranni Marthoma Hospital mortuary ever since his death on July 28.

His wife Sheeba and family members are adamant that the body will not be buried until those responsible for his death are arrested.

The body of PP Mathai was found in a well hours after he was allegedly taken into custody by Forest Department officials of the Chittar forest division in Pathanamthitta district for questioning him over the destruction of a camera in the region.
A white Georgia police officer has been placed on administrative duty after he was captured on video dragging a black woman on her porch and tasing her during her arrest.

Video of the incident shared on TikTok, shows Gwinnett County cop Michael Oxford struggling with Kyndesia Smith, 22, outside of her mother's house in Loganville on Tuesday.

Oxford had shown up at the home around 7.30pm on a property damage call after a neighbor reported a group of people had thrown a bottle at her car, police said.

She also told officers one of the group members threatened to assault her nine-year-old child.

Scroll down for video

Gwinnett County cop Michael Oxford (pictured) has been placed on administrative duty after a viral video showed him using force and tasing a black woman on her porch in Loganville on Tuesday

A TikTok video of the incident which has been viewed more than 19million times, shows Oxford pointing his stun gun on Kyndesia Smith (in blue) after telling her she's under arrest

After Oxford tased her, Smith fell into bushes in front of the home screaming as the officer continued to struggle with her in an attempt to place her in handcuffs

Police said one of the women on the porch at a nearby home matched the description of the suspect in the complaint.

The video shows Oxford arguing with Smith, who had been sitting on the porch with her mother Aytra Thomas and two other women.

Smith could be heard saying: 'You're on our property. We did not call you, I'm not going anywhere,' after Oxford asks if she wants to go to jail.

He then tells her she is under arrest and orders her to turn around, to which Smith replies: 'I'm not resisting, you're not touching me.'

Oxford then grabs Smith's arms and a struggle ensues as he attempts to place her in handcuffs, prompting screams from the other women.

After failing to detain her, the cop orders Smith to get on the ground, drawing his stun gun before tasing her, the video shows.

Smith falls into the bushes in front of the home screaming as the officer continues to struggle with her in an attempt to place her in handcuffs.

In a second clip, Oxford is seen struggling to handcuff Smith after she fell into the bushes

Police claim Oxford gave Smith 'several warnings' and told her she would be stunned if she resisted commands

In another clip, Smith appeared to kick at the officer as he pushed her into the back of a police car.

Smith was charged with felony obstruction and simple battery against a police officer and was released after posting bond Wednesday

Gwinnett County Police addressed the incident in a statement on Thursday after receiving 'multiple inquiries' about the video that has been viewed more than 19million times.

Police alleged the officer was trying to speak to one of the women he recognized from neighbor's surveillance video showing a bottle being thrown at a car.

'He attempted to speak with her about the incident but was unable to do so because the defendant in this case, Kyndesia Smith, began yelling at him,' police said.

The statement claimed Oxford gave Smith 'several warnings' and told her she would be stunned if she resisted commands.

'Smith resisted a lawful command and refused to be placed in handcuffs,' the statement said.

'After she was placed in handcuffs she kicked the officer and continued to be uncooperative.'

Gwinnett County Police addressed the incident in a statement on Thursday after video of the arrest went viral. Officials alleged Oxford had been trying to speak to a suspect but was unable to after Smith 'began yelling at him'

The police department said it takes 'all use of force seriously' and that an investigation will be conducted.

Oxford has been placed in an administrative role pending the outcome of the internal investigation, officials said.

The woman's mother, Aytra Thomas, spoke out against the officer's use of force and told WSB-TV in an interview Thursday that the arrest 'didn't have to go that way.'

Smith was charged with felony obstruction and simple battery against a police officer and was released after posting bond Wednesday, according to jail records obtained by news outlets.

It was not immediately clear whether she had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.

The arrest comes as demonstrators around the country have called out racial injustice and police brutality during protests this summer, including in nearby Atlanta where a white officer now charged with murder fatally shot Rayshard Brooks, a Black man, in a Wendy's parking lot.
Hyderabad: All the deceased in the fire accident at Srisailam Left Bank Hydel Power Station spoke to their family members a few moments before they took a lost breath.

Dharavath Sunder Naik (32) an assistant engineer of Srisailam Left Power House, who conquered COVID-19 with home isolation one month back, met with death in the fire accident.

Sunder Naik native of Jagani thanda of Chivvemla mandal of Suryapet district returned to Srisaliam on July 25 after he got cured with home quarantine by taking precautions at his native place Jagani Thanda.

Sunder had reportedly re-joined the duty on Thursday after recovering from COVID-19. Sunder was living in the quarters of the department at Srisailam along with wife Prameela and two daughters Mansavini and Nihaswi.

According to family members Sunder spoke to his wife and also his parents around 11. 30 pm and asked them to take care of his daughters and wife as he could not escape from the death.

Mohan Rao another assistant engineer, resident of Jeedimetla in Hyderabad also spoke to his family and one of his colleagues Venu and told them he had bleak chances escaping from death.

Deputy Engineer Srinivas Goud too spoke to his family around 11. 30 pm over phone and informed that there was no chance for him to escape from death trap as the smoke engulfed in the plant and if the rescue teams could reach them in another 30 minutes there will not be any luck for them to live.
Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers are pleading with a judge not to 'let the cat out of the bag' by unsealing a trove of potentially embarrassing documents from her case against Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Maxwell's legal team says her chance of a fair trial could be destroyed if the deposition she gave in 2016 was publicly released.

The documents contain 'intimate, sensitive and personal' information about Maxwell which would 'spread like wildfire across the Internet', her lawyers said in a Thursday night filing.

Parts of Maxwell's deposition were published last month, but others remain under seal while she appeals their release in a Manhattan court.

The British socialite denies charges of helping Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and abuse underage girls between 1994 and 1997, and is in custody awaiting her trial next year.

Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell (pictured in a court sketch) argue that her chance of a fair trial could be destroyed if the deposition she gave in 2016 was publicly released

Maxwell's deposition had been taken in April 2016 for a now-settled defamation case brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Giuffre alleges that Epstein kept her as a 'sex slave' with Maxwell's assistance.

A US district judge ordered the deposition to be released last month and some of the documents were published on July 30.

The documents included emails between Epstein and Maxwell, who were identified respectively as 'jeffrey E' and either 'Gmax' or 'G Maxwell.'

Other unsealed materials included emails from Giuffre to the FBI in 2014, in which she expressed an interest in pursuing a case against Epstein.

But other documents remain hidden after Maxwell filed an emergency motion to block their release - and her lawyers are now seeking to overturn the lower court's decision.

'If the unsealing order goes into effect, it will forever let the cat out of the bag,' the submission by Maxwell's lawyers said.

Maxwell's lawyers say the unsealing order did not take into account her privacy interests or the promise of confidentiality she received before being deposed.

The lawyers said an unsealing would cause irreversible and unconstitutional negative publicity.

They argued that a release would undermine the 'truth-seeking function' of Maxwell's trial, by leading witnesses to 'recast their memories of events from decades ago.'

Maxwell denies charges of helping Jeffrey Epstein (pictured together) to recruit and abuse underage girls between 1994 and 1997, and is in custody awaiting her trial next year

Giuffre has been one of Epstein's most visible accusers, and her lawyers have said the public has a right to see Maxwell's deposition.

Lawyers for Maxwell disagreed, saying her constitutional rights to remain silent and get a fair trial by an impartial jury outweigh the right of public access.

A lawyer for Giuffre did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Oral arguments are scheduled for September 22.

Maxwell is separately seeking to have prosecutors identify the three accusers in her indictment and challenging her confinement conditions at the Brooklyn jail.

Prosecutors say they are protecting the identities of sexual assault victims and are under no legal obligation to identify them.

The government said it has already given defense lawyers more than 165,000 pages of evidence, including search warrant applications and subpoena returns.

They also suggested that defense lawyers could figure out the identities of the three accusers since the indictment lists relevant time periods and events and refers to Maxwell's conversations and interactions with them.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan, prosecutors said it was 'at best premature' to require the disclosure of the three victims' identities.

Prosecutors also last week rejected Maxwell's claim that she is being treated 'worse' than other inmates at the Brooklyn jail where she is being held.

The Maxwell documents relate to the 2016 lawsuit brought against her by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre (pictured left with lawyer David Boies)

Maxwell, 58, was arrested in New Hampshire on July 2 and is being held in a Brooklyn jail after a judge deemed she was a flight risk.

Her trial is scheduled for next July.

A grand jury returned a sealed, six-count indictment against Maxwell on June 29, almost a year after Epstein was charged.

It alleges that Maxwell groomed three unnamed girls, all under the age of 18, in London, New York, Florida and New Mexico between 1994 and 1997.

She is accused of having befriended them by taking them to the movies or on shopping sprees and 'normalized' abusive behavior by getting undressed in front of them.

Maxwell's lawyers have tried to distance their client from Epstein, saying she'd had no contact with him for more than a decade.

Epstein died in his Manhattan jail cell last year after he was arrested and charged with the sex-trafficking of underage girls.

Epstein had previously pleaded guilty in 2008 to a Florida state prostitution charge, and completed a 13-month jail sentence now widely considered too lenient.

Before Epstein's conviction, he and Maxwell had a network of powerful friends including Prince Andrew, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

Some of the abuse is alleged to have taken place on Little St James, a spot in in the US Virgin Islands which Epstein bought for $7.95million in 1998.

The Virgin Islands sued Epstein's estate earlier this year, claiming the late sex offender raped and trafficked dozens of women and young girls on the island.
Ghana has joined members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in condemning the military mutiny that topped a civilian Government in Mali.

Former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse were arrested by soldiers in Bamako on Tuesday and detained for hours.

Mr Keita subsequently resigned, dissolving his Government and Parliament.

ECOWAS leaders held video conference on Thursday, August 20, 2020, on the crisis in Mali.

The conference came on the back of Malis suspension from the sub-regional bloc.

Mali has also seen its borders closed, with ECOWAS looking at possibilities of sanctions against the crisis-proned country.

Colonel Assimi Goita, has emerged as the new military leader of Mali, a development Ghana believes would not inure to the advancement of democracy in the region.

Representing President Nana Akufo-Addo at the extraordinary summit on Thursday, Ghanas Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, stated emphatically that the Republic of Ghana joins other ECOWAS Member States and the International Community to condemn the military mutiny, which led to the arrest and resignation of H.E Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and the dissolution of his government and the national Assembly.

The security situation in Mali poses grave danger to regional security if not urgently and effectively managed, according to the minister.

The situation has the potential to escalate jihadist activities in the country and the Sahel region in general. It also has the potential to destabilize the region and further undermine development within Mali, she added.

She indicated that the Republic of Ghana reiterates its solidarity with the resolve and strong sanctions imposed by ECOWAS Commission and the African Union and the positions expressed by the United Nations Security Council as well as other International Organisations in rejecting unconstitutional change of government in Mali.

The Government of Ghana adds its voice to the calls for the immediate release of President Keita and senior officials of his government, while supporting the proposal for the immediate dispatch of an ECOWAS delegation to Mali to ensure the return to normalcy, peace and order as well as Constitutional rule.

---Daily Guide


Former Lateline presenter Emma Alberici has settled with ABC, confirming her redundancy from the broadcaster after 18 years.

She confirmed declining an offer of a role with ABC News Channel and to work fulltime on Foreign Correspondent (she was most recently a contributing reporter).

Alberici has also been subjected to ongoing press coverage over her recent role as chief economics correspondent, around which ABC acknowledged factual errors, and an ensuing Fair Work Commission claim.

On social media she responded to the latest reports.

https://twitter.com/albericie/status/1296520204852183040

https://twitter.com/albericie/status/1296521797874024448

https://twitter.com/albericie/status/1296523062565670914

https://twitter.com/albericie/status/1296527467889352704

https://twitter.com/albericie/status/1296524876992266240

Earlier today The Australian published leaked correspondence from Albericis lawyer Chris McArdle, reportedly sent to ABCs managing director David Anderson in July, in which ABC news director Gaven Morris is accused of telling Alberici that ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull was constantly calling him to make complaints.

Mr Morris has complained to our client that she is the cause of the prime minister ringing him with complaints, the legal letter from McArdle Legal says.

The allegation that former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull made a phone call to ABC director news Gaven Morris on any matter is incorrect, an ABC spokesman said. The ABC has no further comment to make.

Turnbull has since weighed in on social media.

Just cos you bully people doesnt make you correct and others not. The countless letters you sent to the ABC were ridiculous and unbecoming of a PM  Emma Alberici (@albericie) August 20, 2020

In 2018 reports also emerged that former ABC chairman Justin Milne told former managing director Michelle Guthrie Alberici should be sacked, because the government hated her. It was reported Turnbull had sent a list of 11 grievances to Gaven Morris.

Meanwhile, McArdle today told The Age he was stumped by the leak.

I dont know whose interest it was in to have that stuff [released to media] the day after we did a deal, he said. Emma is very distressed by what has been done to her but she has now settled her dispute and its over. She was unhappy with the past but she is happy with the present and she embraces the future.
The end of qualified immunity, now the signature reform of the police reform movement, will in time have the exact opposite effect it portends unless lawmakers start looking further down the road than the next election cycle.

Tom English, in his excellent op-ed of Aug. 8, makes a lot of great points, but one point has recently become invalid. He writes  immunity will go over almost all officers and have no real impact. That may have been true up to May 30, but you can bet now almost every police officer understands the meaning of qualified immunity and how it works to their benefit.

Qualified immunity is court-created law designed to shield public officials from being held personally liable for constitutional violations as long as they dont violate clearly established law. I will agree with proponents of reform that qualified immunity has in some cases been extended to police officers who dont deserve it. I believe that can be remedied. But I dont believe ending qualified immunity in the long run is going to have the results they want.

What could go wrong with the end (of) qualified immunity? The answers already exist in the Supreme Court opinion of the often-cited Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982). In that opinion, the court identified four social costs that qualified immunity was meant to avoid. End qualified immunity and two of them will happen to the great detriment of all of our communities.

One of those social costs is that it will deter capable people from taking on the burden of the public official. At a time when we need better qualified, better educated people to become officers, the reform crowd is creating an environment that is deterring those we need the most. Who wants a profession where 10 years into your career where you can finally afford a house and have adequate pay to raise a family, you find that because of a split-second decision that you made, some plaintiffs attorney is able to twist it into something evil and you lose that house and everything you built?

The job of police officer will continue to exist, but it will become just another job that people take when theres no other option. Take away qualified immunity and you take away those highly qualified, educated people who wanted a career in policing. Qualified immunity is designed to protect all but the plainly incompetent or those that knowingly violate the law. End it and thats all youre going have left as police officers.

A second social cost cited by the court in Harlow is there is a danger that the fear of being sued will dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute or the most irresponsible (public officials), in the unflinching discharge of their duties. Were already seeing that. Because Im still in the public safety business, I speak frequently to police officers throughout the nation. I recently spoke with a Hispanic police officer from a large Southern California department who advised me that if he pulls over (a) vehicle with what he termed high complaint potential, he simply advises the stop was a mistake and for them to have a nice day. He doesnt ask for IDs, takes no enforcement action and leaves the scene.

The post-George Floyd policing world is now filled with police officers who have pulled back from any proactive policing that is necessary to keep our neighborhoods safe. There are many nonenforcement ideas out there that can help neighborhoods be safer, and those should be encouraged. But one is wrong to believe that no one out there is committing violent crime and that a few social workers and a graffiti removal crew is going to take the violence out of people. We still need police officers.

So how do we remedy this? We should seek to not end qualified immunity, but return it to the pre-Harlow standard of good faith. This will still protect officers that make that proverbial split-second decision in good faith that is challenged on a constitutional basis, while still punishing those officers that put their knee on the neck of someone for nearly nine minutes. We can find that balance if we just set aside our animosity and use our judgment judiciously. Right now, the de-funders and the anti-qualified immunity crowd are not using good judgment. They are acting on negative emotion and thats not a good way to make public policy.
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...
Year 2021: Meet the CMs who Stepped Down, Returned to Power

DMK opposes privatisation of airports

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Chennai, Aug 21: The opposition DMK in Tamil Nadu on Friday opposed the Centre's decision to "privatise" airports, saying the move "usurps the rights and autonomy from the State."

In an apparent reference to the Centre deciding to lease out three airports, including the one at Thiruvananthapuram, DMK President M K Stalin described the decision as "unilateral" and demanded its revocation.

"The Center's unilateral decision to privatise airports usurps the rights and autonomy from the State," he said in a tweet.

Stalin ropes in Prashant Kishor for DMK's poll campaign ahead of 2021 elections

"It violates the pledge made in 2003 that any proposal concerning airport privatisation would be made only in consultation with the state government and must be revoked," Stalin added.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

The BJP-led NDA government had earlier decided to lease out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP) mode to Adani Enterprises, a move criticised by the opposition.

Incidentally, the ruling CPI-M in Kerala had convened an all-party meeting on Thursday and demanded for the withdrawal of the Union Cabinet decision to lease out the airport at Thiruvananthapuram.

Adani Enterprises has won the rights to run six airports-- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram--through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February, 2019.

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Story first published: Friday, August 21, 2020, 14:16 [IST]
Following a ruling from the Hariri assassination tribunal, Syrian regime media has been oddly quiet, while there have been plenty of celebrations online reports Al-Modon.

The Syrian regime has adopted a total blackout of news about the tribunal related to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which issued its verdict on Tuesday, despite indicating that there is no evidence of Syrian and Hezbollah involvement in the assassination, which was, of course, carried out for political reasons.

All court news was absent from political talk shows on Syrian channels, and in most newscasts as well. It was not reported on in any of the three official newspapers, either. Some news appeared on the website of Al-Watan, which quoted the judge in the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Justice, Ammar Bilal, who said that the courts verdict, proves the absence of any incriminating evidence of Syrian involvement in the assassination, which gives Syria the right to legally pursue those who have been pointing fingers over the course of the investigation, as he put it.

The news was mentioned by some outlets in order to honor the right to respond, which is a concept repeated by the Syrian media and regime officials in every incident related to national sovereignty  specifically when Israeli raids on Syrian areas occur, in which Hezbollahs weapons are targeted.

What was absent in the traditional media was made up for on social media, where loyalist pages and loyal media figures shared comments on the courts verdict, which they viewed as an absolution of Syria on the charges that have haunted it since the 2005 assassination.

The Hariri assassination was a pivotal event in the Middle East, as it directly contributed greatly increased pressure on Damascus, which as a result faced increased international isolation, before its withdrawal from Lebanon at a later stage.

Loyalists dismissed the court, saying it is unimportant, and affiliated with the West, and that whatever is issued by it is irrelevant, even if it is in the interest of the Syrian state.

As for opposition journalists, they clarified that there is a huge difference, legally speaking, between acquittal and insufficient evidence, as the former indicates that there is no evidence of involvement in the crime, while the latter indicates that evidence exists, but is insufficient, leading to writing it off as circumstantial rather than conclusive evidence.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Nothing is beyond politics in Kerala. The proposed redevelopment of the Thiruvananthapuram airport under the Public-Private Partnership model is the latest to kick up a political storm. As per an earlier decision, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared handing over of the airport, along with the ones in Jaipur and Guwahati, to Adani Enterprises on a 50-year lease for development, management and operation.

Immediately, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan shot off a letter to the prime minister, declaring his governments intention to not cooperate with the implementation of what he called a unilateral decision, and the Congress said it too is against privatisation of a state asset. Interestingly, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who represents Thiruvananthapuram in Parliament, chose to differ with his party, saying he speaks in the best interests of his constituency.

Adani Enterprises won the right to operate the airport in a global competitive bidding process, in which the Kerala government too participated but lost. It then took legal recourse, and the case is still pending. The fact is the airport in the state capital is in need of a makeover. Besides lacking in terms of a modern look and facilities, the airport hasnt been able to execute expansion projects like the construction of a new ATC building and a new integrated terminal.

Our experience with other airports in the country shows privatisation can bring in the necessary modernisation and lend facilities a competitive edge. The performance of the privately run Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports in comparison to the AAI-operated Chennai airport is a case in point. The difference is in the way they are run.

From a passengers point of view, privatisation would mean more amenities and better services. It could also mean an increase in passenger and cargo traffic, as the private operator would be looking to maximise returns, which would in turn benefit both the city and the state. Agreed that the airport is one of the few profit-making facilities under the AAIs control, but that doesnt mean it will remain profitable without modernisation and expansion. The privatisation could prove to be a game-changer for the airport. Its selfish to obstruct its development for the sake of politics.
Geojit's report on Agri Picks

The Solvent Extractors' Association of India has requested the Centre to bring mustard under the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana. Uttar Pradesh Power Corp Ltd has paid 5.25 bln rupees, or half its dues to sugar mills with co-generators in the state for 2019-20 (Apr-Mar), a senior industry official said. The dues were cleared after the power distribution company received money from Power Finance Corp Ltd and REC Ltd. The kharif rice procurement in the upcoming season that starts in October is seen at 43.0 mln tn based on the estimates sent by several states, a senior government official said. In 2019-20 (Oct-Sep) kharif marketing season, the government had bought 41.8 mln tn rice against the initial estimates of 41.6 mln tn. India's oilmeal exports rose 12.5% on year to 262,085 tn in July due to a recovery in demand from major buyers, according to data released by The Solvent Extractors' Association of India. The Haryana government will appoint experts to pull cooperative sugar mills in the state out of deficit, the state's co-operation minister Banwari Lal said. The government sanctioned around 12.2 mln Kisan credit cards with an overall credit limit of over 1 trln rupees under the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat package as of Monday, an official release said today. This is half of the total 2-trln-rupee concessional credit sanctioned under the scheme. India received 14.2 mm rainfall yesterday, 75% above the normal weighted average of 8.1 mm, the India Meteorological Department said. Showers were 18% above normal at 196.2 mm in June, but 10% below normal at 257.6 mm in July. Since Jun 1, India has received 663 mm rainfall, 6% above the normal weighted average of 628.3 mm.

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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 15:10 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f8fc1b 1 National influencer,influencer-marketing,YLBHI,ICW,Jokowi,Jokowi-administration,KSP,democracy,democracy-in-Indonesia,omnibus-bill,omnibus-bill-on-job-creation Free

Antigraft and human rights activists have raised concerns over the government's use of social media "influencers" to promote its policies, demanding transparency over the partnership amid fears that it could be misused to sway public opinion on problematic issues.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Egi Primayogha said ministries and state institutions under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration often involved the so-called influencers for governmental purposes, including to promote programs and public policies.

The latest research by ICW -- conducted by compiling publicly available data -- found that the government had spent at least Rp 90.4 billion (US$6.1 million) on goods and services procurement containing the keywords "influencers" and "key opinion leaders" from 2017 until this year.

Read also: Jokowi administration spends Rp 90.4 billion on 'influencers': ICW

Although involving influencers to promote public policies was not wrong, Egi argued that the government appeared to make use of them with intention to cover up problems related to certain policies.

"The information conveyed by influencers is not always valid. Sometimes they even spread misinformation," Egi said in a discussion on Thursday.

"The influencers also often spoke beyond their capacity."

One notable case occurred in late February when the government announced it had allocated Rp 72 billion (US$5.2 million) to pay influencers to promote the country's tourism in an effort to shield the industry from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which at that time had yet to be detected in Indonesia.

The move was met with criticism, since at a time when countries around the world were scrambling to mitigate the virus, the Indonesian government seemed to downplay the threat of the pandemic and send out the message to welcome tourists from around the world instead.

Read also: We cant afford BTS: Minister talks plan to hire foreign influencers to promote tourism

Last week, a number of influencers and internet personalities also came under fire for posting content supporting the controversial job creation bill using the hashtag #IndonesiaButuhKerja (Indonesia Needs Jobs). Some of them claimed they did not know that the campaign -- which was reportedly offered to them in return for payment -- actually championed the bill.

Many, including protesters against the bill, criticized the celebrities, accusing them of lacking knowledge about how the bill -- if passed -- could heavily affect workers' rights.

A leading expert at the Presidential Office (KSP), Donny Gahral Adian, denied that the campaign was an order from the government.

Egi of ICW went on to say that the use of influencers suggested that Jokowi was not confident in his own policies, adding that it could create a trend in which the government uses internet personalities to sway public opinion on controversial policies being deliberated.

"This is unhealthy in a democracy because it has the potential to blur the substantial points of certain policies," Egi said.

He urged the government to be more transparent with regard to the amount of state funds they spend on influencers and how they use it, adding that the government should also disclose how they determine which social media personalities to hire.

Read also: Indonesia wants civil servants with large social media followings to be 'government's influencers'

Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI) chairwoman Asfinawati said influencers should also disclose paid partnerships with the government in the content they create and post to prevent possible public deception.

In response to the concerns, Donny of the KSP said hiring influencers to promote government policies was fair as long as they did not deceive the public.

Officials usually briefed the influencers on the substance of certain programs or policies beforehand, Donny said.

These influencers have many followers and subscribers. If they are capable of public communication and understand the substance of the policy, I dont see any problem, Donny told The Jakarta Post, Involving influencers in education and promotional programs is common, similar to public service announcements that use public figures.

Donny explained that the Rp 90.4 billion was actually meant for general public relations activities, including public service announcements and education programs.

He also refuted allegations that Jokowi lacked confidence in his own policies, saying that by partnering with influencers, the government could, in fact, reach a broader audience.

These influencers have social media platforms that have a lot of followers and [...] a broader reach, especially among millennials.

Editor's note: This article has been updated with more statements from Donny.
By Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI(Reuters) - Middle Eastern oil accounted for 71.5% of India's oil imports in July, its highest share in 26 months, while imports from Africa fell to 5%, the lowest in at least 14 years, data from trade sources showed on Friday.

Analysts said lower fuel demand and paltry refining margins had driven a preference for Middle Eastern sour grades over sweet African barrels.

India, the world's third-biggest oil consumer, imports more than 80% of its oil needs.

"Since April Indian refiners are trying to save every single penny on crude purchases as refining margins are paltry and fuel demand has crashed. They are forced to cut refiners runs," said Ehsan Ul Haq, an analyst with Refinitiv.

Indian refiners mostly tap spot markets for low sulphur or sweet grades and buy sour grades under term deals with Middle Eastern producers.

"Imports from Middle East help in saving freight cost. Refiners opted to lift committed volumes under contracts with Middle Eastern producers rather than taping costly brent-linked African oil that takes more than 20 days to reach India," Haq added.

India's oil imports plunged to their lowest in over 9 years in July, falling to around 3 million barrels per day as low fuel demand encouraged refiners to shut units for maintenance.

Imports from Opec countries dropped to their lowest in at least 14 years at 67.15% in July, data showed.

Rising imports from the United States also dented Africa's share in Indian imports.

The sources declined to be identified as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

India's oil imports from key suppliers https://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-OIL/bdwpkedmbpm/Pasted%20image%201595518076690.png

India imported no oil from Venezuela for the second month in a row in July, the data showed.

During the month Iraq retained its top oil supplier status to India followed by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

India-OPEC https://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-OIL/dgkvllgjevb/Pasted%20image%201597930389653.png

Story continues

The United States emerged as the fourth biggest supplier followed by Kuwait, Colombia and Qatar.

Nigeria, which was the fifth largest supplier to India in June, dropped to eight position.

India-oil https://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-OIL/rlgvdoknrpo/Pasted%20image%201598016220470.png

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Christina Fincher)
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Presidential historian Jon Meacham, whose book gave Joe Biden's campaign its 'soul of the nation' theme, declared the country 'under assault' Thursday cast a potential Biden victory into the sweep of social movements, saying it might just 'save our country.'

Meacham, who delivered the eulogy at George H.W. Bush's funeral after writing a book about him, endorsed the former Vice President and Thursday night's Democratic convention, in a speech where he warned about dark strains in America's past.

'Our democracy is under assault from an incumbent more interested in himself than he is in all of us,' said Meacham, casting aside the distance he ordinarily keeps from his subjects.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham endorsed Joe Biden and warned of dark strains in the nation's past Thursday night at the Democratic convention

'Extremism, nativism, isolationism and a lack of economic opportunity for working people are all preventing us from realizing our nation's promise,' Meacham said, 'and so we must decide whether we will continue to be prisoners of the darkest of American forces or will we free ourselves to write a brighter better nobler story

The Tennessee-based author spoke from his office, backed by images of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a campaign poster from the Lyndon Johnson Hubert Humphrey ticket, putting the 2020 election in the context of social change movements.

He said the nation must decide 'whether we will continue to be prisoners of the darkest of American forces.'

'Or, will we free ourselves to write a brighter, nobler story?' he asked.

''It's now write the next chapter of the American story  one of hope of love a justice. If we do so, we might just save our country. And our souls,' he said.

Meacham spoke of key moments on the march toward justice, from Seneca Falls to Selma, Alabama and Stonewall.

But the nation has also contended with 'slavery, segregation and systemic discrimination,' he noted.

'Our story has soared when we have built bridges, not walls,' he said, in a dig at Trump that he made while a video showed an image of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

He said the nation succeeds when it is 'informed by reason and candor not by ego and lies.'

Meacham, a former journalist and prolific author, compared President Trump to reactionaries from the past and those who stood in the way of social reforms or otherwise appealed to demagoguery or made overtly racist appeals.

His remarks come a day after former President Barack Obama called Trump a threat to democracy, warning: ''This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win.'

Previewing his remarks to Axios, Meacham said: 'It's not a partisan issue. Presidents from Truman to Reagan to Bush 41 [George H.W. Bush] prevailed in the Cold War, which was about freedom versus tyranny. And at home, do you want to be Bull Connor, or John Lewis? Joe McCarthy, or Margaret Chase Smith? Do you want to tear down, or do you want to build?' he said.

He was referencing the infamous Sheriff Bull Connor, who relied on violent use of police and dogs as head of security in Birmingham, Alabama to put down civil rights protests, the late Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who marched at Selma; Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy, who used his perch to stoke the red scare; and Smith, the longest serving female senator who confronted McCarthy.

Biden took one of his signature campaign themes, the fight for 'the soul of America,' from Meacham's book.

He brought the prolific author (he also has taught history and political science but is not a Ph.D), to lend some historical scope and perspective to his convention, which is also pushing such themes as diversity and inclusion and showcasing the first black female running mate in Sen. Kamala Harris.

Commissioner Bull Connor directs the arrest of approximately 25 African American demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala. on April 10, 1963

Meacham has written a book on the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)

FILE - In this March 7, 1965, file photo, a state trooper swings a billy club at John Lewis, right foreground, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. Lewis sustained a fractured skull. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020

Meacham's book quotes F.D.R. saying the presidency is not an engineering job but is primarily 'a place of moral leadership'

FILE - In this March 17, 1965, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fourth from left, foreground, locks arms with his aides as he leads a march of several thousands to the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. From left are: an unidentified woman, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Foreman, King, Jesse Douglas Sr., and John Lewis. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020

Meacham with former Sen. Bob Dole and the late President George W. Bush. He spoke at Bush's funeral

Meacham also has written a book on Lewis, a stalwart of the Democratic Party who died this year.

His Thursday speech came a day after former President Barack Obama delivered a blistering speech where he warned President Trump was a threat to democracy itself.
Following the successful world premiere of Aditi Rao Hydari and Jayasurya starrer Sufiyum Sujatayum, Amazon Prime Video on Friday announced the direct-to-service world premiere of Malayalam film CU Soon, which has been completely shot on an iPhone during the lockdown.

Directed by Mahesh Narayanan, the film stars Fahadh Faasil, Roshan Mathew and Darshan Rajendran in the lead roles.

CU Soon is a gripping drama about a software engineer from Kerala who has been assigned by his family to help his Dubai-based cousin find his missing fiancee, after she leaves behind a video-based suicide note.

Talking about working on the project, Fahadh said in a statement: Working with Mahesh has always been an inspiring experience. We had an incredible stint with our erstwhile blockbuster Take-Off. Making CU Soon was an interesting and exciting experience. Having shot the film entirely during the lockdown, were immensely glad to be able to continue to entertain and bring exciting content for our audience even at a time like this and hope that fans across the world enjoy and share their love towards the film.

Also read: Aditya Pancholi says Kangana Ranaut should return Padma Shri now that her theory on Sushant Singh Rajputs death has been disproved

Mahesh Narayanan said the film is a computer screen-based drama thriller. A new concept that has barely been explored in Indian cinema. People are attempting to stay virtually connected during these unprecedented times, and we wanted to take this concept a step further by exploring a unique format of storytelling through multiple screen devices, he said in the statement.

This film would not have been conceptualized or created without the virtual communication software and their developers. I hope this will inspire many artists to realize their creativity during such times and turn these challenging situations into opportunities to discover a new narrative of storytelling.

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Pakistan foreign minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi landed in the island province of Hainan late on Thursday to begin a very important visit that is designed to deepen the strategic partnership between the two countries that often call themselves iron brothers. Qureshi and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi are expected to hold a one-on-one meeting as well as delegation-level discussions as part of the second round of China-Pakistan foreign ministers strategic dialogue.

The visit aims to project Pakistans political and military leaderships vision, Qureshi said in a video message before boarding the Pakistan Air Force flight to the island in the South China Sea. The province, sometimes marketed to tourists as the Hawaii of China, is also home to Chinas strategic submarine base.

Qureshi, who has been in news for the past fortnight over his broadside at Saudi Arabia that led Prime Minister Imran Khan to depute Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa to firefight in Riyadh, added that he had discussed the China visit with PM Khan.

Qureshi and the accompanying team of officials led by foreign secretary Sohail Mahmood are also expected to prepare for President Xi Jinpings visit to Islamabad. President Xis visit, initially expected earlier this year, was deferred due to the Covid-19 pandemic and is expected to take place soon next month.

A Pakistan watcher in New Delhi said Qureshi was travelling with a three-point plan in hand that included scaling up military cooperation between the two countries. The Peoples Liberation Army and Pakistan army had, in August last year, signed a pact in Rawalpindi army headquarters for defence cooperation and capacity building of Pakistan Army. Islamabad is keen to upgrade this relationship to provide for what is being broadly referred to, in some quarters, as a joint military commission.

This idea, he said, appeared to be centred around setting up a mechanism to take strategic decisions on a military-to-military level so that the armed forces on the two sides are on the same page.

The Imran Khan government is also looking at discussions to expedite implementation of phase 2 of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC projects.

Qureshi, people familiar with the matter said, wants China to help upgrade the infrastructure in Sindh, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Gilgit-Baltistan region, the last two regions controlled by Pakistan but claimed by India.

The $60 billion infrastructure projects in Pakistan proposed under CPEC are central to Chinas wider Belt and Road Initiative to develop land and sea trade routes in Asia and beyond. Just two weeks back, Pakistans top economic body National Economic Council cleared a $6.8 billion project - its costliest CPEC project till date.- to upgrade its railway lines for the Islamabad-Beijing link. The CPEC seeks to connect Gwadar Port in Pakistans Balochistan with Chinas Xinjiang province.

Qureshi is also expected to seek some sort of transport corridor between Nepal and Pakistan for trade with Kathmandu. Nepal had last year signed nearly 20 infrastructure-building agreements with China during President Xis visit including an upgraded all-weather road connection that includes building tunnels through the Himalayas.

India is expected to figure prominently in the discussions, given that the two ministers are meeting when Beijing and Islamabads ties with New Delhi are at an all-time low due to tensions along the Line of Actual Control and the Kashmir issue.

According to information available with New Delhi, China has already assured Islamabad full coordination and support over the Kashmir issue to Islamabad. The Imran Khan government wants Beijing to go one step further and raise the Kashmir issue at the forthcoming UN General Assembly session next month. Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad were the only ones to go this far.

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When Evi van der Niet moved from the Netherlands to Melbourne in 2015, she and her partner decided to introduce themselves to their scores of neighbours by writing them letters  100 handmade postcards, to be exact. It was a great way to make friends, says the 40-year-old artist.

Letter writing has also been a wonderful way for the couple to stay in touch with friends back home. Evi has one friend in particular, Linus, with whom she regularly exchanges mail. When I receive his letters, it feels like a big warm hug on paper, Evi reflects. She therefore considers such correspondence to be the perfect medicine for homesickness.

Putting pen to paper engages different neural pathways in the brain. Credit:Stocksy

But its not just about staying in touch with others. Evi also puts pen to paper as a coping mechanism to help her deal with her own emotions. When she first moved here, she tried to balance the excitement about relocating to a new country with the pangs of loss she experienced over leaving her homeland. Paper gives you the possibility to vent all these contradictory feelings, she says.

When Evi is in the throes of jotting down her thoughts, shes also nourished by the process. Its definitely therapeutic for me. It urges me to slow down long enough to make more sense of my thoughts and feelings. Its a form of self-care.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Nine officials have died after a major fire broke out in the underground hydroelectric power station located in the Telangana side of the Srisailam dam over Krishna river in the Nagarkurnool district late on Thursday night. The fire started in the auxiliary voltage transformer of the fourth unit of the power station.

The Telangana govt has ordered a CID probe into the fire accident. CID Additional DGP Govind Singh will be the enquiry officer.

According to preliminary reports, the fire was due to a short-circuit. Rescue teams from Singareni Collieries Company Limited were pressed into service to rescue the employees.

The deceased were identified as deputy engineer (DE) Srinivas Goud, assistant engineers (AEs) Venkat Rao, Mohan Kumar, Fatima and Sundar, plant attendant Rambabu and junior attendant Kiran and employees of Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL) Vinesh Kumar and Mahesh Kumar.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced financial and other benefits to the families of those who died in the fire accident. The Chief Minister announced Rs 50 lakh ex-gratia to DE Srinivas Gouds family and Rs 25 lakh each to the families of the others who died.

Rao also announced one job each to the families of the deceased. They would also be extended other departmental benefits, according to a release from the Chief Minister's Office here on Friday.

Three more employees injured in the accident were in hospital and recovering.

ALSO READ | CM Jagan Mohan Reddy cancels Srisailam visit after fire breaks out at hydroelectric power station

A TS GENCO employee, who was at the hydroelectric power plant when the fire started said, "It seemed to have started in one of the panels, somewhere near the units 4, 5 and 6. At least ten people were working around that time. We immediately tried to control the fire using carbon dioxide fire extinguishing cylinders."



He further added that they tried to quell the flames for at least 20 minutes. "Thick smoke had engulfed the entire area. The visibility was so poor because of smoke that we could not see the person standing next to us. We had no idea as to what was happening and later a few of us somehow managed to escape. Only God knows how we managed to escape. I am still worried, some of my friends are still trapped there in fire."

Seven #Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Ltd employees and two employees of a private battery firm are trapped in fire after a major fire broke out in the Srisailam hydroelectric power station in Nagarkurnool.



READ: https://t.co/MPkqRDR8lx @XpressHyderabad pic.twitter.com/PDVIuIzASX  The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) August 21, 2020

As per preliminary reports, each turbine in the hydroelectric power station has the capacity to generate 150 MW power, but on Thursday there was a sudden spike in power generation, up to 180 MW, which resulted to a short circuit causing the fire.

While the police, disaster management and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) officials, with the necessary safety gear and oxygen kits, are trying their best to rescue the persons trapped in the fire, the task is proving very tough due to thick smoke billowing at the accident site and the flames are still raring.

Telangana power minister G Jagadish Reddy reached the spot soon after the accident and is at the site, monitoring the situation, along with various senior revenue and police officials of the district.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:01:41|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about local measures for flood control, disaster relief and post-flood production recovery at a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground with higher elevation that functions as a safe haven from river floods, in Funan County in Fuyang, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 18, 2020. Xi on Tuesday inspected Anhui Province. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

HEFEI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has stressed upholding reform and opening up as well as high-quality development while making greater progress in accelerating the building of a better Anhui.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in east China's Anhui Province from Tuesday to Friday.

Efforts should be made to implement the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, implement the new development philosophy and follow the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, Xi said.

The country should uphold reform and opening up as well as high-quality development, deepen supply-side structural reform, and fight the "three tough battles" against major risks, poverty and pollution, he said.

Xi called for efforts to ensure stability on six fronts and security in six areas, secure a victory in completing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and win the battle against poverty.

Efforts should also be made to achieve greater success in the establishment of a new development pattern that takes the domestic market as the mainstay and allows the domestic and foreign markets to boost each other, and make further progress in accelerating the building of a better Anhui, Xi said.

Braving the scorching heat typical of August in the regions between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers, Xi visited the cities of Fuyang, Ma'anshan and Hefei from Tuesday to Friday.

The tour brought Xi to sites at the front line of flood control, rural areas, enterprises and a revolutionary memorial hall, where he visited and consoled flood-hit residents and personnel fighting floods.

Xi inspected work on advancing economic and social development while keeping regular COVID-19 containment measures in place, stepping up flood control and post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, promoting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, and preparing for the country's development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

On Tuesday afternoon, he visited the Wangjiaba floodgate in Funan County of Fuyang City, where he was briefed about work on the flood control in Anhui and on the floodwater diversion through the Wangjiaba floodgate on July 20, the first such diversion via the floodgate after an interval of 13 years. At an exhibition hall on flood control, Xi learnt about in detail the Huaihe River management history and the flood control work in the river valley.

Xi then went to a luggage and bag company nearby to learn about Funan County's work on shaking off poverty through employment and preventing people from falling back into poverty due to floods. He had a warm conversation with workers there.

Xi expressed his hope that companies in flood-hit zones will overcome difficulties to recover losses to floods. He required local Party committees and governments at all levels to deliver greater support to flood-affected companies and help them through hard times to ensure employment for flood-hit and impoverished people.

Xi later went to Limin Village in Caoji Town and visited a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground with higher elevation that functions as a safe haven from river floods.

Walking into the fields, Xi learned about post-flood production recovery from the working villagers and stressed that it is necessary to adjust measures to local conditions, step up planting, minimize disaster losses, and strive for a good harvest in autumn.

Xi also visited the villagers' homes to learn about their family income, flood-incurred damage, and the resumption of production.

"I am very concerned about the flood-affected people and came specially to visit our fellow villagers this time. I am relieved to see your life gradually returning to normal with the help of the Party committee and the government and your own efforts to actively engage in production," Xi told villagers.

Xi went to Ma'anshan City on Wednesday morning and inspected the comprehensive renovation of waterfronts, ecological and environmental protection and restoration, and the implementation of the 10-year fishing moratorium in the Yangtze River.

He stressed that only by protecting the ecology well and giving full play to the ecological advantages can high-quality development be realized.

Xi also urged promoting well-coordinated environmental conservation and avoiding excessive development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

In Ma'anshan, a city built and thrived by steel, Xi visited Magang Group, a subsidiary of China Baowu Steel Group, to learn about the situation of business operation.

Inspecting the workshops and greeting the representatives of the workers, Xi encouraged the company to seize the opportunities brought by the country's further reform of state-owned enterprises and the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta to enhance market competitiveness.

On Wednesday afternoon, Xi went to the county of Feidong in the provincial capital of Hefei, where he inspected a dam in a wetland-turned flood storage area near the Chaohu Lake.

Since the flood season started this year, the lake has seen its highest water levels ever recorded.

Xi stressed efforts to restore wetlands' functions of flood water storage and ecological conservation. He also called on the southern part of China to continue its flood control and disaster relief efforts, while reminding the northern part of China to guard against possible floods to protect people's lives and property.

On the dam, Xi met people fighting the floods at the front line and consoled families of those who died in the line of duty. Xi sent his regards to all those battling floods across the country.

Xi lauded all the frontline officials, members of the public and military personnel from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force for their will, courage and solidarity.

"Our Party and the people thank you!" Xi said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Xi also visited the Anhui Innovation Center in Hefei, where he commended the progress the province has made in advancing technological innovation and developing emerging industries of strategic importance.

Visiting a memorial hall marking the PLA's campaign to cross the Yangtze River during the Chinese People's War of Liberation, Xi stressed efforts to always stay true to the Party's original aspiration and founding mission and always be a loyal servant of the people. Enditem
As someone who once owned the LP soundtrack of this movie (yes, I am old), let me just say that this tale of a diverse, talented group of teens attending New Yorks High School of the Performing Arts thrilled me way back when  and that I can still hear Irene Cara in my head, belting out Baby, remember my name! I guess I did. (Google Play, iTunes, Vudu)
Former Political Science Head at the University of Education, Winneba, Dr. Isaac Brako has argued that propaganda plays a major role in winning an election for any political party.



He explained that the delivery and package of how the message is channeled to the electorates is vital.



Infrastructure is very important in national development that is why politicians are keen on telling the electorates about what they have done even if its not done to convince them for votes.



Another party can do everything but will be voted out. Propaganda can win an election. Its about how to package and tell the people to believe you, he said in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show 'Ghana Montie'.



Dr. Isaac Brako was discussing John Mahamas challenge to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to debate him on who has done extremely well in national development.



The NDC flagbearer on his campaign tour of the Volta Region called on the President to come for a one-on-one debate if he thinks that he has performed better than the previous administration.



Dr. Isaac Brako who wants to see the debate come off told host Kwesi Aboagye that the whoever speaks well will win the hearts of the electorates.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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France recorded another sharp rise is coronavirus cases yesterday with 4,700 infections - up by a thousand - while Italy has seen its highest daily tally since May.

There have also been worrying spikes in Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia - much of it blamed on holidaying Europeans and youngsters enjoying parties in the summer heatwave.

Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest figure for three months, while France's 4,771 fresh infections was a colossal increase on Wednesday's 3,776.

Britons were scrambling to return home from Croatia and Austria last night after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps declared that anyone arriving from the countries must self-isolate for 14 days.

Italy registered 845 new cases on Thursday, its highest daily tally since May, while France's 4,771 fresh infections was a colossal increase on Wednesday's 3,776 (pictured: a graph of the rolling 7-day average)

Britons packed into Split airport in Croatia on Thursday after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps added it to the 14-day quarantine list

Tourists and beachgoers enjoy the sea, sand and sun along the Mare e Sol beach in Coti-Chiavari, Corsica on August 14, 2020

British Airways economy flights from Zagreb to London are up at 276 today compared to 82 on Monday.

Around 20,000 British tourists are thought to be in Croatia.

In Vienna its a similar story, 482 to Heathrow compared to 109 for the same route on Sunday.

The Scottish Government has also announced that Switzerland is being added to its quarantine list.

Weekly coronavirus cases in Croatia have increased by more than 179 percent from 7.8 per 100,000 to 21.5 per 100,000.

In Austria, it's a 79.5 percent increase on the previous week from 8 per 100,000 to 14.4 per 100,000.

And in Switzerland - another nexus of European tourism - weekly cases have increased by 54.6 percent in the last week, from 11.1 per 100,000 to 17.2 per 100,000.

Germany is also experiencing an increase of 26.1% on last week, with particular concern in Berlin where the contagion is soaring wildly after overcrowding in its parks during the heat.

Much of the rise has been blamed on returning holidaymakers as well as summer parties and family gatherings.

The latest figures, from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases, bring to 228,621 the number of infections in the country since the start of the pandemic.

It takes the daily toll back to a level not seen since late April, when the pandemic was considered to be at its peak.

The daily record of new cases in Germany is just over 6,000, registered in early April.

Ten new deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 9,253.

Faced with a surge in cases, Germany earlier this month introduced free, mandatory tests for anyone returning from areas deemed a high risk for COVID-19 infections.

But despite the second wave gathering momentum, the head of the WHO's European branch said that reimposing a full-scale lockdown measures would not be necessary.

Hans Kluge said: 'With the basic nationwide and additional targeted measures, we are in a much better position to stamp out these localized virus flare-ups.

'We can manage the virus and keep the economy running and an education system in operation.'

It comes as the World Bank warned on Thursday that as many as 100 million people may have been driven back into extreme poverty by the virus.

Germany will need to take on yet more debt in 2021 to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on the economy, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.

'Next year we will continue to be forced to suspend the debt rule and spend considerable funds to protect the health of citizens and stabilise the economy,' Scholz said in an interview with the Funke media group, referring to Germany's cherished policy of keeping a balanced budget.

The government has pledged over a trillion euros in aid to shield companies and citizens in Europe's top economy from the pandemic fallout, including through loans, grants and subsidised shorter-hours programmes.

The figures added urgency to the desperate bid to find a vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 22 million and killed hundreds of thousands since it first emerged in China late last year.

Residents and tourists go for a walk on seaside in La Concha beach, in San Sebastian, Basque Country, northern Spain, 19 August 2020

Tourists enjoy their holidays at the Figueretes beach on August 17, 2020 in Ibiza, Spain

Russia announced on Thursday it was pushing forward with testing on more than 40,000 people of its candidate drug, known as Sputnik V, which has already been hailed by Russian officials as a success even as experts questioned the rigour of the testing regime.

Several drugs are approaching the mass-testing phase, and countries around the world have been pre-ordering many millions of doses.

The EU said on Thursday it had concluded talks with a German pharmaceutical firm to secure 225 million doses of a potential vaccine - the fourth such agreement the bloc has reached.

French President Emmanuel Macron hailed European cooperation on the issue and said he was hopeful that a vaccine would come online with the next few months.

'This will not solve the problems of the next few weeks, but of the next few months,' he said.

However, while a vaccine remains elusive, governments are left trying to control the spread through social-distancing measures, quarantines, travel bans and restrictions on businesses.
Activists are warning of an unprecedented evictions crisis brewing, with state moratoriums set to expire this month.

Sandi Bachom, 75, never expected to be evicted. She once earned a six-figure salary at a New York City advertising firm and lived a comfortable life. But after getting divorced, losing her job and getting hit by a car, she fell behind on her $3,000 monthly rent payment.

In April 2012, she came home to find an eviction notice slapped on the front door of her apartment.

Its so shameful, its like everybody knew, and I was feeling bad enough as it is. I was just riddled with fear, Bachom, now a freelance filmmaker and journalist, told Al Jazeera. I went to the worst-case scenario: I was evicted. For me, it cant get any worse than that.

Bachoms son, then in his late teens, went to live with his father and she moved in with a friend. When Bachom later tried applying for the citys affordable housing lottery, she said a credit check stopped her application in its tracks.

They found that I had been evicted, she said. I never thought about credit [checks] because I always paid my bills and bought stuff and could rent apartments, and I was kind of rich. Then I went from Prada to nada.

Bachom said she still lives with her friend and has never attempted to rent another apartment, fearing she would be turned down again or charged more because of the eviction on her record. She supplements the income she makes as a video journalist with her Social Security cheque and food stamps.

Im 75 years old. I had bills and I just stopped paying them  like my credit card  and I thought, what are they going to do? Its like blood out of a rock. I dont have any money to live off of, let alone pay my American Express card, Bachom said. If you miss one rent payment, youll never catch up. Theres no way to catch up.

If you miss one rent payment, you'll never catch up. There's no way to catch up. Sandi Bachom, freelance filmmaker and journalist

A crisis that predates the pandemic

While President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month instructing officials to find solutions for keeping tenants in their homes, it failed to extend a federal moratorium on evictions that expired in July.

Across the country, advocates warn that the US is poised for an unprecedented crisis. Landlords in 17 cities have already filed for 36,581 evictions during the pandemic. Thats expected to surge as some states eviction moratoria expire as soon as the end of this month, according to a tracker created by Princeton Universitys Eviction Lab.

As COVID-19 relief funds dwindle, unemployment remains high and some jobs may never return. And though tenants are already struggling to pay their rent during the pandemic, the crisis has been brewing for much longer, said Alieza Durana, a media strategist with the Eviction Lab.

Nearly three decades of rising rents and wage stagnation, coupled with centuries of systematic discrimination within our housing market and policies, have given rise to a housing crisis that predates COVID-19, Durana told Al Jazeera. In 2016, we saw 3.7 million eviction filings in our data, or seven eviction filings per minute, when unemployment was under five percent.

Though tenants are struggling to pay their rents during the coronavirus pandemic, the crisis has been brewing for much longer, say experts [File: Leah Millis/Reuters]

The current public health and economic crisis is already deepening inequalities felt across our society, and has the potential to increase experiences of eviction and homelessness in the absence of immediate and meaningful policy measures, she added.

At 10.2 percent, the current unemployment rate is more than double the one in 2016  and many in the US spend a huge chunk of their income on rent. Pre-pandemic, more than 46 percent of renter households were classified as housing-cost burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent, according to a Federal Reserve analysis.

Among lower-income households, that burden is even greater: a renter in the lowest-income quintile has less than $500 left to spend after paying their rent for the month, says the Fed.

The crisis is also disproportionately impacting people of colour. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that on average, Black tenants have evictions filed against them at twice the rate of white tenants in 17 out of the 36 states the ACLU analysed.

You can't shelter in place without a place to shelter. Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation, Central Virginia Legal Aid Society

A traumatic event for communities, too

An eviction is a traumatic event, not simply at the individual level, but also to our families and communities across the United States, said Durana. An eviction can cause a family to experience a decline in mental and physical wellbeing, ruined credit, homelessness and job loss, to name a few of its devastating effects.

The impact of eviction is felt far beyond the immediate crisis of finding another place to live. In the US, an eviction remains on a persons credit report for seven years and an eviction judgment in court remains on a persons record for 10 years, which means the coming crisis spawned by the pandemic is poised to have negative impacts for years to come, said Marty Wegbreit, the director of litigation for the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.

Richmond, Virginia, where Wegbreit works, has the second-highest eviction rate among large cities at 11.44 percent, which puts it at more than 9 percent above the national average, according to Eviction Lab data.

We call it the 'Scarlet E' Marty Wegbreit, director of litigation, Central Virginia Legal Aid Society

Wegbreit has seen firsthand how each stage of eviction has a ripple effect on tenants lives, he said.

We call it the Scarlet E,' Wegbreit told Al Jazeera. The scarlet gets redder and redder as you go from an eviction lawsuit that was dismissed, to one that had possession and rent granted, to one that had a writ of eviction issued. In fact, even if a lawsuit was filed against you and dismissed, that alone is considered a black mark by landlords.

With battered credit scores and evictions on their publicly-searchable court records, many tenants are forced to move into lower-quality housing  and pay more for it to boot.

Inevitably, people will move into worse housing, because the good landlords  the ones who have good-quality housing in a good neighbourhood with good schools  their risk tolerance is much lower than landlords who have the lower-quality housing in the lower-quality neighbourhood with lower-quality schools, Wegbreit said. These landlords charge higher rents than the market would ordinarily allow for just because they know that theres a certain set of their tenants who are going to default.

Getting back on track requires months of on-time rent payments, Wegbreit explained. One unexpected medical expense, car repair or a decrease in work hours could set someone back, especially when late fees are factored in.

It just takes very little  the phrase we use is one bad day  to throw that completely off kilter, he said. Its very difficult to crawl out from under that.

For families with children, eviction often means moving into housing that is within a lower-quality school districts attendance zone as well, Wegbreit said.

I was evicted. For me, it can't get any worse than that. Sandi Bachom, freelance filmmaker and journalist

Of the 25 elementary schools in Richmond, 18 are in attendance zones with eviction rates above the citys average eviction rate, and 10 of those 18 schools are unaccredited, compared to just one unaccredited school in an attendance zone with a below-average eviction rate.

And while there is federal legislation that lets students finish the school year in the district where they started even if they are evicted, transportation to and from school can still be a challenge, particularly for lower-income families.

All of this has been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, which shows no signs of slowing in large swaths of the country.

Everything weve been told since mid-March is to shelter a place, and you cant shelter in place without a place to shelter, Wegbreit said. Twenty million or more tenants could be facing eviction by October unless really serious efforts are done at all levels of government. Its not just not just about the federal, state, or local level  its really about all three.
Northern Ireland's Executive Office deliberately and unlawfully refused to advance a pensions scheme for victims of the Troubles, a High Court judge ruled on Friday.

Mr Justice McAlinden held that Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill is still not complying with a legal obligation to designate a Stormont Department to oversee payments in a bid to force the UK government into providing funding.

In a scathing verdict, he described claims that it was permissible to delay allocation of the compensation programme for political reasons as "arrant nonsense".

The judge declared: "What is in reality being done is that the Executive Office is deliberately stymieing the implementation of the scheme in order to pressure the Secretary of State to make a different scheme which will be substantially directly funded by Westminster ad which will have very different entitlement rules."

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Rejecting claims that it was a legitimate stance aimed at forcing changes, he added: "This is a truly shocking proposition.

"It demonstrates either wilful disregard for the rule of law, or abject ignorance of what the rule of law means in a democratic society."

With immediate action now expected before a final order is made in seven days, he expressed hope that the finding of illegality will set in motion a chain of events towards grant funding being provided.

The determination came in legal challenges by two victims to the continued impasse around introducing the scheme with an estimated cost of 100 million.

Jennifier McNern lost both legs in an IRA bomb attack on the Abercorn Restaurant in Belfast city centre in March 1972.

Proceedings were also brought by Brian Turley, one of the so-called 'Hooded Men' detained and subjected to special interrogation methods by the British military in the early 1970s.

Even though legislation was passed for the pension scheme which should have opened for applications in May, it remains in limbo due to a dispute over eligibility for payments.

Under new guidance anyone convicted of causing serious harm during the Troubles would be ruled out.

It demonstrates either wilful disregard for the rule of law, or abject ignorance of what the rule of law means in a democratic society Mr Justice McAlinden

Sinn Fein claims the British government policy is discriminatory and could unfairly exclude thousands of people within the republican communities.

Throughout the hearing the judge repeatedly indicated that Ms O'Neill, the party's most senior representative in the Stormont administration, is ignoring the rule of law by her stance.

Counsel for the Executive Office accepted the pensions regulations required the designation of a Department, but contended that there was no particular timeframe.

Political issues for the delay involved a dispute between London and Belfast over who should pay for the scheme.

Mr Justice McAlinden noted that First Minister Arlene Foster has now changed her stance and is prepared to immediately designate a Department.

But he said the Deputy First Minister still appears to consider it appropriate and necessary to deliberately delay in order to put pressure on Westminster to provide substantial funding.

According to the judge, Ms O'Neill, as Vice President of Sinn Fein, is also "implacably opposed" to the current eligibility criteria because many republicans with convictions could be ruled out.

Both the First and Deputy First Ministers could not have been under any misapprehension about their duty designate a Department back in February, he said.

Instead, Justice McAlinden identified a deliberate refusal to comply with that obligation in the hope of extracting political concessions on funding and eligibility.

He rejected submissions that the the court should not adjudicate on issues of politics and policy.

"This argument does not withstand even the most cursory form of scrutiny. It is, in reality, arrant nonsense dressed up in the guise of reasoned legal argument," the judge said.

It was stressed that under no circumstances could the Executive Office's actions and stance be sanctioned or left unaddressed.

He added: "The rule of law also means that no one, regardless of their rank, position or status, is above the law and all must comply with the law as it applies to them, and the law as it applies to an individual or group must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner."

The delay in having to wait on my right to a pension can only be described as another form of torture Brian Turley

Outside court Mr Turley welcomed the ruling, insisting the Executive Office now has seven days to take immediate action on the pension scheme.

He was among 14 men brought by the Army to a secret location where techniques including being forced to wear hoods, thrown to the ground from low-flying helicopters and then deprived of sleep, food and drink.

Known as the Hooded Men, they also endured continuous loud noise and prolonged wall-standing as part of the alleged torture methods.

Mr Turley said: "How do the Executive explain the profound unprofessionalism of their approach to victims?

"As a survivor of torture, I was left with long term injuries as a result of the actions of the State.

"The delay in having to wait on my right to a pension can only be described as another form of torture."

His solicitor, Darragh Mackin, maintained that victims have been denied compensation to which they are entitled.

"For Mr Turley, who has a previous conviction, today's ruling bears a personal significance, Mr Mackin explained.

"He, for too long, has been deprived of the redress to which he is entitled to as a victim of the horrendous treatment he sustained at the hands of the State."

I remain convinced that this scheme will be exclusionary, discriminatory and divisive. Its policy intent was and remains to create a hierarchy of victims Michelle O'Neill

In a statement, Ms O'Neill said: It remains a matter of huge concern that this Westminster scheme was designed without input or consultation from Executive Ministers or indeed parties in the Assembly.

I remain convinced that this scheme will be exclusionary, discriminatory and divisive. Its policy intent was and remains to create a hierarchy of victims, and reinforce the British state narrative around the conflict.

As joint Head of Government I remain committed to delivering a scheme, which is based on equality and open to everyone who was seriously physically and psychologically injured during the conflict.

In light of the court ruling, therefore, I am left with no alternative other than to designate a department.

However, that designation will require the Executive to work together to secure the additional funds from Westminster for the cost of the scheme and get further clarity on eligibility and applications.

Sinn Fein is also calling for the convening of an Irish and British government summit to progress all outstanding legacy matters to offset further attempts by the British government to bring in new legacy legislation that deviates from the Stormont House Agreement.

DUP leader Arlene Foster said: "This is a massive win for innocent victims.

"As this is a UK wide pension, it will necessitate a budget uplift from the Government. I know those discussions are under way with Treasury, the First Minister added.
The Upper East Regional House of Chiefs has sworn in one Paramount Chief and 12 Divisional Chiefs with a call on them to sacrifice for the wellbeing of their people.



The ceremony also conferred official status on the Paramountcy of Zuarungu Traditional Area after over 60 years of struggle.



Naba Biliya Maltinga Afeghera III, a Police Officer, was sworn in as the Paramount Chief for the Traditional Area which has 13 sub-chiefs.



The other 12 divisional chiefs are from the Kusaug and Sandema Traditional Areas.



They are Naba Robert Agetwin, Chief of Binduri, Naba Abdulai Abugri, Chief of Bugri, Naba Mohamadu Assibi Azonko I, Chief of Gumbo, Naba Ibrahim Aguur Ayuumah, Chief of Pusiga, Naba Nbangiba Ayagiba III, Chief of Sapeliga, Naba Issifu Teag Achebelongo, Chief of Tilli and Naba John Dazuur Tiigah, Chief of Kpikpira all from the Kusaug Traditional Area.



The rest include Nab Francis Akanbegmi Asangalisa, Chief of Chuchuliga, Nab Nkrumah Apaalinchang, Chief of Gbedema, Nab Atirekperi Anmalugsi, Chief Gbedmbilisa, Nab Akanjianya Akanfella, Chief of Kanjarga and Nab Afulang Gilbert Apig-Jiak, Chief of Siniensi, all from the Sandema Traditional Area.



Justice Jacob Boom, the Supervising High Court Judge, who swore in the chiefs, urged the new members of the House to abide by the Chieftaincy and the Legislative Instrument in the discharge of their mandate.



Naba Olando Ayamga Awuni III, the President of the House of Chiefs, said Chieftaincy demanded time and wisdom.



He said the new members needed to cultivate the spirit of sacrifice and diligence to better serve their people.



The President, who is also the Paramount Chief of Naaga Traditional Area, said the presence of the Paramount Chief of the Zuarungu Traditional area, a security expert, would strengthen the Regional House of Chiefs and urged members to work together to develop the region.



Naba Awuni III also asked the chiefs to remain neutral when politicians visit their palaces to solicit support for the 2020 general elections.



The President admonished the new chiefs to always put the wellbeing of their people first and to deal with cases in a fair and balanced manner to promote sustainable peace.



Naba Afeghera III, on behalf of the other 12 Divisional Chiefs, pledged to abide by the regulations governing the chieftaincy title and the house of chiefs.



The new members would also work to improve the lives of the people in their communities.



Naba Afeghera III said, as a security expert, he would bring his expertise to bear on the work of the security agencies to fight crime and ensure safety in the region.



The Zuarungu Paramountcy becomes the 18th paramountcy of the Upper East Region.

The occasion, characterized by cultural performances, was graced by Ms Nadia Adongo Musah, the Deputy Director for the Diaspora Affairs at the Office of the President, Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga East, and native of Zuarungu, Mr Isaac Adongo, MP for Bolgatanga Central as well as Reverend Emmanuel Abugre Abole, the District Chief of Bolgatanga East.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Real estate developer Don Peebles told CNBC on Friday that he anticipates a slow economic recovery for New York City in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

"I think New York will ultimately come back. It'll come back differently. It'll be a different place, and it will be much more affordable," said Peebles, CEO of privately held Peebles Corp., which has a corporate office in lower Manhattan.

He added on "The Exchange," "I think it's going to take New York about a decade or so to dig out of this. Maybe longer. But it's not going to be soon."

Peebles said he foresees challenges ahead for New York City in attracting and maintaining new residents and businesses going forward. Among them is the strength of other U.S. cities, especially in places with a more tax-friendly environment, he said.

"New York City can come back, if it becomes competitive and if we all recognize that we've got to go and compete with South Florida," he said. "We've got to compete with Nashville, [Tennessee]. We've got to compete with Austin, Texas, and Dallas, Texas. Absent of that, if we keep these blinders on, New York City's hole is just going to dig deeper."

Previously rumored to have weighed running for mayor of New York, Peebles said Friday that "probably I will focus on my business, but we'll see." The city's next mayoral election is 2021. The current officeholder, Mayor Bill de Blasio, is term limited.

The death of New York City has been debated often, especially following seminal events such as the Great Recession, 9/11 and the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. In each case, the most dire forecasts for the city haven't materialized. But the coronavirus pandemic, Peebles contended, has been "worse than all three of them."

The city  once the epicenter of the United States' Covid-19 outbreak  has only seen an acceleration of troubling trends that predated the health crisis, Peebles said.

"There was an exodus out of New York prior to Covid. New York was becoming less competitive in terms of it becoming a business-friendly environment. It was less competitive and less attractive to high net worth individuals, and as result of that people were leaving," he said.

Now, Peebles said many realized they could work from anywhere. From a real estate lens, in particular, he said markets such as South Florida are likely to see a "massive growth." Peebles Corp. has developments in that region.

"New York City, I mean some major projects are selling now at 50% discounts for new construction," he said. "I think that shows some real stress."
It took him decades to get there -- and it took technological marvels to even create a there.

When the moment came, Joe Biden met it with an appeal for unity in a time of division. He accepted the presidential nomination and closed out a unique convention Thursday night by offering himself as part -- but just part -- of a solution to a wide range of national woes.

"While I'll be a Democratic candidate, I'll be an American president," the former vice president said in accepting the presidential nomination. "That's the job of the president -- to represent all of us, not just our base or our party."

PHOTO: Former Vice President Joe Biden accepts the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination during a speech delivered for the largely virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del., Aug. 20, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Biden's appeals were sobering as well as soaring, as he sought a counter to an era defined by anger, division and fear. He implored the all-virtual audience to "take this chance to heal, to reform, to unite."

Biden also laid out a detailed plan to address the COVID-19 crisis, laying blame on President Donald Trump for what he called an "unforgiveable" failure of leadership.

"Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation," Biden said. "He's failed to protect us."

The convention was intimate, funny and searing at various points. The final night at times felt like a letdown, with the highest-profile speakers having already gone and a whole lot of Biden biography to work through.

PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris celebrate along with their spouses after Biden accepted the nomination at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Aug. 20, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

But Biden's speech turned such sentiments around. He touched on the tumultuous events of the last few years -- Charlottesville, George Floyd, the economic collapse, the pandemic -- to marshal support for what he calls a "battle for the soul of the nation."

"America's ready," Biden said. "We can find the light once more."

MORE: 5 takeaways from final night of Democratic National Convention

Conventions typically showcase intraparty discord as much as they do unity, but this one was mostly drama-free. It was an achievement for Biden to have gotten through four nights of programming without much in the way of squabbling or controversy.

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There are two main reasons for that: the virtual format, and the existence of Trump. And while most Democrats -- including Biden himself -- never made it to Wisconsin for the convention, Biden brought key messaging to the state, in the broadest sense of what it represents for his party.

Biden knows that Wisconsin and other key states will slip away from Democrats if they don't reach voters who shower after work, to borrow a phrase made popular in a seemingly long-ago Democratic debate.

PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidates Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang, during the final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Aug. 20, 2020. (Democratic National Convention)

Just as modern conventions consumed on Twitter but not directed at it, what looked like a grand Zoom call wasn't necessarily for the work-at-home set. The "Build Back Better" theme was reinforced by hard hats and union flags throughout the closing night.

"You guys built America -- not Wall Street," Biden said in a taped virtual conversation with union members.

MORE: Teen who has stutter shares speaking advice Biden gave him

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said he wouldn't be where he was if not for his father getting a union job: "Together we work, together we rise."

The case against Trump got an airing too: "It didn't have to be this way," said former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who, like Booker ran for the nomination against Biden this cycle. "Why the hell would we ever rehire Donald Trump for another four years?"

PHOTO: Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg addresses the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Aug. 20, 2020. (Democratic National Convention)

Bloomberg, whose billion-dollar investment in his own campaign couldn't buy him a ticket beyond Super Tuesday, got a prime speaking slot in the convention's final night. In any year with a live audience, Bloomberg could have expected jeers and even organized walkouts.

That sort of control of the messaging could mark one of the few upsides of the virtual format. It freed Biden to not just add to the case against Trump but to give the party and those it's seeking to reach some things to vote for.

When the speech ended, fireworks went off over Wilmington, Delaware, as Biden and his wife, Jill, put on masks to marvel at something unusual in the parking lot of the arena they emerged from: a crowd.

The Bidens were surely smiling under their masks. Yet, as the celebrations fade, the party faithful logged off from the first-ever virtual convention knowing that they may not feel this good about their chances from here. The Republicans get their chance next week.

This report was featured in the Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, episode of Start Here, ABC News daily news podcast.

"Start Here" offers a straightforward look at the day's top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

All of us: Biden appeals for unity, as Democrats underscore stakes on conventions final night: ANALYSIS originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft will continue their operations in California after a new appeals court ruling allows them to treat their drivers as independent contractors.

This decision pauses a lower-court ruling that was scheduled to take effect on Friday midnight. It would also give the two companies a few more months to protect their business models in a key market.

"While we won't have to suspend operations tonight, we do need to continue fighting for independence plus benefits for drivers," Lyft spokeswoman Julie Wood said in a report.

The companies said the drivers' change in status would be impossible to accomplish overnight. They said it would also put a financial burden difficult for them to shoulder while they are still struggling to turn a profit.

Lyft urged the people in California to support the measure called Proposition 22 that the companies are backing. This measure aims to classify drivers as independent contractors.

Uber and Lyft with DoorDash, Postmates, and Instacart, have provided more than $110 million to support the measure. The proposition is up for a vote in California in November.

The appeals court is set to hear oral aruments regarding the case of the two companies on Oct. 13. But a ruling is unlikely until after the Nov. 3 election.

Drivers as Independent Contractors

Uber and Lyft classify their drivers as independent contractors, which means that workers pay for their own expenses, such as gas, car maintenance, and insurance.

By doing so, drivers are also not subjected to any labor benefits such as minimum wage, health care, and paid sick leave.If the drivers are classified as employees, these expenses will fall on the companies' shoulders.

Many drivers sought unemployment benefits as they were one of the many affected by the coronavirus pandemic. However, they found out that they did not qualify.

The companies have avoided giving their drivers state-mandated benefits such as unemployment aid by declaring them as independent contractors.

Judge Ethan Schulman of the San Francisco County Superior Court said the two companies had saved millions of dollars by classifying drivers as independent contractors.

The ride-hailing companies argued that they are technology companies, not transportation firms, which means that drivers are not a core part of their business.

A previous ruling was forcing the two companies to classify their drivers as employees. However, they said that if the court forced them to do that, they would have to stop their operations in the state.

"If the court doesn't reconsider, then in California, it's hard to believe we'll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a report.

Uber and Lyft in California

Uber and Lyft would be massively sustaining losses if they decided to shut down their operations in California.

Around nine percent of Uber's worldwide rides and food delivery services were accounted for California before the pandemic even began.

California is even more important for Lyft as it does not operate outside the United States, except in Canada.

Around 21 percent of Lyft's rides were accounted to Canada before the pandemic started. The figure then fell to 16 percent during the April to June period as more people were ordered to stay at home.

Uber said that the court's decision would ensure its "critical services won't be cut off while we continue to advocate for drivers' ability to work with the freedom they want."

Lyft, on the other hand, said that they would continue the fight for independence, adding benefits for drivers.

Check these out:

Uber, Lyft California Likely to Shutdown if Forced to Classify Drivers As Employees

So Much for That Gig: Uber Now Testing Self-Driving Cars

Uber Sets Eyes on Argentina But May Receive a Chilly Welcome - Here's Why
I carabinieri hanno arrestato Rosario Palermo, 60 anni: e accusato di omicidio e occultamento di cadavere
I am a retired DNR and DEQ employee, as well as a Midland resident who but by the grace of God was not affected by the dam failure flooding.

I am very disappointed with my former employer on how the dam situation was handled, but have witnessed the broken spirit of a once proud state agency stemming from under staffing, under funding, and a legislature that has done everything but abolish it through legislation leaning toward excessive regulated party influence and watered down laws.

The agency you see today, EGLE, is a shell of the regulatory agency it once was, and I think Michigan is at a tipping point where it must decide which wins in the philosophical debate of economy versus the future of a natural and safe Michigan. The past decades have seen a concerted, planned effort to make public health, environmental protection, and wise natural resource management take a backseat to commercial interests.

When I began my work for the DNR in 1978, Michigan was reeling from a similar era of commercial interests running the political show. Hazardous waste dumps were rampant, floodplains filled, open dumps of solid waste were everywhere, wetlands filled regularly, rivers channelized, and other public health horrors plagued our communities. Michigan upgraded its laws and began to enforce those laws more aggressively and the legislature created funding mechanisms to clean up abandoned dumps, underground storage tanks, and took steps to make polluters pay for their damage. Since that time, the lessons of the past were forgotten and we have come close to returning to the pre-Earth Day era.

We as a society must no longer accept the status quo on deregulation and acceptance of environmental challenges as unsolvable, especially flooding in Michigan. I have been working with Michigan United Conservation Clubs, Michigan Environmental Council, and other non-profit public interest groups to fight against un-protective legislation and improve the effectiveness of regulations in carrying out the Michigan Constitutional mandate making the environment and natural resources of paramount concern.

The recent dam failure was not just a tragic accident; rather a matter waiting for the perfect storm, which increased as climate change demonstrated worsening weather events. Our groups are currently developing recommended changes to the dam safety law to bring it up to national standards and focus on funding corrective action. We are now adapting to the unexpected, recent announcement from EGLE that it has formed a task force to develop solutions to the problems that led up to the flood. We have also outreached to Dow since that site sustained flood damage, but have received no response to our efforts to involve the company in the solution.

Recently, I met with Sen. Jim Stamas to discuss our work and concerns. One of my points was that the constant threat of flooding in Midland must no longer be accepted as just normal. The Boyce Hydro dam system was focused too much on power at the least cost, and the lake task force on establishing a maintained dam to fix lake level rather than functioning as a proper flood control system. Potentially affected downstream landowners had little influence in the threat posed by these dams or how their mission could be expanded to reduce seasonal flooding. The Sturgeon River has no flood management system. As these river and lake systems reel from this disaster, there must not be a return to normal without focus on floodwater control and management.

One hundred year and greater floods are expected to become more common. No longer can lake associations drive the lake management process. Hydro-electic dams are not sustainably profitable in Michigan, even those operated by larger electricity production concerns. Lake impoundments must be considered and managed as public infrastructure rather than private concerns with attention and funding from the legislature. Some impoundments must eventually be drawn down and removed where there is no public or private will to properly sustain them. Downstream homeowners in flood threat areas must no longer face the annual anxiety of uncontrolled flood damage and financial ruin without a planned effort to reduce the threat; nor must our natural resources be damaged by unbridled flooding events.

Gregory Eagle, of Midland, is a board member of the Michigan Resources Stewards. He is scheduled to be inducted into Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame in 2021 for his decades of public service to the environment and Michigan citizens.
(JTA) - It's official: Kamala Harris is Joe Biden's choice for vice president.

The California senator, who made history Tuesday as the first Black woman to join a major party presidential ticket, is still in her first term. But during several years in public office, the 55-year-old lawmaker's outspoken opinions on a range of issues and her presidential run have given Jewish voters plenty to scrutinize.

She is also married to Jewish lawyer Douglas Emhoff, who would become the country's first Jewish second husband.

As a senator, Harris has been aligned with Biden on Israel: She is seen as a s...
A n east London independent school where a jihadi extremist worked as a teacher and was able to show an ISIS propaganda video to pupils has been given an official warning by the Charity Commission.

Umar Ahmed Haque, 28, was put in charge of classes at the Lantern of Knowledge School in Leyton while working as an Islamic Studies teacher between April 2015 and January 2016.

He had no formal teaching qualifications and had concealed criminal convictions on his application to join the 3,000-a-year school, his Old Bailey trial heard.

Haque was convicted in 2018 of plotting to recruit an army of children for an ISIS-inspired terror campaign, and had picked out targets including Parliament, the City, and Londons transport network.

He had denied the claim of criminal wrongdoing at the east London school despite admitting to showing pupils an ISIS propaganda video during a lesson, and the charge was left to lie on file following a hung jury.

However in a scathing report released today, the Charity Commission said the lack of a criminal conviction did not diminish concerns over how Haque was managed by the school's trustees.

The inquiry is critical of the trustees conduct and their failure to recognise the seriousness of the matter, the report found.

Court artist sketch of Umar Haque / PA

The fact that Daesh-related material was shown to the charitys beneficiaries was not in dispute, and something which the trustees were fully aware of as set out in the inquiry opening letter and through media reporting of the trial.

The trustees failed to consider the implications of showing the video, given its content, to the charitys beneficiaries, irrespective of whether or not doing so constituted a criminal offence.

The school complained when the Charity Commission opened its investigation, and tried to play down its ties to Haque and his offending after he was found guilty of a string of terror charges and jailed for life.

Making findings of misconduct and mismanagement, the commission said: By showing the children in his class pro-Daesh material, (Haque) grossly abused the position of trust he held at the charity.

In his witness evidence, (Haque) recognised at the time of showing the video that it was not a good idea, but instead of pursuing the matter as a potential safeguarding concern, he exploited an opportunity to show children in the charitys care the video which promoted the ideology and tactics of a proscribed terrorist organisation.

The public rightly expect charities, particularly those working with children and young people, to be safe places, free from abuse or harm. In light of (Haques) actions this was not the case within this charity.

Haque was found guilty of trying to radicalise children during classes he ran at the Ripple Road mosque in Barking, and had identified terror targets including Big Ben, the Queens guard, the London Underground, police and army bases, as well as courts and journalists.

Sentencing him, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave called Haque a dangerous liar who was able to convert his young followers by being intelligent, articulate, and persuasive, with an easy smile  he is narcissistic and clearly enjoys the power he wields over others.

Following the sentencing hearing, the Mets anti-terror commander Dean Haydon said he was "horrified" when he learned Haque had been allowed in charge of classes of children at the Lantern of Knowledge school.

"It's a fee paying school, they are paying significant amounts of money to send their children to this school and they expect them to be safe, with safeguarding measures, and taught by fully qualified teachers. In this case, they weren't", he said.

The Charity Commission said there was no evidence whatsoever of Haque being challenged by the school over his false declaration to not have criminal convictions, and the trustees said during the investigation that they had not been involved in hiring him.

The charitys staff recruitment procedure has now changed to ensure trustees have oversight of the application and interview process and it now has a dedicated section on the recruitment of ex-offenders, the report said.

Should this situation arise in the future the trustees should refer to and follow the steps set out in the recruitment policy before a recruitment decision is made. This should also include if false information is provided by an applicant.

The commissions report also looked into the sliding standards of the school, going from outstanding to inadequate last year when a disturbing discovery was made by inspectors.

On the first day of the inspection, a book which contained text that contradicted British values was found in the library. Leaders and staff were not able to provide inspectors with an explanation as to how the book came to be in the library. There was no school stamp on the inside cover.

The books contents promote violence and intolerance towards groups protected by law. An excerpt from the book states Homosexuals advocate a view of human relationships that is at odds with the natural order and stability of human society. Tolerating homosexuality and promiscuity means encouraging them and pushing more and more people to practice them. Another excerpt states A person who is married and commits adultery, and who either confesses or whose act is proven, pays for it with his life.

The Charity Commission concluded that changes in leadership have now been made at the school, an independent review had been conducted in to Haques employment, and a string of changes have been made including around safeguarding.

Tim Hopkins, Assistant Director for Investigations and Inquiries at the Commission, said: Umar Haques action at this charity was appalling. It is completely unacceptable for any charity to be associated with terrorism and we are concerned by the corrosive effect this might have on public confidence in this and other charities.

We expect the trustees of this charity to learn from the failings set out in our report, and to comply with the required actions to strengthen the charitys administration. We will closely monitor the trustees compliance with these actions."

The Standard has contacted the Lantern of Knowledge School for comment.
EVERGREEN PARK, IL  Evergreen Park School Dist. 124 public grammar schools are on track to return to blended learning next week, but not without concerns from the teachers union. Faculty and staff asked the D124 school board to continue full-remote learning for the fall semester, because of recent new stringent guidelines issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The district adopted an in-person and remote learning model earlier in the summer based on a parents survey. About 75 percent of families opted for in-person, full-day instruction, with 25 percent of families requesting full remote learning.

Students whose last names begin with A-Li will return for a half-day on Aug 26, and the rest will attend for a half day on Aug. 27, which are likely to be spent reviewing safety and face mask protocols. The first full day of in-person attendance will be on Aug. 28.

Fall enrollment at Southwest, Southeast, Northwest and Northeast K-5 elementary schools, and Central Middle School stands at 1,537, compared to 1,200 students from this time last year. Dist. 124 enrollment ended the 2019-20 school year at 1,882.

The school reopening plan for 2020-21 involved 75 faculty, administrators and other stakeholders over the past six weeks, resulting in a 96-page document, the co-interim superintendents Drs. Lela Bridges-Webb and Margaret Longo told school board members.

Compared to the rest of Illinois, of the states 718 school districts, 24.65 percent are going fully remote; 29.53 percent in-person; and 45.82 school districts will have hybrid programs, where some students report for in-class instruction while the rest learn at home, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

Longo also presented data on daily positive COVID-19 cases reported in Evergreen Park. Between Aug. 12 and Aug. 18, the superintendents said nine positive cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control. Data from the Cook County Department of Public Health, reported 37 new cases in Evergreen Park over the past 14 days.

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The Evergreen Park Federation of Teachers Union said following a committee of the whole meeting earlier this month, the union took an informal poll of membership, 73-percent of whom stated they did not feel safe returning to the classroom based on new guidance from the state health department.

On Aug. 13, the state public health department released new, more stringent guidelines about close contact, coronavirus symptoms, quarantine and N95 mask guidelines for staff.

The EPFT124 union co-presidents Katie Patras and Joanne Reilly read a letter asking school board members to reconsider in-person learning, expressing concerns about district schools ability to meet the new IDPH guidelines. The teachers also cited staff shortages and substitute teacher costs.

Desks in classrooms are currently spaced three feet apart, instead of the six feet called for in the guidelines, straining room capacity.

We present this information to you not to cast blame, not cause opposition, and not to be ungrateful for all the work our administration has done. Weve all given our all, were all worried, and were all wishing we could go back to our pre-covid days, the union letter stated.

This article originally appeared on the Evergreen Park Patch
Navalny has been in a coma since Thursday after he fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow and his plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Siberia, the BBC reported.

Moscow, Aug 21 (IANS) Russian doctors said on Friday that Alexei Navalny, a leading opposition figure and a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, remains too ill to be transferred to Germany for treatment after a suspected poisoning.

After he was admitted to the Omsk Emergency Hospital, the 44-year-old's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted that "Alexei has toxic poisoning".

But Anatoly Kalinichenko, deputy chief physician at the hospital, told reporters that no poisons were found Navalny's system, thus doctors do not think he was poisoned, TASS News Agency reported.

"No poisons or traces of poison have been found in his system. I suppose the diagnosis 'poisoning' is still at the back of our minds.

"But we do not think that the patient has been poisoned," Kalinichenko said.

Meanwhile, Alexander Murakhovsky, head doctor at the hospital, said Navalny's condition had improved a little, but that he was still unstable.

He added that legal questions would need to be resolved before Navalny could be moved, the BBC reported.

But Navalny's team said it was "deadly" for him to remain in the hospital.

"The ban on the transportation of Navalny is an attempt on his life, which is being made right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities who sanctioned it," Yarmysh tweeted on Friday.

The Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation said it had organised a plane to pick up Mr Navalny and bring him back to Berlin, where the Charite hospital was ready to treat him.

It said the aircraft had medical equipment and a team specialised in treating coma patients on board.

The air ambulance arrived in the Siberian city of Omsk on Friday morning, according to flight tracking data.

Both Germany and France have said they were happy to help with treatment.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "he can receive from us all the help and medical support needed".

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he was "very concerned" by the reports of the alleged poisoning and the refusal to move Navalny.

A spokesperson for Putin said on Thursday that the Kremlin would help move Navalny abroad if necessary and wished him a "speedy recovery".

Navalny has made a name for himself by exposing official corruption, labelling Putin's United Russia as "the party of crooks and thieves", and has served several jail terms.

--IANS

ksk/
08/21/2020

Photo (c) kroach - Getty Images Consumer review sites are getting flooded with complaints about Noom, a popular app-based weight loss service.

Most of the complaints stem from consumers feeling that the company offers misleading free trials, only to be hit with $100+ subscription charges that show up as soon as the free trials end. Even worse, the app users allege that those subscriptions are a bear to cancel.

Noom has recently received a large number of 1-star reviews from ConsumerAffairs reviewers. The Better Business Bureau says its also getting deluged with complaints, prompting it to downgrade Noom to a D-plus rating.

What consumers are upset about

One of the biggest complaints is the pay what you think is fair offer that Noom promotes for its introductory trial.

Company presents with an introductory trial of 2 weeks - at first stating pay what you think is fair, said Jane of Ashland, Mass. in their review at ConsumerAffairs. When you dont respond they say its free for 2 weeks but they need a credit card to verify your account,

No notice or further contact though you can use their site for those 2 weeks BUT due to a variety of circumstances I did not use it - instead I attempted to contact and cancel - only to find out that (2 days past the 14 day trial) my credit card was charged for an 18 MONTH MEMBERSHIP NON REFUNDABLE - huh? Its in their fine print.

The devil is in the details

Jane is correct about Nooms fine print. When ConsumerAffairs looked at the companys terms and conditions, the point that seemed to be the sticking point was Nooms auto-renewal clause. In essence, it gives the company the right to automatically extend a subscription for successive renewal periods. Also concerning is the language that reads, Until you cancel, we will charge or debit your payment method at the beginning of your subscription. Another red flag is Nooms no refund policy.

Many of the complaints made to BBB also swirl around being surprised with the charges relating to the supposed free trial.

A number of these consumers said they believed that after the free trial the cost of monthly membership was between $20 and $40, the BBB said. Instead, they discovered that they were charged for several months upfront upon the free trials end, resulting in alleged charges varying from $120 to $180 or more. Consumers consistently alleged difficulty trying to get in contact with Nooms customer service to request a refund of charges.

Gary of Keller, Texas said he also had difficulty opting out of the service in his review on ConsumerAffairs.

There is no way to opt out of the first subscription even though you havent even opened an email from them or attempted to use their product, he stated. The telephone number sends you to a machine where there is no way to connect with a live person.

Look for reviews before signing up for any subscription

Developers make signing up for a trial subscription so easy that consumers may assume that a promotional pitch is honest and theres very little that can go against their favor. However, thats not always the case.

Smartphone applications and online programs may seem convenient  especially when coupled with attractive free trial offers  but consumers must always be cautious, said Claire Rosenzweig, President and CEO of BBB Serving Metropolitan New York.
Though she bought it not even three years ago, Sydney Holland  the 48-year-old self-proclaimed philanthropist, producer, art collector and ex-flame of recently-deceased billionaire media tycoon Sumner Redstone  has hoisted her stylish Pacific Palisades mansion onto the market. Holland is asking $11.5 million for the strikingly renovated traditional abode; the listing is currently held with real estate power couple Branden and Rayni Williams of Hilton & Hyland.

Located on one of the poshest streets in the Palisades exclusive Riviera neighborhood pocket, the home  described in marketing materials as transitional traditional in style  packs in seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms within a roomy 6,670 square feet, while the charming .34-acre property is hidden behind tall privacy hedges and a stone wall. The exteriors of the residence are covered in prim white clapboard and accented with navy blue trim and window shutters; the grounds impeccably manicured and dotted with mature native trees  California sycamores and the like.

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Hollands visitors are first greeted by the homes columned landing porch, where an old-fashioned lantern hangs above the wooden, gray coffered front door. In contrast with the homes traditional architecture, the snazzy maximalist, haute couture interiors are nothing if not chic and contemporary. The house was decked out by Hollands longtime decorator, designer-to-the-stars Tracie Butler, whose website characterizes her decorating style as being able to create a mood that exudes life.

Hardwood flooring, dramatic crown molding, funky wallpaper and recessed lighting can be found throughout the structure. In the family room, sunlight streams in through a series of large, double-hung windows. On the walls lives a jealousy-inducing collection of name-brand art, including a Yoshitomo Nara print. Convenient built-in shelving and cabinetry provide plenty of storage, and a fireplace with a hulking mantle stands in the family room. The formal dining room, striking a sharp contrast to the homes other public rooms, is painted a rather severe gray and has tile flooring. A set of French doors leads out to the generous backyard while sunlight streams in through windows.

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The large kitchen is blessed with sparkling chef-grade appliances. For enthusiastic bakers, the room also offers two regular ovens and an additional proofing oven; theres also a professional gas range, while plenty of white cabinets line the walls. Two golden pendant lights hang from the ceiling, and pale slabs of marble cover the counters, black splash and center island. The oversized island has a deep sink and could also be used as a breakfast area.

Upstairs, the hallways are plastered with framed, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst (or Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst-esque) prints of pop culture icons like Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth II. A landing area with built-in shelving and a pair of framed double hung windows lies at the top of the staircase. As befits the mistress of the homes vibrant taste in color, the home office is painted an eye-popping fuchsia pink and complimented by a mirrored desk. A peacock feather rug covers the floor.

Indisputably, the crowning glory of the house is its master suite. The generously spacious bedroom has enough room for a sitting area, while several windows allow the Californian sunshine to roll into the space. Inside the master bath, tasteful black and white patterned tile lines the floor while calacatta marble tops the counters and sinks. Theres a large walk-in shower and a soaking tub, which sits next to a large picture window. The bedroom-sized walk-in closet is plastered with a bird-themed wallpaper and a neon sign art piece that lights up, blasting out NEED MONEY FOR BIRKIN, a phrase that  perhaps unfortunately  seems to define some of L.A.s most fashionable neighborhoods. Theres even a dressing room-style vanity where the lady of the house can arrange her face before dashing out the door.

Out back, theres a large covered patio area where one could entertain, dine alfresco, or enjoy a cozy chat with a friend or significant other during balmy summer nights. A wood-burning grill and pizza oven sits next to the rectangular aquamarine pool and spa, and large grassy area provides plenty of room to frolic. The backyard also has a basketball court for those who love to unwind by shooting a few hoops.

Holland, whose highly-publicized 2015 split with Redstone kicked off a years-long legal battle that pitted Redstone and his daughter Shari Redstone against Holland and Redstones second ex-girlfriend Manuela Herzer, settled with Redstone in 2018, though terms were not disclosed.

And besides this latest real estate move, Holland listed a West Hollywood investment property last October for a little under $3 million; that sexy contemporary home sold for $2.8 million this February, a few hairs under the $2.84 million she paid in 2014.

Launch Gallery: Inside Sydney Holland's Pacific Palisades Mansion

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Disability advocates have welcomed a new cap on workers moving in and out of disability care homes to reduce the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks, but question why it took so long for the Victorian government to act.

Alarmed at a rising number of people contracting COVID-19 in residential disability services, the Victorian government moved on Friday to limit the number of people working in multiple services and established a new Disability Response Centre.

Premier Daniel Andrews says the reforms are designed to stop disability residential services falling into the same crisis as aged care homes. Credit:Eddie Jim

The response centre will be based at the State Control Centre, and will co-ordinate the state's response to outbreaks to avoid the disability sector becoming overwhelmed with cases  and deaths  like the crisis in aged care.

On Friday, a Senate inquiry was told there had been 258 deaths in aged care homes, the vast majority of them in Victoria.
Private equity player KKR has said Asian entrepreneurs are increasingly applying for direct loans from banks as other funding routes become less accessible during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Brian Dillard, who manages KKR's credit for Asia Pacific, said such lending options are emerging particularly in Southeast Asia, according to a Bloomberg report. One reason for this could be that government support to companies was insufficient, he said.

Dillard said Asia offers plenty of opportunity for borrowers seeking cash quickly, with returns several hundred basis points higher than what is offered in the US and Europe.

Banks are becoming more careful while issuing loans to businesses amid the economic fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak.

"The COVID crisis has caused many traditional lenders to retrench, and we are finding our private credit capital is more relevant to a wider group," Dillard told the business news website.

"The companies are healthy, the growth opportunities are still there, what they're missing is the capital," Dillard said.

Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia are seeing the maximum activity in terms of private credit, he added.

its first dedicated credit fund for the region, sources told Bloomberg.

US-based KKR, which is the largest PE player in Asia, is working on


President Donald Trumps former chief strategist Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday on charges of illegally taking money from a fundraising plan to build a southern border wall.

Audrey Strauss is the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. She announced Thursday that Bannon and three other men were charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as We Build the Wall that raised more than $25 million.

Bannon and the other men pushed their close ties to Trump in order to raise the money. Their effort was to collect money to build the border wall along the United States and Mexico border.

Trump promised to build the wall as part of his presidential campaign. Bannon worked for Trump during the campaign and later worked for him in the White House.

Federal lawyers in New York City said in a court document that the men promised 100 percent of the donated money would be used to build the wall. Instead, they said, Bannon received more than $1 million and used several hundred thousand to pay for personal costs. Brian Kolfage, a co-founder of the plan, secretly took more than $350,000. The other two men charged are Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea.



Bannon is the latest of several former Trump associates who have been accused of legal wrongdoings. Others included former campaign chair Paul Manafort, long-time lawyer Michael Cohen, campaign adviser Roger Stone, and national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Last year, an immigration plan from the president included a proposal to permit public donations to pay for his promised southern border wall.

At that point, the We Build the Wall effort had raised more than $20 million for the building of the wall. Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told The New York Times that he talked about the effort with Trump. He said, The president said the project has my blessing, and you can tell the media that.

But Trump later denounced the project. He wrote on Twitter last month: I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads. It was only done to make me look bad, and perhaps it now doesnt even work. Should have been built like the rest of Wall, 500 plus miles.

On Thursday, Trump distanced himself from Bannon, saying he had not dealt with him for a long period of time. The president added that he felt very badly about the situation.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said, As everyone knows, President Trump has no involvement in this project and felt it was only being done in order to showboat, and perhaps raise funds. She added that Trump has not been involved with Steve Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the Administration, and he does not know the people involved with this project.

Bannons background

Bannon had served in the Navy and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and as a Hollywood producer.

In 2016, he left the conservative Breitbart News to join the Trump campaign as chief executive officer. After the election, he served as chief strategist during the early months of Trumps administration.

Bannon pushed Trump to follow through on some of his campaign promises, including his travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries. But he clashed with other top advisers and was pushed out by Trump in August of 2017.

I'm Jonathan Evans.

Hai Do wrote this story for Learning English with additional information from the Associated Press. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

strategist - n. a person who is skilled in making plans for achieving a goal

defraud - v. to use fraud in order to get money

associate - n. a person who you work with

showboat - n. a person who acts in a way to attract attention
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:38:50|Editor: huaxia

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CHONGWE, Zambia, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A local Zambian official has praised a Chinese company's role in boosting food security by production of seed maize and other farm produce in an interview with Xinhua on Friday.

Chongwe deputy mayor Evans M'hambi said Zhong Yang Eco-Agriculture Industry Park in Chalimbana ward in the district has positively contributed to the production of seed maize, wheat and livestock. He particularly hailed the production of seed maize which was critical to food security.

Chongwe district is one of the seven districts in Lusaka province. Most of the Chongwe people are either engaged in agriculture production, employed in agriculture-related businesses or involved in such businesses themselves.

According to him, the seed production by the company has enhanced the government's Farmer Input Support Program (FISP). This is a program that provides subsidized agriculture inputs to small scale farmers. Farmers pay a small amount for selected inputs which mainly include maize seed and fertilizer.

He was pleased to learn that the company was ready to supply the maize seed to the program. He said that this has been necessitated through the growing partnership of the Chinese with a local company.

M'hambi also hailed the company for also engaging in livestock and wheat production. He said that this undertaking was a welcome development as it would further increase the number of jobs and also contribute more government tax and food to the Zambian market.

Fredrick Sashi, the company's administrative manager, said that the company was a modern eco-agricultural firm integrating planting, breeding, processing and eco-tourism.

Meanwhile, a traditional leader in the district, senior headman Nkhomeshya, is happy that the local people had gained employment and business from the Chinese company.

According to him, the Zambia-China relationship was one to be envied as it has resulted in massive Chinese investments and partnerships with the government and local stakeholders. Enditem
A retired headmaster's body had to be exhumed nine days after he was buried by the wrong family in a 'terrible' mortuary mix-up, it has been reported.

When undertakers arrived at a hospital mortuary to collect Jimmy McDonald, 90, they ended up taking John Hetford, 89, who had died two days earlier.

Mr Hetford was laid to rest at St Mary's Church near Carlisle, Cumbria, by mourners who had no idea that they had the wrong body.

The mistake only emerged after Cumberland Infirmary called the undertakers to ask when they would be collecting Mr Hetford for his cremation.

Retired headmaster John Heyford was buried in St Mary's church, Carlisle, in the mix-up. When the mistake was noticed he was exhumed before being cremated as he wished

After he was exhumed, Mr Hetford was cremated in Carlisle, reports The Sun. The error was discovered before his cremation date on July 13.

The widower and great-grandfather was an Oxford graduate who had taught across the UK before becoming a headmaster in Carlisle.

Mr McDonald, who has since been buried at the church in his home village of Rockcliffe, Cumbria, had lived with his wife Mary before he died.

A spokesman for North Cumbria Integrated Care Foundation NHS Trust said an investigation is underway into what went wrong.

This will involve speaking to mortuary staff.

He was buried at St Mary's by mourners who had no idea that they had the wrong body

They said: 'We are supporting the funeral directors to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident and our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families at what is already a difficult time.

'We are undertaking an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident and will share the findings with the families once this is complete.'

A spokesman for the funeral director said: 'Our sympathy goes out to the families involved.

'Our family have been funeral directors for more than 150 years and nothing like this has happened before.

Both men had died within two days of each other at Cumberland Infirmary (pictured)

'Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong. We handed in paperwork for the man whose body we believed we were collecting.

'There are protocols to ensure we have who we think we have. We didn't realise we had another person's body. We feel for the families.'

All exhumations must be approved by the Home Office, a process that can take several days
The Russian leaders proposal was made after the UN Security Council rejected the U.S.-drafted resolution to extend the current arms embargo against Iran. Under Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Iran signed with P5+1 (including five members of the Security Council and Germany) in 2015, the arms embargo against Iran will expire on October 18.

The fact that even European countries such as the UK, France, and Germany do not support the draft resolution proposed by the US has caused disappointment in Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said that the US will use other tools, including harsher measures at the United Nations against Iran. Despite withdrawing from the JCPOA, the US has threatened to use a provision in the agreement to re-activate all UN sanctions on Iran. If the move goes ahead, analysts say, it could threaten to dissolve the historic nuclear deal, as it would undermine the main impetus for Iran to comply with its operational restriction commitments in the Teheran nuclear programme.

In order to save the nuclear deal from the brink of collapse, Russia aims to host an online summit to find a solution to ensure security in the Gulf as well as take into account all of related parties' concerns. In a phone call with his US counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister X. Lavrov affirmed that Moscow fully supports Security Council Resolution 2231 which set the legal basis for the nuclear agreement.

The signing of this agreement, he stressed, is a major political and diplomatic breakthrough to strengthen nuclear weapons control and security in the Middle East. China welcomed and highly appreciated the Russian proposal, affirmed its willingness to continue to maintain close contact and coordination with all concerned parties to jointly promote a political solution on the nuclear issue in Iran.

France and the UK also emphasised the need to give priority to maintaining a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear problem. However, President D. Trump announced that he would not attend any meetings, showing that Washington is determined to pursue a tough policy towards Iran. The US President even confirmed he would seek to re-impose UN sanctions on Iran through the next moves.

In preparation for all scenarios in the implementation of the maximum pressure policy on Iran, the US State Department recently scaled up Teheran sanctions involving metals, targeting 22 special materials, including steel, aluminium, etc., that are believed to be used in nuclear weapons or ballistic missile development programmes.

Sanctions would allow Washing to blacklist anyone who intentionally transferred materials such as graphite, raw or pre-engineered metals to or from Iraq. Meanwhile, continuing to strengthen measures to tighten unilateral sanctions on Iran, the US has recently confiscated four Iranian fuel shipments that had been bound for Venezuela. The amount confiscated from four tankers was about 1.116 million barrels of fuel, making it the largest-ever U.S. seizure of Iranian fuel.

Having described the JCPOA as the worst deal ever negotiated by the previous administration, President D. Trump is continuing to take tough steps towards Iran. The tit-for-tat moves between the US and Iran increased the confrontation in handling problems between the two sides. The current international effort to prioritise a diplomatic solution in resolving bitter disagreements between the US and Iran has helped in maintaining stability in the region.
Industrial chemicals found in body of Alexey Navalny  police

 RAPSI

17:28 21/08/2020

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  Industrial chemicals were found in the body of Alexey Navalnny during the analysis of wipe samples fron his clothes, hands, nails and hair, the Interior Ministry Omsk Directorates press service told RAPSI on Friday.

A chromatographical examination revealed 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate in Navalnys body. However, the level of chemical concentration was impossible to establish, according to the statement.

This chemical is usually included in polymers to improve their elasticity. It could appear on his wipe samples through a contact with similar and like things, a plastic cup for example.

On Thursday, a plane with Navalny onboard urgently landed in Omsk after the blogger became heartily sick. He was taken to a hospital in coma.
As hospitals care for people with COVID-19 and try to keep others from catching the virus, more patients are opting to be treated where they feel safest: at home.

Across the U.S., hospital at home programs are taking off amid the pandemic, thanks to communications technology, portable medical equipment and teams of doctors, nurses, X-ray techs and paramedics. Thats reducing strains on medical centers and easing patients' fears.

The programs represent a small slice of the roughly 35 million U.S. hospitalizations each year, but they are growing fast with boosts from Medicare and private health insurers. Like telemedicine, the concept stands to become more popular with consumers hooked on home delivery and other Internet-connected conveniences.

Eligible patients typically are acutely ill with  but dont need round-the-clock intensive care for  common conditions including chronic heart failure, respiratory ailments, diabetes complications, infections and even COVID-19.

They are linked to 24/7 command centers via video and monitoring devices that send their vital signs. They get several daily home visits from a dedicated medical team. Just like in a hospital, they can press an emergency button any time for instant help.

Research on such programs around the world over the past 25 years shows patients recover faster, have fewer complications and are more satisfied, while costs can be a third lower.

Doctors, hospital officials and patients tout other advantages: People get more rest sleeping in their own bed. They can eat what they want, start moving around quicker and go outside for fresh air. Theyre less likely to fall in their familiar surroundings, where they have support from family and even pets.

I would recommend it in a heartbeat for anybody to be able to stay at home, said William Merry, who received care for pneumonia in July at his Ipswich, Massachusetts, home. "There was never any problem. Never.

Merry, who had endured an uncomfortable hospital stay six years ago, refused another one when antibiotic pills didnt help and his temperature hit 103. So his doctor arranged care through Boston-based Medically Home.

Merry and wife Linda, a retired nurse, said they were amazed at how quickly the service transformed their dining room into a mini-hospital room. Technicians set up medical equipment, gave them supplies and oxygen tanks, then explained how everything worked.

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That eased their stress, as did regular video calls with a doctor. They got daily schedules listing planned medical staff visits, blood draws, tests, IV medicine administration and other care, she said.

I think its really important, she cautioned, that the person has somebody thats able to be at home.

Dr. Bruce Leff, a geriatrics professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a home hospital pioneer, did pilot studies years ago. He found benefits for elderly patients who, as he said, were otherwise basically going to get crushed by the hospital" due to risks of developing blood clots and infections, losing mobility and developing delirium.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic emerged earlier this year, some hospitals were considering at-home-care programs to absorb temporary patient spikes  and avoid the high cost of new buildings.

Its unknown exactly how many U.S. programs exist, but when COVID-19 struck, some institutions rushed to sign up with Medically Home and similar services.

Nashville, Tennessee-based Contessa Health, which serves 14 hospitals in six states, says its adding two more hospitals shortly and is negotiating potential contracts for about 20 more. Patient volume has jumped 140% since last year and its added care for patients admitted from urgent care and cancer clinics.

Another company, DispatchHealth, previously focused mainly on preventing ER visits by rushing paramedics to provide diagnostic testing, medication and other care at patients homes or elsewhere. The Denver-based company says it has 200-plus contracts with insurers in 19 U.S. markets to treat seriously ill and injured people at home. It piloted a hospital-at-home program in November, already has programs running in three cities and plans rapid expansion.

Some hospitals have mounted their own at-home programs. In late March, eight of the Atrium Health system's 36 hospitals in the Carolinas and Georgia began one for COVID-19 patients who don't need intensive care. It's already treated about 11,000 people.

Meanwhile, hospitals with existing programs are seeing far more patients choose at-home care.

In New York, the Mount Sinai at Home program went from handling 10 patients a month to up to 30, said its director, Dr. Linda DeCherrie. The program has since added a twist in which patients start care inside the hospital, then finish at home.

Everybody we offered it to said yes, said DeCherrie.

DeCherrie said the hospital-at-home model has been used on a small scale in the U.S. since the mid-1990s, but it was held back because traditional Medicare and some insurance plans either didnt cover such treatment at all or didnt reimburse for the full cost of care.

But when the pandemic struck, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services temporarily let hospitals bill for care outside their walls, including in patients homes. Many private insurers also are covering in-home hospital care during the pandemic. Hospital groups and others want Congress to make those changes permanent, at the same rates as in-hospital care.

Raphael Rakowski, co-founder of 4-year-old Medically Home, said the number of patients treated this July is up tenfold from July 2019.

Our business is exploding because of COVID, he said.

It now treats patients for 10 hospitals and one physicians group in five states, including two that were set up soon after the pandemic hit: Bostons Tufts Medical Center and Adventist Healths West Coast hospitals. Two Mayo Clinic hospitals joined this summer. Medically Home should be operating in 12 states by early 2021, Rakowski predicts.

He says some patients are offered at-home care after being examined in an emergency room. In other cases, doctors arrange the care for patients getting cancer treatment, those with a sudden illness, some about to get surgery, or homebound patients with dangerous complications.

The Veterans Health Administration operates 12 hospital-at-home programs. Last year, they served 1,120 veterans.

More vets are using the program during the pandemic, said Dayna Cooper, head of agency's home-based programs. One of the busiest, in San Antonio, saw a 90% jump in veterans treated this March through June versus last year.

Another four of the agency's 170 hospitals are working to start programs. Cooper said studies of the programs in Cincinnati and Honolulu found they cut costs by 29% to 38%, without differences in survival or hospital readmissions.

While interest in the programs has skyrocketed, whether in-home hospital care blossoms after the pandemic largely depends on whether government and private insurers continue to cover it at profitable prices.

If they don't, Johns Hopkins Leff said: I think most hospitals will go back to normal."

___

Follow Linda A. Johnson at https://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) got into a war of words again on Friday after he said a three-member inquiry panel set up to probe corruption allegations in the purchase of medical equipment to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic was an attempt to cover up the truth. He alleged a multi-crore scam in purchase.

Also read:Guv hits out at WB govt over I-Day event

Dhankhar said the panel includes top bureaucrats, who lack credibility and that only an independent probe could track the money trail and ill-gotten gain. Home secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay heads the panel.

Multi Crore Scam-Pandemic Purchase @MamataOfficial. Cover Up Probe-Lacks credibility. Decision Makers (-one) probing to shield culpability #MAP. Post facto saviour mechanism! Independent Probe can alone fasten culpability. Need Probe to track money trail and ill gotten gain, tweeted Dhankhar.

A state government official this week told HT the West Bengal health department has purchased several items over the past few months. More than Rs 2,000 crore have been spent. The allegations relate to corruption in this expenditure.

TMC reacted sharply to Dhankhars allegation saying if he has proof of the corruption, then he should give it to the government instead of making statements. Nobody knows how to deal with the governors propensity to go public every day. Can he prove what he is alleging? If he has proof, he should give it to the government instead of making public statements. His statements degrade the dignity of the office he holds, said TMC spokesman Saugata Roy.

The West Bengal Medical Services Corporation Limited usually purchases medicines and equipment in bulk. But the government formed a committee for procuring these items during the pandemic to avoid delays.

Some of the items were allegedly purchased from particular agencies bypassing rules. The quality of the products has also been questioned. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee ordered the probe.
They went public with their blossoming romance earlier this week.

And Strictly's Katya Jones has given the seal of approval to ex-husband Neil Jones' new relationship with Luisa Eusse by liking a loved-up Instagram picture of the pair.

Professional dancer Neil, 38, shared a steamy black and white snap kissing and cuddling dancer Luisa captioned with a love heart on Wednesday.

Supportive: Strictly's Katya Jones has given the seal of approval to ex-husband Neil Jones' new relationship with Luisa Eusse by liking a loved-up Instagram picture of the pair

Mature: Professional dancer Neil, 38, shared a steamy black and white snap kissing dancer Luisa on Wednesday, with Katya then liking the picture on Friday

And Katya, 31, who is also a star on Strictly Come Dancing, wasted no time liking the sweet post, showing that she's happy he has moved on.

The couple's six-year marriage ended in 2018, months after pictures emerged of Katya kissing her dance partner Seann Walsh, 34, on a night out.

However they remained amicable and both continued to work together on the hit BBC show.

Romance: Neil went public with his new girlfriend on Wednesday as he shared a romantic snap of them together for the first time

Neil went public with his relationship with Luisa, as he shared a romantic snap of them together for the first time on Wednesday.

Luisa is a dancer and a model from Medellin, Colombia who reportedly met Neil when he was travelling around South America eight months ago.

A source told The Sun: 'Neil is smitten with Luisa and they're a very sweet couple. After they were introduced they stayed in touch but it's been hard with the lockdown restrictions.

It's over: The couple's six-year marriage ended in 2018 after pictures emerged of Katya kissing her dance partner Seann Walsh, 34, on a night out (pictured together in 2019)

'Since they lifted Luisa flew to London last month and has been staying at Neil's flat.

'They're taking it slowly but both are serious about this relationship and it's clear Neil is head-over-heels.'

However it was revealed on Friday that Luisa reportedly left her partner DJ Hannah Wants for the Strictly star only three weeks ago.

According to The Sun, Luisa arrived in London a month ago to be with Hannah but was secretly meeting up with Neil.

In pictures dated on July 24, the former couple went sight-seeing and shared identical snaps looking out at London Bridge on their respective social media pages.

Moving on fast: However it was revealed on Friday that Luisa reportedly left her partner DJ Hannah Wants for the Strictly star only three weeks ago

Neil made the revelation that he was in a new relationship during an Instagram Q&A session when a fan asked him if he was still single.

When the follower quizzed him on whether he was single following their separation, Neil simply answered saying 'nope'.

Neil also mentioned that he was feeling the 'best he had in years', when another fan asked him how he was doing on Saturday.

Luisa also recently shared a steamy photo of herself in the bath where she appeared to have been gifted with a large bouquet of red roses

Although Neil may have embarked on a new romance, he recently admitted that he was in 'no rush' to begin divorce proceedings with Katya.

Loved-up: A source said: 'Neil is smitten with Luisa and theyre a very sweet couple. After they were introduced they stayed in touch'

Talking about their break-up for the first time, the Strictly professional dancer also discussed the Seann Walsh cheating scandal.

Neil's marriage hit the headlines in October 2018 when Katya was caught kissing comedian Seann but insists the betrayal had 'nothing to do' with the demise of their relationship.

Neil told The Sun: 'We're still not divorced. It's a thing we're trying to sort out but we haven't started the process yet.

Sultry: Luisa recently shared a steamy photo of herself in the bath where she appeared to have been gifted with a large bouquet of red roses

'A lot of the places are not working because of the coronavirus. Everything is on hold. But we're not in any rush.'

Explaining their decision to split, Neil admitted that they had 'found that they'd grown apart' before acknowledging they were 'lucky' to not have kids.

The dancer insisted: 'It had nothing to do with what happened [with Seann].'

For the first time since their split, Neil touched on the Seann Walsh kiss scandal which pushed his marriage to Katya into the limelight.

Still married: Although Neil may have embarked on a new romance, he recently admitted that he was in 'no rush' to begin divorce proceedings with his wife Katya (pictured in May 2019)

Nope! Neil made the revelation that he was dating someone new during an Instagram Q&A session when a fan asked him if he was still single

He said: 'For me it's something that happened in the past. We spoke about everything back then,' before confirming that he and his ex are still friends.

Seann and Katya faced a huge backlash after pictures surfaced of the pair locking lips on their booze-fuelled night out nearly two years ago.

At the time, the comedian was dating Rebecca Humphries and she was still happily married to now-estranged husband Neil.

He said: 'For me it's something that happened in the past. We spoke about everything back then,' before confirming that he and his ex are still friends.
Louis Theroux is the master of bringing the camera into other people's lives, and homes, shining a light on all manner of dottiness and dysfunction.

He has been doing it for 25 years now  half his life  and he's clearly well versed in what will appeal to viewers.

So during his most recent filming stint, with director Tom Barrow  a long-term colleague and friend  Louis was pressing for the more intrusive shots: the ones of the subject standing in his boxer shorts, putting on his trousers, for instance.

He suggested a shower scene. 'Well not coming out of the shower; maybe in the shower, filming through the glass,' he clarifies. And Tom thought this was a good idea? Louis laughs. 'He put the brakes on there. I think the shower was his limit.'

Louis Theroux, 50, will turn the cameras on himself for the first time in his new show Louis Theroux: Life On The Edge, coming soon to BBC2

Little wonder. Because the subject this time was Louis himself. The cameras were filming in his own home, for the first time, really.

Today he explains why, after more than two decades of being private about his own life, he's changed tack and put it all out there. Well, almost all. 'You've got to remember that when I was starting out, my contemporaries were people like Chris Morris, who did Brass Eye and, a little later, Sacha Baron Cohen.

'It was deeply naff to embrace the notion of celebrity. That would make you Keith Chegwin. So I decided I wasn't going to go to movie openings, red carpet events. I'd draw a veil over my personal life too.

'Then, 25 years go by and that doesn't seem so important. Also, I realised I don't have much to hide. And there's an argument that if I'm going to dig into other people's lives, then I should be up for a little self-excavation as well.'

The show will feature his home life with wife Nancy, a producer at the BBC when they met, with whom he set up a production company last year (pictured, together)

Then there is lockdown, of course, which has turned all the old certainties on their head. And economic reality, one presumes.

He and his wife Nancy, a producer at the BBC when they met, set up a production company last year, and had grand plans for projects, but Covid-19 stopped play. The combination of events had him looking inwards  he turned 50 during lockdown  and also backwards.

Jimmy Savile and Louis Theroux in When Louis Met Jimmy

'We were looking about for things we could do, and because it was the 25th anniversary of me starting out in the business, we hit on the idea of drawing a lot of the films I'd done into one package, and combining it with some footage of me at home.'

The result is Life On The Edge, a retrospective with a twist. In the four-part BBC2 series Louis pootles about at home while revisiting some of his most iconic films, catching up via Zoom with some of those who took part.

We Zoom today. He has a lockdown beard and lived-in look  a far cry from the clean-cut rather geeky figure who became famous with his Weird Weekends series in which he hung out with hardcore evangelists, porn stars and UFO believers.

He was fascinated revisiting his early films because they were funny in all senses. The subjects were often comedic, 'then you have my weird haircuts, my funny glasses and me as a sort of slightly naive, unworldly, gangly character'.

He spent weeks agonising about how to work all the films together into some order, finally deciding on grouping them by themes  Family, Belief, Crime and Pleasure. Now he frets (he is a champion fretter, it turns out) that the early films were too funny, that he was inviting viewers to simply laugh at these oddball Americans (most of the extreme subjects were American, in the beginning).

The new series shows Louis at home where he revisits certain characters he has met over the years via Zoom

Louis seen here in his documentary, Louis Theroux Surviving America's Most Hated Family

REMEMBER THE ONE WHEN... Christine Hamilton flirted with Louis when he met her and her husband Neil, a disgraced ex-MP, in 2001. Filming took a bizarre turn when police questioned the couple over a rape accusation, which proved to be false.

Living for six weeks at a brothel or legal sex retreat in Nevada in 2003, Louis often found himself blushing...

Meeting neo-Nazis in the US in 2003, Louis was introduced to ten-year-old twins Lynx and Lamb Gaede, who sang songs praising Adolf Hitler.

Louis was told that he faced eternal damnation when he met the evangelicals of Westboro Baptist Church.

After making a film about white supremacists in South Africa, he found himself on a hit list posted by the neo-Nazi Combat 18 terrorist group. Cilla Black and Lenny Henry were also on it. I wasnt worried, says Louis. They had a lot of names to get through before they got to me.

He followed BBC presenter and DJ Jimmy Savile around for a 2000 film that proved to be his most notorious yet. Louis struggles with the fact he failed to pin down Savile about rumours of sexual deviance. Advertisement

Some of the films were full of 'silliness'. In a way, going back to them was a chance to maybe redress this. 'To peel the layers off,' he says. 'I was certainly a different person when I made them. Quite insecure about what I was doing. They were quite tongue-in-cheek.'

His later work was darker, exploring mental illness and addiction. These are tougher watches and, being Louis Theroux, he frets some of these films were too dark. His wife reminded him recently that it's OK to be silly too. In fact, it's one of the things he does best. 'In lockdown I've been doing a podcast which can be quite silly, and that's good.'

What's interesting about the retrospective is what it leaves out. None of his celebrity subjects are included. Was this because his programme on Jimmy Savile is a particularly difficult watch, given what emerged about the DJ's sex offending? He says not. 'We decided not to include any of the celebrity ones, which isn't to say that we won't, in the future.'

We shall return to the subject of Savile, but first let's look at the footage from his own home. So what do we learn about life chez Theroux? Well, the family  he has three sons, Albert, Frederick and Walter, aged 14, 12 and five  is disappointingly low on the dysfunction scale. The footage of him at home doesn't involve much more than pottering around, making the kids their breakfast, but he does joke about being part of the cult of Joe Wicks.

'I discovered him early in lockdown and he's brilliant. I've used the time to get fit. I was never overweight, and I've always cycled, but I had this idea that one day I'd go to a health farm or join a gym, and dedicate myself to getting fit. Lockdown gave me an opportunity to do that.

'So every morning I was out there doing Joe Wicks, and I've kept it going. And when I hit 50 I felt quite pleased with my general sense of well-being. It's cumulative too.

'Each day you get a little injection of whatever it is  endorphins, I guess  and in time, you feel stronger.' Very aware of how he'll sound in the edit, he stops. 'I mustn't go on. I'm in danger of sounding like a cult member.' But the results are evident when he turns up bristling with energy for our photo shoot, atop the Courthouse Hotel in London's Shoreditch.

The documentary star says he has always avoided being classed as a celeb which has meant keeping most of his personal life private

So what did his wife make of him mooching around at home? 'Obviously I showed her any bits that had her or the kids in it. She only asked for one thing to be removed. There was a shot through a doorway, into a room that was extremely messy.'

And the kids? They sound reassuringly unfazed by their dad documenting their breakfast habits. Have they seen some of his sex documentaries, such as the one where he was filmed semi-naked being fed strawberries, or the one when he moved into a brothel? Er, no, he says. 'Mostly they think I'm 'cringe',' he says. 'That's a word that's used a lot.'

The idea of using his family as subjects is clearly there, though. He starts to quote Nietzsche, who said that 'at times of peace, the warrior goes to war against himself', and wonders if this is happening with him. 'Prevented from digging into other people's lives and how they make sense of themselves, I've been doing it to our own family, a little bit.'

Episode: Louis Theroux: Take My Baby. Louis with Brandon and Jessica who planned to put their unborn child up for adoption

He's a compelling mix of the deeply serious and the deeply daft, and it's sometimes hard to place which Louis you are getting. We talk about his childhood, which was quite unusual.

His father, the travel writer Paul Theroux, was a colourful character, and a philanderer. His mother was a BBC World Service producer. He was a sensitive child, socially awkward, and is at once proud of his parents and very aware that a series of au pairs helped raise him. 'It certainly made us a bit unusual. At school, other mothers would come in as school helpers, slicing oranges or making lemonade for the teams. My mum was at work. She wasn't going to do that.'

So how does he feel he turned out? 'I think you'd have to ask someone who knows me. I think I'm pretty well adjusted. I mean, I like to think I am a kind and thoughtful person. As a human being, I'd give myself six or seven out of ten.' There's a pause. 'That's a joke.' Later, when we're talking about parenting, he does it again, musing, 'How would I grade myself on my parenting?' Answer: quite harshly.

Louis Theroux: Selling sex. Louis with contributor Victoria

Louis outside the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, California, for his documentary, My Scientology Movie

He says he has endless patience with his youngest son. Less patience with the older two. 'My wife says I'm better with younger children, which is the wrong way round really, isn't it? I am good doing jigsaw puzzles and Duplo and sticking things with glue.'

With the older ones? 'Sometimes I feel as if I'm channelling my dad,' he says. 'I hear myself and think, 'You sound like your dad when he was grumpy or snappish.' But as long as I'm aware of it, it's OK, isn't it? I think you have to remind yourself there are more risks with being overbearing than underbearing. Those moments of regret are more likely to come when you think you've been too harsh.

'I think every parent has at least a few moments of feeling like they are the worst parent in the world, when you feel that you've failed in some profound way. If you don't feel like that well, you are either doing brilliantly or you aren't thinking about it hard enough.'

He thinks deeply, but the jury is out on how emotionally intelligent he is. In his autobiography, published last year, he made an attempt at a mea culpa about the failure of his first marriage, to Susanna Kleeman, which lasted from 1998 to 2001.

His inability to communicate  or express any feelings at all  seems to have been a major factor. Typical man, then?

'I think you have to be very hesitant when making broad generalisations based on gender, but I think the stereotype of the man who lacks a certain level of emotional intelligence is not wholly without merit.' In his book he talks about approaching relationships 'like a man radio operator trying to make out a signal through a code of static'.

Louis Theroux: The Night in Question, Louis with Saif Khan who was accused of sexual assault at Yale University

He met Nancy when they worked together and it sounds as if she is shrewd and sensible. 'All those things I lack, she has in spades,' he says. 'She is extremely perceptive and intuitive. She will often see more than I do. It's actually a running joke. I'm quite literal-minded. I like things being spelled out.'

He wonders if this is why he is an award-winning documentary-maker, suggesting that his life-long habit of simply not 'getting' stuff  and having to have it spelled out  is part of the secret of his success. 'Even as a child, I'd say, 'But why does the man have his mouth open?' I never understood. I think maybe this feeling of not understanding quite a lot about life has helped me.'

Of course, there will always be situations where you don't dig enough. His 2000 documentary on Jimmy Savile was well received at the time, and a stunning piece of television in its own right, revealing Savile as an oddball, slightly creepy and a bit weird.

Louis Theroux - Altered States - Louis with (clockwise from top left) Joelle, Marilyn, AJ and Mattias. They are part of an extended polyamorous family in Portland, Oregon, USA

It included the revelation that he'd been talked to by the police about some unsavoury behaviour in a nightclub. It fell well short of unveiling him as a child abuser, though, which eventually put Louis in a difficult position.

He revisited the subject in a follow-up documentary in 2016, and is torn about what to say about Savile now. 'You can either see the first film as a success, in as much as I revealed a lot about who he was. Or you can see it as a failure to get to the whole truth.'

He points out the 2000 programme was filmed in a very different environment. No one was looking for sex offenders hiding in plain view then.

'What many people have woken up to is the extent to which predatory behaviour exists across society  in showbusiness, in the corporate world. Since Savile, you've had Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein. The danger in focusing on Savile is that you blind yourself to a world in which predators have been able to get away with terrible things.'

What shows will he be making next? Well, he seems quite a convert to the podcast formula. In his BBC podcast Grounded, produced during lockdown, he's interviewed the likes of Boy George, Gail Porter and Helena Bonham Carter. 'They've been fun to do. They've taught me that it's OK to laugh and be silly. A bit of silliness is sometimes required.'
Numbers of people trying to reach British shores have surged in the summer months, prompting the UK government to deploy RAF planes to the English Channel in an effort to tackle the problem.

This is despite UK Home Secretary Priti Patels vow last year that the crossings would be an infrequent phenomenon by now, and her recent pledge to make the route completely unviable.

The milestone comes as French prosecutors investigate the death of a Sudanese migrant whose body was found on a beach in France earlier this week.

Recent attempts by the Government to put a stop to migrant crossings have included asking the armed forces for help and the appointment of a new clandestine Channel threat commander.

Meanwhile, the Government has called on councils to take responsibility as it urgently tries to find care for lone migrant children who have crossed the Channel to the UK.

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Late on Thursday an emotional plea for compassion for migrants, featuring NHS cleaner Hassan Akkad, was beamed on to the White Cliffs of Dover.

Several crossings in the last week have taken the number of migrants who have reached the UK by small boat this year to more than 5,000, analysis by the PA news agency showed.

More than 1,000 others are known to have been intercepted by French authorities as they tried to reach the UK.

Declared nationalities of migrants intercepted by Border Force have included: Iraqi, Iranian, Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian, Eritrean, Kuwaiti, Tajikstani, Vietnamese, Guinean, Malian, Ethiopian, Turkish, Afghan, Palestinian, Sri Lankan, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Pakistani, Chadian, Somali, Togolese, Nigerian, Libyan, South Sudanese, Albanian and Chinese.

Dan OMahoney, the Home Offices new clandestine Channel threat commander, returned to France on Thursday to continue discussions with officials in Paris and Calais in a bid to tackle the migrant crossings crisis.

Around 10pm on Thursday the famous White Cliffs of Dover were lit up with a giant video of Mr Akkad, a Syrian refugee who crossed to Britain several years ago.





He highlighted the terrifying and devastating journeys so many people are making to reach the UK by boat, and blamed the Government for using the crisis as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic.

The giant projection was the latest stunt from Led By Donkeys, a group of activists famed for their giant billboards of politicians tweets.

In the video, Mr Akkad said: Hello everyone. Apologies for taking over the cliff but I have a few words that I would love to share with you.

My name is Hassan and five years ago I was on the other side of this Channel trying to cross here.

These cliffs were actually visible from our makeshift camp and they represented hope.

He argued that Britain is not facing a refugee crisis, but the migrant crossings are being used as a distraction by the UK's government.
A retailer told a customer who complained about a large number of people shopping without face masks that it was not appropriate to challenge their behaviour.

It has been compulsory to wear a face covering in shops and certain other enclosed public spaces since August 10.

Breaches could lead to a fixed penalty notice of 60, but the regulation is not enforced.

Earlier this week the Belfast Telegraph reported that the PSNI has yet to fine anyone for not wearing a face covering.

Now one retailer admitted that they "do not feel it appropriate to challenge" patrons without masks. The Centra store in Clogher, Co Tyrone, was responding to an individual who contacted them online to say they "counted 10 customers inside not wearing masks".

She was told: "We understand your concerns during these somewhat stressful times. While as a business we promote and support the use of face masks indoors, we do not feel it appropriate to challenge those customers who have made a conscious decision not to wear them.

"A patron may have a very valid reason/exemption for not doing so. The response from such a patron can and has been in the past quite challenging for our staff to deal with.

"Our staff are all wearing masks/visors and we do offer disposable masks free of charge to those patrons who have forgotten their own."

The position was backed by Centra's parent company, the Musgrave Group, who said: "There is no current requirement for shops to enforce the mandatory wearing of face coverings for customers whilst in-store.

"There are also some customers who are exempt from wearing face coverings, the personal reasons for which are not always obvious.

"We fully support the requirement for shoppers to wear face coverings whilst in-store and have issued communication support materials to stores, including posters and Facebook posts, to encourage customer compliance with the 10th August mandate from the Northern Ireland Executive."

Last week top Oxford academic Professor Carl Heneghan told the Belfast Telegraph he believed the evidence used to impose the mandatory wearing of masks in public spaces is "poor quality".

Responsibility for enforcement has caused some confusion but Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI, said "the advice is clear".

He added: "Retailers and staff are not required to police or enforce it, and while the staff are not legally required to wear face coverings some retailers have instructed their staff to wear face coverings, it's very much up to the individual business.

"But ultimately this lies with the shopper. It is their legal requirement for them to wear a face cover unless they have an underlying medical condition, so we can't be any clearer than that, it is up to the individual to make sure they are complying with all of the regulations."

Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd said: "Face coverings have been mandatory in Northern Ireland for just over a week and, in that time, retailer groups and representatives are reporting approximately 80 to 90% compliance, which is a significant step in the right direction.

"Inevitably, the first steps in encouraging compliance will fall to the public themselves and to transport operators and businesses.

"Police will continue to work with transport operators and businesses, directing resources to areas of identified need and will continue to do so on the basis of the four 'E's - Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce."
Mumbai: As the CBI team begins its investigation in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case here are a few things that the probe agency could start with. The central probe agency team is accompanied by a five-member forensic team.

First, the CBI team can go to the late actor's Bandra residence and recreate the scene.

Scene recreation is important because of the alleged irregularity that cropped up regarding Sushant's suicide. Like the distance between the bed and the ceiling fan, the use of a kurta by Sushant to hang himself, among other things, will be checked.

Also, the CBI team can go to Mumbai's Cooper Hospital and interrogate the five doctors who did the actor's post-mortem.

The CBI is likely to check the bank accounts associated with Sushant and can also question their officials.

The CBI team, led by CBI Superintendent of Police Nupur Prasad arrived in Mumbai on August 20 evening. Three teams have been formed to take the investigation forward.

The first team will examine all the case diaries that it got from the Mumbai Police, forensic report of Mumbai and autopsy report. The second team will take the statement of the people involved in this case, which includes all those people whose statements were taken by the Mumbai Police. While the third team will go to Sushant's flat and recreate the entire scene once again.

The CBI has also prepared a list of questions asked to all the accused, including Riya Chakraborty and after getting different answers, the accused can be questioned face to face.

The Supreme Court had on August 19 upheld the transfer of an FIR, lodged at Patna against actress Rhea Chakraborty and others for allegedly abetting Rajput's suicide, to the CBI. The apex court said that the Bihar government is competent to transfer the case to the CBI for investigation.

The top court delivered its verdict on a plea by Chakraborty who had sought transfer of the FIR lodged against her at Patna to Mumbai.

Rajput, 34, was found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment in suburban Bandra in Mumbai on June 14 and since then Mumbai Police has been probing the case keeping in mind various angles.
As the last Wisconsinite to speak at the Democratic National Convention, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin on Thursday channeled the states motto as a clarion call to move past the Trump era.

This November, lets move forward and never look back, Baldwin, D-Madison, said live from the Wisconsin Center stage in Milwaukee.

Baldwin, 58, urged the nation to build back better by supporting former Vice President Joe Biden as he faces President Donald Trump, who narrowly won the state four years ago.

She also shared her own story of growing up with a pre-existing condition, and how passing the Affordable Care Act, which prevents health insurance companies from charging people more for pre-existing conditions, was a big effing deal  a reference to Bidens own characterization of the landmark health care law that Trump has tried to repeal.

At one point, Baldwin was considered near the top of Bidens list of potential running mates. While that nomination has gone to Kamala Harris, a fellow U.S. Senator from California, Democrats say Baldwins inclusion in this years running mate speculation underscores her accomplishments.

Tony Evers calls for unity this November in brief DNC speech

(Baldwin) is always is fighting from the heart for the people of Wisconsin and people all across this nation, who far too often, have just been closed out of our political conversation, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday.

Baldwin served seven terms in Congress before she defeated Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson in the race for the U.S. Senate in 2012. In her 2018 re-election race, Baldwins popularity among Democratic voters played a key role in flipping 17 counties that supported Trump two years earlier.

At halfway point, Milwaukee's online DNC deemed unconventional but successful by state officials

Baldwin also paved the way as the nations first openly LGBT woman elected to Congress in 1999 and first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate.

While in Congress, Baldwin played a critical role in helping craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which included a provision to keep dependents on their parents health insurance through age 26.

Speculation over Baldwins chances of the vice president nomination also fed into questions of whether or not her place on the ticket would secure a Democratic victory in Wisconsin  a state notorious for its razor-thin margins.

Speaking with reporters on Thursday, Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Andrew Hitt said Bidens decision to pass on Baldwin as running mate was another example of the former vice president taking the state for granted.

If youre going to pick a liberal senator, why not pick a liberal senator from a state that you need to win? Hitt said. It just continues to confuse me why they are seemingly ignoring Wisconsin and not learning from the lessons of Hillary Clinton.

State officials focus on Wisconsin's importance in 2020 election as DNC launches online

UW-Madison political science professor David Canon said vice presidential picks usually have fairly minimal impacts within their home state.

Are there any voters who will not vote for Joe Biden because Harris is the VP instead of Baldwin? Yeah, maybe there are a few, but I cant imagine that will be enough to change the result in Wisconsin, Canon said.

While Baldwin may have been a boon for Wisconsin Democrats this fall, Angela Lang, executive director with Black Leadership Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee, said Harris appears to be resonating well with voters  despite concerns among some of the partys more progressive members who point to the former California attorney generals background at a time when racial disparities in the criminal justice system are such a focal issue.

At the end of the day we can debate the vice presidential pick all we want, until were blue in the face, but thats not going to stop who is on the ballot and ultimately we need to make sure that we remain focused, Lang said.

Democrats adapt to downsized Milwaukee Democratic National Convention

Whats more, if Baldwin were to vacate her U.S. Senate seat, a likely contentious special election would have been held to fill the vacancy.

Certainly, to not have her in the Senate, it would have been the nations gain but Wisconsins loss, said Mike Browne, deputy director with liberal advocacy group A Better Wisconsin Together.

Milwaukee Democratic strategist Sachin Chheda, who worked on Baldwins 2000 re-election campaign, said Bidens pick for running mate may not have been all that complicated.

I think that people sometimes look for hidden meanings, but I think this one is staring us in the face, Chheda said. You have someone who can do the job and you have trusted and who can be a partner to you  its really that simple sometimes.

Despite not being nominated to run with Biden, simply being a part of the conversation is a boost for Baldwin going forward, Chheda said.

It is yet another step forward for her as a leader to be in this conversation and I think that means she will have growing influence and growing leadership in the United States Senate, and that will be good for Wisconsin, Chheda said.

COVID-19 in photos: How Wisconsin is managing the pandemic

COVID-19 in photos: How Wisconsin is managing the pandemic
Welcome to the fourth night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention: Uniting America. OK, these last few nights have been going so well, weve decided to add a fifth night where we will just play Michelle Obamas speech on a loop. Weve cried out for justice. We have gathered in our streets to demand change. And now we must pass on the gift John Lewis sacrificed to give us: We must register and we must vote. Our military spouses hold their families together, praying for their loved ones safety wherever theyre deployed and serving as caregivers to our disabled servicemembers, and then picking up the pieces and starting again, whenever the next tour or the next war arises. Joe Biden understands these sacrifices because hes made them himself. When his son Beau deployed to Iraq, his burden was also shouldered by his family. Joe knows the fear military families live because hes felt that dread of never knowing if your deployed loved one is safe. A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. And I was absolutely terrified. One of the first people who called me was Joe. His real warmth and kindness on that call  man, I gotta say, it made me cry. I am very excited to present to you a group of people that ran in the 2020 Democratic primary against Joe Biden. You could think of this sort of like Survivor on the out-interviews of all the people that got voted off the island. [laughing] Bernie  Bernie, dont you laugh, because Ive got questions for you like, Why does my girlfriend like you more than she likes me? But lets  Because shes smarter than you, and thats the obvious answer, right? [laughing] Hi, my name is Brayden Harrington and I am 13 years old. And without Joe Biden, I wouldnt be talking to you today. About a few months ago, I met him in New Hampshire. He told me that we were members of the same club. We stutter. It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became vice president. Im just a regular kid. And in this short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about something thats bothered me my whole life. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. Ill be an ally of the light, not the darkness. Its time for us, for We the People, to come together. And make no mistake: United we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America. Well choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege. So its with great honor and humility I accept this nomination for president of the United States of America. As president, the first step I will take will be to get control of the virus that has ruined so many lives. Because I understand something this president hasnt from the beginning: We will never get our economy back on track, we will never get our kids safely back in schools, well never have our lives back, until we deal with this virus. While hes no longer with us, Beau inspires me every day. Beau served our nation in uniform, a year in Iraq, a decorated Iraqi War veteran. So I take very personally the profound responsibility of serving as commander in chief. Ill be a president who will stand with our allies and friends and make it clear to our adversaries: The days of cozying up to dictators is over. Just a week ago yesterday was the third anniversary of the events in Charlottesville. Close your eyes  remember what you saw on television. Remember seeing those neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists coming out of fields with lighted torches, veins bulging, spewing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 30s. Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And remember what the president said when asked? He said there were, quote, very fine people on both sides. It was a wake-up call for us as a country, and for me a call to action. At that moment, I knew Id have to run, because my father taught us that silence was complicity and I could never remain silent or complicit. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight, as love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation. And this is a battle we will win, and well do it together, I promise you. [music, Coldplay, A Sky Full Of Stars]
Lucknow:

Opposition BJP forced adjournment of the Question Hour in UP Legislative Council on Thursday over poor law and order situation in the state. As soon as the House assembled this morning, BJP members trooped into the Well, raising anti-government slogans over dismal law and order, farmers plight, terming Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadavs claims on development as false.

As Chairman Ramesh Yadavs appeals failed to restore order, he adjourned the House first for 20 minutes and later till 12.00 noon.

Later, when the House reassembled, Leader of Opposition Naseemuddin Siddiqui and other BSP members moved an adjournment notice on action against the killers of Nasir Khan in Meerut on September 9 and demanded an explanation from the government.

Leader of the House and senior minister Ahmed Hasan apprised the members with the facts regarding the incident and the Chairman, while rejecting adjournment notice, asked the government to take necessary action regarding the case.

But the BSP members were not satisfied and barged into the Well of the House shouting slogans leading to adjournment first for 15 minutes and later till 3.30 PM.

Yesterday too, the Question Hour was washed off with Opposition parties raising anti-government slogans on dismal law and order situation in the Well of the House.

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South Africa: Mkhize committed to health worker safety

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has assured health care workers that their safety remains a priority, as they continue to battle the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Ministers comments come amid a planned picket by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) over their concerns on the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers.

As a doctor myself, I can never be detached from the experiences, concerns, hopes and aspirations of my colleagues. Our health care workers are the pulse of the COVID-19 response and therefore, it is not only our duty but our imperative to protect our frontline workers at all times. I wish to assure my colleagues of our continued commitment to constantly engage and co-operate to find lasting solutions for a healthy workforce, said the Minister on Friday.

Allaying the fears of workers, Mkhize asserted that nationally, there is enough PPE stock but acknowledged that the issues pertain to the distribution of stock.

This is urgently being addressed at provincial level, hence the importance of the involvement of unions to assist with monitoring and reporting impending stock shortage, together with management, so that employers and employees can work together in a cooperative manner to protect health care workers, said the Minister.

According to the Health Department, the provision of PPE for healthcare workers is monitored by the department through a digital system, whereby provinces report on their stock levels of PPE on a daily basis.

These reports are reflected in real time on a national dashboard. The spreadsheets from these dashboards are extracted for presentation to the Minister, the National Health Council and Technical National Health Council on a regular basis.

In a bid to secure the health, safety and wellbeing of all frontline health care workers, the department set up an Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) work stream as part of the Incident Management Team.

The Incident Management team focuses specifically on managing significant outbreaks, in the current case, COVID-19.

The OHS work stream has members from all provinces, trade unions, academic institutions and professional bodies. Working together, these members draft and provide guidelines for health and safety interventions, as well as training of healthcare workers through the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH).

There are OHS coordinators at provincial Departments of Health and OHS committees at provincial, district and facility levels, in line with the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, No. 85 of 1993.

These committees also have trade union representatives and monitor health and safety of healthcare workers at their workplaces.

Whilst we acknowledge that there may be some challenges in the functionality of these committees in some provinces, the Department of Health continues to place emphasis on the operationalisation of these committees and is working hard to ensure that these committees are in place, and function in accordance with the legislated framework, said the Health Department.

In April, the Minister requested the involvement of unions in OHS committees at provincial, district and facility levels be strengthened to ensure there is always good flow of information between employees and management at all levels.

Additionally, unions accepted an invitation to be part of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Social Behavioural Change, which is an important and influential platform that provides opportunities to intervene on matters of occupational health.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Parents will be able to claim for the cost of alternative school transport, if their children cannot social distance, Minister for Education Norma Foley has said.

She was speaking today, after confirmation that school buses for secondary students would operate at 50% capacity.

Officials are in discussions with Bus Eireann ahead of the re-opening of schools in the next couple of weeks.

Minister Norma Foley said if parents opt for other transport options they will be refunded the cost. She said:

"We will offer parents a facility to provide transport themselves, and we will recompense them for doing that.

"This is the Department (of Education) being pro-active (and) recognising that as we journey through Covid, we must be flexible and resilient."

School buses will only be half full for second-level pupils, after new NPHET advice. File picture

Earlier: U-turn on school bus capacity 'beyond a joke', says Labour

Getting to and from school safely is a top priority for the Education Minister, Norma Foley, according to a Cabinet colleague.

The Department of Education has made a u-turn on school transport after the most recent advice from NPHET on public transport policy.

The Department had planned for school buses to operate at full capacity, but with students wearing face-coverings.

However, it now says they will only be half full for second-level pupils, after new NPHET advice.

It is in talks with Bus Eireann about the change in plans and Further Education Minister Simon Harris said Ms Foley wants to ensure transport is safe.

Minister Harris said: "I know that Minister Foley will be working very closely with public health experts to make sure that not only is the school a safe environment for students and staff, but so is getting to and from school.

"I have just heard the news in relation to a decision to make sure that bus capacity is at a safe level and I think that is very welcome news."

However, the Labour Party is calling for the Dail to be recalled over the decision.

Labour's education spokesman, Aodhan O Riordain, said the situation is a shambles.

Mr O Riordain said: "Well, this is gone beyond a joke, this is exactly why we need the Dail to be recalled. We need a debate in Leinster House on education, on the reopening of schools safely, school transport and on the Leaving Cert.

"The Minister is in hiding, it's not good enough, we're not trying to cause difficulty for government in opposition, all we want are answers.

"When we can't get answers, what happens is statement after statement with no ministerial follow-up, then we have u-turns."
Bank of Ireland is introducing a string of changes to its charging regime for its current accounts.

The move will mean some paying more, but the bank insists that the majority of its customers will benefit from the changes.

The bank is replacing some 26 fees that can be imposed on customers with a flat monthly fee of 6 for all.

About one in 10 customers are set to lose out as these people are able to avoid transaction fees by keeping a balance of 3,000 in their current account at all times.

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Another 30pc of customers who have low levels of transactions will also end up paying more.

The bank is also making Google Pay available to its customers, after months of delays in introducing that option.

And customers will be able to apply for a current account in minutes with new digital account opening process, the bank claimed.

Bank of Ireland said the changes to its charging set-up to a flat-fee model will allow for unlimited contactless payments and ATM use.

But there will be a new monthly fee of 6 that will be imposed on all customer current accounts.

The new arrangements take effect from November 23.

At the moment all customers pay a 5 maintenance every three months.

Currently people who can keep at least 3,000 in their account can avoid transactions charges being added to the quarterly fee.

About one in 10 customers pay the quarterly maintenance fee of 5 but dont pay any transaction charges because they keep at least 3,000 in their account.

That system will no longer be in place.

The bank said it was now simplifying the system.

Everyone will pay 6 a month but they will no longer incur individual bank charges, such as the 1c for every contactless payment, or fees for debit card chip and PIN transactions, and debit card online transactions.

The changes mean will mean the removal of the referral fee for unpaid direct debits and standing orders. This is 12.70 per item.

Transaction fees will be avoided even for those cant keep 3,000 in the account.

The bank said it will continue to provide free banking for seniors, students and graduates.

Also announced is a new digital process to allow current accounts to be opened.

Customers will be able to complete their application digitally and upload any supporting documentation in less than 10 minutes using their mobile phone, the bank said.

Bank of Ireland personal customers will also be able to add their credit and debit cards to Google Pay next week.

Google Pay allows Android smartphone users to make contactless payments for point-of-sale transactions using their phone.

Daragh Cassidy of price comparison site Bonkers.ie said the new all-in-one fee structure makes the banks charges far easier to understand, more competitive, and means there should be no more bill shock every time customers receive their current account fees and charges statement.

Chief executive of Bank of Irelands Retail Ireland division Gavin Kelly said the changes were about making personal accounts easier to get, easier to understand and easier to use.

Taking the complexity out of everyday banking will help our customers to be more aware and in control of what they spend, save and plan for.

It comes as AIB is planning to plough ahead with controversial moves to introduce transaction fees in the autumn for customers who have been able to avoid them up to now.

The bank caved in to sustained pressure in March and said it would give its customers a break by holding off on the fees move during the pandemic.

But in May it told investors that it plans to introduce the changes, which will mean huge numbers of customers being charged transaction fees, and a 1c charge for using contactless cards.
VALENCIA, Calif., Aug. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital marketing and technology company Scorpion has released a valuable resource for criminal defense attorneys who are looking to attract more clients and build more successful law practices.

Scorpion's brand-new podcast, "The Criminal Defense Show," just aired its premiere episode. The podcast, which publishes episodes monthly, provides defense lawyers with business and marketing insights to help them become more competitive in their local markets. Each episode features an attorney along with criminal defense digital marketing experts.

In the first episode, host Kelly Carpenter, Director of Internet Marketing at Scorpion, speaks with criminal defense attorney Victor Revill of Revill Law Firm and Nathan Reynolds, Vice President of Sales at Scorpion, about the importance of building business partnerships that are the right fit for your firm. They discuss both good and bad experiences with marketing partners, the importance of establishing a foundation of trust, and how to tell whether your partner is bringing enough value to the relationship.

"In a highly competitive industry like criminal defense, you need to do whatever you can to give your firm an advantage  especially in these uncertain times," Carpenter said. "That's why we launched this podcast  to create a space where our listeners can hear about the experiences of what's worked for other attorneys, and also learn about the latest industry trends and best practices straight from our digital marketing experts. We recommend any defense lawyer who is interested in advancing their practice to tune in!"

Topics that will be covered in future episodes include reviews and reputation, digital advertising, the importance of your brand, what matters in reporting, and the client journey.

Listen to the "The Criminal Defense Show" presented by Scorpion by visiting www.Scorpion.co/The-Criminal-Defense-Show .

About Scorpion

Scorpion provides an industry-leading digital marketing, operations, and technology platform for local, service-based businesses. To learn more about Scorpion, please visit www.Scorpion.co .

SOURCE Scorpion

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Photo: Castanet Staff Bill Morneau speaking at Okanagan College

WE Charity is shedding more light on a controversial email from co-founder Craig Kielburger to then-finance minister Bill Morneau this spring, saying it was about a possible second wave of COVID-19  not securing government business.

The message was among thousands of pages of documents about the WE Charity affair the Liberal government released this week as it prorogued Parliament.

But like many of the newly released records it was heavily blacked out, making it difficult to know what Kielburger was communicating to Morneau.

The document was among those Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre pointed to in a news conference Wednesday in alleging a coverup of the Liberal government's decision to have WE Charity administer a multimillion-dollar student-volunteer program.

"We'd love to learn about the attached documents in it, but unfortunately, in what is to become a trend throughout this package, all the relevant information in the two documents are completely blacked out," Poilievre said.

In a statement Thursday, WE Charity said the April 26 message included two reports from epidemiologists concerning second-wave COVID-19 predictions  reports Kielburger had mentioned to Morneau in a phone call the previous day.

The charity said the phone call, as Morneau has testified to a parliamentary committee, was made by the minister as part of a series of calls to businesses and non-profit organizations on the impact of COVID-19.

"During that call Minister Morneau asked general questions about Mr. Kielburger's view of the non-for profit sector and youth. There were no discussions of the (student grant) program in this call," WE Charity's statement said.

"Given the context of the conversation about COVID-19, during the conversation Mr. Kielburger described two reports that he recently read about COVID-19 and offered to send the reports to Minister Morneau."

As evidence, the charity released additional portions of the email, which mentions the two attachments  one concerning work by a University of Toronto epidemiologist on modelling projections for Ontario, and the second a transcript of a conversation about impact on markets.

"I realize that your team provides you access to extraordinary data," Kielburger wrote in the email. "If helpful, attached are two documents."

The thousands of pages of newly released records seem to back up the Trudeau government's assertion it was federal public servants who recommended the student service grant program be administered by WE Charity.

But they also suggest bureaucrats may have been encouraged to pursue that course by their political masters, including officials in Morneau's office.

On April 20, Amitpal Singh, a policy adviser to Morneau, emailed a Finance Department official to say he had spoken with the team at WE that morning.

"We should be receiving an updated paper soon from them, and as soon as we get policy approvals I think we should reach out and bring them into the fold," he wrote.

Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Morneau, who resigned as finance minister this week, are being investigated by the federal ethics watchdog over whether they violated the Conflict of Interest Act over the WE Charity deal. They both have close family ties to the organization and have apologized for not recusing themselves from the decision to award the contract to WE.

The records also indicate Kielburger and Morneau were on friendly terms.

Earlier in April, Kielburger emailed Morneau about a possible youth entrepreneurship program, offering good wishes to the minister's family.

"Hi Bill. I hope this finds you, Nancy, Henry, Clare, Edward and Grace enjoying some well-deserved downtime over Easter together," Kielburger wrote.

"I cannot imagine the pace of information and decision-making over the past weeks. You once told me that you sought public office to make a difference  and this is certainly the most defining impact that you will ever have for the country."
ALLEGAN COUNTY, MI  A man killed Wednesday after a trench collapse at a home-building project north of South Haven has been identified by police.

The victim has been identified as Vincent Edward Rasmus, 56, of South Haven, according to the Allegan County Sheriffs office.

Workers on scene were able to get the man out of the wreckage prior to EMS arrival, but was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a news release from South Haven Area Emergency Services.

Related: Construction worker dies in trench collapse near Lake Michigan

SHAES personnel responded to the incident at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, in Casco Township in western Allegan County. The property where the incident occurred overlooks the coast of Lake Michigan.

The victim was working on underground utilities at a new construction site, working approximately 12 feet below the surface, before the trench collapsed.

Also on MLive:

Kalamazoo man hospitalized after being shot

Police investigate 2-year-olds death after unreported car crash

Testing for mosquito-borne EEE in Kalamazoo County delayed by coronavirus pandemic

At least 23 lawsuits filed against owners of failed mid-Michigan dams and state agencies
(ANSA) - ROME, 21 AGO - The first wave of the coronavirus in Italy is not over yet, health ministry consultant Walter Ricciardi said Friday.

"There is continued talk of a second wave of the virus, but in fact the first wave is actually not over yet," he said at the annual meeting in Rimini of the influential Catholic activist group Comunione e Liberazione (CL).

"We knew that easing (lockdown) measures would have consequences.

Italy on Thursday saw the highest rise in cases since lockdown, at 845, compared to 875 on May 16, two days before lockdown ended.

"The virus is dangerous in enclosed spaces," Ricciardi went on.

"We must continue to use face masks, maintain social distancing and observe personal hygiene".

Ricciardi stressed the importance of cooperation with the EU and in particular Germany.

"The close communication between the Italian and German health ministries helped to avoid problems," he said.

"The same (communication) did not take place with Spain, despite the friendship between the two ministers". (ANSA).


UN agencies UNESCO and UNICEF, with support from the Australian Embassy in Hanoi, have launched a campaign called Winning Indoors for children and their families to find fun ways to stay happy and healthy while at home.

Winning Indoors is a collection of indoor game ideas created by children and young people and shared on a purpose-built website for children, the organizers said in a press release on Thursday.

The social media campaign encourages children to create indoor games and submit their ideas for games to be featured on the website.

No one does fun and games better than children, said Michael Croft, UNESCO representative to Vietnam.

Winning Indoors provides a platform to showcase the imagination and creativity of children to foster a healthy lifestyle, even when stuck at home.

Together with UNICEF, UNESCO is delighted to give active play at home the attention it deserves.

Playing outdoors is challenging for many children due to poor air quality, lack of facilities, and bad weather.

These challenges have been amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic with physical distancing measures, restrictions on movement, school closures, and confinement.

Winning Indoors aims to inspire children to be active through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond by playing and creating fun, active, and inclusive indoor games.

Measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 have inadvertently caused stress and affected the emotional well-being of children, said Rana Flowers, UNICEF representative to Vietnam.

Play is one of the most important ways by which young children cope with stress and gain essential knowledge and skills.

All parents and caregivers are encouraged to spend time playing with children, encouraging them to be creative and to design their own games.

Engaging in play is one of the most important interactions you can have with your child  make time and enjoy.

Several Vietnamese celebrities and influencers including Chau Bui, HHen Nie, Quang Dang, and Suboi are lending their voices to support the campaign by amplifying the messages to encourage children to participate in the Winning Indoors campaign.

The campaign will run until September and its organizers hope to gather hundreds of game idea submissions through the website.

People can follow UNICEF or UNESCO social media accounts in Vietnam, or visit the website www.winningindoors.com to submit games or to try new games created by other users.

The more people participate and submit game ideas, the richer the collection will be.

Through the participatory approach, Winning Indoors aims to inspire young Vietnamese to be physically active indoors with their families for their well-being while preventing the coronavirus spread.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
August 19, 2020





As the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting restrictions have dramatically changed how we live and work since March, its become increasingly more difficult for many enterprises to adjust to mandatory restrictions in ways that allow them to conduct business in a profitable manner. While some companies have effective measures in place to continue their workflows and others are adjusting to the new abnormal, as some are calling it, there are many organizations that have been completely stifled by the current situation.









Among them: nonprofit organizations. The lifeblood of virtually every nonprofits existence is ensuring that they have sufficient funds to continue to serve their audiences and clients in accordance with their missions. As the CEO or development director of any nonprofit will tell you, its not easy to continue to serve and have the financing to do that during a time of catastrophe, especially when so many are asking for donations and corporate gifts and competing for the same grants from governmental bodies.

Nonprofit organizers are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the needs of their budgets, especially when under normal circumstances they rely heavily on in-person events that simply cannot happen in 2020.

For people who rely on a nonprofits' services, the needs for funding have not changed, explains Thomas Kane, a wealth manager from Chicago who has long been active in philanthropic activities, both in his hometown and around the world. Its really difficult at a time like this.

Sara Peperno, president and CEO of Northeast Sight Services concurs: A big piece of the money that we raise every year is special events. Sara goes on to say, Were working on a replacement for that. Things are changing constantly through all of this.



Fortunately, technology has been playing major roles in supporting numerous nonprofit organizations.

Its wonderful that were able to use technology to reach out to supporters, raise funds and help organizations continue to operate, says Chicagos Thomas Kane. In times like these, especially when COVID-19 is creating an evolving situation with varied impacts across the states, nonprofit organizations can turn to some alternative ways of sourcing donations.



A few examples that he notes include the following.



Online Crowdfunding



Organizations and causes of all types have been taking advantage of the free GoFundMe online fundraising platform since 2010, when the Redwood, CA (News - Alert)-based company first launched its innovative -- and free to use -- approach to helping those in need raise money. Since then it has helped raise more than $9 billion in donations. Since its inception, a number of similar platforms have been introduced.

GoFundMe has proven to be extremely helpful in fundraising during recent months. Among the organizations that have turned to GoFundMe during the pandemic are the Orange (News - Alert) County United Way, which is using the platform to support its pandemic relief fund. To date, the organization has received $4.8 million dollars against its $5 million goal. It works, which is likely why GoFundMe bills itself as the most trusted free online fundraising platform.



Social media.



Some of our favorite social media platforms, including Facebook (News - Alert), Instagram and Twitch, have been very active in supporting nonprofit organizations. Kane adds that the platforms live streams can be a great way to take an event virtual. This can not only help the organizations raise funds but also show their audiences that theyre still active, despite current events, he says. Some platforms even allow you to add a link or a donate button.



And of course, Facebooks fundraising pages and posts also offer good ways to encourage donations and social sharing of fundraising.



Web-based fundraising platforms.



Digital technology has long been used by nonprofits to raise funds. Many organizations purchase or subscribe to services that integrate with their websites all year round. This past April, OneCause, an Indianapolis-based company that provides online and event fundraising, launched new virtual resources and services specifically designed to help nonprofits navigate their fundraising during the pandemic.



These include, according to the company, making available experienced fundraising consultants and virtual event managers to support moving fundraising online with a virtual run of show, strategies for communication and promotion, and overall best practices for leveraging online tools such as microsites and live streaming. The company also created a virtual COVID-19 virtual response center through which it provides information about how to pivot to online fundraising. Part of this initiative includes a weekly webinar series to which 12,000 fundraising professionals have tuned in.



One thing is for certain, the pandemic has required everyone to improvise; and as online support continues to grow and expand, it may eventually become the preferred way for all nonprofits to solicit support.






Belarusian president urges western powers to focus on their own problems

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 11:34, August 20, 2020

MINSK, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Wednesday that western leaders should focus on their own problems rather than the political situation in Belarus, state news agency BelTA reported.

"They are having a great deal of problems at home. Do not point at Belarus in order to draw attention away from the issues in France, the United States, Germany and so on," Lukashenko said at a meeting of his national security council via video link.

When all these issues are dealt with, they could proceed to Belarus, but the matter should not be high on their agenda, the president added.

Belarus is engulfed in mass protests after Lukashenko won a sixth term during the Aug. 9 elections, with the opposition refusing to recognize the results.

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ANN ARBOR, MI  The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill chose to bring students back to campus for the fall semester, only to close campus and move to remote learning due a spike in COVID-19 cases.

The University of Michigan still plans to hold in-person classes, but UM President Mark Schlissel reached out to UNC officials in May for more information about their reopening, according to a report from The Daily Tar Heel, UNCs student newspaper.

The Tar Heel reported that Schlissel was struggling with how to bring back 30,000 undergrads to Ann Arbor this fall. As of Wednesday, UM is still continuing to have in-person classes and bring students back to campus.

Other universities emailed UNC for information regarding their reopening plan, including the University of Pennsylvania, University of California-Berkeley and Duke University. The administration at UNC were warned months ago that the university would close campus due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, the Tar Heel reports, but the university pushed forward to bring students back.

UM spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said its not unusual for university presidents to confer with one another, and in this instance, Schlissel and other UM leaders have been having conversations with their counterparts at other institutions throughout the pandemic to share insights and expertise with the goal of making everyone safer.

A majority of UM students will begin moving in Aug. 24, according to UMs housing website. About 70% of credit hours for undergraduates will be taken remotely, the university said, and everyone on campus will be required to wear masks, both indoors and outdoors.

Before returning to Ann Arbor, UM is asking its students to practice 14 days of enhanced social distancing, which many students feel will only work if everyone follows the policy.

University of Michigan students unsure if enhanced social distancing requirement will be effective

The university has partnered with the Ann Arbor Police Department to help keep students safe from COVID-19 by enforcing a ban on large gatherings with small canvassing teams. UM has also opened a hotline to reduce the need for police being called as a first response to suspect violations, AAPD said.

Many have questions and concerns about UMs plan, however. Multiple Ann Arbor City Council members raised concerns when the plan was presented at an Aug. 17 meeting, saying there was a lack of enforcement and prevention of exposure to the virus.

Ann Arbor City Council members question University of Michigans effort to prevent spread of coronavirus

UM professors have also said they have no confidence in the universitys plan to reopen and claim that it shows a complete disregard for peoples well being.

Last week, Michigan State University announced it would be fully remote this fall after previously welcoming students back to campus. MSU President Samuel Stanley told media that he talked to other universities, including UNC and Notre Dame, and felt that was a situation that we really didnt want to be in.

Moving classes online was best decision for public health, Michigan State University president says

Other schools like Eastern Michigan University and Western Michigan University are pushing forward with in-person classes as well.

Classes at UM begin Aug. 31 with an altered academic calendar. There will be no fall break and the last day of in-person classes will be Nov. 20, with classes resuming remotely after Thanksgiving break.

READ MORE:

8 things to know about the University of Michigans plans for in-person classes in 2020-21

University of Michigans coronavirus dashboard goes live, shows 13 positive tests in last 2 weeks

Eastern Michigan University moving forward with on-campus classes, president says
A group of students from Gloucester County tested positive for coronavirus after they attended a party together at the Jersey Shore, officials said Friday.

The teenagers, all students at Kingsway Regional High School in Woolwich, went to an Aug. 13 beach party in Sea Isle City, according to James J. Lavender, superintendent of schools.

The Kingsway district serves students from five communities in Gloucester County.

In a letter to parents, Lavender said the district is working with the county health department to investigate the outbreak, which occurred among a number of students who attended the party.

Multiple Kingsway Regional High School students have tested positive for the coronavirus and the (health department) is working hard to determine the extent of this exposure, the letter said.

Lavender said he wanted parents and guardians to have get the information from the district rather than rely on rumors.

Unfortunately, inconclusive and intermittent social media posts have become our best resource of information, exhausting both education and health officials throughout the process, Lavender said.

Therefore, we need your help as the status of this investigation is fluid and communication is vital as we work to mitigate additional community spread, he 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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 01:06:20|Editor: huaxia

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People visit the booth of China's telecoms company Huawei during the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World 2019 held in Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 10, 2019. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- China strongly opposes the escalating suppression of Huawei by the United States, a Ministry of Commerce (MOC) spokesperson said on Thursday in response to U.S. announcement of further restrictions on the company.

The United States has been using state power, generalizing national security concept, and imposing continuous suppression and containment on certain foreign companies by abusing measures such as export control, said the unidentified spokesperson while responding to media requests for comments.

These acts have severely damaged free trade rules, threatened the security of global industrial and supply chains, and harmed the well-being and interests of people in all countries, including the United States, the spokesperson stated, urging the United States to immediately stop its wrongdoing.

The U.S. government announced on Monday it would further tighten restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co. with an aim to cut off all its access to U.S. technology, adding 38 Huawei affiliates to an existing list of companies banned from receiving some sensitive technologies.

The Chinese government will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, the spokesperson added. 
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Almost 11 per cent Pakistanis have developed protective immunity against the novel coronavirus that has claimed 6,219 lives and infected 291,588 people across the country, a media report said on Friday.

The figures were revealed in the "National Seroprevalence Study" conducted in 25 cities in July this year by the Health Services Academy in collaboration with multiple partners, including Aga Khan University, and with technical support from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It is part of the WHO Unity Study being conducted simultaneously in 25 other countries, the Ministry of National Health Services said.

Seroprevalence studies are carried out with an objective to assess as to what percentage of population has developed protective immunity (antibodies) to the virus, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The study stated that nearly 11 per cent Pakistanis have developed protective immunity against the novel coronavirus, the report said.

"The seropositivity was more in urban areas compared to rural areas; similarly those who had contact with COVID-19 positive persons were more likely to have antibodies in their blood," the study stated.

It reveals that the population of urban areas and people up to middle age are more protected against the disease.

However, the population in rural areas and senior citizens are at highest risk from a possible second wave of the deadly virus.

The virus was more common in young adults and significantly less in children and older people.

It was also found out in the study that the use of mask and frequent hand-washing in July was up to approximately 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the population, respectively.

The study suggests that areas with lower immunity rates may be at higher risk for future outbreaks.

Microbiologist Professor Javed Usman said detection of antibodies in the 11 per cent population was much less than his expectations as it meant that Pakistan was still far away from the concept of herd immunity.

"The concept of herd immunity arises if antibodies are developed in over 50 per cent of the population.

"Although 22 million people have been infected with the virus, it does not mean that all of them needed medical treatment as it is called 'Sub-Clinical Infection' in which patients may have minor symptoms or no symptoms," he was quoted as saying in the report.

A health expert, who played a role in the study, said on condition of anonymity that the health ministry had shared preliminary findings and a number of findings would be shared within three to four weeks.

"There were around 80 variables of the study as the primary target was to find the percentage of antibodies in the masses.

Other targets were to identify which age group was vulnerable, identify the ratio of cases in rural and urban areas and small and big cities, people of which profession were more vulnerable, what kind of symptoms were in them and if people were following the precautionary measures and wearing masks," he said.

He said that one of the findings was that initially people were strictly following the standard operating procedures (SOPs), but later they stopped doing that.

The federal government has fast-tracked the process for provision of COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is available, the report said.

"An expert committee had been tasked under the auspices of National COVID-19 Vaccine Committee with working on finalising recommendations for provision of the vaccine and its deployment in the country.

"The committee's recommendations shall be submitted to the prime minister this month," the Ministry of National Health Services said.

Six out of 10 vaccines currently being developed by leading global manufacturers are undergoing phase-3 trials.

The committee has recommended engagement with Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation for support in procurement through co-financing.

Also among the recommendations is enhanced collaboration with China including in clinical trials of the vaccine and efforts towards indigenous manufacturing of the vaccine," the report quoted the ministry as saying.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's coronavirus cases reached 291,588 on Friday after 630 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours.

Another 10 patients died in this period, taking the total death toll to 6,219 across the country, the Ministry of National Health Services said.

It said that 273,579 people had fully recovered while 722 were still in critical conditions.

According to the ministry data, the number of active patients was 11,790.

The authorities have conducted 25,613 tests in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of tests performed so far to 2,389,265, it said.
The university denied the cancellation had anything to do with whistleblowing, saying it respected and protected academic freedom and the decision reflected the universitys "regular efforts to refresh its courses appeal and relevance". It was among a number of physics, chemistry, biological sciences, mathematics, chemical engineering and environmental engineering majors to get the axe. "Its hard to envisage a university without a mathematics degree. Murdoch Uni Professor Bruce Gardiner But Dr Farrow said the mathematics and statistics enrolments had grown from about 1600 in 2015 to more than 2700 this year. To put that into context that brings into the university about $7 million in domestic fees and we have 11 to 12 staff to deliver to that many students each year, and our total enrolments have been growing in double figures for the last four years," he said.

"So weve increased by over 50 per cent in the amount of students that we teach in five years and we havent actually had any increase in staff numbers in that time. So Im struggling to see a financial reason for cancelling the major." Mathematics and statistics Professor Graeme Hocking said the major cost no money to run since they would still be teaching a couple of thousand students the units anyway. "So why would you not have the major on the books if the students can do all the units in it?" he said.

"Eventually if the students cant do a major the numbers will start to drop off in our third year units and then they will get cut, and then it will be impossible to have a major," he said. Without the major students would miss out on opportunities for higher degree honours, PhDs, and building a research career in mathematics. "Its just going to be a slow decline. Senior maths lecturer Duncan Farrow The university's excellence in research ranking for applied maths and statistics in combination with biomedical science was among the highest in the nation. The longer term implications will be that the good young staff will want to move on, Professor Hocking said.

Dr Farrow said it would be a slow decline. The university will lose expertise in statistics, in data analytics and data science, we will lose expertise in mathematics and modelling and they will find it very difficult to attract new people into these positions if there is no major for them to teach into," he said. A university spokesperson said the number of students who sought to primarily study mathematics and statistics had been "relatively small for several years, with only about 10 students graduating each year". They said the units would continue to be offered as a core discipline and in a "new contemporary format that reflects the evolving job market". Any suggestion the university was diminishing maths and statistics was "unfounded".

"There are degrees in education, engineering, information technology, nursing, marine biology and veterinary sciences, among others, that will require mathematics or statistics units," they said. Loading "Indeed, as a result of the success of these courses, in which maths and stats units are pre-requisites, there is high demand which explains the load demand and revenue referred to. "Furthermore, PhDs and honours within the maths and stats discipline will still be available with the changes that are occurring to the courses." But Professor Hocking said the small number of maths and statistics major graduates was mostly due to the three-year course only being offered for the past five years and was in line with maths programs around the country.
The contentious Senate primary in Massachusetts between Rep. Joe Kennedy III and Sen. Ed Markey, as it enters its final weeks, is turning into a contest not just of personalities but between two of the most salient issues for Democratic voters this year: climate change, which is Markeys signature issue, and racial justice, which Kennedy says his opponent has neglected during his four decades in Congress.

In an interview on Wednesday with Yahoo News, Kennedy accused Markey of doing nothing to help a couple whose 20-year-old son, a Black college football player named D.J. Henry, was shot and killed by a white police officer in 2010.

I worked with them to push the Justice Department in Washington and in New York to try to file federal charges, Kennedy said. They met with Senator Markey shortly after they met with me. They met over lunch. They felt like they were dismissed. They were insulted. He referred to Black people during the meeting as colored and he never followed up.

Kennedys attack on Markey comes as the incumbent, who at 74 is almost twice the age of the 39-year-old Kennedy, has surprisingly gained traction with young voters who are drawn to his involvement in fighting climate change. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was an early endorser of Markey because of his work pushing the Green New Deal, and some recent polls have shown Markey leading among younger voters. Polling overall has been infrequent and indicates a tight race.

Markey has attacked Kennedy, the grandson of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, for running on his family name. Kennedy responded to these accusations of entitlement with a press conference Monday where he stood with Black political and community leaders in Boston and defended his familys record of fighting for racial justice, while accusing Markey of neglecting the issue.

Markey has acknowledged some mistakes in the past. In fact, he apologized to the parents of D.J. Henry after the mans father posted a video two weeks ago accusing Markey of being the only elected official in Massachusetts who didnt act and saying that Markey was dismissive and did in fact use the term colored. Its been 10 years, and weve never heard one thing from your office to this day, even as you know we are trying to reopen our sons case, Danroy Henry Sr. said.

Story continues

Rep. Joe Kennedy III, left, listens as Sen. Ed Markey, right, speaks at an SEIU rally at the State House in Boston on "a day of reckoning" for Black lives on July 20, 2020. (Pat Greenhouse/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Kennedy is pairing his criticism of Markeys handling of the D.J. Henry killing with attacks on Markeys voting record on racial issues, reaching back to his opposition to desegregating public schools through forced busing in the 1970s. Ed Markey was voting to keep Black kids out of white classrooms, Kennedy said on Monday. His campaign released a video after his event on Monday using footage from when his uncle, former Sen. Ted Kennedy, was attacked by an enraged mob of white parents in Boston for his support for busing in 1974.

Kennedy is also hitting Markey for voting to protect institutions like Bob Jones University, which had banned interracial dating, from losing tax-exempt status in 1981.

The Kennedy-Markey race is attracting a lot of attention in the state. Over a million mail-in ballots have been requested ahead of the Sept. 1 primary election.

Kennedy also said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder for him to draw contrasts with Markey.

COVID-19 has also limited our ability to actually show those differences, Kennedy said during an interview on Skullduggery, a Yahoo News podcast. You can't get out and about and show the type of retail-based campaign what it means when you bring people in and build the momentum and ask people to be part of something.

A campaign fought online rather than through in-person events has advantages for an incumbent who is trying to fend off a young challenger like Kennedy who is eager to demonstrate a willingness to meet voters all over the state. And when ideological progressives latch on to a signature issue like climate, as has happened in Markeys case, that kind of enthusiasm spreads more easily on social media.

Markey debates Kennedy on Tuesday in the final debate leading up to the September 1 primary election. (Barry Chin/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Markeys attacks on Kennedy have ramped up lately, and during a recent debate Markey challenged Kennedy to tell his father, former Rep. Joseph Kennedy Jr., not to use $2.8 million in leftover campaign funds from his time in elected office to fund a super-PAC supporting Joe Kennedy IIIs campaign.

The Markey campaign released a video on Twitter after that debate in which they showed Kennedy on the bow of a yacht, with the tune Rich Girl by Hall & Oates playing. Free advice for Joe Kennedy, the Markey campaign tweeted. Dont rely on the old mans money.

A week ago, Markey released a three-minute video touting his work on behalf of working-class people and his climate change plan that ended with a rebuke of one of former President John F. Kennedys most famous lines: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

Markey turned that line around, saying, We asked what we could do for our country. We went out. We did it. With all due respect, its time to start asking what your country can do for you.

The slickly produced video has been viewed 3 million times.

Kennedy, in his event on Monday, said he was proud of [his familys] contribution and their history, but I recognize that that work is theirs. It is not mine.

That is what my family taught me about legacy, he said. A legacy is earned.

Kennedy argued that he has earned trust with struggling communities by spending time working for them and listening to them.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:

Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting.
Since the pandemic shut down much of American life back in March, I have worked mostly at my kitchen table in a suburban house in Bismarck, N.D. I chose the kitchen table because it has seven big bay windows around it. I like to work in the natural light. But I also like to watch for the moment when the white Jeep crawls up the street on the other side delivering the mail. In this subdivision, we have a contract mail carrier. I know her a little. No matter what I am doing, even meeting a screaming deadline, I walk out the door to get the mail within minutes of its arrival. It would drive me nuts to just let it sit there. When I get nothing (very occasionally) or only junk mail, I feel a little deflated. Mostly I wait for packages of books. If there is a card or personal letter, I stop everything and devour it. I leave her cookies at the holidays. She brings fragile parcels straight to my door.The national controversy touched off by President Trumps offensive against the U.S. Postal Service has called much-needed attention to the beleaguered semi-independent federal agency that delivers our mail. For one thing, it turns out that the American people like the postal service and have been willing to speak out strenuously (even fiercely) to protect it. According to recent studies, the U.S. Postal Service consistently ranks as the American peoples favorite federal agency. And though almost everyone grumbles about mail service now and then, it has an astonishing 91 percent approval rating. That compares with the CIA (60 percent), FEMA (52 percent), the IRS (50 percent), the Environmental Protection Agency (43 percent), and the Veterans Affairs (39 percent). The post office delivers 150 billion letters and more than 5 billion parcels per year. It delivers a staggering 1 billion Christmas cards per year, even now. There are 230,000 designated delivery routes in America, and more than 500,000 career USPS employees, not counting contract carriers.The USPS has suffered severely since the coronavirus caused massive disruption to life in America. Required by law to be revenue-neutral, i.e., not to be a drain on the U.S. Treasury, like so many other business and government entities, the USPS is going to need huge subsidies if it is going to survive the COVID-19 crisis. What otherwise would be a mostly fiscal problem has been transformed into a whopping political controversy by President Trumps undisguised declaration that he wants to starve the USPS so that it cannot meet the demands of mail-in voting in the runup to the November presidential election, and that he will veto any congressional legislation that provides bail-out money for the post office.His recently appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has initiated a series of perplexing and counter-intuitive cost-cutting reforms, including the removal of more than 500 Delivery Barcode Sorter machines from around the nation. These sorting machines process mail in nearly unbelievable volume. They make up the bulk of the USPS mail sorting operation. If you are looking for greater efficiency in the post office, removing these robotic wonders would seem to be counterproductive. They dont take coffee or bathroom breaks, and they are never caught toggling through Facebook on company time.Even now, a quarter of a century after email revolutionized the way we all communicate, there is nothing quite like a letter or a card that arrives in the mailbox. In fact, a physical letter now has a greater power than it previously did, because it means that the other person penned or printed it on paper, folded it, inserted it into an envelope, affixed a postage stamp, and dropped it in the appropriate receptacle. Each of these steps takes time and intentionality. Its way more purposeful than just pushing send.I suppose I write ten thousand emails per year now, some of them long and intricate, passionate and detailed, but on that handful of occasions per year when I really have something I regard as very important to communicate, especially to close friends or members of my family, I get out my old Hermes 3000 manual typewriter and pound out my letter. Its a physically painful thing to bang out a letter on a typewriter keyboard now, at a time when our fingers have learned to just dance across the computer keyboard, but when I was a young man I thought my Hermes 3000 was the greatest word processing machine in the world. When I write a personal letter as email and push send, I always feel that I am cheating the friendship or family relationship a little. How hard was that? The intentionality required to put a letter in the mail gives it a slight sacramental feel.I refuse to use the term "snail mail." I still regard it as little short of a miracle that I can put a note in the mailbox today and it will arrive at someones apartment in Los Angeles three days later.The first-class stamp now costs 55 cents. For half a buck I can send a three-page letter from Bismarck, N.D., to Caribou, Maine (1,848 miles), Key West, Fla. (2,372), Barrow, Alaska (2,457) or to El Centro, Calif. (1,629), and everywhere in between. For half a buck I can send a letter (or a check or a receipt or a vote) to such easy-to-reach places as Denver or New York City, but also to such difficult locations as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or to Ersi, Nev., 89412, the most isolated ZIP code in the continental United States. Ersi (near Gerlach) has the distinction of being the farthest point in the lower 48 states from a McDonalds. Moreover, almost every legibly addressed, properly stamped letter or parcel actually reaches its intended recipient (the USPS lost mail rate is miniscule), and within a handful of days. If you think about that for a moment, you have to shake your head at what a bargain it is.What else can you buy in America for 55 cents? The great majority of items even at dollar stores cost much more than $1. You cant buy a candy bar for 55 cents or a pack of gum or a cheap ballpoint pen or even an apple or banana. What can you buy today for 55 cents? Well, you can buy a postage stamp, lovingly designed by a visual artist and adopted after a rigorous national vetting process. When there is no one else in line, I often browse through the available stamp designs to choose one that suits my personality or touches on my historical or natural history interests. If you had to pay a private courier (as Thomas Jefferson routinely did, since he was an extremely fastidious and private man) to drive to your house, pick up an envelope, drive or fly it to Seattle, and put it into the hands of the intended recipient, what would that cost you?In recent years, USPS detractors have suggested that we eliminate the agency and let private enterprise take over the task of delivering the mail. A few years ago, I watched an Inns of Court lecture by Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich. He asked aloud why our experiences at the DMV  licensing our cars or renewing our drivers' licenses  and at the post office are so inefficient and frustrating, while FedEx and UPS routinely provide efficient and satisfying customer services, with none of the snarky Nurse Ratched style you get at the DMV. Why should we settle for lousy service from our government (at every level) when private enterprise has mastered the same or similar transactions and you invariably get service with a smile? It was a strangely compelling lecture, and I remember thinking that every government service agency should watch it, even if they disagreed strenuously with some of Rep. Gingrichs conclusions.And yet there was something a little heartless about what Gingrich advocated. FedEx is more efficient than the U.S. post office, but the base rate for a flat document is $9.05, which is 16 times more expensive than a first-class stamp. Perhaps wealthy Americans and most businesses can afford to pay that rate for overnight service, but for tens of millions of Americans, that is literally cost prohibitive. There are, in fact, millions of Americans for whom 55 cents is significant. FedEx and UPS are marvelous in their way, but they dont have the constitutional burden of delivering mail to every single ZIP code in the United States, no matter how isolated, how low in overall volume, how unprofitable from a business point of view. Imagine what it costs to get a prescription for heart medicine to a shut-in in Peerless, Mont., population 87, miles from nowhere.I sent a birthday gift to my daughter recently. I needed to get it there in four days. I could not use FedEx or UPS because they cannot guarantee timely delivery to the remote western Kansas village where she lives. The USPS agent who handled the parcel assured me that my gifts would arrive on time. And they did. I fretted through the whole transit time, because although my daughter would have understood if the package arrived one or two or three days after her birthday (especially now), she would have been disappointed. At mid-day on her birthday, she called me in glee to say she has just opened the box and was delighted with the contents. Who does not love to receive a care package, no matter how young or old you are? Her satisfaction was as much for receiving the box on her birthday as for what was inside. I was so relieved I nearly cried.And that was a mere birthday gift. Think of the people who wait by the mailbox for their medical prescriptions, for their Social Security checks, for payment for their hard work, for those important family documents, for their IRS refund, for acknowledgment of their 5th or 95th birthday or their high school graduation. Some USPS critics say these people need to get with the 21st century and do all their financial transactions online, that there is no USPS service that cannot be handled in other ways. It is certainly true that the digital revolution has put extraordinary pressure on the post office and made a number of its services seem redundant or no longer vital. It is also true that if the USPS were required to generate cash flow on every delivery, that first-class stamp would be many times more expensive than it is under our subsidized system.Still, the U.S. postal system has been with the American experiment from the beginning and it is deeply imbedded into the very idea of what we all expect from our national government. The USPS has had its ups and downs through the course of American history. Until Theodore Roosevelt stepped in as U.S. Civil Service Commissioner (1889-1895), the post office was synonymous with cronyism, nepotism, the spoils system, and graft. It was perverted in the American South from 1845-1960 to prevent racially incendiary materials, including abolitionist tracts and newspapers, from disrupting slavery, the Black Code, Jim Crow laws and segregation. It was misused during the Red Scare that followed World War I  one of the darkest attacks on civil liberties and free speech in our history and it was perverted until the 1970s in some places to prevent the dissemination of information about sexual hygiene and womens reproductive freedom.And yet, from the beginning in 1792, the USPS has tied the vastness of America together, kept friends and families apprised of the health, sickness, marriage, divorce, career advancement and career setbacks of their loved ones. It has cut the loneliness of hundreds of millions of people isolated either geographically or socially. It has permitted American soldiers to keep in touch with their anxious families back home. And it has allowed people here and abroad to vote when they cannot get to the polls on Election Day, this year perhaps more than ever before.To say that the postal system is as American as apple pie may sound like a cliche, but it is actually true. When the American colonies realized that they were being taxed and regulated by the British government without their consent in a way that violated their rights as Englishmen, they began the revolution by forming Committees of Correspondence so that the people of Virginia and the Carolinas could stay abreast of what was happening in New York or the Bay Colony of Massachusetts. They wanted to forge a continental response to such British actions as the closing of the Boston Harbor in response to the Boston Tea Party on Dec. 16, 1773. The men and women of the resistance wanted to explore common strategies, report British depredations and human rights violations, exchange best practices, develop a common narrative of rebellion, and build public support for American independence. When Jefferson served as governor of Virginia (1779-81) he arranged for a system of galloping post riders to provide him instant field reports from battles hundreds of miles south of the new Virginia capital at Richmond.After the peace treaty in 1783, the Founding Fathers realized that the ad hoc confederacy that won the war would only survive as a nation if some way were found to knit the 13 highly independent former colonies together. Jefferson and Madison were particularly anxious about this predicament, because they were committed to creating an American republic, and they knew from their reading of Montesquieus(1748) that republics tended to disintegrate unless they were modest in size or held together with a tight and emphatic infrastructure.The first U.S. Postmaster, Benjamin Franklin, understood that creating an efficient postal system that would facilitate the dissemination of newspapers, pamphlets, letters, and magazines, would be critical to the success of the American experiment. This concern about what we call connectivity caused the makers of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia to include the creation of a postal system among the powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the national charter. Congress was empowered to establish Post Offices and Post Roads.The U.S. Postal Service has survived crises (and bankruptcy) before. It will surely survive this unprecedented moment in American history. The presidents offensive may or may not have legitimate political purpose (thats for others to decide), but it has produced one unexpected and one much-needed benefit. In the last few weeks, the American people have made it unmistakably clear that they like the post office and they do not intend to see it eliminated, eviscerated or weaponized for partisan politics. I think everyone has been a little surprised by the passion with which average Americans have made their loyalty to the good old post office clear to their representatives in Congress.Perhaps more important, the crisis is forcing a national debate about the future of the USPS. It is clear that it is going to have to dig deep into the world of innovation to find a way to serve the needs of the American people in this era of disruption  in technology, communication, terrorism, globalism, mobility, alternative systems of distribution, robotics, and the demand for instant gratification  and yet find a way to cash flow, too.
I gather that Joe Biden is making the Wuhan coronavirus his number one, and possibly only, substantive campaign issue. I dont blame him. What else of substance does he have?

Until the virus hit, America was going great. Since then, in addition to the pandemic, weve had riots and a surge in homicides, but Biden cant plausibly blame President Trump for them. In fact, some unwritten rule seems to bar him from mentioning riots and crime in the cities (nearly all of them run by Dems).

Trumps response to the Wuhan coronavirus has been mixed, in my opinion. This was to be expected considering how novel the virus is and how little we knew (and still know) about it.

Joe Bidens response to the virus makes Trumps look masterful. Biden and his team made a series of statements in the first few months of the year that denied the seriousness of the virus and criticized President Trump for taking steps to prevent its spread.

This, too, was to be expected. Hack that he is, Biden has been wrong on almost every national security issue for as long as anyone can remember. He even advised Barack Obama against undertaking the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Karl Rove put together a list of Bidens greatest misses on the coronavirus. He presented it on one of the Fox News programs last night.

Here is Roves list:

1) Jan. 31: In response to Trumps travel ban, Biden says this is no time for Donald Trumps record of hysteria and xenophobia  hysterical xenophobia. 2) Early February: Biden public health advisory committee member says the coronavirus is less lethal than the SARS virus and a top aide says this is probably not a serious epidemic. 3) Mid February: Top Biden adviser says we dont have a Covid epidemic, we have a fear epidemic. 4) Late February: Biden health adviser Zeke Emmanuel says many experts view the virus like the flu and expect it to dissipate with warmer weather moving to the southern hemisphere. Masks will not help, he adds. 5) Early March: Biden holds a mass indoor rally and criticizes the European travel ban as ineffective and counterproductive. 6) Mid March: Regarding Trumps January 31st decision to close travel to China, Biden says stop the xenophobic fear mongering.

Rove also said that as vice president, Biden presided, along with President Obama, over the depletion of the national strategic stockpile of the PPE equipment that health professionals require in an epidemic. The Obama-Biden administration did not replenish it. Thus, the equipment that was needed most by health care professionals was no longer available when the virus hit the U.S.

Finally, Rove said that in a televised interview with Joy Reid two weeks ago, Biden listed six elements of his plan to deal with the pandemic. According to Rove, all six elements of his plan are things Trump has already done.

UPDATE: Here are Roves specifics regarding how Trump has already done the things Biden says need to be done in response to the pandemic.

NOTE: This post has been revised to distinguish between statements made by Biden and statements made by his key advisers.
Israel main focus of cooperation will be on the following sectors: sustainable agriculture, irrigation systems, education, citizen security and defense, innovation and start-ups, among others; these areas are fully aligned with the actions of Honduran Government for the countrys development.

In 2019, Honduras opened a trade and cooperation mission in Jerusalem as an extension of the Embassy of Honduras in Tel Aviv to reassure and strengthen the diplomatic ties, friendship and good relations between the two countries.

In the multilateral sphere, Honduras has supported Israel in resolutions within the framework of the United Nations. The Central American country has a strong record of support in the field of candidacies of Israel in different international organizations.

An Israel mission, headed by Gabi Ashkenazi, Israels Minister of Foreign Affairs and other high ranks government officials participated in the inauguration via Zoom.

SOURCE Government of the Republic of Honduras
A man has been arrested in connection with the recent discovery of 47 immigrants inside a stash house in central Laredo, according to an arrest affidavit filed on Thursday.

Homeland Security Investigations identified the suspect as Jose Arcos-Alejo. He was identified as the person watching over the stash house. He was charged with conceal, harbor or shield from detection a group of immigrants or attempt to conceal, harbor or shield from detection the immigrants.

HSI special agents said the case unfolded Tuesday, when county and federal authorities began conducting surveillance at a residence on a suspected human stash house in the 1100 block of East Lyon Street.

At about 5 p.m., Webb County Sheriffs Office deputies observed a vehicle exit the residence with some occupants. Deputies followed the vehicle until they stopped it in the intersection of Clark Boulevard and North Stone Avenue.

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived at the scene of the vehicle. Agents conducted an immigration inspection on the driver, who was identified as Arcos-Alejo, and another male occupant. Both stated they were citizens of Mexico who were in the country illegally, records state.

Arcos-Alejo allegedly agreed to provide a post-arrest statement without an attorney present.

Arcos-Alejo stated there were additional illegal (immigrants) at the residence off East Lyon, including a young child. Arcos-Alejo also stated he was in charge of watching over the other (illegal immigrants) at the house and granted agents consent to enter the residence, states the affidavit.

At the residence, authorities said they encountered 38 men, eight women and one girl. Arcos-Alejo further stated he had arranged to be smuggled into the United States for a smuggling fee.

Arcos-Alejo stated during his smuggling event, he was recruited by a (human) smuggler to harbor other (illegal immigrants) and in return, he would have his smuggling fee reduced by $5,000. Arcos-Alejo claimed he was told he would have to work for one month to cover the smuggling fee reduction, states the affidavit.
The latest figures from Daft.ie have found that after the initial shock of the April lockdown, house prices and rents have been resilient since then. Asking prices of properties rose by 2.3% month on month (mom) in July, leaving prices unchanged on an annual basis.

Dublin is outperforming, with asking prices up 1.2% year on year (yoy), defying the recent narrative of a move away from the cities hitting demand. Goodbody Stockbrokers say the relative resilience of prices is partly explained by the low level of stock (-22% yoy).

Rents also rose, for the third consecutive month, having fallen sharply in April. Given the increase in rental stock available, this is somewhat confusing, but may be partly explained by the rental pressure zones which make it impossible for landlords to raise rents if they reduce them. Rent-free periods may be offered instead.

On the housing policy front, the Irish Independent is reporting that the Minister for Housing is formulating a shared equity ownership scheme that may be announced in the coming months. This is something that Goodbody have speculated about previously as a solution that may be used to bridge a gap between the high rents, the loan to income rules and the cost of homebuilding in Ireland.

Based upon the reports, the proposal is akin to the UK's Help-toBuy scheme whereby the State takes a stake in the property which can then be bought out by the homeowner later.

According to Goodbody Stockbrokers, "The challenge for the government is to minimise the potential impact on house prices of a policy like this. To do this, the rules of the scheme will have to be tied together with the 3.5x loan-to-income rule with a price cap set such that it incentives builders to bring product at the appropriate price point for first time buyers."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Third level students in Laois and Offaly will benefit from a new fund to help them access laptops and other devices, according to Laois/Offaly TD Charlie Flanagan.

This Friday August 21, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has confirmed the funding for Laois & Offaly students as part of a new fund for student devices worth 15 million.

The fund is part of a larger 168 million package to help further and higher education sectors deal with the impacts of Covid-19.

Deputy Flanagan said the money will be used to help thousands of students to access laptops.

Covid-19 has disrupted many aspects of our lives. For students in third level, it has resulted in a changed college experience.

This new academic year will see students attending courses online and they will need access to devices to cope with this challenge. This investment will allow us to help 16,700 students access laptops and will ensure they can keep up to date with their studies. It will also go some way to bridging the digital divide, support students and ensure equality of access to education.

The 168 million funding package includes an additional 10 million for access supports which complements the IT support package.

Students in higher education institutions experiencing exceptional financial need can apply for support via their local access office.

The devices will be distributed through targeted lending schemes run by the institutions and will be overseen by Student Access Offices.

The grant funding for the devices will be provided to Higher Education Institutions through the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and to Education and Training Boards through SOLAS. The bulk order of laptops was organised by HEAnet, which provides internet connectivity and ICT services to education bodies throughout Ireland.
The Port of Beirut has re-opened for aid shipments over three weeks after a haul of abandoned ammonium nitrate in storage blew up a warehouse causing a cataclysmic explosion that killed 171 people.

In aerial photographs released today, aid ships can be seen moored off Beirut's flattened port. The blast, which took place on August 4, killed 171 people, injured thousands and left countless others homeless.

In other images taken from above the decimated trading point today, the colossal damage inflicted on the port is clearly visible, with dust and debris covering the remnants of ships and buildings.

This picture taken yesterday shows a view of the flattened warehouse at the port of Lebanon's capital Beirut next to the crater left by the explosion at the other warehouse that housed a huge cache of ammonium nitrate and which ravaged the city in early August. The port has now reopened for aid shipments (also pictured, right)

An aerial view of a capsized cruise ship, damaged in the Beirut Port blast yesterday in Beirut, Lebanon

This picture taken yesterday shows an aerial view of a destroyed ship in the aftermath of the monster explosion at the port of Lebanon's capital Beirut which ravaged the city in early August

After the deadly blast that took place on August 4, several ships offload aid yesterday in Beirut, Lebanon

In one photograph, an overturned cruiseliner can be seen laying on its side just metres from the shore. Another shows an aerial view of a stripped ship covered in dust.

A U.S. government assessment of the devastating explosion, reported on 15 August, concluded that maintenance work likely led to the explosion of the large cache of ammonium nitrate.

It came amid speculation over what could have triggered the deadly chemical blast.

Last week, security sources claimed a welder had sparked the initial fire that in turn ignited the chemicals.

Firefighters try to extinguish flames after a large explosion rocked the harbor area of Beirut on August 4

The devastating explosion last week. An Italian expert has claimed that the brick red cloud suggests that the blast was not caused by ammonium nitrate and suggested burning armaments had instead caused the blast

Lebanese firefighters work at the scene of an explosion in the Lebanese capital on August 4

The explosion, Lebanon's worst peacetime disaster, caused devastation across Beirut and is widely seen as a direct consequence of state incompetence and corruption.

A source familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal that maintenance work likely sparked the explosion which devastated much of the Lebanese capital, claiming investigators found 'no evidence of an attack or foul play'.

They added that maintenance work 'set fire to other unspecified materials stored at the port, which then ignited the chemical stockpile'.

The FBI has joined an international investigation effort led by France. But the initial US findings match those of the Lebanese military, which has been accused of ignoring warnings and allowing the nitrate to sit in a dockside warehouse for six years.

The blast occurred when a warehouse fire ignited 2,750 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate that had been stored in the city's port for six years.

Russian emergency personnel walk on the site of the explosion in the port of Beirut, where rescuers are continuing their recovery efforts nearly a week after the blast

Italian firefighters from the NBCR (Nuclear Biological Chemical Radiological) unit inspecting a ship wreck in the port of Beirut

The devastated port of Beirut is seen in an aerial view yesterday after the explosion at a warehouse which has killed more than 160 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless

The explosion, which drew comparisons with the Hiroshima atom bomb 75 years ago, has also injured more than 6,000 people and left 300,000 homeless.

Ten firefighters are confirmed to have died in the incident, and six more are still among the missing, including three members of the same family.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab's government resigned on Monday but that did little to appease protesters who want heads to roll over the disaster.

Documents seen by AFP reveal that relevant officials at every echelon of the state were aware of the danger posed by the large pile of ammonium nitrate stored for years in a port warehouse until it blew up.

The disaster also sparked widespread panic over wheat shortages after 15,000 tonnes of grains were blasted out of the silos.

The cabinet decided to refer the investigation of the blast to the judicial council, the highest legal authority whose rulings cannot be appealed.

A protester throws a tear gas canister back towards Lebanese police during an anti-government protest in Beirut on Sunday night

Lebanon's president had previously said explosive material was stored unsafely for years at the port.

He said an investigation would consider whether the cause was external interference as well as negligence or an accident.

'There are two possible scenarios for what happened: it was either negligence or foreign interference through a missile or bomb,' he said last Friday.

The shipment of ammonium nitrate was officially destined for Mozambique when it sailed on the cargo ship Rhosus in 2013, but the vessel made an unscheduled stop in Beirut where the chemicals were impounded.

Firefighters carry the coffin of their friend Joe Noun, one of ten firefighters who were killed during the explosion that hit the Beirut port, during his funeral at the firefighter headquarters

The captain of the Rhosus claims he was told to stop in Beirut to pick up extra cargo - while Mozambique has denied all knowledge of the shipment.

Cypriot police said on Thursday that they had questioned Russian businessman Igor Grechushkin over his alleged links the ship and its cargo.

Beirut's governor said many foreign workers and truck drivers remained missing and were assumed to be among the casualties.
British holidaymakers have been forced to pay hundreds of pounds for alternative routes back from Croatia, after finding affordable flights home before Saturdays quarantine deadline almost impossible to come by.

Liam and Jodie, a couple from Keighley, West Yorkshire, paid about 800 to travel home from northern Croatia via Munich, in order to beat the quarantine deadline, after finding it impossible to book a direct flight in time.

There wasnt an alternative. There are no flights from Pula to the UK on Fridays, only a flight from Zagreb to London runs, but obviously that was fully booked, Liam told the PA news agency.

The only (other) flights available were with stops in Spain through Ryanair, but then we would have to quarantine anyway, he added.

Liam, a mechanical assembly engineer, said he had started a new job recently so didnt want to miss another two weeks work.

He added that they had tried to make the most of their trip despite the distraction of not knowing whats going to happen, and were treating their visit to Munich as a city break we got as an extra.

Other alternatives for those seeking to leave the country before the deadline include train journeys across the continent.

One potential option, taking about 20 hours, is to board a train in Croatias capital, Zagreb, and travel through Villach and Salzburg in Austria, Munich in Germany, and on to Paris to catch the Eurostar to London.

However, some have opted to bite the bullet and pay hundreds to get the few remaining direct flights back to the UK, or accepted the prospect of two weeks without leaving the house.

Beccy Williams, a self-employed driving instructor, has decided not to return early from her holiday in Croatia, despite the new rules meaning she will miss out on two weeks of work.

Ms Williams, from Oakham, Rutland, and her 10-year-old son, are due to fly home from Slatine, where they are on a group holiday with friends, on August 28.

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She told PA: We were expecting it to be honest  we followed the numbers before we left on Tuesday. Two of our party dropped out as they werent prepared to take the risk of quarantine and two weeks off work.

I started back to work on July 4  my parents looked after my 10-year-old whilst I worked as much as I could for the last six weeks.

#Croatia The FCO now advise against all but essential travel to Croatia, based on the current assessment of COVID-19 risks. https://t.co/HtvdZgpCxv pic.twitter.com/1KtWI61Nm9  FCO travel advice (@FCOtravel) August 20, 2020

I feel bad that my pupils wont get their driving lessons until after September 14, but my son is having so much fun with his friends here that its worth it.

Londoner Graham Lloyd-Bennett and his wife Karla said they had been tracking the local coronavirus data closely while in Croatia to visit her family, making speedy plans to exit once it appeared likely it would be added to the exemption list.

I came back on (August) 10 because I suspected Croatia may go into the red list, and I couldnt afford to quarantine due to work, so changed my flight earlier.

He added that they had also rearranged his wifes flight on Monday in order to meet the anticipated deadline of 4am on Saturday, having seen the same imposed last week on travellers from France and a number of other countries.

When we decided to fly out to Croatia we were aware there could be changes, he told PA.

I cant see why people complain as it is a personal decision to travel in these times. Of course it is annoying and stressful but it has to be done.
WOOD RIVER  Officials at the Wood River-Hartford Elementary School District on Friday announced the district was immediatly transitioning to full remote learning.

In a letter to students and parents, superintendent Patrick Anderson said that, starting Monday, Aug. 24, school buildings in the district will be closed and students will begin learning remotely using electronic platforms they were able to familiarize themselves with during our first three days of students attending.

The district will continue remote learning until our county has been from the warning status for two consecutive weeks, Anderson said.

The announcement came as Madison County was officially designated by the Illinois Department of Public Health as one of 20 counties listed as being in warning status for coronavirus. The IDPH announcement indicated that transmission of COVID-19 in Madison County has reached high levels in three of the metrics in monitored by state health officials:

 New cases per 100,000 population: 197 per 100,000 (threshold is 50);

 9.2% positivity percentage (threshold is 8%); and

 The region has moved to Tier 1 mitigation.

Anderson said that, for the next two weeks, the elementary district will have food distribution for breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m.-noon, starting Monday, Aug. 24. Meals can be picked at both Lewis and Clark Elementary and Hartford Elementary campus cafeterias. The district is also working on a food delivery service for any family that will need it.

For students without any accessible internet, the district also will provide connectivity through the use of Spectrum Stay Connected for Students-Distance Learning in Response to COVID-19. Each participating household will be provided WiFi.

Anderson said he knows the remote learning move will create hardships for students, parents and staff. But he said the districts first priority is the safety of the students and the staff.

We want our students to be back in our schools as soon as this can be done safely, he said. So please, help stop the spread in our county by wearing a mask, washing hands frequently and social distancing.

Anderson said he knows his sentiment is shared with the parents.

Parent responses have been very positive and understanding that these decisions are difficult for everyone, he said

To view the districts full remote plan, visit http://www.wrh15.org/.
New Delhi:

AAP on Wednesday termed the RBIs decision of withdrawing its order imposing restrictions on customers depositing demonetised notes over Rs 5,000 as the biggest comedy and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should apologise to the nation for the daily flip-flops.

AAP leader Ashutosh said the latest order by the Reserve Bank of India was its 60th directive in 50 days.

This is the biggest comedy the nation has ever seen. After the RBI order stating that people will be questioned for depositing cash over Rs 5000, the Finance Minister had to say that people should not worry. But the banks continue to ask questions to their customers for depositing cash more than Rs 5000.

ALSO READ: (RBI takes big U-turn, modifies cash deposit rules again and exempts KYC accounts from Rs 5000-cap in old Rs 500, Rs 1,000 banknotes)

There cant be better example of any constitutional authority being belittled as banks have continued to ignore the Finance Minister, he said. The AAP leader also demanded that Modi should apologise to the nation for the daily flip-flops.

Under all-round attack, the Reserve Bank today did a U-turn on customers depositing demonetised notes over Rs 5,000 till December 30 by making it clear that there will be no questions asked either in case of one-time or repeat deposits if the accounts are KYC-compliant.

Such customers will also not be questioned by bank officials on why they had failed to deposit the old notes earlier.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
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The Harrison School of Pharmacy welcomed members of its Class of 2024 to campus last week as orientation for the first-year students began. Orientation looked different than in years past with social distancing and virtual learning integrated into the delivery of the instruction.

Even with the changes, the Harrison School of Pharmacy, or HSOP, was able to push through and provide an innovative learning experience without sacrificing the quality of the content.

Extensive work was done to ensure that each class within HSOP has appropriate time on campus in this blended delivery model, said Brad Wright, Hill Crest Associate Clinical Professor and director of the professional program. We wanted to make sure we start the orientation experience strong and finish strong; therefore, the decision was made to bring students on campus Monday and Friday morning as this helps enhance the entire orientation experience. The orientation team worked hard to ensure that the days on campus include meaningful activities to engage students in their orientation experience.

The week-long orientation began with students on their respective campuses in Auburn and Mobile. Six classrooms were utilized, three on each campus, to provide proper social distancing along with the required face masks.

The weeks content covered a broad spectrum of information from learning more about the pharmacy profession to specifics of daily life as a pharmacy student.

The first-year students are introduced to many aspects of the Harrison School of Pharmacy during the week including the curriculum, student organizations, advocacy and resilience, said Karen Marlowe, Davis Professor and assistant dean on the Mobile campus. The educational model is designed to follow the same types of sessions and activities that will be used throughout the curriculum to help the students begin to adapt the modes of learning used throughout their years at HSOP. This week sets the foundation for the rest of the year.

Even with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, students were appreciative of the efforts to provide the best orientation experience as possible.

I really appreciate the faculty doing everything in their power to reduce the spread of COVID, said Katie Couture, a first-year student from Surfside Beach, South Carolina. Of course, in-person classes are always ideal, but I really appreciate the adaptability provided by being able to use Zoom. I don't feel like anything is lost in terms of communication and I think as P1s being introduced to teamwork via Zoom this early in orientation will just work to our advantage navigating our P1 year as a team while learning in a blended format.

Zoom videoconferencing was utilized for virtual instruction throughout most of the week. All instruction was offered live and included faculty at practice sites in Auburn, Mobile, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Mississippi and Georgia, as well as special guest speakers.

With faculty stationed at practice sites around the state, the utilization of Zoom was not a new concept to HSOP faculty as they regularly use the technology to connect with students on the Auburn and Mobile campuses.

I have been an off-site faculty member my entire career, whether in Mobile or Huntsville. Since the day I started at HSOP, it has been clear that the school embraces technology to keep faculty and students connected across the state of Alabama, said Wright. As a result of this culture, I have always felt connected to the main campus, other faculty and our students even though I am off-site. This all helped HSOP transition to a remote delivery model in the spring and has helped the school plan a strong blended delivery model that also includes remote delivery this fall.

While Zoom and other programs can seem one-sided with a speaker and a viewer, faculty use a variety of resources to make the content interactive and engaging. Items like Poll Everywhere, chats, discussion forums and Zoom breakout rooms were used to foster this engagement, as well as a series of team building exercises and group projects.

During orientation, we enjoyed several types of team building from ice breakers on the first day, to learning about the impact of learning and leadership styles, to asking students to complete group projects during the week, said Marlowe. We want to model early on the importance of being a team-ready pharmacist.

From a student perspective, going through this type of orientation prepares them for what is to come in the fall semester as the hybrid nature of instruction carries over. The semester will rely on virtual learning for much of the material while bringing students on campus for labs, assessments and other activities that call for in-person interaction.

The structure and mixed nature of instruction has been very enjoyable. The Zoom meetings have been incredibly organized, much more so than any undergraduate class I had in the spring or any organizational meeting I have been a part of, said David Rivenbark, a first-year student from Lubbock, Texas. There was a good balance in each session between listening to faculty and breaking out into group rooms. Overall, I have been incredibly impressed with how well organized and prepared HSOP has been.

The Class of 2024 is made up of 131 students with 110 on the Auburn campus and 21 on the Mobile campus. The group brings a diverse background to HSOP as the class is made up of students from 12 different states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, North Carolina, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, as well as one from Vietnam. Members of the class also come to Auburn from 28 different colleges and universities.
America is nothing if not diverse. There are plenty of cities where you can afford to live comfortably, or even be rich, for less than $100,000. Which location draws your interest could depend on a number of factors, ranging from those that are up-and-coming cities to those that are the best cities to raise a family. Overall, the best cities to live in generally have high livability scores and affordable costs so that you can take home more of your salary.

GOBankingRates analyzed data from a number of sources, ranging from AreaVibes to Zillow and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to compile this list of the best places to live on a $100,000 salary in each state (Hawaii was excluded due to a lack of data availability). To make this list, each citys total cost-of-living expenditures could not exceed $100,000.

Factors assessed included median incomes, affordability, amenities and quality of life. Although these arent necessarily recommendations on where to live, the list may draw attention to locations that dont appear on all of the typical best places lists but just might be some of the best cities in America.

Last updated: April 3, 2019

Alabama: Vestavia Hills

Median income: $98,653

Income needed to live comfortably: $86,806

Livability score: 88

Vestavia Hills is a bit of an upscale neighborhood, as indicated by both the median income and income needed to live comfortably. However, grocery costs in Vestavia Hills are quite low on a national basis, and transportation and miscellaneous costs are also below average.

Find Out: How Much You Really Take Home From a $100K Salary in Every State

Alaska: Juneau

Median income: $90,749

Income needed to live comfortably: $78,688

Livability score: 54

Alaska is known as an expensive state, and Juneau is an expensive city. However, many costs in Juneau are actually far below average. Utilities are only about 83% of the national average, and transportation costs are about 34% below average.

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Arizona: Gilbert

Median income: $87,566

Income needed to live comfortably: $81,189

Livability score: 84

Gilbert has high relative transportation costs, but below-average grocery bills and A-plus amenities help make the city one of the most livable in America. Median incomes are about $6,400 above the income needed to live comfortably.

Arkansas: Bentonville

Median income: $79,259

Income needed to live comfortably: $66,048

Livability score: 86

The median income in Bentonville might not be the highest in the nation, but residents likely feel wealthy because the income needed to live comfortably is more than $13,000 lower. The city boasts low costs in a number of areas, including housing, transportation, groceries and utilities.

California: Folsom

Median income: $106,718

Income needed to live comfortably: $97,182

Livability score: 80

Costs in Folsom are generally above average across the board, as one might expect in a city that boasts a median income of over $100,000. However, costs to live comfortably fall more than $9,000 below this median income, thanks in part to healthcare costs about 10% below the national average, making the city very livable.

From Alabama to Wyoming: The Cost of Living Across America

Colorado: Parker

Median income: $105,373

Income needed to live comfortably: $99,157

Livability score: 78

In addition to a beautiful setting, residents of Parker enjoy below-average healthcare, utility and grocery costs. The citys A-plus amenities give it an overall high livability score.

Connecticut: West Hartford

Median income: $95,298

Income needed to live comfortably: $93,582

Livability score: 79

Costs across the board are above average in West Hartford, pushing the income needed to live comfortably close to the median income. However, because that median income is above $95,000, those costs are more readily absorbed by the citys residents, who enjoy top amenities, including a plethora of restaurants and local boutiques.

Delaware: Pike Creek

Median income: $122,722

Income needed to live comfortably: $76,998

Livability score: 79

Pike Creek, Delaware, has a very high median income, relatively speaking, along with one of the highest variances between that income and the income needed to live comfortably. Costs for necessities such as utilities and healthcare are a bit above average, but not enough to encroach on the livability of the city.

Florida: Lake Mary

Median income: $92,148

Income needed to live comfortably: $83,826

Livability score: 83

Although transportation costs in Lake Mary are about 28% above the national average, costs for all other primary necessities, such as utilities, healthcare and groceries, are below average. As a city with a median income of over $92,000, thats enough to give Lake Mary top billing in the state of Florida.

Georgia: Johns Creek

Median income: $113,609

Income needed to live comfortably: $95,732

Livability score: 85

Transportation costs in Johns Creek, Georgia, are a whopping 51% above the national average. However, because other costs are moderate, the median income of over $113,000 gives residents plenty of cushion to enjoy a comfortable life in a very livable city.

Check Out: The Cost of Living Is Quickly Rising in These 20 US Cities

Idaho: Meridian

Median income: $64,375

Income needed to live comfortably: $71,445

Livability score: 82

With the exception of transportation costs, which are a slight 1% above the national norm, costs are low in Meridian, Idaho. Although the median income doesnt quite cover the income needed to live comfortably, its nearly $30,000 per year above the annual cost of necessities.

Illinois: Libertyville

Median income: $126,406

Income needed to live comfortably: $99,882

Livability score: 76

Even with miscellaneous costs 12% above the national average, residents of Libertyville, Illinois, enjoy high median incomes that are nearly $77,000 above the cost of necessities. The income needed to live comfortably is right at the top of the limit for this survey, coming in just under $100,000; but median incomes top this figure by a large amount.

Indiana: Carmel

Median income: $109,201

Income needed to live comfortably: $88,224

Livability score: 86

Low healthcare, utilities and grocery costs help make Carmel, Indiana, a great place to live for under $100,000. Miscellaneous costs run about 10% above average, but a high median income gives city residents more than $30,000 of breathing room above the comfortable living level.

Iowa: Clive

Median income: $94,907

Income needed to live comfortably: $79,235

Livability score: 89

Healthcare costs exceed national averages by about 11%, but costs of other necessities are below average in Clive, Iowa. As a result, the median income in the city exceeds the comfortable living income by more than $15,000, a comfortable margin in a city with a number of great amenities.

Kansas: Prairie Village

Median income: $84,106

Income needed to live comfortably: $79,663

Livability score: 90

With the exception of grocery costs, which come in about 7% below national averages, costs run fairly high in Prairie Village, Kansas. This tightens the spread between the citys median income and the income needed to live comfortably, but theres still enough margin to give the city top marks in the state.

Kentucky: Prospect

Median income: $113,711

Income needed to live comfortably: $95,701

Livability score: 79

Prospect, Kentucky, only manages a B grade when it comes to amenities, but the low cost of most necessities coupled with a high median income propel the city to the top of the charts in the state. High transport costs are the only black mark when it comes to expenses, running about 22% above national averages.

Louisiana: Prairieville

Median income: $98,130

Income needed to live comfortably: $79,345

Livability score: 79

Transportation costs are a whopping 47% above average in Prairieville, and the citys amenities only garner a B-plus rating. However, the city has one of the highest median incomes in the entire state, and other costs remain low, giving residents ample financial cushion to live a comfortable life.

Maine: Scarborough

Median income: $69,761

Income needed to live comfortably: $84,209

Livability score: 71

Scarborough, Maine, has a low overall median income, which hurts the citys livability score. The income needed to live comfortably in the city runs nearly $15,000 above that low median income, thanks to grocery, utility and miscellaneous costs that run above average.

Maryland: Severna Park

Median income: $132,310

Income needed to live comfortably: $98,601

Livability score: 74

The cost of necessities in Severna Park is mostly above average, with utilities, transportation and miscellaneous costs all running high. The citys high median income is more than enough to cover these costs, however, and its residents enjoy its top-notch amenities.

Massachusetts: Wilmington

Median income: $118,549

Income needed to live comfortably: $99,642

Livability score: 72

A $100,000 income is barely enough to live a comfortable life in pricey Wilmington, Massachusetts. Fortunately for residents, the city has a high median income, enough to achieve a cushion of about $18,000 in excess income. Wilmington is another city that offers a number of quality amenities.

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Michigan: Troy

Median income: $93,017

Income needed to live comfortably: $89,127

Livability score: 87

Boasting a high livability score and A-plus amenities, Troy is the top city in Michigan that you can live in comfortably for under $100,000. Transportation costs run a significant 36% above average, but this is partially offset by healthcare costs 17% below average.

Minnesota: Eden Prairie

Median income: $103,426

Income needed to live comfortably: $88,569

Livability score: 82

Eden Prairie residents enjoy a high livability score, A-plus amenities and an overall moderate cost of necessities, marred only by transportation costs 21% above average. Median incomes are well above the income needed to live comfortably.

Mississippi: Madison

Median income: $103,121

Income needed to live comfortably: $81,490

Livability score: 79

As the city with the highest median income in the state of Mississippi, Madison residents easily clear the income level needed to live comfortably in the city. Expenses for necessities overall are a bit below average, with only miscellaneous and healthcare costs ticking slightly above national averages.

Missouri: Ballwin

Median income: $88,913

Income needed to live comfortably: $79,467

Livability score: 88

Ballwin residents dont earn anything close to the highest median income in the state, but the city still tops the charts when it comes to best places to live in Missouri for less than $100,000. A high livability score, coupled with top-tier amenities and low overall costs push Ballwin to the top of the list.

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Montana: Shepherd

Median income: $78,036

Income needed to live comfortably: $69,981

Livability score: 73

Shepherd, Montana, has a relatively low median income, but residents enjoy a comfortable life due to lower-than-average overall expenses for necessities. However, amenities in the city earn a very low D-minus grade.

Nebraska: Papillion

Median income: $76,259

Income needed to live comfortably: $79,978

Livability score: 89

Healthcare costs in Papillion are 25% above average, but total necessities in this top Nebraska city run below average. Median incomes arent quite up to par with the income needed to live comfortably, but residents enjoy a high livability score and A-plus amenities.

Nevada: Henderson

Median income: $66,939

Income needed to live comfortably: $77,989

Livability score: 81

Transportation costs in this Nevada city just outside of Las Vegas run 37% above average, and median incomes are low  about $8,000 below whats needed to live comfortably in the city. Nonetheless, Henderson residents enjoy A-plus amenities and a good livability score.

New Hampshire: Portsmouth

Median income: $72,384

Income needed to live comfortably: $90,995

Livability score: 82

Median incomes in Portsmouth are far below the amount needed to live comfortably in this expensive New Hampshire city. Grocery, utility and miscellaneous costs are all above average, while median incomes are moderate.

New Jersey: Moorestown-Lenola

Median income: $114,978

Income needed to live comfortably: $95,789

Livability score: 82

Costs are high across the board in Moorestown-Lenola, with transportation costs leading the way at 32% above average. The cost of utilities comes in at 13% above average. These costs push the income needed to live comfortably close to $100,000. On a statewide basis, however, these costs remain relatively low, and the median income is enough to give residents a comfortable living.

New Mexico: Los Alamos

Median income: $101,399

Income needed to live comfortably: $69,096

Livability score: 78

The combination of one of the highest incomes in the state of New Mexico and the low cost of necessities pushes Los Alamos to top honors in the state. This historical home of the Manhattan Project benefits from transportation costs  a dramatic 29% below the national average  while grocery, healthcare and utility costs are also low.

New York: Saratoga Springs

Median income: $76,775

Income needed to live comfortably: $86,999

Livability score: 75

Saratoga Springs has a nice livability score and modest costs across the board for necessities. The biggest burdens for residents are miscellaneous costs, which run 8% above average. However, the average citizen still doesnt earn enough to live comfortably, as the median income falls over $10,000 below that level.

North Carolina: Morrisville

Median income: $95,763

Income needed to live comfortably: $75,617

Livability score: 88

Morrisville, North Carolina, residents enjoy a city with a high livability score, top-notch amenities and a relatively low income needed to live comfortably. Median incomes clear this hurdle by more than $20,000 per year, partially because costs in every category of necessities are about average.

North Dakota: West Fargo

Median income: $76,925

Income needed to live comfortably: $67,832

Livability score: 81

With utilities and healthcare costing 11% and 24% less than the national averages, respectively, West Fargo residents reside in the top North Dakota city to live in for less than $100,000. Total costs are so low in this city that even the moderate median income affords residents a comfortable financial cushion.

Ohio: Springboro

Median income: $104,063

Income needed to live comfortably: $79,539

Livability score: 87

With the exception of miscellaneous costs, which are 6% above average, the cost of necessities runs below average in Springboro, Ohio. Combined with the high median income in the city, Springboro residents can easily live quite comfortably and enjoy the citys A-plus amenities.

Oklahoma: Edmond

Median income: $76,008

Income needed to live comfortably: $74,280

Livability score: 89

Another city where amenities were rated an A-plus, Edmond City has a high livability index and a median income that just about matches the income needed to live comfortably. Residents may feel a pinch a bit when it comes to transportation and healthcare costs, which run 9% and 19% above average, respectively.

Oregon: West Linn

Median income: $100,188

Income needed to live comfortably: $98,658

Livability score: 81

Costs in West Linn are high overall, pushing the income needed to live comfortably dangerously close to $100,000. Transportation costs are particularly troublesome as well, at 45% above average, but they are offset to some extent by the citys low healthcare and utility expenses, at 16% and 17% below average, respectively.

Pennsylvania: Upper St. Clair

Median income: $116,701

Income needed to live comfortably: $90,019

Livability score: 85

Transportation costs in Upper St. Clair are 31% above average, which would make the city too expensive for average earners. However, Upper St. Clair has a very high median income, allowing its residents to live comfortably despite those higher costs. A high livability score and A-plus amenities are big draws for the city.

See: 20 Boring Jobs That Pay $100,000 or More

Rhode Island: Cumberland Hill

Median income: $83,168

Income needed to live comfortably: $82,633

Livability score: 70

With the exception of healthcare costs, which are 17% below average, all basic necessities in Cumberland Hill are above average. Transportation and miscellaneous costs are particularly expensive, running 27% and 25% above average, respectively. Although the citys livability score is relatively low, it did obtain the highest score for amenities.

South Carolina: Mount Pleasant

Median income: $90,454

Income needed to live comfortably: $96,542

Livability score: 82

Mount Pleasant residents have an above-average median income, but its not enough to keep up with the high costs in the city. Utility, transportation and miscellaneous costs are all above average, pushing the income needed to live comfortably about $6,000 above the citys median income.

South Dakota: Brandon

Median income: $80,727

Income needed to live comfortably: $66,658

Livability score: 83

The cost of necessities ranging from groceries to utilities, healthcare and transportation are all below average in Brandon, bringing the income needed to live comfortably down quite significantly. Even the moderate median income in Brandon is enough to more than adequately cover the cost of living.

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Tennessee: Collierville

Median income: $113,957

Income needed to live comfortably: $92,694

Livability score: 87

Even with healthcare costs 30% above the national average and transportation costs at 12% above the national average, living in Collierville is quite pleasant and affordable. Thanks in no small part to the citys high median income, residents can comfortably enjoy the citys A-plus amenities.

Texas: Cinco Ranch

Median income: $141,992

Income needed to live comfortably: $99,043

Livability score: 93

Cinco Ranch supports the notion that everything is bigger in Texas, as the city has both an outsized median income and a high cost of living. Transportation costs cause the most damage in Cinco Ranch, running 46% above the national average. However, the city also has one of the highest livability scores in the entire survey.

Utah: South Jordan

Median income: $99,856

Income needed to live comfortably: $83,411

Livability score: 74

South Jordans transportation costs run 12% above the national average, but beyond that, the cost of necessities such as healthcare, utilities and groceries are right in line. As befitting a city in the beautiful state of Utah, South Jordan offers A-plus amenities.

Vermont: South Burlington

Median income: $66,197

Income needed to live comfortably: $88,935

Livability score: 72

South Burlington is another city that received a top grade for its amenities, and you can live comfortably there for less than $90,000. Unfortunately, the median income in the city falls more than $22,000 beneath this level, meaning many of the citys own residents cant yet enjoy that comfortable life there.

Virginia: Reston

Median income: $113,708

Income needed to live comfortably: $95,852

Livability score: 78

Reston, Virginia, residents enjoy a high median income, which is a good thing because costs in the city run fairly high. Topped by transportation and miscellaneous expenses that run 46% and 21% above the national average, respectively, residents must pay a high price to enjoy the citys amenities.

Washington: Maple Valley

Median income: $102,130

Income needed to live comfortably: $98,775

Livability score: 81

Its a tale of two cities in Maple Valley, Washington. Utilities cost residents 27% less than the national average, and healthcare costs run 18% lower. However, transportation costs are off the chart, at 176% of the national average. The median income in the city pays just enough for residents to live comfortably.

West Virginia: Teays Valley

Median income: $79,722

Income needed to live comfortably: $63,642

Livability score: 81

West Virginia is not a high-income state, but the median income in Teays Valley is more than enough to cover the citys low costs comfortably. Only transportation costs run 2% over the national average, while utilities, groceries, healthcare and miscellaneous costs are all at or below national averages.

Wisconsin: Pewaukee

Median income: $92,000

Income needed to live comfortably: $87,006

Livability score: 78

With the exception of groceries, which are slightly more than 9% below the national average, costs of necessities in Pewaukee, ranging from groceries to utilities and healthcare, are a bit above average. The median income pays just a bit more than the cost of living comfortably in the city.

Wyoming: Gillette

Median income: $74,348

Income needed to live comfortably: $64,233

Livability score: 79

The median income in Gillette is fairly low, but so is the cost of living, even with healthcare expenses running 33% above the national average. This is offset at least partially by the low costs of transportation and utilities. Net net, Gillette is one of the most affordable cities in the survey that still sport A-plus amenities.

Best Place To Live on a $100K Salary in Every State

Even if you dont make enough to meet the live comfortably income in the major U.S. city of your choice, there are plenty of cities  both on this list and in the areas surrounding these cities  with low costs that still maintain high livability scores and A-plus amenities similar to those found in the more well-known metropolises. When picking a place to live, its crucial you consider the difference in your household income and that of the citys live comfortably income.

For example, whereas a place like Henderson, Nevada, might offer a lower live comfortably income than that of a place like South Jordan, Utah  $77,989 compared with $83,411  South Jordans median household income of $99,856 is significantly higher than Hendersons median household income of $66,939. This makes South Jordan a far better value, as the average resident makes $16,445 more than the citys live comfortably income.

If youre planning on purchasing a home rather than renting, be sure to also research home values in the areas you are considering to see if prices are trending upward, which could affect the required live comfortably income of the city in the near future.

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Methodology: GOBankingRates determined the best places to live on a $100,000 salary in each state by analyzing cities along this criteria: (1) minimum number of households is 5,000; for less populated states or states with fewer average households per city, 1,000 was the minimum; (2) livability score, sourced from AreaVibes; (3) amenities score, sourced from AreaVibes; (4) itemized cost of living index for groceries, utilities, transportation, healthcare and miscellaneous expenditures, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, which were adjusted to each citys local cost of living, sourced from Sperlings Best Places; (5) median rent, sourced from Zillows February 2019 rental price index; Trulia was used also for rental data that was unavailable from Zillow. In order to qualify as a best city, the total cost of living expenditures could not exceed $100,000. The list of cities was compiled from the U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 American Community Survey and includes all cities the Census Bureau has complete data for.

Photo Disclaimer: Some photos are for representational purposes only, and therefore may only reflect the metropolitan area the city is located in.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Best Place To Live on a $100,000 Salary in Every State
A teenager is accused of killing her mother and living with the rotting corpse for four months as neighbours noticed an unbearable smell but didnt raise the alarm.

The 45-year-old mums mummified body was discovered in a bathtub at a flat in lAlcudia de Crespins in southern Spain after police were finally tipped off, local media reported.

It is said the mother, named locally as Ana, was fatally stabbed in April while residents were confined in their homes during the countrys coronavirus lockdown.

Her 19-year-old daughter, Teri, continued to live in the apartment like nothing had happened, it is alleged.

Neighbours said there was a vile stench around the four-storey block of flats, but they did not suspect that the foul odour was from a body that was decomposing in one of the flats, the Olive Press reported.

Teri and her 19-year-old boyfriend have been arrested and are due to be charged in the death of her mother, who worked as a carer and cleaner in the community.

The young couple had been staying with the divorced mum-of-two, but neighbours often heard them rowing, according to reports.

Civil Guard officers were told about the rotting corpse by one of Teris friends, it was reported.

The teen allegedly confessed to her male friend that she had fatally stabbed her mum.

He alerted police on Wednesday, and officers discovered the victims remains when they entered the flat on Thursday morning.

Due to the mummified condition of the body, a coroner was unable to determine the exact date of Anas death.

Neighbours told El Espanol of their shock after the corpse was discovered.

They said they asked Teri where her mum was, and the teen told them she would return in a few days.

A man who lives in the building said: The block smelled bad. It seems that the mother was being kept in the bathtub and they were trying to get rid of her.

Another man added: The mother was stabbed and she was put in the bathtub with ice to prevent the decomposition of her body

A third neighbour said: The smell on the stairs was unbearable.

Neighbours also claimed they often heard people screaming and rowing in the flat.

A police source told El Espanol: Everything indicates that it is an alleged violent death.

The body was in an advanced state of decomposition.

Another source said: The womans daughter and the young womans boyfriend have been arrested as suspects in this alleged violent death and it is expected that they will be brought to court this weekend.

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Salvage crews on Thursday began the process of sinking the broken stem of a Japanese-owned ship which ran aground off Mauritius, leading to a major oil spill and ecological disaster for the Indian Ocean island.

The MV Wakashio broke into two on Sunday, after a race against the clock to pump all the remaining oil off the bulk carrier which ran aground last month and began leaking black fuel into idyllic waters full of marine life.

Two tugboats towed the larger part of the wreck some 15 kilometres (nine miles) out into the open ocean, where it is being sunk to a depth of 3,180 metres. The smaller section remains wedged on the reef where the shipwreck occured.

"The scuttling of the Wakashio is underway," according to a statement from the fishing ministry.

A statement from the national crisis committee confirmed that the sinking of the boat had begun at around 4:00 pm local time (1200 GMT).

"The chief salvage master assured that all the hydraulic oil as well as floating debris has been removed from the vessel."

Authorities said that the location of the sinking had been decided upon after widespread consultation with different experts and conservationists.

"Now it will be filled with sea water to sink it to the bottom," Mauritius's shipping director Alain Donat told AFP, adding that it could take hours for it to descend.

Happy Khambule of Greenpeace Africa said in a statement that sinking the vessel was the worst option.

"Sinking this vessel would risk biodiversity and contaminate the ocean with large quantities of heavy metal toxins, threatening other areas as well, notably the French island of La Reunion," he said.

"Mauritians had nothing to gain from the MV Wakashio crossing their waters and are now asked to pay the price of this disaster. More pollution further risks their tourist-based economy and fish-based food security."

Over 1,000 tonnes of oil spilled into the pristine waters that have long been a major drawcard for honeymooners, and contain precious mangroves and coral reefs.

Japan has sent teams of experts to assist in the cleanup, while others have been dispatched from France and Britain to aid the archipelago.

The captain of the ship and his second-in-command were arrested on Tuesday, however officials have yet to reveal why the ship, which was making its way from Singapore to Brazil, came so close to the island.
The Health Ministry has decided to remove patient No.994, 87 years old, out of the list of COVID-19 cases after he tested negative to SARS-CoV-2 at the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

Hospital E. Photo by Tran Thuong

At a meeting of the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control in Hanoi on August 20, Dr. Dang Quang Tan, Director of Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health said that the 994 patient case is very special.

The patient tested negative twice on August 19 night and twice on August 20 morning at the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

Test result at the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology also showed the same result on August 20 afternoon.

He is now under quarantine at the second branch of the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

He tested positive for the virus for the first time by the NIHE on August 19 morning and he was reported to become the 994th COVID-19 case on August 20 morning.

In the past one month, the patient did not leave his residence at Khai Xuan commune, Thanh Ba district, the northern midland province of Phu Tho. His family members also did not travel to pandemic-hit areas.

On August 11, he had a fever and bellyache. A day later, he had health check-up at E Hospital in Hanoi and stayed at his relatives house in Bac Tu Liem district, Hanoi.

After the patient tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the E Hospital stopped receiving new patients from 8pm on August 19.

On August 19 night, 83 samples from his family members, medical staff and those who had contact with him at the hospital were also collected and tested. No case has been found positive to the virus so far.

After the steering committee decided to remove the patient from the list of COVID-19 cases in the afternoon of August 20, the Health Ministry has allowed the E Hospital to re-open.

Vietnam recorded no new COVID-19 cases over the past 12 hours, keeping the national tally at 1,007 in the morning of August 21, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Nguyen Lien
Philadelphia and its surrounding counties issued a series of "stay-at-home" orders on March 17, 2020 in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. In the months that followed, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) saw a marked decrease in healthcare visits for both outpatient and hospitalized asthma patients. New research from CHOP and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania suggests the cause may have been fewer rhinovirus infections due to masking, social distancing, and hygiene measures.

The findings were published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

Researchers reviewed the 60 days leading up to March 17, 2020 and compared them to the 60 days following stay-at-home orders. They found a 60% decrease in the total daily asthma healthcare visits across CHOP's hospital and Care Network, which includes more than 50 primary care offices, specialty care and surgical centers, urgent care centers, and community hospital alliances throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In reviewing cases of rhinovirus after March 17 and comparing them to the number of cases over the same time period in 2015 to 2019, the researchers found cases decreased following the introduction of public health interventions designed to limit viral transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The researchers also analyzed pollution levels after March 17, 2020 and compared them to the same period in 2015 to 2019, but they did not find statistically significant reductions in pollution levels from the available data.

Pollution and respiratory viruses, particularly rhinovirus, can worsen asthma symptoms and trigger exacerbations. When we saw this decrease we initially thought it must be some combination of these factors. We were surprised to see that pollution did not actually decline substantially when compared with historical trends in the Philadelphia region as a result of stay-at-home orders, so we believe this change is more directly a result of infection prevention measures, including wearing a face mask, washing hands frequently, and social distancing. Above all, this paper demonstrates that social distancing is an effective tool in reducing transmission of any virus, whether it's a coronavirus or an asthma-exacerbating rhinovirus." David A. Hill, MD, PhD, senior author and attending physician with the Division of Allergy and Immunology at CHOP

The researchers analyzed the visits by asthma patients after March 17, 2020 and found telehealth video visits, which were not previously available, became the most highly utilized way of seeing a doctor by asthma patients, with 61% of asthma-related appointments being telehealth visits. The research team also saw a decrease in outpatient steroid prescriptions after stay-at-home orders went into effect. Despite this decrease, Black patients and patients with Medicaid coverage saw the highest rates of steroid prescriptions, with Black patients seeing a 70% increase and Medicaid patients seeing a 63% increase. Black patients made up a lower proportion of telehealth video visits, a difference the authors noted should be the focus of future studies and quality improvement efforts.

"These findings can help inform how we care for asthma patients, not only during this pandemic, but also after we return to a new normal," said Hill. "Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases, affecting one out of every 12 school-aged children in the United States. We should explore whether enhanced infection-prevention measures have utility in children with asthma, irrespective of COVID-19."
B aby showers may have taken on a different form during lockdown.

But one zoo in Louisiana has gone one step further by organising a party for a pregnant gorilla.

Audubon Zoo in New Orleans is preparing for a new addition in the form of a newborn critically endangered western lowland primate.

Celebrating the first pregnancy of its kind in more than 20 years, it has appealed for baby gifts including blankets, a teething ring, toy building bricks and food.

The zoo have asked for gifts from the public / Audubon Zoo

A spokesman for the zoo said: "Tumani and Okpara are expecting their first infant any time.

"For the first time in over 20 years, Audubon is preparing for the birth of a critically endangered western lowland gorilla, and we are excited to be a part of this important conservation milestone.

Staff have started to unwrap gifts for the parents / Audubon Zoo

It added: "Audubon Zoo's animal care experts are working with Tumani through daily training and enrichment activities to help prepare her to be a new mom."

The team thanked the public for their help / Audubon Zoo

People can support the zoo in different ways and can donate funds towards feeding the primate or can choose a gift from an online registry.

Employees have begun to receive presents through the post and said the gifts were "greatly appreciated".

It added: "Our Primate team is overwhelmed with joy!

"Thank you to everyone who has donated to Tumani's baby shower thus far, your support is greatly appreciated!

"You can still help shower Tumani and infant by donating nutritious food, engaging enrichment, and training materials."
Iran accuses UAE of killing fishermen as Israel pact hurts ties

by Patrick Sykes, Golnar Motevalli

August 21,2020 | Source: Bloomberg

Iran summoned the United Arab Emirates envoy in Tehran after a deadly encounter between Emirati coast guards and Iranian fishing trawlers earlier this week. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran said the coast guards opened fire on Iranian fishing boats on Monday, killing two people and briefly seizing one of the ships.It also said in the statement that Iran had seized an unspecified UAE vessel the same day.



The ministry said that the UAE vessel had trespassed on Iranian maritime territory, and that the envoy had expressed regret over the incidents, without clarifying whether they were linked.



Iran was alarmed last week to learn that Israel and the UAE intend to normalize relations. The historic agreement denounced by Tehran marked a major shift in the regions strategic alliances, and will give Irans top regional foe, Israel, an official commercial and political presence on its doorstep.



While the incidents at sea this week did not trigger a major escalation, their timing raises the specter of possible Israeli involvement in such showdowns in the future.



Right now, Irans main confrontation is with the U.S., which intends on Thursday to ask the United Nations Security Council to snap back international sanctions in an attempt to kill off what remains of Tehrans frayed nuclear deal with world powers. The U.S., which quit the accord in 2018, lost a Security Council vote to renew an arms embargo on Iran last week, and other world powers say they wont go along with the proposal to reinstate sanctions, either. Hours before the Security Council faceoff, Iran unveiled new ballistic missiles able to reach Israel, including one named after a top general assassinated by the U.S. in January. Iran already has missiles capable of striking Israel.

 Bloomberg

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
PHOENIX  Arizona voters will get another chance to decide if they want adults to be able to smoke, drink or otherwise ingest marijuana without having a medical reason.

The state Supreme Court late Thursday upheld the decision of a trial judge that the 100-word description on the Smart and Safe Arizona Act accurately described the proposition. That clears the way for it to be on the November ballot.

The decision is a major setback for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which hired lawyers to try to keep the measure from voters. The business group now will seek to raise money in hopes of convincing people to reject it.

Thats what happened four years ago when an extensive campaign resulted in the defeat of a similar measure by about 4 percentage points.

But a recent survey finds widespread support for the proposal, with more than six out of every 10 likely voters polled saying they will support it if its on the ballot.

The query of 600 likely voters found just 32% say theyre definitely opposed, said pollster Mike Noble of OH Predictive Insights.
Authorities in Turkey ask airlines to mull proposals for firing foreign pilots and crew before locals, sources say.

Turkey has floated proposals that would require its airlines to ax foreign pilots and cabin crew before dismissing local workers as the coronavirus crisis shatters travel demand and destroys jobs.

The Ankara-based Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or SHGM, has written to 10 operators including flag-carrier Turkish Airlines seeking their opinions on the plan, according to a copy of the letter seen by Bloomberg News.

The localization drive comes as airlines worldwide cut tens of thousands of jobs amid a slump in flights thats expected to last for years. Turkish carriers had previously recruited large numbers of expatriates amid a travel boom, with the proportion of overseas crew reaching 11%, the SHGM said in the letter.

The government is also under pressure from unions that are ramping up a campaign for carriers to employ more Turkish staff as the pandemic pushes national unemployment close to 13%, based on the most recent data.

If needed, the recruitment of foreign staff should be reduced and that of our citizens, and their income, should be protected, the Hava-Sen labor group, which has 1,500 airline members, told the SHGM on May 29.

The union said the state has a national duty to use our resources effectively and efficiently during the economic crisis, and that discrimination toward Turkish citizens by European Union nations should bolster that push.

The SHGMs letter to airlines says authorities want to reduce the proportion of foreign staff in the aviation industry so that Turkish nationals are no longer at a disadvantage. It says the process would be a gradual one with minimal impact to current operations.

Pegasus Airlines, Turkeys biggest low-cost carrier, and the SunExpress leisure venture between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa AG, also received the letter, as did cargo specialist MNG Airlines.

Shares of Turkish Airlines rose 1% as of 2:49 p.m. local time, while Pegasus shares were unchanged.

The SHGM verified the authenticity of the letter but didnt comment further.

Turkish Airlines didnt respond to emailed questions, while Pegasus Chief Executive Officer Mehmet Nane played down the impact for his carrier, saying by phone that only around 100 of its 6,000 staff are from overseas.

Turkish Airlines, known locally as THY, had already clashed with unions over proposals to halve pilot wages and cut salaries for other staff to help shore up its finances after the virus grounded global fleets.

The carrier serves more countries than any other using the super-hub model developed by Mideast giant Emirates. While the strategy has turned THY into a major global player, its especially exposed to a collapse in long-haul travel thats persisting even as demand for shorter flights begins to return.

(Updates with share prices in the ninth paragraph.)
Joe Biden said the upcoming election is about winning the heart and soul of America as the country faces one of the toughest moments in its history because of things including the pandemic, racial injustice and climate change.

He promised to do a far better job than President Donald Trump at solving all those and more, including overcoming national divisions he said Trump has incited.

I will draw on the best of us, not the worst of us, Biden said, adding we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

Biden railed against Trumps performance in dealing with the pandemic, calling it by far the worst performance of any nation on earth.

Well never have our lives back until we deal with this virus, said Biden, who vowed to begin addressing it on his first day in office. Well put politics aside. Well take the muzzle off our experts, he said.

In another attack on Trump, he said the days of cozying up to dictators are over.

Biden further said he believes the country is ready to finally wipe out the stain of racism.

I believe theres only one way forward  a united America, he said. Theres never been anything weve been unable to accomplish if we face it together.

Joseph Robinson Jr. of Susquehanna Township said Bidens message struck a strong, positive chord for him, assuring him character, decency, science, democracy are all on the ballot.

Biden will restore sorely needed decency, civility and humility to the White House, said Robinson, 62, the president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Development Institute in Harrisburg. Hell be president of all Americans; its not a partisan moment.

Muhlenberg College political analyst Christopher Borick said Biden needed to show he could he stand in the spotlight and deliver a critically important message. It was solid, he said of Bidens performance.

Borick felt Biden was a bit uneven at first before gaining momentum and striking a good balance between being tough on Trump while offering good reasons to vote for him beyond disapproval of Trump. Recent polls have shown Biden leading Trump while also finding a majority of those who plan to vote him will do so out of opposition to Trump.

It absolutely blew me away. He was genuine. He was compassionate. He was sincere. I dont know what more he could have done or said, said Jo Ellen Litz, 69, a Democratic commissioner in Lebanon County.

Christopher Hollenbeak, 50, of Derry Township, found cause for a dig at Trump, who has called Biden senile.

First of all, [Biden] speaks in full sentences and speaks in English, said Hollenbeak, a professor of health economics at Penn State.

He said his overall impression of Bidens speech and message is very positive.

I like his message of unity. I like that he has a plan for COVID-19, which we havent seen, he said.

Biden promised to carry out a long list of traditional liberal and progressive policies. He said hell rebuild American manufacturing, support unions, raise wages for woman and improve health care. He vowed to protect Social Security and Medicare, prioritize clean energy and address climate change, and fight school violence and student debt. He promised to root out systemic racism.

His 25-minute speech came at the conclusion of a four-day virtual Democratic National Convention devised after the pandemic forced cancelation of the event originally scheduled for Milwaukee. The former vice president under President Barack Obama delivered it live before a small gathering at a convention center in Wilmington, Delaware.

A succession of Thursday night speakers described Biden as devoted to sacrifice and service and someone who turns to God for strength and isnt afraid to call out the original sins of slavery and racism.

They highlighted his role in leading the country out of the 2008 financial crisis.

They said Biden will uphold American ideals, heal a country damaged by Trump and create clean energy jobs that will also fight climate change.

Former New York mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg said Trump not only failed to lead but made the present crisis worse.

Historian Jon Meacham said Trump lacks empathy and embraces the darkest of American forces, including refusing to acknowledge and try to address the legacy of slavery and racism.

Biden and vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, respect our past and understand our present, said U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico, one of the first Native Americans elected to Congress.

A teenager with a severe stutter said Biden, who overcame his own stutter, showed him great caring and enabled him to believe in himself.

Speakers and videos also highlighted Bidens personal hardship following the loss of his first wife in a car accident, and years later, the death of his adult son Beau from brain cancer.

On previous nights, the convention featured speeches by prominent Democrats including Obama, who harshly criticized Trump, saying Trump puts a craving for attention above the good of the country.

I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously, Obama said. But he never did.

Other key speakers included Sen. Bernie Sanders, a leading voice for progressives, and Republican and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who said Biden offers a worthy alternative for conservatives who object to Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump took the aggressive step earlier Thursday of campaigning near Bidens birthplace of Scranton, Pa., where Biden spent part of his childhood before his family moved to Delaware.

Trump took hard shots at Biden, calling him a puppet of the radical left that has pledged to destroy the American way of life.

Litz, the Lebanon County commissioner, said Bidens loss of a wife, daughter and son give him qualities that make the best kind of leader. He wasnt just saying it. He lived it, she said. I just think his compassion and empathy are what are going to win people over.

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Wed all love to take our passions and turn them into something that others might find useful but Lanesboro woman Aine OReilly took that to a whole new level when she combined her love or makeup with reading.

Aine is originally from Rathcline but now lives in Strood, in south east England and is a teacher in a little village called Hoo, where she works at a school called the Hundred of Hoo Academy.

Yes, it really sounds like something out of a Winnie the Pooh story, she admitted.

Hoo is renowned for its no excuses approach and the standard in the school is second to none. I was nervous to start there but seeing others do so well is a great motivator.

Since applying for the job just over a year ago, Aine has been given control over the department social media accounts. She was also Teaching & Learning Champion and researched new methodologies for the classroom. She even started the schools first LGBT+ society.

Just last month she secured the role of Head of Year 8, which is a position she has wanted since starting in the UK system. Thats a lot of achievements for such a short teaching career so far.

So its safe to say things were going well for Aine. That is, until Covid-19 came along and shut the schools down. But she learned to adapt.

Teachers had to entirely change their job description, Aine told the Longford Leader.

Suddenly, we were sitting down for massive periods of time, staring at our laptops, both to make lessons and correct the work. Our jobs continued to be just as, if not more intense.

We had to become qualified Google Educators and sit a three-hour intense examination. All of our classes moved to online, with all meetings being over Google meet, all of our CPD (Continual Professional Development) also held through Google meet or Zoom.

Students, teachers and parents had access to our email and it felt like there was very little separation between work and home. We were accessible 24/7. This wasnt down to any failings of my school, but the way the entire country was facing distance learning.

Being a form tutor means you have around 30 pupils who you care for in regards to behaviour and attendance, etc - their needs outside of the curricular, Aine explained.

This meant she would call her students most days to check in with their mental health. It was difficult for her not to be able to see vulnerable children who come from more difficult backgrounds and for whom school was their only escape.

On top of all training commitments and other work, Aine said every teacher volunteered to go in to teach the key works children.

You would think she surely wouldnt have time for anything else in her life, with that much work on her plate. But Aine, an avid reader and a make-up enthusiast found time to work her hobbies into her career by creating her YouTube channel, Makeup & Metaphors.

Ive always been a huge fan of YouTube, especially when I was in university and when I first moved over to Kent, she said.

I would spend hours watching makeup artists and makeup enthusiasts complete challenges and makeovers. However, I needed to also have some kind of extra information as I got a little older - I wasnt interested in YouTuber drama anymore and discovered a network of creators making videos speaking about the news or famous crimes and cold cases throughout history.

That struck a chord with Aine and she decided to see if there was one on English or a school subject for the girls in her form to watch. But sometimes if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself and thats exactly what she did.

I couldnt find one video that had a makeup artist explaining poetry or the context behind famous works of literature, she explained.

I thought Id love to do that, but Im far too self conscious about well, everything.

Unfortunately, Aines wedding to her fiance, Jim, was cancelled this August due to Covid-19 and she admitted to feeling very sorry for herself and thats when she decided to start her channel.

I was working extremely hard on my online classes all week and then staying indoors all weekend so I finally just bit the bullet and went for it, she said.

Each video covers a topic from English literature, ranging from Lord Byron and Shakespeare to Robert Louis Stevenson and Seamus Heaney.

In her videos, Aine takes the cover of a book by a famous author and creates a makeup look inspired by it, while talking about the book and the life of the author, which makes for some highly engaging content and sets her apart from other makeup artists on the web.

Thankfully I've been teaching the topics for years now so all the information is in my head, Aine explained when asked about the amount of work that goes into each episode.

I do however spend a few evenings revising by watching a documentary or reading a biography etc and making some short notes.

Sometimes I have a vague idea of what makeup look I want to complete but usually I just go with what I'm feeling on the night.

The recording itself usually takes an hour and a half - it's the editing that's the laborious part. I always have a specific idea on how I want the video to be and how the thumbnail should look and I won't stop until it's achieved on the screen.

So far, her students have reacted well to her very educational videos. A considerable amount of them have told her they miss her and that her videos help them to feel like shes there with them each week - especially her year 11 students, who were supposed to have their GCSE exams and their prom this year.

We were a very tight knit group and their grades have made huge improvements coming up to the exams - then it was kind of snatched away from them, Aine confided.

They were very upset and thought 'we'll never see each other again'. They usually comment under my videos and it makes me so happy. If I hid them from the students, I think they may have used it as something to be embarrassed about, but I've been super open with them and ask them about ideas, etc, and they feel involved.

One class asked for a shout out a few weeks ago and when I did it they emailed, thanking me. Very sweet. I have a surprising amount of American viewers who enjoy the 'passive learning'.

So far its been an enjoyable experience for Aine too, who is delighted when a video does well or can be crestfallen if one doesnt really take off but, as she said herself, thats all part of it - and it has taken her mind off her wedding and honeymoon, which have been postponed until next year.

My dream would be to be able to teach part time and continue with videos. That way when I have a family, I would be able to spend more time at home - but that would be years away yet, she said.

I've only been on the platform just over three months and am close to 1,000 subscribers and have near 1,000 watch hours. It's crazy to think people have spent a thousand hours listening to me.

Its not surprising that people are engaging, considering how well liked the Rathcline lady is, both online and offline.

Her students seem to adore her and thats down to her teaching methods and her understanding of the needs of young people.

It's vital that pupils feel that they're heard. Teenagers go through an awful lot and sometimes they feel like the adults just see them as children who don't matter, Aine explained.

They know I'm listening and that I'll follow through with action (or consequence) and that I'll always be there for them, regardless of whether they're having a good day or a bad one. Just like we would want. Also, it's important to have a sense of humour when dealing with issues everyday.

For now, Aine will continue what shes doing in the classroom and keep up the good work online. But if theres anything shes learned from starting up her own YouTube channel its that you should seize the day and run with an idea when the passion strikes.

If anyone out there is thinking of setting up a YouTube channel, starting a band, taking up a hobby - just do it, she said.

Life is too short to be worried about what others might think. There will always be naysayers no matter what you say or do. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Aines YouTube channel is Makeup & Metaphors, and she can also be found on Instagram, @makeup_and_metaphors.
SANTA FE  New Mexico election regulators say theyll move forward with an initiative that allows voters to trace mail-in ballots with the use of an individualized bar code in cooperation with the U.S. Postal Service.

Officials with the New Mexico Secretary of States Office briefed lawmakers this week on new election procedures that respond to the coronavirus pandemic and a large increase in absentee voting.

State Elections Director Mandy Vigil said she was relieved by Tuesdays announcement by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that he would halt operational changes to mail delivery that critics warned could disrupt Novembers elections. New Mexicos attorney general filed suit alongside other states to try to stop the changes.

Vigil said her office has worked closely with regional Postal Service officials on plans to place an intelligent bar code on the outer envelope of absentee ballots.

The bar code will allow a registered voter to track a ballot through post office facilities on its way to their home and then back to the local county clerks office. Under New Mexico law, ballots that arrive after 7 p.m. on Election Day are not valid.

Absentee ballots accounted for 63% of votes in the June statewide primary, up from 7% in the 2016 primary. Overall participation also spiked.

The ballot tracing initiative is among a long list of emergency measures adopted in late June by the Legislature and Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and related problems in the states June 2 primary.

New Mexico is adding new voter identification measures to the absentee balloting process and encouraging counties to distribute applications 50 days before the general election.

For the first time, absentee ballots that can be turned in by hand or mail must be signed on the outer envelope and labeled with the last four digits of the voters Social Security number. Election officials will reject most applications for absentee ballots received after Oct. 20. There will be exceptions for overseas voters as a precaution against people having unrealistic expectations for mail delivery and winding up being disenfranchised.

That is just a reality that the post office at that particular time couldnt guarantee delivery of a ballot  and then the person to return that ballot within seven days, said Dylan Lange, an attorney for the Secretary of States Office. So this is an acknowledgment, kind of anticipating any post office issues that the state may face.

Ten counties that include most of the states population plan to distribute absentee applications automatically to registered voters with a recently confirmed mailing address.

The state Supreme Court in April rejected a proposal backed by Democrats to distribute ballots to all registered voters without a prior application, and the Legislature balked at the idea in June.

Significant changes also are in store for Election Day voting on Nov. 3.

In-person voters will be free to cast ballots at any precinct across their home county, not just at assigned precincts close to home, with limited exceptions, Lange said.

In November, some polling places in Native American communities may be closed to outsiders in deference to tribes that have shut their borders or instituted curfews as a precaution against the COVID-19 pandemic.

State law previously prohibited polling locations that dont have full public access. But that interfered with June primary voting at autonomous Native American communities where travel restrictions or curfews were in place due to COVID-19.
China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday urged the United States to stop suppressing Chinese enterprises and do more things that are conducive to economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and the well-being of the two peoples.

Gao Feng, spokesperson for the ministry, made the remarks at a press conference while commenting on the U.S. ban on Chinese video-sharing app TikTok.

For some time, the United States has been frequently using so-called "national security" and "national state of emergency" as excuses to restrict or prohibit Chinese companies from carrying out normal investment and business activities in the country, imposing trade ban on Chinese companies on trumped-up charges with no factual or legal basis, Gao said.

These actions seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprises and severely violated the basic principles of market economy, according to the spokesperson.

U.S. sanctions and suppression will surely undermine investors' confidence in the country, he said.

China urges the United States to stop its wrongdoing and groundless suppression of Chinese enterprises, and do more to benefit the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and the well-being of the two peoples, Gao added.

China firmly opposes using national security reviews targeting investment as a political tool, and generalizing and abuse of security reviews, Gao said.

The Chinese government is determined to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, Gao added.
Hong Kong: Fight the virus together: CE

(To watch the full press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive Carrie Lam today appealed to the public to fight against COVID-19 with concerted efforts.

Mrs Lam made the appeal this afternoon at a press conference, where she led six principal officials to review the development of the COVID-19 epidemic situation in the city, the anti-epidemic strategy as well as the Governments future work priorities.

She said the new wave of rapidly worsening infections since early July remains severe.

The stringent social distancing measures introduced recently have no doubt had an impact on the local businesses and brought inconvenience to the people.

Nevertheless, the coming week is a critical juncture. I hope enterprises and members of the public exercise patience.

The Government will closely observe if the emerging downward trend in the number of confirmed cases will continue and implement various types of follow-up work.

In the coming week, the Government will complete the virus tests and follow-up work for the clusters involving the container terminal and foreign domestic helper dormitories, and review the test results of the expanded targeted groups.

It will also discuss with relevant sectors the arrangements for resuming business in an orderly manner and prepare for the launch of the large-scale Universal Community Testing Programme to provide voluntary virus tests for all citizens.

Mrs Lam noted that the large-scale Universal Community Testing Programme is made possible with the support from the central government, which will be responsible for the laboratory test services required.

The central government cares about and loves Hong Kong. In addition to supporting the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Governments Universal Community Testing Programme, it has also committed to the setting up of the community treatment facility at AsiaWorld-Expo and a temporary hospital nearby.

On behalf of the Hong Kong SAR Government and the people of Hong Kong, I would like to express heartfelt thanks to the central government for its support.

Given the anti-epidemic experience over the past eight months, Mrs Lam said Hong Kong has strengthened its capability in testing, tracing infection sources, quarantine facilities, treatment facilities, protective equipment production and technology application.

She also pointed out that the city is much better prepared to cope with another potential wave of the epidemic down the road, adding that the Hong Kong SAR Government is proactively following up on the procurement of vaccines.

Looking ahead, Mrs Lam said with the easing of the epidemic, the Government will launch the work to rebuild the economy immediately.

This includes leveraging the health code system to resume normal contact between people in Hong Kong and the Mainland, exploring the establishment of travel bubbles, and working in commerce and trade, finance, innovation and technology, public works projects and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

The Government will also strive to support the sectors hardest hit by the epidemic, including continuing to implement the second tranche of the Employment Support Scheme and other support programmes, as well as rolling out the third round of the Anti-epidemic Fund.

The Chief Executive said: I appeal to landlords of shops, banks and large enterprises to support the small tenants and small and medium-sized enterprises to tide over the difficult times together.

I also appeal to members of the public to strictly observe social distancing and personal hygiene. As long as we stay united, we will get through the epidemic very soon.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Sushant Singh Rajput Death Anniversary: A Timeline of the of events that have transpired so far

At least 6 members of Sushant Singh Rajputs family killed in road accident in Bihar

CBI team probing Sushant Singhs death exempted from quarantine

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Mumbai, Aug 21: A CBI team which reached Mumbai to probe the death of Sushant Singh Rajput has been exempted from home quarantine.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had quarantined Bihar IPS officer Vinay Tiwari earlier this month after his arrival to oversee probe in the actor's death case.

A senior BMC official, who did not wish to be named, said the central investigation agency applied for exemption from the home quarantine rule.

ED records statement of director Rumi Jaffery in Sushant Singh Rajput PMLA case

"They are on official duty and sought an exemption from quarantine norms. They have been given exemption from the home quarantine rule," said the official.

The is likely to stay in the city for around 10 days, another official said.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

As per Maharashtra Government norms, government officials on important duties and doctors on COVID-19 duty are exempted from the home quarantine rule for a period of seven days, but have to apply to BMC for exemption from the home quarantine rule, if they plan to stay in the city for over a week.
A coalition of New York City restaurants are threatening to sue Mayor Bill de Blasio after he admitted there was 'no plan' and refused to give a timeline for when indoor dining can return amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New York City Hospitality Alliance on Thursday demanded that de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo release a plan for when indoor dining can resume across the city.

Separately, a group of 100 restaurants in Brooklyn and Staten Island have now also vowed to file a class-action lawsuit to force the city's hand and allow eateries to have people back inside.

It comes after de Blasio said there was no plan for when indoor dining could resume.

'We are looking at it everyday, but we have to see a lot more improvement before we consider it,' de Blasio said at his press conference.

'There is no timeline.'

The New York City Hospitality Alliance on Thursday demanded that Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo release a plan for when indoor dining can resume across the city

Indoor dining was part of phase three of Cuomo's reopening plan for the state.

New York City entered phase three in early July but Cuomo and de Blasio have only so far allowed outdoor dining in NYC's five boroughs.

Every other county in New York state are currently allowed to have indoor dining at reduced capacity.

de Blasio said on Thursday there was no plan for when indoor dining could resume

The Alliance has argued that it has been more than six weeks since indoor dining was put on hold indefinitely but there is still no plan.

They say gyms, which were in phase four, and schools have already been given reopening plans or guidelines.

New York currently has a positive test rate of 0.72 percent, which is among the lowest in the country. The state's infection rate has been below 1 percent for 14 straight days.

'Despite the fact that the city exceeds and sustains the metrics that have allowed restaurants throughout the rest of the state to reopen, government leaders have still yet to provide any guidance on when small business owners, workers and customers can expect indoor dining to return,' said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance.

'Our industry's survival over the next several months depends on government immediately developing and implementing a plan that allows restaurants in New York City to safely reopen indoors like our counterparts everywhere else in the state.'

The Alliance says a survey of 500 restaurants and bar owners found that 83 percent couldn't pay commercial rent last month.

Indoor dining was part of phase three of Cuomo's reopening plan for the state. New York City entered phase three in early July but Cuomo and de Blasio have only so far allowed outdoor dining in NYC's five boroughs

The Alliance has argued that it has been more than six weeks since indoor dining was put on hold indefinitely but there is still no plan

They argue that restaurants and bars employ 200,000 fewer people than they did in March and nearly 60 percent of hospitality industry workers are now jobless, according to the latest unemployment figures.

When asked about the Alliance's demand for a plan, Cuomo on Thursday said he understood the struggles many businesses are facing.

'With restaurants, we are very aware of it. We made the provision to the outdoor dining, precisely for that reason,' he said.

'Now, they are right, the weather is going to start to get cold: what are we going to do if its cold and people don't want to eat outside? I get it. Again, that's in the fall, and today in this environment, two weeks is what a year used to be, right? Everything changes every two weeks.'

Cuomo said NYC restaurants had to deal with a number of other factors than eateries elsewhere in the state.

'They're different demographically, they're different in population, they're different by density, they're different by crowding factor. Westchester County never had the problem that New York City had. Nassau never had the problem that New York CIty had. They're two totally different environments.

'Are we more careful in New York City because of those factors? Of course we are. It would be negligent not to be.

'Even though that the current dynamics are totally different we have much, a much bigger problem in New York City today than any of the surrounding suburbs with the lack of compliance.'
21.08.2020 LISTEN

He looked around. As his eyes got used to the darkness of the place, he saw sleeping bodies on the pavement of Tema Station covered in light sheets to as prevention from mosquitos attacking them. Mr Karl walked over to a corner in which he saw a young woman with her baby boy sleeping for the night. He approached her silently, but she heard his footsteps, opened her eyes to see for the person coming closer to hear. Her heart was beating she was afraid arm robbers would come to her to steal the little money she had hidden under her body. It was not common that anyone would come to them at nights in their sleep. At Tema Station, the young girls and mothers mostly felt secure from any attacks. They were all Kakayos or in Kumasi called Paopas mostly from the North of Ghana, from villages where jobs were scares and hunger the order of life. They believed when heading down south jobs to make end meet would wait for them. They often had no connection to Accra or Kumasi, only had heard from others that they could find a job there and have a better life than back home. Home was the place of the family and emotional security but as long as the family was not able to assist them the only option for these Kakayos were to leave home and walk down all the way into unknown and unchartered territory. Some of them left their families being pregnant; some of them got pregnant while sleeping rough on the streets of Accra or Kumasi falling for the promises of young and older man to be helped and get shelter, mostly failed promises of a hot night.

"I did not mean to disturb you...I am sorry," excused Mr Karl himself while seeing into the fearful eyes of that young Kayayo with her baby boy by her side that she had covered completely under the sheet. He had put her skirt, the second one she had, the only two she had for many years now, under her sons head for him to have a bit of comfort during the night. Mr Karl could see how minute by minute the fear in the eyes of the young mother disappeared as the mother saw in the White Man coming closer no threat to her life. She got up and sat straight while Mr Karl got down to sit next to her. "I hope it is okay that I can talk to you!"

Lucy agreed to have a talk with him and said: "You are somehow lucky to have chosen me as my friends here around do not speak English. They never went to school and in their homes, they only speak their tribal language."

"Then I am really lucky," was Mr Karl incredibly happy to have met Lucy.

"But what is that with the tribal language? Can you teach me?"

"We have many tribes in Ghana, Sir...," started Lucy to explain and looked straight into the eyes of the German man sitting beside her. While talking both kept a clear eye on anything around them and listen to unusual sounds that popped up every now and then. A Zoomlion Waste car was passing through the night along Atta Mills Avenue just close to Tema Station and the sound of the heavy truck was clearly to hear in that quiet night as most cars were parked before their owners' houses. Lucy was skinny, dark in complexion, her face round, her lips big as a woman`s lips can be, a typical reflection of being an African woman, her nose flat and wide stretching into her face. She was not a beauty by her looks but visibly by her personality.

"For you simply Karl," smiled Mr Karl at her. "We are friend now!"

Lucy smiled back and was more and more comfortable talking her heart out to a man seriously interested in her fate and not in her body saying: "Yes, I am also not so well educated...Karl...but I am not stupid at all. I mean people in this country especially the once at the top, take us for granted and try to play with our mind. They think we are dump...but let me tell you we are not dump...we know the dirty games they are playing with us, believe me...Karl. By the way, I love your colour so much and... forgive me to say that...your nose is so, so long... that looks funny to me!"

"And your nose...the big one, so flat...makes me laugh so much too," responded Mr Karl while both had a good laugh.

"God has all of us created in His own image!"

"Then I ask myself which nose does God have...pointed like me or flat like yours?"

"Karl...you are really funny," was Lucy not able to laugh while making sure her laughing would not wake up her baby boy or anyone else around them. "You White People are not like our own people. I mean no one would ever come here and sit down with us and talk to us. Our own people see us as dirty people that are worthless and needs to be looked down upon. I could never imagine in my wildest dreams that someone of your status would humble himself down here and talk to me like normal, from human to human...I mean no one of our own people would ever do that...never. Most of them especially when life was good to them forget where they once came from and get very arrogant. They buy mansions, cars, and drive through the streets as if they are the kings of the land. You are the first White Man that I have ever met in my life but right now, right here I have the feeling that we have known each other for exceptionally long already. there is nothing strange about you...easy feeling and easy talking. I like you a lot...Karl...I really do. You White People seem to be less complicated than our own people...and humble people!"

"I accept it as a compliment on behalf of my fellow White People...if I may," smiled Mr Karl and felt good sitting at her side talking the night away.

"Permission granted," busted Lucy loud out in laughter seeing that some of the other Kakayos, a mother with a baby girl carrying forty-five kilos of used clothing bags each day on her head while she ties her baby behind her back. "I guess we have to be a bit quieter!"

"I guess so," smiled Mr Karl and could have a glance at Joshua that slept peacefully under the light sheet she had bought from Kantamanto Market vendors for exceedingly small money. The boy touched his heart like his own boy one day would touch him. He wished to hold him in his arms and give him comfort but he knew so well to safe the whole wide world was impossible to do. In such moments he had to cool himself down by giving his present and comfort to people keeping their story in his heart forever and always so when the time would come they would eventually see a better life, at least most of them. "He is sleeping so peacefully. I wish one day he would no longer have to sleep on the streets but be a great inventor and better the lives of many."

"I pray to God...Amen," took Lucy Karl`s hand kissed it and was surprised. She touched his hand repeatedly. She looked at him, looked him straight into his eyes and said: "Your skin...is so soft...amazing!"

Mr Karl was puzzled by her words: "You think so?"

"Yes, I have never touched the skin of a White Man before...but your skin is so soft while our skin is harder...just feel my hand!" asked Lucy waiting for his response.

"For me...I do not feel that your skin is harder than mine...and I do not care about your big nose, skin, curly hair, white shining teeth, your structure, your skinny body, your baby boy on the pavement all asleep...I want to know your story for me to know and understand what is going wrong in this country and what needs to be done as your own people seem to fail you all the way on all levels."

"You are a good person Karl...so I will tell you my story," started Lucy to explain herself with tears in her eyes. "You know in the North of our country tribalism is rampant. Villages fight each other overpower and land issues even kill others from other villages. Ghana Armed Forces are stationed there to keep the peace but still, people die by the hands of our own people just over land disputes. My grandfather had told me when I was very small sitting outside his mud hat near the village tree where our ancestors gather each and every night to discuss our fortune or misfortune that during Colonial Masters time these conflicts did not occur often but when our own people took overpower the anger among us came out and saw the light of the day. You should one day come to our places up there and see the tension in the hearts of our people against our own people...you will not believe that this is possible in a time like this. I mean you people fly to Moon and Mars and we still fight ourselves over land issues that could have been resolved years ago for good one or the other way. I mean we also have still six witch camps with hundreds of alleged women in the camps to perform witch craft...can you imagine that in our times as an independent country that is supposedly able to manage its own affairs?"

"You speak like a wise old woman!" smiled Mr Karl and looked around. No one to be seen, no car to be heard, all birds were asleep.

"As I told you before that we are not educated does not mean we do not know and are dump...that is what our own people want us to be and what they believe is that we are so...I mean stupid and do not know anything that is going on in this country. One day they will be woken up by force and get a great surprise... then they will realize what they have thought about us all the way is not true...we are humans and as humans, we can think...and can think just like any other person on earth. Formal education is one side of a coin...but using our brains and common sense is the flip side of the same coin...Karl. But our own people are too arrogant to respect us and understand humanity at its best. This is a big problem in our country...as I said a country supposedly able to manage its own affairs. When you look around the country and consider the time that has passed already, generations with no end, how can someone think he can be taken seriously to have managed the country and its own affairs? Look right before you and what do you see...stinking gutters and a run-down place where people are forced to sleep with their babies. Is this a country you can call professionally managed and managing its own affairs? I cannot call it that way as I need to see evidence for words spoken so, so sweetly into my ears...and this evidence I simply cannot see anywhere in this country."

Karl reminded her of his request: "You talk like a strong and powerful politician...but I want to hear your own personal story, Lucy."

"My story?"

"Yes, please...your own story!"

Lucy took a deep, deep breath and said in a quiet tone with confidence and sadness at the same time: "My father was a teacher at our local school for Maths and English. he died just two years ago just before I came to Accra. My mother is the daughter of a farmer with small land behind our house. Our house stands in the middle of a small village with not more than about two hundred people...so an exceedingly small place with no running water and no electricity. The nearest tarred road is about forty-five minutes walking away from the village or using a motorbike around fifteen minutes into the bush by a bad dusty road. During the rainy season to reach our village by bike or car is nearly impossible. My village is cut off from any civilization. We have only a small kiosk in our village where we can buy our daily bread and sachet water. We do not have any factory or workplace in our village. Our people go out to farming their own lands or must travel far for working in a factory or restaurant. We have no school...and even for that one we children must walk for long even having to cross a river with a boat or by feet. My parents have six children, one of whom died already, a baby boy at the age of around eight years old. We live in our own mud hat, one room for my parents, one living room for all of us to sleep on the muddy floor around the chairs and table, no wardrobe, no TV of course. One room is the small kitchen with firewood on the ground where my mother always does the cooking in the darkness and smoke of the charcoal that we must buy and pay much money for. The door to our small house is a normal curtain, not even a proper door. Washing we do outside in a metal sink that is a big bowl and our toilet is behind a banana tree a whole in the ground with a small structure made of wood above it to give us shelter from the looks of others. Our property has no fence around and behind the mud hut that we have is the small farm my mother us using for maize and cassava. One of my aunties living further down the road at the tared road was feeling lonely in her house so she asked of my oldest sister to be given to her and help her in her house as a maid and companion. She did that even she was not happy about the decision made for her. The time came my father started to drink snaps and more snaps. The school warned him and finally, he got fired from the school. So, he lost a job and as he was more drunken no one else gave him a chance to work. The whole day was he sleeping and drinking. He was a quiet man, so he never did any harm to us our or mother. My mother is a strong woman, an extraordinarily strong woman. She is a great Christian. Going to church and having a great supportive Pastors always gives her strength. As there was no money in the house and the maize and casava from our own small land was not enough she went out to work for others on their farm and come home with little money. Farmers around knew about her situation and her faithful and great character, so they decided to let her work as much as possible to take care of her family, her children, and the drunken husband. When she came home with some money to buy food my father often took money from her for his snaps and came home drunken while she went to bed hungry even sometimes not having butter bread and Lipton for breakfast. She never shouted on him but made sure to hide money from him which sometimes, after all, he found eventually. As a Christian, she would never abandon him. Normally someone in her position would kick such a useless husband that even takes the small money away for snaps instead of feeding his own children out of the house...but my mother never did that. She took the situation in faith to her God and prayed always for his strength. Till today I still do not understand how it was possible for her to take us to school. We needed a book and uniforms and all that we needed to pay for. I mean in your society schooling is for free, not so here in Ghana. Even people say it is for free but at the end of the day it is not free and the way of learning...I mean the schools are in poor conditions, mostly no tables but we need to sit on the cold floor and listen to the teachers that have no material for us. So, therefore many people send their kids to private schools as public schools are not helping us to make it in life and to abroad. Their parents sacrifice a lot of their monthly income to send their kids to school. But coming back to my story and not talking like a Politician...I have to say...my father was more and more of a burden to my mother and us as a family with all the snaps he was drinking. So, I decided as I grew older to go out after school and help some cocoa farmers on their farms and make some money. Even they treated us unfairly, sometimes arguing about the money we were entitled to get so that in the end sometimes we even did not get any money at all. You see, how we are treated in this country by our own people? They are not fair to us but everyone tries to cheat on the other one...sorry, no talk as a Politician...I get it...so let me continue and say that my mother is such a strong woman I want to copy always. She, as I said, could have easily kicked him out but kept him in the house, never spoke and bad word into his face, never disgraced him in front of others or talked bad about his character to anyone outside her own heart and spirit. She is always lifted by the spirit of God that strengthened her in all her misfortune. Sometimes I heard her, I do not think that she knows about it, crying in the night while my father drunken as he has slept beside her in the same bed. She cried her heart out and when it was too much for her, I would see her leaving the hut to pray outside to God. to be that loyal to her husband and a woman...all I can say I admire her so, so much and wish to always follow her in her footsteps. So, over time schooling became a problem for us. And there was a teacher in school, my English teacher married with three kids. One day he called me to come and sit by his side. He talked to me about my school results. He promised me to help me to get better and the best in the class. Also, he said he would help me with my schooling problems so that I could still come and attend school with no problem. His words were sugar in my ears, so nice, so friendly and so sweet. Little did I know that there is never free lunch in this world. So, I was naive in those young teenagers days. One fatal afternoon when all other pupils had left school for home, he asked me to stay and forced sex on me. It is not uncommon that teachers in our country do this to their female students...not uncommon at all. Especially in the villages where a teacher has great authority and a great reputation...you see innocent young girls pregnant. Many of them keep their mouth shut and when their parents want to confront these teachers, they keep their mouth shut also. Most parents have no money to take such teachers to a court or the Police Station. Sometimes such teachers offer parents small money for them not to say anything, basically, that is it. These teachers walk away free without ever seeing a prison from inside. That is Ghana for you...true and real, I am telling you from evidence. So, there I was, pregnant with the baby from my teacher. My mother knew what had happened as he was able to see it in my eyes. I felt so, so ashamed I even thought of taking my own life...but my mother did not allow me to do so. The teacher refused to take responsibility for the child even when facing me one on one blamed me for the situation that I made advances towards him and confused his mind, dragged him into having sex with him for better schooling. My pregnancy advanced and the baby was about to come out. So, I asked myself what best to do. The villagers around looked down on me more and more. They thought I am a witch. And in my country here when people in the village suspect you as a witch you can end up being lynched and killed...easily. Some people, especially in villages, have no shame to kill someone out of jealousy and witchcraft matters...no problem at all. We are not like you people with great laws and great law enforcement, with social workers that would take care of a girl like me and prosecute such teachers...sorry, no Politician should come out of my mouth anymore. Thinking and thinking what to do and overcoming the wish to take my own life but feeling the pressure around me of the villagers more and more I wished my mother good-bye and left. I did not know where exactly to go to but people along the way advised me to come down here to Accra and work as a Kayayo here around Kantamanto Market. I was able to join people that were nice Samaritans to bring me down here so that I can stay here and make each day as much as possible to feed my baby first and after that myself. The money I get is only enough the day. Sometimes when I get good jobs and I have extra money I send it via mobile money to my mother so that she has something to eat. She does not know how I live here. Because sometimes I can send her some money, she thinks that I am okay. I feel ashamed that I have no money to rent a room, self-contained or not, if it a room in a house away from the streets so that my baby is always safe. For myself...oh, I can manage, but I care for my family in the North and for my baby more. God gives me the strength to work hard, even harder than I can work. In him, I put all my trust and hope. But as for my mother, she does not know who I live here in Accra and I do not want her to ever know. She should enjoy the little money I can send to her and not be worried. When she calls me, I lie to her? She deserves a good life, better than I have and I want to make it possible for her as she made it possible for me in the past to be where I am today. I rather go hungry at nights, but I want to see my son have enough to eat and my mother to have enough to eat also. For that, I can sacrifice myself...no problem for me. I am as strong as my mother was teaching me by living example. And there should be no Politicians in this country ever to lie to us good people of Ghana that they care for us. They only care for themselves and their families. they chop our money very well and lie into our faces. No, after all these lost generations and time not used and natural recourses not used well and people still hoping for better days to come trusting our two political parties that at the end let us all down...we the good people of Ghana are wasting our time with false and fake promises over and over again...it is about time we wake up and get moving into a real beautiful future with evidence to show and no more stories to hear about corruption cases and the misuse of our country as cocaine and illegal drug hub to empower people at the top of our society. We the good people of Ghana have to unite ourselves across party lines and take our land back into our own hands."

"The Politician is coming out!" reminder Mr Karl Lucy that was not near to be stopped in her anger.

Lucy laughed and her eyes smiled brightly: "Sorry, Karl...but sometimes anger about Ghana politics simply takes me over. The madness in our country is just too much!"
The reversal came after more than 24 hours of wrangling over Alexei Navalnys condition and treatment.

Mr Navaly was transferred to an ambulance in the early hours of Saturday morning and was being driven to the airport, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter.

Mr Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city Omsk on Thursday.

His supporters believe he was poisoned and that the Kremlin is behind it.





His family and supporters wanted him brought to a top German medical clinic, but his doctors in Omsk at first said he was too unstable to move, even after a plane with German specialists and advanced equipment arrived.

Mr Navalnys supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison would no longer be traceable in his system.

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A senior doctor in Omsk said the team did not believe he was poisoned.

The German doctors later examined Mr Navalny and said he was fit to be transported, according to a representative of the charity that has organised the plane to bring him to Berlin.

I understand hes still unconscious, but theyre used to such special assignments and they say very clearly he can fly and they want to fly him, film producer Jaka Bizilj, of Cinema For Peace, told the Associated Press after being in contact with the German doctors.

The Russian medical team then relented and deputy chief doctor of the Omsk hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko told reporters on Friday that he would be allowed to leave.

The flight was scheduled for Saturday morning, Russias RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing airport officials.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the resistance to the transfer was political.

He said he was not aware of any instructions to stop the transfer and that it was purely a medical decision.

It may pose a threat to his health, Mr Peskov said.

Mr Navalnys wife told reporters that hospital staff and men she suspected were law enforcement agents did not let her speak to the German specialists, who she said were brought into the facility in secrecy, through a back door.

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I was forcibly kicked out in a rude manner, Yulia Navalnaya said, her voice shaking.

This is an appalling situation. They are not letting us take Alexei. We believe that clearly something is being hidden from us.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Mr Navalny campaigned to challenge Mr Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running.

Since then, he has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of the ruling party, United Russia.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level.

Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Mr Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing.

His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents and insisted that the transfer is critical to saving the politicians life.

The ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life, Ms Yarmysh had tweeted.

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Dr Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Mr Navalnys doctor in Moscow, earlier dismissed the idea that it would be dangerous to move the patient.

He told the Associated Press that being on a plane with specialised equipment, including a ventilator and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, can be even safer than staying in a hospital in Omsk.

Ms Yarmysh posted pictures of what she said was a bathroom inside the hospital that showed squalid conditions, including walls with paint peeling off, rusting pipes, and a dirty floor and walls.

While his supporters and family members continue to insist that Mr Navalny was poisoned, Omsk hospital deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko said that doctors do not believe the patient suffered from poisoning.

Omsk news outlet NGS55 published a video statement of the hospitals chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, saying that a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis and that a drop in blood sugar may have caused Mr Navalny to lose consciousness.

But another doctor with ties to Mr Navalny, Dr Anastasia Vasilyeva, who flew to Omsk with the politicians wife on Thursday, said that diagnosing Mr Navalny with a metabolic disorder says nothing about what may have caused it  and it could have been the result of a poisoning.

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Dr Ashikhmin, who has been Mr Navalnys doctor since 2013, said the politician has always been in good health, regularly went for medical check-ups and did not have any underlying illnesses that could have triggered his condition.

Western toxicology experts expressed doubts that a poisoning could have been ruled out so quickly.

It takes a while to rule things out. And particularly if something is highly toxic  it will be there in very low concentrations, and many screening tests would just not pick that substance up, said Alastair Hay, an emeritus professor and toxicology expert from the school of medicine at the University of Leeds.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Mr Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups.

In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Mr Navalny was rushed to hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning.

Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.



Never give up. Believe he will survive

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent who was killed in London by radioactive poisoning in 2006, says she understands the wishes of Mr Navalnys family to have him transported to Germany to receive care.

Marina Litvinenko told the AP via a video call from Italy that every day, every hour, sometimes every second is important.

She wanted to send a personal message to Mr Navalnys family to know that they have a lot of support in and out of Russia.

And particularly for his wife Yulia, be strong, she said. And never give up. Believe he will survive.
A hotel quarantine officer claims he received diversity training but no guidance on personal protective equipment

Luke Ashford, a senior employee with Parks Victoria, was seconded on May 25 to work as an authorised officer across seven different quarantine hotels.

He told state's hotel quarantine inquiry he completed an hour of 'equity and diversity training', was given a 10-minute handover before the start of his first shift and a 'draft document' outlining what his role entailed.

But he received no training in infection control or how to use personal protective equipment.

'Everything I know about COVID-19 is from Channel 9 and the ABC,' he wrote in his statement.

Luke Ashford, (pictured) a senior employee with Parks Victoria, received diversity training but no guidance on personal protective equipment before overseeing the state's hotel quarantine operations

He quit on June 18, angered by the lack of infection control among staff.

'I did not feel that this was a safe environment to work in and I was concerned for my health and the health of my family,' he said.

'I didn't want to be the guy who shut my daughter's school down.'

The inquiry also heard from a security supervisor who saw guards, nurses and departmental staff working across a number of sites.

'It goes without saying. If you're trying to isolate movement of a virus, then that is not a way to do it,' he told the inquiry.

Staff inside the Stamford Hotel in Melbourne are seen moving luggage for guests in quarantine on June 25, 2020 in Melbourne

The supervisor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, worked at the Crowne Plaza and Pullman hotels between April 9 and July 4.

He said he was 'relieved' when shifts were no longer given to two or three guards he constantly 'had to keep an eye on' to ensure they didn't leave their posts, fall asleep or spend too much time on their phones.

He had assumed they were fired, but later discovered they had been moved to a different hotel.

The supervisor, who was subcontracted by Wilson Security, said he was concerned by the amount of 'subcontracting on top of subcontracting'.

'The guards at the bottom are getting paid hardly anything,' he wrote in a statement to the inquiry.

'They are not going to be as conscientious and it is those guards that are more likely to work at different hotels, be on their phones or fall asleep.'



Almost all COVID-19 cases can likely be traced back to the Stamford Plaza Hotel (pictured)

Police officers stand outside the Crown Promenade Hotel in Melbourne on March 29 as international travellers arrive for their hotel quarantine

Liliana Ratcliff and her family returned from Spain on May 6 and were taken to the Stamford Plaza, which along with the Rydges on Swanston can be linked to 99 per cent of the state's current COVID-19 cases.

The health practitioner of 20 years described the security guards at the hotel as 'very lovely people' who seemed to not understand infection control.

She said nursing staff didn't change gloves between COVID-19 tests, while a staff member came to her hotel room to deliver a Mother's Day gift without a mask.

'We are more likely to catch COVID-19 by being locked in a hotel with other returned travellers than if we were allowed to quarantine at home,' Ms Ratcliff wrote in a complaint to the Department of Health and Human Services.

She is yet to hear back from the department.

Returned traveller Liliana Ratcliff (pictured) also gave evidence during the inquiry after lodging a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services

Meanwhile trained nurse Sue Erasmus and her husband Ron, (pictured together) who stayed at said they were 'sitting ducks' for infection during their quarantine stay

Sue and Ron Erasmus, who stayed at the same hotel, raised similar concerns at the inquiry.

'We were pretty much sitting ducks,' Ms Erasmus, a trained nurse, said.

The couple and their two children had returned from South Africa on May 1, following the death of Mr Erasmus's father.

Mr Erasmus spiralled into a depression during their 14-day quarantine but when trying to seek mental health support he was put through to different staff who were unable to help.

'It felt like I lost my dad 14 times in that process,' he said.

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Karachi, Aug 21 : The Sindh High Court has sought details on a petition challenging the detention of four men in the abduction and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002.

Key accused Omar Sheikh, Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil through their counsel moved the SHC against the provincial authorities for detaining them since they were set acquitted in April, reports Dawn news.

On Thursday, the two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro also directed the jail authorities to allow Sheikh's parents to meet him as per the jail manual.

This decision came after counsel for the petitioner argued that Sheikh's parents came from London to meet him, but the jail authorities did not allow them to do so.

The lawyer also argued that the petitioners have been behind bars for the last 20 years and despite being acquitted they have not been set free.

He maintained that the detention was not in accordance with law and pleaded to set aside the notification.

On April 2, a two-judge appellate bench of the SHC acquitted all the appellants from the charges of murder and kidnapping for ransom and only found Sheikh guilty of abducting the slain journalist and sentenced him to seven-year imprisonment, Dawn news reported.

However, the sentence had been served since the convict had already spent around 18 years in detention.

An anti-terrorism court at Hyderabad had sentenced Sheikh to death in 2002 for murder and kidnapping of the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal for ransom and co-accused were awarded life term for helping the main convict in abduction and demanding ransom of the slain journalist.

The provincial government and the parents of the slain journalist have filed appeals against the SHC's order before the Supreme Court.
By William Schwartz | Published on 2020/08/20

Ahead of its official domestic release "An Old Lady" has earned many accolades in local South Korean film culture. The winner of the audience prize at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019, "An Old Lady" depicts a sixty-eight year old woman who is hospitalized and raped by a nursing assistant. Though an independent film the subject matter of "An Old Lady" is timely, dealing with issues of elder abuse and rape.

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Director Min Gyoo-dong of "Herstory" has praised the social justice aspects of the film, describing it as inspirational. Director Pang Eun-jin of "Method" called the movie perfect, with its protagonist a force of guidance toward the sunlight. Another bit of consistent praise from those who have seen the movie is its depiction of the lead character's courage against an uncaring system and the abuse depicted within it.

Lead actress Ye Soo-jung is at the center of the movie and consequently much of its praise. However, she had been critical in interviews of the tendency for her as an old female performer, rather than just as an actress in her own right. "An Old Lady" is currently screening at a large number of theaters across, benefiting from improved distribution following the delay of the mainstream movie "The Golden Holiday" following a nationwide COVID-19 resurgence.

Written by William Schwartz

___________

"An Old Lady" is directed by Lim Seon-ae-I, and features Ye Soo-jung, Ki Joo-bong, Kim Joon-kyung, Jang Sung-yoon, Shin Hyun-jong, Kim Joong-ki. Release date in Korea: 2020/08/20.
- S. Korea reports 324 more cases of new coronavirus, total now at 16,670

- 2 additional coronavirus death, death toll now at 309

- 57 more patients released from coronavirus treatment, total now at 14,120



South Korea's virus fight is reaching a critical phase as its daily new virus cases surpassed 300 for the first time since early March on Friday largely due to church-linked cluster infections in the wider capital area and other regions.



Health authorities may consider further upping anti-virus measures to the highest level in order to regain its grip on the COVID-19 pandemic amid mounting concerns about nationwide outbreaks.



The country added 324 more COVID-19 cases, including 315 local infections, raising the total caseload to 16,670, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).



Friday's tally marked the most since March 8 when the daily virus cases reached 367.



The number of daily infections has been in the triple digits since last Friday when 103 additional cases were reported, with about 1,900 cases being newly identified in the past eight days.



A resurgence in new coronavirus cases, mostly traced to churches, have been reported in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi Province, home to half of the country's 51 million people.



Health authorities warned that the wider capital region should brace for another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and that the country stands on the cusp of a nationwide outbreak.



In a sign that the virus is spreading across the nation, more virus cases have been newly added outside the greater Seoul area over the past week. Excluding the southern resort island of Jeju, 16 major cities and provisions reported new virus infections.



Of the newly identified local infections, 125 cases were reported in the capital city of Seoul, 102 from Gyeonggi Province and 17 from Incheon, just west of Seoul.



The southeastern port city of Busan reported eight additional infections. The central city of Daejeon reported six more cases, and four were reported from the southeastern city of Daegu and five from the southwestern city of Gwangju.



Health authorities said a surge in cases traced to a church in northern Seoul and infections tied to a massive weekend rally in central Seoul appear to have served as a catalyst in spurring the virus to spread nationwide.



Cases tied to the Sarang Jeil Church in northern Seoul, a new hotbed of the latest flare-up in virus cases, came to 676 as of noon Thursday, up 53 from a day earlier.













The Sarang Jeil Church-linked infections marked the largest after more than 5,000 virus cases traced to the minor religious sect of Shincheonji were reported in Daegu in late February and early March.



Health authorities also have been urging participants in the anti-government rally held on Saturday to immediately take virus tests regardless of showing symptoms. Some Sarang Jeil Church members took part in the rally.



But health authorities have been facing hurdles in tracing potential cases as some of protesters had traveled to Seoul from other cities, hundreds of members of Sarang Jeil Church refused to get tested, and the church provided an inaccurate list of its members to health authorities.



Cases linked to the weekend march came to 60, of which 33 patients are affiliated with the conservative church. At least 18 patients who joined the rally do not have links to the church.



The spiking virus cases are likely to present tough challenges to the country over whether to impose more tougher anti-virus measures.



Alarmed by soaring virus cases, South Korea raised the level of social distancing in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province on Sunday by one notch to Level 2 in the three-tier system for two weeks. Starting Wednesday, the measure was expanded to Incheon.



Indoor meetings of 50 or more people and open-air gatherings of 100 or more people are banned in principle. So-called risk-prone facilities, including karaoke rooms, clubs, PC cafes and buffets, have been ordered to shut down.



The government has been cautious about raising the level of social distancing to Level 3 as doing so has far-reaching social and economic impacts.



The highest anti-virus curbs can be issued when the number of daily virus cases reaches a two-week average of 100-200 and the doubling of new COVID-19 cases occurs more than twice a week.



If the level is raised, gatherings of 10 or more people will be banned, and offline school classes will be suspended.



The country reported nine imported cases, with three cases coming from the United States and another three from the Philippines.



Cases coming in from overseas rebounded back to double-digit numbers since mid-June for about a month, but such infections recently slowed.



South Korea reported two more deaths, raising the tally to 309. The fatality rate was 1.85 percent.



The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries stood at 14,120, up 57 from the previous day.



The country has carried out 1,754,123 coronavirus tests since Jan. 3. (Yonhap)
The journey from progressive thoughts to good cinema is a long one, and Mee Raqsam, courageous though it is, has not made it.

Mee Raqsam (I Dance) is based on a beautiful premise: freedom is the essence of all art  freedom from restrictions, from religious and gendered boundaries, class and other social divides. From this basic thread is woven the fabric of this film about a Muslim schoolgirl, daughter of a poor tailor in Azamgarh's Mijwan village, who wants to learn Bharatanatyam.

Written by Safdar Mir and Husain Mir, Mee Raqsam is conceptualised, produced and directed by Baba Azmi, presented by his superstar sister Shabana and as the opening text on screen tells us, is a tribute to their late father, writer Kaifi Azmi, who hoped for a film to be made some day in his home village. It is fitting that the great Kaifisaab's children have chosen to fulfill his dream with the saga of a father ensuring that his daughter fulfills hers.

Mee Raqsam is all heart, considerable thought but ordinary execution in terms of characterisation and production.

Every individual in the plot is uni-dimensional  the good Muslim father, the gutsy Muslim daughter, the good Hindu teacher, the regressive Muslim town elders, the manipulative Hindu heavyweight and so on  and not one of them sets a foot outside their designated slot in the screenplay as young Maryam (Aditi Subedi) and her Dad Salim (Danish Husain) are socially ostracised when she pursues her ambition with his blessing.

This is not to suggest that the happenings in the story are improbable, impossible or exaggerated. Not at all. The obduracy of the Muslim community, the resentment of the Hindu community and the open-mindedness of individuals from both qaums as depicted in this film are realistic, accurate and believable. Yes, even that man who keeps addressing Maryam as Sultana because he cannot be bothered enough to remember her name since she never rises above being "a Mohammedan girl" to become just a human being in his eyes. If you are inclined to dismiss this element in the film, do check with the Salmans and Alis of India who routinely get called "Mohammed" by forgetful acquaintances because y'know, "Muslim-Muslim, ek hi toh baat hai" (same thing)" or ask an Anna if she is randomly called Mary and Nancy.

Having come thus far though, Mee Raqsam is unable to take its point much further. The characters in the film are all black and white, and it does not help that apart from the actors listed at the start of this review, most of the rest are stiff as cardboard.

Danish Husain as Salim injects empathy into his performance as does Sudeepta Singh playing Maryam's dance guru, despite the average writing and direction. Naseeruddin Shah is convincing as the conservative and dictatorial Hashim Seth. Aditi Subedi, whose Maryam is the fulcrum of the plot, is good enough in the acting department but as a dancer is efficient, not remarkable. And Farrukh Jafar is wasted in a tiny, not particularly impactful part just weeks after we witnessed her brilliance in full spate as one of the main players in Shoojit Sircar's Gulabo Sitabo.

Mee Raqsam has a lot to say, but it does not say enough. At one point, a teacher describes devotion and faith as essentials of Bharatanatyam, and the film does explore the possibility of adapting it to faiths other than Hinduism. What is left out though is the question of whether an art form rooted in religious practices cannot be embraced as art for art's sake alone by the irreligious, the agnostic and the atheist. Obviously it can be and is in the real world, as we know, but Mee Raqsam finds no space for that crucial and tricky discussion.

(Also read: Gunjan Saxena, Thappad, Panga, and the rise of the male ally in Hindi cinema)

Like most Hindi films about parents who are ambitious for their daughters, this one too restricts itself to a liberal father. In the recent  and otherwise truly lovely  Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, Pankaj Tripathi played the Dad every girl ought to grow up with while the heroine's mother vehemently opposed her child's goal of becoming a pilot. 2015's Nil Battey Sannata starring Swara Bhasker and Riya Shukla is that rare Hindi film about a mother who has career aspirations for her daughter. In Mee Raqsam the mother is killed off within the first few minutes so that Maryam and Salim are left alone to face their intransigent people. In the opening moments, the lady's enthusiasm for Bharatanatyam is made evident, it is she who introduces Maryam to mudras and at one point Salim describes Maryam as her late Ammi's "bahadur beti" (brave daughter).

Mee Raqsam would have been so much more than what it is if it had delved into how Mum learnt dance, her goals for herself and where she envisioned her girl going with it. Little purpose is served by getting rid of her in the screenplay and if the aim was to show a single parent, then writing a single father rather than a single mother is a cop-out. The widowered man backing his daughter in this traditionalist setting is far easier to write than a widow supporting her daughter since the latter would have faced much more resistance and aggression than Maryam and Salim do.

That being said, Mee Raqsam does visit an important theme and would have been significant if it weren't for its average production quality and technical treatment. Considering that it has been directed by cinematographer Baba Azmi whose credits include the iconic Mr. India, it is surprising that even the framing of the Bharatanatyam performance in the finale by DoP Mohsin Khan Pathan is nothing to write home about. The journey from progressive thoughts to good cinema is a long one, and Mee Raqsam, courageous and moving though it is, has not made it.

Mee Raqsam is streaming on ZEE5.

Rating: 1.75 stars
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Non-Invasive Monitoring Devices Market Analysis By Type (Brain Monitoring Devices, Cardiac Monitoring Devices, Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices), Modality, Application, End User and Segmentation, Forecast To 2023

As per the recent report published by Market Research Future (MRFR), the global Non-invasive Glucose Monitoring Devices Market size and share will grow at a CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period (2017-2023). In the process, the non-invasive monitoring device market can exceed a valuation of USD 21,586.18 million. Non-invasive monitoring devices are finding it easier to impact intensive care units.

The technology doesnt require complex tools, and the complications-related to invasive technologies can be ignored in this owing to its methods. MRFR in their recently published article on the non-invasive monitoring device market included in-depth segmental analysis and factors that can have significant market growth. In addition, the report has updated company portfolios with a focus on the latest strategic moves made by them.

Need for diagnostic and monitoring devices for a better and efficient service can spur the non-invasive monitoring device market growth during the forecast period. Among them, the cardiovascular segment can provide much thrust to the market. But the market can see some restraints as the accuracy of the measurement is still not perfect. However, it can be challenged in the near future by the continually developing instruments.

Request Free Sample Report at: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1506

Non-Invasive Monitoring Devices Market Segmentation:

MRFRs report on the non-invasive monitoring device market offers a detailed segmental analysis by

 Type

 Modality

 Application

 End-user

Based on the type the non-invasive monitoring device market can be segmented into

 Brain monitoring devices

 Cardiac monitoring devices

 Blood glucose monitoring devices

 Blood pressure monitoring devices

 Anesthesia monitoring devices

 Others

The cardiac monitoring devices segment includes

 Electrocardiography

 Cardiac output devices

The brain monitoring devices segment comprises

 CT

 MRI

 Electromyography

 Electroencephalography

 Evoked potentials

 Intracranial pressure monitors

 Others

The cardiac monitoring devices segment led the market in 2016 and can grow by 6.46% CAGR during the forecast period.

By modality the non-invasive monitoring device market comprises

 Tabletop devices

 Wearable devices

The tabletop devices segment was in charge in 2016 and can expect a rise by 6.60% CAGR over the assessment period. The wearable devices segment can register a better CAGR of 7.17% during the same period.

Application-wise the non-invasive monitoring device market includes

 Cardiology

 Neurology

 Oncology

 Others

Cardiology segment had the leash in 2016 and is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period as well. The neurology segment can record a CAGR of 7.23% over the assessment period.

By end-user, the non-invasive monitoring device market consists hospitals & clinics, diagnostic centers, research & academic institutes, and others. The hospitals & clinics segment dominated the market as of 2016. The diagnostic centers segment can record a CAGR of 7.23% during the forecast period.

Non-Invasive Monitoring Device Market Regional Analysis:

Region-specific analysis of the global non-invasive monitoring device market leads to Asia Pacific (APAC), the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa (MEA).

The Americas is leading the market and is expected to register positive growth in the coming years. The credit goes to technological and healthcare-related infrastructural superiority. The APAC market has the second largest market. The cost of manufacturing new devices is pretty low in the region, which can lure in a number of market players. Furthermore, countries trying to set themselves up as a medical tourism hub is helping the growth rate.

High disposable income and better state of the national economies in the region can project a better future for the regional market. The regional non-invasive monitoring device market is already benefitting from research and development, and the presence of several market titans in the area.

Brows Full Research Report with TOC on Global Non-Invasive Monitoring Device Market at: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/non-invasive-monitoring-device-market-1506

Non-Invasive Monitoring Device Market Competitive Analysis:

Major companies profiled in the non-invasive monitoring device market report made by MRFR are,

 Medtronic Plc

 General Electric Company

 Abbott

 Omron Corporation

 KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N. V.

 Vaso Corporation

 Integrity Applications

 CNSystems Medizintechnik AG

 CAS Medical Systems Inc.

 A & D Medical Inc.

 Tensys Medical Inc.

 NIMedical

 OrSense Ltd.

 Advanced Brain Monitoring Inc.

In 2018, Dynamic Brain Labs in Tokyo developed GlucoScanner that uses non-standard light frequencies in the infrared spectrum and read the available data related to the glucose level in the blood. The method would be painless as invasive technologies have been avoided in the making of this device.

Brows More Healthcare Related Research Reports:

 Capillary Blood Collection Devices Market Research Report- Global Forecast Till 2023

 Respiratory Care Devices Market Research Report  Forecast to 2023

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients.
1.

Hear the matka (essentially an earthen pot, with the knuckles striking it to produce rhythm) and how it sounds in conjunction with the sounds of an European symphony orchestra. Indian and Geman musical sounds meld together as Abhay Sopori and Zubin Mehta do their magic in Srinagar, Kashmir, India.

2.

Guests enjoying an orchestral fusion of the traditional Kashmir folk tune called Rind Posh Maal by Maestro Zubin Mehta and Abhay Sopori during Ehsaas-e-Kashmir Concert at Shalimar Bagh, Kashmir. Gul Panag comperes for us...

Ehsaas-e-Kashmir: a concert organised by German Embassy to raise funds for the Valley.

German Embassy of India on 23 September 2014 organised a concert for Kashmir named Ehsaas-e-Kashmir to show solidarity with the people of Kashmir and raise funds for rehabilitation and relief work of Kashmirs who were affected by the floods.

The concert was organsied at the residence of German Ambassador to India, Michael Steiner. The performers of the concert were Kashmiri musicians Bhajan Sopori and Abhay Sopori along with their team. The music presented had Sufi elements and was mixed with a bit of folk.

Apart from this, the German Embassy had given 25 lakh rupees for basic healthcare in Kashmir in cooperation with German doctors, who are working in the region as a part of an NGO. The Embassy has also set up a special bank account for those who wish to donate.
contributed photo

WESTPORT  A 73-year-old Westport woman was charged with criminal lockout after allegedly denying her tenant access to the room she was renting, police said.

On July 13, police were dispatched after the tenant of a building said she was being denied access to her rental property by her landlord. Officers met with the renter who explained she was renting a room at a residence owned by Gail Heitz, police said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 06:20:18|Editor: huaxia

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Friday that the country is "returning to normal" after the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Bolsonaro posted on social media about the creation of 131,010 formal jobs in Brazil in July, the first positive result since March.

"In July 2020, the country presented a positive balance of 131,010 new jobs. The great highlight was the processing industry, especially the manufacturing of food products and civil construction. Brazil is returning to normal," Bolsonaro wrote.

The Brazilian government predicts the labor market will continue to present positive data in the coming months. "The positive result of July is certainly the first of many," said Bruno Bianco, the special secretary of Social Security and Labor at the Ministry of Economy.

"There is a successive and significant improvement in the employment record and everything indicates that it will continue to be positive, and even more positive. We are seeing sectors improving and staying afloat, which is important for economic recovery. Improvement has certainly only just started and we will continue to surprise," he said.

The labor market has been hit hard by the pandemic, and in the first seven months of this year, Brazil reported 8.91 million layoffs. Enditem
By Luc Cohen

(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp is limiting output at its flagship offshore project in Guyana to 100,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) due to more issues with the reinjection of natural gas, the South American country's environmental regulator said on Friday.

Exxon, which operates the Stabroek block in a consortium with Hess Corp and China's CNOOC Ltd, had initially planned to ramp up output for this first phase of the Liza project to its full capacity of 120,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) in August, Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said in a July earnings call.

But mechanical issues with gas compressing equipment are preventing Exxon from reinjecting all of the natural gas produced alongside the light, sweet Liza crude, prompting the company to limit output so as to not flare an excessive amount of the gas, Guyana Environmental Protection Agency executive director Vincent Adams told Reuters.

"We know that they're doing their best to try to fix it, but the bottom line is it's not fixed," Adams said.

Natural gas flaring is a significant source of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Guyanese authorities say Exxon should eliminate all flaring except for a "pilot" flame, necessary for safety.

The first phase of the Liza field "demonstrated" its full capacity of 120,000 bpd in the second quarter, Chapman said in July. But in June, the company slashed output to around 30,000 bpd due to gas reinjection issues, before ramping back up to around 90,000 bpd.

"We continue to safely complete final commissioning of the gas handling system," an Exxon spokesperson said on Friday. "Once the system is fully commissioned, we will be able to produce at full capacity."

Exxon and its partners have discovered more than 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas off Guyana's coast, which is expected to transform the poor country's economy.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Neil Marks in Georgetown; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
When other workers came in and took over a space he was already using, he said he was expected to pick up and continue somewhere else, even if they were the same seniority level as he was, a practice that is more commonplace when involving a worker with more seniority. And even when he was picking up the slack for other team members, he said hed be accused of not carrying out his own responsibilities fast enough. Once, when he tried to plan a weekly menu for the staff meal to ensure that the correct products arrived to the kitchen at the right time to mitigate room for error, he recalls his ideas were ignored by his direct superiors. Dreams he had of growth disappeared.
MIAL (Representative Image)

The Civil Aviation Ministry has raised the aviation security fee (ASF) for domestic as well as international passengers from September 1, making tickets a tad costlier.

Domestic flyers will pay Rs 10 more, taking AFS to Rs 160 and international passengers will pay $5.2 (around Rs 389) instead of $4.85 (Rs 363).

Airlines collect the ASF from passengers when they book their tickets and give it to the government. The ASF is used to fund the security arrangement at airports across the country.

The last time the fee was increased was in July 2019. For domestic passengers, the charge was increased to Rs 150 from Rs 130 and international passengers had to pay $4.85 instead of $3.25.

Track this blog for all the latest updates on coronavirus pandemic

The aviation sector is among the worst-hit due to the coronavirus pandemic as travel remains restricted in India and other countries. Airlines in India have resorted to salary cuts, leave-without-pay and have even fired employees to cut costs.

India resumed domestic flights on May 25 after two months but average occupancy has been around 50-60 percent.

International Commerical flights remain suspended since March 23 but the industry regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has allowed repatriation flights.

More than 11.2 lakh people have returned from abroad after the government launched the "Vande Bharat" mission on May 7 to bring stranded Indians home, the Ministry of External Affairs said on August 20.

(With inputs from PTI)
OPINION: The postman really seems nice, at least according to our letter writers, who offer up their support for the USPS in the face of ongoing controversy, in today's Letters to the Editor.
- By James Li





Capital Growth Management, a money management firm co-founded by Ken Heebner (Trades, Portfolio), disclosed earlier this month that its top trades during the second quarter featured sales of Phillip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM), The GEO Group Inc. (NYSE:GEO) and CoreCivic Inc. (NYSE:CXW) and new buys in Thor Industries Inc. (NYSE:THO), Teradyne Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) and Winnebago Industries Inc. (NYSE:WGO).





The Boston-based firm makes bold and swift sector calls, making large bets based on Heebner's convictions. As of the quarter-end, the firm's $860 million equity portfolio contains 41 stocks, with 29 new holdings and a turnover ratio of 49%. The consumer cyclical sector occupies 53.90% of the equity portfolio while the materials and health care sectors have weights of 16.83% and 10.30%.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

Phillip Morris

CGM sold 420,000 shares of Phillip Morris, reducing its equity portfolio 4.30%. Shares averaged $72.91 during the second quarter.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

GuruFocus ranks the New York-based tobacco producer's profitability 8 out of 10 on the back of operating margins and Greenblatt returns on capital outperforming over 82% of global competitors. Despite this, Phillip Morris' three-year revenue growth rate underperforms over 56% of global tobacco producers.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

The Geo Group

CGM sold 2.157 million shares of The Geo Group, reducing its equity portfolio 3.68%. Shares averaged $12.22 during the second quarter.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

GuruFocus ranks the Boca Raton, Florida-based detention center REIT's financial strength 3 out of 10 on several warning signs, which include interest coverage and debt ratios that are underperforming over 75% of global competitors. Despite this, GEO's profitability ranks 7 out of 10 on the back of a three-star business predictability rank, suggesting good and consistent revenue growth.

Story continues

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

CoreCivic

CGM sold 2.095 million shares of CoreCivic, reducing its equity portfolio 3.29%. Shares averaged $11.40 during the second quarter.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

GuruFocus ranks the Nashville, Tennessee-based REIT's profitability 7 out of 10 on the back of returns outperforming over 68% of global competitors. Despite this, CoreCivic's financial strength ranks 4 out of 10, driven by a low Altman Z-score of 0.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio that underperforms 84.76% of global REITs, suggesting high use of financial leverage.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

Thor Industries

CGM purchased 270,000 shares of Thor Industries, giving the position 3.34% weight in its equity portfolio. Shares averaged $77.34 during the second quarter.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

GuruFocus ranks the Elkhart, Indiana-based recreational vehicle manufacturer's profitability 9 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include a 3.5-star business predictability rank and a Greenblatt return on capital and a three-year revenue growth rate that outperform approximately 90% of global competitors.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

Teradyne

CGM purchased 315,000 shares of Teradyne, giving the holding 3.09% weight in its equity portfolio. Shares averaged $66.68 during the second quarter.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

GuruFocus ranks the North Reading, Massachusetts-based semiconductor company's financial strength and profitability 8 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include a high Altman Z-score of 7.98, expanding operating margins and returns that are outperforming 97% of global competitors.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

Winnebago

CGM purchased 395,000 shares of Winnebago, giving the position 3.06% weight in its equity portfolio. Shares averaged $50.58 during the second quarter.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

GuruFocus ranks the Forest City, Iowa-based RV manufacturer's profitability 7 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include expanding operating margins and three-year revenue and earnings growth rates outperforming over 90% of global competitors. Despite this, net margins are outperforming just 56.75% of global vehicles and parts companies.

Ken Heebner's CGM Reveals Top Trades for 2nd Quarter

Disclosure: No positions.

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'Cocaine' Cassie Sainsbury has denied she was paid cash by men in Australia in exchange for semi-naked pictures while serving out her parole in Columbia.

The 25-year-old said on Friday morning in an interview with Brisbane radio station B105 that she was 'not paid for any photos' and also revealed she had split with her prison girlfriend Joli Pico.

Last week, one reported online exchange between Sainsbury and an Australian man had shown she was 'happy' with a $400 a week offer in exchange for photos and calls.

While behind bars, Sainsbury (pictured left) became engaged to fellow inmate Joli Pico, 29, (pictured right) from Venezuela

'It actually didn't go down the way it has come out in the media. I did not receive any money at all for any photo,' Sainsbury said.

She was then asked by hosts Stav, Matt, and Abby if she had setup an account on adult site OnlyFans where users are paid for racy content.

'I had never even heard of this page until I got a whole heap of messages from people saying 'What's your OnlyFans ID?' And I was like 'What? What is that?' Sainsbury replied.

She also said she had ended her engagement to fellow inmate Joli Pico, 29, from Venezuela after a nine month romance behind bars.

Pico, who is still serving her sentence for theft in Columbia, had moved on with another inmate, according to Sainsbury.

'Unfortunately things with Joli, they didn't last. I came out of prison and then she became a different person, and she got with somebody else inside as well.'

When asked if her former girlfriend had cheated on her she replied it was 'difficult' and had her doubts about whether the relationship would last once one of them was on the outside.

Last week, her mother had pleaded with the Australian Government to help her daughter who she said was struggling to make ends meet while stuck in Columbia.

Sainsbury spent three years locked up in the notorious El Buen Pastor prison in Colombia after being convicted for smuggling 5.8kg of cocaine hidden inside headphones in April 2017.

She is now stranded in the Colombian capital Bogota where she will serve part of the remainder of her six-year sentence on parole.

Photos surfaced earlier in August appearing to show the South Australian lying on a bed wearing lacy underwear and showing her distinctive stomach tattoo.

A media report claimed Sainsbury has been making $400 a week from a man who she sends explicit photos to and included and online exchange between the pair.

'Well I'm happy with the amount you offered, like I'm not the sort of person to be like, no that's not enough give me more,' she wrote to the man, according to the Courier Mail.

She also wrote: 'How do I know that you sent the money?' and explained that the photo could be verified by her Facebook profile picture.

Cassie Sainsbury, 25, is reportedly making $400 per week from a man who she sends explicit photos to and exchanges phone calls with

Also in the interview, she revealed she did not like the name 'Cocaine Cassie' and wanted to move on with her life.

She also touched on the violence she witnessed inside the notorious Bogota jail.

Sainsbury revealed she had seen someone get stabbed resulting in 100 stitches and added that it was common that if you owed someone money in the jail they would send someone to 'cut you up'.

She said she managed to avoid trouble by being the type of person who would let things go if another inmate said something to her.

Of her relationship with fellow inmate Pico, the South Australian had previously said she had not expected it.

'Honestly, it was the least thing that I expected to find in prison,' she told 60 Minutes in April.

'It started as a friendship and then out of nowhere it just turned into a relationship.'

The pair were together for nine months before Pico - who is serving time for theft - proposed to Sainsbury in front of their cell mates late last year.

Cassie Sainsbury was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine (pictured) concealed in her luggage at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport in April 2017

Sainsbury and Pico (pictured) have ended their relationship that lasted for nine months while behind bars in Columbia

Sainsbury's mother, Lisa Evans, said her daughter receives no help from the Australian government.

'I'm thinking about starting a petition to get help for my daughter Cassie,' Ms Evans posted on social media last week.

'I need our government to help this kid. I can't fight the Colombian judicial system by myself. I need them to help her while she is in the country. Or help me get her home.'

'Cassie receives no help from our government during this pandemic. She cannot work etc.'

'Side note... our government repeatedly ignores my requests for help!!!'

Sainsbury has resorted to selling nude photos to Australian men to make money, prompting her mother Lisa Evans to call on Scott Morrison to intervene and bring her home

Sainsbury's mother Lisa Evans (left) said she is going to start a petition for the Australian Government to help her daughter

In June Sainsbury took to Facebook to say she was struggling financially in locked down Bogota.

Sainsbury worked at Club 220 in western Sydney in a desperate bid to make ends meet in 2017, prior to her drug smuggling attempt Pictured: Sainsbury on the Club 220 website

'To everyone that has been asking, yes I'm okay. The situation is definitely difficult here in Colombia and more so when there's no work and no way to receive my visa, but hoping things will get better soon. However I'm okay and staying safe,' she wrote.

Earlier this year Sainsbury spoke about her former job as a sex worker in western Sydney before her thwarted drug smuggling attempt.

She worked at Club 220 in early 2017 in a desperate bid to make ends meet after her and then-fiance Scott Broadbridge's gym went under.

'Everyone makes mistakes and I was looking for a way to get out of the hole I was in. It got to a point where I had rent to pay and bills and shopping, everything was piling on top of me,' she told WHO Magazine.

'Everyone assumed that because I worked at the brothel, then I was guilty of being involved with drugs. For a lot of people, sex work and drugs go hand in hand.'

Sainsbury claimed she only intended to work as a receptionist, but after arriving at the brothel her bosses convinced her to become a prostitute.

'I got there and [they said] ''you're not the type of person to be a receptionist, you're the sort of person who needs to try and be a sex worker'',' she said.

'I wasn't comfortable doing it, I didn't like doing it. [But] if it wasn't that then it was like ''what else?''

Sainsbury will have to stay in Colombia for the next 23 months as part of her parole conditions.
The couple called X and Y have known each other for 62 years. Theyve been married for the last 48 years.

Now, just a couple years shy of a 50th anniversary, the Nova Scotia pair, each now in their early 80s, has reached a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

He wants to die; she doesnt want to let him.

Its torn their relationship apart. X has moved out  his wife, Y, doesnt know where he is.

They cross paths  in the legal sense  in courthouses, where Y has filed an injunction to prevent X from going through with an assisted suicide. They communicate through injunctions, stays and appeals.

They have names, of course, but Nova Scotia Justice Peter Rosinski chose not to use them in his decision this week to dismiss Ys injunction. Ys lawyers filed an immediate appeal on that decision.

At stake in Rosinskis courthouse is a possible precedent that reaches into all Canadians Charter rights.

Can one person prevent another from having access to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), when the latter has been found qualified under the law to be eligible?

This is the first time that question has been put to the courts.

In June 2016, Canada passed federal legislation that allows eligible Canadian adults to request MAID. This was in response to a Supreme Court decision that found that parts of the Criminal Code that prohibited MAID ran afoul of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

That paved the way for people like X to request a physician-assisted suicide, providing certain criteria are met.

The key questions in Xs case, Rosinski said in the decision, are whether X has the capacity to make decisions regarding the MAID process, and whether he suffers from a grievous and irremediable medical condition that renders his death reasonably foreseeable.

The judges decision was yes on both counts.

The document cites assessments by doctors in which, X, who has stage 3 Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)  a serious and incurable disease  says that he is sick and has been getting worse over the last several months.

Aside from shortness of breath and fatigue, COPD has also been associated with heart problems, strokes and cognitive decline.

His chronic breathlessness means he suffers extreme fatigue and is unable to do activities previously important to him. All of that causes him severe mental and physical suffering.

I have lost my sense of purpose, he told one doctor.

That doctor, on assessing X, reported him to be down to 122 pounds from his normal 155 pounds, the decision says. It took him three minutes to walk 15 metres during a test, reported the doctor, and he was breathless following the walk.

He finds it intolerable and extremely stressful to be so short of breath and fatigue throughout his day, and unable to function in the way that he wants to.  He wants to avoid a painful death, another doctor is quoted as saying.

He seemed to have checked all the boxes. He began the process April 24, 2020. He has been seen, all told, by seven clinicians for assessment. Five of them said he met all the criteria for MAID. One said X did not have the capacity to make decisions regarding MAID, and that his disease was not a grievous and irremediable medical condition.

Another, a respirologist, commented that the phrase foreseeable future in the law was ambiguous, but that,  I do not see that (he) will die from his lungs in the next year.

Those reservations notwithstanding, X was deemed eligible for MAID, and was scheduled to have that procedure on July 20.

Before that happened, however his wife, Y, intervened.

She loves him tremendously and has been his partner in life for 50 years and cant bear to see him put to death based on a delusional misunderstanding about his actual health condition, said Hugh Scher, a Toronto health and human rights lawyer representing Y.

Through Scher, Y sought an injunction, on the premises that X did not meet the criteria for MAID; in particular, that he did not have the capacity to make decisions on his assisted suicide, and that his death was not reasonably foreseeable.

Papers filed to the court by Scher quote Y, relating instances of hypochondria, delusional conduct and irresponsible handling of money. In one case, his wife says, in 2017, X gave $10,000 to a young man who had been charged with murder, later receiving only $3,000 in repayment.

In another instance in 2018, said Y, her husband was called daily by another young man who asked for fairly small amounts of money. This man was the son of an acquaintance who, Y said, had asked X not to get involved.

Near the end of the year, Y discovered these transactions on their bank statement, totalling $12,000. According to Ys affidavit, when confronted, X agreed that he had not known how large the amount was.

Those same papers argue that X would not die in the foreseeable future, citing the assessment of the respirologist, who said he didnt foresee X dying in the next year.

The real issue in the case is whether or not this gentleman indeed meets the legal requirements for an assisted death or not, said Scher. Does he have the capacity? And does he meet the requirements of having a grievous and irremediable condition that means that his death is reasonably foreseeable?

And the answer to that, according to the multiple medical experts, and according to the experience of his wife, is that he doesnt.

Fundamentally, said Scher, the case raises the issue, for the first time, about the need for judicial oversight and intervention in MAID cases. To his mind, the law requires a process for review and adjudication of these cases.

As a result, Xs death was put on hold until his case works it way through a series of injunctions and appeals.

In denying his wifes injunction, Rosinski noted that court dates for a full hearing on Xs case would be at the very earliest late fall of 2020, or as late as spring of 2021.

Further delay entails further suffering for X, said Rosinski in his decision. I conclude he would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction (to halt Xs MAID) is granted. On balance, the harm he would suffer is significantly greater than what his wife would suffer.

This is uncharted territory to have somebody go to court to try and stop somebody from having access to MAID when they have been found to be eligible under the law, said Jocelyn Downie. Shes a professor and the James Palmer Chair in Public Policy and Law at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

To me, its straightforward in law and what the answer should be, which is: No, a third party doesnt get to go to court and prevent somebody from having access to something that the Supreme Court of Canada said we have a Charter right to access.

Although it seems straightforward, said Downie, the problem is that this situation has been untested in court. And until that happens, there remains doubt in the minds of clinicians who cant risk criminal liability.

With the injunction Downey said, the onus is on Y to establish an irreparable harm.

In Ys case, the irreparable harm is that if her injunction fails, her husband will be dead.

But her husband is making the case that to go on living would be worse.

There are two harms going on. One is, he is by definition experiencing intolerable suffering, because thats a criteria for eligibility for MAID. And the second is that hes at risk of losing capacity at some point while waiting for the trial and if he loses capacity he will not have access to MAID, Downey said.

That scenario is familiar to many Nova Scotians. It was at the heart of the Audrey Parker decision to die earlier than she really wanted.

In 2015, 57-year-old Audrey Parker, a former ballroom dancer and makeup artist, was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, which had spread to her bones and brain.

She decided to end her life on her own terms. For Parker, that meant an assisted death, surrounded by her friends and family. She was assessed and qualified for MAID.

Ideally, she had said, she would have liked to spend Christmas 2018 with those friends and family before her death.

But the law also contains a caveat, called late-stage consent.

Under that portion of the law, the patient must be able to be lucid enough to consent to their own death immediately before a clinician administers the drugs to end their life. If they are not able to do so, they cannot receive an assisted death.

And that created a problem for Parker. She was worried that if she waited too long, she would not be able to give late-stage consent.

In the end, she gave up that last Christmas and opted to end her life on November 1, 2018.

She spent the last several weeks of her life campaigning for a change to the particular part of the law.

The law has forced me to play a cruel game of chicken, she said in a video posted posthumously. I would like nothing more than to make it to Christmas. But if I become incompetent along the way, I will lose out on my choice of a beautiful, peaceful and best of all, pain-free death.

No one should have to make a decision like this. People like me who have already been assessed and approved are dying earlier than necessary, because of this poorly thought-out law.

On February 24, 2020, the Canadian government introduced a new bill recommending changes to the Criminal Code conditions on MAID.

Those changes would have included the potential for a waiver of the late-stage consent portion of the law. Its known as Audreys Amendment.

It means Audrey Parker would have been free to choose the ideal date of her own death.

The changes would also mean that people who have extreme suffering, but are not expected to die, would be able to receive MAID.

That bill, Bill C-7, made it through a second reading, but between coronavirus shutdowns and, currently, the proroguing of Parliament, it has yet to become law.

At this point, its too late to apply to Xs case. At the very least, his death will be delayed until an August 26 hearing. Potentially, pending appeals, it could be months longer.

Any delay at this point is: A, unconstitutional, B, inhumane, and quite frankly, its just prolonging his suffering, said Helen Long, CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada.

To her mind, the choice to have an assisted death is a Charter-protected decision between a person and his clinicians, and should not be played out in court.

She believes that X, having satisfied the criteria for accessing MAID, should be able to move ahead with his procedure, rather than having his plans derailed.

She said Xs case highlights the importance of having, and documenting, end-of-life discussions, making sure families are all on the same page regarding and individuals wishes.

We often hear from family members who, initially it can be difficult to understand and have the conversation about an assisted death, she said.

But at the end of the day, it comes back to that individuals right, that individuals choice and that individuals pain and suffering. So while it can be difficult to agree with or understand the choice, it should absolutely be respected.

SM Steve McKinley is a Halifax-based reporter for the Star. Reach him via email: stevemckinley@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @smckinley1

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Peruvian steelmaker Aceros Arequipa is currently loading the countrys first ever shipment of steel billet to China, according to a company official.

The sale, involving 40,000 tonnes of billet, was concluded in early June for August shipment. It is expected to arrive at the eastern Chinese inland port of Jiangyin, located along the Yangtze River, by the end of September.



The transaction is the first time that Aceros Arequipa has sold the billet it produces for export and is also its inaugural export of self-produced steel across the Pacific Ocean.



Aceros Arequipas capacity is currently at 850,000 tonnes per year but it will start up a new electric-arc furnace (EAF) at its Pisco works in 2021 to replace its existing facility, which will be kept in reserve. The new 1.25-million-tpy unit was first announced in 2018.



The steelmaker will be able to export more billet from the second half of 2021, the company official said.



Chinese buyers have regularly paid more for steel billet this year than their competitors in Southeast Asia, which tempts an increasing number of steelmakers to export the semi-finished product to China.



The most-recent billet deal to China was concluded earlier this week and involved Vietnamese blast furnace-produced billet priced at $433 per tonne fob. The sale has led to a rise in offers to Southeast Asia up to levels that buyers in that region will not contemplate.



In the first six months of 2020, China imported 3.06 million tonnes of billet under HS code 72071100, which is 33 times higher than the 92,448 tonnes imported in the same period of last year, according to Chinese customs data.



Market participants expect China to continue purchasing large quantities of the product over the remainder of 2020 amid steelmaking restrictions in the Tangshan region and rising demand for long steel as a result of new housing projects.



Fastmarkets is hosting a webinar, Insights to Drive Success in the 2020 HRC Contract Season on September 9. Click here to sign up.
The embattled vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Olawatoyin Ogundipe, has filed a case at the Lagos Industrial Court urging the court to nullify his purported removal, court papers seen by PREMIUM TIMES show.

Mr Ogundipe, through his counsel, Ebunolu Adegboruwa, in an ex parte application, urged the court to nullify and set aside the decision of the universitys council to remove him as vice-chancellor.

Mr Adegboruwa, however, later told PREMIUM TIMES on Friday that the matter had been withdrawn.

Indeed, upon detailed consultation with all stakeholders and his supporters in and outside the University, Professor Ogundipe directed his lawyers to file a notice of discontinuance of the suit and this has been done on August 21, 2020, he said.

This is to defer to the authority of the president as the visitor of the University as Professor Ogundipe has enough time to challenge his purported removal.

Mr Ogundipes legal team had approached the court after he was controversially sacked for alleged misappropriation by the council led by UNILAGs pro-chancellor, Wale Babalakin.

Both men have been embroiled in a leadership tussle for over a year, but Mr Ogundipes sack a fortnight ago took the conflict rocking the school to a new height.

Upon his removal, Theophilus Soyombo was appointed as the interim head. The new boss has, however, encountered stiff opposition from the universitys unions, alumni association and Senate.

They all alluded that due process was not followed in removing Mr Ogundipe and in appointing Mr Soyombo, a view shared by the former, which he told the court.

Joined as defendants in the suit labelled NICN/LA/D18/2020 and dated August 14 were UNILAG, the council, Senate, pro-chancellor Wale Babalakin, registrar Oladejo Azeez, and Mr Soyombo.

But Mr Adegboruwa told PREMIUM TIMES Friday the matter was withdrawn because Mr Ogundipe was deferring to President Muhammadu Buhari who is the visitor to the university.

Reconciliation

Mr Soyombo earlier in the week, had a mediatory meeting with the university staff, begging for support, but it ended in an impasse.

My major focus will be on staff welfare. My belief in this regard is that human resources (staff) are the core assets of the university and any organisation. Otherwise, we cannot achieve anything, Mr Soyombo told them.

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While he has the backing of the council which appointed him, the alumni association, the staff unions, the national ASUU and the Senate have disowned him as the universitys head.

Nonetheless, Mr Soyombo said he could rally back support through dialogue with the staff members of the institution.

ASUU is our union, I am a member of ASUU, he told reporters assuringly. We will continue to dialogue with ourselves. It is rare to have 100 per cent agreement in any organisation or group, there will always be different opinions.

Editors Note: This report has been updated with new details of Mr Ogundipes case.
The late L.A. Times senior producer Liyna Anwar is the namesake of the Anwar Collection of Muslim Voices. (Team Liyna)

StoryCorps, the nonprofit, Brooklyn-based audio company that aims to share voices from diverse backgrounds, announced a new initiative Friday that will double down on that goal.

The American Pathways effort will span over the course of two years and highlight stories from Muslims and immigrants living in America.

In doing so, we hope to remind all Americans of two eternal truths: that we have so much more in common than divides us, and that all of our stories matter equally and infinitely, Dave Isay, founder and president of StoryCorps, said in a statement issued by the company.

StoryCorps plans to partner with outside organizations to gather recordings that feature varied voices from everyday refugees, asylees, immigrants and Muslims. The material will be preserved at the StoryCorps Archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

The organization crafted two new collections to house the American Pathways recordings: the Tapestry of Voices Collection and the Anwar Collection of Muslim Voices. The latter, named after former StoryCorps producer, Liyna Anwar, is a tribute to the Indian American woman who died of acute myeloid leukemia at the age of 30. Anwar, who was passionate about her own Islamic faith, spent four years producing audio at StoryCorps dedicated to telling diverse stories with an emphasis on marginalized voices.

"Liyna would be super-grateful and just humbled to know that her name will forever be associated with these Muslim voices," said Abbas Anwar, Liyna's brother. "I know throughout Liynas career as a journalist that was what she was really passionate about: exemplifying the stories of people who were forgotten or were undervalued."

At StoryCorps, Liyna produced stories featuring people from all walks of life. She told the story of Rob Daley, a Honduran immigrant who reflected on his first Thanksgiving experience in the United States. She spoke with two Sikh men who lost their brother in a hate crime following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. And she outlined the plight of two transgender veterans who were fighting for courage. She produced audio stories like these, and many more, that offered a voice for those in need of one.

Story continues

"I think we all try to channel her integrity, drive and curiosity ... not just in terms of how we do the work but in how we live our lives," said Jasmyn Morris, Anwar's supervisor at StoryCorps. "Liyna made everyone around her feel important and heard, and my hope is that those who come to share their stories through this initiative come away feeling that same way."

Anwar left StoryCorps in 2018 and continued her devotion to audio storytelling as a senior podcast producer at The Times. She helped launch Asian Enough, a Times podcast that explores identity in the Asian American community.

"Just as a family were obviously really honored and grateful to have Liynas legacy continue to live on," Abbas said. "Liyna would be ecstatic to know that this is happening. And then the fact that its going to live on forever in the Library of Congress, thats beyond appreciated, thats awesome."
We continue to strive for growth by pioneering innovative, intuitive technology and powerful solutions for our clients.

HealthMark Group, a leading provider of technology-enabled health information management solutions, was recently recognized on the annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses.

We are honored to be included among such a prestigious group of successful companies, said Bart Howe, CEO of HealthMark Group. We continue to strive for growth by pioneering innovative, intuitive technology and powerful solutions for our clients.

The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.

About HealthMark Group

HealthMark Group is a leading provider of software and technology-enabled health information management solutions for healthcare providers across the country. By leveraging technology to reimagine the business of healthcare, HealthMark transforms administrative processes into seamless digital solutions. From patient intake technology supported by OTech, to HealthMarks proprietary MedRelease platform for Release of Information, the company is pioneering an efficient, compliant, and patient-centric approach to support the entire spectrum of the patient information journey. HealthMark Group was founded in 2006 with corporate headquarters in Dallas, TX and has been named to both the Dallas 100 and the Inc. 5000 for multiple years in a row as one of the fastest growing companies in the region and in the country.

About Inc. Media

The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com.
(Natural News) As Portland is once again subjected to a series of attacks against innocent lives and property, the citys elected officials  who are responsible for taking care of Portland residents  sound like they actually want their city to be destroyed.

Since the engineered riots, which began in late May, the city has been subjected to attacks from organized groups of Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters. This time, however, they directed their senseless rage at the seat of the county government.

On Wednesday, August 19, a violent mob of Antifa and BLM rioters broke into the Multnomah Building in southeast Portland  the headquarters of the county government and where the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners regularly meets.

Officials temper language to appease rioters

Once the mob made their way into the building, several people sprayed lighter fluid inside and started a fire. According to Multnomah County Commission Chair Deborah Kafoury, most of the damage was centered around the Office of Community Involvement, a department that is dedicated to engaging community members who have been marginalized by the traditional political process.

The Multnomah Building, according to Kafoury, is the heart of the county. [The building is] where people in our community come to get married, get their passports and celebrate their cultural traditions and diversity. (Related: Democrats still defending rioters as mostly peaceful after man is dragged out of his car and beaten nearly to death.)

Kafoury did not hesitate to mourn the damage done to the Multnomah Building, especially to the damaged lobby where the first same-sex marriage in Oregon took place back in 2014. However, her statement was missing any actual condemnation of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, the main groups that are responsible for the destruction in the building. Instead, Kafoury seemed to place the blame on American society as a whole and on some perceived historical injustice perpetrated by the county.

I acknowledge that there is grave injustice in our world and there is a violent and tragic history of oppression in our County. I am committed to transformational change  In such a difficult, uncertain time, our community needs all of us to work together, said Kafoury in her statement.

At the beginning of her statement, Kafoury also said that the Multnomah County Building was attacked by only a small group, a claim that has been debunked by journalists who witnessed the event and said that there were at least several hundred Antifa rioters who were involved in the break-in and arson attacks.

Another night of senseless criminal behavior that has no legitimate purpose https://t.co/5KZRlyRIbL pic.twitter.com/qZFHECggYO  Mike Reese (@SheriffReese) August 19, 2020

Furthermore, Kafourys own statement paled in comparison to the one released by Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, who did not mince words when he talked about how there is no place for violence in a civilized society.

The unprovoked actions by those who engaged in criminal behavior is reprehensible, said Reese. It is simply violence and serves no legitimate purpose. It does nothing to solve the issues our community faces.

Reese went further by backing his words with actions. He said that the investigations unit of the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office has been busy reviewing video and other evidence in order to identify and possibly press charges against the suspects behind the arson attack.

The depths the Democratic Party will go in order to take power knows no bounds. Learn more by listening to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, in which Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about how former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, will be replaced soon due to his deteriorating mental faculties and inability to face off against President Donald Trump.

DA condemns violence in Portland  but maintains policy that helps rioters go free

For his part, the newly elected district attorney of Multnomah County, Mike Schmidt, has also condemned the violence. In a statement, he said that the violent and intentional criminal behavior that occurred has no place in the county, and it disrespects the work done by the people who serve a critical mission for the county, especially to the marginalized communities that live in it.

Breaking out windows, setting fires and committing assaults will not bring the much needed reform we need.  I continue to condemn this violence. As Sheriff Reese said, it has no legitimate purpose. This destructive and illegal behavior needs to stop.

As strong as that statement may be, it is severely weakened by the fact that Schmidt, on his first day in office, introduced a policy that would allow a large majority of the roughly 550 pending misdemeanor and felony charges placed upon the Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters in Portland to be dropped. The DAs office has attempted to argue the benefits of this decision by talking about how restorative justice can better help the community resolve their concerns with criminals.

With local elected officials unwilling to resolve the problem, and outright refusing to accept aid from the federal government, the riots in Portland will no doubt continue for the foreseeable future. Stay updated on the latest events there as well as in other Democrat-controlled cities like Seattle and Chicago by reading the articles at Rioting.news.

Sources include:

Breitbart.com

APNews.com

KATU.com

MultCo.us

Twitter.com

OPB.org 1

KGW.com

OPB.org 2
A six-year-old boy who was allegedly kidnapped in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday for a ransom of Rs one crore was rescued on Thursday morning from a village of the same district, police said.

Four of the accused have been arrested while another accused is absconding, said police.

The child Abhinn Tiwari is grandson of a renowned businessman Awdesh Narayan Tiwari who resides in Chaubeypur locality of Chhatarpur city. He was kidnapped by miscreants when he was playing outside his home on Wednesday, Chhatarpur superintendent of police Sachin Sharma said,

The kidnappers had demanded the ransom of Rs one crore from the family.

Police took a swift action and rescued the boy from Khop village of the district with the help of local villagers, said police.

The accused are being interrogated, police said.
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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 15:15 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f90d98 1 Business wage-subsidy,COVID-19,bank-accounts,BPJS-Ketenagakerjaan,furlough,employment,household-consumption Free

The government has registered 12 million bank accounts of eligible recipients in its COVID-19 wage subsidy program, aimed at boosting household spending amid the economic impact of the pandemic, according to a top official of the Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF).

The head of the BKF at the Finance Ministry, Febrio Kacaribu, said the government targeted 15.7 million workers in total and that it was waiting for around 3 million more eligible recipients of the wage subsidy to report their bank accounts to the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan), whose data are the basis for the governments assistance program.

The additional recipients are those who are registered individually at the agency, instead of through a company.

The program provides wage subsidy of Rp 2.4 million (US$162.32) to workers who earn less than Rp 5 million per month and are currently furloughed or have had their pay cut due to the pandemic. Recipients must also have been an active member of BPJS Ketenagakerjaan since June 30.

They [the individually registered workers] should come to BPJS Ketenagakerjaan. If they report their bank account number, [the money] can be transferred, Febrio said in a virtual presser on Wednesday.

The wage subsidy program was initially launched on Aug. 4 after Indonesia recorded an economic contraction of 5.32 percent year-on-year (yoy) in the second quarter as household spending and investment shrank.

As of May, 3 million Indonesians have been either jobless or unable to work as a result of the health crisis, which has brought the economy to a virtual standstill. With a possible recession pending third-quarter growth, the government has projected 5 million job losses this year.

The government has earmarked Rp 37.7 trillion for the wage subsidy program, 13.9 percent higher than its initial budget to cover an increase in the targeted number of recipients from 13 million to 15.7 million.

The increase in recipients was meant to fill the gap left by the existing safety net programs, including the Family Hope Program (PKH), the staple food card and the pre-employment card social assistance programs.

In total, the government has allocated Rp 695.2 trillion in COVID-19 response to boost the economy and strengthen the healthcare system.
Gender-bending sex-ed curricula tells teachers to hide kids' gender confusion from parents

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Gender-bending sex-ed curricula used in some public schools, along with corresponding school district policies, don't meet established standards set forth in law, activists and scholars warned at recent Heritage Foundation panel.

As part of the Protecting Children in Education Summit hosted virtually at Heritage on Aug. 12, advocates detailed several efforts parents are undertaking to combat the sexualization of children and teenagers in the public school system and how left-wing interest groups are sexualizing children for their own ends.

Luke Berg, deputy counsel with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, explained that parents in Madison, Wisconsin, are suing their school district over policies they say violate their parental rights in the case Doe v. Madison Metropolitan School District.

A few years ago, the school district announced its transgender policies, among them is allowing students who identify at transgender to use their preferred name and pronouns while at school without parental approval or notification. Among the groups behind these policies are the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network, the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Education Association.

"As you can bet, Madison didn't exactly promote this aspect of its policy. And the policy itself wasn't even voted on by the school board, it was developed internally and posted to its website. As far as I can tell, the district didn't get broad input from parents but instead from groups like GLSEN," Berg said.

While federal law requires parental consent to change students' names in the databases, students can be unofficially recognized and referred to by whatever name and identity nomenclature they choose and school staff must abide by that unofficial policy, the attorney explained. If staff members do not comply, they are subject to the school's nondiscrimination policy and could be subject to discipline. The school policies, he added, instruct teachers to deceive parents by swapping back to the student's birth name if or when the parents show up at school.

The lawsuit's legal theory is that with the secretive institutionalizing of these policies, the school system has violated the parents' primary authority over their children. Berg believes this argument is supported by broad judicial precedent acknowledging the rights and decision-making power of parents regarding their children's welfare.

Speaking at length on gender ideology, Mary Hasson of the Catholic Women's Forum at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, explained that gender fluidity is now widely taught in public school systems. Gender ideology, she said, puts forth a radical, fractured version of the human person and teaches that no unity exists between the mind and the body.

In the vision of gender ideologues, a person's identity is defined by feelings that supersede the material reality of the body, she elaborated, noting that gender-confused children are fast-tracked to a lifetime of medicalization such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. When cross-sex hormones are added after chemical puberty suppression, the child is sterilized for life, she noted.

"So this moving sidewalk, this fast-track to transition through gender-affirmation is a huge thing. It's so consequential in a child's life and yet it's being promoted in our schools," Hasson said.

This ideology gets inserted in various courses in the school system, she noted. Even though only five states require LGBT history to be taught, most of this ideology is furthered through "anti-bullying" lessons and "inclusivity" assemblies. Teachers are trained through professional development how to infuse this into other subject areas, mainly health classes, and now some are teaching "gender-inclusive puberty education" where male and female sexual differentiation, including normal bodily processes, is erased.

She emphasized to those watching: "You as parents and activists have to be the ones to bring this to light because the schools, unfortunately, are not doing this of their own accord."

Hasson is the co-author of the book, Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Children Out of Public School Before It's Too Late.

Monica Cline, founder and president of the nonprofit group It Takes a Family, used to teach comprehensive sex-ed and was mentored by Planned Parenthood's director of sex education.

Planned Parenthood's philosophy that she learned and came to reject later has a distorted view of sex, she said.

Cline's mentor who taught her how to teach comprehensive sex-ed reportedly told her: "Monica, when you walk into a room of school-age children, I want you to imagine that they've done anything and everything when it comes to sex and if they haven't, they will. And it's your job as a comprehensive sex educator to teach them about every sexual practice and to teach them how to use condoms and lubrication to reduce their risk and then teach them how to get to the clinic to get treatment and have to abortions."

Upon hearing from her mentor about 10-year-olds who would come into the clinics to obtain abortions, she felt convinced that their approach was right and asked her mentor how she could teach these girls not to have sex, particularly since they were so young.

Her mentor replied that it was "very judging" of her and others to tell a young person that they should not have sex. Instead, their job was to meet them where they are and respect their choice to be sexually active and give them "risk reduction" education and refer them to Planned Parenthood.

Cline believed at the time that their teaching approach was legitimate because they had the federal government backing them with Title X funding.

When Cline challenged Planned Parenthood's refusal to report instances of human trafficking and statutory rape, she said staffers tried to get her to believe that young girls wanted to have sex. They even went so far as to say the girls were "empowered" by having sex with an experienced person who could pleasure her.

"Their goal is to have a customer for life," Cline said. "They are a business, so they very much need to sexualize a young generation, sexualize the children through comprehensive sex education. Teach them how to dehumanize themselves and others through the act of sex and make them dependent on needing to use their services."

"Comprehensive sex education is like Planned Parenthood's marketing tool, their vehicle. They need comprehensive sex education so they can mold that child, sexualize them so that they can become sexually active in school-age years," she explained.

Abortion and sexually transmitted diseases are but extensions to this dehumanization process. And those things are not a big deal because it has all been normalized, Cline said.

The abortion giant intentionally works to remove parents from the equation, seeing them as obstacles because parents are powerful and are the key to protecting children.

"The one thing that parents always emphasized to me is that parents, and this is a quote from them: 'Parents are a barrier to services.'"

The latest summit is part of the Heritage Foundation's ongoing effort to protect children from sexualization. The conservative think tank hosted a similar summit in October 2019.
Once released, candidates will be able to download the admit card from the official website: ntaneet.nic.in.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released a notification informing National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) UG 2020 candidates that the downloading of admit card, or hall ticket, will commence shortly.

In a notice, the examination conducting body said, "The downloading of Admit Cards indicating Roll Number, Test Centre Number & Address, Question Paper Medium, Reporting/ Entry Time and Gate Closing Time of Centre shall commence shortly."

Once released, candidates will be able to download the admit card from the official website: ntaneet.nic.in.

The NEET UG 2020 is the entrance exam conducted for medical aspirants seeking admission to MBBS/ BDS courses and other undergraduate medical programmes in approved/ recognised Medical/Dental & other Colleges/ Institute in India. The exam was initially scheduled for 3 May, but was postponed to 26 July due to COVID-19 pandemic. NEET 2020 will be held on 13 September.

As per a report in Careers 360, NTA in the notification mentioned that exam centres have been allotted for the convenience of examinees.

The examination will be held from 2 pm to 5 pm. The candidates and their parents have been advised by the authorities to keep visiting the official website of NTA to check for updates.

According to a report by The Times of India, candidates can contact at neet@nta.ac.in for any clarification. They can also call at 8287471852, 8178359845, 9650173668, 9599676953 and 8882356803.

On 17 August, the Supreme Court of India dismissed a plea seeking the postponement of NEET UG 2020 and JEE Main 2020 examinations due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

The apex court said that the postponement of exams will result in students losing an academic year and will put their careers in peril.
By PTI

DIAMOND HARBOUR/KOLKATA: High tidal waves owing to new moon and incessant rain have caused the water level to rise in the Sunderbans area, damaging earthen dams along various rivers even as the Met department on Friday warned of more heavy downpour due to formation of a low pressure area in the region.

Breaches in the earthen dams on embankments in the riverine region have damaged mud houses, sources said.

Farmers are apprehensive of major losses in yields as the saline water entering the fields would destroy the crops, including paddy, vegetables and also sweet water fish, the sources said.

Officials of the Irrigation department of the West Bengal government said that they are keeping a watch on the situation.

Sunderban Unnayan Parishad (Development Corporation) chairman Bankim Hazra said that the Irrigation department has allotted funds for construction and repair of new and existing dams in the region.

"Irrigation department will start construction work of pucca dams at several places from November," Hazra, MLA of Sagar constituency, said.

Local people have expressed apprehension that the continuing rain since the last few days would cause more damage to the embankment dams at several places with the water level rising in the rivers.

The Met department has warned of heavy rain in south Bengal, especially in the coastal districts of South and North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore with the possible formation of a fresh low pressure area in northwest Bay of Bengal on August 23 or 24.

The south Bengal districts have been experiencing moderate to heavy rain since August 19 owing to a low pressure area in the north Bay of Bengal.

Fishermen, who were advised not to venture into the Bay of Bengal till Friday owing to the system, were asked not to go to the sea from August 23 again.

The weatherman said that moderate to heavy rain is likely to occur in south Bengal districts from August 23 to 26, which may cause a rise in water level of rivers in the region and waterlogging in low-lying areas.
Indeed, so is having non-Blacks persistently try to tell you what you can be. Race itself long has been based in this country on the one-drop rule: Just one drop of Black blood in your background makes you Black.
San Francisco, Aug 21 : Google that recently announced a new licensing programme to pay publishers for high-quality content is currently working closely with 10 different news outlets from Germany and Brazil on an early access programme.

In late June, the tech giant launched a licensing programme to pay for quality content from publishers for an upcoming news experience.

Google said before it expands licensing to more publishers in more countries, it is currently working alongside its publisher partners in select countries.

"Publishers taking part in this early access programme include international brands as well as local household staples. These partners are helping us test features and gather feedback ahead of a full launch later this year," Brad Bender, VP Product Management, News, said in a statement on Thursday.

Participating publishers are testing publisher tools, evaluating technical integrations and ensuring different templates enhance the ways they bring stories to their readers.

"We're also discussing paywall integrations, where Google would pay for free access to allow readers to read articles on a publisher's site. This will help paywalled publishers grow their audience and deepen their relationship with readers," Bender said.

Google said it is sending users to news sites 24 billion times every month, providing an opportunity for publishers to grow their audiences and show Google users ads or offers for subscriptions.

The new licensing programme will help participating publishers monetize their content through an enhanced storytelling experience that lets people go deeper into more complex stories, stay informed and be exposed to a world of different issues and interests.

To date, the Google News Initiative (GNI) has provided $39.5 million in funding to more than 5,600 publishers in 115 countries who are facing financial hardship as a result of the economic and advertising downturn in the pandemic.

It has also launched a free training programme for small-to-medium sized news publishers that would be available first in Europe and will roll out to more regions in the coming months.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:46:07|Editor: huaxia

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Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam attends a press conference in Hong Kong, south China, Aug. 21, 2020. As the support from the central government has boosted its testing capacity, Hong Kong will start a massive screening for COVID-19 on Sept. 1 and aims to complete the testing in no more than two weeks in an effort to rein in the severe epidemic situation. Carrie Lam announced the plan on Friday at a press conference. (Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai)

HONG KONG, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- As the support from the central government has boosted its testing capacity, Hong Kong will start a massive screening for COVID-19 on Sept. 1 and aims to complete the testing in no more than two weeks in an effort to rein in the severe epidemic situation.

Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam announced the plan on Friday at a press conference.

The HKSAR government said earlier that the large-scale testing that may cover millions of people in Hong Kong will be conducted for free and on a voluntary basis.

All asymptomatic Hong Kong residents aged no less than six can participate in the testing, Secretary for the Civil Service of the HKSAR government Patrick Nip said, adding that the process is scheduled to last seven days and can be prolonged to no more than two weeks.

The HKSAR government will set up testing stations in all 18 districts of Hong Kong where trained medical staff will collect samples of deep throat saliva or nasopharyngeal swab, Nip said, stressing that personal information of the participants will be well protected and will not be transferred out of Hong Kong.

Lam said the testing scheme would not be possible if there were no support from the central government.

A 60-strong nucleic acid testing team was established by the central government to assist the HKSAR government in launching the virus testing. After the first 10 team members came to Hong Kong at the beginning of August, the other 50 also arrived here on Friday afternoon.

Besides, three national-level testing institutions have also helped enhance Hong Kong's testing capacity significantly.

Hong Kong has seen a new round of COVID-19 infections in communities since the beginning of July. With 27 additional cases reported on Friday, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 4,600, and a large proportion of the infections were found over the past weeks.

The resurgence of new cases has made medical resources overstretched and the virus testing capacity far from enough. Given the situation, the central government has spared no efforts to help Hong Kong brave the challenges.

Lam said with the assistance of the central government, Hong Kong will add utmost 1,000 hospital beds in the AsiaWorld-Expo and will strive to put the medical facilities into use in a couple of weeks, and a new two-storied temporary hospital that can provide more than 800 beds will also be erected adjacent to the expo in four months.

Secretary for Food and Health of the HKSAR government Sophia Chan said Hong Kong will also request the central government for support in the COVID-19 vaccine.

"With the full support of the central government, we are confident that we can combat the virus with a view to enabling people to resume their normal daily lives as soon as possible," an HKSAR government spokesperson said in a statement.

Qiu Hong, deputy head of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, said Friday that the central government cares about the well-being of Hong Kong compatriots and she hopes the epidemic can be curbed as soon as possible so that Hong Kong residents can resume their normal lives.

Looking ahead, Lam said that the HKSAR government will work to rebuild the economy upon the easing of the epidemic, including introducing the health code system to facilitate mainland-Hong Kong travels and pushing forward the work related to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Enditem
The Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) is commending the National Peace Council for its recommendations to the Government of Ghana and the Ghana Police Service to act swiftly on the violent related issues that characterized the just ended voter registration exercise held across the country.

We particularly support the call of the Peace Council to the Ghana Police Service, especially the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr James Oppong-Boanuh to expedite actions regarding the investigation into all the criminal matters which came up during the registration exercise, FOSDA noted.

According to the Foundation, the cases of violence reported during the registration exercise, leading to the death of two citizens are unacceptable.

The recorded violent cases during the registration exercise, though relatively minimal poses a threat to the December 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections if the Ghana Police Service does not move swiftly to bring finality to those cases, the Foundation stated in a statement issued in Accra.

It will be recalled, that the 2020 voter registration witnessed some pockets of violence in some parts of the country with its associated tension.

In view of this, the National Peace Council visited and the affected areas and has subsequently recommended to the Ghana Police Service to a matter of urgency act on the cases.

FOSDAs Programs Manager, Theodora Williams Anti who signed the statement said it is incumbent on the Security Agencies, the Electoral Commission (EC), Political Parties and other key stakeholders in the electoral process to work towards a peaceful nation before, during and after the 2020 General Elections.

A swift action is critical to deter others from repeating similar actions and also to prevent reprisal attacks. It is important, that going into the 2020 General Elections the Police Service is seen as independent, acting fairly and promptly, she added.
Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged multiple members of a northern Virginia street gang with crimes linked to two deaths, multiple fire bombings and a sophisticated bi-coastal drug operation.

Investigators have linked the Reccless Tigers street gang with the distribution of large quantities of cocaine, trafficking of firearms and the robbery of a prominent DC rapper.

The gang are accused of flaunting a lavish lifestyle on social media, driving expensive cars and wearing Versace robes, as they supplied marijuana-laced vape pens to kids throughout the region's school systems.

They cultivated a flashy image of large parties and promoted their own tiger-branded clothing line with pictures surrounded by snakes, as they pushed drugs through social media.

Joseph Duk-Hyun Lamborn was among the seven members of northern Virginia street gang, the Reccless Tigers, charged Thursday with running a sophisticated bi-coastal drug operation

The new indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in Alexandria charges seven alleged gang members, including founder Tony Minh Le, 26, with racketeering, drug conspiracy and other charges.

'Tony absolutely denies the allegations  the leadership role, the founding role. He certainly is looking forward to his day in court,' his attorney, Robert Jenkins, said.

Three of the seven - Peter Le, 23; Young Yoo, 24; and Joseph Lamborn, 26; are also charged with the February 2019 murder of Brandon White, who had testified against another of the gang members.

Sascha Amadeus Carlisle, 26, who is believed to have participated in White's abduction; Anthony Nguyen Thanh Le, 27; and Sang Thanh Huynh, 30, were the other alleged gang members charged Thursday.

The indictment blames unspecified gang members with the April 2016 stabbing death of George Mason University student Housung Lee at a house party in Herndon.

According to the indictment, Lee died a few hours after getting into a fight with gang members who punched and stabbed him.

Nearly 20 other gang members and associates have already pleaded guilty in federal court to drug trafficking and other charges, but Thursday's indictment is the first to include murder charges.

In court papers, the government says Le and another individual founded Reccless Tigers in 2011 out of other predominantly Asian gangs operating in the Centreville area.

The indictment says the gang 'became well known throughout secondary schools in Northern Virginia as a source of marijuana, vape pens containing THC, and other drugs'.

Young Yoo and Peter Le, Reccless Tigers gang members, have been charged with the February 2019 murder of Brandon White, who testified against another member

In charges filed last year against a Hayfork, California farm owner, Joshua Miliaresis, the FBI alleged the gang would induce drug dealers to take on debt when buying drugs from the gang, and then pressure them to work off the debt at Miliaresis' marijuana farm, which had extensive ties to the gang.

Drivers would bring the drugs down to Orange County were it would be shipped back to Virginia for 'Club Tiger' members to sell at school.

The farm was raided in July 2019.

An FBI affidavit says the gang conducted at least a dozen fire bombings targeting people who owed money to the gang.

According to the indictment, White was among the dealers in debt to Reccless Tigers.

Prosecutors say gang members assaulted White in the summer of 2018 over the debt, putting him in the hospital and resulting in local charges against White's attacker.

In the weeks leading up to the attacker's preliminary hearing, gang members approached White and offered to forgive his debt and pay him $8,000 for his injuries if he refused to testify. They also made threats to harm him and his grandmother if the case went forward.

Federal prosecutors in Virginia on Thursday charged multiple members of street gang the Reccless Tigers with crimes linked to two deaths, multiple fire bombings and a sophisticated bi-coastal drug operation. Three alleged members were charged with murder

White did testify at the preliminary hearing. A few months later, White was lured from his grandmother's home in Falls Church to help broker another drug deal, according to the indictment, when he was kidnapped and driven to the Richmond area.

It was there that gang members fatally shot and stabbed him, according to the indictment.

It is considered the most brazen act attributed to the Reccless Tigers.

Lana Manitta, a lawyer for one of the suspects, Le, declined comment on the specific allegations but cautioned against a rush to judgment.

'Trial is likely a long way off, and we look forward to mounting a defense as to all of the charges against Mr. Le,' she said.

Alan Yamamoto, a lawyer for Lamborn, declined comment. Yoo's lawyer did not return a call and email.

Prosecutors also believe the gang was linked to the robbery of prominent DC rapper GoldLink in 2016.

According to the Washington Post, a group of men turned up at his studio looking for him. His producer sensed something was wrong and told them it was the wrong spot but one of the gang members spotted Goldlink's dog.

The group violently assaulted the producer, smashing a TV over his head before stealing thousands of dollars worth of recording equipment.

Khalil Yasin was later arrested but his attorney told prosecutors that members of the Reccless Tigers were in the courthouse watching Yasin to ensure he didnt testify during his preliminary hearing.

Court records added that another person claimed Yasin was told his house would be burned down if he testified.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is prosecuting the case, has made gang cases a priority, though most of the high-profile cases before this one have involved the MS-13 street gang.

The Reccless Tigers are believed to have been linked to the Asian Boyz, one of the nation's largest Asian gangs, the Washington Post reports.

Although they have their roots in Asian gangs, they have racially diverse members.

They are said to have started about a decade ago and were mentored by the Asian Boyz who began in Long Beach, California in the early 1970s.

Their operation now extends from Northern Virginia to Southern California and are said to have been distinguished by their ambition, as shown on the luxurious lifestyles their members presented online.

They started their own line of clothing but an FBI agent previously testified that high-level members still chose to deck themselves out in Versace.

The clothing line was a cover, however, for the drug proceeds, investigators say and moved between AirBnBs to avoid detection.

While they became more violent some of the members are even said to have held business cards as they extended their lucrative drug distribution network.

'They are more organized. They are more focused on and motivated by money,' Jay Lanham, executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force, said.

'They are heavily involved in drug distribution. They are one of the largest marijuana distributors in Northern Virginia.'

According to a search warrant filed in federal court, one member alone sold more than $1.5 million worth of marijuana during a recent two-year period.

The gang first surfaced publicly in 2013 when Fairfax County police charged members of a subset of the group with gun and weapons violations.

Prosecutors are pursuing a death penalty against an MS-13 gang member in one case, and earlier this year used terrorism statutes for the first time against another alleged MS-13 member.
Iran's FM Zarif writes to UNSC chief: US has no right to demand restoration of sanctions

07/22/20

Source: Tehran Times

Iranian FM enumerates reasons why U.S. can't trigger snapback mechanism



cartoon by Mehdi Azizi, Iranian daily Shargh

TEHRAN - In a letter to the chairman of the UN Security Council on Thursday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blasted the U.S. for it illegal moves to return UN sanctions on Iran, reiterating that since the U.S. has formally withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear agreement has no right to return UN sanctions.



Full text of the letter reads as follows:



"The term "snapback" is never employed in either the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Rather, the US has intentionally used the term to connote rapidity and automaticity. The wording in UNSCR 2231 is actually "reapplication of the provisions of terminated resolutions", which requires an elaborate time-consuming process-intended to preserve the JCPOA, and not to destroy it.



It is clear that the US has no right to the "reapplication of the provisions of terminated resolutions" against Iran for the following reasons:



I. US Terminated Explicitly its Participation in the JCPOA



On 8 May 2018, President Trump signed an executive order to "cease US participation" in the JCPOA. The US administration thus took extensive measures to terminate US participation and to re-impose all US sanctions--a violation of the JCPOA and UNSCR 2231.



Secretary Pompeo speaking at the Heritage Foundation on May 21, 2018: "President Trump terminated the United States participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action."



On 11 May 2018, the US Government informed all JCPOA Participants that it would no longer participate in JCPOA-related meetings or activities.



The term "participant" is not a simple honorific title, rather it requires taking part in an activity or event in compliance with an agreed-upon and specifically defined description of duties, rights, and obligations. The US is therefore not a "Participant" by any stretch of imagination.



II. The U.S. Officially Abrogated Any Right to the Dispute Resolution Mechanism



US officials have repeatedly admitted in public that they relinquished the right to utilize the provisions of UNSCR 2231 when the US left the JCPOA.



Then National Security Advisor John Bolton speaking on 8 May 2018: "... provisions of Resolution 2231, which we're not using because we're out of the deal."



John Bolton writing in the Wall Street Journal on 16 August 2020: "The agreement's backers argue that Washington, having withdrawn from the deal, has no standing to invoke its provisions. They're right."



Brian H. Hook told reporters in New York on 20 December 2019: "... we're no longer in the deal, and so the parties that are still in the deal will have to make their decisions with respect to using or not using the dispute resolution mechanism."



The Trump administration hoped that its withdrawal from the JCPOA and unlawful imposition of "maximum pressure" would either cause regime change, Iran's submission, or Iran's withdrawal from the JCPOA. After the failure of its policy-predicated on poor advice--the Trump administration is now attempting to change course and--in an extreme case of bad faith--conveniently resort to the procedure that they over two years ago permanently closed to themselves.



The U.S. being described as a "JCPOA participant" in a paragraph of Resolution 2231 is purely descriptive and exhortatory; it lists as a factual matter who the participants were at the time of the adoption of the resolution in 2015 and have no other definition.



The EU, UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia have all declared the notification by the U.S. as "null and void."



III. Material Breach of UNSCR 2231 and Lack of Good Faith



The Trump administration has never acted in good faith--an inseparable part of international relations.



Operative Paragraph 2 of UNSCR 2231 calls upon all to refrain "from actions that undermine implementation of commitments under the JCPOA;"



The US violated the JCPOA and UNSCR 2231 by withdrawing from the JCPOA, unilaterally reimposing sanctions, and even punishing those complying with the resolution.



On 26 June 2019, addressing the UN Security Council on implementation of UNSCR 2231 the UN Secretary-General stated: "... the lifting of sanctions allowing for the normalization of trade and economic relations constitute an essential part of the Plan". President Trump has imposed countless sanctions against Iran on over 145 times. He has even decided not to extend waivers for nuclear-related projects which, in the words of the UN Secretary-General, "may also impede the ability of the Islamic Republic of Iran to implement certain provisions of the Plan and of the resolution."



The International Court of Justice clearly underlined in its 1971 advisory opinion on Namibia: "One of the fundamental principles governing international relationship thus established is that a party which disowns or does not fulfill its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from the relationship."



The United States cannot benefit from the fruits of its unlawful act



IV. Iran's Efforts in Good Faith to Fully Implement the JCPOA



President Trump's decision to cease U.S. participation in the JCPOA was not preceded by even a single case of Iran violating its commitments.



Even after the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran continued--for a full year--full implementation of the JCPOA, as verified by 15 consecutive IAEA reports.



Having repeatedly exhausted the Dispute Resolution Mechanism to absolutely no avail, Iran exercised its rights under Paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA to apply remedial measures and cease performing part of its commitments.



Iran's remedial measures have had no impact on the IAEA's monitoring, thereby rendering any claim of proliferation risks irrelevant.



V. Conclusion: Notification by the US Is Inadmissible



The Dispute Resolution Mechanism is only open to the actual JCPOA Participants-and not to a defected "original" participant that willfully and explicitly decided to "cease participation", actively sought to destroy the instrument, and subsequently--and self-admittedly--relinquished all its prerogatives and privileges.



The UN Security Council should prevent the US--an unapologetic and serial violator of UNSCR 2231--from unilaterally and unlawfully abusing the Dispute Resolution Mechanism, with the stated objective of destroying that very resolution--and along with it, the authority of the Security Council and indeed the UN.



The Iranian people expect the UN Security Council to bring the United States to account for the irreparable harm inflicted on the entire Iranian nation merely for reasons of personal aggrandizement or domestic political expediency."
Steve Bannon has dismissed federal charges against him as a "political hit job" following his arrest for allegedly defrauding donors to a crowdfunded US-Mexico border wall project and laundering the proceeds.

He pleaded not guilty to one count each of wire fraud and money laundering on Thursday and was released on a $5m bond following a brief court appearance in US District Court in New York.

On Friday, he returned to his radio programme and podcast War Room Pandemic to announce he is "not going to back down."

"This is a political hit job," he said. "Everybody knows I love a fight. I was called 'honey badger' for many years. You know, 'Honey badger doesn't give.' ... I'm in this for the long haul. I'm in this for the fight. I'm going to continue to fight."

As he left court on Thursday, he cast the indictments against him and three other men involved with the alleged scheme as a "fiasco" intended to "stop people who want to build the wall."

"This was to stop and intimidate people who want to talk about the wall," he said on Friday programme, as reported by Right Wing Watch. "This is to stop and intimidate people who have the president's back on building the wall ... We're never going to stop saying that you can't stop this wall."

Mr Bannon  a former White House senior adviser and Donald Trump's campaign chief executive officer  was arrested at 7.15am on Thursday morning by agents with the New York Field Office of the United States Postal Inspection Service while he was aboard a Chinese billionaire's yacht off the coast of Connecticut.

Three other men involved with a "We Build the Wall" charity  Brian Kolfage, Andy Badolato and Timothy Shea  were also arrested on Thursday. Including Mr Bannon, they each face up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

"To induce donors to donate to the campaign, Kolfage and Bannon  each of whom, as detailed herein, exerted significant control over We Build the Wall  repeatedly and falsely assured the public that Kolfage would 'not take a penny in salary or compensation' and that '100% of the funds raised'" would be used for the crowdfunding campaign's stated purpose, according to a 24-page indictment filed in US District Court in New York and unsealed on Thursday.

"As Bannon publicly stated, 'we're a volunteer organisation'," according to the indictment. "Those representations were false."

The men "defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalising on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretence that all of that money would be spent on construction" along the US-Mexico border, Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.

It's among the most politically charged cases connected to the president's campaign in the hands of the new US attorney for the Southern District of New York, who entered the role after her predecessor Geoffrey Berman was abruptly fired by the president in June.

The We Build the Wall campaign raised more than $25m but was used to fund their own lavish lifestyles through "sham invoices and accounts to launder donations" to conceal their crimes, according to Inspector-in-Charge Philip R Bartlett.

Mr Bannon allegedly took $1m from that campaign, funnelled through a nonprofit organisation under his control, and allegedly used "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to cover personal expenses.

Prosecutors alleged that Mr Kolfage, a US Air Force veteran, "covertly took for his personal use more than $350,000 in funds" raised by We Build the Wall.

The president immediately sought to distance himself from the indictments.

We Build the Wall began as a massive GoFundMe campaign, drawing ire from members of the administration by circumventing the president's campaign trail promise and legal and congressional obstacles for a massive border wall project with a privately funded effort.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted that "President Trump has no involvement in this project and felt it was only being done in order to showboat, and perhaps raise funds."
Security forces on Friday arrested a terrorist associate in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir. A grenade was also recovered from the possession of the Over Ground Worker (OGW). The police in Ganderbal along with 5 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) of the Indian Army jointly made the arrest.

According to the police, the OGW was nabbed at a checkpoint near Baderkund Nursery area of the district. The accused was trying to flee and evade from the checkpoint, but the vigilant party managed to apprehend him. He has been identified as Showkat Ahmad Bhat, son of Abdul Ahad Bhat, and a resident of Urpash Ganderbal.

A police statement read, "A joint checkpoint was established by Ganderbal Police and 5 RR near Baderkund Nursery area of Ganderbal. A suspected person tried to flee and evade from the checkpoint, but the vigilant party managed to apprehend the said suspect."

It further read, "He has been identified as Showkat Ahmad Bhat son of Abdul Ahad Bhat resident of Urpash Ganderbal. During the search, officers at the checkpoint have recovered one grenade from his possession."

Accordingly, a case has been filed under relevant sections of law at Police Station Ganderabal. Further investigation has been initiated.
Key benchmark indices firmed up in early afternoon trade amid fresh buying support. The undertone of the market was upbeat due to positive global cues.

At 12:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, added 306.99 points or 0.8% at 38,530.92. The Nifty 50 index added 91.5 points or 0.81% at 11,403.40.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.8% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index jumped 1.51%.

The S&P BSE Midcap index has gained 3.84% in last five trading session while S&P BSE Small-Cap has rallied 5.66% in the same period. The benchmark BSE Sensex added 1.57% in five days.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1791 shares rose and 794 shares fell. A total of 152 shares were unchanged.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 268.46 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), were net sellers to the tune of Rs 672.23 crore in the Indian equity market on 20 August, provisional data showed.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 22,678,483 with 7,92,708 deaths. India reported 6,92,028 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 54,849 deaths while 21,58,946 patients have been discharged, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, slumped 4.38% to 19.7125. The Nifty August 2020 futures were trading at 11,385, at a discount of 5.65 points compared with the spot at 11,390.65.

The Nifty option chain for 27 August 2020 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 33.46 lakh contracts at the 11,500 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 43.49 lakh contracts was seen at 11,000 strike price.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Max Healthcare Institute hit an upper circuit of 5% at Rs 112.35 after its debut on the bourses today. The scrip listed at Rs 107 on the BSE today. Over 2.37 lakh shares of the company were traded in the counter so far. The stock was listed in the list of 'T' group of securities in on the BSE and it will be in trade-for-trade segment for ten trading days.

The company was listed following a merger of the healthcare assets of Max India into Max Healthcare and demerger of the residual businesses of Max India into Advaita Allied Health Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Max India. The process was part of the Max Group's overall plan to merge its hospital operations with global investment firm KKR-backed Radiant Life Care. Radiant acquired a 49.7% stake in Max Healthcare in June 2019 for around Rs 2,136 crore. After the merger, Radiant will be majority stake in Max Healthcare. Abhay Soi, who was the promoter of Radiant Life Care, will be the chairman and managing director of the merged entity, called Max Health Institute.

Hindalco Industries (up 0.05%) has entered into a memorandum of understanding with UltraTech Cement (up 0.98%) to deliver 1.2 million metric tonnes of red mud (also known as bauxite residue) annually to UltraTech's 14 plants located across 7 states. The MoU represents a significant sustainability initiative for both Hindalco and UltraTech. Waste of one industry being used as an input material in another is more than an example of a circular economy, it exemplifies Hindalco's sustainability-first approach to business, Hindalco Industries and UltraTech Cement said in a joint press release after market hours yesterday, 20 August 2020.

Aarti Drugs hit an upper circuit of 10% at Rs 3122.75, extending gains for the fifth day in a row. The stock has surged 47.76% in five sessions from its recent closing low of Rs 2,113.45 on 14 August 2020. The company's board on Thursday (20 August) approved issuing three bonus shares for each share held.

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Quality Assurance Manager, Seibersdorf, Austria

Organization: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Country: Austria

Field location: Seibersdorf, Austria

Office: IAEA in Seibersdorf

Grade: P-4

Closing date: Tuesday, 1 September 2020

Quality Assurance Manager (P4)

( 2020/0057 (020113) )

Organization: SGAS-Quality Management Team

Primary Location: Austria-Lower Austria-Seibersdorf-IAEA Laboratories in Seibersdorf

Job Posting: 2020-08-11, 4:40:31 PM

Contract Type : Fixed Term

Regular

Probation Period : 1 Year

This is a re-opening of the vacancy. Candidates who already applied do not need to re-submit an application.

Organizational Setting

The Department of Safeguards (SG) is the organizational hub for the implementation of IAEA safeguards. The IAEA implements nuclear verification activities for some 180 States in accordance with their safeguards agreements. The safeguards activities are undertaken within a dynamic and technically challenging environment including advanced nuclear fuel cycle facilities and complemented by the political diversity of the countries.

The Department of Safeguards consists of six Divisions: three Operations Divisions: A, B and C, for the implementation of verification activities around the world; three Technical Divisions: Division of Concepts and Planning, Division of Information Management, and Division of Technical and Scientific Services; as well as three Offices: the Office for Verification in Iran, the Office of Safeguards Analytical Services and the Office of Information and Communication Services.

The main objective of the Department is to maintain and further develop an effective and efficient verification system in order to draw independent, impartial and timely safeguards conclusions, thus providing credible assurances to the international community that States are in compliance with their safeguards obligations. The departmental operating environment is interactive, participative and dynamic with continuous inputs received from the Board of Governors, the General Conference, policy- and decision-makers, as well as counterparts in Member States and in the international development community.

The Office of Safeguards Analytical Services (SGAS) is responsible for the analysis of nuclear material and environmental swipe samples, as well as the coordination of logistics and the Network of Analytical Laboratories (NWAL). Located about 45 km south of Vienna in Seibersdorf, the Office is organized into three sections: the Nuclear Material Laboratory, including the On-Site Laboratory (OSL) in Japan, the Environmental Sample Laboratory and the Coordination and Support Section.

The Coordination and Support Section is responsible for the planning and coordination of the analytical services, the NWAL, quality management and technical support (including IT support and the mechanical workshop) within the Office of Safeguards Analytical Services. It is also responsible for providing the relevant reports.

Main Purpose

Reporting to the Quality Management Team Leader, the Quality Assurance Manager is responsible for the development and implementation of the SGAS quality management system, with respect to the assurance of analysis quality from the IAEA Safeguards Analytical Laboratories, consisting of the Nuclear Material Laboratory (NML) and the Environmental Laboratory (ESL). The SGAS quality management system is certified under the ISO-9001:2015 standard, and it is the role of the Quality Assurance Manager to maintain compliance with this standard. The Quality Assurance Manager is also responsible for the quality assurance programme applied to the IAEA Network of Analytical Laboratories (NWAL) for Safeguards.

Role

The Quality Assurance Manager is: 1) an expert responsible for the development and implementation of the SGAS quality management system, 2) a coordinator of the NWAL external quality assurance programme, 3) a technical specialist contributing to the continuous improvement of the analytical, technical, logistical and administrative processes in SGAS, 4) an adviser to the Quality Management Team Leader on quality issues within the Office, and 5) an adviser to the Quality Manager at the On-Site Laboratory in Japan.

Functions / Key Results Expected

Leads efforts to continuously improve the SGAS quality management system, in alignment with its strategic objectives, and in compliance with the latest version of the ISO 9001 standard.

Organizes and coordinates internal and external quality audits. Takes the lead role for SGAS during ISO 9001 recertification audits.

Assesses the internal quality control programme implemented by the SGAS laboratories, and monitors the quality of analytical methodologies against established performance indicators.

Examines new technical requests and guides laboratory staff in establishing best practices, within the framework of SGAS quality management system, for the development and implementation of analytical methodologies.

Plans, designs, coordinates, executes, evaluates and reports on quality assurance measures, e.g., interlaboratory comparisons and proficiency testing schemes, applied by SGAS to the NWAL members and other Member State laboratories.

Reports to the quality management Team Leader on the analytical performance of the NWAL and provide intelligence and recommendations on how these laboratories may improve.

Tags civil servants continuous improvement information management logistics nuclear fuel cycle nuclear physics project management quality control quality management radioactive materials risk management safety regulations

Represents SGAS in departmental quality management initiatives.

Provides technical advice to the Team Leader and support to the development and management of IT projects relevant to Quality Assurance.

The incumbent may perform his/her work in areas involving exposure to radioactive materials. Therefore, as an Occupationally Exposed Worker, he/she must be medically cleared by VIC Medical Service and is subject to an appropriate radiation and health monitoring programme, in accordance with the IAEAs Radiation Safety Regulations.

Competencies and Expertise

Core Competencies

NameDefinition

Planning and Organizing

Plans and organizes his/her own work in support of achieving the team or Sections priorities. Takes into account potential changes and proposes contingency plans.

Communication

Communicates orally and in writing in a clear, concise and impartial manner. Takes time to listen to and understand the perspectives of others and proposes solutions.

Achieving Results

Takes initiative in defining realistic outputs and clarifying roles, responsibilities and expected results in the context of the Department/Divisions programme. Evaluates his/her results realistically, drawing conclusions from lessons learned.

Teamwork

Actively contributes to achieving team results. Supports team decisions.

Functional Competencies

NameDefinition

Client orientation

Helps clients to analyse their needs. Seeks to understand service needs from the clients perspective and ensure that the clients standards are met.

Commitment to continuous process improvement

Plans and executes activities in the context of quality and risk management and identifies opportunities for process, system and structural improvement, as well as improving current practices. Analyses processes and procedures, and proposes improvements.

Judgement/decision making

Consults with supervisor/manager and takes decisions in full compliance with the Agencys regulations and rules. Makes decisions reflecting best practice and professional theories and standards.

Required Expertise

FunctionNameExpertise Description

Chemistry

Analytical Techniques

Knowledge and practical experience in one or more analytical technique(s) relevant to safeguards (e.g., analytical chemistry, mass spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence, gamma/alpha spectroscopy, microanalysis techniques for particle characterization).

Management and Programme Analysis

Project Management

Proven ability to specify and manage technical projects, in a scientific environment and deliver quality products in a timely manner.

Safeguards

Quality Management

In-depth knowledge and practical work experience in designing, maintaining or auditing quality management systems according to one or more international standards as applied to a laboratory setting (e.g., ISO 9001, ISO 17025).

Safeguards

Quality Management of Analytical Measurement

In-depth knowledge and practical work experience in organizing interlaboratory comparisons and proficiency testing schemes and in using statistical methods for proficiency assessment according to international standards (e.g., ISO 17043, ISO 13528).

Qualifications, Experience and Language skills

Advanced University degree in analytical chemistry, applied nuclear physics or other related field.

Minimum of seven years of working experience in quality management, preferably in a laboratory setting, with experience in one or more analytical technique(s) relevant to safeguards (e.g., analytical chemistry, mass spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence, gamma/alpha spectroscopy, microanalysis techniques for particle characterization)).

Experience with international safeguards and international organizations is an asset.

Quality auditor certification and experience in working in a radiation-controlled area is an asset.

Excellent oral and written command of English. Knowledge of other official IAEA languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) is an asset.

Remuneration

The IAEA offers an attractive remuneration package including a tax-free annual net base salary starting at US $73516 (subject to mandatory deductions for pension contributions and health insurance), a variable post adjustment which currently amounts to US $ 29333*, dependency benefits, rental subsidy, education grant, relocation and repatriation expenses; 6 weeks annual vacation, home leave, pension plan and health insurance

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applications from qualified women and candidates from developing countries are encouraged

Applicants should be aware that IAEA staff members are international civil servants and may not accept instructions from any other authority. The IAEA is committed to applying the highest ethical standards in carrying out its mandate. As part of the United Nations common system, the IAEA subscribes to the following core ethical standards (or values): Integrity, Professionalism and Respect for diversity. Staff members may be assigned to any location. The IAEA retains the discretion not to make any appointment to this vacancy, to make an appointment at a lower grade or with a different contract type, or to make an appointment with a modified job description or for shorter duration than indicated above. Testing may be part of the recruitment process
Even if you have selected a different camera app as your default one, Google is making a change in Android 11 thats going to force all apps to use the smartphones main built-in camera for photos and videos. And heres why.

We told you that Google is bringing in a feature with Android 11 thats going to make all the apps on your smartphone use the main built-in camera app for photos and videos even if you have other third-party camera apps on your device. Google has confirmed this and has explained why thats going to be the case going forward.

Also Read: Android 11 is going to make people use only the devices built-in camera

The Android Team explained that they believe this is the right trade-off to protect the privacy and security of users and added that apps that need to use the camera will need to explicitly name each and every third-party camera all theyd like to support.

Google has added its two bits in to add weight to its reasons for bringing this feature in on Android 11 - they want to stop bad actors from potentially harvesting your location data.

This is not a drastic change and it mirrors exactly how the camera works on the iPhone. However, some popular third-party camera app developers have told The Verge that this move by Google is a shame, one of them is also worried that this is going to impact their business by turning third-party camera apps into second-class citizens.

As The Verge puts it, to understand whats changing, its better to first understand whats staying the same -

You will still be able to use third-party camera apps by clicking on them from the home screen. For apps like Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok that have cameras built-in you will still be able to take pictures with them. You will also be able to double click on the smartphone power button (or other shortcuts) to launch the camera app you want and apps will also be able to launch the camera app you want but they just will not be able to import any photos or videos that way.

What changes is the fact that if third-party apps want to use a camera app on your smartphone, instead of its own camera, they will be sent to your phones in-built camera app instead of another third-party one.

This distinction is important since it means that these third-party camera apps cannot get access to your location. Google has updated its developers guide to explain the reason - they are worried about apps that might ask for photo permission so as they can quietly track your location.

Photos are often geo-tagged and a non-camera app can get access to that information by piggybacking on a camera app even if you have not given this non-camera app location permission.

And this has happened in the past. Shutterly was accused of harvesting GPS coordinates from EXIF metadata in 2019. Other apps have also tried different workarounds like these to break through Androids permissions system.

Some third-party camera apps are seeing this as a problem while others are relatively unfazed by it. However, the question does arise - why did Google need to bring this feature in and why should anyone trust Samsung or Xiaomi's camera app and not these third-party apps?

It could have just cracked down on bad camera apps that share EXIF metadata or could have crafted an API that strips EXIF data. Google insists, in this case, that this is just about protecting EXIF location metadata from abuse, thats all.

On a potential plus side, Google has plans of bringing features like the Night Mode to more camera apps in the future with OEMs like LG, Oppo, Xiaomi, Motorola and Samsung being the first of the few with its CameraX. That might make third-party camera apps feel like first-class citizens in the future.
The rapid advance of digital technologies has had profoundly positive impacts on the human condition, yet the gains have not always been distributed equitably. When it comes to access to current information and communications technology, for example, its still very much a world of haves and have nots. Just consider this finding: Almost half of the worlds population is still without Internet access.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is working to bridge this digital divide, in part by facilitating collaboration among organizations in the public and private sectors to accelerate digital transformation around the world. Thats a key goal of the UN-backed Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS).

GMIS was established in 2015 to build bridges among manufacturers, governments, multilateral organizations, technologists, the research community and investors, in order to harness the Fourth Industrial Revolutions transformative potential for inclusive and sustainable industrial development. A joint initiative between UNIDO and the Ministry of Energy and Industry of the United Arab Emirates, GMIS is a platform that helps create new partnerships, initiatives and actions connected to digital manufacturing.

We see GMISs mission aligning to the Dell Technologies commitment to driving human progress and positive societal change. Through our reach, technology and people, we strive to create a positive and lasting impact by advancing sustainability, cultivating inclusion and transforming lives around the world.

As part of this focus, we are committed to doing our part to help close the growing economic and digital divide that deprives billions of people from opportunities that come only with modern information and communications technologies. Through our work to enable widespread access to technology and to drive technical skills development, we play a role in leveling the playing field for underserved communities  those on the other side of the digital divide.

For example, we are working to help organizations around the world to put emerging technologies to work  such as those for artificial intelligence (AI), machine and deep learning, Edge computing, and 5G networks  to capitalize on data in ways that generate new insights.

Similarly, we are working with GMIS and its supporting organizations to advance the thought leadership that is key to closing the digital divide. This was the case recently when I joined a senior vice president from Pirelli, the global tire manufacturer, for a GMIS virtual panel discussion on industry innovations that will enable a new era of digital restoration.

This discussion, titled Back to the Future: Digital Restoration, explored how businesses can future-proof their organizations by investing in advanced technologies, particularly those driven by AI. The discussion also noted that stronger collaboration among governments and multinationals is essential in order to prevent the digital divide from widening and leaving developing countries behind in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Ultimately, this is a story about putting the power of data to work to change the world. In the near future, data will become an even more strategic resource across multiple facets of business and society. For Western nations, this will mean greater investment in data connectivity, acceleration of the deployment of 5G networks and a push for more valuable insights into leading economic indicators.

For manufacturing, greater connectivity will mean significantly accelerated deployment of Industrial IoT, including sensing, data visualization, remote collaboration tools and AI-based insights across enterprise operations. In this new world, a control-tower view of data and insights across the entire manufacturing operation will become a standard component of running a manufacturing organization.

To learn more

To watch a replay of the GMIS virtual panel discussion on industry innovations, visit Back to the Future: Digital Restoration. For a look at the work that Dell Technologies is doing to close the growing economic and digital divide, see the FY20 Progress Made Real Report. And for additional information about Dell Technologies AI-driven services and solutions, visit Intel AI Builders.
Phase 1b clinical trial will evaluate the safety and pharmacological activity of SAB-185 in COVID-19 patients

Second study initiated this month testing SAB-185 for the treatment of COVID-19

SAB Biotherapeutics (SAB), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel immunotherapy platform to produce targeted polyclonal antibodies, today announced the dosing of the first patient in its Phase 1b clinical trial evaluating the safety and pharmacological activity of SAB-185, a COVID-19 therapeutic. SAB-185, developed from SAB's novel technology platform that leverages the native human immune response to offer a differentiated high-potency therapeutic option that potentially addresses virus mutations, is currently being tested in an ongoing Phase 1 trial in healthy volunteers for the treatment of COVID-19.

"We believe that SAB-185 has the potential to be a differentiated treatment option that provides a highly-specific match against the complexity, diversity, and mutations of SARS-CoV-2. Dosing the first patient in this study marks a major milestone for us as we continue to advance our robust COVID-19 program and represents a step forward in the fight against the ongoing global health crisis," said Eddie J. Sullivan, PhD, co-founder, president and CEO of SAB Biotherapeutics. "The speed with which we have advanced our program reflects our deep understanding of human polyclonal antibodies, the pressing need for treatment options, and the commitment of our team to develop a novel class of immunotherapies that is designed to establish a responsive model for health crises. We look forward to continuing to progress our COVID-19 program, and developing rapid response capabilities to new and emerging diseases."

SAB-185, a human polyclonal antibody therapeutic that potently neutralizes live SARS-CoV-2 at titers higher than convalescent plasma, was developed from SAB's proprietary DiversitAb platform, which harnesses the native human immune response to produce human polyclonal antibodies. SAB's novel approach, which leverages genetically engineered cattle to produce fully human antibodies, enables a scalable and reliable production of targeted, high potency neutralizing antibody product. This approach has expedited the rapid development of this novel immunotherapy for COVID-19 deploying the same natural immune response to fight the disease as recovered patients, but with a much higher concentration of targeted antibodies.

The Phase 1b clinical trial is a randomized, double-blind, ascending dose study of SAB-185 administered intravenously in 21 patients with mild or moderate COVID-19. The primary endpoint of the study is safety. The secondary endpoints include an evaluation of the course of mild and moderate COVID-19 in ambulatory patients. Data from both the Phase 1 and Phase 1b studies will be used to inform the dosing and design of subsequent Phase 2 safety and efficacy studies. The Phase 1b trial is planned to be conducted at multiple sites including Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

"We are excited to participate in this clinical trial to investigate the safety of SAB-185, a novel, first-of-its-kind human polyclonal antibody therapeutic candidate for COVID-19," said David A. Pearce, PhD, president of innovation and research at Sanford Health.

"Our goal is to advance the science around COVID-19 so physicians can be better prepared to treat this novel coronavirus in the future," said Dr. Susan Hoover, principal investigator and an infectious disease physician at Sanford Health. "This therapeutic would be an early-stage treatment that could potentially improve our patients' outcomes and even keep them out of the hospital."

Direct support for the Phase 1 and Phase 1b clinical trials of SAB-185 is provided by the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) on behalf of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs (OASD(HA)) and the Defense Health Agency (DHA).? For more information on the Phase 1b trial, please visit https://clinicaltrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04469179).

About SAB-185

SAB-185 is a fully-human, specifically targeted and broadly neutralizing polyclonal antibody therapeutic candidate for COVID-19. The therapeutic was developed from SAB's novel proprietary DiversitAb Rapid Response Antibody Program in collaboration with the USG. CSL Behring is engaged for clinical manufacturing for the definitive trials. SAB filed the Investigational New Drug (IND) application and produced the initial clinical doses in just 98 days from program initiation. The novel therapeutic, generated from a subunit of the SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain, has shown neutralization of both the Munich and Washington strains in preclinical studies. Preclinical data has also demonstrated SAB-185 to be more potent than human-derived convalescent immunoglobulin G (IgG).

About SAB Biotherapeutics, Inc.

SAB Biotherapeutics, Inc. (SAB) is a clinical-stage, biopharmaceutical company advancing a new class of immunotherapies leveraging fully human polyclonal antibodies. Utilizing some of the most complex genetic engineering and antibody science in the world, SAB has developed a unique platform that can rapidly produce natural, specifically-targeted, high-potency, human polyclonal immunotherapies at commercial scale. SAB-185, a fully-human polyclonal antibody therapeutic candidate for COVID-19, is being developed with initial funding supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense (JPEO CBRND) Joint Project Lead for Enabling Biotechnologies (JPL-EB). In addition to COVID-19, the company's pipeline also includes programs in Type 1 diabetes, organ transplant and influenza. For more information visit: www.sabbiotherapeutics.com or follow @SABBantibody on Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200821005315/en/

Contacts:

Melissa Ullerich

Tel: 605-695-8350

mullerich@sabbiotherapeutics.com
Ranging from virtual orientation to online class models to staggered moving schedules for on-campus housing, safety precautions related to COVID-19 have influenced many aspects of preparing students for the fall semester at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

This week, ahead of the start of classes on Aug. 24, students began moving into Hunter Hall under guidelines for COVID-19-related precautions. Matthew Perry, the schools director of student housing and residential life, said move-in days featured staggered time slots according to students last names to ensure fewer people were on site at once. Everyone involved, including parents, students and staff, was required to wear masks.

These safety measures allowed for everyone to practice social distancing throughout the process, Perry said.

Throughout the semester, the residence hall will undergo regular deep cleanings and students will be encouraged to practice good hygiene with a special focus on hand washing, wearing masks in common spaces and physically distancing from each other as much as possible.

Even in early August, the Clear Lake campus was thinking safety, making use of virtual events to welcome new and transfer students to the university.

Tyler Hall, UH-CLs assistant director of orientation and new student programs, oversaw events that began this summer and extended into this week, including a 2-hour program for transfer students.

Despite the different format, we gave transfer students a quick snapshot of the available resources on campus through these orientations, he said. Even though transfer students have already been to college, they might not know about all our services. This helped them get a true picture of whats available to them via virtual orientation.

Halls department also hosted the schools annual orientation Aug. 19-21 for first-year students. Incoming students enjoyed a drive-through campus event to pick up swag kits filled with UH-CL gear.

4 options for classes

Students have four learning models for classes that represent a variety of online options and one face-to-face approach for lab classes or classes where students can safely distance themselves.

The four learning models offered at the university have formidable titles: online asynchronous, online synchronous, online synchronous/asynchronous and bimodal.

Online asynchronous means students and teachers never meet in person and there are no required virtual meeting times. In the online synchronous model, students work completely online but meet virtually, mostly at scheduled days and times with specific expectations for participation during those times. In this model, teachers lessons and lectures may be recorded, allowing for students to watch them at their convenience.

For those participating in UH-CLs online synchronous/asynchronous model, those students wont meet with their professors in person and will only sometimes meet virtually at specific dates and times. All work will be completed online. There will be some flexibility in terms of when students receive and complete their work, but professors can set requirements for some class participation on specific days and times.

Finally, the bimodal model will be implemented in lab classes or in lectures where the number of students is low enough for everyone to be spaced 6 feet apart in accordance with government guidelines for limiting the spread of the virus.

Outside of actual class work and even before school started, students faced several changes to the traditional college experience as a result of the pandemic.

Over the summer new students also had an opportunity to join Hangin with a Hawk Zoom orientation sessions to meet other incoming students. These events included games, wellness discussions and chances to chat with faculty members.
Amid Political crisis in Mali, Western African countries have decided to send a delegation in the politically fractured country to reverse a military coup, as an opposition coalition in Mali joined the military mutiny in rejecting foreign interference. On August 20, leaders of 15 nation groups of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) took note of the crisis and suspended relations with Mali, shut borders, and stopped financial flows in response to August 18 overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keitas government.

Read: UN Chief Following Developments In Mali Very Closely And With Deep Concern: Spokesperson

According to media reports, the country is already in the grip of growing Islamist militant rebellion and civil unrest. Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, the acting President of ECOWAS, issued a statement at the end of the meeting and said the heads of Western African countries demanded that Keita be returned to power and would immediately dispatch a delegation to Mali that would include former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. In Mali, the opposition coalition named M5-RPF, which lead a protest against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has embraced mutineers and rejected ECOWASs stand on the situation. The opposition leaders are planning to hold victory rally on August 21.

Read: Mali Coup Leaders Vow Elections Amid Widespread Condemnation

UN is following developments

Spokesperson of United Nation Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said UN Secretary-General is following happenings in Political fractured Mali closely and have deep concerns after soldiers arrested Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and several members of his Cabinet in a military coup. While speaking to journalists Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric said United Nations mission in Mali is also following the situation and keeping eyes on the developments.

Read: Mali Mutiny: World Leaders Urge Ruling Junta To Release President Keita, PM Cisse

UN Secretary Generals spokesperson also said United Nations peacekeeping forces will be continuing their work on the ground and will be cooperating with the Malian people and the Malian security force, which is guarding the North and Central areas, where the situation is still worrying. On August 18 Antonio Guterres in a statement strongly condemned the military mutiny and arrest of the President and members of his government.

Read: Alexei Navalny: Know Russias Anti-corruption Campaigner Whom Putin fears The Most
High above a bend in the Susquehanna River, a half-dozen Trump campaign signs sprouted from the tidy green lawns of West Nanticoke in 2016. A solitary Clinton sign offered the only evidence of the competitive election raging across Pennsylvania - and nationwide.

On Thursday, Michael Wolfkiel walked his local streets, chatted with neighbors about the latest from the Democratic National Convention and scoured front yards to tally the score.

"Sixteen for Biden, four for Trump," said the 62-year-old. "I thought this must be a pretty red neighborhood. Apparently not."

The whole region was actually reliably Democratic for decades, helping to make Pennsylvania an essential building block in the Blue Wall. But the former coal-mining hub shifted dramatically toward the Republicans in 2016, reflecting the power of Trump's pitch in rural areas and small towns.

In Wolfkiel's Luzerne County, voters who twice opted for Barack Obama delivered Donald Trump a stomping 19-point margin over Hillary Clinton, which was pivotal to his statewide victory margin of less than 1%. Pennsylvania was Trump's narrowest win anywhere, and it helped propel him to the White House.

He may need to repeat the trick to win reelection - a point underscored Thursday by the president's visit to a town just upriver from Luzerne and only minutes from Biden's boyhood home, in Scranton. Trump rallied supporters - and sought to upstage the Democratic nominee only hours before his marquee convention speech.

Yet local Democrats say they see evidence that Luzerne could be swinging back in their favor as Biden courts the White working-class voters who defected four years ago. And the convention that ended Thursday night with Biden paying tribute to his northeast Pennsylvania roots, they say, is likely to have helped their cause.

"We've been absolutely overwhelmed by requests for those yard signs," said Kathy Bozinski, the Democratic Party chair in Luzerne. "At this point in the 2016 campaign, there was not even a fraction of the enthusiasm that we're experiencing now."

The energy, she said, has built over the course of the week.

A convention stripped of its joyous crowds and relegated to the digital world, she said, has been an unexpected hit.

"People love this format. They really do," she said. "The roll call was more than just hoopla from folks on the floor, with a couple of balloons. You actually met the folks from Guam."

When Robert Casey Jr., the senior senator from Pennsylvania, popped up in front of Biden's boyhood home Tuesday night, Bozinski cheered from her living room and tapped out approving messages on social media. "That, for me, was a moment," she said.

Polls have given Biden a national lead of around eight points. Surveys show a narrower, though still substantial, advantage in Pennsylvania. But Bozinski, a television news veteran who lost her marketing job amid coronavirus-spawned cutbacks, said that has done little to allay the anxieties of Democratic activists.

"None of us believe in polls after 2016," she said.

That year, Clinton ended with a 2.1 percent lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average for Pennsylvania. That's not terribly far off from the 0.7 percent margin of Trump's victory, but enough of a difference to scar a generation of Democrats.

The coronavirus pandemic has made it especially difficult to gauge attitudes this year, with Biden's public campaign curtailed and Democrats forgoing door-knocking.

Republicans insist that polls are undercounting Trump's support, especially in places like Luzerne, where, they say, blue-collar backers may be reluctant to tell survey-takers what they really think.

Four years ago, said Lou Barletta, a Republican who represented the area in Congress for nearly a decade, Trump was on the verge of pulling out of Pennsylvania, giving it up as a lost cause.

"I begged him not to because the polls were wrong. I told him Northeast Pennsylvania would put him over the top," said Barletta, who lost a 2018 Senate race to Casey. "This year, I see a repeat of 2016, only with a wider margin of victory for President Trump."

As Barletta spoke Thursday, his voice was drowned out by the roar of a crowd cheering in advance of Trump's arrival. "You would never see this for Joe Biden," he said.

He didn't think the convention had helped the Democratic cause. "Rather than speak about a vision for America, it's a bashing of the president," he said. "It turns people off."

Not everyone, of course. Democrats and Biden-backing independents say the convention has accomplished exactly what they hoped: unify the party behind their nominee, energize the rank and file and make a powerful pitch to voters who may be wavering.

"It was a great show of the big-tent aspect of the party. We have an incredibly wide and diverse coalition uniting together," said Tony Thomas, a 30-year-old financial aid counselor who is active with the local party's young wing.

The glue that binds it, he said, is disdain for Trump and a conviction that the country can do much better.

"The president has sort of done our job for us of bringing voters back to the Democratic side," Thomas said.

Luzerne is the kind of place where Trump has been able to cut deeply into a traditional Democratic advantage. The county's biggest city, Wilkes-Barre, has a population of only about 40,000. Mining and manufacturing jobs have been replaced with warehousing and the service sector. About 90 percent of the population is White.

Wolfkiel's house in West Nanticoke - a wooded neighborhood of single-family homes just up the hill from a diner, a barbecue joint and a gun shop - is among the 16 with Biden yard signs. It's his first and, he said, reflects just how strongly he feels that Trump needs to be defeated.

"I didn't put one up in 2016 because I thought, erroneously, that we couldn't be that awful that we'd elect this clown," he said.

A native of northeastern Pennsylvania, Wolfkiel has lived there his entire life, except when he went away for college. He worked for the same company for 35 years, leading training programs for a health-care company.

But with the economy wrecked by the coronavirus, he was laid off in June. His youngest child just graduated from college but hasn't been able to find a job. His wife recently had to go back to work, putting on hold a retirement that had begun only in February.

It's not the way he imagined this phase of life going, and he can't help blaming Trump's stumbling response to the pandemic.

"There's no way you could have prevented all the negatives," he said. "But Trump has actively and passively thrown gas on the fire."

As he searches for a new job, Wolfkiel has found an outlet: volunteering for the Biden campaign. The work includes helping his neighbors get their hands on Biden yard signs. There is no shortage of demand.

One neighbor, Ed Nowak, said he proudly votes "for the person, not the party," when making his presidential picks. Through the decades, Nowak's preferred person has included Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Obama.

Early on, he was intrigued by Trump.

"I thought Trump was an astute businessman," he said. "I was one of those who would have been hopeful that he could do half of what he said he was going to do."

No more. This year, the retired civil servant has planted a Biden sign in front of his brick ranch house, and even contributed to the campaign - something he had never done for any politician. His disdain for Trump's style overrides all.

"Issues are one thing," he said. "But the meanness is another. It may be his ploy to get votes and tap into the anger. But it's not right."

Nowak has settled into an easy chair in his cellar each evening and watched nearly all of this week's convention. He has come away impressed and, at times, moved.

A segment featuring Ady Barkan, a progressive activist who is suffering from advanced ALS, a neurodegenerative disease, and is pushing to transform America's "fundamentally broken" health-care system, struck a chord. "That really touched me," he said.

Nowak is measured when talking about Biden himself. The 77-year-old former vice president is not perfect. But he knows it.

"He's a good man at heart," Nowak said. "I realize that he may have gaffes. He may misstate some things. But he'll tell you he was wrong. I appreciate that."

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Candice Muench has come to a similar conclusion about Biden -though from a different spot on the ideological spectrum.

The high school history and political science teacher is a devout Bernie Sanders fan. She was "crushed" when he came up short in 2016, and again this year.

Like Sanders, she doesn't think Biden's proposals to change American health care and the economy go far enough. And the nominee's propensity for verbal miscues makes her nervous. Nonetheless, she'll be actively working to elect him this fall, something she never did for Hillary Clinton.

"We may not be 100 percent in line with Biden's ideology. But the consequences of Trump winning again could set us back decades," Muench said. "Bernie feels like a lot of us progressives do. We've got to get Trump out."
It truly is a crazy world we live in. But its even crazier for our kids.

Adults confront that craziness each day, armored with life lessons (respect others, the Golden rule), often hard-learned through painful stumbling, getting back up, and carrying on in the journey of life. Thats how many of us made it this farthose of us who did make it at all. These days, children, faced with that same craziness, arguably have it much worse than adults ever did.

Predators are lurking everywhere: online, at our schools, on the streets; and toxic, life-ruining influences abound. Ill-meaning adults, like wolves in sheeps clothes, have poisoned the proverbial water of our society with child-harming trends and ideas: normalizing pedophilia, and activist ideologies seeking to recruit kids into radical (political) movements at increasingly young ages. And then there are all the things children see online and in the news: rioting, police brutality, hate, division, and much, much more.

But the next greatest challenge rests on the shoulders of the parents.

A memorial and mural that honors George Floyd at the Scott Food Mart corner store in Houstons Third Ward, where Mr. Floyd grew up on June 8, 2020, in Houston, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

It is the parents who must give support, wisdom, and love so those children will be equipped to forge, through their own painful stumbling, their OWN suit of armor and fight for the cause of goodness in a world filled with wickedness. Good parents who love their children and want to teach them to be good people have always been the silent majority throughout history, and have allowed civilization to reach where we arethough you might not think it to watch the news these days.

Donnell Goss and his daughter Luna are a good reminder of this underlying truth.

Goss, a fitness instructor with his own brand from Denver, Colorado, and his 6-year-old daughter went viral on Facebook for a selfie they took with a group of local sheriffs officers whom they randomly encountered on the way to a fitness group. Donnell is black, and his daughter, Luna, who is half black, was feeling anxious and confused about all of the chaos going on in the world right now: the rioting, racial division, hate, and what happened to George Floyd.

Donnell decided to teach his daughter an important lesson on how to confront all that: not with hate, but with love.

Donnells daughter Luna (Courtesy of Donnell Goss)

Luna mentioned George Floyds murder and wondered why the cops did what they did, Donnell told The Epoch Times. I had to explain to her that just like theres good apples and bad apples? There are good cops and bad cops and thats something we cant control. We CAN control how we conduct ourselves throughout life and we do that through love and respect and never being fearful of things we dont understand.

Thats when they parked their car and happened to see the three officers hanging out in the parking lot nearby. At that moment I knew that this was a perfect teaching moment! I couldnt have asked for a better-timed situation! the dad said.

Donnell took Luna to meet the officers.

Donnell, daughter Luna, and three sheriffs officers (Courtesy of Donnell Goss)

As a father, I felt it was my job to debunk that fear by bringing her over to meet guys, Donnell said. Thats when the gifts started rolling in from the officers  stickers, teddy bears, badges, they gave any and every little thing to Luna on that day in the parking lot, and then we took a selfie.

And what an uplifting selfie it was!

Everyone in the photo was all smiles, and it drove home a point that not everything you see in the news is real. Donnell posted it on Facebook on June 4, and it went viral, garnering 79,000 likes with tens of thousands of shares to date. In his post, the father captioned the transcendental parenting experience, and how compassion won the day:

I started to notice Lunas dialogue over the past few days and in her confused little 6-year-old brain, she didnt know whether or not if she should like cops. She started questioning all things in regards to how to feel toward cops (rightfully so). As her father, I feel it is my job not to fuel that confusion but find a SOLUTION to her dilemma. With everything being routed in fear right now, I chose to bring Luna over to these 3 officers and they couldnt have proven my point any clearer.

Donnells lesson was something that is so common sense we sometimes lose sight of it. We all know 2 wrongs never make a right, and you never meet hate with hate, as Donnell captioned.

He then shared some more fatherly wisdom worth remembering: When you meet hate with love and compassion, theres no room for that hate to grow.

Donnell and daughter Luna (Courtesy of Donnell Goss)

This story was last updated in August 2020.

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LONDON  Its a big year for Bioeffect, the Icelandic skin-care brand that believes in the healing and rejuvenating power of naturally occurring, collagen and elastin-building proteins which it cultivates in barley plants.

Despite the impact of COVID-19 on most corners of the world, and on Bioeffects core markets, the brand has welcomed a new chief executive officer in Liv Bergorsdottir, and plans to mark the 10-year anniversary of its hero product, EGF Serum, with the launch of a limited-edition, double strength version of the formula.

The packaging of the new, double-strength serum has been designed by the Iceland-born, New York-based contemporary artist Hrafnhildur Arnardottir who goes by the name of Shoplifter.

The 50-ml bottle of the anniversary serum will be sold inside a special sculpture designed by Shoplifter. It will pre-launch in China in August and will be released in September in the rest of Bioeffects 27 markets. The Limited Edition 50-ml serum costs is 395 pounds, while the 15-ml EGF Serum is 125 pounds.

EGF stands for epidermal growth factor, a protein found naturally in humans that boosts the skins ability to produce collagen and elastin.

EGF can be extracted from human or animal cells, or grown in bacteria, but Bioeffects parent ORF Genetics believes that cultivating the protein in barley is safer, purer and more stable.

After decades of research, ORF Genetics developed the technology to produce the EGF proteins in barley and does so year-round at its own geothermal energy-powered farms and greenhouses in Iceland.

Dr. Bjorn Orvar, Bioeffects cofounder and chief scientific officer who has a PhD in plant molecular biology, said barley is a good protein machine as its biologically contained, so there is no danger of cross-pollination, and because its an old plant and very tough. It can grow anywhere.

Orvar also touted the Bioeffect skin-care formulations, which contain a limited number of powerful ingredients: One of the main ones is Icelands ultra-soft water, which is filtered by volcanic rock and contains no heavy metals as part of the formula.

Story continues

The brand already has a strong foothold at home, and abroad. The company said that 30 percent of Icelandic women over 30 have used Bioeffect to increase the thickness, elasticity and health of their skin.

Some 95 percent of revenues come from outside the country, with China and the U.S. among the fastest-growing markets.

Bioeffect offers 13 products and is stocked at stores including Harrods, Liberty, Selfridges, John Bell & Croyden and Lookfantastic.com in the U.K. The limited edition will be sold at stores including Harrods, Net-a-porter and sites belonging to The Hut Group.

Bergorsdottir was named ceo of ORF Genetics earlier this year and has a background in the telecommunications sector, and in building consumer goods companies.

Looking ahead, she believes that barley could potentially be a host for all sorts of proteins that benefit the skin. Were not running on all cylinders  we can do so much more in terms of developing skin care for the hands, body. We can (develop) face masks and (address) specific skin concerns.

She said the company is poised to expand, both via retail and through online direct-to-consumer channels. The message of high-performing pure ingredients is spot-on for these times a for a younger generation that is all about transparency and pure formulations, she added.

There is so much opportunity now.

Next, the company will be looking at making its packaging as environmentally friendly as possible as it pushes ahead with its research into, and development of, barley-born proteins.

We are small but were strong, said Bergorsdottir, and weve been paving the way since the start.

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Arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol increased dramatically in two Illinois State Police districts in west-central Illinois after pandemic restrictions were eased.

In ISP District 9, which includes Morgan, Cass and Sangamon counties, arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol have more than doubled, according to data provided by ISP. In the less than three months since the start of June, 55 arrests for DUI-alcohol have have been reported. In the five months of January through May, only 40 DUI arrests were reported in the district.

DUIs also doubled in ISP District 18, which includes Greene, Jersey and Macoupin counties. While 31 DUI arrests were made between January and May, 36 DUI arrests have been reported since the start of June.

Another district that serves west-central Illinois did not see a similar increase. District 20, which includes Scott, Schuyler, Brown and Pike counties, reported seven DUIs since the start of June while 15 were reported from January to May.

Arrests for driving under the influence of drugs have remained relatively consistent in the three regions so far this year, the data show. District 9 reported 17 drug-related DUIs while District 18 reported eight and District 20 reported 10.

The summer months historically have seen increases in incidents of drunk driving as temperatures rise and people start attending more parties where alcohol is served. Businesses that serve alcohol also started to return to business as summer progressed and pandemic-related restrictions were eased.

Phase 3 of the states reopening plan, which allowed bars to set up outdoor seating after months of being closed  began on May 29 across most of the state. Restrictions were further loosened on June 26 with the beginning of Phase 4, which allowed bars to reopen for indoor service.

Roy Atwater, a public information officer for Illinois State Police, said it is too early in the year to tell if DUIs have increased statewide. He also said declined to speculate on a cause for the recent rise in DUI arrests.

Atwater said ISP patrol officers are continuing to patrol the roads in the midst of the pandemic.
Now that the idea is out there, though, who knows if Elon Musk might act on it.News sites started buzzing recently about a new dating app that was just for Tesla owners. It turns out, however, that the app isnt real  yet. The news was actually about a website, Tesla Dating Co., created by a Canadian developer, Ajitpal Grewal. According to, Grewal confirmed that he created the site as a parody, just to see how much interest it would attract.And it attracted a lot. Grewal said that as of Aug. 21, 1,000 people had signed up on the site. Grewal said he would consider creating the app for real if there was enough interest  looks like he might have to seriously consider it now.
Melburnians fed up with Victoria's Stage Four lockdown restrictions are planning to hit the streets in protest in defiance of the emergency laws.

At least 11,000 have already committed to the 'Freedom Day' protest, which is planned for Saturday, September 5th.

This is ahead of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews' pledge to end Stage Four lockdown on September 13 - but he has repeatedly warned that could be extended at any time.

A protest is being organised in Melbourne that aims to deft the strict stage four lockdown restrictions

Police arrest a man during a huge police operation in Melbourne last month

A man leaves after being questioned by police during an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne on Sunday

Rumblings about a planned protest have been circulating for days, with a protest initially planned to go ahead on the day the lockdown was to end.

That date has now been pushed forward to September 5, with a public Facebook page quickly amassing thousands of supporters.

Organisers had initially attempted to keep the planned protest in the shadows out of fear of arrest and sabotage by authorities.

Angry Victorians identified by social media posts were initially contacted by organisers privately before a public page emerged.

Protesters are expected to include everyone from anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers to ordinary Melburnians who have lost their livelihoods due to the lockdown.

Victoria police has clamped down on public protests with extreme prejudice in the months following the Black Lives Matter protest on June 6.

Back then, police stood back and watched on as thousands of arrogant COVIDiots marched along Melbourne's streets following the death of Black American George Floyd at the knee of police.

Premier Daniel Andrews is refusing to rule out further restrictions on Victorians next month

A protest planned for next month could turn into the 'Eureka Stockade'

Protesters are being organised on social media after an initial attempt to keep the protest secret

Members of a group calling themselves the United Kingdom of Australia held a dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance in protest to lockdown conditions last month

A month after it happened, the premier blamed the protest on police.

'We indicated to everybody involved that they should not be protesting, its not time for a protest, make your point some other way,' Mr Andrews told Triple M radio on July 8.

'I dont think you do your cause any good by going out and protesting.

'But look, police made the call that the notion of trying to arrest 10,000 people was just not something that could be practically done.'

Since then, Victoria Police has embarked on a massive show of force on Melbourne's streets.

'A ll it will take is for someone to just chuck a rock at a lamp post outside of (parliament). That's what triggered off the Eureka Stockade. It'd be quite symbolic,' one Melburnian said.

Just weeks after Mr Andrews' comments, police marched upon Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance armed with guns, batons and horses in preparation for a planned rally by anti-mask protesters.

The move largely worked, with only a small gathering braving the police juggernaut.

On Friday, Victoria recorded 179 new coronavirus cases - the lowest daily increase since July 13.

The premier has indicated that number would need to reduce even further for Melburnians to be released.

'We have numbers in the low 200s, the trend is good. [But] we have to acknowledge that even at that number, even at half that number, if you opened up, you wouldn't have defeated the second wave  you'd just be beginning the process of a third wave,' he said this week.

Meanwhile, those planning to hit the streets in protest of the lockdown have been thrown into confusion when the planned date suddenly moved forward to September 5 - well within the stage four lockdown period.

Confusion remains about when exactly the protest will take place. It was originally planned to go ahead when stage four lockdown ended, but has been moved forward

Protesters remains confused about the change of date to September 5

'In my opinion the 5th is a dangerous date because if things should go wrong then it will give Andrews all the more powers to hold it against us and continue with stage 4 or even more,' one person commented.

'If you guys keep the date at the 5th of September, whats to stop the police using extreme measures and force to stop people from the suburbs getting into the city,' another wrote.

'I am a mother and have to think about the wellbeing of my family, I definitely wont be attending on the 5th largely due to fears of the police exercising (their) new found powers.'

While it is understood the intent of the protest was to be peaceful, Daily Mail Australia has been told it could end with 'blood on the streets'.

'All it will take is for someone to just chuck a rock at a lamp post outside of (parliament). That's what triggered off the Eureka Stockade. It'd be quite symbolic,' one Melburnian said.

The Eureka Stockade was a rebellion in 1854, instigated by Victorian gold miners, who revolted against the colonial authority of the United Kingdom.

On Friday, protest organisers claimed to have made the decision to go public amid fears the lockdown will continue indefinitely.

'If you noticed over the last few months, theres been dozens of groups on Facebook addressing the issue of lockdowns in Australia,' they stated.

'It took a bit of time but within 2 days, all of us got in a zoom call meeting, got on the same page with a nationwide date, time + location.

'The Victorian government is expected to continue the lockdown indefinitely, so we will remain subject to change in accordance to their decisions this weekend.'

Police welcomed protesters in Melbourne last month with a show of extreme power

A man is detained after refusing to move on during an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne last weekend

Police on horseback greeted protesters in Melbourne last month

Victoria Police told Daily Mail Australia it was aware of the planned protest and would be ready.

'We are continuing to make enquiries into the organisers of this event to deter any breaches of the Chief Health Officers directives,' police stated.

'This would be a completely blatant breach of the Chief Health Officers directions, putting Victorian lives at risk.'

Police made it clear they would not hesitate to enforce the emergency laws.

'Be assured Victoria Police will be responding and will take appropriate action. Those thinking of attending can expect to see a highly visible police presence in and around the city to ensure the community is complying with Stage 4 Restrictions,' it stated.

'We will have no hesitation in issuing $1,652 fines or making arrests on the day, if necessary. In addition to this, those who are found to be in breach of a self-isolation order can be subject to a fine of $4,957. '
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 10:24:34|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan Interior Ministry said Thursday that 67 illegal immigrants have been rescued off Abu Kammash, a town some 120 km west of the capital Tripoli, after their boat capsized.

The rescuees include 17 women and 10 children, the ministry said in a statement.

They were taken to the headquarters of the Anti-maritime smuggling and infiltration unit of Zuwara city, about 29 km from Abu Kammash, on Wednesday, where they were "provided with humanitarian and medical assistance, and then handed over to an illegal immigrants reception center," the statement said, adding that "search is underway for missing immigrants."

Federico Soda, chief of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Mission in Libya, said on Wednesday that around 45 illegal immigrants died in a shipwreck off the country's coast.

"Some 45 people die in largest recorded shipwreck off Libya this year. There remains an absence of any dedicated, EU-led search and rescue program," Soda tweeted Wednesday.

Libya has been mired in a state of insecurity and chaos since 2011, making the North African country a preferred point of departure for thousands of illegal immigrants who want to cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Europe.

Immigrant shelters in Libya have been overcrowded with migrants despite repeated international calls to close them.

More than 7,000 illegal immigrants have been rescued and returned to Libya so far in 2020, according to IOM. Enditem
Ala. church starts 'Jesus 2020' campaign: We want Jesus in front of everybodys thoughts

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Just a month after members of a church in Alabama launched the Jesus 2020 campaign, thousands of signs displaying the slogan have popped up all across the country.

Sampey Memorial Baptist Church in the small town of Ramer, Alabama, located just outside of Montgomery, has set itself up as the Jesus 2020 campaign headquarters. The campaigns organizers explained the rationale for launching the movement in a Facebook post last month, one day after the creation of the Jesus 2020 Facebook page.

We originated this idea so people would know that we believe this country and the whole world needs Jesus! the July 16 Facebook post reads.

The organizers elaborated further on their campaign in a subsequent Facebook post on July 26, adding, We wanted to take a stand and revive hearts that have felt despair and hopelessness as a result of todays politics and events.

Joyce Hubbard, one of the Jesus 2020 organizers, discussed the campaign in more detail in an interview with The Christian Post.

Were in a small town, and our church probably has less than 200 members. And weve probably had 20 to 30 people [attend] since the coronavirus, Hubbard said.

But we just decided that we could do something, she added. We dont have to be a big church; we dont have to be a megachurch to do something. We can get a spark. It just takes a spark to get  a fire started all around the country, so thats what we decided to do.

Wells Printing in Montgomery, Alabama, has worked with the organizers to produce Jesus 2020 campaign signs, as well as T-shirts, car magnets, and decals. Those interested in purchasing Jesus 2020 merchandise can visit the website.

While the Jesus 2020 campaign has already distributed more than 5,000 yard signs, organizers say they haven't come close to meeting their ultimate goal. Our mission is to have a JESUS 2020 sign in every yard across America!, the campaign's Facebook page proclaims.

When asked about the future of the Jesus 2020 campaign, Hubbard told CP that she and her co-organizers, Martha Sikes and Susie Halse, plan on continuing it through at least the election but haven't ruled out extending it beyond Nov. 3. 2020 doesnt end until December 31, so were going to do it as long as we feel its needed, she said.

Despite the Jesus 2020 movements use of campaign signs normally associated with politics, Hubbard stressed that the group was not political.

Our focus is on Jesus, she declared. This is not political. Its not denominational. Weve had all denominations, all races of people all want signs.

We feel like Jesus is so important, Hubbard added. Hes been left out of so much and has been pushed out of so many things that we just feel like  we want Jesus out there  forefront in front of everybodys thoughts.

Regardless of what happens in the 2020 presidential election and every other election, Hubbard believes Jesus is always the winner.

Hes always the one thats going to keep His promises; Hes the one whos going to lead us, she added.
In the Sushant Singh Rajput case, the CBI has now been called in. They have sent their Special Investigation Team, to examine the evidence and take charge of the case. The team has begun questioning of Sushant's staff, starting with his cook. At the same time, the Enforcement Directorate is recording Sushant's sister Priyanka's statement.,

In the Sushant Singh Rajput case, the CBI has now been called in. The Supreme Court, in an order, handed the case to the CBI, and said that an impartial probe is the need of the hour. The top court also asked the Mumbai police to hand over all evidence it has collected to the investigating agency and said any other case registered in connection with the actors death would also be investigated by the CBI. They have sent their Special Investigation Team, to examine the evidence and take charge of the case. According to a new report, here are some details about the work the SIT team will be doing.

The 16-member SIT has been divided into three teams for an effective probe. One team that will look after the statement of the witnesses and talk to them. They will be the ones questioning Rhea Chakraborty and Sushants family.

The second team will be looking into the forensic evidence and meeting the doctors who have done SSRs post-mortem. The third team will investigate the Mumbai Polices work into the matter, exploring the professional rivalry angle, and everything else.

Currently, the ED is questioning Sushants sister Priyanka as well, as it appears they have found her mentioned in Sushants 2020 diary. They are trying to ascertain whether or not she was aware of Sushants plans.

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According to the latest reports, a member of Sushant Singh Rajputs staff was questioned in Mumbai today by the CBI, A man wearing a black mask and dark shirt was seen with CBI officers in a video.

The SIT, led by officer Nupur Prasad, has now commenced their investigation, with this interrogation. Sushant Singh Rajputs cook, who is among the key witnesses, was questioned.

The staff were questioned at the office of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Air Force Guest House in Santa Cruz. At the same time, CBI investigators met police officer Abhishek Trimukhe, who was among the first few at Sushant Singh Rajputs Bandra home after his death.

Rhea Chakraborty, a 28-year-old actor, has been questioned twice by the Enforcement Directorate, which is inquiring into Sushant Singh Rajputs fathers allegations of crores being taken out of his account.

The CBI has yet to decide where to question Rhea Chakraborty; it usually questions women accused at their homes.

The top court also asked the Mumbai police to hand over all evidence it has collected to the investigating agency and said any other case registered in connection with the actors death would also be investigated by the CBI.

The CBIs SIT in Mumbai can investigate the crime scene in the next two to three days, and a team can visit Sushants house by this evening. The team will be recreating the crime scene with the help of the late actors dummy in exact height and weight as of the actor. People in the case will questioned simultaneously and if there are contradictions in their statements, they will be interrogated face to face. .

In the next few days, the SIT team of CBI will investigate the autopsy report, crime scene, photographs, videos with forensic experts. After analyzing the crime scene, the forensic team will go back to Delhi and conduct several tests in the CFSL.

Among the forensic experts who have come with CBIs SIT, the Photo Expert and Scientific Aid Division is from the CFSL Delhi Unit, the rest is from the Forensic Expert Technical Forensic Expert CFSL Delhi Unit.

The SIT will re-examine the samples taken by the Mumbai Police, including the crime scene, photographs, videos, and everything else.

A CBI officer said to the media, Our investigation will not be limited to the abetment of suicide case. We will probe all possible angles. We cannot comment more as we are yet to see the case file.

Also read: LAC: India, China agree to resolve outstanding issues expeditiously
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The countrys health chief is appealing to medical workers to be selfless and to join the countrys hospitals amid the health crisis, however difficult it might be.

Siguro (maybe), let's be selfless ... It is not going to be easy anytime soon. It is going to be more difficult, but we just have to live with it. But of course, the sense of nation must be an overarching consideration in the hearts of every healthcare worker, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in a webinar held Friday.

Ako po ay nananawagan. I appeal to the sense of nationalism and patriotism of every healthcare worker, nasa giyera po tayo, magkaisa po tayo, magtulungan po tayo, Duque added.

[Translation: I am calling on medical workerswe are in a war. Lets be united and help one another.]

Duque noted that many overseas medical professionals who recently came home refused to apply to the Health Departments emergency hiring program.

Of around 1,000 medical workers the government is eyeing to recruit, only 25 have signed up, he said, as he urged them to reconsider their decision.

'Yung iba ay ayaw, Duque said.

[Translation: Some of them turned down the offer.]

Baguhin po natin ang ating pagiisip sa gitna po ng pandemyang ito, he added.

[Translation: I urge you to change your minds in the midst of this pandemic.]

The government has again eased the overseas deployment ban on medical workers, allowing those who have secured employment documents on or before March 8 to leave the country.
Marshall said Facebook took down his personal pages and his candidate page for his recent run for the state legislature. He said that he had begun helping the campaign of Loren Culp, a Republican candidate for governor, but that my ability to do that was completely yanked out from myself by Facebooks action.
Researchers in Germany are giving out scholarships in idleness and are willing to pay people to do as little as humanly possible.

The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg is searching for exactly the right people to take part in a unique project examining laziness and lack of ambition.

Applicants will have to convince the academics they will be inactive in a particularly interesting way to win one of only three 1,600 Euro (1,450) scholarships available.

The application form asks potential idlers both what do you not want to do? and why is it important not to do this thing in particular?

Professor Friedrich von Borries  who designed the project  thinks it is important to study laziness more closely to help bring about an eco-social transformation. It is about exiting the constant success spiral, getting off lifes hamster wheel, he said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Applicants from across Germany are invited to submit their pitches on their plans for active inactivity before 15 September.

If we want to live in a society that consumes less energy, wastes fewer resources, this is not the right system of values, Professor von Borries told Germanys Deutsche Welle broadcaster.

Wouldnt it be nicer to gain social prestige by saying, I have time to dream  meet friends, put up my feet  I have time to do nothing?

Not everyone is convinced the project is worthwhile. Professor von Borries said Germanys Taxpayers Association have questioned the idea and demanded to know who is financing the experiment.

The search for success never ends, even if people have financial security, said Professor von Borries.

The project will form part of an exhibition called School of Inconsequentiality: Towards A Better Life planned at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg next year.

It comes as researchers in Berlin prepare give a select group of people just over 1,000 a month, no strings attached, as part of an experiment to assess the potential benefits of introducing a universal basic income (UBI).

The German pilot study will initially see 120 people handed the monthly sum of 1,200 Euros to monitor how it changes their work patterns and leisure time.

The radical idea has attracted a growing amount of interest around the world as a way of potentially supporting people during the coronavirus pandemic and beyond.

Advocates claim a small, regular income from the state to all citizens would help tackle poverty, encourage more flexible working practices, and allow some people to spend more time caring for older family members.
Airbnb announced this week it would ban "all parties and events at Airbnb listings," setting a cap of 16 people per rental property.

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This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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An Airbnb logo is shown during an event in San Francisco on Feb. 22, 2018. Airbnb announced this week it would ban all parties and events at Airbnb listings, setting a cap of 16 people per rental property. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Eric Risberg

Airbnb announced this week it would ban "all parties and events at Airbnb listings," setting a cap of 16 people per rental property.

The home-sharing platform said the move was in the best interest of public health.

The new policy is harsher than previous warnings that Airbnb users must follow local COVID-19-related public health guidance.

Airbnb says it will ban users who skirt the 16-person cap and could take legal action as well.

Scrutiny on Airbnb "party houses" pre-dates the pandemic as several violent episodes have erupted at parties hosted at Airbnb rentals.

Three men died in a shooting at a Toronto condo party in February and a 19-year-old student launched a lawsuit against the company in 2019 after being shot in the back during a party at a house rented through Airbnb in Toronto.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2020
FRC Releases New Publication on Biblical Principles for Human Sexuality

Reaffirms that Christianity stands in direct opposition to the ideologies underlying the sexual revolution



NEWS PROVIDED BY

Family Research Council

Aug. 21, 2020



WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- Family Research Council has released a new publication titled "Biblical Principles for Human Sexuality: Survey of Culture, Scripture, and Church History." The publication comes on the heels of the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which has accelerated the sexual revolution and empowered other activist judges to rule in ways that will have far-reaching effects throughout society.



The booklet, part of FRC's Biblical Worldview Series, provides guidance and encouragement for Christians who desire to engage on issues related to human sexuality in a way that is both loving and faithful to Scripture. It describes how theological liberalism and the sexual revolution displaced a Biblical understanding of sexuality in the mainstream American understanding. It exposits the Bible's clear teaching on God's creation of male and female, his ordination of man-woman marriage, the moral imperative to contain sexual intimacy within that union, and the prohibitions against homosexual acts, transgenderism, and other departures from God's design. The publication also shows from church history how the current rejection of a Biblical understanding of human sexuality from within the church is an aberration from the norm, and how many denominations--Orthodox, Catholic, and many forms of Protestant--still hold to the Bible's teaching.

David Closson, Director of Christian Ethics and Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, authored the publication. In it, he writes:

"In the face of increasing social, political, and legal pressure to succumb to the moral revolution, all Christians, but especially pastors, must remain committed to God's Word and its teaching on marriage and human sexuality. As evidenced in this publication, the Bible has clear answers on these subjects, and faithfulness requires nothing less than upholding, teaching, and defending these truths in a loving manner. This will not be easy, but it is necessary for the witness of the church, the flourishing of individuals, and obedience to God."

Regarding the publication's release, Closson remarked: "Increasingly, the Bible's teaching on marriage and human sexuality is ridiculed as outdated or, worse, seen as subversive to the common good. Unfortunately, because so few Christians have a biblical worldview, many lack the tools to push back on this narrative with a distinctly Christian vision for flourishing families and communities. My hope is that this publication equips believers--especially pastors--to faithfully and winsomely articulate a biblical sexual ethic."

To read the full publication, visit: www.frc.org/humansexuality.



SOURCE Family Research Council



CONTACT: J.P. Duffy or Joshua Arnold, 866-372-6397



Related Links



www.frc.org




A Northern Ireland woman has been jailed on the Isle of Man for a month after breaking quarantine rules.

Fraser Nolan (60) of Osborne Drive in Belfast had been given special permission to visit the Isle of Man to take care of her late mother's estate.

Arriving by ferry on Sunday, she agreed to abide by strict Covid-19 rules for non-residents and self-isolate for 14 days at an empty family home in Castletown on the south of the island.

Just two days later, she broke regulations by travelling around 10 miles on a bus to visit a locksmith in Douglas.

The BBC report that she was reported to police via an anonymous tip-off, with officers going to her house to find it empty and contacting her on her mobile.

Promptly arrested on her return, the court heard the company director told officers she had "taken a chance" by making the journey.

She had also wanted advice on how to open a safe to access documents relating to her mother's will.

The court was told that Mrs Nolan had not read the terms of her exemption certificate properly and had "made a very silly mistake".

During her sentencing on Wednesday, magistrates told her the journey had "no real urgency" and that she had "put many people at risk".

With visitors only allowed with an exemption certificate, breaking the strict rules can result in a fine of up to 10,000 or three months in prison.

Mrs Nolan's defence had called for a suspended sentence, saying she had not read all the detail of her exemption certificate and was not aware of the level of penalties on the island.

A spokesperson for the Isle of Man Courts Service listed Mrs Nolan's charges as including failure to comply with a direction under the Emergency Powers (Potentially Infectious Persons) Regulations 2020 between August 16 and August 31.

They added that all prisoners are taken immediately to Isle of Man Prison located in the northern parish of Jurby.

Nicknamed Jurby's Hilton, the mixed-use facility was featured in a 2019 ITV documentary, The Best Little Prison in Britain?

Housing around 120 prisoners with nearly as many staff members, it was reported that all inmates have their own cell and are allowed out for up to seven hours every day.

Other perks are said to include a personal shopper to help prisoners spend their weekly wages of 35.

Despite the apparent relaxed atmosphere, no prisoner is automatically eligible for parole.

Jail terms for drug offences are also three times longer than in England and Wales, however reoffending rates are also considerably lower at 12.5% compared to 48%.
This year, we have seen how quickly markets can change. The T3 Fellows program prepares businesses to overcome change and leverage their strengths in a challenging marketplace, says T3 Sixty president Jack Miller.

T3 Fellows, the executive leadership program for real estate entrepreneurs passionate about dramatically growing their business, announced its eighth class of graduates today.

The MBA-like program delivers a rigorous 12-month curriculum focused exclusively on business-specific solutions for the residential real estate brokerage industry. It is delivered through an extensive one-on-one mentoring schedule, in-person mastermind workshops and monthly accountability online sessions.

The T3 Fellows curriculum covers all vital aspects of building and developing a real estate brokerage business. The program is geographically exclusive for only one brokerage or team per market area. It specifically targets increasing brokerage revenue by recruiting agents that best match each companys culture and values, improving brokerage profitability by increasing individual agent sales, creating powerful branding and marketing programs and leveraging lead generation and conversion for more sales.

This year, we have seen how quickly markets can change. The T3 Fellows program prepares businesses to overcome change and leverage their strengths in a challenging marketplace, says T3 Sixty president Jack Miller. The graduates are going into a new era better prepared and with the knowledge of best practices that have been tested to provide results.

The four business owners have successfully completed the program are:



Aaron Bosshardt (Bosshardt Realty, Gainsville, Florida)

Mark Faris (Faris Team, Ontario, CAN)

Kemper Funkhouser (Funkhouser Real Estate Group Harrisonville, Virginia)

Charles Ward (Novella Living, Greenwood Village, Colorado)

T3 Fellows graduates leave the program with a new sense of confidence of who they are as an organization and where they want to and can go. This understanding empowers them to take their businesses to the next level," says Dean Cottrill, SVP, T3 Sixty and Program Director of the T3 Fellows program.

The 2020 Fellows program was enhanced this year with the participation of Jonathan Kauffman, CEO of Nest Realty, who served as a guest lecturer and special mentor. T3 Fellows mentors are practicing real estate broker-owners and team leaders who operate some of the most highly regarded and innovative brokerages and teams in the country and are willing to share firsthand experiences with participants.

About T3 Sixty

Exclusively serving the residential real estate brokerage industry, T3 Sixty provides management consulting and counseling to real estate C-level executives, organized real estate leaders, broker-owners and leaders of high-performance teams to help them grow their businesses. T3 Sixty also offers in-depth research, information and best practices with its hallmark Swanepoel Trends Report, an annual analysis of the biggest trends impacting the industry, and the Real Estate Almanac, a comprehensive examination of the U.S.s largest brokerages, franchises, networks, associations, MLSs and technology providers. More at t360.com.
As per new reports, on the process to expand the 5G network in the US, Samsung is already developing the 5G small cells for Verizon.

Notably, amidst the rift between Huawei and the US government, Huawei has been excluded to take part in the deployment of 5G networks, not only in the US but also in several major countries.

And now, the South Korean giant is working on 5G small cells which will be based on Qualcomms 5G chipsets. For the unaware, small cells refer to small base stations which the customer can install themselves, while the outdoors cells are called macro-cells.

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Samsung made 5G small cells will strengthen network coverage and reliability

Going by the report, users will be able to station these Verizon 5G cells at their homes or offices for better 5G coverage. Besides, this enhances the network speed at these locations and will provide a more reliable 5G network.

Apparently, these small 5G cells are based on the 28GHz mmWave 5G technology. Small cells rely on the millimeter-wave spectrum, which could drastically help improve speeds, connectivity, and reduce latency, etc.

Earlier, the Samsung made 4G LTE small cells for Verizon featured Intels LTE chipsets. Moreover, these small cells are available on the US-carriers website for $249.99. The cell is of a size of a tablet and weighs in around 500 grams.

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This small design and portability make it easier for the user to install at their place. Because it does not require laying any cables throughout the place, except the ethernet cable.

In place of home-grown Samsung chipset, the company is using Qualcomm chipset

Well, it is a no brainer that Samsung did not have any incentive using its own Exynos chipset for 5G small cells. Therefore, the South Korean OEM went ahead with Qualcomms chips for Verizon.

In the past, Verizon has been criticized for the poor performance of the mmWave-based 5G network in the US. Besides, users have regularly raised complaints regarding low coverage in the country.

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Now, with the availability of these 5G small cells, Verizon will benefit its customers with wide 5G coverage and great connection stability.

It is worth noting that Samsung and Verizon have been working side by side on this product since 2018. For our in-depth coverage from back in the day, you can head here.

Samsung has already established 5G networks in regions like Canada, New Zealand, Japan, the US, and other countries. And now, with the help of these 5G small cells, Verizon will also join the leagues, all thanks to Samsung.
India to have 6.8 million fewer female births by 2030 due to abortion: study

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India will have approximately 6.8 million missing female births between 2017 and 2030 because of sex-selective abortions, according to a recently published study.

Fengqing Chao at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, and her colleagues had their paper published by PLOS ONE on Wednesday, titled Probabilistic projection of the sex ratio at birth and missing female births by State and Union Territory in India.

According to the paper, the sex birth ratio (SBR) of India has been imbalanced since the 1970s and is projected to result in 6.8 million fewer female births by 2030.

The researchers attributed this to a combination of the intensity of son preference in Indian culture and fertility squeeze, or a pressure to have a smaller family household.

The masculinized SBR for India is a direct result of the practice of sex-selective abortions at the national level, explained the researchers, noting that different regions of the country vary on when this male birth preference began.

Some states, such as Punjab, have experienced an early and rapid rise in birth masculinity since the 1980s, whereas in North Indian states, the masculinized SBR started to increase later.

The researchers looked at the SBR estimates by states and union territories in India from 1990 to 2016, as well as data from the India Sample Registration System on total fertility rates and Indias Demographic and Health Surveys.

We project that out of the 21 Indian States and UTs with SRS data, 16 will have imbalanced SBR between 2017 and 2030, they continued.

Among these 16 States/UTs, the largest contribution to the female births deficit is projected to be from Uttar Pradesh, with a cumulative number of missing female births projected to be 2.0 [1.9; 2.2] million from 2017 to 2030.

The researchers proposed better identification, monitoring, and education in the worst affected regions of India as part of the solution to the issue of missing female births.

Our study highlights the need to strengthen policies that advocate for gender equity and the introduction of support measures to counteract existing gender biases that adequately target each regional context, they concluded.

Future work may include additional sources of heterogeneity, such as education, religion, and ethnicity, for projecting the SBR in India and extending the SRB predictions for longer-term projections.

Jonathan Abbamonte, research analyst at the Population Research Institute, wrote in an op-ed piece published by The Christian Post last year that India is not the only nation facing a disproportionately high number of male births due to sex-selective abortion.

Abbamonte also named China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, nations in the Balkan Peninsula of Europe as problem areas where millions of girls have been lost as a result.

In India alone, I have found that approximately 15.8 million girls have been eliminated through sex-selective abortion and other forms of prenatal daughter elimination since 1990, he wrote in 2019.

To put that in perspective, that is roughly the equivalent of the population of Portugal and Finland combined.

In 2014, former President Jimmy Carter told David Letterman in an interview that he considered sex-selective abortion the "worst human rights abuse on earth."

He added, "160 million girls are now missing from the face of the earth because they were murdered at birth by their parents or either selectively aborted when their parents find out that the fetus is a girl."

"Well, it's the worst human rights abuse on earth and it's basically unaddressed  So that many people are missing and they're all girls who are missing."

In the United States, several states have considered and even passed bans on sex-selective abortion, only to face legal battles over their constitutionality by pro-choice groups.

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued a ruling allowing Arkansas to enforce a law passed in 2017 banning sex-selective abortions.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge celebrated the decision, saying in a statement that Arkansas has taken a strong stance to protect the unborn from inhumane treatment.

As Arkansas chief legal officer, I have always advocated for the lives of unborn children and will continue to defend our states legal right to protect the unborn, stated Rutledge.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization with historic ties to Planned Parenthood, has argued that banning sex-selective abortions would not resolve the issues they create.

Evidence from the global context indicates that sex-selective abortion bans do not work to prevent sex selection, because these bans do nothing to challenge the phenomenon of son preference or its underlying causes and they are difficult to enforce, argued the Institute in a post from January.

Also, sex-selective abortion is only one of several medical methods of choosing the sex of a fetus; others, such as sperm sorting and preimplantation genetic diagnostics, remain legal under state bans on sex-selective abortion.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 20:31:09|Editor: huaxia

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-- "The new road has been built in the shortest possible time of four years and has been playing a vital role in making life easier and bringing benefits to the people of Pakistan," Pakistani Israr said.

-- The implementation of the road project also created job opportunities for more local people.



by Xinhua writers Li Hao, Liu Tian

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Making a living on transporting construction materials, 20-year-old Pakistani Israr was delighted to see the opening of a brand-new road in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, signaling a boost to his career.

The road has substantially shortened his travel time from Attock in Pakistan's eastern Punjab Province to northern Gilgit, meaning he can now earn more money.

As an early project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the 118-km-long road from Havelian to Thakot was constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation under the Karakoram Highway (KKH) Phase Two project, which consists of the expressway section from Havelian to Mansehra and the secondary road section from Mansehra to Thakot.





LEADING TO PROSPERITY

It used to be a 5.5-hour drive from Havelian to Thakot, but it now takes less than two hours, which means a lot for the thriving of trade activities, said Wang Benqian, general manager of the KKH Phase Two project.

Completely opened to traffic just weeks ago, the road has already been seeing a number of vehicles coming and going, including buses, passenger vans, and trucks loaded with construction materials, animals and fruit.

"The new road has been built in the shortest possible time of four years and has been playing a vital role in making life easier and bringing benefits to the people of Pakistan," Israr told Xinhua.

"The fuel consumption and maintenance costs of my vehicle have been largely reduced. We have endured the pain in the past when there was no such road, but now, traveling has become smooth, fast and pleasant," he added.

At a roadside fruit stall near his village of Lammi in Mansehra, 21-year-old college student Ehtisham sells apricots and peaches to travelers. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Pakistani government closed all educational institutes in the country, including Ehtisham's college in Abbottabad, located between Havelian and Mansehra.

"I was free at home. More people are coming because of the new road, so I decided to start this fruit business to help my family and also provide convenience for the travelers," Ehtisham said.

Photo taken on July 28, 2020 shows the secondary road section from Mansehra to Thakot under the Karakoram Highway (KKH) Phase Two project, in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (China Road and Bridge Corporation/Handout via Xinhua)

"I bought these fruits from a market in Mansehra, and used a vehicle to transport them here. The new road is excellent, very smooth, and no fruit got damaged during the trip," he added.

Ehtisham said the landscape in Pakistan's North is very beautiful, with lush green mountains and valleys, and he believes that more tourists will go there thanks to the new road.

The college student used to live in a hostel in Abbottabad, but now he plans to commute between his home and the college on a daily basis after the college reopens as the new road has made the journey much shorter.

The implementation of the road project also created job opportunities for more local people. "The KKH Phase Two project employed over 10,000 local people at the peak of its construction and also trained a large amount of road-building professionals for Pakistan," Wand said.





RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

According to Wang, the construction of the new road from Mansehra to Thakot formally commenced in September 2016, while the 39-km-long four-lane expressway section was inaugurated in November 2019, and the 79-km-long two-lane secondary road section was inaugurated in July this year.

Along the way, the complex geological conditions and topography of Pakistan's mountainous northern region brought great challenges and difficulties to the construction of subgrade, tunnels and bridges.

"The areas along the KKH are called the museum of geohazards, because almost all kinds of geological disasters including earthquakes, landslides and rock-fall can be found here," Wang said.

Instead of reconstructing and expanding the original road, the project's goal was to build a higher-category new road, which made the implementation even more challenging.

Photo taken on Nov. 18, 2019 shows the expressway section from Havelian to Mansehra under the Karakoram Highway (KKH) Phase Two project in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)

What's more, the unexpected pandemic brought further trouble. Wang said the project team implemented closed-off management in all project camps to cut off the transmission route of the virus.

Though both the Chinese and Pakistani employees found themselves under a tighter schedule and facing more psychological pressure due to the pandemic, a new road measuring 10.7 km that snakes its way through mountains and valleys with six tunnels and 105 bridges had been put into use, said Wang, adding that "not a single confirmed COVID-19 case had been found among the project's personnel so far."





FRIENDSHIP ACROSS KARAKORAM

In Thakot, there is a bridge across the Indus River named Youyi Bridge, with "youyi" meaning "friendship" in Chinese.

On a monument next to the bridge, it is said that the bridge's name is "in memory of those valiant Chinese and Pakistani engineers and workmen who sacrificed their lives during the construction of KKH (1966-1978) and (to) commemorate the friendship between Pakistan and China."

The COVID-19 outbreak ruined the plans of many Chinese personnel to return to China for vacation and enjoy family reunions. Among them was 33-year-old Ma Wei, manager of the secondary road section of the KKH Phase Two project, who came to Pakistan in 2016 soon after he got married.

"The time I have spent with my family has been less than half a year in the past four years. My wife planned to come to Pakistan from Beijing during (Chinese New Year) this year, and after that, we would go back to China together. We were even considering having a baby. But all of this had to be postponed due to COVID-19," Ma told Xinhua.

Photo taken on Nov. 18, 2019 shows the expressway section from Havelian to Mansehra under the Karakoram Highway (KKH) Phase Two project in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)

However, Ma said the "Karakoram spirit" provided him encouragement. "The difficulties that the Chinese and Pakistani workmen faced when they built the KKH in the last century are unimaginable, and hundreds of them sacrificed their lives."

For the common target of building this road, many of the Pakistani personnel chose to stay with the Chinese team and continue to work during the closed-off management period.

That "made me feel the uniqueness of the China-Pakistan friendship. When such a beautiful road was put into use, no matter what it has cost us, we feel everything is worthwhile," he added.

Because of the closed-off management measures, the last time that Yousuf Karim, who joined the project at the end of 2015 as an interpreter, went home was in February.

"Closing off the camps is necessary and effective to prevent COVID-19. We may get infected on the way back, so not going home is actually to protect my family," the 35-year-old father of two boys told Xinhua.

"Compared to our Chinese friends who left their families to come here to help us build this road and could not go back for a long time, what we endured is not a big deal," he added.

"If there is no road, it is meaningless to talk about development ... When China achieves development, it is also trying to help other countries, including Pakistan, to develop together," he said.

Despite the spread of the coronavirus, none of the CPEC projects under construction and in operation have become stuck in stagnation, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing said.

The implementation of the projects, the diplomat added, will create job opportunities, and greatly help Pakistan mitigate the negative impact of the disease and bolster its economy.

(Video reporters: Jiang Chao, Ali Jaswal, Tariq Hameed; Video editor: Zheng Xin)


Washington  Rep. Elise Stefanik said Friday she will deliver a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention next week in support of a second term for President Donald Trump.

Stefanik, who represents a North Country district, said she will use the headline slot to provide a critique of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, did not disclose the date or time of her speech, nor say how long she has been given to speak. She will deliver the address from the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

Trump called Stefanik, 36, a GOP rising star in November after she emerged as one of his most outspoken defenders during House impeachment hearings. Trump later selected Stefanik to serve on his impeachment defense team during his trial in the U.S. Senate.

Stefanik said Friday that North Country residents enthusiastically support the president. She said the number of campaign signs for Trump are proof of his popularity in the 21st Congressional District, which includes Watertown and Fort Drum in Jefferson County.

As I have been working and campaigning in my district, I have seen thousands of Trump signs compared to just two signs for Joe Biden, she said.

Stefanik is seeking a fourth-term in the November election. She faces Democrat Tedra Cobb of Canton in a rematch of the 2018 election.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Were all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.

Welcome to the Gang

The big news on late night Thursday was the arrest of the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Hes accused of skimming funds from an online campaign that promised to help build President Trumps border wall.

A crowdsourced fund-raiser to build a [expletive] wall in the middle of the desert? marveled Seth Meyers, who thought it had clearly been a scam from the start. The thing was one rung below those companies that claim to name a star after you.
For former finance minister Bill Morneau, this has been a dramatic week. For the rest of us, not so much.

Morneau went into the week as one of the most powerful ministers in Justin Trudeaus government. He left without a cabinet job and with his political career in tatters.

The reasons for his departure are murky. It has been reported he had major policy differences with the prime minister. In particular, he is said to have balked at Trudeaus desire to spend vast sums of money in order to get the economy moving again.

This is a possible scenario but not a plausible one. As finance minister, Morneau has been delightfully insouciant about running deficits.

He has argued convincingly that, regardless of the federal deficit and debt, Canada has plenty of room to borrow. He has said that if Canada is to make it through the pandemic, the government must be prepared to spend massively.

He has never portrayed himself as a deficit hawk. The idea that he would suddenly do so now beggars belief.

And yet that, it seems, is exactly what various unnamed sources would have us think.

Morneau was competent enough to see the country through the COVID-19 emergency, Trudeau said Tuesday. But now that its time to rebuild, it seems a different finance minister is required.

Trudeaus choice, Chrystia Freeland, is an obvious one. The deputy prime minister is a real force in the Liberal government. She is talented and hard working.

However, her description as Canadas first female finance minister is a bit overblown. And it might surprise some  including Carole James, British Columbias current finance minister; Janet Ecker, Ontarios finance minister in 2002-03; Joy MacPhail, B.C.s finance minister in 1998 and Janice MacKinnon, Saskatchewans finance minister in the mid 90s.

But then one of the purposes of this weeks show was to make it seem more memorable than it was. Thus we learned  drum roll  that the government will deliver a speech from the throne next month outlining its plans for the future.

What will those plans be? Trudeau wont say. But he insists they will be really something.

Given that Trudeau is governing in a hung Parliament, we can be sure that the throne speech will be crafted as a platform for the Liberals should a snap election be called.

We can also surmise, from Trudeaus repeated evocation of Joe Bidens clumsy campaign theme, Build Back Better, that the Liberals are desperately searching everywhere  including the U.S. Democratic Party  for ideas to put into this throne speech.

In particular, it seems they hope to align themselves with the strong anti-Trump mood among Canadian voters.

So, in sum, heres what weve discovered from this weeks events. Weve learned that it has been a bad few days for Morneau. My guess is that he is not being punished for policy offences. In policy, he faithfully echoed Trudeau.

Rather, he is being punished for political ineptitude. Specifically, he is being punished for failing to understand the optics of accepting gifts from WE Charity. Trudeau made a similar political misstep. But hes not about to fire himself.

For the rest of us, though, nothing much has changed. We have a new federal finance minister. However, she is expected to stay the fiscal course mapped out by Morneau.

We have a government that, as always, is looking for ideas it can sell to voters. And we have an opposition that while sanctimoniously baying for blood over the WE affair is not yet prepared to bring this minority government down.

Its all pretty much business as usual.




When you learn a new language, you must learn the meaning of individual words.

But, there is another area that you should pay attention to: expressions, or groups of words.

Some expressions are especially useful whether you want to improve your speaking, listening, reading or writing skills.

These expressions are common in everyday speech, newspaper writing and academic writing. What are these expressions?

In this weeks Everyday Grammar, we will explore phrasal expressions.

Phrasal expressions

In recent Everyday Grammar stories, we explored phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are groups of words that have a verb and one or more short words. Together, these words have an idiomatic meaning  a meaning that differs from what the individual words suggest. For example, the phrasal verb "hang out" means to relax, or enjoy some time without any planned activity. You can hang out alone or with others.

There are also phrasal expressions  groups of words that work together to take on a meaning that is different from what the individual words suggest.

Consider this example: the words there is. This is a phrasal expression. This group of words appears together as a unit. But if you try to think about each word, the meaning might be difficult to understand. Consider this:

There is a bug in my tea!

The word there takes the subject position in the sentence, but it does not really give any meaning. It is what grammar experts call an expletive. Together, the words there and is make a kind of expression  there is.

Without there is, the sentence would be:

A bug is in my tea!

Do not fear. You do not need to remember the grammar that we just talked about. What is important is that you understand that English has groups of words that act together. These groups of words are generally formulaic, meaning set, fixed and commonly used.

More examples

Eli Hinkel is a language expert. She writes that formulaic expressions have to be used and learned as whole units.

Hinkel gives many examples, such as you are welcome, who knows? how are you? and by the way.

Lets consider by the way. If you think about the words individually, you might have a difficult time understanding this phrasal expression.

When someone says by the way they mean they are about to propose a new, and perhaps less important idea, to a conversation. So, you might hear an American say the following at the end of a business meeting:

Thanks, John. By the way, could you send me those budget estimates when you get a chance?

Norbert Schmitt and Ron Martinez published a report in the Journal of Applied Linguistics about some of the most common phrasal expressions in the British National Corpus, a 100 million word collection of written and spoken language.

They suggest that some of the more common phrasal expressions include there is, there are, such as, of course, a few, at least, I mean, you know, a bit, sort of, and in order to.

If you listen to everyday speech, you will hear these words often. Many of them are common in writing, too.

Closing thoughts

Today we explored phrasal expressions  groups of words that mean something different from what you might expect. The good news is this: these expressions are common, useful and not too difficult to learn. But they do require careful study and practice in using them!

Ashley, by the way, Schmitt and Martinez also published a list of common phrasal expressions along with examples. It might help our listeners and readers learn common phrasal expressions.

Thats right! I almost forgot! You can find it, along with other useful information, at Schmitts vocabulary resource page.

And thats Everyday Grammar.

Im Ashley Thompson.

And Im John Russell.

John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

phrasal  adj. grammar: of, relating to, or consisting of a phrase or phrases

unit -- n. a single thing, person, or group that is a part of something larger

expletive  n. a word or phrase that fills out (or takes a slot) in a sentence without adding to the meaning

conversation  n. a talk involving two people or a small group of people

practice  v. to do something again and again in order to become better at it




The Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office on Thursday said a grand jury indicted three men on murder charges in connection with three separate homicides, including one that left a 70-year-old 7th Ward resident dead during a home invasion.

Azemore Joseph, 35, is accused of firing several shots at Lloyd Vanderhorst Sr.'s home in the 1600 block of Treasure Street on Jan. 20. At least one of those bullets was lodged into Vanderhorst's chest and he later died at a hospital, according to police.

Prosecutors said Joseph, nicknamed "Lil Vic" and "Seven," broke into Vanderhorst's residence before the fatal shooting. Witnesses also identified the gunman as Joseph and told police he made threatening phone calls to Vanderhorst prior to the break-in.

If convicted on the second-degree murder charge, Joseph faces a life sentence, the District Attorney's Office said. He was also charged with obstructing justice in a homicide investigation.

Man jailed in home invasion that left 70-year-old man dead on Treasure Street New Orleans police have arrested a suspect in a home invasion that left a 70-year-old man dead last week.

The Orleans Parish grand jury handed up two other murder indictments on Thursday.

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

Larry Rowel, 21, is accused of second-degree murder in the Dec. 2, 2019, killing of 26-year-old Terrance Hampton in the 4800 block of Wilson Avenue. At the time, Hampton was driving in the area when a silver or gray Mitsubishi SUV stopped in front of him. Prosecutors said three gunmen wearing ski masks got out of the car and fatally shot Hampton in the head.

Authorities later found the SUV, linked it to Rowel and found additional evidence in his apartment. He faces a lifetime term if found guilty and was also charged with obstruction of justice in a homicide investigation.

Dijon Curtis, 20, was indicted for second-degree murder in the slaying of 20-year-old Brent "Bug" Jenkins at Washington Avenue and Dryades Street on Jan. 26. Prosecutors said they were able to identify Curtis through video surveillance outside of an area convenience store, which showed the suspect gunning down Jenkins. The footage also showed Curtis leaving the area in a white SUV with two others, the DA's Office said.

Police arrested Curtis in March after they found him hiding in the attic of a Gentilly home. He is also charged with obstructing justice in a homicide investigation and aggravated burglary in a separate incident in February, and faces life in prison if found guilty of murder.
A Pennsylvania-led coalition of six states and Washington, D.C., on Friday sued the U.S. Postal Service and its top two political appointees, saying they have delayed and disrupted mail delivery in an effort to interfere with mail voting in the November election.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia three days after Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro first announced the plan to sue, says new Postal Service policies were implemented without going through the Postal Regulatory Commission as required by federal law; those policies violate the law setting Postal Service standards; the resulting mail delivery delays disrupt mail voting in a way that interferes with states right to determine how votes can be cast; and obstructing the vote-by-mail process violates the Constitution by disproportionately disenfranchising older voters who face health risks from voting in person during the pandemic.

The service delays caused by Postal Services implementation of sweeping new policies in the midst of a pandemic may disenfranchise voters because their ballots will not be sent or received in time and may deter people from voting because they do not trust that their ballot will be delivered, the suit says.

Pennsylvania was joined in the suit by California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, as well as the District of Columbia. In addition to the Postal Service, they are suing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a top Republican donor whom President Donald Trump appointed in May, and Robert M. Duncan, the chair of the Postal Service Board of Governors, whom Trump appointed in 2017.

Policy changes implemented soon after DeJoy took over the Postal Service have led to mail delays and disruptions across the country, with some neighborhoods in Philadelphia going upward of three weeks without mail. Those changes have raised alarm that voters will be unable to receive and submit mail ballots on time, a key voting method during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Pennsylvania Department of State last week asked the state Supreme Court to extend mail ballot deadlines because of delivery concerns.

Testifying before a U.S. Senate committee on Friday, DeJoy cited the intimidation of the coronavirus as a major reason for mail delays in Philadelphia.

He said the availability average of Postal Service employees has dropped about 4% nationwide due to the pandemic. But in urban areas like Philadelphia, which have been hit especially hard, employee attendance is down more than 25%, he said.

Philadelphia has 750 routes, and we have days where were short 200 carriers. And this can go on a while, DeJoy said. Thats not the only contribution, but when the American people go two, three days without seeing their carrier, thats an issue.

DeJoy also testified he had no idea blue mailboxes and sorting machines were being removed until a public backlash over the potential impact on the election. DeJoy abruptly reversed course this week, announcing the Postal Service will suspend planned changes until after the November election. But in addition to blocking further changes, the new lawsuit seeks to reverse policies that have already been implemented.

On Friday, DeJoy assured senators that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on time.
Its a legal loophole big enough to drive one of those big green U.S. Forest Service pickup trucks right through it. And its past time for Congress to do something about closing it.

A federal case in Albuquerque was more or less open and shut when it came to Army combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient Adam Griego and a camping trip with friends at the Juan Tomas Campground east of Albuquerque in 2015.

And barring a change, its just as open and shut Griego is unlikely to ever collect a penny of damages awarded in court for the brutal treatment he received at the hands of a U.S. Forest Service ranger. Thats because there is no federal statute requiring the U.S. government to pay a court-ordered judgment when federal officers violate constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Judith Herrera found in 2018 that Forest Service Ranger David Chavez had done just that when he handcuffed Griego and repeatedly slammed his head on the hood of a Forest Service truck. Officer Chavez used the force of his whole body to smash Griego down, the judge wrote. His head was throbbing, and he was stunned from the impact. Further, Griego was confined for several hours in a hot vehicle with no water, terrorized by a police dog.

The judge noted Griego and another camper who filed suit were unarmed and posed very little threat to the Forest Service officer. The judge also concluded it appeared Chavez attempted to destroy cellphone video evidence of his actions.

She awarded Griego $450,000 in damages and another $140,000 in damages to his friend and fellow camper Elijah Haukereid. It was Haukereid who took the cellphone video. When the ranger saw him recording, he slapped the cellphone out of his hand, drew his Taser and locked Haukereid in another officers car for two hours.

So what brought all this about? Griego, Haukereid and several others apparently entered the area through a road that was closed to the public. Rangers handed out some citations, all of which were dismissed.

Griego was in the Army from 2008 to 2013 and served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He survived five roadside bomb explosions, two that resulted in serious head trauma. Judge Herrera wrote that at the time of the campground assault, Griego suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The ranger incident exacerbated his condition, Herrera wrote, adding Griego hit rock bottom after the assault.

Chavez, who left the Forest Service, didnt bother to show up at the trial even though federal law required Griego to sue him personally. Chavez did face criminal charges of deprivation of civil rights under color of law. He got a year probation and community service. In his plea deal he admitted that, When I slammed (Griego) onto the hood, I knew it was wrong but I acted anyway and I did so in my capacity as a law enforcement officer. A.G. was handcuffed at the time and compliant, and he did not pose a threat at any time.

But at this point that $590,000 judgment isnt worth the paper its written on. Chavez discharged his debts in bankruptcy, and the Forest Service has declined to pay.

Albuquerque attorneys Lauren Oliveros and Timothy Padilla are appealing to our congressional delegation to push for a statute requiring federal agencies to pay in such cases of employee misconduct. That should absolutely happen, and it would seem to be the kind of thing that even a politically divided Congress could agree on.

Oliveros and Padilla knew going in there was no statutory legal requirement for the agency to pay (there would be one in a similar case involving state employees) but said the government has the discretion to do so and often does. For some unexplained reason the Forest Service  with an annual budget of more than $5 billion  has refused in this case. Why? The agency didnt return Journal requests for comment.

Short of a change in the law, the lawyers are asking our congressional delegation to persuade the Department of Agriculture bureaucracy and Secretary Sonny Perdue to force the agency to pay up. While our senators and representatives should be more than willing to help, its a short-term fix. Congress should rectify this serious systemic injustice, not just for Griego and Haukreid, but for those who come later.

Meanwhile, our hearts go out to a veteran treated so shabbily by the nation he served by putting his life on the line. He deserves better from his government.

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.
Signage in favour of resource development is seen along Yellowhead Highway near Telkwa in northern British Columbia on Jan. 10, 2019. (The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito)

Oil and Gas Could Underpin Indigenous Autonomy, Say Experts

Jean Paul Gladu grew up north of Thunder Bay at Sandpoint First Nation, also known as Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek. The former head of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business and now president of the Alaska-Alberta Railway Corporation says he recalls how his grandfather helped build the TransCanada gas pipeline.

The oil and gas sector is one I truly support, Gladu said. Unfortunately, a lot of the media portrays all of us with one colourthat were opposed to resource developmentand thats the furthest thing from the truth. Many of our communities are supportive.

Thats no surprise to Heather Exner-Pirot, research adviser to the Indigenous Resource Network. She says that 38 Indigenous reserves currently produce oil and gas and that 108 reserves have agreements with oil and gas companies. First Nations have collected $1.29 billion in production royalties in the last decade.

No other sector except mining comes as close to oil and gas in contributing to Indigenous prosperity in terms of jobs, wages, own-source revenues, and business development, Exner-Pirot said.

The path to Indigenous economic self-determination runs inevitably through resource extraction. The math does not work otherwise.

Gladu and Exner-Pirot made their comments at a webinar on Aug. 20 hosted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to discuss the evolution of Indigenous involvement in the energy economy. The discussion built on a recent paper by MLI senior fellow Ken Coates titled Indigenous Engagement with the Canadian Energy Economy: How Far Weve Come.

Oil, gas, and mining provide eight of the ten highest-paying professions in the North American Industry Classification System. These jobs fetch six-figure wages, whereas the median earnings for hunting and trapping are $7,144 annually. Even for Indigenous women, the top four highest-earning occupations are in oil and gas and pay three to four times the median wage of $26,207, Exner-Pirot said.

Nearly 8 percent of those who work in oil and gas extraction are Indigenoustwice the average in other industries.

Stephen Buffalo, who also spoke at the event, grew up on the Samson Cree Nation 100 kilometres south of Edmonton. He spent 15 years with the Peace Hills Trust.

Weve seen some good years of royalty [payouts], but we didnt know much about the industry and the social problems that come with that type of injection of money, Buffalo said.

We made changes  we found a balance.

Samson Cree created a heritage trust fund of $350 million and put five firms in charge of investments. The fund now has $560 million, with some earnings used to fund community projects.

Weve definitely learned the ugly stuff within the industry, especially when oil was $120 a barrel, Buffalo said.

We were more or less run over by industry and government. And lo and behold, our industry fell [due to low oil prices]. But the silver lining is [that] when we hit the ground, we hit the ground together. And we realized we need to work together. We cant settle things in court. Nobody wins.

Earlier this year, Buffalo became president of the Indian Resource Council, a group that advocates for responsible First Nations energy development.

We need to find a way to eliminate the Indian Act, in my view. Its a form of self-communism, he said with a laugh.

When chief and council get a budget from the federal government, its basically managing poverty. Its a system that does not work and it will continue not to work unless we make the changes ourselves. And I think this natural resource sector is the way to do it.

Coates agreed. An awful lot of this effort is really about autonomy, he said.

Its about giving First Nations the capacity to run their own affairs and determine their own future, and to develop a greater separation from their welfare dependency that quite frankly has locked up First Nations Indigenous communities for the last century or more.

Important changes have happened this century and continue to unfold. Exner-Pirot said that the duty to consult, which was imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005, has led to many more benefit agreements between resource companies and First Nations, leading to jobs for band members and money for the band.

Business and industry are starting to see that it makes business sense as well as ethical sense to have these big partnerships, that there is a win-win situation that can be attained if we do this right, she said.

Exner-Pirot said nearly all Indigenous people she talks to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). She believes, however, that legislation that affirmed UNDRIP, such as Bill C-262 in Ottawa and Bill 41 in British Columbia, muddied the waters and made it worse because neither bill defined the parameters for what prior and informed consent really means.

One side says the Indigenous community should have a veto on everything and the other side says that the Indigenous community should not have a veto on anything, she said.

Gladu said last winters protests over the Coastal GasLink liquified natural gas pipeline should provoke questions.

Look at what happened with Wetsuweten, when you have 20 First Nations that are in support of a project, [but] you have one community that has governance challenges between elected and hereditary. So that hereditary [community], does that veto the prosperity of 20 other communities that want to support this project?

Gladu said pipelines are worth a second, third, and fourth effort.

The hard work has to get done. And just like any relationship youre going to have your ups and downs, but youve got to get off your butt the next morning and get back to the table and figure out your relationship. Its way too easy to say I give up. This country cant have that.
STAMFORD  The attorney representing the family of a 23-year-old city man who died in police custody last fall is calling on the citys public safety director to perform an investigation into the incident.

At a press conference in his Summer Street offices Thursday, attorney Darnell Crosland demanded Public Safety Director Ted Jankowski review all the available materials and report his findings as to whether the police acted properly in the arrest of Barrier, who died on his 23rd birthday on Oct. 23, 2019.

Others, including the state medical examiner, states attorney and a panel of city police officers and residents, have studied the incident. Crosland said a review should come from Jankowski, who holds a cabinet-level position in the city administration overseeing operations including police.

An independent investigation will start with the head of public safety to say, independent of the corporation counsel and independent of the police officers and states attorneys office, with those people out of the way, lets look at this from his (Jankowskis) direction on down, said Crosland, who was accompanied by Mt. Vernon, New York lawyer Trisha Lindsay. And if he feels good at the end of the day with the conclusions he has made. then at least we can be walking towards an area where we can say the public is safe.

Let him and his team work with us and other experts and work toward making Stamford safe, not just from itself but from police engagement, Crosland said.

No lawsuit has been filed in the case.

State Chief Medical Examiner James Gill ruled that a heart attack killed Barrier. According to the autopsy report, Barrier died of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease with contributing factors of bipolar disorder and psychotic features.

At the end of February, Richard Colangelo, then Stamford states attorney, said that after reviewing police reports, body camera video, investigative reports and medical records there was no evidence any force was used to take Barrier into custody and his death was the result of natural causes.

An incident review panel consisting of police officers, elected officials and community members has studied the incident and issued a report suggesting changes for improving the departments response to similar calls in the future.

Jankowski this week said he was reluctant to go further. He said he continues to offer his condolences to Barriers family on their loss. The FBI recently spoke with Police Chief Tim Shaw, Jankowski said, and they have declined to further investigate the case.

Having considered this information and the reports issued by the medical examiner and the States Attorneys Office, and after reviewing all information related to this incident and the findings of the incident review panel, City of Stamford officials are satisfied that the investigation is complete, Jankowski said.

Police were called to Steven Barriers West Avenue home on the night of Oct. 23 on a report that he had assaulted a family member. Barrier ran when police arrived, according to reports and body camera video worn by police officers; they chased him to the Home Depot lot.

After he was apprehended Barrier told officers he was unable to walk, according to the video. They carried him to a patrol car, where he lost consciousness. A driver asked arresting officers whether he should take Barrier to the hospital or the police station. The station, officers answered.

On the drive to the police station, Barrier asked an officer to turn on the air conditioning. The officer rolled a window down. In the footage, Barrier can be heard moaning at times.

When officers removed him from the vehicle, Barrier was unresponsive. Medics were called as some officers tried to tend to Barrier, according to reports. Near the end of the body-cam video, officers are seen joking that Barrier is faking and deserves an award.

Medics arrived about five minutes after being called. Barrier was then taken to Stamford Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 3:10 a.m., about 85 minutes after he was taken into custody.

Barriers mother, Valerie Jaddo, has said she does not believe the officials version of events.

Steven Barrier should have lived into his 90s, Crosland said this week, not die in his 20s.

That is not natural, Crosland said. So I had to ask myself what was unnatural about his death and find out the only disease he died from was racism, neglect and a lack of value for black life and we want that disease to be eradicated from Stamford and the rest of the country.

Asked to respond to Croslands assertion, Jankowski said he would let the investigations into the incident speak for themselves.

Crosland also said more has to be done to help people with mental health issues, like Barrier, than just calling the police when there is trouble.

The Steven Barrier case is one of the cases that has been taking a lot of our attention and highlighting the fact that the police could do more. Could do more to respond to mental health crises. Could do more to respond to Black people and Black youth who are in crisis in our community, Crosland said.

But he acknowledged that police at times are not adequately trained to deal with people suffering from mental health problems. Why do we keep doing that? Why do we keep asking these young men and women in uniform who dont know about mental health to go out and engage with mental health? he asked.

The report issued by the review panel that examined Barriers death calls for measures to bolster medical training and certifications within the department. The report also calls for a mental health unit to be established in the Police Department and for more officers to be trained in crisis intervention.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
(Newser)  One speech from Thursday night's Democratic National Convention is being called an example of "pure, unvarnished courage," a "must-watch," and even "the best speech" of the whole convention. No, those descriptors aren't for Joe Biden's speech (though he did receive applause across the board): They're for 13-year-old Brayden Harrington, a New Hampshire teen with a stutter who, though he can't vote, explained why Biden should go to the White House, per Politico. "Without Joe Biden, I wouldn't be talking to you today," Brayden said, recalling how he'd met Biden a few months ago in New Hampshire, and how Biden had told him "we were members of the same club: We stutter." (An in-depth Atlantic article by John Hendrickson earlier this year detailed Biden's own struggles with stuttering.)

story continues below

Brayden said the former VP gave him advice on how to work on lessening his stutter and praised Biden's empathy, noting, "I'm just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about something that's bothered me my whole life. Joe Biden cared. Imagine what he could do for all of us." Brayden won compliments from all circles, including from former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Dan Rather, and even Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. Hendrickson also lauds Brayden, writing, "Consider the emotional maturity it takes at Brayden's age to talk about his personal struggleespecially when that personal struggle is talking, when it's hard to talk at all, when it hurts to speak." As for Brayden, he told the Washington Post after his speech, "I feel very energetic right now. ... I have trouble talking and that just makes me feel way more happy to be able to talk to the people who have a stutter." (Read more uplifting news stories.)
Mart Crowley's hit play The Boys in the Band will be heading to Netflix in film form next month.

Overseen by Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story, Glee, Pose and more) and directed by Joe Mantello, the new film will be released on 30 September on the streaming platform. It focusses on an uncomfortable birthday gathering amongst a group of gay friends on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Based on the Tony Award-winning revival, the cast includes Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto and Andrew Rannells.

The comedy, which first opened in 1968 and ran for over 1000 performances, was later adapted into a film in 1970, directed by William Friedkin. Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard starred in a north London 2016 revival of the show, which transferred to the West End the following year.

Writer Crowley passed away at the age of 84 in March 2020.

Murphy has a series of stagey shows heading for Netflix, including The Prom big-screen adaptation and a new series based on A Chorus Line.
The central government on Friday appointed retired bureaucrat Rajiv Kumar as the new Election Commissioner. The Ministry of Law and Justice in a notification said Kumar, a 1984 batch IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, will take charge the day Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa leaves office on August 31.

Lavasa will be joining the Asian Development Bank as its vice president and had announced his resignation earlier this week.

"In pursuance of clause (2) of article 324 of the Constitution, the president is pleased to appoint Shri Rajiv Kumar (IAS retired) as the election commissioner with effect from the date he assumes the office vice Shri Ashok Lavasa, election commissioner who has resigned with effect August 31," said the ministry in its notification.

Kumar will have a five-year tenure and retire in 2025. He is likely to preside over the next Lok Sabha polls in 2024. According to rules, an election commissioner has six years on the post or till he turns 65, whichever is earlier. Kumar was born in February 1960.

Kumar is currently the chairperson of the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB). His tenure, which started on April 29, was to end on April 28, 2023.

Kumar had earlier served as the finance secretary from September 1, 2017, to February 29, 2020. He has served the finance ministry and other ministries of the central government since March, 2012.

Kumar has been credited with bringing in key reforms in banking and bureaucracy during his stints in the finance and personnel ministries. He took over as the secretary in the Department of Financial Services in September 2017, when most of the public sector banks, including the State Bank of India, were in losses.

Kumar brought in fundamental changes in the banking sector and played a crucial role in merging 10 public sector banks into four, officials said. During his two-and-a-half-year stint as the financial services secretary, several policy decisions were taken to promote responsive and responsible banking, they added. A massive Rs 3-lakh crore recapitalisation of banks was undertaken during Kumar's tenure.

He was also instrumental in streamlining the promotion and appointments done by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), the officials said.

(With inputs from PTI)
In this file photo, Monell Chemical Senses Center neuroscientist Johan Lundstrom works with research assistant Eva Alden on a 2018 olfactory study. Now Lundstrom is looking at smell as an early warning sign of COVID. Read more

If all goes according to plan, Pennsylvania State University students who opt for an on-campus experience this fall will start in-person classes on Monday under the banner of a Mask Up or Pack Up campaign.

By returning to campus, students are agreeing to wear masks, adhere to social distancing practices, and submit to random testing for COVID-19.

But Mask Up or Pack Up also offers a less traditional, more proactive approach to virus containment: the smell test.

Our message is If you have sudden-onset smell loss, in the absence of other explanatory history like a head injury, the chance of you being infected is high, said John E. Hayes, a professor in the department of food science and director of the Sensory Evaluation Center in the College of Agricultural Sciences. This is about raising awareness that smell loss is an early symptom of COVID-19.

Hayes department plans to send scented scratch-and-sniff postcards to students, asking them to monitor their sense of smell. There will be other reminders throughout campus, such as flower arrangements that invite people to smell the roses before entering a lecture hall.

Bottom line, Hayes said: Were telling our community, if you lose your sense of smell, you should self-isolate and immediately get tested.

Its advice that might help people throughout the world contain the spread of the virus.

According to Danielle Reed, associate director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, the loss of the sense of smell is one of the best and earliest indicators of COVID-19.

More COVID patients have loss of sense of smell than have a fever, Reed said. Yet fever is often first on the checklist of COVID symptoms and sense of smell is at the bottom, like an afterthought. We think it should be near or at the top.

Improved case detection'

A recent study based on a worldwide survey of 25,000 patients by the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research found that COVID-19 is more strongly associated with smell and taste than with fever, cough, or shortness of breath, though those are the cardinal symptoms currently highlighted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study has not been peer-reviewed.

Several other studies have linked the loss of smell to the virus. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic reported in June that patients with COVID-19 were 27 times more likely to lose their sense of smell than people without the virus, while less than three times as likely to report fever and/or chills. Another analysis of medical records by Mayo researchers suggested that routine screening for those changes "could contribute to improved case detection in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."

 READ MORE: Organ-by-organ, see how the coronavirus can attack the body

Proteus Duxbury, former chief technology officer for the Colorado health insurance exchange, now lives in Northern Ireland and heads service delivery for a National Health Service trust. Suffering from what seemed to be a mild cold in early March, Duxbury noticed he couldnt smell or taste his meal. Luckily, a colleague passed along the then-brand-new hypothesis that COVID-19 affected these senses, and Duxbury isolated, though he had no other disease symptoms.

I didnt have cough, headache, fever, or shortness of breath, said Duxbury. But everything tasted like cardboard. The first thing I did every morning was put my head in the coffee jar and take a real deep breath. Nothing.

Two weeks later, his sense of smell began to return; three months after that, he had a positive antibody test. Today, nearly six months after his recovery from COVID-19, Duxbury reports his senses are back but slightly dulled.

Screening asymptomatic carriers

Scientists have hypothesized that the loss of smell is caused by damage to olfactory sensory neurons. The COVID-19 virus actively attacks neighboring cells in the nasal cavity that express ACE2, a protein that acts as a receptor for the virus. In doing so, the olfactory cells may also become inflamed and paralyzed; thus, the sudden inability to smell.

Because the loss of smell is an early symptom, it may be helpful in screening otherwise asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic COVID carriers, according to researchers. It is often the only symptom present in people who otherwise feel fine and dont think of themselves as sick, leading them to unwittingly spread the virus. Though only 50% of COVID-19-positive patients list smell loss as a complaint, specific questioning leads to a significantly higher rate of around 70% to 75%, according to a study recently submitted by the Monell research team to the NIH.

 READ MORE: How to know whether you have allergies or coronavirus

Loss of smell has been tied to other upper respiratory ailments in the past, so it is not a foolproof exercise. Still, E. John Wherry, chair of the department of systems pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the universitys Institute for Immunology, is cautiously optimistic about the potential for smell tests to help in the fight against COVID-19  while noting results can be misinterpreted.

The idea is very attractive, because we need testing any way we can get it, and theres just not enough to go around, Wherry said. The other side of the equation is that people who wake up with allergies or a hangover and cant smell the coffee as well as they did yesterday might panic and run to urgent care for a test. It would be good to understand the costs.

Thats why researchers stress that the loss of smell associated with COVID-19 is not subtle. Its not a matter of degrees of discrimination, Reed said. This isnt something you miss.

 ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters.

The smell loss associated with COVID-19 is swift and utter. It could involve waking up one morning and not being able to smell your shampoo, aftershave, or coffee. And it may be disorienting because its not typically accompanied by nasal congestion, which is how most people have experienced smell reduction in the past.

Its also an extremely strong indicator, so there should be no second-guessing. Anyone who experiences an abrupt, unexplained loss of smell should take it seriously: Self-isolate and get tested for COVID-19.

Smelltracker.org

Johan Lundstrom, a Swedish-based biologist with Monell, is using the evidence uncovered by the global consortium report to help track incipient COVID-19 outbreaks.

Working with the Edith Wolfson Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute of Science, both in Israel, Lundstrom created smelltracker.org  a website that provides users with a simple daily smell test they can self-administer using five household items. Once they have chosen their set of odorants  such as cinnamon, peanut butter, mustard, and coffee  respondents rate the odors with respect to pleasantness and strength.

Rather than collect personal data, smelltracker.org aggregates the responses in a neighborhood, region, or city, so researchers see only trends. When an increasing number of people in those areas report they have a reduced, impaired, or absent sense of smell, public officials can move in with widespread PCR testing.

This test is quick and very cheap, people like doing it, and it gives them some awareness and reassurance about their own health, Lundstrom said. Its also very good at helping public health officials decide how and where to spend their resources to implement widespread testing using the proper COVID regime.

Currently, smelltracker.org is being used by health officials in regions of Israel and in Italy, where citizens are encouraged to sign up. But the website is available worldwide, with instructions in 15 languages. Interest from other countries is beginning to grow.

 READ MORE: From swabs to antibodies: How to understand your coronavirus test results

No one is recommending that smell tests replace traditional swab or saliva testing. But Reed, Hayes, and Lundstrom all believe that better education around this COVID-19 symptom will lead to greater engagement and care on the part of people who dont feel sick.

Perhaps the best part of smell testing is that it doesnt involve discomfort or stigma, and it can easily be turned into a game. Soon, Reed said, instead of being zapped with a digital thermometer, individuals who are entering a meeting or store may be handed a card with three peel-off stickers and asked which one has a scent.

Im an optimist, and I believe people do not want to spread this disease, Hayes said. Our students dont want to. If we give them the tools to know when they might be sick, theyll help us keep our campus safe.

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Newark, NJ, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As per the report published by Fior Markets, the global eco-friendly food packaging market is expected to grow from USD 152.09 billion in 2019 and to reach USD 257.43 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period 2020-2027.

The environmental degradation by the use of single plastic items has led to the development of a sustainable packaging for the food and beverages sector. Apart from this, the hectic lifestyle has increased the consumption of convenience food among the working population which has boosted the growth of eco-friendly food packaging in many regions. The eco-friendly food packaging also provides safety and is hygienic, which are some other reasons for the growing demand of the product.

The eco-friendly food packages use the renewable materials which do not cause any harm to the environment. It is basically made up from the biodegradable packaging materials and reusable. It also safeguards the quality of food and makes it safe for human consumption. Also, the less requirement of energy in the manufacturing process is another added benefit of the product. These packaging also reduces the burden on natural resources.

The increasing awareness among consumers in certain regions about the ill effects of plastic packaging has increased the market demand of the product. The manufacturers are also switching to the environment friendly food packaging following the regulations issued by the government related about ban on single-use plastics. However, the availability of cheap alternatives is hindering the market growth.

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Key players operating in the global eco-friendly food packaging market include Amcor, Ball Corporation, Sealed Air Corporation, Mondi Group, Tetra Pak, BASF, Westrock, Sonoco Products Company, Smurfit Kappa, Evergreen packaging, Printpak, Sustainable Packaging Industries, GWP, Paperfoam, Swedbrand Groups, Huhtamaki Oyj, Berryv Global, Winpak Ltd., Elopak among others. The manufacturers operating in the market are opting for expansion strategies such as product innovations, mergers & acquisitions, recent developments, joint venture, collaborations, and partnership, so as to gain the significant market share in the global eco-friendly food packaging market and strengthen their position. Tetra Pak and Amcor are some of the biggest manufacturers and suppliers of in the global eco-friendly food packaging market.

In October 2019, Smurgit Kappa partnered with a speciality brewer, Vanhonsebrouck. The objective of this partnership was to initiate a production line and implement a circular supply chain for manufacturing of the recyclable cans.

Recycled Content Packaging segment dominated the market and held the largest market share of 37.43% in the year 2019

On the basis of the type segment, the global eco-friendly food packaging market includes degradable packaging, reusable packaging and recycled content packaging. Recycled content packaging dominated the market and held the largest market share of 37.43% in the year 2019. The recycled content packaging is cost-effective as some portion of the material can be utilized many times. It is made up from both the pre and post consumer materials. The waste which is produced during the manufacturing form the pre consumer material. This helps to reduce the cost and minimize the burden on natural resources.

Paper and Paperboard segment dominated the market and held the largest market share of 36.02% in the year 2019

On the basis of the material segment, the global eco-friendly food packaging market includes paper and paperboard, metal, glass, plastic and others. Paper and paperboard dominated the market and held the largest market share of 36.02% in the year 2019. The paper and paperboard materials are biodegradable and can be easily recycled. These materials are suitable for the ready to eat and frozen foods. It is cost comparative and is also safe for transportation purposes.

Active Packaging segment dominated the market and held the largest market share of 31.21% in the year 2019

On the basis of the technique segment, the global eco-friendly food packaging market includes active packaging, molded packaging, multipurpose packaging and alternate fiber packaging. Active packaging dominated the market and held the largest market share of 31.21% in the year 2019. Active packaging has more benefits as it helps to measure the attribute of the product. The nature of the packaging increases the shelf life of the product. It also displays the information about the quality of the product.

Food segment dominated the market and held the largest market share of 68.92% in the year 2019

On the basis of the application segment, the global eco-friendly food packaging market includes food and beverages. The food segment further includes bakery and confectionery, dairy products, meat products, fruits and vegetables and convenience food. The beverages segment further includes alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Food segment dominated the market and held the largest market share of 68.92% in the year 2019. The eco-friendly packages are majorly used for the food products. The products such as meat, vegetables, fruits, etc, require being fresh for the consumption purpose. Apart from this, the growing hygiene practices among the consumers have increased the market growth.

Browse full report with TOC at https://www.fiormarkets.com/report/eco-friendly-food-packaging-market-by-type-degradable-packaging-418790.html

Regional Segment Analysis of the Eco-friendly Food Packaging Market

North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)

Europe (Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe)

Asia-Pacific (China, Japan India, Rest of APAC)

South America (Brazil and Rest of South America)

Middle East and Africa (UAE, South Africa, Rest of MEA)

On the basis of geography, the global eco-friendly food packaging market is classified into North America, Europe, South America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. North America region accounted for the major market share of 38.92% in the year 2019. The growing working population in the region is increasingly demanding the convenience food, which in turn has increased the market demand for the product. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The growing environmental degradation has resulted into the ban of the single-use plastic in many countries. This has resulted into adoption of eco-friendly packaging for food and beverages in the region.

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About the report:

The global eco-friendly food packaging market is analyzed on the basis of value (USD Billion), volume (Units), export (Units), and import (Units). All the segments have been analyzed on global, regional and country basis. The study includes the analysis of more than 30 countries for each segment. The report offers in-depth analysis of driving factors, opportunities, restraints, and challenges for gaining the key insight of the market. The study includes porters five forces model, attractiveness analysis, raw material analysis, and competitor position grid analysis.

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For everything that military personnel has given, John Elways Crown Toyota wants to give back! Click to learn more about their amazing military rebates.

For everything that military personnel has given, John Elways Crown Toyota wants to give back! The dealership has been inspired by their courage and commitment to our country's protection, and as such want to offer a rebate to eligible U.S military personnel that might qualify. This rebate is used through Toyota Financial Services and can be used towards any new Toyota model.

This is a $500 rebate and doesnt just apply to front line soldiers and veterans, but also to household members of eligible military personnel including Gold Star families. Examples of those that this military rebate could qualify towards include active U.S military personnel, household members of eligible U.S military personnel (including Gold Star families), U.S military retirees, U.S military veterans (within two years of discharge), and similar.

However, these are not the only qualifications that individuals need to meet! They must also bring a number of items with them, and meet several requirements, in order to qualify. These include providing verifiable proof of active or past military service through several forms and pieces of paperwork, including leave and or earning statements, military ID card, DD Form 214, certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty, or similar. Interested personnel should also provide proof of a qualifying salary and receive credit approval by Toyota Financial Services through a Toyota Dealership.

Those that meet these requirements will find themselves eligible to enjoy the rebate that John Elways Crown Toyota is offering. To learn more about the rebate and what it offers military personnel, or check out the vehicles that qualify for it, please contact the dealership today! Interested individuals can reach the dealership at 909-515-8401, or by visiting the dealerships website at https://www.crowntoyota.com/.
Lori Loughlin has been sentenced to two months in prison in the college admissions scandal case.

The former Full House star was handed the sentence on Friday during a virtual hearing.

Just a few hours prior, her husband Mossimo Giannulli was sentenced to five months behind bars in the same case.

During Fridays hearing, Loughlin said she made an awful decision and said shes sorry for her actions.

She became emotional as she said she now wants to take responsibility and move forward and use this experience as a catalyst to do good.

Loughlin nodded eagerly as US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said he believes her to be remorseful.

In addition to the prison sentence, Loughlin will pay a $150,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

Giannulli will pay a $250,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service under his own plea deal.

Like her husband, Loughlin has been ordered to surrender on 19 November.

Assistant US Attorney Justin OConnell said during the hearing that Loughlin wasnt content with the advantages her children already had thanks to their wealth and was focused on getting what she wanted, no matter how and no matter the cost.

He said prison time was was necessary to send a message that everyone no matter your status is accountable in our justice system.

Her attorney BJ Trach said she is profoundly sorry for her actions. He also said that Loughlin has begun volunteering at a elementary school in LA with children with special needs.

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Describing the devastating impact the charges have had on the 56-year-old actors family life and career, Trach said: Lori lost the acting career she spent 40 years building.

Loughlins lawyer and Giannulli both alluded to bullying their daughters faced after the charges were made public. Brach said the family was forced to hire security for their daughters because of the intense publicity and bullying they faced, and that Loughlin has sought to repair her relationship with her daughters.

The famous couples sentencing comes three months after they reversed course and admitted to participating in the college admissions cheating scheme.

Prior to that, Loughlin and Giannulli had insisted for more than a year that they believed their payments were legitimate donations and accused prosecutors of hiding crucial evidence that could prove the couples innocence because it would undermine their case.

Their about-face came shortly after the judge rejected their bid to dismiss the case over allegations of misconduct by federal agents.

They are among nearly 30 prominent parents to plead guilty in the case, which federal prosecutors dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
A photo of Donald Trump meeting with people behind the We Build The Wall fundraising campaign has emerged after the group's leader Brian Kolfage and the president's former aide Steve Bannon were accused of ripping off donors.

The photo shows Trump smiling alongside Amanda Shea, We Build The Wall's chief financial officer, and five other people in Bridgehampton, New York, in August 2019.

Shea posted the photo on Instagram and gushed about how much interest the president had shown in her group's efforts to use crowd funding to build barriers along the US-Mexico border.

The image resurfaced on Thursday as Trump sought to distance himself from We Build The Wall following the arrests of Bannon, Kolfage and two associates who prosecutors say defrauding hundreds of thousands of people out of $25million donated to the campaign.

One of the other associates was Timothy Shea, the husband of Amanda Shea, who was accused of helping orchestrate the fraud by setting up shell corporations to funnel $350,000 in donations to Kolfage.

President Donald Trump discussed We Build The Wall' crowdfunding project with the group's Chief Financial Officer Amanda Shea (third from left) and others in Bridgehampton, New York, last August, according to a photo Shea posted on Instagram

In the caption Shea gushed about how much interest the president had shown in her group's efforts to use crowd funding to build barriers along the US-Mexico border

Shea's photo resurfaced on Thursday after We Build The Wall founder Brian Kolfage (left) and former Trump aide Steve Bannon (right) were accused of defrauding hundreds of thousands of people out of $25million donated to the campaign

Shea's husband Timothy Shea (pictured together at a Trump rally) was also arrested in connection with the alleged fundraising scam

Shea captioned her photo: 'A summer of winning came to a high note in the Hamptons.

'I had the absolute pleasure and honor of spending time with President Trump who had a lot of questions about the wall We The People built through We Build The Wall.

'He was impressed, but more importantly, incredibly personable and easy to talk to. I forgot that I was speaking with one of the most powerful men in the world.'

The photo adds to speculation over how much Trump may have known about what was going on within the group.

The president has insisted that he never knew anything about the project - despite its ties to his son Donald Trump Jr, his 2016 campaign manager Bannon and other members of his inner circle.

'I don't like that project,' he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'I thought it was being done for showboating reasons. It was something I very much thought was inappropriate to be doing.'

He also tried to distance himself from Bannon, saying: 'I feel very badly. I haven't been dealing with him for a very long period of time.

'I haven't been dealing with him at all. It's a very sad thing by Mr Bannon. He was involved in our campaign and for a small part of our administration.'

In fact Bannon was the campaign CEO for its last 88 days after the ousting of Paul Manafort - who is now a convicted felon himself - and then was Trump's 'Chief Strategist,' with a West Wing office close to the Oval Office.

Just weeks ago, Trump tweeted out his dissatisfaction with the wall project after the group built a section of wall just 35 feet from the Rio Grande river on the US-Mexico border, leading to concerns about erosion and flooding.

'I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads,' Trump tweeted.

'It was only done to make me look bad, and [perhaps] it now doesn't.'

Kolfage launched We Build The Wall in 2018 by setting up a GoFundMe that pledged to build barriers along the border in Texas and New Mexico. The online appeal for funds included a photo of President Trump and a 'Trump Approved' stamp

Trump has insisted that he never knew anything about the project - despite its ties to his son Donald Trump Jr, his 2016 campaign manager Bannon and other members of his inner circle. 'I don't like that project,' he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday (pictured)

TRUMP-WORLD FIGURES IN THE WALL SCHEME Steve Bannon: Trump campaign CEO and chief strategist and now high-profile advocate for president is charged with fraud Erik Prince: Billionaire mercenary who is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a director. Prince is close to Bannon Kris Kobach: Former Kansas secretary of state who led probe into claims of electoral fraud which was closed before it found any is We Build The Wall's attorney Donald Trump Jr.: Visited section of the wall in New Mexico in July 2019 and features prominently on its website. Led a fundraiser for it. Now claims he too was misled Kimberly Guilfoyle: Don Jr.'s girlfriend was with him at both events he attended Eric Trump: Posed with Brian Kolfage and his wife at Mar-a-Lago Advertisement

Kolfage launched We Build The Wall in 2018 by setting up a GoFundMe campaign that pledged to build barriers along the border in Texas and New Mexico, some of which have already been erected.

The online appeal for funds included a picture of President Trump and a stamp that said 'Trump Approved'.

But prosecutors say it was a scam, as donors' cash was also funneled to Bannon and Kolfage.

Bannon, who helped steer Trump's campaign then joined him in the White House in 2017 as chief strategist only to be forced out, is accused of getting $1million in the alleged scheme and spending hundreds of thousands of that on 'expenses'.

Kolfage is also accused of fraudulently pocketing funds. He claimed he did not get a cent from the scheme but instead got $100,000 up front and $20,000 a month salary, prosecutors allege, living a lavish lifestyle at Miramar Beach in the Florida panhandle.

The Iraq war veteran, who had both legs amputated and lost his right arm in a rocket attack, was arrested at his home in Florida and later released.

Meanwhile Bannon was arrested on a yacht owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui off the coast of Connecticut.

Both men are facing one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Bannon pleaded not guilty on Thursday afternoon and was released on $5million bail.

Bannon is accused of getting $1million in the alleged scheme and spending hundreds of thousands of that on 'expenses'. He is seen leaving Manhattan federal court on Thursday after he pleaded not guilty to fraud charges and posted $5million bail

Kolfage, 38, is accused of fraudulently pocketing funds that he used to fund his lavish lifestyle in Florida. He is pictured with his TikTok star wife Ashley, 33, on their boat

Meanwhile Don Jr is now looking to diminish his ties to We Build The Wall - which he personally donated to.

The president's son praised the group and Kolfage at a We Build The Wall event in July 2019 that was captured on newly-unearthed video.

'This is what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest,' Don Jr says as he holds hands with Kolfage.

'Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is amazing.'

Donald Trump Jr praised We Build The Wall and Kolfage during a speech at an event last year

'This is what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest,' Don Jr says as he holds hands with Kolfage, a Purple Heart recipient and triple-amputee

Another image tying Don Jr to the group also resurfaced on Thursday, showing the president's son holding a customized gun gifted to him by We Build The Wall.

'Our special gift to Donald Trump Jr for taking the time to visit the border wall we built. A custom We Build The Wall Springfield 1911,' the group wrote in a Facebook post on July 30, 2019.

The photo shows Don Jr standing alongside his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle and We Build The Wall advisory board members Mary Ann Mendoza and Steve Ronnebeck on a private plane after they stopped by a section of the wall in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

We Build The Wall gave Don Jr a customized gun after he visited a section of the wall they built in New Mexico in July 2019. Don Jr has since said he may have been 'deceived' by the group

Don Jr has since defended his previous support of the group and claimed he may have been 'deceived'.

'Don gave one speech at a single We Build The Wall event over a year ago with a group of angel moms and besides that, has no involvement with their organization,' his spokeswoman Amanda Miller said.

'He never gave them permission to use him as a testimonial on their website and was unaware they included him as one until today's media reports about it.

'His previous praise of the group was based on what he was led to believe about their supposed intention to help build the wall on our southern border and if he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions.'

A Facebook page run by Kolfage indicates that his links to Don Jr ran deeper than the president's son was letting on.

The page spent $185,000 on ads, including some asking for wall-building donations, according to Insider.

In one ad posted in December, Kolfage promised a 'FREE Donald Trump Jr Autographed Book with donation to We Build The Wall Inc! DO NOT MISS OUT!'
WASHINGTON - Iraq no longer needs U.S. combat troops to defend itself against the Islamic State but will require continued foreign military assistance to help strengthen its security forces, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said during a visit to Washington on Thursday.

"We definitely don't need combat troops in Iraq, but we do need training and capacity enhancement and security cooperation," he told reporters following a White House meeting with President Donald Trump.

But both leaders declined to provide specific information about how quickly the more than 5,000 troops in Iraq would leave the country, in line with a demand earlier this year from Iraqi lawmakers.

Asked about any decisions on troop levels, Kadhimi said "technical teams" from both countries would work out details about the future troop presence. The American president, he said, had "coupled the presence of U.S. troops to how much they are needed inside of Iraq," Kadhimi said through an interpreter.

The official visit is a consequential one for the Iraqi leader, a former journalist and intelligence official who took over three months ago after his predecessor was ousted amid major protests. Kadhimi is now facing a host of challenges, including a major coronavirus outbreak, a crippling reduction in government revenue due to low oil prices, and widespread unrest among Iraqis fed up with widespread corruption.

Last month, Kadhimi announced early elections for June 2021.

Since Kadhimi's arrival earlier this week, officials have sought to highlight energy and economic cooperation rather than the sensitive issue of U.S. troops. In January, Iraqi lawmakers approved a resolution calling for the removal of foreign troops after a U.S. drone killed a senior Iranian military official and an Iraqi official outside Baghdad's airport.

The incident brought to a head long-running tensions with Iraq's desire to manage good relations between the United States, its chief Western partner, and Iran, its neighbor to the east. The Trump administration has described Iran as its chief adversary in the Middle East, in particular vowing to use force to respond to attacks on U.S. personnel by Iranian-linked militiamen in Iraq or elsewhere.

During an Oval Office event with Kadhimi earlier in the day, Trump said the United States has been withdrawing its troops "fairly rapidly" from Iraq, and "we look forward to the day when we don't have to be there."

Trump punted the question about a timeline to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who responded that Trump had "made very clear he wants to get our forces down to the lowest level as quickly as we possibly can." They would leave, he said, "as soon as we can complete the mission."

Eager to claim that he has met his 2016 campaign pledge to lower the number of U.S. troops based abroad, Trump last month ordered the withdrawal of 9,500 based in Germany.

But even as he promises to end what he this week characterized as "ridiculous endless wars" in the Middle East, he has focused his displeasure on the continued missions in Syria and Afghanistan and seemed to overlook the ongoing mission in Iraq.

Although the Obama administration had withdrawn large numbers of troops from Iraq from the peak following the 2003 invasion, it sent thousands back to combat the rise of the Islamic State in 2014.

"We'll be leaving shortly," Trump said. " . . . We're making very big oil deals. Our oil companies are making massive deals" in Iraq, "and that's basically the story."

As he sat by Kadhimi's side, Trump appeared to sidestep questions from Iraqi journalists about Iranian-backed militias, only nominally under control of the Iraqi government, that have attacked U.S. forces. Instead, he repeated his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying, "We were there and now we're getting out."

In a nod to the scale of the challenges he faces at home, Kadhimi later acknowledged that he has limited power to make sweeping changes in his country, saying he currently has a "paper sword" rather than the iron blade he requires.

He said he needed to strengthen internal security forces that suffer from sectarianism, nepotism and corruption. But, he said, "I could not afford to go to a confrontation when my tools are insufficient."

Although the self-declared Islamic State caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been largely dismantled, U.S. officials have said that up to 20,000 scattered fighters continue to make opportunistic attacks.

U.S. military leaders have consolidated troops at a smaller number of bases in recent months, but they still see Iraq as an important counterterrorism location and say they hope to receive approval to keep a force of thousands there for the foreseeable future.

Trump was also asked if the United States would help Iraq against renewed airstrikes from its neighbors, a reference to the recent renewal of Turkish airstrikes against Iraq-based camps of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The group, known as the PKK, has been waging guerrilla attacks against the Ankara government for decades.

"Well, they'll have to make a specific request," Trump said. "But certainly, the prime minister has my ear. So if he does that, we'll take a look." After Kadhimi noted that the attacks were coming from Turkey, Trump said that he will "be talking to" Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "But we have a very, very good relationship with Turkey and with President Erdogan," he said.
ELKTON At the helm of Elkton's latest shop Hair Force 1, Cass City native Brent Salas answered his calling by fulfilling a dream of becoming a barber, now allowing him to serve the community and extend the trade of barbering.

Salas, a Cass City native, recently opened up his own barber shop after graduating from the Flint Institute of Barbering.

I was nervous to open up the shop, with everything happening in the world, said Salas. I originally wanted to be open in April, but the process of getting the proper licenses took longer than I anticipated.

There were a lot of cancellations and postponing due to the pandemic, he added.

Salas bought the shop in January, before graduating from the barbering institute in March, and has spent the first part of the year renovating and preparing for its opening Aug. 5. With the help of his father and uncle, Salas transformed the building into a fully functional barber shop with space for two barber chairs.

Cutting hair is something that I have always enjoyed," Salas said. "I had been cutting my own hair and a handful of friends hair since junior high. I never thought I could make a career out of it.

The Flint Institute of Barbering is one of only a few barbering schools in Michigan. Students interested in becoming barbers must go to the specialized school, not just cosmetology programs. Many rural areas lack licensed barbers due to unavailability in many areas and many common misconceptions about the field.

If I had known about the barbering school in Flint, I probably would have gone years ago, said Salas.

After growing up and graduating in Cass City, Salas worked in local factories but said he never really enjoyed it. With the discovery of the barbering institute and his wifes support and encouragement, Salas made the decision to commute daily to Flint, complete the yearlong program, and keep the barbering trade alive in Huron County.

I was nervous to go back to school," Salas said. "I was one of the older students in the class, which was made up of mostly 18-25-year-olds. I was one of the only people in the class to be married and have kids, so I kind of became the dad of the class.

Overall, they became a really great support system," he added. "Many of my former classmates have come to visit the shop.

According to Salas, attending classes with younger peers allowed him to learn about the hair trend of younger generations as well. In the future, Salas hopes to be in the position to teach barbering to local students, making the trade a more attainable option.

Id like to someday get busy enough to add a second barber in my shop or even eventually open another Hair Force 1 somewhere in the Thumb, said Salas.

Overall, Elkton and the surrounding community has been tremendous, he added. I know a lot of people were looking forward to the opening of this shop and it feels good to finally be here.
KYIV. Aug 21 (Interfax-Ukraine)  Some 32.6% of Ukrainians support granting of a special status to the uncontrolled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which provides for autonomy within Ukraine. These are the data of the all-Ukrainian sociological survey of the population conducted by the Social Monitoring Center from August 8 to 15, 2020, presented at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday.

When asked what options for solving the problem of the uncontrolled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the respondents support, 32.6% answered that they support granting of a special status to these territories, which provides for autonomy within Ukraine, 23.3% - the official recognition that these territories in the next years cannot be returned to Ukraine and their isolation from Ukraine, 20.8% - the continuation of hostilities aimed at resuming full control of Ukraine over these territories by military means, and 23.3% found it difficult to answer the question.

Also, when asked whether it is necessary to conduct direct negotiations with Russia to overcome the military conflict in Donbas, 69.7% answered that it was necessary, 18.6% - no, 11.7% found it difficult to answer.

In addition, when asked whether it is necessary to conduct direct negotiations with the leaders of self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics to achieve peace, 50.6% answered that it was necessary, 39.4% - not necessary, 10% found it difficult to answer.

In the course of the poll "Opinion and Views of the Population of Ukraine, August 2020", 3012 respondents were interviewed, sampling error was 1.1-1.83%.
The Suntreso Police in Kumasi, in collaboration with their Kasoa counterparts, have arrested a 37-year-old sand winner who is said to have stolen eight taxis.



The suspect, Alex Owusu, was arrested on August 11, 2020, through police intelligence at Kasoa and was conveyed to Kumasi.



He is said to have stolen the taxis from drivers and then either sold them outright or gave them out to other drivers on a work-and-pay basis.



The acts were recorded within an eight-month period, starting from January 2020.



The suspect is currently in police custody in Kumasi assisting in investigations after which he would be arraigned.



Beta Malt - Accra Breweries

Taxis retrieved



So far, all the eight taxis have been retrieved from Akwatia, Nsawam and Asamankase in the Eastern Region, and Kasoa and Bawjiase in the Central Region.



Briefing the press, the Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Godwin Ahianyo, said Owusu started his operation early this year and the police had since been on his trail until his arrest at Kasoa last Tuesday.



He said Owusu usually engaged the services of the taxis from Tarkwa, Obuasi and Nkawkaw and their environs for supposed spare parts purchases for his faulty excavator at Suame Magazine in Kumasi.



CoronaLife Web Series

Kumasi magazine



ASP Ahianyo said because Owusu was always ready to part with huge sums of money, the drivers were usually lured by the juicy deal to send him to Kumasi.



He said per his modus operandi, when they arrived in Kumasi, he would convince the drivers to have the taxi washed at a washing bay and let the driver accompany him to Suame Magazine to buy the parts for his excavator.



ASP Ahianyo explained that after taking the driver to the Suame Magazine, he would ask him to wait while he rushed to the bank to withdraw some money, but would rather rush to the washing bay to pick the taxi and run away with it.



He said the suspect had been using the same modus operandi to steal the taxis from their drivers since January this year until his arrest.



Appeal



ASP Ahianyo appealed to members of the public whose taxis might have been stolen under similar circumstances to contact the Suntreso District Police to assist in the investigation.

Source: Graphiconline.com









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Fake it 'til you feel it? That's what researchers at the University at South Australia say could help when you're feeling down.

According to a recent study published in the journal Experimental Psychology, researchers found smiling  even a fake smile  can have a positive impact on mood. Essentially, triggering certain facial muscles by smiling can "trick" your brain into thinking you're happy.

"When your muscles say you're happy, you're more likely to see the world around you in a positive way," Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, study author and human and artificial cognition expert at the University of South Australia, said in a press release.

To conduct the study, researchers asked 120 participants (55 males and 65 females) to smile by holding a pen between their teeth, which forced their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.

They found that facial muscular activity not only altered one's facial expression but also generated more positive emotions.

Marmolejo-Ramos said the muscle movements of a smile stimulate the amygdala  the part of your brain that allows you to feel emotions  by releasing neurotransmitters "to encourage an emotionally positive state."

"For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as 'happy,' then we can potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health," Marmolejo-Ramos said.

Research from New York-based neurologist Dr. Isha Gupta also found that the mere act of smiling can increase levels of hormones like dopamine and serotonin in the body.

"Dopamine increases our feelings of happiness. Serotonin release is associated with reduced stress. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression and aggression," Gupta previously told NBC News.

What's more, another 2009 study from researchers at the University of Cardiff in Wales found a small group (about 25 people) of botox users were happier on average because of their inability to frown compared to those who could frown. While other studies link smiling to lower blood pressure and longevity.

In a nutshell, said Marmolejo-Ramos, there is a strong link between action and perception.

"A 'fake it 'til you make it' approach could have more credit than we expect," he said.

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Xinjiang has become a much-talked-about name across the world because of the frequency of attention-grabbing headlines about the region. The northwestern part of China has long been portrayed in global media as a hotbed of human rights violations, oppression of Uyghurs, and demolition of mosques and Islamic sanctuaries, to name just a few.

A mosque in Urumqi's Grand Bazaar (Photo/CRIonline)

However, many of the media reports on Xinjiang that have caused a global uproar were eventually debunked as fake over the years. Reports of the destruction of mosques and Islamic sites were finally proven wrong, as the truth cannot be hidden forever.

Now, the truth has come to light and it has become crystal clear that the media reports in question used satellite images of reconstruction of the mosques and Islamic sites to substantiate their claims of the destruction of Islamic sanctuaries. Meanwhile, many foreign journalists have also visited the sites and reported that the claims of their destruction were blatant lies.

But the revelation of the ultimate truth has not prevented other media outlets from coming up with more fake stories of the demolition of mosques in Xinjiang. This time, Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington DC-based media outlet, which is funded by the US government, reported that a public toilet was erected on the site of a demolished mosque in Atush city in Xinjiang. The media published the report titled 'Public toilet erected on former site of razed Xinjiang village mosque' on its website on August 13, citing an anonymous local official as the only source of its story.

In order to help people understand the reports lack of authenticity, I would like to include here some data on the number of mosques in Xinjiang. Contrary to the allegations made in the report, Statista.com has mentioned that the number of mosques has been increasing in Xinjiang. As of 2013, it was estimated that there were around 24,300 mosques in the region. But in 1978, the number of mosques was 2,930, and 22,949 in 1990. Since 1995, this number has risen sharply. According to Wikipedia, the number is now close to 25,000.

I am of the opinion that the aforementioned information is more than enough to prove that the RFA report is completely groundless. It also serves as an eye-opener to people with regards to the authenticity of other stories about Xinjiang.

Moreover, a total of 57 countries praised Chinas treatment of the Uyghurs before the UN General Assemblys committee on human rights last year. After a visit to Xinjiang in March 2019, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) also praised China for 'providing care to its Muslim citizens'.

Such global plaudits of China's treatment of the Uyghurs are, as I see it, testimonies that nullify the trustworthiness of media reports vilifying China over its northwestern region. They have also proven that Xinjiang has long been an easy victim of propaganda from anti-China forces.

Muslims around the world should remember that these forces are nothing more than the crusaders and butchers of the achievements of Islamic civilization. They are now trying to stir up the sacred sentiments of Muslims by fabricating and spreading rumors about Xinjiang and Uyghurs against China, and dream of containing the country.

I would like to urge my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters not to be deceived into believing the stories featuring the plight of the Uyghur. They should not take everything they read or see in the media about Xinjiang on blind faith, because there are too many instances of media reports that have eventually been proven wrong.

No example clarifies this point better than the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The then US president George W. Bush invaded Iraq based on the fake news that the Arab country was hiding weapons of mass destruction somewhere in the Iraqi desert. The fake news was based on a report prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

US intelligence never found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the country has been destroyed and over a million Iraqis were killed in the war. The people of Iraq have since been paying a high price for this fake news.

Putting this information into perspective, it goes without saying that your chances of being deceived are higher when you take all media reports on faith.

The author is the China Correspondent of the Bangladesh Post.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - A dredging vessel at a Texas port hit a propane pipeline Friday, sparking an explosion that sent six people to the hospital and left four others missing, authorities said.

The explosion happened at about 8 a.m. in the Port of Corpus Christi when the dredging vessel Waymon L Boyd struck a submerged pipeline, Coast Guard Lt. Marina Lawrence said. The Port of Corpus Christi said in a statement that it was a propane pipeline.

Initial reports indicated about 18 workers were in the area at the time, according to the countys top elected official, Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales. Four of those people were missing, six were taken to hospitals and eight were uninjured, she said. Of the six injured, five were airlifted to a San Antonio hospital for severe burns while another was expected to be discharged Friday, said Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi.

Corpus Christi Fire Department Chief Robert Rocha said that upon arrival, firefighters encountered heavy fire and smoke conditions. By late Friday morning, the supply line feeding fire had been shut off, Rocha said.

The fire was extinguished Friday afternoon, Strawbridge said.

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement saying that the state was working closely with authorities in the area. The National Transportation Safety Board also said it is investigating.
Israeli warplanes bombed the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Friday, as Palestinians fired rockets and launched fire bombs into southern Israel, the army said.

Gaza militants fired a projectile at Israel late Friday, the army said, as the exchanges of fire between the Palestinian enclave and Jewish state continued with no end in sight.

The projectile, which set off air raid sirens in Israel's south, was "intercepted by the Iron Dome Aerial Defence System", the army said in a statement.

Earlier Friday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, as Palestinians fired rockets and launched fire bombs into southern Israel.

Parts of southern Israel were partially cordoned off by the security forces.

Israeli planes launched raids against Gaza shortly after midnight Thursday and then again later on Friday morning.

Israel said the bombs were in response to seven rockets launched from Gaza, six of which were intercepted by its air defences.

Witnesses in Gaza said rockets were launched towards the town of Sderot, just across the border.

The rocket that was not intercepted damaged the roof of a house in Sderot, but did not cause any casualties, an AFP photographer said.

Israel has bombed Gaza almost every night since August 6 in retaliation for the launch of balloons fitted with fire bombs, or, less frequently, rocket fire, across the border.

The number of rockets fired from Gaza after midnight and again Friday morning was the largest in a day since the latest round of exchanges began two weeks ago.

Hamas "will not hesitate to fight a battle with the enemy if the escalation continues, if the bombardments and the blockade continue," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement.

"If the Israeli occupation continues its aggression... it must pay the price," he added.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz on Friday warned the army would "attack our attackers and deal them a very heavy blow".

"Gaza residents suffer at the hands of Hamas," he said in a statement following a situation assessment with the chief of the army, vowing to continue protecting Israel's residents.

- Blockade tightened -

A Palestinian uses a phone to film himself holding an inflated plastic bag attached to an incendiary device before releasing it toward Israel /  AFP

Israel has also tightened its 13-year blockade of Gaza's two million inhabitants.

It has banned Gaza fishermen from going to sea and closed its goods crossing with the territory, prompting the closure of Gaza's sole power plant for want of fuel.

The reprisals came after an Egyptian delegation shuttled between the two sides, trying to broker a return to an informal truce.

Egypt has acted to calm repeated flare-ups in recent years to prevent any repetition of the three wars Israel and Hamas have fought since 2008.

The latest ceasefire, which has already been renewed several times, is bolstered by millions of dollars in financial aid from Qatar to Gaza.

The truce provided for permits for Gazans to work in Israel and financing for Gaza development projects, both measures that would provide some economic relief in an impoverished territory where unemployment exceeds 50 percent.

According to a source close to Hamas, the movement wants the extension of an industrial zone in the east of Gaza, and the construction of a new power line.

Hamas also wants the number of work permits issued to Gazans to be doubled to 10,000 once anti-coronavirus restrictions are lifted, the source said.

Sources told AFP the twin issues were at the root of the latest flare-up.
Former Delhi chief secretary Anshu Prakash on Friday moved the Delhi high court, seeking an early hearing in a case of alleged assault in which Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, and 11 other MLAs of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have been named as accused.

Prakash had alleged he was assaulted during a meeting at the chief ministers residence on February 19, 2018.

The CM, the deputy CM, and the other AAP MLAs, have denied any wrongdoing, and the partys chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj has accused Prakash of making false allegations at the behest of the Union government.

The high court will hear the matter on Monday.

In his plea, filed through advocate Stuti Gujral, Prakash has asked that the matter, which has been pending in the trial court in the arguments stage, be heard on the grounds that no substantive proceedings have happened in the last 18 months because of a pending petition in the high court.

In 2018, Kejriwal and Sisodia moved the high court, challenging a trial court order allowing Prakash to have the lawyers of his choice rather than a special public prosecutor.

On Friday, appearing for Prakash, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra told the court that there has been no progress in proceedings before the trial court for the last one-and-a-half years as a result of a March 14, 2019 order by the high court staying the proceedings until the lawyers issue was resolved.

Appearing for the CM and deputy CM, their counsel Mohammad Irshaad sought some time to get instructions from his clients, following which the matter was adjourned till Monday.

The AAP government refused to comment on the issue despite repeated attempts.

Delhi Police, on February 20, 2018, filed a first information report (FIR) based on Prakashs complaint.

Prakash alleged he was called for a midnight meeting to discuss release of the partys advertisements related to the government completing three years in Delhi, and manhandled and assaulted during the course of the meeting.

On August 13, 2018, police filed a 1,300-page charge sheet against 13 AAP leaders, including Kejriwal and Sisodia.
President Donald Trump will host the funeral of his brother, Robert Trump, at the White House on Friday.

Robert Trump died last week after being hospitalized in New York. He was 71.

ABC first reported the news, with sources saying Robert Trumps body will be driven to the White House from New York for the ceremony.

The last time a deceased body was brought to the White House was for the funeral services of President John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, the news station said.

The last time that remains were brought to the White House for a funeral for a private citizen was in 1936 for Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, the report said.

The White House is a very complex place. Its an office, its a museum and its a home, Anita McBride, who served in three presidential administrations, including as first lady Laura Bushs chief of staff, told the Associated Press. We loan it to the president for the time he or she is living there. Coming from that perspective, we need to be understanding of some decisions that they make in a case like this.

The service is expected to be held in the East Room of the White House with President Trump covering the costs, ABC said.

A Boston University graduate, Robert Trump managed the Brooklyn portion of his father Fred Trumps real estate empire, which was eventually sold.

The president has described Robert as not just my brother. He was my best friend.

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Former Susquehanna Township middle school science teacher Becky Pringles childhood passion for becoming a teacher has carried her all the way to the chair of the president of the nations largest educator union.

Pringle, 65, was elected earlier this month to this top post at the National Education Association for a three-year term. For the past 12 years, she has served the national organization as its secretary-treasurer and most recently, vice president.
Decency, empathy and reason are, of course, the opposite of what one sees or expects from the incumbent president. Trumps indecent dog whistles to Americas underbelly, his winks at racists and misogynists (Charlottesville and grabm); his utter lack of empathy (migrant children torn from their parents and housed in glorified cages); his rejection of reason and science regarding covid-19 (or anything else that runs counter to his singular purpose of self-aggrandizement and the satisfaction of his rapacious narcissism)  all point to a man who never should have become president of the United States in the first place.
Oyo State Police Command has placed a bounty of N500,000 for anyone with useful information that could lead to the re-arrest of a suspected serial killer, Sunday Shodipe, who recently escaped police custody on in Ibadan.

KanyiDaily recalls that the police had on Sunday announced that the 19-year-old suspected serial killer had escaped from their custody while undergoing trial on August 11, 2020.

The police declared the suspect wanted in a statement made available to journalists by the state Police Public Reactions Officer, Olugbenga Fadeyi, on Thursday, August 20, 2020.

The statement titled, Handsome reward of N500,000: Sunday Shodipe, 19 years. A suspected serial killer at Akinyele Local Government Area reads:

The Commissioner of Police, Oyo State Command, CP Joe Nwachukwu Enwonwu, psc wishes to state that handsome reward of five hundred thousand naira only (N500,000) awaits whoever gives useful information for the arrest of the suspected serial killer at Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State, one Sunday Shodipe m 19yrs, who was arrested and paraded at the Oyo State Police Command Headquarters on 17th July, 2020, but later escaped from lawful custody on 11th August, 2020.

Consequently, the general public is hereby implored to arrest and immediately hand him over to the nearest Police Station for necessary action. The Command can be contacted on GSM Numbers: 08035632410 and 07066003536. Kindly give it a repeated broadcast, please.

The Police boss also implored residents to be vigilant while assuring that the suspect Sunday Shodipe would face the full wrath of the law for his heyday in crime.

This development comes about 24 hours after angry youths attacked Oyo police headquarters with stones and other missiles over the escape of the serial killer.
Fernando Simon, the director of the Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts and the visible face of the Spanish government during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, voiced a message of warning to citizens on Thursday given the constant increase in new cases and deaths that Spain has been seeing in recent weeks. No one should have any doubts, he said. Things are not going well. The ministry last night reported 7,039 new infections, 3,349 of them in the last 24 hours.

The Health Ministry admitted that while the increase in detected cases has brought the country to a situation where the epidemic is not out of control on a national level, it is in some specific areas of the country.

If we continue to allow this to rise, even if the cases are mild, we will end up with many people in the hospital, many admitted in intensive care and many dead Fernando Simon

With a tone that contrasted with his usual calm approach, Simon made clear that there continues to be transmission [of the virus] and every day there is more. He warned that if we continue to allow this to rise, even if the cases are mild, we will end up with many people in the hospital, many admitted in intensive care and many dead.

The message from the health official came a day after the ministry reported a significant rise in Covid-19 deaths, which reached 131 for the last seven days  11 times higher than the 12 victims reported just a month ago.

The data reported yesterday was also bad, and continued the upward trend seen over the last two weeks. The ministry reported 7,039 new cases, of which 3,349 were diagnosed on Wednesday and the remainder on previous days. Madrid continues to top the list for new cases, with 2,344, followed by Catalonia (1,095), Andalusia (599), the Basque Country (544), Castilla y Leon (388) and Aragon (350).

The number of people hospitalized in the last seven days now stands at 1,407, nearly double the figure for a week ago

The incidence rate over the last two weeks has also risen once more, to 142 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Cases detected where symptoms began in the last two weeks, one of the most-valued indicators by the experts in terms of monitoring the progress of the pandemic, came in at a new record high of 21,000.

The number of people hospitalized in the last seven days now stands at 1,407, nearly double the figure for a week ago, while the number of new intensive care unit admissions has grown at the same speed, with 90 new patients.

The number of deaths, however, did not rise significantly. Sixteen new victims were reported on Thursday, while the number of victims over the last seven days fell slightly to 122. Simon admitted that the data is still subject to delays given that the regions report their figures to the central Health Ministry before the reports are released and that there could be variations in the coming days.

There are ways of having a good time without putting anyone at risk, Simon repeated on Thursday, in reference to bars and nightclubs proving to be an important source of contagion in recent weeks. The professionals in this sector need to see that people can have fun without putting anyone around them at risk. And those around them are not those that are there at the time, but also those that are going to be with their contacts. He was referring to the chains of contact that begin among younger people but that end up reaching at-risk groups such as seniors.

Fernando Simon during Thursday's press conference. Oscar J.Barroso/AFP7 (Europa Press)

It is not good enough to say that I am young and Im not going to suffer and it doesnt matter, because we know that each youngster ends up causing cases in their families and among older and vulnerable people, he said, calling out to influencers on social media to help contain the epidemic with the major visibility and impact they have among young people.

I understand that people want to go out and party, but there are ways of partying, he continued. I believe that all of those who have the capacity to influence the population should be educating people as to what has to be done.

As an example, Simon cited what had happened in the countryside with seasonal workers, among whom there were initially several serious outbreaks but that were later brought under control with the efforts of the administrations, companies and the workers themselves.

Simon also had some positive messages on Thursday, reporting that the cases are different from those seen in March, when the crisis took hold. They are very young, with an average age among women of 39 and in men of 37. At the peak of the epidemic it was 62 or 63, and two months ago it was 53.

This is the case, he continued, because a very large number of PCR tests are being carried out, around 60,000 a day, and they are being done in zones where there is transmission, which allows them to be properly focused. He added that many asymptomatic and mild cases were being detected, meaning that the hospitalization rates are low. These are, he explained, currently around 4%, well below the 55% or more that was seen during the peak of the pandemic.

Simon also explained that the fatality rate was also lower, and was now around 0.4%, adding that the current detection rate in terms of new cases is what we should be detecting according to the seroprevalence survey.

But after these optimistic data, the official wanted to repeat his warning: We cannot allow for this to get out of hand once more.

English version by Simon Hunter.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Stockholm, Sweden  Fri, August 21, 2020 13:15 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f849ac 2 World COVID-19-vaccine,pandemic,Sweden,SARS-CoV-2,AstraZeneca,virus-corona,coronavirus,novel-coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

Sweden said Thursday it had agreed to take part in the European Union's deal with pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca to secure a supply of a coronavirus vaccine as soon as it is discovered.

The deal means Sweden, a country of 10.3 million people, would get around six million doses of the vaccine in an initial phase, and two million more in a later phase.

"Within two weeks we will have three more [vaccine] agreements to consider, and after that there will be another three or four in a month or two. We are negotiating with everyone to make sure we are covered," Sweden's national vaccine coordinator Richard Bergstrom told reporters.

AstraZeneca said in July that its vaccine, developed together with the University of Oxford, should be available by the end of the year.

Sweden, which has made headlines for its softer approach to the new coronavirus, said on Thursday it had 85,810 confirmed cases and 5,805 deaths.
By Patricia D. Williamson

To say 2020 has been a challenging year is an understatement.

Between a fraught presidential election, the worst pandemic in a century and police murders of Black people exposing the cracks of structural racism in our foundation, it doesnt look like things will let up anytime soon.

Amidst all this, you might ask, theyre asking us to think about the Census?

Yes, we are.

In fact, the Census is directly related to all of the turmoil we are living through right now.

It is the Census count that determines the electoral power of everyone, including communities of color  power that allows people to elect representatives who will address their profound interests. It is the Census count that determines the federal funding desperately needed to recover from this pandemic. And it is the Census count that allows people fair representation to choose leaders who will protect Black lives.

If you already completed the Census, great! You are in the 65% of New Jerseyans who have. If you havent, you still have time to do so to help your community get the essential services and political representation it deserves. As of now, the deadline is September 30.

When COVID-19 struck the United States, it was days after Census 2020 went live. Most New Jersey residents received Census letters with unique IDs as we sheltered in place. Over half of the households that completed the Census finished it by Census Day on April 1. But as of today, we are just shy of two-thirds completion.

That means there are still roughly 3 million residents who remain uncounted in our state.

There are several reasons why these New Jersey residents remain uncounted.

For one, Census outreach took a significant hit in hard-to-reach communities of color because people may have been ill, unemployed, essential workers or a combination of factors related to the pandemic. Further, as large cities such as Newark began distributing Chromebooks to their students, it became evident that many of the hard-to-reach residents did not have the digital tools or the WiFi access to continue their education at the expected levels, much less complete the Census online as the Census Bureau hoped.

In addition, the Trump Administration threatened to include a citizenship question on the Census. While that effort failed, the mere mention of citizenship in the same sentence as the Census can have a severe chilling effect on Census completion by immigrants. And while the citizenship question was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court (the Institute filed a brief in the case), a new presidential memorandum seeks to unconstitutionally exclude undocumented residents, causing yet another wave of fear among this population.

On top of all that, the Census Bureau recently agreed to the Trump Administrations request to complete all data gathering by September 30, 2020  a full month less than its publicized extension of October 31. And the administration has rescinded its request to Congress for a four-month extension to the statutory deadline to submit the Census data to the president, leaving the deadline at December 31, 2020  not nearly enough time to process and deliver the data.

Youd think there was no pandemic going on at all.

But, even under these challenging circumstances, we must persevere and conduct a constitutionally required Census. While New Jersey as a whole is responding at a higher rate than the national average, many of our hardest-to-count municipalities  some with high rates of COVID-19  are trailing.

Almost a quarter of New Jerseys population lives in hard-to-count areas in 18 out of its 21 counties. Newark and Jersey City, New Jerseys two largest cities, rank first and second in the nation for their percentages of African Americans living in hard-to-count tracts; these two cities also rank third and second in the nation for their percentages of Latinas/os living in hard-to-count tracts. People of color, low-income individuals, young children, immigrants, transient people and those with severe distrust or fear of the government are most likely to go uncounted.

A fair and accurate count in the 2020 Census is essential to ensure that communities across New Jersey, particularly those hard-to-count communities of color, receive the funding and representation to which they are entitled. If we have an undercount in the Census, New Jersey could see a cut in the current $45 billion of federal funding it receives, which would hurt families and communities all across the state.

The Census Bureau has started going door to door in all counties of New Jersey. While they rush to finish their work with far less time than they need  here are some ways you can help.

First, if you have not already, take the Census. Do it now: Mail it in, take it online at 2020census.gov or take it over the phone (1-844-330-2020). Assistance is available via telephone in 14 languages and on the TDD for the Hearing-impaired, and 59 additional language brochures are online. Your information is safe. It is crucial for our state that everyone is counted.

Second, call on Congress to extend the deadlines to allow the Census Bureau time to deliver a complete and unrushed count.

Third, tell everyone you know to take the Census. If you are an elected or appointed official, or have a platform, use it to spread the word.

At the end of the day, the Census is about counting in our society. And everyone  regardless of race, age, economic situation or citizenship status  counts.

Lets get counted, New Jersey.

Patricia D. Williamson is the New Jersey Counts project director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

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Dearborn city officials are using the hashtags #MaskUpDearborn and the more generic #MaskUp to promote wearing a mask when in large gatherings, or any indoor public place.

A photo posted recently on their social media pages asked Facebook users to update their profile photos with the Mask Up Dearborn frames, and if possible to change the actual photo to one of them wearing a mask.

The photo they posted was of Mayor Jack OReilly wearing a mask with the frame on the picture.

Cases of the coronavirus are increasing in Dearborn, and we need to stop the spread of this deadly illness, he said. The power is in our hands to do so. Protect others by wearing a mask whenever you are outside of your own home and encountering people. Even outdoors whenever 6 feet of social distancing is not possible. Dearborn is a considerate community, so lets show it by all wearing masks.

A few days later, City Council President Susan Dabaja released a video on city social media pages encouraging the use of masks, as well.

Hi everyone, Im Council President Susan Dabaja and Im masking up for Dearborn, the video message said.
In a letter titled, Objection! Mr. President, Susan B. Anthony must decline your offer of a pardon today, the Susan B. Anthony Museum in Rochester, New York, has formally rejected the pardon by President Donald J. Trump.

She was never pardoned! he exclaimed in a White House ceremony, according to NPR. Did you know that she was never pardoned? What took so long?

Marking the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote, Trump posthumously pardoned renowned suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who died in 1906, this week.

She was never pardoned! he exclaimed in a White House ceremony. Did you know that she was never pardoned? What took so long?

The president has been accused, and suggested as much, starving the U.S. Postal Service of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election, the Associated Press reported.

On Nov. 5, Anthony and 14 women, cast their ballots in the presidential race between Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley, fully aware that their actions were illegal. The pioneering suffragist was later singled out, arrested and charged with voting unlawfully. Her trial took place the following June.

The museums President and CEO Deborah L. Hughes quotes an insert from Anthonys diary from 1873 where she writes about her trial, calling it the greatest outrage history ever witnessed. She was not allowed to speak as a witness in her defense because she was a woman.

The judge overseeing her case dismissed the jury and pronounced her guilty. Outraged to be denied a trial by jury, she said, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.

An original letter about male oppression of women's rights during the Spanish American War handwritten by Susan B. Anthony in 1898 is part of an exhibit "Man's Inhumanity Toward Man" at The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, in Buffalo, N.Y., Monday, Jan. 10, 2005. The exhibit examines prejudice and oppression and the fight against them with documents from Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler to Mahatma Gandhi. (AP Photo/David Duprey)ASSOCIATED PRESS

To pay would have been to validate the proceedings. To pardon Susan B. Anthony does the same, Deborah L. Hughes, president and CEO of the Susan B. Anthony Museum said.

Enforcement and expansion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would be celebrated, we must assure that states respect the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Support for the Equal Rights Amendment would be well received, said Hughes. Advocacy for human rights for all would be splendid.

Hughes pointed out that Anthony was a strong proponent of sex education, fair labor practices, excellent public education, equal pay for equal work and fought for the elimination of all forms of discrimination.

Former President Barack Obama, in his eulogy for U.S. Rep. John Lewis, delivered a sharp rebuke against those in power who seek to undermine the voting rights that the longtime Georgia congressman was willing to die for during the civil rights movement.

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The government and private investors are taking steps to support startups and small and medium-sized businesses negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Egypt

In the wake of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, many companies, especially small businesses and startups, have suffered badly from a lack of funding and cash flow, causing difficulties in covering operating costs and workers wages.

As a measure to support them during the crisis, many governments worldwide have launched programmes that include short-term refinancing and the rescheduling of debts and investments into already planned funding rounds. For instance, France has launched a 4 billion Euro liquidity plan to support its startups cash flows, and Germany has announced the provision of billions of euros to help keep its young tech businesses afloat. Similarly, the UK has put an emergency loan scheme in place to support small companies.

According to reports issued by MAGNiTT, a community and data platform for regional startups, investors, and corporates based in the UAE, Egypt has maintained its first-place rank in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in terms of the number of financing and investment deals directed to startups in 2019 and during the first quarter of 2020 after also being considered the fastest-growing emerging market in the region in 2018.

Venture-capital (VC) firms, alongside angel groups and accelerators, are the leading sources of funding for startups in Egypt, and they are playing an increasingly key role in the startup ecosystem. The chance of high returns on investment is an important reason to invest in startups, and investors who take great risks in the early stages of any firm usually expect correspondingly great returns.

It is worth noting that what distinguishes small businesses from startups is the amount of innovation involved in the provision of products and services. Startups are meant to create something new and/or to improve what already exists, meaning that they often work in the field of the new technologies.

In terms of the national economy, small businesses and startups also play significant roles in economic growth. One of their main advantages is that they can help to create new jobs and reduce unemployment and alleviate poverty, in addition to contributing to the diversification of economic activities that enhance innovation and creativity with relatively low capital requirements.

Startups are also of paramount importance because their primary role is to provide local goods and services at competitive prices using technological systems, in turn increasing GDP and playing a vital role in enhancing economic growth. This is reflected in the high importance given by governments and public institutions to startups and small businesses, alongside VC firms.

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) in Egypt recently launched a loan programme to support small and medium-sized businesses affected by the current crisis, especially industrial and labour-intensive projects. The Financial Regulatory Authority has also taken measures in favour of microfinancing for companies, including the postponement, reduction or rescheduling of loan installments.

In terms of legislative reform, parliament has recently approved a law that provides tax and non-tax incentives for small, micro and medium-sized enterprises, in addition to microfinancing for companies and entrepreneurs. These incentives include the provision of flexible financing, land and resource allocation and the expansion of technical, training and marketing services to companies to help them grow, create jobs and develop their activities. The law also exempts entrepreneurial companies from the patent-registration fees stipulated in the intellectual property law.

The new law has also expanded the definition of small, micro and medium-sized enterprises to cover a larger number of companies. Under the new law, a small enterprise is one having an annual turnover of more than LE1 million but less than LE50 million, and a medium-sized enterprise is one having an annual turnover of between LE50 and LE200 million. The definitions have also become much wider to include more youth-led enterprises and entrepreneurs.

However, despite these efforts, impressive as they are, further efforts are still required to help small businesses and startups to recover quickly from the present economic downturn and to face up to its challenges. These companies and their workforces are still in need of the kind of financial support and incentives that will help to keep them alive in the present critical situation.

More funding and support for these enterprises will not only benefit them and mitigate their losses but will also have wider positive economic impacts. Innovation and creativity are always an important part of the solution, with, as the Italian businessman Giorgio Armani once said, new opportunities always being born from the deepest moments of crisis.

The writer is an attorney at law.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 20 August, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The foreign ministers of China and Pakistan held their 2nd annual strategic dialogue on Friday during which they discussed ways to enhance their all-weather bilateral ties, the Kashmir issue, progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Afghan peace process.

Billed as "highly relevant" and "very important" by both the countries ahead of the meeting held in the southern Chinese island resort of Hainan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi discussed a host of bilateral, regional and international issues.

A joint statement issued at the end of the meeting said that "both sides underlined that a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous South Asia was in common interest of all parties. Parties need to settle disputes and issues in the region through dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect".

"The Pakistani side briefed the Chinese side on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, including its concerns, position and current urgent issues", it said.

"The Chinese side reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between India and Pakistan, which is an objective fact, and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully and properly through the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation", the joint press release said.

India has been maintaining that China has no locus standi in commenting on Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi has previously told Beijing that the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir "has been, is and shall continue to be an integral part of India."

Earlier this month, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the issues pertaining to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir were solely an internal matter of India.

"As on such previous occasions, this attempt too met with little support from the international community. We firmly reject China's interference in our internal affairs and urge it to draw proper conclusions from such infructuous attempts," the MEA said in a statement in New Delhi after China initiated a discussion in the UN Security Council on Jammu and Kashmir.

Ahead of the meeting between Wang and Qureshi, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian told the media here on Thursday that "this time the strategic dialogue is highly relevant and the two sides will take the opportunity to discuss anti-epidemic cooperation, bilateral ties and the regional and international issues of mutual interest".

Before leaving for Hainan, Qureshi told the media in Islamabad that "I am leaving on a very important visit to China. I had a discussion with the prime minister regarding this visit yesterday. My delegation will represent the stance of the political and military leadership of the country".

The meeting took place amid reports of crisis in Pakistan-Saudi Arabia relations which were regarded as the bedrock of Islamabad's foreign policy for decades.

Qureshi left for Hainan after the return of Pakistan Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa from Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with senior officials on the state of relations between Riyadh and Islamabad.

Pakistan Imran Khan said in an interview on Aug 19 that Pakistan's future was linked to China as Beijing defended Pakistan in all difficult times. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping would visit Pakistan in the winter.

Wang and Qureshi reiterated that the enduring China-Pakistan all-weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership is beneficial to international and regional peace and stability, and serves the mutual security and development interests of both countries as well as of international community and regional countries.

On Afghanistan, the joint statement said both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation on the Afghan issue and appreciated the efforts made by Afghan government and the Taliban to initiate the Intra-Afghan Negotiations.

"China appreciated Pakistan's positive contribution to the Afghan peace process and efforts for promoting peace and stability in the region and beyond", it said.

Both sides agreed on continuing their firm support on issues concerning each other's core national interests.

The Chinese side reiterated that Pakistan and China are iron brothers and Pakistan remains China's staunchest partner in the region and that China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence."

Beijing also said it supported Islamabad independently choosing a development path based on its national conditions, striving for a better external security environment and playing a more constructive role on international and regional affairs, the release said.

"The Pakistani side appreciated China for standing together with Pakistan in safeguarding its national security and sovereignty, and reaffirmed its firm support to China on affairs concerning China's core interests and issues of major concern, such as those related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong", it said.

On the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) both sides have underscored that it has entered the new phase of "high-quality development, and has played and will continue to play an important role in supporting Pakistan to overcome the impact of COVID-19 and achieve greater development".

The two sides will continue to firmly advance the construction of the CPEC, ensure in-time completion of those projects under construction, focus on economic and social development, job creation and improvement of people's livelihood, and further strengthen cooperation in Specialised Economic Zones, industrial relocation, science and technology, medical and health, human resources training, poverty alleviation, and agriculture etc, it said.

India has protested to China over the CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
The dates for the JEE and NEET, which are held for admission to premier engineering and medical schools of the country, may be delayed by a few more days amid a demand by students, sources have told CNN-News18.

The government sources said a decision on pushing the dates for the entrance exams back by a few days is likely to be taken after August 25. Education ministry officials are also set to hold meetings with health and home ministry officials to decide on the safety protocol amid the coronavirus pandemic.

JEE and NEET are usually conducted in the month of April, but are set to be held in September after the Supreme Court dismissed pleas for further postponement earlier this week. The JEE (Main) exam will be held between September 1 and 6 and JEE (Advanced) on September 27. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is slated to be conducted on September 13.

Sources said theres been an increase in the number of NEET centres  while this number last year was 2,546, this year it has risen to 3,843.

Students, however, are still demanding that the exams be delayed further to avoid any mishappenings due to the pandemic as well as floods in several states. Vandita Rastogi, who is preparing for the NEET, told CNN-New18, The health risk is too high right now. Weve been going through mental anxiety and pressure for the past few months. And authorities have been ignoring are pleas.

In normal times, IITs would have started their new academic year in the month of July. But now if the exam is conducted in September, the session may start only by December. The students are already a semester behind and any further delay might end up pushing them back a year.

V Ramagopal Rao, director of IIT-Delhi, which is responsible for holding the JEE Advanced this year, said that if the exams are delayed any further, they might have to cancel admissions for one batch of students since its difficult to accommodate two batches at the same time. We are expecting to work the whole summer next year to make up for the lost time.

Questioning the director of IIT-Delhi, Prahlad Shankar, a JEE aspirant, said, The Covid-19 curve is on an all-time high right now. And as mentioned earlier by the director, the joining will be delayed. Then why is there a rush for conducting the exams amidst all the chaos?

The director said that it important to start the classes, even if it is online. M.Tech classes have already started online. It is not about being physically present on campus, it is about starting the academic session even if online.

The Supreme Court had earlier this week dismissed a plea filed by a group of students and parents, demanding postponement of JEE Main 2020 and NEET 2020 entrance exams. The court stated it cannot put the careers of lakhs of students in jeopardy since the whole academic year is at stake.

The section of students demanding that exams be delayed further have also been accused of not preparing well and finding excuses to not appear for the entrance exams.

Ananya Acharaya, a NEET aspirant, said students are only concerned for their safety and the safety of their families.

People have been preparing for these exams for years. But SOPs dont guarantee everyones safety. The steps taken by the committees wont make us immune to coronavirus. Once the cases start declining, well look forward to the exams.

India has so far logged over 29 lakh cases of the virus, the third highest in the world only after US and Brazil, and 54,849 deaths so far. The daily rise in cases has been the highest in the world for 17 straight days now.

Despite this, the lockdown has been eased in most parts of the country, with gyms and markets opening after the governments Unlock 3 guidelines.

Vijay Shankar Pandey, former IAS officer, said the students are going to be the sole losers if the exams are delayed any further. Factories, industries are opening now. Unless the exams are conducted no admissions can take place. Taking all the precautions and following SOPs, the exams should be held.

But students pointed out that during the times of pandemic, not getting infected isnt the only challenge, transport is another, with many students being allotted centres far away.

To add to the woes, Bihar and Assam are fighting floods too. With all these students fear they would not be able to reach the exam centre.

Abhishek Kumar, a JEE aspirant from Bihar, who has been given a center in Kota, Rajasthan, asked how will he be able to travel. 82 lakh people has been affected in Bihar. In the middle of the pandemic with railways being shut down, how can we travel to Kota?

There are only two exam centers in Bihar. The authorities had promised to set up two more, but no action has been taken on that.

The National Testing Agency had assured the Supreme Court that it will make sure that the exams are conducted with all the precautions.

The concerns that need to be answered are travel, health, and ensuring the safety of students and the parents accompanying them. Only once these are tackled can students look forward to start their new journey with the right frame of mind.
T he British Beer & Pub Association has called on the government to repeat the Eat Out to Help Out discount scheme.

The trade body made the plea as it cheered how much the Chancellors scheme has helped early week trade for a number of its members this month.

Eat Out to Help Out offers people a discount of up to 50% on Mondays to Wednesdays in August on food and soft drinks in a participating restaurant, pub or cafe. There is a maximum discount of 10 per head.

It is aimed at helping to boost the hospitality sector, most of which had to shut sites in March for the Covid-19 lockdown and could only reopen them from July 4.

The BBPA said the benefit of the scheme to the recovery of some pubs and the wider hospitality sector has been immeasurable in terms of securing jobs and building consumer confidence.

It added that repeating the scheme, particularly as the industry approaches typically quieter months for the trade post-Summer, would significantly help the sector.

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the BBPA, pointed out that wet led pubs are not benefiting in the same way, and so still need further support from the Government elsewhere.

McClarkin added: With the upcoming autumn budget and alcohol duty review, as well as the business rates review, this should be in the form of significant cuts to beer duty and business rates.
Chron.com is following the latest headlines on the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Houston area

9 a.m.: The latest Houston, Texas numbers

Clocking in at 10.81 percent, the state's COVID-19 positive test rate, a metric local and state officials have repeatedly stressed as critical to slowing the pandemic down, on Wednesday reached the lowest level recorded since late June, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data.

As of Wednesday evening, the number of COVID-19 cases in Texas increased from 570,583 to 577,132, while deaths increased by 303 to 10,923. This marks the fifth highest day for newly reported deaths since the pandemic began.

In the Houston region, cases increased by 1,844 to 137,206 cases total, while deaths increased by 62 to 2,527 total. It's important to note that some Houston-area counties are reporting backlogged data; for example, Montgomery County reported that of its 567 new cases since Friday, 402 were from June and July, per the Houston Chronicle's data team. Harris County reported 804 new cases and is now at 94,676 cases total.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston's Hispanics are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. Language barriers are a large reason why.

The Houston Health Department will hit the streets again this weekend going door-to-door in high-positivity, vulnerable neighborhoods to share critical COVID-19 health information with residents there, according to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

The department first canvassed hard-hit neighborhoods in late July as part of its Better Together, or Todos Juntos. Mejor, campaign that seeks to fill information gaps with multilingual messaging. Minority groups such as Houston's Hispanic population are bearing the brunt of the pandemic and language barriers are a large reason why. The department is trying to combat the harsh statistics that show Hispanics are dying and contracting the virus at alarmingly high rates as compared to other ethnicities and racial groups.

NOTE: The numbers included in this report represent a one-day change in data from Tuesday, August 18 through Wednesday, August 19. 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
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 19:02:31|Editor: huaxia

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MOGADISHU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Somali security forces on Thursday evening killed 10 al-Shabab extremists in a fierce fight on the outskirts of Bosaso town in the northern region of Bari, an official said Friday.

Abdul Rahman Mohamed Jama, commander of police forces of the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in charge of operations said the fierce fight erupted at Galgala Mountains as the army was making operations.

"The fight lasted for several hours, our forces inflicted severe casualties on the militants during the confrontation, killing 10 of them and capturing another fighter alive," Jama said.

He added that two soldiers were killed and another one injured in the gun battle. Locals told Xinhua there was a fierce exchange of fire in the town.

"An intense clash broke out at Galgala area between al-Shabab militants and the army, we could hear the sound of mortars being exchanged between the warring sides that resulted in casualties," Warfa Kadiye, a resident, told Xinhua.

Galgala mountains is a strategic area of Bari region where al-Shabab and so-called Islamic State fighters have been using as hideouts for several years to launch attacks on Puntland forces.

The latest operation came barely four days after Somali security forces killed five al-Shabab militants in another operation in the Gof Gadud Burey town in the southern region of Bay. Enditem
More than 70 former Republican national security officials, including some former members of the Trump administration, came out in support of Joe Biden's bid for president Thursday, according to an open letter that also offered a scathing rebuke of President Donald Trump's first term in office.

"We are profoundly concerned about the course of our nation under the leadership of Donald Trump," the officials wrote. "Through his actions and his rhetoric, Trump has demonstrated that he lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as President."

Some signers include former FBI Director William Webster, former Defense Secretary under President Obama Chuck Hagel and former CIA Director Michael Hayden.

MORE: Trump administration has taken a 'belligerent, aggressive tone' with Oregon officials: Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff

The letter outlines 10 reasons the signers believe Trump isn't fit for the Oval Office.

"Donald Trump has gravely damaged America's role as a world leader," the first point in the letter says. Other items include declarations that Trump is "unfit to lead during a national crisis," "solicited foreign influence," "aligned himself with dictators," "disparaged our armed forces, intelligence agencies, and diplomats," "undermined the rule of law," "dishonored the office of the presidency," "divided our nation," "attacked and vilified immigrants" and "imperiled America's security."

"While we  like all Americans  had hoped that Donald Trump would govern wisely, he has disappointed millions of voters who put their faith in him and has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term. In contrast, we believe Joe Biden has the character, experience, and temperament to lead this nation," the letter reads.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump arrives to speak to a crowd of supporters during a campaign stop at Mariotti Building Product, Aug. 20, 2020, in Old Forge, Pa. (Evan Vucci/AP)

One of the former officials who signed the letter told ABC News that she hoped Trump would rise to the occasion of being president, but in her view, he did not.

Story continues

"Many of us hoped that Trump, like those before him, would rise to the honor of the office. That the mantel of leadership would weigh heavy on him and lead to a change of behavior. That perhaps the tweeting, the bullying, the coarse language would be set aside behind closed doors and that he would treat the office with the dignity and gravity it deserves. That did not happen," Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary of Homeland Security told ABC News.

"[Trump's] leadership style is chaos; and if you study him -- this is a style that he has used for decades in business," she added. "But chaos at the top of our federal government leads to chaos throughout the government. Some see this as a way to weaken the so-called 'deep state' -- but what it actually does is weaken our security agencies' ability to secure and protect our nation. The botched COVID response is merely the latest example -- but also one of the gravest with the cost being American lives."

The Trump campaign did not immediately comment on the letter.

MORE: Former DHS official now backing Biden warns Trump others will speak out

"Donald Trump's four years in the White House have left America isolated abroad, our alliances in tatters, and autocrats like Xi and Putin emboldened," Biden campaign spokesperson Michael Gwin said in a statement. "This endorsement is a clear sign of both how weak Donald Trump has left the United States globally, and of Vice President Biden's unique ability to pick up the pieces next January by rebuilding critical relationships and standing up for American values and interests against the adversaries that Trump has coddled."

Earlier this week, the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff under former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Miles Taylor, came out in support of Biden.

"Given what I've experienced in the administration, I have to support Joe Biden for president," Taylor said in a video posted and produced by the group Republican Voters Against Trump. "And even though I'm not a Democrat, even though I disagree on key issues, I'm confident that Joe Biden will protect the country, and I'm confident he won't make the same mistakes as this president."

Acting Secretary Chad Wolf blasted Taylor in a statement, accusing him of reversing course for "five minutes of fame."

More than 70 Republican former national security officials come out in support of Biden originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
RADNOR TOWNSHIP, PA  Radnor Township School District was awarded grant funding to help provide services for students with special needs, and learning complications related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf Thursday announced 678 education agencies across the state are receiving a portion of $20 million from the Governor's Emergency Education Relief Fund and the Pennsylvania Department of Education's federal funding from the CARES Act.

The district was awarded $5,000.

These funds will allow the district to provide enhanced real-time instruction and services and support to students with complex needs, and provide services and supports to students with disabilities who may have fallen behind in some way due to the mandatory school closures. The funds will help schools address student losses in skills and behavior.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, an additional $5 million in Governor's Emergency Education Relief grant funding will be available to Preschool Early Intervention programs to provide compensatory educational services. This is federal funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act authorizes governors to determine the educational use of Governor's Emergency Education Relief Funds, which can be used towards the safe reopening of schools in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

This article originally appeared on the Radnor Patch
Richard Craver

Farmer found guilty of contaminating baby food for blackmail

LONDON  A sheep farmer in Britain has been found guilty of planting baby food laced with metal shards in stores as part of a plan to blackmail a supermarket chain.

Prosecutors said Nigel Wright, 45, contaminated jars of Heinz baby food between 2018 and February, and sent dozens of emails and letters to Tesco in a bid to extort 1.4 million pounds ($1.84 million) in the online currency Bitcoin.

Wright claimed to be part of a group of farmers angry at the low price they were paid for the milk they sold.

Tesco had to recall about 42,000 jars of baby food after a mother reported discovering pieces of metal in one of the jars. A second mother later also came forward saying she made a similar discovery while feeding her 9-month-old.

Wright was caught on closed-circuit television planting one of the jars on a shelf, and was later tracked to his home, where police found photos of contaminated baby food on his laptop. Officers also recovered about 100,000 pounds in Bitcoin which had been sent by undercover officers during the investigation.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:22 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6fadb 2 World China,Chinese-workers,Papua-New-Guinea,vaccination,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-vaccine,pandemic Free

China faced demands on Thursday to explain why a state-backed firm claimed it had vaccinated dozens of staff against the coronavirus before sending them back to work at a mine in Papua New Guinea.

The China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) -- which controls a major nickel mine in the country -- warned local authorities that 48 staff who returned from China this month may test positive for the virus because they had received a vaccine.

In response, Papua New Guinea authorities called for "immediate clarification" from Beijing and blocked a charter flight full of Chinese workers that was due to land Thursday.

The pandemic has disrupted operations at several lucrative mines in Papua New Guinea, one of the Pacific's poorest nations.

While moving its staff into place, MMC's subsidiary firm Ramu NiCo told Papua New Guinea authorities that any positive coronavirus test results were "the normal reaction of the vaccination and not due to infection", according to a Chinese and English-language statement obtained by AFP.

The 48 members of staff at its multi-billion-dollar mine had "been vaccinated with SARS-COV-2 vaccine" before their return, it said.

China has previously indicated that it would test vaccines on military personnel and staff at state-backed companies, but it is not clear whether these tests were carried out on workers heading overseas.

"It takes around seven days to produce antibodies in the vaccine recipient's body after being vaccinated," the statement reads.

"If they need to be tested again for COVID-19, it is suggested to be conducted at least seven days after the vaccination date."

Papua New Guinea's pandemic tsar David Manning told AFP he wanted answers and had blocked the arrival of a flight with around 150 Chinese workers on board due in Port Moresby on Thursday.

"I am demanding an explanation from the Chinese ambassador as to how this has happened," he said.

"I have written to the Chinese government through the Chinese ambassador -- to explain how these 48 employees of this state company were vaccinated."

Call for clarity

There are growing concerns that Ramu NiCo staff may have circumvented arrival quarantine procedures, that the vaccinations may have been administered unlawfully in Papua New Guinea, or that they were tested on Papua New Guinea citizens.

Anyone arriving in Papua New Guinea must receive a coronavirus test before boarding their flight and undergo quarantine on arrival.

In a letter from Manning to the Chinese ambassador, also seen by AFP, he demanded "immediate clarification" and stated that Papua New Guinea "does not currently acknowledge a vaccine" for coronavirus and will not until national regulators and the World Health Organisation have given their approval.

He also issued a decree banning coronavirus testing, trials and unapproved vaccine treatments in Papua New Guinea.

Chinese ambassador Xue Bing told AFP: "We don't have any comments for the moment. However, one thing is for sure, China is not doing [coronavirus] tests here in PNG."

Papua New Guinea -- which has an already under-resourced health sector -- had largely dodged the worst of the virus outbreak until recent weeks.

The country saw 12 new cases on Thursday taking its total to 359, with 159 active cases amid low rates of testing. At least three people have died from the virus.

Coronavirus clusters recently forced the closure of major mines including the vast Ok Tedi copper and gold mine.

China's Ramu NiCo is no stranger to controversy and was temporarily shuttered in late 2019 after spewing slurry into the Bismarck Sea and turning parts of the surrounding coastline ochre red.

Nickel is a highly prized metal widely used in batteries, including for electric cars.
LUCKNOW: BJP MLA from Deoria Sadar seat, Janmejay Singh, has died of a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Lucknow, party spokesperson Chandra Mohan said Friday. He was 75.

Singh was admitted to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Institute after he developed health complications and died during pacemaker implantation late Thursday night, Mohan said.

The MLA was initially taken to the civil hospital but referred to Lohia hospital, he added.

The hospital Medical Superintendent Vikram Singh said the MLA suffered a heart attack.

Uttar Pradesh Assembly, which is in session, paid tributes to its sitting member.

As soon as the House assembled, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath informed it of Singh's death. Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit and leaders of all political parties -- Samajwadi Party, BSP, Congress, SBSP and Apna Dal -- paid tributes and recalled his services.

After observing a two-minute silence, the House was adjourned for the day as a mark of respect to the departed soul.

"He was a devoted public figure who was working hard for the development of his constituency. He used to work for the poor and weaker sections of the society. In his death, the party has lost a dedicated worker and the public has lost a true well-wisher," Adityanath said in a statement.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav also condoled the death.

In a tweet, he prayed for peace to the departed soul and strength to his family to bear the loss.

The body of Singh, who is survived by three sons and four daughters, has reached his Deoria residence and the last rites will be performed in Gorakhpur later Friday, family sources said in Deoria.

Singh, who was first elected to the House in a byelection in 2000, was againt elected in 2012 and 2017 state polls.
A ll Btec students will receive their results by the end of next week, the awarding organisation for the qualifications has said.

It comes after a fresh round of exam chaos saw grades pulled at the last minute.

Students awaiting grades for university entry are being prioritised and will receive their results from Tuesday onwards, Pearson said on Friday.

All remaining results to be made available by Friday next week.

The exam board also apologised for the frustration and additional uncertainty caused by its eleventh-hour decision on Wednesday to hold results back from hundreds of thousands of students just hours before results day.

Pearson said it needed to review the grades of its level one to three Btec qualifications after Ofquals decision to allow A-level and GCSE students to use grades based on their teachers estimates.

Around 200,000 level one and two Btec entries were due to receive grades on Thursday, while 250,000 level three grades were already awarded last week.

A spokeswoman for Pearson said: We know this has caused frustration and additional uncertainty for students and we are truly sorry.

No grades will go down as part of this review.

We believe this will result in the fairest outcomes for the 2020 cohort of Btec learners, and ensure they are not disadvantaged in relation to their peers who have taken A-level and GCSE qualifications.

We have now written to colleges to confirm that all eligible results will be available by August 28.

Thank you to all the schools and colleges who have been working so collaboratively with us to support their students at this time.

BTEC results pulled in last minute U-turn

A spokesman for the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, or UCAS, said: "The vast majority of students applying this year with Btecs have secured their place at University, with 45,000 students already placed with their first choice university.

Approximately 5,800 students were not placed at their original firm choice university and we expect some of those students will, when revised grades are issued, meet the conditions of their original firm offer.

UCAS will work closely with Pearson to process these results to ensure they can make decisions as soon as possible.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added: This has been a frustrating episode, and we hope that no student misses out on the university place they had their heart set on as a result of this delay.

Pearson is doing the right thing in reviewing Btec grades, but it is a pity that it wasnt quicker off the mark. We are pleased there is now the reassurance of knowing when the results will be available, and that students will soon be able to move on to the next stage of their lives.

The clarification on timings meanwhile came as students and teachers protested in Westminster over this year's results chaos.

The protest outside Downing Street on Friday saw dozens of people gather to demand the immediate sacking of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.

A-level Protests 2020 - In pictures 1 /26 A-level Protests 2020 - In pictures A level students hold placards as they protest outside the Department for Education, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) REUTERS Students from Codsall Community High School march to the constituency office of their local MP Gavin Williamson, who is also the Education Secretary, as a protest over the continuing issues of last week's A level results which saw some candidates receive lower-than-expected grades after their exams were cancelled as a result of coronavirus. PA An A level student reacts during a protest outside the Department for Education REUTERS An A level student holds a placard during a protest at Parliament Square REUTERS People take part in a protest outside the Department for Education, London, in response to the downgrading of A-level results. PA People take part in a protest outside the Department for Education, London, in response to the downgrading of A-level results PA Olivia Styles, 18, from Basingtoke, sets her A-level results on fire during peaceful protest in Parliament Square PA An A level student holds a placard during a protest at Parliament Square REUTERS A level students hold placards as they protest at Parliament Square REUTERS People take part in a peaceful protest in Parliament Square, London PA People take part in a peaceful protest in Parliament Square, London PA A level students hold placards as they protest outside the Department for Education REUTERS A level students hold placards as they protest outside the Department for Education, REUTERS LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 16: Students take part in an A-Level results protest opposite Downing Street Getty Images Students take part in an A-Level results protest opposite Downing Street Getty Images Getty Images REUTERS Getty Images Getty Images PA

On Friday morning, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps became the latest minister to defend Mr Williamson over the exam results fiasco.

He said: I havent given him any advice other than to say, if youre in politics long enough then youll always have to go through difficult weeks.

Mr Shapps added: Lets not pretend that the choices facing the Education Secretary were unique to England or straightforward, because they were not.
Mayor Patrick Payton said Thursday that discussions are taking place to open up more of Midland and move toward a safe and healthy opening of our economy here.

The mayor stated during a Unified Command Team press conference that he couldnt go into details, but the city, hospital and other entities are part of an initiative to approach the Governors Office to open up more businesses.

Were just trying to get (back) some of our ability to run our city, Payton said. Weve really reached this place as a city, where were about as open as we can get without violating governors orders.

Bars have been the most-high profile of the businesses impacted by the shutdowns associated with the coronavirus pandemic. Bars were forced to close for the second time on June 26.

Were not like a Dallas or San Antonio or Houston; we need some leeway, Payton said, so we can take care of what we need to take care of as a city.

Payton said he hopes Gov. Greg Abbott will call a special session, so that the legislators can be (in Austin) debating whats happening rather than (the governor) running this thing by dictate.

The mayor said Midlanders already have shown the ability to respond to the virus not once but twice, and there is the expertise in place for the citys businesses and residents to have the freedom to open up.

The city reported coronavirus case numbers last week that were the lowest in about a month. This week is on pace to be the lowest in about two months.

We know how to manage our health and take care of ourselves, Payton said. We need to have the broader freedom to get out from under the restrictions of specialty declarations, so that we can open the way we need to open, Payton said.

Payton said community leaders are negotiating with state leaders and not making threats or anything like that.
New York City police officers have faced more than 320,000 complaints from the public since the mid-1980s, but less than 3% resulted in penalties, according to newly released data that offers a rare glimpse into the long-veiled realm of police misconduct and accountability.

The New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday published data on complaints against more than 81,000 current or former NYPD officers after prevailing in a fight with public safety unions that had sought to keep the records secret.

They include more than 18,000 complaints about nasty words, cursing or ethnic and homophobic slurs; 2,200 allegations of officers using flashlights, radios or guns to beat people; 5,400 instances of guns allegedly being pulled or pointed; and more than 1,700 complaints of officers using chokeholds, which have long been banned by the department and were recently outlawed. There were also more than two dozen complaints about conduct regarding animals.

The complaints touch virtually every part of the department, from beat cops to men and women whove ascended to top leadership posts.

Commissioner Dermot Sheas record includes three substantiated complaints stemming from a vehicle stop in August 2003, when he was working his way up from captain to deputy inspector. He was ordered to receive extra instructions as punishment.

Crime Control Strategies Chief Michael LiPetri has been the subject of 25 complaints since he started at the NYPD in 1994  but only three were substantiated, leading to minor punishment.

A message seeking comment was left with a police spokesperson.

The NYCLU posted the records to its website after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a stay that had been blocking the organization from making them public despite a change in state law meant to promote transparency in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.

History has shown the NYPD is unwilling to police itself, NYCLU legal director Christopher Dunn said. The release of this database is an important step towards greater transparency and accountability and is just the beginning of unraveling the monopoly the NYPD holds on public information and officer discipline.

A spokesperson for the unions, which represent city police officers, firefighters and jail guards, said the appeals courts decision in no way means the battle to permit constitutionally guaranteed right to due process for public safety workers ceases.

In fact, we continue to fight the de Blasio administration and the improper dumping of thousands of documents containing unproven, career damaging, unsubstantiated allegations that put our members and their families at risk. And were not done, said the spokesperson, Hank Sheinkopf.

While its difficult to draw any conclusions from the data  for example, one officer was listed as having 64 substantiated complaints against her, but all seemed to stem from one incident  there are some broader takeaways.

According to the data, 8,699 complaints led to a penalty, 19,833 officers were named in five or more complaints, and 12 officers were terminated as a result of complaints lodged during the decades-long span covered by the records.

Those officers include Damian Marcaida, who had no complaints before he was charged in 1999 with beating a woman who asked for his name and badge number after the police killing of Amadou Diallo, and Charles Dorcent, who was exonerated of using excessive force less than a year before a videotaped beating in 2002 that led to his conviction on criminal charges.

A federal district court judge is expected to rule Friday in another aspect of the union lawsuit: whether to keep barring the citys police watchdog agency, as well as the police department and other entities from releasing disciplinary records.

The unions sued the city July 15 to block Mayor Bill de Blasio from taking advantage of last months repeal of a decades-old state law, which had kept disciplinary records secret, by starting to post misconduct complaints on a government website.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla initially sided with the unions, pausing the release of disciplinary records and barring the NYCLU from publicly releasing records it obtained from the watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Failla later reversed herself on the NYCLU, saying it was impossible for her to reach back and prevent the release of records that the organization received before the unions filed their lawsuit. That led to the unions appeal and the ruling Thursday in favour of the NYCLU.

Scores of disciplinary records have already reached public view since the repeal last month of a law that had kept them secret for decades.

ProPublica published a database last month containing complaint information for thousands of officers, while news outlets including the AP have published numerous stories based on newly public disciplinary documents.

___

On Twitter, follow Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and Jennifer Peltz at twitter.com/jennpeltz
Opposition Congress gave a political spin to the IT raids linking promoter of Faith Group Raghavendra Singh Tomar to power corridor here.

A strong contingent of around 600 IT officers from Delhi conducted simultaneous raids on these establishments in Bhopal and Indore.

Bhopal: Income Tax (IT) sleuths on Thursday conducted raids on the establishments of nine major real estate developers in Madhya Pradesh, several of them were said to have links with the power corridor in the state.

A strong contingent of around 600 IT officers from Delhi conducted simultaneous raids on these establishments in Bhopal and Indore.

"At least 112 benami properties have come to fore so far following the raids. The properties include 357 acres in Bhopal. Besides, huge cashes were also recovered from one establishment. Valuation of the properties was being done," a senior IT officer told this newspaper requesting not to be quoted since he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Sources said an anonymous letter reached the Enforcement Directorate (ED) last year informing that some retired and serving civil service officers of MP cadre have invested in some real estate companies in the state.

The ED had then referred the matter to the Central Board of Direct Taxation (CBDT) for a probe. The Thursdays income tax raids on these establishments were fallout of the probe into the matter by CBDT, the IT officer indicated.

Opposition Congress gave a political spin to the IT raids linking promoter of Faith Group Raghavendra Singh Tomar to power corridor here.

Party spokesman Narendra Singh Saluja released a picture of 2012 showing the builder in company of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to establish their alleged links.

The party also referred to several pictures posted in the real estate developers social media site showing him in the company of state minister Aurobind Bhadoria at several places.

Bhadoria, however, told the media here that he had nothing to do with the Faith Group promoter. In a Facebook post, the Faith Group promoter has also hailed Bhadoria as giant killer indicating that the latter had played a key role in toppling the Kamal Nath government in March this year.

The 15-month-old Kamal Nath government fell when 22 Congress legislators, loyalists of former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, resigned from assembly in March this year. Later, Scindia and the 22 ex-MLAs joined BJP.
In a first-ever study using ozone data collected by commercial aircraft, researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder found that levels of the pollutant in the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere have increased across the Northern Hemisphere over the past 20 years. That's even as tighter controls on emissions of ozone precursors have lowered ground-level ozone in some places, including North America and Europe.

Tropospheric ozone--ozone between Earth's surface and 12 to 15 kilometers above Earth--is a greenhouse gas and air pollutant that, at high levels, can harm people's lungs and damage plants.

In a study published today in the journal Science Advances, the team found an overall increase in ozone levels above the Northern Hemisphere. "That's a big deal because it means that as we try to limit our pollution locally, it might not work as well as we thought," said Audrey Gaudel, a CIRES scientist working in the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory and the study's lead author. She and her colleagues documented the greatest ozone increases in the tropics, Gaudel said, noting that ozone exported from the tropics may be driving increases above other areas of the Northern Hemisphere.

Gaudel and her co-authors, CIRES scientists in NOAA and international colleagues, also found the most striking increases in areas where ozone levels were once lowest: Malaysia/Indonesia, Southeast Asia and India, for example. Those regions had very low ozone values between 1994-2004, and very high levels in recent years, between 2011-2016.

Previous studies could not draw firm conclusions on Northern Hemisphere ozone trends, according to Gaudel, because there are too few long-term monitoring locations and because new satellites with near-global coverage have provided conflicting results on ozone trends.

So the researchers turned to aircraft data from Europe's In-Service Aircraft for the Global Observing System (IAGOS) program. "Since 1994, IAGOS has measured ozone worldwide using the same instrument on every plane, giving us consistent measurements over time and space from Earth's surface to the upper troposphere," Gaudel said. Between 1994 and 2016, commercial aircraft captured 34,600 ozone profiles, or about four profiles each day.

Gaudel and her colleagues used these measurements to calculate changes in tropospheric ozone from the mid-1990s to 2016 above 11 regions in the Northern Hemisphere. They found an overall increase in ozone in all regions where they looked, including four in the mid-latitudes, two in the subtropics, two in the tropics and three equatorial regions. On average, median ozone values had increased by 5% per decade.

In the so-called "lower troposphere," which is closer to Earth's surface, ozone has decreased above some mid-latitude regions, including Europe and the United States, where ozone precursor emissions have decreased. The researchers found those reductions were offset by increases higher in the troposphere--with the net result being an overall ozone increase from the surface to 12 km.

To understand what was causing the observed ozone changes, the researchers looked at the emissions inventories of one of the main ozone precursors--nitrogen oxides (NOx)--used as input for the global chemistry transport model MERRA-2 GMI, which reproduces accurately the IAGOS measurements. The model showed that increased anthropogenic emissions in the tropics were likely driving the observed increase of ozone in the Northern Hemisphere.

Next, Gaudel wants to take a closer look at ozone in the tropics. Africa may be emerging as a global hotspot for air pollution precursors, for example, and IAGOS data will let her dig deeper into that continent's role in recent trends. She'll also compare tropical ozone measurements from IAGOS, taken above polluted regions, with measurements from the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) field campaign, which measured trace gases and aerosol particles in more remote, less polluted regions including the tropics. And she'll look at measurements from TROPOMI, an instrument on board a European Space Agency satellite gathering information on atmospheric composition.

"We want to understand the variability of ozone and its precursors and the impact of polluted regions on remote regions," Gaudel said. "So we're using the best tools we have, including IAGOS, ATom data and TROPOMI data, to get profiles and columns of ozone and its precursors from different kinds of human activities and natural sources."

###

Authors of "Aircraft observations since the 1990s reveal increases of tropospheric ozone at multiple locations across the Northern Hemisphere" in Science Advances are Audrey Gaudel, Owen R. Cooper, Kai-Lan Chang and Ilann Bourgeois from CIRES and NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory; Jerry R. Ziemke from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Morgan State University; Sarah A. Strode from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Universities Space Research Association; Luke D. Oman from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Pasquale Sellitto from Universite de Paris, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace; Philippe Nedelec, Romain Blot and Valerie Thouret from Universite de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS; and Claire Granier from CIRES, NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory and Universite de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS.

Funder: Authors Audrey Gaudel, Owen R. Cooper, Kai-Lan Chang, and Ilann Bourgeois are supported by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder. Authors Valerie Thouret, Philippe Nedelec, Romain Blot are supported by IAGOS which receives funding the European commission, national research programmes in Germany (BMBF), France (INSU-CNRS, MESR, CNES) and UK (NERC).

The MERRA-2 GMI simulation was funded by the NASA MAP program. S.A.S. was supported by the NASA MAP and ACMAP programs. In its last 10 years of operation, MOZAIC was funded by INSU-CNRS (France), Me?te?o-France, Universite? Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France), and Research Center Ju?lich (FZJ, Ju?lich, Germany). IAGOS has been additionally funded by the EU projects IAGOS-DS and IAGOS-ERI. The MOZAIC-IAGOS database was supported by AERIS (CNES and INSU-CNRS).
Evanina described Irans efforts as undermining democratic institutions and Trump, but they appear aspirational compared to those of Russia and China. Iranian and Chinese hackers have attempted to penetrate the Gmail accounts of staffers for the Trump and Biden campaign, but there were no indications they were successful, Google announced in June. And its not clear that the efforts were preludes to a release of emails aimed at disrupting the campaign, as happened in 2016.
Quote, Camillo Pane, Executive Chairman at Present Life:

"When you're building brands in the wellbeing and beauty space, they have to be effective and must deliver on their promises. Natural brands often come with a tradeoff on performance, whilst the most efficacious products aren't always the kindest. This is a compromise that consumers no longer need to accept.

"We use cutting-edge science to unlock the true power of natural ingredients, including rapidly emerging actives like CBD. Our consumer testing is extremely rigorous and we design and formulate to match the highest accreditations from the world's most well-respected industry bodies.

Pane is gathering a diverse team of corporate and start-up executives with the aim to benefit from the best of both worlds and disrupt the wellbeing and beauty market at scale.

"In most categories nowadays, there is a proliferation of start-up brands that, while disruptive in product and business model, often struggle to scale effectively. The hybrid skills of our team sets us apart from large corporates and smaller start-ups allowing us to first create with agility and speed, and then scale rapidly and profitably," explains Pane.

Present Life's first consumer brand is Healist

This April, Present Life launched Healist Advanced Naturals in the US. Healist is an innovative wellness brand with benefit-driven formulations designed to restore the body's innate capacity to heal. Healist's launch product line focuses on stress reduction, good sleep, and reducing muscle aches and discomfort. The brand's pioneering formulations blend efficacious natural ingredients with organic, broad-spectrum hemp extract.

Healist is on a mission to bring transparency and credibility to a newly forming category. Therefore, all Healist products are clean and natural, triple lab-tested, vegan, cruelty-free, non-GMO, and contain 0.00% THC. All Healist products are packaged with sustainable materials including ocean waste plastic.

The above combination makes Healist unique in the market. Healist is available online now (www.healistnaturals.com). The brand will also be truly omnichannel with its anticipated expansion into major brick-and-mortar stores in the coming months.

"The results from our ongoing quantitative consumer testing has been fantastic and it's rewarding to be able to create products that deliver tangible results that consumers love," says Pane.

Present Life's investment partner is The Craftory

Present Life has partnered with The Craftory, a global cause-driven investment house that focuses on supporting and scaling the world's best CPG challenger brands.

"We have a common goal of developing products that people believe in and that make them feel good, and together are excited for the chance to make a positive impact in people's lives," said Pane.

Elio Leoni Sceti, Co-Founder of The Craftory agrees:

"At The Craftory we look for experienced partners that challenge status quo and pave the way for cutting edge brands to transform their respective categories. We see Present Life as the home of the next generation of fearless and authentic consumer wellness and beauty brands.

"As a unique 'startup-corporation hybrid', Present Life has the optimum mix between the brand building capabilities and discipline of a consumer good company and the agility of a start-up; this is the exact disruptor mindset that will allow Present Life to quickly make a positive impact on the wellness and beauty industries, as well as on the planet."

More Present Life brands are being added to the portfolio

In addition to the launch of its first wellness brand in the US, Present Life will roll out Healist Advanced Naturals into Europe in 2020 and will also launch this summer its second brand, LOUM Beauty of Calm (www.loumbeauty.com), a revolutionary new clean beauty brand developed with a leading Psycho-Dermatologist and in partnership with Daphne Oz. LOUM invokes the science of calm and uses a proprietary complex to dial down and free our beauty from the effects of stress.

And finally, joining the Present Life portfolio this month is One Ocean Beauty, the clean & sustainable marine biotech beauty brand founded by Marcella Cacci (www.oneoceanbeauty.com).

"One Ocean Beauty is a perfect fit for Present Life and reflects our values and ambition, I'm looking forward to supporting Marcella and her team through their next phase of expansion." - said Pane.

More about Present Life

Present Life is dedicated to creating no-compromise, natural self-care products that work. All Present Life brands are plant-based (natural and naturally derived, vegan) planet-friendly (cruelty free, clean & sustainably sourced) and proven (consumer tested, industry accredited).

Present Life is headquartered in London with offices in New York (www.presentlife.io)

More about The Craftory

Based in London and San Francisco, The Craftory is a $375M global investment fund focused exclusively on amplifying the world's boldest consumer brands. We offer permanent, early stage and growth capital (Series A, Series B etc.) to mission-driven consumer brands. We invest in companies offering products that positively impact the categories they serve, our society, and the planet.

thecraftory.io

More about Camillo Pane, Executive Chairman of Present Life

Camillo Pane has been passionate about making a difference in the lives of consumers since he started his career over 27 years ago.

Camillo is a senior advisor to private equity funds and prior to that was Chief Executive Officer of Coty Inc. and a member of the Coty Board of Directors. Before joining Coty, Camillo was Global Category Officer Consumer Health at Reckitt Benckiser, a leading global consumer goods company, where he spent almost 20 years.

Camillo has held numerous international senior executive roles throughout his career, having lived and worked in both developed and emerging markets, including North America, Latin America and Europe.

A native Italian, Camillo started his career working for Kraft in Italy. He graduated from the University of Bocconi in Milan with a degree in business administration. He is based in London.

SOURCE Present Life Inc.

Related Links

https://www.presentlife.io


Veteran actor Dilip Kumars brothers - Eshan Khan and Aslam Khan - are critical, says a report in The Times of India. The two were admitted to Mumbais Lilavati hospital after they complained of breathlessness. They later tested positive for Covid-19.

The report quoted Dr Jalil Parker, who gave updates on their health. He was quoted in ETimes as saying: They are critical because of their age and comorbidities. Their vital organs are beginning to becomes a cause of concern.

Eshan is about 90 years of age while Aslam Khan is a few years younger. Both have a history of blood pressure and heart ailments. They are not on ventilator support, however, non-invasive ventilator was put on Sunday.

Also read: Rohit Shetty says he cried on seeing Saif Ali Khans daughter Sara Ali Khan beg him for work in resurfaced viral video

On Saturday night, Eshan and Aslam Khan started complaining of breathlessness and were immediately rushed to Lilavati hospital. Later, they tested positive for Covid-19 after rapid antigen test was done and were immediately admitted at the Covid-19 ward of the hospital. Their oxygen saturation has dropped below 80%.

Dr Jalil had earlier told Hindustan Times, They have been kept in ICU but we havent intubated them as yet. Considering their age and pre-condition health issues like diabetes and hypertension, we have to be extra careful while treating them.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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The Peoples Court of Dien Bien province, north-western Vietnam, on August 21 handed down a death sentence on seven local residents charged with smuggling and trafficking 51kg of heroin in 2019.

Defenders in the courtroom. (Photo: NLDO)

Three other accomplices in the ring were given life imprisonment.

According to the indictment, in May 2019 Dien Biens anti-drug police and customs officials caught red handed Mua A Lenh, a resident of Dien Bien born in 1987, trafficking and trading heroin.

Further investigation showed that other nine men also involved in trafficking a total of 150 cakes of heroin weighing 51kg in October 2018.

The court also ruled the convicted will hand in nearly VND400 million (US$17,000) to the State budget while the confiscated heroin will be destroyed.

According to the law, the seven convicted subject to the death sentence are entitled to appeal to the State President for pardon within seven days following the courts ruling. VOV

One arrested after failed attempt to traffic pregnant women into China



The National Drug Agency and the High Command of the Border Guard have busted a ring of trafficking Vietnamese pregnant women into China, detaining the ringleader.

According to the enforcement agencies joint statement, they stopped a car attempting to illegally transport Vietnamese people to China at a border area in Na Han town of Tan Thanh commune in Van Lang district, Lang Son province, late August 18.

On board the car were six women, two of whom were pregnant, coming from Hanoi, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Nghe An, and Ha Giang provinces, respectively.

Expanding the human trafficking investigation, the police on August 19 detained Be Ngoc Tang, a 34-year-old resident of Na Lau hamlet in Tan Thanh commune, Lang Son province, who masterminded the ring to bring Vietnamese nationals, especially pregnant women, into China.

Relevant forces also rescued two women of Quang Nam and Soc Trang provinces who fell victim to the human trafficking ring. One of the women was pregnant and the other had given birth to a baby one day earlier. Both women were then transferred to a care centre under the Vietnam Womens Union.

Currently, a further investigation is underway. VOV

Two drown, two missing after boat capsizes in Ben Tre

Two people have died and two others remain missing after their boat sank on a river in the southern province of Ben Tre.

Rescue forces look for the missing men on the Ba Lai River on August 21.

Police in Tan Xuan Commune announced on Friday morning that rescue forces found two bodies of Tra Dang Thanh Quy, 25, and Nguyen Hoang Duy, 32 whose fishing boat sank on the Ba Lai River on the afternoon of August 20.

"We are still searching for two other men who remain missing after the boat sank," police said.

According to a police report, eight men aged between 11-34 went fishing on a three-tonne capacity boat on the Ba Lai River on early Thursday afternoon. It started to rain heavily and a strong gust of wind at around 2 pm capsized the boat.

Four managed to swim to shore. They tried to look for the others missing and then called local police for help.

Two men were found dead on the morning of August 21 while rescue forces are still looking for the remaining two. Dtinews/Tienphong

Large bomb found in Quang Tri

A 227-kilo unexploded bomb suspected to date back to the American War has been detected in the central province of Quang Tri.The bomb was found by workers at a quarry in Luong Le Village in Huong Hoa District at the depth of 20 metres on Thursday.

The bomb is found in Quang Tri on August 20.

On the same day, local authorities blocked the area when the bomb was discovered and denoted on Friday.

The.54-metre bomb appeared to be an MK82 made in the US and dropped in Quang Tri during the war.

It took the military more than two hours to access the bomb before moving it to a place for a controlled detonation.

This is the second time such a bomb was found in the quarry.

According to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, around 6.1 million ha of land or 18.71% of Vietnams total area are contaminated with about 800,000 tonnes of bombs, mines and unexploded ordnance, which are scattered over 63 cities and provinces in the country, with the central region the hardest hit.

The government aims to clear about 800,000 ha of bomb-and mine-polluted land during the 2016-2025 period, while calling for domestic and international resources for the implementation of the programme. Dtinews
A woman has been booked by the police for abusing and threatening a doctor of a nursing home in Mumbais Grant Road who had asked her to wear mask and not to crowd. The police has not arrested the woman yet.

According to the DB Marg police, doctor Kavita Tilwani, 48 has given the complaint to the police on Wednesday. Tilwani,who is a resident of Malabar Hill area, runs the SP Nursing Home in Grant Road along with her brother.

On August 17, a pregnant patient Faizma Shaikh was admitted at the nursing home for pregnancy-related complications. Her caesarean delivery was done on August 18, the police said.

On Thursday while Shaikh was at the patient room more than 20 of her relatives turned up at the nursing home to see her. Few of them were not wearing masks, the doctor said in her complaint.

When Tilwani visited the patients room to see Shaikh, she saw that her relatives had crowded the place while three women were sitting on the patients bed. And few of them were not wearing masks.

When Tilwani raised objection for the same and asked them to wear mask and leave the patients room, a woman sitting on the patients bed Nafisa Abbas Lakdawala started abusing her and also threatened to assault her.

The relatives left after other staff intervened and the relatives left the room.

Tilwani called up the DB Marg police and registered a case under section 4 of Maharashtra Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage or Loss to Property) Act, 2010 against Lakdawala.

We will verify the allegations made in the complaint and would soon record the statement of the accused woman and then file charge sheet against her, said Suryakant Bangar, senior inspector of DB Marg police station.
The Bombay High Court has refused to interfere with the directive of the state disaster management authority, making it mandatory for people visiting their hometowns in the Konkan region after August 12 for Ganeshotsav to undergo a Covid-19 test.

A bench comprising justices KK Tated and Milind Jadhav upheld the clause in the Government order issued on August 4, 2020, observing that it has been issued to ensure that the population of Konkan region stays safe and does not get infected or come in contact with corona virus.

The bench said that effective steps need to be taken to contain the spread of the deadly infection, especially where transportation of citizens from one region to another is concerned. The bench then dismissed the petition filed by one Santos Gurav of the Konkan region.

Gurav had moved the high court, represented by advocate Harshal Mirashi, contending that the government order, especially the clause making the Covid-19 test mandatory, had curbed his freedom to travel to Ratnagiri district in Konkan region for the festival. The test was mandatory irrespective of whether people travel in state transport buses or private vehicles and they would be allowed to travel only if the test result is negative, Mirashi pointed out.

The high court, however, refused to accept the contention. The bench said if people travelled from one place to another to a different region or district, then there was a likelihood of the infection spreading and effective steps need to be taken to contain it.

Also read: With 68,898 Covid-19 cases, Indias tally surges past 2.9 million; recovery rate over 74%

Not very long ago, Maharashtra, Mumbai in particular, had the highest number of Covid-19 cases. Even today the number of total active cases is significantly high, said the bench. Despite the strict enforcement of lockdown and quarantine, the number of cases has not reduced and the mortality rate in the state is higher than the mortality rate at the national level.
Jason brings 25 years of unparalleled expertise in the Insurance Industry and specializes in Employee Benefits . He has been an industry leader in providing innovative self-funding solutions to employers across the country. Jason will be responsible for business development, growth, and strategic initiatives within the organization. With his proprietary solutions, this adds another business improvement resource for Reseco Insurance Advisor's clients.

"We are so thrilled to have Jason join our team," said Steve Tusa, COO of Reseco Group. "With his extensive experience, natural strengths, and ability to increase his client's capital, we know he will accelerate growth throughout our business."

Reseco Group specializes in maximizing client financial outcomes while minimizing associated risks, with services concentrated in Commercial Insurance, Employee Benefits Insurance, Risk Management, Claims Management, HR Solutions, and IT/Cyber Solutions.

For more information about the services Reseco Group offers, visit the website at www.resecogroup.com

SOURCE Reseco Insurance Advisors

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WASHINGTON, D. C. - U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday told a Senate hearing that hell prioritize mail-in balloting in upcoming elections as Republicans including Ohios Sen. Rob Portman attempted to address disinformation about changes made since DeJoy took the job.

As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on time, DeJoy told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and Election Day.

The committees top Republican, Wisconsins Ron Johnson, kicked off the hearing by criticizing Democrats for subjecting DeJoy to character assassination and politically motivated false narratives.

He said DeJoy was not appointed by President Donald Trump, but rather by a bipartisan postal board of governors who hired DeJoy because he has the necessary background and skill set to tackle the enormous challenges facing the postal system.

Johnson said its also false to suggest that failing to provide funding to the Postal Service will undermine the election because the Postal Service currently has $15.1 billion in cash on hand following a better than expected financial performance during the pandemic.

Many of those complaints are highly scripted and its being done for political purpose, said Johnson. But we have a new postmaster general whos been in the office less than 70 days. And from my standpoint, I think the first thing he needed to do is start the job, roll up his shirt sleeves and then get to work and try and figure out what he needs to do to reform the process.

Democrats on the panel accused DeJoy of undermining a trusted national institution by making operational changes that have caused delays at a time when people need reliable service.

Your decisions have cost Americans their health, their time, their livelihoods, and their peace of mind, said the panels top Democrat, Michigans Gary Peters. I believe you owe them an apology for the harm you have caused and you owe all of us some very clear answers today.

The country is anxious about whether the damage you have inflicted so far can be quickly reversed and what other plans you have in store that could further disrupt reliability and timely delivery from the Postal Service.

Portman observed that decisions to remove mail boxes and sorting machines that DeJoy is being criticized for were made before his tenure.

Portman asked DeJoy whether Postal Service advisories to Ohio and other states that they cant guarantee all ballots cast by mail will arrive on time was due to a lack of funds, or due to state laws on voting and the time it takes to turn around receiving and delivering the ballots?

DeJoy said the notices were also sent out in past years, but more emphasis was placed on them this year because of an expected increase in mail-in balloting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

DeJoy told Portman he plans to vote by mail himself, and the American public should be able to vote by mail and the Postal Service will support it, although he advised mail-in voters to cast their ballots early.

I vote every year by absentee because I dont know where the heck Im going to be - in Washington or Ohio - based on our schedule, said Portman. Were going to make sure that its easy to vote in Ohio and its hard to cheat in Ohio . And I think thats the important thing.

Portman told DeJoy hes also concerned about reports of delayed mail in Ohio and around the country, and particularly veterans who are having trouble getting timely prescription refills by mail and are having to pay for emergency refills. DeJoy said the Postal Service feels bad about the dip in service levels and is working feverishly to get the system running at stability and hire more delivery workers.

We serve 161 million people, DeJoy said, adding that 99.5% of mail is delivered properly. We have significant efforts to continue to improve on that process and everybody is working here feverishly to get that right.

Democrats on the committee pointed out that public remarks from Trump have suggested theres an orchestrated effort underway undermine mail-in ballots. In a news conference last weekend, Trump said universal mail-in voting would be catastrophic, and make the United States a laughingstock all over the world.

The ballots are lost, theres fraud, theres theft, its happening all over the place, said Trump. Now were going to do it with this whole, vast, big section of the country? Its crazy.

Delaware Democratic Sen. Tom Carper said Trump was caught red handed when he admitted to not wanting the Postal Service to have additional resources because the Postal Service would use these resources to enable election mail.

Carper continued: And when asked about providing necessary relief, the president stated, If we dont make a deal, that is a deal with the Congress, that means they dont get the money, they being the Postal Service. That means they dont get universal mail-in voting. They just cant have it. No wonder were somewhat skeptical and--and dubious.

While the hearing was underway, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown sent a letter urging DeJoy to resign because he holds stock in postal service competitors, and because of his " decisions to undermine the USPS and your unwillingness to be held accountable for those decisions with elected officials,

It is critical that the position of Postmaster General is held by an individual who is committed to sustaining the USPS services that Americans rely on and is dedicated to the long-term viability of the institution, said the letter from Brown, who did not participate in Fridays hearing. Americans know that you cannot preserve the Postal Service while gutting its services or preventing its employees from doing their jobs.

On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the U.S. House of Representatives into session to vote on a bill that would provide $25 billion to fund the postal service. She maintains that Republicans would like to privatize it and undermine its operations during the upcoming election. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has not indicated he would bring the measure up for a vote.

During a pandemic, the Postal Service is election central, said a statement from Pelosi. No one should be forced to choose between their health and their vote.

.

More coverage:

Jim Jordan defends President Trumps call to boycott Goodyear and says the company, not Trump, is engaging in cancel culture

Post Office says it will hold off on changes until after November election

Ohio Democrats in Congress question educational redlining

Dismantled equipment behind Cleveland post office raises delivery questions

Rep. Marcia Fudge blasts signed letter from President Trump enclosed with food for the needy

White House defends President Trumps handling of coronavirus in new report that Sherrod Brown calls propaganda

Urban farmers in Cleveland invited to join new U.S. Department of Agriculture committee

Northeast Ohio Democrats in Congress slam postal service changes, saying they will hurt mail-in balloting

Ohio politicians react to Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris as his running mate

Ohio workers say ending federal unemployment payments could ruin them if the pandemic persists

Coronavirus confusion: Why mistakes are more likely with Ohio Gov. DeWines first test

Northeast Ohio charity gets federal grant to house human trafficking victims

Lordstown Motors to become publicly traded company after merger

House passes bill to fund Great Lakes projects and numerous federal departments
Unfortunately, infections behind bars are rising as decarceration trends in jails are slowing. States should use all available tools to reduce jail and prison density. Even before the pandemic, the United States was shockingly out of sync with the rest of the world in the share of its population behind bars. No one is advocating the release of people who would endanger the community, but a large share of the inmate population does not meet that description. Governors and state legislatures should accelerate the release  temporary or otherwise  of as many incarcerated people as possible, especially those who are medically at risk. The faster prison and jail populations are reduced, the less dangerous they become for those left behind and for the surrounding communities.
South Africa: R537bn loan reprieve provided for COVID-19 hit businesses

With many businesses detrimentally affected by the COVID-19 lockdown, South African banks during this bleak period have provided their clients with voluntary relief on loans with a book value of R537 billion.

This was confirmed by the board of the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) during a meeting with Finance Minister Tito Mboweni on Wednesday. Also in attendance was the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Lesetja Kganyago, his Deputy Kuben Naidoo, the Deputy Minister of Finance, David Masondo, and National Treasury officials.

During the meeting, stakeholders discussed measures banks were taking to support the economy, as the country moved to level 2 of the COVID-19 lockdown.

The BASA board, which represents all registered banks, is composed of bank chief executives.

In a statement issued on Thursday, National Treasury said bank CEOs reported the success of a number of initiatives undertaken by the industry to support their clients during this difficult time.

In total, as at the end of the first week of August, banks had provided voluntary relief on loans with a book value at risk of R537 billion. This voluntary relief was in part supported by regulatory changes made by the Prudential Authority of the South African Reserve Bank, Treasury said.

The banks also provided an update on the loan guarantee scheme.

In this regard, as at 1 August, the scheme had lent R14 billion out of an initial R100 billion, benefiting almost 10 000 businesses, with another 15 000 applications still being processed by banks.

It was noted that demand for credit is particularly low at present, largely due to the earlier voluntary assistance provided by the banks when the State of National Disaster was declared, said Treasury.

This was due to firms being reluctant to take on additional debt.

However, the recently announced move to level 2 would support the re-opening of significant parts of the economy. With firms adjusting to the next stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is hoped that the economic recovery will strengthen and the demand for credit will improve, BASA said.

With this in mind, changes have been made to the design of the loan guarantee scheme. These include a Business Restart Loan and changes to credit assessment criteria.

Minister Mboweni said: The banking industrys ongoing openness to discuss design improvements is particularly appreciated, and I note that many countries have adjusted the design of their respective schemes from time to time to respond to changing circumstances. We will continue to evaluate the scheme and make changes to improve it.

BASA has emphasised the need for COVID-19 economic relief measures to be complemented by structural reforms for South Africa, as proposed by the Minister of Finance to turn the corner in its economic recovery.

Ongoing engagement between the Banking Association and National Treasury would inform further design changes that may be required to ensure that more small to medium sized enterprises use the scheme to support their recovery. - SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Sally Bishop

Earlier this year, University of Cincinnati graduate Alena George found herself in an enviable place despite a global pandemic that pummeled the job market.

She had her bachelors degree in one hand and a job offer from Procter & Gamble Co. in the other.

George attributes her success in part to the Communication Departments co-op program in UCs College of Arts and Sciences. She found her way to the program after starting her college career with an undecided major. George was attracted to the breadth of opportunity in the Communication program, she says, and took full advantage of it, through internships, co-ops and study-abroad opportunities.


Russia's most prominent opposition activist, Alexey Navalny, is expected to be flown to Germany on Saturday for treatment for suspected poisoning, after Russian doctors at a Siberian hospital where he is in a coma agreed for him to be transported.

It followed a daylong standoff between his family and colleagues who had demanded he be evacuated while the doctors in the hospital in Omsk had refused to allow it, even after an air ambulance sent by Berlin-based nonprofit Cinema for Peace landed to pick him up. The Russian doctors had said his condition was not stable enough.

Navalny's colleagues, wife and personal doctor though had insisted he be allowed to leave and accused doctors of being pressured by the Kremlin to delay the flight in order to prevent the alleged poison used on him from being detected.

After almost 12 hours of arguing, the Russian doctors said they had acquiesced to the relatives' demands that Navalny be airlifted to Berlin's The Charite hospital.

"The patient is in stable condition, and having the request from relatives to allow him to be transported somewhere, we have at this point decided that we do not object to his transfer to another hospital, as will be indicated by his relatives," deputy hospital chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko told reporters, according to the Russian agency Interfax. He said the risk of allowing Navalny to fly was lowered now because his condition had "somewhat improved."

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, wrote, "It's a pity that to take this decision doctors needed so much time," saying the documents and plane had been waiting since morning.

PHOTO: In this file photo taken on Saturday, July 20, 2019, Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking to a crowd during a political protest in Moscow. (Pavel Golovkin/AP, File)

Navalny's wife, Yulia, had earlier sent a letter formally appealing to president Vladimir Putin to give Navalny permission to be transported to Germany.

Navalny fell critically ill Thursday while flying from Siberia to Moscow, and was rushed to hospital after the plane had to make an emergency landing in Omsk. He has been in a coma in intensive care since then and attached to a ventilator. His colleagues allege his sudden illness is the result of poisoning, perhaps from a cup of tea he drank in the airport.

Story continues

Doctors at the Omsk hospital though said they don't believe Navalny was poisoned, instead saying tests have shown no trace of toxins in his blood or urine.

MORE: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny 'poisoned'

"So at the present time, the diagnosis of poisoning, well, it probably remains in the back of our minds somewhere, but we don't believe that the patient suffered poisoning," deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalanichenko told reporters earlier on Friday. Instead, doctors said that Navalny had suffered a "metabolic disorder," saying a sharp drop in blood sugar on the plane had caused Navalny to lose consciousness.

Navalny's colleagues and family have accused the doctors of concealing the real cause of Navalny's sudden illness under pressure from the Kremlin.

"The ban of transferring Navalny is an attempt on his life, which right now is being committed by the doctors and the lying government, which have sanctioned it," his spokeswoman Kyra Yarmysh tweeted early on Friday.

It is "needed only so as to drag out the time and wait so that it will no longer be possible to detect the poison that's in his system. Moreover, every hour of delay creates a critical threat to his life," she wrote.

Yarmysh posted photos of what she said were officers from Russia's FSB intelligence security service or Investigative Committee, the equivalent of the FBI, standing in the chief doctor's office. Navalny's wife earlier in the day said she was blocked from meeting with the German doctors by security agents in plain clothes who she said roughly removed her from the area near them.

The German medical team later said it had assessed Navalny and that they deemed him safe to transport. The chief Russian doctor, Murakhovsky, said the hospital didn't agree the flight was necessary, but accepted that it was possible now.

PHOTO: In this file photo taken on Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny takes part in a march in memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, Russia. (Pavel Golovkin/AP, File)

Earlier on Friday, the head of Navalny's group, the Anti-Corruption Fund, Ivan Zhdanov told reporters in Omsk on Friday morning that police had identified the substance used to poison Navalny but were refusing to tell his family its name. But Zhdanov said an officer had told them the substance was "very dangerous" not only to Navalny but also to those around him and that those near him were currently wearing protective suits.

Zhdanov said he and Yulia had been in the chief doctor's office when a police officer from a department sent to oversee his transfer to the German air ambulance entered.

"The representative of the transport police came in and showed the phone to the doctor saying that that substance was found," Zhdanov told reporters. "We asked the representative of the transport police who showed the phone to the doctor what was the substance found," he said, saying the police officer told them she could not tell them because it fell under secrecy rules of the investigation. But the officer said, according to Zhdanov, "It is dangerous not only for Alexey's life but for all people around him and all have to be in protective suits. She does not say more. We don't know what the substance is."

MORE: Russias vaccine rollout: 4 takeaways from the controversial development

Later in the day, Omsk's regional police said traces of 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate, an industrial chemical, had been found on Navalny during tests on him. The chemical is used in food packaging and police said it was possible Navalny had been in picked up some of it from holding the plastic tea cup.

But doctors at the Omsk hospital later denied that the chemical had been found absorbed in Navalny's body, saying it was only on his hands and they had ruled it out as a cause of his poisoning.

Navalny, 44, is Russia's best-known anti-Kremlin opposition leader and is seen as perhaps Putin's most troublesome domestic critic. He has built a grassroots movement based around investigations, usually released as videos, that have exposed alleged corruption among top officials and some of Russia's most powerful business people, including members of Putin's inner circle.

A number of Kremlin opponents have fallen victim to poisoning in recent years, including the former Russian double agent, Sergey Skripal who was targeted with a nerve agent in the British town of Salisbury in 2018. Another prominent democracy activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza nearly died after being poisoned twice in 2015 and 2017. And two years ago, Petr Verzilov, a member of the protest group Pussy Riot, was evacuated to Germany to be treated for a near-fatal poisoning.

PHOTO: Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia August 21, 2020. (Alexey Malgavko/Reuters)

Navalny has been detained by Russian police many times as well as attacked by pro-Kremlin activists. Last year, he was hospitalized with what his colleagues said was poisoning after he suffered severe inflammation of his face while serving a short jail term for protesting.

A day earlier, the Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said it was ready to assist in Navalny being taken abroad if a request came. He said the Kremlin was aware of Navalny's condition had wished him a speedy recovering, saying if poisoning was confirmed, an investigation could be held.

MORE: Russia announces expanded trials for coronavirus vaccine approved 10 days ago

Navalny's spokeswoman, Yarmysh, said they were now demanding the Kremlin fulfill that offer of help. She tweeted they would also appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to oblige Russia not to hinder Navalny's evacuation for treatment.

On Thursday, France and Germany's leaders, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, offered to have Navalny treated in their countries.

This report was featured in the Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, episode of Start Here, ABC News daily news podcast.

"Start Here" offers a straightforward look at the day's top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Russian doctors allow 'poisoned' opposition leader Alexey Navalny be flown to Germany for treatment originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The alleged gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl by some 30 men in the Red Sea resort of Eilat has sparked outrage in Israel.

Reports that the alleged perpetrators, said to be in their 20s, queued outside the minors hotel bedroom awaiting their turn to take advantage of her inebriated state prompted protests in several Israeli cities on Thursday.

The girl had reported the alleged crime to police in Eilat last week but the case had previously gone largely unnoticed.

Two suspects have been arrested in connection with an incident that took place in Eilat involving a 16-year-old female teenager, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

Protests in the big cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday evening prompted Israels leaders to speak out against crimes against women.

Its shocking  theres no other word for it, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for all the suspects to be put on trial.

Its not only a crime against a young girl, its a crime against humanity itself that deserves condemnation from all of us.

President Reuven Rivlin wrote an open letter to Israels youth.

Sexual assault, rape, sexual exploitation, sexual violence  these are some of the stains that cannot be deleted, he said.

These are cases of unforgivable loss of boundaries, and they destroy us as a society. As humans.

Ilana Weizman of womens rights group HaStickeriot said one in five Israeli women was raped during her lifetime with 260 cases reported every day.

We must educate our boys on the issue of consent  from a very young age, she said.

Last year, a 19-year-old British woman claimed she had been gang-raped by 12 Israeli males, aged 15 to 18, at a hotel in Cyprus.

She was later found guilty of lying about being gang-raped and given a four-month suspended sentence.

The case was condemned by womens rights groups and the womans lawyer said she was appealing against her conviction.
Parliament office in oil-rich province torched following days of inaction by government over killing of two activists.

Protesters in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have set fire to the parliaments local office as security forces fired live rounds in the air to disperse them, reports said.

At least eight security personnel were injured in the clashes, Ali al-Bayati, spokesman for the semi-official Independent High Commission for Human Rights, told The Associated Press news agency on Friday.

The protesters had gathered to demand that Iraqs parliament sack the provincial governor after two activists were killed and others wounded in three separate attacks by unknown gunmen this week.

Security forces opened fire while the protesters lobbed petrol bombs.

Demonstrators burned the outer gate of the entrance to the parliament building in Basra province, an area that produces the lions share of the crude exporting countrys oil.

The building holds the local offices of Iraqs main parliament building in the capital, Baghdad.

It was the most violent incident in Basra since the October mass anti-government demonstrations when tens of thousands took to the streets to decry government corruption in Baghdad and across the south.

Destabilising protests also erupted in Basra in the summer of 2018.

Activists killed

Activist Reham Yacoub, who had led several womens marches in the past, was killed on Wednesday and three others were wounded when gunmen, brandishing assault rifles on the back of a motorcycle, opened fire on their car. A second female occupant of the car later died.

It was the third incident in which gunmen targeted anti-government political activists since Tahseen Osama was assassinated last week, prompting street demonstrations lasting three days in which security forces opened live fire on protesters who threw rocks and petrol bombs at the governors house and blocked several main roads. Four others had their car fired upon in a separate incident.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi sacked the Basra police and national security chiefs on Monday and ordered an investigation into the violence.

That calmed protesters until Yacoubs killing brought them back out onto the streets.

Al-Kadhimi took office in May, becoming the third Iraqi head of government in a chaotic 10-week period that followed months of deadly protests in the country, which has been exhausted by decades of sanctions, war, corruption and economic challenges.

Al-Kadhimi is currently on an official visit to the United States to conclude strategic talks expected to shape the future of US-Iraq relations, and the future of the US troop presence in the country.
Istanbul:

A total of 14 Turkish soldiers were killed and 33 wounded on Thursday in attacks by Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria as the military backs rebels seeking to take the town of Al Bab from the extremists, the army said.

The toll, the heaviest in a single day loss for the Turkish army in its Syria operation that started in August, came infighting with jihadists that included three suicide car bomb attacks, the army added in a statement quoted by Turkish media.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given the strongest signal yet the federal government could consider scrapping the impending increase in the superannuation guarantee, depending on the economic recovery from the pandemic.

Mr Morrison said on Friday delaying the legislated increases in employer super contributions from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent by 2025, which would add up to $20 billion a year to super funds to assist workers in retirement, was something the government has to "carefully consider".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday the government would consider a delay in the super guarantee if necessary. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"Prior to the election it was certainly my view, and I've articulated that, that those were legislated ... increases and we had no plans to change any of those," he said.

"COVID-19 has occurred. Peoples' jobs are at risk."
Officers in Nebraska have uncovered who the owners are of an armoured vehicle that was found abandoned on the side of the road.

Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) came across the abandoned vehicle, which looks somewhat like a tank, yesterday morning at around 11.15am, according to KLKNTV.

The vehicle, found abandoned off the I-80 near Overton, Nebraska, had markings on it identifying it as belonging to the South Dakota National Guard.

Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) came across an abandoned vehicle, which looks somewhat like a tank, on the I-80 ramp yesterday morning at around 11.15am

The tank-like vehicle had been left on top of a trailer by the company contracted to transport it.

In a statement, Highway Patrol said: 'The trailer was abandoned sometime yesterday by the driver of a trucking company contracted to move the vehicle for the Guard.'

NSP were able to work out that the vehicle, which despite looking like a tank is actually used to help lay bridges, belongs to the South Dakota National Guard 211th Engineer Company.

It had been involved in a training exercise in California and was on its way back to South Dakota when it was left by the side of the road.

The Nebraska State Patrol took to Twitter to provide updates as they searched for who the bridge-laying vehicle belonged to. They quickly located the owners though and told people they couldn't claim it 'but tanks for trying'

Despite being discovered yesterday, it is believed that the vehicle had been abandoned on Wednesday.

The state patrol and South Dakota National Guard are now working together to return the bridge-laying vehicle and locate the driver who abandoned it.

So far officers have not been able to contact the truck driver responsible for transporting the vehicle.
STAUNTON  Officials in the Staunton school district have announced its schools will be closed until Friday, Aug. 28, after it was learned one of its students has tested positive for COVID-19.

In a message to parents and students, superintendent Cynthia Tolbert said that, while the student has been in contact with other district employees and students during instruction, the students parent notified the district once the student became symptomatic.
Seventeen employees were inside the plant when the blaze occurred at the left bank of the hydroelectric project on Thursday night, of which eight managed to escape, officials said

Nine people died in a fire that broke out at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana on Friday, and six bodies have been recovered by rescue teams so far, reports said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the deaths, saying the incident was "deeply unfortunate".

"Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest," Modi said in a tweet.

17 people were inside the plant when the blaze occurred on Thursday night, of which eight managed to escape, PTI reported. However, publications reported various figures of how many employees were inside the plant when the fire broke out.

Hindustan Times reported that 30 people were in the plant when the fire broke out, of which "six employees were rescued and brought out of the tunnel, 15 others managed to come out through the emergency exit route of the project."

Meanwhile, NDTV reported that 20 people were present, and "while 11 people managed to escape, nine others were trapped inside."

According to ANI, the bodies of two of the nine victims have been handed over to their family members. The local police identified them as assistant engineers Mohan Kumar (38) and Sundar Naik (38).

"Postmortem was conducted and the bodies handed over to their family members. The rescue operation is going on for the remaining seven members. Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) team is working on the rescue of seven more persons," Sharman told ANI over the phone.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, expressing grief over the incident, ordered an enquiry by the CID into the cause of the fire and asked for a report "at the earliest", Hindustan Times reported.

Additionally, Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has extended "all possible help" to Telangana for rescue operations, NDTV reported, adding that Reddy "has also cancelled his visit to Srisailam which was scheduled for today in the wake of the accident."

Reports said that Telangana energy minister G Jagadish Reddy is overseeing rescue operations at the spot.

Rescue operations began on Friday morning to save employees stuck inside the multi-floor power house.

Fire broke out at Left Bank Power House in Srisailam, in Telangana side, late last night. Fire engine from Atmakur Fire Station, Kurnool deployed. Ten people rescued, of which 6 are under treatment at a hospital in Srisailam. Nine people still feared trapped. More details awaited https://t.co/Y3uoIioR4b pic.twitter.com/p9WNoytpsF  ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2020

The right canal of the plant meets the irrigation requirements of Andhra Pradesh.

Telangana energy minister G Jagadish Reddy said that the mishap occurred in the first unit of the power station and four panels were damaged.

He added a thick smoke that had engulfed the unit prevented fire fighting operation. A team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) too joined the rescue operations.

The Srisailam dam is located across the Krishna river which serves as the border between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Stassi Schroeder is moving forward with her career.

The 32-year-old reality star, insiders told TMZ on Thursday, has been negotiating with the production company Evolution Media on a possible collaboration that would mark her return to the limelight after her firing from Vanderpump Rules earlier this summer.

Sources told the outlet that there was mutual interest between the New Orleans native and the company (which works on Vanderpump Rules) for a future endeavor.

Next steps: Stassi Schroeder, 32, has been negotiating with the production company Evolution Media on a possible collaboration that would mark her return to the limelight after her firing from Vanderpump Rules earlier this summer

The former Vanderpump Rules star was canned from Bravo in June after admittedly making 'racially insensitive comments' and filing a false police report against Black costar Faith Stowers. Her friend and collaborator in the incident, Kristen Doute, was also let go amid the controversy.

One roadblock for Schroeder would be that she has six months remaining on her Bravo contract, effectively keeping her from another show or network.

Schroeder, who is due in January to have a daughter with fiance Beau Clark, is willing to take on another show if the opportunity its arises, a source told the site.

She also has offers to make money as an influencer for online brands, the outlet reported. Following the scandal, the Straight Up With Stassi podcast lost paying jobs with brands such as Billie and Ritual.

Holdup: One roadblock for Schroeder would be that she has six months remaining on her Bravo contract, effectively keeping her from another show or network

Expecting: Schroeder is due in January to have a daughter with fiance Beau Clark

An insider told Page Six that Schroeder is 'at a crossroads in her life and trying to figure out what the next few chapters of her life are going to look like.'

In addition toward her actions toward Stowers, Schroeder also said she was sorry for 'racially insensitive comments' she had past made, including one incident on her March 2, 2017 podcast she subsequently deleted.

In it, she said that black people demanded special treatment while talking about the issue of the diversity of Academy Award candidates, referred to on social media as #OscarsSoWhite.

'Maybe you weren't nominated because you didn't do that great of a job in your movie,' said Schroeder. 'Like it's not about race. It's literally like not about what you look like at all. It's like your acting ability, so like, what the actual f***?

'When they get upset, everybody has to go above and beyond to then make them happy. I'm like, really sick of everyone making everything about race - I'm kind of over it.'

She added: 'Like, everyone giving their impassioned speeches about race and all of that stuff, I'm like, "Why is it always just about African Americans?'''
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union called on Belarus on Friday to drop a criminal case Minsk has launched against a new opposition body this week.

"We expect the Belarusian authorities to stop the criminal case and instead to engage in a dialogue in view of moving towards a peaceful way out of the current crisis," Nabila Massrali, an EU spokeswoman for foreign policy and security affairs, said in a statement.

"The Coordination Council, which consists of representatives of different parts of Belarusian society, reached out to the authorities for a dialogue and the authorities answered with the opening of a criminal case. In doing so, the Belarusian state authorities have once again reverted to intimidation based on political grounds."

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alison Williams)
Ghana has reiterated its solidarity with the positions expressed by the ECOWAS Commission, the African Union, and the United Nations Security Council as well as other international organizations in rejecting the unconstitutional change of government in Mali.



The government of Ghana said it supported the call for the establishment of a transitional government headed by a civilian to oversee the return to normalcy, peace, and order as well as a constitutional rule in Mali as provided for in that countrys constitution.



The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms. Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, made this known when she represented President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at a virtual ECOWAS Summit on the Mali crisis yesterday.



Condemnation



At the summit, Ghana joined the rest of the members of ECOWAS in condemning the military mutiny that toppled the civilian government in Mali on August 18, 2020.



Former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse were arrested by soldiers in Bamako on Tuesday and detained for hours.



Mr. Keita subsequently resigned, dissolving his government and Parliament.



The conference came on the back of Mali's suspension from the sub-regional bloc.



Mali has also seen its borders closed, with ECOWAS looking at possibilities of sanctions against the crisis-prone country.



Colonel Assimi Goita has emerged as the new military leader of Mali, a development Ghana believed would not advance democracy in the region.



Ghana against coup detat



Ms. Botchwey told the summit that the events in Mali were taking place at a time when the country was experiencing socio-economic and political difficulties, complicated by security threats posed by jihadists and extremists which had been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.



According to her, the security situation in Mali posed a grave danger to regional security if not urgently and effectively managed.



"The situation has the potential to escalate jihadist activities in the country and the Sahel region in general. It also has the potential to destabilize the region and further undermine development within Mali," the minister said.

Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Papua New Guinea has turned around a plane full of Chinese workers after it was revealed a Beijing-backed mine had been testing an 'unauthorised' coronavirus vaccine on its employees.

PNG is now demanding answers from Communist Party officials about why Ramu Nickel staff were used as lab rats and whether the workers gave consent.

Stunning revelations by The Australian revealed 48 workers at Ramu Nickel were vaccinated with a mystery substance on August 10.

The alarming findings prompted PNG's pandemic controller David Manning to issue a new order on Thursday banning all unapproved vaccination trials.

Papua New Guinea has turned around a plane full of Chinese workers after it was revealed a Beijing-backed mine had been testing an 'unauthorised' coronavirus vaccine on its employees. Pictured: Xi Jinping arrives in PNG for APEC in November 2018

A scientist is seen testing a potential COVID-19 vaccine in a laboratory in Beijing (pictured) in April

'The government of PNG demands and deserves to fully understand (the) vaccine development and SARS-COV-2 vaccine immunisation program undertaken in China and its potential risks prior to any further approval being given for Chinese travel requests,' Mr Manning said in a diplomatic note to Chinese ambassador Xue Bing.

PNG authorities are furious they were not notified about the shadowy immunisation program.

Mr Manning has ordered Beijing to submit 'care management protocols' in case any of the workers who've taken the vaccine require hospitalisation.

Those who received the vaccine were warned they may show symptoms of the deadly virus within one week.

He is also demanding evidence the workers consented to the trial and that the secret vaccine had received internal ethics committee approval.

'Until the Chinese government, through the Chinese embassy in Port Moresby, provides that information, I will be best guided by our health and medical experts  when considering the applications of Chinese nationals who have been subjected to this Chinese vaccination trial entering into the country,' he said.

The 180 workers on board the blocked plane were set to start work at some of China's largest state-owned firms - including China Railway International, the China Harbour Engineering Group, Shenzhen Energy and the Dongfang Electric Group.

Beijing has already given the go ahead for two potential vaccines to be trialled on overseas employees as well as in the authoritarian state's military.

According to the Chinese government, the vaccine in PNG was only administered to Chinese workers at the Ramu Nickel's operation in Madang Province.

Nearly 50 workers at the Ramu Nickel mining site in Papua New Guinea (pictured) have been given a vaccine against COVID-19

Scientist tests potential coronavirus vaccine at a production plant (pictured) in Beijing in April

The Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd-owned nickel and cobalt mine has a shady history in the resource-rich country.

Ramu Nickel was temporarily shut down in October 2019, after the plant was found to have breached a litany of safety and mining laws when it spilled thousands of litres of toxic slurry into Basamuk Bay.

The rich fishing grounds were contaminated with heavy metals and PNG officials were forced to ban the sale of fish in the area - a resource locals depend on to survive.

Ramu Nickel had previously apologised for the disaster but now claims it was not responsible.

With tensions rising in the region between Australian and China, the race to roll out a vaccine to strategic Pacific partners is heating up.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Wednesday that all Australians will get a free dose of an Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is deemed effective and safe.

The approval process for the vaccine candidate is expected to be concluded late this year or early next year.

The vaccine, licensed by UK drug firm AstraZeneca, is in phase three trials on thousands of people in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

Scott Morrison is seen with Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape. Mr Morrison said Australia would support countries in the Pacific to roll out a potential coronavirus vaccine

Earlier trials of the Oxford University vaccine found it generated a strong immune response and a four-fold increase in antibodies against coronavirus in 95 per cent of participants.

Mr Morrison said on Wednesday he'd spoken to leaders of Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Indonesia about providing the vaccine.

'We have a regional role to play here as well as a domestic role  and we will be living up to all of those responsibilities as we progress this day,' he said.

'And look, to be honest, in the Pacific that's expected.'

Papua New Guinea's health minister, Mr Wong, said the country had been in discussions with Mr Morrison over the vaccine.

'Prime Minister Morrison has been vocal to the big countries that when a vaccine is found, it should be spread around at the lowest value, so that all small countries can participate,' he said.

There have been 361 COVID-19 cases of coronavirus in PNG including four deaths but due to limited testing and poor resources, this number is expected to be much higher.
Residents is most communities should be similarly outraged, or at least concerned, that self-response rates for completing Census 2020 are too low. Its such a simple thing to do, yet as usual this civic duty reveals our laziness or apathy, similar to voting on Election Day. However, there are no excuses for failing to complete the census, at least for those of us who have no concerns of identifying basic household info to the government.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: The state government on Friday filed an application in the Kerala High Court seeking to stay all further proceedings based on the Centre's order approving the grant of lease/concession on right of operation, management and development of the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to Adani Enterprises Limited for 50 years. The state made it clear that leasing out buildings and structures as well as other premises of the airport was not in the public interest.

The application filed by the government through Senior Government Pleader P Narayanan pointed out that the Supreme Court had set aside the judgment of the High Court dismissing the governments writ petition against the Airport Authority of India's (AAI) 'Request for Proposal' to grant the right of operation, management and development of the airport to Adani Enterprises Limited.

ALSO READ: Tharoor embarrasses Congress leaders in Kerala by backing Thiruvananthapuram airport privatisation

The Supreme Court had also sent back the matter to the High Court for considering the government's challenge on merit. However, during the pendency of the writ petition, the Centre had now approved the lease in favour of the Adani group under section 12A of the Airports Authority of India Act 1994. It was understood that necessary contractual transactions would be entered into by the Centre, AAI and the company following the approval. In fact, the state government had substantial proprietary and other rights over the land on which the airport was constructed.

The government had pointed out that the Centre had assured the state in 2003 that taking into account its contribution for the acquisition of additional land for the airport, it would be consulted when a decision to privatise the management of the airport was taken. This assurance had been violated.

The High Court while dismissing the government's plea had observed that the dispute was between the State of Kerala and the Union government. Only the Supreme Court, and not high courts, had jurisdiction in such Centre-state disputes. Kerala should have directly filed a suit under Article 131 in the Supreme Court, the High Court had observed.

In its writ petition, the government contended that the attempt of the AAI to grant the right of operation, management and development of the airport to Adani Enterprises Limited, which has no previous experience in managing airports, was not in the public interest and violated the provisions of the Airports Authority of India Act as well as the proprietary right of the state government over the land where the airport was situated.

The Centre had also declined a request to transfer the operation of the airport to the state government, which could form a special purpose vehicle and tie up with a partner with proven expertise in airport management. In fact, the state government had preferential rights to get the contract in the public interest, said the petition.
Black holes are at the center of almost all galaxies that have been studied so far. They have an unimaginably large mass and therefore attract matter, gas and even light. But they can also emit matter in the form of plasma jets - a kind of plasma beam that is ejected from the centre of the galaxy with tremendous energy. A plasma jet can extend several hundred thousand light years far into space.

When this intense radiation is emitted, the black hole remains hidden because the light rays near it are strongly bent leading to the appearance of a shadow. This was recently reported by researchers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration for the massive black hole in the giant ellipse galaxy M87.

In quasar 3C279 - also a black hole - the EHT team found another phenomenon: At a distance of more than a thousand times the shadow of the black hole, the core of a plasma jet suddenly lit up. How the energy for this jet could get there as if through an invisible chimney was not yet known.

Extremely flickering gamma radiation detected

This quasar has now been observed with the NASA space telescope Fermi-LAT by the astrophysicist Amit Shukla, who until 2018 did research at Julius-Maximilians-Universitat (JMU) Wurzburg in Bavaria, Germany. He now is working at the Indian Institute of Technology in Indore. Shukla discovered that the core of the jet, which was found in the millimeter wavelength range, also emits high-energy gamma radiation, but with an extremely flickering brightness. This brightness can double within a few minutes, as reported in the journal Nature Communications.

The special pattern of the sequence of brightness changes is characteristic of a universal process called magnetic reconnection, which occurs in many astrophysical objects with strong magnetic fields. Solar activity also has to do with the dynamics of magnetic fields and reconnection. This was recently demonstrated by observing "campfires" in the solar atmosphere with the "Solar Orbiter" mission of the European Space Agency ESA.

Invisibly stored energy is suddenly released

But back to the quasar 3C279: "I saw how the analysis of the data revealed the special pattern of magnetic reconnection in the light curve. It felt as if I had suddenly deciphered a hieroglyph in the black hole alphabet," says Amit Shukla happily.

During reconnection, energy that is initially stored invisibly in the magnetic field is suddenly released in numerous "mini-jets". In these jets, particles are accelerated, which then produce the observed gamma radiation. Magnetic reconnection would explain how the energy reaches the jet's core from the black hole and where it ultimately comes from.

Energy from the spinning black hole

Professor Karl Mannheim, head of the JMU Chair of Astronomy and co-author of the publication, explains: "Spacetime near the black hole in the quasar 3C279 is forced to swirl around in corotation. Magnetic fields anchored to the plasma around the black hole expel the jet slowing down the black hole's rotation and converting part of its rotational energy into radiation".

###
Six Nations activists who have camped out on a construction site in Caledonia for over a month dismantled barricades on Highway 6 on Thursday in an attempt to reduce rising tension over the occupation.

Skyler Williams, spokesperson for 1492 Land Back Lane, said the group of land defenders removed a large piece of concrete at Fifth Line and cleared part of the barricade on Argyle Street in Caledonia as a good-faith gesture aimed at steering the conversation back to their claim of Haudenosaunee sovereignty over the McKenzie Road construction site.

This is about land and our assertion of our rights over that land, Williams said.

The road barricades were simply a reaction of our community to keep the people that were here safe and get us back onto our lands. When a community stands up to say no to development of their territory, no means no.

The barricades went up on Aug. 5 in response to police removing occupiers from the Indigenous encampment at the McKenzie Meadows site. Officers made nine arrests, but occupiers returned to the site later that night.

Argyle Street leading south of Caledonia remained closed at the Canadian Tire parking lot as of Thursday afternoon, with the road still blocked by several concrete blocks that Williams said would be removed soon. Demonstrators removed tires, several cars and an upended mobile home that had been strewn across the road.

Highway 6 was still closed by police order between Fourth Line and Greens Road, though local traffic could move through the newly reopened portion at Fifth Line.

The last few days saw an increased police presence in Caledonia, with social media reports of an armoured vehicle being brought in and dozens of cruisers assembling in the parking lot of the local arena.

Of course, the heavy police presence is something we are certainly concerned about, Williams said. But at the same time, a good-faith gesture on our part to de-escalate and rollback some of our barricades  if we can manage to do that in a peaceful way, I think we should.

Demonstrators still control a rail line through the contested territory, though a CN inspector was reportedly allowed in last weekend to assess the tracks.

At a press conference Thursday, OPP commissioner Thomas Carrique said the police work under a court-endorsed framework for police preparedness for response to Indigenous incidents and are working within the parameters of the injunction.

Our primary responsibility is to preserve peace and maintain public safety. And that involves having negotiation, mediation and ongoing dialogue to find sustainable solutions, he said.

Premier Doug Ford said he has confidence the commissioner will follow injunctions put forth by the courts, which call for the Six Nations group to clear the streets and rail line and leave the disputed work site.

Ford said the aim is to move forward peacefully. Violence, he said, benefits neither Six Nations nor the Indigenous community as a whole.

Its better to sit down, talk about it and work things out, and thats what we plan on doing, he said. Its very important we go down that avenue and continue with dialogue.

In a statement Wednesday, Haldimand County Mayor Ken Hewitt laid out what he called facts that some do not want to hear  namely that a group of 11 Indigenous chiefs surrendered the land in question in 1835, meaning the Land Back groups claim that the Haudenosaunee still have title to the land is baseless.

Hewitt also said Foxgate Developments is the rightful owner by virtue of holding a Crown Patent issued by the government, and that the ongoing land claim involving Six Nations does not include the McKenzie Meadows site.

Williams countered that his group has documentation proving that the property is unceded Haudenosaunee territory.

I heard (Hewitt) double down on his assertion over the land here, he said. If he felt that strongly, why would he send a developer to our community to pay $352,000 and buy out a farm next to a dump on Townline to be able to give that to us? Why would he do that if he felt the land claim here was over and done with?

Williams was referring to what Hewitt called an accommodation reached between the developers and Six Nations elected council, which received cash and 42.3 acres of land on Townline Road in exchange for its support of the project. That support, Williams said, did not reflect the wishes of band members as expressed during public consultations on the reserve.

In what could be a positive next step, Williams said the federal ministers in charge of Indigenous Services and Crown-Indigenous Relations  Marc Miller and Carolyn Bennett, respectively  have agreed to talks.

They sent an email to the band council and to the Confederacy council requesting a table, so as soon as they can all work out a time and a space that they can get together and meet, thats what theyre going to do, said Williams, adding that he supports this process and would absolutely participate if invited.
- Charles Gichuki was arrested on Thursday, August 20, and held incommunicado

- It was not clear why the suspect was arrested by the police though preliminary reports linked him to a website that called out corrupt leaders in the country

- The incident got the attention of the Law Society of Kenya President Nelson Havi who condemned the arrest and offered to represent Gichuki

- Civil rights groups and agitated netizens joined the campaign to push for the freedom of the suspect for the better part of Friday, August 21, morning

Police officers in Nairobi have released a suspect who was arrested under unclear circumstances and held incommunicado for several hours.

Charles Gichuki was on the radar of detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and was arrested on Thursday, August 20, night, sparking rage from netizens and civil rights groups.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Kenya registers 322 news cases

Charles Gichuki alais Chaos Kibe was arrested on Thursday and held incommunicado. Photo: Chaos Kibe

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: KEMSA seeks KSh 5 billion bailout as donors threaten to withdraw funding

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) through its President Nelson Havi took over the matter and wrote a protest letter to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Nordin Haji demanding the immediate release of the suspect.

The lawyers' umbrella body in a statement called out the police for detaining the suspect incommunicado without the knowledge of his family and lawyer.

This, according to LSK, violated Gichukis right to communicate with an advocate and other relevant individuals as detailed in Article 49 (1) (c) of the constitution.

READ ALSO: Pep Guardiola tops the list of highest paid EPL managers with 20m-a-year

Havi who appeared for Gichuki on Friday, August 21, morning, confirmed his client was released without charge.

"I am delighted Charles Gichuki has been released without charge. I am, however, disappointed with the continued habit of police competing with criminals in abduction of Kenyans to settle political scores or suppress free speech in the guise of arrests," said Havi via his Twitter handle.

It is not clear what led to the arrest of Gichuki, who is known as Chaos Kibe on Twitter, but reports indicate he was linked to a website that allegedly exposed some corrupt senior government officials.

LSK President Nelson Havi: Photo: Nelson Havi.

Source: Instagram

Other civil rights groups that joined the battled to secure Gichuki's freedom include dAmnesty Kenya International which rallied Kenyans on social media to push for the acquittal of the suspect.

Through #ReasleaseChaosKibe, Kenyans called out the police over unwarranted arrests of civilians without following due process as enshrined in the constitution.

The arrest and release of Gichuki came barely days after three senators were arrested dramatically from their home over unclear charges.

Cleophas Malala (Kakamega), Christopher Langat (Bomet) and Stephen Lelegwe (Samburu) were arrested on Monday, August 17, morning, after officers from DCI camped outside their houses for the better part of Sunday, August 16, night.

Langat and Lelegwe were released later in the day with a cash bail of KSh 10, 000 each while Malala was held until Tuesday, August 18, and released without charge.

Havi who represented Langat, Malala and now Gichuki called out the police over illegal and unwarranted arrests of Kenyans.

Do you have an inspirational story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Tuko news

Jowie's wife on how they met, their daughter and why she will love him forever | Tuko Talks | TukoTV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
South Africa: SA women lead the fight against COVID-19

In times of crisis and uncertainty, it is human nature to bury ones head in the sand with the hope that one will not cross hairs with an impending storm.

While there are those who will wish the storm away, others make a conscious decision to dive into the eye of the storm.

Monique Schoombie chose the latter.

The 34-year-old is among the many dedicated South Africans who have rolled up their sleeves to fight the COVID-19 storm.

She and her team have worked around the clock to ensure that a medical device, which is critical in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, rolls off the production line and into the wards of hospitals that need it most.

As a Senior Engineer, Schoombie is responsible for product lifecycle management, optimisation and automation at the Council for Scientific Innovation and Research (CSIR).

Thanks to her and her teams efforts at the CSIR, thousands of South Africans infected with COVID-19 will breathe a little easier with the help of a local ventilator.

The ventilator is meant to assist patients showing respiratory distress in the early phase of COVID-19 infection.

Women like Schoombie have played an integral part in ensuring that ventilators, known as a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device become a reality.

Coincidentally, as South Africa commemorates the achievements and sacrifices made by women this Womens Month, the first batch of ventilators are set to make their arrival at state hospitals.

A solution of the CSIR, the CPAP is a device that uses an innovative design to provide a mild level of oxygenated air pressure to keep the airways open and assist with breathing.

With the COVID-19 storm having steadily gained pace since its arrival on South African shores in March, the team worked flat out to bring the device to life at a time when the pandemic has already claimed over 12000 lives.

Seeing some of the components come off the line after so many months of insane hard work is invigorating, she tells SAnews.

The units are non-invasive and fill the need for readily available breathing apparatus, deployed and applied easily  even outside of hospitals  for intervention in cases where patients are at an early, non-intensive stage of respiratory distress, caused by the Coronavirus.

Due to its ease of use, the device can be used in both high-tech clinical environments, as well as temporary settings, such as field hospitals and quarantine facilities that have been established across the country to handle COVID-19 cases.

The mother of two has been critical to the entire industrialisation and production effort that will save many lives.

Having previously supported the University of Pretoria with the development of the CPAP device, when the virus arrived on South African shores, the CSIR team investigated the use of such devices for COVID-19 patients.

Putting their shoulders to the wheel in March, the team kick-started the process to develop a fast, reliable, easy to manufacture and easy to use CPAP device.

The team produced the first prototype in April 2020 and an application was submitted to the National Ventilator Project (NVP).

The development of the device forms part of governments NVP under the auspices of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) and is supported by the Solidarity Fund.

Jointly conceived by DTIC Minister Ebrahim Patel and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, the project was born out of the need to ensure the country meets the rising health treatment demands while ensuring local manufacturing.

At least 20 000 of these ventilators came off the assembly line on 31 July 2020, as announced by DTIC Minister Ebrahim Patel, during a virtual national science and innovation conference on COVID-19.

The device was qualified and in June, we also obtained our license to manufacture from the South African Health Products Regulators Authority (SAHPRA). We have now done industrialisation of the system and the production as well, says Schoombie.

Like driving in a downpour, getting the device to the production line has not been an easy journey.

Yes, it has been challenging but also it has been very rewarding. I firmly believe that when we go through something that is difficult, we learn from it and grow stronger from it, she says.

After witnessing first-hand the difficulty and delays in sourcing materials abroad as countries, the world over, shut their borders to keep the Coronavirus at bay, Schoombie can attest to the importance of boosting local manufacturing.

Initially during the design [phase] we were sourcing these components [abroad]. We have since localised some of them so that we do not need to source them internationally. [Sourcing them internationally] definitely affected design at the beginning. We are now sourcing these components locally as far as possible, she explains.

Procurement and production meetings aimed at getting the CPAP device to the market, have consumed Schoombies life in these last few months.

While the diverse team at the CSIR has worked day and night to ensure that the device gets into the hands of health workers, it has done so with the backing of global technology powerhouse  Siemens AG.

A long-standing partner of the CSIR, Siemens backed the project as a technology partner providing the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software support to the CSIR.

The public-private partnership breathed life into the governments call to strengthen relations between the public and private sector for a common cause.

Siemens Southern and Eastern Africa Media Relations Manager, Boitumelo Masike says the company is keen on assisting the African continent to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.

Siemens sees an opportunity to play an effective role in helping Africa overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and embrace new exponential technologies combined with human talent to accelerate industrialisation and drive economic growth.

Our role as a company is to use our solutions, technology and expertise to make a difference where we operate, says Masike.

Masike said in an ever-evolving world, change remains the only constant.

Moving forward it will remain imperative for Siemens to stay abreast of changes and industry trends that will enable us to continue disrupting various industries with our innovative technologies and solutions, while continuing to empower and ensure a positive and lasting impact on the societies we operate in.

For Schoombie, the gruelling months of hard, remote work compounded by the restriction put in place to curb the spread of the Coronavirus has come at a personal cost.

The isolation from friends and family, from support have been a challenge, especially with the current pressures with not only the pandemic but with regards to the project and so on.

What I have learned is that it really does take a village, not only to raise kids but also to create anything and I must say that even though we have been working virtually, I find that I have a renewed faith in our team. I feel we are a stronger and more integrated team.

The aspirant pianist would have liked to spend more time with family - but managing a project of this magnitude while juggling her six year-old son and eight year-old daughter has left little time for lifes simple pleasures.

While the country still has a long way to go in ensuring the total emancipation of women, it is clear that gains have been made in making womens voices heard.

At a time when the world is experiencing bleak times as a result of the pandemic, Schoombie is urging women to find their passion which will help them through the dark days.

I really believe in finding your passion. If you find your passion and persevere through even those days that feel overwhelming once you take those overwhelming days and handle them one by one I think you can achieve almost anything she says.

No doubt as we commemorate the 64th anniversary of the historic 1956 womens march to the Union Buildings, future generations will look back on the strength of the current generation of women who are leaving their mark in the fight against pandemic.

While the country continues to battle the pandemic with 599940 COVID-19 cases recorded, Schoombie and her team can breathe a sigh of relief having afforded COVID-19 patients a chance to breathe a little easier.

No storm can ever erase that.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The University of Utah admitted to have paid a $457,059 ransom in order to avoid having ransomware operators leak student information online.

The University of Utah admitted having paid a $457,059 ransom after the ransomware attack that took place on July 19, 2020, that infected systems on the network of the universitys College of Social and Behavioral Science [CSBS]). The university did not reveal the ransomware family involved in the attack.

The University was able to recover the operations from the backups, but decided to pay the ransom to avoid having ransomware operators leak student information online.

On Sunday, July 19, 2020, computing servers in the University of Utahs College of Social and Behavioral Science (CSBS) experienced a criminal ransomware attack, which rendered its servers temporarily inaccessible. The university notified appropriate law enforcement entities, and the universitys Information Security Office (ISO) investigated and resolved the incident in consultation with an external firm that specializes in responding to ransomware attacks. reads a press release published by the University.

It was determined that approximately .02% of the data on the servers was affected by the attack.

According to the University, the ransomware encrypted only 0.02% of the data stored on its servers. University of Utah officials explained that the universitys cyber insurance policy covered part of the ransom.

After careful consideration, the university decided to work with its cyber insurance provider to pay a fee to the ransomware attacker, the university said today. continues the statement.

This was done as a proactive and preventive step to ensure information was not released on the internet.

Law enforcement recommends never pay ransom because ransomware operators could not destroy the stolen data and attempting to monetize them in other illegal activities.

Stolen data could be sold to other cyber criminal organizations and used to make frauds.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs  hacking, University of Utah)
" " Never use force to move a puzzle box piece. If it's supposed to move, it will move easily. iStockphoto/ Thinkstock

Puzzle boxes are decorative wooden boxes that can only be opened through a series of often-complicated moves, including sliding, unlocking, lifting and pressing. Some boxes only require one or two such moves to open, while the most complicated have more than 100. Many times a key is hidden within the box and used at a certain point in the process to unlock another section or for the final opening.

If you're able to open a puzzle box, it often contains a small gift or good luck charm in a secret compartment, which is usually lined with velvet. It's actually the secret compartment that you're seeking; merely opening the box isn't the only goal.

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While puzzle boxes are often square or rectangular in shape, some styles are fashioned into items such as a tooth, pineapple, heart or house. Puzzle box banks, which come with a money slot, are also somewhat common. If you have a puzzle box bank, you can usually deposit your coins easily but can only withdraw them if you know how to open it. In one Japanese version, you have to deposit a certain number of coins before the bank will open, even if you know the necessary set of moves [source: Puzzle Box World].

Typically, new puzzle boxes come with a difficulty rating -- for example, beginner, intermediate and advanced -- or tell you how many steps it takes to open them. Most boxes also include instructions, but some retailers let you opt out of receiving them and will email the opening sequence to you later, if necessary [source: Net Shop UK].

Puzzle boxes originated in Japan but are made all over the world today, especially in Costa Rica, Poland, Turkey, Vietnam, and, of course, Japan. American puzzle boxes are characterized by their various locking mechanisms, which can be made using pins, magnets, gravity and inertia. Unfortunately, there aren't many traditional puzzle box artisans anymore. On a positive note, people are beginning to collect puzzle boxes, and a new generation of talented craftsmen is emerging [source: Japanese Puzzle Boxes].

On the next page, learn about how puzzle boxes were first created.

Show Me the Money Not surprisingly, the price you pay for a puzzle box depends on whether it's new or antique, its complexity and the labor involved to create it. Many can be purchased for less than $100 -- even as little as $15 -- while handcrafted, limited edition or one-of-a-kind pieces can easily run several hundred dollars. While there's no guarantee your box will increase in value over time, well-made, unique pieces often do.
KOLKATA: Assistant Commissioner rank officer from Kolkata Police, Uday Shankar Banerjee lost his life to coronavirus COVID-19. According to reports, the 54-year-old senior cop was battling coronavirus for over a month and succumbed to the infection on Friday (August 20) morning.

Banerjee was posted in the Central division of Kolkata Police. He is the ninth police officer from the capital city to have lost his life to the lethal virus.

Mourning the officer's demise, the Kolkata Police tweeted, "We deeply mourn the untimely demise of Assistant Commissioner Uday Shankar Banerjee, who was posted in the Central Division . He was affected with #COVID19 and was at the forefront of our #FightAgainstCorona. #SaluteBraveheart #RIP."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:51:40|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- UN-backed Prime Minister of Libya Fayez Serraj Friday announced cease-fire and ending of all hostilities in Libya, calling for presidential and parliamentary elections.

"Based on the political and national responsibility, and the current situation in the country and the region, as well as the pandemic situation, president of the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord issues orders to all its military forces to immediately cease fire and end all hostilities in the Libyan territories," the UN-backed government said in a statement.

"As the president issues announcement of cease-fire, he stresses that the ultimate purpose is to restore the full sovereignty on the Libyan soil and evacuation of foreign mercenaries and forces," the statement said.

The statement also stressed the need to reopen oilfields and ports and resume oil exports, provided that the oil revenues are deposited in the account of the state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) at the Libyan Foreign Bank.

The president also calls for presidential and parliamentary elections in March, according to a proper constitutional base that all Libyans agree upon, the statement said.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the eastern-based House of Representatives (parliament) Aguila Saleh Friday called for cease-fire and elections, as well as resumption of oil exports.

Serraj's UN-backed government had been engaged in a deadly armed conflict against the eastern-based army, which is allied with the eastern-based House of Representatives, for more than a year over control of the capital Tripoli, before his government recently took over all western Libya.

After the eastern-based army withdrew from western Libya, the UN-backed government has been trying to take control of the city of Sirte and Jufra district in central Libya. Enditem
Attorney General William Barr said he would be vehemently opposed to any attempt to pardon former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, after the president suggested he might consider it.

The attorney generals comments in an interview with The Associated Press news agency come days after President Donald Trump said he would look at whether to pardon Snowden, who was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013 with disclosing details of highly classified government surveillance programmes.

There are many, many people  it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things, Trump said of Snowden at a news conference on Saturday. And Im going to take a very good look at it.

The Justice Departments criminal complaint against him was dated just days after Snowdens name first surfaced as the person who had leaked to the news media that the NSA, in classified surveillance programmes, gathered telephone and internet records to ferret out potential terror plots.

He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people, Barr said. He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We cant tolerate that.

Snowden remains in Russia to avoid prosecution even as the federal charges against him are pending.

It was unclear how serious Trump was, particularly given that years earlier he had denounced Snowden as a spy deserving of execution. But Trumps distrust of his own intelligence community has been a staple of his tenure, particularly because of its conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf, and he has at times bemoaned the broad surveillance powers that the intelligence agencies have at their disposal.

Any effort to pardon Snowden would unquestionably infuriate senior intelligence officials, who say his disclosures caused extraordinary damage and will have repercussions for years to come.

In a memoir published last year, Snowden wrote that his seven years working for the NSA and the CIA led him to conclude that the US intelligence community had hacked the Constitution and put everyones liberty at risk and that he had no choice but to turn to journalists to reveal it to the world.

I realized that I was crazy to have imagined that the Supreme Court, or Congress, or President Obama, seeking to distance his administration from President George W Bushs, would ever hold the IC legally responsible  for anything, he wrote, using an abbreviation for the intelligence community.
At that moment, the Russian armed forces consisted of nine battalion tactical groups: 3,500 personnel, up to 60 tanks, up to 320 infantry fighting vehicles, up to 60 guns, up to 45 mortars, and five anti-tank missile systems.

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has said the military aggression of the Russian armed forces is the only factor that led to the tragic events in the town of Ilovaisk, Donetsk region.

"According to the conclusions of experts and a set of other evidence obtained, the military aggression of the Russian armed forces is the only factor that led to the tragic events in Ilovaisk. On the night of August 24, 2014, a large-scale direct invasion of the armed forces of the aggressor country into the territory of Ukraine took place, as well as their further committing war crimes," the press service of the Office of the Prosecutor General said based on the results of a study of the circumstances of the Ilovaisk tragedy, as well as the causes and consequences of those events.

Read alsoPutin planned to launch large-scale offensive, split Ukraine "along the Dnipro River" by 2020, general claims

At that moment, the Russian armed forces consisted of nine battalion tactical groups: 3,500 personnel, up to 60 tanks, up to 320 infantry fighting vehicles, up to 60 guns, up to 45 mortars, and five anti-tank missile systems.

"In accordance with the established data, the critical ratio of the Ukrainian armed forces near the town of Ilovaisk with units of the Russian armed forces and representatives of Russian-controlled illegal armed formations was the following: personnel  1 to 18; tanks  1 to 11, armored vehicles  1 to 16; artillery  1 to 15, Grad MLRS  1 to 24," reads the report.

Ilovaisk tragedy
EDWARDSVILLE  Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicines (SIU SDM) Lexi Nash is the recipient of a $6,000 scholarship from the Illinois State Dental Society (ISDS) Foundation. Nash, of Lebanon, is one of three students statewide to receive the monetary award as they embark on their final year toward completion of a doctorate of dental medicine (DMD).

Applicants were asked to share how their dental degree will affect the lives of others. Nash replied, I am completely enthralled by the endless opportunities Ill have to incorporate community service into my everyday life as a dentist. Throughout my career, it is my goal to lead through example and show others that service, whether through big or small efforts, has a lasting, positive impact on society.
Authorities in Hong Kong are targeting the Liberal Studies program in the city's schools, and look likely to use it to "brainwash" students into unquestioning patriotism and loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, students and teachers said on Friday.



The Education Breakthrough and Progressive Teachers' Alliance called on the city's education bureau to make public the standards used in a recent round of textbook revisions, which has seen the names of opposition groups and references to the separation of powers expunged from textbooks and teaching materials.



"The space between the political red lines in the field of education is going to get smaller and smaller," Education Breakthrough spokesman Isaac Cheng told reporters. "Whenever a major event occurs and is subject to a crackdown by the [Chinese] government, booksellers will withdraw [books] and revise them to a version that is closer to the government's view."



"Liberal Studies textbooks in future will be nothing but a paean to the [Hong Kong] and Chinese governments," he said.



The group said there are multiple examples of the wording of textbooks being changed to better reflect the official party line from Beijing, citing changes to the description of environmental pollution in mainland China as one example.



Another textbook publisher had edited a description of China's censorship of Western movies to refer to controls on "imported cultural products."



The group said it fears the entire Liberal Studies program, blamed by China for a string of mass, pro-democracy and anti-government protests in Hong Kong in recent years, could now be repurposed as a vehicle for China's brand of "patriotic education," a proposal shelved following mass protests in 2009.



Cheng said he was "deeply concerned" about the future of the subject in Hong Kong's schools, which are already being warned to ensure that they comply with stringent controls on speech and writing in a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing in July.



Cheng said many Liberal Studies teachers were now afraid to speak out for fear of being fired or sanctioned.



Afraid to speak out



The allegations came after the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (PTU) hit out at "unprofessional" conduct by the education bureau, saying the revision of textbooks amounted to political censorship.



The bureau said in a statement that the textbook revision had been triggered by last year's protest movement, in response to concerns about "biased teaching materials."



"The publishers voluntarily participated in the professional consultancy service and refined the textbooks, with a view to sieving out the inaccurate parts from the rest," it said.



Edits had been made to avoid "the possibility of exaggeration, inaccuracy or misleading students' understanding" and to help them develop "positive values."



It confirmed that textbooks and teaching materials are also being reviewed to ensure compliance with the national security law.



Fear of political backlash



Andrew Shum, co-founder of Civil Rights Observer and head of the PTU, said teachers tend to choose textbooks recommended by the education bureau, to avoid future political backlash.



"Some schools will follow their usual practices when compiling teaching materials, but I believe that many schools will also use [recommended lists] to avoid unnecessary disputes, such as complaints from parents or external political pressure," Shum told RFA.



"Recommended reading textbooks will be safer, so it's natural that they would do that, and I think it will have the effect of making teachers stick to the recommended reading lists," he said.



The National Security Law for Hong Kong, which came into effect on July 1, 2020, bans secession, subversion, collusion with foreign powers, and terrorism, and has been criticized by foreign governments as being in breach of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's promise to maintain the city's freedom and autonomy.



Rights groups say the vaguely worded offenses, which carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, and cover speech or actions anywhere in the world, will enable the authorities to crack down on any form of peaceful criticism, active dissent, or political opposition.



Required values



Chinese history teacher Chan Chih-chung said the purpose of Liberal Studies is to train students to think independently.



"[But] the Education Bureau requires students to be patriotic. This is one of the required values, and we didn't [initially] resist," Chan said. "But as the political atmosphere changed, so has the education bureau's attitude."



"Where once it maintained neutrality and a belief in the professionalism of teachers, we now see more and more interventions," he said. "Some of our colleagues are calling it the Politburo."



He said that the censorship is largely working so far, because publishers who don't submit books for revision fear they could be dropped from required reading lists.



He said teachers are now increasingly fearful that they could be prosecuted just for something they say.



"Will I go to jail for my words? Will my students report me to the school if they're unhappy with my teaching?" he said.



Reported by Gigi Lee for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Tseng Yat-yiu for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
"I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the only child of Rosalind and Irving Dorsky. My grandparents came from Belarus and Ukraine to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. My paternal grandfather was a tailor and my maternal grandfather had a pet store and was a part-time cantor. I have warm memories of my grandfather teaching me how to sew," Debbie Meitin said.

Meitin's parents met at a dance held by a Jewish organization. "My father was an attorney, but he worked with his brother in a successful, plumbing supply business until retirement."

Her mother worked at Wiley Junior High as...
Lego is officially launching braille bricks following a successful pilot project, with the products being made available to schools and institutions that cater to children with visual impairments.

In April 2019, it was announced that Lego was working on a project to create braille bricks for children who are blind or visually impaired.

Following a successful pilot project, which saw the product tested in several different languages, the Lego Foundation and the Lego Group is now releasing the bricks in seven countries, including the UK, the US, France, Brazil, Denmark, Germany and Norway.

Braille takes its name from Louis Braille, the French educator who devised the system of reading and writing for people who are blind or visually impaired.

The braille bricks, Lego explains, allows children with visual impairments to develop tactile skills and learn the braille system.

The bricks are moulded so that the studs on top reflect individual letters and numbers in the braille alphabet while remaining fully compatible with the Lego System in Play, the company states.

The bricks also feature printed letters, numbers and symbols so that they can be used simultaneously by sighted peers, classmates and teachers in a collaborative and inclusive way.

Braille brick toolkits are being sent for free to select institutions, schools and services that cater for the education of children with visual impairments, Lego explains.

The company has not made them available for sale to individuals at this time.

Each kit will contain more than 300 braille bricks, featuring the full alphabet in each of the chosen languages, numbers from zero to nine, mathematical symbols and punctuation marks.

The Lego Foundation will collaborate with partners in each of the selected countries to manage distribution of the toolkits and support localisation and training of the teaching concept".

(Lego (Lego)

Lego has also created a dedicated website www.LEGObraillebricks.com to accompany the release of the braille bricks, which features activities that people can partake in while playing with the braille bricks.

Following the initial release in the first seven countries, Lego is planning on making the braille bricks available to select institutions in 20 countries by early 2021.

Furthermore, while the toolkits are first being launched in six languages  Danish, English, Norweigian, German, Portuguese and French  the company plans on making the product available in 11 languages by next year.

David Clarke, director of services at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, said that the Lego Foundation has created a totally new and engaging way for children with vision impairment to learn to read and write with its braille bricks.

Braille is an important tool, particularly for young people with vision impairment, and these cleverly designed bricks enable children to learn braille creatively while also engaging with their classmates in a fun and interactive way, Mr Clarke said.

(Lego (Lego)

Paige Maynard, a teacher of the visually impaired and a development interventionist at Visually Impaired Preschool Services in Louisville, Kentucky, US, explained that she understands as an educator how helpful braille bricks will be in bringing together different kinds of learners.

Students with visual impairments will be able to play and learn alongside their sighted peers, Ms Maynard said.

The bricks bring the joy of play into braille and tactile skills instruction. They help remind us that the most impactful and long-lasting learning occurs when children are actively engaged in activities they enjoy.

(Lego (Lego)

Stine Storm, senior play and health specialist at the Lego Foundation, said the firm is thrilled to launch the first wave of the Lego Braille Bricks programme and get the toolkits into the hands of children.

Throughout the testing and pilot programme, we have received overwhelming support and positive feedback from children, parents, teachers and partner organisations who have experienced the Lego Braille Bricks and see the potential of these toolkits to encourage learning in a new and exciting way, Ms Storm said.

The possibilities for learning through play are endless, and we look forward to seeing how this can inspire children in their journey to learn braille.

The idea for Lego braille bricks was first put forward to the Lego Foundation by the Danish Association of the Blind in 2011, Lego stated, before being proposed again six years later by the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind in Brazil.
On 18 August, comedian Kunal Kamra had asked Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and Mumbai Police to take action against Hindustani Bhau for his videos, arguing his videos are 'mob building and hate spreading exercise.'

Instagram has suspended the account of Bigg Boss 13 contestant and YouTuber Hindustani Bhau after several users reported his hateful and abusive posts.

Actor Shashank Arora shared a screenshot on his Twitter which stated he anonymously reported Hindustani Bhaus account for promoting hate speech and symbols. Instagram informed Shashank that they have removed Hindustani Bhaus account as it violated community guidelines. The Facebook-owned app also said that it has informed Bhau that his account has been removed.

Read Shashank Arora's post here

Comedian Kunal Kamra had also asked Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and Mumbai Police to take action against Hindustani Bhau for his videos. On 18 August, Kamra tweeted a video and tagged Anil Deshmukh as well as Mumbai Police and wrote, "Calling for open violence is a crime. This is a mob building and hate spreading exercise. This is deeply alarming. Could lead to violence and an artist not getting due process. Remarks like 'System side main' are an insult to our constitution...[sic]"

The video shows Bhau hurling abuses and asking people not to forgive anyone who insults the religion. Moments after Kamra's tweet, Hindustan Bhau took to social media and said that the video shared by the standup comedian is cut and uploaded. He stated that he has said whatever he wanted to and that he will always be a true supported of the country.

Many users celebrated Bhau's suspension from Instagram. Some even shared that they too had reported his account.

Read some of the tweets below

Hindustani Bhaus account has been removed by Instagram today. pic.twitter.com/8Wh1NMkB1l  Aarif Shah (@aarifshaah) August 20, 2020

Meanwhile Instagram to Hindustani Bhau #SwachhSurvekshan2020 pic.twitter.com/r6fLQQjWqE  Anjana Om Modi (Parody) (@AnjanaOmModi5) August 20, 2020

Instagram Deleted Hindustani

Bhau Account!!

Le Me -: pic.twitter.com/6iL9rlxWLF  Rishabh (@say_unique) August 20, 2020

Hindustani bhau's Instagram account had been removed. Meanwhile Bhau* pic.twitter.com/goF2GSHu04  Ankit Singh  (@_XoY0) August 20, 2020

According to a report by The Indian Express, Hindustani Bhau, whose real name is Vikas Fhatak, entered Bigg Boss as a wild card contestant. He gained fame with his videos on YouTube and is known for his abusive content which he claims are acts of patriotism.

In June, Hindustani Bhau filed a complaint against Ekta Kapoor for disrespecting Indian soldiers in her ALTBalaji web series XXX season 2. He had shared abusive videos against Ekta and her family.

The report also said that he was recently accused of instigating youngsters to commit acts of violence in the name of protecting Indian culture.

A report by Hindustan Times said that his wife Ashwini in 2019 had submitted a written complaint in Mumbai's Khar police station regarding incorrect statements made against him on social media.

In the handwritten letter, she wrote many incorrect and fake messages, statements, videos are made against Vikas by people addressing themselves as their family members.

She said the letter was to inform that they were not responsible for any misconduct or misuse done by any outside person.
Protesters and police clashed outside the Pittsburgh mayor's home for a second consecutive night Wednesday in an encounter that ended with tear gas, as the American summer of unrest again made its way to another public official's front door.

Demonstrations in Pittsburgh grew after plainclothes officers arrested a demonstrator last weekend and drove away in an unmarked van. Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto said he was "livid" over the police tactics, but had already drawn outrage over a tweet about the limits of protesters' rights: "the right to assemble is a guaranteed right, but the right to shut down public streets is a privilege."

Protesters chanted and sang outside his Point Breeze home, making Peduto the latest in a growing list of mayors and other public figures to see demonstrators take aim at their residences.

In city after city, crowds have marched on residential streets calling for racial justice and police changes, prompting pushback from elected officials and some of their neighbors.

In June, demonstrators outside the Washington D.C. home of Democratic Mayor Muriel E. Bowser danced to music and chanted in front of a line of police officers. Last month, Democratic Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's home was vandalized with paint and spray-painted messages that included "Defund OPD!," a reference to the city's police department.

Demonstrators in Seattle marched to the home of Police Chief Carmen Best, who denounced what she called "aggressive protesters" taking "direct actions against elected officials." Demonstrators, meanwhile, said they were met with armed neighbors blocking their way.

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has defended the use of police to block protesters from her home, saying she had received threats and needed to protect her loved ones and neighbors. The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that police had effectively banned protesters from Lightfoot's block, with some neighbors criticizing the heavy police presence in the area, which was blocking demonstrators' access.

"I have an obligation to keep my home, my wife, my 12-year-old and my neighbors safe," Lightfoot, who took office last year, said at a news briefing Thursday. "The deployments that are there are there when they are necessary. . . . I have a right to make sure that my home is secure."

Lightfoot declined to elaborate on the nature of the threats.

Demonstrators had also repeatedly protested outside the home of her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel. When asked about that on Thursday, Lightfoot said that the current moment is different and that "comparing this to some other time doesn't make any sense."

Protests have also brought their ire to the homes of some federal officials. Last month, amid outrage over the Trump administration's response to the unrest in Portland, Ore., demonstrators gathered on a quiet street in Alexandria, Va., outside the home of Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary. One of Wolf's neighbors brought out snacks and water for the demonstrators.

The protests at Peduto's house in Pittsburgh followed the weekend arrest of 25-year-old protester Matthew Cartier, who is facing charges for failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and obstruction of highways or other public passages. Peduto said he had "serious concerns" about the officers' tactics, including using an unmarked van during a Saturday demonstration downtown.

But Peduto's reference to certain forms of protest as a privilege led demonstrators to gather outside his home Tuesday with bullhorns. Peduto did not come home Tuesday night, according to a spokesman, as Lorenzo Rulli - a prominent Pittsburgh organizer - and other protesters slept outside of the house. Rulli said he woke up Wednesday morning to police officers ordering his dispersal from the mayor's home.

"Black Lives Matter is a movement for Black liberation, and when a White man goes on Twitter and says that we have a privilege to protest . . . it creates a dangerous tone for other racist people who don't support our protests because they don't believe we have a right," Rulli said

Peduto expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement after Tuesday's protests, but added, "what I cannot defend is any neighborhood in our city - and their residents and families - being disturbed through the night and morning, and a peaceful protest devolving into unacceptable conduct in which residents are being harassed and threatened."

On Wednesday evening, Peduto met with protesters on his porch. "We have disagreements on issues. . . . Let's work together to try and find a way to do it so that it can actually bring other people involved," Peduto told the protesters according to video by local news station WPXI.

But the conversations dead-ended within the hour and Peduto retreated inside as chants for his removal from office echoed through the crowd.

"Despite receiving the audience they asked for, the protesters continue to loudly demonstrate outside his Point Breeze home," Pittsburgh Public Safety tweeted.

About 10 p.m. on Wednesday, the protest was declared an unlawful assembly and Pittsburgh police ordered the protesters to disperse or face possible arrest, an order that was followed by tear gas. The mayor's office said a long-standing noise ordinance kicked in at 10 p.m. and was explained to demonstrators by police near his home, who police say continued to use bullhorns, sing and chant.

"Last night they shot at us and they arrested one of our marshals who protects Black people," Rulli said. "And if he decides to arrest me - I don't expect anything less than a negative police encounter."

But Jasiri X, co-founder of activist and artist coalition 1Hood, said the demonstrations are not just about the police tactics used in the arrest of Cartier, the clashes outside the mayor's home or the mayor's tweets. The protesters, he said, want to call attention to what Black people in Pittsburgh have long felt about the city's inability to act on their behalf.

"This is why people were at his house - because from June till now, Mayor Peduto has not engaged. This is somebody who says he's a progressive, who says he supports Black Lives Matter, but he has not engaged any of the folks that are leading the protests at all."

Organizers say they will continue to demonstrate outside Peduto's house and are increasingly calling for his removal from office.

"It's plain and simple," said Zarah Livingston, who manages the Pittsburgh protests' social media feeds. "We want a mayor and PGH leadership that is going to tell us the truth. Leadership that will listen to actual constituents on the issues they face in this city."

Wednesday night brought another clash between protesters and law enforcement in the embattled city of Portland, as well, where several hundred protesters rallied around a federal building that houses U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices.

It was the first time federal officers engaged with Portland protesters since they pulled out of the city's downtown in an agreement with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown last month.

Some demonstrators broke windows at the ICE facility and set a mattress on fire in the street before police deployed tear gas to end the 84th consecutive night of protests in the city.

- - -

The Washington Post's Katie Shepherd in Portland contributed to this report.
DUBLIN, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Flow Cytometry Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2020-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global flow cytometry market grew at a CAGR of around 8% during 2014-2019. Flow cytometry refers to a biophysical and laser-based analytical technology that is used in the analysis of the cells or micelles that are usually suspended in a fluid using a laser beam.



This technique aids in subclassifying cell types and detecting residual levels of disease through probes to develop the best treatment plan for the patient. Fluorescent probes, such as bisoxonol, can bind to proteins present on the cell membrane to facilitate the identification of various stages of cell injuries or necrosis. This technique also aids in understanding the structure and composition of the cells for chromosome analysis, cancer diagnosis, protein expression and diagnosis of diseases and hematological malignancies.



The increasing prevalence of chronic medical ailments, such as HIV-AIDS and cancer, is one of the key factors driving the growth of the market. The diagnosis of these diseases requires toxicity testing and an accurate, rapid and sensitive prognosis technique, which, in turn, is creating a positive outlook for the market growth. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of stem cell therapy is also enhancing the utilization of flow cytometry. Rising awareness regarding the benefits of this technique in immunophenotyping, cell sorting, cell proliferation assays and intracellular calcium flux is acting as another major growth-inducing factor.



Additionally, several technological advancements, such as the integration of flow cytometry devices with artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, along with the advent of advanced methods, are also contributing to the market growth. Other factors, including improvements in the healthcare infrastructure, along with extensive research and development (R&D) activities in the field of biotechnology, are projected to drive the market further. Looking forward, the publisher expects the global flow cytometry market to continue its moderate growth during the next five years.



Breakup by Product and Service:

Instruments

Reagents and Consumables

Accessories

Software

Services

Breakup by Technology:

Cell-Based Flow Cytometry

Bead-Based Flow Cytometry

Breakup by Application:

Oncology

Drug Discovery

Disease Diagnosis

Stem Cell Therapy

Organ Transplantation

Hematology

Others

Breakup by End-User:

Hospitals and Clinics

Academic and Research Institutes

Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies

Others

Breakup by Region:

North America

United States

Canada

Asia Pacific

China

Japan

India

South Korea

Australia

Indonesia

Others

Europe

Germany

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Spain

Russia

Others

Latin America

Brazil

Mexico

Others

Middle East and Africa

Competitive Landscape:



The report has also analysed the competitive landscape of the market with some of the key players being Agilent Technologies Inc., Apogee Flow Systems Ltd., BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), Beckman Coulter Inc. (Danaher Corporation), Bio-RAD Laboratories Inc., Enzo Life Sciences Inc., Luminex Corporation, Merck KGaA, Sony Biotechnology Inc., Sysmex Partec GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., etc.



Key Questions Answered in This Report:

How has the global flow cytometry market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years?

What are the key regional markets?

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global flow cytometry market?

What is the breakup of the market based on the product and service?

What is the breakup of the market based on the technology?

What is the breakup of the market based on the application?

What is the breakup of the market based on the end-user?

What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry?

What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry?

What is the structure of the global flow cytometry market and who are the key players?

What is the degree of competition in the industry?

Key Topics Covered:



1 Preface



2 Scope and Methodology

2.1 Objectives of the Study

2.2 Stakeholders

2.3 Data Sources

2.3.1 Primary Sources

2.3.2 Secondary Sources

2.4 Market Estimation

2.4.1 Bottom-Up Approach

2.4.2 Top-Down Approach

2.5 Forecasting Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Introduction

4.1 Overview

4.2 Key Industry Trends



5 Global Flow Cytometry Market

5.1 Market Overview

5.2 Market Performance

5.3 Impact of COVID-19

5.4 Market Forecast



6 Market Breakup by Product and Service

6.1 Instruments

6.1.1 Market Trends

6.1.2 Market Forecast

6.2 Reagents and Consumables

6.2.1 Market Trends

6.2.2 Market Forecast

6.3 Accessories

6.3.1 Market Trends

6.3.2 Market Forecast

6.4 Software

6.4.1 Market Trends

6.4.2 Market Forecast

6.5 Services

6.5.1 Market Trends

6.5.2 Market Forecast



7 Market Breakup by Technology

7.1 Cell-Based Flow Cytometry

7.1.1 Market Trends

7.1.2 Market Forecast

7.2 Bead-Based Flow Cytometry

7.2.1 Market Trends

7.2.2 Market Forecast



8 Market Breakup by Application

8.1 Oncology

8.1.1 Market Trends

8.1.2 Market Forecast

8.2 Drug Discovery

8.2.1 Market Trends

8.2.2 Market Forecast

8.3 Disease Diagnosis

8.3.1 Market Trends

8.3.2 Market Forecast

8.4 Stem Cell Therapy

8.4.1 Market Trends

8.4.2 Market Forecast

8.5 Organ Transplantation

8.5.1 Market Trends

8.5.2 Market Forecast

8.6 Hematology

8.6.1 Market Trends

8.6.2 Market Forecast

8.7 Others

8.7.1 Market Trends

8.7.2 Market Forecast



9 Market Breakup by End-User

9.1 Hospitals and Clinics

9.1.1 Market Trends

9.1.2 Market Forecast

9.2 Academic and Research Institutes

9.2.1 Market Trends

9.2.2 Market Forecast

9.3 Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies

9.3.1 Market Trends

9.3.2 Market Forecast

9.4 Others

9.4.1 Market Trends

9.4.2 Market Forecast



10 Market Breakup by Region

10.1 North America

10.2 Asia Pacific

10.3 Europe

10.4 Latin America

10.5 Middle East and Africa



11 SWOT Analysis

11.1 Overview

11.2 Strengths

11.3 Weaknesses

11.4 Opportunities

11.5 Threats



12 Value Chain Analysis



13 Porters Five Forces Analysis

13.1 Overview

13.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers

13.3 Bargaining Power of Suppliers

13.4 Degree of Competition

13.5 Threat of New Entrants

13.6 Threat of Substitutes



14 Competitive Landscape

14.1 Market Structure

14.2 Key Players

14.3 Profiles of Key Players

14.3.1 Agilent Technologies Inc.

14.3.1.1 Company Overview

14.3.1.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.1.3 Financials

14.3.1.4 SWOT Analysis

14.3.2 Apogee Flow Systems Ltd.

14.3.2.1 Company Overview

14.3.2.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.3 BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company)

14.3.3.1 Company Overview

14.3.3.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.3.3 Financials

14.3.3.4 SWOT Analysis

14.3.4 Beckman Coulter Inc. (Danaher Corporation)

14.3.4.1 Company Overview

14.3.4.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.4.3 SWOT Analysis

14.3.5 Bio-RAD Laboratories Inc.

14.3.5.1 Company Overview

14.3.5.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.5.3 Financials

14.3.5.4 SWOT Analysis

14.3.6 Enzo Life Sciences Inc.

14.3.6.1 Company Overview

14.3.6.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.7 Luminex Corporation

14.3.7.1 Company Overview

14.3.7.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.7.3 Financials

14.3.7.4 SWOT Analysis

14.3.8 Merck KGaA

14.3.8.1 Company Overview

14.3.8.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.8.3 Financials

14.3.8.4 SWOT Analysis

14.3.9 Sony Biotechnology Inc.

14.3.9.1 Company Overview

14.3.9.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.10 Sysmex Partec GmbH

14.3.10.1 Company Overview

14.3.10.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.10.3 Financials

14.3.11 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

14.3.11.1 Company Overview

14.3.11.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.11.3 Financials

14.3.11.4 SWOT Analysis



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/qlxgv3

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has officially become the first Syracuse University graduate to lead a major party in a presidential race.

The former vice president formally accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday in the closing night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, setting up a fierce election showdown with President Donald Trump in November.

Give people light, Biden said, quoting civil rights leader Ella Baker. The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.

Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness. Its time for us, for We the People, to come together.

If he wins, Biden will be the first Syracuse University alumnus to hold the nations highest office.

Biden, a 1968 graduate of SUs College of Law, has a long history of ties to Syracuse and Central New York. Biden married his first wife Neilia Hunter, an Auburn, N.Y., native and a Syracuse University homecoming queen, in 1966; the couple lived on Stinard Avenue in Syracuse while Biden attended SUs law school and she taught at the old Bellevue Heights School in the city.

Neilia and the couples infant daughter, Naomi, would later die in an automobile accident in Delaware.

Biden maintained his ties to Syracuse throughout his political career as he served 36 years as a U.S. senator from Delaware and two terms as VP under President Barack Obama. He returned to visit his late wifes family or Syracuse University dozens of times, gave commencement addresses and other speeches five times at SU, and his late son Beau Biden also graduated from Syracuses law school.

In 2009, Biden explained his love of Syracuse University when he invited the national champion SU lacrosse team to the White House for a private reception.

The reason why I love that school so much is because Ive never, ever been part of an institution that has been as loyal to me as they have, an emotional Biden said.

The university stood by his side, he said, when he was accused during his 1988 presidential campaign of cheating on a law school paper. He dropped out of the race. He offered his political comeback as a lesson for the team.

While serving as vice president, Biden came to Syracuse for the 2012 funeral of one of his closest friends, John D. Covino, a law school buddy from Manlius. He also visited SU in 2015 to launch the Its on Us campaign, a White House initiative to combat sexual assault on college campuses, and spoke at the law schools convocation in 2016.

Vice President Joe Biden takes selfies with the Syracuse student section before the Syracuse/North Carolina semifinal game in Houston Saturday, April 2, 2016. Lauren Long | llong@syracuse.com

Meet Joe Bidens presidential delegates from Central New York

Syracuse resident Howie Hawkins is the Green Partys presidential candidate
The teenage boy who killed himself after writing in his notebook that he was worried about his A-level results has received an A in Finance.

Matthew Mackell's father Michael Bond found out that his son, who was in his first year of sixth form at Skinners' Kent Academy in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, achieved an A in his favourite subject.

Mr Bond said Matthew loved maths and wanted to become an accountant when he was older.

Mr Bond told Kent Online: 'It's a bittersweet feeling because I'm proud and I congratulated him at his grave but I just wish he was here.

'I don't know about any of his other subjects yet.'

Matthew Mackell (pictured) achieved an A in his finance exam after he was found dead in Dunorlan Park in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, after writing how scared he was about his A-level results being affected by lockdown

The 17-year-old was found dead after he called 999 from a park on May 7 with police confirming that the incident is not being treated as suspicious.

His family later found some writing in Matthew's notebook expressing how anxious he was about how his A-level results would be affected by lockdown.

Mr Bond said: 'He was worried about his results and he was scared he was going to be in a dead-end job and he didn't know where to go with lockdown.

'He lost his job too because of the virus and it all had a knock-on effect.'

As students across the county found out their GCSE results today Mr Bond is urging anyone who may not be happy with their marks to speak up and seek help.

He said: 'My advice is go and sit with a teacher and talk to them because they are still there to help.

'Just because schools are closed doesn't mean there's no-one to talk to.'

The Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) is looking into how police staff handled contact with the schoolboy who dialled 999 before taking his own life in picturesque Dunorlan Park in Tunbridge Wells.

Police and paramedics went to the scene but he was pronounced dead.

Mr Bond said the last time he saw Matthew was when he asked him if he wanted his room hoovered before he left to go for a walk at around 9pm.

The 17-year-old student said not to bother as he would do it himself when he got back but he tragically never returned home.

Speaking after his son's death, he said: 'I just can't believe it's happened.

'He left a message on his mobile phone screensaver saying: "Hi you've found me. Tell my family I love them and to be there for each other. I'm struggling through life."

'I knew he was a popular lad to be around, always making people laugh, but I've found out how strong he was.

'He didn't have any problems in the world but in his mind he had too many - especially with the lockdown.'

Mr Bond said he went to Matthew's grave (pictured) and congratulated his son but he wishes Matthew was still here

Speaking about Matthew's notebook entry older brother Chris Mackell said: 'He was writing about his feelings and that he wasn't happy. It was quite dark. It wasn't nice to read.

'But I wasn't aware of any problems at all.

'If anything I thought he was doing more than well with it.

'No one really thought that Matt was worried about that.'

Speaking at the time of his death Chris said: 'Matt was stupidly successful at school. I was speaking to a couple of his friends and they were saying he was 100 per cent the brightest one out of the whole year.

'He literally spent his breaks and lunches doing all his work and doing extra. But he was worried that he was going to end up in a dead end job which is stupid to think about, especially when he was doing so well.

'I think he enjoyed school and was quite proud of himself.'

While still coming to terms with the tragic loss, Matthew's family, who live in Tunbridge Wells are attempting to highlight how tough the uncertainty surrounding closed schools during lockdown can be.

Chris, who does not want anyone to suffer in silence, added: 'If anyone in school is worried about lockdown, don't be.

'You can more than make up for what you're missing out on now.

'It's not the end of your A-levels and it's certainly not the end of the world you not being at school right now.

'Obviously people are stressing out about it.

'I want to emphasise the mental health aspect and that help is there.

'You are not a burden on someone because that's one thing Matt was worried about - having to go and talk to someone.

'He felt bringing his problems to them would bring them down and be a pain in the arse for them.

'A lot of his friends really can't believe it.

'One boy was kicked out of the sixth form year because he wasn't doing enough work and he was saying to me that it's given him a kick up the arse to go back to school and do his A levels.

'One girl also saw the email from the school so went up to her mum and told her she wasn't 100 per cent so they sat down and had a word about it all which is lovely to hear.'

A fundraising page has raised more than 10,000 for Matthew's funeral costs and to plant a memorial tree in Dunorlan Park in his memory

Matthew's headteacher Dr Hilary Macaulay, who described the 'great sadness' felt by the Skinners Kent Academy community that the Year 12 pupil played such a large part of.

Matthew was in the first year of his A-levels before sitting exams next year, had been hand picked out of Year 12 to do a two-week work placement with an American investment management firm in London.

Dr Macaulay wrote in a letter to parents: 'His father has asked that I stress to you all that, if anyone feels they need to talk through anything at all in their lives that is worrying them, to please talk to someone and not keep it to themselves.

'We are aware that this will be upsetting for students at the Academy.

'The particular situation we are faced with, both as a country and a community with schools currently closed, also makes bringing together our students at this time more challenging.

'Academy staff are on hand as well as our colleagues from the Educational Psychology Service to ensure that we provide appropriate, ongoing support to those affected.

'Our thoughts are with Matthew's family and the whole Academy community sends them our deepest heartfelt condolences and support at this incredibly sad time.'

She also described the 'very popular student' as 'representing everything that our Academy stands for and values right from the start of his time in Year 7 and relishing every opportunity as he moved up into our Sixth Form'.

If anyone needs help Fegans is a Christian, family-counselling charity, CALM is a leading movement against suicide and the Samaritans are available at any time.

You can call the Samaritans on 116 123 at any time of any day.
Queensland police are trying to track down a man who is accused of using dating apps and social media to meet women before assaulting them and stealing their property, including credit cards.

John Dennis Gurney, 31, has allegedly been linked to numerous offences since July between Brisbane and Rockhampton including assault, robbery, fraud, unlawful use of a motor vehicle and stealing.

John Dennis Gurney on CCTV in a West Gladstone store where a stolen debit card was allegedly used to make purchases. Credit:Queensland Police Service

Police said he used online dating applications and social media to meet women, stay with them for a number of days, before stealing from them and leaving.

Mr Gurney has allegedly been detected using the womens credit cards after leaving their homes.
A day after former President Barack Obama portrayed him as an existential threat to American democracy, President Trump returned the favor, accusing Joseph R. Biden Jr., who will accept the Democratic nomination on Thursday night, of trying to destroy the American way of life.

At stake in this election is the survival of our nation, its true, Mr. Trump told a small crowd in Old Forge, Pa., a town not far from where Mr. Biden was born. Because were dealing with crazy people on the other side. Theyve gone stone cold crazy.

Mr. Trumps political strength is grounded in his capacity to diminish, caricature and ultimately isolate opponents. But Democrats  unified by the common purpose of defeating him, and forced by the pandemic to streamline a typically fractious convention  have been uncharacteristically disciplined this week, focusing their messaging fire on his competence, honesty and fitness.

Other frustrations are weighing on a president who wants to land a punch, badly and soon.

Earlier in the day, Stephen K. Bannon, his former adviser and an architect of his 2016 general election campaign, was arrested on fraud charges, becoming the latest member of his inner circle to run afoul of the law.
Hearne showed up with the pizza order that evening on the 3500 block of Pierce Street. Honeycutt ordered him out of the SUV with a gun, charges state. Hearne got out and jumped on top of him and after Honeycutt pushed him off, he shot him, documents said.
More than 100 Ghanaians stranded in Tripoli have returned home on the first voluntary migrant repatriation flight from Libya since the coronavirus pandemic began, the UN migration agency said Friday.

Most of the 118 passengers on the charter flight from the Libyan capital to Accra were male migrant workers, but seven women, three children and two infants were also onboard, the International Organization for Migration said.

"Many of them had been working in Libya for years," IOM spokeswoman Safa Msehli told reporters at the United Nations in Geneva.

"Others had arrived in the past few years but due to the severity of the conflict and the COVID-19 situation, they found themselves out of jobs, out of income, were stranded and have decided to go home."

Some had been sleeping on the streets and were provided with shelter during the five-month halt to the IOM's voluntary humanitarian return programme.

At least 2,300 people in Libya have registered for the programme. A repatriation flight to Bangladesh is planned for September, while one due to fly to Mali next week has been put on hold due to the coup in the west African country.

The scheme is "a critical lifeline for migrants wishing to return home", said Msehli.

In the first quarter of 2020, it helped 1,466 stranded migrants return from Libya, she said.

Last year, nearly 9,800 people returned to 34 countries across Africa and Asia.

- Migration route -

Libya has been in chaos ever since the 2011 overthrow and killing of leader Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising, though its warring rival administrations said Friday that they would cease all hostilities and organise nationwide elections soon.

And since the ousting of Kadhafi, Libya has become a key route for irregular migration from Africa into Europe, across the Mediterranean Sea.

At least 45 migrants and refugees perished off Libya this week in the deadliest shipwreck there so far this year, the UN said on Wednesday.

The 37 rescued survivors were mainly from Senegal, Mali, Chad and Ghana.

The latest tragedy brings to 302 the known number of migrants and refugees to have perished on the Mediterranean route so far this year.

"The insecurity at the border and the lack of monitoring at the border does not allow us to have a clear idea of how many people are making their way into Libya, or how many people attempt to cross the Mediterranean," said Msehli.

"We did see many cases where hundreds of migrants were stranded or left by smugglers between the Niger and Libya border, signalling that smuggling and trafficking activity continues towards the country."

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TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Widget, the manufacturer and distributor of premium hemp-derived CBD products from Hemp Bombs, Nature's Script and Perfect Paws Hemp, is joining a CBD industry-leading observational study that will look at the effects of CBD on liver health. Over 1,000 customers expressed interest in being part of the study.

"Being an industry leader, Global Widget is really driving a lot of our decision-making based on science," said Margaret Richardson, Chief Compliance Officer. "So, when we had the opportunity to join a study designed to address some of the concerns that the FDA has raised, particularly around CBD and its effect on the liver, we jumped."

Being executed by ValidCare, a clinical research organization, along with 12 other CBD companies, the study has begun and is expected to be completed by year's end. The design calls for participation by a minimum of 700 consumers.

"The study is designed to collect data in a blinded fashion that allows for safety information to be provided to the FDA," Richardson said. "It's not specific to any one particular company's product. It's an industry effort to address what the FDA has said publicly they need, which is more safety information, especially around liver toxicity."

Rod Nuss, COO of ValidCare, said in a recent press release that consumer response has been extremely positive. He adds, "It is great to see over a dozen companies make the investment in consumer safety and collaborate to get FDA the data it needs."

Richardson adds Global Widget has made an ongoing investment in its approach to product development from a scientific perspective. With its in-house manufacturing, distribution, compliance, and research and development team, Global Widget performs its own testing and stability tests and works with independent third-party labs for full-panel lab results of all its products. Additionally, Global Widget is forming a scientific advisory board that assists in driving the scientific strategy of the business as it continues to expand its product lines and offerings in the CBD industry.

About Global Widget:

Global Widget, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, is a vertically integrated manufacturer, distributor and marketer of industrial hemp-derived CBD products, and the powerhouse behind the iconic Hemp Bombs, Nature's Script and Perfect Paws Hemp brands. Founded in 2016, Global Widget remains committed to revolutionizing the CBD industry through unrivaled transparency, rigorous adherence to current Good Manufacturing Practices and strict compliance standards, and extensive quality control processes  from extraction to finished product. With our 110,000 square feet of facility space and state-of-the-art technology, we are constantly raising the bar on how to deliver the industry's best CBD experience to wholesalers, retailers and consumers. We provide CBD education and expert marketing support, and offer white label, private label and bulk services. Learn more at www.globalwidget.com.

Media Contact:

Joe Agostinelli, PR Manager

813.497.5752 | [email protected]

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In preparation for the return of college students, some Virginia localities are implementing local ordinances in hope of limiting the spread of the virus in their communities.

Blacksburg, Radford and Harrisonburg have each banned gatherings of more than 50 people in their localities in preparation for students return to Virginia Tech, Radford and James Madison University. Among other local emergency ordinances are curfews on alcohol sales or bans against food and drinking establishments remaining open past midnight.

Lynchburg, home to University of Lynchburg and Liberty University, where around 18,000 students returned to school this week, said this week it is not putting any restrictions in place. The same is true in Amherst County, where about 400 students have returned to Sweet Briar College.

Lynchburg City Council Ward II councilman Sterling Wilder said Lynchburg City Council has not discussed putting any new ordinances in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 that might come from the colleges, but it continues to encourage Lynchburg residents to follow the guidelines from the CDC  like social distancing and wearing a face mask.

While Wilder said council members have had conversations with local university leadership about each schools reopening plan  citing the virtual Town and Gown meeting in early August with several university presidents  there has been no discussion by the city about limiting large gatherings around the city.

Lynchburg Mayor MaryJane Dolan said she has heard concerns from the community at large regarding the reopening of local college campuses. She said council is concerned about the students return, but the city has no control over the colleges and universities and it is up to the institutions to enforce reopening policies. She said she knows they have protocols in place to stem the spread, such as online classes and daily temperature checks.

Im concerned for my grandkids and other kids in college and for the community, Dolan said. Obviously, if we start seeing upticks as a result of students going back to campus, the institutions are going to have to relook at it.

Dolan said even when mandates are in place, the city does not have the power to enforce them  like the statewide mask mandate passed in May.

When asked in mid-July about what the city planned to do pending the college reopenings, City Manager Bonnie Svrcek said the city would continue to follow Gov. Ralph Northams guidelines.

We have no standing, as I understand it, to regulate or enforce anything in terms of a private business, Svrcek said. She encouraged residents to wear a mask and avoid crowds.

The News & Advances requests for comment from other members of city council were not returned by the time of publication.

Randolph College, which serves approximately 700 students, has moved courses entirely online. Classes at the University of Lynchburg began Aug. 12, with a combination of in-person, hybrid and online classes but were abruptly halted Wednesday after five active cases of COVID-19 were identified among students.

Director of Communications Janika Carey said the university expected about 1,300, of the schools 3,000 students, to be living on campus.

At Liberty University, there are about 15,000 students on campus, and about 8,000 students are expected to live in Libertys residence halls through the end of the fall semester.

Dolan said she would have to look into the local emergency ordinances being put in place in other localities and was curious how those cities would enforce the restrictions. At this time, she said she is watching the protocols at the local universities closely.

You just hope that the leaders of the institutions are doing what they need to do to keep people safe and our community safe, Dolan said.
UPPER THUMB  Everything should be set now for construction to start on a new psychiatric hospital in Tuscola County.

The state is pleased that voters passed the water franchise issue during the election earlier this month, said Tuscola County Controller-Administrator Clayette Zechmeister.

She was referring to the Indianfields Township ballot proposal during the August election asking voters to approve granting a 30-year irrevocable limited franchise from the city of Caro to provide water to the Caro Center property. The ballot request was crafted under the terms of Michigan Public Act 425, which permits an intergovernmental transfer of property by contract to take effect in a much speedier timeframe than an annexation.

That was the last step needed to move forward with a 1.9-mile water line extension from the city of Caro to the Caro Center hospital. When the line is completed, it will replace the centers existing wells and water tower that have been used since 1914 when the Caro Farm Colony for Epileptics opened, and before the name change.

The construction of the new $63 million, 100-bed state psychiatric hospital will replace the current Caro Regional Mental Health Center outside of Caro on Chambers Road.

The preliminary design phase is moving forward," Zechmeister said. "It is expected that will be completed in September."

This hospital is smaller than the one that was supposed to have been built in 2017. The plan back then was to build a $115 million, 200-bed, 225,000-square-foot hospital; but just as construction was to start, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon halted the project and hired a consulting firm to review it.

The project was stopped because of disagreements over need, size of facility, municipal water issues, and other concerns.

Tuscola officials were able to convince state lawmakers the Caro area was the best fit for such a facility.

Once the design is done, Granger Construction Company will do a cost analysis. They are the same company that was working on the 2017 hospital project so they are familiar with the area and what is needed.

Several residential buildings were razed as part of the original plan for the new hospital.

For this new project, two former hospital facilities will be demolished. A budget of $5 million was set aside for that. After they have been removed, there will still be 36 buildings on the 650-acre hospital site, of which 20 buildings are unusable.

Abatement of hazardous material is being done on building number 106," Zechmeister said. "When that is completed, then it will be demolished. When that is done, building number one will be demolished, which is north of the administration building.

Completion of the new hospital is expected to be done in spring of 2023.

The current patient count at the Caro Center is 97 with a staff of 410.
Pedestrians wearing a protective mask walks past Pfizer Inc. headquarters on July 22, 2020 in New York City. Photo: Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

US pharma giant Pfizer (PFE) and its German partner BioNTech (BNTX) have announced that they are on track to submit their vaccine candidate for regulatory review as soon as October.

The companies released fresh data on Thursday of their m-RNA vaccine against COVID-19currently in phases two and three of testing in Germany and the US.

Phase three means mass human testing; Pfizer and BioNTech announced at the end of July that they had begun phase three testing on some 30,000 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 85, in 120 sites globally.

The two companies said in a press release that across all populations, BNT162b2 administration was well tolerated with mild to moderate fever in fewer than 20% of the participants.

If they get the required regulatory authorisation or approval is obtained, they said they currently 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.

Pfizer and BioNTech recently entered into an agreement to supply the US government with 100 million doses of their coronavirus vaccine in a $1.95bn (1.48bn) deal, as part of the governments Operation Warp Speed  a push to deliver 300 hundred million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year.

READ MORE: UK agrees to buy millions more COVID-19 vaccine doses

BioNtech and Pfizer, AstraZeneca (AZN.L) and the University of Oxford, Moderna (MRNA), Novavax (NVAX), Johnson&Johnson (JNJ), and Germanys CureVac (CVAC) are some of the leaders in the vaccine-development race, so far.

US-based Moderna also announced the launch of late-stage m-RNA vaccine trials on 30,000 volunteers across the US at the end of July.

M-RNA, or a messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) are a new type of vaccine. Unlike traditional vaccines, which work by putting weak or inactivated doses of a virus or bacteria into the body to make the immune systems produce antibodies, the m-RNA vaccine works by transmitting a genetic code to cells telling them produce a protein, which in turn activates the immune system.

Story continues

The head of Germanys vaccine regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, said this week that the first coronavirus vaccinations for certain groups of people could start as soon as the beginning of 2021.

If data from phase three trials shows the vaccines are effective and safe, the first vaccines could be approved at the beginning of the year, possibly with conditions attached, Institute president Klaus Cichutek said in an interview with Funke Media Group.

READ MORE: Germany sceptical about Russias COVID-19 vaccine claims
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, National PTA announced the recipients of $715,000 in grants the association is distributing to over 100 PTAs across the country to help meet the critical needs of students, families, teachers and schools due to COVID-19. The funding is made possible by PTA Proud National Sponsors TikTok, NortonLifeLock and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

"COVID-19 has presented significant challenges for so many students, families and schools. This was underscored by the large number of applications we received for relief funding," said Leslie Boggs, president of National PTA. "National PTA is grateful to TikTok, NortonLifeLock and Huntington Ingalls Industries. Because of their generosity, our grant recipients will be able to provide critical support to their school communitiesfocusing on social and emotional wellbeing, resources for distance teaching and learning, bridging the digital divide and addressing food insecurity."

Following are the grant recipients:

$615,000 is being awarded to 90 local PTAs and 11 district/council/region PTAs at $5,000 and $15,000 each. These grants are sponsored by TikTok.





is being awarded to 90 local PTAs and 11 district/council/region PTAs at and each. These grants are sponsored by TikTok. $60,000 is being awarded to 12 local PTAs sponsored by NortonLifeLock.





is being awarded to 12 local PTAs sponsored by NortonLifeLock. $40,000 is being awarded to 8 local PTAs sponsored by Huntington Ingalls Industries

An additional $550,000 in funding was also granted in June to PTAs that participated in National PTA's School of Excellence program thanks to support from TikTok. In April, TikTok named National PTA as a beneficiary of its Community Relief Fund. As part of this effort, TikTok also matched donations made to National PTA by users in the platform during the month of May.

"We're proud to support educators and students who cannot be in the classroom because of the pandemic," said Belinda Frazier, head of culture and diversity at TikTok. "By contributing school supplies, meals, mental health resources, as well as internet and device access for distance learning to PTA schools in 27 states, we hope to provide some relief to families, students and teachers during this unprecedented start to the school year."

With the large number of applications National PTA received for COVID-19 relief funding, NortonLifeLock and Huntington Ingalls Industries stepped up to enable the association to provide even more grants to PTAs and school communities in need. NortonLifeLock is funding all of the eligible local PTAs in Arizona that applied for a grant.

"Our commitment to Cyber Safety extends beyond helping to ensure people, their devices and identities stay more secure online," said Kim Allman, head of corporate responsibility and government affairs at NortonLifeLock. "Having access to the right tools and resources for online learning is more critical than ever. We're proud to support the local Arizona PTAs to help deliver these needed resources."

In addition to providing the funding to PTAs and school communities, National PTA launched a comprehensive webpage at PTA.org/COVID-19 with resources, tools and information to support families and educators amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The association has also focused several episodes of its Notes from the Backpack podcast on topics of concern for families due to COVID-19. As part of National PTA's Back-to-School Week (Sept. 14-18), the association will be sharing information and resources at PTA.org/BackToSchool and on social media to help PTA leaders, parents, students and teachers navigate the new school year. Further, National PTA continues to call on Congress to provide more resources immediately to schools.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is not over," added President Boggs. "National PTA and PTAs across the country remain committed to advocating to safeguard the health and safety of our nation's children and make sure students, families, schools and communities have what they need during this challenging time."

About National PTA

National PTA comprises millions of families, students, teachers, administrators, and business and community leaders devoted to the educational success of children and the promotion of family engagement in schools. PTA is a registered 501(c) (3) nonprofit association that prides itself on being a powerful voice for all children, a relevant resource for families and communities, and a strong advocate for public education. Membership in PTA is open to anyone who wants to be involved and make a difference for the education, health and welfare of children and youth. For more information, visit PTA.org.

SOURCE National PTA

Related Links

https://www.pta.org


Two covidiots who were caught sneaking out of their hotel quarantine to party with a rapper and 'hang out with mates' have given media the middle finger as they left Western Australia.

Isata Jalloh, 19, and Banchi Techana, 22, flew into Perth without permission on Monday and were told they would need to quarantine before returning to Adelaide.

The pair instead left the Novotel Perth a few hours later and caught a taxi to the party at a unit block in Coolbellup, south Perth.

Isata Jalloh and Banchi Techana (pictured together at Perth Airport) arrived in Perth without permission on Monday and snuck out of their hotel quarantine to attend a party

The two women (pictured together gesturing to the media on Friday morning) left the Novotel Perth around 1.30am on Tuesday and caught a taxi to amateur rapper Siri Kidd's party

The women were sent back to Adelaide on Friday morning and made rude gestures on their way to the airport.

Both women had ignored orders from security guards and escaped through Novotel's emergency stairwell around 1.30am on Tuesday, WA Today reported.

Police called Jalloh's mobile phone to ask where the women were located but she laughed and hung up on the officer.

The mobile phone signal was then used to track both women to the Coolbellup flat occupied by amateur rapper Siri Kidd and a male friend.

Both women were arrested around 8.30am and taken into custody for two days.

They appeared in Perth Magistrate's Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to the breach.

Jalloh was handed a $5000 fine and Techana, who also admitted to obstructing an officer while in custody, given an eight-month sentence, suspended for 12 months.

WA Police said the women arrived in Perth intending to holiday and visit family but were directed to quarantine until return flights could be arranged.

The rapper (pictured) said he was unaware the women would be attending his home

The court heard Techana, a dancer, had moved to Perth for a 'fresh start' and planned to bring over her one-year-old daughter.

Jalloh's lawyer also argued the 19-year-old had travelled from Queensland to South Australia without self isolating and didn't understand WA's coronavirus measures.

Magistrate Ben White said he believed the women were aware of the border restrictions.

'It's difficult to think anyone in the current climate could be in the dark about those sorts of things.

'There's risks to health, there's risks of this sort of behaviour resulting in further lockdowns,' he said.

Both Jalloh and Techana (pictured arriving at Adelaide airport) avoided jail time after pleading guilty to the quarantine breach in Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday

The women were filmed arriving back in Adelaide airport on Friday, where they claimed they had been on a 'vacation' and were glad to have avoided jail time.

Amateur rapper Siri Kidd said he didn't know the women would be visiting him.

'I don't know, it's so crazy, I didn't even know this was all happening, this is surprising me too.

'I've met them once before, that was it, I didn't even know they were coming because they told us they wouldn't be able, or be allowed,' he told Nine News.

WA Premier Mark McGowan announced there would be a crackdown on quarantine surveillance on Thursday after a series of incidents.

He said WA had requested an additional 134 defence force officers, including 20 to be trained in COVID-19 contact tracing and a doubling of the personnel already supporting state authorities in quarantine hotels.
Registration, Early Voting Deadlines Set for State Primary

The last day to register to vote or to change voting affiliation for the Sept. 1 Massachusetts state primary is Saturday, Aug. 22.

The offices of town and city clerks will be open limited hours on Saturday, most from 2 to 4 and 7 to 8, for citizens to register to vote; contact your town clerk for times and locations. You can also register online or check whether you are registered to vote through the secretary of state's office . The deadline to register online is 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. You may also check with your local boards of register through your town or city clerk to determine if you are registered.

Citizens may also vote by mail, by absentee ballot or by early voting. Ballots are currently available during business hours of each town or city clerk. Early voting in person begins on Aug. 22 and ends on Aug. 28. Find out the hours and locations in your community here.

All applications for an mail-in ballot must be made in writing no later than Wednesday, Aug. 26. An application can be downloaded here

It is important to request a mail-in ballot as soon as possible, as the clerk must mail the ballot to the voter. The application also includes a request for a mail-in ballot for the Nov. 3 general election and this must be received by Oct. 28.

Voters may request a mail-in ballot and then deliver it directly to their town or city clerk or drop it in a locked box that should be available at their town or city hall.

Note that once a voter has cast an early voting ballot, that voter may no longer vote at the polls on Election Day.

Some of the towns and cities that sent us voting information include:

The town of Adams is holding voter registration Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 4 and 7 to 8 p.m. at Town Hall. Early voting hours will be Saturday from noon to 4, Sunday from 9 to 1, and Monday through Thursday from 9 to 4.

The town of Clarksburg is offering early voting beginning on Aug. 22, at the Senior Center. The times and dates for early voting are as follows:

Saturday, Aug. 22, 2 to 4 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 23, 1 to 3 p.m.

Monday, Aug. 24, 11 to 4

The town of Cheshire will hold voter registration for the Sept. 1 primary and the annual town meeting on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Knock on the Church Street entrance door to be admitted to Town Hall. Early voting for the primary will be held from 2 to 4 on Saturday and 1 to 3 on Sunday, and from 9 to 5 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The city of Pittsfield is also offering early voting in person at City Hall during regular business hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 7 and Sunday, Aug. 23, 8 to 1.

The city of North Adams will hold voter registration at City Hall from noon to 4 and 6 to 8 on Saturday, Aug. 22. Early voting will be held from noon to 4 on Saturday and 9 to 1 on Sunday, Aug. 23, and from 9 to 4 Monday through Thursday and from 9 to noon on Friday, Aug. 28. town of Williamstown, the town clerk's office will be open by appointment from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and additionally 7 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. Residents are encouraged to contact the office at 413-458-3500, Ext. 101, or via email at In the, the town clerk's office will be open by appointment from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and additionally 7 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. Residents are encouraged to contact the office at 413-458-3500, Ext. 101, or via email at npedercini@williamstownma.gov to schedule an appointment. The in-person early voting hours are as follows: Saturday, Aug. 22, 2 to 4 p.m.; Sunday, Aug. 23, 10 to noon; Monday-Friday, Aug. 24-28, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Polls will be open on Tuesday, Sept. 1, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Find out where your polling place is here

Please do not forget to vote.
With so much bullish news in recent weeks, the fact that oil prices have failed to break out does not bode well for markets in the coming weeks.

For Global Energy Alert members there are now two new free reports available in your dashboard. The first of these reports is on how to interpret stock charts and the second outlines the three biggest mistakes made by traders today. Make sure you become a member to read these reports and many more.

Friday, August 21st, 2020

Oil retreated at the end of the week on more negative news from the U.S. labor market. Oil prices fell back to a familiar trading range in the low-$40s. With all the bullish headlines that weve seen over the last weeks regarding inventories, the inability to break higher does not bode well, Tariq Zahir, managing member of the global macro program at Tyche Capital Advisors LLC, told Bloomberg. Crude fails to break to the upside and youre in a contango market, so risk is to the downside.

Metal markets surge on Chinese stimulus. Copper prices surged to a two-year high at over $6,700 per tonne this week. Other metals followed suit. The combination of monetary stimulus, a weaker dollar and Chinas fiscal stimulus has led to a surge in metals prices.

OPEC: Inventories falling slower than expected. U.S. oil inventories declined again last week, the fifth time in six weeks. But the process will take a while. OPEC warned that the drawdowns are slower than anticipated with growing risks of a prolonged wave of COVID-19. The slow pace underscores the fragility of the market.

OPEC+ offset could total 2.3 mb/d. The group of OPEC+ producers that may need to compensate for past overproduction could cut by as much as 2.31 mb/d for one month, according to OPEC+ calculations seen by Reuters. If spread over more than one month, the figure would be smaller.

Islamists attack Mozambique LNG. A major LNG project in Mozambique could face delays as Islamic militants seized a port handling key equipment. The multi-billion-dollar project is backed by Total (NYSE: TOT).

Libyas GNA announces ceasefire. Libyas internationally-recognized government in Tripoli announced an immediate ceasefire. The head of the Government of National Accord, or GNA, issued instructions to all military forces to immediately cease fire and all combat operations in all Libyan territories. The GNA also called for elections in March and an end to the oil embargo.

Natural gas prices surge, but drillers not coming back yet. Natural gas prices have shot up to $2.30/MMBtu, as a heatwave, supply shut-ins, and LNG cancellations have quickly tightened up the market. Hedge funds and other money managers have stepped up bullish bets, betting that prices will continue to rise. But Appalachian gas drillers are not returning to drilling just yet, instead preferring a cautious approach. If we dont end up with a cold winter, the bull case for 21 is pushed into 2022, CNX (NYSE: CNX) Chief Operating Officer Chad Griffith told investors on a call. Related: Oil Piracy Has Spiked During COVID Pandemic

LNG market tightens. After a substantial glut that saw dozens of U.S. LNG cargoes canceled, the global LNG market appears to be turning a corner. Prices in Asia and Europe have hit multi-month highs. Goldman Sachs said that TTF gas prices (Europe) are on the rise and the rally could be sustained. Goldman said it expected the headwinds that had led to U.S. LNG cancellations to disappear in 2021 as the global gas market moves to a more balanced setting. The bank stuck with a Henry Hub forecast of $3.23/MMBtu for 2021. Meanwhile, Bank of America largely agreed and put out a JKM (Asia LNG) forecast price of $6/MMBtu by December 2020.

Aramco suspends investment in Chinese refinery. Saudi Aramco is suspending its investment in a joint venture developing a US$10-billion refinery and petrochemicals complex in China amid CAPEX cuts.

Electric trucks could put a dent in emissions. California recently approved regulations to mandate the increased use of electric heavy-duty trucks. The long-term effect of expanding Californias approach nationally would reduce oil consumption in 2045 by 16 to 17%, according to a new analysis.

Wall Street wants GM to spin off EVs. Deutsche Bank said that if GM (NYSE: GM)spun off its EV business, it would immediately be valued at around $15 to $20 billion, and could potentially be worth up to $100 billion. Spinning it off essentially creates value, it could unlock a massive amount of value, actually, Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner told CNBC. The less GM retains of the electric vehicle operations, the better it would be for value creation, according to Rosner.

Offshore rig service company files for bankruptcy. Valaris PLC, a London-based offshore drilling contractor, filed for bankruptcy Wednesday. The company warned of a prolonged contraction in offshore drilling activity.

Premier Oil to raise $530 million to cover debt. Premier Oil (LON: PMO) is seeking to raise $530m from shareholders as part of a $2.9bn refinancing effort. Premier will use $300 million to pay down some of its $2.4 billion debt pile.

Two tropical storms heading for the Gulf of Mexico. Twin storms are aimed at the U.S. Gulf Coast, potentially threatening offshore oil platforms and onshore refineries and processing facilities.

Turkey announces Black Sea gas discovery. Turkey announced a significant natural gas discovery in the Black Sea, which could cut the countries energy imports if developed. There is a natural gas finding in the Tuna 1 well, a source told Reuters. The expected reserve is 26 trillion cubic feet or 800 billion cubic meters, and it meets approximately 20 years of Turkeys needs. However, the source said it could take years to bring online.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
A suspected double killer who allegedly kept his victims' bodies in a freezer for nearly three years told a jury he 'just panicked' when he found one of the victims dead on his sofa.

Hungarian Henriett Szucs, 34, vanished after moving in with accused murderer Zahid Younis, 35, and was last seen alive in the summer of 2016.

Mihrican Mustafa, 38, had also been visiting Younis at his home in Canning Town, east London, before she disappeared in May 2018.

The corpses of the two women were found together in a small chest freezer at his home during a police search on April 27 last year, Southwark Crown Court was told today.

They had both suffered appalling injuries including multiple broken ribs and Ms Mustafa's sternum and larynx were also fractured.

The bodies of Henriett Szucs, pictured left, and Mihrican Mustafa, pictured right, were found together in a chest freezer during a police search of suspect Zahid Younis' east London home

Ms Szucs had been in the UK for several years and was last seen in Younis' company in the summer of 2016, jurors were told.

Ms Mustafa, also known as MJ and Jan, struggled with drug addiction and homelessness and had also been spending time with Younis before she vanished in May 2018, it was said.

By April last year he had abandoned the property after shortages in the electrical supply accelerated the decomposition of the corpses inside, jurors heard.

The court had previously heard that police discovered the remains of the two women in a small chest freezer when they visited his address in search of Younis on April 27, 2019.

Upon arrest at an address in west London on 30 April, he allegedly remarked: Its my house, its my problem. No one else is involved.

Younis gave evidence on crutches at the witness box, giving evidence after swearing on the Koran.

He said he met Ms Szucs when they were outside the hospital and were both smoking weed.

But he denied they got into a relationship while Ms Szucs was in a safe house, claiming she was obsessed with him.

Icah Peart, defending, asked him: How did you feel about her?

We had sex a for a couple of times, that was it.

Forensics officers leaving the flat in Canning Town, east London, while investigating

Zahid Younis denies two counts of murder and is on trial at Southwark Crown Court (file photo)

When she told me she worked as a prostitute, I have an underlining health condition, my immune system wasnt that great.

As I said, I didnt have any feelings about her, so I called it off, said Younis.

The pair remained friendly but Ms Szucs started to turn up at Younis flat in the early hours in the morning, asking to stay over, Younis claimed.

Accused killer claims second body was delivered to his home The accused bodies in the freezer killer claimed the second victim was been brought to his home in a wheelie bin by the gangster who helped him hide the first, a court heard. Zahid Younis told the court he only vaguely knew Ms Mustafa and had never had a relationship with her. She lived in the local area and most of the time she would beg outside the shop, said Younis. Jurors heard that Younis had only interacted with her by giving her change until they were introduced through their mutual friend Louise Skates late in May 2018. I didnt even know her,' he said. First time I was introduced was by Louise. I saw her in the local area, I didnt know her, said Younis Younis admitted Ms Mustafa had been to his house a couple of times but said she had only come with other people. One of the people she was with was Tommy Farmer, the associate that Younis had earlier claimed had helped him dispose of Ms Szucs body, the court heard. Defence barrister Icah Peart asked him: Who is Tommy Farmer? Just an acquaintance. I have known him for about 15 years. He was basically blackmailing me and getting money off me every other month, said Younis. The last time Younis claimed he had seen Ms Musafa alive was during their introduction at Ms Skates house. Did you see her dead? asked his barrister. Yes, replied Younis. It was in May 2018. I got a call from Farmer. Farmer was saying that he was in some trouble and he was wanted for murder. How did you respond? asked Mr Peart. He was all over the place, replied Younis. In a nutshell he was saying to me to get to Ted Jolleys house. Younis said that when he arrived at the address, he was led by Farmer into the living room where Mr Jolley and another man were waiting. Between the sofa and the coffee table there was someone lying on the floor I later understood to be MJ, said Younis. Did you recognise her, asked Mr Peart. She was lying on her side and her hair was covering her face, said Younis, Farmer said to me he needed help to get rid of this body and the police were going to be all over him. As soon as I understood I kind of freaked out and shot out of the door like a bolt. Farmer followed him, shouting loudly and eventually catching up with him, the court heard. He said to me that I need to get the body into the freezer that I had in my flat, said Younis. If I didnt agree with him he was going to tell everybody that I already got a body in my freezer in my flat.' He ordered Younis to go to his address and make sure nobody was around, jurors were told. Later that evening Younis said that he heard a buzzer, looked out of the window and saw Farmer and Jolley standing outside with a wheelie bin. Once he let them in, Farmer ordered his associate to stand guard and entered the flat pushing the bin, a court heard. Basically I learned that MJ was in the wheelie bin, said Younis. He opened the cupboard and he put her in the freezer. Mr Peart asked: What were you doing while he did that. I was just standing there, there wasnt much space, said Younis. Then both bodies were in the fridge. The two men realised the freezer door wouldnt close and tried to force it, jurors heard. After those attempts had failed Farmer proceeded to grab a crutch, Younis said. He was banging at the body, it still wouldnt close. He said to me I am going to defrost the freezer and come back, because he said I cant keep the freezer door open, said Younis. Farmer came back about a week later to finish the grim task, the court heard. He told the court eventually the two managed to stuff the bodies into the freezer and close the door. Advertisement

She started to discuss what happened with her, all of her drama, he said.

I didnt want to know. She said she would rob her punters. I didnt know what a punter was, said Younis.

She said they would come back and beat her and rape her.

Younis claimed he didnt want anything to do with her but claimed she would occasionally later stay in his flat.

I wasnt happy for her to be there, said Younis.

Calling Ms Szucs a pain in the arse, the defendant claimed she would make massive scenes every time he asked her to leave his flat.

I do not mind helping somebody but there is only so much I can help someone, he said.

He went on to tell the jury Ms Szucs would frequently get in physical fights with others.

The court heard that Ms Szucs had several rib fractures that happened mere weeks before she died.

Mr Peart said: Did you cause any of any of the fractures to her ribs?

No. She was in pain and asked me to have a couple of tablets which I was taking for my pain, said Younis.

On the day Ms Szucs died, Younis said he popped out of his flat for a couple of hours and left her alone in his living room.

When he returned, he found her on the sofa and thought she had fallen asleep.

To me it was like she was chilling. I made a cup of tea, I shouted: "Do you want one?" but never got a response, said Younis.

Younis then claimed he sat on the opposite sofa and smoked a joint before realising the victim was at an unnatural angle.

Checking her pulse, he found none and attempted to revive her with chest compressions, the court heard.

She complained during the day leading up to her death that she had a headache but I did not see any injury at all, he said.

Younis told the court that after that, he panicked and wandered outside the house trying to decide what to do.

He told the court after smoking weed with an acquaintance he decided to ask a long-time associate of his called Tommy Farmer for advice.

Farmer said to make sure I do not go to the police or they will think that you overdosed her or killed her, said Younis.

He said to me put her in a freezer.

After making some calls, Younis said he arranged for another associate called Hector to help him buy the freezer and drop it off at his flat.

Why did you give a false name, asked Mr Peart.

Younis replied: I gave a false name because it wasnt a normal thing I was doing, what was going on, and I didnt want it to trace back to me.

But after the freezer was in the flat, Younis said he couldnt bring himself to put Ms Szucs in it and instead kept it in the meat cupboard.

After five days, Farmer called, and when he heard the body wasnt in the freezer, he offered to assist for 500, jurors heard.

Younis said hed helped the other man carry the freezer around the house but didnt assist in the disposal of the body.

He put the freezer in the cupboard, plugged it in and was carrying Henriett and put her in the freezer, he said.

Mr Peart questioned Younis about some of his surviving ex girlfriends, who had earlier given evidence about the abuse they had suffered at his hands.

Referring to Lucille Gibbons, who dated Younis when they were both teenagers, Mr Peart said: She told the court about the occasion where you had in effect trapped her in a cupboard.

Younis replied: That is nonsense. It came to her attention that they found two bodies in a cupboard, in a freezer, and now she was trapped in a cupboard.

Younis replied with absolutely not in regards to Ms Gibbons' earlier accounts of him throwing a Walkman at her, trapping her in a phone box or threatening to shove her into railway tracks.

All of a sudden apparently I had done all those things over the years.

She had never even made any complaints to the police, said Younis

He went on to claim that Ms Gibbons, who had gotten back in touch with him for the sake of their child, asked him to marry her while she was in prison.

His barrister asked him about another womans earlier description of the extreme violence she suffered in his hands, including him hitting her with a hammer.

I was thinking about it when she was telling it. You hit somebody with a hammer, they are not going to be able to walk away.

They are going to have broken legs, said Younis.

While he admitted the relationship had been volatile, he claimed that any violence was instigated by that girlfriend.

Ms Mustafa, also known as MJ and Jan, struggled with drug addiction and homelessness and had also been spending time with Younis before she vanished in May 2018, it was said

She was drunk all the time, he said. 'She would throw things at me.

During a house party where hed fallen asleep after smoking too much weed, he was woken up by her banging her phone to his face and asking why are you calling that bitch, Younis claimed.

The convicted sex offender went on to deny he had raped that particular girlfriend.

Mr Peart said: She told the jury of an occasion where you threatened to have her gang raped.

It was something along the lines of wanting a bottle into her anus. How ridiculous is that, answered Younis.

Younis, of Vandome Close, denies two counts of murder.

The trial continues.
Lucapa removes L072 kimberlite as a priority target

21 august 2020 News

Lucapa Diamond has removed L072 kimberlite at the Lulo diamond project in Angola as a priority target for being a potential source of the diamonds recovered in the Canguige tributary sample.

The diamond junior said the first two sub-samples of finer L072 kimberlite material totalling 2,511 bulked cubic metres were treated with no diamonds recovered.

Whilst we and our partners would naturally hope for early positive results from our kimberlite bulk sampling program, negative results are to be expected from many of the of the samples, and eliminating kimberlites should ultimately lead us to identifying a potential source, said Lucapa managing director Stephen Wetherall.

The kimberlite material from L071, which is much harder and therefore coarser than the material from L072, is being reduced to a treatable size range.

This, it said, is expected to be completed shortly and the sample is scheduled to be processed in last week of August 2020.

Lucapa has already scoped a mobile kimberlite crushing solution, but the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the timely procurement and implementation of this solution.

The kimberlite exploration programme is designed to discover the primary hard-rock source(s) of the large and exceptional alluvial diamonds being mined in the Cacuilo valley, which have achieved average run of mine sale prices of about $1,900 per carat.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
At Sydney international airport (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  More than 340 Vietnamese citizens in Australia were brought home safely on a flight operated by the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines on August 20.

The flight was the joint efforts of Vietnamese authorities, representative offices in Australia and Vietnam Airlines, and competent Australian agencies.

The passengers included children under 18 years old, the elderly, sick people, students without accommodations due to university dormitory closures, and those in extremely difficult circumstances.

Given the Australian Governments imposition of travel restrictions and border closures between states in response to COVID-19, Vietnamese representative agencies worked with local authorities of Sydney and Melbourne to help the citizens travel to the airports. They also sent staff to assist the citizens with boarding procedures.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, disease prevention measures were carried out during the flight. Upon landing at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, the flight crew and all passengers were given heath examinations and quarantined in line with regulations.

Vietnamese authorities and overseas missions plan to arrange more flights to bring more Vietnamese citizens home, depending on their need and quarantine capacity at home.

On August 7, another batch of over 340 Vietnamese citizens in Australia were also flown home safely on a flight of the national flag carrier.
Evangelical seminary condemns Black Lives Matter movement, 'wokeness' ideology

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The nondenominational Southern Evangelical Seminary has released a statement simultaneously condemning racism and warning Christians against supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, claiming the movement espouses a godless agenda.

This week, the faculty and staff of the influential Christian institution in Matthews, North Carolina, said they felt compelled to release a statement about current issues related to racism and social justice in light of the recent social unrest.

Southern Evangelical Seminary and Bible College (SES) stands for the inherent value of all human life (Gen. 1:27) and against racism in all its insidious forms (Zech. 7:10; Prov. 28:16; Acts 10:34-35; Gal. 3:28) while also acknowledging that some professing Christians throughout the churchs history have attempted to hijack the Gospel message for racist causes, the statement begins.

SES said that while it affirms that black lives matter as a subset of all human lives are sacred, it must separate itself emphatically from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement which espouses beliefs that are antithetical to basic foundational tenets of the Christian faith.

Because the phrase black lives matter is often confused with the political organization, SES argues that it seems prudent for Christians to seek to avoid even the appearance of evil and find other ways to express their justifiable outrage at racial injustice.

[The] BLM organization, and many of its related positions, are explicitly anti-Christian," the SES statement explains. "Holding to mis-defined notions of love, freedom, and justice, BLM stands against the nuclear family, promotes homosexual and transgender ideologies, and is an admittedly Marxist organization."

Instead, the seminary said it embraces the more inclusive" and "less misunderstood phrase" that "all human lives are sacred." SES emphasized the need to "pursue truth, goodness, and justice for all ethnicities.

SES President Richard Land told The Christian Post that the college decided to release a statement on racism after receiving numerous inquiries from its alumni base and supporters asking about the academic institutions response to the unrest since the killing of African American George Floyd on Memorial Day.

Land said that what should have been a tremendous moment of unity was seized by the Black Lives Matter movement, which he condemned as Marxist, anti-biblical, and out to destroy the nuclear family.

Evangelicals for sure should not ... be embracing Black Lives Matter, he said. We felt that we needed to state and explain that we believe every human life is sacred because every human being is someone that Jesus died on the cross to redeem. And that makes every human life  preborn, at every stage of life, including being on life support  sacred.

The statement went through at least 10 revisions before it was published, according to Land. He explained that he and other staff members wanted to take every measure necessary not to be misunderstood, but bring greater understanding to the discussion.

We felt that if we were to say black lives matter without a lot of qualifications and an asterisk, we could be misunderstood as having abandoned the biblical position on human sexuality and other issues, he said. We felt that we should instead adopt the phrase that all human lives are sacred while emphasizing the need to pursue truth, goodness, and justice for all ethnicities.

Racism is the antithesis of the Bible. It is condemned in the Bible, he stressed. Yet the cancer of racism still exists in America. As Christians, we've got to be aggressive about supporting efforts to bring about racial reconciliation.

While responses to the statement have been overwhelmingly positive, Land, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told CP hes confident the negative feedback is coming from the fascist, left-wing Twitter mob.

So far, people are appreciating someone with a backbone, somebody willing to stand up against fascism and for biblical truth," Land, who is also CP's executive editor, said.

In its statement, SES also addresses the wokeness ideology, critical race theory, white guilt, and white fragility," ideas he says are being promoted in many churches.

Many of these ideas are built upon the bankrupt philosophy of standpoint epistemology that essentially rejects the ability of humans to know objective truth about reality, the statement reads, adding that these lines of thinking are often anti-Gospel" and make "little to no room for repentance, forgiveness, or reconciliation.

They remove any personal responsibility and choice from individuals and place guilt on a collective group of people simply because of their skin color. This is the epitome of collectivist and racist thinking. While individuals are certainly impacted and influenced by the societal structure which they have experienced, ultimately individuals are responsible for their own behavior.

Land said that its impossible to eliminate discrimination by discriminating against other people, adding that it "doesn't work" and is "counterproductive.

The idea that we are racist and we can we can never help but be racist, first of all, is contradictory to the Gospel, he said. Secondly, it's very racist and it will destroy our society.

Far too many Christians blindly embrace dangerous ideologies because they are driven by fussy thinking and emotionalism, Land warned.

We have become increasingly driven by emotion in America, he said. Large majorities of Americans are afraid to say what they believe because they're going to become the object of the politically correct lynch mobs attempting to destroy them and get them fired and get them ostracized.

Christians, he said, should resist racism wherever it is found and to stand for truth, justice, and natural rights.

As Christians, we have no fear of the truth because the truth will always lead us back to God's purposes, Land said. He created us all for a purpose. He never created a nobody. Everyone is someone for whom Jesus died. So, all human lives are sacred. That should be the bedrock of our ideals and beliefs, and it should be part of everything that we do.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s vision was a country where we were judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. We have an obligation as Christians to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Its only the Gospel that can defeat racism and change hearts.
Guan Eng sues Malacca deputy speaker over FB post

Updated to include Ghazale's response.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng is suing the deputy speaker of Malacca state legislative assembly, Ghazale Muhamad over the latter's Facebook post accusing Lim of having hired 30 special officers when he became a cabinet minister.

Kota Melaka DAP MP Khoo Poay Tiong in a statement today said the former finance minister has issued a letter of demand to Ghazale, who is Umno state assemblyperson for Rim.

According to Ghazale's Facebook post on Aug 11, he had accused Lim of having allegedly handpicked and appointed a team of 30 special officers to the Finance Ministry, all of whom purportedly were Chinese youths aged between 20 and 30.

He also claimed that the special officers were led by Lim's political secretary Tony Pua and received monthly pay at the same scale as Jusa-grade civil servants of between RM8,000 and RM15,000.

The Facebook post is still visible to the public as of the time of writing at 3pm today.

Ghazale went on in the same post with more allegations, including claiming that Lim had appointed the officers with the special aim of scrutinising cases involving Umno figures, managing the ministrys assets and to draft a budget that favours the Chinese.

"The Facebook post goes on to make racist statements against Lim and accused him of selling away the countrys assets.

"Ghazales statement is utterly false and slanderous. It is nothing but a typical attempt to paint Lim and the DAP as the villain," Khoo said in his statement.

The suit against Ghazale came two months after the politician issued an apology to another DAP leader, Teo Nie Ching after he allegedly reposted fake news against the Kulai MP.

The fake posting alleged Teo of calling for citizenship to be approved for children from other countries in order to balance the number of bumiputeras and the non-bumiputeras in the country.

Ghazale had made the apology after Teo initiated legal action against him over the post.

Story continues

"Ghazale has clearly not learned his lesson as he continues his habit of spreading lies with the latest statement against Lim.

"These cases show that Ghazale is a serial liar and peddler of fake news. Such behaviour is unacceptable for a deputy speaker of a state assembly, who should be ethical, righteous, and unbiased in his conduct.

"Ghazale should withdraw his false statement immediately and issue an apology to Lim. However, the people should not forget his record as a peddler of fake news with regards to these cases," said Khoo.

Meanwhile, Ghazale, when contacted, confirmed to have received the letter of demand but claims that his Facebook account might have been hacked.

He said he was puzzled on how the statement came onto his Facebook wall, claiming that he does not remember writing it.

Saying that his Facebook account could have been compromised, Ghazale claimed that he does not recognise the style of writing nor the issue being said about Lim.

"The Facebook post is quite odd to me. I don't usually write like that. I usually use my Facebook to update about my activities, and those who are used to my postings would know that I only write short statements of between one or two paragraphs, not a lengthy post like this one. Its not my style of writing.

"Another thing is that the issue (in the Facebook post), I have only heard about it today. If it was something that I had discussed previously, I would surely remember what the issues that I wanted to highlight.

"But this is something new to me," Ghazale claimed.

Asked about what happened with Teo, the politician admitted having posted the statement concerning the former deputy education minister.

Ghazale said he has asked his lawyer to check on this matter, after which he would discuss with the lawyer on their next course of action.
When newly named Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau appeared together earlier this week to give a preview of their lofty, optimistic vision for the future, Freeland used that phrase that is music to so many progressives ears: build back better.

It was an allusion to the grand vision that environmentalists are pushing here in Canada and that progressive leaders, including U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, are promoting around the world  an aspiration to recover from the pandemic in a way that is greener, more equitable and more prosperous. For the federal Liberals, it will be the driving policy focus behind their throne speech in September and their upcoming budget decisions.

But so much of getting there depends on how successful they are right now in keeping the economy afloat from one day to the next.

Freeland and Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough announced their fix for income support on Thursday, a package that will affect more than four million people still out of work and how they make ends meet over the next few months.

Theyre making a $37-billion bet that by enhancing the Employment Insurance system and setting up parallel benefits for the self-employed, sick leave and people who need to take care of their kids or parents, they will put a floor under the economic damage done by the pandemic shutdowns. And from there, they hope to launch their bigger plans for the future.

Building back better requires the people who were hit hardest by the pandemic economy to be on solid ground first. Unless income support is designed to make sure low-income families and precarious workers dont fall through the cracks, the foundation of any building-back-better initiative will be too weak for it to succeed.

So many of the aspirational proposals eye environmentally friendly construction of infrastructure and emissions-reducing retrofits of homes. One coalition of environmentalists in Canada, for example, proposes federal spending of $109 billion over the next 10 years, which would leverage about seven times that amount from the private sector to invest in retrofits, electric vehicles, electricity infrastructure and environmentally friendly urban infrastructure. Millions of jobs would flow from there, and emissions would drop.

Those all sound like fabulous ideas, but the reality is that more than 4 million people are still collecting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, and many of those people arent equipped to work in construction or manufacturing. More often than not, they worked in service-oriented industries, or theyre struggling to take care of their children and cant figure out how to return to work full time. Retrofitting homes wont help.

The path from here to there, the federal Liberals hope, is made easier by the $37-billion package that would transition unemployed Canadians from the emergency response benefit back into the regular Employment Insurance system.

The package is certainly broad and generous. It plugs some of the holes in the antiquated employment insurance of pre-pandemic days, is easier to qualify for and is flexible enough to allow for working while on claim so that theres no penalty for taking a part-time or low-paid job.

But will it actually be the launch pad for more jobs and a sustained resumption of economic growth? That depends partly on politics, partly on the private sector, and partly on what else the Liberals have up their sleeves to help parents trying to work from home.

On politics: The $37-billion package wont become a reality unless at least one opposition party votes in favour of supporting legislation set for the end of September. The Liberals argue they wont have a problem getting the votes they need, and theyre probably right, but why take the chance and subject these measures to minority-government brinksmanship instead of keeping the House of Commons running through the summer and passing them right now?

On the private sector: Companies need to hire back their workers for a true recovery to take hold. As a bonus for employers, Thursdays package included a freeze on Employment Insurance premiums and modifications to minimize any disincentives to go back to work. But the Canadian Federation of Independent Business was quick to say the benefits are too generous and will encourage workers to stay home. Lets hope thats not the case.

On parents: The package is designed to tide over dads and mainly moms who suddenly need to take care of children, but its not designed to help them find safe, affordable care or schooling for their kids so they can get back to work. Freeland was quick to recognize that problem on Thursday and hinted heavily that there would be a lot more to come on that front. But school starts next week in Quebec and next month elsewhere, even as parents fret about class size, contagion and whether its responsible and safe to send their kids back.

Watch this space, Freeland said.

Parents, and anyone who wants to see a build-back-better attempt succeed, are certainly watching.
Q: My husband has lots of women friends through his work. He saw a couple of them daily when they worked at the same office. Some others met him through their jobs in promotions or sales, for other companies.

Even during these past months when hes worked from home, eight women regulars would call or text, invite him to Zoom chats, to stay in touch.

My husband and I trust each other, which is why hes been open with me about these friendships, and has even showed me their communication.

I never worried about him before. But I dont fully trust one of the younger women whos been openly determined to find a partner and have a baby.

She writes him about this and has even said she wants someone just like him!

Am I wrong in thinking this is going too far? My husbands now uncomfortable too, but isnt sure how to say this without insulting her, or being mistaken and looking the fool.

I dont want to be on his case, since this womans the aggressor, and the others have gone overboard on their online communication.

What should I do that doesnt belittle him or make me appear a shrew?

The Wife

A: Its up to your husband to make it to clear to the woman seeking a baby-maker, that hes neither available nor interested in the job.

He also needs to trim his availability to all these women friends for such frequent contact and personal conversations.

Married men are as entitled as married women to have friendships with the opposite sex, but there must be boundaries for the relationship not to be misleading.

Also, hes apparently not clued in the women on how close he is with you and happy in your relationship.

One tactic to consider, if youre comfortable with it: Invite the more blatant partner-seeker for an outdoor patio lunch with you two and maybe one or two more women.

Sit next to your husband, be warm and welcoming. Tell a few anecdotes that reflect your life together and he, too, should tell some.

Then, encourage the younger woman that shell find love, too, in time. Wrap it up quickly if anyone gets maudlin about their life.

Its then up to your husband to keep any further contact to less personal exchanges.

If that doesnt happen, hes not playing fair with his friends OR you.

Readers Commentary: Regarding the topic of asexuality as a possible diagnosis for people disinterested in sex:

As a psychotherapist (MD) whos had asexual clients, male and female, I recommend these books for clients:

The Invisible Orientation An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker. Its very detailed about types of asexuality, including information about the spectrum of asexuality behaviour.

I Fell in Love with an Asexual, by Dave Wheitner, describes what it was like for the male author to discover that he was in a relationship with someone asexual.

This book is good for a guy to understand whats going on and some positive ways to deal with it. Its also good for an asexual woman to suggest their partner read it.

Approximately 1-2% of the population is asexual.

One question I ask people is if theyve ever had a sexual fantasy thatd involve intercourse or that degree of sexuality.

Asexuals will tend to say No. They always stop before that point. There might be kissing, hugging and closeness but itll go no further.

Ellies tip of the day

Married spouses must be clear about loyalty to their partner, when opposite-sex friends try get too close.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

Tashkent hosted the opening ceremony of the new building of the energy control center on August 20, 2020, Trend reports citing the Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan.

The event was organized by Regional Electricity Networks JSC jointly with KT (Korea Telecom) Corporation and Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The ceremony was attended by senior vice president of KT Corporation Lee Han-Sup, representatives of local government agencies, heads of energy enterprises, as well as a number of international organizations.

It was noted that the center was opened within the framework of the resolution of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

For this purpose, National Electric Grids of Uzbekistan JSC jointly with KT Corporation established the Center for Control and Accounting of Electric Energy in Tashkent city.

The main possibility of the Center is to provide calculation of multi-tariff subscribers, automatic disconnection of consumers having debts from the network and their re-connection at payment for the consumed electric power, operative notification of the facts of interference into the work of metering devices, as well as control and monitoring of the flow and consumption of electric power through the networks, the message said.

This system will allow for reliable accounting of the volume of supply of energy resources consumption, as it has a high accuracy class. The Center's software is designed to serve eight million subscribers, with the ability to increase them to 20 million.

As of today, more than 3.6 million consumers living in more than 70 districts and cities of the country are connected to modern power metering devices.

According to the Ministry, it is planned to fully cover all 7.4 million consumers by July 2021.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
Federal law enforcement face off with demonstrators during a night of protest against racial injustice police brutality and the deployment of federal troops to US cities on July 29, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Photo: Alisha Jucevic/AFP via Getty Images

On Thursday night, President Trump called in to Hannity, the Fox News commentary show, and repeated his (now-familiar) claim that the election will be plagued by widespread fraud if large numbers of Democrats are allowed to vote by mail. At the prompting of host Sean Hannity, Trump added that he also intends to have police officers and sheriffs deputies patrol polling sites on Election Day. This is the presidents latest proposition for how he will game a political contest that he is currently forecasted to lose  and confirmation of the central role he imagines American law enforcement will play in helping him.

Heres the exchange, via Fox News:

HANNITY: My question to you, then, is  Are you going to have poll watchers? Are you going to have an ability to monitor  to avoid fraud, and cross check whether or not these are registered votes, whether or not theres bad identification, to know that its a real vote from a real American?

TRUMP: Were gonna have everything. Were gonna have sheriffs, and were gonna have law enforcement, and were going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys and were going to have everybody  and attorney generals.

A defining feature of Trumps presidency is his ritualistic deployment of armed state officials  the U.S. military, federal agents  on American soil for expressly partisan political ends. In 2018, when polls predicted a blue wave of Democratic victories in the midterm elections that would wrest the House of Representatives from Republican control, the president cast a migrant caravan making its way through Central America toward the U.S.-Mexico border as a looming invasion that would lead to the deaths of untold numbers of Americans.

The only way to ensure domestic safety, he said, was to elect Republicans to office that November. This rhetoric grew more pitched as the election drew closer. Trump and Vice-President Pence alluded to unknown Middle Easterners traveling clandestinely among the migrants and to the possibility that leftist governments in Latin America  namely Venezuela  were organizing the caravan as an act of war. Some of the administrations surrogates in Congress and conservative media joined the fray, suggesting that George Soros  the Jewish billionaire and progressive donor  was bankrolling the group, which was composed mainly of refugees fleeing gang violence and economic disadvantage in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Trump tried to drive home the supposed urgency of this manufactured threat by sending U.S. troops to the border to guard against it. It didnt work as intended; the election passed, Democrats won control of the House, and the defeated president lost interest in the caravan, which eventually made it to the border in diminished form with little incident.

But the failure of this gambit didnt stop Trump from trying again two years later. With the 2020 election just over two months away, the president is now seeing some of the worst approval ratings of his tenure  a testament, in large part, to the disastrous manner in which he has handled the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic downturn. Trumps response to recent protests against the mistreatment of Black people by the police has only exacerbated matters. As protests and riots roiled American cities following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the president urged state governors to dominate the dissidents and threatened to send the military to Democratgoverned cities, where much of the unrest was concentrated. He drafted local police officers to teargas and assault nonviolent protesters near the White House so he could walk through Lafayette Park and pose for a photo op in front of a church. As his approval numbers continued to decline  and his polling deficit against Democratic challenger Joe Biden widened to double digits nationally  Trump made good on his threats to deploy armed agents to Democratic cities, sending fatigue-clad troops from a consortium of agencies, including ICE and the Border Patrol, to Portland, Oregon, weeks after the citys most unruly demonstrations had died down. Trumps agents snatched dissidents off the streets, threw them into unmarked vans, and engaged in nightly showdowns with demonstrators marked by the agents wanton use of teargas and less lethal munitions. Reports have since indicated that Trump hoped to create bedlam in Portland and then play conqueror, portraying himself as a bulwark against Democratic misrule. Instead, the protests grew larger and more intense in response to his incursion  and even spread to other cities where protests were organized in solidarity.

Trump has nevertheless committed to escalating these tactics. He has threatened to send more agents to Democratrun cities to impose law and order, and in some cases he has actually done so, albeit in a capacity different from what Portland experienced. The recent presence of agents in Chicago, for example, seems largely to mirror standard federal-local partnerships formed to address crime, and appears to function more as investigative aid than a crackdown on dissent. Even so, the president has continued to frame any law-enforcement surge pursued at his behest as a response to failed Democratic governance. It was only a matter of time before he applied these tactics to Election Day in an effort to thwart Democratic votes. The plan Trump professed to Hannity on Thursday is a logical next move  combining his zeal for deploying foot soldiers to terrorize his opposing constituencies with another of his favorite fixations: the negligible threat of large-scale voter fraud. In recent weeks, large numbers of Democrats have indicated their preference for voting by mail this year  a response largely related to the dangers of in-person voting during a pandemic. In response, Trump has expressed his intention to cut funding to the U.S Postal Service, the agency that would handle the resulting surge of mail-in ballots. He has undermined the service already by installing loyalists in leadership positions who have wasted little time removing sorting machines and collection boxes. And the president has seen no need to shroud his actions in plausible deniability, instead choosing to be forthright. Now, they need that money in order to make the Post Office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots, Trump told Fox Business Networks Maria Bartiromo last week. If they dont get those two items, that means you cant have universal mail-in voting, because theyre not equipped. This latest effort expands on rhetoric he employed in 2016 as well, when he claimed that the multimillion vote gap separating himself from popular-vote winner Hillary Clinton was due to fraud. The unambiguous message has been consistent: Any election in which he has a stake, but that does not result in his desired outcome, or is not personally overseen by him, is necessarily the product of a conspiracy pursued by Democrats to undermine him.

Over the past decade, Republican dominance over state and local governments has led to a constriction of voting rights that, in many cases, calls to mind the methods used under Jim Crow. From de facto poll taxes in Florida to voter-roll purges, spurious fraud prosecutions, police harassment, and polling-site closures in Georgia and elsewhere, the consistent aim has been to impose mazelike barriers to ballot access and concoct an environment of fear, confusion, and inconvenience to deter people from voting  particularly Black people, poor people, and young people, all of whom tend to vote against the GOP. The extent to which Trumps proposed addition can be pursued under his authority (and without local cooperation) is unclear  although the recent endorsements he has received from local police unions suggest a willing pool of law enforcement collaborators. Far less ambiguous is the degree to which hes willing to pursue work-arounds  like deploying his own federal agents again, rather than sheriffs or police  or threaten local officials with funding cuts to force their compliance. The outcome in November may not look exactly the way he describes it. It may materialize as officials disrupting transportation routes or thwarting rideshare efforts that help get people without vehicle access to the polls. He may not follow through at all. One sure thing is that every time the president has threatened to use law enforcement to advance his political interests during an election season, he has done so, and each iteration has been progressively more severe.
Children collect goods from an aid distribution at a camp for people who lived under ISIS and are now displaced - The Telegraph

A woman from Manchester who joined Islamic State as a teenager alongside her twin sister is alive and being held with her young son in a controversial camp run by Syrian Kurdish forces, sources in north-east Syria have confirmed to The Telegraph.

Salma and Zahra Halane were 16 when they fled their home in Chorlton in June 2014 to travel to Syria, but their fate has not been known since IS lost the last of its territory in fighting against Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in March 2019.

Zahra was recently caught trying to escape from the sprawling Al Hol camp, where she had lived for 16 months, and was transferred last week from a women's prison to a new high-security extension to Roj camp, where humanitarians worry the most dangerous IS supporters are being moved, sources in the camps said.

Salmas whereabouts is unknown but she is also believed to be alive. Dubbed the "terror twins" in the media, Zahra and Salma remain committed IS supporters, according to women in Al Hol.

The fact that their presence went unreported and that at least one of them attempted to escape illustrates the danger of leaving tens of thousands of jihadists under the guard of a militia in a war-torn country, experts say.

The Halane twins, who moved to Manchester at a young age from Denmark, crossed into Syria in July 2014, shortly after IS declared a caliphate.

The twins, whose elder brother had reportedly travelled to Syria the year before, moved to Raqqa, the caliphate's capital, and soon married Islamic State fighters.

Their youth and apparent enthusiasm for life under IS attracted widespread attention, and their journey to jihad was later copied by the Bethnal Green trio - teenage girls from an academy in London of whom only Shamima Begum is known to have survived.

By early 2019, the once sprawling caliphate was reduced to a small pocket of territory outside Baghouz in eastern Syria. While tens of thousands of IS supporters like Ms Begum surrendered to the Western-backed SDF, many remained missing.

Story continues

Ms Begums classmates Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana are believed to have died, but others without identification documents entered the camps, where there was little to stop them giving partial or incorrect biographical information.

Last month Russia Today Arabic aired an interview with a woman The Telegraph has identified as Zahra after she was caught trying to escape from Al Hol, where some 10,000 foreign women and children live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in an annex separate from over 55,000 Syrian and Iraqi citizens in the rest of the camp.

I want to go back home, the woman says, speaking Arabic.

"If you have money, there are different ways [of escaping] and it happens very fast. You can get to Turkey easily.

A network of corrupt guards and drivers using hidden compartments inside water tankers has developed to traffic people from Al Hol into Turkey.

The cost is about 12,000, according to researcher Vera Mironava, and is often sent by relatives abroad via informal money transfer systems. A woman who escaped from Al Hol said she knew the twins in the Islamic State and afterwards in the camp.

I've known them for over five years, the woman told The Telegraph, speaking anonymously. We visited each other.

I dont know where the other one might be honestly but they left together, she said, referring to Salma and their escape attempt. The Telegraph has also reviewed screenshots of messages purportedly from other women in Al Hol confirming the twins are alive. They know Zahra by her nickname Umm Zubair and Salma as Umm Abdurrahman.

Zahra has a four- or five-year-old son named Ismail, while Salmas son was reportedly killed in fighting at Baghouz. The government is believed to have revoked the twins residency and subjected them to an exclusion order, meaning they would be unable to reenter the UK.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: We do not comment on individual cases. The twins have told camp authorities they are Danish and are believed to want to return there.

Denmark's foreign ministry said it does not comment on individual cases or provide specific numbers concerning Danish nationals in northeast Syria.

A picture taken on October 17, 2019 shows a French citizen holding a child by the hand at the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp for the displaced where families of Islamic State (IS) foreign fighters are held - AFP

Relatives in the UK indicated to The Telegraph that they know the twins are alive. Speaking at the familys home in Manchester, their mother Khadra Jama said: They have been banned from the UK.

Speaking through a translator she added: The UK government did not help me when they left. They were 16 years-old when they left, they have been away for six years and they left from the airport and nobody helped them.

She declined to comment further, as did other relatives contacted by The Telegraph. Leaving thousands of IS supporters like the twins in insecure Syrian camps undermines efforts to prevent a resurgence of the group, said Shiraz Maher, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London.

There is disagreement over what should be done with them but the idea that people [be left there to] escape is really the worst case scenario, Mr Maher said, advocating for trials in their home countries.

The SDF and the US-led coalition against Islamic State have repeatedly called on governments to repatriate their citizens.

The best disposition option for detained foreign terrorist fighters is for home countries to repatriate, prosecute, and, where appropriate, incarcerate them, said coalition spokesman Capt Matthew Morris.
The company had initially planned to sell its Egyptian business in 2017, but is now ready to further develop concessions.

Ukraine's state-owned Naftogaz Ukrayiny plans to accelerate oil and gas production at the Alam El Shawish East concession in Egypt and is also looking at options for developing new license areas in the country, it said late August 19.

Naftogaz's reserves in Egypt are small, at just 0.4 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas and 8.6 million barrels of liquids, according to the company's 2019 annual report, spglobal.com reports.

The company had initially planned to sell its Egyptian business in 2017, but is now ready to further develop concessions.

"For the effective development of Naftogaz's assets in Egypt, it is necessary to accelerate the growth of hydrocarbon production in the Alam El Shawish East concession area, as well as to accelerate the implementation of major infrastructure projects," Naftogaz said in a statement.

The comments came following a Cairo meeting Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), a partner at the concession.

Read alsoUkraine says no plans to resume gas purchases from Russia  ReutersIn 2006, Naftogaz entered into a production sharing agreement in Egypt for Alam El Shawish East before actually starting extraction in 2014.

At the time, Naftogaz voiced hopes to produce daily some 7,000 barrels of oil and 0.7 million cubic meters of gas. Current production data for the concession is unavailable.

Other assets

Naftogaz said it would also look to further develop its South Wadi El Mahareeth and Wadi El Mahareeth concessions in Egypt's Eastern Desert following a meeting with its partner there, GANOPE (Ganoub El-Wadi Holding Company).

In Ukraine, Naftogaz said late July it started drilling a new gas well in Kherson region. The design daily flow rate at the Strilkove field is 40,000 cubic meters.
An NJ Transit supervisor who organized a scheme to steal $2.1 million from the transit agency was sentenced to five years in prison, acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II announced Friday.

Richard E. Schade, 63, of Lumberton, was a facilities supervisor who set up four fake companies and approved payments to them for services like landscaping and maintenance at NJ Transit properties, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit theft by deception in September 2019.

This defendant was a trusted employee of NJ Transit, authorized to sign off on expenses, said assistant prosecutor Caroline Oliveira in a statement. He abused that trust by engaging in a fraud that resulted in millions of dollars being diverted to undeserving companies and ultimately, to him and the others who were part of this criminal scheme.'

Schades defense attorney, Nancianne Aydelotte, said her client regrets his involvement.

We are very happy to have resolved this case in the way we did, said Aydelotte. We feel that the plea agreement is fair, and we have every intention of pursuing [Instensive Supervision Program] as soon as Mr. Schade is eligible and trying to secure his release in approximately 6 months. Mr. Schade regrets his involvement but looks forward to returning to his family, friends and community.

Others charged in the scheme include former NJ Transit mechanic Leonard Singleton, 39, of Newfield; his wife, Shonta Singleton, 39; his mother, Calamity Singleton, 62, of Newfield; and Adam Horning, 35, of Marlton. A fifth person was originally charged as well, but the prosecutors office did not immediately say where that case currently stands.

Leonard Singleton and his wife pleaded guilty to corporate misconduct. Leonard Singleton is scheduled to be sentenced in September while his wife received probation, the prosecutors office said.

Calamity Singleton was admitted to pretrial intervention, while Horning is awaiting to be sentenced. The prosecutors office did not immediately respond to a request for additional information about their charges.

Schade, the prosecutors office said, had the authority to approve payments of up to $5,000 at a time from NJ Transit to subcontractors for facility maintenance. He repeatedly signed off on payments to companies owned by the others charged in the case over the course of several years, prosecutors said.

Those involved in the plot paid Schade cash kickbacks, the prosecutors office said.

An internal audit in October 2015 revealed the unexplained payments, the prosecutors office said. It was referred to the NJ Transit Fraud Investigation Unit.

Schade is required to pay $200,000 in restitution to NJ Transit and is permanently disqualified from holding public employment in New Jersey.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
We are extremely pleased to be working with DuPont on this endeavor. DuPont comes with years of valuable experience and proven quality in alkylate production, said the Hengyi No. 5 Refinery Technical Lead.

DuPont Clean Technologies (DuPont) has been awarded the contract to supply Hengyi Industries SDN BHD (Hengyi) with licensing and engineering for a STRATCO alkylation unit at the Brunei refinery in Pulau Murara Besar, Brunei. The new refinery will not only supply the domestic market but also plans to produce refined fuel for export. In order to comply with the China VI standard of 10 ppm sulfur content for fuel, Hengyi commissioned DuPont for a STRATCO alkylation unit with 800 kmta (20,750 bpsd) alkylate capacity. The Pulau Muara Besar refinery and petrochemical plant has the capacity to refine 8 million tons of crude oil per year.

The STRATCO alkylation unit will enable Hengyi to generate low-sulfur, high-octane, low-Rvp alkylate with zero olefins that meets the criteria of the China VI standard. Startup is targeted for 2023.

It is a privilege to be selected by Hengyi for this project award and DuPont is thrilled to be working with them on this grassroots unit to meet specifications for the China VI standard. We anticipate a strong relationship between our two companies and are excited to cooperate with Hengyi on seeing this project through to completion. We are committed to supporting them for many years to come in helping them to achieve their objectives, said Kevin Bockwinkel, global business manager, STRATCO alkylation technology.

We are extremely pleased to be working with DuPont on this endeavor. We look forward to having DuPont design an alkylation unit meeting all of our gasoline pool specifications. DuPont comes with years of valuable experience and proven quality in alkylate production, said the Hengyi No. 5 Refinery Technical Lead.

The STRATCO alkylation Technology is a sulfuric acid, catalyzed process that converts low-value, straight-chain olefins (propylene, butylene and amylene) into high-value, branched components called alkylate. Alkylate, with its superior blending properties, is a key component for clean gasoline and the STRATCO alkylation technology helps refiners safely produce cleaner-burning gasoline with high octane, low-Reid vapor pressure, low sulfur, zero aromatics and zero olefins. The STRATCO alkylation technology is licensed and marketed by DuPont as part of its Clean Technologies portfolio in Overland Park, Kansas. DuPont is the world leader in alkylation technology with more than 100 licensed units worldwide and more than 915,000 bpsd (35,800 kmta) of installed capacity. DuPont is committed to alkylation research and has extensive experience in assisting refiners with alkylation research, design, start-ups, test runs, troubleshooting, optimization, revamps, expansions, analytical testing, operator training, turnarounds and HAZOP studies.

About DuPont Clean Technologies

The Clean Technologies division of DuPont is a global leader in process technology licensing & engineering, offering critical process equipment, products and services that enable an array of industrial markets, including phosphate fertilizer, non-ferrous metals, oil refining, petrochemicals and chemicals, to minimize their environmental impact. We provide extensive global expertise across our portfolio of offerings in key applications  MECS sulfuric acid production, STRATCO alkylation, BELCO wet scrubbing, and IsoTherming hydroprocessing. We are dedicated to helping our customers produce high-quality products used in everyday life in the safest, most environmentally-sound way possible, with a vision to make the world a better place by creating clean alternatives to traditional industrial processes. We make everyday life better, safer, cleaner. http://www.cleantechnologies.dupont.com.

About DuPont

DuPont (NYSE: DD) is a global innovation leader with technology-based materials, ingredients and solutions that help transform industries and everyday life. Our employees apply diverse science and expertise to help customers advance their best ideas and deliver essential innovations in key markets including electronics, transportation, construction, water, health and wellness, food, and worker safety. More information can be found at http://www.dupont.com.

08/20/2020

DuPont, the DuPont Oval Logo, and all products, unless otherwise noted, denoted with , or  are trademarks, service marks or registered trademarks of affiliates of DuPont de Nemours, Inc.

For further information contact:

DuPont Clean Technologies

Jeannie Branzaru

Tel: +1-913-327-3552

jeannie.e.branzaru@dupont.com

STRATCO Alkylation Technology

Kevin Bockwinkel

Tel: +1-913-327-3536

kevin.b.bockwinkel@dupont.com
BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 21

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Turkmenistan provided information on the prospects for the development of the Turkmen-Tatar partnership, in particular in machinery and shipbuilding, energy sector, healthcare industry, construction industry, and others, Trend reports with reference to Arzuw NEWS information portal.

The presentation was provided by the Consul General of Turkmenistan to Kazan, Atadurdy Bayramov within the framework of the meetings "100 percent Tatarstan" and "Friends of Tatarstan", with the participation of representatives from Republic of Tatarstan (Russia), Uzbekistan, Russia, Arab countries and head of Tatarstans Investment Development Agency.

The parties discussed international cooperation with a focus on the development of digital diplomacy, the report says.

Earlier, the parties also noted the intensification of cooperation between Turkmenistan and Tatneft oil and gas company, Kazan helicopter plant company, KER-Holding engineering company, AKBars Shipbuilding Corporation, and others.

One of the most important aspect trading partnership between Turkmenistan and Tatarstan include the supply of famous Russian KAMAZ trucks, which are widely used in Turkmenistan's construction and agricultural sectors. Over the past ten years, more than 9,000 trucks and special equipment of KAMAZ Engineering JSC have been delivered to the country.

Also, some 46 dump trucks from KAMAZ have been delivered to the International Sea Port of Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan in April 2020.

The foreign trade turnover of Turkmenistan and Tatarstan amounted to $65 million from January through September 2019.

Branches of the leading companies of Tatarstan, such as KAMAZ, Tatneft, and IED-Holding, operate in Turkmenistan.

Meanwhile, Turkmenistan and Tatarstan Republic(Russia) have discussed the construction of various types of ships aimed at the development of the merchant fleet on April 6, 2020.

In general, Turkmenistan prioritizes cooperation with Russias regions and cities, in particular with Republic of Tatarstan, Astrakhan, and Saint Petersburg.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
WASHINGTON  Louis DeJoy, the embattled postmaster general whose cost-cutting and operational changes have prompted widespread concern about mail-in voting, said on Friday he was extremely, highly confident the Postal Service could handle the largest vote-by-mail program in American history. He said it was outrageous for Democrats to suggest that he might intentionally slow ballot delivery to help President Trump.

Testifying before Congress for the first time amid a sharp backlash, Mr. DeJoy, a major donor to Mr. Trump, defended many of the changes as necessary to help the Postal Service get its financial house in order. He acknowledged that the moves have slowed some mail delivery and reiterated that he would suspend his cost-cutting measures until after the election.

There has been no changes to any policies with regard to election mail, Mr. DeJoy told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, adding, The Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail fully and on time.

Under intense pressure from Democrats, however, he refused to reverse other steps, like removing hundreds of blue mailboxes and mail-sorting machines, that he said his predecessors had initiated in response to a steady decline in mail volume. He told senators that he did not know about the machine removal when it began, saying it was not a critical issue within the Postal Service.
<! Ayokunle and Buhari >

By Muhaimin Olowoporoku

Nigerias media space has been set abuzz for weeks after reports that the federal government through the Companies and Allied Matters Act, (CAMA) was set to remove and suspend trustees of Churches, Mosques, and NGOs thereby taking charge of managing affairs of these organizations.

Promo as a move to checkmate these organizations, with power given to the commission to take over and manage NGOs on allegations of misconduct, the amended act has not settled down well with religious leaders who have voiced out their rage regarding the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020.

Time bomb waiting to explode: Hostile reactions trail CAMA

Presiding Bishop, Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo reacted to the new development, saying he does not care if anybody insults him or not, as he categorized such people as wasting their time.

The cleric few days back got bashed after making certain comments rejecting CAMA for the power conferred to the commission to remove the board of trustees of churches without recourse to the court.

Oyedepo said the document must have been drafted by somebody who woke up from the wrong side of the bed after dreaming as the person must have drafted that aspect in the bill as their custom is.

The bishop reacted further, explaining that he is 51 years old in this thing (Christianity) and said they should not try it. I have been with Jesus for some time and I am sent as a prophet to nations. That a minister can remove the trustees and close the accounts of the church is

In the same light, the umbrella body of Christians in Nigeria (CAN) has made their stance clear on the matter. The body issued a statement rejecting the law saying if the federal government insisted on retaining the legislation, it would be seen as a declaration of war on Christianity and an agenda to destroy the church. They also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently return the law to the National Assembly for immediate amendment.

They said they wont put all their eggs in one basket as the Special Assistant on Media and Communications to the CAN President, Pastor Adebayo Oladeji, in an interview revealed they have begun consulting with Christians leaders on what the next move should be.

The body, however, termed the law unacceptable, ungodly, reprehensible and an ill-wind that blows no one any good. It is a time bomb waiting to explode, the body said in the statement.

The satanic section of the controversial and ungodly law is Section 839 (1) &(2), which empowers the commission (Corporate Affairs Commission) to suspend trustees of an association (in this case, the church) and appoint the interim managers to manage the affairs of the association for some given reasons.

Government pacifies stakeholders, preaches calm

In lieu to these hostile reactions here and there, the House of Representatives called on NGOs, religious bodies and other concerned stakeholders that have issues with the law to push for the amendment to the law.

Spokesperson of the House, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, in an interview, said people who are not happy with provisions of CAMA should approach the parliament and channel complaints the right ways and they will be considered by the legislature.

However, he berated aggrieved members for not speaking out during the public hearing stage of the bill.

Speaking from a neutral angle

Owing to the many controversies, reactions and counter-reactions here and there, Human rights activist, Femi Falana, SAN, said the law was badly drafted.

Falana claimed he has read the law and government that was to facilitate ease of doing business could not have come up with a 604-page business law.

He explained that the law was not a new one rather it only became illegal because it was a violation of the fundamental right to freedom of association guaranteed by section 40 of the Constitution.

Falana explains that the novel inclusion that needs to be sanctioned in CAMA is the power conferred on the commission to take over and manage NGOs on allegations of misconduct.

Discussions as regards CAMA are still ongoing here and there as spectators observe eventually how the issue would be concluded between the government and other warring parties.

Related
Figures released by the Portland Police Bureau showed fires were lit by protesters on 41 of the 83 nights of protest, acts of vandalism were committed on 49 nights, and projectiles were thrown during at least 58 nights.

Since the protests began on May 29, police have only recorded seven nights that were free of vandalism, fireworks or intentional fires.

The unrest was sparked by the death of Mr Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

In a statement, officers in Portland said: When criminal behaviour occurs, especially behaviour threatening the safety of those near the event or those targeted by the event, law enforcement must respond.

For weeks, police officials have received questions regarding where demonstrations have been taking place in the city, crimes that occur and police actions.

The department released a timeline of the protests in response.

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The most recent data was from Wednesday night, when police said two people were arrested and protesters lit fires, committed vandalism and threw projectiles.

Individuals Throw Softball Sized Rocks at Officers, Light Fires, Break Windows, and Vandalize Building during Mass Gathering at ICE Building (Photo) https://t.co/52rQhgBfbb pic.twitter.com/unDnioQdJf  Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 20, 2020

Police declared a riot, meaning six or more persons are engaging in tumultuous and violent conduct and intentionally or recklessly created a grave risk of public alarm.

Protesters clashed with federal agents for the first time in weeks at a demonstration targeting a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building.

Windows were spray painted and broken before a riot was declared and authorities used tear gas and other riot control methods to break up the crowd, The Oregonian reported.

Several officers suffered minor injuries after they were hit with rocks.
The Bombay High Court will hear the case related to the New Tariff Amendment Order (NTO 2.0) in the first week of September. The court had previously scheduled the hearing on August 24 two weeks after the last hearing on August 12.

Media reports indicate that the petitioners may submit further documents by August 31. The court order mandates that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) may not use coercive action against broadcasters for not adhering to NTO 2.0 guidelines until it gives its final verdict. The case pertains to broadcasters challenging TRAI's authority to implement NTO 2.0.
Long-time President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenka, who has held the countrys top elected post since 1994, claimed yet another land-slide victory in the presidential election that took place on August 9. His claim of a victory with 80 percent of the vote is disputed by hundreds of thousands of Belarusian citizens, many of whom took to the streets in protest saying that the results were falsified. Government forces responded swiftly and brutally to the protests, beating, arresting, and detaining protesters, journalists, and members of the opposition by the thousands. At least four protesters were killed.

After the election, two of Belarus opposition leaders fled the country, including leading opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran for the presidency after her husband Sergei, a political blogger, was jailed and barred from the presidential race.

The protests continue in many of Belarus cities. Over 100,000 protesters rallied in Minsk on August 16, an unprecedented turn-out in Belarus. A number of protesters are part of the Women in White campaign, who have taken to the streets to protest the violent crackdown and call for the release of loved ones detained by police.

The women, dressed in white and often carrying flowers, began appearing last week in Minsk but similar protests have also taken place in Germany, Poland, Belgium, Ukraine, and Russia.

It is clear from the response of the Belarusian people to the disputed election that they are yearning for something that Alexander Lukashenka has not afforded them in the two and a half decades he has held power. The international community has heard the call of the Belarusian people and stands with them in their democratic aspirations.

The United States, as well as European leaders, have expressed deep concern over the conduct of the election in Belarus, noting it was neither free nor fair, as well as the governments violent response to the subsequent protests, the apparent targeting of journalists, the severe abuses against detainees, and the internet blackout.

During his recent visit to Poland, Secretary of State Pompeo said, The common objective is to support the Belarusian people to achieve their own sovereignty, their own freedom, to build out what youre seeing happen in these protests. These people are demanding the simple things that every human being wants: the right to have determination for themselves the nature of their government. And so we urge the leadership of Belarus to broaden the circle, to engage with civil society in a way that reflects the central understandings that the Belarusian people are demanding.
Were excited to introduce the new Social Data Experts Panel Debate Series as a way to openly discuss the challenges and opportunities of social data analysis in business in a transparent way that works towards building best practice and successful social intelligence programmes.

The Social Intelligence Lab, the professional network for social data practitioners, launches The Social Data Experts Panel Debate Series debating all aspects of social data analysis, and its real-world practical application in helping brands create customer-centric experiences that accelerate business growth.

This first-of-its-kind webinar debate series is dedicated to social data and its use and impact on businesses today.

The Social Intelligence Lab is always pushing the envelope in demonstrating where the potential of social data lies for businesses and continues to deliver events, training and support to help every business find value from this rich but tricky to use source of insight, shares The Social Intelligence Lab founder, Dr Jillian Ney. Were excited to introduce the new Social Data Experts Panel Debate Series as a way to openly discuss the challenges and opportunities of social data analysis in business in a transparent way that works towards building best practice and successful social intelligence programmes.

The Experts Panel Debate Series gathers visionaries and thought leaders behind the leading social data tech, agencies creating innovative methodologies, and experts managing social intelligence programmes at the worlds leading brands for a deep dive into how social data is being used in business decision-making. The series will spotlight industry leaders to showcase best practices in the emerging field of social media intelligence, and provide organisations with new strategies to help drive business growth from social data.

The panel debates will focus on different aspects of social data analysis, the challenges, opportunities, myths, and ethics with expert panelists debating a set topic or question. The panels will run every two weeks from the 26th of August 2020. The initial Social Data Experts Panel Debate Series schedule and agenda includes:

August 26th, 2020: 4PM BST

What are your clients doing that others should be doing?

Social intelligence isnt just listening to social media conversations. The social data industry is constantly innovating and diversifying through new methodologies, but they are not widely publicised or discussed. If you feel like you could be doing more with your social data, this debate will highlight the latest approaches to social intelligence, highlight case studies, and what success looks like.

September, 9th 2020: 4PM BST

How do I know if the vendors and consultants working with us are doing good work?

Many people have been left disappointed by the outputs of social listening projects. Historically theres been a lot of over promise and under deliver when it comes to social data analysis. So, how do we judge the quality of vendors and consultants before investing in their services? Join our expert panel as they give you insights into how best to commission social intelligence projects and tips on how to judge the quality of proposals and approaches.

September, 23rd 2020: 4PM BST

How do you educate and get buy-in for social intelligence across your organisation?

An organisation's investment in social intelligence is often driven by internal champions. The biggest challenge to social intelligence success is getting other people to take notice and educate them on use cases and benefits. Join our panel as they discuss their journey into social intelligence and how they got their colleagues to pay attention.

October 7th, 2020: 4PM BST

What are the biggest lessons that youve learned from working with social data?

Working with social data isnt easy but with time and experience you get to understand a lot about the data source and what research is possible using that source. Our panelists are debating the biggest lessons they have learned so you can shortcut your path to success.

The Experts Panel Debate Series is a prelude leading up to the launch of The Social Intelligence Academy. The first-ever professional academy and community for social data practices. The new Social Intelligence Certification is an 8 module learn-by-doing course designed to give professionals using social data in their work the skills, experience and network to develop successful global social intelligence programmes.

Register for the Social Data Experts Panel Debate Series for FREE here:

https://thesilab.com/panel-debates/

More details and applications for the Social Intelligence Certification can be made here:

https://the-social-intelligence-academy.learnworlds.com/course/social-intelligence-master-certification

Places on the course are competitive, with a maximum of 20 professionals sitting the certification programme at one time. The certification programme will start on November 2nd 2020.

Ends.

About The Social Intelligence Lab

The Social Intelligence Lab is the first academy and community for social data practices. Founded by Dr Jillian Ney, the UK's first Dr of Social Media and Digital Behavioural Scientist in 2018 as a place for everyone using social data in their roles to get the support they need, and help all businesses get value from social data.

For more information, please visit: http://www.thesilab.com
(Photo : NASA) Both modules host docked Russian spacecraft including the Progress resupply ships and the Soyuz crew ships. At top left is the Pirs Docking Compartment where Russian spacewalks are staged. At bottom left is the Poisk Mini-Research Module-2 where Russian science experiments are conducted. (Photo : NASA) The Zvezda Service Module was the first fully Russian contribution to the International Space Station and served as the early cornerstone for the first human habitation of the station. (Photo : NASA) The official Expedition 63 crew portrait. From left are, NASA astronaut and Commander Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts and Flight Engineers Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.

NASA is currently investigating the source of a leak in the International Space Station (ISS), so the three-man crew had to spend the weekend in the orbiting Russian segment.

The Expedition 63 crew includes NASA's Chris Cassidy and two Roscosmos cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin would have to transfer to the Russian segment Zvezda service module from Friday, August 21, until Monday morning, August 24, according to CNET. This will give ample time for NASA to search for the source of "a tiny bit" of leak that affects ISS' atmosphere.

According to a statement, the agency first noticed in September 2019 a slight increase in cabin air leak rate, which goes beyond the standard. However, due to spacewalks and spacecraft arrivals and departures, and other routine station operations, it took time for NASA to gather sufficient data to characterize those measurements.

While NASA said the leak is still within segment specifications and does not pose an immediate danger to the space station or the crew members, the agency would work over the weekend to identify, isolate, and hopefully restore the source of the leak as scientist confirmed the pressure rate has slightly increased.

Transferring the crew to Zvezda would allow the crew to close down the station hatches while NASA could closely monitor the air pressure in each segment. The agency added that the test will not bring any safety concern for the crew" while mission controllers could figure out the source of the stubborn leak by looking for the module that experiences a leak rate that is higher than the standard. NASA and Roscosmos expect that preliminary results of the investigation will be available next week.

The atmospheric pressure in the ISS is strictly maintained, so crew members can comfortably live and work daily. Thus, even the slightest air leaks would require routine repressurization of nitrogen being supplied during cargo resupply missions.

Space Traffic Clear at Station Until October

The transfer to Zvezda over the weekend is perfect timing as ISS space traffic will be clear until October when the Expedition 64 crew, a U.S. Cygnus cargo ship from Northrop Grumman, and the SpaceX Crew-1 mission arrive at the station within three weeks.

On August 19, Expedition 63 Commander Cassidy switched off communications gear that was used to send commands to Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle-9 (HTV-9), which departed on August 18. The cargo craft will orbit Earth until it descended over the South Pacific on August 19.

The rest of the crew is now focused on lab maintenance before their weekend sleepover to Zvezda. Ivanishin installed current converters throughout the lab's Russian segment while Vagner worked on more orbital plumbing as well as explored techniques to enhance Earth photography.

The module has plenty of rooms with living quarters that allowed permanent human habitation in space since Nov. 2, 2000, after the Expedition 1 crew reached the ISS. The Expedition 63 crew will also have access to the Poisk mini-research module as well as their Soyuz MS-16 crew ship during their stay.

This is owned by Tech Times.

Written by CJ Robles

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Great Britain is interested in sharing military technology and experience and in partnering with Ukraine.

Secretary of State for Defense of the United Kingdom Ben Wallace said this in an interview with the Den newspaper during his official visit to Ukraine, according to Ukrinform.

According to Wallace, this is not only about cooperation in shipbuilding and in the naval sector. I see young men and women on the border with non-government-controlled areas in Donbas being killed or injured. And our main goal in cooperation with Ukraine is to help protect people, he said.

The minister believes that the UK has certain technologies and opportunities with which it can support Ukraine. All this will begin in the fall when Wallace submits a global thematic review of British defense policy to the Parliament in November.

You dont need to worry: there is nothing that would stand in the way of deepening our relations, the Secretary of State stressed.

ish
The eastern Arctic Ocean's winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean's interior, researchers have found.

The finding came from an international study led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute. The study, published in the Journal of Climate, used data collected by ocean moorings in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean from 2003-2018.

The moorings measured the heat released from the ocean interior to the upper ocean and sea ice during winter. In 2016-2018, the estimated heat flux was about 10 watts per square meter, which is enough to prevent 80-90 centimeters (almost 3 feet) of sea ice from forming each year. Previous heat flux measurements were about half of that much.

"In the past, when weighing the contribution of atmosphere and ocean to melting sea ice in the Eurasian Basin, the atmosphere led," said Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at UAF's International Arctic Research Center and FMI. "Now for the first time, ocean leads. That's a big change."

Typically, across much of the Arctic a thick layer of cold fresher water, known as a halocline, isolates the heat associated with the intruding Atlantic water from the sea surface and from sea ice.

This new study shows that an abnormal influx of salty warm water from the Atlantic Ocean is weakening and thinning the halocline, allowing more mixing. According to the new study, warm water of Atlantic origin is now moving much closer to the surface.

"The normal position of the upper boundary of this water in this region was about 150 meters. Now this water is at 80 meters," explained Polyakov.

A natural winter process increases this mixing. As sea water freezes, the salt is expelled from ice into the water. This brine-enriched water is heavier and sinks. In the absence of a strong halocline, the cold salty water mixes much more efficiently with the shallower, warm Atlantic water. This heat is then transferred upward to the bottom of sea ice, limiting the amount of ice that can form during winter.

"These new results show the growing and spreading influence of heat associated with Atlantic water entering the Arctic Ocean," added Tom Rippeth, a collaborator from Bangor University. "They also suggest a new feedback mechanism is contributing to accelerating sea ice loss."

Polyakov and his team hypothesize that the ocean's ability to control winter ice growth creates feedback that speeds overall sea ice loss in the Arctic. In this feedback, both declining sea ice and the weakening halocline barrier cause the ocean's interior to release heat to the surface, resulting in further sea ice loss. The mechanism augments the well-known ice-albedo feedback -- which occurs when the atmosphere melts sea ice, causing open water, which in turn absorbs more heat, melting more sea ice.

When these two feedback mechanisms combine, they accelerate sea ice decline. The ocean heat feedback limits sea ice growth in winter, while the ice-albedo feedback more easily melts the thinner ice in summer.

"As they start working together, the coupling between the atmosphere, ice and ocean becomes very strong, much stronger than it was before," said Polyakov. "Together they can maintain a very fast rate of ice melt in the Arctic."

Polyakov and Rippeth collaborated on a second, associated study showing how this new coupling between the ocean, ice and atmosphere is responsible for stronger currents in the eastern Arctic Ocean.

According to that research, between 2004-2018 the currents in the upper 164 feet of the ocean doubled in strength. Loss of sea ice, making surface waters more susceptible to the effects of wind, appears to be one of the factors contributing to the increase.

The stronger currents create more turbulence, which increases the amount of mixing, known as shear, that occurs between surface waters and the deeper ocean. As described earlier, ocean mixing contributes to a feedback mechanism that further accelerates sea ice decline.

Accelerated currents have practical implications in the Arctic. Ship captains need accurate maps of currents for navigation. Since currents move sea ice, oil and gas extraction activities also need information about currents.

###

This second study was described in a scientific paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Additional co-authors for these papers include Ilker Fer, Matthew Alkire, Till Baumann, Eddy Carmack, Randi Ingvaldsen, Vladimir Ivanov, Markus Janout, Sigrid Lind, Laurie Padman, Andrey Pnyushkov and Robert Rember.
The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, is to introduce new measures to curb the recent spike of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the East African country, local media reported.

In a televised address, Mr Museveni said some citizens and politicians are continuing to violate preventive measures and operating procedures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

They dont care about life; they dont think about the future of the country. When you die, you dont come back, its finished. You go, the president said.

He said he would address the nation next week on the new measures.

On Monday, Edward Wamala, the Minister of Works and Transport, warned that the government could re-impose a ban on public transport over the continued violation of COVID-19 regulations amid the increase in cases.

He said public commuter taxi operators and other motorists were flouting the standard operating procedures issued by the health ministry to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

READ ALSO:

Some of these procedures include wearing a face mask when using public transportation, as well as social distancing and hand sanitising.

As of August 20, Uganda had registered a total of 1,750 COVID-19 cases, including 1,194 recoveries and 19 deaths since its first case was reported on March 21.

(Xinhua/NAN)
Joseph DeAngelo, the man now known as the "Golden State Killer," addressed the court on Friday as he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

DeAngelo, who had sat in a wheelchair and was covered by a white face mask as victims and family members gave statements, rose out of the wheelchair and spoke free of the face covering.

"I've listened to all your statements. Each one of them," DeAngelo said. "And I'm truly sorry to everyone I have hurt. Thank you, your honor."

PHOTO: Jennifer Carole confronts Joseph James DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer, on the third day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 20, 2020. (Santiago Mejia/Pool via Reuters)

DeAngelo, who was a police officer from 1973 to 1979, committed 13 murders as well as multiple rapes and burglaries in the 1970s and '80s. Now a 74-year-old father and grandfather, DeAngelo was arrested in 2018.

In June, he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder as part of a plea deal, which also required him to admit to multiple uncharged acts, including rapes.

The death penalty was taken off the table in exchange for the guilty pleas.

PHOTO: Joseph James DeAngelo, who was dubbed the 'Golden State Killer,' speaks at his sentencing hearing in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 21, 2020. (Santiago Mejia/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

"I honestly believe that this person -- not even a person, this beast -- deserved the ultimate punishment of death," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Friday. "But we met with our victims. We knew the age of the case. We knew how long it took to solve. And we knew that this was the right thing to do."

"For the victims whose voices have been stolen and the family members who sadly ran out of time and could not make it here today, I want you to know that there are 13 angels watching us today," Spitzer said.

MORE: 'Golden State Killer' survivor confronts rapist: 'Remember what I have to say'

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert added, "My greatest hope for all of these victims and their families perhaps is best put in their own words as we heard this week. The greatest revenge is to live your lives. Paint your children's and your grandchildren's rooms again with hearts and rainbows. Water ski again. Know that the monster of your childhood or your younger years is gone forever and will die alone in the dark."

Story continues

A statement from DeAngelo's sister, which was read in court Friday, put some blame on their father who she described as an abuser and a womanizer. A statement from DeAngelo's niece described him as a loving and patient man who taught her how to drive.

PHOTO: Joseph James DeAngelo sits during the second day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/Pool via AP)

This week brought three days of victim and family impact statements, beginning Tuesday and Wednesday with powerful words from rape survivors and their relatives. On Thursday, DeAngelo was confronted by the family members of people he murdered decades ago.

"His crimes were always committed in the dark of night. And it was common for him to cover lights," said Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten. "Even now here in this courtroom he turns away from the light, and dare not face or look at his accusers, for fear that the truth of their testimonies might penetrate the deep darkness."

'I was the only living witness'

On Sept. 11, 1975, DeAngelo, who was a police officer at the time, shot and killed journalism professor Claude Snelling in front of his daughter, Elizabeth, at their Visalia, California, home.

"My father caught him twice peering in my bedroom window when he came home from teaching night school, and tried to chase him down but wasn't able to catch him," Elizabeth Snelling said in court Thursday.

PHOTO: Elizabeth Hupp, daughter of Claude Snelling, makes a statement as Joseph James DeAngelo is in the courtroom during the third day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse, Aug. 20, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

In the early hours of Sept. 11, Elizabeth Snelling, who was 16 years old, said she was awakened by an intruder in a ski mask who pointed a gun at her head.

Snelling said the intruder told her "he was taking me with him and if I made any noise he would kill me."

DeAngelo dragged her out of the house with a gun pointed at her head, she said, and her dad charged out of the house.

MORE: The 'Golden State Killer': Inside the timeline of crimes

"DeAngelo fired two shots hitting my dad," she told the court. "He then turned the gun on me as I was down on the ground. My only thought was, 'this is it.'"

"He started kicking me in the head and face, then ran off," she said.

Claude Snelling was 45 years old and in "the prime of his life," his daughter said, calling him her "hero."

PHOTO: A photo of Claude Snelling is projected on the screen as Claude's daughter Elizabeth Hupp makes a statement during the third day of victim impact statements in the trial of the Golden State Killer, Aug. 20, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/Pool via AP)

"We somehow managed to stay in the same house, but with added security. I slept in my mom's room for the next year," Elizabeth Snelling said.

"Knowing that my dad's murderer was never caught ... left us all feeling very vulnerable," she continued. "Since I was the only living witness ... there was a chance he could come after me. The police gave us extra security and patrolled our neighborhood ... but I still lived in fear."

"DeAngelo was able to live a normal life with his family for all those years while my family and I could not be with my dad," she said. "I am so thankful that he will at least spend the rest of his miserable life in prison."

PHOTO: Joseph James DeAngelo sits in court during the third day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse, Aug. 20, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

'Unspeakable horror'

In March 1980, Charlene Smith and her husband, attorney Lyman Smith, were killed in their Ventura home. The couple was found dead by Lyman Smith's 12-year-old son, Gary.

"The walls were splattered with blood and gray matter. The bed was saturated with bodily fluids," Lyman Smith's daughter, Jennifer Carole, said Thursday. "Gary gently lifted the corner of the comforter to find my dad face down in the pillow cemented to the fabric by blood."

Carole was 18 at the time of the murder.

"Joe might be surprised to learn that I was a suspect for two days," Carole said to DeAngelo in court, as he sat silently.

"I've lived with the shame for decades," Carole said, crying. "It's your shame, Joe."

PHOTO: Jennifer Carole confronts Joseph James DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer, on the third day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 20, 2020. (Santiago Mejia/Pool via Reuters)

"Joe sitting here [in court] with his blank face, [trying] to ignore what he's done to not validate his victims ... is not justice," Carole said. "Joe spending the rest of his life in prison is not justice. ... Justice is not possible in this case."

"It's been a never-ending ache and sadness that does not go away," Charlene's best friend, Jill-Karen Morrill, said in court. "Charlene was so much more than beautiful and Lyman so much more than handsome. When she and Lyman were taken, the world lost two amazing people, full of life and both with bright futures."

"I cannot allow myself to think of all they endured in death. But we know of the unspeakable horror they suffered," she said.

'If I had my way he would be shivering, blindfolded, naked and exposed'

In July 1981, Cheri Domingo and her boyfriend Gregory Sanchez were killed.

Sanchez, 27, was shot and bludgeoned in the head two dozen times, prosecutors said. DeAngelo then bound 35-year-old Domingo, raped her and beat her in the head more than 10 times, prosecutors said.

"My heart is racing," said Domingo's daughter, Debbi McMullan, as she began speaking in court Thursday.

PHOTO: Debbi McMullan, with Melanie Barbeau standing by her side, confronts Joseph James DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer, on the third day of victim impact statements in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 20, 2020. (Santiago Mejia/Pool via Reuters)

McMullan, who was 15 at the time of her mother's murder, said in her 20s, "I started to sink into a depression that was undiagnosed and untreated for many years."

She said she "stumbled into drug use," during which "a decade was lost."

MORE: 'Golden State Killer' victims address him in court: 'The devil can keep you company'

"Mom would have helped," she said. "She would have supported me and guided me toward solutions. She would have prodded me into admitting that I needed help."

By her mid-30s, McMullan was clean, sober and welcoming her children back home, she said. McMullan then learned her mother's slaying may be the work of a serial killer and she poured her energy into helping solve the case.

"I am not that lost teenager anymore. Today I am in the room with the pathetic excuse of a man who will now finally be held accountable," she said. "If I had my way he would be shivering, blindfolded, naked and exposed every moment from now on."

'He had no idea how much Katie and Brian were loved'

In Feb. 1978, Brian and Katie Maggiore were shot dead while walking their dog. After Brian Maggiore was shot, his wife ran away and yelled for help, but DeAngelo caught up with her and shot her in the head, prosecutors said.

PHOTO: In this undated combo photos released by the FBI shows murder victims, Katie Maggiore and her husband Brian Maggiore. (FBI via AP, FILE)

Katie turned 20 years old four days before she was killed in "cold blood," her brother said in court Thursday.

"He had no idea how much Katie and Brian were loved. They have remained alive in all our hearts," he said.

'I hope he rots'

In May 1986, 18-year-old Janelle Cruz was bound, raped and bludgeoned in the face and head, prosecutors said.

Cruz's sister, Michelle Cruz, said in court, "I wonder if [DeAngelo] remembers the details. I wonder if he remembers Janelle, my sister, fighting him off."

PHOTO: Joseph James DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer, speaks with public defender Joseph Cress during the second day of victim impact statements at the Gordon D. Schaber Sacramento County Courthouse in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 19, 2020. (Santiago Mejia/Pool via Reuters)

She was beaten "beyond recognition" and needed a closed casket funeral, Cruz said.

"My sister had a lot of hard times growing up, but she was finally on a good path. She had dreams of going to college, living in her first apartment, getting married, having children," Cruz said, noting that DeAngelo had a "good, full life" with a wife, children and a home.

MORE: 'Golden State Killer' pleads guilty as horrific crimes recounted by prosecutors

"I cry for her all the time," she said. "I wonder if Joseph DeAngelo has any remorse."

After her death, "I lost my identity," Cruz said, and she devoted her life to finding her sister's killer.

When DeAngelo was arrested, Cruz said she "cried and cried for hours."

"I could stop looking over my shoulder with fears of him sneaking up on me," Cruz said. "No more thinking he would try and find and kill me, too. I did not have to keep moving house to house -- all the things that haunted my mind for 32 years."

"I hope he rots," she said.

'Black and soulless eyes'

In Feb. 1981, 28-year-old Manuela Witthuhn was bound, raped and bludgeoned to death while home alone.

Manuela Witthuhn's husband David suffered extreme grief, anxiety and depression for years, said his brother, Drew Witthuhn.

Drew Witthuhn shared with the court a photo of Manuela's headstone, a place he said David often visited to be near her.

For years, Manuela's husband lived with "scrutiny and suspicion" that he may have been involved in the slaying, Drew Witthuhn said. DNA later proved it was a serial killer, but David died before DeAngelo was identified, his brother said.

Drew Witthuhn only referred to DeAngelo as "the convict," and remarked that he has "black and soulless eyes."

'Her future was stolen'

Debra Manning and her boyfriend, Robert Offerman, were killed on Dec. 30, 1979.

Manning was bound, raped and shot twice in the head, while Offerman was bludgeoned and shot four times, her friends said in a statement.

"Her future was stolen," they said.

'DNA may have stopped the 'Golden State Killer'

In August 1980, Keith Harrington, a medical school student, and his wife Patrice Harrington, a pediatric nurse, were bludgeoned to death in their Dana Point home. They had been married for three months.

"Our dad found them two days later," said one of Keith Harrington's older brothers, Ron. "Dad was never the same."

The Harringtons devoted their lives to looking for the killer, but their father died before they had an answer.

The brothers' advocacy continued, pushing for an expanded DNA database in California.

"If these crimes had occurred today, DNA may have stopped the 'Golden State Killer' before he progressed to murder," Ron said in court.

DeAngelo was the first public arrest obtained through genetic genealogy, a new technique that takes the DNA of an unknown suspect left behind at a crime scene and identifies him or her by tracing a family tree through his or her family members, who voluntarily submit their DNA to public genealogy databases.

To identify DeAngelo, investigators narrowed the family tree search based on age, location and other characteristics. Authorities conducted surveillance on DeAngelo and collected his DNA from a tissue left in a trash. Investigators plugged his discarded DNA back into the genealogy database and found a match, linking DeAngelo's DNA to the DNA found at multiple crime scenes, prosecutors said.

Since DeAngelo's April 2018 arrest, over 150 other crime suspects have been identified through genetic genealogy.

ABC News' Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.

'Golden State Killer' addresses the court: 'I'm truly sorry' originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will not extend a key waiver from federal school meal requirements that has given schools and community groups more flexibility to feed students during unprecedented interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anti-hunger groups, education organizations, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had pressed the agency to allow school meal programs to continue operating under summer meal program rules as schools continue to balance rolling shutdowns, periods of remote learning, and hybrid schedules caused by the pandemic.

Those summer meal rules the Summer Food Service Program and the Seamless Summer Options present fewer restrictions on how schools can serve meals and who they can serve them to. And they allow qualifying community organizations, like youth centers, to receive federal reimbursements to provide meals to children in their areas. That has allowed collaboration between schools and community groups to feed hungry children and for families to pick up meals at a variety of locations, not just the schools where their children are enrolled.

But U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in an Aug. 20 letter to federal lawmakers that his agency will require schools to transition back to the requirements of the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. The agency has extended some separate waivers from those requirements through the 2020-21 school year, but the summer meal authority will lapse as the new school year begins.

Americans are a generous people, and there are already opportunities for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and weekend meals for children in need, Perdue wrote , adding that he doesnt believe he has the authority to leave the summer rules in place and that doing so would be closer to a universal school meals program, which Congress has not authorized or funded.

The shift comes as the Trump administration urges schools to reopen for in-person instruction, even as rates of coronavirus cases surge in some areas. The administration seems to draw a distinction between the emergency closures that quickly shutdown schools nationwide in the spring and districts plans to start the school year remotely as a precaution.

Need for Flexibility

Those summer flexibilities are key to helping schools address growing child hunger concerns during the national crisis, said an Aug. 17 letter from Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas and and 19 other Senate Republicans.

As the school year begins, the challenges brought on by the COVID emergency persist, the letter says. We encourage continued use of the child nutrition program waiver authority ably used thus far to assist school food authorities and non-school sponsoring organizations who work collaboratively to provide children meals while schools explore various and blended models of in-person and virtual classroom sessions.

Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Rep. Bobby Scott, R-Va., also previously wrote in support of extending the waiver , as did a group of 1,315 national, state, and local organizations.

With rates of food insecurity rising due to COVID-19 and many school districts implementing fully remote school models, communities urgently need additional flexibility to efficiently and easily provide meals to children at school, to send meals home with children when they are not at school, and to provide meals at community sites closer to childrens homes, that letter says.

Stabenow and Scott argued the USDA has the authority to extend the waiver under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which Congress passed in the early days of the pandemic.

As rates of poverty, joblessness, and child hunger shift dramatically during the ongoing economic crisis, some schools fear more limitations on their meal programs will make it harder to serve vulnerable children.

Heres one practical implication, the House Education and Labor Committee tweeted . Once this waiver expires, a parent with three kids of different ages who attend different schools will have to go to each school every day to pick up a meal for their children.

Some Waivers Already Extended

In June, Perdue extended some other flexibilities that are designed to make it easier for schools to continue distributing student meals, even as they close buildings or modify operations in response to COVID-19. He had already expanded those waivers, initially set to expire June 30, until Aug. 31. They are now in effect until June 30, 2021.

The temporary rule changes Perdue extended:



Allow for non-congregate feeding, which means schools can serve meals outside of the normally-required group settings to support social distancing.

Waive a rule that children must be present when parents pick up grab-and-go meals for them.

Waive requirements related to standard serving times, allowing more flexibility for mass distribution.

Perdue also added a new waiver to the list: Schools can pause the offer versus serve rule that allows high school students to take or leave some food items offered as part of a meal. That rule, designed to cut back on food waste, may be difficult to carry out in pre-packaged meal distribution.

Photo: Siu Chen helps distribute free and reduced lunch during the first day of classes in Broward County at Discovery Elementary School in Sunrise, Fla., Aug. 19. Although all classes will be held remotely due to COVID-19, parents can still pick up free or reduced lunch at various schools around the county. (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald via AP)

Follow us on Twitter . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
The Seven Network has today announced Melissa Doyle will be leaving the network after 25 years.

Her final day is today.

From her early days in the Canberra bureau and the Sydney newsroom, Melissa has held presenting and hosting roles on 11AM, Today Tonight, Sunrise, Seven News, Sunday Night and most recently The Latest.

During that time, she has covered stories including the Beaconsfield mine disaster, Olympic Games in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, the National day of mourning for the victims of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 tragedy, the Lindt cafe siege, the Paris attacks, Centenary of ANZAC commemorations in Gallipoli, the Royal Weddings of Prince William and Catherine Middleton and later Harry and Meghan and multiple state and federal elections.

Melissa Doyle said: For 25 years, I have called Channel Seven home. Ive had the privilege to share stories that mattered, meet incredible people and be there for significant moments in history. I am incredibly proud of the work I have done and appreciative of the trust and warmth our viewers have shown me. I want to thank the consummate professionals I have worked with along the way, in particular our Chairman Kerry Stokes for his constant support. I leave Seven with a great deal of pride, satisfaction and gratitude.

CEO and Managing Director Seven West Media, James Warburton, said: Melissa has deserved every success thats come her way and has been a huge part of the Network. On behalf of everyone at Seven West Media I want to wish Mel the very best and thank her for everything shes done for the Seven Network.

Seven Network Director of News and Public Affairs, Craig McPherson, said: From reporting to presenting to mentoring her colleagues, Mel has been a fundamental part of the Seven Networks News and Public Affairs team for more than two decades. Classy, professional and a delight to work with, Mel leaves us with a history she should be enormously proud of. On behalf of all her former and current colleagues here at Seven, Id like to thank her for contributing so much to our successes and wish her every success in her next endeavour.

Seven is yet to confirm if Melissa Doyle resigned or they did not renew her contract. Tonight the network will broadcast a special farewell in Seven News at 6.00.

In a further statement on her website Melissa Doyle said:

I have some personal news to shareafter twenty-five years I am leaving the Seven Network.

For half of my life I have called Channel Seven home and in that time Ive had the privilege to share stories that mattered, meet incredible people and report on some of the greatest moments in history.

I am incredibly proud of the work I have done and so grateful to have worked with some of the very best in my industry.

And I am so appreciative of the trust and warmth our viewers have shown me. They have been part of my family  through Today Tonight, Sunrise, Seven News, Sunday Night and the multitude of programs Ive been part of at Seven.

I want to thank the consummate professionals I have worked with along the way, and in particular our Chairman Kerry Stokes for his constant support.

Whilst I am sad to be leaving, I do so with a great deal of pride, satisfaction and gratitude.

Every ending is a beginning and Im excited for what comes next.

Thank you.

Melissa
Editor-in-Chief of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has sought to ridicule President Nana Akufo-Addo for not accepting the debate challenge from former President John Dramani Mahama.



Following Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia's presentation about the infrastructrue record of the Akufo-Addo administration which he described as ''second to none'' as compared to any government's first term in office, the former President has called for a debate to settle the track record of himself and President Akufo-Addo.



"Today, I can see a scramble to grab even KVIPs and any infrastructure and tout it as an achievement. But it is easy to settle the issue of infrastructure. After all, the President says this election is going to be an election of track records, comparing his track record to my track record.



"We can settle it easily, lets have a debate between two of us, the two Presidents. Let Nana Akufo-Addo come and sit down, let me sit down and let's debate our records. I am willing to present myself for a debate, any day, anytime, anywhere and we will settle the matter once and for all," Mr. Mahama challenged.



But it appears he might not get what he's seeking as the President seems uninterested in the debate.



Addressing the issue on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Kwesi Pratt Jnr. wondered why the President would chicken out of the debate.



According to him, he (President Akufo-Addo) called for it when he started comparing his track record with that of the previous government, and therefore believed the debate will settle matters on which of the two leaders is best.



"Fotunately, this time, for the first time in our history; a former President and a sitting President are contesting the Presidential race. So, a comparison of the record is important.



He charged the President to take up the gauntlet saying "President Akufo-Addo is the one who brought about the debate on infrastructure. This is not a new thing. It is our own President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who says we should do it that way and if he has thrown the challenge and someone has accepted it, you're now saying you won't do the debate any longer."





Watch video below





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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WASHINGTON  A former member of the board that oversees the U.S. Postal Service accused President Donald Trump's administration of politicizing the agency and said he resigned in part because of concerns about the agency's head, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

David Williams, who served as the agency's inspector general and as a member of its bipartisan, independent board of governors, warned of the "end of the Postal Service" if the Trump administration were able to carry out its proposed changes.

He told lawmakers Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin had required Republican board members to "kiss the ring" before their confirmation, threatened the agency's independence, and asked for changes at the agency its general counsel said were "illegal."

The U.S. Postal Service did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Williams' comments, nor did the Treasury Department.

Williams spoke virtually Thursday before the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose members, all Democrats, grilled Williams on changes at the Postal Service. He resigned from its board of governors in May and said he did so because he was "convinced that its independent role had been marginalized and the representations regarding an independent postal service for the nation were no longer truthful."

His remarks came as the Postal Service faces criticism from both sides of the aisle for change and cuts to service lawmakers say harm constituents and endanger its ability to handle a surge of mail-in ballots in November.

The cuts already made, he warned were "destroying the Postal Services commitment to service delivery standards," and Williams alleged the Treasury Department wanted the Postal Service to make changes that would "turn the Postal Service into a political tool."

DeJoy said Tuesday he would pause some of the changes in service until after the election to avoid the appearance of impropriety, but has not committed to reversing any of the removals of mailboxes or sorting machines, or reversing changes to overtime policies postal workers said made it more difficult to deliver mail on time.

Story continues

Addressing the recent uproar over the Postal Service's removal of some sorting machines and blue mailboxes, Williams told lawmakers removing the sorting machines and mailboxes did not actually save money, and putting the equipment into storage actually cost more than leaving them in post offices.

David Williams, Inspector General for the U.S. Postal Service, in 2012. Photo by Joe Brier, Freelance

More: Empty mailboxes, missed rent: US Postal Service's struggles have real-world impacts

Williams said he brought up concerns about DeJoy during his interview process with the Postal Service Board of Governors, and told lawmakers DeJoy "didn't strike me as a serious candidate."

In a letter sent Thursday to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Mnuchin said his involvement in the Postal Service was part of the "meaningful reform of its current business model." Mnuchin, as the head of a task force on the Postal Service, had helped make recommendations for the agency to transform its business model and cut costs.

Secretary @stevenmnuchin1 shares @SenSchumers interest in ensuring @USPS has a strong and sustainable future. See his full response to @SenSchumer here  (1/3) pic.twitter.com/VHpztwmX0p  Monica Crowley (@TreasurySpox) August 20, 2020

"Neither I nor any other Treasury official played any role in recruiting or suggesting Mr. DeJoy for the position of Postmaster General," he added.

Progressive Caucus co-chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called the testimony "stunning" evidence of corruption in the Trump administration.

"In my own state, almost half of mail sorting machines have been dismantled in just the Seattle, Tacoma area," she said, accusing DeJoy of waging "unconscionable, deliberate sabotage on the Postal Service."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., questions former special counsel Robert Mueller.

Williams' testimony comes a day before DeJoy is set to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee's chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is expected to defend DeJoy and argue that he had been subjected to "character assassination," according to his prepared remarks.

Democrats are likely to ask DeJoy about his appointment as postmaster general and his relationship with Trump. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday the Postal Service had stymied attempts by Democratic lawmakers to question the firm that helped pick DeJoy as postmaster general, and two House Democrats, Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Katie Porter, sent a letter to Barger, the governor who helped pick DeJoy asking him for answers on his own involvement in the process.

Democrats argue DeJoy, a major Republican donor, was unqualified for the role, lacked sufficient postal experience, and was picked outside normal procedures.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the Democratic-controlled House back early from its recess to vote on legislation Saturday that would prevent further changes at the Postal Service and provide $25 billion in additional funding. The bill is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House but faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USPS: Former official alleges politicization of agency under Trump
Teenage political junkies at a leadership conference doesnt seem like the most riveting subject matter for a documentary. As a product of teenage leadership conferences, I assumed that at best, maybe, it could be fodder for a black comedy. But the new documentary Boys State convinced me otherwise.

Perhaps its the strange and heightened political times were living in or just pure luck on the part of directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine in finding a riveting case study to film. But either way, they scored a home run in taking the audience to a weeklong program in Austin, Texas, where 1,100 high school boys attempt to build a mock government.

The prestigious program, Boys State, is sponsored by the American Legion and has been running across the country since 1935. Its where aspiring wonks go to revel in policy and the minutiae of governance and elections. Alumni include Bill Clinton, Neil Armstrong, Bruce Springsteen, Rush Limbaugh, Jon Bon Jovi, Roger Ebert, Roger Ailes, James Gandolfini and Dick Cheney, just to name a few. Theres also a program for girls.

The filmmakers chose to film this particular session in Texas in 2018 after the previous years class made the news for voting to secede from the U.S. That doesnt happen again. In fact, the boys in this class seem almost embarrassed about the stunt, which is what they chalk it up to. As one says, when you get that many 17-year-old boys together, sometimes jokes just get out of hand.

Not that their class was all business: Someone puts forth legislation to require Prius owners to relocate to Oklahoma, another proposes changing the pronunciation of the letter W to dubya, and one hopes to protect against a looming alien threat. But for the most part, these teens are taking it seriously.

It helps that the filmmakers found a group of compelling, complex subjects to follow for the week (they had many cameras operating simultaneously to manage this verite coup). Theres the son of an immigrant who considers himself a progressive and believes that people truly yearn for bipartisanship. Theres the bilateral amputee who only ever wanted to serve in the military, but now has decided that policy is the way to go. And theres the floppy-haired jock who runs on an anti-abortion, pro-gun platform and who isnt as stereotypical as you might assume at the beginning.

They are divided, randomly, into Federalists and Nationalists, and both groups can invent their own set of beliefs before putting forth their gubernatorial candidate. Naturally, the parties do start to resemble Democrats and Republicans, but its at least something that they have the opportunity to create their own party lines.

Its no wonder that earlier this year Boys State swept the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the grand jury prize. In this little microcosm, you see not only a portrait of some serious-minded youths, but how their worldviews, morals and political beliefs have been molded by whats happening in the country. And it manages to be both hopeful and bleak about our political present and future.

Weirdly, one of the most moving scenes is totally disconnected from the point of the camp: A talent show, in which a united crowd rallies behind a tap dancer, a kid with an acoustic guitar and a heartfelt rendition of Hallelujah and another solving a Rubiks Cube while Europes The Final Countdown blares over the speakers.

Its worth keeping in mind that these are, of course, minds that are still developing and on camera. Some are probably just out to win and entertain. And some are showing us their true selves. Like in the grown-up political world, its sometimes hard to differentiate between the two.

Boys State

3.5 stars

RATED: PG-13 (for some strong language, and thematic elements)

WHEN: Now streaming

WHERE: Apple TV+
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: 21 August 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 24,786 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 1,944 pence 25.42 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 1,928 pence 25.21 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 1,937 pence 25.33 USD Ticker: PSHD Date of Purchase: 21 August 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 16,655 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 25.43 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 25.40 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 25.41 USD Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 21 August 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 23,170 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 25.45 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 25.35 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 25.40 USD

PSH will hold these Public Shares in Treasury. The net asset value per Public Share related to this buyback is 37.82 USD 28.56 GBP which was calculated as of 18 August 2020 (the "Relevant NAV"). After giving effect to the above buyback, PSH has 193,332,066 Public Shares outstanding, or 199,345,740 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 17,624,684 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/20200821005457/en/

Contacts:

Media

Camarco

Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
Two newly formed tropical storms could become almost simultaneous threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast early next week. They could even get sucked into an odd dance around each other. Or they could fall apart as they soak the Caribbean and Mexico this weekend.

Tropical storms Laura and Marco have such bad and good environments ahead of them that their futures were not clear late Friday. Computer forecast models varied so much that some saw Laura becoming a major hurricane nearing the U.S., while others saw it dissipating.

If both storms survive the weekend, the National Hurricane Center forecast that Laura would as head a hurricane toward the central Gulf Coast around Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, while Marco aimed at Texas, though most likely remaining a tropical storm.

A lot of people are going to be impacted by rainfall and storm surge in the Gulf of Mexico, said Joel Cline, the tropical program co-ordinator for the National Weather Service. Since you simply dont know you really need to make precautions.

Two hurricanes have never appeared in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to records going back to at least 1900, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. The last time two tropical storms were in the Gulf together was in 1959, he said.

Because the hurricane centre slowed Lauras entrance into the Gulf and moved its track westward, the two storms are now forecast to be together in the Gulf on Tuesday, just before the weaker western storm smacks Texas with Laura making landfall a bit less than a day later.

The hurricane centre on Friday issued tropical storm warnings for the northern Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico. Laura was forecast to hit Puerto Rico on Saturday morning, go over or near the Dominican Republic and Haiti late Saturday and Cuba on Sunday.

Laura, which set a record for the earliest 12th named storm of a season when it formed Friday morning, was moving through the northern Leeward Islands late Friday, about 195 miles (315 kilometres) southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph) and was heading west at 18 mph (30 kph).

The hurricane centre also issued a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch for part of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula for Marco, which grew into a tropical storm Friday night.

Late Friday, it was centred about 210 miles (340 kilometres) southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). It was headed northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).

If the two storms make it, they could be crowded in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time Tuesday about 550 miles apart. That would leave open some weird possibilities, including the storms rotating around each other in a tropical two-step, pulling in closer to each other, nudging each other, weakening each other or  far less likely  merging.

The last time two storms made landfall in the United States within 24 hours of each other was in 1933, Klotzbach said.

It seems fitting for 2020 to have this type of twin threats, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.

Of course, we have to have two simultaneously land-falling hurricanes, McNoldy said. Its best not to ask whats next.

On Friday morning, a hurricane-hunting airplane found Lauras centre to be dozens of miles farther south and better formed than satellite images showed. That triggered a shift in the forecast track, putting Caribbean islands more at risk and an upgrade to tropical storm status.

If Laura goes over land, Puerto Rico and the mountains of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba could tear it apart and not make it much of a threat to the mainland United States, meteorologists said. But if it misses or skirts land, it could head into warm waters conducive to strengthening as it approaches Florida, meteorologists said.

With competing scenarios, the hurricane centre is forecasting a middle range for Laura of a weak hurricane heading into the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Officials in the Florida Keys, which Laura might pass over on its route into the Gulf, declared a local state of emergency Friday and issued a mandatory evacuation order for anyone living on boats, in mobile homes and in campers. Tourists staying in hotels should be aware of hazardous weather conditions and consider altering their plans starting on Sunday, Monroe County officials said in a news release.

Citing both storm systems, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency Friday night. It is too soon to know exactly where, when or how these dual storms will affect Louisiana, but now is the time for our people to prepare for these storms, Edwards said in a statement.

Meteorologists said Tropical Depression 14 has a better chance of surviving its early land encounter, then strengthening to a minimal hurricane over warm water, but the hurricane centre was forecasting it to weaken before it reaches the U.S. Gulf Coast because of decapitating high winds.

___

Associated Press reporter Freida Frisaro in Miami contributed to this report.
SOUTH HADLEY  A spike in COVID-19 confirmed cases raised the towns threat level to red. The increase is linked to South Hadley youth attending a private indoor event in another community.

With a population of under 20,000, 8 confirmed cases easily sent South Hadley into the red zone.

State health officials have recently created a cornoaviurs may, which tracks cases in each community and highlights which towns and cities are at a high risk for spreading the virus. The color-coded map indicates average daily cases per 100,000 residents over a two week period.

The South Hadley Health Department and state health officials are keeping tabs on the infected residents who fall between 19-21 years old.

Last week, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health placed Holyoke and Granby in the extremely high risk category or 8 confirmed cases per 100,000, where South Hadley now resides.

The lowest level is white or 5 or less reported cases. Nearby Western Massachusetts cities and towns fall between 4 to 8 cases per 100,000 or green and yellow.

We cannot adequately control everyones actions, but it is up to each of us to remain vigilant. Citizens who remain attentive in practicing hand hygiene, wearing face-covering, avoiding large crowds, and staying home as often as possible should feel comfortable in that they are doing everything they should protect themselves and their loved ones, the statement read.

South Hadley has recorded 18 new confirmed cases in the past week. The town has reported 203 confirmed cases and over two dozen deaths since the pandemic began, including an outbreak at Vero Health and Rehab on Granby Road.

The Vero event infected 15 of 107 patients and 15 of 20 staff members in the spring.

For more information, contact Kristin Maher in the Town Administrators Office at kmaher@southhadleyma.gov.
Actress Rhea Chakraborty has been in the limelight since Sushant Singh Rajput's sudden death on June 14 and after the late actor's family filed an abetment to suicide charge against her among several others. At present, a transcript of the actress' chat with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt has gone viral.

After actress Rhea Chakraborty left Sushant Singh Rajput's house on June 8, she had a chat with director Mahesh Bhatt. In a transcript of the WhatsApp chat between Rhea and Mahesh Bhatt, Rhea says, "Aisha has moved on... sir... with a heavy heart and sense of relief (sic)" The WhatsApp chat further reads, "Our last call was a wakeup call. You are my angel, you were then and you are now."

Aisha is the name of the character portrayed by Rhea in the Mahesh Bhatt-bankrolled film Jalebi.

According to an India Today report, Chakraborty has maintained in her statements to the agencies that it was Sushant who asked her to go and these messages also suggest that even her father was not happy with Sushant and her relationship with the late actor. Even Bhatt advised her against it.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput case: Rhea Chakraborty releases statement, accuses actor's sister of groping her

In one of the messages, Bhatt wrote, "Don't look back. Make it possible what is inevitable. My love to your father. He will be a happy man (sic)." To this, Rhea replied, "Have found some courage, and what you said about my dad tht day on the phone pushed me to be strong for him. He sends you love and thanks you for always being so special."

"You are my child. I feel light," the Sadak 2 director further messaged Rhea. Chakraborty then replied, "Aaah no words sir. The best emotions I feel I feel for you" to which Bhatt replied "Thank you for being so brave (sic)."

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: Ex-Maha CM Fadnavis, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut hail SC verdict

Rhea also stated in the conversation, "You've again unclipped my wings, twice in one life is almost God like (sic)." She also shared rainbow and dancing girl emojis to demonstrate her joy.

Here is the transcript of the chat between Mahesh Bhatt and Rhea Chakraborty

Not only this, Rhea had also talked about Sushant's illness and how she was on the receiving end, in conversation with some other people. The CBI team probing the case against the Jalebi actress along with several sections of IPC along with abetment to suicide will primarily pay attention to what happened between Sushant and Rhea on June 8.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: All you need to know about CBI team probing the case
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

Asian Development Bank plans to provide Uzbekistan with $200 million credit, Trend reports citing the Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan.

According to the Ministry, these funds will be used for the modernization of the electric power industry of Uzbekistan. The credit will be allocated for 15 years, the first three years of which will be a grace period.

Moreover, on Aug. 21, ADB organized the opening ceremony of the new building of the electric power center in Tashkent.

Earlier, the Government of Uzbekistan approved the concept of providing the country with electricity for 2020-2030. The strategic goal of the document is to provide the population and economy of Uzbekistan with electricity at competitive prices, develop a balanced energy sector, covering the best international practices and current trends in the global power industry.

It is planned to increase electricity production from 5,900 MW to 29,200 MW by 2030.

Earlier, ADB has approved a $100-million loan to increase Uzbekistan's resilience to health emergencies, including the coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, some 20 oxygen concentrators secured through the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) under ADBs $1.5 million grant were delivered on July 24, 2020.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
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In early March 2020, GFL conducted its initial public offering (IPO), issuing 75 million shares at a price of $19.00 per share. On August 18, 2020, Spruce Point Management (Spruce Point) published a report entitled Green for Life, Red For Losses addressing GFL. Among other things, the Spruce Point report accused Patrick Dovigi, GFLs Chief Executive Officer, of obfuscat[ing] connections to what some observers have dubbed organized crime and opined that GFLs leverage is understated by aggressive reporting of revenue and EBITDA, and free cash flow burn is understated by ~60%, asserting that this is evidenced by financial restatements without explanation, and by minimizing a material weaknesses of financial controls. On August 18, 2020, GFLs stock price fell $1.75 per share, or roughly 8%, following publication of the Spruce Point report, to close at $19.48 per share.

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The air over much of the Bay Area is generally clean, thanks to ocean breezes. But when the skies fill with wildfire smoke, that changes.

For your health and safety, its vital to know the latest air quality information in your community. But it can be hard to find, especially since the Bay Area has so many microclimates.

Here is a guide to resources that can help you monitor and understand your local air quality:

Local government air quality alerts

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is in charge of issuing two kinds of alerts, both of which you can sign up for here:

 Air quality advisories, which signal the local air quality is being affected by events like wildfires, but is not likely to fall short of federal health standards.

 Spare the Air Alerts, which signal that air quality is bad in at least part of the nine-county Bay Area for one of two reasons: ozone, typically a problem in the warmer months, and fine participate pollution, usually is a concern in winter and during wildfires. When a Spare the Air alert is issued for ozone, you should consider limiting outdoor activities. When a Spare the Air alert is issued for particle pollution, you can gauge your health risk based on the air quality index.

The AQI indicates air pollution levels on a scale between 0 and 500, and the air district uses a color-coded system to indicate the health risks: Green is good, yellow moderate, orange is unhealthy for sensitive groups, red is unhealthy, purple is very unhealthy and brown is hazardous.

A Spare the Air alert is in effect this week because of the wildfires. It is illegal to burn wood and other fuels on Spare the Air days.

Local government air monitoring data

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District also collects data from air monitors around the region. You can find the specific monitor for your community by clicking here, then clicking on Air Quality Index. To look at smoke impacts, be sure to click on Fine Particulate Matter at the top. The air quality levels are listed hourly, grouped by the color-coded system indicating health risks.

These air monitors generate official, reliable data, which is good. But there are two caveats: First, many smaller communities do not have an official monitoring station, because they are expensive. Second, the air monitoring readings often have a lag time, which can matter because weather patterns can shift so quickly.

Other government air monitoring resources

 Airnow.gov: This federal website also has searchable air quality data and forecasts on local, state, national and world levels. Federal, state and local agencies contribute, including the Bay Area air district. Keep in mind that the readings also have a lag time.

 The National Weather Service: While the weather service is not focused on providing exact air quality measurements, it does note general smoke impacts across the region, through its frequently updated forecast for the Bay Area and its local Twitter feed.

Unofficial sources

 Trust your instincts  if you smell smoke outside, the air quality is probably not good.

 You can also get a general sense of problems by looking at the map from PurpleAir network, which is crowdsourced from thousands of users with low-cost air quality sensors. According to Kristina Chu, the Bay Area Air Quality Districts acting communications manager, the accuracy of network sensors is not guaranteed because its unknown whether the filters are clean and properly assembled. Also, we dont know where people are putting them  they could be inside, in kitchens or garages, so readings could reflect emissions sources in those areas. But with those caveats, she said, the data are accessible and extremely helpful.

The Chronicle's California Air Quality Map, which lets you zoom in to see readings in your area, draws from PurpleAir sensors and is updated every 10 minutes.

Other Twitter feeds

Other useful feeds include UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain and Bay Area Air Quality Management District meteorologist Daniel Alrick. For fire information, follow Cal Fire and its local units. CAFireScanner is an unofficial but helpful feed that listens to fire officials radio traffic and tweets it out.

Staff writer Anna Buchmann contributed to this report.

Kate Galbraith is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kgalbraith@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kategalbraith
Olivia Colman is once again a dead ringer for Queen Elizabeth II in the first trailer for series four of The Crown.

The Oscar winner, 46, dons the Guards' Regiment uniform to ride horseback for the preview, for what appears to be a recreation of the annual Trooping of the Colour ceremony.

Series four - which will be released on Sunday, November 15th - will also see the introduction of Princess Diana, played by Emma Corrin, and will recreate her early romance, and later wedding, to Prince Charles.

Trouble ahead: Olivia Colman is once again a dead ringer for Queen Elizabeth II in the first trailer for series four of The Crown (left in the trailer and right in 1979)

In the first seconds of the preview, Olivia can be seen dressed in the regal attire which the Queen traditionally wore as Colonel-in-Chief for each and every Trooping of the Colour until 1986.

Once again she is the spitting image of Her Majesty in the late 1970s, which is when series four of The Crown will begin, as she emerges from Buckingham Palace for the annual ceremony.

The Trooping of the Colour was an annual ceremony performed by the regiments of the British and Commonwealth armies to celebrate the Queen's official birthday, and typically sees the Royal Family in attendance.

Legendary: The Trooping of the Colour is an annual ceremony to mark the Queen's official birthday. She attended on horseback every year until 1986 (pictured in 1980)

This year, the ceremony was substantially scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Queen simply watching a mini-version from Windsor Castle.

In the trailer, Olivia also offers an eery voiceover, saying: 'Something as important as monarchy simply cannot be allowed to fail.'

The trailer hints there could be dark times ahead for the monarchy as behind closed doors they are growing increasingly divided.

Following the Queen's introduction, the trailer cuts to a glimpse of Gillian Anderson as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with the series set to begin at the start of her rise to power.

It's here! The trailer also gave fans their first glimpse of Emma Corrin as Princess Diana in her iconic wedding gown (left in the trailer and right in 1981)

Divisive: The trailer shows Gillian Anderson as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with the fourth series set to begin in the late 1970s

Controversial: The X Files star Gillian (pictured left in filming) will play the divisive politician (right in 1995) who governed the UK throughout the 1980s

Iconic: The trailer also shows Emma taking on the role of Lady Diana Spencer, and her entry into the monarchy

Challenging: It seems Diana will struggled to adjust to life in the monarchy, despite the 'fairytale' perception the nation has of her relationship with Charles

Beautiful: Emma's casting was announced in April 2019, with creator Peter Morgan calling her 'a brilliant talent who immediately captivated us when she came in for the part' (Emma pictured left during filming and Diana pictured right in 1982)

But a majority of the trailer focuses on Emma Corrin's depiction of Lady Diana Spencer, who would eventually become Princess Of Wales, one of the most iconic figures in Royal History.

The fourth series will document her blossoming romance with Prince Charles, as the trailer features the moment she emerges to greet an army of photographers, along with crowds cheering her name as she travels the world on behalf of the monarchy.

This includes Diana's 1983 tour of Australia, when she famously donned a beautiful fuchsia pink dress.

The preview ends with a glimpse of Diana's iconic David Emmanuel wedding dress, which will take centre stage as The Crown recreates her historic 1981 wedding.

The Crown Series Four will begin as the 1970s are drawing to a close, with the Royal Family preoccupied with safeguarding the line of succession by securing an appropriate bride for Prince Charles who is still unmarried at 30.

Beloved: Diana's iconic pink dress worn for her 1983 tour of Australia also appears in the trailer, as she is greeted by thousands of admirers

Stunning: Emma was previously seen filming Diana and Charles' Australian tour in October 2019 (left), where she donned the famous pink dress and fascinator (right)

Worried: The fourth series will see the Royal Family grow increasingly divided behind closed doors

The British nation is struggling with the impact of the divisive policies introduced by Britain's first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Tensions between the Prime Minister and the Queen are expected to only get worse as Thatcher leads the country into the Falklands War, generating conflict within the Commonwealth.

A silver lining comes in the form of Charles' fairytale romance with young Lady Diana, but behind closed doors, the Royal family is becoming increasingly divided.

Award-winning: Oscar-winner Olivia (L) is playing Queen Elizabeth II (pictured right in 1964) in series three and four of The Crown

Legendary: Helena Bonham Carter will once again portray Princess Margaret in the fourth series, depicting her life after divorcing Lord Anthony Armstrong-Jones (Helena left and Margaret right in 1987)

Royal man: Tobias Menzies will once again play The Duke Of Edinburgh Prince Phillip (left) at a time when the Royal Family grows increasingly divided behind closed doors (Phillip pictured right in 1986)

To be wed: Josh O'Connor will depict Prince Charles (left), as the series depicts his turbulent marriage to Diana (Charles pictured right in 1984)

Diana married Charles in 1981, and the couple welcomed sons William in 1982 and Harry in 1984. After separating in 1991, the couple divorced in 1996, with Diana then tragically killed in a car accident on 31st August 1997.

Emma's casting was announced in April 2019, with The Crown's creator Peter Morgan calling her 'a brilliant talent who immediately captivated us when she came in for the part of Diana Spencer.'

Helena Bonham Carter will once again appear as Princess Margaret, while Tobias Menzies will play Prince Phillip.

Josh O'Connor will reprise his role as Prince Charles, expected to take centre stage this series due to his relationship with Diana.

The series will also feature the ongoing issue of apartheid in South Africa, as well as the assassination of Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance), and the miners' strike of 1984-85.

Coronation: Claire Foy (L) played a young Queen Elizabeth II (pictured right in 1955) as she ascended the throne following her late father's death during seasons one and two

Royal role: It comes just days after it was announced that The Night Manager star Elizabeth Debicki has been cast as Princess Diana for The Crown's final two series

Despite concerns that the series would be delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis, which brought much of the television industry to a halt, it seems the fourth season will be released as planned.

Bosses revealed back in March that filming was wrapped earlier than planned, though a majority of principle photography had already been completed.

It comes just days after it was announced that The Night Manager star Elizabeth Debicki has been cast as Princess Diana for The Crown's final two series, while Jonathan Pryce was announced to be taking over the role of Prince Philip.

It was revealed on Wednesday that the actor, 73, will join the star-studded cast of the hit Netflix show and portray the royal through the 1990s and 2000s.

Speaking after the announcement, Jonathan added that it will be 'a joy' to act alongside Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret.

Royally good: Imelda Staunton is to play the Queen in The Crown's final two series. The 63-year-old will take over the role of Elizabeth II for seasons five and six of the Netflix drama

Congrats! Lesley Manville has been cast as Princess Margaret (right in 1966) for the fifth and sixth seasons of The Crown

From Pope to Prince: The Two Popes actor Jonathan Pryce has also been cast as Duke Of Edinburgh Prince Phillip (right earlier this year), and has said he is 'confident' to take on the 'daunting' role

In The Crown's first two series Claire Foy took on the role of Queen Elizabeth, while Prince Philip was played by Matt Smith, and Princess Margaret by Vanessa Kirby.

Earlier this month, it was announced The Crown will run for six series instead of five.

Creator Peter revealed he decided to 'return to the original plan,' meaning Imelda Staunton will now appear for two series as an older Queen Elizabeth II.

Producers decided to a U-turn after their January announcement The Crown would end after its fifth series.

Peter said: 'As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons.'

The Crown Series Four will be released on Netflix on Sunday, November 15th.
Turkey-backed Government of National Accord called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March.

Libyas UN-recognised government announced a ceasefire across the country on Friday and called for demilitarising the contested strategic city of Sirte, raising hopes for peace in the more than nine-year-old conflict.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March, and for an end to an oil blockade imposed by rival forces since earlier this year.

GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj issued instructions to all military forces to immediately cease fire and all combat operations in all Libyan territories, a statement said.

Al-Sarraj added the ultimate aim of the truce is to impose full sovereignty over the Libyan territory and the departure of foreign forces and mercenaries.





Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival eastern-based House of Representatives, said: A ceasefire blocks the way for foreign military interventions and ends with the expulsion of mercenaries and dissolving the militias in order to achieve comprehensive national sovereignty.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomeed the calls for a ceasefire. hoping they will be respected immediately by armed forces from both sides, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The European Union also welcomed the announcement, with its High Representative Josep Borrell saying it was positive news coming from Libya before adding that it was crucial now that all parties stand by their statements.

Halt military intervention

Aguila Saleh, speaker of the pro-Haftar Libyan parliament, called on all parties to adhere to the truce. Saleh said the ceasefire will prevent foreign military intervention in Libya.

The truce will make the strategic city of Sirte a temporary seat for a new presidential council to be guarded by security forces from various regions in the country, said Saleh.

Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi  who has backed Haftar and threatened to deploy troops across the border into Libya  welcomed the ceasefire declarations, a statement said.

As did the UN Support Mission in Libya, which called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya. Both sides of the conflict are supported by thousands of mercenaries.

Sami Hamdi, editor-in-chief of The International Interest, a current affairs analysis magazine, said the announcements raised the prospect of peace in the North African nation after a number of failed ceasefires.

I think this is the first time in the entire Libyan conflict whereby we have military stalemate, the military dynamics are equal, Hamdi told Al Jazeera. This time as a result of Turkish intervention, the western side, the GNA  has enough power to prevent Haftar from marching westwards.





This ceasefire has a very good chance of lasting because the cost of a potential battle is so high and if an individual faction decides to launch a battle by itself it would find itself obliterated, he added.

Now, we are seeing a new phase in the negotiations between Turkey and the other foreign powers. All the dynamics suggest that all the foreign powers prefer some sort of peace at least for the foreseeable future.

Oil-rich country

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Haftar launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture the capital, Tripoli.

But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied fighters, with Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of Tripoli and other western towns.

The GNA was founded in 2015 under a UN-led agreement, but efforts for a long-term political settlement failed after a series of military offensives by forces loyal to Haftar.

The chaos in the oil-rich country has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

Haftar is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle over political Islam, is the main patron of the Tripoli forces, which are also backed by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.




IPOB

The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, have sent a warning to security operatives to immediately stop harassing and arresting its members in the Southeast.

IPOB made the call on Thursday in reaction to the arrest of its Coordinator in Ebonyi State and the alleged intimidation of an innocent woman in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu State.

A statement by IPOBs spokesman, Emma Powerful urged the Governor of Ebonyi State and his counterpart in the Southeast to order the release of its members across the region.

The statement titled: Enough is Enough, reads: We the global family of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by our great leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, hereby demand immediate stoppage of the incessant harassment and arrest of IPOB family members in different parts of Biafraland.

We are particularly upset by the recent arrest of IPOB Coordinator in Ebonyi State; and the intimidation of an innocent woman in Oji River LGA of Enugu State by security operatives under the guise of searching for Radio Biafra station. This continued illegal abduction and kidnapping of innocent people in our land must stop. The Nigeria government and her security operatives should stop testing our will.

We want to place the world on notice that the Nigeria Police Force, Army and DSS once again have started their normal house to house search of IPOB family members and those suspected to be IPOB supporters in Biafraland. On 18th of August 2020, the Nigeria army and police in their usual gestapo manner, akin to the Nazi era in Europe, abducted Mazi Igwe Ogbonnaya our IPOB Ebonyi State Coordinator for no crime other than being a Biafran.

This provocative hounding of our people has continued amid killings, maiming and raping of our women by rampaging Fulani herdsmen in our communities which the same security agencies have not only pampered but allowed to continue unabated.

Its very sad to note that the security operatives abducted Mazi Igwe Ogbonnaya in less than a week after burying his young wife who died after a brief illness. This young man was abducted from his home at Ugwulangwu Ohaozara LGA Ebonyi State by terrorists in Nigeria police, army and DSS uniforms.

We, therefore, call on Ebonyi State Governor, Engr Dave Umahi and his counterparts in the South East and South-South to release Biafra agitators arrested in their respective states before its too late.
Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News

The Amistad National Recreation Area is reopening seven days a week after temporarily closing on the weekends due to the surge in COVID-19 cases.

The National Park Service announced the opening on Friday, which begins this weekend and includes the Labor Day holiday weekend.
DB Marg police on Wednesday booked a woman for allegedly abusing and threatening a Grant Road nursing home doctor who asked her to wear a mask at the health facility and not to crowd in the patients room. The police have not arrested the woman yet.

The complainant, Dr Kavita Tilwani, 48, is a Malabar Hill resident and runs the SP Nursing Home along with her brother. In her complaint to the police, Dr Tilwani said on Monday, an eight-month pregnant patient was admitted at the nursing home for pregnancy-related complications and the next day.

On Wednesday, while the patient was in her room, around 20-22 of her relatives visited the nursing home to see her. Some of them were not wearing masks, stated the police complaint.

When Dr Tilwani visited the room for the patients check-up, she saw that the patients relatives were crowding the place, even as three women sat on the patients bed.

When Dr Tilwani raised objections over it and asked them to wear masks and leave the patients room, a woman sitting on the patients bed  Nafisa Abbas Lakdawala  started abusing her and also threatened to assault her, which led to an argument between the doctor and the patients relatives. Soon, the other staff members of the nursing home intervened, after which the patients relatives left the room.

Dr Tilwani complained about the incident to DB Marg police station, following which a case was registered under section 4 of the Maharashtra Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage or Loss to Property) Act, 2010, against Lakdawala.

We would verify the allegations made in the complaint and would soon record the statement of the accused and then file a charge sheet against her at the court, said senior inspector Suryakant Bangar of DB Marg police station.
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There are few cities in the world that fascinate architecture lovers as much as Brasilia, the Brazilian capital built from nothing over an impressively short five-year span in the mid-20th century. When it was inaugurated in 1960, it was unlike any other city in the world, with a radical, artistic urban plan by Lucio Costa, striking edifices by Oscar Niemeyer, and its avant-garde landscape design by Roberto Burle Marx. At this time, Brasilia was seen as a modern utopia that expressed optimism and trust in the future, says Dr. Steffen Lehmann, director of the University of Las Vegas School of Architecture and the former UNESCO Chair for Sustainable Urban Development. Its bold monumentality demonstrated how Brazil wanted to be perceived by the world: a progressive power. Sixty years later, the metropolis is still lauded as one of the most impressive projects of the 20th century, but perhaps only in the history books. In practice, Brasilia has struggled to maintain its original identity as a city of the future.

Catedral Metropolitana de Bras=lia Photo: Getty Images

Despite being a 20th-century city, Brasilias roots date back to 1789, when revolutionary Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier, also known as Tiradentes, first proposed the idea of moving the capital from coastal Rio de Janeiro to a centralized location in the interior of the country. The notion was entered into Brazils constitution in 1891, but the plan was not carried out until 1956, under President Juscelino Kubitschek.

The Catedral Metropolitana Nossa Senhora Aparecida (Cathedral of Brasilia) Photo: Getty Images

By the mid-20th century, the idea of a planned community was somewhat common in a number of countries across the worldthe United States, for instance, which, as a relatively young nation, laid quite a bit of groundwork for the concept. Its own capital city, Washington D.C., had the benefit of being planned from scratch at the turn of the 19th century, as did the Australian capital of Canberra, which followed a century later. But Costa had a unique vision for the layout of the city that diverged from the grand axial plans of Washington and Canberra, which he submitted to Kubitscheks public contest to design the new capital. Dubbed the Plano Piloto, or Pilot Plan, it would take a curvaceous crossed form that many have likened to a plane or a flying bird, a symbol of progress. It would have a centralized hub for a series of monumental government structuresthe Square of Three Powersas well as residential blocks and green space, all designed around a system of highways. After all, a car-based society was the future. Kubitschek selected Costas vision as the winner, and the architect enlisted the help of his good friend Niemeyer, with whom he designed Brazilian pavilion for the 1939 World's Fair in New York, to create the structures that would fill it.

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Niemeyer was a visionary of the Brazilian modernist movement, drawing inspiration from Le Corbusier, and he brought a firm sense of futurism to Brasilia with stark white structures with sculptural silhouettes: the crown-like Cathedral of Brasilia would become one of his most iconic works. While the rest of the world saw these structures as visionary, they were part of the zeitgeist of midcentury Brazil. We must remember, nowhere else was modernist architecture so enthusiastically embraced and adopted as a national style as in Brazil in the 1940s and 50s, says Dr. Lehmann.

View from the Television Tower over Brasilia, Brazil Photo: Alamy

Despite Brasilias reputation as a modernist icon, some critics question the citys adherence to modernist principles. In some ways, it was a disappointment in terms of development and the modern movement, because the plan relates much more to Classicism or Neoclassicism or Baroque with the isolated monument to the government center, says Brian Carter, a professor of architecture at the University of Buffalo. That is seen as being something which is very different from the aspirations of the modern movement, which was more egalitarian.

The National Congress of Brazil Photo: Getty Images

Modernist philosophy aside, the largest critical issue with the Brasilia is the very same infrastructure that made it so pioneering. The original ambition to create a progressive city that would guarantee a good quality of life to all its residents has not totally come to fruition, says Miami-based architect Kobi Karp. A good example of that is how the city lacks the typical street life of other traditional Brazilian cities. The majority of people travel in for work and leave to go home at night, not many live and play in the Pilot Plan area. While the concept of a car-centric city was exciting and novel in the midcentury, global society has since grown to value mixed-use urban plans that have compact, walkable areas. In this sense, Brasilias plan is far too rigid, a problem exacerbated by its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which limits redevelopment, despite the citys significant population growth.

Brasilia is now the fourth-largest city in the country and the home to more than 2.5 million people, yet fewer than 10 percent are residents of the Pilot Plan area. The others live outside in the suburban sprawl, says Dr. Lehmann. While the original nucleus accommodates mainly the upper middle class and politicians, by far the greater portion of the population, covering a wider social range, lives in the 27 surrounding satellite towns. Those satellite towns, akin to Brazils favelas, were not intended to be part of Costas final concept, but they developed organically to hold the Plano Pilatos overflow, and today they highlight the socioeconomic disparity that troubles many major cities around the world, and especially those in Brazil.

Museu Nacional Brasilia Photo: Francisco Andrade/Getty Images

Yet theres still a sense of pride in the capital city. If you speak with residents of Brasilia, they immediately will tell you how much they love their city and that they would never move to any other Brazilian city, says Dr. Lehmann. And its important to recognize the citys successes, too, namely in the progressive ideals of the concept, the monumental and now iconic architecture, and the remarkable speed at which the development was completed.

When I think about Brasilia, Im still in disbelief regarding the ability to realize a dream of such scale and ambition, which is totally unprecedented, says Boston-based architect Amir Kripper, who was born in Brazil. At the same time, it makes me hopeful that with the right political environment, a brighter future is possible and achievable.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
The parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology has summoned Facebook on September 2 to discuss the issue of alleged misuse of social media platforms in the wake of claims that the United States firm did not apply hate-speech rules to certain Bharatiya Janata Party politicians.

A day before, the panel will also discuss the issue of internet shutdowns and has called representatives of the Jammu and Kashmir administration and others.



Besides representatives of Facebook, the committee has asked representatives of the ministry of electronics and information technology to remain present on September 2 to discuss on the subject of "safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space".

The agenda of the committee's September 2 meeting states that to "hear the views of the representatives of Facebook on the subject 'Safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space."

No immediate response was available from the social media firm on the summon.

The notification issued by Lok Sabha Secretariat came on a day when senior member of the committee and BJP leader Nishikant Dubey wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking removal of Shashi Tharoor as the panel's chairman, alleging that the Congress leader was using the platform for a political agenda.

The political slugfest has been going on between the two, which started after Tharoor's announcement that the panel would like to hear from Facebook about the report published in Wall Street Journal claiming that the social media platform ignored applying its hate-speech rules to politicians of the ruling party in India.

Tharoor's remarks evoked strong reaction from BJP members of the panel especially Dubey, who alleged that the Congress leader has been using the platform to further his and his party's political agenda.

The spat between the two boiled to such point, that they sought breach of privilege proceedings against each other.



For the September 1 meeting, representatives of the ministries of communications and home affairs have also been called as well as those from Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi governments,according to the agenda notifications issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.



Information and Broadcasting ministry, News Broadcasters Association, Press Council of India and Prasar Bharati representatives have also been called for the discussion on 'Ethical Standards in Media Coverage' on September 1.
Lawyers for Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying have accused a reporter from a rival newspaper of exaggerating the psychological trauma he suffered in an exchange with the media tycoon, to secure his prosecution and conviction.

The Oriental Daily employee testified in West Kowloon Court for the second day on Friday, against Lai, who has denied criminal intimidation over the encounter during the annual candlelight vigil at Victoria Park on June 4, 2017, commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

The reporter, who has been granted anonymity by the court, testified on Thursday that he worried about his personal safety when Lai cursed at him and threatened to get someone to mess with him, after he took pictures and videos of the 72-year-old during the event.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

On Friday, the defence counsel challenged the reporters credibility and suggested he and his company had taken the incident as an opportunity for them to make life difficult for the Next Digital boss.

The trial will continue on Monday at West Kowloon Court. Photo: Felix Wong

Peter Duncan SC, for Lai, pointed to video footage of the exchange that saw the reporter smiling after being scolded by Lai.

He suggested to the reporter: The truth of the matter is, you were not at all frightened by what Mr Lai said to you. As seen in the laughing photos, you simply shrugged off what Lai scolded you for.

The reporter said he regretted not appearing frightened in the video, adding he had pretended to be composed to cool Lai down.

My laugh was an act, because I wanted [Lai] to calm down, he said. There were a lot of reporters that night, and I only felt scared afterwards.

Duncan then made reference to 17 letters filed to the justice department by the reporter and Oriental Daily, between 2018 and 2019, which the lawyer said showed they had been impatient over the delay in prosecuting Lai.

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Some of the letters read out in court claimed the newspaper had been subject to suppression, nuisance and unfair treatment by multiple government departments and sedition forces against China and Hong Kong, and the Department of Justice had chosen to be lenient to the evildoers.

Both the management of Oriental Daily and you yourself were extremely unhappy about the time the Department of Justice took to make a decision to charge the defendant, Duncan told the reporter. You wanted Jimmy Lai not only to be charged. You wanted him to be convicted.

The reporter denied that, adding: I just want to be an honest witness. I dont care if hes convicted or not.

On Thursday, the court heard the reporter had been diagnosed with adjustment disorder  a condition stemming from stressful events  and depressed mood, and paid three visits to a psychiatrist within three months since the incident.

Jimmy Lais lawyers questioned the impact of their clients alleged intimidation. Photo: Dickson Lee

However, Duncan questioned the impact of Lais alleged intimidation, and said the reporters doctor might not have checked whether he was indeed troubled by Lais comments.

Psychiatrist John Wong Yee-him, the consulting doctor, denied he had merely assumed what the reporter said was true, but admitted the reporter had mostly recovered by the time of his third visit, and had not taken medication regularly as prescribed.

The trial continues before Magistrate May Chung Ming-sun on Monday.

This article Jimmy Lai intimidation trial: lawyers accuse reporter of exaggerating mental trauma from exchange with Hong Kong tycoon first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.
The self-exiled Chinese tycoon on whose 150-foot (45-meter) yacht President Donald Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was arrested is a high-profile irritant to the ruling Communist Party.



Guo Wengui left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by President Xi Jinping that ensnared people close to Guo, including a top intelligence official. Chinese authorities have accused Guo of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other offenses.



A former civil servant turned real estate developer, Guo has rankled the ruling party by launching accusations of corruption on social media. From his base in a Manhattan luxury apartment, he has been especially critical of Vice President Wang Qishan, a Xi ally and key figure in the party's anti-corruption drive.



Bannon, who was arrested on Thursday, was charged along with three others with defrauding online donors in the name of helping build Trump's southern border wall. Bannon pleaded not guilty at a hearing Thursday in Manhattan.



In June, Guo and Bannon announced the founding of the "Federal State of New China," an initiative to "overthrow the Chinese government."



Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, was one of China's richest businesspeople, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.1 billion in 2015. His most prominent asset was Pangu Plaza, an office-and-hotel complex overlooking Beijing's Olympic Stadium.



Guo paid $67.5 million in 2015 for his 9,000-square foot (850-square meter) apartment above Central Park and joined Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.



The status of Guo's fortune is unclear. Assets in China have been frozen or confiscated. He is trying to sell his Manhattan apartment; the asking price was cut this year to $55 million. His yacht, the Lady May, is for sale for nearly $28 million.



Guo told The Associated Press in 2017 his goal was to win the release of family members, employees and assets in China, not to undermine the Communist Party.



Also in 2017, however, his lawyer said Guo had applied for political asylum in the United States. Even if the claim is ultimately rejected, that might let Guo stay in the country for years while it is reviewed and during possible appeals.



That came after Beijing asked the international police agency Interpol to issue a "red notice" asking other governments to arrest Guo.



In the first criminal proceeding stemming from accusations against Guo and his companies, three employees were sentenced to prison in 2017 on charges they carried out Guo's orders to falsify financial documents in order to obtain loans from a state bank.



The official Xinhua News Agency said other Guo-related businesses were suspected of bribery, embezzlement, illegal detention and forced transactions.



The former deputy chief of the Chinese intelligence agency, Ma Jian, was convicted in December 2018 of taking bribes to help Guo. The charges included conspiring to blackmail a Beijing city official who blocked a Guo development project.



In 2017, Chinese developer SOHO sued Guo in New York after he accused the company of improperly obtaining regulatory changes to boost the value of its properties. Guo countersued. SOHO dropped its complaint in 2018. A judge dismissed Guo's suit the following year.



A separate lawsuit filed by a Chinese woman in New York accused Guo of raping her and holding her prisoner for three years after hiring her as his assistant. Guo denied the allegations.
Hazleton, PA (18201)

Today

Snow showers early. Peeks of sunshine later. Morning high of 28F with temps falling to near 15. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 40%..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. A few clouds from time to time. Low near 5F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Earlier this week, both Uber and Lyft threatened to shut down in California as a result of a ruling that would force them to reclassify their drivers as employees. Lyft even announced that it would stop operations starting this Friday. But in a few hours, that would no longer be necessary. Thanks to an appeal filed by both companies, a court had granted a temporary reprieve for them to continue business as usual. The appeals process could go on for months, as both Uber and Lyft attempt to buy more time.

The truth is, however, both companies have had nothing but time to comply with the law. The fact that they fought back, stalled, made excuses and are funding a ballot proposition that would undo worker rights, is a sign that these companies have no intention of following the rules or giving their drivers the benefits they deserve. They had their time, but they squandered it.

The legal drama began last year when Californias legislature signed Assembly Bill 5 (also known as AB5) into law. The intent of the law was to force gig economy companies such as Uber, Lyft and Doordash to reclassify their workers as employees so that they can get benefits like minimum wage, overtime, paid leave and healthcare  the latter of which has become even more important during the pandemic.

The reason this law affects companies like Uber and Lyft is that they are reliant on independent contractors, but AB5 has pushed to explicitly define what that term means. Its a result of a landmark 2018 California Supreme Court ruling which required the so-called ABC test (which is already used by the US Department of Labor and over 30 states) to determine whether a worker is an independent contractor. Someone can only be considered an independent contractor if they meet three criteria: they have control over how the work is done, theyre doing work thats not in the usual course of the hiring entitys business and theyre running the same type of business on their own.

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Uber and Lyft cant possibly pass this test, Tia Koonse, Legal and Policy Research Manager for the UCLA Labor Center told Engadget. For one thing, most drivers would not operate a cab service independently on their own; that would actually be illegal in most areas. Plus, while drivers might have control over their schedules, they dont decide which riders to pick up. [The companies], through their algorithms, pressure drivers into taking rides without discrimination. So, arguably, the drivers arent in control over how they do their business.

The criteria that they definitely fail, according to Koonse, is that drivers are absolutely doing work thats in the usual course of business for Uber and Lyft. Lyft and Uber dont provide any other service! All they provide is this taxi company type service, she said. Uber, for its part, has argued that it isnt a transportation provider and that drivers arent core to its business, stating that its a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces.

Be that as it may, the only thing theyre providing technology-wise is a ride with a person who has a car, said Koonse. Transportation is definitely their business. Even if Uber does offer other services like food delivery, drivers are still a key part of its workforce; its just that instead of transporting people, theyre transporting food.

And even if Uber and Lyft dont think of their drivers as employees, many drivers sure do. Uber and Lyft often claim that their drivers are mostly part-timers, looking for extra money on the side. But according to a 2018 survey of over 300 drivers in Los Angeles County, two out of three drivers depend on rides as their main source of income. One in two said its their only job and three in five drive more than five days a week. It also shows that most drivers want reimbursement for car maintenance as well as access to workers compensation and health insurance.

Brian Snyder / reuters

The law has so far been on the drivers side. After Uber and Lyft refused to comply with the AB5 law that went into effect in January 2020, State Attorney General Xavier Becerra and City Attorneys for Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco sued both companies in May. On August 10th, Judge Ethan Schulman of San Franciscos Superior Court ruled in favor of the injunction that would block Uber and Lyft from classifying drivers as independent contractors.

In response, Uber and Lyft have cried foul, claiming that theyre simply unable to abide by the law. It would have a catastrophic impact on their businesses, would force them to raise fares and hire fewer people. They said they would suspend their operations rather than comply. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi even said that his company cant employ all of its drivers in California. We cant go out and hire 50,000 people overnight, he said in an interview with the Pivot School podcast.

Except, of course, they had more than 24 hours. Uber and Lyft had two freaking years to change their business practices, but theyre acting like theyre so shocked, said Koonse.

The companies have had years and multiple invitations to obey the law and grant workers the employee status and benefits they are legally owed, said Edan Alva, a driver and organizer with Gig Workers Rising, a collective of ride-hailing drivers and gig workers fighting for employee recognition and worker rights.

In spite of multiple court rulings and a deadly pandemic, multimillionaire CEOs at Uber and Lyft are choosing to continue to break the law, he said in a statement. Alva added that shutting down operations in the middle of a pandemic casts the companies in an even worse light. Eliminating thousands of drivers income during a pandemic to avoid following labor law is cruel.

Brian Snyder / reuters

Khosrowshahi did come up with a possible solution, which calls on governments to create a third kind of classification for gig workers. Our current system is binary, he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. [Each] time a company provides additional benefits to independent workers, the less independent they become. He said that we need new laws and that they couldnt act on their own. He also proposed a general benefits fund that workers can draw on for specific things like paid time off or health care, while still maintaining their independence.

But coming up with this proposal now, almost a year after the passing of AB5, is really far too late. And as Koonse points out, Uber could have implemented such a benefits fund on their own without government assistance. I dont know why theyre not already providing these benefits, she said. I dont know why they havent already classified people as employees. They had two years. They should already be providing benefits as required under the Affordable Care Act. Period.

Another alternative that Uber and Lyft floated is to implement a franchise-like model, where they would license their brands to operators of vehicle fleets in California so that they would not be entirely responsible for hiring employees or paying benefits. But thats not entirely the case either. Thats not going to get them out of liability in California, said Koonse. In California, the franchisor is liable for wage and hour law just as much as the franchisee. We have very strong joint liability and joint employer laws here.

Instead of complying with the law, Uber and Lyft have decided to partner with DoorDash to raise nearly $100 million to fund Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that would essentially roll back AB5 and permanently classify ride-hailing drivers as independent contractors. In response to the temporary reprieve yesterday, Lyft sent the following statement in support of it:

While we wont have to suspend operations tonight, we do need to continue fighting for independence plus benefits for drivers. Thats the solution on the ballot in November, and its the solution drivers want because it preserves their ability to earn and to use the platform as they do now  whenever they want  while also getting historic new benefits. Without it, 80-90% of Californians who earn on app-based platforms will lose that opportunity.

Lucy Nicholson / reuters

But while Proposition 22 does promise certain healthcare benefits plus paid time off, they fall far short of those of traditional employment. According to Koonse, Proposition 22 would walk back the ABC test mentioned earlier so that they wouldnt have to provide proper employee benefits like paid sick leave, workers compensation or unemployment benefits.

They wouldnt have to provide all of these hard-won rights that employees are entitled to, she said. Itll even amend the state Constitution to make it such that the legislature and local governments cant undo it. Its super creepy.

Alva of Gig Workers Rising believes that by threatening to shut down, companies are attempting to frighten politicians and workers into voting for Proposition 22. He said in a statement:

The shutdown is an attempt to scare politicians away from regulating abusive companies and scare workers and other voters into supporting the companies undemocratic ballot initiative, Prop 22. This childish behavior is unacceptable and we demand that Uber and Lyft obey the law and grant workers the employee status and benefits we are owed. Doing so will save lives during this pandemic. We also ask that voters vote no on Prop 22, which has been entirely financed by gig companies hoping to legalize their exploitation of workers.

Meanwhile, if Uber and Lyft arent able to appeal their case in court, theyll be back to square one. John Cote, a spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney, told the New York Times: These companies may have bought themselves a little more time, but the price is that they have to demonstrate -- under oath -- that they have an implementation plan that complies with the law [...] The court of appeal is calling Uber and Lyfts bluff.

As for Uber and Lyfts claim that it simply isnt possible to operate in California without independent contractors, Koonse said that, yes, they would likely have to raise prices and change the way they work, but thats part of their responsibility.

If their business model is entirely contingent upon not paying minimum wage, overtime, providing required meal and rest breaks, reimbursements for expenses, [is] predicated on wage theft and they cant turn a profit by treating their staff as employees, then thats their problem, she said. Its on them to figure it out.
The department of town and country planning (DTCP) on Friday partially demolished a four-storey building allegedly constructed over private land in an area marked for public utilities in Sector 100. Officials said almost 60% of the building, which was constructed without obtaining permission from authorities, was demolished by the enforcement team before the buildings owner got a stay order from local court in the evening.

Four persons were also detained by the police after they started protesting against the demolition by the enforcement team, but were later released after they tendered an apology, said DTCP officials.

RS Bhath, district town planner, said that a large commercial building, spread over 45000 square feet, with an office on the ground floor and residential space on the other floors was constructed in an area that has been marked for public utility as per the Gurugram master plan 2031. The owner said the building was three-year-old, but could not produce any valid permission for its construction from the authorities. The demolition was carried out from 10am to 6pm wherein around 60% of the structure was demolished. But the action was stopped after the owner got a stay from a local court around 6pm, he said.

The court had granted a stay to the buildings owner till the next hearing in view of the urgency involved in the matter, said Bhath.

The owner of the builder could not be reached for comment.

After obtaining the stay order, Bhath said, that few employees working for the buildings owner started protesting and misbehaved with the enforcement staff following which a police time detained them. These persons were later released by the police after they tendered an apology, he said. Police teams from Rajendra Park police station and Dhankot police post had accompanied the enforcement team during the demolition drive.

Inspector Pankaj, station house officer, Rajendra Park police station said a team of 70 police personnel supported the enforcement team of DTCP during the drive. No one was allowed to create any hindrance, and few persons who tried to protest were detained for some time and later released, the SHO said.

An adjoining structure, where a cement company had created a godown, was also given a notice to vacate the premises at the earliest, said officials. They have given us in written that cement worth 1 crore is lying in the godown, and they should be given time to remove it, Bhath said.

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Even as was reeling under the impact of strained ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE- peace deal has thrown up more foreign policy challenges.

Recently in an interview, Prime Minister Imran Khan had rejected any possibility of the country establishing relations with Israel, according to a report in The Express Tribune.

"Our stance is very clear from day one and Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had said can never accept state of until the people of Palestine get rights and state," he said in an interview with a new channel, as per the report.

and Pakistan do not have diplomatic relations.

As Prime Minister Imran Khan completes two years in power, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi's recent adverse remarks about its traditional ally Saudi Arabia along with the UAE-Israel deal, which could have wider ramifications for Pakistan, have put the country in a tough spot.

On the first anniversary of the revocation of Article 370 by India, Qureshi criticised Saudi Arabia in a TV interview for not obliging Pakistan over the issue of 'organising' a meeting of the Council of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Foreign Ministers (CFM) on Kashmir in early February 2020.

Qureshi's outburst led to Riyadh's anger, which forced Pakistan to pay back USD 1bn prematurely and is demanding another USD 1bn of the loan.

General Qamar Jawed Bajwa, Pakistani Army Chief rushed to Saudi Arabia to contain the fallout from Qureshi's remarks. However, as per Pakistani media reports, he failed to secure a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Qureshi is currently on a visit to China. The visit assumes significance in the wake of recent downturn in ties with Saudi Arabia.

Even though the Pakistani Prime Minister has sought to improve ties with Turkey, whose President's grand-ambitions to emerge as leader of Muslim world is well known, risking ties with Saudi Arabia could prove to be costly for Islamabad.

As per media reports, Qureshi's comments have not gone down well with the all powerful military. And the military, which is known to formulate Pakistan's Foreign policy, has shown desperation to improve ties with Saudi Arabia.

The signing of UAE-Israel peace deal has further complicated the situation for Pakistan. Pakistan has traditionally relied on Saudi Arabia and for economic bailout.

While Iran has criticised the deal, Pakistan ambiguously said it is a development with far reaching implications.

Riyadh has helped Islamabad many times including helping in paying for Pakistan's first batch of F-16 fighter aircraft in the 1980s and providing USD 6 billion loans that helped Pakistan tide over its balance of payments crisis just two years ago.

Saudi Arabia had come to Pakistan's rescue in 2018 when it had agreed to provide $3.2 billion worth of oil on deferred payments per annum as part of its $ 6.2 billion package to help Pakistan tide over its balance of payment crisis.

The balance $3 billion was delivered as a cash-loan. Saudis had activated the deferred payment facility for three years from 1 July 2019, and the agreement signed in May had come up for renewal this year.

However, the Saudis, visibly upset at Pakistan's behaviour, have possibly discontinued the arrangement.

Among other things, Pakistan's tilt towards Turkey, Malaysia, and Iran, as also its growing economic and strategic dependence on China might have annoyed the Saudis.

(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.)
When the world watched Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it seemed out of a fairy tale book. A narrative of a prince falling in love with an American actress somehow made royalty seem more attainable and relatable. However, the love story had a twist when intense media attention ensued.

According to a royal biographer, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spoke to Buckingham Palace regarding restructuring the press system last summer.

Prince Harry, 35, and Markle, 39, are currently residing in their $14 million Santa Barbara mansion after officially renouncing their membership as senior working royals of the British royal family in March, reported Daily Mail.

Media Attacks

The married couple decided to step down from royal obligations after intense media scrutiny and internal strife. The pair did not take media attacks sitting down and filed multiple lawsuits, reported Showbiz Cheatsheet.

According to Omid Scobie, who co-penned Prince Harry and Markle's tell-all memoir "Finding Freedom," has now divulged that the couple began discussing restructuring that press system in the summer of 2019 one year following their royal wedding. In the summer of 2019, Prince Harry engaged with his team and his senior aides within the palace regarding restructuring the press system and making him and his wife more approachable to a more broad and diverse media landscape.

Despite the numerous filed lawsuits, they are still clearly in need of media attention.

Relentless media attention and scrutiny from the press initiated when the public first became aware of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship.

Also Read: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Broke? Royal Couple Reportedly Becoming Homeless

The source continued, "And the answer was well, 'If you want to do that, you can pay for your own engagements.' And so that was the first seed of, 'Well, maybe we will break away, maybe we will do our own thing."'

Mere months after dating, an official royal statement was released upon the former "Suits" actress enduring racist and sexist attacks. Lawsuits and more negative press ensued after.

According to Prince Harry regarding newspaper stories regarding him and his wife, "Unfortunately, my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences -- a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son."

In an interview last week, Markle underscored the vitality of news dissemmination done through a "compassionate and empathetic lens" -- while denouncing what she and Prince Harry describe as the toxicity in the economy for attention.

Philanthropic endeavors suggest that the duke and duchess would not like to shy entirely away from the spotlight. The Sussexes are aware that they are newsworthy, but they prefer the media attention to be focused on their work while giving consideration to their personal privacy, reported The New York Times.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would use their voice to help the lives of others. Through media attention, the pair hopes to help make the world a better place through the media focusing the lens on their charity work and crucial issues. Specifically, now, they are using the spotlight to set forth awareness to issues including the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Related Article: Kate Middleton's Princess Diana Comment Forced Prince William to Be Frank

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Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar and many other ministers in Karnataka condoled her death

Bengaluru: Karnataka health minister B Sriramulu's mother died in the Ballari district, a day after she recovered from coronavirus, he said on Friday.

"With deep sorrow I inform you all that my mother Honnuramma passed away on Thursday night due to age related issues.

"At the ripe age of 95, my mother had completely recovered from coronavirus and just returned home from the Bowring Hospital in Bengaluru," Sriramulu tweeted.

Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar and many other ministers condoled the death of Honnuramma.

According to sources close to Sriramulu, Honnuramma tested positive for coronavirus a week ago and was admitted to the Government Bowring Hospital.

On Friday, she was discharged from the hospital after she had recovered from the coronavirus, but hours later she died, they said.

While many other ministers and officials, who tested positive for coronavirus preferred undergoing treatment in the super specialty ultra-luxury hospitals, Sriramulu and his mother had set an example by getting admitted in the government hospital and recovered.
Ukraine exports over 5.6 mln tonnes of grain since new MY

20:40, 21.08.20 816

In particular, 3.4 million tonnes of wheat was exported.
Growing up, I was a shy kid who did not fit in  a loner that loved music, film, and television. Star Wars, The Shining, The Exorcist, Akira and Hitchcocks Psycho changed my life and opened my creative mind.

I was raised by a single mother of three, born in Toronto and calling the multicultural community of Brampton my home. As I grew older, I realized the art that I so dearly cherished did not reflect the world I lived in. The characters on screen seldom looked like me or my peers. When Black people did appear in films, we were portrayed as slaves, substance abusers, or drug dealers. As a kid already struggling with my sense of identity, this began to take a toll on me.

I have worked in the music, film, and advertising industries with my long-time friend Director X for over 20 years, collaborating with artists like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Rihanna. While I am a proud Canadian who celebrates the diverse makeup of our country, I have witnessed first hand the challenges faced by Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) within our creative industries.

When attending advertising award shows, X and I were usually the only Black people in the room. In June, Producer Lindsay Goeldner compiled a spreadsheet of prominent Toronto commercial production Directors. Of the 517 directors accounted for, only six were Black and less than 10 per cent were BIPOC.

In all aspects of our creative industries, from copywriting to cinematography BIPOC representation must be supported and systems and institutions must change. Talking about the problem is not enough. Proactive solutions are required if we wish to create an industry reflective of our population and modern times.

There are several organizations that have been working toward solutions for some time now: Pathway 2 Industry, POV 3rd Street, Reelworld, Film in Colour, Remix Project, HXOUSE and BIPOC TV & Film.

We must build on the progress of our peers and create equal educational opportunities and mentorship programs for budding BIPOC youth breaking into the industry. Paid internship programs are also extremely important, providing sustainable opportunities for those who cannot afford to work for free.

Positions of power, such as leadership and board positions, must allow for proper BIPOC representation. Both the industry and the government must collaborate to support these changes and tackle the issue of underrepresentation in advertising and other creative industries.

The latest announcement by the City of Toronto to provide funding to support Black leadership in the citys music industry is a step in the right direction, however, more must be done. The music industry is just one pillar of the intertwined creative industries that all need the same support and opportunity

We must begin to tell the stories of the under-represented and underappreciated, in front of the camera and behind it. It is only then that the creative industries will become equal and inclusive.
Korean drama series, Crash Landing On You has already won over the hearts of fans from all over the world. The series has raised the bar for several other shows and is the perfect amalgamation of laughter, tears, and adventure. However, if you were way ahead of the world and have already completed binging the show, take a look at these details that you might have missed out on.

ALSO READ | 'Crash Landing On You' Fame Hyun Bin Arrives In Jordan To Shoot For 'The Negotiations'

Crash Landing On You details you might have missed

Hyun Bins character Captain Ri Jeong Hyeok is seen getting addicted to a computer game in the show. If you put your ears to work, then you can notice Recuerdos de la Alhambra playing in the background. The song was a part of Hyun Bins 2018 show Memories of the Alhambras soundtrack. Another reference is when Hyun Bin aka Captain Ri Jeong Hyeok is seen waiting outside a railway station for his game competitor to meet in real life and fight him after their feud. But the competitor does not arrive. Even in Memories of the Alhambra Hyun Bins character is stood up at the railway station.

ALSO READ | Fans Start Online Petition For 'Crash Landing On You 2'; Urge Makers To Explore The Plot

Fans of Kim Soo Hyun have not been seeing much of him since the past one year. He had a small cameo role in Hotel del Luna. However, Kim Soo Hyun is seen in a cameo role in Crash Landing On You too. He is dressed in an all-green attire with a helmet hairstyle. His character seen in Crash Landing On You is also similar to the role he had in Secretly, Greatly.

If you have already caught up on the Academy Award-winning film Parasite and Crash Landing On You then you would have surely noticed this detail. One can spot actor Jang Hye Jin play the role of a wealthy woman in Crash Landing On You. Similarly, the role of her brother is played by Park Myung Hoon, who played a pivotal role in Parasite too.

ALSO READ | Is There A Crash Landing On You Season 2? New Cast And Story Line Details Here

One more treat to the eyes is the scenic views during the scene where Captain Ri plays his piano. Fans are treated to picturesque places, like Lake Brienz in Switzerland. Captain Ri is seen playing his piano for one last time before he goes back to the North. While he plays the piano, one cannot ignore the lakes and mountains seen in the background.

Crash Landing on You has become one of the highest-rated tvN drama to date. The show was aired on tvN in South Korea and on Netflix from December 2019 to February 2020. The show traces the story of a South Korean heiress who is paragliding in South Korea but gets caught in a storm. She then lands up in the North Korean part of DMZ. Directed by Lee Jeong-Hyo, Crash Landing On You stars Hyun Bin, Son Ye-jin, Kim Jung-Hyun, and Seo Ji-Hye in major roles.

ALSO READ | 'Crash Landing On You' Fans Excited About BTS Mention In Episode 7; Read Here

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.
In a very bizarre and rare incident, a British police officer found himself in kind of a fix. He had to get rescued by firefighters after he somehow managed to get his hands stuck in his own handcuffs.

Scott Renwick, the Core Training Sergeant for the region's police force, got stuck in a pair handcuffs and walked over to the fire station for help. Based on a tweet by Northants Fire, the fire crew in Northamptonshire, firefighters helped the police officer out of his predicament.

Also read: Couple Arrested For 'Doing It' On Beach Continued Inside Police Van With Handcuffs On

Twitter

They posted about the incident on the micro-blogging website with the caption: 'Police Officer released from handcuffs after they had failed, used pedal cutters to release'.

09:46 Police Officer released from handcuffs after they had failed, used pedal cutters to release #Mereway  Northants Fire (@northantsfire) August 18, 2020

Once free, Renwick to the social media website and shared a picture of the handcuffs. He shared it with the caption: Well that wasnt a good start to the day. Thanks to @northantsfire for cutting me out of some broken cuffs. #NotFunny. I would have laughed too!!'

Also read: UK Police Fulfills The Wish Of 104-YO Badass Grandma Who 'Demanded' That She Be 'Arrested'

Well that wasnt a good start to the day. Thanks to @northantsfire for cutting me out of some broken cuffs. #NotFunny. I would have laughed too!! pic.twitter.com/WyOKGNDC8s  Core Skills Norpol - Scott Renwick (@CoreNorpol) August 18, 2020

Ever since the news surfaced on social media, people flooded Renwick's tweet with so many comments. One user wrote, 'I have so many questions, but Im not even sure where to begin!!!' While another wrote, 'I love that you shared this. I can imagine the laughs this gave everyone involved.'

One user also pointed out the consequences of this weird incident, 'Now I'm not a police officer but I'm pretty sure from the accounts I follow that you'll be getting a hefty cake fine.'



Here are some more reactions:

You're helping them keep their skills up! Training with Emergency partners is important! #3933 BUTLER pic.twitter.com/aMCI1lqllD  Northampton Hub Specials (@NNSpecials) August 18, 2020

 Hope you are not too traumatised and received a trauma teddy for being so brave!   Danielle W (@DWalshy1993) August 18, 2020

Good job you werent sitting in your car when you locked them ! You could have ended up with a convertible   Martin Dunne (Parler @mardunn78) (@brymor78) August 18, 2020

I expect they used cutting edge technology to help you...   Louise (@LouiseWackett1) August 18, 2020

Interagency working at its finest.  Stuart (@stuartrennie92) August 18, 2020

Firefighters to the rescue!

Also read: UK Police Sends Armed Officers To 'Catch' Tiger, It Turns Out To Be A Sculpture
(Newser)  A former Navy SEAL who has said he killed Osama bin Laden has been banned by Delta Air Lines after removing his face mask during a flight. Robert O'Neill tweeted about his ban on Thursday, and the airline confirmed the action, the AP reports. "Part of every customer's commitment prior to traveling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask," the airline said in a statement. "Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future." All major US airlines require passengers to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Delta says it has banned more than 100 passengers for violating the rule.

story continues below

ONeill posted a selfie showing himself, with no mask, on a Delta Connection flight Wednesday from Minneapolis to Newark. Other passengers in the photo, including a man across the aisle who was wearing a Marine Corps hat, were wearing masks. The tweet was later deleted. In another tweet Thursday, O'Neill said, "Thank God it wasn't @Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden ... we werent wearing masks." O'Neill first said in 2014 that he fired the shots that killed bin Laden during a 2011 raid on the terrorist's compound in Pakistan. The US government has neither confirmed nor denied the account. O'Neill later wrote a book about his time in the SEALs. He has 375,000 followers on Twitter.

(Read more Robert O'Neill stories.)
The man accused of a brutal bashing in East Cannington on Sunday night has been arrested and charged by police after a three-day search.

Quade Karsum Jones, 28, allegedly assaulted Emiliano Lombardi out the front of the 84-year-old's home after he went to investigate a disturbance outside.

Quade Jones was arrested at Kelmscott Station on Thursday. Credit:WA Police

The grandfather was clinging to life at Royal Perth Hospital in an induced coma on Friday.

Police will allege Mr Jones and another man, a 24-year-old from Armadale, went on a two-hour crime spree across three suburbs in Perths south-east, with Mr Jones accused of bashing Mr Lombardi and assaulting two other people, punching one and bashing the other with a metal sign.
UofG joins Productivity Institute to help boost UK growth

University of Glasgow is helping to solve the UKs productivity puzzle which could mean better jobs and higher living standards, by contributing to a new 32m research institute.

The Productivity Institute will advance knowledge and ensure it informs the significant decisions by governments and business leaders that can increase productivity.

Economic and business experts from the University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School, will join forces with leading experts from a range of disciplines and backgrounds across the UK, to work directly with policymakers and businesses to better understand, measure, and enable improvements in productivity across the UK.

Professor of Economics, John Tsoukalas, who is leading Glasgows contribution to the project said: Glasgow will lead and develop the research and impact agenda of the Institute in Scotland including the formation of a Productivity Forum for Scotland. Our goal is to shape and promote an inclusive and sustained growth agenda. It will catalyse the co-development of research projects with stakeholders from the policy making and business communities to enable a truly transformational action model that maps research findings into innovative approaches, and policy interventions that boost productivity and bring prosperity gains across the economy, whilst reducing inequalities.

Researchers from the Adam Smith Business School will undertake ambitious research projects that seek to understand the drivers of productivity in the UK, and Scotland in particular, and our work will respond and address the new economic challenges brought about by the Covid pandemic.

The new 32m Productivity Institute is being funded by 26m from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of UK Research and Innovations (UKRI), is part of its largest single investment into social sciences research, and 6m from nine partner institutions for five years, from 1 September 2020.

The Productivity Institute will be headquartered at Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester, and in addition to University of Glasgow, includes seven other partner institutions across the country: University of Sheffield, University of Cambridge, King's College London, Queen's University Belfast, Cardiff University, University of Warwick, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

It will lead to a step-change in the quality and quantity of research available in the UK that will directly inform government policy to improve UK productivity.

UK Science Minister Amanda Solloway said:Improving productivity is central to driving forward our long-term economic recovery and ensuring that we level up wages and living standards across every part of the UK.

ESRCs Executive Chair, Professor Jennifer Rubin, said: Together this funding represents the largest economic and social research investment ever in the UK, befitting its enormous potential to improve lives for millions of people.

The Institute will develop its research agenda and practical business interventions through a programme of regional engagement with policymakers and business leaders from firms of all sizes as well as bodies like HM Treasury,

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy(BEIS) and the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI).

It will create eight Regional Productivity Forums across the country to work with these businesses and policy makers on critical productivity issues in the regional context; and it will form a national Policy Reform Group to work with policy makers on productivity aspects of nation-wide policies.

The Institutes goal is to make long-term policy recommendations that help to improve the UKs productivity, which is lower than in the US, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

ESRC is part of UK Research and Innovation, which is principally funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Pro-life Activists Score Major First Amendment Victory Regarding Arrests for Chalking on the Public Sidewalk in Front of the Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic NEWS PROVIDED BY

Christian Defense Coalition

Aug. 21, 2020



WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- On August 1, two students were arrested for peacefully chalking the message "Black Preborn Lives Matter" on the public sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood.



Here is a news link to the story:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/pro-life-activists-arrested-chalking-planned-parenthood



In response to these unjust arrests and crushing of the First Amendment by the City of Washington, D.C., the Christian Defense Coalition organized a major "Chalk for Life/Justice" event at the D.C. Planned Parenthood for this Saturday.



"Chalk for Life/Justice" will take place on Saturday, August 22, at 10:00 AM at the Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood located at 1225 4th St. NE.



Here is a link to the Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/894656407604496



The Christian Defense Coalition heard back from law enforcement officials this week that no arrests would be made for sidewalk chalking and the event could move forward.



The students were arrested in spite of the fact that activists have been chalking in front of the Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood for over 30 years and on July 11 a major sidewalk chalk event took place in front of Planned Parenthood with the knowledge and permission of law enforcement.



We have included a picture from that event:





The City of Washington, D.C. has allowed hundreds of protesters to chalk messages across the nation's capital during Black Lives Matter demonstrations with no arrests.



Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, states: "We were deeply troubled when students were unjustly arrested for peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights in the public square. The City of Washington, D.C. clearly violated the basic tenants of free speech and the law by allowing Black Lives Matter protesters to engage in specific activities, while arresting members of Students for Life for doing the exact same thing.



"In response to this blatant disregard of the First Amendment by Washington, D.C. officials, we told the police we were coming back to sidewalk chalk in front of Planned Parenthood even if that meant getting arrested. It was critical for the pro-life movement to send a powerful message that we would not be bullied or intimidated into surrendering our free speech rights with respect to speaking out against abortion violence.



"While we are thankful law enforcement officials said our sidewalk chalk event could move forward with no arrests, we hope and pray Washington, D.C. public officials would now respect, honor and protect the First Amendment rights for everyone in our nation's capital. A first step in demonstrating this commitment would be to immediately drop all charges against these innocent students who were arrested." For more information or interviews call:

Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741



SOURCE Christian Defense Coalition



CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741



Related Links



https://www.facebook.com/events/894656407604496



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Nyaliep Nhial got a two-for-one deal with her first pregnancy.

The Omaha womans experience delivering her twin girls at Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy was so positive that she decided to name one of the babies Mercy after the hospital.

This week, Nhial was back at Bergan Mercy for another two-for-one deal. She gave birth Tuesday to a second set of twins  one boy and one girl.

It was a no-brainer I was going to come back to Bergan Mercy, said Nhial, 25. Im glad I did.

The new set of twins  Kobe and Khan  will join 4-year-old sisters Kaygee and Mercy and 3-year-old brother Mogah.

Nhial said she was surprised to find out that she was pregnant with twins the first time around.

During her first pregnancy, Nhial said, she tried to research as much as she could about delivering her babies on her own. Her mother, who is from South Sudan, didnt have the luxury of hospital births.

One nurse stayed by Nhials side during labor and delivery of the first twins. After delivery, the care team made her feel good about being a new mom.
Analysts at Japanese financial services company Osaka Matsui Management have said that billionaire Jack Ma-backed Chinese financial-technology juggernaut Ant Group Co. earned an estimated $3.5 billion during a recent six-month period, demonstrating how lucrative the company's business has been as it moves closer towards a blockbuster initial public offering.

"According to financial results released on Thursday by Alibaba Group which owns 33% of Ant, the soon-to-be-listed company recorded a profit of around 15.5 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) in the quarter ending December 2019, then about 9.2 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) in the following three months ending March," said Alistair Richmond, Director of Corporate Trading at Osaka Matsui Management.

Ant owns Alipay, the hugely successful mobile-payments platform that is used by over 900 million people in China for spending money online and in physical stores, paying bills, taking public transportation, and purchasing big-tickets. The company also offers a variety of financial services to millions of businesses across the country. It provides technology services to financial institutions and other organizations and sells financial products, including insurance policies and mutual funds to countless individuals.

According to data collected by Osaka Matsui Management, the company headquartered in Hangzhou was valued at $150 billion in a private fundraising round in June 2018 and revealed last month that it is planning simultaneous initial public offerings on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges. The combined offerings may be one of the biggest in history and will take place around six years after Alibaba's own record-setting $25 billion New York IPO.

Alibaba, which added a second listing in Hong Kong last year, reports financial results using U.S. commonly accepted accounting methods, so its profit figures for Ant may differ from the results that Ant will release in its forthcoming listing prospectus.

"Ant is aiming for a market capitalization of over $200 billion when it goes public. This will make it more valuable than the Goldman Sachs Group and position it close to PayPal, whose market capitalization recently exceeded $220 billion following their big share-price run-up earlier this year," said Michael Carter, Head of Global Equities at Osaka Matsui Management.

The three months to March 2020 included weeks in which several Chinese cities were under lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus throughout the country. Many restaurants and businesses were closed, and people were primarily confined to their homes during this period, which curbed spending as a result.

Still, accord to Alibaba's filings, Ant's first-quarter profit was more than 500% higher than the same period last year. The companies have not provided reasoning for the year-over-year surge.

About

Osaka Matsui Management is a private wealth management company that prides itself on fulfilling clients' goals with passion and integrity. With over $8.4 billion U.S. Dollars of assets under management, Osaka Matsui Management has been assisting both private and corporate clients since 2006.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200821005234/en/

Contacts:

Media:

Yamataka Kaori

yamataka.kaori@ommcorp.com

27F OAP Tower Tenmabashi

Kita-ku, Osaka-shi

Osaka, Japan

+81 (0) 6 4560 2915
Kerala: The State forest department had arrested five more men on Tuesday for allegedly killing a pregnant wild buffalo in Malappuram, the first arrest in the case was made on August 10.

Around 25 kilos of meat was seized from one of the accused, a Nilambur Forest Range Officer told ANI.

"About 25 kilograms of meat has been seized from the possession of one of the accused. The animal was killed brutally," he said.

The group of poachers allegedly shot dead a pregnant wild buffalo near Puncha forest areas of Pookottumpadam village in Malappuram District of Kerala.

They then also butchered the foetus that was growing inside the animals womb.

A few days ago, in an incident from Punjabs Kapurthala Gurinder Singh, 26, who caught on CCTV camera as he intentionally ran his can over a stray dog.

The video was shared by BJP MP Maneka Gandhi on Twitter, she tweeted that the "dog died after 30 minutes of being in excruciating pain". Gandhi also said that the man is a breeder and seller of dogs for dog fights and "this is what he does to dogs when they are no longer useful".

The police arrested Singh on Wednesday and at least 12 canines were rescued from his house.

This incident from Kerala happens about two months after another gruesome incident of a pregnant elephant dying after consuming a pineapple laden with firecrackers in Silent Valley in Attappadi.

The incident sent shockwaves throughout the country and had sparked massive outrage.
Few military careers are as distinguished as Florence Blanchfields. Not only was she a veteran of both World Wars, she was the first woman to achieve equal officers rank with her male colleagues -- and she ensured every nurse that came after her did, too.

If anyone had the nursing skills and dedication to her people required for such a feat, it was Florence Blanchfield. She came from a family of nurses and was trained as one herself by age 22. From there, she studied under one of the founding professors of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

She purposely exposed herself to danger in order to broaden her education and the understanding of her profession. Leaving a good superintendents job at a Pittsburgh hospital, she joined the staff of a hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. She would soon leave civilian life behind and join the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) during World War I, going to Europe with the American Expeditionary Forces.

During the interwar years, she traveled with the military around the United States and to places like China and the Philippines. She even took a post at the Surgeon Generals office.

Blanchfield oversaw all of the Armys nurses as Superintendent of the ANC during World War II. She prepared the ANC for the build-up, the fighting and the eventual shift back to civilian life. During her tenure, the number of nurses serving the Army went from a few dozen to more than 50,000.

Although her rank and responsibility was that of a full-bird Colonel, she did not have a commission in the regular Army. It was her mission to get this full rank for the women serving in the service. They were granted the rank temporarily in 1944, and Col. Blanchfield used the rank to tour battlefields and track the needs and effectiveness of her nurses. Her dedication earned her the Distinguished Service Medal from the Army.

She wanted the commission to be permanent.

Blanchfield would be the first woman to have such a commission after she helped ensure the passage of the 1947 Army-Navy Nurses Act. Working with Congresswoman Frances Payne Bolton (who had helped secure the temporary rank), she and Bolton persisted and eventually won the passage of the act.

She retired from the ANC that same year, comfortably assured her nurses would enjoy the full rank she worked so hard to earn. By the time she died in 1971, the U.S. military would boast 43,000 women in uniform. By then, the thousands of female nurses (7,500 of which served in Vietnam) were commissioned officers. Blanchfield Army Medical Center on Fort Campbell, Kentucky is named in her honor.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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TBN drops Kenneth Copeland from programming lineup amid upcoming changes

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Trinity Broadcasting Network said it will no longer air shows from controversial televangelist Kenneth Copeland starting in October as part of a series of upcoming programming changes at the international Christian television network.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries and TBN have had a business relationship for some 40 years, with the network airing Copelands Believers Voice of Victory.

In a statement emailed to The Christian Post on Tuesday, TBN Marketing Director Nate Daniels said the removal of Copeland's programs, which will go into effect on Oct. 2, was part of several alterations.

In pursuit of a new vision under Matt and Laurie Crouchs leadership, TBN has been making changes to programming over the last several years, Daniels said.

As a part of this transition we chose to move away from telethons, upgraded to HD, expanded our streaming platforms, forged partnerships with family brands like K-LOVE, Museum of the Bible and others, and have replaced some programs with new original content from voices like Christine Caine, Mike Huckabee, Mike Rowe and more.

Daniels also explained that it was a very difficult decision to drop Copeland and that programming by Steven Furtick of Elevation Church will replace Believers Voice of Victory.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries has found success well beyond our broadcast borders and has developed numerous ways for viewers to experience his broadcast ministry, including through his very own network, Daniels continued.

Copeland also confirmed the removal of his program on TBN in a statement posted on Kenneth Copeland Ministries website earlier this month.

Matt let me know they believe The LORD is taking TBN in a new direction, and our daily program, Believers Voice of Victory (BVOV), isnt really a fit for their future programming, Copeland wrote.

Even though change is happening all around us, some things remain the same. The BVOV broadcasts will continue to bring you The WORD of God to build your faith, so you can live in the abundance of love, health, prosperity and fellowship Jesus has provided.

Copeland included a link listing other ways viewers can watch his programming and expressed his gratitude to TBN for having aired his ministry.

How grateful we are for TBN founders, Dr. Paul and Jan Crouch, as well as for Matt and Laurie Crouch, who took the helm after Paul and Jan went to be with The LORD, he continued.

Again, we bless TBN and all they set their hands to do for the Kingdom, and we remain their faithful family in the faith of The LORD Jesus!

Copeland, who has a reported net worth of around $300 million and is the owner of two private jets and two twin-engine planes, is a proponent of what is often pejoratively described as the prosperity gospel.

In a controversial interview with Lisa Guerrero of "Inside Edition" last year, Copeland defended his belief that pastors like himself can live in luxury.

Its a misunderstanding of the Bible. If you go into the old covenant, do you think that the Jewish people believe that you should be broke? They believe in wealth, said Copeland at the time.

The blessing of Abraham. Abraham was extremely wealthy and he had a covenant with God. Its not the Jewish blessing, its the Abrahamic blessing. I get excited talking about it cause I love it and I started out deep in debt with nothing.

Last September, televangelist Benny Hinn, a purported faith healer and longtime proponent of the prosperity gospel, renounced the theology, declaring that the Holy Ghost is just fed up with it.

Im sorry to say that prosperity has gone a little crazy and Im correcting my own theology and you need to all know it. Because when I read the Bible now, I dont see the Bible in the same eyes I saw 20 years ago, said Hinn last year in a Facebook Live broadcast.

I think it hurts the Gospel, so Im making this statement for the first time in my life and frankly, I dont care what people think about me anymore.
A library book has incredibly found it's way back across the ocean to be returned to the branch where it was borrowed from 118 years later.

Barbara Schmelzer, who is a bookbinder, was looking through a thrift shop in Sydney's northern beaches when she stumbled upon the book.

First published in 1892, the copy of The Earl of Derby by George Saintsbury was borrowed from the Newtown Library, in Wellington, New Zealand in March 1902.

Barbara Schmelzer, who is a bookbinder, was looking through a thrift shop in Sydney's northern beaches when she stumbled upon the book (pictured)

A notice glued to one of the books pages (pictured) advises there is a two-penny-a-day fine for late returns of books

Ms Schmelzer who happened to have lived in Newtown for 14 years before moving to Sydney said she was shocked when she opened the book to read the library stamp.

She said she found the text in the collectables section of the Lifeline store where she volunteers but it was not particularly valuable and would not sell at their book fairs.

'I thought the library might want to have it back, so I decided to fix it up a little bit and make it look nice for its return back to New Zealand,' she told Stuff.

Ms Schmelzer, who has about 30 years experience in bookbinding, said the volume was in good condition with surprisingly little damage.

She was also grateful Wellington Libraries had decided to waive the two-pennies-a-day fine for a late return as explained in a notice glued to one of the book's pages.

Pennies are no longer considered legal currency in Australia, however, if one penny is converted to one cent, the fine would equal about $860 in 2020.

Ms Schmelzer said she would like to go back to Wellington around Christmas this year, depending on whether travel bans were lifted and hoped to visit the book.

Newtown Library spokesperson Sharon Macintyre said staff were thrilled to see the book returned.

'We've had instances when old books get returned. It's really nice when it happens. This book may have been one of the original collection. Newtown Library opened in 1902, and is considered to be the oldest branch library in New Zealand,' she said.
Wildfires raging in Northern California have already taken at least five lives and threaten thousands of people to flee from their homes, authorities said.

Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara reported the death of a resident in Solano County, in the northeastern San Francisco Bay Area. Thomas did not give any additional details.

Three civilians have also died in Napa County since the fires started, according to Cal Fire assistant deputy director Daniel Berlant.

The death of a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker was not immediately clear if it was included in the Solano and Napa fatalities. The worker was found dead Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area between San Francisco and Sacramento.

A pilot on a water-dropping mission in central California also died when his helicopter crashed on Wednesday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom addressed the current wildfires ravaging the state. He said the wildfires are clear evidence of climate change. Newsom added that people who are still in denial about climate change should come to California.

Northern California Wildfires

Over two dozen major fires were happening in California and taxing the state's firefighting capacity. The fires have destroyed 175 structures, including homes.

These wildfires are threatening more than 50,000 infrastructures. A total of 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured, and at least two people were missing.

The fires have also affected about 500 square miles of brushland, rural areas, canyon country, and forest surrounding San Francisco.

More than 10,000 firefighters are fighting the wildfires. However, fire officials said each of the major fire complexes is strapped for resources. Some were working 72-hour shifts, instead of the usual 24 hours.

California has also requested 375 engines and crew from other states.

"That's going to allow our firefighters that have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest," Berlant said in a report.

Incident commander, Cal Fire Assistant Chief Billy See, said more firefighters were sent to the field, but it is still not enough. See noted that they are drastically short for a fire of this size.

"Today we saw a growth of approximately 700 to 1,000 acres an hour in heavy timber. That's a dangerous rate of spread for our firefighters and for all those residents out there," See said.

Marin County fire chief Jason Weber noted that he had not seen this level of drawdown in his 25 years in fire service.

Ways You Can Help

Concerned agencies across the state are looking for ways to aid those affected by the California wildfires.

For one, you can help evacuate animals by assisting concerned shelters, such as Herd and Flock Animal Sanctuary in Vacaville. These places are also seeking donations to care properly for the evacuated animals.

Besides animal shelters, you can also donate to food banks that provide relief to families affected by the wildfires. They are responsible for handing out emergency food without any cost.

Other organizations that are seeking donations are the California Fire Foundation and the American Red Cross.

Check these out:

Environmental Effects of Australia Wildfire Will Linger for Years to Come



'Apple Fire,' Thousands Evacuate due to Cherry Valley Wildfire

Firefighters Increase Containment on Northern California Wildfire
89 Chinese Provincial Officials Charged for Colluding with Local Mafia Groups

A criminal gang in Chinas Hunan Province was recently charged by local authorities. Also, 89 local officials who for over 17 years served as the protective umbrella for gang members were charged on corruption allegations.

On Aug. 19, Li Dianxun, secretary of the provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC) and leader of the local sweeping and eliminating evils campaign, announced that 23 criminals were charged for gang activity.

The gang was led by Shang Tongjun and Wu Xianyao, who engaged in criminal activities for nearly 20 years in the form of political and business alliances in Xiangxi prefecture, in the west of Hunan. Li said former senior officials in local government formed a protective umbrella for the group.

Shang and his group were invested in and operated companies that engaged in illegal mining, fraud, falsifying records, and other criminal activities. Illegal assets exceeded 600 million yuan (more than $86.6 million).

The group was involved in a homicide stemming from conflicts in a casino business. Under the instruction of Wu, Wang Wujin shot a man named Shi Yuanhui to death. To prevent him from divulging details of the homicide, Wu ordered Wang to be killed, mutilated, and burned. The gang was involved in 43 organized crimes, including four murder cases. Twenty of the 23 charged individuals were involved in the murder cases.

On July 30, Shang and Wu were sentenced to death for the crimes of organizing and leading gang activities, and intentional homicide. The other 21 were sentenced to death, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for 8 to 22 years.

Abuse of Power

Also in the verdict was Ouyang Xu, a Hunan native and former director of the local police bureau and Communist Party secretary committee of Xiangxi. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking bribes and abuse of power.

In 2012, Ouyang Xu misused his authority to release Wu from prison, according to the verdict.

Since the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party and the communist regime, the party has associated its political movements with cracking down on mafia groups and those who provide a protective umbrella for themin effect to target political opponents, such as the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution.

Other senior officials known to have served as protective umbrellas for gangsters are Zhang Yue, former member of the Hebei provincial standing committee and Party secretary of the Hebei PLAC, arrested in 2018; and Zhou Yongkang, former head of the national PLAC, who was sacked in 2014.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday expressed deep anguish over the loss of lives in the fire incident at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana.

Nine people died in the blaze that broke out at the plant on the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border late on Thursday night.

"Deeply anguished to learn about the loss of lives due to the tragic fire accident at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. My deepest condolences are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover at the earliest," Shah tweeted.

The fire broke out when at least 17 people were inside the plant and eight of them managed to come out, officials said.

Six bodies, out of the nine dead, have been recovered by rescue teams so far and efforts were on to pull out the others from the underground plant.
The pro-abortion group EMILYs List and a PAC run by allies of Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) funded a Democrat-linked PAC that attempted to boost Kris Kobach in the Kansas GOP Senate primary, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Kobach, the former attorney general for the state of Kansas, lost the primary on August 4 to Representative Roger Marshall. The Republican Party threw its weight behind Marshall after concluding he had the best chance of defeating Democratic challenger Barbara Bollier.

In an attempt to elevate Kobach, the Democrat-backed Sunflower State PAC ran advertisements praising Kobach as a pro-Trump conservative leader while labeling Marshall a swamp creature. The Sunflower State PAC received $3.55 million from the Schumer-allied Senate Majority PAC and $1.75 million from Women Vote!, the PAC arm of EMILYs List.

Democrats said that even though efforts to elect Kobach failed, the attacks on Marshall could pay off in the general election if they weaken his support.

It was a buffet of riches. You have extraordinarily weak candidates running against each other, J.B. Poersch, president of the Senate Majority PAC, toldA Politico. You had to open the possibility that any of the candidates, either Marshall or Kobach, could come out of that, and you wanted a weakened scenario.

Neither Republican candidate received a direct endorsement from President Trump in the primary, although numerous Republicans and allied groups weighed in on Marshalls behalf. Marshall received endorsements from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Kansas Farm Bureau, as well as two pro-life groups, National Right to Life Committee and Kansans for Life.

More from National Review
In this photo illustration the American multinational pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a computer model of the COVID-19 coronavirus on the background.

Pfizer and BioNTech surprised many industry watchers on July 27 when they announced they would conduct a large-scale study of a vaccine for Covid-19. The surprise? The vaccine that would be tested in a 30,000-patient trial wasn't the one for which the companies had presented data on July 1.

The reason, the companies said, was that a second vaccine seemed to generate a similar immune response, but fewer side effects. On Thursday, they posted the results from all 332 people who received either vaccine, referred to as vaccines B1 or B2  and indeed, B2 recipients experienced markedly fewer adverse events tied to the vaccine.

"Obviously, the better tolerated the vaccine, the more I think it will encourage public acceptance of a broad immunization," said William Gruber, the senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development at Pfizer. "Both would have been great candidates. We were fortunate that B2 actually satisfied having both a favorable immune profile and fewer reactions."

The study tested doses of each vaccine ranging from 10 micrograms to 100 micrograms. The 30-microgram dose of B2 is being taken forward in clinical trials.

With the original vaccine, called BNT162b1, or B1 for short, patients between the ages of 18 and 55 had adverse events thought to be related to the vaccine 50% of the time at the 30-microgram dose. Those between the ages of 65 and 85 had related adverse events 16.7% of the time.

For the second vaccine, BNT162b2, or B2, patients between 18 and 55 had adverse events thought to be related to the vaccine 16.7% of the time, and no adverse effects thought to be related to the vaccine were reported in those between the ages of 65 and 85.

Both vaccines use mRNA  the genetic messenger the body uses to make the DNA code into proteins  packaged inside a fatty capsule, called a lipid nanoparticle, that allows it to get into cells. The mRNA instructs cells to make a protein, which then triggers the immune system into action. For the B1 vaccine, the mRNA coded for the part of a protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus that binds to a receptor on human cells in order to gain entry to them. The B2 vaccine makes the entirety of this protein, known as the spike protein.

Using the full spike protein may allow the immune system to figure out more ways to detect and attack the virus. Chemical modifications to the mRNA may also explain some of the difference. Although the same dosage, by weight, was given to patients with each vaccine, the B2 vaccine would include fewer particles, because the full-length mRNA is heavier.

The side effects tracked were mostly those one would expect from a vaccine injection, including soreness at the injection site, fever, chills, headache, and muscle or joint pain. No older adult who received B2 reported redness or swelling at the injection site.

The average level of antibodies to the virus in older adults was only 41% that seen in younger participants. However, it was still higher than the level of antibodies seen in recovered patients, the authors said.

All patients in the study of B2 were white and non-Hispanic, with more older women than older men participating. The younger patients were a median of 37 years old, while the older ones were a median of 69.

Pfizer has said that some data from its large study of the B2 vaccine could come as early as October.
San Francisco:

Mark Zuckerbergs artificial intelligence-imbued software butlernamed Jarvisis now in service, and even plays with his family, the Facebook chief said on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg took on the personal project this year, devoting about 100 hours to making a system inspired by the Iron Man film character Jarvis as a virtual assistant to help manage his household.

In some ways, this challenge was easier than I expected, Zuckerberg said in a post on his page at the leading social network.

In fact, my running challenge (I also set out to run 365 miles in 2016) took more total time.

Also Read: Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg gives first glimpse of Iron Man-style robot butler JARVIS

Zuckerberg said that he can talk to his AI creation through his phone or computer, and it can control lights, temperature, music, security, appliances and more.

The software learns his tastes and patterns, as well as new words or concepts, and can even entertain his daughter Max, according to Zuckerberg.

Natural language processing and facial recognition capabilities were built into Jarvis, enabling it to understand spoken or texted commands and recognise who is issuing them, Zuckerberg noted.

The software can determine when a guest at the door is expected and let them into the home, while notifying the family that someone has arrived, according to the post.

One aspect that was much more complicated than I expected was simply connecting and communicating with all of the different systems in my home, Zuckerberg said.

Most appliances arent even connected to the internet yet.

Assistants such as Jarvis would not only need devices in homes to be linked to the internet, they would have to run on common standards, according to the Facebook co-founder and chief executive, who returned to his software-writing roots for the project.

His foray into AI also impressed upon him the importance of getting software to understand context, such as who is speaking and where they are.

When I tell it to turn the AC (air conditioning) up in my office, that means something completely different from when Priscilla tells it the exact same thing, Zuckerberg said, referring to his wife.

That one caused some issues!

Similar problems could arise when asking for music to be played without the AI being told which room, especially if a napping baby is a factor.

The more context AI has, the better it can handle open-ended requests, he noted.

At this point, I mostly just ask Jarvis to play me some music and by looking at my past listening patterns, it mostly nails something Id want to hear, he said.

Zuckerberg said he tends to text his Jarvis using a bot he built for the Facebook Messenger service instead of speaking to it, mostly not to disturb people around him.

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Linkedin Mardika Parama and Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 19:19 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066fa23c6 2 Business Qatar-Airways,executive-column,COVID-19,Boeing,IATA Free

The global aviation industry has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted government to close borders and impose movement restrictions across the world. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecast losses totaling US$84.3 billion for airlines this year amid the global health crisis.

In Indonesia, Southeast Asias largest economy, the number of foreign arrivals has dropped by more than 59 percent year-on-year (yoy) to 3.09 million, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data.

As the number of passengers dropped, airline operators have been taking a number of initiatives to keep their companies afloat, including cost reduction measures and cargo service optimization.

The Jakarta Posts Mardika Parama and Farida Susanty interviewed Qatar Airways chief strategy and transformation officer Thierry Antinori on July 17 to learn more about the global airlines strategy to weather the crisis.

Question: Has the pandemic changed Qatar Airways short-term and long-term strategy in Southeast Asia and particularly in Indonesia?

Answer: I think Indonesia and Southeast Asias markets are important because of the country and the regions demography. Therefore, its always important to expand our operations to Indonesia and Southeast Asia, even though it has been slow since last year due to an illegal blockade imposed on Qatar by neighboring countries. Nevertheless, we want to further consolidate our position as the leader of the global connector during the COVID-19 pandemic and become the leading airline connecting Indonesia and Europe.

What will Qatars future operations in Indonesia be like amid the drop of international travelers? Is there any plan for a route expansion?

We have been increasing our flight schedule through Jakarta from seven flights per week in June to 11 flights per week. We also started to fly to Bali with three flights per week, which is more than other airlines.

What makes Bali an important destination for Qatars operation? Will the tourism recovery of the island help the airlines operation?

Bali is a tourism center and one of the favorite travel destinations for our European customers. As we operate from 20 cities around Europe, we could fly them to the island. We understand that today Bali is partly closed. However, we want to keep the economic engine running by helping the tourism stakeholders in the island.

How did Qatar Airways transform its operations to adapt to the current situation, and what is the current status of the airlines operations in terms of occupancy rates?

There has been a bit of change in our financial metrics. Currently, we are counting our revenues from cargo and passengers versus the operation cost and also draw comparisons between operating or grounding the flight routes.

Qatar Airways has been fortunate to have a cash positive status from our revenue compared to the operating costs. Of course, we still need to consider the fixed cost, which means we are still losing money, like other airlines, but we lose less money and generate more cash.

Our flights to Jakarta have also shown a very good load with [relatively high] occupancy. We also notice that our market share has been growing lately.

Many airlines have taken many cost-saving measures during the pandemic. Have there been such measures within Qatar Airways?

We have accelerated our cost planning transformation that [started] prior to the COVID-19 [pandemic]. We also let go of 20 percent of our staff, but we didnt impose wage cuts as big as others. We renegotiate with our suppliers, review our processes and do the classic works. However, to emerge positively from COVID-19, we would still need customers and trade. Therefore, were not only cutting costs but also continue to invest in our products to generate more revenue, with a higher share, as the global flight market is currently smaller.

Recently, British Airways decided to retire its entire Boeing 747 fleet to push down costs amid the drop in flight occupancy. Will Qatar Airways retire some of its big aircraft?

What we decided to do is to ground the Airbus A380, the biggest aircraft in our fleet, as long as demand hasnt recovered. We dont want to use this aircraft on any routes during these conditions, because its not financially viable and environmentally friendly. However, we do not plan to retire our aircraft at this stage. In the case of British Airways, we think it's a good decision, because the Boeing 747 is a very old aircraft. Meanwhile, we have younger aircraft that are less than around five years old.

In late March, Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker said Qatar Airways would have to seek government support as the companys cash was thinning. Has there been any further discussion with the government on a possible rescue package?

Because we are able to generate cash during the crisis, weve been able to avoid going back to our shareholders for a capital injection at this stage, due to our credit lines and cash generated by our operations. However, Mr. Al Baker said clearly, like a normal company, we would have to go to our shareholders if the situation continues, in regards to a possible capital injection, but that has nothing to do with government subsidies.
The global conveyor belt market size is expected to grow by USD 1.38 billion as per Technavio. This marks a significant market growth compared to the 2019 growth estimates due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020. Moreover, steady growth is expected to continue throughout the forecast period, and the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4%. Request Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impacts

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Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Conveyor Belt Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Read the 120-page report with TOC on "Conveyor Belt Market Analysis Report by Type (Medium-weight, Light-weight, and Heavy-weight) and Geography (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and MEA), and the Segment Forecasts, 2020-2024".

https://www.technavio.com/report/conveyor-belt-market-industry-analysis

The market is driven by the increasing demand for automation in material handling. In addition, the rising demand for steel cord conveyor belts is anticipated to boost the growth of the conveyor belt market.

The global conveyor belt market is growing because of the increasing demand for automation in handling of materials. This is primarily because of the rising need to move bulky materials that vary in texture and size. Moreover, material handling requires a substantial amount of cost in a manufacturing unit. The use of an automated system like conveyor belts can reduce the overall cost by 10% to 30%. Thus, the demand for automated systems like conveyor belts is increasing, as conveyor belts reduce the effort of handling the materials.

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Major Five Conveyor Belt Companies:

Bando Chemical Industries Ltd.

Bando Chemical Industries Ltd. has business operations under various segments, such as automotive parts, industrial products, and advanced elastomer products. The company offers a wide range of products including synchronous and resin conveyor belts.

Bridgestone Corp.

Bridgestone Corp. operates its business through two segments: tire business and diversified products business. The company offers a wide range of steel conveyor belt, fabric conveyor belt, pipe conveyor belt, energy saving belt, and ready-made belt related equipment.

Continental AG

Continental AG has business operations under various segments, such as chassis and safety, interior components, powertrain components, tires, and ContiTech. The company offers a wide range of products and services including material handling, processing special belts, and conveyor services.

Daifuku Co. Ltd.

Daifuku Co. Ltd. operates its business under various segments, such as factory and distribution automation, e-factory automation, automotive factory automation, airport technologies, auto washing technologies, and Contec. The company offers various types of conveyors including chain conveyors for heavy cargo, roller-type conveyors for cases, accumulation conveyors, and inclined belt conveyors.

Emerson Electric Co.

Emerson Electric Co. has business operations under two segments: automation solutions and commercial and residential solutions. The company offers various types of conveyor monitoring systems and conveyor belt alignment switches.

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Conveyor Belt Type Outlook (Revenue, USD bn, 2020-2024)

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Conveyor Belt Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD bn, 2020-2024)

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With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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India's COVID-19 tally zoomed past 29 lakh, a day after it crossed 28 lakh, with a single-day spike of 68,898 infections, while the recoveries have increased to 21,58,946 on Friday pushing the recovery rate to over 74 per cent, according to the Union health ministry data.

IMAGE: A health worker in personal protective equipment collects a swab sample from a woman at a local health center to conduct tests for the coronavirus disease in Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo

The total cases of coronavirus infections mounted to 29,05,823, while the death toll climbed to 54,849 with 983 new fatalities being reported in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

Case fatality rate has declined to 1.89 per cent while the recovery rate has risen to 74.30 per cent.

There are 6,92,028 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which is 23.82 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7.

IMAGE: Health workers congratulate 1000th patient COVID19 recovered and discharged from Kaushalya Hospital in Thane. Photograph: ANI Photo

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a cumulative total of 3,34,67,237 samples have been tested up to August 20 with 8,05,985 samples being tested on Thursday.

Of the 983 fresh deaths, 326 are from Maharashtra, 116 from Tamil Nadu, 102 from Karnataka, 95 each from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, 53 from West Bengal, 36 from Punjab, 22 from Delhi, 16 from Gujarat, 12 from Madhya Pradesh, 11 each from Haryana and Rajasthan.

Nine fatalities each have been reported from Jharkhand, Kerala and Uttarakhand, eight each from Assam, Odisha, Telangana and Puducherry, seven from Chhattisgarh, six from Jammu and Kashmir, five from Bihar, four each from Himachal Pradesh and Tripura, two from Goa while Andaman and Nicobar Islands have registered one fatality each.

Of the total 54,849 deaths, Maharashtra has reported the maximum at 21,359, followed by 6,239 in Tamil Nadu, 4,429 in Karnataka, 4,257 in Delhi, 3,001 in Andhra Pradesh, 2,853 in Gujarat, 2,733 in Uttar Pradesh, 2,634 in West Bengal and 1,171 in Madhya Pradesh.

IMAGE: A healthcare worker stands outside a female ward to serve tea to COVID-19 patients at Common Wealth Village, in New Delhi. Photograph: Prabhat Mehrotra/ANI Photo

So far, 957 people have died of COVID-19 in Punjab, 921 in Rajasthan, 737 in Telangana, 578 each in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana, 492 in Bihar, 380 in Odisha, 286 in Jharkhand, 221 in Assam, 191 in Kerala and 187 in Uttarakhand.

Chhattisgarh has registered 168 deaths, Puducherry 137, Goa 126, Tripura 69, Chandigarh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands 31, Himachal Pradesh 23, Manipur and Ladakh 18 each, Nagaland eight, Meghalaya six, Arunachal Pradesh five, Sikkim three and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu two.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to co-morbidities.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.
HSE CEO Paul Reid at the Citywest Convention Centre as it prepared to take in Covid-19 cases.

Some outpatient care is being shifted to a Dublin hotel as hospitals continue to struggle with the effects of Covid-19 on services.

It emerged yesterday that some children's clinics will be held at the Citywest Hotel in Dublin.

The hotel is also being used as a drive-through centre for people who suffer from the eye condition glaucoma and need their eye pressure checked.

The infection control demands of Covid-19 have meant hospitals are operating with less space and see fewer patients in a day.

HSE chief operations officer Anne O'Connor told a briefing yesterday that the Citywest Hotel is also still being used to provide accommodation for people with the virus who cannot self-isolate at home and the recent rise in the disease has led to 174 rooms being filled again.

Outpatient waiting lists breached 600,000 for the first time in July and although there has been a recovery in the numbers of patients seen over the past month, following the downturn in activity due to Covid-19, it is still only at 92pc of the level it was at this time last year.

Ms O'Connor said there has been more headway made in reducing inpatient waiting lists for surgery.

Risk

Referring to residential and nursing homes she said just one was now in the red, or high-risk, zone.

Earlier it emerged that some people who are now testing positive for Covid-19 have been in close contact with up to 50 others.

The scale of the risk emerged amid fears about the resurgence of the virus and criticism of the HSE for delays in testing and tracing.

HSE chief Paul Reid said the recent spike in demand for tests, as well as the complexity in cases, including language difficulties, had led to a slowdown, but he said the delays have now been reduced again.

The median time from referral for a test to the tracing of contacts is now 2.3 days, down from 2.8 days.

It is quicker in hospital than in the community.

In one day last week 11,000 swabs were carried out.

However, Mr Reid conceded there are also outlier cases where people are left waiting days for a test or a result.

"The surge caused a strain to testing and tracing but we have good escalation processes in place," he said.

There was a 210pc increase in swabbing in recent weeks.

The number of contact tracing centres has now been scaled up to five after services were stood down while levels of the virus were low.

Claims by some academics that the system is falling apart are wrong and unhelpful, Mr Reid said.

Efficient testing and tracing systems account for around 15-20pc in the reduction of the transmission of the virus.

The main way of preventing transmission is people doing the basics, he insisted.

Serial testing is now being extended to include meat plants and direct provision centres.

An oversight group made up of experts, including industry representatives, has now been set up to overlook high-risk work settings.

Areas of weakness that need to be addressed include better occupational health supports, language barriers, cramped working conditions and shared facilities, as well as the area of sick pay, Mr Reid added.
Most of the nearly 15,000 medical institutions in Bangladesh mix biomedical waste  including gloves, masks, swabs and other items used for COVID-19  in with ordinary garbage, potentially endangering more than 1 million sanitation workers who lack training for managing infectious waste, according to labor leaders and experts.

In a report last week, The Lancet medical journal warned that improper handling of biomedical waste could aggravate the spread of the coronavirus disease in the South Asian country.

Bangladesh was already struggling with poor medical waste management before the COVID-19 pandemic and has now been hit hard by a sudden increase in the volume of medical waste, the British-based journal said in its report published Aug. 13.

Nirmal Chandra Das, the secretary general of Harijan Oikya Parishad, a group that represents trash sweepers across Bangladesh, said workers had not been trained to deal with medical waste even as they face hazardous conditions amid the viral outbreak.

About 1.5 million people are involved in collecting waste. Initially, many did not get any protective equipment despite the coronavirus pandemic, he told BenarNews. Later, some gloves and masks were supplied after we staged protests.

According to the PRISM Bangladesh Foundation, an NGO that works with hospitals across the country to manage their trash, more than 90 percent of private and public hospitals and clinics nationwide lack their own facilities to dispose of biomedical waste.

We are working only in six cities or towns out of 330 municipalities and 12 city corporations across Bangladesh. Medical waste is not treated separately in all those towns or cities except our six, Mazharul Islam, the coordinator for PRISMs medical waste management program, told BenarNews, adding that medical and ordinary waste were mixed together in most communities.

Md Mostafizur Rahman, one of the authors of the report in The Lancet and an environmental science instructor at Jahangirnagar University, called on government agencies to work together to address the issue.

It is urgent that the departments of environment, health and local government undertake collective initiatives to change the situation, but it is necessary they conduct extensive research before finalizing any decision, he told BenarNews.

The amount of medical waste in Bangladesh multiplies each day, according to the report in The Lancet.

In April 2020, at least 15,980 tons of waste from health care was generated across the country because of COVID-19, which has undoubtedly increased due to the increasing infection rate. Also, on average, 227 tons of medical waste are produced because of COVID-19 per day in Dhaka alone, it said.

The waste is a major concern, said one Bangladesh government official.

We have many schemes to address the issue, Md Jahirul Islam, additional secretary of the Local Government Division, told BenarNews but without elaborating.

The Lancet, meanwhile, reported that as many as 5.2 million people worldwide, including 4 million children, die each year from diseases related to unmanaged medical waste.

There might be a serious risk of spreading SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] if used masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment are not managed and disposed of properly. Additionally, household waste (tissues, masks, gloves) puts waste management workers at increased health risk, the report said.

As of Thursday, Bangladesh had confirmed almost 288,000 cases of the coronavirus disease and 3,822 deaths from it, according to the latest data from experts at U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

No safe system

The report in The Lancet noted that despite the introduction of Medical Waste Management and Processing Rules in 2008, Bangladesh does not have a safe system for disposing of biomedical garbage.

Mazharul Islam of the PRISM Bangladesh Foundation agreed with the report in the British journal that the nation lacks a proper system.

He said the government had established municipalities and city corporations without developing proper waste management systems despite the 2008 rules.

It is supposed to be a precondition to set up waste management for any city, but there is no such facility in major cities including Gazipur, Narayanganj and Savar in Dhakas outskirts, he said.

Rahman, the co-author of the report, said solid waste from COVID-19 treatments and tests should not be the governments only concern.

While the situation has been created due to negligence of the government, we are thinking only about solid waste, he said. Nobody looks into waste water released by hospitals being channeled to normal drains which is very dangerous.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has backed Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on leasing out the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises through public private partnership (PPP) for a period of 50 years.

After the Kerala government had opposed the Union Cabinet's approval to lease out the airport, Puri took to Twitter and said the state government did not qualify in Thiruvananthapuram airport's bidding process that was carried out in a transparent manner.

Also Read: Thiruvananthapuram airport privatisation | With state government against the move, Adani faces delay

Before the bidding process, the Centre and the Kerala government agreed that, if the KSIDC's bid came within the 10 percent range of the winning bid, it would be awarded the airport, Puri said in a series of tweets. However, since the difference between Adani's bid and KSIDC's bid was 19.64 percent during the bidding process, the former was qualified as the winner.

Throor, who represents the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, said the thread was quite accurate.

He said the Kerala government chose to participate in the bidding and started questioning after losing it, adding that the interest of travellers mattered, not of the government.



This thread is quite accurate. GoK chose to participate in the bidding,under rules they agreed,&after losing in the fair process,started questioning the very game they had chosen to play. What really matters is the interests of the travellers of Thiruvananthapuram,not the govt's. https://t.co/gm5Y0N5Zka

 Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 20, 2020

This thread is quite accurate. Government of Kerala chose to participate in the bidding, under rules they agreed, and after losing in the fair process, started questioning the very game they had chosen to play. What really matters is the interests of the travellers of Thiruvananthapuram, not the government's, tweeted Tharoor.

Earlier, Throor said that a private entity running the operations competitively is the only way this airport can flourish.

Tharoors comment came while the state Congress was opposing the move.

Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly Ramesh Chennithala of Congress described the decision as a "dictatorial act", which was unacceptable and should be resisted while state party chief Mullapally Ramachandran called the move 'deplorable'.

In February 2019, Adani Enterprises was declared the winner for six airports as it was the highest bidder. These airports were Ahmedabad, Mangalore, Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram.
Feasterville, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/21/2020 -- There are a few projects that business and property owners should never attempt on their own. At the top of this list is electrical work and inspections, which can quickly become dangerous and even deadly when performed incorrectly. A-1 Electric is proud to continue providing certified electrical repairs and electrical inspections in Montgomery County and beyond.



Many home and business owners assume that they can save money by performing their own electrical work. However, unprofessional electrical work isn't just incredibly dangerous  it can also cause more expensive damage to the property. In addition, untrained professionals don't have the credentials to administer an official inspection needed to complete certain changes to an electrical system.



A-1 Electric employs a full team of master electricians who have been serving the Philadelphia area since 1955. Their team is qualified to handle every type of electrical inspection, and they can safely complete any needed repairs safely and efficiently. Property owners who need an inspection can count on A-1 Electric to have an inspection professional at their door within 24 hours of their call.



Anyone who needs electrical repairs or an electrical inspection in Bucks County is urged to contact the team at A-1 Electric as soon as possible. Interested parties can get in contact with their team by paying them a visit online at https://www.a-1-electric.com/ and filling out a contact form. Property owners should note that, though A-1 Electric cannot act as both a repair service and an inspection on a single visit, they are more than happy to schedule multiple visits to meet every customer's needs.



About A-1 Electric

A-1 Electric is an organization of Electrical Inspectors and Master Electricians operating out of Feasterville-Trevose, PA. They service Bucks County, Chester County, Delaware County, Montgomery County, Philadelphia and all of Pennsylvania, with electrical underwriting, reintroduction of services, installation of electrical infrastructure and implementation of electrical equipment. They also offer complete electrical inspection and authorization consulting services certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, all local AHJs (Authorities Having Jurisdiction) and all PA electrical utilities.
Kamala Harris is the first black woman and the first American-Asian to accept a vice-presidential nomination.

On the third night of Democratic convention programming, Kamala Harris will accept the vice president's nomination on Wednesday. The convention was primarily focused on the accomplishments and priorities of Democratic women.

Senator Harris said, "I keep thinking about that 25-year-old Indian woman-all of five feet tall-who gave birth to me at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California." She added, "On that day, she probably could have never imagined that I would be standing before you now speaking these words: I accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States of America."

The night featuring appearances from Nancy Pelosi, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Hillary Clinton, was bittersweet and exciting. The event was a triumphant moment for Senator Harris, who made history the first woman of color to get a significant vice presidential ticket, as per TIME. However, history also reminds of many talented women who have sought political power since women seized the right to vote. At the same time, Harris's achievement shows how often power seemed to slip out of women's grasp.

Kamala Harris, California's junior U.S. senator, is the first black woman and the first South Asian nominated ever in a major ticket. Still, she is also the first Democrat from the west of the Rockies to run as vice president.

According to L.A Times, Harris stood before the elaborated display of U.S flags and signs for all 50 states wherein no crowd was on hand to cheer in the pandemic-limited event. Kamala framed the race between President Donal J. Trump and the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, in stark contrast.

Also, from USA Today, Kamala Harris, daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, said that she wants a nation where everyone is welcome, no matter what they look like, where they came from, or who they love.

On a live feed from Wilmington Del, Harris said, "Today, that country feels distant." The virtual convention was addressed as a reminder of the powerful force that women have become in the Democratic Party. And the limitations women still face also prevailed just what Hillary Clinton described as the "highest, hardest glass ceiling" after Clinton's loss in 2016.

Earlier in the convention, Clinton spoke about something that she described as "slings and arrows" that Kamala will face. "And, believe me, this former district attorney and the attorney general can handle them all," Clinton said.

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NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The 9/11 Memorial Museum in Manhattan will reopen to the public on Sept. 12, and to families of 9/11 victims on Sept. 11, after it was shuttered for months during the coronavirus pandemic, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum announced today.

The museums decision to reopen Sept. 12 followed backlash it received for canceling its annual Tribute in Lights display.

But the museum announced over the weekend it would be able to continue the annual tribute as planned thanks to help from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The museum said it plans to open five days a week and make a number of operational changes to provide a safe and healthy environment for all visitors and staff.

The museum said it will reduce its capacity to 25% to allow visitors to socially distance, revamp its opening hours to allow for staff to deep clean the museum and have visitors purchase tickets ahead of time for timed sessions to allow for adequate spacing.

However, certain parts of the museum will remain closed.

The museum also came under fire for calling off its annual name reading ceremony because of the pandemic.

The museum had said it would play pre-recorded names of the victims from its Memoriam exhibition rather than having family members go on stage and read the names of their loved ones as part of the annual ceremonial tradition.

But the Staten Island-based Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a nonprofit that honors fallen 9/11 firefighter Stephen Siller and other victims of the attacks, is planning to host a 140-person in-person reading near Ground Zero that day instead.

In a letter sent to board members of the museum this week, the head of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum said the organization was wrong to cancel the annual Tribute in Light, NY1 reported.

"We could have, and should have, approached this issue differently," 9/11 Memorial president and CEO Alice Greenwald wrote in a letter obtained by NY1.

Sources also told NY1 the 9/11 Memorial & Museum had financial concerns.

The Museum will be open Thursday and Friday from 12 to 7 p.m. and on Saturday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Museum will be closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER.
The Montgomery County commissioners approved a $348 million fiscal year 2021 proposed budget Friday while knowing that once certified property values are calculated the expected revenue could change.

In a 3-2 vote, commissioners agreed to approve the proposed budget as filed by the county budget office subject to amendments at a later date. The court will meet at 8 a.m. Aug. 27 to revisit the budget once the final property valuation numbers are certified. Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack and County Judge Mark Keough were the two nay votes.

Because the special meeting Friday stipulated the court would take action on the budget, the countys legal counsel explained it could not defer the item and instructed commissioners to take a vote.

The county recently learned a delay in the certified property values from the Montgomery Central Appraisal District forced many taxing jurisdictions, including Montgomery County, to push back adopting budgets and tax rates. The county had already set its dates for public hearings and adoption before the delay in the process due to the current COVID-19 pandemic was known.

Texas Property Tax Code requires an appraisal district to have 95 percent of the appraisal roll settled from protests in order to certify values by July 25. However, with the shutdown of the state and county, those protest were slowed dramatically as the Montgomery County Central Appraisal District was forces to work with limited employees.

Because of that, MCAD was unable to meet the 95 percent by that date.

Tony Belinoski, chief appraiser for the Montgomery Central Appraisal District, said his office had to delay the mailing of appraisal notices from April 1 to April 15 due to the stay at home ordered for the month by both the county and the state.

Like most entities, the county sets its tax rate based on the revenues generated by property taxes.

Tax Assessor and Collector Tammy McRae said MCAD officials expected to have 95 percent of the appraisal roll settled Friday with those numbers available Monday. While the final values wont change the calculated rates she provided taxing jurisdictions, revenues for those entities could likely change.

Noack said approving the proposed budget didnt make sense because a change in the revenue would mean an unbalanced budget. Noack pushed to defer the action.

What you have to do after a public hearing is take some action, said County Attorney B.D. Griffin. Deferring is not an action.

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.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
CHICAGO, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Dual Chamber Syringe (DCS) Filling Machine Market by Type (Automatic, Semi-Automatic And Manual), Application (Industrial Pharmacy And Hospital Pharmacy), and Region - Global Forecast To 2025", published by MarketsandMarkets, the global Dual Chamber Syringe (DCS) Filling Machine Market size is projected to grow from USD 258 million in 2020 to USD 381 million by 2025, at a CAGR of 8.2% between 2020 and 2025.

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Browse in-depth TOC on "Dual Chamber Syringe (DCS) Filling Machine Market"

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The growth is attributed to the growing biopharmaceutical industry, increasing production of lyophilized drugs and advancement in filling machine technologies.

Automatic type segment estimated to lead the dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine installed base market in 2019

The automatic segment accounted for the largest share in the overall dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine market. Automatic filling machines are used by companies with large-scale operations and high-production requirements. These types of machines are the Food and Drug Association (FDA) approved because most of the operations in automatic machines do not have human involvement, which decreases the chances of drug contamination

The industrial pharmacy estimated to be leading application of dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine

The industrial pharmacy led the overall dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine market in 2019, both in terms of value and volume. The reason for the industrial segment leading the market is it involves research, production, packaging, quality control, marketing, and sales of pharmaceutical goods. A dual chamber syringe is used for the delivery of two drugs or for the ease of use it provides with lyophilized injectable drug products. The pharmaceutical industry is looking to offer convenient products to patients for self-administration

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APAC projected to account for the largest share of the Dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine installed base market during the forecast period in terms of volume.

APAC is projected to have the largest share in the global dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine installed base market, in terms of volume, from 2020 to 2025. The growing aging population, significant medical device manufacturing capacity, growing per capita healthcare spending, and increased health awareness in the country are driving the market in the region.

Syntegon Technologies (Germany), Prosys Servo Filling Systems (US), Dara Pharmaceutical Packaging (Spain), TurboFil Packaging Machines (US) are the key players operating in the dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine market. New product developments are the major strategy adopted players to enhance their positions in the dual chamber syringe (DCS) filling machine market.

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MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions.

Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

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For more coverage, visit our complete coronavirus section here.

After more than three years of popping champagne bottles, The Riddler is saying goodbye to San Francisco.

On Friday, the stylish bar announced it would permanently close its San Francisco and New York City locations after struggling to stay afloat in recent months.

Unfortunately, even with an incredible support system, we realized we were losing more than we could sustain any longer, and we simply couldnt make it work, the message on Instagram read. You cant imagine how hard it is for us to say goodbye.

ALSO: Email to employees says Farallon Restaurant will close permanently

Owner Jen Pelka told Eater that her businesses began to feel the economic pressure in March just after the shutdown. Despite offering takeout and receiving a Paycheck Protection Program loan, both coastal bars were unable to make ends meet.

We just couldn't make the numbers work, Pelka told Eater.

Just before the coronavirus pandemic, The Riddler had regular business inside the tiny bar. Customers could select more than 100 champagne varieties on a menu that also included simple dishes. A self-serving popcorn machine was also on hand.

We loved serious Champagnes but didnt take ourselves too seriously: we paired our Champagne with burgers and tater tot waffles, served our caviar with potato chips, and offered free popcorn all day and all night, the message on Instagram read.

A draw to the space at 528 Laguna St. was the whimsical atmosphere and attention to detail. Hello, old friend, was printed in bold letters on circular tables while a large portrait of actress Jacqueline Bisset in the 1967 film, Casino Royale, drew customer attention upon entry.

When Pelka decided to open the champagne bar, she sought out investors that soon became an all-female-led-team. In 2017, Pelka, who also owns communications and marketing agency Magnum PR, told The San Francisco Chronicle that The Riddler was funded by 33 women.

ALSO: Oakland's Beauty's Bagel Shop taken over by Wise Sons

The Riddler thanked its team and guests in the Instagram post and indicated that champagne bottles at the San Francisco and New York would be available for pick-up at discounted prices. Later in the fall, The Riddler plans to auction tables, champagne buckets and other objects.

The Riddler is located at 528 Laguna St. in San Francisco

Susana Guerrero is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: Susana.Guerrero@sfgate.com | Twitter: @SusyGuerrero3

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The number of deaths thus far in Nigeria as a result of COVID-19 complications almost reached a thousand threshold on Thursday after seven people succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours.

Thursdays death tally took the total number of fatalities in the west African nation to 992.

Authorities have issued a fresh warning to citizens to take preventive measures against the coronavirus as the countrys death toll nears 1,000.

Figures show that Nigeria is sadly approaching the symbolic 1,000 number of fatalities, a grim reality that should be a wakeup call for us, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said Monday at a briefing in Abuja.

Nigerias total coronavirus cases surpassed 50, 00 on Wednesday.

Four hundred and seventy six new infections were recorded from the virus in the past 24 hours pushing the total number of confirmed deaths from the virus to 50,964.

This was disclosed by the NCDC, the agency heading Nigerias national response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the deadly pneumonia-like disease that has spread to over 200 countries, infecting more than 22 million.

Nigeria has been reporting cases below 500 for weeks, except Wednesday when 593 cases were found.

According to the NCDC data, there are still over 12, 000 active cases across the country.

A total of 37, 569 infected persons have recovered and have been discharged after treatment in the countrys 36 states and federal capital, Abuja.

READ ALSO:

The 476 new cases are from the following 18 states:

Lagos-235

FCT-44

Kaduna-41

Borno-33

Plateau-28

Abia-13

Edo-13

Rivers-12

Imo-11

Oyo-10

Kano-9

Kwara-7

Enugu-5

Katsina-5

Gombe-4

Ogun-4

Nasarawa-1

Zamfara-1

With more than half of the daily tally of over 200 Thursday, Lagos further stretched its lead on the number of infections to nearly 18, 000, about a third of the countrys total.

Earlier on Monday at the bi-weekly Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, announced that international flights will resume on August 29.

Local flights had resumed about a month ago as the country struggle to balance reopening its economy with fighting the contagion.
"Helping business build equity value by focusing on business impact first, technology second." - Rickie Richey, CEO

Inc. Magazine Unveils Its Annual List of Americas Fastest-Growing Private Companiesthe Inc. 5000

For the 4th Time, Altaworx Appears on the Inc. 5000, Ranking No. 2756 With Three-Year Revenue Growth of 146 Percent

Inc. magazine today revealed that Altaworx is No. 2756 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Helping Businesses build equity value by focusing on Businesses Impact first, Technology second.  Rickie Richey, CEO

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are also being featured in the September issue of Inc., available on newsstands August 18.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.

The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually from October 23 to 27, 2020. As always, speakers will include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.

About Altaworx

Altaworx, located in Fairhope, AL was founded in 2003 by Rickie Richey, with hopes of addressing the emerging demand for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business telephone systems. His vision was to build a company that not only provided leading-edge technology, but truly focused on helping customers drive revenue, control expenses, increase their productivity and operate more efficiently. In 2011, Altaworx continued to focus on customer impact through emerging technologies, becoming an internet telephony service provider (ITSP). The company began selling Altaworx branded SIP trunking and Hosted PBX to business customers in the 22 state AT&T footprint. Today, the company operates its cloud-based solutions from two AT&T data centers located in both Dallas, TX and Atlanta, GA. With a focus on empowering resellers to build equity value in their business, Altaworx continues to grow.

CONTACT: Rickie Richey, CEO 404-902-5650 or rrichey@altaworx.com

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media

The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit http://www.inc.com.

For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://conference.inc.com/.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has defended Washington's move to formally begin the process of activating a mechanism aimed at reimposing UN sanctions on Iran citing Iranian violations of a 2015 nuclear deal, which Washington exited in 2018.



Pompeo on August 20 submitted a letter to the president of the UN Security Council notifying him of Iran's "significant" noncompliance with the terms of the landmark accord.



The move marked the start of Washingtons bid to trigger the so-called "snapback" procedure, which is opposed by its European allies on the 15-member council.



"Our actions today too should come as no surprise to anyone," Pompeo told a news conference at the UN. "President Trump and this administration have discarded the fiction that the regime merely seeks a peaceful nuclear program."



As set out by the resolution enshrining the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers, a so-called snapback would reimpose UN sanctions that were eased in exchange for curbs on Irans nuclear program.



But the U.S. move faces opposition at the Security Council, where other members have questioned the United States right to do it since Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal more than two years ago and reimposed unilateral sanctions.



The United States claims it remains a "participant" in the accord because it was listed as such in the UN resolution that enshrined it.



Pompeo said it is very plain in the wording of resolution 2231, which enshrined the deal, that any signatory that finds Iran not in compliance has the capacity to request a snapback of the sanctions.



Its important to emphasize this: 2231 gave every one of the participant states the right to execute snapback unconditionally, Pompeo said, defending the U.S. move.

'Serious And Profound Crisis'



In a letter to the United Nations, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the U.S. has no right to trigger the reimposition of all UN sanctions on his country while calling on Security Council members to reject Washington's move.



"The U.S. push to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran will have dangerous consequences ... Iran has exercised restraint in good faith ... Now it is the international community's turn to counter the unlawful push by the United States," Zarif said in the letter.



Iranian state TV said the letter was sent to the head of the UN Security Council by Iran's UN envoy Majid Takhteravanchi, who said he was confident that the Security Council would reject the U.S. move.



"A permanent member of the Security Council is acting like a child, is being ridiculed by the other members of the international community," he told reporters.



Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on August 20 that the U.S. move to reinstate UN sanctions will lead to nothing while creating a very serious and profound crisis in the UN Security Council," according to Interfax.



France, Germany and Britain said they cannot support the U.S. move to restore United Nations sanctions on Iran, saying the action is incompatible with efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal.



"In order to preserve the agreement, we urge Iran to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay," the three nations said in a joint statement.

With reporting by Reuters, dpa, AFP, AP, Fox News, and Interfax
New Delhi: After the Supreme Court green signal to CBI in probing the death case of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, an SIT of officials from the crime branch began its investigation in Mumbai today.

The CBI, for the last three hours, is interrogating Sushant's cook Neeraj, who was present at the actor's residence when he died. According to sources, the CBI officials are keen on finding answers to what happened on the night before Sushant was found dead, i.e June 13, 2020.

They are quizzing the cook on questions like who all were present in the room of the Bandra house of the actor on June 13, for how long was the late actor with other people, how was his behaviour with the people around especially on the night before his death.

Also, the CBI is probing, did the actor eat his meals properly, at what time did he went to sleep, who was the first person to see Sushant Singh Rajput's body, did someone ask to get the body down, if yes then who was it?

When was the call to PCR made and who called? These are some of the crucial questions being asked to the cook by the CBI officials.

The CBI officials are interrogating the cook because he was one of the first persons who saw Sushant's body on June 14 and was present in the house. Also, his statements will help the CBI to recreate the death scene at the actor's Bandra pad. There is a possibility that the officials might take Neeraj along with them while enacting the whole recreation of the scene.

Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Bandra residence o June 14, 2020.
When the shooter showed up, 15-year-old Annebell Flores was on a play structure in an Oceanside park, talking to a close family friend.

Although she cannot be seen, surveillance video from the opposite side of the structure shows her friend suddenly take off running, chased by someone with a gun.

Flashes that follow are gunfire in the surprise attack, which happened about 2:30 a.m. in Balderrama Park on Sept. 3, 2016. A second assailant also ran into the frame. Annebell is not seen. But the shooting left her dead.

Pieces of the grainy video were played in a Vista courtroom Wednesday during a preliminary hearing for two suspected Oceanside gang members accused of taking part in the ambush shooting that killed the teenage girl.

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The defendants, 21-year-old Daniel Ramos and 20-year-old Elias Ramos, have pleaded not guilty to murder.

At the end of the hearing, Superior Court Judge Ronald Frazier found enough evidence to order both men to stand trial.

Both of the men have prior felonies linked to weapons possession, and both were prohibited from having a gun. They are suspected members of a gang that rivals the gang that claims the parks neighborhood as turf.

The two defendants, who are not related, are also accused of attempted murder for shooting at the 20-year-old friend who was with Annebell.

Annebells friend reluctantly took the stand and testified that he went to the park early that morning after an argument with his brother. At the park, he ran into the 15-year-old girl. The two talked as she sat on the play structure, on the edge of a climbing tube.

Gunfire came within minutes.

Annebell Flores (courtesy photo)

Responding police found Annebell wounded on the play structure. She died before she could be taken to a hospital.

Annebells death was the third homicide in or near Balderrama Park in the citys Eastside neighborhood in the summer of 2016.

The shooting of a teenage girl shook the area, a tight-knit, working-class community with a deep Latino heritage. The neighborhood has struggled with violence, some tied to gangs.

Annebells grandfather, Robert Espinosa, has made emotional pleas for an end to violence, a plea he repeated in the courthouse hallway Wednesday.

Lets steer kids away from gangs, he said. And if we cant steer kids, lets guide their parents.

But Espinosa said he fears that her death has not sparked enough action, and wants to see more free afterschool programs and offerings for kids in the city.

Im not going to let my granddaughter die in vain, Espinosa said.

As he spoke, Annebells aunt, Carla Flores, agreed.

There needs to be a solution for killing kids  and for kids killing kids, she said.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT

UPDATES:

5:20 p.m.: This story was updated to add the results of the hearing. It was initially published at 5:15 p.m.
LIVINGSTON COUNTY, MI  Two Massachusetts men blamed for a 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and caused 753 illnesses nationwide are heading to trial in Michigan on murder charges in 11 deaths.

Barry Cadden, 53, and Glenn Chin, 52, were bound over for trial Thursday, Aug. 20, by Livingston County District Judge Shauna Murphy who found there was enough evidence to proceed, according to a statement from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Both men face 11 counts of second-degree murder for the 2012 deaths of Livingston County residents Donna Kruzich, Paula Brent, Lyn Laperriere, Mary Plettle, Gayle Gibson, Patricia Malafouris, Emma Todd, Jennie Barth, Ruth Madouse and Karina Baxter.

The men, both pharmacists, are accused of manufacturing steroids through their company, the New England Compound Center, which Cadden owned and Chin supervised, leading to the widespread meningitis outbreak due to contamination.

Men blamed for deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak face murder charges in Michigan

The company specialized in combining drugs that carried a high contamination risk to produce the steroids they sold. Despite testing that repeatedly revealed the presence of mold or bacteria in rooms where the drug compounding occurred -- referred to as clean rooms -- the company fraudulently misrepresented the safety of their product, federal investigators have said.

During the their preliminary examination, prosecutors argued Cadden and Chin completely disregarded the required sterility procedures in the compounding of sterile medications and engaged in the creation of fraudulent cleaning records and falsified scientific testing results.

Putting profits ahead of concern for patient safety can have disastrous and tragic results, Nessel said. We look forward to the next step in the pursuit of justice for these victims and their families.

Evidence admitted at the hearing showed the victims were given epidural injections of the steroid methylprednisolone, which was compounded at the NECC in Massachusetts. The steroid was contaminated and resulted in each victim being injected with fungal meningitis, which led to their deaths, prosecutors said.

Cadden and Chin n are currently serving federal prison sentences in Pennsylvania for convictions associated with their producing and distributing of the botched drugs.

Cadden was sentenced to nine years in federal prison in 2017 on racketeering and mail fraud charges, while Chin was sentenced to eight years in 2018 on similar charges, court records show.

Their next court appearance has not yet been scheduled. They face a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.

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(Photo : Screenshot from Twitter post of @sana_k18) Two Amateur Students Discover The Closes Asteroid That Flew by the Earth (Photo : Screenshot from Twitter post of @6121EI) Two Amateur Students Discover The Closes Asteroid That Flew by the Earth

Two young students were able to identify an asteroid the size of SUV considered to be the closest neart-earth object that flewpast earth. It flew past the planet around 2,950km. The amateur students from the Indian Institutes of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) are included in an international collaboration aimed at searching for near-earth objects.

Asteroid makes closest fly-by of Earth on record - and NASA didn't see it until after the close shave.NASA said the space rock, known as asteroid 2020 QG, passed 1,830 miles (2,950 km) above the southern Indian Ocean. pic.twitter.com/bIXpYgt8q2  Hehe` (@sana_k18) August 19, 2020

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The asteroid called "2020 QG" is considered as the closest one that flew past the Earth without impacting the planet. Kritti Sharma and Kunal Deshmukh, who are part of a collaboration searching Near Earth Asteroids, used data from the robotic Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) located in California, to identify the celestial body just hours after it flew by the planet.

Also Read: NASA's Probe of Stubborn Air Leak in ISS Forces Crew to Sleepover in Russian Segment Over the Weekend

The ZTF data analysis was able to record five space objects, which is considered as "potential asteroids." However, scientists and other space researchers have no idea that one of the space bodies will be a record-breaking asteroid.

"The data looked like all other near-earth asteroids we have seen so far," said a final-year student in the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science at ITT-B, Deshmukh.

"Helping make a discovery like this, so early in my research project, is beyond what I had ever imagined," explained the third-year student of mechanical engineering, Sharma.

How the students' discovery was verified

The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center received the students' findings, followed by an observation using several global telescopes that identified the asteroid's orbit and size.

Asteroid 2020 QG the size of a car flew past Earth on August 16 without hitting our planet. The asteroid approached unnoticed from the direction of the Sun. pic.twitter.com/IOti3Br3h8  Elman (@6121El) August 20, 2020

Varun Bhalerao, the assistant professor of the Department of Physics of IIT-B and advisor of the students, explained that after they received the data, other independent observers still need to verify the information. When additional space experts confirmed the findings, it was discovered that the Earth's gravity changed the asteroid's orbit since it flew so close to the planet.

ZTF co-investigator Tom Prince, a senior researcher at JPL and the Ira S Bowen Professor of Physics at Caltech, said once a year, asteroids of the same size of 2020 QG also fly close the Earth. However, he added that these celestial bodies are mostly not detected.

For more news updates about space discoveries, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Also Read: DARPA's AlphaDogfight Trial's Final Round: Human F-16 Pilot Lost Against AI For the First Time

This article is owned by TechTimes,

Written by: Giuliano de Leon.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
For a self-described son of Scranton, Joe Biden sure has it out for the working people of Pennsylvania. Five decades in Washington will do that to a guy.

In Dunmore and Darby earlier this summer, Biden spelled out his vision for a post-pandemic American economy if hes elected president. With its heavy emphasis on moving us away from affordable and reliable energy  namely from natural gas, oil, and coal  the Biden energy plan is one that would leave Pennsylvanians jobless, America less energy secure, and more dependent on China.

The Biden plan is a one-two punch, with the first blow knocking out Pennsylvanias oil and gas jobs. Though he is now trying to distance himself from his rhetoric during the Democratic primary, Biden has been very clear that he will seek to ban any new hydraulic fracturing and implement a carbon pricing scheme (thats politician-speak for a national energy tax).

For those who dont know, fracking is key to unlocking the states plentiful oil and gas resources. Ban new fracking and tax existing operations and you end Pennsylvanias run of record-breaking energy production, along with putting some 600,000 Pennsylvania jobs in jeopardy. Tax energy and you tax everything in the economy, not to mention raise gasoline prices. Pennsylvanians already pay the second highest state gas taxes in the nation, just behind California.

Yet, the oil and gas industry need not worry, Biden insists. Good green jobs would await those forced into unemployment by his version of the Green New Deal. Americas workers, and unions in particular, are rightly skeptical.

A report by North Americas Building Trades Unions, a federation of 14 unions, suggests that entire trades are at risk of becoming obsolete in the proposed government transition to 100 percent wind and solar energy, as Biden would seek to implement. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May 2019, the average annual pay for gas and oil extraction workers was $96,600  twice that of solar panel installers and more than 50 percent higher than the average salary for a wind turbine technician. Pennsylvanias workers, unions included, would either be unemployed or forced to take massive pay cuts under Bidens energy plan.

The second blow in Bidens one-two punch is aimed at Americas energy security. Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the American oil industry, has a proud, iconic history of industrial might. The Commonwealth is a world leader in energy production, producing more natural gas than any state but Texas.

Pennsylvanias strength is Americas strength. As part of the wider shale revolution, the Marcellus basin has contributed to production gains that have made America the world leader in natural gas supply, a net oil and gas exporter, and a major player in the global liquefied natural gas trade. Thanks, in part, to Pennsylvania energy workers, the United States no longer needs to worry about energy security after decades of reliance on foreign imports. Biden would end all that.

Instead of capitalizing on the world-class energy resources that Pennsylvania has been blessed with, Biden wants to coax our economy towards costlier, less reliable renewable energy whose market is largely controlled by China.

Today, China continues to wield extraordinary command over the global trade of the critical minerals and manufacturing required for things like solar panels and electric vehicle batteries, the very technologies Biden wants to force upon American consumers.

Seventy percent of the worlds solar panels are made in China. Just one percent is made in the United States. Supply chain complexity means that ratio cant be re-balanced overnight. The challenge is just as daunting with respect to other wares needed for industrial-scale wind turbines and the batteries that power electric vehicles. The so-called energy transition means a transfer of power, jobs, and income from the U.S. to the Peoples Republic. In other words, just as we finally rid ourselves of dependence on the Middle East for our energy, Biden wants to hand our energy security over to China.

A forced energy transition that bars American companies from selling reliable energy products to the American people and shifts that demand to China is anything but positive. The Biden plan would take jobs from blue collar Pennsylvanians and transfer them to Chinas industrial pop-up cities while making energy more expensive for American energy consumers. In this case, the calculation is zero-sum; a win for Beijing is a loss for Pittsburgh.

Despite U.S. energy production potential being at an all-time high, the Biden energy plan would return us to the bad-old-days of foreign energy dependence and make us vulnerable to exploitation by a strategic rival. Bidens slogan is Build Back Better, but his with energy policies now firmly driven by his partys extreme left wing, his plan would be better described as Built by Beijing.

Thomas J. Pyle is the president of the American Energy Alliance (AEA), a not-for-profit that engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies at both the state and national level.
Tirupati:

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thursday offered prayers at the famous hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara at nearby Tirumala.

On arrival at the ancient shrine, Wickremesinghe and his wife Maitree were accorded a traditional welcome by the temple priests and functionaries, who later conducted them to the sanctum sanctorum of the 2000-year-old shrine, Chadalawada Krishnamurthy, Chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) told PTI.

The Sri Lankan Prime Minister and his wife together made an offering in the hundi (offering box) of the shrine, where they spent over 20 minutes, he said.

He was accompanied by Lankan ministers D M Swaminathan, Palani Digambaram and other officials during his 15-hour spiritual visit here.

After offering worship, Wickremesinghe was honoured with a sacred silk cloth besides the holy laddu prasadam and Theertham (celestial water) in a tiny bottle, while the priests, amid chanting vedic hymns, blessed him at the sprawling Rangamandapam in the temple, the Chairman said.

Wickremesinghe flew in to the Renigunta airport, 20 km from here, by a special chopper from Chennai on Wednesday evening and drove straight to the sacred hills.

After an overnight stay, the Lankan PM paid obeisance to Lord Venkateswara this morning and immediately left for Chennai to fly back to Sri Lanka, he said.

The last visit of Wickremesinghe to the temple in his capacity as Prime Minister was in 2002. Tight security arrangements were put in place here and at the airport.

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Kanye West's presidential run has met with confusion and concern: AP

Kanye Wests application for the presidential ballot in Wisconsin has been rejected by state election officials on the basis that he filed his papers late.

However, he may still be eligible to run in the state as a write-in candidate, provided he files the relevant documents by 20 October.

Mr Wests official application papers for the Wisconsin ballot were hand-delivered by an election lawyer, who reportedly walked into the Election Commission building a few seconds after the 5pm deadline on 5 August.

The commissions six-member panel that met on Thursday voted against allowing Mr West on the ballot by a margin of five to one. When youre late, youre late, said one the commissioners, rejecting the West campaigns argument that the deadline meant candidates could file at any time until 5:01pm.

The verdict not only deals another blow to Wests erratic campaign, but keeps him from acting as a spoiler in a critical swing state that Donald Trump won by fewer than 23,000 votes.

The West campaigns efforts to get on the ballot in different states have been highly quixotic, matching the overall tenor of the rappers bizarre stand.

Mr West only announced he was running on 4 July, too late to get his name on the ballot in several states. Less than two weeks later, a consultant hired by Mr West told New York Magazine that the campaign was over  just before the candidate filed to get on the ballot in Oklahoma.

Since then, he has filed papers in multiple states, though with mixed results. Having missed further states since he first began filing, his applications have fallen short not just in Wisconsin but in New Jersey and Illinois. It is unclear what effort he has made in California, without whose electoral votes it would be mathematically impossible for him to win the election.

However, the saga of Mr Wests ballot access efforts is less about the prospect of his winning the Oval Office and more a matter of how his presence on the ballot might affect the contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Story continues

With the presidents re-election campaign floundering in the polls, several recent reports have indicated that current and former Republican operatives have been helping Mr West apply for the ballot in various swing states.

In Wisconsin, the lawyer who delivered Mr Wests papers was Lane Ruhland, who has previously served as general counsel for the state Republican party and has been representing Mr Trumps campaign. After she dropped off Wests documents, she was hit with a conflict-of-interest complaint for working on behalf of both campaigns at the same time.

If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.

If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has expressed that YSR Cheyutha is taken up to empower women and to provide a stable livelihood to minorities. He added that implementing the scheme has been giving him immense satisfaction.

The Andhra Pradesh government has signed MoUs with corporate giants Reliance Retail, Jio and Allana group to partner with the state in carrying out the YSR Cheyutha, which is aimed at empowering women. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said that YSR Cheyutha is taken up to empower women and to provide a stable livelihood for the SC, ST, BC, Minorities women in the age group of 45 to 60 years and implementing the scheme has been giving him immense satisfaction.

Under YSR Cheyutha, Rs 18,750 would be given per annum for four years aggregating to Rs 75,000 benefiting about 23 lakh women and this year Rs 4.300 crores were disbursed. YSR Asara, to be launched next month, will benefit 9 lakh women self help groups and Rs 6.700 crores will be disbursed. The two schemes will bring self reliance among the women and Rs 11,000 crores would be spent for their economic empowerment and about one crore women will be benefited.

The state has already signed MoUs with Amul, HUL, Proctor & Gamble and ITC and is now partnering with Reliance, Jio and Allana Groups to provide more business opportunities for women and we have to work in this direction. Speaking on the occasion through video conference from Mumbai, Managing Director of Reliance Retail Limited, V Subramanyam said,  we are going forward for holistic development of small traders at local level. Banana crop from Andhra Pradesh has a great potential nationwide and this sector would be mutually beneficial.

Also Read: Nine trapped in fire at Srisailam Power plant in Telangana

Also Read: Andhra Pradesh: 14 people hospitalised after ammonia gas leak at milk dairy unit in Chittoor

The Chief Minister said that the State has set up Rythu Bharosa Kendras at every village Secretariat with all facilities for farmers from sale of seeds to e-cropping and storage facilities at mandal level along with food processing units and Janata Bazaars will be started to market the produce. The Reliance officials said that cold storage units and godowns will benefit farmers immensely.

CEO of Reliance Retail, Damodar Mall appreciated the YSR Cheyutha scheme and the steps being taken by the State for improving their livelihood and the post harvest measures will add value to the produce. The State is moving ahead in agriculture, horticulture and aqua sectors, he said.

Allana Group of Companies representative, who spoke from London, expressed his happiness for making women partners in the development process. We will provide the technical help and share our expertise and export the products though ports. It is necessary to bring innovative methods in packaging for value addition. We can share our expertise and complete the project with the cooperation of Andhra Pradesh government. The State is providing financial aid to women on a large scale and this will yield good results.

Reliance Retail will help women in running groceries retail shops and train them besides providing them provisions at competitive prices. Jio will provide a platform to connect the customer base with the women entrepreneurs. Allana group, which has expertise in food processing will help in the Dairy and animal husbandry. Ministers Peddireddy Ramchandra Reddy, Siridi Appal Raju, representatives of the Corporate companies and concerned officials participated in the meeting.

Also Read: Odisha: Waterlogging disrupts normal life in parts of Kalahandi post heavy rainfall
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Making it clear that it won't further postpone competitive examinations, the government on Friday said that over 75 % students who had registered for the Joint Entrance Examination (Main), scheduled between September 1 and 6, have already downloaded their admit cards.

This, said the government sources, is an indication that the majority of the students want the examination to be conducted as per the plan.

In a note, issued by the National Testing Agency under the Union education ministry, which is organising both JEE (Main) and NEET, authorities said that out of a total of 8,58,273 candidates for JEE (Main) 6,49,223 candidates have downloaded their admit cards.

JEE(Main) is also the screening test for admission into the Indian Institutes of Technology for which JEE(Advanced), set to be held on September 26 this year, is the final test.

The clarification from the Centre comes amid rising pressure to defer these examinations with Covid-19 cases rising. The Supreme Court, earlier this week, had dismissed a petition to get these tests, which determine the future of lakh of students, postponed.

ALSO READ | IIT-Madras ranked top innovative educational institute

The note circulated by the government on Friday also said that among JEE(Main) aspirants, 99.07% candidates have been given their first choice and so far, only 120 candidates have requested for a change in centre cities allotted to them, which is being looked into sympathetically.

It added that in order to help the candidates, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Testing Agency had provided an option to candidates of JEE (Main) to change their centre cities five times, and 63,931 candidates had availed this benefit.

Similarly, in NEET, the option for candidates to change their centre cities was given five times, and about 95,000 candidates have availed the facility.

The admit cards for entrance into medical and dental colleges, which is planned for September 13, are scheduled to be released in a few days.

Out of the total of 15,97,433 candidates who have signed up for NEET, 99.87 % candidates are being given the first choice when it comes to the city they have preferred, said the government.

It also stressed that elaborate arrangements have been made to sanitise the centres before and after the conduct of the examinations, give fresh masks and, on-demand hand gloves based on the comprehensive guidelines for centre management in view of COVID-19 pandemic.

These guidelines have been made on the lines of the standard operating procedures, issued by the education ministry.

ALSO SEE:
Texas Christian school plans to hold in-person classes despite county ban

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A Christian school in Texas plans to hold in-person classes with social distancing measures despite a county-wide ban on in-person public and private school classes to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

Laguna Madre Christian Academy in Port Isabel, a K-12 school, intends to resist an order enacted by officials in Cameron County, with the stated plan to reopen on Aug. 31 for in-person instruction.

Jeremy Dys of the First Liberty Institute, a legal nonprofit that represents the academy, sent a letter on Tuesday to Cameron County Chief Legal Counsel Juan Gonzalez about the matter.

LMCA certainly appreciates the delicate situation presented by COVID-19, wrote Dys. Nonetheless, we must insist that Cameron County respect the laws and fundamental freedoms of this state and nation.

Dys cited guidance issued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in July stating that private schools are exempted from orders closing in-person public school instruction.

We need not restate General Paxtons legal analysis, nor the copious citations he made to cases from the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Texas that outline a fundamental principle that cannot be neglected, even in the face of a worldwide pandemic, continued Dys.

 private, religious institutions retain the freedom to determine when it is safe to resume in-person meetings or instruction, not the State of Texas, nor Cameron County. Cameron Countys order must yield.

The academy plans to implement public health measures, including limiting the facility to students and essential staff, checking temperatures and wearing facemasks.

Last Thursday, Gonzalez rejected the Academys plan to reopen and rejected the guidance provided by Paxton earlier this year.

Cameron county is of the opinion that Paxtons guidance is not grounded in legitimate or correct legal analysis, wrote Gonzalez, as reported by local media outlet KVEO. Further, it is nothing more than an opinion and does not have controlling legal authority over the situation.

In his July 17 letter to private schools, Paxton argued that even if a county government has a compelling interest to shut down schools, blanket government orders closing all religious private schools are not the least restrictive means of achieving that interest.

Thus, as protected by the First Amendment and Texas law, religious private schools may continue to determine when it is safe for their communities to resume in-person instruction free from any government mandate or interference, Paxton wrote. Religious private schools therefore need not comply with local public health orders to the contrary.

Dys told KVEO that if the county decides to take action against the school, well have no choice but to make a very vigorous defense.

The law is fairly clear on this, while the county can certainly ask and make requests, and provide good information useful to the decision-making process of these religious institutions, [the schools] are entitled to a degree of autonomy under Supreme Court law and in the law of the state of Texas as well, Dys said.

Dys' letter comes as religious schools in California have filed a lawsuit over Gov. Gavin Newsom's order that closes both public and private schools in California as part of the state's continued lockdown in response to the novel coronavirus.



In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan issued an emergency order earlier this month clarifying that private schools are exempt from orders mandating the closure of schools until October.
The opposition leader's transportation to Germany for further treatment remains in jeopardy.

Alexei Navalny, Russia's prominent opposition figure who was hospitalized on August 19 after what appears to be a severe poisoning, has in his body a substance that may potentially be hazardous to those around him, police told the politician's team.

Hazmat suits are reportedly required to approach Navalny, Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.

Read alsoNavalny in coma, massive police presence in hospital"Ivan Zhdanov [chief of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund] came out to the press and said that a police officer in the hospital had just told him the poison was found in Alexei's body that is hazardous not only to him, but also to those around him," the spokesperson wrote.

According to Zhdanov, a representative of transport police refused to name the substance in question. "(We ask): What substance? She says: This is the investigation secret, we can't tell, but this is a deadly substance. This substance poses a threat not only to Alexei's life, but also to those around him. Everyone around should wear hazmat suits," said Zhdanov.

Later, Team Navalny explained that the transport police had initially come to the medical facility to help transport the poisoned politician.

Now his transportation is in jeopardy as doctors say his condition is unstable.

Navalny poisoning: background
Iran Says Ships Seized, Fishermen Killed In Gulf Incident With U.A.E.

By RFE/RL August 20, 2020

Iran says it has it seized a United Arab Emirates ship for violating its territorial waters earlier this week and that U.A.E. coastguards killed two Iranian fishermen on the same day.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry made the announcement on August 20 amid rising tensions between the Gulf countries following last week's announcement that the U.A.E. had agreed to normalize ties with Tehran's archrival, Israel.

"On Monday, an Emirati ship was seized by Iran's border guards and its crew were detained due to illegal traffic in our country's waters," Iranian state TV quoted the ministry as saying in a statement.

"On the same day, U.A.E. guards shot dead two Iranian fishermen and seized a boat," the ministry said, adding that it had summoned the U.A.E. charge d'affaires in Tehran to protest.

Emirati officials have not yet commented on the incident.

State news agency WAM reported on August 17 that U.A.E. coastguards had tried to stop fishing boats that had violated the country's territorial waters.

It did not report any casualties.

Israel and the U.A.E. announced on August 13 that they were establishing full diplomatic relations in a U.S.-brokered deal, which included an Israeli pledge to suspend its controversial plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

Iran has condemned the deal, with President Hassan Rohani calling it a "huge mistake."

The remarks were seen as "threats" by the U.A.E. which on August 16 summoned the Iranian charge d'affaires in Abu Dhabi in protest.

The next day, U.A.E. Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash said the agreement to normalize ties with Israel was a "sovereign decision" that is "not directed" at Iran.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/30793906.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Editors Note: Welcome to Inside Out, our weekly roundup of stories about Staten Islanders of all ages who are making waves, being seen, supporting our community and just making our borough a special place to live. Have a story for Inside Out? Email Carol Ann Benanti at benanti@siadvance.com.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Dr. David Mostafavi has been named Richmond University Medical Centers chair of ophthalmology. Dr. Mostafavi is board certified member of the American Board of Ophthalmology, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

Dr. Mostafavi brings impeccable credentials to our robust team of physicians, said Daniel J. Messina, the president and chief executive officer of RUMC. His expertise in the field of ophthalmology will take our comprehensive eye and vision care services to a level never before achieved at the hospital. Were excited to have him at the helm of our ophthalmology department where he and the team will make tremendous strides in improving the health of our communities.

Dr. Mostafavi received his medical degree from New Jersey Medical School (Rutgers) and completed his ophthalmology residency at SUNY Downstate where he was named administrative chief resident by the faculty his last year.

While a resident, he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) medical society.

After residency, he extended his training with a fellowship in Ocular Immunology and Uveitis at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary under the guidance of Dr. Michael Samson and Dr. Sanjay Kedhar, both recognized leaders in the fields of ocular inflammation and corneal disease.

He also has spent the last five years teaching cataract surgery to ophthalmology residents.

This is an opportunity to transform the hospitals advanced eye and vision care center into more of a private practice style center where patients are treated in a timely manner with exceptional physicians who have access to the latest technology, Dr. Mostafavi said. We are also starting to train ophthalmology residents which we havent done in a long time.

Richmond University Medical Centers Advanced Eye and Vision Care Center provides a full range of ophthalmology services for patients of all ages. The center is located inside the main hospital at 355 Bard Ave. in West Brighton. To make an appointment, call 718-818-4848 or visit www.rumsci.org/ophthalmology.

DR. RITA SHATS RECEIVES BOARD CERTIFICATION

Dr. Rita Shats has achieved board certification in pediatric and adolescent gynecology, making her the first obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) physician on Staten Island to achieve the specialized certification from the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). It also is the third board certification in the field of OB/GYN for Dr. Shats.

Dr. Rita ShatsStaten Island Advance

Board certification in pediatric and adolescent gynecology recognizes a physician who possesses the appropriate skill set and understanding of common and complex health issues that are unique to both the pediatric and adolescent patient populations, said Dr. Michael Cabbad, chair of RUMCs OB/GYN department.

According to the ABMS, the board certification process was created more than 100 years ago to provide a comprehensive evaluation of a physician specialists experience, knowledge and skills. The process also ensures that physicians are meeting the highest standards set by their peers practicing in a medical specialty.

FYI: Certification represents specialty-specific training beyond a physicians medical licensure  and a voluntary process that demonstrates a physicians commitment to meeting a higher standard. In addition to graduating from medical school, board certified physicians have completed additional years of training at accredited programs and have passed examination by an ABMS member board.

Continuity of care is of the highest importance to me, Dr. Shats said. I was always taught as a medical student not to refer patients, but to take care for them by providing the most complete care possible. To be able to be there for my patients from birth, through adolescence, to adulthood and then retirement age means I can provide the most comprehensive care, in one office, allowing my patients to stay on Staten Island throughout their lives.

Certification in pediatric and adolescent gynecology is the third ABMS certification for Dr. Shats. She is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology as well as cosmetic gynecology.

As a physician it is important to always move ahead, to grow and to continue to develop as the healthcare around us changes, she adds. The more knowledge and training I have, the more valuable and helpful I become for my current and future patients.

For over a decade, Dr. Shats has helped bring over 3,000 new lives into the world over the span of her career. In addition to her board certifications, she is also the first female physician at Richmond University Medical Center trained to perform robotic surgeries.

She received her medical education at Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica, West Indies and graduated as a chief resident from the former St. Vincents Medical Center, now Richmond University Medical Center.

A fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Shats is also RUMCs associate director of gynecology, and director of the hospitals family planning clinic. She serves as assistant director of the OB/GYN residency program, and clerkship director for American University of Antigua and St. George University School of Medicine. She is also an associate professor at New York Medical College.

In addition to providing services at RUMC, Dr. Shats is a partner at PBS OB/GYN Associates, which has offices on Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. PBS OB/GYN Associates can be reached at 718-273-5500 and at www.myfavoritegyn.com.
Nicole Hemmer Brayden Harrington, the young teen who bonded with Biden over their shared stutter. He delivered a moving speech that reminded viewers that when Biden was publicly humiliated as a child, it deepened his compassion. Hard to imagine a sharper contrast with the current president.

Liz Mair Possibly, just possibly, politicians will have learned tonight that featuring nonpoliticians works better than spotlighting the career officeholders and candidates. They shined: Brayden Harrington, the Biden family, the Currys, the World War II vet, the rabbi. The politicians bombed: Keisha Lance Bottoms, Gavin Newsom, Tammy Baldwin  even Pete Buttigieg failed to stand out.

Daniel McCarthy The overemphasis on the nominees family this last night of the convention made it feel like Biden is running for grandpa, not president. Its a sign of how weak Biden and his program are: His campaign depends on sentiment, Covid-19 and Trump.

Melanye Price Biden was eloquent on issues of race, on the pandemic, on the economy and on the discomfort and uncertainty Americans are feeling. He understands the emotional appeal in elections. If he can maintain this level of emotion and discipline and effectively deploy Kamala Harris to attack Trump, there is a good chance he will win.

Mimi Swartz The nasty humor of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Sarah Cooper was a bracing reminder that niceness isnt always the best way to get your points across. Ditto the return of the Chicks. Democrats, enough with the empathy. Time to put up your dukes.

Hector Tobar The Democrats gambled big that they can rebuild the big tent of the party on the foundation of Joe Bidens humanity. Millions more of us can now recite the details of his remarkable family and political biography. But the party passed on putting forth concrete (and contentious) policies to shape a post-Trump world.

Peter Wehner Senator Coons spoke comfortably about faith, including Bidens Catholic faith; so did others throughout the D.N.C. Jon Meacham spoke eloquently about the soul of America. The military was celebrated throughout the evening. This was not a left-wing culture war convention; quite the opposite. It was meant to reassure Middle America, and I imagine it did.

Will Wilkinson The theme of the night, and the convention as a whole, was Joe Biden is a good dude who cares. If anyone who didnt already believe it bothered to watch the Democratic National Convention, they probably believe it now.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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About the authors

Jamelle Bouie and Gail Collins are Times columnists.

Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) is a playwright, lawyer and contributing opinion writer.

Elizabeth Bruenig (@ebruenig) is a Times Opinion writer.

Nicole Hemmer (@pastpunditry) is an associate research scholar at Columbia University and the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.

Liz Mair (@LizMair), a strategist for campaigns by Scott Walker, Roy Blunt, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry, is the founder and president of Mair Strategies.

Daniel McCarthy (@ToryAnarchist) is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Quarterly.

Melanye Price (@ProfMTP), a professor of political science at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, is the author, most recently, of The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race.

Mimi Swartz (@mimiswartz), an executive editor at Texas Monthly, is a contributing opinion writer.

Hector Tobar (@TobarWriter), an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine, is the author of Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free and a contributing opinion writer.

Peter Wehner (@Peter_Wehner), a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, served in the previous three Republican administrations, is a contributing opinion writer and the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson), the vice president for research at the Niskanen Center, is a contributing opinion writer.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Congress on Friday flayed the Election Commission of India (ECI) over its guidelines for conducting elections and bypolls during the coronavirus pandemic, questioning the use of EVMs despite the party's suggestion to opt for paper ballots.

The opposition party said the guidelines have fallen "far short" for the conduct of free, fair and independent elections amid the coronavirus outbreak.

"The ECI guidelines clearly fail these principal tests, thereby negating the constitutional obligation of superintendence and control of elections in a non-partisan and unbiased manner.

"The simple question to ponder over is -- if our elections cannot be conducted fairly, how will adult franchise and majority mandate, the lifeblood of our democracy, be effectively upheld," asked AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal.

The Congress alleged that the ECI had "overlooked" almost all the suggestions given by the party and that the guidelines were inadequate in dealing with the Covid-19 challenges.

One of the Congress suggestions was to replace Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with paper ballots.

"The ECI has completely failed to address this concern, instead opting to passively state that EVMs and VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail) machines will be sanitised. As the last six months have established, this is not a foolproof measure," Venugopal said.

He contended that there is no distinction between rural and urban areas for the purpose of holding elections, raising questions over putting the responsibility of adherence to the Disaster Management Act on the voters and political activists.

Venugopal claimed it had the potential for "abuse by the ruling party", which controls policing machinery.

"In case the ECI falters in this bounden duty (of holding free and fair elections), the consequences for democracy will be catastrophic," the Congress leader warned.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Barcelona boss Ronald Koeman has recommended former Manchester United winger Memphis Depay to the club's board as a potential recruit this summer, according to reports in Spain.

The 26-year-old scored 15 goals and recorded two assists for Lyon during the 2019/20 season and recovered from a serious knee injury to form part of the side that reached the Champions League semi-finals.

Ajax star Donny van de Beek and Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum have also been linked with a move to the Nou Camp, but RAC1 claim their compatriot Depay now also features as a shock name on a list of potential targets.

Ronald Koeman has recommended Lyon forward Memphis Depay to the Barcelona board

Former Holland boss Koeman became the new head coach of Barcelona earlier this week

The forward was an essential part of the Holland side managed by Koeman until he was announced as Quique Setien's replacement at the club earlier this week, and with 10 goals in 18 games he is now reportedly his former manager's primary target in attack this summer.

The 26-year-old has also developed into the star attacking player at Lyon  netting 53 goals in 136 appearances after a torrid time at Manchester United.

He scored just seven goals in 53 appearances for the Old Trafford club before joining the Ligue 1 side in 2017.

Depay, 26, thrived up front under the former Everton boss for the Dutch national side

Depay was part of the Lyon side that recently reached the Champions League semi-finals

Barcelona too may need a new forward this summer if Luis Suarez does depart the club, with former side Ajax heavily linked.

Depay is also set to depart Lyon after they failed to claim a European spot next season despite their excellent Champions League run.

He has a contract until 2021 with the French side and reportedly has an asking price of 49million (55m), which could be lowered due to the lack of time left on his deal.
KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine: Former President George W. Bush on Friday backed Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine in his first public endorsement of the 2020 election cycle.

Bush has largely stayed out of the political fray since he left the White House in 2009, and his endorsement is a welcome boost for Collins, who is waging her most difficult campaign yet as she seeks a fifth term. The centrist senator has become a top target for Democrats, who cast her as an enabler of President Donald Trumps agenda, even as she occasionally tries to distance herself from his more controversial statements and policies.

That national attention has helped Collins opponent, Democrat Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, amass a sizable cash advantage.

The nod from the former president, whose politics appear centrist by Trump-era standards, may nudge some traditional Republicans into Collins corner. Trump has not endorsed the Maine senator, whose race is among a handful critical to Republicans hopes of keeping control of the Senate, where they have a 53-47 advantage.

Collins, meanwhile, has not said whether she intends to vote for Trump.

The endorsement is a rare move for Bush. While he has done some private fundraisers for candidates since leaving office, this is his first show of public support for a candidate this year, his office said.

Collins worked with Bush when he was president and served as the first chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Back then, Collins served alongside another Republican from Maine, Olympia Snowe, who has since retired from the Senate. Collins is now the only Republican member of Congress from New England.

Bushs family has long had a compound in Kennebunkport, where his father, former President George H.W. Bush, spent much of the year until his death in 2018. The younger Bush has increasingly spent time at the home.

Collins has been popular in Maine, but Democrats were incensed when she voted for Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court and for Trumps tax breaks.

Democrats view unseating Collins this fall as a key to retaking control of the Senate, and Gideon drew early support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Gideon already has raised more than $24 million, compared with more than $16 million for Collins. That doesnt include $3.8 million for Gideon that was crowd-sourced by critics of Collins during the Kavanaugh debate.

Gideon also has picked up a number of endorsements from groups that previously backed Collins: the Human Rights Campaign and the Maine State Council of Machinists, for example. The Planned Parenthood Victory Fund, which was neutral in Collins 2014 race, is backing Gideon.

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Hong Kong: Catering subsidy scheme boosted

The Food & Environmental Hygiene Department today announced that it will enhance the Catering Business (Social Distancing) Subsidy Scheme to help those who are eligible but have not submitted applications for the first tranche of the subsidy.

Eligible licence holders of general restaurants, light refreshment restaurants, marine restaurants and factory canteens may submit their applications from August 25 to September 14.

The second tranche also covers food licence holders who have obtained the first tranche of the subsidy from the Employment Support Scheme (ESS) but do not intend to apply for the second tranche of the ESS subsidy.

The applicants must still be in operation.

Upon approval, the department will provide subsidies ranging from $125,000 to $1.1 million to eligible licence holders to support the payment of employees' salaries from September to November this year, according to the premises floor areas.

Applicants who have received the first tranche of the catering business subsidy only need to submit all necessary documents in accordance with the requirements of their original applications.

The department will disburse the second tranche of the subsidy upon completing the vetting procedures.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll. And half the dead were people of colour  Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognized until now, Asian Americans.

The new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight a stark disparity: Deaths among minorities during the crisis have risen far more than they have among whites.

As of the end of July, the official death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 was about 150,000. It has since grown to over 170,000.

But public health authorities have long known that some coronavirus deaths, especially early on, were mistakenly attributed to other causes, and that the crisis may have led indirectly to the loss of many other lives by preventing or discouraging people with other serious ailments from seeking treatment.

A count of deaths from all causes during the seven-month period yields what experts believe is a fuller  and more alarming  picture of the disaster and its racial dimensions.

People of colour make up just under 40% of the U.S. population but accounted for approximately 52% of all the excess deaths above normal through July, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization covering the criminal justice system.

The toll of the pandemic shows just how pervasive structural racism is, said Olugbenga Ajilore, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, a public policy organization in Washington.

Earlier data on cases, hospitalizations and deaths revealed the especially heavy toll on Black, Hispanic and Native Americans, a disparity attributed to unequal access to health care and economic opportunities. But the increases in total deaths by race were not reported until now; nor was the disproportionate burden on Asian Americans.

With this new data, Asian Americans join Blacks and Hispanics among the hardest-hit communities, with deaths in each group up at least 30% this year compared with the average over the last five years, the analysis found. Deaths among Native Americans rose more than 20%, though that is probably a severe undercount because of a lack of data. Deaths among whites were up 9%.

The toll on Asian Americans has received far less attention, perhaps in part because the numbers who have died -- about 14,000 more than normal this year -- have been far lower than among several other groups. Still, the 35% increase in Asian American deaths is the second-highest, behind Hispanic Americans.

In an average year, somewhere around 1.7 million people die in the United States between January and the end of July. This year the figure was about 1.9 million, according to the CDC.

Of the possible 215,000 additional deaths above normal through July -- a total that has since risen to as many as 235,000 - most were officially attributed to coronavirus infections. The rest were blamed on other causes, including heart disease, high blood pressure and other types of respiratory diseases.

The CDC has not yet provided a breakdown by race and ethnicity of the deaths from other causes. The newly released data is considered provisional and subject to change as more information comes in. Certain categories of deaths  suicides or drug overdoses, for example  often involve lengthy investigations before a cause is assigned.

The outbreaks disproportionate effect on communities of colour is not limited to a specific region of the country.

The virus first hit urban areas on the East and West coasts. But according to University of Minnesota researcher Carrie Henning-Smith, disparities have also been seen as the disease spread across the country to Southern and Western states with large rural populations.

For example, Arizona reported almost 60% more Native American deaths so far this year compared with previous years, and New Mexico recorded over 40% more. Between the two states, over 1,100 more Native Americans have died than normal.

Another surprise: Only about half of the Asian American deaths have been officially linked to COVID-19, lower than for all other groups. Jarvis Chen, a lecturer at Harvard Universitys public health school, said Asian Americans may not be getting tested at the same rate as other groups, for reasons that are unclear, and that could result in some virus deaths being attributed to something else.

Dr. Namratha Kandula of Northwestern University echoed that theory. She also cautioned against generalizing about the underlying health of Asian Americans as a whole, noting that they are a diverse group from many different nations and cultures.

Its not enough to clump them all together because it does not tell the whole story, she said.

Charlton Rhee, whose parents came to the U.S. from South Korea, lost both of them to COVID-19 this spring as the virus surged in New York City.

His mother, Eulja Rhee, went out one day, and when she returned, she told me someone had coughed in her face as she was getting off a bus, said Rhee, a nursing home administrator in Queens. She was wearing a mask, but it got into her eyes.

She died in the hospital, just shy of her 75th birthday.

Rhee found out a day later that his father, Man Joon Rhee, had tested positive. He had caught it from my mother, he said. His heart was broken. And he said to me that he wanted to know if it was OK to be with Mom.

He stayed home, receiving hospice care, and died at 83.

The Asian American community has suffered greatly during this, and government officials provided little help, especially initially, Rhee said. Community associations had to step in with food drives, personal protective equipment and other help.

Racial disparities in deaths predate COVID-19, and many forces combine to produce them:

 Some communities of colour are more likely to have lower incomes and to share living space with larger families, increasing the risk of transmission.

 They have higher rates of health problems, including diabetes, obesity and lung ailments, the result of living in places where healthier foods are harder to get and the environment is polluted. Those same factors can make them more likely to become severely ill or die from the coronavirus.

 They are more often uninsured and tend to live farther from hospitals.

 They are disproportionately incarcerated, which has been linked to long-term effects on health.

 Experts point to a long history of discrimination that causes distrust of the health care system.

 And people of colour are more likely to fill essential roles that require them to keep going to work during the pandemic.

Dr. Sobiya Ansari, who works predominantly with Black immigrant cancer patients in New York City, worries when they miss or postpone radiation or screenings. Already, the city has seen double the number of Black deaths this year compared with previous years.

If a storm hits and youre safe inside your house, youre safe, she said. Then there is a population of people that dont even have umbrellas. The storm hits, and theyre just really swept away.

___

AP video journalist Marshall Ritzel contributed to this story.

___

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and The Marshall Project that explores the true toll of the coronavirus pandemic on communities of colour. Anna Flagg and Damini Sharma reported for The Marshall Project.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Donald Trump said Barack Obama could not be considered a great president because he had undone many of the polices his predecessor had introduced during his time in office.

"President Obama, they say he was a great president  but you can't be a president when much of what he's done we've undone," Mr Trump said.

His words came during a campaign visit to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, two days after Mr Obama gave a speech during the Democratic National Convention painting Mr Trump as a dire threat to the future of America.

"I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care," Mr Obama said.

He continued, suggesting Mr Trump is incapable of personal or ideological growth.

"But he never did. For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves," Mr Obama said. "Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't."

The animosity between Mr Trump and Mr Obama extends to the dawn of Mr Obama's presidency, when Mr Trump promoted the conspiracy theory that Mr Obama wasn't a natural born American.

In 2011, Mr Trump began appearing on talk shows after suggesting during the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was considering a presidential run. During his appearances, he began challenging Mr Obama to produce a birth certificate to prove he was born in the US.

"I want him to show his birth certificate. There is something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like," Mr Trump said during an appearance on The View.

In more recent days, Mr Trump has launched similar birth place centred conspiracy theories aimed at undermining Senator Kamala Harris and even a bizarre theory that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wasn't born in Pennsylvania.

Mr Trump claimed Mr Biden wasn't born in Pennsylvania because he moved out of the state as a child with his family, accusing him of "abandoning Scranton".

As for Mr Trump's claim that his administration has undone much of what Mr Obama did during his time in office, he has attempted to dismantle two of his predecessor's most notable programmes  the Affordable Care Act. known as Obamacare, and the DACA programme  but he has as yet been unsuccessful in his endeavours.

The US Department of Justice under Mr Trump's administration along with 18 Republican led states, have asked the US Supreme Court to strike down the ACA, alleging it is illegal in its entirety. A counter-suit led by 17 Democratic states to preserve the programme will be heard by the Supreme Court in California v Texas.

The Supreme Court also thwarted Mr Trump's attempts to dismantle the DACA programme.

This provides a pathway for individuals brought to the US illegally as children to work and live in the country. It does not provide a pathway to citizenship, but it does prevent them from being deported so long as they do not violate the programme's terms.

DACA has protected more than 800,000 recipients, known as Dreamers, from being deported.

The Supreme Court rejected Mr Trump's attempt at dismantling it, ruling the administration did not present convincing evidence that the policy violated the US Constitution.

However, Mr Trump has overturned dozens of environmental protections instituted by his predecessor. On the world stage he has withdrawn from both the Iran nuclear deal, which aimed to delay the Islamic Republic's alleged efforts to build a nuclear weapon, and from the Paris climate deal.

The former British ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, was withdrawn from DC in 2019 after some of his cables home were leaked. Along with descriptions of chaos at the White House, the papers revealed claims that Mr Trump had withdrawn from the multinational Iran deal in order to spite Mr Obama's legacy.
Direct Insurance Group has appointed Simon England to business development manager for its Lloyds broker division, Direct Insurance London Market (DILM).

England joins from Compass where he was strategic accounts manager. He has 20 years experience as a business development manager in the market including for insurers Barbican, NIG Commercial, QBE, Brit and Chubb.

He will be working alongside Shaun Woodhouse, DILMs business development manager for the UK Southern region.

The business development team will report into Matt Field, who now takes the helm of the sales and business development teams as head of Group Marketing and UK Sales for the Direct Insurance Group.

Source: DILM

Topics Agencies Excess Surplus Lloyd's
In one of the worlds longest journeys ever, a Gurgaon based tourism company announced that it was commencing the Delhi-London bus service. Adventures Overland took to its official Instagram handle with an announcement alongside a Bus trip creative that read The longest bus journey in the world, May 2021. Further, the company informed in the caption, As India revels in the celebration of its 74th year of Independence, we at Adventures Overland are thrilled to announce the longest and the most epic bus journey in the world.

According to the journey update on the tourism company's website, the bus would "explore thousands of pagodas in Myanmar, meet rare species of Giant Pandas in Chengdu, like the Great Wall of China, visit the historic cities of Bukhara, Tashkent & Samarkand in Uzbekistan, and cruise on the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan". Further, the passengers would get to "unwind in historic European cities such as Moscow, Vilnius, Prague, Brussels, and Frankfurt before concluding the journey in London". The company describes that after reaching its destination, London, the bus will take the same route back to India. The tourism firm also released a route map of the journey for the travellers to get the fair idea of the stops the bus would have prior to reaching to London, UK.

Read: Atlanta Womans Song At The Fridge Again Goes Viral, Netizens Hail 'quarantine Anthem'

Read: Netizens Gush Over Cute Panda Video And Its Adorable Antics; Call It 'best On Internet'

Netizens cannot contain the excitement

Excited at the idea of the longest road trip that would cover almost 18 nations over a span of 70 days, Instagram users commented that were desirous to hop on the bus. While many enquired about the charges to plan the trip, several others said that they were thrilled and expect to join one of the worlds most exciting trips that they have heard of in a long time. The company informed in the post that the first-ever hop-on-hop-off bus service between Delhi, India, and London, United Kingdom would comprise travelling an estimated 20,000 km. It further asked those interested to visit the companys official website www.bustolondon.in. The company stressed that the journey is expected to start by the next year 2021, in the month of May.

Im amazingly thrilled. As of now, it's very expensive for me but yeah Ill join for sure in the near future. Awesome job, an Instagram user commented, excitedly. This is really great. Hope one day I will join this trip, said another. wow that's a brilliant initiative, wrote the third, while making the applauds emoticon. The globe trotters couldnt contain the excitement as they pitched the company to roll out the complete details of the journey so they get a better understanding of the unique trip they presumably were looking forward to in 2021.

Read: Heartwarming Video Of Dog Mimicking Pet Parent Goes Viral, Netizens Adore The Bond

Read: Video: Penguin Chicks Go For Their First Swim, Netizens In Awe Of 'adorable Moment'

(Images Credit: Instagram/@adventuresoverland)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, consoles the family members of those who died fighting floods while visiting a floodwater diversion zone in Feidong County, Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, August 19, 2020. Xi inspected Hefei on Wednesday afternoon. [Xinhua/Wang Ye]

HEFEI, August 20 (Xinhua)  Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Wednesday visited families of those who died fighting floods in east China's Anhui Province.

Xi consoled the family members of three deceased persons when he visited a floodwater diversion zone in the county of Feidong.

Xi told them that their lost loved ones are heroes and deserve respect from everyone.

"Every time a calamity occurs, heroes charge forward. This embodies the great spirit of the Chinese nation," Xi said, asking the family members to take good care of themselves.

(Source: Xinhua)
The Berkeley Electric Cooperative, South Carolina's largest member-owned power provider, is preparing to build a new headquarters in Moncks Corner for an estimated $60 million.

The co-op's leaders are still in the planning process for the proposed 227,260-square-foot facility, and the project is not expected to be completed until December 2022.

But the co-op, which supplies power to more than 107,000 homes and businesses in Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley counties, has already paid $4.9 million to acquire a 49-acre site along U.S. Highway 52 from an affiliate of The InterTech Group Inc. The sale closed on July 30.

When finished, the new campus will include 62,500 square feet of office space for the co-op's employees, garage space for the co-op's fleet of vehicles and room to run the separate propane business the co-op also owns.

Libby Roerig, a spokeswoman for Berkeley Electric, said the new structure will help consolidate the workforce, which is spread out at several locations in Moncks Corner and elsewhere.

More than half of the co-op's current staff  almost 300 employees  will be able to work out of the new facility, which will be built on part of the former Carolina Nursery property.

The main headquarters Berkeley Electric is currently using, Roerig said, was built in the 1940s when the co-op was formed to power rural parts of the Lowcountry.

Weve just reached a point where its out of date, inadequate and inefficient, she said. A lot has changed in 80 years for us and a lot of other co-ops."

Berkeley Electric is the largest member-owned power provider in South Carolina and is one of the fastest growing co-ops in the country due to the rapid rate of development in its service territory.

In recent years, the co-op has added roughly 3,000 to 4,000 new meters every year. That is more customers than some smaller electric co-ops have in total, Roerig said.

The co-op's growing membership will help spread out the cost of the project. Co-ops are owned by their members, and the organizations are supposed to return any extra profits to their members each year.

We try to be very conservative with what we spend, Roerig said. Our board of trustees knows we are a nonprofit and they take very seriously every dollar they spend."

The co-op's board, Roerig said, believes the new headquarters will improve the day-to-day work of the organization and could provide operational savings in the long run.

Currently, the co-op's bucket trucks and other vehicles need to be shuttled from one garage to another for routine maintenance. That will end once the garage space is added at the new headquarters, Roerig said.

The new building would also allow for better collaboration among the co-op's engineering staff, she said, and should improve the co-op's hurricane response.

The call center employees, who dispatch linemen during storms, are currently required to move their operations every time there is a hurricane stronger than a Category 1, Roerig said. That would not be necessary once the new headquarters is in place.
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Linkedin Norman Harsono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 13:59 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f8863b 1 Business ADB,Asian-Development-Bank,economic-recovery,geothermal,loan,funding Free

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has pledged to double loan commitments to one of its biggest client countries this year to facilitate Indonesias economic recovery.

The Manila-based lender usually committed US$1 billion to $2 billion each year for Indonesia, mostly in infrastructure projects, particularly those related to energy, said ADB country director Winfried F. Wicklein on Wednesday.

Read also: Indonesia to get $300 million ADB loan for geothermal electricity generation

But now, with COVID-19, we are stepping up in our support and will more than double it this year, he said during a webinar held by state-owned geothermal energy company PT Geo Dipa Energi and infrastructure financing guarantee agency PT Penjaminan Infrastruktur Indonesia (PII) .

However, Wicklein also called on the government to invest in renewable energy as part of Indonesias economic recovery plans. ADB is particularly supportive of geothermal power, which the lender considers ideal to spur even growth across the archipelago.

ADB, a self-described leading financier of geothermal projects in Indonesia, recently approved $300 million to expand geothermal power plants in Dieng, Central Java, and in Patuha, West Java.

Geothermal will not only help build back greener but it also comes with a very high job multiplier compared to conventional sources of energy, said Wicklein.

Read also: Regulatory reform key to post-pandemic green energy investment, IEA says

ADB adds to a list of organizations, including the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) and Jakarta-based Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), that have explicitly called for the Indonesian government to invest in a green economic recovery.

Indonesia, which holds the worlds largest known geothermal reserves, only harnessed 8.9 percent of its total 23.9 gigawatts of geothermal potential last year, according to official data.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchway said on Wednesday 19 August 2020 that Ghana was enforcing its local trade laws that prohibit foreigners from retailing certain items in the Ghanaian market and enforcing the threshold of capital required to set up,a trading business in Ghana.

The move by the Ghanaian Government was in response to the recent agitations and closure of Nigerian retail shops in Accra and Kumasi by Ghana Traders' Association as their plea to Ghanaian government to restrict Nigerian traders in Ghana had fallen on deaf ears. But its election time and the government has to act according to the dictates of its citizens.

Democracy, we say, is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. So if any democratic government says, Yentie Obiaa (We would not listen to anybody) to its citizens, that government is in for trouble during election time. The Government of New Patriotic Party listens to the citizens, so it acts according to the voice of the citizens.

But what brought the whole issue which has compelled the Ghanaian traders to cry to their government to restrict Nigerian retail trade in Ghana? Ghanaian traders know that they also retail in Nigeria, so what would compel them to fight Nigerian retail traders in Ghana?

Nigeria has since August 2019 closed her borders to trade across the ECOWAS Subregion resulting in restriction of traders from Ghana to access Nigerias huge market. Since the closure of Nigerian borders to trade across the Subregion, Ghanaian traders have lost a huge size of trade and have to contend with the little market in Ghana.

This has compelled Ghanian traders to force the government of Ghana to restrict Nigerians from retailing in the little market left for them in Ghana in apparent reaction to protect the little market volume. Who would allow you to close your huge market and at the same complete with them for their little market?

Nigerian has the largest market size in Africa with 200 million market volume compared to Ghanas 30 million market volume. Since the middle of October 2019 Nigeria has officially closed its western borders to all goods from the ECOWAS Subregion, especially goods from Benin, Togo and Ghana. Several trucks of goods to and from Ghana have stocked at the Nigerian border at a huge loss to the Ghanaian traders.

The official announcement by the head of the Nigerias customs agency said on Monday 14 October 2019 that Nigeria had closed its land borders to all movement of goods and had no timeline for reopening them.

"All goods, for now, are banned from being exported or imported through our land borders and that is to ensure that we have total control over what comes in," Hameed Ali, comptroller-general of the Nigerian Customs Service told reporters in Abuja on Monday 14 October 2019.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in August, two and a half months earlier, ordered the closure of Nigeria's borders to imported goods declaring that the time had come to end rampant smuggling across the porous frontiers. The closure devastatingly effected Benin, Nigeria's neighbour to the west, which is a key exporter of foodstuffs to Africa's most populous country.

During the UK-Africa Investment Summit held in London on 20 January 2020, the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria to reopen the closed borders because of its major effect on Ghanas economy in a bilateral meeting.

President Buhari, in response, said in a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, that the closure of Nigerians borders was not carried out only because of the smuggling of food products, particularly rice but also because of the smuggling of arms and ammunition into the country. He said that there was no way he could watch the lives of youths being destroyed with his eyes opened as the security of the country is of utmost concern.

When most of the vehicles carrying rice and other food products through our land borders are intercepted, you find cheap hard drugs, and small arms, under the food products. This has terrible consequences for any country, Buhari said.

He added that the opening of the borders would not happen until the final report of a committee set up on the matter was submitted and considered. Meanwhile, the Federal government had disclosed that the reopening of the countrys land borders would be based on strict compliance with the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) regional trade protocol agreements.

But according to Mariam Katagum, Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, the opening of the borders would depend largely on the recommendations from the patrol team set up to monitor compliance with trade protocols. The patrol team comprises relevant security agencies in an exercise codenamed, Operation Exercise Swift Response.

Closing a border of a country because the government wants to control smuggling of food and arms across its borders and protect local industries is not ideal policy of a government, it is a thoughtless policy by any government of a country.

If a country has to protect its borders from smuggling and illicit businesses across its borders, it requires an efficient custom and excise officers at its land, sea and air borders, and not closure of the borders. If the government has to protect local industries, it bans imports, or increases import duties or raise imports regulations and tariffs, it does not close its borders.

The closure of Nigerian western borders has a great impact of Ghanaian traders. They criticised Abuja's decision to continue shutting its border as needless and un-African. On the contrary, Nigeria continues to claim that the border closure has spurred local production and reduced arms smuggling.

Gabriel Nartey, a 50-year old Accra-based car spare parts dealer complained that he had not seen business this bad. "I am stuck, I am losing customers because I don't have what they need," Nartey told Deutche Welle (DW) a German English News Agency in an interview. "I don't know what to do, it's just a few who can go to China, which is more expensive that can manage, but for those like us who rely on Nigeria only, it is challenging for us."

At the initial stages of the border closure, Ghanaian traders did not worry, until six months later. The Ghanaian traders initially downplayed the move hoping that they could cope with the momentary interruption. "Right from the word go, we were not worried about the border closure," Clement Boateng, National Organizer of Ghana's Union of Traders Association, told DW. "It is Nigeria's right, but what we thought was not right was Nigeria's refusal to give prior notice to its ECOWAS citizens," Boateng said.

Over a year now, Abuja has shown no interest in re-opening its border. President Buhari raised hopes that goods would start flowing in and out by January 31 this year. But Nigeria's Comptroller-General Hameed Ali immediately issued a statement that it was no longer the case: "Certainly not the end of January. When we initially closed the border, we intended to get our neighbors to adhere to the ECOWAS protocol on transit goods," Ali told DW in an interview.

Nigeria says that after it closed the border, it has reaped more good than bad. "We discovered that our economy is completely bastardized because we Nigerians have not learned to consume what we produce. And therefore, our industries are not able to produce and enhance their production," Nigeria's top customs official, Ali, said.

"What we are trying to do now by this border closure is to get Nigerians to consume what we produce and produce what we consume because that's the only way that our economy would grow."

Ali's sentiment is shared by many Nigerians who have long complained that other ECOWAS member states have been taking advantage of the regional body's free trade and movement agreement to dump illegal and sub-standard goods in Nigeria.

Rice farmers had taken the government to task over what they called cheap imported imports that were making their way into the Nigerian market via Benin. Peter Dama, Chairman, Rice Millers Association of Nigeria, (RIMAN), boasted to DW about the positive impact of the closed border. "It has raised our production because we have markets now," Dama said.

"The mills are operating, we had dead mills that were not operating before, but now you find that everywhere mills are coming up. We are producing trying our best to feed the nation."

According to Ali, Nigeria's local poultry industry has been given a boost following the border closure. "Our big hotels in Nigeria used to buy eggs from Ghana. With the border closure, we have compelled them to buy the eggs from our [Nigerian] poultry farmers," Ali proudly said. "They are now expanding. An economy that does not have an industrial base can never claim to be an economy."

This protectionism is not only against the ECOWAS Protocol on Trade among member states, it's going to kill trade across the Subregion and affect Nigerian traders in y6w Subregion as well, as many of the ECOWAS membee states would a,so restrict trade from Nigeria. The Nigerians may say that they have enough big market size to suffer, but in every trade war each counrty suffer no matter the market sizes.

Ghana's economy does not depend on Nigerian market. According to the United Nations COMTRADE data base on international trade, Ghanaian imports from Nigeria has dwindled from $850 million in 2011 to $100 million by August 2019. Nigerian imports from Ghana has been a neglectable amount.

As the biggest market in Africa, Nigeria's neighbours look towards it as a huge market for their locally produced goods. But unfortunately, access the market of the West African Subregion has been hampered by adverse protectionist policies that exist among these West African neighbours. The Secretariat of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA), which happens to be headquartered in Accra, has a great work at hand,

GHANA IS CAUGHT BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD SURFACE

The Ghanaian traders have no option, but to also restrict the Nigerian traders from taking over their little market. Ghana's President Nana Akuffo-Addo had acknowledged the need for Nigeria to protect its citizens but, at the same time, pleaded with his Nigerian counterpart to consider re-opening the border. He noted that Nigeria was essential for specific categories of businesspeople in Ghana.

Ghana Traders Association are pressing the President of Ghana to do more than just diplomacy. "Nigeria has shown us that when it comes to ECOWAS protocols, they don't care because they put their citizens first," Boateng said. "That is why we think our Ghanaian government needs to implement some of the local laws that can protect the local people, especially regarding the influx of foreigners in the retail trade."

Boateng said the closure is not affecting only Ghanaian traders. "A lot of Nigerians have businesses here in Ghana, and since the closure, they have also spoken bitterly against their government." He said they had been forced to be creative to deal with the current situation. "We can't tell those who trade in Nigeria to sit down and fold their hands, we have to find alternative means, and we have been able to find so many places where we can get the goods from."

Many Nigerians such as Peter Dama would rather see the border kept shut: "As far as I am concerned, it [ the border closure] can be forever," Dama said. "This is because it will stimulate the economy, it will help the nation to become self-sufficient, and it will help us to create jobs," Dama added.

Dama and other officials argue that by keeping the border closed, all the security challenges that the country has had with arms smuggling in particularly can now be effectively dealt with. However, Clement Boateng of Ghana Traders Association, said a similar move with Ghana closing its borders in retaliation would be counter-productive.

There is no need for Ghana to close its borders. Ghana does not share a border with Nigeria. We share a border with Togo, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, and they are not the ones that have shut down their borders," Boateng said. "It is not necessary, and it is not something that I would encourage the government to do. It is needless."

Gabriel Nartey, the Accra-based Ghanaian car spare parts shipowner, said his customer base had shrunk sine the Nigerian border closure. His frustration was evident; his finger of blame remained squarely on Buhari. "It is rather unfortunate for Africa and not just for Ghana because Nigeria is the center for the market at the moment," Nartey said. "Such a thing would not move Africa forward. Young people are trying to make a living to make Africa move forward. For all, I know it is not helping business at all."
Ramesh Chennithala By

In May 2019, the trading at London Stock Exchange was opened, for the first time in global history, by a politburo member of a communist party. The party may defend tapping global finance through masala bonds at a high coupon rate for accelerating growth and welfare, but the irony of a communist tolling for arousing the speculative instincts of global investors cannot be lost on any.

The CPM-led Kerala governments foray into the murky waters of international capital-financed high-growth projects has been marked by non-transparent procurements and contracts. In the last two financial years, no fewer than a dozen project management consultants have been positioned in critical projects, citing inefficiency and incapability of public services.

These consultancies are providing technical or managerial assistance to projects such as the e-mobility one worth Rs 4,500 crore for switching over to electric public transport, implementing ease of doing business and improving investment climate for entrepreneurs (estimated at Rs 1 lakh crore), providing technical architecture to the post-flood Rebuild Kerala programme (Rs 10,000 crore), rooftop solar programme of the electricity board (Rs 3,000 crore) and the cleaning up of navigable canals in Kochi for the water metro project (Rs 2,000 crore).

About 80% of all awarded consultancies have benefitted a particular London-based consulting company that is alleged to have links with the highest corridors of power. Most selections are noncompetitive nominations. The chief ministers obsession with high-value international consultancies has undermined public service to the extent that his general administration department advocated formally establishing a backdoor office in the secretariat to overcome the incapacity of the IAS and the secretarial service. These show how a professedly pro-public sector government has become aligned with the spoils of crony finance capital-led aggressive growth-only approach.

The present credibility crisis engulfing the chief minister is largely a making of his own approach and style. Undermining the consultative Cabinet and constitutional services, the CM has positioned a dozen advisors and consultants, the chief of whom has been intensely questioned as a suspect in the `120-crore airport gold smuggling case. The 360-degree involvement and the centrality of the CMO in facilitating the crime stand established and have eroded the chief ministers credibility in the public eye.

The suspected criminal mastermind in the case has associated herself with the CM, key ministers and senior officers since 2017 and was instrumental in facilitating several international visits and parleys. Her crimes in prior employment were hushed up by the state crime branch, admittedly at the behest of the CMs police advisor and principal secretary, despite the High Courts admonishments. A case was finally registered only after her arrest in the gold smuggling case.

After being terminated at the friendly foreign states consulate, the mastermind was immediately re-employed through a consultancywith no verification of antecedentsin the prestigious and high-security space park project of the IT department, led again by the principal secretary to the CM. Contravening every norm of public service, the individual continued to work for the foreign government, receiving emoluments while serving the CMs IT department. The principal secretary, now under suspension, allowed his flat located 100 metres away from the CMs office to be used as the base of criminal conspiracy. The Customs and NIA have seized gold and cash worth Rs 2 crore from the lockers co-owned by the principal secretary and the mastermind.

The mastermind stated in court that the proceeds were commissions received from the housing for the poor project (Life Mission). The CMs principal secretary was also the CEO of the Life Mission for which the UAE Red Crescent had donated Rs 20 crore in July 2019 to build 140 low-income flats. The CM will be hard-pressed to explain how a suspected criminal mastermind, described as the kingpin of the gold smuggling case by the NIA, enjoyed simultaneous employment with a foreign government and a state government project, frequented his office at will, associated with his chief of staff and extracted a commission from his housing project without the active connivance of his ministers and senior officers.



No CPM-led Left Front government has ever survived incumbency so far.

They have not lost elections for want of propaganda or rhetoric. The state governments highly publicised early gains in containing Covid-19 now stand exposed in the face of the reality that it was ill-prepared for the present surge in infections. Its testing rates and containment measures have been tested by the emerging gaps in providing sufficient quarantine and timely hospitalisation. No government can be faulted for acts of nature or unexpected pandemics. What is being criticised is the ambitious appropriation of public activity in containing disasters and pandemics and the use of statist propaganda to hide the yawning gaps in governance.

The Opposition is merely pointing to the glaring failures of governance. It has a very open agenda of exhorting the people to disapprove of the Left government on well-stated grounds of multiple failures. The crisis the comrades of Kerala find themselves is paradoxically due to their cheating the capitalists at their own game. Instead of ensuring a level-playing field for the forces of production, Pinarayi Vijayans regime has unveiled an aggrandised and vitiated genre of crony capitalism. The bell he chimed enthusiastically at the London Stock Exchange could be the last ever by any member of a communist party for a long time.

Ramesh Chennithala

Leader of the Opposition, Kerala. Views are personal

(rameshchennithala@gmail.com)
Rating agency, Moodys has given a wake up call to Narendra Modi government on the imminent capital burden required to fill the funding gap of Indias NPA-ridden, COVID-19-hit state-run banks. It has projected the capital required by government banks over the next two years around Rs 2 lakh crore.

We estimate PSBs will need INR1.9 trillion-INR2.1 trillion ($25 billion-$28 billion) in external capital over the next two years to restore their loss absorbing buffers, Moodys said.

This is a reminder to the government, the majority owner in these banks, that it will have to find ways to generate money to refill the funding void of PSBs. Question is can a fiscally starved government take up the challenge.

In the last budget, union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman didnt earmark any funds for banks except saying that the government wants PSBs to tap markets to fend for themselves. But the smaller banks struggling with weak balance sheets and the potentiality of a spike in bad loans going ahead arent able to find investors.

Being the majority stake holder in these banks, it is the responsibility of the government to find ways to keep these banks capital adequate.

Also Read: Bandhan Bank 5 years on: The story of a sweet shop owners son who built a thriving private lender

Moodys has warned that a sharp slowdown in India's economic growth exacerbated the coronavirus outbreak will hurt PSBs asset quality, and result in sharp increases in credit costs, which will hurt profitability.

Consequently, PSBs' already weak capital buffers will be depleted, Moodys said.

The most likely source of capital to plug the capital shortfalls will be government support, despite the completion of a large recapitalisation by the government several months ago, Moodys said.

Moodys has highlighted three major areas of importance with respect to PSBs: One, it has warned that banks asset quality will deteriorate going ahead. The agency has cited that the Indian economy will contract sharply in fiscal year ending March 2021 (fiscal 2020) before returning to growth, though modestly, in fiscal 2021.

As a result, formation of new nonperforming loans (NPLs) will accelerate substantially, driven by the retail and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) segments, it said.

Although one-time loan restructuring allowed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will prevent a sudden increase in NPLs, NPLs and credit costs will increase in the next two years, hurting PSBs' already weak profitability and depleting their capitalisation, Moodys said.

Secondly, Moodys said banks will face large capital shortfalls again as credit costs rise.

Also Read: Banking Central | Why banks KCC love for farmers may not end well

Under the base scenario, Moodys estimate of the total amount of estimated Rs 2 lakh crore for next two years, PSBs will need about Rs 1 lakh crore to build loan-loss provisions to about 70 percent of NPLs, which will leave them with enough capacity to grow loans 8 percent-10 percent annually, faster than the 4 percent in fiscal 2020.

With a capital infusion of this magnitude, banks would also be able to maintain capitalisation at levels comparable to those of similarly rated peers globally, with Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratios of at least 10 per cent, Moodys said.

Finally, to maintain financial stability, government will continue to provide capital support for PSBs, Moodys said.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE | Q&A: Viral Acharya on why he quit RBI, central bank's autonomy, banking sector problem and more

Uncertainty surrounding India's economic recovery as well as the ongoing cleanup of balance sheets are making it difficult for most PSBs to raise equity capital from markets. This means PSBs will continue to need support from the government to plug their capital shortfalls, and we expect the government to infuse fresh funds into them as it has done in the past, Moodys said.

If PSBs, which dominate the banking system in India, fail to function properly in the absence of state capital support, the country will face a deepening credit crunch, hampering its economic recovery, Moodys said.

Banking sector is expecting a sharp increase in NPAs in the next one year on account of the twin impact of the general economic slowdown and Covid-19 on the economy. The RBI has projected the gross NPAs (non-performing assets) of the banking sector to go upto about 15 per cent by March, 2021 in a worst case scenario.

The impact of the COVID-19 is not yet visible in the banking system as the RBI-announced moratorium scheme is in effect till August 31.Even after five decades of bank nationalisation, government banks continue to be at the mercy of the government for survival capital every year. These banks continue to control at least 60 per cent of the assets in the banking system.

The government has so far refused to seriously take up the bank privatisation although it has made promises in the past. It has, however, initiated a drive last year to merge weaker PSBs with stronger ones.

In a recent interview with Moneycontrol, former RBI deputy governor, Viral Acharya had stressed the need for government to exit from the ownership of PSBs.

Some public sector banks should be considered for re-privatisation. They can get more financial capital from the market and modernize with better technology, human capital and risk management. In the other ones also, government can cut stake below majority mark like several of the committees in the past have recommended, Acharya said.

The ball is now in the court of the government whether to continue to with the ownership of these banks or let private money come in.
A man who taken away by police after a newborn baby was found dead in a suburban home claims he is being beaten in prison by inmates who believed he killed the infant.

Police are still trying to determine the babys age and cause of death after a body was discovered at a home in Perth on Wednesday afternoon.

Joel Alexander Douglas, 26, was pictured being led away from the property in handcuffs with a towel draped over his head.

He was taken into custody and charged with possessing methamphetamine and breaching a police order.

Joel Alexander Douglas, 26, (pictured) was taken into custody after the police call-out, charged with possessing methamphetamine and breaching a police order

The 26-year-old was arrested and led away in handcuffs

Mr Douglas told Armadale Magistrates Court on Friday morning that he is being beaten by other prisoners, reported the West.

'I'm getting flogged in prison...because they think I killed my child, Mr Douglas was overheard telling his lawyer.

Magistrate Brian Mahon told him to alert the authorities so they could protect him.

But Mr Douglas claimed the guards didn't care what happened to him.

The death is now being treated by homicide detectives who are looking to interview the 26-year-old mother (pictured, outside the house on Wednesday)

They dont care, they told me they dont give a s**t about my child, he said.

Magistrate Mahon said he was genuinely mortified by hearing of his experience in custody but said more details were needed.

Mr Douglas fronted court over unrelated charges, flanked by three security guards.

His bail application was deferred after it was revealed an investigation was ongoing into the babys death.

There may potentially be new charges, although nothing has come to light as yet, Mr Douglas duty lawyer said.

The baby was found at a home in Thornlie, 8 kilometres south-east of the Perth's central business district

Forensic officers spent the night scouring the home for any clues into the baby's death (pictured, officers in Thornlie on Wednesday)

The court heard Mr Douglas had been on bail for intent to sell 3.2 grams of methamphetamine and breaching a police order.

It is not known whether or not Mr Douglas is the paternal father of the deceased baby.

The mother of a baby who was found dead at her home just hours after birth reportedly told police the child was delivered alive.

The newborn was less than a day old when police swarmed to a home on Cassidy Road in Thornlie, in Perth's south-east, at about 1pm on Wednesday.

The child, whose sex was not released, was believed to have been born prematurely in the early hours of the morning.

Although the investigation is ongoing, police don't believe the child died by way of a homicide.
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday, promising to bring light to the nation after President Trump had cloaked America in darkness for far too long.

Democrats presented Biden throughout the partys four days of virtual conventioneering as a fundamentally decent man who cares about every American, banking that voters will support him over Trump in part because of his potential to heal a nation divided by partisanship, reeling from a pandemic, and on the precipice of an economic depression.

That effort culminated with a 24-minute speech that the 77-year-old Biden delivered from Wilmington, Del., with precision and passion, a subtle rebuke to Trumps repeated attacks on his mental acuity and stamina.

Biden never mentioned Trump by name, but drew contrasts with him at every turn.

Too much anger, too much fear, too much division. Here and now, I give you my word, if you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst, Biden said. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. ... United, we can and we will overcome this season of darkness in America.

Biden tried to broaden his appeal beyond Democrats desperate to avoid another term for a president they blame for a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans and wrecked the economy, with disproportionate impacts on Black and brown lower-income communities.

Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy  theyre all on the ballot, Biden said. Who we are as a nation, what we stand for. And most importantly, who we want to be.

Those contrasts included what Biden said his first move in the White House would be.

As president, the first step I will take is to get control of the virus that has ruined so many lives, Biden said, adding that Trump has never understood that taming the coronavirus is key to reversing the nations economic decline.

The speech was delivered without a crowd, allowing every word to shine through at home. Afterward, Biden and his wife, Jill, went to the parking lot outside, where a drive-in viewing crowd watched fireworks and cheered.

It was the final, most vivid snapshot of the unconventional nature of this years convention, where delegates and prominent officeholders communicated from around the country. It was a format that proved to have a major advantage, drawing a wide diversity of voices into prime time.

Here are some takeaways from the convention:

For now, Democrats tent is growing: For a Democratic convention, there were a lot of Republicans.

It started on the first night, when former GOP Ohio Gov. John Kasich talked up Bidens candidacy, and continued with a roster of disgruntled Trump voters now behind the former vice president.

But progressives, led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, also featured prominently  at least some of them. The biggest progressive rising star, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, got only one minute of face time, and that was to second Sanders nomination.

Democrats were sending a message that the election should be divided into two camps, Trump supporters and everyone else, and the Democrats would welcome the latter. But it also exposed the underlying tension in Bidens candidacy  the question of how he would govern.

Progressives acknowledged that Biden was not their preferred choice, and Sanders said he and Biden still disagree on his supporters preferred Medicare for All health policy. But progressives say theyve pulled Biden to the left.

Thats not what Republicans like Kasich think.

Im sure there are Republicans and independents who couldnt imagine crossing over to support a Democrat, he said. They believe he may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I dont believe that. ... No one pushes Joe around.

Biden hinted Thursday that he would be leaning more toward progressives when it comes to economic policy.

Im not looking to punish anyone, far from it, Biden said. But its long past time that the wealthiest people and the biggest corporations in this country pay their fair share.

That debate, for now, is being tabled by both sides in the name of defeating Trump. I say to you, to everyone who supported other candidates in the primary and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election: The future of our democracy is at stake, Sanders said.

Who needs policy when you have Trump: The Democrats largely avoided one topic: their actual plans.

The convention featured plenty of value statements, including a focus on restoring immigrant-friendly policies, combating climate change, preventing gun violence and ensuring Americans access to health care. Many were highlighted in slickly produced video spots and prerecorded round-table-style discussions moderated by Biden.

Biden did get to some policy in his speech, but largely rattled off a bullet-point list with few specifics. The deepest policy discussion came from Bidens former rivals like Warren, who focused on child care.

I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plans, said Warren, whose campaign catchphrase was, Ive got a plan for that.

Sanders highlighted Bidens support of a $15-an-hour minimum wage, paid family leave and moving to 100% clean electricity. But the message largely was that Biden would be the anti-Trump, especially on issues of racial justice, which was woven into most of the major speeches.

History has thrust one more urgent task on us, Biden said. Will we be the generation that finally wipes out the stain of racism from our national character? I believe were up to it. I believe were ready.

No more conventions as usual: Coronavirus concerns forced party leaders to do something about the dinosaur that the old-style convention has become.

The upside: The virtual convention was a much better made-for-the-small-screen show. Crisp pacing condensed what had been a three-hour-plus nightly slog into a tighter two hours. It also enabled the party to highlight more people of color in prime time and showcase stories of real people  not politicians  who otherwise would have been lost in the arena din.

What the convention lacked in the energy of cheering crowds, it gained in intimacy.

If Michelle Obama had given her speech in a convention hall, she would have been interrupted by applause dozens of times, said veteran California Democratic strategist Rose Kapolczynski. It wouldnt have been as powerful as it was.

The downside: The tightly scripted program and caucus meetings stifled most dissent. Unlike 2016, when Sanders supporters jeered Hillary Clinton backers at state delegation meetings and inside the arena, it was harder for differing opinions to be heard.

If John Kasich had given that speech for Biden in the arena, half of the people would have booed, said Zenaida Huerta, a 22-year-old delegate from Whittier (Los Angeles County).

Vote like our lives depend on it: Thats what Michelle Obama said, a refrain echoed all week. Not only vote, but vote early. Democrats fear that service cutbacks by Postmaster General and Trump donor Louis DeJoy are intended to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service, although DeJoy backed away from them this week.

If youre voting by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back as soon as you can, Hillary Clinton said.

Its not just about Biden: Polls have consistently shown that Democrats under 35 are not enthusiastic about the nominee. Thats one reason organizers focused on building a team approach to defeating Trump  and why the convention frequently highlighted vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her personal story.

Former Democratic primary opponent Andrew Yang pointed to her selection as evidence of Bidens inclusive approach during a panel of the nominees vanquished former rivals.

He wants to build the best team, lets do it together, Yang said. The magic of Joe Biden is that everything he does becomes the new reasonable.

A July study of young voters in battleground states done by San Franciscos NextGen found that some respondents viewed Biden more favorably when he was described as the leader of a team of progressives who would listen to the advice of others.

The team approach will be a far cry from what Republicans will hear next week at their convention, as Trump has turned the party into a cult-of-personality built around the presidents signature line from the GOPs 2016 convention: I alone can fix it.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer, and Tal Kopan is The Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com, tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli, @talkopan
Two women who flew to Perth from Adelaide without an exemption before sneaking out of hotel quarantine to party with a rapper have vowed to return to the city 'by force' after they were sent home in disgrace.

Isata Jalloh, 19, and Banchi Techana, 22, narrowly avoided jail time after flying into Western Australia on Monday and fleeing the Novotel Hotel to 'hang out with friends' and make the most of their 'vacation'.

The pair left the Murray St hotel via an emergency stairwell at about 1.30am on Tuesday but were caught by police at a unit in Coolbellup, in the south of Perth.

Jalloh and Techana were escorted back to hotel quarantine before making obscene gestures as they were placed on a taxpayer-funded return flight to South Australia on Friday.

Isata Jalloh, 19, and Banchi Techana (pictured), 22, narrowly avoided jail time after flying into Western Australia on Monday and escaping Novotel Hotel to 'hang out with friends' and make the most of their 'vacation'

Thet fled the Murray St hotel's quarantine via an emergency stairwell about 1.30am on Tuesday but were caught by police at a unit in Coolbellup, south Perth. Pictured: Isata Jalloh

Once on the ground in Adelaide, the duo refused to apologise for their selfish behaviour.

'Sorry for what? Did we commit a crime? Did we kill anyone?' Jalloh told Nine News before claiming they had 'no idea' there were travel restrictions in place.

The pair said they also planned to return to Western Australia in two months time, 'once coronavirus is over'.

'We will enter by force,' Jalloh added.

Isata Jalloh and Banchi Techana (pictured together at Perth Airport) arrived in Perth without permission on Monday and sneaked out of their hotel quarantine to attend a party

The two women (pictured together gesturing to the media on Friday morning) left the Novotel Perth around 1.30am on Tuesday and caught a taxi to amateur rapper Siri Kidd's party

During their trip, the women were told they would need to quarantine before returning to Adelaide after flying into Perth without permission.

The pair instead left quarantine a few hours later and caught a taxi to the party.

Police called Jalloh's mobile phone to ask where the women were but she laughed and hung up on the officer.

The mobile phone signal was then used to track both women to the flat.

The women were arrested at about 8.30am and were taken into custody for two days.

They appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to the breach.

Jalloh was handed a $5,000 fine and Techana, who also admitted to obstructing an officer while in custody, was given an eight-month sentence, suspended for 12 months.

WA Police said the women arrived in Perth intending to holiday and visit family but were directed to quarantine until return flights could be arranged.

The rapper (pictured) said he was unaware the women would be attending his home

The court heard Techana, a dancer, had moved to Perth for a 'fresh start' and planned to bring over her one-year-old daughter.

Jalloh's lawyer also argued the 19-year-old had travelled from Queensland to South Australia without self-isolating and did not understand WA's coronavirus measures.

Magistrate Ben White said he believed the women were aware of the border restrictions.

'It's difficult to think anyone in the current climate could be in the dark about those sorts of things,' he said.

'There's risks to health, there's risks of this sort of behaviour resulting in further lockdowns.'

Both Jalloh and Techana (pictured arriving at Adelaide airport) avoided jail time after pleading guilty to the quarantine breach in Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday

Amateur rapper Siri Kidd said he did not know the women would be visiting him.

'I don't know, it's so crazy, I didn't even know this was all happening, this is surprising me too,' he told Nine News.

'I've met them once before, that was it, I didn't even know they were coming because they told us they wouldn't be able, or be allowed.'

WA Premier Mark McGowan announced there would be a crackdown on quarantine surveillance on Thursday after a series of incidents.

He said WA had requested an additional 134 defence force officers, including 20 to be trained in COVID-19 contact tracing and a doubling of the personnel already supporting state authorities in quarantine hotels.
Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), the countrys second-largest two-wheeler manufacturer, will start exporting to developed markets where Bharat Stage VI 9 (BS-VI)-equivalent emission norms are in force.

The switch from BS-IV to BS-VI from April 1 paved the way for companies like Honda to explore markets outside India and tap into the massive retail reach in almost every country.

Speaking to the media, Atsushi Ogata, Managing Director, President & CEO, HMSI, said: There is demand from other countries. We have BS-VI, which is equivalent to Euro 5, and, therefore, we have a huge opportunity to export everywhere, including advanced countries.

HMSI is currently exporting to Nepal, Sri Lanka and countries in Latin America in limited volumes. Only 6 percent of Hondas total production from India gets exported. In three years, because of BS-VI changeover, we expect exports to be much bigger than today, added Ogata.

During the April-July period, Indias two-wheeler companies exported 19 percent of their production at 5.19 lakh, as per data shared by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Bajaj Auto continued to be the biggest exporter of two-wheelers, exporting half of its production to countries like the US, in Europe, Latin America and Africa.

Demand comeback

Like the rest of the industry, HSMI has also seen a strong comeback in demand after the gradual lifting of lockdown. The company has ramped up production significantly, compared to previous months and will keep ramping up to cater to the festive demand.

The company clocked wholesale volumes of 3.09 lakh during July, which was up from zero in April. Demand is back to pre-COVID levels, and we are ramping up our operations. But there is still some way to go before we get back the growth,added Ogata.

New product

With consumers shifting preference to economy bikes owing to the fear of using public transport during COVID-19, Honda has started an internal study to bring out new India-specific products targeted at rural markets.

These motorcycles will be more affordable than HMSIs existing and previous models such as CD110 and Livo.

We should be able to supply affordable products for the rural segment. Such a product is under study. We do not have a competitive line-up for such customers, added Ogata.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addresses the media at a joint news conference with the Czech prime minister, at the start of a four-nation tour of Europe, in Prague, Czech Republic August 12, 2020.

WASHINGTON  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted Friday that the U.S. would enforce sweeping sanctions on Iran, even though the United Nations Security Council voted to not extend an arms embargo on the rogue regime.

Pompeo, who addressed the 15 member nations of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, reiterated that the Trump administration will continue its maximum pressure campaign in order to rein in Tehran's missile and nuclear weapons programs.

"I have not had a single world leader or one of my counterparts tell me that they think it makes any sense at all for the Iranians to be able to purchase and sell high-end weapons systems, which is what will happen on Oct. 18 of this year, absent the actions that we took at the United Nations yesterday," Pompeo told CNBC.

"We're not going to let them have a nuclear weapon, we're not going to let them have hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth from selling weapons systems. Every leader around the world knows it's a bad idea," he said, calling Iran "the world's largest state sponsor of terror."

The Trump administration has previously pushed members of the Security Council to extend a U.N.-imposed arms embargo on Iran. The embargo is currently set to end in October under the 2015 nuclear deal brokered, in part, by the Obama administration.

Last week, the Security Council voted to not extend the international arms embargo on Iran, a decision that prompted Pompeo to formally notify the group on Thursday of the U.S. intention to "snap back" or restore, all U.N. sanctions on Iran.

Thirty days after Pompeo's notification, a range of U.N. sanctions will be restored, including the requirement that Iran suspends all uranium enrichment-related activities. The snapback will also extend the 13-year arms embargo on Iran.
All teachers will be on the frontlines when school buildings reopen. But in some cases, they might formally be considered essential workers, which means theyll be expected to continue to go to work even if theyve been exposed to COVID-19.

Backed by the White House, a handful of states have given the green light for teachers to be considered critical infrastructure workers, and in at least Tennessee and Florida, some districts already have put that policy in place. While most people whove been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 are advised to quarantine for two weeks, critical workers like teachers in those districts are told to keep working after an exposure, as long as they arent displaying symptoms and take other safety precautions.

Designating teachers as essential allows districts to more easily maintain staffing levels to keep school buildings opena daunting task, given the expected shortage of available substitute teachers and requirements that staff members stay home with even mild symptoms that could be tied to COVID-19, such as a sore throat or cough. But it also increases the risk that the coronavirus could spread throughout the school community, public health experts say.

While its unclear how many states have given districts leeway to designate teachers as essential, the Trump administration has given the practice its blessing. On Aug. 18, the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released updated guidance that added teachers and teachers aides to the list of critical infrastructure workers. Other employees on the list include doctors, police officers, firefighters, and grocery store workers.

The list is not a federal directive, but it reinforces what the White House has been saying for weeks now: School buildings must reopen, and teachers must report to work.

[I]t is our firm belief that our schools are essential places of business, if you will, that our teachers are essential personnel, said White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany in a press briefing in late July. Our meatpackers were meatpacking because they were essential workers. Our doctors were out there treating because theyre essential workers. And we believe our teachers are essential.

Yet educators say this designation would put them and students at risk. Many have already been fighting against returning to school buildings, saying its not safe to reopen. The possibility of being declared essential workers has only increased anxiety levels.

The White House has not actually gotten us the [personal protective equipment] that would make schools safe, they have not gotten us the testing that would make schools safe, they have not done anything on a national basis to stop the virus, said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. They think teachers are dispensable.

Teachers Are Freaked Out

About half of the 700 districts in Education Weeks database on school reopenings , which is not nationally representative, have opted to resume in-person instruction at least some days of the week, including four of the 25 largest districts. Those districts are now trying to figure out the logistics of running school buildings during a pandemic.

In the Martin County, Fla., school district, officials told employees the day before school started that they would be considered essential workers and would not have to quarantine after known exposure. A district spokeswoman told news site WPTV that this decision was made to maintain adequate staffing levels to continue providing full-time instruction, as required by the state.

The spokeswoman said teachers who have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 would receive free rapid testing and know within 24 hours if they are positive, too. Rapid tests have a higher inaccuracy rate than other tests, however, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that they cannot be used to definitively rule out infections . The district also plans to determine who has to go into work upon exposure on a case-by-case basis.

Still, one teacher, who did not want to be identified, told WPTV that teachers were freaked out.

I thought the timing absolutely was horrendous, the teacher said. You dont tell me the day before school starts that all of a sudden, Im an essential worker.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that anybody who was within six feet of someone with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes should quarantine for 14 days, unless the exposed person has had COVID-19 within the last three months. Quarantining helps prevent spreading the disease before a person knows they are sick or if they dont feel symptoms.

Symptom screenings and fever checks are a nice way to reassure us that someone is not actively ill, but its insufficient when it comes to COVID, said Dr. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist and an assistant professor of preventative medicine at Northwestern Universitys school of medicine. She added that up to 30 percent of people infected with the coronavirus never display symptoms but can still spread the virus. And it can also take a few days for symptoms to show up after exposure.

Districts that want to have teachers come back to the classroom without quarantining upon exposure should have an infrastructure in place for rapid testing, Khan said. Other safety precautions include mask wearing, physical distancing, and proper ventilation systemsbut those would all have to be perfect, she said.

Otherwise, having teachers who have been exposed to COVID-19 return to the classroom without quarantining could be propagating an outbreaknot just in the school, but also in the students homes, and the teachers homes, and the local community, Khan said.

In Tennessee, at least six districts have designated employees as critical infrastructure workers. The commissioners of the state departments of health and education sent a letter on Aug. 18 to all superintendents saying that they would accept the designationbut urged caution, warning that it could present a greater opportunity for COVID-19 transmission within schools.

Districts that declare teachers to be essential workers must take precautions, the letter says, including requiring teachers who have been exposed to wear face masks and to self-quarantine when not at school. Also, teachers who live with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 and cannot avoid close contact must quarantine, the state commissioners said, regardless of the districts policy.

Even so, teachers in those districts are quite alarmed, said Beth Brown, the president of the Tennessee Education Association. Its just absolutely negligent to eliminate quarantine as a virus-fighting tool, she said.

And while some policymakersincluding White House officialshave argued that teachers are just as essential as health-care professionals, law-enforcement officials, and other critical infrastructure employees, all of whom must keep reporting to work in order to keep the country running, Brown said its not a fair comparison. Schools are not set up to effectively social distance, she said, and the spring semester proved that teachers can do their jobs remotely.

Some districts across the country have told teachers that if they are feeling well but are under quarantine orders, they can teach from home via webcam, while an aide is in the classroom with students to monitor behavior and help facilitate lessons.

More to Come?

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemps administration is evaluating whether to incorporate the federal guidance into the states legal framework, according to the Associated Press .

Weve had some superintendents reach out to ask where the administration is on this topic, the governors spokeswoman Candice Broce told the AP. Were in the soliciting-input mode.

The Forsyth County district, outside Atlanta, had initially designated all school employees to be essential workers, but reversed course after a lawyer for Kemp told the district it would have to wait until the state makes a decision, according to the AP.

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds and Dr. Caitlin Pedati, an epidemiologist and the medical director of the Iowa Department of Public Health, told reporters in a press conference early this month that the state would allow teachers to serve as essential workers if theres a workforce shortage and safety measures are taken, including monitoring teachers symptoms and temperature twice a day and having a plan in place in case teachers do fall ill.

Its not clear if any Iowa districts have set policies that would designate teachers as essential workers.

Meanwhile, the South Carolina public health agency has told districts that asymptomatic teachers and school staff can continue to work after exposure if it is necessary to maintain school operations and staff limitations exist. Those educators should be vigilant about social distancing, always wear a mask, and isolate if they do develop symptoms. They should also quarantine in their home when not at work, the agency said.

Ryan Brown, the spokesman for the state education department, said in an email that hes not aware of any districts that have deemed teachers as critical infrastructure workers at this time, but many may choose to do so for school nurses.

Being considered essential workers would further raise the anxiety levels of teachers in the state, said Sherry East, the president of the South Carolina Education Association. Teachers, she said, are already scared enough at the thought of returning to the classroom.

We always feel like were essential, but if the tagline essential puts us in danger, we dont want that, she said. Were not medical professionals.  Were here to educate your children.
The US has announced a further six individuals that will be added to its sanctions list and includes top media advisor Luna al-Shibl writes Anadolu Agency.

The US designated six senior Syrian regime officials Thursday as part of Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, including a top media advisor to Bashar al-Assad, ahead of the seventh anniversary of a chemical attack in a Damascus suburb.

The designation of Luna al-Shibl, Assads media aide, was made alongside the blacklisting of her husband, Mohamad Amar Saati, a top Baath Party official who is accused of running an organization that served as a pipeline for university students to funnel into regime militias.

They are among the many corrupt figures Assad has chosen as his advisors, not those focused on peacefully resolving Syrias conflict, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Top military brass were also sanctioned, including the commander of the National Defense Forces, Fadi Saqr, Syrian Arab Army Brigadier General Ghaith Dalah and the Tiger Forces Haider Regiment commander Samer Ismail.

These senior officials lead the same Syrian military that has killed children with barrel bombs and used chemicals weapons against communities like Ghouta. They have shattered the social contract between citizens and the military sworn to protect them, said Pompeo.

Also sanctioned was Yasser Ibrahim, who is accused of serving as Assads henchman and cutting corrupt deals that enrich Assad.

The designations come one day before the seventh anniversary of a chemical attack in Ghouta that has been widely blamed on the regime.

The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Deputy President William Ruto called on all public servants in Kenya to serve the interests of Kenyans and not political leaders.

Echoing his earlier criticism of the arrest of three senators on Monday, Ruto on Thursday asked police officers in Kenya to serve professionally and shun political influence.

The DP said the government was elected to deliver services to Kenyans

When we elect a government it is not because of the leaders. It is because of the people. And a government does not serve the interests of the leaders, it serves the aspirations of its people, the millions of Kenyans. That is the government that we believe in and that is the government that we elected, Ruto said.

He added: So, we must be focused, determined and I want to tell every public officer and every police officer in Kenya that they must serve professionally in accordance with the law and the constitution and nobody should blackmail or intimidate them to run political errands or political agenda for anybody.

DP Ruto further castigated politicians for using civil servants to run their errands.

Politicians must learn to do their thing and run their errands and agendas without involving other public servants that have nothing to do with politics, he stated.

Ruto spoke during a prayer meeting with religious leaders from Kiambu at his Karen home.
Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media

HAMDEN  A person was shot in the leg while attending a party of over 100 people on Thursday night in Hamden, police said.

Capt. Ronald Smith said police responded to reports of a person shot on Warner Street around 8 p.m.
She was hotly tipped to replace Holly Willoughby as the new Celebrity Juice captain following her departure earlier this year.

And Maya Jama did little to quash rumours that she would be taking over the role on Keith Lemon's comedy panel show, as she posed with the host on Thursday.

The TV and radio star, 26, teased a new project with the funnyman, 45, who she sweetly admitted that she had always admired growing up and starting her career.

New role? Maya Jama did little to quash rumours that she would be taking over the role on Keith Lemon's comedy panel show, as she posed with the host on Thursday

Maya looked sensational in a form-fitting blue wool dress, which highlighted her sizzling curvaceous frame as she posed for snaps.

Meanwhile, Keith showcased his typically eccentric style as he donned a graphic print shirt with matching shorts and a hat.

Further fuelling speculation, Maya wrote: 'Working with this one today was very fun.. Wanted to be just like him when I was in school & even when I started my career.. now were basically bezzies.. coming sooooon.'

Celeb Juice? The TV and radio star, 26, teased a new project with the funnyman, 45, who she sweetly admitted that she had always admired growing up and starting her career

Sizzling: Maya looked sensational in a form-fitting blue wool dress, which highlighted her sizzling curvaceous frame as she posed for snaps

The snaps sent Maya's fans into a frenzy as they theorised that she could be the new captain on the ITV2 show.

One person wrote: 'Take it you're replacing Holly on Celeb Juice then!'

While another said: 'Please tell me you're on Celebrity Juice I'll start watching it again haha.'

A third agreed, and said: 'Oh please say you're captain of Celebrity Juice!!!!'

Another person wrote: 'I've been saying you should be the next captain in Celebrity Juice.'

Reaction: The snaps sent Maya's fans into a frenzy as they theorised that she could be the new captain on the ITV2 show

Another person also guessed she might be the new captain, and said 'I bet you are going to be the new captain for Celebrity Juice, I hope you will put it that way.'

A different user wrote: 'Maya... Odds on new Celeb Juice captain.'

Further commenters questioned: 'Are you going to be a new captain on celebrity juice? Really hope so.'

And: '@celebjuiceofficial captain???'

While another simply said: 'New Celebrity Juice host.'

While another simply said: 'New Celebrity Juice host'

Looking good: Meanwhile, Keith showcased his typically eccentric style as he donned a graphic print shirt with matching shorts and a hat

Further fuelling speculation, Maya wrote: 'Working with this one today was very fun.. Wanted to be just like him when I was in school & even when I started my career..'

A representative for Maya declined to comment at this stage.

In May, Holly thanked Celebrity Juice for 12 years of 'fantastic chaos' after confirming her departure from the long-running show.

The presenter, a team captain on the irreverent pop culture panel show, confirmed her departure in a lengthy Instagram post shared with followers.

Addressing fans, Holly insisted she only had happy memories from her time alongside Keith, the alter-ego of comedian Leigh Francis.

All over: Holly thanked Celebrity Juice for 12 years of 'fantastic chaos' after confirming her departure from the long-running show in May

Sharing a montage of images, she wrote: 'Thank you @celebjuiceofficial for 12 years of fantastic chaos... I cant quite believe what weve done and how quick that time has gone. Thank you to you all for watching..weve always had the loudest and best audiences.

'Also a huge thank you to @itv2 for believing in the show in the first place and for all of your support...Over the years the production team has changed, however to anyone lucky enough to have worked on the show, they will know that we really do have the best time, its never felt like work and always been to me like a night out...

'Thank you for all your ingenious ideas and hard work... all good things must come to an end and nothing lasts forever... Its time for me to hand over my team captain seat to some lucky lucky person... whoever that is, know you are about to get one of the best jobs in telly working with one of comedies finest...'

Farewell: The presenter confirmed the news in a lengthy post shared with her Instagram followers

Forever friends: 'If I dont see you through a week or next week or the week after... know you are always in my heart,' she told Keith Lemon star Leigh Francis while confirming her departure

Thanking Francis, who launched the show as his notorious alter-ego alongside Holly and the now departed Fearne Cotton in 2008, she added: '@keithlemon... Where to begin... I remember starting this journey with you and saying I think this might work... my goodness me it did... three friends, you me and @fearnecotton.

'... and that is what is at the heart of it.. friendship... I love the bones of you Lemon! Thank you for making me laugh for twelve years... Ill be back as a guest and just to make sure someone is keeping you in check...

'if I dont see you through a week or next week or the week after... know you are always in my heart.'

All over: Holly launched the show with Lemon and close friend Fearne Cotton on 2008

Although Holly had worked in television for several years before Celebrity Juice, landing the role on the show in 2008 helped make her TV hot property.

She joined This Morning a year later and still hosts the show with Phillip Schofield. Celebrity Juice is also where the term Holly Willoughbooby was coined to described her curvaceous figure.

Her resignation comes shortly after her husband Dan Baldwin  one of Celebrity Juices creators  stopped producing the ITV2 show.
A 95-year-old World War II veteran and lifelong Republican who voted for Donald Trump denounced the president as the 'worst' America has ever had on Thursday night, urging the country to vote for Joe Biden this fall.

Edward Good, who also served in the Korea War, was a surprise speaker on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, which featured several Republicans endorsing Biden's candidacy throughout the week.

'I think Trump has been the worst president we've ever had,' he said. 'So I'll be glad to see him go.'

Edward Good, a 95-year-old WWII and Korean War veteran, who is a lifelong Republican and NRA member denounced President Trump and endorsed Joe Biden

Edward Good shows his military patches and honors; he was a surprise speaker on the final night of the Democratic National Convention and was part of a tribute to Biden's support for the military

Good made a jump over the Rhine River during World War II, jumping out of his plane when it was on fire during a German attack

Good had volunteered for parachute training and was sent to France early in 1945

Edward Good, a native of Farmington, Michigan, served in the 17th Airborne Division and took part in Operation Varsity, when 16,000 paratroopers landed on the east bank of the Rhine, the biggest airborne operation in history

Good also spoke on the night there was a video tribute to Beau Biden, Biden's son who served in the military and died of brain cancer in 2015. The fourth night was all about the Bidens and their support of the military was a large part of the program.

Good, noting his background in the military and declaring his membership in the National Rifle Association, expressed his regret voting for Trump in 2016 and endorsed Biden.

'I am 95 years old. I'm a veteran of World War Two, and the Korean War, they were uniform,' he said in his introduction.

'I have been a Republican, since the 1960s. I'm a member of the NRA and voted for Trump,' he noted. 'I think Trump has been the worst president we've ever had. So I'll be glad to see him go.'

Good, who spoke with the American flag behind him, said he was voting for Biden in November.

'I think Joe Biden cares about doing a proper duty towards the United States and if he's elected that's what he will do,' he said.

As Good spoke, photos from his military service appeared on screen. At one point he held up his military shirt with its patches and honors. The Farmington, Michigan, native served in the 17th Airborne Division and took part in Operation Varsity, when 16,000 paratroopers landed on the east bank of the Rhine, the biggest airborne operation in history.

'I did make one combat jump over the Rhine in Germany, and I'm proud of that,' Good said in his convention speech.

He didn't offer details in his speech but that jump was done when his plane was hit and on fire.

Good had volunteered for parachute training and was sent to France early in 1945. Operation Varsity was a troubled mission; as he got ready to jump the plane was hit, and was on fire when he jumped. Good said he does not know if the crew made it out and believed they did not. Good landed under fire but survived, and spent the next few weeks advancing into Germany before Hitler's death and the Nazi surrender ended the war.

He was followed by Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who was on the short list to be Biden's running mate.

Her own story of service and sacrifice echos that of Good's and, in her remarks, given with the Dome of the U.S. Capitol in the background, she attacked President Trump as unfit to lead the military.

'Donald Trump doesnt deserve to call himself commander in chief for another four minutes - let alone another four years,' she said.

Duckworth, a double amputee after her service in Iraq, spoke about how Joe Biden understands the sacrifice military families face because his son Beau served. She spoke holding onto a table for balance, with her wheelchair visible behind her.

'Thats the kind of leader our service members deserve: a leader who would actually honor their sacrifices. But they dont have that in our current commander in chief, whos either unwilling or incapable of doing so,' she said.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who was on the short list to be Biden's running mate and whose military service echos Good's, also spoke for Biden

Sen. Tammy Duckworth was the first American female double amputee from the Iraq War and received the Purple Heart for her service

Tammy Duckworth at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in December 2004 when she was awarded her Purple Heart

She criticized President Trump for not speaking out about allegations that Russia was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

'I cant stop thinking about the Gold Star parents I spoke with recently who were desperate to know whether their child was killed because Vladimir Putin placed a bounty on their life. It tore me up that, even after I asked for an investigation, I still couldnt reassure them that Donald Trump cared enough to try to get them an answerthat 55 days after Putins reported bounty scheme became public, Trump still hasnt publicly condemned Russiaor explained how hes protecting our servicemembers,' she said.

She said Trump 'doesn't deserve' the commander-in-chief title.

'As president, Joe Biden would never let tyrants manipulate him like a puppet on a string. Joe Biden would never threaten to use our military against peaceful Americans. Because unlike Trump, Joe Biden has common sense and common decency,' she said.

Duckworth was a member of Illinois National Guard when she was deployed to Iraq in 2004.

On November 12, 2004, she lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee from injuries sustained when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents.

She was the first American female double amputee from the Iraq War and received the Purple Heart for her service.
Reaction was mixed from the organizers of agricultural fairs in Peterborough County after the provincial government announced new funding Thursday for agricultural societies hit with financial losses from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The province is making nearly $1 million available to all qualifying agricultural and horticultural societies will help offset the cost of cancelling fall fairs, exhibitions and activities, which would have taken place during the pandemic.

Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Ernie Hardeman, along with Infrastructure Minister Laurie Scott, the MPP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock, made the announcement on Thursday afternoon at the Lindsay Fairgrounds.

More than 175 fall fairs and events have been cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, according to the Ontario Association of Agricultural Societies.

The toll includes the long-standing Peterborough Exhibition (which held a virtual exhibition earlier this month), the Millbrook Fair usually held in June, the Lakefield Fair normally held in July and the Norwood Fair, a Thanksgiving weekend tradition for the area.

Our agricultural and horticultural organizations are part of the backbone of rural Ontario. We know that the decision to cancel their fairs and events was a difficult but important one in order to do their part to stop the spread of COVID-19, Hardeman stated.

We are providing this funding to help continue operations and relieve some of the burden they are experiencing during this difficult time.

Cynthia Keech, president of the Lakefield Agricultural Society, said its great news.

I had sent a bunch of emails and letters to try to get some money to help us out, but I didnt know if we would be getting it or not. We dont have any money to pay our bills right now, she said.

However, Paul Quinlan, manager of the Norwood Fair, said he found out about the announcement nearly three weeks ago and isnt enthused about it.

Youve got to be in an extreme, dire situation before youd get anything from them, he said.

Quinlan said he believes if an organization has at least 12 months of assets to cover their monthly or weekly expenses, for example, they wont receive any money.

While Quinlan said they arent struggling financially, he was hoping the government would instead look at organizations fiscal statements and provide them with whatever money they required to cover their ongoing expenses.

But thats not the case. Its too bad, but its a political thing and thats the way they operate. Theyve always got these big announcements and make it sound like you can just drive by and get your money, but thats not the way it is, he said.

Nonetheless, Quinlan said hes happy for those in need who do receive the funding.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:09:40|Editor: huaxia

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COPENHAGEN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Danish Minister for Transport Benny Engelbrecht on Friday confirmed that fines will be imposed on anyone failing to comply with the new requirement of wearing face masks on all public transports nationwide.

The Danish government and health authorities held a press conference on the COVID-19 situation in Denmark.

"If the passenger does not want to leave, then the police can be called and a fine can be given," said Engelbrecht.

However, the minister noted that those unable to wear a face mask due to illness or disability would be exempt from the requirement.

In addition, vulnerable groups, like the aged, are to get access to free face masks, said Minister of Health and Elderly Affairs Magnus Heunicke.

As 71 new cases of COVID-19 registered Friday, Denmark has reported a total of 16,127 confirmed cases and 621 deaths, according to the daily update from the Statens Serum Institut. Enditem
Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, the Vice-Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Thursday, ended her two-day tour of the Northern region.



Her visit, after she was outdoored as running mate to the former President John Dramani Mahama, was to among other things, introduce herself to the chiefs and people of the region, and also solicit their support for the NDC in the upcoming general election.



She paid courtesy calls on the Ya-Na Abukari II, the Overlord of Dagbon, Mion-Lana Abdulai Mahamadu, the Chief of Mion, Yoo-Naa Abdulai Yakubu Andani, the Chief of Savelugu traditional area and Naa Feme Malba Nanyame Kofi, the Chief of Chereponi.



Other traditional leaders she called on included; Naa Iddi Alhassan, the Chief of Zoggu, Naa Alhassan Andani, the Chief of Tampion, Mahama Sumani, the Regent of Karaga.

The rest were; the Gushe-Naa Abdulai Shitobu, Chief of Gushegu traditional area, the Chief of Sang, Alhassan Abukari and the Regent of Wulensi, Salifu Osman Wumbei.



Professor Opoku-Agyemang, expressed gratitude to the chiefs and people of the region for their warm reception and gave the assurance that all infrastructural projects which were started by the previous NDC administration, but have been abandoned by the present government, would be completed when the NDC is voted into power.



Speaking on education, she pledged the next NDC government would ensure increased access to quality learning, introduce more incentive packages for teachers and restore discipline in schools.



The next John Mahama-led NDC government will build a just and equal society for all Ghanaians, regardless of their ethnicity, religion and political ideology, she noted.



She was accompanied by Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minority Leader in Parliament and Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, Alhaji Ibrahim Mobila, Northern Regional Chairman of the NDC, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP for North Tongu, Mr Alex Segbefia, a former Minister for Health and Deputy Campaign Manager of the NDC for the 2020 elections, Ms Emelia Arthur, a former Deputy Western Regional Minister, and Mrs Mawuena Trebarh, Spokesperson and Head of Communications for the running mate.

Source: GNA









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Scandalous underpayment has become common fare at Australias universities. An inverse relationship can be identified here: the wealthier the institution, the more likely it will short change staff and avoid coughing up the cash. If anything is coughed up, it will be meagrely rationed. We are not all in this together.

The casualization of the Australian university workforce is a process that has chugged along for three decades or so. Doing so alleviates the need to pay an ongoing workforce in conditions that are less secure in terms of employment but more beneficial to the institutions management line. There is no need to pay sick leave; holidays are unremunerated. Lengthy dry spells exist for such casuals during times where teaching does not take place. They are voiceless, fearful and oppressed.

The University of Melbourne, for instance, possesses a chest of AU$4.43 billion in reserves. But keeping in the best traditions of nineteenth century capitalism and working poor exploitation, it has 72.9 percent of staff in insecure employment.

Not happy with such a favourable state of affairs, universities have taken COVID-19 as a call to further axe, underpay and trim. In July, a survey conducted by the University of Sydney Casuals Network in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences found that casual academics have been underpaid during the COVID-19 crisis. The findings are grim: 77% concerned about losing employment; 82% reporting that extra unpaid work had been done in the first semester of 2020 and 60% likely to leave academia. The move to online forms of course delivery have also seen employees within the Faculty incur additional expenses.

What is discouragingly interesting in the survey is that coronavirus was merely a catalyst for inspiring a situation already rotten. It did not help that the University of Sydneys reliance on its Chinese student base, as with a good number of Australian teaching institutions, was scandalously disproportionate.

This month, the institution finally admitted that it had underpaid staff. The errors, it assured critics, were unintentional. Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence went so far as to suggest that the university had been vigilant in pursuing the matter. The situation was revealed after we proactively initiated a preliminary review of payroll records. With dreary predictability, it transpired that the identified errors mainly affect some professional casual employees. While seemingly apologetic, Spence insisted on minimising the nature of the harm, with a view to placating the corporate investor: we expect that the total amount involved will be less than 0.5% of our annual payroll cycle.

The list of offenders is bulking. In June, the University of New South Wales Business School was the subject of interest, having underpaid casual academic staff for a goodly number of years. Any underpayments for existing or former casual academic staff identified in the review, noted the universitys official publication, will be fully rectified, including payment of additional superannuation and interest.

The University of Melbourne is in the process of repaying up to 1,500 academics across four faculties in what was nothing less than wage theft. Central to the dispute was a rebadging of tutorials as practice classes, a typical obscenity of management speak. Different wording, different level of pay (a third, to be exact). Cheerily for students and underpaid staff, only three minutes had been allocated to mark student assessments. Within an hour, the marker was required to digest 4,000 words and comment on the assessments. A miserable return for all, except for the miscellany of unnecessary departments and services that support the modern university.

Others have also joined the underpayment club, much of it centred on the speedy manner academics are supposedly meant to dispatch assessments. The University of Queensland, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Murdoch University have been identified for practices of low marking rates and, in some cases, ungraded assessments.

At RMIT, the marking rate has proven a touch more generous than its Melbourne University counterpart: a princely 10 minutes, but still absurdly small in halving the previous allocation. It is now the subject of a claim being made to the Fair Work Commission by the National Tertiary Education Union.

Such employment practices in Australian universities have been aided and abetted. Alison Barnes, the NTEU president, has mastered the art of speaking with a forked tongue. She boasts about the NTEU recovering millions in lost wages for members and promises to launch a wave of class action. We do not believe wage theft is confined to the ten universities that have admitted to it.

The same sanctimonious Barnes, along with fellow national executives, attempted to foist a national framework upon members and university management to accept some 18,000 job losses across the tertiary sector along with reduced pay. It was advertised in a manner least candid and most monstrous. The Jobs Protection Framework, noted an NTEU propaganda booklet in May, means everyone gets a lifejacket. Casuals, fixed term, permanent, low paid, high paid, everyone.

The measure was defeated by a grass roots revolt of some fury culminating in the NTEU Fightback campaign, a surprise to both union executives and management. 17 universities rejected the plan. But from the still burning cinders, some Vice-Chancellors saw conspiratorial hope. La Trobe University Vice-Chancellor John Dewar urged colleagues to take heart: the collapse of the framework had not been a complete failure because . it has shown what could be done through a collaborative approach between unions and management.

Dewars assessment had a certain ring of truth to it. Undeterred by its abysmal failure, the NTEU executive has gone full blackguard, making piecemeal deals with individual universities to achieve the same object. This initiative is taking place alongside handholding gestures with big business in an effort to secure more Commonwealth government funding. Barnes, for instance, is encouraged by the words of Business Council Executive Jennifer Westacott praising the need for leaders with a humanities mindset, one understanding of the human condition. When will platitudes end?

The University of Adelaide was this months notable scalp for tertiary sector skulduggery, with Acting Vice-Chancellor Mike Brooks accepting a deal between management and the NTEUs national executive in principle. Under clause 19.2 of the agreement, wage reductions can be made to an amount equivalent to a maximum total of 15 percent of staff members salary in any given pay period. Reductions will be achieved via the purchasing of compulsory leave, deferrals of pay rises, the scrapping of annual holiday pay loading.

The union movement is in freefall. The rank-and-file have been abandoned by the executives within the NTEU who have long collaborated with university management through such beastly compromises as the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. The only enterprise shown in such agreements tends to be the bargaining away of basic rights and liberties. Work casualization has been one of its most noxious fruits. The battle, in short, is being waged both within the union movement and against university management. Much bloodletting is promised and the one word not mentioned in all of this: education. Having been abandoned, humiliated and shamed, may it rest in undisturbed peace.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
This article was featured in One Great Story, New Yorks reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. Photo: Tim Ashton

In February, Troye Sivan was hunkered down in his studio in Los Angeles refining a project that captures what has felt like the most intense period of his life. Titled In A Dream, its a six-track EP shaped by heartbreak, conflicted feelings about his own body image, and what happens when the comforting familiarity of a future with someone is suddenly cut short.

Just as he was adding the finishing touches, the pandemic arrived. Reluctantly, in mid-March, the 25-year-old Australian pop star left his black-and-white pit-bull mix, Nash, in the care of a close friend in L.A. and made an overdue trip back home to see his parents and siblings in Melbourne. It was six days into his mandatory 14-day quarantine, which he spent in a rented beach house not far from his parents place, that Sivan decided he was going to leak new music. The idea came to mind almost out of pure panic. It was a coping mechanism, a choice that gave him some semblance of control over his life.

Twelve days later, on April 1, Take Yourself Home arrived  an accidentally prophetic pop song about Sivan growing tired of Los Angeles, recentering his priorities, and wanting to spend time with his family again. Having come of age as one of YouTubes most followed and talked-about teenagers, Sivan is used to making work within the limits of his childhood bedroom. So when the only option left was to plan promotion from that setting, it came naturally. On TikTok, he recently laid out how his new albums social teasers were self-made using just his iPhone and some editing software. Honestly thank god I used to be a YouTuber he captioned it.

Sivan has remained at his childhood home in the months since, wanting to be close to family and a familiar medical system. (Prior to the move, hed been spending part of his time in Atlanta shooting a film by a writer-director Sivan refers to only as Jared. An Instagram image of Sivan with Sweet/Vicious writer Jared Frieder suggests it could be Frieders directorial debut, Three Months, a gay coming-of-age story complicated by HIV.) After a brief few weeks of monitored freedom  spent mostly at the beach with his childhood friends and recording a music video for Easy, another new track  a spike in coronavirus cases forced the metropolitan Melbourne area back into lockdown. Its currently in stage four. People may only leave the house to buy groceries or for one hour of permitted exercise a day. Nobody can go outside at all after 8 p.m.

Its so strange because I have written about my private life a million times, but theres something about this that hurt so much more.

This is getting a little bit depressing now, Sivan tells me from his teenage bedroom. His surroundings, cosy and understated, are a strikingly normal departure from the usual glossy pop stardom: just a bed frame and plain, white walls. Hes dressed in an olive-green shirt, unbuttoned, with a black tee underneath and hes rolling a shell from a recent trip to the beach between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a worry doll. He seems anxious, bored, tired, or maybe a mix of all three. I just feel like everyone was taking their liberties to bend the rules just a tiny bit. And it ended up catching up with us and kinda slowed the decline, he says. Its a cold evening in Melbourne, now deep in its winter. But there have been beautiful days: All you want to do is be with people and have a barbecue and drink some beers by the beach or something, he shrugs. This just feels very antithetical to everything that Australia is.

But he has also fallen back in love with the country where he was raised. Two years in Los Angeles, a place he often feels a little bit lost in, has made the languidness of life in Australia seem more appealing. Hes considering buying a house here and doing some kind of half-and-half situation. The idea of starting a family at some point  in the next decade or so  sounds nice, too. Everything just kind of clicks back into place for me and I feel like myself, he says of his surroundings, and I have, for the longest time, longed to spend more time here. Maybe this has been the catalyst for some change.

It took writing through heartbreak for him to fully recalibrate. His eyes flit from one corner of his bedroom to another, as if hes debating how to phrase what hes saying: Its so strange because I have written about my private life a million times, but theres something about this that hurt so much more.

Writing so openly is somewhat new for Sivan, even though he has, for almost a decade, built a robust personal brand by being himself. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, his mother a homemaker and his father a real-estate agent, before the family moved to Perth, Australia, when Sivan turned 2. He was raised Jewish and attended an Orthodox school. Like many kids, particularly queer ones, in the late 2000s, he found refuge online. In 2008, at the age of 13, he created a YouTube account where he posted videos of himself singing covers on his webcam that gained a steady following  somewhere in the region of 27,000 people. Eventually, he pivoted to vlogging, dissecting the ANNOYING THINGS PEOPLE DO ON INSTAGRAM and going Cute Boy Spotting with fellow internet creator Blessing. After being gradually welcomed into one of the first circles of popular YouTube vloggers alongside the likes of Tyler Oakley  admired for his position as an honest, sometimes mouthy teenager preaching to a choir of clones  Sivans following spiked. Four years after making the creative content shift, more than 4 million people subscribed to his YouTube account. His Coming Out video, filmed in August 2013, has 8.7 million views.

Sivan signed a deal with EMI Australia in 2013 and released his debut EP, TRXYE, a year later. His 2014 debut album, Blue Neighborhood, distilled his conflicted feelings about coming out into semi-radio-friendly pop songs that were produced by the likes of Jack Antonoff. But it was his sophomore effort that solidified his stardom  the looser, winking ode to being queer, ecstatic, and wildly in love, Bloom. The 2018 album reintroduced Sivan as a young 20-something and became a rare example of LGBT pop music that felt wholly celebratory, free of bitterness and animosity. When I look back, its crazy, you know? Sivan reminisces. That period in my life felt like such a magical, magical time.

During the making of Bloom, Sivan had been in a relationship with model and actor Jacob Bixenman. Sivan acknowledged his partner as the reason for its optimistic outlook. In recent months, tabloids have speculated that the pair are no longer together after four years of dating, citing Bixenmans recent absence from Sivans Instagram grid (the last post of them together was in November 2019), and their separate lockdown plans. Sivan is guarded when discussing what happened. Much of this new music, he says vaguely, is about being a person going through life on your own. He says he follows the example of Amy Winehouse, another artist who covertly aired dirty laundry by leaving seeds of painful situations in the lyrics to her songs.

Sivan writes about his feelings in a way that flirts with commercial palatability, too, even though it hasnt come quite as easily to him as it has to some of his heterosexual counterparts. (Though his albums and EPs have consistently broken the U.S. Top 10, his highest-charting Billboard single, 2015s Youth, peaked at No. 23.) But hes earned their admiration. We are blessed to have him in our world, says Ariana Grande, a close friend who collaborated with Sivan on his 2018 single Dance To This and whose cameo-filled thank u, next music video he popped-up in. Musically, hes able to express and articulate his emotions so perfectly that his voice makes me cry, and I feel like hes the only one who does that to me these days. Hes also one of the few artists able to be mainstream-adjacent while also experimenting with left-field pop anarchists like British songwriter Charli XCX. Theyve only worked together remotely, sending voice notes and references via text to produce collaborations like last years nostalgia-heavy 1999. We just get each other and are excited by each other musically, she tells me.

Tim Ashton. Tim Ashton.

In A Dream is a first for Sivan. It is pure feeling, written in the heat of the moment, and has no features. When youre going through something like that, experiencing a million different emotions a day, one minute you think youre fine and the next youre not, he says. He cant recall the specific timeline in which the EPs six songs were written. My mind was so active at that time; I wasnt sleeping that much. It would become routine for me to wake up at three in the morning and stay up until five. The day Sivan wrote the title track, he woke up crying. The night before, he dreamt of the person he had loved. He went into the studio after and tried to explain the emotions of the dream to Oscar Gorres, the Swedish producer who predominantly works as part of Max Martins Wolf Cousins cohort, known best for creating Billboard hits for Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Katy Perry. For the first time in our conversation, Sivan wonders if hes saying too much. I said, he continues after a pause, It sucks that the only time you get to hang out with someone is when youre asleep. I just woke up heartbroken. Truly.

That song began as a doleful, ruminative ballad about a relationship that lingers in the subconscious long after its over. But when Gorres  who helmed five of the six tracks on In A Dream  heard the story, his mind went elsewhere: maximalist percussion that would fit a Wham! song and grinding synths that take precedence over Sivans echoing, angelic vocals and gentle guitar interludes. Its got humor to it: Put my shoes on and run away, you still show up in a dream, Sivan sings on the chorus  as though hes being stalked in his slumber. The producer-writer relationship the duo shares helped here. He wants to challenge and take risks musically, which I love, Gorres says. We have a mutual trust which gives us creative freedom. Its crucial to create a safe environment where you can try crazy ideas without fear of judgement. The happy accidents are oftentimes when the magic happens.

Meanwhile, Easy was so close to Sivan he didnt have the mental capacity to think about production at all. In the song, he asks someone he loves to look at the space just next to your feet before describing the way the wooden floor warps. Its vague in who its about, but to Sivan, it felt so explicit and blatant and personal and ugly and sad.

It almost didnt make the track list  until pop maverick Max Martin chimed in and said he loved it. During the EPs sessions in Los Angeles, Max came into the studio and listened to a few songs, and he really freaked out about Easy, Sivan says. The song is performing better than a lot of other songs he has released thus far. (The video alone has accumulated more views than Take Yourself Home already; in a TikTok, Sivan says it has since breached more than 30 million streams). There were all of these signs that people really connected to this song, but I think Im just so sensitive about the subject matter, he says. Priority number one was to get this off my chest and survive.

Two days after we first talk, Sivan answers the phone against a backdrop of darkening grey clouds and leafless trees, a mask pulled up past his nose. I havent been out today and the curfew is coming, so I want to quickly get my little exercise in. Is that okay? Hes going to take a slow stroll through a park he hasnt been to in a while where there are a million dogs. The clockwork routine of these walks is all thats keeping him sane right now. Theres the dog I thought was going to attack me, he says, flipping the camera on his phone to show me. Its nice.

The night before, Sivan released Rager Teenager!, a song about the pleasure of regressing to the days when lifes responsibilities seemed to matter less. It was a rare slice of respite amid an otherwise loaded recording process. Sivan wrote the song  which is laced with purposely youthful lines like I just wanna fuck shit up and just ride in your car tonight  after a night out during which he realized the power that can stem from being free of your inhibitions. Its easy to feel like your life is written, like its going in a direction and thats the [only] direction its going in. You dont realize that its happening, but over time that becomes so comfortable. Then something will happen that will pull the rug out from under your feet and take you by surprise, he says. I hadnt realized how comfortable Id become. I was cruising through life. And then something like this [heartbreak] happens, and it shakes you. Little did I know that would be one of many wake up calls for 2020.

I would never say this in any other context, but I feel like I know Im a cute white boy. A twinky thing  I get it.

Another has been discovering more about his insecurities as a gay man. Stud, a semi-sleazy club track, wrestles with the limiting ideas around desirability within contemporary queer culture. It was inspired, at least subconsciously, by an inexplicable yearning for validation from men who possessed bodies like Tom of Finland illustrations  stealth symbols of power and masculinity. It never really got to me until it did, he admits. I was feeling really insecure about myself and my body. Weirdly, I still have a secret Tumblr where I just followed porn and hot guys, right? I constantly was seeing the same body type that wasnt mine. Still, hes also become more aware of his own conventional beauty. I would never say this in any other context, but I feel like I know Im a cute white boy. A twinky thing  I get it, he says, uncomfortable with the idea of addressing himself as such. I fully recognize that so many people feel so much more shit than I do. I wanted to put it out on the table and talk about it.

Sivan is now en route to the grocery store before it closes, talking over the sound of traffic. Hes not quite sure what his next record will sound like yet. Im excited to find that out, he grins. Im hoping to fucking God that its a falling in love album  or maybe its an Im single and happy and at peace album, but that part of the story is a different chapter.

One Great Story: A Nightly Newsletter for the Best of New York The one story you shouldn't miss today, selected by New York's editors. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Terms & Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.
Actor Kangana Ranaut has joined Twitter. The actor released a video on Twitter to explain why she has taken so much time to do so.

In the video, speaking in Hindi, she says, It has been 15 years since I have been working in films. In these years, there have been many occasions when there have been moments of pressure to join social media. Agencies and several brands know that I have let go deals worth crores where there was just one clause that I should be on social media. I have been called a witch (chudail) and people have taken advantage of the fact that I am not on social media. I chose to stay away from social media as I never felt any distance from my audience. I have always felt that if I had to say anything, why should I do so in a rudimentary way; through films I have talked about women empowerment and nationalism. I believed that I would do so in an artistic way. That has been my stance for long.

This is for my twitter family  pic.twitter.com/KGdJPPWrQ1  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) August 21, 2020

Also read: Rhea Chakrabortys WhatsApp chat with Mahesh Bhatt on day she left Sushant Singh Rajputs house revealed: Youve unclipped my wings

She said the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, however, changed her perspective on the matter. She continues, This year, however, I noticed the power of social media. I have seen how the entire world came together to fight for Sushant and have got success, that has truly made me feel positive about things. I am hopeful that if we all get together, we can raise our voice and initiate reforms. That is the reason this month I joined Twitter and I am excited. I want your continued help and association. I am looking forward to this amazing journey where there are so many amazing people. Thank you for this opportunity.

Kangana has been talking on a range of subjects after the tragic death of Sushant Singh Rajput. She has targeted personalities like Karan Johar, Alia Bhatt, Taapsee Pannu, Swara Bhasker, Aamir Khan and Deepika Padukone.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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The Oklahoma zoo featured in Netflix's "Tiger King" documentary has closed after federal authorities investigated it for alleged maltreatment of animals and suspended its license.

The Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park closed to the public after the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday suspended the exhibitor license for owner Jeff Lowe for 21 days.

The zoo, previously run by Joseph Maldonado-Passage  also known as Joe Exotic  became famous after being featured in Netflix's "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness."

The Garvin County Sheriff's Office and USDA investigated the zoo after receiving a formal report that documented photos showing a lion with its ears covered in flies and another with the tips of its ears covered in blood.

But Lowe said in a statement Tuesday that his license was suspended over a "litany of falsehoods." He said he plans to open a new park for private filming for television and streaming services, KFOR-TV reported.

"Rest assured that all the animals will continue to have excellent care," Lowe said.

Officials at the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, referred to as PETA, say the photos included in the report show lions suffering from flystrike. In this condition, flies are usually attracted to uncleared animal waste, bite other animals and lay eggs on them, resulting hatched maggots eating the skin.

 Associated Press

Live missile found at Florida airport

A live air-to-air missile discovered at a small central Florida airport has been secured in a munition storage facility at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

The unarmed French S-530 air-to-air missile was found at Lakeland Linder International Airport on Friday.

"It is secured and safe and they are just waiting on when and where they are going to dispose of the missile. Those details are yet to be solidified," Lt. Brandon Hanner, chief of media operations at MacDill.

Hanner said typically these kinds of weapons are taken to the explosives range and detonated. But this one is "too large to do that at MacDill," so the disposal logistics are being planned out.

The missile was found near Draken International, a defense contractor located at the airport. The discovery led to a partial evacuation of the airport, the newspaper reported.

MacDill's explosive ordnance team secured the device, then the logistics readiness squadron assisted them in bringing it to Tampa on a flatbed trailer, Hanner said.

 Associated Press

Jay-Z, Pharrell to release new song

Jay-Z and Pharrell Williams have teamed up to release a new song about Black ambition titled "Entrepreneur."

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

The track will be released Friday. It is in conjunction with TIME's special cover project "The New American Revolution," which was curated by Williams and includes conversations with Angela Davis, Naomi Osaka, Tyler, the Creator and others about the inequalities Black people encounter in the U.S.

Williams told TIME the song is "about how tough it is to be an entrepreneur in our country to begin with."

"Especially as someone of color, there's a lot of systemic disadvantages and purposeful blockages," he continued. "How can you get a fire started, or even the hope of an ember to start a fire, when you're starting at disadvantages with regards to health care, education, and representation?"

 Associated Press

"Boss" drummer gets zoning board nod

Max Weinberg, the longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen and the bandleader for Conan O'Brien's "Late Night" and "The Tonight Show," has been appointed to a local planning and zoning board in the Florida city where he lives.

Weinberg, 69, told The Palm Beach Post he's looking forward to serving Delray Beach during the two-year term. He said he plans to thoroughly review plans that come before the board.

"You owe that to the community," Weinberg said. "I want to see Delray Beach developed in a way that takes into consideration all of the different viewpoints. You need to look at these plans from every angle."

He was recommended for the post by Commissioner Juli Casale, who said she met Weinberg while campaigning last year.

Weinberg, who was hired as Springsteen's drummer in 1974, told the Post that community decisions, like music, can have a lasting effect.

 Associated Press
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > In my own voice: Azaadi | Sagari Chabra

It is the eve of Independence day, 14th August and as I write this the faces of the freedom fighters I have met and recorded over the years, flash before me.

Sushila Nayar was deep into meditation when I met her at her home. I waited and after what seemed a long time she opened her eyes and gave me an exquisite smile. She was soft-spoken and gentle but her memory was sharp. She recalled being jailed with Gandhi and Kasturba inside the Agha Khan Palace detention camp, shortly after the Quit India movement was announced. She said she was studying to be a doctor at Lady Hardinge College in Delhi but went to Bombay because we knew something was going to happen.

Once jailed, Sushila attended on Bapu during his 21 day fast and at some point she feared they would lose him as his condition deteriorated. Seeing the young Sushila distraught, Bapu told her, if God felt he (Gandhi) had any purpose left to serve he would keep him alive. Throughout the determination for freedom through non-violent means remained through a myriad ways; when Mahadev Desai and then Kasturba later died inside the jail, their bodies were cremated inside and despite the tragic deaths no one was prepared to surrender to the terms of the British.

She also said, Bapu felt that for nonviolence to be effective the whole country had to be non-violent. If violence broke out anywhere he would suspend the movement but then he said we are now surrounded by violence. Then the answer came from within, for non-violence to be effective it had to act in the midst of violence.

I also recall meeting Lakshmi Swaminathan Sahgal who was in Singapore when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose arrived. Under his leadership she set up the Rani of Jhansi Regiment the first all-woman military regiment with one thousand five hundred women volunteering from Malaya and Burma. These heroic women trained in arms, witnessed the bombing of the Red Cross hospital by the British and when asked to disband even gave a petition to Bose signed in blood recalled Gouri Bhattacharya Sen demanding, we want to go to the front and die for the cause.

Netaji realized the tide was against them and marched with them through a grueling 21 day trek through the forests of Burma. Janaki Thevar the second to command the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, recalled how two of the Ranis  Stella and Josephine were killed in a firing but no one broke down.

When the British reoccupied Malaya, each of the Ranis were interrogated and put under house arrest but no one reneged.

Feedom is both indefinable and intrinsic to the dignity of a human being. Despite giving so much for the cause of freedom, the havoc of Partition caused many to return to Malaya. Gandhi Nathan, - a Tokyo cadet - recalled that he could not get admission to the Indian Military Academy nor get a job so he had to return to Malaya. His only dream was to serve India he said with a faraway look in his eyes as he sat in his home in Kuala Lumpur. Many gave so that you and I could walk in free India.

The idea of India was that people of all religions and those who professed no religion would live together in harmony and peace. Gandhi had envisaged the era of climate change and had urged that people consume, each according to his need and not greed. Ambedkar had warned we were entering an era of political freedom but not one of social and economic freedom. But we reassured him that this time it would be different, we were free at last and would extend the frontiers of freedom to all. This was fraternity.

14th August is also the birth anniversary of Kuldip Nayar the journalist who was jailed during the Emergency but who lit candles this day at the Attari-Wagah border. Delhi had been the city which beckoned all, as Netajis rallying cry was Dilli Challo but the terrible carnage witnessed in February in which 53 people got killed - mostly of the minority community but also of the majority community, makes one wonder, whatever happened to that idea of India?

What breaks my heart is that those who have been writing for peace have been called in for questioning or had false charges foisted against them. Apoorvanand teaches at Delhi University and his writings and conduct are a living breath of ahimsa. At a meeting when someone talked in anger he reminded him that hamaari bhasha hamesha ahimsatmak ho  our language must always be non-violent. Harsh Mander who led the Aman Ka Karavan to the families of those who have been lynched in free India  unbelievable but sadly true  expressing remorse on behalf of the silent majority. His speech saying, they will give us hate, we will give them love how can it be called a facade of peace?

And when three journalists from the Caravan magazine who in the course of their journalistic duties are stopped, beaten almost strangulated by a camera strap and the woman journalist  whose name has not been declared for safety reasons  is sexually molested with a man actually exposing his private parts to her, I hang my head in shame and wonder, whether the idea of India is being disrobed.

It was never a perfect society for it had sharp cleavages having lived with centuries of oppression but the vision our founding fathers and mothers embodied in a beautiful document  the Constitution  envisaged liberty and equality  both social and economic  and fraternity that extends to us, women too!

If what happened to Apoorvanand, Harsh Mander and the journalists of Caravan goes unchecked, the very idea of India  its plurality, free press and expression of dissent - will be dismembered forever. Perhaps if Kuldip Nayar were alive today he would light mombattis in Delhi, or Gandhi would fast, to remind us what we really are - ahimsatmak. But then again, for non-violence to be effective it will have to act within the violence.

Author:

Sagari Chhabra Is an award-winning author & film-director. She is director of the Hamaara Itihaas archive.
by NAT da Polis

Erdogan's decree was published in todays Official Gazette. This is the same fate as Hagia Sophia. The monastery in Chora (Karye) is a rare example of Byzantine art, part of the worlds cultural heritage even for Turkish historians. The arrogant ambitions of the Turkish president mix politics, ideology and culture. The West prefers to look elsewhere and trade.

Istanbul (AsiaNews)  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued the order to transform the splendid Kariye Camii museum, also known as the Monastery of the Holy Saviour in Chora, into a mosque. His decision was published today in the Official Gazette.

Erdogan's order is based on a ruling by the State Council in November 2019 according to which using the building as a museum was "against the law".

Last May, the same Council gave Erdogan the greenlight to turn the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque.

The Kariye Camii Museum is located in Fatih, Istanbuls most populous and religiously conservative district.

With this decision, the museum now comes under the control of the powerful Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), which will carry out the necessary work to transform it into a mosque.

The original monastery was built in 534 AD, during the early Byzantine period. The internal walls, pillars and domes are entirely covered with mosaics and frescoes that date back to the 11th century.

After the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans (1453), the monastery, like the Basilica of Hagia Sophia, was seized and turned into a mosque in 1511. In 1945, Turkeys cabinet converted the mosque into a museum.

Turning the museum into a mosque is an insult to the cultural heritage of humanity, even more than in the case of Hagia Sophia. The Chora monastery is in fact one of the rarest examples of Byzantine art given its mosaics and frescoes, a landmark of humanitys cultural heritage, as the great Turkish historian Ilber Ortayl put it.

Some of its splendid frescoes and mosaics, which had been covered with plaster when it became a mosque in the 16th century, were restored by 1958, after careful work by an US archaeological school, with the contribution of some Turkish scholars.

Some diplomats note that Erdogan's decision reflects his arrogant ambitions, largely for domestic consumption, which mix politics, ideology and culture.

Unfortunately, this has been met by the tolerance of the polite leaders of Western powers, driven more by economic and financial interests than human dignity.

Some observers cite, for example, the presence of 6,000 German and other foreign businesses in Turkey, as well as US President Donald Trump who has praised Erdogans leadership. For them, May Allah save Turkey!"
Kia Motors India on August 21 said it has received 6,523 bookings on the first day for its upcoming compact SUV Sonet. The upcoming model has generated an overwhelming response, with a record 6,523 bookings on the very first day, Kia Motors India said in a statement.

Prospective customers were able to book the car online and through company's sales network by paying an initial booking amount of Rs 25,000, it added.

Kia Motors had commenced Sonet bookings from Wednesday midnight.

The tremendous response to the all-new Sonet, proves that there is never a bad time to launch a good product. It also shows that the faith of Indian consumers in Brand Kia has grown leaps and bounds over just one year of our operation in India," Kia Motors India MD and CEO Kookhyun Shim said.

The company would like to assure the customers that it is fully committed to delivering Sonet in the least time possible with Anantpur plant operating with optimum efficiency, he added.

Kia Sonet, when launched next month, will compete with Maruti Vitara Brezza, Hyundai Venue, Tata Nexon, among others.
Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was unconscious in intensive care after a suspected poisoning, his spokeswoman said Thursday.

The anti-corruption campaigner and staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter.

Yarmysh said Navalny drank tea that appeared to have been laced with a toxin. Russias state news agency, Tass, confirmed Navalny is being treated for poisoning at a hospital in Omsk, where his plane made an emergency landing. Citing the chief doctor at the hospital, Tass said Navalny was in grave condition.

He was placed on a ventilator.

On Friday, doctors at Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, where the politician was being treated, remained tight-lipped about his diagnosis saying only that they were considering a variety of theories, including poisoning. Local health officials said they found no indication that Navalny had suffered from a heart attack, stroke or the coronavirus.

Navalny, 44, is the effective face of political opposition to Putin and he has been in and out of jail for his activism against Russias longtime leader.

Last year, Navalny claimed he was poisoned while serving a short jail sentence. Doctors said he had a severe allergic reaction to an unknown substance. He was left partially blind in one eye after a pro-Putin activist attacked him with a chemical in 2017.

Navalny attempted to run against Putin in Russias 2018 presidential elections but was barred from participating over a fraud conviction he alleged was politically motivated.

Many of Putins opponents  journalists, politicians, former associates  have died in suspicious circumstances.

The British government concluded that Russian military agents were behind the poisoning attack in 2018 in Britain against former Moscow spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia, in which Novichok, a highly toxic, military-grade nerve agent, was used.

British authorities concluded that Alexander Litvinenko, another former Russian spy, was poisoned to death at the Kremlins behest in a London hotel in 2006.

Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who was a critic of the Kremlin and exposed Russian human rights abuses, was murdered in 2006.

Boris Berezovsky, an oligarch who was once Putins right-hand man, was found hanged at his mansion outside London in 2013.

Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, a member of the pro-democracy group Open Russia, said attempts were made to poison him in 2015 and 2017.

On both occasions, Kara-Murza nearly died.

In 2018, Nikolai Glushkov, a close associate of Berezovskys whom Moscow accused of embezzling money from Aeroflot, Russias state airline, was found strangled in his home near London. Glushkovs name was on the top of an extradition list of 51 Russian citizens that Moscow described as fugitives from justice but welcome in Britain. The list was published by the Russian Embassy in London.

That same year, Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the feminist performance art protest group Pussy Riot, was flown to a hospital in Germany after suffering what doctors said was a near-fatal poisoning by an unknown substance.

Navalny led nationwide protests against Putin, whose administration he described as full of crooks and thieves who are sucking the blood out of Russia.

The Kremlin denies using violence for political ends.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that law enforcement would launch an investigation if the poisoning is confirmed.

Videos circulating on social media show Navalny moaning in pain while aboard the flight.

This is Putin. Whether he gave the order or not, the fault lies entirely with him, said Yarmysh, Navalnys spokeswoman.

Unfortunately, the nature of these things in Russia is that the poisoning could have just as likely been committed by an agent of the state as by some ill-wisher doing what (this person) thinks the state wants without the government ordering or even knowing of the attack, said Anna Arutunyan, author of The Putin Mystique.

If the government was not involved, then its inability or lack of will to hold attackers accountable for past poisonings creates a culture where these kinds of things become possible  a culture beyond government control, which is just as bad, she said.

This year, two Russian doctors died and another was seriously injured in mysterious falls from hospital windows after they reportedly came under pressure over working conditions in the coronavirus pandemic.

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New South Wales has reported just one new coronavirus case overnight despite conducting 32,580 tests.

The person is a close contact of a previously identified case linked to Hornsby Hospital and is not considered a threat to the public.

When the person heard that they had come into contact with a known COVID-19 case, they immediately went into isolation.

New South Wales Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant on Friday said the person went into self imposed quarantine prior to developing symptoms.

Therefore, the latest patient has not been out in public since becoming infectious and no further contact tracing will be undertaken.

In spite of the low diagnosis rate in New South Wales, Premier Gladys Berejiklian is still concerned that the virus could be circulating within the community. Pictured: Cleaner sanitising surfaces in the rain in Melbourne

New South Wales has reported just one new coronavirus case overnight despite conducting 32,580 tests. Pictured: New South Wales coronavirus figures since June 1

In spite of the low diagnosis rate in New South Wales, Premier Gladys Berejiklian is still concerned that the virus could be circulating within the community.

Ms Berejiklian urged all residents in south-western Sydney in particular with 'the mildest of symptoms' to get tested immediately.

'Because we know the virus is circulating in those communities and our anxiety is that we want to reduce the number of unknown cases,' she said.

A statement from NSW Health on Friday confirmed the virus is still within the community.

'While case numbers have remained low this week the virus continues to circulate in the community and vigilance must be maintained,' the statement read.

'It is vital that high rates of testing continue in order to find the source of the cases still under investigation and to identify and stop further spread of the virus.'

Ms Berejiklian previously expressed concern that untraceable COVID-19 cases were still being identified.

'We're concerned that there is community transmission we haven't picked up,' she said last Friday.

'We're doing well, we're holding our own, but when every week you get a couple of unknown cases and they can't be linked, you do worry.'

There are 111 active coronavirus cases in New South Wales, including seven patients in intensive care and six on ventilators.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned coronavirus is circulating in south-western Sydney

A healthcare worker conducts a coronavirus test on a patient at a COVID-19 testing facility

Overnight, a further 32,580 tests were conducted - and only one positive was found.

Victoria is also experiencing a positive downturn in cases, with just 179 cases identified in the 24 hours to Friday.

Dr Chant said while it is 'pleasing' to see 'some stabilisation in the regional spread of COVID in Victoria', she would not indicate when New South Wales would consider reopening the Victorian border.

The border has been closed since July 8 following the state's second outbreak of COVID-19.

'These are sort of complex decisions that often relate to what other settings Victoria has in place,' she said.

'Some of the concerns we would have would be the movements of people from infected areas (and) what sort of outbreak control measures they've got in place. So it's not just one factor.

'It's multiple factors we would take into account in assessing the public health at that time.'

Dr Chant said while the virus was still in the community, it would pose a threat to public health and safety.

'Because this virus can spread so stealthily in the community  we have to be vigilant for its reintroduction, and we therefore can't go back to how we were before,' she said.

A male airline passenger wears a face shield off a Qantas flight from Melbourne as he waits in line to be checked by New South Wales police. The border between NSW and Victoria is closed

Ms Palaszcuk has been slammed for her tight border restrictions, with critics arguing they are destroying the economy (pictured, the border on August 7)

'We must continue to adopt COVID-safe practices and recognise the threat is with us.'

Meanwhile Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected urge state premiers to 'get practical' and reconsider their position on border closures, as the lockdowns continue to split the country apart.

In addition to the human cost, the closures are wreaking havoc on the economy, which is already teetering on the brink of ruin amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The prime minister will address the issues with border closures at a cabinet meeting on Friday.

The federal government will push state leaders to reconsider their positions on keeping borders shut - particularly states without any community transmission.

'Well we've got to be practical about these things, and we've got to act on medical advice and that has to be transparent,' Mr Morrison said earlier this week.

Two women wearing masks as a preventative measure against the coronavirus disease in Sydney

Commuters take the preventative measure of wearing a mask on Sydney public transport to stem the spread of COVID-19
The United States blacklisted senior Syrian government officials and leaders of several Syrian military units as Washington continues to impose sanctions aimed at cutting off funds for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.



The action, which follows the blacklisting of the president, his wife and other individuals and entities, marks another round of sanctions in Washington's bid to push al-Assad's government back to United Nations-led negotiations and broker an end to the country's nearly decade-long war.



The U.S. imposed sanctions on Luna Al Shibl, al-Assad's top press officer, her husband Mohamad Ammar Saati bin Mohamad Nawzad, a prominent member of the Syrian Baath Party and former parliamentarian, the Treasury Department said in a statement.



The U.S. State Department also imposed sanctions on the leadership of several Syrian military units, including National Defence Forces commander Fadi Saqr, over their efforts to prevent a ceasefire, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a separate statement, warning Washington will "aggressively pursue" sanctions against other military commanders, Aljazeera reported.

"The United States and its allies are united in continuing to apply pressure on Assad and his enablers until there is peaceful, political solution to the conflict. Assad and his foreign patrons know the clock is ticking for action," Pompeo said.
Freshers' week should be moved online to prevent Covid-19 outbreaks when university students go back next month, an independent group of scientists say.

The experts have earmarked campuses as potential super-spreading zones, because young people are more likely to carry the virus without knowing and mingle with strangers.

They say freshers' week - normally held in mid-September and revolved around partying and drinking - should be banned and held on Zoom calls or Skype chats instead.

Testing should also be carried out before, or as soon as people arrive, on campus, and at regular intervals throughout the day, according to the Independent SAGE committee.

The group made a series of drastic recommendations for the higher education sector in a report published today ahead of universities reopening next month.

They are advising universities to make online learning the default option for all subjects rather than in-person lectures.

Freshers' week should be moved online to prevent outbreaks when university students go back next month, according to an independent group of scientists

In June, the University of Cambridge confirmed all 'face-to-face lectures' would be moved online during the 2020-21 academic year to ensure social distancing can continue amid the pandemic.

A number of universities across the UK are also planning to offer a blended learning approach - with a mix of online lessons and face-to-face teaching - when they reopen campuses to students in the autumn.

Earlier this month it emerged that universities in the UK will ban parties and overnight stays for students from September as part of their strict social distancing guidelines.

Students who live in households, or 'bubbles', will no longer be allowed to mix with their peers from other households and could face 'disciplinary action' if they breach the public health measures

'Do you really need to party?' WHO urges young people to help control the spread of coronavirus Young people must curb their party instincts to help prevent new coronavirus outbreaks, officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) pleaded last week. It is thought that younger generations have been contributing to recent resurgences of Covid-19 by gathering again for parties, barbecues and holidays amid the easing of lockdown restrictions. The proportion of those infected aged 15-24 has risen three-fold in about five months, WHO data shows. The warning comes after the global death toll topped 700,000. 'Younger people also need to take on board that they have a responsibility,' said WHO emergencies chief and father-of-three Mike Ryan in an online discussion. 'Ask yourself the question: do I really need to go to that party?' Young people are less likely to suffer a severe form of the respiratory disease than their parents or grandparents. But the proportion of those infected aged 15-24 has risen three-fold in about five months, WHO data shows. Mr Ryan said young people were often also reticent in giving their details or disclosing friends' names to contact tracers. 'It's tough but it is what is needed to stop the virus,' he said. Advertisement

As hundreds of students gear up for the highly-anticipated freshers week, this week the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol announced that 'unacceptable behaviour' could lead to students being issued with fines.

Meanwhile the University of East Anglia confirmed it too had taken the decision to ban 'overnight guests' from outside the student household as the crisis continued to grapple the nation.

Students at University College London and Cambridge have also been banned from having parties or inviting people to stay overnight.

In its report today, Independent SAGE - set up as an alternative to the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - said teachers who do have to do physical lectures should wear masks and maintain social distance from others.

Oxford University has already made it compulsory for students to wear a face covering in any shared indoor space, including the students' union and any libraries, unless they had a medical exemption.

Today's report also suggested forcing students to sign a social behaviour agreement which, if breached, could lead to disciplinary action.

Professor Liz Stokoe, a sociologist and member of Independent SAGE, said: 'It's hugely important that universities are re-opened but students will be travelling from all over the country and the world, that will create risks of infection transmission, and so it is essential to put detailed procedures in place so as to guarantee a safe return. This is essential for the welfare of students, of staff and the wider community.

'It would be disastrous if universities were forced to close as we've seen happen in the US so we are urging them to play safe and work with students to mitigate the risks.'

Professor Stokoe and colleagues want universities to provide accommodation where students can go to quarantine if they have the virus or if a close contact tests positive.

They recommended temperature checks at the door of every halls of residence to check students and visitors for the disease.

A Universities UK spokesman told the Guardian that it was already planning to implement some of the recommendations in the report.

They said: 'Universities are working in partnership with their local authorities, public health bodies and others to ensure that effective and rapid outbreak response plans are in place and clearly understood.

'This includes ensuring that students or staff showing symptoms of Covid-19 have access to local testing and are supported to self-isolate  and we welcome this report's focus on the need for clarity about testing for universities.'

Mandatory testing is not included in the Department for Education's guidance for universities reopening.

A spokeswoman said: 'The safety of students and staff must be a priority, and we expect universities to make judgments based on the latest public health guidance.'

It comes as younger people have been blamed for contributing to recent resurgences of Covid-19.

The proportion of those infected aged 15-24 has risen three-fold in about five months, World Health Organization (WHO) data shows.

Young people are less likely to fall seriously unwell with Covid or suffer symptoms at all, but they are the most likely group to mingle with others.

Meanwhile, universities are demanding more money in order to cope with taking in extra students following the Government's U-turn on exams.

The sudden change in policy over exam grades left 55,000 pupils scrambling for places, leaving elite universities facing the prospect of being overwhelmed.

Amid the chaos of the scrapping of the controversial algorithm system used to award grades, students who initially did not meet their offer requirements now have the required marks - and a previous cap on student admissions was also lifted.

Universities have asked for extra financial help so they can 'scale up' places for the 2020 and 2021 intake, a source said this week.

Gavin Williamson has urged universities to 'go above and beyond' to honour the commitments they have made to students who have been promised places.

There are concerns that this year's exam chaos could have longer term consequences and spill over into next year, with some high performing students thought to be prepared to defer to get into their university of choice in 2021.

Some 55,000 pupils who were rejected by their first choices had signed up for other institutions - and could now want to return to their desired university if their grades are bumped up by the U-turn.

Roughly 30,000 students accepted a place at their second choice university, while an additional 80,000 are holding out for appeals.

Russell Group universities have asked for more money to take in more students for high-cost subjects like engineering and chemistry.
Joe Biden pressed his case Thursday night for a major course correction in America as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, forcefully indicting the Trump administration while laying out a vision to reunify the nation and restore competence and decency to the White House.

"If you entrust me with the presidency I will draw on the best of us, not the worst," Biden said. "I'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness."

Shifting between the conversational style of a friendly neighbor and the thunder of righteous anger, Biden issued a dire warning of what the nation could become under four more years of President Trump.

"Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation," Biden said. "He's failed to protect us."

Closing out the four-day Democratic National Convention, Biden spoke for less than 25 minutes, relatively short by traditional convention standards, but it was his most consequential speech in half a century in politics.

While he never mentioned Trump by name, he hammered away at the president's performance and the chaos of his administration as it struggles with a deadly pandemic and an economic calamity.

"American history tells us that its been in our darkest moments that weve made our greatest progress," Biden said, invoking the legacies of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the late civil rights icon John Lewis. "I believe were poised to make great progress again. That we can find the light once more.

He offered a series of ambitious policy vows: to implement a plan to confront the virus on Day One, to confront climate change, to confront racial injustice.

Biden promised to enable middle-class workers to care for elderly family members at home, and equal pay for equal work.

The convention ended with the traditional tableau of Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, together onstage, but with a pandemic-related twist.

Story continues

Without a cavernous arena and sea of delegates to blanket in a cascade of tumbling balloons, Biden, Harris and their spouses turned and waved at a wall-sized display of Zoom boxes, whose occupants smiled and waved back.

Outside in a parking lot, a crowd of supporters hefted signs, shook thunder sticks and honked their car horns as the two couples emerged  wearing face masks  on a flag-bedecked stage and watched as fireworks streaked through the night sky.

Biden clapped merrily, and some in the al fresco audience flickered their car lights in celebration.

In laying out his vision, Biden returned to the theme of the country's deep and abiding racial divisions.

His voice tightened and eyes blazed as he spoke of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., three summer ago and how Trump's refusal to condemn the racist violence had compelled Biden to run.

Trump "said there were very fine people on both sides,' Biden said, his tone dripping with disdain. I can never remain silent or complicit."

Will we be the generation that finally wipes out the stain of racism from our national character?" he said. "I believe were up to it."

More festively, the night had the feel at times of a family reunion, albeit a carefully formatted one.

There were video tributes to Bidens late son, Beau, a former Delaware attorney general who died of a brain tumor in 2015 at age 46. He and Harris were friends, which factored into Biden's selection of his running mate.

Another segment, highlighting the nominees relationship with his grandchildren  he likes vanilla ice cream, they revealed, with chocolate sprinkles  played before Biden was introduced by his daughter, Ashley, and youngest son, Hunter. (Hunter Biden has been attacked by Republicans for trading on his family name in doing business overseas.)

He will be tough and honest, they said, alternating lines. "Hell treat everyone with respect no matter who you are. ... Hes been a great father. And we think hell be a great president.

Many saw the intimate moments like those and other parts of the online convention as a more persuasive presentation than the traditional arena-sized gathering originally planned here in Milwaukee but then deemed unsafe in the COVID-19 pandemic.

To the great relief of Democrats, the four nights saw no major technical glitches.

Still, there were more than a few jarring moments when Thursday night's hostess, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, interspersed serious-minded policy discussion and other sober segments with jokes that fell flat.

One recurring head-scratcher was a gag about how to pronounce Vice President Mike Pence's name, an apparent slap at Republicans consistently mispronouncing Kamala Harris' first name. (It's COMMA-la.)

A day after making history by installing Harris as Bidens vice presidential running mate  the first woman of color on a major-party ticket  Democrats continued to place their diversity at center stage.

Speakers emphasized racial injustice and voting rights, warning that suppression efforts by the White House and other malfeasance could tip the election to Trump.

Introducing a video honoring the late congressman Lewis  during a lengthy tribute to the civil rights movement  the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, told Americans how they could best honor his memory.

Lets stand up for our children, our childrens children and for the great democracy that our ancestors worked to build, Bottoms said, and lets vote.

Almost as striking as the novel format was something else unusual for a Democratic convention: the utter lack of dissent.

One reason was delegates were scattered across the country. With no gathering on the convention floor, there was no way to wage a floor fight over the platform or other areas of disagreement.

Instead, more than half a dozen of Bidens former rivals, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, appeared "Hollywood Squares"-style in a jokey segment extolling their erstwhile opponent.

It was a stark contrast with the enmity of the convention four years ago when some Sanders supporters repeatedly booed Hillary Clinton, the partys 2016 nominee.

But the good tidings also reflect the urgency Democrats feel to oust Trump and the willingness to unify around that singular goal.

Beyond the presence of Harris on the ticket, California, with its mighty electoral college heft, was well represented throughout the virtual convention.

On the final night, Gov. Gavin Newsom was featured in a video recorded on a phone while in transit to a wildfire evacuation center in Watsonville.

He said climate change deniers like Trump should visit to see firsthand the wreckage it has wrought, and took aim at Trump for suggesting California should be denied federal wildfire relief because the state hasn't raked enough leaves.

You cant make that up, Newsom said. Nor can you make up that we are involved in more than 90 lawsuits against the Trump administration.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who has played prominently in the party's push to expand mail voting in the face of Trump's efforts to undermine it, also spoke.

"Trump has admitted he is trying to sabotage the post office by undermining voting by mail," Padilla said. "And we are not going to let him do that."

After a parade of speakers spent parts of all four nights pounding away at Trump  with former President Obama and his wife, Michelle, landing some of the harshest blows  Biden had a clear path to offer an affirmative case for his White House bid.

Polls have consistently shown Biden leading the race, but apparently not from a flood of enthusiasm for his candidacy. In a recent Pew poll, more than half the registered voters who supported Biden or leaned his way said their motivation was simply the fact he was not Trump.

Much of the weeks programming  glowing testimonials, family photos, archival footage  was intended to fill in those gaps, painting Biden as a caring and competent alternative to a truculent incumbent.

Trump continued trolling Biden from afar. He traveled to Pennsylvania to appear outside Scranton, where Biden grew up, accusing his rival of betraying its people by moving away from the hardscrabble city.

Biden was only 10 at the time.

The Biden campaign welcomed the outbursts, suggesting they reinforced the Democrats case that Trump is too erratic and insufficiently attentive to the pandemic's rising death toll  now more than 174,000 Americans  and brutal job losses to deserve another four years in office.

We actually appreciate President Trump going out there because the American people will get to see a tale of two presidents, said Symone Sanders, a Biden campaign advisor.

Halper reported from Washington and Barabak from Milwaukee. Times staff writers Janet Hook in Washington and Melissa Gomez in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Tulsi Gabbard Says She Wasnt Invited to the Democratic National Convention

Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) said that she was not invited to the Democratic National Committees nominating convention, making her the only candidate who won at least one delegate in the primaries not to be honored with a request to participate in the event in some way.

Gabbard, who has sparred with establishment Democrats in the past, confirmed her lack of invitation to the convention in responding to a tweet by one of her followers.

Youre correct  I was not invited to participate in any way, she wrote Thursday, sharing a tweet which noted that it has been a tradition that spanned decades for any candidate who earned a delegate to be offered a speaking slot at the convention.

Youre correct  I was not invited to participate in any way. https://t.co/zQBOQB8Zw7  Tulsi Gabbard  (@TulsiGabbard) August 20, 2020

The other six Democratic candidates who won delegates in the primaries were all involved in the DNC convention in some form. The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.

Gabbard has been a vocal critic of vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, criticizing her record as a prosecutor and saying she lacks the temperament that is necessary for a commander in chief.

Sen. Harris said shes proud of her record as a prosecutor and that shell be a prosecutor president, but Im deeply concerned about this record, Gabbard said on the debate stage. She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.

She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California, and she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way, Gabbard continued.

Harris responded saying she stood by her work as a prosecutor: When I was in the position of having to decide whether or not to seek a death penalty on cases I prosecuted, I made a very difficult decision that was not popular to not seek the death penalty. History shows that and I am proud of those decisions.

The Hawaii member of Congress also sued failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for defamation after the former secretary of state called her a Russian asset.

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain, Gabbard wrote in a tweet after Clinton made the comments.

From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we knowit was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. Its now clear that this primary is between you and me. Dont cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly, Gabbard continued. She later dropped the suit against Clinton.

At Thursdays convention, former vice president Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, seeking in a 22-minute acceptance speech to portray himself as a viable alternative to President Donald Trump.

Biden summed up his view of the campaign: We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal.

If Biden is successful in his bid for the White House, he will be the oldest president ever elected. Trump, who is 74, has publicly cast doubt on Bidens mental capacity and has dubbed the challenger Sleepy Joe.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Emails sent by Swedens chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell in March confirm that the countrys authorities consciously pursued a homicidal policy of herd immunity from the outset of the pandemic, and that they chose to keep schools open specifically to accelerate the spread of coronavirus. The messages, obtained through a freedom of information request by a freelance journalist, are not only a damning indictment of the criminal response to COVID-19 by Swedish authorities, but of the ruling elite across Europe and North America, which is now embracing precisely the same approach.

Anders Tegnell (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The release of Tegnells emails is particularly timely, given that opposition is building among hundreds of thousands of teachers, students and parents in the United States and Europe to the murderous reopening of schools. Politicians have justified this course with lies about children being less prone to infection and less likely to spread the virus to other people. Yet what Tegnells correspondence reveals is that health authorities knew early on that schools would act as super-spreading centers. Rather than try to prevent such a disastrous development, Tegnell positively celebrated it as a way to ensure the coronavirus spread as quickly as possible.

Swedish authorities rejected the imposition of a lockdown as the virus emerged in March, allowed all businesses to remain open, and kept all primary and lower secondary school students in class throughout the pandemic. The result was a catastrophically high death rate that was among the highest in the world per head of population. With just over 10 million inhabitants, Sweden has recorded to date over 5,800 deaths and more than 85,400 cases. By comparison, neighbouring Finland, which implemented a stricter lockdown, has recorded just 334 deaths to date. Even allowing for the fact that Sweden has approximately double the population of Finland, Sweden has still recorded a death rate more than nine times higher than Finland.

In perhaps the most explosive email, written to his Finnish counterpart Mika Salminen on 13 March, Tegnell tries to persuade Swedens neighbour to adopt its policy on schools. One point might speak for keeping schools open in order to reach herd immunity more quickly, wrote Tegnell on March 14 to Salminen. After Salminen responded by stating that Finnish authorities rejected this idea because children would spread the virus, Tegnell answered, True, but probably mostly to each other because of the extremely age-stratified contact structure we have.

At his daily press briefings, Tegnell always denied that his policy goal was to reach herd immunity by letting the virus spread unchecked. The leaked emails confirm that this was a lie, aimed at preventing the public backlash that the open declaration of such an inhumane policy would have triggered.

Support for herd immunity was not only the position advocated by Tegnell, but significant sections of the public health policy establishment with whom he was in contact. Tegnell closely consulted on Swedens coronavirus response with his predecessor Johan Giesecke, who served as state epidemiologist from 1995 to 2005. Giesecke wrote in an email to a Swedish insurance company in March, I believe the virus is going to sweep like a storm over Sweden and infect basically everyone in one or two months. I believe that thousands are already infected in Sweden it will all come to an end when so many have been infected and become therefore immune that the virus has nowhere else to go (so-called herd immunity?).

In a subsequent email to Tegnell, Giesecke complained that upper secondary schools and universities had been closed. I think we should relax the closures of upper secondary schools and universities after Easter. They play no epidemiological role and it would be a signal of change for the better, he wrote. Ultimately, this policy was implemented in June.

Tegnells decision to leave the schools open was accompanied by a disastrous approach to testing. Swedish authorities initially refused to test all asymptomatic people, and failed to test large numbers of critical frontline workers, especially in elderly care. This made it virtually impossible to trace coronavirus outbreaks quickly enough in these facilities, which became killing fields as low-paid, precariously employed workers forced to work at multiple locations to make ends meet carried the virus with them.

To ensure that the health care system did not totally collapse under the crush of COVID-19 patients, authorities in Stockholm ensured that care was effectively denied to people aged over 80. Reports abounded of elderly residents being left to die in care homes without being offered a hospital transfer. (See: Failure to halt COVID-19 spread leads to mass deaths in Swedish elder care homes.)

If governments of all political stripes across Europe and North America get their way, these horrific conditions will be replicated on a far greater scale over the weeks and months ahead.

There can be no doubt that similarly chilling discussions as those engaged in by Tegnell, which produced policy decisions that condemned thousands of people to an early grave, have taken place within the ruling class of virtually every country. From British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons casual declaration in March that it would be best to simply take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, to German Chancellor Angela Merkels bland assertion in March that 60 to 70 percent of the population would inevitably get infected, and President Trumps abandonment of any effort to contain the pandemic in the United States, European and North American ruling elites have all embraced the herd immunity strategy pioneered by Tegnell in Sweden.

Governments in Europe and the US only reluctantly implemented lockdown measures in late March, principally due to mounting pressure from their populations. This was expressed most clearly by wildcat work stoppages in auto plants across North America, and strikes by auto and manufacturing workers in Europe. Serious scientific studies have demonstrated that these lockdowns, after effectively being imposed on the ruling elite by working class opposition, saved millions of lives. One study from Imperial College London estimated that 3.1 million lives were saved in 11 European countries.

However, as soon as the governments looted state treasuries to transfer trillions of dollars and euros into the coffers of the major corporations and banks to ensure they could continue accumulating vast quantities of wealth, a catastrophic policy of prematurely reopening the economy was imposed. As a result, the pandemic is currently spreading at a record pace globally, with the death toll rapidly approaching 800,000.

In the three weeks since schools began opening in the United States during the week of July 27, at least 2,500 teachers, students, and other education workers have been infected by the virus. Outbreaks have been recorded in schools across the country, with only six states yet to register an outbreak.

In Germany, state governments are displaying utter contempt for the lives of teachers and students as they push ahead with the full reopening of schools even as new infections reach their highest level since April. Over 50 infections have been reported from schools in just one state, Hamburg, in the two weeks since schools reopened. In neighbouring Schleswig-Holstein, the state government rejected almost all of the 2,000 applications from teachers with preexisting medical conditions to be allowed to work from home. All state governments have abandoned any effort to implement social distancing.

No country is even attempting to provide adequate testing and contact tracing to teachers and students, even though any objective examination of the dangerous conditions they confront in dilapidated school buildings on a daily basis would have to conclude that they are all at an increased risk of getting infected.

While there is no shortage of chaos and incompetence displayed by governments in every country with their homicidal back-to-school drive, a definite policy is being very consciously pursued, i.e., herd immunity by infection. Like Tegnell and his colleagues, governments in virtually every country calculate that letting the virus rip through the population like a storm is the most effective way to protect the interests of big business and the financial elite. Returning children to school is seen as essential so that parents can be forced back to work to produce profits for shareholders and the super-rich. And should teachers, students and parents die from the virus, especially those with preexisting health conditions, the ruling elite sees this as a positive good because it will facilitate the slashing of spending on health care provision.

A new stage in the COVID-19 catastrophe can only be prevented through the conscious political intervention of the working class to stop the reckless back-to-school drive. This requires above all the construction of independent rank-and-file action committees in every school, university and neighbourhood to prepare a general strike to halt the reopening of schools and demand a vast increase in funding for public education to ensure children and young people can receive a decent education during the pandemic. A critical part of this struggle must be the holding to account of government officials, like Tegnell, who have exploited their medical credentials and positions within the capitalist state apparatus to pursue a homicidal policy that threatens the lives of millions of working people internationally.
A 27-year-old Milwaukie man suspected of firing a 9-millimeter handgun Saturday at a protest in downtown Portland will face several criminal charges, the Multnomah County District Attorneys Office announced Thursday.

Skyler Jernigan is charged with four counts of unlawful use of a weapon and two each of menacing, reckless endangerment and discharging a firearm in city limits.

He was arrested Wednesday. Police said Jernigan, during an interview, admitted to firing the gun.

No injuries from the shooting were reported.

Jernigan was one of several pro-police protesters downtown Saturday and clashed with counter-protesters, video footage shows.

Court documents say police reviewed video footage of Jernigan in a car driving out of a parking garage, pointing a gun out the window and firing two shots before driving away.

Police said after his arrest Jernigan told them he fired the gun because he heard an object hit his car, and he wanted to scare people.

Police said several people were in the direction that Jernigan fired the gun.

The shooting happened after an afternoon rally outside the Justice Center in support of police, planned by local right-wing organizers. About 30 pro-police demonstrators attended the event, with about the same number of counter-protesters.

The two groups clashed, with the pro-police group using pepper spray and firing paintballs at others. Counter-protesters also said on social media that people threw a pipe bomb at them after the shooting, and police said they were investigating. As of Thursday, police had not provided any updates on that investigation.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

K. Rambo of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

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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.
(Newser)  Doctors in the Siberian city of Omsk refused to authorize the transfer of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny to a German hospital, his spokeswoman said Friday. Navalny remains in a coma in intensive care after a suspected poisoning his allies link to his political activity, the AP reports. "The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Familys decision to transfer him is not enough," Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted. Omsk is about 2,500 miles east of Berlin, roughly a six-hour flight.

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The 44-year-old Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. His team says a plane with all the necessary equipment is ready to take Navalny to a German clinic. Navalnys ally Ivan Zhdanov said Friday that police found "a very dangerous substance" in Navalnys system, but officials refuse to disclose which substance it is. Yarmysh also said in her tweet that "the ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life."

(Read more Alexei Navalny stories.)
The Regent Avenue West parking lot was nearly empty. Security guards stood outside, near the sliding doors, and potential shoppers who tried to get in received the same response: Walmart is closed, there's been a fire.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Regent Avenue West parking lot was nearly empty. Security guards stood outside, near the sliding doors, and potential shoppers who tried to get in received the same response: Walmart is closed, there's been a fire.

Not just one, but three separate fires Thursday night at Walmart locations around Winnipeg. Two of the impacted stores were closed Friday. There were no reported injuries.

The first blaze was reported inside the Walmart on Empress Street at 6:07 p.m. Hand-held extinguishers were employed prior to Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service members arriving to stamp out the flames. Further details about the incident or damage estimates were not given. The store was shuttered Friday.

At 7:19 p.m., WFPS crews were called to the Walmart on Regent Avenue West to deal with a fire. There's smoke damage in the building, but Walmart staff couldn't elaborate further Friday. They said the store could be closed for days, as they await feedback from inspectors.

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A third Walmart fire call brought crews to the McPhillips Street location at 8:49 p.m., but the flames were extinguished by the time they arrived. The store was open Friday, and there were no obvious signs of damage.

The Winnipeg Police Service says its major crimes unit is investigating the fires as related arson incidents. The WPS would not reveal if the fires  or any potential suspects  had been caught on video surveillance.

Counter to social media speculation, it doesn't appear the incidents are related to Walmart mandating face mask use at all its locations, WPS spokesperson Const. Jay Murray wrote in an email. As of Aug. 12, customers must wear masks or other face coverings in the retailer's stores.

Even so, Thursday night was an uncommon series of events, Murray said. "It is very unusual for the Winnipeg Police Service to investigate a string of related-fires inside similar stores like this."

Walmart Canada did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
Rating Action: Moody's affirms nine classes of CGCMT 2014-GC21

Global Credit Research - 21 Aug 2020

Approximately $632 million of structured securities affected

New York, August 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") has affirmed the ratings on nine classes in Citigroup Commercial Mortgage Trust 2014-GC21, as follows:

Cl. A-4, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf)

Cl. A-5, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf)

Cl. A-S, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf)

Cl. A-AB, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf)

Cl. B, Affirmed Aa3 (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed Aa3 (sf)

Cl. C, Affirmed A3 (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed A3 (sf)

Cl. PEZ**, Affirmed A1 (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed A1 (sf)

Cl. X-A*, Affirmed Aaa (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed Aaa (sf)

Cl. X-B*, Affirmed A2 (sf); previously on May 16, 2019 Affirmed A2 (sf)

* Reflects interest-only classes

** Reflects exchangeable classes

RATINGS RATIONALE

The ratings on the P&I classes were affirmed because 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), are within acceptable ranges.

The ratings on the interest-only (IO) classes were affirmed based on the credit quality of the referenced classes.

The rating on exchangeable class, Cl. PEZ, was affirmed due to the credit quality of the referenced exchangeable classes.

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 8.8% of the current pooled balance, compared to 6.4% at Moody's last review. Moody's base expected loss plus realized losses is now 7.3% of the original pooled balance, compared to 5.0% 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.

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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 principal methodology used in rating all classes except exchangeable classes and interest-only classes was "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. The principal methodology used in rating exchangeable classes was "Moody's Approach to Rating Repackaged Securities" published in June 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBS_1230078. 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 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 *) and exchangeable classes (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 August 12, 2020 distribution date, the transaction's aggregate certificate balance has decreased by 27% to $761 million from $1.04 billion at securitization. The certificates are collateralized by 58 mortgage loans ranging in size from less than 1% to 16% of the pool, with the top ten loans (excluding defeasance) constituting 51% of the pool. Four loans, constituting 3% 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 20, compared to 22 at Moody's last review. As of the August 12, 2020 remittance report, loans representing 84% were current or within their grace period on their debt service payments, 3% were beyond their grace period but less than 30 days delinquent, 3% were between 30 -- 59 days delinquent, 6% were 60 -- 89 days delinquent and 4% were greater than 90 days delinquent. Eleven loans, constituting 33% of the pool, are on the master servicer's watchlist, of which two loans, representing 7% 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. One loan has been liquidated from the pool, resulting in an aggregate realized loss of $8.9 million (for an average loss severity of 54%). Three loans, constituting 5% of the pool, are currently in special servicing. One of the specially serviced loans, representing 2% of the pool, has transferred to special servicing since March 2020. The largest specially serviced loan is the Harbor Square loan ($15.7 million -- 2.1% of the pool), which is secured by a 345,000 square feet (SF) anchored retail center located in Egg Harbor, NJ. The loan transferred to special servicing in February 2020 due to imminent monetary default. Burlington Coat Factory (25% of net rentable area (NRA)) vacated at lease expiration in November 2019. Property performance has declined since securitization and the loan is due for the April 2020 payment. The second largest specially serviced loan is the 24 Hour Fitness loan ($11.6 million -- 1.5% of the pool), which is secured by a 47,000 SF retail facility located in Burbank, CA. The property was occupied by a single tenant, 24 Hour Fitness, which filed for bankruptcy in June 2020. The loan transferred to special servicing in June 2020 due to payment default. Legal counsel has been engaged to foreclose while continuing discussions with the borrower. The loan is due for the April 2020 payment. The third largest specially serviced loan is The Collegiate loan ($7.6 million -- 1.0% of the pool), which is secured by 8-story student housing multifamily building in Madison, WI. The loan transferred to special servicing in December 2019 due to the borrower filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2019. Litigation is ongoing between the borrower and lender, and the borrower is making partial payments while a possible settlement is being discussed. Moody's has also assumed a high default probability for three poorly performing loans, constituting 6% of the pool, and has estimated an aggregate loss of $23.7 million (a 29% expected loss on average) from these specially serviced and troubled loans. The largest troubled loan is secured by an anchored retail center located in Howell, NJ which has a low DSCR and has been impacted by declining occupancy. The second largest troubled loan is secured by a medical office located in Memphis, TN which has been impacted by declining occupancy and revenues combined with an increase in expenses. The third largest troubled loan is secured by a mixed-use portfolio (office and retail) located in Easton, MD which has a low DSCR and has been impacted by declining occupancy. Moody's received full year 2019 operating results for 97% of the pool, and partial year 2020 operating results for 68% of the pool (excluding specially serviced and defeased loans). Moody's weighted average conduit LTV is 111%, compared to 109% 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 20% to the most recently available net operating income (NOI). Moody's value reflects a weighted average capitalization rate of 9.7%.

Moody's actual and stressed conduit DSCRs are 1.39X and 0.97X, respectively, compared to 1.41X and 0.98X 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 Maine Mall Loan ($125.0 million -- 16.4% of the pool), which represents a pari-passu portion of a $235.0 million mortgage loan. The loan is secured by a 730,444 SF component of a 1.0 million SF super-regional mall located in South Portland, Maine. The Maine Mall was built in 1971 and renovated in 1983, 1989 and 1994. The mall contains three anchors, which include Macy's, J.C. Penney, and Best Buy, and two dark anchors, which include Sears and Bon-Ton. Macy's and Sears own their respective units and are not contributed as collateral for the loan. Bon-Ton was a former collateral anchor tenant at the mall and vacated their space in August 2017. The former Bon-Ton space has since been leased to Jordan's Furniture which was supposed to open for business in April 2020. However, the opening has been delayed as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Sears has announced that they will close this location as part of their bankruptcy and is planning to close in September 2020. As of December 2019, the collateral portion was 76% leased compared to 82% in December 2018. The new lease with Jordan's Furniture will increase collateral occupancy to 91%. As of December 2019, the inline occupancy was 89% compared to 87% in December 2017. This loan is interest-only throughout the 10-year loan term. Moody's LTV and stressed DSCR are 137% and 0.75X, respectively, the same as at last review. The second largest loan is the 636 Greenwich Street Loan ($45.5 million -- 6.0% of the pool), which is secured by an eight-story transient hotel, used as student housing, located in New York, New York. The property is located within the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan in close proximity to New York University (NYU) and its main campus on 8th Street and University Place. The property contains 79 units that total 82,615 SF. NYU is the sole tenant at the property, leasing 100.0% of the space through August 2025. This loan is interest-only throughout the 10-year loan term. Moody's LTV and stressed DSCR are 117% and 0.76X, respectively, the same as at last review. The third largest loan is the Greene Town Center Loan ($43.0 million -- 5.7% of the pool), which represents a pari-passu portion of a $125 million mortgage loan. The loan is secured by a mixed-use property located in Beavercreek, Ohio, approximately ten miles southeast of the Dayton, Ohio CBD. The property is also encumbered by $37.4 million of mezzanine debt. The subject improvements primarily consist of a lifestyle center situated around a town square. In total, the property is comprised of 566,634 SF (80% NRA) of retail, 143,343 SF (20% NRA) of office, and 206 Class A multifamily units. Retail anchors include Von Maur (not part of the collateral), LA Fitness, Forever 21, Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack, and a 14-screen Cinemark Cinema (not part of the collateral). Parking is provided via three parking garages and four surface lots with 4,401 total spaces. The property was 90% leased as of March 2020, compared to 91% in December 2018 and 87% in September 2017. The borrower requested relief due to the coronavirus outbreak, and a forbearance is currently under review. The loan was last paid through April 2020. Moody's LTV and stressed DSCR are 107% and 0.96X, respectively, compared to 99% and 1.00X at Moody's 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.

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He made headlines after he scored a free upgrade to business class on a long-haul flight earlier this year, by pretending he had a broken ankle.

But on Friday, Australian YouTuber Jamie Zhu, surprised his followers when he teased a career change.

The 26-year-old vlogger just announced the release of his debut single Where U At?

EXCLUSIVE: On Friday, Australian YouTube prankster Jamie Zhu (pictured), 26, who just released a debut single, revealed he's open to a bold new career change

'I'm trying to diversify and think long-term as well,' Jamie told Daily Mail Australia this week.

The vlogger has amassed over 52million YouTube views thanks to his cheeky sense of humour and regular pranks on his father, Zhu Xi.

And fans may see more of the duo, as it was revealed Jamie revealed he is open to appearing on reality television in the future.

Coming to TV? Fans may see more of the duo, as it was revealed Jamie revealed he is open to appearing on reality television in the future

Funny: The vlogger has amassed over 52million YouTube views thanks to his cheeky sense of humour and regular pranks on his father, Zhu Xi. Pictured together

No to MAFS: When asked if he would ever appear on a reality dating show, he said: 'I'm not looking to get married anytime soon, so it's a no for Married At First Sight, but Love Island would be cool'

When asked if he would ever appear on a reality dating show, he said: 'I'm not looking to get married anytime soon, so it's a no for Married At First Sight.'

'Love Island would be cool. I've had a few mates on there,' he added.

While Jamie has just released track Where U At?, he's keen to keep his fans guessing as to his next career move.

On camera: 'It's funny because before I started making videos, I always had a passion for music, but didn't think I was good enough,' he told Daily Mail Australia (pictured on set of his new music video)

'I want to get into different things so my fans can stay on their toes and not know what to expect next,' he said.

'I don't want to die one day and not have done what I've intended to do in my life,' Jamie continued.

'I'm someone that just shoots for what I want and, you know, things sort of come out of that.'

Keeping his fans guessing: 'I want to get into different things so my fans can stay on their toes and not know what to expect next,' he told Daily Mail Australia

Back in January, Jamie made headlines when he shared a video clip titled 'How To Fly Business Class For Free' to his 5.2million Facebook fans and his 2million TikTok followers.

After arriving at his allocated seat on the plane, he insisted to his fellow passengers and airline staff that his Moon Boot can't fit in the restricted leg room provided.

'It's not fitting,' he said.

Online: Back in January, Jamie made headlines when he shared a video clip titled 'How To Fly Business Class For Free' to his social media followers

'The boot doesn't fit in here. Can I get another seat or something? I can't fit here at all because of the boot. I've got a broken ankle.'

The air hostess said she had to get clearance from another staff member, but the bold ploy worked.

Jamie filmed himself enjoying the business class perks, including drinks, a fine dining menu, eye masks, extra leg room and comfy blankets and a pillow.

Jamie's single 'Where U at?' is available to be streamed via Spotify now.
One major factor stalling the bill is the boyfriend loophole, said Darci Flynn, a human trafficking senior fellow for the city of Chicago. Under current federal law, people convicted of domestic violence can lose their guns if theyre married to, living with, have a child with or are the parent of their victim. Closing the loophole would mean people who are convicted of abusing or stalking a dating partner could also lose their right to buy or own guns.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 05:08:21|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- United Nations agencies are distributing flour, medical protective gear and shelter kits while peacekeepers are donating more blood in support of the Beirut explosion recovery effort, a UN spokesman said on Friday.

"The first shipment of 12,500 metric tons of wheat flour from the World Food Programme (WFP) was offloaded at the port," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "The shipment will help to stabilize national bread prices and supplies."

The WFP has already distributed food for some 3,600 people and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has handed out more than 2,500 shelter kits, Dujarric said.

The World Health Organization said it has distributed 25 tons of personal protective equipment to 25 hospitals receiving both trauma and COVID-19 cases in Beirut and surrounding areas.

The UN Children's Fund and partners have organized more than 1,100 young people, including Palestinian volunteers, to clean and rehabilitate homes, the spokesman said.

UN peacekeepers serving with the UN mission in southern Lebanon are helping to address the COVID-19 pandemic and help people following the Aug. 4 explosions that nearly levelled the port.

Some 100 of them have donated blood for the victims of the explosions, Dujarric said. The initiative, organized in coordination with the Lebanese Red Cross, seeks to address gaps in blood supplies.

There was a similar event last week in the mission's headquarters, during which nearly 100 other peacekeepers donated their blood, he said, adding that the peacekeepers also donated four ventilators to intensive care and pulmonology units in public hospitals in Tyre in south Lebanon.

High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has just wrapped up a four-day visit to Lebanon. He reaffirmed UNHCR's immediate support to the more than 100,000 people who were severely impacted by the blasts in Beirut.

During his visit, he saw the devastating impact of the blast and met with Lebanese and refugee families. Grandi also called on the international community to continue their support and stand by the people of Lebanon.

The emergency appeal to raise 565 million U.S. dollars in aid for Lebanon is only 8 percent funded, with a total of 43 million dollars received, the spokesman said. However, the amount is likely to increase as member states of the United Nations continue to report their contributions. Enditem
Lucknow:

Weavers in Lucknow have complained that the famous chikankari and zardozi business in the city has suffered a lot following demonetisation.The usually over-crowded markets like Ameenabad and Chowk are witnessing much less footfall for past one and a half month.

Ameenabad and Chowk are the hub of chikan clothes while Hazratganj has many grand showrooms. Zardozi workers are mainly found in the area between Akbari gate and Gol darwaja in the walled city.

While chikankari is a traditional embroidery style from Lucknow believed to have been introduced by Noor Jahan, the wife of Mughal emperor Jahangir, weavers use gold and silver threads in zardozi work. Lucknow zardozi products are manufactured in areas in Lucknow and six surrounding districts of Barabanki, Unnao, Sitapur, Rae Bareli, Hardoi and Amethi.

B K Rastogi, owner of the over six-decades-old 'Bhagwat and Sons' shop at Chowk area, says sales have dropped by 40 per cent due to demonetisation."Seventy per cent of contractual workers are struggling and there are difficulties in circulation. The worst affected are kaarigars (weavers) who are not getting enough work. We supply to cities like Mumbai and Delhi but there is around 40 per cent drop in sales," Rastogi told PTI.

"The process of chikankari includes designing, engraving, block printing, embroidery, washing and finishing and for every step we hire kaarigars who are paid in cash. It is difficult for businessmen as there is a withdrawal limit post demonetisation. We can't pay them through Paytm or cards," he adds.

Zafar Ali, who has been handling his ancestral zardozi business at Shahi Shafakhana Chowk, says the note ban has made their lives very difficult.

"There are 12-13 kaarigars working on daily wages here. We purchase raw material in cash and it is difficult now due to lack of cash. Normally we get orders from big showrooms but there are not enough orders these days. Forget about profit, it is getting harder even to retrieve the cost," he adds.

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Getting the kids up and ready for school is always a rush. For Joy Henderson, whose three sons are heading back to their classrooms in September, getting everyone out the door this year will involve keeping a few more things in mind.

The regular list  a backpack, notebooks  has morphed, and shell now be making sure theyre heading out the door with masks, freshly filled water bottles and hand-sanitizers.

For her eldest son Nelson, 15, that also means packing gloves. Hes going to have to wear gloves, because he has eczema on his hands  so hes not going to necessarily sanitize 40 times a day, Henderson said.

The added items mean that the costs of back-to-school shopping have increased. She and her partner, Danny, have made sure the children each have five masks.

My partner went to one of the stores and it was $7 per mask. And so currently we have five per child and I know for certain the younger two are going to lose theirs, which means theyll need replacing, Henderson said.

Unless I really learn how to sew well in the next two weeks, Im probably budgeting another $100 extra on masks.

She estimates that shes spent hundreds of dollars on protective equipment and sanitation over the course of the summer  something she notes is a privilege not afforded to everyone.

A lot of families will not be able to afford that, she said. Its phenomenal how quickly it added up.

Mornings wont be the only different part of her childrens days; after school, theyre expected to take off their outdoor clothes and swap back into indoor clothing, meaning theyre expecting to do more laundry, she said.

My kids will be coming home for lunch, but we dont know how were going to handle that, because our plan is, when everyone returns home, they basically take off the outdoor clothes in the lobby and well switch into some indoor clothes, Henderson said. So when they come home for lunch for that 40 minutes, do they change into a whole new set of clothes or  eat their lunch in the backyard?

Under normal circumstances, the kids would have gone to their grandparents home for lunch  something the kids can no longer do, as it could risk their grandparents health. Its a huge loss to them because, seniors, your elders, they have a significant role in our culture, Henderson said.

Her concerns extend far beyond what new daily routines look like. My biggest concern would be class sizes and the lack of ventilation, Henderson said. So far, it seems her children wont be in smaller classes, and shes worried about what that will mean for a second wave.

Listen to Dr. Steven Hoffman discuss what a COVID-19 second wave would look like

Henderson said that she feels school boards are making the best of what theyve been given by the Ontario government. The governments response, she feels, has been absolutely outrageous  theyve had several months to plan.

The structure of the school day and how classes operate isnt clear either, Henderson added, noting shes unsure of what drama, gym or band classes will look like under the new normal.

Henderson wants more answers in advance of the first day back, she said.

I dont want to put pressure on boards or teachers, because I know theyre already scrambling and going bananas with their own clan  and having to learn a whole new math curriculum on top of everything else, she said.

But shes hoping for clearer information so that she and her family can prepare.

We dont know whether school is going to even start on time. And its a whole lot of unknown two weeks before, Henderson said.

I just keep on coming back to the point that we are paying these government officials hundreds of thousand dollars to plan for this.

Editors note: In this series, the Star speaks with parents about how theyre planning for the return to school in the middle of a pandemic. Have a story youd like to tell? Email us at social@thestar.ca

Jenna Moon is a breaking news reporter for the Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @_jennamoon
New Delhi/Lucknow, Aug 21 : The Shia Personal Law Board has requested the Prime Minister to intervene and allow the "Tazia" processions during Muharram with a lesser number of devotees.

Muharram is observed to remember the martyrdom of Imam Hussain in the battle of Karbala, revered especially by Shia Muslims.

General Secretary of the organisation, Yasoob Abbas, requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider the matter before August 30. He said that the numbers could be limited, but the processions should be allowed.

The conversation of Yasoob Abbas with the PMO officials has been posted on the official Facebook account of the Shia Personal law Board, which has been confirmed by the Board.

Speaking to IANS over the phone from Lucknow, Yasoob Abbas said, "I tried to contact the Prime Minister and got a call from his office. I have requested the Prime Minister to allow Tazia, with may be limited numbers on the 10th day of Muharram. I have also spoken to Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi twice, and now am waiting for the response." Meanwhile, Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad has taken strong exception to the blanket ban on all Muharram rituals by the Lucknow Police Commissionerate.

Kalbe Jawwad, who is the 'mutawalli' (caretaker) of Imambara Ghufranmaab in the old city, has called the guidelines issued specifically for Muharram 'unconstitutional and illegal'.

The cleric has submitted a written statement to the police commissioner, saying that the order was not just misleading but was also creating unrest in the community.

"It is against the guidelines issued by the WHO, Central and state governments on Covid-19. This new guideline should be repealed immediately since Covid-19 protocols are already in place. At the 'majlis' from Friday, the number of people will be limited to 50 along with thermal scanning, sanitisation, social distancing and masks," Jawwad said.

This year Muharram, which started on Friday, is likely to be a low-key affair amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Processions with Tazias are unlikely and several innovative self-regulation strategies are being planned to limit the gathering of people inside the Imambaras to 50.

Several Imambaras have planned entry on a 'first-come-first' basis while others will limit the number of entry tokens for the devout to 50.

An Imambara is a place or a building with a hall where people assemble for "majlis" (mourning congregation) for Imam Hussain and the martyrs of Karbala.
Domino's Pizza, Inc. DPZ continues to gain from solid digital ordering system, robust international expansion and other sales initiatives. In the past six months, the companys shares have gained 15.2%, against the industrys decline of 3.5%. However, the coronavirus pandemic, high costs and debt remain a concern. Lets delve deeper.

Catalysts Driving Growth

Dominos is investing heavily in technology-driven initiatives like digital ordering to boost sales. The company has partnered with Nuro  a robotics company offering autonomous delivery services. During the first-quarter 2020 conference call, the company announced that it moved to 100% contactless delivery model across the United Sates. Meanwhile, Dominos digital loyalty program  Piece of the Pie Rewards  continues to contribute significantly to traffic gains. The extended ways to order a pizza has thus kept Dominos at the forefront of digital ordering and customer convenience.





During second-quarter 2020, the company initiated car-side delivery, enabling convenient and contact-free carryout experience for customers. Moreover, other digital enhancements in terms of ordering, selecting service methods, paying and tipping were implemented to enhance consumer experience.



Since Dominos generates a chunk of its revenues from outside the United States, the company remains committed to accelerating presence in high-growth international markets to boost business. Meanwhile, the companys international growth continues to be strong and diversified across markets, courtesy of exceptional unit level economics. Notably, second-quarter 2020 marked the 106th consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales in its international business. Improvement in comps can be attributed to ticket growth. The company inaugurated 84 (39 net U.S. stores and 45 net new international stores) global net store openings during second-quarter 2020.



Moreover, the company reported robust domestic sales despite the coronavirus pandemic. Domestically, second-quarter 2020 marked the 37th consecutive quarter of positive same-store-sales. During the quarter, U.S comps benefited from increase in both ticket and order growth. Dominos strong brand positioning through its versatile promotions portray it as a brand producing fresh high-quality pizzas, which are delivered on time.

Story continues

Concerns

In view of the unprecedented impact of coronavirus on its business and the Retail - Restaurants industry, the company has withdrawn fiscal 2020 guidance. Owing to the pandemic, markets in France, Spain, New Zealand, Panama and several others were completely closed, while markets in India and Saudi Arabia were temporarily shut down. Resultantly fewer than 600 stores were fully closed as on Jul 8, 2020. Moreover, unit developments slowed down owing to the pandemic.



A strong balance sheet will help the company tide over the ongoing crisis. At the end of Jun 14, 2020, the companys long-term debt stood at $4.1 billion, almost flat sequentially. As a result, the companys debt-to-capitalization of 401.9% compared with 478.9% at the end of Dec 29, 2019. Moreover, the company ended second-quarter fiscal 2020 with cash and cash equivalent of $248 million, which may not be enough to manage the high debt level.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Dominos currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include Papa John's International, Inc. PZZA, Chuy's Holdings, Inc. CHUY and El Pollo Loco Holdings, Inc. LOCO. Papa John's and Chuy's Holdings sport a Zacks Rank #1, while El Pollo Loco carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



Papa John's has a three-five year earnings per share growth rate of 8%.



Chuy's Holdings 2021 earnings are expected to improve 180%.



El Pollo Loco has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 94.1%, on average.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

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Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2021.



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Personal data, like names and shopping histories, has become another flashpoint in U.S.-China tensions

(Nikkei Asian Review)  The U.S. has proposed separating a key international framework for data protection from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in its growing rift with China on technology.

APEC's Cross-Border Privacy Rules system is a certification that companies can join to prove they meet internationally recognized data protections, allowing them to transfer such personal information as names and payment histories across borders without the onerous requirements that normally apply.

At a working-level meeting in June, the U.S. proposed separating the CBPR from APEC and allowing countries outside of the forum, like Brazil, to participate, multiple sources said. By moving the framework out from under APEC, of which China is part, the U.S. is seen trying to keep valuable data from making its way to Beijing.

The cross-border flow of data has played an increasing role in economic activities across the world, from helping companies tailor online ads based on users' online shopping histories to automating driving.

Nine countries and regions, including the U.S., Japan, Australia and Singapore, currently participate in the CBPR. But the framework is still in its early stages. Few Japanese companies have obtained the certification, for example.

Separating the data privacy framework from APEC early on would enable Washington to shape it without Chinese involvement. The U.S. seeks freer data flows, while China has sought to maintain a tight grip on data at home. This rift has meant that talks at APEC came to a head many times, a Japanese government source said.

APEC members have not officially responded to the American proposal.

The U.S. is urging countries to shut out such Chinese companies as Huawei Technologies from telecommunications networks, as well as pressing China's ByteDance to unload U.S. operations of its popular TikTok short-video app. Washington aims to further pressure Beijing using the CBPR.

China has its own restrictions, blocking Google and many other U.S. internet services on the mainland. Cybersecurity legislation that took effect in 2017 requires internet service providers to cooperate with law enforcement.

A new data security law in the pipeline would punish acts deemed harmful to China's national security. It would not only constrain foreign companies operating in the country, but also restrict the transfer of Chinese data overseas.

Not all Western countries are fully on the same page with the U.S. on data transfers. The European Court of Justice in July struck down the Privacy Shield agreement between the U.S. and the European Union, citing concerns about American surveillance programs. The EU also adopted its General Data Protection Regulation in 2018.

This article was originally published by Nikkei Asian Review

Download our app to receive breaking news alerts and read the news on the go.

Contact editor Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)
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Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden arrives to speak during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. Read more

With a heaping side of Rhode Island calamari, the Democratic Party squeezed lemonade from the lemon of its pandemic-reduced, all-virtual 2020 convention with an often compelling and occasionally stunning message, paraphrased from that famous Philadelphia billboard of the 1970s:

America isnt as bad as Americans say it is.

The message? That while the cameras have been focused for nearly four years on the aggrieved clown posse at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the America where most of the citizens are good, empathetic, and justice-seeking people never went away. The idea unexpectedly hit its emotional peak on Tuesday night, 48 hours before Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president.

The roll call that gave the 77-year-old former vice president the formal nod was, unexpectedly, reinvented as a masterpiece of visual art.

 READ MORE: I used to love political conventions. Now, I hope they die. | Will Bunch

For a nation thats spent much of 2020 in quarantine, Tuesdays travelogue of 50 states (and seven other jurisdictions) opened up a spacious, diverse America with pride, possibility, and a not fully quenched thirst for justice that played out on fruited plains, majestic purple mountains, and shining seasides.

This American odyssey began in the footsteps of the recently departed civil rights hero John Lewis at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and didnt end until it reached a platform at Bidens beloved Amtrak station in Wilmington. In between, the roll call of the states walked the fine line between our yearning for the pre-pandemic normalcy that was epitomized by that steaming pile of fried squid on a Narragansett Bay beach and reminders that our national journey is far from finished.

More than any political convention in my lifetime, the 2020 virtual DNC hung on a theme that could be summed up in one word: Empathy. The empathy and ability to relate to everyday folks that have defined Bidens 50 years in the public eye, the empathy that is so lacking in a president unable to acknowledge the enormity of 170,000 coronavirus dead, the empathy that was beamed into your living room Tuesday night from a windswept Montana prairie and a Mississippi HBCU.

On Thursday night, Biden placed the exclamation point on that message as he accepted the nomination without fanfare, speaking before a row of American flags at a mostly empty Chase Center in Wilmington. In a speech that aimed for a lofty tone in a national moment like no other, Biden began by quoting the 1960s civil rights leader Ella Baker, Give people light and they will find the way.

I will draw on the best of us, not the worst us, Biden promised. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. He pledged to undo the damage of the Trump years by representing all Americans  even the ones who dont vote for him, and not just members of his own party or political base. Calling this a moment that calls for faith and light and love, the newly minted nominee offered a lyrical response to Tuesdays coast-to-coast call, that in a time of darkness were so much bigger than that, so much better than that.

The former vice president also swept broadly across the policy challenges facing America, but defined his mission to reverse Trumpism less by the things he would do than by the things he wouldnt do  cut Americans Social Security checks, cozy up to foreign dictators, or ignore science on the pandemic.

Bidens speech capped an uneven final night of the DNC that careened wildly from attempted comedy from ex-candidate Andrew Yang and host Julia Louis-Dreyfus to a poignant endorsement from Brayden Harrington  a 13-year-old boy who, like Biden, stutters. Bidens more than three-decade quest for the Democratic nomination ended not with a cheering throng or a balloon drop but with a fireworks show, lighting the darkness over the Christina River.

The political parties alternate every four years which one goes first, and in 2020 the Democrats have made the most out of their opportunity to define the November election. By keeping the message skewed largely toward the positive, Team Biden set up an epic contrast with the Republican virtual confab in the upcoming week.

That event, which launches Monday, is sure to be a festival of angry white grievance, with speakers like the gun-grabbing St. Louis couple that confronted Black marchers, and with nightly doses of Trump himself. Democrats at the DNC mostly succeeded in avoiding the 2016 mistake of attacking Trump backers as deplorable, with speakers like Barack Obama instead offering pity that Trump wasnt up to the job  knowing full well that pity is the thing that really makes him go bananas.

That the Democrats made the most of eight hours does not mean  as I stressed previously  that the DNC was perfect. Far from it. The oldest major-party nominee in American history gave ample airtime to the nostalgia of Democratic Boomers while shoehorning in young voices like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even without the cocktail parties that would have littered Milwaukee, lobbyists somehow got an end to fossil-fuel subsidies removed from the platform. Progressives cant let their guard down, ever.

And the tough choices around dealing with 30 million unemployed Americans and COVID-19 will likely remain under wraps until a would-be Biden presidency begins. Democrats are trying to keep it simple for now  to convince voters that better decisions will be made by a president with empathy than by a raging narcissist. If America is as good as the Democrats say it is, even Rhode Islands squid could probably get that one right.

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FALLS CHURCH, Va. - Brandon White was given a choice, prosecutors say: If he opted not to testify against a member of the Reccless Tigers street gang who had assaulted him, a gang member would pay him $8,000 for his injuries. But if he testified, hed be killed.

White testified. Less than three months later, he was dead, his body left in the Virginia woods.

Now federal prosecutors have charged multiple members of the Reccless Tigers with murder in a sweeping new indictment that blames the northern Virginia street gang with two deaths, multiple fire bombings and a sophisticated bi-coastal drug operation that supplied marijuana-laced vape pens to kids throughout the regions school systems.

The new indictment handed up Thursday night by a federal grand jury in Alexandria charges seven alleged gang members with racketeering, drug conspiracy and other charges. Three of the seven  Peter Le, Young Yoo and Joseph Lamborn  are explicitly charged with Whites murder in February 2019. One of the seven is the gangs founder, Tony Minh Le.

Lana Manitta, a lawyer for Le, declined comment on the specific allegations but cautioned against a rush to judgment. Trial is likely a long way off, and we look forward to mounting a defence as to all of the charges against Mr. Le, she said.

Alan Yamamoto, a lawyer for Lamborn, declined comment. Yoos lawyer did not return a call and email.

The indictment also blames unspecified gang members with the April 2016 stabbing death of Ho Lee at a house party in Herndon. According to the indictment, Lee died a few hours after getting into a fight with gang members who punched and stabbed him.

Nearly 20 other gang members and associates have already pleaded guilty in federal court to drug trafficking and other charges, but Thursdays indictment is the first to include murder charges.

In court papers, the government says Le and another individual founded Reccless Tigers in 2011 out of other predominantly Asian gangs operating in the Centreville area. The indictment says the gang became well known throughout secondary schools in Northern Virginia as a source of marijuana, vape pens containing THC, and other drugs.

In charges filed last year against a Hayfork, California farm owner. Joshua Miliaresis, the FBI alleged the gang would induce drug dealers to take on debt when buying drugs from the gang, and then pressure them to work off the debt at Miliaresis marijuana farm, which had extensive ties to the gang. The farm was raided in July 2019.

An FBI affidavit says the gang conducted at least a dozen fire bombings targeting people who owed money to the gang.

According to the indictment, White was among the dealers in debt to Reccless Tigers. Prosecutors say gang members assaulted White in the summer of 2018 over the debt, putting him in the hospital and resulting in local charges against Whites attacker.

In the weeks leading up to the attackers preliminary hearing, gang members approached White and offered to forgive his debt and pay him $8,000 for his injuries if he refused to testify. They also made threats to harm him and his grandmother if the case went forward.

White did testify at the preliminary hearing. A few months later, White was lured from his grandmothers home in Falls Church to help broker another drug deal, according to the indictment, when he was kidnapped and driven to the Richmond area.

It was there that gang members fatally shot and stabbed him, according to the indictment.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is prosecuting the case, has made gang cases a priority, though most of the high-profile cases before this one have involved the MS-13 street gang. Prosecutors are pursuing a death penalty against an MS-13 gang member in one case, and earlier this year used terrorism statutes for the first time against another alleged MS-13 member.
The Smallest Lights in the Universe, Sara Seager (Doubleday Canada) Personal memoirs are popular right now  perhaps social distancing has us longing for intimate connections and relationships in what we read. Seager is a Canadian astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT. When she was 40, her husband died unexpectedly, leaving her with two young boys. He was the one who took care of everyday life while she navigated the skies. This memoir is about her search for other worlds as shes having to reshape her own.

Rabbit Foot Bill, Helen Humphreys (HarperCollins) Humphreys writing is always beautiful, whether its fiction or poetry or non-fiction. Her latest is a hybrid, a novel based on a true story, a murder that took place in Saskatchewan in 1947, and on the LSD drug trials happening at the Weyburn Mental Hospital around that time. A young boy, Leonard Flint, befriends a local man who commits the murder. Flint grows up, becomes a psychiatrist and hopes to discover why his friend did what he did.

High Tech and Hot Pot: Revealing Encounters and Escapades Inside the Real China, Stephan Orth (Greystone) Armchair travellers  and, face it, there are more of us than ever unable to scratch our wanderlust itch  rejoice. Last year, Orth looked at Russia in Behind Putins Curtain: Friendships and Misadventures Inside Russia. This year, hes recounting his unconventional trip to China. He lied about being a journalist in order to travel freely throughout the country and couch-surfs with locals instead of staying in hotels. Travelling from Macau to Shenzhen and places in between he witnesses as technology and tradition collide  200 million sidewalk cameras monitoring citizens; facial recognition apps; learning chopstick etiquette  revealing a changing China.

Also out this week is a duo of thrillers for those who want to spend their weekend in a hammock with a couple of good books, both from Simon & Schuster, which is really pushing the commercial fiction market these days.

Three Perfect Liars from Heidi Perks is about three women whose lives are turned upside down in the aftermath of a fire  the drama takes place in the advertising agency world, which some might find a fitting setting for a bone-chilling thriller.

Little Disasters from Sarah Vaughan mines family life and friendship: Jess seems to be the perfect stay-at-home mom of three kids, but what her doctor friend Liz sees when Jess brings her kid into the emergency room makes her question the life behind Jesss image.
Robinson Ridge in the Windmill Islands, east Antarctica. This is the site where UNSW researchers first discovered air-eating bacteria. CREDIT Photo: Belinda Ferrari

In their first follow-up to a high-profile 2017 study which showed microbes in Antarctica have a unique ability to essentially live on air, researchers from UNSW Sydney have now discovered this process occurs in soils across the world's three poles.

Specifically, researchers found the target genes responsible for the atmospheric chemosynthesis phenomenon they discovered are abundant and widely distributed in the polar soils of the Antarctic, Arctic and Tibetan Plateau in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas.

The new research was published in the journal Frontiers this month and was a collaboration between UNSW, the Australian Antarctic Division and China's Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research.

The study's senior author Associate Professor Belinda Ferrari, of UNSW Science, said living on air was such a minimalistic way to survive that their findings lent further potential for microbial life to exist on other planets.

"This is what NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is aiming to do - to search for signs of ancient microbial life in core samples of Martian rock and soil," A/Prof Ferrari said.

"A future mission will take the samples back to Earth and NASA scientists will analyse the soil in a similar way we do, to try and see whether there are any indicators of life."

A/Prof Ferrari said the researchers' findings meant that microbes which use trace gases as their energy and carbon source to grow - unlike photosynthesis which uses light - was not a process isolated to Antarctica.

"There are whole ecosystems probably relying on this novel microbial carbon fixation process where microbes use the energy obtained from breathing in atmospheric hydrogen gas to turn carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into carbon - in order to grow," she said.

"We think this process occurs simultaneously alongside photosynthesis when conditions change, such as during the polar winter when there is no light, but we aim to confirm this hypothesis in the next stage of our research.

"So, while more work is needed to confirm this activity occurs globally, the fact that we detected the target genes in the soils of the three poles means this novel process likely occurs in cold deserts around the world, but has simply been overlooked until now."

Antarctic, Artic and Tibetan Plateau soil analysed

Researchers analysed 122 soil samples from 14 terrestrial cold desert sites across Antarctica (Windmill Islands and Vestfold Hills), the high Arctic and Tibetan Plateau, which they collected between 2005 and 2019.

The study's lead author, UNSW PhD candidate Angelique Ray, said one of the big questions the team had when they finished their previous study was whether this new process of atmospheric chemosynthesis - also known as carbon fixation or carbon sink - was similarly occurring in other places around the world.

"So, this time we did a global study. We collected the top 10-centimetre layer of soil from various sites at the three poles, which is the depth where most of the organisms we study are found," she said.

"The ground at those locations is completely frozen for most of the year - and there's not a lot of soil because it's mostly rock."

The researchers extracted DNA from the soil samples and then sequenced the DNA to detect the target genes responsible for the process of carbon fixation.

Ms Ray said the scientists also conducted environmental analyses of each location to gauge the conditions under which the microbes lived.

"By looking at the environmental parameters in the soil, that's how we knew there was low carbon, low moisture and other factors at play," she said.

"So, we correlated the target genes for the carbon fixation process against the different sites and found the locations which are drier and lower in nutrients - carbon and nitrogen - had a greater potential to support this process, which made sense."

Findings to change thinking on carbon fixation

A/Prof Ferrari said the researchers' findings would change the way scientists thought about the limitations required for life to exist, as well as how microbiology was taught.

"By investigating places outside Antarctica, we can determine how significant the contribution of this new form of chemotrophy is to the global carbon budget," she said.

"Before we discovered this new carbon sink process, the two main known chemotrophic forms were photosynthesis and geothermal chemotrophy - the latter is where bacteria harness inorganic compounds like hydrogen sulfide to fix carbon.

"But now we have found the genes involved in this process are abundant in cold deserts, although we are yet to study hot deserts, our finding probably indicates atmospheric chemosynthesis is contributing to the global carbon budget."

A/Prof Ferrari said it was likely the bacteria which survived on nothing but air had become key players in the environments in which they lived.

"A lot of these ecosystems are quite dry and nutrient poor - so, these locations are mostly dominated by bacteria," she said.

"Particularly at the original east Antarctic sites we studied, there is not much else there apart from some mosses and lichens (fungus).

"Because these bacteria have adapted to survive and have the ability to use trace gases to live, their environment has selected them to become significant contributors to their ecosystems."

A/Prof Ferrari said the researchers looked forward to making new discoveries in carbon fixation.

"As part of the next phase, we aim to isolate one of these novel bacteria in the laboratory - to obtain a pure culture," she said.

"This is difficult because the bacteria are used to growing on very little and an agar plate is different to their natural environment.

"Hopefully then, we can fully understand the conditions these bacteria need to carry out this unique process of living on air."

###

Find the study in Frontiers: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01936

Astrobiology

Please follow Astrobiology on Twitter.
A farmer who refused to sell his land on the outskirts of the Polish city of Lublin to apartment building developers continues to harvest crops using combines and tractors under the surprised gazes of his new neighbors.

Imagine living in an urban apartment and looking out the window to see a huge combine plowing through a field of wheat or maize? Thats the view that residents on Jantarowa street, in the Polish city of Lublin, are treated to every summer or fall. Apparently, while most land owners in the area sold their farmland to residential building developers, one farmer refused to budge, so the apartment building were built around his property, where he continues to farm every year.

Photo: Micha Mysowski

You would imagine that people living next to this urban agricultural field would complain about it, but in fact,, the opposite is true. Most of those interviewed by local news outlets said that they welcome the unusual view and hope that the farmer holds out for as long as possible.

Some people would give anything for such views, one person commented. My daughters view consists only of concrete and supermarkets.

Photo: Micha Mysowski

As a resident, I can say that it does not bother us at all, on the contrary, a woman named Katarzyna said. Better such a view outside the window than being surrounded by concrete buildings.

Polish newspaper Dziennik Wschodni caught up with the urban farmer last summer, after a video shot by a local went viral on social media, and learned that he gets along just fine with his neighbors. They wave to him fromthe windows, he waves back, they sometimes take photos or film him with their phones, which doesnt bother him, and no one has ever called the police or had anything bad to say to him.

As new residential complexes encroach on farmland on the outskirts of Lublin, such situations were bound to occur, so everyone is just taking things as they are and making the best of it.

This unusual story reminded us of Takao Shito, the Japanese farmer surrounded by an airport after his family refused to sell their land to the government.
Abu Dhabi, Aug 21 : The UAE Ministry of Interior honoured Indian businessman Firoz Goulam Merchant for his exemplary community services, it was reported.

The excellence certificate and citation was handed over to Merchant by Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, in the presence of senior police officers and government officials on Wednesday, Gulf News reported.

Since 2008, Merchant, the proprietor of Pure Gold Jewellers, launched a philanthropic movement called the Forgotten Society.

Spearheading this initiative, Merchant worked tirelessly with several correctional institutions in the country to identify debt-ridden prisoners and assisted them in repaying debts to the tune of millions, thereby securing their release and providing free air passage to their respective countries.

"It was a very proud moment for me to be acknowledged by the government of the land. I would like to express my gratitude to the UAE Government for this honourable recognition for my humble efforts to support the community," he told Gulf News.
Queensland authorities cannot stop developers clearing 66 hectares of koala habitat at Springfield because it is an "exempt development" under the suburbs planning scheme.

That is despite the high-profile new koala protection plan put in place by the Palaszczuk government in February this year.

The public also have no opportunity to comment on the clearing of the koala habitat on 7001 Mur Boulevard and 7006 Panorama Drive at Springfield.

Dr Conny Turni questions why koala habitat is clear-felled and not planned to include wildlife corridors. Credit:Tony Moore

Now academics are questioning why these "holes" in Queenslands new koala protection legislation exist.
Hundreds of additional immigration agents are being sent to the Southwest border to apprehend migrants - part of a broad effort by the Trump administration to crack down on immigration amid the pandemic.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has sent 600 agents to South Texas, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said Friday.

About a third are being deployed to the Laredo sector and the rest to the Rio Grande Valley. The agents are being transferred from positions at airports, which have seen a sharp decline in international travel during the pandemic.

Adding to the buildup at the border, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is sending officers from its investigative unit to the Rio Grande Valley. The agency declined to say how many.

On ExpressNews.com: Border wall: Hundreds of miles funded, just 5 new miles built

Immigration into the U.S. has dropped significantly this year. The number of migrants applying at ports of entry or apprehended while trying to cross the border without authorization has been lower than that reported during the last fiscal year.

The Trump administration has reduced the number admitted to the U.S. by invoking Title 42 of the U.S. Code, dealing with public health and welfare. Under that order, border agents are bypassing asylum and other immigration proceedings in order to quickly deport about 90 percent of migrants who cross the border.

The number of migrants in Border Patrol custody has shrunk from about 20,000 last year, to 3,400 in February, to about 300 today, Cuellar said.

The reduced population in custody has freed up some 1,500 Border Patrol agents, he said. But 1,200 agents have tested positive for coronavirus or are in quarantine. Cuellar said that was the explanation Homeland Security officials gave him for why personnel from other agencies were being deployed to the border.

On ExpressNews.com: Dramatic images capture migrants rescue in the Rio Grande

The surge will cost $21 million and will last until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The border has seen a shift in the type of migrant attempting to cross, which affects border security strategies.

Last year, the majority were families from Central America and unaccompanied children who sought out Border Patrol officers to petition for asylum. Now, most migrants are adult, male Mexicans - the typical migrant profile from a decade ago.

Under the new policy of quick deportation, and with a smaller chance of winning asylum compared to the Central American families and children, many of the solo migrants are attempting to cross repeatedly below the radar of Border Patrol.

On ExpressNews.com: A dangerous dream: 4 migrants cross the border, only to die in the South Texas brush

Were seeing a recidivism rate of about 35 percent. Why? Partly because theyre Mexicanos - you put them back, then they come back here. Theyre a lot closer, said Cuellar.

So far this fiscal year, Border Patrol has apprehended or expelled 46,000 migrants in the Rio Grande Valley. Nearly 28,000 migrants evaded capture.

In the Laredo sector over the same period, agents captured 22,000 migrants and more than 17,000 evaded capture, Cuellar said.

About a third of all Border Patrol encounters with migrants occurred in South Texas.

The Trump administration is also trying to discourage non-essential travel across the border. Commercial and trade vehicles will be directed toward streamlined lanes at the bridges. By contrast, families on trips deemed non-essential may face delays, Cuellar said.

Theyre not going to deny you if youre a citizen or a legal resident on an unessential trip, the congressman said. But there probably will be less resources  that means less lanes or people handling those folks, which means they will probably see longer lines.

CBP is rolling out a pilot program at one undisclosed location on the border with Mexico and another on the Canadian border to screen and test for the coronavirus. Those who test positive and are citizens or legal residents will be directed to a quarantine station

Silvia Foster-Frau covers immigration news in the San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas area. To read more from Silvia, become a subscriber. sfosterfrau@express-news.net | Twitter: @SilviaElenaFF
A major fire in the Srisailam hydroelectric plant located on the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border left nine people dead, most of them engineers, and three seriously injured, with thick smoke hampering rescue operations for over 12 hours,officials said on Friday.

IMAGE: Smoke billows from a fire at Srisailam Left Bank Power Station in Kurnool district. Photograph: PTI Photo

A woman was among the dead.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief over the incident.

President Ram Nath Kovind said he was pained by the loss of lives in the tragic incident.

Telangana energy minister G Jagadish Reddy said the fire broke out late on Thursday night when 17 people were inside the plant, run by the Telangana State Power Generation Corporation.

Eight of the employees managed to come out, he said.

Thick smoke engulfing the area hampered immediate rescue operations, the minister said.

"A total of 17 employees were at the plant at the time of the accident. Eight of them were able to come out. But the remaining nine (seven GENCO employees, including a woman, and two private firm employees) who were trapped right there were tragically killed. They tried to save the plant till their last breath," Reddy told reporters at the plant.

All the deceased appeared to have died due to asphyxiation though there were minor burns on their bodies, a senior official of GENCO said.

The seven deceased belonging to GENCO included a deputy engineer and four assistant engineers.

Two other victims were employed with a private firm engaged in battery maintenance in the plant.

IMAGE: Employees use a fire extinguisher as they attempt to douse the. Photograph: PTI Photo

Reddy said the employees who were trapped inside took videos of the fire through their mobile phones and posted the visuals to explain the situation to authorities outside.

A fire department official based on preliminary assessment said the blaze started in the battery area apparently due to "over voltage", which needs to be established after a thorough investigation.

Three employees who were seriously injured are being treated, according to a press release from GENCO.

Expressing grief over the tragedy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted "Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate."

"My thoughts are with the bereaved families.I hope those injured recover at the earliest," he said.

All the bodies were shifted to a local hospital for post-mortem.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao,expressing shock over the incident, ordered an inquiry by the CID.

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar issued orders appointing additional DGP Govind Singh as inquiry officer, a press release from Rao's office said.

IMAGE: Police and locals gather outside Srisailam Left Bank Power Station. Photograph: /PTI Photo

Nagarkurnool district Collector L Sharman said five fire engines were engaged in extinguishing the flames but thick smoke emanating from the plant's premises hampered rescue operations for over 12 hours.

The fire broke out at 10.30 pm on Thursday night and the rescuers could not proceed into the tunnel of the plant over the Krishna river until 12 PM on Friday.

Besides National Disaster Response Force, Central Industrial Security Force personnel also joined the state rescue teams.

The Srisailam Left Bank power station, about 200 km from Hyderabad, has six units with combined capacity of 900 MW (6X150).

Power generation was in full swing following incessant rains during the past few days, officials said, adding, power generation has since been suspended.

Though the fire was brought under control, thick smoke engulfed the underground area of the powerhouse making the rescue operations difficult, officials said.

The plant is located 125 metres under the ground in a long tunnel which has only one entry and exit point.

IMAGE: Employees of Telangana state power generation corporation being treated at a hospital after surviving a fire at Srisailam Left Bank Power Station. Photograph: PTI Photo

"The accident happened when a sudden fire broke out in the electric panels. Employees, who sensed danger made all efforts to extinguish the fire. The entrapped employees tried to save the plant from catching fire without even caring for their lives.

It appears that the employees continued their efforts until 12 o'clock at night (Thursday)," the power utility said in the statement.

One of the survivors, undergoing treatment at a hospital, told a TV news channel "We heard sounds..we saw flames and tried to put off the fire. But, we were unable to do so due to the smoke."

He said they could not rescue the nine who were trapped inside the powerhouse due to thick smoke.

Another survivor said the staff tried to douse the flames by using five to six fire extinguishers for about half an hour but failed.

According to minister Reddy, the chief minister said kin of each of thedeceased will be given a job, besides Rs 50 lakh ex gratia to the bereaved family of a deputy engineer.
Curtis High Schools Emilee Jospey wants to see your smile. So she invented something thatll allow just that -- M Tech ClearSmiles.

Emilees part of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Young Entrepreneurs Academy(YEA!)

During a virtual event student entrepreneurs from Staten Island high schools took the stage for the annual YEA! Investor Panel to present their business plans before a panel of local business leaders and a public audience.

Emilees company produces face masks with clear windows, allowing the wearers expression to display through the mask.

The product was developed prior to COVID-19 and was intended for customers with autism. But in todays world, the product is in demand more than ever. The investors also awarded Emilee $1,200 in funding.

Emilee JospeyStaten Island Advance

In an event streamed live across YouTube, Facebook, and the Staten Island Chamber of Commerces website, each business owner had five minutes to pitch their business plans to prominent local members of the business community  just think Shark Tank meets The Apprentice meets American Idol.

Based on the appeal and merit of the students plans and presentations, the company representatives determined the amount of funds to allocate to each business. The event can be viewed in its entirety here.

Con Edison was the presenting sponsor of the innovative program that transforms local high school students into real entrepreneurial successes.

We are proud to be the lead sponsor of this important educational program that is designed to help students tap into their entrepreneurial spirit, said Katia Gordon, Con Edisons Director of Staten Island Regional & Community Affairs. Each participant made a commitment to remain focused and worked hard through the pandemic. For this, were truly excited to see the type of business ideas they came up with.

The following high school students presented: Nicholas DiMeglio, Staten Island Technical High School; Carolyn Ellis, Curtis High School; Emilee Jospey, Curtis High School; Joseph Masica, Staten Island Technical High School; Kamilla Rovshanbekova, New Dorp High School; Arshmeet Sodhi, Staten Island Technical High School; and Mark Zbarsky, Staten Island Technical High School.

The participating investors also selected one business that will advance to the Young Entrepreneurs Academy Saunders Scholars National College Scholarship competition. The prestigious Saunders Competition, which will be held virtually Aug. 29, will gather the top young entrepreneurs from each YEA! class across the nation compete for college scholarships and prizes.

The evenings emcee was Brian Licata, membership retention manager at the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce and YEA! Instructor.

The event was produced by Gotham Trinity Productions and was powered by Tekie Geek.

Program Supporter was Verizon.

The Investor Panel was comprised of local business people that included: Dean Balsamini, director, Small Business Development Center at CSI; Tavonia Davis, regional director of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Verizon; Carol Decina, principal account manager of Customer & Community Relations at National Grid; Dr. Charley Ferrer, CEO and founder of the Cancer Tamer Foundation and member of the Mid Island Rotary; Laurie Giunta, vice president, branch manager of Grasmere Branch at Northfield Bank; Danielle Reyes, founder of Wealth and Legacy Group, I Am Empowering, and Lions Pride Leadership; and Frank Wilkinson, chairman, Rab Wilkinson Foundation, owner of Rabs Country Lanes.

Scholarship Sponsors: I Am Empowering and the Rab Wilkinson Foundation.

Investor Panel Sponsors: Con Edison, I Am Empowering, Lions Pride Leadership, Mid Island Rotary, National Grid, Rabs Country Lanes, the Small Business Development Center at CSI, Verizon, and Wealth & Legacy Group.

YEA! began at the University of Rochester in 2004 as a weekly class, taught on the university campus, and has since expanded to more than 100 communities across 38 states. Throughout the year, students learn to generate business ideas, conduct market research, write business plans, pitch to a panel of investors, and launch and run their own businesses or social movements.
Ryanair insists it is making rapid progress processing refunds for customers who booked flights that have been cancelled. It says it has issued more than 750m in refunds and vouchers.

But many customers are still angry as the airline is sending them vouchers when they have specified they want a refund, to which they are entitled under law.

Tens of thousands of airline customers cancelled their plans to travel abroad following government recommendations.

EU Regulation 261/2004 stipulates that when an airline cancels a flight, it must offer passengers the choice between a full refund or a re-routing.

Airlines can offer a refund by means of a credit note or a voucher, but customers do not have to accept this and can insist on getting a full refund.

Central Statistics Office figures show there was a decrease of 98.4pc in the number of passengers handled by Irish airports in the April-to-June period when compared with the same period last year.

Unhappy customers have taken to Twitter to complain that they are being let down by the airline, which is still clearing a backlog of refund applications.

Asked why it still has not got on top of the issue, months after the start of the pandemic, a spokesperson for the airline said it had cleared 90pc of its cash-refund backlog.

"Ryanair has issued in excess of 750m in cash refunds, vouchers and free moves," the spokesperson said.

"We have cleared over 90pc of the cash-refund backlog before the end of July and are making rapid progress on clearing all remaining refund requests."

Aer Lingus said it was continuing to receive an unprecedented number of requests for vouchers and refunds as a result of flight cancellations.

It said it had issued around 80pc of requests submitted.

A statement on behalf of the airline said: "We have added additional resources to our teams and introduced new technologies to improve processing times."

Aer Lingus said it was waiving its change fees across all fare types, on all bookings.

Customers with an existing Aer Lingus booking can change their travel dates via Aerlingus.com up to their date of travel.
Court documents state Andrews was at the scene of the fire and punched a firefighter in the neck and broke a window of a firetruck. Police responded and said Andrews was standing in the road holding a firework in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. After getting him handcuffed, police said, he kicked the door to a police van, slamming it onto an officers hand.
- Twenty-four new ultra-modern trains will commence operation on the Lagos-Ibadan railway line in September

- The disclosure was made on Twitter on Friday, August 21, by the Nigerian Railway Corporation

- According to the corporation, the trains will run 16 trips on a daily basis

The Nigerian Railway Corporation has said 24 new ultra-modern trains will start plying the Lagos-Ibadan railway line in September.

The corporation, which made the disclosure on its Twitter page, said the trains will run 16 trips on a daily basis.

READ ALSO: Machakos man in trouble for stealing 6 panties from female employer

According to the Nigerian Railway Corporation, the trains will run 16 trips on a daily basis. Photo credit: @Official_NRC/Twitter

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Otieno Aloka: Police arrest Kanungo musician over vulgar song

According to the authorities, Nigerians can comfortably reside in Ibadan and work in Lagos when the trains commence operation.

As expected, Nigerians took to the comment section of the post to share their opinions.

A Twitter user identified as @speciee said he would not sleep in Lagos whenever he travels to the state from Ibadan.

Another user with the handle @LilEdNosir wrote: "This is the time to go look for a house in Ibadan!! It will be very cheap right now!! Hurry!! When the train operation starts, prices will thripple not double!!"

@abumujahidm wrote: "Great news and we hope to get that in all states across the federation. In the mean time, your greatest challenge is sustaining the good works in the already commissioned ones; e-ticketing & maintenance culture for all the infrastructure are lacking."

@yomi_silva wrote: "You don't have to reside in Ibadan, everyone seems to forget that there's many places in ogun state you can reside to use this train as well, abeokuta included."

Below are other reactions:

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Jowie's wife on how they met and why she will love him forever | Tuko Talks | TukoTV.

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About one year ago Reading Romans Backwardswas published and I got an encouraging note from Baylor about its sales over the last year, so I thought Id post about that book again. I was so pleased when they asked Becky Castle Miller to write an entire curriculum and study guide for the book, Teaching Romans Backwards.

Why read Romans backwards?

First, since most who read Romans are swamped by the theological depth and debates about it, by the time they get to Romans 9 they may be exhausted and even more if they get to Romans 12. If we dont read it first we may never get to it, and if we never get to it we will not be reading the letter in its own, fuller context.

Second, our readings of Romans, many of which are profound, will lack social realities if we ignore Romans 12-16. Here we encounter the mission of Paul to go to Spain, and Robert Jewett made (too?) much of this. Here we encounter the names of those in the house churches in Rome (16:3-16), and these names have been studied intensely by Peter Lampe and Jewett, revealing both a high proportion of slaves and the prominence of women. Here we encounter Phoebe, and I think she was a leader in a church next to Corinth and was a benefactor of Paul and others.

Most importantly here we encounter the Weak and the Strong. There are debates here, and I took sides, but whichever view one takes there are almost two chapters addressing them (and the same terms are used in 1 Cor, leading some to think the problems are not that different).

How can we read Romans well if we ignore these social realities? Ive read many studies of Romans who seem to think we cant bring these Strong and Weak folks into the picture until they get mentioned in Romans 14-15. I can assure you of this: they were sitting there at 1:1 and responding from 1:1 on.

Third, Romans becomes a pastoral, ecclesial letter the moment one learns to read the letter in light of Romans 12-16. Its not abstract theology, which has its place, but pastoral theology front and center. Theres lament here: 9:3, 10:1, 11:1.

Fourth, once we begin to plumb Romans out of this social reality context we see things we may not have noticed, and one example is Romans 11:13. Why does Paul here suddenly say hes now talking to the gentile believers in Rome? Was he talking to them from 9:1 on or was that for the Jewish believers in Rome? Once we read Romans this way the issue of reconciliation of two groups of Christians at odds with one another becomes paramount in Romans.

Fifth, I believe once we begin to read Romans in light of 12-16 we see rhetorical moves that otherwise we seem not to see. For instance, and I leave you to see how I work this out in the book, what happens if we learn to read 1:18-32, that sudden shocking accusation from the blue, in light of 2:1 and see it as a piece of rhetorical set up? What if 1:18-4:25 has a focus on the Jewish believers as perhaps does 9:1-11:10?

This social reality approach brings into focus all the more the significance of Romans 5-8 to the theology of Paul (as Douglas Campbell has argued at length)

Well, thats a taste.
Gov. Gavin Newsom joined the daily Cal Fire news conference at the Calistoga Fairgrounds Friday to promise beefed up firefighting for the local wildfires that have ravaged 302,000 acres and taken three lives in Napa County since Monday.

With progress being made fighting fires in Southern California, resources have been shifted to the north to help Cal Fire get the upper hand, Newsom said.

Since Thursday, the number of personnel on the Napa-centered fires has doubled to 1,429, he said.

On Thursday, Napa County Sheriffs personnel discovered three bodies in a burned residence on the 6900 block of Highway 128. Their identities have not been released.

The LNU Lightning Complex, with fires in Napa, Sonoma, Solano and Lake counties, is now 10th on the all-time list of Californias epic fires, Newsom said. The amount of acreage burning across California is equal in size to the state of Rhode Island, requiring evacuations of 119,000 people, he said.

The biggest of the local fires within the LNU Lightning Complex, is the Hennessey Fire, which sprang up early Monday near the city of Napas Lake Hennessey reservoir following a lightning strike.

At daybreak Friday, the Hennessey Fire had merged with six smaller blazes and totaled 194,942 acres, an increase of 90,000 acres since Thursday morning. By Friday evening, the fire had burned 256,000 acres.

Progress is being made in fighting the Hennessey Fire, which wraps around three sides of Lake Berryessa and has spread into Lake and Solano counties, Cal Fire reported Friday.

Cal Fire map Friday Aug 21 This map shows the spread of area wildfires as of Friday morning.

The Hennessey Fire, which has put 17,000 county residents under mandatory or advisory evacuations, is now 15% contained, Cal Fire said. Only a tiny evacuation  for a portion of Silverado Trail near Calistoga  has been lifted, with no forecast for when others might be.

Cal Fires assessment group came up with a rough estimate for losses in Napa County: 500 to 600 structures, including houses, barns, outbuildings and even boats.

We are making progress, Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza said on Friday morning. There has been (some) containment overnight. Were making progress on this. The weather conditions are favorable.

Cal Fire has been setting intentional backfires as crews fight the wildfires, he said. That has led to concern among some people who thought they were seeing wildfire activity.

But there has already been considerable loss. Pedroza on Thursday went to see the hard-hit areas of Berryessa Highlands and Spanish Flat.

Berryessa Highlands is 350 homes on hills along Lake Berryessa near Steele Canyon Recreation Area. Pedroza saw lots that had been completely decimated by fire and had the sense that losses took place over much of the community.

But, he said, the magnitude of the losses here and elsewhere in the Berryessa area is still unknown.

The fire had seemed to have bypassed Berryessa Highlands on Tuesday evening. But then it veered back and went through the area. The community dates back to the late 1960s.

Spanish Flat is an area on the west side of Lake Berryessa with such features as a mobile home park and senior center. The Spanish Flat water district serves about 400 residents.

Significant devastation, Pedroza said.

The rural community of Circle Oaks between Lake Berryessa and the city of Napa looked good as of Thursday night, he said. Circle Oaks is another rural community launched in the 1960s that today has about 190 homes.

Pedroza said viewing the destroyed property in Spanish Flat and Berryessa Highlands and knowing the families that will be affected was difficult for him.

Im going to make sure Napa County is there for our Lake Berryessa neighbors, Pedroza said. Were going to make sure we provide the right outreach and support.

In its Friday morning report, Cal Fire said extreme fire behavior with short and long range spotting was continuing to challenge firefighting efforts. Fires continue to make runs in multiple directions and impacting multiple communities, Cal Fire said.

There was surge in mandatory evacuations Tuesday and Wednesday, including the communities of Angwin and Deer Park and St. Helena Hospital, but no significant new evacuations since then.

The National Weather Service has issued a Fire Weather Watch for Sunday morning through Tuesday morning due to the potential for more dry lightning of the sort that spawned dozens of Northern California fires Monday.

Register reporter Barry Eberling and The Weekly Calistogan editor Cynthia Sweeney contributed to this story.

Editors Note: Because of the public safety implications of the wildfires, we are providing access to this article free of charge. To support local journalism, please visit https://napavalleyregister.com/members/join/ and consider becoming a member.

Watch Now: Helicopters fight Mondavi Fire in the hills west of Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville

You can reach City Editor Kevin Courtney at kcourtney@napanews.com or at 707-256-2217.

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Aly Harte with her artwork for the Belfast Telegraph 150th celebrations

Artist Aly Harte says she is proud of her latest work marking the 150th anniversary of the Belfast Telegraph.

The commission came just as the busy mum-of-three was emerging from spending the last four months of lockdown sharing her skills to teach people of all ages how to draw.

Her painting features the former Belfast Telegraph building on Royal Avenue and its landmark clock that kept time for the people of the city for almost 150 years.

Throughout two World Wars, Luftwaffe air raids, and the bombs and bullets of the Troubles, the Tele clock was a constant presence in the life of the city and an integral part of its Victorian architectural heritage.

"In the painting I depicted people walking past the iconic old Tele building, who are of all ages and races, to emphasise the fact that the Belfast Telegraph is a paper for all of the community," she said.

"For me as a local Belfast girl, it's a paper that myself and my family grew up with and for people of my generation I can see how the Telegraph has evolved down the years and become even more relevant."

Aly (37), who is also a fitness and wellbeing blogger, spent lockdown shielding at home with husband Michael and their three sons Elijah (11), Tobias (9) and Abraham (4).

Just over five years ago she was diagnosed with the heart condition cardiomyopathy, which claimed the life of her father John when she was just seven.

Like many in her field, she moved all of her work online, running live daily art demonstrations on her YouTube channel and sharing lots of tips for coping with the lockdown, recipes, guest posts and fitness guidance.

"At the start of the year I was gearing up for a project abroad and a number of commissions when suddenly coronavirus hit and everything stalled," she explained.

"At the start, as a self-employed person, I was really scared and thought this is where it will all end, but I had to either sink or swim.

"With my three kids off school and my husband working from home it was all a bit manic.

"So I just decided to create a lot of free online content to give value to people along with tutorial work such as live painting.

"I also interviewed various different business people over a month as part of a cross-collaboration to support those who in turn had supported me."

Covid-19 has played a role in influencing some of her work over recent months.

"Mainly I was painting very calm scenes of Irish landscapes including beaches.

"My line was that if I can't get to the beach I'll bring it to me.

"I think everyone else was missing not being able to go to the coast as well and that filtered through in the prints of my artwork that I was selling at the time.

"There was a real boom in seascapes from people who were clearly missing their holidays."

She added: "I've always been quite authentic but it felt like the lockdown gave me the opportunity to be even more myself - even with my boys coming in and interrupting my painting, which was annoying but also very normal.

"I was able to be the expert in my field as a Belfast artist and bring people together.

"I don't quite know what was the trigger point.

"But it certainly feels like my 11-year career waited for this horrible pandemic to happen and now I'm more focused and fruitful than ever."

See Aly's work and blog on her website at www.alyharte.com
(Bloomberg) -- Google parent Alphabet Inc. considered participating in a group bid for TikTok, but the effort fizzled in recent days, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several firms discussed forming a consortium to invest in the popular video-sharing app, with Alphabet weighing a minority, non-voting stake through one of its investment arms, said one of the people.

Alphabet didnt lead the initiative. It isnt clear which U.S. company did, or why the effort ended. Alphabet has not ruled out participating in future bids, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter.

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance Ltd., is fielding interest in its operations in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. President Donald Trump recently ordered ByteDance to sell TikToks U.S. assets within 90 days, building on an earlier executive order that would prohibit U.S. people and companies from doing business with TikTok effective 45 days from Aug. 6.

Read more: TikTok Races to Calm Workers, Advertisers With Ban Looming

Representatives of Alphabet and TikTok declined to comment. ByteDance representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Microsoft Corp. has been in discussions for weeks to buy TikToks business in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Other companies have also emerged as potential bidders, including Oracle Corp. and Twitter Inc. Its unclear how far those discussions have gone. Microsoft is the only company to publicly confirm acquisition talks.

TikTok has emerged as a potent rival to Googles video-sharing site YouTube, serving as an alternative for creative talent as well as advertising dollars. Googles parent has multiple investment vehicles, including CapitalG, a private equity arm, which has backed Chinese firms. Google also invests directly off its balance sheet, funding companies such as Magic Leap Inc. and SpaceX.

ByteDance bought the Musical.ly service in 2017 and merged it with TikTok, creating an app with more than 100 million users in the U.S. alone. That deal is being unraveled by U.S. officials who, against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing, have alleged the Chinese government could gain access to TikTok users personal data and pose a national security risk. Now, the company is facing a fast-approaching deadline to reach a deal or risk a shutdown of its American business.

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Analysts and bankers have estimated the value of TikToks U.S. business at $20 billion to $50 billion, a wide range that reflects the complexity involved in extricating TikToks American operations.

Mountain View, California-based Alphabet would need to tread gingerly around U.S. antitrust enforcers. The Justice Department, state attorneys general and Congress are all investigating Google for potential anticompetitive behavior, leading to more scrutiny of its acquisitions. Googles plan to buy Fitbit, announced in November, is still pending regulatory approval.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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The College of Charleston will now require all students living in university-owned residence halls or historic homes to submit a coronavirus test prior to returning to campus.

Students will need to submit their COVID-19 test result before they're allowed to move into their dorms, college officials announced Thursday.

The test should be conducted no earlier than Aug. 28, and students need to submit their results to the college's online health portal.

If students have already received a positive COVID-19 test prior to Aug. 28, they can upload those results and do not need to be tested again before returning to campus.

On-campus residential students will not be allowed to return to campus if they do not submit a test result.

If a student receives a positive test after Aug. 28, they will be required to stay home until the end of their isolation period.

Students living off campus or in privately owned housing are "strongly encouraged" to submit a COVID-19 test prior to returning to campus.

"I understand that this change in our fall planning will create some additional burdens on members of our campus community. But my hope is that these challenges will be outweighed by the benefits that these additional measures will provide," college President Andrew Hsu wrote in a campuswide email.

Last month, school officials announced that all students will officially start the school year online on Tuesday. In-person instruction isn't expected to take place until Sept. 14.

When the college first released its "Back to the Bricks" reopening plan in early July, it did not require students to submit COVID-19 tests.

"However, in the weeks since we announced our fall return plan, we have heard from many families, students and employees who feel that the College should require or at least strongly encourage some level of testing for those students who plan to live on campus when in-person classes begin on Monday, September 14," Hsu wrote.

The University of South Carolina and Clemson University, the state's two largest public colleges, are both requiring students to get tested prior to returning to campus. On Tuesday, USC announced it would begin offering rapid coronavirus saliva testing for students, faculty and staff that could provide results within 24 hours.

The College of Charleston will offer limited on-campus testing for students prior to the start of in-person classes, Hsu said, but students should first seek testing on their own.

In order to monitor the spread of the virus, the college will also conduct random COVID-19 testing throughout the semester, where randomly selected groups of students, faculty and staff "may be asked to go for testing on-campus or at a nearby off-campus location," according to an informational page on the College of Charleston's website.

More details on random testing will be released in the coming weeks.

Students who plan to take all of their fall semester courses online and do not intend to be on campus are not required to submit COVID-19 test results.

Accepted methods of coronavirus testing include a COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction test or a COVID-19 antigen test. Antibody tests will not be accepted at this time.

Faculty and staff are advised to only seek COVID-19 testing if they are symptomatic or if they have reason to believe they've been exposed.

More information about the updated testing protocol can be found at www.cofc.edu/back-on-the-bricks/.
Chennai: Senior DMK leader and the partys high-level working committee member, A Rahman Khan, passed away on Thursday at a Chennai hospital.

He was 77 and died of heart attack, his family said.

"He was treated at a hospital for a week (recently). He was discharged after he recovered from COVID. This morning he suffered a heart attack and passed away," Khan's son, Dr Subair Khan told reporters.

Announcing his death, a DMK press release said that all party flags will fly half-mast for three days from Thursday and that all party events scheduled for the period would be postponed.

Conveying his condolences to the family members of Khan, DMK president M K Stalin said his speeches have impressed Periyar E V Ramasamy, C N Annadurai and M Karunanidhi, in whose ministry the five time MLA had served as Minister.

Stalin said that Khan wrote extensively to the party organ Murasoli and had been in the Dravidian movement since his student days when he took part in the anti-Hindi agitation.

Recalling his last conversation with Khan over a video call, Stalin said that during an online meeting of the high-level working committee, his line snapped suddenly but he made a video call to him and asked him to take care of his health.

When late AIADMK founder leader M G Ramachandran helmed the state as Chief Minister between 1977 and 1987 Khan, alongwith DMK's Duraimurugan and K Subbu were noted for resolutely taking up their party's stand on many matters in the Assembly.

His performance in the House earned him the sobriquet of "Sattamandra Porval" (Assembly sword) from DMK men.

Also, Khan, along with his two other colleagues were hailed as "Idi, Minnal and Mazhai" (Thunderstorm, lightning and rain) by partymen for their oratory, targeting arch rival AIADMK.

He was first elected from Chepauk Assembly constituency in 1977 and won twice more from the same segment in 1980 and 1984.

He emerged victorious from Park Town and Ramanathapuram seats in 1989 and 1996.

Thereafter he lost in 2001 (Ramanathapuram) and 2006 (Park Town) Assembly elections and did not fight polls after that.

Between 1996-2001, as state Minister he held the portfolios of Labour Welfare and Waqf Board, and for sometime Revenue and Law.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 16:08:11|Editor: huaxia

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JAKARTA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked East Nusa Tenggara province in central Indonesia on Friday, with no damage or casualties reported so far, the meteorological agency said.

The agency did not issue a warning for a tsunami.

The quake struck at 11:09 a.m. local time (0409 GMT), and the epicenter, with a depth of 670 km, was located 171 km northeast off the coast of Larantuka, a sub-district of Flores Timur district in the province, according to the agency.

The intensity of the quake was felt at III to IV MMI (Modified Mercally Intensity) in Waingapu town of East Nusa Tenggara province, III MMI in Mataram, the capital city of nearby West Nusa Tenggara province, and II to III MMI in Bima city of West Nusa Tenggara province, as well as Seram district and Banda islands in the eastern Maluku province.

There were no reports of damage or casualties caused by the quake in Waingapu, said Anita Manjauru, head of the Emergency Unit of the Disaster Management Agency in Sumba Timur district.

"The situation is calm here, and no houses or buildings are damaged and no residents are injured," she told Xinhua.

Over 500 people were killed along with huge property damage when a series of strong quakes, one of them being 7.0 magnitude, rocked West Nusa Tenggara province in 2018.

Indonesia has been frequently struck by earthquakes as it lies on a vulnerable quake-impacted zone called "the Pacific Ring of Fire." Enditem
By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

Police in Azerbaijan has detained Head of Kurdamir District Executive Authorities Jeyhun Jafarov on charges of bribery and abuse of power, the Prosecutor Generals Office reported in its website on August 20.

The district heads First Deputy Tajeddin Novruz, Head of the Department for Work with Territorial Administration and Local Self-Government Bodies of the Office of the Head of the Executive Authorities, Natig Karimov and other officials have also been detained under the same charges.

The criminal case was initiated after the investigation by the Anti-Corruption General Directorate under the Prosecutor General on violations of the law in the Kurdamir executive authorities.

The Anti-Corruption General Directorate held investigative operation in the administrative building of the Executive Authorities of Kurdamir district on August 19. Three other regional agencies - the Irrigation systems and Landscaping departments of the district, the Combine of Public Utilities and in the Representation of Kurdamir city Administrative Territorial District were also investigated.

The grounds for suspicion of taking various amounts of money as bribe from health, education and other state institutions, as well as from a number of private enterprises and other illegal actions that cause significant harm to the interests of the state have been identified by the Anti-Corruption General Directorate.

The investigation has revealed that bribes in the amount of $227,200 (AZN 386,000) were taken by Kurdamir district executive authorities led by Jeyhun Jafarov. The detained officials, directly and through other officials of the executive authorities, at various times received bribes in the amount of $80,636 (AZN 137,000) from health facilities, $34,138 (AZN 58,000) from the Combine of Public Utilities, AZN $70,624 (AZN 120,000) from educational institutions operating in the region, $41,786 (AZN 71,000) from Azbiyan LLC operating in the Kurdamir district.

The investigative-operational measures are underway to investigate violations of the law in the activities of the Kurdamir district executive authorities and other agencies operating in the district, The Prosecutor Generals office noted.

So far, the Anti-Corruption General Directorate and State Security Service have launched criminal cases and investigative measures against several local officials in Masalli, Bilasuvar, Ganja, Absheron, Sabirabad, Agjabadi, Tartar, Zardab, Neftchala, and officials in Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Tax Department and Coastal Guard.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan ranked 7th among the 50 member states of the Council of Europe and 1st among the CIS countries for anti-corruption index, according to the recent report of Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) 2019 on June 3.

On 27 February, Azerbaijans President signed the order on approval of the National Action Plan for The Promotion of Open Government for 2020-2022. The plan has been aimed at expanding the application of the principles of openness, transparency and accountability, increase financial transparency, increase the means of ensuring the right to information, support civil society institutions and strengthen public control, to ensure the sustainability of measures to promote open government.
The LNP has rolled out its most senior Queensland politician to launch a fresh attack on the border closure ordered by the state's Chief Health Officer.

Speaking on Nine's Today on Friday morning, federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton accused Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of battening down the hatches to better her chances of winning the October state election.

"When you hear about families separated from sick kids or [people who] can't get medication, can't get to work, their business is on one side of the border and they live on the other, these are the practical implications of this closed Queensland border scenario," he said.

"And it's driven by politics at the moment which I just think is frustrating a lot of Queenslanders. We've got borders closed with the ACT as well [despite] no cases in the ACT. It's not based on medical advice, and that's the Prime Minister's point as well."
Heidi Klum is asking for an emergency hearing to bring her four children to Germany with her to film Next Top Model later this year.

In her filing asking for the hearing, Klum claims ex-husband Seal does not want the children to travel to Europe because he is concerned about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The pair share four children: Leni, 16, Henry, 14, Johan, 13, and Lou, 10.

In the declaration obtained by PEOPLE on Thursday, the America's Got Talent judge said that while she and Seal share custody of their kids, they spend the majority of their time living with her.

Video: These wild pictures of Heidi Klum getting highlights drew backlash

"Henry's time with our children is sporadic at best," Klum wrote in her declaration.

A rep for Klum has not commented. Seal's rep did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Klum is contractually obligated to film season 16 of Germany's Next Top Model in October, and she said that while she usually brings the kids with her when she has to travel for work, Seal "has not yet approved of this trip."

RELATED: Heidi Klum on Social Distancing with Husband Tom Kaulitz: 'I Picked the Right Person'

"I am well aware of all of the necessary precautions associated with the COVID-19 virus, and would never put our children at risk  I have taken all the precautions for Germany the same way I do in the United States," Klum wrote in her declaration, adding that she is "grateful" to have the ability to work given the current state of the economy.

Klum also explained that usually Next Top Model is filmed in Los Angeles to accommodate her family, but the German cast and crew members are unable to enter the U.S. because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The supermodel said that she was willing to alter their previously planned custody schedule if Seal would allow the children to travel to Germany with her.

"There will be a three-week break for the Christmas holidays ... Though the children were originally slated to spend this Christmas break with me (as Henry spent Christmas 2019 with them), I am willing to agree that Henry spend the Christmas break with them again this year so that the children can be with their father during this time, if Henry would like this," wrote Klum.

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"Also, as Henry [Seal] has a British passport, he would be able to visit the children while they are in Germany if he wishes to do so," she added.

Klum said that Seal agreed to let the children travel with her back in April, but that he changed his mind.

"I tried to work this out with Henry directly to no avail," Klum wrote, adding that she is "desperate" and that the children have said they do not want to stay in Los Angeles with their dad. "It could not possibly be in their best interests," she wrote.

Their daughter Leni also submitted a declaration to the court.

"This is hard because I love both of my parents, but I feel like I need to speak up. I understand that my siblings are too young to speak to the judge, so I am happy to speak for all of us," she wrote. "My mom needs to film in Germany for a few months and my siblings and I want to go with her."

"So far, my dad is not allowing us to go, though we have tried to tell him our reasons why we want to," Leni said, adding that traveling to Germany would be an "amazing opportunity" for all four of them, and they would be able to see their grandparents.

Leni said that her younger siblings are "really upset" about the thought of being away from Klum and that they are "frightened" of being away from her for so long.

Leni also wrote a handwritten letter to her dad, which was obtained by The Blast, pleading with him to let her and her siblings go with Klum.

RELATED: Heidi Klum's Family Enjoys a Hike with Their Dogs While Social Distancing amid Coronavirus

In the letter, Leni told her dad that she understands the situation "is not ideal at all," and that she hopes they can "come up with a plan" to still see him.

She also pointed out that there are fewer cases of COVID-19 in Berlin, where they would be staying, than there are in Los Angeles.

"I just want to figure out something and come up with a plan and agreement as a family," Leni wrote. "I love you so so much."

Klum and Seal's divorce was finalized in October 2014 after nine years of marriage. She married Tom Kaulitz last year after the guitarist's Christmas Eve proposal that included her kids.
A supplementary charge sheet was filed on Thursday, August 20 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Special Court, Hyderabad against a couple for their alleged involvement in the trafficking of Bangladeshi girls and running a prostitution racket in Hyderabad and in nearby places, according to the NIA statement.

The accused have been identified as Mohammed Abdul Salam (47), a resident of Hyderabad and his wife Shiuli Khatun (30), a resident of Bangladesh.

According to the official statement by NIA, both the accused have been chargesheeted under different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 and The Foreigners Act, 1946, "for their role in the trafficking of young Bangladeshi girls and illegally crossing Indo-Bangladesh border for running a prostitution racket in Hyderabad and in nearby places.

READ | Borussia Dortmund and ISL club Hyderabad FC announce historic two-year partnership deal

The release by the agency further revealed that the case emerged out of an FIR filed at Chatrinaka Police Station, Hyderabad on April 21, 2019. The FIR was pertaining to the rescue of six Bangladeshi girls from brothel houses run by the three main accused Mohd Yousuf Khan, Bithi Begum and Sojib Shaik. On September 17, 2019, the case was re-registered at NIA, Hyderabad BO after which the agency arrested accused Ruhul Amin Dhali and filed the first charge-sheet against Mohd Yousuf Khan, Bithi Begum, Sojib Shaik, and Ruhul Amin Dhali on March 10, 2020.

READ | Warangal's MGM Hospital to be developed on lines of Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad

Details about the NIA investigation

The investigation carried out NIA revealed that Mohd Abdul Salam and Shiuli Khatun along with accused Mohd Yousuf Khan, Bithi Begum, Sojib Shaik, Ruhul Amin Dhali and others, were trafficking poor and young Bangladeshi girls into India through a well-organized network of agents in both the countries. The accused gave false inducements to the girls of lucrative jobs, and subsequently forcing them into prostitution, the NIA statement said.

Three more girls rescued

Recently, the NIA has rescued three more girls on May 23, 2020, from the rented house of Mohammed Abdul Salam and Shiuli Khatun in Hayathnagar, Hyderabad. During the raid, many incriminating articles and documents were seized from the house including multiple identity documents of trafficked girls, mobile phones, contraceptive pills, and a large number of diaries and registers containing names and contact numbers of various brothel agents to whom the trafficked girls were sent for sexual exploitation on a commission basis. Further investigation is underway in the case.

READ | Paytm representatives appear before Hyderabad police in online gaming racket case

READ | Telugu film distributor Kamalakar Reddy and father die in road accident in Hyderabad

(With inputs from Agencies)Image -PTI
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, in response to US President Donald Trumps constant attack, has stated that she is very proud of the way the authorities and people have tackled COVID-19 in the country.

During a televised conference broadcasted on Radio New Zealand, a proud Jacinda Arden also cited how the World Health Organisation (WHO) had applauded New Zealand's COVID-19 response and stated that the country has one of the highest ratings worldwide.

Read: Singapore To Allow Visitors From New Zealand, Brunei As It Eases Border Restrictions

Arden defends New Zealand

Earlier US President Donald Trump, in a statement, claimed that America was doing an incredible job at combating COVID-19 and had then cited New Zealand recent massive breakout to justify his administrations handling of the pandemic.

In response to Trump's criticism, Jacinda Arden retorted stating that while New Zealand is dealing with 11 new positive virus cases from the recent outbreak, the United States has been dealing with tens and thousands of new COVID-19 cases.

In the press conference, Jacinda Arden stated that irrespective on how many new cases a country suffers with, what matters is how they choose to react to those cases. While Arden did not mention Trump by name, she did directly compare virus statistics with the US wherein she pointed out that New Zealand has 269 cases per million people while the US has 16,563 cases per million people.

She also added that throughout the pandemic, New Zealand has maintained a very low death rate and also has one of the lowest death rates in the world. As per the John Hopkins coronavirus resource centre, New Zealand has suffered from 0.45 deaths per 100,000 people while the death rate in the US stands at a whopping 53.04 per 100,000 people. New Zealand has currently reported 1,665 positive virus cases and only 22 deaths.

Read: COVID Outbreak Causes Fresh Disruption To New Zealand Rugby

This back-and-forth between New Zealand and the United States regarding COVID-19 began on August 18 when Trump during a rally in Minnesota said that there was a big surge in COVID-19 cases in New Zealand and then he blamed China once again for letting the virus spread to Europe and the rest of the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 23 million people worldwide with the global death toll reaching over 800,000.

As per the John Hopkins coronavirus resource centre, the United States has reported a total of at least 5.7 million positive virus cases and has a death toll of 176,950. The US currently has the highest number of reported cases in the world, making it the epicentre of the deadly virus.

Read: New Zealand Reports 11 New Virus Cases, Mostly Local

Read: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern Postpones national election Amid Renewed COVID-19 Concerns
Chinese smartphone maker OPPO on Friday confirmed to launch a new phone under its A-series with 90Hz display in India on August 25.

"Built to empower users with advanced technology, OPPO A53 will carry forward the legacy of the A series and offer an incredibly fluid and smooth display at a more affordable price," the company said in a statement.

In India, the smartphone will be priced under Rs 15,000, the company informed.

In terms of specifications, the smartphone features a 6.53-inch HD+ LCD display with 1600 x 720 pixels resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio.

The phone is powered by Snapdragon 460 chipset coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The storage can be expanded up to 256GB via micro-SD card slot.

The device is backed up by a 5,000 mAh battery with 18W fast charging.

The smartphone houses a triple rear camera setup with a 13MP main shooter, a 2MP macro cam and a 2MP depth sensor. There is also a 16MP hole-punch front camera.

The phone runs Android 10 with Oppo's ColorOS 7.2 on top.
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Linkedin Javier Tovar (Agence France-Presse) Los Angeles, United States  Fri, August 21, 2020 10:32 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f77fd1 2 World Kamala-Harris,Joe-Biden,vice-president,US-presidential-election,US-presidential-race Free

"Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are," proclaimed the first bilingual Spanish and English campaign ad by Democrat Joe Biden after he announced his running mate would be Senator Kamala Harris.

"An ally, a champion of the Latino community," the ad said of the vice presidential hopeful.

A woman of color and daughter of immigrants, Harris can whip up enthusiasm among Latino voters, many of whom are turned off President Donald Trump.

For the first time, people with roots in Latin America will be the largest minority bloc in the US presidential election, with an estimated 32 million eligible voters, or 13.3 percent of the total, according to the Pew Institute.

In 2018 elections, when Trump's Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives, 69 percent of Latino votes went to Democrats.

Christine Marie Sierra, professor emeritus of political science at the University of New Mexico, told AFP that Latino voters were already inclined to back the Democrats, but Harris "may change the enthusiasm level, which then translates into higher voting rates, which then translates to possible wins in a close election."

A recent poll showed that 59 percent of Latino voters in key battleground states were fired up about Harris's selection as running mate, and 52 percent said her name on the ticket made them more likely to vote for 77-year-old former vice president Biden.

"Harris's selection is an opportunity for Biden to capitalize on the Latino vote and mobilize young Latino voters," said Anais Lopez, an analyst for Latino Decisions, which conducted the poll.

Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother, would be the first woman and the first person of color to occupy the office of vice president if Biden wins on November 3.

Immigration issues

Trump, under fire for his chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crash it caused, has returned to his anti-immigration crusade to pump up his base and push for another term.

"He doesn't see immigrants as humans," said Juan Escalante, a Venezuela activist covered by DACA, a program set up by former president Barack Obama to regularize the immigration status of hundreds of thousands of people who had arrived in the US illegally as children.

Trump has tried to scrap the program.

Biden has undergone close scrutiny of his role overseeing the Obama administration's deportation of almost three million undocumented migrants, which has led some critics to call him the "deporter in chief."

"His record on immigration may not be the best, but today he is showing people that he is trying to put forward real solutions and solve past errors," said Escalante, a political scientist.

In the Democratic primaries, progressive Bernie Sanders garnered more support from Latinos, in part because he proposed ending deportations and getting rid of the much-feared immigration police, ICE.

Biden, a moderate, did not go that far, but he has promised to protect DACA, push legislation to legalize the status of some 11 million undocumented migrants and reverse harsh asylum rules set up by Trump, which limit intake and obliges applicants to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed.

"Stopping the Trump agenda would be enough to get the Latino vote for Biden, Harris," Sierra said.

Aggressive Florida campaign

In 2016, Trump won 30 percent of Latino voters, mostly Cuban Americans, who tend to vote Republican, but also military veterans and Central American evangelicals. Many of these groups are concentrated in the key battleground state of Florida.

Christian Ulvert, a Democratic Party strategist in Miami, said his party was nevertheless winning over younger Cuban Americans, as well as Colombian immigrants and the large numbers of Puerto Ricans who moved to Florida after their home island was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Ulvert said that with many voters undecided, his party was planning an "aggressive" campaign and that Harris is "a great asset."

Her record as a senator "fighting for access to health care, fighting for immigration reform and justice for our immigrant families, carries a lot of weight with Hispanic voters," he said.

The issue of Venezuela looms large among some Latino voters in Florida, and Trump has dubbed the country's Socialist leader Nicolas Maduro a dictator.

Harris has echoed that language and even promised to offer Venezuelans sheltering in the United States permission to stay while their country remains mired in political and economic chaos.

She has stopped short however of backing the military intervention that many Venezuelan hardliners in Florida are calling for, and which they think Trump may ultimately support.
The Rajashtan assembly on Friday witnessed uproar during a debate on Covid-19 management and economic impact of lockdown leading to repeated adjournment of the proceedings.

Health Minister Raghu Sharma opened the debate and highlighted the management of Covid-19 done by the state government and efforts to strengthen health infrastructure. Speaking on the debate after the minister, BJP MLA Kalicharan Saraf accused the Congress government of distributing ration and food kits among its supporters.

Click here for complete coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic

The charge invited a sharp reaction from Parliament Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal. The House saw heated arguments between Transport Minister Pratap Singh and Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria. Amid the uproar, the House was adjourned for 30 minutes.

When the House reassembled, the uproar continued and Chairperson Rajendra Pareek adjourned the House for another 15 minutes. Immediately after the House reassembled after 15 minutes, the chairperson announced another adjournment till 2 pm.
- Mutated virus strain of the new coronavirus has been detected in Southeast Asia and it is being studied in the Philippines

- The Philippines is studying to see whether the mutation makes it more infectious

- The strain was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine

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

Southeast Asia is facing a strain of the new coronavirus that the Philippines is currently studying to see whether the mutation makes it more infectious.

According to Bloomberg, the Philippines found the strain among random COVID-19 samples in the largest city of its capital region.

The strain, which is called D614G, was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine.

READ ALSO: Emelia Brobbey drops jaw-dropping photo and fans can't keep calm

In a virtual briefing on Monday, August 17, the Philippines health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire stated that the mutation is said to have a higher possibility of transmission or infectiousness".

READ ALSO: Nana Aba Anamoah 'speaks Ayigbe' for the 1st time; fans shout

The strain was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine. Photo credit: WebMD

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Tracy Boakye Vrs Mzbel: Photos of 'Papa No' sardine goes viral online

Vergeire said: "But we still dont have enough solid evidence to say that that will happen."

The strain has been found in many other countries and has become the predominant variant in Europe and the United States.

READ ALSO: Photo of Mahama's lookalike daughter and son cause stir online

However, the World Health Organisation has said there is no evidence the strain leads to more severe disease.

In other news, the commissioner for information, culture and tourism in Oyo state, Dr Wasiu Olatunbosun, has revealed how he recovered from the deadly coronavirus.

Olatunbosun, who spent 56 days in isolation, said he took not less than 25 bottles of black seed oil, a bowl of black seed, lots of alligator pepper, bitter cola as well as different brands of herbal concoctions to beat the deadly disease.

The commissioner said he drank the herbal concoction at intervals and used it for steaming after his normal drugs.

He said the government must seek ways to supplement orthodox and traditional medicine, especially the use of local herbs for patients.

Olatunbosun said: You would not believe that while I was on self-isolation at home, some people still came to my house on Sallah day to celebrate with me."

"Ghana's air borders may be reopened in September 2020"- Akufo-Addo | #Yencomgh

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Sometime today, Saturday, August 22, Indias coronavirus case count will cross the three million mark. India will become the third country to do so after the US and Brazil. If cases in India continue to grow at the same rate, it will overtake Brazil sometime in the next two weeks. India crossed two million cases on August 6 and one million cases on July 17. The country has around 700,000 active cases right now, mostly people with mild infections (or no visible symptoms) who have isolated themselves at home  and some experts say this is the number to look at.

India will see close to 57,000 deaths by the end of Saturday, with around 16,000 of them being registered since it crossed the two million mark. A little over 13,000 of them were registered between the time it crossed one million cases and touched two million. Almost 50% of Indias total deaths were registered in the pandemics run to one million cases in the country  an indication of the difficulties faced by administrators in coping with cases (there werent enough hospital beds; protective kits for health care workers were in short supply) and health care workers (no one knew which therapies or medicines worked) in the early days of the pandemic.

Some other experts say this (the daily death toll) is the number to look at.

It isnt clear what explains the increase in the number of deaths corresponding to the third million when compared to the number of deaths corresponding to the second. The number (2,700+) is significant enough to be worrisome  it is the kind of detail that the health ministry and researchers should look at, although it can be explained mathematically by a growing base of active cases.

The big trend  no longer new; the HT newsroom has been writing about it for at least a month  is the fact that the growth in cases (and there is no sign that India has seen its peak) is being driven by states in the hinterland and the peninsula.

Of the first million cases, around 57% came from two states, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, and the Capital. Maharashtra accounted for 28.3% of the million, Tamil Nadu 15.6%, and Delhi 11.8%. Only one other state (Karnataka) accounted for more than 5% of cases (5.1%).

Of the second million cases, around 57% came from four states, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Maharashtra accounted for 19.2% of the million, Andhra Pradesh 15.6%, Tamil Nadu 12.1%, and Karnataka 10.5%. Delhi only accounted for 2.2%. Two other states, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, accounted for at least 5% of cases (6.4% and 5% respectively), and Bihar accounted for 4.6%.

The third million cases largely mirrored the trend of the second. Maharashtra accounted for 18.6% of the million, Andhra Pradesh 14.9%, Karnataka 11.1%, and Tamil Nadu 9.3%. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, two of Indias most populous states accounted for 7.2% and 5.3% of the million cases. West Bengal accounted for 4.8% of the cases, and Assam 3.9%. Delhi accounted for just 1.8% of cases.

Interestingly, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which are still seeing a high number of cases, have seen their contributions drop from the first million to the third. In Maharashtras case, the decline is about 10 percentage points, and in Tamil Nadus case a little over 6 percentage points. Other states have stepped in to take the slack.

Delhi perhaps has the most reason to celebrate, although as the cautionary tales of South Korea, Australia and New Zealand show, it still needs to remain vigilant.

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How this recession is different Felix Salmon, Axios. This time:

Recovery from the seismic global shock from #COVID19 crisis has reached an uncomfortable plateau

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Mauritius

A Ship Off Course Sows Misery and Mystery in Mauritius Bloomberg. Not nuch about the mystery!

#COVID19

Progress report on the coronavirus pandemic Nature

Humidity is a consistent climatic factor contributing to SARSCoV2 transmission Transboundary and Emerging Diseases. From the abstract: Overall, a decrease in relative humidity of 1% was associated with an increase in cases of 78%. Overall, we found no relationship with between cases and temperature, rainfall or wind speed.

An Overview on the Role of Relative Humidity in Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Indoor Environments Aerosol and Air Quality Research. From the abstract: Based on earlier studies, a relative humidity of 4060% was found to be optimal for human health in indoor places. Thus, it is extremely important to set a minimum relative humidity standard for indoor environments such as hospitals, offices and public transports for minimization of airborne spread of SARS-CoV-2.

Pediatric SARS-CoV-2: Clinical Presentation, Infectivity, and Immune Responses Journal of Pediatrics. n = 192. From the Conclusion: This study reveals that children may be a potential source of contagion in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in spite of milder disease or lack of symptoms.

Covid-19 Data Will Once Again Be Collected by CDC, in Policy Reversal WSJ but:

HHS is flatly denying the WSJ report that the administration is reversing course on how it collects hospital coronavirus data. There are no plans to have the CDC take over again, three sources tell me. https://t.co/m6Lyt91jJx  Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) August 20, 2020

If the CDC did in fact bring in the U.S. Digital service, thats a smart move, albeit years late.
On August 20, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the United States to move to restore all United Nations sanctions on Iran and asked all world powers to pour support for Washington. The United States of America submitted a letter to the United Nations security council on August 20, in which the United States accused Iran of not abiding the 2015 nuclear deal. In a statement Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, this is the right decision and praised United States' decision to trigger snapback sanctions against Tehran. He also said six major powers responsible for the nuclear deal should support the United States in finding a real solution, which prevents Iran from nuclear weapons.

Read: Iraq PM Arrives In the US On First Official Visit

Iran lashes out at the United States

On August 12, Irans President and Foreign Minister lashed out at a revised proposal by the United States that would extend a United Nations arms embargo on Iran indefinitely. The arms embargo is the Trump administrations maximum pressure policy against Iran. The United States on August 11 circulated the revised draft at the United Nations, seeking to gain more support in the 15-member Security Council where veto-wielding Russia and China have voiced strong opposition. The revised draft, which eliminated some provisions from the earlier version that diplomats said went beyond the extension of the arms embargo, may be put to a vote as early as August 14.

Read: Iran's President, Foreign Minister Lash Out At the United States Over Arms Embargo

Arab countries back extension

Just two months earlier, when arms embargo on Iran would come to an end, a new development took place. According to media reports, six Arab countries backed the United Nations' arms ban on Iran. The Gulf Cooperation Council said it in a letter to the United Nations Security Council backing an extension of an arms embargo that kept Iran from purchasing foreign-made weapons like fighter jets, tanks, and warships. The Gulf Cooperation Council comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The Gulf Cooperation Council accused Iran of not stopping or desisting from armed interventions in neighboring countries.

Read: Six Gulf Arab Countries Back Extension Of UN Arms Embargo On Iran

Read: US Demands UN Sanctions Against Iran Be Restored
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 17:54:40|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian government has approved funding of 13.3 billion naira (35 million U.S. dollars) for its Community Policing initiative, seeking to build trust between police and local communities in the country to curb violence.

A statement from the office of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo released Thursday said the funding was approved by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who is aiming to restructure security in the country and deliver more effective policing.

While addressing a town hall meeting on Wednesday in the northwest state of Kebbi on peace and security, Mohammed Abubakar Adamu, Nigeria's police inspector-general, said the federal government had realized the importance of partnering with the community, leading it to embark upon community policing.

Nigeria has witnessed a series of security issues in recent months, including bandit attacks, robberies, and kidnappings. Enditem
Chu Hoa (second from left) and her colleagues. Photo courtesy of Hoa.

Flight attendants have turned to left-handed jobs to supplement their lost income as airlines remain grounded due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chu Hoa, a Vietnamese flight attendant, could not imagine the Covid-19 pandemic that started in February would linger until now. She thought she would return to work in July.

Hoa is still stranded at home in Saigon.

Before the pandemic, Hoa flew about 60-80 hours per month for a South Korean carrier, enough to provide her an abundant standard of living.

Although her airline still pays her a basic monthly salary, the 26-year-old is worried about the company's financial outlook. She also worries that foreign flight attendants like herself would get fired first if the pandemic worsened.

"I used to allocate part of my income toward savings and another to pay off a mortgage. Since my income has been reduced, I now try to spend as little as possible. It will be very challenging for me if I continue to stay at home like this," she said.

Trying to stay optimistic, Hoa sees this as a time for self-improvement. She teaches four paid classes a week on being a flight attendant, including advice on exam taking, for young people sharing the same passion.

"Many friends previously texted me to ask about my experience in taking training tests and my work. But at that time I was very tired. All I wanted to do was rest, spend time by myself and with my family. So I did not have the opportunity to advise them much.

"Since I have more free time now, I want to help others understand this profession better," she said.

Hoa has also taken classes in English and Korean, reads, and does more exercises.

"With this situation, I assume there won't be any flights from now until the end of this year even though I have not received any official announcement from the company."

Chu Hoa (in yellow) poses with her students. Photo courtesy of Hoa. In the same boat as Hoa, Ngoc Tram, a flight attendant with eight years of experience, was forced into unpaid leave since the outbreak hit. But she thinks the crisis is an opportunity for her to re-balance her life. "In the past, I opened a small shop selling female swimsuits. But since I got busy, I neglected it. Now I have time to learn about business, improve the quality of products and services, and apply my customer service knowledge to my shop," she said. Hai Phong, a flight attendant for a Vietnamese carrier, said that despite a reduction in salary and working hours, he still has an income from graphic design, so he "can adapt temporarily." This job provides an equivalent of 30-40 percent of his flight attendant salary. During busy months, this income can account for around 70 percent.

Phong has taught himself to be a graphic designer for five years. Currently, his clients are acquaintances introduced by friends. He has about 7-8 customers a month.

"Soon I will set up a Facebook page and post pictures of my designs. I'll also run ads to find more clients. Currently, I spend about 4-5 hours a day designing," he said.

Phong said while many flight attendants were disappointed to see the country's second Covid-19 wave, he felt less shocked this time thanks to his experiences from the first wave. "The most important thing is to know how to protect myself and passengers."

Since flight times have been reduced, Thanh Nam, a flight attendant in Hanoi, has started venturing into the stock market. Nam had gained experience in this field after working for a securities company.

He also signed up for a Korean language course, gym, and piano lessons.

"Every industry is affected now. I hope my colleagues will retain their passion and join together to fight the pandemic," Nam said.

Trinh Vo, a 23-year-old flight attendant and mother of one daughter in Saigon, said her life has changed almost completely due to Covid-19 outbreak. The flight attendant's salary came to a sudden halt, with revenues from her filming and recording also affected.

Faced with unpaid leave for four months, Trinh practices yoga every day - her long-standing passion. Her friend recommended her to teach yoga during this period, so she decided to study for a professional yoga instructor license.

During the break, the income from yoga teaching has helped her endure this difficult time. Trinh's clients are mainly postpartum mothers who want to lose weight and get in shape.

Vietnam has experienced a second Covid-19 wave since the first domestic case was recorded in over three months on July 25. Since then the demand for domestic travel has decreased dramatically and airlines lost the chance to exploit summer tourism to make up for the first wave loss.

According to the Vietnam Aviation Business Association, airlines are still experiencing depleted cash flows even though they implemented different tactics to cut costs like selling aircraft, cutting employee salaries and reducing ticket prices.

Vietnam Airlines expects revenues this year to drop by half year-on-year to VND50 trillion (over $2.15 billion), with a loss of about VND13 trillion (nearly $560 million).

Vietjet Air's second quarter financial report shows that the budget carrier only achieved revenues of VND1.97 trillion (over $84.9 million), down 80 percent year-on-year, and recorded negative after-tax profit of VND1.1 trillion (over $47.4 million).

The International Civil Aviation Organization forecasts the world aviation industry would recover by 2024 and that Vietnamese airlines would lose over $4 billion this year.

Chu Hoa said every day when waking up, she prays 2020 would pass quickly and the pandemic cease.

Like Hoa, Trinh Vo has found ways to survive the pandemic financially but keeps dreaming about returning to the skies. "I can't quit. I love it too much," Vo said.
The State Elections Enforcement Commission last month ordered incumbent State Rep. Lezlye Zupkus to repay $427 to the Citizens Election Program grant after an audit of 2018 election expenses determined that amount had been inappropriately paid to a family member working on her campaign.

Zupkus is the four-term Republican incumbent representing the 89th District, which includes Cheshire, Prospect and Bethany. Zupkus is seeking a fifth term.

Zupkus said the payments were made to a nephew of her husband, who was paid to distribute campaign literature that year. She described the issue as an honest mistake.

According to the findings of the SEEC audit, commission regulations restrict candidates participating in the state-funded Citizens Election Program from using campaign funds to pay family members  including immediate family members and other close relatives. According to the audit, a close relative includes the child of any such individuals related to the participant candidate or his/her spouse or civil union partner.

The regulation is enforced through a payment that is equal to the amount of the impermissible payment, according to the audit.

Zupkuss campaign received two CEP grant payments in 2018. The first payment was $8,445, received on June 25 of that year. The second was $19,705, which the campaign had received the following July 23.

The audit also noted that Zupkus had returned $3,460 in unused CEP grant funds after the 2018 election.

SEEC spokesman Joshua Foley confirmed that Zupkuss campaign had repaid the funds last month. Zupkus is not barred from participating in the Citizens Election Program this year and has already met qualifying benchmarks.

In order to qualify for CEP grant funding, a candidate running for state representative must raise $5,300 in the form of small donations from at least 150 individuals from within their representative districts.

According to a March 2020 pre-grant application, Zupkuss campaign had already raised $5,875  more than the required amount to qualify for CEP funding  during the current election period.

Zupkus faces a challenge in the race from Democrat Edward J. Maher, of Bethany.

Maher, a Norwalk firefighter, is also seeking CEP funding, according to his campaigns Facebook page.

Among the issues Zupkus is running on is controlling spending at the state level. She noted her previous opposition to proposals for highway tolls that were defeated during the past legislative session.

People feel we are overtaxed and that we overspend in the state, Zupkus said. Im not for raising taxes. We need to ensure that Connecticut can be a state where people can afford to stay.
A regular session of the Security Council of Armenia is being held Friday in Yerevan, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Pashinyan addressed the meeting with opening remarks, in which he stated as follows:

Dear colleagues.

Today we are holding a regular session of the Security Council of Armenia. We adopted a new national security strategy at the previous session. It is noteworthy that shortly after that landmark decision we witnessed the expediency and viability of that document. It was recorded that in general, we had accurately assessed the security threats facing our country: the strategic assessment of our security environment was of high quality.

The well-known events - the victorious battles of Tavush - took place in the wake of the previous Security Council session. The following is to be stated in this connection: All the way throughout the previous period, Azerbaijan had adopted a stance which implied that their failure to launch an offensive and resolve the Karabakh conflict by force should be perceived as a concession to both Armenia and the international community. During all this time, we had been urging the Azerbaijani leadership to refrain from speaking to Armenia from the position of strength and to give up their bellicose rhetoric.

In fact, the victorious battles in July came to demonstrate that there is no military solution to the Karabakh issue. I think the time has come for the Azerbaijani leadership to acknowledge this fact, since as I have mentioned on several occasions, if the Karabakh issue were to have a military solution, then the people of Artsakh might state that they had resolved it long ago.

I consider it important to state that Armenia continues with its constructive stance on the Karabakh issue. Our position is that the conflict should be settled through peaceful talks. Armenia has always been abiding by this very stance on the Karabakh issue, regardless of the political background of its governments.

The next factor specified in the National Security Strategy is Turkeys non-constructive policy in our region and in the world, in general. I think that Turkeys destabilizing and destructive approaches are causing serious concerns to our partners in the Middle East, the Eurasian region and the European region. This is an agenda that has already been formed, and our future action should be the subject of substantive discussions in the Security Council, the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and todays session will address this issue among other agenda items.

The most important record we have to make is that the Republic of Armenia is in a position to meet the emerging security challenges. At the same time, we must set ourselves the task of improving the countrys security environment every week, every month and every year. The Security Council is just the working format which should discuss and resolve such issues.

The agenda of todays Security Council session features a number of security-related issues.
Ridhima Gupta By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Saving lives is my duty, and if that means donating plasma, I will do it for as long as I have to, said Sub-Inspector G Sandhya, who became the first woman police officer from the Rachakonda Police Commissionerate to donate plasma to a 55-year-old woman on Wednesday.

About a month ago, 30-year-old Sandhya, from Chaitanyapuri police station, tested positive for Covid-19. Even before I tested positive, I had prepared myself for it. I knew that all I had to do was fight back and that is exactly what I did. I was in home quarantine for around three weeks and took the treatment till I tested negative, she said.

G Sandhya, SI

Sandhya lives in Soubhagya Puram Colony in Chaitanyapuri with her husband. Recalling her fight against Covid-19, she said, While I was in quarantine I heard about many people losing their lives to the disease. There were so many posts on social media wherein people were looking for plasma donors to save their loved ones. Thats when I decided to donate plasma once I recover. Before contracting the infection, I was working for the peoples safety and once I got infected, it was still my duty to protect them as I have pledged to do so.

On Wednesday, Sandhya received information about 55-year-old Devi Varma, a bank employee who was in need of plasma. With her familys support, she did not think twice and decided to reach out to the patient. It was a simple procedure. I did not experience any fatigue after donating plasma. But the most satisfying part was talking to Devis family, who was full of gratitude, she said with a proud smile.

Stating that she does not mind doing this again, the Sub-Inspector said, I hope that the Covid-19 antibodies remain in my body for a longer period of time, and if required, I can donate plasma again, she said, adding that people should help save lives.
Moscow City Duma lawmaker denies guilt in $30K embezzlement case

 duma.mos.ru

12:55 21/08/2020

MOSCOW, August 21 (RAPSI)  The Moscow City Duma lawmaker Oleg Sheremetyev on Friday pleaded not guilty to embezzlement of more than 2 million rubles (about $30,000) of budget funds, RAPSI reported from the Presnensky Disrtict Court.

Embezzlement charges were earlier brought against the Moscow lawmaker. Investigators seek house arrest for the defendant until October 18.

According to investigators, from November 2019 to February 2020, Sheremetyev monthly prepared and submitted to the Duma office documents on bonus awards ranging from 350,000 to 600,000 rubles for his assistant. The data contained intentionally false information on the fulfillment of highly sensitive tasks by his subordinate. In fact, Sheremetyev embezzled the funds. He allegedly caused damage worth over 2 million rubles to the Moscow budget.




By PTI

PUNE: As many as 1,478 cases of COVID-19 and six deaths have been reported from 27 jails in Maharashtra so far, an official from the prisons department said on Friday.

A total of 1,166 inmates and 312 jail staff have contracted the infection and six prisoners have died of it, the official said.

As far as inmates are concerned, Nagpur Central Jail is the worst-affected in the state with 219 cases, followed by Pune's Yerwada Central Jail with 190 cases, he said.

While Arthur Road Jail and Sangli Prison have recorded 182 and 145 cases respectively, he added.

With regard to the viral spread among prison staff, Nagpur has reported 62 cases, while Mumbai, Thane, Aurangabad, Kalyan and Yerawada prisons have 46, 35, 34, 31 and 26 cases respectively, the official said.

"Of the 1,166 infected inmates, 848 have recovered, while of the 312 jail personnel, 272 have recovered so far," he added.

At least 10,536 prisoners have been released from various jails in the state to contain the spread of coronavirus, the official said.

The current population of all the prisons in the state is 26,408, he added.
Leaders of the global trade union movement have called on the Sudanese government to immediately halt the forced dissolution of trade unions and cancel the arrest warrant issued against a union leader.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomed the strong call made by the ITUC in a letter to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok.

The move comes after the Empowerment Committee, established by the new government to remove elements of the former regime from positions of authority, dissolved unions, including the Sudanese Journalists Union, and issued an arrest warrant for its head, Sadiq Al Rezegy for refusing to hand over the unions assets and continuing to carry out illegal activities as head of a banned union.

In its letter the ITUC said: Your governments actions to dissolve trade unions and confiscate trade union property  and now the intention to arrest trade union representatives  is a continuation of violations by your government of its international obligations to protect the right to freedom of association and the right to organize.

The ITUC called on the authorities to cancel the arrest warrant and dissolution orders and stop the acquisition by force of trade union assets.

They accused the government of following the dictatorial tendencies of the former regime and urged them to engage in social dialogue  a call welcomed by the IFJ.

IFJ President Younes MJahed said: The IFJ cannot accept in any way the methods used by the authorities in Sudan. The dissolution of the journalists' union is an illegal act. It is the Sudanese journalists themselves who have to decide their representation and make their choice, the authorities cannot decide for them".

Dissolving trade unions, seizing their assets and threatening arrests are not the actions of a government committed to democracy and rights. We urge the Sudanese government to stop the attacks on unions and engage in urgent dialogue. The IFJ stands ready to meet the government to resolve this situation.
Who Is the Holy Spirit?

Just to be clear so there is no confusion, the Holy Spirit is God. In fact, he is God, the Holy Spirit. Co-equal, co-eternal, and co-existing with God the Father and God the Son or Jesus.

The reason it is so important to recognize him as God is that first of all, thats who he is. But second it is so we can give him the respect he deserves. Every trait attributed to God, such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, love, joy, mercy, peace, patience, graciousness, all are characteristics of the Holy Spirit, because he is God. Any understanding of who the Holy Spirit is and the way he works must start there.

Now that we have that settled, lets now turn our attention to how he works. (For a good Bible study on this, you can look up all the scriptures that point to the Holy Spirit being God. I could just give them to you but that would take all the fun away.)

The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer

Before I dive into the work of the Holy Spirit, can I say that this is nothing you have to be scared of or worried about. I know you have probably seen people do some interesting things in the name of the Holy Spirit. Let me assure you that the true work of the Holy Spirit is nothing to fear, but something that should be embraced.

For the record, there are ongoing debates among Christians (Charismatics vs Non-charismatics) about the way the Spirit works in relationship to the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of what side of that debate you fall on, here is one fact that cannot be denied. When a person gives their life to Christ, the very moment they do that, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in that persons heart. If you are a Christian then the Holy Spirit dwells within you because if he doesnt, you are not saved.

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ (Romans 8:9).

Now that we are all on the same page (hopefully) lets look at six important works of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Photo credit: Getty Images/Khosrork
Actress Kriti Sanon added a philosophical whiff to her social media with her new post on Friday.

Kriti wrote on Instagram Story: "If we could spread love as quickly as we spread hate and negativity, what an amazing world we would live in."

Meanwhile, the actress had been supporting for a CBI probe into the Sushant Singh Rajput death case and earlier this week welcomed the Supreme Court ruling that the investigating agency would probe the case.

"Last 2 months have been extremely restless with everything being so blurry. Supreme Court's order to let the CBI investigate Sushant's case is a ray of hope that the truth will finally shine. Lets all have faith, stop speculating and let the CBI do their work now," she wrote.

Last 2months have been extremely restless with everything being so blurry. Supreme Courts order to let the CBI investigate Sushants case is a ray of hope that the truth will finally shine Lets all have faith, stop speculating & let the CBI do their work now! #CBIForSSR  Kriti Sanon (@kritisanon) August 19, 2020

"I pray that the truth comes out SOON.. His family, his friends, fans and all loved ones deserve this closure," Kriti had shared on Instagram Story.

"I hope and pray that the CBI takes over the case so it's investigated without any political agendas, in the TRUE sense, to provide justice to the family!! It's high time his soul rests in peace! #CBIForSSR #SushantSinghRajput," added the actress, who worked with Sushant in the 2017 release Raabta, and is rumoured to have dated him once.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday issued a fresh set of guidelines for carrying out polls amid the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, just months before the Bihar Assembly elections scheduled for October and Bengal Assembly elections slated for next year.

Candidates can file their nominations online and people have to wear face masks during election-related activities, the new guidelines said.

The option of postal ballot facility has been extended to the voters who are marked as persons with disabilities. People, who are above the age of 80 years, people employed in notified essential services and those who have tested Covid-19 positive or are possibly infected can all vote through the postal ballot facility, the Election Commission said. However, guidelines for each of the categories of people who are eligible for postal ballot will be issued separately.

Thermal scanning of all voters will be carried out at the entry hall or premises where the polls will be held. Sanitisers, soap and water shall also be made available to all voters, according to the new rules.

Social distancing will mandatorily have to be followed in keeping with the guidelines issued earlier by the Ministry of Home Affairs. State administrations have been told to identify large halls to ensure that social distancing can be done during the polls.

On Thursday, former Union minister and United Democratic Alliance (UDA) convenor Yashwant Sinha joined a number of political leaders seeking postponement of the Bihar assembly polls in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Assembly elections are due in the months of October-November in Bihar, which has, till date, witnessed 1.15 lakh Covid-19 cases, including 574 deaths.

The Election Commission, however, has not made any official announcement about the poll schedule in the state.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

Though New Mexico landlords remain temporarily unable to evict tenants who demonstrate in court proceedings that they cannot afford to pay their rent, Albuquerque officials are hoping to stop at least some cases from reaching that point.

The Albuquerque City Council on Monday approved using $300,000 of the citys federal coronavirus relief money for eviction prevention assistance programs run through the citys Health and Social Services Centers.

But even with every councilor voting for the allocation, some questioned whether the aid was sufficient.

Is this even going to go far enough?  Im very supportive of it, but just concerned about that, Councilor Isaac Benton asked before the vote.

Klarissa Pena, who sponsored the proposal, said Thursday she intends to speak with some council colleagues about co-sponsoring a future resolution for more money.

She said the $300,000 figure was based on her offices conversations with city administrators and that she was not sure if she had enough council support to pass even that amount.

When everyone was talking (favorably) about it that night, I said, I shouldve asked for more,  she said.

The $300,000 should help at least 60 households, according to Gilbert Ramirez, the citys deputy director for behavioral health and wellness programs. The city intends to offer qualifying households up to $5,000 to help with rent, utility bills or both. The city disburses the money directly to the landlords and utility companies, not individual residents.

Albuquerque has active programs to help with rental assistance, getting $121,000 per year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for such services. It has also requested another $380,000 in HUD funds this year, Ramirez said.

Given the need during the pandemic, the city has since March also supplemented federal dollars with $50,000 from the One Albuquerque Fund foundation and about $29,000 in private donations.

Since March 1, the citys program has provided rental and/or utility assistance to 344 households, Ramirez said. That is compared with 153 for the same timeframe in 2019.

But HUD has strict qualifications about who the city can assist with its funding. Ramirez said the supplemental money  including the $300,000 approved by council  has fewer restrictions, allowing, for example, help for undocumented immigrants and refugees.

The new money also allows for a higher level of help, as existing programs have maximum distributions of $500 and $1,000.

Offering up to $5,000 with the new money will help those who have accumulated months of debt during the pandemic, Ramirez said.

I see it as a Band-Aid, not the larger solution, but its a major one to make sure people dont (become) homeless, he said.

The New Mexico Supreme Court issued a stay on evictions early in the COVID-19 pandemic for tenants who attend hearings and provide evidence that they cannot pay, and it remains in effect. However, it does not cancel tenants rent, and Ramirez said city staff are hearing about landlords not renewing leases for those who owe back rent, which has the same practical effect of lost housing.

Those interested in applying for the funds, can call 311 to learn more.
A Russian doctor said on Friday that the hospital in Siberia treating Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for suspected poisoning had decided to allow German doctors to fly him to Germany for treatment.

The doctor said the hospital could help transport Navalny to the airport and that he would be moved within several hours.

Navalny, 44, Russia's most prominent opposition leader, has been in a coma since Thursday in a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after he fell ill on a flight. His supporters believe he was poisoned shortly before boarding the plane.

Earlier Friday, a plane with German specialists and equipment necessary to transfer Navalny for treatment in Berlin landed at Omsk airport, but doctors at the Siberian hospital earlier said his condition was too unstable to transport him.

But after German doctors examined Navalny and declared him fit to fly in the special medical plane, the Russian doctor told reporters he would be granted permission.

The flight from Omsk is scheduled for Saturday morning, according to Russias RIA Novosti news agency, citing airport officials.

Traces of industrial chemical substance

Navalny's supporters believe he must have consumed poison in the tea he drank at an airport cafe before boarding the plane early Thursday. During the flight, Navalny started sweating and asked Yarmysh to talk to him so that he could focus on the sound of a voice". He then went to the bathroom and lost consciousness.

Earlier Friday, the deputy head of the Omsk hospital where Navalny is being treated told reporters there were no traces of poison in tests carried out on the 44-year-old opposition figure.

Navalny's supporters denounced the medical verdict as a ploy by the authorities to stall and wait until the suspected poison is no longer traceable in his system.

But later Friday, Siberian health officials said a police laboratory had found traces of a chemical substance of an industrial nature on Navalnys hair and hands.

Story continues

Macron, Merkel offer help

Reports about the alleged poisoning made waves in the West. French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said France was ready to offer Navalny and his family all necessary assistance ... in terms of health care, asylum, protection" and insisted on the need to clarify what happened.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a joint news conference with Macron, echoed his sentiment. Obviously Germany will let him have all the medical help that is needed also in German hospitals, Merkel said.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and the United Nations also expressed concern over what happened to Navalny, and Amnesty International demanded a full and thorough investigation.

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian agent who was killed in London by radioactive poisoning in 2006, voiced concern that Navalnys enemies within Russia may have decided it was time to use a new tactic.

Maybe they decided to do a new tactic not to stop him just with an arrest but to stop him with poison. It looks like a new tactic against Navalny, Marina Litvinenko told AP from Sicily, Italy.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said then that he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Falling approval ratings for Putin

Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running.

He set up a network of campaign offices across Russia and has since been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russia's ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russia's Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the region's governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

In the interview with Echo Moskvy, Yarmysh said she believed the suspected poisoning was connected to this year's regional election campaign.

Commentators say Navalny has become increasingly dangerous for the Kremlin as Putins approval has plummeted this year to a record low of around 60 percent amid the coronavirus pandemic and growing public frustration with the declining economy.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and REUTERS)
Meghan Markle's Farewell Tour Outfits Were Carefully Planned to "Go Out With a Bang"

A new book details how all those iconic looks came to be.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have appeared in their first joint video call since news broke that they bought a new house in Montecito, Calif.

On Thursday, the Queen's Commonwealth Trust, the charity which they preside over as president (Harry) and vice president (Meghan), shared a video of a conversation between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and a group of young leaders, discussing social media and using the internet as a force for good.

They were joined by Brighton Kaoma, founder of Agents of Change Foundation in Zambia; Hunter Johnson, founder of The Man Cave in Australia; Rosie Thomas, co-founder of Project Rockit in Australia; and, Vee Kativhu, Study & Empowerment YouTuber and founder of "Empowered by Vee."

Meghan wore a black and white sleeveless dress while Harry wore a white button-up shirt; the two of them sat in a well-lit corner in front of two windows with a large plant in the background. Given the reported news that they settled in a home near Santa Barbara after having spent the last few months at Tyler Perry's L.A. house, the couple may have given fans a glimpse at the new house.

During the call, they discussed finding a healthy balance on online communities, noting the toxicity that social media can often breed.

"Everyones mental and emotional wellbeing are perhaps more fragile than ever before, certainly with COVID and our dependability on our devices right now in the absence of human interaction," Meghan said. "People are going online more than ever before to feel community. And unfortunately, which you rightly point out, when that community becomes divisive, when that community isnt a pact for good but is a pact of people ganging up on one another, I think whats challenging about that is if people dont feel an escape, and it can probably feel really lonely in that space."

Story continues

RELATED: Meghan Markle Spoke of the "Devastating" Racial Injustice in America

Harry also said that the future was in these young leaders' hands, prompting Meghan to joke, "Stop, were not that old."

The Sussexes have been vocal in recent weeks about the responsibilities online platforms have to their users. Harry penned an essay about completely re-designing social media to address "the conditions for a crisis of hate," and he and Meghan have become active supporters of the Stop Hate For Profit campaign seeking to end online hate speech.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:22:47|Editor: huaxia

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RIGA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Latvia's seaside territories are becoming increasingly polluted, according to monitoring conducted by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) as part of its My Sea initiative.

Representatives of the foundation informed at a press conference Friday that this year, participants of the monitoring found an average of 254 pieces of trash on every 100 meters of the Baltic seacoast, which is a new record.

By comparison, similar monitoring in 2018 found 248 pieces of trash per 100 meters. Nine years ago, when the My Sea campaign was started, there were just 180 pieces of trash per 100 meters of Latvia's seaside.

According to the monitoring data, various unidentifiable pieces of plastic are the greatest pollutants making up 19 percent of all the waste found on Latvia's beaches. Coal waste makes up 16 percent, followed by plastic bags and paper, as well as cigarette butts and filters.

A new type of waste like face masks has appeared on the seaside amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic this year, FEE representatives said.

The FEE organized the My Sea expedition for the ninth year to survey pollution in 42 coastal areas in line with the UN Environment Program's guidelines, the foundation said. Enditem
Father James Collins holds a service in the yard of St Paul's Anglican Church in Burwood with seating observant of social distancing on March 22, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. (Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

New South Wales Parliament Seeks Community Input on Religious Freedom Bill

The New South Wales government is seeking community input for their inquiry into One Nation MP Mark Lathams religious freedom and equality amendment to the anti-discrimination act.

The amendment (pdf), which was introduced into the NSW state parliament on May 13 by Latham, seeks to equalise the rights of those with religious beliefsa need Latham argued in his introduction of the bill is vital because the fastest growing form of discrimination in our society is against people of religious faith.

Religious discrimination is an issue no government can ignore, Latham explained.

All religious faith that respects the sanctity of life and the goodness of the human soul and reaches out to others with the hope of salvation and compassion should be honoured in our society, Latham said, referring not just to people who practise Christianity but also those who practice Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and those who are atheists and agnostic.

The origins of the Australian welfare state lie in the mutual help and care by religious associations. Religious rights are not a fringe issue. They are at the heart of our societys origins and values. They are a basic matter of human rights, Latham declared.

At present, it is illegal to discriminate against a person in NSW based on age, gender, sexuality, race or disability, but not religious belief.

In 2018, the Turnbull governments Ruddock Religious Freedom Review (pdf) recommended that the government develop a Commonwealth Religious Discrimination Act to protect from discrimination based on religious belief or activity or the absence of religious belief.

Chair of the Inquiry into the Religious Freedom and Equality Bill, Liberal MP Gabriel Upton, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 19 that the Joint Select Committee on the Anti-discrimination Amendment (Religious Freedom and Equality) Bill 2020 will be checking that the objectives of the bill are valid and whether the terms of the bill are appropriate for securing its objectives.

According to Upton, the committee will consider recommendations relevant to NSW from the Religious Freedom Review, the Commonwealths 2019 Religious Discrimination Bill, and the Australian Law Reform Commission.

But she noted that as the Committee Chair, I want all views to be heard and I encourage the community to make submissions through the Committee webpage on the NSW Parliament website, Upton said.

The NSW government has also created an online questionnaire that closes on Aug. 21.

Opposition to the Bill

Equality Australia has voiced opposition to the bill, arguing that the legislation proposes protections for behaviours that breach civil obligations and laws causing potential harms to even those who hold religious beliefs.

Identifying five fundamental issues, they argue that the proposed amendment would raise religious organisations above the law, creating a double standard in areas like employment and education, and undermining inclusiveness in the areas like the workplace.

Equality Australia also believes that the Latham amendment will elevate religious beliefs above other human rights.

Australia was one of eight nations who drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, as a country, ratified most of the declaration (pdf) in 1980.

Currently, Article 18 of the international covenant for civil and political rights covers the right to freedom of religion.

Support From Religious Groups

The amendment has received supported by religious groups throughout NSW.

Catholic leaders said that they saw the bill as critical in an article published in the Catholic weekly in May.

Professor Michael Quinlan, dean of the University of Notre Dame Australias School of Law in Sydney, said he believed the bill was not controversial and should attract bipartisan support.

Dr. Kevin Donnelly, a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University, said that it is critical that the NSW Government legislates as quickly as possible to protect the rights of people of faith and no faith.

Donnelly noted that there is now a need to protect religious freedom because secular critics seek now to marginalise religious people and remove them from the public space.
"I was out canvassing a few weeks ago and double-checking to see who was planning to vote by mail and talked to a lot of folks in the neighborhood who rely on those mailboxes," Yang said.

Removing those mailboxes would have an immediate effect on the neighborhood, which is home to many low- to middle-income residents who rent their homes or apartments and do not have adequate transportation or access to reliable internet, Yang said.

The apparent effort to remove the collection sites, even for a legitimate purpose that started well before the general election season arrived, may reinforce the skepticism of those who were already skeptical.

Yang said she called the phone number posted for questions or concerns, but was only told the USPS audits collection boxes regularly for mail volume, and didn't have an answer for why those boxes were on the list for removal.

"It's frustrating on my end trying to get answers and see exactly what's going on," Yang said. "It seems like voter suppression, I'm not going to lie."

Said Ryba: "This is a really blatant effort to suppress voter turnout."
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) on Friday appealed to the government to provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to vulnerable persons to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Scores of vulnerable persons have taken refuge under the pretext that they cannot afford the PPEs. They claimed the high cost of PPEs especially the nose masks is a big hindrance for its usage, it said.

Ms Lucille Hewlett Annan, the NCCE Greater Accra Regional Director, told the Ghana News Agency that the supply of PPEs to vulnerable persons would help the COVID-19 educational campaign to yield better results.

She called for the distribution of educational materials on the proper use of the face masks to the districts for distribution to the public.

She said the high rate of transmission of the virus in the Greater Accra Region called for extensive awareness creation and a change in the behaviour and attitude of the public.

Ms Annan said the NCCE interventions across the country were progressively successful.

We monitor and scale up our campaign strategically to meet emerging advocacy threats.

We will continue with our community-based COVID-19 campaign through the NCCE Civic Educators to ensure that no one is left behind. We must reach out to every community with the preventive message.

The NCCE Greater Accra Regional Director emphasised adherence to the safety protocols to help curb the spread of the disease.

She said 187,304 persons benefited from the exercise out of which 88,932 were males and 98,372 females.

The Commission said it also observed that a section of the public believed that COVID-19 was a myth.

Recalcitrant persons were also refusing to properly wear the nose masks while others have turned the nose mask into a chin-shield.

Others also prefer to keep their nose masks in the bags and pockets only to use them when confronted by security personnel.

Ms Annan said the region held 3,049 activities as against the target of 640 public education activities on the COVID 19 pandemic.

She said the activities included 642 dawn and dusk broadcasts and street announcements, 2,344 engagements with identifiable groups, 34 radio and 17 television discussions.

She said the exercise was executed in partnership with the Ghana Health Service, the Police Service, the Information Services Department and the District Assemblies.

---GNA
San Francisco, Aug 21 : The classic Facebook web design with blue navigation bar will no longer be available for desktop users starting September, according to a new report in Engadget.

The design that Facebook announced at its developer conference last year has been the new default since May, said the report.

However, it still gives people the option to go back to the "classic" design if they want.

The social networking giant is still asking users questions if it finds people willing to switch to the old design - apparently to improve the new design.

But a notification on the Facebook support page now gives warning to those users who want to switch back to the old look that "the classic Facebook will no longer be available starting in September," said the report.

With the inclusion of a lot of white space, the new look makes Facebook a way more cleaner. There is also a dark mode that interested users can make use of.

The features that get more prominence in the new design include Facebook's Groups, Watch and and Gaming sections.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 12:30:22|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Thursday denounced U.S. attempt to activate the "snapback" mechanism to restore the United Nations (UN) sanctions on the Islamic republic as "unlawful."

"All parties to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the Security Council member states and international jurists all share the view that the United States is no longer a party to the JCPOA, and Washington's move has no basis as per the Security Council Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a phone conversation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The United States sent a letter to the UN Security Council on Thursday requesting the initiation of the "snapback" mechanism, which allows a participant to the JCPOA to seek re-imposition of sanctions on Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to initiate the mechanism regardless of the fact that the United States pulled out of the deal in May 2018.

Zarif said that the latest U.S. move will have "dangerous consequences" for the international law, and will result in nothing but damaging international mechanisms and discrediting the UN Security Council.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran expects the secretary-general and the Security Council member states to fulfill their legal duties and counter the U.S. administration's rogue behavior," the top Iranian diplomat said.

The U.S. move has also drawn opposition from its European allies.

France, Germany and Britain issued a joint statement on Thursday, saying that they cannot support the United States in seeking to re-impose sanctions on Iran.

"The U.S. ceased to be a participant to the JCPOA following their withdrawal from the deal on May 8, 2018... We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA," the statement said.

The three countries said they "are committed to preserving the processes and institutions which constitute the foundation of multilateralism," calling on "all UN Security Council members to refrain from any action that would only deepen divisions in the Security Council or that would have serious adverse consequences on its work."

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to punish those countries that oppose the U.S. effort to re-impose sanctions on Iran.

In response, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia will not stop cooperating with Iran and condemned U.S. intentions to restore UN sanctions against the Middle East country.

"We are guided exclusively by our own interests, our obligations and international law," Ryabkov was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

"As the United States has withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has no right to ask the Security Council to launch the snapback mechanism that allows the re-imposition of sanctions,"Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press conference on Thursday.

"China firmly opposes unilateral sanctions and 'long-arm jurisdictions' imposed by the United States against other countries," said Zhao, urging the United States "to earnestly observe Security Council resolutions, fulfill its international obligations, heed the concerns of the international community and respect other countries' legal rights and interests."

The Chinese mission to the UN on Thursday criticized the U.S. move as staging a "political show."

"A snapback mechanism should never be invoked until all efforts are made to exhaust dispute resolution process specified in the JCPOA," the mission said. Enditem
An Instagram influencer has been slapped with a $1,652 fine after holding a private viewing of Fendi products at her plush Melbourne home during lockdown.

Chanel Bridget held an exclusive viewing of luxury handbags and clothes in her lavish Toorak home in Melbourne's south-east on last week.

The influencer, who has around 21,000 Instagram followers, shared images and video of the evening online.

The parties are being held while retail stores in Melbourne are closed as part of strict lockdown safety measures as the city battles a second wave of coronavirus.

Chanel Bridget held an exclusive viewing luxury handbags and clothes in her luxurious Toorak home in Melbourne's south-east last week

The influencer invited Fendi staff round for a viewing of the designer's products. This was against Melbourne's strict lockdown restrictions

'Best service ever. What an amazing experience today was,' she wrote.

Another photo showed several bags inside Ms Bridget's home as the employees laid out clothes.

One image shows three sales representatives at the door to a residence with the caption: 'Best service ever, what an amazing experience'.

One of the salespeople tagged posted a picture last week of three people dressed in designer clothes and accessories with the caption: 'Fendi Mafia'.

Pictures and video posted online from one of the luxury product parties (pictured) shows dozens of large yellow Fendi bags lined up next to a couch

A picture was posted of three people dressed in designer clothes and accessories with the caption: 'Fendi Mafia' (pictured)

'You're the first one seeing this first darling, like literally, the first,' one of the salespeople says in the video as they display the clothes inside the apartment.

Ms Bridget and the two Fendi employees have since be fined $1,652 for breaching Melbourne's strict lockdown rules.

Ms Bridget has also since deleted her Instagram account.

A designer Fendi handbag (pictured) at one of the fashion sales parties

The private high-end fashion parties have caught the attention of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who said police would 'have a close look' at them.

'No one should be going into any homes regardless of how well-heeled the client may be or how luxury the goods may be. No matter what you're selling or what price you're paying,' he said last week.

'This virus does not discriminate... Victoria Police can have a close look at that, because that should not be going on, if indeed it is.'

'You just can't be having people into your home, unless it's absolutely necessary.'

'You can have a plumber come to your house if you've got a pipe that's burst and you can have an electrician come if there's some urgent issues with the wiring or something of that nature.'

'But there's nothing urgent about a luxury handbag.'

Victoria Police have confirmed they are investigating reports of the alleged illegal parties.

'Victoria Police is aware of a video circulating online which shows a potential breach of the directions issued by the Chief Health Officer. Police are investigating the incident,' Sergeant Megan Stefanec said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Fendi for comment.

Another photo showed several bags inside Ms Bridget's apartment as the employees laid out products

Melbourne is currently in a state of disaster after Premier Daniel Andrews enforced strict Stage 4 restrictions on August 2 to bring down cases of COVID-19 which were spiralling out of control.

Melburnians are banned from leaving their homes between 8pm and 5am unless for work or care-related reasons and are required to wear face masks unless they are exempt on medical or professional grounds.

Premier Daniel Andrews reported 179 new COVID-19 cases on Friday and a further nine deaths.

Seven of those deaths are linked to aged care - bringing the state toll to 385 and the national figure to 472.

There are a total of 4,421 active cases across the state, including 626 people in hospital, of which 40 are receiving intensive care.

Mr Andrews urged Victorians not to waver in their lockdown efforts, even if the daily infection numbers were encouraging.

'We are all pleased to see a one in front of these additional case numbers,' he said.
India and China held the 18th meeting of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on border affairs on Thursday and agreed to restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

India and China on Thursday agreed to resolve the outstanding issues in an expeditious manner and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols and said the two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.

The two countries held the 18th meeting of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on border affairs on Thursday and agreed that restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas would be essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.

An External Affairs Ministry release said that the two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the existing situation in the India-China border areas.

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The Indian delegation was led by Naveen Srivastava, Joint Secretary (East Asia) in Ministry of External Affairs while the Director-General of the Boundary and Oceanic Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs led the Chinese delegation.

The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the existing situation in the India-China border areas. They reaffirmed that in accordance with the agreements reached between the two Foreign Ministers and the two Special Representatives (SRs), the two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector, the release said.

In this context, they agreed to resolve the outstanding issues in an expeditious manner and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols. The two sides were in agreement that restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas would be essential for the overall development of bilateral relations, it added.

The two sides acknowledged the need to maintain close communication through both the diplomatic and military channels so as to ensure complete disengagement.

They also agreed to continue their ongoing engagements including through the meetings of the WMCC. The release laid stress on complete disengagement along LAC. De-escalation along border areas was not specifically mentioned in the release though India has been insisting on it.

The seventeenth meeting of WMCC was held last month in which the two countries 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.

Chinese troops have been camping in the Finger area in Eastern Ladakh for over three months now and have even started fortifying their bases with the construction of bunkers and sangars.

India had said earlier that it expects that China will sincerely work with it for complete disengagement of troops along LAC in Eastern Ladakh and de-escalation along with the full restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

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New Delhi: India has entered into a new era of online education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, but it creating a wedge between the haves and have nots. The growing digital divide is also being witnessed among rich and poor states of the country. For example, the Internet has reached the maximum number of people in Delhi, Kerala, and Haryana, but it is still away from the majority of people in the northeastern states, except Assam.

The DNA analysis will try to peep into the reasons behind the growing digital divide, which is obstructing the path of online education in India. If you are able to see this analysis on your mobile phone or an Internet device, then you are lucky. You should try to understand the problem of those people who are not able to get an education through the internet despite willing to pursue it.

Although Digital India has become a necessity during the COVID-19 lockdown, the question is also being asked if we are ready with requisite infrastructure for online education. If the students belonging to every section of society are equipped to avail of online education?

In our childhood, we have heard stories about how our previous generation strived hard to get educated. Our older generation still narrated stories as to how they had to walk for several kilometers to reach school, or how did they complete their studies in the light of candles or street lights. Former President of India and great scientist APJ Abdul Kalam used to sell newspapers to continue his studies. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used to study under the street lights.

The situation has changed today, but the struggle for education is the same. Earlier people struggled to reach school and now the present generation is striving for online education. Schools are closed amid coronavirus scare and there is no hope when will they open, therefore, schools are teaching students online.

Since not all families in India have access to the Internet, this is creating a digital divide that needs to bridged at the earliest. A recent NCERT survey also revealed startling facts:

1. According to the survey, 27 percent of students in India do not have smartphones and laptops.

2. 28 percent of students are not able to study properly due to frequent power outages

3. 33 percent of students admitted that they are not able to focus on studies during online classes

4. Online classes are not able to solve problems related to maths and science subjects

5. 50 percent of students said they do not have school books, thus, students are facing problems in offline studies too

Notably, the NCERT website has provided online access to E-books of many subjects but for that students require internet and smartphone. In lack of it, crores of children in the country are deprived of accessing this facility.

The survey has been prepared on the basis of interaction with 34000 students, parents, and teachers studying in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalaya, and CBSE affiliated schools. Amid this scenario, what will be the future of online education can be easily understood.

The number of students going to schools and colleges in India is currently 300 million, but they are unable to attend schools due to the coronavirus situation.

According to a National Sample Survey report, 90 lakh students studying in the country's government schools have no facility for online education. 24 percent of households are connected to the Internet through smartphones, and only 11 percent have a computer with an Internet connection, while the situation in rural India is worse.

It further said that 16 percent of rural households get electricity from 1 to 8 hours, 33 percent rural households get electricity for 9 to 12 hours, while 47 percent get power supply more than 12 hours.

Notably, 66 percent of India's population still lives in villages and if this number fails to get 24-hour electricity, then how will students in villages have access to online education. Out of this 66 percent rural population in India, only 16 percent have access to the internet.

20 percent of poor households, only 3 percent have access to a computer and 9 percent have an internet connection. Those families in rural areas having internet, 3 percent are facing Internet interruptions and 53 percent are confronted with poor internet connectivity. Broadband signals fail to reach 32 percent of the households.
As Houston area seniors search for their fall 2021 destinations, the COVID-19 pandemic has made college tours largely more accessible, but less immersed in campus culture, students said.

Because of the pandemic, colleges have adopted virtual tours so prospective students can simulate a university experience without leaving the safety of their homes.

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In some respects, its easier, said Mardell Maxwell, University of Houstons Executive Director of Admissions. If youre a student in Dallas or a student in California, you dont have to invest gas money or a plane ticket. Its now more affordable for you to come and take a campus tour.

UH and Houston Baptist University offer guided virtual tours designed for students and families to experience the campus and ask questions in real time. Rice University has separate virtual events prospective students can register for, including admission information sessions; the ability to connect with faculty from various majors and minors; conversations with current Rice students and application advice.

Texas Southern University, UH, University of Houston-Downtown, the University of St. Thomas, and HBU all utilize a platform called YouVist that offers a virtual-reality, 360-degree experience of a prospective students college.

Although families can register for virtual tours whenever they want, for many students the virtual experience does not compare to the in-person experience. Students dont get the opportunity to smell the food in the student center, walk through the dorm room theyd stay in or get an in-depth sense of campus culture.

Of course, these college virtual tours are going to do what they can to promote their college. So its definitely a lot harder to find the nuances and the idiosyncrasies that may deter you, said Bellaire High School senior Omar Busaidy. Its just a little harder to dig through in order to find those attributes.

Busaidy remembers going on a campus tour at Rice two years ago with his older brother where he was able to talk with students on campus and get a better feel for what the campus was like.

But some universities, like UH, are trying to bridge the virtual gap by offering as much communication between prospective students and current students as possible.

On a virtual tour, prospective students were able to log in via Zoom to connect with the tours visitor coordinator and two other campus employees. The student employees encouraged the prospective students to ask as many questions as possible.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston-area schools lost contact with tens of thousands of students during COVID, TEA data shows

While they answered questions, one student employee shared her screen as she toured the University of Houston through YouVisit. The student guides were upfront about how the school is adjusting to COVID-19 and expressed what they did and did not like about the school, just like an in-person campus visit.

Our talking points, what we are talking to students and families about, said Maxwell, is that college just looks different. Its still there. Theres still tremendous opportunity. You can still work toward a degree, get a great job, a career opportunity after college. Its just youre navigating it differently, and its our job to help students understand how to navigate it in a much different environment.

Its not that you cant take a campus tour anymore, it just looks different than the traditional way of doing things. It doesnt mean that is has to be a worse experience. Its just a different experience, and thats what we have to continue to educate and teach students about.

ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com
Data analysis has become so common we often take it for granted. By revealing trends and patterns, applications can predict weather and allow us to navigate traffic. Information from COVID tests is used to reduce the spread of disease. We can even use this data to enhance the quality of life, solve environmental issues, and improve commerce, especially as we enter the new normal.

Increasingly, government agencies are collaborating with technology providers to create smart cities that support vibrant communities.

The concept of smart cities is not new. It began in 1970 in LA with the first big data project. Then in 1994, Amsterdam created a virtual digital city to promote internet usage. Increasingly, smart cities are springing up across the globe to specifically address each communitys unique needs.

The intelligence in these municipalities comes from connecting devices and using data purposefully to make informed decisions. Here are some examples of how smart cities are using data to improve communities:

Reducing crime : by mapping crimes, law enforcement can anticipate incidents before they occur. Ballistics matching can identify guns used in multiple crimes and get the guns off the streets.

: by mapping crimes, law enforcement can anticipate incidents before they occur. Ballistics matching can identify guns used in multiple crimes and get the guns off the streets. Enhancing mobility: sharing real-time information about delays, commuters can change their routes quickly. Congestion pricing (charging less to commute during non-peak times) and encouraging shifts in behavior.

sharing real-time information about delays, commuters can change their routes quickly. Congestion pricing (charging less to commute during non-peak times) and encouraging shifts in behavior. Focusing on health: monitoring health situations can promote early intervention with digital solutions. Patients with chronic conditions can use wearable devices to transmit readings to doctors.

monitoring health situations can promote early intervention with digital solutions. Patients with chronic conditions can use wearable devices to transmit readings to doctors. Increased environment efficiency: monitoring the consumption of water and electricity, and incenting people to conserve. Smart grids can optimize and price energy flow based on demand. Modifying traffic patterns can lower emissions, which improves air quality and overall community health.

Local governments are using smart city initiatives to create processes and policies that drive positive change. But they cant address the issues alone. Partnerships between government and technology are producing results.

I spoke with Paul Riser, serial entrepreneur, former Chief Information & Technology Officer of Innovation Health Technologies, and current Director at TechTown Detroit, a longstanding incubator and accelerator aimed at revitalizing Michigans largest city. Currently, Risers work is focused on leading Detroit Urban Solutions, where he is scripting the intersection of urban initiatives (including mobility, public health, energy, water tech, etc.), applying tech and smart city strategies to develop Detroit to meet the needs of its citizens.

Detroit Urban Solutions places residents first, working with stakeholders and city leaders to develop solutions to deliver a more equitable and improved quality of life. Risers success is in his approach, beginning by developing trusted relationships within communities and ensuring that the beneficiaries understand, embrace, and leverage technology to better their urban environment.

In Detroit and other regions, the ability to leverage technology to more effectively manage communities will become even more important as we rebound from the pandemic. Technologists may offer the secret sauce to navigate these uncertain times, by choreographing the collaboration between technology, business, and government, where each plays a different role. Governments provide laws, policies, and maintain the infrastructure. Businesses focus on generating revenue, selling products, and attracting clients. Technologists will build the infrastructure and, importantly, manage data privacy, which is paramount for maintaining public trust and confidence in smart cities.

The internet generates large quantiles of data that can track our every movement, our searches, who are our friends, and our preferences. It can tell just about everything. Because it is not always possible to strip personal identification from data, technologists need to create protocols which protect the public and keep private data private.

Confidentiality of data must be safeguarded.

Cybersecurity needs to be maintained to prevent a data breach.

CIOs will be well positioned to manage stakeholders, consciously placing the good of the community above corporate profitability and political agendas.

By 2050 it is expected that 68% of the worlds population will live in cities. These increases in urban populations will put a strain on the infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and transportation. Smart cities provide effective solutions for managing urban growth. And technologists will be at the forefront of helping to manage these initiatives, working alongside urban planners to regulate resources, reduce pollution, and design cities where citizens can thrive. The technologists are an integral part, the silent hero, making smart cities even smart(er).
The Chief of Staff at the Office of the President, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, has praised President Akufo-Addos resolve to ensure his government creates an environment for the vulnerable in society to flourish.

She remarked that the stance taken by the government of President Akufo-Addo, compliments global efforts of ensuring that marginalised groups such as individuals with special needs are considered in the development of nation-building.

The Chief of Staff highlighted that under President Akufo-Addo, it doesnt matter your circumstance, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are from West or East, North or South or Savanna.

She continued that the government of Nana Akufo-Addo is an inclusive government, it is a government that looks at all people that whatever we have, let us break it so that everybody will have a little share of it.

Speaking at a ceremony to unveil a new facility built to assist Klicks Africa Foundation cater for children with autism, Hon Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, advised against side-lining children born with the condition; noting that society has so many misconception and continue to marginalize people with such condition. This ought to change.

The government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is committed to assist, in whichever way possible through partnership, institutions and service providers, vulnerable persons in society, she stated.

In tackling the diverse challenges associated with autism, the Chief of Staff pointed out that parents could build the fundamental skills of children born with the condition by taking them through speech interactive therapies and providing them with vocational skills.

Mrs Akosua Frema Osei-Opare gifted the home with 50 chairs, 5 tables and 2 playful mats. Other items include 100 reusable facemasks for kids, 100 reusable facemasks for adults, 250 pieces of disposable wipes, 2 boxes of 500ml sanitizers made in Ghana, 2 sets of veronica buckets, 5 packs of paper towels made in Ghana and 2 boxes of hand wash soap.

10 packs of Eku juice, 8 boxes of biscuits, and 5 bags of rice all made in Ghana together with 5 bags of sugar and 5 boxes of tin tomatoes were also donated to the home.

The deputy minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Freda Prempeh, also called on parents with wards on the Autism Spectrum, to seek early medical attention.

She called on parents to desist from the act of disposing children because they are born with autism. The deputy minister pleaded with the managers of Klicks Africa Foundation to maintain the building and ensure it is kept in good shape at all times.

On behalf of her ministry, she pledges support noting that our doors are open to support the foundation.

The founder of Klicks Africa Foundation, Mary Amoah, expressed her sincere appreciation to the Hon Akosua Frema Osei-Opare and the government of President Akufo-Addo for making her dream come true.

She remarked that the facility will give hope to parents with children suffering from autism.
I like to think that, when the occasion arises, I can speak passable Japanese. But pride goeth before the fall, and I fell flat on my first attempt to order a whisky in Tokyo. To my request for a Suntory neat the bartender responded only with embarrassed incomprehension. I repeated myself, pushing my Japanified pronunciation to parodic limits: saaan-to-riii nee-to. At some point the man deciphered my linguistic flailing. Ah, he said, brightening, suuu-to-raaay-to? To think that I could have handled this situation with dignity had I but seen the Suntory commercial above, in which Herbie Hancock suggests having a drink straight.

Would even the maddest men of the American advertising industry countenance the idea of putting a jazz musician in a commercial? Japan thinks differently, however, and in its economic-bubble era of the 1970s and 80s thought more differently still.





At that time, Japanese television spots  at least those commissioned by sufficiently deep-pocketed companies  began featuring American celebrities like James Brown, Woody Allen, Nicolas Cage, Paul Newman, and Dennis Hopper. A 1979 Suntory ad that put Francis Ford Coppola alongside Akira Kurosawa would, a quarter-century on, inspire Coppolas daughter Sofia to dramatize a similar East-meets-West commercial situation in her film Lost in Translation.

Of all the things American embraced (and repurposed) by Japan after its defeat in the Second World War, jazz music has maintained the most intensely enthusiastic fan base. Japanese-made jazz has long been a formidable genre of its own, just as Japanese-made whisky has long held its own with the Western varieties. But when the makers of Japanese whisky made an effort to sell their own product on television to the newly wealthy Japanese people, they looked to American jazzmen to give it a shot of authenticity. Having recruited Hancock to promote drinking their single-malt whisky at room temperature, Suntory got bassist Ron Carter as well as both Branford and Ellis Marsalis to promote drinking it hot.

Could the cultural association between jazz and whisky extend to other liquors? That was the gambit of a 1987 commercial featuring Miles Davis, recently investigated by InsideHooks Aaron Goldfarb. Its product: shochu, a colorless, odorless, yet often challenging spirit typically distilled from rice (known as kome-jochu), barley (mugi-jochu) or sweet potatoes (imo-jochu). Newly launched with an apparent intent to pitch that staid beverage to moneyed younger people, the brand VAN hired Davis to play a few notes on his trumpet, then take a sip of its shochu and pronounce it a miracle. He also describes himself as always on the vanguard, hence, presumably, the name VAN (though its being reminiscent of VAN JACKET, the company that had earlier brought Ivy League style to the same target demographic, couldnt have been unwelcome).

Though Davis brand of cool did its part for the success of Honda scooters and TDK cassette tapes, it proved not to be enough for VAN shochu. The brand was a big flop and had a very short life, Goldfarb quotes an industry expert as saying, probably because shochu is so quintessentially Japanese, and a foreign-style shochu just didnt make sense to most. Perhaps the commercial itself also lacked the pleasurable simplicity of Suntorys many jazz-oriented spots, none of which turned out simpler or more pleasurable than the one with Sammy Davis Jr. performing a cappella just above. In the process of pouring himself a drink Davis plays the part of an entire jazz combo, using only his mouth and the objects at hand, including the ice in his glass. The concept wouldnt have worked quite so well had he taken his Suntory neat  or rather, straight.

Related Content:

A 30-Minute Introduction to Japanese Jazz from the 1970s: Like Japanese Whisky, Its Underrated, But Very High Quality

Watch Akira Kurosawa & Francis Ford Coppola in Japanese Whisky Ads from 1979: The Inspiration for Lost in Translation

The Best Commercial Ever? James Brown Sells Miso Soup (1992)

Nicolas Cage, Paul Newman & Dennis Hopper Bring Their American Style to Japanese Commercials

Woody Allen Lives the Delicious Life in Early-80s Japanese Commercials

Glorious Early 20th-Century Japanese Ads for Beer, Smokes & Sake (1902-1954)

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
The special task force (STF) of police and the experts of the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) are still to unravel the mystery shrouding the incident involving the blackout caused in several cities due to snag in over two lakh hi-tech smart meters on Janmasthami.

Investigators, however, have not ruled out the possibility of the sabotage.

While it is taken for granted that a wrong server command generated from the centralized control and command centre caused all the problem, those probing the issue are clueless as to who gave the wrong command and why.

According to UPPCL chairman and additional chief secretary, Arvind Kumar, the departmental technical committee and the STF are examining the issue from all possible angles but not much headway has been made yet.

It is clear that the problem occurred because of a wrong command from the server. The issue before us, however, is to find out whether the sending of a wrong command was due a technical error or it was given deliberately as a mischief, he said.

The STF that has been looking into the issue primarily from the conspiracy or sabotage angle for the last several days has not been able to make any headway. There is a state of utter confusion so far largely because we are not being provided with the details we are looking for, a top STF official told HT. He said it was too early to make a comment but the possibility of sabotage could not be ruled out.

The departmental technical committee, led by Lucknow discom managing director, SP Gangwar, is learnt to have submitted its report to the UPPCL management on Wednesday.

The committee has not reached any definite conclusion though it has blamed some wrong command as the reason for making smart meters defective causing blackout in consumers residences, they revealed.

The Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), company that has partnership with Union power ministry, purchases smart meters for UP and also manages the UPPCLs control and command centre in Lucknow. The company had suspended two of its command centre officials the same night.

UPPCL has already installed around 10 lakh smart meters and is in the midst of purchasing 40 lakh more. One of the features of these meters is that power supply of a consumer gets automatically disconnected if they do not pay their bills by the due date but on August 12 a large number of consumers went powerless even though they did not have any arrears pending against them.

The EESL has admitted in one of its correspondences with the UPPCL that around 1.60 lakh smart meters went powerless on Janmasthami. Though UPPCL bosses claim all the meters had been rectified the next day, sources claim a large number of meters were still defective.

UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad chairman, Awadhesh Kumar Vera, meanwhile, on Wednesday, filed a public interest litigation with the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) seeking strict action against the UPPCL, EESL and other stakeholders in the smart meter blackout matter. The installation of outdated technology-based smart meters in UP is a clear violation of the Central Electricity Authoritys Advanced Metering Infrastructure Rules, he pointed out in his complaint.

Meanwhile, the work of installing smart meters in the state has been deferred for the next 15 days, minister of energy Shrikant Sharma said on Thursday. After the power cut on the day of Janmashtami, the quality of smart meters installed by the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation has been questioned by the experts.

He said , Around 40 lakh electronic smart meters are to be installed in the state. Till now around 12 lakh smart meters have been installed in cities like Lucknow, Varanasi, Meerut and Kanpur, but after the blackout on Janmashtami, I have directed the officials only to install meters with advanced technology which cannot be tampered with either by officials or by consumers.

Sharma said it is important to learn lessons from the past. Thats why only advanced smart meters would be installed so that such incidents may be avoided, he said.

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by Francesco Paolo Yang

The 27-year-old Chinese man tells the story of his conversion and his entry into the Catholic Church. Educated in atheism, as a university student he decides to seek meaning in an empty life. Henry De Lubac's reading of Catholicism and the testimony of John Paul II and Benedict XVI in the face of modernity are fundamental.

Shanghai (AsiaNews) - Francis Paul Yang is a 27-year-old Chinese man who received baptism a week ago, on the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, in a parish on the outskirts of Shanghai. Francesco Paolo recently graduated with a master's degree in philosophy from the prestigious University of Nanjing. After taking various tests and exams, he was offered a job at a renowned Shanghai publishing house.

His spiritual struggle lasted for many years. Eventually, the hand of the Lord led him to that "Yes" that his soul yearned for, albeit unconsciously. Perhaps, even from his birth, as in the words of the prophet Jeremiah: "before I formed you in the womb, I knew you" (Jer. 1, 5). Below we publish his personal testimony on conversion (C.X.)

I was born in 1993 into a simple Anhui family and raised in an atheist environment. In the first two years of university, I was a total secularist and hedonist without any great aspirations, and I led an absurd and dissolute life. On September 5, 2013, suddenly and without any warning - as if enlightened, I realized that I no longer wanted to live without a specific purpose. Looking back now, I see without any doubt that it was God's grace that had taken hold of me.

So I started studying philosophy on my own, in an attempt to understand what wisdom is. The first school I came into contact with was modern western philosophy, which however soon revealed itself to be nothing other than poor speculation, an abstract rationalism, removed from real life. It was not what my heart yearned for and so I leant towards the so-called "knowledge of life", or Chinese philosophy, in particular Confucian philosophy. God often leads us on a winding path so that we can truly feel his omnipresent Divine Providence.

What fascinated me most among the Confucian philosophies is the study of Zhu Zi, and it is through him that I encountered Saint Thomas Aquinas, and thanks to him the Divine and Holy Truth of the Church. Moreover, the respect that Catholicism shows towards tradition and the saints, its profound critical commitment to modernity, the example of mercy given by the popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, all this was in perfect harmony with my personal experiences and what I had previously studied, and it exerted a deep fascination on me. At a deeper level, I must say that this attraction nevertheless remained superficial, it was a preparation for the grace of faith that God gifts us, for the call to conversion to Him.

Initially, I did not really understand this and I tried to merge the tradition of Catholicism with the Chinese tradition, through my efforts. Such attempts caused great suffering and in the end have proven to be in vain. Despite the commonalties between the two traditions, there are insurmountable basic differences which, once applied to daily life, are in net contradiction, and thus generate confusion.

Only at the end did I manage to understand: what the Lord asks me to do is not integrate or merge these two great systems, but obey [Him]; not forcing myself according to my personal will to carry out a total transformation, but learning to be humble, allowing God lead me into this forest that is life.

Despite this, these spiritual difficulties have their positive aspects, probably this is what modern man, born in another tradition, must face when he wants to approach God, as if it were a test.

Then, there were also some events in my life - those concerning friendship, but also some concerning my family. Through these events, the Lord revealed himself even more to me: it is with the knowledge of this God who emptied Himself out of love, that man deepens his knowledge of his neighbour, loving him, and the poor self. ("Who then gives you this privilege?" Cor.1-4,7).

God reveals Himself through contact with others and in our relationships with people, enabling man to build relationships, in relationship with Him-Trinity.

This was followed again by a long wait: I did not feel ready and I was undecided, so I let go. However, once again the Lord set my life in motion through a concrete person. First of all, I met a brother with whom we started a shared reading group, where we read the book Catholicism by Henri de Lubac together. Thanks to this experience, I had a deeper understanding of communion in God, and after a series of wonderful events, this year, I finally received baptism on the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary.

After much reflection and discussions with my spiritual father and friends, I decided to take Francis Paul as my first name.

Francis is the founder of the Franciscan Order, St. Francis of Assisi. I have a particular feeling for the Franciscan order. When I was reading the "Biography of Saint Francis", written by G.K. Chesterton, I was profoundly moved by his charisma. Although it was Saint Thomas [Aquinas] who first allowed me to come into contact with the truth of Catholicism, my favourite theologian is Saint Bonaventure. Furthermore, the spiritual poverty of the Franciscan order is in turn the charism that I pursue in my daily life: one must first empty oneself, so that the Holy Spirit can enter. On the other hand, as a modern man, through the Middle Ages, I would also like to go directly to the time of the Apostles, in this living tradition. So I chose Paul as my middle name. From the point of view of my temperament, I may actually be closer to John, but Paul's passionate ways have a complementary function. In any case, I pray that Paul's missionary passion may ignite me, helping me to proclaim the Gospel of Christ on Chinese land.

To the everlasting praise of Our Lord.
Telecom service providers in the US telecommunications industry have witnessed immense growth opportunities due to the rapid pace of the transformations. However, there are various challenges in the US telecommunications industry as well. For instance, increasing overhead costs, higher security threats, and rising investment in digital technologies. To successfully overcome these challenges, top players in the US telecommunications industry are leveraging market intelligence solutions. Market intelligence solutions help companies in the US telecommunications industry, focus on customer-centric solutions, and stay relevant in today's competitive marketplace. To leverage our market intelligence expertise into the US telecommunications industry, request a free proposal

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200821005311/en/

A Telecom Company Expands into the US Telecommunications Industry (Graphic: Business Wire)

"The changing customer demands, internet of things, and evolving ICT innovations are making the US telecom industry far more complex than they were a decade back. To succeed, telecom companies need to focus on providing customized solutions to their customers and developing long-term relationships with them," says a US telecommunications industry expert at Infiniti Research.

Business Challenge:

The client, a European telecom company, wanted to expand into the US telecommunications industry. However, before doing so, the client sought to understand the threats and opportunities within the industry. They wanted to revamp their business models to meet the demands of the rapidly evolving US telecommunications industry, with the help of comprehensive insights into the market. The client leveraged Infiniti's market intelligence solutions to expand into the US telecommunications industry successfully. During the eight-week engagement, the client also wanted to understand the role of digital technologies in the market, ensure better operational support for customers, and identify all risks in the industry.

Our Approach:

Infiniti's market intelligence experts developed a market entry plan to assist the client in expanding to the US telecommunications industry, which included the following:

Market opportunity analysis to help the client review market entry barriers and market readiness

Competitive intelligence engagement to help the client analyze the business strategies of the top players in the US telecommunications industry

Risk assessment to help the client identify current and potential risks in the US telecommunications industry

Evaluate capital requirements and identify the right partners

Gain a comprehensive understanding of our market intelligence solutions for the US telecommunications industry by reading the complete article here

Business Outcome:

By leveraging Infiniti's market intelligence solutions, the client was able to understand the market size, market opportunities, growth rate, and potential risks of the US telecommunications industry. Our experts also helped the client understand and build strategies to respond to challenges and competitive threats in the US telecommunications industry. Further, the client was able to evaluate the potential for their services and devise a risk management strategy for the US telecommunications industry. Within two years of entering the US telecommunications industry, they were able to establish themselves as one of the top 10 telecom service providers in the US.

To further understand the ideal strategies to expand and succeed in the US telecommunications industry, speak to our research experts.

About Infiniti Research

Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies. To know more, visit: https://www.infinitiresearch.com/about-us

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200821005311/en/

Contacts:

Infiniti Research

Anirban Choudhury

Marketing Manager

US: +1 844 778 0600

UK: +44 203 893 3400

https://www.infinitiresearch.com/contact-us
Oliven has held the position of director of finance for the village of south suburban Alsip for the last five years. Prior to this, he was the city of Park Ridges head of finance for just under two years, between 2012 to 2014, during a time of political change in the city under Mayor David Schmidt.
California wildfires blackened skies, killed at least five people and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, as the number of fires burning in the state continued to grow Friday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said nearly 12,000 lightning strikes hit the state over a 72-hour period and close to 560 fires were burning across California.

"Just a day ago, I announced that we are struggling to address the needs of suppressing some 376 fires in this state," he said at a news conference. "That number has grown to about 560 fires in the state of California. We had a lot of sleeper fires. This we anticipated as the smoke cleared."

The fires have consumed more than 771,000 acres, said Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Berlant of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.

"That is roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island," he said in a video update.

Firefighting crews were struggling Friday to get the fires under control as conditions improved only slightly from the previous day. Ninety-six percent of Cal Fire's engines were committed to firefighting Friday, Cal Fire Incident Commander Nick Truax said at a news conference.

Some National Guard troops from the Monterey area have been deployed to help, he said, but a few hundred more were expected in the coming week or two. Newsom said earlier in the day the guard had 10 helicopters dedicated to the firefighting effort.

Truax said some were water-dropping aircraft while others were using infrared devices to help track the fires.

The largest group of blazes, the SCU Lightning Complex Fire, charred nearly 230,000 acres across five Northern California counties, including Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa, as of Friday morning, more than double the 102,000 acres it had burned through 24 hours before, according to Cal Fire. It was 10 percent contained.

The LNU Lightning Complex Fire, charred 219,000 acres across another five counties as of Friday morning, including Napa, Sonoma and other counties in wine country, according to Cal Fire. It was 7 percent contained.

Story continues

The fire has also claimed at least four lives and destroyed at least 480 structures.

Berlant said the SCU fire centered in Santa Clara County and the LNU in Sonoma, Solano, Lake and Napa counties, were the seventh and 10th largest, respectively, in state history.

More than 115,000 Californians have been evacuated, Truax said.

Two state prison facilities are near the LNU fire, but the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said evacuation orders did not impact them yet.

"We are actively monitoring the Lightning Fire in Vacaville, but are not being directed to evacuate and the institutions are not in immediate danger," spokesperson Aaron Francis said by email.

Image: LNU Lightning Complex Fire Burns In Napa County (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Three of the deaths were in Napa County, and the fourth in Solano County, according to officials. The three people who died in Napa County were found Wednesday in a residence, with their remains recovered Thursday, Napa County Sheriff's Office spokesman Henry Wofford said.

A Pacific Gas & Utility utility worker also died Wednesday while clearing infrastructure around the fire complex to make it safe for first responders, Cal Fire said in a statement Thursday.

Cal Fire spokeswoman Heather Williams said Friday that it would be up to local authorities to connect the death to the LNU fire.

A fifth fatality, of a helicopter pilot whose aircraft crashed Wednesday morning while he was conducting water drops, was in a different blaze, the Hills Fire in Fresno County, officials said.

Newsom said at the news conference that the infernos were "stretching our resources, stressing our personnel. He said that the state would be receiving a grant from FEMA "to help ensure the availability of vital resources" needed to fight the wildfires.

The governor said earlier this week that many of the fires were sparked by a large number of lightning strikes in California as the state grappled with a heat wave.

On Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service in San Francisco issued a fire-weather watch from Sunday morning to Tuesday morning.

"Lightning will likely spark new fires across the region, including remote areas," the agency said. "Wildfires in remote regions may not become apparent until warmer and drier conditions allow them to grow."

The prospect of more dry lightning in Northern California has crews "remaining on high alert," Berlant of Cal Fire said.

Newsom linked the wildfires to climate change during a last-minute video recorded for the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night from a forest near Watsonville, after he visited an evacuation center.

If you are in denial about climate change, come to California, he said.

I confess this is not where I expected to be speaking here tonight, the governor said into what appeared to be a cellphone camera. Newsom had recorded an earlier, more lighthearted video, to be delivered in the conventions prime-time hours but decided it didnt bring the right tone amid his states disasters, said Dan Newman, one of his political advisers.

About two dozen major fires or complexes have been burning across California. Nearly 12,000 firefighters are battling the blazes, according to a statewide fire summary. So far, 508 structures have been destroyed.

Tim Edwards, president of the CalFire firefighters union, said 2020 was beginning to resemble 2017, when the state saw some of its most destructive fires, with more than 10,000 structures damaged or destroyed.

We are in the same situation but with 10 times as many fires, he said.

The state has over 10,000 firefighters on the front lines, but officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours.

Newsom said he requested 375 fire engines from other states. So far, governors in Arizona, Nevada and Texas have agreed to send crews and support, the governor said.

With a majority of fire activity in Northern California, that region was dealing with an air quality crisis, as ash fell to the ground from above.

Public health officials urged people to stay inside with windows and doors shut until the smoke subsided. The region's air district extended a Spare the Air alert through Sunday, which makes it illegal to burn wood.

Image: (Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP)

The Oakland As went ahead with Friday night's game against the Los Angeles Angels despite air quality described by the U.S. Air Quality Index as "unhealthy." The team said it would continue to monitor air quality ahead of the next two games against the Angels.

Smoke from the fires blew across Western states, reaching Salt Lake City and eastern Idaho, where air was also "unhealthy," according to the National Weather Service.

With a statewide call to conserve energy to avoid more power outages, Californians sweltering in a prolonged heat wave and surrounded by smoke must choose between cranking their fans and air conditioners or shutting them down to conserve energy.

These disasters need solutions that are in direct conflict with each other," said Jennifer K. Balch, a fire scientist at the University of Colorado. COVID-19 is forcing us outside to reduce transmission risk while extreme wildfire smoke is forcing us back inside where the air is better. Were running out of options to cope under the weight of compound disasters.

While the fire risk is not as high as earlier in the week, firefighters aren't looking at favorable conditions Friday. The weekend would still bring low humidity, temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90s and the risk of more lightning that could spark new fires, meteorologists said.

In one week, the already-existing fires have burned nearly 600,000 acres across California. The state usually averages about 700,000 acres burned in an entire year.

Since Jan. 1, 2020, Cal Fire has responded to over 5,600 wildfires, according to the statewide fire summary.

"The recent spike in wildfire activity is an important reminder for residents to take steps to prevent sparking a wildfire. Having an evacuation plan, a supply kit, and important paperwork will make it easier when it is time to GO," the report said.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zanzibar Gold Inc. (the Company) (ZBR  CSE; ZNZBF  OTC Pinks) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Sergio A. Trelles Monge as a special advisor to board of the Company.



Mr. Sergio Trelles Monge is a geologist with more than forty years of experience in geological consulting, environmental geology, geotechnics, assessment of natural hazards and risks, development and promotion of mining projects operating in Mexico. He has acted in the position of executive management as well as a member of several boards of directors of both public and private mining companies in Canada and Mexico.



Mr. Trelles was the Director General of Mining Promotion of the State of Sonora, Assistant Director of Mining Resources of Mexicos Geological Survey.



He was also President of the Association of Mining Engineers, Metallurgists and Geologists of Mexico, Civil Association [Asociacion de Ingenieros de Minas, Metalurgistas, y Geologos de Mexico A.C]. and Chairman of the College of Mining Engineers, Metallurgists and Geologists of Mexico, Civil Association [Colegio de Ingenieros de Minas, Metalurgistas y Geologos de Mexico A.C].

Greg Bronson stated, On behalf of Zanzibars Board of Directors, I am incredibly pleased to welcome Mr. Trelles to the Company. We are confident that Sergios proficiencies, experience and perspective at the highest level of the Mexican mining industry will be of great value to Zanzibar as the Company expands its efforts in Mexico.

On behalf of the Board

Greg Bronson P.Geo

President & CEO

604-785-8894
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trumps former adviser and an architect of his 2016 general election campaign, was charged on Thursday with defrauding donors to a private fund-raising effort called We Build the Wall, which was intended to bolster one of the presidents signature initiatives: erecting a barrier on the Mexican border.

With a wounded Air Force veteran and a Florida venture capitalist, Mr. Bannon conspired to cheat hundreds of thousands of donors by falsely promising that their money had been set aside exclusively toward building a new section of border wall, according to a federal indictment unsealed in Manhattan. Prosecutors said that after siphoning money from the project, Mr. Bannon plowed nearly $1 million into paying off his personal expenses.

Mr. Bannon, 66, was arrested early Thursday off the coast of Westbrook, Conn., on a 150-foot yacht belonging to the exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, law enforcement officials said.

With the charges, filed days before Mr. Trump is to be nominated for a second term at the Republican National Convention, Mr. Bannon joins a growing list of Trump associates charged with federal crimes, including Paul Manafort, Mr. Trumps former campaign manager; Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser; and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trumps onetime lawyer and fixer.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21) - Philippine National Police chief Gen. Archie Gamboa confirmed that he was invited by a group of supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte to attend a meeting calling for a revolutionary government.

Gamboa said that he has yet to personally see the invitation letter from the Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte - National Executive Coordinating Committee (MRRD-NECC), but he already saw a copy of it through a mobile messaging app. According to the letter dated August 17, the said meeting was supposed to happen on Wednesday, August 20.

"Yes, I have read it in the Viber. It's supposed to be set yesterday but I am still trying to search for the communication kasi personally hindi pa umabot sa akin (because it did not reach me personally). said Gamboa in an ambush interview.

In a statement late Friday, Gamboa said he "had no chance to study its contents and I am in no position to confirm its veracity or to attest to its credibility."

MRRD-NECC Revolutionary Government Committee head Bobby Brillante said aside from Gamboa, the group also invited Armed Forces Chief Lt. Gen. Gilberto Gapay and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana.

This was the same group that convinced Duterte to run for President in 2016.

The group said in the letter that it will appeal to Duterte to head the revolutionary government under a "revolutionary constitution" that will last until Dec. 31 next year.

MRRD-NECC believes that a revolutionary government could hasten the establishment of federalism before Duterte ends his term by 2022.

Considering na we only have about one and a half years remaining, eh mukhang yung mga pagbabago na ipinangako, kasama na yung Constitutional amendment patungo sa pederalismo, ay mukhang wala nang oras, Brillante told CNN Philippines.

[Translation: Considering that we only have about one and a half years remaining, it seemed that the promised changes, including the Constitutional amendment leading to federalism, do not have enough time to be enacted.]

A revolutionary government would mean departing from constitutional order. All the branches of the government might be axed as it will disregard the Constitution.

In 2017, Duterte warned that he would declare such kind of government until the end of his term if attempts to destabilize the government worsen.

Brillante noted that the idea of having a revolutionary government was brought about by their frustration to the Congress for not acting on the proposed federalism in the country.

Kasi kung hahayaan natin ang Congress, walang mangyayari. Kasi ngayon ang kanilang pag-iisip nakatuon na sa susunod na eleksyon at ang eleksyon ay hindi naman nagiging solusyon sa problema natin, he said.

[Translation: If we will just leave everything to the Congress, nothing will happen. Because their minds are set on the next election and the election cannot solve our problem.]

A federal form of government was one of Dutertes campaign promises. However, he changed his tune on federalism and instead he wants a change in the Constitution.

In a report, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that he does not see any scenario for the upper chamber to discuss any proposals on the charter change while the country is facing a health crisis.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said that lawmakers could still discuss some law amendments to achieve economic federalism.

CNN Philippines correspondent Gerg Cahiles and Multi-Platform News Writer Vince Ferreras contributed to this report.
The Andhra Pradesh government has come up with a set of Standard Operating Procedures ( SOPs ) which have to be essentially followed by all hospitals dealing with Covid patients across the state while referring patients to other hospitals , whenever necessary.

Solving another major problem troubling other states, the Andhra Pradesh government has come up with a set of Standard Operating Procedures ( SOPs ) which have to be mandatorily followed by all hospitals dealing with Covid patients across the state while referring patients to other hospitals , whenever necessary. It is also important to note that the fatality rate of the state of Andhra Pradesh despite the increase in the number of cases due to largescale testing continues to be as low as 0.92 .

149 new hospitals added to the list of those treating Covid patients, takes the tally to 287. ANMs to visit every positive person in home isolation once every 3 days without fail.

9450 healthcare workers, 647 data entry operators and 2367 sanitation workers recruited to cope with the workload.

THE SOPs ISSUED INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING :

 No patient should be referred if he/she can be treated at the existing facility.

 Patients condition should be stabilized before taking a call on moving or referring the patient.

 The referral should be done well in time, thereby optimizing the chances of survival.

 Ambulances to transport the patients to the referred hospital should be arranged by the hospital referring the patient.

 The person referring the patient should confirm the availability of the required procedures/specialists/treatment at the receiving hospital before referring the patient.

 Bed + concerned doctor at the receiving hospital should be kept ready prior to the arrival of the patient.

 The receiving hospital should start the treatment immediately, without waiting for the admission procedures to be completed as the patient was already enlisted at another facility. If the hospital feels the need to complete any formalities, it should be done after due care it given to the patient and upon the patient attaining a stable state.

Oral referrals do not reflect in the system, therefore, making it difficult to fix accountability in case a lapse is reported by a stakeholder. To solve this issue, the authorities have come up with a referral card that needs to be filled before a patient is referred to another hospital. Details such as the patients name, condition, receiving doctors name and contact number apart from the details of the person referring the patient have to be filled in before the patient is allowed to leave for the hospital he/she is being referred to.

Apart from this, the district health officials have been asked to conduct a referral analysis of each hospital every fortnight. The time taken to refer, whether the referral was due to a genuine concern and whether the SOPs like confirming the availability of facilities and informing the receiving hospital were adhered to, will be analyzed as a part of the same. Once every month, the state level officials will also be looking into the reports submitted by the respective districts.

ALSO READ : SC allows Prayushan prayers in three Jain temples in Mumbai

CM Jagan Mohan Reddy further went onto add that ,  Accountability will be fixed at the DMHO level if any lapses in following the said SOPs are pointed out by any of the stakeholders and turn out to be true. The referral system should start from the village/ward level rather than the PHC level

RECRUITMENT UPDATES

In order to better the healthcare services being provided in the state in , a total of 1823 General Duty Medical Officers, 745 Specialists , 3056 Trainee Nurses, 647 Data Entry Operators, 3826 Staff Nurses and 2367 Sanitation Workers have already been until now. The process of recruitment will be continued until the desired/optimal number is attained.

HOSPITAL PREPAREDNESS

In an attempt to decentralize the healthcare system, a total of 149 hospitals have been added to the list of hospitals treating Covid patients in the state. This includes even smaller hospitals which have been included after strict scrutiny of the infrastructure among other things, by the district authorities. The government is also providing these hospitals with the required staff wherever needed.

 The services being provided to people in home isolation should be top notch, constant monitoring of the same is mandatory, said the CM during a Covid-19 review meeting that he chaired at the Tadepalli camp office.

ALSO READ : India reports 68K+ Covid cases in 24 hours, tally crosses 29 lakh mark
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Shares of Indias largest stainless steel producing company, Jindal Stainless, surged over 13 percent to hit their fresh 52-week high of Rs 53 on BSE on August 21, a day after the company said India Ratings affirmed its ratings.

"...credit rating agency India Ratings and Research, a Fitch group company, has affirmed Jindal Stainless' long-term issuer rating at 'IND 888' with a 'stable' outlook," the company said in a BSE filing on August 20.

The company, on July 29, had announced that it had joined hands with the integrated container logistics company, Maersk, to ease and optimise the flow of containerised exports and imports between Jindal Stainless, Jajpur and Vizag Container Terminal (VCTPL).

Maersk would facilitate to and fro rail movement of containers between Vizag and Jindal Stainless Logistics Park (JSLP), a newly commissioned Inland Container Depot (ICD) located at Jajpur, Odisha.

Jindal Stainless is the largest stainless steel manufacturer in India with a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes per annum.

The state-of-the-art plant is located in Jajpur, in the state of Odisha. The plant comprises 250,000 tonnes per annum Ferro Alloys facilities with world-class technology and equipment.

Shares of Jindal Stainless traded 8.64 percent up at Rs 50.90 on BSE at 09:35 hours.
The decent guy

In past generations, we looked at clergy as people who were more intelligent and better educated than most. We expected them to be honest, judicious and sober. So it hurts to see a letter like Voting against (Aug. 18) in which the good reverend spreads right-wing talking points with no basis in fact.

Republicans have circulated false claims about Democrats trying to take away our guns for decades, just to fool Americans into voting for them. Its just fear-mongering. President Bill Clinton was supposed to take away our guns; he didnt. President Barack Obama was supposed to take away our guns"; he didnt. Now the false claim gets repeated for Joe Biden and this good reverend falls for it.

He says that he's deciding who to vote for based on the issues, not the personality. President Trump is an adulterous, deceitful braggart, a man adored by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. That's an issue.

I'm voting for the decent guy. I'll leave it to the readers to figure out who that is.

Mark B. Howard

Winston-Salem

Important to N.C.
I have listened to all of your statements, each one of them, and I am truly sorry to everyone I have hurt, he said in a Sacramento State University ballroom, where the court session was held to accommodate a large number of victims and allow for social distancing. Thank you, your honor.

Mr. DeAngelo was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for 13 murders, an additional consecutive life term for 13 kidnappings, plus another eight years for weapons charges.

Judge Michael G. Bowman said that the sentence was the maximum the court could impose and meant that Mr. DeAngelo would spend the rest of his life and ultimately meet his death behind the walls of a state penitentiary.

The defendant deserves no mercy, the judge said, to applause from the courtroom.

Addressing Mr. DeAngelo, Judge Bowman said he was moved by the courage, grace and strength of the victims  qualities you clearly lack.

A person who commits monstrous acts  they need to be locked away where they can never harm another innocent person, he said.

Prosecutors said that Mr. DeAngelo admitted committing crimes against 87 victims at 53 separate crime scenes from 1975 to 1986. The final accounting of his crime spree included nearly 50 rapes that could not be charged in court because of the statute of limitations, prosecutors said.

At a news conference on Friday, Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento County district attorney, showed video footage of Mr. DeAngelo, standing and waving his arms up and down and climbing up on his bunk in his jail cell, to demonstrate that he had feigned feebleness when he pleaded guilty from a wheelchair in June.
Dry lightning is expected to belt Northern California again early next week and will likely spark new wildfires even as firefighters battle several clusters of destructive and deadly blazes that are among the biggest recorded in state history.

National Weather Service officials issued a high fire danger alert from 11 a.m. Sunday through 11 a.m. Tuesday, warning that erratic, gusty winds of up to 65 mph could accompany the thunderstorms.

The fires have killed four people, displaced thousands  possibly for weeks rather than days  destroyed hundreds of homes and torched redwood forests.

The LNU Complex, a lightning-sparked cluster of fires in the North Bay that started Monday, incinerated 302,000 acres by Friday, making it the second largest fire in state history, while the SCU Complex, which began with lightning strikes Tuesday in the East Bay, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, grew to 275,000 acres, the fourth largest in state history. A third cluster of fires, the CZU Complex, began with lightning strikes in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties on Monday, and had burned 57,000 acres by Friday.

We are not naive by any stretch how deadly this moment is, said Gov. Gavin Newsom at a Thursday press conference in Sonoma County. We simply havent seen anything like this in many, many years.

Resources are worn thin and fire officials are making strategic choices of where to send ground crews, engines and air support. As firefighters gain control of blazes in Southern California, additional resources will be pushed north, Newsom said, which is now the focus of state efforts.

In addition, resources started trickling in from 10 states, Newsom said, with 12,000 firefighters on the lines fighting 560 actives blazes, including two dozen major wildfires. He also requested assistance from Canada and Australia.

The fires burning across California have scorched just over 1,200 square miles so far, state officials said. They were sparked by a barrage of nearly 12,000 lightning strikes, most of which hit last weekend.

Officials reported the first civilian deaths Thursday night.

Three people died Tuesday as flames from the LNU Complex burned through parts of Napa County. The bodies were found the next day in the charred ruins of a house on the 6900 block of Highway 128, an area that had been ordered evacuated, said Henry Wofford, spokesman for the Napa County Sheriff-Coroners Office.

The home was in a sparsely-populated area of the foothills around Lake Berryessa. By Friday, the hills had been turned into a smoldering ghost town, with scorched black earth and tree trunks for miles.

Now Playing: The LNU Lightning Complex Fire in Vacaville, CA has grown to nearly 50,000 acres, 0% containment. Chronicle photojournalist Scott Strazzante captures the fire burning along Pleasants Valley Road. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

All the homes in the neighborhood were destroyed.

Another person died in Vacaville, an adult male, who is believed to have succumbed to the fire in his home on Pleasants Valley Road, said Sgt. Cully Pratt, spokesman for the Solano County Sheriffs Office.

Now Playing: Chronicle photojournalist Gabrielle Lurie captures the smoke from California State Route 1 on Thursday, August 20. The CZU August Lightning Complex fires have burned about 50,000 acres, 0% containment as of Friday afternoon, Aug. 21, 2020. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Evacuations continued across the Bay Area on Friday.

Despite state preparation earlier in the year to boost firefighting capability, the sheer number and size of the LNU and SCU complexes is historic, Newsom said. He has requested a federal major disaster declaration, to provide resources and flexibility during the crisis.

We have more people, but its not enough, Newsom said. We have more air support, but its still not enough.

Containment has been difficult, but progress was being made Friday: The SCU complex was 10% contained, the LNU was 15% contained and the CZU was 2% contained.

The CZU was bearing down menacingly Friday on the already evacuated UC Santa Cruz campus.

Law enforcement and fire officials evacuated 64,600 Santa Cruz and San Mateo residents. It could be weeks before they can return to their homes due to the unpredictable nature of the blazes, officials said.

Residents across the wildfire landscape were urged again and again to heed evacuation orders, but many refused to do so.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

About 4 miles from where three people died in Napa County, Gayle and John Newman, retirees, sat in lawn chairs on their Monticello Road driveway in the evening as a gas generator chugged loudly nearby. Theyve hunkered down, without power, since Tuesday, refusing to evacuate.

The couple evacuated during the Tubbs Fire in 2017, and they said they wont repeat the experience of waiting for days to know if their home burned.

At least if were here, we know exactly whats going on, said John Newman, 68. Family is worried, but its a little different if youre here firsthand.

Fire officials have repeatedly warned people to leave or risk death.

In Guerneville, an eerie orange glow and smoke obscured the sky as the Walbridge Fire, part of the LNU, threatened to overtake the town. But, many residents ignored the evacuation orders.

Sean Doolan was out walking with his partner and young daughter near the fire station. He said he has lived in the area for more than three years with his family and two dogs and had heeded evacuations in the past but said he did not feel the fire warranted leaving this time.

We have a radio, a generator and three months of food, he said.

At the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, dozens of evacuees remained huddled at a Red Cross shelter Friday. Outside, the smoke-filled skies felt like deja vu for Mark Struthers, 47, who lost his Santa Rosa home in the 2017 Tubbs Fire.

Hes been homeless for the past three years, and had been camping along the river in Guerneville before he was evacuated Tuesday. This time, he said, the fires helped him find shelter.

In a weird way, this is kind of a blessing for me, Struthers said. It feels nice to be here and have a safe, secure place.

Chronicle staff writers Mallory Moench , Alexei Koseff, Lauren Hernandez and Anna Kramer contributed to this report.

Dominic Fracassa, Dustin Gardiner, Chase DiFeliciantonio and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email dfracassa@sfchronicle.com, chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com alexei.dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa @akoseff @dustingardiner @jilltucker @@chasedifelice
Former Mexico President Pena Nieto Directed Corruption, Ex-Official Says

MEXICO CITY  In some of the most explosive accusations in recent Mexican political history, the former head of the state-owned oil company directly accused former President Enrique Pena Nieto and his treasury secretary of steering kickbacks and embezzlement directly from the presidents office.

Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Petroleos Mexicanos, who himself faces corruption charges, alleges Pena Nieto and Luis Videgaray used the state-owned Pemex as a conduit to fulfill promises made during the (2012) campaignone of many assertions in a leaked 60-page document whose authenticity was confirmed by Mexican authorities on Aug. 19.

Enrique Pena Nieto and Luis Videgaray Caso created a scheme of corruption in the federal government, in which the common denominator was that all the people who supported in some way the presidential campaign had to be recompensed or repaid, usually in the form of cushy government contracts, Lozoya wrote.

Lozoya also accused Pena Nieto and Videgaray of extortion, fraud and embezzlement.

The president and the aforementioned treasury secretary used me to create a criminal conspiracy aimed at enriching themselves, not only by (taking) government funds but also by extorting money from individuals and companies, fraud and deceit, he wrote.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of Lozoyas testimony, and its authenticity was confirmed by the federal Attorney Generals Office.

On Aug. 20, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he had started reading the document on the night of Aug. 19 but hadnt finished it.

From what I was reading, its scandalous, Lopez Obrador said during his morning news conference. Its a very serious complaint, but of course this doesnt mean that everything it says is true. The authority, in this case, the Attorney Generals Office, still needs to collect all the evidence offered there.

Lozoya was captured in southern Spain in February and extradited to Mexico in July to face charges he took more than $4 million in bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Mexican prosecutors announced they had reached an agreement with Lozoya, in which he could avoid jail in return for testifying about corruption in Pena Nietos 2012-2018 administration.

Lozoya, who worked as international relations coordinator of Pena Nietos campaign in 2012, told investigators the bribes paid by Odebrecht to Mexican officials were aimed at not only winning more lucrative public works contracts for the construction giant but also at influencing a sweeping energy reform, enacted once Pena Nieto was in office.

Lozoya said his job on the campaign was to obtain funding from foreign companies that could be used to pay foreign and Mexican consultants and to help position Pena Nietos image internationally.

In early 2012, Videgaray, who was Pena Nietos campaign manager, allegedly told Lozoya to request $6 million from Odebrecht and tell the company it would be rewarded when Pena Nieto won. Part of that reward would presumably be the openings for private companies contained in the 2013 reform of the state-controlled energy sector.

As part of the approval of the Pact for Mexico reforms, Enrique Pena Nieto and Luis Videgaray Caso told me in February 2013 that large quantities of money would have to be paid to the opposition so that they would vote in favor of certain structural reforms of interest for President Enrique Pena Nieto, Lozoya wrote. The cash was to be distributed in transparent plastic bags, so the politicians could see the bills, and in fact, a video leaked earlier this week appeared to show one such transaction.

Lozoya identified at least a dozen leading opposition figures as participating in bribes, including the 2018 presidential candidate of Pena Nietos party, Jose Antonio Meade, who had enjoyed a friendly relationship with Lopez Obrador. Lozoya said about $300,000 was given to Meade and other politicians.

Meade wrote in his Twitter account on Aug. 19: I will not contribute to media scandals.  I have devoted my public life to building a better country, always with absolute honor and legality.

The opposition politicians mentioned by Lozoya include a half-dozen former senators, among them the current governor of the border state of Tamaulipas, Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca. Lozoya also accused then-congressman Ricardo Anaya, who went on to become the 2018 presidential candidate for the conservative National Action Party, and other leading National Action figures.

Anaya denied the allegations and, on Aug. 20, said via Twitter that he had filed a lawsuit against Lozoya for pain and suffering.

Lozoya said former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari also participated, allegedly acting on behalf of National Action, known as the PAN, though the ex-president was a member of Pena Nietos Institutional Revolutionary Party. Lozoya wrote that the attitude of the PAN members in obtaining resources (money) was brutal, and that the partys members received about $4 million in bribes from one company.

There has been wide speculation the case would tar opponents of Lopez Obrador, who has termed the case a historic step in his fight against corruption.

National Action responded in a statement on Aug. 19 that Emilio Lozoya is a strategic ally of the president to denigrate the PAN because it is an alternative to the failure of Lopez Obradors policies.

Regarding the leaked testimony, we repeat our stance: If there is compelling evidence, we will take compelling action, the party stated, a reference to previous promises to expel any member caught in acts of corruption.

Neither Videgaray nor his assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has responded to emails seeking comment; Pena Nietos former chief of staff also didnt respond. The Tamaulipas governor, Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, called Lozoyas allegations lies on Aug. 20 and said he would not allow himself to be used for electoral purposes.

Lozoya even suggested the bribery and kickback scheme was meant to finance future campaigns by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governed Mexico for 70 years in the 20th century and returned to power in 2012 after a 12-year absence.

Sometimes, they (businessmen) had to give money back after the deals to benefit future PRI electoral campaigns, or for the personal benefit of Enrique Pena Nieto and Luis Videgaray Caso, according to the document.

By Rafael Cabrera
Some of the suspected killers

Olufemi Olaniyi writes on how the escape of a suspected serial ritual killer from police custody has heightened residents fear in the Akinyele Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, which has lately turned to a nest of killers

The Akinyele Local Government Area, a part of the Ibadan metropolis, has been in the news lately for a wrong reason following unexplainable killings that make many residents of Oyo State to believe that the area is fast turning into the Biblical Golgotha.

The local government area has many important landmarks, including a part of the University of Ibadan. It also hosts the Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and the 2nd Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army.

The local government, which was carved out of the Ibadan Municipal Government, is metropolitan in nature as areas like Ojoo, Moniya, Sasa and Orogun are populated by indigenes and non- indigenes alike.

Many residents said the local government area had never been terrorised by killers like it is currently experiencing. With reports of ritual killings coming from the area regularly, its infamy has spread outside the shores of the country and this reminds many of the Ibadan forest of horror known as Soka, which was accidentally discovered in 2014.

In June alone, five persons were killed by suspected ritual killers in the Akinyele Local Government Area. The manner in which the prowling killers snuffed lives out of their victims suggest that they were used for ritual purposes and the growing desire of some of the youth to get rich quick using diabolical means further fuels this suspicion.

The killers smashed the head of a 29-year-old pregnant woman, Azeezat Shomuyiwa, with a stone. Azeezat was said to be about seven-month pregnant when the assailants smashed her head and ended her life in a violent way.

Barakat Bello was raped and killed by the criminal(s) lurking in the area and a five year-old boy, Mujeed Tirimisiyu, was similarly gruesomely hacked to death.

A female undergraduate of the Oke Ogun Polytechnic, Saki, Grace Oshiagwu, was also killed by the criminals in the Akinyele Local Government Area and the perpetrators also cut short the life of 42-year-old Mrs Olusayo Fagbemi.

Reacting to the rising insecurity in the area and the embarrassment, which the criminals operating there were causing the state and the police, the Commissioner of Police in Oyo State, Mr Nwachukwu Enwonwu, in June announced the relocation of his office to Moniya so as to be able to stop the trend.

The Deputy Commissioners of Police, Operations and Criminal Investigation Department, and other top officers also relocated with their boss to the killers nest to unravel the mystery behind the murders, which the police admitted appeared like ritual killings.

The relocation of the police top brass eventually paid off as shortly after, some suspects were arrested, including an herbalist identified as Yinusa Adedokun, and his hit man, 19-year-old Sunday Shodipe. They were arrested alongside suspected armed robbers and other criminals, and were paraded before journalists to show that the police were on top of the situation.

The confession

Shodipe confessed to killing some of the victims and said he was sent by the herbalist, whom he said was his master. He added that Adedokun used to give him food and N500 after each killing.

The teenager stated, Anytime I wanted to go for killing, Baba (Adedokun) would give me some charms and also teach me some incantations to recite so that nobody would see me at the scene of the crime. I would hit the victim with a shovel and recite the incantation immediately I see blood coming out of the victims body.

Baba instructed me to always move around the victims at the scene after killing them and then turn my back at them, and stay there for like three minutes, which I did and nobody would see me. Baba said the spirits of the victims would come to him after I had killed them. Baba did not tell me the reason for the killings, but he would buy food for me and give me N500 after each killing I carried out for him.

Although the herbalist confirmed that Shodipe was brought to him as an apprentice, he denied sending him on a mission to kill. He said the boy spent just six days with him and he sent him away, because he suspected that he was wayward, adding that he was surprised when he saw him bringing some policemen to his residence.

Residents of the area were relieved that the troublemakers had been arrested but their joy was shortlived as the killings have continued.

Barely four days after Shodipe and Adedokun were nabbed, a gang of ritual killers also struck and killed a 16-year-old girl, identified simply as Toke. Her parents were said to have sent her on an errand to buy fuel to power their generator due to power outage. The girls corpse was discovered in a bush off the Ibadan-Oyo Road the following day after frantic search for her.

After some days, the police arraigned the suspects arrested in connection with the killings before a magistrates court. But shortly after their arraignment, some residents of the area raised the alarm that Shodipe was sighted in the community again.

Many did not believe the story but two days after, the hoodlums resumed their operations, killing defenceless persons. This time, a woman identified as Funmilayo Oladejo was attacked on Thursday evening, but her scream attracted residents, who rushed to the scene to rescue her and this forced her assailants to flee.

The woman was rushed to the University College Hospital, Ibadan, but she died on Friday. Her death sparked off a protest, which later turned violent and policemen were stoned by the irate youths.

The fear of the residents was confirmed on Sunday when the police admitted that Shodipe had escaped from their custody.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mr Olugbenga Fadeyi, said in a statement, The Commissioner of Police, Oyo State Command, Joe Nwachukwu Enwonwu, wishes to state that the prime suspect in the serial killings in the Akinyele Local Government Area, Moniya, Ibadan, Oyo State, one Sunday Shodipe, 19, has escaped.

The suspect was arrested and paraded along with two others at the Oyo State Police Command on July 17, 2020, and later charged and was remanded in police custody; he escaped from lawful custody on August 11, 2020.

The suspects escape from detention has generated a lot of criticisms and some believe that some unscrupulous police personnel knew about this escape.

Fadeyi urged the residents of the area and the state not to resort to jungle justice, but to always hand over suspects to the police and assured them that there would be no cover-up.

The Alakinyele of Akinyele, Oba James Odeniran, expressed shock at the escape of the suspect from police custody. He said such could not be possible without the collaboration of some bad eggs in the police force.

The monarch asked, How did someone in the custody of the police escape? That points to something fishy. Immediately the suspect escaped, the first thing we expected was for the police to declare him wanted.

Shocked by the incident, Governor Seyi Makinde ordered the police to re-arrest the fleeing teenager and make sure he was brought back to continue his trial. The governor gave the order through his Special Adviser on Security, Fatai Owoseni, who is a former Commissioner of Police in Lagos State.

Proffering solutions to the killings in the area, the Head of Soludero Hunters, Nurein Ajijolaanabi, told our correspondent that the hunters needed to be supported to rid the area of criminal elements. He said the hunters had been working with the police, but noted that they needed vehicles to be able to move without hindrance.

Ajijolaanabi stated, It is not difficult to get these criminals arrested. We are the ones doing the work; we know everywhere and we comb the forests, but we need the government to assist us to be more effective. We hunters use our money and resources for what we are doing; we are not being paid salaries. We dont have vehicles, but we still manage do everything. We arrested the prime suspect.

The Soludero hunters were responsible for the arrests made in Akinyele so far. Even the Commissioner of Police acknowledged our efforts the day the boy (Shodipe) was apprehended and he gave us N100,000.

Prof. Banji Akintoye of the Yoruba World Congress gave us one SUV and two motorcycles recently to encourage us to do more. If we have three or four patrol vehicles, we know the nooks and crannies of Akinyele; we will fish the criminals out. But if we go inside the bush and make arrests, are we going to ask the criminals to wait for us to go and hire vehicles to convey us to the town? We have what it takes to rid the place of criminals. We need patrol vehicles.

The Director, Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, Prof. Tajudeen Akanji, told our correspondent that supporting the hunters and other locals to gather information would help the police to be more effective in stopping criminals from further tormenting the people of the area.

Akanji also suggested that unemployment among the youth should be addressed, while inter-agency cooperation among the various security agencies would also be of great help.

He stated, Policing is better done by the community people, who understand the terrain and know the nooks and crannies of the place. That is why people are advocating community policing. The police have fewer personnel and most of them were posted from outside the area; all these will affect their performance.

We really need inter-agency cooperation and the citizens as well. The criminals will continue to find ways to escape if security agencies continue to compete rather than cooperate among themselves. There is nothing wrong if the hunters and others in that category are assisted. They will gather intelligence for the police and make their job more effective.

Akintoye also hailed the Soludero hunters for being professional in carrying out their duties. Akintoye, who represented the old Ondo State at the Senate on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria, said the hunters were well trained and did not engage in criminal activities.

He said, Soludero is a perfect example of what our youths should be doing. They go after marauders, bandits and all criminals, but they dont kill and they dont torture them. They have a way of disarming the criminals and handing them over to the police for further investigation and prosecution.

They are very reasonable and that is why the Yoruba World Congress assisted them. I think their story should be told and if the government can assist them in a way, they will do better.

The National President of the Yoruba Youth Socio-Cultural Association, Mr Hammed Olalekan, said the police must do everything possible to arrest the fleeing suspect and restore the confidence of the people in the force.

The youth leader said groups like the Soludero Hunters, Agbekoya and the Oodua Peoples Congress as well as the citizens must be carried along by the police and the government to rid Akinyele of the prowling killers.

He stated, The news of the escape of the suspect was greeted with disbelief, because nobody thought that could happen. This kind of thing may frustrate the efforts of the Soludero hunters, who are risking their lives to go after these criminals inside the forests. I think the Oyo State Government should assist these hunters to encourage them to do more. They are the ones making the arrests and the police are taking the glory. They should be assisted to work better.

***

Source: The PUNCH
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 10:43:10|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's export fell in single digits in the first 20 days of this month, showing signs of recovery from the fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak, customs office data showed Friday.

Export, which takes up around half of the South Korean economy, amounted to 23.1 billion U.S. dollars during the Aug. 1-20 period, down 7.0 percent from the same period of last year, according to Korea Customs Service.

The daily average shipment, which excludes the effect of the difference in working days, slipped 3.7 percent in the 20-day period.

It showed signs of recovery from export declines of 25.5 percent in April, 23.7 percent in May, 10.9 percent in June and 7.0 percent in July respectively.

Global demand partially recovered amid the reopening of businesses in major economies after shutdowns amid the fear of the virus infections.

Export for telecommunication devices such as smartphone tumbled 29.3 percent in the 20-day period, and shipment of oil products plunged 39.0 percent.

Automotive export retreated 10.1 percent, but semiconductor shipment gained 2.9 percent. Computer export almost doubled as people preferred working at home and attending online classes.

Export to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, inched down 0.2 percent, while shipment to the United States grew 6.2 percent. Those to the European Union (EU) and Vietnam slipped 1.8 percent and 6.4 percent respectively.

Import diminished 12.8 percent over the year to 23.3 billion dollars for the first 20 days of this month, sending the trade deficit to 0.2 billion dollars. Enditem
Col. Assimi Goita, who emerged Thursday as the head of the junta in power, worked for years with U.S. Special Operations forces focused on fighting extremism in West Africa. He spoke regularly with U.S. troops and attended U.S.-led training exercises, said officers from both countries, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
People sit and lie in the sun at Kitsilano Beach Park as temperatures reached highs into 20s according to Environment Canada, in Vancouver, on May 9, 2020. (The Canadian PressDarryl Dyck)

B.C. Clamps Down on Event Hosts With COVID-19 Fines if Rules Disobeyed

VANCOUVERProperty owners and organizers can be fined $2,000 for hosting events in violation of public health orders in British Columbia under stronger penalties announced today.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says the fines include hosting a gathering in excess of 50 people, failing to keep the contact information of everyone who attends an event, or inviting more than five guests into a vacation rental property.

He says a party with fewer than 50 people is not necessarily legal since all other public health measures must still be followed.

He says guests may also face $200 tickets for their behaviour including if they refuse to leave when directed or disregard COVID-19 safety plans at restaurants and other businesses.

The province is enlisting liquor, cannabis, and gaming inspectors, as well as conservation officers, to help issue the tickets for the duration of the pandemic.

Farnworth says the stronger enforcement actions are being taken because the behaviour of a small minority of selfish individuals across B.C. is putting vulnerable people at risk.
Wearing a mask while shopping makes you 13 times more likely to stick to social distancing and engage with measures to slow the spread of Covid-19, study found.

Experts from the University of Erfurt asked nearly 7,000 people their views on masks and their feelings towards other people who do or don't wear face coverings.

People wearing a face mask were seven times more likely to wash their hands, 20 times more likely avoid handshakes, and 13 times more likely to stick to distancing.

Study author Cornelia Betsch said the findings are 'evidence that a mandatory mask policy is an effective, fair, and socially responsible solution to curb coronavirus.'

In the UK face coverings are required on all public transports, in shops and supermarkets, while visiting hair salons and barbers and in places of worship.

There are fines starting at 100 for failing to comply with these rules that doubles for each repeat offence up to a maximum value of 3,200.

People wearing a face mask were seven times more likely to wash their hands, 20 times more likely avoid handshakes, and 13 times more likely to stick to distancing

Since June 2020, World Health Organization has recommended that healthy people wear non-medical masks to control the spread of COVID-19, for example, in settings where physical distancing cannot be achieved.

In Germany face masks are compulsory on public transport and while shopping and in France they are mandatory in public.

Countries increasingly require masks in closed public spaces such as supermarkets.

Evidence has accumulated that strategies targeting the susceptible population can effectively contribute to the containment of the outbreak, researchers say.

Based on weekly cross-sectional surveys of nearly 7,000 people in Germany during April-May 2020, researchers report that mask-wearing behavior increased sharply when a mandatory mask policy was implemented.

They say this was despite only moderate support for the policy and that mask wearing was associated positively with other protective behaviours.

As well as examining the survey data, the team carried out an experiment involving 925 participants involving a fictional scenario and people not wearing a mask.

They found that a voluntary mask policy might lead to lower compliance, greater stigmatisation, and be perceived as less fair than a mandatory policy.

The results from both studies indicate that, independent from policies, wearing masks is a social contract wherein compliant people perceive each other more positively, and non-compliance is socially punished.

This is consistent with previous work from the earlier SARS pandemic demonstrating that more empathic people are more likely to wear masks and that empathy can be regarded as a prerequisite for pro-social behavior

The team say that the universal adoption of moderately effective masks could prevent up to 45 per cent of projected deaths over two months.

Experts from the University of Erfurt asked nearly 7,000 people their views on masks and their feelings towards other people who do or don't wear face coverings. Stock image

'While uptake under a voluntary policy is reasonably high, it is still not sufficient to meet these required thresholds,' the team explained.

'Importantly, since mask wearing is a social contract, high uptake is necessary to prevent stigmatisation', with those wearing masks feeling a sense of appreciation to others wearing a mask in public.

'Participants who reported wearing a mask frequently in their everyday life perceived greater warmth toward others who also wear a mask than toward others who do not.'

The team say that governments should introduce a mandatory mask policy, along with explicit communication of the benefits of mask wearing to slow the spread.

The findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It is what it is." So said President Trump in a recent interview when asked about the death toll due to the COVID-19 virus. President Trump's statements often trigger firestorms of criticism; this one even swerved into Michelle Obama's recent address to the Democrat National Convention. Further drilling down on the "feelings" theme of her message, Mrs. Obama added: "But right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another."

While "requiring" empathy may prove difficult for Mrs. Obama, President Trump stating that "it is what it is" does not imply he is cold and unfeeling. Reality is a tough companion but an honest friend. Sympathy and empathy both have a place, but any combat veteran will affirm that battlefields require clear thinking  and feelings are better processed from a place of safety. Who among us will not agree that the COVID-19 battlefield demands comparable leadership?

Trump's bluntness inflames his critics. He is not the first president to do so. A reporter once challenged Harry Truman by stating, "Mr. President, people feel you are giving your opponents hell."

Truman responded with, "I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."

The courage, determination, and skill required to face truth  the "it is what it is" moments  can serve as launching points for an individual's, family's, or even a nation's recovery. This is particularly needed when confronted with brutal and prolonged consequences.

Through my wife's more than eighty operations, we insisted on expertise from her surgeons but never required empathy from them. While empathy can be meaningful at a funeral home, it offers little in surgical suites. After losing both of her legs, her prosthetist had an "it is what it is" moment with her. Although he wore his own prosthetic leg and certainly had empathy, his expertise knew her greater need was to accept the new reality of being a double-amputee.

Untold millions walking in recovery programs regularly pray for God's help "to accept the things I cannot change." While that prayer exudes fervent feelings, it also serves as a declarationa resolutionto make peace with reality in order to improve one's life despite challenging circumstances.

America is in a pitched battle with consequences extending beyond the horizon. When paramedics recuse a trauma victim, they certainly exude compassion but not at the expense of immediate action. When survival of a city or a society is at stake, how does Mrs. Obama suggest enforcing empathy?

A wise friend once stated, "Process the pain privately. Share the process publicly."

In our voyeuristic society driven by social media, we see all too many process their pain publicly. The immediate gratification allows an unhealthy reveling in victimhood. This type of behavior will promote not acceptance and growth, but rather extend adolescence.

This is where leadership confronts calamity and points to recovery. Firmly directing people out of a burning building requires little empathy but ample leadership. Compassion takes on many forms. Some harness it to console, while others act to rescue, meet a need, or equip others to self-sustain.

In rare moments, empathy, compassion, and a call to action all meld into one. President George W. Bush did this while standing on a pile of rubble addressing rescue workers following the attack on September 11. Someone in the crowd shouted out, "We can't hear you."

Through a bullhorn, President Bush quickly responded, "I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people  and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"

Sadly, the guise of compassion can be used to manipulate. ""I feel your pain" sounded nice from Bill Clinton  but does it move the needle in our circumstances? "I feel your pain" morphed into a cliche and quasi-punchline.

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," offered President Obama. He certainly appeared empathetic, but the nation required something different. Ferguson, Baltimore, and even the "Beer Summit" following the arrest of Henry Gates provided Obama a unique opportunity to direct America to a higher plane of race relations and police engagement. The empathy may have felt good to his supporters, but did it lead the country to a better place?

Even while privately choking back the tears, true leadership avoids commiserating and emotionally medicating and instead points the way through the pain  beyond "it is what it is."

President Trump acknowledged a grim reality while laying out his ongoing strategy for dealing with a global pandemic. Far from touchy-feely, President Trump brings a lengthy reputation as a brash results-driven decision-maker. Although the left rails against his frank "it is what it is" comment, solutions still seem to drive the president more than feelings.

Four recent presidents offering different leadership styles to a distressed nation. History will judge the efficacy of each.

In the meantime, "it is what it is."

Peter Rosenberger is the host of the nationally syndicated radio program Hope for the Caregiver. He continues to serve as a caregiver for his wife, Gracie. www.hopeforthecaregiver.com

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.
On Aug. 19, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus convoy pulled up outside Jerusalems Mahane Yehuda market, just a few minutes drive from his office. It was a sudden, allegedly spontaneous visit. Netanyahu decided that he wanted to hop over to a local vegan restaurant to grab a quick lunch. And if he was already there, this was a great chance to ask the owners of the restaurant whether they already received their coronavirus stipends. They said that they did and thanked him. Of course, there was nothing coincidental about any of this. Netanyahus spokespeople filmed the whole thing and posted it online. Netanyahu knew exactly where he was going, and whom he was about to meet. Inevitably, he was greeted with chants of, Bibi, King of Israel! After all, the market is considered his home court.

While all of this was going on, a senior Likud official was anonymously quoted as warning the Blue and White party, This may be the last Wednesday of the 23rd Knesset. This isnt working out. I had no high expectations from the outset, but I never thought it would be anything like this. Its impossible to get any work done. Will we go to elections on Monday? That would be terrible, but continuing like this, given the current circumstances seems to me even worse.

The senior Likud official was apparently no other than Netanyahu himself. Thus, given all of Netanyahus frenzied activities, the political system is now wondering whether he is already in the midst of a new election campaign or whether these are just more spurious exercises intended to apply pressure on governing partner Blue and White to allow him to amend the coalition agreement.

Most importantly, this frenzy could be part of an attempt by Netanyahu to gain some footing in the appointment of the state attorney. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is currently also the acting state attorney because Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn, elected as part of the Blue and White coalition, has not appointed someone yet. Netanyahu, who believes that Mandelblit is going after him, wants to weaken the attorney general as much as he can. This becomes all the more urgent as Netanyahus trial advances, and the question of whether he can continue serving as prime minister is raised.

For weeks now, Netanyahu has been creating the false impression that he considers the approval of the state budget critical. He even picked a fight with the Blue and White party over it. But now, the moment of truth is approaching. Likud and Blue and White negotiating teams are working hard to bridge the differences between them. Still, while of all this is going on, Netanyahu seems to be piling more and more obstacles. Blue and White is ready to compromise on the budget, but even that is not enough for Netanyahu. He seems to enjoy taunting them, abusing them, and in the end, weakening them.

Netanyahu also recently took the opportunity to humiliate Blue and White leaders yet again. He went behind the backs of Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, both of them former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff, by signing the agreement normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates last week. The reason he was so stealthy about it, or so he explained, was that he was worried that people on the outside would leak the news to the press.

While Gantz had no choice but to swallow his pride and ignore the insult, it certainly did nothing to improve his relationship with Netanyahu, a relationship that has already reached a crisis point. Netanyahu has identified Gantzs weaknesses. The prime minister can see Gantz's desperate position in polls, so Netanyahu keeps putting on the pressure, in the hope that the Blue and White leader will fold.

We are now five days before the Knessets Aug. 25 deadline on the budget  a vote considered legally as a vote of confidence in the government. In other words, we are just five days before Israelis will learn if there will be a new round of elections, or if the unity government will survive the latest crisis round. Nevertheless, no one but Netanyahu has any idea what will happen at midnight Aug. 24. All that is certain is that failure to pass the budget will result in the Knesset being dissolved automatically, and another round of elections being held in November.

It would seem inconceivable that no one in the Likud or Blue and White knows what Netanyahu really wants. He may juggle with the agenda, but in the end, he is in control. Blue and White is helpless when dealing with Netanyahus maneuvers and manipulations, his fickleness and his ability to pick himself up again and again. The UAE agreement demonstrated that precisely. As victor, Netanyahu showed no magnanimity, giving no credit to his partners, when he announced his latest achievement at a press conference.

While this was going on, Gantz was in Tel Hashomer hospital, recuperating from serious back surgery. When he woke up, he was forced to contend with an incessant stream of political events. On Aug. 18, he returned to work, filled with a fighting spirit. He attacked Netanyahu head-on, saying that the prime minister was motivated by outside considerations. The problem was that Gantz was subjected to an incessant series of attacks from the Likud in return.

Ever since he returned to work, Gantz has participated in a series of consultations and brainstorming sessions. They are all part of a futile effort to figure out whether Netanyahu has finally decided whether he will move the elections up or not.

The night of Aug. 19, Gantz held a Zoom meeting with the members of his Knesset faction. He himself was in a hotel in Kfar Maccabiah, still recuperating from his surgery. Still, Gantz used the opportunity to warn his colleagues of impending elections, saying, These are critical days. What Netanyahu is doing could lead to horrible elections for the State of Israel. Nothing necessitates a new round of elections. Blue and White is committed to stability.  Unlike others, we do not play poker at the expense of the citizens of Israel.

The next morning, Blue and White continued to lash out at Netanyahu. Party ministers were instructed to give interviews to the various media outlets, at which they were to accuse Netanyahu of dragging the country to a new election for personal reasons. Still, this didnt really change anything. The political state of affairs remains murky. One thing is certain. This will not be the first time that Netanyahu alone will decide when the next election is held. With more demonstrations expected this weekend outside the prime ministers residence, Netanyahu and his family members are expected to make a decision.

Based on his behavior over the past few weeks, it seems clear that he is preparing for elections. He is exacerbating crises, he goes out to the street to connect with the public and he attends Knesset sessions to deliver campaign speeches. He has even sketched out the battle lines, and picked the rival who fits him. He relays to the public that the duel will involve himself and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid. Netanyahu knows that the public does not consider Lapid to be fit to take over as premier.

Netanyahu certainly knew for quite a long time that an agreement with the UAE was forthcoming. As far as he was concerned, it was an electoral tiebreaker. The people love it. It is a historic agreement that shows how vast the differences really are between him and any other candidate. Then there is the simple fact that Netanyahu suffers every minute he is forced to spend in a unity government, not least because it erodes his public support. As a result, the temptation to call a new election is huge.
It was just 20 years ago that the US census began to allow Americans to identify as more than one race.

And now, the country is on the threshold of seeing the name of -- proud daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother -- on the national ballot.

Harris' historic nomination for vice president on the Democratic ticket is challenging multicultural, race-obsessed America's emphasis on labels.

While her dual heritage represents several slices of the minority experience in America, many have puzzled over how to define her an issue people of multiracial backgrounds have long had to navigate.

Harris has long incorporated both sides of her parentage in her public persona, but also has been steadfast in claiming her Black identity, saying her mother -- the biggest influence on her life -- raised her and her sister as Black because that's the way the world would view them.

"My mother instilled in my sister, Maya, and me the values that would chart the course of our lives," Harris said in a Wednesday night speech at the Democratic National Convention to accept her party's nomination.

She raised us to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage.

A 2015 Pew Research Center study found that multiracial people in the US were growing at a rate three times faster than the general population.

A majority said they were proud of their mixed-race background, but had been subjected to racial slurs or jokes. And about 25% said they were bothered by people making assumptions about their racial background.

Harris herself has lamented how others feel a need to define her, despite how comfortable she is in her own skin.

I didn't go through some evolution about who am I and what is my identity, she said in a June interview with the Los Angeles Times' Asian Enough podcast.

And I guess the frustration I have is if people think that I should have gone through such a crisis and need to explain it.

For others from multiracial backgrounds, however, the journey can be fraught. On her Instagram account, Amanda Neal proudly declares that she's HELLA BLACK, HELLA PINAY, referring to the demonym for a woman of Filipino descent. But the 30-year-old voice instructor in Chicago says it's taken much time and self-reflection to fully embrace both sides of her racial identity.

As a young girl, Neal said people often tried to make her choose one identity over the other because her mother is an immigrant from Philippines and her father is an African American who grew up in Chicago and Hawaii.

And she said some Filipino relatives told her to avoid sounding or acting too Black. It turned into an anti-Blackness that I didn't even know I had, she said.

Sheila SatheWarner's two sons are Black and Asian, just like Harris. SatheWarner is Indian American, and her husband is of African Caribbean descent via St. Croix.

While one boy looks more Indian and the other more Black, SatheWarner said she has stressed their Black heritage, much like Harris' mother.

She encourages them to embrace Afro-textured hair and reminds them to never play with toy guns for fear of them being targeted by police.

We've always talked to them about both their heritages. We have been committed to visiting St. Croix, said SatheWarner, a middle-school principal from Alameda, California. They are both Black.

The subject is inextricably linked to the one drop rule, a legal principle rooted in slavery that anyone with even a drop of Black lineage could not own land or be free. Today, it manifests itself in the way people visually categorize others and the social hierarchy between races, said Sarah Gaither, a Duke University professor studying race who herself is Black and white.

No one carries the same experience or should serve as identity police, said Gaither, who stressed the importance of allowing multiracial, multicultural people to define for themselves who they are, and accepting that a biracial person's identity may evolve.

Officially, the U.S. census claims that about 3.5 per cent of US residents identified as two or more races in 2018, up from 2.4 per cent in 2000.

But when Pew conducted its own survey, its number increased five-fold when accounting for people who identified as one race but said that at least one of their parents was a different race or multiracial, as well as people who had at least one grandparent of a different race than themselves or their parents.

(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.)
Actress Tracey Boakye is having a self-party after being accused of blackmailing former President John Mahama into obeying her demands.



Assin Central MP accused Tracey of possessing some damning video recordings of what is believed to be about her sexual relationship with the former President and using them to blackmail him.



Mr. Mahama, according to Kennedy Agyapong, has already bought two houses for her, one at Lakeside and another at East Legon. The East Legon building, he revealed, cost $450000.



The former President is further said to have financed Tracey's restaurant and is also at a tight corner to do more for her because of his fling with her.



Kennedy Agyapong also asked Mr. Mahama to request a partenity test over Tracey's second child as he doubts the former President is indeed the father of the baby.



After hearing Kennedy Agyapong's revelations, Tracey went haywire and challenged him to back his claims with evidence.



This is obviously not the first time Tracey has gone mad over something.



For weeks now, she has been a hot topic and in fact, from the look of things, she hasn't been in a stable condition until now.



Tracey decided to throw herself a party to cool down from all the stress and inflammatory emotions as she is seen in a video on her Instagram page popping champagne.



Video below:



























































View this post on Instagram











Cheers  to victory .









A post shared by Tracey Boakye (@tracey_boakye) on Aug 20, 2020 at 5:31am PDT





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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She's used to showing off her dancing ability as part of girl group the Pussycat Dolls.

And Ashley Roberts proved she's still got the moves as she performed to WAP in a sexy TikTok video on Friday.

The Heart FM host, 38, showed off her incredible abs in a white crop top and tiny matching shorts for the clip.

She's got the moves! Ashley Roberts showed off her incredible abs in a white crop top as she danced to WAP in a sexy TikTok video on Friday

The blonde beauty completed the sporty look by tying a grey and white tie-dye jumper around her waist.

Ashley wore her light tresses in practical high pony and opted for glamorous makeup as she expertly executed the series of moves.

She beamed at the camera as she danced to the catchy song by Cardi B and American rapper Megan Thee Stallion.

She's got the moves: The television personality beamed at the camera as she danced to the catchy song by Cardi B and American rapper Megan Thee Stallion

Dancer: The blonde beauty completed the sporty look by tying a grey and white tie-dye jumper around her waist as she performed in the clip

Sporty: Ashley wore her light tresses in practical high pony and opted for glamorous makeup as she expertly executed the series of moves

Ashley - who recently enjoyed a getaway to Turkey - revealed earlier this month she is open to the idea of adopting a child in the future.

Speaking in an interview with Fabulous magazine, she said: 'I'm definitely open to the idea of adoption.

'You just never know what the future is going to bring and the most important thing is to be happy and, whether my body naturally has kids or not, we'll see what life brings. I'm definitely open to that.'

Ashley also reflected on dating following her split from Italian Strictly Come Dancing professional Giovanni, 29.

Wow! Ashley - who recently enjoyed a getaway to Turkey - revealed earlier this month she is open to the idea of adopting a child in the future

The couple called time on their year-long romance in January after meeting during Ashley's stint on the BBC One dance competition in late 2018.

She said: 'I'm good on my own, though. I'm pretty independent. It's nice to have that connection with someone, but at the moment lockdown is still [effectively] here, so "me" is where it is.'

She said about dating in lockdown: 'You can get to know someone a bit more before other "things" can happen perhaps that's something that's positive. We'll see.'

Ashley previously revealed she tried to freeze her eggs a couple of years ago, but the process didn't work.
One of the companies raking sales is Alibaba which is doing better than most companies. This e-commerce and cloud giant is one of the most profitable. Though it is worried that the threat posed by the U.S. and its trade war with China.

Last Thursday, the company logged in excellent sales and earnings that were the top forecasts to date. Total income is up by 35% from a year back. Details reveal that an increase in mobile users peaked too.

Martin Garner, Chief Operations Officer of CCS Insight, said that Alibaba getting 34% of growth in the COVID-19 pandemic is no mean feat. This nothing compared to the fact the e-commerce giant can equal the GDP of the Netherlands to make a point. To able to get this growth at his pace is nothing but phenomenal, reported CNN.

However, despite the gains, there will still be setbacks like 2% on Thursday. In 2020, a 20% uptick is in play.

The pandemic has caused many hardships and uncertain conditions that are very evident. In China, there is the recovery going on because of how the pandemic is getting managed, said CEO Daniel Zhang of Alibaba when he was interviewed by analysts.

Although even with the good news, the online goods store is not confident how the Trump administration will regard it. Recent attacks on TikTok and WeChat are proof of the uncertain environment in the pandemic, cited New York Times.

One problem is how these forces will reach and how ultimately the tension will determine how the firm will fare.

Also read: Trump Throttles Huawei With More Restrictions Anew

Looking at the latest U.S. policies and how Chinese companies will be regarded is very fluid. Each change will be met with adapting to any new relevant rules.

But compared to other companies, Alibaba is not into retail in the U.S. market. Though small companies are using cloud hosting services for their digital commerce, key competitors are Amazon, Microsoft, and Google owned Alphabet are in the booming cloud market, mentioning that it posted a 60% surge from last year.

Zhang called it cloud services that help American companies. Having one of the biggest e-commerce platforms, the companies' goal is to focus on American brand support for all aspects of business. Access to the platform will increase profitability as well.

He added that global trade is always there and that Alibaba will make it easy to do business when everything is within Chinese and American interests, though the current conditions need to be minded.

According to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who caution American companies to be careful of Chinese technology. He warned that information and other relevant IT are on cloud networks owned by Alibaba and similar Chinese companies, noted Bloomberg.

Zhang said that Alibaba can make an impact on the Chinese cloud market though it is in its infancy, and can surpass the United States.

One of Alibaba's competitors is JD.com, which gained more sales of 35%, compared a year ago. Other e-commerce sites in China have gained headway as well, confirmed Wall Street Journal.

Related article: China Furious Over Planned 'Smash and Grab' of Tiktok, Condemns U.S.

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Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly are reportedly set to return to the BBC for the first time in 23 years for a one-off special.

The presenting duo, both 44, will reflect on their career on the small screen during an episode of Radio 2's My Life In A Mixtape, according to The Mirror.

The Geordie stars met back in 1989 when they were cast in the teen drama Byker Grove and quickly became best friends on set.

Career: Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, both 44, are reportedly set to return to the BBC for the first time in 23 years for a one-off special

The pair then tried for a career in the music industry, recording two albums under the names of their characters PJ and Duncan.

Ant and Dec have since gone on to be among the most successful presenters in Britain, known for I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, Britain's Got Talent and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

Speaking about the upcoming special, an insider said: 'We have nicknamed this show Ant and Decks, and it is very exciting to get them to host and DJ for us after such a long time away from the BBC.

'Listeners will discover the very first time they sang together and which pop song they think should be listened to at least twice a year for the good of ones health. Incidents include the time they saved Dame Shirley Bassey from taking a royal tumble.

Looking back: The presenting duo will reflect on their career on the small screen during an episode of Radio 2's My Life In A Mixtape (pictured in BBC One in 2000)

'And there is almost certainly going to be a snippet of their big hit Lets Get Ready To Rhumble.'

There are rumours the pair could bring back SMTV Live and be joined by their former co-host Cat Deeley.

Ant and Dec will have a career first this year as they are currently gearing up to present I'm A Celebrity in Gwrych Castle in Wales after the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible for the show to travel to Australia.

As only fitting with the new location, this year's trials are thought to be incorporating the spooky setting and there will be cameras around the castle to capture any paranormal activity.

A source said: 'We have nicknamed this show Ant and Decks, and it is very exciting to get them to host and DJ for us after such a long time away from the BBC'

It has been suggested that ITV will include a medieval theme, with celebs possibly having to joust for dinners or even spend time in a dungeon or mock-up gallows.

Gwrych Castle was built by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh in the early 1800s. Its frontage is 1500ft in length and there are 18 battlemented towers.

The castle is thought to be haunted by a number of spirits, including previous owner Winifred Hesketh, the Countess of Dundonald who died in 1924.

Legend says she is angry at her husband for taking all of her former homes' valuables, with some people claiming she, or another spooky spirit, stalks the area in a white dress.

Ant and Dec's episode of My Life in a Mixtape will broadcast on Sunday, September 6 at 9pm and will be available to listen to on the BBC Sounds app.
A female postie stole thousands of letters before burying unwanted items in a nearby forest.

Jodi Caroline Maria Dickason, 34, failed to deliver 3,700 letters, and packages during her stint at Australia Post in the shire of Capel in West Australia.

The mail theft occurred over a three month period between May and July last year, when she was experiencing a breakup involving domestic violence and drugs.

Jodi Caroline Maria Dickason, 34, failed to deliver 3,700 letters, and packages during her stint at Australia Post in the shire of Capel in West Australia (stock image)

The mother-of-six feigned 'shock and surprise', when police discovered half of the items opened inside various houses where she resided, reported ABC News.

Around half the remaining items were discovered by someone walking through the Tuart Forest National Park.

The lost mail included private identification documents including drivers' licences, credit cards and Medicare cards.

She told police she was using her house as a halfway point during deliveries, which could have resulted in the mail being displaced.

But she denied having opened the letters despite the fact they were found inside her premises.

Ms Dickason faced Bunbury Magistrates Court on Friday where she sentenced to 12 months' jail, suspended for two years.

The court heard the 34-year-old had been working for Australia Post delivering mail across the shire of Capel for a decade.

Around half the remaining items were discovered by someone walking through the Tuart Forest National Park (pictured)

Dickason's defence lawyer, Ian Macfarlane told the court she had been struggling during the time due to a breakup involving domestic violence and drugs.

The state prosecutor Sean Dworcan argued she deserved to go to jail over the offences which impacted thousands of organisations.

He also argued her actions had damaged the community's trust and 'deceived her mother and sister'.

Magistrate Robert Young ruled she was responsible for the theft, but took into account her lack of criminal record in handing down the sentence.

'You were entrusted by the community to deliver their mail and you failed to do that,' Magistrate Young said.
The Victorian government has been forced into another backflip on coronavirus stage four restrictions, rolling back a decision to ban farmers markets late on Friday night.

The sudden decision to remove farmers markets from the list of permitted activities in Melbourne under coronavirus stage four restrictions had originally blindsided organisers, who were forced to cancel markets planned for the weekend as they desperately sought clarification from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Sophia Stasey selling vegetables at the Bendigo Farmers Market. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

The department did not reply to repeated questions from The Age about the decision throughout the day. But late on Friday night, the government reversed its decision.

The Chief Health Officer has reaffirmed the COVIDSafe rules for farmers markets after concerns were raised about compliance with density requirements," a government spokesman told The Age on Friday, after repeated questioning about the scheme.
MANZINI - Disappointed!

This was the feeling of traders after the Prime Minister (PM), Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini had a media briefing, but did not say anything about lifting the ban on the sale and manufacturing of alcohol in the country.

According to the Swaziland National Liquor Association (SNLA) Secretary General, Thamsanqa Hlatshwayo, they had hoped that the premier would hold a press conference at Cabinet offices yesterday to give the nation updates related to the COVID-19 situation.

Relaxation

He said they waited with bated breath for the anticipated relaxation of the partial lockdown restrictions ahead of the premiers expected media briefing, which was held later on yesterday. The secretary general said as they had said before, they were hoping that since neighbouring South Africa had lifted the ban on alcohol sale, the country would do likewise.

On top of that, he said they made a plea that the ban should be lifted because the illegal traders would stock the alcoholic beverages from South Africa and sell it on the black market, where the COVID-19 guidelines were not adhered to.

In that regard, we anticipated relaxed lockdown restrictions that will allow us (liquor traders) to operate, but this was not the case, the secretary general said. However, he said since the PM did not say anything about when the ban on alcohol sales would be lifted, they were left disappointed. He said even if government was planning to lift the two months ban at the end of August, the premier should have said so.

This is because most liquor traders are broke and they need enough time to organise funds to prepare for the reopening of their outlets, the secretary general said. He said if they would be told at the 11th hour about when the ban would be lifted, the financially struggling liquor traders would be at a disadvantage.

Otherwise

He said this was because they would not be able to stock up on alcoholic beverages, which would mean that only the big guns in the industry would open on time. Meanwhile, Government Spokesperson Sabelo Dlamini anounced the sale of alcohol remained banned in the country. He said as long as government had not announced otherwise, the ban would remain in force. The ban on the sale and manufacturing of liquor was effected on July 1, 2020 and it is expected not to exceed two months. On the other hand, liquor traders were against it from the onset as they did not buy into governments explanation that alcohol was among the leading contributors in the spread of COVID-19. They argued that there was no emperical evidence to prove that indeed alcohol was among the leading factors that contributed in the spread of the virus. South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa announced earlier on the week the resumption of the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in that country.
Lawyers for Lockbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi have demanded access to secret Government papers as they appeal against his conviction over the 1988 terror attack which left 270 dead.

Lawyers for Megrahi's family said it is 'in the interest of justice' that the defence get to see the two documents, which are covered by a public interest immunity certificate.

An appeal against Megrahi's conviction was lodged after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the case to the High Court in March, ruling a possible miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103, travelling from London to New York on December 21 1988, killed 270 people in Britain's largest terrorist atrocity.

Former Libyan intelligence officer Megrahi - found guilty in 2001 of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years - was the only person convicted.

Former Libyian intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing which claimed 270 lives

Lawyer Aamer Anwar arrives at Glasgow Training Rooms, Scotland, to take part in the first appeal hearing today

Three decades of doubt: 30 years later there are still unanswered questions over Lockerbie December 21, 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to Detroit, via London and New York, blows up over Lockerbie in Scotland. A total of 270 people died November 1991 Britain and the US accuse Libyans Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khailifa Fhimah of the bombing. However, Libyan authorities deny involvement January 1995 MPs demand an inquiry after US intelligence suggests Iran was behind the bombing, instead of Libya January 2001 Megrahi was convicted of mass murder while Fhimah is found not guilty August 2003 The UN lifts sanctions on Libya. Blame was accepted in Tripoli and the government compensates families of the victims August 2009 Megrahi is freed after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He did not die until 2012 May 2018 A review of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction for the bombing is to be carried out by the Scottish Criminal Cases Commission November 2018 The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission says there was no criminality in the Megrahi case Advertisement

A virtual hearing took place today before the Lord President Lord Carloway, Lord Justice Clerk-Lady Dorian and Lord Menzies.

Claire Mitchell QC, representing the Megrahi family, said the defence should have access to the protected documents.

She told the court: 'Given the passage of time these documents should fall now to be disclosed.

'As the court will understand, the public interest immunity claimed in 2008 when the proceedings were ongoing in 2008, I would respectfully submit that should not be held to apply in 2020, the reason for that primarily is the passage of time must have an effect, particularly when one is talking about the ever changing world of international relations.

'The information contained within the undisclosed documents must relate to events or actions that occurred prior to the 21st December 1988, that is the documents must relate to events or actions that occurred at least 32 years ago and it is respectfully submitted that given such a lapse it is also in the interest of justice that disclosure is made in respect of these matters.'

In its decision published in March, the SCCRC ruled a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in his case on two of the six grounds it considered in the review - unreasonable verdict and non-disclosure, saying the Crown ought to have disclosed certain information to the defence.

Ms Mitchell also said there had been a 'systemic failure of disclosure' over a range of other documents.

She told the court: 'Looked at in the round, the question is whether or not there was a miscarriage of justice because that trial wasn't fair because the failure to disclose was just systemic.'

Advocate Depute Ronald Clancy QC said the Crown had gone out of its way to be 'transparent' and provide material, and that part of the problem with the systemic failure argument is that no attempt was made to define what the proper system should have been at the time.

Ian Duguid QC, representing the Advocate General, said the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs continues to assert public interest immunity over the two protected documents.

The damaged aircraft cockpit of Pan Am 103 that exploded killing 270 people is pictured after the bombing

December 1988: Some of the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 after it crashed onto the town of Lockerbie in Scotland

He said the Secretary of State has given consideration to the argument over the passage of time and has lodged an updated public interest immunity certificate with the clerk of court, dated August 2020.

Mr Duguid said the validity of the certificate would need to be considered at a court hearing.

Lord Carloway said the judges would issue a written decision on Friday's proceedings in due course, while the full appeal court hearing is provisionally scheduled to start on November 23 before five judges.

Megrahi's first appeal against his conviction was refused by the High Court in 2002 and referred back five years later following an SCCRC review.

He abandoned this appeal in 2009, shortly before his release from prison on compassionate grounds. He died in 2012.
Haryana CM Khattar tests negative for COVID-19; goes into home quarantine

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Chandigarh, Aug 21: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tested negative for COVID-19 on Thursday, days after he attended a meeting with Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who has been found infected with the contagious disease. However, Khattar decided to go into home quarantine for the next three days as a precautionary measure.

The chief minister underwent the coronavirus test on Wednesday, a senior official told PTI. Khattar had attended a meeting on the Sutlej Yamuna Link with Shekhawat on Tuesday.

In a tweet earlier on Thursday, the Union minister said he has tested positive for COVID-19.

"Dear friends, during the past few days, I have come in contact with many people who were found to have symptoms of corona. "Though I underwent a COVID-19 test that came negative, I have decided to go into home quarantine for three days as a precautionary measure," Khattar said in a tweet in Hindi.

Fire at hydroelectric plant in Telangana, 9 fear trapped | Oneindia News

The chief minister will undergo another COVID-19 test just before the Haryana Assembly's monsoon session commences on August 26, as has been made mandatory by the Vidhan Sabha speaker for anyone entering the complex, the official said. Tuesday's meeting with Shekhawat was also attended by his deputy and Ambala MP Rattan Lal Kataria. Kataria was also present for another meeting alongside Shekhawat in a virtual conference with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E K Palaniswami.

Kataria has also gone into home quarantine. In a tweet in Hindi, he said he is going into home quarantine as he had come into contact with Shekhawat during the past few days. He also wished Shekhawat a speedy recovery.

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Story first published: Friday, August 21, 2020, 12:02 [IST]
When Joe Biden was elected as one of the youngest US senators in 1972, one of the first letters that he received was from Mumbai, with the sender having the same last name as his.

About five years ago, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee learned that there are five Bidens living in Mumbai, but is probably yet to make a connection with them.

The 'Biden from Mumbai', then known as Bombay, had congratulated Biden on his election as the senator from Delaware and told him that they were related to each other.

Biden, then 29, wanted to follow up on the letter and get in touch with the 'Biden from Mumbai'. However, his family and active life in politics meant that this wish remained a wish, something he still wants to fulfil nearly five decades later.

The wish may have remained unfulfilled, but the 77-year-old Biden never misses a chance to narrate the 'Biden from Mumbai' story when he meets Indian-Americans and the Indian leaders.

The former vice president assures them that he too has an India connection, however, distant it might be.

In his address to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Mumbai, on July 24, 2013, during his maiden visit to India as the Vice President of the US, he went off-script to narrate his story of the 'Biden from Mumbai'.

"It's an honour to be back in India and to be here in Mumbai. Off script for a second here, I was reminded - I was elected to the United States Senate when I was a 29-year-old kid back in 1972, and one of the first letters I received and I regret I never followed up on it. Maybe, some genealogist in audience can follow up for me, but I received a letter from a gentleman named Biden - Biden, my name - from Mumbai, asserting that we were related," Biden had told the audience amidst peals of laughter.

"Seriously. Suggesting that our mutual, great, great, great, something or other worked for the East India Trading Company back in the 1700s and came to Mumbai," Biden said.

A few years later at another speech in Washington DC, Biden said that their forefathers were same, who worked for the East India Company and visited India then.

"He (Biden from Mumbai) went back to our mutual great, great, great grandfather, 1848, who was a British captain in the East India Tea Company. And he married I believe an Indian woman. And he settled in India," Biden said in his address to the US India Business Council on September 21, 2015.

"And so I was thinking about it, if that's true, I might run here in India for office. I might be qualified (to run for elected office in India). But I've never followed up on it (the letter from Biden from Mumbai)," Biden told the Mumbai audience in 2013, who could not stop laughing at it.

"But now that I'm back for the multiple times, I'm going to follow up to find out whether there is a Biden and whether we're related. I hope he's in good standing if we are," he said, evoking bouts of laughter from the audience.

In the Washington DC event hosted by US Indian Business Council, Biden said that a day after his Mumbai speech, a journalist gave him a list of five Bidens living in Mumbai.

Read more | Will stand with India if elected as US president: Biden

"The next day the press, I guess trying to prove that I was probably making this up - because I never followed up. It was right after I got elected, and then some things happened in my family, and I never followed up. One reporter stood up and gave me the names of five Bidens in Mumbai," he said.

"So, show me more respect," Biden has told the Washington DC audience while asserting his Indian connection.

"You know what I mean? I didn't realise I had so many... And I haven't actually followed up and embarrassed the Bidens in Mumbai. But the point is, it makes it even clearer what a small, small world this is and how this global economy is suited for, quite frankly, the two largest democracies in the world," Biden said in 2015.
Im going one day to be in a position where I can change something. And I think that Im not necessarily hopeful in the sense that I think everything will change overnight. Because obviously, that wont happen. I know that there are going to be a lot of people who oppose the movement for racial and educational equity.

But Im hopeful in the sense that I think that there will be progress. Im hopeful because I know that I can change something. And Ive seen that already happening, not just with myself, but also with other students whose experiences are currently being elevated.

DOUGLASS HORSFORD Well, Im very hopeful, actually. And I think its because Ive been beating this drum for a minute. And I feel like the consciousness is changing around these issues.

Im also very encouraged by the work of young people like Tiffani and even my children, and by just seeing how this moment has ignited their activism and their boldness. Theyre just not going to put up with things in ways that even I did.

I think that we just need to make sure that were really supporting young people and giving them the tools and the space and the resources to engage in that activism. And that we continue to really focus on resources and representation. But weve got to also go back to the political space, the political dimension of all of this, and make sure that we are engaging in political participation, voting, electing people who share our commitment to equity and justice, and support them in doing their work. And with that we will get through this.

Dana Goldstein is a national correspondent for The New York Times, writing about the impact of education policies on families, students and teachers across the country. She is the author of the best-selling The Teacher Wars: A History of Americas Most Embattled Profession.

Tiffani Torres is a rising college freshman at Georgetown University and a recent graduate of Pace High School in Manhattan. She lives in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and is an activist at Teens Take Charge, a student-led group that advocates integration of New York Citys public schools.

Richard Buery is the president of Achievement First, a network of charter schools in the Northeast. He previously worked as the chief of policy and public affairs at the KIPP Foundation, a national charter network; as a deputy mayor in the de Blasio administration; and as the chief executive of the Childrens Aid Society, a social service agency. He is a graduate of New York City public schools.

Chana Joffe-Walt is a reporter and producer at This American Life, and the host of Nice White Parents, a new podcast from Serial and The New York Times. The five-part series tells the story of a 60-year relationship between white parents and the local public school down the block.

Sonya Douglass Horsford is a professor at Columbia Universitys Teachers College who studies the politics of race in education leadership, policy and reform. She is the author of several books, including Learning in a Burning House: Educational Inequality, Ideology, and (Dis) Integration.
(Newser)  The threats to her and her family justify keeping protesters away from her home, says Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Police enforce a ban on protesters on her block, the Tribune reports, arresting those who don't leave when asked. "I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure," Lightfoot said. At times, police have massed and used barricades keep protesters away from her house. They once brought an armored vehicle in. The mayor already had an around-the-clock detail that included officers assigned to her home before the force was deployed on the street.

story continues below

Police officials couldn't recall doing the same thing at the home of Lightfoot's predecessor, Rahm Emanuel. A comparison would be irrelevant, Lightfoot said, because with the unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd, "this is a different time like no other." The cost, including the number of officers assigned, hasn't been disclosed, per WFLD. "Maybe she should move into a high-rise downtown where you can put like 20 officers at the front of the building if need be," said the president of the Fraternal Order of Police. Lightfoot didn't budge, saying she has to ensure her family's safety. "I make no apologies whatsoever for that." (Read more Lori Lightfoot stories.)
Pakistan violated ceasefire along the line of control (LOC) in Jammu and Kashmirs Poonch district on Friday evening. The ceasefire violation by Pakistan took place at about 06:30pm by firing small arms and shelling with mortars.

At about 1830 hours today, Pakistan army initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and resorting to intense shelling with mortars along the LoC in Mankote sector, news agency PTI quoted defence spokesperson as saying.

Indian Army is also retaliating to the firing in equal measure, the spoksperson also said.

On August 7, Pakistan had violated the ceasefire in Poonch district. A 65 year old man was killed in the incident.

While on August 1, an army soldier was killed in firing by Pakistan in Rajouri sector.

On July 11, two women were killed as Pakistan shelled forward posts and villages along the LoC in different sectors in Poonch district and on July 10, an Army man was killed in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Rajouri district.

As relations between India and Pakistan continued to be tense, India had conveyed its concerns over unprovoked ceasefire violations along the LoC to support the infiltration of terrorists to Pakistan in June.

There have been more than 2,050 unprovoked ceasefire violations this year in which 21 Indians have been killed, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said in June.

(With agency inputs)
Thiruvananthapuram: After the Centre's approval to lease out Thiruvananthapuram airport through public-private partnership (PPP), Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his concern and urging the PM to reconsider the decision.

The letter conveying the views of the all party meeting to PM Modi was shared on microblogging site Twitter via CMO Kerala profile. The tweet said: "The overwhelming view of the meeting was that Trivandrum International Airport's management and operation need to vest with the State Government."

The Chief Minister has conveyed the views of the all party meeting through a letter written to the Hon'ble @PMOIndia. The overwhelming view of the meeting was that Trivandrum International Airport's management and operation need to vest with the State Government. pic.twitter.com/SRKcMb3Yxw  CMO Kerala (@CMOKerala) August 20, 2020

In the letter, the Chief Minister said that a meeting of leaders of all political parties in the state was convened through a video conference on August 20, Thursday and the overwhelming view among the leaders was that "given the unique place the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport has in the history of the State, its management and operation needs to vest with the state government".

Vijayan said he had written another letter to the Prime Minister on August 19 to express his government`s concerns regarding the Union cabinet's decision on the airport. He said the state government's repeated requests to hand over the management and operation of the airport to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which the state government is a stakeholder was ignored.

"The near consensus that emerged in the meeting was that considering the assistance which the state has rendered wholeheartedly, the Central Government should not have ignored the rightful claim of the former for management and operation of the Trivandrum International Airport," the letter said.

The letter further said that the state government through its SPV, which participated in the bid, had expressed willingness to match the offer of the highest bidder. In these circumstances, it was felt by the leaders that there is no justification for overlooking the claim of the state, the letter stated.

Vijayan pointed out that a resolution dated August 11, 2018 had been passed in state assembly and a collective request was made to the Center to "not privatise the airport".

On Wednesday, the union cabinet had approved the proposal to lease out Thiruvananthapuram and two other airports through Public Private Partnership (PPP) for "operation, management and development" to Adani Enterprises Ltd for a period of 50 years.

Meanwhile, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said that the Kerala government didn't qualify in Thiruvananthapuram airport's bidding process that was carried out in a transparent manner.

Puri said, before the bidding process, the Centre and the Kerala government had agreed that if the KSIDC's bid comes within the 10 per cent range of the winning bid, it would be awarded the airport. However, since the difference between Adani's bid and KSIDC's bid was 19.64 per cent during the bidding process, the former qualified as the winner.
"It's coming," he says. "It's time this country knows God is coming."

A rifle is slung across his back and a gun belt around his waist holds a revolver and extra cartridges. A knife is strapped to the other side of his lean torso. A battered felt hat frames a deeply lined face and bushy beard.

Dangling from a nearby tree, a hangman's noose strangles a weathered sign that sums up his stance: "Solution to tyranny."

Warily covering Gray's flanks are two of his six children, sons Jonathan, 39, and Timothy, 33. The dark-bearded, fit and tanned brothers are as well-armed as their 62-year-old father.

Ten feet behind her brothers and father, long-haired Ruth Gray, 31, stands solemn and silent. She, too, is armed to the teeth.

Next to her is teenager Jessica Gray, "who is old enough," according to her father, Jonathan. She has on a cowboy hat that the wind keeps blowing off, a long denim skirt, a sequined denim vest and cowboy boots. She's packing a pistol and binoculars.

Law is ignoring him

This is one stubborn side of what has been called America's longest-running standoff with law enforcement.

But it's been a single-sided siege. Henderson County authorities have pointedly ignored the would-be war.

For more than 11 years, John Joe Gray and his country clan have been holed up inside their own private prison, a 47-acre strip of Trinity River bottomland about 100 miles southeast of Fort Worth in Henderson County.

They've scraped out a harsh life here ever since Gray was bailed out of jail in January 2000 after he was charged with assaulting a state trooper on Christmas Eve 1999.

During a traffic stop, Gray and the driver of the car told two Department of Public Safety troopers that they were armed. When ordered to get out, the driver did but Gray wouldn't budge.

One trooper pushed Gray out, and he then lunged for the other officer's sidearm. Gray bit the trooper as they struggled for control of the weapon, according to investigators.

An Anderson County grand jury indicted him on two felony counts - assaulting a public servant and taking a peace officer's weapon.

"We're here because two highway patrolmen lied about what happened," Gray said last week. "Land of the free and home of the brave? That's a bunch of bull."

He has refused to be taken alive and in a long-ago letter to authorities, the family warned officials to "bring extra body bags," if they come for him. Authorities kept tabs on the compound for months but haven't maintained an active presence for years.

"We fear no man," John Joe Gray maintains. "We believe in an eye for an eye and a bullet for a bullet."

But nobody's storming the gate.

Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt, who is the fourth lawman in the post since 2000, says, like his predecessors, that he's not willing to risk a gunbattle just to arrest Gray.

"John Joe Gray is not worth it. Ten of him is not worth going up there and getting one of my young deputies killed," he said.

Living off the land

The hardscrabble compound has no phone, no refrigeration, no power.

Contact with the outside world is through a handful of "supporters" and via shortwave radio, John Joe Gray said.

Drinking water comes from springs, and Gray and his sons say they subsist by growing beans, potatoes, corn, squash, tomatoes and peppers on fields they plow with donkeys. They can vegetables and dry meat to get through the year, they said.

They also raise goats and chickens and catch catfish, carp and drum from the Trinity and hunt deer on the wooded property. Friends bring them staples they can't produce themselves. Last year, they harvested their first crop of peaches.

One supporter, who frequently visits the farm, said eight children are inside the compound. The kids are armed at an early age, she said. They are equally adept at reciting the Constitution or Scripture.

"It's sort of Wild West. It's what a traditional American family looked like 100 years ago," said Dolores McCarter of Arlington, who says she once worked for Homeland Security and now operates a small nonprofit called Dee's House that helps battered women and children.

"John is standing as a free man. He loves his family. They are prepared to live out their lives there," McCarter said. "Some people pity them and they ... pity us."
Mumbai, Aug 21 : Actor Karan Tacker on Friday refuted reports that he has tested Covid-19 positive.

"Unfortunately, I tested positive when I landed in Delhi despite having no symptoms since the test performed was not complete. Fortunately, I got myself tested again the same day and the result was negative. Just to be sure, later I got my entire family tested again, and all reports were negative. So, I am really happy about that," Karan said.

The actor is currently in Delhi on an assignment. Before returning to work for the first time in months, he was staying with his family in Lonavla, the scenic hill station near Mumbai.

Karan who took to painting during lockdown, recently donated his art work for Covid relief fund. He was last seen in the web show "Special Ops".
ILLINOIS  With a record number of Americans predicted to cast votes in the Nov. 3 election, mail-in ballots have become an increasingly popular option in the age of the coronavirus. While an overwhelming majority of nearly 6,000 readers who responded to our Illinois Patch survey plan to vote, many are wary about voting by mail.

Recent operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service have led to reports of widespread mail delays, elimination of overtime for postal workers, carriers being instructed to leave mail behind and the decommissioning of mail sorting machines. These changes have also increased anxiety for many, and our survey reflected that.

Work-A-Day Reporting Inspired Pressure To Save The Postal Service

While it is estimated that about 58 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, among Illinois Patch readers who responded to our poll, an overwhelming 99.5 percent plan to vote this time around.

Despite the number of coronavirus cases in Illinois increasing at alarming rates once again, a slight majority of readers  51.2 percent  said they do not plan to vote by mail. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot in Illinois is Oct. 29.

Overall, regardless of which way they plan to vote, a slight plurality of readers in our survey (38.3 percent) are very confident their vote will be tabulated by election night on Nov. 3. About 35 percent are somewhat confident, followed by 26 percent who are not confident at all.

When asked, "Are you concerned your mail-in vote will not be received or properly counted?" nearly 68 percent answered yes. Earlier this week, throughout the state, election officials announced ballot drop boxes will be installed to circumvent any potential issues with voting by mail through the U.S. Postal Service.

With the reported operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service that began when Louis DeJoy took over as postmaster general in June, a slight majority of readers who took our poll  50.4 percent  said their mail delivery hasn't slowed down in recent months.

Story continues

Throughout his re-election campaign, President Donald Trump has stated he believes voting by mail will result in fraudulent activity. A slight majority of readers, 50.1 percent, think this will be the case for the upcoming election.

Finally, we asked, "What are your overall thoughts on voting by mail?" We received a wide variety of replies. Here are some of the more than 4,000 answers we got back:

"Chicago has a history full of political corruption, and I believe common sense would dictate that the more people handling collecting sorting stacking transporting, delivering, opening and counting the ballots the greater chance of something going wrong."

"I believe measures like the mail-in ballot drop boxes being installed will help make sure your ballot gets into the right hands. However, once you vote, fraudulent activity or improper counting is out of your control and it can happen no matter how you choose to vote. It is the responsibility of everyday citizens to report voter fraud if they see it occurring and also the responsibility of those handling ballots that they are counted correctly for a fair election to occur."

"If you are over 60 years old and have pre-existing conditions related to COVID-19, I believe voter should participate in mail-in ballot or drop box ballot."

"I always vote, but this years presidential election is so important for this countrys future. I would not participate in mail-in voting if I didnt have confidence in it. Im not sure if I would feel the same if I lived in a different state that was Trump friendly. I think that the biggest threat to the success of this election is our current president."

"I send letters and packages with the USPS all the time and everything arrives safely and quickly no matter the destination. That is especially true during the holidays when the USPS is exponentially busier. They will have no problem handling the number of mail-in ballots, which is much less than Christmas cards."

"If a person doesn't care enough about this country to go to the polls to vote (unless he/she is incapacitated), that person shouldn't be voting. Wholesale voting by mail opens the door to mammoth fraud. Honest voters votes will be nullified."

"Can't take the chance to wait in lines for hours with many people, and may be less voting places because less workers (usually seniors) Not sure how affected the post office really is but Trump wants you to believe it, so I will drive my vote up to Waukegan and hand deliver."

"The fact that I am a type one diabetic. I dont want to be around a bunch of people at the polls. I prefer to vote by mail. Only because of the pandemic."

"Great for absentee ballots, terrible idea for everyone else. If you can go to Walmart you can go vote in person."

"It can't be last minute, but its been done for absentee ballots for a long time. Allow enough time and there shouldnt be a problem."

This article originally appeared on the Across Illinois Patch
On August 26, Joseph Scalice, a leading scholar of the history of the Philippines, will give an online lecture entitled First as tragedy, second as farce: Marcos, Duterte, and the Communist Parties of the Philippines. The event is at 3 p.m. Singapore time (same time in Philippines, 3 a.m. New York, 9 a.m. Berlin, 12:30 p.m. Colombo, 5 p.m. Sydney).

Scalice is a postdoctoral researcher at Nanyang Technological University with a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a contributor for the World Socialist Web Site and specializes in the history of politics and revolutionary movements in the postcolonial Philippines.

The event, which will be hosted by Nanyang Technological Universitys College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences, is free and available to the international public. It will address why the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), as well as various political groups associated with the partys political line, endorsed Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte upon his election in 2016. Before that years election, the CPP had denounced Duterte as a fascist, but endorsed his presidency after his election.

The lecture will explore the historical parallels between the CPPs enthusiasm for Duterte and the earlier Communist Partys (PKP) endorsement of the anticommunist dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, who led the country from 1965 to 1986, and who imposed martial law in 1972. While the founders of the present CPP broke with the PKP in 1967, the underlying programmatic continuity between the rival parties is expressed in the CPPs support for Duterte. This lecture will explore the class logic that led the PKP to support the Marcos dictatorship and justified the CPPs embrace of Duterte.

The event has come under attack from the Stalinist party. On August 18, the founder and ideological leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison, published comments on Facebook threatening and slandering Scalice.

Looking to stem public interest in the lecture, but unable to respond to the historical criticisms, Sison publicly labeled Scalice a pathologically rabid anti-communist and CIA psywar agent posing as an academic Trotskyite. In several other posts he repeated similar accusations.

Sisons unhinged attack on a leading historian is motivated by his desire to cover up the party's role in facilitating the rise to power of Duterte. The CPP and the national democratic organizations tied to its political perspective gave support to Duterte as mayor of Davao City over the course of decades. During this time, in which they campaigned on his party platform, Duterte built an international reputation as the head of death squads that exercised a reign of terror in his city.

When Duterte took office in 2016, the various national democratic organizations enthusiastically supported his presidency. They took up cabinet posts and promoted him in their rallies and speeches. The CPP wrote in their official paper, Ang Bayan, welcoming the president's war on drugs and called on the revolutionary forces to cooperate with it. That war on drugs became a campaign of mass murder that has seen over 30,000 people killed in the past four years by police and paramilitary forces.

In response to Sison, Scalice told the World Socialist Web Site:

I will not be intimidated by the leader of a party whose politics are so bankrupt that he resorts immediately to threats. In this, Sison and the CPP are following the well-worn tradition of Stalinist reaction. The truth is stronger than threats and slander.

It is telling that Sison and his party call me a liar for pointing to their public support for Duterte while adopting the same bullying methods of their political bedmate. I have every right to give this lecture and I intend to do so. In response to the threats against me, I have received an outpouring of support from my colleagues internationally and a burst of interest in the August 26 lecture, which I welcome all readers to attend.

We urge our readers to register and attend the lecture, which will be held via zoom. Registration will close on Sunday night Singapore time so please register as soon as possible.
North Koreas Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has transferred some of his authority younger sister Kim Yo Jong allowing her to manage affairs related to South Korea and the United States, reported Korean media on Thursday, August 20. The information on the distribution of power between the two siblings was reportedly given by South Koreas spy agency, National Intelligence Service to the lawmakers.

Yo Jong has been a constant support of North Korean leader and the recent move is reportedly intended to reduce the workload on Jong Un while denying any serious health issues. After a closed-door meeting with the NIS, lawmaker Ha Tae-kyung from the main opposition United Future Party said in a press briefing that even though the absolute power is still held by Kim Jong Un, some of his authority is being transferred little by little.

Ha Tae-kyung reportedly talked about the high stress levels faced by the North Korean leader while performing his governing role as one of the reasons for the shift in power. While another being that Kim Jong Un can deny the culpability in the event of policy failure.

Even though the first vice director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers Party, Kim Yo Jong has been speculated to be her brothers successor, the South Korean lawmaker noted that the recent development in the neighbouring government does not imply that Kim Yo Jongs selection has been finalised. Because, as per NIS findings quoted by the state media, Yo Jong alone is not the North Korean official who got an upgrade in of powers.

Read - North Korea To Set New Five-year Plan At Congress In January Next Year: Report

Read - North Korea Possesses 60 Nuclear Bombs, Huge Stockpile Of Chemical Weapons: US Army Report

North Korean officials on power shift

Korean media said that Pak Pong Ju, vice chairman of the State Affairs Commission, and the new premier, Kim Tok Hun have been assigned the authority to monitor the foreign economic policies. Meanwhile, the official who currently in charge of military affairs at the ruling party in North Korea, Choe Pu-il along with the vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, Ri Pyong-chol and a senior official in charge of the Norths missile and nuclear weapons development, have collectively been given the power to handle military affairs.

Revealing additional information about North Koreas nuclear programs, NIS has reportedly informed that Norths 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon nuclear complex is currently not in operation.

Read - North Koreans Ordered To Hand Over Pet Dogs To Solve Food Shortage: Report

Read - North Korea To Hold Key Party Meeting Amid Economic Woes
The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!



Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Bellevue, Washington

You will create new gameplay experiences for our AAA fantasy RPG that will set the gold standard for level design. To accomplish this, you will interface with numerous strike teams across all disciplines, creating levels from concept to completion. You will collaborate with combat and encounter teams to establish standards and practices for gameplay, with narrative to ensure theme and IP are consistent and strong, with art to ensure levels look as great as they play, with producers to get level design tasks created, assigned and kept up to date. You will organize level reviews and playtests. We want you to be able to mentor others as we grow the team. This role reports to the Lead Designer.

Hidden Path is an inclusive, collaborative environment. You will be working with animators, designers, engineers, and other disciplines from all walks of life who have a variety of different perspectives. Being able to navigate and thrive in this kind of environment will be key to your success.

You should:

Be self-motivated and proactive

Have great design sense

Be fluent in Unreal 4

Be passionate about gameplay in general and RPGs specifically

Be comfortable scripting in Blueprint

Be knowledgeable about current games and industry trends

Have excellent verbal and written communication skills

Have strongly cultivated soft skills

Nice to have:

Previous experience developing RPG titles

Technical design skills

Environment art skills

Leadership experience

Experience with JIRA, Confluence and Perforce

Benefits:

Robust health insurance options

401(k) with company contribution

Employee profit sharing

Life insurance

Vacation time plus paid holidays

Unlimited sick leave

Paid Parental Leave

COVID-19 Statement: We are following protocols established by the CDC and Public Health  Seattle & King County with respect to COVID-19. We have made our workplace available to up to 25% of employees who request access in advance but are not requiring anyone to come to the studio. We are supporting employees working from home to the best of our ability.

Interested? Apply now.

About the Gamasutra Job Board

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Gamasutra's Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.



Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.
The Houston economy sustained a setback last month, shedding jobs for the first time since April as the region struggled to contain COVID-19 and businesses were forced to walk back efforts to re-open.

Houston employers cut 2,700 jobs in July, and the regions unemployment rate, 9.4 percent, remains painfully high  more than double the 4.1 percent a year ago.

In July, COVID-19 cases spiked around the state and Houston became a hot spot of the outbreak. Texas set record after record for reported coronavirus deaths, and Gov. Greg Abbott closed bars again and reduced restaurant capacity. Abbott also allowed local officials to limit large group gatherings and implemented a state mandate for face coverings  after resisting such measures at the beginning of the outbreak.

Business owners and customers also responded to the virus. Houstons largest and most influential business association, the Greater Houston Partnership, encouraged its members to send workers back home to work remotely if possible at the end of June. And local business owners said revenues, which had been recovering, fell in early July as customers opted to stay home when COVID-19 hospitalizations began to surge.

Andy Sommer, who owns a womens clothing, jewelry and home decor store in the Heights with his wife, Morgan, said that their business noticed a drop in sales in late June and early July. They thought their business would climb out of the red in June  maybe even beat the sales from the previous years  but then, customers dwindled.

In the beginning of June, we were on a trajectory of good news, Sommer said, Then near the end of the month, things started to go downhill.

Economists said the halt in job gains confirm what experts have said since March: The only way to save the economy is to stop the spread of COVID-19.

We dont want to throw away earlier advances in (containing) the virus for modest economic gains, said Jesse Thompson, a Houston economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Controlling the virus is the key to a robust economic recovery. Period.

Texas economic recovery stalls

Across the state, too, the job recovery showed signs of stalling. The Texas economy lost 12,300 private sector jobs over the month. Gains in government employment easily offset private sector declines, adding 43,700 jobs. Overall, Texas employers added 31,400 jobs last month.

The state, however, has lost a net of almost 540,000 jobs in 2020.

The state unemployment rate fell to 8 percent in July from 8.4 percent. and remains below the national rate of 10.2 percent.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas applies for $300 per week to unemployed, as jobless claims rise for first time in 6 weeks

The next challenge for the states economic and health recovery, experts said, is re-opening schools. If going back to the classroom causes COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations to jump again, further restrictions might be necessary.

Customers may stop shopping, traveling and going out to eat, and businesses may limit their re-opening efforts further, as many did in July when cases spiked. It also may affect productivity, said Patrick Jankowski, an economist at the Greater Houston Partnership, a business-financed economic development group.

You can see a scenario where a child can get the parent sick, or the parent has to spend time taking care of the child, Jankowski said. And then, the parent isnt able to focus on work.

Job losses accelerate

Year-over-year job losses accelerated in some of Houston sectors hardest hit by the pandemic  accommodations and food services, manufacturing and retail.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Fragile economic recovery at risk as millions go without enhanced benefits

Accommodation and food services  hotels, bars and restaurants  lost 47,500 jobs last month compared to the same month last year. In June, the year-over-year losses were 43,500.

Houston retailers cut 10,300 jobs in July compared to last year.

For Sommers small retail business, called Forth and Nomad, transitioning to e-commerce during the crisis was a saving grace.

It was a necessity at the time, so we just went for it, Sommer said of launching the online store in March. Sommer estimates that about 25 percent of his sales come from online store.

Still, changing the business model has not been able to stave off the tough time. inevitable financial hardship of COVID-19, and hes worried about what a sustained crisis will mean for Houstons small business scene. Sales in June were strong  up 20 percent compared to last year  but in July as COVID cases started to rise sales began to drop, sales fell, down 25 percent from 2019.

A lot of us small business owners would appreciate another round of government help depending on how long this is going to go, Sommer said. The last thing you want to see is another business shutdown, even if its competition. Its going to affect the fabric of Houston.

Houstons double whammy

The COVID-19 crisis  combined with an oil price bust  has destroyed nearly 226,000 jobs in Houston since the beginning of 2020. Thats almost four times the number of jobs the economy gained in 2019.

Losses in oil and gas extraction jobs have slowed in recent months as oil prices have recovered from a crash below zero in April, but the industry still had almost 5,000 fewer jobs in July than a year earlier. It typically takes the Houston energy sector a year after oil prices reach bottom for job losses to bottom out, said Thompson, the Dallas Fed economist.

That means Houstons oil and gas industry will likely see a slow bleed in employment until next year, Thompson said, but most of the pain is done.

Other sectors that rely on Houstons oil and gas industry, such as manufacturing, one of Houstons largest sectors by employment, will continue to be affected by the oil downturn and the uncertainty surrounding the election, which could cause businesses to hold back capital spending until it is resolved, experts said.

But it will come down to the virus, experts said, and whether the slowdown in new cases since the July spike continues.

We have a long way to go (in containing the virus), Thompson said. But, he added, So long as COVID-19 continues a trajectory of improvement, theres a light at the end of the tunnel.

erin.douglas@chron.com

Twitter.com/erinmdouglas23

becca.carballo@chron.com

Twitter.com/becca_carballo
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday recorded the statement of actor Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Priyanka, officials said.

According to sources, Singh was asked about the missing funds from Sushants bank accounts.

Priyanka is a nominee in Rajputs bank account, said officials.

The ED had on Monday recorded the statement of Rajputs father KK Singh in connection with a case related to the death of the actor, sources said.

The agency had on July 31 registered a case after a First Information Report (FIR) was filed by Singh against actor Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar on July 28.

On August 19, while holding that the FIR registered in Patna over the death of the actor was legitimate, the Supreme Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the case.

The single-judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy also said the Bihar government was competent to recommend transferring the case to the CBI.

The apex court also asked the Mumbai Police to hand over all the evidence collected so far in the case to the CBI. The Maharashtra government refused the option to challenge the order, Justice Roy said.

The CBI has registered an FIR against Chakraborty and others in connection with the actors death after the Centre accepted Bihar governments recommendation.

An FIR was registered in Patna on a complaint filed by Rajputs father, under sections related to abetment to suicide. Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence on June 14.
MILFORD  As Valley Tool and Manufacturing plans to construct a new factory on Shelland Street at the corner of Plains Road, the company has promised to be a good neighbor and direct employees and delivery trucks not to use Plains Road.

Residential neighbors on Plains Road and adjacent roads told the Planning and Zoning Board at its public hearing this week that they are concerned with the volume and speed of trucks and cars on their street. People from five households discussed their traffic concerns during the public hearing.

Valley Tool plans to consolidate two facilities: one in Orange and the other in Milford in a new building at 132 Shelland St., following unanimous PZB approval of a site plan and special permit. At the boards July 20 meeting, Valley Tool representatives presented the plans, but when the meeting ran past 11 p.m., the board held open the public hearing to give residents an opportunity to comment. The boards Aug. 4 meeting was canceled due to Tropical Storm Isaias.

Valley Tool and Manufacturing currently operates in two leased properties: a 60,000-square-foot building at 501 Bic Drive, Building 2, and a 40,000-square-foot building at 22 Prindle Hill Road, Orange. The new 101,000-square-foot building will be located on vacant land at the corner of Shelland Street and Plains Road in the Housatonic Design District and Limited Industrial zones.

In a letter to the board, Howard D. Turner, president of Valley Tool described his companys current situation. Both facilities are rented and unfortunately neither has the capacity for an efficient combination under one roof. Turner indicated there are plans for further expansion in the near future.

Turner wrote that the company serves different markets, including rotary and fixed wing aircraft, the nuclear industry, the submarine industry, and the medical field. He noted that there are 80 people working in Orange and 60 people in Milford. He expects the new combined facility would have an additional 30 to 50 new positions, which would also see operations expand from one shift to two.

The project would be located on a 7.33-acre property comprised of 5.80 acres land currently owned by DAmato Brothers Builders LLC and 1.53 acres of land owned by Jordan Realty LLC. The combined parcel borders two homes along Tranquility Way, and the plans call for additional landscaping along that border to supplement the existing trees.

Phase I of the plans calls for the construction of a 61,114-square-foot building, plus a 2,973-square-foot mezzanine with access from Shelland Street. There will be 80 parking spaces and a rainwater detention basin by Shelland Street that would also filter solids from rainwater. Phase II involves construction of a 40,000-square-foot building with two parking lots, one with 61 spaces and the other with 21 spaces.

At the July 20 meeting, Stephen R. Ulman, senior project engineer for Alfred Benesch & Co. of Glastonbury, presented a traffic study for the project. Ulman noted that the primary driveway would be from Shelland Street, while the secondary driveway from Plains Road would be controlled by an electric access gate to the 61-space employee parking lot.

All truck traffic will be directed to access the site via Bic Drive to Shelland Street, wrote Ulman in a letter to City Planner David B. Sulkis.

Based on the size of the facility and its use for manufacturing, Ulman expects there would be 489 daily trips with 65 in the morning peak traffic period of 7 to 9 a.m. and 70 trips during the peak afternoon hours of 4 to 6 p.m.

In summarizing the plans at the boards Aug. 18 meeting, Attorney Thomas Lynch said the Plains Road parking lot is intended only for employees, who will access the gated lot using a key card. He said the gate would prevent kids on the weekends doing all sorts of things you all did maybe when you were a kid. Lynch said this lot will have a sign directing employees to turn left onto Plains Road, and then left again onto Shelland Street leading to Bic Drive and I-95.

I know all the neighbors are tired of seeing trucks going up and down, said Lynch.

Landscape Architect Jeffrey Gordon Gordon said the applicant has gone above and beyond in acquiring the Shelland Street propertyat great expense to directly and indirectly get the traffic onto Shelland Street. He said the original plan only involved Plains Road, which would have sent all the traffic onto that street.

Gordon said plans call for measures to reduce the effect on neighbors. Gordon said the Shelland Street property is lower than Tranquility Way by 50 feet, and the design calls for cutting a shelf on the property to lower most of the building to keep it well screened from the residential area. This also includes adding additional landscaping to the trees that are already there.

Residents react

Cynthia Nezames of Harvest Lane asked why the project could not have all traffic exit onto Shelland Street. Nezames said there is already a large amount of traffic coming onto a 25 mph road, commenting, We already have traffic from Tribus [Brewing]. She said when people coming from I-95 south use a GPS, it directs them to Plains Road.

Robin Moran of Plains Road said she wanted the board to make a condition of approval that left turns be required from the parking lot on Plains Road, and that the city enforce this rule.

The project is beautiful. It will help Shelland Street, said Moran.

William Doyle of Plains Road said he wants to see the city enforce the limit of trucks of no more than 8,000 pounds on Plains Road. Doyle said this limit is regularly ignored, saying, one of the biggest abusers is the city of Milford with large dump trucks. He said truck engines make a big noise as they climb the hill on Plains Road. He said 40 to 50 large trucks a day use this road. He said with the employee parking lot, there would be another 60 to 70 vehicles per day entering.

This is a residential road. They have turned it into an industrial road, said Doyle.

In response to neighbors questions and concerns, Lynch said, all deliveries will take place via Shelland Street. He said there would be no noise or emissions coming from the building. He said by having all traffic come from Shelland Street, if there is any backup at the gate, the traffic would be on Plains Road toward the Housatonic River.

In his project review, City Planner David B. Sulkis said a 12-foot wide driveway would connect the two parking lots, but he recommended that the driveway be widened to 24 feet in width to allow two-way traffic. Sulkis said the wider driveway would not affect the landscaping buffer adjacent to Tranquility Way.

Lynch said this 12-foot access way was intended for emergency access to the rear of the property. He said having a two-lane road would compromise storm water drainage and would be difficult with the retaining wall in the area. He said employees would be instructed not to turn right onto Plains Road.

In response to questions about how the project would affect people on Tranquility Way, Gordon said there is a significant stand of 50 to 60 feet tall trees near Plains Road, and there would be a stand of arborvitae near Tranquility Way. He said the top of the factorys roofline would almost be as high as Tranquility Way, but would be located 60 feet away with layers of vegetation in between.

Architect Phil Clark said the construction entrance would have signs and there would be a gate on Plains Road. Clark estimated 90 percent of construction traffic would come off Shelland Street. He said phase one of construction would take 10 months.

As part of the approval, the board included the condition that during construction, all construction trucks would have to use Shelland Street, while light vehicles and emergency vehicles would be permitted to use Plains Road.

Board member Robert Satti commented that the board listened to the neighbors concerns, adding, unfortunately in a light industrial district, it is not our jurisdiction if Milford city ordinances are not being enforced.

After the approval, Turner said that Valley Tool employs 140 skilled and very intelligent people, many of whom are residents of Orange and Milford.

We are very pleased to return home. We will do our utmost to be a good neighbor on Plains Road and Tranquility Way, said Turner.
intelligence specialist Colleen Grace was asleep on a remote air base in in 2019 when she was woken up by knocking on the door next to her room, and then a voice she recognised.

The voice belonged to a Navy corpsman she knew. He was upset and speaking loudly to the Army colonel who lived next door.

Grace heard the corpsman say that a sailor who attended a Fourth of July barbecue had just been raped by a member of the Navy SEAL platoon on the base.

The corpsman asked the colonel what to do because the victim was afraid that if she reported the incident, retribution would follow.

And that's real, Grace heard Hospitalman First Class Gustavo Llerenes tell Col Thomas Collins, a physician's assistant with the Florida National Guard.

It's a good ol' boy's network.

She said she heard Collins urge Llerenes to keep his voice down, saying the walls between the rooms were thin.

Grace, who could no longer hear the conversation between medical professionals, looked down at her phone to check the time. Just then Grace noticed a missed text from a friend asking her to come over.

Urgent, the message read.

When Grace got to her friend's room around 1:50 am, she found the sailor curled up in her bed. A giant black bruise marred her jawline. Several other marks lined her neck.

It was then that Grace realised the overheard conversation about a rape was about her friend.

Grace said her friend told her the sex started out consensual in the SEAL's room but then he started biting and choking her. Her friend told her that at one point she thought what is he going to do with my body when he kills me? because she said he was strangling her so hard she couldn't breathe.

Grace gingerly asked her if it would be OK to photograph her injuries.

She said she lifted her friend's shirt to find more bruises on her breast, a shoulder, her stomach.

Grace sent the photos to her friend's phone, and then hugged her and cried, unsure of what would happen next.

But she and her friend would not stay silent.

Within weeks, the entire Foxtrot platoon of SEAL Team 7, known as Trident 1726, was sent home early to San Diego. It was an extremely rare move to cut short the mission of a unit that was there to combat remnants of ISIS.

Navy officials have given few details other than to say there was an alleged sexual assault and drinking at a Fourth of July barbecue in in 2019 in violation of Navy rules barring deployed troops from consuming alcohol.

The story of the platoon being pulled from has been previously reported, but documents obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with nearly a dozen people give the first in-depth view into what led to the rare recall.

The documents and interviews show that women deployed with the SEALs say they were ogled and sexually harassed during the deployment.

Records obtained by the AP from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service also reveal a previously unknown reported allegation of sexual misconduct against the SEAL platoon chief, Special Warfare Operator Chief Nicholas Olson, two days before the Fourth of July barbecue. Olson denies any wrongdoing.

The platoon was withdrawn after the Navy made an unusually public push to strengthen order and discipline in its secretive elite force amid a series of scandals involving SEALs.

The misconduct has included cocaine use and tampering of drug tests by members of SEAL Team 10 based in Virginia, and last year's conviction of Navy SEAL Adam Matthews, who was sentenced to one year in military prison for his role in the 2017 hazing-related death of an Army Green Beret in Africa.

The Navy fired three SEAL leaders in the aftermath of the alleged rape on the Iraq air base and charged an enlisted SEAL with sexual assault, aggravated assault via strangulation and assault by battery for allegedly biting the victim on the face, among other counts, according to his charge sheet.

He faces a court-martial in November. A hearing in the case will be held Friday at Naval Base San Diego.

Jeremiah Sullivan, the lawyer for the SEAL, said he is innocent and we look forward to trying his case in a court of law."



The SEAL, who was charged December 30, filed a counter claim in February against the sailor alleging she sexually assaulted him, taking advantage of him when he was incapacitated."



AP is not naming the SEAL despite his criminal charges nor the sailor because they both say they were victims of sexual abuse and AP has a policy of not identifying victims unless they choose to be.

Grace is the first service member to come forward to talk about what happened at Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq.

She spoke to the AP in an exclusive interview, detailing what she witnessed that night, describing what she said were attempts by Olson, the platoon chief, to stop the alleged sexual assault from being reported, and revealing other misconduct towards another female sailor working with the SEAL platoon during the 2019 deployment to Anbar Province.

(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.)
Last week, Channel 10 announced at least 25 job cuts in response to the COVID-19 recession.

And now radio network Southern Cross Austereo is the latest media company to axe staff in order to stay afloat.

On Friday, Radio Today confirmed that 19 regional breakfast programs from the Hit Network were being shut down, leaving many communities without a local brekky team.

Restructure: Southern Cross Austereo is the latest media company to axe staff in order to stay afloat. Nineteen local breakfast programs from the Hit Network are being shut down and replaced by larger regional programs, such as Hit101.3 Central Coast's Gawndy & Ash Pollard

Changes: The Gawndy & Ash Pollard breakfast show from Hit101.3 Central Coast will now be heard across most regional stations in New South Wales. Pictured: Ash Pollard

According to the publication, the changes are set to begin from Monday, August 24, and were the result of a cost-cutting restructure.

The affected breakfast shows will be replaced by syndicated broadcasts from larger regional stations.

The Gawndy & Ash Pollard breakfast show from Hit101.3 Central Coast will now be heard across most regional stations in New South Wales.

Statewide voices: In Victoria, the Tim & Jess breakfast show hosted by Tim Bolch and Jess Pantou (pictured) from Hit104.9 in Albury will air across all regional stations in the state

In Victoria, Hit104.9 Albury's Tim & Jess breakfast show, hosted by Tim Bolch and Jess Pantou, will air across all regional stations in the state.

Regional Queensland stations will now play the Cliffo & Gabi breakfast show, hosted by Guy Clifton and Gabi Elgood from Hit103.1 Townsville.

In South Australia, the SAFM Adelaide breakfast show, Bec, Cosi & Lehmo, hosted by Rebecca Morse, Andrew Costello and Anthony Lehmann, will play regionally.

New faces: In South Australia, the SAFM Adelaide breakfast show, Bec, Cosi & Lehmo, hosted by Rebecca Morse, Andrew Costello and Anthony Lehmann, will play regionally

Western Australia has already adopted a statewide broadcast and will continue to air the Allan & Michelle breakfast show with Allan Aldsworth and Michelle Anderson.

The impacted radio hosts are reportedly being redeployed where possible, but some will be leaving the network.

It is yet to be confirmed how many employees are set to leave the business.

Confirmed: SCA's content boss David Cameron (pictured) has said that the radio network has had to 'adapt' as a result of the pandemic

SCA's content boss David Cameron said that the radio network has had to 'adapt' as a result of the pandemic.

'SCA has adapted to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 environment and will deliver a different programming model across our Hit regional network,' he said.

'The changes will mean that unfortunately a number of our local breakfast shows will be impacted, and we would like to thank our dedicated and talented people who are affected today by this new approach.'

Hit hard: The news comes after at least 25 jobs were axed at Channel 10, with further departures to be announced in the coming weeks. The changes are expected to be effective from September 14. Studio 10 has been hit the worst, with outspoken panellist Kerri-Anne Kennerley (second from left) and journalist Natarsha Belling (left) being made redundant

The news comes after at least 25 jobs were axed at Channel 10, with further departures to be announced in the coming weeks. The changes are expected to be effective from September 14.

Morning show Studio 10 has been hit the worst, with outspoken panellist Kerri-Anne Kennerley and journalist Natarsha Belling being made redundant.

Other high profile presenters to be axed from the network include weather reporters Tim Bailey and Mike Larkan.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 04:57:27|Editor: huaxia

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BRUSSELS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has affirmed that the bloc will work to preserve the Iran nuclear deal after the United States sought to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

He made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, the EU's external action service (EEAS) said in a press release on Friday.

Talking to Lavrov, Borrell reaffirmed his determination to continue to work with Russia, the other remaining participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) and the international community to preserve the agreement.

The EU's external action service announced on Friday that a meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPoA will take place in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 1, attended by delegates of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran.

Early on Thursday, the U.S. sent a letter to the UN Security Council requesting to initiate the "snapback" mechanism, which allows a participant to the JCPoA to seek the reimposition against Iran of the multilateral sanctions lifted in 2015 in accordance with resolution 2231, adopted by the UN Security Council.

Borrell claimed in a statement on Thursday night that the U.S. had lost ground to trigger the "snapback" mechanism as it withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

"As coordinator of the JCPOA Joint Commission I will continue to do everything possible to ensure the preservation and full implementation of the JCPoA by all," said Borrell, underlining that the JCPoA remains a key pillar of the global non-proliferation architecture, contributing to regional security.

The JCPoA was inked by Iran in July 2015 with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, together with the EU.

The U.S., under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the JCPoA on May 8, 2018, and unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Tehran, despite objections from the international community. Enditem




By Park Ji-won







The spread of COVID-19 in Korea couldn't stop Christoph Poppen, a German conductor and violinist, from coming to Korea to orchestrate Lotte's new summer classical festival. He spent two weeks in a government-designated quarantine room alone  a current requirement for any short-term visitors entering Korea  just so that he could participate in the Classic Revolution 2020 Seoul, which will present seven concerts at Lotte Concert Hall through Aug. 30. He is participating in the program as artistic director, conductor and violinist.







"There have been moments when we had to consider whether to cancel the whole festival But I made a decision to come to Korea because I believed that this is so important," Poppen said during an unofficial press conference at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, Thursday.







It took about one year for him to design the first of such festivals encompassing a series of renowned classical orchestras and musicians to represent Seoul and the summer. This year, the program is designed to better show the versatile output of Beethoven to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth. That's one of the reasons why he introduced the compositions of Beethoven's early and late pieces ranging from symphonies, sonatas and chamber music in the program.







While it has been difficult for classical concerts to be held in European countries due to the pandemic, Korea has been considered one of the safest places to perform. However, because of the recent sharp rise of infections in Seoul connected to a local church, the festival has to cancel six concerts out of 13.







The performance of Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" is one of the cancelled shows. Poppen pointed out that the symphony best presents the belief of Beethoven that everything has both dark and bright sides as it shows in the combination of minor and major codes and the brightness can help us overcome difficulties. "It is a symbol of how music can overcome all sadness and desperation and light is always stronger than darkness."







He also pointed out that the humorous side of Beethoven's compositions can be applied to difficult situations like COVID-19.







"He had a lot of humor which is sometimes forgotten During his very dark times, he developed these very light and happy compositions. I think this is his philosophical point of view. You step back and just look at things from outside."







"Like COVID-19 It is now all over the world. There are so many horrible things happening every day. But the beauty of the sun, cosmos, nature and human nature is in general untouched. I think this is the way Beethoven looks What happened to us was we can say it is a little tragedy but funny and strange."







Poppen has experience working with Korean classical musicians. He has been working with Korean orchestras and teaching various Korean musicians in Germany; violinist Clara Jumi Kang and the Novus Quartet were his students. He was the lead judge for the Isang Yun Competition in 2011 and he has conducted Korean orchestras such as the Daejeon Philharmonic.







Poppen, who is also a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, praised Korean musicians for "working very hard" and being "passionate" about classical music.







"To be a good musician, you have to listen to the higher level of music, the spiritual message of the composer. Therefore you need certain sensibility which many young European artists do not have. My feeling is the Korean young generation is able to close their eyes and listen to what the music wants to say."







Despite some cancellations, renowned Korean orchestras and musicians are ready to play the legendary musician's compositions. Sengnam Philharmonic Orchestra has already held a concert with conductor Gum Nan-se and pianist Kim Ki-kyung playing Beethoven Symphony No. 2; and chamber musicians such as the Esme Quartet and Trio Gaon will present chamber music Aug. 23. Camerata Antiqua Seoul will play Symphony No. 4 with conductor Jee Joong-bae and pianist Park Jong-hwa, n Aug. 24; while Seoul Tutti Chamber Orchestra will play symphony No. 8 with Poppen conducting and Ko So-hyun on violin, Aug 30. Cho Eun-hwa's "Tantot Libre, Tantot Recherche," a cello concerto, will be played for the first time with the Seoul Tutti Chamber Orchestra.





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We are witnessing the great Indian Festive season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We all know what kind of a washout the first half of 2020 ha been when it comes to businesses and even personal lives being completely disrupted.

In normal circumstances, brands look at the festive season as an opportunity to gain maximum ROI, leveraging the consumer sentiments during this time. However, the unprecedented conditions have dampened the economy so far. While some are sceptical about businesses picking up during the rest of the year, we are seeing a general mood of optimism.

The festivals of Onam and Ganesh Mahotsav commence from Saturday, August 22, 2020. Given the strict Government directives on maintaining social distancing, the huge crowds of shoppers that usually throng the markets during this time might be a lot less this year. Already, the Maharashtra Government has placed restrictions on Ganesh puja pandals.

Amid such a scenario, Adgully has reached out to marketers and publishers across India to gauge the sentiments during the festive season this year as part of our special series on Festive Mood. Over the next few weeks, we will be bringing the views and insights from various markets on how marketers and publishers are endeavouring to trigger a revival and give a boost to festive sentiments.

Continuing with the series, Laeeq Ali, Co-founder, Bloombox Brand Engineers & Origami Creative and President, The Advertising Club Bangalore, breaks down the consumer sentiments this year. While Ali sees challenge for festive sales, he also stresses on Relevance and Purpose as key brand strategies during these circumstances.

How do you see the consumer sentiments in the South markets this year? What kind of rebound do you see in these markets during the festive season? What factors will drive this growth? How much do you see festive sales getting impacted due to COVID-19 this year?

While I am really hoping for the best, right now it seems gloomy. With the COVID-19 positive numbers still going up and people losing their jobs, the middle class are largely trading down on their discretionary spends. People are more concerned about their safety, hygiene and wellness than anything else. So, I am seeing a challenge for festive sales.

But having said that, consumers are becoming more loyal to brands and trust has become a big aspect. In all this gloom, they also want some cheer and celebration in their lives. The SEC A consumers are looking to trade up and are figuring out new ways to discover new brands too. This means that it is even more important for businesses to define their brand more relevantly than ever and be purpose centric. Relevance and Purpose being the key words. With a big jump in screen time, especially social media, brands need to figure how they can pivot smartly to the digital world and be discovered by consumers. If you are a premium brand, you need to give consumers enough reasons beyond the table-stakes of just quality, price and availability. This is the time to win trust. Remember that in every adversity, there is an opportunity and companies need to look around everything closely and tailor-make their strategies in todays context.

What kind of integrated marketing activities are you planning for the festive season? On which platforms will you be investing your ad spends more and Why? What kind of digital push are you looking at?

There has surely been a change in media consumption  social media and OTT have seen a spike. Brands need to align to the new media mix landscape. We plan to focus on digital mediums with more interactive and engaging story-telling, especially addressing their current concerns. Social media can be leveraged for cause marketing to improve brand relevance. I have also seen an increasing need to go vernacular as well as hyperlocal and be present where the consumer is. Digital discovery through virtual product launches and virtual roadshows is also not just a choice any more.

Do you see retail footfalls increasing during the festive season, given that people are still not venturing out for shopping in a big way? What alternate routes are you looking at to shore up sales  such as e-commerce, online purchases, D2C initiatives?

People are not coming out of their homes. Period. But that said, they do aspire for some cheer and celebrations too. How long can you keep the social animal caged? So, even if they dont come out, you as a brand, need to go to their homes. You need to be discovered. What would you do? The only answer is Digital. So, the key aspects would be  Do a quick audit to check on the relevance of your brand in this new world order, redefine your brand if needed, be present on online platforms, tell interesting and engaging stories, do interactive and virtual product launches, go beyond the product and align your brand to a cause. It is the age of cause marketing. Consumers are looking for causes to align than buying into products.
Facing the unprecedented developments of the COVID-19 outbreak and with many new COVID-19 community infections, the Vietnamese healthcare sector is supporting to accelerate testing capabilities. As of August 10, there were 70 labs in Vietnam allowed to perform confirmatory testing for COVID-19 with the capacity of about 31,000 patient samples a day.

Diagnostics plays an essential role as its results are influencing over 60 per cent of clinical decision-making while accounting for only about 2 per cent of total healthcare spending. Currently, many people are joining the call for health declaration, testing registration, and interested in getting tested to feel secure in order to go to work and school.

Hospitals, district, ward and commune-level health centres, and even the private health sector are actively looking for reliable testing solutions for their staff to preserve the healthcare workforce and complete medical examinations and treatment for the community. Many organisations and agencies are also considering assessing their employees' health status to craft business recovery and economic development plans, among others.

Roche immunology instruments can perform the Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test in approximately 18 minutes, with capacity up to hundreds of tests an hour, depending on the type of analyser.

Every reliable test on the market serves a specific healthcare purpose, which is to help us overcome this pandemic. Roche is working closely with health authorities to promptly deliver high-quality tests to Vietnamese people, said Qadeer Raza, general manager of Roche Diagnostics Vietnam.

To actively join hands with the Vietnamese government to prevent the outbreak, Roche Diagnostics Vietnam donated more than 5,000 tests for Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody and RT-PCR tests to the Ministry of Health. Besides, our employees are working 24/7 to support frontline hospitals in outbreak prevention by ensuring that the diagnostics instruments are installed and operating smoothly during this critical time," Raza noted.

In Vietnam, Roche Diagnostics Vietnam provides two types of tests: RT-PCR molecular diagnostic test and Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test. These two diagnostics methods have been assessed to support COVID-19 management.

RT-PCR test confirms whether the patient is infected with SARS-CoV-2 or not, whereas serological tests for antibodies help determine whether a person has ever been infected, from there determining the infection rate and the communitys status. Let us have a closer look on the tests functions.

Realtime PCR test (RT-PCR)

In 1983, Kary Mullis, PhD, a scientist at Cetus Corporation, conceived PCR as a method to copy DNA and synthesise large amounts of a specific targeted DNA. With this innovation of PCR technology, he and Michael Smith were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry back in 1993 for their contributions to the development of methods within DNA-based chemistry.

In 1991, Roche acquired the rights to PCR from Cetus and invested in refining the science for use in molecular diagnostics to detect diseases. Roche Molecular Diagnostics has not only defined and refined PCR technology, but has remained the clear leader of this technology.

PCR technology has been applied and now developed the test which detects the genetic materials of SARS-CoV-2 in respiratory tract secretions, which helps to confirm the infection. The diagnosis of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 enables patient treatment and quarantine plans as well as avoiding the spreading of infection to other contacts.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test

Antibody testing is considered the next critical step in the fight against COVID-19. The Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test is an in-vitro test that uses serum or plasma taken from human blood samples to detect antibodies that can determine the body's immune response to SARS-CoV-2. This test can be used in epidemiological research to better understand the spread of the disease. It can also be used in conjunction with molecular biology assays to confirm the diagnosis of COVID-19-suspected patients.

Through a blood sample, the test can detect antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, indicating that the person has been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and that the body has produced antibodies against the virus. Roche immunology instruments can perform the Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test in approximately 18 minutes, with capacity up to hundreds of tests an hour, depending on the type of analyser.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test for antibodies helps determine the infection rate and community immune status. High specificity is required for the Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test to determine which patients have truly developed an immune response to COVID-19, while he or she can still be infected with COVID-19. Roches serology test has a specificity greater than 99.8 per cent and sensitivity of 100 per cent.

Roche is a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics focused on advancing science to improve peoples lives. The combined strengths of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics under one roof have made Roche the leader in personalised healthcare  a strategy that aims to fit the right treatment to each patient in the best way possible.
Ho Chi Minh City is looking to spend VND404 billion (US$17.5 million) expanding a bridge in Go Vap District plagued by traffic congestion.

Hang Ngoai Bridge crosses over a railroad, connecting Nguyen Thai Son Street to Pham Van Dong Boulevard in Go Vap District.

The small bridge, measuring just ten meters in total width, has been dogged by traffic hold-ups due to its limited size and huge traffic volume.

A project to upgrade and expand the bridge with a total expenditure of VND404 billion is expected to kick off in September, according to the Management Board for Ho Chi Minh City Traffic Construction Investment Projects.

The expanded bridge will have a total length of 650 meters and a width of 22.5 meters.

The development cost also includes expenditures on building a drainage system, installing street lights, and growing ornamental plants.

Construction is expected to take 11 months, divided into three phases.

In the first phase, a temporary metal bridge will be erected for citizens to use while the current bridge is closed for works. Construction of the bridges first branch will begin in the second phase.

The third phase will see the first branch opening to traffic and the temporary metal structure dismantled for the building of the second branch.

Appropriate measures will be implemented to ensure the safety of both vehicles on the bridge and trains that travel underneath the construction site, a leader of the Road Projects Management Board 3 said.

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Caren Pistorius can only describe her experience on Unhinged as wonderful but surreal. The actor was working at a fabric store in Sydney when she got the call to audition for the road rage thriller starring Russell Crowe.

Within hours, she found herself in New Orleans for a screen test. She ended up staying in the city as she quickly landed the role, and the film began shooting a week later. Although shes appeared in films like Slow West and The Light Between Oceans, Unhinged marks her first feature film leading role.

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And now theres another twist for Pistorius. Her movie is one of the first to make its way back into American theaters as they begin to open across the country this week (it opened in Germany July 16.) In the film, directed by Derrick Borte, Pistorius single mother Rachel finds herself and her son terrorized by Crowes mentally unstable Tom after she honks at him and refuses to apologize.

Currently, Pistorius is far away from such a fraught world, back home in New Zealand, where her family emigrated from South Africa when she was 12. Im in a safe place in the middle of nowhere surrounded by ocean, trees, mountains, cows, dogs and nature, she reveals. So Im very lucky.

How does it feel to be one of the first movies back in American theaters since the pandemic? Or do you even think about that?

I probably wouldnt have, if I hadnt been told that by so many people. (Laughs) Id probably forget and move on. But so much of this is new, even if you took the pandemic out of the situation  its a new experience being involved in a studio film, playing one of the leads. Add the world were in on top of all that and its very surreal. Its sometimes hard to find the relevance in what youre doing, but I think films and the movie theater to me have always been such an important place. To experience something like that with a collective group is a really special thing. I hope people can enjoy it.

Story continues

This movie is a case of road rage gone horribly awry; in many ways, it feels all too believable.

Thats kind of what interested me in the part. There is an element of reality in it. The film takes it to a whole other level and a place hopefully nobody ever has to experience, but its fascinating that so many of us have experienced something like this.

How did the role come to you; was it a traditional audition?

Very normal! I was in Sydney at the time and filmed the audition in my bedroom and sent it off. I almost didnt send it off because I was so embarrassed!

Why were you embarrassed?

I had to mime driving and I thought I did such a terrible job; I felt I wasnt very natural and was having all sorts of neurotic thoughts, which is typical for me. But I sent it in and then I went off to my day job  I had a part time job in a fabric store. The following day, Id missed a bunch of calls from my agent so she popped into the store saying, They want you fly into New Orleans tomorrow to read with Russell! And a week after that we started shooting. It was an incredibly fast turnaround.

So you read with Russell before you got the part?

Exactly. I flew in right after I heard they wanted me to go. It was a 30-hour journey, I had no sleep and I had new sides coming through. I landed in New Orleans, I think I had an hour nap. And when my driver picked me up at one point I said, Can you just keep driving, I dont know if I can do this! He just kept driving until I kind of gathered myself. I knew I could only run so far. So I went up and Derrick and Russell were in the room and it was all very nice. Russell and I chatted about New Zealand and did some scenes. I walked away and thought, Well, Im going home tomorrow.

How did you find out you got the part?

Its funny. I went out that night, the driver showed me around. I met one of his friends and said, Im not getting this part. She said, You know what? Just ask the town. Trust me, she has a funny way of delivering. I kind of laughed at that but that night I thought, what have I got to lose? I didnt want to be rude, Im in the south and manners are really important. So I said, Maam, will you have me? I thought it was ridiculous and drifted off to sleep. And the next morning I woke up to a call from Derrick and got the news.

Crowes character is so terrifying, was it every intense on set?

Thats the magic of editing. We hardly really even had scenes together! A lot of the time I was on my own or with Gabriel Bateman, who played my son. Even in the scenes where were on the phone, we were having reception problems so a lot of the times the script supervisor would read the lines to me. And he was a sweetheart and Im supposed to pretend to be scared of him! The magic of moviemaking.

What did end up being the biggest challenge?

I think being stuck in a car for 90% of filming with no air conditioning. It sounds so boring and trivial, but it was the shoulder of the hurricane season and would get incredibly hot. The AC was broken in some cars or for sound reasons we couldnt have it running. The thermometer in the car read 140 sometimes. They wanted me to be sweating but it was so hot in the car that at the end, they were actually trying to stop me from sweating.

After filming, did you ever go back to your job at the fabric store?

No I didnt, but I would! I really loved the job. And when I was in New Zealand before that, I worked in another fabric store and loved it. I enjoy being around people and not sure how much longer Ill be able to do that. I was also working at a pottery studio as well. I hope I can keep dabbling in between jobs.

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MINNEAPOLIS - The city of Minneapolis plans to spend $4.8 million to temporarily rent an office building and adapt it to replace the police precinct headquarters burned during unrest that followed the death of George Floyd.

A City Council committee on Thursday approved spending $3.6 million to sublease the building for three years and $1.2 million to renovate it. The building is about a half-mile (0.8 kilometres) from the 3rd Precinct headquarters that burned May 28 after officers were ordered to evacuate.

Officers and staff have been working remotely and at the Minneapolis Convention Center since then.

City Council member Cam Gordon said that renting temporary space will give city leaders time to figure out what to do with the old headquarters, Minnesota Public Radio News reported.

One of the things I think this lease will give us is some space and some breathing room in terms of what well do with the 3rd Precinct building itself, and thats been a topic of great discussion, Gordon said.

The lease agreement comes as city leaders continue to debate the future of the Minneapolis Police Department in the wake of protests that erupted into chaos following Floyds death. Floyd, a handcuffed Black man, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyds neck for nearly eight minutes even as Floyd said he could not breathe.

The full City Council at an Aug. 28 meeting is expected to consider the agreement for the building thats owned by Lothenbach Properties.
Joe Biden pledged that he will be an "ally of the light" as he officially accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, urging the American voters to unite to overcome a "season of darkness" that President Donald Trump has cloaked the US for "much too long".

IMAGE: Former US Vice President Joe Biden accepts the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination during a speech delivered for the largely virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

On the final day of the four-day virtual Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, Biden, 77, was introduced by a video that went through the former vice president's life, and career, and highlighted his role as a father, husband and political leader.

"It is with great honour and humility that I accept this nomination for president of the United States of America. But while I will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president. I will work as hard for those who didn't support me as I will for those who did," he said.



"Here and now I give you my word. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness," said Biden, who has already scripted history by selecting Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris as the first Black person as the vice presidential nominee of a major party.



Biden's children, Ashley Biden and Hunter Biden, spoke before their father accepted the nomination.



"America's history tells us that it has been in our darkest moments that we've made our greatest progress. That we've found the light. And in this dark moment, I believe we are poised to make great progress again. That we can find the light once more," Biden said.

IMAGE: Joe Biden and his wife Jill celebrate after he accepted the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination during the 4th and final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Photograph: 2020 Democratic National Convention/Reuters

"I have always believed they can define America in one word: Possibilities. That in America, everyone, and I mean everyone, should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them. We can never lose that. In times as challenging as these, I believe there is only one way forward.



"As a united America. United in our pursuit of a more perfect Union. United in our dreams of a better future for us and for our children. United in our determination to make the coming years bright," he said.



Launching a scathing attack on US President Trump, Biden said that the current president has cloaked America in darkness "for much too long".



"Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness," he said.



"It's time for us, for We the People, to come together. For make no mistake. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege," Biden said.

IMAGE: Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, his wife Jill Biden and US Senator and Democratic candidate for Vice President Kamala Harris celebrate after Joe Biden accepted the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination during the fourth and final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Noting that the job of a president is to represent all Americans and not just the base or the party, Biden said: "This is not a partisan moment".



"This must be an American moment. It's a moment that calls for hope and light and love. Hope for our futures, light to see our way forward, and love for one another," he said.



"America isn't just a collection of clashing interests of Red States or Blue States. We're so much bigger than that. We're so much better than that. Nearly a century ago, Franklin Roosevelt pledged a New Deal in a time of massive unemployment, uncertainty, and fear," he added.



Biden said that his campaign was not just about winning votes, but winning "the heart, and the soul of America".

"Winning it for the generous among us, not the selfish. Winning it for the workers who keep this country going, not just the privileged few at the top. Winning it for those communities who have known the injustice of the 'knee on the neck'. For all the young people who have known only an America of rising inequity and shrinking opportunity," he said.



"They deserve to experience America's promise in full. No generation ever knows what history will ask of it. All we can ever know is whether we'll be ready when that moment arrives. And now history has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced. Four historic crises. All at the same time. A perfect storm," he said.



"The worst pandemic in over 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The most compelling call for racial justice since the 60's. And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change. So, the question for us is simple: Are we ready? I believe we are," he said.

IMAGE: People react as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden finishes speaking, at a Democratic National Convention drive-in watch party in Derry, New Hampshire. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Noting that all elections are important, Biden said that this one, however, is more consequential.



"America is at an inflection point. A time of real peril, but of extraordinary possibilities. We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful, and more divided. A path of shadow and suspicion," he said.



"Or we can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light. This is a life-changing election that will determine America's future for a very long time. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be. That's all on the ballot. And the choice could not be clearer. No rhetoric is needed," he said.



Biden said that as president, the first step he will take will be to get control of the coronavirus that has ruined so many lives.The US is the worst-hit nation with over 170,000 people dead and over five million people affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Visit NJ.com/education for the latest list of schools that have announced plans to start the year with all-remote instruction.

More school districts have joined an already large list of New Jersey districts that have announced their intensions to start the new school year with all-remote learning instead of allowing students to return to the classroom, because of fears over the coronavirus.

The plans for all-remote instruction still need approval by the state Department of Education, but as of Friday morning more than 100 school districts across state have told staff, students and parents they are seeking to postpone in-person classes for students when the school year gets underway.

Many school officials have scrambled to change their original plans and hold emergency meetings, after an abrupt policy change by Gov. Phil Murphy last week. The governor said districts that can provide a justifiable reason they cant reopen safely, such as an inability to socially distance or building ventilation issues, may reopen with all-remote instruction, but they must provide a plan to fix those issues and an expected date for a return to in-person classes.

State education officials said this week that 150 reopening plans submitted by the states roughly 580 school districts have been approved, although the district names were not provided.

For schools that do return to in-person classes, state guidelines say if one or two students or teachers are diagnosed with the coronavirus in a New Jersey classroom, everyone he or she came close to at school could be asked to stay home for 14 days. If two people in different classrooms get sick, the entire school could be shut down.

The following districts have announced theyre seeking state approval to start with all-remote classes for the 2020-2021 school year. NJ Advance Media will add to the list as more districts announce their plans. (For the very latest reopening plans, and additional details about your school, please contact your school district.)

Keep up with the latest in N.J. schools coverage. Sign up with your email here:



ATLANTIC COUNTY

Egg Harbor Township (virtual starting Sept. 8; plan to start hybrid schedule Oct. 26)

Pleasantville

BERGEN COUNTY

Bergen County Technical Schools and Special Services (through Oct. 19)

Edgewater (For the month of September; district expects to reevaluate in the middle of September).

Fair Lawn (through Oct. 19)

Garfield (plan submitted to state Department of Education to start all-remote and transition to hybrid)

Hackensack (schools plan to reopen Nov. 2)

North Arlington (through Oct. 16)

Ridgefield (through first marking period)

Teaneck (through first marking period)

BURLINGTON COUNTY

Bordentown (Sept. 3 through at least Oct. 9)

Burlington City (through at least Oct. 13)

Burlington Township (through first marking period)

Chesterfield (schools plan to reopen Oct. 19)

Eastampton (through first marking period)

Lumberton (remote learning Sept. 8 to Sept. 18, hybrid learning starting Sept. 21)

Palmyra

Pemberton Township (through at least Oct. 13)

Rancocas Valley (Sept. 8 through Sept. 25)

Westampton

Willingboro (through Nov. 18)

CAMDEN COUNTY

Audubon (through Nov. 4)

Camden (through Jan. 31)

Collingswood/Oaklyn (through mid-October)

Eastern Regional (return to school Oct. 5 )

Haddon Heights (through Oct. 30)

Winslow Township (through Jan. 1)

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

Bridgeton (through Oct. 13)

Commercial Township (through Oct. 13)

Cumberland County Technical Education Center (plans to move to hybrid model Oct. 13)

Cumberland Regional

Downe Township (through Oct. 13)

Fairfield (through Nov. 2)

Greenwich/Stow Creek (through Oct. 13)

Millville (through Oct. 13)

Upper Deerfield (fully remote through at least Oct. 12)

Vineland (through Oct. 13)

ESSEX COUNTY

Bloomfield (through September)

East Orange (through September)

Irvington

Millburn (first quarter of school year)

Montclair (through September)

Newark (through first marking period)

Nutley (through first marking period)

Orange (remote learning through Nov. 25; hybrid begins Nov. 29)

South Orange-Maplewood (through first marking period)

West Orange

GLOUCESTER COUNTY

Delsea Regional

Deptford (through Sept. 30)

Monroe Township (through at least Nov. 16)

Woodbury

HUDSON COUNTY

Bayonne

Guttenberg

Harrison (through Nov. 13)

Hoboken (all virtual Sept. 14 to Sept. 19, optional in-person after that)

Hudson County Schools of Technology (through Sept. 28)

Jersey City

Kearny

North Bergen (through the end of September)

Union City (for at least the month of September)

West New York

HUNTERDON COUNTY

Flemington-Raritan (through Oct. 30)

MERCER COUNTY

Hamilton (through first marking period)

Lawrence Township (not including pre-K, kindergarten and special-needs students)

Mercer County Special Services

Princeton Charter School

Princeton Township public schools

Trenton

MIDDLESEX COUNTY

Carteret (remote until Oct. 9; plans to begin hybrid learning on Oct. 13)

Cranbury (remote through Oct. 16)

Dunellen (through the Thanksgiving holiday)

Edison (at least until Oct. 16)

Highland Park (until Oct. 5 for some students)

Middlesex Borough

Milltown (remote in September; district to reassess for October)

Monroe Township (district has applied to have remote learning until Nov. 13 and reassess for hybrid learning to start on Nov. 16)

New Brunswick (first two marking periods)

North Brunswick (first marking period)

Old Bridge (until Oct. 12)

Perth Amboy (until at least Nov. 18, the end of first marking period)

Piscataway (until at least Nov. 13)

South Brunswick

South Plainfield

South River (plans for in-person instruction on Oct. 1)

Woodbridge (until at least Oct. 12)

MONMOUTH COUNTY

Asbury Park (first 30 instructional days; return to school Oct. 21)

Freehold Borough (will re-evaluate by Nov. 13)

Freehold Township (first 2 weeks; return to school Sept. 21)

Long Branch

Manalapan-Englishtown (at least the first two weeks of school for some schools)

Neptune Township (will re-evaluate by the end of October)

MORRIS COUNTY

Dover (through first marking period)

Montville (middle and high school students to start remote)

OCEAN COUNTY

Lacey Township (remote to start, on Sept. 8, and then a hybrid model from Sept. 21)

Toms River (through first marking period)

PASSAIC COUNTY

Passaic (through September)

Paterson (through at least Nov. 1)

SOMERSET COUNTY

Bridgewater-Raritan (virtual through Oct. 12)

Franklin Township

Hillsborough (virtual until Sept. 28, with plans to start hybrid option later)

Montgomery (virtual for September, then re-evaluating plans for in-person on Oct. 12)

North Plainfield (virtual at least through the first marking period)

UNION COUNTY

Elizabeth

Hillside (will reassess three weeks before the end of the first marking period)

Linden (will reassess the end of each month)

Plainfield (through at least Nov. 1)

Rahway

Roselle (through first marking period)

Roselle Park

Scotch Plains-Fanwood

Springfield (through Nov. 2)

Union Township (will reassess on Oct. 15 for targeted return date of Nov. 1)

WARREN COUNTY

Phillipsburg (through Oct. 5)

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

NJ Advance Media staff writers Brianna Kudisch and Len Melisurgo contributed to this report. Nestor Sebastian may be reached at nsebastian@njadvancemedia.com. Evan Slavit may be reached at eslavit@njadvancemedia.com. Casey Roland may be reached at croland@njadvancemedia.com.
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Postmates, the only app that enables you to get just about anything delivered, has partnered with White Castle, America's first fast-food hamburger chain and the home of The Original Slider to offer customers on-demand delivery. Starting today through the weekend (August 23), customers will get $5 off, when they spend $20.

"White Castle has been serving its customers for almost 100 years, and we are proud to be a part of their amazing legacy," said Doug Thompson, Director of Merchant Business Development at Postmates.

"We're thrilled to further our mission to create memorable moments by meeting our many Cravers where they're at. This new partnership with Postmates will help us take delivery to the next level," said Steve Foreman, Director of Operations Services, White Castle. "Since 1921, our team has been embracing innovation and creativity to better savor the White Castle experience. That experience just got even better thanks to this new partnership."

Postmates is the leader in offering the most choices in on-demand delivery from more than 600,000 restaurants, grocery and convenience stores, as well as traditional retailers. The company now operates in about 4,200 cities and has added some of the most sought-after local and national restaurants, serving 80 of the top 100 restaurants in the US.

To order from participating White Castle locations, visit Postmates.com or download Postmates on iOS or Android. Customers can pay zero delivery fees when they subscribe to Postmates subscription service, Postmates Unlimited, for $9.99 per month.

To get more information about being a merchant on the Postmates platform, please visit https://postmates.com/partner .

About Postmates

Postmates is a leader in enabling anyone to get nearly anything on-demand. The platform gives customers access to the most selection of merchants in the US with more than 600,000 restaurants and retailers available for delivery and pickup, many of which are exclusive to Postmates. A market leader in Los Angeles and markets across the southwest, Postmates covers 80% of US households, across all 50 states. Customers can get free delivery on all merchants by joining Postmates Unlimited, the industry's first subscription service. Learn more or start a delivery by downloading the app or visiting www.postmates.com .

About White Castle

White Castle, America's first fast-food hamburger chain, has been making hot and tasty sliders as a family-owned business for almost 100 years. Based in Columbus, Ohio, White Castle started serving The Original Slider in 1921. Today White Castle owns and operates more than 360 restaurants dedicated to satisfying customers' cravings morning, noon and night and sells its famous fare in retail stores nationwide. The Original Slider, named in 2014 as Time Magazine's most influential burger of all time, is served alongside a menu of creatively crafted sliders and other mouthwatering food options, including White Castle's Impossible Slider, named by Thrillist in 2019 as the "Best Plant-Based Fast Food Burger." White Castle's commitment to maintaining the highest quality products extends to the company owning and operating its own meat processing plants, bakeries and frozen-food processing plants. White Castle is known for the legendary loyalty of its team members, more than 1 in 4 of whom have worked for White Castle for at least 10 years, and of its faithful fans, affectionately referred to as Cravers, many of whom compete each year for entry into the Cravers Hall of Fame. The official White Castle app, available at iTunes App Store or Google Play, makes it easy for Cravers to access sweet deals and place pickup orders any time. They can also have their orders delivered using one of White Castle's delivery partners. For more information on White Castle, visit whitecastle.com.

SOURCE Postmates

Related Links

http://www.postmates.com


Photo: The Canadian Press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes questions from the media during an announcement on N95 masks at a facility in Brockville, Ont., Friday, Aug. 21, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending his choice to shut down Parliament shortly before unveiling a $37-billion plan to replace a key emergency aid benefit.

Ottawa announced new measures Thursday to support Canadians who have lost income or employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic  or need to stay off work for illness or caregiving  as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit winds down.

That includes benefits that must be introduced in legislation  something that cannot happen until Parliament resumes late next month.

The Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois say it's unacceptable these proposed changes were announced after Trudeau prorogued Parliament, which will require a new speech from the throne.

Speaking in Brockille, Ont., today, Trudeau says his government wanted to take the time to get this plan right and repeated his argument that a new direction by the Liberal minority government needs to be supported by a confidence vote.

Trudeau also says opposition parties will have the opportunity to voice any disagreement with the proposed income-support measures through debate in the House of Commons when MPs return to Ottawa.
Mr. Leske, 52, said that work began to dry up in March and that the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program  an emergency federal program for freelancers and others not eligible for state benefits  had been crucial in keeping him afloat, especially with the $600 weekly federal supplement.

He expects to be out of work through September 2021 as schools hold off on plays and assemblies. But Pandemic Unemployment Assistance expires at the end of this year.

While longer-term federal relief is in unresolved, FEMA has approved Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah for access to three weeks of funds for the $300 supplement. Officials from FEMA and the Labor Department said on a conference call with reporters on Thursday that FEMA had approved $2.4 billion in grants so far and that an additional eight states had applied for funds.

Arizona was the first state to make the so-called lost wages payments, sending $96 million to 320,000 people on Monday and Tuesday. But the timeline for payments will be all over the map, potentially taking several weeks, said John Pallasch, the assistant secretary for employment and training at the Labor Department.

The challenges include reprogramming antiquated state computer systems to handle the new benefit  a factor that caused weeks of delays with the $600 supplement  and dealing with an additional federal agency, FEMA.

We have to build a whole new subset system with new rules and new reporting requirements with a department that were not really familiar with, said Bill McCamley, the secretary of the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. We want to dot all of our is and cross all our ts.

In a call with reporters on Wednesday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York expressed concern about the legality of Mr. Trumps executive action and said that if the states need to reinvent their unemployment insurance administration program, it will be weeks or months before anyone gets a check.
Efforts are on to rescue nine persons trapped in a fire mishap at TS Genco's hydroelectric power station at Srisailam left bank canal in Nagarkurnool district of

The incident is reported to have taken place late on Thursday. Initial reports indicate that a short circuit led to the fire and thick smoke engulfing the spot.

Of the 30 persons reported to be present at the spot during the accident, 21 escaped through a tunnel of which six of them are treated at a nearby hospital. The six injured persons include Deputy Engineer Pawan Kumar, Plant Junior Assistant Ramakrishna, Driver Palankaiah, Krishna Reddy, Venkataiah, and Matra. Those trapped include six TS Genco employees and three private company employees.



At first, the fire took place in the panel board. The sound of the blast in the panel board created a panic situation among those present at the site. Soon, the smoke had spread in six units. Engineering and Operations and maintenance staff rushed out after seeing the smoke emitting at an alarming level.

Firefighters were rushed to the spot and trying to rescue the trapped including a deputy engineer and assistant engineers. Officials said thick smoke is hampering rescue operations.

Minister for Power, Jagadish Reddy and TS Genco CMD Prabhakar Rao reached the spot and are overseeing rescue efforts.

Reddy said that the mishap occurred in the first unit of the power station around 10:30 pm in which four panels were damaged and power supply of the plant was cut off to limit the damage. He said that rescue personnel were unable to enter the tunnel due to thick smoke.

The minister added that help has been sought from the Singareni collieries to support the rescue operations as they might have more expertise in the situation. He also said that top prirority now for them is to rescue the trapped workers. "The firefighters tried to go inside for three times. But the situation was like that they were about to lose consciousness. Luckily, the drivers of the vehicles who took them inside had oxygen masks. So they drove the vehicles outside safely. We are trying to get the help of the Singareni Coal Mines, as they might have expertise in such situations. In fact, such a situation has never arisen in the history of hydroelectric projects, not only here, but anywhere in India. Our first priority is to rescue the trapped ones," he added.

Power generation operations at the power station have been suspended following the incident.

The Srisailam dam is located across the Krishna river which serves as the border between and Andhra Pradesh.



More details of the are awaited.Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was scheduled to visit Srisailam on Friday, cancelled his visit in view of the fire. He expressed shock over the incident and hoped that the trapped people are rescued. Jagan Mohan Reddy assured all support from Andhra Pradesh in the rescue operations.



(With Inputs from ANI and IANS)
Russian doctors have allowed a dissident who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning to be transferred abroad for medical treatment, a senior medic has said.

The reversal came after more than 24 hours of wrangling over Alexei Navalnys condition and treatment.

Mr Navaly was transferred to an ambulance in the early hours of Saturday morning and was being driven to the airport, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter.

Mr Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city Omsk on Thursday.

His supporters believe he was poisoned and that the Kremlin is behind it.

His family and supporters wanted him brought to a top German medical clinic, but his doctors in Omsk at first said he was too unstable to move, even after a plane with German specialists and advanced equipment arrived.

Mr Navalnys supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison would no longer be traceable in his system.

A senior doctor in Omsk said the team did not believe he was poisoned.

The German doctors later examined Mr Navalny and said he was fit to be transported, according to a representative of the charity that has organised the plane to bring him to Berlin.

I understand hes still unconscious, but theyre used to such special assignments and they say very clearly he can fly and they want to fly him, film producer Jaka Bizilj, of Cinema For Peace, told the Associated Press after being in contact with the German doctors.

Expand Close A German special medical plane prepares to land in Omsk (OmskSpottingClub via AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp A German special medical plane prepares to land in Omsk (OmskSpottingClub via AP)

The Russian medical team then relented and deputy chief doctor of the Omsk hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko told reporters on Friday that he would be allowed to leave.

The flight was scheduled for Saturday morning, Russias RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing airport officials.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the resistance to the transfer was political.

He said he was not aware of any instructions to stop the transfer and that it was purely a medical decision.

It may pose a threat to his health, Mr Peskov said.

Mr Navalnys wife told reporters that hospital staff and men she suspected were law enforcement agents did not let her speak to the German specialists, who she said were brought into the facility in secrecy, through a back door.

I was forcibly kicked out in a rude manner, Yulia Navalnaya said, her voice shaking.

Expand Close Alexei Navalnys wife Yulia (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP) / Facebook

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This is an appalling situation. They are not letting us take Alexei. We believe that clearly something is being hidden from us.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Mr Navalny campaigned to challenge Mr Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running.

Since then, he has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of the ruling party, United Russia.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level.

Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

Mr Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing.

His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents and insisted that the transfer is critical to saving the politicians life.

The ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life, Ms Yarmysh had tweeted.

Expand Close Alexander Murakhovsky, the Omsk hospitals chief doctor, speaks to journalists (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Alexander Murakhovsky, the Omsk hospitals chief doctor, speaks to journalists (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP)

Dr Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Mr Navalnys doctor in Moscow, earlier dismissed the idea that it would be dangerous to move the patient.

He told the Associated Press that being on a plane with specialised equipment, including a ventilator and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, can be even safer than staying in a hospital in Omsk.

Ms Yarmysh posted pictures of what she said was a bathroom inside the hospital that showed squalid conditions, including walls with paint peeling off, rusting pipes, and a dirty floor and walls.

While his supporters and family members continue to insist that Mr Navalny was poisoned, Omsk hospital deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko said that doctors do not believe the patient suffered from poisoning.

Omsk news outlet NGS55 published a video statement of the hospitals chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, saying that a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis and that a drop in blood sugar may have caused Mr Navalny to lose consciousness.

But another doctor with ties to Mr Navalny, Dr Anastasia Vasilyeva, who flew to Omsk with the politicians wife on Thursday, said that diagnosing Mr Navalny with a metabolic disorder says nothing about what may have caused it  and it could have been the result of a poisoning.

Dr Ashikhmin, who has been Mr Navalnys doctor since 2013, said the politician has always been in good health, regularly went for medical check-ups and did not have any underlying illnesses that could have triggered his condition.

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Western toxicology experts expressed doubts that a poisoning could have been ruled out so quickly.

It takes a while to rule things out. And particularly if something is highly toxic  it will be there in very low concentrations, and many screening tests would just not pick that substance up, said Alastair Hay, an emeritus professor and toxicology expert from the school of medicine at the University of Leeds.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Mr Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups.

In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Mr Navalny was rushed to hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning.

Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Never give up. Believe he will survive Marina Litvinenko

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent who was killed in London by radioactive poisoning in 2006, says she understands the wishes of Mr Navalnys family to have him transported to Germany to receive care.

Marina Litvinenko told the AP via a video call from Italy that every day, every hour, sometimes every second is important.

She wanted to send a personal message to Mr Navalnys family to know that they have a lot of support in and out of Russia.

And particularly for his wife Yulia, be strong, she said. And never give up. Believe he will survive.
Burma AA Abducts Two Monks, Two Novices From Monasteries in Myanmars Rakhine State: Abbot

Mrauk-U Township / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy

YANGONThe Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group engaged in active fighting with the Myanmar military, has abducted two Buddhist monks and two novices in Mrauk-U Township of Rakhine State in western Myanmar, according to local residents.

The AA abducted U Wunna Thara, the abbot of Myo Oo Kaung Monastery; U Dhamma Piya, the abbot of Shwe Si Wa Monastery; and two novices in Let Kauk Zay Ward in Mrauk-U at midnight on Tuesday for allegedly recruiting for the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), according to U Kay Ya Wuntha, the abbot of La Kyi Taung Monastery in the same ward.

Based along Myanmars borders with Bangladesh and India, the ALP and its armed wing, the Arakan Liberation Army, are an ethnic Rakhine revolutionary group formed in 1967 to fight for equality for the ethnic group. The ALP signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015 and is participating in the peace process.

This is the first time monks have been abducted by the AAand they were abducted from monasteries in urban areas. Laypeople at the monasteries said the monks were abducted by the AA, U Kay Ya Wuntha told The Irrawaddy.

A layperson at Myo Oo Kaung Monastery who witnessed the abduction told The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity that seven people wearing plain clothes blindfolded the monks and took them away, and also searched the room of U Wunna Thara.

The abbots mother and children were [boarding] at the monastery. But no one dared say anything as [the abductors] were holding sticks and knives. They tied the monks up and took them away, the layperson said.

It is not good that monks were taken during Vassa. If they want to interrogate them, they can do so after Vassa is over. It is unacceptable as it is now Vassa, U Kay Ya Wuntha said.

Vassa is a three-month annual retreat observed by Theravada Buddhists. It lasts for three lunar months, usually from July to October. Monks remain in one place, typically a monastery or temple grounds, for the duration of Vassa.

As the government has declared the AA a terrorist organization, The Irrawaddy was not able to contact the armed group for a comment.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

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Joe Biden accuser Tara Reade has told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that Kamala Harris abandoned her principles and her vow to protect sexual assault survivors in order to become the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee.

Reade said: 'I'm disappointed with Kamala with her being the Vice Presidential nominee. It's the height of hypocrisy for her to accept the VP nominee position.

'She's a hypocrite. She saw an opportunity to seize a position of power and she took it, turning a blind eye to sexual assault victims.'

In Harris' Democratic VP nominee acceptance speech on Wednesday night, she declared: 'I've fought for children and survivors of sexual assault.I know a predator when I see one.'

Reade said Harris' remarks 'sickened' her, adding: 'She obviously doesn't know how to spot a predator, she is enabling one by the name of Joe Biden.'

The 56-year-old came forward this March to claim that when she was a Senate aide for Biden in 1993, he pinned her against a wall, reached under her skirt and sexually assaulted her. Biden has vehemently denied her claims.

Reade said because Harris was a prosecutor and California's Attorney General who worked with sexual assault victims, she should know how difficult it is for victims to come forward and speak.

But Reade said Harris' silence on Biden makes her complicit and to add extra pain, 'she's a woman.'

Joe Biden accuser Tara Reade has told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that Kamala Harris abandoned her principles and her vow to protect sexual assault survivors in order to become the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee

In Harris' Democratic VP nominee acceptance speech on Wednesday night, she declared: 'I've fought for children and survivors of sexual assault.I know a predator when I see one.' Reade said Harris' remarks 'sickened' her, adding: 'She obviously doesn't know how to spot a predator, she is enabling one by the name of Joe Biden'

Reade came forward in late March to claim that when she was a senate aide in 1993, Biden pinned her against a wall, reached under her skirt and assaulted her. Biden has vehemently denied her claims, and current and former Biden staffers say they cannot recall such an incident

Reade recounted her story to DailyMail.com, saying she was told to deliver a package to Biden at the Russell Senate building in 1993, where he pinned her against a wall in a hallway and penetrated her with his fingers, against her will, she claims.

'He had his hands underneath my clothes,' Reade said. Then she said Biden asked if she wanted to 'go somewhere else' and allegedly said to her 'I want to f*** you'.

She said when Biden realized she wasn't reciprocating he begged: 'C'mon man, I heard you like me.'

Then Reade said he became angry and said while pointing his finger at her, 'you're nothing to me.'

Reade said she reached out to Harris' office on two occasions regarding her sexual assault in 2018 via a form email on her Senate webpage. Both times she said she heard nothing back from Harris' office.

Reade believes that if her perpetrator was a Republican instead of Democrat, Harris would be one of her biggest supporters, much like she was of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford who accused then Supreme Court Republican Nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school.

Harris praised Ford during the hearing in September 2018, calling her a 'true patriot' and telling her: 'I want to thank you for your courage and I want to tell you I believe you.'

Reade said every time she thinks of Harris believing Ford but not supporting her, it 'disgusts and hurts me.'

'Kamala will speak out on sexual assault if it politically suits her, for Christine it suited her, for me it doesn't.'

Reade recounted her story to DailyMail.com, saying she was told to deliver a package to Biden at the Russell Senate building in 1993, where he pinned her against a wall in a hallway and penetrated her with his fingers, against her will, she claims. Pictured: Reade out with friends in Washington, in 1992 or 1993, during the time she worked for Biden

'He had his hands underneath my clothes,' Reade said. Then she said Biden asked if she wanted to 'go somewhere else' and allegedly said to her 'I want to f**k you'. She said when Biden realized she wasn't reciprocating he begged: 'C'mon man, I heard you like me.' Then Reade said he became angry and said while pointing his finger at her, 'you're nothing to me'. Pictured: Reade around the time she claims she was assaulted by Biden

Reade said she reached out to Harris' office on two occasions regarding her sexual assault in 2018 via a form email on her senate webpage. Both times she said she heard nothing back from Harris' office. Pictured: Reade around the time she claims she was assaulted by Biden

Prior to Reade making her accusation against Biden, a handful of other women had accused Biden of inappropriate touching and kissing.

Harris said in April 2019, when she was still running for President: 'I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it'

But later when Harris was asked specifically about Reade's allegations against Biden, she told the San Francisco Chronicle this April: 'This woman has a right to tell her story, and I believe that, and I believe Joe Biden believes that too.

'I've spent my whole careerfighting to give women a voice, and this brings up, I think, a bigger structural issue, frankly, which is that women must be able to speak without fear of retaliation

'On the issue of Joe, I can only speak to the Joe Biden I know. He's been a life-long fighter in terms of stopping violence against women. He has been the leader, I think really most people would agree, in the United States Senate on VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act.'

Reade scoffed at Harris' response, saying: 'Kamala abandoned me and others all in the name of politics to get into power.'

She added: 'I lost everything, my home, job, career, character, everything, I don't even have a savings or checking account, I paid a heavy price by coming forward. '

After Reade came forward, questions arose of her life story. She had claimed to be a graduate of Antioch College but the college now says she was not.

She made that claim under oath repeatedly during a decade of acting as an exert witness on domestic violence in California courts.

She was met with scrutiny over a winding trail of extreme debt, questionable business practices and former friends who said she was 'deceitful and manipulative'.

Reade said Harris' most ardent online supporters, known as #KHive, ruthlessly harassed her online and set out to smear her name.

Prior to Reade making her accusation against Biden, a handful of other women had accused Biden of inappropriate touching and kissing. Addressing those claims, Harris told reporters in April 2019 when she was still running for President: 'I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it'

Harris praised Ford during the hearing in September 2018, calling her a 'true patriot' and telling her: 'I want to thank you for your courage and I want to tell you I believe you.' Reade said every time she thinks of Harris believing Ford but not supporting her, 'disgusts and hurts me.' Pictured: Dr Christine Blasey Ford (left) and Judge Brett Kavanaugh (right)

She added: 'In public Harris said I had the right to tell my story, but behind the scenes her supporters were making my life a living hell. I've been tarred and feathered and dragged through the mud.'

Reade said if she had the chance to speak with Harris she'd ask why she didn't get in contact with her when she reached out with her accusations against Biden, questioning: 'Before all the press and after I came forward? Why did you allow your campaign trolls and surrogate to harass me and smear my life?'

And Reade would tell Biden: 'Stop running on the platform of character. I know who he is, I was there, and he was there.

'I don't know in his current mental state if he fully remembers sexually assaulting me, I know I do.'

Reade also questions his current mental abilities, saying: 'He seems befuddled at times when I've seen him on TV. Right now Joe seems grandfatherly.'

The lifelong Democrat said she's not going to be voting in the upcoming national election in November, because 'it's a nasty time.'
Yves here. The European Commission is moving forward with Green Deal plans that are concrete enough to elicit serious opposition. Europes version of Big Ag is playing an important role in the sandbagging. That is intriguing since farming and related services are far less concentrated in the EU than in the US, if nothing else due to countries effort to protect their own producers, both for preserving our food culture and employment reasons. Needless to say, the bureaucratic turf wars are intense too.

By Hans Wetzels, a freelance journalist from the Netherlands. He is working on a dossier about the European Green Deal for investigative platform Follow the Money. Originally published at openDemocracy

Walking by the Rue de la Loi 130 in Brussels, you wouldnt necessarily know that one of the most powerful agencies in the EU-machinery resides here. Located right above the subway station of Maalbeek, torn apart by the horrific terrorist attacks of 2016, the main offices of the Directorate-General for Agriculture & Rural Development (in short: DG AGRI) of the European Commission (EC) look grey and inconspicuous.

But looks can be deceiving. Agriculture is an absolutely crucial dossier within the European Union. Up until the 1980s, almost three-quarters of the total budget was spent on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In 2019 the CAP still ate up 36 percent of all EU-money  totaling 59 billion euros. For decades, technocrats hidden in the anonymous offices at the Rue de la Loi could decide how that money was supposed to be spent in every far corner of the EU.

Twin Strategies

The monopoly position of DG AGRI, however, is coming to an end. In December 2019, the then brand new EC president Ursula von der Leyen took office and immediately announced a Green Deal: an all-encompassing roadmap that should transform Europe into the first climate neutral economic bloc by 2050.

According to the Commission, the Green Deal will turn the EU into a world leader in green financing and sustainable innovation, and allow EU diplomats to engage in Green-Deal-diplomacy, while also creating millions of new jobs. To realize this grand vision, a true tidal wave of new legislation, political strategies, reduction goals and financing proposals is planned.

In May 2020, Dutch EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans, responsible for the Green Deal, published two policy strategies aimed at making agriculture more sustainable. The twin strategies have been dubbed the Farm to Fork strategy and the Biodiversity Strategy  and should by 2030 have dammed in pollution, cut pesticide use in half, halted soil erosion and protected insect populations. In order to do that, the Commission plans flower strips alongside fields all over Europe, wants to plant three billion trees, clean up 25.000 kilometers of river beds, and plans to drastically increase the number of protected nature reserves to create green corridors. Farmers are expected to slash the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and will have to let 10 percent of their fields lie fallow, while VAT rates on ecologically grown fruits and vegetables will decrease.

How the Green Deal proposals will materialize is far from certain though. According to the Commission itself, a lot will depend on the willingness of national governments, different EC departments and the EU parliament to translate the proposals into actual policy. A translation that will be easier said than done  with DG AGRI in the lead, the European farming lobby has immediately made sure that binding reduction goals for pesticides cant materialize easily.

Excessive Demands

As soon as the first policy proposals for the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies started circulating within the European Commission, high level civil diplomats of DG AGRI set to work. Besides halving the amount of chemical pesticides used in EU agriculture, the Green Deal also proposes to quickly increase the acreage of land cultivated by ecological standards to approximately 30 percent  from 8 percent right now. A conversion that quick is nothing short of excessive, writes DG AGRI diplomat Tassos Haniotis in an internal EC document openDemocracy was able to obtain. Because of the limited supply response in arable [organic] crops (translation from Brussels speak: the amount of organics EU farmers are actually able to grow) the Green Deal could even lead to a growing amount of imported food, Haniotis fears. Thus he concludes that the desired shift to organic farming should remain demand driven  not enforced by the European Commission.

Haniotis is an agricultural economist and expert in EU-US trade relations. He was co-writer of several big free trade agreements and has worked in several positions within the Commission for years; starting off as a consultant in the United States, he was head of cabinetin the EC itself and nowadays leads one of the twelve directorates that make up DG AGRI.

Decisions on how to make their respective agricultural sectors more sustainable would be better left to national governments, Haniotis argues. Besides that, the Greek diplomat warns that the measures currently proposed would leave the strategically important North African market without its usual European wheat supplies  leading to price increases in North Africa and leading to these countries becoming dependent on imports from Ukraine and Russia.

Competing Departments

At first sight it may seem a little strange that a top-level EC diplomat rages against plans laid out by the very same European Commission he works for. In this light its important to realize how the most powerful institution of the EU is actually organized. The EC is headquartered in a thirteen-story-high colossus in the center of the European Quarter in Brussels, named the Berlaymont. The Berlaymont houses the 27 EU Commissioners, one from each EU member state, their cabinets and a whole bunch of supporting departments, human resources, the ICT department and the general secretariat.

The 27 directorates-general (DGs  de facto the ministries of the EU) responsible for their respective policy areas, are housed in different offices spread out throughout Brussels. The DGs all compete amongst each other for money, the best diplomats and civil servants, and who gets assigned to which policy dossier. The powerful trade department (DG TRADE) is housed inside the EC headquarters itself; DG AGRI at a convenient walking distance. The environmental department (DG ENV) has to make do with a spot on the edge of town.

But that hierarchy isnt set in stone  and the Green Deal may change power relations in the European Commission. Now that the environmental consequences of intensive EU agriculture are becoming clearer, more departments are claiming influence over what was once exclusively DG AGRIs domain. EU Climate Commissioner Frans Timmermans assigned authoring the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies to the health department (DG SANTE) and DG ENV respectively. AGRI Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski wasnt even invited to the presentation of the twin strategies.

Biodiversity

An important reason why agricultural policies are being drawn away from DG AGRI is simple: from an environmental point of view, their policies simply dont work. In a recent report, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) concludes that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has not really been performing when it comes to protecting biodiversity. The amount of birds, butterflies and flying insects in Europe has steadily continued to decline and is now one third less than in 1990. The effects of CAP on biodiversity, according to the ECA, are limited at best.

Scientists and the environmental movement have longer been arguing for pesticide reduction, now finally laid out in the Green Deal. Violette Geissen is professor in Soil Physics at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Together with a team of scientists, she has researched the effects of pesticides and fertilizers on soils in eleven European countries. In more than 80 percent of the soils they researched, the team found chemical residues, often decades old. There are almost no soils left in Europe which are not contaminated by a cocktail of several chemicals, Geissen says. When considering a chemical for market admission, EU institutions usually focus on the effects it has on mortality rates among soil organisms. But there are hardly any tests to find out how chemicals affect bee populations, or how much accumulates in river beds. Luckily the Commission is finally showing some ambition now, because were coming to the point that there is not much life left in most European soils.

The Right Dossiers

Joost de Jong is from the Netherlands and worked as a policy officer for DG AGRI between 2004 and 2007. As somebody who knows the department inside out, the harsh resistance to the Green Deal hardly comes as a surprise. DG AGRI doesnt want interference with what they consider as their policy area. Especially when reduction goals for pesticides are concerned, De Jong explains. To safeguard their position within the Commission, receive enough money from the EU budget and get assigned the right dossiers, DG AGRI is heavily dependent on political support from Germany, Spain and France. Naturally, its civil servants closely follow the wishes of farmers lobbies from there, which usually is highly productive and large-scale agriculture.

De Jong recognizes the position document authored by Haniotis as part of an Interservice Consultation (ICS): an interdepartmental negotiation that gives all the DGs the opportunity to provide input on policies. The environmental DG has always been quite low in the EC pecking order, says De Jong. By assigning the Biodiversity Strategy to them, Timmermans has given off an important signal about his intentions. But in the end, all directorates-general have to approve. Thats why, as far as I know, there has been a lot of political infighting about goals for ecological agriculture and slashing pesticide usage.

Big Farming

The close ties between DG AGRI and big farming lobbies have been the subject of criticism for years. Environmental action group Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in May 2019 managed to uncover 600 secret documents showing that EC diplomats had tried to weaken legislation regulating the use of endocrine disrupting chemicals by proposing to change definitions of what an endocrine disruption actually entails, in order to limit economic impacts on farmers. During public consultations before the Farm to Fork strategy, German chemical giant Bayer Crop Science wrote in a letter to the European Commission that the company took note of the European Commissions intention to reduce dependency on chemical pesticides  proposing measures to ensure that new innovative solutions are brought faster to the EU market and noting such policies would probably be better off left in the hands of national governments.

To reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture, in 2009 the European Commission first introduced a Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive (SUD). But implementing such an EU regulation can be difficult. To measure the amount of chemicals used on European fields one first has to have reliable data  statistics that, according to researchers for the European Court of Auditors (ECA), are hard to come by because privacy laws prohibit statistical agency Eurostat from publicly making available commercial information about chemical products. To circumvent this data gap, the ECA researchers analyzed sales numbers and concluded that no significant decrease of chemical usage was found since the introduction of the SUD. Between February and September 2019, the research team went out in the fields to interview farmers and policymakers in France, Lithuania and the Netherlands, and conducted evaluations of national policies  and also found lacking compliance with EU rules by national authorities and even by the European Commission itself.

Alignment

To coerce governments into complying with the Green Deal, the EC plans a complete SUD overhaul by 2022 and wants to make access to organic pesticides a lot easier. However, the biggest hurdle for Frans Timmermans will be to align the Green Deal with the CAP  especially as negotiations for a new CAP period have already been underway for several years. That might prove a crucial problem for Timmermans, De Jong fears: The Commission doesnt really have a strong position towards the member states when policy proposals, such as the Green Deal, have not yet been captured in binding regulations.

The CAP was first conceived in 1962 as a strategy to provide affordable food to citizens and a fair wage to farmers and has since then been periodically renewed, cut, and subject to negotiations between member states. During the current ongoing negotiations it was, for the first time, agreed that EU member states themselves will decide how to implement EU rules and allocate budgets. Therefore, every European country is currently busy writing up a National Strategic Plan, which will be handed in to the European Commission in Brussels. To realize the goals set out in the Green Deal, Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, the Commission is more or less counting on EU member states to take them into account when formulating a National Strategic Plan  according to an EC working document presented in May.

Power and Control

Inside the European Commission, however, there seems to be another bump in the road: the 27 National Strategic Plans will all be reviewed by DG AGRI  the department actively lobbying against binding rules. Through this detour, the EU farming lobby has conveniently managed to win back control over the Green Deal, says De Jong: If you compare the final version of the Farm to Fork strategy to earlier drafts, you can already clearly see the fingerprints of DG AGRI. The goal for ecological agriculture in the EU all of a sudden went down from 30 to 25 percent. You mustnt underestimate the power Frans Timmermans wields, but sometimes even he simply gets no for an answer.

Dutch conservative politician Esther de Lange has been a member of the European Parliament for the EPP (European Peoples Party) since 2007. She was born in a small village in the hilly south of the Netherlands. Proposing reduction goals right now is, of course, worthless timing, she comments on the Green Deal. The future is very insecure for many family farms around Europe, especially since markets have basically evaporated due to corona. Without a viable business model for farmers, reducing their dependency on pesticides will be hard.

Because of the tight spot European farmers are in, and the fact that they not only have to compete on internal EU markets but also on world markets, De Lange doesnt have expectations of overly ambitious goals in the National Strategic Plans. Too much national ambition would cause unwanted regulatory burden on farms and could worsen their competitive advantage over neighboring countries: a political risk no government is willing to take. A level playing field is crucial for the internal market to function, De Lange explains. The Netherlands sells most of its agricultural produce inside the EU. The Dutch government going at it alone, being more ambitious than for example Germany or Poland, would be a scenario we want to prevent. First, the Green Deal will have to guarantee decent farm incomes and fair prices. Measures that seem to be lacking from the current plans.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., known as the Golden State Killer, stands in court while apologizing to his victims before a judge sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Santiago Mejia / San Francisco Chronicle)

All that now awaits the Golden State Killer is an end of his days in prison.

A Sacramento County judge Friday sentenced 74-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. to life without parole for killing 13 people and raping 50 in a series of break-ins that terrorized the state.

Judge Michael Bowman handed down the sentence in the ballroom at Sacramento State University, where DeAngelo, a former police officer, graduated nearly 50 years ago with a degree in criminal justice.

Among those in attendance for the filled-to-capacity proceedings were victims, family members, prosecutors from nearly a dozen counties  including Ventura, Orange, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Contra Costa and Tulare, the six prosecuting DeAngelo  former case detectives, and even newspaper reporters who covered the first of the crimes in the 1970s.

Before he was officially sentenced, DeAngelo rose easily from his wheelchair and, for the first time, addressed the victims who had recounted over the last few days in court horrific details about the ordeal that has haunted them for decades.

"Ive listened to all your statements, each one of them," he said in a halting but clear voice. "And Im truly sorry to everyone Ive hurt."

Contra Costa County Dist. Atty. Diana Becton called DeAngelo "the boogeyman, the man whose horrific, unspeakable crimes devastated the lives of so many people, lives that will never be the same, lives forever changed, moments, hours of terror that can never be erased or forgotten."

But as the historic criminal case came to an end, victims and prosecutors struggled with what constitutes justice after four decades of suffering and loss.

"To say our family is in grief is an understatement. Calling this true justice is probably an overstatement," Bryan Sanchez, nephew of 1981 murder victim Greg Sanchez, told the judge this week during three days of impact statements.

"Justice is not possible in this case," said Jennifer Carole, whose father, Lyman Smith, and his wife, Charlene, were murdered by DeAngelo. "And because of that, I can have no peace."

Story continues

DeAngelo's 2018 arrest marked the first cold case in the nation to be solved by tracking a killer through the DNA of his family members on public genealogy sites.

Since his capture, he has admitted to crimes originally attributed to multiple assailants in the 1970s and 80s, each with his own sobriquet  the Visalia Ransacker, East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker. It wasn't until DNA connected the crimes that the unknown attacker was rebranded the Golden State Killer.

"These rapes and these murders, in the words of our victims, have cut across families, friends, generations and entire communities," Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert said.

She added that "my greatest hope is perhaps put into their own words ... the greatest revenge is to live your lives. Paint your children's and your grandchildren's rooms with hearts and rainbows"  a reference to the decor of a bedroom where one 13-year-old victim was attacked.

Schubert drew applause in challenging DeAngelo's appearance in court as old, wheelchair-bound and infirm. At a news conference after the hearing, she played several video clips showing him doing stretches and otherwise moving easily around his jail cell.

The counts against DeAngelo, detailing more than 100 criminal offenses, were so numerous that Bowman needed 22 minutes to read them aloud and impose the accompanying sentences, the maximum allowed under law after prosecutors had agreed not to seek the death penalty.

Alice Michel, one of DeAngelo's public defenders, acknowledged the pain her client had inflicted.

"We hope that, by admitting these offenses, Mr. DeAngelo has provided some peace to the survivors and their loved ones, and we hope that these proceedings have provided some relief."

DeAngelo's apology took his first rape victim, Phyllis Henneman, by surprise. However, she was not moved.

"They're just words," she said from her own wheelchair.

Immediately before issuing the sentence, Bowman spoke to DeAngelo about the words of his victims, saying, "I was moved by their courage, their grace, their strength, all qualities you clearly lack."

He added that he "could not help but wonder, what are you thinking? Are you capable of comprehending the pain and anguish you have caused?"

The crimes began as window peeping in DeAngelo's hometown of Rancho Cordova. They progressed to bedroom burglaries and panty thefts in Visalia, and then the murder of Claude Snelling, a college instructor who caught the intruder attempting to abduct his 16-year-old daughter from her bedroom in 1975.

The rapes that ensued became more violent as DeAngelo began to attack couples together and, later, to kill them.

While DeAngelo typically dragged women out of bed and away from their husbands to rape them in other rooms, crime scene evidence shows the couples he murdered died in bed beside each other.

"It wasn't enough for him to rape or beat or shoot his victims," said Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Joyce Dudley. "He wanted to take inflicting human pain to the highest level possible. Therefore, he often ensured that their loved ones saw or heard their loved ones being killed. That's who Joe DeAngelo is."

The investigations were often botched by law enforcement agencies refusing to cooperate, but the crimes also instigated major advances in criminal justice laws and tools. They were cited by women's rights advocates to successfully increase the penalties for rape. A political crusade launched and funded by the family of murder victim Keith Harrington fueled a California law requiring felons to add their DNA to a databank used to hunt criminals.

Harrington's older brother, Ron, used his victim statement in court this week to make the case for overriding privacy concerns and preserving police access to consumer genealogy sites, like the one detectives used to identify DeAngelo.

As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, DeAngelo admitted to carrying out 53 attacks on 87 victims in 11 counties, starting in 1975 and ending with the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Orange County in 1986. Authorities believe he is also responsible for two more sexual assaults and a shooting for which he was not charged.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to spare him the death penalty. He was sentenced to 11 life terms without the possibility of parole, to be served consecutively, plus 15 life terms and eight years.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said Friday that he still believes "this beast deserved the ultimate punishment of death," but the extended time involved in bringing a capital punishment case to trial and through appeals made DeAngelo's execution unlikely, considering his age, and the toll on victims for all that time too great.

DeAngelo's defense lawyers read aloud letters of anguish, support and love from family and friends who described a different DeAngelo.

Michel read a statement from a niece of his, who called him "kind and loving" and her "favorite person."

"He made my life peaceful. He is part of why I am a good, kind, loving person today," the unidentified niece wrote, adding, "I am thankful I had him in my life."

Among those filing victim statements was DeAngelo's ex-wife. Sharon Huddle lived with him during the rapes and murders of the 1970s and 80s but moved out with their three daughters not long after. She finalized their divorce after his arrest.

Huddle has remained silent most of the two-year court case, beyond expressing sympathy for victims shortly after DeAngelo's arrest.

She told the court DeAngelo's crimes "have had a devastating and pervasive" effect on her and her family. She did not say what she wished to happen with her former husband, but said she hoped "that nothing I say here will detract from any other person's impact statement."
Joe Biden praised Kamala Harris describing her as a "powerful voice in this nation." He was quoted saying "Her story is the American story. She has overcome every obstacle she has ever faced," during his nomination acceptance speech.

Joe Biden, who official accepted Presidential nomination of Democratic Party on Thursday, praised Kamala Harris describing her as a powerful voice in this nation. It will be the work of the next president to restore the promise of America to everyone. And I am not going to have to do it alone. I will have a great vice president at my side, Biden was quoted as saying by CNN during his nomination acceptance speech.

The former Vice-President said her story is the American story. Her story is the American story. She knows about all of the obstacles thrown in the way of so many in our country. Women, Black women, Black Americans, South Asian Americans, immigrants. The left out and the left behind. She has overcome every obstacle she has ever faced, Biden said.

No one has been tougher on big banks and the gun lobby. No one has been tougher on calling out the current administration for its extremism, its failure to follow the law, its failure to simply tell the truth. Kamala and I both draw from our families. That is where we get our strength. For Kamala, it is Doug, and their families. For me, it is Jill, and ours, he added.

Last week, Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Also Read: Trump diminished US Proud Reputation around world: Obama

The final night of Democratic Night Convention saw a star-studded line up of several leaders including Andrew Yang and Former Surgeon General of the United States Vivek Murthy.

Slamming US President Donald Trumps leadership in handling the coronavirus pandemic, former US surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy said there has been a lack of leadership in handling the outbreak, at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday (Local time).

According to CNN, Murthy advised Bidens campaign on policy proposals to respond to the pandemic and how the Democratic presidential candidate and his staff hold events to reach out to voters. The event also saw Andrew Yang and himself an onetime 2020 Democratic nominee introducing actress Julia Louis-Drefus.

As per a report in The Hill, Yang and Luis-Dreyfus then launched into a bit in which they purposely mispronounced Pences name, in an apparent dig at Republicans who have at times mispronounced the first name of Sen. Kamala Harris.

Also Read: US elections 2020 : Joe Biden officially accepts Presidential nomination of Democratic Party

According to CNN, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth did not mince words when hitting President Trump on Thursday: He is the coward in chief. Duckworth, a finalist to be Bidens running mate, used her speech to the Democratic convention to tout Bidens understanding of the sacrifices made by military families, reported the outlet.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for Biden commenting on the line up of AAPI speakers queuing up Joe Bidens acceptance, said: This weeks program featuring AAPIs underscores the fact that a Biden-Harris White House will uplift our voices and represent the needs of our diverse nation. We were greeted by AAPI delegates from Colorado to Virginia, and heard from voices like Georgia State Representative Sam Park, an example of the growing civic participation and political leadership among AAPIs.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will fight for equal opportunity, access to justice, and human rights for all Americans, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The AAPI community looks forward to a Biden-Harris administration that restores our nations democracy and standing in the world. AAPIs from all corners of the country are ready to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next President and Vice President of the United States to ensure our leadership fights for us, it said.

The presidential election in the US is scheduled to be held on November 3. (ANI)

Also Read: US elections 2020: Amazon removes shirts with derogatory remarks on Kamala Harris
Some working parents can get relief through the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. Enacted in March as an extension of the Family Medical Leave Act, the plan provides paid leave to cover at least two-thirds of an employees pay for up to 12 weeks for those who need to deal with child care because the pandemic has closed their schools, day care and child care facilities. The program goes through Dec. 31.

The FFCRA applies to employees who work in companies with 500 people or fewer, and there are some caveats, namely that if your school division offers a face-to-face option and you choose virtual instead, youre not eligible for the benefit.

But one of the benefits is that the 12 weeks can be broken into small increments, such as down to an hour or two each day, if families need to help their children.

The program is funded by the government, so the employer is not paying the employee, but the employer must grant permission for an employee to take the time off once the employee is eligible.

Additionally, some of the areas larger employers say theyre using flexibility as a practical, realistic standard to address workloads while also offering benefits that respond to employees financial and emotional well-being.
In mid-2020 the New Zealand Army received its first six MRZR4 ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) for use in the most remote and undeveloped (no roads) parts of the country. MRZR4 and many similar vehicles, are military versions of commercial off-road vehicles.

The MRZR4 weighs 1.5 tons when loaded with nearly 700 kg of fuel, passengers, and cargo. MRZR4 has no doors, four seats, and a steel framework on top of which is usually left open for maximum visibility and acts as a roll-bar to protect passengers if there is an accident. The vehicle is optimized for cross country operations with four-wheel drive, suspension built for safe travel over broken terrain and an 88-horsepower engine providing a top speed of 96 kilometers an hour on flat terrain. Fuel capacity is 7.25 gallons (27.4 liters) and range depends on what sort of terrain is being crossed. Using simple tools, the seating and cargo carrying configuration of the MAZR4 can be quickly changed to seat up to six or just two with two litters in the back for badly injured people. The cargo configuration can carry over 400 kg (a thousand pounds) of anything in the flatbed behind the driver. MAZR4 DWT tires that are optimized for off-road use and resistant to damage. MRZR4 is 3.59 meters (140 inches) long, 1.52 meters wide and 1.87 meters-high. Collapsing the roll-bar cage reduces height to 1.52 meters (six feet). Empty weight is 853 kg (1,876 pounds) and can carry a maximum payload of 680kg (1,496 pounds).

There are over twenty nations buying 11 different models of the MRZR vehicles for military, paramilitary and police force. The New Zealand Army is a small force of about 5,000 troops who operate almost exclusively in New Zealand. Regularly called out for national disasters, the New Zealand troops often found themselves operating in rough terrain. While looking for new vehicles they realized that for nearly twenty years special operations troops, including those in neighboring Australia, had been using ATV vehicles in some of the most rugged terrain in the world. U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has been buying more and more ATVs since 2008, especially the MRZR4 and slightly smaller MRZR2. The MRZR2 is a 1.1-ton (loaded with nearly 450 kg of fuel, passengers, and cargo) 4x4 vehicle. It is 3 meters (9.1 feet) long. These ATVs have proved ideal for operations in remote areas, especially because ATVs could be brought in via helicopter, dangling from the cargo sling most military helicopters are equipped with.

The MAZR manufacturer (Polaris) pays attention to user feedback and reacts quickly. This was especially useful for special operations troops and often a matter of life and death. ATVs have proved useful, and popular, in Afghanistan, especially for special operations forces. There are many models in use, all of them militarized civilian vehicles. These vehicles are innovative both in original concept and how they are constantly modified and upgraded. For example, an important innovation was the use of non-pneumatic tires. The non-pneumatic tires are not solid like traditional tires but built with a web of plastic honeycomb and surrounded by a thick band of rubber that is very similar to the tread found on pneumatic tires. These tires can survive a hit by a 12.7mm (.50 caliber) bullet and keep going. They feel about the same as pneumatic tires, although some users report they are not as effective in mud or watery surfaces.

British special operations troops were the first to develop unique vehicles for commando missions in rough country and SOCOM has formed close ties with their British and (since 2001) NATO counterparts. That has led other NATO special operations troops to quickly adopt new items developed and validated by the Brits and yanks. Moslem nations that have worked with NATO special operations forces since 2001 have done likewise.

The ATVs have been so popular that many troops have bought them when they get back home and use them for cross-country trips (for camping, hunting, or just sightseeing). The U.S. Army has bought some of these ATVs for use by troops just returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. It's the kind of high-excitement recreation that has been found to help the troops decompress after returning from a combat tour.

MAZR manufacturer Polaris also makes the DAGOR, a two-ton light truck that can carry 1.4 tons or nine troops. It can be carried inside a CH-47 or slung under a UH-60 helicopter. DAGOR can also be dropped via parachute and be ready to roll within two minutes of reaching the ground. Some are calling this a 21st century jeep. Polaris entered a version of DAGOR in the recent U.S. Army competition to select who would build over 2,000 ISVs (Infantry Squad Vehicle). There were three finalists in the completion and Polaris lost out to a militarized version of the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison. This vehicle was introduced in 2016 and is the culmination of two decades of vehicle modification by individual entrepreneurs as well as companies like GM. All this largely unnoticed work was recognized and merged by GM into their new 21st century off-road pickup trucks to give them many ATV features. Individuals and small firms modifying commercial vehicles for special uses is something that has been around for decades. Think of them as vehicle hackers and you have an accurate view of what is happening. The Chevrolet Bison was very much the right hack showing up at the right time for the ISV competition. Vehicle designers in GM saw the army ISV contract, looked at the Bison and it didnt take long, at least on the computer design software, to turn the Bison into the GM ISV. Removing the commercial shell and the Bison became the ISV, with a modified diesel engine and a few tweaks to the suspension and other mechanical components.

The ZR2 Bison is a four-wheel drive 2.52-ton vehicle built to carry five passengers and 590 kg in the cargo bed behind the four-door passenger cab. To become the ISV, the Bison lost its passenger cab and cargo area along with air-conditioning, doors and so on. There is no conventional vehicle body on the ISV, it is an open configuration like a dune buggy with seats for an infantry squad (nine troops). The seats are minimalist compared to civilian vehicles and can be folded down to allow a two-man crew to transport over half a ton of cargo or prone casualties. Most Bisons have a 308 HP gasoline engine but an option is a 181 HP diesel. The ISV has a 186 HP turbo-diesel. The cross-country wheels and suspension of the Bison are largely intact. The existing Bison cross-country capability is one asset that was largely unchanged and allowed Bison to win the ISV competition.
Its party time for Kumawood actress and film producer Tracey Boakye after outspoken Ghanaian politician Kennedy Agyapong failed to expose her.

The baby mama of Papa No has dared the Member of Parliament for Assin Central constituency on several occasions to expose her on his TV station, Net2 TV.

She dared him after Ken Agyapong on Monday accused her of blackmailing the Presidential candidate for the NDC, John Dramani Mahama, and also having a bedroom Commando fight with NPP member A-Plus.

Shortly after Kennedy Agyapong accused her, Tracey Boakye dropped about three different videos, daring the owner of Net2 TV to bring out any tape in his possession top prove that she is indeed a blackmailer.

But when Kennedy Agyapong appeared on his TV station yesterday, he couldnt bring out a single tape and also refused to comment on the matter.

And today, Tracey is popping expensive champagnes to celebrate her victory.

She shared a video popping Belaire Rose, Moet and other expensive champagne with the caption Cheers to victory.
(Newser)  Before there was Tesla the company, there was Tesla the man. Nikola Tesla, to be precise, and a new filmcalled Teslaabout the pioneering scientist is generally drawing praise for Ethan Hawke's portrayal. See the trailer. The overall score on Rotten Tomatoes is 59%. Examples of what critics are saying:

Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times: "Hawke, without exaggerating or diluting Teslas eccentricity, distills the characters strange, sometimes contradictory essence." Chang refers to "Hawke's brilliantly internalized performance" and also credits writer-director Michael Almereyda for providing a film that gives Tesla his due. (As the Rotten Tomatoes score suggests, this isn't a unanimous sentiment.)

AO Scott, New York Times: He calls Hawke's performance "quietly magnetic," adding that Hawke portrays Tesla "as a restless soul burdened by genius and haunted by melancholy." A lesser film might try to trace that back to Tesla's childhood or something along those lines. But in this one, Tesla "is neither a heroic visionary nor a tragic hero. Hes a mood."

story continues below

Amy Nicholson, Variety: "Hawke refuses to play Tesla the way hes popularly imagined: an innocent dreamer," she writes. "His Tesla is stoic and disenchanted, so incapable of humor that he can claim to hear 'the planets greeting each other' and no one thinks its a joke." As for the overall film, "if there's a big idea in 'Tesla,' it's hard to see."

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle: The movie is not his cup of tea. It's "less a biopic than a mood piece, a rumination of how quiet genius not only can be misunderstood but is often at the whim of the powerful and egocentric," he writes. "Its intriguing, and I wouldnt stop anyone from watching it, but for me ... it doesnt quite transcend its conceit."

(Read more movie review stories.)
New Delhi wants Indian lawyer to represent its citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav, convicted for espionage by a Pakistani court.

Islamabad, Pakistan  New Delhi has requested Pakistan to allow an Indian lawyer to represent its citizen, Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was convicted for espionage by a Pakistani military court in 2017, in his appeals, the Indian foreign ministry says.

Speaking during an online media briefing on Thursday, Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava offered the first indication from the Indian government that it was prepared to move forward with the Pakistani legal appeals process.

For a free and fair trial in keeping with the letter and spirit of ICJ judgment, we have asked for Jadhav to be represented by an Indian lawyer, Srivastava said.

However, Pakistan has to first address the core issues  giving copies of relevant documents of the case and providing unimpeded consular access to Jadhav.

The two governments have often clashed over the issue of Jadhav, who was arrested in 2016 in the Pakistani province of Balochistan by intelligence services and accused of organising and funding attacks in that region.

Last July the International Court of Justice ordered Pakistan to allow India consular access to Jadhav [File: Eva Plevier/Reuters]

The Pakistani military released a video showing Jadhav confessing to the charges at the time. India rejected the confession as being coerced.

He was tried by a military court on charges of espionage and sentenced to death in 2017. An appeal for clemency is pending before Pakistans army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

The right to appeal

In parallel with his clemency appeal, Jadhav has also been given the right to appeal his sentence before a civilian court, in line with a 2019 International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict in a case filed by India.

In that verdict, the ICJ had ordered that Pakistan must allow Indian diplomatic officials consular access to Jadhav, which he had been denied so far on the Pakistani argument that such access could have national security implications.

In September that year, Indian consular officials met Jadhav for the first time, a meeting India says was conducted under heavy surveillance. Pakistan denies the charge. Two family members, his mother and wife, had earlier met Jadhav in December 2017.

In July, Pakistans foreign office said it had provided Jadhav with his second opportunity to meet consular officials, who it says were provided unimpeded and uninterrupted access to him.

Earlier this month, the Islamabad High Court ordered the government to allow the Indian government to appoint a lawyer to represent Jadhav in his appeal before that court. That order followed the passage of a bill in Parliament to allow for such a practice to take place.

The next hearing at the Islamabad High Court, which currently is focused solely on the appointment of a lawyer to represent Jadhav, will take place on September 3.
iSoftBet Goes VIP with Macau High Roller Slot

Published August 21, 2020 by Mike P

Macau High Roller is an iSoftBet slot with the ability to pay for entry into the High Roller Lounge where up to 15,000 coins can be won.

Las Vegas steals much of the spotlight on the online casino scene. However, Macau can be just as glamorous a location, as proven in the brand-new Macau High Roller slot from iSoftBet. Fresh off the release of Book of Sheba and Fu Fortunes Megaways, iSoftBet travels to China for a neon-lit gaming experience that will be compatible on mobile and desktop screens.

Macau High Roller is designed with a core gaming interface consisting of five reels and three rows. To the right of the screen is a reel reserved for the slots Cashier, which is a special feature. Ten paylines have been inserted into the slot and wagering can start from a 0.10 minimum. For the maximum total bet, high rollers can stake 10.00 per spin.

Cash Chips

Macau Money Spin is a feature that can trigger randomly, causing every chip on the screen to be exchanged for winnings by the cashier. Players can spot these symbols by looking for casino chips that display a cash value.

Cash Chips are again relevant during High Roller Free Spins. Any that land on the screen can be redeemed for winnings with the cashier. Three or more scatters can trigger seven free spins, four will provide 10 spins, and five will release the maximum 15.

High Roller Lounge

Tapping the High Roller Bet function can cause players to enter a special VIP lounge where Super Respins can be triggered for the chance to win up to 15,000 coins. This special button can be found in the Cashier Reel, with the cost of activating the feature presented.

As with the previous features, there will only be Cash Chips and these will be cashed in if they appear during play. Super Respins can also play a role by causing Cash Chips to be locked in place while the reels are spun again to try and release more winnings.
Singapore Airlines spends 4.4 billion SGD (more than 3.2 billion USD) over the last two months as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: AFP/VNA)

Singapore  Singapore Airlines has spent 4.4 billion SGD (more than 3.2 billion USD) over the last two months as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced governments to close borders to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

The airline said since mid-June, it has spent 1.1 billion SGD on operating expenses, the settlement of maturing fuel hedging trades and ticket refunds following the cancellation of flights in view of the continuing border controls and travel restrictions.Another 2 billion SDG has been used to repay a bridge loan while 0.2 billion SGD has been applied toward aircraft purchases. Approximately 0.9 billion SDG was to service debt, which included the redemption of the airlines 10-year 500-million-SDG Fixed Rate Notes in July and repayment of funds previously drawn under certain lines of credit.In June, the airline raised 8.8 billion SGD through its rights issues as the airline continues to suffer from the lockdown in international aviation.Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore Airlines has taken steps to significantly reduce its monthly expenditure. To curb costs, it has slashed salaries and put staff on unpaid leave as it operates at less than 10 percent of capacity.The Singaporean carrier posted a loss of 1.85 billion SGD in the first half of this year as the pandemic wiped out passenger traffic. Cathay Pacific lost 9.9 billion HKD (1.27 billion USD) and Qantas 1.96 billion AUD (1.4 billion USD).
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally to mark the 5th anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov's murder and to protest against proposed amendments to the country's constitution, in Moscow Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin's top opponent, Alexei Navalny, is being allowed to leave Russia.

Navalny fell gravely ill on Thursday and his team suspects that he was poisoned.

Initially, authorities blocked Navalny from being transferred  claiming he fell into a coma due to low blood sugar  but he will now be flown to a German medical facility.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most prominent opponent, is being permitted to leave Russia, the Associated Press reported on Friday.

Navalny, who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning, is being transferred to a top German medical facility. Initially, authorities refused requests for Navalny to be flown to Germany for treatment, prompting uproar from the anti-corruption campaigner's team. Doctors at the hospital in Omsk where Navalny was taken after falling gravely ill said it was too dangerous to move him.

German doctors examined Navalny and said he was fit to be transported, the Associated Press reported, and Navalny's physician in Moscow also dismissed the notion it was unsafe to move the politician.

Navalny's team believe he was poisoned by the Kremlin, and contended that the move to block the transfer was designed to ensure any poison in his system would no longer be traceable.

"The ban on transporting Navalny in an attempt on his life being carried out right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities that have authorized it," Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's top aide, said, per the Daily Beast.

Doctors at the Siberian hospital where Navalny was taken for treatment disputed claims the Kremlin critic had been poisoned. The hospital's chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, said the most likely diagnosis was a metabolic disorder and that Navalny probably lost conscious due to a drop in blood sugar. Navalny's wife said doctors at the hospital can't be trusted, CNN said.

Story continues

And the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Ivan Zhdanov, said police found traces of a dangerous substance in his system but refused to disclose the name of the substance due to the secrecy of the investigation. But the substance is apparently so dangerous that it has the doctors treating Navalny wearing protective clothing, the Daily Beast reported.

Navalny, who campaigned to challenge Putin in 2018 but was prohibited from running, fell ill while on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. His team believes tea Navalny drank before the flight contained poison.

This is not the first time critics and opponents of Putin have been poisoned  nor the first time poison is believed to have been transmitted via tea. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who later became a vocal critic of the Kremlin, was killed after ingesting radioactive poison in London. He, t00, became ill after allegedly drinking a cup of tea.

Read the original article on Business Insider
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Several other New York City boroughs appear to be beating Staten Island when it comes to wearing masks outdoors to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), a New York Times census recently found.

On a recent day in July, Times reporters discovered that only 66% of people observed at Stuyvesant Place and Hyatt Street, in St. George, were wearing masks; 68% of women wore them, while only 65% of men did the same.

People in Flushing, Queens, do not mess around,' the Times reported. There, 99% of folks on Main Street and Sanford Avenue were masked on a particularly hot summer afternoon. Every single woman observed was masked, while 98% of men wore masks.

In Park Slope, Brooklyn, a huge majority observed were taking their coronavirus safety seriously  97% were wearing masks when observed outdoors, the reporters found. Among women, 98% were covered up, as were 95% of men.

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

Across New York City, those ignoring the mask rule are nearly twice as likely to be men as women, the Times found in its mask census of over 7,000 people, conducted across the city at 13 street corners and one beach boardwalk.

UNDERSTANDING THE RULE

The mask rule Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo handed down on April 15 leaves some room for interpretation, as it requires that those over age 2, who can medically tolerate covering their mouth and nose, do so when in a public place and unable to maintain, or when not maintaining, social distance, the Times reported.

St. George fared better than Rockaway Beach, Queens, where only 20% of people were found to be wearing masks -- 24% of women and a mere 16% of men. In Far Rockaway, 62% wore masks; 70% of women and 55% of men, the report said.

Across 14 locations observed and excluding partially masked people, 75% of people were masked  69% of men and 82% of women, the Times reported. Of the total of 7,545 people, 23% of the men and 17% of the women were partially masked.

Reporters chose locations in part because they had relatively high pedestrian density and the true citywide mask-wearing prevalence is presumably lower, the Times reported.

PUBLIC DECLARATION

In St. George, Mosta Kim, 21, an Amazon worker, told the Times he goes unmasked when hes outdoors and off the clock. He said he presumed, and assumed others did, too, that anyone without a mask was making a public declaration that they did not have the coronavirus.

Youre OK, youre not sick, he said as he walked along Stuyvesant Place, across from Borough Hall.

The census also found that in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx on East 149th Street and Morris Avenue, 85% were found to be wearing masks. Women there were a bit more diligent  91% wore masks, while only 76% of men wore them.

In Jamaica, Queens, 75% were found to be wearing masks; 87% of women donned them, while only 62% of men wore them.

In Harlem in Manhattan, 66% of people appeared to be wearing masks and the men were the biggest offenders  just over half of them, 56%  wore masks at Malcolm X Boulevard and West 124th Street, while 79% of women wore them.

The Times mask survey was conducted July 27 to 30, between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. The heat index (a combination of temperature and humidity) during survey times ranged from 86 to 97 degrees.
Hamiltons mayor, who is also the chair of the police services board, says he doesnt see a problem with police having access to a database containing citizens COVID health information.

And he doesnt see why others do.

To get carried away on, This is now an infringement on peoples rights and ... that theres a desire to use this information against individuals in our community, I think is just irrational and inappropriate and wrong, Mayor Fred Eisenberger said in an interview with The Spectator on Thursday.

The Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion (HCCI) and privacy experts raised concerns this week about Hamilton polices access of a provincial database containing the names, addresses and dates of birth for people who tested positive for COVID-19. Police accessed the database more than 10,000 times over a three-month period  Hamilton had fewer than 800 COVID-19 cases at the time. Some police forces, including Toronto police, never accessed it.

First responders were permitted database access by the province through an emergency order that ended July 22. Two days before that, and amid a lawsuit from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the province pulled access to the database.

HCCI and privacy experts question why police were allowed to access the database; how the data protected anyone since people not in the database could still have COVID; and why the need to protect police trumped citizens right to keep their health data private. They also want to know if people whose data was accessed by police will be contacted.

The mayor says there is no cause for concern.

I dont see any circumstance where this kind of information used on a one-off and not stored is going to be used against anyone, Eisenberger said. And there are ... very stringent laws (regarding) maintaining the confidentiality and the privacy of personal information.

While he personally wasnt aware the province allowed police to access the database, Eisenberger said the news was publicly stated by the province.

A provincial memo informing the Hamilton police services board of the database was also included in the agenda for the boards June 11 meeting. It was not discussed during the public portions of the meeting.

Coun. Chad Collins, a member of the police services board, said he also doesnt see an issue with police accessing the COVID database  it was a tool provided to them and they used it. As for concerns about police handling sensitive health information, he noted police are accustomed to handling private data.

Obviously, they can look up (licence) plates, they can look up other information that the average person wouldnt have access to, Collins said.

People concerned with the powers granted to police should bring it up with the province, he said, adding theres no reason to think information was used inappropriately.

I dont know what the conspiracy theory is in terms of how this information might have been used, Collins said.

Arthur Schafer, director of University of Manitobas Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, says privacy concerns in this case are real and a big deal.

Health information is among the most intimate information about us that exists and confidentiality of health records and health information is a fundamental principle of medical ethics, Schafer said.

Schafer said people must trust their health information  information that could be damaging if leaked or released publicly  is protected at all times. That trust gives them confidence to be open and honest with health-care providers. When trust is broken, effective delivery of health care is compromised, he said.

He notes police should be assuming everyone has COVID as not everyone shows symptoms or has tested positive.

Its very difficult to see why this special provision to violate medical confidentiality could be justified, Schafer said.

Meanwhile, it seems unlikely those whose data was accessed by Hamilton police will ever be informed.

All information has been purged by Hamilton police, said police spokesperson Jackie Penman when asked if people will be contacted. We have no records of the information accessed.

She added that police have no record of who accessed what information when. Only police communication operators and supervisors had access to the database, and they only accessed it when someones COVID status was unclear during a call for service, Penman said.

A spokesperson for Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said the province enforced strict protocols to limit access to this database. Only authorized users who perform a communication and dispatch function were allowed to access it and only to allow first responders to take appropriate safety precautions to protect themselves and the communities they serve.

All information collected or used was subject to privacy laws, spokesperson Stephen Warner said. It was, however, up to police to set policies and procedures for how they used the database.
New footage of Chinese tourists moving around cautiously on a terrifying glass-bottomed observation deck has emerged.

The A-shaped, see-through platform protrudes from a cliff face at more than 300 metres (984 feet) above the ground.

Situated in south-western China, the 4.5million attraction extends a staggering 69.6 metres (228 feet) from the rock, providing exhilarating views towards the valley underneath.

The A-shaped deck is suspended more than 984 feet above the ground in Chongqing, China

It extends a staggering 228 feet from the rock, providing visitors with exhilarating views

New footage shows Chinese tourists moving around cautiously on the glass-bottomed path

The thrilling footbridge is part of the Wansheng Ordovician Theme Park in Chongqing, a municipality with nearly 30million people.

Since its opening in April 2017, it has welcomed more than six million visitors, according to the theme park.

The company had spent one year and around 40million yuan (4.5 million) constructing the eye-catching site.

The thrilling footbridge is part of the Wansheng Ordovician Theme Park in Chongqing, China

Tourists post for pictures while standing on the vertigo-inducing, 4.5million tourist attraction

When the platform opened, it was the world's longest cantilevered glass-bottomed walkway

The walkway's total length is nearly 200 metres (656 feet), and no more than 30 visitors are allowed to stand on the bridge at any one time.

When the observation deck opened, it was accredited by Guinness World Records as the world's longest cantilevered glass-bottomed walkway.

But it was beaten by another similar structure in China last September. The current record-holder sticks out 91.806 metres (300 feet) from a cliff face and is situated in the province of Guizhou in southern China.

Tourists look on from the terrifying glass-bottomed skywalk in Chongqing on June 1, 2017

Glass-bottomed attractions are extremely popular in China, but the low safety standards of some of them have sparked concerns among the public. The picture shows the deck in 2017

See-through walkways have been cropping up all across China in the past few years.

They are usually built by the local authorities as a way to attract tourists to the area.

These attractions come in the form of a bridge, a cliff-side passage or an observation deck.

However, the low safety standards of some of them have sparked concerns among the public.

On Wednesday, an accident at a giant glass-bottomed slide left one person dead and many injured.

Social media footage shows dozens of people lying on the floor and waiting for medical attention (left) at the foot of a glass slide (right) following an accident in China on Wednesday

Trending footage shows dozens of people lying on the ground following the accident at a 19million scenic spot in Liaoning Province yesterday.

The operator of the slide said heavy rain 'suddenly' occurred while the tourists were using the track, leading them to glide down 'too fast' and collide into one another.

Before this week's tragedy, two people had died while visiting glass attractions in China since 2017.

There were around 2,300 glass-bottomed bridges across China as of last year, according to a tourism industry tracker.
Doctors treating Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny said Friday there was no evidence to back claims he was poisoned, as aides accused authorities of risking his life by refusing to allow his evacuation to Germany for treatment.

Navalny, a 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who is among President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was in a coma in intensive care in the Siberian city of Omsk after he lost consciousness while on a flight and his plane made an emergency landing on Thursday.

Aides say they believe he was poisoned and that something was put in his tea at an airport cafe.

Doctors treating him in Omsk said Friday that tests had shown no trace of any poison and that Navalny was in no condition to be moved, despite the arrival of an air ambulance sent to take him to Germany.

So far no poison has been identified in the blood and urine, there is no trace of its presence, Anatoly Kalinichenko, the deputy head doctor of the hospital, told journalists in Omsk.

We do not believe that the patient suffered poisoning, he said, adding that doctors practically had a full diagnosis that had been communicated to Navalnys family.

Kalinichenko said Navalnys condition was unstable, making it too dangerous to move him.

Navalnys spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said the refusal was a ploy to hide the poisoning and put his life at risk.

- Play for time -

The ban on the transportation of Navalny is needed only to play for time until the poison in his body can no longer be traced, she said on Twitter.

Every hour of delay creates a critical threat to his life.

Navalnys team said earlier that the hospital in Omsk was ill-equipped and his doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, said she had asked for the Kremlins help to transfer him to a European clinic.

An air ambulance dispatched by a German charity to bring Navalny to Berlin for treatment had landed in Omsk, after Chancellor Angela Merkel extended an offer of treatment.

Foreign leaders including Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have voiced concern for Navalny, who has faced repeated physical attacks and prosecutions in more than a decade of opposition to Russian authorities.

The US embassy in Moscow said in a tweet on Friday that if the poisoning claim proved true it would represent a grave moment for Russia, and the Russian people deserve to see all those involved held to account.

Navalny lost consciousness shortly after his plane took off on Thursday from Tomsk in Siberia, where he was working to support opposition candidates ahead of regional elections next month.

Yarmysh said he had seemed absolutely fine before boarding the flight and had only consumed a cup of tea at the airport.

She said she was sure he had suffered from an intentional poisoning and put the blame on Putin.

Whether or not he gave the order personally, the blame lies with him, she said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said claims of poisoning were only assumptions unless tests proved otherwise.

He wished Navalny a speedy recovery after pledging Kremlin help to secure him treatment abroad if needed.

Navalny has made many enemies with his anti-corruption investigations, which often reveal the lavish lifestyles of Russias elite and attract millions of views online.

- Previous poisonings -

He has suffered physical attacks in the past, including a 2017 incident where he endured chemical burns to his eye after green dye was splashed on his face.

Last year Navalny said he suspected poisoning when he suffered rashes and his face became swollen while serving a short jail term after calling for illegal protests.

He has been the target of multiple criminal probes and spent numerous stretches in police cells for organising illegal protests, while his Anti-Corruption Foundation was regularly raided by police and investigators.

The latest incident follows several infamous poisonings of Kremlin critics in the past.

Britain named two Russian spies as suspects after Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in the city of Salisbury in March 2018.

Former Russian security service agent Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium in a cup of tea in London. Russia refused to extradite chief suspect Andrei Lugovoi, who became a nationalist MP after the 2006 attack.

Several other opposition figures have suffered severe illnesses in Russia that they blamed on poisoning.
RTHK: 'Navalny's life at risk as doctors bow to Kremlin'

A spokeswoman of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny accused Russian doctors of changing their mind about airlifting him to Germany after coming under pressure from the authorities.

Doctors said Navalny cannot be moved from the Siberian hospital where he is being treated for suspected poisoning, putting his life at risk, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmys said on Friday.

"The chief doctor stated that Navalny is not transportable. Condition is unstable," Yarmysh said on Twitter.

"The ban on transporting Alexei is a direct threat to his life. It is deadly to remain in the Omsk hospital without equipment or a diagnosis."

Yarmysh said an air ambulance dispatched to fly him to Germany for treatment was due to land shortly.

"The ban on the transportation of Navalny is an attempt on his life, which is being made right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities who sanctioned it."

Navalny, a 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who is among President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, was hospitalised in Omsk after he lost consciousness while on a flight and his plane made an emergency landing.

Doctors said they were working to save his life after he went into a coma and was put on a ventilator in intensive care.

There has been no official diagnosis of his condition, but his supporters believe he was poisoned because of his political activities.

Germany and France have offered to help and German media reported that the air ambulance had left Nuremberg early on Friday to collect Navalny.

Navalny's team has said that the hospital in Omsk is ill-equipped and his doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva said she had asked for the Kremlin's help to transfer him to a European clinic. (AFP, Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Ganesh Chaturthi 2020 to be low key this year: Maharashtra govt issues guidelines

India

oi-Deepika S

Mumbai, Aug 21: Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Friday urged people to celebrate Ganeshotsav, beginning from Saturday, in a low-key manner and avoid crowding in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also urged Muslim community members to observe Muharram, which falls in the month-end, in a simple manner and avoid gathering, an official statement said.

The government has also issued guidelines regarding Ganeshotsav celebrations, saying that processions should not be taken out before installing and immersing idols.

It said the heights of Lord Ganesh idols installed by sarvajanik (community) mandals and at household-level should be limited to 4 feet and 2 feet, respectively, this year.

The statement said all mandals (associations) need to set up mandaps (decorated temporary covered structures) in line with the policies formulated by municipal corporations or the local administration.

Mumbai Rains: Ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi, city receives heavy rainfall; High tide alert issued

The Ganeshotsav is to be celebrated in a simple manner this year, so there should be no pomp in the decorations by sarvajanik mandals or individuals installing idols in homes, the statement quoted Deshmukh as saying.

The government said people should possibly worship idols made of metals, marbles or other elements instead of installing conventional ones this year. If the idols installed are made of clay or are eco- friendly, then those should be immersed at home itself, the statement said.

Idols should be immersed at a nearby artificial pond if it is not possible to immerse them at homes, the statement said. If possible, the send off of idols should be postponed until the time of immersions of idols installed during Maghi Ganeshotsav or during the month of Bhadrapad 2021, that is, next year.

This will help avoid crowding while bringing/ immersing idols and protect oneself and family from the COVID-19 infection, it added. Preferably, health-related advertisements should be displayed during the 10-day festival to help people keep themselves safe and avoid the infection, the government said.

It urged mandals to undertake health initiatives instead of organising cultural programmes.

The government said mandals should try to arrange for online darshan of Lord Ganesha's idols. It said mandaps be disinfected, thermal screening be arranged for and physical distancing related norms be strictly adhered to by devotees turning up at mandaps to seek darshan of the elephant-headed God.

Similarly, the government had issued a circular on Wednesday, saying Muslims should observe Muharram in a simple manner and avoid crowding. It had also said that matam (mourning) processions should not be taken out keeping in mind the COVID-19 outbreak.
BEERSHEBA, Israel  A team of three Israeli scientists has pioneered a coronavirus testing procedure that they say is faster and more efficient than any now in use, testing samples in pools of as many as 48 people at once.

The Israeli government plans to roll out the new method in 12 labs across the country by October, anticipating that another wave of coronavirus infections could coincide with influenza season with potentially calamitous results.

Were doing everything we can in order to be ready, said Ronen Walfisch, an engineer at the defense ministry who oversaw a pilot project to test the methods efficacy. The method passed with flying colors, he said.

Moran Szwarcwort Cohen, who runs the virology lab at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, said the new pooled-testing method, which was formally approved for clinical use by the Israeli health ministry on Tuesday, could allow schools, college campuses, businesses and airlines to clear whole groups of people far faster than has been possible until now.
PayBito exchange franchise program Several entrepreneurs want to invest and venture out in the crypto realm but are short of options. Not anymore as PayBitos franchise program gives them just the right platform to initiate a venture and earn benefits from the same.

The USA based leading crypto exchange and digital assets trading platform PayBito intensifies its activities in India to the immense response. The global exchange is offering franchise benefits to entrepreneurs in the region, in an attempt to boost the emerging digital assets industry of India. It will allow the franchise owners to be a part of an esteemed crypto brand and leverage the infrastructural benefits that come with the same.

Speaking with the media about PayBitos franchise ventures, Managing Director, Raj Chowdhury mentioned, India has displayed great prospects of becoming one of the leading economies to accelerate worldwide crypto adoption and development. Several entrepreneurs want to invest and venture out in the crypto realm but are short of options. Not anymore as PayBitos franchise program gives them just the right platform to initiate a venture and earn benefits from the same. 

PayBito extends its franchise offerings globally and has gained immense traction from entrepreneurs all over the world, who want to start their very own crypto venture. It allows them to start on strong ground, being part of a leading brand.

PayBitos revenue-sharing percentile is unlike any other. The exchange offers 50 percent of the commissions earned in trading fees for each user registration that happens on PayBiot, through the franchisees platform. The franchise owner gets access to the whole range of exchange services and its extensive range of digital assets.

In return, there are just a few minimal formalities to be fulfilled by the franchise owner such as:

1. Timely settlement of franchise investment and month marketing and business development expenses

2. Maintenance for uninterrupted execution of PayBito operations in adherence to brand compliance policy

3. Expand and nurture local influence of the brand and franchise, promoting crypto development and adoption

PayBitos infrastructure helps one to leverage and profit from the efficacy of the internal processes. They also get access to the exchanges comprehensive and detailed business plan, customer support, exchange API, and marketing support from the best within the industry.



About PayBito:

PayBito is a leading cryptocurrency asset trading platform operating globally. The platform is designed and managed by a team with rich experience in Banking security systems, Cryptocurrency trading, and Blockchain technology. It is available in the web version as well as in iOS and Android stores. PayBito services include white label cryptocurrency exchange, white-label payment gateway, exchange affiliate, and coin listing. PayBito offers some of the best rates and top-notch security in the crypto world.
Rising sea levels are a scary part of the present and future of our planet. According to experts, the oceans are rising around the world by about one-eighth of an inch every year, and while that might not sound like something to worry about, all this water is actually having a substantial impact on human life.

Why are the oceans increasing in size? Multiple factors are at play. Thermal expansion, or the increase of something in volume as its temperature rises, is one cause. As global warming heats up the planet, Earths oceans are warming, which is causing their water molecules to expand, something that is resulting in bigger oceans.

Warmer temperatures on Earth are also causing glaciers and ice sheets to melt. The trouble is, we are not ready for more water. About eight of the ten largest cities in the world are actually located near some type of coastline, according to the United Nations. And this is a problem. Rising water levels are causing more nuisance flooding, shoreline erosion, and destructive storm surges that travel further inland than they once did. Urban infrastructure is now being damaged, including water supplies, roads, bridges, power plants, subways, and more. You name it, water is impacting it. We are truly facing salty, wet trouble.

So, what is being done about it? Here are ten approaches coastal cities around the world are taking to combat the growing nightmare of rising sea levels.

1. More Flood Prevention Plans

Flooding after hurricane Sandy in Brooklyn, New York, US. Image credit: FashionStock.com/Shutterstock

New York City can attribute much of its success to being located on the Atlantic Ocean, but the waters are now creeping in too far. To combat this, the city has made plans to increase the height of the land in places like East River Park. There was initially a plan to build something called the Big U, which was a set of landscaped berms around the southern tip of Manhattan, to protect against rising water levels. This has been changed to simply building up East River Park, but the project is still substantial. It will raise the land there 10 feet higher than it is now by covering it with landfill. Retractable flood gates will also be put in place in the area. A proposal for a living breakwater on Staten Islands South Shore has also been presented, among other ideas.

2. Better Warning Systems

Surat, India, is an important economic center for the country. Its location means it floods easily. Image credit: Tudoran Andrei/Shutterstock

Surat, in India, faces major flooding every year that can inundate up to 75% of the entire city. In response to this, Surat Municipal Corporation Narmada Water partnered with the consulting firm TARU Leading Edge in 2010 for an answer.

Together, the two developed a flood warning system that was finished in 2013. The system takes weather history and real-time weather tracking into account to predict flooding in the area. The system is helping multiple municipal agencies coordinate together when disaster strikes, as well.

3. Building Flood Gates

Maeslantkering flood gates open for passing boats, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Image credit: GLF Media/Shutterstock

What better way to keep water out than to stop it with a wall? In Rotterdam, Netherlands, a system of flood gates called the Maeslantkering were completed in 1999, each running 688 feet long, 72 feet high, and 49 feet deep or thick. When the gates are closed, they protect Rotterdam from storm surges and flooding.

4. Constructing Flood Resistant Housing

Da Nang, Vietnam, experiences almost yearly flooding. Image credit: Hryhorii Patlakha/Shutterstock

In Da Nang, Vietnam, people are making a difference. The Institute for Social and Environmental Transition along with the Rockefeller Foundation's Climate Change Coordination office is running a program that helps the Vietnamese access resources that enable them to build homes that are more flood-resistant. The program works by offering credit and loans to families for much-needed home renovations in neighborhoods where flooding has become a constant problem.

5. Restricting Construction

Flooding aftermath in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Image credit: STORYTELLER MOIZ HUSEIN/Shutterstock

One way to keep people safe from harm is to simply prevent them from living in hazardous areas in the first place. In Tanzanias Dar es Salaam, the government has been trying to incentivize families to buy and build in dryer parts. This has been met with mixed success. Municipalities have gone so far as to formalize property rights in less vulnerable areas in order to incentivize families to live on higher ground. An effort has been made to provide reliable infrastructures such as public toilets, a water supply, and waste collection in areas with less flooding in order to encourage people to construct their homes in dryer areas, even as the wetter spaces remain more attractive to most due to their proximity to the city center and other urban benefits.

6. Relocating Residents

Karet Bipak public cemetery flooded due to heavy rains in Jakarta, Indonesia. Image credit: dani daniar/Shutterstock

Officials in Dar es Salaam are actively trying to get people to relocate to less flood-prone areas. This is also being done in Jakarta, Indonesia. Jakarta plans to build a sea wall like that of the Dutch and is working at relocating about 400,000 people who live on riverbanks and near reservoirs to higher homes.

7. Increasing Green Space

The local community in Marunda Area, Jakarta, Indonesia have started urban farming for environmental and economic benefits in the urban area. Image credit: Bastian AS/Shutterstock

As in New York City, Jakarta is also increasing its green space to combat flooding. A program called Kampung Climate encourages community leaders to upgrade their areas greenspaces. The result is that floodwaters now take a few hours to be absorbed into the ground, whereas this used to take multiple days.

8. Reducing Access to Flood Insurance

A flooded house in Houston, texas, US following Hurricane Harvey. Image credit: IrinaK/Shutterstock

A uniquely American approach to combating the damage inflicted on humans by rising water levels has been a proposal to reduce the number of times a person can access flood insurance. Basically, if you choose to keep on living in a hazardous area, says Bruce Hyde of the University of Connecticut, you should have limited access to insurance protection for your home. Hyde believes there should be rules in place that allow you to claim flood insurance twice but the third time, youre out on your own. In addition, states and cities that do not do anything to try to limit the effects of flooding should not continue to be given federal handouts either, he believes.

9. Elevating Roads

Hurricane Irma in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US. Image credit: FotoKina/Shutterstock

Places like Miami are raising their roads to stay safe. Some roadways are even being built several feet above the surrounding buildings in order to ensure that, if waters rise suddenly, at least people can drive to safety.

10. Improving Infrastructure

Flood doors and pumps near Miami, Florida, US. Image credit: Rudy Umans/Shutterstock

Cities like Miami are also putting more money into improving their existing infrastructure to be able to handle more flooding. This involves installing new pumping stations, and upgrading stormwater drainage systems, as well as elevating sea walls by up to five feet where needed.
FALLS CHURCH, Va. - A former Army Green Beret living in northern Virginia was arrested on Friday, charged with divulging military secrets about his units activities in former Soviet republics during more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.

Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, told Russian intelligence he considered himself a son of Russia, according to an indictment made public after his arrest.

Debbins thought that the United States was too dominant in the world and needed to be cut down to size, prosecutors alleged.

The indictment also states that Debbins was motivated in part because of bitterness over his Army career and a desire to establish business contacts in Russia.

The espionage took place from 1996 to 2011, prosecutors say.

The case against Debbins is the second Justice Department prosecution announced this week accusing a government or military official of transmitting U.S. secrets to a foreign country. The other case, in Hawaii, charged a former CIA officer with spying for China.

The two prosecutions demonstrate that we must remain vigilant against espionage from our two most malicious adversaries  Russia and China, Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Departments top national security official, said in a statement.

Debbins mother was born in the Soviet Union, and Debbins met his wife in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, where they were married in 1997, according to the indictment.

Debbins, of Gainesville, periodically met Russian intelligence beginning in 1996, when he was an ROTC student at the University of Minnesota, through 2011. As far back as 1997, he was even assigned a code name by Russian intelligence agents  Ikar Lesnikov  after signing a statement saying that he wanted to serve Russia, according to prosecutors.

Debbins received nominal payments for his information, even though he initially refused the money. In one meeting with Russian intelligence, he accepted a bottle of Cognac and a Russian military uniform as payment, according to the indictment.

When service members collude to provide classified information to our foreign adversaries, they betray the oaths they swore to their country and their fellow service members, said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, whose office is prosecuting the case. As this indictment reflects, we will be steadfast and dogged in holding such individuals accountable.

Debbins, who was arrested Friday, will have an initial court appearance on Monday. Online court records remained sealed, so it was unclear whether Debbins has an attorney. He is charged under the Espionage Act with providing national defence information to those not entitled to receive it. He could face up to life in prison.

Debbins held Secret and later Top Secret security clearances during the time of his criminal conduct, and served in the Army Special Forces as well, according to the indictment.

The indictment alleges Debbins espionage began in late 1996 when he gave one of his Russian handlers the names of four Catholic nuns he had visited while in Russia.

He was assigned to a chemical unit in South Korea in 1998 and 1999, and the indictment says he provided his Russian handlers information about that deployment. He later deployed with his Special Forces unit to Azerbaijan and Georgia. He also allegedly provided information and names of his fellow Special Forces members.

On multiple occasions, the Russian handlers asked Debbins for U.S. military field manuals. Debbins explained that he was unable to provide them because he believed that carrying the manuals would prompt Homeland Security to stop him at the airport and seize his electronic devices.

The indictment states that Debbins lost his security clearance and command of his unit for an unspecified security violation in 2004 or 2005, and then left the military in 2005 with an honourable discharge. He worked from 2005 through 2010 in Minnesota for a Ukrainian steel manufacture and a transportation company.

His security clearance was restored in 2010 by an Army adjudicator, according to the indictment, though the reinstatement came with a warning that his family and business connections to Russia might make him the target of a foreign intelligence service.

Debbins had told his Russian handlers as far back as 1997 that he wanted to leave the military, but they encouraged him to stay. They also encouraged his decision to join the Special Forces, saying he was of no use to the Russian intelligence service as an infantry commander.

According to the indictment, military officers questions Debbins about his travel after visits to Russia in 2000 and 2003, but he failed to disclose his interactions with Russian intelligence.

The court papers do not explain what led prosecutors to bring charges now or how he came to be under criminal investigation.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku constituency, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has commended Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia over his Town Hall and Result Fair on the infrastructure record of the incumbent government.



Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, on Tuesday, August 18, 2020 held a Results Fair where he briefed Ghanaians about the development projects undertaken by the Akufo-Addo administration in its first term in office.



He described their infrastructure record as ''second to none'' comparing to the first term of any government under the Fourth Republic of Ghana.



The investment in infrastructure by the NPP government over the last three years has been massive. I dare say our investment in infrastructure, our infrastructure record, is second to none for any government in its first term under the Fourth Republic.



Notwithstanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the completion times of some projects, the data indicates that in the fourth republic, no government has achieved as much in its first term of office in terms of infrastructure projects it initiated its first term as the NPP government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo'', he said.



Touching on Dr. Bawumia's speech, Dr. Okoe Boye thanked the Vice President for his presentation and lauded his eloquence in delineating the good works of the government to Ghanaians.



''We thank God for giving us a meticulous Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia'', he said.



He believed the track record of the government speaks volumes and was optimistic Ghanaians will not disappoint President Nana Akufo-Addo in December polls.



He gave a testimony of the road infrastructure constructed in his constituency by the current administration and wondered how the political opponents, particularly the National Democratic Congress (NDC), would think the things that the President has done in three and half years of his administration are basic or trivial to the citizenry.



''When you come to Ledzokuku, we don't see infrastructure. We live infrastructure. We experience infrastructure and we feel infrastructure.''



"Who told you that infrastructure must be more than 1 million dollars to qualify as infrastructure?" he questioned.



To him, the NDC has not learned their lessons yet but still living in illusion that President Nana Akufo-Addo's works are not appreciated by Ghanaians.



"The Akufo-Addo government has in its pocket lessons that should have been learned by the NDC government when they were in power. What we learned was that infrastructure that appeals to the eyes and looking gigantic at one location cannot change the mood and the feelings of those who are at another location who need basic things," he told host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme.



Watch video below





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Don't fret spooky fans, Spirit Halloween is opening its stores in San Antonio soon, according to a news release from the company on Aug. 12.

Every year, the popular Halloween retailer opens weeks before Oct. 31. This year, however, many were worried after a fake viral post declared Spirit Halloween would not be opening due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella leaves the Elysee Palace after a meeting with the French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on May 23, 2018.

Microsoft is signing deals with foreign governments to offer cloud infrastructure packages similar to the bundle it assembled for the U.S. Defense Department, people familiar with the matter said.

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud offering for the Defense Department provides cloud-based computing and storage resources at all government security classification levels, as well as devices that can work offline until they sync back with cloud infrastructure. The Pentagon awarded the JEDI contract to Microsoft in October. The contract is worth up to $10 billion over 10 years.

Outside the U.S., Microsoft has seen interest in the type of relationship that it has formed with the Pentagon, said one of the people. Specifically, Microsoft has committed to staffing the DOD initiative with people who hold sufficient government security clearances, and to delivering a group of existing products and services, as opposed to specially built technologies, at a customized price.

Microsoft employees began work on cloud contracts for foreign governments after it became clear that the JEDI work would be put on hold because of a legal challenge from Amazon, Microsoft's main rival in cloud computing, this person said.

The strategy shows that Microsoft hopes to keep widening its cloud infrastructure business by meeting public sector needs abroad while maintaining a tight collaboration with the Trump administration, which has helped broker a possible acquisition of part of the Chinese-owned social app TikTok.

The company plans to announce the effort later this year, one person said, adding that intelligence agencies and militaries outside the U.S. might use it. Another person briefed on the work said Microsoft already has foreign cloud government contracts, despite that it has not announced the new strategy yet. It's not clear which countries Microsoft is most focused on.

Microsoft shares rose more than 1% after-hours on the news.

The company declined to comment directly on the matter but pointed generally to its government collaborations.

"We've worked with governments around the world on a longstanding and reliable basis for four decades," a spokesperson told CNBC in an email. "We have government customers using our products to enhance their services with the latest in commercial innovations, deeply engage and connect with citizens in powerful ways, and empower government employees with the modern tools they need to be more efficient and effective, and to give them time back to focus on their agency mission."

In November Amazon Web Services filed suit in protest of the government awarding Microsoft the JEDI contract, and in February Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith imposed a temporary restraining order that blocked the contract from moving forward. In April Campbell-Smith gave the Pentagon permission to revisit its evaluation of Microsoft and Amazon's bids for the JEDI contract. The Pentagon expects to be done with the review by Sept. 16.

AWS held 47% of the cloud infrastructure market in 2019, while Microsoft had 13%, according to estimates from industry research company IDC. Piper Sandler analysts led by Brent Bracelin, who have the equivalent of a buy rating on Microsoft stock, estimated that Microsoft had $5.93 billion in revenue from its Azure cloud in the second quarter. That would imply Azure contributed almost 16% of Microsoft's total revenue. Amazon said AWS revenue in the second quarter totaled $10.81 billion.

International customers are more critical to Microsoft than in the past. In Microsoft's 2020 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, the company derived 51% of its revenue from customers located in the U.S., down from 71% in the 2002 fiscal year. Microsoft has won Azure business from some federal groups outside the U.S., including New Zealand's firefighting agency, France's space agency and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Even as Microsoft looks outside its home country for government cloud business, Microsoft continues to ally itself with the U.S. as it seeks to acquire TikTok's operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand from China-based ByteDance. On Aug. 2 Microsoft said its CEO, Satya Nadella, spoke with President Donald Trump about a transaction.

WATCH: CNBC's full interview with former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
2,063 Pak residents among 2,664 foreigners got Indian citizenship in past 4 yrs: RTI

Jammu, Aug 21 (UNI) More than 2,600 foreigners, including 2063 Pakistan residents, have been granted Indian citizenship in the past four years.

Union Ministry of Home Affairs, in a reply to the RTI filed by the Jammu based activist Raman Sharma, revealed that during the period between January 1, 2017 to August 3, 2020, a total of 2,664 foreigners have been granted Indian Citizenship that includes foreign nationals from 43 countries across the world.

The data in this regard has been provided by Citizenship wing (Foreigners Division) of Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India under Right to Information Act to Mr Sharma in response to his online RTI plea.
China's 30-40 Million Men Who Will Never Have Wives Driving Sex Slavery of Girls: WRWF

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A human rights group has warned that sex slavery of girls in China is a problem that will go on for decades thanks to the severe gender imbalance the country's restrictions on couples having children has brought about, speaking on Monday, the 2018 World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

Women's Rights Without Frontiers, headed by Reggie Littlejohn, who for years has been speaking out against the forced abortions that China's one-child and then two-child policies have seen, said in a press release that sex-selective abortions of baby girls continues in the Asian country.

"Now, China has an estimated 30-40 million 'bare branches'  men who will never find wives and will be unable to reproduce and carry on the family line. This alarming gender imbalance is the driving force behind sexual slavery in China," the group warned.

"This will be true for decades to come. Even if China were to eliminate all coercive birth limitations now, even if cultural son preference were magically to disappear and gender ratios at birth were to normalize going forward, the effects of these changes would not be felt for decades," it added.

As WRWF explains, the skewed gender ratio "increases the demand for prostitution and for foreign women as brides for Chinese men  both of which may be procured by force or coercion. Women and girls are kidnapped or recruited through a marriage broker and transported to China, where some are subjected to commercial sex or forced labor."

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and numerous other groups also marked the important day on Monday, warning that human trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar operation that affects nearly every country in the world.

UNODC said that there are millions of men, women and children who fall victims to human trafficking every year, and that almost a third of all trafficking victims are children.

"No region or country is untouched by trafficking of children and young people, who continue to be trafficked for multiple purposes, including sexual and labor exploitation, begging, forced marriage, as soldiers, or for combined exploitative practices," the U.N. body warns.

"Traffickers also profit from large-scale movement of unaccompanied minors, and misuse new technologies to reach additional victims."

WRWF said that although human trafficking and sex slavery are indeed global issues, China is unique in how deep its gender imbalance problem goes.

"The normal ratio is 105 boys born for every 100 girls born. At its height, China's sex ratio at birth was 121 boys for every 100 girls," the group noted, explaining that this is what has created the gender imbalance and the 30 to 40 million so-called "surplus males."

The group blamed China's continued population control measures for the "hundreds of millions Chinese women" who have been "forcibly aborted," adding that "tens of millions of girls have been selectively aborted, and women from within China and throughout the world are being sucked into sexual slavery."

"China's One Child Policy has caused more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth and any other policy in human history. This is the true war against women," it stated.
Deposit Insurance Fund Management Co. Ltd. already injected 34.4 billion yuan ($4.97 billion) into Huishang Bank in the Baoshang Bank takeover process.

A fund managed by Chinas central bank will inject 8.89 billion yuan ($1.28 billion) into Huishang Bank, becoming the commercial banks second-largest shareholder.

Hong Kong-listed Huishang Bank is the most exposed interbank creditor of collapsed Baoshang Bank and one of the recipients of Baoshangs remaining assets. Deposit Insurance Fund Management Co. Ltd., a national deposit insurance fund set up to seize Baoshang, already provided 34.4 billion yuan to Huishang Bank to help cover losses from buying part of Baoshangs good assets.

Huishang Banks board approved a plan to issue as many as 1.56 billion shares to Deposit Insurance Fund at 5.703 yuan ($0.73) each, the bank said Thursday in a statement. The price represents about 85% of the banks net asset value of 6.68 yuan per share as of the end of 2019 but a significant premium over the banks recent H-share price of HK$2.58 ($0.33).

Huishang Bank will also sell 176 million shares to state-owned highway construction company Anhui Provincial Communications Investment Group Co. Ltd., the bank said.

The stock sale aims to supplement the banks core tier 1 capital, the company said. Huishang Bank spent 15.3 billion yuan to acquire Baoshang Banks four branches outside Inner Mongolia. It invested 3.6 billion yuan more for a 15% stake in Mengshang Bank, a bank newly formed to take over Baoshangs Inner Mongolia-based operations and wealth management business.

Anhui provinces State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission through several subsidiaries holds a 30% stake in Huishang Bank and is the biggest shareholder. After the offering, Deposit Insurance Fund will hold an 11.22% stake as the second-largest shareholder.

Chinese financial regulators took control of Inner Mongolia-based Baoshang in May 2019 citing serious credit risks. The bank was used as a piggy bank by its largest shareholder, Tomorrow Holding Co. Ltd., a sprawling conglomerate once controlled by fallen tycoon Xiao Jianhua, to misappropriate billions of dollars, leaving the bank with a financial black hole of 220 billion yuan and severe credit risks to its customers.

Xiao fled to Hong Kong to avoid Chinese mainland authorities corruption crackdown and was placed under investigation in January 2017.

The collapse of Baoshang sent tremors through the countrys vast interbank market and left some financial institutions nursing heavy losses, including Huishang Bank, which lost billions of yuan on its investments with Baoshang.

Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bobsimison@caixin.com)

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By Express News Service

DHARMAPURI: Putting an end to the row over ministers coming up with names of different cities for a possible second capital of the State, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has said that they were views of individuals, and not that of the government.

He was responding to a query from reporters here on Thursday about the recent public statements by ministers on making Madurai or Tiruchy as a second capital for Tamil Nadu. Revenue Minister RB Udayakumar had recently passed a resolution urging the high command to make Madurai the second capital. This was backed by Cooperatives Minister Sellur K Raju.

This was shortly followed by a chorus to announce Tiruchy as the second capital, with Tourism Minister Vellamandi N Natarajan saying, it was also the dream of AIADMK founder MGR. At the press meet, Palaniswami also spoke about the two-language policy, reiterating that the State government was firm on its stand.

Over 93K people tested in Dharmapuri camps

On the recent incident of fake application requesting selection of Hindi as part of the third language in an elementary school in Coimbatore, the Chief Minister said severe action will be taken against the publisher of the fake form. Earlier, chairing a review meeting at the Collectorate, the Chief Minister said, Covid has badly affected the whole world. Measures are in place to curb infection. In Dharmapuri, as many as 1,064 people have been infected. Over 868 people have recovered and been so far.

Only eleven deaths have been recorded. Currently, a total of 185 people are receiving treatment and 37,501 RT-PCR tests have so far been conducted in the district, he said. In Dharmapuri alone, two testing centres have been set up. In Dharmapuri Medical College alone, a total of 1,030 beds have been set up. Another 360 beds have been set up in three other government hospitals, while 180 beds have been set up in three private hospitals, he added.

Six COVID care centres have been put in place in government buildings and 996 beds have been arranged. Dharmapuri has also stocked up on necessary PPT kits and protective gear for a month, the Chief Minister said. As many as 58 fever camps are being held every day. Over 1,095 camps have been conducted so far, where over 93,415 have been tested and the infected have been identified and treated early. Currently, the maternity and the paediatric ward is being constructed at the Dharmapuri MCH at a cost of Rs 10 crore. In Pennagaram GH, an ICU ward is under construction at a cost of Rs 2.54 crore. In Palacode GH, additional wards are being constructed at a cost of Rs 6 crore, he said.
Searches for flights to Portugal have soared after the country was removed from the UKs quarantine list.

Passengers arriving in the UK from Portugal will no longer have to self-isolate from 4am on Saturday after an approved travel corridor was confirmed.

The news, announced on Thursday evening, has caused search traffic for flights to the coastal nation to peak as other popular holiday destinations such as Croatia were removed from the UKs safe list.

Google search data shows a significant spike in searches for the term flights to Portugal by users in the UK at around 6pm on Thursday.

There was smaller peak at 7am on Friday morning.

People looking for flights to UK from Croatia peaked on Thursday at 6pm, shortly after Grant Shapps made the announcement, and high numbers of people searched the same terms early on Friday morning.

Data also shows we can now add Portugal to those countries INCLUDED in Travel Corridors. As with all air bridge countries, please be aware that things can change quickly. Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required (I speak from experience!)  Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) August 20, 2020

A number of easyJet flights from London airports to destinations across Portugal are already unavailable for Saturday and Sunday.

Jet2 is among the airlines aiming to capitalise on the rush, adding extra seats to Faro from Monday from across the UK.

Chief executive Steve Heapy said: Customers are responding to the welcome change in Government advice by booking their much-needed holidays in the Portuguese sunshine, and we are responding to that by adding more flights and seats.

We want our customers to enjoy their well-deserved holidays, and our decision to act quickly and add even more capacity to Faro ensures they will have plenty of choice.
Biden was sharp on Thursday night. Photo: Oliver Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

By almost all accounts, Joe Bidens convention acceptance speech exceeded expectations. I spoke with columnist Jonathan Chait and correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti about why his performance worked and how it will affect the race going forward.

Ben: Well, that was something. After a pretty boilerplate first few minutes of his keynote convention address, Joe Biden delivered what grew into a stirring call to action, defense of Democratic values, and rebuke of Trump in utterly coherent and cogent fashion. The reaction from most of our co-workers and online observers was one of almost universal approval, with many saying this was the best speech hes ever given. Do you agree with that assessment? Granted, I know you havent witnessed all of Bidens public speaking engagements over the last 50 or so years 

Jon: He was better at Larchwood in 77. No, everybody thinks it was the best Biden speech ever  I certainly cant remember a better one.

Gabriel: The energy Im detecting from Dems, especially those in Obamas orbits right now, is very right after the Biden-Ryan debate in 2012. Which is to say, very, very celebratory.

Ben: Why do you think the speech worked particularly well?

Jon: Well, he mixed in more specific policy content than he has in most speeches, not just relying on the soul of America stuff. His delivery seemed very strong. He has struggled before  he has trouble conveying passion without shouting, and then overcorrects by whispering. He seemed to find that balance this time.

Gabriel: I agree, Jon. As far as specifics go, I especially think his foregrounding of the modern civil-rights movement and the climate crisis were especially effective. But the reason this speech was a success overall wasnt because of any one policy point he hit, or even that he was able to deliver it convincingly. It was more about the sweep of his message, I think, which was clear and obviously picked up where Obama left off last night.

Ben: How much of its effectiveness also stems from the fact that nobody was really expecting such a barnburner? Biden is not known as a particularly great speech deliverer, and it seemed likely that Michelle and Barack Obamas addresses would be the ones to remember from this convention. But he may have eclipsed them.

Gabriel: Sure, that was definitely part of it. Its not just the Trump teams insistence that Biden cant string a sentence together. He clearly has not been an extremely compelling speech-giver or even debater during this campaign. But in the past he has been pretty good, and here he showed a set of skills he hasnt rolled out in at least a few years. I still think the Obamas speeches, and Bernie Sanderss, will be remembered. But Biden absolutely did beat the expectations, which were essentially just Hell be fine.

Jon: Clearly hes no Obama. But the Trump expectations strategy is looking ridiculous. Like Trump has been told that every time he mentions Biden saying something he has to point out Biden had no idea what he was even saying. Its silly.

Ben: One has to wonder what the Trump messaging has to pivot to now. Theyve made the mistake of lowering the bar, which Biden has already exceeded. Are they going to suddenly claim that hes an undisputed master of rhetoric now?

Jon: Its weird that the general strategy politicians follow is to promise their supporters theyre going to kick ass in the debate, like a teenager saying hes going to kick your ass in the parking lot after school, until about a week before, when they suddenly switch 180 degrees and start insisting actually he is going to kick my ass.

Gabriel: I mean, theyve changed their messaging on him every like 12 hours. So maybe? But Trump usually doesnt let evidence get in the way of his branding.

Jon: Why doesnt anybody play the low-expectations game from the beginning? Ive never understood.

Gabriel: If you can find me any evidence that the expectations game matters in a tangible way except to make political reporters seem savvy on Twitter  especially when it comes to someone like Trump, who is so well known and who is always going to say his opponent is destroying humanity and hates puppies, well, Id like to see it.

Scratch that, Trump probably actually doesnt like puppies, since he always compares people he doesnt like to dogs.

Jon: I guess Bush-Gore 2000 is an example when the press bought one candidates expectations and produced coverage that favored him on that basis. People thought Gore won, but the press coverage of the debate swung the polls toward Bush.

Gabriel: Sure, though Id argue the media environment now is VERY different.

Jon:

In 47 years, Joe did none of the things of which he now speaks. He will never change, just words!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2020

Thats almost Trump conceding the speech was good.

Gabriel: The Trump tweet is interesting, because it gets to one of his major messaging issues. The Biden never did anything line is hard to square with the Biden is a secret radical line, which itself is hard to square with the THIS is Bidens America line theyve been using, pointing at Minneapolis and Portland. That incoherence, I think, is more of a problem for Trump than his inability to convincingly make the case that Biden is senile. (The biggest, though not the only, problem with that third message, obviously, is that  its literally Trumps America.)

Ben: Looking at the convention as a whole, capped off by the Biden speech that hit its marks  did Democrats match, fall short, or exceed what you thought was possible given the pandemic restraints?

Jon: Its far too soon to know if the convention worked  but the ending, which got universally strong reviews, will probably lead to a few days of positive media coverage.

Gabriel: Agreed, and none of us knew what to expect, right? But what we got was a series of very memorable speeches  Biden, the Obamas, Bernie  and some interesting moments that highlighted the Democratic Partys diversity and varied voices in occasionally very effective, and affecting, ways. I have no idea if were going to see a traditional convention bounce out of this, but itll be a lot easier to judge after the Republican convention next week.

Jonathan: Going into this, there was certainly much more downside risk than normal. It could have been awful. I think well have a better gauge when we see how Republicans use the format. A week from now, we might see the DNC as primitive or as a clever workaround in comparison to a disastrous RNC.

Gabriel: One big downside was the limited speaking time, so some groups within the party will likely feel aggrieved about not getting enough minutes in the spotlight. And that will, often, be fair. (Progressives, in particular, were upset, and an in-person convention wouldve also highlighted more local and state-level candidates, not to mention union leaders.) But that also kept everything crisp and on-message, and complaints about speaking time are obviously secondary to the content, which was mostly unobjectionable across the party. Reports suggest that Trump was watching closely for clues on how his convention should look. So  well see.
(Newser)  Over the course of a month this summer, the bodies of three Fort Hood soldiers have been found near the Texas army base. Now, another soldier is missing. Sgt. Elder Fernandes, 23, was last seen or heard from Monday afternoon, when his staff sergeant dropped him off at home, the AP reports. He was reported missing Wednesday, and on Thursday night, US Army officials issued a missing soldier alert asking for the public's help in locating him. A state representative says Fernandes' vehicle was found with all his belongings, KXXV reports; he had recently signed a new lease but never picked up the keys to his apartment. Fort Hood has one of the highest rates of murder, sexual assault, and harassment in the Army. (Read more Fort Hood stories.)
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Linkedin Niruban Balachandran and William P. Tuchrello (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:56 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f7301e 3 Opinion united-states,presidential-election,Joe-Biden,Barack-Obama,Joko-Widodo,UNCLOS,Kamala-Harris,US-Indonesia-Strategic-Partnership Free

The United States election on Nov. 3 will significantly impact Indonesia. As a middle-income, nonaligned, Group of 20 economy, Indonesia tends to flourish when it actively participates in global multilateral and cooperative agreements. An expansion of Indonesias longstanding strategic partnership with the US could be beneficial to both nations.

Joe Biden, who was the vice president in Barack Obamas administration, may presently be more optimistic about his chances for victory. His new running mate is the assiduous Senator Kamala Harris: They currently beat Trump in almost every major US swing state by several percentage points.

If the US election were held today, Biden and Harris would not only win the White House but would also expand Democrat-held seats in both the US House of Representatives and Senate. While the results of the US election are months away, it is paramount for Indonesians to also understand and prepare for a potential Biden presidency, as there are less than 90 days left until Americas election day.

At first, Biden was initially written off as too old and too traditional to win the US presidency, but the current American zeitgeist is encapsulated by the musician Neil Young in his updated, 2020 version of his classic song Looking for a Leader: Yeah, we had Barack Obama, and we really need him now/The man who stood behind him has to take his place somehow/America has a leader building walls around our house/He dont know black lives matter and we got to vote him out.

One reason it is useful for Indonesians to try to understand and prepare for a potential Biden presidency is because the interests and values of the US and Indonesia mostly align. Biden realizes the importance of Indonesia as a US partner. For example, in 2015, when Biden visited Jakarta as Obamas vice president, he praised Indonesia as possessing strategic value, not least because of its status as one of the worlds most ethnoreligiously diverse countries, with the worlds largest Muslim population.

Moreover, in last Decembers Democratic Party debate, he stated, We in fact should make sure we begin to build our alliances, which Trump has demolished, with Japan and South Korea, Australia and Indonesia.

Given Bidens respectful, empathetic approach to diplomacy and his deep knowledge of countries, including Indonesia, there is good reason to infer that he will strive to restore an assertive but positive relationship with Indonesia. As a noted geostrategist, Biden is therefore likely to recommit to Obamas and Joko Jokowi Widodos US-Indonesia Strategic Partnership and potentially upgrade bilateral cooperation with Jakarta around COVID-19 response, advanced technologies, regional infrastructure connectivity, climate action, interfaith peacebuilding, democratization, and trade and investment. It is possible that a president Biden will seriously consider the idea of an official presidential visit to Indonesia.

To defeat Trump with a landslide mandate this November, Biden will campaign by drawing upon his decades of experience as a respected global leader. If elected, Biden is likely to start attending the annual regional Asia summits that Trump has been increasingly neglecting: the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asian Summit and other key forums. He is also likely to refocus on high-level strategic engagement with Southeast Asian heads of state and senior leaders, including with Indonesian President Jokowi.

Biden would likely return the US as a member state to the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement, World Health Organization, UNESCO and other multilateral organizations that have suffered from the absence of US leadership over the last three years.

For example, Biden is likely to support strengthening the World Trade Organization by moving the US economy away from tariff-killing policies, while promoting regional leadership that will advance the peace and security of the South China Sea for pollution-free fishing and international freedom of navigation. In contrast to Trump, Biden is also more likely to closely collaborate with Indonesia and other nations to eventually eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better.

As reflected in the Obama administrations previous support for legislative ratification of the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and regional trade cooperation (the Trans-Pacific Partnership), under Bidens leadership, America is likely to be an active participant in the art of diplomacy and partnerships.

Lastly, Biden is also a foreign policy pragmatist who will communicate with both Israelis and the Palestinians. He is likely to support Israel as a crucial US partner for regional security, shared values and other areas of cooperation. He is also likely to support the creation of a Palestinian state, as well as the restoration of US aid to the Palestinian Authority under clearly defined conditions.

Biden will also unequivocally condemn any Palestinian terrorist attacks, especially on unarmed civilian noncombatants, and craft a peaceful, realistic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Biden recognizes that a two-state solution cannot be negotiated with only one of the parties.

Trumps dark, antagonistic worldview has long been reflected in his blatant racism, transactionalism, and his xenophobic visa and immigration policies. He primarily perceives Indonesia through the lenses of his family business  as merely useful in selling gaudy real estate projects in Bali and West Java.

In summary, although imperfect, a Biden administration would probably represent a fresh start: As the worlds second- and third-largest democracies, the US and Indonesia would likely advance multilateral cooperation, sustainable peace and the rule of law as shared values in mutual partnership.

-------

Niruban Balachandran is a former staff member at the World Bank

William P. Tuchrello is a retired United States diplomat

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
The big shareholder groups in Scapa Group plc (LON:SCPA) have power over the company. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership.

With a market capitalization of UK221m, Scapa Group is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Scapa Group.

Check out our latest analysis for Scapa Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Scapa Group?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

Scapa Group already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Scapa Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Scapa Group is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Octopus Investments Limited with 8.2% of shares outstanding. Castlefield Investment Partners LLP is the second largest shareholder owning 6.5% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 6.2% of the company stock. Additionally, the company's CEO Heejae Chae directly holds 0.6% of the total shares outstanding.

Story continues

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 11 have the combined ownership of 52% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Scapa Group

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Scapa Group plc in their own names. It seems the board members have no more than UK1.7m worth of shares in the UK221m company. I generally like to see a board more invested. However it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 14% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 8.2% stake in Scapa Group. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Scapa Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Scapa Group (of which 1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) you should know about.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed near the Israeli security fence late Thursday, and carried out airstrikes on targets linked to the territory's Hamas rulers, the Israeli military said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage. The military said it struck a concrete manufacturing site used for underground infrastructure and tunnel construction, belonging to the Hamas terror organization.

Tensions have risen in recent days as groups affiliated with Gaza's militant Hamas rulers have launched incendiary balloons across the frontier, igniting farmland inside

Hamas is demanding that ease the blockade it imposed when the Islamic militant group seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. In response to the balloons, Israel has closed Gaza's main commercial crossing forcing the territory's only power plant to shut down and barred fishermen from its waters.

Israel has also carried out airstrikes on targets linked to Hamas, which it blames for all violence emanating from the territory. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and several smaller battles since the militants seized power.

Egyptian mediators visited Gaza earlier this week try and shore up an informal cease-fire but left without announcing any progress.

Hamas says Israel is not honoring previous understandings reached with the help of Egypt and Qatar, in which Israel should ease the blockade and allow for large-scale projects to help rescue Gaza's collapsing economy.

(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.)
Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we intend to prove it. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends throughout. Here, they discuss the weeks events with Dave DAlessandro of the Star-Ledger Editorial Board.

Q. Sen. Mike Testa (R-Cape May) is suing NJ on behalf of the Trump campaign to end our vote-by-mail strategy, calling it a power grab that violates the constitution and invites fraud. Gov. Murphy says if VBM is good enough for Trump, its good for everyone, that the GOP is trying to delegitimize the election, and, by the way, 16,000 of us are dead because were in a pandemic. Whos right?

Mike: While cable TV pundits would just blast one side or the other, both sides have points and shortcomings. One million people voted in person in Michigans primary last month, and theres not been a change at all to the coronavirus statistics. New Jerseyans have to line up for hours at the DMV and can now cram into Best Buy, but we cannot be trusted to vote in person. As a Republican, I dont crusade against making voting easier. We should embrace convenience voting and push more conservatives to vote.

Mike: But Gov. Murphy is unilaterally picking winners and losers, what can be open and what stores must close. And now he is changing election law without the legislature as well. And concern about voter fraud is real. It is not a myth. I have seen people cast fraudulent votes with my own eyes and tried to stop. I have seen elections stolen. Our Democrat Attorney General appointed by our Democrat Governor recently indicted a Democrat councilman in Paterson for vote by mail voter fraud this year.

Julie: The difference between going to Best Buy in person and voting in person is that voting is a right for every adult American citizen, whereas cramming into Best Buy to get a new flatscreen tv is a personal choice. Governor Murphy was absolutely right to allow an all VBM election, though I wish that decision could have come sooner so that county officials could have prepared earlier.

Mike: Just remember, no one has a right to steal a TV or an election.

Like it or not, Vote by Mail is here. Lets make it work | Editorial https://t.co/X3INH9AreU pic.twitter.com/8cyIVq625Z  NJ.com Politics (@NJ_Politics) June 22, 2020

Q. With Chief Justice Rabner the lone dissenter, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Newark Civilian Complaint Review Board cannot subpoena witnesses or evidence. Which makes us wonder: Whats the point of a CCRB then? Is the court right to tell the Legislature to settle it?

Mike: Well, CCRB isnt a law enforcement body, and I believe legally those rights are retained by law enforcement, not every government or quasi-government entity. The legislature would have to give them legal authority they dont currently have.

Julie: The legislature should move to give that power to the CCRB quickly. Independent oversight should not be a concern to police officers, the vast majority of whom are wonderful public servants. And if you want to read about why the CCRB is a critical tool in stopping police misconduct, may I suggest the brilliant amicus brief written by Larry Lustberg on behalf of the ACLU.

Q. A group of 90 academics and economic policy experts sent a letter to Gov. Murphy and legislative leaders, calling on them to get through the budget disaster of 2020 with tax increases, while decrying spending cuts. Do you think the letter found a receptive audience?

Mike: This is just dumb. This is how liberals in one of the bluest states in the country with a million more Democrats than Republicans somehow figure out a way to lose. This lunacy to tax, tax and keep taxing is why Republicans still win races here. We are one of the highest taxed states in America; we have the second highest unemployment in the country; small businesses are closing; government is failing on basic services like the DMV, unemployment and perhaps even education. Yet the solution  take more money from peoples pockets and give it to government?!? If Democrats want to propel a Republican into the governors office next year and give us back the legislature then please-please-please follow this prescription.

Julie: It must be nice to be able to write policy prescriptions, as well intended as they are, without having to worry about political realities.

Mike: Maybe I will reinvent myself as a policy wonk who relies on a bottomless pit of fictional money for my suggestions. I will then be disdainful of those too cheap or so heartless to disagree.

Little brings out torches and pitchforks like a call to raise taxes. Thats exactly what we did in a letter to the NJ governor endorsing higher income tax rates on the wealthiest and a corporate tax surcharge rather than spending cuts.@RU_SMLR @NJPolicy https://t.co/b1B7a3DFxH  Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (@YanaRodgers) August 18, 2020

Q. A survey by the NJ Coalition against Sexual Assault found that 64 percent of women in NJ politics and government say they have been harassed, as have 28 percent of men. Should we be surprised by how prevalent this has become?

Mike: That number is appalling. During the #MeToo movement I have tried to listen and learn. I have been naive to just how prevalent this problem has been right in our own state capital.

Julie: Why are we surprised? A young woman filed a well-reported rape complaint that triggered conversations about toxicity on political campaigns. Other women came forward to buttress her account of a toxic, misogynistic work environment. This newspaper ran a huge expose on this problem in December. Nothing has changed because predators can always count on the media to move on to the next topic. What's worse, we have no idea about the true scope of the problem because of pernicious gag orders, masquerading as "confidentiality provisions," which prevent women from speaking up about their experiences.

Julie: When powerful men work to destroy the women who have the courage to come forward, it makes other survivors reluctant to speak up. Until the perpetrators are drummed out of the business, rather than the women brave enough to speak up, nothing will change. Male politicians should stow the flowery speeches and take affirmative action by ridding themselves of abusers and misogynists. That starts at the top.

Whats shown by this report is that the day-to-day wearing down of women is significant. Many respondents said thats what drove them out of this sphere of work, executive director @PTeffenhart told @StarLedger in a new interview. https://t.co/nQ1BcLuJ3F  New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault (@NJ_CASA) August 19, 2020

Q. What moment from the Democratic Convention stood out for you or for voter resonance in general, besides the revelation that calamari is the Rhode Island state appetizer?

Mike: VP Biden walking in after his wife spoke was a nice moment. Bidens humanity and empathy have come through. However, one mistake Democrats made in 2016 that they are repeating is that too much of the focus is on Trump, and not enough on their signature issues. Theyre such a disconnect between the socialist wing and the centrist wing that they need to hide it, so I get it.

Julie: The moment that stood out for me was the roll call, where almost every state featured either a politician of color, a first responder or a regular citizen with a compelling story. The message is pretty simple: what is happening to the nation now is not normal. Donald Trump is an aberration who stands for nothing that these people all across the country stand for -- decency, unity, diversity. (As for Mikes point, I heard an inordinate amount of affirmative talk on Wednesday night about immigration reform, Obamacare and other policy prescriptions, so maybe we were watching different conventions.)

Q. The RNC kicks off Monday. Youre the experts in political messaging, what should the Republican message be?

Mike: President Trumps greatest strength was the economy. You will see a two-pronged effort, one positive and one contrast. First, they will attempt to convince voters hes the right man to wrestle the COVID threat away and return to the strongest economy weve seen in decades. The contrast will be against the Democratic partys surrender to Bill de Blasio-like extremism and weakness. The GOP would welcome a debate on defunding the police or a green new deal.

Julie: It's very hard to prescribe a message to a campaign whose message and messenger are both subject to the whims of whatever Fox and Friends or QAnon or Rush Limbaugh happen to be talking about that day. I'm sure we'll hear all about how Marxists in the Democratic Party want to take away everyone's guns while banning toilet paper. That might have been effective, were hundreds of thousands of Americans not dead or dying from COVID, while millions are out of work.

Mike: To be clear, I am pro-toilet paper, especially the kind manufactured right here in NJ up at Marcal. This is the first Im hearing that Julies party wants to ban it. Sad!

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Hyderabad: After some parents from St. Andrews School, Bowenpally were taken into custody and issued notices by the police, the Hyderabad Schools Parents Association has expressed levelled allegations against the police and expressed serious condemnation of the act.

Parents who have been protesting against high school fees and violation of Government Order 46 by several schools in the state said that the police has been acting unfairly under the influence of school managements and threatening aggrieved parents of booking them under the pretext of pandemic laws.

They say that the cops have ignored harassment by school managements over fees, and instead are enthusiastic about booking parents and intimidating them over phone calls.

The HSPA says that they will challenge these notices to several parents issued by the police in the High Court. They further raised questions asking whether pandemic laws are only applicable to protesting parents and the common public and not on politicians and higher authorities in state.

The St. Andrew's School in Bowenpally was earlier found guilty of violating the government order by collecting huge fees. The issue came to light when parents of pupils of the school lodged a complaint and the deputy inspector of schools in Secunderabad Mandal 2 conducted an inquiry into their allegations. The parent body says that the school management had outrightly refused to decrease the fees for online classes.
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.) accused President Trump of cowardice in her speech to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, adding that Trump is easily manipulated by tyrants such as Vladimir Putin.

U.S. soldiers have a coward-in-chief, who wont stand up to Vladimir Putin, read his daily intelligence briefings, or even publicly admonish adversaries for reportedly putting bounties on our troops heads, Duckworth said. As president, Joe Biden would never let tyrants manipulate him like a puppet. He would never pervert our military to stroke his own ego.

Duckworth was referring to reports that Russia had paid bounties to Afghan terrorists in exchange for killing American soldiers. The White House initially maintained that the intelligence was never verified and that Trump was not briefed on the matter.

However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that he warned Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia would pay an enormous price if the country placed bounties for American soldiers.

Duckworth is herself a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, where she was a helicopter pilot. The Illinois senator lost her right leg and part of her left leg in 2006 when Iraqi insurgents downed her Black Hawk helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Duckworths remarks came after Hillary Clinton alleged in her Wednesday speech that a foreign adversary could sway the election. During the 2016 election and after her loss, Clinton alleged that Trump was essentially a puppet of Vladimir Putin.

More from National Review
But one of the family members, Hayat Abi Chacra, said the repair work was being done at no charge and that she would take whatever assistance she could get. The workman doing the repairs had volunteered to help after her 38-year-old son, Shadi, was killed in the explosion. It had taken two days to recover his body from the rubble.
Democratic National Convention

Regarding Biden is nominated in virtual roll call, (A1, Aug. 19): For two days I have heard why I shouldnt vote for President Donald Trump, but I have heard little or nothing why I should vote for former Vice President Joe Biden. I was taught not to throw out the dirty water before I have a clean replacement. As long as I am not given many very good reasons for changing the presidency, I am staying with what I know is working for me.

Gunter Frankel, Houston

The DNC did an excellent job of illustrating the pleasant nature of the Joe Biden of yesteryear. However, that is not the Joe Biden currently running for president. The former version does not exist anymore. Therein lies the challenge for the DNC  hide the new, advertise the old.

Johnnie Rutledge, Brenham

Many of us, just like the Democratic Party for its convention, have moved into the virtual world during this time of COVID-19. While participating in these virtual experiences one frequently looks at the background scene of those who are appearing virtually. The wall of stacked firewood behind Sen. Bernie Sanders caught my attention when he spoke on Monday evening. I couldnt help but wonder if he uses firewood that does not release carbon dioxide to heat his home. Alternatively, perhaps he realizes that if the Green New Deal is enacted and fracking is banned, he will need to resort to firewood as a heat source during the Vermont winter. Is he being hypocritical and burning all that firewood as a fuel source, or is he just stockpiling it and being well prepared should Joe Biden win the election?

Jim Robertson, Houston

Back in school

Regarding In-person classes will begin in phases, (A2, Aug. 19): Im outraged that local ISDs are willing to throw the dice and gamble with the health of our students and teachers, our children and spouses by ignoring CDC recommendations for safely returning to the school environment. What ever happened to our government officials vowing to follow the science? Weve already seen what happened in North Carolina when they opened the university too soon without satisfying any of the benchmarks for doing so safely.

David Kelly, Spring

Regarding In-person classes are crucial to universities, (A21, Aug. 19): I read Robert Zaretskys piece and take issue with some of his statements. Most significantly, I believe he understates and underestimates the significant value of virtual online learning in the higher education setting and unfairly overstates the need for face-to-face interaction in higher education. To me, it seems a bit arrogant and unfair to the educators and colleges that truly provide quality online education today. For almost 14 years, I have taught as an adjunct professor at Lone Star College, which has a very strong and effective training program for online instructors. Without a doubt, there is effective learning going on there. In my classes, students engage views in a meaningful way, learn to think critically and write effectively. I am just one of many who achieve the same online.

Joseph G. Soliz, Houston
Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III of Massachusetts in the heated Democratic primary for one of the states U.S. Senate seats, bolstering the 39-year-old Mr. Kennedy in his challenge to the incumbent, Senator Edward J. Markey.

Never before have the times demanded we elect courageous leaders as today, and that is why I am proud to endorse Joe Kennedy for Senate, the speaker said in a video announcing her endorsement, which was reported by The Boston Globe.

She praised Mr. Kennedy, a grandnephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy, for helping flip the House of Representatives in 2018, adding that he knows that to achieve progressive change, you must be on the front lines, leading movements of people.

Ms. Pelosis decision to endorse in the Sept. 1 primary is unusual: She is usually a significant defender of incumbents in the House, where she served with Mr. Markey for more than a quarter century.
has been offered at least 2,000 doses of a Russian Covid-19 vaccine and is to take part in its clinical trials, said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.

This is "very good news because once again we are gaining time", Xinhua news agency quoted Ebrard as saying on Thursday.

The Minister and Russian Ambassador to Viktor Koronelli met on Wednesday to discuss the country's participation in testing the "Sputnik V" vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology.

"It will arrive in to begin testing. I will announce the date very soon, but yesterday both the offer and the acceptance were formalized," Ebrard said.

Mexico has agreed to help produce a Covid-19 vaccine for Latin America developed by the UK's Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, said Ebrard.

Phase three trials of a vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson are likely to begin in September, he added.

Mexico has so far reported a total of 543,806 cases with 59,106 deaths, according health authorities.
BALTIMORE - It was an easy Monday morning, like so many the couple had shared.

Lonnie Herriott woke up first, as usual, and went to the bathroom while Jerome Jackson slept in on his day off from work. When she returned, Jackson stirred just enough to ask if she could make spaghetti for lunch.

"OK baby," she said, sinking back into bed beside him.

Love had surprised them in their sixties, like an Indian summer. And after more than four years of dancing, drinking, eating and laughing together, they had just begun to discuss getting married.

Then came the explosion.

As Jackson slept, a tremendous blast tore through the rowhouse in northwest Baltimore at around 9 a.m. Broken bricks, splintered wood and roof shingles rained down on Labyrinth Road. Telephone poles snapped and windshields cracked. The shock wave alone shattered windows two blocks away.

Neighbors who came running found Jackson's home reduced to rubble, along with those on either side of it. A fourth rowhouse had been torn in half.

Good Samaritans began digging through the wreckage, drawn by the wails of the wounded, and were soon joined by firefighters.

Washington Post photo by Michael E. Miller.

The Aug. 10 explosion, which authorities believe was caused by a gas leak, was yet another shock for a city already reeling from gun violence and the coronavirus pandemic.

Over the next 14 hours, as TV crews filmed and the families of the missing gathered, emergency workers would pull seven survivors from the rubble.

They would also find two bodies.

- - -

Jackson was jolted awake by someone grabbing him.

"Come on, I got you," said a voice. "Let me get you out of there."

But when he blinked away the dust from his eyes, he didn't see his girlfriend but rather a Baltimore City firefighter. And instead of his bedroom he saw only shards of wood and brick.

The rowhouse where he'd spent the past decade, nearly half of it with Herriott, looked like it had been hit by a bomb. A dented refrigerator lay on its side amid the rubble. Clothes were caught high up in the branches of a tree.

As rescue workers loaded Jackson into the back of an ambulance, the 65-year-old could only think one thing.

Where was Lonnie?

They had met a decade ago while working as cleaners at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. But it wasn't until the summer of 2016 that they had begun to date.

Herriott was no longer working at the airport, but was hanging out with former co-workers when Jackson arrived. As they sat outside chatting over drinks, he became enchanted with the woman four years his junior.

"She didn't have nobody and I didn't have nobody," he recalled. "So I said, 'Would you like to go out?'"

They shared every weekend since, often at the American Legion Post-19, where Herriott loved to dance to The Dells with a glass of Remy Martin in her hand.

"My first impression was, 'Oh, I'm gonna keep her,'" Jackson said. "Her smile - oh my god, it just blew me away."

He worked Tuesday to Saturday at the airport, where he'd often finish a shift to find Herriott, who was on disability insurance, waiting for him at the Dunkin' Donuts. They'd catch the bus to his place, where she would cook him dinner and they'd watch movies.

It was at the rowhouse on Labyrinth Road that Herriott and Jackson learned last month that his housemate and best friend, Leon Phillips, was planning to get married.

Jackson had two adult children but had never been married. Herriot had, but was separated and without kids. Now she turned to Jackson and popped the question.

"Would you marry me, if it came to that?" she asked him.

"Of course," he recalled replying. "But right now, we're gonna take it slow and just be together. You're not going anywhere, and neither am I."

They spent the night before the explosion drinking Remy and Heinekens and watching "Harlem Nights," one of her favorite movies.

The next morning, when Phillips woke up around 6 a.m. to head to work, he caught a whiff of natural gas coming from the vents, he recalled.

Workers had installed a new air conditioning unit on the house the day before, but Phillips didn't think too much of the odor. And as he passed Jackson's door on the way downstairs, he decided against waking the buddy who'd taught him rollerskating tricks on the streets of Baltimore 50 years before.

A few hours later, Phillips was at work when a neighbor called to say his house had just blown up.

The 64-year-old remembered the smell of gas that morning and felt his stomach sink. By the time, he reached the neighborhood, firefighters had already pulled seven people from the rubble, including one dead woman. But they wouldn't say who had survived, and Jackson wasn't answering his phone.

"Somebody died," Phillips said into his cell phone, standing behind the yellow police tape that now closed off the street. "I don't know if it was Lonnie or not."

Bartholomew Jackson, Jerome's younger brother, was at work when he heard about the explosion. Two other brothers had already died, including one in March of pneumonia.

"Not another one," he thought.

While Jerome's daughter, Terice Washington, tried calling BWI to see if her father was at work, Bartholomew drove to Sinai Hospital to see if his brother was in the emergency room. But there was no sign of him.

Bartholomew drove to the site of the explosion but authorities wouldn't say if his brother survived. He was about to drive to another hospital when Sinai called: Jackson was alive.

The blast had scorched the skin on his face, arms and shoulders. He was covered in bruises and cuts, including a gash to the top of his head. His ribs were cracked in three places, and his left arm had been smashed when the building collapsed.

As he lay in his hospital bed, Jackson held out hope that Herriott had been shopping for spaghetti makings when the explosion hit. But as day turned to night and he didn't hear from her, he began to fear the worst.

At around midnight, firefighters found a second body buried in the rubble. But it wasn't Herriott's. It was a 20-year-old college student named Joseph Graham Jr.

When Jackson's daughter was able to speak to him the next morning, Herriott was all he could talk about.

"I need to make sure Lonnie is OK," Washington recalled him saying. "Can you call around? Can you find out what happened to her?"

Concussed and without his phone, Jackson struggled to recall information that would help his family track her down. By Wednesday morning, there was still no word on her whereabouts, so Jackson's brother began canvassing her neighborhood.

That afternoon, Jackson was in his hospital room when the news flashed across his television.

Authorities had identified the woman whose body had been pulled from the rubble, just minutes after Jackson had been rescued.

It was Lonnie.

- - -

The new cell phone next to his hospital bed played an unfamiliar song, so Jerome Jackson flipped it open with his one good hand and stared hard at the screen. It had been a week since the explosion, and though the staples and sutures had started to heal, his eyes were still blurry from the heat of the blast.

"What's going on man?" he said as a neighbor began asking him about the incident. "Yeah, I was still in the house. I was sleeping."

He had told the story a dozen times now. But it was what he didn't know that haunted him.

Where had Herriott been when it happened? Was she right next to him in bed, but only he had somehow been spared? Or was she making them breakfast downstairs, closer to the blast?

The days since had been a mix of anger, grief and uncertainty.

His pastor had assured him over the phone that everything was a part of God's plan. But Jackson wasn't sure what to believe anymore.

"It makes me question things," he said. "Why did this have to happen to her? Why did this have to have to happen to me?"

Baltimore Gas and Electric had quickly determined that the blast was not due to a problem with its pipes, but rather an issue inside one of the houses. An investigation into the incident is ongoing, according to a spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Fire Department, which is leading the inquiry with assistance from the state fire marshal and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Jackson said his landlord, Leroy Johnson, had called him twice to say he was sorry about what happened and to offer help finding a new place to live.

But he wasn't sure he wanted help from his landlord, who didn't mention the AC repair in the calls, according to Jackson.

Reached by phone the day of the explosion, Johnson declined to speak to The Washington Post, saying he was busy visiting a tenant in the hospital. But when a reporter called back a week later, a man angrily said it was a wrong number and hung up.

Much of Jackson's anger was initially directed not at his landlord, but at the best friend who'd smelled gas but failed to say anything.

When Phillips visited the hospital on Saturday and apologized, Jackson was irate.

"You're sorry? If you had told me you smelled gas, this never would have happened to me," Jackson recalled saying. "I never would have lost Lonnie."

After Phillips left, however, Jackson asked God to give him the strength to forgive his friend. And by Monday evening, his anger had faded, even if his pain had not.

Two miles away, Herriott's relatives were holding a memorial with the Graham family in a church parking lot, waving to mourners as they drove by. And on Labyrinth Road, mourners were also gathering at the spot where the two lovers had been pulled from the rubble - only one of them alive.

Jackson could attend neither. An operation to repair his wrist had been postponed after doctors found a blood clot in one of his lungs. His ribs still ached and his face glistened where he'd been burned. He wasn't even sure if he'd be able to attend Herriott's funeral.

The explosion had stolen the woman he'd found late in life and sworn to keep, and left him without even a photo to mourn her.
When the 19th Amendment gave American women the right to vote 100 years ago this month, 1,370 women registered in Huntsville. Six of them were Black.

They were pursuing the opportunities that the circumstances of their lives put before them and going as far as they possibly could. That included voting, Brenda Chunn said this week. Chunn is president of the alumni association of the citys former Black William Hooper Councill High School.

Soon, the six will be named on a state historic marker in downtown Huntsville in a new park on the site of the Councill school. Mayor Tommy Battle wrote the Alabama Historical Commission recommending the recognition adding that, There are currently no historic markers in Huntsville or Madison County recognizing the contributions African American women have made to our community.

Being honored are Mary Wood Binford, Ellen Scruggs Branden, India Leslie Herndon, Lou Bertha Perkins Johnson, Celia Love McCrary and Dora Fackler Lowery. Four of the six were college graduates and former teachers. Most have a common connection with Councill High School, Historic Huntsville Foundation Executive Director Donna Castellano said.

The 1913 Faculty of Councill High with Henry C. Binford, Jr. in the center and Mary Wood Binford, an early Black voter in Alabama, seated on the far right.

The Historic Foundation and women leaders in the Black community worked to document the six suffragists history. Key to the effort were Chunn, president of the Councill alumni association, and Ollye Conley, former principal of the citys Academy of Sciences and Foreign Languages and guardian angel of Glenwood Cemetery, Castellano said. Glenwood is where the Black suffragists are buried.

Not every marker honoring Black progress in Huntsville will fit in the new park, Chunn said, but this one does. The womens families had connections to Councill school, but their desire to vote said something bigger that reflected the schools mission. It was a welcome surprise to know that all eyes in the African American community were on every aspect of development, of forward movement, of momentum, Chunn said.

Castellano said several of the women had fathers or husbands who won elective office in Huntsville before Alabamas 1901 Constitution took away the vote from 170,000 Black Alabama men. It is highly likely that, having seen their community become increasingly vulnerable to racial injustice due to their loss of voting rights, they became more committed to the necessity of voting as a remedy for Black citizens, Castellano wrote in an account of the womens history.

Dora Fackler Lowery, an early voting rights pioneer in Alabama and the mother of civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery.

Seeking the vote, winning the right to vote and going to the polls has been a strong thread through Black history in America. Dora Fackler Lowery, one of the women being honored, is the mother of the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a Civil Rights leader who worked for passage of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Dora Lowery lived to see that bill become law providing the right to vote to all American citizens, Castellano said.
Theyve become a symbol of love in the time of coronavirus, but the Canadian-American couples whove spent months stealing down to a stretch of the BC-Washington border may have to get used to seeing their loves ones through a fence.

Zero Avenue, a flat, straight road that runs parallel to the border on the Canadian side, is known as a haven for smugglers. The road on the American side is called Boundary Road, and the two are separated only by patches of grass.

Until now.

The U.S. Border Patrol, Blaine Sector, has decided the stretch of border, which stretches between the Pacific Ocean and the city of Abbotsford, to the north, has gone barrier-free long enough.

Theyre building a fence.

This project addresses binational safety concerns related to a vulnerable section of the border located between Boundary Road in the U.S. and Zero Avenue in Canada, reads a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Jason Givens. This barrier is designed to prevent vehicles from either accidentally, or purposefully, crossing the boundary and endangering citizens in both countries.

Although American officials referred to the project as benefitting both the U.S. and Canada, a representative from the Canada Border Services Agency said only that the fence is being installed on the U.S. side of the border.

Technically a wire barrier that will eventually span just shy of two and a half kilometres is a far cry from the border wall the U.S. is building along the Mexico border, where the U.S. has erected 200 miles of wall under the Trump administration (although most of the wall is fencing).

Nonetheless, it will have an impact on Canadians and Americans alike.

Especially those lovebirds using the open area to meet in person while the border remains closed.

Natalie Hutchison, a North Delta, B.C., woman who spoke to the Star earlier this spring during a meetup with her American boyfriend along Zero Avenue, said Thursday she didnt really see the point of erecting the wire fence.

It feels like people who are in cross-border relationships are being punished for loving someone from a different country and that is just one more way to try and keep us apart, she said.

Sad to see they thought it was necessary.

The one spot that will remain open is Peace Arch Park, an expanse of grass that straddles the international boundary near Vancouver, and Hutchinson says she plans to continue to meet her boyfriend there.

Before the fence went up, Hutchison and her boyfriend, Joey Camarillo, of Blaine, Wash., found a new rendezvous spot, on the U.S. side of Peace Arch Park, an international park straddling the B.C.-Washington State border located next to a major port of entry.

After speaking with RCMP, I was told I could still cross on the U.S. side, she said.

Hutchison said she parks on a side street on the Canadian side of the border, walks across a ditch and meets up with her boyfriend in the park.

There are lots of tables, but most people bring sun shelters or blankets, she said. We try for twice a week. Its nice to have dinner or breakfast together to stay connected.

The Canadian side of Peace Arch Park had reopened May 14, but then closed again on June 18, due to a dramatic increase in visitation.

BC Parks understands the desire for family and friends to reunite, and how difficult these past months have been for people who have loved ones living across the border, says an online notice.

We will continue to monitor the situation and will look to reopen the park when it is safe to do so.

Read more about:
South Korea is moving to secure a sufficient supply of coronavirus vaccines through close international cooperation and local development, the government said Friday.



The move comes as countries around the world have been racing to find drugs that can combat the pandemic that has killed more than 796,000 around the world.



Officials said the government will participate in international joint vaccine development projects and forge ties with leading global pharmaceutical companies in a move to get adequate quantities of vaccines.



Initially, South Korea wants to secure vaccines that can be given to 20 million people -- nearly 40 percent of its 51 million population -- by participating in a global program known as the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility.



The project aims to develop a vaccine and equitably give it to 20 percent of the world's population.



South Korea also said it will support joint projects between South Korean biotech companies and multinational pharmaceuticals for the development of COVID-19 vaccines and treatment drugs.













SK Bioscience has recently inked deals to work together with AstraZeneca and Novavax to produce vaccines once they are ready.



South Korean officials said the goal is to vaccinate everyone in the country, but if it is hard to inoculate some 70 percent of the population, it can provide South Korea with "herd immunity" from COVID-19.



Doctors and other medical workers and people suffering from poor health can get a vaccine first.



In addition to international cooperation, Seoul vowed to support local vaccine and treatment drug development efforts to the end, even if a foreign drugmaker announces breakthroughs first.



The government said that of the 193.6 billion-won ($163.4 million) extra budget passed by lawmakers in July, 83 percent of the funds have already been used to assist local development of drugs and vaccines.



It said the aim is to come up with locally produced treatment drugs by the end of this year and finish the development of a vaccine in 2021.



At present, local health authorities have approved clinical tests for plasma therapy materials developed jointly by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and GC Pharma, and an antibody drug candidate materials made by NIH and Celltrion Inc., as well as foreign drugs.



In regards to vaccines, Seoul has permitted testing on materials under development by Genexine, SK Bioscience and GeneOne Life Science. (Yonhap)
IT industry giant Infosys has announced that it will offer promotions to eligible junior and mid-level staff members by September. Infosys is taking this initiative to retain talent and service clients on the back of strong deal wins from global customers.

Over 2.4 lakh employees in Infosys may become eligible for promotions, these account for nearly half of the entire workforce of the company. Originally these promotions were planned in April but got delayed because of the disruption caused by COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Economic Times.

Infosys has predicted growth of 0-2% for the fiscal year 2021. It is now looking to consolidate its inhouse talent pipeline as the company is returning to a high-growth trajectory. The company will offer promotions for Job Level (JL) five and below which consists mostly of employees with less than ten years of work experience, according to the daily.

Krish Shankar, group head for human resources at Infosys, told the daily, "Some of the promotions, we are going to start (this quarter). Promotions are also linked to where there are (vacancies)".

Disruptions caused by COVID-19 have led to many companies delaying promotions for their employees. Infosys will be the first Indian IT company to offer promotions to its employees on such a large scale amid COVID-19 pandemic. However, some analysts have said that promotions promised by Infosys are to retain talent and not all promoted may see an increase in salary, according to the daily.

Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder, Teamlease told the daily, "Companies may not hire more, but business needs to continue and hence the promotion. The pattern of doing it for certain levels and below is a trend across most sectors. But, most promotions are not backed by increment."

Meanwhile, for senior-level employees, Infosys said that it will offer promotions as the business situation evolves.

Also Read: New airplane for PM Modi to land in Delhi soon; check out details

Also Read: Coronavirus vaccine: Army, frontline workers may get it first; COVAXIN to be ready by year end
Value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. After all, who wouldnt want to find stocks that are either flying under the radar and are compelling buys, or offer up tantalizing discounts when compared to fair value?



One way to find these companies is by looking at several key metrics and financial ratios, many of which are crucial in the value stock selection process. Lets put Exelon Corporation EXC stock into this equation and find out if it is a good choice for value-oriented investors right now, or if investors subscribing to this methodology should look elsewhere for top picks:

PE Ratio

A key metric that value investors always look at is the Price to Earnings Ratio, or PE for short. This shows us how much investors are willing to pay for each dollar of earnings in a given stock, and is easily one of the most popular financial ratios in the world. The best use of the PE ratio is to compare the stocks current PE ratio with: a) where this ratio has been in the past; b) how it compares to the average for the industry/sector; and c) how it compares to the market as a whole.



On this front, Exelon Corporation has a trailing twelve months PE ratio of 11.45, as you can see in the chart below:





This level actually compares favorably with the market at large, as the PE for the S&P 500 stands at about 23.89. If we focus on the long-term PE trend, Exelon Corporations current PE level puts it below its midpoint over the past five years. Moreover, the current level is fairly below the highs for this stock, suggesting it might be a good entry point.





However, the stocks PE also compares unfavorably with the Zacks Utilities sectors trailing twelve months PE ratio, which stands at 16.14. At the very least, this indicates that the stock is slightly overvalued right now, compared to its peers.





We should also point out that Exelon Corporation has a forward PE ratio (price relative to this years earnings) of just 12.48, so it is fair to expect an increase in the companys share price in the near future.

Story continues

P/S Ratio

Another key metric to note is the Price/Sales ratio. This approach compares a given stocks price to its total sales, where a lower reading is generally considered better. Some people like this metric more than other value-focused ones because it looks at sales, something that is far harder to manipulate with accounting tricks than earnings.



Right now, Exelon Corporation has a P/S ratio of about 1.06. This is substantially lower than the S&P 500 average, which comes in at 3.73 right now. Also, as we can see in the chart below, this is somewhat below the highs for this stock in particular over the past few years.

Broad Value Outlook

In aggregate, Exelon Corporation currently has a Value Score of A, putting it into the top 20% of all stocks we cover from this look. This makes Exelon Corporation a solid choice for value investors, and some of its other key metrics make this pretty clear too.



For example, the PEG ratio for Exelon Corporation is just 3.12, a level that is lower than the industry average of 3.44. The PEG ratio is a modified PE ratio that takes into account the stocks earnings growth rate. Additionally, its P/CF ratio (another great indicator of value) comes in at 4.03, which is better than the industry average of 7.69. Clearly, EXC is a solid choice on the value front from multiple angles.

What About the Stock Overall?

Though Exelon Corporation might be a good choice for value investors, there are plenty of other factors to consider before investing in this name. In particular, it is worth noting that the company has a Growth Score of C and Momentum Score of C. This gives EXC a Zacks VGM score  or its overarching fundamental grade  of B. (You can read more about the Zacks Style Scores here >>)



Meanwhile, the companys recent earnings estimates have been discouraging. The current year estimate witnessed two upward revisions in the past sixty days compared to three downward revisions, while the full-year 2021 estimate witnessed one upward revision compared to three downward revisions in the same time period.



This has had a noticeable impact on the consensus estimate, as the current year consensus estimate witnessed no movement in the past two months, whereas the full-year 2021 estimate declined 1%. You can see the consensus estimate trend and recent price action for the stock in the chart below:

Exelon Corporation Price and Consensus

Exelon Corporation Price and Consensus

Exelon Corporation price-consensus-chart | Exelon Corporation Quote

Owing to the bearish estimate trends, the stock has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which is why we are looking for in-line performance from the company in the near term.

Bottom Line

Exelon Corporation is an inspired choice for value investors, as it is hard to beat its incredible lineup of statistics on this front. However, with a sluggish industry rank (bottom 22% out of more than 250 industries) and a Zacks Rank #3, it is hard to get too excited about this company overall. In fact, over the past two years, the sector has clearly underperformed the market at large, as you can see below:





So, value investors might want to wait for estimates, analyst sentiment and broader factors to turn around in this name first, but once that happens, this stock could be a compelling pick.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.



Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2021.



Click here for the 6 trades >>



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
Australians are trapped in their cities and states for the rest of the year - while their European friends and family enjoy holidays in the sun.

Those in Melbourne can't even leave their homes for more than an hour and have to be locked inside by 8pm - with no end in sight.

Even as new coronavirus cases in Victoria fall to 179 on Friday - Premier Daniel Andrews refuses to say what number will allow the crippling Stage Four lockdown to end.

Other states and territories, four of which haven't had a local case in weeks, won't even allow travel between each other without two weeks of quarantine.

Australians are trapped in their cities for the rest of the year while their European friends sun themselves on far-flug holidays, like these two British tourists on the Greek island of Santorini on Tuesday

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton warned on Friday 'the country will go broke' due to the never-ending state border closures.

On top of that, Australians - even those with dual citizenship - aren't even allowed to leave the country and their loved ones remain stuck outside.

Meanwhile, Britain has more than 1,000 cases a day but Instagram feeds are full of holiday snaps enjoying life in Croatia, Italy, and Greece.

Australian governments, on the other hand, have no tolerance for even a handful of cases and hit the panic button at the mere sight of a Victorian number plate.

NSW is treated as a pariah despite having only three local cases on Thursday, and 20 a day in a state of 7.5 million people, since a Victorian truckie infected a few pub diners.

This is in marked contrast to the height of the pandemic when Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state premiers merely aimed to 'flatten the curve'.

The strategy assumed we would have to live with coronavirus indefinitely and the aim was to reduce the pressure on hospitals and limit the death toll.

Melbourne's famous laneways are deserted with the city in Stage Four lockdown until at least September 13

Irishman Thomas Bowen and Brazilian Keila Almeida de Carvalho are separated after Ms Carvalho visited her parents and couldn't get a flight back before the border closed

Poll Has Australia's pandemic response gone too far? Yes No Has Australia's pandemic response gone too far? Yes 172 votes

No 56 votes Now share your opinion





Australia not only flattened the curve but came close to eliminating the virus until it leaked out of hotel quarantine in Melbourne on May 25.

'We've done so well at eliminating the virus that it's what people have come to expect,' University of Melbourne Professor Tony Blakely explained.

Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, ACT, and the Northern Territory haven't had a local case for months and Queensland only a few.

Leaders in those jurisdictions have benefited enormously in popularity as a result - some polling approval ratings into the 90s.

Support for strict border measures is similarly high with terrified residents convinced their city will be the next Melbourne hours after the wall comes down.

'There's a lot of political risk because even though only a small percentage of deaths are from coronavirus, they are viewed as preventable by the public,' Professor Blakely said.

'More people will likely die from lack of screening for other illnesses (as a result of avoiding the doctor during the pandemic) than coronavirus.'

Peter Dutton warns state border closures will send Australia broke Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton unleashed on state premiers who refuse to open their borders for as long as the next year. 'Lives are really being disrupted and you've got to ask why when the medical advice is not saying that is what is needed,' he said on the Today show. 'If we've got premiers who are pursuing an elimination process, the country will go broke.' He accused Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of using the border closure with NSW to win votes for the upcoming election. 'You've got to ask why when the medical advice is not saying that is what is needed - the more you push her, the more she digs in and the more popular she becomes,' he said. 'There is an election in October and I think Palaszczuk is concerned about that.' Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan has also been accused of using the state's popular hard border to win votes for the March state election. Advertisement

Australian state border restrictions Victoria: Completely open, but other states are banning residents from going there NSW: Border with Victoria is closed but others are open without restriction Queensland: Open to everywhere but Victoria, NSW, and the ACT Northern Territory: Open to everywhere but Victoria and Sydney, which must do hotel quarantine South Australia: Closed to Victoria, NSW arrivals must self-isolate, rest are open Tasmania: Closed to Victoria, everywhere else must do hotel quarantine Western Australia: Closed to everywhere without an exemption Advertisement

Nowhere is this more apparent than Western Australia, which erected a hard border with the rest of the country on April 5 and refuses to tear it down

Premier Mark McGowan has successfully weaponised the antipathy many in WA feel towards the eastern states ahead of the March election.

Utilising inflammatory and unabashedly parochial rhetoric, he has convinced voters the hard border is the only thing keeping them safe.

Mr McGowan earlier this month wouldn't even commit to opening the border before mid-2021 - dividing families for up to 15 months.

He has even cancelled the Perth Royal Show in October despite not having a local coronavirus case in 131 days - using Victoria as an excuse.

His uncompromising stance has earned the ire of Mr Morrison, fellow premiers, and mining magnate Clive Palmer, who is challenging the border as unconstitutional.

The ongoing Federal Court case is a flashpoint for border issues around Australia, and highlights how much the conversation has changed.

Just a couple of months ago, Mr Morrison was encouraging Australians to make up for tourists being banned from the country by going on interstate holidays.

Since then, National Cabinet consensus has broken down and Mr Morrison increasingly leaves the talking up to state premiers.

Queensland abruptly closed the border to Sydney, and NSW soon after, when there were just a handful of cases and refuses to reopen it until there is zero community transmission for four weeks.

Expert evidence to the Palmer vs WA case highlighted the unnecessary heavy-handedness of blanket border closures, given so few cases outside Victoria.

Professor Blakely's modelling calculated that with half the pre-pandemic arrivals to WA from NSW, it would take years for an outbreak to be triggered.

'With less than 10 cases [a day], the chance of someone travelling to WA and starting an outbreak is less than one per cent,' he said.

Premier Mark McGowan has weaponised the antipathy many in WA feel towards the eastern states ahead of the March election

Western Australia erected a hard border with the rest of the country on April 5 and refuses to tear it down

Mitigation measures like testing visitors, screening them for symptoms, tracing all their contacts, and forcing them to wear a mask for two weeks would further reduce the risk.

Travellers from other states that had effectively eliminated the virus posed 'negligible' risk, if hotel quarantine was done properly.

WA's own chief health officer Andrew Robertson has admitted there is no justification for keeping the border closed to those states.

He even told a Federal Court hearing he wrote to the state government asking to set up a 'travel bubble', but was ignored.

There's no reason why states that have effectively achieved elimination shouldn't have unrestricted travel between them

'There's no reason why states that have effectively achieved elimination shouldn't have unrestricted travel between them,' Professor Blakely said.

'But the problem they are having is they don't trust each other to have the same border requirements with the rest of Australia.

'The states and in particular WA are worried about state hopping - if someone got on a plane from Sydney to Brisbane to visit their nanna for a couple of days before frying to Perth.'

This came to a head when three girls who flew to Brisbane from Melbourne via Sydney and allegedly falsified their paperwork to hide their visit to Victoria.

Two of them later tested positive to coronavirus after visiting 11 locations in Brisbane, and provided the justification for Queensland locking out Sydney residents.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk vowed not to open it again until there was no community transmission in NSW and Victoria for 28 days.

Diana Lasu (right), 21, and Olivia Winnie Muranga (left), 19, allegedly lied on their border declarations about where they had been when they arrived in Brisbane from Melbourne via Sydney on July 21

Haja Timbo (pictured) has been identified as the third woman, who allegedly provided misleading documents at the Queensland border after visiting Melbourne

Australian National University associate professor Sanjaya Senanayake noted that the ACT was caught up on this travel ban despite not having a local case since July 10.

'In the ACT we can't go to Queensland even though we've eliminated the virus, because we're associated with NSW,' he said.

'State governments fear that even a small number of cases in their states could spark an explosion of cases, which may or may not be correct.'

University of NSW professor Mary-Louise McLaws said an outbreak could stay under control if it had less than 100 local cases a fortnight.

Anything more than this 'magic number' could escalate quickly and become unmanageable as well as a risk to other states.

She called less than 50 cases the 'green zone', 50 to 100 the 'amber zone', and more than 100 the problematic 'red zone'.

Motorists are stopped at a checkpoint at Coolangatta on the Queensland-NSW border earlier this month

Professor McLaws said she understood why state premiers were so protective, but it was unreasonable to demand zero cases to re-open the border.

'You don't need zero, you just need to be in the green zone for two weeks or more,' she said.

Thousands of families and loved ones have been unable to see each other for almost six months since border restrictions came in.

A particularly egregious case last week saw a mother unable to see her newborn baby because the infant was taken to Queensland for medical treatment.

Chantelle Northfield and her husband Glen were unable to fit in the helicopter that flew their son Harvey from Lismore to Brisbane, and were refused entry without 14 days of hotel quarantine.

Public pressure eventually saw the decision reversed.

Baby Harvey was airlifted to Brisbane not long after he was born on Friday (pictured with parents Glen and Chantelle Northfield following the birth)

Then earlier this week a pregnant woman in northern NSW had to fly to Sydney for emergency surgery and Ms Palaszczuk's response was slammed as 'astonishing'.

'People living in NSW they have NSW hospitals. In Queensland we have Queensland hospitals for our people,' she said.

Australia's international border is creating just as many problems as families remain on opposite sides of the globe and ex-pats stranded far from home.

It makes me feel like I am living in a prison, that's what I would say, it's a prison island

Unlike almost all other countries, Australian citizens and permanent residents are banned from leaving the country without a waiver.

This includes dual citizens who have spent more time here than elsewhere in the past two years.

Astrid Magenau, an immunologist with dual German-Australian citizenship, was denied clearance to fly to Germany to say goodbye to her dying father.

Horst Magenau, 76, died on July 18 and she is still trying to get approval to leave on compassionate grounds to attend his funeral.

'It makes me feel like I am living in a prison, that's what I would say, it's a prison island,' she said.

Astrid Magenau, an immunologist with dual German-Australian citizenship, was denied clearance to fly to Germany to say goodbye to her dying father

Getting into Australia if you're not a citizen is even harder - 87,000 requests were sent and 10,440 approved

Families torn apart by closed Australian border Young British woman Charlotte Bolt planned to follow her boyfriend Mike Hawkey to Australia after he got a job at a mining company in January. But the border slammed shut just before she was due to leave, and she is still desperately trying to plead her case. 'Since then our lives have been left in limbo, with no end in sight. We have now spent the last seven months apart,' she said. 'On the day we said goodbye to each other, people still had their Christmas decorations up. Now we have to face the fact we might not be able to spend this coming Christmas together.' Alexandra Skiba flew to California to visit her parents and was stuck there when the border closed, despite her employer begging the government to let her back in. Thousands of stories like these have forced the Australian Border Force to review its compassionate criteria. Advertisement

Getting into Australia if you're not a citizen is even harder - 87,000 requests were sent and 10,440 approved.

Only 1,740 were on compassionate ground with the rest being critical skill workers.

Even Australian citizens have spent months unable to get home because flights, already costing upwards of $6,000, are repeatedly cancelled. More than 18,000 are still stranded.

This is because of government arrival caps of 4,000 a week and make it uneconomical for airlines to fly in unless everyone forks out for business class.

Once they finally arrive, they have to spend 14 days in hotel quarantine at $3,000 per person.

Waivers for this are almost impossible to get even if they came to visit a critically ill parent - who on many occasions has died while they languished in quarantine.

Australia's tourism industry has also lost billions from the border closure, forcing tens of thousands out of work.

Australian Chamber of Commerce chief executive James Pearson on Thursday begged the government to open the border or at least give a date.

'Opening our international borders is a critically important step in economic recovery for a trading nation like Australia,' he said.

Young British woman Charlotte Bolt planned to follow her boyfriend Mike Hawkey to Australia after he got a job at a mining company in January - but the border closed before she arrived

'Since then our lives have been left in limbo, with no end in sight. We have now spent the last seven months apart,' she said

Alexandra Skiba flew to California to visit her parents and was stuck there when the border closed, despite her employer begging the government to let her back in

'Our domestic markets, disrupted by restrictions on the movement of people and goods and gatherings of people, will not be able to sustain high employment and living standards by themselves.'

But the government appears determined to keep the wall up until a vaccine is deployed, however many years that takes.

In stark contrast, Europeans are able to holiday in dozens of countries without even needing to quarantine.

Britain has a list of countries from which visitors or returning travellers are required to self-isolation on arrival, which changes as outbreaks wax and wane.

Professor Blakely said this was because, with the exception of Victoria, Australia had far few cases than anywhere in Europe.

'Australia is in a very different situation to Europe where countries have about the same caseload per capita, between a few hundred and 1,500 a day, and so it doesn't really matter if people travel between them,' he said.

Disiane Zan, 34, (pictured left with boyfriend Gabriel Seger, 35) from the Gold Coast is due to give birth in just over a month but her partner is stranded in New Zealand

Ms Zan who is 35 weeks pregnant said they had applied for a travel exemption twice but were denied both times

Australia was negotiating a 'trans-Tasman bubble' with New Zealand and some Pacific Islands, but this collapsed with the Melbourne outbreak.

Traveller magazine writer Ben Groundwater also noted that Australia had a 'different frame of reference' to Europeans for the same reason.

'For a while there, our daily infection tally was zero. When you see that as an achievable possibility, anything higher looks frightening,' he wrote.

Melbourne's outbreak is another example of Australian governments failing to be transparent with the public about their plan and goals, and having low tolerance for cases.

Melbourne is in Stage Four lockdown with almost all shops and businesses closed, an 8pm to 5am curfew, and just one hour of exercise a day 5km from your house.

The punishing restrictions are due to end on September 13 but the government refuses to say how many cases a day would prevent it from being extended.

Sandra Fraser, 70, died on Thursday while her daughter Shayne (pictured together when Shayne was a baby) was stranded in hotel quarantine

Ms Fraser's granddaughter Mahtab, 18, was in Sydney behind a closed border

Professor Blakely said how long the lockdown goes for depends on whether Victoria is going for suppression or elimination.

Australia has preached suppression for the whole pandemic, but its recent position of zero community transmission is merely elimination by another name.

Experts believe even with daily new cases falling to less than 300 this week, this may not be possible by September 13 and would take at least another two weeks.

There's a danger of the country being fractured for the foreseeable future

Professor Blakely said another few weeks of the still draconian Stage Three lockdown would be needed afterwards to make sure it didn't flare up again.

However, he said it was possible Victoria's outbreak was too big and the government had given up on this goal, instead option for suppression.

The goal would then be to get new daily cases below 40, which would allow contact tracers a chance to force it down over a longer period.

Professor McLaws said the state would at minimum need 10 days of double-digit figures before leaving Stage Four, and to keep the curfew until it was less than 10.

Mandatory masks and a raft of other restrictions not seen elsewhere in Australia would be necessary until Christmas.

Melbourne is in Stage Four lockdown with almost all shops and businesses closed, an 8pm to 5am curfew, and just one hour of exercise a day 5km from your house

Premier Daniel Andrews has made noises in that direction even as he refuses to make any kind of commitment to something resembling a plan.

Professor Blakely said Mr Andrews would have to consider Queensland's zero community transmission ultimatum which might add incentive to try to eliminate the virus.

'All but two of Australia's states and territories have eliminated the virus so there's a danger of the country being fractured for the foreseeable future,' he said.
Empty Bowls Houston was canceled this year because of COVID-19, but the handcrafted bowls are still available for a $25 donation. Each donation will provide 75 meals to people in need in the Houston area.

One hundred percent of the donations gathered via Empty Bowls Houston are donated to the Houston Food Bank, who needs support now more than ever, said Samantha Oldham, Empty Bowls Houston committee chair. COVID-19 has greatly increased the demand for food assistance, with distribution going as high as 1 million pounds of food per day for months and is now doing 800,000 pounds per day. They need all of the support they can get as they support our community.

COVID-19 and kids: Infectious disease pediatrician discusses COVID and children

Oldham has volunteered with Empty Bowls for eight years. She said canceling the annual event was a difficult decision because the committee knew that it always brings in money that the food bank needs. Also, she said each year Empty Bowls brings joy to those working to organize it and to the artists that love to contribute.

Despite the event being canceled, some regular donating artists asked how they could still help. Passion Trenkelbach and Michelle Heinesen each joined the 100 Bowl challenge and created 100 bowls for the fundraiser.

Trenkelbach is the ceramics teaching assistant for the University of Houston-Clear Lake and said she had been used to holding events that invite the public into the studio to throw bowls that she trims and glazes to get ready to donate. But this was her first year to throw 100 bowls for the fundraiser on her own. She started one morning around 9 or 10 a.m. and finished around 11 hours later.

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I had heard about the 100 Bowl challenge, and I thought it would be just a really cool thing to do, Trenkelbach said. And I was like, Well, you know what? Lets just take this a step further because why not stress myself out more? Lets make all 100 bowls in one day.

She had planned to hold the throwing event at Serenity Studios so that the public could come in a decorate pre-made bowls at the same time. When COVID-19 happened, Trenkelbach turned it into a Facebook Live event instead. She kept the studio doors open during the throwing for better lighting, so it was hot. But she said it was a lot of fun. The 100 Bowl challenge was mutually beneficial because the Houston Food Bank is getting the support and she is getting her work out before the public.

I really enjoy the idea of people being able to handle ceramics and enjoy an art in their life that is kind of unexpected, and so Empty Bowls just kind of coincides with that while also, you know, helping out a really good cause, Trenkelbach said. It gets people to not only participate in charity work, but they get to enjoy a piece after it and start to correlate what can be done with both things.

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Empty Bowls helps people make a big impact with a relatively small amount of money, she said. In a crazy and difficult year, Trenkelbach added that something as small as giving up an appetizer on a meal delivery can buy a bowl and feed dozens of people.

During the pandemic, many people are struggling with their budgets. For those that cannot afford a $25 bowl right now, Trenkelbach suggested sharing about Empty Bowls Houston on social media to help get the word out.

Heinesen started learning ceramics in secondary school in Singapore and then became the apprentice of her teacher at 16 or 17 years old. She found out about Empty Bowls Houston through her job at Ceramic Store, which is a sponsor of the fundraiser. She has participated in the 100 Bowl challenge for three years.

Heinesen estimated she spent more than 300 hours this year making, decorating and firing all the bowls.

For me, it checks a couple of boxes, right? One, I like making and selling my work, Heinesen said. Two, I like engaging with the community, and three, this is for charity. So theres a lot of overlap in terms of the things I feel passionate about in life. So its like ceramics, charity and community. And thats probably why I keep doing it.

To help children: Houston joins UNICEF USA for benefit of children

Heinesen encouraged people to purchase the bowls because the donation helps people in the Houston community, it showcases the work of local artists, and it makes preparing and eating food more special.

Im elevating that daily ritual. So it just makes the whole experience much richer, she explained.

She said the work of Empty Bowls Houston has exponential rewards.

Its like one plus one is more than two. You know, its like one plus one equals 100. When all of us come together and do whatever part, it just becomes something thats so much more and it just continues giving, Heinesen said.

Trenkelbachs bowls are available at Serenity Studios at 1331 Yale St. in the Heights. Heinesens bowls are available directly through her by emailing hansdottir.art@gmail.com or on Instagram or Facebook. For more information about the Houston Food Bank, visit www.houstonfoodbank.org.

tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
J. David Ake / Associated Press

BRIDGEPORT  A city woman will serve six months in federal prison for preparing false tax returns for several clients, authorities said Friday.

Veronica Huitzil, 39, was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.
Birmingham police have arrested a suspect in the fatal July shooting of a 21-year-old man at an Ensley apartment complex.

Myles Cordell Amerson, 21, of Birmingham, was arrested on murder charges in the July 28 shooting that killed 21-year-old Joe Albert Foster IV, police said Friday. Amerson was being held at the Jefferson County Jail on $60,000 bond.

The Birmingham Police Department reports an arrest has been made in the connection to the homicide of Joe Albert Foster IV. The victim was murdered on Tues, July 2020, at the Villas at Westridge Apartment Complex located in the 2300 Block of Court R.

West Precinct officers responded shortly before 12:20 a.m. July 28 to a report of shots fired in the 2300 block of Court R at Villas at Westridge apartment complex, said Sgt. Rod Mauldin. Once at the complex, a resident told them gunfire had been heard inside an adjacent unit.

Mauldin said officers looked through a window and saw a person on the floor. They gained entry to the apartment and found Foster unresponsive. He was pronounced dead on the scene by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service at 12:45 a.m.
Farmers could lose $30 an acre on corn crops this year and up to $75 an acre next year, according to a new University of Illinois study.

Gross revenue projections are at $779 an acre for corn, which could mark the first time since 2009 that the price has fallen below $800, the study said.

Although the planting season was good for west-central Illinois, the global pandemic and subsequent closing of many of the usual markets has created difficulties.

On a market standpoint, weve definitely withstood a big loss in the market right now, Woodson farmer Jacob Freeman said. Its a lot less than it should be. Our crop is a good as far as a yield standpoint, but as far as a money standpoint, were definitely not doing very good on that.

Some of Freemans acres didnt get planted to begin with, he said.

Were definitely at a loss, he said.

Freeman, who has been farming for 12 years, grows both corn and soybeans.

As far as a loss, I dont think we had one quite yet compared to Iowa, (where storms destroyed hundreds of acres). Its devastating up there. There havent been big storms in the area, so that makes it easier to not have such big losses.

Aaron Dufelmeier, University of Illinois Extension director for Morgan, Calhoun, Cass, Greene and Scott counties, said spring weather provided good planting conditions, so farmers are hoping for a positive harvest.
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Last Thursday night (8/13/20), the statue-topplers tore down another statue of the father of our country, just after they defaced it. This statue of George Washington stood in Grand Park near Los Angeles City Hall since 1933. The war on America as founded continues unabated.

A couple of months ago, political cartoonist Michael Ramirez had a brilliant piece showing a statue of George Washington with this description:

Father of our country

First president of the United States

Defeated one of the most powerful nations in the world.

On the other side of the drawing was a caricature of a woke social justice warrior. His name was Imah Luzer. And his achievements were also listed:

Scored 300 on XBOX

Won participation trophy

Created safe space

Lives with parents.

The Imah Luzer character holds a rope, lassoed around the bronze likeness of Washington, which he is about to yank down. Today it seems that many of those who have accomplished nothing positive are trying to tear down reminders of those who have accomplished great things, including heroes of the past. To borrow a phrase (from a different context) from Pulitzer-winning historian Barbara Tuchman, this is a barbarians gestures of anger against civilized things.

Washington is a genuine hero, but some today are making him into a villain. The reason, of course, is slavery.

George Washington grew up as a gentleman farmer in colonial Virginia and was a fourth generation slave-owner. But by the end of his life, he had decided slavery was immoral and so, at his death, he freed his slaves and made provision for them. But there is no atonement to the Left. There is no forgiveness of sins. Because George Washington owned slaves, he is unforgiveable to these woke social justice warriors.

Nonetheless, there are many warnings that George Washington made that I think modern Americans could learn from, including these mobs of woke social justice warriors.

First of all, there is the matter of gratitude to God. The woke mob seems to operate from a sense of entitlement. The world owes them everything. Washington operated from a Christian perspective, where he asked for Gods help at virtually every turn and where he thanked the Lord for His help.

Washington marveled at how many times God helped the American cause. In 1778, he wrote to one of his military leaders, The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. That is, obligations of gratitude.

Today, instead of gratitude, we see a whole generation of ingrates. No wonder they disrespect the flag and kneel in protest against the National Anthem. To them, being an American is more of a curse than a blessing.

But George Washington experienced repeatedly what he believed was the hand of Providence in helping his ragtag army of ill-fed farmers and merchants as they faced what was the strongest army and navy on earth at that time.

He said in his First Inaugural Address that our first obligation was to thank the Lord that we even became a nation. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. Without Gods help, we would not have been able to create this government.

And what is this government? Washington puts it this way: It is a government instituted by the People of the United States themselves. If we dont like things as is, we are free to change them.

In his Farewell Address, Washington warns that we should do everything to protect religion and morality, which he calls twin pillars of human happiness. He also warns against letting political factions rule the day.

But I think probably the greatest single admonition from our first president comes from his Circular to the States, written in June 1783.

Washington ended this letter to the governors of the 13 states with a prayer that we would all learn to imitate the Divine Author of our Blessed Religion, meaning Jesus. And he says that without imitating Jesus, we can never hope to be a happy nation.

I dont think Ive ever seen America in a more miserable state than it is at present, with all the riots in the streets and strangers hurting (in some cases, killing) strangers.

Are we imitating Jesus? Far from it. Are we a happy nation? Far from it.

We would do well to learn from George Washington, rather than to desecrate his memory.
The state representative race in the 9th Hampden District in Springfield and Chicopee has something in common with several other Western Massachusetts districts. The lack of an incumbent.

During this election cycle, Jose Tosado, a former Springfield city councilor and state representative in the 9th Hampden since 2014 has decided to retire. This followed Aaron Vegas decision to leave his seat in the 5th Hampden District. And, longtime representative Thomas M. Petrolati, who decided not to not seek an 18th term in the legislature representing the 7th Hampden District.

In announcing his retirement, Tosado said, I am ready to let new leaders emerge.

The 9th Hampden District consists of Springfield Wards 2, 5, 7, and 8, as well as Chicopees Ward 5A.

To fill Tosados seat, voters will choose among three enthusiastic, competent and capable candidates, including Springfield School Committee member Denise Hurst, Springfields Ward 2 Democratic Committee chair Sean Mullan and Springfield City Councilor Orlando Ramos.

The Republican endorses Ramos for representative in the 9th Hampden District.

Ramos dedication to public service is evident in his resume and from his service over the past six years on the City Council, during which he served as council president and vice president.

He began his civic involvement as in intern in Gov. Deval Patricks Western Massachusetts office, served on the Indian Orchard Citizens Council and was appointed by Mayor Domenic J. Sarno to serve as license commissioner. Ramos was elected to the City Council in in 2013 and has served as both vice president and president. He currently serves the council as chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Ramos also worked for 10 years as district director for state Sen. James Welch, D-West Springfield, during which time he became familiar with the Legislature and the Statehouse. We believe this work gives him a leg up to begin service as a freshman legislator if he is elected.

As the state and our cities and towns explore various measures in addressing police reform, Ramos has been assertive in looking at methods that can best serve the constituency. As a council member he was lead sponsor on banning facial surveillance technology, a position incorporated into the police reform bill in the House. After the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, Ramos was aggressive in issuing recommendations to the Springfield Police Department aimed at improving the departments use of force policy.

As the Legislature considers other phases of police reform, we feel Ramos would provide a relevant and constructive resource moving forward.

Ramos also has a firm understanding of the nascent marijuana industry and would be an asset to the House in crafting or fine-tuning legislation.

We would be remiss if we did not recognize the continuing good work being done by Hurst as a member of the Springfield School Committee and in her professional life as vice president of advancement and external affairs at Springfield Technical Community. Like Ramos, her commitment to public service is to be commended.

This is Mullans first run for public office, and we hope he does not make it his last.

We feel Ramos work ethic, discipline, experience and commitment to public service will serve the 9th Hampden District well. We recommend a vote for Orlando Ramos for state representative.

Related:

Massachusetts primary election: 9th Hampden District candidates Denise Hurst, Sean Mullan and Orlando Ramos on the issues
The Employees' State Insurance Corporation approved enhancement in the payment of unemployment benefit to industrial workers under its Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana

New Delhi: The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) on Thursday relaxed norms to pay 50 percent of average wages of three months as unemployment benefit to cope with job loss between 24 March and 31 December this year in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ESIC board's decision in a meeting held on Thursday is expected to benefit about 40 lakh industrial workers.

The ESIC has approved relaxation in eligibility criteria and enhancement in the payment of unemployment benefit under its Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana, it said in a statement.

It is implementing the Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyna Yojna under which unemployment benefit is paid to the workers covered under ESI scheme.

According to the statement, the ESIC has decided to extend the scheme for one more year up to 30 June, 2021.

It has been decided to relax the existing conditions and the amount of relief for workers who have lost employment during the COVID-19 pandemic period, it added.

The enhanced relief under the relaxed conditions will be payable during the period of March 24, 2020 to December 31, 2020.

Thereafter the scheme will be available with original eligibility condition during the period 1 January to 30 June 2021.

The review of these (relaxed) conditions will be done after 31 December this year depending upon the need and demand for such relaxed condition, it said.

The eligibility criteria for availing the relief has also been relaxed under the scheme.

It said the payment of relief has been enhanced to 50 percent of average of wages from earlier 25 percent of average wages payable up to maximum 90 days of unemployment.

Instead of the relief becoming payable 90 days after unemployment, it shall become due for payment after 30 days, it added.

The Insured Person (IP) can submit the claim directly to the ESIC branch office instead of the claim being forwarded by the last employer and the payment shall be made directly in the bank account of IP.

The IP should have insurable employment for a minimum period of 2 years before his/her employment and should have contributed for not less than 78 days in the contribution period immediately preceding to unemployment and minimum 78 days in one of the remaining 3 contribution periods in two years prior to unemployment, the statement said.

The ESIC, during its 182nd meeting held on Thursday under the chairmanship of Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar, also took some other decisions towards improvement in its service delivery mechanism and providing relief to workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decisions include establishment of ICU/HDU (Intensive care unit) services at 10 per cent of total beds in ESIC Hospitals.

With a view to strengthen ICU/HDU services in ESIC hospitals amid the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been decided to establish ICU/HDU (High Dependency Unit) services up to 10 per cent of total commissioned beds in all ESIC Hospitals.

ESIC covers about 3.49 crore of family units of workers and providing matchless cash benefits and reasonable medical care to its 13.56 crore beneficiaries.
An intensive care doctor working in Birmingham has said that putting the entire city under lockdown would be 'risk averse' because new cases are being driven by clusters in separate parts of the city.

Dr Ron Daniels, who works for University Hospitals Birmingham, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the increase in coronavirus cases is not a city-wide problem.

Official figures show Birmingham's infection rate has more than doubled over the past fortnight to around 25 new cases for every 100,00 people. A handful of wards are seeing a similar amount of new infections, according to government data.

It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday chaired a 'Gold Command' meeting to discuss the potential of Birmingham being placed under lockdown.

Council bosses who attended the meeting were desperate to prevent further damage to the already-crippled local economy by avoiding tougher measures like ones imposed in the North West and Leicester.

Birmingham is expected to be placed on a national 'watch list' from today, meaning it will be offered 'enhanced support' to avoid further cases.

Local health bosses warned residents of the city  1.1million people  that 'what we do in the next seven days will decide if we go into lockdown or not'.

Ministers are also expected to announce an update on whether tougher measures will be needed for Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle, where cases were rising.

In-depth government statistics, which are published on a map by the Department of Health, show no specific wards in Birmingham are responsible for the city's soaring infection rate

Official figures show the city of Birmingham's infection rate has more than doubled over the past fortnight, with around 25 new cases of coronavirus for every 100,000 people  up from just 11 in the first week of August

Dr Daniels said: 'We can't yet let our guard down against this virus. But the reality is we are seeing regions, and this is not a city-wide problem in Birmingham - these are clusters, they are outbreaks.

'We need to look very carefully at where we're seeing localised clusters, localised outbreaks, and we need to consider actions in those regions.

'But to apply a city-wide lockdown seems a little risk-averse right now to me.

'And the reason I say that is we are testing more people, that will partly account for the increased number of cases of course, but there are other factors that don't seem to be being considered.'

He added: 'I think there are considerations around the positivity rates, but we're not looking at the case-fatality rates and we're not looking at hospital admissions.

'We've seen cases go up since the beginning of July, and still our hospitals are relatively empty of patients with this condition.'

Birmingham had around 25 new cases of coronavirus for every 100,000 people between August 11 and 17  up from just 11 in the first week of the month.

In-depth government statistics, which are published on a map by the Department of Health, show no specific ward in Birmingham is responsible for the city's soaring infection rate but a handful all have recorded several cases.

The most up-to-date figures for the postcode map show Rotton Park  in the west of the city and on the border of neighbouring Sandwell  saw the most cases between August 9 and 15 (16).

Sandwell, which borders Birmingham, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton, is currently one of the 20 worst-hit places in England with an infection rate of 21.1 cases for every 100,000 people.

Fifteen cases were recorded in Handsworth South and 13 in Birchfield West. While 12 people were diagnosed with Covid-19 in Bordesley and 11 in neighbouring Small Heath Park, both of which are located just to the east of the city centre.

Thirty-six cases were diagnosed in the three boroughs of Smethwick, which is technically classed as being in the local government authority of Sandwell and not Birmingham.

In-depth government statistics, which are published on a map by the Department of Health, show no specific wards in Birmingham are responsible for the city's soaring infection rate. The most up-to-date figures for the postcode map show Rotton Park  in the west of the city and on the border of neighbouring Sandwell  saw the most cases between August 9 and 15 (16)

Birmingham is not currently on Public Health England's coronavirus watchlist, which last Friday released its list of 29 hot-spots. Officials announced Newark and Sherwood, home to around 120,000 people, was an 'area of concern'. Around 26.3 coronavirus cases were diagnosed for every 100,000 people living in the district in the week ending August 11

WHAT TOWNS ARE ON THE COVID-19 WATCH-LIST? Pendle (89.7) Oldham (82.3) Blackburn with Darwen (77.9) Bradford (56.8) Leicester (56.3) Calderdale (42.8) Burnley (39.5) Preston (38.1) Rochdale (37.3) Manchester (34) Tameside (33.3) Salford (33) Bolton (31.2) Bury (30.5) Kirklees (28.7) Hyndburn (27.2) Stockport (25) Trafford (20.3) Wigan (9.2) Rossendale (4.2) Luton (15.4) Swindon (44.1) Northampton (38.6) Newark and Sherwood (26.3) Oadby and Wigston (22.8) Sandwell (20.5) Wakefield (17.4) Bedford (14.6) Peterborough (11.4) The infection rate is how many cases were diagnosed for every 100,000 people living in the district in the week ending August 11 - the most up-to-date figures from Public Health England. Towns in bold saw their rate increase. Advertisement

Public health director Dr Justin Varney has warned Birmingham is at a 'knife-edge moment', Birmingham Live reported.

'The next five to ten days are crucial.'

It comes after Dr Varney yesterday called the rise in cases 'dramatic'.

Addressing a webinar organised by Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, Dr Varney said yesterday: 'Birmingham has to stand up and stand together on this. What we do in the next seven days will decide if we go into lockdown or not. If we do it will be for at least two or three weeks, and that will be devastating.





'I expect we will be on that national list and will go on as an area of 'enhanced support' - that is not the level that Leicester and Greater Manchester are in, but the level below that - think Northamptonshire, Blackburn, areas like that, certainly over the next week.'

Dr Varney said his analysis of the latest data on cases suggested it was middle aged people typically infected with the virus, with an average age of 36.

He said: 'What we are seeing, quite specifically, is that those aged from 27 to 40 are testing positive for the virus, much more than other age groups.

'These would tend to be people who are going to work and are likely socialising in small groups or with other households known to them, attending faith settings, or going to the pub.'

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood yesterday blamed Birmingham's escalating coronavirus crisis on diners flocking to crowded restaurants to make the most of the 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme.

Khalid Mahmood, who represents the Perry Barr constituency, claimed Chancellor Rishi Sunak's deal  which has allowed diners to enjoy up to 50 per cent discounts on meals throughout August  has been 'really detrimental'.

He told MailOnline the scheme has been good for trade but it 'hasn't helped' with controlling the spread of Covid-19, with restaurants 'filled to the hilt' making it hard for customers to stick to social distancing rules.

Any region in the UK faces the threat of stricter restrictions, which may include closing non-essential shops as well as pubs and restaurants, if cases creep up.

Discussing the meeting yesterday, Mr Ward told the Local Government Chronicle: 'We are trying to avoid a local lockdown for obvious reasons  we dont want to hurt the local economy. But there are no easy answers.

'We are talking to government about a plan for dealing with the spike in cases. The difficulty is there is nothing we can easily point as being the cause.

'There is no business with a big outbreak  although there are a number of businesses with small outbreaks across the city. The maximum has been six cases in one location.'

Mr Ward revealed the council will ask the government to provide more walk-in and drive-in test centres across the city.

Mr Mahmood told MailOnline there had been mixed messaging from the Government with the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme, which gives diners 50 per cent off their bill in August.

He said: 'I think the problem is the government policies have been confusing. I think the problem is this 50 per cent Eat out To Help Out restaurant discount has really detrimental.

'If you look at any big restaurant in Birmingham they have been filled to the hilt and it's difficult to do social distancing. While its been good for the trade it hasnt helped with not transmitting Covid.

'Places are trying their best with social distancing but when restaurants are totally full in some areas of Birmingham its difficult to do that. And gatherings are taking place outside which havent been controlled as should've been.'

Mr Mahmood said 'it went wrong' ever since it was revealed senior advisor Dominic Cummings took a, now infamous, trip across England in May during lockdown when he had coronavirus symptoms.

He said: 'I think it went wrong ever since Dominic Cummings had that visit. And I think people stopped people believing in what was going on.

'They did behave immaculately up until then, and then when they realised there is one rule for one and one rule for others, and the weather was getting warmer, people just went off and did what they wanted.

'What we need to do is go back to serious messages and understanding how to deal with this. Thats what's lacking at the moment. We need to get back on serious footing.'

The Government's national watch list will be published today and reveal the areas of England that are in danger of extra measures.

Last week it was announced Newark and Sherwood, an area home to around 120,000 people in Nottinghamshire, was an 'area of concern'.

Around 26.3 coronavirus cases were diagnosed for every 100,000 people living in the district in the week ending August 11.

For comparison, the authority's weekly infection rate was higher than four areas that have already been hit with tougher restrictions in the North West  Stockport (25), Trafford (20.3), Wigan (9.2) and Rossendale (4.2).

Nine boroughs on the watchlist, including Swindon (44.1) and Northampton (38.6), have yet to be hit by a ban on household gatherings.

No further restrictions were imposed on Oldham last week, despite fears it would be hit with tougher measures.

The Greater Manchester town has been teetering on the brink of a local lockdown since it soared to the top spot for Covid-19 cases in England at the end of July.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 20:38:41|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Friday denounced the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority in Taiwan for obstructing economic cooperation and exchange across the Taiwan Strait through various measures and excuses.

Following the steps of Western anti-China forces, the DPP authority went even further by obstructing mainland investment in Taiwan and prohibiting Taiwan companies from cooperating with mainland enterprises, said Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, when commenting on the DPP authority's further restrictions on mainland investment.

Such moves have once again exposed the DPP authority's intention to harm cross-Strait relations and jeopardize the interests of Taiwan compatriots, Ma stressed.

Cross-Strait economic cooperation and exchange have brought substantial benefits to Taiwan compatriots, Ma said, pointing out that the cross-Strait trade reached 134.94 billion U.S. dollars from January to July, up 8.7 percent year on year, from which Taiwan had a trade surplus of over 70 billion U.S. dollars.

Mainland enterprises offer nearly 25,000 jobs in Taiwan and pay more than 1.2 billion new Taiwan dollars (over 40.8 million U.S. dollars) in taxes every year, Ma said.

The DPP authority's action will only squeeze the development space for Taiwan, and ruin the island's development opportunities, Ma said. Enditem
Joseph DeAngelo sentenced for over a dozen murders in the 1970s and 80s as victims gave emotional statements in court.

A former California police officer who lived a double life as the Golden State Killer was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for a string of 1970s and 80s murders and rapes that were solved through the use of public genealogy websites.

A Sacramento County judge granted prosecutors request that Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, serve life in prison without the possibility of parole following emotional statements from victims or their family members in open court.

A frail DeAngelo showed no emotion during the nearly two-hour sentencing, held in a makeshift courtroom inside a ballroom at Sacramento State University so that victims and family members could spread out amid the coronavirus pandemic.

When given the opportunity to speak, DeAngelo slowly rose from a wheelchair, took off a mask, looked around at surviving victims and family members of those he murdered and said: Ive listened to all your statements. Each one of them. And Im truly sorry to everyone out there. Thank you, your honour.

Elizabeth Hupp, daughter of Claude Snelling, who was killed while thwarting DeAngelos attempted kidnapping of Hupp [Pool: Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP Photo]

In June, DeAngelo confessed to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges for crimes carried out between 1975 and 1986 as part of a plea deal with prosecutors sparing him from a potential death sentence.

DeAngelo, whom a prosecutor on Friday called a bogeyman who haunted California for decades, also publicly admitted to dozens of more rapes for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors said he invaded 120 homes across 11 counties during his crime spree.

The identity of the Golden State Killer remained a mystery, his crimes unsolved, for decades until DeAngelos arrest in Sacramento County on April 24, 2018.

Investigators tied DeAngelo to the crimes using a then-novel technique of tracing him through family DNA from commercial genealogy websites.

No mercy

Prosecutors from counties where he carried out his crimes told Judge Michael Bowman that he deserved no mercy.

Over four decades  thats a long time to wait for justice, said Diana Becton, the Contra Costa County District Attorney, where some of DeAngelos crimes occurred.

Bowman said that he had no power to determine what type of prison DeAngelo is sent to.

But the survivors have spoken clearly  the defendant deserves no mercy, he said, as those in the courtroom burst into loud applause
Saudi Arabia: new luxury resort in desert near Hegra 100 rooms with engaging cultural experiences for tourists

(ANSAmed) - NAPLES, AUGUST 21 - A new luxury resort is planned for the desert canyon area in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, which hosts the UNESCO World Heritage List site of Hegra, now known as Mada'in Salih. Gulf News said the new resort will be built by the government in partnership with the real estate group Habitats. The resort, described as sustainable hospitality in an inclusive ecosystem, will have 100 guest rooms. The first phase of construction foresees the building of 50 rooms and will be completed in the first three months of 2021, with construction continuing throughout next year. Amr Al Madani, CEO of the Saudi royal commission for AlUla, said work is already underway. "We are opening new opportunities for regional and international investors in the hospitality sector," he said. The area is in the country's northwest and the UNESCO site will reopen to visitors in October after maintenance work. The resort has been designed to blend with the landscape of AlUla and will launch experiments in elite tourism with engaging cultural experiences. The site of Hegra has signs of the presence of humans prior to the first millennium B.C. and later became part of the Nabataean Kingdom, the ancient civilization that left importance remains, such as the archaeological area of Petra, in Jordan.(ANSAmed). (ANSA).




Strict conditions to stop logging of threatened species habitat in Victorias Central Highlands were issued by the Federal Court on Friday, as the forestry industry feels the first effects of a landmark ruling to enforce federal environment law on a state-owned forestry agency.

The Federal Court in May ruled in favour of local environment group Friends of Leadbeater's Possum, which argued VicForests had breached the federal Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act when it logged forest coupes in the Central Highlands region.

VicForests has been barred from logging operations in the Central Highlands, following a landmark ruling in the Federal Court.

The Act contains protections for listed threatened species  including the vulnerable greater glider and critically endangered Leadbeaters possum which live in the Central Highlands.

VicForests argued to the Federal Court that it was exempt from federal threatened species obligations set out in the Act because of a separately negotiated logging agreement between the state and federal governments  known as a Regional Forest Agreement.
The industrial enzymes market is expected to grow by USD 1.48 billion during 2020-2024. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect the impact to be significant in the first quarter but gradually lessen in subsequent quarters with a limited impact on the full-year economic growth.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200820005656/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Industrial Enzymes Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

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The rising demand for processed and packaged food products has increased with the need for food security and safety. Also, growing consumer awareness about the consumption of healthy food products is compelling F&B manufacturers to increase the use of food enzymes in various food products. This is because food enzymes facilitate an eco-friendly process by reducing the wastage of raw materials and emissions of greenhouse gases. They also enhance metabolism and improve digestion by breaking down the complex fats and carbohydrates present in the food. All these factors are contributing to the growth of the global industrial enzymes market.

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=IRTNTR44390

As per Technavio, the increasing demand for cosmetics and personal care products will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will influence market growth over 2020-2024.

Industrial Enzymes Market: Increasing Demand from Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

The cosmetic industry is one of the major consumers of industrial enzymes. The industry uses enzymes for resurfacing and skin smoothening applications. This is because enzymes are proven to be effective in the treatment of many skin conditions related to skin aging, congestion, acne, and pigmentation. For example, the proteolytic enzyme is one of the most commonly used enzymes in the cosmetics industry. It breaks down proteins for better absorption by the skin and promotes cell growth and renewal. Similarly, enzymes such as diacylglycerol acyltransferase influence the action of retinoic acid, which, in turn, accelerates the regeneration of the epidermis and hair. With growing consumer preference towards the use of organic products, the demand for industrial enzymes from the cosmetics and personal care industry will increase significantly during the forecast period.

"Recent advances in enzyme technology and the increased production of biofuels will further boost market growth during the forecast period", says a senior analyst at Technavio.

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Industrial Enzymes Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the industrial enzymes market by Application (Food and beverage, Detergents, Animal feed, Biofuel, and Others) and Geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and MEA).

The North American region led the industrial enzymes market in 2019, followed by APAC, Europe, South America, and MEA respectively. However, during the forecast period, APAC is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the increasing demand for convenience food products in the region.

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Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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New Delhi: After Google, Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Thursday evening experienced outages globally as users faced connection issues as well as could not send or receive messages in several parts of the world.

According to WABetainfo, a website that tracks WhatsApp in Beta, the issue was at the server side and did not "depend on WhatsApp version of network connection.

"WhatsApp is experiencing a partial outage for several users. It's not possible to use the service because the server is down. Note that some users might still be able to use the service," said the portal.

"Its not possible to register a new WhatsApp account or to log in using an existing account for certain users," Wabetainfo said. As per some media reports the problems persisted till the early morning hours on Friday.

According to DownDetector, nearly 66 per cent WhatsApp users faced connect issues while 30 per cent were unable to send of receive messages.

WhatsApp was yet to report the problem.

Earlier in the day yesterday, Several Google services like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Meet suffered a massive outage globally, including in India.

Popular outage tracking portal Down Detector reported that user reports indicate Google is having problems since 1:16 AM EDT. Down Detector reported there was an outage with Google servers.Google responded to users, saying they were working on a fix to resolve the issue. Down Detector said nearly 62 per cent of the users reported problems with Gmail, being unable to send or receive emails.

The services were restored by evening. Those affected took to social media, reporting issues with opening attachments, failed logins and emails not landing in their inboxes.

The tech giant has apologised for the inconvenience, adding that system reliability is a top priority at Google.
A female anchor of North Korea's YouTube channel "Echo of Truth" enjoys fried chicken and beer in a video posted Aug. 1. / Captured from Echo of Truth



By Park Han-sol



Surrounded by high-rise buildings piercing the purple evening sky, a young woman enjoys fried chicken and beer at a romantic restaurant with a hint of vintage decor. The crisp sound of her biting into well-baked drumsticks reminds one of a "mukbang" (online eating show).



In another video, a bob-haired woman experiences a range of emotions from terror to sheer joy as she screams on rides just like any other amusement park vlogger. Her tearful screams during a free-fall at a drop tower, the rollercoaster ride shakily filmed from her point of view, and the cameraman's chuckle over her jokes about going home all convey the lively atmosphere in a place of never-ending fun.



The vlog then cuts to her standing in front of two austere red signs, a stark contrast to colorful rides and surrounding greeneries. She admiringly explains that "respected Marshal Kim Jong-un visited here with great leader Kim Jong-il and went on this ride five times."



Both videos filmed in Pyongyang are from North Korea's YouTube channel "Echo of Truth," which boasts more than 23,000 subscribers and has racked up 1.7 million views since its launch in August 2017. The channel takes viewers to a pizza restaurant, spa resort, college campus and metro station to show what "authentic" daily life is like in North Korea's capital city.



Another channel that has risen to popularity recently is "New DPRK," with over 13,000 subscribers. Among several hosts, seven-year-old Ri Su-jin certainly stands out with her charming demeanor. Ri's vlogs show what the North claims to be the everyday life of Pyongyang children as she prepares for the first day of school, cheerfully skips down the hallway to water her flowers and excitedly asks her grandmother for candy after practicing the piano.



Both channels present a world away from the ballistic missiles, military parades and perfectly choreographed mass games typically associated with the reclusive regime.





Ri Chun-hee, the best-known anchor for North Korea's state-run broadcaster Korean Central Television (KCTV) / Yonhap



Shift to human-interest stories and polished style



The classic format that used to prevail in North Korean propaganda can be defined by two elements: the ever-present achievements of the country's supreme leaders and the anchors' stiff, bombastic rhetoric.



Contents revolved around breathless expressions of gratitude for the Kim family's leadership while indoctrinating citizens with state ideology and the importance of collective loyalty to the workers' party. Anchors underscored this message with their meticulously planned and stilted speaking style.



Now, on YouTube, the propaganda has evolved into slice-of-life videos with stories focusing on everyday life of ordinary citizens rather than explicit ideology. Videos introduce the country's mundane concerns through citizens themselves in street interviews. Their far-less-controversial and apolitical topics such as horse-riding, fashion trends and grocery shopping highlight a softer and more human side of life in Pyongyang.





Un A, one of the female anchors of North Korea's YouTube channel "Echo of Truth," introduces Pyongyang metro station in a video posted June 26. / Captured from Echo of Truth



The videos' stylistic aspects have also taken a big step toward the contemporary. Clips are often narrated or subtitled in English, appealing to a broader audience. The filming and editing techniques have become very polished, with many of the recent videos containing flashy graphics, time-lapse videos and even the ambient sounds of people chattering and laughing in the background, which used to be completely drowned out by anchors' voiceovers or music.



These stylistic shifts have been duly recognized by avid viewers. In a video where Un A, the narrator for "Echo of Truth," tours a Pyongyang metro station, many users spoke about its sleek opening sequence and transitions with high-quality graphics. One comment read: "You really stepped up your production quality with this vid. Lots of progress since your earlier posts."



Granted, North Korea's YouTube channels have not entirely abandoned their mission, and hints of classic propagandist messages are still present. In one video, Un A visits Mangyongdae, which the regime claims to be the birthplace of its founder Kim Il-sung. In another clip, the supreme leader's achievements are yet again emphasized through a child's words as Ri Su-jin awkwardly states "our beloved leader Marshal Kim Jong-un built [the hospital] for us" after getting a medical checkup.



The North Korean lifestyle shown in these videos is unlikely to be completely authentic, or it may represent a very limited number of top-level Pyongyang citizens, as factual data and testimonies prove that the majority part of the country is neither affluent nor modernized. In several other YouTube clips, North Korean defectors in the South who watch "Echo of Truth" or "New DPRK" channels state that many of the settings in the videos are fake.



Nevertheless, it is clear that overall, these toned-down videos do not rely heavily on explicit propagation or ideological indoctrination.





North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in front of a framed picture of his grandfather Kim Il-sung and father Kim Jong-il / Yonhap



YouTube videos as extension of Kim Jong-un's political agenda



As YouTube videos point to a new way of North Korea's propaganda practices, some experts see them as an extension of Kim Jong-un's political agenda to build a polished, modern image of the nation within the globalized landscape of today.



"This is part of Kim Jong-un's political project to bring the refined style of the outside world, especially that of Western Europe where he studied, back to North Korea not only to emphasize himself as a sophisticated leader of a new generation, but also to demonstrate the North will be seen as a forward-looking country unlike the past era which somberly focused on communist ideology," Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, told The Korea Times.



By taking a more flexible approach "in line with the contemporary sensibilities and global trends" through YouTube videos, the regime is trying to dispel its status as a pariah state and instead promote itself as "a normal country" that appeals to a wider audience, professor Kim Philo at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University explained.





Seven-year-old Ri Su-jin talks about going to school in a video posted on North Korea's YouTube channel "New DPRK," June 9. / Captured from New DPRK
(TNS) - Many rural counties in Ohio are showing signs of increase rates of coronavirus occurrence, while some urban centers are seeing improvement.In the Miami Valley, rural Preble County rose Thursday to a level three alert, warning of significant coronavirus spread. The county is home to an active nursing home outbreak as well as community spread. Montgomery County, on the other hand, is for the first time down to a level two alert, with both demand for newly detected cases and hospitalizations showing signs of slowing down.The new data was released Thursday as part of a weekly update by the state. The counties each receive an advisory on a scale of 1-4 based on seven indicators of how prolific coronavirus is in a community. The full data for each county can be found at coronavirus.ohio.gov .Gov. Mike DeWine attributed the improvements in more urban counties to longer adoption of masking in public.What has happened is weve seen the urban areas with a bigger percentage people wearing mask for a longer period of time and were seeing those numbers go down. Unfortunately were seeing those numbers go up in our rural areas, DeWine said during his afternoon press conference.After the data was released, Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County spokesman Dan Suffoletto said they are pleased after so many months to begin to see a downward trend but also wanted to caution that this is just a snapshot of a short period of time.We would need to see this type of decrease over a sustained period of time before we can draw any larger conclusions, said spokesman Dan Suffoletto, adding that it is important people continue to take precautions like masks and keeping distance.There were 475 new cases over the last two weeks. On the July 30 update, there were 784 new cases detected in Montgomery County over the past two weeks.Sarah Hackenbract, CEO of the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association, said hospitals in the region are overall seeing levels of COVID-19 patients treated in the ICU or on ventilators back to the lower levels of June before the July increase. As of Aug. 18, preliminary data had 5.4% of ICU beds occupied with COVID-19 patients and overall about 85% of ICU beds occupied in the region.Emergency department visits for COVID-19 diagnosed cases or COVID- like illness also have been trending down in Montgomery County, with a seven-day average of 8 visits as of Aug. 18 compared to an average of a little below 16 visits as of the July 30 update.We do need to continue to drive these numbers down. We dont want to see an overall increase ... ultimately that could lead to where it would be harder for our hospitals to manage, Hackenbract said.In Preble County, theres an outbreak at Greenbriar Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Eaton, with a preliminary count of 37 cases between residents and staff.Preble County Public Health announced Aug. 8 that the department was investigating the outbreak and the residents were tested as the result of two employees testing positive, with plans for further investigation and testing.A message was left with Greenbriar seeking more information. The nursing home is listed in June by the state as having passed its inspection for coronvirus infection control measures.As of Wednesday, Ohio Department of Health reported 19 residents with coronavirus cases and 18 staff members. This data is preliminary and there are sometimes delays between when new cases occur and when they are recorded by the state.The county of 40,882 residents had 71 newly detected cases over the last two weeks, which places it for the week as the fourth highest Ohio county based on the rate of detected cases per population.Darke County had the second highest rate of detected cases, with 119 new cases detected in the last two weeks, though new cases have been trending down.There is also a nursing home outbreak in Darke County, at Rest Haven, where there are 49 current resident cases and five staff cases recorded by the state as of Thursday.Most of the recent cases in the county, however, have been detected out in the community. According to the preliminary state data, all of the Darke County coronavirus cases detected in the past week and 80% detected Aug. 7-13 were non-congregate cases, meaning they were detected spreading outside of a congregated setting like a nursing home.Early on, long-term care made our numbers and probably two to three weeks ago community spreads started to take over our total numbers, said Darke County Health Commissioner Terrence Holman.Holman said theres still a lot to be studied about the coronavirus, but he expects its going to be endemic. He said it is important people take precautions like mask wearing, social distancing and sanitation to lower spread.Theres no way were going to eradicate it. Its going to be around and we just need to control the spread, Holman said.2020 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio)Visit the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) at www.daytondailynews.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Shannon Airport has confirmed that Delta Air Lines will not resume its seasonal services to New York next year.

The blow follows Junes announcement that United Airlines also wont relaunch its seasonal links with Shannon in 2021. Delta had used JFK Airport, United the Newark Airport across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

Deltas move leaves Shannon with two potential transatlantic operators next year: Aer Lingus and American Airlines. Currently only Ryanair operates short-haul passenger routes from the west of Ireland airport.

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Delta have advised Shannon Airport that with demand at an all-time low across their network, they are cutting their transatlantic capacity next year and will be concentrating mainly on hub-to-hub activity and major cities, Shannon Group said in a statement.

The aviation industry is on its knees, said Shannon Group chief executive Mary Considine. The industry urgently needs immediate Government support to fulfil its role in providing vital air connectivity to regions which underpin business and tourism and help drive the wider national economic recovery.

Ms Considine said Shannon hoped to woo Delta back in 2022. The Atlanta-based airline made Shannon its first Irish stop in 1986.

We will work closely with the airline to ensure the earliest possible resumption of this popular service for Shannon, she said.
Ships get ready for their voyages in the foreign trade container terminal of Qingdao port in Shandong province. [Photo by Yu Fangping/For China Daily]

Experts: Topics may include enforcement of trade deal, how to overcome barriers

China and the United States have agreed to hold talks "in the coming days" on economic and trade issues, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said on Thursday, after reports that planned high-level talks on their phase-one trade deal had been postponed.

Speaking at a weekly briefing, Gao made the announcement without elaborating.

Experts and business leaders said that the two sides are likely to discuss how the phase-one trade deal has been implemented so far and how they might resolve trade and investment barriers in the next stage.

"High-level official talks are helpful to reduce distrust between the two countries," said Zhang Yongjun, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Chen Qingzhou, chairman of Hytera Communications Co, a Shenzhen-based provider of land mobile radio communications solutions, said he hopes the two countries can promptly settle their differences.

"Although China and the US have disputes in trade, science and technology and other fields, their technology and manufacturing industries are highly integrated and are complementary in some fields. True cooperation will benefit both sides," he said.

The world's two largest economies reached an agreement on Jan 15 after a two-year trade dispute.

Despite the COVID-19 outbreak in the first half of this year, China has maintained that it will try its best to implement the phase-one trade deal.

Related government departments in China have worked extensively to that end, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Assistant Minister of Commerce Ren Hongbin said last week. However, tighter controls imposed by the US on exports to China and other restrictive measures have affected imports of goods and services from the country, he said.

In May, China unveiled the second list of US goods to be excluded from the second round of tariff countermeasures against the US Section 301 measures.

In the first seven months of this year, China's goods trade with the US declined 3.3 percent year-on-year to 2.03 trillion yuan ($292 billion), while its exports to the US fell 4.1 percent and imports shrank 0.3 percent amid the pandemic and other economic uncertainties, according to the General Administration of Customs.

China always welcomes foreign investors, including US companies, to invest and operate in the country and share development opportunities, ministry spokesman Gao said.

Since January, a number of big-ticket projects from Starbucks, Costco and Tesla have been established in China, showing the confidence US businesses have in the Chinese market, Gao said.

Profitability is also a key component of long-term confidence in the China market, according to a survey released last month by the US-China Business Council. About 91 percent of US companies said their China operations are profitable.

Gao said US firms are not leaving the Chinese market, where most are making profits and are optimistic about future growth prospects.

Robert Aspell, president of Asia-Pacific at Cargill Inc, said that with many countries still struggling to stimulate their exports and consumption, China offers a model of recovery, stabilization and then growth, adding that the company has introduced a number of food items into the Chinese market over the past two months.

The Minnesota-based agribusiness group opened the Asia-Pacific headquarters of its agricultural supply chain in Shanghai early this month, further demonstrating the company's continued commitment to the Chinese market.
PHILADELPHIA  Former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Curt Schilling is listed as part of the advisory board for the We Build the Wall fundraising campaign that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and three associates are accused of defrauding.

The indictment, unsealed Thursday, alleges that four leaders of the campaign to build a wall along the Mexico-U.S. boarder  Bannon, We Build the Wall founder Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea  defrauded donors and took steps to hide the scheme when they learned their actions were under investigation.

Several other prominent supporters of President Donald Trump are listed as members of the campaigns advisory board, but not charged or mentioned in the indictment, including Schilling, former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Schilling joined the nonprofit in January 2019, saying in a press release he was an early donor to the fundraising campaign. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to the border as part of a group of MAGA all-stars to promote the fundraising effort, which raised more than $20 million on GoFundMe.

Gotta tell you the fun for me is getting to read all the tweets from the know it all legal experts who say it cant and wont happen. Not only can it, it already IS happening and Ill say it one more time. Its real and its spectacular, Schilling wrote on Twitter in February 2019.

Its unclear if Schilling and other board members were aware of the alleged attempts to defraud the campaign. Schilling, Clarke and Kobach did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tancredo could not be reached.

As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said in a statement about the four indicted.

We Build the Wall is one of seven clients that paid Kobachs law firm $5,000 or more since January of 2019, according to the Kansas City Star. Kobach promoted his involvement with the nonprofit during his failed Kansas Senate race.

It funded the construction of a half-mile private barrier in Sunland Park, New Mexico, last year, which the towns mayor has said has had no impact on border crossings.

It is always the case, where you have outsiders coming in thinking they have a solution, Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea told BuzzFeed News in June 2019. Building the wall wont change the source of the problem.

The nonprofit also contributed $1.5 million to a border wall project in South Texas at risk of falling into the Rio Grande River due to runoff erosion, a ProPublica investigation found.

Schilling pitched for the Phillies for eight seasons. He won three World Series titles  two with the Boston Red Sox and one with the Arizona Diamondbacks. But since retiring 11 years ago, the six-time All-Star has transformed into a conservative firebrand and outspoken Trump supporter. In 2019, he flirted with the idea of running for Congress in Arizona before backing out.



Rob Tornoe of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote this story.

2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer

Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com
Hannah Ferrier from Below Deck Mediterranean wished bosun Malia White would have handled the valium situation differently and instead talked to her first before turning her into Captain Sandy Yawn.

Andy Cohen and Hannah Ferrier | Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank

If I have something to say Im just gonna come to you, she told Danny Pellegrino on his Everything Iconic podcast. I dont need to go through Sandy or find another way. Id much prefer somebody who was occasionally a little blunt but actually came to my face. As opposed to somebody who went  you know  like that.

It was, yeah disappointing, she added. Ferrier clarified that she had a prescription for the valium too. She said in Australia the prescription adheres to the box so Yawn had her prescription when she confiscated the medication. Ferrier said within two hours of having the conversation with Yawn, her doctor had sent a letter to Yawn.

Was it a set up?

I dont feel like it was a big set up like by production or anything like that, she said. But, I dont believe that Sandy just found out that Tom was coming in that scene in the bridge. I certainly dont believe that.

But I think that maybe Sandy knew that Tom was coming and wasnt so nice to Kiko and didnt really give him the chances, she says about chef Hindrigo Kiko Lorran. Lorran was fired after his Vegas dinner disaster. Ferrier and Lorran forged a strong friendship and Ferrier was seen having a panic attack shortly after he left.

If you think about it, when was it, season 3 or whatever, Adam literally went against the charter guest preferences purposefully and spitefully to put onions in their food, she recalled. To f**k with them! Thats a bit psychotic. I like Adam, but thats a bit psychotic. And she gave him another chance.

RELATED: Dramatic Below Deck Med Episode Crushes Ratings and Hits Series Record High

Chef Adam Glick was annoyed when a charter guest requested no onions. He purposely added onions to a number of dishes. He initially denied he did it but ultimately confessed to Yawn.

Ferrier says she saw deceptive behavior from White during season 2

We were getting along fine, Ferrier said of White. Were very different. Shes really not my cup of tea, but you have to work with people who you wouldnt particularly be friends with all the time. So it really didnt bother me too much.

There was the situation with Wes and Adam when I worked with her, she recounted. I found that really quite disturbing. Because its not like a corporate office where, its like these two guys bunk together. And youve got the whole crew to be thinking of. And you preach professionalism, and yet youve got your tongue down both of their throats at the same time.

RELATED: Below Deck Med: Malia White Insists She Was Not Seeking Revenge Against Hannah Ferrier

She said Whites behavior during the love triangle was deceitful and deceptive. Ferrier says she hasnt spoken to White since she left. And this is another perfect example of her behavior, she says. After episode one aired, I got a message on Facebook messenger, like, Hi Hannah, like I hope you enjoyed the episode and I have no idea why youve blocked me on social media. Its like, just dont text me at all.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 21

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Turkmenistan exported polypropylene to China through the territory of Kazakhstan along the North-South Railway Route for the first time ever, Trend reports with reference to Business Turkmenistan information portal.

The first container train, consisting of 42 and 40-foot containers of polypropylene, was sent from the Turkmenbashi seaport of Turkmenistan on August 12 this year. The container will reach the Qingdao railway station of China in 12-15 days.

The total length of the route is 8,746 kilometers, of which 712 kilometers pass through Turkmenistan from Turkmenbashi port to Serhetyaka, 3,450 kilometers pass through Kazakhstan from Bolashak to Altynkol and 4,584 kilometers pass through China from Horgos to Qingdao.

This route is the most optimal and cost-effective for exporting polypropylene to China.

The transport was facilitated by the Transport and Logistics Center of Turkmenistan (TULM) Open Joint Stock Company.

Over 19 billion cubic meters of natural gas were exported from Central Asian countries to China in 1H2020.

Turkmenistan is considered to be the largest supplier of this gas pipeline: last year, Turkmenistans Turkmengas State Concern supplied 31.2 billion cubic meters of gas to China.

Since the commissioning of the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline, over 300 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been exported to China. Turkmenistan provides more than 80 percent of the volume of gas supplies to China.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Susan Rice Says She Is Qualified to Serve in Biden Cabinet

Former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice said Friday that she is eligible to serve in Democratic nominee Joe Bidens administration if he is elected and chooses her.

Rice said shes qualified to be Bidens secretary of state or defense in Bidens potential administration. I can do that when she was asked by an interviewer if she would be Bidens secretary of defense or state. Rice also suggested she would be willing to serve in another capacity.

However, in the interview, she stressed that its up to Biden.

This is up to the next president of the United States and the Senate, if these are going to be Senate-confirmed positions. So lets just hold our horses here. Job one  is we got to get Joe Biden and Kamala Harris elected, Rice said in an interview, according to The Hill. That is vital. And we need to flip the Senate. And then Joe Biden needs to decide what team he wants around him and in what constellation, she said.

Rice added that she was in charge of former President Barack Obamas national security council and was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Ted Kaufman, another one of Bidens advisors and a former senator, said that cabinet picks will rely on those with experience.

I think this is about getting seasoned people that are really qualified to do the job. People with experience, people that are smart as hell and people that reflect America, Kaufman said in a Politico interview. A lot of this isnt about ideology or anything else. Its totally about what do you do after President Donald Trumps administration, he said.

Ex-President Barack Obama, accompanied by, from left, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Vice President Joe Biden, and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, during a meeting in Washington on March 31, 2016. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

Rices career started in President Bill Clintons National Security Council, where she served from 1993 to 1997 as director for international organizations and peacekeeping. She also was the special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs.

Rice was then appointed to be the assistant secretary of state for African affairs between 1997 and 2001. She served as Obamas U.N. envoy between 2009 and 2013 before becoming the national security adviser from 2013 until 2017.

However, if Rice is nominated in a potential Biden administration, Republicans in Congress will likely criticize her record while serving in the Obama administration, citing her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which left several Americans dead including an ambassador.

Reports earlier this summer suggested that Rice may have been tapped to become Bidens vice-presidential pick. However, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was picked earlier this month.
The U. of I. saliva test will also be used at campuses in Springfield and Chicago, offered for free to students and staff. Since it was first unveiled in July, the university has performed 70,000 saliva tests, with the capacity to do more than 10,000 in a single day.
CAMEROUN :: The letter of the Ambazonia Governing Council to the general secretary of the United Nations :: CAMEROON

To: H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General United Nations Headquarters New York, New York 10017.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General:

The Ambazonia Governing Council welcome a statement by the United Nations Organization condemning serious human rights violations and abuses in the ongoing conflict between Ambazonia and Cameroun.

The statement adds that we reiterate the readiness of the UN to work with all stakeholders towards a political solution to the crisis  . While we recognize this as a step in the right direction, it should be pointed out that while one life lost is one too many, the situation of violence in the ongoing war declared by President Paul Biya of Cameroun is not new considering that Ambazonia is not a vacuum in the global order of this world.

On February 14, 2020, the world witnessed the brutal killing in Ngarbuh of 23 innocent Ambazonian civilians including 15 children. While the world and international institutions were outraged and made public statements, nothing substantial has been done till date. UN officials who decried such a gruesome act included Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, Special Representative on Violence against Children, Najat Maalla Mjid, and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng.

The implication of voices of UN officials reacting to global issues cannot be over emphasized because that is the preamble upon which the UN was set up in the first place. That is, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights: in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

The Ambazonia Governing Council wants to remind the UN that Ambazonians as a people and geographic expression falls under international and local responsibilities. In its Comm. 266/2003 ruling on the case SCAPO/SCNC against the state of Cameroun, the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) ruled that Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) is a distinct people.

The ruling stated inter alia that the people of Southern Cameroons can legitimately claim to be a people The ACHPR further noted that the people of Southern Cameroons qualify to be referred to as a people because they manifest numerous characteristics and affinities, which include a common history, linguistic tradition,

territorial connection, and political outlook. More importantly Ambazonians identify themselves as a people with a separate and distinct identity. Identity is an innate characteristic within a people. It is up to other external people to recognize such existence, but not to deny it.

For close to six decades the Ambazonian people have sought for all possible solutions to this conflict locally and internationally to no avail. Since 2016, when a peaceful protest was met with brutal repression and a subsequent declaration of war by Mr. Biya of Cameroun on Ambazonia on November 30, 2017, the Ambazonian people have cried out more to a silent international community and system.

The Ambazonia Governing Council has time and again called the invocation of the UN instrument of the Responsibility to Protect given the atrocities being committed by Cameroun on the Ambazonian people.

It is the responsibility of the UN and its affiliates and the international community to protect the Ambazonian people from the brutality of La Republic du Cameroun army and proxy forces operating in Ambazonia.

It is the responsibility of the occupation regime and forces including all their proxy forces to respect international laws and protocols governing the rules of wars. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and subsequent protocols of 1977 are clear on the rules governing armed conflicts. The Ambazonian Governing Council and the Ambazonian Defence Forces is not a signatory to all such protocols and treaties yet the only party in respect of all of such treaties and protocols.

Signatories to international treaties and protocols are all in violation of the very treaties and protocols they signed. It is a shame that the Ambazonian Governing Council and the Ambazonian Defence Forces even under such gruesome brutality should be the one to remind and lead the occupiers, and international institutions and bodies to their responsibilities under international law.

Proxy forces loyal to the Yaounde regime have been carrying out a reign of terror in Ambazonian territory.

This is not without the full blessing of their instructors in Yaounde, Cameroun. The international system is equipped with the relevant technology and intelligence to support this fact.

It is irresponsible and abdication of responsibility for the UN and the occupation regime to expect the Ambazonian Governing Council and its Defence Forces to control, and worst still accept responsibility for the atrocities of the occupation forces and their proxy militias in Ambazonia.

The Ambazonia Governing Council remains ready for the international stakeholders to recognize that the ongoing conflict between Cameroun and Ambazonia is an international issue that requires international action. We have reiterated our readiness and willingness for a political solution to the current situation.

The Ambazonia Governing Council reaffirms its commitment to a negotiated settlement overseen by a credible neutral party on a neutral ground with a guarantor to oversee the implementation of the outcome.

We have repeatedly declared our openness to a credible multilateral negotiation process under the auspices of the United Nations that should lead to the respect of the inalienable right of the people of Ambazonia to total freedom, sovereignty and respect for our territorial integrity as provided in UN

Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1961. This is the diplomatic path that can achieve a satisfactory response to your call in Ambazonia, and lead to permanent peace.

Unfortunately, the purported Swiss-led process has been marred with continuous deception by the Swiss mediators. Consequently, the Ambazonian people have no trust in the Swiss to lead a credible process that would have taken advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic global devastation to achieve a satisfactory

response to your appeal.

A credible multilateral negotiation process led by a neutral country other than Switzerland, under the auspices of the United Nations is imperative to achieve a ceasefire and peace diplomatically. I call on your high office to support this alternative process, which is a unified position of the dominant Ambazonia movements.

It is imperative that amidst the ongoing genocide, the United Nations invoke the responsibility to protect the Ambazonian people.

In the absence of this invocation, the Ambazonia Defence Forces have the responsibility to intensify the self-defences of Ambazonian women, children, and civilians at large from oppression, torture, rape and massacres of the people of Ambazonia.

The Ngahbur massacre perpetuated by Cameroun soldiers that received laudable condemnation from your office is a recent case that would have been prevented if we had fully exercised this right to self-defence.

The determination of the people of Ambazonia to free themselves from Camerouns tyranny is unwavering.

The Ambazonian Independence cause is not a matter within Cameroons domestic jurisdiction. It has its roots in the faulty decolonization process that significantly involved violation of UN Resolutions provisions.

As it were with East Timor and other self-determination causes involving foreign intervention, and to give further credibility to the Swiss-led Process, what work has Switzerland done to obtain a UN General Assembly Resolution on The Cameroon-Ambazonia Conflict that further endorses and empowers the conflict resolution process?

To proceed with the process, the Ambazonia Governing Council therefore calls on the UN to translate its words into action by:

1) Requiring Cameroun to commit to a negotiated settlement under the auspicious of a third party guaranteed by the UN;

2) Requesting the Secretary General to appoint a UN Special Envoy to the conflict resolution process;

3) Requiring Cameroun to respect International Human Rights Law in the conflict with Ambazonia;

4) Ask the UNSC to refer Cameroun to the ICC for investigations on its crimes in Ambazonia;

5) Declaring the Ambazonian People as Endangered in consideration of the loss of Ambazonian lives and destruction of property;

6) Invoke the Responsibility to Protect and call on the government of Cameroon and the international community to take actions immediately in this regard.

Please, accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr Larry Ayamba

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Ambazonia Governing Council
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed devotees to offer Paryushan prayers in three Jain temples in Mumbais Dadar, Byculla and Chembur neighbourhoods for two days amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

All devotees are expected to follow social distancing rules and should use face masks. The court pointed out that no permission for prayers would be given for any other temple in Mumbai. It also said it would not go into the larger issue of religious gatherings during the lock down as the matter remains pending before the Bombay High Court.We must make it clear that the order, in this case, does not extend to any other trust or any other temples. Our order is not intended to apply in any other case, particularly which involves large congregations of people which by their very nature cannot be controlled. We accordingly permit the petitioners to perform their prayers at temples of Dadar, Byculla and Chembur for the remaining days of Paryushan, the bench said in its order.

During the hearing, CJI Bobde also criticized the Maharashtra Government for allowing the opening of malls and other economic activity but not temples.I find it very strange that every activity they are allowing involves economic activity. They are willing to take the risk if money is involved but if it is religious then they say there is COVID-19 and we cant do this, Justice Bobde added.

ALSO READ : Disha patrol vehicles, cyber kiosks soon in Andhra Pradesh

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, opposed the appeal and said that it is for the interest of the state which would be at great difficulty in managing the situation.The Shri Parshwatilak Shwetamber Murtipujak Tapagacch Jain Trust had earlier moved the top court to let them pray at Jain temples in the city during the e-Paryushan period, which is a significant period for the Jain community.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde, was hearing an appeal against the Bombay High Court order which stated that it did not wish to interfere with the states decision of not to permit Jain temples in Mumbai to open for devotees to mark the eight-day Paryushan festival from August 15 to 23 in view of the Covid- 19 pandemic.

ALSO READ : Prakash Javadekar requests not to burst firecrackers on Diwali, says BS VI-compliant vehicles to arrive in Delhi by 2020
Iran Unveils New Ballistic Missile Named After Slain Quds Head Soleimani

Sputnik News

Oleg Burunov. Sputnik International

09:37 GMT 20.08.2020(updated 09:38 GMT 20.08.2020)

In late June, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi announced that Tehran would soon begin manufacturing a new class of supersonic cruise missiles to complement the subsonic weapons currently in service in the country.

Tehran has unveiled a spate of new ballistic and cruise missiles designed and manufactured in Iran, the country's Defence Minister Amir Hatami said in a televised speech on Thursday.

He added that the surface-to-surface missile named after martyr Qasem Soleimani, has a range of 1,400 kilometres (870 miles), while the cruise missile, called in honor of martyr Abu Mahdi, has a range of more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles).

Soleimani, head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, along with senior militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in a US drone strike authorised by President Donald Trump on their car at the Baghdad International Airport in early January.

The killing further escalated the already tense relations between Tehran and Washington which have been deteriorating since the latter's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and the reinstatement of tough American economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran's rollout of the new missiles comes a few weeks after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that the Trump administration would expand its metals sanctions against the Islamic Republic to cover 22 additional materials "used in connection with Iran's nuclear, military, or ballistic missile programmes".

The statement followed Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi in late June stating that the country would soon start manufacturing a new class of supersonic cruise missiles known as the Talaeey-e to add to its current arsenal of subsonic weapons.

Tehran has repeatedly resisted US and European pressure to reduce its missile power, underscoring the need to defend itself against foreign aggression and saying that Iran's missile programme "cannot and will not be negotiated".

The Islamic Republic is known to possess more than 1,000 short and medium-range missiles, and is reported to have ramped up its development and production following the US exit from the JCPOA.

A Sputnik

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India's total coronavirus tally is now 49,30,236, with 83,809 fresh COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours

India has recorded more than 29.05 lakh cases of the novel coronavirus and 54,849 deaths, according to the Union Health Ministry's latest update. Of these, over 6.9 lakh are active cases while more than 21.5 lakh have recovered.

Maharashtra continues to report the highest number of infections, followed by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The health ministry updates its numbers a day after states release their data.

Globally, more than 2.2 crore infections and over 7.8 lakh deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported .

Here are all the latest updates:

>> Haryana government said all offices and shops, except essential ones, will remain closed on weekends to contain the spread of COVID-19. The development comes a day after the state reported its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases.

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

>> Children play a larger role in the community spread of COVID-19 than previously thought, according to a study which found that the younger people may not be as likely to become seriously ill as adults, but they can spread infection and bring the virus into their homes.

>> The mutant form of the novel coronavirus reported from Malaysia as being 10 times more infectious is not a concern for India as it is widely prevalent here and isn't any more virulent than the strain originating in Wuhan, scientists said today.

>> Scientists at the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, with the support of the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a body under the DST, are developing a kit that will differentiate various types of coronavirus infection.

>> BMC modified quarantine guidelines and made institutional isolation compulsory for all COVID-19 patients above 50 years of age from this week in a bid to bring down morality rate.

>> The ICMR is undertaking a study in Mumbai to evaluate whether the BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) vaccine, primarily used against tuberculosis, is effective in preventing COVID-19 in elderly population.
Rotunda Rumblings

Help wanted: Disgraced ex-House Speaker Larry Householders arraignment on a racketeering conspiracy charge has been postponed by two weeks because he cant find an attorney to represent him, according to Jeremy Pelzer. Householder, whose previous lawyers withdrew because of an unspecified conflict, was ordered by a federal judge to expedite his efforts to secure new counsel.

Nonprofits are people, too: Generation Now, the nonprofit Householder is accused of using to funnel dark money in the bribery scheme he is charged with engineering, has entered a plea of not guilty in federal court. John Caniglia has details.

Tired of the situation: After initially declining to comment Wednesday on President Donald Trumps call for a boycott of Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Gov. Mike DeWine said Thursday that he did not support a boycott, Seth Richardson reports. While disagreeing with Trump, DeWine didnt directly criticize him. But he did offer some gentle criticism of Goodyears dress code, whose ban on political attire for employees  including MAGA hats  led to Trumps fury in the first place.

Code blue: Goodyear CEO Rich Kramer said Thursday employees could wear clothes showing support for law enforcement. The clarification was related to reports saying employees were prohibited from wearing attire with messages such as Blue Lives Matter while being allowed to display messages supporting racial justice, Robin Goist reports.

Cancel that: Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan told Sabrina Eaton that Trumps call to boycott Goodyear isnt equivalent to the cancel culture that Jordan and Trump decry among Democrats, and that Goodyear - not Trump - engaged in cancel culture. My guess is the vast majority of the people who work at Goodyear dont like the position that was taken by the leadership of the company, Jordan said. They dont like being told what positions you can and cant have.

Grand opening: President Trumps 2020 Ohio campaign headquarters opened Thursday in Westerville to a packed house  too packed, in the eyes of critics. As Pelzer reports, a picture of the grand opening  featuring Jordan and dozens of other supporters packed closely together, mostly without masks  drew criticism from Democrats and others. A campaign spokesman said attendees were offered masks, hand sanitizer, and temperature checks upon entering.

Out of line: Ohioans with printers can skip the Bureau of Motor Vehicles when seeking temporary vehicle license tags, thanks to a new online system that allows them to pay for and print out the information at OPLATES.com, Julie Washington reports.

School bells: When schools began remote learning in the spring, it was framed as an extended spring break. Now, remote learning has been developed to mimic a full school day, Emily Bamforth reports. This comes with increased demands for at-home and at-school technology, which districts need to pay for with limited funds.

Was nice while it lasted: Ohios four-day streak of new cases coming in under 1,000 ended Thursday, when the state posted 1,122 new coronavirus infections from the previous day, Laura Hancock reports. The numbers also exceed the 21-day average, also breaking the four-day streak.

Red, orange and yellow: The good news for seven Ohio counties is that they no longer are on red alert in the states coronavirus warning system. Dropped down this week were Brown, Cuyahoga, Fairfield, Licking, Marion, Montgomery and Muskingum. But statewide, there now are nine red counties, 50 orange and 29 at the lowest level of yellow, Rich Exner reports. The red counties are Clark, Clermont, Erie, Franklin, Lorain, Lucas, Mercer, Preble and Trumbull.

Getting centered: Gov. Mike DeWine said senior centers and adult day centers that serve adults with developmental disorders and conditions such as stroke and diabetes, will be allowed to reopen Sept. 21. The centers were closed in late March, due to the pandemic, Hancock reports.

Staking a claim: State officials said Thursday 21,663 initial jobless claims were filed for the week ending Aug. 16, up 694 from the previous week. However, continued unemployment claims have been steadily dropping since an April pandemic peak, Evan MacDonald reports.

Check it out: The state still hasnt quite figured out the logistics, but the $300 weekly checks unemployed Ohioans are to receive will be retroactive to Aug. 1, the state unemployment office says. These are the replacements for the $600 checks added to unemployment until the end of July. But heres the catch, the state doesnt know how long the money will last. It could be just a few weeks, Exner writes.

A star is born: It seems inevitable that Republican former Gov. John Kasich would end up in a Lincoln Project ad, and that is now the case. The group of Never Trumpers is now featuring Kasichs speech at the Democratic National Convention in one of its latest spots.

Collegial atmosphere: Ohio University, which has recently laid off professors and staff, is not alone in its financial struggles, writes Laura Pappano for the Hechinger Report. Numerous Midwest Universities that are not the states flagship schools are experiencing declining enrollment and cuts in state funding.

Buckeye Brain Tease

Question: What is the only Ohio county where more than half of its residents have at least a bachelors degree? Email your response to capitolletter@cleveland.com. The first correct respondent will be mentioned in next weeks newsletter.

Thanks for responding to last weeks trivia question:

Republican former Ohio Gov. John Kasich spoke at this week's Democratic National Convention. Who was the last Republican governor to speak at a Democratic National Convention and in what year?

Answer: Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention for President Barack Obamas re-election. Crist became a Democrat later that year and is currently a congressman.

Capitol Letter reader Pam Manges of Wooster in Wayne County was the first to send in the correct answer.

On the Move

Michael McGovern, a longtime left-leaning consultant and activist, is taking the helm of ProgressOhio as managing director. ProgressOhio has been largely dormant for the last year, but will now focus on the federal bribery probe against GOP ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and his associates, in the months up to the Nov. 3 election.

Birthdays

Friday: State Reps. Stephanie Howse and Bill Roemer; ex-state Rep. Steve Arndt; George White, Ohio's 52nd governor (1872-1953)

Saturday: State Rep. (Mark) Doug Green; Lauren LaRose, Ohio Republican Party state central committeewoman, wife of Secretary of State Frank LaRose

Sunday: Reps. Laura Lanese and Jessica Miranda; Torri Huebner, central regional liaison with State Auditor Keith Fabers office

Straight from the Source

I think the only thing in America with more hot air in it is Donald Trump.

-U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, a Niles Democrat, at a Thursday rally with Goodyear workers after President Donald Trumps calls for a boycott. He was referencing the iconic Goodyear blimp.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.
DUBLIN, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Business Jets Market by Aircraft Type (Light, Mid-Sized, Large, Airliner), Systems (OEM Systems, Aftermarket Systems), End User (Private, Operator), Point of Sale (OEM, Aftermarket), Services, Range And Region - Global Forecast to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The business jets market is estimated at USD 18.8 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to USD 38.0 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period.



An increasing number of high net worth individuals is one of the significant factors driving the business jets market



Besides an increasing number of high net worth individuals, recommencement of global economic growth, and upcoming new aircraft programs are expected to drive the growth of the market.



The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a significant economic toll on the aviation sector due to air travel restrictions in various countries. The crisis having idled much of the aviation business; fleet readiness, and maintenance considerations are of paramount significance to tackle the challenges posed by the pandemic. However, with certain relaxations across regions, business jet operators and service providers have witnessed a sluggish demand for charter services., Clients are choosing to charter to gain quicker access, skip long and crowded check-in, customs, and immigration queues of people with unknown travel histories.



Based on aircraft type, large segment projected to lead business jets market during the forecast period



Based on aircraft type, the large segment is projected to lead the business jets market during the forecast period. This growth can be attributed to the comfort that large business jets provide. Large jets comprise standard heavy jets and ultra-long-range heavy jets, which are priced much higher than light and mid-sized jets. The delivered volume of large jets is 1/3rd that of total business jets, and its price is more than double of average business jet price, leading to a larger market share.



Based on point of sale, OEM segment projected to lead business jets market during the forecast period



Based on the point of sale, the OEM segment is projected to lead the business jets market during the forecast period. Aircraft are equipped with various components and subcomponents before being delivered to operators. This stage of installation is known as OEM. The OEM phase is one of the crucial aspects of the business jets market. Over the years, there has been a significant rise in demand for business jets around the world.

Based on range, less than 3,000 NM segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period



Based on range, the less than 3,000 NM segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Business jets that fall under the range of less than 3,000 NM are generally used for short-distance domestic travel. These aircraft have access to small airports and can and can modify departure and arrival processes and time, which drives the growth of this segment.



North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the business jets market in 2020



North America region is expected to account for the largest share of the global market in 2020. This can be attributed to the maximum number of high-net-worth individuals in this region, and presence of major business jet manufacturers in this region such as Textron (US), Bombardier (Canada), and Gulfstream (US), among others. Additionally, the availability of airports across North America enables ease in business travel across the region. Geographically, North America is the biggest region, by area, hence it is important for business travelers to opt for the fastest mode of transport to save time, resulting in increasing demand for business jets.

Key Topics Covered:



1 Introduction



2 Research Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Premium Insights

4.1 Business Jets Market, 2020-2030

4.2 Business Jets Market, by Aircraft Type

4.3 Business Jets Market, by End USe

4.4 Business Jets Market, by Country



5 Market Overview

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Market Dynamics

5.2.1 Drivers

5.2.1.1 Introduction of New Programs

5.2.1.2 Recommencement of Global Economic Growth

5.2.1.3 Aging Fleet Size

5.2.1.4 Increasing Number of High-Net-Worth Individuals

5.2.2 Restraints

5.2.2.1 Lengthy Period of Product Certification from Aviation Authorities

5.2.2.2 Uncertainty of Orders

5.2.3 Opportunities

5.2.3.1 Evtol Aircraft

5.2.3.2 Advent of Hybrid-Electric Aircraft Propulsion Technology

5.2.3.3 Entry of New Business Jets OEMs

5.2.3.4 Rising Demand for Business Jets from Emerging Markets

5.2.3.5 Increase in Demand for Private and Chartered Airplanes Amidst Covid-19 Outbreak

5.2.4 Challenges

5.2.4.1 Unavailability of Infrastructure

5.2.4.2 Rising Fuel Prices

5.2.4.3 Economic Challenges Faced by Oems of Business Jets Market Due to Covid-19 Outbreak

5.3 Technology Analysis

5.3.1 On-Board Jet Wave Technology



6 Industry Trends

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Ecosystem

6.3 Key Influencers

6.4 Current and Futuristic Trends

6.4.1 Sophistication of Cabin Interiors

6.4.1.1 Cabin Lighting

6.4.1.2 Ifec

6.4.1.3 Cabin Management Systems

6.4.2 Autonomous Business Aircraft

6.4.3 Electric Propulsion

6.4.3.1 Hybrid Electric Propulsion System Design

6.4.3.2 All Electric Propulsion System Design

6.4.4 Urban Air Mobility

6.5 USe Cases

6.5.1 Time-Shared Business Jets

6.5.2 Pegasus Universal Aerospace Carried Out Its First Vtol Business Jet Outing at Ebace

6.6 Innovations & Patent Registrations

6.7 Impact of Mega Trends



7 Business Jets Market, by Aircraft Type

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Impact of Covid-19 on Aircraft Types

7.2.1 Most Impacted Aircraft Type Segment

7.2.2 Least Impacted Aircraft Type Segment

7.3 Light

7.3.1 Rising Demand for Inexpensive Ultra-Short-Haul Journeys is Driving the Growth of the Light Segment

7.4 Mid-Sized

7.4.1 Increase in Intercity Travel is Driving the Market for Mid-Sized Business Jets

7.5 Large

7.5.1 Increase in the Customization and High Demand for Extra Range in Business Aviation is Driving the Market for Large Business Jets

7.6 Airliners

7.6.1 Increasing Demand for VVIP Travel is Driving the Airliners Segment



8 Business Jets Market, by End USe

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Impact of Covid-19 on End USe of Business Jets

8.2.1 Most Impacted End USe Segment

8.2.2 Least Impacted End USe Segment

8.3 Private

8.3.1 Increasing USe for Personal, Corporate, and Governmental Purposes is Expected to Drive the Private Segment

8.4 Operator

8.4.1 Charter Services and Jet Card Programs Driving the Demand for Business Jets by Operators



9 Business Jets Market, by Point of Sale

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Impact of Covid-19 on Point of Sale of Business Jets

9.2.1 Most Impacted Point of Sale Segment

9.2.2 Least Impacted Point of Sale Segment

9.3 Oem

9.3.1 Conventional

9.3.1.1 Increasing Demand for Business Flights is Estimated to Drive the Conventional Segment

9.3.2 Hybrid-Electric

9.3.2.1 Electrification of Aircraft is Estimated to Drive the Demand for Hybrid Electric Propulsion in the Business Jets Market

9.4 Aftermarket

9.4.1 Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO)

9.4.1.1 Increasing Maintenance and Overhaul of Existing Business Jets Fleet is Expected to Drive the Growth of the MRO Segment

9.4.2 Parts Replacement

9.4.2.1 Increase in Business Jet Flight Hours is Among the Factors Contributing to the Demand for Retrofit Parts for Aircraft



10 Business Jets Market, by Range

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Less Than 3,000 Nm

10.2.1 Rising Demand for Inexpensive Ultra-Short-Haul Flights Drives the Segment

10.3 3,000-5,000 Nm

10.3.1 Increase in Intercity Travel Drives Market for Mid-Sized Business Jets

10.4 More Than 5,000 Nm

10.4.1 Increase in Vvip Travel Across the Globe Boosts Segment Growth



11 Business Jets Market, by System

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Oem Systems

11.2.1 Aerostructures

11.2.2 Avionics

11.2.3 Aircraft Systems

11.2.4 Cabin Interiors

11.2.5 Doors, Windows, and Windshields

11.3 Aftermarket Systems

11.3.1 Aerostructures

11.3.2 Avionics

11.3.3 Aircraft Systems

11.3.4 Cabin Interiors

11.3.5 Doors, Windows, and Windshields



12 Business Jets Services Market

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Business Jets Services Market, by Type

12.2.1 Charter Services

12.2.1.1 Shared Private Jet Services to Help Optimize Charter Fleet Operations

12.2.2 Jet Card Programs

12.2.2.1 Debit as You Fly Program

12.2.3 Fractional Ownership

12.2.3.1 Shared Ownership With the Benefits of Charter Service

12.3 Aircraft Management Services

12.4 Business Jets Services Market, by Leasing Type

12.4.1 Wet Lease

12.4.1.1 Leasing An Aircraft With All Supporting Services - Short Term Lease

12.4.2 Dry Lease

12.4.2.1 Lease An Aircraft With No Additional Services - Long Term Lease

12.5 Reformations in the Business Jets Services Market Amidst Covid-19



13 Regional Analysis

13.1 Introduction

13.2 Impact of Covid-19 on Business Jets Market, by Region

13.3 3 Global Scenarios of Business Jets Market

13.4 North America

13.5 Europe

13.6 Asia-Pacific

13.7 Middle East

13.8 Latin America

13.9 Africa



14 Competitive Landscape

14.1 Introduction

14.2 Market Share Analysis

14.3 Competitive Scenario

14.3.1 Contracts and Agreements

14.3.2 New Product Launches

14.3.3 Investment, Certification, and Expansion

14.3.4 Other Strategies



15 Company Evaluation and Company Profiles

15.1 Competitive Analysis

15.2 Strength of Product Portfolio

15.3 Business Strategy Excellence

15.4 Company Profiles

15.4.1 Textron Inc.

15.4.2 Embraer S.A.

15.4.3 Gulfstream Aerospace

15.4.4 Pilatus Aircraft

15.4.5 Boeing

15.4.6 Airbus

15.4.6.1 Business Overview

15.4.6.2 Products Offered

15.4.6.3 Recent Developments

15.4.6.4 SWOT Analysis

15.4.6.5 Mnm View

15.4.7 Bombardier, Inc.

15.4.8 Dassault Aviation

15.4.9 Honda Aircraft Company

15.4.10 Syberjet Aircraft

15.4.11 Piper Aircraft Inc.

15.4.12 Startups

15.4.12.1 Volocopter GmbH

15.4.12.2 Eviation Aircraft

15.4.12.3 Zunum Aero

15.4.12.4 Lilium GmbH

15.4.12.5 Joby Aviation

15.4.12.6 Karem Aircraft Inc.

15.4.12.7 Lift

15.4.12.8 Xti Aircraft

15.4.12.9 Samad Aerospace

15.4.12.10 One Aviation Corporation



16 Business Jets Adjacent Markets



17 Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/nw88dy

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Published Aug. 21, 2020

The University of Louisiana Monroe Presidential Search Committee selected three finalists to present to the full Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System for consideration.

The finalists are:

Katrice Albert , Executive Vice President, S2A Solutions

Ronald Berry , Dean, College of Business and Social Sciences, University of Louisiana at Monroe

Jeannine Kahn , Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Louisiana System

We are appreciative of all six semifinalists for engaging in the process. The finalists moving forward possess the key qualities to advance ULM into its centennial, UL System President and CEO and Search Committee Chair Jim Henderson said. The ULM community provided invaluable feedback which reinforced our decision to advance these three candidates.

The Board will meet Thursday, Sept. 3 in Baton Rouge to select the president.

Through this multiday interview process, each finalist demonstrated an ability to perform under immense pressure  Board Chairman Mark Romero said. The next president of ULM is among these qualified candidates. The Board has a tough choice ahead; each finalist would bring a unique strength to the presidency.

Chairing the University of Louisiana at Monroe presidential search committee is UL System President and CEO Jim Henderson as a nonvoting member. Voting members are ULM Faculty Senate President Janelle McDaniel and UL System Board Members Mark Romero, Elizabeth Pierre, Lola Dunahoe, Mimi Methvin, Shawn Murphy, Alejandro Perkins, Joe Salter and Student Board Member Olivia Bailey.

Nonvoting members are Carl Aron of the State Pharmacy Board, former ULM Student Board Member Rachel Lautigar, ULM Alumnus Dennis Blunt, ULM Alumni Association President Sara Benecke Brice, Alberta Brown Green and Susan Hoffmann of the ULM Foundation Board of Trustees, Former SGA President Hannah Livingston, Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo, Monroe Chamber Board Chair James Moore III and former ULM Student Athlete James Wright.

The finalists interviews are posted at www.youtube.com/ulsystem. All information regarding the search is available at ULSystem.edu/ULMsearch.
With the backing of the Labor Party opposition, the Liberal-National government is pushing ahead with planned legislation to hand federal governments unprecedented powers to declare emergencies and call out the military, with or without any state government agreement.

The government aims to push the changes to the Defence Act through federal parliament before the end of the year. Some provisions will be unveiled within weeks, while others will come after the scheduled October 28 report of a royal commission into disaster arrangements. That inquiry was instructed to focus on the alleged need for such powers.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison first declared the governments intent in late January during the bushfire disaster. He used a National Press Club speech to call for national emergency powers, effectively establishing the conditions for rule by decree, enforced by the Australian Defence Force, in times of a self-proclaimed emergency.

Australian soldiers recently conducting urban training before a deployment to Afghanistan. Credit: Australian Army (Twitter)

As in the United States, the proposed measures would overturn the constitutional division of federal-state powers, in order to enable prime ministers to dispatch troops to deal with alleged emergencies without the permission of a state or territory government.

In June, amid mass protests against police violence, US President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military throughout the country, regardless of opposition by state governors. Sections of the military resisted this attempted coup, fearing it was not adequately prepared and would create a social explosion. Trump then dispatched federal border agents to several cities, including Portland, Oregon, where they beat demonstrators and snatched protesters into unmarked vehicles.

The Morrison governments plans would create the framework for similar moves toward authoritarian forms of rule amid mounting economic crisis, worsening social inequality and growing political discontent.

Once again, as it did during the bushfire calamity, the political establishment is exploiting a catastrophethis time the COVID-19 pandemicfor which its own policies are directly responsible, to introduce police-state powers.

At the height of the deadly bushfires, the governments unprecedented January 4 deployment of 3,000 military reservists, warships and planes highlighted the lack of civilian resources, while seeking to accustom the population to the sight of troops and military hardware on home soil.

Morrison boasted of making the first-ever compulsory domestic call-out of reservists and military intervention without any state government request, saying he had been very conscious of testing the limits of constitutionally defined roles.

Morrisons subsequent call for national emergency powers had nothing to do with providing the urgently-needed fire-fighting resources or policies to deal with such climate change-driven disasters.

Likewise, today there is no proposal to allocate the billions of dollars necessary for adequate epidemic protection, health care and aged care, despite the horrendous breakdowns in these chronically-underfunded and over-stretched services. Instead, military spending has been boostedto $575 billion over a decadeto create a force to suppress domestic unrest as well as to prepare for war.

The proposed legislation has yet to be published. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, it would hand the prime minister the power to declare a national emergency or disaster.

Since 2000, under the cover of the war on terrorism, legislation has been introduced already, and twice expanded, with bipartisan support to give federal governments increased powers to mobilise the military to deal with undefined domestic violence. These call-out laws give military commanders the power to order the use of deadly force.

Under the reported changes, the Defence Act would be further amended so the military could be called out to national emergencies and disasters. This would not be restricted to covering events such as bushfires, floods and pandemics. In his January speech, Morrison vaguely referred to emergency declarations where the life and property of Australians have been assessed to be under threat.

During the bushfires and coronavirus crises, the government has relied on the states to request military assistance under Defence Assistance to the Civil Community arrangements, but without federal laws laying out the powers and roles of troops.

Under the planned legislation, the prime minister, defence minister and attorney-general could call out the troops if they agreed with each other that a state or territory was unable to protect the Commonwealth or itself against the supposed threat.

The legislation would by-pass the state and territory governments where the trio decreed that Commonwealth interests were endangered. It would also give military personnel greater powers and legal protections in interrogating or detaining people, issuing orders and searching property.

Already, the Morrison government has seized upon the COVID-19 pandemic to launch an extensive internal military intervention. So far, about 3,500 military personnel have been mobilised for Operation COVID-19 Assist, about half of them at the request of the state Labor government in Victoria, currently the worst-infected state.

In scenes never before witnessed in peacetime, soldiers are patrolling streets, door-knocking houses, manning border control checkpoints, airports and hotel quarantines, and conducting contact tracing. In the Victorian capital of Melbourne, they are helping police enforce an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.

Enormous emergency powers already exist in the hands of the federal and state governments. Since the pandemic first erupted in March, these powers have enabled the formation of a de facto coalition regime running the country by emergency decrees. This National Cabinet has no constitutional or statutory basis and is not accountable to any parliament, most of which have not sat fully for months.

The existing emergency laws include the federal Biosecurity Act, which gives federal governments the power to declare biosecurity or human biosecurity emergencies. Cabinet ministers can then issue any direction to any person and determine any requirement, despite any provision of any other Australian law. People who disobey orders can be imprisoned for up to five years. Ministerial directives cannot be disallowed by parliament.

The states have activated similar sweeping emergency laws. In Victoria, the Labor government has further declared a state of disaster, allowing it to suspend any act of parliament and issue directions that prevail over any legislation or law. These powers can be utilised to suppress popular unrest and outlaw strikes.

Greater emergency powers would allow governments to impose virtual martial law, with sweeping authority to tear up basic democratic rights by suspending all existing laws.

Beneath this lurch toward dictatorial measures lies a protracted political crisis, now intensified by the disastrous profit-driven response of every government, Liberal-National and Labor alike, to the pandemic. Their rush to lift safety restrictions, in order to reopen the economy has triggered a second COVID-19 wave of infections and deaths. Decades of deteriorating social conditions, a widening gulf between the wealthy elite and the working class, and the devastation of full-time jobs and working conditions had already generated deepening public hostility.

Support for both major ruling parties has fallen to record lows, as has trust in the political system, yet the ruling class now faces the greatest economic breakdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s and is increasingly discredited by its damning record on the COVID-19 pandemic. Acutely aware and fearful that rising social and political discontent is likely to erupt, the ruling class is drawing up repressive measures.

The author also recommends:

Australian government calls for national emergency powers

[30 January 2020]

Victorias COVID-19 catastrophe: An indictment of Australian governments and capitalism

[5 August 2020]
The move comes amid recent allegations by Alexander Lukashenko of foreign meddling in Belarus' affairs, including on the part of Ukraine.

Ukraine has employed additional forces and means to tighten control at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, the speaker of the State Border Guard Service says.

"Now we have tightened control at the border with Belarus, since the situation in this country is quite turbulent," spokesperson Andriy Demchenko told RBC-Ukraine.

The move was made as soon as the Belarus developments escalated, the official explained.

The situation in this country is quite turbulent

Ukraine has strengthened the border against the background of the recent decision by Belarus government to deploy more military at the country's western borders with Poland and Lithuania.

Read alsoLukashenko warns Zelensky against "fomenting riots" in BelarusAlso, Ukraine's military command was alarmed by repeated references to Ukraine in public addressed by Belarus' long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko, who claimed "foreign meddling" in the country's internal affairs and warned foreign leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, of responsibility "for inciting unrest."

Protests in Belarus: background

On August 9, presidential elections were held in Belarus. The Central Election Commission said Alexander Lukashenko won a sweeping 80.1% of the vote, while main rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya sealed just 10.1%.

Thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to contest what they believe is a rigged vote count.

Riot police violently slammed on protesters, detaining thousands, of whom many were badly beaten and injured while in custody.

On August 15, following phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko said Russia had promised full-fledged assistance to ensure the country's security.

Earlier Lukashenko has repeatedly claimed external forces are trying to destabilize Belarus.

On August 16, Lukashenko press service announced following another conversation between Lukashenko and Putin that the two leaders intend to react jointly "in the event of an escalation in terms of external threats."

On August 19, the European Union said they did not recognize election results and tentatively agreed on introducing a package of sanctions against those involved in a violent crackdown on protesters and vote-rigging.

On August 20, Belarus prosecutors opened a criminal case into a seizure of power by the opposition.
"Covid-19 has laid bare the structures which condemn millions of people in Africa to lives of what Frantz Fanon called many years ago 'wretchedness'." This is how Sello Hatang, chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, opened a recent panel discussion titled 'Governance and the social contract within a changing international context: Making universal healthcare universal', with the support of Absa and the Hanns Seidel Foundation. This was the first in a series of discussions in response to the 18th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, 'Tackling the inequality pandemic', delivered by United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres.

Global vulnerabilities presented by inequalities

Priority areas

Political leadership must be united across partisan lines and between countries. There is no room for a fragmented response.

Equity must be our guiding principle. Treatments, therapeutics and vaccines must be distributed equitably and go to the populations that need them the most.

We have to build and rebuild trust in public institutions. Civil society and communities are critical voices that must be heard. Trust must be earned by the state to have peoples buy-in as partners in efforts to foster global equity.

WHO criticism and critique

Role of Africa in vaccine production

Nationalism vs globalism

It has become trite to describe the injustices and devastation experienced across the world and yet it is vitally important that we engage with the condition the world is in if we are to heal better, argued Guterres in his address. Covid-19 presents a global crisis unprecedented in recent times but it also brings with it the opportunity to begin the work of refashioning towards equity and social justice. The panel discussion sought to provide a space in which experts could offer solutions to rethink the healthcare systems at a global level and question how resources are mobilised to reach those in need.The discussion was chaired by Umunyana Rugege, the executive director at Section27. Rugeges work focuses on access to healthcare services in the public and private sectors. The panel comprised executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute Professor Helen Rees, World Health Organization regional director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti, and director-general of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus who gave the keynote input.Healthcare is a political choice, noted Ghebreyesus. The current Covid-19 pandemic has thrived partly because of global vulnerabilities presented by inequalities in our societies and the gaps in our health systems. It is a profound test of the bonds of trust between communities and governments. The world has witnessed how good governance can work to combat the pandemic in countries both rich and poor, both in Vietnam and in New Zealand. Our connected societies mean that a vulnerability in one quarter is a risk the world over.Ghebreyesus went further to state that what is clear is that the effects of this pandemic will be felt for many years after the virus itself is overcome. This is true not only for those who have lost their sources of income and homes from retrenchments and evictions because of the lockdowns and contracting economies, but in many countries, lockdown measures have had unintended consequences for lives and livelihoods, deepening hunger for millions. Up to 270 million people may face acute food insecurity before the end of the year. An estimated 10,000 children may die from hunger every month. Many will come from populations in Africa and other vulnerable regions in the Global South.We must address the fundamental inequalities that leave us so fragile. We must learn the lesson that this crisis is teaching us that health cannot only be a privilege for those that can afford it, continued Ghebreyesus.For the global community to overcome this pandemic and secure universal access to healthcare, Ghebreyesus unpacked three areas of priority:During the discussion it was evident that a driving factor in global vulnerability that has contributed to the virus thriving has been a lack of investment in well-equipped and efficient health systems. As Moeti stated: We need to invest in healthcare before an outbreak. Investment in health systems, respecting the principles of accountability, efficiency - it can build you a resilient health system that can resist an outbreak when one strikes.On the issue of criticism and critique of the World Health Organisation, Moeti described the decade-long debate within the organisation around funding models, the role of the private sector, philanthropic organisations, big donor countries and non-governmental representation in decision-making. Moeti insisted on the need for communities, through their forums and organisations, to be directly represented in the multilateral decision-making platforms of the World Health Organization. Furthermore, Moeti unpacked the need for civil society organisations to represent the voices and needs of the people they claim to represent, especially those who are vulnerable and live in poverty.Rees main line of enquiry was that Africa is a vital player in the production of vaccines, and she argued that we have a right to be able to give towards scientific and social good globally. We have a right to contribute to solving this pandemic. Africas role in the combatting of the current pandemic is crucial. We must continue to put up our hand, participate in the process to discover vaccines and treatments and demand, on the World Health Organisations founding principles of global equity and in terms of global health, that we are entitled to participate and contribute to global health and have a share in global health equity.This sentiment was echoed by Moeti. Responding to the critique of vaccines being trialed in Africa, Rees argued that the benefit of vaccines trialed in Africa is that there is a greater chance that they will work well in Africa, given the broad genetic variance in Africa amongst other sociocultural factors unique to the continent. Further, there is the argument that by having produced and trialed vaccines in Africa, Africa gains the ethical right to reciprocity when a working vaccine is produced.In closing, Rees described the ideological world in which the virus has thrived, one where nationalisms compete with globalism. Some regions and countries are marked by closing borders and looking inwards towards national interests whereas others have recognised that a vulnerability in one part of the world is a risk for the world over. Our strongest position in combatting the next global calamity will be one in which we have invested in health systems, created space for communities to use their voice in the global community, and one in which the principles of good governance, global equity and universal healthcare are followed by all.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:53:51|Editor: huaxia

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HEFEI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has stressed upholding reform and opening up as well as high-quality development while making greater progress in accelerating the building of a better Anhui.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in east China's Anhui Province from Tuesday to Friday.

Efforts should be made to implement the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee, implement the new development philosophy and follow the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, Xi said.

The country should uphold reform and opening up as well as high-quality development, deepen supply-side structural reform, and fight the "three tough battles" against major risks, poverty and pollution, he said.

Xi called for efforts to ensure stability on six fronts and security in six areas, secure a victory in completing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and win the battle against poverty.

Efforts should also be made to achieve greater success in the establishment of a new development pattern that takes the domestic market as the mainstay and allows the domestic and foreign markets to boost each other, and make further progress in accelerating the building of a better Anhui, Xi said.

Braving the scorching heat typical of August in the regions between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers, Xi visited the cities of Fuyang, Ma'anshan and Hefei from Tuesday to Friday.

The tour brought Xi to sites at the front line of flood control, rural areas, enterprises and a revolutionary memorial hall, where he visited and consoled flood-hit residents and personnel fighting floods.

Xi inspected work on advancing economic and social development while keeping regular COVID-19 containment measures in place, stepping up flood control and post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, promoting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, and preparing for the country's development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

On Tuesday afternoon, he visited the Wangjiaba floodgate in Funan County of Fuyang City, where he was briefed about work on the flood control in Anhui and on the floodwater diversion through the Wangjiaba floodgate on July 20, the first such diversion via the floodgate after an interval of 13 years. At an exhibition hall on flood control, Xi learnt about in detail the Huaihe River management history and the flood control work in the river valley.

Xi then went to a luggage and bag company nearby to learn about Funan County's work on shaking off poverty through employment and preventing people from falling back into poverty due to floods. He had a warm conversation with workers there.

Xi expressed his hope that companies in flood-hit zones will overcome difficulties to recover losses to floods. He required local Party committees and governments at all levels to deliver greater support to flood-affected companies and help them through hard times to ensure employment for flood-hit and impoverished people.

Xi later went to Limin Village in Caoji Town and visited a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground with higher elevation that functions as a safe haven from river floods.

Walking into the fields, Xi learned about post-flood production recovery from the working villagers and stressed that it is necessary to adjust measures to local conditions, step up planting, minimize disaster losses, and strive for a good harvest in autumn.

Xi also visited the villagers' homes to learn about their family income, flood-incurred damage, and the resumption of production.

"I am very concerned about the flood-affected people and came specially to visit our fellow villagers this time. I am relieved to see your life gradually returning to normal with the help of the Party committee and the government and your own efforts to actively engage in production," Xi told villagers.

Xi went to Ma'anshan City on Wednesday morning and inspected the comprehensive renovation of waterfronts, ecological and environmental protection and restoration, and the implementation of the 10-year fishing moratorium in the Yangtze River.

He stressed that only by protecting the ecology well and giving full play to the ecological advantages can high-quality development be realized.

Xi also urged promoting well-coordinated environmental conservation and avoiding excessive development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

In Ma'anshan, a city built and thrived by steel, Xi visited Magang Group, a subsidiary of China Baowu Steel Group, to learn about the situation of business operation.

Inspecting the workshops and greeting the representatives of the workers, Xi encouraged the company to seize the opportunities brought by the country's further reform of state-owned enterprises and the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta to enhance market competitiveness.

On Wednesday afternoon, Xi went to the county of Feidong in the provincial capital of Hefei, where he inspected a dam in a wetland-turned flood storage area near the Chaohu Lake.

Since the flood season started this year, the lake has seen its highest water levels ever recorded.

Xi stressed efforts to restore wetlands' functions of flood water storage and ecological conservation. He also called on the southern part of China to continue its flood control and disaster relief efforts, while reminding the northern part of China to guard against possible floods to protect people's lives and property.

On the dam, Xi met people fighting the floods at the front line and consoled families of those who died in the line of duty. Xi sent his regards to all those battling floods across the country.

Xi lauded all the frontline officials, members of the public and military personnel from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force for their will, courage and solidarity.

"Our Party and the people thank you!" Xi said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Xi also visited the Anhui Innovation Center in Hefei, where he commended the progress the province has made in advancing technological innovation and developing emerging industries of strategic importance.

Visiting a memorial hall marking the PLA's campaign to cross the Yangtze River during the Chinese People's War of Liberation, Xi stressed efforts to always stay true to the Party's original aspiration and founding mission and always be a loyal servant of the people.

On Friday morning, Xi heard work reports from the Anhui provincial Party committee and the provincial government. He affirmed the accomplishments made by Anhui and encouraged the officials and people of the province to achieve more.

Xi stressed work on flood control, disaster relief, and post-disaster reconstruction, as well as support for disaster-stricken enterprises on production and work resumption.

Priority should be given to assisting poor residents affected by the epidemic and floods, so that they will not fall back into poverty because of the disasters.

Xi pledged to arrange several major projects in coordination with the country's 14th Five-Year Plan that are fundamental and pivotal to the security of rivers and lakes, the ecological environment, and urban flood control.

He also underlined the need to deepen agricultural supply-side structural reform to improve the quality, efficiency, and competitiveness of the sector.

Xi stressed strengthening and improving the real economy and transforming and upgrading traditional industries, while developing emerging industries of strategic importance.

He pledged efforts to accelerate the development of the manufacturing industry into a more digitized, intelligent, and internet-powered one, making the industrial and supply chains more stable and modern.

Efforts should also be made to develop core technologies, Xi said, adding that the breakthrough and leading role of the reforms must be given full play.

Stressing the importance of integration and high-quality development, Xi called for further deepening the integration of key areas, and promoting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

Xi underlined sticking to a people-centered development philosophy, and rolling out more supportive measures on aiding enterprises, cutting their burdens, stabilizing jobs, and expanding employment.

Efforts should be made to ensure jobs for key groups, including college graduates, migrant workers, veterans, and those affected by disasters, Xi said, urging the effective implementation of policies benefiting enterprises to protect and stimulate the vitality of market entities.

China should continuously advance the alignment of poverty elimination and rural vitalization to promote the all-round vitalization of poor regions, Xi said.

The people are the foundation of the Party's governance, Xi said, noting that the fight against COVID-19 and floods have once again proved that, as long as the Party governs for the people and relying on the people, it will be ever-victorious.

Xi stressed making vigorous efforts to guard against formalism, and ensuring that no place will be out of bounds, no stone left unturned, and no tolerance shown in the fight against corruption. Enditem
Democrats Hold Unprecedented Virtual Convention From Milwaukee

Gun safety activist Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed during the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., announces the Florida delegates during the virtual Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. Credit - DNCC via Getty Images2020 DNCC

It shouldve been the most boring half hour of the 2020 Democratic National Convention: a procedurally necessary roll call of 57 states and territories to confirm the foregone conclusion that Joe Biden would be the partys nominee for President. Yet amid speeches from the candidate and his wife, Jill Biden; his history-making running mate, Kamala Harris; both Obamas; both Clintons; and leaders from across the ideological spectrum, including Republicans like Colin Powell and John Kasich, Tuesdays roll call stole the show. Rhode Island went viral with a calamari comeback slogan and a platter of seafood. Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri invented awards for her favorite delegations. And a Slate headline summed up the predominant response on left-leaning Twitter: The DNCs Roll Call Made Me Feel More Patriotic Than I Have in Years.

Live TV can always be relied upon to provide a few laughs, whether intentional or accidental. Emotional responses are harder to elicit, particularly for speakers forced by the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic to address a bare-bones camera crew rather than a packed convention center. The roll call, in its sheer volume and variety, resonated so profoundly because it spoke to Americas most laudable values: diversity, resilience, aspiration. We heard from an Arizona teacher, a farmer in Kansas, students and recent grads whose futures have been put on hold. A Parkland father represented Florida, while a Nebraska meatpacking plant worker issued a wrenching plea: Workers are dying from COVID, and a lot of us dont have paid sick leave or even quality protective equipment. We are human beings, not robots, not disposable. There were plenty of elected officials in the mix, too, but it was the regular peopleof all races, genders, religions, sexual orientationswho made an indelible impression. They made us feel as though we were seeing each other, five months into a pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans, and put face masks and six feet of social distance between responsible citizens and our neighbors.

Story continues

Kristin Urquiza, whose father, a Trump voter, died of coronavirus, addresses the virtual Democratic National Convention on August 17, 2020. DNCC via Getty Images2020 DNCC

Its not that the DNC failed to provide any moving speechesthough the fact that Barack and Michelle Obama, both of whom used the intimacy of the new format to make persuasive arguments about President Trumps incompetence, remain the partys most eloquent communicators wont necessarily work in Biden and Harris favor. But political conventions have the same problem as elections themselves: especially in a country as polarized as ours, people whose decisions hinge on party platforms, candidates records and cogent analyses of current events are likely to go into them with their decision already made. To win over independents and propel ideologically aligned non-voters to the polls, a convention must appeal to emotion as well as reason. That means making people feel seen as well as united in a common causea tall order when isolation and suffering are the new normal, widespread unemployment has turned colleagues into competitors and many households reserves of hope are running on empty.

Standard political theater just doesnt cut it in 2020, as Thursdays anticlimactic litany of testimonials from insiders, in particular, confirmed. And thats even before you factor in a sitting President with an uncanny ability to hijack a news cycle by sending a tweet. Lets not forget that Trump built his political persona on reality TV, a medium that, for more than two decades now, has been training American viewers to value the outsize personalities of exhibitionists over the scripted and focus-grouped optics of polished professionals. He may be no great orator, but his colorful deficiencies can create the impression of candor. A competent, orderly, yet banal convention is no match for an endless supply of rude, bizarre, yet memorable antics.

So it matters that the DNC proved incapable of divesting from cliche. Putting Bidens build back better slogan in the mouths of speaker after speaker mostly served to remind viewers that these telecasts were an exercise in coordinated messaging. A keynote montage of rising stars was edited to show them uttering faux-folksy phrases like Thats a big effin deal in unison. Bernie Sanders warning about authoritarianism made an effective lead-in to Michelle Obamas gentler speechuntil the feed cut away from Sanders and into the living room of an apparently unimpressed family that didnt notice it was on the air. A video themed around feminism awkwardly pasted photos of Womens March attendees into yellowed images of suffrage parades and addressed female voters with cloying second-person narration that recalled Virginia Slims condescending Youve come a long way, baby! campaign. And in what was perhaps the silliest rhetorical gambit of the week, Kasich shot his speech at a literal intersection to illustrate that America was at a crossroads. At best, this level of hokeyness elicits a cringe. At worst, it telegraphs that the DNC and the candidates it represents dont understand the urgency of the current moment.

In this screenshot from the DNCCs livestream of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Republican, Former Ohio Governor John Kasich addresses the audience from a literal crossroads. DNCC via Getty Images2020 DNCC

Americans who are hurting need to believe theyre being heard by those with the power to help alleviate their pain. Thats why the appeals of regular people, well spoken and otherwise, broke through so much politics-as-usual static. Along with the alternately funny, poignant and proud roll call, there was 11-year-old Estela Juarez, whose father is a Marine and whose mother was deported to Mexico in 2018. Instead of protecting us, she said, addressing the President, you tore our world apart. The words I couldnt get out of my head this week came from Kristin Urquiza, who lost her Trump-voter father to coronavirus: There are two Americas: the America that Donald Trump lives in and the America that my father died in. If politicians care as deeply about families like the Juarezes and Urquizas as they claim to, then the only way to convey that concern to millions of voters trapped in quarantine nightmares of their own is to put aside the platitudes and hand over the microphone.
The airborne transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via aerosol particles in indoor environment seems to be strongly influenced by relative humidity. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi from the analysis of 10 most relevant international studies on the subject. Therefore, they recommend controlling the indoor air in addition to the usual measures such as social distancing and masks.

A relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of the viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane. To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, it is therefore extremely important to implement standards for indoor air humidity in rooms with many people, such as hospitals, open-plan offices or public transport, writes the research team in the scientific journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research.

According to the WHO, the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has led to at least 21 million infected persons and over 750,000 deaths worldwide in over half a year. The health and economic effects of the pandemic pose major social challenges for practically all countries. Worldwide, therefore, ways are being sought to stem the spread of the virus in order to avoid drastic measures such as lockdowns and contact restrictions. For a long time, the main transmission route of viral droplets was considered to be direct human-to-human contact, because of infected people sneezing or coughing and secreting the virus. Because these drops are relatively large and heavy, they fall very quickly to the ground and can only cover very short distances in the air. The recommendation to keep a minimum distance of 1.5m to 2m (social distancing) is based on this assumption.

Recently, however, COVID-19 outbreaks have also been recorded, which seem to be due to the simultaneous presence of many people in one room (choir rehearsals, slaughterhouses, etc.). A safety distance of 1.5m is apparently not sufficient when infected and healthy people are together in one room for a long time. For example, Dutch researchers have now been able to prove that tiny drops of 5 micrometres in diameter, such as those produced when speaking, can float in the air for up to 9 minutes. In July, 239 scientists from 32 countries - including the chemist Prof. Hartmut Herrmann from TROPOS - therefore appealed to the World Health Organization (WHO) to focus more closely on the long-lived infectious particles suspended in the air. In order to contain the spread via the aerosol particles floating in the air, the researchers recommend not only continuing to wear masks but also, and above all, good indoor ventilation.

An Indo-German research team is now pointing out another aspect that has received little attention so far and could become particularly important in the next flu season: Indoor humidity. Physicists at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi have been studying the physical properties of aerosol particles for years in order to better estimate their effects on air quality or cloud formation.

In aerosol research, it has long been known that air humidity plays a major role: The more humid the air is, the more water adheres to the particles and so they can grow faster. So, we were curious: what studies have already been conducted on this." Dr. Ajit Ahlawat from TROPOS

Therefore, they evaluated a total of 10 most relevant international studies between 2007 and 2020 by other researchers who investigated the influence of humidity on survival, spread and infection with the pathogens of influenza and the corona viruses SARS-CoV-1, MERS and SARS-CoV-2. Result: Air humidity influences the spread of corona viruses indoors in three different ways: (a) the behaviour of microorganisms within the virus droplets, (b) the survival or inactivation of the virus on the surfaces, and (c) the role of dry indoor air in the airborne transmission of viruses. Although, low humidity causes the droplets containing viruses to dry out more quickly, the survivability of the viruses still seems to remain high. The team concludes that other processes are more important for infection: "If the relative humidity of indoor air is below 40 percent, the particles emitted by infected people absorb less water, remain lighter, fly further through the room and are more likely to be inhaled by healthy people. In addition, dry air also makes the mucous membranes in our noses dry and more permeable to viruses," summarizes Dr. Ajit Ahlawat.

The new findings are particularly important for the upcoming winter season in the northern hemisphere, when millions of people will be staying in heated rooms. "Heating the fresh air also ensures that it dries. In cold and temperate climate zones, therefore, the indoor climate is usually very dry during the heating season. This could encourage the spread of corona viruses," warns Prof. Alfred Wiedensohler of TROPOS. The air humidity determines how much water a particle can bind. At higher air humidity, the surface of the particles changes considerably: a kind of water bubble forms - a miniature ecosystem with chemical reactions. The liquid water content of aerosols plays an important role in many processes in the atmosphere, as it influences the optical properties, leading for example to haze or altered effects of aerosols on the climate.

At a higher humidity, the droplets grow faster, fall to the ground earlier and can be inhaled less by healthy people. "A humidity level of at least 40 percent in public buildings and local transport would therefore not only reduce the effects of COVID-19, but also of other viral diseases such as seasonal flu. Authorities should include the humidity factor in future indoor guidelines," demands Dr. Sumit Kumar Mishra of CSIR - National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi. For countries in cool climates, the researchers recommend a minimum indoor humidity. Countries in tropical and hot climates, on the other hand, should take care that indoor rooms are not extremely undercooled by air conditioning systems. When air is extremely cooled, it dries out the air and the particles in it, making people inside the room feel comfortable. But the dry particles will remain in the air for longer duration.

From a researchers' point of view, more attention should be paid to indoor air to prevent future outbreaks of viral disease. The moisture content of indoor air is an important aspect but not the only one. Fresh air from outside can also reduce the risk of transmission. And of course, the measures already known and practised: Keep social distancing, having as few people per room volume as possible, and wearing masks. The lowest risk of infection still where there are no viruses in the air.
Methylene Blue MMX approved in Europe for the visualization of colorectal lesions during colonoscopies-first oral drug ever approved in the world to improve the outcome of colonoscopies

Dublin, Ireland - 21 August 2020: Cosmo Pharmaceuticals NV (SIX: COPN) today announced that the European Commission (EC) has approved Methylthioninium Chloride Cosmo, prolonged release tablets (Methylene Blue MMX) for the visualization of colorectal lesions during colonoscopies. This is the first approval of Methylene Blue MMX and is also the first time an oral drug has been approved to improve the outcome of colonoscopies. The Centralized European licence will be effective simultaneously in all EU Member States as well as in the European Economic Area (EEA) countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.



Mauro Ajani, Chairman of Cosmo, said: "This approval is wonderful news. Cosmo is finally providing the first oral drug ever approved to help prevent colorectal cancer by improving the quality of the colonoscopy procedure."

Alessandro Della Cha, CEO of Cosmo, said: "We are very pleased with the news and we were always convinced that the very good clinical data should have granted approval. Now MB MMX can start to help patients undergoing colonoscopies by improving Adenoma Detection Rate and preventing the miss of many lesions".

The approval was based on CHMP prior positive opinion based on the data stemming from the single phase III trial performed by Cosmo worldwide in 20 sites involving 1,249 randomised patients. The study was powered to show a statistically significant difference between Methylene blue MMX 200 mg and placebo (corresponding to High-Definition White Light [HDWL] colonoscopy - the current standard of care) in the detection of patients with at least one adenoma or carcinoma (Adenoma Detection Rate [ADR]). The study met its prespecified endpoint: the ADR was higher in the Methylene Blue MMX arm as compared to HDWL colonoscopy (56.29% vs 47.81%, respectively; difference: 8.48%; RRI 17.7%; OR [95% CI]: 1.41 [1.09, 1.81]; p-value: 0.0099).



Important prespecified secondary endpoints showed that Methylene Blue MMX increases the detection of patients with at least one adenoma and does not produce an increase in the False Positive Rate (FPR) as compared to HDWL colonoscopy. Additional endpoints showed that Methylene Blue MMX increases, in particular, detection of non-polypoid (flat) lesions (the most frequently missed lesions).

The indication of Methylene Blue MMX recommended for approval by the CHMP is as a "diagnostic agent enhancing visualization of colorectal lesions in adult patients undergoing screening or surveillance colonoscopy".

About Cosmo Pharmaceuticals

Cosmo is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercialising products to treat selected gastrointestinal disorders and improve endoscopy quality measures through aiding the detection of colonic lesions. Cosmo has also developed medical devices for endoscopy and has recently entered into a partnership with Medtronic for the global distribution of GI Genius its artificial intelligence device for use in coloscopies and GI procedures. Cosmo has licensed Aemcolo to Red Hill Biopharma and is the licensee of BYFAVO (Remimazolam) for the US for procedural sedation, which it has sub-licensed to Acacia. For additional information on Cosmo and its products please visit the Company's website: www.cosmopharma.com

Financial calendar

Investora, Zurich September 23, 2020

Contact

Niall Donnelly, CFO & Head of Investor Relations

Cosmo Pharmaceuticals N.V.

Tel: +353 1 817 03 70

ndonnelly@cosmopharma.com

Disclaimer

Some of the information contained in this press release contains forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Cosmo undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

This communication is not an offer of securities of any issuer. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from the registration requirement of the US Securities Act of 1933.

This press release constitutes neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy securities and it does not constitute a prospectus within the meaning of article 652a and/or 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange or any similar document. The offer will be made solely by means of, and on the basis of, a securities prospectus to be published. An investment decision regarding the securities to be publicly offered should only be made on the basis of the securities prospectus.

This press release is made to and directed only at (i) persons outside the United Kingdom, (ii) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order"), and (iii) high net worth individuals, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this press release or any of its contents.

This press release does not constitute an "offer of securities to the public" within the meaning of Directive 2003/71/EC of the European Union (the "Prospectus Directive") of the securities referred to in it (the "Securities") in any member state of the European Economic Area (the "EEA"). Any offers of the Securities to persons in the EEA will be made pursuant to an exemption under the Prospectus Directive, as implemented in member states of the EEA, from the requirement to produce a prospectus for offers of the Securities.
Franklin Graham condemns attack on man near Portland BLM protest: 'No hope outside of God'

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Notable conservative evangelical leader Rev. Franklin Graham on Wednesday morning denounced a brutal attack on a man that occurred near a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Portland, Oregon on Sunday evening.

Disturbing viral video footage of a protest in Portland showed a man being beaten and dragged from his crashed pickup truck. Video shows the man taking punches and even receiving a swift kick to the face that seemingly knocked him out cold.

In a post to his official Facebook page, Graham expressed outrage over the incident, asking his followers if they had ever seen anything like it.

Every morning on the news for weeks, we hear about more destruction and violence related to protests and riots, wrote Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham and head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

The video of a man trying to escape from a mob of protesters in Portland is still making the headlines, as it should. He was pulled from his vehicle and brutally beaten and kicked to unconsciousness. It is surprising that the man didnt lose his life, as some have.

Graham added that he believed the United States was in trouble like we havent seen before in our lifetime, as seen with the violence at numerous protests across the nation since the death of African American George Floyd on Memorial Day.

We have no hope, outside of God, Graham declared. We will not make it unless Gods people call on His Name for help.

Videos posted online show multiple people attacking the driver after his truck crashed into a light pole.

Some in the crowd attempted to pull away the attackers. However, one man wearing a security vest kicked the driver in the head while he sat on the ground, knocking him unconscious. The victim was eventually hospitalized and later released with non-life-threatening injuries.

Although he has not been identified by police, a GoFundMe online fundraiser that has raised over $110,000 as of Wednesday afternoon identifies the injured motorist as Portland area resident Adam Haner.

Hoping this money will help Adam get things together for his life after the attack he suffered, Brian Haner, the organizer of the campaign and Adams brother, wrote. I know he will need repairs, or to replace the truck that was wrecked. He is going to need time to recover from his injuries as well. Plus replace things that [were] stolen from his pick-up that night, on Aug 16th.

Police have identified a suspect in the beating as 25-year-old Marquise Love. The Portland Police Bureau said in a statement that it has probable cause to arrest Love. Investigators have left several messages for Love to turn himself in.

Our Detectives continue to investigate this assault as well as other acts of violence directed toward protestors, but we need more than just videos from social media, said Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell.

In order to hold individuals responsible for criminal acts, we need the public to provide information and refrain from tampering with evidence.

For his part, U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams, the chief federal law enforcement official in Oregon, conveyed his disgust on Tuesday with the attack.

Like many Oregonians, I was sickened by the video circulating online showing a man being pulled from his truck in Downtown Portland and beaten and kicked until he lies on the pavement unconscious, stated Williams.

While the circumstances leading up to this brutal assault are still under state and federal review, I must condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this depraved violence.

Williams called for people to work together to achieve peace in the streets of Portland and expressed his concern that one day soon we will wake up to news that a Portlander has been killed.
MILLBURN, NJ  The Millburn/Short Hills schools will likely open with remote education on Sept. 8 and stay that way at least until Nov. 9, said Superintendent of Schools Christine Burton in a letter to the district Thursday night. Recent changes in state guidelines have allowed districts to open remotely, and 54 plan to do so.

The Sept. 8 start date will be up for a vote at the next Board of Education meeting Aug. 24, Burton said.

Previously, the district intended to offer a hybrid on-site learning plan in which students could attend alternating single-session days in school.

In the Thursday letter, Burton said:

<blockquote>

Dear Millburn Schools Community,

In our ongoing efforts to share information and data about our Return to School planning, this is a very important announcement regarding the start of school.

Millburn Schools will start the school year virtual for all students.

 I will be recommending that the board approve Millburn schools to start the school year fully virtual for all students, as allowed by Governor Murphys Executive Order 175.

 Schools will start on September 8th as reflected in an updated calendar (requires board approval on Monday, August 24th). Moving the start date for students will allow our staff to use these additional days in the first week of September for professional development and preparations for virtual teaching.

 We anticipate schools will be virtual for the first quarter of the school year, which is until November 9. We will attempt to bring students in earlier on a phase-in plan. We will prioritize special populations, ELL, and Pre K-2 to start and then move up the grade levels. As students return to in-person instruction, there may be adjustments to their classroom assignment or schedule to accommodate.

</blockquote>

Burton said that there were problems meeting the new, strict social distancing guidelines in schools, ensuring that people keep 6 feet away from each other. She also cited ventilation issues and more.

Story continues

And then there are the staffing issues.



"We are experiencing a significant reduction in the number of available staff due to

79 submissions for work accommodations for medically-documented reasons

or for childcare leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act received as of

Monday August 17," Burton wrote. "Staff have received certification from physicians for

medical concerns regarding high-risk conditions as determined by the CDC.

Requests are still being submitted."

Recently, the Millburn teachers' union, like many others, expressed concerns about reopening on time.

Last week, Burton advised parents with an interest in the state safety recommendations to read this new state document: NJ DOH COVID Recommendations for Schools.pdf.



To read about the district's previous reopening plan and dates, click here.

Millburn coronavirus numbers:



Last week, the town reported a total of 160 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. The total of residents testing positive had climbed by only eight since a report over a month ago, on July 9, when there were 151 cases in town.



Six Millburn residents in total have passed away since the start of the pandemic.



"The confirmed cases in Millburn is cumulative and residents are not removed from this count once they recover," Mayor Jackie Lieberberg noted. "At times these numbers can change when contact tracing is complete and it is verified that a positive result should be counted in another community or county."

As of this past Thursday, 165,000 Americans had died of coronavirus, and more than 5 million have tested positive.

As of late Sunday, 35 states remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days. Read more.



In New Jersey on Thursday, Gov. Phil Murphy said the number of coronavirus cases statewide has risen to 186,594, with 14,054 confirmed deaths. That included 699 new cases since the day before and eight newly confirmed deaths.

However, that death rate has declined since back on April 30, when it reached a peak of 460 residents in 24 hours.

Many other states reached record daily death rates in July (see the daily totals in each state here). They pulled back on some reopenings, including Texas, which closed bars after seeing record hospitalizations and deaths (updated by one hospital system here).



Here are other Millburn/Short Hills and Essex County coronavirus updates on testing, reopenings, and more:



SCHOOLS

Follow the Return to School site for news and updates.

Burton advised parents with an interest in the state safety recommendations to read this new state document: NJ DOH COVID Recommendations for Schools.pdf.

TESTING



To make an appointment at the Essex County testing center, or to see if local mobile testing will be provided to your area, visit www.EssexCOVID.org or call 973-324-9950.

You can also contact your physician or the state 211 hotline for more information.

OUTDOOR DINING

Outdoor dining resumed in New Jersey on June 15, with precautions. Read about Millburn's first weekend of outdoor dining here.

Mayor Lieberberg noted on Friday, "Please be advised that Main Street will be closed to vehicular traffic through August 30. We invite you all to dine and experience all of Millburns great restaurants and businesses. Take a stroll, say hello to your neighbors and continue to be vigilant about social distancing protocols and mask wearing. Free parking continues until September 1, 2020. Time limits still apply."

LOCAL BUSINESS/JOBS

Hair salons and other personal care businesses were able to reopen June 22. State rules can be found here.

Read more about unemployment, small business, and other coronavirus regulations and benefits in New Jersey here.

Turtleback Zoo has job opportunities in guest relations, paddle boats, Treetop Adventure, parking and maintenance, must be 18 years of age. Please visit the link for a list of available jobs and how to apply: https://buff.ly/2QWodaV

HOSPITALS/NURSING HOMES

New Jersey residents have become alarmed at the high number of residents who have passed away in nursing homes, rehabs, and similar facilities, and have charged that the facilities are undercounting the numbers and not adequately protecting residents and staff. The state has faced questions for weeks from the press about how they will address the problems.

There is now a state website with numbers for people at individual nursing homes.

You can report immediate issues with long term care facilities here, or if you suspect coronavirus related misconduct that should be reported to the Attorney General, here.

Some long-term care facilities have begun allowing socially distanced visits.

Local hospitals updated their visitor guidelines recently. Read more here.

GIVING AND GETTING HELP

To find out about help for the needy and seniors, or get food or food bank information, check your town's website or contact the town.

To read about Feed the Front Lines, click here.

Here are additional statewide coronavirus resources:

NJ COVID-19 Information Hub: https://covid19.nj.gov/

General COVID-19 questions: 2-1-1

NJ COVID-19 hotline: (800) 222-1222

Got news? Email caren.lissner@patch.com. To be the first to get news alerts with breaking stories in Millburn including the Short Hills section, or to get a free local newsletter each morning, sign up for Patch breaking news alerts or daily newsletters.

This article originally appeared on the Millburn-Short Hills Patch
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday ripped Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for his polices on trade, energy and immigration in a searing speech delivered near the former vice president's birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania, hours before Biden was set to formally accept his nomination.

"Tonight, Joe Biden will speak at the Democrat Convention - and I am sure he will remind us that he was born in Scranton," Trump told the crowed in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. "But here's what Joe Biden won't tell you: he left Scranton 70 years ago and he has spent the last half century in Washington selling you out and ripping you off!"

Born in 1942 in Scranton, Biden moved with his family to New Castle, a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware, at the age of 10.

Calling Biden "a puppet of the radical left movement," the president claimed that trade policies adopted by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president, killed manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania, and that the Green New Deal -- a proposal centering on clean energy that is championed by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to counter climate change, but something Biden has actually never explicitly endorsed -- will strip Pennsylvanians of their energy supply.

He also slammed Biden for hiking taxes on Americans, implementing stricter gun control rules that would "eviscerate the Second Amendment," providing "free healthcare for illegal aliens," and expanding "deadly sanctuary cities," among others, while touting his own policies ranging from cutting taxes and building the U.S.-Mexico border wall to propping up workers in the traditional energy sector to emphasizing "law and order."

The president's highly political speech was part of his grander counterprogramming not only scheduled to coincide with the Democratic National Convention running from Monday to Thursday, but also chosen to be rolled out in key swing states that, in addition to Pennsylvania, also include Minnesota, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Adding to the speeches delivered by the president in the battlefield states is the Trump campaign's multi-million-dollar ad blitz occupying the homepages of YouTube and other major media outlets this week to smear the Biden campaign.

On the Democratic side, party luminaries addressing the DNC in the last three days rendered thinly-veiled critiques of Trump and his presidency in an effort to mobilize Biden's electoral base, with former President Barack Obama saying Wednesday that Trump has "shown no interest in putting in the work" of the president, and that he "hasn't grown into the job because he can't."

Dissatisfied with Trump, a number of high-profile Republicans have sided with Biden, including former Ohio governor and longtime Trump critic John Kasich, former President George W. Bush's Secretary of State Collin Powell, former Department of Homeland Security official in the Trump administration Miles Taylor, former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, among others.
A Rebels bikie enforcer turned commercial drug trafficker filmed test-firing a high-powered assault rifle in a Victorian forest will spend 21 years behind bars after a police sting uncovered his lucrative operations and the secret affair he was having with his girlfriends sister.

During a three-month criminal enterprise, Matthew Bruce, 37, orchestrated a drive-by shooting, arson attack, insurance fraud and purchased more than 3.6 kilograms of ice.

Bruce, a father of six from Melton South, also owned a cache of guns, despite being the subject of a 10-year firearm prohibition order. He hid an SKS semi-automatic military rifle in a guitar case alongside four others at a mate's house and fifth inside a horse float.

In video footage released by the County Court of Victoria, Bruce can be seen test firing the semi-automatic weapon, modelled on an AK-47, in a state forest as he attempted to sell the rifle and rounds of ammunition on the black market for more than $27,000.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - American Airlines Group Inc. announced its decision to suspend services to 15 markets effective October. The move reflects weak demand as well as the expiration of the air service requirements associated with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security or CARES Act, the company said in a statement.



The airline continues to evaluate its network and plans for additional schedule changes in the coming weeks.



The company said the current suspensions will take effect on October 7, and are only in place for the October schedule period, which runs through November 3.



American Airlines plans to release its full, updated October schedule on August 29, and updated November schedule by late-September.



American Airlines, and several other airlines had cut flight schedules and fares over the past few months as the airline industry has been hard hit amid the rapid spread of the coronavirus and the related travel restrictions.



In March, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus bill that included $25 billion in direct aid to the airline industry. In early July, American Airlines and four other airlines signed agreements with the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the federal loan terms under the CARES Act.



In late July, while reporting financial results for the second quarter, American Airlines had said COVID-19 and the resulting shutdown of the U.S. economy caused severe disruptions to global demand for air travel. It called the quarter the most challenging in American's history.



For the company, May and June revenue trends were encouraging, however, demand weakened somewhat during July as COVID-19 cases have increased and new travel restrictions have been put into place.



The company presently expects its third-quarter system capacity to be down approximately 60 percent year-over-year.



Last week, American Airlines extended its offer to waive change fees for customers who purchase tickets for travel, until December 31, 2020 in response to lower travel demand. This means that the travelers need not pay penalties for changing the origin and destination cities.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Photo credit: Netflix

From Digital Spy

Netflix has unveiled four first look images at groundbreaking drama The Boys in the Band, starring Star Trek's Zachary Quinto and The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons.

Based on the 1968 play by Mart Crowley, the film centres on a group of gay men who gather in New York City to celebrate one of their birthdays.

Before long though, the joyous atmosphere at the intimate get-together starts to diminish when the host's potentially closeted college roommate pitches up.

Photo credit: Netflix

Related: Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons reveals "dark" and "intense" circumstances around quitting the show

Parsons appears as party planner Michael, while Quinto brings Harold  the one turning another year older  to life.

A Simple Favour's Andrew Rannells, Michael Benjamin Washington (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Desperate Housewives' Charlie Carver and Tuc Watkins, Wicked performer Robin de Jesus, Brian Hutchison (Jessica Jones) and The Sinner's Matt Bomer round out the cast.

Having already revived the stage show back in 2008, producer Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story, Pose) took to Instagram back in April 2019 to announce that himself, director Joe Mantello and the cast were developing a feature-length version for the screen.

Photo credit: Netflix

Related: Game of Thrones and Stranger Things stars join Ewan McGregor in Netflix's Pinocchio movie

"Everyone in the cast was out and proud...and feeling so blessed to mark the 50th anniversary of Mart's landmark play," he wrote alongside a promotional shot of the ensemble. "The entire Broadway cast will reprise their roles in the film. I can't wait to be on set."



David Stone, best known for his theatre work, and Ned Martel (Glee, Hollywood) acted as producers, while late writer Crowley penned the script.

The Boys in the Band premieres globally on Netflix on September 30.

Digital Spy has launched its first-ever digital magazine with exclusive features, interviews, and videos. Access this edition with a 1-month free trial, only on Apple News+.

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Tunisia imposed a 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew from Friday in two southern towns to help contain a renewed coronavirus outbreak, the state news agency TAP said.

The North African nation is seeking to counter a second spread of COVID-19 evident since it reopened its borders on June 27 as part of steps to ease a lockdown and revive the economy, particularly the vital tourist industry.

Since then, however, Tunisia has recorded a major resurgence of infections, exceeding 100 per day over the last two weeks.

The curfew in the towns of Hamma and Hamma Gharbia will remain in effect until Aug. 27.

The government, which has declared 2,543 cases of the virus along with 63 deaths, said it would not be able to shut down the economy again as losses from the lockdown were severe.

The tourism-dependent economy shrank 21.6% in the second quarter of 2020, compared with the same period last year, according to the government statistics agency.

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A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed portions of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing Volkswagen AG of defrauding American investors in connection with the automakers diesel emissions scandal.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco granted VWs motion to dismiss claims it misled investors when issuing more than $13 billion of bonds and asset-based securities in 2014 and 2015.

The judge rejected as premature VWs request to block the SEC from obtaining injunctive relief and to disgorge profits.

He also refused former VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorns request to dismiss related SEC claims against him.

Volkswagen said it was pleased with the decision. As this case proceeds, we intend to demonstrate that the SECs allegations are without merit, the company said.

A lawyer for Winterkorn declined to comment. The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.

The case arose after VW was in 2015 caught using illegal software during U.S. pollution tests to make it appear its diesel vehicles met government emission standards.

That discovery triggered a global backlash that has cost the German automaker more than 29 billion euros ($34.4 billion), including $4.3 billion in U.S. criminal and civil fines in 2017.

VW has admitted to secretly installing the software in roughly 500,000 U.S. vehicles.

But regulators and investors have said it should have warned sooner about the breadth of the scandal. VW has said it underestimated the financial fallout.

Breyer agreed with VW that SEC claims based the ABS offerings must be dismissed because the Department of Justice had already settled them in connection with the 2017 settlement.

He also dismissed some claims that VW misled bondholders in financial statements and the risk of recalls.

Breyer said the SEC sufficiently argued Winterkorn knew VW was using false financial statements, and rejected his argument that some claims be dismissed because he ran VW from Germany.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Photo: The Volkswagen logo stand on the top of a VW headquarters building in Wolfsburg, Germany. (Swen Pfoertner/dpa via AP)

Topics Lawsuits Legislation Claims USA Germany
A former Navy SEAL who said he killed Osama bin Laden was banned by Delta Air Lines this week for not wearing a face mask on a flight, according to a person familiar with the matter.

U.S. carriers all require travelers wear masks on board flights, part of their effort to ease concerns about flying during the Covid pandemic and prevent the disease from spreading to passengers and crew. Airlines have taken a hard-line stance, telling travelers they will be denied service if they don't wear a mask on board and have even banned some who violate the policy, including high-profile passengers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wear cloth face coverings in "public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain." The CDC says wearing a mask can help stop that person from spreading the disease to others, and warns that some people could transmit the disease even if they haven't yet developed symptoms.

Robert O'Neill, who has more than 380,000 Twitter followers, tweeted a selfie on board a Newark-bound Delta flight on Wednesday, not wearing a mask. Other travelers in the frame wore them. The tweet was later deleted. O'Neill did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

O'Neill, who told The Washington Post in 2014 he shot and killed the al-Qaeda leader in the 2011 raid in Pakistan, is hardly the first person Delta has banned for violating the mask policy. Delta has put around 130 people on its no-fly list for failing to wear masks so far.

"Part of every customer's commitment prior to traveling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask," a Delta spokesman said in a statement. "Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future."
New Zealand has recorded another 11 coronavirus cases, as the country continues to battle its second wave of infection.

Of the new cases, nine are from community transmission and two are in managed isolation.

Five of the community cases are linked to churches in South Auckland.

New Zealand now has 105 active cases, most of which have been linked to the Auckland cluster which sparked the nationwide lockdown.

Ashley Bloomfield, the director general of health, told reporters on Friday a Westfield employee, who was of the new cases confirmed this week, may have contracted the virus on a bus.

The bus journey happened on August 12, before Auckland went into alert level 3.

Mr Bloomfield said that case highlights the importance of wearing a mask on public transport.

Two women wear face masks as they walk in Wellington, New Zealand, on Saturday (pictured)

A man wearing a face mask is seen in downtown Auckland, New Zealand on Wednesday (pictured)

The country, which is due to ease restrictions next week, will remain lockdown over the weekend as the number of cases continues to rise.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Cabinet will meet on Monday to discuss the possibility of extending the lockdown.

She said the decision to move levels would be based on advice from Dr Bloomfield.

'There is nothing to suggest we need to change our course and certainly nothing to suggest we need to elevate alert settings.'

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Cabinet will meet on Monday to discuss the possibility of extending the lockdown

Dr Bloomfield said they will look at case numbers to see if there is pattern in those cases, whether they be connected to households, church or school contacts.

The island nation had been the envy of the world for its handling of the COVID-19 crisis until new cases emerged on August 11.

Auckland was thrown back into lockdown, or Level Three, to suppress the spread of the virus, having enjoyed 102 days without a single case of community transmission.

The lockdown had played a critical role in finding the outbreak's perimeter and identifying cases early, Ms Ardern said.

Nurses speak to people being tested for Covid-19 at the Northcote Covid-19 testing facility in Auckland

The rest of New Zealand has been placed at Level Two, which mandates social distancing and caps on gathering sizes.

The source of the fresh Kiwi outbreak is still yet to be determined.

New Zealand and Australian officials are collaborating over a possible link through a freight business with outlets in Melbourne and Auckland.

New Zealanders had been enjoying the return of their usual freedoms after an autumn lockdown proved effective in temporarily eliminating the deadly virus.
Mayoral candidate Basil Zempilas has unveiled his team of like-minded council hopefuls, rejecting allegations assembling a cast could bring factionalism back to the troubled City of Perth.

Days after dysfunction caused by factionalism and "gameplaying" during Lisa Scaffidi's reign as Lord Mayor was laid bare in a 2000-page government report, Mr Zempilas has slammed claims running on a ticket would bring infighting back to the City of Perth.

Mustang Bar owner Michael Keiller, Chung Wah Association's Ting Chen, Seven West Media personality Basil Zempilas and businesswoman Gloria Zhang. Credit:Instagram

He said factionalism had "no place in any council" he would lead.

But the Seven West Media personality added there was "nothing wrong with working as part of a team", revealing he had enlisted Mustang Bar owner Michael Keiller, Friends Restaurant owner Clyde Bevan and businesswoman Gloria Zhang as part of his cast of preferred councillors.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:44:28|Editor: huaxia

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Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chief of the State Council leading group on poverty alleviation and development, attends a video conference on overcoming the impacts of COVID-19 and natural disasters to win the battle against poverty in an all-round way, in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Friday called for solid efforts to overcome the impacts of COVID-19 and natural disasters to win the battle against poverty in an all-round way.

Hu, also chief of the State Council leading group on poverty alleviation and development, made the remarks at a video conference on poverty alleviation.

Facing challenges brought on by COVID-19 and natural disasters to win the decisive battle in poverty alleviation, the country should take stronger and more effective measures to ensure the full eradication of poverty on schedule, he said.

More should be done to minimize losses caused by natural disasters, and speed up the restoration of production and living orders in disaster-stricken poor areas, he said.

He also stressed stepping up monitoring and timely assistance to prevent people from falling back into poverty. Enditem
Romania exported grain in the first five months of 2020 totalling 1.138 billion euro, 30.1 pct more than in the same period of the previous year, according to data centralized by the National Statistics Institute.

On the other hand, imports of cereals amounted to 298.3 million euro (plus 70.2 pct), resulting in a surplus of 840 million euro.

Exports of wheat and meslin totalled 472,118 million euro, representing 41.4 pct of total grain exports, and maize exports amounted to 592,457 million euro (52 pct of total).

In the countries of the European Union, cereals amounting to 272.7 million euro were exported during the period mentioned. The main destinations were Spain (41 million euro), Italy (37.7 million euro) and France (36.7 million euro).

As regards imports from EU countries, they totalled 281.2 million euro, and mainly originated in Hungary (grain imports of 144 million euro), Bulgaria (77.2 million euro) and France (34.3 million euro).
Thanks to Jeff Beard, however, you will also dine well. Whereas he previously used three or four pans per dish, these days he tries to keep it to two. The chef has had to cut back on some of his more elaborate creations, but not on flavor or portions. You think you know beet salad. Beard personalizes his sliced roasted beets, arugula, orange segments and tufts of goat cheese mousse with a black soil he creates from cocoa, almond flour, crushed cardamom and butter. A throwback to before the Before Times? It still works in 2020. Ridged, housemade pappardelle is nicely resistant, arranged with baby corn, bites of eggplant and red pepper, and finished with a light wash of vegetable stock kissed with butter. Both dishes are billed as appetizers but sized for big eaters.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow admitted during an interview that she was afraid of Donald Trump attempting to stay in power should he lose the 2020 US election.

Ms Maddow made the admission during an appearance on "The Tonight Show."

During the segment, she and host Jimmy Fallon discussed the book Mr Trump's niece, Mary Trump, wrote, titled "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."

Ms Maddow said the part of the book that "chilled me the most" was a prediction Ms Trump made that he will not agree to a leave the White House peacefully should he lose the election.

"I don't know if that's true," Ms Maddow said. "But for her to say 'Listen, I've known him since I was a kid, I've known him since I was a toddler, and I can tell you from a life's worth of observation and every other hard thing I've ever seen him go through, there's no way."

Political commentators as well as former and current lawmakers have voiced their concerns over Mr Trump's commitment to a peaceful transference of power should he lose the election.

"But to hear somebody who knows him say that flat out, without any equivocation, kind of rattled my teeth a little bit," Ms Maddow said.

Mr Trump has been signalling for weeks that he plans to question the results of the election if he loses. He has claimed the Democrats are going to attempt to rig the election against him and conduct mass-scale voter fraud through the use of universal mail-in voting.

During an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, Mr Trump refused to say he would accept the election results.

"I have to see. Look ... I have to see," Mr Trump said. "No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no, and I didn't last time either."

Back in June, Mr Trump said if he lost the election he would "go on, do other things."

"Certainly, if I don't win, I don't win," Mr Trump said.

Despite Mr Trump's assurances, political experts are worried he may not be willing to just "go on," and that his reticence may result in outbreaks of violence.

A group of 80 political operatives and academics met in June and role-played post-election scenarios, all of which resulted in violence.

"All of our scenarios ended in both street-level violence and political impasse," Rosa Brooks, a professor of law and policy at Georgetown University told The Boston Globe. "The law is essentially ... it's almost helpless against a president who's willing to ignore it."

Ms Brooks said the scenarios were not predictions, but possibilities.

"Our scenario exercises did not end in good places, but it's important to note that this does not mean that there is something inevitable about chaos and constitutional crisis in the coming months," she said. "Just that these particular exercises suggest that these are real possibilities."

Ms Brooks said that "state governors, attorneys general, legislative leaders and secretaries of state need to think through these issues now, and understand the electoral system and relevant law nose, and not wait until Election Day to think about everything that could go wrong."
Michael Gove has raised eyebrows and the hackles of Scottish nationalists by appearing to back the idea of allowing Scots living elsewhere in Britain to vote in any new independence referendum.

The 2014 referendum, which went 55-45 in favour of Scotland staying in the UK, saw only Scots living in Scotland allowed to vote.

But Mr Gove responded to a suggestion by the left-wing former Labour and Respect party MP George Galloway that the franchise be extended to the around 800,000 Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Scots-born and raised minister, replied: 'Interesting question'.

It sparked anger among SNP supporters and politicians at a time when opinion polls show majority support for independence, because those Scots living elsewhere in the UK may have more of a reason to vote No.

Boris Johnson's Government has said there are no grounds for a fresh vote after the 'once in a lifetime' referendum six years ago and Mr Gove did not suggest there would actually be a new referendum.

But Angus Robertson, the former SNP leader in Westminster, tweeted: 'With polls now showing a consistent majority in favour of Scottish independence, its opponents in Westminster consider changing the electorate an ''interesting question''.

'Looks desperate, and undemocratic.'

Mr Gove (top left) responded to a suggestion by the left-wing former Labour and Respect party MP George Galloway (below) that the franchise be extended to the around 800,000 Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

It sparked anger among SNP supporters and politicians at a time when opinion polls show majority support for independence, because those Scots living elsewhere in the UK may have more of a reason to vote No

Support for an independent Scotland soared to a record high this week - as Boris Johnson enjoys a holiday in the country.

Backing for a breakaway has hit 55-45 in favour, the mirror opposite of the 2014 referendum result, a survey by Panelbase found.

The research, carried out this week, comes as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon continues to take advantage of Boris Johnson's flailing handling of the coronavirus pandemic.



Pro-independence organisation Business for Scotland commissioned the poll, with chief executive Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp hailing the results as a 'huge landmark' showing the 'writing is very definitely on the wall for the union'.

Overall, 51 per cent of those questioned said they support independence, 42 per cent said they would vote to stay in the UK and 7 per cent of voters were undecided.

When undecided voters were excluded, 55 per cent favoured Scotland leaving the UK, with 45 per cent preferring to stay in the union.

Mr MacIntyre-Kemp said: 'The reversal of the 2014 result is a huge landmark - 55 per cent Yes will send shockwaves throughout the political world.

Overall, 51 per cent of those questioned said they support independence, 42 per cent said they would vote to stay in the UK and 7 per cent of voters were undecided. When undecided voters were excluded, 55 per cent favoured Scotland leaving the UK, with 45 per cent preferring to stay in the union

The Prime Minister (pictured on holiday) travelled to Scotland with his fiancee, baby Wilfred, and their dog Dilyn last weekend

Supporters of Scottish independence gather at the site of the battle of Bannockburn, near Stirling, for an 'All Under One Banner' event this afternoon

The research, carried out this week, comes as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon continues to take advantage of Boris Johnson's flailing handling of the coronavirus pandemic

'There is no conclusion to draw from this new set of data other than the writing is very definitely on the wall for the union.'

He added: 'The referendum that will be demanded following May 2021 Holyrood elections, on these figures, would start with Yes to independence commanding a 10 per cent lead.

'Independence is now significantly the majority decision of the people of Scotland and its momentum looks solid.'

SNP depute leader Keith Brown said support for independence is 'soaring'.

With the Prime Minister repeatedly ruling out having a second independence ballot, Mr Brown said: 'Boris Johnson's attempts to deny the right of the people to decide their own future is now utterly unsustainable.

'When we look at Boris Johnson's handling of coronavirus, and his Tory Government's contempt for all things Scotland, it is no wonder that the majority of voters in Scotland want to make their own decisions on the future of our country.'

He added: 'With consecutive polls putting support for independence above 50 per cent, it's clear this is not a trend but the established position of the Scottish electorate.'

Ms Sturgeon has confirmed a pledge to hold a second independence vote will be in her party's manifesto for next May's Holyrood elections, which her party is widely expected to win comfortably.

Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the pro-independence Scottish Green Party, also welcomed the survey.

He said: 'I'm delighted to see yet another poll show that ever more people in Scotland believe that it is time to choose independence.

'It's no surprise that momentum towards independence continues to build in the face of utter contempt shown to Scotland by the Westminster Government.

'Boris Johnson's disastrous handling of the pandemic and his sleekit attempts to undermine the democratic mandate of the Scottish Parliament have not gone unnoticed.

'The people of Scotland deserve so much better and by taking our future into our own hands we can build that better Scotland.'
LANSING  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently announced the availability of 4 million free masks to protect Michigans most vulnerable populations from COVID-19.

These masks are being made available to low-income residents, seniors, schools, and homeless shelters through a partnership between Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), Ford Motor Company, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Of the 4 million free masks available to Michigan residents, 1.5 million have been distributed to local offices of Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Community Action Agencies (CAA). Another 2.5 million will go to low-income schools, the City of Detroit, Federally Qualified Health Centers, COVID-19 testing sites, and organizations that serve vulnerable populations.

Anyone who is interested in receiving a free mask should first contact their local DHHS or CAA office. Masks also may become available by calling the state COVID-19 hotline at 888-535-6136, however call volumes are currently high.

Local Community Action Agencies

 Mecosta, Osceola counties: Mid-Michigan Community Action Agency, 1574 E. Washington Road in Farwell. 989-386-3805

 Lake County: FiveCAP, Inc., 302 N. Main Street in Scottville. 231-757-3785
This is the first time information came up that the boy had contracted the virus.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his 7-year-old son Kyrylo had COVID-19 and underwent treatment along with the First Lady.

"I will frankly say that this COVID-19 is an awful infection. There's no other word. My wife fell ill and my son, too, by the way. And they were treated together in the hospital," Volodymyr Zelensky told a briefing on Friday, August 21.

He suggested that children deal with the infection alright, more or less.

In June, Zelensky's wife Olena tested positive for coronavirus and got hospitalized with bilateral pneumonia.

The president and children were reported to have tested negative.

Read alsoUkraine publishes reviewed list of quarantine zones (Map)On July 3, it was reported that the First Lady had a negative test, thus confirming her recovery.

Coronavirus in Ukraine: latest developments

The Ministry of Health says 100,643 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Ukraine, of which 2,207 were fatal.

A total of 51,078 patients have recovered so far.

Over the past day, 2,106 new cases were recorded in Ukraine, the highest spike recorded.
Alex Kear, 50, has been was jailed for four years and ordered to serve an extended licence period of two years

A paedophile councillor who arranged to meet a fictional three-year-old girl for sex during a police sting operation has been jailed.

Alex Kear, 50, had sent a series of depraved messages, including one which said he had 'waited years for this to happen', to a woman who he believed was the mother of a toddler.

But he was instead talking to an undercover police officer who eventually apprehended him, Leeds Crown Court heard earlier today.

Kear, who will now lose his seat as an independent on Wakefield Council, was jailed for four years and ordered to serve an extended licence period of two years due to him posing 'a high risk of serious harm to children'.

Judge Simon Phillips QC told him: 'I have no doubt that if that three-year-old girl had existed you would have intended to carry out your degenerate predatory plans against her.

'This is a deep-seated degeneracy on your behalf, as illustrated by the communications you have made that you have been interested in little girls for as long as you can remember and that you have waited years for something like this to happen.'

Last month Kear admitted a charge of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sexual offence and another of inciting the sexual exploitation of a child under the age of 13.

At the time, Wakefield Council said it was frustrated it could not remove him from his position as a councillor because the law said this can only be done when defendants are jailed for three months or more.

Yvette Cooper, MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, called for an urgent review of the law following Kear's conviction.

Kear, who will now lose his seat as an independent on Wakefield Council, had arranged to meet a fictional three-year-old girl for sex during a police sting operation (pictured arriving at Leeds Crown Court)

Today, Judge Phillips was told how, over the period of a month, Kear sent a picture of his genitals to the officer he thought was the child's mother along with depraved messages about what he wanted to do to the youngster.

According to Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, Kear said: 'The older I get the younger I seem to like. Twenty years ago I would never had thought about a baby but now... young.'

Mr Sharp said the defendant met with the undercover police officer and had agreed to meet again with the fictional three-year-old on August 19, 2019.

But he was arrested three days before.

Kear had told the undercover officer: 'The years I have waited for something like this to happen.'

He also lied to police that he was a one-man-band paedophile hunter before admitting the offences in court.

Michael Collins, defending, told the judge his client welcomed his arrest as he needed help with a long-standing addiction to pornography.

He said Kear, of Stansfield Drive, Castleford, had been diagnosed with autism and was also suffering from a mixed anxiety and depressive disorder.

Wakefield Council confirmed Kear is now disqualified from his post as a councillor for the Airedale and Ferry Fryston ward in Castleford.

It said a by-election will be held in due course.

Ms Cooper said: 'This was a truly awful crime and it is terrible to think of the impact on children from cases like this.

'The sentence also means that the perpetrator can finally be removed from Wakefield Council.

'But given how serious the offence was, Wakefield Council should have been allowed to suspend him as soon as he was charged and to remove him completely as soon as he pleaded guilty.

'The law on this doesn't work, and I am calling on the Government to change it so that councils can take immediate action in a case like this.

'Children's safety must be the absolute priority.'
Before I proceed, I need to reiterate these facts as true:

Ghana is a developing country 'ing' denotes an ongoing process Thus, Ghana is on a journey not at finality

Even though going on, I may seem to have forgotten these facts, kindly know that I have them all at the back of my mindor in this case 'at the back of my words.'

The problem is not with the journey, but with certain attitudes we have been demonstratingone that casts a shadow over the journey. It creates the impression that development is not something we would be methodically arriving at, but something that we, at our very best, might just stumble uponagain, not as a result of method, but of time. That with the prolongment of time, every nationeven the poorest nowmay just find itself finally arriving at development. That no matter how slow they are running, they are eventually going to arrive at the finish linelast maybe, yet still arrive. This is not a narrative that any nation should wish upon itself.

Like in every journey there are hurdles. Ghana and Africa's hurdles are not found in an inherent incapacity but in our inability to effectively mine our resourcesnot just the natural, but significantly, our human resources.

Get off your high horse!or in this case, your high camel

Ghana is blessed with natural resources. This is something we catch ourselves saying a lot. We have cocoa, gold, bauxite, oil You know how this inexhaustible list goes. We name-drop our resources a whole lotagain, our natural resources. So much so that the Ghanaian child, even if denied every semblance of pridepride in self, nation, and continentis never denied this pride: the pride of listing all the natural resources his/her country is blessed with.

Ghana is the bestnatural resource-wise has been hammered on us for so long that the realisation that developed nations have their own fair share of such and such resources is quite hard to swallow.

In a ranking of the world's top ten natural resource-rich countries (accounting for the total reserves and market value of the resources)I am sorryGhana is nowhere to be found. I hate to be the one bursting bubbles so I am not going to mention this: neither is the entire fifty-four states comprising the African continentexcept one. Interestingly one finds, looming broad, a large number of developed countries. We could choose to dismiss such lists as 'developed-world-centric', but there is something particularly telling about them.

Russia

Mention natural gas, you hear the name: Russia. The country, together with Iran, contributes up to 40% of the world's natural gas. Russia contributes more lumber to the global community than every other country, followed by Brazil and Canada (another developed country). In coal, you again find Russia placing second globally; in gold you find the country, placing third worldwide. In fact, in the mining industry, Russia features prominently with a vast array of commodities ranging from copper, aluminum, magnesium, etc. The country, greatest in land mass globally, is placed on some lists as the world's topnatural resource rich nation, in other lists you find it in the top five.

USA, Australia

The US has coal in abundanceover 30% of the world's coal. The country has timber, too, going for it. The nation is neither short on natural gas, gold, oil, nor copper.

You find in the coal list too, dominating, another developed country, Australia, where coal is mined nationwide. Australia tops, too, the gold listthe country supplies over 14% of the world's gold. It supplies, too, almost 50% of the world's uranium. In other metals (copper, iron, aluminum, opal, rare earth metals, etc); in timber, et al, you find featuring prominently, Australia.

In rankings of the world's resource rich nationsbetter believe itthe developed world features predominantly. In top ten lists one is likely to find four or five developed countriesas opposed to Africa's one. Onejust one. Dr. Congo.

Eye of a Needle

It is like when we Christians, in our moment of need, poverty, console ourselves with Matthew 19:24 it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go into the kingdom of heaven; or Muslims, with the Quran the gates of heaven shall not open to them, nor shall they enter paradise until the camel passes through the eye of the needle only to find that said rich man/woman is in fact a better believer than we are. A rude, rude awakening.

This all seem contrary to popular beliefs, or the beliefs inferred from our experiencesthe historical slave trade, colonialism, the ongoing neocolonialism of the African continentthat the developed worlds are barren grounds, incessantly prancing about, poaching from here and there, especially from herethe African continent; poaching our natural resources, 'leaving us for poor', while they enrich their coffersdoing so solely with our resources.

This is true, the African continent has beenhistorically and presentlyconstantly pillaged by the developed world. However, this truth is only so in part, Africa is not the only resource rich land. We are blessed, abundantly blessed, but not exclusively so. What we have going for us, really is a vast land of untapped potential. 'Untapped' because we relegate our human resource capital to the backseat in this development bid of ours.

Praises and Lacerations

Perhaps, the real narrative ensuing is this: the developed world is a greedy bunch, or maybe an astute bunch. They are a people taking advantage of another people (Africans). They are a people who have mastered the art of 'utilisation'of effectively utilising their very own human resources to effectively and efficiently transform their natural resources into globally competitive commodities. They are a people who have mastered the craft of pulling the rug from under yet another people's feetAfricans. Centuries prior, they had done so by stealing from us in broad daylight, now they do so at dusk. They are a people who have, by so doing successfully secured for themselves places of affluence and influence on the international plane. While we on the African continent, we Ghanaians are still singing about the richness of our lands, not of the potentials of our people.

The American child sitting in that classroom learning is socialised to believe him/herself to be the key tools (resources) and drivers of their nation and the world's advancement. The Ghanaian/African child is taught to sing praises to their rich lands, not their own rich hands. The former will change the world; the latter will just be an enabling ground for the former.

There is a Ghanaian and African problem needing remedy. One that does not necessarily change with the changing of votes and of governmentsone that needs tackling from the very root.

Be careful all you kids walking around thinking your parents are wealthy; you kids wasting away, not fighting for a future of your own, awaiting your parent's demise so you might inherit enormous wealth, you will soon find that mama and dada are not as rich as you thought them to be. You will find that Ghana and Africa's natural resources mean nothing should her human resources not be mined.

BY YAO AFRA YAO
A group of artists paint a mural of George Floyd on the wall outside of Cup Foods, where Floyd died in police custody, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

George Floyd Mural Near Site of Death in Minneapolis Defaced

A mural painted near the site of George Floyds death in Minneapolis was defaced this week, surveillance video showed.

The mural was painted on the side of Cup Foods, where an employee called police on Memorial Day due to suspicion that Floyd used counterfeit money in a purchase.

The resulting police encounter ended with Floyd dead, sparking protests and riots that continue to this day. The four police officers involved, who were fired, face murder or aiding murder charges.

Video footage and photographs from social media showed black paint sprayed on Floyds face and eyes and surveillance footage from late Tuesday showed a man spray painting the mural before running away.

One witness, photographer Billy Briggs, said on Facebook that he saw a white male using spray paint to deface the mural.

Marcia Howard, a teacher who is part of the areas volunteer security force, told The Epoch Times that the suspect was eventually tracked down by a different security guard. The guard took a picture of the man smiling before letting him go.

Community members, after collecting a can of spray paint that the suspect cast aside, soon gathered back at the mural, where they found a pair of flip-flops the man left behind.

We looked at the picture that the security guard took and realized that this man had no remorse, Howard said. We were like, [expletive] this guy.

A family takes pictures in front of a mural of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Community members then posted the picture online, along with the first name the suspect gave to the guard, and people quickly identified the suspect.

The suspects father told the Minnesota Reformer, a nonprofit news agency, that his son defaced the mural.

The son, Daniel Michelson, was drunk, the man said, adding that his son is in a safe place and wants to do everything he can to make restitution.

Michelson told the website that he doesnt recall spray painting the mural, calling himself out of control. When he saw video footage, he said he was absolutely disgusted. He said he supports the Black Lives Matter movement and intends to make amends.

A Minneapolis Police Department spokesman told The Epoch Times that no report had been filed over the vandalism. A Cup Foods worker declined to comment. The Epoch Times wasnt able to reach Michelson.

Howard accused Michelson of lying about being drunk and wondered about his motivation.

Why? Why? Because he could. And now hes using the excuse that he was blackout drunk, which is the excuse used by a lot of white people when they do something out of character,' she said.

People participate in a demonstration against the citys plans to reopen an autonomous zone known as George Floyd Square, outside Cup Foods in Minneapolis, Minn., on Aug. 17, 2020. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The mural sits in an area of about four blocks declared an autonomous zone in early June. Community members released a list of demands this month they want met before relinquishing control back to city officials. Demands include recalling Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, ending qualified immunity for police officers, and investing over $700,000 into the area for job creation and Undoing Racism training.

City officials planned to begin reopening the area this month but pushed back those plans indefinitely last week. Officials during a City Council meeting Thursday laid out a plan that would keep the intersection, known as George Floyd Square locally, a memorial site to Floyd.

Briggs, who has been taking pictures in the area since May, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he broke down when he saw the defaced mural.

Everybody is struggling with this, he said. [Floyd] is the face of justice in this movement. This was a devastating thing to do. Shame on you.

The mural is now covered with a blue tarp.

Jeanelle Austin, lead caretaker for the Floyd memorial, told the paper that she and others are working on repairing the mural.

Its going to take time before changes are done, she said. At the end of day, we are looking for justice.
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Federally-funded sites will open Monday in Hoover, Center Point and Tuscaloosa that will offer up to 60,000 free coronavirus tests during the next two weeks.

The surge testing is part of an overall effort to reduce coronavirus spread in Alabama. Although the number of cases and positivity rate have dropped in recent weeks, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said Alabama was still in the red zone that could make reopening businesses and schools more dangerous.

The testing sites will be able to conduct about 1,500 tests a day, said Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris. People will need to go online to register for a test, but they will be available regardless of symptoms or possible exposure. Jefferson County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wilson encourages people with symptoms to get tested, along with those who have been exposed to a positive patient. He also said essential workers and those who have spent time around large numbers of people should consider getting tested.

We have the ability to do up to 60,000 tests in two weeks, Wilson said. We want people to get tested if they feel they have been in an environment with a lot of people. Weve made it just about as easy as you can possibly make it.

Adams said Alabama was the only state in the red zone with statistics trending in the right direction. He credited Gov. Kay Ivey, who announced a statewide mask order in July, with controlling the states outbreak.

Dr. [Deborah] Birx wanted me to say, in our opinion, it is very much a part of why were seeing Alabama turn around its numbers and move in the right direction, Adams said.

Adams said Alabamians should continue to follow public health guidelines. Washing hands, practicing social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding crowded indoor spaces can prevent most transmission, he said. Adding the extra testing will help control outbreaks by identifying cases and tracking contacts, he said.

When asked about pictures of people crowding the streets in Tuscaloosa, Adams said they should not let down their guard.

All it takes is one group of people deciding they need to have a frat party, Adams said. One group pf people decides to have a barbecue. Then you have a cluster. And then a cluster can turn into an outbreak.

Test results should be available in three to five days, Adams said. Results might come back even sooner and will be delivered by email, he said.

All those who register will self-administer the test at one of the sites. Adams demonstrated the technique, which involves swabbing the inside of both nostrils but does not require the user to reach all the way back to the throat.

Testing will also be available for children. Several Jefferson County school districts started in-person classes this week. Every person who completes a test will receive five reusable masks.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services started operating surge testing sites in July at locations in Florida, Louisiana and California.

Testing will be conducted at Cathedral of the Cross in Center Point, 1480 Center Point Parkway, the Riverchase Galleria Sears Parking Lot, 2500 Galleria Circle, and the Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue Service Logistics Center, 2201 University Blvd. The test sites will operate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, starting Aug. 24.

Wilson said the Jefferson County Department of Health has increased its capacity to perform contract tracing. He said the number of coronavirus cases has decreased in recent weeks, along with hospitalizations.

We have made a lot of improvement, but we have a long way to go, Wilson said. We are ready to handle those new cases and get those dealt with.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- We will probably never know for certain who ordered tainted tea for the Kremlins most vocal critic. Alexei Navalnys anti-corruption campaigning has made him a long list of enemies, and a dark undercurrent of violence is never far from the surface in Russian politics. The timing of the assault, though, suggests worrying disquiet among those in charge.

Regional elections are weeks away, and anti-government protests in the Far East arent going away. Theres also economic discontent at home, plus an ongoing uprising in neighboring Belarus, led by an unexpectedly galvanizing opposition. Rather than fixing President Vladimir Putins problems, though, the assault may make them worse.

Navalny, who has been repeatedly intimidated, was taken ill on Thursday on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he had been working with local activists ahead of the September polls. His spokeswoman says tea he drank before boarding was laced with poison, leaving him unconscious. No investigation is yet underway.

Unfortunately, while the assault is alarming, it is hardly surprising in a country where opposition voices are regularly silenced with impunity. In one of the most striking cases, charismatic reformist Boris Nemtsov was shot within spitting distance of the Kremlin in 2015. Security camera footage was never released, and the ultimate instigators of the attack were never found.

Many of the activists attacked, including murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Nemtsov and Navalny himself, had been dismissed by officials as insignificant threats. Yet in the Omsk hospital where the 44-year-old is being treated, the petty inhumanity suggests otherwise. According to his aide, police sought to confiscate his belongings and the hospital initially demanded a marriage certificate from his wife before she could see him. Doctors argue he cant be moved, and have so far refused to discharge him so he can fly to Europe for treatment.

Story continues

There is truth in the idea that Navalny is an irritant, rather than  as yet  a genuine, immediate menace to the system. In the heterogeneous anti-Putin camp, some fret about his dalliances with ethnic Russian nationalists, while the Kremlins constant smearing of Navalny has helped taint his popular image. On Thursday, at least one tabloid suggested the poisoning was caused by alcohol. He has also kept a lower profile recently. Still, he remains probably the best-known opposition leader and campaigner: His video questioning the lavish lifestyle of Dmitry Medvedev, former president and prime minister, has racked up more than 30 million views. Medvedev denied the allegations.

More significantly, though, he is perceived as an unquantifiable risk. His tactical voting campaign, which aims to unite voters around candidates not affiliated with the ruling United Russia party, has had a significant impact in previous local and regional elections. The poisoning sends a warning signal to local supporters hoping to repeat that trick, says Vladimir Gelman, a political science professor at the European University at St. Petersburg who studies Russias opposition.

It all points to a sense of vulnerability. Certainly, there is no indication that Putin ordered the attack. More likely, as Tatiana Stanovaya of political think tank R.Politik explains, it was orchestrated by one of the many targets of Navalnys investigations among the countrys most powerful people, or by an overzealous protector of the regime. That was the case with Nemtsov, whose attackers had ties to Chechnyas strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. (Kadyrov has denied any involvement.) Either way, the incident bodes ill in almost every way. Most obviously, it's a reminder that Putins Russia remains a place where such attacks are permitted, and where opposition voices are under permanent threat. Its also a reminder to the West that despite every pundits logical cost-benefit analysis of what Putin may or may not do  say, a potential invasion of Belarus  there is a paranoia among the Putin entourage that makes anything possible.The trouble for the president is that the assault could create a significant political risk, too. Such a glaring effort to silence Navalny could make the campaigner something of a hero beyond his usual following. It could potentially energize discontented voters even outside Khabarovsk, the city on the border with China where for weeks crowds have turned out to protest after the arrest of a popular local governor. That could all make it even harder for the Kremlin to win the electoral victories it needs from these regional legislative and gubernatorial elections.Neighboring Belarus, meanwhile, is providing hope for a disillusioned electorate in Russia  and the crowds in Minsk are proof that opposition leaders come from unexpected places, at unexpected times.

A swift and credible investigation into Navalnys latest and gravest attack would help. If only it were likely.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and environmental, social and governance issues. Previously, she was an associate editor for Reuters Breakingviews, and editor and correspondent for Reuters in Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Photo: (Photo : unsplash/Charlein Gracia)

Children may have a bigger role to play in the community spread of the coronavirus than previously believed.

On Thursday, the Journal of Pediatrics study found that these young tykes carry higher levels of the virus in their noses. During the first three days of infection, some children have higher levels of the deadly virus in their airways.

Children showed very few symptoms.

A MassGeneral Hospital for Children physician and one of the study authors, Alessio Fasano, explained why. He said that in the early part of the outbreak, researchers largely ignored and did not test children because they showed very few symptoms.

Fasano said that some thought that children might be safe from the virus. Little did they know that the symptoms may just not be visible. In truth, they have been acting as silent spreaders.

See also: Women Who Gave Birth to Premature Infants Are More at Risk of Early Death, Study Proves

A study about this was published in the JAMA Pediatrics on July 30. The research team found that kids below five years old with mild to moderate illness could help spread the virus more.

Shortly before the JAMA published the study, researchers from South Korea did a household study. They revealed that older children could spread the virus more than the younger ones. Later, the research team clarified that they were not sure if the transmission was from older kids or from being in contact with other family members.

See also: Combined Oral Contraceptive Pills Offer Protection Against Coronavirus, Study Proves

Children carry a higher viral load.

Together, the three studies reveal that children are silent spreaders of the deadly virus. The most recent study showed that children carry higher loads of the virus than adults. However, the research team also noted that they measured children on days zero to two of infection. They measured the adults on days seven or longer. 0

The study's lead author, Lael Yonker, said that a larger side-by-side study is needed for better proof. It could better compare the viral level over time in children and adults. He noted that people need to minimize the risk of kids spreading the virus since they show little symptoms.

See also: Modified COVID-19 vaccine: Speed up worldwide production, study proves

In other preliminary studies, the team noted that age does not affect the viral load. They found that its levels are higher two days after getting the coronavirus.

ACE2 needed to invade the body

Findings also showed that the virus uses ACE2 to invade the body. Since the children have lower amounts of this receptor, they theorized that kids spread the virus less. But it seems not to affect the viral load.

Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., did a study this month. They found that the youngest and oldest infected children required hospitalization. However, the oldest had to be in critical care than the youngest.

A Boston Children's Hospital critical care specialist, Adrienne Randolph, said what they learned for the past eight months. She explained that the disease never stops to surprise everyone. She also noted that to minimize the spread of the virus, everyone should not make any assumptions.
The Ontario government needs to drastically increase funding for Hamilton students with special education needs in advance of the coming school year, says Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca.

The Liberals new leader, elected to head the party in March, came to Hamilton Thursday morning to meet with families of students with special needs and propose a provincewide back-to-school plan that includes $120 million in funding for special education teachers and staff, as well as 59 new special education professionals in public schools.

The announcement is the latest in a series of recent efforts by the Ontario Liberals to contrast their proposed financing of Ontarios school reopenings with the current Progressive Conservative government headed by Premier Doug Ford, who the Liberals say is allowing too many students to fall through the cracks with their current plan.

Doug Ford simply has no plan to help students with special education needs. Advocates across the province have been calling for increased funding, but the government has ignored them, Del Duca said in a statement on Thursday.

Across Ontario, moms and dads are still anxious and confused about getting their kids back to school safely. But parents of students with special education needs are facing the hardest challenges, with zero certainty about what supports will be available to them and their kids.

The Liberals say their proposed plan would provide funding to review and address new student needs that have arisen through the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as funding for a fully accessible digital learning platform for students with special needs.

The plan calls for 1,500 special education teachers and staff across Ontario.

Ngan Buchner, a parent who has two children attending schools within the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB), said shes concerned about her school not having the necessary staffing to care for her younger son, who has autism.

Even before COVID-19, there wasnt enough funding for educational assistants (EA), and its not clear how the classrooms will work for students with disabilities given the social-distancing measures and pandemic protocols, Buchner said.

Her son, Nicolas, is entering the fourth grade, meaning hell be in full-sized elementary classrooms and will be required to wear a mask.

Hes been in situations where his teacher is by themselves in the classroom, and hed only have an EA for like half a day, so hed be on his own for the rest. Were worried he might be left on his own more often during the pandemic.

Remote learning simply isnt an option for many autistic students, Buchner said.

They need someone whos physically present who can help them learn. We try our best to teach him, but were not the experts. We dont know what he should be focusing on or what he should be developing in school.

Del Duca said the need for additional funding is non-negotiable.

Kids in special education must have the proper resources to succeed in the return to the classroom, said Del Duca in a statement. The sad truth is that Doug Fords plan is going to allow too many students to fall through the cracks and fall behind.

The ministry of education did not respond to The Spectators requests for comment as of press time.

In late July, the Liberals released a back-to-school plan costed by former education ministry officials that estimated a multi-billion-dollar need for 17,000 more teachers, 14,000 new rooms to accommodate smaller elementary classes and 10,000 additional caretakers.

The Liberals say that the government needs to spend as much as $3.2 billion in order to safely reopen schools.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 06:43:36|Editor: huaxia

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YAOUNDE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- About 900 families have been displaced from their homes in Cameroon's commercial capital Douala due to flash flood following heavy rains, government officials said on Friday.

All major neighborhoods of the coastal city were submerged early Friday following the heavy rains, Samuel Ivaha Diboua, the governor of the Littoral region, told reporters.

"The situation is serious and requires concerted efforts from all stakeholders," Diboua said.

Residents struggled to contain the disaster which cut off some electricity supply lines and halted transportation in most parts of the city.

"We have never seen this kind of disaster in 20 years. We have lost all our belongings. I don't even know where all my children are," James Nayou, a resident of Douala, told Xinhua.

"We are overwhelmed. My houses have collapsed and children are finding it difficult to survive the disaster," another resident Lilian Nkolou added.

Diboua said that the government has set up a crisis committee to manage the situation and assist victims.

The country's National Meteorological Centre has warned that "heavy and continuous rainfall" is expected in the city till the end of August with "very high risk of flooding in poorly drained and low lying areas."

The government is working to mobilize relief support for the affected families and maintain proper drainage system in the city, according to Diboua. Enditem
Steve Bannon File photo: Xinhua

On August 13, Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai delivered a keynote speech at a webinar at the invitation of President John R. Allen of the Brookings Institution. Cui said that amidst major tasks and severe challenges, China and the US should make the right choice and build a more forward-looking, stronger and more stable relationship between our two great countries.

Cui pointed out that some people in the US are obsessed with great-power competition and strategic rivalry, adding that some Americans believe that driving up confrontation could slow down and contain China's development, and maybe even bring about a regime change. Its obvious that he was referring to the initiators of the so-called new cold war. In his speech, Cui warned those individuals who are obviously keen on launching the new cold war in unprecedented ways, saying they must weigh the costs they pay and the consequences for the world. For whom the bell tolls, there will be a day of reckoning.

Perhaps it is a pure coincidence that his saying has turned into reality. Shortly after Cui made his comments, Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to US President Donald Trump, who was once dubbed the shadow president, was arrested on Thursday for financial fraud. Bannon was charged with defrauding donors in an online fundraising scheme called We Build the Wall, which was intended to bolster the US Presidents initiative along the Mexican border. According to the Wall Street Journal, the fundraising campaign collected more than $300 million, and the money  mainly donated by Trump supporters  was only a sham to deceive people. They actually built a border fence, but it has already showed signs of erosion just several months after its completion.

The ironic news reveals that people like Bannon are committed to fraud and seeking benefits by inciting panic, tension and friction between China and the US to garner US public support and attention. It answers a question that has perplexed people for a long time Why are some Americans so obsessed with damaging China-US relations? It is now obvious such persons are in the anti-China business.

Bannons arrest has further verified Cuis claim that China-US relations are going in the wrong direction due to manipulation by some Americans with ulterior motives. If this continues, not only China and the US, but also other countries around the world expecting the worlds two biggest power to jointly fight the pandemic and recover world economy, will be harmed. The only group that will benefit is a slim number of swindlers and madmen.

The Chinese side has recently sent a series of clear signals on China-US relations. In a signed article, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, expounded his views on China-US relations from a historical perspective. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has also reiterated Chinas firm commitment to promote the healthy development of China-US relations in multiple speeches and interviews. As such, the ball is obviously in the US court. The US should actively and constructively respond to Chinas propositions. Promoting positive China-US relations is the right choice.

The author is professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University. [email protected]
Atlassian billionaire Mike-Cannon Brookes is embroiled in legal proceedings brought by disgruntled shareholders in the United States against self-driving car startup Zoox over its $US1.3 billion ($1.8 billion) sale to Amazon.

The Zoox shareholders claim the proceeds of the sale were "dwarfed" by transaction and other bonuses paid to Zoox executives, and a majority of the Zoox board including Mr Cannon-Brookes had been conflicted in their roles in the sale process.

Mr Cannon-Brookes is not named as a defendant and was not one of the executives who was paid a bonus.

Zoox was co-founded by Jesse Levinson (left) and Melbourne designer Tim Kentley-Klay (right). Credit:Shaughn and John

The self-driving car startup was co-founded by Melbourne entrepreneur Tim Kentley-Klay in 2014 and backed by heavyweight Australian investors including Mr Cannon-Brookes, who invested $100 million in the company, venture capital fund Blackbird Ventures and superannuation fund Hostplus.
Opinion Article

21 August 2020

Heatwave conditions, where temperatures have exceeded 30 degrees, are set to continue in parts of southern and central England. The picnic is a great British institution, and it's likely to be more popular than ever as people turn their attention to safer socialising outdoors. And what picnic would be complete without a bottle of wine to complete British summertime drinking? We spoke to Head of Fine Wine at Cult Wines, Lukas Kolodziejczyk, who outlines what styles of wine are among the most picnic-friendly.

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Rose

An obvious choice, perhaps, but rose is a popular picnic accompaniment for a reason - its lightly acidic, floral flavours pair well with picnic fare such as cheese and crackers, cold chicken and salad, and it goes down well on its own. If you're not sure what's on the menu, you won't go far wrong with a dry rose from Provence, which offers a wonderful blend of fruit, brightness and herbal character. Good quality rose is often inexpensive, too, so you can splash out on a few bottles for your afternoon in the sun.

Vinho Verde

Vinho Verde (which literally translates to 'green wine', nodding towards 'young wine') originates from the historic Portuguese province of Minho. While it's found acclaim with some pockets of wine lovers, it's often overlooked in favour of other Portuguese offerings, which is a shame as it has all the hallmarks of a perfect picnic wine. While it can be made in white, rose and even red styles, its white variety offers a hint of particularly refreshing effervescence, plus it often touts a lower alcohol content than other whites, making it well-suited to sipping all afternoon long.

Riesling

Riesling is one of the most food-friendly wines out there. Produced in styles ranging from bone dry to unctuously sweet, it can be paired with everything from spicy chicken wings to a cold fruit salad. Its high acidity also means its great with rich fatty foods such as cheese and pate. Germany is the go-to region for a classic Riesling, but for the more adventurous there are some great examples to be had from the US, in particular those from Washington State, California and New York's Finger Lakes.

Cava

A celebratory picnic (although do you really need a special occasion?) wouldn't be complete without a bottle of something fizzy, but some might argue that Champagne is a bit stiff and formal for a casual al fresco get-together. Prosecco is a popular alternative, but Spanish Cava is certainly closer to classic Champagne bubbles in terms of taste, plus it pairs beautifully with appetisers, light sandwiches and even fried food (and you won't have to worry about a corkscrew).

Sangiovese

We don't automatically associate red wine with outdoor daytime drinking, but there's no reason they shouldn't get a look in provided you choose with care - a glass of red is a lunchtime staple in countries throughout Europe, after all. Opt for thin-skinned varietals and fruitier styles from warmer climates. An Italian Sangiovese is bright, breezy and will tie together all of your picnic
Lauren Newton, the daughter of TV legends Bert and Patti Newton, has given birth to her sixth child.

The 40-year-old announced the happy news on Friday, sharing a photo to Instagram of her husband, champion swimmer Matt Welsh, holding their newborn son.

The couple have named their son Alby James Newton Welsh.

Lauren revealed that Alby was born seven weeks early, but was 'doing well'.

'He's seven weeks early but doing well': Lauren Newton (right), the daughter of TV legends Bert and Patti Newton (left), has given birth to her sixth child, a son named Alby James

She told her Instagram followers: 'Alby James Newton Welsh. Born at 8:20 on 20/8/2020.'

She went on to thank the doctors and nurses at the hospital who helped with the birth, before giving an update on how her son was doing.

'It has been a long journey and we are so thrilled to have gorgeous Alby here safely. He is seven weeks early but doing really well,' she wrote.

Thrilled: The 40-year-old announced the happy news on Friday, sharing a photo to Instagram of her husband, champion swimmer Matt Welsh (left), holding their newborn son

Alby's early arrival comes after Lauren revealed she had been separated from her young children for weeks due to complications with her pregnancy.

In July, she shared a photo to Instagram of her five young children, Sam, 11, Eva, nine, Lola, six, Monty, two, and Perla, 19 months, alongside a heartfelt message.

'Missing my gorgeous babies. It's been five weeks so far of not seeing them while I'm in hospital due to pregnancy complications,' she wrote.

Siblings: Alby's early arrival comes after Lauren revealed in July she had been separated from her young children for weeks due to complications with her pregnancy. Pictured: Lauren's children, Sam, 11, Eva, nine, Lola, six, Monty, two, and Perla, 19 months

Lauren added that she was relieved to know her five children were in good hands.

'I miss them so much but Matt and mum and dad [Bert and Patti] have done an incredible job,' she said.

Lauren had announced she was pregnant with her sixth child in May by sharing a sweet picture to social media of her youngest daughter holding a sonogram photo.

'Perla is thrilled she is going to be a big sister!' she wrote, along with the hashtag #babynumbersix.

Exciting news: Lauren had announced she was pregnant with her sixth child in May by sharing a sweet picture to social media of her youngest daughter holding a sonogram photo. 'Perla is thrilled she is going to be a big sister!' she wrote, along with the hashtag #babynumbersix

Lauren shares her six children with former Olympic swimmer Matt Welsh, 43.

Despite their large family, Lauren thought she'd just have one child and see how it went, and never planned on having more.

'I never wanted to be a mum with a double pram, but after I had Sam I got pregnant again really quickly,' she told 9Honey last year.

'[Being parents] is just the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us both.'

Happy: In 2016, Lauren's father, Bert, 81, spoke warmly about life as a grandfather. 'They wouldn't realise it at the moment, but they have made this one of the happiest times of my life,' he said of his grandchildren. Pictured is Bert and Patti with their grandchildren

In a 2016 interview with the Herald Sun, Lauren's 81-year-old father, Bert, spoke warmly about life as a grandfather.

'They wouldn't realise it at the moment, but they have made this one of the happiest times of my life,' he said of his grandchildren.

Lauren is Bert and Patti's youngest child. She has an older brother, Matthew Newton.
The West African bloc ECOWAS will send envoys to Mali on Saturday, the new junta said, after it gave the UN access to the ousted president and released two other leaders held in a dramatic coup.

Diplomatic momentum built on Friday, the third day of the troubled state's latest crisis, amid international pressure on Mali's new military leaders and preparations for celebratory rallies in the capital Bamako.

The delegation to Bamako will be led by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, an ECOWAS source said Friday, describing the trip as aiming "to help the search for solutions".

Timeline of the main developments in Mali's political crisis. By Gal ROMA (AFP)

He will be flanked by the president of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, and Niger's foreign minister, Kalla Ankourao.

A junta official told AFP that the envoys would be received "with pleasure... it is important to talk to our brothers."

ECOWAS -- the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States -- on Thursday had announced it would dispatch a high-level delegation "to ensure the immediate return of constitutional order".

Rebel soldiers seized President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and other leaders after staging a mutiny on Tuesday at Kati, a military base about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Bamako.

ECOWAS on Thursday demanded Keita be restored as president and bluntly warned the junta that they bore "responsibility for the safety and security" of the detainees.

'We respect human rights'

The UN's peacekeeping mission in Mali announced that a human-rights team had gained access to the ousted president and other detainees late Thursday.

Keita was forced out after mounting protests. By Ludovic MARIN (POOL/AFP/File)

A junta member said the coup leaders had "authorised" the visit and also released former economy minister Abdoulaye Daffe and Sabane Mahalmoudou, Keita's private secretary.

"Two prisoners have been released. There are still 17 in Kati. This is the proof that we respect human rights," the junta member said.

Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse are being held in a villa in Kati and are without a television, radio or phone, while the others are in a training centre, where they are sleeping on mattresses and have a TV, according to witnesses to the visit.

The 75-year-old ousted president "looked tired but relaxed," they said, describing his conditions as "acceptable."

Those detained, according to various sources, include Defence Minister Ibrahima Dahirou Dembele, Security Minister M'Bemba Moussa Keita, the president of the National Assembly, Moussa Timbine, as well as the heads of the army and air force.

Their fate has been a focal point of international concern.

The African Union, European Union, the United States and UN Security Council have angrily condemned the coup and demanded the release of the detainees.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday urged a "speedy, peaceful and democratic" resolution to the crisis while DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi described the coup as "dangerous for democracy in Africa."

Battered country

The coup -- the second in eight years -- deals a body blow to a country struggling with a jihadist insurgency, moribund economy and deep public resentment over its government.

A putsch in 2012 was followed by an insurrection in the north of the country which developed into a jihadist insurgency that now threatens neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Thousands of UN and French troops, along with soldiers from five Sahel countries, have been deployed to try to stem the bloodshed.

The coup leaders, pictured on state television after announcing they had taken power. By - (ORTM/AFP)

The junta has named their organisation the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, under the leadership of a 37-year-old colonel named Assimi Goita, who commanded Mali's special forces battalion.

Its spokesman, Ismael Wague, said on Thursday that "a transitional council, with a transitional president who is going to be either military or civilian" would be appointed.

The transition "will be the shortest possible," he told France 24 television.

Keita won election in a landslide in 2013, putting himself forward as a unifying figure in a fractured country, and was re-elected in 2018 for another five-year term.

But he failed to make headway against a jihadist revolt that has left swathes of the country in the hand of armed Islamists and ignited ethnic violence in the country's volatile centre.

Thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their their homes.

That devastation has also compounded damage to an already fragile economy in a country with large numbers of unemployed young people.

Anger swelled after the disputed outcome of legislative elections in April, creating an anti-Keita protest coalition, the June 5 Movement, which scheduled rallies on Friday to "celebrate the victory of the Malian people."
By PTI

MELBOURNE: The Australian government on Friday decided not to relax the incoming travellers cap of 4,000 per week even as thousands of Australians are stranded overseas waiting to return home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison came after the Cabinet agreed "on the balance of risk" that the number of people allowed to return from overseas at present will remain at 4,000 per week.

Morrison said the government was considering steps to support Australians trapped in other countries owing to coronavirus travel restrictions.

"Right now it is not the wise decision to raise those caps," Morrison said after the Cabinet meeting, adding, "4,000 are still returning every single week."

The decision will be reviewed again in a fortnight, Morrison said, adding he hopes to "make further room" for people to return home after outbreaks in the states of Victoria and New South Wales are under control.

"We acknowledge that some of them are in difficult circumstances. We'll be doing more to help them in those circumstances and to assist them to get home within those caps," he said.

"What I have asked for from the Foreign Affairs Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs and the Defence Minister is they're bringing forward measures to me and the Treasurer to see how we can better support those who are still overseas," he said.

"Our consular teams are doing a great job to help them in those circumstances, and to assist them to get home within those caps," he added.

More than 18,000 Australians, stranded mostly in countries like India, Philippines and South Africa, have expressed desire to return home, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

According an ABC report, over 357,000 Australian citizens and permanent residents have returned back since March.

Meanwhile, Victoria on Friday recorded nine more deaths and less than 200 new infected cases for the first time in several weeks.

The country reported 470 COVID-19 cases on Friday, taking the national tally to 24,407, including 14,924 recoveries.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas commented on the alleged poisoning of a Russian opposition figure and the current situation in Belarus during a joint-press conference with his Slovak counterpart in Bratislava on Friday.

On the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, Maas said that it was difficult to judge whether there were medical reasons for not transporting Navalny to Berlin.

However he said the offer of further treatment for the patient in Germany remains open.

Maas said he and the Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok agreed that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with Russia's involvement, "can and should" contribute to finding a solution in Belarus.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko must now "arrive in reality" by compromising and allowing dialogue, Maas continued.

During the joint-press conference, Korcok condemned the violent treatment of a Slovak citizen by Belgium officers and demanded a thorough and immediate investigation in the case that has shocked the Slovak public.

"It shows inadequate and absolutely unacceptable police brutality and indecent behaviour of police officers towards a citizen of the Slovak Republic," Korkoc said.

Korcok said that a 2018 video that published a Belgian newspaper with an officer sitting on top of a Slovak man in custody at a local airport and another officer apparently making a Hitler salute had, "infuriated the Slovak public, civil society and the entire Slovak political scene."
Actress Kangana Ranaut has been a vocal voice demanding justice for late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The actress has appeared in many interviews and called out Bollywood's influential people for alienating Sushant.

However, Sushant's family's lawyer Vikas Singh, in a recent interview, said that the actress was derailing the investigation against actress Rhea Chakraborty. Talking to Pinkvilla, Vikas Singh said, "She's trying to further her own agenda and attack people she has a personal issue with to settle her own scores. She seems to be on her own trip. The family's FIR has nothing to do with her claims at all."

However, he admitted that nepotism might have been a factor that led to Sushant's distress. "Everyone knows nepotism exists in the industry. Sushant too must have faced discrimination. But that can't be the primary course of investigation in this case. Those can still be contributory factors, but the main case is on how Rhea (Chakraborty) and her gang tried to completely exploit and finish Sushant."

On July 28, Sushant's father KK Singh had filed an FIR in Patna against the actor's girlfriend and actress Rhea Chakraborty. She was accused of abetting Sushant's suicide, criminal conspiracy and cheating.

On August 19, the Supreme Court of India passed a judgement that legitimised the transfer of the FIR from Bihar Police to the Central Bureau of Intelligence.

Sushant passed away on June 14, 2020. He was 34.

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).
MINSK, Belarus - As a former culture minister and ambassador to France, Pavel Latushko is the most well-connected member of a new council established by the political opposition in Belarus to facilitate a transition of power amid massive protests challenging the continued rule of the countrys authoritarian five-term president.

Defying the government he previously served has earned Latushko threats. His house in Minsk was doused with red paint overnight. Prosecutors opened a criminal probe into the opposition council Thursday. But the dapper 47-year-old ex-diplomat appears uncowed.

Latushko, once an associate of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and a member of the political elite, rejects accusations that the Coordination Council is plotting to overthrow the leader of 26 years, arguing that the group is seeking dialogue between the government and protesters.

There is no other way, Latushko told The Associated Press in an interview. The society is offering that mechanism to the authorities to conduct a dialogue. Even if strikes subside, they will resume in half a year.

The 65-year-old president so far has rebuffed opposition offers for dialogue and threatened the council members with criminal charges. The probe by national prosecutors focuses on potential charges of violating the constitution and threatening national security, accusations the opposition leaders dismiss as unfounded.

After leaving the Belarus Embassy in Paris, Latushko served as the head of the Ylanka Kupala national theatre in Minsk. He was fired earlier this week after expressing solidarity with the demonstrators who took to the streets to protest the official results of the Aug. 9 vote that declared Lukashenkos re-election to a sixth term by a landslide.

Latushko said that he couldnt remain silent after seeing the brutal police crackdown on the peaceful post-election protests. His theatre troupe quit en masse in protest against his dismissal.

He said he has received repeated threats and warnings to leave the country and that he sent his daughter and mother abroad. On a sombre note, he warned that if reports surface about him changing course and accepting the election results, it would mean that he spoke under duress, perhaps after being drugged.

Yes, I fear arrest, Latushko told the AP. But I say that I havent committed any criminal offence and Im not breaking the law by expressing my opinion. I have no intention to leave the country.

Nearly 7,000 people were detained and hundreds were injured in the first four days of protests. Police dispersed the demonstrators with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs. At least three protesters died, and many of the detainees described savage beatings, torture and abuse in police custody.

That has drawn a line for me, Latushko said. Actors were saying, My brother was detained and many people suffered abuse. Those horrible scenes couldnt leave me indifferent.

Latushko acknowledged that a lack of leaders presents challenges for the protest movement, but he noted that it couldnt be otherwise in a country where Lukashenko has relentlessly stifled dissent.

Lukashenkos main challenger in the presidential race, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, left for neighbouring Lithuania in the wake of the vote under pressure from the authorities. The Coordination Council includes her top associates, prominent journalists, rights activists and representatives of striking factory workers. It also includes the nations most famous author, Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature.

But Latushko is the only former senior official in the group, and he brings a close knowledge of Lukashenko and the inner workings of the Belarusian leaders regime.

Latushkos experience also makes him a perfect candidate for sensitive negotiations with the government, and the years he spent as an ambassador to France, Spain and Poland mean hed be well-prepared for talks with foreign officials.

He thinks many Belarusian officials are repulsed by the brutal crackdown, and fear speaking out but nevertheless could put a wrench in the wheels of the state machine.

The state apparatus is demotivated, Latushko said. I felt and saw that the vast majority of government officials are tired of that pressure and are ready for changes, they want those changes.

He said many public servants secretly detest the powerful role of the Belarusian State Security Committee, which still goes under its Soviet-era name: the KGB.

The KGB trace is clearly visible in the election campaign, he said. While its nominally responsible for protecting security of the state, it has undermined public confidence in state institutions. It has caused the society to explode and do its own vote count.

Latushko isnt driven by anger over Russias continued influence in Belarus. Neither is the anti-government protest movement, unlike the 2014 protests in Ukraine that ousted the countrys Russia-leaning former president.

Latushko says its important for Belarus to keep close relations with Moscow while developing ties with the West.

We have very broad relations with Russia, he said, adding that Moscow is interested in seeing a stable Belarus.

However, Latushko noted that many Belarusians are starting to ask why Russia has remained tight-lipped about the harsh crackdown on protests and failed to condemn it.

It would be an ideal option if the European Union and Russia jointly play mediators to help settle the Belarusian crisis, he said.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Latushkos brother was not detained but actors he worked with had relatives detained.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.
Photo credit: Christian Monterrosa for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

From Town & Country

Prince Harry and Meghan have been busy working from their new home, taking part in video calls and online meetings. But the couple has also been keen to get out and about where possible, and on Wednesday they volunteered with a local non-profit handing out items to families in need.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex volunteered with LA charity Baby2Baby, which is one of the four organizationsand the only one in the USthat they chose to help celebrate Archies birth last May. The couple handed out supplies to families and helped children pick out and try new backpacks.

A source said that, despite the heat everyone was in great spirits. The kids were eager to receive their books and supplies and Meghan and Harry did what they do bestengage and connect with the crowd.

The source continued that the couple was determined to serve every last child waiting in a line that wrapped around the school and they chatted with the families about the upcoming school year and wished all of the kids good luck.

Meghan dressed casually in a white shirt and beige shorts along with a mask from Royal Jelly, a New York City-based, Black female-founded company. The event was held at Knox Elementary School, which, along with the other schools in the LA Unified School District, has just started the new year remotely, with distance learning.

Baby2Baby provides basic necessities like diapers, wipes and clothes to kids and families in need and said today that it has distributed more than 30 million critical items to hundreds of thousands of children across the US since March.

"We are so grateful to be onsite during the most unique back to school week in history distributing school supplies, backpacks, hygiene, clothing and food directly to children and families who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and are struggling to afford the basic necessities they rely on school to provide," Baby2Baby Co-Presidents Norah Weinstein and Kelly Sawyer Patricof said in a statement. "We are committed to supporting the students from our partners at LAUSD and around the country throughout distance learning as well as when they are back in the classroom."

Story continues

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner said: Thank you to Baby2Baby for your generosity and support. The faces of the students and families as they receive necessary supplies remind us all how important it is, during these most difficult of times, to create a sense of stability and even a few moments of happiness, in the lives of those we serve.

Prince Harry and Meghan have settled into a new home in Santa Barbara with one-year-old Archie. The duchess made her first public appearance from the property last week during an online discussion with Emily Ramshaw, co-founder of news organization the 19th.

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As of today, Friday 21 August, everyone over the age of 11 in Gibraltar must wear a mask inside shops and stores unless they have a medical condition or disability which exempts them from doing so.

Masks are recommended for children under 11 as well, but in their case they are not compulsory.

Shop staff already have to wear masks, but until now customers have not had to do so.

Another new measure is that bars have been told they must close by 1am in future, with last orders at 12.30am

The move to tighten restrictions comes as the number of Covid-19 cases in Gibraltar continues to rise. The authorities say many recent cases have been among young people who have been socialising on the Costa del Sol this summer.

Local residents are also concerned that many people are failing to comply with social- distancing measures when out enjoying themselves in Gibraltar in the evenings and that the rules are not being enforced.
A special court here on Friday dismissed the bail plea of Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the Kerala gold smuggling scandal, in a case registered by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the money trail of the illegal trade.

The special PMLA court dismissed her bail plea on the ground that the accused, in a statement given to the ED under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), has admitted that she had roles in hatching the conspiracy and smuggling the gold from the foreign country.

Opposing the bail application moved by Suresh, the ED had said that the accused had disclosed to it her association with other accused and also of some others who are involved in the crime.

Noting that the revelations made by her indicates that she had considerable influence in the office of Kerala Chief Minister, the ED said if she is released on bail, there is a chance of tampering with evidence and also influencing the witnesses.

The investigating agency said it apprehends hurdles in the progress of investigation, if the petitioner is enlarged on bail now.

The investigation is progressing and persons connected with the crime and having influence have also to be questioned, the ED said.

Earlier, an NIA court and an Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Economic Offences, had also dismissed her bail pleas in separate cases registered by NIA and Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate.

Multiple agencies including NIA, Customs and Enforcement Directorate are probing the case of smuggling of gold worth over Rs 100 crore through diplomatic baggage addressed to the UAE consulate at Thiruvananthapuram since November last year.
The countrys migrant worker program is facing fresh scrutiny  this time from the auditor general of Canada, as the office delves into a series of massive COVID-19 outbreaks on Canadian farms that impacted more than a thousand workers and killed three.

Advocates from across the country will be consulted as part of the process next week, said Migrant Workers Alliance for Change executive director Syed Hussan. Interviews are expected to explore the adequacy of federally mandated quarantine measures, lax inspections and reprisals against migrant workers who report employers for abuse  as well as long-standing failures to address gaps in the temporary foreign worker program.

The solution is clear. The case has been made. The facts have been revealed to everyone in the country. We have seen for the last 53 years that a system of temporariness means that people do not have the rights to protect themselves, said Hussan in an interview with the Star.

Celine Bissonnette, a spokesperson for the auditor generals office, did not confirm who else has been asked to participate in the review or details of its scope. The report is expected to be published next year.

We are anticipating a number of audits that touch on the COVID-19 pandemic response, Bissonnette said.

The Star has reported on complaints of poor living and working conditions in the lead up to massive outbreaks on farms across the province, as well as reprisal fears for workers raising safety issues.

According to a new case filed at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, migrant worker Gabriel Flores Flores was terminated and threatened with deportation after he voiced concern about an outbreak that claimed the life of his bunkmate, Juan Lopez Chaparro, at Scotlynn Growers. The Norfolk County area farm has denied the allegations.

Currently, migrant workers come to Canada on temporary, closed work permits  meaning that their right to be in the country is tied to their annual contract with a single employer. Hussan said advocates intend to highlight their concerns with that model next week, as they have for years.

Without fundamentally having the right of (permanent residence) status, you cant assert any other right that you have, he said.

Anyone raising their voices will have to contend with at least the threat of reprisals in the form of homelessness, deportation and the inability to return in the future.

In July, the federal government announced $58.6 million in funding for migrant worker protections, and said it would work to develop mandatory requirements to improve employer-provided accommodations, focusing on ensuring better living conditions for workers.

As previously revealed by the Star, a 2018 study conducted for the federal government recommended the creation of a national housing standard for migrant workers, but the idea was scrapped following employer pushback.

Some $16 million of the funding announced in July is expected to go toward more inspections.

The federal government is also looking to improve its open work permit program, which provides an exit route for migrant workers who can document abuse at their workplace.

Critics have previously warned that the program should be an interim step only, because it fails to address the underlying dynamics that facilitate abuse in the first place: workers precarious immigration status.

The current system of temporary, employer-specific work permits leaves labour and human rights beyond the reach of migrant workers in Canada, says a 2017 submission to the federal government from a coalition of 20 advocacy groups.

Last week, the government announced it would create a regularization program for asylum seekers working in the health-care sector that would provide them with a pathway to citizenship. Advocates in 10 cities across Canada will rally Sunday calling for the program to extend to all workers with precarious immigration status, including migrant workers.

Every step forward where one family is more secure is worth celebrating. But millions are still living in uncertainty, said Hussan.

Status is not a gift. Rights are not a gift. Rights are needed for people to live and protect themselves and build a stronger society.
It's too easy to miss brilliant streaming shows, movies and documentaries. Here are the ones to hit play on or skip.

The Umbrella Academy

Netflix

Viewers with little tolerance for undies-on-the-outside shenanigans might have written off The Umbrella Academy, assuming it to be a lame Hogwarts for misfit no-name superheroes (with a talking chimpanzee, no less!). But the first season wasn't like that at all.

The impressively engaging superhero misfits team of Umbrella Academy. Credit:Christos Kalohoridis/Netflix

Sure, we did learn that one day in 1989, some 43 women around the world suddenly gave birth, despite not having been pregnant at all moments earlier  and that many of those kids wound up with superpowers of one kind or another. And that seven of them were adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), who raised them to be an ultraviolent crime-fighting team.

The new wrinkle was that the series started with Hargreeves having just died, and with most of the adult kids  long estranged from Hargreeves and from each other  meeting up for the first time in years to do the funeral stuff and reckon with their abusive upbringings.
Opening a new Gmail account is easy for most people. But it's not the case when it comes to deleting it. The fear of losing data backed up on your drive, contacts, or any other Google tier makes it even more challenging. All this can be avoided if you know how to delete a Gmail account correctly.

Image: google.com

Source: UGC

The process to delete your Gmail account permanently varies from one gadget to the other. The steps followed on Android phones differ from those of an iOS device or even a laptop.

Procedure on how to delete a Gmail account

Before erasing your Gmail profile, keep in mind that you will lose all your mails in that address. It is advisable to download all the data from your account before starting the procedure.

How to erase Gmail on a computer

Connect to the internet: You can use your mobile data, hotspot, and LAN connection. Open your browser: Head to your start menu by pressing the Windows Logo key. Scroll down or use the search function to locate your favourite browser. Sign in to your account: Use your password to log in. Go to Google Account Management Page: Tap on the account button at the right hand of your screen. Head to the delete account section. Download your data: Back up your files before proceeding to the next step.

Image: google.com

Source: UGC

7. Tick the Gmail service: Tick the section and tap on the Next step button.

8. Select the delivery mode: You can either add the files to Drive, Dropbox, Box, or even download to your laptop by selecting Send download link via email.

9. Specify the file format: You can choose between zip and tgz. You will also need to specify the backup file size limits. Tap on the Create Export button.

10. Initiate the deleting process: You need to go back to step 5 above. Tap on "Delete a service." It would be best if you were careful not to delete your whole account.

11. Confirm ownership: Google will prompt you to provide the password of the account in question.

12. Delete Gmail: Next to its icon, you will see a dustbin icon.

Image: google.com

Source: UGC

13. Enter an alternate address: To continue using other Google services, you will need another email address. Once you have keyed it in, select Send Verification Email.

14. Retrieve the email sent from Google: Login into your new mail provider, open the message, and click on the link send to complete the procedure.

15. Finalize the process: Tap on Yes I want to delete (your username)@gmail.com Press on Delete Gmail then tap Done.

READ ALSO: How to request for your M-Pesa statement online

How to delete Gmail account permanently in Android phone

Connect to the internet: Use your mobile phone or any other connection. Open your Settings app: You can locate it on your App Tray. Go to Accounts: Scroll down to find this option. Choose Google: On the Accounts tab, you will see a list of service providers. Tap on the said option and select the account you want to delete. Find Data and Personalization: Click on it. Select Download, delete, or make a plan for your data: You will have to scroll down to locate this option. Back up your data: Follow steps 6 to 9 in the above personal computer procedure. Head to Delete a service or your account: On the new window, select Delete a Google Service. Re-sign into your account: Provide your valid password. A new window will be opened if the operation was successful. Initiate the process: Tap on the Trash icon next to Gmail. You will be required to enter another email from a different mail provider. Email verification: Select Send Verification Email. Google will send a link to the new address. Retrieve it and click on it. Finalize the process: You might be required to re-sign into the account again. Press on Yes I want to delete (your username)@gmail.com then Delete Gmail and lastly Done. This is how to delete Gmail account from the phone.

Image: google.com

Source: UGC

Delete Gmail account from iPhone

Open your Gmail app: Connect to the web then head to your App Tray. Tap on Gmails icon to open it. Go to your settings: Once the application is launched. Head to the Settings section from its menu. Choose Your Account: This option will take you to another window where you will access your profile settings. Select Manage your Google Account: You will be able to see this option on the navigation panel. Tap Download, Delete, or make a plan for your data: Once the page is fully loaded, start by backing up your files via steps 6 to 9 from the personal computer procedure. Initiate the process: Start by selecting Delete a service or your account from the Download, delete, or make a plan for your data. Re-sign into your account: This will prove that you are the owner of the account to be deleted. Press Delete: Find Gmail and tap the Trash icon next to its logo. Move to the next step. Enter an alternate address: This is where a confirmation link will be sent. The address should not be from Gmail. Once done, tap on the Send Verification Link blue text. Verify the action: Access the inbox of the email you entered in the above step to retrieve the email from Google. Finalize the process: You might be required to re-sign into your account. Select Yes I want to delete (your username)@gmail.com, then tap Delete Gmail and lastly, Done.

READ ALSO: How to download Showmax movies and series

How to delete Gmail account permanently without password

Unfortunately, you can never delete your email without signing in to the Account Management panel. Hence, if you do not have its password, you need to recover it first via the steps below:

Connect to the internet: Once done, open your favourite browser. If you are using Opera Mini, set the Data Savings Mode to off or high. Go to the Gmail sign-in page: You should use the official link to avoid phishing attacks. Tap Forgot Password: This link is below the password text field. Answer all the questions: You will be asked some questions to confirm that you are the owner of the account. Reset password: Choose a strong yet easily memorable passcode.

Once you have set a new password and logged into your account, use the steps above according to your gadget operating system to delete your Gmail.

The procedure on how to delete a Gmail account is that simple. You only need to login, go to the account management panel, and execute the command.

Tuko.co.ke reported on February 18 seven ways to convert YouTube videos to MP3. ClipGrab, Y2mate are some of the ways to do the conversion.

To convert videos to MP3, you should either use an application or download it directly from a third-party website. Whichever method you prefer, ensure to use a reliable service that will not alter the quality of your videos.

READ ALSO: GenYouTube - How to download YouTube videos as mp3

Source: TUKO.co.ke
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Sydney/Melbourne, Australia  Fri, August 21, 2020 14:15 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f899de 2 World Australia,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Australia headed for its lowest daily increase in coronavirus infections in five weeks on Friday as the hotspot state of Victoria neared the midway point of lockdown, prompting the prime minister to hail "a week of increased hope".

While the rest of Australia eases restrictions, the home state of a quarter of its population is in a six-week lockdown due to a second wave of virus infections.

Victoria reported 179 new cases in the past 24 hours, from 240 a day earlier and down from over 700 a day two weeks ago. The state reported nine deaths.

The country's most populous state, neighboring New South Wales, reported just one new case as an emergency cabinet of state and federal leaders discussed the prospect of relaxing closures of state borders that have been in place for months.

"Today's meeting of national cabinet came during what I would describe as a week of increased hope," Prime Minister Scott Morrison told a televised news conference.

"We're doing better than most and many of the developed world in this situation."

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said new case numbers in his state had fallen faster than he expected after the state imposed a nightly curfew and shuttered many businesses.

"We are all pleased to see a 'one' in front of these additional case numbers," Andrews said. "To be at this point shows that the strategy is working."

With cases in Victoria declining and low or zero levels of infections elsewhere - some states had yet to report daily figures by mid-afternoon - business leaders have called for an easing of internal travel restrictions to alleviate the blow to business and the economy.

Many states have closed their borders to prevent the spread of infection, and Queensland's premier said earlier this week its border won't reopen to any states with cases of community transmission.

However, Prime Minister Morrison said Queensland had now agreed to relax a ban on interstate travel for people seeking health services. He said he would call for an agreed definition of a "hot spot" so the authorities and travellers could understand who was, or was not, allowed to travel interstate.

Qantas Airways Ltd said this week that state border closures were severely hampering a recovery in the domestic aviation market, while retail group Wesfarmers said the restrictions were causing "enormous hardship".

Other than the Victoria outbreak, Australia has largely avoided the high casualty numbers of many other nations with just under 24,500 infections and 472 deaths linked to the virus.
(Natural News) Tea tree oil, or melaleuca oil as it is sometimes called, is an essential oil obtained from the leaves of Melaleuca alternifolia, a small tree endemic to Australia.

Aboriginal Australians have used tea tree oil for centuries. These native people crush tea tree leaves to extract the oil, then inhale it to treat coughs and colds. It could also be applied to the skin to relieve irritation.

Scientists have since studied tea tree oil and found that organic compounds in the oil, such as terpinen-4-ol, can kill certain bacteria, fungi and viruses.

Numerous studies over the last decade have also demonstrated that tea tree oil can modulate immune function to suppress inflammation.

Best uses of tea tree oil for the skin

Its natural antioxidant and antimicrobial properties make tea tree oil a safe and potent natural medicine for treating bacterial and skin infections and promoting healing.

Plus, experts consider tea tree oil to be safe as a topical treatment, so putting it on the skin on a regular basis should not be a cause for concern. Here are some of the oils best uses for the skin:

Treats acne

One of the first rigorous clinical studies on tea tree oil assessed its effects on acne. The trial demonstrated that both tea tree oil and benzoyl peroxide, a chemical medication used to treat mild to moderate acne, reduced the numbers of inflamed lesions on the skin.

Scientists also find that people are able to tolerate tea tree oil better than other acne medications. Therefore, tea tree oil could be a safer substitute for acne medications for people with sensitive skin or preexisting skin conditions. (Related: Natural remedies for acne.)

Reduces oiliness

The same trial demonstrated that tea tree oil helped reduce oiliness and scaling. On the other hand, the results of another trial on sunscreen containing tea tree oil indicated that the oil did help reduce oiliness in at least one area of the face. Tea tree oil also helped in shrinking pores.

Moisturizes the skin

Tea tree oil makes for an ideal natural moisturizer. Studies show that the oil can alleviate swelling, reduce redness and minimize scaling, all of which occur as a result of dehydrated skin. If applied on a regular basis, tea tree oil can aid in maintaining clear, glowing skin in the long run.

Treats itching and irritation

Terpinen-4-ol can soothe skin inflammation that leads to itching and irritation. In particular, animal and human research on tea tree oil suggest that the topical application of the oil can relieve rashes due to contact dermatitis, a condition in which the skin becomes inflamed after direct contact with an allergen or irritant.

Shortens healing time

Putting tea tree oil into an open wound isnt recommended, but it can be useful for preventing small cuts, scrapes, blisters and minor burns from becoming infected. There is also some anecdotal evidence that the topical application of tea tree oil can aid in the healing of malignant skin ulcers.

How to use tea tree oil

Like most essential oils, tea tree oil contains high concentrations of potent compounds. Therefore, it is important to dilute it using a carrier oil, like grapeseed, jojoba and coconut, to protect against burns and skin irritation. Pure tea tree oil also shouldnt be ingested as doing so can cause serious health issues.

For best results, mix drops of tea tree oil and carrier oil then use a cotton ball to dab it on the affected areas. Others also like to add drops of tea tree oil to hot baths for a more spread-out or indirect exposure.

For most adults, the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA) recommends at least a three percent dilution. This means using 20 drops of essential oil per one ounce of carrier oil. If in doubt, consult an aromatherapist or a natural health practitioner.

Read more articles about tea tree oil and other potent essential oils at EssentialOils.news.

Sources include:

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

MedicalNewsToday.com

NAHA.org
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 16:28:42|Editor: huaxia

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BISHKEK, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan reported 196 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, raising its tally of infections to 42,803.

Nurbolot Usenbaev, the country's deputy health minister, said during an online news briefing that of the total number of infected, 3,073 are medical workers, including 14 new cases.

He also reported the recovery of 345 patients over the past day, bringing the country's total recoveries to 35,486. Meanwhile, 1,230 patients are still receiving treatment.

One more virus-related death has been recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,055.

Authorities in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, the country's worst-hit area, have lifted some restrictions to ensure economic stability.

The Bishkek Mayor's Office said that city passenger transport is now fully operational, excluding three hours a day for the cleaning and disinfection of vehicles.

Cafes, restaurants, shopping malls, and supermarkets are also allowed to open every day now from 7 a.m. till midnight.

In addition, temporary restrictions on visiting parks, squares, and other public spaces have been lifted.

However, leisure facilities such as nightclubs, bars, cinemas, and children's playgrounds must remain closed. Enditem
Who of us hasnt said about politics, What a nightmare! Scary! Sometimes, our impressions are closer to the truth than we might think. Canadian horror writer Andrew Pypers new book, The Residence, is set in the American White House in 1853, during the tenure of President-elect Franklin Pierce and his First Lady Jane Pierce, just after a terrible train crash kills their only surviving son, Bennie. We asked Pyper: Why set a horror story in The White House? Heres what he said.

I didnt set out to write a novel about Franklin Pierce. In fact, Id never even heard of Franklin Pierce before I embarked on research into haunted houses more generally  recreational, Google rabbit-holing.

Jane Pierce fascinated me first, then Franklin. Then the question of their marriage intrigued me. There was every reason to think that (it) would not be successful: they had all their children taken from them; he deceived her, promising her that he would not run for office; he was a drinker; she was more of an abolitionist and he was sort of a compromiser ditherer. Then they moved into the White House and had one of the most notably failed administrations in the history of the United States.

So (it was) the question of what makes a marriage? All intimacy, in all of its forms, boils down often to a shared proclivity or a secret or a crime.

For me, it was less about the White House (being) an interesting place to situate a haunted house story, but rather what if a married couple in the most pressurized domestic situation I can imagine  the president of the United States in this public official residence  what if they have a secret? Something thats so profound and so literally unspeakable that it carries them into their post- administrative life and it carries them into the grave.

Second, what if that secret in a way is Americas secret? That it has to do with this thing that this country even to this day refuses to look at directly, the cumulative damages of its loss, its crimes  slavery specifically  the legacy of slavery and all of its bloodshed. What if the secret of this marriage reflects on or speaks to the larger crime that is the foundation of the United States?

Once I thought, OK, this is a gothic story by its very nature, and using Janes claim in her letters that Bennie returned to her  well, what if he literally did? Now we have a ghost story. (That) was an opportunity to explore a resident of the White House who is still there today, some kind of entity that the Pierces brought there; some kind of malevolent force.

That was how I invented the idea of Sir. I dont think the novel ever uses the word demon, but he has that kind of demonic personality, he seeks confusion and distress and chaos. Theres a line in the book where he says, to paraphrase, the best way to destroy a nation is destroy its leader and the way you destroy the leader is you break his heart.

Its very hard to be sympathetic to the president of the United States, given who is in the White House right now, but it must be a profoundly lonely place to live and to exist. You live where you work  its private and yet its surrounded by floodlights, so therefore its not private at all. It isnt theirs.

Theres an opportunity for the four or eight years that those men live there, for some kind of breakdown, some kind of vulnerability, a break in their spirits. It would be a wonderful place for a demon because youre able to cling to these people who cant escape.

One of the challenges of writing a haunted house story is how do you explain why the people dont just leave? You have to have a good reason. In the case of the White House, theres nowhere to go, you cannot leave. That also adds to the psychological aspect of the story  something bad is here, but there is no way out.

I hope the novel is a way to think of whats happening now. Were all here in this awful moment together. To see it in mythic terms, that there really is evil in the world, and that evil at the moment holds the highest office in the world and it is executing cruelties and denying people their liberties. We can think of this in political terms, we can think of it in electoral terms, we can think of it in policy terms. I hope the novel invites readers to think of it in moral terms.

There are moments in history where it just comes down to good and bad. Which side are you on?
Queen Elizabeth II's abdication has been the talk of the world in recent years.

In 2015, Her Majesty set a new record after she surpassed the reign of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, and became the longest-reigning British monarch. But each year that she adds on the record makes Prince Charles' waiting even longer as the current heir to the throne.

Although the Queen pledged to dedicate her whole life serving the monarchy, many royal experts noticed that she has been stepping aside and transferring more responsibilities to the Prince of Wales.

This set-up ignited speculations that she could take early retirement and begin the period of regency.

In an interview with Sky News, royal editor Robert Jobson shared his sentiment over the fact that Prince Charles has been doing royal duties on behalf of the Queen since she cannot expect "to continue at the same pace."

"He is certainly the longest-serving heir to the throne. I'm sure he will continue to do so if the Queen wants to continue in that role," Jobson said.

In addition, Queen Elizabeth II's abdication could lead to two things: Prince Charles finally becoming the Prince Regent and an enjoyable retirement for herself.

If Her Majesty chooses to step aside for the heir to the throne, she would follow Prince Philip's footsteps who retired from his duties at the age of 96.

"But otherwise in the Prince of Wales' transition over the past 10 to 15 years, he has been taking on more of the responsibilities of the Queen," the royal editor mentioned. "He is supported by Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge as well."

Amid the speculation, Jobson revealed that the formal handing of the crown through regency is in progress. With that said, expect Prince Charles to continue to cover Queen Elizabeth II's duties.

Queen Elizabeth II to Step Down Next Year

Meanwhile, another royal expert predicted that Queen Elizabeth II could give way to Prince Charles as early as next year.

Speaking with Channel 5 documentary "The Queen and Charles - Mother and Son," royal biographer Angela Levin said that the monarch might wholly step down at 95.

Meanwhile, the documentary's narrator, Stephen Greif, said, "Some royal experts think that the Queen's age may eventually force her to step down from her day to day duties as monarch. Charles would become Prince Regent, King in all but name."

Levin said that if Queen Elizabeth II is already incapable of doing her duties as the head of the monarchy, then Prince Charles can take over and do the duties she cannot perform anymore.

However, royal historian Dr. Anne Whitelock disagreed with their statements, saying that there is no way Queen Elizabeth II would abdicate.

"There is much speculation that the Queen might one day have to abdicate," she said. "I think there is no chance of the Queen abdicating."

The monarchy is still trying to get up on its own after getting affected by different crises. With that said, only Queen Elizabeth II can decide whether she will finally give way to Prince Charles or not.

READ MORE: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Too Ambitious? They Want a Billionaire Lifestyle!
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is in serious condition at a Siberian hospital after falling ill from what his press spokeswoman said appeared to be deliberate poisoning.

Navalny, 44, is in a medical facility in Omsk where doctors have induced a coma and connected him to a respirator. He was aboard a flight heading home to Moscow when he fell ill, forcing an emergency landing. A passenger posted a video to Telegram in which cries could be heard from inside the airplane's lavatory stall.

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said in a tweet that the opposition leader had some black tea before complaining he felt poorly during the flight. "It was the only thing that he drank in the morning. Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid," said Yarmysh in a post to social media.

A passenger, Pavel Lebedev, posted a photo from an airport cafe prior to the flight that showed Navalny in a cafe drinking what appeared to be a cup of tea. S7, the airline whose plane Navalny boarded, said he had not been served food or drink.

Speaking to reporters, the deputy head doctor of Hospital No. 1 in Omsk, Anatoly Kalinichenko, suggested Navalny's condition had stabilized somewhat but remained serious. "His active treatment is ongoing," Kalinichenko said. "Doctors aren't simply doing everything possible. Doctors are truly working to save his life."

Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, arrived at the hospital Thursday afternoon but initially was prevented from visiting Navalny on the ground that the patient hadn't given consent to the visit. Navalny's personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, accompanied Yulia Navalnaya but was denied access to her patient.

Pictures and video from the scene showed scores of police at the hospital, presumably to carry out an investigation. Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny associate, reported to the media that the hospital had for now ruled out the opposition politician's transportation to Moscow. Supporters of the opposition leader held picket vigils in protest in several cities across the country.

When asked about Navalny at a daily briefing Thursday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said, "We are following with concern the reports that Mr. Navalny has a sudden illness. We obviously wish him a speedy recovery. Any allegations of suspected poisoning, if confirmed, should be fully investigated."
RTHK: Postmaster: No pre-election return of mail boxes

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said on Friday he was unaware of recent mail operation changes until they sparked a public uproar. But he also said he has no plans to restore mailboxes or high-speed sorting machines that have been removed.

His testimony raised fresh questions about how the Postal Service will ensure timely delivery of ballots for the November election.

DeJoy told senators that election mail would be prioritized for delivery as in years past. But he said that blue curbside collection boxes and sorting equipment that have been removed are not needed.

DeJoy distanced himself from President Trump's complaints about mail-in ballots that are expected to surge in the coronavirus pandemic, but he told senators could not yet provide a detailed plan about how he will ensure on-time election mail delivery.

He declared that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on-time. He said that was a sacred duty and his "No. 1 priority between now and Election Day.

I think the American people should be able to vote by mail, DeJoy testified.

The new postmaster general, a Trump donor and ally who took the job in June, has faced a public outcry over changes and delivery delays. Democrats warn his cost-cutting initiatives are causing an upheaval that threatens the election.

They peppered him during a two-hour hearing with questions about the Trump administrations push to starve the Postal Service of emergency funds to process ballots for November. Trump had said he wants to block agency funding to make it harder for the Postal Service to handle the expected surge of mail-in ballots during the Covid-19 crisis.

DeJoy said he has had few conversations with White House officials.

He said he had no idea equipment was being removed until the public outcry. Democrats asked DeJoy to explain the rationale behind the changes and pressed him on how, exactly, he would ensure election mail and ballots would arrive on time.

Do you have a more detailed plan? demanded Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, asking for it by Sunday.

I dont think well have a complete plan by Sunday night, DeJoy replied, acknowledging it was just being formed.

Grilled by Senator Jacky Rosen, (Democrat, Nevada), DeJoy acknowledged that he did few studies of how the changes he was making would impact seniors, veterans and working families.

It was the first time DeJoy publicly answered questions since the delays,said and several senators said he has not been forthcoming with information to Congress.

However, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, defended him and dismissed the Democratic claims of election sabotage.

So this isnt some devious plot on your part, Johnson said.

Johnson, of Wisconsin, said public outcry over the mail smacked of ginned up" effort to rally voters  a political hit job."

The hearing was held remotely as Congress is on recess and lawmakers have been conducting much of their business during the coronavirus outbreak in virtual settings.

The outcry over mail delays and warnings of political interference have put the Postal Service at the center of the nation's tumultuous election year, with Americans rallying around one of the nation's oldest and more popular institutions.

With mounting pressure, DeJoy promised this week to postpone any further changes until after the election, saying he wanted to avoid even the perception of interference. Blue mailboxes were being removed, back-of-shop sorting equipment shutdown and overtime hours kept in check.

But DeJoy told senators dramatic changes are coming to the Postal Service after the election, and he stood by a newly-imposed rule that limits late delivery trips, which several postal workers have said is a major cause of delivery delays.

Senator Mitt Romney said the publics concern is understandable, particularly given Trumps efforts to stop universal mail-in ballots.

Meanwhile, attorneys general in Pennsylvania, California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington D.C., filed a lawsuit on Friday to halt the changes. In all, some 20 states and several voting rights groups are now suing. (AP)

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 16:06:59|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP said on Tuesday that China will be the only major economy to grow this year, while coronavirus recovery in developed countries lags, the South China Morning Post reported.

In its full-year earnings report, the diversified miner forecasted China to be shouldering the bulk of global growth in the next several years, with developed countries not starting recovery until 2021.

"While the outlook for 2021 remains uncertain, within the scenarios that we consider, our base case has the world economy rebounding solidly during the year," BHP said in its outlook.

"There will, however, be considerable variation at the country level," it was quoted as saying.

The company said it expected the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to return to their pre-COVID-19 trend growth rates by around 2023.

The downbeat predictions cast a shadow over global demand for commodities in the near future, including iron ore and coal.

"[Global] recovery prospects and speed may prove very uneven, varying considerably by country, thereby affecting demand for our commodities," BHP chief executive Mike Henry said in an online presentation.

The company narrowly missed its full-year profit target after lower oil and coal earnings and higher one-off costs, including expenses caused by its pandemic response, the report said. Enditem
Sunita Rani knows the meaning of hard work. As an accredited social health activist (Asha) worker, her days would start at 7 am, distributing supplements to pregnant women, taking them for check-ups and to give birth in hospitals, tracking their childrens weight and immunisation, even advising young wives about contraception.

Then the coronavirus struck and hard work took on a whole new meaning.

Since March, Sunita has done 11 rounds of interviews among the 1,000 people under her care. She has walked up to five-km a day, telling people to stay home, documenting the elderly and the sick, monitoring for symptoms, checking on those who need medicine.

In the early days, there were no masks so I wrapped my face with my chunni, she said on the phone from Sonepat, Haryana.

A single mother of two, she had to deal with the anger of her extended family: You will bring the disease home, they told her. Their fears seemed to come true when an Asha worker in Kaithal tested positive and couldnt get admitted in a hospital, We arent even guaranteed health care in government facilities, said Sunita.

Then, local communities got angry and turned on the Asha workers. People had run out of rations. They were afraid. In May, when an Asha worker pasted a quarantine sticker outside the home of a person who had tested positive in Butana village, the family attacked her with a steel pipe.

We arent robots. You cant press our buttons and expect us to perform, said Sunita. On August 7, 600,000 Asha workers and 100,000 anganwadi workers went on strike across India. Their demands: Better pay, health insurance and protective gear.

The women feel invisiblised during the pandemic, Bhanupriya Rao, founder of Behenbox that conducted a 16-state survey of Asha workers along with website Article14, told me: They want rights but they also want respect.

India has 100,000 Asha workers, 1.3 million anganwadi workers and another 1.2 million anganwadi helpers  all women. A majority of this force entrusted with improving maternal and child health come from impoverished backgrounds: Dalit, Adivasi, single mothers.

As volunteers, they receive an honorarium of between Rs 2,000 and Rs 4,000. In April, the government announced a one-time Rs 1,000 payment for all Covid-related work. Two states, Andhra Pradesh and Assam, have yet to pay, said Rao.

When we think of front-line warriors, we tend to think of doctors and nurses. There are no candles for Indias grassroots health workers, the ones on the ground with links to their community, monitoring, checking, fighting a global enemy at personal risk with little protection, less money and zero acknowledgment.

And yet, they play a pivotal role, especially now as the pandemic spirals out of urban centres. If we are to win this battle, we need to strengthen this force, not steamroller it.

We only want to be able to work with dignity, Sunita said. That is not a lot to ask for.

Namita Bhandare writes on gender

The views expressed are personal

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Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Friday slammed Congress for allegedly politicising the Bengaluru violence issue and said the "truth will come out."

"The investigation is underway in the Bengaluru violence issue, the truth will come out. Congress should not fix blame before that and should not politicise the matter," the Karnataka CM said while speaking to media.

On August 16, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President DK Shivakumar has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of politicising the Bengaluru violence and said his party is doing its part by constituting a six-member fact-finding committee to investigate the DJ Halli and KG Halli violence.

"The investigation is underway. BJP is politicising the incident. They are trying to wash up their internal issues. Whatever Naveen has posted, he himself has said that a BJP supporter has created this entire scene. They want to protect that and that is why they created the issue," said Shivakumar.

The violence broke out in parts of Bengaluru on August 11, over an alleged "derogatory" social media post. At least three people were killed and nearly 60 police personnel were injured in the incident.

Moreover, a total of 35 accused were arrested on August 16 in connection with Bengaluru violence, taking the total number of arrests in the cases to 340, informed the police.

Karnataka Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council sessions will be held between 21-30 September 2020, said JC Madhuswamy, Karnataka's Parliamentary Affairs Minister.
Nearly two decades after 17-year-old Alissa Turney disappeared, Phoenix police have arrested the man believed to be responsible for her death.

Her stepfather Michael Turney was arrested Thursday afternoon in Mesa, Arizona. He faces second-degree murder charges.

MORE: Doubts about dedicated stepfather mount in 'runaway' case

"I'm shaking and I'm crying. We did it," Sarah Turney, Alissa's sister, posted on social media. "He's been arrested ... Never give up hope that you can get justice. It took almost 20 years but we did it."

Michael Turney, 72, made his first court appearance Friday where a judge denied him a reduction in bond. He is due back in court next Friday.

Alissa Turney disappeared in May 2001, the last day of her junior year at Paradise Valley High School in Phoenix.

PHOTO: Michael Turney has been arrested in the murder of his stepdaughter, Alissa Turney, who was killed in 2001. (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)

Police believed something was wrong because she left behind her cellphone, her hairbrush and makeup and never touched any of the $1,800 in her bank account.

Authorities also found surveillance equipment inside her house, which her stepfather admitted to setting up, for what he claimed to be safety reasons and not to spy on his children. Police also found all inbound and outbound calls were passively recorded.

MORE: Looking for Alissa: Father hunts for rebellious teen

In an interview with police, one friend said that Alissa had told him her stepfather had tried sexually abusing her when she was younger.

Turney denied that allegation, denied that he harmed Alissa in any way and said he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

PHOTO: An arrest was made in the cold case of Alissa Turney. (Phoenix Police Department)

In 2009, Michael Turney told ABC News he returned home the day she disappeared to discover she had left a note and said he immediately began looking for her. Her stepfather also said he got a call from her a week later, which would have been the last known contact.

Sarah also spoke to ABC News in 2009, at the time standing by her father's innocence. But in recent years, she has worked to raise awareness about what she's concluded to be her father's guilt, posting on social media with #JusticeforAlissa and working on her podcast, "Voices for Justice."

During the press conference, officials credited Alissa's sister, Sarah, for her perseverance in this case.

19 years after teen disappeared, stepfather arrested and charged with murder originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Taryn Manning is set to bring Karen to film.

The Falls Church, Virginia native, 41, will play an amalgam of the people who have been seen online in viral videos displaying racist and entitled behavior toward others in a new feature film directed by Coke Daniels, TMZ reported on Thursday.

According to Urban Dictionary, Karen is 'the stereotypical name associated with rude, obnoxious and insufferable middle aged white women. Karens take everything wrong with the typical over entitled Western woman and crank it up by several thousand percent.'

The latest: Taryn Manning, 41, will play an amalgam of the people who have been seen online in viral videos displaying racist and entitled behavior toward others in a new feature film directed by Coke Daniels, TMZ reported on Thursday. She was snapped in LA earlier this year

The film's storyline will center around a woman who seeks to push her Black neighbors, who are supporters of Black Lives Matter, to move.

Daniels - who has past worked on projects such as Highway and His, Hers & the Truth - said the aim of the project is to shed light on ongoing race relations in the country, according to the outlet.

Manning previously played Tiffany 'Pennsatucky' Doggett on the Netflix show Orange Is the New Black, who she described as 'racist, homophobic' and 'horrible' character in a July 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

She said of the challenge of playing the character: 'Everything that Im not is what she was, so it was very tough.'

Out and about: The actress was snapped in LA earlier this year

Manning previously played Tiffany 'Pennsatucky' Doggett on Orange Is the New Black

'I gave myself a lot of pep talks: "Just muscle through this and youre going to come out the other side,"' she said. 'But if youre going to do this, do it well.'

Manning said of the challenges of applying method acting and while isolating herself to playing the character.

'I didnt make many friends that first season,' she said. 'She wouldnt talk to them anyway, she doesnt like them. 'As they all got along and had a great time, I was sitting over on the side in character like, "Screw them."

'Thats when I realized that I was a little bit more method than I thought. I thought that I could snap in and out, but to go to that dark of a place and to own it, to convince people that this is truly how she is, it had to be fully method. Taryn went bye. It was all this girl that I created.'

The film's storyline will center around a woman who seeks to push her Black neighbors, who are supporters of Black Lives Matter, to move

The actress, also known for her work in A Lot Like Love, Hustle & Flow and Crossroads, opened up on the learning experiences she gleaned from playing Pennsatucky on the streaming series.

'I learned so much from that role, it changed my life,' Manning said. 'I became very, very religious  and Ive said "No" to about six roles that Ive been offered since [that are similar].

'I definitely need to work, but I cant continue to play awful people or stereotypes. It just doesnt resonate with me. Im a good person and not this horrible person that people want to send me roles for; I dont want to play it anymore. Its exhausting and it hurts.'
FILE PHOTO: Telecom Italia's logo is seen at the headquarters in Rozzano neighbourhood of Milan

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's single broadband network operator cannot be controlled by a majority shareholder, the deputy industry minister said on Friday after Telecom Italia (TIM) <TLIT.MI> said it would not accept less than 50% of any network.

The Italian government is trying to negotiate a deal between the phone group and Open Fiber, which is jointly owned by state lender CDP and utility Enel <ENEI.MI>, to merge fibre assets and create a single national champion.

However, progress has been delayed as it seeks solutions over governance and regulation issues.

"Under a regulatory and antitrust profile, a single network company that supplies wholesale access services to all operators cannot be in the hands of a single, vertically integrated majority shareholder, " Stefano Buffagni told daily newspaper la Repubblica.

He had been asked about TIM wanting to remain as majority shareholder of any future network.

TIM, which has both retail and wholesale arms, has repeatedly said it wants to keep control of any merged entity with Open Fiber, while European regulations favour the adoption of a non-vertically integrated model outside TIM's control.

On Thursday Chief Executive Luigi Gubitosi reiterated the group's desire to hold the majority of the capital but was flexible on governance issues.

"Today, all of our most sensitive data runs on that network and the competitiveness of our companies (depends on it)," Buffagni said.

The minister added that Italy could use the European Recovery Fund for the single-network project, but only if the system as a whole were to benefit from the funds rather than a single company.

Buffagni said he was in favour of a previous TIM project to split off its network business, controlled either by the state or a newly floated company.

"If well implemented, it would be able to create value for all; shareholders, too. It would be good for the country as well as the company ... and the vertical integration would disappear," he added.

(This story corrects typographical error in headline)

(Reporting by Giulia Segreti; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and David Goodman)
Sanef has announced that it plans to award the 2020 Nat Nakasa Award to the entire South African body of media professionals and journalists, honouring the role of media in our society during the Covid-19 pandemic with a special edition documentary.

Sanef chairperson, Mahlatse Mahlase.

Bring life to the heroes behind the headlines

Set against the backdrop of a country plagued with corruption and economic inequality, the coronavirus lockdown and a world in crisis, Sanef set out to lift the veil and bring to life the heroes that stand behind the headlines as we honour the media with the 2020 Nat Nakasa Award.

Journalists have continued to do what they do

The announcement will be officially made on Saturday, 22 August, with the airing of a documentary commissioned to commemorate the vital role journalists play in our society  especially in light of the harsh circumstances journalists as individuals find themselves in during the coronavirus pandemic.The documentary, which was filmed in recent months while the country still remained under national lockdown regulations, aims to shine a light on the courageous work done by South African journalists on the frontlines in a time of great unease and continued stress due to the global pandemic.Says Sanef chairperson, Mahlatse Mahlase:Journalists have continued to work every day, despite the risk of themselves being infected and also in some instances facing a precarious future. The industry has faced mass retrenchments, massive salary cuts and closure of media houses.Sanlam chief executive: Brand Sydney Mbhele said, This acknowledgement to journalists collectively as winners of the Nat Nakasa Award not only reflects their brilliance on holding powerful individuals and institutions in society accountable on the unprecedented and complex social impact of the coronavirus, it also honours their on-going dedication to promote an informative and free press. Our support for the awards and Sanef reflects our commitment to support journalism and media initiatives that reflect a boldness and transparency that helps make our world an open-minded, enlightened place to live, thrive and play.The award is traditionally presented to a single South African practitioner in newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and online media and whose reporting celebrates freedom of speech and media integrity. It recognises integrity, fearless reporting, commitment to the service of the people of South Africa, the tenacity to maintain reporting despite significant obstacles, in resistance of censorship, and having shown courage in making information available to the public.Our journalists have played a vital role on the frontlines in 2020 as we face the pandemic head on, and will be honoured with a collection of true contemporary stories shared by so many of our countries most seasoned journalists and media voices as they unmask (literally) the day-to-day struggles faced in their plight to provide us with unbiased and in-depth coverage of current affairs.The Sanef management committee and independent judges took the decision that all journalists working tirelessly across the country and in our communities deserve the Nat Nakasa Award for the courage that they have displayed.For many it is tough to listen to the news, let alone the toll it takes on those who are experiencing, dissecting and reporting on the current realities faced by our country and the world as a whole, says Mahlase.Disease, poverty, displacement, hunger, brutality, GBV, corruption, looting, and the rising Covid-19 death toll are just some of the headlines weve come to read  and expect  each day as we open our eyes in South Africa. But in this we forget that it is often about people, and that these stories are brought to us by people  all while managing very personal experiences such as risk to their own families through exposure to the virus, police brutality as well as the very real and very harsh impact of a loss of income and their own livelihoods. Journalists have continued to do what they do, often with a window on the world that is as real for them as the people they are documenting, she says.The documentary honouring the media with the 2020 award will air on most national news channels on Saturday, 22 August 2020, after which it will be available to stream on the official Sanef YouTube page
A team of Trump supporters came out to Flagstaff to mingle with more than 100 people from northern Arizona at two events Thursday.

Northern Arizona resident Wendy Block drove from Cottonwood to arrive at the event at Timberline Firearms and Training by 9:30 a.m. In her mind, supporting President Donald Trumps re-election bid was a must.

Hes done a wonderful job. Hes had to shut [the economy] off all of a sudden, and hes bringing it back." Block said. "He knows what hes doing. He knows the economy and knows how things work.

The large red bus touting Team Trump on Tour could be seen making its way down Milton Road in Flagstaff and driving down Highway 89A in Doney Park. Flagstaff is widely considered a rural  yet liberal  college town in a county that was picked up by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, who represents a southeastern part of the Phoenix metropolitan area including Gilbert, and Jeff DeWit, chief operating officer of the Trump campaign, spoke for more than 10 minutes before mingling for about an hour to turn as many votes red as they could.

The decision to mingle is a significant departure for an election season defined by the virus. Those wary of the threat of COVID-19s ability to infect people may support Democrats' decision to hold more virtual events, but some Republican candidates are focusing on the historic method to political victories: meeting with candidates matters.

A member of the public interrupted the event toward its end when the Flagstaff Police Department asked the drivers to move the bus from the corner that was parked next to a no-parking zone in the shopping center.

The story so far

Trump won the national election in 2016 in part because of the 11 electoral votes he picked up in Arizona. Then-candidate Hillary Clinton ended the night with 1.16 million votes in total from Arizona, while Trump won the state with 1.25 million votes.

Coconino County was the ninth-highest contributor to Trumps Arizona win, whereas Coconino was the fourth-highest contributor to Clintons total votes. She won the race in Coconino County with 32,000 votes, approximately 12,000 higher than Trump.

The 2016 race, and subsequent elections, have largely led to Arizona being considered a battleground state for the presidency.

A collection of polls from 538 currently place Mark Kelly handily past appointed Sen. Martha McSally. Major polls in 2016 had notoriously undersold Trump's chances at winning. The presidential race is much tighter, but Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden has been in the lead since March. He currently leads by three points overall.

Upcoming elections

DeWit and Biggs sat down in the bus for a short interview with the Arizona Daily Sun and discussed their strategy for the November election in Arizona before speaking to the gathering outside of the Republican office.

The two brought up water, land and conservation issues they felt were important to rural voters, but also talked about immigration, Second Amendment and police budgeting as important issues overall. Biggs portrayed the defunding police conversation as a discussion about whether neighborhoods would be safe if funding were to be taken away.

In Flagstaff, hundreds of protesters pushed the Flagstaff City Council to reduce the police budget at a late vote in June. Hundreds of protesters also opposed the move, however, and felt that police funds were critical as they were set and should not be diverted into alternative crisis response methods.

The largely Democratic council voted unanimously to fund the police fully, and kicked the can down the road saying conversations were more appropriate for the 2021-22 budget.

Biggs felt Democrats were not being strong enough against calls to defund the police, and hammered his belief home in his short speech at the event.

You wont find a bigger dichotomy between what the left wants to do and the rights wants to do, Biggs said. We talk about safe and secure neighborhoods and communities; they talk about defunding police. We talk and point out riots in Portland; they talk about peaceful protesters.

Meanwhile, DeWit, the former Arizona State Treasurer, focused broadly on the Second Amendment as a strength the Republican party should rely on in Arizona.

I think one of the most important issues in Arizona, as we all know, is the Second Amendment, DeWit said. I was incredibly strong on it. Andys really strong on it. The president is strong on it. Thats why we were excited that our first stop today was Timberlines Firearms and Training.

Meeting politicians

Rob Wilson, owner at Timberlines Firearms and Training who agreed to host the event, said his goal was not to endorse any candidate, but inform the public. He acknowledged that after posting information about the event, he lost some followers on his social media account, but he also gained some.

Im a strong advocate for an informed electorate. We as citizens have a responsibility to be educated on the candidates and the issues and act accordingly with the information we have to vote, Wilson said. This was a great way to connect citizens to the potential elected leaders.

And there are quite a few politicians to meet. Beyond the Trump bus speakers, Coconino County Supervisor Jim Parks, running for State Representative for Legislative District 6, Rep. Bob Thorpe, running for Coconino County Supervisor District 4, Rep. Walt Blackman, running for re-election, Paul Mock, independent candidate for Coconino County Supervisor District 1, and Williams Mayor John Moore all showed up to mingle with the crowd.

Many politicians held signs and voiced their support for Trump and his agenda. They could be seen hugging children, signing front-lawn signs and speaking with people both masked and unmasked during the pandemic.

Blackman came to Flagstaff to introduce speakers at the event, saying he wanted to "rile up" the base to get the president re-elected.

"We gotta try to respect folks wearing masks. I try not to get close if they don't want to," Blackman said. "When we're knocking on doors, I don't knock on somebody's door if they're an older couple. I'll leave something on their door and something to sanitize.

"For those folks who do want to see me, like those folks out here, I try to make sure I'm available to them," Blackman added.

Some voters who attended the event, such as Kent Cowell, are dedicated, and say they know what they're going to do come November. Cowell called the president accomplished. He said the border wall and representative governments were important issues for him.

Im pro-Trump  all the way, Cowell said.

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Northern lights over Chena Lake, just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. Photo by Andy Witteman. Big auroras can happen on nights which are seemingly quiet, and cloudy nights can break up just enough to let the purples and greens rain down from the stars!

Fairbanks world-famous northern lights lure aurora chasers from around the world. Such is the case with University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) physics student Andy Witteman. Andy is so passionate about the aurora that he lives to study, photograph and chase the northern lights. When he discovered UAFs Geophysical Institute was the foremost research center for auroral studies in North America he knew that Fairbanks, Alaska, was where he wanted to follow his dreams. This Aurora Season we are partnering with Andy to showcase a few of his brilliant real time and time lapse aurora videos for those who choose to armchair travel until the time is right. Andy says, For anyone with an adventurous spirit, the northern lights can become an obsession bringing you to the edges of the world! Big auroras can happen on nights which are seemingly quiet, and cloudy nights can break up just enough to let the purples and greens rain down from the stars! View Andy Wittemans five brand new videos on the Explore Fairbanks website.

Explore Fairbanks has built the Aurora Tracker to assist visiting aurora chasers. The Aurora Tracker correlates three individual streams of data to predict northern lights viewing opportunities for six locations in the Fairbanks region. Data streams include: aurora forecast data from the Geophysical Institute, weather forecast data for specific northern lights viewing locations and the amount of daylight hours. The aurora will be visible in Fairbanks an average of four out of five nights when the sky is clear and dark enough. Visitors who stay a minimum of three nights and are actively out during the late evening hours increase their chance of seeing the aurora to more than 90 percent.

Spanning all four seasons and nine months of the year Aurora Season, August 21 through April 21, has arrived. Due to the fact that natural phenomena are unscathed by viruses, locals are out chasing the aurora and have developed ways to safely assist visitors in this pursuit. Whether you want to virtually engage in northern lights viewing or you want to plan to see them in person, Explore Fairbanks is at your service. On Explore Fairbanks website you will find a current downloadable PDF list of local accommodations, attractions and tours as well as eating and drinking establishments that are Open for Business.

As you make your travel plans to Fairbanks, find up-to-date information about Alaskas COVID-19 travel restrictions, including testing requirements, pinned to the top of Explore Fairbanks home page. With careful planning and precautions, including mask wearing, social distancing and hand sanitation, we invite you to come Explore Fairbanks Responsibly and make your aurora viewing wishes come true.

Find out about the above and more at http://www.explorefairbanks.com. For specific questions, email info@explorefairbanks.com.

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About Explore Fairbanks

Explore Fairbanks is a non-profit marketing and management organization whose mission is to be an economic driver in the Fairbanks region by marketing to potential visitors and optimizing the visitor experience. Explore Fairbanks markets Fairbanks as a year-round destination by promoting local events, attractions and activities to independent travelers, group tour operators, travel agents, meeting planners and the media as well as by developing public policy and infrastructure to achieve marketing objectives. Explore Fairbanks encourages travelers to Explore Fairbanks Responsibly. Find out more at explorefairbanks.com.
David Frost and Michael Barnier - AFP

Brussels has made Brexit negotiations "unnecessarily difficult" by insisting that the UK signs up to state aid and fisheries rules, David Frost has warned.

The UKs chief negotiator said that any further substantive work was being delayed by Brussels creating roadblocks out of the two particular areas of concern.

It comes as Mr Frosts EUs counterpart Michel Barnier accused the British Government of wasting valuable time in trade talks with the European Union. After the seventh round of Brexit talks ended in deadlock, a senior negotiating official for the UK insisted that "it's not us that's slowing it down".

The source said: The process block now is the EUs insistence that we must accept their position on state aid and fisheries before we can talk about anything else. Were obviously not going to do that.

We are ready to talk about everything and it's not us thats slowing things down.

The official said that EU negotiators were still insisting that we must accept arrangements that are rather like the Commons Fisheries Policy.

EU negotiators have demanded a status quo deal, which would allow their fleet the same access to UK waters as if Britain was not leaving the CFP, while Britain has demanded a Norway-style fishing deal with annual negotiations on fishing quotas.

Its in their hands to move to a more realistic position that recognises us as an independent coastal state, the UK source added. The seventh round of free trade negotiations were overshadowed by rows over migration and the rights of British haulage firms to operate inside the EU single market.

Road haulage is one policy area that has repeatedly been singled out by the EU's chief Brexit negotiator where the UK is trying to obtain "single market-like benefits".

Why should we give access to our roads to road transport firms, which would not be subject to the same rules in terms of minimum standards and safety?", Mr Barnier asked.

Story continues

The need for a level playing field is not going to go away, he added. It is a non-negotiable precondition to grant access to our market.

There has also been little progress on the UK Government's calls to carve out a new arrangement by which it can send unwanted migrants back to Europe from 2021.

Downing Street wants to replace the "inflexible and rigid" Dublin regulation which states that migrants should have their asylum claim examined in the first EU country they enter.

Brussels diplomats have suggested the issue could be held back for future leverage in negotiations.

"Without a deal on the future relationship between the EU and the UK, the chances for an agreement on migration are rather slim, said one senior EU diplomat.

"You may like it or not, but Brexit means Brexit."

However, a senior UK official said the real reason there had been no progress on the issue was because of internal conflict between the EUs 27 nations.

A senior UK negotiating official said an agreement had not been found because there "isn't agreement inside the EU on this".

"We were open to agreeing a returns agreement with the EU and weve been continually suggesting that," they said. In an effort to break the impasse Mr Frost presented a draft free trade agreement during a private dinner with Mr Barnier this week.

It was a very nice dinner and as always we had courteous and friendly discussions in which we don't hide the significant differences between our positions, a UK official said. Mr Frost conceded after the latest set of talks that a deal would "not be easy to achieve", a sentiment matched by his counterpart.

Too often this week it felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards, Mr Barnier told reporters in Brussels.

I simply do not understand why we are wasting valuable time. At this stage, an agreement between the UK and the EU remains unlikely.
WILMINGTON, Del. - Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night with a vow to be a unifying ally of the light who would move an America in crisis past the chaos of President Donald Trumps tenure.

In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Biden spoke both of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life. Virtually every sentence of his 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast with the Republican incumbent.

Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. lll be an ally of the light, not the darkness, Biden said. Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

For the 77-year-old Biden, the final night of the Democratic National Convention was bittersweet. He accepted a nomination that had eluded him for over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

But the coronavirus denied him the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

For more on this story, visit the Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2020/08/20/democrats-pound-their-message-to-oust-trump-you-must-vote.html

Afterward, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena where supporters waited in a parking lot, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the event.

The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Trump in November. Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Bidens mental capacity and calls him Slow Joe, but with the nation watching, he was firm and clear.

Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has common decency.

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in U.S. history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Biden came out in favour of same-sex marriage as vice-president even before President Barack Obama.

Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans, Buttigieg said. Its the struggle to call out what is good for every American.

Above all, Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Bidens positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by former President Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trumps policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centred and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nations mounting crises and policy challenges.

Voting was another prime focus of the convention on Thursday as it has been all week. Democrats fear that the pandemic -- and Trump administration changes at the Postal Service -- may make it difficult for voters to cast ballots in person or by mail.

Comedian Sarah Cooper, a favourite of many Democrats for her videos lip syncing Trumps speeches, put it bluntly: Donald Trump doesnt want any of us to vote because he knows he cant win fair and square.

Bidens call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Trump down, that Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. Thats easier said than done in a modern Democratic Party made up of disparate factions that span generation, race and ideology.

Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Bidens background before he began serving as Obamas vice-president in 2008.

Thursdays convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.

I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes, Biden said. He added: I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.

As a schoolboy, Biden was mocked by classmates and a nun for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. And just five years ago, he buried his eldest son who was stricken by cancer.

Former President Barack Obama warned that American democracy could falter if President Donald Trump is reelected, a stunning rebuke of his successor that was echoed by Kamala Harris at the Democratic Convention as she embraced her historic role as the first Black woman on a national political ticket.

From such hardship, Biden developed a deep sense of empathy that has defined much of his political career. And throughout the convention, Bidens allies testified that such empathy, backed by decades of governing experience, makes him the perfect candidate to guide the nation back from mounting health and economic crises.

His allies Thursday included Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy from Concord, New Hampshire. The boy said he and Biden were members of the same club, each with a stutter theyre working to overcome.

He noted that Biden told him about a book of poems he liked to read aloud to practice his speech and showed the boy how he marks his speeches so theyre easier to read aloud.

Im just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about a thing thats bothered me my whole life, Harrington said.

The end of the carefully scripted convention now gives way to a far less-predictable period for Biden and his Democratic Party as the 2020 election season speeds to its uncertain conclusion. While Election Day isnt until Nov. 3, early voting gets underway in several battleground states in just one month.

Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominees approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition hes courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.

Trumps Republican Party is expected to deliver a message next week squarely focused on the presidents most loyal supporters..

Biden summed up his view of the campaign: We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal.

___

Peoples reported from New York.
They have jetted off for a family vacation in Greece with their two daughters Ella, five, Mia, two, and Dan's son Teddy, seven.

And Jacqueline Jossa and Dan Osborne, 29, looked like they were enjoying their evening off after putting the children to bed on Thursday.

The I'm A Celebrity winner, 27, took to Instagram to share a loved-up snap of herself with the former TOWIE star.

Loved-up: Jacqueline Jossa and Dan Osborne looked the picture of marital bliss as they relaxed in Greece on Thursday after putting their children to bed

Jacqueline showed off her bronzed tan as she went make-up free for the selfie and looked ready for bed as she relaxed in her spotty pyjamas.

She simply captioned the shot: 'Cosy holiday nights'.

Dan, meanwhile, shared a sweet video of himself gazing up at the sky to see the stars with Mia.

Star gazing: Dan, meanwhile, shared a sweet video of himself gazing up at the sky to see the stars with Mia

He said: 'This is what dreams are made of. Looking at the stars with my girl in Greece. Beautiful'.

The couple have looked happier than ever recently after defending their marriage in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, Jacqueline displayed her gorgeous toned curves in a black bikini top paired with polka dot shorts as she relaxed on the beach.

Family first: Jacqueline Jossa looked radiant as she enjoyed a family holiday with husband Dan Osborne and their children on Wednesday

The former EastEnders actress showcased her bronzed legs in her beach outfit, with her brunette tresses styled in plaited pigtails.

Jacqueline let her natural beauty take centre-stage by going make-up free.

She also posed for a sweet snap with her daughters, captioned: 'Girlies always some well deserved chill time! Love my babies so much.'

Dan also posted a snap with his youngest daughter Mia, with the toddler looking adorable in a pink sunhat.

Cute: The IAC winner, 27, posted a sweet snap with her and Dan's daughters Ella, five, and Mia, two

He wrote: 'My best friend's cuter than yours.'

Earlier this month Jacqueline took to Instagram to make another public statement about her marriage to Dan.

Sharing a loved-up snap of them laughing together, the star captioned the image with the words: 'No one needs to understand but us.'

The couple have had their share of ups and downs with allegations of cheating on Dan's part since they married in 2017.

Dan later admitted he had in fact been unfaithful to Jacqueline and that she had forgiven him for his past indiscretions.

Family break: Former TOWIE star Dan, 29, also posted a snap with his youngest daughter Mia, with the toddler looking adorable in a pink sunhat

Dan also let rip on social media about his marriage in a foul-mouthed rant after a fan questioned why Jacqueline stays with him.

He wrote: 'Because we love each other, have a beautiful family, I'm a good husband, good dad to our kids, we get on well, laugh together, super attracted to each other

'Any more reasons you need? You didn't know none of that, eh? That's because you do not f***ing know me, or my wife, or us as a couple lol.

'So concentrate on your own life and you (sic) clearly never been taught to not be rude, especially to people you don't even know. Hope you've learnt something from this.'

The response stemmed from a post Jacqueline shared the previous day of herself and husband Dan, urging him to 'hurry home please' amid his Turkey trip.
President Donald Trump speaks during the signing ceremony for a proclamation on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in the Blue Room of the White House in Washington on Aug. 18, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump Files Emergency Request to Block Manhattan DA Subpoena for Tax Returns

Update: The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied President Donald Trumps request to delay efforts by New York prosecutors to obtain Trumps financial records. The court said it would hold a hearing on the request for a delay, but not until Sept. 1



Orignal article below:

President Donald Trump is seeking to urgently prevent the Manhattan district attorney from gaining access to his tax returns, by asking a federal appeals court to temporarily block a lower courts decision to dismiss the case.

Trumps legal team on Friday filed an emergency motion to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals hours after a district court judge denied their request to put the judges ruling on hold while the appeal plays out in the courts.

Earlier on Friday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero rejected Trumps request to put Marreros decision on hold pending appeal. The day before, Marrero dismissed Trumps latest bid to stop New York Country District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.s subpoena for eight years of his tax returns and other financial documents from the presidents accountant.

Marrero characterized Trumps newest challenge as a roundabout way for the president to invoke immunity from judicial processes. He said that the presidents move embodies a novel application of presidential immunity to protect the executive branch from judicial process.

At its core, it amounts to absolute immunity through a back door, an entry point through which not only a President but also potentially other persons and entities, public and private, could effectively gain cover from judicial process, the judge wrote.

In rejecting the request for a hold, Marrero said (pdf) the president has not demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm.

Trumps legal team argued in their request to the 2nd Circuit Court that the enforcement of Vances subpoena is in fact quintessential irreparable harm, if the court does not grant their request.

The President should be afforded appellate review of the district courts 103-page opinion dismissing his complaint outright, they wrote.

The lawyers also argued that Marreros characterization of Trumps claims in his latest challenge was unfair.

The district court may disagree with the Supreme Courts decision to remand this case for further proceedings. But that dissatisfaction shouldnt have been held against the President, they wrote.

The president has been fighting Vances subpoena since 2019. The case went to the Supreme Court after lower courts denied Trumps request for relief from the subpoena.

Trumps lawyer argued before the Supreme Court that a sitting president has absolute immunity from state criminal subpoenas because compliance with them would impair the performance of his presidential duties. The federal government, which was also involved in the case, argued that a state grand jury subpoena for personal records of a sitting president should meet a higher standard of need.

The Supreme Court in July rejected (pdf) both arguments and stated that no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding. However, the top court left the door open for the president to seek recourse, suggesting that Trump could still challenge the subpoena on other grounds.

Trumps legal team filed a second challenge against the subpoena in late July. They argued that the subpoena was overbroad and hence issued in bad faith.

The presidents lawyers also told the court that his new claims are serious and that the balance of harms tips heavily in his favor.

The idea that the District Attorney needs these records so badly that theres no time for appellate reviewafter he voluntarily stayed enforcement for nearly a yearis implausible, they said.

They have also asked the 2nd Circuit Court to rule before Aug. 28 as the parties had agreed to hold the district courts ruling for seven days from the date of Marreros ruling.

Vance is subpoenaing for Trumps financial documents as part of a criminal grand jury probe.

It was widely believed that Vance was investigating hush money paid to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign: adult film performer Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. But recent court filings by Vances team suggest that the scope of the Manhattan DAs probe might be broader than what was previously known.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:57:28|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with Pakistani President Arif Alvi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Friday that as a landmark project under the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is of great importance to promoting in-depth development of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and forging a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks in a verbal message to Pakistani President Arif Alvi.

Xi said he appreciates the fact that Alvi sent a congratulatory letter to the opening of the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, which fully demonstrated that Alvi attaches great importance to and supports the China-Pakistan relationship and construction of the CPEC.

China and Pakistan are good brothers and partners who share special friendship, Xi said, adding that political parties from both sides often carry out friendly consultations and constantly build political consensus, which is conducive to steadily advancing the construction of the CPEC as well as high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Photo taken on Nov. 18, 2019 shows the expressway section from Havelian to Mansehra under the Karakoram Highway (KKH) Phase Two project in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)

Since the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, the global fight has fully demonstrated that mutual support, solidarity and cooperation present a sure way for humanity to defeat this novel coronavirus, Xi said.

China stands ready to work with Pakistan to build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future, jointly promote regional solidarity and cooperation, and safeguard the good momentum of peace and development in the region.

Alvi had previously sent a congratulatory message to the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism.

He said in the message that building a community with a shared future for mankind and the Belt and Road Initiative put forward by Xi profoundly interpreted the true meaning of cooperation, peace and development and reflected the universal aspirations of the people around the world.

He thanked China specifically for providing timely medical assistance to Pakistan when it was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said Pakistan will continue to enhance cultural exchanges and mutual trust with China, share common goals with China and make joint efforts to promote regional peace and stability.

The CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism was established in 2019 between the CPC and the ruling and major non-ruling parties of Pakistan. On Thursday, the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, organized by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, was held via video link. 
Vaccine development for COVID-19 is going full-speed ahead whether its the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the Moderna vaccine or even the Russian Sputnik V.

With every passing day were getting closer to a cure to take down the novel coronavirus. And now, leading pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is catching up in this race.

Reuters

As per a report by Bloomberg, the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech SE is currently on track to be submitted for regulatory review as early as October, after releasing additional data from an early-stage study.

As per the study, the vaccine worked well with mild to moderate fever in less than 20 percent of the participants. Researchers are still analysing data from Phase I trials in the US, and Germany, Pfizer & BioNTech said in a statement.

Representational image: Reuters

As per the report, this could make Pfizers vaccine one of the fastest moving in the world. Some analysts also feel the vaccine could be approved for use as soon as November of this year. It is also crucial to note that Pfizer and BioNTech last month took a $2 billion deal to supply an initial 100 million doses of the vaccine to the U.S.

Taking vaccine to final stage with fewest side effects

The vaccine that Pfizer and BioNTech are working on is essentially a single nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (modRNA) based vaccine dubbed BNT162. The COVID-19 vaccine is essentially similar in tech as the Moderna vaccine that is as of now conducting its Phase III human trials.

Representational Image: Reuters

As per a report by AP, Pfizer and BioNTech are working to take the vaccine to the final phase of testing with the fewest side effects possible. According to a report released yesterday, Pfizer researchers looked at data from early-stage testing of two vaccine candidates. The vaccine showed better immune systems without any severe side effects.

However, one candidate showed fewer injection reactions that are often seen in older adults like fever, headache, chills etc, which are temporary but unpleasant. Pfizer has already commenced final testing of its lead candidate while it is looking to recruit 30,000 individuals in the US for testing.
Biden delivering his memorable speech on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP/Shutterstock

Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today, the Democratic convention and the nomination of Joe Biden.

The Democrats staged their convention this week, officially nominating Joe Biden for president. Other than demonstrating a shared opposition to Donald Trump, what did it accomplish for the party?

It wouldnt matter what else the convention accomplished if it didnt accomplish one big thing: a performance by its 77-year-old nominee confirming that he was a plausible chief executive of the United States. No matter the highs and lows along the way, the four days were, for me, a nail-biter until the final half-hour. At which point Joe Biden walked to the podium and gave what is surely the speech of his very long career.

The speech landed not because it offered soaring presidential rhetoric or said anything new but because it seemed written in the direct, sometimes corny, down-to-earth voice of the guy who delivered it. There was policy in it, but never in the form of a party platforms bullet points. The substance was always knit into either Bidens personal history or his overall themes of compassion, character, and resilience. It was a nice passive-aggressive touch to refuse to mention the narcissistic Trump by name while lambasting all his failures. And it was smart to focus most on Trumps calamitous, ongoing mismanagement (or perhaps one should say non-management) of the pandemic, a calamity that stalks every American. Even a Democratic nominees obligatory salute to the governmental activism of FDR during an epic national crisis was linked to the specifics of our moment when, with a slight catch in his voice along the way, Biden noted that Roosevelt was stricken by a disease, stricken by a virus.

And his delivery? Crisp, energetic, and sober, paternal without being paternalistic. The speech benefited greatly from the lack of crowd-pleasing applause lines  indeed from the lack of a cheering partisan crowd and those network-television cutaway shots to the delegates in over-the-top political apparel whooping it up on an arenas floor. The mood that prevailed instead was that of the serious business at hand for the country, accentuated further by the dark backdrop of the deep stage, against which, as the texts oratorical trope would have it, Biden stood front and center as a figure of light and hope.

Trumps first attack tweet of Biden afterward made no mention of Sleepy Joe. The president had to look only as far as Fox News to hear, as Chris Wallace put it, that the speech had been enormously effective in blowing a hole  a big hole in Trumps monthslong campaign to brand his opponent as a mentally shot shut-in kidnapped by the radical left. The Democrats strategy to dole out Bidens public appearances sparingly since his primary victory turned out to be brilliant. By the time the convention arrived, Trump, as well as his political and media allies, had persuaded themselves that hidin Biden would be exposed and humiliated before a national audience on his big night like Professor Marvel at the end of The Wizard of Oz. Instead Trump and his troops were ambushed like General Custer at Little Big Horn.

Anything else the convention accomplished or failed to accomplish is secondary to that denouement. But that reality shouldnt diminish Barack Obamas moving and at times anguished speech  arguably the best of his career too  which fiercely laid out the high stakes that Biden would address the following night. Kamala Harris had the unenviable assignment of following Obama, but made it work by taking an almost joyous tone to her biography and tart political agenda. For me, her speech was crystallized by almost a throwaway line  Lets fight with confidence  because her own confidence is potentially contagious.

My guess is that the only Trump supporters watching the Democrats were hate-watching. Nothing that happened this week, or any week, can sway them. Perhaps some of that small pool of undecided voters will have a Eureka moment after sampling some of the convention, but who knows. Perhaps, too, the Democratic base, especially Black voters, will be more energized to turn out than it was in 2016, but the election is more than two months away and other convention high points, including the rousing speeches of Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, could fade in the tumultuous weeks to come. Though the Democratic Party is far from united, the convention, typified by Bernie Sanderss magnanimity, did suggest that the temporary truce between the Biden old guard and the rising generation of progressives will hold until November. The proxy debate over whether the Republican apostate John Kasich should have received a speaking spot or not, a pale semblance of the usual Democratic convention-floor ideological brawls, was as quickly forgotten as Kasich himself.

Meanwhile, the onus is on Trump and his party to recover from Bidens coup and their own depressed poll numbers. As one who was anticipating some outrageous, potentially game-changing stunt from Trump to throw the Democrats off-balance this week, I was heartened to see that he never got his act together. If the best surprise he could mount was a bogus pardon to Susan B. Anthony, hes losing his touch.

There was Trump counterprogramming to the convention all right, but he was not the programmer. What filled the vacuum was a Godfather-worthy montage further dramatizing the scale of his mob operation: the bipartisan Senate report finding that his campaign manager Paul Manafort was an asset for Russian intelligence; a judge once again throwing out Trumps bid to shield his tax returns from a New York criminal investigation; the arrest of Steve Bannon for allegedly pilfering more than $1 million from Trump zealots who decided to chip in for the border wall when Mexico failed to do so; and the apparent assassination attempt conducted by Trumps honorary 2016 and 2020 campaign chair, Vladimir Putin, against the Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Now we have the GOP convention to look forward to! Aside from the unethical confiscation of the White House lawn for a setting, few plans have been made public. Trump has made noises that he disapproves of the virtual presentations that dominated the Democrats show, but even if he liked them, its hard to picture him having the discipline required to plan and execute them. He cant read from a teleprompter in any case. A presidency defined by chaos all but guarantees a chaotic improv convention. Today Trump is no doubt ripping up whatever plans the RNC did have.

One thing is certain: Hope will not be on this conventions agenda. Having lost the crutch of Sleepy Joe, Trump and his party are likely to go full white supremacist. One of the few announced bookings  an appearance by the St. Louis couple who confronted peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters with guns  is an apt preview of coming attractions. In an appearance outside Bidens hometown of Scranton this week, Trump warned ominously that mayhem is coming to your town and every single town in America. His definition of mayhem of course is Black people  Black people marching or kneeling for their rights, Black people moving next door to suburban housewives, a Black woman running for vice-president, Black people going to the polls. The next week is going to be grotesque, but at this late date its the last election strategy Trump has left before his final gambit of thwarting, stealing, or nullifying the election itself.
Ranging from owner and farmer manager to junior farm assistant, Tongaat Hulett is celebrating three inspiring KwaZulu-Natal women in agriculture this Women's Month who are involved in sugar cane farming.

Nonhlanhla Gumede-Shabalala, owner, Uthandimvelo Farm

Nonhlanhla Gumede-Shabalala, owner, Uthandimvelo Farm

Provincial school feeding scheme

Creation of Uzinzo Sugar Farming

Zibo Makhaye, farm manager, Uzinzo Sugar Farming

Zibo Makhaye, farm manager, Uzinzo Sugar Farming

Responsibilities at Uzinzo Sugar Farming

Don't 'rush for success'

Nosisa Dube, junior farm assistant, Simamisa

Nosisa Dube, junior farm assistant, Simamisa

Education, training, capacity building programme

Commitment and work ethic

Nonhlanhla Gumede-Shabalala is the owner of Uthandimvelo farm in KwaZulu-Natal and has been working in the agricultural sector for about nine years. My father has been farming for over 40 years. He bought his 90.3-hectare farm when I was in matric. My passion for agriculture was ignited in earnest through working and assisting my father with his operation, said Gumede-Shabalala. She started her career in the banking sector and left around 2010 to work with her father.In 2017, Gumede-Shabalala bought Uthandimvelo Farm using bank finance. Its a 170-hectare farm with approximately 112-hectares under sugarcane, with the remaining section the farm surrounded by a large forest. Gumede-Shabalala has several other business lines other than sugarcane farming, including growing vegetables and supplying local supermarkets and schools with fresh produce and sheep breeding.In terms of schools, she is a preferred service provider for the KZN Department of Education under the provincial school feeding scheme and supplies specific schools with fresh vegetables during the schooling season. The KZN Education Department feeds approximately 2.4 million children through the school feeding scheme. At least 1.3 million of these children are vulnerable. The service provided by Gumede-Shabalala ensures that these learners get a nutritious meal while they are in school.The sugar industry has a nine-months season which means that the vegetable production and sheep breeding businesses keep her busy throughout the 12 months and she is able to generate further income for the business.Uthandimvelo consists of 10 permanent staff members and 14 seasonal workers. During the 2019/20 season, the farm delivered some 3,000 tonnes of sugarcane. Gumede-Shabalala had to learn the agricultural business very quickly. Having purchased the farm through a financial institution, I had to make sure that I pay the bond and hire contractors to assist with the harvesting of cane. It was even difficult to purchase fertiliser or pay workers," she says.She persevered until things started turning around. I have been able to secure grant funding which allowed me to buy much-needed equipment. The farm is almost fully operational. The farm now employs more seasonal workers to assist with the various activities within the farm.In 2019/20, Tongaat Hulett made a strategic decision to exit its direct sugarcane farming activities in South Africa. The company facilitated the creation of Uzinzo Sugar Farming, which means stability in isiZulu, with three previously disadvantages individuals selected to be at the helm of the organisation, one of whom was Gumede-Shabalala.Uzinzo has enabled its shareholders to lease three prime agricultural estates at rentals below market-related rates. The leased area is approximately 3,900 hectares with an estimated annual production of some 160,000 tonnes of sugarcane at the scale which makes Uzinzo Sugar Farming one of Tongaat Huletts top five largest supplying growers.Uzinzo Sugar Farming was officially launched in October 2019 and Gumede-Shabalala and the other directors of the company had to hit the ground running to ensure that operationally, the company delivered the forecasted tonnages and ensure the smooth running of the various operations.Uzinzo has allowed me to grow and learn from my colleagues who have considerable experience in farming. As an Uzinzo board member and trustee in the Uzinzo Permanent Employee Share Trust, I had to familiarise myself quite quickly with all the legislative requirements and governance issues pertaining to Uzinzo and trusts. I had to learn to have my say during meetings.She says Uzinzo has also allowed her to improve her leadership skills. I am constantly expected to provide strategic guidance on issues; delegate tasks; motivate people and solve administrative issues. There are huge opportunities in farming, especially for women. We can get grant funding. We can supply our produce to the various markets. Its a win-win for all of us.Zibo Makhaye knew from an early age that she would pursue a career in agriculture. Makhaye was born in Mtubatuba (Northern KwaZulu-Natal) where agriculture is a way of life. Her father, a teacher by profession, owned a 10-hectare sugarcane farm. We used to wake up early in the morning to weed and spray chemicals. My father used to tell me that money was in the soil and not in some fancy office. I decided at that young age that I would pursue a career in farming."Makhaye attended Bongubuhle Primary School and then went to Madwaleni High School in Mtubatuba. Soon after finishing her Grade 12, she was accepted at the CEDARA College of Agriculture in Pietermaritzburg to pursue her studies in Plant Production. On completion of her national diploma, she applied and was accepted to attend the senior certificate course in sugarcane agriculture which is facilitated through the South African Sugar Research Institute (SASRI).From 2006 to mid-2007, this 34-year-old worked for the KZN Department of Agriculture and Rural Development on an outreach programme for small-scale farmers, and then she joined Tongaat Hulett. She started out as a trainee at Tongaat and was later appointed as an assistant farm manager. In October 2019, she was employed by Uzinzo Sugar Farming as a farm manager.In her new role, Makhaye is responsible for the daily planning, organising, supervising and administration activities on the farm. My typical responsibilities include forward planning, making sure that work progresses optimally, keeping an eye on expenditure on the farm; ensuring compliance with government regulations, health and safety standards. I am also responsible for ensuring that the farm is profitable and meets the projected financial targets, says Makhaye.She is responsible for some 273 seasonal workers and five permanent employees. The main challenge that I faced in my career has been working in an environment that is typically known as a men-only environment. I had to deal with people not trusting my leadership due to my age and gender, more especially older men. I had to double my efforts and prove myself.The immediate thing that I have achieved in my current role as a farm manager is that it has brought my confidence back. My leadership skills have been put on display. The ability to solve issues with employees always brings pleasure. To manage such a huge farm, 2,600 hectares of the 3,900 hectares, is an achievement on its own. To see Uzinzo making profit is the cherry on the top, says Makhaye.Makhaye strongly believes there is space for women in agriculture. To the young girls, I would like to say that they should not be scared to get their hand dirty. Believe in themselves. The secret is not to rush for success. They should be willing to wait for the results. Shortcuts are not an option in agriculture. I would also like to encourage other young women in the agricultural sector not to give up easily  it will not always be smooth, there will be challenges. However, love what you are doing, have passion. If need be, be prepared to work extra hours and go an extra mile without expecting to be compensated.Nosisa Dube regarded sugarcane agriculture as one of the key activities within her community. After all, her grandfather was a small-scale grower delivering sugarcane to Tongaat Hulett. Dube never imagined that one day she would be working within the agricultural sector. Dube is 30 years old and has four other siblings. She attended Wangu Primary School under the Mandeni Municipality and then moved to Stanger High School to complete her Grade 12.Soon after completing her final year, she registered for a Diploma in Agriculture Management with the University of South Africa (Unisa). Dube was attracted by the broadness of the agricultural industry. She had great interest in exploring the different components of the sector and is fascinated by how a seed grows.Her registration with Unisa coincided with Tongaat Hulett entering in 2011/12 into a working arrangement with the Ntwashini Community Trust to accelerate the sugarcane development initiative. The Ntwashini claimant community had successfully claimed for the restoration of land rights in terms of the Restitution Land Rights Act of 1994. A total of 1 200-hectares was restored to the community and approximately 400-hectares was dedicated to sugarcane development. Tongaat Hulett continues to have a working relationship with the trust. In 2019/20, the trust delivered 30,119 tonnes, created 125 jobs and paid R5.2m in wages.One of the key pillars of the working agreement between Tongaat Hulett and the Ntwashini Community Trust was the education and training and capacity building programme. The trustees wanted to ensure that while Tongaat Hulett was assisting with the implementation of the sugarcane development programme, there was also a transfer of skills to youth in the community. Dube was identified as a recipient of the education and training and capacity building programme.In 2013, Dube was sponsored by Tongaat Hulett to attend the junior certificate course in sugarcane agriculture. She was also sponsored in 2015 to attend the senior certificate course in agriculture. The junior certificate course is a three-week course which seeks to introduce students to sugarcane agriculture while the senior course is a five-week intense programme seeking to produce specialists in sugarcane agriculture. Both courses were provided by the South African Sugar Research Institute.After completing her studies, Dube was registered as a student intern within Tongaat Hulett. The objective was to expose her to the various dynamics of working in sugarcane estates while also ensuring that she completed with her diploma with Unisa. Dube was further seconded to participate in the implementation of the communal leasehold model which focused on the establishment of sugarcane in 12,000 hectares in communal areas. This initiative was implemented in partnership with Simamisa  a farming management company.She was officially integrated into the Simamisa team in 2012. Her commitment and work ethic ensured that Dube has moved up the company ranks. She was promoted in 2015 into the role of the junior farm assistant where she is responsible for 350 hectares under sugarcane in communal land. Her role involves directing and coordinating 23 seasonal workers into various activities including planting, chemical application and harvesting. She engages with the cooperative members on the various extension issues impacting on their individual sugarcane plots. She also attends, in conjunction with the chairpersons of the respective cooperatives, to issues presented to the traditional leadership structures.Within my role, I have achieved great knowledge and experience in sugarcane production. I have also gained understanding of the culture of farming within different communities, says Dube. Many women are reluctant to venture into agriculture because it is a male-dominated sector. My advice to young women wanting to pursue studies in agriculture is that they should never hesitate to start small whilst dreaming big. Make the most of any opportunity that presents itself. Nothing will come to them; young women in agriculture need to get up and go get it.
- First approved allogeneic cell therapy product globally for the treatment of CLI

- Developed by Stempeutics over a period of twelve years, breakthrough treatment designed to address root cause of the disease at an affordable cost

- Cipla to market and distribute the drug in India to provide patient access

MUMBAI, India, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cipla Limited (BSE: 500087) (NSE: CIPLA EQ) referred to as "Cipla" today announced that its partner Stempeutics Research Pvt. Ltd has received regulatory approval by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for the launch of Stempeucel in India. The product is indicated for the treatment of CLI due to Buerger's Disease and Atherosclerotic Peripheral Arterial Disease. It is the first allogeneic cell therapy product to be approved for commercial use in India and the first stem cell product to be approved globally for CLI treatment.

The product has been developed by Stempeutics over a period of twelve years. The company's proprietary pooling approach provides for an efficient manufacturing process thereby enabling the product to be made accessible to patients at an affordable cost. More than one million doses can be produced from a single set of master cell banks, which is unique in regenerative medicine, thus providing consistent product to patients. The proprietary technology also helps Stempeucel extend the therapeutic potential of the drug across multiple disease categories. Under the agreement signed between the two companies, Cipla has received exclusive rights to market and distribute the product in India by leveraging its expansive distribution strengths across the country.

CLI is a progressive form of peripheral arterial disease that is caused by severe blockage in the arteries thereby reducing blood flow. This may result in the development of sores and wounds in legs and feet with a high risk of limb amputation. It is estimated that about 5 million patients in India are impacted by this debilitating disease. With the current contemporary vascular techniques, it is estimated only 25% of patients can be managed with satisfactory clinical outcomes.

Stempeucel is a breakthrough treatment which is designed to enhance the body's limited capability to restore blood flow in ischemic tissue. It is derived from allogeneic pooled mesenchymal stromal cells isolated from the bone marrow of healthy, adult voluntary donors. It directly addresses the root cause of the disease by reducing inflammation, stimulating growth of collateral blood vessels and repairing damaged muscle, thereby reducing the pain, healing the ulcers and salvaging the affected limb. The drug is administered through intramuscular injections around the calf muscle region and around the site of ulcers.

Currently, Stempeutics is working on a strategy for other international markets including US, EU and Japan. The global critical limb ischemia treatment market expected to generate USD 5,390 million by 2025, at a CAGR of 8.1% between 2020 and 2025.

Commenting on the DCGI approval, Mr. Manohar BN, MD & CEO of Stempeutics, said, "Obtaining DCGI approval for Stempeucel is an important and historic milestone for Stempeutics. It is a strong recognition for Stempeutics for its sustained excellence of scientific and clinical work and underscores our global leadership in allogeneic, pooled MSC technology. We believe that the Stempeucel product is a game-changer, offering an advanced therapeutic treatment for millions of patients suffering from this dreadful disease."

Mr. Umang Vohra, Managing Director and Global CEO of Cipla, said, "Our focus on innovation is guided by our strong sense of responsibility to address unmet patient needs and alleviate suffering. We are pleased to see that our decade-long partnership with Stempeutics has achieved a significant milestone. CLI is a serious and painful condition that impacts patients worldwide and we are happy that we are able to introduce this stem cell therapy in the country at an affordable cost."

Dr Pawan Kumar Gupta, Senior VP, Medical & Regulatory Affairs, Stempeutics, said, "We are excited to receive this marketing approval from DCGI for this very important indication. In CLI, fatty deposits block arteries in the leg, leading to greatly reduced blood flow, pain at rest, non-healing ulcers, and gangrene. Patients with CLI are at an immediate risk for limb amputation and death. Now Stempeucel provides hope for a new, effective treatment and a better quality of life for such CLI patients. Also, Stempeutics is committed to advancing its peripheral artery disease programs in CLI to other parts of the World."

About Stempeutics :

Stempeutics is an advanced clinical-stage Biotech Company based out of Bangalore. It was founded by Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) in 2006 and later entered strategic alliances with Cipla in 2009 and with Kemwell in 2019. Stempeutics's strength lies in developing innovative stem cell products by nurturing cutting edge research and clinical applications through dedicated efforts of its highly qualified team. Its goal is to develop novel cell therapy drugs addressing major unmet medical needs with India first global next approach.

About Cipla :

Established in 1935, Cipla is a global pharmaceutical company focused on agile and sustainable growth, complex generics, and deepening portfolio in our home markets of India, South Africa, North America, and key regulated and emerging markets. Our strengths in the respiratory, anti-retroviral, urology, cardiology, anti-infective and CNS segments are well-known. Our 46 manufacturing sites around the world produce 50+ dosage forms and 1,500+ products using cutting-edge technology platforms to cater to our 80+ markets. Cipla is ranked 3rd largest in pharma in India (IQVIA MAT June'20), 3rd largest in the pharma private market in South Africa (IQVIA MAT June'20), and is among the most dispensed generic players in the U.S. For over eight decades, making a difference to patients has inspired every aspect of Cipla's work. Our paradigm-changing offer of a triple anti-retroviral therapy in HIV/AIDS at less than a dollar a day in Africa in 2001 is widely acknowledged as having contributed to bringing inclusiveness, accessibility and affordability to the centre of the HIV movement. A responsible corporate citizen, Cipla's humanitarian approach to healthcare in pursuit of its purpose of 'Caring for Life' and deep-rooted community links wherever it is present make it a partner of choice to global health bodies, peers and all stakeholders. For more, please visit www.cipla.com, or click on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.

For queries, please contact:



Cipla Corporate Communications Cipla Investor Relations Heena Kanal Naveen Bansal E-Mail: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected]









Stempeutics Corporate Relations



Dr. Raviraja N S



Mobile No.: +91 9900239214



E-Mail: [email protected]















Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/947146/Cipla_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Cipla
Beijing:

China on Wednesday launched a global carbon dioxide monitoring satellite to understand climate change, hours after it lifted nearly a week-long red alert for the worst smog that engulfed about 40 cities in the country.

The 620-kg satellite TanSat was put into orbit by Long March-2D rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest Chinas Gobi Desert early this morning, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

This was the 243rd mission of the Long March series rockets. Besides TanSat, the rocket also carried a high-resolution micro-nano satellite and two spectrum micro-nano satellites for agricultural and forestry monitoring.

China is the third country after Japan and the US to monitor greenhouse gases through its own satellite.

The satellite was sent into a sun synchronous orbit about 700 kms above the earth and will monitor the concentration, distribution and flow of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, Yin Zengshan, chief designer of TanSat at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) micro-satellite research institute said.

The satellite will help understanding of climate change and provide Chinas policy makers with independent data.

On a three-year mission, TanSat will thoroughly examine global carbon dioxide levels every 16 days, accurate to at least 4 ppm (parts per million), the report said.

The new satellite will enable China to obtain emissions data first-hand and share it with researchers worldwide, Yin said. The Paris agreement on climate change came into force on November 4, with more than 100 countries committed to reducing their carbon emissions.

The satellite can trace the sources of greenhouse gases and help evaluate whether countries are fulfilling their commitments.

TanSat means a louder voice for China on climate change, carbon reduction and in negotiations with a bigger say on carbon trading.

Earlier in midnight, Beijing lifted the red alert for air pollution as cold air dispersed the smog that has affected the city since Dec 17 which drew strong criticism from public as it disrupted the normal life.

Beijing woke up this morning with a relatively clear sky. Since December 17 emergency measures such as even-odd car restrictions will end and classes will resume at schools, official media reports said.

While the red alert was implemented by 23 cities including Beijing, 17 other cities implemented Orange alerts for pollution. PM2.5 density in the capital remained high throughout the period of the red alert.

About the satellite Lu Naimeng, TanSat chief scientist said concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm to 400 ppm over the past 150 years, leading to an increase in average global temperatures of about 0.7 degrees Celsius over the last century.

Chinas CO2 emissions are to peak around 2030, with emissions per unit of GDP cut by 60 percent 2005 levels by the same date.

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If the two storms headed toward the Gulf of Mexico track closely enough, it could set off a rare moment involving an intense dance around their common center.

A National Weather Service post described the phenomenon  known as the Fujiwhara Effect  in those terms after two instances in 2017.

Their circulations sort of detect each other, said Lance Wood, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services Houston/Galveston office, and they can start to move around a common point between them.

TEXAS FLOOD MAP: Your guide to long-term flood-risk data for Houston neighborhoods

Forecasters are keeping an eye on this as Tropical Depression 14 (expected to be named Marco once it strengthens) and Tropical Storm Laura head toward the Gulf of Mexico. As of Friday, Laura was expected to move toward Florida and the northeastern Gulf, while Tropical Depression 14 was headed toward the coast of Texas and/or Louisiana. Both are expected to be in the Gulf of Mexico early next week.

The Fujiwhara Effect is a possibility, Wood said, but it also may not happen. Its too soon to know.

The phenomenon was named for Sakuhei Fujiwhara, who was director of the Central Meteorological Observatory of Japan and first described the interaction of vortices in water in a 1921 paper. He observed the properties of spinning phenomena such as whirlpools and cyclones and saw when two or more drew close to one another they could affect each others the speed, strength and track. The effect can occur when two tropical cyclones get within roughly 900 miles of each other.

It happened twice in 2017, according to the National Weather Service  between hurricanes Hilary and Irwin in the East Pacific and between Typhoon Noru and Tropical Storm Kulap in the West Pacific.

When two hurricanes spinning in the same direction pass close enough to each other, they begin an intense dance around their common center, a NWS post from that year said. If one hurricane is stronger, it could absorb the weaker storm. Two storms closer in strength can be drawn toward each other, spinning each other around before shooting off on their own paths or reaching a common point where they merge. Sometimes, the effect is additive when the hurricanes come together and can create one larger storm instead of two smaller ones.

The Fujiwhara Effect was also credited with changing the course of Hurricane Iris in 1995. The change in heading was probably a consequence of a Fujiwhara interaction between Iris and Humberto located about 750 (nautical miles) to the east, a National Hurricane Center post noted.

Wood is not expecting such dramatic results if the two storms interact next week in the Gulf of Mexico. Hypothetically, he described a situation where both storms strengthen to Category 1 hurricanes (meaning their wind speeds are between 74 mph and 95 mph) and were about 900 miles apart. In this scenario, the common point between the two storms would be in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. This would cause Tropical Depression 14 to slow down a little bit. Tropical Storm Laura would speed up a little.

This potential change in pace is not expected to make Tropical Depression 14 a slow, rainmaking storm like Hurricane Harvey, Wood said.

Its probably going to be pretty subtle, he said.

Wood said the Fujiwhara Effect doesnt happen very often in tropical cyclones. If it occurs this time, it would be next week, closer to when the storms could make landfall.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/a_leinfelder
In June this year, Microsoft rolled out its Chromium-based Edge browser via Windows 10 May 2020 update to all users running version 1803 and above.

In recent months, the company has been continuously trying to improve the browser to make it more popular with its users.

While the new Chromium-based Edge is an excellent browser with nearly all features of Google Chrome, not all Windows 10 users wish to use it.

For those who tried to remove the updated Chromium-based Edge browser from their device found that they couldnt. Apparently, Windows 10 users wont find the option to uninstall the new Microsoft Edge installed via Windows System update once they migrate to the new version. Neither will they be able to revert to the old, HTML version of the browser.

Making the announcement in a new support page titled Cant uninstall Microsoft Edge, the tech giant states that Beginning with general availability of the new Microsoft Edge in January, Microsoft had started migrating Windows customers from the legacy version of Microsoft Edge to the new version in a phased rollout. We want to ensure all Windows customers have the latest Microsoft Edge browser for the performance, privacy, security, productivity, and support features it offers.

Justifying why Windows 10 users cant uninstall the Chromium-based Edge browser, the company writes, The new version of Microsoft Edge is included in a Windows system update, so the option to uninstall it or use the legacy version of Microsoft Edge will no longer be available.

It also points out that the new version of Microsoft Edge gives users full control over importing their personal data from the old Edge version.

To use this option, launch new Edge > Settings > Profiles > Import browser data, and select Microsoft Edge Legacy.

If you need further assistance, you can head to the Microsoft Edge support website or contact support.

With no option to uninstall the new Microsoft Edge browser, Windows 10 users who would like to use Chrome, Firefox, or any other web browser need to ensure that Edge isnt set as the default browser.
* Record $240 mln spent buying mainland China stocks in July, 7-fold jump on year

* China tech rally, tough investment curbs at home drive rush

* Shennan Circuits, ZTE, Inspur among top picks

* China tech stocks popular with Korean investors up 32% this year

By Joori Roh and Luoyan Liu

SEOUL/SHANGHAI, Aug 21 (Reuters) - South Korean retail investors are stampeding into Chinese stocks in record numbers, ploughing hundreds of millions of dollars into a tech sector rush far removed from punishing taxes and regulations on investment at home.

In July alone, South Korean investors spent $240 million buying shares in mainland China, data from the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) showed - their largest investment in mainland markets on record.

That's a seven-fold jump from $32.9 million in July last year, and accounts for a third of the total $719 million net investment in China stocks for the January-July period.

While South Korean mom and pop investors have historically been big risk-takers, they have stepped up the hunt for assets overseas as the Korean government imposes stringent mortgage rules and proposals to impose capital gains tax on local stocks.

Among them is the Kim, a 40-year-old Seoul chef with more invested than 500 million won - nearly half a million dollars - in Chinese stocks. Like others, Kim, who declined to given his forename, is betting on Beijing's push for tech self-sufficiency to counter U.S. trade sanctions and bans.

"It is true that interest in Chinese stocks has increased more than ever, driven by tightened regulations on domestic stocks and a boom in the China market unseen since 2015," said Kim.

The United States remains a top destination for investors like Kim, with Korean investments there a net $2.27 billion in July, followed by $475 million in Hong Kong, out of a total $3.19 billion of overseas stock buying.

But they are also being lured by the promise of China' speedy economy recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and its rising stock market - China's tech-heavy start-up board ChiNext and its STAR Market are up about 40% each this year.

Overseas stocks make up about 80% of Kim's equity holdings, with 90% of that chunk allotted to China and the rest to U.S. equities. Kim plans to park all his equity investments overseas, and is particularly bullish on the Chinese economy and mainland companies with high growth potential.

Story continues

KSD data showed six of the 10 top Chinese companies that Korean investors bought between January and July were tech companies, with Shennan Circuits Co Ltd, a supplier to giant tech firm Huawei supplier, taking the lead with $55.36 million net.

ZTE Corp was also high on Korean investment list, along with Inspur Electronic Information Technology Co Ltd , Will Semiconductor Co Ltd and Luxshare Precision Industry.

The average year-to-date performance of those six shares shows a spurt of 32%, compared with declines of 0.7% and 23.7% respectively for Korean tech heavyweights Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc.

What's more, the broader Shanghai Composite index is up 10.3%, while Seoul's KOSPI benchmark has gained only 3.8%.

($1 = 1,187.3300 won)

(Reporting by Joori Roh in Seoul and Luoyan Liu in Shanghai; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Kenneth Maxwell)
SOLON, Ohio -- Based on data collected by the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission, the Solon Connects plan is much needed to build stronger bicycle and pedestrian connections in the city.

In an online survey earlier this year, conducted by the Planning Commission, residents were asked, Use one word to describe walking and biking in Solon.

Michael Mears -- senior planner for the CCPC, who gave a presentation on Solon Connects at a virtual town hall meeting Thursday (Aug. 20) -- said the most common responses included difficult, dangerous, non-existent, challenging and disconnected.

Thats something for us to build upon as we move forward, Mears said.

Our goal with the plan is to identify some solutions that would change the perception for people and get them to choose to walk or bike in more situations than they currently are.

About 50 people attended the one-hour virtual meeting, which was live-streamed on the citys website from City Hall.

The idea of the Solon Connects plan, Mears said, is to create a safe and beneficial active transportation network for everyone who lives in the city, regardless of age or ability.

Its also for all the people who come to work in Solon, he said.

Mayor Ed Kraus said the coronavirus pandemic has made him even more aware of how people who live and work in Solon want to get out to walk and bike around the city.

Solon Connects really is about safety, Kraus said. Its about improving health and wellness for the entire community, its about business development, and its about mobility and transportation.

But really, in the end, Solon Connects is about our quality of life. I want to thank the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission for their work and their effort in this partnership.

It began with a grant

Last year, the city was awarded a grant for this project after applying to the CCPCs community master plan grant program, Mears said.

We thought their application was really well done and an exciting project for us to look into, he said. The program helps us provide professional planning services to support Cuyahoga County communities in terms of their short-term and long-term goals and tries to improve their quality of life.

There are four steps in the process, Mears said. The first, discovery and analysis -- which involved the community survey and the CCPCs analysis of the data -- is complete.

From there, were going into vision, the phase were currently in, he said. What is the vision for connectivity in Solon? Then well start to build recommendations to help achieve that vision.

The final step is implementation, Mears said. This includes final recommendations, such as next steps and funding and grant opportunities the city can use to implement some of the ideas.

The online survey -- to which 756 residents responded -- ran from February to April and had 19 questions. It provided an overview of what residents think about connectivity, Mears said.

We got a pretty good cross section of Solon residents, in terms of where they live, how long theyve lived there and how old they were, he said.

Walking, biking are top priorities

Mears said the survey indicated that 76 percent of residents thought improving the ease and safety of getting around the city by walking was a high priority, 70 percent said doing so by biking was a high priority and 49 percent said improving ease and safety by car was a high priority.

Residents were asked if they walk, why do they do it? Ninety-one percent said they walk for health and exercise, and 69 percent said they do it for recreation and pleasure.

Not many people said they would walk for shopping, errands or commuting to school or to work, Mears said.

When asked what types of changes or facilities they want to see, 75 percent said multi-use paths and trails. Sixty-three percent said to add or improve sidewalks, 57 percent said to add bike lanes or paths and 57 percent said to add pedestrian-friendly developments.

Fifty-five percent disagreed with the statement: I feel its safe letting my children walk or bike to school.

Seventy percent disagreed with the statement: I can easily access destinations without the use of a car.

But perhaps most telling, 77 percent agreed that its important that Solon does focus on becoming a bike- and pedestrian-friendly community.

Seventy percent agreed that they would walk and bike more if the city were to add more sidewalks, bike lanes and trails.

Connectivity below average

In its analysis, the CCPC wanted to look at what connectivity is like in Solon now, Mears said.

Solon scores below average in terms of its street patterns and connections, he said.

We also studied accessibility. Solon does not have a safe route-to-school plan, and 23 percent of Solon residents live within a 10-minute walk to a park.

Not many people walk to run errands in the city, Mears said.

Solon is considered very car dependent; almost all errands require a car, he said. We know we cant get people to walk six miles from one part of the city to the next, but we can make sure that environment is as walkable as possible.

As for next steps in the process, Mears said a key piece for the CCPC is to gather public feedback. He encouraged residents to visit the commissions website, countyplanning.us, click on Solon Connects and go to the Citizens Comments Map.

This is a way for you to tell us areas you think are connection opportunities -- places you think could be great, and other places you think are connection challenges, he said. This is really important.

A second piece, Mears said, is a shorter survey that residents can take, also on the website.

Why do this now?

For the final 30 minutes, Mears, Kraus and other city officials took questions from residents.

One question was, With the pandemic going on and revenue for the city in question, why would the city want to invest money into this now?

Mears offered two reasons.

One, the city of Solon won a grant, so our services are free, he said.

The second part is its key to understand that a lot of times investments in these projects can be wrapped up into other projects going on, he continued. Having a little bit of a blueprint or a plan or a vision going forward helps with that, so you dont have to go back and try to retrofit something.

It can be part of larger investments, and that could come in terms of economic development opportunities and infrastructure opportunities.

Kraus added, its very important to invest in your own community.

I think of the millions of dollars weve spent on infrastructure, building new roads and making sure our sewers are complete, he said. Weve probably spent $35 (million) to $40 million just in our system over the last 14 years.

Thats a great investment in Solon. Thats why people want to live here and why businesses want to come here, because we believe in investing in our community.

So Im very proud of Solon being a leader in investing in our community, and now its time to invest in our people, so that people feel safe when they bike and they walk and they run, he said.

Kraus added that this may be the best time to look at this connectivity, when so many people are concerned.

Theyre focused on their health and their wellness, their safety, and to also enjoy the ability to get out and to take a walk, he said. So this may be the opportune time.

A recording of the meeting will be posted on the citys website, solonohio.org, and on the CCPCs website. Check the citys Facebook page for the link.

Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:54:22|Editor: huaxia

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Fils photo shows the White House and a stop sign in Washington D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The United States unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and has no right to demand the United Nations Security Council launch the snapback mechanism to restore sanctions against Iran, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday.

Noting that the United States is no longer a participant to the JCPOA, spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press briefing that the participants of the JCPOA and the vast majority of members of the Security Council believe that the U.S. request had no legal basis, and the mechanism has not been activated yet.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday officially notified the UN that the United States was asking to activate the snapback mechanism, endorsed by UN Security Council, Resolution 2231. He claimed that the Security Council will restore all UN sanctions on Iran in 30 days.

China noted the letter sent by the United States, the Permanent Mission of China to the UN already stated China's position, the spokesperson said, adding pertinent participants including China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Iran have sent letters to the Security Council chair. British, French and German foreign ministers also issued a statement to express opposition to the U.S. move.

"The U.S. demand of re-imposition of United Nations sanctions on Iran is nothing but a self-serving political manipulation," the spokesperson said.

The United States has walked away from commitments, withdrawn from international organizations and treaties, harmed multilateralism and the authority of the Security Council, and undermined international non-proliferation regime. Its move to push for a resolution or send a letter to the Security Council cannot justify its above-mentioned behaviors, he said.

The spokesperson noted that on Aug. 14, a U.S.-sponsored draft resolution to extend arms embargo on Iran was put to vote at the Security Council, which was voted against by 13 members unequivocally with only one member voted for it, leaving the United States isolated like never before.

"This fully demonstrates that the U.S. unilateral position runs counter to the wide consensus of the international community and its attempt to sabotage the JCPOA will never succeed. We urge the United States to stop going down the wrong path, otherwise it will only meet further opposition," Zhao said.

It takes equal-footed dialogue and candid consultations rather than sanctions, pressuring or even military threat, to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, the spokesperson said.

To uphold the JCPOA and the authority of the UN Security Council resolution, maintain the international non-proliferation regime and safeguard regional peace and stability, China stands ready to work with other parties to find a proper solution and move forward the political and diplomatic settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue, he added. 
Russian health officials have finally granted permission for opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who is in a coma in a Siberian hospital with suspected poisoning, to be evacuated to Germany for treatment.

Navalny's family and allies have been fighting to transfer him to Germany for urgent treatment, but Russian doctors treating him had refused for hours to allow him to leave the hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk, arguing that he was not fit to travel.

But later on August 21, a senior official at the Omsk hospital, Anatoly Kalinichenko, told the media that Navalny could now be transported, as his condition has stabilized.

The transport from the Russian hospital is planned to be conducted within the day, Kalinichenko was quoted as saying.

According to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, the flight to Berlin is scheduled for the morning of August 22.

German doctors who arrived with an ambulance plane that is waiting to transport him to Berlin's Charite hospital, were earlier in the day allowed to examine Navalny in Omsk after being refused access to him because of what they said was his grave condition.

"We...made the decision that we do not oppose his transfer to another hospital, the one that his relatives indicate to us," Kalinichenko told journalists.

Navalny's wife had earlier appealed to President Vladimir Putin to allow her husbands evacuation to Germany for urgent medical care.

"I officially appeal to you [Putin] to demand you allow the transportation of...Navalny to...Germany," Yulia Navalnaya said in a letter published on social media on August 21.

The Kremlin earlier said that the decision to refuse the transfer to Germany of Navalny was based only on medical grounds.

"This is a question of a purely medical decision," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on August 21 after Russian doctors said Navalny was not well enough to be moved from the Omsk hospital where he is being treated.

But Navalny's supporters denounced the medical verdict as a ploy to stall until any poison would no longer be found in his body.

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, had called the hospital's decision "an attempt on his life being carried out right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities that have authorized it."

"It is deadly to remain in the Omsk hospital without equipment or a diagnosis," she tweeted.

The 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner became ill on August 20 while on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, forcing the aircraft to make an unscheduled landing in Omsk, where he was transported by ambulance to the hospital.

After offering to have him flown to Germany for treatment, the German government said on August 21 that Navalny's life must be saved.

"The most important priority is of course that Mr. Navalny's life can be saved and that he can recover," government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin.

There has been no official diagnosis of Navalny's condition, but his team believes he was poisoned because of his activities.

Yarmysh said she believed the politician was poisoned when he drank tea he had bought at the Tomsk airport.

But Aleksandr Murakhovsky, the head doctor at Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1, told journalists the most likely cause of Navalny's condition was a disorder pertaining to his metabolism of carbohydrates, according to comments carried by state news agency TASS.

"Today we have some working diagnoses. The main one is...a metabolic disorder," Murakhovsky said, adding that Navalny's condition "may be caused by a sudden drop of blood sugar levels."

Murakhovsky's comments came after Yarmysh quoted Navalnys associate, Ivan Zhdanov, as saying that "a police officer at the hospital had just said that a poison was found in Aleksei's body, which was dangerous not only for him, but also for those around him."

The European Union has asked for a swift investigation into what caused Navalny to fall into a coma.

"We are very worried about Aleksei Navalny's health following his suspected poisoning yesterday," EU spokeswoman for foreign affairs and security policy Nabila Massrali said on August 21.

"We expect a swift, independent, and transparent investigation. If confirmed, those responsible must be held to account," Massrali added, urging Russia to permit Navalny to be transferred abroad for treatment.

Peskov told reporters that Russian law enforcement would launch an investigation if poisoning was confirmed, but TASS quoted an unidentified law enforcement source as saying that there were "no grounds for opening a criminal case, no crime elements have been identified."

'Very Courageous Man'

White House national-security adviser Robert O'Brien said on August 20 that the suspected poisoning was "extraordinarily concerning" and could have an impact on U.S.-Russia relations.



"He's a very courageous man. He is a very courageous politician to have stood up to [Russian President] Putin inside Russia, and our thoughts and our prayers are with him and his family," O'Brien said in an interview on Fox News.



"It's extraordinarily concerning and if the Russians were behind this...it's something that we're going to factor into how we deal with the Russians going forward," he said.



Navalny, who has exposed rampant corruption in Russia, has suffered physical attacks in the past.

He endured chemical burns to one of his eyes in 2017 after he was assaulted with antiseptic dye.



In July 2019, Navalny was given a 30-day jail term after calling for unauthorized protests. During that jail sentence, he was taken to a hospital with severe swelling of the face and a rash, and later alleged he was poisoned.



He has been jailed several times in recent years, barred from running for president, and had a bid to run for Moscow mayor blocked.



The head of the legal department of the Anti-Corruption Foundation Navalny founded, Vyacheslav Gimadi, wrote on Twitter, "There is no doubt that Navalny was poisoned for his political position and activity."

With reporting by TASS, ngs55.ru , AP, dpa, Reuters, Fox News, and AFP
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for state officials to resume their Hurricane Harvey home repair program in Houston, staying an appeals court ruling that had blocked the General Land Office from performing recovery work during its ongoing legal battle with the city.

The ruling, part of a lawsuit filed by Mayor Sylvester Turners administration to block the GLO and Land Commissioner George P. Bush from taking over city recovery funds, effectively overturns a July 31 temporary restraining order issued by Texas Third Court of Appeals.

The appellate court had upheld a state district judges move to halt the land office recovery program within city limits while the legal proceedings continued. GLO officials, who administer housing repair programs in all other cities and counties that received federal Harvey aid, began accepting recovery applications from Houston homeowners in May  a move Turner had successfully blocked before Fridays ruling.

Though the Texas Supreme Court has yet to make a final ruling on the lawsuit, GLO officials said the Friday order allows them to move ahead with the takeover by seeking approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The lower court orders had blocked the GLO from submitting its takeover plan, which would give the agency control over $1.27 billion in grant funds, to the federal government.

At the heart of the litigation is the GLOs contention that city officials single-family home repair program has operated at a sluggish pace that they say leaves residents unprepared for future storms and puts the funds at risk of being returned to the federal government. The city has accused the GLO of slow-walking the recovery process through bureaucratic maneuvers, such as failing to provide clear guidance early on.

Houston Housing Department Director Tom McCasland has said the city remains on track to spend its Harvey funds by the August 2024 deadline, despite completing just 76 single-family home repairs thus far. City officials also say their program has moved slower than the states because it prioritizes low-income, elderly and disabled residents, while the GLO administers its program on a first-come, first-served basis.

GLO officials have argued that they could operate the funds more efficiently, touting their progress in other Harvey-affected areas. A GLO spokeswoman said the agency had completed 1,810 home repairs across 48 counties outside Harris County.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who has been critical of the citys recovery efforts, on Monday submitted an amicus brief with 13 other state Republican lawmakers in support of the GLO.

"Houstonians have spent the last three hurricane seasons waiting for the City of Houston to provide disaster recovery assistance, and with two storms in the Gulf next week, this is a poignant point," Bettencourt said.

Turner said in a statement he was disappointed that the Court, without explanation, analysis or even a hearing, chose to dissolve an injunction that the trial court issued after it heard two days of evidence, including admissions by the GLO that it was violating the law.

He said that the city remains focused on helping homeowners and renters, and Commissioner Bushs attempt to take the money from the City demonstrates the States unconscionable and continuing efforts to slow Houstons recovery, Turner said.

In a statement, Bush encouraged Houston homeowners to apply if they are still in need of assistance to repair or rebuild their homes.

"The GLO is providing repairs and reconstruction for homes to be more resilient against natural disasters, including elevating homes above flood level, Bush said. Our focus is to spread the word to Houstonians in need: Help is here to repair homes and rebuild lives."

jasper.scherer@chron.com
FP Trending

A proposal of releasing as many as 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes in Key Haven, Florida starting from 2021 and continuing up to 2022 received the final approval from local authorities, media reports have confirmed.

This move comes in opposition to the appeal of various environmental advocacy groups and locals of the region. After receiving state and federal approvals, the project was granted the final approval by the Monroe County Mosquito Control District. According to the CNN report, the pilot project has been aimed at testing the productivity of genetically modified mosquitoes in controlling the Aedes aegypti.

If proven useful, these mosquitoes called OX5034 could be used as an alternative to the act of spraying insecticides. The Aedes aegypti is a dangerous species of mosquito that acts as vectors to various deadly diseases like dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever. The initiative has also bagged the green signal from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).

Jaydee Hanson, Policy Director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, compared the project with a Jurassic Park experiment and alleged that the administration has used tax dollars and government resources to work on a project that maybe damaging to public and environmental health and [their] local economy.

According to Jaydees claims, the EPA has unlawfully refused to analyse the environmental risks such an experiment can cause. The Mosquito Control Board has an obligation to our community, said Barry Wray, Executive Director of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition. He added that they needed true solutions which could be beneficial for both the local community and the ecosystem.

Oxitec, the company behind the production of the genetically modified mosquitoes, claims that these beings have also gained approval for release in Harris County, Texas.
Once upon a time Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was prime times favourite hunting ground. Rampaging broadcast hosts stomped all over it to proclaim who was patriotic and who was anti-national. Now, these anchors have diverted all their energy to the camp wars of the film industry and the Kashmir story is a forgotten headline, pulled out every now and then from the archives to make a larger point about nationalism.

The specificities of the situation, whether it is militancy, the key players, the restoration of statehood or the prolonged detention of mainstream politicians is too substantive and serious to find any space in salacious, gossipy television noise.

Perhaps that explains the absence of any real attention to the political exit of a young man once embraced, even by the Right-wing, as the great new hope. When Shah Faesal, a doctor, topped the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), his posters were juxtaposed with those of Burhan Wani, killed in an anti-terror operation in 2016. Faesal was the perfect antidote to the trope of the educated local militant. For every story about the school topper who picked up the gun, there was Faesal, the somewhat shy, mild-mannered brainiac who had encouraged an entire generation of young Kashmiris to find a future, not just within the Indian Constitution, but within the government. This year too,16 Kashmiri candidates cleared the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) selection process.

Faesal, who had famously captured the binary forced on his ilk by admitting that politicians from the (erstwhile) state were slotted as either separatists or stooges, made a low-key departure from electoral politics. All he would say is that things in Kashmir had changed forever.

Why are we not more worried? Why are we not more puzzled? A year after the effective nullification of Article 370, nobody believes that the special status of the state will be restored and almost everybody believes that its statehood will be returned. But what no one knows is what we have achieved by the abject humiliation of those who stood by our Union and Constitution.

Sure, some of them may have flirted with autonomy and slogans of self-rule. And others were propped up by support from New Delhi. And, yes, J&Ks mainstream politicians have to reflect on why there was such little support on the street for them. But by rubbing their noses in the ground and handing an entire generation of young separatists an Aha-we-told-you-so moment, what precisely has been gained?

Faesal is not the only politician who once had the approval of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to have fallen out of favour. An even more dramatic example is that of Sajjad Lone, brother and son of separatists. If his father was assassinated by those affiliated to Pakistan, for being willing to talk peace with a BJP government (Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister), the son walked many more steps in that direction by fielding candidates in the 2002 assembly elections. Later, he called Prime Minister Narendra Modi his brother and openly allied with the BJP. Lone was known to be a favourite among Kashmir-watchers of the Sangh parivar. He has not uttered a word since his release from detention.

And then there are former chief minister Omar Abdullahs candid remarks in a new book, India Tomorrow. Speaking to authors Pradeep Chhibber and Harsh Shah, Abdullah reveals the absolute sense of anger, frustration, resentment and bitterness he felt about being locked up. At the heart of his bewilderment is why. What had he done and what did jailing him do for Kashmir? He even goes so far as to indicate that he may not remain in electoral politics if statehood is not brought back. I do not see myself being the chief minister of a Union Territory, he tells the authors, adding that such an entity does not even have the power to appoint a peon.

In some ways, the BJP has achieved its political end. By shifting the goalpost to the restoration of statehood and domicile laws, the government has deftly ensured that literally no party is talking about special status any more. A bunch of petitions in the Supreme Court could take years to adjudicate. And every single mainstream politician has already made peace with the fact that Article 370 is not coming back.

But if that debate is buried, it is even less explicable why we need to weaken political activity.

The BJP promised that the end of Article 370 was going to be the close of business-as-usual in Kashmir.

But if anything defines business-as-usual, it has been New Delhis attempts at political engineering in the Valley.

The humiliation of the mainstream politician is one such illustration.

If J&K is truly integrated, why are we so fearful of democratic lawful politics?

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author

The views expressed are personal

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Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz on Friday complimented Joe Biden's Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, saying the former vice president succeeded in changing the narrative and toeing the line between both ideological factions of his party.

"The Democrats are trying to make this a referendum on Donald Trump, not his policies, not the issues, but on Donald Trump himself," Luntz said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Luntz said Biden exits the four-day party convention, which concluded Thursday night, in a strong position compared to President Donald Trump, who will officially accept the GOP nomination next week at the Republican National Convention.

"I do believe that Joe Biden is ahead, and I do believe the challenges for Donald Trump are significant," said Luntz, who noted that public opinion polls do show some tightening between the two candidates. Biden has a 7.6 percentage point lead over Trump, based on an average of national polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.

Specifically, Luntz said Trump will have to focus on the particulars of Biden's stances on issues such as taxes, even though it was not an area of emphasis throughout the Democratic convention. Luntz said he was "a little bit surprised that it was relatively light on issues and substance and very strong on unity."

"[Trump] needs to make it a referendum on Joe Biden's policies because his persona is very positive," Luntz said.

However, Trump will need to make draw attention to Biden's stances carefully, according to Luntz. There is a risk in going too far with "over-caffeinated rhetoric," he said.

"Biden toned it down, and maybe the 'Bernie Sanders' bros' didn't like it because he wasn't progressive enough," Luntz said, referring to the ardent supporters of the far-left Vermont senator who twice unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. Sanders has endorsed Biden.

"Trump, if he speaks to his base, is going to lose the center," Luntz added. "If he speaks to the people who are really strong towards him, he loses that essential six or seven percent right in the middle, that doesn't like Donald Trump personally, doesn't like Joe Biden's policies. So they have to choose between Trump, who they agree with in terms of issues but disagrees with his personality, or Joe Biden, who they like but don't agree with what he wants to do."

"That is a very tough choice," Luntz said.

Ken Farnaso, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement to CNBC that "the choice couldn't be more clear in November." In an email, he criticized Biden's economic policies as being crafted by "the radical left."
The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has called for a more inclusive society to engage the youth in governance processes to nurture good leaders.

Madam Regina Oforiwa Amanfo, the CDD-Ghana, Senior Programmes Officer and Team Leader for Inclusive and Social Justice, said the time to nurture good leadership to build a more inclusive society was now.

She was speaking at a programme dubbed Youth speaks forum in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital, organised by CDD-Ghana in partnership with the Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF).

The event is part of the CDD-Ghana's USAID supported 'Electoral Support Activity.'

The forum, which is being organised nationwide, was for the leadership of the various political parties, and Civil Society Organisations in the Region.

Madam Amanfo said inclusive society could not exist without the effective participation of the youth.

She said the meeting of the political actors and the youth groups would promote dialogue on ways to enhance youth participation in the political and governance processes.

This, she said, would provide critical youth feedback on political parties' policies and programmes on youth development.

It will also stimulate the interest of Ghanaian youth in national, political and governance processes ahead of election 2020.

According to her, Ghana has a youthful population with about 57 per cent under 25 years.

This youthful population can be an asset for the nation if the enormous abilities and intellect of the youth are channelled towards national development.

Unfortunately, the youth have very limited opportunities to engage in governance processes beyond the exercise of their franchise. The limited political participation for the youth is an Africa-wide problem as evidenced in the research findings from the Afrobarometer, she said.

The Programmes Officer said the Afrobarometer findings suggested that political participation of young people in Africa had declined over the past decade and a half.

She said the findings further revealed that African youth were less likely than their elders to participate in civic activities, while young women participated even less in public affairs, compared to their male counterparts.

Sadly, youth participation in political processes has occasionally been negative. Political actors sometimes mobilize the youth to cause mayhem and violence during elections.

Madam Amanfo noted that CDD-Ghana's work on curbing the menace of political party vigilantism in 2017 and 2018 with support from the USAID, showed that most of the party-affiliated vigilante groups were made up of people in their young and active years.

We are all witnesses of various political violent activities involving the youth in the fourth Republic, either during or after elections. The CDD Security Desk reported recently it tracked violent incidents during the registration exercise. Out of the 20 incidents tracked, 14 were major, involving shooting, injuries and destruction of property.

Mr Ibrahim Hussein Bancie, the Assistant Programmes Coordinator of the YBF, expressed concern about the number of young Members of Parliament,

It is really bad that we have 13 out of the 275 Members of Parliament being youth.

He said there was a need for more youth representation in Parliament to meaningfully contribute to the discourse.

---GNA
MBABANE  SADC regional economic growth was expected to contract by about 4.5 per cent this year but it has been undermined by structural frailties exposed by COVID-19.

These include the dangers of narrow commodity dependence and the weaknesses of supply chains.

These were submissions made by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Director Mluleki Sakhile Dlamini under the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade during a consultative meeting of the Bureau of the 25th Intergovernmental Committee of Senior Officials and Experts (ICSOE) of Southern Africa which took place on August 17, 2020.

The proceedings of the event were shared in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa website.

The ICSOE is a United Nations (UN) General Assembly policy sub-organ of the UN Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development established to provide a Forum for engaging member States senior policy makers and experts on policy and programme-related matters in each of the five sub regions of Africa.

It is an integral part of ECAs governance machinery and meets annually to consider, provide guidance and endorse the overall formulation and implementation of the Sub Regional Office (SROs) programme of work.

The meeting was opened by Dlamini, who was representing the Kingdom of Eswatini, Chair of the Bureau.

Opportunity

He said that the meeting was a great opportunity for the bureau, Southern African Development Community (SADC) , the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the secretariat to review progress in the implementation of the approved work programme, introspect on the technical support to member States and regional economic communities and reflect more intensely on emerging regional challenges and opportunities.

Dlamini highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic and industrialisation as being major issues providing a framework for supporting development in Southern Africa. The pandemic had derailed planned development programmes and exposed structural frailties of the Southern African region, including the dangers of narrow commodity dependence and the weaknesses of supply chains and this will invariably undermine regional economic growth which was expected to contract by about 4.5 per cent this year, he said.

The consultative meeting was attended by members of the Bureau of the 25th ICSOE of Southern Africa; Eswatini (Chair), Lesotho (Vice Chair) and Malawi (Rapporteur), representatives of the SADC and COMESA and staff of the Sub-Region Office for Southern Africa (SRO-SA).

Progress

In his welcoming remarks, SRO-SA Officer in Charge, Sizo Mhlanga also placed emphasis on progress made by the office in delivering support to member States and other stakeholders despite the COVID-19 challenges. He noted that the pandemic had widened the challenges confronting member States and thus the demand for support had increased.

He informed the bureau that, the office had continued to support stakeholders through virtual meetings such as the national stakeholder meeting held on the August 3, 2020 to provide an integrated and inclusive platform for the development of an effective financing model to address the needs and challenges of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

He noted that the bureaus recommendations for refocusing the work programme towards COVID-19 support would be taken into consideration.

Discussions

Meanwhile, the attendance of COMESA and SADC was key to the meetings discussions on regional integration, the African Continental Free Trade Area and industrialisation efforts.

Innocent Makwiramiti, COMESA Senior Private Sector Development Officer, advised the meeting that the COVID-19 challenge was an opportunity for Southern Africa to venture into areas such as, reshaping manufacturing, strengthening sector competitiveness through consolidation and innovation, catalysing the consolidation of the formalisation of MSMEs, acceleration of digital transformation, mobilisation of regional resources for increased industry production, including diaspora funding, promotion of integrated regional manufacturing and domestication of regional policies.
Refusal of Wrexham HMO plans appealed despite council saying there are too many in the area

This article is old - Published: Friday, Aug 21st, 2020

An appeal has been launched after plans to create shared housing for six people in Wrexham were thrown out.

The bid to have the decision reversed comes despite the local authority saying it would lead to there being too many houses in multiple occupation (HM0s) on the same street in the Hightown area.

Wrexham Council has previously published guidance which states HMOs should make up no more than ten per cent of the homes within a 50 metre radius of an application site.

It refused the proposals for a property on Beechley Road, near the town centre, because there are already two shared housing units either side, with a total of six in the immediate vicinity.

Chief planning officer Lawrence Isted said it would result in HMOs representing nearly 13 per cent of the houses in the surrounding area, as well as causing parking problems.

Residents living on the street previously held a protest after claiming the amount of bedsits was creating issues with traffic and fly tipping.

Darren Evans and Chris Tye, who are behind the scheme, have now appealed to planning inspectors appointed by the Welsh Government after disputing the councils conclusions.

In a statement outlining their reasons for wanting to have the outcome overturned, they said: We are aware of the number of HMOs currently in that area however, as per the advice given to us prior to our application by the local planning authority, we agree that one more would only take the figure slightly over ten per cent to 13 per cent.

Our present HMOs have all been renovated to an excellent standard and are all well managed, providing much needed affordable housing which we would maintain with this one.

The property is already in good condition; therefore, alterations would be minimal, keeping the house in character with the area.

The property currently has three bedrooms and the maximum number of proposed tenants would be six; therefore, the maximum parking provision would not be altered.

In our experience with HMOs we find that tenants rarely own a car anyway and with the close proximity of the house to the town centre, along with the regular bus service which passes through that area, (it) means a car is not usually required.

HMOS were recently highlighted as a possible contributing factor following a coronavirus outbreak among staff at the Rowan Foods factory on Wrexham Industrial Estate.

Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething said he was genuinely concerned about the living conditions of low paid workers who rent rooms in shared houses.

The minister acknowledged using communal bathroom, toilet and kitchen facilities could potentially aid the spread of the virus.

The appeal will be decided by the Planning Inspectorate at a later date.

By Liam Randall  BBC Local Democracy Reporter
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson noted President Donald Trumps record of absentee voting during an appearance at the Democratic National Convention, saying Republicans agree that mail-in voting is safe and secure.

Democrats kept a strong focus on the message that Trump is sabotaging the postal system to benefit his reelection chances on the last night of their national convention Thursday. Benson, who came under fire from the president after mailing all registered voters absentee ballot request forms, said secretaries of state across the country are defending our democracy against any and all attacks, foreign and domestic.

Lets be clear: There is absolutely zero difference between voting by mail and voting absentee, Benson said. Millions of Americans have been voting absentee for decades, Donald Trump, his family, his staff, they all vote by mail. In fact, in states like Colorado, Utah and Oregon voters have been voting by mail for years.

California and Michigan secretary of states call voting "the oxygen of our democracy," and say Pres. Trump "is attacking vote-by-mail to distract and confuse voters."



"Donald Trump, his family, his staffthey all vote by mail." https://t.co/6DLWHOY082 #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/kWbVUAHbiK  ABC News (@ABC) August 21, 2020

Trump cast a vote-by-mail ballot in Florida this week. The president has criticized universal absentee voting and claimed the process is prone to fraud, though Benson said theres no evidence to support Trumps statements.

Im an absentee voter because I requested, I got, and then I sent in my vote, Trump said Sunday. So that works out very well. Thats what weve had. But now they want to send in millions and millions of ballots. And you see whats happening. Theyre being lost, theyre being discarded. Theyre finding them in piles. Its going to be a catastrophe.

Michigan expanded the option to vote with an absentee ballot to all state residents through a successful ballot initiative in 2018. The Nov. 3 election will be the first presidential race where any citizen can vote by mail for any reason.

Benson appeared at the DNC with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to voice concerns about the state of the U.S. Postal Service after reported mail delays and the removal mail sorting machines across the country.

Trump has admitted, hes tried to sabotage the post office to undermine voting by mail, Padilla said, claiming the president is attempting to confuse voters about absentee voting.

Benson was one of several Michigan residents who were given speaking time on the last night of the convention. UAW worker Gerald Lang was featured in a roundtable with Biden focused on improving the financial standing of middle-class Americans.

Farmington HIlls resident Edward Good, a 95-year-old WWII veteran, was also given a speaking slot. Good voted for Trump before expressing his support for Biden Thursday.

I think Trump has been the worst president weve ever had. So Ill be glad to see him go, Good said.

Edward Good, a 95-year-old WWII and Korea War veteran, is a lifelong Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but he is now backing Joe Biden: I think Trump has been the worst president weve ever had, so Ill be glad to see him go. https://t.co/6DLWHOY082 #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/bUZEOekQNb  ABC News (@ABC) August 21, 2020

READ MORE ON MLIVE:

U.S. Postal Service scrapping usable mail sorting machines in Grand Rapids, union says

Michigan is at the center of national politics, Democrats say during push for absentee voting

Bidens socially distant campaign feels strong in Michigan after Democratic Party rebuilt itself to beat Trump

Michigan Democrats organize hearings, lawsuits to prevent USPS mail delays
DALLAS, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Once again, all four shareholders in the Texas trial and appellate firm Johnston Tobey Baruch have been selected by The Best Lawyers in America, and Robert Tobey has been named a Lawyer of the Year for Dallas-Fort Worth.

The Best Lawyers in America is the oldest and one of the most respected U.S. attorney guides. Inclusion in the publication is based on peer-review surveys submitted by attorneys who practice in the same legal fields and within the same geographic regions.

Mr. Tobey, who serves as the current president of the Dallas Bar Association, earned Lawyer of the Year honors for Dallas-Fort Worth in the 2021 edition for his expertise in legal malpractice litigation. He was also recognized separately for commercial litigation and legal malpractice law for defendants and plaintiffs. Mr. Tobey's practice also includes litigation related to liability claims, ethical issues and fee disputes for clients and lawyers.

Firm co-founder Randy Johnston earned Best Lawyers recognition for commercial litigation, mergers and acquisitions litigation and legal and professional malpractice law representing plaintiffs and defendants. Mr. Johnston's decades of experience cover a wide range of matters involving professional services, fiduciary duty, investment fraud, insurance and other business disputes.

Chad Baruch, the firm's managing shareholder, was recognized by Best Lawyers for his appellate work. In addition, Mr. Baruch is sought after for his legal writing and defense of constitutional rights expertise.

As one of the rising stars in the legal community, Coyt Johnston was featured in the guide for both commercial litigation and mergers and acquisitions litigation. In 2019, Best Lawyers recognized him as a Lawyer of the Year for mergers and acquisitions in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Best Lawyers has included each of Johnston Tobey Baruch's three name shareholders since 2013. In addition, each attorney is Board Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization; Mr. Baruch for Civil Appellate Law, Mr. Johnston for Civil Trial Law and Mr. Tobey for Consumer and Commercial Law. Coyt Johnston has been selected for Best Lawyers each year since 2016.

About Johnston Tobey Baruch:

Johnston Tobey Baruch is a dynamic law practice based in Dallas. Its trial and appellate attorneys have a broad range of litigation, arbitration and appellate experience. They are pioneers in the handling of legal and accounting malpractice, investment fraud and business disputes. They also have an enviable track record with insurance bad faith matters, commercial litigation and fiduciary litigation, as well as civil, family and criminal appeals for many prominent Texas companies and individuals. For more information, visit https://www.johnstontobey.com/ .

Media Contact:

Mike Androvett

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SOURCE Johnston Tobey Baruch

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Hong Kong: Mainland support team welcomed

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government welcomed the arrival of a Mainland nucleic acid test support team.

It also expressed gratitude to the central government for its response to the request of the Hong Kong SAR Government and speedy formation of the support team to aid in the citys anti-epidemic work.

Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang and Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan attended the ceremony to welcome the 50-member team that arrived today.

The first batch of members who arrived in Hong Kong in early August assisted in the preparatory work for the temporary laboratory to substantially ramp up the citys virus testing capability.

The Hong Kong SAR Government said it has been putting in place various mitigation measures to tackle the epidemic.

With the full support of the central government, it said it is confident that it can combat the virus to enable people to resume their normal lives as soon as possible.

It added that the full co-operation of the public in adhering to social distancing and maintaining personal hygiene are also needed to fight the epidemic.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
August 21, 2020





Investments keep coming in for Molekule, a leader in the air purification market. The companys products  the Molekule Air, Air Mini, Air Mini+ and Air Pro RX  represent a revolution in technology that fights air pollution, a problem that has been attributed to seven million premature deaths yearly according to data from the World Health Organization. Molekule air purifiers use a new kind of technology called photo electrochemical oxidation (PECO (News - Alert)). Its a technology that uses photocatalysis to speed up oxidation, which safely breaks down pollutants at a molecular level. With two decades of research behind it, PECO has been proven to destroy pollutants at the molecular level down to .1 nanometers. The list of pollutants in the air that Molekule devices can destroy includes viruses, pollen, allergens, pet dander, fumes from paint, nail polish remover, off-gassing varnish, and more.







This state-of-the-art technology has attracted numerous investors. Most recently, that includes the Amazon Alexa Fund and Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams. For people interested in air purification technology, this investor confidence can be a signal of a very good Molekule review.

Amazon Alexa Fund Invests in Molekule

. The Alexa Fund announced in May that it will be investing in Molekule, and this is the funds first investment in air purification and air quality technology.

Molekule has been selling its devices on Amazon since February 2020. Paul Bernard, director of the Alexa Fund, sees this as an exciting opportunity because, according to him, home air filtration is an area that needs more advancement.

Home air filtration has seen little innovation in the space since the creation of the HEPA filter, he says. We see Molekule as advancing the state-of-the-art home air purification by developing technology that destroys pollutants. Were excited to support them during such a crucial time for clean air innovation.

This particular investment came shortly after another notable announcement: In tests, Molekules PECO technology demonstrates a remarkable ability to destroy viruses. Testing has revealed that the Air Mini device, using PECO technology, destroyed as much as 99.999 percent of MS2 bacteriophage in two hours. Tests on filters from the Air Pro RX show that this device has the ability to destroy the MS2 virus by more than 99.999 percent on the filter in 24 hours. The Air Pro RX is a medical-grade device featuring FDA 510(k) Class II Medical Device Clearance. Recently, the Air Pro RX and the Air have been deployed in Mercyhealth hospitals in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin as a way to provide a localized air purification solution to frontline healthcare workers.

Dilip Goswami, President & Chief Technology Officer of Molekule, has this to say about the Alexa Funds recent investment: For years, the Alexa Fund has been dedicated to investing in technology that makes customers lives easier, and we are pleased that they are continuing to invest and fund technology innovation in the current times. We are extremely dedicated to making the home smarter and are looking forward to continuing to provide innovative air purification technology that destroys the widest range of pollutants to those who need it most.

Game of Thrones Actress Maisie Williams Gives Positive Molekule Feedback via Investment

Actress and entrepreneur Maisie Williams is another who sees much potential in Molekules PECO technology. Williams has a long history of defending the environment and speaking up about how the environment impacts humans well-being. Williams investment demonstrates her support of Molekule and how well her commitment to human health and the environment aligns with Molekules mission of fighting air pollution worldwide. Given the current crisis, the timing could not be better for investments in air quality technology.

With the dangers of air quality so prevalent in our lives today, there has never been a more important time to protect ourselves against air pollution, Williams says. As an early fan and customer of Molekule, Ive personally experienced the many benefits of its PECO technology. And now as an investor, Im proud to continue my support in a company that is dedicated to providing access to clean air for everyone.

Jaya Rao, the CEO of Molekule, is thrilled by Williams commitment. We deeply value and search for partners that believe in the mission for clean air, she says. Im thrilled for us to partner with Maisie. Her care for this space and her understanding of how vital the air people breathe is has led to an instant alignment. This investment will enable us to continuously bring the latest advancements in our technology to customers and enable us to expand our air purification solutions for additional industries who are in real need of an effective air purification solution today.

Williams and Alexa Funds Investments Come on Heels of Other Investors

The investments from Williams and the Amazon Alexa Fund follow a string of other investments from venture capital firms. As of February, Molekule had raised $58 million in Series C funding, demonstrating the belief among investors that this technology is an important step forward for indoor air quality. These investments came as Molekule received further validation from independent third-party researchers proving the efficacy of the technology.

Prior to February, existing investors included Foundry Group, Crosslink Capital, Translink Capital, and Uncork Capital. Februarys investments represented the third round of funding, with RPS Ventures leading the way. Other participants included Inventec (News - Alert) Appliances Corp and Founders Circle Capital.

Why are investors so eager to flock to Molekule? To start, the prior industry standard in air filtration technology was the HEPA filter, which was created back in the 1940s, and investors see the opportunity for innovation.

On top of that, Molekules PECO technology has proven itself multiple times through third-party laboratory studies. Recently, for example, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratorys Indoor Environment Group completed testing that showed that Molekule devices are effective at reducing concentrations of volatile organic compounds like formaldehyde, toluene, limonene, and more. This also includes ozone, a pollutant that is highly regulated by the EPA.

Testing at Intertek (News - Alert), for instance, demonstrated that the Molekule Air devices reduced concentrations of a single injection of particulate matter 0.3 to 1.0 micron in size by 85 percent in 22 minutes. And the Aerosol Research and Engineering Laboratories conducted testing that showed that Air Pro RX filters using PECO technology were capable of killing more than 99.999 percent of bacteria and an MS2 viruses collected on the filters in 24 hours.

With all of this funding, Molekule has big plans for the future. The company anticipates continued growth  and with that, it plans to keep focusing on innovation and expanding its line of products. One of its primary goals is to offer a broad portfolio of air purification solutions in both consumer and industrial spaces. As concerns about indoor air pollution rise, this is one of the fastest-growing technological markets, with many looking for better ways to destroy particulates and pollution from the air. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has only fueled investor and consumer interest in innovative air purification technology.
Illinois church installs Plexiglas barriers between pews

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A congregation in Illinois has taken steps to help curb the spread of COVID-19 and allow for a safer in-person worship experience by temporarily installing Plexiglas barriers for some of their pews.

Progressive Church of God in Christ of Springfield recently added the barriers, which can be removed from the pews when deemed necessary, and has used them during worship.

Pastor Glenn Jackson of Progressive Church told The Christian Post in an interview on Tuesday that the idea and creation of the barriers occurred a couple of months ago.

Jackson felt it was extremely important to have the church members be able to come together in a faith environment to have fellowship to counter the many who were experiencing some level of depression or sense of isolation.

We wanted to create an atmosphere where people can come, young and old, explained Jackson. I thought it was important that for their emotional, physical, mental, and more importantly for their spiritual health to be able to come back into the house of worship.

I thought this was something that we can do, to bring them. More importantly, bring them safely into the house so they can be fed spiritually.

Jackson gave his concept and design for the barriers to a friend and former coworker who was a woodsman, creating the Plexiglas barriers at a price of about $200 - $300 per pew.

He said that he has been pleasantly surprised by how well the barriers have worked since the church began to hold worship services, with the pastor liking how they are not a permanent addition to the pews.

It works perfectly for our sanctuary and its done without having to use any screws or anything thats not a permanent fixture. We can lift it up and move it, so that was to me the key without really messing with the aesthetics or the interior of the church, he explained.

We can now group families together in these Plexiglas areas which provide some coverage of safety and it has worked out quite well. Ive been pleasantly surprised with how its all come together. It's eased the tension of many of the members coming back in the house of worship and theyre excited about being able to come back in.

There have only been a few complaints from some members of the congregation.

Obviously, you have some members who say they did not realize that they were somewhat claustrophobic, but they have moved back to some of the other pews or they have moved up forward in the church, said Jackson. So it works out well.

In response to the pandemic, the vast majority of churches in the United States canceled their in-person worship to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus and switched to online services.

As churches across the country reopen, they look to ways to meet that take into consideration public health concerns, such as spacing out attendees and requiring the wearing of face masks.

Some congregations have also taken to holding services outdoors or drive thru worship, in which people attend while in their cars and listen to worship through a radio broadcast.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  A New York-based real estate development firm is working to transform a vacant lot on Grand Rapids Northwest Side into a 240-unit apartment complex.

Magnus Capital Partners hopes to begin work next spring on the project, which is located at 3059 Lake Michigan Drive NW and known as HOM Flats at Maynard, said Jenna Morton, director of marketing and business development.
Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) on Wednesday said it will launch trading in green term-ahead market (G-TAM) on Friday, as it has received power regulator CERC nod for the same.

The Indian Energy Exchange is delighted to announce that it has received approval from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), vide order dated August 17, 2020, to launch the Green (renewable power) Term-Ahead Market (G-TAM) on its platform, an IEX statement said.

The exchange has already conducted a mock trading session on August 18, which saw good participation from its members and partners. It plans to commence the trading from Friday, August 21, it added.

As a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement 2016, India has committed to install 40 per cent i.e. 450 GW of renewable capacity by the year 2030. The consumers in India as well as globally are increasingly preferring sustainable energy over conventional.

The introduction of green markets on the exchange platform is a significant milestone, which will go a long way in facilitating consumers make a choice, accomplishment of national green capacity targets, and enabling integration of renewable energy in the most flexible as well as efficient way.

The market will offer trade in four types of green term-ahead contracts -Green Intra-day contracts, Dayahead Contingency contracts, Daily Contracts and Weekly contracts.

There will be separate contracts for solar and non-solar energy to facilitate purchase obligations fulfilment.

The energy ecosystem around us is evolving and a rapid transformation has been underway. The policymakers and regulatory authorities are pro-actively deliberating introduction of competitive market-based models towards meeting sustainable energy economy aspirations.

CERC approval to introduce a green market on the Exchange platform is indeed a welcome, much-awaited and a landmark development from a holistic larger canvas of the energy sector. As India moves towards building a sustainable energy economy, we are excited about this new chapter which offers choice to consumers and will play a key role in achieving the national renewable aspirations, IEX MD and CEO Rajiv Srivastava said.

The introduction of G-TAM along with the recently launched real-time trading in electricity will work in tandem to support the seamless integration of RE (renewable energy) power.

The G-TAM will greatly support the renewable energy generators as well as the distribution utilities in trading through the market platform. The new market segment will support states with surplus renewables to sell, while the buyers will be able to procure energy as well as meet the renewable purchase obligations, it said. PTI KKS BAL
The coronavirus pandemic is stabilising in Brazil and any reversal of its rampant spread in the vast country would be a success for the world, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

India approached towards the three million mark for coronavirus cases, reporting 68,898 new infections in the last 24 hours.

More than 22.5 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 around the world, and more than 14.4 million have recovered. More than 790,500 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Here are the latest updates:

Friday, August 21

23:55 GMT  Kentucky Derby to be held without fans

Organisers of the Kentucky Derby said no fans would be allowed to attend the horse race in the US city of Louisville on September 5.

With the current significant increases in COVID-19 cases in Louisville as well as across the region, we needed to again revisit our planning, Churchill Downs Inc said in a statement.

We have made the difficult decision to hold this years Kentucky Derby on September 5 without fans.





23:41 GMT  Limited transmission found in US childcare study, CDC says

Transmission of COVID-19 from children or adults to other people in Rhode Island childcare programs occurred on only a limited basis, a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.

CDC Director Robert Redfield told reporters on a call that the findings indicated that there is a path to get these childcare programs to reopen, which are very important for our country.

The CDC analysis found transmission in just four of the 666 childcare programs operating in the state during the period June 1 to July 31, with 17 people becoming infected. The transmission was identified mainly in the last two weeks of July, when community transmission in Rhode Island had increased, the researchers said.

The pandemic still had a major impact, with 853 children and staff members going into self-quarantine because an infected person had showed up at a facility.

20:30 GMT  Swedish PM defends COVID-19 strategy

Sweden has chosen the right strategy in fighting the spread of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said, defending his governments decision not to adopt a strict lockdown as many European countries have done.

More than 5,800 Swedes have died of COVID 19, a much higher death rate than in neighbouring Norway, Denmark and Finland which adopted much tougher measures than Sweden, leading many to question the governments approach.

But Lofven said Sweden had made the correct choice.

The strategy that we adopted, I believe is right  to protect individuals, limit the spread of the infection, etc, he said in an interview in daily Dagens Nyheter.





20:00 GMT  South Africas COVID-19 infections breach 600,000 mark

South Africas confirmed COVID-19 cases have surpassed 600,000, the health ministry said, even though the number of new cases has been declining since a peak in July.

The country now has 603,338 confirmed cases of the virus and 12,843 people have died, the ministry said in a statement shortly after the figures were first posted by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases on Twitter.

#COVID19 Statistics in SA as at 21 August. pic.twitter.com/4t09HDOZPR  Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) August 21, 2020

19:40 GMT  WHO chief: Hope to finish this pandemic in less than two years

The WHO said it hopes the planet will be rid of the coronavirus pandemic in less than two years  faster than it took for the Spanish flu.

We hope to finish this pandemic in less than two years, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters from the WHOs headquarters in Geneva, insisting that it should be possible to tame the novel coronavirus faster than the deadly 1918 pandemic.

Read more here.

19:20 GMT  Children over 12 should follow same mask rules as adults: WHO

The World Health Organization has recommended that children over 12 should wear masks in the same contexts as adults in the bid to rein in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN health agency, in cooperation with UNICEF, published fresh guidance Friday on when it is appropriate for children to wear masks to impede the spread of the coronavirus crisis.

18:35 GMT  US CDC reports 173,490 deaths from coronavirus

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the number of deaths due to the new coronavirus had risen by 1,074 to 173,490 and reported 5,551,793 cases, an increase of 44,864 cases from its previous count.





18:20 GMT  Germany extends Belgium travel warning to Brussels

Germany has warned against travel to Brussels because of the high rate of coronavirus infections in Belgian capital, which is also home to the main organs of the European Union, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Germany warned against non-essential travel to EU regions where there have been more than 50 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the past week. Belgiums province of Antwerp is already subject to a warning.

17:45 GMT  France reports 4,586 new COVID-19 infections

The French health ministry has reported 4,586 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours after the country reached a post-lockdown record the previous day.

The ministry also said the total for coronavirus deaths in the country had risen by 23 in the past 24 hours to 30,503.

The number of patients in intensive care units was down by 1 to 379, the ministry also said.

17:30 GMT  WHO chief brands virus protection gear graft murder

Corrupt practices around medical safety gear for COVID-19 health workers is tantamount to murder, the World Health Organization chief has said.

In strong remarks, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that corruption which deprives health workers of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) threatened not only their lives but also the lives of their patients suffering from the novel coronavirus.

16:55 GMT  Indonesia books 50 million vaccine doses from Sinovac

Chinas Sinovac Biotech has committed to provide 50 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine candidate to Indonesias government from November to March, a minister and Indonesias state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma has said.

The Southeast Asian nation is seeking to secure a supply as cases rise unabated.

16:40 GMT  Governor of Brazils Sao Paulo state says no longer has coronavirus

The governor of Brazils Sao Paulo state, Joao Doria, has said he no longer had coronavirus, less than two weeks after announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Doria told reporters he is still quarantined and that his wife, Bia Doria, who had also contracted the disease has now tested negative as well.

16:25 GMT  Scale of pandemic in Mexico under-recognised: WHO

The scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico is under-represented and under-recognised and testing is limited, the World Health Organizations Dr Mike Ryan has said.

He told a Geneva briefing that testing in Mexico worked out at about three people per 100,000, compared with about 150 tests per 100,000 people in the United States.





16:10 GMT  Spain daily coronavirus infections rise to 3,650

Spain diagnosed 3,650 coronavirus infections in past 24 hours, the health ministry has said, up from 3,349 cases it reported a day earlier and bringing the cumulative total to 386,054.

The ministry said 125 people had died from the virus over the past seven days. The seven-day death toll reported on Thursday was 122.

15:55 GMT  UK records 1,033 new COVID-19 cases

The United Kingdom has recorded 1,033 new positive cases of COVID-19, down from 1,182 on Thursday, government figures showed.

A further two people died after testing positive for the coronavirus within 28 days, down from six a day earlier.

The new cases were recorded as the government ramps up testing so it can suppress the spread of the virus and ease restrictions that have crippled its economy.

15:40 GMT  Italy economy weathering coronavirus better than expected: minister

Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri said that Italys economy has held up better than expected in the face of the coronavirus and the third quarter would show a very strong rebound in growth.

In the second quarter Italian gross domestic product shrank by 12.4 percent from the previous three months, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported last month, the steepest drop on record but less severe than forecast.

15:25 GMT  Irish minister quits for damaging national effort on COVID-19

Irelands agriculture minister resigned after he said he had damaged the national effort in fighting COVID-19 by attending a social event that could have breached health regulations.

Dara Calleary was among more than 80 guests at a hotel dinner hosted by the Irish parliaments golf society, the night after he and his cabinet colleagues significantly tightened nationwide restrictions to try to rein in a rise in infections.

Dara Calleary was among more than 80 guests at a hotel dinner hosted by the Irish parliaments golf society [File: Reuters]

15:10 GMT  Rugby player tests positive in latest Premiership COVID-19 tests

One player in the Premiership has tested positive for COVID-19 in testing after the first round of fixtures following the seasons restart, Premiership Rugby said.

The Premiership said 1,043 players and club staff had been tested  the highest number of tests they have carried out in a day since they began testing in early July.

14:55 GMT  Virus cases reported at 41 schools in Berlin

At least 41 schools in Berlin have reported students or teachers are infected with the coronavirus  not even two weeks after they reopened in the German capital.

The daily Berliner Zeitung published the numbers on Friday and the citys senate for education confirmed them to The Associated Press.

Hundreds of students and teachers are in quarantine, the newspaper reported. Elementary schools, high schools and trade schools are affected. There are 825 schools in Berlin.

14:40 GMT  Tunisia imposes curfew in two southern towns

Tunisia has imposed a 5:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew in two southern towns to help contain a renewed coronavirus outbreak, the state news agency TAP said.

The North African nation is seeking to counter a second spread of COVID-19 evident since it reopened its borders on June 27 as part of steps to ease a lockdown and revive the economy, particularly the vital tourist industry.

Since then, however, Tunisia has recorded a major resurgence of infections, exceeding 100 per day over the last two weeks.

14:35 GMT

Hello, this is Elizabeth Melimopoulos taking over the live updates from my colleague Umut Uras in Doha.

12:45 GMT  Irish county to remain under lockdown, business body told

Irelands public health officials have recommended that strict COVID-19 restrictions should remain in place in one of the three counties where they were reimposed two weeks ago, the health minister was quoted as telling local businesses.

Ireland closed or limited business on August 7 in three of its 26 counties, Kildare, Laois and Offaly.

County Kildare Chamber Chief Executive Allan Shine told the Reuters news agency that he had spoken to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, who had made clear that an extension of controls in Kildare for two more weeks had been recommended.

The measures, that mean residents can only leave their county in limited circumstances, will be lifted in Laois and Offaly, he added.

12:15 GMT  Lebanon enforces new partial lockdown in effort to curb COVID-19

Lebanon imposed a partial lockdown for two weeks in an effort to counter COVID-19 infections which have spiralled since the catastrophic explosion at Beirut port.

The spread of COVID-19 is compounding the woes of a country still reeling from the August 4 explosion that killed at least 180 people and wounded some 6,000, and a financial meltdown that has devastated the economy since October.

Lebanon recorded its highest 24-hour tally of new infections on Thursday, with 613 new cases. The infections have spread in the aftermath of the blast as hospitals were flooded with the casualties, medics say.

11:55 GMT  Slovakia reports record number of new coronavirus cases

Slovakia reported 123 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily number since the global pandemic reached the country in March, data from the Health Ministry showed.

It was also the third time the country has reported more than 100 new cases in a day.

Slovakia, a country of 5.5 million, has recorded very low numbers of the coronavirus compared with other European countries. It has confirmed 3,225 people infected with COVID-19 so far, out of whom 2,045 have recovered, and 33 died.

11:30 GMT  Englands small rise in COVID-19 cases levelled off: Statistics office

A small increase in the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 in England in July appears to have levelled off, the UKs statistics office said.

In the week of August 7-13, nearly one in 2,200 individuals tested positive in England, it said.

In late July, about one person in 1,500 tested positive, the ONS had previously said.

11:00 GMT  Sweden to ease some COVID-19 curbs on sports, gatherings

Sweden plans to ease pandemic rules to allow more spectators at cultural and sporting events, if they can be organised to prevent the risk of spreading the new coronavirus, the government said.

In March, Sweden limited public gatherings to 50 people to halt the spread of the virus, effectively preventing theatres, soccer clubs and concerts from being able to bring in revenues from the public.

However, with the number of new infections and COVID-19 deaths falling in Sweden, the government said it planned to introduce exceptions to the 50-person maximum for events where crowds could be seated two metres apart, from October 1.

In March, Sweden limited public gatherings to 50 people to halt the spread of the virus [EPA]

10:20 GMT  Russias COVID-19 vaccine to complete clinical trial in September: Report

The clinical trial of a Russian COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the Siberian Vektor research centre is due to be completed in September, the RIA news agency said.

The agency cited Russias healthcare watchdog as its source for the report.

10:00 GMT  Poland reports new record in coronavirus new daily cases

Poland reported 903 new coronavirus cases, according to the Health Ministrys Twitter account, the highest daily increase since the outbreak.

Poland has reported 60,281 cases in all, and 1,938 deaths.

09:10 GMT  Philippines reports 4,786 more coronavirus infections, 59 deaths

The Philippines recorded 4,786 new coronavirus infections, taking its total confirmed cases to 182,365 since the pandemic began, the highest in Southeast Asia.

In a bulletin, the health ministry also reported 59 more fatalities, bringing the countrys death toll to 2,940.

The infectiousness has increased because the strain has evolved, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said at a webinar on Friday.

A boy wears a face shield while watching an online learning class from a smartphone in Manila, Philippines [File: Reuters]

08:40 GMT  Irish minister to resign over COVID-19 breach: Reports

Irish Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary is resigning over his attendance this week at a social event with more than 80 people which may have breached COVID-19 regulations, a number of media outlets reported.

Calleary apologised unreservedly late on Thursday for attending a hotel dinner hosted by the Irish parliaments golf society, a day after the government significantly tightened nationwide restrictions to try to rein in a spike in cases.

Irelands Newstalk radio station reported that the minister would resign. Callearys office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

07:45 GMT  Russias coronavirus case tally nears 950,000

Russia reported 4,870 new coronavirus cases, pushing its confirmed national tally to 946,976, the fourth-largest in the world.

Authorities said 90 people had died over the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 16,189.

Russia says 110 people died over the last 24 hours, pushing its official death toll to 16,914 [File: Anadolu]

07:20 GMT  US unfreezing Venezuelan assets for fight against COVID-19: Guaido

Venezuelas opposition said the United States has granted it access to millions of dollars of frozen Venezuelan government funds to support efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

The US Treasury Department had approved the release of the funds, the opposition said in a statement without specifying the total amount.

The statement said part of the released funds would go to pay some 62,000 health workers $300. During a live appearance on Twitter on Thursday night, opposition leader Juan Guaido said health workers could register accounts to receive payments of $100 a month starting Monday. Healthcare workers in Venezuela can earn as little as $5 a month.

06:55 GMT  Germanys confirmed coronavirus cases rise by 1,427: RKI

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,427 to 230,048, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.

The reported death toll rose by seven to 9,260, the tally showed.

Passengers stand in front of a coronavirus test centre at the international airport in Frankfurt am Main, Germany [EPA]

06:30 GMT  Hungary to tighten border crossing to curb spread of virus: PM Orban

Hungary will tighten border crossing rules from September 1 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as the number of new infections is rising in neighbouring countries, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio.

Orban, a nationalist who has been in power for more than 10 years, also said the government would draft a two-year plan to boost the economy by the middle of next month, after a deeper-than-expected 13.6 percent plunge in second-quarter economic output.

06:00 GMT  UAE could reintroduce curfew in some areas: Official

The United Arab Emirates could reintroduce a de facto overnight curfew in some areas of the country in case of a high number of COVID-19 infections, a government official said.

The Gulf Arab state has seen the number of cases rise this week to more than 400 for the first time since mid-July, including 461 infections and two deaths in the 24 hours to Thursday.

Asked if the national sterilisation programme, which had included a night-time curfew, could again be enforced, National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority (NCEMA) spokesman Seif al-Zahri told Emirates TV: Yes, thats possible in certain areas where we observe high infection cases.

Hello, this is Umut Uras in Doha, taking over from my colleague Zaheena Rasheed.

05:24 GMT  S Korea urges more testing as outbreak threatens to spread

South Korea reported 324 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest single-day total since March 8, as the recent surge of COVID-19 in the greater capital area now appears to be spreading nationwide.

Friday was the eighth consecutive day that South Korea reported a triple-digit daily increase, for an eight-day total of 1,900 infections.

Most of the recent new cases have been in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan region, but officials said the latest new infections were recorded in practically all major cities nationwide, including Busan, Gwangju, Daejeon, Sejong and Daegu. Some of the new cases included people who attended a rally by conservative political groups in Seoul last week.

Members of conservative civic groups take part in an anti-government protest in central Seoul, South Korea, on August 15, 2020 [Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters]

05:09 GMT  India cases surge to 2.9 million

India hurtled toward the 3 million mark for coronavirus cases, reporting 68,898 new infections in the last 24 hours.

The total number of cases in the country now stands at 2.9 million. Deaths in the same period jumped by 983, with the total now at 54,849.

04:27 GMT  Peru, Morocco to test China Sinopharms vaccine

Authorities in Peru and Morocco approved phase three clinical trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by China National Biotec Group (CNBG), the company said late on Thursday.

Phase three trials, which usually involve several thousand participants, allow researchers to gather data on the efficacy of potential vaccines for final regulatory approvals.

The experimental vaccine of CNBG, a unit of state-owned pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), has entered a Phase 3 trial in the United Arab Emirates that has already recruited 15,000 volunteers.

It has also obtained approval to be tested in Bahrain in a phase three study designed to involve about 6,000 participants.





03:55 GMT  Stay-at-home order in Myanmars Sittwe

Health authorities ordered residents of Sittwe, the capital of Myanmars Rakhine state, to stay at home after detecting three more locally transmitted cases, according to the Myanmar Times newspaper.

A total of nine cases have been reported in Rakhine since August 16, when authorities detected Myanmars first locally transmitted case in nearly a month.

Buses and flights have suspended operations in and out of Sittwe starting on Thursday.

Residents in Sittwe township, Rakhine State, have been placed under stay-at-home notice after the health ministry reported three more local COVID-19 transmissions. https://t.co/OYWDCbEA4R  The Myanmar Times (@TheMyanmarTimes) August 20, 2020

03:32 GMT  Biden says his top priority is to get control of virus

Joe Biden, the Democratic Partys presidential candidate, said his first step if elected president of the United States would be to get control of the virus that has ruined so many lives.

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Biden said: We will never get our economy back on track, we will never get our kids back in schools, we will never have our lives back until we deal with this virus.

His plan to contain the pandemic included developing and deploying rapid tests, bolstering the supply of protective gear and instituting a national mandate for masks.

03:12 GMT  New Zealand defers lockdown decision

New Zealand reported nine new locally transmitted coronavirus cases, and put off a decision about easing restrictions in its biggest city of Auckland to next week.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she would announce on Monday whether the government would ease alert level-three restrictions enforced in Auckland, and level-two measures in the rest of the country.

02:41 GMT  Germany to take on more debt in 2021

Germany will need to take on yet more debt in 2021 to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on the economy, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.

Next year, we will continue to be forced to suspend the debt rule and spend considerable funds to protect the health of citizens and stabilise the economy, Scholz said in an interview with the Funke media group, referring to Germanys cherished policy of keeping a balanced budget.

Scholz already plans to borrow about 218 billion euros ($258bn) this year to help pay for a huge rescue package to steer the country through the coronavirus-induced downturn.

02:26 GMT  New virus cases in Australias Victoria hit five-week low

Australias Victoria reported its lowest number of new infections in five weeks, logging 179 new cases in the past 24 hours, compared with 240 a day earlier and down from about 700 two weeks ago.

The decline in cases comes after authorities introduced a nightly curfew and shut large swathes Victorias economy. The state reported nine deaths.

Despite the second wave of the outbreak in Victoria, Australia has largely avoided high casualties, with less than 24,500 infections and 450 deaths from the virus.

A man wearing a face mask crosses a quiet road in Melbournes Chinatown area on August 13, 2020 [William West/AFP]

02:11 GMT  Japan to ease re-entry curbs on foreign residents

Japan plans to ease its COVID-19 entry restrictions on foreign nationals with resident visas starting next month, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Re-entry will be permitted for visa holders, including permanent residents and exchange students, on condition that they undergo coronavirus testing and quarantine for 14 days, the same policy that applies to Japanese citizens re-entering the country, according to NHK.

01:58 GMT  Mexico to get 2,000 doses of Russian vaccine for testing

Mexico will receive at least 2,000 doses of Russias potential COVID-19 vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V, to test among its population, according to the Mexican foreign minister.

Marcelo Ebrard called the Russian offer very good news.

Mexico has already agreed to help manufacture a vaccine candidate being developed by UKs AstraZeneca and Oxford University to supply the Latin American market. It is also preparing to carry out late-stage trials for US company Johnson & Johnson and two Chinese companies.





01:46 GMT  Extreme poverty could surge by 100 million

David Malpass, the president of the World Bank, warned that the coronavirus pandemic may drive as many as 100 million people back into extreme poverty.

The Washington-based development lender previously estimated that 60 million people would fall into extreme poverty due to COVID-19, but the new estimate puts the deterioration at 70 to 100 million, and Malpass told the AFP that number could go higher if the pandemic worsens or drags on.

The situation makes it imperative that creditors reduce the amount of debt held by poor countries at risk, going beyond the commitment to suspend debt payments, he added.

01:07 GMT  Morocco may reimpose full lockdown

King Mohammed VI warned that Morocco could return to a complete coronavirus lockdown amid a jump in infections that has strained health services and triggered protests by medical staff.

New cases nationally have surged to more than 1,000 a day since Morocco lifted a strict three-month-long lockdown in late June and hit a record high of 1,766 on August 15.

As of Thursday, Morocco had recorded a total 47,638 cases, including 775 deaths and 32,806 recoveries.





00:57 GMT  Canada extends emergency aid

Canada announced a four-week extension of emergency aid for people who lost work due to the pandemic, and an easing of rules on qualifying for unemployment benefits when that expires.

Officials estimated the cost of the new measures at 37 billion Canadian dollars ($28bn) over one year.

About 4.5 million Canadians, or 12 percent of the population, are currently receiving $2,000 a month in emergency support. That will now be in place until September 27.

Afterwards, claimants will be shifted to an unemployment benefits programme.

00:33 GMT  Peruvian, Argentine economies post huge falls

Perus year-on-year gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 30 percent in the second quarter of 2020 due to coronavirus containment measures, the government said.

In Peru, mandatory confinement was in place throughout the whole of the second quarter and was only lifted in most parts of the country on July 1.

In Argentina, official data showed the countrys economy contracted by almost 13 percent in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the same period last year.

The year-on-year fall in GDP for June was 12.3 percent, although that was an improvement on April and May.





00:27 GMT  Latin Americas death toll passes 250,000

The number of COVID-19 deaths in Latin America surged past 250,000 on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally.

The grim milestone was passed as Brazil reported 1,204 deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours.

Over the past week, the region has reported more than 3,000 deaths a day, while daily caseloads continue to rise in Peru, Colombia and Argentina.

00:16 GMT  Brazils cases top 3.5 million

Brazil reported 45,323 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 1,204 deaths from the disease caused by the virus in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said.

Brazil has now registered 3,501,975 cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll from COVID-19 has risen to 112,304, according to ministry data.

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeeras continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im Zaheena Rasheed in Male, Maldives.

Go here for all the key developments from yesterday, August 20.
California's lightning-sparked infernos are torching wide swaths of the state, killing a utility worker, demolishing homes and forcing people to evacuate in the sweltering heat during a pandemic.

More than 500,000 acres -- equivalent to almost 80 per cent of the land in Rhode Island -- have burned, fire officials said.

Evacuation orders have affected thousands of people in Northern California.

IMAGE: A burning home is seen along Cherry Glen Road during the LNU Lighting Complex Fire on the outskirts of Vacaville, California. The LNU Lightning Complex Fire is actually a cluster of blazes that have destroyed 105 structures. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

IMAGE: Vehicles are seen along Interstate 80 as flames from the LNU Lighting Complex Fire are seen on both sides on the outskirts of Vacaville, California. More than 49,000 people in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties have evacuated because of the fires. In fact, fire officials have said they don't have an exact number on how many people have been told to leave their homes throughout the state. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

IMAGE: Pacific Gas and Electric firefighters extinguish spot fires as the LNU Lightning Complex fire burns through the area in Fairfield, California. According to officials, as of Thursday morning, it was 0 per cent contained. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

IMAGE: A pickup truck drives on a freeway overpass as flames from the LNU Lighting Complex Fire approach Interstate 80 on the outskirts of Vacaville, California. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

IMAGE: An alpaca sits next to a burned out truck after the LNU Lightning Complex fire moved through the area. The LNU Lightning Complex fire is spread over 5 counties. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Asus ROG Phone 3 is now available in the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage version in India. When Asus launched the ROG Phone 3, it was kind of testing the waters by releasing the base model with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage for Rs 49,999. Overwhelmed by the response for that variant, Asus decided to go ahead and introduce the higher memory model that costs Rs 57,999. So if you, in case, have been waiting for it, the Asus ROG Phone 3 12GB RAM, 256GB storage version is now on sale.

You can head to Flipkart to buy the latest memory variant, where you can grab some offers from partner banks and, of course, the exchange offers. It could be a nice deal to get the smartphone in exchange for an old, used smartphone. For example, if you have the ROG Phone 2 from last year, you should definitely get an upgrade to the best of the best hardware that ROG Phone 3 has to offer.

I personally found the ROG Phone 3 the most powerful and the fastest phone there is right now that I have used. That snappy performance it has to offer can sometimes make my life slow. I mean the everyday tasks, such as browsing the internet and chatting on WhatsApp is something that I should not even be talking about because these are just a breeze for the processor ROG Phone 3 houses. This beast runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, which is by far the most powerful chipset. The smartphone is, anyway, meant for high-end gaming, so let us talk about that.

I played a good deal of heavy games, the ones that can squeeze the power of your phone's processor mercilessly. So I ran the PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9: Legends, Afterlife, and Sky: The Children of Light. I am pleased to say that it was the best experience I have had playing those games on a smartphone. Never did I notice a single frame drop or even a minor jitter during my gameplay. Although, I have to say that the smartphone begins to get toasty over continuous usage for long hours.

Anyway, Asus ROG Phone 3 is a great deal for power users, who want to be known as gamers in their friend circle. But for people who do not the ROG Phone 3 has good cameras and a 144Hz AMOLED display with HDR to watch Netflix shows. There is 30W fast charging as well on the humongous 6000mAh battery on the Asus ROG Phone 3. I talked vividly about the 6000mAh battery on this one in this article, so you may as well want to check that out.
Turkish cement exports to Italy and world markets increase

21 August 2020

Cement exports from Turkey to Italy increased by 0.1 per cent from January through June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, amounting to US$70.4m, reports the Turkish Ministry of Trade.



The export of cement from Turkey to Italy increased by 41.8 per cent in June 2020 compared to June 2019 and amounted to US$14.3m. From January through June 2020, the export of cement from Turkey to the world markets decreased by one per cent compared to the same period of last year, amounting to US$1.7bn.



The export of cement from Turkey reached 2.3 per cent of the country's total export volume from January through June 2020.



Turkey also exported cement worth US$323.1m to world markets in June 2020, which is 37.4 per cent more than in the same month of 2019. The export of cement from Turkey in June 2020 amounted to 2.4 per cent of the country's total export volume.



Turkey exported cement worth US$3.5bn over the past 12 months (from June 2019 through June 2020).

Published under
Trump Vincibility Watch is a subjective and speculative estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump actually loses the 2020 election or, in other words, suffers the consequences of his actions for the first time in his life rather than wriggling out of yet another jam (see: the Mueller investigation, the Ukraine scandal, the 2016 popular vote, his six bankruptcies, and everything else).

Well:

 A bipartisan (!) Senate committee released a report that concluded, among other things, that Trumps 2016 campaign chairman (Paul Manafort) passed internal campaign information to a Russian intelligence officer, that Trumps factually impossible claim about Ukraine framing Russia for the hack of Democratic emails originated at least in part with the same Russian intelligence officer, and that Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller he had no memory of a specific conversation about hacked emails that did, in fact, occur.

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 The chief executive of Trumps 2016 campaign (Steve Bannon) was arrested at sea on a megayacht by postal police (really!) and charged with embezzling money that had been raised from Trump supporters for the ostensible purpose of building a privately funded wall on the U.S.-Mexico bordera fundraising effort that Trumps son Don Jr. was involved with as well. (Don Jr. has not been charged with any crime related to his work with the group.)

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.

 A federal judge ruled that a New York City district attorney has the right to access Trumps tax returns while investigating him for potential campaign finance, bank, and tax fraud crimes.

These events all took place in the same three-day span; one can picture any one of them (or, in the case of the tax returns, the eventual fallout) fatally wounding Trumps campaign and/or presidency if theyd happened in 2016 or early 2017. Things being what they are at the present time, however, they barely even registered as campaign- or White Houserelated news. (Likewise, theres no expectation that it will hurt the president in the polls to have given a quasi-endorsement this week to the QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe hes been engaged for years in a secret, cataclysmic war against satanist pedophiles.) The fact is that somewhere around 60 percent of the American public has been convinced for some time that Trump is dishonest and criminally corrupt, and, as they say, its not a news story when a dog bites a man. The pandemic and its associated economic fallout are more pressing matters for most voters; the top political story is that a Trump donor has intentionally crippled the post office.

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Joe Biden, meanwhile, continues to lead Trump by more than 8 points in FiveThirtyEights national polling average. On Thursday, Bidenwhom the Trump campaign has been attempting to portray as a completely senile vegetable person whom antifa will easily manipulate into implementing full communismdelivered a tight, fired-up acceptance speech to conclude a virtual Democratic National Convention that presented his election as an imperative that transcends ideology. We have no doubt that the Trump campaign is cooking up some absolutely insane stuff for the home stretchthe Republican convention is next week, and its going to be weirdbut it begins that home stretch several lengths behind the horse from Scranton. We characterize Trump as STILL PRETTY VINCIBLE.

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For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
The steady improvement of relations between the United States and Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001 can, in part, be credited to local businessman Tahir Javed  contributions that now are being honored with one of the highest contributions the Pakistani government can bestow on a citizen.

Javed, who said it would take at least five more years to restore relations to their pre-2001 standing, has taken members of the U.S. Congress to visit Pakistan, organized many meetings between leaders from each country and advised now two presidential nominees on ways to improve relations, among other contributions.
The Leshan Giant Buddha surrounded by floodwaters following heavy rains in Leshan in China's southwestern Sichuan province. (AFP)

Beijing: China has touted its massive dam network as a remedy for its devastating annual floods, but record deluges have once again killed hundreds of people and submerged thousands of homes this year.

Millions of people have been affected this time -- with hundreds of thousands evacuated, roads submerged, tourist sites closed and soaring economic costs.

Here are five questions about why China still endures severe flooding every year.

Do the dams work?

China has historically relied on dams, levees and reservoirs to control and divert the flow of water.

From June to early August, around 30 billion cubic metres of floodwater were intercepted by dams and reservoirs in Asia's longest river, the Yangtze, mitigating flooding downstream in areas including Shanghai, China's emergency management ministry said.

But the country's vast infrastructure has been unable to contain all the flooding, with authorities in the eastern city of Chuizhou, Anhui province, forced to blow up two dams last month to release water from the rising Chuhe river over cropland, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

And fears re-emerge periodically over the structural integrity of the Three Gorges Dam on the upper Yangtze, the world's largest hydroelectric dam, built in an area criss-crossed by geological faultlines.

What impact is climate change having?

The burden on China's dams is likely to grow as climate change makes extreme weather events more common.

As the Earth's atmosphere gets warmer, it holds more moisture, making downpours more intense, Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, told AFP.

Water levels reached historic highs in 53 rivers this summer, according to China's ministry of water resources.

Authorities warned this week that the Three Gorges Dam is facing the largest flood peak since it began operating in 2003.

Heavy rains are set to send 74,000 cubic metres of water per second rushing into the Three Gorges reservoir, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"This summer's floods ring an alarm bell for China that climate change is here," Li Shuo, a climate analyst for Greenpeace East Asia, told AFP.

Could 'sponge cities' help?

The country's rapid development and breakneck urbanization has also exacerbated flooding.

Urban sprawl has covered more and more land in impermeable concrete -- increasing the risk of rapid water buildup on the surface during heavy rain.

Horton also said that some of the country's big lakes have been drastically reduced in size.

One of the solutions proposed by the government has been the "sponge city" programme that began in 2014.

It seeks to replace impermeable urban surfaces with porous materials like permeable pavements, more green spaces, drainage areas and reservoirs to stop water accumulating on the ground.

"The objective is that stormwater goes into drains or the green areas, and affects the built areas less," Cecilia Tortajada, a researcher of water policy at the National University of Singapore, told AFP.

Who suffers the most from flooding?

But sponge cities will be little consolation for rural communities in the path of diverted water, which have suffered severe damage to their homes and crops.

"While urban dwellers in China's megacities are largely spared from the rising water, much of the country's hinterlands along the Yangtze River were put on the frontline," Li said.

Entire villages are routinely allowed to flood, with residents evacuated, in order to spare densely populated cities.

Over the last week more than 165,000 hectares of crops were damaged in severe flooding in Sichuan, officials said.

The Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, home to four townships and nearly 200,000 people, was inundated after officials ordered the opening of 13 sluice gates on the Huaihe river in July, state media reported.

What more can be done?

China is also turning to increased flood surveillance and early evacuation to mitigate the human cost of flooding.

In addition to conventional weather monitoring technology, Anqing city in China's Anhui province is using virtual reality goggles linked to river-monitoring cameras that use 5G internet to transmit images to inspectors, according to Xinhua.

The number of people dead or missing as a result of flooding from June to early August this year fell to 219 -- less than half the average figure each year in the past five years, the ministry of emergency management said last week.

However, the economic costs of flooding have soared 15 percent this year, reaching 179 billion yuan ($26 billion), officials said at a press conference this week.

Tortajada said that ultimately, flood prevention will also require global action against climate change.

"While countries are getting better prepared, the world as a whole is not prepared," she told AFP.
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Incredible images of weather phenomena including clouds, twisters and misty mornings are battling it out in this year's Weather Photographer of the Year competition.

The photographs were captured by entrants from around the world and include images showing the impact of weather on humans, cities and natural landscapes.

More than 7,700 photographs were submitted by more than 2,600 photographers all vying for a place on this year's Weather Photographer of the Year calendar.

'I have no doubt that this year's entries will be made even more special due to the ongoing challenges presented by Covid-19, but the passion spent on this effort provides some respite from that storm and a reminder of the beauty that weather surrounds us with,' said Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather expert meteorologist and social media manager.

The winners of Weather Photographer of the Year 2020, Young Weather Photographer of the Year 2020, Public Favourite and the runners up from each category will be announced at a virtual event on October 17.

Anyone who wants to vote can go to photocrowd.com until September 25.

'This was one of the top two largest haboobs (dust storms) ever recorded in the state of Arizona. At the point of this photo it was fully mature, towering more than a mile high with winds in excess of 80 miles per hour. The sun was setting, giving the dust wall it's deep pink hue. It was a truly incredible sight to see,' said photographer Tina Wright from Arizona, US

'In the wake of storm Jorge and after a thunderous hail storm, a full, beautiful rainbow appeared behind the semi feral ponies of Cefn Bryn common, Swansea,' said photographer Joann Randles. The pony is covered in mud after the storm saturated the grass and it grazes in front of the rainbow while paying little attention to the photographer

A flash of lightning was photographed as it hit the ground from a vantage point at Scenic Drive, El Paso, in Texas, by Lori Grace Bailey. The Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), in association with AccuWeather, has announced the 26 finalists for this year's Weather Photographer of the Year 2020', which will now be put to an online public vote

Lake Baikal Ice was photographed in the Russian Federation by Alexey Trofimov. The blue ice glistens from underneath a blanket of snow as the sun shines down on a clear day. The lake, thought to be the deepest in the world, is in the mountainous Russian region of Siberia, north of the Mongolian border

This photograph of clouds above El Chalten in Argentina was taken by Francisco Javier Negroni Rodriguez. 'Only for a moment the clouds allowed me to see El Chalten and to my surprise there was a spectacular and brilliant lenticular cloud with a beautiful and perfect figure that I had never seen,' he said

'The weather in Iceland is changing dramatically as all-time strong winds draw fantastic images in the sky, which follow each other rapidly,' said photographer Mikhail Shcheglov of his photograph. The entry shows a double rainbow above frothing waves in Dyrholaey, Iceland

'This monster shelf cloud was perhaps the most beautiful structure and size over my area. I was waiting for two hours for the cloud to arrive and then it made a real mess', said photographer Maja Kraljik of the image that was taken in Umag, Croatia. It shows large swelling clouds over the town's harbour

LongCoc Tea Hill, in the Tan Son District of the Phu Tho Province in Vietnam, was photographed by Vu Trung Huan. The area is filled with a number of small hills covered in tea farms. The image shows a mist settling between the hills, the reason tourists to flood to the area every winter. The sun's rays are broken up by the fog, creating a striped effect

Wet Sleddale Dam, in Shap, Cumbria, was pictured by Andrew McCaren. A visitor in a bright red coat contrasts dramatically with the sheets of water cascading down the dam wall. The artificial reservoir is set amongst the Shap Fells and lies just within the boundary of the Lake District National Park in the UK

Many of the photographs entered into the competition showed natural weather phenomena. Left, 'an incredible EF2 tornado tears through a rural Colorado field after destroying a home,' said photographer Tori Jane Ostberg about the image she took in Wray, Colorado. Right, Boris Jordan took this image near Leipzig (Saxony, Germany). He said, 'this was by far the most spectacular mammatus display I've ever seen in my entire life'
By Cooper Schouten, Project Manager - Bees for Sustainable Livelihoods, Southern Cross University

Cooper Schouten, Author provided



How do bees make honey? Finn, age 7, Sunshine Coast, Queensland

Hi Finn, thats a sweet question!

Well, when we talk about bees, were usually referring to the European honey bee (its scientific name is Apis Mellifera). Humans have been drooling over its honey and taking advantage of its pollination powers for thousands of years.

So how do these insects make honey, you ask? Youll find the task is one requiring teamwork and organisation.

Busy buzzing bees

You probably already know about the most important ingredient needed to make honey: flowers.

A colony of bees can visit up to 50 million flowers each day, with as many as 60,000 bees in each colony. Theyre not called busy bees for nothing!

Honey bees work together as a team to make decisions about where the best flowers are. They communicate with each other using bumps, noises and even dance moves known as the waggle dance.









All bees during their life have different roles, depending on how old they are. To make honey, worker honey bees fly up to 5km searching for flowers and their sweet nectar. Usually, theyll visit between 50 and 100 flowers per trip.





Read more:

One, then some: how to count like a bee





Nectar is the main ingredient for honey and also the main source of energy for bees. Using a long straw-like tongue called a proboscis, honey bees suck up nectar droplets from the flowers special nectar-making organ, called the nectary.

When the nectar reaches the bees honey stomach, the stomach begins to break down the complex sugars of the nectar into more simple sugars that are less prone to crystallization, or becoming solid. This process is called inversion.

Once a worker honey bee returns to the colony, it passes the nectar onto another younger bee called a house bee (between 12-17 days old).

House bees take the nectar inside the colony and pack it away in hexagon-shaped beeswax honey cells. They then turn the nectar into honey by drying it out using a warm breeze made with their wings.



https://images.theconversation.com/files/350589/original/file-20200731-1... 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350589/original/file-20200731-1... 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350589/original/file-20200731-1... 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350589/original/file-20200731-1... 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350589/original/file-20200731-1... 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">





Cooper Schouten/Author provided





Once the honey has dried out, they put a lid over the honey cell using fresh beeswax  kind of like a little honey jar. In the winter, when the flowers have finished blooming and theres not as much nectar available, the bees can open this lid and share the honey they saved.

Honey: a food fit for all workers, human and bee

Because nectar comes from flowers, there are hundreds of different types of honey with different colours, smells and flavours. Some honey can even be used as medicine.

Also, bees dont just collect nectar to make honey. When they visit flowers, they also collect pollen  which is a great source of protein to keep them healthy and strong.

Pollen is a kind of powder which flowering plants, trees and grasses make (and must spread) to help more of the same plants grow around them. Pollen can spread in ways such as being blown around by the air, or being carried between two of the same plant by an insect.

So by transferring pollen between flowers, bees also help pollinate flowers. These often turn into the seeds of the fruit and nuts we eat. In fact, about one-third of the food we eat is pollinated by bees.



https://images.theconversation.com/files/350584/original/file-20200731-2... 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350584/original/file-20200731-2... 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350584/original/file-20200731-2... 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350584/original/file-20200731-2... 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/350584/original/file-20200731-2... 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">





Cooper Schouten/Author provided





Pollinators around the globe

Did you know the yellow fuzzy honey bee is just one of over 20,000 bee species in the world? There are more than 1,700 in Australia alone, some of which can make honey.

Some native stingless bees only found in Australia, such as Tetragonula carbonaria and Austroplebeia australis, produce honey too.



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Cooper Schouten/Author provided





There are also ten other honey bee species overseas, such as the giant honey bee (Apis dorsata) in Nepal and Indonesia, which live at the top of high cliffs and large trees.

Theres also the Eastern honey bee (Apis cerana) which is managed by beekeepers in rural and remote areas throughout Southeast Asia.

Theres never been a better time to put in native flowering plants and stop to smell the flowers. Its important to remember, just like your puppy or kitten, bees need to be looked after too.

Cooper Schouten receives funding from The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

Originally published in The Conversation.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over the 6th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, Thursday. Yonhap



Spy agency analysis again fuels speculation on NK leader's health



By Yi Whan-woo



The analysis by the country's spy agency that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has partly delegating authority to his sister and aides is again fueling speculation over his health, following rumors and unconfirmed news in April that he was in grave danger after undergoing surgery.



Some experts said Friday that yielding power, even a bit, was unthinkable under any circumstances in North Korea led by the Kim family's three-generations of one-man rule.



They said Kim, whose obesity, chain-smoking and other health problems have always been an issue, is in a critical condition and that his regime is shifting to a new rule jointly led by his powerful younger sister Kim Yo-jong and other aides



The experts argue the NIS was mistaken when it briefed lawmakers in a closed-door session of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, Thuerday, that Kim partly delegated his authority to reduce the stress he suffered from ruling the country for nine years.



The NIS also stated Kim left state affairs in general to Kim Yo-jong and defense, the development of strategic weapons and the economy to three trusted aides.



It claimed that the changes didn't appear to be linked to any major health problems.



"Kim Jong-un has been in a critical condition for months at least and the North Korean leadership, after panicking, eventually came up with an alternative to one-man rule," said Shin In-kyun, president of the Korea Defense Network. "And the NIS failed to see such a change and rather analyzed it as if the North Korean dictator was partly giving away his powers."



Shin said he "has no doubts" about speculation raised by another expert, Chang Song-min, who said Kim was in a coma but his younger sister had not taken over power despite the power restructuring.



A former aide to the late President Kim Dae-jung, Chang posted on Facebook, Thursday, that such an unstable shift in power was being witnessed through some of Kim Jong-un's powers being delegated to trusted officials.



"No North Korean leader would entrust any of their authority to another person unless he was too sick to rule or had been removed in a coup," Chang wrote.



He added that a complete succession structure had not been formed and Kim Yo-jong was "being brought to the fore as the leadership vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period."



Other experts disagreed with the power restructuring being associated with a health problem. They speculated that while Kim has entrusted specific affairs to his aides this does not mean he is endowing them with permanent powers.



"I think the NIS should have been more careful in explaining about the change in Kim's rule," said Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University. "The NIS made the wrong choice of words and this is causing misunderstanding about Kim's rule and promoting controversy over his health again."



Kim Dong-yeop, a research professor at the Kyungnam University Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the NIS analysis of Kim being stressed out and partly delegating his authority was "disappointing."



"The NIS should have said the North Korean leader has been 'distributing missions' to his aides while being in control of all affairs, not delegating authority to his aides.'"



The professor pointed out Kim is in this mid-30s and handing over power to his aides because of stress was "even more nonsense."



"He is too young to give away his power just because he is stressed out," the professor said.


Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 18:31:09|Editor: huaxia

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ABUJA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian military has confirmed the killing of three gunmen and the arrest of 10 others in recent clearance operations in the country's restive northwest region.

In a statement made available to Xinhua on Friday, the military said a clearance operation was conducted on Sunday in some enclaves in Dumburum Forest, where suspected bandits are camped.

The three gunmen were killed in the operation inside the forest; and the 10 suspects were arrested in other clearance operations in Katsina and Zamfara states, also in the northwest region, said military spokesman Benard Onyeuko.

Arms and ammunition were recovered in the operations, which lasted several days, Onyeuko said.

He said 10 kidnapped victims were rescued from gunmen in an operation last Saturday.

The northwest region has been wracked by years of violence, with rampant banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activities. Enditem
US Special Forces soldiers at the Boeblingen Local Training Area in Boeblingen, Germany, November 18, 2016. US Army/VIS Jason Johnston

A 45-year-old former US Army Green Beret was arrested on Friday and charged with conspiring with Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, for 15 years, according the Justice Department.

Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins of Gainesville, Virginia, is accused of giving Russian spies secrets about his US Army commands and even the names of other special forces troops to try to recruit them.

In 1997, he met with Russian officials on a military base and was given the code name "Ikar Lesnikov," according to his indictment.

He made several statements and signed missives that mentioned he wanted to "serve Russia" and that he was a "son of Russia."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A 45-year-old former US Army Green Beret was arrested on Friday and charged with conspiring with Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, for 15 years, according a Justice Department statement.

Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins of Gainesville, Virginia, is accused of conspiring with Russian agents between 1996 and 2011, according to the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Debbins rose to the rank of captain and was eventually honorably discharged from the military in 2008.

Debbins is accused of "giving Russian intelligence officers sensitive information about the units in which he once served and also providing the names of other service members so Russia could try to recruit them," FBI Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Alan Kohler, Jr., said in a statement.

"The facts alleged in this case are a shocking betrayal by a former Army officer of his fellow soldiers and his country," Kohler said.

Debbins's indictment accused him of providing Russian agents with information on the units he served in, including his activities and the names of other Green Berets so that the Russian agents "could evaluate whether to approach the team members to see if they would cooperate with the Russian intelligence service."

Story continues

In 1997, he met with Russian officials on a military base and was given the code name "Ikar Lesnikov," the indictment said. He made several statements and signed missives that mentioned he wanted to "serve Russia" and that he was a "son of Russia."

He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted on charges of conspiring to provide US defense information to a foreign government agent.

Debbins attended the Institute of World Politics (IWP), a non-profit graduate school that specializes in foreign relations, and obtained a master's degree in Strategic and International Studies. According to an interview he had with the IWP in 2018, Debbins is fluent in Russian and traveled to the country every summer.

Debbins also described NATO, a thorn to Russia's foreign policy, as "indispensable to US national security" and a "force for stability in Europe," but added that there were issues related to resources within the organization.

"Our NATO allies in Europe and North America are carrying out an enormous responsibility with a very small military force," Debbins told IWP. "Never in human history has such a vast amount of resources and people been defended with such a small allocation of resources."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Kishore Biyani's Future Group is in talks with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail to sell its flagship Future Retail to pay mounting debts. The companies have supposedly reached an agreement regarding certain terms and conditions, and a deal worth Rs 24,000-27,000 crore could be signed soon. The deal will make RIL the number one player in brick-and-mortar space in India across categories such as fashion, groceries, and merchandise, and will lead to Biyani's exit from the retail business. The company will take the final call on the stake sale to Reliance Retail during the board meeting on Saturday. The meeting is crucial since it comes in the wake of Rs 100 crore worth interest payment on senior secured dollar notes, whose deadline - after 30 days grace period -- ends on August 21. The non-payment of interest will place Future Retails Ltd in the 'default' category.

The selling of controlling stake in Future Retail to Mukesh Ambani's RIL is seen as the biggest setback to Biyani, known as one of the best minds in retail business in India. The situation for Biyani is so bad that had the government not announced exemption of COVID-19 related debt from default and suspension of fresh insolvency cases, his company would currently be facing bankruptcy proceedings.

Also read: The companies Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries plans to buy in days ahead

RIL-Future deal: Mukesh Ambani to retain brand names Big Bazaar, FBB and others

But how did Kishore Biyani come to this point where he is left with no option but to sell his company? Here are the main reasons:

Future Group has accrued heavy debt over the years. As of September 30, 2019, debt at Future Group's listed entities rose to Rs 12,778 crore from Rs 10,951 crore as on March 31, 2019. He had the March deadline for repayment of some of these dues. But the Reserve Bank of India's loan moratorium has provided a breather.

The market buzz about his inability to service debt began in mid-February, sending group companies shares crashing and triggering rating downgrades. Lenders sought more shares as collateral against loans to Biyani.

Coronavirus pandemic crippled the company's operations, and shutdowns of stores and subsequent cash crunch forced it to default on debts.

Biyani became over-ambitious in core retailing and his focus on the neighbourhood format stores EasyDay, Nilgiris and Heritage backfired. He invested heavily on these ventures but they did not succeed.

His excitement about the group's FMCG business, Future Consumer particularly proved infectious. He dreamt of scaling up the Rs 2,000 crore business to Rs 20,000 crore by 2021. But the company faced losses, resulting in 11.24 per cent decline in its profit to Rs 619 crore in the first nine months of FY20. The company has not declared full-year results so far.

The group has 990 EasyDay stores; it shut down 150 as of Q3FY20. Same-store sales growth of Future Retail formats was just 2.1 per cent in the quarter, but it stood at negative in Q4 as the coronavirus hit the economy hard.

Biyani hoped to attract loyalty in smaller format stores with a Rs 999/ year loyalty programme for a 10 per cent discount. The model didn't work, say, analysts, adding that Biyani would have managed to pull off the small store format if the coronavirus pandemic had not happened.

Almost 35-40 per cent merchandise at Future Group formats were its own brands, which failed to attract customers. This led to heavy losses for the company.

Biyani, who is known to be the man of ideas, failed to implement many of them on the ground level.

Biyani's struggle with debt has a long history. In FY12, he was in an identical Rs 12,000 crore debt soup, which forced him to sell his most valuable asset, Pantaloons Retail, to Aditya Birla group for Rs 1,600 crore. He also sold Future Capital to Warburg Pincus for Rs 4,250 crore.

Also read: Mukesh Ambani's RIL in talks with parent ByteDance to acquire TikTok in India

Also read: Future Uncertain

Also watch:
21.08.2020 LISTEN

I really want to know how the tiger was tamed in the crib.

IT seems Koku Anyidoho is carrying his battle with 'babies with sharp teeth' to the bitter end. The former deputy general secretary of the opposition NDC had alleged in a tweet yesterday that he was tortured for more than eight years by those guys that once held power.

This is what he wrote:

"The babies with sharp teeth have tortured me for more than 8 years. Let GOD punish them."

It reminds me when we battled our enemies at Dodowa, Feyiase and Adamanso. We didn't whine.

We didn't retreat. And we didn't run away with the tails in between our legs. We fought the good fight.

So,, Koku, do us a favour, if thy can't teach the tongue to say: 'I don't know,' then give us a break.

We've heard enough from Papa no. Enough from Allotey and enough from you. Converts or Born-Again Christians don't pursue their old enemies. They forgive them.. They preach the good news.to the world.

Remember Saul, who was later christened Paul?

When did you hear Kwabena Agyei Agyepong rant and curse Freddy Blay? Or Paul Afoko evoke Antoa against Mr. Asomasi? Please tell us,, how and why were you tortured? Were you tortured emotionally, physically or psychologicallly? And of course, who are these 'babies with sharp teeth' that tortured you for almost a decade?

Indeed August without drama is like a day without sunshine. And I'm pretty sure the months ahead will produce perhaps more dramatic events. It isn't unusual. Simply, things get twisted during electioneering campaign season. But mind you, we aren't swallowing anything that's deemed concocted.

I'm wondering though whether those babies still have teeth to bite after power ran out of them nearly four years ago. Knew ye not that NDC is currently being bludgeoned by the ruling NPP so why are you kicking the can down the road? And Koku, I'm still wondering whether you think this is the right time to settle scores or draw a line in the sand!

Would Koku ever let go?

We might not get to know the answer. But what seems obvious is the strained relationship between Koku and his perceived enemies. And I suspect that bad blood might even include the party's flagbearer--Mr.Mahama.

According to the chief executive officer(CEO) of the Atta Mills Institute, such persons have caused him more pain in the last eight years than anything else in this world.

Reactions

His outburst has since attracted varied comments from social media users. A user praised Mr. Anyidoho and also encouraged him to stay the course. But, another was very critical of him.

"Your arrogance and pompous behaviour especially during your time with the late President Atta-Mills is cause. Besides, your criminal activities including supplanting yourself as de facto chief of staff and lese-majesta while forging and signing sensitive documents on behalf of the then-president knowing very well he had sight problems, that made you more enemies than friends."

In July this year, while speaking on Asempa FM an Accra-based, radio station Koku lambasted persons who he claimed tell lies about him. He called them scoundrels."

Now, I am speaking today as an anointed son of God, and I am speaking from the footstools and the throne of Heavens. All scoundrels shall rot in the hottest part of hell because Scripture has said so.

..They have a chance to repent because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If they repent, for now, it is good for them. But if they continue in their perfidy, when we are in heaven after the rapture, they will ask me for a drop of water and they will not get, he concluded.

By Gordon Offin-Amaniampong
Dozens of demonstrators rallied outside the home of Pat Lynch, the president of the New York City Police Benevolent Association, on August 19 in Queens, New York, to protest his endorsement of Donald Trumps re-election, local media said.

Lynch said on Friday, I cannot remember when weve ever endorsed for the office of President of the United States until now," local media reported.

Videos of the protest, uploaded by Instagram user @l_m_not_a_drug_dealer, show demonstrators chanting this stops today outside Lynchs home in the Bayside neighborhood, with the protest extending into the night.

Local news reported attendees spoke about Lynchs endorsement of President Donald Trump.

According to an anonymous organizer who spoke to AM New York, Patrick Lynch has been on the radar for years with his racist, bigoted statements; even being publicly criticized by previous police commissioners for his belief that police officers are above the law. For the PBA to endorse a president whose exact words were, dont be too nice when making arrests and whose entire platform is driven by racist and xenophobic propaganda is an absolute disgrace.

According to local media, Lynch released a statement on August 19 saying in part, "these protesters should realize they are wasting their time. Their campaign of harassment and intimidation might have the politicians running scared, but it will have zero impact on the PBA. Credit: @l_m_not_a_drug_dealer via Storyful
To say Prince Andrew brought shame to the Buckingham Palace is an understatement. Even if he's not genuinely involved in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes as alleged, the fact that he is even associated with the billionaire pedophile is already shameful for a royal.

Yet, what he gets in return for the scandal he brought to the royal family is an ... honor.

No wonder the Brits are in an uproar. The decision, if it pushes through, is just so wrong!

Even though #PrinceAndrew stepped back from his public duties last November following...his ties to pedophile #JeffreyEpstein , the Duke of York will still receive the honor of having his birthday commemorated with the ringing of the bells at Westminster Abbey. pic.twitter.com/btw5S3ePOn TM & MegTM (@mu_ri_elle) August 20, 2020

According to Fox News, Prince Andrew is still going to receive the honor of celebrating his birthday with the ringing of the bells at Westminster Abbey.

Imagine his day being commemorated like that, even though his name has been dragged into one of the biggest sex-related crimes today. Even if he is innocent, common decency should mean the Palace deciding not to honor him this way, until the court specifically said he is cleared.

What if he's proven guilty? The odds are not that low, considering all the evidence and his apparent apprehension to deal with the Feds.

The church has recently released its official bell-ringing schedule, which includes dates up to 2021. In the schedule is the birthday of Prince Andrew, on February 19, 2021. This means he will be honored in a sacred method, something the public naturally does not find justifiable.

The public is hardly being overly sensitive. They are also not overacting. Prince Andrew himself knows that he had done something disgraceful.

Back in November 2019, when the news broke out that it is of great possibility that the Duke of York is involved in Epstein's disgusting and inhumane crimes, a formal statement was released. Posted on Royal.uk website, the Duke of York hared that he knows full well that his association with Jeffrey Epstein is damaging and disruptive -- putting in line the hard and valuable work the royal family is doing.

Therefore, he courteously asked the Queen to let him step back from his public duties for the foreseeable future.

Queen Elizabeth II did not even think twice, as this request was immediately granted.

Prince Andrew also directly said that he is regretful of his "ill-judged" friendship with Epstein. His suicide only made things worse, because there are so many unanswered questions.

The so-called Queen's favorite son then said he sympathizes with all the victims. In his statement, he also emphasized that he is willing to cooperate fully with investigative work being done on the case.

But it is nearly a year now and Prince Andrew still has to cooperate genuinely. Even though his camp said he is very open to helping the law enforcement, the Feds themselves said that the Prince has been uncooperative.

Recently, a new report revealed that despite advices from other friends to cut off his link to Epstein, the royal did not listen.

He did not cut ties when there was already confirmation that Epstein was a sex offender. That's quite telling of his priorities at the time.

While nothing is proven yet about Prince Andrew's involvement in Epstein's crimes, honoring him is insensitive. It is like the royal family is sending a message that they know the Prince is right and his accusers are not to be believed.

It also shows the royal family is playing favorites.

With that said, it is possible the royal family will receive heavy backlash when they honor Prince Andrew.

For what's it worth, the royal family can still change their minds.

READ MORE: Meghan Markle Suffering: Kate Middleton Hurt Meghan From the Start!
Two federal courthouses in Portland have been forced to close and several other buildings in the city's downtown have been evacuated due to 'a threat of violence in the area'.

On Thursday evening, authorities reportedly 'received a threat that a vehicle filled with explosives would hit a federal building', which prompted the closure of The Federal Bankruptcy Court and the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse.

Staff were also ordered to keep away from a third federal building near Portland's Lloyd Center for all of Friday.

The threat also prompted an urgent evacuation of the Standard Insurance and Standard Plaza buildings on Friday morning out of an abundance of caution.

Oregon Live spoke with a source who said the threat had not been directed towards one particular building.

The alleged attackers also did not specify an exact time of attack.

According to the publication, the FBI is now investigating 'to figure out the credibility of the attack'.

On Thursday evening, authorities reportedly 'received a threat that a vehicle filled with explosives would hit a federal building', which prompted the closure of The Federal Bankruptcy Court and the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse. The Hatfield Courthouse is pictured

Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse has been closed for all of Friday amid the violent threat. The building has been damaged during recent protests (pictured)

It's not the first time government buildings have been closed in the city in recent weeks.

Last month, Portland City Hall was forced to close on two separate occasions.

On July 2, workers were ordered to leave the building after someone called the building claiming there was a bomb inside that was set to explode.

Less than two weeks later, on July 15, the building was closed a second time while police removed a suspicious package found at the site. It turned out to be harmless.

Residents are on edge in Portland, as the city is beset by ongoing anti-police protests that have often turned violent.

The demonstrations have been continuing nightly since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

The Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse was temporarily blocked off by fencing on one side after it was vandalized late last month. The exterior is pictured on July 23

The Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse is pictured on July 23. Portland has been beset by ongoing anti-police protests that have often turned violent and destructive

On Thursday night, there was more chaos, as protesters marched on the city's ICE compound for a second night running as cops revealed they have arrested more than 500 people over 85 nights of demonstrations.

Protesters banged on the windows of the federal complex while some of them tried to disable its security cameras, ignoring loudspeaker warnings not to damage the building.

The protest was declared an 'unlawful assembly', with three people arrested as police used tear gas to clear the crowds who had failed to disperse - but cops did not declare a riot as they did on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Cops have declared 17 riots in 85 days and only seven nights have been free of vandalism, fireworks or deliberate fires, a newly-released timeline shows - while more than 500 people have been detained including 17 in the last week.

Department of Homeland Security officer emerges from the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse after demonstrators lit a fire out front on August 2

Protesters were seen outside the courthouse on July 31

Portland's police department released this timeline on Thursday showing the scope of the protests over the last three months since the death of George Floyd. More than 500 people have been arrested while 17 separate riots have been declared

According to KOIN 6, protesters gathered in Elizabeth Caruthers park last night close to the ICE building which was the focus of demonstrations for a second night.

The crowd was smaller than on Wednesday but protesters waved a Black Lives Matter flag and flashed strobe lights towards the ICE compound.

Parts of the building have been boarded up after windows were smashed with rocks on the previous night's demonstrations.

Later there were clashes between police and protesters which led to cops firing tear gas and pepper spray in a bid to disperse the crowds.

Several people in the crowd were seen carrying shields and wearing helmets and gas masks' while others set fire to a dumpster nearby, police said.

Protesters confront with the police near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement centre in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 20, 2020

Protesters confront with the police near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement centre in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 20, 2020

One person was seen lifting up another protester to help them try and reach a security camera on the outside of the ICE compound.

Others allegedly tampered with the control panel at the ICE gate while others sprayed paint into port holes on the side of the building, meaning officers could not see out of the building.

A loudspeaker warning blared out saying that protesters could face 'arrest or use of crowd control munitions' if they damaged the federal building - but protesters nonetheless sprayed graffiti on the side of the compound.

Police announced in the early hours of Friday that the ICE protest had been 'declared an unlawful assembly', but not yet a riot.

The decision was made after protesters 'blocked traffic, vandalized the ICE building, set fires to dumpsters, and threw projectiles' at federal officers, according to Portland's police bureau.

'Failure to comply with this order may subject you to citation or arrest, and may subject you to the use of tear gas, crowd control agents, and or impact munitions,' a statement said.

Three people - 30-year-old Christopher Wise, 18-year-old Riley Haralson and 27-year-old Courtney Pace - were arrested on various charges including harassment and disorderly conduct.

In addition to the ICE protest, around 100 people marched to the offices of Portland's police union on Thursday night

The Portland police timeline shows how dozens of people were arrested in the early days and weeks after Floyd's death. The numbers for each date show the number of people arrested, while the symbols show various kinds of protest violence

Violent acts continued in July with riots declared four times in 13 days after protesters started fires and vandalized buildings

Riots have been declared regularly throughout August as protests have continued, the most recent ones targeting the ICE building in Portland

Separately, around 100 people marched to the offices of Portland's police union on Thursday night, according to the Oregonian.

'The goal right now is to disrupt the peace,' a 17-year-old demonstrator told the crowds outside the boarded-up building.

'If youre here right now you need to be loud. You need to be exhausted. Because were exhausted.'

Some protesters sat in the street while other Portland residents applauded from their balconies nearby.

Elsewhere, a crowd gathered in Kenton Park for a protest organized by the PDX Black Youth Movement, where at least one person held a sign calling for the abolition of Portland's police department.

As protests continued to rage, Portland's police department released a detailed timeline of the 84 nights of protests so far.

According to police figures, more than 500 people have been arrested at the demonstrations including more than 100 in the first week of riots after George Floyd's death.

Two people - Joshua Buckley, 30, and Mark Putman, 25 - were arrested on Wednesday night on suspicion of disorderly conduct and interfering with a peace officer.

Seventeen people have been arrested in the last week with a riot declared on four of the last nine days after protesters set fires and threw projectiles including rocks and glass bottles.

Police have declared a riot 17 times over the 84 nights of protest, with acts of vandalism committed on 49 nights and fires lit on 41 separate days.

Cops define a riot as 'when six or more persons engage in tumultuous and violent conduct and thereby intentionally or recklessly create a grave risk of causing public alarm'.

Since the protests began on May 29, police have only recorded seven nights that were free of vandalism, fireworks or intentional fires.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Six years after a Grand Rapids hospice patient was found stabbed to death, a woman has been indicted for his death.

Grand Rapids police on Friday, Aug. 21 said Heather Laureen Wright was indicated for open murder in the death of Glenn Converse, 63, who had lung and kidney cancer with only months to live when he was killed.

The relationship between Wright and Converse wasnt immediately known.

Converse was found dead in his apartment in the 300 block of Washington Street in late May 2014.

A medical examiner determined he died from a stab wound to the neck. Police think his body was in the apartment for a day until his friends went to check on him and found him dead.

Grand Rapids District Court Judge David Buter listened to testimony over three months in a one-man Grand Jury.

Wright, 51, has been in jail since July 15, when she was arrested on a perjury charge. She was arraigned Friday on the murder charge in Kent County Circuit Court.

The indictment of Ms. Wright brings closure to this cold case in our department, said Grand Rapids Police Sgt. Jana Forner with the detective units Family Services Team. We hope it brings closure to all of the victims loved ones as well. Im proud of the work our detective unit did in solving this case.

Related stories:

Hospice patient killed in May was stabbed in the neck, death certificate says

Police identify cancer patient, dead for days, as victim of Heritage Hill homicide

Hospice patients homicide not mercy killing, police see signs of struggle
A paramilitary soldier stands guard by a road near the venue for India's Independence Day ceremony in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. (AP)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday denied reports of a rift with Saudi Arabia and said the two countries enjoy strong ties, amid reports of strain in their relations over Riyadh's reluctance to toe Islamabad's line on the Kashmir issue.

Foreign Office Spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have strong economic, political, security and military cooperation at all levels.

"Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks and Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's recent visit to Saudi Arabia attest to the unchanged fraternal relations and close contact between the two countries, Chaudhri said during his weekly press briefing.

"Pakistan remains firmly committed to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia," he added.

He said that Pakistan appreciates the Kingdom's role in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has been pushing the 57-member organisation, which is the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN, for the foreign ministers' meeting since India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.

However, there has not been any positive response from Jeddah-based OIC, the biggest bloc of Islamic countries in the world, to Pakistan's request so far.

A major reason behind the OIC's inaction has been Saudi Arabia's reluctance to accept Pakistan's request for holding a meeting specifically on Kashmir. Riyadh's support is crucial for any move at the OIC, which is dominated by Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Pakistan has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status.

India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution was its internal matter. It also advised Pakistan to accept reality and stop all anti-India propaganda.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, for the first time, criticised the Saudi government in a recent TV interview and threatened to call an OIC meeting by sidestepping the Gulf country.

Saudis avoided directly responding to Qureshi's remarks, but reportedly stopped renewing a USD 3.2 billion oil credit facility to Pakistan despite requests from Islamabad. Pakistan has also paid back USD 1 billion loan to Riyadh which, according to some reports, the Saudis had demanded.

In 2018, Saudi Arabia granted Pakistan a USD 3 billion loan and USD 3.2 billion oil credit facility to help its balance of payments crisis after Prime Minister Khan visited the country to seek financial support.
New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi step down till his name is cleared of alleged charges of graft and sought a probe into the allegations by a Supreme Court monitored committee.

The Supreme Court should take suo motu cognizance of the matter, Kejriwal told a press conference here, hours after Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi alleged that Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister had taken money from Sahara and Birla groups.

Kejriwal, who had levelled similar charges against Modi in November in the Delhi Assembly, said the Congress was only following the Aam Aadmi Party in this regard and also in terming demonetisation as a scam.

ALSO READ: (Rahul Gandhi says Narendra Modi received Rs 40 crore from Sahara before becoming Prime Minister)

The Prime Minister should resign till his name is cleared of the charges. The matter should be probed by a Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team. Agencies like CBI are in any case controlled by Modi and Amit Shah, Kejriwal said.

The AAP chief said BJP patriarch LK Advani had set the right example by quitting when his name had surfaced in the Hawala scam.

Narendra Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister whose name has cropped up in raw print. This is a very grave matter but it is being suppressed and has been suppressed over the last two years by attaching officers of their convenience to the case, he said.

Kejriwal wondered why the PM was evading a probe if he was innocent. The country has been cheated against, he said.

The Delhi Chief Minister said he will send the Income Tax appraisal reports in this regard to Prashant Bhushan who has filed a petition in the Supreme Court. These documents have not yet been submitted in the Court, Kejriwal said, displaying few voluminous reports.

ALSO READ: (Purification of Ganga in practice because it is contaminated, says Randeep Surjewala on BJPs analogy)

We had raised the same issue on November 15 in the Delhi Assembly. It is good that whatever we are doing the Congress is following. We had termed demonetisation a scam, then a month later Rahul said the same thing and today he finally mustered the courage to raise this issue, he said.

Kejriwal also sought to know the reason behind Rahuls delay in making the allegations after promising an announcement.

Was he trying to strike a bargain? Congress and BJP have setting. In fact, all the leaders who figure in the papers should be probed, Kejriwal said.

ALSO READ: (PM Narendra Modi is 'pure like Ganga', says BJP leader R S Prasad on Rahul Gandhi's allegations of corruption)

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I had no doubt in my government that I had somebody who could do that work for me. Fortunately, he also comes from the railway capital of Ghana, Essikado-Ketan, and that is why I gave the job to Joe Ghartey.



And he should come and lead the renaissance of the railways' system of the country. I can only thank God that hes been able to live up to my expectations, President Akufo-Addo said at the newly refurbished Railway Training School at Ketan on August 19, 2020.



Addressing a gathering of Chiefs and people on day two of his working visit to the Western Region, President Akufo-Addo revealed that deep down his heart, he knew his surest bet to resuscitate the ailing railway sector was to appoint Mr Ghartey but was quick to confess that it was a very challenging decision.



President showered praises on the Essikadu-Ketan legislature for transforming the railway sector.



The commitment to reviving the railway sector is absolute, its unconditional, and its non-negotiable. I can only thank God that hes been able to live up to my expectations. He has negotiated hard to find the money for all this, and its happening and its going to continue to happen. And god willing if we get four more you will see the results his labour in the sector, he added.



President Akufo-Addo assured the gathering particularly the Omanhene of Essikadu of his commitment to transform Ghanas rail sector into a world-class and appeal to the people to renew his mandate by voting massively for him come December 7



On his part, the Omanhene for Essikadu Traditional Area, Nana Kobina Nketsiah V recounted that he was displeased the time he learnt of Joe Gharteys appointment, stressing it was not befitting of his person.



He added that it took Joe Gharteys confidence and extraordinary capabilities to calm their fears.



There was a lot of agonies when we learnt Joe Ghartey was appointed the Railways Minister. Joe, Railways? I stood in public and spoke not to him but for the appointing authorities that they better help him execute the task else it would be a disgrace to us. But in the wisdom of the President, he knew why he chose him.



For twenty years weve kept to speaking about railway development. We speak about it at the House of Chiefs. before any President, we bring this issue up.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Police have released images of a man charged in an attack in late July that left a Whitby woman critically injured, as they investigate whether there are any more victims.

Anthony Doiron-Francis, 21, was arrested Aug. 13 after an intensive investigation into an attack on a woman in the area of Taunton Road and Anderson Street. The woman had gone out for a walk on the evening of July 28 and failed to return. She was found the following day near a creek with critical injuries and rushed to hospital.

A publication ban has since been imposed on the 50-year-old womans name. She remains in hospital in critical condition.

As the investigation proceeded, police released images of a man they believed had been following the woman on the night of the attack.

Police also set up a command post in the area of the attack to gather evidence. An arrest in the case was announced at a news conference on Aug. 14.

Doiron-Francis, of Whitby, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault. He remains in custody.

Information released by police Thursday indicates Doiron-Francis moved to Whitby from Ottawa in March of this year. He has also spent time recently in Burlington, police said.

Hes five feet 10 and about 220 pounds with short hair and a goatee. As the investigation continues, police want to ensure there are no other victims.

People with information can call police at 905-579-1520, extension 5418 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Jeff Mitchell is a reporter for DurhamRegion.com. Reach him via email: jmitchell@durhamregion.com
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), speaks during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing in Washington, D.C., July 31, 2020.

Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield pointed Friday to a new study published by his agency as evidence that there is a way to safely reopen child-care centers and schools despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The study that Redfield cited looked at confirmed and probable Covid-19 infections linked to child-care centers in Rhode Island between June 1, when they were allowed to reopen with restrictions amid declining spread, and June 31. By July 31, 666 child-care facilities were allowed to reopen across the state with capacity for 18,945 children, the study said. However, the study did not say how many children and staff were actually in the facilities during the time frame.

Cases were found in 29 facilities, 20 of which had just one case with no onward spread, according to investigations by the Rhode Island Department of Health.

The study attributed the smaller caseloads in Rhode Island's child-care centers to the low level of spread across the state, compared with other parts of the country, and adherence to state-issued public health protocol. However, the study did acknowledge the "substantial" impact caused by Covid-19 on child-care programs, which resulted in 853 children and staff being quarantined.

"So I think this is an inspiring article to tell individuals that there is a path where one can use or partner with their public health authorities and safely get these child-care programs reopened," he said on a conference call with reporters to discuss the study. "And as an extension, is we're trying to get these schools reopened."

Overall, the study found that 52 children and adults were infected and associated with one of the child-care facilities. However, the study acknowledged that "case ascertainment among children is challenging, given high rates of asymptomatic infection or mild disease," adding that "infections were likely undetected."

All facilities where a symptomatic person was identified were required to close for 14 days or until the symptomatic person tested negative for Covid-19, according to the study. It adds that the state's Department of Health quarantined and monitored contacts during that time.

"It just provides data that when things are done with vigilance, in partnership with the public health community, that you can in fact ... be able to reopen child care and not have significant secondary transmission," Redfield said.

Some of the state protocols that CDC officials said helped to mitigate spread in the Rhode Island facilities included mask wearing by adults; daily symptom screening for children and adults; contact tracing when cases did occur; and the separation of students into groups, which prohibited the mixing of students and staff between groups. The study did identify four facilities that experienced secondary transmission, but the authors wrote that "epidemiologic investigation identified lack of adherence" to state protocol in those facilities.

Redfield's comments come as many schools and universities across the country are reopening for in-person classes or a hybrid approach of in-person and virtual learning. Some school districts have reported rapidly rising Covid-19 cases among students. And at least three universities across the country have reversed course on their plans to hold in-person classes for the semester amid outbreaks among students in the first weeks of class.

"I really do believe strongly that it's in the public health interest to get the K through 12s back to face-to-face learning and we just have to work collectively to do that in a safe and sensible way," Redfield added. "One school, one jurisdiction, one family at a time."

Despite the recent outbreaks on some campuses and cases associated with some school districts, Redfield said that if a "proactive" public health approach is taken and schools are reopened in the appropriate context of low spread, schools can safely reopen. He added that the "majority of our nation," county by county, is in the "green zone," meaning that fewer than 5% of all tests come back positive on a given day, which could indicate the virus is under control.

Erin Sauber-Schatz, who currently serves as the CDC's lead of the community interventions and critical populations task force, echoed Redfield's point that there is a path to safely reopening schools and child-care centers.

"We have seen in the United States, as well as in other countries, that schools are able to open safely in communities with low transmission," she said on the call. "It's more of a challenge in communities that have more widespread transmission."

Both Redfield and Sauber-Schatz called on Americans to comply with public health guidance to bring down the spread of Covid-19 and enable communities to safely reopen schools.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 21:45:50|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Friday that as a landmark project under the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is of great importance to promoting in-depth development of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and forging a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks in a verbal message to Pakistani President Arif Alvi.

Xi said he appreciates the fact that Alvi sent a congratulatory letter to the opening of the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, which fully demonstrated that Alvi attaches great importance to and supports the China-Pakistan relationship and construction of the CPEC.

China and Pakistan are good brothers and partners who share special friendship, Xi said, adding that political parties from both sides often carry out friendly consultations and constantly build political consensus, which is conducive to steadily advancing the construction of the CPEC as well as high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Since the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, the global fight has fully demonstrated that mutual support, solidarity and cooperation present a sure way for humanity to defeat this novel coronavirus, Xi said.

China stands ready to work with Pakistan to build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future, jointly promote regional solidarity and cooperation, and safeguard the good momentum of peace and development in the region.

Alvi had previously sent a congratulatory message to the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism.

He said in the message that building a community with a shared future for mankind and the Belt and Road Initiative put forward by Xi profoundly interpreted the true meaning of cooperation, peace and development and reflected the universal aspirations of the people around the world.

He thanked China specifically for providing timely medical assistance to Pakistan when it was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said Pakistan will continue to enhance cultural exchanges and mutual trust with China, share common goals with China and make joint efforts to promote regional peace and stability.

The CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism was established in 2019 between the CPC and the ruling and major non-ruling parties of Pakistan. On Thursday, the Second Conference of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, organized by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, was held via video link. Enditem
Anyone closely following the political and legal saga of the Pallister governments controversial wage-freeze bill for public servants has always known, one way or another, it was going to end up at the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Anyone closely following the political and legal saga of the Pallister governments controversial wage-freeze bill for public servants has always known, one way or another, it was going to end up at the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

Whether government or the conglomerate of unions fighting Bill 28 won the first go-around at the Court of Queens Bench, the question of whether the province can bypass the collective bargaining process and impose such restrictions was always expected to be sorted out at Manitobas top court.

Province to appeal ruling on wage-freeze law Click to Expand KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES In June, the province of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench ruled the Public Services Sustainability Act violated the constitutional rights of unionized public sector workers by eliminating their right to collective bargaining. Posted: 5:58 PM Aug. 17, 2020 The Province of Manitoba is appealing a recent Court of Queens Bench decision that struck down controversial wage-freeze legislation passed by the Progressive Conservative government in 2017. In her June 11, 2020 decision, Justice Joan McKelvey ruled the legislationcalled the Public Services Sustainability Actviolated the constitutional rights of unionized public sector workers by eliminating their right to collective bargaining. Read Full Story

As it happened, the unions won the first round. In her ruling released in June, Queens Bench Justice Joan McKelvey called the Progressive Conservative governments bill "draconian," and ruled it violated the freedom of association rights of public servants under Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The province announced this week it is appealing that decision.

Had it gone the other way  and it could have, if adjudicated by a judge with an alternative interpretation of Sec. 2(d) of the charter  it would be the unions filing the appeal.

Thats why its disingenuous for the Manitoba Federation of Labour, which spearheaded the campaign against the Public Sector Sustainability Act, to now accuse the province of unnecessarily prolonging the legal fight.

"It is unfortunate that the Pallister government has chosen to drag this process out further instead of bargaining fair contracts with Manitoba's dedicated public-sector workers," MFL president Kevin Rebeck said in a statement this week.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES Manitoba Federation of Labour leader Kevin Rebeck has accused the provincial government of prolonging the labour disagreement with its application to the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

The issue of whether governments can interfere in the collective bargaining process is not cut and dried. There have been a variety of appellate court rulings in recent years across the country, including at the Supreme Court of Canada.

What the nation's top court has ruled is: governments have a limited ability to impose arbitrary terms on contracts, but only if there is "meaningful consultation" and no "substantial interference" in the collective bargaining process.

McKelvey concluded the Manitoba government led by Premier Brian Pallister didnt meet that test, ruling the province substantially interfered in the collective bargaining process. Maybe shes right, but this should be sorted out by a panel of appellate court justices.

Charter issues are not always settled by lower courts. They are often heard on appeal; sometimes theyre upheld, sometimes theyre overturned. Thats how the system works.

"It is unfortunate that the Pallister government has chosen to drag this process out further instead of bargaining fair contracts with Manitoba's dedicated publicsector workers."  MFL president Kevin Rebeck

Constitutional issues are rarely black and white, which is why we often see split decisions by appellate courts. Even judges dont always agree among themselves on how to interpret the charter. Either way, appealing a ruling such as this is perfectly legitimate  and is the right thing to do.

Theres also the convoluted legal issue of whether the courts can rule on a bill that was never proclaimed into law. Bill 28 was passed and received royal assent in 2017, but was not proclaimed by cabinet.

It was a political and unscrupulous tactic by the Pallister government to force unions to accept the provisions of a bill without making it officially a law (hoping, presumably, to shield it from court action). Government crafted the statute so the wage freeze would apply retroactively if the bill was proclaimed, making the legislation-in-limbo virtually impossible to ignore.

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McKelvey ruled the PSSA is no longer a bill because it received royal assent. She concluded it is law "albeit without legal effect," calling it "disingenuous" to suggest contracts were being negotiated freely without the provisions of the bill hanging over negotiators heads.

It is clear from the evidence, both in statements made during negotiations and in the conduct of government, that government has proceeded as if the PSSA had been proclaimed and was in effect.  Queens Bench Justice Joan McKelvey

"Whether it is proclaimed legislation or not, the government and public-sector employers have governed themselves in accordance with its provisions and mandated wage figures," she wrote. "It is clear from the evidence, both in statements made during negotiations and in the conduct of government, that government has proceeded as if the PSSA had been proclaimed and was in effect."

She may be right on that, too, but it would be useful for the appeal court to weigh in on that matter as well.

These are important legal issues that need clarity from Manitobas top court. Union leaders would be making the same arguments had they lost Round 1.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
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 before you buy or sell Panhandle Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE:PHX), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.

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, such insiders must disclose their trading activities, and not trade on inside information.

Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. 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'.

View our latest analysis for Panhandle Oil and Gas

Panhandle Oil and Gas Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Independent Director Christopher Fraser for US$56k worth of shares, at about US$7.05 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being US$2.15). While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when insiders have purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price.

Panhandle Oil and Gas insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

Story continues

Panhandle Oil and Gas is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Insider Ownership of Panhandle Oil and Gas

Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Our data suggests Panhandle Oil and Gas insiders own 2.3% of the company, worth about US$798k. We consider this fairly low insider ownership.

So What Does This Data Suggest About Panhandle Oil and Gas Insiders?

The fact that there have been no Panhandle Oil and Gas insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. But insiders have shown more of an appetite for the stock, over the last year. While we have no worries about the insider transactions, we'd be more comfortable if they owned more Panhandle Oil and Gas stock. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. For instance, we've identified 5 warning signs for Panhandle Oil and Gas (1 is significant) you should be aware of.

Of course Panhandle Oil and Gas may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of high quality companies.

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.
The ban on transporting Navalny is an attempt on his life, which is now being carried out by the doctors and the deceitful authorities who sanctioned it, she said. Less than four hours after German doctors reportedly said it was safe for Navalny to travel, the Omsk hospital gave the clearance for Navalny to be moved.
On April 10, 2017, a Pakistani military court had sentenced him to death.

New Delhi: India on Thursday said that it has asked Pakistan to permit an Indian lawyer to represent former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav when his review petition comes up in a Pakistani civilian court against the verdict sentencing him to death on charges of espionage and sabotage.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, On this issue, we are in touch with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. For a free and fair trial in keeping with the letter and spirit of ICJ judgement, we have asked for Mr Jadhav to be represented by an Indian lawyer. However, Pakistan has to first address the core issues  giving copies of relevant documents of the case and providing unimpeded consular access to Jadhav.

India had last month hired a Pakistani lawyer after Islamabad told New Delhi that the relevant documents in the Jadhav case could be handed over only to an authorised Pakistani lawyer. But New Delhi had stated earlier that to our surprise, as advised by the Pakistani authorities, when the authorised Pakistani lawyer approached the concerned authorities, they declined to handover the documents to the lawyer.



On April 10, 2017, a Pakistani military court had sentenced him to death.

In 2017, India approached the ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenged 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.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- If schools, bowling alleys, gyms and malls can open there is no reason why restaurants cant open with at least 50% capacity. Thats the feeling of restauranteurs from one end of Staten Island to the other, and into Brooklyn.

Minus that and many say they cannot survive.
D octors have refused to authorise the transfer of opposition politician Alexei Navalny to a German hospital, his spokeswoman has said.

An air ambulance with a team specialised in treating coma patients was dispatched from Germany and due to land in the Siberian city of Omsk this morning.

Mr Navalny remains there in intensive care after drinking tea that his allies believe was laced with poison.

His team says a plane with all the necessary equipment is ready to take Mr Navalny to a German clinic.

But the Siberian hospital has refused to move Mr Navalny, saying it is too risky.

Spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said in a tweet: The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Familys decision to transfer him is not enough."

Mr Navalny, 44, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk.

It has not been confirmed whether he had been definitely poisoned. Local health officials said they found no indication Mr Navalny had suffered from a heart attack, stroke or the coronavirus.

Mr Navalnys ally Ivan Zhdanov said on Friday that police found a very dangerous substance in Mr Navalnys system, but officials refuse to disclose what it is.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday met the family of a 55-year-old sanitation worker of Hindu Rao hospital who had succumbed to Covid-19 earlier this month and offered them financial assistance of Rs 1 crore, the government said in a press statement.

The chief minister said that while money could not bring back a lost life, it could help in supporting the families of such Covid warriors.

A sanitation worker, Raju, was infected while he was on duty at a hospital and later passed away. I have offered his family financial assistance of Rs 1 crore. We are proud of all these corona-warriors who have sacrificed their lives while protecting the people of Delhi, Kejriwal told reporters after meeting the sanitation workers family in north Delhis Old Chandrawal neighbourhood.

The compensation scheme was initially meant for healthcare workers. In April, its ambit was expanded to cover police officials, teachers, firemen, sanitation workers and anyone else engaged in any form of Covid-19 management duty. The scheme was given cabinet approval as a mark of respect to Covid warriors. So far, more than 20 families have received financial assistance from the Delhi government. They include the families of a doctor, police officials and a civil defence volunteers, who are at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19. Earlier this month, Kejriwal had met a city doctors family and handed a cheque of Rs 1 crore.

Raju, only referred to by his first name in government records, was employed with the north Delhi municipal corporation.

Rajus family said that the compensation amount has come as a relief for them and now they can hope to build their own house with it.

My father was the only one with a permanent government job. My mother also works as a sanitation worker on contract. During the lockdown I lost my job as a housekeeping staff of a private company. My brother too doesnt have a job. With this money, we hope to make our own house and pay off the loan that my father had taken for getting my two sisters married, said Ravi Ghogaliya (35), late Rajus son.

Raju was suffering from diabetes and hypertension. He succumbed to the virus on June 26. The family had earlier said that even though he was a sanitation worker, he also worked as a ward boy in Covid ward, despite his repeated requests of not being put on duty there because of his co-morbidities.

Sanjay Gehlot, president of the Safai Karamcharis Union said, It is our responsibility to get one of the family members employed in place of their father as well as that they receive the compensation amount of 10 lakh from the corporation.
(JTA)  In a diplomatic breakthrough, Israel and the United Arab Emirates are normalizing ties.

The deal was finalized in a phone call on Thursday, Aug. 13, between President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

In a joint statement by the United States, Israel and UAE posted by Trump on Twitter, it said that this was a historic diplomatic breakthrough and will advance peace in the Middle East.

As part of a peace deal, Israel will pause its plans to annex areas of the West Bank, accord...
There is a buyer and a contract in the works for the Beaverton Tavern, a city icon that has people all over the region asking on social media what the plan is for one of the citys oldest businesses.

Robin Smith-Martin was attempting to purchase the restaurant months before the city purchased it for $24,000 in back taxes. A price the downtown development authority is reimbursing the city for and then, if all goes as planned, selling it to Smith-Martin for the same price. Because it was purchased for back taxes, the city nor the DDA can sell it for more than was paid. The only stipulation either group had was that it remain a restaurant.

We are keeping it a restaurant, Smith-Martin said, who also noted the name will stay the same.

She said the menu may be tweaked a bit, adding specialty salads  but it will maintain a Mexican theme.

The business owner, Smith-Martin, is an accountant who owns Smith & Associates CPA which has four locations. She is a Central Michigan University graduate with a bachelors degree in accounting and business administration.

Smith-Martin said Thursday that taking over the BT is a family endeavor, with her husband, Dennis, and four children, Taylor Eaton, Paul Smith, Michael Martin and Michele Balvanz, along with their significant others. She said they are all going to help out a lot. While they wont control the day-to-day activities, having identified an experienced person for that, they will be 100% involved.

We hope to open by the holidays, Smith-Martin said.

Beaverton City Manager said there is a plethora of problems and it is in need of significant work. But Smith-Martin said the family is ready to pitch in and ready it for opening. She was prepared to pay more when planning to buy it from the former owner Kris Tarlo. She said the reduced amount to purchase means she has more in capital to spend on the necessary fixes.

She learned the business was in trouble because some of her employees also work at BT. The 1983 Gladwin High School graduate then talked to her family about buying it. They were all in and she began talking to Tarlo. Then the county foreclosed on the business. The CPA immediately made city and DDA officials aware she wanted to buy it.

On Tuesday, the DDA unanimously approved selling it to her and asked Kaplan to write up a contract, submit it to the DDA for approval, and then off to Smith-Martin to sign.

Smith-Martin hopes to just get things fixed and brought up to code. But her later plans include a downstairs area for kids after school and a second-story bar. Once the family takes ownership, Smith-Martin will seek getting the liquor license. Kaplan said if she cant get it from Tarlo, the city can intervene to help her.

Kris Haines, who works in Beaverton, frequented the restaurant with friends and clients. She said her out-of-town clients would ask to come to her Beaverton office because they wanted to go to BT. She said the restaurant/bar is one of the citys biggest claims to fame.

Everybody around these parts know the BT, she added. It was just the place to be.

Smith-Martin, who is often described as a perfectionist, is thankful for the opportunity. Beaverton city officials are also thankful that a local person who knows what it means to the town is hopefully taking it over and redeveloping it.

We just want to get it back to what it was, Smith-Martin said. Its well known around here. Its what put Beaverton on the map.
The final countdown is on for entries to the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2021, with over 200 prizes to be won - and entry is free.

As students prepare to return to school over the coming week, BT Ireland is calling on them to channel their creativity by entering the competition before the deadline of midnight Tuesday, September 22. For the first time in its 57 year history, the exhibition will be going virtual in 2021 and will be broadcast across the world from January 6-8.

Renowned for launching the successful careers of some of Irelands most innovative change-makers, technologists, scientists and entrepreneurs, the BTYSTE is the perfect start for anyone with big ambitions to make a difference in the world. And in a changed society, where innovation in science and technology is more important than ever before, its time for students to go beyond limits by putting forward new solutions to world problems.

"Taking part in the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition offers students the chance to express their creativity and innovation," said Professor Pat Guiry, Director of the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology, UCD and head judge of the Chemical, Physical & Mathematical category at BTYSTE.

"It encourages the development of ideas, thorough research, and critical thinking  all vital skills that they will need at third level and beyond."

The exhibition is more than a competition; the projects being developed are providing real solutions to real problems in society and I have watched with pride over the years as many of our alumni have made significant advancements in their fields of work. There are so many talented minds in schools across the country and we, as parents, educators and STEM professionals have a responsibility to nurture and encourage our young students to help them thrive and achieve their potential.

In January 2021, on the new virtual platform, qualifying BTYSTE students will exhibit their projects online and will be judged across digital platforms. The public will be able to enjoy the excitement of the BTYSTE from the comfort of their home or school in Ireland or from across the globe, and audiences can expect an exciting line-up of international special acts, in addition to the Primary Science Fair, and of course the talented exhibiting students themselves.

Online entry is now open, with the added bonus that it will be free to enter for students this year as project entry fees have been waived. Entries can now be submitted online at www.btyoungscientist.com and students are encouraged to get their one page project idea submitted before midnight on Tuesday, September 22.

More than ever before, we need bright, creative minds to use science and technology to solve the problems of the world whether its climate action, the Covid-19 pandemic or a local or national issue," Mari Cahalane, Head of the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.

"Even by simply entering you are engaging in the crucial skills of collaboration, research, critical thinking and investigation- skills that will stand to you for a lifetime. Were calling on students and teachers alike to be part of an historic year for STEM innovation and who knows, maybe your brilliant idea could change our world for the better.

The overall prize is one of over 200, and comes with a prize fund of 7,500 and the prestigious title of BT Young Scientist and Technologist(s) of the Year 2021. The winner(s) will also go on to represent Ireland in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists in September 2021, a competition which Ireland has won 15 times, most recently in 2019.

To enter, an individual or group must submit a simple, online one-page proposal outlining their project idea. Entries can be made in any one of four categories: technology; social and behavioural science; biological and ecological science and chemical, physical and mathematical science.

The Primary Science Fair will also return to the BTYSTE in a virtual format on the same dates. Open to primary-level students from 3rd -6th class, the Primary Science Fair (PSF) has become an integral part of the overall BTYSTE festival of science and technology for over 20 years. Details on how to get involved in the Primary Science Fair can be found here: https://btyoungscientist.com/ the-primary-science-fair-at- btyste/primary-science-info- exhibiting-schools/.

For all the most up to date information on the BTYSTE 2021, follow the Exhibition on social media @BTYSTE.
A federal judge on Thursday denied a motion from the federal government to dismiss a lawsuit seeking a new recovery plan for the endangered Houston toad.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that filed the suit in February, estimates that fewer than 1,000 such toads may remain in the wild and they can only be found in the central coastal region of Texas. The organization alleged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to update a plan for conservation and survival of the amphibian, as mandated by the Endangered Species Act.

U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden in the District of Columbia denied the governments motion to toss the suit. McFadden rejected arguments that the conservation act doesnt impose a mandatory duty to revise a 1984 plan for the toad and that the claims are untimely, according to Thursdays ruling.

The Houston toad has continued to decline despite being protected under the Endangered Species Act for 50 years, and we need to do all we can to ensure this unique creature doesnt vanish, Jenny Loda, a biologist and lawyer with the nonprofit, said in a statement. A new recovery plan is long overdue and will provide the necessary roadmap for the toads survival.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the toad as endangered nearly 50 years ago, according to the lawsuit. Federal officials issued a document styled as a recovery plan in 1984 for the amphibian, but a five-year status review in 2011 found the document did not contain any recovery criteria, did not address all five listing factors relevant to the species, and was no longer based on the best available science. No new plan had been released by the time the suit was filed.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Interior declined comment. The Fish and Wildlife Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With the suit, the group seeks to, in part, urge the agency to issue a recovery plan.

The toad, which is about 2 to 3 inches long, was historically found in the central coastal region of Texas but disappeared from its namesake in the 1960s likely due to the combination of rapid urban expansion and a prolonged drought, according to the suit. It is believed to now be extirpated from Harris, Fort Bend and Liberty counties.

Although the Houston toad no longer hops across its namesake city due to drought and growth, the Houston Zoo maintains a 1,200-square-foot facility where it breeds and rears Houston toads for release into the wild, part of an effort to save it from extinction.

alejandro.serrano@chron.com
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

FNL Insurance Group has been in business for more than 40 years, providing clients with employee benefit and healthcare insurance needs. Based in Timonium, MD, the company partners with small and mid-sized employers to develop sustainable benefits programs.

We are delighted to welcome Frank Lotman and the FNL Insurance team to Alera Group, said Alera Group CEO Alan Levitz. As part of our collaborative organization, the FNL Insurance team will help us to continue to elevate the client experience throughout the Baltimore area and the mid-Atlantic region.

FNL Insurance Group is very excited to become an Alera Group company, commented FNL Insurance Group president Frank Lotman, who added that his team looks forward to the expanded resources it has access to as part of the Alera Group, as well as the potential for further growth.

Read more: Alera Group snaps up Chicagoland agency

Read more: Alera Group expands Northeast presence with acquisition

This is Alera Groups third employee benefits-related acquisition this month. The firm previously acquired Alper Services in Chicago, IL and JDM Benefits in White Plains, NY.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  With unusual candor, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un acknowledged his plans to improve the countrys dismal economy aren't succeeding as his ruling party scheduled a rare congress in January to set development goals for the next five years.

The Workers Party said North Koreas economy has not improved in the face of the sustaining severe internal and external situations"  a reference to a triple blow of U.S.-led sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and devastating floods  and that development goals have been seriously delayed and the peoples living standard (has) not been improved remarkably.

Kim announced his first five-year development plan with goals of improving North Koreas power supply and agricultural and manufacturing production during the last Workers Party congress in 2016, its first in 36 years.

But at Wednesday's meeting of the partys decision-making Central Committee, Kim acknowledged economic shortcomings" caused by unexpected and inevitable challenges in various aspects and the situation in the region surrounding the Korean Peninsula, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday.

Experts say the coronavirus derailed some of Kims major economic goals after North Korea imposed a lockdown that significantly reduced trade with China  its major ally and economic lifeline  and likely hampered its ability to mobilize its workforce.

Image: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the 6th National Conference of War Veterans in Pyongyang on Monday and released Tuesday by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). (STR / AFP - Getty Images)

In a closed-door briefing to South Korean lawmakers on Thursday, Seouls spy agency said the stress of managing state affairs had caused Kim to recently delegate some of his powers to a select group of senior officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong, who is now chiefly involved in shaping policies toward Washington and Seoul.

Lawmaker Ha Tae-keung said officials from the National Intelligence Service, which has a mixed track record in reading developments in North Korea's secretive ruling elite, insisted that Kim Jong Uns rule over his country remains absolute. There are no signs that Kim is experiencing health problems or is grooming his sister as his successor, Ha paraphrased NIS officials as saying.

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Kim Byung-kee, another lawmaker who attended the briefing, said the NIS believes North Koreas foreign currency reserves are being depleting rapidly because of prolonged border controls imposed under its anti-virus campaign which have led to cutbacks in construction and other activities.

The NIS did not confirm the lawmakers comments.

Last week, Kim Jong Un sacked his premier after an evaluation of the Cabinets performance in economic policies. He also said the country was facing a dual challenge of fending off COVID-19 and repairing damage from torrential rain that lashed the country in recent weeks, destroying thousands of homes and nearly 100,000 acres of crops. Kim insisted North Korea will keep its borders shut and reject any outside help.

North Korea had originally planned to lavishly celebrate its economic achievements (from Kims first five-year plan) at the Oct. 10 celebration of the 75th anniversary of the partys founding ... but couldnt foresee the huge setbacks caused by COVID-19 and floods, said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior analyst at South Koreas Sejong Institute.

While scheduling the new party congress for January likely reflects hope that the pandemic will ease by then, North Korea may struggle to fully revive cross-border trade, especially if its poor healthcare system continues to raise concern, Cheong said.
The protesters hurt their own case: On the war, the protesters were right. The leak of the Pentagon Papers proved that the government had been lying to Americans about the war in Vietnam, a fact later confessed publicly by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. But the riots hurt the demonstrators cause and delayed justice. By the time the convention riots were over, I knew there was no way the Democrats could win the 1968 election. The country turned to the Republicans for law and order, resulting in six years of Richard Nixon and everything the demonstrators did not want.
Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Windy with increasing clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 34F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph..

Tonight

Windy with increasing clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 34F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph.
Elon Musk is famously a maverick in Silicon Valley. And it seems the daredevil streak runs in the family.

"When I was a child my parents were very adventurous," Maye Musk, Elon's 72-year-old mother, tells CNBC Make It.

Indeed: When Maye Musk was a child growing up in South Africa, her father, Joshua Norman Haldeman, a chiropractor, "was interested in looking for the Lost City of the Kalahari Desert" in Africa, she tells CNBC Make It.

Haldeman took Maye Musk and the rest of the family on yearly treks to search for the lost city every July for nearly a decade.

The lore of the Lost City of the Kalahari Desert started at the end of the 19th century, after Canadian adventurer Guillermo Farini traveled across the desert (which covers much of Botswana, parts of Namibia and regions of South Africa) and then published a book about his travels. The book alluded to a possible lost city: "A relic, may be, of a glorious past, A city once grand and sublime, Destroyed by earthquake, defaced by the blast, Swept away by the hand of time," he wrote.

Musk's father was hooked. Every year, her mother  Winnifred Josephine Haldeman  would pack a supply of water, food and gas and the family of five children would set off with a map and a compass.

"We would go across the desert for three weeks," she says. Her father would tell scouts with camels to come looking for the family if they didn't emerge from the desert according to schedule.

"Can you imagine doing that? I mean it's crazy," says Musk. "But they were adventurous and we went across this desert."

The family would travel by daylight, and then at night they would sleep on the ground in sleeping bags.

Musk remembers seeing lot of animals and meeting different tribes of Bushmen, some of whom by the late 1950s had never seen a car before. "They'd never seen other people and they were curious and we were curious," Musk says. Though, admittedly, "we had a language gap there."

Starting when Musk and her twin sister, Kaye, were about 6 to 8 years old, they would be assigned to walk ahead of the family's slow-moving car in shifts "to make sure there were no ditches or no old logs dried-out old logs" the car could hit and be damaged, she says.
ANN ARBOR, MI  Disagreeing with a federal judges ruling in a lawsuit over anti-Israel protests outside an Ann Arbor synagogue, the plaintiffs are seeking reconsideration.

Marc Susselman, lead counsel to the plaintiffs, called the judges dismissal of the case this week a minor setback.
SCHENECTADY  With school set to open for students on Sept. 14, the district could still "explore" a full virtual learning model to start the academic year, a scenario that Acting Superintendent of Schools Aaron Bochniak conceded could lead to staff layoffs but would not "necessarily be in the everyone's best interest and most importantly the interest of students."

"If we were to look at that as an option, I want to make it clear that we would have to come forward and seriously look at layoffs because we would not be able to maintain all the staff that we have," he said.

The discussion with School Board President John Foley during Wednesday night's meeting came against the backdrop of a survey in which 4,198 students or about 60 percent opted for all virtual learning while 2,782 or about 40 percent selected the hybrid model, a combination of in-class and virtual learning.

The district is defaulting the 2,470 students who did not fill out the survey to the virtual option with a notation that they can change that by contacting the district.

Bochniak said the district is in the process of sending out letters to students and their families confirming their choice.

Bochniak also acknowledged that the K-12 district of 9,450 students, the majority of whom will do most all of their learning from home, "will most likely see cases of COVID."

"I think that that's inevitable, we're going to be seeing that, it's how we respond to it, and we've attempted to account for those type of scenarios," he said, adding that he expects most, if not all school districts in the state, will also have to deal with students who contract the virus.

Bochniak and Foley urged viewers to do their part to ensure the safety and welfare of students in the district.

Juliet Benaquisto, president of the Schenectady Federation of Teachers union, said Thursday that there's a lot of anxiety among educators and little time left to get key issues, such as safety and ventilation, resolved.

"I'm hearing from a lot of members that one part they have a lot of questions and another part have concerns, and it comes across as fear, and certainly there's fear of the virus at various levels but it's more just trying to understand how our plan is going to address those situations," said Benaquisto. "I just want to be able to be sure that we can put things in place so that when we have the inevitable COVID-positive case in schools ... that we have a detailed response."

She said the while it's "tough" for members to hear the talk about possible layoffs, she also fully understands that the district also is facing challenging fiscal times fueled in part by a reduction in state monies.

Bochniak explained that because many of Schenectadys school buildings are on the older side, they dont have systems in place that allow for mechanical ventilation, meaning that were requiring a system to pull fresh air in.

He said the district plans on only using exterior facing rooms for classroom instruction and that opening windows provides natural ventilation.

I think this is a case where we might be in a little bit better shape because our windows do indeed in most buildings open, added Bochniak, noting that in some of the newer more modern buildings, the windows are fixed and dont open.

The district has purchased 400,000 face masks  which are mandatory - of varying sizes and stockpiled hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies as it finalizes plans to reopen with about 40 percent of the normal student population.

He said the district has identified a local company where they could get more masks from if they go through all of the first batch. Masks will be also available for anyone getting on a school bus who doesnt have one of their own.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Temperature checks and a few simple health screening questions will be done on all students and staff before they enter the building to ensure they are not over 100 degrees. If they are, they will be taken to a designated isolation room staffed by a nursing personnel for follow up.

On a school bus, staff such as a paraprofessional will be trained to take temperatures and a student with a high temperature will not be allowed on the bus.

Except in emergencies, school buildings will mostly be off-limits to parents, said Bochniak.

The district is currently considering teacher requests for so-called job accommodations, an adjustment to a job or work environment that makes it possible for an individual with a medical condition to perform their duties of if they live with a person who is vulnerable or high-risk or for other reasons that might prevent someone from returning to work.

It could be anything from additional levels of PPE (personal protective equipment), it could be a different type of assignment, theres lots of different things, he added.

Bochniak also said as district officials iron out more details on the reopening plan he would like to hold another virtual session for teachers and staff and a separate one for parents or guardians.

On Wednesday, Bochniak said he viewed it as a positive sign that he had not received feedback from the state Education or Health departments about Schenectadys plan.

Besides programs through the Boys & Girls Club and YMCA, Bochniak revealed Wednesday that he met for the first time with members of Schenectady Clergy Against Hate about churches serving as possible after school sites.

It might be a place where kids can go to finish out their day virtually but also have supervision and perhaps even tutoring happen in their locations in very small groups or pods, he said.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) insists the cost of infrastructural projects under the Akufo-Addo government is much higher than it used to be under the erstwhile Mahama government.

According to the NDC, the cost of projects has doubled under the current government.

The Communication Officer of NDC, Sammy Gyamfi speaking on Asempa FM said: Dr. Bawumia and the NPP are creating the impression that the cost of infrastructure under their administration is lessor than under the NDC. Ghanaians shouldnt take them seriously.

He said: Under NDC 2016, we built bole holes at GHS60,000 per unit and the NPP made noise in this country that its expensive and it has been inflated but today, the same borehole is being done at GHS120,000. They have doubled the price. Six unit classroom block which was done at GHS350,000 and they complained and made noise about it, today, the same six-unit classroom block is being built at GHS860,000. More than 100 percent increment.

The NDC Communication Officer further argued that, during the tenure of the NDC, the construction of a kilometre of asphalt road cost the country $250,000 but under the Akufo-Addo government, the same one kilometre has gone up astronomically to $1.2 million citing the Synohydro deal as an example.

So when it comes to a government that protects the public purse, they [NPP] are not close to doing that. Dr. Bawumia must know that Ghanaians have tested both candidates and lies will not win them this election.

Mr. Gyamfi further used the opportunity to reject corruption allegations made against the then John Mahama government.

After they accused Mahama of corruption in the 2016 election, after almost 4 years in power, they have not come up with even one evidence against him.

Bawumias claim

Sammy Gyamfi made the spirited defence on the back of infrastructural projects touted by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia earlier in the week and subsequent inflated project cost allegations he made.

Dr Bawumia during a Town Hall meeting hosted at the Academy of Art and Sciences on Tuesday, August 18, 2020, claimed that the cost of the Kwame Nkrumah interchange is higher than four interchanges being built under this government.

The Vice President cited Tema, Pokuase and Obetsebi Lamptey interchanges in the Greater Accra Region and Tamale in the Northern Region, all at a total cost of $289 million comparing it with the $260 million Kwame Nkrumah Interchange.

---citinewsroom
China has told Pakistan it opposes any unilateral action that complicates the situation in Kashmir, after Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi briefed his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi of his countrys concerns regarding the situation in the Indian state.

The Kashmir issue, as was widely anticipated, figured in the second strategic dialogue of the Chinese and Pakistani foreign ministers in the southern province of Hainan on Friday. Qureshi arrived in China on Thursday for the talks against the backdrop of the India-China border standoff.

The Pakistani side briefed the Chinese side on the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, including its concerns, position and current urgent issues, said a joint statement issued at the end of the two-day strategic dialogue.

The Chinese side reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a dispute left over from history between India and Pakistan, which is an objective fact, and that the dispute should be resolved peacefully and properly through the UN Charter, relevant Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements. China opposes any unilateral actions that complicate the situation, it said.

China and Pakistan believe a peaceful, stable, cooperative and prosperous South Asia was in common interest of all parties, the statement said. It added: Parties need to settle disputes and issues in the region through dialogue on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

There was no immediate response to the joint statement from Indian officials. India has traditionally bristled at Chinas efforts to raise the Kashmir issue on Pakistans behalf, describing it as interference in its internal affairs.

China had issued a similar statement immediately after India scrapped Kashmirs special status in August last year. Since then, it has sought to raise the Kashmir issue at the UN Security Council on Pakistans behalf several times, but without much success.

The dialogue between Wang and Qureshi took place at a time when the ties of both Beijing and Islamabad with New Delhi are at an all-time low, over the border tensions in eastern Ladakh, and Indias decision last year to scrap Jammu and Kashmirs special status.

The joint statement was issued soon after President Xi Jinping was quoted as saying that China and Pakistan are good brothers and good partners, and that the economic corridor between the two countries, which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), is key to forging even closer ties between Beijing and Islamabad.

In a recorded message addressed to his Pakistani counterpart Arif Alvi, Xi said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a landmark project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is of great importance to promoting in-depth development of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and forging a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future.

India has consistently opposed CPEC because it passes through PoK. Beijing has paid little attention to New Delhis reservations about trade and transit corridor and pumped in money and resources to building infrastructure such as power plants and highways.

CPEC is among the new irritants and concerns for Indias ties with China, but Beijing has refused to address this issue, arguing it is only an economic project.

State-run Xinhua news agency released Xis statement, which said: China and Pakistan are good brothers and partners who share special friendship.

He added the frequent meeting of political parties from both sides is conducive to steadily advancing the construction of CPEC and high-quality cooperation under BRI.

According to the joint statement, both sides also agreed on continuing their firm support on issues concerning each others core national interests.

Beijing told Islamabad that China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence, independently choosing a development path based on its national conditions, striving for a better external security environment and playing a more constructive role on international and regional affairs.

In a statement released separately, Wang said China and Pakistan had agreed on cooperation in research and development of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Fu Xiaoqiang, an expert on South Asia at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told state media that India has a narrow approach to China-Pakistan friendship.

India has adopted a hostile attitude toward the cooperation between China and Pakistan and believes China and Pakistan will soon unite against India. Its a rather narrow-minded perspective that does not conform to Indias position of a big country in South Asia, Fu said.
Dublin, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Taro Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020-2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The global taro market is projected to register a CAGR of 3.5% during the forecast period.



Taro is the most widely cultivated species in the family Araceae which is used as a vegetable. Countries such as United States, Vietnam, Japan, and New Zealand are the key import market. Major producing countries are China, Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon.



Globally, North America is dominating the taro imports, for instance in 2019, the United States imported 38.9% of the total taro imports. Rising demand from North America and Asia-Pacific countries is driving the taro production. In 2017, taro production was 10,529,092 tons which are increased to 10,639,850 tons in 2018.



Key Market Trends



Strong Growth in Taro Production



Taro has a higher nutritive value than most other root and tuber crops. Both corms and leaves contain good-quality protein and are good sources of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and readily available iron. Due to its nutritional benefit, the demand of the taro is increasing across the globe.



To satisfy the rising demand, farmers are increasing the area cultivated under taro. From 2011-2018, global taro production increased by 11.8%. In 2018, global production was 10,639.8 metric ton. During the same year, nearly 86.3% of the global production dominated by major producing countries such as China,Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon.



North America Dominates Global Imports



In 2019, Global import value was valued at USD 179,309 thousand which was increased by 17% as compared to 2018. In 2019, Countries such as the United States and Canada were among the major importing countries. In 2019, the United States imported taros of worth USD 69,670 thousand depicting 38.9% of the global imports. Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica are the major exporting countries to the United States.



In 2019, Ecuador exported USD 36,824 thousand worth taros to the United States, Mexico exported USD 9,965 worth taros and the exports from Costa Rica were valued at USD 5,854 thousand. Moreover, the high nutritional value of cocoyam could be explored in new markets in Europe and the United States of America, to substitute for other vegetables such as spinach, with such convenient products



Key Topics Covered



1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Deliverables

1.2 Study Assumptions

1.3 Scope of the Study



2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY



3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Overview

4.2 Introduction to Market Drivers and Restraints

4.3 Market Drivers

4.4 Market Restraints

4.5 Value Chain Analysis



5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

5.1 Geography

5.1.1 North America

5.1.1.1 United States

5.1.1.1.1 Production Analysis

5.1.1.1.2 Consumption Analysis and Market Value

5.1.1.1.3 Import Market Analysis (Volume & Value)

5.1.1.1.4 Export Market Analysis (Volume & Value)

5.1.1.1.5 Price Trend Analysis

5.1.1.2 Canada

5.1.2 Europe

5.1.3 Asia-Pacific

5.1.4 South America

5.1.5 Middle East & Africa

5.1.5.2.5 Price Trend Analysis



6 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS



7 IMPACT OF COVID-19



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/gwigym

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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




Major flood alerts have been issued as areas battered by Storm Ellen and violent 143kmh winds now face the threat of torrential rainfall over the next 36 hours.

The flood warning centres on south Leinster and Munster, with Cork in particular facing two more days of potential water-related damage.

It came as almost 200,000 people were left without power as Storm Ellen tore down trees and damaged property with violent gusts of wind.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin paid tribute to the emergency services for "the courage and professionalism they displayed in dealing with a very dangerous storm and, in particular, the hard work of ESB repair crews".

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He later visited Skibbereen to view the flood damage at first hand and meet property owners on Bridge Street, which was badly hit.

ESB officials said it was the third most severe storm of modern times, given the scale of the damage sustained by the national power network, exceeded only by Storm Ophelia and Storm Darwin.

Damage was exacerbated by trees laden with leaves being unable to withstand the violent wind.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close A fallen tree at Midleton Community Hospital in Cork as Storm Ellen hit Ireland Photo credit: Shay Bollard/Twitter/PA Wire Motorists contend with downed trees on the N72 just outside of Fermoy in County Cork following Storm Ellen Photo credit: Damien Storan/PA Wire Motorists contend with downed trees on the N72 just outside of Fermoy in County Cork following Storm Ellen overnight Photo credit: Damien Storan/PA Wire A fallen tree in Cabinteely, County Dublin as Storm Ellen hit Ireland Photo credit: Lawrence Hill/Twitter/PA Wire TWITTER/HOLLYCAIRNSTD/via REUTERS Motorists contend with downed trees on the N72 just outside of Fermoy in County Cork Photo credit: Damien Storan/PA Wire Staycationers try to make the best of their break. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire The strand in Tramore is closed due to the weather. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire The strand in Tramore is closed due to the weather. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire Storm Ellen at Tramore Beach, Co Waterford. Photo: Patrick Browne A person is hit by a wave crashing on the Front Strand in Youghal, Co. Cork. A red wind warning has been issued by Met Eireann for the area, and an orange warning has been issued for Galway, Mayo, Clare, Kerry, Limerick and Waterford, as Storm Ellen sweeps across the country from Wednesday night (Niall Carson/PA) Damage from Storm Ellen in Clonmel, Co Tipperary Photo: Jonathan Ryan Damaged yacht's mast pictured at Cove Sailing Club, Cobh, Whitepoint, Cork following storm Ellen. Pic Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision Damaged yacht's mast pictured at Cove Sailing Club, Cobh, Whitepoint, Cork following storm Ellen. Pic Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision Fallen trees on the Lee road, Cork following Storm Ellen. Pic Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision Fallen trees on the Lee road, Cork following Storm Ellen. Pic Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision / Facebook

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Whatsapp A fallen tree at Midleton Community Hospital in Cork as Storm Ellen hit Ireland Photo credit: Shay Bollard/Twitter/PA Wire

Around 60 ESB repair crews were at work but they were only able to begin repairs once it was safe to do so.

Some householders were warned it could be days before they were reconnected.

Most were expected to have supplies restored by last night, with 90,000 reconnected by 1pm.

Met Eireann said concern is now focused on the heavy rainfall likely to be dumped by the Atlantic fronts following Storm Ellen.

A Status Yellow rainfall warning was issued across the country, with a Status Yellow wind warning for Dublin, Louth, Wexford, Wicklow, Meath, Cork, Kerry and Waterford - both in place until 5am today.

With rivers and streams already swollen, the flood threat was expected to be very serious in some areas.

The Rosscarbery area received 230mm, or more than a month of rainfall, in just 72 hours last week.

Cork city was on flood alert due to high tides and the lingering storm surge.

In west Cork, areas including Rosscarbery, Skibbereen and Bandon were again on high alert for flooding.

Some 20 properties on Bridge Street in Skibbereen were left under flood waters on Wednesday night.

Officials said the flooding was not connected to an 18m flood relief scheme focused on the River Ilen and completed three years ago.

Cork County Council had identified a potential rainfall run-off issue at an area known as The Cutting - and a special drain was being built but had not yet been commissioned.

Councillor Karen Coakley said she "felt like crying" when she saw the damage caused to Skibbereen homes and businesses.

"My own home was damaged by floods back in 2009 so I know what it is like," Ms Coakley said.

Other Cork towns that were hit by flooding caused by the torrential rain included Midleton, Bantry, Kinsale, Ballinacurra and rural parts of Rosscarbery.

Storm damage - mostly from fallen trees and spot flooding - was also reported in Tipperary, Kerry, Westmeath, Galway, Longford, Kildare and Dublin.

In Clonmel, a parked car was damaged when a heavy tree fell on it.

Cork City Council received almost 40 calls about fallen trees and storm debris, including a large hoarding which was torn down by powerful wind gusts in the city centre and thrown on to a busy roadway.

Many roads were left impassable by fallen trees, and both gardai and the Road Safety Authority pleaded with motorists to be careful of storm-related debris lying on roads.

Local authority crews were also working across Munster to deal with a number of fallen trees which had blocked roads.

A yacht moored in Cobh was swept off its mooring while, again in Cork, an articulated lorry was flipped on to its side by violent winds. Storm Ellen even hit water supplies, with Irish Water and Cork County Council working to restore domestic supplies to customers in a number of areas across the county.
Milwaukee: Joe Biden has accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a passionate speech declaring that Donald Trump had "cloaked America in darkness for much too long".

Speaking on the final night of the Democratic Party's national convention, Biden said he was accepting the party's nomination with "great honour and humility".

"I will draw the best of us, not the worst," he vowed.

"The end of this era of American darkness begins here, tonight."
A former Uber executive was charged Thursday in federal court on allegations that he arranged to pay hackers $100,000 to cover up a high-tech heist that stole the personal information about 57 million of the ride-hailing services users and drivers during 2016.

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This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this June 21, 2017, file photo, is a building that houses offices of Uber, in San Francisco. A former Uber executive was charged Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, in federal court on allegations that he arranged $100,000 in a hush-money payment to hackers who stole the personal data of about 57 million of the ride-hailing service's users and drivers and then sought to cover up the massive 2016 breach, authorities said. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

A former Uber executive was charged Thursday in federal court on allegations that he arranged to pay hackers $100,000 to cover up a high-tech heist that stole the personal information about 57 million of the ride-hailing services users and drivers during 2016.

Two hackers pleaded guilty in the scheme last year and are awaiting sentencing. The criminal complaint filed Thursday against Joseph Sullivan, Uber's former chief security officer, alleges that the hackers shared the data with a third person  who may still have it.

Sullivan, 52, previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in a Computer Hacking and IP Unit. He worked in the same federal prosecutors office that brought the charges against him.

Sullivan, who lives in Palo Alto, California, was also previously employed by Facebook, eBay and PayPal. He was a member of the federal Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity under President Barack Obama.

Bradford Williams, a spokesman for Sullivan who also previously worked for eBay, said in a statement there is no merit to the charges.

If not for Mr. Sullivans and his teams efforts, its likely that the individuals responsible for this incident never would have been identified at all, the statement said. From the outset, Mr. Sullivan and his team collaborated closely with legal, communications and other relevant teams at Uber, in accordance with the companys written policies. Those policies made clear that Ubers legal department  and not Mr. Sullivan or his group  was responsible for deciding whether, and to whom, the matter should be disclosed.

Sullivan's charges came on the same day as a California appeals court allowed Uber and Lyft to continue treating their drivers as independent contractors in the state in a decision that will give the two companies a few more months to protect their business models in a key market.

The allegations of a coverup served as yet another reminder of Uber's sordid past under the leadership of its co-founder Travis Kalanick, who stepped down under pressure in 2017. Since then, Uber has been run by Dara Khosrowshahi, who has previously apologized for the San Francisco company's past behaviour under his predecessor. Prosecutors said Uber co-operated with its investigation that led to the charges against Sullivan.

The case is being brought by the same U.S. attorney who won a criminal conviction against a former Google engineer sentenced to 18 months in federal prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to stealing trade secrets before joining Ubers effort to build robotic vehicles. There was never any evidence that he used Googles trade secrets while overseeing Ubers self-driving car division. .

Sullivan has not yet been arraigned in federal court in San Francisco. He faces up to eight years in prison, as well as $500,000 in fines, if he is convicted of obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony, a charge that alleges he deliberately concealed the commission of a crime.

Silicon Valley is not the Wild West, U.S. Attorney David Anderson said in a news release. We expect good corporate citizenship. We expect prompt reporting of criminal conduct. We expect co-operation with our investigations. We will not tolerate corporate coverups. We will not tolerate illegal hush money payments.

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In the wake of a 2014 hack that was under investigation by federal officials, Uber met  at Sullivans alleged instructions  the new hackers 2016 demand with the $100,000 Bitcoin payment, prosecutors alleged. Sullivan then, prosecutors say, had the hackers sign non-disclosure agreements  twice  which included a false representation that they had not taken or stored any data.

Sullivan allegedly hid the payment through what's known as a bug bounty program, where so-called white hat hackers are paid if they point out security problems but do not compromise any data.

Uber's management ultimately discovered the truth," despite Sullivan's alleged efforts to conceal it, the U.S. attorney's office says, and publicly announced the breach in November 2017. Sullivan was fired.

Prosecutors allege the hackers might not have infiltrated other companies if Sullivan had properly reported Uber's incident.

___

Associated Press Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in Berkeley, California, contributed.
Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has sent a congratulatory message to Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II on his birthday. The message reads as follows, in particular:

"The Armenian Apostolic Holy Church is one of the most important institutions of our people, one of the pillars of our national consciousness, which was created and established as a national spiritual structure due to the decisions made at the state level.

These decisions are turning points in the history of the Armenian people because in the period of the fall of the statehood, the Armenian Apostolic Church became the citadel of our identity, it was the church communities that kept and preserved the dream and drive of our people to have a state again, and our statehood today is the realization of that dream.

And therefore, it is the duty of all of us to preserve and strengthen that dream, to contribute to its strengthening; but all this will not be possible without faith. This is also the mission of the His Holiness to strengthen the citizens' faith in God, statehood, national values, their own strength and future, to encourage the protection of rights and the fulfillment of responsibilities."
C ouncil leaders and police officials have urged Birmingham residents to pull together to tackle an "extremely concerning" rise in coronavirus cases and avoid a local lockdown.

On Friday, Public Health England added the city to a watchlist as an "area for enhanced support" meaning additional resources are being provided to the local authorities.

Leader of Birmingham City Council, councillor Ian Ward, said the watchlist should be a "wake-up call for everyone".

"As we have previously said, this announcement was expected following rising coronavirus case numbers here in Birmingham," he said in a statement.

"We are working with our partners locally and at a government level to shape plans and secure the resources such as extra testing that we need that will get the infection rate down.

"We will make announcements as soon as possible about what this means for the people of the city.

"If our previous warnings to keep doing the basics havent been enough, this has to be the wake-up call for everyone.

"Wash your hands, wear face coverings wherever possible, keep two metres apart from others and get tested if you have Covid-19 symptoms.

Local lockdown restrictions would most likely mean an end to households meeting indoors, the council leader said.

Local lockdown in Leicester during Coronavirus pandemic 1 /41 Local lockdown in Leicester during Coronavirus pandemic Leicester has seen 866 cases in the past two weeks PA A city council worker carries rubbish from a coronavirus testing centre at Spinney Park which will be incinerated Getty Images Leicester could be the site of the UK's first local lockdown PA The Government says it is supporting officials in Leicester in their battle against Covid-19 PA Members of the military set up a walk-in mobile Covid-19 testing centre at Spinney Hill Park in Leicester PA A worker for Leicester City Council disinfects public toilets PA A man cleans the windows of a launderette in Leicester PA A member of military personnel uses a tub to collect used a self-test kit from a member of the public at a COVID-19 drive-through mobile testing unit set up at Evington Leisure Centre in Leicester, AFP via Getty Images Members of the military operate a walk-in mobile Covid-19 testing centre at Spinney Hill Park in Leicester PA People queue at walk-in mobile Covid-19 testing centre at Spinney Hill Park in Leicester PA A man wearing a protective visor crosses the road on mobility scooter in Leicester PA Members of the military operate a walk-in mobile Covid-19 testing centre at Spinney Hill Park in Leicester PA People walk by an electronic billboard displaying a government message AFP via Getty Images Robin Dignall and Maria Demetriou-Clamp disinfect chairs at their hair salon Hair@1RD in Leicester as the city may be the first UK location to be subjected to a local lockdown after a spike in coronavirus cases PA A woman wearing a PPE mask walks past social distance advisory singns in Leicester's North Evington neighbourhood Getty Images People walk by an electronic billboard displaying a government message AFP via Getty Images Soldiers from the Royal Logistics Corp operate a mobile coronavirus (Covid-19) testing site at Evington Leisure Centre Getty Images A youth cycles past a sign telling local residents to "Social Distance" and advising on how to help "Prevent the Spread" of coronavirus, in the North Evington district of Leicester AFP via Getty Images Gallowtree Gate in Leicester after the Health Secretary Matt Hancock imposed a local lockdown following a spike in coronavirus cases in the city. PA A man sits on a bench, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Leicester Reuters A worker disinfects a bin following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Leicester, Reuters A worker disinfects a McDonald's restaurant Reuters A police car on Gallowtree Gate in Leicester PA Shops open their shutters in Leicester after the Health Secretary Matt Hancock imposed a local lockdown following a spike in coronavirus cases in the city PA AFP via Getty Images Reuters PA AFP via Getty Images Getty Images PA PA

"A local lockdown could also mean some of those freedoms and liberties that we have begun to enjoy again are ripped from our grasp," he said in a statement earlier this week.

"Going into the next stage of restrictions will also probably mean an end to households meeting indoors, severely restricting our ability to socialise as we would like to.

"There is a risk this could all happen again if we dont push back against the rise in Birminghams coronavirus cases.

"Ultimately, there is a role for everyone here. Now is the time to step up and all do our bit for Birmingham, like never before."

Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, said some people have not been strict enough with coronavirus measures.

The Conservative mayor said in a statement on Twitter: "People across the region have made an enormous sacrifice since the start of lockdown to keep the virus at bay, but the virus is now returning and recent efforts to counter that have been insufficient.

"It is evident that some people have not been strict enough when it comes to keeping up the basics of social distancing, hand washing and wearing a face covering, nor following the guidelines on avoiding mass gatherings.

"This has to change immediately and I would ask every single citizen, both across Birmingham and the West Midlands, to redouble their efforts.

"We are in an extremely challenging situation and every individual has a part to play."

Superintendent Gareth Morris from West Midlands Police said residents "must try and do all we can" to prevent a local lockdown.

"The UK Government has now deployed a new strategy around local lockdowns in response to any local spikes in the infection rate," he said.

"The impact on peoples lives and businesses has already been so significantly affected by the national lockdown, that we must try and do all we can to prevent that occurring in Birmingham and taking us into a state of city wide lockdown.

"I recognise that this will continue to be really hard especially for our children, young adults and the elderly who are already feeling the strain of being separated from their extended family and friends."

He added: "Please help me and our officers to keep you and your loved ones safe and do your utmost to follow the guidelines as restrictive as they are, so we can once again be reunited with the people and things we love."
Speaking on the final night of the Democratic National Convention , one of the first Native women elected to Congress called upon all American citizens to exercise their right to vote and support Joe Biden for president and Kamala Harris for vice president

In her prime-time address on Thursday, Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico invoked the sacrifices made by her people, the Pueblo people , and their centuries-long struggle to gain the right to vote.

I know we cant take our democracy for granted, especially now as people are dying, as our land is abused, as our constitution is under attack, she said. We must work for it, by getting involved, by registering voters, by voting.

Voting is sacred. My people know that," said Haaland, who is a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna

Elected in 2018 and seeking reelection this year, Haaland offered the most extensive speech among the handful of Native speakers invited to make primetime presentations at this years convention.

On Tuesday evening, four Native leaders presented the delegate totals for the states of Alaska, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. They were part of a 57-state and -territory roll call at the convention.

Before the last night of the convention Thursday, tribal leaders gathered for a second and final Native American Caucus meeting

The caucus heard from political heavyweights like Joe Bidens wife Dr. Jill Biden , House Speaker and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former presidential hopeful Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders . The caucus also heard from frontline Native advocates and activists during panel discussions on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the importance of voting in Indian Country.

Jill Biden is an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College and is thought to be the first second lady to hold a paying job while her husband was vice president.

We see the stakes of this election every day, especially for the Native American communities that are feeling the pain of COVID more than others, she said Thursday. From health care to voting rights to tribal sovereignty, your rights are on the line. You deserve a partner who will stand by you, not in your way, and thats Joe.

Biden asked Native caucus members to imagine waking up on a day in 2021, after Biden and Harris have taken office.

You pick up the morning paper and the headline isnt about some late-night tweet storm, she said. Instead, its a story about the children who will benefit from universal free kindergarten and dramatic increases in school funding.

Dr. Jill Biden was among the Democratic party luminaries who addressed the Native American Caucus on August 20, 2020.

You turn on the local news and the anchors arent talking about a pandemic raging out of control with no end in sight. Instead, theyre talking about how tribes are receiving funds to make sure that there is running water that is clean, roads that are safe, schools that are healthy places to learn and everyone has the broadband they need.

She said Biden, who served as vice president with Barack Obama, and Harris., the U.S. Senator from California , would honor treaties with tribes and the nation-to-nation relationship between the federal government and tribal nations.

Pelosi said the Native vote could tip the election in favor of Biden and Harris and urged tribal leaders to encourage their people to vote.

The Native American vote will make the difference, particularly the vote of native youth, she said.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California), the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was among the Democratic party luminaries who addressed the Native American Caucus on August 20, 2020.

Sanders, meanwhile, criticized the Trump administration for failing to respect tribes and their sovereign rights.

Time and time again, our Native American brothers and sisters have seen the federal government break solemn promises and huge corporations put profits ahead of the sovereign rights of Native communities, he said. On November 3, we must elect an administration that will fight for the sovereignty, justice, opportunity and dignity of Native people.

During a panel discussion on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, Haaland talked about Democratic efforts in the House to gain reauthorization of the 2013 Violence Against Women Act and expand the list of crimes that could be authorized to include stalking, child abuse and trafficking.

We still need the Senate to take it up, she said. We passed a bill. Its sitting on Mitch McConnells desk.

She said Biden has promised to prioritize the MMIWG issue if elected and said he also would seek to expand tribal authority and access to culturally sensitive resources for victims and survivors.

He gave me his direct commitment that it would be a priority in his administration, Haaland said.

Montana MMIW activist Grace Bulltail , an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spoke about Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, a young woman she considered her daughter. Kaysera disappeared in August 2019 and her body was found five days later in her hometown of Hardin, Montana, a reservation border town.

She was a kind, loving and compassionate soul, Bulltail, a citizen of the Crow Tribe , said. Her death was not treated as a homicide.  To this day, we have information about any investigation into Kayseras death.

She said local authorities failed to file a missing person report after Kayseras family reported her missing, forced her family to cremate her remains against cultural beliefs and prematurely ruled her death as caused by exposure due to drug or alcohol use. Bulltail said a complete autopsy and toxicology report proved the coroner's original assessment was wrong . The report was withheld from the family for 16 weeks, she added.

Kayseras only fault was being an Indigenous teenager in a county, state and country that does not value her life Bulltail said. Our calls go unheard by those in the Montana justice system.

Said Haaland: I promise you that we are going to everything we can to make this right for you.

During a panel discussion on voting in Indian Country, Clara Pratte , tribal engagement director for the Biden-Harris campaign and a Navajo Nation citizen, talked about the impact of COVID-19 on her tribe, which has seen 9,500 positive cases of the virus and 484 deaths due to the virus.

Were seeing the real devastating impacts of what that means for our tribal communities and what underfunded Indian Health Service means and the impact that can have, she said.

She encouraged tribal leaders to ensure their people have access to the polls and the information they need to make well-informed decisions.

She urged people to text VOTE to 30330 in order to register to vote.

Its a hard fought right that we are not going to give up, she said.

Honor those who came before us! Center narrative around our voices! VOTE LIKE OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT! #Vote #NativeVote https://t.co/zez5NxfN73  Prairie Rose (@msprairierose) August 21, 2020

North Dakota State Rep. Ruth Buffalo , a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation , said Native people need to first focus on encouraging those around them to vote.

People will listen to us, especially those who love and respect us the most, and that means our family units, Buffalo said. So Im really stressing the importance of doing what you can from youre at within your reach by having these conversations with your families, encouraging them to get out and vote.

Actor Mark Ruffalo , probably best known for his role as the Hulk in Marvels Avengers movies, said he has fought for environmental justice, including fighting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, because he believes in helping those who are being victimized by corporate interests.

He said voting is especially important for minority people, including Native Americans, and indeed is the only way to remove corrupt leaders from positions of power.

The more that they exercise their power in this system, the more just this system will become, and thats why its so important and thats why theyre working so hard to disenfranchise people of color, to keep them away, to make them think their vote doesnt mean anything, he said.

Watching the #DemConvention. Its so good to see so many diverse people coming together addressing racism and the promise of America. There is a sweetness and kindliness about this production.  Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) August 18, 2020

Jodi Archambault Gillette, former Native policy advisor for the Barack Obama administration, talked about the need to organize and mobilize Native communities in order to ensure the Native voice is heard in this election.

She invoked the unprecedented voter turnout within Native communities in North Dakota in 2018, when Buffalo was elected to the state legislature, beating the state representative who sponsored a controversial voter ID law that disenfranchised many Native voters.

We are really good at organizing against things that are trying to hold us back, said Gillette, who is a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

So proud of my tribal sister Congresswoman Deb Haaland! She spoke from the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerqueowned and operated by the 19 Pueblo Indian tribes of New Mexico.  Ron Solimon (@solimon_ron) August 21, 2020

And she praised Biden and urged Native voters to support him.

I worked alongside him in the White House, she said of the Democratic party's presidential nominee. He understands us. He talks to the right people.

We have to organize ourselves, our families. The stakes could not be higher for our people.

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Another peace conference has ended with little more than a plan to keep negotiating.

Rebel army leaders in Myanmar say they are frustrated by a lack of progress in peace talks with the government.

After a delay of more than two years, the fourth round of negotiations with 10 armed groups has concluded in the capital, Naypyidaw.

Al Jazeeras Wayne Hay reports from Chiang Mai in neighbouring Thailand.
Brayden Harrington speaks during the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention (Democratic National Convention via AP)

A 13-year-old boy with a stutter stole the show at the Democratic National Convention as he gave an emotional endorsement of Joe Biden.

Brayden Harrington sat in his home, speaking to a mobile phone camera and reading carefully from a piece of paper.

He looked up and told the world how the former vice president, by speaking about his own experience, had helped him overcome a difficult challenge.

We stutter, Brayden said in a video that aired shortly before Mr Biden accepted his partys presidential nomination on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

The teenager, from Concord, New Hampshire, got stuck briefly on the s sound and bravely worked his way through the word.

His face showed strain but also determination to force out the sound.

Its really amazing to hear that someone became vice president despite stuttering, Brayden said.

He told me about a book of poems by Yeats that he would read out loud to practice.

Mr Biden has spoken frequently about how overcoming a stutter was one of the hardest things he has done in life.

Brayden and Mr Biden met at a CNN town hall event in Concord in February, where the politician spoke about overcoming a severe childhood stutter.

Expand Close Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention in Wilmington, Delaware (Andrew Harnik/AP) / Facebook

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He has talked frequently publicly through the years about the anger and frustration of being mocked by classmates and a nun in Catholic school  and how that motivated him to work to overcome it.

It has nothing to do with your intellectual makeup, he said at the town hall.

After the event, Mr Biden invited Brayden backstage to talk more about learning to control a stutter.

Mr Biden noted that he had practised by speaking as he looked at himself in the mirror.

He also gave the boy a speech he had prepared for delivery, complete with markings he had made on its pages that showed where he had time to take breaks and pauses so that the words would come out more smoothly.

Brayden held up that speech for convention viewers.

Im just trying to be a kid, Brayden said.

And in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me feel more confident about something thats bothered me my whole life. Joe Biden cared. Imagine what he could do for all of us.

He added: Kids like me are counting on you to elect someone we can all look up to.

Mr Biden has talked about his stutter frequently on the presidential campaign trail and how it sometimes returns on certain words, especially if he is tired.

After he talked about it during a Democratic primary debate in December  and even started to make the sounds of a stutter  then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders ridiculed Mr Biden on Twitter.

The tweet was later deleted and Ms Sanders apologised.

Mr Biden said afterwards that he had no regrets because I know what its like to be humiliated.
President Donald Trump will host a funeral service at the White House Friday for his younger brother Robert who died aged 71 after 'suffering brain bleeds from a recent fall', according to sources familiar with the matter.

Robert's body will be driven from New York to the White House for the private service, which will be attended by around 200 of the president's family and friends, the sources told ABC News.

This marks the first time a funeral service has been held at the US seat of government since President John F. Kennedy's funeral following his assassination back in 1963.

Trump's brother will also become one of only three private citizens known to have had their funeral service in the White House in its entire history.

Donald Trump will host a funeral service at the White House Friday for his younger brother Robert who died aged 71 after 'suffering brain bleeds from a recent fall', according to sources familiar with the matter. The two brothers pictured together in 1999

Robert's body will be driven from New York City to the White House for the private service, which will be attended by around 200 of the president's family and friends, the sources told ABC News. He is pictured hugging Donald on Election Day 2016

Around 200 people have been invited to the private ceremony which is reportedly being personally paid for by the president. Pictured Donald and Robert Trump

The service will take place Friday in the East Room of the White House, a source told ABC News.

Around 200 people have been invited to the private ceremony which is reportedly being personally paid for by the president.

Trump said Monday he was considering holding a small service at the White House for Robert, saying his brother would be 'greatly honored' and 'loved our country' so it would be 'appropriate'.

'We're looking at Friday. And we may do just a small service right here in the White House for my brother. We're looking at doing that. That would be, I think, a great honor to him,' Trump told reporters on the South Lawn.

'I think he'd be greatly honored. He loves our country - he loved our country so much.

'He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country. So, I think it would be appropriate.'

The last time a funeral was held at the White House was in 1963 for JFK after he was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22.

Following the shooting, Kennedy's body was flown back to the White House and placed in the East Room and set upon the same catafalque used at Lincoln's funeral, where officials and heads of state visited to pay their respects.

His funeral took place at the White House on November 25 and his body was buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetery.

The last time a funeral was held at the White House was in 1963 for JFK after he was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22. Pictured JFK's coffin is carried from the White House to The Capitol during the service

His funeral took place at the White House on November 25 and his body was buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetery. The caisson carrying JFK's casket leaves the Capitol bound for his funeral

Other presidents who were assassinated also had services at the White House.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley lay in state in the East Room and James Garfield did not have a White House funeral but did lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

Other presidents who died while in office, like Franklin Roosevelt, also lay in state at the White House.

It is rare for a non-president to have a funeral service at the White House.

There have been only two other known services for private citizens in history - the last being in 1936 for Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor.

This came after a Lincoln held a private service in the Green Room for his son Willie Lincoln who died in February 1862 of typhoid fever aged 11.

Woodrow Wilsons first wife, Ellen Louise Axson Wilson died of Bright's disease in the White House in August 1914, but it is unclear if she had a funeral service in the executive mansion.

It is rare for a non-president to have a funeral service at the White House. There have been only two known services for private citizens - the last being in 1936 for Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. Pictured Roosevelt, Eleanor and their son, Franklin at the funeral

Trump's brother Robert died Saturday  just one day after Trump visited him in hospital in New York.

The president said in a statement announcing his death Saturday night: 'It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight.

'He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.'

Trump paid tribute to his brother in an interview with Fox & Friends Monday morning calling Robert his 'biggest fan.'

'When I became president, he was, I think, one of the most loyal people,' the president said of his brother, who was the youngest of the five Trump siblings.

'There was no jealously... There was not an ounce of jealousy.'

'He'd go around talking about how great this is for the country and 'it's so incredible' and he was my biggest fan,' Trump told the Fox News morning show panel.

Robert, who reportedly took blood thinners, had suffered recent brain bleeds that began after a recent fall, according to a close friend of the family, who spoke to The New York Times.

Over the past few weeks, he had not been able to speak on the phone, according to the family friend.

Robert was married to socialite Blaine Trump (pictured) for 25 years until their 2007 divorce. Until his death, he lived in Long Island with wife Ann Marie Pallan

Robert is pictured right with sister Maryanne and brother Donald in 1990

Trump arrived at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center on Friday afternoon to visit his ailing younger brother

Trump left Manhattan on Friday afternoon to fly to Bedminster, New Jersey, having said goodbye to his brother in hospital

Robert Trump had no children, but he helped raise Christopher Hollister Trump-Retchin, the son of his first wife, Blaine Trump.

Besides the president, he is survived by his second wife, Ann Marie Pallan, and his sisters, Maryanne Trump Barry and Elizabeth Trump Grau.

His brother Fred Trump Jr. died in 1981.

Robert's death came one day after the president visited him in hospital in New York City, where he was said to be suffering from a serious condition.

Trump had been scheduled to travel to his country club in nearby Bedminster, New Jersey for the weekend, but made a stop in Manhattan first to check in on his sibling.

Robert had been admitted to the hospital and was described as 'very ill', however details of his illness are still not officially confirmed.

During a White House press briefing after his visit to his brother's bedside, the president said his brother was 'having a hard time' but did not elaborate on why he had been hospitalized.

Robert, the youngest of the five Trump siblings, was previously hospitalized for ten days at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in June.

He was admitted to the neurosciences intensive care unit where he was treated for a 'serious condition', the Daily Beast reported.

Around the same time, Robert had filed a lawsuit against his niece Mary Trump, seeking to block her from publishing a tell-all book on the president.

Mary is the daughter of the brothers' eldest sibling, Fred Trump Jr, who struggled with alcoholism and died in 1981 at the age of 43.

Robert filed for an injunction claiming the explosive book, 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man', violated the terms of a confidentiality agreement she signed nearly two decades ago.

From left to right: Robert, Elizabeth, Freddy, Donald and Maryanne Trump. Robert was the youngest of the five siblings

Robert is the youngest of the five Trump siblings born to Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. Pictured left to right: Donald, Fred Jr, Robert, Maryanne, and Elizabeth

Robert married his former secretary Ann Marie Pallan (center) in March. The two were rumored to be having an affair while he was married to first wife Blaine

In a statement to The New York Times in June, he accused his niece of attempting to 'sensationalize and mischaracterize' their family relationship for her own financial gain.

'I and the rest of my entire family are so proud of my wonderful brother, the president, and feel that Mary's actions are truly a disgrace,' Robert said.

The explosive memoir was eventually released last month after a judge agreed to lift a temporary restraining order preventing Mary from publicizing or distributing her work.



The judge said the confidentiality clauses in the 2001 agreement, 'viewed in the context of the current Trump family circumstances in 2020, would offend public policy as a prior restraint on protected speech'.

The younger Trump had openly voiced his support for his brother over the years.

In an interview with Page Six ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Robert said he supported his brother's campaign '1,000 per cent'.'

He was later seen celebrating Donald's victory at the New York Hilton where the then president-elect delivered his acceptance speech.

Robert also spoke out in support of his brother during a brief, but rare interview at LAX airport last December, when Trump had been at the center of an impeachment trial.

When asked how his older sibling was doing, he told the cameraman: 'I think he's doing fantastic,' before getting into the his car.

Just like his older brother, Robert formerly served as an executive for the Trump Organization, but managed to keep a relatively low-profile. He is pictured above with ex-wife Blaine (in green), Donald, parents Mary and Fred, and sister Maryanne

Left to right: Blaine Trump, Robert Trump, Donald Trump and Ivana Trump are seen at the Pierre Hotel New York in 1987

Fred Trump with his son Robert, wife Mary Anne and Robert's wife Blaine at a gala in 1985

Blaine and Robert Trump at the Met Ball, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1983

Robert Trump and wife Blaine at Halloween AIDS fundraiser, hosted by Magic Johnson in 1993 at Tavern on the Green

Robert had also held a senior position in the family business, but unlike his brother, he has generally maintained a low public profile.

He previously served as an executive for Trump Organization where he managed the real estate portfolio outside of Manhattan.

In 2016 Robert told Page Six that he was 'gainfully retired'.

He was married to socialite Blaine Trump for 25 years until their 2007 divorce, and until his death served on the board of directors of ZeniMax Media.

The couple's split was widely reported in the tabloids following reports that Robert had been living with his mistress - and now wife - for two years.

Prior to his death, he was based in Long Island where he lived with wife Ann Marie Pallan, his former secretary, who he reportedly married in March.

Despite their split, Robert was said to have remained on good terms with his ex-wife, who reportedly attended Trump's inauguration in 2017.

Robert also has two older sisters.

Elizabeth Trump Grau, 78, is a retired executive from Chase Manhattan Bank, and Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, is a retired federal judge.

As the youngest of the five Trump siblings, Robert was shielded from the pressures placed on the eldest, Fred Jr, and then Donald.

Robert Trump is pictured with his older brother Donald and then-girlfriend Melania Knauss

Trump put Robert in charge of the Atlantic City casino in 1989 - which sparked a huge row. The pair are pictured at a Casino Control Commission meeting in Atlantic City in March 1990

From left: Donald Trump; his father Fred Trump; Blaine Trump and her husband Robert Trump

He was never groomed to take over the family real estate company, and was considered by those who knew him to be the inverse of the brash, self-promotional brother who eventually did.

After graduating from Boston University, he first went to work on Wall Street, instead of immediately joining the family business.

But he eventually went to work for his brother as a senior executive at the Trump Organization.

'You could consider him the quietest of Trumps,' said Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer.

'He was glad to stay out of the spotlight.'

Jack O'Donnell, a former Trump Organization executive who worked closely with the Trump family, told the New York Times that Robert was someone with a natural ease and good humor that his older brother lacked.

'He was dignified, he was quiet, he listened, he was good to work with,' O'Donnell said.

'He had zero sense of entitlement. Robert was very comfortable being Donald Trump's brother and not being like him.'

The pair were not always close.

In 1990, a year after Trump had put Robert in charge of the opening of the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Trump furiously attacked Robert over problems with the slot machines.

People who knew him said Robert was devastated by the fight with Trump, and the rift between them took years to heal, the New York Times said.

He reconciled with his brother when Trump decided to run for president, according to a person close to the family.
Three people were arrested on weapons and drug-related charges after an OPP drug bust in Espanola on Wednesday.

At about 3:45 p.m., Manitoulin OPP and the OPP Community Street Crime Unit executed a search warrant at a residence on Centre Street.

Police seized drugs believed to be fentanyl, cocaine, crack cocaine, hydromorphone pills, prohibited weapons, drug paraphernalia, and over $700 in Canadian currency.

The street value of the drugs is about $54,870.

Samantha St. Michel, 39, was charged with:

- Possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking (two counts).

- Possession of opioids for the purpose of trafficking.

- Possession of other drugs for the purpose of trafficking (three counts).

- Unauthorized possession of a weapon (four counts).

- Failure to comply with a release order.

- Possession of the proceed of crime under $5,000.

- Possession of unmarked cigarettes.

The accused remains in custody and is scheduled to appear in bail court at the Ontario Court of Justice on Aug. 24.

Dean McNichol, 45, was charged with:

- Possession of opioids for the purpose of trafficking (two counts).

- Possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

- Possession of other drugs for the purpose of trafficking (two counts).

- Possession of property obtained by crime under $5,000.

- Unauthorized possession of a weapon (two counts).

- Failure to comply with a release order.

- Possession of unmarked cigarettes.

Lance Pluta, 37, was charged with possession of cocaine and opioids for the purpose of trafficking and unauthorized possession of a weapon.

Both accused were released on an undertaking and are scheduled to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice in Espanola on Oct. 5.

Fraudsters calling people in the Blind River area

East Algoma OPP officers are warning the public of fraudsters calling potential victims advising that their social insurance number has been jeopardized.

The fraudsters are using caller ID spoofing, which the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre describes as disguising telephone numbers appearing on a caller ID display.

This popular tool allows scammers to disguise these calls as the call will appear to be coming from local or familiar numbers to trick people into answering the phone and trusting the caller.

Be aware that these fraudsters may use a variety of other scam tactics, as well. Scams are designed to create anxiety so that victims respond by sending money quickly to fix the problem.

The OPP or any other police service does not contact individuals via email or telephone to collect fines or taxes.

Quick tips:

- Dont trust your call display. It may say police or ABC but in reality it is actually a scammer. It does not matter what the caller ID says. You cannot trust it.

- If you get a call from someone who says they represent a company or a government agency seeking personal information, hang up and call the phone number on your account statement, in the phone book, or on the company or government agencys website to verify the authenticity of the request.

- Never give out personal information such as account numbers, social insurance numbers, mothers maiden name, passwords or other identifying information in response to unexpected calls.
BASRA, Iraq - Protesters torched parliament offices in Iraqs oil-rich south on Friday following days of inaction by the government after two activists were assassinated.

Demonstrators burned the outer gate of the entrance to the parliament building in Basra province, the area that produces the lions share of Iraqs oil. The building holds the local offices of Iraqs main parliament buildingin the capital Baghdad.

It was the most violent incident in Basra since mass anti-government demonstrations in October, when tens of thousands took to the streets in Baghdad and across the south to decry government corruption. Protests also erupted in Basra in the summer of 2018.

An Associated Press photographer witnessed demonstrators clash with security forces by hurling molotov cocktails. At least eight security personnel were injured in the clashes, said Ali al-Bayati, spokesman for the semi-official Independent High Commission for Human Rights.

Protesters had gathered to demand the resignation of Basra governor Asad al-Eidani after two activists were gunned down in the city in the past week.

Activist Reham Yacoub was killed in Basra on Wednesday by unidentified gunmen. Yacoub was a respected activist who had been active in the October demonstrations.

Days earlier, activist Tahseen Osama was killed by armed men. That killing prompted dozens of protesters to take to the street, and police responded by firing live rounds at them.

In response, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had Basras chief of police sacked.

But protesters said this was not enough, decrying inaction by the Iraqi government over the two killings. They carried banners calling for the actvisits killers to be held accountable.

Al-Eidani bears the greatest responsibility for the deaths of the activists, explained protester Ahmed Qassim, because he is the head of the Supreme Security Committee and he is responsible for bringing any party involved in the assassinations to court.

Because he did not move a finger, he is complicit in the suppression of protesters by force, Qassim said.

Al-Kadhimi is on a visit to Washington D.C. to conclude strategic talks expected to shape the future of U.S.-Iraq relations, and the future of the U.S. troop presence in the country.

___

Kullab reported from Istanbul.
The Kerala government is running two "very successful" airports under the public-private partnership (PPP) model and it is still opposing handing over the Thiruvananthapuram airport to a private operator, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday. His remarks come after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing the Union Cabinet's approval to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises under the PPP model for a period of 50 years.

Puri asked why did the Kerala government participate in the bidding process for the Thiruvananthapuram airport if it has been against privatisation. "Kerala is the pioneer as far as airports under PPP are concerned. First PPP airport in India came up in Kochi in Kerala, Puri tweeted.

The Kochi airport "is a successfully run airport" that handled 9.62 million passengers per annum in 2019-20 before COVID-19, he noted. "In fact, it was during the UDF (Congress-led coalition) regime in Kerala that the foundation for Kochi airport was laid in 1994 and the airport was inaugurated in 1999 during LDF (Left-led coalition) regime," he said in a tweet.

Another very successful example of an airport operating in PPP mode is in Kannur, also situated in Kerala, he said. "Now, Kerala Government, running two very successful airports in PPP mode, is opposing the handing over of Thiruvananthapuram airport under PPP mode," he said.

"It has come to my knowledge that an all-party meeting in Kerala has opposed the PPP model at Thiruvananthapuram airport," Puri said. The minister said the airports in Delhi and Mumbai which handle around one-third of India's air passenger traffic were privatised using the PPP model during the first term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2006-07.

"In comparison the 6 airports now being handed over, only handle less than 10% of the country's total passenger traffic," Puri mentioned. Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports - Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati - through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.

In July 2019, the Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for leasing out three airports - Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow - to Adani Enterprises. On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for leasing out the other three airports.

"If Kerala Govt is against privatisation, then why did it participate in the bidding process? State Govt was given a fair chance & Right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10% below the range of highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 % below," Puri tweeted. After losing the bid for the airport, the Kerala government then approached the Kerala High Court on this matter which dismissed the petition in December 2019, Puri noted.

"Petitioners then filed a SLP (special leave petition) in Hon'ble SC. Apex Court remitted the matter back to Hon'ble Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by Hon'ble SC or Hon'ble Kerala High Court," he said. The Union Cabinet has given its go-ahead for awarding the Thiruvananthapuram airport to the private party subject to the outcome of writ petition and in accordance with provisions of undertaking given by that party, he said.

"If the petitioners succeed and the outcome of litigation leads to annulment/cancellation of the bidding process then the Concessionaire will hand over the possession of the airport to AAI," the minister mentioned. "They will be entitled to a refund of the amount paid to AAI and additional investments made in the assets," he said, adding that Adani Enterprises "will also not demand any damages from AAI".

The Centre-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) owns and manages more than 100 airports, including the one in Kerala's capital city. Mullappally Ramachandran, the president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, had said on Thursday that the move to privatise the Thiruvananthapuram airport was "deplorable".

In his letter, the Kerala CM has asked Modi to reconsider the decision as it will be "difficult" for the state to cooperate. Kerala's repeated requests to entrust the airport management with the special purpose vehicle (SPV) in which the state government is the major stakeholder was also ignored, Vijayan stated.

"In view of the unilateral decision taken by the Government of India without giving credence to the cogent arguments put forward by the State government, it will be difficult for us to offer cooperation to the implementation of the decision, which is against the wishes of the people of the State," he said in the letter..

.
Oregon Proposes New Rule for Worker Virus Protection

A new proposed rule from the Oregon Occupational Health and Safety Administration would mandate CDC recommendations to keep workers safe amid the pandemic.

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed a COVID-19 worker protection rule that would make CDC recommendations mandatory for workplaces with at least 25 employees. The Oregon agency plans to enact the temporary regulation by Sept. 14 and if the state pursues a permanent rule, it could be in place by March 1, 2021.

The draft includes several new mandatory procedures, including the general recommended practices set forth by the CDC. Employers would be required to ensure a 6-foot distance between workers or, if that was not realistic, erect barriers and require workers to wear face coverings.

Under the new rule, workplaces with at least 25 employees would also need to designate at least one person to be responsible for identifying safety measures and ensuring policies are implemented. Office workers would have to wear masks when not at their desks or seated in a conference room, or whenever social distancing was not possible, such as in corridors, restrooms, elevators and stairwells.

The rule even spreads to transportation. In situations where workers must be in close quarters while traveling together in a vehicle, the center points of seats used by passengers (who aren't apart of the same household) must be at least 3 feet apart. Everyone in the vehicle must wear a mask.

In cases where health officials have decided an employee should be quarantined and can't work, employers would have to provide up to two weeks of paid reassignment leave in addition to whatever benefits the worker is entitled to receive.

Oregon is the second state to propose a workplace virus protection program for employees and workers that would be enforced by its worker safety agency. Virginia enacted its rule on July 27. Other states such as Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and Washington, are enforcing executive orders issued by their governors. The federal OSHA hasn't pursued a temporary COVID-19 rule, with agency leadership their existing regulations and laws are adequate.
I booked a hotel apartment room for two in Kensington next May through Booking.com.

The room costs 82 for one night. However, I received an email from the booking platform a few days later saying it had forgotten to add on the cleaning fee.

This fee was 44  more than half the cost of the actual stay itself.

I haven't paid yet as I think this is very unfair. Can it add on these charges afterwards and should it have told me upfront?

Some customers are being charged extra fees when booking online after agreeing an amount

Grace Gausden, This is Money, replies: You decided to book a hotel room to stay in when coming to London next year for a one night break.

Settling on an apartment style room, similar to Airbnb, where you have your own lounge and kitchen, you confirmed the trip with Booking.com for a cost of 82.

As possible with most bookings on the site, you chose to pay at a later date, with the option of free cancellation.

However, a couple of days later you received another email from Booking.com saying the total amount should actually be 126 as it had forgotten to include a 44 cleaning fee.

This is clearly a huge amount to add on retrospectively as it is more than half the cost of the original amount.

The message added that the customer could cancel their reservation for free due to the change in cost.

Whilst this means you would not lose any money, it is still inconvenient, as you wanted to stay in this particular property.

The CMA previously tackled hotel sites not advertising the full prices online for customers

It also begs the question whether third party booking sites should be allowed to add on fees after a confirmation of the payment price has already been made.

The Competition and Markets Authority took action last year after it became concerned that practices such as not displaying the full cost of a room upfront could mislead people, stop them finding the best deal and potentially break consumer protection law.

It spoke to a number of companies, including hotel booking sites, who agreed to display all compulsory charges such as taxes, booking fees - or in your case cleaning fees - in the headline price.

This is Money couldn't get through to speak to anyone who works directly at the hotel as every email sent to the given address bounced back and the number supplied did not call through at all.

On Booking.com, it says the property has been added recently with just two guest reviews, however both of those were positive.

Booking.com agreed to cover the cleaning fee in full after being made aware of the change

A spokesperson for Booking.com replies: Travel is at the heart of what we do at Booking.com and to ensure enjoyable travel experiences for the many travellers who book with us.

In the rare instance where our customers find an error in their booking, our customer services team are available 24/7 to offer support and to find a solution for all parties.

On this occasion, we have apologised for the inconvenience and offered to cover the cleaning fee in full as a gesture of goodwill.

Grace Gausden, This is Money, adds: Although the CMA has investigated the adding of fees at a later date, unless it receives numerous reports that hotel booking sites are doing this, it is unlikely to take action.

In this scenario, it is also likely the hotel informed Booking.com about the cleaning fee, rather than Booking.com deciding to add it on itself, meaning the hotel is liable for the change in price.

Fortunately in this situation, the cleaning fee has been covered in full so you do not need to worry.

However, in future, customers should always read through the small print when booking accommodation to see if it says additional fees may be added.

If you find yourself being charged, contact your hotel directly first then the third party site you booked it on to see if they can reverse the changes.

In many cases, booking sites allow their customers to cancel for free up to a couple of weeks before the scheduled arrival date, meaning you won't have to worry about paying out.
Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much.

Chinas top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the shocking and distressing squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others.

The ruling Communist Party has long sought to portray Mr. Xi as a fighter of excess and gluttony in officialdom, but this new call for gastronomic discipline is aimed at the public and carries a special urgency. When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable, Mr. Xi said in a directive carried by the official Peoples Daily newspaper last week.
After being exposed and in close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 positive victims earlier this week, some Korean celebrities have confirmed that their COVID-19 test resulted in negative.

Just today, August 21, the agency of actor Oh Man Seok announced that his result for the COVID-19 test resulted in negative. Oh Man Seok decided to get tested on August 17 when he had direct contact with a makeup artist who tested positive. The said makeup artist worked on the play "Jjamppong," which had 15 participants including actors Kim Won Hae, Seo Sung Jong, and Heo Dong Won.

Oh Man Seok's agency shared that the actor was doing his filming for the project "Just Comedy" in the JTBC building in Sangam-dong when he discovered that he had direct contact with the positive patient. He immediately alarmed the show's production crew, and the filming instantly halted. Even though his result came back negative, he had to follow the government guidelines on restricting the spread of the virus and do a self-quarantine. Due to this, he had to cancel all his scheduled activities.

Seo Yi Sook also got tested since she had come into close contact with actor Heo Dong Won, fortunately, her result came back negative for the virus. Both Seo Yi Sook and Heo Dong Won were working together on the drama "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol," which currently halted their production after actor after Heo Dong Won tested positive for COVID-19. The drama "Startup," which also stars Seo Yi Sook's paused their production as it waits for the actress's result.

The drama "More than Friends" reportedly halted their filming due to their cast Kim Hee Jung. The said actress got tested because she had been in close contact with Kim Won Hae, who was among the first confirmed COVID-19 case.

Another cast of the drama, "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol," who is actress Park Sung Yeon also decided to get tested for the virus and received a negative result. Since most of her shooting was in a different location and she wasn't working with anyone who had come into contact with a confirmed case. But just to be sure, the actress still went to get tested as it has been recommended by the production to do so.

"To All the Guys Who Loved Me" actress Song Sang Eun also got a negative result for the virus test. The drama also shut down their production after the news of Seo Sung Jong, one of the cast members, had tested positive. Song Sang Eun is also part of the drama "Private Life," that also halted productions while waiting for the results of a staff member who had worked on another drama in which someone had tested positive.

As soon as they have received the confirmation that Heo Dong Won had a positive result for the COVID-19 virus, the cast and crew of "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol" were required to get tested for the virus. Stars, Go Ara, Lee Jae Wook, and Kim Joo Heon have confirmed and announced that they resulted negative for the virus. Actor Lee Jae Wook was not in close contact with the positive case, but for safety purposes, he got tested.

In case you are not aware, in South Korea, actors and production staff members, most of the time, work on multiple productions at once.
(Bloomberg) -- Its anything but business as usual for the 1,500 U.S.-based employees of TikTok.

Plans to hire 10,000 employees and open new offices in the country are being postponed, and brands and social media stars are inserting clauses into their contracts to address what happens if a proposed ban comes to pass, according to TikTok employees, executives and business partners.

Virtual town hall sessions that were once held each month are now weekly affairs where worried employees ask top executives if their paychecks will keep coming if the app goes dark in the U.S. In response, executives have pointed to India, where TikTok has been banned but ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese company that owns the app, hasnt cut jobs.

"Employees are scared, there's a lot of questions and concerns," said Patrick Ryan, a technical program manager at TikTok, who joined the company in March after nearly a decade at Alphabet Inc.s Google. Hes leading a crowdfunding campaign to fund an employee lawsuit against the proposed ban, though he said he is not involved in the companys official legal response and speaks only for himself. "There's no guide to what to do when the U.S. president says he's going to eliminate a job you love in 45 days," he said. Read More: TikToks U.S. Chief Says Video Site Will Stay Despite Trump Ban

Ryan is referring to twin executive orders issued by President Donald Trump earlier this month that call on ByteDance either to sell TikToks U.S. operations or shut them down by mid-September, citing national security concerns. (Trump later issued another order with an extended deadline.) On Aug. 2, Microsoft confirmed its pursuit of TikTok. Oracle Corp. and Twitter Inc. have also explored bids, people familiar with the negotiations have told Bloomberg News.

Vanessa Pappas, TikToks general manager for the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia, declined to comment on deal negotiations. In an interview Thursday, she said shes made clear internally and externally that Tiktok strongly disagrees with the Trump administrations stance, and said TikTok hadnt been presented with any evidence to back up claims it shares data with the Chinese government.

Story continues

Pappas said TikTok will remain in the U.S. regardless of the Trump administrations threats, and believes it has multiple paths forward depending on what happens. Its an extremely turbulent time, so our message is really just, let's focus on the things that you can control, the things that matter, she said. This week, TikTok launched what it called its largest ad campaign to date, with television, radio and social media spots that pitch it as a positive force in the U.S.

Still, chatter among TikTok employees about what some have begun to refer to as "D-Day," or simply Sept. 15 pop up in video meetings and the company's internal messaging app, Lark. Pappas scrolls through the Lark threads throughout the day and responds to concerns in hopes of heading off any unsubstantiated rumors and calming fears.

The political crisis, say employees, is bizarrely disconnected from TikTok's rising revenue and exploding user basethe company passed 2 billion total downloads in April and has continued to outpace other social media apps, according to research firm Sensor Tower. While companies like Uber Technologies Inc. and IBM Corp. were cutting thousands of workers this spring, TikTok pledged to create 10,000 U.S. jobs. It began posting positions ranging from engineers and ad sales to communications and public policy staff. The company has run hundred-person on-boarding sessions in recent months, consisting of all-day training sessions followed by nightly homework assignments to practice creating TikTok videos.

"So many of us were getting laid off and the economic situation was really rough, but TikTok was still growing," said one employee who joined the company this spring after losing a previous job, and asked not to be identified because they werent authorized to speak publicly. "There are so many questions right now, but I don't think the leadership team would be hiring and working so hard to keep the business going if they didn't know what they were doing."

Many people are working around the clock because hiring hasnt kept up with the demands of the businesss growth. More than two thirds of TikTok's 1,500 U.S. employees have been hired since the beginning of the year, many of them since the pandemic began. Unable to meet their coworkers in person, theyve bonded over the collective fight to keep the company alive, according to three employees who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

Some TikTok performers who make money on the platform, however, arent just waiting around to see how the politics play out. Carrie Berk, who goes by @carrieberkk on TikTok, is one of many social media stars who appealed to TikTok fans to migrate to Instagram instead. "It's like a ticking time bomb," she said of TikTok.

Advertisers are also making contingency plans in case of a potential TikTok shutdown, including writing so-called ban clauses into contracts that allow them to move their campaigns to other platforms if TikTok does disappear. "We're negotiating contracts to give brands a level of comfort that if something does happen to Tiktok, it won't come out of their budget," said Eric Jacks, chief strategy officer at marketing agency Collab.

Justin Kline, who runs a social media influencer marketing company Markerly, says he's advising brands to keep their advertising campaigns running on TikTok but that many of his clients are wavering. Advertisers like TikTok now, he said, but theyre also asking him, "should we be investing in a platform that could get banned?'"

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.
By Trend

Kazakhstans Prime Minister Askar Mamin and Russian Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin discussed further development of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Trend reports with reference to the press office of Kazakhstans prime minister.

The topic was discussed during a meeting held on Aug. 21, 2020.

The parties discussed issues of the Kazakh-Russian cooperation in the space sphere, including the further development of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and interaction in the field of remote sensing of the Earth.

Special attention was paid to the project to create a Baiterek joint space rocket complex (Nazarbayev Start) and a trilateral project to modernize the Gagarin Start (in cooperation with the UAE).

In July 2020, Russias Energia Rocket and Space Corporation has concluded an agreement with Baiterek Joint Venture on provision of services on creation of a Baiterek Rocket and Space Complex.

The Baiterek project oversees construction of the Baiterek complex at the base of a number of already existing Baikonur Cosmodrome sites in Kazakhstan. According to a preliminary agreement, Russia is to be responsible for the rocket construction, whereas Kazakhstan takes the responsibility for construction of the infrastructure.

Kazakhstans Baikonur city is the administrative and living center of major Baikonur Cosmodrome. The city and the Cosmodrome together create a Baikonur complex, which Russia is renting from Kazakhstan till 2050.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
WASHINGTON  Wearing masks and sporting Joe Biden paraphernalia, Capital Region delegates gathered at the Madison Theater in Albany Thursday night in hopes they were watching the next president of the United States accept his nomination on the last night of the Democratic National Convention.

More than 270 miles south, in his home state of Wilmington, Del., Biden pledged to carry the nation out of darkness into light and be a president for all Americans.

"May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation. And this is a battle that we, together, will win," Biden declared, before exiting the Chase Center to greet a parking lot of socially distanced supporters, cheering and honking, as fireworks exploded overhead.

After driving hours from Niskayuna to Wilmington, Biden Delegate Caroline McGraw, 19, and her mother Denise Murphy McGraw leaned out of their minivan in that parking lot, eager for a glimpse of Biden, as "I Believe that We Will Win" pumped from speakers on the warm summer night.

It was the conclusion of what Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez called an "unconventional convention"  a four-day event dominated by video appearances and televised speeches watched in living rooms across America, a drastic departure from the usual crowded jamboree that draws thousands of passionate and connected political devotees every four years.

"For me, this would have been my fourth convention. Obviously it was quite different," said Wanda Willingham, a delegate and Albany County legislator. "The main thing that I missed was when you are at the convention, you get to see and meet everybody."

Each night, delegates watched as former presidents, lawmakers, activists and Biden's former political opponents spoke about Biden's agenda, his qualifications for the job and his character  sprinkling a heavy dose of knocks against President Donald Trump throughout. Former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, former First Ladies Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Rosalynn Carter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, among many others, all urged Democratic voters to support Biden or beware what they said would be a devastating second Trump term.

The event reintroduced America to the Bidens, with speeches from Jill Biden and others, that highlighed the loss of his wife and son, his reputation as a family man, his work as a senator and his eight years in the White House as Obama's vice president. Biden's running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who if elected would be the first woman and woman of color to be vice president, described how her identity as a Black woman has shaped her life and work from Oakland to Washington, D.C.

Individual Americans and activists also gave testimonial on the pandemic, gun violence, climate change, immigration and other issues to make the case for a Biden presidency.

"Over the last several days, there's just been this real life anecdotal evidence that's been shared by so many about the failure that came into their lives," said Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, a New York delegate. "You have here just a great line up of people who understand the usefulness of government. They know there can be disagreement, but when there is no communication, where there is not empathy and where there is not leadership, then we all suffer."

In a new virtual roll call, states abandoned their "brags" shouted in a boisterous arena for more personal videos featuring Biden supporters declaring their state's votes in segments shot in scenic locations in every state. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a delegate, said the new format was "terrific."

But in its virtual form, the made-for-television event divorced the convention from its democratic roots  eliminating most spontaneous participation, expressions of dissent and unvarnished voices, explained Gary Rose, professor of political science at Sacred Heart University. A specific policy agenda was also largely absent.

"I see a disconnect here between the convention and what the party's positions are," Rose said. "You've got to really wonder what this means because a convention is supposed to be presenting to the voters what is forth coming should they win and I don't think the voters, at least the voters who are watching this, I don't think they are necessarily getting that from this convention."

Tuning in from home each day, New York's delegates joined virtual breakfast meetings  "the catering was better four years ago," joked Patrick Nelson of Stillwater  and caucus gatherings for groups including African Americans, women, business owners and LGBTQ interests. They received their convention "swag" by mail: a Democratic convention 2020 mask, a blue Biden towel and signs featuring the nominee's slogans and signature aviator glasses.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Due to the 100-person limit on gatherings in New York during the pandemic, the state party did not organize any in-person events for all delegates, but the Capital Region delegates decided to get together. On Wednesday night, local delegates gathered at the Niskyuna home of a Biden supporter for an outdoor watch party.

In the U.S., approximately 19 million people watched the Democratic National Convention each night, down from over 25 million in 2016, according to data from Nielsen Holdings.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in London, U.S. citizen and Sanders delegate David Wenk took in the four nights of the convention with other Americans abroad. Wenk grew up in Washington County and votes in Troy.

"The convention absolutely makes the news here in the U.K. and across Europe," Wenk said Friday. "Despite the falterings of the past four years under our current president, the United States continues to be looked to for moral leadership  and the hope is that with a Biden presidency our country will once again be deserving of that role."

As the Biden-Harris campaign tried to appeal to all kinds of voters, from far-left Democrats to Republicans, the over-arching message was a call to unity and placing country above party. But some progressive Democrats believed the virtual format glossed over important dissent within the party  particularly over health care  and their voices were sidelined.

Willingham said she believed the Black voter was more included at the 2020 convention than in 2016, when she felt the campaign paid attention to Black voters just enough to win a minimum of votes and then abandoned their communities like a "flash in a pan."

At the last convention, the Black voter was not being embraced as they should have been," Willingham said. "It was obvious at the convention and the much as we tried to talk about it, it was ignored.

In the end, the convention is just one week of celebration, messaging and party business  the campaign to elect Biden is just heating up Democrats throughout the convention emphasized. Speakers encouraged viewers to vote early, vote by mail and help other people learn how they can cast a ballot safely during the ongoing pandemic.

"We can tell that Donald Trump knows that he's going to lose. That's why he's been thrashing about and crying about rigged elections," Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York Democrats, said. "That's why he's been messing with the Post Office trying to curtail mail-in ballots. Every vote that comes in, he knows is unlikely to be for him... I know we're going to win, I think you know we're going to win too, that doesn't mean that we can't possibly lose. We've been surprised before.
HOLLAND, MI  Outside of Betsy DeVos Lake Macatawa mansion, late-night protesters  carrying a Wake Up Betsy banner  demanded that the U.S. Secretary of Education suspend in-person classes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 40 people in the Sunrise Movement protested Thursday, Aug. 20, against DeVos push for in-person instruction to begin the school year.

They also protested her advocacy for school privatization and de-prioritization of public education.

They wanted to show that even in her hometown, we are sick and tired of the way shes doing her job, Halla Jones, 23, an organizer of the protest, told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.

Jones said that students, school staff and parents are losing sleep over schools re-opening with in-person instruction so protesters wanted to keep DeVos up, too.

The loud protest, which included banging on buckets, a trumpet, chants and songs, began a little after 10 p.m. and ended at 11 p.m., she said.

Whether you want your child back in the classroom, in a learning pod, attending home school, or learning remotely, this Administration stands with you and has a policy solution for that: #SchoolChoiceNow. Families should decide where and how their children learn. pic.twitter.com/dEq6dtzlT5  Secretary Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) August 20, 2020

We demand a return to school only when its safe, equitable and [we have] sustainable funding in our public schools, and investment in our communities, Carter Goldstein, a teacher with MI CORE (Michigan Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators) said in a statement provided by the protest group.

In refusing to take action to ensure these needs are met, Betsy DeVos continues to fail our students, families, and communities.

Jones, a Holland resident, said it was unknown if DeVos was home. But people were inside, so she thinks she got the message. A spokesman for DeVos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Department of Education also did not immediately respond to calls and emails from MLive.

On Thursday, DeVos said on Facebook:This pandemic has laid bare the need for parents to have real options when it comes to their kids education. They can no longer be held captive by other peoples fears and agendas. President Donald J. Trump and I will not rest until they have #SchoolChoiceNow.

Jones said that Holland police were in the area during the demonstration. She said police told the group they could protest but warned against damaging property.

The local group - based in Kalamazoo - is part of a nationwide Sunrise Movement, comprised mostly of young people fighting global warming. Similar wide awake protests have been held outside of other U.S. leaders homes.

Read more:

Betsy DeVos has long been the boogeyman of public education. Critics say her push to reopen schools shows why.

Mobile billboard demanding Betsy DeVos stop hiding in your mansion coming to Michigan

Betsy Devoss Holland home mocked by McMansion Hell blog
Coronavirus (COVID-19) tally as compiled by Johns Hopkins University. (Previous numbers in parentheses.)

Total U.S. confirmed cases: 6,002,615 (5,965,339)

Total U.S. deaths: 183,203 (182,808)

Total global cases: 25,259,201 (25,051,178)

Total global deaths: 847,107 (843,641)

Fully-approved vaccine may be months away

While efforts are moving at warp speed to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus (COVID-19), Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), says it could be as late as next June before one is fully approved for general use.

We're likely to see a stepwise progression of authorization of this vaccine for certain select populations that are at higher risk of either contracting it or having a bad outcome before we see a full approval for the general population," Gottlieb said on CBS Face the Nation. "I think, again, full approval for the general population, where people can go to CVS and get a shot  that's really a 2021 event, maybe the first quarter of 2021, probably more likely the first half."

At the same time, current FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said his agency would be open to greenlighting a vaccine for use in the U.S. before it completes Phase III clinical trials.

U.S. case total tops 6 million

The number of cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. hit 6 million today. The unofficial count is maintained by the COVID-19 Tracking Project at Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. reached the milestone as the recent spike in cases has begun to slow a bit -- a trend attributed to more Americans observing face mask requirements and maintaining social distancing.

At the same time, the U.S. has vastly more cases of the virus than any other nation. Brazil is second with 3,862,311, followed by India, Russia, and Peru.

Auburn cancels football practice due to COVID-19

While college administrators are grappling with coronavirus outbreaks among the student body, college athletic coaches are doing the same thing by trying to keep athletes healthy and schedules on track. At Auburn, football practice was canceled on multiple days last week as 16 players tested positive.

"We're learning as we go here," said Head Coach Gus Malzahn. "Every day and every week is a challenge."

While some football conferences have suspended the 2020 season, the Southeastern Conference has decided to play. Auburn is scheduled to open the season on September 26 against Kentucky.

New app helps people track symptoms

A new app, developed in part by the University of Chicago, is helping users communicate about a wide range of coronavirus symptoms. The app is designed for people at high-risk from COVID-19, as well as those who just want to avoid becoming infected.

MyCovid Passport provides users with a framework to understand their own and each others health status in five areas: breathing, temperature, body symptoms, disease contact status, and mental health. Users can track symptoms according to best practices established by COVID-19 experts at the University of Chicago and keep up to date on the latest health information.

The app is a variation of one developed at the University of Chicago to help parents of premature babies to track their infants progress.

The color purple means you cant open

Starting this week, California school districts will be watching closely to see what color their county has been assigned. Any color other than purple means schools can open, with some restrictions.

State officials say the color or tier the county is assigned is based on just two factors: the number of new positive cases per 100,000 population and the percentage of positive test results over the previous week.

Officials say the new system is greatly simplified and based on the same system to determine which businesses in the state can reopen.

Around the nation
In a potential preview of what their messaging will be during next weeks convention, the Republican presidential ticket is again insisting that the coronavirus will go away by a miracle.

During a Thursday night interview with Fox News Sean Hannity timed to coincide with the final night of the Democratic National Convention, President Trump said he hoped the pandemic was nearing the final term.

That was followed by a round of Friday morning interviews by Vice President Mike Pence. On CNN, Pence said that we think theres a miracle around the corner in the form of a coronavirus vaccine that could be available by the end of the year, calling it a tribute to President Trumps leadership. That follows comments from Trump earlier this month predicting a vaccine could be ready by Election Day, and earlier this year when he alluded to the virus disappearing like a miracle.

This week Mike Lindell, a major Trump supporter who is widely known for appearing in commercials for his bedding company, has been promoting an untested plant extract called oleandrin as a miracle therapy for COVID-19, although botanists warn it can be extremely toxic. This thing works  its the miracle of all time, Lindell said in a contentious interview with CNNs Anderson Cooper. Lindell is on the board of the company that produces the substance.

Trump has said the administration will look at it.

In March, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, a faith adviser to Trumps 2016 campaign, invoked a different kind of miracle in a widely seen video in which he executed Gods judgment against the coronavirus and pronounced it finished.

President Trump listens as Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow Inc., speaks during the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on March 30. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said in July that while millions of doses of a vaccine could be available by early 2021, it wouldnt be widely available until several months into the new year. According to tracking by Johns Hopkins University, more than 174,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 out of more than 5.5 million confirmed infections, both numbers the most by far of any nation.

Story continues

With the online Republican National Convention set to start on Monday, Trump and his team will again confront the question of why they were unable to safely hold the planned in-person convention in Charlotte, N.C., which was moved to Jacksonville, Fla., before it was essentially canceled altogether. Democrats spent much of their convention hammering the White House for its failed COVID-19 response.

The tragedy that we face today is that it didnt have to be this bad, said Democratic nominee Joe Biden in his speech Thursday night. The president keeps waiting around, looking for a miracle. Well, I have news for him: Mr. President, no miracle is coming.

The comments from Trump and Pence continued a White House strategy of promising that the coronavirus will go away without aggressive action to stop it, after a slow initial response and encouraging states to reopen businesses, sometimes against the advice of public health experts.

Vice President Mike Pence greets workers at Tankcraft Corp. in Darien, Wis., on Wednesday. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

I think were gonna be very good with the coronavirus, Trump said in a July 1 interview with Fox Business. I think that at some point thats going to sort of just disappear, I hope.

You still believe so? Trump was asked by the interviewer, as the death count for the virus in the country sat at over 128,000.

I do, I do, replied the president. Yeah, sure, at some point  and I think were going to have a vaccine very soon too.

Now, the virus that were talking about having to do  you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat  as the heat comes in, said Trump at a Feb. 10 meeting with some of the nations governors. Typically, that will go away in April. ... We have 12 cases  11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.

Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope thats true, he repeated at a campaign rally in New Hampshire that night.

We have done an incredible job, Trump said at the White House on Feb. 27. Were going to continue. Its going to disappear. One day  its like a miracle  it will disappear. And from our shores, we  you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. Well see what happens. Nobody really knows. The fact is, the greatest experts  Ive spoken to them all. Nobody really knows.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  More than 50 additional coronavirus cases have been recorded in Muskegon County over the past week, but the actual number could be significantly higher because of a lack of testing.

Thats according to Kathy Moore, the countys public health director, who said county residents have been driving as far as Lansing to get tested for COVID-19.

The official count of COVID-19 cases stood at 1,207 on Thursday, Aug. 20, according to the Muskegon County health department. Thats up 51 from a week ago and 99 from two weeks ago.

Deaths have not increased in the past week and were at 62 as of Thursday.

As the beginning of the new school year approaches and parents are trying to decide between remote or in-person learning, Moore said shes particularly concerned about the lack of testing. The demand will increase even more as the flu season arrives, she said.

The discouraging part is we dont have a place where (residents) can go almost immediately and get the results within an effective timeframe, Moore said.

The state is working to establish a brick and mortar testing site in Muskegon Heights that will be open at least five months, she said. In the meantime, Moore said Ive told the state Im feeling like were the stepchild.

Public testing availability at this point is mostly dependent on state funding, she said. Mercy Health had funding for a drive-through testing tent, but resources have become very limited since it has begun reopening for other health services, Moore said.

At this point, most testing requires a doctors order  which generally means the patient has symptoms  and testing at the North Muskegon Rite Aid requires online registration that has been problematic for some, especially older citizens, she said.

As a result of the lack of testing, Moore believes there are more asymptomatic cases than the numbers reflect. That puts older citizens at particular risk as they make up more than half of the deaths.

Moore said large families sharing smaller living spaces are having a particularly tough time when a member  typically a younger person  tests positive for COVID-19. It is so difficult for them to effectively quarantine, that some families have resorted to erecting tents in their yards, she said.

Muskegon County COVID-19 cases by age group on Thursday were as follows: 120 among those under age 19, 213 among those in their 20s, 176 among those in their 30s, 169 among those in their 40s, 198 among those in their 50s, 156 among those in their 60s, 84 among those in their 70s and 91 among residents age 80 and older.

About one in three residents age 80 and older who have contracted the virus have died from it, figures show. Health department figures show there have been 32 deaths among that age group, 12 among those in their 70s, 13 among those in their 60s, four among those in their 50s and, according to Moore, one 49-year-old, the youngest who died from the virus. The two oldest were 101, she said.

The positivity rate for testing is 2.57 percent, Moore said.

Ottawa County reported 1,978 cases as of Thursday, Aug. 20, up 79 from a week earlier. There was a total of 61 deaths as of Thursday, up one from the prior week.

Of those cases, 504 were among people in their 20s, according to health department statistics. There have been 75 among children 9 and younger, 199 among young people ages 10 to 19, 288 among those in their 30s, 285 among those in their 40s, 243 among those in their 50s, 177 among those in their 60s, 98 among those in their 70s and 109 among residents age 80 and older.

Ottawa County deaths include one person in their 20s, one person in their 30s, two people in their 50s, eight people in their 60s, 14 people in their 70s and 35 among residents ages 80 and older, according to health department statistics.

In Oceana County there have been 467 cases, up nine from the prior week, and six deaths as of Thursday, according to District Health Department No. 10.

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/.

Also on MLive:

How many are hospitalized with coronavirus? Federal changes create confusion in Michigans daily report

Grand Valley to do random campus coronavirus testing, shift most classes online after Thanksgiving

2 killed, 5 injured in crash
Three Gorges Dam sees largest flood peak since its construction

Global Times

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 21:03:28

The Three Gorges Dam has seen the largest flood peak since the construction of the reservoir, reaching 75,000 cubic meters per second at 8 am on Thursday. Eleven of the reservoir's spillway holes have since been opened, discharging a record 49,200 cubic meters of water per second.

As heavy floods continue to impact the regions along the Yangtze River, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission, stressed the importance of the armed forces' unremitting efforts to complete follow-up tasks related to flood control and disaster relief when he inspected flood-affected areas in East China's Anhui Province.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Southwest China's Chongqing on Thursday before visiting residents in Shuangba village, where more than 8,000 people were affected by the floods. Li urged local authorities to strengthen their flood control and disaster relief work to ensure the safety of people's lives and property.

Although the largest recorded inflow peak and discharge flow have fueled concerns over the capacity of the dam to handle the floods, water conservation experts calmed the public by saying a higher flow of flood water is expected, but the dam is designed to withstand much more.

Such a high inflow flood peak can pose risks to the dam only under circumstances when the flood lasts for an extended period of time, which will not happen as it can be predicted that the peak would recede in two or three days' time, Gao Jianguo, a member of the expert committee with the National Commission for Disaster Reduction, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The Three Gorges Corp together with the Ministry of Water Resources and other authorities have been carrying out a joint operation to help contain the flood, according to a statement sent by The Three Gorges Corp to the Global Times on Thursday.

It is expected to reduce the downstream flood volume by about two billion cubic meters following the joint deployment of dams in the upstream of the Yangtze River managed by the Three Gorges Corp, said the statement.

The operation will greatly reduce the flood control pressure of the Three Gorges project and ease the flood defense pressure for Southwest China's Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, it noted.

On Thursday, Chongqing closed Hongya Cave, a tourist attraction known for its similarity to a building from the Japanese animated movie Spirited Away, as well as a number of other scenic spots and public avenues after the city launched its first ever Level-I emergency response to the flood on Tuesday.

The water level detected at Cuntan Port Station in Chongqing, located at the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, reached 191.55 meters on Thursday morning, 8.05 meters above the "safety" line, the highest point since the station was established in 1939.

Days of heavy rain in some parts of Sichuan Province have also caused waters to rise. In Leshan, floods have reached the toes of the famous towering Leshan Giant Buddha statue for the first time in 70 years, drawing attention from domestic and international netizens.

However, aerial images on Wednesday showed the Buddha's toes are now exposed as the water level in Leshan retreats below the platform of the Buddha's feet.

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Lanett, Alabama digital marketing agency Prediction Marketing announced Western Gate Media, its premium content marketing and media division. The agency offers local businesses in Atlanta, Georgia and nationwide access to high-quality multimedia content marketing campaigns for high visibility and reputation.

LANETT, AL / ACCESSWIRE / August 20, 2020 / Prediction Marketing has launched its new media division, Western Gate Media. The expansion of this leading digital marketing agency aims to provide local businesses across sectors with an effective way to maximize their online visibility and reputation by being featured on leading high-authority digital platforms.

For more information see http://www.predictionmarketing.ai/prediction-marketing-media-is-now-western-gate-media

The latest announcement comes in response to the increased demand for high-quality online exposure, as companies throughout the world are competing for digital visibility. Research shows that over 90% of modern consumers use the internet to find local businesses in their areas, making effective digital marketing essential for overall business success.

In today's competitive environment, the company's launch of Western Gate Media will empower it to deliver a strategic choice for premium partnerships to access authority, talent, and exclusive drops. This enables local businesses to get access to premium brand exposure previously available exclusively to massive corporations, at a fraction of the price of traditional media campaigns.

Fran Horvath, CEO of Prediction Marketing explains, "As a fiduciary for our clients, we are obligated to the best and highest ROIC for all of them. Western Gate Media can now foster deeper relationships that surface the most innovative and bespoke solutions for our clients. These will guarantee visibility in what is sure to a be a crowded marketing and advertising space now and a long time to come."

Client businesses will benefit from professional branded content centered around their products and services. From news articles and blog posts to podcasts, slideshows and videos, all content is optimized to guarantee high online visibility while also significantly improving the client's reputation and authority.

Story continues

A single campaign results in over 400 online stories published on high-authority websites - a crucial asset which often leads to first-page ranking within as little as 48 hours after the start of the campaign.

With the latest announcement, Prediction Marketing continues to expand its creative marketing solutions according to the latest digital developments.

Interested parties can find more information on the company's new media division by visiting the website above.

Contact Info:

Name: Fran Horvath

Email: Send Email

Organization: Prediction Marketing

Address: 311 S 13th Ave, Lanett, AL 36863, United States

Phone: +1-888-253-5379

Website: https://predictionmarketing.ai

SOURCE: Prediction Marketing





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/602704/Atlanta-GA-Google-Expert-Content-Marketing-Digital-Services-Launched




Adelaide, Aug 21 : Steven Marshall, the Premier of South Australia (SA), on Friday urged the nation's coronavirus-safe states to open their borders and help reunite families.

Marshall said it was wrong that states with no community transmission of Covid-19 such as Western Australia (WA) and Tasmania were keeping their borders shut with SA, describing the closures as an impediment to economic growth and detrimental to mental health, reports Xinhua news agency.

"We have opened up to Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania.

"We are disappointed that Western Australians and Tasmanians can come into South Australia but, to date, we have not been able to go into their states.

"Many South Australians are dislocated from their families due to those states' border restrictions. It would be great to see those borders lifted for SA.

"Many people could live with it for weeks or months but now some states are saying they're not going to be open to South Australians until December... and I really feel for them at this time," he added.

SA has had 462 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, which is fewer than every state except Tasmania which reported 230.

Its borders remain closed to Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) -- both of which have ongoing community transmission of the virus -- and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham has repeatedly called for travel between states and territories to restart.

He recently urged states and territories to consider adopting a similar approach in SA where there has been a willingness to open up to other states who have had similar success in suppressing the spread of Covid-19.
Is the Indian system so corrupt that it will aid someone working directly against our national security interests? Representational Image

Every passing day the Chinese underworlds deep penetration of India seems to grow, and this country looks utterly incapable of doing anything about it.

Whether individuals or companies, they all have the muscular backing of the Chinese Communist Party and its various secret arms and are confident that the long arm of Indian law cant touch them.

India is, of course, not the only country where they are operating. But in some places and some countries, realisation is slowly dawning that these activities by Chinese state and non-state actors cant be permitted to continue.

This is so in the United States, Canada and some European countries that allowed the Chinese to penetrate their economies untramelled for decades, but now there is a change in thinking.

The hard line by Washington of late is a case in point, one we need to emulate. New Delhis helplessness is bringing these Chinese criminals to justice only confirms the CPCs long-held view that India is intrinsically weak, timid, and scared to act against Chinese lawbreakers in India, apprehensive of Beijings retribution.

Why else has India failed to counter the CPCs deep penetration strike and forward deployment in India.

Its equally hard to comprehend New Delhis delayed strategic blueprint to pre-empt and deter these or launch a counter-offensive to protect its supreme national interests.

When news came on August 12 about Chinese Charles Peng, aka Luo Sang committing a massive hawala offence of hundreds of crores rupees in India, with the help of fellow Chinese, as well as Indian bankers and chartered accountants, through 40-plus bank accounts, it was no surprise.

A day later, August 13, it emerged Luo Sang had been arrested two years ago on serious espionage charges. Why was he still roaming free, who had come to his rescue and facilitated his release? He was caught entering India illegally via Nepal without any valid travel documents.

Subsequently, he married a Manipuri woman, and in a short time managed to get documents to become an Indian citizen.

How did a man arrested for spying manage to obtain bail from the courts? He faced charges of forgery, cheating, impersonation and of being a logistical support provider to the Chinese embassy. Is the Indian system so corrupt that it will aid someone working directly against our national security interests?

Any number of Chinese criminals have been caught in India smuggling gold and high-value goods worth crores of rupees in the past three years.

Have any of them been prosecuted or jailed under stringent laws like the Conservation of Foreign Exchange & Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (Cofeposa)? The list is almost endless: Hong Feng Wong; Luen Fat Ng; Gong Changro Ng; Wen Chi Lai; Mu Donh Vhmh; Wang Syuan; Fano Pei Chieh; Huang Shan Yu; Chui Chun Chin; Shen Yen Lin; Zhang Guigiong; Zhang Guanghua; Ye Xiuchi; Gu Meizin; Zhou Yin; Yu Sheng Huang; Xia Qianbin; Yu Shi are only some examples.

We now have a high-profile gold smuggling case in Kerala, linked allegedly to its highest office. What about these state-sponsored Chinese criminals?

From money-laundering to banking, gold smuggling to fishing, its the same story over and over again  with Hindustan repeatedly taken for a ride. As our soldiers valiantly try to confront the Chinese PLA across Ladakh, in Pangong Tso to Galwan Valley, as well as in Sikkim and Arunachal, the Chinese Han criminals and CPC agents seem to have access to our finance, commerce, trade, banking, fishing and investment sectors.

The porous India-Nepal border is an entry point for espionage. Remember, after Ottawa cracked the whip on Huawei, how four Canadians caught stranded in the Peoples Republic were sentenced to death for espionage? Can we draw some lessons?

In June 2019, 10 Chinese vessels were apprehended fishing illegally in Maharashtra, and sought emergency shelter in Ratnagiri, 131 nautical miles from the Indian Navys western fleet headquarters. This was the Fu Yuan Yu fleet, owned by Dong-Xing-Long Ocean Fishing Co Ltd, based in Fujian. They entered India on June 7, 2019, and were caught soon afterwards, with illegal gear on the vessels, with 19 of its 37 crew members having expired passports. But what did India do, despite a clear breach of our laws? Almost nothing.

Those were the days of a renewed post-Doklam Hindi-Chini bhai bhai!

As most of the government and our armed forces have realised by now, the Chinese, having made deep incursions into our territory, are determined not to give up an inch. The CPC has already subdued Moscow, which is scared of losing control of Siberia, it has bought over Pakistan and is continually instigating Indias neighbours.

It has committed long-term technology theft in America and Europe. Now the target is India, which made the cardinal blunder of allowing the Chinese entry into its economic sphere. We are on the backfoot, so much so that our ambassador in Beijing meets second and third-rung CPC functionaries and junior PLA generals, literally cajoling them to ensure a return to their pre-April 2020 position in Ladakh.

Will Chinas ambassador in New Delhi Sun Weidong, who addresses some forum or the other almost daily, confer with low-level leaders or junior Indian Army generals? After the June 15 Galwan outrage, he wasnt even summoned by the external affairs ministry for an explanation. What are we so afraid of?

Wake up, India. De-couple our economy from China swiftly, or the Chinese will try to convert Hindustan into another semi-vassal state. Indias 1.3 billion people will never accept that.
Green energy ratchets up power during coronavirus pandemic FILE PHOTO: General view of the Walney Extension offshore wind farm operated by Orsted off the coast of Blackpool

By Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) - Renewable power has taken up a record share of global electricity production since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Reuters review of data, suggesting a transition away from polluting fossil fuels could be accelerated in the coming years.

Advocates of traditional energy have long argued that clean energy sources, like solar and wind farms, which depend on fickle weather, cannot be trusted to provide steady supplies of electricity into national grids that were designed to operate in tandem with reliable coal and gas generators.

But the past three months have shown that renewable energy has become more dependable, sector experts say, accounting for well over half of output in some European countries, while grid operators proved they could successfully manage larger doses of fluctuating energy flows.

"This has been a real test of how resilient the grids are, and we know they coped because the lights stayed on," said Rory McCarthy, energy storage senior analyst at global consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie.

"Maybe this will give confidence to governments and policy makers who were apprehensive, that they can be more ambitious about the number of renewables on the grid."

However, before governments take decisions based on recent experiences, they will have to answer various questions, says Michelle Manook, chief executive of the World Coal Association, a lobby group for the industry.

These include how the system would have coped in the mid of winter, when sunshine is at a premium, or how it will manage when the economy picks up and demand gathers pace.

"What seems little known or understood is that a carbon-free electricity generation system based wholly on renewables  is not currently attainable," Manook told Reuters.

The recent boost for wind and solar power came for all the wrong reasons: the health crisis has tipped the world into recession, pushing down electricity usage by more than a fifth in some countries, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).

Most grid operators automatically turned to the cheapest energy supplies to meet the falling demand. Wind and solar power costs very little to generate once the installations are built and is often backed by government mandates and subsidies. As a result, more expensive fossil fuel sources were the first to be pulled.

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EUROPEAN RECORDS

Data from Finnish energy technology group Wartsila, collated from Europes electricity grid operators, shows renewables generated an average of 44% of power across the 27-nation bloc and Britain from April to June, when many countries were in lockdown, against 37.2% in the same period last year. Daily peaks hit 53%.

The leading performer was Austria which saw renewables average 93% from a previous 91%, thanks largely to hydropower, the data showed. Portugal saw its share of renewable energy surge to 67% from 49%, while in Europes biggest economy Germany it averaged 54% up from 47.5%.

EU renewable electricity generation as a % of the total April-June 2020 https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/qmyvmkmzqvr/Pasted%20image%201595331862258.png

"We are seeing figures we werent expecting to see for another 10 years," said Matti Rautkivi, Wartsilas director of strategy and business development.

The increase in the share of renewables is essential if the European Union wants to achieve its climate and energy goals and cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.

The EU's target is to meet 32% of its energy needs, including transport, from renewable sources by 2030, but will review these goals later this year.

It is encouraging that the penetration of renewables has increased, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson told Reuters.

We are currently assessing the impact of the more ambitious 2030 climate objectives and different scenarios of getting there, including the role of renewables, she said.

Britains National Grid has set itself a target of being able to operate a completely carbon-free electricity system by 2025, which it says would be the worlds first. The coronavirus lockdown provided an early test, with renewables hitting a peak share of 67.5% of electricity in May. The country also went without coal power for 67 days from April 10 to June 16  the longest such stretch since 1882.

While clean power is increasingly available, storing it and ensuring a smooth supply remains highly complicated. Winds die down, clouds cover the sun, or, alternatively, gales can blow on bright, sunny days.

The grid managed fluctuations by relying, in part, on a tool called demand side response (DSR), said Julian Leslie, head of networks at National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO).

DSR asks users to time their consumption to match power generation  something that can ease pressure on the grid and reduce costs for consumers.

Dan Tonkin, who runs operations at the Cornish Ice Company, a firm that supplies ice for the fishing industry in southwest Britain, has been one of the beneficiaries of this system. He says he received emails from network managers as part of a trial telling him the best times to utilize his energy-intensive machinery - when supplies were ample and prices cheap.

For example, theyll say that the following day they want me to run at 100%, which means I can operate virtually free, he said.

STORING SUNLIGHT

A similar system is in place in India, where officials in 2017 started asking farmers in some regions to water fields in the daytime to make use of higher solar and wind output, a power ministry official in New Delhi said.

They had previously been expected to irrigate late at night or in the evening to preserve power supplies during the day for other industries.

As elsewhere in the world, the share of renewable energy in Indias electricity market climbed during the COVID-19 lockdown, hitting a record high of 30.9% in the week of June 15 from 17.9% in mid-March, the IEA said.

While Britains DSR system of matching power generation with consumption provides some relief to grids, it is not a panacea.

The country's National Grid has regularly had to fall back on so-called curtailments, paying power producers to shut down when electricity supply is too high and risks disturbing operations.

The firm said it expected to pay out 826 million pounds ($1 billion) in various costs from May to August, more than double than in the same period last year. It did not give a breakdown, but said curtailments made up a "significant proportion" of this.

Jorge Pikunic, managing director of business solutions at British utility Centrica Plc, said those costs were a problem. "The solution to balancing the system of the future does not lie in curtailing," he said. "Instead, we should  encourage the use of flexible technologies such as DSR and storage."

The United States is a world leader when it comes to storage, notably battery technology, and some businesses are investing heavily in the sector.

Renewables, including hydro, wind and solar, provided 23% of U.S. electricity during the April lockdown, up from 17% in the same period of 2019, latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data shows. The peak share rose to almost 80% in parts of the windy interior of the country.

US electric power summary April 2020 for utility scale facilities % change compared with April 2019 https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/dgkvldmnkvb/Pasted%20image%201595332153240.png

President Donald Trumps administration has warned that too large an increase in the use of renewables on the grid will reduce its resilience against weather-related disruptions. It says coal plants serve a crucial role in reliability because they can store large amounts of fuel on site.

Looking to at least partially address this problem, California, which has the most installed solar capacity of any U.S. state, hopes to more than quadruple its battery capacity by year end, to just over 900 megawatts.

Anne Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the California Independent System Operator, which maintains the states grid, says battery facilities are normally placed next to solar plants and can be used to extend output from the sites beyond sundown.

Keen to encourage the development of battery technology, the British government said on July 14 it was cutting red tape and relaxing planning rules to make it easier to launch large-scale energy storage projects.

Ben Backwell, CEO of the Global Wind Energy Council, a Brussels-based trade association, said governments will have to introduce an array of such initiatives if they want to build on recent experiences and further boost renewable energy.

"Depending on how quickly demand revives we would expect incumbent fossil fuels to come back into the market and for the share of renewables to return to levels closer to those before COVID, unless there are policy changes," he said.

($1 = 0.7880 pounds)

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale, additional reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan in Chennai, Nichola Groom in Los Angeles, Kate Abnett in Brussels, Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw and Jane Chung in Seoul. Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Crispian Balmer.)
One economic expert says the pandemic was the perfect time for people to pursue their dreams

While COVID-19 put a great number of businesses in a perilous situation, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the number of new business applications actually climbed by 20.6%  or 5.4 million  from 2020 to 2021.

Much of that growth spurt came from entrepreneurs who were looking for ways to cater to Americans who were adapting their buying patterns to the pandemics new normal.

The startup spike happened coast-to-coast, but the U.S. west (28%) and Northeast...
This week the Democrats formally nominated Joseph Biden as their candidate for president. One national newspaper stated the obvious: This was his long-sought prize. Biden first ran for the presidency in 1988, so he has been a national political figure for almost half my life and longer than many of my students have been alive. His nomination is a tribute to the power of persistence, a quality shared by many successful people.

Bidens story has precedent. Earlier politicians persisted in pursuing the presidency, sometimes for decades. Thomas Jefferson first came to national attention in 1776 as principal author of the Declaration of Independence. In the 1780s, he served as governor of Virginia and United States Minister to France. In 1789, he was appointed the first Secretary of State. After running for president in 1796, he was elected vice president, which the Constitution then permitted. Jefferson was elected the first Democratic-Republican president in 1800 and served until 1809, more than 30 years after writing the Declaration.

Henry Clay, a Virginia native, began his career as a Jeffersonian Republican and was a War Hawk Speaker of the House of Representatives from Kentucky before and during the War of 1812. In 1824, he was a credible, but unsuccessful, candidate for president, but President John Quincy Adams made Clay Secretary of State. As a senator, Clay secured the National Republicans presidential nomination in 1832, but was defeated by incumbent Andrew Jackson. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Clay tried again in 1844 as the Whigs nominee, ran in opposition to war with Mexico, and nearly won. Times had changed, and Clays attitude toward foreign war evolved in 30 years. If Clay had been elected, the Civil War causation sequence might have been very different.

During the late 19th century, when Western and Southern farmers protested angrily against the growing national economy, Nebraska populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan received his partys nomination three times, 1896, 1900, and 1908. Bryan never came close to winning, but he remained well enough regarded to serve as President Woodrow Wilsons Secretary of State. Bryan tainted his reputation by helping to prosecute a young biologist for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school in 1925, but, to some, he remained the grand old man of Democratic politics.

Adlai Stevenson was a prominent liberal Democrat from the late 1940s, when he was elected Governor of Illinois, and he was the Democrats candidate for president in 1952 and 1956. Eager supporters wanted him to run again in 1960, but John Kennedy was nominated and won the election. As a gesture of party unity, Kennedy appointed Stevenson Ambassador to the United Nations, where he shined during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Few American politicians were more persistent than California Republican Richard Nixon, who served in the House of Representatives and Senate before being elected vice president in 1952 and 1956. Nixon ran for president in 1960, narrowly losing to Kennedy. After bitter defeat campaigning for governor of California in 1962, a less-determined man might have retired from politics. Instead, Nixon persisted, won the presidency in 1968 and was re-elected in 1972, but his complicity in the Watergate scandal forced him to resign in 1974, ending nearly 30 years in national affairs.

Hillary Clinton first attracted attention in 1992, as the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton. After winning the election, Bill Clinton appointed Hillary to chair a task force for healthcare reform, but Congress rejected its controversial legislative plan. Following President Clintons departure from office, Mrs. Clinton ran for and was elected to the Senate. She sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, but Barack Obama won the nomination and election. President Obama appointed Clinton Secretary of State, an office she held for four years before resigning, at least in part, to run again for President in 2016. She lost a close, controversial contest to Donald Trump.

Does any of this predict that Biden will be elected and, if he is, that he will be successful? Obviously not. Of the six office-seekers discussed above, only two made it to the presidency. Jeffersons greatest presidential achievement was the Louisiana Purchase, but otherwise, he arguably underperformed in the White House. Nixon accomplished a lot during his first term, but after three decades on the national stage, he resigned in disgrace. Nevertheless, there is much to be said for persistence.

As I often tell my students, if Abraham Lincoln had not been persistent and fiercely ambitious for decades, he never would have gotten out of Springfield, Illinois.

Steven S. Berizzi is a professor of history and political science at Norwalk Community College.
Continuing its series of unprovoked ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan on Friday resorted to firing along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district.

At about 6.30 pm, the Pakistan Army initiated firing with small arms and intense shelling with mortars along LoC in Mankote sector of the district.

The Indian Army was retaliating befittingly when last reports came in.

This is a developing story. More details are awaited.

In August alone, Pakistan has violated ceasefire on several instances in Poonch, Rajouri and Baramulla districts. Pakistan troops violated ceasefire at three places in north Kashmirs Kupwara and Baramulla districts on August 7 injuring at least six civilians. The Pakistani Army violated ceasefire in two sectors - Tangdar and Nowgam - of Kupwara district of north Kashmir targeting forward posts of the Indian Army.

Another ceasefire violation was reported in the Nowgam sector of Kupwara. A top official had said, "Pakistan initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation along the LoC in the Nowgam sector by firing mortars and light arms. A befitting response is being given.

Apart from Kupwara, Pakistan also violated the ceasefire in the URI sector in Uranbuwa village of the Boniyar area in Baramulla.

On August 1, an Army jawan was killed in a ceasefire violation by the Pakistani Army in the Balakot sector of Poonch district. "Pakistan Army resorted to an unprovoked ceasefire violation on the line of control (LoC) in Rajouri Sector (J&K). Our troops responded strongly to the enemy fire. In the incident, Sepoy Rohin Kumar was critically injured and later succumbed to his injuries," the Indian Army had said in a statement.

"Sepoy Rohin Kumar was a brave, highly motivated and sincere soldier. The nation will always remain indebted to him for his supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty," it had added.

On July 29, an Army porter was killed in an unprovoked ceasefire violation initiated by Pakistan in Baramulla by firing mortars and other weapons, according to Chinar Corps, Indian Army.
Located front and center on your face, your nose can say a lot about you. A swollen, runny nose, for example, lets everyone know a cold or allergy has taken over. If the skin on your nose is bright red and peeling after a day in the sun, it tells everyone you forgot your sunscreen. Even a small pimple seems to take on a life of its own when it pops up on the tip of your nose. So when you develop a more serious skin condition in your nasal area, like rhinophyma, it can raise a red flag quickly.

Rhinophyma is a severe skin condition characterized by a red, inflamed and bulbous nose [source: Medline Plus]. In people with rhinophyma, the skin on the nose gets thicker, becomes bumpy and may take on a yellowish tone. The facial pores become enlarged, and the number of oil-producing glands in the skin may increase. Ultimately, the condition can become so pronounced that the tissue around the nose swells and grows to a point where the nose is disfigured. Like many skin conditions, rhinophyma doesn't develop overnight. It is the last stage in the progression of acne rosacea, a skin disorder that affects the face [source: International Rosacea Foundation].

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While researchers have documented rhinophyma cases in people as young as 20, it generally occurs in Caucasian men in their 40s to 60s [source: Baylor College of Medicine]. Rhinophyma can affect both men and women; however, it is 12 times more likely to occur in men. Despite those odds for men, it is still considered a rare skin disorder.

To better understand this condition, read on to learn more about rosacea and the progression to rhinophyma.
Maharashtra police has recorded 303 fresh cases of Coronavirus in the last 24 hours, making it the highest single-day spike the force has seen since the lockdown began in March. Also, four policemen succumbed to the virus on Thursday.

Also read: Bombay HC not to interfere with compulsory Covid test for those travelling to Konkan for Ganeshotsav

With the new cases, the total number of infected policemen in state has reached 13,180. Of this, 10,655 have recovered. There are 2,389 policemen who are active patients and are being treated at various medical facilities, a statement issued by Vinayak Deshmukh, assistant inspector general of police (law and order), Maharashtra police, said.

Of the four Covid deaths in the last 24 hours, three were from Mumbai police.

Head constable Ravikant Salunkhe, 52, of Cuffe Parade police station died on Thursday. Salukhe was undergoing treatment at the Nagpadas Richardson & Cruddas Covid Care Centre and breathed his last on Thursday. He did not have any co-morbidities. He was a good policeman, said Rajkumar Dongre, senior inspector of Cuffe Parade police station. Salunkhe is survived by his wife and two kids.

Early on Thursday, 54-year-old police inspector Vishwanath Tambe of Mulund police station succumbed to the infection. He was holding charge of administration at the police station.

Tambe had some co-morbidities and succumbed to the virus during treatment, confirmed Lakhmi Gautam, additional commissioner of police (East region).

Another police officer who lost life to Coronavirus was also from the east region police. Thirty-five-year-old police sub-inspector Vinayak Babar from Deonar police station died of Covid-19 on Thursday early morning.

Babar had been tested around 10 days ago after he developed Covid symptoms. On August 9, he tested positive for Covid-19. He was admitted to Dr D Y Patil hospital in Nerul, Navi Mumbai for treatment.

As his condition deteriorated, he was moved to the intensive care unit (ICU) on Wednesday where he died a day later.

Babar was a good detection officer and was very active. The entire police station is shocked as he was so young, said Vishwapal Bhujbal, assistant commissioner of police (Deonar division).

A native of Punes Purander district Babar was a resident of Kamothe, Navi Mumbai. He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter. His parents live with his brothers family in Pune.

In the fourth fatality, police Naik Shrikant Wagh died at the Shivaji hospital. Wagh was attached to the Kalwa police station of Thane police.

On Friday morning, the state police headquarter received news about the death of head constable Gajendra Kamble from Rasayni police station of Raigad district on August 19.
A portion of Vrooman Road in Leroy Township will be the subject of a proposed name change next week.

The public hearing will take place Aug. 27 at 10 a.m. on the fifth floor of the Lake County Administration Center, located at 105 Main St. in Painesville.

The Lake County commissioners recently adopted a resolution setting the hearing.

The action, which is the result of a petition submitted July 9 based on a request by the Leroy Township trustees, serves to rename a 2,000-foot section of Vrooman Road as Vrooman Road Extension.

A memorandum from Lake County Engineer Jim Gills to the commissioners details that in 2012/2013, during the design and public meeting phase of the Vrooman Bridge project, the section of roadway in question was to be renamed Seeley Road.

At the time, with input from the Ohio Department of Transportation, it was agreed that Seeley Road was the logical choice, as it would be an extension of the current Seeley Road from Blair Road in the township to the new Vrooman Road.

According to the memo, .since then (in 2015), the section of Seeley Road that traverses the property owned by Lake Metroparks was vacated, thus making Seeley Road not contiguous as originally intended.

As a result, the Engineers Office did not object to the petition to rename said portion of Vrooman Road.

However, Gills noted the office did recommend that the section of roadway be renamed Old Vrooman Road as opposed to Vrooman Road Extension, which he believes makes more sense.

It is our opinion that Old Vrooman Road is less confusing to the traveling public.
SCHWENKSVILLE  If you walked into The Duck Inn Taproom today, a thriving family-friendly restaurant and bar thats located right on the banks of the Perkiomen Creek on Route 29 in Perkiomen Township, youd have no idea what type of hell the owner and his loyal staff endured just a few short months ago. In []
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Friday she will veto City Council-approved proposals that would include reducing the police department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.

The councils proposals approved last week were supported by demonstrators who have marched in the city following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis but strongly opposed by the mayor and police Chief Carmen Best.

Durkan said in a news conference Friday she did not agree with losing the officers, in addition to measures that included a reduction in Bests roughly $294,000 annual salary and the salaries of other police leaders, as well as a plan to take officers off a team that removes homeless camps. She had also complained that the council had not discussed their plans with her or the police chief before taking action.

This veto was because the bills as passed did not have the type of collaboration that I think we will have going forward, and that Im hopeful we will have going forward, she said. Theres some flaws in each of these (bills) that I hope the council can correct, or with discussions, we can find a path forward together.

Measures passed by the council would have cut less than $4 million of the departments $400 million annual budget this year. Only council member Kshama Sawant voted against the budget package, saying it did not decrease the police budget enough.

Seattle now has about 1,400 police officers, and the proposed reductions fell far short of the calls from many Black Lives Matter protesters for a 50% cut to the department. Several council members said the changes were a starting point in a long process to reimagine policing and public safety.

Hours after the vote, Best announced she would be leaving her post, saying she was OK with her pay cut, but not with having to lay off new officers, many of them hired in part to improve diversity in the department.

Durkan said Friday she has been talking with Council President Lorena Gonzalez since then and is optimistic that the council and her office can work out a compromise. Gonzalez told The Seattle Times she was disappointed by the mayors veto decision, but she would work with her on a path forward.

I have to believe that we agree on more than we disagree, and I will strive to bridge the gap on our few but critical differences of opinion, Gonzalez said. I hope that the public knows that their elected leaders are committed to working together on achieving a long-overdue transformation of our law enforcement and criminal justice systems that have for far too long perpetuated trauma and harm on our black, brown and indigenous neighbours.

As U.S. attorney in Seattle, Durkan pushed a Justice Department investigation that found officers too quick to use force, leading to a 2012 consent decree with the federal government. Reviews by an independent monitor have found that changes made under that decree have led to a drop in how often police use force. But critics have said the departments actions during recent protests show not enough progress has been made.

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability said on Friday it has received 19,000 complaints over policing at protests against systemic racism and police violence since May 30. So far, the complaints have led the office to open 87 investigations. The most common complaints are allegations of excessive force, the Office of Police Accountability said.
Two Tablighi Jamaat members, accused of hiding in a mosque in Uttar Pradeshs Pryagraj from authorities and also of spreading the Covid-19 infection, have been granted bail by a local court on Friday.

Additional district judge Veerbhadra Singh allowed the bail applications of Ashraf from Kerala and Shahzan Ali from West Bengal after hearing their counsel.

A crackdown on Tablighi Jamaat members, who attended a mass religious gathering in Delhi earlier this year despite restrictions in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus, was carried out across the state and elsewhere in the country in March and April. Many of the attendees, who fanned out to different states, were found to be infected with the virus.

Earlier, on June 2, the local court here granted bail to Prof Mohammed Shahid, a suspended faculty member of the Allahabad University, and eight other Tablighi Jamaat members who are accused in the case.

Also Read: In Uttar Pradesh, doctors grapple with triple challenge in war against Covid-19

Prof Shahid was arrested on April 21 on the charge of arranging a shelter for foreign and Indian Tablighi Jamaat members in the city and for not informing the police about their presence.

Shahid was a professor in the department of political science of Allahabad University. He had attended the Tablighi Jamaat meet in New Delhi along with many of the foreign members of the religious sect and had allegedly not disclosed this information to the police.

A first information report (FIR) was registered against Shahid and several others on April 1 under the Epidemic Diseases Act at Shivkuti police station of Prayagraj and he was arrested on April 21. Later, the university administration suspended him.
As fall approaches rapidly, many are wondering if the race for a vaccine will bear fruit as early as January 2021. I am a physician-scientist and infectious diseases specialist at the University of Virginia, where I care for patients and conduct research into Covid-19.

I am occasionally asked how I can be sure that researchers will develop a successful vaccine to prevent Covid-19. After all, we still dont have one for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Here is where the current research stands, where I think we will be in five months and why you can be optimistic about the ...
Ionel Danca, head of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, will be notifying today the Constitutional Court (CCR) of the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the government and Parliament over the possibility of tabling a motion of censure in an extraordinary session during a parliamentary recess.

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban announced on Thursday evening that the government will submit the notification to CCR on Friday.

"Yes, we will file it [the notification]tomorrow. Basically, this notification is in the form of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the government and Parliament over motions of censure and the possibility to table such motion when Parliament is in recess," said Orban.
Peter Marks (pictured), director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said on a conference call that if the FDA were pressured to approve a vaccine without enough evidence of it being safe and effective, he would resign

A top US health official has vowed to resign if the Trump administration approves a coronavirus vaccine before it is shown to be safe and effective.

Peter Marks, director of the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, made the statement in response to concerns raised on a conference call late last week of a vaccine working group, according to Reuters.

Scientists, public health officials and lawmakers are worried the White House will pressure the FDA to authorize a COVID-19 vaccine ahead of the November presidential election, even if clinical trial data does not support its widespread use.

Marks told Reuters he has not faced any political pressure and that the FDA would be guided by science alone.

'I could not stand by and see something that was unsafe or ineffective that was being put through,' he said.

'You have to decide where your red line is, and that's my red line. I would feel obligated [to resign] because in doing so, I would indicate to the American public that there's something wrong.'

He added that he would equally object if someone sought political gain by holding up approval of a vaccine that was shown to work, and that was safe.

The statement came after some officials asked whether it was realistic to expect sufficient safety and efficacy data from vaccine trials before the US election. Pictured: The first COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers in Moderna's trial Michigan received their first shots, August 5

President Donald Trump has hinted that an inoculation for the coronavirus could be available before the November 3 vote. Pictured: Trump speaks to a crowd of supporters during a campaign stop at Mariotti Building Product, August 20

On the National Institutes of Health call with members of its vaccine working group on August 14, some participants asked whether it was realistic to expect sufficient safety and efficacy data from those trials before the election, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The discussion then turned to concerns about a so-called October surprise announcement, in which the Trump administration rushes to unveil a vaccine candidate, the sources said.

At that point, they said, Marks told participants on the call that if the FDA were pressured to approve a vaccine without enough evidence of it being safe and effective, he would resign.

'It was pretty dramatic,' one of the sources said. 'It was a bold statement.'

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees FDA and NIH, said the government aims to identify a safe and effective vaccine by January 2021.

Speculation about the FDA approving a vaccine under political pressure 'only undermines confidence in the public health system,' Caputo said in a statement.

'I've never met one FDA regulator who wouldn't resign over improper pressure, and that's how America knows their seal of approval is the gold standard.'

The FDA declined to comment on the meeting.

President Donald Trump's approval ratings have fallen sharply in the wake of the pandemic that has killed more than 173,000 Americans and infected over 5.5 million.

The race to produce a vaccine has become the centerpiece of his administration's response with Trump, earlier this month, declaring a vaccine was possible before the election on November 3.

It is unclear whether any of the vaccine trials will enroll enough subjects and yield meaningful data for the FDA to review ahead of the US election.

In a statement on Thursday, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said that under Marks' leadership, the agency's scientists are monitoring the COVID-19 vaccine trials, 'the data from which will be the deciding factor for any FDA approval.'

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has also said publicly that political considerations will not influence any decision on a coronavirus vaccine.

Currently more than 20 vaccines are in human trials, including large-scale trials from companies such as from Moderna Inc, Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca PLC.

The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its advisory committee of outside experts on coronavirus vaccine on October22.

Marks told Reuters the trials were enrolling volunteers 'reasonably well' and that it was 'possible' data could be available to interpret as early as October.

If not, the committee could still discuss broader regulatory issues regarding a vaccine, he said.

The US government has invested nearly $11 billion to help develop and manufacture more than half a dozen coronavirus vaccine candidates in a project titled Operation Warp Speed.

Fauci has said the project, could identify a successful vaccine by January 2021 and provide tens of millions of doses early in the year.

Marks, a hematologist, has worked at FDA since 2012 and oversees a division responsible for regulating cutting-edge biotech treatments, vaccines and gene therapies.

Although Marks is charged with making a recommendation on any potential vaccine candidate, he could be overruled by Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar.

AstraZeneca could supply the first doses of its vaccine to the United States as soon as October, 'assuming FDA approval of safety and efficacy or emergency use authorization of the vaccine,' a company spokesman said in a statement to Reuters.

He declined to address whether AstraZeneca would have sufficient data to submit to the FDA by then.

'It is important to remember that - while the data so far is certainly encouraging -- there is no guarantee that this vaccine will ultimately be approved or granted an emergency use authorization,' the spokesman said.

Pfizer said in a statement that it expects to file with the FDA for emergency authorization or 'some form of regulatory approval' as early as October. Moderna did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kathryn Edwards, former chairwoman of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee and scientific director at the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program, said she does not believe the agency would allow itself to be strong-armed into recommending a candidate if the data is inadequate.

'If it is not done right, there will be such a hue and cry from the scientific community that it will be clearly heard,' she told Reuters.
Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Friday said that cooperation is being given to the Central Bureau of Investigation team, which has arrived in Mumbai to investigate the Sushant Singh Rajput's death case.

He was talking to reporters in Pune.

"I think nobody is creating any hurdle into this issue (investigation). The case was with the Maharashtra police, who are well-known for their functioning. They were carrying out their probe. Now the court has given the order (to transfer the case to the CBI)," Tope said.

He added that since the matter is sub-judice, no politician or anybody else will interferes into it.

"It is our tradition to respect the law," he said.

"Cooperation is being given to the CBI and proper investigation will happen," the minister said.

When asked about Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar's grandnephew Parth Pawar, who had tweeted "Satyamev Jayate" after the Supreme Court upheld the transfer of Patna police's FIR in actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case to the CBI, Tope said Parth was his friend and he was also associated with the party.

Parth, who was publicly censured by the NCP patriarch recently for seeking a CBI probe into the case of Rajput's death, had tweeted the remark without making any reference to the case.

"Pawar Family is an ideal family in the state as well as in the country. So there is no problem (within the family). Even if there is any temporary issue, it will be resolved within the family," Tope said.

Talking about Parth's tweet, Tope said there was no need to draw any inference out of it.

The minister said that the state is moving towards further unlocking process and more relaxations will be introduced in a phased manner.

"But people should take utmost precautions and all the social distancing norms will have to be followed," he said.

Tope appealed to the people to celebrate the 10-day Ganesh festival, which starts on Saturday, in a simple manner and avoid crowding in view of the pandemic.
A major political donor convicted of attempting to bribe a North Carolina elected official to secure preferential regulatory treatment for his insurance business was sentenced Wednesday to more than seven years in prison.

Billionaire businessman Greg E. Lindberg was handed his sentence by U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn just hours after Cogburn gave probation to former U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes for lying to FBI agents during the governments investigation.

Hayes and Lindberg were among four people indicted in early 2019, accused of trying to give over $1.5 million to help state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causeys 2020 campaign, in exchange for Causey removing an official in his department. Causey, who wasnt accused of wrongdoing, alerted authorities and recorded conversations for them. Causey is running for reelection this fall.

Hayes, who was state Republican Party chairman at the time of the crime, accepted a plea agreement last fall and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

But the other three went to trial, and in March jurors convicted Lindberg, who founded Eli Global LLC, and company consultant John Gray of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud as well as bribery. The third person was acquitted.

Cogburn sentenced Lindberg to 87 months in prison for each of his two counts, with the sentences running concurrently. He also must pay a $35,000 fine. The judge late Wednesday also sentenced Gray to 2 1/2 years in prison.

The sentencing capped a dramatic descent for Lindberg, who made a splash with donations to political parties and committees in recent years.

A wealthy insurance and investment firm founder from Durham, the 50-year-old Lindberg had been among the states top political donors. He had given more than $5 million to state and federal candidates and committees since 2016, favoring Republicans but also giving to Democrats.

Prosecutors had asked for Lindberg to serve 14 years in prison and Gray 10 years, saying long sentences were necessary in part to deter similar criminal activity by others.

The defendants sentences should reflect the seriousness of their conduct, which was as dangerous as it was brazen, the U.S. attorneys wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Lindberg attempted to buy his regulator, plain and simple, the memo continued, adding he remained brazenly unrepentant.

Lindbergs attorneys had sought a 1- to- 2-year sentence, saying his culpability was overstated and pointed out the governments recommendation was out of line with sentences for other recent honest-services fraud defendants. Gray also sought a much lower sentence.

Lindbergs lawyers pointed out the needs of Lindbergs children, which include a 1-year-old of which he is the sole parent, according to their memorandum.

Lindberg attorney Brandon McCarthy said after sentencing that it was deeply disappointing to see his client penalized as a result of unfounded allegations. He also cited Lindbergs accomplishments as a father, civic leader and someone who helped the less fortunate through his business. Lindberg plans to appeal the conviction.

No matter how you slice it, a political contribution is not a crime, McCarthy said in a news release. Seeking fair regulation is not a crime.

The governments sentencing recommendation for Hayes said he had agreed to help funnel money going to the state GOP to Causeys campaign. But it recommended probation for Hayes, 75, because they said he admitted his crime, accepted responsibility and agreed to cooperate. Cogburn ordered Hayes to pay a $9,500 fine in addition to completing one year of probation.

According to prosecutors, transcripts of the recordings Causey helped make show Lindberg supporting the establishment of two independent expenditure committees funded with $1.5 million to support Causeys campaign.

Lindbergs companies included Global Bankers Insurance Group. It was Global Bankers that prosecutors said would have benefited by Lindbergs actions in seeking a new regulator in Causeys office. Eli Global is now known as Global Growth.

Hayes represented the 8th Congressional District from 1999 through 2008. He served as GOP chairman from 2011 to 2013, and then from 2016 to 2019. He also was a 1996 gubernatorial candidate.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics USA North Carolina
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal speaks during a news conference in Newark, N.J., in a 2018 file photograph. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)

Judge Orders New Election in New Jersey After Voter Fraud Charges

A New Jersey judge this week ordered a new election held for a City Council race, nearly two months after the challenger and three others were charged in a voter fraud scheme.

The May 12 election was not the fair, free, and full expression of the intent of the voters, Superior Court Judge Ernest Caposela wrote in his three-page ruling. It was rife with mail in vote procedural violations constituting nonfeasance and malfeasance.

Third Ward Councilman William McKoy brought the matter to court after challenger Alex Mendez was charged. Mendez beat McKoy by 245 votes.

Officials said Mendez, in violation of election laws, tried to be the bearer of a ballot in the same district he was trying to win.

Approximately 24 percent of the ballots cast in the Third Ward election were rejected, in comparison to an average of 9.6 percent in other municipal elections.

A substantial number of ballots were left on the floor in an apartment building rather than being delivered to the individual mailboxes of the residents, the judge said. Approximately two hundred uncounted mail in ballots were found in a postal box located in adjacent Haledon.

Mailboxes sit outside of a Morris Plains, N.J., post office, on Aug. 17, 2020. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Caposela said the causes of the improperly carried out election included candidates and campaign workers either being unfamiliar with rules or choosing to ignore them. The U.S. Postal Service may also have been overwhelmed.

The ruling doesnt relate to the voter fraud charges, which will be dealt with in the criminal justice system, he emphasized.

Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh told CNN that the ruling was the correct one.

That past election was fraught with fraud, he said.

City officials have created a new team meant to prevent a similar situation from unfolding during the new election, which will take place on Nov. 3, he added. Until then, the seat that McKoy has held for years will remain vacant.

Scott Salmon, McKoys lawyer, said in a statement that the ruling was great news.

Weve been asking for this since the very beginning, because when 25% of ballots are rejected, it is not, and cannot be, a fair election, he said.

The office of Gregg Paster, who is representing Mendez, said he was not in and declined to provide his email address. Mendezs campaign didnt return an inquiry.

Mendez, Councilman Michael Jackson, and two others were charged in June with crimes that include fraud in casting mail-in votes, unauthorized possession of ballots, and tampering with public records.

Officials said the probe started when Postal Service workers alerted the state attorney general that hundreds of mail-in ballots were found in a mailbox in Paterson. Others were later found in Haledon.

Todays charges send a clear message: if you try to tamper with an election in New Jersey, we will find you and we will hold you accountable, said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said the time. We will not allow a small number of criminals to undermine the publics confidence in our democratic process.

All four men charged have said theyre innocent.

A poll worker sits outside of the polling station in Saint Aloysius in Jersey City, N.J. on July 7, 2020. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Jackson was sworn in on July 1 and told those gathered outside City Hall: Only in America, where a black man or a Latino, which I happen to be both, where the term innocent until proven guilty, does not seem not to apply.

The charges drew the attention of President Donald Trump, who has been highly critical of an unprecedented mail-in voting push around the nation.

Trump said last month that the presidential election will be rigged if mail-in voting takes place.

So much time is taken talking about foreign influence, but the same people wont even discuss Mail-In election corruption. Look at Patterson, N.J. 20% of vote was corrupted, he said in a social media statement.

Trumps campaign sued New Jersey this week after Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed an executive order requiring ballots be sent to all active registered voters. The lawsuit cited the Paterson voter fraud allegations.

Murphy said the order was needed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nations top infectious disease experts, said last week that voting in person can be done safely.

On MSNBC on Thursday, Murphy dismissed the Paterson debacle as a local election.

Some guys tried to screw with the system, he said. I view it as a really positive data point. They got caught.
'Our biggest advantage is that the troops are much better trained and motivated than the Chinese and can improvise and manage with a part of the resources.'

IMAGE: An Indian Army convoy drives towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, in Gagangir. Photograph: Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

"During meetings, they come with a prepared script and refuse to accept any change," says Major General M Vinaya Chandran (retd) who has negotiated the border issue with his Chinese counterparts as a commander at the Line of Actual Control.

General Chandran served the Indian Army for 36 years and retired as the senior instructor at the prestigious National Defence College in New Delhi which provides future decision-makers the necessary skills and background for filling senior positions in national security and associated fields.

The scholar-soldier is pursuing a PhD after his retirement from the army last year. In an interview with Rediff.com's Archana Masih, General Chandran says in the current situation, both India and China will continue to hold whatever positions they are holding and over a period of time it will become the new normal.

Five levels of military level talks over 4 months have not been successful in breaking the deadlock with the PLA and withdrawal of Chinese troops.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for the Indian Army at the LAC at this moment and in the months ahead?

The Chinese intransigence came as a surprise, but we reacted fast and it resulted in a stalemate.

We have to further develop our infrastructure and deploy additional troops to cater for a permanent threat from China.

This would have been a part of our long-term plan, but now we have to fast track and do it in this season.

Our biggest challenge is that we have to divert funds from other important areas, putting our long-term economic development plans in jeopardy.

If resources are made available, the army has no problems in dealing with the PLA.

Since talks between the military commanders of both countries have borne no fruit, do you feel diplomatic talks and economic pressure on China can achieve what the military couldn't -- get the Chinese to vacate Indian territory?

Military and diplomatic efforts have always been going on simultaneously.

The military efforts focused on situation on the ground and diplomatic efforts were held at the government level.

It is taking a long time to resolve the issue because China is playing for time.

They initiated the issue to divert attention from their internal problems, especially Xi Jinping's waning popularity.

A solution to our issue is possible only after Xi regains confidence.

The Chinese economy is too big for India to put any pressure. Even the USA could not. They have lot of spare cash and don't have to justify its use to the nation.

IMAGE: India's Ambassador to the People's Republic of China Vikram Misri met Major General Ci Guowei, director of the office of international military cooperation of China's central military commission and briefed him on India's stance vis-a-vis the situation in eastern Ladakh on August 14, 2020. Photograph: ANI Photo

The Indian Army has had to deploy larger number of troops at the LAC and is believed to be ready for the long haul.

What logistical challenges does this pose in the deployment of men, weapons and maintenance at such high altitudes for a sustained period of time?

The development of infrastructure on our side is very challenging as from the plains, we need to cross the Great Himalayan, Zanskar and Ladakh mountain ranges to reach the LAC.

Air effort depends on weather and altitude and can cater for only a small portion of the logistical requirements. Fortunately, we have time till November when winter sets in and movement will be reduced considerably.

This time is adequate for us to reach the required level of preparedness.

Weather, terrain and altitude necessitate specially ruggedised weapons and equipment. With increased deployment, we need more of those. The challenge is again the money to get it.

Our biggest advantage is that the troops are much better trained and motivated than the Chinese and can improvise and manage with a part of the resources.

Does India's infrastructure on its side of the LAC match up to the Chinese to facilitate the movement of man, material and ammunition?

Tibet is a plateau and hence infrastructure development is easier once they enter Tibet. Over a long period of time, China has developed the economy and infrastructure of Tibet and they have adequate resources to develop their forward areas.

India cannot match up as our terrain is mountainous and infrastructure development so far has been slow.

IMAGE: An Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter flying in Ladakh, August 20, 2020. Photograph: ANI Photo

Some military observers believe that the Chinese are here to stay. Do you feel the same? What will it take for the Chinese to vacate?

For anyone to vacate territory, there is a need to prove ownership, which is not possible along an un-delineated LAC.

The term line of 'Actual Control' explains it. Both sides are asking each other to vacate territory.

Chinese troops are occupying some areas, which we feel is ours and we are occupying some areas, which they feel is theirs.

Unless we can prove documented ownership, we cannot make them vacate and vice versa. Both countries are now sticking to their own perceptions and maps.

A solution to the problem is possible only if a bilaterally agreed boundary is first delineated on a map.

Use of force will lead to a stalemate as both sides are strong enough to defend territories.

With the Chinese showing no signs of withdrawing, how has the nature of the LAC changed? What are the big challenges/difficulties of facing hostile neighbours on both fronts?

Till a decade ago, troops were deployed away from the LAC and they used to occasionally patrol up to it. Now, they are deployed close to the LAC and very close at places.

In such situations, chances of a skirmish is quite high, as it can be seen on the Line of Control with Pakistan. Hence, the nature of the LAC will no more be peaceful.

To face challenges on two fronts will require considerably more resources. Our troops are well trained and motivated, but we need additional resources.

Deficiencies in resources should be made up through diplomatic efforts to preclude threats from more than one front at a time.

IMAGE: Indian Army vehicles carry military material for soldiers deployed at Ladakh on the Kullu-Manali-Leh highway. Photograph: ANI Photo

What are some of the challenges that Indian commanders face when dealing or negotiating with the Chinese? Were these talks expected to fail considering the Chinese intransigence over the past months?

It's very difficult to negotiate with the Chinese. During meetings, they come with a prepared script and refuse to accept any change.

Instead of a negotiation, it becomes two sides reading out their scripts. They agree to many things during informal interactions, but during formal meetings, they are not allowed to change the script approved by the (Communist) party.

We also don't give in during negotiations because we feel what we are doing is right.

They use force to get whatever they want and will acquiesce only where they find strong resistance. Examples are Wangdung 1986/1987, Doklam, PP 14 in Galwan etc.

In the current situation, both sides will continue to hold whatever they are holding and over a period of time it will become the new normal.

Since the boundary remains unresolved, what are the dangers of China of transgressing further into some other areas?

Both sides will continue to improve their postures by moving into places where they don't find any resistance and the other side will contest that. Over a period of time it will settle into a new LAC.

In our case, we feel that entire Aksai Chin belongs to us and hence a fixed LAC based on Chinese perception is not to our benefit.

When we move forward, it is not transgression as we are moving into our own territory. Also we cannot publicly declare that, leading to media debates giving a feeling that China has captured Indian territory and we have not done anything.

IMAGE: Border Security Force soldiers on a highway bordering China. Photograph: Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

Will the boundary dispute ever be settled?

India cannot consider the dispute to be settled unless we get the entire Aksai Chin back and China will consider it settled when they get almost entire Arunachal Pradesh.

It has become an emotional and nationalistic issue for both.

A settlement is possible only if both sides are ready to give and take, which does not appear possible in the near future. I don't see it happening till India and China are friends and equally strong and have mutual respect.

Is this going to be the new normal? Will India have to reconcile to these changed Chinese positions on the LAC and accept that the pre-April status quo ante is not possible?

It has already become a new normal. 'Status quo ante' is possible only if there was mutual agreement on what that status was!

Not only India, but China too has to accept the new normal.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Diminuisce il numero di passeggeri in arrivo dalla Spagna a Porto Torres, ma anche il numero dei visitatori muniti di certificazione che attestano l'esito negativo del test sierologico.

Solo 73 passeggeri sono sbarcati questa mattina dalla nave Cruise Barcellona, il traghetto della compagnia Grimaldi.

In fila per i controlli documentali a opera della Capitaneria di Porto c'erano tutti, ma soltanto circa 40 passeggeri si sono sottoposti al test molecolare negli spazi allestiti dall'Ats e dall'Autorita di sistema portuale all'interno della stazione marittima.

L'aumento dei contagi costringe la Regione a incrementare i tamponi e per chi proviene dai Paesi a rischio tra cui Grecia, Croazia, Spagna e Malta.

La misurazione della temperatura prima dell'imbarco e a bordo della nave prima di varcare la rampa di uscita. "Quelli sottoposti a tampone allo sbarco dovranno restare chiusi negli hotel o domiciliarizzati sino all'esito dell'esame, - spiegano i militari della Capitaneria - per il quale sono previste al massimo 48 ore. E' l'Ats a chiamare al telefono a domicilio per comunicare l'esito".

 Riproduzione riservata

Per l'agente della Grimaldi Group, Eugenio Cossu: "La compagnia sta continuando le corse nonostante tutte le difficolta, rispettando le norme e i tempi, incaricando i nostri equipaggi e il medico di bordo di operare a bordo con le misurazioni delle temperature,affidandoci alle autorita sanitarie marittime per i test rapidi. Alcuni - prosegue - sono sprovvisti di test ma vorremmo che la gente arrivasse in porto gia con una certificazione sul tampone fatto per garantire sicurezza a bordo e per all'equipaggio".
The protracted and painful split between the ABC and its chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici is complete  with a former prime minister and an ex-television current affairs boss weighing in for the final chapter of the saga.

Ms Alberici, who has been at loggerheads with management at the national broadcaster for more than two years, has vowed she will never host a TV program again after the dispute was formally settled on Thursday.

The current troubles date back to 2018, when Ms Alberici published an analysis piece about the government's corporate tax policy. Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and lobby group Business Council of Australia were among those who complained, prompting ABC to temporarily remove the piece while it investigated.

The resulting storm led to accusations the ABC had kowtowed to the government and tried to silence Ms Alberici. An internal ABC investigation later acknowledged several errors in the report. These included: amaterially inaccurate headline; an incorrect reference to foreign-owned Etihad, Emirates and Qatar as among Australias biggest airlines; and language that had the effect of unduly favouring the conclusion that there is no evidence to support Government claims that a corporate tax rate will increase investment and wages.
While body cameras on police authorities have been in use in several jurisdictions around the world and all over the US for almost 15 years, Canadian police forces have been hesitant to implement them. Until now.

In light of the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements, Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are now pushing the use of body cameras for police forces across the land. Torontos police force approved them this week, at the same time that the entire city was buzzing about just-released body cam footage that appears to exonerate Raptors President Masai Ujiri from an altercation with a Sheriffs Deputy in Oakland from a year ago.

Proponents of body cameras say they add accountability and transparency. Critics say they are expensive and simply do not work in terms of improving of changing police behaviour.

To discuss this, we are joined by Kevin Walby, associate criminal justice professor at the University of Winnipeg. He studies policing and surveillance.

Listen to this episode and more at This Matters, or subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.
World War One pilot's log book found in a wardrobe has gone up for auction

Air Vice Marshal John Denis Breakey's 'nationally important' log book detailing aerial battles in World War One is set to go up for auction

A fighterpilot ace's 'nationally important' log book detailing aerial battles in World War One is set to go up for auction and reveals a previously unrecorded victory.

The wartime memorabilia belonged to Air Vice Marshal John Denis Breakey - a Yorkshireman who became a legendary pilot - and was found in the wardrobe by auctioneers.

The log book, which was lost and forgotten in the 1970s, could fetch up to 1,000 when it goes under the hammer.

But it could fetch far more due to the importance of Sheffield-born Breakey and the fact that the book sheds new light on World War One history.

Breaky notched up nine aerial victories, four of which are in the log book which covers actions from July 26, 1917 through to August 19, 1918.

But another one is mentioned which has taken Hansons' militaria expert Adrian Stevenson by surprise.

He said: 'Interestingly, the volume suggests a previously unrecorded victory on June 28, 1918 while flying the legendary Sopwith Camel (B.R.1).

'At the time, this would have been Breakey's fifth victory.'

The log book, which was lost and forgotten in the 1970s before it was found in a wardrobe in a building in Kensington, could fetch up to 1,000 when it goes under the hammer

The seller, an 80-year-old retired model maker from Kent, said: 'I was given the log book by a late friend in 1975.

'He came across it in a wardrobe in an empty Kensington property which he was surveying ahead of development. The building no longer exists.

'My friend was intrigued and gave it to me to see if I could find out more about Breakey. I have done lots of research over the years. It's been fascinating. He was so highly decorated.

Breaky notched up nine aerial victories, four of which are in the log book which covers actions from July 26, 1917 through to August 19, 1918

The seller, an 80-year-old retired model maker from Kent, said: 'I was given the log book by a late friend in 1975'

'I have no-one in the family who wants the log book so, rather than it end up at a tip when I pass away, I am selling in the hope it will be preserved by a keen war memorabilia collector or even a museum.'

Mr Stevenson said: 'Log books are always sought after by militaria collectors and it's seldom one of this quality, belonging to an ace comes onto the open market.

'Breakey was highly decorated. He was awarded a Companion of the Order of the Bath, Distinguished Flying Cross & Bar and enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the RAF. That makes this item of outstanding collector interest and of national importance.'

He began his WW1 military career in the Royal Naval Air Service which merged into the Royal Air Force. He served throughout the interwar period and into the Second World War.

John Denis Breakey flew a Sopwith Camel. Armed with twin synchronized machine guns, the aircraft would take him through his airborne career and safely out of the war.

Hansons militaria expert Adrian Stevenson said: 'Interestingly, the volume suggests a previously unrecorded victory on June 28, 1918 while flying the legendary Sopwith Camel (B.R.1)'

In 1919 he supported the White Army against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War and received a Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. He continually rose through the ranks and was promoted to air vice-marshal in 1947.

In 1951 he was appointed Head of Air Force Staff at the British Joint Services Mission at Washington, DC. He retired from the RAF in 1954 and died in 1965 aged 65.

Chris Kirkham, associate director of Hansons London, said: 'We feel privileged to sell such an important piece of wartime memorabilia and certainly hope it flies to victory at auction.'

The flying log book is due to be sold by Hansons London on August 29.
Tom Wakely is a true believer.

Hes an unabashed Democratic Socialist who loves Bernie Sanders and emphatically supports Medicare for All, a ban on fracking, a universal basic income and the legalization of marijuana.

Wakely approaches politics as a crusade. Thats his appeal.

This white-bearded maverick helped Cesar Chavez organize grape boycotts in Texas in the 1970s, became a Unitarian Universalist minister in the 1980s and ran a jazz club in Mexico in the 2000s. Over the past several years, he and his wife have used their white-brick North Side home as a hospice for military veterans.

Wakely does not, however, contain even a single molecule of practical political savvy. And thats his weakness.

Up until Wednesday, Wakely planned to be the Green Party candidate for U.S. District 21, the third wheel in whats shaping up to be a competitive race between Republican incumbent Chip Roy and former Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Those plans came to a swift end, however, when an appellate court panel ruled that Wakely and two other Green Party candidates (U.S. Senate nominee David Collins and Railroad Commission hopeful Katija Kat Gruene) did not qualify to be on the November ballot.

The Green nominees failed to comply with a 2019 state law requiring candidates nominated at conventions (rather than primaries) to either submit a filing fee or a petition. For Wakely, the filing fee would have been $3,125.

I guess if we had a million dollars and a bunch of lawyers, we could probably do something (to challenge the ruling), Wakely said. I think, at least for this time, a progressive voice in this race is over and done with.

The lawsuit was filed by Davis, MJ Hegar and Chrysta Castaneda, three Democratic underdogs hoping to pull off November upsets.

On ExpressNews.com: Garcia: While Trump rages about voting process, Rodriguez offers solutions

Wakely and his fellow Greens stood in the way of that mission, partly because of the possibility that they could siphon some votes away, but also because their messaging would chip away at the Democrats progressive credentials.

For example, while Wakely supports Medicare for All, Davis has taken a more moderate stance: calling for the addition of a public option to the Affordable Care Act and for Medicaid expansion in Texas.

When it comes to the lawsuit, there were no bad guys.

The Green candidates simply didnt have the money for the filing fees or the campaign infrastructure to collect enough petition signatures.

The Democratic candidates used the law to do what candidates are supposed to do: increase their chances of winning.

Wakely, however, questions the premise that his departure from the race will help Davis.

People that would have voted for me are not going to vote for Wendy Davis, he said. They just wont vote.

Wakely, 67, will never win an election. Hell never even get close. He has never demonstrated any ability to raise money or build the kind of organization that creates a successful campaign.

Nonetheless, hes a valuable footnote in the ever-evolving story of San Antonio politics.

On ExpressNews.com: Nirenberg takes complicated, thorny path to progress

His 2016 campaign attracted three young Bernie-ite progressives who carried the campaign into U.S. District 21s traditionally conservative suburban and North San Antonio areas.

Immediately after that race ended, John Courage, a local Democrat with his own history of failed long-shot bids, recruited that trio of Wakely staffers and built his 2017 District 9 City Council campaign around them.

By winning in what had long been the citys most conservative district, Courage demonstrated that generational political change is happening right before our eyes.

In 2018, we got further evidence, with Austin tech entrepreneur Joseph Koper losing by a margin of only 2.6 percentage points to Roy in U.S. District 21 and Beto ORourke taking Ted Cruz to the wire in an epic battle for the U.S. Senate.

Wakely didnt lead this change. But he was a vessel for it. He gave the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party a San Antonio focus for its energy in 2016.

His limitations were easier to see in 2018, when he threw himself into a nine-candidate Democratic primary field for governor and finished seventh, with 3.4 percent of the vote.

Thats why Wakely went Green this year. It meant having a clear field to a party nomination.

Along the way, Wakely dismissed both the Democratic and Republican nominees as millionaire corporate lawyers.

That kind of rhetoric did little to endear him to his old Democratic allies. These days, when Democratic Party leaders think of him at all, they tend to think of him as a nuisance.

But there needs to be a place in politics for an earnest, impassioned, undisciplined nuisance who doesnt sugarcoat anything; who tries to keep the other players honest. Thats Tom Wakely.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Gilbert, become a subscriber. ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Scott Morrison has asked health experts to define a 'hotspot' to stop states arbitrarily closing their borders.

The Prime Minster said 'we need more clarity' on when residents in certain areas should be shut out from other states.

'There needs to be a clear medical and scientific definition of what that is. These decisions cannot be made on an arbitrary basis,' he said.

Scott Morrison is pictured at AstraZeneca on Wednesday

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, made up of state and federal health experts, will attempt to come up with a 'hotspot' definition in two weeks.

It comes after Qantas boss Alan Joyce, and other business figures, called for a national framework for when borders should open and close.

Mr Joyce said it is confusing why states with no cases are not open to each other and that thousands of jobs could be saved if borders come down.

The Prime Minster also warned that hard state borders do not provide full protection from the virus.

He pointed the example of New Zealand and said: 'You can pretty much say they had fairly secure borders but quarantine arrangements won't always be perfect, they are human processes and they are subject to vulnerability.'

He said good testing and tracing regimes, like in New South Wales, were the best protections against the virus.

Australian state border restrictions Victoria: Completely open, but other states are banning residents from going there NSW: Border with Victoria is closed but others are open without restriction Queensland: Open to everywhere but Victoria, NSW, and the ACT Northern Territory: Open to everywhere but Victoria and Sydney, which must do hotel quarantine South Australia: Closed to Victoria, NSW arrivals must self-isolate, rest are open Tasmania: Closed to Victoria, everywhere else must do hotel quarantine Western Australia: Closed to everywhere without an exemption Advertisement

Mr Morrison said he expects that unemployment will remain above seven per cent for the next two years.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has asked the states to spend an additional combined $40billion on infrastructure over the next two years.

Earlier today Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he is concerned for tourism operators and people in border communities cut off from health care.

'Lives are really being disrupted and you've got to ask why when the medical advice is not saying that is what is needed,' Mr Dutton told the Nine Network.

'If we've got premiers who are pursuing an elimination process, the country will go broke.'

Victoria recorded 179 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the first time the daily total has fallen below 200 in weeks.

The state also recorded another nine deaths, taking the national toll to 472.

All other states and territories have fairly negligible infection numbers, or none at all.

Queensland's border closures alone are estimated to cost $21 million and 173 jobs a day.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, who hails from rural Queensland, said: 'The inability or unwillingness of our premiers to work with each other to find common-sense and practical solutions to restrictions they have imposed is becoming a major test of their leadership.

'Premiers must remember that they are not just premiers of capital cities.

'I urge each of them to visit their impacted border regions as soon as possible and thrash out workable solutions with local governments, people, businesses and organisations.'

He described the meeting as a 'flashpoint for our federation'.

'Unless premiers commit to work with one another to find workable solutions to state border issues for regional Australians, then they risk states becoming irrelevant to modern Australia.'

Businesses and farm groups have queried border restrictions on large parts of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia that have no coronavirus cases.

There are also concerns about the inflexibility of rules preventing people who live near borders from accessing interstate health services.

The tourism and transport sectors want greater certainty about when to expect an easing of travel restrictions.

Mr Morrison wrote to state leaders on August 16 urging them to resolve problems, and has been working with individual premiers on specific solutions.
Production of Channel 10 reality TV show The Masked Singer has been suspended due to a COVID-19 cluster, after a crew member tested positive to the virus this week.

There are now seven cases connected to the show's Melbourne set, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Saturday night.

Production of Channel 10 reality TV show The Masked Singer has been suspended due to a COVID-19 cluster. Credit:Network Ten Australia

The entire production team has been placed in self-isolation, including host Osher Gunsberg, judges Jackie O, Dave Hughes, Dannii Minogue and the celebrity masked singers.

A spokeswoman for the Victorian health department said "early investigations have determined that the site should close", with all those at the Docklands studio since Wednesday to isolate.

The department is now working with The Masked Singer's production company, with deep cleaning of the studio and contact tracing underway.

The Masked Singer show said in a statement posted to social media that all crew members were being "monitored closely and are in constant contact with medical authorities".

"Production of The Masked Singer has been immediately suspended as a result of a crew member receiving a positive test result for COVID-19," the statement said.

"The health and safety of the community, and our staff and production partners is our number one priority.

"Network 10 is working closely with the Victorian Government and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. Network 10 is providing all crew with all the support and assistance possible."
Many government officials dont often visit schools, so Thursday, a community group brought the classroom to them.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Many government officials dont often visit schools, so Thursday, a community group brought the classroom to them.

Safe September MB, a citizen group concerned with the provinces plan on how schools will run this fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic, set up what it deemed to be an average classroom on the lawn of the Manitoba Legislative Building.

The goal was to show how spacing students two metres apart might look, organizers said  and how it will not work.

The group brought out 30 chairs for 30 students, plus one more for a teacher. They cordoned off 750 square feet with yellow rope (an average classroom size, organizers said).

Sixteen chairs spaced two metres apart  a four-by-four grid  fit in the designated space; 14 others, plus the teachers chair, had to be set aside.

"Even our demonstration here doesnt necessarily represent what the actual situation is," said Scott Durling, a Grade 7 homeroom teacher in Seven Oaks School Division.

Durling said his students dont sit at individual desks; he has rectangular tables that normally seat four to six students. Under the new guidelines, only two students will be allowed at each.

Krystal Payne said she joined Safe September because she wants school-supported, publicly funded remote learning. Her daughter is entering Grade 3 in a French immersion school. However, the family lives in a multi-generational household with the child's grandfather who is at high risk for COVID-19 complications, Payne said, so doesn?t feel it is safe to send her daughter to school.

"I think that mask policies are really great as part of a layered approach... Im worried that masks will become a stand in for the other public health measures that we also keep hearing about that are important," Payne said Thursday.

Safe September MB created a petition late last week, outlining steps it wants the provincial government to take when reopening schools.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Rhonda Hinther, speaking to the media at the event #SafeSeptemberMB holds a demonstration of a physically-distanced classroom on the Manitoba legislative grounds, Thursday.

The group is calling for school-supported instruction for students in the classroom and at home, and class sizes small enough to support two-metres distancing, among other requests. More than 12,600 people had signed the petition as of Thursday afternoon.

"The health and safety of Manitobans is the governments top priority," a provincial spokesperson wrote in an email response Thursday. "The province, school divisions and schools will continue to monitor the issues of concern.

"Division-level remote learning will be in place for students who have been medically advised not to return to in-class learning due to COVID-related risk factors. If students are not medically advised to stay home, options for families include public school, independent school or home-schooling."

The province announced Wednesday it will be mandatory for students in grades 4 through 12 to wear face masks when they cant physically distance. Teachers, school staff and facility visitors will also have to wear masks.

All students from kindergarten through Grade 8 are to return to school full-time, beginning Sept. 8. High schoolers are anticipated to have blended learning if schools cant accommodate physical distancing.

Rhonda Hinther wants her son, entering Grade 4, to learn from home this year with instruction from a professional.

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"Part of our reason for doing that is to help socially distance the classrooms," she said at the rally.

"Were not asking teachers to do double the work," Hinther said. "The province needs to come up with more resources to promote distance education."

NDP Leader Wab Kinew said Thursday his party supports smaller class sizes.

"Without the government investing these resources in keeping these class sizes small, were essentially rolling the dice with the return to school," he said. "Thats not right. These are kids, they should be protected."

 with files from Carol Sanders

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
Foreign worker Yulia Endang says she is saddened by the quick growth of COVID-19 cases among foreigners in Singapore. The increase started in April.

Endang says she believes poor housing conditions where foreign workers live likely led to the increase. But she hopes the bad news will warn the island nation of dangers ahead.

I hope the attention is not just attention but a signal that outside, there are more people aware of how actually migrant workers' life [is] like, she said.

At one point, Singapore had the most COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia, even with its small population. It worked hard to flatten the curve. But later there was a surprising increase, mostly in dormitory rooms that house foreign workers.

The rise was a reminder to Singaporeans that the wealth of their state depends, in part, on foreign laborers who often live in very poor conditions.

How has Singapore responded?

In April, Singapore was reporting as many as 1,400 COVID-19 cases a day. It is now reporting as few as 200 new daily cases. Singapore acted to change the living conditions that increased the spread. The city-state announced a quarantine on foreign dormitories and tested every single person who lived in them.

Singapore also plans to expand health services for foreign workers. And it plans to build more housing to lower the number of people living in each dormitory. Some foreign workers have already been moved into new buildings. Plans include eight new buildings by the end of the year.

Non NIMBY cartoons

Singaporeans are looking for social change to help correct what has historically been a place divided by class and wealth.

One group is fighting against the not in my backyard attitude, often called NIMBY. It is an attitude that prevents new housing for the poor from being built in wealthier areas. Some Singaporeans have organized to change the attitude  and expression -- to Welcome In My Backyard, or WIMBY.

The WIMBY group was formed after the COVID increases. It hopes to create relationships with foreign workers and others in Singapore.

The WIMBY group wrote on Facebook: We must not be comfortable with the idea of riding on thelivelihoods of others for the success of the economy.

Im Susan Shand.

The Voice of America reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

aware - adj. to be conscious of something or someone

dormitory - n. a building with small rooms and a lot of beds for students or workers

quarantine - n. to force someone in to isolation because he is carrying an infectious disease

attitude - n. a way of looking at people or ideas

comfortable - adj. at ease, relaxed

livelihood - n. the way one make's a living, a job or profession
Huge waves from Storm Ellen battered the coast of Porthleven, West Cornwall on Thursday evening (August 20). The storm, which contains remnants of devastating Tropical Storm Kyle, brought heavy gales and blackouts when it reached Ireland on Wednesday night. It has now moved into Wales and the South West of England where floods are feared. More stormy weather is expected to continue today as gusts up to 70mph hit exposed coastline areas
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
By PTI

BENGALURU: Karnataka Congress President D K Shivakumar on Friday said he has doubts that his phone was being tapped and sought an investigation into it.

State Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai, however, rubbished Shivakumar's claims and said the BJP government was 'responsible' and would not resort to such acts.

"You call my phone, you can't hear the voice, all these days it was fine. From morning I have tried about 20 calls, the voice is not audible," Shivakumar told reporters here.

Asked whether his phone was being tapped, he said, hundred per cent he has doubts about it.

But he did not want to make any direct allegation without evidence, the Congress leader said and demanded an investigation.

Later, he also wrote to Bengaluru Police Commissioner Kamal Pant, saying during the last 2-3 days voice cannot be heard properly during incoming and outgoing calls and there were "unwanted disturbance and sounds".

"I have strong doubts that my phone calls are being tapped. So I request you to get it investigated appropriately and take necessary action," he Shivakumar said.

Reacting to his remarks, Bommai, in a statement said, there was no question of tapping Shivakumar's phone.

"Ours is a responsible government and will not stoop to the low of tapping phones, also we don't have that necessity. If he could not speak to his party leaders when they called, he should inquire with telephone companies about it. Alleging it as telephone tapping is not right," the Minister said.

Noting that the CBI was investigating the telephone tapping case during the previous Congres-JDS rule of which Shivakumar was a part, Bommai said, "such experiences can happen during their government. This government is not worried about Shivakumar's activities, also there is no need for it."

The BJP government in August last year had ordered a CBI probe into the alleged phone tapping during the Congress-JD(S) coalition government headed by H D Kumaraswamy in which Shivakumar was a cabinet Minister.

The Kumaraswamy government that was rocked by dissidence was accused of tapping phones and spying on a number of people in a bid to avert its collapse.
Famke Janssen was the epitome of coronavirus chic Thursday while out and about in New York City.

The 55-year-old actress wore a black face mask amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic along with a midnight blue silk blouse and short black skirt with a starry print.

Famke completed her stylish outfit with black flats.

Stylish star: Famke Janssen turned a sidewalk into her personal runway Thursday while out and about in a stylish outfit in New York City

The Dutch actress accessorized with sunglasses and carried a small white purse and a bag holding a short umbrella.

The former model portrayed Bond girl Xenia Onatopp in 1995 in Pierce Brosnan's first James Bond film GoldenEye.

She later played superhero Dr. Jean Grey in the 2000 film X-Men and reprised her role in the 2003 sequel X2.

Famke returned as Jean and her darker personality Phoenix in the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand.

Mas on: The 55-year-old actress wore a black face mask amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic along with a midnight blue silk blouse and short black skirt with a starry print

She was shown briefly in the 2013 film The Wolverine as a hallucination experienced by Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, 51.

Famke also reprised the role for a brief cameo in the the 2014 movie X-Men: Days Of Future Past.

The original X-Men stars in June participated in a virtual reunion via Zoom including Famke, Hugh, Sir Patrick Stewart and Halle Berry to celebrate the film's 20th anniversary while also promoting Global Citizen's Global Goal: Unite For Our Future.

Fan favorite: The Dutch actress, shown in January in New York City, portrayed superhero Dr. Jean Grey in the 2000 film X-Men and reprised her role in the 2003 sequel X2

Ryan Reynolds, 43, crashed the Zoom call and invited franchise stars James McAvoy, Sophie Turner and Liev Schreiber.

Famke starred in the mystery crime drama movie The Postcard Killings also starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, 54, and English actress Cush Jumbo, 34.

The film based on the 2010 novel The Postcard Killers was released in March.


Sanjay Dutt was admitted to Kokilaben hospital in Mumbai on Tuesday after the actor was diagnosed with lung cancer. Though Maanayata Dutt has asked everyone not to speculate on the stage of the cancer, sources claim that it is stage 4. Dutt was clicked leaving for the hospital and even asked the paparazzi present at the spot to pray for him. Now a leading daily has reported that Sanjay has been admitted for some preliminary tests after which the actor will return home, however, frequent visits to the hospital would continue.







The source told the leading daily, Right now, the preliminary tests are being conducted. So, Sanjay is not expected to be in the hospital for a long time. Once the reports are out, he will return home but hospital visits will be frequent.



The source added, Despite knowing this will be a long and tough journey, they are determined to go about their lives as normally as possible, confident that this too shall pass. Currently, Sanjay Dutts sister Priya Dutt is accompanying her brother at the hospital as Maanayata Dutt has been told to quarantine after she returned from Dubai recently.




SUPERIOR TOWNSHIP, MI -- A Washtenaw County neighborhood with a multitude of poor living conditions is becoming a federal priority.

In a pressing letter to Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, demanded he investigates living conditions at the Sycamore-Meadows Apartments, whose residents face evictions, crime and violence and health hazards from subpar housing conditions. Dingell in June requested Carson to inspect the reason behind eviction notices after a fight broke out earlier this summer.

Sycamore Meadows residents fight for better housing, end to gun violence

Accusations of retaliatory evictions near Ypsilanti may lead to federal intervention

Despite previous HUD involvement in improving the property there continue to be a significant number of outstanding issues that need to be addressed. Recent tenant meetings on the property have raised ongoing concerns regarding unit upkeep and maintenance, ventilation, tenant health and security, Dingell sad in the letter. Among these interrelated issues, there has been a rise in violent crime in this community, and it is vital that we address this need in coordination with local officials and HUD. These residents should feel confident that their community is safe, and it is our responsibility to address these security deficiencies immediately.

Dingell cited issues such as mold presence in units, air conditioning and ventilation problems, flooding, consistent leaks and plumbing issues, electrical issues, missing window screens, missing locks on screen doors, lack of accommodation for tenants with medical issues and difficulties in tracking maintenance requests.

Gun violence is nothing new at the MacArthur Boulevard neighborhood, either. The Washtenaw County Sheriffs Office has reported many shootings in the area over the years, with and without injuries.

Related: No injuries reported in shooting outside Superior Township home

6-year-old boy, two men injured in recent Washtenaw County shootings

Man shot twice, multiple homes, cars hit in Washtenaw County shootout, police say

The intersection of two issues contributes to a hostile, and sometimes violent living atmosphere, and it is crucial that HUD, management, tenants and other stakeholders work together to explore options that adequately address these legitimate concerns to ensure the health and safety of this community, Dingell said in the letter.

The congresswoman urged Carson to directly inspect the properties. She ended by demanding his department holds the responsibility of ensuring families are able to live safely in quality conditions.

It is crucial that HUD engages in stringent oversight of these properties to ensure they meet the needs of their residents, and it is clear that more must be done on the Sycamore-Meadows property to meet these standards. It is HUDs responsibility to attend to the urgent issues highlighted in this letter in an expeditious manner, Dingell said.

The full letter is available online.
Kanye West's presidential bid is in trouble after three more states denied him positions on their ballots this November.

West failed to make the ballot in his home state of Illinois and the critical battleground states of Ohio and Wisconsin.

The Ohio secretary of state's office ruled the rapper didn't qualify after he filed a petition with fake signatures - as in the ones on his ballot petition didn't match documents used for petitions signed by voters.

'A signature is the most basic form of authentication and an important, time-honored, security measure to ensure that a candidate aspires to be on the ballot and that a voter is being asked to sign a legitimate petition,' Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a statement. 'There is no doubt that the West nominating petition and declaration of candidacy failed to meet the necessary threshold for certification.'

Kanye West's presidential bid is in trouble after three more states denied him positions on their ballots this November

A ballot petition that Kayne West filed in New Jersey to make the presidential ballot

In Illinois, West, who was raised in Chicago, didn't file have enough valid signatures by the state's deadline even though a judge had lowered the signature requirement from 25,000 to 2,500 to make up for COVID restrictions that made the process more difficult.

West only only collected 1,200 valid signatures.

And, in Wisconsin he missed the 5 p.m. filing deadline - by 14 seconds.

West's attorneys appealed to Wisconsin's board of elections - arguing they actually had until 5:01 p.m. to file - but their appeal was denied. It was a unanimous decision by the three Democrats and two Republicans on the panel to keep the billionaire rapper off the ballot.

West has made the presidential ballot in Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah and Vermont - which, in total have 31 electoral votes. That's far fewer than the 270 needed to win the White House.

And, of those five states, only Colorado is a battleground one where West could siphon off voters from Joe Biden - a worry that Democrats have about his candidacy.

Michelle Obama took a veiled swipe at West in her speech to the Democratic National Convention this week, urging voters not to 'play games with candidates who have no chance of winning'.

The former first lady told Democrats that 'this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest' as she urged voters to back Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Michelle Obama took a veiled swipe at Kanye West in her speech to the Democratic National Convention this week, urging voters not to 'play games with candidates who have no chance of winning'

Concern among Democrats ratcheted last week after Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser who also has a hand in Trump's re-election campaign, confirmed that he had spoken with West several times, along with other members of the billionaire long-shot presidential campaign.

'Kanye's been a friend of mine for  I've known him for about 10 years,' the president's senior adviser said during a White House press briefing.

'There's a lot of issues that the president has championed that he admires,' Kushner said of him.

West announced in July his independent bid for president - and recent reports reveal that many GOP operatives have been making efforts to get him on the ballot in certain states.

This has prompted speculation that Republican may be launching an effort to hurt Biden's chances by siphoning off votes from Biden to West.

'We both happened to be in Colorado, and we got together and we had a great discussion about a lot of things,' Kushner said of their sit-down. 'He has some great ideas for what he'd like to see happen in the country and that's why he has the candidacy that he's been doing.'

Kushner refused to say if he had discussed the presidential campaign in general, but said they 'had a general discussion more about policy.'

White House Senior Advisor and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner admitted that he has spoken with Kanye West several times

Kanye West confirmed earlier that he met with Kushner in Colorado last weekend - West and his wife Kim Kardashian West were campaigning in Colorado while Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were in the state for meetings with Republicans

If he had discussed the campaign, it would have been in violation of the Hatch Act since, as an executive branch appointee, Kushner is not permitted to conduct campaign business.

His reveal came after West confirmed on Twitter the The New York Times report he met with the president's aide in Colorado while they both in the state at the same time.

West claimed that they talked about books.

'I'm willing to do a live interview with the New York Time [sic] about my meeting with Jared where we discussed Dr Claude Anderson's book Powernomics,' the rapper wrote.

Kim Kardashian West asked the public to show compassion and empathy toward her husband in a tweet last month, saying he is bipolar.

And, earlier this month, President Trump denied any involvement in the effort by West to get on the ballot in presidential battleground states.

'I'm not involved,' Trump said at the White House when DailyMail.com asked him the issue.

'I like him. Hes always been very nice to me,' Trump said, praising the rapper-producer who appeared with him at the White House in 2018 and sported his trademark red Make America Great Again hat.

'I'm not involved,' President Donald Trump said earlier this month when DailyMail.com asked him about officials with longtime Republican ties helping Kanye West get on the presidential ballot in key states

Kanye West launched a last-minute presidential bid six weeks ago and has made the ballot in several states with the help of Republican officials, sparking speculation he is running to hurt Joe Biden

But Trump denied a role in West's latest actions.

'No, not at all. No, not at all. Other than I get along with him very well. I like him. I like his wife. His wife recommended certain people as you know for, including Alice Johnson whos a fantastic woman,' Trump continued, praising Kim Kardashian and pointing to her successful push for Trump to grant clemency for her life sentence on a drug conviction.

The president briefly veered into a discussion about prison reform.

'But his wife recommended certain people to get out of prison. They were in prison for a long time. A long, long time. And should have never happened. And I took what she said very strong  Kim Kardashian,' Trump continued. 'And she's got a good heart. A very good heart. And I like Kanye very much.'

Then he added: 'No, I have nothing to do with him getting on the ballot.'
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio  Bowling Green State University has banned large gatherings both on and off campus, and is warning students could face suspension if they violate the policy.

Ten or more people in an unstructured setting without masks and distancing wont be tolerated, BGSU President Rodney Rogers said, according to WTVG Channel 13. That could lead to potential suspension from the university. We are taking this very seriously.

The ban comes as universities across the nation try to control outbreaks of the COVID-19 coronavirus with students returning to campus during the ongoing pandemic. CNN reports that at least 15 states are reporting outbreaks at colleges and universities, and some schools, such as the University of North Caroling at Chapel Hill and Notre Dame, already have had to return to virtual classes only.

Students are returning to BGSU this weekend, although only 4,000 students will live on the main campus, a reduction from the usual 6,000.

Ben Batey, chief health officer at BGSU, tells WTOL Channel 11 that large parties involving students will not be tolerated. Batey says off-campus parties are not exempt: If a party violates current health orders, all students on the lease of the residence could be punished.

Bowling Green is not alone in trying to keep students in check. The New York Times reports Syracuse University and Vanderbilt also have issued warnings to students about large gatherings.

The situation happening at other universities can be avoided at Vanderbilt, but only if you anchor down, step up and do your part, Vanderbilt officials said in a letter to students, according to the Times.

Some BGSU students tell WTOL they still expect to attend parties this weekend ... behavior that worries other students.

Im a little nervous, I mean if they do this there will be a spike in community cases, education major Danielle Bender tells WTOL. I mean theres absolutely no way every single one of those people doesnt have it.
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattaras recent announcement that he is standing for re-election in the October 31 poll has renewed fears of unrest in a country thats no stranger to electoral violence. But have the times and the political players changed in the West African nation?

In 2010-11, Ivory Coast was plunged into a bloody post-electoral crisis that claimed more than 3,000 lives. Death squads roamed the economic capital of Abidjan. Mass graves were dug and promptly filled.

The violence was triggered by a contested presidential election result. The countrys then president, Laurent Gbagbo, declared victory in the second round, as did his main challenger, Alassane Ouattara. Neither was willing to back down.

The crisis culminated in Gbagbos arrest by French-backed pro-Ouattara forces in April 2011. Ouattara was sworn into office one month later, while Gbagbo was sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity.

A decade on, Ouattara is still in office. He is running for a third term as head of state even though the constitution limits the presidency to two.

The government has defended this decision by arguing that the term count should be reset to zero, given that the constitution was reformed in 2016. Ouattaras decision has already led to widespread unrest and clashes between security forces and demonstrators, resulting in at least six deaths so far. With elections scheduled for October 31, a number of outcomes are possible.

Another Ouattara victory

Ouattara has many things going for him in this election. In his decade in office, he has presided over an economy that has grown by more than 7 percent annually. While not everyone has enjoyed the fruits of this growth, significant numbers of people have been lifted out of poverty and the country has enjoyed a period of relative stability.

Ouattaras nemesis, Laurent Gbagbo, remains stuck in Belgium facing an appeal at the ICC and criminal charges in Ivory Coast. Guillaume Soro, another high-profile potential rival, has been living in exile in France since December 2019.

Story continues

Ouattaras main challengers in October will be former president, Henri Konan Bedie of the Democratic Party of Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI) and Pascal Affi NGuessan of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). Both represent divided parties.

From 2005-2018, the PDCI formed a coalition government with Ouattaras Houphouetists Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP). This helped Ouattara win a landslide victory in the 2015 presidential election with more than 80 percent of the vote. This alliance has since unravelled and many PDCI members defected to the ruling RHDP, limiting its potential as an opposition party.

There are some who are for Henri Konan Bedie and others who are for Ouattara. Bedie is weakened by this division, says Ousmane Zina, a lecturer in political sciences at the University of Bouake.

The FPI meanwhile was once a pre-eminent political force in Ivory Coast. With Gbagbo at the helm, it governed the country from 2000-2010. But since its founders forced exile, the party has been split between the official wing and the so-called Gbagbo or Nothing Wing, who have already boycotted all elections since Gbagbo left. The official FPI party only won 9.3 percent of the votes in the 2015 presidential election.

In 2019, Bedie met with his former adversary, Gbagbo, bringing the PDCI and the Gbagbo or Nothing Wing of the FPI closer together. Both figures have since called on their supporters to collaborate, leaving NGuessan in a difficult position.

Even if Ouattara does not win an absolute majority in the first round, Zina does not have faith in the PDCI and FPI to unite behind a single candidate in the second.

For me, the opposition is not very solid. Ouattara could profit from their different positions to conserve power, he says.

A change of power

Not all analysts agree that Ouattara will have an easy ride to power. Asked whether it will be harder to claim victory this time around, Flan Moquet Cesar, Director of the Abidjan Centre of Political Research, replied: without hesitation.

Ivory Coast is similar to many African countries in that there are political parties who make up their base from particular religious or ethnic groups, he says. If the election proceeds along ethnic lines, we can say that it will be difficult for Ouattara to win in the first round. The departure of the PDCI from government has weakened the RHDP.

Without the backing of the PDCI, Ouattara will likely lose support from much of the countrys Baule population  the largest ethnic group in the country.

But Cesar is keen to point out that while voting along ethnic lines is often a determinant factor, it is not fixed and that if the election goes to a second round, the opposition will have to push strong messages to the population, addressing themes such as national reconciliation and outlining the strategies they would use to improve the daily lives of Ivorians.

The opposition needs to present itself as a credible alternative, he says. There is also the question of personnel. There would need to be a coalition of support behind a candidate that inspires confidence.

It is too soon to say whether Bedie or NGuessan are up to the task.

Violent Unrest?

Although there have already been clashes following Ouattaras decision to stand for a third term, analysts say a repeat of violence on the scale of the 2010-11 post-electoral crisis is unlikely.

While some of the political actors are still there, the environment is completely different, says Cesar.

Prior to the 2010 elections, the country was effectively split in two as a result of civil war: the rebel-held North and the government-controlled South. After Gbagbo repeatedly delayed the elections, the stage was set for a crisis.

Zina thinks that power has become more centralised since 2010. There is no large armed rebel faction to fight against. But this does not completely rule out the possibility of unrest.

The political and social polarisation that we have today in Ivory Coast means there will undoubtedly be some moments of tension. But these will be quickly defused. There will be fighting in the street, but not a big conflict engulfing the whole country, he says.

Covid-19 impact

There are no signs that the global pandemic could delay the election. Case numbers remain relatively low and the death toll sits at just over 100.

But the ruling party have already used the pretext of the Covid-19 induced state of emergency to officially ban public protests until mid-September. The powers in place will play with Covid-19 in an electoral context, says Zina.

It is worth noting that the three main candidates running for election have an average age of 77, placing them in the vulnerable population category.
Dear Editor:

My name is William J. Levy and I live in Ormond Beach and read your newspaper every week.

Sadly there is only one group of people in America who think of themselves as guests: not the Irish, not the Blacks, not the Lithuanians, no one but the Jews.

Jews are the most hated group in America. Blacks attack them and kill them in the streets of Brooklyn or in their homes in Moncey, N.Y., or in their supermarkets in Union City, N.J., and whites kill them in their synagogues in Pittsburgh, Pa., or Poway, Ca.

Jewish children broke breakfast with their counterparts of the Black church...
The film reflects this broader story through vignettes that follow the events chronologically: It begins on Jan. 23 with a couple driving through a snowy night to return home to a suburb of Wuhan, and ends on April 8 with people burning paper money  a traditional offering to the dead  on a street corner.

In between are scenes and stories remarkable for their rare access into the machinery of the Chinese state. These include up-close images of a hospital being built in a matter of days and an inside look at an intensive-care unit, scenes of medical staff being rewarded with membership in the Communist Party and of workers at a crematory kneading bags of human ashes so they will fit into urns.

The overall impression, especially in the films first half-hour, is one of awesome efficiency. Crews quickly bolt prefabricated rooms together, I.C.U. machines beep and purr. The new party members are sworn in with their right fists raised up and the crematory laborers work so hard that they complain that their hands ache.

As the film progresses, the human costs become more apparent. A volunteer worker whose job is finished is not allowed to leave the quarantine zone, so he sleeps in his car in a parking garage. Mourners wail inconsolably at a crematory, and a man fights to be allowed to collect his fathers urn without government officials present  something authorities do not permit because they are afraid the mourning will turn to anger at the government for having allowed the virus to spin out of control.
By David Lawder and Yawen Chen BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Thursday declined to acknowledge any plans to meet with China over the Phase 1 trade deal after the commerce ministry in Beijing said bilateral talks would be held "in the coming days" to evaluate the agreement's progress. Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng made the comments about the forthcoming discussions at a weekly briefing held online, but did not elaborate. The videoconference meeting, originally envisioned for the Aug. 15 six-month anniversary of the trade ...
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After a 46-day holiday on the sunny shoreline of Staten Island, the USS Slater was ready to return home to Albany. Marine tugboats Sarah D. and Margot readied themselves to pull the newly painted Destroyer Escort Historical Museum (DEHM) back up the Hudson River from West Brightons Caddell Dry Dock. But things did not go as planned -- the ships crew detected a small hole as they were doing a final check prior to coming off dock.

The Slaters journey to the Borough of Parks has been documented by the Trim But Deadly quarterly. It is also chronicled in a Facebook diary that claims over 22,000 followers as this is written.
<p>Aman Vyas was 24 when he began preying on lone women, punching them into submission before he raped them.</p><p>He strangled his final victim, Michelle Samaraweera, a 35-year-old widow, after attacking her in a park.</p><p>Passersby heard her screams but did nothing to help and her partially-clothed body was found by a dog walker four hours later.</p><p>Vyas carried out his attacks near his home in Walthamstow, east London, and was dubbed the "E17 night stalker".</p><p>Following a trial at Croydon Crown Court, Vyas was sentenced on Thursday for six counts of rape of four women, grievous bodily harm, and the 2009 murder of Ms Samaraweera.</p><p>The judge, Mr Justice Bryan, told him: "In the spring of 2009, there was a stranger rapist prowling the streets of Walthamstow looking for his prey.</p><p>"You were that rapist."</p><p>The case officer, Detective Sergeant Shaleena Sheikh from the Metropolitan Police, said: "There has been a long wait for justice in this case but finally the victims and their families have seen the person responsible brought to account.</p><p>"Vyas did all he could to avoid responsibility for his crimes.</p><p>"He fled abroad and then added to the distress of those he hurt by making them go through the ordeal of a trial.</p><p>"However, the injuries Vyas inflicted told the true story of this violent criminal and the jury have seen right through his lies."</p> <p>Vyas carried out his attacks over nine weeks across a small neighbourhood in Walthamstow in 2009.</p><p>A month later, after an E-FIT image was broadcast with appeal on the TV programme Crimewatch, Vyas went on the run after buying a one-way plane ticket to India.</p><p>DNA samples he left behind did not match anyone on the national database, but he was identified a year later after a former employer recognised him and told police he had left the UK.</p><p>Scotland Yard detectives tracked him from India to Singapore and New Zealand before he was arrested back in India in 2011.</p><p>The extradition process was long and complicated and held over 27 hearings with long delays between court dates.</p><p>Several times detectives were asked to fly to Delhi to give evidence.</p><p>Vyas was finally extradited in October last year.</p><p>DNA swabs taken on his arrest showed a billion-to-one match with samples recovered from the rape and murder attacks.</p> <p>DS Sheikh said: "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.</p><p>"This case lasted more than 10 years, needed enquiries in many different countries and finally a lengthy extradition process."</p><p>Vyas, now 36, was convicted of murder, six rapes and grievous bodily harm.</p><p>He was acquitted of one charge of possessing a knife.</p><p>He attacked his first victim, a 59-year-old woman, after following her into a block of flats, pushing her into her home and punching her before raping her. He then apologised and left.</p><p>He approached his second victim, who was 46, asking to buy drugs, then pushed her into an alley, threatened her with a knife, punched and raped her.</p><p>His third victim was 32 and had been shopping in a supermarket before walking home past a church.</p><p>She remembered nothing more until she woke up in hospital.</p><p>The woman was found in a graveyard after passersby heard screams and groans and called police.</p><p>She had a deep head cut, a broken jaw and nose and spent a month in hospital.</p><p>Vyas murdered Ms Samaraweera a month later after apparently following her from a shop, where both were recorded on CCTV.</p><p>She was sexually assaulted and strangled in a small park with a playground.</p><p>Witnesses heard screams at around 1.30am, but no-one raised the alarm and it was another four hours before her body was discovered by a dog walker.</p><p>Mr Justice Bryan told Vyas: "You were willing to kill in pursuit of your sexual perversions and in Michelle you found a victim who fought back.</p><p>"She had to be silenced and silenced she was."</p><p>Ms Samaraweera's sister, Ann Chandradasa, branded Vyas an "absolute pig" and a "disgusting, vile person".</p><p>Addressing the killer in court, she said: "There's a glimmer of sadness there as well.</p><p>"You weren't born that way, something's turned you into what you are."</p><p>Ms Chandradasa added she would visit Vyas in prison, should he ever confess to his crimes.</p><p>"I hope one day Vyas finds it in his heart to confess and truly be sorry for the pain inflicted on the innocent women he violated," she said.</p><p>"They are the ones that are serving life sentences.</p><p>"Vyas potentially spending the rest of his life in prison is not a punishment but a privilege, it will never be enough."</p><p>Vyas has already served just over two years on remand in India and the UK and will be eligible for release after 34 years, although the judge said he may never be freed.</p>
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 18:27:03|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Tokyo metropolitan government reported 258 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, dipping below Thursday's 339 cases, but remaining above the average seven-day tally of 256.6.

Of the 258 people newly testing positive for coronavirus, 137 of them were aged in their 20s and 30s, accounting for about 53 percent of the total. Those in their 40s and 50s totaled 73, comprising 28 percent of the latest tally.

The Tokyo metropolitan government said the number of people being treated in hospital and designated as being in a "serious condition" stood at 33, dropping by three patients from a day earlier.

The Tokyo metropolitan government has urged Tokyo residents to refrain from traveling outside the prefecture during the holiday season.

Residents have also been asked to avoid dining out in groups, including small gatherings held in close proximity with others, in a bid to curb the virus spread.

Establishments serving alcohol, such as restaurants, bars and karaoke parlors, have been requested to shorten their opening hours until the end of August.

They have also been asked to shut their doors at 10:00 p.m. to limit the number of patrons drinking into the night as another measure to try and limit the COVID-19 spread, as people's inhibitions tend to lower once intoxicated including mask wearing and maintaining appropriate social distancing.

The metropolitan government has described the situation in the capital of 14 million as "extremely severe" and has said the utmost caution is still required.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said that a Tokyo-specific state of emergency could be declared if the virus resurgence continues to worsen. Enditem
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Poland's Minister of Defence Mariusz Blaszczak pose for the media after signing the US-Poland Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland August 15, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

By Li Yingying

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement on August 15 after rounds of consultations based on the joint statement on military cooperation reached between US President Donald Trump and Polish President Andrzej Duda last September. The signing of the agreement paved the way for the permanent stationing of US troops in Poland.

Strategic considerations of both sides

Poland is a staunch ally and an important partner of the US. During his visit to Warsaw in 2017, Trump said the two countries firm relationship was based on their common values. Enhanced defense cooperation with Poland will not only further consolidate bilateral ties, but also reinforce NATOs combat capabilities and deployment flexibility on the east side to increase deterrence against Russia.

Other than that, the Trump administration also has the following calculations. First, it wants to warn and punish Germany. Poland has been a model in obeying US demand for military cost-sharing, whereas Germany has not only fallen short of its military expense quota but also constantly defied the US on such issues as the Nord Stream II pipeline project and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Americas announcement at the end of July to slash American troops in Germany and the signing of the defense cooperation deal with Poland shortly after is without any doubt a slap on Berlins face.

Second, the US wants to affect the EUs decisions by securing a new special partner when Britain is leaving the union. Poland has always been following Americas diplomatic policies since the end of WWII and has intensified this trend after the Ukraine crisis, with a rising position in Americas European strategy in the background of Brexit.

Third, the US wants to appeal to Polish voters in the upcoming election. The analysis shows that Polish voters played an important role in the 2016 presidential election of the US, and Trump is eager to continue appealing to this group for his reelection.

Warsaws top priority is to leverage America and NATOs forces to counter Russia. Poland has always been an anti-Russia vanguard due to historical and geopolitical reasons. On May 12, the country rolled out a new national security strategy that specifically designated Russias neo-imperial policy as its biggest threat. Since he came in power, Andrzej Duda has strengthened cooperation with Washington in energy and other sectors while seeking closer defense ties. He also hopes to leverage on the US to contain other EU countries, to ease his pressure on the refugee issue and judicial reform.

European security situation faces greater uncertainties

In recent years, the US-Russia relationship has been in a consistent crisis with the strategic game between NATO and Russia constantly escalating in eastern part of Europe. Moscow is highly vigilant and strongly dissatisfied with the new moves between the US and Poland, which it believes are intended to turn Warsaw into a bridgehead in confronting Russia and will add fuel to flame on the Russia-Poland relations that has been nosediving this year due to historical issues left from WWII.

Americas adjustment of its military deployments in Europe will also push NATOs military forces eastward and exacerbate the tension on the Russia-Europe border. An expert from Russias Higher School of Economics compared Washingtons military deployments in Poland to NATOs forward defense strategy in the Cold War period, which will intensify the confrontation between Russia and NATO and further worsen the security situation in eastern part of Europe.

In the meantime, we must notice that Washingtons increasing military presence in Poland wont change the basic situation in the region. Warsaw has been expecting the US to permanently station troops in the country since 2018, but Washington only increased 1,000 troops there after withdrawing from Germany in order not to upset other allies and Russia. Given the current confrontational situation, Kremlin said it will continue to call for dialogues with the White House regarding Europes security situation and the resumption of military contacts, to cool down the regional tension.

(The author is an assistant research fellow at the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies, China Institute of International Studies.)

Disclaimer: This article is originally published on china.com.cn and translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
EU rejects Belarus election results, readying sanctions against Minsk

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 7:53 AM

The European Union (EU) has rejected the results of Belarus' presidential election, claiming it was not "free and fair" and saying it would soon impose sanctions on Belarusian officials.

"These elections were neither free nor fair and did not meet international standards," Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said at the end of an emergency summit on Belarus held by teleconference on Wednesday.

"The EU will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression, and election fraud," he added.

President Alexander Lukashenko won Belarus' presidential election on August 9 by a landslide, securing a sixth term in office. But his political opponents organized protests and claimed electoral fraud. The allegations were echoed by Western states.

With backing from the West, the Belarusian opposition has formed a transitional council. The president has described the formation of the body as a coup attempt.

Lukashenko has also expressed concern about potential military action by NATO against Belarus. On Tuesday, he put Belarusian troops along the country's western border on full combat alert.

In the face of Western meddling in the affairs of his country and the alleged threat of military action, the Belarusian president recently turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin for help with maintaining security in his country. Throughout the course of the election campaign, Lukashenko had been claiming that Russia was meddling in the election to have him lose. Moscow repeatedly rejected that claim.

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Admitted four charges of failing to disclose information to make a gain and one offence of fraud

She knew they were living in Pakistan but 'didn't realise' they couldn't claim

Saaba Mahmood, 36, was spared jail after admitting to scrounging almost 100,000 in illegal welfare claims at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court

A mother of eight who scrounged almost 100,000 in benefits she claimed for relatives living in Pakistan has been spared jail after she offered to enrol on a taxpayer funded programme to help her realise her crimes were not 'victimless.'

Saaba Mahmood, 36, pocketed state benefit handouts on behalf of her aunt and uncle over a five year period - even though she knew they were living in their native Pakistan.

But when she was caught, shameless Mahmood, of Heald Green near Stockport, Greater Manchester said she did not realise she was unable to claim on behalf of relatives who lived abroad.

She also claimed she 'lacked skills in understanding how to live in society as a responsible adult' and added that she did not realise her offences were not 'victimless crimes.'

At Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, Mahmood admitted four charges of failing to disclose information to make a gain and one offence of fraud but was given 16 months jail suspended for 18 months.

She will also now take part in a 15-day offenders programme estimated to cost 1,500.

Prosecutor Julian Goode said: 'These are cases relating to benefit claims on behalf of her aunt, uncle, and mother. She acted as an appointee for them and in that capacity and she had a duty to disclose changes in circumstances that would impact the claim.

'She claimed Disability Living Allowance on behalf of her aunt between January 2013 and September 2018, and Employment Support Allowance between February 2013 and October 2018.

When she was caught, shameless Mahmood, of Heald Green near Stockport, Greater Manchester said she did not realise she was unable to claim on behalf half for relatives who lived abroad

'She was acting as her aunt's appointee and as a result both benefits were paid directly into her bank account. There is evidence to show her aunt left the UK in January 2014 to go to her daughter's wedding in Pakistan but fell ill there and did not return to the UK until 28 October 2018.

'The defendant did not disclose this and continued to receive those payments in her behalf between February 2014 and October 2018. These payments totalled 62,406.52.

'Her uncle claimed Disability Living Allowance between November 2018 and October 2018 and Employment Support Allowance between October 2010 and October 2018. The defendant became his appointee in July 2012.

'She got the credit into her bank account, but he was out of the country between November 2012 and October 2013 and again between October 2015 and June 2016 and June 2016 and December 2017. The defendant failed to report the change and the overpayment was 32,074.52.

She also claimed she 'lacked skills in understanding how to live in society as a responsible adult' and added that she did not realise her offences were 'victimless crimes.'

'The defendant became an appointee for her mother in July 2015 and on 31 August 2018 she said her mother was able to care for her uncle and received Employment Support Allowance. On 9 October 2018 she reported the change that her mother had stopped caring for her uncle. The overpayment in this case was 325.

'The total overpayment was 94,858.44. The defendant was interviewed on 7 February last year and confirmed her aunt had been living in Pakistan between 2014 and 2018. She said she did not know she needed to report if someone was abroad.

'She said she had reported that her uncle was in Pakistan in September 2017. She said she completed forms between June 2013 and November 2016 in which she failed to mention he was in Pakistan. A breach of trust was involved..'

At an earlier hearing a lawyers for Mahmood she said she would 'benefit from programmes to help her understand these are not victimless offences' and added: 'She lacks skills in understanding how to live in society as a responsible adult.'

At Thursday's hearing in mitigation defence lawyer Isobel Thomas said: 'She is genuinely remorseful and has repeated this on a number of occasions to let the court know how sorry she is. She pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

'Only one of the claims was fraudulent from the outset and that claim was worth 328.

'Immediate custody will have a significant harmful impact on others. She has eight children aged between one and 13 who have to go into foster care as her husband has schizophrenia and is unable to care for them.

'Her youngest two children are very close to her and sleep by her. One of her daughters has been assaulted in the past and appeared as a witness at a Leeds Crown Court trial. She is nervous of men and other people.

'Her husband gets very distressed when she isn't there and may have to go to hospital if she were sent to prison. She is a carer for her aunt who has dementia, hepatitis C and kidney failure.

'She has never troubled the courts before and no longer claims benefits. She would comply with all requirements of a suspended sentence.'

Mahmood was also ordered to complete 15 rehabilitation requirement days and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Sentencing Judge Angela Nield told her: 'In your case the sums of money were significant and the offending took place over a lengthy period.

'You did not tell the authorities that your aunt and then your uncle were in Pakistan and continued to claim benefits.

'You have no previous convictions and have lost your good name. You have lost your good record and have lost the much-needed support and comfort of many family members. Your father and siblings all understandably take a very dim view of your offending behaviour.

'The benefits system is there to support vulnerable families and when that system and you especially should realise that because you are a carer for vulnerable people yourself. When the system is abused it can take a very significant period of time before that comes to light if it ever does.

'When it does the overpayment can be impossible for the full amount to be repaid and those sums of money are then not available to those who make genuine claims.

'You have eight children and are responsible for the care of two vulnerable adults including your aunt. I understand you are the only person who is able to communicate with her as her dementia continues to deteriorate.

'Your husband is unable to care for your children and may have to go to hospital if you were to be sent to prison. You have a close nuclear family and your husband and children are highly reliant on you.

'Foster care and hospital care both come at significant public expense. I accept you are genuinely remorseful and social workers say your family are disciplined and well-mannered and it seems to me there is a realistic prospect of rehabilitation in your case. I have somewhat reluctantly concluded that I can suspend your sentence.'

Mahmood will face a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing in November.
Zelensky instructs Defense Ministry to sign contract with Ukroboronprom's plant

16:05, 21.08.20 1352

According to Pallada CEO, the enterprise has been independently looking for buyers.
Atik Mohammed has cautioned political opponents, particulary members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to stop demonizing the Electoral Commission (EC).



Atik Mohammed noted that the EC needs support to conduct and supervise peaceful elections in the country, not attacks on their Commission's integrity.



Making his submissions on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', he stated that undermining the EC is as causing a democratic decay.



This, he explained, is because democracy is not about rule of law only but also institutionalism; hence it is incumbent on political parties to uphold State insitutions and not target them in hope of crippling the institutions.



He added that any attempts to undermine the Electoral Commissioners' authority or duties will not augur well for the entire nation.



"Elections is the foundation of our democracy and it's a shared responsibility to consolidate our democracy. We all have to help, especially so when there is a gang of people whose intent is 'let's demonize the Electoral Commission with a view to undermining their work and they will be intimidated to do our bidding', I don't think that's a way to deepen our democracy.



"The Electoral Commission is not the creation of any President but the creation of the constitution. So, it's our duty to protect and support them. Nobody says don't criticize the Electoral Commission when you feel stronly about some things but, in so doing, don't attempt to demonize that State institution. Because it's not only those who work there will suffer but you have also ruined Ghana should you attempt to cripple the institution."



Atik further asked the NDC in particular what the party stands to gain from attacking the EC Bosses with their smear campaign.



''If we inch closer to the point where State institutions, particularly the one managing our elections collapses, who will tell the NDC or NPP that they haven't won the elections?'' he queried.







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Sister Simone Campbell, who led a prayer at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, had previously declined to take a position on abortion, saying I would have to study it more intensely.

When asked on Wednesday whether the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, where she serves as executive director, opposes the legal protection of abortion, Campbell told CNA, That is not our issue. That is not it. It is above my pay grade.

Its not the issue that we work on. Im a lawyer. I would have to study it more intensely than I have, she added.

Campbell, 74, is a member and past general director of the Sisters of Social Service and received her law degree from the University of California-Davis School of Law in 1977.

Yet the Catholic Church clearly says, Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

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POMPEO: The United States will never allow the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles, and other kinds of conventional weapons.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Thursday that the U.S. moved to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, saying Tehran violated a nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015 - the same deal that Washington abandoned two years ago - arguing, in part, that its limitations on Iran's nuclear activities were inadequate.

POMPEO: Todays actions put additional pressure on Iran to behave like a normal country and to come back to the bargaining table.

The United States submitted a letter to the 15-member U.N. Security Council accusing Tehran of non-compliance, in theory starting a 30-day process that could lead to the "snapback" of U.N. sanctions.

However, major powers such as Russia, France, Germany and the UK said they do not support the U.S. effort to try to restore sanctions.

POMPEO: "Our friends in Germany, France and the United Kingdom - the E3 - all told me privately they don't want the arms embargo lifted either. And yet today in the end they provide no alternatives, no options. No country but the United States has had the courage and conviction to put forward a resolution. Instead they chose to side with Ayatollahs."

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Security Council that Washington had no right to trigger the "snapback" because it was no longer a party to the pact.

Russia backed the Iranian stance.

POMPEO: As for decisions other nations make, theyre sovereign countries they get to make their own choices, but make no mistake about it, it is an enormous mistake not to extend this arms embargo. Its nuts, right. And I havent heard privately from any country that thinks its wise. Except for perhaps, from Iran.

The U.N. arms embargo is currently set to expire in October.
At least 116 foreign nationals were found to have illegally entered Vietnam over the past month despite tightened controls put in place amid the escalating novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, local police said in a statement released earlier this week.

The municipal Department of Police held a press briefing on Wednesday evening to publish the results of their first month of enhanced crackdowns on criminals in the southern metropolis, lasting from July 15 to August 14.

According to the report, police probed 245 criminal cases and arrested 358 individuals. They also busted 67 gangs, resulting in the arrest of an additional 224 criminals.

As Vietnam keeps a watchful eye on the resurgence of COVID-19 infections in the country, police departments throughout the nation have been vigilant about foreigners who may have entered the country illegally.

As a result, as many as 116 such border jumpers, including one sought by police from Da Nang, Vietnams COVID-19 epicenter, have been taken into custody by authorities.

Over the past month, Ho Chi Minh City investigators have launched probes into human smuggling rings in the citys District 12 and Binh Thanh, Tan Phu, and Binh Tan Districts.

On Monday, Ho Chi Minh City chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong urged municipal police to work with the local peoples procuracy and court to press charges against those individuals who had illegally entered the city.

The move was intended to stall the spread of COVID-19.

The city leader also noted that one foreigner  a 27-year-old Chinese man who had made an illegal entry into the city last month  had tested positive for the virus.

Illegal migrants could become a serious source of transmission if the city fails to control such entries, the chairman said.

He instructed local police to carry out frequent inspections and set up booths to check people unlawfully entering the city.

According to chairman Phong, the city has not recorded any community transmission in the last 15 days, but the risk of an outbreak still exists due to its high population density and travel demands.

He asked grassroots authorities to remain alert as the outbreak in Da Nang has so far spread to 15 provinces and cities in the country.

If Ho Chi Minh City has new cases of COVID-19 in the community, it could be dangerous since the city has a high population density and bustling economic activities. There would be more rapid transmission than in other provinces and cities, he said.

As of Friday morning, the Southeast Asian nation had logged 1,007 COVID-19 cases with 542 recoveries and 25 deaths, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Health.

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RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA With kids back to school, and so many families negotiating online learning with working from home, tensions are at an all time high in may households. Enter these two Rancho Santa Margarita teenagers. Both incoming freshman at Tesoro High School, Sania Sanghani and best friend Suki Chandok have taken the time of coronavirus shutdown to develop an online tutoring program to help elementary school families in more ways than one.

Sania and Suki, the S. and S. of their tutoring platform, spent the summer preparing their program and assisting kids' understanding of certain subjects over Zoom. Now, they've perfected the process and are seeking more students to help.

Sania and Suki are both honor students with experience in accelerated math, honors English, and Honors World History. They plan to help parents of elementary and middle school kids get a leg up in school, while also raising money for underprivileged children, according to their website.



Each of their tutoring "classes" is grouped by subject, and taught over the Zoom video platform. Their age makes them relatable to students, they say on their website.

Sania is a three-year winner of the Capistrano Unified School District Spelling Bee, and describes herself as an "organized honors student."

Her friend and partner, Sania, has experience tutoring siblings. She believes "knowledge is power," she says on their website.

The pair are offering tutoring in creative writing, math, introduction to Spanish, and grades 5-7 speech and debate.

They are initially looking to tutor students from kindergarten through 6th Grade, according to their website. They will donate half of their earnings to charity.

Learn more about their program and register on their website.

This article originally appeared on the Rancho Santa Margarita Patch
SAN FRANCISCO - First came the lightning, with cracks of thunder that woke Hope Weng from sleep. "I thought it was someone wheeling out one of the garbage bins," the 23-year-old said. Then came the wildfires, mixing with the unbearable heat that was tough to escape in her unairconditioned Mountain View apartment. "I'm hot and I want to let the window open to let in cool air but the air also smells like fire."

America is roasting.

At least 140 western weather stations notched record highs in the last 10 days as a thermometer in Death Valley hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the highest temperatures measured on Earth. Eighty million U.S. residents are under excessive heat advisories. More than 35 wildfires are raging in California, burning 125,000 acres in the San Francisco Bay Area alone, threatening 25,000 businesses and homes this week. Parts of the country are suffering drought conditions. And in the Atlantic Ocean, a marine heat wave is fueling what is becoming an unusually active storm season.

Scientists say there is no doubt that climate change is driving the extreme weather, increasing the threats to property and life. "Yeah, it's summer, and summer is hot, but this is different," the National Weather Service tweeted. "These are dangerous conditions."

Conditions are made even more perilous by the worst pandemic in a century. Tens of thousands of people are trying to escape wildfires and extreme heat at a time when they are also asked to wear masks and keep a distance from strangers. And as a hurricane season turbocharged by heat gets underway, the virus promises to complicate responses.

In Colorado, four wildfires are scorching forest, and half the state is experiencing severe to extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, creating dry brush that's primed to ignite. The Pine Gulch fire 18 miles north of Grand Junction, sparked by lightening on July 31, is already the state's second-largest in history.

On the other side of the country, the Atlantic Ocean is about two to three degrees warmer than average at points across the Eastern Seaboard, raising concerns that a marine heat wave could make hurricanes more powerful.

Scientists are worried that the 2020 hurricane season could rival 2005, the record-breaking year that produced Katrina, Rita and Wilma and exhausted the Greek alphabet to name the total number of them, all the way up to Zeta.

"With warmer water there is just more energy there for the storms," said Glen Gawarkiewicz, a senior scientist for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "The things can get up to category 3 very quickly and that makes emergency response difficult when the storms intensify more rapidly."

The 2020 hurricane season is only now reaching its traditional busy period but there have already been 11 named storms. Forecasts suggest more than 20 more storms are coming, including as many as six hurricanes at the intensity levels of category 3 or higher. On Friday, two more systems were developing in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

While the Atlantic Ocean was relatively cool in the early spring, temperatures rose this summer - causing a temperature spike known as a marine heat wave from southern Maine to Georgia.

"We found marine heat waves have been increasing in both their intensity, and their duration," said Vince Saba, lead climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center. He and other researchers have analyzed satellite data dating back to 1981 to examine long-term trends in ocean temperatures off the Eastern Seaboard.

As the Atlantic has warmed, unusual species have been showing up further north. Groups of Portuguese man 'o war, which usually congregate in tropical and subtropical waters, washed ashore on Fire Island, off Long Island. An angler caught a juvenile cobia, a sport fish popular in the Southeast, off Rhode Island's Block Island. In July, a man fishing off Nantucket caught a houndfish, a warm-water species that may never have been caught before along the Massachusetts shore.

"This year is strange, in a nutshell," Saba said.

Although hurricanes, wildfires and flooding from storm water strike more fear and generate more news headlines, extreme heat is a far more deadly force of nature.

High temperatures can cause dehydration, low blood pressure, dizziness and muscle spasms. If the body's thermoregulatory system becomes overwhelmed, cells will begin to break down and essential organs will fail.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 8,000 people in the United States died of heat-related symptoms between 1999 and 2010. Nearly all the deaths happened between May and September, with July and August accounting for the highest toll, 65 percent.

Most heat-related deaths happen in cities and occur among non-White people, according to the CDC. The states with the highest death rates, the agency said, are Arizona, Texas and California, accounting for 43 percent of the total.

Officials in Maricopa County, Ariz., where the mercury has hit 115 degrees a record-breaking eight times this summer, are already investigating at least 243 deaths linked to heat illness - 111 more cases than were recorded at this point last year.

"This is climate change," said Susan Clark, a heat expert and director of the Sustainability Initiative at the University of Buffalo. "This increased intensity and frequency of temperatures and heat waves are part of the projections for the future . . . There is going to be more morbidity and mortality [from heat.] There are going to be more extremes."

The oppressively hot and relentlessly dry conditions in Western states are the result of a massive "heat dome," a wall of high pressure that's sucking moisture from the soil and preventing clouds from forming.

Climate change has already raised average temperatures in many Southwest cities by 2 degrees Celsius, which is 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Conditions aren't much better on the muggy East Coast. Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and New Hampshire each experienced their hottest July on record this year.

In New York City, where glass and concrete traps the sun's energy and create a "heat island," officials opened fire hydrants and set up misting stations during week-long stretches of 90 degree temperatures.

When temperatures spike, the most vulnerable people suffer the most, said environmental justice activist Chandra Farley, director of the Just Energy program at the Atlanta-based Partnership for Southern Equity.

Black and Latino Americans are more likely to live in neighborhoods with lots of industry and few trees, which contributes to the heat island effect. People living on low incomes are less able to afford air conditioning.

Living at or near poverty in an urban hot zone during a pandemic is made even worse when wildfire and hurricanes become a threat.

With California experiencing extreme fires yet again, the region's electrical grid operator and the utilities have switched off power to hundreds of thousands of homes to prevent sparking that could lead to more fires.

"If there's anything I've learned it's that Mother Nature is a very formidable adversary and only a fool would underestimate the power of what can happen," said Bill Smith, the recently named chief executive of Pacific Gas & Electric, which declared bankruptcy last year after facing $30 billion in liability for fires, including the Camp Fire that killed at least 85 people.

Every day, Smith gets a seven-day weather forecast looking at the wind and moisture and actions that might protect the utility's infrastructure and prevent its equipment from starting a fire.

So far this season, PG&E has cut back vegetation along 1,500 miles of power lines, installed insulated conductors, cameras and fiberglass poles in areas susceptible to fire. It has also installed nearly 600 switches that will enable the utility to turn off power to smaller areas in what Smith called a more "surgical" response to fire.

Yet this week, the utility was ordered by the regional grid operator to help with rolling blackouts that affected more than 400,000 people in the midst of the state's heat wave, Smith said.

"I hold my breath going into wildfire season," said Smith, who spent most of his career working for AT&T before joining the PG&E board last year. "I was on a call with investors and somebody asked how comfortable are you with the preparation for the wildfire season. I said I can't use the words comfortable and wildfire in same sentence."

There is also distress in Colorado.

Four fires are underway, one of which has shut down part of I-70, the main highway connecting eastern and western Colorado. The number and intensity are unusual. Between 2002 and 2019, wildfires in Colorado destroyed an average of 82,778 acres of land every year. So far, just these four fires have burned 181,816 acres of land, or an area about four times the size of the District of Columbia.

"As a fire scientist, I can say fires are really responsive to warming," said fire ecologist Jennifer Balch, who directs the Earth Lab at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "With just a little bit of warming, we're seeing a lot more burning. We have twice as much burning now as we were seeing in the early 1980s."

Even in the normally cool state of Washington, at least four wildfires are burning and temperatures spiked to levels rarely seen.

On Sunday, throngs of Seattle residents rushed to its shores to cool off from the 98-degree heat, the hottest its been in 11 years, since it hit 103 degrees in July of 2009, according to the National Weather Service measurements at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

"I remember thinking, I moved here because I like the cool!" said Seattle resident David Ziff, who was taking a work call in his car because it had air-conditioning.

The Seattle Fire Department reported three fatal drownings during a 10-day stretch of warm weather, when people jumped off boats into Lake Washington and didn't resurface. The drownings are a rare number for such a short period of time, said Seattle Fire spokesperson Kristin Tinsley.

It's not uncommon for the northwest city to get a small heat wave each summer, but many people found themselves unprepared for Sunday's furnace blast. The city is one of the least air-conditioned in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and with pandemic concerns keeping many restaurants and cafes shuttered, residents had no choice but to stay at home.

"I normally walk around a lot," said Samantha Steele, as she read a book by the lake on Tuesday after the worst of the heat was over. In years past, she would have gone to a nearby coffee shop to savor the air conditioning, but social distancing protocols kept her home.

"So I stayed inside," she said, "under my ceiling fan."

- - -

Siddiqui reported from San Francisco and Rachel Lerman reported from Seattle. Staff writers Steven Mufson and Chris Mooney contributed to this report from Washington.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has lowed the weekly markets in the national capital to reopen from August 24-30 on a trial basis.

An order passed by the DDMA said that hotels in the national capital have been allowed to reopen in the non-containment zones while gyms will continue to remain closed amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

The decision to this effect was taken during a meeting of the DDMA which was chaired by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Wednesday.



In the meeting, it was also decided that the weekly markets will reopen on a trial basis.

As per Delhi government, hotels contribute to eight per cent of the city's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment while the weekly markets provide employment to five lakh poor families.

"After having successfully brought COVID situation under control, it is a challenge to bring the economy back on track. Opening up these two sectors will help in that direction," the Delhi Government said in a statement.

Following the decision, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the corona situation in Delhi has improved and that the economy of Delhi has to be brought on track now.



For this, the Delhi Chief Minister said "we had already proposed opening all the hotels in Delhi, which was rejected by the Central government"

In the last week of July, the Kejriwal government decided to allow hotels and gyms to reopen in the city, besides allowing weekly markets to open on a trial basis for seven days with social distancing and all other COVID-19 measures.

The Delhi government had decided to end night curfew and allow more economic activities, including normal functioning of hospitality services, in the national capital under 'Unlock-3' guidelines.

However, on July 31 the Delhi L-G rejected the Delhi government's decision to allow hotels and weekly markets under Unlock 3, citing the situation as being fragile amid coronavirus pandemic.

On August 6, Kejriwal-led Delhi government sent a fresh proposal to the L-G seeking his permission to allow hotels, gymnasium, and weekly markets to reopen in the national capital.

The fresh proposal sent by Revenue Minister Kailash Gehlot said that the condition of Delhi is improving, and the number of coronavirus cases are coming down.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in its proposal to the L-G said that in accordance with the Centre's 'Unlock' guidelines, it has the right to decide on allowing such establishments in Delhi to reopen.
The four-decade hunt for the Golden State Killer reached a turning point in April when detectives lifted the DNA of their suspect from his car door as he shopped inside Hobby Lobby, court documents released Friday show.

The secret collection occurred in a public parking lot in Roseville, just outside Sacramento. By then, authorities already considered Joseph DeAngelo Jr. a suspect but were still gathering evidence.

Authorities said in the court records that the definitive link came when the DNA taken from the car matched semen recovered at the scene of some of the Golden State Killers crime scene.

The documents also said detectives were able to match DNA from rapes in Northern California to several murders in Southern California, providing what prosecutors say is a key link connecting seemingly disparate crimes that had baffled authorities for years.

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Judge Michael Sweet released the documents Friday after rejecting objections from DeAngelos defense team. An attorney representing the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets had filed a motion to have the warrants unsealed for the public record.

The documents  about 123 pages  offers the first public glimpse into the case detectives built against DeAngelo, a former police officer accused of terrorizing communities across California in the 1970s and 80s. During that time, he is believed to have been behind at least 12 killings, dozens of rapes and more than 100 burglaries. In the warrants, detectives accuses DeAngelo of a 13th killing  the shooting death of Claude Snelling in 1975 in Visalia.

Read the full warrant and affidavit here 

Because of the redactions, the documents provide only a limited sense of what prosecutors have amassed against DeAngelo. It remains unclear what investigators found after they searched DeAngelos home. The warrant describes dozens of rings, wedding bands, photographs and identification cards among the trinkets that DeAngelo is accused of taking from victims homes after committing crimes. For example, investigators hoped to find a green Bank of American [sic] bag with silver zipper lock that had $1,366.31 in cash. But its unclear whether any of these items were recovered from his Citrus Heights home.

The documents underscore how essential a novel and controversial DNA technique was used to build the case. Frustrated detectives placed DNA found at one of the crime scene on several genealogy websites. Eventually, they linked it to one of DeAngelos distant relatives. Detectives have said in interviews with The Times that with that familial link, they centered on DeAngelo because of his age, employment and that he lived close to where many of the crimes were committed.

With their suspect identified, detectives needed a DNA sample. They began surveillance on the one-time officer and that led them to Hobby Lobby on April 18. On April 23, they obtained a second DNA sample from a tissue in DeAngelos trash can outside of his home, hoping to get a more conclusive match. DeAngelo was arrested April 24.

Public defender David Lynch sought to keep as much information under seal as possible, saying release of detectives statements would taint potential jurors. He called much of the case offered up for the arrest of DeAngelo and search of his home speculative. DeAngelo has not entered a plea.

The names and other identifying information for at least 75 surviving victims, witnesses and detectives included in the warrant were redacted, along with details of previously suspected rapes.

Sweet ruled that a list of the evidence seized from DeAngelos home, computer and his phone will remain sealed.

Media lawyer Duffy Carolan said she was generally pleased with the ruling. The Sacramento County district attorneys office emphasized that it did not ask for the records to be sealed and that 95% of the material being redacted was at the request of DeAngelos public defenders.

Sweet said in a verbal order that he was striving to protect DeAngelos right to a fair trial. He quoted Benjamin Franklin: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Half a dozen of the Golden State Killers victims who have been attending the Sacramento court hearings were present for Fridays decision but asked not to be identified.

One woman had no opinion on the release of the arrest records, saying, I dont care, as long as it doesnt hurt the case.

Another woman, who said she was raped by the Golden State Killer, said she is attending DeAngelos court appearances to drill holes in the back of his head.

DeAngelo is charged with the shooting deaths of two people in Sacramento and 10 more counts of murder in three other counties, the culmination of a four-decade manhunt for a serial burglar and rapist who often hit multiple homes in a night, stole mementos from his victims or taunted them later with phone threats.

Whole communities were stricken with fear as the crime wave grew on both sides of the state and in the Central Valley starting in the early 1970s. Families bought guard dogs and guns, installed extra deadbolts on their front doors and secured their rear windows and sliding doors. Authorities say DeAngelos crimes covered territories in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange counties, where several women were raped and fatally beaten between 1979 and 1986.

One couple was found bludgeoned to death with a fireplace log in Ventura. Another was found tied up and shot to death in Santa Barbara County.

Investigators also think DeAngelo was responsible for a crime wave in Visalia that involved dozens of home burglaries, assaults and one killing. Authorities say he may have begun his criminal activity as a cat burglar in Rancho Cordova in the early 1970s.

DeAngelo worked as a police officer for small towns in California until 1979, when he was fired in Auburn for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent. He then worked for decades as a truck mechanic, living in a suburb north of Sacramento and communities that had been terrified by sexual assaults and killings now attributed to the Golden State Killer.

After his arrest, prosecutors from Sacramento, Ventura, Orange and Santa Barbara counties met to discuss where and how to put DeAngelo on trial for the slayings because the crimes cover multiple jurisdictions. No decision has been made.
On the eve of one of the most momentous religious events Southeast Texas has hosted, approximately 200 people filed into the St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica for a time of prayer. Clergy members, along with friends and family of Bishop-elect David Toups were all checked in on a guest list prior to entering the church.

Beaumont police officers and ushers were overheard saying Cardinal Daniel DiNardo was en route. With that preface, a motorcade of charter buses soon pulled up to the side of the church and DiNardo entered through the side. In less than 24 hours, he would ordain Gulf Coast native Toups as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Beaumont.

The event will be the first bishop ordination in the half-century history of the diocese. Toups will succeed Curtis Guillory, who served as Beaumonts longest-tenured bishop with 20 years of service.

While such a momentous occasion will be new for many in Beaumont, the precautions the diocese is taking to ensure the safety of those in attendance will also be a sign of the times.

In the middle of a pandemic, racial tension, protests, economic downturn and at the start of hurricane season, I am like the angels at our Lords birth bringing good news to the shepherds, Bishop Guillory said at the June announcement of Toups upcoming ordination. We now have a bishop-elect for the Diocese of Beaumont.

Rosiland Sanchez, the director of worship for the Beaumont Diocese, explained the planning her office has overseen for the Mass at which Toups will be ordained.

We work with the bishop-elect to find out how he wants it done, she said. We find out what scripture readings he would like, who are the people he would like to have as the readers of the scriptures and as gift bearers.

Monsignor Luis Urriza, 99, of Cristo Rey Church said the bishop-elect called him to ask if he would do the honor of presenting the mitre, which is ceremonial headgear for bishops. Urriza, who has been a priest for 76 years, said he has never participated in or seen a bishop ordination.

Sanchez said the diocese has coordinated with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, of which DiNardo is archbishop, to plan several rehearsals and the ordination.

We want to make sure everything comes together, Sanchez said.

She said spacing is only one of the changes being made to the ceremony to ensure the safety of the public amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The choir we reduced to a bare minimum because we could not have people close together and singing, Sanchez said. They have to sing entirely with masks. We have no instruments. Ordinarily, this would be very festive with a brass quartet, flutes and everything. There is a very strong danger of spreading COVID through instruments. When you see the bishop, his guests and family, there is not very much space left. That has made it very challenging to say the least.

Despite the changes, Sanchez said the ceremony will still be a celebration.

It will still be very prayerful, she said. As Bishop-elect Toups said, In the end, we will have a new bishop ordained.

The church does not plan to host any events outside of the church but has invited everyone to watch the livestream event on the churchs Youtube page.

An event of this size would normally cause the diocese to switch to a larger venue as it did for the Jubilee event that was held at Ford Park in 2016.

We have done many ordinations of priests and deacons, she said. We have even installed bishops. Its much like the planning for the ordination of a priest, but there is more ritual.

Longtime parishioners Ann and Milton Melo have spent the week working on the floral arrangements for the ordination ceremony.

Melo has been making the floral decorations for special events and holidays for St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica since he retired as a maintenance worker for the church and the diocese.

Melo said Fr. Jerry McGrath usually comes up with the design of the pieces. Melo makes the idea come to fruition.

Monday, the couple began making 50 boxwood greenery bases for the arrangement as 500 red and yellow carnations waited in a cooler at the church.

Thursday, as rehearsals for the ceremony continued, the pair laid the boxed greenery around the altar and surrounding pillars, then cut to size and hand-placed each flower into position as the organist practiced in the choir loft above.

Melo said he has a knack for creating displays, having worked decades ago as a display manager for a department store.

Although his floral pieces have been the highlight of church decor for many occasions, being asked to do the arrangements for such a historic and grand ceremony as Fridays ordination is a special honor.

We enjoy giving back to the church, Melo said. It makes you feel good.

Ann Melo added: Its pretty awesome to be part of it.

Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames, who attended the vespers service Thursday, said she has enjoyed her relationship with Guillory and is happy for him as he enters the next phase of his life.

I look forward to working with Bishop Toups and learning more about his vision for the Diocese of Beaumont, she said. This is truly a unique occasion that will showcase one of the most beautiful basilicas in the United States. When you combine a new bishop with a beautiful house of worship, it is another great day in Beaumont.

Beaumonts next bishop offered a glimpse of his humility in a moment of levity in his closing remarks at Thursdays ceremonies. Toups noted that a misprint on the program cover identified him as Daniel rather than David. McGrath, in his reading of the dioceses welcome to the bishop-elect at the opening of the ceremonies, also called him Daniel. That elicited a few quizzical looks from Toups family members.

But Toups joked that those in attendance shouldnt judge McGrath too harshly as he confessed that he himself had missed the misprint.

I know that came across my desk and, with my glasses off, I didnt catch it, Toups said with good humor.

The ordination and installation of Bishop David Toups will take place at 2 p.m. today at St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica.

chris.moore@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/chris_moore09

kbrent@beaumontenterprise.com
RuPaul's Drag Race champ Tyra Sanchez, real name James William Ross, was arrested Thursday on charges of vandalism.

Ross, who is now said to have retired his drag act, was taken to Fulton County Jail in Atlanta this morning.

A spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Department said they responded to a vandalism call at an apartment complex, where someone had spray-painted the words 'do not move here' across the building, PEOPLE reports.

Busted: RuPaul's Drag Race winner Tyra Sanchez is arrested and charged with vandalism (pictured above in 2013)

Ross was identified as the suspect by police officers and charged with criminal damage to the property, per the report.

TMZ report that Ross was living in the building that he allegedly tagged with graffiti and had reportedly not paid his rent in months.

The reality star won season two of RuPaul Drag Race in 2010, but has since distanced himself from his alter ego Tyra.

Retired: Sanchez, real name James William Ross, is now said to have retired his drag act

In March, Ross announced that he was retiring from his drag act, according to a report by Instinct Magazine.

In a now-deleted post, Ross reportedly stated that he has 'outgrown the desire to dress up' adding that he 'wants muscles, no more shaving my face, I want to look like ZADDY!' He also said: 'MY NAME IS JAMES OR JAY. NOT TYRA, SHE, MAAM, OR QUEEN.'

Currently his Instagram account has deleted all its posts, and just has one video image with the caption: 'Verified NEW IG @CREATORIV Tyra Sanchez does not exist anymore and will never return. Stop hoping. Stop wishing. Stop asking.'
Moscow: The wife of stricken Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny appealed to President Vladimir Putin in a letter on Friday to allow him to be transported from a hospital in Siberia to Germany to receive medical assistance.

The letter, which was published on social media, was sent to the Kremlin directly, a Navalny ally said.

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was in coma in a Siberian hospital after a suspected poisoning on Thursday. Credit:AP

Navalny's allies fear he was poisoned and have organised medical care for him in Germany, but Russian doctors have said his condition is too unstable for him to be moved from hospital.

The allies have accused the Kremlin of thwarting his medical evacuation to Germany, saying the decision placed Navalny's life in mortal danger because the Siberian hospital treating him was under-equipped.
President Donald Trump said 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is 'more likable' than Hillary, hours after party officials orchestrated a four-day convention touting Biden's empathy and faith.

But moments after Trump acknowledged a strength of his rival, he offered: 'Who cares about personality?'

Trump brought up the contrast at a speech before a group of conservative leaders at the shrouded Center for National Policy, which met at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Virginia outside Washington, D.C.

'Should I say it should I tell you?' he asked the supportive crowd after raising the topic.

On offense: In his remarks, Trump went on another attack on mail-in voting  this time raising the specter of a divided election he said would result in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking office on January 20.

Hotel venue: Trump was unusually not at one of his own properties for the speech which had all the hallmarks of his rally, instead traveling to the Ritz-Carlton in Arlington, VA

Hotel venue: Trump was unusually not at one of his own properties for the speech which had all the hallmarks of his rally, instead traveling to the Ritz-Carlton in Arlington, VA

Backers: The National Policy Council is a shadowy body with little public profile but some attendees were forthcoming about their position

'Clintons much smarter but not a likable person,' he told the group. 'Joe is not nearly as smart, but hes more likable.'

Trump routinely attacks Biden's intellect and claims he is deteriorating, but appeared to have at least seen the soft side of his personality after Thursday's convention, where Biden's wife and children testified to his loyalty. A separate video showed a 13-year old New Hampshire boy who Biden took time to share stories with about their shared struggles with stuttering.

'Maybe Id rather have the smarter person,' Trump concluded. 'Who cares about personality?'

Barack Obama famously told Clinton in a 2008 primary debate that 'You're likable enough,' after Clinton was confronted with polling information about her likability. 'Well that hurts my feelings,' Clinton quipped after hearing the initial data.

Later in his remarks, Trump went on another attack on mail-in voting  this time raising the specter of a divided election he said would result in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking office on January 20.

Trump called Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden more 'likable' than Clinton, after the convention focused on his role as a parent and highlighted individual acts of generosity

'Clintons much smarter but not a likable person,' claimed Trump

'Theres a theory,' Trump said as he sketched out the scenario.

'Crazy Nancy Pelosi would become president,' he said, using his repeat insult for the California lawmaker, who he is known to have spoken to by phone only once amid the standoff over coronavirus funding.

'Now I dont know if its a theory or a fact but I said thats not good,' Trump added

'Thats part of their whole act,' Trump claimed, referencing Democratic pushes for expanded mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

'If you dont have a choice that the speaker of the house become president.' He said it would happen 'either on the 20th' or after.

'Put that in the hopper. Add that to everything else,' he said.

Trump raised the theory at a time when he continues to attack mail-in voting.

Trump then put forward a 'theory' where he said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could end up as president, as he argued against mail-in voting

'They all think Im trying to steal the election. Just the opposite I want the fair results of the election,' he said.

The Constitution provides for the House to certify the results of the election, with disputed elections decided on a basis where each state gets a vote. Disputes over counting the vote in certain states could lead to lawsuits, and both sides are preparing for them.

In the case of the contested 2000 election, the Supreme Court weighed in to stop the state recount of the results in Florida.

Biden has raised the prospect of Trump 'trying to steal' the election, but Pelosi said last moth there is a 'process' for dealing with the situation.

'It has nothing to do with a certain occupant of the White House doesnt feel like moving and has to be fumigated out of there,' she said.

Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany have turned down opportunities to say explicitly he would accept the results of the election.

Trump set off a round of on-line speculation when he floated the idea of delaying the election, although fact-checkers shot down the idea that Pelosi would become president if the election were delayed past Jan. 20, when the president's term expires.
The Convention People's Party (CPP) is expected to elect a flagbearer on Saturday, August 22.

The party will also elect national executives on the same day.

The Acting National Youth Organizer of the CPP, Nabila Alhasan Basire explained that the two elections, which should have been organised separately, have been combined due to the limited time available.

All is set for the Convention Peoples Party National Delegates Conference. This is the first time the party will be holding a joint congress to elect the Flagbearer as well as national officers. This is because of the time we have found ourselves in because we are left with a short period for the elections, Nabila Alhassan explained.

He cautioned all delegates to adhere to the COVID-19 safety protocols during the election.

The election will start at 7 am and close at 1 pm.

Three persons have already picked up nomination forms to contest as flagbearer for the party.

They are Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, the 2016 presidential candidate for the party, Bright Akwetey a private legal practitioner and Dr Divine Ayivor, a pastor with the Seventh Day Adventist church.

The party initially set August 15 to elect both national and presidential candidates but had to reschedule to August 22 due to the celebration of the Homowo in some parts of Accra.

Some members of the party earlier this year secured a court injunction against the congress which was planned for March 2020.

The plaintiffs in their statement of claim prayed the court for an order declaring the 2019 Regional elections of the party conducted and championed by Hajia Hamdatu Haruna and James Kobina Bomfeh, legally and constitutionally flawed.

---citinewsroom
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/21/2020 -- AMA Research published a new research publication on "Global mHealth Services Market Insights, to 2025" with 150+pages and enriched with self-explained Tables and charts in presentable format. In the Study you will find new evolving Trends, Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities generated by targeting market associated stakeholders. The growth of the Global mHealth Services market was mainly driven by the increasing R&D spending across the world, however latest COVID scenario and economic slowdown have changed complete market dynamics. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Vodafone Group Plc. (United Kingdom), AT&T Inc. (United States), Apple Inc. (United States), Alcatel-lucent (France), Airstrip technologies Inc. (United States), Cerner Corporation (United States), SoftServe Inc. (Ukraine), Symantec Corporation (United States), Medtronic plc (Ireland) and Omron Corporation (United States).



The global mHealth Services market is expected to witness high demand in the forecasted period due to increasing internet penetration across the world. mHealth is a general term used for mobile health, which provides assistance to public health using smart devices such as; mobile phones, tablet computers & PDAs, and wearable devices such as smart watches. mHealth applications provide medical assistance activities such as; collecting community & clinical health data, delivery of healthcare information to practitioners, researchers & patients, real-time monitoring of patient vital signs, and direct provision of care. mHealth broadly encompasses the use of mobile telecommunication and multimedia technologies as they are integrated within mobile and wireless health care delivery systems. Some of the mHealth technologies include patient monitoring devices, mobile telemedicine/telecare devices, microcomputers, data collection software, mobile operating system technology, mobile applications (e.g. social wellness solutions), and chatterbots. The mHealth helps in educating consumers about preventive health care services. It also helps in disease surveillance, treatment support, epidemic outbreak tracking, and chronic disease management.



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Market Trend

- Robust Penetration of 3G and 4G Networks for Uninterrupted Healthcare Services

- Increasing Use of Electronic Devices for Healthcare Management



Market Drivers

- Growing Focus on Patient-Centric Healthcare Delivery

- Rising Use of Mobile, Smartphones, and Tabs

- Growing Government Initiatives and Rise in Physician's Acceptance



Opportunities

- Growing Adoption of Mhealth Solutions in Other Mobile Platforms

- Rising incidence of Lifestyle Disorders



Restraints

- Lack of Awareness about the Importance of Mhealth Service

- Rising incidences of Technological Risk

- Lack of guidance from Physicians while Selecting Apps



Challenges

- Patent Protection for mHealth Devices and Applications

- Lack of Data Security Giving Rise to Concerns Regarding Data Theft and Healthcare Fraud

- Patent Protection for mHealth Devices and Applications



Market Competition

This report covers the recent COVID-19 incidence and its impact on Global mHealth Services Market. The pandemic has widely affected the economic scenario. This study assesses the current landscape of the ever-evolving business sector and the present and future effects of COVID-19 on the market. Each company profiled in the research document is studied considering various factors such as product and its application portfolios, market share, growth potential, future plans, and development activity like merger & Acquisitions, JVs, Product launch etc. Readers will be able to gain complete understanding and knowledge of the competitive landscape. Most importantly, the report sheds light on important strategies that key and emerging players are taking to maintain their ranking in the Global mHealth Services Market. The study highlights how competition will change dynamics in the coming years and why players are preparing themselves to stay ahead of the curve.



According to the Regional Segmentation the Global mHealth Services Market provides the Information covers following regions:

*North America

*South America

*Asia & Pacific

*Europe

*MEA (Middle East and Africa)



The key countries in each region are taken into consideration as well, such as United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Germany, United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Turkey, Russia, France, Poland, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, India, Australia and New Zealand etc.



Have Any Questions Regarding Global mHealth Services Market Report, Ask Our Experts@

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The titled segments and sub-section of the market are illuminated below:

Type (Wellness Service, Prevention, Monitoring Service, Diagnostic Service, Treatment, Information and reference), Application (General Healthcare and Fitness, Medication Information, Remote Monitoring, Collaboration, and Consultancy, Healthcare Management, Health Data and Record Access), End User (Doctors, Patients, Hospitals, Medical Research Centers, Pharmacies)



Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/reports/16791-global-mhealth-services-market



Strategic Points Covered in Table of Content of Global mHealth Services Market:

Chapter 1: Introduction, market driving force product Objective of Study and Research Scope the Global mHealth Services market

Chapter 2: Exclusive Summary  the basic information of the Global mHealth Services Market.

Chapter 3: Displayingthe Market Dynamics- Drivers, Trends and Challenges&Opportunities of the Global mHealth Services

Chapter 4: Presenting the Global mHealth Services Market Factor Analysis, Post COVID Impact Analysis, Porters Five Forces, Supply/Value Chain, PESTEL analysis, Market Entropy, Patent/Trademark Analysis.

Chapter 5: Displaying the by Type, End User and Region/Country 2014-2019

Chapter 6: Evaluating the leading manufacturers of the Global mHealth Services market which consists of its Competitive Landscape, Peer Group Analysis, BCG Matrix & Company Profile

Chapter 7: To evaluate the market by segments, by countries and by Manufacturers/Company with revenue share and sales by key countries in these various regions (2020-2025)

Chapter 8 & 9: Displaying the Appendix, Methodology and Data Source



Finally,Global mHealth Services Market is a valuable source of guidance for individuals and companies.



Research Methodology:

- The top-down and bottom-up approaches are used to estimate and validate the size of the global Global mHealth Services market.

- In order to reach an exhaustive list of functional and relevant players who offer Global mHealth Services various industry classification standards are closely followed such as NAICS, ICB, SIC to penetrate deep in important geographies.

- Thereafter, a thorough validation test is conducted to reach most relevant players specifically having product line i.e. Global mHealth Services.

- In order to make priority list sorting is done based on revenue generation as per latest reporting with the help of paid databases such as Factiva, Bloomberg etc.

- Finally the questionnaire is set and specifically designed to address all the necessities for primary data collection after getting prior appointment. This helps us to gather the data for the players' revenue, profit, products, growth etc.

- Almost 80% of data is collected through primary medium and further validation is done through various secondary sources that includes Regulators, World Bank, Association, Company Website, Annual reports, press releases etc.



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Key questions answered

- Who are the Leading key players and what are their Key Business plans in the Global mHealth Services market?

- What are the key concerns of the five forces analysis of the Global mHealth Services market?

- What are different prospects and threats faced by the dealers in the Global mHealth Services market?

- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?



Customization Service of the Report:-

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has entrusted a part of his power to Kim Yo Jong, the leader's sister, to assist him in coping up with his escalating stress in spearheading the North Korean government, as stated by the South Korea's spy agency.

Kim Yo Jong, 32, is the only close relative of North Korea's dictator with a public role in the government and recently have been recognized for leading a new tougher crusade to pose pressure on Seoul.

The dictator's sister is currently serving as his "defacto second-in-command," although she has not been appointed as his successor, according to the National Intelligence Service.

The Yonhap News Agency reported that the agency was quoted saying during a closed-door orientation with the law makers of South Korea that Kim Yo Jong, who was the first recognized vice department director of the Workers' Party Central Committee, was navigating overall state concerns based on the delegations.

As stated by the intelligence, the shifting of power was intended to alleviate the stress being faced by North Korea's dictator from his ruling and avoid accountability in the event of policy failure.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is currently maintaining his unrestricted power, but a few of it has been turned over little by little, according to the source, stating that the dictator's sister is the only person who shares power with him.

Yonhap reported that Kim Tok Hun, the new premier, and Pak Pong Ju, State Affairs Commission vice chairman, have both presumed power in managing the economic sector, as stated by the agency.

In a report by Reuters, Kim Yo Jong have received widespread acknowledgement ahead of Kim Jong Un's 2019 summit with the US President Donald Trump in Vietnam, when all her efforts including handling an ashtray for Kim Jong Un at a train station during his trip went well.

Read also: Kim Jong Un Orders Distribution of Grains from Private Reserve, Sparking Theories of Emergency in North Korea

In July, Kim Yo Jong gave her direct opinion on diplomacy with Washington in an atypical statement in the state media, stating that she has been granted a special permission by her brother, Kim Jong Un, to watch the US Independence Day celebrations, New York Post reported.

In April, when speculations arose about the health condition of North Korea's dictator, Kim Yo Jong has been considered as a possible candidate to take over their family's dynasty until one of Kim Jong Un's children reaches the right age to rule the country.

But Kim Yo Jong has not been seen on a number of high-level conferences, which included the assembly of the ruling Workers' Party on Wednesday, as reported by the NK News, which is a website based in Seoul that keeps an eye on the North Korean government.

During the Wednesday session, Kim Jong Un admitted that North Korea's economy have been hurt by the US-led sanctions, the devastating floods, and the new coronavirus pandemic.

Kim Jong Un's ruling somewhat scheduled a unwonted congress in January to prepare a five-year development plan with the objective of improving the country's power supply and manufacturing and agricultural production, amidst the economic struggles being faced by the country.



Related article: Kim Jong Un Orders Confiscation of Pet Dogs in North Korea, Dog Meat to Solve Food Shortage?

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
She recently enjoyed a sunny getaway to Barbados with her husband Wayne Rooney, their four sons, her parents, and brother.

And Coleen Rooney showed a major telling sign that the summer holidays are drawing to a close for her young family on Friday, when she shared snaps of her four-year-old son Kit trying on his new school uniform.

The mother-of-four took to Instagram to upload the images, which showed adorable Kit striking a series of poses as he donned his striped blazer, shorts and cap.

A sure sign summer is coming to an end! Coleen Rooney shared snaps of her four-year-old son Kit trying on his new school uniform on Friday

'Uniform try on,' Coleen captioned the snaps, which garnered almost 6,000 likes within an hour of being uploaded on the image-sharing platform.

Earlier this month, Coleen jetted to Barbados for a family holiday with husband Wayne and their sons Kai, 10, Klay, seven, Kit, four and Cass, two, as well as her dad Tony and mum Colette, and brother Joe.

She enjoyed several weeks on the sun-kissed Caribbean island with her family, with current government rules stating those returning to the UK do not have to quarantine after travelling to the country.

Fun in the sun: She recently enjoyed a sunny getaway to Barbados with her husband Wayne Rooney, their four sons Kai, 10, Klay, seven, Kit, four and Cass, two

On Monday, Coleen was spotted heading into the Barbados airport with her family, though husband Wayne was absent, having flown home earlier to begin pre-season training with his current club Derby County.

The sunshine break was no doubt needed for Coleen, who is currently engaged in an epic WAG war with Rebekah Vardy after she accused her of leaking stories to the press last year, a claim Rebekah vehemently denies.

Coleen was also accused of leaking stories to the press by Rebekah earlier this month, after she told in a bombshell legal document how she had been left suicidal by the accusation that she had leaked stories about Coleen and her family.

She also claimed in the document drawn up for her libel battle against Coleen that the stress of the scandal had left her fearful of losing her unborn baby and suffering panic attacks that made her too scared to leave her home.

Dapper gent: The mother-of-four took to Instagram to upload the images, which showed adorable Kit striking a series of poses as he donned his striped blazer, shorts and cap

The I'm A Celeb star complained of being made a 'scapegoat' by her rival seeking to blame her for stories appearing when in the past Coleen had approved of her friends leaking gossip about her.

The document says Rebekah believes she 'has deliberately been made a scapegoat (sic) by the Defendant (Coleen) for past 'leaked' stories.'

It points to previous stories about Coleen and Wayne with some 'in particular about their marriage, which have in fact come from the Defendant's friends, at times even with the Defendant's approval.'

Rebekah describes in her document how Coleen's public denunciation of her on Instagram while she was seven months pregnant had 'gravely injured her reputation'.

Detailing how Coleen had 'caused her enormous distress and very extreme embarrassment', she disclosed how she had been bombarded with abuse on social media.

Sunny: During their trip to the Caribbean, Coleen shared a stream of snaps of their adventures
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 07:02:39|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Humanitarians are responding to monsoon flooding and landslides in Asia that are causing hundreds of casualties, the displacement of millions of people and the destruction of infrastructure, a UN spokesman said on Thursday.

"These natural disasters are hitting countries already facing the COVID-19 pandemic and the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The United Nations, the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations are supporting government-led responses in several countries despite challenges in travel and access to people in need, due to COVID-19, Dujarric said.

"In Bangladesh, our colleagues tell us that humanitarian organizations are providing shelter and rapid food assistance in Cox's Bazar, as well as repairs to damaged water, sanitation and education facilities," the spokesman said.

"In Pakistan, we are monitoring the situation in case support from the UN is required," he told correspondents at a virtual, regular briefing.

"In Nepal and China, authorities are continuing their search and rescue operations, in conjunction with humanitarian organizations," Dujarric said.

A strong monsoon season, beginning in June, unleashed particularly heavy rains across a swath of South and East Asia this year. Enditem
A 23-year-old man drove 1,700 miles from Texas to California to kill an 18-year-old boy before racing back home and taking his own life as cops closed in on him - with police investigating whether an online gaming dispute sparked the violence.

Matthew Thane, 18, was shot and killed just before 6am outside him home by a man wearing a helmet and jeans, the Flower Mound Police Department in Texas said.

An unnamed Bay Area police official told The Mercury News that the suspect set a propane tank on fire outside Thane's house to lure him outside to his death.

Early in the investigation, detectives were led to an 'acquaintance' of Thanes, whom he had met through online gaming.

A look through his cellphone data revealed that the man - who has not yet been named by police - traveled from his home in Pleasanton, California, to Flower Mound, Texas, and then back home, all within 72 hours.

Online gamer Matthew Thane, 18, was shot and killed at his home in Flower Mound, California, early Tuesday morning by his alleged rival

Thane was shot at his home in Flower Mound, Texas, after his attacked set a propane tank on fire to lure him outside

At around 11pm on Wednesday, police arrived at the 23-year-old suspect's home on Huntswood Home in Pleasanton to execute a search warrant, leading to a standoff.

As SWAT officers were trying to get the man to come out, he reportedly shot himself dead.

Thane was known in the online gaming community as 'JPN' or 'Japan,' and played the Call of Duty game

According to police, a subsequent search of his home uncovered evidence connecting him to Thane's killing.

The suspects identity and official cause of death is pending the Alameda County Coroners Bureau release, which could take up to several days.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help Thane's family with his funeral expenses.

The description of the fundraiser said that 'Matthew never failed to put a smile on someones face and brighten their day. He was such an unique character, one of a kind. Lets come together and support his family in this time of need.'

According to social media posts from those who knew him, Thane was known in the online gaming community as 'JPN' or 'Japan,' and played the Call of Duty game.

'RIP Matthew Thane. nothing but love and thoughts and prayers to this family who were such amazing neighbors and friends to me growing up,' one tweet read. 'This is an unbelievable tragedy.'

Thane is survived by his parents and two sisters.
Geneva: The World Health Organisation hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be shorter than the 1918 Spanish flu and last less than two years, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, if the world unites and succeeds in finding a vaccine..

The WHO has always been cautious about giving estimates on how quickly the pandemic can be dealt with while there is no proven vaccine.

A worker disinfects a church in Seoul, South Korea, amid fears of an outbreak there. Credit:Getty Images

Tedros said the 1918 Spanish flu "took two years to stop".

"And in our situation now with more technology, and of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading, it can move fast because we are more connected now," he told a briefing in Geneva.
Vice President Mike Pence told "CBS This Morning" on Friday that he doesn't "know anything about" the QAnon conspiracy theory, adding that he dismisses it "out of hand" when pressed.

Why it matters: President Trump said earlier this week that he does not know much about QAnon, but said its supporters "are people that love our country," drawing a wave of controversy.

QAnon centers on the baseless idea that some portion of America's elite are cannibals and pedophiles, engaged in a global fight to take down Trump via the "deep state."

A number of QAnon believers have won GOP congressional primaries, most notably Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Trump congratulated Greene on the win despite her record of backing QAnon and espousing racist and Islamophobic remarks.

The big picture: Trump's statements this week prompted a number of prominent Republicans to speak out publicly against QAnon, including Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen. Ben Sasse, Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Jeb Bush.
Those conch shells as referenced in accompanying photo, have been replaced by boulders.

According to a source on the island, it appears as if the coastal protection works undertaken by Kelectric Co. Ltd. at Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau, have come to an end.





Readers will recall that in its issue of Friday 31st July, 2020, THE VINCENTIAN highlighted that the company as referenced had been awarded a contract to the tune of EC$483,851, to effect remedial work to curb ongoing erosion at the idyllic and world famous Salt Whistle Bay.





Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves had described the work to be undertaken as "temporary.





The works, as it was understood, involved the placement of boulders along a stretch of the Bay where residents, in response to a prolonged silence on the part of the authorities to requests for something to be done, had begun to place conch shells in an attempt to at least slow the rate of erosion, especially as it neared the hurricane season.





Works by Kelectric Co. Ltd. are reported to have begun some two weeks or so ago with three (3) workers - two (2) front end loader operators and one (1) truck driver, and an equivalent number of loaders and trucks.





No Mayreau resident, it is reported, was employed on the project.





Residents reported that boulders used in the Salt Whistle Bay project as undertaken by Kelectric, were taken from those already on the island for use in a proposed marina project  a private investment in which Kelectrics Managing Director, Kelly Glass, is said to have an interest.





As we go to press, reports are that the truck and front end loaders used in the Salt Whistle Bay project have since been taken off the island.





A more permanent resolution to the ongoing threat of erosion at Salt Whistle Bay is said to be forthcoming and towards this end, the Finance Minister has spoken of ongoing studies with hydrologists and marine engineers, but no mention of involvement of any Mayreau resident(s) in this period of study and consultation.
A health evaluation of Delaware County completed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health centered on the need for a county health department here as its findings were discussed in a virtual town hall Thursday.

The virtual town hall, hosted by Delaware County Council and the Foundation for Delaware County, in conjunction with WHYY, came a day after county council approved requesting proposals to conduct an economic impact study on the formation of a county health department that will report, among other items, the cost of establishment.

The health and safety of our residents is councils top priority, county council Vice Chairman Dr. Monica Taylor said. Unlike our neighboring counties of Montgomery, Chester and Philadelphia, Delaware County does not have a county health department. We have seen concerning trends in public health through the years. The COVID-19 pandemic served as yet another example of how critical a county health department is to a densely populated county like ours.

In July 2019, county council unanimously the $91,877.26 hire of Johns Hopkins Universitys Bloomberg School of Public Health to evaluate the delivery of health and public health services in the county. The result was the 158-page report entitled Examination of Health and Public Health Service Delivery in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

In it, it explained how the focus was initially on the assessment of health-related services in the county and changed along with the composition of Delaware County Council after the November election to focus on the creation of a county health department.

Beth Resnick, assistant dean for public health practice for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, presented a summary of the findings of the study, which collected data prior to COVID-19. The findings we have, I think, are amplified even further based on the pandemic and then the aftermath of people realizing the importance of a public health infrastructure, she said.

To gather community input, they had a community survey, four focus groups of 16 to 18 people each, a Multicultural Community Family Services community convening of 50 community members and 23 in-depth interviews from various sectors.

The community survey had 1,795 respondents, most of whom where white women between 41 and 70 years old who lived in relatively affluent areas. The study itself said these respondents were not completely representative of the countys overall population, although presenter Grace Gorenflo of Gorenflo Consulting said when the department is staffed, it will include residents from varied sections of the county.

With the last study being completed a decade ago, this evaluation found areas of trend improvement in infant mortality rates, receipt of first trimester prenatal care, violent crime offenses, self-reported poor mental health and binge drinking.

I want to be clear, Resnick said, this doesnt mean that everythings great in these areas. In fact, in some of these areas, Delaware County may be lagging behind some of your neighboring counties, but the fact is that this is where when we looked over time there was an improvement in these indicator areas.

Areas that worsened included low birth weight babies, asthma, cardiovascular disease, depression, suicide, chlamydia, gonorrhea, drug-induced as well as firearm related deaths and prevalence of adults reporting fair or poor health.

In fact, Gorenflo said the top three causes of death in Delaware County were the same as those in the nation: Heart disease, cancer and stroke. She added that the fourth highest cause of death among Blacks in Delaware County is assault/homicide, contrasted to being 20th for whites.

One of the jobs of a local health department, she explained would be to follow these and other trends throughout the community, then taking an individual approach and working with others to address them.

Taylor said a strategic plan for a county health department is anticipated to be completed in December with a county Board of Health to be created in the first few months of 2021. A director for the health department is expected to be hired in the spring of 2021, with staff being hired in the summer and fall of next year.

By the end of 2021, we hope, and our goal is, to have a Delaware County Health Department that is operational, she said. In the coming months, we will continue to move forward with the timeline and plans to launch a Delaware County Health Department.

A copy of the Johns Hopkins report can be found at delcopa.gov or delcofoundation.org.
Some American taxpayers receive unpaid balance notices from the Internal Revenue Service even if they have already paid their due.

This should not cause worry immediately. The problem might not be on your part.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass, said that there were 12 million unopened mails in their offices at one point this summer.

Many IRS workers and employees were told to work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic earlier this spring.

This caused the current pile up in their mails.

The correspondence included paper returns and payments remitted to the federal government to pay taxes owed.

IRS workers are now working through the backlog.

With this, taxpayers are only finding out that the check they have sent to the IRS is still in the pile of other unopened emails.

Kathryn Morgan, an enrolled agent at Puzzled by Taxes in Haughton, Louisiana, said they are freaking, and many payments are sitting in tractor-trailer full of mail.

Morgan added that the IRS still has a huge mail backlog.

She said that one of her clients filed his 2019 income tax return online. He chose to send a cashier's check to the IRS.

The bank writing the check said that it had to be used within the 60-day-period. However, the time the agency got the check, it was already expired.

"He had to get another cashier's check and the whole time he's accruing penalties and interest," Morgan was quoted.

Mail Backlog

Lawmakers have urged the IRS to temporarily stop sending notices to the files, which may be caught up in the backlog.

"Instead of sending potentially erroneous notices, [House Ways and Means chairman] Neal suggested the IRS establish an online portal for taxpayers to alert the IRS that they previously had mailed their tax payments," the committee said through a statement.

Neal said that the notices put unnecessary stress on taxpayers. He added that taxpayers should contact the IRS for assistance upon receipt.

The IRS said they know about the backlog and process mailed payments as of the day they were received, rather than the day they were processed.

Taxpayers who had an expired check in the IRS mail backlog will have relief from bad check penalties, as long as the checks were sent on the deadline for the 2019 tax returns and payments.

The deadline was between Mar. 1 and Jul. 15.

IRS Spokesman, Eric Smith, said that interest and penalties may still apply to some institutions, but individuals who file on time will be exempted from that.

The individual taxpayers will be exempted as long as they pay the full amount due and on time.

IRS Issues

Meanwhile, if you have a payment to make and you are worried that it might go missing, electronic payment options are available.

You can consider paying your taxes directly from your checking or savings account, or a same-day wire from your bank.

Electronic Funds Withdrawal can also be made, and the IRS does not charge a fee to use EFW. However, your bank might.

American taxpayers can also pay by debit or credit card or through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System.

If you are still in doubt, you can contact your tax professional to help you track down your payments.

Check these out:

IRS Launches a New Tracking Tool to Help Americans Know When to Expect Their Stimulus Check

IRS to Resolve Stimulus Check Errors for Qualified Recipients

IRS to Send Tax Refund, Interest Checks to Taxpayers Who Filed on Time
Goldman Sans had to be more than just practical. It had to have just the right amount of personality. The design challenge was to make something distinctive enough to be worthy of existing without being so quirky that it got annoying over time, said Steve Turbek, head of user experience at Goldman Sachs, who was in charge of the font project. The typeface gets funky in characters less likely to show up on a spreadsheet: The & and @ characters are almost obscenely curvy, and an alternate lowercase g is a wacky, double-story affair.

This dual life is a lot to ask from a font: distinctive enough to please aesthetes, neutral enough to include in paperwork for an initial public offering.

What Im lacking is any connective tissue to Goldman Sachs as a company, said Mike Abbink, a font designer. Im finding very little formal relationships to a historical point of view. Its focused more on functional requirements, so its missing life to me.

Mr. Abbink created IBM Plex for the Armonk, N.Y., tech giant in 2017  a typeface that conveys the melding of man with machine by combining the industrial revolution vibes of Franklin Gothic, the softness of Gill Sans and the perfection of Helvetica Neue. Other corporate fonts try to include nods to heritage and branding, however esoteric: The curve of Netflix Sanss t pays homage to CinemaScope, for example, and the angles of YouTube Sanss capital letters are meant to echo the platforms classic play button.

By the standards of banking, Goldman Sans feels slightly casual. Maybe thats intentional: a font that would be careful with your money, but not so careful that you didnt beat the market. Its a sans serif, forgoing the flourishes found at the ends of letters in typefaces like Imperial, the stately font of this newspaper.

Goldman Sans is a typeface that does not wear a tie. Its a casual Friday, said an unimpressed Erik Spiekermann, the first typeface designer to be elected into the European Design Awards Hall of Fame. (Theres some history between Mr. Spiekermann and Goldmans design firm: Dalton Maag was hired to replace the font he created for Nokia.)

Mr. Spiekermann said he considered Goldman Sans well constructed, but  like many corporate fonts  boring and derivative.
Supporters cheer from their cars as Joe Biden and his wife Jill are seen on a huge monitor (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Joe Biden has accepted the Democratic presidential nomination with a vow to be a unifying ally of the light who would move an America in crisis past the chaos of President Donald Trumps tenure.

In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Mr Biden spoke on Thursday both of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life.

Virtually every sentence of his 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast to the Republican incumbent.

Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. lll be an ally of the light, not the darkness, Mr Biden said.

Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

For Mr Biden, 77, the final night of the Democratic National Convention was bittersweet. He accepted a nomination that had eluded him for over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

But coronavirus denied him the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Mr Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

Afterwards, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena where supporters waited in a car park, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the event.

Expand Close Joe Biden hugs his wife Jill Biden during the Democratic National Convention (Andrew Harnik/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Joe Biden hugs his wife Jill Biden during the Democratic National Convention (Andrew Harnik/AP)

The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Donald Trump in November.

Mr Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Bidens mental capacity and calls him Slow Joe, but with the nation watching, he was firm and clear.

Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energise his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Mr Biden has common decency.

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in US history, said Mr Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, a 38-year-old former mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Mr Biden came out in favour of same-sex marriage as vice president even before former president Barack Obama.

Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans, Mr Buttigieg said.

Its the struggle to call out what is good for every American.

Above all, Mr Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Mr Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Mr Bidens positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by Mr Obama and others the night before.

Expand Close Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris (Andrew Harnik/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris (Andrew Harnik/AP)

The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Mr Trump is re-elected, while Mr Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Mr Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy.

They have drawn a sharp contrast with Mr Trumps policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centred and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nations mounting crises and policy challenges.

Mr Bidens call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Mr Trump down, that Mr Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for.

Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Mr Bidens background before he began serving as Mr Obamas vice president in 2008.

Thursdays convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.

I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes, Mr Biden said. He added: I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.

As a schoolboy, he was mocked for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. Five years ago, he buried his eldest son who had suffered from cancer.

Mr Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Mr Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominees approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition he is courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.
D etectives are hunting eight suspects after officers were pelted with "bricks and missiles" while trying to break up an illegal lockdown music event in west London.

The clashes broke out after officers were called to Havelock Close, White City, on July 3 to reports of a party on an estate.

Revellers soon "became hostile" and some began throwing items including "bricks and other missiles", causing officers to retreat and regroup.

Riot police returned to the estate and managed to disperse the crowd amid further violence. A Dispersal Zone was authorised and a section 60 was put in place allowing police to stop and search.

Police have released images of people they would like to speak with / Metropolitan Police

Eleven officers were injured and two suffered broken bones.

There have been no arrests. On Friday detectives released photos of eight men they want to speak to in connection with the violence.

Detective Sergeant Karl Lewis, Central West CID, said: On that night officers were responding to multiple calls from residents to reports of a large gathering, noise, anti-social behaviour and violence.

"The hostility and violence they were met with is absolutely unacceptable.

White City: Police attacked trying to break up illegal rave

Officers encountered items including bricks and bottles being thrown at them. An investigation is ongoing and we are keen to hear from anyone who can identify any of the persons pictured.

A Met Police spokesman warned that party-goers attending unlicensed music events are "putting themselves at risk" and these events often spawn anti-social behaviour and violence.

He said: "As soon as police receive information on a UME, we will work with organisers and local authorities to shut down events at the earliest opportunity.

"If organisers fail to comply, police will use legislation to seize sound systems and laptops.

"Legislation is also used to disperse crowds and ultimately make arrests if people fail to comply."

Anyone who can identify any of the persons pictured is asked to call 101 quoting CRIS 6014388/20. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
Mariska Hargitay is shining a light on the hundreds of thousands of rape kits that sit untested across the United States.

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, the actress turned activist endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president during a speech at the virtual Democratic National Convention. Hargitay appeared alongside CEO and President of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Ruth Glenn and sexual assault survivor Carly Dryden to advocate for leadership that believes a "woman's life is worth fighting for."

"When I started doing research to play Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU over 20 years ago," Hargitay shared, "I was shocked to find out how many people, including children, experience physical or sexual abuse. The statistics fueled my resolve, and I committed myself to the movement to end this violence."

Glenn urged Congress to "reauthorize and enhance" the Violence Against Women Act, which then-Senator Biden wrote and introduced in 1990. Hargitay said it's this commitment to the cause that helped inspire her to establish the Joyful Heart Foundation, which aims to educate and empower survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.

Stars Vote in the 2020 Presidential Election

"I created the Joyful Heart Foundation to help survivors heal, and to change the way our society responds to sexual violence," she said. "The vice president has worked tirelessly by our side to end the backlog of hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits. And our work will continue because testing kits not only makes our country safer, but it sends a vital message to survivors that what happened to them matters."

Kerry Washington hosted the third night of the DNC, which will conclude Thursday, Aug. 20.

Biden's newly picked running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, as well as former President Barack Obama are expected to address voters before the night is over. The Republican National Convention will begin Monday, Aug. 24 through Thursday, Aug. 27.
On August 19, a former FBI lawyer pleaded guilty to doctoring a document that was connected to the secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser during the Russian investigation.

Doctored documents

The ex-lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, is the first official to be charged in a special Justice Department review of the investigation of the Russian probe. The Russian probe was the connection between President Donald Trump and Russia during the presidential campaign in 2016.

Attorney General William Barr appointed U.S attorney in Connecticut, John Durham, to scrutinize the decisions made by officials during the Russian probe, as reported by USA Today.

Clinesmith admitted that he made a single false statement and that he doctored an email that the FBI relied on as it sought court approval to dig dirt on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page back in 2017.

Also Read: Iran Paid Bounties to Taliban to Target US Troops According to US Intelligence

The sentencing guidelines call for up to six months in prison, but the punishment is solely up to U.S District Judge James Boasberg, who accepted the plea of the ex-lawyer.

The sentencing was originally scheduled for December 10, 2019. Before an internal disciplinary process was fully completed, Clinesmith resigned from the FBI, as reported by CBS News.

The case revealed broader problems with the FBI's surveillance applications on Page, an issue that has animated critics of the Russia investigation for so long.

The charging documents were filed on August 14, and it stated that Clinesmith altered an email that he received in June 2017 from another government agency to state that Page was not a source for that agency. He then proceeded to forward it to his colleague.

The document does not state which agency he forwarded the email to, but Page has publicly stated that he had worked as a source for the CIA.

The impact of Clinesmith's lie

The FBI mostly relied on the representation of Clinesmith in the email when it was given its fourth and final application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to investigate on Page on suspicions that he could be working for Russia, as reported by The Washington Post.

Any information about Page's connection with another government agency would have been important to disclose to the FISA court. It could have been helpful in explaining or reframing Page's interactions with Russians.

Clinesmith mostly answered basic questions from the judge with very brief responses. He went on to elaborate on the nature of his conduct in order to clarify it and to make clear that he believed the information that he had included in the email was accurate at the time that he made changes with the message.

Justin Shur, Clinesmith's attorney, said in a statement that Clinesmith regretted his actions and had not intended to mislead the court or his colleagues.

In December 2019, a Justice Department inspector general report found errors and omissions in the four applications that the FBI submitted to eavesdrop on Page.

The inspector said that officials failed to update the court after receiving new information that undercut the original premise that Page may have been an agent of a "foreign power."

On August 18, a Senate intelligence committee examined the connection between Trump aides and Russia, and they also identified flaws in the FBI's surveillance, including its reliance on research that was compiled by a former British spy who was funded by the Democrats.

Meanwhile, Page was never charged, and he has since denied any wrongdoing. As for Durham, it is still not clear what additional charges he may face.

Related Article: Judge Orders President Trump's Team to Produce Evidence of Voter Fraud in Pennsylvania

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
In a file photo, armed North Korean soldiers patrol the banks of Yalu River near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong.

North Korea has deployed Special Forces soldiers and guards in four layers along the Sino-Korean border in Ryanggang province to prevent illegal crossings during the coronavirus pandemic and to keep watch over regular border guards to rein in on smuggling, sources from the area told RFA.

RFA reported earlier this month that the 1,500 Special Forces soldiers were deployed to Ryanggang on August 2. Their presence swiftly created a tense atmosphere among not only local residents but also border guards, who lost opportunities to squeeze bribes out of local traders.

Since Aug. 5, we have quadrupled our border security over the North Korea-China border area in Ryanggang Province, a military source in Ryanggang province told RFA on Thursday.

The source called the deployment a four-point combat position that organizes the zone near the border into four layered areas of surveillance responsibility.

Those trying to cross into China under cover of night would need to first navigate across four separate battle lines before reaching the Yalu river border.

From 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., border guards defend the first line and the Special Forces guard the second line. At night after 8:00 p.m., they guard all four lines, the source said.

The border guards man the first and the third lines, and the Special Forces guard the second and the fourth lines. The border guards and the special forces also keep a watchful eye on each other while they are on duty, the source added.

The source said the Special Forces were granted the power to enforce nighttime movement restrictions on the areas residents.

Even officials in the border area are under their control in this tense atmosphere, except in cases where they [must travel] as a matter of national affairs, the source said.

Ever since the Special Forces soldiers were deployed [here], the border guards have been made to stop their side jobs and any other daytime work, and they are expected to rest during the day. They are strictly not allowed to do any other activities or rest while they are on night duty.

North Korean government salaries are not enough to live on, so citizens turn to side-hustles to make ends meet.

Many border guards had been making money in the daytime running businesses, then using their night shifts for rest. Others who actually did rest in the daytime had been engaging in economic activities, including those related to smuggling, at nighttime.

Illegally moving goods in and out of China has been the lifeblood of North Koreas nascent market economy, especially in the face of U.S. and U.N. sanctions aimed at depriving Pyongyang of cash and resources for its nuclear and missile programs.

Since the two countries closed their borders in January over coronavirus concerns, legitimate trade has been effectively cut off, leaving large swathes of the population struggling to survive, and more eager to smuggle despite the ongoing pandemic.

Watching the watchers

Another source, a Ryanggang resident who requested anonymity for security reasons, confirmed to RFA that border security had quadrupled in the area after the arrival of the Special Forces.

The 25th border guard brigade and the special forces divided the border area into four zones 100 meters (about 110 yards) apart, the second source said.

Nobody can get out of the house after 8:00 p.m. since the Special Forces arrived, the second source said.

In addition, the security department and the police in the area have strengthened patrols in each neighborhood watch unit. The situation is so tense that we dont even see the shadows of people in the border area villages at night, the second source said.

The Ryanggang resident said that the presence of the Special Forces has not only made life hard for the residents, but for the border guards as well.

The border guards used to eat well and they worked under better conditions than soldiers in other regions, but now they are in more difficult situations than those in front-line military units in Kangwon province, the second source said.

Kangwon province straddles the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas and is a hardship post for soldiersin part because the remote area offers fewer chances to extract bribes from local residents compared to the busy Sino-Korean border.

But now the border guards in Ryanggang have been stripped of this opportunity with the arrival of the Special Forces, according to the second source.

It has become difficult for border guards to work in collusion with escape brokers [who help refugees flee to China] in exchange for bribes, or overlook the movement of residents to receive money and food, the second source said.

There have been several measures to tighten security at the North Korea-China border in the past, but this is the first time that residents have been under strict control like this. People here in the border areas of Ryanggang province suffer from daily hardships because of these measures.

Sources say the increased attention on the Sino-Korean border is a result of Kim Jong Uns personal orders to step up efforts to enhance quarantine measures.

State media reported that at a recent meeting of the Political Bureau, the North Korean leader stressed that due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the country should refuse outside aid intended to assist areas devastated by floods, and the porous border with China should be closed more tightly.

Reported by Sewon Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
The pandemic has burst the holiday rental bubble that had been forming at great speed before the crisis. A report published by the Andalusian association of tourist accommodation (AVVA) states that as many as 4,000 properties registered as tourist accommodation in the province of Malaga will move into long-term rentals due to the current tourism crisis.

The study states that between six and ten per cent of owners are looking for tenants outside the tourism industry.

One owner, who only wished to be identified as Jaime, said he would wait until after the summer, although the quarantine imposed by the UK on travellers from Spain has blown his plans to recover some lost income during the peak summer season.

"Bookings were relatively good for August, all things considered, but since the UK's decision [to impose quarantine] all I'm getting are cancellations," he said.

He warned, however, that now is not the best time to be looking for long-term tenants either.

"We've all helped to increase the supply of flats for rent and so prices are falling, at a time when there is a downward trend in any case due to the financial situation that the majority of families are going through," he said.

The president of AVVA, Carlos Perez-Lanzac, said that along with the owners who have already decided to move to the residential market, there is another large group who have opted to leave their properties empty for a year in the hope that the recovery of the tourism industry will be fast.

"People have also chosen this alternative for fear of the Urban Rentals Law, which establishes a contract period of five years; they are also afraid of being in a situation of tenants not paying and the long legal process for eviction," he explained.

He added that sources from the real estate industry had said that rental default had increase by 350% in the traditional market.

For those choosing to stick to holiday rentals, the scenario is not good. Hopes placed on the summer have been shattered, with last-minute cancellations increasing. And that is without the usual competition from holiday homes owned by foreigners, many of whom have decided to spend the summer in their own properties due to the health crisis, rather than renting them out and travelling elsewhere.

Perez-Lanzac said that occupancy of holiday lets in July was 36%, bearing in mind that only around 70% of registered properties were operational. Last year, with 100% of properties on the market, occupancy rates were between 79% and 82%.

Forecasts for August say that among the properties still up for holiday rental, occupancy will be between 40% and 45%

Offering flexibility in the current situation has turned into a double-edged sword for property owners. They need to encourage tourists to make bookings, but this also allows them to cancel up to 48 hours before their arrival date at no cost.

"This volatility complicates our work a great deal. There's no margin for reaction," said Perez-Lanzac.

With few bookings, panicking owners have started to drop their prices. This summer it is up to 30% cheaper to rent a holiday home on the Costa del Sol than last year.

This figure could be even higher for longer holiday rentals.

"We have to encourage people not to panic because we are now in August and there's still the last part of the year to come," said the AVVA president.

It is this scenario that is pushing owners to turn to the long-term residential rentals sector. AVVA has said that key real estate sources such as Idealista or Pisos.com report that Malaga province has gone from having 700 flats available for long-term rent to 2,000 due to the tourism crisis.

The pandemic has also significantly changed the profile of the average holiday rental customer on the Costa del Sol. The majority are now Spanish tourists, who book at the last minute.

In terms of international visitors, Perez-Lanzac described a new trend of groups of friends or relatives from outside Spain making bookings just three days in advance, when this type of rental would normally be decided six months ahead.

There is also a larger number of reservations being made by professionals who come to the area for a couple of weeks for work reasons, something unheard-of in the month of August. "This gives us hope that this type of client will increase from September and help soften the damage caused in the summer," said the AVVA president.
Sadie Robertsons husband comes to her defense after she's mocked at speaking engagement

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"Duck Dynasty" star Sadie Robertson publicly praised her husband, Christian Huff, who came to her defense after she was mocked at a speaking engagement.



The Christian author and speaker took to Instagram on Monday to share the detail of what her husband did after two men mocked her for crying during a speech in which she shared a hurtful incident that happened in her life.

"HUGE LOVE," she began in the post that includes a photo of her and her husband standing in a field. "Let me tell you girls. Wait for the guy that you dont have to stand up to, but that stands up for you."

The former reality TV star explained that she was speaking to a group of people about a time when she was really hurt by a man she was in a relationship with. As she shared the story, she began to cry.

It was the first time I had ever shared this detail of what happened publicly, Robertson explained.

Then all of a sudden, two guys in the room started to laugh as I was sharing the story.

I called them out by saying, 'you laugh, but its these kinds of things that ruin a girl,'" The Live author revealed, adding, "I quickly realized I wasnt the only one who stood up for myself. This husband of mine took them outside, and no, did not hit them, but called them to be better men. He called them to maturity and to greatness."

The young speaker advised her millions of followers not to cancel people or bash them when they act immaturely, but instead enlighten them.

There are both types of guys and girls out there, and every guy and girl has the opportunity to mature and be better, the New York Times bestselling author maintained.

Robertson ended her post by honoring her husbands Christian values.

This man is a good one. He will be the first to tell you he used to be like those two guys, but Jesus called him to greater and He rose to the call. You can too, she concluded.

Robertson and Huff got married last November at the Robertson's family home in Louisiana. The ceremony was officiated by the founding pastor of Passion City Church, Louie Giglio, who described the event as a God-breathed moment.

Over 600 guests attended the ceremony. Among those present were celebrities Candace Cameron Bure, star of Fuller House, and former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor Alfonso Ribeiro.
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On Alhambra Unified's first day of school last week, Vivien Watts saw a teenager biking around a grab-and-go meal site.

He saw they were handing out meals, so he pulled over and asked, "Are these meals free?" she said.

If he had asked last spring -- or even over the summer -- the answer to that question would have been yes. But because he asked this school year, Watts said the food staff were required to answer his question with a question of their own: "Are you a student here?"

Watts, the executive director of Alhambra Unified's Food and Nutrition Services, said she remembers that moment vividly -- and it didn't feel good.

"I just feel bad about that kid. He was a skinny kid, you know, he could use a meal," she explained. "But because he wasn't a student of that school, we have to turn him away."

How could that be, when for months, schools and districts around Southern California have been distributing millions of grab-and-go meals?

The answer lies in the complicated rules governing school nutrition.

Even when there isn't a pandemic, a lot of students depend on schools for healthy food. Take Alhambra Unified, where Watts works, for example: About 60% of the district's students qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on need.

Normally, the district gets reimbursed for meals served to those students through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program. (Other kids can get food too, they just have to pay for it themselves.)

"During normal times, people pretty much know their status and they know if they qualify, they should apply for meals," Watts said.

But of course, this pandemic has not been a normal time.

As a result, a lot of people might not know if they'll still have a job tomorrow, so they might not be prepared to apply for this assistance -- or even know that it exists, she said.

And even if they do, Watts added, the eligibility is determined by a federal scale, so families in California where the cost of living is high could still struggle to get food on the table even if they don't technically qualify for the assistance.

So when schools closed their campuses to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the spring, Watts and her team changed up their entire food service operation.

Meals -- like the grilled chicken caesar salads and oranges for lunch on Wednesdays and the cinnamon rolls and apple sauce for breakfast on Fridays -- were packaged to be grab-and-go. She and her staff gave them out for free to any kid who asked for one -- even if they didn't qualify for a free meal based on their family's income.

And this wasn't just an Alhambra thing. Many districts and charter schools around Southern California advertised these free grab-and-go meals for kids. As of Thursday, the Los Angeles Unified School District alone had handed out nearly 55 million meals to students and adults.

Helping those most in need.

Ayudando a los mas necesitados. pic.twitter.com/NkRFgBTMkQ  Austin Beutner (@AustinLASchools) August 20, 2020

School districts were able to offer meals to more kids because, after school campuses closed in March, the USDA waived some of the normal rules governing these school meal programs.

Waiving the normal rules regarding area eligibility and summer meal programs meant they could "in essence, operate a universal meal program for all students," said Kristin Hilleman, California School Nutrition Association chair of public policy and legislation.

With that flexibility, Stephanie Conde with Arts in Action Community Charter Schools in East L.A. said she went from serving about 750 meals a day to students at school to serving more than 5,000 meals a day to kids in the community, even if they weren't students at her schools. Her team was also able to give food to adults with disabilities.

She had the resources, the staff, and the permission needed to help.

"The community heard that we were giving out food," Conde said. "And we were able to broaden our reach and help out the rest of the community."

And if people in need couldn't get to a distribution spot, staff would deliver the meals to them, contact-free.

"I love this community. I am from this community. And I can see myself and a lot of our students in a lot of our families," Conde said. "At least securing meals for them, I think, we have been able to take a burden off a lot of moms, parents, and grandparents."

Capistrano Unified staff prepare and distribute grab-and-go meals during the COVID-19 campus closures. (Courtesy of Capistrano Unified School District)

Hilleman, who also heads up Food and Nutrition Services for Orange County's largest district, Capistrano Unified, gets emotional when she thinks about the impact these meals have made -- even in her district, which is more affluent.

"Having the ability to go pick up meals, see their school, see some of the cashiers, the cafeteria workers, even maybe see a teacher walking by on a school campus, brings a sense of normality for them," she said.

But those waivers that made all this possible for all kids had end dates, and despite the fact the pandemic continues to affect every aspect of life, not all of them have been extended through this school year.

Rep. Bobby Scott from Virginia has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would make all students eligible for free meals this school year.

But Hilleman admits that while "universal free meals would be amazing, it is most likely not going to be something that occurs." Instead, she and other school nutrition advocates have focused on the waivers.

While some have been extended through the end of this school year, the area eligibility waiver and the waivers that allowed schools to feed kids under the Summer Food Service Program and the National School Lunch Program Seamless Summer Option have not. (On Aug. 20, the USDA did extend the area eligibility waiver through Sept. 30 or the end of a district's summer semester, whichever comes first).

Members of Congress had written letters to each other, and to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, about this.

In one signed by Scott and Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, they argue extending the waivers would allow schools to spend less time on paperwork, and instead focus resources on getting food to kids.

According to Arts in Action Community Charter Schools, staff have distributed more than 100,000 meals to the community. (Courtesy of Arts in Action Community Charter Schools)

"If the Department truly intends to live up to its motto to 'Do right and feed everyone,' the Department must take every action possible to respond to this crisis," they wrote.

Here in California, officials with the state Department of Education declined an interview, but wrote in an email that they've asked the federal government for permission to continue the summer rules through the school year, too.

The USDA said in a statement that it will "look at all options within our statutory and budget authority."

In the meantime, "it's like the pause button has been hit," Hilleman said.

And now, Watts in Alhambra, Conde in East L.A., Hilleman in South Orange County -- and their equivalents in schools and districts around the state and country -- have the difficult task of figuring out how to feed hungry students while also abiding by the rules.

For many districts and charters, that means they might have to ask for student names or IDs, check their eligibility, and maybe even charge students the reduced meal price (40 cents) or the full cost (around $3).

It also involves explaining to community members how -- and why -- things are changing.

Conde said she and her team have been trying to get the word out early.

"We've been giving them information about food banks and what they can do, but they're a little bit upset we are no longer going to continue," she said. "They don't understand why."

The state's largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, says it has distributed nearly 55 million free meals to students and adults in need since March. The district fundraised around this effort and other assistance for families, raising $22 million.

Still, LAUSD worried about how it would fund the meal distribution, which it offered to anyone "no questions asked." Superintendent Austin Beutner has pressured the city, county, and state to help the district cover the cost of feeding hungry families.

In this year's "Back to School" guide, LAUSD explained it will continue to distribute two free meals "to students and community members who need them while students are learning in virtual classrooms."

Starting on Monday, August 24, Grab & Go Food Centers will change their hours of operation. The food centers will be open Monday through Friday from 7 to 10 am. This will allow students and families to have ample time to pick up their meals and eat before online classes begin. pic.twitter.com/MFCLzJTW9Z  Los Angeles Unified (@LASchools) August 21, 2020

There is a notable change, though: barcodes.

Whoever goes to one of the more than 60 sites between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. to pick up these meals on behalf of students is supposed to bring those students' assigned barcodes -- though adults "do not need a barcode to pick up meals."

I asked LAUSD to explain what this means and how these barcodes will be used, but the district did not respond by publication time.

Alhambra Unified staff distribute meals at a grab-and-go meal site. (Courtesy of Alhambra Unified School District)

I asked Alhambra Unified's Vivien Watts what she'd say to people who don't think schools should be in the business of food relief.

"What people don't understand is that ... taxpayers are already paying for that," she said. "But isn't it nice if we can ... instead of spending money on all this paperwork or processing, verification, auditing part, go back to putting the money to the food so kids can get better food and we can feed more kids?"

But without the waivers that have been in place the past few months, she and her staff have changed up their practices yet again, to adhere to the normal rules. They're taking COVID-19 precautions, but checking names and collecting payment does still increase the contact and length of the exchange.

The first week of school, they served an average of just 832 meals a day, almost entirely to students who had qualified for free and reduced-price meals.

Watts worries about the low participation compared with pre-pandemic times, but she's holding out hope that, somehow, these waivers will get figured out, and her district can get permission once more to give food to any hungry kids who bike over for some.

"We have a very strong sense of responsibility that we need to do things," she said. "We need to do it right."

READ MORE:
Mumbai, Aug 21 : Yes Bank has signed a definitive agreement with GPL Finance and Investments Ltd to sell 100 per cent stake in Yes Asset Management (India) Ltd (YESAMC) and Yes Trustee Limited (YTL), both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the restructured bank.

YESAMC is the asset management company of YES Mutual Fund and YTL is the trustee of YES Mutual Fund. Upon completion of the transaction, YESAMC and YTL will cease to be subsidiaries of the bank, which will exit its mutual fund business.

In a regulatory filing, Yes Bank said that White Oak Investment Management Private Ltd owns 99 per cent of GPL Finance. The ultimate beneficial holder of the purchaser is Prashant Khemka who owns 99.99 per cent of White Oak Investment Management, it said.

"The Bank has on 21st August 2020 executed a definitive agreement for the sale of 100 per cent of the equity shareholding of YES Asset Management (India) Ltd and YES Trustee Ltd, both wholly owned subsidiaries of Yes Bank Ltd to GPL Finance and Investments Ltd," it said.

The transaction is subject to requisite regulatory approvals from the regulatory authorities and the bank expects the deal to complete in the period of 8-12 months.
Former EastEnders star Katie Jarvis has been released from bail but remains under investigation after she was arrested following a drunken street brawl.

The actress, 29, who appeared on the BBC soap between February 2018 and February 2019, was arrested by Essex Police earlier this month over her alleged involvement in a street fight outside Papillon cafe in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

A clip from the incident showed five black women scuffling with a white woman, and allegedly Katie called one of them a 'f***ing black c***,' and yelled 'f*** Black Lives Matter.'

Arrested: Former EastEnders star Katie Jarvis has been released from bail but remains under investigation after she was arrested following a drunken street brawl

Katie was arrested on suspicion of assault and a racially aggravated public order following the brawl which shocked eyewitnesses.

She was released on bail on August 4, and Essex Police have confirmed that she has now been released under investigation.

Katie was claimed by The Sun to have been involved in the fight on Friday August 3 in Southend-on-Sea, on one of the hottest days of the year.

One video showed five black women scuffling with a white woman, after she allegedly called one of them a 'f***ing black c***,' and yelled 'f*** Black Lives Matter.'

A clip filmed by a bystander saw the group of women brawling in the drinking area outside the Papillon pub on the seafront, before it spilled out onto the street.

A second video appeared to show the white woman, said to be Katie, shouting 'you dirty black c***s - end of' and swearing at the group as she was escorted away.

Fighting: The actress, 29, was arrested by Essex Police last month (allegedly pictured above) over her alleged involvement in a street fight outside Papillon cafe in Southend-on-Sea

The video, which was reported on by local newspaper The Chelmsford & Mid-Essex Times, was posted to Facebook and has been viewed more than 20,000 times,

An Essex Police spokesman said: 'A 29-year old woman was arrested on Friday, July 31 just after 10.05pm following reports of a disturbance in Marine Parade, Southend.

'She has been arrested on suspicion of assault and racially aggravated public order. She has been released on bail until Friday, August 21.'

MailOnline contacted Jarvis's representative for comment at the time.

The clip sees the women screaming at one another as they stumble into the street towards the road.

The pub's sign is pushed over and punters are seen dodging out the way as the group of women repeatedly strike the woman, believed to be Jarvis.

The sounds of glasses smashing can be heard as another woman attempts to break the fight up, with a man then getting involved. At this point, the police pull up in a van to intervene.

Katie was said to have been identified by a witness who said they heard the woman yell 'I'm a famous actress!' as her friends chimed in with: 'She's Hayley Slater from EastEnders!'

It's understood that the row began when Katie took a chair from the table the group of women were sitting at.

Soap star: Jarvis played Hayley Slater in BBC's EastEnders from February 2018 to February 2019 (pictured in an episode in October 2018)

A witness claimed: 'I couldn't believe it. Police arrested her and Katie was saying 'I haven't done anything wrong!''

Dagenham-born Jarvis has two children - Lillie Mae, 11, and Alfie, eight.

She was involved in a bar brawl in March 2019, when she was 'glassed by a drunken Irish man' on a night out in London.

She was treated by medical staff after the attack, said to have been out in Romford when she was attacked.

At the time, Jarvis tweeted her thanks to the Metropolitan Police for 'looking after' her.

She said: 'Big thank you to the Met Police tonight and ambulance service for looking after me after I was glassed by a drunken Irish man for f*** all.'

However, she later deleted the tweet after fans spotted it and asked after her well-being. She later posted: 'Thanks lovely lot I'm good as gold.'

She then thanked fans and sent out a tweet to 'put minds at rest', posting: 'OK to put people's minds, and questions to rest.

Actress: Jarvis (pictured in EastEnders) was also involved in a bar brawl in March 2019 in London

She's fine: After this, she sent a message to fans to reassure them that she was OK after the incident

'I am absolutely fine thank you so much for all your concern and checking in on me but i'm a soldier and been through a hell of a lot worse.

'Now you can start focusing your concerns on some real news. Love you all xx'

According to The Mirror her agent refused to discuss that incident.

She said: 'I have no comment to make to any newspaper on any subject to do with anything. Whatever it is I don't want to hear.'

She made headlines last year when it was revealed she had become a security guard at bargain store B&M in Romford, East London, after her departure from EastEnders.

Soap star: Katie joined Eastenders in 2018 as the cousin of Kat Slater, with one storyline seeing her have an affair with Kat's husband Alfie Moon

She was pictured outside the store on a break last October, having a coffee and a cigarette, leading to much attention from soap fans.

She then appeared on Victoria Derbyshire's BBC show, followed by an interview with Grazia magazine, to admit she had felt 'hurt and embarrassed' for being 'made to feel ashamed for having a normal job'.

She added that she was proud to speak out on behalf of hard-working single mums because providing for her family is paramount to her.

Jarvis said: 'It's the nature of being an actor; gigs come and go, and after my contract with EastEnders ended in February, I found a new job as soon as I could. Doing work like this is also what keeps me grounded.'

Full of drama: Katie is pictured as Hayley in bed with Danny Dyer (playing Mick Carter) in EastEnders in May 2018

Dagenham-born Jarvis revealed she 'crumbled' and was left in tears after a friend alerted her to the front page news.

But upon reflection and thanks to the support of fellow thespians from Tamzin Outwaite to Nathalie Emmanuel, she is 'proud' to have changed the conversation.

'Their support gave me the strength to speak out and stand up for hard-working people - especially single mums', she said, and insisted her priority in life is caring for her two children, saying: 'As long as I'm providing for them, nothing else matters. Everything I do is for them.'

She said she is proud to take on any work she can to 'keep busy and learn new things'.

Speaking out: She also appeared on Victoria Derbyshire last year to admit she had felt 'hurt and embarrassed' for being 'made to feel ashamed for having a normal job'

Important: Jarvis told the programme last year that she was proud to speak out on behalf of hard-working single mothers because providing for her family is paramount to her

Jarvis pointed that 'all actors go through it over the years, I've had so many jobs in between and not just being a security guard.'

'At 17 when I got [first movie role] Fish Tank I was doing doughnuts with my uncle at the time at festivals and things like that so I'd go on there and do the food carts,' she said. 'I've been a waitress, I've worked at a credit card company, I've done admin, I've done all types of things.'

Jarvis added that when she first saw the photos of herself she felt ashamed but is now proud that she's doing all she can to provide for her family.

'One of my sisters she calls me a dabbler because I seem to do a bit of everything and I like to be busy and I like to learn new things, it doesn't matter what it is,' she told Derbyshire.

Soap star: Jarvis's character was last on screen in February 2019 (pictured with co-star Gillian Wright)

Rising star: Born in Dagenham, she found fame in Hollywood before winning a part in the BBC soap

She added: 'The people I work with there are amazing, they get up every single day, they work hard for their money and it doesn't matter what job you're doing, I don't feel like anyone should be made to feel like how I felt when I woke up do you know what I mean, because I think as long as you're working that's all that matters.'

Jarvis said being a security guard isn't easy and that she actually works alongside her sister at the bargain store, explaining: 'A lot goes into being a security guard, they put themselves at risk. I took that job on and joined my sister because she's a security guard there.'

Jarvis joined the Eastenders cast in 2018 as the cousin of Kat Slater [Jessie Wallace].

One of her storylines saw her have an affair with Kat's husband Alfie Moon [Shane Richie] while they lived in Spain with Kat and their children.

Hayley then fell pregnant, giving birth to daughter Cherry.

Stars: She also starred opposite Michael Fassbender in the cult hit Fish Tank

Dramatic scenes aired over the subsequent Christmas season, leading to a shocking showdown between Hayley, Alfie and Kat. In one scene, Hayley pushed Alfie down a flight of stairs.

Jarvis's character was last seen on screen in February 2019 when Stacey Fowler, played by Lacey Turner, went to hospital to collect her after treatment for her mental health.

The troubled young mother had discharged herself and taken off. But BBC bosses were said to be keeping the door open for her return.

Jarvis found fame in Hollywood before winning a part in the BBC soap, starring in 2009 movie Fish Tank alongside Michael Fassbender
Democratic Party's presidential nominee praised his Indian-American running mate during his nomination acceptance speech, describing the California senator as a "powerful voice" in the US and said her "story is the American story."



Harris, 55, scripted history in US as she became the first Indian-American and Black woman to get a major party's vice presidential nomination on the third day of the virtual Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.

"It will be the work of the next president to restore the promise of America to everyone. And I am not going to have to do it alone. I will have a great vice president at my side," Biden, 77, said in his acceptance speech on Thursday.

He highlighted Harris' diverse family heritage, her parents are Jamaican and Indian, and her perseverance to "overcome every obstacle she has ever faced."



"Her story is the American story. She knows about all of the obstacles thrown in the way of so many in our country. Women, Black women, Black Americans, South Asian Americans, immigrants. The left out and the left behind. She has overcome every obstacle she has ever faced," he said on the last day of the four-day convention.

"No one has been tougher on big banks and the gun lobby. No one has been tougher on calling out the current administration for its extremism, its failure to follow the law, it's failure to simply tell the truth.

"Kamala and I both draw from our families. That is where we get our strength. For Kamala, it is Doug, and their families. For me, it is Jill, and ours," Biden said.

Introducing herself as the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants at the virtual convention on Wednesday, Harris fondly remembered her Chennai-born mother who she said taught her two daughters to "be conscious and compassionate about the struggles of all people" and to believe that "the fight for justice is a shared responsibility."



"One of the most powerful voices we hear in the country today is from our young people. They're speaking to the inequity and injustice that has grown up in America. Economic injustice. Racial injustice. Environmental injustice," Biden said.

"I hear their voices and if you listen, you can hear them too. And whether it's the existential threat posed by climate change, the daily fear of being gunned down in school, or the inability to get started in their first job it will be the work of the next president to restore the promise of America to everyone," he said.

Later, Harris said in a tweet that Biden will be an incredible president.

"Tonight, spoke to the moment. Just like he'll do as president for our country," she tweeted.

Soon after Biden concluded his speech, Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff joined him and his wife Jill Biden.

The couples stepped onto an outside stage and embraced as they watched the fireworks light up the sky.

Before Biden stepped off, reporters shouted: "How do you feel?".

Biden pulled down his face mask and yelled: "Welcome to Wilmington!"



Later, in a fund-raising email and tweet, Harris said, "You're going to make an incredible president. America, we need your help to make that happen.

"As reminds us, character, compassion, decencythey're all on the ballot in November. Who we are and who we want to be are on the line," she said.

She also posted a video message on her Twitter handle, saying "I am proud to be with Joe on this ticket to fight for the soul of America, to build back better, and to do everything that is about bringing dignity and pride to the people of our country.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Queensland Leader of the Opposition Deb Frecklington is seen during a press conference at Parliament House in Brisbane, Australia, on July 3, 2020. (AAP Image/Dan Peled)

Queensland Premier Accused of Using Border Controls as Political Weapon in Election

Queensland Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington MP, and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have accused Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of closing the states border as a ploy to win the upcoming state election in October.

Meanwhile, the premier defended her decision, saying she is putting Queenslands economic and health recovery first.

Frecklington told reporters at the Gold Coast on Aug. 21 that the LNP has always said we must listen to the medical advice on border controls.

She accused the premier of playing politics with the border controls, using it as a political weapon in this election.

I get really disappointed because Im thinking about the 234,000 Queenslanders out of work, she said.

Frecklington supports a national approach to border controls.

When asked what she would do differently, she said: What I am doing differently is releasing an economic plan for Queenslanders to save their lives and livelihoods.

Dutton told 2GB radio on Aug. 2o: In Queensland, some of the decisions that the Premiers making, really are quite odd and not based on medical advice and weve called for months for her to release the medical advice around the border closures.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk attends a press conference at parliament house in Brisbane, Australia, on March 25, 2020. (Jono Searle/Getty Images)

Palaszczuk pointed at Victorias aged care outbreaks, saying they had more active cases than Queensland has had during the entire pandemic.

And yet, its Queensland that is attacked. Ill cop whatever gets thrown at me. Thats politics, she said in a State of the State speech delivered to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) on Aug. 20.

The premier said her states economic recovery must be driven by Queensland for Queenslanders.

Weve made difficult decisions. Hard decisions. Often contentious decisions, she said. Our borders closed for the same reason our international borders closed: so that we could stop importing the disease.

However, Dutton said the expert medical advice never included closing the borders and noted on Aug.21 that the country will go broke as a result.

Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton speaks to media in the Press Gallery at Parliament House on Feb. 13, 2019, in Canberra, Australia. (Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images)

Still, Palaszszcuk believes her states economy has only been able to open up because the borders are closed.

Thats evidenced by the thousands who have embraced the Good to Go campaign encouraging Queenslanders to get out and support Queensland hospitality and tourism, she said.

The states treasury estimates lifting stage three restrictions will support $520 million worth of economic output each month and an additional 50,000 jobswhich have increased by 66,800 since restrictions were eased between May and July.

But we still have a long way to go, the premier said. There are still 138,000 fewer jobs in the Queensland market than before the pandemic.

Palaszszcuk took aim at her opponents in the Liberal National Party who wanted Queenslands borders opened.

That would have meant forcing the closure of our economyor letting the virus through our populationeither way, that would have stopped our economic recovery in its tracks.

The Sensis Business Index (pdf) released on Aug. 18 showed that should a state election be held tomorrow 44 percent (the majority) of respondents said they would vote for the LNP; 26 percent said they would vote for Labor; and 10 percent for the National Party.

The Greens would only score 4 percent of the votes, behind 6 percent who said theyd vote for an independent candidate.
People of colour account for about 52 percent of all the excess deaths in the United States so far this year.

As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the United States during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll. And half the dead were people of colour  Black Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognised until now, Asian Americans.

The new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight a stark disparity: deaths among minorities during the crisis have risen far more than they have among white people.

As of the end of July, the official death toll in the US from COVID-19 was about 150,000. It has since grown to more than 170,000.

But public health authorities have long known that some coronavirus deaths, especially early on, were mistakenly attributed to other causes, and that the crisis may have led indirectly to the loss of many other lives by preventing or discouraging people with other serious ailments from seeking treatment.

Charlton Rhee, whose parents came to the US from South Korea, lost both of them to COVID-19 this spring as the virus surged in New York City [AP Photo/Marshall Ritzel]

Disproportionate burden

A count of deaths from all causes during the seven-month period yields what experts believe is a fuller  and more alarming  picture of the disaster and its racial dimensions.

People of colour make up just under 40 percent of the US population but accounted for approximately 52 percent of all the excess deaths above normal through July, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organisation covering the criminal justice system.

The toll of the pandemic shows just how pervasive structural racism is, said Olugbenga Ajilore, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, a public policy organisation in Washington.

Earlier data on cases, hospitalisations and deaths revealed an especially heavy toll on Black, Hispanic and Native Americans, a disparity attributed to unequal access to healthcare and economic opportunities. But the increases in total deaths by race were not reported until now; nor was the disproportionate burden on Asian Americans.

With this new data, Asian Americans join Black Americans and Hispanics among the hardest-hit communities, with deaths in each group up at least 30 percent this year compared with the average over the last five years, the analysis found. Deaths among Native Americans rose more than 20 percent, though that is probably a severe undercount because of a lack of data. Deaths among whites were up 9 percent.

The toll on Asian Americans has received far less attention, perhaps in part because the numbers who have died  about 14,000 more than normal this year  have been far lower than among several other groups. Still, the 35 percent increase in Asian American deaths is the second highest, behind Hispanic Americans.

In an average year, somewhere around 1.7 million people die in the United States between January and the end of July. This year the figure was about 1.9 million, according to the CDC.

Of the possible 215,000 additional deaths above normal through July  a total that has since risen to as many as 235,000  most were officially attributed to coronavirus infections. The rest were blamed on other causes, including heart disease, high blood pressure and other types of respiratory diseases.

The CDC has not yet provided a breakdown by race and ethnicity of the deaths from other causes. The newly released data is considered provisional and subject to change as more information comes in. Certain categories of deaths  suicides or drug overdoses, for example  often involve lengthy investigations before a cause is assigned.

The outbreaks disproportionate effect on communities of colour is not limited to a specific region of the country.

The virus first hit urban areas on the east and west coasts. But according to University of Minnesota researcher Carrie Henning-Smith, disparities have also been seen as the disease spread across the country to southern and western states with large rural populations.

For example, Arizona reported almost 60 percent more Native American deaths so far this year compared with previous years, and New Mexico recorded at least 40 percent more. Between the two states, at least 1,100 more Native Americans have died than normal.

Asian Americans have suffered greatly

Another surprise: Only about half of the Asian American deaths have been officially linked to COVID-19, lower than for all other groups. Jarvis Chen, a lecturer at Harvard Universitys public health school, said Asian Americans may not be getting tested at the same rate as other groups, for reasons that are unclear, and that could result in some virus deaths being attributed to something else.

Arizona reported almost 60 percent more Native American deaths so far this year compared with previous years, and New Mexico recorded at least 40 percent more [File: David McNew/Getty Images]

Dr Namratha Kandula of Northwestern University echoed that theory. She also cautioned against generalising about the underlying health of Asian Americans as a whole, noting that they are a diverse group from many different nations and cultures.

Its not enough to clump them all together because it does not tell the whole story, she said.

Charlton Rhee, whose parents came to the US from South Korea, lost both of them to COVID-19 this spring as the virus surged in New York City.

His mother, Eulja Rhee, went out one day, and when she returned, she told me someone had coughed in her face as she was getting off a bus, said Rhee, a nursing home administrator in Queens. She was wearing a mask, but it got into her eyes.

She died in hospital, just shy of her 75th birthday.

Rhee found out a day later that his father, Man Joon Rhee, had tested positive. He had caught it from my mother, he said. His heart was broken. And he said to me that he wanted to know if it was OK to be with Mom.

He stayed home, receiving hospice care, and died at 83.

The Asian American community has suffered greatly during this, and government officials provided little help, especially initially, Rhee said. Community associations had to step in with food drives, personal protective equipment and other help.

Income, housing and health inequality

Racial disparities in deaths predate COVID-19, and many forces combine to produce them.

Some communities of colour are more likely to have lower incomes and to share living spaces with larger families, increasing the risk of transmission. They have higher rates of health problems, including diabetes, obesity and lung ailments, the result of living in places where healthier foods are harder to get and the environment is polluted. Those same factors can make them more likely to become severely ill or die from the coronavirus.

They are more often uninsured and tend to live farther from hospitals. They are disproportionately incarcerated, which has been linked to long-term effects on health.

Experts point to a long history of discrimination that causes distrust of the healthcare system. And people of colour are more likely to fill essential roles that require them to keep going to work during the pandemic.

Dr Sobiya Ansari, who works predominantly with Black immigrant cancer patients in New York City, worries when they miss or postpone radiation or screenings. Already, the city has seen double the number of Black deaths this year compared with previous years.

If a storm hits and youre safe inside your house, youre safe, she said. Then there is a population of people that dont even have umbrellas. The storm hits and theyre just really swept away.
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It was only a matter of time before many protesters showed their true Marxist intentions regarding their worldview. It came to the attention of many that the original founders of Black Lives Matter and groups like Antifa have a radical agenda that transcends those who seek to peacefully protest such incidents as the horrific murder of George Floyd.





These radical groups want nothing less than to deconstruct the entire nation. To do that, they will have to rid themselves of some of the basic Judeo/Christian presuppositions prevalent in the founding of our nation.

Recently, Bible burning has been reported to have taken place in Portland, Oregon. Bible burning can also be seen as a metaphor to point to any attempt to systematically eradicate or make illegal the Word of God. This article aims to give reasons why some segments of the global population may desire to burn Bibles and rid the world of the Scriptures.

The following are 10 reasons why progressive radicals desire to burn Bibles:

1. Binary gender

The radical agenda of the far left presently promotes gender fluidity in which a person determines their own gender. They decide their gender based on psychological reasons more than biological reasons. Their inward feelings trump their birth design and human anatomy.

The Bible limits gender to a binary design of either male or female, which is manifested at birth (Genesis 1:27, Matthew 19:14). Because of the absolute view of the scriptures related to its depiction of Gods image, radical progressives will desire to burn Bibles (Genesis 1:27).

2. The nuclear family

The radical progressives want to deconstruct the traditional nuclear family of a male and female, committed together in marriage, who procreate and nurture children after their own kind.

However, to the disdain of radical progressives, the Biblical pattern God ordained is the traditional nuclear family (Genesis 1:28, Psalm 127, Ephesians 5:22-6:4). Since radicals do not want the traditional nuclear family to be considered the norm they desire to burn Bibles.

3. Parents responsible for their children

The radical progressives promote government control over children through public education. This is manifest in communist and socialist nations. In the national socialist nation of Nazi Germany, children were considered wards of the state.

Scripture is clear that parents are responsible for nurturing their own children (Proverbs 1:8-9; Proverbs 22:6, Proverbs 29:17, Isaiah 54:13, Ephesians 6:1-4). Since secular cultural elites want the general population to be more loyal to the state than to their biological family, they will try to burn Bibles.

4. The role of government

The radical progressive view of civil government is all-encompassing in which elective officials use public policy and law to control every aspect of life, including religion. Their view of big government is Messianic in nature. They believe that their goal of having a perfect society can only be achieved through political elites making decisions for the masses regarding religion, wealth distribution, housing, education, and media.

Contrariwise, the Biblical view of government, focuses on civil leaders power primarily in matters of civil defense, keeping the peace, and ensuring justice in the gates (See the whole narrative of Kings and Chronicles as well as 1 Sam. 8:10-18, Proverbs 8:15-16, Romans 12:1-7, 1 Tim. 2:1-4).

For example, God did not want political leaders to interfere with religious matters. We see that King Uzziah of Judah became a leper after he attempted to leave his governmental lane to burn incense, which only the priests were allowed by God to do (2 Chron. 26:16-21). King Jeroboam was also judged by God for doing the same thing (1 Kings 13). The only exception to this law was King David, who functioned like a prophet, priest, and king because he was a type and shadow of the coming Messiah.

Since the Scriptures forbid civic governmental interference with the church, radicals desire to burn Bibles!

5. The view on race

Radical progressives attempt to utilize the belief in different races of humans. This belief is propagated to pit one ethnic group against another. The biblical view is that there are not multiple races but only one human race. The human race is expressed by various nations and ethnic groups created in Gods image (Genesis 1:26, Acts 17:26, Revelation 7:9-10).

Since scriptures teach that God never divided humanity along the lines of race, radicals desire to burn Bibles to propagate critical race theory, incite class warfare, and spread various Marxist ideologies.

6. The nature of salvation

The radical left believes that salvation comes from the outside. They believe that humankind will only experience salvation when there is a utopian society where every person gets their fair share through the redistribution of wealth.

The Bible teaches that salvation can only come when a human heart is born from above, irrespective of the environment. It comes from the inside out, not the reverse (John 3:1-8; Titus 3:5).

The fact that the Scriptures teach that the human heart is wicked above all things and has to be transformed by God to experience salvation is one of the main reasons people desire to burn Bibles (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

7. The boundaries of the word/law

Radical progressives and secular humanists put an individuals freedom of expression as the highest ideal, even before religious freedom, civil rights, and any other law or principle.

Consequently, they do not want to be held accountable by a higher power, deity, or religion (Psalm 2).

The Bible gives 10 commandments (not suggestions) that regulate the human government, the economy, human sexuality, and so on. These ethical laws are the basis of framing a civil societys laws so that a nation can be blessed by God. This is perhaps the number one reason why radicals want to burn Bibles.

8. The absolute rule of Jesus the Messiah (Psalm 2)

Radical progressives want human autonomy through an elitist, secular government.

The Bible talks about how God laughs at kings and nations who desire to cast off their Creators boundaries and restraints. The Bible commands the kings and rulers of the earth to pay homage to the Son, Jesus, lest His wrath flare-up, and He destroys them as a potter dashes a vessel to pieces (Psalm 2).

The New Testament is clear that Jesus did not merely come to be the personal savior of individual followers, but the King of kings and Lord of lords over all the kings and rulers of the earth. (1 Timothy 6:15-16, Rev. 19:16) Since these radical progressives desire to be their own king and lord, they may eventually want to burn Bibles.

9. The Bible is against egalitarianism.

Radicals preach an egalitarian or Marxist society in which every person receives the same pay and societal benefits, irrespective of whether they earned it.

The scripture teaches that people should reap the benefits of what they have sown (Galatians 6:6-9). Hence, if a person is lazy, they should not receive the same benefits as those who work hard (2 Thes. 3:10). The Bible also teaches that not all people are created equal regarding their gifts and abilities. Thus, some people will make more money than others because they are better entrepreneurs and more creative than the average person. God gave each person a different set of abilities and talents and will judge them based explicitly upon how they stewarded those abilities (Matthew 25:14-30).

Jesus said He would actually take away what little a person has saved if he was found to be lazy and did nothing with his assets (Luke 19:24-26).

Consequently, biblical justice has to do with giving people equal access to opportunities, and equal pay for an equivalent amount of work and results, irrespective of gender and ethnicity. True justice has to do with building economic systems upon an equitable and fair meritocracy, not upon endowments and entitlements based upon skin pigmentation, sexuality, or societal collectives. Because the Bible is against egalitarianism, radical left progressives would burn Bibles if they could.

10. The biblical view of divine judgment

Radical Marxist progressives believe in the inherent goodness of humanity. They think that if they can politically manufacture the right economic environment, they would thrive and live happily ever after. Since they lack an understanding of peoples morally depraved nature, they also have no view of future judgment (Why think you will face judgment if you are a good person?).

They will want to burn Bibles because the Bible teaches us that it is appointed for men to die once and after that the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

Scripture says that God declares to all men everywhere to repent because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through Jesus the Christ (Acts 17:30-31). Scripture teaches us that during the consummation of human history, all those whose names are not written in the book of life will be eternally condemned.

It is because of these ten reasons that radical progressives want to burn Bibles.

In conclusion, my final word to the Bible burners that may read this article is this: Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my Word will never pass away (Matthew 24:35).

His Word is forever fixed and settled in the heavens (Psalm 119:89). There is nothing anyone can do to stop the Word of God from multiplying! The more Bibles you burn, the more the Word of God will proliferate and increase because Jesus is sovereign over all the nations, ideologies, and systems of the earth.
A hospital has been blasted for a poster listing being a member of the LGBTQ community as a 'mental health disorder'.

The Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Essex, has come under fire after putting up a notice which listed being LGBTQ alongside disorders such as bi-polar, schizophrenia and psychosis.

The poster has since been taken down and the hospital issued an apology for 'any offence' caused, saying they will be 'taking action' to find out 'how this was displayed.'

After noticing the poster, Ellen Gibson, from London, took to Twitter to share the poster, sparking outrage from other users, who told they were 'genuinely shocked' , with one saying it made them feel 'unsafe' as a queer person.

The Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Essex, has come under fire on Twitter after putting up a notice which listed being LGBTQ alongside disorders such as bi-polar, schizophrenia and psychosis

She penned: 'Where to even start with this poster, on the wall of an actual hospital @NHSHarlow ... Being part of the LGBTQ (or LGBTG)community isn't a mental health disorder and I can't believe I'm having to say this to an NHS institution?!'

'Woah is this for real?, asked one angry user, 'Folks you really need to get a grip!'

Another said: 'Genuinely shocked how this appeared in a hospital. It doesnt look professionally done but it is poorly thought out with all the best will in the world. Glad swift action is being taken by said hospital.

A third agreed: 'Gross. This was my nearest hospital growing up and would 100% have made me feel unsafe as a young queer person.'

The poster sparked outrage from other users, who told they were 'genuinely shocked' , with one saying it made them feel 'unsafe' as a queer person

Trevor Smith, deputy chief executive, at The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, told FEMAIL: 'We apologise for the offence caused by a poster displayed in our hospital. The poster was removed immediately and action is being taken to understand how this was displayed.

'We regret the concern this situation has caused and we assure all our patients that the view implied by the poster is not the view of the trust.'

In the US, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder in the American classification of mental disorders (DSM) until 1973.

The poster has since been taken down and the hospital issued an apology for 'any offence' caused, saying they will be 'taking action' to find out 'how this was displayed. Pictured, general view of the Alexandra Hospital in Harlow

In May last year is was announced that transgender health issues will no longer be classified as a mental and behavioral disorder by the World Health Organization.

Instead transgender is now listed under a chapter on sexual health.

Ellen continued to rage about the poster, and while many pointed out the meaning behind poster was most likely the result of a grammatical error, argued that the hospital needed to be more circumspect when it comes to mental health issues.

'Most likely typed up and laminated by a service user and not checked for errors, or correct wording', one wrote.

Ellen continued to rage and argued that the hospital needed to be more circumspect when it comes to mental health issues

Ellen replied: 'Yeah not trying to lay the blame on any individual and the intention could be good, just think there should be someone checking since many LGBTQ+ people are often told they're mentally ill and that experience will be painful to be reminded of.

'If you wanna highlight support available to communities at greater risk of mental health problems then idk maybe just say that?, said Ellen.

'Don't just smack a list of stuff on the wall of a hospital reception area and say they're 'disorders'.

Ellen added: 'This is particularly bad language to use given that being LGBTQ *was* designated as a mental health disorder until shockingly recently (1990 for LGB and *2019* for trans people) and that has caused irreparable damage to so many lives over the years'.
Livestock rustlers have stolen 50 sheep from a Dorset farm in the latest such incident plaguing British farms recently.

Dorset Police are appealing form ore information after thieves stole dozens of sheep from a field in Piddletrenthide, near Dorchester.

The large-scale livestock theft happened between 19:30 on Monday 17 August to early morning the following day.

A spokesman for Dorchester Police said: "A nearby neighbours dog was consistently barking around 05:00 and it is likely that the theft occurred around this time.

"If you have any information that can assist with our enquiries please contact Dorset Police quoting occurrence 55200123407.

"It is important that you report any suspicious circumstances and this can be done by calling 101 or online."

The incident follows the theft of 71 lambs in Devon earlier this month.

Livestock were stolen from a farm in the Bratton Clovelly area at some point between 5 and 12 August.

Figures show rural crime costs have reached an eight year high in the UK - totalling 54m in 2019.

NFU Mutual's report shows that livestock theft increased last year, with the cost going up 9% to 3 million.

Gangs taking large numbers of sheep, which are thought to enter the food chain illegally, are driving the increase.

How can I better protect livestock?

To deter livestock thieves, NFU Mutual advises farmers to:

 Padlock field gates

 Ensure stock is clearly marked and records are up to date

 When possible graze livestock in fields away from roads

 Check stock regularly - and vary times of feeding/check ups

 Consider a high-tech marking system such as TecTracer which puts thousands of coded microdot markers into a sheeps fleece

 Ask neighbours to report any sightings of unusual vehicles loading sheep

 Join a FarmWatch scheme

The rural insurer has established that there are three distinct types of livestock thefts currently taking place:

 Large scale theft  organised crime with livestock destined for the food chain

 Pedigree  rams stolen for their high value as breeding stock

 Money laundering  organised criminal gangs buying and selling on sheep at auctions to launder money
It was hard to hear the twinned speeches of Barack and Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention this week as anything but profoundly elegiac. Commentators focused in on the pairs palpable sadness, the sighs, their unlikely compassion for voters who have come to simply loathe politics, and the sense that both the former president and first lady were offering up an existential plea for the soul of the nation. But even that isnt quite the sum of what they were trying to express. Because these were both, ultimately, fluent and raw speeches not about policy, or ideals, or even character, but about voting.

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Not lofty paeans to the idea of voting. They were grim, purposive pleas about making a plan that might involve multiple brown bag meals and waiting in line for hours. These speeches included brass tacks instructions on how to get everyone you know to vote, and how to make every last vote count. Both the former president and his wife talked about vote suppression in the same terms Barack Obama had used only weeks earlier to eulogize John Lewis, when he noted that even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting, 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 thats going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people dont get sick.

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Barack Obama echoed that warning this week when he explained that in a sense, all Americans are going to need to vote in precisely the manner Black Americans have voted as long as they have been allowed to vote: As though each persons lone action were possibly futile, decidedly aspirational, and also the only path to change. When all else is lost, they suggest, its time to commit to voting like never before.

In a sense, that is what made these speeches so shattering and so hopeful and also so hopeless. Only two Black Americans could talk about the near-insanity of voting to fix what every other institution has already failed to correct. As Barack Obama put it Wednesday night, other institutions have failed some Americans since the founding:

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 Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote. If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work.

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Michelle Obama was equally direct about what were facing in November:

Right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. Theyre closing down polling places in minority neighborhoods. Theyre purging voter rolls. Theyre sending people out to intimidate voters, and theyre lying about the security of our ballots. These tactics are not new.

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What lurked beneath was the fact that for decades, Black Americans have voted even when it demanded poll taxes and literacy tests, or risking a beatdown, or having to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar for an elections registrar. The odds of their ballot being counted were always long.

Candidly, it has long been, for most Americans, a mathematical act of insanity to bother to cast a vote. The odds of any one voter making any real difference in any one election suggest as much. One 2009 study found that in the states in which any single vote was most likely to matter, one vote had an approximate a 1 in 10 million chance of determining the national election outcome. On average, the same study concluded, any one voter in America had a 1 in 60 million chance of being decisive in the presidential election.

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And yet voters vote. Voters, especially minority voters, have for decades tolerated the long lines, the targeted precinct closures, the broken or hackable voting machines, the persistent and tactical vote caging, the onerous voter ID rules, threats of armed poll watchers, gerrymandered districts, the inequality of the Electoral College, the Supreme Courts cynical decision in Shelby County, and the churning unaccounted-for dark money that followed its decision in Citizens United. They voted in the face of foreign election interference. People stood in line and voted even in the height of a pandemic, when the Supreme Court declined to make voting easier during the primaries, including in Wisconsin, which meant thatas my colleague Mark Joseph Stern wrote, in 2020, some Americans jeopardized their lives to vote.

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Voting in 2020 is a possibly life-threatening, potentially meaningless public performance of civic dutya roll-the-dice effort to be counted, as the post office slows vote by mail and voters come to believe that voting by mail is inherently fraudulent. If this is what voting while Black has looked like in America for a long time, the rest of us might just be realizing it now.

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Michelle Obamas practical advice that we grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because weve got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to is almost exactly what historian Carol Anderson told me in February, in our Election Meltdown series, when I asked why it made sense to even try to vote in the face of so many systemic barriers:

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When I talk about putting the responsibility of adhering to the 15th Amendment on the shoulders and on the backs of the individuals, that means checking your voter registration on a consistent basis to make sure youre still registered and to make sure your voting place is where you know it is, and then making a screenshot of it. So you have evidence of it. It means knowing that the lines are probably going to be really long, if you vote in a minority precinct. So you come prepared. You come with your cellphone. You come with a battery pack. You come with water, you come with snacks, you come with comfortable shoes. Because if we dont do that now, what comes afterwards is something thats going to be absolutely horrific to deal with.

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What is perfectly and painfully clearin these speeches this week but also through the painful nearly four years we have endured under this presidentis that this flawed system of voting is all we have left. When Donald Trump was elected, we cast our eyes variously up at the state and federal courts, at Congress, at lawyers, at the Womens March, the Justice Department, Colin Kaepernick, the free press, Robert Mueller, the Parkland kids, Adam Schiff, the impeachment process, the street protests, the Senate Intelligence Committee report, the rule of law, Nancy Pelosi, the leaders of the military, Mary Trump, John Kelly, the tell-all memoir, and George Conway. Something would be the guardrail, the seawall, the savior. Something would be able to restore sanity. And yet, here we are, on the brink of another close election precisely because none of these checks have worked. Instead, we are realizing that the only entity that can possibly save us will beif they can pull on their sneakers and pack a dinnervoters, voting by the millions, as they have never voted before.

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No one thing in the list above has been able to stop Donald Trump. Some have slowed his roll, but here we are, on the cusp of an election that could go either way. And certainly the glossy music video, heavily scripted, what-do-people-do-with-their-hands-anyhow telethon that was this weeks Democratic National Convention offered lots of inspiration, plenty of rhetoric about Americas soul, and genuine moments of optimism. But there were few pragmatic answers, because the only pragmatic answer is to text the voting hotline on your screen.

What was confounding about what Mr. and Mrs. Obama conveyed this week is that the cure for a made-for-television presidency isnt a made-for-television convention (though that was the tool they had at their disposal). Its not the courts or the Army or the economists or the scientists, either, though we need them all to be back at their posts too. Quite literally the only institution that remains to save the country is you. With your plan and your mask and your sandwiches, battling back the cynicism and nihilism that tell you that voting was pointless before and is bonkers now.

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Talking about the mechanics of voting is difficult. Its not sexy, and talking about the ways in which the franchise is being hollowed out before ones very eyes tends to feed the sense of ennui and futility that voting advocates hope to prevent. When professor Rick Hasen and I joined forces last winter to craft our Election Meltdown podcast series, one of the ongoing challenges we faced was that by drawing attention to the ways in which the 2020 election could be stolen, we appeared to be contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you want people to believe in voting, we were told consistently, stop telling them the system is broken. And yes, that is the place where the record skips cognitively: If Barack and Michelle Obama tell you that your vote might be stolen, you may be less, rather than more, inclined to vote.

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So they are clocking your cynicism while also instructing you to fight it. Because despite the ever-growing odds that the upcoming election will be a shitshow, there is quite literally nothing left to protect you but your anodyne, boring, not-glossy, unsexy vote. These speeches warned, in effect, that the vote may well be stolen and that you must vote anyhow. This president and those in powerthose who benefit from keeping things the way they arethey are counting on your cynicism, the former president said. They know they cant win you over with their policies. So theyre hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesnt matter. Michelle Obama put it this way: So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we dont make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.

The speeches were, in a nutshell, spun of both hopelessness and also pure aspiration: Believe in the franchise, however cynical you may be, because the alternative is nothing else. That sentiment burns going down. Its a sentiment that could have only come from two Black people, since voting while Black has long been both irrational and the only way. But it also burns coming from this former president and his wife, people with a deep understanding of history and the Constitution, and people whose very entry into politics was founded on optimism. Despite all that, because of all that, the Obamas message is that now you have to make your plan. Because there is no Plan B.

For more of Slates political coverage, subscribe to the Political Gabfest on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has rejected the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020, especially as it applies to churches.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on August 7 signed the CAMA bill into law, giving provision for religious bodies and charity organisations to be regulated by the registrar of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and a supervising minister.

In a statement, on Thursday, signed by the special assistant on media to the associations president, Adebayo Oladeji, CAN rejected the law, tagging it as unacceptable and ungodly.

As part of the reasons for the rejection, CAN listed spiritual responsibilities and obligations of the churches, adding that they cannot be controlled by the government.

The body cautioned the implementation of the law, arguing: it is an invitation to trouble that the government does not have the power to manage.

CAN advised the government to focus on providing infrastructure and adequate security for the people.

The full statement by CAN is reproduced below:

Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) rejects CAMA Completely

The leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) rejects outright the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 that was assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari recently.

By implications, he has repealed the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990 (1).

The law, to say the least is unacceptable, ungodly, reprehensible and an ill-wind that blows no one any good. It is a time bomb waiting to explode.

We recall that during the First Term of the President, there was a Public Hearing conducted by the National Assembly on the Non- Governmental Organisations Bill tagged Bill for an Act To Provide For The Establishment Of

The Non-Governmental Organizations Regulatory Commission For The Supervision, Co-ordination And Monitoring Of Non-Governmental Organizations which was attended by CAN and many NGOs.

At the Public Hearing, the Bill that sought to bring the religious organizations and NGOs under the control and influence of the government was totally rejected because it would snuff life out of the church and rank the church as a secular institution under secular control. We thought it was all over until we heard of the CAMA that was assented to by the President, making the rejected bill a law.

The satanic section of the controversial and ungodly law is Section 839 (1) &(2) which empowers the Commission to suspend trustees of an association (in this case, the church) and appoint the interim managers to manage the affairs of the association for some given reasons.

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While we are not against the government fighting corruption wherever it may be found, yet we completely reject the idea of bringing the Church, which is technically grouped among the NGOs, under control of the government.

The Church cannot be controlled by the government because of its spiritual responsibilities and obligations. This is why we are calling on the Federal government to stop the implementation of the obnoxious and ungodly law until the religious institutions are exempted from it.

We call on President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently return the law to the National Assembly for immediate amendment. Nigeria should not be compared with any other nation when it comes to the relationship between the religious institutions and the government. In Nigeria, peoples religions are tied to their humanity and of course, their life.

How can the government sack the trustee of a church which it contributed no dime to establish? How can a secular and political minister be the final authority on the affairs and management of another institution which is not political?

For example, how can a non-Christian head of Government Ministry be the one to determine the running of the church? It is an invitation to trouble that the government does not have power to manage. Let the government face the business of providing infrastructure for the people. Let them focus on better health provision, food, education, adequate security employment, etc. The government should not be a busy body in a matter that does not belong to it. The government does not have the technical expertise to run the church of God because of its spiritual nature.

If the government is bent on imposing a law on us which the entire Church in Nigeria is against, then, they have declared war on Christianity and the agenda to destroy the Church which we have spoken against before now is coming to the open more clearly. If you cannot give us good amenities of life, we would not allow you to take away our liberty to worship our Maker.

What good thing again will you not take away from the people in the name of being in power? Are we not running a democracy which is a government of the people by the people and for the people? Is this not gradually becoming a dictatorship or what was the essence of the Public Hearing you called us to when you had made up your mind not to consider the position of Christians at all which we presented during the Public Hearing?

We call on all well-meaning Nigerians to ask the Federal Government to suspend the law because we do not need it in this nation.

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Thank You for making this position of CAN known through your credible and popular media.
The Information and Public Relations Department of the Foreign Ministry of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has issued a commentary in connection with the commentary of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, which attempted to distort the remarks of the Artsakh President Arayik Haroutyunyan, taking them out of the general context. The commentary reads as follows:

The President of the Republic of Artsakh stated very clearly about the inadmissibility of threats to shell Stepanakert and other settlements of Artsakh, which the Azerbaijani side regularly voices, including at the highest level. The military-political leadership of Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated its readiness to strike at any targets in Artsakh. In particular, once Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan instructed the rocket and artillery forces to "prepare for delivering devastating strikes" on Stepanakert and other towns of Artsakh. It is noteworthy that the official representative of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry justified such threats by the fact that allegedly there is no civilian population in Artsakh, but only the military and the field."

Seeking to conceal its aggressive policy, based on intimidation and terror, Azerbaijan, through the falsification of facts and deliberate misinformation of the international community, tries to attribute its own steps and motives of actions to the Armenian sides. It is Baku and not Yerevan or Stepanakert that regularly threatens to destroy strategic civilian infrastructure and the settlements in Armenia and Artsakh. By the official statements on its readiness to launch missile strikes on the Metsamor nuclear power plant in Armenia , on Yerevan and Stepanakert, to shoot down civilian planes flying to Artsakh, as well as by a whole range of crimes committed against humanity and war crimes, Azerbaijan demonstrates that it does not hesitate to use terrorist methods as its state policy.

The Republic of Artsakh is ready to resolutely suppress any attempts by the Azerbaijani armed forces to attack the civilian population. The military airfield of the city of Gandzak (Ganja) or any other military location, which the Azerbaijani side tries to use for attacking the settlements of Artsakh, will become a legitimate target for the Defense Army of the Republic of Artsakh. The statement of the President of the Republic of Artsakh is a warning about the futility of the attempts to get political dividends through threats and terror. The Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict has no military solution. The attempts to unleash another war will have disastrous consequences for the entire region.
A file photo of a used car on display in San Francisco on June 9, 2011. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Demand for Used Vehicles Up After Pause in Auto Manufacturing

SANTA CLARA, Calif.Car dealers and market experts in California say used cars are in higher demand and their value has risen, due to a shortage in supply of new vehicles.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, auto plants under lockdown delayed the production of new vehicles.

We went three months without any of those vehicles being built; theres sort of a hole in the inventory as a result. They cant make up that lost production. A lot of the factories are running overtime, but theyre having a hard time catching up to the demand, Matt DeLorenzo told The Epoch Times. Hes the senior managing editor at Kelley Blue Book, a California-based automotive research company.

Its a good time for people to sell or trade-in their used vehicles for new ones, he said. Many people held off on purchasing vehicles when the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, first hit. Now, those delayed buyers are coming through en masse and the market is hot.

Large trucks saw the biggest increase in price$2,300, on average, just from June to Julyaccording to California-based automotive information company Edmunds. DeLorenzo said hes also seen pick-up trucks and SUVs in highest demand.

But all prices have risen. Kelley Blue Book reported the average value of a 3-year-old car before COVID-19 was $19,270. It decreased to $17,178 at the lowest point in mid-April, and has now jumped up to $20,245, an increase of $975.

DeLorenzo said two other factors might be contributing to the uptick in demand: a renewed interest in road trips, and lower gas prices.

With people working at home, the daily commute traffic is down considerably, and the demand for gas is down, so gas is relatively cheap. That also is a factor that bodes well for makers of trucks, SUVs, and less fuel-efficient vehicles like that, DeLorenzo said.

For those in the lower-income range or laid off due to COVID-19, he says they may be able to bargain for cars that arent selling as fast, such as compact, economy, or midsize sedans.

Jim Bongiorno, used car manager at Stevens Creek Toyota in San Jose, California, said used trucks are in high demand there.

You have to pay way too much money as a dealer to get them, whereas three months ago, we [were] getting good buys, Bongiorno told The Epoch Times. Of course, when we have to pay more, the consumer end, in the long run, is going to have to pay more.

Bongiorno said their hybrid cars are also in high demand. They get vehicles from car auctions, other dealers, or trade. Most of their customers are working class, he said.

Attention Subaru owners: Your vehicle is in especially high demand right now. DeLorenzo said Subarus were already in short supply before the pandemic, and now its even harder to find a used one.

Subaru buyers keep their car for 15 years, so they dont sell their car, Payman Shahni, internet sales manager at Stevens Creek Subaru, told The Epoch Times. Thats why the used Subaru is hard to find.
The Supreme Court on Friday said it is not inclined to permit festivities during Ganpati festival in Maharashtra this year as the crowd becomes uncontrollable.

Citing the pandemic, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde maintained that Ganesh Chaturthi festivities, by their very nature, involve large crowds.

"We are not inclined to allow Ganapati festivals since that is completely uncontrollable," remarked the CJI.

The court was hearing a matter related to opening of certain Jain temples in Mumbai for Paryushan -- the annual purification rituals for the community.

Maharashtra government opposed the plea, saying this would lead to a pandora's box and unmanageable situations where every community will come to the court with this order to get an approval for their festivals respectively.

Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi specifically cited Ganesh Chaturthi festivities in Maharashtra to say that Justice Bobde, hailing from the same state, can imagine if permission was sought for this as well.

At this, the bench clarified that Ganapati festivals would stand at a completely different footing.

The bench allowed opening of three Jain temples  in Dadar, Chembur and Byculla  upon strict adherence to the SOP and on some additional conditions such as only five persons will be allowed at one time in these temples.

At the same time, the top court made it clear that this order will not be a precedent and cannot be used in any other case.

"Our order isn't intended to apply in any other case, particularly which involves congregation of people which by their very nature, cannot be controlled. We are referring in particular to the congregation that takes place at Ganesh Chaturthi, etc. That will be decided by the state government on its own merit," said the court in its order.

Ganapati is one of the most revered festivals in Maharashtra. It will begin on Saturday with installation of Ganesha idols and will end after ten days if grand festivities.

The state government has also said it will not allow any large gatherings and pandals this year. The Supreme Court order apparently forecloses any possibility of judicial review of the state's mandate.
Karlin, Rick

ALBANY  An infirmary nurse was the only medical official available to provide aid to a 39-year-old inmate who died after he was stabbed in the neck at a state prison in Elmira on Aug. 11.

People with knowledge of the situation, but not authorized to comment publicly, said the homicide occurred when only two nurses were at the facility, and that the medical nurse could not immediately be located when the incident took place.
Physicists at the University of Gottingen, together with pathologists and lung specialists at the Medical University of Hannover, have developed a three-dimensional imaging technique that enables high resolution and three-dimensional representation of damaged lung tissue following severe Covid-19. Using a special X-ray microscopy technique, they were able to image changes caused by the coronavirus in the structure of alveoli (the tiny air sacs in the lung) and the vasculature. The results of the study were published in the research journal eLife.

In severe Covid-19 disease, the researchers observed significant changes in the vasculature, inflammation, blood clots and "hyaline membranes", which are composed of proteins and dead cells deposited on the alveolar walls, which make gas exchange difficult or impossible. With their new imaging approach, these changes can be visualized for the first time in larger tissue volumes, without cutting and staining or damaging the tissue as in conventional histology. It is particularly well suited for tracing small blood vessels and their branches in three dimensions, localizing cells of the immune systems which are recruited to the inflammation sites, and measuring the thickness of the alveolar walls. Due to the three-dimensional reconstruction, the data could also be used to simulate gas exchange.

"Using zoom tomography, large areas of lung tissue embedded in wax can be scanned enabling detailed examination to locate particularly interesting areas around inflammation, blood vessels or bronchial tubes," says lead author Professor Tim Salditt from the Institute of X-ray Physics at the University of Gottingen. Since X-rays penetrate deep into tissue, this enables scientists to understand the relation between the microscopic tissue structure and the larger functional architecture of an organ. This is important, for example, to visualize the tree of blood vessels down to the smallest capillaries.

The authors foresee that this new X-ray technique will be an extension to traditional histology and histopathology, areas of study which go back to the 19th century when optical microscopes had just become available and pathologists could thereby unravel the microscopic origins of many diseases. Even today, pathologists still follow the same basic steps to prepare and investigate tissue: chemical fixation, slicing, staining and microscopy. This traditional approach, however, is not sufficient if three-dimensional images are required or if large volumes have to be screened, digitalized or analysed with computer programmes.

Three-dimensional imaging is well known from medical computerized tomography (CT). However, the resolution and contrast of this conventional technique are not sufficient to detect the tissue structure with cellular or sub-cellular resolution. Therefore, the authors used "phase contrast", which exploits the different propagation velocities of X-rays in tissue to generate an intensity pattern on the detector. Salditt and his research group at the Institute for X-ray Physics developed special illumination optics and algorithms to reconstruct sharp images from these patterns, an approach which they have now adapted for the study of lung tissue affected by severe progression of Covid-19. The Gottingen team could record lung tissue at scalable size and resolution, yielding both larger overviews and close-up reconstructions. Depending on the setting, their method can even yield structural details below the resolution of conventional light microscopy. To achieve this, the researchers used highly powerful X-ray radiation generated at the PETRAIII storage ring of the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg.

As was the case when the modern microscope was invented 150 years ago, significant progress has resulted from collaboration between physicists and medical researchers. The interdisciplinary research team hopes that the new method will support the development of treatment methods, medicines to prevent or alleviate severe lung damage in Covid-19, or to promote regeneration and recovery. "It is only when we can clearly see and understand what is really going on, that we can develop targeted interventions and drugs," adds Danny Jonigk (Medical University Hannover), who led the medical part of the interdisciplinary study.

###

Original publication:

Contact:

M. Eckermann, J.Frohn, M. Reichardt, M. Osterhoff, M. Sprung, F. Westermeier, A. Tzankov, C. Werlein, M. Kuhnel, D. Jonigk, T. Salditt et al. "3d Virtual Patho-Histology of Lung Tissue from Covid-19 Patients based on Phase Contrast X-ray Tomography" eLife (2020). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.60408 (content also available on medRxiv: r https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.21.20134882v1

Professor Tim Salditt

University of Gottingen

Institute for X-ray Physics

Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Gottingen

Tel: +49 (0) 551 39 29918 / 25556

Email: tsaldit@gwdg.de

http://www.roentgen.physik.uni-goettingen.de
Former finance secretary Rajiv Kumar was on Friday appointed as Election Commissioner in place of Ashok Lavasa who resigned. President Ram Nath Kovind cleared his appointment with effect from the date he assumes office.

Kumar's appointment is in place of Lavasa who resigned with effect from August 31. Rajiv Kumar is a retired IAS officer of 1984 batch of Jharkhand cadre.

"In pursuance of clause (2) of Article 324 of the Constitution, the President is pleased to appoint Shri Rajiv Kumar, (IAS retired) as the election commissioner with effect from the date he assumes the office vice Shri Ashok Lavasa, election commissioner who has resigned with effect August 31," official notification of the Ministry of Law and Justice said.

Kumar has widespread administrative experience in more than 30 years of service during which he held various important assignments including the Administrative postings in his home state of Jharkhand. Kumar has also worked in the Central Government in various capacities.

He was posted as Joint Secretary and then Additional Secretary, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance from March 19, 2012, to March 12, 2015. Later he took over as Establishment Officer & Additional/Special Secretary, Ministry of Personnel Public Grievances & Pension, D/o Personnel & Training from March 12, 2015, till August 30, 2017.

Ashok Lavasa, who was next in line to head the poll panel, resigned on August 18 (Tuesday). He will join the Philippines-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) as vice-president in September. Lavasa, who would have retired as the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) in October 2022, would be the second election commissioner to step down from the poll panel before the completion of his term.

The last time an election commission put in his papers was in 1973 when CEC Nagendra Singh was appointed a judge in the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Lavasa, a career bureaucrat, joined as Election Commissioner on January 23, 2018, and being senior most on the poll panel would have become CEC in April 2021 after the term of incumbent Sunil Arora ends.

An MBA degree from Southern Cross University in Australia, and MPhil in Defense and Strategic Studies degree from the University of Madras, Lavasa, a 1980 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, retired as Finance Secretary.

As per the provisions of the Election Commission (Conditions of Service of Election Commissioners and Transaction of Business) Act, 1991, an EC or the CEC can tender his or her resignation addressed to the President.

Lavasa led the Indian delegation in the climate change negotiations for the Paris Agreement and was instrumental in finalizing India's nationally determined contributions, which included a major role of the private sector.
MONTREAL - A 19-year-old in Quebec has died from complications linked to COVID-19, the Health Department confirmed Friday, marking the first time since the pandemic hit that someone in the province under the age of 20 has succumbed to the disease.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, orange, emerging from the surface of cells, green, cultured in the lab. Also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus causes COVID-19. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-HO-NIAID-RML, *MANDATORY CREDIT*

MONTREAL - A 19-year-old in Quebec has died from complications linked to COVID-19, the Health Department confirmed Friday, marking the first time since the pandemic hit that someone in the province under the age of 20 has succumbed to the disease.

Spokeswoman Marie-Claude Lacasse said in an emailed statement the Health Department cannot release any information about the identity of the person who died, or any details about the death.

The province said 3,279 people between the ages of 10 and 19 have tested positive for COVID-19 to date. Among those cases, 31 people needed to be hospitalized, including six who were in intensive care.

Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu offered her condolences to the family of the 19-year-old Friday, as did Quebec Premier Francois Legault.

"It's hard to find words for how much suffering that family must be going through right now," Hajdu told a news conference in Ottawa.

"It's troubling, it's worrying," Legault told reporters northeast of Montreal, regarding the young man's death.

"(COVID-19) attacks vulnerable people more, people who are older, but young people are not immune," the premier said, stressing the need to wear a mask to prevent the potential spread of the deadly virus.

Dr. Brian Ward, a professor of infectious diseases at the McGill University Health Centre, said while COVID-19 poses a greater risk to older people and individuals with medical problems, young people can still become seriously ill from the disease.

"It's not the first death in the world of somebody under the age of 20," Ward said in an interview Friday. "And so, as long as Canada continues to accumulate cases, we can expect more deaths across the age range."

Dr. Earl Rubin, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Montreal Children's Hospital, said young people dying from COVID-19 is a "very rare occurrence," and most youth who do test positive do not need to be hospitalized.

But, he said, the 19-year-old's death may serve as an important reminder for young people to follow public health guidelines.

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.

"It is a wake-up call that (COVID-19) is still an illness that they have to be aware of and do whatever they can to mitigate the chance of acquiring it and then transmitting it to others," Rubin said in an interview Friday.

"It just reinforces that we are far from out of the woods and with a second wave potentially upon us, it's important to remember and to heed and learn from it, more than anything else."

Meanwhile, Quebec reported 93 new COVID-19 cases Friday, for a total of 61,495. Public health officials also reported three more deaths attributed to COVID-19. They said one death occurred in the past 24 hours while two others occurred between Aug. 14-20.

Quebec has reported a total of 5,733 deaths linked to the novel coronavirus.

The number of hospitalizations dropped by 10 to a total of 136 on Friday. Of those, 23 people are in intensive care, two fewer than a day earlier. Authorities said they conducted 16,164 COVID-19 tests Wednesday, the last day for which testing data is available.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2020.
She returned from a sun-soaked getaway to St Tropez, France, last week before the UK Government's air bridge was lifted with the country.

And Francesca Allen appeared to be in good spirits as she enjoyed an outing in Mayfair, London, on Thursday, after avoiding a 14 day quarantine.

The Love Island star, 24, put on a stylish display in high-waist shorts and a cropped black jacket as she left the Amazonico Restaurant after having dinner.

Stylish: Love Island's Francesca Allen put on a leggy display in high-waist shorts and a cropped black jacket as she hit the town in London on Thursday

Francesca offset her edgy ensemble by wearing a grey crop top, and her high-waist shorts accentuated her slender legs.

She added a pop of colour to her look by stepping out in a pair of light blue heels that perfectly matched her small handbag.

The TV personality styled her brunette locks into loose waves, and she accessorised with a black bowler hat and hoop earrings.

Glamorous: Francesca offset her edgy ensemble by wearing a grey crop top that showed off a hint of her toned abs

Fashionista: Francesca added a pop of colour to her look by stepping out in a pair of light blue heels that perfectly matched her small handbag

Accessorise: The TV personality styled her brunette locks into loose waves, and she wore a black bowler hat that featured a colourful bandanna

Earlier this week the TV star appeared to pine for her recent holidays as she shared sizzling snaps from her Ibiza trip to Instagram.

Brunette beauty Francesca commanded attention as she slipped into a striped bikini while letting loose at famous club O Beach Ibiza.

Suffering from holiday blues, the Bonnie and Clyde co-owner captioned her post: 'damn I miss ibizaaaaa! Please can we lift the restrictions to the islands already... pretty pleaseeee'. (sic)

Glittering touch: Francesca completed her look with a chain necklace and hoop earrings

Stunning: Francesca wore a glamorous palette of make-up for her outing

Travellers from Spain face 14 days of quarantine when they return to the UK after the government pulled its air bridge with the country following a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Aside from her frequent getaways, Francesca was spotted cosying up to a new man during a boozy night out in London last month.

She looked to be on cloud nine as she got up close and personal with Edward Crossan, vice chairman of London-based waste management company Powerday.

The TV personality, who is family friends with Edward, put on a very affectionate display with the hunk who was previously been linked to TOWIE's Amber Turner.

'I miss Ibiza!' Earlier this week the TV star appeared to pine for her recent holidays as she shared sizzling snaps from her Ibiza trip to Instagram

Working it: The brunette beauty commanded attention as she slipped into a striped bikini while letting loose at famous club O Beach Ibiza

In May last year, Edward was seen enjoying a jaunt on a yacht in Ibiza with TOWIE star Amber, 27, who is currently dating Dan Edgar.

The accomplished businessman was named vice chairman of his father's company in January and is featured on the company's website.

His working title is described on the website as: 'Edward joined the family business in 2007, starting as a machine driver and has worked in various roles within the company to now being a director overseeing the development of the business.'

MailOnline contacted Francesca's representatives for further comment at the time of publication.
MACKINAC COUNTY, MI  A 28-year-old died and a 13-year-old was rescued after the pair were seen swimming far from shore in Lake Michigan on Thursday.

The victims were swimming near Sand Dunes Beach in the Upper Peninsula around 4 p.m. when they were spotted by onlookers who called 911, Michigan State Police said in a news release. At that time, both victims appeared to be above water, but could barely be seen.

State troopers responded to the scene. They found the 13-year-old being helped to shore by two bystanders, police said. She was breathing and conscious. The 28-year-old was nowhere in sight.

A search for the missing victim was initiated as troopers entered the surf on foot. They were unsuccessful in finding the 28-year-old, police said. A firefighter who had responded to the scene eventually spotted the victim floating in the water.

A Mackinac Island rescue boat was used to remove the victim from the water, police said. CPR was immediately initiated. The victim was then moved to a U.S. Coast Guard boat where CPR continued during the transport to Mackinac Area Straits Hospital. The 28-year-old victim later died.

Michigan State Police were assisted at the scene by local EMS, firefighters, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Mackinac County Sheriffs Office.

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South Africa: Deputy Minister demands justice for Asithandile Zozo

Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Professor Hlengiwe Mkhize, says Wits student and gender-based violence activist Asithandile 'Kwasa' Zozos killer must face the full might of the law.

Zozos killer appeared in the Dutywa Magistrates Court in the Eastern Cape on Thursday.

His case was postponed to 26 August 2020 and has been remanded in custody.

We condemn this hideous crime by all means and call upon law enforcement officials to leave no stone unturned in the quest for justice, said Mkhize, adding that in such cases, the perpetrators should be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

"It is exactly these kind of perpetrators we do not want back into society. He stabbed Zozo to death for rejecting him and took her life.

We call upon men and men formations to intensify their reflection quite seriously and embark on educating their fellows against perpetrating GBVF.

It is men who kill women, and not women killing themselves. Zozo was assaulted so brazenly and her life ultimately stolen from her and her family, drawing to a close her dreams, which she was at the cusp of. No one deserves such a horrible fate, Mkhize said.

Zozo was killed during Womens Month, something Mkhize said showed painfully that women in South Africa have nowhere to run.

I read that Zozo was instrumental in organising protests in Dutywa after the killing of University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana, who was tortured, raped and killed this time last year and was also of the same age, said Mkhize.

Her father emotionally told the Deputy Ministers office that the young woman was excited with her plans to go back to university after President Cyril Ramaphosa further eased lockdown regulations.

The Deputy Minister is encouraged that the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, as part of its role in the GBV emergency response action plan, has made progress in gazetting the Criminal Matters Amendment Bill, 2020, for public comment.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977, so as to further regulate the granting of bail and placement of persons on parole in respect of offences that have been committed against vulnerable persons.

The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1997, is also gazetted for comment, so as to further regulate sentences in respect of offences that have been committed against vulnerable persons.

The Deputy Minister wishes to pass her sincere and heartfelt condolences to Zozos family, relatives, friends and university mates.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Ooma, Inc. OOMA is scheduled to report second-quarter fiscal 2021 (ended Jul 31, 2020) results on Aug 25, after the closing bell. In the last reported quarter, the company delivered an earnings surprise of 450%. Notably, Ooma has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 228.2%, on average.



The Sunnyvale, CA-based communications solution provider is expected to have recorded higher revenues on a year-over-year basis, driven by Ooma Business and Ooma Residential services. Lets discuss the factors that are likely to get reflected in the upcoming quarterly announcement.



During the quarter under review, Oomas highly customizable and scalable private label partner program was selected by MTA Solutions, a leading telecommunications provider in Alaska, to deliver a new unified communication service under its own brand name. Ooma is providing MTA with the flexibility to offer leading-edge UCaaS. The development is likely to have had a positive impact on Oomas fiscal second-quarter top line.



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for total revenues is pegged at $40 million that indicates growth of 8.1% from the year-ago quarters reported figure. Adjusted earnings per share are pegged at 7 cents, which calls for a surge of 275% from the prior-year quarters recorded figure.

What Our Model Says

Our proven model doesnt conclusively predict an earnings beat for Ooma 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. But thats not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.



Earnings ESP: Oomas Earnings ESP, which represents the difference between the Most Accurate Estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate, is 0.00% as both are pegged at 7 cents.

Ooma, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Ooma, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Ooma, Inc. price-eps-surprise | Ooma, Inc. Quote

Story continues

Zacks Rank: Ooma carries a Zacks Rank #3, at present.

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DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images

MOSCOWAs Russias most prominent opposition figure, Aleksey Navalny, lay in a coma on Friday after a suspected poisoning, a fierce tug-of-war raged between his family and authorities over whether he could be flown to Germany for additional medical treatment.

Finally, on Friday night, Russian doctors relented and allowed Navalny to leave the country on his wifes responsibility.

All day, while a German air ambulance waited at the airport in the Siberian city of Omsk, Russian doctors at the hospital where Navalny was being treated and law enforcement agencies had refused to allow him out of Russia. Navalnys wife appealed to President Vladimir Putin in a letter to allow her husbands medical evacuation, but still the negotiations dragged on. (The Kremlin did not ban Navalny from traveling abroad after a previous attack. Somebody doused him with brilliant green antiseptic, damaging his eye, outside of his Anti-Corruption Fund, or FBK, in 2017. Shortly after the attack, Navalny underwent an eye surgery in Madrid.)

Now, Navalnys family will get the chance to seek treatment for him in Berlin.

Navalny Poison Is Dangerous to Those Treating Him

In the meantime, pro-Kremlin publications, some quoting anonymous sources, downplayed the possibility of poison and unspooled a long list of possible reasons why a healthy 44-year-old could have suddenly collapsed in a coma. Alternative causes and diagnoses for Navalnys coma proliferated on state media: He ate or took something the evening before was one idea, or he drank moonshine. Other reports, which suggested the stricken opposition leader is a drug addict, angered even his critics.

Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite who ran as a token candidate in the last presidential election from which real opposition figures were excluded, often disagreed with Navalny in political debates. But she defended her rival on Friday: I have no doubts that this is a political reprisal, and reading about him getting drunk on moonshine in the village is simply disgusting, Sobchak wrote on social media. Alexey was never seen drunk and there was no question of drugs at all. I am still horrified by the video of his voice on the plane: it's just awful. There are no words to describe the feelings of horror and helplessness in front of such a despicable reprisal.

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The Kremlins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, initially said that Navalny would not leave Russia as the doctors treating him in Siberia thought the flight could be a threat to life, so long as there is no clarity about what caused Navalnys sickness. Navalnys friends and supporters insisted that what actually threatened his life was poison in the tea he drank at a cafe in the airport before boarding his flight on Wednesday night. The politician lost consciousness on the plane early in the morning on Thursday. Video shot by another passenger showed him moaning in pain.

The director of Navalnys Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, told journalists that he and his colleagues were in the head doctors office when a representative of the local transport police entered the room with a cell phone in her hand and said, Here is the substance they found in him. Zhdanov asked the name of the substance. She told us it was classified information but that the substance was deadly dangerous for life, threatening not just Alekseys life but also everybody around him, everybody should be wearing protective costumes. The intensive care unit treating Navalny has been flooded by police, according to Zhdanov.

The head doctor at the hospital, Aleksander Murakhovsky, admitted to reporters that some chemicals had been discovered on the opposition leaders nails and on his clothes. But he said that the chemicals, which he did not name, had nothing to do with Navalnys coma. He later said metabolic disorders had caused the coma. The chief editor of Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin outlet, Margarita Simonyan, immediately posted: They should have given him a spoon of sugar on the plane, nothing would have happened.

The Siberian doctors insisted that the conditions and doctors at their hospital were not any worse, than at the Charite hospital, where Germany was going to provide medical treatment for Navalny. Charite is a leading university hospital in Berlin, treating 152,693 inpatient cases a year. In contrast, photographs of the Omsk hospital, posted by Navalnys press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, showed toilets covered in corrosion, holes in the walls, and missing paint and tiles. By evening, after a day of standoffs over the evacuation, the situation sounded completely bizarre: Navalnys family and supporters said they felt as if they were trying to organize his escape from prison and not transportation from one hospital to another.

Navalnys wife, Yulia, spoke to journalists outside the hospital. She was breathing heavily: I tried to see doctors in the intensive care but some people wearing overcoats inside forced me out in a brutal way, she said. Doctors had stopped talking with her four hours before. They hide the German doctors from us, this is an outrageous situation. It is obvious that something is being kept in secret from us. We demand they give us Aleksey immediately, so we could take him to doctors who we trust.

Navalnys personal doctor denied he had diabetes. After seeing the video of Navalny screaming in pain on the plane, Russian doctors both in Moscow and St. Petersburg expressed their doubts about low blood sugar being the cause of Navalnys coma. As a rule, a fairly healthy person does not have hypoglycemia unless they starve for two days and work out. Navalny did not starve himself in Siberia. He met with local opposition politicians, and continued his corruption investigation of Tomsk governor Sergey Zhvachkin; he had tea in Tomsks airport.

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Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he cannot provide figures on how many fines have been issued to people breaking quarantine rules, as more British holidaymakers face a scramble to return from popular destinations being removed from the safe travel list.

From 4am on Saturday, anyone returning from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago will have to self-isolate for 14 days.

Mr Shapps said people travelling anywhere abroad this summer should keep their eyes open to the prospect of having to quarantine on return, pointing to his own experience of having been caught out when Spain was removed from the safe travel list while he was in the country last month.

Two-week quarantine rules for all UK arrivals came into force on June 8 to tackle the spread of coronavirus, with a number of countries added to and removed from the safe list  meaning self-isolation is not required  as the weeks have gone by.

Insisting quarantine checks are being made, Mr Shapps said his wife received a phone call randomly from Border Force after returning from their family holiday.

Asked on BBC Breakfast if anyone has been fined yet, he said yes but was not able to provide figures.

Asked if he is curious about how many people are abiding by the rules, he said of course, adding that Border Force will in time publish its information.

According to the latest available Home Office figures, as of August 14 nine fines have been issued at the border since quarantine restrictions were introduced.

Home Secretary Priti Patel last month said there had been a high level of compliance with the measures but in a report earlier this month the Commons Home Affairs Committee said it remained unconvinced by Home Office claims that an estimated 99.9% of the public subjected to quarantine restrictions were complying.

The latest restrictions came alongside some positive news for holidaymakers as Portugal was given safe travel status, meaning Britons will not have to quarantine on their return home.

Story continues

Prices for flights from the latest quarantine nations have rocketed, with British Airways advertising tickets for an early Friday morning flight between Zagreb in Croatia and London at 276 for economy class. The same flight on Monday was 82.

Figures released by the Department for Transport (DfT) indicate the weekly Covid-19 incidence (cases) per 100,000 for Croatia increased from 10.4 on August 12 to 27.4 on August 19, a 164% rise.

Over the same period, Trinidad and Tobago saw a 232% increase, while Austria had a 93% rise between August 13 and August 20.

By comparison, the UK recorded 11.5 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to August 16.

Croatias ambassador to the UK said it is a regret that the UK Government did not implement regional quarantine rules rather than removing the entire country from its exemption list.

Igor Pokaz told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: We regret that it was not possible for the UK Government to consider a regional approach, because in Croatia we have, as I said, witnessed these spikes in certain areas  for example in Zagreb in the capital and maybe among the young population.

But in Dubrovnik, its surroundings and the islands there were very, very few cases. And I deliberately mention Dubrovnik and the islands as that is where most of the British tourists go.

Mr Shapps told Sky News it is still rather too difficult to take a regionalised approach for other countries because we just dont have the same control elsewhere.

It was put to Mr Shapps that someone returning from Croatia to Oldham in Greater Manchester, where the rate was the equivalent of 78.9 per 100,000 people in the seven days to August 17, is coming from a less dangerous situation to a more dangerous one.

The minister told the Today programme: It clearly is a fact that there is regionalisation going on, localisation of the disease in different places in this country and elsewhere  that is undeniable.

Holidaymakers in the latest countries to be added to the quarantine list are facing a scramble home (Tim Goode/PA)

Warning that everyone should be aware of the changeable situation in terms of travelling anywhere, he told BBC Breakfast: Regardless of where youre going, having been caught out on this myself, everybody will be travelling with their eyes open this summer because this virus is incredibly unpredictable.

In Scotland, travellers from Switzerland will also be required to quarantine for a fortnight on their return to the country.

Mr Shapps said while authorities are still reviewing the possibility of testing at airports, it is not a straightforward option.

Speaking to Sky News, he said: I want to see systems in place to do that kind of thing. But youve also got to be sure that youre testing the right person on that second time round because are you going to just send the kit to the house or are you going to require the person to perhaps drive to a test centre?

So the point Im making is this, its a bit more complicated than is sometimes suggested. People say why dont you just test at the airport? Well, because it wouldnt provide the results and youve then got to make sure the second test goes to the right person.

Meanwhile, a group of MPs have urged Boris Johnson to adopt a zero-Covid approach to tackling the virus across England.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus said the measure would provide clarity and reassurance to the public.

(PA Graphics)

Group chairwoman, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, said: The Government has failed abysmally to put a clear strategy in place to eliminate coronavirus from the UK.

This lack of clarity has left the public confused and our NHS and care staff flying blind.

The Prime Minister must get a grip and introduce a comprehensive plan to control this deadly pandemic before this winter.

Mr Johnson is currently holidaying in Scotland with his fiancee Carrie Symonds.

The Daily Mail has reported that the couple have been staying in a remote three-bedroom coastal cottage.

The Prime Minister did not return from his holiday last week when exams chaos erupted after thousands of pupils had their results downgraded.

According to the Mail, Mr Johnson was offered the opportunity to make a public statement regarding the situation, but Downing Street declined.
Youve landed on death. Sombre topic, this one. Well, I think a lot about death. Im 81, so its getting near! [Laughs] At my age, my husband had his death stroke. [Harry Seidler had a severe stroke in 2005 and died the following year.] Thats 15 years ago. Im trying to clear up things in my life, so that when I die there wont be a mess.

In Christianity there are ten commandments. Do you have any commandments for design? My husband was a very strong architectural philosopher, and his mantra  which I follow, too  could be summed up in the expression, Make the most of the least.

How else have you been reflecting on the fact youre the same age as Harry when he had his stroke? Im used to it now. But I miss him every day. I live in the house we both designed in 1967; its where Im sitting now. You know, I still have his clothes hanging up. And shoes. All his books. Books by the bed. He could walk in now and take over where he left off. Nothings really changed.

Tell me something about Harry that might surprise people. Something few people would know. Oh! [Laughs] What can I tell you? Oh, he was very sweet. He was really motivated by architecture. He liked the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He liked travelling. He liked photography. And he liked me.

What kind of person would you want to receive a fellowship or scholarship named in your honour? Somebody who wanted to set the world on fire. Thats what Harry did. He never stopped working. So youve got to be clever. Youve got to be determined and have a positive attitude. Most of all, youve got to be creative.

How do you feel about the idea that your designs will outlive you? Oh, I think thats good! Think of lawyers  workers who do something ephemeral. Architects work? Look around you. There it is. No, no  thats the good part! I mean, what do people remember about lawyers?

If you could design your final resting place, what would it be? Ill be cremated. Near the house where Im sitting now, theres a waterfall and a creek. Half of my husbands ashes were put in the Danube  this is what he specified  and the other half will go in the creek with mine when I die. Its in my will.
The conditions around Lough Foyle were treacherous when the family's car careered off the road (Getty)

A father and his two children have died after their car careered down an embankment and into a lake during a storm.

John Mullan, 49, died in the vehicle and his children Thomas, 14 and Amelia, 6, managed to escape but were pronounced dead soon after.

Their mother Geraldine Mullan, 45, was also in the car. She survived the crash and raised the alarm.

The family were returning from a day out when they lost control of their vehicle, which plunged into Lough Foyle in County Donegal, Northern Ireland.

The Mullens, from Moville, became trapped in their black Mitsubishi ASX SUV car.

Mrs Mullan managed to get onto the upturned wreckage of the car and was rescued.

She was rushed to Letterkenny University Hospital where her injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, but police say she is severely traumatised.

Donegal Gardai have launched an investigation into the accident (Getty images)

Garda Superintendent Eugene McGovern of Buncrana Garda station was at the scene. He said conditions were poor and the night was wet and windy.

He also revealed how the stretch of road had recently been resurfaced. Investigators will examine if this may have contributed to the tragedy.

McGovern said: We knew fairly early on that we were dealing with a family situation here and it was very difficult.

Read More From Yahoo News UK:

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We still dont know what caused Mr Mullan to veer off the road but we will carry out a full investigation into all the circumstances.

He added: It is just difficult to find words for the families involved.

This is an awful tragedy for the immediate families but also for the wider community as the family are well known and respected in the locality.

Local Donegal Deputies Padraig Mac Lochlainn and Pearse Doherty paid tribute to the family.

Deputy Mac Lochlainn said: This is such a heartbreaking tragedy and myself and Deputy Pearse Doherty want to convey our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the man and two children who have died.

The people of Inishowen and Donegal have suffered more than most from road tragedies over the years and we have no doubt that our people will do all that we can to support the devastated family at this terrible time and in the time ahead.

Coronavirus: what happened today

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Passengers heading to Jeju Island line up at the Gimpo International Airport departure terminal on July 27. Domestic airlines, especially budget carriers, have relied heavily on domestic routes to survive the COVID-19 crisis, but the second wave of infections is raising concerns of a decline in domestic travel. / Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han





By Jun Ji-hye







Domestic airlines are facing increasing concerns that the airline industry's financial crisis could worsen as the second wave of COVID-19 infections spreads quickly around the country.







Carriers, especially low-cost carriers (LCCs), have mostly been relying on domestic routes to survive the COVID-19 crisis as international travel has become difficult due to the pandemic.







But a new wave of infections in Korea  with daily the number of new virus cases remaining at three digits since Aug. 13  could lead to a decline in domestic travel demand.







According to data compiled by the Korea Civil Aviation Association, the number of passengers on international routes of local carriers dipped nearly 98 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier.






" " Is this what comes to mind when you think of the Japanese? iStockphoto/ Thinkstock

When you hear the phrase "Japanese traditions," you may immediately think of sushi. Or your brain might conjure an image of a bowing Japanese businessman, a kimono-clad geisha, a sumo wrestler or a sword-wielding samurai. How about origami, haiku or bonzai? You may know all of these things as traditionally Japanese, but that's just scraping the surface of Japanese culture

Japan's interactions with other countries have had an immeasurable effect on its traditions, with China being the biggest influence. The two countries are separated by a small body of water -- the East China Sea -- with just 512 miles (824 kilometers) between Shanghai, China and Nagasaki, Japan. To say that Sino-Japanese relations throughout history have been complicated is an understatement, but numerous Japanese traditions have their roots in Chinese ones. Religion is probably the single largest influence that China has had on Japan.

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While today the majority of Japanese do not claim a religious affiliation, lingering effects from ancient religious and spiritual traditions have a permanent place in secular life. Buddhism spread to Japan from India in the second century B.C. by way of the Silk Road, intertwining with the indigenous Shinto to create a complex system of spirituality, ritual and ancestor worship. The two religions, separated by an official act in the mid-1860s (although not entirely in practice), have had lasting effects on everything from Japanese architecture to its system of writing.

Despite the long history of interactions with its neighbors, Japan's island status and ability to isolate itself was also a major factor in the development of its culture. Fearing colonial imperialism and religious influences from Western missionaries, the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime that ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868, imposed a closed foreign policy on the country for more than 250 years. This prevented the Japanese from leaving and foreigners from entering the country, with controlled exceptions for trade purposes. The isolation strengthened Japanese nationalism and allowed more indigenous philosophies to flourish. The country was "opened" to the West in 1853 after U.S. Naval Commander Matthew Perry appeared with heavily gunned ships and essentially forced the shogunate to sign a treaty. This led to the Meiji period of modernization and industrialization, but nationalism and emperor worship grew stronger as Japan attempted to retain its own culture despite the growing influence of the West.

Less than one hundred years later, Japan was a member of the League of Nations and considered a major world player. Aiming to dominate Asia and already at war with China, Japan officially entered World War II by attacking American and British holdings in the Pacific, including Pearl Harbor, in 1941. In the years following Japan's defeat, the country has become a key ally for the United States and the two nations have come to share a lot of cultural traditions.

Even when incorporating foreign elements, Japanese traditions remain uniquely Japanese at the core and are often puzzling to outsiders. Next, we'll look at some of the most confounding customs -- social etiquette.
The Russian reporters were hired after some employees of the Belarusian state television and radio company had decided to take to the streets and protest

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko explained why Russian propagandists had been hired to work in the Belarusian National State TV and Radio Company.

Read alsoBelarusian TV journalists replaced by Russian propagandists  ex-news director

While talking to employees of the food company Agrokombinat Dzerzhinskiy on August 21, he said the Russian reporters had been hired after some employees of the Belarusian state television and radio company had decided to take to the streets and protest, BelTA has learned.

Lukashenko said he had spoken against pressuring people into staying.

"If someone wants to quit, he or she should easily do it. Don't make them stay. Even if they are forced to stay, they will still hold a grudge. If they want to quit, they should have the freedom to do it. I've openly told workers so," Lukashenko said.

"They have to understand that competition on the market is tough. I've asked Russians to lend us two-three groups of reporters just in case. Six to nine people from the most advanced television company. Our young specialists should see how work should be done," he said.

"The situation has been stabilized. Those, who want to work, do. Those, who don't, don't. I've even asked Russians to lend me reporters to cover the president's work and set an example of good work. I know these people. Television is normal," Lukashenko added.

Russia "support" for Lukashenko
Ministry requires normal teaching at reopened schools - Xinhua | English.news.cn

China's Ministry of Education (MOE) has required efforts to restore normal teaching at the country's schools and universities with effective anti-epidemic measures in place.

A circular, issued by the office of the MOE's leading group for COVID-19 responses, asked local education authorities as well as colleges and universities to make plans in preparation for the reopening of schools and universities in the upcoming autumn semester.

Such plans must take local anti-epidemic situations and the schools' realistic conditions into account, the circular said, adding that the faculties should be prepared for the school reopening, and health monitoring measures for teachers and students should be properly in place.

It also required an overhaul of all kinds of safety risks on campus.

Anti-epidemic measures should be carried out in a scientific and targeted manner, the circular said, demanding a coordinated system among the schools and local health authorities for epidemic containment.

The schools should have contingency plans and material reserves ready for possible emergencies, and they should keep records for every student regarding their returning routes, the document said.

Containment measures at some key sites such as the schools' classrooms, canteens, dormitories, and laboratories should be strengthened, and epidemic-related information should be reported daily even if there are no relevant cases, according to the circular.

It also asked the schools to enhance their capabilities in handling possible emergencies with relevant well-trained personnel.
Cobb County School Board Post 5 vice-chair David Banks called coronavirus 'the China virus' in a campaign newsletter August 18

A Georgia school board member was slammed as racially insensitive for calling coronavirus 'the China virus.'

In a newsletter sent August 18, Cobb County School Board Post 5 vice-chair David Banks, who represents parts of East Cobb, wrote that 'since the China virus is still of concern,' the school district would be canceling its 2020 retiree ceremony.

Banks, a Republican, who previously sent emails blaming 'illegal aliens' for LA's high murder rate, has been on the school board since 2009. He is currently seeking a fourth term.

Parents were furious about the use of the racially charged term and have demanded he apologize.

Shannon Deisen, who has an Asian-American daughter in a middle school in the school district, told WSBTV that 'its highly inappropriate for an elected official to make a choice to use language that incites bullying and hate.'

She added that Banks' 'words have an impact on how students treat each other' and noted that 'if we want to foster an environment of inclusion and respecting the dignity of all the students in Cobb County schools, theres no place for that language.'

Dr. Jonathan Chen, who also has children in district schools, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he wasn't surprised to see 'China virus' when he received Banks' newsletter.

While using potentially racially insensitive words once could be deemed 'poor judgement,' Chen noted that 'if theres a pattern, then thats disturbing.'

In November 2017, Banks used his personal email account to forward an immigration hoax email which cited fake statistics about 'illegal aliens' - that had been debunked 10 years ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The email claimed that undocumented immigrants were responsible for the majority of murder warrants in Los Angeles and claimed taxpayers were responsible for funding births of babies 'to illegal alien Mexicans.'

In 2015, Banks, a retired computer and technology consultant and business owner, was accused of sending another email aimed at reducing rights of Mexican immigrants in the US, including their right to free speech, protest and property ownership.

Parents in the school district were upset after receiving the email (pictured) and asked that Banks, a Republican, apologize for using the racially-insensitive term

Of the 2017 incident, the Cobb County School Board Chairman said at that time that because Banks had used his personal email to forward the immigration hoax email to a personal distribution list, there was nothing the board could do.

Following his receipt of Banks' August 18 campaign newsletter involving the 'China virus' mention, Chen has called for Banks to publicly apologize for using the divisive term and is asking for the school board to formally condemn Banks' language.

Another Cobb County resident, John Martzall, told Fox 5 Atlanta that he sent the school board members a letter pointing out the racism behind using the 'China virus' term.

He said that the letter included 'some trends from United States searches and it's not a commonly used phrase no matter who you are. It's been continually called out as a racist term.'

Martzall added that 'When something is called out as racist, we need to take a step back and consider it. And accept the fact that people are offended by it.'

On Thursday, board member Dr. Jaha Howard asked his colleagues to issue an official apology for anything that a current board member might have said or done - without naming Banks, apparently - 'that has been deemed potentially racist.'

'We should acknowledge our own behaviors within our own leadership,' Howard said during a work session Thursday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Howard later sent a statement to Fox 5 Atlanta which said, 'I am appalled, but not surprised by my colleague's harmful statement. I'm also disappointed that collectively we did not condemn his language. As leaders, we must do better in acknowledging our issues and commit to getting better for the sake of our children.'

Fellow board member Charisse David told the news station that she wasn't surprised by Banks' language either and had asked the board issue a statement condemning his use of the term, but that did not happen Thursday.

The Cobb County School District sent FOX 5 a statement noting that its attention is on the start of the new school year.

'As a District, we are entirely focused on a successful start to a very complicated school year, on our students and on our staff,' the statement read.

President Trump has previously been criticized for hsi use of the 'China virus' or even 'kung flu' on Twitter and during term speeches

'Mr. Banks is an elected official and communicates his own views and opinions. His newsletters are not District communications and any Board member questions should be directed to Board members.'

School Board Chairman Brad Wheeler told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that while the board might not be able to do much about Banks' comments, he does tell the members 'to be cognizant of your comments because they reflect on yourself and the entire board.'

Wheeler added that 'Its in the hands of the voters.'

After running unopposed four years ago, Banks now faces a challenger in Democrat Julia Hurtado in the general election on November 3.

In June, Banks told East Cobb News that he is opposed to the idea of the school district hiring a chief equity officer to handle inequities including race and ethnicity and special needs, calling the idea of an equity officer 'a buzzword, something the Democrat party uses a lot. But it doesnt work.'

Cobb County Schools is the only major school system in metro Atlanta that has yet to formally addressed systemic racism following months of social justice and racial inequality protests.

The school board has failed three times to pass a resolution denouncing racism.

Davis told the Atlanta Constitution-Journal that it's hard to discuss passing a resolution condemning racism when 'we do have colleagues that are saying things that are considered slurs.'

Banks has not yet addressed the use of the term publicly or issued an apology over it.

President Trump has previously been criticized for hsi use of the 'China virus' or even 'kung flu' on Twitter and during term speeches. Both terms have been deemed racially insensitive for their role in promoting xenophobia and harassment of Asian-Americans in the US during the pandemic.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21) - It might take a while before we see the Filipino superheroine fly again on the big screen as the production of Darna movie was postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.

ABS-CBN said in a statement on Friday that the company still holds the right to the movie adaptation of the popular comics by Mars Ravelo.

We are committed to following production guidelines under the new normal and the safety of the actors and production team is a top priority, read the statement.

However, because the movie requires complex logistics, crowd shots, and fight scenes that involve physical contact, it will be difficult to give justice to the superhero film while strictly adhering to the guidelines, it added.

The movie was supposed to be a big break for newcomer Jane de Leon after Liza Soberano backed out from the project due to an injury.

Darna will be directed by Jerrold Tarog, best known for his film 'Heneral Luna."

The superheroine was last portrayed by Marian Rivera in GMA-7 in 2009
FALLS CHURCH, Va.: A Libyan military commander who previously lived for decades in Virginia says he deserves immunity from a pair of civil lawsuits accusing him of atrocities and indiscriminate killings because he is Libyas head of state.

Family members who say their loved ones were killed or tortured by Khalifa Hifters forces have filed two separate lawsuits against him in federal court in Alexandria. The lawsuits seek millions of dollars in damages that could be recovered from property Hifter, a dual U.S. and Libyan citizen, and his family still own throughout northern Virginia.

Hifter leads the self-styled Libyan National Army, a faction in a civil war that has raged in the country for years. Once a lieutenant to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Hifter defected to the U.S. during the 1980s and spent many years living in northern Virginia. He is widely believed to have worked with the CIA during his time in exile.

Hifter returned to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafis fall, and Hifters army gained control of the eastern part of Libya. Last year, he launched a campaign to take Tripoli, its capital. But his army suffered significant setbacks in recent months after the United-Nations-backed government opposing Hifter received military support from Turkey.

Hifter has received Russian and Egyptian backing.

Initially, Hifter did not respond to the lawsuits in Virginia, and a magistrate in one of the cases had recommended that the plaintiffs be awarded a default judgment. But earlier this month, lawyers representing Hifter sent a letter to the judge saying he wanted to defend himself. Hifter opponents who support the lawsuits against him say he changed tactics in the lawsuit after suffering military setbacks that might at some point force him to flee Libya.

In court motions filed Thursday, Hifters lawyers say he merits head-of-state status that would render him immune from civil suit under U.S. law. The U.S. actually supports the United Nations-backed government that has been fighting Hifter. But Hifters lawyers point to an April 2019 phone call President Donald Trump placed to Hifter in which Trump reportedly praised Hifter for his efforts to fight terrorism.

Faisal Gill, a lawyer for plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, rejected the notion that Hifter deserves head-of-state immunity.

An off-hand comment from President Trump is not official US policy, Gill said.

Hifter makes other arguments seeking dismissal of the suits, including claims that he was not properly served notice of the lawsuit and that the issues delve into a political question which courts are unsuited to resolve.

Hifters lawyers also say the allegations of indiscriminate killing and torture are not valid and that the U.S. law designed to protect torture victims is not intended to create liability for collateral civilian casualties resulting from legitimate military operations undertaken in a civil war."

A hearing on the motions to dismiss is scheduled for Sept. 15 in Alexandria.

Hifters filing comes as Libyas U.N.-supported government, which opposes Hifter, announced a cease-fire Friday across the oil-rich country.

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
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday (August 20) chaired meeting with ministers and officials to review the work-related to Metro project in the state. He said that Bhopal and Indore Metro Project is an ambitious plan of the state government and we have set up the target to complete the project within the next 3-4 years.

"In this regard, prompt action should be taken for the formation of Joint Venture Board, to notify Bhopal and Indore as metropolitan area and acquisition of land etc to accelerate the speed. The work of the project should be carried out speedily with quality," Chouhan said.

The meeting was also attended by Minister for Urban Development and Housing Bhupendra Singh, Chief Secretary Iqbal Singh Bains, Additional Chief Secretary Manoj Govil, Principal Secretary Nitesh Vyas.

Taking to Twitter the Madhya Pradesh CM shared pictures of the meeting saying, ''Today, a review meeting was held with senior officials in the Ministry regarding the Madhya Pradesh Metro Rail Project.''



pic.twitter.com/1L47X9dtzq

 Shivraj Singh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) August 20, 2020

Chouhan has said that the work of Nagpur Metro was carried out speedily. "Study, work carried out in Nagpur and accelerates the speed of the construction works of Metro in Madhya Pradesh," he said.

The total cost of the Bhopal and Indore Metro Rail Project is Rs 14,442 crore 20 lakh, that includes the cost of Rs 6941 crore 40 lakh of Bhopal Metro and Rs 7500 crore 80 lakh of Indore Metro.

"Rs 138 crore 58 lakh spent till now. Till now, finance of Rs. 248 crore 96 lakh and Rs. 245 crore 23 lakh has been received by the Metro Company for metro works from the State Government and Government of India respectively. Out of this amount, Rs. 138 crore 58 lakh has already been spent on metro works till date," read an official release.

Under the Bhopal Metro, a target has been set to complete the works from AIIMS to Subhash Nagar by August 2023, from Subhash Nagar to Karond square by December 2024 and from Bhadbhada square to Ratnagiri Tiraha by May 2024.

Similarly, under the Indore Metro, the target has been set to complete the work from Gandhi Nagar to Mumtaz Bagh by August 2023, from Mumtaz Bagh to Railway Station by July 2024 and Gandhi Nagar to Railway Station by December 2024.

Principal Secretary Nitesh Vyas has informed that tender has been issued to construct Priority Corridors under the Metro of both Bhopal and Indore cities."Five to 6 stations will fall on the priority corridors. A 6.3 km long priority corridor in Bhopal and 5.2 km long priority corridor in Indore have to be constructed, read the release.

(With ANI input)
BTEC students will be given their results by the end of next week as last minute delay causes 'frustration and uncertainty' for 850,000 students - with officials promising no grades will go down.

Pearson, the awarding organisation, has apologised to pupils following its decision to pull the results despite previously being aware of problems with the algorithm.

Students awaiting grades for university entry are being prioritised and will receive their results from Tuesday onwards, the exam board said, and all the remaining results will be available by Friday next week.

Meanwhile some BTEC students have been left feeling like second-class students after GCSE pupils were handed their results this week.

The clarification on timings from the exam boards comes after students and teachers protested in Westminster over the BTEC and A-level results chaos.

Scroll down for video.

Pearson, the provider of BTECs, told schools and colleges not to publish level 1 and 2 results in the vocational qualifications to give them time to re-grade them in line with A-levels and GCSEs - which are being graded via teacher assessments (stock)

On Wednesday, just hours before results day, hundreds of thousands of BTEC students were told they would not receive their results following a U-turn.

Pearson said it needed to review the grades of its level one to three BTEC qualifications after Ofqual's decision to allow A-level and GCSE students to use grades based on their teachers' estimates.

Around 200,000 level one and two entries were due to receive grades on Thursday this week, while 250,000 level three grades were already awarded last week.

A spokeswoman for Pearson said: 'We know this has caused frustration and additional uncertainty for students and we are truly sorry.

'No grades will go down as part of this review.

Exam board Pearson pulled its BTEC results less than 24 hours before releasing them, sparking a fresh round of results chaos for nearly half a million pupils (stock)

'We believe this will result in the fairest outcomes for the 2020 cohort of BTEC learners, and ensure they are not disadvantaged in relation to their peers who have taken A-level and GCSE qualifications.

'We have now written to colleges to confirm that all eligible results will be available by August 28.

'Thank you to all the schools and colleges who have been working so collaboratively with us to support their students at this time.'

Dozens of people attended a protest over exam results outside Downing Street on Friday where they demanded the immediate sacking of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.

A UCAS spokesman said: 'The vast majority of students applying this year with BTECs have secured their place at University, with 45,000 students already placed with their first choice university.

'Approximately 5,800 students were not placed at their original firm choice university and we expect some of those students will, when revised grades are issued, meet the conditions of their original firm offer.

'UCAS will work closely with Pearson to process these results to ensure they can make decisions as soon as possible.'

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the situation was 'frustrating'.

Meanwhile some BTEC students have been left feeling like second-class students after GCSE pupils were handed their results this week. Pictured, students getting their GCSE results at Hazelwood College in Belfast

He added: 'We hope that no student misses out on the university place they had their heart set on as a result of this delay.

'Pearson is doing the right thing in reviewing BTEC grades, but it is a pity that it wasn't quicker off the mark.

'We are pleased there is now the reassurance of knowing when the results will be available, and that students will soon be able to move on to the next stage of their lives.'

On Friday morning, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps became the latest minister to defend Mr Williamson over the exam results chaos.

He said: 'Let's not pretend that the choices facing the Education Secretary were unique to England or straightforward, because they were not.'

The 11th hour move came despite Pearson being warned a week ago about a 'systemic issue' with grading, it was claimed.

The parent of one BTEC student said the decision to withhold final grades has left his son feeling like a 'second-class student'.

Caleb Taylor, 19, is waiting for the results of his level three BTEC in computing and business.

His father, Richard, said he has been unable to enrol at his college in Gwent for next year without knowing his final grades.

He said: 'I think it's a disgrace. He feels like he is a second-class student, and BTECs are seen as less important than A-levels because they have been sorted out last.

'Technical qualifications shouldn't be seen as less than. My son is really anxious because he doesn't know what he will be doing next year.

'He plans to go to university but it is a good thing he didn't want to go this year because he would have missed out on his space.

Taha Khan, 16, said he hoped his dad would be 'proud' after picking up his results, including six top grade 9s, at school in Bolton, Greater Manchester, yesterday

'There has just been no communication, we just don't know what is going on.'

This morning, David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We'd been talking to Pearson ever since the results came out last Thursday and we knew there were lots and lots of problems, lots of students not getting the results they really should have got, lots of colleges saying to us that actually this just doesn't look right, and we were saying to Pearson "is this just isolated cases or is it a more systemic issue?"

'I think what they've realised is that both the level three results last week, but perhaps more importantly for the results that were due today, that this was a system issue and they really needed to do a thorough review.'

BBC Radio 4 was told by Bexleyheath Academy in South East London that some results papers give both grades on the same piece of paper - so the principal was giving out BTEC grades because there were on the same piece of paper as the GCSEs.

Schools minister Nick Gibb told Sky News that BTEC results were being reviewed and 'they'll be reissuing them hopefully next week'.

The National Education Union's co-general secretary said the Government now 'must put an end' to the 'incompetence' around the issuing of the BTEC results.

People took part in a protest outside Downing Street in London on August 21 over the government's handling of exam results after A-level and GCSE exams were cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak

Dr Mary Bousted said: 'Teachers know their students better than any model or algorithm and it will be a relief to many that the grades they receive are now a fairer reflection of their achievements.

'To add to the GCSE and A-level fiasco, the decision by (examiner) Pearson not to issue BTEC results at the eleventh hour compounds the upsetting and chaotic experience for students.

'Government must put an end to this incompetence and work quickly to ensure every young person gets the grades they deserve to move on to the next stages of their lives.'

The development will also cause even further disruption to students seeking places in higher education, with universities under pressure from thousands of pupils scrambling to get their first choices after the U-turn led to improved grades.

Mr Hughes added: 'This is a decision that is kind of the result of lots and lots of poor decisions over many weeks.

'One thing we've got to do I think in the fullness of time is a full review, independent review, open and transparent into what went wrong, not to blame people, but really to understand what's happened, because confidence in the system has been completely blown.

'Ofqual wanted integrity in the system to be at the heart of all this, and I think that's the last thing that's been achieved. So the decision by Pearson last night, really late in the day, 11th hour, almost the 12th, hour was probably the right decision, just a shame it came so late.

'But sometimes it is better to make the right decision rather than carry on and get very, very unfair outcomes for students.'

Alex Dyer, CEO and Founder of Tutor House, told MailOnline: 'This delay means that they will not be able to go to Sixth Form, College or apprenticeships as they have to wait for their grades, which could be a few weeks, whilst those who studied GCSE's are moving on with their lives.

'The government are ignoring the poorer students as well as the less regarded qualifications.'

Simon Reichwald, Strategic Lead for Talent at MyKindaFuture, commented: 'This year's results saga has caused an incredible amount of unnecessary distress and worry for a whole year group of students, particularly those who have studied for BTEC qualifications.

'The ongoing confusion around the marking system is likely to impact the young people affected for years to come, whether they choose to continue their studies or move into the world of work.

'Some employers and education providers may unfairly assume that a young person from the class of 2020 had their grade inflated, and therefore interrogate them on their qualifications much more than they would usually.

'Young people will have to pre-empt this in their interviews and demonstrate additional skills, such as extra-curricular achievements, in order to ensure they are competitive against previous year groups, putting them at an immediate disadvantage.

'Sadly, this is likely to have the biggest impact on those who already come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The shock 11th-hour move affects 450,000 pupils in the UK, all due to collect results along with GCSE candidates (pictured: students from Codsall Community High School march to the constituency office of local MP Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, as a protest over the continuing issues of last week's A level results)

'We know that many talented individuals from underprivileged backgrounds already suffer from a lack of self-belief, and the results saga is likely to have dented their confidence even further.

'Due to their vocational nature, BTECs are still unfairly considered less credible than A-Levels by many employers and those who have completed their qualifications this year will now have the added worry that they will be judged more harshly than those from previous year groups.'

Labour's Shadow Education Seccretary Kate Green told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'I think it's utterly outrageous, it's chaos after chaos now and at the end of this are young people psyching themselves up to receive their results, wanting to plan their futures for the next step in their studies and being let down again and again by the Government.

'And now to hear that not only the results that were due today are delayed until we don't know when but some of the results received last week might have to be reviewed and adjusted, and still don't know what they should do next. I think it's absolutely shameful, they are in the middle of a fiasco no way of their making.'

The late decision follows the Government's botched handling of its A-level results fiasco and comes after Labour and education unions call for Downing Street to explain why BTEC students had been left out of Monday's grading U-turn.

It is likely to spark fears that delays in the publication of BTEC results could risk pupils taking the vocational qualification being 'squeezed out' of higher education.

In a letter to schools, Cindy Rampersaud, Pearson's senior VP, said: 'We appreciate this will cause additional uncertainty for students and we are sorry about this.

'Our priority is to ensure fair outcomes for BTEC students in relation to A levels and GCSEs and that no BTEC student is disadvantaged.'

Pearson apologised for the 'additional uncertainty for students' the move will cause, with a spokeswoman saying: 'Following Ofqual's announcement that A-level and GCSE students are to receive centre-assessed grades, we will be applying the same principles for students receiving BTEC results this summer.

'We will be regrading BTECs to address concerns about unfairness in relation to A-levels and GCSEs and ensure no BTEC student is disadvantaged.'

She added: 'We know this could cause additional uncertainty for students and we are sorry about this. Our priority is to ensure fair outcomes for BTEC students and we will work around the clock to provide revised grades as soon as we can.'

Kate Green, Labour's shadow education secretary, said: 'This latest chaos is totally unacceptable. For some young people to find out less than a day in advance that they will not be receiving their grades tomorrow is utterly disgraceful.

'It's appalling that thousands of young people should face further confusion and uncertainty because of the Government's incompetence.

'This repeated chaos is simply no way to run a country. The Government must urgently set a clear deadline for every young person to receive their grades.'

Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Layla Moran said: 'This is yet another shambles from the Government.

'It seems the Conservatives, bumbling from one crisis to the next, simply forgot about a half a million students awaiting their BTEC grades, and had to pull the results at the last minute. Meanwhile, the Education Secretary is still in his job and the Prime Minister is still on holiday.

Gavin Williamson is 'on his last life' after his exams fiasco and will be sacked if schools reopening is botched, Cabinet colleagues claim Education Secretary Gavin Williamson Gavin Williamson is 'on his last life' after his humiliating exams fiasco and will be sacked if Boris Johnson's schools reopening is botched, ministers claimed on Wednesday. The under-fire Education Secretary has defied calls to resign from MPs across the board following his disastrously mishandled A-level grading debacle. Cabinet colleagues now believe that Mr Williamson, who is desperately trying to cling to his job, cannot survive another mishap if he also bungles the PM's promise to reopen schools in England in time for the new term in September. Advertisement

'This summer has been a disaster for the Government, it has left students panicking about their future and colleges in turmoil. Williamson must resign and Boris Johnson must return to deal with this crisis.'

Yesterday exams regulator Ofqual said its algorithm used in A-levels and GCSEs was not used for the majority of vocational and technical qualifications (VTQ) - including BTECs.

But in a statement tonight, England's exams watchdog said some exam boards, including OCR and Pearson, will 'need more time' to recalculate results.

It said: 'OCR have said that their Cambridge National results will issue next week.

'Pearson, which initially did not think there would need to be significant changes made, has now decided to revise its arrangements to ensure that students' qualification-level results better reflect the unit-level results that students have already secured through internally assessed units.'

Ofqual added: 'Everyone is working as quickly as possible to confirm results as soon as possible, recognising the impact that delays are having on schools, colleges and students. No learner's result will go down as a consequence of regrading.'

Yesterday, Mr Hughes said: 'The timing is worrying, because thousands of students were due to get their results in the morning and others have already got results which we know will not go down, but which might improve.

'So it is vital for students that this is sorted in days rather than weeks so that students have the chance to celebrate and to plan their next steps. It is a stressful time and this delay will extend the uncertainties.'

He added: 'Those students wanting to move onto further or higher education will be most worried about losing out on places.

'We are in close communication with DfE, Ofqual and Pearson to particularly make sure that BTEC students applying for universities can still be treated fairly.'

Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: 'This late notification will cause very significant challenges for schools, trusts and colleges.

'It simply is unacceptable that some of the most disadvantaged students will not receive their grades tomorrow and that nothing has been done to correct this over the past few days.'

Dr Greg Walker, chief executive at the MillionPlus group of universities said: 'We must ensure that other learners and applicants are not forgotten.

'These include BTEC and other applied generals students whose grades may now be delayed for a significant period to rightly ensure they will be on a par with A-level candidates.

'Both the Government and universities should ensure that these applicants don't get squeezed out in these unprecedented circumstances.'

The National Union of Students (NUS) and the University and College Union (UCU) have also voiced concerns.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: 'Our priority is to ensure all students are treated fairly, including those who received vocational and technical results last week, such as BTECs and Cambridge Technicals.

'These subjects are rightly assessed differently to A-levels, and the overwhelming majority of results are in line with centre assessment grades.

'A minority of vocational and technical qualifications used a statistical model similar to the one Ofqual used for A-levels and GCSEs, and Ofqual has asked these awarding organisations to review their approaches to make sure no student is disadvantaged.'
We were holding our breath [for] this day to come! Buthaina Al-Jabri, the co-founder of the Omani students union in the United Kingdom, told Al-Monitor. On Aug. 18, Oman's new ruler Sultan Haitham restructured the government.

Upon his ascent to the throne in January, Haitham pledged to undertake necessary measures to restructure the states administrative apparatus. Omani researcher in political sociology Mubarak Al-Hamdani told Al-Monitor he believes the new ruler is pursuing policies recommended by the national strategy Oman 2040.

The old style was not working anymore, Al-Jabri commented.

In Kumzar, an isolated village accessible only by boat in the countrys northernmost tip, people are happy with the announcement, said one enthusiastic fisherman over the phone.

Such enthusiasm could, however, turn into disappointment if expectations are not met. Young Omanis who have previously accused the government of making false promises are not going to forgive slow actions," warned a woman in Muscat, also over the phone. "They will be watching.

High youth unemployment is one of Oman's most pressing internal issues.

Business-oriented approach

Commenting on the new government and Haithams reforms, Omanis interviewed by Al-Monitor praised the retirement of ministers who have been in office for decades, the presence of new faces and a shift toward technocrats with solid qualifications.

In the past, many appointments were based on tribalism, said one young man in a phone interview.

In June, a newly formed sovereign wealth fund took over most of Omans state-owned entities to reduce bureaucracy, consolidate public assets and trigger a change in those companies by gradually exiting a public servant mindset. The new minister of commerce, industry and investment promotion has long been a voice of private sector interests in the country.

The changes brought in by Sultan Haitham have been greeted very positively in the business and wider community, Mac Thomson, CEO of Oman-based hotel management company MMIS, told Al-Monitor.

Beyond improving efficiency, slimming down the administration is part of a broader strategic shift to tackle a spike in public debt since the 2014 oil bust, the sultanates increasing reliance on external loans and a fading social welfare system.

Hit hard by the COVID-19-induced recession and low oil prices, Oman is heading for one of the biggest budget deficits in the Gulf. Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings forecasts the countrys fiscal deficit as nearly 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020.

Talking to Al-Monitor, Alexandre Briand, president of the Paris-based Club France Oman, praised the willingness of the new Omani leadership to increase foreign direct investments (FDI). I see this as a great opportunity for French investors and companies to increase economic partnerships with the Sultanate, Briand told Al-Monitor.

Foreign investors have long lamented the slow pace of Oman's decision-making and called for drastic improvements in the business and legislative environment.

We are looking forward to more FDI-friendly policies, said Cheng Wang, commercial attache at the Chinese Embassy to Oman, welcoming the positive sign of the government restructuring. The five critical non-oil sectors primed by Vision 2040 would witness a deep engagement of Chinese companies and investors, Wang told Al-Monitor.

We are ready to work with the brand new Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion to expand the export of Omani non-oil products to China, he added.

Delegation of authority and royal family

At the time of his death, Sultan Qaboos bin Said held almost all of the sovereign portfolios. Qaboos wielded an exceptional degree of autonomy and authority within the Omani power structure, wrote Kristin Smith Diwan for the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

But as experts have predicted, the era of highly centralized governance is coming to an end. On Aug. 18, Haitham gave up the foreign and financial affairs portfolios, making room for more inclusive decision-making. This is an important shift in the delegation of authority, political sociology researcher Mubarak Al-Hamdani commented to Al-Monitor.

In line with the current practice in most Gulf countries, the royal family is also likely to play a more active role. Notably, Haitham appointed his son as minister of culture, sports, and youth and his brother as deputy prime minister of defense.

On the diplomatic front, Haitham named Badr bin Hamad bin Hamoud Al Busaidi as foreign minister. He faces the daunting task of perpetuating the independent foreign policy cultivated over decades by his predecessor, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah.

In the past decade alone, Oman provided a venue for secret talks between Tehran and Washington ahead of the 2015 nuclear deal, welcomed Israels prime minister amid a rapprochement between Gulf leaders and the Jewish state and refused to join a military intervention in Yemen as well as the embargo imposed on Qatar since 2017.

End of the Qaboos era

However, current economic realities could lead to a more pragmatic foreign policy and bring the Sultanate closer to its Arab neighbors, Houchang Hassan-Yari, head of the department of political science at Sultan Qaboos University, told Al-Monitor.

Bloomberg revealed in a June 11 report that the erosion of Omans fiscal situation was discussed during high-level political meetings attended by Gulf officials. Nothing has been decided but Oman could seek financial assistance from its neighbors, the report stated.

We might see a kind of refreshment with countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and so forth, said Hassan-Yari, adding that Oman is likely to play a more active role in the Gulf crisis between Qatar and its Arab neighbors.

But it should not be interpreted as a completed departure from the past.  Oman has to maintain a professional relationship with the Iranian government, Hassan-Yari said. The two countries share the Strait of Hormuz, the world's busiest oil waterway.

For more than two decades as foreign minister, bin Abdullah had patiently shaped Qaboos foreign policy, turning Oman into an internationally trusted mediator. The departure of the long-serving diplomat marks the end of Qaboos era and leaves the Gulf country challenged with achieving an administrative renaissance.
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A surprise performance from Elton John, George Clooney pouring tequila shots and a cloak and dagger operation to hide the brides Givenchy dress.

Intimate details of Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys 2018 wedding were revealed last week in Finding Freedom, the new biography from royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.

The bombshell book comes on the heels of the Sussexes lawsuit against Britains tabloid newspapers. In telling Meghan and Harrys story, the authors shed new light on the events that led to the couples exit from the royal family while scrutinising the gossip-driven tales widely adopted by the UK media landscape.

After almost three years of regular attacks from the British press and a family they felt had not done enough to support them, things had to change, the book states.

An entire chapter is dedicated to Meghans father, aptly titled The Thomas Markle Situation, which shuts down any suggestion the couple didnt offer him help in the lead up to the royal wedding.

The Sussexes legal team claimed last month that their wedding brought 1 billion ($1.8 billion) in tourism to the UK and Finding Freedom provides a behind-the-scenes look at this occasion; the day royal fans hailed the start of a new era for the monarchy, but never came to be the happily-ever-after they hoped for.

It was a revolutionary wedding in so many ways from the service to the gospel choir, says Vanity Fairs royal commentator Katie Nicholl. Here was a young couple who werent going to be a future King and Queen but who were, at that point, we believed very intrinsic to the future of the royal family.
The Supreme Court noted that the steps taken by the Mumbai police while probing Sushants death cannot be faulted, yet it directed the CBI to take over

The Supreme Courts decision to hand over the entire investigation into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in Mumbai on June 14, and the circumstances surrounding it, to the CBI might seem, at first sight, to be justified given the ongoing political wrangling between the Bihar and Maharashtra governments over competing claims to jurisdiction by the Patna and Mumbai police forces, but it also sets a whole new precedent, one that may prove troubling in future.

The single-judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy, taking recourse to the courts plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, that enable it to pass any order to do complete justice in any case, said there was no impediment to endorsing the ongoing CBI investigation, and that due to acrimonious allegations at the political level, the legitimacy of the investigation (by the Mumbai police) had come under a cloud.

The CBI had taken over the investigation of the FIR registered by the Patna police, on a complaint by Sushants father K.K. Rajput, after the state governments referral.

The Mumbai police, which was probing the actors death under Section 174 CrPC, has been directed to hand it over to the CBI.

The real mistake by the Mumbai police may have been its failure to file an FIR, as much was made of the fact that the only FIR in the case was registered in Patna.

The court said it was handing the case to the CBI as the trust, faith and confidence of the common man in the judicial process will resonate, but sadly, public faith in the CBIs ability to effectively investigate even high-profile cases is quite low.

It has been probing the death of actress Jiah Khan for almost seven years, with little progress. NCP supremo Sharad Pawar said Wednesday, after the Supreme Court order, that he hoped the CBIs Rajput probe wont be like the one into rationalist Narendra Dabholkars 2013 murder, which remains unresolved.

And memories are still fresh of the slipshod way in which it probed the 2008 murder of Aarushi Talwar, with matters hitting a dead end.

That shocking crime remains an unresolved mystery.

The Supreme Court noted that the steps taken by the Mumbai police while probing Sushants death cannot be faulted, yet it directed the CBI to take over.

More important, by endorsing the Zero FIR registered by the Patna police, which the Bihar government later transferred to the CBI, a new principle has been established. In Indias federal system, law and order (and thus investigation of crime) is a state subject.

A Zero FIR is meant as an enabler: to let people file FIRs near their homes or workplaces, which would then be shifted to the jurisdiction where the incident occurred. If everyone impacted by an event filed FIRs in the places they came from, and have it investigated there, it would mean chaos.

If Rhea Chakrabortys family, for instance, were to file an FIR in West Bengal to protect her interests, would the Kolkata police investigate the Sushant case? And, hypothetically, if a crime had multiple victims from different states, could they or their families file separate FIRs in their home states? Would all these cases then be probed by the CBI?

That said, one only hopes the CBI now investigates Sushants death effectively and ensures that he and his family get justice swiftly.
Text exchanges between actor Rhea Chakraborty and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt have been shared online. It is being reported that Rhea moved out of actor Sushant Singh Rajputs house on June 8, and texted Mahesh Bhatt. Sushant died by suicide on June 14.

In messages accessed by India Today, Rhea told the filmmaker, Aisha moves on..sir..with a heavy heart and sense of relief . Aisha is the name of her character in the film Jalebi, produced by Mahesh. She added, Our last call was a wake up call. You are my angel You were then And you are now.

He replied, Dont look back. Make it possible what is inevitable. My love to your father . He will be a happy man. Rhea responded, Have found some courage,and what you said about my dad tht day on the phone pushed me to be strong for him. He sends you love and thanks you for always being so special.

The filmmaker wrote, You are my child. I feel light, to which Rhea replied, Aaaah no words sir. The best emotions i feel i feel for u. Mahesh thanked her for being brave.

Also Watch l Sushant death: Vikas Singh slams Rhea Chakraborty for political accusations

You ve again unclipped my wings, twice in one life is almost God like, she wrote further along in the conversation. On Rheas birthday on July 1, she received a message from the filmmaker. I will make you proud, she wrote to him, to which he replied, You already have. Truly. I takes guts to do what you did. Dont look back.

Also read: Rhea Chakraborty shares WhatsApp messages with Sushant Singh Rajput, in which hed called sister manipulative

Mahesh has been questioned by the Mumbai police in connection with Sushants death, along with more than 50 others. In interview to Times Now, Maheshs producer brother Mukesh Bhatt had said that he could tell Sushant was disturbed and remembered having a conversation about this with Mahesh. He said, I started my career way back with Parveen Babi, she was also a victim of schizophrenia. I remember telling my brother, that I am afraid he is also going the Parveen Babi way. I am not shocked, because I saw this coming.

Sushants family has accused Rhea of abetting his suicide, siphoning off his funds, among other allegations. The case is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

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Stormonts leader are not thumbing their nose at a law requiring them to set up a compensation scheme for victims, a court has heard.

A barrister for First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill said they would comply with the legislation set by Westminster, but argued there was no specific timeframe in Government regulations for them to nominate a Stormont department to administer the scheme.

The failure by the Executive Office (TEO) to nominate a department, due to the refusal of Ms ONeill to sign off on the action, has been challenged in the High Court in Belfast.

Expand Close Justice McAlinden has accused deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill of subverting the rule of law for political ends (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Justice McAlinden has accused deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill of subverting the rule of law for political ends (Liam McBurney/PA)

Addressing the second day of the judicial review, TEO barrister Michael Humphreys QC argued the key issue was whether the length of the delay in designating a department was unlawful.

My instructions firmly are that the TEO will maintain the rule of law and recognises the obligation to designate a department as being a legal obligation imposed on it, he said.

The question for the court is has that obligation been breached by the passage of time?

Has there been an impermissible or unreasonable delay in failing to designate?

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Whatsapp Jennifer McNern outside Belfast High Court (Liam McBurney/PA)

Judge Mr Justice McAlinden challenged the argument.

He said a time limit had been set for opening the scheme for applications, May 29 this year, and, in order to do that, a department had to have been designated to establish it.

Justice McAlinden said any sensible interpretation of the regulations was that a department had to be designated before the scheme opening at the end of May.

The joint legal challenge was brought by Jennifer McNern, who lost both legs in a Troubles bombing in 1972, and Brian Turley, one of the hooded men who were arrested and interrogated by the British Army in 1971.

The payment scheme is in limbo due to a dispute between Sinn Fein and the Government over eligibility criteria that are set to exclude anyone convicted of inflicting serious harm during the Troubles from accessing the support payments.

Sinn Fein claims the scheme would be discriminatory and would potentially exclude thousands of people from the republican community.

In a separate row, the Stormont administration and the UK Government have been at odds over who should pay for the scheme.

An argument in relation to who is entitled to compensation is being used a reason to delay compliance with a statutory duty Justice McAlinden

Mr Humphreys told the court the fact Mrs Foster and Ms ONeill had secured 2.5 million of executive funds for scheme set-up costs indicated they intended to proceed with it.

That is not commensurate with a body which has thumbed its nose at the legislation or which doesnt believe that the scheme should be implemented, he added.

The judge, who on Monday accused Ms ONeill of deliberately subverting the rule of law for political ends, suggested he may need to impose a coercive order to force TEO to nominate a department.

He said a simple declaration that TEO was acting unlawfully may not be sufficient to prompt action.

The court has a genuine concern that because of the manner in which this matter has been dealt with there is a risk that a simple declaratory order in this case, because of the dual nature of the leadership within the Executive Office, a simple declaratory order may not result in a speedy resolution to this particular issue and that a more coercive order is required to ensure an effective remedy is achieved, he said.

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Whatsapp First Minister Arlene Foster has made clear she is willing to nominate a department (Liam McBurney/PA)

The judge said another option could see him make a declaratory order and then adjourn the case for a short period to see if the judgment prompted action from ministers.

If it did not result in progress, the judge said he could then revisit his findings.

During submissions, Mr Humphreys moved to differentiate between Ms ONeills role as Sinn Fein vice president and her position as deputy First Minister.

He stressed that a letter from Ms ONeill to Secretary of State Brandon Lewis indicating she would not progress the scheme in its current format was written as Sinn Fein vice president.

He said her stated position in a political sphere did not mean TEO would not abide by the law.

Justice McAlinden questioned the effort to separate Ms ONeills two roles, noting that she clearly stated in the letter that she was not going to implement the scheme.

He said court could not ignore the realities.

Ms ONeill is the deputy First Minister, he said.

Ms ONeill is a prominent member of Sinn Fein, Ms ONeill is also a member of the Executive Office. The First Minister and deputy First Minister, those two individuals, as long as they hold those posts, are bound to promote the rule of law under the ministerial code, are bound to abide by the rule of law under the ministerial code.

There cannot be a more such fundamental basic principle of a democratic government as the rule of law. Thats the key here, thats what has to be addressed.

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Whatsapp Brian Turley, one of the Hooded men, is a co-applicant in the challenge (Brian Lawless/PA)

Justice McAlinden insisted designating a department was a simple task.

An argument in relation to who is entitled to compensation is being used as a reason to delay compliance with a statutory duty, he said.

And in doing so individuals who no one disputes are entitled to claim this pension, such as Ms McNern, who was blown up on March 4 1972, losing both legs, she has to wait and be kept out of her pension because of dispute over who should and should not be entitled.

He added: What we are dealing with here is a quite clear and obvious legal requirement which appears to have been disregarded for political ends.

That is something the court cannot ignore, the court cannot tolerate and the court must declare unequivocally the primacy of the rule of the law  that is what the case is about.

Justice McAlinden reserved judgment after legal arguments closed on Tuesday afternoon.

The judge said he would deliver his judgment at 10.30am on Friday.
CHICOPEE  U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, and his challenger, Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse, traded barbs Thursday night in their second and final debate before the Sept. 1 Democratic primary.

The two men tangled about issues ranging from the tone of the campaign for the congressional seat to a suitable economic relief package during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most irresponsible statement during the course of this campaign comes from Mayor Morse when he said he would have voted against the CARES Act... 10,400 small businesses in the 1st Congressional District received paycheck protection loans and the most important thing we did was to extend unemployment insurance, Neal said. What about the $400 million that went to area hospitals?

Complaining about negative TV ads and mailings on behalf of Neal, Morse said, This congressman is in the political fight of his life.

WWLP-TV, 22News, anchor Rich Tettemer served as moderator during the hour-long debate, which was broadcast from the NBC affiliates Chicopee studios.

Asked by Tettemer about providing services to the district, Neal said, Ive delivered before rattling off a list of federally funded projects he promoted and claimed Morse would have opposed.

Neal also took a swipe at what he described Morses poor attendance at Holyoke School Committee and PVTA meetings.

I show up time and time again. I show up every day for the past nine years. I am proud of my record, Morse replied. We have a member of Congress who is bought and paid for by corporate interests.

Asked about the COVID-19 deaths at the Holyoke Soldiers Home and needed improvements there, Morse charged Neal was 30 years too late in coming forward with a promise of federal assistance, while the congressman accused the mayor of seeking headlines.

Many of the issues and positions voiced Thursday echoed those raised four evenings ago during their first debate, organized by The Republican and MassLive, The Berkshire Eagle and New England Public Media.

As in the first debate, the candidates briefly touched upon the controversy involving Morse and the Massachusetts College Democrats.

Earlier this month, the group sent Morse, who is gay, an email informing him he was no longer welcome at their events after students alleged Morse made them uncomfortable with sexual advances  and had relations with students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Morse was a guest lecturer in the UMass political science department from 2014 to 2019.

While acknowledging he has had relationships with college students, Morse has maintained he did not wrong and blamed the Springfield Democratic machine and a student who reportedly sought to curry favor with Neal for the allegations.

Morse said it was incredibly suspicious that the allegations were made just a few weeks before the primary.

Power will stop at nothing to hold onto power, Morse said.

Neal maintained neither he nor his campaign had anything to do with the controversy, which was first reported by the Massachusetts Daily Collegian.

There can be no room for homophobia, racism or misogyny in America today or a congressional campaign, Neal said.
The Guardian

The Steelers quarterback is headed to the Hall of Fame. But he was unloved outside Pittsburgh for understandable reasons Ben Roethlisberger almost certainly played his final game in the NFL on Sunday. Photograph: Ed Zurga/AP Ben Roethlisberger is lucky that football legacies are not decided by finales. If Sunday night was indeed Big Bens last ever NFL game, as he has strongly hinted, it wasnt exactly a mic drop. In the 42-21 beatdown by the Chiefs, Roethlisberger struggled with rollouts, and l
Peter Dutton has warned state premiers like Queensland's Annastacia Palaszczuk will bankrupt the country if they insist on keeping borders shut despite tiny coronavirus infection rates.

The home affairs minister accused Ms Palaszczuk of ignoring medical advice when she closed the border to the ACT, NSW and Victoria.

'We just want an arrangement where people can get back to lives as we know it, and if we've got premiers who are pursuing an elimination process, the country will go broke,' he said.

Mr Dutton said the premier was chasing the popularity vote, while the border closure separated families and ruined more businesses.

Speaking on Today on Friday, he said: 'I was talking to the Brisbane Airport Corporation today, they are running at 20 per cent of domestic flights and it's just - it is crippling.

'Thousands of jobs will go as a result of it.'

'There is an election in October and I think Palaszczuk is concerned about that.'

Peter Dutton told Today on Friday Ms Palaszczuk (pictured) was chasing the popularity vote and ignoring medical advice when she closed the border

Annastacia Palaszczuk said the border closure would not only save more lives, but also ensure a smooth economic recovery (pictured, passengers checking into flights for Queensland at Sydney Airport)

Queenslanders will hit the polling stations for the state election on October 31.

The Sunshine State has recorded the highest unemployment rate in the country with 8.8 per cent. Western Australia followed behind on 8.3 per cent while South Australia recorded 7.9 per cent. All three states have strict border closures.

Queensland closed its borders to the rest of Australia on March 25, before it reopened them to most states on July 10.

Victorians were still barred from entering as the state wrestled with a second outbreak of COVID-19.

All of New South Wales was later added to the blacklist on August 8 after the state recorded a handful of new cases, while the ACT has been barred despite listing no new cases since July 10 and no active cases since the start of August.

Mr Dutton said the closure did more harm than good to businesses and families, many of which had been separated because of it.

'When you hear about families separated from sick kids or can't get medication, can't get to work, their business is on one side of the border and they live on the other, these are the practical implications of this closed Queensland border scenario.

'And it's driven by politics at the moment which I just think is frustrating a lot of Queenslanders.'

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said the border closure had severely dented the state economy and only spelled more hardship for businesses in the future, The Australian reported.

Peter Dutton (pictured) has accused Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of politicising the Queensland border closure ahead of the state election

Queensland closed its borders to the rest of Australia in March, before it reopened them to most states in July (pictured, cars queued at the Queensland and New South Wales border at Coolangatta)

Ms Palaszczuk has stood by her decision to keep the border closed (pictured, military personnel speak to a driver at the New South Wales and Queensland border at Coolangatta)

'Staying the course means a repeat of Labor's poor economic management, which has resulted in the highest unemployment rate in the nation and lowest business confidence  the biggest threat to Queensland's economic recovery is a Labor government with no economic plan or budget.'

Ms Palaszczuk has stood by her decision to keep the border closed.

'There are now more active cases in aged care in Victoria than Queensland has had during the entire pandemic,' she said.

'Our greatest resource of all is our people  Queenslanders and our ability to work together.'

The Queensland premier went on to say the closure would not only save more lives, but also ensure a smooth economic recovery.

'I don't want to see Queenslanders' lives put at risk and I don't want our economic recovery put at risk.'
Malta's former prime minister Joseph Muscat was questioned by police on Friday afternoon about testimony given to officers by the suspected mastermind in the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, businessman Yorgen Fenech.

Muscat resigned after it was revealed he was friends with, and had received expensive gifts from Fenech, who is awaiting trial for alleged complicity in the murder. Fenech denies the charges.

The former premier was at police headquarters just outside Valletta for about an hour on Friday. He told journalists as he walked out that he was questioned in relation to Fenech's statement to police, details of which were reported by the Sunday Times of Malta.

Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of Malta speaks during a press conference in Valletta, Malta in December 2016. Muscat was questioned by police on Friday afternoon about testimony given to officers by the suspected mastermind in the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia

Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, who was arrested in connection with an investigation into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, leaves the Courts of Justice in Valletta, Malta, November 29, 2019

'I replied to all their questions, and the police confirmed again that I am not considered a suspect,' Muscat told waiting reporters. Police have not commented.

Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in October 2017. Three other men are accused of setting off the bomb and are awaiting trial.

Fenech, one of Malta's top businessman, was arrested in November.

Muscat announced his resignation immediately after Fenech's arraignment and stepped down in January. Fenech also had links with Muscat's then chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Daphne Caruana Galizia (pictured) was killed by a car bomb in October 2017. Three other men are accused of setting off the bomb and are awaiting trial

Media have reported Fenech told investigators that Muscat asked him if Schembri featured in secret recordings made by Melvin Theuma, the self-confessed middleman in the murder plot who has turned state evidence. Fenech reportedly replied that he was doing his best to protect Schembri.

Muscat has denied the claims.

A Fenech company won a contract from Muscat's government to build a power station in 2014 and a Dubai-based company owned by Fenech was identified in a Reuters investigation as a vehicle to funnel funds to secret Panama companies owned by Schembri and former Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi.

Both resigned shortly before Muscat. Both deny wrongdoing and no evidence has emerged that money was exchanged.
Most businesses on the 2600 block of Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia remain closed on June 19, 2020. Read more

Far too many small-business owners like Scott Richardson of Swarthmore  a restaurant owner who spoke at this weeks Democratic National Convention  have been struggling to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, left with minimal support from the federal government to weather the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

While Gov. Tom Wolf is taking critical steps to provide emergency relief, action at the federal level is desperately needed to help these small businesses recover and prosper in the months and years ahead.

One step Congress can take immediately is to resuscitate the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), which was a very successful part of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 but expired in 2017.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, SSBCI unlocked $1.5 billion for states to support small-business financing programs. It was a clear lifeline for scores of American businesses, but especially for those located in rural and low- and moderate-income areas. In fact, in just five years, the program supported nearly $8.4 billion in new capital through small-business loans and investments.

Congress should reinstate the program. And as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has rightly suggested, they should also extend it to 2025 and double to $3 billion the amount of federal funding that was made available in the post-2008 package. Doing so now would give small-business owners the funding they need to make the payrolls and pay the utilities and rent which are their foundations.

This type of aid is needed right now more than ever. An overwhelming majority of businesses in the Philadelphia region  99.7%  qualify as small, employing fewer than 500 people. Hundreds of them have permanently closed in the wake of the pandemic.

Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are, of course, not alone. In New York City, about one-third of small businesses are expected to be gone for good, more than 2,000 small businesses have permanently closed in San Francisco, and about 14% of small businesses in Columbus, Ohio, remain closed. Nationwide, roughly 66,000 businesses had closed their doors between March and July.

And as has been the case in the past, minority-owned businesses are being hit especially hard. Nationwide between February to April, the number of active Black-owned business owners fell 41%, and Latinx business owners fell 32%. The number of white business owners, by contrast, fell by 17%.

Unfortunately, the situation could get even worse with the Aug. 8 expiration of the Paycheck Protection Program, as only 16% of businesses that received PPP loans are confident they can pay their employees without further assistance.

To lend a helping hand to Americas small businesses, the heartbeat of our economy, policymakers must provide an avenue through which the federal government can fund small-business financing programs. Reauthorizing and expanding the State Small Business Credit Initiative would create that avenue, and it should be a bipartisan solution.

The reality is that small businesses need more than a Band-Aid solution  they need a formidable long-term plan that will drive equitable and sustainable growth. Congress should start with a program that we know works well.

Leo Hindery Jr. is co-chair of the Task Force on Job Creation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Formerly the CEO of AT&T Broadband and its predecessor, Tele-Communications Inc., he is currently an investor in media properties. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
A federal judge turned down President Donald Trumps newest move Friday to keep New York City prosecutors from getting his tax records, but Trumps lawyers have already asked higher courts to step in.

The developments came a day after US District Judge Victor Marrero ruled  as he had before in a case that has been to the US Supreme Court and back  that Manhattans top prosecutor could subpoena the records for a criminal investigation. Trumps lawyers immediately appealed Thursdays ruling.

They also asked Marrero to delay enforcement of the subpoena while the appeal plays out. Marrero said no to that Friday.

The president has not demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm if the records are turned over for a grand jury probe that would keep them secret, he wrote.

However, Trumps lawyers had already noted in a court filing Thursday that they were making the same request of an appeals court and the Supreme Court. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.s office has agreed to hold off enforcing the subpoena for a week.

Messages seeking comment were sent Friday to Trumps lawyers. Vances office declined to comment.

Marrero has refused multiple times to block the subpoena. The US Supreme Court last month upheld one of his rulings, finding that the presidency in itself doesnt shield Trump from Vances investigation.

But the high court returned the case to Marreros courtroom to allow Trumps lawyers to raise other concerns about the subpoena. They did, arguing that it was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment.

Vances attorneys countered that they were entitled to extensive records to aid a complex financial investigation, citing public reports of extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.

Those arguments led to this weeks flurry of rulings and appeals.

Trump blasted the long-running quest for his financial records Thursday as a continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country.

Vance, a Democrat, began seeking the Republican presidents tax returns from his longtime accounting firm over a year ago, after Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the president had misled tax officials, insurers and business associates about the value of his assets.

Congress is also pursuing Trumps financial records, though the Supreme Court last month kept a hold on the banking and other documents that Congress has been seeking and returned the case to a lower court.

Trumps ongoing appeal makes it unlikely that Vances office could get Trumps tax returns at least before Novembers presidential election. In any event, because the records are being sought as part of a confidential grand jury investigation, they would not automatically be made public.

The president has said he expects the case to end up back before the Supreme Court.

Trump is the only modern president who has refused to release his tax returns. Before he was elected, he had promised to do so.
Photo: (Photo : Photo by Pragyan Bezbaruah from Pexels)

Kids can sometimes be a little stubborn when doing tasks. Going to school and studying can be a few things that parents probably find difficult to ask their kids to do.

Even with some whining or a somber face, parents still need to encourage kids to study or go to school.

READ ALSO: Dad's comics about school reopening sparks debate among parents and teachers

Here are some of the tricks that parents can do for kids to get excited about studying:

Keep the kids reminded

Their schedule, when it is new, can be easily forgotten. However, kids nowadays will never forget to look at their phones.

Thus, the trick to reminding them of what to do next is to make their schedule as their phones' wallpaper. This trick may sound too simple but could be useful to some.

Give kids a reason to get up from bed.

Going to school early in the morning is one daunting task for kids and even for parents.

For parents, aside from nagging their kids to get up, giving them something to look forward to every morning can do the trick. There is no best way to do this trick but for parents to prepare an exciting breakfast.

While parents are on it, they can also make meals healthy enough to keep them energized all day.

READ ALSO: "No Pajamas Rule" During Remote Learning, to Be Implemented in a School District in Illinois

Pack some mints for kids

According to studies, mint can help in improving concentration and stimulating the brain.

Giving kids something like a sweet mint may look like they are given a treat when it is a way to help them study.

Parents may choose to pack mints for their kids, along with their school lunch.

Choose background music.

Another way to keep kids focused is through music. Quiet instrumental music like the classical ones can help kids focus on studying.

It may seem like you want some quiet time when you are already tricking them not to get distracted.

READ ALSO: 4 Tips to Parents for Kids' Return to Schools During the Pandemic

Ask kids to take a walk.

Walking is a great way to jumpstart the brain. Thus, before kids start studying, parents may ask them to walk outside for ten minutes.

It serves two purposes: letting kids have some time outside the house and jumpstarting their brain.

If kids can walk going to school, they may also do so in the morning.

Always take the kid's side.

Although having a child who scores high in an exam is a good thing, not all kids can do it.

When parents take the side of their children, kids will not be pressured into studying so much, and instead, they will realize that they have to be responsible for their studies.

READ ALSO: Bridging the gap: teachers visit families under a bridge to teach children
Chinook Therapeutics

Chinook Therapeutics announced $106 million in private placement financing from a number of new investors. As part of the financing, Chinook's existing investors  Versant Ventures, Apple Tree Partners and Samsara BioCapital  will purchase $25 million in Chinook common stock on the same terms as the new investors. The deal is expected to occur prior to the closing of the previously announced merger between Chinook and Aduro Biotech of Berkeley, California. Chinook is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing medicines for kidney diseases. It has offices in Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle.




Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

A new market study, titled "Cladding System Market- Forecast to 2022 has been featured on Market Research Future

The escalating construction activities have improved the demand for ancillary construction sectors such as cladding systems. Market reports linked to the construction technology industry have been offered by Market Research Future which makes reports on other industry verticals that aims to study the current market scenarios better. The market for cladding systems is anticipated to develop at a 6 % CAGR in the course of the forecast period.

ALSO READ

https://bulletinline.com/2020/07/03/rainscreen-cladding-market-2020-analysis-by-size-share-trends-segmentation-key-players-applications-demand-opportunity-global-forecast-to-2023/

The diversification in the forms and materials used in the production for cladding systems are increasing the product range of the cladding system market. The enhancements in the design and performance criteria of cladding systems are creating favorable growth traction for the market. Moreover, the need to have robust building envelopes is anticipated to boost the progress of the market in the coming years.

Segmental Analysis

The segmental analysis of the cladding system market is carried out on the basis of materials, components, application, and region. On the basis of materials, the cladding system market is segmented into metal, wood, vinyl, brick & stone and others. Based on components, the cladding system market is segmented into doors, window, roof light, wall, vent, and others. By application, the cladding system market is segmented into non-residential and residential. The regions included in the cladding system market are Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and the rest of the world.

Detailed Regional Analysis

The regional analysis of the cladding system market comprises of regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and the rest of the world. The North American region is dominating the cladding system market due to the willingness of firms in the region who are taking up capital intensive projects, along with the availability of the skilled laborers in the region. Moreover, the Asia Pacific region is anticipated to flourish at a substantial pace throughout the forecast period due to the speedy growth in the construction sector.

Competitive Analysis

The competitors are proactively addressing the challenges to growth and are crafting strategies that can have the best overall effect on the market's progress. The competitive outlook for the market is expected to diversify significantly in the coming period. The developments in the market are expected to be fuelled by the rise in investments and product innovations. The market leaders are taking an interest in the creation of strong value chains that can yield increased profits. The opportunities for growth in the market have ample scope for development in the forecast period. The market challengers find themselves in a promising position with the capacity to handle the pace of change. The perceived tendency for the markets growth has increased following the availability of positive factors in the market.

The significant competitors functioning in the cladding system market are Nichiha Corporation, Etex Group, James Hardie Industries Plc., Boral Ltd, Cembrit Holding A/S, Axiall Corporation, Tata Steel Ltd, Alcoa Inc., CSR Ltd., and Compagnie de Saint Gobain SA.

Industry Updates:

Feb 2019 Fairview has announced the launch of Vitrashield, an assortment of completely tested EW (External Wall) Classified, AS5113 compliant cladding systems. Fairviews newest facade solution has been introduced with three standard wall build-up systems that have received EW classification following extensive full-scale testing. Vitrashields unveiling denotes the companys development from exclusively selling external cladding panels to providing a range of fully tested, EW Classified cladding systems.

Feb 2019 Smith-Midland Corporation, which is a PCI Mid-Atlantic producer member, lately announced they were chosen to produce and install their SlenderWall envelope system for the new 800 Harbor Boulevard project at Lincoln Harbor in New Jersey, USA. SlenderWall is an easi-set global licensed product that is a unique composite cladding system.

FOR MORE DETAILS

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cladding-system-market-1905
On Tuesday, President Trump did something that ought to have gladdened feminist hearts throughout the land: he pardoned Susan B. Anthony, who was convicted of voting illegally in the 1872 presidential election. As first- and second-generation feminists know, Anthony was one of the colossi of the suffrage movement in the United States, spending five decades working to get American women the right to vote. Sadly, she didn't live to see the 19th Amendment pass, having died 14 years before.

In addition to being a Suffragette, Anthony was a classical liberal in other ways. At the height of the Civil War, she and her colleague, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founded the Women's Loyal National League. The League wrote a petition demanding the abolition of slavery. They then conducted what was then the largest petition drive in American history, eventually collecting 400,000 signatures for that laudable goal.

Anthony is also celebrated in the pro-life movement for being against abortion, although pro-abortion scholars strenuously deny that she was. Because of the perception that Anthony opposed abortion, whether that's historically correct or not, she is no longer in good odor with today's third-generation feminists. (To catch you up, first-wave feminists wanted the right to vote; second-wave feminists wanted equal pay for equal work and equal opportunities for equal abilities; and third-wave feminists are hostile to men, support unlimited abortion, and generally embrace all current leftist policies.)

When Trump learned that Anthony had never gotten a presidential pardon for her conviction, he decided that the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment was a good time to change that omission:

"She was never pardoned ... and you know that she got a pardon for a lot of other women, and she didn't put her name on the list, so she was never pardoned," Mr. Trump said during a White House event commemorating the 19th Amendment, which secured women's right to vote. "She was guilty for voting."

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that, if it had been Obama who issued the pardon, women's rights organization would have celebrated. However, Orange Man Bad means it's impossible to approve of anything Trump does.

Accordingly, women's rights groups were outraged. The Susan B. Anthony Museum, purportedly speaking for the long-dead Anthony, "declined" the pardon in a long leftist thread. Just a few tweets will show that the museum's leftist staff have grafted onto poor Anthony every leftist idea current today:

Anthony wrote in her diary in 1873 that her trial for voting was The greatest outrage History ever witnessed. She was not allowed to speak as a witness in her own defense, because she was a woman. Judge Hunt dismissed the jury and pronounced her guilty.  S. B. Anthony Museum (@SusanBHouse) August 18, 2020

To pay would have been to validate the proceedings. To pardon Susan B. Anthony does the same.  S. B. Anthony Museum (@SusanBHouse) August 18, 2020

We must assure that states respect the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments to the United States Constitution.  S. B. Anthony Museum (@SusanBHouse) August 18, 2020

Anthony was also a strong proponent of sex education, fair labor practices, excellent public education, equal pay for equal work, and elimination of all forms of discrimination.  S. B. Anthony Museum (@SusanBHouse) August 18, 2020

Trimmed to its essentials, the tweet thread says, "It's an insult to someone as worthy as Susan B. Anthony for her to get a pardon from Orange Man Bad."

Then there's the alternate line of thinking, which is that Susan B. Anthony was such a horrible woman that she didn't deserve any recognition at all. Her sin? She believed that women's suffrage was more important than the fight black men were waging to have their existing voting rights recognized in fact, rather than only in theory. In other words, Anthony thought her issue was more important than their issue. The horror!

Wow they are actually trying to cancel Susan B Anthony https://t.co/0RZxU2a1HG  Robby Soave (@robbysoave) August 18, 2020

As the wits say, if Trump invented a cure for cancer, he'd be blamed for putting doctors and hospitals out of business. Susan B. Anthony was a great woman who fought a great fight. She deserves to be pardoned for something that was a crime then but is no longer a crime. End of story.

Image: Susan B. Anthony by Frances Benjamin Johnston, Wikimedia, public domain.
Cleaning Technologies Group, LLC (CTG) is excited to announce that it has partnered with Unitech Washing Systems Limited out of the UK to distribute specialty washers to the United States for the food and beverage industry. The Unitech Washing Systems team has over 75 years of experience designing and manufacturing standard and bespoke machines and has a broad and robust product line with equipment ranging from tray, pan and utensil washers, sanitizing tunnels to bulk container washers and personal hygiene sanitization stations. Considering the importance of cleanliness and sterilization in the world today we believe that this partnership will bring tremendous value to the US market. CTG has been building industrial parts washers for a wide variety of industries for over 100 years. Utilizing our experienced aftermarket sales and service teams, we plan to provide not only equipment installation services to our US food and beverage customers but also a variety of aftermarket parts and maintenance services. Learn more about the Unitech washer product lineup being offered to the US market at CTGClean.com.

For more information about Cleaning Technologies Group, please visit: http://www.ctgclean.com.
TORONTO, Aug. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Itafos (TSX-V: IFOS) (the Company) provided today an update on Itafos Condas previously announced reduced scope plant turnaround and announced a disruption in sulfuric acid supply to Itafos Conda from Rio Tintos Kennecott mine.



The Company previously announced its decision to conduct a reduced scope plant turnaround at Itafos Conda during July 2020 as part of its risk mitigation measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reduced scope plant turnaround focused on inspection, testing and preventative maintenance of critical equipment. Itafos Conda completed the reduced scope plant turnaround with no environmental releases or reportable injuries.

The Company further announced today that Itafos Conda has been experiencing a significant disruption in sulfuric acid supply from Rio Tintos Kennecott mine. Itafos Conda fulfills approximately 40% of its sulfuric acid requirements from volumes produced internally and approximately 60% from a combination of volumes received from Rio Tintos Kennecott mine under a long-term supply agreement and volumes procured from other third party producers. On August 18, 2020, Rio Tinto announced that its Kennecott mine in Utah has experienced delays to the restart of the smelter. According to the announcement, such delays to the restart of the smelter are due to unexpected issues that appeared following planned maintenance. Rio Tinto further announced that they are working closely with their customers to limit any disruptions and expect to have the smelter fully operational in two months.

The Company has been and will continue working to mitigate potential adverse effects of the disruption in sulfuric acid supply to Itafos Conda from Rio Tintos Kennecott mine. In addition, the Company is evaluating the overall expected impact of such sulfuric acid supply disruption and expects to provide an update on its guidance for 2020 in parallel with reporting its Q2 2020 financial results and operational highlights.

About Itafos

The Company is a pure play phosphate and specialty fertilizer platform with an attractive portfolio of strategic businesses and projects located in key fertilizer markets, including North America, South America and Africa.

The Companys businesses and projects are as follows:

Itafos Conda  a vertically integrated phosphate mine and fertilizer business with production and sales capacity of approximately 550kt per year of monoammonium phosphate ( MAP ), MAP with micronutrients ( MAP+ ), superphosphoric acid ( SPA ), merchant grade phosphoric acid ( MGA ) and ammonium polyphosphate ( APP ) located in Idaho, US;

), MAP with micronutrients ( ), superphosphoric acid ( ), merchant grade phosphoric acid ( ) and ammonium polyphosphate ( ) located in Idaho, US; Itafos Arraias  a vertically integrated phosphate mine and fertilizer business with production and sales capacity of approximately 500kt per year of single superphosphate ( SSP ), SSP with micronutrients ( SSP+ ) and approximately 40kt per year of excess sulfuric acid located in Tocantins, Brazil;

), SSP with micronutrients ( ) and approximately 40kt per year of excess sulfuric acid located in Tocantins, Brazil; Itafos Farim  a high-grade phosphate mine project located in Farim, Guinea-Bissau;

Itafos Paris Hills  a high-grade phosphate mine project located in Idaho, US;

Itafos Santana  a vertically integrated high-grade phosphate mine and fertilizer plant project located in Para, Brazil;

Itafos Mantaro  a phosphate mine project located in Junin, Peru; and

Itafos Araxa  a vertically integrated rare earth elements and niobium mine and extraction plant project located in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

For more information, or to join the Companys mailing list to receive notification of future news releases, please visit the Companys website at www.itafos.com.

Forward Looking Information

Certain information contained in this news release constitutes forward looking information. All information other than information of historical fact is forward looking information. The use of any of the words intend, anticipate, plan, continue, estimate, expect, may, will, project, should, would, believe, predict and potential and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking information. This information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward looking information. No assurance can be given that this information will prove to be correct and such forward looking information included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon.

Forward looking information is subject to a number of risks and other factors that could cause actual results and events to vary materially from that anticipated by such forward looking information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those risk factors set out in the Companys Management Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure documents available under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com and on the Companys website at www.itafos.com. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of risks, uncertainties and assumptions are not exhaustive. The forward-looking information included in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and is made as of the date of this news release. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information except as required by applicable securities laws.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

For further information, please contact:

Itafos Investor Relations

investor@itafos.com

www.itafos.com
The Chiefs and people of Asante Akyim Nhyiaeso have expressed profound gratitude to Mobile Giants MTN for handing over a beautiful six-unit classroom block to them.

Nana Brantuo Asadu, Agogo-manhenes Oguakro Nkonwahene conveying the appreciation of the Chiefs and people of Nhyiaeso to MTN notes that we shall forever remain grateful to MTN.

To show more appreciation to MTN, Nana Asadu announced that the Chief of Mponua, a community within the District has decided to provide 100 acres of land free of charge to MTN to commence any project of their choice.

The GH500,000 project comes as a huge relief to parents and educational sector workers in the area as the safety of pupils and teachers is now more assured.

This is because about 400 pupils studied in a dilapidated structure which could have caved in anytime at the Nhyiaeso District Assembly Basic School.

Earlier, Corporate Services Executive, Mr. Sam Koranteng reinforced the commitment of MTN to continue with investments in its three-prone priority areas; education, health care and economic empowerment activities.

These three key areas, he maintained undoubtedly helps in transforming the lives of people.

"MTN is committed to carrying out investments in these three areas of human development, and it is in this wise that we committed funds to replace the dilapidated structure in this community", Mr. Koranteng noted.

Madam Mildred Ama Kwakye Agyapong, District Director of Education for Asante Akyem North commended MTN Foundation for carrying out such a massive project in the Nhyiaeso community.

She noted that the staff and pupils would now have a congenial atmosphere to carry out teaching and learning.

The Director tasked the headmaster to ensure the facility is put into the intended use whiles maintaining it for future generations.

Member of Parliament for Asante Akyem North and District Chief Executive Andy Appiah Kubi and Francis Oti Boateng took turns to express gratitude to MTN for the project.
Net employment generation has seen a drastic fall of 71.8% in the first three months of the current fiscal compared to the same period a year ago. The first three months in this fiscal saw 8,47,649 new jobs compared to 30,02,975 jobs in the same period previous fiscal.

According to EPFO data, 20,164 jobs were created in April, 1.7 lakh in May 20 and 6.55 lakh in June this year.

Last year, 9.2 lakh jobs were created in April, 8.57 lakh in May and 12.24 lakh in June.

Coronavirus hits job creation

India implemented five lockdowns to control the spread of coronavirus, which hampered economic activity as all businesses except emergency services were shut.

As a result, companies that were running thin on cash, were left with no option but to resort to cost cutting measures such as laying-off employees and cutting their salaries. The fear of living in a crowded city amid lockdown with no or less income led to an exodus of labour towards their hometowns and villages. As per CMIE, unemployment rate was more than 23 per cent consecutively for two straight months of April and May.

Now as the labour is coming back to cities in search of jobs, the employment numbers are showing an uptick. In June 2020, 6.5 lakh jobs were created which shows a 4 fold increase in job creation when compared to the preceding month of May.

But, to sustain their livelihood, many opted to withdraw money from their EPF account to make ends meet.

According to a statement released by Labour Ministry in June, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has settled 36.02 lakh claims during coronavirus lockdown, disbursing an amount of Rs 11,540 crore under the EPF scheme. Out of this, 15.54 lakh claims amounting to Rs 4,580 crore were related to the recently introduced COVID-19 advance under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY).

In terms of wage slab, nearly two-third of total claimants during the lockdown period belonged to less than Rs 15,000 wage bracket. The high income category with wages more than Rs 50,000 accounted for a mere 2% of the claimants. A quarter of claims were made by the members with wages falling between Rs 15,000 and Rs 50,000, the ministry said.

In March, the labour ministry had announced that about 4.8 crore EPF beneficiaries can withdraw 75% of the amount standing to their credit, not exceeding their three months' basic pay, to tide over the COVID-19 pandemic. The ministry had issued a notification in this regard to amend the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme 1952, so that organised sector workers can withdraw the non-refundable advance.
Guo Wengui on whose yacht US president Donald Trumps former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was arrested has rankled China's ruling party by launching accusations of corruption on social media

Beijing: The self-exiled Chinese tycoon on whose 150-foot (45-meter) yacht US president Donald Trumps former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was arrested is a high-profile irritant to the ruling Communist Party.

Guo Wengui left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by President Xi Jinping that ensnared people close to Guo, including a top intelligence official. Chinese authorities have accused Guo of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other offenses.

A former civil servant turned real estate developer, Guo has rankled the ruling party by launching accusations of corruption on social media. From his base in a Manhattan luxury apartment, he has been especially critical of Vice President Wang Qishan, a Xi ally and key figure in the party's anti-corruption drive.

Bannon, who was arrested on Thursday, was charged along with three others with defrauding online donors in the name of helping build Trumps southern border wall. Bannon pleaded not guilty at a hearing Thursday in Manhattan.

In June, Guo and Bannon announced the founding of the Federal State of New China, an initiative to overthrow the Chinese government.

Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, was one of Chinas richest businesspeople, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.1 billion in 2015. His most prominent asset was Pangu Plaza, an office-and-hotel complex overlooking Beijing's Olympic Stadium.

Guo paid $67.5 million in 2015 for his 9,000-square foot (850-square meter) apartment above Central Park and joined Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The status of Guos fortune is unclear. Assets in China have been frozen or confiscated. He is trying to sell his Manhattan apartment; the asking price was cut this year to $55 million. His yacht, the Lady May, is for sale for nearly $28 million.

Guo told The Associated Press in 2017 his goal was to win the release of family members, employees and assets in China, not to undermine the Communist Party.

Also in 2017, however, his lawyer said Guo had applied for political asylum in the United States. Even if the claim is ultimately rejected, that might let Guo stay in the country for years while it is reviewed and during possible appeals.

That came after Beijing asked the international police agency Interpol to issue a red notice asking other governments to arrest Guo.

In the first criminal proceeding stemming from accusations against Guo and his companies, three employees were sentenced to prison in 2017 on charges they carried out Guos orders to falsify financial documents in order to obtain loans from a state bank.

The official Xinhua News Agency said other Guo-related businesses were suspected of bribery, embezzlement, illegal detention and forced transactions.

The former deputy chief of the Chinese intelligence agency, Ma Jian, was convicted in December 2018 of taking bribes to help Guo. The charges included conspiring to blackmail a Beijing city official who blocked a Guo development project.

In 2017, Chinese developer SOHO sued Guo in New York after he accused the company of improperly obtaining regulatory changes to boost the value of its properties. Guo countersued. SOHO dropped its complaint in 2018. A judge dismissed Guos suit the following year.

A separate lawsuit filed by a Chinese woman in New York accused Guo of raping her and holding her prisoner for three years after hiring her as his assistant. Guo denied the allegations.
The US on Friday said it had suspended cooperation with Mali's military in response to the overthrow of the president, as thousands gathered in the capital to celebrate the junta's takeover.

The ousting of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Tuesday has dismayed Mali's international partners, who fear it could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa's entire Sahel region.

"Let me say categorically there is no further training or support of Malian armed forces full-stop. We have halted everything until such time as we can clarify the situation," the US Sahel envoy J. Peter Pham told journalists.

The US regularly provides training to soldiers in Mali, including several of the officers who led the coup. It also offers intelligence support to France's Barkhane forces,who are fighting jihadist groups in the Sahel region.

Pham said a decision on whether Washington would designate the actions a coup, which could trigger a cut-off of direct support to the government, had to go through a legal review. A Pentagon spokesperson referred on Friday to the events as an "act of mutiny".

There has been no word from Keita since Tuesday, when he dissolved parliament and then resigned after being detained at gunpoint, deepening the crisis facing a country struggling to fend off an insurgency by Islamist militants.

Crowds celebrate president's ouster, junta thanks them

Despite widespread regional and international condemnations, Keita's ouster was celebrated on the streets of the capital, Bamako on Friday with jubilant crowds gathering in the central Independence Square.

The demonstrators were mainly supporters of Mali's opposition coalition, M5-RFP, who had demonstrated since June for Keita to step down from power.

Although the coalition was not behind Tuesday's coup d'etat, they issued a statement expressing support for the downfall of the government and endorsing the junta's plan to return the country to civilian rule.

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The M5-RFP welcomes the resignation of President Ibrahima Boubacar Keita, the dissolution of the National Assembly and the government, said the statement.

The junta in turn welcomed the coalition's support at Friday's rally in Bamako.

"We have come here to thank you, to thank the Malian public for its support. We merely completed the work that you began and we recognise ourselves in your fight," the junta's spokesman, Ismael Wague, told supporters of the M5 movement,

UN team meets Keita

Earlier Friday, UN human rights officials said they were given access overnight to Keita and other detainees. The UN peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA, provided no details on what was said or on the condition of the captives.

Junta leaders have promised to oversee a transition to elections within a "reasonable" amount of time. They plan to install a transitional president who may be "either a civilian or a soldier", the junta's spokesman told FRANCE 24 in an interview on Thursday.

Colonel-Major Ismael Wague, the junta's spokesman, told FRANCE 24 that the soldiers who seized power on Tuesday are in contact with civil society, opposition parties, the majority, everyone, to try to put a transition in place.

A council headed by a transitional president will be either a civilian or a soldier, Wague said, vowing that the transition would be "as short as possible".

West African mediation

The military overthrow has dismayed international and regional powers, who fear it could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africas entire Sahel region.

The coup is Mali's second in eight years.

A putsch in 2012 helped hasten a takeover of northern Mali by al Qaeda-linked militants, and al Qaeda and Islamic State group affiliates are active in the north and centre of the country.

France, the EU, the US, the African Union and the UN Security Council have all condemned the latest military takeover and demanded the release of detained leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron criticised the coup on Wednesday, arguing that the fight against terrorist groups and the defence of democracy and the rule of law are inseparable.

A delegation from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected to arrive in Bamako on Saturday.

The mission, led by former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, intends "to negotiate the immediate release of the president and also ensure the restoration of constitutional government," Jonathan's spokesman said, adding that the timing of the visit is not yet confirmed.

ECOWAS has already suspended Mali's membership, shut off borders and halted financial flows to the country.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:30:10|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Head of Lebanese Order of Physicians Charaf Abou Charaf Friday urged donor countries to accelerate their financial support for hospitals destroyed in the explosions in early August to prevent doctors' leave.

Abou Charaf's remarks came during his visit to hospitals including Geitawi hospital and Saint George University Hospital, the National News Agency reported.

He noted that Geitawi hospital needs 10 million U.S. dollars to be rehabilitated while Saint George hospital requires 50 million dollars, in a period of no less than six months to fix them.

Two huge explosions rocked Port of Beirut on Aug. 4 at around 6:10 p.m. local time (1510 GMT), shaking buildings all over Lebanon's capital, while killing at least 177 people and wounding around 6,000 others.

This has prompted several countries to rush to support Lebanon by sending food items, medical equipment and field hospitals. Enditem
SACRAMENTO, Calif.  The man who terrorized California as the Golden State Killer apologized to his victims Friday morning before being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Joseph DeAngelo, 74, sat silently next to his defense team as Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman ordered his sentence.

DeAngelo, a former police officer, admitted in June to being the serial rapist, murderer and burglar who stalked his prey in at least six counties in the 1970s and 1980s. He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping with robbery.

Before his sentencing, DeAngelo stood up, took off his face mask and looked at the survivors in the audience and said: "I've listened to all your statements, each of them. And I'm truly sorry to everyone I've hurt."

The hearing was in a ballroom at Sacramento State University to accommodate court staff, attorneys, survivors and the press while upholding social distancing protocols.

DeAngelo eluded capture for decades, and it took law enforcement more than 40 years to connect his crimes and catch up to him. He was known in different communities as the East Area Rapist, Visalia Ransacker, Original Nightstalker and the Golden State Killer.

By the 2000s, the advent of DNA helped link the crimes to one person. Much of the DNA collected had been used up in the testing for this effort.

But a second, untested rape kit taken from Charlene Smith, 33, one of DeAngelo's Ventura victims, would lead to his arrest in April 2018. Semen collected from her body was used to track down his family tree and point to him as the suspect.

To finally identify and arrest him in 2018, investigators pioneered a new method of DNA tracing that involves building a family tree from publicly accessible genealogy websites to narrow the list of suspects.

They linked nearly 40-year-old DNA from crime scenes to a distant relative and eventually to a discarded tissue they surreptitiously sneaked from DeAngelos garbage can in suburban Sacramento.

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DeAngelo's defense attorneys read statements from his loved ones about how he was a good father and a support system for his family. A statement from his sister said DeAngelo's father was a stern military man, a womanizer and physically abusive.

In this June 29, 2020, file photo, Joseph James DeAngelo, center, charged with being the Golden State Killer, is helped up by his attorney, Diane Howard, as Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman enters the courtroom in Sacramento, Calif.

His family's statements painted a picture of a good, loving man and said they could not wrap their heads around around the truth of DeAngelo's horrific crimes. They also apologized for the pain he caused.

Those crimes, many of which were sexual assaults, could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out. Authorities said DeAngelo committed at least 50 rapes as the East Area Rapist.

Prosecutors said that after decades of waiting, the victims deserved justice now. The case was so old that some witnesses were not expected to be alive by the time the case would have gone to trial.

'Rot in hell': Golden State Killer faces victims in court on first day of sentencing hearings

For three days this week, DeAngelo's survivors and their loved ones spoke about how 40 years ago a masked man entered their homes and threatened them with knives and guns. He would bind and gag them, rape the women, then help himself to whatever food was in the kitchen. After hours of this torture, he took their jewelry and left.

He killed three early Northern California victims when they interfered with his assaults on women. But he escalated again when he moved to Southern California, to 10 known murders.

Even DeAngelos ex-wife, Sacramento attorney Sharon Huddle, said in a court filing Thursday that she was fooled, though many victims have wondered aloud how she could not have known of her husbands double life.

I trusted the defendant when he told me he had to work, or was going pheasant hunting, or going to visit his parents hundreds of miles away, Huddle wrote.

Many victims asked Bowman to make sure DeAngelo is sent to a remote prison and housed among other inmates instead of in protective custody, though state corrections officials said they will make the final decision on where and how he is housed.

You are finally going to prison and will remain there until you die, Jane Carson-Sandler, who was raped in 1976, told DeAngelo this week.

She recalled that he famously left behind a roast in the oven when police moved in to make their arrest on April 24, 2018. His survivors, she said, now plan to celebrate each anniversary of his arrest with a similar feast in memory of your capture.

Too bad you wont get to enjoy it, she said.

Prosecutors opt for life in prison

Prosecutors from Ventura, Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Contra Costa counties were ready to seek the death penalty against DeAngelo, one of the state's most prolific serial killers. An agreement was made, however, for life in prison as long as DeAngelo pleaded guilty to the 26 charged crimes and dozens of uncharged offenses linked to his reign of terror.

The elected district attorneys from the six-county prosecution team were given an opportunity to make final comments about the case.

They focused on the family and friends of the murder victims and the dozens of rape survivors who addressed the court this week. As the case comes to an end, the focus is turning away from the perpetrator and to the enduring strength of the survivors, they said.

They have bravely confronted and emerged from the terrible darkness, Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten said. That is something DeAngelo cannot do, he said. DeAngelo sat stoically, "devoid of any humanity" and has not dared to face his victims for fear that their words may penetrate the deep darkness within him, he said.

The district attorneys reiterated the powerful words of the survivors and their families, who came out of DeAngelo's dark shadow to live vibrant lives.

"The greatest revenge is to live your lives," said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. "Paint your children's and grandchildren's rooms again with hearts and rainbows. ... Know the monster of your childhood or your younger years is gone forever and will die alone in the dark."

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Megan Diskin on Twitter: @MeganDiskin.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Golden State killer: Ex-Calif. police officer gets life without parole
A police force have become the first in the UK to use a Making A Murderer-style podcast in a bid to crack an unsolved 23-year-old homicide.

Derbyshire Constabulary have teamed up with podcasters to create a 64-minute episode about the murder of Michael Pritchard who was killed in November 1997.

The 54-year-old was dragged to his death as he tried to stop thieves taking his parcel delivery van in Kirk Langley, Derbyshire.

Mr Pritchard, of Stoke-on-Trent, stood in front of the vehicle as it was driven away at speed and died instantly from his injuries.

Michael Pritchard, 54, (pictured) was dragged to his death as he tried to stop thieves taking his parcel delivery van in Kirk Langley, Derbyshire, in November 1997

Despite one of Derbyshire Police's biggest ever manhunts and a string of high-profile appeals over the years, Mr Pritchard's killer has never been caught.

Now, the case will be coming under the scrutiny of internet sleuths as part of a new True Crime Investigators UK podcast.

The force has turned to the unique method following the success of Netflix true crime documentaries such as The Staircase, Amanda Knox, Abducted In Plain Sight and the Disappearance of Madeline McCann.

Presented by retired cops John and Sally Midgley, the episode features an emotional interview with Mr Pritchard's widow, Hilary, and contributions from senior officers.

Today the force released a slick two-minute video trailer as a preview to the podcast, which can be streamed on Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Tatlow, who is leading on the ongoing investigation, said he hoped the force's podcast debut would bring fresh lines of inquiry for his team.

He said: 'This was a murder that not only shocked the quiet, close-knit community of Kirk Langley but it absolutely devastated Michael Pritchard's family.

Mr Pritchard, of Stoke-on-Trent, stood in front of the vehicle (pictured) as it was driven away at speed and died instantly from his injuries

'The ripples of that afternoon back in 1997 are still being felt to this day and, despite 23 years passing, our commitment to finding the people responsible has never faltered.

'When John and Sally contacted us to see if we wanted to take part in their new podcast, we leapt at the chance.

'It's new ground for us but we know how popular true crime podcasts are and, by taking to streaming for the first time, we're able to share our appeal to as vast an audience as possible.

'Someone out there knows who killed Michael Pritchard. They may have stayed silent due to fear, or loyalty to friends or acquaintances. But loyalties change. People change.

'And my hope is that someone will listen to the podcast, see how much devastation that incident has caused, and give us the piece of the jigsaw we need to bring some form of closure for Hilary and her family.'

In addition to interviews with Hilary Pritchard and DCI Tatlow, the new episode features a verbal reconstruction of the incident along with eye-witness accounts.

John and Sally Midgley said they found themselves treading familiar ground by returning to the case.

John, who worked on the initial investigation back in 1997, said: 'Despite being retired, I still come back to this case and it's always at the back of my mind.

'This was an ordinary family going about their daily business and the tragic events of that day in November 1997 changed their lives forever.

'When Sally and I first started listening to true crime podcasts we were aware that podcasts in other countries had made appeals for information from the public with some success.

'When we started to think about releasing a podcast ourselves, the Michael Pritchard case came to the fore and it's our hope that we can see the same success here, with information coming forward after all these years.'

Detectives at the time were interested in leads in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and Derby and although arrests were made, nobody has ever been convicted of the crime.

The driver was said to have been with two other men, who were in what is believed to be an E-registered Bedford Rascal van.

Mr Pritchard's van - a white Sherpa 200 with 'Business Express' livery - was found abandoned and police believe the driver was collected by the men in the Bedford van.

A reward of up to 10,000 is still available for information leading to a conviction via independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

The podcast is available to download from www.truecrimeinvestigators.co.uk as well as all major streaming platforms.
Google was accidentally listening in on some users due to a mishap with a recent update to smart home devices. The news follows a recently-reported confirmation from the company, which narrowed down the problem to the unintentional release of features. Specifically, the company says that it rolled out glass break and smoke alarm detection features to the wrong users.

The problem with that, as described by Google, is that those sounds detection mechanism runs all the time. Thats as part of a Nest Aware plan, so isnt typically a bad thing.

With the plan in place, the smart speakers in Googles home ecosystem are always on the look-out for the sound of breaking glass or a smoke alarm. If it hears one, it alerts the user. But users who have not opted in for Nest Aware wouldnt have necessarily known or wanted that to happen.

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Google indicates that only a subset of Google Home, Home Mini, and Home Max speakers were impacted. And that this was caused by a faulty update.

When is the fix coming for the accidental Google listening?

Its not immediately clear how long the software was live on end-users smart home devices. At least not for now. But it does appear that Google legitimately was only listening in accidentally, and not deliberately.

Moreover, Google says that there was very little chance of any breaches being caused by this type of mistake. And, in fact, the search giant says that there were no breaches at all this time around.

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In the interim, it has already set about finding the problem and issued a fix. So any users who were unintentionally seeing notifications about glass breaking or a smoke alarm should notice that they dont anymore.

This wasnt as bad as it could have been

Now, glitches such as this appear in smart home setups with some frequency. Thats not necessarily going to make users feel a whole lot better. Especially with consideration for at least a few recent examples of that. But this error, in particular, could have been far worse. Especially if any breaches had occurred.
On Wednesday, Cooper said that "the faster and less bureaucratic route is for Congress and the president to extend the $600 per week benefit program that already exists, and its unconscionable this hasnt been done."

"If this is the only option for North Carolina, we want to take it. We want to get as much money to North Carolinians as we can."

Cooper has recommended to Berger and Moore that they support legislation during the next round of the 2020 session to raise the maximum number of regular state UI benefits to at least 24 weeks (up from 12 currently) and the maximum weekly benefit to $500 (up from $350).

That session is scheduled to begin Sept. 2.

It is expected to focus on how to spend the remaining $1.9 billion of the $3.5 billion in federal CARES Act funding sent to the state.

Federal UI claims on rise

Initial federal unemployment-insurance benefit claims in North Carolina increased for the first time in four weeks, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.
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BELLE GLADE, Fla., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida announced at its August 20th board meeting that John L. Hundley stepped down as Chairman of the Board. The board elected director Robert J. Underbrink as Chairman to succeed Hundley, effective immediately. Underbrink is only the third Chairman to serve in the Cooperative's 60-year history.

Underbrink serves as President and CEO of King Ranch. He was elected to the Board of Directors in January 1994 and appointed to the Executive Committee in May 2006. "I am honored to accept the helm from my good friend, John Hundley. The membership is deeply indebted to him for his tremendous judgment, tireless energy and outstanding leadership," Underbrink said.

Hundley will remain active on the Cooperative's Board and Executive Committee. Hundley said, "I am humbled by the opportunity to have served the Cooperative's grower-members and pleased that Robert agreed to accept this challenge. His skills and experience make him the obvious choice."

John Hundley, President of Hundley Farms, Inc. was elected to the Cooperative's Board of Directors in August 1986, to their Executive Committee in January 1997 and Chairman in August 2013. Hundley lead the Cooperative in the development of Tellus Products, LLC., jointly owned by Florida Crystals Corporation and ASR Group International, Inc., which produces disposable table ware.

About Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida

Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative is comprised of 43 mostly family owned grower-members who produce approximately 4 million tons of sugarcane yielding approximately 400,000 tons of raw sugar and 20 million gallons of molasses, grown on over 75,000 acres of land primarily in Palm Beach County.

As partners with Florida Crystals Corporation, they own and operate the world's largest cane sugar refining company ASR Group International, Inc. that owns nine sugar refineries and two raw sugar mills in seven countries with the capacity to produce more than 6 million tons of refined sugar annually.

The company produces a full line of consumer, industrial specialty and food service products under various prestigious brand names including Domino, C&H, Redpath, Tate & Lyle, Lyle's and Sidul. Tellus Products, LLC is jointly owned by Florida Crystals Corporation, American Sugar Refining, Inc. and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, and is an innovative packaging company that upcycles locally grown sugarcane fiber and converts it to sustainable tableware and foodservice products, including plates, bowls and take-out containers. Learn more at www.scgc.org

SOURCE Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Just before receiving multiple consecutive life sentences, Joseph James DeAngelo, the former California police officer who lived a double life as the murderous sociopath dubbed the Golden State Killer, broke his silence to tell a hushed courtroom filled with victims and their family members that he was truly sorry for the crimes.

It was such an unexpected moment that it brought gasps from those in the gallery, many of whom sat through an extraordinary four-day sentencing hearing filled with graphic and heart-wrenching testimony from dozens of victims. It also reinforced that nobody ever seemed to know what DeAngelo would do and who he was, which helps explain how he eluded detection for four decades while committing at least 13 killings and dozens of rapes.

The 74-year-old DeAngelo spoke for only a few seconds after rising from a wheelchair that newly released jail video shows he doesnt need.

I listened to all your statements, each one of them, and Im truly sorry for everyone Ive hurt, he said, putting aside the weak, quavering voice he used to plead guilty and also admit to multiple other sexual assaults for which the statute of limitations had expired.

Prosecutors and victims said it was more evidence of a manipulative and vicious criminal who fooled investigators and his own family until he finally admitted victimizing at least 87 people at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties. He was finally unmasked in 2018 with a pioneering use of DNA tracing.

I think that he is truly diabolical and he is constantly masked, whether its a physical mask, a disguise in the voice, the role of a decent guy in the community and having people around him who love him, said Debbi Domingo McMullan, the daughter of murder victim Cheri Domingo.

One hundred per cent Jekyll & Hyde, added Jane Carson-Sandler, one of DeAngelos first rape victims. Its like he was living two completely different lives. ... He probably, somehow in his mind, didnt feel that he was committing these crimes  it was someone else, almost compartmentalized.

DeAngelos family members broke their silence in the case, writing in letters read to the judge that the monster, devil, beast and madman described by prosecutors is the polar opposite of the man that one niece saw as a loving father figure and another as her hero who took her camping and fishing.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman was unmoved. He said DeAngelo should die in prison with no mercy from his jailers after pleading guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges that spanned much of California between 1975 and 1986. The plea deal spared him the death penalty.

When a person commits monstrous acts, they need to be locked away so they can never harm an innocent person, the judge said to applause from DeAngelos victims.

Investigators in the case pioneered a new method of DNA tracing that involves building a family tree from publicly accessible genealogy websites to narrow the list of suspects.

They linked nearly 40-year-old DNA from crime scenes to a distant relative of DeAngelo and eventually to a discarded tissue they surreptitiously lifted from DeAngelos garbage can in suburban Sacramento.

The same technique has since been used to solve 93 murders and rapes across the nation, said Ron Harrington, whose family has been obsessed with solving the 1980 slayings of youngest brother Keith Harrington and his new wife, Patrice Harrington.

It led oldest brother Bruce Harrington to champion a ballot measure passed by California voters in 2004 that expanded the collection of DNA samples from prisoners and those arrested for felonies and has since led to more than 81,000 identifications.

Bowman told DeAngelo he was moved by the courage and strength of the victims and their family members  all qualities you clearly lack  who told how they endured sadistic, hours-long assaults.

DeAngelos rapes and eventual murders followed the same pattern of binding couples he surprised while they slept and assaulting the woman as the man lay helpless. He would place dishes on the mans back, warning that he would kill them both if the dishes rattled.

DeAngelos relatives said that conflicted with their image of the man they loved.

I personally feel that someone else is inside him who I do not know, a niece said in a letter read by defence attorneys.

DeAngelos sister and a close friend each wrote that he was abused as a boy by an emotionally distant, disciplinarian father.

Prosecutors said they had found no evidence of abuse, but Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said they learned he was a teenager who was blowing up animals, who was breaking into homes.

His ex-wife, Sacramento attorney Sharon Huddle, said in her own court filing that she was fooled by his excuses of working nights, leaving for pheasant hunts and visiting his parents, though many victims have wondered aloud how she could not have known of her husbands double life.

No compassion, no empathy, no remorse, Schubert said. He has and always will be a sociopath in action.

Former fiance Bonnie Colwell Ueltzen said, I didnt see a criminal in him, but I know now he was a burglar and a Peeping Tom before I ever knew him.

She broke off their teenage engagement when DeAngelo became abusive. Investigators have said one rape victims recollection that her assailant shouted I hate you, Bonnie helped lead them to DeAngelo.

Maybe Im part of his cover. Maybe his familys part of his cover, Ueltzen said after DeAngelo was sentenced. Were all props in his big story, where hes always been a criminal underneath.
There was a measure of poetic justice in Thursdays news that Steve Bannon, the populist political guru who charted President Trumps rise to power, was arrested on a yacht on Long Island Sound and charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of Mr. Trumps supporters.

The pitch was like a twisted version of the 19th-century campaign to build a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty with small donations from individual Americans: This time, the American people would fund a wall along the southern border of the United States.

Its the American people coming together to chip in and give five bucks, said Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran who, with Mr. Bannons help, created a nonprofit called We Build the Wall, ostensibly to raise money for the project.

They collected more than $25 million. They even built a short stretch of border wall near El Paso. But on Thursday, federal agents arrested Mr. Kolfage, Mr. Bannon and two of their associates, and charged the men with spending a chunk of the money on themselves.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Syracuse University gave interim suspensions to 23 students following a gathering on the quad that drew hundreds of freshmen to the middle of campus Wednesday night.

Bobby Maldonado, chief of the Department of Public Safety, and Marianne Thomson, the schools dean of students, announced the suspensions in an email to the Syracuse University community. They said the school is still investigating the gathering and is using security camera footage, witness accounts and a number of tips.

The school did not explicitly say what the interim suspensions were issued for, but in the email, the administrators said students found organizing events that do not comply with Syracuses policies to limit the spread of the coronavirus will be subject to penalties that include suspension or expulsion.

They noted that students who are found attending events that dont comply with SUs policies would be subject to disciplinary action based on the schools code of conduct.

While Syracuse had expected it will be difficult to monitor the behavior of students living off-campus, Wednesdays gathering was a public display of rule-breaking that occurred right under the schools nose. It took place in the middle of campus and just a short walk from the schools Department of Public Safety.

Some students in attendance were not wearing masks and were not distancing. The gathering was far larger than SUs limit of 25.

Students who witnessed the gathering said a DPS officer on the scene reacted slowly as the gathering grew, although the response from other members of DPS came quickly once they were alerted.

The impromptu gathering drew hundreds of freshmen to the quad between 9:45 and 10:30 p.m. Videos of the gathering were distributed widely and drew a quick rebuke from the school administration, which said the gathering could have done enough damage to shut down the campus.

North Carolina became the first school to shut down after trying to open this week, suffering a surge of coronavirus cases after being open for just a week. Notre Dame moved its classes online for two weeks after a spike in cases and a number of schools that were planning for in-person education abandoned their hopes after seeing things go poorly on other college campuses.

Unlike some of the campuses that saw dramatic spikes, Syracuse did have a thorough testing process in place in an effort to try to mitigate any spread caused by poor behavior.

The school moved in new students from Monday to Thursday, while returning students are scheduled to move into on-campus housing between Thursday and Saturday.

The school required all students to test negative for coronavirus within 10 days of moving into campus housing and then screened students again on arrival. Its unclear if all the students who attended Wednesday nights gathering would have cleared the second screening before attending the gathering.

Contact Chris Carlson anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1639
Mee Raqsam

Director: Baba Azmi

Cast: Danish Husain, Aditi Suberi, Naseeruddin Shah

Great fathers come in different packages. Some are world-renowned poets and some, just humble tailors. Mee Raqsam is produced by actor Shabana Azmi, directed by her brother Baba Azmi and is a tribute to their late father Kaifi Azmi. Shabana once said that her father told her he would support her if she wanted to be an actress. With Mee Raqsam, Kaifis children are telling the story of a father much like himone who puts his childs dreams and happiness above all else, even if it takes away all he has.

Watch trailer for Mee Raqsam:

Mee Raqsam is shot in the small town of Mijwan in Uttar Pradesh. This was also where Kaifi was born and spent a major part of his childhood. When he returned to his hometown decades later, he started multiple ventures to uplift the towns people. It was also his wish to shoot a movie in Mijwan, which was posthumously realised by his son through Mee Raqsam.

In Mijwan, we meet tailor Salim (Danish Husain) and his young daughter, Maryam (Aditi Subedi). Salims wife dies after a long illness and they only have each other to seek love, acceptance and support from. Maryam starts harbouring a deep love for Bharatnatyam, sparked in her by her mother. While she knows that being the dancing girl would not be acceptable to her conservative community, Salim pushes her to follow her dreams, saying he will brave the barbs if they have to.

The pragmatically heartless khala, the apathetic khalu, and the miserly nani are all against Salims decision to make his daughter a tawaif. Their bigotry is echoed by the community elders too, including the bigot-in-chief, played by Naseeruddin Shah. He tries dialogue, intimidation, and the classic slurs on the house wall moves, to shake Salims resolve and stop him from embarrassing his community. But Salim wouldnt budge. Even in the face of harsh, unwarranted ostracization from his people, he knows the right path to pick.

Mee Raqsam may not be without its faults but its heart is in the right, progressive place. Salims clear perspective on righteousness and gentle love for his daughter are the heart of this film. He takes on the big and mighty even with little hope of either turning their hearts or coming out of the ordeal unhinged. But when his peoplethe mohalla, the relatives, the maulana, the doctorall turn against him, he chooses to never doubt the reason he did it all in the first placeto see a smile on his daughters face.

Danish plays Salim with a gentleness that can also come across as a little too inexpressive at times. He doesnt let the despair, the disappointment or even anger show distinctly on his face, even in pivotal moments. While it can seem awkward to some, it can also be seen as a true representation of the small town Indian man, rarely letting what is in his heart show on his face. On its own, his performance may not have seemed so out of place but when juxtaposed with others far louder, animated acts, the end product doesnt seem cohesive.

Also read: Akshay Kumar told me not to become a producer, said you will become a struggler from a star: Mika Singh

The world of Mee Raqsam is still closer to a fairytale than it is to reality. People are either angelic or completely evil. An auto driver goes out of his way to help the family and a cleric goes out of his way to harm them. A Hindu dance teacher gives Maryam a new chance at living a happy, fulfilling life but the Hindu dance academy owner puts hurdles in the heroines path like any factory-made Disney villain. He deliberately messes up her name with another generic Muslim one, uses her as a token of his own progressiveness, belittles her culture, her community and her father. And if that wasnt enough, he even ruins her final dance performance by getting his henchmen to turn off the music while she is on stage. While it is always a welcome idea to represent lack of empathy and acceptance on both sides, a subtler way of bringing it across would have been a better choice.

But even with its saturated villains and TV soaps background score, Mee Raqsam oozes warmth at its core. Newcomer Aditiwho also hails from Mijwanis allowed few moments to flex any acting muscles but when performing the many mudras or doing the namaskaram, she is almost poetry on screen. Mijwan itself brings the authentic charm of small town UP that no other recreated film set might have. The peculiar fonts on a tailor shops sign board, the large Vikram autos, bright yellow shirts, and the serpentine galis of the mohalla ask you to inhabit this world.

Mee Raqsam may be flawed but its a warm tale of a fathers love. It brings you to Mijwan and makes sure some part of it will stay with you for a long time.

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An Offaly events promoter is backing and seeking public support for a petition seeking clarity for stage schools amid changing Covid-19 public health measures.

Colin Hughes of Colin Hughes Promotions in Tullamore has said the "arts sector has been left in the dark once again" after new public health restrictions, particularly on gatherings and events, were announced on Monday.

"After the latest round of government restrictions, the arts sector has been left in the dark once again. There isn't any acknowledgement of the arts or any part of it whatsoever," Colin told us.

"Now, stage schools across the country have come together to get more clarity from government as to whether we can open and get back to work," he added referencing a new petition with over 5,000 signatures.

"Stage schools are a huge part of every community in Ireland with thousands of children attending them each week. These are much more than just 'stage school' - they provide an outlet for children to grow within themselves and gain confidence and communication skills," Colin remarked.

"We have seen first hand how important these classes are for children."

Colin said despite an update earlier this week from the Department for the Arts, stage schools still do not have clarity on reopening.

"We are ready to open with proper protocols in place and will have to cut numbers due to social distancing, but we are ready.

We have started a petition and have received over 5,000 signatures so far. We are looking for as many signatures as we can get so we can get the government to stop ignoring us," Colin concluded.

You can sign the petition to support this cause HERE.
Hong Kong: New control point to open

The Government today announced that Heung Yuen Wai Boundary Control Point (BCP) will commence services on August 26, with cargo clearance facilities to open first for cross-boundary goods vehicles' use.

The arrangement was agreed by both Guangdong and Hong Kong in view of the development of the COVID-19 epidemic. At this stage, the new BCP will not be open for other cross-boundary vehicles under the regular quota as well as passenger clearance services to reduce people flow between the Mainland and Hong Kong.

Cargo clearance services will be provided between 7am and 10pm daily at the initial stage of the commissioning.

Heung Yuen Wai BCP, also called Liantang Port in Shenzhen, is the seventh land-based control point at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen boundary. It is connected to Heung Yuen Wai Highway in Hong Kong and the Shenzhen Eastern Corridor.

The Government said cross-boundary goods vehicles currently going to the eastern part of Shenzhen and east Guangdong generally travel through busy roads in Hong Kong and Shenzhen via the existing BCPs at Lok Ma Chau, Man Kam To and Sha Tau Kok.

The commissioning of the Heung Yuen Wai BCP will shorten the travelling time between Hong Kong, the eastern part of Shenzhen and east Guangdong and relieve the existing cross-boundary freight traffic, which will facilitate the smooth and efficient operation of cross-boundary logistics.

Meanwhile, specimen-taking services for nucleic acid tests will be provided to cross-boundary goods vehicle drivers within the Liantang Port area in Shenzhen.

Click here for details on customs clearance for goods vehicles at the Heung Yuen Wai BCP.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
(Newser)  Joseph DeAngelo, better known as the Golden State Killer, won't be getting out of prison. The 74-year-old received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole on Friday for his decades-long string of murders and sexual attacks, reports NBC News. DeAngelo, a former police officer in California, told victims he was "truly sorry" in court, per the AP. To avoid the death penalty, he had pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges for crimes between 1975 and 1986. In all, he admitted to having 87 victims in more than 50 crimes in 11 of the state's counties.

story continues below

"I've listened to all your statements. Each one of them," DeAngelo told the court. "And I'm truly sorry to everyone I have hurt. Thank you, your honor." DeAngelo's case is the subject of an HBO documentary, I'll Be Gone in the Dark, which is based on an investigative book by the late Michelle McNamara. She was the wife of comedian Patton Oswalt, and she died two years before the arrest of DeAngelo in 2016. (Read more Golden State Killer stories.)
The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College, and the author of China in India.

New Delhis helplessness is bringing these Chinese criminals to justice confirms the CPCs long-held view that India is intrinsically weak

Is the Indian system so corrupt that it will aid someone working directly against our national security interests? Representational Image

Every passing day the Chinese underworlds deep penetration of India seems to grow, and this country looks utterly incapable of doing anything about it.

Whether individuals or companies, they all have the muscular backing of the Chinese Communist Party and its various secret arms and are confident that the long arm of Indian law cant touch them.

India is, of course, not the only country where they are operating. But in some places and some countries, realisation is slowly dawning that these activities by Chinese state and non-state actors cant be permitted to continue.

This is so in the United States, Canada and some European countries that allowed the Chinese to penetrate their economies untramelled for decades, but now there is a change in thinking.

The hard line by Washington of late is a case in point, one we need to emulate. New Delhis helplessness is bringing these Chinese criminals to justice only confirms the CPCs long-held view that India is intrinsically weak, timid, and scared to act against Chinese lawbreakers in India, apprehensive of Beijings retribution.

Why else has India failed to counter the CPCs deep penetration strike and forward deployment in India.

Its equally hard to comprehend New Delhis delayed strategic blueprint to pre-empt and deter these or launch a counter-offensive to protect its supreme national interests.

When news came on August 12 about Chinese Charles Peng, aka Luo Sang committing a massive hawala offence of hundreds of crores rupees in India, with the help of fellow Chinese, as well as Indian bankers and chartered accountants, through 40-plus bank accounts, it was no surprise.

A day later, August 13, it emerged Luo Sang had been arrested two years ago on serious espionage charges. Why was he still roaming free, who had come to his rescue and facilitated his release? He was caught entering India illegally via Nepal without any valid travel documents.

Subsequently, he married a Manipuri woman, and in a short time managed to get documents to become an Indian citizen.

How did a man arrested for spying manage to obtain bail from the courts? He faced charges of forgery, cheating, impersonation and of being a logistical support provider to the Chinese embassy. Is the Indian system so corrupt that it will aid someone working directly against our national security interests?

Any number of Chinese criminals have been caught in India smuggling gold and high-value goods worth crores of rupees in the past three years.

Have any of them been prosecuted or jailed under stringent laws like the Conservation of Foreign Exchange & Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (Cofeposa)? The list is almost endless: Hong Feng Wong; Luen Fat Ng; Gong Changro Ng; Wen Chi Lai; Mu Donh Vhmh; Wang Syuan; Fano Pei Chieh; Huang Shan Yu; Chui Chun Chin; Shen Yen Lin; Zhang Guigiong; Zhang Guanghua; Ye Xiuchi; Gu Meizin; Zhou Yin; Yu Sheng Huang; Xia Qianbin; Yu Shi are only some examples.

We now have a high-profile gold smuggling case in Kerala, linked allegedly to its highest office. What about these state-sponsored Chinese criminals?

From money-laundering to banking, gold smuggling to fishing, its the same story over and over again  with Hindustan repeatedly taken for a ride. As our soldiers valiantly try to confront the Chinese PLA across Ladakh, in Pangong Tso to Galwan Valley, as well as in Sikkim and Arunachal, the Chinese Han criminals and CPC agents seem to have access to our finance, commerce, trade, banking, fishing and investment sectors.

The porous India-Nepal border is an entry point for espionage. Remember, after Ottawa cracked the whip on Huawei, how four Canadians caught stranded in the Peoples Republic were sentenced to death for espionage? Can we draw some lessons?

In June 2019, 10 Chinese vessels were apprehended fishing illegally in Maharashtra, and sought emergency shelter in Ratnagiri, 131 nautical miles from the Indian Navys western fleet headquarters. This was the Fu Yuan Yu fleet, owned by Dong-Xing-Long Ocean Fishing Co Ltd, based in Fujian. They entered India on June 7, 2019, and were caught soon afterwards, with illegal gear on the vessels, with 19 of its 37 crew members having expired passports. But what did India do, despite a clear breach of our laws? Almost nothing.

Those were the days of a renewed post-Doklam Hindi-Chini bhai bhai!

As most of the government and our armed forces have realised by now, the Chinese, having made deep incursions into our territory, are determined not to give up an inch. The CPC has already subdued Moscow, which is scared of losing control of Siberia, it has bought over Pakistan and is continually instigating Indias neighbours.

It has committed long-term technology theft in America and Europe. Now the target is India, which made the cardinal blunder of allowing the Chinese entry into its economic sphere. We are on the backfoot, so much so that our ambassador in Beijing meets second and third-rung CPC functionaries and junior PLA generals, literally cajoling them to ensure a return to their pre-April 2020 position in Ladakh.

Will Chinas ambassador in New Delhi Sun Weidong, who addresses some forum or the other almost daily, confer with low-level leaders or junior Indian Army generals? After the June 15 Galwan outrage, he wasnt even summoned by the external affairs ministry for an explanation. What are we so afraid of?

Wake up, India. De-couple our economy from China swiftly, or the Chinese will try to convert Hindustan into another semi-vassal state. Indias 1.3 billion people will never accept that.
A massive column of smoke rises above Highway 1 just north of the Santa Cruz County line as a section of the CZU August Lightning Complex burns above Waddell Beach, northwest of Santa Cruz, Calif., on Aug. 19, 2020. (Shmuel Thaler/The Santa Cruz Sentinel via AP)

At Least 5 People Killed in Northern California Wildfires

SANTA CRUZ, CaliforniaDozens of wildfires raging throughout Northern California have now claimed at least five lives and threaten tens of thousands of homes, authorities said Thursday.

The death of a resident in Solano County, in the northeastern San Francisco Bay Area, was reported Thursday by Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara, although he didnt have any additional details.

In addition, three civilians had died in Napa County since the fires began, said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire assistant deputy director. In all, more than 30 civilians and firefighters have been injured.

It wasnt immediately clear whether the Solano and Napa county fatalities included a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker who was found dead Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area between San Francisco and Sacramento.

A pilot on a water-dropping mission in central California also died Wednesday when his helicopter crashed.

More than two dozen major fires were scorching California and taxing the states firefighting capacity, sparked by an unprecedented lightning siege that dropped nearly 11,000 strikes over several days.

The fires have destroyed 175 structures, including homes, and are threatening 50,000 more, said Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. In all, 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured.

At least two people were missing.

Cars charred by the Lake Fire are seen at Pine Canyon Road in the Angeles National Forest, by Lake Hughes, 60 miles north of Los Angeles, California on Aug. 13, 2020. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)

A home burns in Vacaville, Calif., during the LNU Lightning Complex fire on Aug. 19, 2020. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed the wildfires, contending that they are a result of climate change, in a last-minute video recorded for the Democratic National Convention from a forest near Watsonville after he visited an evacuation center.

I confess this is not where I expected to be speaking here tonight, he said into what appeared to be a cellphone camera. Newsom had recorded an earlier, more lighthearted video, to be delivered in the conventions prime-time hours but decided it didnt bring the right tone amid his states disasters, said Dan Newman, one of his political advisers.

Smoke and ash billowing from the fires has fouled the air throughout the scenic central coast and San Francisco.

Most of the activity is in Northern California, where fires have chewed through about 500 square miles of brushland, rural areas, canyon country and dense forest surrounding San Francisco.

More than 10,000 firefighters are on the front lines, but fire officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours. The state has requested 375 engines and crew from other states.

Thats going to allow our firefighters that have have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest, Berlant said.

More firefighters were sent to battle a complex of fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties but its still not enough, said the incident commander, Cal Fire Assistant Chief Billy See.

Were still drastically short for a fire of this size. he said at an evening news conference.

Fire officials said the flames were being driven by bone-dry timber and brush and erratic winds. They pleaded with residents to be ready to evacuate when ordered because they place firefighters in danger when crews have to protect those staying behind.

Today we saw a growth of approximately 700 to 1,000 acres an hour in heavy timber, See said. Thats a dangerous rate of spread for our firefighters and for all those residents out there.

Cal Fire spokesman Dan Olson said there are concerns that some people are trying to organize through social media to create volunteer brigades and fight the fire themselves.

Firefighter David Widaman directs water onto a tree that had exploded in flame as a fire crew defends a house northwest of Santa Cruz, Calif., on Aug. 19, 2020. (Shmuel Thaler/The Santa Cruz Sentinel via AP)

The dangers out there to their own lives outweigh anything they can accomplish, he said. Theyre putting their lives in jeopardy.

In Marin County, just north of San Francisco, where a smaller fire is burning near the Pacific Ocean, county fire chief Jason Weber said he is waiting for assistance from Montana to arrive this weekend.

He said in his 25 years in fire service, weve never seen this level of draw-down from cooperating agencies, as there is heavy competition in the western United States for equipment and people.

In the coastal mountain regions south of San Francisco, where 48,000 people were under orders to evacuate, a fire complex had burned 75 square miles. Officials warned it has the potential to grow significantly in the next day.

At least 50 buildings, including homes, had burned and nearly 21,000 structures were threatened, fire officials said.

A Los Angeles County firefighter extinguishes hot spots at a scorched residence while battling the Lake Fire in the Angeles National Forest, Calif., north of Santa Clarita on Aug. 13, 2020. (Noah Berger/AP Photo)

Given depleted resources, one of the best tools firefighters have for public safety is to get people out of harms way. But some people refused when officers went door-to-door Wednesday night, Cal Fire Chief Mark Brunton said.

Kevin Stover, 42, was struggling with indecision early Thursday when a mandatory evacuation order was issued for the rugged and small town of Felton outside the beach city of Santa Cruz.

I dont want to leave, said Stover, a camera operator and rigger now driving for Door Dash and Lyft because of the pandemic. His car, loaded with important papers, his fathers urn and some arrowheads that meant a lot to him, had a flat tire.

Im trying to figure out if I should cut these original oil paintings out of the frame to salvage them, he said.

The unusually large size and number of simultaneous fires, other fires throughout the West and the loss of inmate firefighting crews because inmates were released from prisons to prevent the spread of coronavirus, have created the perfect storm for firefighting.

Our agency is taxed to the limit, said Incident Commander Mike Smith at the fire near Santa Cruz. Officials there are awaiting help from other states, but they are having to look further afield than usual, meaning it will take days for crews to arrive, he said. The U.S. Forest Service cant help because they are busy fighting fires on federal lands.

In Monterey County along the coast, about 9,000 people have been evacuated for a fire thats now 52 square miles.

Two fires in Sonoma County prompted evacuation orders for 8,000 residents near the Russian River Wednesday. Residents of Healdsburg, with a population of about 12,000, were warned Wednesday night to be ready to flee. Fires in that region destroyed more than 100 buildings, including some homes, and threatened 25,000 people across five counties.

Tim Edwards, president of the union representing 7,000 Cal Fire firefighters, said lawmakers need to allocate more money at a time when firefighters are working 40 to 50 days at a time without real relief.

California State Parks announced full or partial closures of more than two dozen parks, including Big Basin Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the park headquarters and other facilities were damaged. The park featuring towering stands of ancient coast redwoods dates to 1902 and is the states oldest.

By Janie Har and Martha Mendoza. The Epoch Times contributed to this article.
We also had a word with Lenovo India CEO, Rahul Agarwal on gaming laptops. Check it out.

Today was a mix of everything from smartphone announcements to gaming apps and social media. We witnessed Facebook India head talking about the companys stance over politics, Google Maps getting a new feature, Android 11 feature revealed by Google and more.

We also had a word with Lenovo India CEO, Rahul Agarwal on gaming laptops. Check it out.

Lenovo India CEO on how Legion gaming laptops appeal to non-gaming users

Most of the gaming laptops are unwieldy, lack right software optimisations, and do not score high on portability scale  probably why productivity-oriented users stay at bay. Lenovo sees this as an opportunity to rope in its Legion laptops as the perfect product for both gaming and non-gaming users. Lenovo India CEO, Rahul Agarwal talks more about it.

Facebook India head clears the air on supporting political parties

Facebook India head, Ajit Mohan cleared the air in a blog post, stating that it is a non-partisan platform, meaning it doesn't support any one political party. Also mentioned was that Facebook will continue to remove content posted by public figures in the country. This announcement comes amid allegations that the firm did not apply hate speech rules for posts by certain ruling party politicians.

Oppo F17 Pro with an ultra-slim design set to launch in India soon

Oppo on Friday announced it will soon launch F17 Pro in India. Known for its slim form factor, Oppo F17 Pro comes with a 7.48mm ultra-thin design and weighs about 164 grams. Well know the price of the handset on the day of the launch. Oppo F17 Pro will succeed the F15 which launched in January this year.

Google Chrome Kaleidoscope brings all streaming services under one platform

Google is currently testing this feature on the Canary version of Chrome. the Chrome Kaleidoscope page reads the message All your shows in one place. Theres a short description which says, You can see all your favorite shows in one place, no matter where theyre hosted. Select the providers you use below. Listed on the site for now are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar. It is not for sure when exactly will this be launched officially.

Apple grabbed record half of global smartwatch market in H1 2020

Unlike the smartphone market, the smartwatch market has seen a 20% revenue growth in H1 2020, according to the latest data from Counterpoint Research. Almost 42 million smartwatches were shipped in the first half of 2020 owing to the growing demand of health conscious users. Apple still took the lead with a 51.4% market share as it witnessed a strong demand for the Watch Series 5.

Google Maps to now show wildfire boundaries in real-time

The latest feature shows wildfire boundaries in real-time. Googles new feature is currently available to Maps users in the US. The company had conducted a pilot test of the feature in California last year. Google says when users will search for things such as wildfire in California or a specific wildfire like Kincade fire, they will see an approximate boundary of the wildfire.

Android 11 will limit third-party camera apps due to location spying fears, says Google

Google is bringing in a feature with Android 11 thats going to make all the apps on your smartphone use the main built-in camera app for photos and videos even if you have other third-party camera apps on your device. Google has confirmed this and has explained why thats going to be the case going forward.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioned by FTC investigators

The FTCs probe into the company was disclosed last summer. The agency is one of the multiple enforcers, including the US Justice Department and states attorneys general, exploring Facebooks market power and influence.

PUBG Mobile to make a major announcement on August 24: Here's what to expect

The firm has teased a New Era for PUBG Mobile on Twitter, more details on which will be revealed on August 24. The announcement, which will be done by developers on YouTube and Facebook lives stream at 7PM IST, is expected to be about the new Erangel map aka Erangel 2.0.

Facebooks overhauled UI design to become a default in September

This shouldnt come a surprise as the new design was introduced last year during Facebooks developer conference and initially rolled out to iOS and Android apps. In March this year it reached the web version as an opt-in feature. However, this wont be an opt-in feature come September.

Oppo A53 with 90Hz display to launch in India on August 25

Oppo has announced the launch of a new smartphone in India. Oppo A53 that just made its debut in Indonesia will now launch in India on August 25. The new Oppo smartphone will be priced under Rs 15,000. Oppo A53 is scheduled to launch on August 25 at 12:30 pm. The launch event will be live streamed via Oppos official YouTube page.
(Natural News) Not enough black and brown people are signing up for Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine trials in the United Kingdom, which has prompted the UK Vaccines Taskforce to issue a plea for more diversity in its human guinea pig medical experiments.

Ever since it was reported by the mainstream media that ethnic minorities are supposedly more prone to developing complications from the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) than people with white skin, UK authorities have been scrambling to find more minority representation in the countrys vaccine trials.

Existing Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine trials have already recruited some 100,000 participants, but more are soon on the way as the experts rove for more high risk candidates, including the elderly, the immuno-compromised, and people with darker skin.

Protecting those at risk is the only way we will end this pandemic, announced Kate Bingham, chair of the UK Vaccines Taskforce, about how the UK government is specifically seeking out people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Getting 100,000 volunteers on board is a great start but we need many more people from many different backgrounds that we can call on for future studies if we are to find a vaccine quickly to protect those who need it.

Listen below as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, unpacks how Big Pharma purposely destroyed the reputation of hydroxychloroquine as a means of obtaining emergency approval for upcoming Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines:

UK government now broadcasting ads in Indian languages to recruit more brown human guinea pigs

Had the government of the UK looked closer at the actual data, it would have come to the realization that Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) risk is more a factor of socioeconomic status and employment type than it is about skin color. But in the age of social justice warrior-ism, the bandwagon approach to science has become the norm.

Consequently, UK officials are now engaged in a desperate search for more non-whites to get jabbed with experimental chemicals that are being rushed to market as part of President Donald Trumps Operation Warp Speed program to create fast-tracked vaccines for the entire world.

According to the Times of India, the British government is actually now putting out ads in Gujarati, Punjabi, and Bengali to try to attract more people of Indian descent to participate in Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine trials.

Recruiting these groups might be more difficult now that English-language media in the US and the UK has been blasting out stories claiming minorities are more susceptible to the virus, when what they really mean is that minorities are dying at higher rates than white people largely because a higher percentage of minorities are in working-class jobs, reports Zero Hedge.

Given liberals fondness for justifying every wanton decision with science, were curious about how this attitude evolved, considering that typically, racial differences dont impact how a vaccine works in the human body.

Ironically, this effort by the UK to recruit more minority human guinea pigs has the potential to slow the development of a workable Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, which quite frankly will never come to fruition since vaccines are pseudoscience to begin with, especially when targeting viruses.

I cant imagine why anyone wouldnt rush to sign up for a trial of an untested, rushed into production vaccine, wrote one Zero Hedge commenter sarcastically.

Big Pharma is rejoicing, wrote another about how there is now a world-wide laboratory of guinea pigs on whom to test these deadly vaccine chemicals. When the deadly concoction of chemicals fails, they can just blame it on the Covid1984, this same commenter added.

For more related news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic, be sure to check out Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
At the start of a new staging of Godspell, the actors  including Bulverde native Zach Williams  share their pandemic experiences.

The production by the Berkshire Theatre Group in Massachusetts is the first professional musical to be staged for live audiences in the United States in the COVID-19 era.

Williams was in the touring production of Aladdin when theaters and tours started shutting down in March. The Disney musical was playing Austins Bass Concert Hall when it was put on hold  a particularly tough pill for Williams to swallow, since it meant that the dates at San Antonios Majestic Theatre were being scrapped for the foreseeable future.

I felt like the magic carpet had been swept from beneath me, he says at the start of Godspell.

Being cast in Aladdin was a big deal  it was Williams first national tour and his first big break  but the Majestic performances would have been especially meaningful.

I remember going to see Rent and Cats and dreaming of playing that theater, Williams said in an interview. And the week we were at Bass Hall, everything shut down. I never got to play my hometown.

 My mom  shes seen (Aladdin) a bunch, but all of her co-workers were going to see it, all of my mentors growing up were going to see it. It was devastating.

He spent the next few weeks with his family in Bulverde, not entirely sure that hed ever get the chance to perform again. So being cast in the Berkshire Theatre Groups Godspell news he received over the phone while waiting for his dads car to be repaired at a Discount Tire  was a bit of a godsend.

The show, which has been around since 1971, is based on the biblical parables spelled out in the book of Matthew. Director Alan Filderman has given it a contemporary setting, adding in references to the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and other current events.

The production itself is a history-maker that is seen as an indicator of whether and how live theater can resume. It is the first musical in the pandemic era to get the go-ahead from the Actors Equity Association, the union for actors and stage managers.

Berkshire Theatre Group Artistic Director Kate Maguire noted the significance on the first day of rehearsal, saying something that Williams jotted down because he didnt want to forget it: At this time in history, somebody has to begin to tell stories again. Its such a reason for our friends and other artists to have something to be hopeful for. The room concert is not it. Weve got to get back to work.

The cast and crew also had to figure out how to do that safely, puzzling out such issues as how close the front row can be to the stage, how to handle testing and how to protect people from aerosols that might spread the coronavirus. The union and the company worked together to come up solutions while also making sure they were following the states COVID-19 policies. They often consulted an epidemiologist brought on board for the staging, Williams said.

Costumes were designed with pockets for hand sanitizer, and they had to include masks, which hang around the actors necks unless they are moving within 6 feet of their castmates. Clear partitions are part of the set, walling off the actors from one another to serve as a shield from aerosols. And the show is being done outdoors, in a tent.

Kate Shindle, the president of Actors Equity, went to the show and tweeted that the safety protocols are pretty remarkable.

As the show was coming together, rules sometimes changed, creating frustration, Williams said. The original concept had the actors entering and exiting wearing masks, then not wearing them during the socially distanced performance. It was decided that might be too risky, so they wear masks off and on during the show.

Getting the partitions placed just right also was tricky. Williams briefly walked out of a rehearsal because his partition wasnt ready yet, meaning he would have to wear a mask for longer than he anticipated.

I had to take a second and just breathe, he said. Weve all had our moments, and weve been able to come together.

Rule changes have continued since the show opened. Initially, the state permitted audiences of 100 people, but then it dropped that to 50. So the company added some performances to the run.

Testing the cast and crew three times a week has been a key to making sure that everyone is safe. Shortly after the show opened, Williams tested positive and spent two days self-isolating. He worried both about having to leave the show and the possibility that he was facing a potentially fatal illness.

It was a really tough 48 hours, he said.

Two subsequent tests came back negative, and hes never felt any symptoms. It was still scary.

When he gets frustrated, he tries to remind himself that the rules that are in place are there for everyones safety. And, overall, working on the show has been a great experience.

From the moment the actors take the stage, theres a sense of a huge spiritual hug surrounding the tent, and we all lock into the show in a way that wouldnt happen if we werent in this time period, he said. Weve all gone through so much.

The reviews have been positive. Ben Brantley described it as deeply affecting in his review in The New York Times, saying, In reimagining a string of biblical life lessons and folkified hymns and Gospel songs for the age of the coronavirus, Filderman and company are speaking to contemporary fears bred by isolation and inaction.

Brantley also singled out Williams as one of the shows dance highlights, describing him vamping like a killer chorine from Chicago.

Godspell is unlike any other show Williams has ever done. He has been performing since he was 7 years old, starting with lessons at the Earle Cobb Dance Studio. He went to the North East School of the Arts and studied at Florida State University.

Godspell is distinctive because of the added safety measures in place and because the actors lives are reflected in the production, starting with those opening monologues.

It celebrates who we are, he said. Im gay, and my number (Turn Back O Man) is normally sung by a woman. For me, the song is a celebration of just liberation, and maybe that comes off in a sensual, sexual way. Im a very flirtatious person.

Williams is holding out hope that the Aladdin tour will be revived, and that hell be able to return to it and finally get to perform at the Majestic. But hes also trying to be realistic and making some alternative plans for his working life going forward.

After Godspell closes, he wants to pick up some additional skills, including photography and woodworking. He also has taught fitness classes and knows he could do more of that.

If this turns out to be the last show he does, its a good way to go out.

Its so humbling, he said, and Im so honored and humbled to be a part of this.

dlmartin@express-news.net
A police officer who described searching women as 'good fun', mocked a dementia sufferer and posted crime scene photos has been sacked.

PC William Pope, from Canterbury, Kent, shared a string of messages with friends on a WhatsApp group called 'Call of Duty Season Pass' over the course of eight months.

In one instance he sent an image of a crashed car in the city centre followed by the crying with laughter emoji and in another he took a selfie pretending to be smoking cannabis at a drugs' farm.

On a separate occasion, after a car plunged off a cliff following a police chase in Ramsgate, Pope shared a local newspaper article about the incident with his friends before adding: 'Well that pursuit went well.'

He has now been dismissed by Kent Police after a two-day hearing for sending the 'unprofessional' and 'troubling' messages.

PC William Pope, from Canterbury, Kent, was caught sharing messages from crime scenes with friends on a WhatsApp group called 'Call of Duty Season Pass' Pictured: Kent Police HQ

PC Pope, who is in his early 30s, continually shared messages that directly related to cases he was working on.

His actions, which he admitted were 'naive and silly', were deemed to constitute gross misconduct following a probe by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) panel.

The constable's messages were discovered when another member of the chat group had his phone searched as part of a separate criminal investigation.

Eleven of the 18 allegations against PC Pope were proven at a two-day hearing at Kent Police headquarters this week.

The constable claimed he was lonely and wanted to impress friends he played the video game Call of Duty with.

But he was given his marching orders and fired from the force despite insisting to the panel he had learned from his mistakes.

The panel was told PC Pope had first started sending the posts in the summer of 2018 when he had just joined the force's Canterbury unit and was on probation.

The constable's messages were discovered when another member of the chat group had his phone searched as part of a separate criminal investigation (stock image)

None of the recipients of the WhatsApp messages were fellow police officers and confidential information had been shared with the group's members numerous times, the hearing heard.

In one of the early messages, sent in July 2018, PC Pope wrote in the group: 'Done searching females too. Dirty b*****s hiding them under their boobs. Good fun searching thou x.'

The inappropriate message was referring to a training exercise he had recently completed.

Later, PC Pope was said to have been 'indiscreet in the extreme' by revealing police tactics of an undercover mission when he posted: 'Serving a warrant to nick three guys tomorrow morning, ha ha.'

He also shared a picture of door-opening equipment which was to be used in the operation, accompanied by a message stating: 'Got my rabbit hidden so can bust down door if don't open, so excited, countdown time in the van waiting.'

In February last year, when at a cannabis factory, he sent a photo of himself in uniform from the crime scene mimicking smoking a joint.

He messaged the group saying 'getting high asf' and 'I got munchies u guys on later heading home stoned now'.

In the same month, Pope admitted mocking a man with dementia when he sent a screenshot of a file titled Invaded by Army of Ants - relating to an elderly man who had called for police assistance due to ants running around his ankles.

A separate message, sent on an unknown date, saw the disgraced PC write: 'I've just been in the f****** cold sea pull a women out. Time get some dry clothes.... Herne bay. She been taken away hypo thermos off her nut on drugs'.

He had also seemingly boasted about apprehending a vulnerable transgender suspect who was having mental health problems.

The message to the group that read, 'u would of loved my spear tackle I did, crazy suicidal knife wielding albino tranny', was deemed by the IOPC to be 'highly inappropriate and very troubling'.

Speaking at the hearing, before the panel deliberated on his fate, PC Pope apologised for his actions.

He said: 'This is a job that I love and I really passionately enjoy it. I've regretted what I did every day for the last 13 months and I've treated every day as my last as I enjoy what I do.

'I'm really sorry to the whole of Kent Police that I've brought this upon them.'

Richard Atchley, defending the constable, said how PC Pope had no partner at the time and had not yet built up relationships with colleagues at the force - therefore the only way to share his new experiences was with his friends over WhatsApp.

He told the hearing: 'He was over-excited about work and was trying to impress his friends.'

Mr Atchley argued that PC Pope - despite having sat through Kent Police's data safety lessons - did not receive sufficient tuition on the dangers of WhatsApp and as a result 'misbehaved in a way in which he thought was alright'.

The IOPC rebutted that claim, saying they found it difficult to accept ignorance or naivety as a defence.

'All of this should have been entirely foreseeable to an officer regardless of their length of service or seniority', the panel said.

After his messages were discovered by the authorities, PC Pope enrolled on a social media course, but his actions were deemed so severe that dismissal was the only option.

Speaking after the hearing, Detective Chief Inspector Keith Roberts welcomed the probe and criticised the former constable's actions.

He said: 'PC Pope chose to post a series of misjudged and inappropriate messages to people on a private social media group.

'The public has every right to expect all Kent Police officers and staff adhere to the highest standards of professionalism and his conduct fell well short of what was expected of him.

'It is entirely appropriate that he has been held to account and put before an independent chair, who has determined a proportionate course of action.'

PC Pope has now been dismissed for sending the string of 'unprofessional' and 'troubling' messages over the course of eight months.
A young man was knifed to death and another man was found with stab wounds after a "fight" broke out in south London.

Scotland Yard said officers were called to reports of a fight in Brixton at around 6pm on Thursday.

A man, believed to be in his 20s, was found with stab wounds in Overton Road. He was taken to hospital and his condition has been deemed non-life threatening.

Shortly after, police were called to Wynne Road where they found a second man, also believed to be in his 20s, with stab injuries.

He was taken to hospital for treatment, but he died at around 8.50pm.

The Metropolitan Police has launched a murder investigation and enquiries are underway to locate and inform his next of kin.

Officers found an overturned car in nearby Marcella Road, which is being linked to the stabbings.

A crime scene remains in place and as of yet no arrests have been made.

A section 60 has been put in place covering the postcode areas of SW9, SW4, SW8, SE11 and SE5, and is due to expire at 9am on Friday.

Anyone with information that could assist police at this early stage is asked to call 101 or tweet @MetCC and quote CAD 5998/20Aug.

Alternatively, contact the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
They are both reality stars with an eye for style.

And Sam Faiers and Francesa Allen joined forces as they enjoyed a raucous night out in London on Thursday.

The former TOWIE star, 29, and the Love Island 2019 beauty, 24, looked delighted to be spending time together as they headed for dinner at Amazonico.

Fun times: Sam Faiers and Francesa Allen joined forces as they enjoyed a raucous night out in London on Thursday

Sam put on a leggy display in tan suede hotpants with edgy tasselled detail as she strode down the street.

The beauty accentuated her toned legs with a pair of vertiginous white sandals.

She paired this with a midriff hugging white halterneck top and a shimmering gold necklace.

The Mummy Diaries star wore her caramel locks sleek and straight while a radiant palette of make-up accentuated her pretty features.

Leggy display: The former TOWIE star, 29, and the Love Island 2019 beauty, 24, looked delighted to be spending time together as they headed for dinner at Amazonico

Francesca wowed in high-waisted shorts and a cropped black jacket

The star offset her edgy ensemble by wearing a grey crop top, and her high-waist shorts accentuated her slender legs.

She added a pop of colour to her look by stepping out in a pair of light blue heels that perfectly matched her small handbag.

The TV personality styled her brunette locks into loose waves, and she accessorised with a black bowler hat and hoop earrings.

Good night? Sam looked slightly dishevelled as she closed her eyes and laughed with Francesca

It comes after former TOWIE star Sam revealed she will not be returning to The Only Way Is Essex for the ITVBe show's 10-year anniversary special in October.

Sam, who has two children Rosie and Paul, four, told The Sun: 'I wont be getting involved because, to be honest, its like Im at a completely different stage in my life now.

'I dont even know what I would do on there any more.'

The blonde beauty was just 19 years old when the show first aired on 10 October 2010, and she admitted that she had nothing to lose at the time.

During her stint, Sam was an integral character, having a love triangle storyline with Lothario Mark Wright and his on-off girlfriend of nine years, Lauren Goodger.

The reality star then went on to date Joey Essex after Mark announced his engagement to Lauren, and ended up becoming engaged herself to Joey, 30.

However it wasn't meant to be and the pair split up on the show in 2013.
After her workshops, Mirka would come to my home for drinks and dinner, forever the artist being patron-ised. First, she would take a nap, choosing our marital bed with views up Clifton Creek, where the actress energy was topped up for a further performance. Later, sitting on the balcony, gazing up the phthalo-green valley, she marvelled at the birdlife, just as she was inspired by the light and birds hovering over the Mitchell River opposite The Riversleigh hotel where we organised her accommodation. We drank champagne and toasted (always) the success of her workshops. We never drank Veuve Cliquot because she never told us it was her favourite. Cooking for her was always an ordeal, knowing her experience in restaurants, and she didnt fail to berate me for not heating the bread rolls. Helas! A collection of soul dolls at Mirka Mora's Richmond studio, pictured earlier this year. Credit:Penny Stephens While stirring a Thai sauce I heard Mirka ask some friends whether they had ever made love on a table. The womans answer was: No, but Greig came at me from behind once while I was chopping onions. The only way to deal with Mirka! Listening to Mirka was fascinating and inspiring. Over dinner, she regaled us with her memories; her familys close call with Auschwitz, when she and her mother evaded arrest by hiding in the forests of France for three years, was chilling. She told another story of how two women attending one of her Council for Adult Education workshops  the younger of them in her 50s  realised they were a mother and daughter who had been parted many years before. This inspired me to write a short story titled Ghost Limb.

She told us that at the parties at Grosvenor Chambers in 9 Collins Street in the 50s and 60s, the artists were so poor they used to sit on a mattress  the symbol of their artistic poverty. She said there was also a woman who attended these parties in a green tutu, but gave no reason. Mirka remembered the artists  figures such as Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Arthur Boyd  gradually preferring to stand at the parties as they sold more paintings and became famous. She told us she cried as she realised a way of life was coming to an end. Linden was moved to paint a picture (The Last Party) of Mirka on that mattress, which only gets a brief mention in her autobiography. Reading Mirkas autobiography Wicked but Virtuous: My Life was like listening to Mirka speak in that lilting English-as-a-second-language accent. She frequently lapsed into French words and phrases, including the wonderful incroyable!. In 1996, we travelled to Melbourne for the launch of a book, From Angels With Love, by Christine Zavod, with artwork by Mirka. There we purchased one of the pieces, Love with all your heart. It hangs on our wall to this day. Mirka Mora's inscription in Peter Millard and Linden Dean's copy of My Italian Heart by Guy Grossi, which she illustrated.

In later years, Mirka phoned me occasionally. Having endured cancer of the womb, she checked up on how I was travelling after my stem cell transplant. The letter to her womb at the end of her book is a poignant example of an artist using words to deal with trauma in life. She also asked after Gwen Clarke and her girls in the naive art group, even though Gwen had remarried and moved on four years before. One day, a friend arrived with a copy of Guy Grossis cookbook, My Italian Heart, which contained drawings by Mirka. My friend had attended the launch and signing. When Mirka found out she was from Bairnsdale, she signed the book for Linden and me as a gift. The last time I saw Mirka was a chance encounter in a bookshop at the intersection of Swanston and Bourke streets. She was sitting on the carpet in a remote corner of the shop, flicking through books. We had a quick catch-up then said farewell, never knowing that it would be the last time I would see her. In the two years since Mirkas death, she has been remembered by a memorial service at the Palais in St Kilda and an auction of the contents of her studio at Leonard Joels in March 2019. We were interested in bidding online for a small painted ceramic piece which was valued at $100, but in the end sold for just over $1000  a testament to how much people were willing to pay for their own Mirka memory. As she grew older, Mirka no longer made the demanding journey to Bairnsdale for workshops or exhibition openings, but she has left an enduring legacy with local artists who came into contact with her and attended her workshops, and were inspired.
The villain in Wonder Woman 1984 is partly inspired by Donald Trump, according to director Patty Jenkins.

Pedro Pascal will play antagonist Maxwell Lord in the upcoming superhero sequel and Jenkins admits the US President was integrated into his personality.

When asked if Trump was an influence, Patty, 49, told Screen Rant: "He's one of them.'

Inspiration: Pedro Pascal will play antagonist Maxwell Lord in Wonder Woman 1984, and director Patty Jenkins has revealed part of the inspiration

She shared: 'I mean honestly, the funny thing is he is, but I'm not trying to make... We even have the president in this movie, and I've gone out of my way not to make it look like Ronald Reagan.'

However Patty, who also directed the 2017 Wonder Woman film starring Gal Gadot, insisted: 'I don't want to get political, it's not about being political.'

The filmmaker added that a variety of people helped form the identity of Lord, who will pose a threat to the title character.

Patty explained that 'Trump's definitely one of the people we looked at, but it's any of those kind of mavericks of business success that was big in the 80s. Who went on to be major players in our world in potentially questionable other ways.'

Candid: When asked if Us President Donald Trump was an influence, Patty, 49, told Screen Rant: 'He's one of them'

She iterated: 'Yeah, I don't have an agenda to have a political message to send to the world, but I think that the world all needs the same political message.'

The director argued: 'Everybody needs to look at themselves right now, and our politics, our belief system of excess'

A third Wonder Woman movie has already been green lit and she told Vanity Fair last year that she has 'pretty clear plans' for the project.

'Whether I [direct] it or not, I see how her arc should end in my incarnation of Wonder Woman. I have great passion for that,' said Patty.

Filmmaker: However Patty, who also directed the 2017 Wonder Woman film starring Gal Gadot, insisted: 'I don't want to get political, it's not about being political'

She has now told Screen Rant: 'The next one is probably my last Wonder Woman movie, so I have to put everything I want to show there. We have to think carefully.'

Wonder Woman 1984 has had a tortuous route to being released as it has had to change its release dates multiple times.

From its initial release date last December it was then bumped a month earlier, only to then be slid to this June - and that was before the coronavirus lockdowns.

Smoldering sensation: The original Wonder Woman movie wound up in political hot water over Gal's service in the Israel Defense Forces in accordance with her country's draft

In order to work around the lockdown situation the movie was slated to come out this August, but it has since been rescheduled to October 2.

The original Wonder Woman movie wound up in political hot water over Gal's service in the Israel Defense Forces in accordance with her country's draft.

Gal's leading role in the film caused it to be banned in Lebanon, Tunisia and Qatar, and a ban was considered in Jordan but eventually not imposed.
The Industry Development Council, an industry body of NBFCs, has urged the Reserve Bank of India to exempt from the restriction imposed on opening of current accounts by banks.

In a bid to curb multiple operating accounts for loans and maintaining credit discipline, the has taken additional measures wherein banks have been directed not to open current accounts for customers already availing credit in the form of cash or overdraft (OD)

In its letter to the central bank, the industry body has said that borrow from banks mostly as term loans and the percentage of borrowing as cash credit is low.

An may operate its main collection or disbursement account with a bank from which it does not have a cash credit facility but only a term loan, for reasons of better service levels or branch strength in the geographical area served by the

"Unlike manufacturing industry which borrows term loans for specific projects (and therefore direct disbursement to suppliers is possible), create a loan portfolio and then avail of term loans for refinancing their existing loan portfolio. Direct disbursement to "suppliers" is not possible in such a scenario," it said.

The FIDC noted that there are existing regulations governing borrowing and end use of funds by NBFCs which are practical and provide a strong framework of governance and control.

"All banks seek NOCs from existing banks while opening current accounts of NBFCs. We therefore request you to please exempt NBFCs from this regulation on restriction of opening of current accounts and on the stipulation of remitting term loans to 'suppliers'," said the letter from Mahesh Thakkar, Director General of FIDC.

Thakkar also noted that the has recently permitted banks in India to increase the permissible loan-to-value ratio (LTV) for loans against the pledge of gold ornaments and jewellery for non-agricultural purposes from 75 per cent to 90 per cent and the relaxation is applicable for a limited time up to March 31, 2021.

He said that also the objective is to mitigate the negative economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on households, entrepreneurs and small businesses, gold loan NBFCs have been kept out of the purview of the relaxation.

Thakkar has sought reconsideration of the decision as these NBFCs cater mainly to the poor and marginalised customers, particularly in rural and semi urban areas, who otherwise depended on informal

"By restricting the applicability of the measure to banks, a vulnerable section of the population is effectively punished by exclusion," the letter said.

"We therefore request that the extend the mitigation benefit to the customers of all the gold loan focused RBI Registered NBFCs too," it said.

According to FIDC, it will benefit customers belonging to the marginalised and unbanked class who typically would lack documentary evidence to source credit from formal channels and therefore be at risk of reverting to informal lenders. Further, gold loan focused NBFCs with their specialized experience in the field would be well-placed to deal with the attendant risk involved, the letter said.

--IANS

rrb/sn/sdr/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.)
Qantas has been embroiled in a wild conspiracy theory after one of its airliners appeared on a news report brandishing the symbols of secret societies.

Eagle-eyed viewers spotted the symbols on one of its planes during a Channel 9 news report on Thursday covering the airline's economic pain.

The Illuminati and Freemason symbols had been crafted with yellow tape to black engine covers of an aircraft destined for the parking lot amid the COVID-19 crisis.

An Illuminati symbol was taped onto the cover of a Qantas plane, setting off theories the national carrier was sleeping with the devil

Channel 9 news threw a cat among the pigeons on Thursday when it ran footage of this aircraft in a news bulletin

Qantas has been smashed by COVID-19 and been forced to lay-off most of its staff

The vision quickly appeared on social media where bored Australians speculated it was anything from a doctored image to delusions the airline was part of an evil plot.

'Full blown Satanists,' one man posted under a video of the report posted on Facebook.

'Its a message out that travel will be under strict draconian guidelines by special permit only. Thats how these scum operate,' another posted.

Some looked deeper for clues.

'Funny they are members of the Oneworld alliance. Coincidence?' one sleuth mused.

'Q vs SATAN = QANTAS think about it?' another genius chimed in.

While some pointed the finger at the national carrier, others were certain it was in fact the news broadcaster that was behind the conspiracy.

'It's not Qantas, it's Channel 9,' another wrote. 'They've edited their footage!'

'Fake or not wtf is channel 9 trying to do here? Something is going on? They want some sort of outrage from Us?' an angry keyboard commando stated. 'Lets boycott them!'

Others called for an investigation before they went full blown public with the scandal.

'Is there anyone in this group that works there that can back this up. Are they real covers? Is it a set up from channel nine to make us look like idiots?' someone posted.

'Is there another channel with the similar footage.? Has the ground crew had some fun? (Yeah not funny) Is it real? It needs to be addressed before the news comes out and says they stitched us up.'

A Freemasons symbol can be seen taped to the engine cover of a Qantas aircraft

'Engine cover art is a thing': Qantas has dismissed the tape art as a bit of harmless fun

The tape art set off a storm of conspiracy theories on social media

Some just thought a clever clogs had got crafty with the tape.

'You muppets will believe anything,' one person responded.

The Illuminati - or the enlightened - is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious.

These organisations have often been alleged to conspire to control world affairs, by masterminding events and planting agents in government and corporations, in order to gain political power and influence and to establish a New World Order.

The Freemasons are often feared for similar deed and goals.

In 2017, Bourke Street Killer Dimitrious Gargasoulas delivered a bizarre courtroom rant blaming his alleged offending on a secret society.

Gargasoulas killed six, including a baby, when he drove his car through down the footpath in the middle of Melbourne earlier that year.

'Im very sad for everything thats happened but its due to the Illuminati,' he said.

He further claimed that someone was trying to 'assassinate' him.

'Its because I hold the key to Freemason treasure,' he said.

In reality, Qantas - which has been forced to stand down 6000 staff - has far greater issues on its hands than questions of its participation in a worldwide conspiracy.

And if it were in bed with the Illuminati, it might be asking for assistance right about now.

Bourke Street Killer Dimitrious Gargasoulas claimed to hold the key to the Freemasons' treasure

Qantas was compared to the devil by some people

Social media lit up with ideas about what the tape meant on the covers of a Qantas plane

Qantas' profit has plunged more than 90 per cent as the airline's bottom line was smashed by COVID-19.

Revealing its financial results to shareholders on Thursday, the airline said its underlying profit before tax was just $124 million, down 91 per cent on the previous financial year.

Its statutory loss before tax had ballooned out to $2.7 billion.

Qantas spokesman Stephen Moynihan assured Daily Mail Australia the handywork was not part of any conspiracy.

'Aircraft engine cover art is a thing,' he said. 'As you can see, the yellow tape can sometimes be used quite creatively. Weve obviously got a few engineers who are fans of The Da Vinci Code, but weve asked them to stick to emojis and smiley faces.'
Ahead of the September 19, 2020 governorship election in Edo State, Betsy Obaseki, Wife of the Governor Godwin Obaseki, has urged eligible voters in the state to be ready to exercise their franchise and not be intimidated by those who are boasting that they will use federal might to impose an unpopular candidate on them.

The First lady, who gave the assurance in Benin City, the state capital, when leaders of tricycle drivers and motorcycle riders in the three senatorial districts of the state paid her a courtesy call at the State Government House, said President Muhammadu Buhari will not be party to illegality as he is a law-abiding citizen, who loves the people and will not put the interest of a few lawless individuals above that of the majority.

We must know that when we go out to cast our ballot on the day of election, we are determining our future and when we do not come out to vote to influence the decision of who rules over our lives, we are also determining our future, whether it will be good or bad.

Nobody can impose somebody on you. Let nobody intimidate you with federal might. We have a law-abiding, peace-loving president who will not allow anarchy. He loves his country, Nigeria, more than anything and he wants progress for his country. He is not like the crazy lot who dont care about anything else but themselves and are ready to destroy anything and everything in order to get what they want. Our president is not like that.

Speaking earlier, the leaders of the tricycle riders unions, led by one Dr. Omorodion commended the Governor Obaseki-led administration for the transformation in the state.

In Dr. Omorodions words, We are here to endorse the governor for a second term in office. We are very much pleased with what we are witnessing now in Edo state. We highly appreciate the governor for everything he has done for us.
A Chief Magistrates Court in Kaduna State has freed two out of the three suspects arrested in connection to the death of Nigerias first female combat helicopter pilot, Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile.

KanyiDaily had reported how Arotile was killed on July 14, 2020 after she was hit by a vehicle driven by Nehemiah Adejoh at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Base in Kaduna.

Nehemiah Adejoh, was Arotiles former classmate, who had been excited after spotting her walking on the base and accidentally knocked her down while reversing the vehicle, a Kia Sorento SUV.

Adejo was in the vehicle with Igbekele Folorunsho, and Festus Gbayegun who were also arrested in the wake of Arotiles death and handed over to the police.

During the hearing on Thursday, August 20, 2020, the court freed Folorunsho and Gbayegun based on the recommendation of the states Director of Public Prosecution, Bayero Dari.

The recommendation, based on police investigations, said there was no sufficient evidence that both accused committed any offence other than being passengers in the vehicle.

However, Dari recommended that Adejoh be charged with culpable homicide for the reckless driving that caused Arotiles death.

Adejoh was driving without a licence at the time of the accident, and NAF ruled last month Arotiles death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head, and significant bleeding resulting from being struck by the vehicle.

The presiding Magistrate, Benjamin Hassan, accepted the recommendation and freed Folorunsho and Gbayegun. He subsequently charged Adejoh with culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy.

KanyiDaily had reported that Tolulope Arotile was buried with full military honours in a ceremony which took place at the National Military Cemetery in Abuja on July 23.
The 2016 National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Asante Akim North, Madam Mary Awusi has filed a defamatory suit against the Founder and flagbearer of the Ghana Freedom Party, Madam Akua Donkor and Wontumi Communications Limited for publishing comments which suggested that former President John Mahama was the father of her two children.



In the suit, the plaintiff is demanding a total of 1,000,000 Ghana cedis from the defendants for claiming that the plaintiff was having an affair with former President John Mahama.



Madam Awusi also wants general damages of GH300,000 to be awarded by the court against Madam Akua Donkor, GH 100,000 in general damages against Oheneba Nana Asiedu, a host of Wontumi Radio and Wontumi TV and GH600,000 as punitive damages against the defendants which also include Wontumi Communications Limited.



Statement of claim



The plaintiff who was the Parliamentary Candidate for the NDC in the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, says Madam Donkor had earlier made a libellous statement without any justification against her person in an earlier interview which was also uploaded to YouTube.



Madam Awusi adds that after calling Madam Donkor to question her on the "malicious and reckless claims", Wontumi Communications Limited "in the most reckless and malicious manner gave their platforms to the 1st Defendant to repeat and utter the defamatory statements against the Plaintiff without any justification".



The plaintiff avers that the interviewer and host of the radio programme failed and or neglected to dissociate himself from the defamatory statement made by Madam Donkor and also failed and or neglected to get her to retract the defamatory statement.



She adds that the statements uttered by Madam Donkor suggested that "she is an unfaithful spouse, an unchaste person,a pervert, a person of low moral character, a person of no integrity and that the second child of her marriage is not the child of her husband but that the child is the child of a man she is not married to".



As a result, she wants the court to order an apology on the platforms operated by Wontumi Communications Limited "with the same prominence the defamatory words received within 14 days after the judgment".



Madam Awusi also wants an interlocutory and perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, assigns and servants from further publishing any defamatory words against her.







Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
For the second time today theres a new tropical storm in the Atlantic. And theres a possibility that there could be two tropical storms -- or possibly hurricanes -- in the Gulf of Mexico next week.

Newest on the scene is Tropical Storm Marco. The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Depression 14 had strengthened and upgraded it to Marco late Friday while it moved closer to Mexicos eastern Yucatan Peninsula.

Then theres Tropical Storm Laura. The hurricane center upgraded Tropical Depression 13 to Laura earlier today.

Both storms are expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico next week. And both storms could eventually become hurricanes.

 The latest forecast from @NHC_Atlantic depicts 2 hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time on Tuesday. There are only a few times in recorded history where two tropical cyclones have shared the Gulf of Mexico. Flash(wayyy)back to 1933 to find a similar example. pic.twitter.com/njIn4Vhsyn  NWS WPC (@NWSWPC) August 21, 2020

And both could make landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday or Wednesday.

But theres a lot that could happen before that. Heres a look at both storms.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA

The forecast track for Laura has shifted again to the south as of late Friday, and it could make landfall next week in Louisiana according to the latest forecast. There is still a lot of uncertainty in the long-range track, and expect more changes.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: WHATS NEW

Tropical Depression 13 was upgraded to Tropical Storm Laura early Friday and was moving near the northern Leeward Islands on Friday night.

The good news is that Laura hasnt gained any strength, yet, and appeared quite disorganized on Friday night, according to the hurricane center.

The storms long-range path and intensity remained highly uncertain. Lauras path has shifted significantly southward -- and westward -- during the course of the day.

The so-called cone of uncertainty has also stretched out along the northern Gulf Coast and reaches now farther west -- from Louisiana to the western Florida Panhandle.

Laura is expected to get its act together and strengthen to a hurricane by Tuesday, and the long-range forecast track issued Friday night shows a hurricane approaching Louisiana on Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, tropical storm warnings continue for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and some of the northern Leeward Islands.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: WHERE IT IS

As of 10 p.m. CDT Friday, Tropical Storm Laura was located about 195 miles east-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: WHERE ITS GOING

Laura was moving west at 18 mph and should stay on that track for the next few days.

It will move near or north of the Leeward Islands tonight, near or over Puerto Rico on Saturday and be near or north of Hispaniola on Saturday night into early Sunday.

The long-range track -- which has and will likely change some more over the next few days -- takes the storm near the southern Bahamas starting on Sunday and right over much of Cuba on Sunday and Monday.

It could pass near the westernmost Florida Keys on Monday as well.

It will make it into the eastern Gulf by Tuesday and could make landfall anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: HOW STRONG

Laura had 45 mph winds on Friday night and is forecast to gradually strengthen some, according to the hurricane center.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 205 miles from the center.

The hurricane center said its intensity forecast is a low-confidence one but is forecasting Laura to be a Category 1 hurricane when it nears the northern Gulf Coast next week.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: THE TRACK

The hurricane center stressed that there is still a lot of uncertainty about Lauras track and intensity.

Forecast models have shifted southward and westward today.

Laura will be steered by a large and strong area of high pressure to its north.

By early next week, Laura should approach the western end of the ridge and that should cause the storm to slow down and turn toward the northwest over the eastern and central Gulf of Mexico. Even though the steering pattern is well established, there are still chances of center reformations, which could cause small but important track changes, the hurricane center said Friday night.

But this track also keeps in farther out in the Gulf, and its track when it approaches the northern Gulf Coast has shifted a bit to the west. Areas from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle could end up in Lauras path.

The forecast cone, which once included nearly all of the state of Florida, now only includes the western Keys and a small sliver of the western part of the Panhandle. But it now also includes all of coastal Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Theres also a chance that once Laura gets into the Gulf it could be influenced by TD 14, which is also expected to be in the Gulf by next week.

That could turn Laura more to the northwest or north-northwest in the Gulf, forecasters said.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: FORECAST

Laura will mainly be a rainmaker for the islands. Three to 6 inches of rain will be possible for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands through Sunday, the hurricane center said.

One to 3 inches of rain will be possible in the northern Leeward Islands, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeast Bahamas.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: WATCHES AND WARNINGS

A tropical storm warning is in effect for:

* Puerto Rico, Vieques and Culebra

* U.S. Virgin Islands

* British Virgin Islands

* Saba and St. Eustatius

* St. Maarten

* St. Martin and St. Barthelemy

* The northern coast of the Dominican Republic from Cabo Engano to the border with Haiti

* The northern coast of Haiti from Le Mole St. Nicholas to the border with the Dominican Republic

* The southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands

A tropical storm watch is in effect for:

* The central Bahamas

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: WHAT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MOBILE IS SAYING

The National Weather Service in Mobile said its still too early to specify exactly what the Alabama coast could face from Tropical Storm Laura.

The rip current risk will be raised to high on Sunday and stay there through at least Monday night.

TROPICAL STORM LAURA: WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Forecasters will be watching to see if Laura moves over land in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, and how those land interactions affect the storm.

If Laura doesnt get too close to Tropical Storm Marco then it could have a chance to intensify since conditions will be more favorable over the Gulf.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO

Tropical Depression 14 has strengthened and become Tropical Storm Marco as of late Friday.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: WHATS NEW

Tropical Depression 14 finally got a name late Friday. Reconnaissance flights found tropical storm force winds in the storm and a better-defined center and the hurricane center upgraded it to Tropical Storm Marco.

Marco was moving away from the coast of Honduras and toward Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula as of Friday night.

Marco could make landfall on Saturday in Mexico. Another landfall is expected somewhere along the northern U.S. Gulf Coast, possibly in Texas or Louisiana.

The long-range forecast track has shifted westward and more over Texas as of Friday night, and now only a small part of Louisiana is in the forecast cone. Louisiana may have other problems to deal with in the form of Tropical Storm Laura.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: WHERE IT IS

As of 10 p.m. CDT Friday, Tropical Storm Marco was located about 180 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: WHERE ITS GOING

Marco is tracking to the north-northwest at 13 mph and will approach the eastern coast of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula on Saturday.

It will make it into the southern Gulf by Sunday and begin to track northwest toward the U.S.

Landfall could come on Tuesday along the Texas or Louisiana coast.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: THE TRACK

The official forecast track has shifted westward as of Friday night in response to a bigger westward move by some of the forecast models.

Confidence in the track forecast is also lower than normal, as the models spread remains quite high, forecasters said Friday night. Near the end of the period, Marcos track and intensity could be also influenced by Tropical Storm Laura which is also forecast to be over the Gulf of Mexico, however the details of that interaction are highly uncertain at this time. Given the high uncertainty in the forecast, larger than normal changes could be required to future advisories.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: HOW STRONG

Marco had 40 mph winds on Friday night, making it a minimal tropical storm.

The hurricane center no longer thinks Marco will be a hurricane when it nears Mexico late Saturday, and it may not become one at all. The forecast late Friday doesnt point to Marco reaching hurricane strength.

Unfortunately the intensity forecast has not become any clearer and confidence in that aspect of the forecast is quite low, the hurricane center said Friday night. Marco is embedded within an environment that could support a fast rate of strengthening. However, recent microwave data does not indicate that the system has developed an inner-core, and only gradual strengthening is likely until it does.

Once Marco makes it into the central Gulf it is expected to be weakened by increased wind shear, and Fridays forecast shows it making its U.S. landfall as a tropical storm.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: FORECAST

Tropical storm conditions are expected to reach the Yucatan coast on Saturday afternoon, and hurricane conditions may be possible by Saturday night in the hurricane watch area.

The storm could bring 3 to 6 inches of rain to parts of Mexico, 2 to 4 inches to the Cayman Islands and eastern Honduras, and 1 to 2 inches to northeast Nicaragua.

TROPICAL STORM MARCO: WATCHES AND WARNINGS

A hurricane watch is in effect from Punta Herrero to Cancun, Mexico.

A tropical storm warning is in effect from Punta Herrero to Dzilam, Mexico.
SHELTON  The pandemic has not stopped residents from flocking to the Shelton Farmers Market, which as become a summertime destination for fresh vegetables, baked goods and even a little guacamole.

The market opened for public shopping on July 4, and Market Master Michael Yachymczyk says the need for patrons to wear facial coverings and social distance while walking from booth to booth has not dampened enthusiasm for the citys fresh food hot spot.

We have been flooded with people, said Yachymczyk. Everyone was so happy to see the vendors.

The market is open 9 a.m. to noon at the 100 Canal St. East location, with anywhere from eight to 12 vendors each Saturday.

Yachymczyk said when patrons arrive, they walk to his table before entering. The area usually used for entry is roped off to allow only one way in and one way out. Patrons are asked to wear face masks, remain socially distant and when shopping, ask the vendor for the items which they will bag.

We do not have that many guidelines, said Yachymczyk, adding that the Shelton market was believed to be the first such operation to open to regular public shopping in the state.

Among the vendors are Laurel Glen Farm and East Village Farm, both Shelton based, and Grassy Hill Farm of Orange. Other vendors include Sugar and Spice Bakery, Three Bridges Coffeehouse, Vics Guac Shop, Granfield Fisheries and Gathered Harvest Granola.

Yachymczyk said the market allows visitors the opportunity to speak with those places growing and creating the food.

Yachymczyk said he is also hoping to bring back the live music that had become a staple of the farmers market in years past. The COVID-19 restrictions that had been in place by the governors executive orders for such gatherings prevented the live music, but that appears to be changing.

The Shelton Farmers Market first opened in 1993, thanks to local farmer Guy Beardsley, in a barren dirt field on Canal Street.

In 1997, the city of Shelton took possession of a parcel at 100 Canal St. East, which had been part of the citys revitalization plan. The Shelton Economic Development Corp., with feedback from several local groups, identified a farmers market as a viable use for the site.

By 2005, the Shelton Farm & Public Market building was completed and opened. And while Beardsley has since retired from the markets top job, people can easily find Yachymczyk, known city-wide as the man in the top hat.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
A Chinese mining company in Papua New Guinea has claimed to have given workers a coronavirus vaccine in an apparent trial, according to authorities.

The move has sparked concern in the country, who said they had not given permission.

A pandemic response official in Papua New Guinea has banned Covid-19 vaccine testing or trials, and said he had sent back a flight carrying 180 Chinese workers as a precaution.

His response came after Ramu NiCo Management claimed it had vaccinated 48 Chinese employees.

David Manning, the pandemic response controller in Papua New Guinea, said: In light of the lack of information of what these trials are and what possible risks or threat that it might cause our people if they were to come into the country, I had cancelled that flight yesterday.

He added it was to ensure that we continue to act in the best interests of our people and our country.

Mr Manning said the National Department of Health had not approved any trials.

He said any vaccines imported into Papua New Guinea must go through vigorous vaccine trials, protocols and procedures and must be pre-qualified by the World Health Organisation.

The vaccine was administered to the 48 Chinese in China three days before they landed in Port Moresby, the Pacific nation's capital, on 13 Aug, the health minister said.

Details of the vaccine used ... are still not known, Jelta Wong added on Friday.

A document on company paper said 48 Chinese employees have been vaccinated with Sars-Cov-2 vaccine on 10 August.

The statement was sent to the Papua New Guinea health department and advised that the vaccine could cause false-positive test results in those who received it, The Australian newspaper reported.

Mr Manning has written to Chinese ambassador Xue Bing seeking immediate clarification of the Chinese governments position regarding the vaccination statement.

Ramu, a Chinese mining company, is operated by a subsidiary of the state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corp.

Australia, which is Papua New Guineas largest provider of foreign aid, had learned China may have begun testing a coronavirus vaccine in the region using employees of state-owned enterprises, The Australian reported.

Papua New Guinea  a country of nine million people  has seen a few hundred coronavirus cases to date.

The national death toll stood at four on Friday.

Researchers around the world are conducting trials into a potential coronavirus vaccine in a bid to combat the spread of the virus.

Phone calls to Ramu's office in the Papua New Guinea city of Madang and to the parent company's Beijing headquarters were not answered on Friday.

Additional reporting Associated Press
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Sicily may be awash with Unesco World Heritage Sites (seven, including Mount Etna) but the unspoilt south-eastern shores of this Mediterranean island have a more contemporary appeal thanks to the success of fictional detective Inspector Montalbano.

Jumping from the pages of Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri's best-selling novels and inspired by his homeland, the TV adaptation has millions of fans around the world, including Britain.

Italian actor Luca Zingaretti, who plays Montalbano, is undeniably as charismatic as Sicily's bronzed, untamed and rugged landscape, yet it's the latter that is proving the real star of the show as the backdrop to his enviable lifestyle.

Sicilian splendour: Rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1693, the old town of Ragusa Ibla features in the Inspector Montalbano series

Montalbano and his girlfriend Livia's first date began at a bus stop in Ragusa Ibla (pictured). Bridget says that it therefore seems apt that her tour starts with a bus ride to the hilltop Ragusa Superiore (upper town). She writes: 'We stand in awe of the views, above terracotta tile roofs, church spires and bright blue domes'

The captivating Piazza Duomo in Ragusa, with its outstanding baroque cathedral  the Duomo of San Giorgio. It has been the backdrop for many episodes

Who wouldn't fancy a stroll on the beautiful beach just below your own terrace? Or regularly dine at waterfront restaurants on fresh seafood, washed down with good wine? No matter how gruesome a case may be, it never seems to put Montalbano off his food.

An escorted easy walking tour is a brilliant way to work up an appetite and explore Montalbano's Sicily. I joined about 20 British travellers aged 50-plus, including solo guests, couples and friends, as we left the Hotel Il Barocco in Ragusa, led at a gentle pace by our Adagio tour leader.

The baroque city of Ragusa, our impressive home for the week, is simply breathtaking. Rebuilt after a devastating 1693 earthquake, this sprawling city is now divided into two parts  the old town of Ragusa Ibla, which clings to the gorge below the more modern Ragusa Superiore, with its panoramic views. No wonder this extraordinary region stars as the fictional Vigata in the drama.

Montalbano and his girlfriend Livia's first date began at a bus stop in Ragusa Ibla, so it seems apt that our tour starts by catching the bus to the hilltop Ragusa Superiore. We stand in awe of the views, above terracotta tile roofs, church spires and bright blue domes.

Sophisticated: The baroque town of Noto, pictured, is known for its beautiful architecture and provides a stunning backdrop for Inspector Montalbano

Italian actor Luca Zingaretti, who plays Montalbano in the hit TV series

As we slowly make our way down through hidden alleyways, historic gems are pointed out as well as areas that feature in the Montalbano stories. From the palm-lined park avenue of Giardini Iblei, where the inspector meets a former thief; the neoclassical Circolo di Conversazione, where Montalbano interrupts coroner Dr Pasquano's card games; and the captivating Piazza Duomo, with its outstanding baroque cathedral  the Duomo of San Giorgio, a backdrop for many episodes.

Relaxing in the square, enjoying a coffee as the inspector would do, is idyllic. At lunch we sample Montalbano's favourite local delicacies, such as arancini  deep-fried rice balls  and cannoli, a delicious, sweet ricotta-filled pastry.

In the evenings we are treated to copious helpings of seafood, meats, pasta, pizza, cheeses, caponata (aubergine stew), desserts and wine. At A Rusticana, otherwise known as Trattoria San Caloge, one of the inspector's regular haunts, we admire photographs of the cast.

Other jaunts include private guided excursions of baroque towns that feature as Montalbano locations. At the former Greek city of Syracuse, the sea breezes from the neighbouring island Ortygia are welcome as even in late autumn the temperature is a glorious 26C.

The picture-perfect ancient town of Modica, which is home to Italy's famous Bonajuto chocolate kitchens

Noto, prized as the Sicilian capital of baroque and another Unesco treasure, is famous for its prominent Roman gates as well as its formidable architecture.

A blissful coastal walk in the Vendicari Nature Reserve, a haven for migrating birds, uncovers flocks of flamingos paddling close to an abandoned tuna fishery  again recognisable from Montalbano.

The morning in picture-perfect Modica is memorable for a private tour and tasting at the famous Bonajuto chocolate kitchens.

Afterwards, a few brave souls in our party even climb to the hilltop cathedral and pretty Palazzo Polaro.

The old town of Scicli, where the town hall doubles as Montalbano's police station in the TV series

The palm-lined park avenue of Giardini Iblei, where the inspector meets a former thief in the hit TV drama

Bridget enjoys a blissful coastal walk in the Vendicari Nature Reserve (pictured), a haven for migrating birds that's recognisable from Montalbano

TRAVEL FACTS Adagio (adagio.co.uk) offers the seven-night Montalbano's Sicily from 1,375pp. The price includes flights, half-board accommodation with dinners taken at local restaurants, local guides, all local transport costs and entrance fees. Advertisement

There's more fun in Scicli, where the town hall doubles as Montalbano's police station and we get an informative tour of the interior film set, posing for pictures behind his desk.

The most popular pilgrimage site for fans is Montalbano's seaside home at Punta Secca, known as Marinella in the stories.

The fishing village has familiar landmarks such as its lighthouse and the bright blue and yellow Enzo a Mare seafront restaurant that is another of the inspector's favourites.

Near the main square, recently renamed Piazza Montalbano and close to a bust of author Camilleri, who died last year aged 93, we discover Montalbano's home, a beachfront villa with its familiar green shutters and sweeping balustrade balcony.

The place is now a B&B (lacasadimontalbano.com) and the location is sublime.

Set on a sandy cove, the property is just as idyllic as it is on the screen.

And how easy to imagine the charismatic Montalbano returning home for a refreshing dip after a tough day's work.
The punitive measure was imposed by the province's Justice Department. He is accused of fomenting disorder in the courts and posting comments against the state. In 2017, the lawyer was convicted of "inciting" subversion. He was arrested in 2015 during the "709" operation. The regime continues to crack down on dissent: lawyers and academics are first in line.

Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Hunan Justice Department has deprived human rights lawyer Xie Yang of his professional license.

Xie himself reported the news yesterday, explaining that the provincial authorities notice dates back to last week. He is accused of having tried on several occasions to create disorder in the work of the courts and of having posted comments on social media that are defamatory or dangerous to national security.

The lawyer was sentenced three years ago for "inciting subversion against the state". He revealed that he pleaded guilty and retracted earlier allegations of being tortured in prison in exchange the authorities commitment not to inflict further penalties.

The police arrested him in 2015 in a security operation called "709" (which began on July 9 of that year), which targeted 300 other colleagues - including some Protestant and Catholic Christians. Many of them were tried and then sentenced; several "confessed" their sins on video; others emerged from prison physically and psychologically shattered due to the torture they suffered.

Xie rose to prominence for defending various political activists, especially members of the New Citizens' Movement, which has fought for a democratic transition in the country for years. He said he would appeal the provincial Justice Department's decision.

Wang Quanzhang, a colleague and friend of Xie, who was also arrested in Operation 709, announced in May that he wanted to appeal his sentence. Wang spent more than four years in prison for "subversion against the state", finishing his sentence last April. In a recent interview, he confirmed that he was tortured in prison.

According to several observers, the Chinese regime is engaged in a campaign to suppress dissent. In recent days, Cai Xia, a retired professor from the Central Party School, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and lost her pension rights for attacking the authorities in public comments. The 68-year-old academic had also defended Ren Zhiqiang, the dissident billionaire who was targeted by the regime for calling Xi Jinping a "power-hungry clown".

Another well-known academic, jurist Xu Zhangrun, was recently punished for criticizing Xi and calling for democratic openings. The Qinghua University lecturer was arrested on 6 July for "soliciting prostitution". Released a few days later, his university then fired him for "moral corruption".
The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has released comparative figures of various crimes in the first seven months of the current year to substantiate its claim of a 'drastic' reduction in crime.

The Home department officials said that the crime rate had drastically gone down since 2017 as the state government had taken strict action against criminals.

According to the figures shared by the state home department, incidents of rape had drastically come down since the formation of the BJP government in the state in March 2017.

The figures stated that as many as 2,582 incidents of rape were reported in the first seven months of 2017 but gradually came down in the past three years.

According to the figures 2,444, 1,692 and 1,216 incidents of rape were reported in the corresponding period of 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively.

The data suggested a similar decline in incidents of dacoity, loot, murder and kidnapping for ransom in the past three years.

The data read that at least 149 dacoity cases were reported in the first seven months of 2017 which declined to 94 in 2018, 68 in 2019 and 38 in 2020 during the same period.

Similarly, 2,434 incidents of loot were reported in the first seven months of 2017 that declined to 1,986 in 2018, 1,379 in 2019 and 792 in 2020.

The home department said that 2,549 murders were reported during the first seven months in 2017 while 2,505 were reported in 2018, 2,204 in 2019 and 2,032 in 2020.

As many as 28 incidents of kidnapping for ransom were reported between January and July in 2017 but came down to 15 cases in 2020 during the same period.

The home department said the crime rate had been curbed as the state police acted tough against criminal elements and booked 17,908 people under the Goonda Act, 2,346 people under the Gangster Act and 112 people under the National Security Act (NSA) between January and July this year.

At least 388 people were booked under the NSA since 2017, the officials said.

Official sources said that the crime rate in Uttar Pradesh is at its lowest as compared to previous years and "maintaining law and order in the state remained biggest priority of the state government."
Facebook examined what it would do, for instance, if hackers backed by a nation-state leaked documents online, or if a nation-state unleashed a widespread disinformation campaign at the last minute to dissuade Americans from going to the polls, one employee said.

To bolster the effort, Facebook invited those in government, think tanks and academia to participate and conduct exercises around the hypothetical election situations.

An idea that came up during one exercise  that Facebook label posts from state media so users know they are reading government-sponsored content  was put into effect in June, said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, who joined the session.

We can see that their policy decisions are being affected by these exercises, he said.

But Facebook was less decisive on other issues. If a post suggested that mail-in voting was broken, or encouraged people to send in multiple copies of their mail-in ballots, the company would not remove the messages if they were framed as a suggestion or a question, one person who advised the company said. Under Facebooks rules, it takes down only voting-related posts that are statements with obviously false and misleading information.

In recent months, Facebook turned more to postelection planning. That shift accelerated this month when Mr. Trump said more on the issue, two Facebook employees said.

On Aug. 3, Mr. Trump questioned whether the Democratic primary in New Yorks 12th Congressional District should be rerun because of long delays in counting mail-in ballots.

Nobody knows whats happening with the ballots and the lost ballots and the fraudulent ballots, I guess, he said.
The parents, uncle and aunt of a teenager of Bosnian Muslim origin will face trial in France on charges of violence against a minor for shaving her head over her relationship with a Christian Serbian boy, prosecutors said Friday.

The girl had her 2ft-long hair shaven off and was also beaten in the eastern city of Besancon on Monday, judicial sources said.

'Shaved and beaten because she 'loved a Christian'. Deeply shocked by this act of torture on this 17-year-old girl,' French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on Twitter.

Pictured: A file photo shows a woman having her long hair shaved off. The parents, uncle and aunt of a teenager of Bosnian Muslim origin will face trial in France on charges of violence against a minor for shaving her head because of her relationship with a Christian Serbian boy

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin speaks during a tribute ceremony, on August 12, 2020. 'Shaved and beaten because she 'loved a Christian'. Deeply shocked by this act of torture on this 17-year-old girl,' Darmanin wrote on Twitter. 'This barbarity calls for the most severe punishment'

'This barbarity calls for the most severe punishment,' he added.

Police detained the two parents as well as the uncle and the aunt. They were released under judicial control but are banned from contacting the girl, who has been placed under protection. They are not aware of her whereabouts.

They will be tried for 'violence against minors', deputy prosecutor Margaret Parietti told AFP.

The girl, who arrived from Bosnia-Herzegovina two years ago with her family, had for several months had a relationship with the young man, aged 20, of Serbian origin who lived in the same building.

'The two families knew each other and (their relationship) was not a problem, but when they started talking about marriage, the girl's parents told her: 'We are Muslims, you cannot marry a Christian',' Parietti said.

The family took away her phone and stopped her contacting her boyfriend. The pair then fled for four days and on their return came to the apartment of the girl's family along with the boy's parents.

Head-shaving in this context has a particularly shocking context in France. It was the punishment after World War II meted out to thousands of women who had relationships with Nazi occupiers (pictured)

'The first blow came from the mother, then there was an outbreak of violence. She was taken to a room and beaten. She was shaved, according to her testimony, by her uncle - her father's brother - while being beaten', the prosecutor said.

The parents of the young man said they did not dare to intervene but he left the house to report what had happened to police, prosecutors said.

Police arrived to find the girl had been made to hide in a room by her aunt. But she was discovered and taken to hospital, the Est Republicain newspaper reported.

She suffered a broken rib and bruises 'everywhere', in particular 'at the level of the ear', according to Parietti.

Head-shaving in this context has a particularly shocking context in France.

It was the punishment after World War II meted out to thousands of women who had relationships with Nazi occupiers.

Bosnia's 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war pitted Muslims, Serbs and Croats against each other and left 100,000 people dead and displaced more than two million.
Trump's son-in-law Kushner makes peace overture to Iran

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 2:24 PM

Jared Kushner, the senior adviser to the While House and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, has made an overture to Iran, after Trump has predicted that he will "have a deal" with Tehran within a month if he is re-elected in November.

In a recent interview, Kushner appealed to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to engage with the United States in peace talks.

"For President Rouhani, I would say it's time for the region to move forward. Let's stop being stuck in conflicts of the past. It's time for people to get together and to make peace," he said.

Kushner claimed that making peace with the US would boost Iran's economy.

"Peace is a noble thing. It's a good thing and it's a very important thing, if we want to have a world where everyone can have economic opportunity in order to live a better life than their parents," he said.

"President Trump is willing to talk. He's willing to meet," Kushner said, but then added that "he's going to be tough."

"If there is a real deal where nuclear weapons are off the table, and we can make sure that it leads to a more prosperous Middle East, then I believe President Trump would sit and have discussions about it," he added.

Earlier this month, Trump said, "When we win, we will have a deal within four weeks [with Iran]."

Iran has, however, said that Trump had four years time during his tenure to initiate diplomacy with Iran, but he failed to grasp the opportunity and instead directed the White House to make "the worst of mistakes" in dealing with the Islamic Republic.

Ali Rabiei, the spokesman of Iran's administration, dismissed Trump's claims as a mere ploy to draw more votes, adding that the US president, if re-elected, "will not succeed in striking an agreement as long as he continues the policy of pressure against Iran."

Washington's Iran policy took a highly belligerent turn under Trump, who has overseen a campaign of "maximum" economic pressure accompanied by military provocations.

The US unleashed the "toughest ever" sanctions against Iran in 2018, when the Trump administration scrapped the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Trump also pushed Tehran and Washington to the brink of an all-out war by ordering the assassination of Iran's top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani during an official visit to Iraq in January.

On Friday, the UN Security Council almost unanimously refused to support a US-sponsored draft resolution on extending the arms embargo against Iran, which is due to expire in October under the JCPOA.

During the 15-member Security Council vote, the US received support only from the Dominican Republic for its anti-Iran resolution, leaving it far short of the minimum nine "yes" votes required for adoption.

Russia and China, both veto-wielding powers and parties to the JCPOA, voted against the draft resolution and the remaining 11 Security Council members, including France, Germany and Britain, abstained.

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Coronavirus

Schools announce presence of COVID-19 in staff, students

Hudson ISD and Pineywoods Community Academy have announced the presence of COVID-19 on campus.

PCA notified parents that a staff member had tested positive for COVID-19 on Aug. 5, and Hudson ISD notified parents Thursday that a student tested positive for COVID-19 after the start of school on Monday.

School districts are required to notify parents and staff members of a campus/department when they receive notice of a positive COVID-19 result, an email from Hudson Superintendent Donny Webb states. These notices will go out in the form of an email, such as this one.

Webb states in the email that it is almost certain parents will periodically receive a notice like this with nearly 2,900 students and 400 employees. This particular case was at the high school.

When we receive notices of a positive case, they are referred to our COVID-19 Response Team, which will include the district/campus administration as well as our nursing department, the email states. All cases are investigated and reported to the Angelina County & Cities Health District. Contact tracing is initiated and any person determined to have been in close contact, as defined by the CDC, will be contacted and required to quarantine for 14 days. All classrooms and heavily used areas are cleaned daily with additional cleaning where necessary.

The notice from PCA Director Ken Vaughn states the local health department had begun a case investigation and would contact any individuals determined to be in close contact with the infected individual. As the case was found during teacher in-service, no student came in close contact with the staff member.

Staff that came into close contact will be directly notified within 24 hours, the notice states. Individuals that were in close contact will remain off campus for up to 14 days to ensure they do not have the virus and to help control any further spread. We will keep you appraised of further updates.

While we do not have reason to believe that those who were not in close contact with the infected individual have reason to be concerned, we ask that you, as always, watch for symptoms of COVID-19.

Both Hudson and PCA stated that no identifying information would be released about the individuals who tested positive for privacy reasons.

Both schools asked that students, parents and staff closely monitor their health and contact a health provider immediately if they experience one of the COVID-19 symptoms: Fever greater than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, loss of taste or smell, cough, fatigue, chills, congestion or runny nose, significant muscle pain or ache, nausea, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, headache, sore throat, shaking or exaggerated shivering, diarrhea or vomiting.

For more information, contact the health district at 630-8500.

Related
A Hanoi man has been fined for falsely claiming in a livestreamed video on Facebook that 80 percent of civil servants in Ho Chi Minh City use narcotics.

Bui Xuan Huan, a.k.a. Huan hoa hong (Huan rose'), from Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi, was slapped with a VND7.5 million (US$325) fine by the capitals Department of Information and Communications for slander on Thursday, a source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

The Internal Political Security Department under Vietnams Ministry of Public Security previously received a complaint about Huan using his Facebook account named Huan hoa hong to spread the ungrounded slander in a livestreamed video on Facebook on April 21.

Eighty percent of young people [in Ho Chi Minh City], including civil servants, use [narcotics], Huan said.

Huan was summoned by the Internal Political Security Department on Thursday to clarify the statement.

During the working session, Huan provided no evidence to back up his false claim.

He was then accused of offending the reputation and honor of young people and civil servants in Ho Chi Minh City and violating Government Decree No. 72 on the management, provision, and use of Internet services and online information.

Huan was also asked to remove the false content from his personal Facebook account, according to a decision signed by Nguyen Van Minh, chief inspector of the Hanoi Department of Information and Communications.

In early July, the department also sanctioned Huan VND17.5 million ($755) for illegally publishing two book titles and selling them online.

Additionally, he has been alleged to advertise online gambling services in a music video published on his YouTube channel.

Huan became an Internet sensation in Vietnam thanks to his content depicting a 'thug life' on social networking sites.

He is known for his close relationship with various influential online gangsters and his blatant lawbreaking actions in videos posted online such as not wearing a helmet, reckless driving, and taunting functional forces.

The man was previously sent to mandatory rehab for drug use.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A cat mummy on display at Giza's Saqqara necropolis on November 23, 2019. Khaled DesoukiI/AFP via Getty

Ancient Egyptians worshipped and mummified animals, but examining those animal mummies without damaging the corpses is challenging for archaeologists.

In a new study, scientists reveal a new way to peer inside delicate mummies using a type of x-ray.

They x-rayed three mummies: a cat, a cobra, and a kestrel. The imaging technique allowed the researchers to learn about how these animals lived, died, and were mummified.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ancient Egyptians mummified and buried millions of animals, often treating creatures like cobras, cats, and crocodiles with the same reverence and respect that they gave to a human corpses.

That's because the Egyptians believed animals were reincarnations of gods. So mummifying them and worshipping these animals in sacred temples was a way to honor these deities, and mummified animals could also serve as offerings to those gods.

But for archaeologists, studying animal mummies without damaging them is challenging. Unwrapping a mummy to get a closer look can destroy the ancient corpse, leading to the loss of critical information about how the animal was killed or preserved.

But a study published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports reveals a new technique scientists can use to peer under the delicate wrappings without removing them. By using micro-CT scanning  imaging that relies on X-rays to see inside an object  researchers were able to identify the species and manner of mummification for three specimens: a cat, a snake, and a bird.

"Micro-CT's high resolution can tell us more about an animal mummy: What conditions it was kept and cared for in life and how it died," Rich Johnston, the lead author of the study, told Business Insider.

When reading the scans, he added, "you're the first person in thousands of years to see what's inside."

Here's what Johnston's team found out about the animal mummies.

Story continues

Ancient Egyptians mummified as many as 70 million animals, according to the study authors.

Mummies of cats and other felines are displayed in Giza's Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo, on November 23, 2019. Khaled DesoukiI/AFP via Getty

They mummified birds, crocodiles, cats, snakes, and even lions and lion cubs.

Typically, such animals were bred or captured by keepers, then killed and embalmed by temple priests. The creatures' organs were removed and their bodies dried out and wrapped in linens.

Johnston chose three such mummies from the collection held by the Egypt Center at Swansea University in the UK. Each is more than 2,000 years old.

A mummified Egyptian cobra. Swansea University

The first was a coiled snake "wrapped like an oval package," Johnston said.

Using the new imaging technique, Johnston's team identified the mummy as a juvenile Egyptian cobra. They found evidence that the snake's kidneys were damaged, indicating it was probably deprived of water during its life.

The scan also revealed that the cobra's skull had been partially crushed and its vertebrae broken. Johnston thinks the snake died after being whipped against a wall or floor.

An x-ray scan reveals the coiled remains of a mummified Egyptian cobra. Richard Johnston/Swansea University

"They used the snake like a bull whip," he said, adding, "the entire right hand side of its skull was damaged."

The researchers also found that the cobra's mouth had been purposefully wrapped in an open position, and its throat filled with a type of resin called natron.

Johnston said that the presence of natron indicated the snake possibly underwent an "Opening of the Mouth"ceremony  a burial ritual that allowed the mummy to eat, breathe, and enjoy offerings in the afterlife.

"It elevates the animal," he added.

Without the new technique, the team wouldn't have found the natron. They also wouldn't have been able to identify the species that the second mummy, a bird, belonged to.

A mummified bird. Swansea University

The researchers identified this mummy as a Eurasian kestrel, a bird of prey.

The scan's high resolution (it's about 100 times more precise than a medical CAT scan) helped them measure the kestrel's bones.

An x-ray scan reveals the skeletal remains of a mummified kestrel. Swansea University

They weren't able to discern how the kestrel died, but confirmed that the animal didn't die from a neck injury like the snake.

The final mummy, which Johnston's group identified as a domestic cat, likely did die from neck trauma, however.

A mummified domestic cat head (left) and body. Swansea University

The cat's neck vertebrae had been violently separated, which could indicate the animal was strangled, he said.

It's also possible the Egyptians broke the cat's neck after it died so they could mummify it with its head in an upright position.

The micro-CT scan enabled Johnston to see the cat's remains in unprecedented detail, even down to its teeth.

A 3D rendering of a mummified cat's jaw bone. Richard Johnston/Swansea University

An analysis of the teeth revealed the cat was actually a 5-month-old kitten.

Johnston said this type of imaging is a breakthrough, since it's "non-destructive" to the animal skeleton.

An x-ray scan reveals the skull of a mummified cat. Swansea University

"In the past, when people unwrapped mummies, everything inside moved around," he said, adding, "it would be difficult to put the skeleton back together in the position it was mummified in."

What's more, micro-CT scanning enabled the researchers to create 3D models of the animal mummies for analysis.

"I made one of the specimens as large as my house and wandered through it, looking for something new each time," Johnston said.

He next hopes to scan a mummified ibis  a type of bird Egyptians worshipped as sacred  and perhaps a crocodile, too.

Archaeologist Richard Johnston from Swansea University in the UK. Swansea University

But the technique works best on small objects, Johnston said. The bigger the mummy, the lower the resolution of each micro-CT image.

That's why the micro-CT technique doesn't work on human mummies: They're too large to fit into the scanning machine.

Archaeologists remove the cover of a painted coffin discovered at al-Asasif Necropolis in the Valley of Kings in Luxor, Egypt, October 19, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Still, researchers have previously used Johnston's technique to examine a severed hand or human head, he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
WASHINGTON  A diplomatic standoff over restoring international sanctions against Iran may be the most vivid example yet of how the United States has largely isolated itself from the world order  instead of isolating Tehran, as the Trump administration intended.

At nearly every step President Trump has taken in his dogged pursuit to demolish a 2015 accord limiting Irans nuclear program, he has run into opposition, including from Americas strongest allies in Europe.

On Thursday, the opposition turned into open defiance.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to New York to personally demand that the United Nations Security Council snap back the sanctions on Iran for violating some terms of the nuclear deal. The act was born of frustration: His closest allies had rejected an American effort to recast the terms of the deal by extending an arms embargo against Iran that begins to expire in October. Only the Dominican Republic voted with the United States.

Mr. Pompeo, sounding incredulous, again accused Iran of fomenting terrorism, destabilizing the Middle East and trying to hide its nuclear and weapons programs from international inspectors. But he directed some of his harshest words toward diplomats from Britain, France and Germany, who he said chose to side with ayatollahs.
Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh on Friday urged people to celebrate Ganeshotsav, beginning from Saturday, in a low-key manner and avoid crowding in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photograph: Sahil Salvi/ Rediff.com IMAGE: A crowded Dadar market in Mumbai ahead of Ganeshotsav.

He also urged Muslim community members to observe Muharram, which falls in the month-end, in a simple manner and avoid gathering, an official statement said.

The government has also issued guidelines regarding Ganeshotsav celebrations, saying that processions should not be taken out before installing and immersing idols.

It said the heights of Lord Ganesh idols installed by sarvajanik (community) mandals and at household-level should be limited to 4 feet and 2 feet, respectively, this year.

The statement said all mandals (associations) need to set up mandaps (decorated temporary covered structures) in line with the policies formulated by municipal corporations or the local administration.

The Ganeshotsav is to be celebrated in a simple manner this year, so there should be no pomp in the decorations by sarvajanik mandals or individuals installing idols in homes, the statement quoted Deshmukh as saying.

The government said people should possibly worship idols made of metals, marbles or other elements instead of installing conventional ones this year.

If the idols installed are made of clay or are eco- friendly, then those should be immersed at home itself, the statement said.

Idols should be immersed at a nearby artificial pond if it is not possible to immerse them at homes, the statement said.

If possible, the send off of idols should be postponed until the time of immersions of idols installed during Maghi Ganeshotsav or during the month of Bhadrapad 2021, that is, next year.

This will help avoid crowding while bringing/immersing idols and protect oneself and family from the COVID-19 infection, it added.

Preferably, health-related advertisements should be displayed during the 10-day festival to help people keep themselves safe and avoid the infection, the government said.

It urged mandals to undertake health initiatives instead of organising cultural programmes.

The government said mandals should try to arrange for online darshan of Lord Ganeshs idols.

It said mandaps be disinfected, thermal screening be arranged for and physical distancing related norms be strictly adhered to by devotees turning up at mandaps to seek darshan of the elephant-headed God.

Similarly, the government had issued a circular on Wednesday, saying Muslims should observe Muharram in a simple manner and avoid crowding.

It had also said that matam (mourning) processions should not be taken out keeping in mind the COVID-19 outbreak.
A head constable working with the Chandigarh police has moved a special leave petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court, seeking eight-hour shift for cops. Taking up the SLP, the apex court has issued a notice to Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana.

Head constable Jagjeet Singh, thorough this SLP, had challenged the December 2019 order of Punjab and Haryana high court that dismissed the public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to the Chandigarh Police and police heads of Punjab and Haryana to introduce eight-hour shift pattern in all police stations, along with weekly-offs, to ensure efficient and people-friendly policing.

Jagjeet Singh had demanded that the recommendations of the Bureau of Police Research and Development, 2006, whereby weekly-offs and fixed duty hours were recommended, be implemented.
A preliminary hearing for state Rep. Will Dismukes, R-Prattville, is scheduled for Sept. 3 on a first-degree theft of property charge.

Dismukes attorney, Trey Norman, requested the hearing. Montgomery County District Court Judge Monet Gaines will preside.

Dismukes, a first-term legislator, was arrested Aug. 6 on an accusation that he stole money from a former employer.

Norman said Dismukes disputes the accusation.

If convicted of the felony charge, Dismukes would be removed from office automatically. First-degree theft applies to cases involving property valued at $2,500 or more.

Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey announced the charge against Dismukes on Aug. 6. Bailey said Dismukes former employer, Weiss Flooring, reported the theft in May, sparking an investigation that led to the arrest.

Dismukes resigned as pastor of a Baptist church in Prattville after backlash over his speaking appearance at a birthday party for the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in Selma in July.
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has pledged her support for the Danish government's response to COVID-19 by urging people to wear face masks and heed official advice from health experts.

The 48-year-old issued the plea in an Instagram post Thursday, asking Danes to follow updated guidelines from the country's health ministry which now recommends the use of masks on public transport and when caring for vulnerable people.

The mother-of-four, who was born in Hobart, Tasmania, acknowledged how difficult it can be to adjust to pandemic regulations - revealing social distancing had 'slipped' her mind at a recent event when she extended her arm to shake hands with a guest.

Alongside a selfie of herself wearing a surgical mask on a plane, Mary wrote a caption in Danish that roughly translates to: 'On land, at sea and in the air - we have to get used to wearing face masks.'

Scroll down for video

Mask on: Crown Princess Mary of Denmark urged people to wear face coverings and follow official advice from the country's health ministry in a frank Instagram post on Thursday

A great role model: The Tasmanian-born Princess (pictured at the opening of a museum on June 8) acknowledged how easy it is to forget social distancing in the new COVID world

'It is important that we all follow the health authorities recommendations together.'

She continued: 'Yesterday, I was in Grenaa for my first official visit after the summer holidays. At sea and in the air it went fine, but on land it slipped for me and I unfortunately came to shake hands.

'It reminded me how important it is that we help each other live up to the recommendations.'

Denmark's future queen signed off by encouraging people to 'take of yourself and take care of each other' - a characteristically caring gesture for the famously down-to-earth royal.

Followers heaped praise on Mary's honesty, with many thanking her for speaking candidly about forgetting new protocols and being a great role model.

Mary and Frederik with their children (left to right) Princess Josephine, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent and Prince Christian on the steps of Grasten Palace, the official summer residence of the Danish Royal Family

'Thank you for being an 'ordinary' person and showing us a good example,' one woman said.

'Cool to see, and help the rest of us carry it when you do too! We have the best and coolest (sic) royal house,' said another.

Others left comments like 'wonderful photo with an important message' and 'we are all just human, in a new reality'.

Throughout the pandemic, Mary and husband Frederik, 52, have proved they're just like the rest of us by posting cosy Instagram photos from their living room and shunning overseas travel in favour of family 'staycations' along Denmark's coast.

They spent the last week of July taking in the sights of Skagen, a seaside town in the northernmost point of the country.

Mary walks through long grass flanked by her beloved border collie Grace in Skagen, northern Denmark, in late July

The Crown Prince couple went into isolation with their four children, Prince Christian, 14, Princess Isabella, 13 and nine-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, at Fredensborg Palace in Denmark's east when the crisis began in March.

The family chose to return to their spring and autumn residence from southwestern Switzerland, where the children had been taking a 12-week course at the Lemania-Verbier International School.

They usually attend the Tranegard School in Gentofte, Denmark, but had been studying at the Swiss boarding school to further their international experience.

Denmark gradually lifted its lockdown from April 14, but Mary and Fred appeared to stay home until mid-May, offering rare glimpses into their personal life by sharing sweet family photos on their official Instagram, Det Danske Kongehus.

A collage of photos posted by Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik on Instagram. The top shows the newly married royals at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre in 2004, while the bottom shows the couple watching a televised theatre production at home on May 9, 2020.

A photo posted on May 9 shows them watching a televised performance of 'The College Songbook' from their sofa, casually dressed in leggings and sneakers.

The future king and queen contrasted their cosy night-in with a photo from 2004 - the year they were married - which shows them in glamorous evening attire watching a production from the royal box at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre.

The striking difference between the photos highlighted how life has changed since the outbreak began, with royalty forced to adapt to confinement just like the rest of us.
HARTFORD  A city man will serve more than seven years in federal prison after investigators seized more than 100 bags of fentanyl from his Hartford home, authorities said.

Jaquan Tipsy Leggett, 32, was sentenced Thursday to 92 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, on federal fentanyl and other narcotics trafficking, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.

Back in January 2019, law enforcement got a tip that Leggett and Dante Tre Barnes were trafficking narcotics in Hartford, authorities said.

Investigators learned that Leggett and Barnes were using Leggetts Lenox Street home in Hartford to package and store fentanyl and other drugs. From January and March 2019, officials said, investigators made multiple purchases of fentanyl and cocaine from Barnes in Hartford and Farmington.

Leggett and Barnes were arrested March 5, 2019.

That same day, when investigators searched Leggetts home, authorities said they found 169 bags of fentanyl, about two grams of unpackaged fentanyl, about four grams of crack cocaine, about two grams of cocaine and items used to process and package drugs for street sale.

When investigators searched Barnes Farmington home, they found 440 bags of fentanyl, about 23 grams of unpackaged fentanyl, about 32 grams of crack cocaine, items used to package drugs for street sale and $24,160 in cash, authorities said.

Leggetts criminal history includes state convictions for gun and drug offenses, and a federal conviction for possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. Back in August 2012, he was sentenced to 57 months in prison on the federal offense.

Authorities said Leggett has been detained since his arrest last March.

On Oct. 28, 2019, he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and cocaine base (crack). That same day, Barnes pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.

On Feb. 10, Barnes was sentenced to 60 months in prison. He forfeited the cash seized at the time of his arrest, as well as a 2007 Audi A6.
By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko will probably cling to power for now despite protests against him and is content to let him sweat it out, two sources close to the Kremlin said.

Lukashenko, a long-standing but truculent Moscow ally, has been buffeted by nearly two weeks of street protests which have loosened his grip on power in a country many Russians regard as another Russian region in all but name.

That, the two sources said, suits the Kremlin. It is keen to deal with a weakened Lukashenko who has resisted and sometimes publicly railed against Moscow's offers of deeper political and economic integration.

"They'll be happy to wait a while and watch him struggle a bit. They don't like him much, but they still back him," said one of the sources, who regularly speaks to senior government and Kremlin officials.

The second source said a diminished Lukashenko would suit the Kremlin's needs.

"Lukashenko will be critically weakened. You'll be able to make mince meat out of him. Our guys will definitely use this."

The Kremlin did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Putin has offered Lukashenko assistance if needed but the Kremlin said on Wednesday it saw no need to help Belarus militarily or otherwise for now.

An EU diplomat said Russia had many levers to influence the situation in Belarus and was probably not too concerned yet by events there.

"They have to be smart, but I think they still feel in control of the situation," the diplomat said.

The Kremlin has told EU nations to keep out of Belarus.

WEATHER THE CRISIS

Joined by a treaty that proclaims, on paper, a "union state" with a Soviet-style red flag, the two countries usually have no border controls, and are culturally, linguistically and economically intertwined. Putin has pushed hard to make the union state more of a political and economic reality.

Story continues

Russia has repeatedly asked Lukashenko to let it open an air base in Belarus, something he has refused in the past.

The first source said that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader who fled into exile in Lithuania last week, did not yet look like a serious contender in Moscow's eyes.

Tsikhanouskaya has led the biggest challenge to Lukashenko's 26-year rule. Speaking at her first press conference since leaving Belarus, she said on Friday that Russia had not made contact with her campaign.

Both sources said the Kremlin calculated that Lukashenko would weather the crisis, despite making tactical mistakes and resorting to heavy-handed policing.

"Everything will end badly for Lukashenko, just not yet," the second source said.

Lukashenko knows that Moscow "always supports existing regimes, no matter how unpalatable", the source said, and forecast that protests alone would not be enough to force him out.

"Somebody else needs to put pressure on him for that to happen, and there's nobody to do that."

A spokeswoman for Lukashenko could not immediately be reached for comment.

STRATEGIC PRIZE

Russian energy exports flow via Belarus to the West, Moscow supplies cheap oil and gas to Belarus, and Russian troops have taken part in huge war games on Belarusian soil in the past.

Ukraine's Commander in Chief at the time, Viktor Muzhenko, told Reuters in 2017 that he believed Russia had left thousands of troops behind in Belarus after a huge military exercise, something which both Belarus and Russia have denied.

The Russian air force has a radar station in Belarus designed to track ballistic missile launches. It also has a naval communications facility which Moscow uses to communicate with its nuclear submarines. Russia's western border, which faces the EU, is heavily militarised.

Moscow has long regarded Belarus as a buffer zone against NATO, according to Western diplomats, who say they believe any move for Belarus to join the European Union or NATO would be a red line for Russia and could prompt it to send in troops.

Reuters has observed busy Russian air traffic between Russia and Belarus since the crisis erupted there on Aug. 9 after a presidential election which protesters said Lukashenko rigged.

A Russian government plane made a quick flight to Belarus and back in the early hours of Wednesday, flight tracking data showed. The plane has been used in the past to carry senior officials, including the head of the FSB security service.

On Aug. 12, two military planes flew to Belarus and a third, a military transport plane, turned off its transponder en route there, according to the tracking data.

Western diplomats say they cannot envisage Russia surrendering its influence over Belarus.

Via Belarus, it has access to the so-called Suwalki Gap, a strip of land which separates Poland from Lithuania. On the opposite side of that gap lies the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

In the event of conflict with NATO, Russia could in theory cut off the Baltic states from the rest of the Western military alliance by seizing the gap. That, say the diplomats, is a strategic prize Moscow is unlikely to relinquish anytime soon.

(Additional reporting by Anton Zverev, Rinat Sagdiev and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Nick Tattersall)
WATCH: Cory Bookers full speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker addressed Democrats on Aug. 20 during the final night of the Democratic National Convention. The coronavirus pandemic upended both parties traditional conventions. Instead of in-person events, the program each night features a number of speakers and musical performances virtually across the country.

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Lisa Rinna has never been shy about expressing her feelings on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

And ahead of Wednesday's episode of the hit Bravo reality series, the four-time Emmy nominee stepped out wearing an 18-karat yellow 'f*** you' necklace, by designer Jennifer Meyer.

After wrapping a video conference on her iPad outside a local Starbucks in Bel-Air, the 57-year-old reality star showed off her incredible figure in a fitted black tank top.

Making a statement: Lisa Rinna stepped out wearing an 18-karat yellow 'f*** you' necklace, by designer Jennifer Meyer, amid the RHOBH drama on Wednesday

She seemed in high spirits, while stepping out braless in a pair of sweatpants and a SoulCycle fanny pack.

The mother-of-two's outing comes hours before she aired her concerns about her RHOBH co-star and longtime pal, Denise Richards.

Just one week after the pair 'vowed to be better friends to each other' during their cast trip to Italy, Rinna began to question whether Richards had been 'manipulating' her.

Making a statement: And ahead of Wednesday's episode of the hit Bravo reality series, the four-time Emmy nominee stepped out wearing an 18-karat yellow 'f*** you' necklace, by designer Jennifer Meyer

After Brandi Glanville unveiled pages of text messages that she said showed proof that she had a relationship with Richards, 49, Rinna was left perplexed.

While the texts she shared with the RHOBH cast appeared innocent, without sexual innuendo, Glanville's receipts made the group wonder why Richards denied they were close.

Dorit Kemsley, 44, defended Denise, noting that she'd never said she distanced herself from Brandi, only said they were not tight.

Over the drama: The mother-of-two's outing comes hours before she aired her concerns about her RHOBH co-star and longtime pal, Denise Richards

That set off Brandi, who'd gotten tired of being scrutinized.

'I f***ing sucked on her f***king [censored],' she yelled in frustration. 'I have a close f***ing relationship with her, okay b****? Enough said!'

Rinna, who had been trying to repair her own relationship with Denise since the cast's recent trip to Rome, expressed feeling duped.

Intimate friendship: Lisa considered, 'I don't have that relationship, texting-wise, with Denise. I don't say, ''I love you honey, I love you baby.'' This is a relationship. This is an intimate friendship'

Bite marks: 'We were making out and then I bit her,' Brandi said of one encounter. 'I left marks'

She eyeballed one in which Denise told Brandi her loyalty would never change, and wrote, 'I still care and love you.'

In Rome, Denise had told Lisa she'd only seen Brandi only a couple of times in her life, yet there were a flood of affectionate messages to look at.

Lisa considered, 'I don't have that relationship, texting-wise, with Denise. I don't say, 'I love you honey, I love you baby.' This is a relationship. This is an intimate friendship.'

Love tests: Brandi shared texts in which she and Denise said they love each other

Catching up: The texts also showed Brandi and Denise discussing a desire to catch up

All the drama went down at Teddi's surprise baby shower, to which Brandi was invited.

The cast told the Drinking & Tweeting author that Denise had denied hooking up with her.

Brandi was horrified to hear what Denise said, and countered with some juicy information.

Hurt: Rinna, who had been trying to repair her own relationship with Denise since the cast's recent trip to Rome, expressed feeling duped

'We were making out and then I bit her,' she said of one encounter. 'I left marks.'

She claimed that Denise had wanted to blame the bite marks on a corset she was wearing for a movie she'd been shooting.

'Then I thought, ''Okay, I have to keep this secret. I'm a cheater'',' Brandi recalled. 'I hate cheaters. I was cheated on and I would never do it.'

'I thought my friend would have told me the truth. There's sadness in that, because then I go, 'Well, what else has Denise lied to me about over the years?' Lisa said in a confessional

'This is about shutting me up to make sure I never let anyone know, especially women in our group, that this happened,' Brandi added.

The day after Teddi's shower, Lisa told Kyle Richards she doesn't 'like to be lied to' and found Brandi's story to be 'real convincing.'

'I thought my friend would have told me the truth. There's sadness in that, because then I go, 'Well, what else has Denise lied to me about over the years?' she said in a confessional.

Real convincing: 'Brandi was real convincing,' Lisa admitted. 'I want to stick up for my friend. I want to say, ''You know what, Brandi? I don't believe you.'' And guess what? I can't do that'

'I want to stick up for my friend. I want to be able to say, 'You know what, Brandi, I don't believe you.' And guess what? I can't do that,' Lisa said to Kyle.

Upon further examining her emotional heart-to-heart with Denise, Lisa feared the Wild Things actress was intentionally pulling at her heart strings.

In a confessional, Lisa shared, 'It feels like Denise has weaponized our friendship and used everything she can to make me feel guilty. 'Lisa, you know better. You know what my poor kids have been through.'

Be yourself: On Thursday, Lisa seemed to address the plethora of hateful comment on her jaw-dropping dance to to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's hit track, WAP

'What if she's manipulating me? What if I'm being manipulated in all of this too?' Lisa asked herself. 'I mean, I don't know. I feel duped. Maybe I'm a big, fat fool. I don't like that feeling.'

On Thursday, Lisa seemed to address the plethora of hateful comments on her recent jaw-dropping dance video to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's track, WAP.

'Don't let ANYONE ever make you feel less than of guilty because of your freedom of movement and expression,' she told her 2.5 million Instagram followers, after dancing on the floor in a skin-tight leotard.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Similar to the controversy over reopening schools amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic today, more than a century ago, American cities and school leaders were also making difficult decisions around whether to send kids to school. It was the days of the 1918 influenza, or Spanish flu -- a pandemic that would end up taking the life of between 50 million and 100 million people across the globe.

And among the dead were 650,000 Americans, including 30,000 New York City residents.
Couples who meet at the end of the aisle and declare their love for one another rarely think that the end of their journey together may end in divorce, but it is a sad fact that this is the reality for many people today. Europeans are no exception.

In 2017, there were approximately 1.9 million marriages and 0.8 million divorces in the European Union (EU). The former might be higher, but marriage has actually declined in Europe over the years, while divorce rates have more than doubled. What are the reasons for this? Are all divorce rates similar across the EU? This article answers these two questions and much more.

A Short History Of Divorce In Europe

Throughout history, Europe upheld a series of strict laws regulating divorce. Around the 1950s, many countries allowed divorce if one partner had committed an unspeakable act like adultery or domestic abuse. However, the 1970s gave way to what is colloquially known as the no-fault revolution, in which divorce was permitted if mutually agreed upon by both partners.

From then on, numerous reforms related to divorce took place, with some countries even introducing the concept of unilateral divorce which legally granted separation if requested by only one spouse. Many experts agree that these new laws made divorce easier to obtain, ultimately contributing to the rise of divorce rates in Europe.

Reasons For Divorce

Image credit: True Touch Lifestyle/Shutterstock.com

These same experts generally agree that there are numerous reasons for divorce shared by many countries around the world. Some argue that the overall quality and sanctity of marriage has declined, while others insist that our new modern world has provided individuals more opportunities to meet potential partners after having decided to settle down. Victor Martin Organista, an attorney from Madrid, even claims that people grow more mature and independent as they get older and simply decide to follow a different path than their spouse.

There are, of course, very specific reasons related to each country, particularly in Europe which is a wonderful tapestry of different cultures and people. For example, divorce was illegal in Spain up until 1981, long after the rest of Europe had already progressed well beyond that. Because of these types of reforms, Spain moved away from its Catholic roots to become more secular. Event though Catholicism frowns upon it, this sudden increase in religious freedom made it more acceptable to file for divorce.

Lithuania And Latvia

In 2018, the small Baltic states of Lithuania and Latvia had the highest divorce rates in all Europe at 3.1 per 1,000 inhabitants each. This information comes from Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data.

Generally speaking, divorce can be a long and complicated process; however, it is fairly easy to obtain in Lithuania and Latvia, particularly if both partners agree to the terms of separation. Instead of taking years, it could realistically take no longer than a month. It is usually cheaper as well as couples can dissolve their marriage out of court through a joint application. Such a simple process explains why these two countries have the most divorces in Europe.

The Nordic Countries

Children are often most adversely impacted as a result of their parents' divorce. Image credit: Rachata Sinthopachakul/Shutterstock.com

According to Statista, the next three places with the highest divorce rates are all Nordic countries: Denmark with 2.6 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants, and Finland and Sweden at 2.5 each.

By the mid-20th century, they were all at the forefront of rethinking behaviors toward the family unit and traditional gender roles, especially in comparison to other European countries such as Spain and Italy which had yet to legalize divorce. Not only was marriage separation the norm in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, but they also boasted high levels of non-marital cohabitation and childbearing as well.

In these Nordic countries, society had shifted to emphasize individual independence even within the family structure. Social and economic security came not from each other, but from autonomy and reliance on the welfare state. This liberal mindset came about from the historical absence of serfdom, the emphasis of ones personal relationship with God, and granting young adults a high degree of freedom.

England And Wales

According to the Office for National Statistics, divorce rates in England and Wales dropped to its lowest in 2018 since 1971. With 90,871 divorces, it also declined by 10.6 percent since 2017. This, however, does not speak to the overall happiness of its collective marriages.

Under the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1973, anyone looking to divorce their spouse must prove that they are guilty of some unsavory act. This was around the same time when other European countries were going through the no-fault revolution mentioned above. Moreover, when there is no evidence against ones spouse, the applicant must live apart from them for a minimum of five years to give the couple enough time to reconcile. These difficulties and strict laws reveal why divorce rates are so much lower in the UK than other countries like Lithuania and Latvia.

Recently, the British government has promised to introduce a no-fault divorce bill, ultimately making it easier to separate. In June 2020, many MPs personally backed this movement, but as of right now, couples must still abide by the old laws.

Economics And Social Norms

Image credit: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock.com

Generally speaking, divorce is considered more of a social norm in economically developed countries. This is mainly because higher rates of education and the growing number of women in the workforce grant individuals the knowledge, finances, and resources to support themselves through the separation process and post-marriage.

It should be noted, however, that women must often pay a significantly higher price for a successful career. It is still uncommon for men to take on the role of the homemaker to allow their wives to go to work, forcing women to choose between family and their job.

Regardless, experts can often predict a nations divorce rate based on the state of their economy.
10:30 a.m. My friend Loren picks me up and we drive to Margate, a town about 1.5 hours from London on the Kent coast.

I make work calls in the car and get through some of my mutual-aid tasks, helping some families in my local area. Today I am arranging grocery orders and pickups between people in need and a local food distribution center. This is work I started during the pandemic but plan to keep doing as long as I can.

1 p.m. Even though Ive lived in the U.K. on and off for many years, Ive only made it to the beach a handful of times, but today I had the deep urge to dunk myself in the cold ocean to clean my mind, body and soul.

8 p.m. I head straight from Margate to dinner at my friends restaurant in Borough Market, where they have built a makeshift outdoor setup. Im meeting my siblings and besties there  it happens to be my first restaurant experience since lockdown. This is only the second time Ive seen my sister since February. My siblings are my best friends and I have missed them terribly. And Im delighted to not have to do the dishes for once.

12 a.m. Feeling so sleepy and so full. I get into bed sandy and pass out.

Tuesday

10 a.m. Driving lesson (with masks on!). Yes, I am one of those people who still doesnt have a license. This is the year that changes. Im about four lessons back into learning and will book my test in a few months.

2:30 p.m. I go into the BBC to record an interview for a new podcast I am working on. Going into the main building feels like a trip as I havent been in central London much, except to go to the Black Lives Matter protests. We record in a studio that has a screen between me and my producer. Everything feels strange but Im grateful to be back. I take the tube home for the first time in a really long time. Central London feels empty.

12 a.m. I light some palo santo and get into bed. I make notes and write a passage in the delight diary that I started after I read Ross Gays The Book of Delights, which was such a beautiful reminder of how to find the poetic and prophetic in the smallest of things. I take two drops of CBD oil and turn off the lights, fantasizing about one day becoming one of those people who goes to bed at 9.
A 1925 property deed owned by her late grandfather inspired Rhonda Pettit to address racial segregation and institutional racism in her poem A Deed Supreme. It is one of two poems by Pettit included in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers Crystal Wilkinson Volume XII, which was recently released by the Shepherd Universitys Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities.

Pettit is an English professor at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College who has been writing and publishing poems for more than 30 years. Her themes often focus on issues of gender inequality, race or social injustice.

When she found the property deed for her grandfathers land in Falmouth, Kentucky, she noticed it included language prohibiting the property owner from selling it to anyone having Negro blood in his veins." That inspired the poem that highlights the forms of oppression that continued well after slavery ended.

The deed is an example of institutional racism, said Pettit. The poem presents this through a variation of the call and response form that was used in slave work songs and spirituals, consisting of the poet's voice setting up the context on the left side of the page, and phrases from the deed on the right. The title alludes to John Coltrane's famous jazz song, A Love Supreme."

Pettits second poem in the anthology is titled Writing Blanks and was also inspired by a historical document, a 19th century Kentucky slave bill of sale.

Its similar in format (to A Deed Supreme), but it uses two sets of language from other sources, Pettit noted. The left side consists of phrases from the slave bill of sale where I have chosen to blank out the names of the slaves, and halfway down, a second set of phrases pulled from African American spirituals that provide an answer to this historical mistreatment.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 20)  Coronavirus cases in the Philippines breached 178,000 on Thursday, with 4,339 more infections detected by the Department of Health.

This marks the ninth consecutive day that the country recorded over 3,000 new cases, and the third day that it saw an increase of more than 4,000 patients.

The latest figures showed 178,022 people in the country have been afflicted by the viral illness, with 61,025 active cases or currently ill patients.

Of the new cases, the DOH said 74 percent or 3,213 were found in the last two weeks.

It added that around 60 percent or 2,590 of the new infections are from Metro Manila, while 223 are from Laguna, 155 from Cavite, 128 from Cebu, and 109 from Rizal.

Meanwhile, 88 more were added to the death toll which climbed to 2,883, while another 727 patients have been cleared of COVID-19, bringing recoveries to 114,114.

Among the newly reported fatalities, 40 occurred in August, 27 in July, 19 in June, and two in May.

Central Visayas and Metro Manila had the highest numbers with 42 and 34 deaths, respectively. Five are from Western Visayas, four from Calabarzon, and three are from other regions nationwide.

Fourteen more infections among overseas Filipinos, along with one recovery, were also announced by the Department of Foreign Affairs. The tally now stands at 9,973 confirmed cases, with 5,869 recoveries and 733 deaths.

Health spokesperson Ma. Rosario Vergeire on Wednesday noted that the public can "expect higher cases" of the disease, as the Philippines main business hubs reopen, similar to what happened in June and July when the lockdown rules were relaxed.

A number of areas nationwide have eased into a general community quarantine, including those considered as high-risk, such as Metro Manila. Other places are under a more relaxed modified GCQ.
Uber and Lyft users reacted with relief last night after the ride-hailing apps avoided a shutdown in California.

Both companies had threatened to suspend their operations at midnight over a ruling forcing them to reclassify their drivers as employees - but a state appeals court granted an emergency stay on Thursday.

The ruling means they can continue to treat their drivers as independent contractors, at least for now.

The news was met with relief by passengers who say they rely on Lyft and Uber for work and doctor's appointments and feared they would lose their jobs if the apps shut down.

Others feared a shutdown would cause chaos at airports and said they were reluctant to switch to using public transportation during the pandemic.

Uber and Lyft now have until August 25 to file written statements agreeing to expedited procedures to reclassify drivers as employees.

The two companies are also backing a ballot measure in November that would preserve the contractor status which Uber and Lyft say is favored by 80 per cent of drivers.

People wait for their ride-shares to arrive at San Diego Airport on Thursday, hours before a court ruling which averted a shutdown for Lyft and Uber in California

Lyft and Uber will be allowed to continue treating drivers as independent contractors in California amid their appeal in court, it was announced Thursday afternoon

Hours after Lyft announced it would suspend rideshare operations in California starting at 11.59pm Thursday, a state appeals court granted an emergency stay for Uber and Lyft

Rideshare driver Horacio Zelaya of Los Angeles takes part in a rally in Los Angeles on Thursday demanding Uber and Lyft deem drivers employees so they can be eligible for sick days and other benefits

Travelers wearing protective gear arrive off their flight at Los Angeles International Airport and look for their ride share as Uber and Lyft drivers organize a rally

Los Angeles resident Paola Herrera was among those who welcomed the news last night.

'I relay so much on Lyft and Uber for my doctors appointments so I feel relieved. Thank God! Immunocompromised girl over here,' she said.

A customer called Kaleb said: 'I rely on them to get around for my job and the idea of them shutting down genuinely scared me.'

Another California resident said she had had to sell her car last year and was unwilling to use public transportation during the current health crisis.

'I've used Lyft a lot and I hope something can be worked out,' she said.

Several workers had voiced fears that they or their relatives would lose their jobs if they could not rely on Uber and Lyft to get to work.

One resident said the shutdown would have led to 'skyrocketing prices for non public transport'.

'My boyfriend would have to quit his job because the bus takes hours to get to his job. I'm losing my patience with this state and this country,' they said.

Another said before the ruling was announced: 'I used to rely on Uber before I went on furlough. I have no idea when my job will open again, but this will really f*** me over if they stay suspended... I'm very worried about this.'

'Probably going to lose my job because of this Uber/Lyft suspension if I can't get to work...' said another before the stay was granted.

Others had voiced fears of what would happen at California airports including Los Angeles International, one of America's busiest airports.

'LAX is completely designed around Uber and Lyft picking up travelers and taking them home,' one investor warned.

San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer said the shutdown would have caused 'financial calamity for hundreds of thousands of Californians'.

Matt Haney, a Democratic member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, accused Uber and Lyft of 'blackmailing' California voters with the threat of a stoppage.

Both firms are funding the campaign in favor of California's Proposition 22 which would keep drivers classified as contractors but provide benefits such as health care.

Rideshare driver Jesus Jacobo Zepeda of Lancaster, California pictured participating in a rally demanding Uber and Lyft give drivers 'basic employee rights' in Los Angeles on Thursday

People put their luggage in the back of a car at San Diego Airport on Thursday

Osman Khaliqi, a yellow cab driver, waits next in line for a fare at San Diego Airport - where he says he often waits up to three hours before getting a passenger

Lyft shared an initial statement announcing the suspension of rideshare operations saying, 'This is not something we wanted to do' on Thursday

Uber and Lyft's stocks were both up about six percent following the order

Uber and Lyft's stocks were both up about six per cent following the appeal court's order.

'We are glad that the Court of Appeals recognized the important questions raised in this case, and that access to these critical services won't be cut off while we continue to advocate for drivers' ability to work with the freedom they want,' Uber said in a statement after the court decision.

Lyft shared an updated statement saying that 'rideshare is ON' hours after announcing it would halt operations at midnight.

'The California court has granted our request for a further stay, so our rideshare operations can continue uninterrupted, for now. Thanks to the tens of thousands of drivers, riders, and public officials who urged California to keep rideshare available for so many people who depend on it,' the statement said.

Lyft had announced on Thursday that operations were being suspended at midnight, before later canceling the decision.

'This change would... necessitate an overhaul of the entire business model - it's not a switch that can be flipped overnight,' Lyft said in a blog post.

Lyft added: 'We don't want to suspend operations. We are going to keep up the fight for a benefits model that works for all drivers and our riders.

'We've spent hundreds of hours meeting with policymakers and labor leaders to craft an alternative proposal for drivers that includes a minimum earnings guarantee, mileage reimbursement, a health care subsidy, and occupational accident insurance, without the negative consequences,' the statement added.

Uber had said that 'we will need to temporarily shut down by Thursday night' if the stay was not granted.

The firm's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a MSNBC interview last week that the company's ride-hailing services in California will halt 'at least temporarily' if the order was not changed.

Last week Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a MSNBC interview the company's ride-hailing services in California will halt 'at least temporarily' if the order was not changed

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tells @SRuhle the ride-hailing app would have to shut down in the state of California until at least November if a judge's ruling that Uber must treat drivers as employees instead of independent contractors fails to be appealed by the company. pic.twitter.com/ntAMMxf4Cf  MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 12, 2020

As of October 1, Lyft had about 305,000 drivers in California who completed trips within the past year, but today's number is likely lower due to the pandemic, as per CNBC.

Uber said in a recent blog post it had about 209,000 active drivers in California per quarter.

Uber and Lyft say the vast majority of their drivers do not want to be employees, with some 80 per cent working less than 20 hours per week.

The companies say their flexible on-demand business model is not compatible with traditional employment law.

Both are counting on voters to approve Proposition 22, which would keep drivers classified as contractors.

An August 9 poll by Refield & Wilton showed 41 per cent voters planned to support the companies' proposal and 26 per cent oppose it, with the remainder still undecided.

Analysts cautioned California regulators against the risk of putting more people out of work as American unemployment has spiked amid the coronavirus pandemic.

'California is trying to do the right thing, but this is the wrong time for it,' said technology analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

'This is not a time when you want to knock a whole lot of people out of work, which is the danger here.'

Air travelers arriving from New York in personal protective equipment (PPE) walk on their way to board a Lyft vehicle at Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday

Uber and Lyft drivers, some supporting the ballot measure and others opposing it, staged a noisy rally outside Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday ahead of the appeals court decision.

'If people want to be employed, they can look for a different job,' said Ramon, a driver supporting Proposition 22 who declined to give his full name.

California sued Lyft and Uber in May alleging the ride-share companies were violating the law that requires companies to treat workers as employees rather than independent contractors.

The issues of benefits was exacerbated with the Covid-19 pandemic because employees would be eligible for sick days and other benefits, but contractors are not.

Uber and Lyft, which are both based in San Francisco, argued their technology connects riders and drivers and that they are not transportation companies, meaning drivers aren't part of their usual course of business which would deem them employees.

Last week San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman sided with California and gave the companies until Friday to reclassify their drivers as employees.

But the companies said they can't meet that deadline in time.

Critics say the companies had nearly a year to address the mandates in the state's landmark law Assembly Bill 5 (AB5).

Travelers arriving at Los Angeles International Airport look for ground transportation during a statewide day of action to demand that both ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft follow California law and grant drivers 'basic employee rights' on Thursday

AB5 establishes a three-prong test requiring employers to prove contract workers are independent, meaning the laborers must be free from an organization's control or performing work outside the company's core business, which Uber and Lyft failed.

Lyft said it has advocated for a path to offer benefits including a minimum earnings guarantee and a healthcare subsidy for drivers under the status as independent contractors.

Lyft claims that California is pushing an employment model 'that four out of five drivers don't support'.

That model, Lyft says, would reduce service to passengers in suburban and rural areas, result in 80 percent of drivers losing work, capped hourly earnings, and lower-income riders en route to essential jobs and medical appointments would be faced with unaffordable prices.

Uber says that 'We remain committed to helping drivers get access to new benefits and protections without compromising the flexibility they have today'.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has cut the sod for work to begin on the Elmina Fishing Port rehabilitation and expansion project.



Under the project, existing facilities, such as the administration block, subways and workshops, will be rehabilitated and upgraded.



CoronaLife Web Series

The port will also have a new fishing harbour with a main breakwater, a lee breakwater and quay wall where larger fishing vessels will berth and offload safely, a dedicated access to the port and warehouses for storage.



Additionally, the facility will have sheds for a fish market and net mending, two cold stores, ice factories and a day care centre.



The rest are beach and coastal protection works, as well as restoration work on the Elmina Castle area to promote tourism.



Telefonica

The project will be financed with funds secured from Belgium.



Commitment



The President, who cut the sod yesterday, said similar projects had taken place in various coastal areas in fulfilment of the governments plan to construct 10 fishing and landing sites across the coastal belt of the country.



He said the government was committed to providing adequate fishing infrastructure, and mentioned Moree, Mumford, Gomoa Fetteh, Senya Breku, Winneba, Axim, Dixcove, Teshie, Jamestown and Keta as the beneficiary communities.



Kinapharma Safeway

He said when completed, the project would boost fishing and contribute significantly to the economy, while providing about 60 per cent of the nations annual protein needs.



The fishing industry provides about 11 per cent of the agricultural sectors contribution to national productivity  the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)  and also employs about 20 per cent of the country's workforce.



The government believes that more can be done in terms of the export of processed fish and other fish products. It is, therefore, essential to improve fishing infrastructure, cut down post-harvest losses and reduce fish imports, while increasing earnings on value-added fish products, he added.



President Akufo-Addo urged the chiefs and the people in the beneficiary communities to ensure the regular maintenance of the facilities when completed.



"All of us must appreciate that the deterioration of infrastructure and other assets of state is an enormous drain on the nations resources and this port must not suffer the fate of other facilities that suffer from poor maintenance culture, he said.



Appreciation



The Omanhen of the Edina Traditional Area, Nana Kwadwo Conduah, said the project had been on the areas development agenda for long and thanked the government for working towards actualising it.



The Central Regional Minister, Mr Kwamena Duncan, said the region would enjoy more development projects by the government to improve on the lot of the people.

Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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TANZANIA, Tanzania - The Trump administration on Friday dismissed near universal opposition to its demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, declaring that a 30-day countdown for the snapback of penalties eased under the 2015 nuclear deal had begun.

U.S. allies and foes have joined forces to declare the action illegal and doomed to failure, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. special envoy for Iran Brian Hook strongly disagreed and questioned the motives of those who object.

Opponents say the U.S. lost the standing to trigger snapback when President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Pompeo and Hook maintain that the United States retains that right and doesnt need permission to use it.

We dont need anyones permission, Hook told reporters in a briefing Friday. Iran is in violation of its voluntary nuclear commitments. The condition has been met to initiate snapback. And so we have now started to initiate snapback.

He said that whether people support or oppose what were doing is not material, adding that today is day one of the 30-day process.

The five countries now in dispute with the U.S. administration  Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany  remain supporters of the 2015 nuclear deal, which the Obama administration backed, to rein in Irans nuclear program and prevent its development of nuclear weapons.

The European Union announced Friday that the five nations and Iran will meet in Vienna on Sept. 1.

That agreement was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in resolution 2231, and includes the snapback provision.

Pompeo officially informed the Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday that the United States was invoking snapback, and has the legal right because the United States is mentioned as a party to the 2015 nuclear deal in resolution 2231.

The Europeans fear that the reimposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the nuclear deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons. They are hoping to preserve the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in the event President Donald Trump loses his bid for a second term. Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.

Following the meeting with Pompeo, Indonesias U.N. Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, the current council president, began one-on-one consultations with its 14 other members on the legality of the U.S. action, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.

All members, except the Dominican Republic, informed the council president that since the United States is not a party to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the Trump administrations action is illegal. Many sent letters obtained by The Associated Press.

A Security Council diplomat said the U.S. letter from Pompeo did not trigger snapback and start the 30-day process to reimpose U.N. sanctions, stressing the importance of ensuring that Iran understands this and does not make any rash decisions.

Diplomats had predicted this overwhelming opposition from council members. In these circumstances, the U.S. action would have no effect and the council president would not be required to introduce a resolution to extend sanctions relief, which would face a U.S. veto, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations have been private.

Pompeo kept up his sharp criticism of U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany, who didnt support a U.S. resolution to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran. It was resoundingly defeated a week ago, with only the Dominican Republic supporting the Trump administration.

Pompeo accused the Europeans on Thursday of privately agreeing with the U.S. on the need to extend the arms embargo, but lacking courage to say so publicly and proposing no alternatives. Instead, he said, they chose to side with ayatollahs.

On Friday, Pompeo said it was incomprehensible that the Europeans didnt support the arms embargos indefinite extension.

To side with the Russians and the Chinese on this important issue at this important moment in time at the U.N., I think, is really dangerous for the world, he told Fox News.

Hook again repeated that there was never a compromise proposal presented by any country to the United States, but diplomats said there were extensive discussions, including on a six-month or one-year extension, and on lifting the embargo and requiring all arms sales to be approved by the Security Council  but there was no agreement among its 15 members.

The Europeans are still hoping that an agreement might be reached before the Oct. 18 expiration of the Iran arms embargo that could bridge the major differences between Russia and China, who support its lifting, and the United States, which seeks an indefinite extension, the diplomats said.

Russia has been the most vocal critic of U.S. action to impose snapback.

As soon as Pompeo delivered the letter invoking snapback, Russias deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, tweeted: Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.

Pompeo expressed certainty in a Fox News interview that U.N. sanctions will be restored, saying, Russia and China can talk a good game today, but I assure you the United States will use every tool in its arsenal to make sure that the Chinese and the Russians are incapable of delivering weapon systems to Iran that threaten us.

He added, We will do everything in our power to make sure that they dont get the money that comes alongside being a global arms dealer as well.

Earlier Friday, Pompeo announced visa restrictions on 14 Iranians, including 13 officials who posed as Iranian diplomats and assassinated Iranian academic and opposition figure Kazem Rajavi in Switzerland in 1990. He was the brother of Iranian opposition leader Massoud Rajavi, who has not been seen since 2003. Pompeo also imposed restrictions on Hojatollah Khodaei Souri, director of Irans notorious Evin Prison.

___

Lee reported from Washington.
EDWARDSVILLE  The lawyer for a man facing 70 counts of violation of an order of protection claimed Thursday that his client was never properly served with the order.

However the judge in the case heard a recording of a telephone conversation in which defendant Michael Consiglio said, They just gave me an order of protection, so I guess I cant call (the victim) anymore.

Madison County Deputy Lt. Tim Hernandez testified that he gave the order to Consiglio while he was locked in a holding cell at the Madison County Jail. Consiglio is being held without bail. He made the alleged calls from his jail cell.

The order was signed in April, but Consiglio was not served with notice of it until May 20 after he was arrested and held in the Madison County Jail without bail

At a previous probable cause hearing a deputy testified Consiglio is charged with aggravated domestic battery for allegedly choking a victim on April 7. He was also charged with a Feb. 28 domestic battery in New Orleans.

Officer Jeremy Coppotelli testified Consiglio was also charged with aggravated domestic battery as a result of an April 27 incident in which police arrived at the Glen Carbon home to see four young children crying and screaming, stating their mother was beaten.

Coppotelli said the victim was found lying in a pool of blood and suffered three fractures to bones in her face and a fracture to her finger.

A sworn statement alleges the victim was barely conscious and breathing. Her face was covered in blood, and she was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Coppotelli testified previously that Consiglio used a Madison County Jail cell mates phone to call his former girlfriend and order her to stay home and not talk to anybody. The officer said Consiglio blamed the victim for his confinement.

Assistant Madison County States Attorney Phil Voss said that Consiglio has been blocked from calling the victim. He said the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled authorities cannot forbid prisoners from using the telephone.

Consiglio has a record dating to 2007 when he was convicted of felony theft. He also has convicted for theft, attempted burglary, two counts of violation of probation. He served 30 months in prison for a 2009 theft charge and four years in prison for a 2011 burglary conviction.

He also has two prior convictions for domestic battery and three counts of probation violation. He has two misdemeanor domestic battery convictions, a misdemeanor battery conviction and a conviction for driving under the influence. He is currently on probation for driving under the influence.
Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Navalnys physician in Moscow, earlier dismissed the idea that it would be dangerous to move the patient. He told The Associated Press that being on a plane with specialized equipment, including a ventilator and a machine that can do the work of the heart and lungs, can be even safer than staying in a hospital in Omsk.
United Nations: US allies Britain, France, Germany reject Trump administration's demand to restore UN sanctions on Iran.

A security council meeting at United Nations. Credit:AP

The United States moved to restore all UN sanctions on Iran on Thursday, arguing Tehran was in violation of a nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015 even though Washington itself abandoned that agreement two years ago.

The United States submitted a letter to the 15-member UN Security Council alleging Iranian non-compliance, in theory starting a 30-day process that could lead to the "snapback" of UN sanctions even though major powers like Russia reject the US stance and say they will not restore the penalties.

Reuters, AP
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced Friday that the citys public schools will begin the new academic year with a phased-in approach, though the year will start with remote learning.

Though all schools will start online, there is a plan to bring students back to buildings for a hybrid learning model in waves in October and November, Walsh said during a press conference.

This is not a decision where theres a consensus, said Walsh, adding that a survey of parents indicated divided results about whether students should return to school buildings. About 8,000 responded, Walsh said.

The phased approach will allow teachers to feel comfortable being back in school buildings before students arrive, Walsh said.

Walsh said that if the citys positive coronavirus test rate hits 4%, students will have to switch back to remote learning.

Previously, the district announced that its first day of school was being pushed back to Sept. 21 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Remote learning begins for all students on Sept. 21. Then, on Oct. 1, students with the highest needs can start in hybrid learning.

For other students, the first day of hybrid learning varies based on students grades and groups.

On Oct. 15 and 19, kindergarten students are expected to return to school. Then on Oct. 22 and 26, grades one, two and three can return.

Grades four through eight will go back to class on Nov. 5 and 9, Walsh said. Grades nine through 12 will go back on Nov. 16 and 19.

The bottom line is we need to contain this virus and keep our community safe, Walsh said. If we want to have in-school learning this year, that is one of the most important things we can do.

Parents who do not want children to return to class buildings will have the choice to keep a student at home, Walsh said.

This has been summer like no other. No other because were reinventing public education and working toward a responsible and safe and successful start to the school year amid so much uncertainty, Superintendent Brenda Cassellius. Were also navigating uncharted waters and trying to make the best and safest decision for our community ... but were moving forward because we know that the best place for a child is in their classroom with their teacher.

Cassellius said officials have put in hundreds of hours preparing for the year.

Boston Public Schools is the largest school district in Massachusetts, with more than 50,000 students enrolled in grades pre-kindergarten through 12th grade last year across more than 100 schools.

The districts remote learning plan calls for students to learn online Monday through Friday in virtual classrooms with a mix of large group and small group instruction and projects.

Students will be able to access physical education, arts and enrichment with the online learning plan, the district said. There will also be support through training, conferencing and virtual home visits and regular check-ins for families.

The hybrid plan calls for three days of online learning for students a week, with a mix of large group and small group instruction and projects, access to physical education, arts and enrichment, and meals provided at school.

Cassellius said families will be able to change from the hybrid or remote learning plans if they choose.

Walsh thanked parents for their patience, teachers for their work in online learning and staff for their commitment.

Cassellius thanked employees as well.

Equity must be at the forefront, Walsh said.

For many of our students, school is their safety, Walsh said. We need to provide quality education in whatever format is required.

Cassellius said the district is evaluating its plans through a lens of equity and anti-racism.

Over the last several months we have witnessed the inequities that already existed in our community become exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cassellius said. In addition, across the country and around the globe, a cultural reckoning has demanded that all of us, including educators, address the racial injustice that has permeated every corner of our society, including public education.

There will be appropriate services for English language learners and students with disabilities, Cassellius said, and IEPs and 504 plans will be implemented. The city has committed to providing 2,500 families with home broadband through the digital equity fund, Cassellius said. Each school will have a technology coordinator stipend to help assist with the coordination of new devices and home internet, the superintended added.

Each student will have a tech check-up before school begins, she said.

Worcester and Springfield are also starting the new year with online learning.

Related Content:
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 16:55:22|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has urged universities to keep reopening their campuses, despite reports of COVID-19 cluster outbreaks among students across the country.

The virus is very dangerous for older people, "but for university students the likelihood of severe illness is less than or equal to the risk of a seasonal flu," Trump was quoted by CNBC as saying.

However, some universities are rethinking their plans to reopen for the fall semester after several outbreaks emerged soon after students returned to campus. The universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Notre Dame, and Michigan State University, have decided in succession to halt the majority of in-person classes for the fall.

"Instead of saving lives, the decision to close universities could cost lives. It is significantly safer for students to live with other young people than to go home and spread the virus to older Americans," Trump said.

The number of COVID-19 cases among young people in the United States has increased sharply recently. Leading experts told Xinhua on Wednesday that factors including high COVID-19 infections among adults, increasing gatherings among teenagers and returning to school during the pandemic, may be contributing toward the high infection rates. Enditem
The Trump administration will be resetting the sanctions for nuclear production. The continuance of the nuclear submarine engine program will raise the danger of rogue nations getting it.

The threat of the U.S. rebooting the sanctions that prevent the Iranians to acquire weapons has the majority of senior lawmakers give the go signal to increase nuclear production. After the denial to extend the embargo, the Americans voiced dissatisfaction at the decision to let the embargo end, reported Newsweek.

One of the threats aired if the sanctions are rebooted is the scientists of Iran will develop nuclear sub engines if the five-year deal would be negated by U.S. muscling other members.

According to the Iranian body concerned with national security and foreign policymaking, they sent out a press brief that has seven points of contention. One of them is Iran's winnability in a diplomatic dispute that if the American's have the power to negate the 2015 nuclear deal which dropped in 2018. Secondly, they struck out at the unwarranted snapback trigger option that will reinstate pre-deal conditions.

In the statement that mentioned the Iran Atomic Energy Organization to reset all prior activity and progress that was existent before the accord called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was formulated. Part of it is reactivating all the devices that were used to process radioactive materials. These materials will be used to equip the Iranian Navy, plus other applications.

Also read: Trump Orders Navy to Destroy Iranian Vessels Which Threatens US, Iran Says They'll Crush Them

Members of the navy have asked for the construction and building of nuclear submarines that will make the U.S. military warier when operating in the Gulf of Persia. Over the years, Tehran and Washington have been at loggerheads, not just now. Iranians have actively said accusations of weaponizing nuclear supplies is an outright lie. They have admitted that nuclear power was for powering ships, not for weapons.

From the evidence gathered, Iran has one of the most lethal arsenals of advance and conventional missiles in the Middle East. Their forces are set on bolstering their naval and surface to air defensive systems, should they come against the U.S. or any other power on Earth. Iran intends on having weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should their back be against the wall.

Last Friday, the U.S. was denied the extension of the sanctions in the U.N. Security Council with the Dominican Republic as the only one who backed the extension. If the deal was acceptable to all members, the U.S. would have won an important victory but Russia and China did not support the proposal. Among other members, France, Germany, the UK had refrained from voting.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "That a time,when the 15 members failure to act decisively in defense of international peace and security is inexcusable. He cited support from Israel and six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, though Qatar has since announced its opposition to the weapons restrictions."

With the U.S. isolated in the outcome, and a threat of a return to pre-sanction conditions is called illegal by the Iranian permanent representative, Majid Takht-Ravanchi. If the Americans want a revert, then more nuclear production will follow.

Related article: Iranian Revolutionary Guard Fires Missiles Against Dummy US Aircraft Carrier

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Efforts are on to rescue nine employees trapped inside after a fire broke out at TS Genco's underground hydroelectric power station at Srisailam left bank canal in on Friday.

Personnel from the Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and experts from Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) joined the rescue operations.

The fire, which broke out late on Thursday, was brought under control by the firefighters but thick smoke was hampering rescue operations.

A short circuit is believed to have caused the fire at unit one of the under-tunnel power house. Of the 30 persons reported to be present at the spot during the accident, 21 escaped through a tunnel.

Those trapped inside include six State Power Generation Corporation (TS Genco) employees and three private company employees.

One of the survivors said the sparks were first noticed on a panel. "This was followed by a series of explosions. There was utter chaos and we all ran out for safety."

energy minister Jagadish Reddy and TS Genco and Transco Chairman and Managing Director Prabhakar Rao rushed to the spot and were overseeing the rescue efforts.

Reddy said that the mishap occurred in the first unit of the power station and four panels were damaged. He said that rescue personnel were unable to enter the tunnel due to thick smoke.

"As soon as the fire started, they tried to trip the units but that did not happen. So we isolated the 400 KV input and all units were tripped," said Prabhakar Rao.

Power generation operations at the power station have been suspended following the incident.

The Srisailam dam is located across the Krishna river which serves as the border between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao expressed shock over the fire at the Srisailam power generation plant. The chief minister spoke to Jagdish Reddy and Prabhakar Rao and reviewed the relief measures.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was scheduled to visit Srisailam on Friday, cancelled his visit in view of the fire. He expressed shock over the incident and hoped that the trapped people are rescued. Jagan Mohan Reddy assured all support from Andhra Pradesh in the rescue operations.

--IANS

ms/avk/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.)
WATERLOO REGION  Catholic schools will welcome elementary students back to class gradually in September, under a proposal to stagger start dates.

We know that our youngest students will benefit from a little more time to get acclimatized to their new routines, said Loretta Notten, director of education for the Catholic board. So we will transition them in two grades at a time, day by day, starting with our youngest.

Grades 1 and 2 would start school on Tuesday Sept. 8, grades 3 and 4 on Wednesday, grades 5 and 6 on Thursday, and grades 7 and 8 on Friday.

Kindergarten children already have staggered start dates.

Its better, we believe, for our little ones to have as much time as possible and maybe ... a little more adult support to be introduced to the new expectations in their classrooms, said Notten.

The board began to consider staggered start dates earlier this week, after the province issued a memo Aug. 18, allowing staggered reopenings.

Catholic high school and elementary students who have opted to learn remotely will likely start school on Sept. 14. The later start date gives the board time to create timetables and scheduling for remote classes and organize staffing.

We need time to reschedule and reconfigure our virtual school, said Notten.

The staggered start applies only to elementary students going to school in person. High school students going back to class for face-to-face learning will all start school on Sept. 8. These students will alternate between in-person classes and remote learning.

School board trustees will consider the proposed staggered starts at a meeting Monday night, after which the board expects to communicate start dates to parents next week. Schools will also be in touch with students about start dates, said Notten.

RELATED STORIES Waterloo Region Waterloo Region public trustees vote to have all students wear masks in schools

The Waterloo Region District School Board has yet to decide on staggered starts.

We are investigating our options regarding a staggered start for students, as it will help us in introducing and implementing our new health and safety procedures and routines for our students, said board spokesperson Alana Russell.

The public board will contact staff and student families to explain details when they are confirmed.
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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CLAIM: Bidens tax rate on a family making $75,000 dollars a year would go from 12% to 25%.

THE FACTS: False posts circulating on Facebook and Twitter claim that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has proposed a staggering tax increase for families making $75,000 a year. A current federal tax rate of 12 per cent applies to families making up to $80,000, or individuals making up to $40,000. That would still apply under Biden, who has vowed publicly not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. Nobody making under $400,000 bucks would have their taxes raised. Period. Bingo, Biden said in an interview on CNBC in May. Biden has proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 per cent. He has also proposed a 12.4 per cent Social Security tax for income above $400,000, in addition to rolling back the 2018 tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law for those making $400,000 or more. An analysis of his tax plan performed by University of Pennsylvanias Penn Wharton Budget Model in March found that the bottom 90 per cent of income earners would not pay more in federal income taxes under Bidens proposal. Another analysis of Bidens tax plan by the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan think-tank in Washington, D.C., predicted a slight increase for the bottom 99 per cent of earners. On average, the report said earners in varying brackets could pay between an extra $30 to $590, as a result of Bidens tax plan. But that increase, the Tax Policy Center said, would not be the result of Biden directly raising taxes on those earners. Instead, the Tax Policy Center predicted workers would indirectly pay more because of Bidens plan to increase the corporate tax, a cost which some employers could pass along in ways to their own employees.

 Amanda Seitz reported this item from Chicago.

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CLAIM: Vice-President Mike Pence said he will not debate Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

THE FACTS: There is no evidence to support a widely viewed social media post stating Pence said he wont debate Kamala! In fact, after Biden announced Harris as his running mate, Pence indicated enthusiasm to face off at their scheduled debate on Oct. 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah. So my message to the Democratic candidate for vice-president: Congratulations  Ill see you in Salt Lake City, Pence said on Aug. 11 in front of a crowd of supporters in Arizona. The next day on Fox News, Pence brought up his upcoming debate against Harris again. I think she is a skilled debater, Pence told host Sean Hannity. But I cant wait to get to Salt Lake City and be on the stage with her to compare Joe Bidens nearly 50 years in public life, the agenda of the radical left, the agenda that she has embraced throughout her political career, with the results of this president and this administration.

-- Jude Joffe-Block reported this item from Berkeley, California.

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CLAIM: Three photos spreading on social media show that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker did not wear masks at a rally together, revealing their hypocrisy during the coronavirus pandemic.

THE FACTS: The photos were taken at a campaign rally in Detroit on March 9. That was before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending Americans wear masks and before Michigan announced its first presumptive positive coronavirus case. The photos, which show Biden, Harris, Whitmer and Booker standing next to each other addressing a large crowd without face masks, were shared widely on social media during the Democratic National Convention. One photo shows Whitmer embracing Biden onstage. Dozens of posts featuring the photos accused the politicians of advising constituents to wear masks and engage in social distancing measures during the coronavirus pandemic, while disregarding their own recommendations. Not a mask in sight, Governor, read one Facebook post viewed more than 50,000 times. Tell me again why you are trying to force Michigan to wear one. But an internet search for Michigan events attended by the four politicians reveals the photos were taken on March 9, at a Detroit rally on the eve of the states primary election. Associated Press photos of the event show the setting and the clothing worn by the politicians match the photos currently spreading on social media. Michigan did not announce its first presumptive positive case of the coronavirus until a day later, on March 10. It wasnt until early April that the CDC began advising all Americans to wear cloth face coverings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to reporting by the AP. All four politicians have been photographed wearing face masks in public settings in recent months.

 Ali Swenson reported this item from Seattle.

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CLAIM: The argument that Americans rely on the United States Postal Service for Social Security benefits is invalid because the Social Security Administration stopped mailing paper checks in 2013.

THE FACTS: The SSA encourages Americans to create digital accounts and receive their benefits electronically, but hundreds of thousands of users still count on the Postal Service to get their checks every month. As lawmakers in Washington fought with the president over funding for the Postal Service ahead of an election that will likely involve unprecedented levels of mail-in voting, several politicians pointed out that Americans rely on the mail for essential services such as Social Security. Democrats doubled down on that argument during the first night of the Democratic National Convention, with host Eva Longoria Baston saying, Social Security beneficiaries count on the post office to get their checks. Conservative websites and social media users quickly pushed back on those claims, pointing to a 2013 initiative by the U.S. Department of the Treasury that was meant to phase out paper checks and transition them to all-electronic delivery. I wonder if CNN will fact check itself, read one Instagram post with a video clip from the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Social Security stopped sending paper checks in 2013 Its true that there was a federal government initiative to move toward electronic payments in 2013, and the vast majority of Social Security recipients receive electronic payments. But the SSA confirmed to The Associated Press in an email that hundreds of thousands of Americans still rely on the Postal Service to get their checks. Currently, the Social Security Administration pays approximately 71.6 million (98.8%) Social Security and SSI benefits electronically per month and mails nearly 850,000 (1.2%) per month, wrote Mark Hinkle, acting press officer for the agency. The SSA also mails millions of paper statements every year to workers aged 60 and older who do not receive Social Security benefits and dont have digital accounts.

 Ali Swenson

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CLAIM: Locked mailboxes in front of a post office in Burbank, California, are proof that massive voter suppression is underway ahead of the election.

THE FACTS: The boxes were locked to prevent theft, Postal Service officials said. Social media users are sharing photos of locked mailboxes in front of the Downtown Station post office in Burbank, California, suggesting the move is to suppress voting in upcoming elections. Spread this far and wide! This is massive voter suppression happening in front of us! The Post Office in Burbank, CA. All outdoor boxes locked shut. The entrance to the Post Office is locked and you cant mail a letter? the post on Facebook with the photo of the locked boxes said. A Postal Service official told the AP that anti-theft locking devices were placed on the boxes in front of the Burbank Post Office to deter mail theft. The are locked during the hours the post office is closed. The use of Collection Box Anti-theft locking devices, such as at the Burbank Post Office, have been in place since approximately 2016 and this device was developed as a mail theft deterrent, said Evelina Ramirez, a Postal Service spokeswoman. The locks are placed on the boxes after the last collection of the day and removed at the start of then next business day. Ramirez said openings on the back of the box allow for mail to be deposited into the collection box, while the locks on the front are designed to keep mail from being removed. A video online of the locked boxes circulating on Twitter shows the letter opening on the back of the locked USPS collection boxes. The posts online come as concerns grow that the Trump administration is working to undermine the Postal Service before the election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday called Congress back into session to address concerns.

 Beatrice Dupuy reported this item from New York.

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CLAIM: There was fraud in Michigans Aug. 4 statewide primary election because deceased people cast ballots, and 8% of all votes cast were rejected because the voter was dead.

THE FACTS: Michigan election authorities have not found any evidence votes were cast on behalf of dead people in the Aug. 4 primary election. Rather, a small portion of voters who had cast absentee ballots died before Election Day. Those ballots were disqualified. They represented 8% of all rejected absentee ballots, not 8% of all ballots cast. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said last week that 10,694 absentee ballots were disqualified in the states recent primary. About 8% of those rejected ballots, 846, were rejected because the voters died after casting their absentee ballot but before Election Day, according to an Aug. 14 press release from Bensons office. We get monthly updates from the Social Security Administration that allows us to update the qualified voter file with the list of everyone who is deceased, Bensons spokesperson Tracy Wimmer told the AP. Wimmer said that the voters in question were eligible to vote when they requested their absentee ballots but died in the period before Election Day. She said the fact that her office caught and rejected those ballots during the verification process validates that the system works. Still, facts about Michigan voting were twisted on social media. BREAKING: MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD IN MICHIGAN PRIMARY, read one popular but misleading Instagram post. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a Breitbart article headlined, Michigan Rejects 846 Mailed Ballots Because the Voter Was Dead, and added the inaccurate claim, Hey, it was only about 8% of the votes cast which I imagine are amateur numbers for the democrats in places like Michigan. In 2016, an even larger number of absentee ballots  around 1,700  were disqualified in Michigan because the voter died before Election Day, according to Wimmer. There wasnt evidence of fraud then, and theres not evidence of fraud now, she told the AP.

 Jude Joffe-Block

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CLAIM: Guinness World Records certified that the boat parade supporting President Trump in Clearwater, Florida, was the largest boat parade in history.

THE FACTS: The Guinness World Records told The Associated Press on Monday that the application for the Clearwater boat parade supporting Trump is still being reviewed. It could take up to 15 weeks to confirm whether it broke the current record. The parade of boats, most flying pro-Trump and U.S. flags, began near Clearwater on Saturday, Aug. 15. Parade organizers were hoping to break world records. This is gonna be the MOAB Mother of all Boat ParadesThe current world record according to Guinness Book of World Records was achieved in Malaysia in 2014 and had a recorded 1,180 boats, the organizers website, Conservative Grounds, stated. In honour of the 45th President Donald J. Trump we will beat the world record in his name. Social media users falsely claimed on social media that the boat parade already broke records: Guiness Book of World Records certified that todays Trump boat parade was the largest boat parade in history. Clearwater, Florida, said one Facebook user. The post had more than 1,000 shares. Officials at Guinness World Records said they are examining whether the Trump boat parade was the largest, a process that could take weeks. We can confirm we have received an application for this title and attempt. We are currently awaiting evidence to review, Amanda Marcus, public relations manager at Guinness World Records, told the AP in an email. Our standard application review process can take up to 12-15 weeks of submission. Once received and reviewed, our Records Management Team will then confirm the success or failure of the record attempt, Marcus said. The largest parade on record occurred on Sept. 13, 2014, during Malaysia Day celebrations in the Kemaman District of Terengganu, Malaysia. There were 1,180 boats in the parade.

 Arijeta Lajka reported this item from New York.

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Linkedin Angela Ukomadu and Alexis Akwagyiram (Reuters)  Fri, August 21, 2020 17:34 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f9cc22 2 Entertainment Nigeria,lesbian,LGBT,Movie,Ife,Censorship Free

Two young women fill the screen, reclining on a bed, talking about their hope of having children. They are protagonists in a new Nigerian film called "Ife" depicting their love story.

The topic is controversial in Nigeria, where same-sex relationships are theoretically punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Producer Pamela Adie said "Ife" - which means "love" in the Yoruba language widely spoken in southwest Nigeria - would be released online to avoid any possible move by censors to ban it.

"I really feel that the censors board is playing a big part in stopping these kinds of stories from coming to the big screen... and it is just really stifling creativity," said Adie, who declined to provide a release date.

The National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) did not respond to requests for comment.

A trailer released online in July shows the women discussing their love and, as one character phrased it, the fear of being forced to choose between your family and happiness.

Read also: Pixars latest short film Out features first gay main character

"The role of film is not to say 'this is right, or not'. I think that the role of film, and a filmmaker, is to portray reality as it is," said Adie.

Nobody has yet been convicted under the law banning same-sex relationships, which came into effect in 2014. But the case of 47 men charged last year with public displays of affection is being closely watched.

Many people in Nigeria are socially conservative and some religious groups brand same-sex relationships as a corrupting Western import.

Gay rights activists say the law has been used to extort bribes in exchange for not pursuing charges.

Despite the fear that the law engenders, Uzoamaka Aniunoh - one of the actors - said "Ife" offers a glimpse into the everyday lives of people in same-sex relationships.

"I don't feel like it is bold. I feel like it is ordinary," she said.

Topics : Nigeria lesbian LGBT Movie Ife Censorship
LINDSAY  City of Kawartha Lakes Police have released few details after making an arrest in a murder plot investigation.

Police said Friday they made the arrest on Thursday after launching an investigation earlier this month into threats reported to have been made to a person.

The arrested man was charged with two counts of counselling to commit murder.

He was detained in custody for a bail hearing.

Police did not name the man, or give his age and hometown, to protect the identity of the threatened person.

Police did not disclose what relationship the man had with the threatened person.
Umar Ahmed Haque, 25, a former Islamic studies teacher at the Lantern of Knowledge Educational Trust in east London, was charged with disseminating terrorist material to children in 2018 and now the charity running the school has been given an official warning by the Charity Commission

A charity watchdog has warned a London Islamic private school after it allowed a teacher to show children a pro-ISIS video.

Umar Ahmed Haque, 25, an Islamic studies teacher at the Lantern of Knowledge Muslim Boys School in Leyton, east London, between 2015 and 2016 was charged with disseminating terrorist material to children.

Haque was jailed in March 2018 for life with a minimum term of 25 years after an Old Bailey jury heard he had trained a 'mini militia' of children for terrorist attacks.

The charity that runs the school has now been given an official warning by the Charity Commission (CC), while the trustees have been found responsible for mismanagement and misconduct.

The CC's report into the charity states: 'The public rightly expect charities, particularly those working with children and young people, to be safe places, free from abuse or harm.

'In light of individual A's (Haque's) actions, this was not the case within this charity.'

Hague's conviction in 2018 was for a number of terrorism offences unrelated to the charity, but Haque did admit playing an IS film to pupils at the Lantern of Knowledge fee-paying school in Leyton where he had worked.

During his criminal trial, despite saying he showed the schoolchildren a video relating to IS, Haque pleaded not guilty to the charges and the jury could not reach a verdict.

The charity that runs the school (pictured) has now been given an official warning by the Charity Commission, while the trustees have been found responsible for mismanagement and misconduct

By showing the children in his class a pro-IS video, Haque 'grossly abused the position of trust he held at the charity', the CC found.

They said he exploited a chance to show the children, who were in the charity's care, the video which promoted the ideology and tactics of a proscribed terrorist organisation.

The jury at his Old Bailey trial heard Haque was an IS fanatic who planned to use guns and a car bomb to strike 30 high-profile targets including Big Ben, the Queen's Guard and Westfield shopping centre.

He enlisted helpers at the Ripple Road mosque in Barking, east London, where he secretly brainwashed 16 children as young as 11 through terrorism role play and exercises, the court heard.

Umar Ahmed Haque, 25,(seen in a sketch from the Old Bailey on January 16) allegedly planned atrocities across London

The boys were left 'traumatised' from being shown gory IS propaganda by Haque.

The CC investigation also looked at why the school plunged from being rated 'outstanding' in 2015 to the lowest grade possible of 'inadequate' in the independent school standards figures.

It criticised the trustees for not addressing the decline in standards and also for failing to comply with the charity's own governing document and internal policies.

The CC report states there have been improvements in the charity's governance and safeguarding procedures.

The trustees have also made progress and acted to address weaknesses identified by independent reviews that they instigated, it adds.

Tim Hopkins, the CC's assistant director for investigations and inquiries, condemned Haque's action at the charity as 'appalling', and said the charity trustees are expected to 'learn' from the failings it had identified.

Saying the trustees would be 'closely' monitored, he added: 'It is completely unacceptable for any charity to be associated with terrorism and we are concerned by the corrosive effect this might have on public confidence in this and other charities.

'Charities should lead the way in taking public expectations seriously and be distinct from other types of organisations in their attitude and behaviour, their motivations and methods.'
Kate Garraway has said she is taking a week off to help her son Billy, 11, get ready for secondary school and to look after her husband Derek Draper.

The Good Morning Britain presenter, 53, who had returned to her hosting duties amid Derek's battle with coronavirus, also thanked viewers for their ongoing support.

Kate admitted it has been a 'challenging time' as she showed her gratitude to her ITV 'family', who she revealed have been 'amazing' throughout the ordeal.

Taking time away: Kate Garraway has said she is taking a week off to help her son Billy, 11, get ready for secondary school and to look after her husband Derek Draper

Kate's husband Derek has been in hospital since March slowly recovering from his battle with Covid-19 and she was able to visit him for the first time last week.

Explaining that she would be taking some time off, Kate said: 'I'm actually not here next week, I'm taking a bit of time off to help Billy get sorted for secondary school and Darcey as well get ready for school. And also Derek, look after things on that.

Showing her appreciation, she added: 'I just want to say thank you to all of you for absolutely being brilliant since I've come back through challenging times. Everyone here, you, Ben, everyone on screen and off screen you've been amazing.'

Thank you! The Good Morning Britain presenter, 53, who had returned to her hosting duties amid Derek's battle with coronavirus, also thanked viewers for their ongoing support

Support: Kate's husband Derek has been in hospital since March slowly recovering from his battle with Covid-19 and she was able to visit him for the first time last week

'Everyone talks about ITV and TV being a brutal business and it's not, it's a proper family you've all been amazing. Thank you so much.'

Kate's co-host, who was making his presenting debut on the show, replied: 'You know that we love you and we've all got your back on this show.

Handing over to Andi Peters who is standing in for Lorraine Kelly, she said: 'Well you've all been fantastic. And Andi, you've been one of those who has always had my back haven't you Andi, all the way.'

Challenging: Kate admitted it has been a 'challenging time' as she showed her gratitude to her ITV 'family', who she revealed have been 'amazing' throughout the ordeal

Explaining that she would be taking some time off, Kate said: 'I'm actually not here next week, I'm taking a bit of time off to help Billy get sorted for secondary school and Darcey as well get ready for school'

On Thursday, Kate revealed that she was publishing a self-help book which would include 'insights' on how she has coped with her husband's illness.

Kate sparked hope earlier this month by revealing he has awoken from a coma but the star has been told his recovery could take years.

Earlier this month Kate revealed she paid an 'extra emotional' first visit to Derek, as he continues to slowly recover from COVID-19.

Showing her appreciation, she added: 'I just want to say thank you to all of you for absolutely being brilliant since I've come back through challenging times'
KYODO NEWS - Aug 21, 2020 - 06:55 | World, All, Coronavirus

Indonesia and China agreed Thursday that a Chinese pharmaceutical company working with a state-owned Indonesian drugmaker will send up to 40 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine to the Southeast Asian county starting in November.

The agreement was announced by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in a virtual press conference after a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

"A commitment was agreed on the supply of vaccine bulk up to 40 million doses from November 2020 to March 2021," Retno told reporters, saying the agreement was signed between Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. and Indonesia's PT Bio Farma.

Since last week, Indonesia has been conducting the final, phase 3 clinical testing for the COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung.

The trial is taking place with the cooperation of Sinovac, which developed the vaccine candidate, with support from Bio Pharma and a team of Indonesian scientists and researchers.

Once clinical testing is completed, massive vaccine production will begin immediately and is expected to reach a level of 250 million doses annually, paving the way to offering immunity to the public.

During a visit to China, Retno and Erick Thohir, chief of the Committee for COVID-19 Mitigation and National Economic Recovery, also met with officials of other Chinese pharmaceutical companies, including Sinopharm Group Ltd. and CanSino Biologics Inc. to discuss possible cooperation in developing vaccines.

Retno said Indonesia is also in talks with other stakeholders outside China in efforts to get enough vaccine for the country's 270 million people amid tough competition for supplies.

As of Thursday noon, Indonesia reported 2,266 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases to 147,211 with 6,418 fatalities.
Cheyenne Hopkins

Cheyenne Hopkins, senior VP for PA strategy at the Bank Policy Institute, has joined FTI Consulting's strategic communications unit in Washington.

The 18-year financial PR/PA veteran will help clients with crisis response, litigation, regulatory matters and media relations.

Prior to the BPI trade group, Hopkins was senior VP-financial services policy & capital markets at Edelman, where she counseled banks, private equity/hedge funds, insurance companies and fintech firms.

Hopkins also reported for Bloomberg, American Banker and Reuters. She covered key stories surrounding the 2008 financial crisis and the 2010 implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act.

At FTI, she reports to Colleen Hsia, senior managing director and head of Americas financial services at the stratcomm group.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations children's agency have urged African governments to promote the safe reopening of schools during the coronavirus pandemic.

They say prolonged closure of schools is harmful to students and want governments to invest in sanitation facilities to prevent the spread of coronavirus in learning institutions.



The two organizations said students are being exposed to poor nutrition, teenage pregnancies and violence during this extended stay-at-home period.



Schools in Africa are a "safe haven" for children, according to the WHO Regional Director Matshidiso Moeti.



"We must not be blind-sided by our efforts to contain Covid-19 and end up with a lost generation. Just as countries are opening businesses safely, we can reopen schools," she said during a virtual press briefing on Thursday.



The long closure of schools poses a risk to the future of children and their communities, according to Unicef Regional Director Mohamed Fall.



Only six African countries have fully opened schools, according to a survey of 39 countries by the WHO and Unicef.



Some countries reopened schools and closed them soon after because of a surge in coronavirus cases.



Others have reopened for final year students to sit for crucial examinations.



Countries like Kenya have completely scrapped the 2020 academic 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.

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The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Campaign Council for the Ondo State governorship election, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, has explained why he believes the ruling party will win on October 10.

Mr Sanwo-Olu spoke with journalists on Thursday at Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja according to a report by The Nation newspaper.

The campaign chairman said the incumbent governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, who is seeking re-election, has performed well to win again with a landslide victory.

The partys confidence is buoyed by the giant strides of Governor Akeredolu in different areas of human endeavours.

Mr Sanwo-Olu said the incumbent governor has moved Ondo from her hitherto parlous state and returned it to a trajectory of growth and development.

This is a major feature of our party. We pride ourselves as harbinger of peace, progress and purposeful leadership wherever we have our foothold.

He disclosed that he remained confident of victory against the other 16 candidates from other political parties.

He also criticised the administration of former governor, Olusegun Mimiko.

The people of Ondo were dissatisfied with Irokos eight years of motion without movement so they decided to give the progressives the opportunity and so far, Governor Akeredolu has done very well. He has impacted meaningfully on the lives of the poor masses, the middle class as well as the upper class of Ondo residents. In fact, his sterling performance has made our job a lot easier.

Asked for his message to the opposition parties, Mr Sanwo-Olu urged the parties to desist from wasting their time.

He, however, said no party would be taken for granted.

They should really not waste their time. But election is something that is not over until it is all over, so we are not going to take anybody for granted. We are going for an election and it is going to be issues based. We will ensure that we campaign on the platform for the people and citizens of Ondo State to see the need why they need to continue with the progressive government that they have, he said. We are on the march to victory in Ondo State.

Although over a dozen parties will take part in the election, there are three major contenders for the race. They are Mr Akeredolu of the APC, Eyitayo Jegede of the PDP and Agboola Ajayi of the ZLP.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:48:49|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- At least eight people, including a one-year-old baby, were killed and 27 others were injured on Friday morning after a bus overturned on a steep slope in Tanzania's northwestern region of Kagera, said police.

Revocatus Malimi, the Kagera regional police commander, told Xinhua by phone that seven of the victims died on the spot and one died in hospital while receiving treatment.

He said the bus overturned at 5: 45 a.m. local time after the driver failed to negotiate a sharp corner on the steep slope.

"After the driver had failed to negotiate the corner, the bus overturned before it was stuck on rocks that prevented it from falling further down," said Malimi.

He said five of the 27 injured passengers were in critical condition with fractured limbs and bruises, adding that the bus was heading to Mwanza city from Kagera region. Enditem
The release of antibody-based serological surveillance studies from Delhi and Pune have revealed high rates of viral dissemination in the urban populations. Delhis recently completed repeat survey, which took place in July-August , reported that 28.3% of Delhis residents had tested positive for anti-Covid-19 antibodies. This indicated a rise from the previously reported figure of 23.4% a month earlier. A survey conducted during the same period in five highly affected wards of Pune reported a prevalence of 51.5%. A sewage sampling study, of viruses excreted in faeces, estimated that 6.6% of the population in Hyderabad were probably infected.

Follow latest updates on Covid-19 here

The exact number of persons infected, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, is uncertain as the antibody tests can yield false positive tests due to cross-reactive antibodies produced by other coronaviruses. The false positivity rates get amplified when mass surveys are done, due to variable rates of pre-test probability between the hospital cases and the general population (Bayes Theorem). To some extent, the false positives may be balanced by false negative results in persons who were infected early in the epidemic, as the antibody levels decline in about three months.

Despite these uncertainties, we may assume that at a fifth of Delhis population may be already infected, if not a fourth. Even in other big cities, a far higher number of persons would have been infected than identified by viral testing methods (Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction and Rapid Antigen Tests). While debates continue on how short these numbers are from the herd immunity threshold, there are pertinent questions on how this information affects our reliance on some widely used statistical measures for tracking the course of the epidemic.

Also read| Covid-19: What you need to know today

The popular measure is for infectivity in the population R, expressed as Ro or Rt. The number provides an estimate of how many others are infected by an infected person. The number used in the initial part of the epidemic is Ro. This assumes that everyone in the population is equally susceptible and derives its estimates from the numbers of cases and deaths being reported. However, susceptibility varies over time as some people get infected and recover and are presumed to be no longer susceptible. So a different number (Rt) is used when the epidemic advances and estimates of numbers recovered are also available. Though this is called effective R (Re) by some, the term Rt is more conventionally used.

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However, both these estimates of R are dependent on testing rates and other diagnostic criteria employed to identify cases. Infected individuals who are asymptomatic and untested do not enter into these calculations. The antibody tests now tell us that these missed numbers are far higher than conventionally identified cases. So, the total numbers of infected and recovered persons are very difficult to estimate and the reported statistics are at a far distance from the actual. The numbers of infected, untested and recovered persons will vary from location to location in the country, and even within a state or city. Therefore, we cannot even assume a uniform or constant ratio of diagnosed to undiagnosed persons who were infected and have recovered, from estimates provided by an antibody survey in a part of the population. A generally applicable correction factor is not possible to use, given such variability from place to place and over time. So, how much reliance should we place on the estimated R (even when measured as Rt) when the epidemic is advancing?

Also read: Covid-19 vaccine deals in the works with candidates, producers says Harsh Vardhan

The value of R will vary with the freedom the virus has to move in a population. It is higher in a crowded location-- especially an urban indoor one. It will be lower in a rural area where people are more mobile and meet in open areas. To derive a single value for a state, with a collage of urban and rural populations, is untenable. The added uncertainty, of the numbers infected but untested, makes it even more imprecise to draw conclusions on the changing rates of infectivity in any state just based on estimated R values.

The same problem arises with the Doubling Time, or Doubling Rate, which has been popular on the social media. It has also been referred to by our officials to report progress. However, it must be noted that the US, where the epidemic has been raging, now has a doubling rate four times higher than Indias. That demonstrates the effect of the high cumulative base count. When the base count rises to a high number, its doubling time takes longer than when the count was low. Even if we consider only the time taken to add each increment of 100, 000 new cases, do we know how the numbers of infected but asymptomatic and untested persons changed in between? If the numbers of such persons are very high, as the antibody surveys suggest, how do we estimate the rates of increase in the actual numbers of infected persons? We will be painting a portrait looking only at changing shadows.

What then can we measure to track deaths? A comparison of daily case counts is subject to variations in the numbers and types of tests, as well as the criteria employed for testing persons. The uncertainty is compounded by the false positives (dead viruses) and the false negatives (modest sensitivity of RT-PCR and even lower sensitivity of Rapid Antigen Tests). In any case, there is likely to be a big gap between the measured daily case count and total number of persons infected on that day if we go by the surveillance estimates.

We are left to depend on the one variable which is least subject to time-dependant variations in measurement methods. That is the daily death count in a defined population. Is that count consistently falling? Or, how is a 7- day moving average of deaths behaving? Admittedly, there will be some undercounting of deaths. However, that proportion is unlikely to change over time. Even if the absolute numbers are short of the mark, time trends will be clearly discernible. We should try to improve the measurement of both in-hospital and out-of-hospital deaths, with clearly defined criteria for certification of death supplemented by verbal autopsy techniques when needed. The cause of death assignment should not depend only on test results but also take into account the clinical history and any other investigations such as chest X-Rays or CT-scans. Even as we try to improve our measurement of Covid19 related deaths, the changes in daily death counts over time will be the best indicator for us to gauge whether the epidemic is waning in a city, district or a state. With deaths, we will not be questioning what R we measuring?

The author, a cardiologist and epidemiologist, is president, Public Health Foundation of India. He is the author Make Health in India: Reaching a Billion Plus. Views are personal.
Senator Tom Carper of Delaware suffered an on-camera hot mic meltdown over tech issues during a remote Senate hearing, yelling out in frustration when he thought his video feed was down.

Instead, his expletive-laden outburst was carried during live cable feeds of a closely watched hearing about the functioning of the postal service.

'F***, f***, f***!' Carper yelled, turning to the side it what looked like his congressional office.

'F***, f***, f***!' yelled Sen. Top Carper after he thought technical issues would cost him his turn at a high-profile hearing on the Postal Service

The panel's Republican chairman, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, had just recognized Carper to speak, at a tense hearing where Democrats were trying to explore any deliberate efforts to sabotage mail-in voting.

'Senator Carper? Is Senator Carper there?' said Johnson, pausing during the glitch, and running hearing from a kitchen. Then, as he was about to call on Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the feed cut to Carper  who turned to the side during his outburst and could be heard slapping his knee or another surface.

Then, Lankford said he thought Carper was 'going to be able to do it all over right now,' prompting Johnson to smile and acknowledge the snafu.

'Sen. Carper, can you unmute?' he told him. 'We dont want to be on TV again,' Johnson told him.

He turned to the side in his Senate office when he thought the feed wasn't working, as an aide helped get his tech going

Panel chair Sen. Ron Johnson asked Carper to unmute his computer

Then, Carper proceeded accordingly, scolding DeJoy and tearing into President Trump, saying: 'We got a president who doesnt want to have vote-by-mail. We got a president who likes to suppress the vote.'

Carper, 73, has a mild-mannered reputation and typical demeanor in the halls of Congress, although he admitted to slapping his wife in an argument nearly 40 years ago, and has apologized for the incident.

Earlier, Democrats tore into Postmaster General Louis DeJoy at the start of his first appearance at a congressional hearing since the furor over of his policy changes that they warned are endangering Americans and harming businesses.

'The Postal Service has always delivered. But Mr. DeJoy, I don't think you have. You have not delivered in this brief tenure,' scolded Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

'In less than two months as Postmaster General, you have undermined one of our nations most trusted institutions,' he fumed.

'The Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time,' Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a Senate panel Friday

He said new changes brought delays that have 'hurt people across the nation.'

'Your decisions have cost Americans their health, their time, their livelihoods and their peace of mind,' Peters told him at the start of a remote hearing.

He pointed to a number of policy changes  which DeJoy testified predated his arrival  as endangering his tenure.

'If you plan to continue pursuing these kinds of changes, I think my colleagues, and many of our constituents, will continue to question whether you are the right person to lead this indispensable public institution,' he said.

He said he has received 7,500 reports of mail delays, including from a girl named Mary who couldn't get her epilepsy meds on time.

DeJoy in his remarks tried to shoot down Democratic howls that he was deliberately overseeing an effort to sabotage the mail amid President Trump's furious attacks on mail-in ballots.

'As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public. The Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day,' he said.

DeJoy said the Postal Service is 'fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time'

DeJoy said there has been a drop in mail volume, and that the removal of postal machines and mail boxes was put in place before the start of his tenure

Panel chair Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is also overseeing a probe into the FBI during the Russia investigation, backed up DeJoy, who said he did not concoct any kind of deliberate plan to take mail sorting machines out of commission and remove mail boxes to impact the mail for the elections.

'I was made aware when everybody else was made aware,' said DeJoy, who only began his post this summer.

'So this isn't some devious plot on your part,' Johnson responded.

Johnson defended DeJoy, citing his 'commendable attempt to reduce those excess costs that are now being cynically used to create this false political narrative.'

Republican Sen. Rob Portman asked DeJoy point-blank whether he supported vote-by-mail  a practice President Trump has attacked. Trump says he backs absentee voting, but has railed against widespread efforts to send out ballots or ballot-request forms.

'I do,' DeJoy responded. 'I think the American public should be able to vote by mail and the Postal Service will support it, so I guess thats yes.'
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team investigating the Sushant Singh Rajput Death case moves from the office of DCP Zone 9 Abhishek Trimukhe to Bandra Police station along with some documents on Friday.

The CBI team reached the Bandra Police Station for further investigation in the Rajput deaths case on Friday. Earlier today, the CBI team brought an unidentified person related to the case, to the guest house where they are staying, for questioning.

On August 19, while holding that the FIR registered in Patna over the death of Bollywood actor was legitimate, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to investigate the case.

The single-judge bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy also said the Bihar Government was competent to recommend transferring the case to the CBI.

The apex court also asked the Mumbai Police to hand over all the evidence collected so far in the case to the CBI. The State of Maharashtra refused the option to challenge the order, Justice Roy said.

The CBI has registered an FIR against Rhea Chakraborty and others in connection with the actors death after the Centre accepted Bihar Governments recommendation to transfer the probe in the matter from Patna.

An FIR was registered in Patna on a complaint filed by KK Singh, Rajputs father, under sections related to abetment to suicide. Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence on June 14.
Major General John Enenche

The Defence Headquarters has confirmed the death of three soldiers in a clash with insurgents in Kukawa town of Borno State.

Coordinator of the Defence Media Operations (DDMO), Major General John Enenche disclosed that 8 terrorists were killed in the clash which also left two other soldiers injured.

Eneche maintained that the attack by the terrorists was a deliberate attempt to reverse the milestone achievements recorded regarding IDPs in the areas of peace-building, reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement efforts by the Borno state government, and further affirmed that the situation in Kukawa was calm with troops in full control.

The statement read;

During the incident, eight Boko Haram terrorists were neutralised and unconfirmed number escaped with gun shots wounds. Unfortunately, three soldiers were fatally wounded and later gave up the ghost at the military medical reception station at kukawa military location.

The Nigerian Armed Forces wishes to assure the general public that there is no going back in its struggle to see to the rebuilding and resettlement efforts for the displaced people.

The futile attempt by the terrorists to thwart it only spurred the gallant troops for more decisive action

The Defence Spokesperson asked residents of Kukawa to go about their normal lawful businesses without any hindrance and also enjoined them to always avail the troops and other security agencies of credible information about the terrorists and any suspicious persons accordingly.
The 15,000 students rejected by universities due to low A-level grades can reapply today with their upgraded marks - but middle-class students could miss out as institutes look to 'prioritise disadvantaged pupils'.

Devastated pupils hit by Ofqual's dreaded algorithm had originally seen their marks reduced to the point where they were turned down by their first choice unis.

But after a humiliating u-turn on Monday, the government announced students would be able to use their teacher-assessed grades instead.

It meant those who had been snubbed over their first results could reapply for their places.

But it emerged today some students are set for further heartbreak as universities will prioritise those from 'disadvantaged backgrounds'.

The chief executive of Ucas has said it is possible that universities could prioritise their applications - and encourage middle-class students to defer their places.

Students, teachers and politicians at Newcastle's Monument for a Victory Rally after the u-turn

Asked about reports that disadvantaged pupils' applications will be prioritised for the 2020/21 academic year, Clare Marchant told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think it is absolutely the right intention. I think we know from all of our survey work that those from most disadvantaged backgrounds really, really worry about money.

"And so if they are deferred for a year, or asked to defer for a year, we're likely to see a drop-off. And so that's the real intent behind that.

"I think what I would say is that universities are very individual, they make individual decisions, but all of them, having spoke to a number of them at Universities UK over the course of the last days and weeks, are looking to be as super flexible - they want students to come to them."

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has resisted calls to resign after the A-level debacle

She added: "They won't just be looking at that. They'll be looking at a number of different things in terms of that individual student.

"So going back to the context of that student, when they applied, when they were made an offer, as well as the level of disadvantage. It will be one of a number of things that individual universities are looking at."

On Wednesday Ucas released figures showing that 100,000 students had already been accepted at their university choice, despite their algorithm-predicted grades.

Out of the remaining 60,000, a total of 15,000 will now be accepted for their first picks if they reapplied.

The proportion of A-level entries receiving an A grade or higher has increased to a record high for England, with 38.1% awarded the top grades (pictured)

A timeline of exam failure March 18: Schools are closed and exams cancelled as the UK grinds to a halt under the coronavirus lockdown March 20: Ministers say Ofqual and exam boards will work out a system for judging grades amid fears from parents that their children could lose out. July 11: MPs on the Education Committee warn that the calculated grades system could unfairly punish disadvantaged and minority students because of the way it is calculated. August 4: Scottish Higher results are released, with around 100,000 grades - a quarter of the total - marked down under a plan put in place by Nicola Sturgeon's SNP administration August 11: The Scottish Education Minister John Swinney U-turns under pressure from Tories and Labour and says predicted grades will be used instead of the algorithm. August 11: Ministers in England decide that pupils will be able to appeal against their grades, in some cases using mock exam performance, just two days before the English results are released. August 13: Almost 40 per cent of A-Level results in England are downgraded by Ofqual's algorithm, sparking widespread fury and demands for a U-turn. August 15: Ministers say that it will fund appeals against the marks handed out, in a bid to quell to anger. August 15: Ofqual withdrawals its appeal criteria just hours after publishing it, pending a review. August 17: Mr Williamson announces that A-Levels and GCSEs due to be unveiled on Thursday will be calculated using predicted grades, amid calls for his resignation. Advertisement

Ucas said it conducted further analysis into the 15,000 and say 7% of them - which is the equivalent of 6,090 students.

It is the latest twist in the tale for the A-Level students after a rollercoaster week that have taken them from agony to ecstasy.

Both Boris Johnson and Education Secretary had previously insisted the results calculation system was 'robust'.

But in reality it saw almost 40 per cent of grades reduced from teachers' predictions - devastating bright and dedicated pupils.

It sparked a cross-party of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem MPs to attack the Government's handling of the row - together with furious teachers, union bosses and education leaders.

Protests in the streets from students saw the results eventually overturned in favour of the teachers' predicted grades.

Mr Williamson apologised to pupils and parents affected by 'significant inconsistencies' with the grading process amid calls for him to resign or be sacked.

He said: 'This has been an extraordinarily difficult year for young people who were unable to take their exams.

'We worked with Ofqual to construct the fairest possible model, but it is clear that the process of allocating grades has resulted in more significant inconsistencies than can be resolved through an appeals process.'

He added: 'We now believe it is better to offer young people and parents certainty by moving to teacher assessed grades for both A and AS level and GCSE results.

'I am sorry for the distress this has caused young people and their parents but hope this announcement will now provide the certainty and reassurance they deserve.'

It provided ammunition for the Government's rivals and critics who said they had been slow to react and organise a proper system.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said: 'The Government has had months to sort out exams and has now been forced into a screeching U-turn after days of confusion.

'This is a victory for the thousands of young people who have powerfully made their voices heard this past week.'
Good morning, Bay Area. Its Friday, Aug. 21, and ride-hailing companies arent stopping service in the state this morning. Heres what you need to know to start your day.

Fires took a deadly turn Thursday as they burned across the state and Bay Area, killing three people in Napa County and one in Solano County.

The news of the deaths came as state fire officials admitted they cannot protect everything  and are making devastating choices as their resources are stretched to their limits. There are simply not enough firefighters, ground crews and air support to combat the major series of lightning-sparked blazes ringing the region, fire officials said.

In the North Bay, the LNU Lightning Complex was the largest fire cluster in the region, consuming 215,000 acres since it ignited Monday, burning into Vacaville on one side, around Lake Berryessa, and threatening a huge swath of Sonoma County along the Russian River.

The CZU Lightning Complex continued to rip through rural San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties Thursday growing to 48,000 acres with 48,000 displaced from their homes.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

A separate set of complex fires in the East Bay and South Bay, the SCU Lightning Complex, is burning in steep, rugged terrain that hasnt seen fire in many years. And none of this covers the 25 other fires burning in the state.

As we move forward, the resource pool we have is slim, said Sean Kavanaugh, Cal Fire incident commander, adding fires were in nearly every county. I do expect significant growth of acreage.

 The latest: Live updates and our fire tracking map.

 LNU? SCU? CZU? How the Lightning Complex and other California fires get their names.

 Air quality in the Bay Area remained bad Thursday, and the same is expected in the coming days.

Crisis upon crisis

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

The disaster scenario the Bay Area has been dreading since March is here. Wildfires, awful air quality and the coronavirus pandemic are combining to strain public health resources already stretched impossibly thin.

The potential for respiratory catastrophe looms large, and some messages for how people should behave in a fire compared with a pandemic are inconsistent. Plus, public health officials are simply exhausted.

Were at that point of time where youre just numb dealing with crises, said Dr. Bela Matyas, the health officer in Solano County, where thousands have been evacuated this week because of several large, threatening fires. But its an emergency. You dont really think, you just do. And people are stepping up.

Read more from reporter Erin Allday.

 With N95s scarce, what masks can protect you from both smoke and COVID-19?

 Fire evacuees during pandemic steer clear of shelters, seek more isolation.

 From Tom Stienstra: 100 Bay Area parks shut down by fires.

 Santa Cruz County wants tourists to go home to make room for fire evacuees.

On to the RNC next

Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press

The Democratic National Convention turned out to be unusual in more ways than one.

It wasnt just that it was the first convention that wasnt actually held in a convention hall. It was that several conservative Republicans joined with progressive Democrats to urge Americans to do the same thing: Vote for Democrat Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris.

Reporters Joe Garofoli and Tal Kopan write on five major takeaways from the convention.

 Gov. Gavin Newsom called for action against climate change in a last-minute convention video after canceling plans earlier because of the wildfires. More: MicroClimates, The Chronicles upcoming climate change newsletter.

 Stephen and Ayesha Curry back Biden and Harris in video at Democratic National Convention.

Around the Bay

 Lawsuit ongoing: Uber and Lyft service will continue in California  for now  after the companies won a last-minute reprieve from an appeals court from having to turn drivers into employees starting Friday.

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.

 200,000 in California: An additional 1.1 million Americans file for unemployment as rate remains above 10%.

 Other police reform bills still active: California shelves post-George Floyd bill to charge cops who ignore excessive force.

 Case rate still too high: S.F. stays on California coronavirus watch list, despite Newsoms hopes.

 Under the sea: Fantastical seafood restaurant Farallon closes in San Francisco after 23 years.

 Welcome the new guy: Emilio Garcia-Ruiz named San Francisco Chronicle editor in chief, starts in mid-September.

 Just had this presence about him: Arcelio Garcia, frontman for the Latin rock band Malo, dies at 74.

 Awards season off: Influential James Beard restaurant awards canceled until 2022.

 Called up: Giants promote Joey Bart, elite catching prospect.

Out of the studio

All day, evacuated residents of Solar Hills Drive in Vacaville had been asking Chronicle reporter Matthias Gafni to check on their houses. At the end of his shift, hes finally able to have a look. In the series of three Fifth & Mission podcast updates, Gafni reports from one of the areas hardest hit by the North Bay fires.

Heres what he found.

Previous updates:

 Vacaville after the chaos.

 Our house is going to burn down.

Bay Briefing is written by Taylor Kate Brown and sent to readers email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact Brown at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com.
Lansing, Mich.

A $600 million deal between the state of Michigan and residents of Flint who were harmed by lead-tainted water is a step toward making amends for a disaster that upended life in the poor, majority-Black city, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday.

State officials and lawyers for Flint residents announced the settlement, which Attorney General Dana Nessel said likely would be the largest in Michigan history, with tens of thousands of potential claimants. It is designed primarily to benefit children, who were most vulnerable to the debilitating effects of lead that fouled drinking water after Flint switched its source to save money in 2014 while under supervision of a state financial manager.

City workers followed state environmental officials' advice not to use anti-corrosive additives. Without those treatments, water from the Flint River scraped lead from aging pipes and fixtures, contaminating tap water in homes and businesses.

The disaster made Flint a nationwide symbol of governmental mismanagement, with residents of the city of nearly 100,000 lining up for bottled water and parents fearful their children had suffered permanent harm. A criminal investigation that has resulted in only misdemeanor no-contest pleas so far was resumed last year.

"What happened in Flint should have never happened, and financial compensation with this settlement is just one of the many ways we can continue to show our support for the city of Flint and its families," Whitmer, a Democrat, said.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Several judges must approve the agreement, which is intended to resolve all claims against the state. Residents can decline to take part and file separate lawsuits, but attorneys involved in the negotiations said they would urge their clients to participate.

"It's not perfect. But it is fair, it's reasonable, it's equitable," said attorney Michael Pitt.

Suits also have been filed against the city, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and two engineering consulting firms. They could join the state settlement by contributing agreed-on sums to the $600 million compensation fund.

The agreement establishes a process for people to submit claims. Amounts awarded will depend on the number of claims and the extent of damage a person sustained between April 25, 2014, and July 31, 2016.
Former CIA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden is displayed on a screen as he speaks during a video conference to present his book titled "Permanent Record," in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 17, 2019. (Jorg Carstensen//DPA/AFP via Getty Images)

AG Barr Says He Opposes Possible Pardon for NSA Leaker Edward Snowden

Attorney General William Barr said that he opposes the possibility of pardoning Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who fled the country after releasing a trove of U.S. classified information in 2013.

This comes after President Donald Trump said at a press conference last week that he was going to start looking at a possible pardon for Snowden, who was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013 for the disclosure.

On Friday, the attorney general told the Associated Press that he was vehemently opposed at the idea of pardoning the 37-year-old former NSA contractor.

He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people, Barr told the news wire. He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We cant tolerate that.

Snowden fled to Russia and was given asylum in 2013 after his leaks exposed a vast domestic and international surveillance operation carried out by the NSA. U.S. authorities have since sought to have Snowden return to face criminal espionage charges.

Snowden published a memoir, Permanent Record, in September 2019 that detailed his childhood and his tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency and NSA. Shortly after the publication, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Snowden alleging that the book breached nondisclosure agreements with the U.S. government.

Snowdens revelations about the NSA, Britains GCHQ, and other intelligence agencies sparked an international debate about spies powers to monitor personal communications, and about the balance between security and privacy. Critics say his disclosures harmed the ability of the United States and its allies to fight terrorism.

Barr is not the only person who expressed concern about a possible pardon for Snowden. Leaders of the House Armed Services Committee released a joint statement urging Trump from granting Snowden reprieve.

Edward Snowden did enormous harm to our national security and he must stand trial for his actions. President Trump and Secretary Esper have both decried harmful leaks from the Department of Defense and elsewhere in the federal government. To pardon Snowden now would completely undermine this Administrations position and mock our national security workforce who take immense caution in their work to keep us safe, committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), and ranking member Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said in the statement.

It would be a serious mistake to pardon anyone who is charged under the Espionage Act, who admits to leaking sensitive information, and who has spent years since then as a guest of the Putin regime. Not only would it mean that Snowden cannot be held accountable for his crimes, but it would send a dangerous message to others who are contemplating espionage and the adversaries who would support them.

Trump had previously criticized Snowden, calling him a spy who should be executed, a terrible threat, and a terrible traitor.

Ivan Pentchoukov and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Trump redoubles vow to withdraw troops from Iraq; eyes prospects for oil deals U.S. President Trump meets with Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi at the White House in Washington

By Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday redoubled his promise to withdraw the few U.S. troops still in Iraq, but said Washington would remain ready to help if neighboring Iran took any hostile action.

Speaking during his first meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Trump said he looked forward to the day when U.S. troops could exit the country, but said U.S. businesses were already making "very big oil deals" there.

"We'll be leaving shortly," Trump told reporters. "We have very few soldiers in Iraq ... but we're there to help. And the prime minister knows that," Trump said. "If Iran should do anything, we will be there to help the Iraqi people."

The president declined to lay out a timetable for a full withdrawal.

Trump's first meeting with the Iraqi leader comes amid a new spike in tensions between Washington and Tehran after Washington said it would seek to reinstate all previously suspended U.S. sanctions on Iran at the United Nations.

Al-Kadhimi, who has challenged the power of Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq, took office in April, becoming the third Iraqi head of state after months of deadly protests in a country exhausted by decades of war, corruption and economic challenges.

Washington is pressing for an extension of a U.N.-imposed arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in October under Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which the United States quit in 2018.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters the United States was working with Iraqi officials to get the number of U.S. troops in Iraq "down to the lowest level as quickly as we can." The United States has had around 5,000 troops stationed in the country, and coalition allies another 2,500.

Al-Kadhimi told reporters that Iraq was in discussions with Turkey over what he called its "unacceptable" involvement in northern Iraq. Iraq's constitution explicitly banned use of its territory to attack any neighboring country, he said.

The United States and Iraq in June affirmed their commitment to the reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq in coming months, with no plans by Washington to maintain permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq.

Story continues

Since 2014, the primary mission of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq has been defeating the Islamic State militant group. Officials in the U.S.-led coalition say Iraqi forces are now mostly able to handle the insurgents on their own.

Iraqs parliament had voted earlier this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq, and U.S. and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a drawdown.

Even as U.S. forces exit Iraq, U.S. energy companies are expanding their investments in the oil-rich nation, which has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and low oil prices.

Five U.S. firms, including Chevron Corp <CVX.N>, signed agreements on Wednesday with the Iraqi government aimed at boosting Iraq's energy independence from Iran.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; writing by Andrea Shalal; editing by Diane Craft, Dan Grebler and Nick Macfie)
Pottsville, PA (17901)

Today

Mostly cloudy with snow developing after midnight. Some sleet may mix in. Low around 30F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with snow developing after midnight. Some sleet may mix in. Low around 30F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80%.
Linda Freimark stands Thursday at Montefiore Cemetery in Jenkintown, where her father, Jerry Freimark, is buried. There is a small temporary marker on her fathers grave, and a space where the monument should be. Read more

After 94-year-old Robert Davis died last year of congestive heart and respiratory failure, his son Ted was determined to give his father a proper tribute.

Since October, Davis has paid more than $2,000 to Wertheimer Liberty Monuments, a company in Southampton, Bucks County, for a gravestone commemorating his father. But months have passed, as has his fathers yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death. And the Flourtown resident is still waiting  not just for the monument but for answers. His demand for a refund, he said, was met with silence.

We feel like we let our father down, Davis said. He was an amazing father who, to his last dying breath, always was looking out for his children, and hes there next to my mother without a stone. Its disrespectful.

Larry Moskowitz, owner of the monument company, blamed the delay and lack of communication on the pandemic and from switching last summer from a Philadelphia sandblasting company to one in Georgia.

But court records show the 63-year-old New Jersey resident and his wife, Christina, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, listing nearly $800,000 in debts to creditors ranging from banks and credit cards to the IRS  and a granite company in Georgia.

And Davis complaint isnt an outlier. At least four other Wertheimer customers have filed complaints with the Bucks County Department of Consumer Protection, and six have been lodged with the Bucks County District Attorneys Office. Prosecutors there this week confirmed they have opened a criminal investigation into Moskowitzs practices.

We want anyone else who believes theyve been victimized to contact us as soon as possible, Bucks County Deputy District Attorney Marc Furber said.

Complaints against the monuments industry have been on the upswing in Pennsylvania. The state attorney generals consumer affairs division says it logged 48 such complaints in 2018, 79 last year, and already 59 through mid-August of this year. Most have ended with some sort of mediated resolution or payment, but a handful each year remain unresolved.

 READ MORE: Jewish parents demand answers after they say their stillborn son was buried in a mass grave in New Jersey

Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a national consumer rights group, said the industry has always suffered from a lack of regulation.

Youre disappointed if your cable provider doesnt come out on the day that they promised to install some equipment, but its different with a marker or headstone, he said. People feel like the wound of the death is still open if they cant put that closing cap on it.

No way to foresee the problems

Southamptons Wertheimer Liberty Monuments was established in 1928 by Wolf Wertheimer and his sons Herman, Manny, and Morris, and eventually taken over by Israel Resnick in May 1985. Resnick sold the business to Moskowitz in March 2018.

Since then, the Bucks County Department of Consumer Protection has fielded five complaints from Wertheimer customers, said director Michael Bannon. His office got a full refund for one customer, and four other cases are pending.

Like Davis, Michelle Sarnese of Montgomeryville paid close to $1,000 last winter for a marker for her father for which shes still waiting. She said the Southampton monument company provided the stone for her grandfather in 2000, as well as other family members, and there were no problems in the past.

Ive started looking at Google reviews and Yelp, and now l see people talking about the problems, but back in November, there was nothing listed, Sarnese said, noting this was well before the pandemics onset. There was no way we could have foreseen that this might happen, and we had no reason to think that it would happen.

Jewish tradition calls for a stone or monument to be crafted and placed on a grave, usually within one year of a persons death. It is initially covered, and then at a ceremony called an unveiling, family and friends gather to say prayers and remember their loved one.

Linda Freimarks father, Jerry, prepaid Wertheimer almost $2,000 for his monument six years before his July 2019 death. The Elkins Park resident said she spent three months after his death trying to finalize the details. After finally tracking down a salesperson in March, she was charged an additional $774 in lettering and other fees  but has yet to receive the stone.

I should have had an unveiling by now, she said, adding that she received one measly letter from the company, in which it blamed the delay on COVID-19. She has since been told she has to wait a few more months, and was given no indication of when Moskowitz would be in touch to finalize details for her planned unveiling of Oct. 13  her fathers birthday.

In an Aug. 3 interview, Moskowitz blamed the poor communication on his busy schedule and salespeople who have since left his company.

I get a lot of phone calls, and unfortunately, I have not returned a lot of calls on time, he said. Ive been involved in setting monuments and decisions that have to be made outside of Wertheimer. I basically left it up to my salespeople to follow up with their sale; thats their job, thats why they get paid commission.

He did not mention his bankruptcy proceeding or debts. Three days after that interview, he and his wife filed an updated list of creditors with federal bankruptcy court in Camden, listing $437,000 in assets  primarily in real estate  against $791,000 in debts. Most of what they owe, the filing says, is to banks, credit card companies, and department stores, but the list also includes debts to individuals, including $10,000 in back pay owed to Resnick, the former owner and salesperson.

Judge Jerrold N. Poslusny Jr. ordered the Moskowitzes to inform their creditors of their bankruptcy proceedings and gave the creditors two months to object to the bankruptcy plan.

 READ MORE: Historic cemetery is using its facilities in ways not seen since the 1918 flu epidemic

Wondering who to trust

Moskowitz did not respond Thursday to The Inquirers request to discuss the looming investigations or bankruptcy. In the interview earlier this month, he acknowledged that he had denied refund requests, maintaining that in most cases, the granite is already cut and ready to go.

Although theyre getting it late, theyre getting what they paid for, he said. This is not a lawn mower that you can bring back to a hardware store. This is a custom job, and we want to make good on what we promised.

But both Sarnese and Martha Issod, who in May got a refund through the Bucks County Department of Consumer Protection for a nearly $1,000-marker she ordered last fall for her grandfather, said they are skeptical the work was ever completed.

Unless I actually see the monuments with my own eyes, I dont believe that theyve even done the work at this point, Sarnese said. And now I have to go find somebody else, and Im wondering if I can trust another company to actually deliver it. Its very disappointing.

Davis, the Flourtown resident, said Moskowitz told him in May his fathers stone was completed and just needed to be shipped. But in July, Moskowitz acknowledged the marker wasnt ready. You just cant believe a thing he says, Davis said. Its just amazing how low people will stoop, taking advantage of people when theyre really vulnerable.

Bannon, the Bucks consumer protection official, said the profession needs more scrutiny.

Its a particularly painful subject for folks, he said, because customers are often grieving and vulnerable. And certainly businesses not staying in contact with their customers is a red flag and a big concern that needs to be looked at.
[Disclaimer: The author makes no pretense of speaking for African-Americans. All who believe that racial heritage dictates the parameters of acceptable speech are cautioned to read no farther. Any triggering that results from continuing beyond this point is solely the responsibility of the reader.]

Does anyone believe that if she were white, Kamala Harris would have been chosen as Joe Biden's veep? Toward the end of the deadline for naming the running mate, it became clear that darker-than-Caucasian skin tone was a prerequisite in the eyes of a substantial faction of the party when a Gretchen Whitmer trial balloon was floated and quickly fell to earth. In the end, Kamala Harris, daughter of Tamil and Jamaican immigrants, was deemed by Biden's handlers to be acceptably melanin-rich. After all, Barack Obama was also biracial and passed muster, so why not Kamala? But in fairness, Obama actively courted identification as African-American by attending Rev. Wright's Trinity United Church for years and marrying Michelle Robinson, while Harris married a Jewish Hollywood lawyer and for years enthusiastically prosecuted crime, leading to what is now deemed "over-incarceration."

In her acceptance speech Wednesday night, Senator Harris gave a subtle verbal shout-out to the perceived Indian-American voting bloc, a Democrat leaning constituency that Trump has also heavily courted with his Howdy Modi extravaganza.

As she accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president on Wednesday night, California Sen. Kamala D. Harris recounted how she had been taught to "put family first."

That includes both "the family you're born into and the family you choose," she said, before listing out members in both categories: Family is her husband and her two stepkids. Her sister, her sorority, her best friend, her godchildren. And then, she added, "Family is my uncles, my aunts and my chittis."

That last word, a Tamil term of endearment for the younger sisters of one's mother, was met with a fierce outpouring of pride across social media on Wednesday night.

For many Tamil Americans, Harris's use of   which can also be spelled out phonetically in English as "citti," or "chitthi"  was more than just another word for "auntie." It was a small but significant way for the vice-presidential candidate to say, before an audience of millions, that she is one of them, too.

Cue the media stories of people "back home" in India celebrating Kamala's honor. Pay no attention to the multiracial and multicultural nature of India, where Hindi-speakers are most numerous and Tamils are only the sixth largest linguistic group.

But the question lingers of whether or not Kamala's skin tone qualifies her in the eyes of black voters. It is a highly sensitive topic that whites rarely dare even touch upon, but the status of lighter- versus darker-shade African-Americans occasionally seeps into the mainstream media when it is politically useful. For example, this 2012 CNN article:

Acura found itself in a bit of hot water this week when it was revealed that a casting agency in Los Angeles only desired light-skinned African-American actors for the company's Super Bowl commercial featuring Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. The company apologized, but that hasn't stopped a lot of the chatter criticizing Acura for not doing more to keep the casting agency in check. This really isn't a new story considering how many times in the past we've heard similar stories, including that advertising agencies have non-urban dictates like refusing to buy advertising space on black-focused radio, TV, magazine and online properties. Worldwide, nearly $500 million is spent on bleaching products, an effort for people with darker skin to lighten their skin. (snip) The effects of this mindset are examined in the documentary "Dark Girls," produced by actor/director Bill Duke and directed by Chan Berry. "Dark Girls" explores the pain that is associated with having dark skin ...

So is Kamala dark enough to assuage the pain "associated with having dark skin"?

As a Euro-American, I have no idea and probably am not allowed to express any opinion as far as the Democrats are concerned, but I will be watching closely the product positioning of Senator Harris.

Photo credit: Mobilius in Mobili under the Share Alike 2.0 license.
With the number of coronavirus disease cases increasing steadily, several politicians have joined the clamour to postpone the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-Undergraduate) after a large section of students made such a demand.

On Friday, politicians such as Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) Subramanian Swamy, Congresss Vivek Tankha and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)s Tejashwi Yadav raised safety concerns over the conduct of NEET ( for students seeking admission to medical and dental courses) and JEE (for those aspiring to join top engineering schools). But the education ministry said the tests will be conducted in September as scheduled. In a statement the National Testing Agency (NTA), which functions under the ministry and holds these exams, said a full academic year cannot be wasted.

Congress Rajya Sabha member Tankha sent a letter to Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, urging him to postpone the exams. The number of cases and the death rate have been increasing. If the situation persists, the country may have to face lockdown again. Holding exams at such a large scale leads to the threat of further escalation of the pandemic, Tankha said.

RJDs Yadav tweeted: Central Govt, NTA, UGC & IIT Delhi must have a considerate & humane view of the plight of the students & youth of this country! This hurry to conduct exams amidst spiking Covid cases will prove to be costly! In Bihar floods+Govt apathy will compound problems! Similar views were expressed by a large number of students on social media.

BJPs Rajya Sabha member Swamy, too, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to conduct entrance examinations such as the NEET and the JEE after Diwali in the wake of the pandemic. But in a statement, NTA made it clear that it plans to go ahead with the exams and cited that the Supreme Court rejected a plea seeking postponement of the two entrance tests.

In our opinion, though there is pandemic situation, but ultimately life has to go and the career of the students cannot be put on peril for long and full academic year cannot be wastedthe examination is going to be held with due precaution and it is not going to be postponed. Thus, we find no merit in the writ petition, said the NTA statement, quoting the SC order.

The premier testing agency said it released the admit cards for the JEE (Main) examinations scheduled from 01-09-2020 to 06-09-2020. Altogether, 649,223 candidates have downloaded their admit cards against a total number 858,273.

NTA is happy to share with the JEE (Main) 2020 candidates that it has been able to offer the first choice of preference of centre cities to 99.07% of the candidates. 142 candidates have, subsequently requested for a change in their allotted centre city due to various reasons, and the NTA is considering these requests positively, the statement said.

The agency said NEET aspirants, too, were allowed to change their exam venue and 95,000 availed it.

The NEET (UG)-2020 exam is now scheduled on September 13 and the total of 15,97,433 candidates are registered for the same. The admit cards will be released shortly. Overall, 99.87% candidates will be accommodated against their first preference of centre city, it added.

The agency said it made elaborate arrangements to sanitise the test centres before and after the examinations, and will even provide masks and hand gloves to candidates if needed.

According to a government official, NTA reached out to top medical professionals for a comprehensive plan to ensure all students and staff are safe.

NTA has also developed a detailed protocol to ensure the exams are held following social distancing norms.

The predicament is that there is no alternative to the highly competitive exams such as NEET and JEE for admission to coveted institutions like IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and top medical colleges. Therefore, it is important that these exams are held with utmost safety precautions, said a second official.

IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao said the JEE (Advanced), which is slated for September 27, will be held with all precautions and safety measures. The number of centres has been doubled, computers will be sanitized and all safety measures have been put in place, Rao told HT.

Prof Furqan Qamar, former secretary general of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), said the Supreme Court had already given its verdict. These are all related to admissions. Admissions need to be done otherwise students lose a year. The only thing is that all necessary precautions for social distancing and hygiene etc should be taken, he said. Prof Ajit K Chaturvedi, director, IIT Roorkee, said: We should go ahead with the exam as per the announced schedule.
Moscow

Booked on an early morning flight back to Moscow, Alexei Navalny began his day with a rushed breakfast  just a cup of tea in a plastic cup  at the airport in the Siberian city of Tomsk. Soon after his flight took off Thursday, he rushed to the toilet feeling violently ill.

Just a few hundred miles into its nearly 2,000-mile flight, the plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition leader, groaning in agony before losing consciousness, was taken on a gurney to an ambulance waiting on the tarmac.

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, who was traveling with him, announced on Twitter that he had been poisoned, probably by something put in his tea at the airport's Vienna Cafe. Navalny, who has often described President Vladimir Putin as the leader of a "party of crooks and thieves," had traveled to Siberia to help organize opposition candidates before local elections next month.

Doctors at the No. 1 Clinical Hospital in Omsk, the Siberian city where the plane made its emergency landing, initially said Navalny was on a ventilator in serious condition. It later reported that his condition, though still grave, had stabilized.

Speculation of foul play escalated, particularly after his personal physician and fellow opposition activist, Anastasia Vasilyeva, arrived at the hospital in Omsk only to be denied access to his medical records and the intensive care ward where he was being treated.

"Nobody is allowed in to see Aleksei Navalny, or to see his medical records," Vasiliyeva, who flew to Tomsk with the opposition leader's wife, Yulia, wrote in a Twitter post. Vasiliyeva, an optometrist, treated Navalny for severe eye burns after an unidentified assailant in 2017 threw a green chemical liquid in his face.

Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, said Thursday evening that Navalny's wife had finally been allowed into his ward but that documents needed to fly him out of Omsk to a hospital elsewhere had still not been provided.

Berlin-based movie producer Jaka Bizilj said his foundation was flying an air ambulance to Omsk and hoped to bring Navalny back to a Berlin hospital, Charite.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France, meeting in France, offered their assistance, including medical help and possible asylum. "What urgently needs to be clarified is how this situation came about," Merkel said.

The Kremlin said earlier that it would, if asked, help facilitate Navalny's transfer, but this did not calm suspicions that authorities wanted to delay his departure to prevent his being seen by foreign doctors more likely to identify poison if any remained in his system.

While the Kremlin insisted Thursday that it was too early to say what had happened to its best known and most persistent critic, it was clear by the end of the day that Navalny had joined a long list of Putin's opponents to be suddenly afflicted by bizarre and sometimes fatal medical emergencies, often after drinking tea.

The Kremlin and its supporters have long detested Navalny because of the investigations he has led into graft by officials  including the former prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev. Navalny has been harassed and jailed numerous times for short periods, but authorities have refrained from harsher steps that could elevate his national profile.

Last year, after his arrest for leading an unauthorized protest in Moscow, Navalny fell so ill while in jail that he had to be hospitalized for a mysterious "severe allergic reaction." A generally healthy 44-year-old, he has no history of allergies and many suspected poison then, too.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told journalists that a decision on whether to open a criminal investigation into the cause of Navalny's latest bout of sudden ill health would depend on the doctors' diagnosis. Talk of poisoning, he said, was "just speculation."

But so many Russians at odds with the Kremlin have fallen gravely ill over the years  and so few criminal attacks on opposition figures, whether with bullets or poison, have been solved  that virtually nobody expects Russia's law enforcement system to delve deeply into what happened to Navalny even if there is an investigation.
The two sons of slain gangster, Vikas Dubey, will now be interrogated, said police on Friday.

Both of Dubey's sons reportedly visited Bikru village along with their mother Richa Dubey to attend the marriage of Amar Dubey on June 29.

Amar Dubey, who was one of the accused in the July 3 massacre in which eight policemen were ambushed and killed by Dubey and his gang, was also shot dead by the STF on July 8 in Hamirpur district.

According to investigating officer Dadhibal Tiwari, "We have come to know through viral pictures that Vikas' wife Richa, along with their two minor sons, had gone to Bikru village to attend marriage function of Amar Dubey on June 29. They stayed in Bikru village till July 1 before returning to Lucknow."

SP Rural Brijesh Srivastava said, "There were inputs that Vikas had a confrontation with SHO Chaubeypur, Vinay Tiwari, who had gone to Bikru village to investigate the murderous attack on Rahul Tiwari on July 1, in front of his two sons. A police team will visit Lucknow and question the gangster's sons to verify the same."

Vinay Tiwari was later suspended and arrested for his complicity with the accused in the Bikru massacre.

The police had gone to arrest Vikas on July 3 following a complaint by one Rahul Tiwari, who had accused the gangster of making a murderous attempt on him on July 1. Vikas and his aides had opened fire at the police team, leaving eight dead.

Vikas was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police on July 9 from the premises of the Mahakaal Temple in Ujjain and shot dead in an encounter on July 10 when he allegedly tried to flee from custody.

Meanwhile, three police personnel have been suspended after they were found living illegally in a house of gangster Jaikant Bajpai who was involved in the Kanpur encounter. According to the Kanpur police, order to take departmental action again them have been given. They have also been asked to vacate the house immediately.

The image of police has been maligned as these personnel were living in a house of the gangster, stated a press release issued by the Kanpur police.

Jai Bajpai, who is said to be the financer of Vikas Dubey has also been arrested.
SPRINGFIELD  An attorney for a Springfield mob associate has made an unusual request of the federal government: Tell the public his client is not an informant.

In the charged world of organized crime, this is a particularly damaging label.

Springfield attorney Daniel Hagan on Wednesday filed a letter in the public docket of a pending extortion case against Anthony J. Scibelli on behalf of his own client, David Cecchetelli, identified as witness #5.

Cecchetelli, 52, is a defendant in an unrelated illegal gun possession case pending in U.S. District Court. He has historical ties to the local faction of the Genovese crime family and a previous bookmaking conviction.

Placing in public filings, information which can be used to derive Mr. Cecchetellis identity, and where the context could lead the public to conclude that Mr. Cecchetelli is a government informant or cooperating government witness, these filings have the potential to subject Mr. Cecchetelli and his family to serious harm, Hagan wrote in an Aug. 19 letter to federal prosecutors and Scibellis defense attorney.

What is especially alarming here is that Mr. Cecchetelli is not a government informant or cooperating government witness and never has been, the letter continues.

Scibelli, 51, was charged last year with collecting on a $5,000 extortionate debt. Investigators say Scibelli beat the unnamed informant in a parking lot in June of 2019, and threatened to pummel another of the informants relatives with his wifes walker.

Scibelli has pleaded not guilty to the charge. His attorney, Nikolas Andreopoulos, has argued in court hearings and written pleadings that the alleged victim in the Scibelli case, Victim 1, was not a victim at all but a compulsive gambler who tired of paying local loan sharks. The alleged victim told investigators he paid up to $36,000 in interest but could never get out from under the debt.

He began wearing a body wire at the behest of the FBI and state police to several meetings with Scibelli over six weeks in the spring of 2019, according to court records. In one unfortunate instance, someone forgot to shut the microphone off and the informant wore a hot mic for more than 24 hours, lawyers have said during hearings and in court filings.

In a recent motion, Andreopoulos quoted the unnamed informant as saying he and his brother would take control of Springfields rackets once his rivals went to prison.

Hagan has lobbied the government to publicly confirm Cecchetelli is not the informant and is merely on its witness list as a coincidental bystander.

I dont represent rats. So if there was something to it, I wouldnt be representing Mr. Cecchetelli, Hagan said when contacted for comment.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorneys office in Boston declined comment, citing the ongoing nature of the case.

Scibelli was released to house arrest after spending weeks behind bars in 2019. His pretrial restrictions have since been relaxed. No trial date has yet been set.
Actor Swara Bhasker initially responded with humour when Kangana Ranaut called her a B-grade actor in an interview. However, the actor said she decided to put an end to the lies when she was accused of supporting nepotism.

In an interview with Pinkvilla, Swara said she supports peoples right to expression. She said she will support it even if I have to listen to some gaalis. However, what she cannot get behind is blatant lying. You shouldnt lie. You can call me what you want but you shouldnt lie. To say that I support nepotism is quite frankly a lie, she said in the interview.

Swara said that a viral video showing her questioning Karan Johar and feudalism in Bollywood, was seen as her supporting nepotism. Instead, she says she questioned the feudalistic practices and favouritism in the film industry, years before the current wave of insider-outsider debate started raging.

Swara also said that what Kangana said about her -- being a B-grade actor and a bootlicker of Karan Johar -- shows more about her own mentality. In my head, B stands for best. So I am like call me whatever you like. Sometimes what people say reflects more about their mentality than people that they are talking about. And I think thats what happened with the outsiders and the being B grade actors debate, its really just sad. I think people were revealing their own mentality rather than saying anything about me, Taapsee or anyone, she said.

Kangana had said in an interview with Republic TV, What I want to convey through this interview is... for me, I have only to lose here... because I know tomorrow they will get some 20 needy outsiders like Taapsee Pannu or Swara Bhasker who will get up and say, Oh! Only Kangana has problems with nepotism. We love Karan Johar. If you love Karan Johar, why are you both B-grade actresses? You are both better looking than Alia Bhatt and Ananya (Panday). You both are better actresses. Why dont you get work? Your whole existence is proof of nepotism. What are you telling me about how happy you are with the industry?

Also read: Amitabh Bachchan set to resume KBC shoot after recovering from Covid-19, says maximum safety precautions will be taken

Swara had reacted by joking that Kangana also brought parallel cinema and feminism into the spotlight with her film, Queen. She tweeted, Kangana ji ran parallel cinema with Pather Panchali in 1955, She started Feminism with Queen in 2013, but first of all in 1947, she got India independence. - says an unknown sycophantic needy outsider, eating the fruits of sycophancy and licking fingers.

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Iran unveils ballistic, cruise missiles on Defense Industry Day

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 7:49 AM

Iran unveils a host of state-of-the-art defense achievements, including long-range ballistic and cruise missiles, designed and manufactured by experts at home as the Islamic Republic marks National Defense Industry Day.

The unveiling ceremony is underway in the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani via video conference.

Speaking at the event broadcast live on TV, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami said the country had inaugurated a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 1,400 kilometers named after top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was martyred by the US military in January.

The Tasnim news agency described the latest solid-fuel ballistic missile  called Martyr Haj Qassem  as a new generation of the country's Fateh-110 family of missiles, which is capable of confusing and penetrating the enemy's interception systems.

The Iranian defense chief further said Iran has developed a cruise missile, named Martyr Abu Mahdi, which has a range of over 1,000 kilometers.

"The country's achievements in the defense industry over the past four decades are not comparable to any other period," said Hatami, describing the accomplishments as a "basis for military self-reliance and a must for [maintaining] the country's independence."

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also assassinated along with General Soleimani and a number of their comrades in a US drone raid near the Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.

The Iranian defense chief further said that the domestically-built training jets, dubbed Yasin, A-90 and Fajr-3 are undergoing their final tests and will soon enter service.

He said that Iran has begun the mass production of its first indigenous turbo jet engine, dubbed Owj, which was unveiled in 2016.

Pointing to the inauguration of the production line of the domestically-manufactured Kowsar fighter jet, Hatami said the country will soon deliver another three of the jets to the country's Air Force.

The fourth-generation fighter jets were unveiled back in July 2017 and showcased to the international audience at MAKS air show in Moscow.

Commenting on the new achievement's features, Iran's Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General Qassem Taqizadeh said the speed of the Martyr Qassem Soleimani missiles makes their interception impossible.

He added that the cruise missiles are capable of flying at a low altitude and getting around the enemy's missile systems.

Rouhani: Iran defense power benefits neighbors

In turn, President Rouhani thanks all academics, specialists and science-based firms, who have been working hard to pave the way for the country's defense sector to grow stronger.

He highlighted the significance of cruise missile for Iran's defense industry and said "the fact that we have increased the range from 300 to 1000 in less than two years shows the country is on the path of production and self-sufficiency in this field."

Meanwhile, the Iranian chief executive reaffirmed that the country's defense doctrine is based on the strategy of deterrence and is not offensive in nature.

He assured neighbors that Iran's military power poses no threat to any other country, adding, "We are not pursuing an offensive strategy. We are not after occupying anywhere or harming other nations. Our neighbors can rest assured that our defense might serves their interests and those of our friends."

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A protester holds a poster reading poison is the weapon of a woman, a coward and a eunuch (Elena Ignatyeva/AP)

Russian doctors treating opposition politician Alexei Navalny say they have not found any indication that the Kremlin critic was poisoned.

Deputy chief doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko at Omsk hospital said that as of Friday, no traces of poison were found in Mr Navalnys body.

Mr Navalnys spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh posted a video on Twitter of Mr Kalinichenko speaking.

Expand Close Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny (Pavel Golovkin/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

Poisoning as a diagnosis remains on the back burner, but we dont believe that the patient suffered from poisoning, Mr Kalinichenko told reporters on Friday.

Doctors in the Siberian city of Omsk have also refused to authorise the transfer of Mr Navalny to a German hospital, Ms Yarmysh said on Twitter.

Mr Navalny remains in a coma in intensive care after a suspected poisoning that his allies link to his political activity.

The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Familys decision to transfer him is not enough, Ms Yarmysh said in a tweet.

Mr Navalny, 44, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk.

His team says a plane with all the necessary equipment is ready to take Mr Navalny to a German clinic.

Expand Close Dr Anastasiya Vasilyeva, left, who is treating Alexei Navalny, and his brother Oleg Navalny, at the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, intensive care unit (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Dr Anastasiya Vasilyeva, left, who is treating Alexei Navalny, and his brother Oleg Navalny, at the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1, intensive care unit (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP)

Mr Navalnys ally Ivan Zhdanov said on Friday that police found a very dangerous substance in Mr Navalnys system, but officials refuse to disclose what it is.

Alexander Murakhovsky, chief doctor of the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1 where the politician is being treated, told reporters on Friday that Mr Navalnys condition is somewhat improved, but he was not stable enough for a transfer.

Mr Murakhovsky said doctors were still working on determining a diagnosis.

Ms Yarmysh also said in her tweet that the ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Mr Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups.

In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Expand Close Police detain a protester supporting Alexei Navalny in Moscow (Pavel Golovkin/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Police detain a protester supporting Alexei Navalny in Moscow (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

Last year, Mr Navalny was taken to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning.

Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Mr Navalnys Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level.

Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Mr Navalny campaigned to challenge Mr Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russias ruling party, United Russia.

One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russias Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the regions governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.
Television actor Gaurav Chopraa's mother passed away on August 19, 2020. She was battling cancer for three years, and reportedly, even tested positive for COVID-19 recently. The Sanjivani 2 actor had informed his fans that both his parents were fighting a tough battle in different hospitals. Gaurav shared a few pictures of his mother and penned an emotional note for her.

In his post, the actor praised his mother and revealed that his mother had been his strength and source, who introduced him to everything in life.



Gaurav wrote, "My mommy strongest !! The first picture is from a year ago. Three years of cancer fighting of the worst kind ,three years of non stop chemo: and she was bucking us up !"

He further wrote, "Always the brightest spot of energy in the room . Always. The beauty that did not need any kind of accentuation. It stood out .loved by all. To the point of seeming like her fans. . . Inspired so many..as a teacher, as a principal,as a colleague ,as a friend ,as a human being pursuing spiritual growth over everything else.."

The actor concluded by writing, "I can go on and on .about a million things..she introduced me to everything in life ..my strength..my source.. #MeriMaa was the strongest.. She left us yesterday... In the other world she would be making everyone her fan ,I'm sure ! Aapka #kaanha."

Gaurav's colleagues from the TV industry offered their condolences after knowing about his mother's demise. Meera Chopra wrote, "my heart breaks with this." Delnaaz Irani commented, "Extremely sad.. May her soul rest in peace.. Gaurav please accept our heartfelt condolences "

Karan Mehra wrote, "Aunty fought these past few years of cancer with a smile and such grace...one of the bravest women I have known and such a noble soul. The moment your shared the news yesterday sitting next to me sunk my heart in such a way that I can't even imagine how hard it must be for you bhai and your family We are always here for you and may God rest her soul in peace  She shall shine bright from heavens above ." His wife Nisha Rawal commented, " I am her fan! She was amazing and I am sure she must be that bright spot of energy even in the heavens! Love u Gaurav Chopra, you are a piece of her amazing soul! Big hug to you and family ."

Also Read: Sanjivani Actor Gaurav Chopra Reveals His Parents Have Been Diagnosed With COVID-19
Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton has asked a federal court to delay a decision on a Department of Justice motion for Summary Judgment and to order discovery, claiming that the evidence will show the Trump administration abused the prepublication review system in an attempt to suppress his bestselling book The Room Where it Happened.

Ambassador Bolton...must be allowed discovery so that he may obtain and present information showing that the Governments actions in reviewing his manuscript were undertaken in bad faith, as part of a deliberate effort to suppress the publication of his book for purely political purposes, reads an August 20 supporting memorandum filed by Boltons attorneys. Bolton attorneys add that, should the case against Bolton be allowed to proceed, the author will argue that any contractual duties Bolton may have had under his NDAs were rendered moot by the Trump administrations bad-faith abuse of the review process.

Currently, the court is considering competing motions from the parties. On July 16, Bolton asked the court to dismiss the Department of Justice's remaining civil case against him, arguing that he has not breached his nondisclosure agreements, and that after a four-month review process, Ellen Knight, the NSCs senior director for Records, Access, and Information Security Management verbally affirmed that Boltons manuscript was cleared of any classified material.

But earlier this month, the DOJ filed a motion for summary judgment, seeking to seize Bolton's royaltiesincluding his reported $2 million advanceciting the author's nondisclosure agreements.

"As the Supreme Court has explicitly held, the proper remedy for a violation of a persons contractual agreements to undertake prepublication review is the imposition of a constructive trust on all proceeds of his book," reads a July 30 brief in support of the government's motion for summary Jjudgment against Bolton, "including amounts Defendant may already have received (which he should be required to disgorge) and any and all amounts he may receive in the future as royalties or otherwise."

In this weeks filings, attorneys for Bolton said the the evidence would show that Knight did not provide Ambassador Bolton with the pro-forma written letter memorializing her conclusion that the manuscript, as revised, contained no classified information because she was instructed not to do so by President Trump or White House assistants acting at his direction and/or on his behalf.

On June 20, federal judge Royce Lamberth denied the DOJ's emergency application for an order blocking publication of Bolton's book. But in his 10-page opinion and order, Lamberth rebuked Bolton for pushing ahead with publication, rather than seeking redress from the courts.

"Bolton could have sued the government and sought relief in court. Instead, he opted out of the review process before its conclusion, Lamberth wrote, adding that, based on the incomplete evidence presented at the hearing, he was persuaded that Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations."
Belarus has been on a rollercoaster of despair and hope in the past two weeks. That terrifying and inspiring journey is not yet over.

There has been violence on an unimaginable scale against those whose only crime is to demand basic truths  about the election results, and about their country, whose suffering western politicians have in the past too often ignored. Meanwhile, the courage of the peaceful crowds has achieved a miraculous opening-up that would have seemed unthinkable just a few short weeks ago.

On Sunday, another mass rally is planned, billed as a March of the New Belarus. The outcome will give a clue of what to expect next: peaceful progress, or an attempted return to repressive violence.

Alexander Lukashenkos confident shamelessness after 26 years in power has helped bring his downfall closer than ever before. Lukashenko perhaps hoped that harassing or jailing his key opponents would give him an unchallenged run. Instead, three remarkable women, with Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya chosen to be at their helm, stepped in and united Belarusians against Lukashenko more than ever before.

Even after the elections, Lukashenkos apparent avarice proved also to be his weakness. If he had claimed a mere 50 per cent of the vote, that might have been that. But the absurdity of his 80 per cent landslide, with electoral crumbs of just 10 per cent left over for Tsikhanouskaya, persuaded many on to the streets for the first time in their lives.

Equally, the violence against those who dared to challenge the lies was supposed to stop protests in their tracks. Instead, despite the obvious risks, more came out, not fewer.

Peaceful and creative protests multiplied  not just in Minsk but across the country. Once-loyal servants of Lukashenko, from policemen and editors to ambassadors, lost their fear, saw the writing on the wall, or  as so often, with collapsing regimes  a mixture of the two.

Lukashenko, in a moment reminiscent of the fall of Ceausescu in Romania, was forced into a humiliating retreat when factory workers dared the previously impossible, telling him: Leave! Sulkily, the president (or ex-president) did.

The regime has in recent days seemed determined to claw back power, with renewed arrests and threats of violence. The defence minister said his commanders should be ready to fight  with weapons, if necessary, and warned of civil war.

Those threats are not necessarily a bluff. But violence might prove only to mark the beginning of what the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski described, with reference to the Iranian revolution, as the zigzag to the precipice, where official violence hastens the regimes eventual end.

The Czech dissident (and later president) Vaclav Havel wrote 40 years ago of what he called the power of the powerless if people decide, despite all the risks, to live in truth. A decade later, while reporting for The Independent, I was privileged to witness that power of the powerless become real in the velvet revolution in Prague, in ways that have obvious echoes on the streets of Belarus today.

I saw the same transformation from hopelessness to hope when reporting from Serbia in October 2000. Eleven days of mass protests after yet another stolen election finally led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic when he learned of his electoral defeat. He died behind bars in The Hague.

Victory, on this occasion at least, is not yet a given. Almost forgotten now are the huge Belgrade protests of 1996 and 1997, where Milosevic briefly seemed to have been defeated. He made small last-minute concessions, and thus survived  at least temporarily  to fight another day.

 Police and protesters clash after Belarus presidential vote

Lukashenko and his generals should, however, check their history books if they think violence can provide any kind of durable solution. In East Germany in October 1989, the authorities threatened a massacre ahead of a key scheduled protest in Leipzig. Like Lukashenkos defence minister, the East German regime threatened to crush protests with weapons in the hand.

The government thought threats of a massacre would persuade people to stay at home. Instead, as I witnessed during one of the most extraordinary evenings of my life, the regime backed down at the last moment, because the courage of tens of thousands of Leipzigers had trumped their violence. A month later, the Berlin Wall came down.

As for the much-mooted possibility of Russian interference: that, too, might cut both ways. The Soviet coup of August 1991 was intended to overcome the profound anarchy and chaos, and to strengthen the Soviet Union. The coup collapsed after three days of popular protest, and triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

Steve Crawshaw is policy director at Freedom from Torture, a former east Europe editor of The Independent and author of Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief
Building on a new executive order issued this year to safeguard Wyomings iconic migration corridors, the governor announced the opening of an application period this week for the states first local area working group to help further mule deer conservation efforts in the Platte Valley region in Carbon County.

This first local area working group will specifically focus on assessing the Platte Valleys migration corridor. The Carbon County Commission will accept applications from residents wanting to participate until Sept. 18.

Public officials hope to hear from a variety of sources, including community members in the energy, agricultural and conservation fields.

Gov. Mark Gordons unprecedented executive order, signed in February, aimed to establish safeguards for some of the worlds longest known big-game migration corridors, while also preserving economic activity across Wyoming.

This Executive Order plowed new ground for the nations efforts to develop an approach for managing corridors and protecting our economy, Gordon said in a statement this week. This first local group will also be a leader and I urge people interested in serving to apply, especially those from the Platte Valley region of Carbon County or those who work or recreate there.

The new order calls for the development of local working groups to help determine effective conservation opportunities and aid in the designation of new corridors. By asking local residents on the ground for their opinions on the migration corridors, the state not only receives helpful feedback from working groups, but it also breeds greater investment in the corridors, the governor reasoned last year.

The state used a similar process when developing the executive order Gordon issued last year. He established a Migration Corridor Advisory Group in May 2019 to examine ways to balance conservation of sensitive wildlife habitat with the states vigorous energy, agricultural and recreational activity.

Wyoming now has three designated migration corridors  Baggs, Platte Valley and the Red Desert-to-Hoback. But the executive order left open the possibility for other mule deer or pronghorn pathways to become officially designated down the road.

According to the governors office, the new working group will be asked to review the effectiveness of corridor designation on the migratory herd and evaluate the Wyoming Game and Fish Departments draft risk assessment report. It will also make recommendations about additional opportunities for conservation as well as examine the impacts of all restrictions on development and use of lands encompassed in the designated corridor.

Wyoming is teeming with dozens of identified migration routes. Scientists have come to consider these ancient routes as critical habitat warranting state protection. Wyomings sagebrush-rich topography coupled with wide open spaces and minimal human disturbances have helped preserve some of the longest intact migration corridors in the world here. The states low human population numbers have also helped conserve big game herds, as several migration routes have remained permeable and connected. Wyoming is home to roughly 400,000 mule deer and about half the worlds pronghorn population.

But with mule deer population numbers hovering near historic lows in recent years, the state has been debating how to avoid losing an animal that has become closely intertwined with the states identity. Of the eight ungulate species, or hoofed mammals, making up the one million or so migrating mammals across Wyoming, the executive order places special emphasis on two: mule deer and pronghorn.

Since its release, the order has been cheered by several groups as a winning example of science-based wildlife management policy. Still, others fear it could add one more set of hurdles for energy developers to leap through.

Individuals interested in serving on the Platte Valley local area working group can apply by filling out a form available at https://bit.ly/2CJBxfM. Applications will be accepted until Sept. 18.

Follow the latest on Wyomings energy industry @camillereports

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Sushant Singh Rajput Death Anniversary: A Timeline of the of events that have transpired so far

At least 6 members of Sushant Singh Rajputs family killed in road accident in Bihar

Sushant Rajput case: 5-member team from AIIMS to examine autopsy report

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 22: A five-member medical board of forensic experts was formed by the AIIMS on Friday to look into the autopsy files related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, after the CBI approached the hospital for assistance.

"We will look into the possibility of murder. However, all probable angles will be thoroughly examined," AIIMS' forensic department chief Dr Sudhir Gupta, who will lead the team, told PTI.

He said the team will evaluate the injury pattern on Rajput''s body and correlate it with circumstantial evidence.

"The preserved viscera will be examined and the anti-depressants that were given to Rajput will also be analysed at the AIIMS laboratory," Gupta said.

CBIs probe into Sushant Singh Rajput case begins at his Bandra home

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) approached the forensic department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here on Friday for its medico-legal opinion in the case.

In a letter to the premier medical institute, the central probe agency said it will provide the team of forensic experts with the necessary medical papers, post-mortem reports, videographs and viscera reports at the earliest.

"It is in connection with the investigation of Sushant Singh Rajput death case, a medical board of doctors of AIIMS, New Delhi is required to be constituted for providing expert medical opinion in the case.

"Necessary medical papers, post-mortem reports, viscera reports will be provided at earliest. It is therefore requested that a medical board of doctors at AIIMS, New Delhi may please be constituted and deputed for visiting the place of occurrence at Mumbai at earliest," the CBI said in its letter.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday allowed the entry of limited number of devotees to three Jain temples at Dadar, Byculla and Chembur in Mumbai over the weekend (August 22 and 23) to offer prayers on the pious occasion of the Jain festival of Paryushana.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI), SA Bobde said that the entry would be subject to the undertaking given by the petitioner trust, which said that it would allow only five devotees at a time inside the shrines and a maximum of 250 would be permitted on a day during the festival because of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

We are of the view that if the undertaking given by the petitioner is faithfully complied with, it would not be hazardous to permit prayers at the three temples in Dadar, Byculla and Chembur, said the bench, which also comprised Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

The court was also critical of Maharashtra government in allowing other economic activities to continue but imposing restrictions on activities connected with religion.

We find it strange that you are allowing every activity involving economic interests and money. But if it involves religion, you say you cannot do it because of Covid-19, CJI Bobde remarked.

The court made it clear that its order allowing entry into the three temples would be limited to this particular case and would not apply to any other temples or festivals involving large congregation, including the annual 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, which start on Saturday (August 22).

Our order will not act as a precedent and will not apply to any other plea for worshipping in congregation by any other community or religion, particularly the congregation that happens during Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai and other places in Maharashtra, the apex court said.

Requests with respect to other such temples or festivals would have to be dealt with by the Maharashtra government, the court added.

The order was passed on a plea by Shri Parshwatilak Shwetamber Murtipujak Tapagacch Jain Trust, which is dedicated to the Jain community and had approached the apex court against a Bombay high court (HC) order of August 13 that had declined to grant interim relief.

The plea before the HC had sought permission to visit Jain temples to perform puja during Paryushana, which is being held between August 15 and 23.

The HC while refusing to pass any interim order had listed the case for further hearing in September.

Paryushana, which literally translates to abiding and coming together is a major festival for the Jain community, where the members of the faith take vows, observe fast and come together to pray.

Maharashtra government had opposed the plea in the SC, stating that the state is the worst affected as far as Covid-19 outbreak is concerned.

The government reasoned with the apex court that it would be difficult for the authorities concerned to ensure compliance with Covid-19 precautions, if places of worship are opened to the public.

Maharashtra is the state most affected by Covid-19 in India. I am opposing the plea vigorously due to the unimaginable situation in the state and keeping in mind the interests of the state, said senior counsel AM Singhvi, who appeared on behalf of Maharashtra government.

CJI Bobde, however, pointed out that if the standard operating procedures (SOPs) laid down by the Central government and the undertaking given by the petitioner could be enforced, then the plea could be granted.

The Central government through solicitor-general (S-G) Tushar Mehta supported the plea on condition that all precautions and SOPs are adhered to.

This is the same choice we had faced with the Jagannath Ratha Yatra in Puri. We had held that if the congregation can be avoided, then mere pulling of the rath (chariot) will not worsen the situation. And nothing worse happened after that. Lord Jagannath forgave us. We will be forgiven in this case, too, CJI Bobde said.

Earlier on June 22, the SC had allowed the annual Hindu festival of Rath Yatra at Jagannath temple in Odishas Puri district to be held without public participation and subject to stringent restrictions owing to the pandemic.

Senior counsel Dushyant Dave, who was representing the Jain trust, submitted on Friday that he was seeking permission to allow only five devotees inside a temple at a time subject and a maximum of 250 per day. He also pointed out that the state government was allowing other economic activities such opening of shopping malls, liquor outlets, etc, while pleading for the Jain devotees to visit their shrines.

Singhvi argued that a leeway given to one religious group could lead to similar petitions from other faiths as well.

We are satisfied that if only five people are allowed, it will not cause any problem, CJI Bobde said.

The SC had also heard another similar case from Jharkhand to open Baba Baidhyanath Jyotirlinga Temple at Deoghar and Baba Basukinath Temple at Basukinath to the public and to allow the Shravani Mela devotees to offer prayers during Hindu holy months of Shravan and Bhado.

The Jharkhand government had opposed the plea, the 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 it had requested the Jharkhand government to explore the possibility of allowing at least a few devotees to visit the temple every day on the auspicious occasion.

.
We dont know Clive Palmer and we have no time for his antics. However, not even the eccentric billionaire should be treated as disgracefully as he has been by the West Australian government.

A week ago, the Labor government of Premier Mark McGowan, shamefully backed by the Liberal opposition, passed legislation that extinguishes the legal rights of Palmers Mineralogy.

If it can happen Clive Palmer, it can hapen to any of us. Credit:Nine

In 2002, the flamboyant businessmans flagship company made an agreement with the WA government for the exploration and development of an iron ore deposit. Subsequently, disputes arose and, under the provisions of the 2002 agreement, were referred to independent arbitration before a retired High Court judge.

That judge has twice found in favour of Mineralogy and damages are to be assessed at hearings later this year. The government fears it will lose the case and pay a large compensation bill up to about $30 billion, though other sources claim any award to Palmer could be a small fraction of that.
LATEST: Aug. 22, 7:15 p.m. The fire in Point Reyes National Seashore held fairly steady throughout the day Saturday, growing a few hundred acres since Friday evening.

The Woodward Fire is now at 2,689 acres, up slightly from 2,259 on Friday. It remains 5% contained. An evacuation warning remains in effect for the communities of Olema, Inverness, Inverness Park and Seahaven. A full map of evacuation warnings can be found here. Point Reyes National Seashore west of Highway 1 is closed to all visitors due to the fire.

Officials expressed concern at a press briefing on Saturday evening that winds are expected to pick up over the next few days. Marin County Fire says it expects to have updated containment numbers on Sunday morning.

SEE MORE: Dramatic video shows helicopter rescue of firefighters battling Woodward Fire

Aug 21, 6:31 p.m. The Woodward Fire was 5% contained Friday evening, the Marin County Fire Department said. The fire has burned 2,259 acres.

Aug 21, 3:45 p.m. The Marin County Fire Department said the Woodward Fire has now grown to 2,259 acres and is 0% contained.

Aug 21, 3 p.m. Multiple helicopters, air attack, tankers and super scoopers are on the scene of the Woodward Fire now. Marin County Fire said on Twitter: "We are experiencing more wind today than yesterday near the fire, but crews and aerial assets remain engaged in fire suppression."

Aug 21, 2:55 p.m. Point Reyes National Seashore west of Highway 1 is now closed to all visitors.

The evacuation warning area has been expanded to include Olema, Inverness, Inverness Park and Sea Haven for the Woodward Fire. All previous warnings still in effect.

Aug 21, 8 a.m. A vegetation fire burning in the Point Reyes National Seashore grew to 2,100 acres overnight and is 0% contained Friday.

No injuries have been reported and no structures have been damaged.

Firefighters did make some headway Thursday when aerial resources were brought in, but weather conditions in the region continue to be challenging.

The coastline did not see fog last night, Marin County Sheriff's Sgt. Brenton Schneider said. As the heat picks up and the wind picks up we anticipate seeing more fire activity today.

The fire area is steep with limited access on foot, which has caused ongoing challenges for firefighters who must hike in to battle the blaze.

Additionally, resources are strained in the state due to the large number of fires burning. The National Park Service has requested assistance from teams in the Northern Rockies, which includes Montana, North Dakota, Idaho and South Dakota, and those should arrive Saturday or Sunday.

The Woodward Fire began on Tuesday evening near the Woodward Valley Trail. It is currently burning south of Limantour Road, north of the Bear Valley Trail, and west of Shoreline Highway (State Route 1).

An evacuation warning  a request that residents stay ready to leave at a moment's notice  is in place for all residents west of Shoreline Highway between Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Olema south to Bolinas. Weber cautioned that mandatory evacuations could be necessary if winds pick up. Limantour Road remains closed.

Cal Fire says the fire was started by lightning.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

These are the fires burning in the Bay Area right now

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

105 homes burned, 25,000 threatened by North Bay fires

Vacaville wildfire destroys homes, evacuations extended into Fairfield

California's oldest state park now completely surrounded by fire zone

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Tessa McLean is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her at tessa.mclean@sfgate.com or follow her on Twitter @mcleantessa.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Mayor K Sreekumar has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday registering his protest against the decision to hand over the operation and management of Trivandrum International Airport to Adani Group. The mayor in his letter urged the Centre to hand over the charge to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with the state government as a majority stake holder.

Weve raised strong objection against the decision to entrust a private party with the management of the airport, said Mayor K Sreekumar.

The letter emphasises the major role played by the state in establishing the airport by handing over the land free of cost. It also highlights the governments successful handling of the PPP model airports in Kochi and Kannur while pointing out that Adani group doesnt have any proven experience in the field.
Four people have died and four others were injured in wildfires burning in five Northern California counties, Cal Fire said Thursday.

Three Napa County residents and one Solano County resident were killed in the LNU Lightning Complex fires. Four others were injured, Cal Fire said.

The LNU Lightning Complex fires were ignited Tuesday night by lightning strikes in Napa and Sonoma counties. The fires have since spread to Lake, Solano and Yolo counties.



As of Friday night, the fires had consumed 302,388 acres with 15% containment, Cal Fire reported. Solano County Undersheriff Brad DeWall said in a video posted on Facebook the fire has burned 50,000 acres in the county.



Lightning-sparked wildfires in Northern California exploded in size Friday to become some of the largest in state history, forcing thousands to flee and destroying hundreds of homes and other structures as reinforcements began arriving to help weary firefighters.



The fires continue to threaten 30,500 structures, Cal Fire said.



More than 12,000 firefighters aided by helicopters and air tankers are battling wildfires throughout California. Three groups of fires, called complexes, burning north, east and south of San Francisco have together scorched 780 square miles (2,020 square kilometers) and destroyed more than 500 structures.



The blazes, coming during a heat wave that has seen temperatures top 100 degrees, are taxing the states firefighting capacity but assistance from throughout the country was beginning to arrive, with 10 states sending fire crews, engines and aircraft to help, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

The number of personnel assigned to the sprawling LNU Complex  a cluster of blazes burning in the heart of wine country north of San Francisco  doubled to more than 1,000 firefighters Friday, he said.

Newsom thanked President Donald Trump's administration for its help a day after pushing back on Trump's criticism of the state's wildfire prevention work, saying that he has a "strong personal relationship with the president.



While he may make statements publicly, the working relationship privately has been a very effective one, Newsom said.

There are 560 fires burning in the state, many small and remote but there are about two dozen major fires, mainly in Northern California. Many blazes were sparked by thousands of lightning strikes earlier in the week.

Tens of thousands of homes were threatened by flames that drove through dense and bone-dry trees and brush. Some fires doubled in size within 24 hours, fire officials said.

With firefighting resources tight, homes in remote, hard-to-get-to places burned unattended. CalFire Chief Mark Brunton pleaded with residents to quit battling fires on their own, saying that just causes more problems for the professionals.

We had last night three separate rescues that pulled our vital, very few resources away, he said.

An anxious Rachel Stratman, 35, and her husband, Quentin Lareau, 40, waited for word Friday about their home in the Forest Springs community of Boulder Creek, in Santa Cruz County, after evacuating earlier this week. She knew one house burned but received conflicting information about the rest of the neighborhood.

See a map of Solano County evacuations here

We have more people but its not enough. We have more air support but its still not enough and thats why we need support from our federal partners, Newsom said.



Its so hard to wait and not know," she said. Im still torn if I want people to be going back to the area and videotaping. I know they cause the firefighters distraction, but thats the only way we know.

The couple were in a San Jose hotel with medication she needs after undergoing a transplant surgery last month. She collected her mother's ashes and some clothes while her husband closed windows and readied the home before they evacuated Tuesday.

I kept looking at things and kept thinking I should grab this or that, but I just told myself I needed to leave. I didnt bring any official documents and I didnt bring my house deed or car title. No passport," she said.

The ferocity of the fires was astonishing so early in the fire season, which historically has seen the largest and deadliest blazes when dry gusts blow in the fall.

Smoke and ash billowing from the fires has fouled the air throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and along California's scenic central coast.



The SCU Lightning Complex fire burning east of San Francisco started Tuesday and the slightly smaller LNU Lightning Complex burning in wine country that was sparked a day earlier already have become among the 10 largest wildfires in state history. Firefighters had only contained a small portion of the wildfires by Friday afternoon.

See evacuation orders for Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties here



In Napa County, Crosswalk Community Church has transformed its sanctuary and gymnasium into an evacuation shelter, filling the floor with cots spaced at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart. Pastor Peter Shaw said the church has seen a steady stream of people stopping for resources. Some were just looking for information, while others needed gift cards for food and basic needs.



COVID-19 complicates everything, Shaw wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Socially distanced cots drastically decreases our capacity.

A few people have stayed the night, Shaw said, adding several people parked their RVs in the church parking lot.

The longer the evacuations stay in place, I suspect the more people we will see, he said.

Eric Swensen packed early and got ready to evacuate after seeing ash, burned leaves and charred bark fall around his family's home in Boulder Creek earlier this week. He, his 11-year-old son, girlfriend Gundy Sartor, and neighbor Lesley Wludyga packed a pet lizard and important documents and headed north to Redwood City.

But as of Friday, he still hadn't heard if his home had survived. He read on social media that firefighters had to retreat from the area.



Obviously, the current resources dedicated to the fire are nowhere near enough, but we also understand that California is burning, and they are doing what they can, Swensen said.

___

Associated Press writers Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, Camille Fassett in Redwood City and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.




Pune, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The cost-effectiveness and flexibility of district heating systems will contribute positively to the global district heating market, says Fortune Business Insights in a report, titled District Heating Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Heat Source (Coal, Natural Gas, Renewables, Oil & Petroleum Products, and Others), By Plant Type (Boiler, CHP, Others), By Application (Residential, Commercial, Industrial), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026. According to the report, the global district heating market was valued at USD 172.83 Billion in 2018 is predicted to reach USD 237.53 Billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 4.11% during the forecast period.

According to the report, the global district heating market on the basis of heat source is segmented into coal, natural gas, renewables, oil & petroleum products. Natural gas-powered district heating systems will hold maximum share in the global district heating market owing to the advantages of natural gas such as lower costs and fewer carbon emissions with excellent efficiency.

An all-encompassing study on the developments of the district heating industry is incorporated in the report. The report provides an all-encompassing view of the district heating market and discusses in detail the recent market trends besides elaborating on the segmentation and industrial development impacting its growth trajectory.

Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this Market.







Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/district-heating-market-100097





An Overview of the Impact of COVID-19 on this Market:

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. There are some industries that are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic.

We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future.





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Increasing Deployment in Residential Sector Will Create Lucrative Growth Opportunities

The global district heating market on the basis of application is segmented into residential, commercial, and industrial. The residential segment accounts for the largest market share due to the increasing requirement of the heating for household works. Further, the rising demand from the residential sector for district heating system to keep the house warm and use hot water for various activities will enable the growth of the global district heating market. The surge in construction work in developing nation will benefit the district heating market shares. In addition, the increasing heat demand in the residential sector and curbing of carbon emissions with the use of district heating system will boost the global district heating market revenue.

Moreover, rising concerns regarding carbon emissions and favorable government policies together will augment the growth of the global district heating market during the forecast period.





Speak to Analyst: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/district-heating-market-100097





Regional Analysis :

Rising Gas Exploration Activities to Foster Growth in North America

The market in North America is predicted to dominate the market during the forecast period owing to the growing adoption of district heating systems in the region. The growing installation gas exploration activities of district heating systems will augur well for the market in North America. The ongoing gas exploration activities will contribute positively to the growth of the market in North America. Asia Pacific is predicted to rise exponentially during the forecast period owing to the rising demand for heating systems in the region. China accounts for the largest share in the market. The Northern part of China has low temperatures most time of the year, thus, the necessity for heating in the area along with the deployment of the district heating plants will enable the growth of the market. The increasing installation capacity in South Korea will boost the district heating market share in the forthcoming years.

Key Development :

August 2019: A grant of 6 million was announced by the first minister Nicola Sturgeon which is named Stirling district heat network project. The project was developed in collaboration with Scottish water horizons and the Stirling council. The project is first of its kind and will be providing affordable and low carbon heat to the local Stirling community.

May 2019: CNIM, a French International Industrial equipment manufacturer announced that it has signed an agreement to provide energy efficiency and optimization to plant serving sites in cities of Nantes and Saint Nazaire.

List Of key Companies in District Heating Market Are:

Danfoss Group

Ramboll

Dall Energy

Veolia

Helen

Alfa Level

GE

COWI

Statkraft

Uniper

ENGIE





Quick Buy  District Heating Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/100097





Detailed Table of Content

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities

Key Insights Key Emerging Trends  For Major Countries Latest Technological Advancement Regulatory Landscape Industry SWOT Analysis Porters Five Forces Analysis Value Chain Analysis

Global District Heating Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2015-2026 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights, and Forecast  By Heat Source (USD Billion) (GWth) Coal Natural Gas Renewables Oil & Petroleum Products Others Market Analysis, Insights, and Forecast  By Plant Type (USD Billion) (GWth) Boiler CHP Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Application (USD Billion) (GWth) Residential Industrial Commercial Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region (USD Billion) (GWth) North America Europe Asia Pacific Rest of the World







TOC Continued..





Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/district-heating-market-100097





Have a Look at Related Research Insights:

Electric Heat Tracing System Market Size, Share and Global Trend By Component (Electric Heat Tracing Cables, Power Connection Kit, RTD Sensors), By Application (Process Temperature Maintenance, Hot Water Temperature Maintenance, Floor Heating, Freezing Protection) By End User (Residential, Commercial, Industrial), and Geography Forecast till 2026

Hydronic Radiators Market Size, Share and Global Trend By Technology (Heating System, Cooling System), By End User (Industrial, Commercial, Residential), and Geography Forecast Till 2026

District Cooling Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By End User (Residential, Industrial, and Commercial), By Technology (Electric Chillers, Absorption Chillers, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2019 - 2026





About Us:

Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in.



Our reports contain a unique mix of tangible insights and qualitative analysis to help companies achieve sustainable growth. Our team of experienced analysts and consultants use industry-leading research tools and techniques to compile comprehensive market studies, interspersed with relevant data.



At Fortune Business Insights, we aim at highlighting the most lucrative growth opportunities for our clients. We therefore offer recommendations, making it easier for them to navigate through technological and market-related changes. Our consulting services are designed to help organizations identify hidden opportunities and understand prevailing competitive challenges.
UNITED NATIONS  The Trump administration ran into immediate opposition after its top diplomat officially informed the United Nations it is demanding the restoration of all U.N. sanctions on Iran, with allies and opponents declaring the U.S. action illegal and doomed to failure.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted Thursday that the United States has the legal right to snap back U.N. sanctions even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

Russia and China, along with European allies Britain, France and Germany, who often disagree, are united in declaring the U.S. action illegal on grounds that you cant withdraw from a deal and then use the resolution that endorsed it to re-impose sanctions.

How this dispute plays out in the weeks ahead remains to be seen, but Thursdays U.S. move set the stage for a showdown in the United Nations that could lead to a crisis of credibility for the Security Council, its most important and powerful body.

Pompeo came to the U.N. to deliver a letter to Indonesias ambassador to the U.N., Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating council presidency. It cited significant Iranian violations of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, a requirement to snap back U.N. sanctions.

Pompeo said his message was simple: The United States will never allow the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles, and other kinds of conventional weapons  (or) to have a nuclear weapon.

And he said U.N. sanctions will continue the arms embargo on Iran, set to expire on Oct. 18, as well as prohibit ballistic missile testing and nuclear enrichment that could lead to a nuclear weapons program  which Tehran insists it is not pursuing.

Pompeo was sharply critical of our friends in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom who didnt support a U.S. resolution to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran, which was resoundingly defeated a week ago.

He accused them of privately agreeing with the U.S. but lacking courage to say so publicly and proposing no alternatives.

Instead they chose to side with ayatollahs, Pompeo said. Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of Syria and indeed their own citizens as well.

Following Pompeos half-hour meeting, the council president began one-on-one consultations with its 14 other members on the legality of the U.S. action, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.

Under the terms of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal, Thursdays notification starts a 30-day clock after which pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran that were eased will be re-imposed unless a resolution specifically extending their suspension is passed. The U.S., however, would use its veto power to block any resolution extending the sanctions relief.

Pompeo said a Security Council resolution will be introduced as required, but he wouldnt say which country would initiate it. Only the Dominican Republic supported last weeks defeated U.S. resolution to extend the arms embargo.

He appeared confident the U.N. sanctions would be re-imposed in 31 days and indicated that the U.S. may impose sanctions on countries that dont enforce them.

Diplomats said the likely outcome of the council presidents consultations is that the majority of members inform him that the U.S. is not legally entitled to invoke snap back, and therefore they consider that snap back has not been triggered and the U.S. action will have no effect.

In these circumstances, the council president would not be required to introduce a resolution to extend sanctions relief, which would face a U.S. veto, the diplomats said.

The Europeans are still hoping that an agreement might be reached before the Oct. 18 expiration of the Iran arms embargo that could bridge the major differences between Russia and China, who support its lifting, and the United States, which seeks an indefinite extension, the diplomats said.

The Russians have been the most outspoken critics of the U.S. decision to invoke snap back.

Before Pompeos notification, Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the U.S. didnt have the legal right to initiate snap back, and said of course, we will challenge it.

As soon as Pompeo delivered the letter invoking snap back, Russias deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, tweeted: Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.

Russia then asked for an open council meeting Friday to discuss implementation of resolution 2231 endorsing the nuclear deal, which the Trump administration rejected.

After groundlessly claiming that they triggered #snapback our US colleagues objected to holding a SC meeting to discuss whats happening around implementation of Resolution 2231, Polyansky tweeted.

Looming on the horizon, and an unspoken consideration for many Security Council members in this dispute, is the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3.

The Europeans fear that the re-imposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the nuclear deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons, and they are hoping to preserve the JCPOA in the event Trump loses his bid for a second term. Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.

The Trump administration says the deal wasnt working and gave Iran billions of dollars to buy weapons and support its proxies while gradually easing sanctions.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, meanwhile, told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a Thursday phone call that the Security Council must resist the U.S. demand.

This would have dangerous consequences for international law, it will bring nothing but the destruction of international mechanisms and it will discredit the Security Council, Zarif said.

Irans U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi expressed confidence at a news conference that the Security Council will reject the U.S. move because it violates international law, has not enjoyed the political support of council members, and is definitely doomed to failure.

___

Lee reported from Washington. Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed.
POONCH : Pakistan on Friday initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and intense shelling with mortars along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Mankote sector of the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir .

The ceasefire violation by Pakistan took place around 6.30 pm.

The Indian Army is retaliating.

On August 19, Pakistan had initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Keri Battal area of Sunderbani sector.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

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Ekiti State House of Assembly has suspended the Ikere Local Government Chairman, Mr Femi Ayodele over alleged unauthorised presidential campaign posters for Governor Kayode Fayemi.

Ayodele had sponsored campaign posters canvassing for Governor Fayemi to contest as a presidential candidate under the platform of the All Progressive Congress in 2023.

The posters, which have become subject of political debates and innuendos on different platforms, shows Governor Fayemi clad in an adorable sky blue Agbada with a blue striped Awolowo cap.

The message on the posters with APC logo reads: Support His Excellency Dr. John Kayode Fayemi for President 2023.

The council chairman was suspended unanimously by the lawmakers at the assemblys plenary presided over by the Speaker Funminiyi Afuye on Friday.

The decision followed a motion moved by the Majority Leader of the Assembly, Chief Gboyega Aribisogan and seconded by Mr Tajudeen Akingbolu, Ekiti West Constituency 1, APC.

The motion was entitled: Calling for investigation into the alleged unsolicited and unauthorised campaign in the media in flagrant disregard to Extant Regulations by Chairman, Ikere Local Government Area, Mr. Femi Ayodele.

The lawmakers through a resolution unanimously suspended the council chairman, pending the completion of the assemblys investigation on the matter.

The Assembly also committed the matter to its House Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs for thorough investigation.

The speaker who hailed from the same council with Ayodele directed the ad-hoc committee to submit its report to the House within one week.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Legendary director Ridley Scott's upcoming crime drama film about the murder of fashion trailblazer Maurizio Gucci is gearing up to have a star-studded cast.

With Lady Gaga already signed-on to play the wife of the murdered heir to the Gucci fashion dynasty, MGM is now in talks with the likes of Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Adam Driver, Jack Huston and Reeve Carney, according to Deadline.

MGM plans to begin production just as soon as Scott wraps up shooting his period drama film, The Last Duel, which will re-start its production next week after being shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Star-studded: Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Adam Driver and Jared Leto are in talks to star in the upcoming film on the Gucci fashion empire and the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci

The screenplay for the Gucci film was written by Roberto Bentivegna, and based on Sara Gay Forden's book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed.

Scott will serve as both director and producer, alongside wife Giannina Scott, who has co-produced a number of passion projects with her husband.

The actress-producer, best known to fans for playing the wife of Maximus (Russell Crowe) in the Scott-directed blockbuster, Gladiator (2000), has reportedly been passionate about bringing a film about the Gucci murder and family fashion dynasty to the silver screen.

Black Widow: In Gucci, Lady Gaga will play Patrizia Reggiani, the woman who was convicted of orchestrating the murder of ex-husband Maurizio Gucci's on the steps of his office in Milan, Italy in 1995

More potential stars: Jack Huston and Reeve Carney are also in talks to star in the Gucci film, according to Deadline

News that Lady Gaga was attached to the Gucci film was revealed back in November 2019.

This will be her first feature role since 2018's A Star is Born, which landed her an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Shallow and a Best Actress nomination.

In Gucci, she will play Patrizia Reggiani, the ex-wife of Maurizio Gucci, who was convicted of orchestrating his murder on the steps of his office in Milan, Italy in 1995 by hiring hitmen.

Maurizio, the grandson of the Gucci fashion dynasty founder Guccio Gucci, and Reggiani, shared two daughters, but he later left her for another woman.

Oscar gold: The Gucci film will be Gaga's first feature role since 2018's A Star is Born, which landed her an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Shallow and a Best Actress nomination

In the end she ended up spending 18-years in an Italian prison and was eventually released in 2016.

Dubbed the Black Widow in the midst of the murder scandal, Reggiani was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1992 and had it removed. Her children blamed the tumor for their mother's cruel actions.

Despite that she and her four accomplices were convicted, Reggiani has long maintained that she was wrongfully convicted.

MGM secured the rights to the Gucci film in April.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has hit out at Donald Trump, calling him a clear despot.

The actor will next appear in Aaron Sorkins The Trial of the Chicago 7, which revisits the extraordinary trial of a group of anti-Vietnam war protesters after the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Gordon-Levitt plays the conservative prosecutor of the case. It also stars Sacha Baron Cohen as counterculture icon Abbie Hoffman and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Panther leader Bobby Seale.

Speaking to The Guardian about how the aims of the Black Lives Matters protesters, the Youth International Party and the counterculture contingent meant there were divisions within the left-wing movement, Gordon-Levitt said: Theres an argument that ended up playing into the hands of the right. And I think Donald Trump has leveraged that to his advantage in a way thats obviously been effective for him, but is infuriating for a leftist like myself.

He added that Trump is a clear despot and completely in opposition to the liberties that my country was founded on.

Gordon-Levitt in The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)

Gordon-Levitts comments arrive while the Democratic National Convention takes place in America.

Billie Eilish delivered a searing anti-Trump speech at the Convention, urging Americans to vote like their lives depend on it.

Gordon-Levitt also discussed his role as a New Orleans cop in Project Power. The film was mostly shot in 2018, before the killing of George Floyd and the mass Black Lives Matter protests in the US. It means something different to be playing a police officer now than it did in 2018, he said. But, on the other hand, its nothing new at all. These same exact tragedies have been happening my entire life.
At-home Covid-19 antibody tests can put people at risk and mislead the public, health experts have warned.

The Royal College of Pathologists has written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock to call for tighter regulations over the have-you-had-it tests.

Officials have yet to approve any at-home antibody test for use, despite promising such kits were days away from being validated back in March.

Only NHS workers and care staff, as well as some patients in hospital and care home residents, can get their blood checked for signs of past infection.

Several different DIY antibody tests were available before regulators clamped down on the kits in May over fears finger-prick blood may not be as accurate.

But Professor Jo Martin, of the RCP, said that they were 'concerned' such devices, intended solely for professional use, were being offered for sale.

She warned antibody tests were being offered to consumers 'without the required reassurance of appropriate laboratory or professional back up'.

Professor Martin said: 'The use of these for unsupervised self use test falls outside current regulations, and can mislead the public and put individuals at risk.

'We want everyone to be assured about the tests they receive in healthcare, or that they purchase.

'We want to make sure that not only are they are of good quality, but they give the right result and the result is properly readable - they are appropriately ''useable''.'

A senior health body has warned the Government about the risks associated with the selling Covid-19 antibody testing devices directly to the public. Pictured is a worker demonstrating the use of a coronavirus 10-minute blood test

Antibody tests have been a controversial subject for months after the Government first pledged them to the public in March but rowed back on its decision.

Many tests turned out to be inaccurate and even if results are accurate, scientists still aren't sure how to interpret them because people may not develop immunity.

The tests work by screening a small blood sample to look for antibodies - disease-fighting substances made by the immune system that are specific to one illness.

If Covid-specific antibodies are present in someone's blood, it means they have been infected with the virus in the past and fought it off.

WHAT IS AN ANTIBODY TEST AND WHAT IS IT USED FOR? Antibody tests are ones which look for signs of past infection in someone's blood. Antibodies are substances produced by the immune system which store memories of how to fight off a specific virus. They can only be created if the body is exposed to the virus by getting infected for real, or through a vaccine or other type of specialist immune therapy. Generally speaking, antibodies produce immunity to a virus because they are redeployed if it enters the body for a second time, defeating the bug faster than it can take hold and cause an illness. An antibody test, which involves analysis of someone's blood sample, has two purposes: to reveal whether an individual has been infected in the past and may therefore be protected against the virus, and to count those people. Knowing you are immune to a virus - although whether people actually develop immunity to Covid-19 is still unknown - can affect how you act in the future. Someone may need to protect themselves less if they know they have been infected, for example, or medical staff may be able to return to work in the knowledge they are not at risk. Counting the numbers of people who have antibodies is the most accurate way of calculating how many people in a population have had the virus already. This can be done on a small sample of the population and the figures scaled up to give a picture of the country as a whole. In turn, this can inform scientists and politicians how devastating a second outbreak might be, and how close the country is to herd immunity - a situation in which so many people have had the virus already that it would not be able to spread quickly a second time. Experts believe that around 60 per cent exposure would be required for herd immunity from Covid-19, but the UK does not appear to be anywhere close to that. Early estimates suggest 17 per cent of Londoners have had the virus, along with five per cent of the rest of the country  about 4.83million people. This means the virus might spread slightly slower in future but the risk of second outbreak and hundreds or thousands more deaths remains very real. Advertisement

Several sellers have stopped selling their at-home antibody tests following the Government's decision to clamp down on them in May.

Babylon announced on its website that all testing would be paused after the government asked that all Covid-19 antibody testing from finger-prick blood samples be paused.

The government wants to ensure that blood taken from a home finger-prick sample shows the same levels of accuracy as a sample taken in a clinic.

The clamp down was sparked after Superdrug announced it was going to sell tests for 89, which saw its testing service shut down by regulators in May.

The retailer last month changed its service to take blood from veins instead of relying on finger-pricks.

Antibody tests are currently a 'class one' medical device  meaning that companies are allowed to self-certify their tests as effective and immediately put them on the market.

However, tests for HIV and pregnancy are classed as 'annex two' on the European directive for medical devices  meaning that companies have to provide certified information about the efficacy of their tests.

Jon Deeks, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham, told the BBC: 'These regulations aren't fit for purpose and don't protect the public from bad tests.

'If you can get a CE mark [indicating compliance with the relevant legislation] for a bad test as there is no scrutiny on whether it works, it is just a marketing claim that is registered and we are left in a Wild West of antibody testing.

'For drug licensing the onus is on the companies to go through clinical trials. We need that same obligation to apply for testing devices like the Covid antibody tests as well.'

He added that evaluations of tests should be added to pre-registers for clinical trials in order to stop manufacturers from reporting on only the most favourable results.

A Department of Health and Social Care official said action is being taken to enforce tough regulations on at-home antibody tests.

The spokesman - who insisted that antibody testing was an 'important part of our strategy' - added that some 47,000 tests have been seized.

And they added: 'We do not yet know whether antibodies indicate immunity from reinfection with coronavirus or if they prevent transmission.'

Tests made by pharmaceutical heavyweights Roche and Abbott are currently being used to map the outbreak among the population.

BBC's Newsnight reported an analysis of 41 antibodies tests sold to the public in Britain showed almost a third had inaccurate and incomplete information.

It comes after researchers found that large numbers of people who suffered from coronavirus could be being wrongly diagnosed as Covid free.

The Oxford University study of more than 9,000 healthcare workers found that significant numbers of people had received negative test results despite being likely to have already contracted Covid-19.
Breast milk may contain immune-fighting proteins that protect against the coronavirus. (Image posed by model, Getty Images)

The breast milk of coronavirus survivors could ward off the infection in vulnerable individuals, scientists have suggested.

After looking at 30 lactating women who tested positive for the infection, a team from Amsterdam University found the participants breast milk contained coronavirus-specific antibodies.

Antibodies are immune-fighting proteins that help destroy an invading virus and prevent it taking hold for a second time.

Read more: Soft singing 'no riskier than talking', coronavirus study finds

Administering the breast milk via ice cubes is thought to be more effective than drinking it due to the antibodies having more contact with mucous membranes  mucus-secreting tissues that line the respiratory tract and gut.

The scientists are recruiting 1,000 lactating women, who have not necessarily tested positive for the coronavirus, to better understand how common the antibodies are among nursing mothers.

Scientists from the University of Amsterdam found antibodies in breast milk warded off the infection in laboratory studies. (Getty Images)

Antibodies attack the virus

Breast milk could possibly be used for risk groups when a second coronavirus wave occurs, Professor Hans van Goudoever, from Amsterdam Universitys Emma Childrens Hospital, said in a statement.

We think that after drinking the milk, the antibodies attach themselves to the surface of our mucous membranes.

There they attack the virus particles before they enter the body.

Read more: Antibodies protect against second coronavirus infection, study suggests

When the immune system encounters a virus, cells work to create antibodies.

These lock onto the virus surface, neutralising or marking it for destruction by other immune cells.

When the infection is encountered for a second time, the immune system ramps up production of these weapons, preventing the virus from taking hold again.

This is the principle behind vaccines; exposing an individual to a harmless amount of an infection that allows the immune system to recognise it if it were to later invade the body.

Read more: Coronavirus linked to onset of type 1 diabetes in children

Story continues

Concerns have been flagged as to how long coronavirus-antibodies last, which could hinder the effectiveness of any immunisation programme.

Hopes were raised, however, after a recent remarkable study. Scientists from the University of Washington found three people who had already overcome the coronavirus did not catch it again during a localised outbreak aboard a fishing vessel.

Blood samples revealed they had circulating antibodies, suggesting the immune-fighting proteins do ward off a second infection.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam wears a mask at the government headquarters. Breast milk ice cubes may protect vulnerable individuals, like care home residents. (Getty Images)

Breast milk ice cubes could protect care home residents

Breast milk is known to contain antibodies that protect newborns against a number of respiratory infections.

Laboratory studies have shown coronavirus-specific antibodies help to stop its spread.

Scientists from the University of California, San Diego, recently reported there are no documented cases of transmission of infectious [coronaviruses] to the infant through breast milk.

The World Health Organization has also stressed mothers who chose to breastfeed should continue to do so during the pandemic.

Speaking of why the breast milk should be given as an ice cube, scientist Britt van Keulen said: You want the antibodies to be in contact with the mucous membranes for as long as possible to really create that protective layer.

When you drink it, it disappears quickly.

Our idea is to give it in the form of ice cubes, so it takes a little longer, there is longer contact with the mucous membranes to create that layer, as reported by The Times.

Of the thirty women who tested positive for the coronavirus, their breast-milk antibodies were not destroyed after pasteurisation, which helps guarantee it is safe for consumption.

Limited supplies of breast milk mean any future treatments will be given to vulnerable individuals  like care home residents  rather than the general population, added the scientists.

Professor van Goudoever believes giving residents breast milk ice cubes for 10 days would be sufficient for the coronavirus to leave the nursing home.

A spokesperson for Emma Childrens Hospital told Newsweek an inbox dedicated to the breast-milk drive has received at least 5,000 messages since the scientists appeared on local television on 19 August.

Participants will be asked to donate 100ml of breast milk for testing.

Samples that do not contain coronavirus antibodies will be stored for future research, with the womens permission, added the scientists.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed late Thursday a decision by the US to push for all sanctions to be restored on Iran.

The Trump administration formally notified the United Nations of its demand for all UN sanctions on Iran to be restored, setting off an immediate confrontation with Russia and other Security Council members who called the U.S. move illegal.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the notification to the president of the UN Security Council, citing significant Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal, a requirement to snap back UN sanctions.

The US maintains that under the Security Council resolution endorsing the agreement it retains the right as an initial party to invoke the provision to "snap back" sanctions.

Netanyahu has long called for the dismantling of the Iran nuclear deal.

On Thursday he accused the UN Security Council of being complicit in helping Iran develop nuclear weapons.

"Israel stands proudly and firmly with the United States, as do governments across the Middle East who opposed the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) quietly and now support the restoration of sanctions publicly," Netanyahu said.

Russia, China, Britain, France and virtually all other council members say the Trump administration does not have the right since it is no longer a party to the JCPOA.

The US action sets the stage for a showdown that could lead to a crisis of credibility for the Security Council.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 04:11:13|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German company BioNTech have released additional Phase 1 safety and immunogenicity data from their ongoing study of their vaccine candidate against COVID-19.

According to a release of the companies on Thursday, in a Phase 1 study conducted in the United States, at 7 days after a second dose of 30 mcg, the vaccine BNT162b2 elicited SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing geometric mean titers (GMTs) in younger adults aged between 18 and 55, that were 3.8 times the GMT of a panel of 38 sera of SARS-CoV-2 convalescent patients.

In older adults aged between 65 and 85, the vaccine candidate elicited a neutralizing GMT 1.6 times the GMT of the same panel, demonstrating strong immunogenicity in younger and older adults.

Across all populations, BNT162b2 administration was well tolerated with mild to moderate fever in fewer than 20 percent of the participants, according to the results.

"We are especially pleased to offer these early data showing our vaccine candidate's promising safety and immunogenicity profile from the U.S. trial and we look forward to sharing T cell immune response data from the German trial in the near future," said Kathrin U. Jansen, Pfizer senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development. Enditem
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, during his two-day visit to Bangladesh discussed the Covid-19 situation and also Indias development assistance projects in Bangladesh.

MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said discussions also revolved around the 100th birth anniversary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 2020 and the 50 years of liberation of Bangladesh next year. Indias developmental assistance in Bangladesh as also the projects in the area of connectivity and power were discussed.

Several of these projects, including the Rampal Maitree Power Plant, India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline, and rail links between Akhaura-Agartala and Chilahati-Haldibari and Khulna-Mongla rail line are expected to get completed next year.

It was proposed that the next meeting of the Joint Consultative Commission at the level of the Foreign Ministers should be convened shortly to review the entire gamut of bilateral relationship including the projects.

It was also proposed that a high level monitoring mechanism be set up to regularly review the progress of the ongoing projects, Srivastava said. Bangladesh appreciated Indias proposal to launch an air travel bubble which allows travel for business, medical reasons, the spokesperson said.
Russias coronavirus cases grew by 4,870 in the past 24 hours, pushing the total to 946,976, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Friday.



According to its data, the daily growth rate stands at 0.5% for the sixth day in a row.



The lowest daily growth rates were recorded in the Moscow Region (0.2%), the Jewish Autonomous Region (0.2%), Moscow (0.3%), the Tuva Region (0.3%), Kabardino-Balkaria (0.3%), North Ossetia (0.3%), the Smolensk Region (0.3%), the Tambov Region (0.3%), the Tula Region (0.3%) and Chechnya (0.3%).



Another 690 cases were confirmed in Moscow, 181 - in St. Petersburg, 151 - in the Moscow Region, 132 - in the Stavropol Region and 128 - in the Rostov Region.



A total of 169,457 COVID-19 patients are currently undergoing treatment in Russia.



The number of coronavirus patients discharged over the past 24 hours in Russia has increased by 5,817, bringing the total to 761,330, the anti-coronavirus crisis center told reporters on Friday.



According to the crisis center, the share of recoveries to date makes up 80.4% of the total COVID-19 case tally in Russia, TASS reported.



Having recovered, 1,160 patients were discharged in Moscow, 238 - in the Ulyanovsk Region, 168 - in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, 166 - in the Altai Region and 156 - in the Rostov Region in one day.



The number of COVID-19 fatalities in Russia over the past 24 hours increased by 90, compared to 110 the day before. In all, 16,189 patients have died which makes up 1.71% of the total COVID-19 case tally in Russia.



Over the 24 hours, 12 fatalities were registered in Moscow, 8 - in the Sverdlovsk Region, 7 - in the Krasnoyarsk Region, 6 - in St. Petersburg and the Novosibirsk Region each and no more than 4 - in 31 more regions.
TORRINGTON  The Northwest Connecticut Arts Council recently raised $6,250 for the NWCT Artist Relief Fund, which will be donated to artists in financial need, according to a statement.

The funds were divided into 27 micro-grants and distributed to artists and arts professionals within the region of northwest Connecticut.

The relief fund is supported by the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, the COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund, the Neighbor to Neighbor Fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, the Torrington Savings Foundation, and fundraising assistance from the Torrington Collective, according to the statement.

Data collected from the application process shows the diverse set of challenges and needs that arts industry workers are facing due to the pandemic, officials said in the statement. The Arts Council received 51 applications from artists in 13 towns around the region. They represent arts educators, performing artists, musicians, commercial artists, fine artists, and artisans who rely on craft fairs to sell their work. The most alarming findings were that 73 percent of applicants were not receiving unemployment and 31 percent of applicants were housing insecure.

The NWCT Artist Relief Fund full report can be found at artsnwct.org/advocacy

According to the statement, The mission of the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council is to engage the public in building a strong and connected arts and culture community that is integral to the economic development and the collective well-being of the region. The Arts Council board and staff believe that access to arts and culture is a universal human right, meeting both a social and psychological need. The Council supports a vibrant, vital, and necessary component of the local community through promotion and advocacy. The Northwest Connecticut Arts Council is supported in part by the DECD/Connecticut Office of the Arts, Housatonic Heritage, the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation and the Connecticut Community Foundation.
Parking enforcement officers in Jersey City say they are expected to issue a set number of parking tickets every day, regardless of how many illegally parked cars they find.

Four employees of the citys Division of Parking, all of whom opted to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told The Jersey Journal that parking supervisors push officers to issue at least one ticket every 30 minutes, and penalize those who fail to reach that goal.

We work eight hours a day. Thats a finite amount of time, one officer said. If you multiply that, thats a quota.

It forces some (officers) to write tickets that they normally probably wouldnt write, to keep from getting in trouble, another officer said.

Division of Parking head Mary Paretti did not return requests for comment. In an email, Jersey City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione denied that a quota system ever existed.

There is not and has never been a quota for parking tickets, she said. Parking enforcement is required to write tickets for all illegally parked vehicles, especially those posing a safety issue.

But the allegations raise legal and ethical questions, especially now that the coronavirus pandemic has put many Jersey City residents out of work or forced them to work from home.

Alexander Shalom, a senior supervising attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said the system described by the parking officers is illegal and called it a regressive tax.

Though parking tickets dont carry the same fines and penalties as speeding tickets, Shalom said, they can still be a financial burden on drivers.

If you fail to pay, it can lead to the suspension of your drivers license, he said. They can have really devastating effects on people. And theyre not the sort of thing that should be issued willy-nilly.

In 2014, Mayor Steve Fulop dissolved the once-autonomous Jersey City Parking Authority and rolled the agency into the citys Department of Public Safety, a move he said would save taxpayers almost $1 million a year. A city spokeswoman at the time called the Parking Authority a political cesspool of useless jobs.

In 2017, the last year for which data is publicly available, the city issued 341,504 parking tickets worth nearly $17.8 million.

Its unclear how long the alleged two-tickets-per-hour standard has been in effect. But all the parking officers interviewed said it had been in place for years, with one saying officers were once expected to issue four tickets an hour. All four officers said they knew colleagues who had been disciplined for not meeting the expected rate, and one of the officers said he himself received a write-up for that reason.

In March, as New Jersey ground to a halt under coronavirus restrictions, Jersey City suspended all parking rules, including street sweeping and meter limits. The city opened school parking lots for public use for unemployed residents or those working from home.

But in early May, the city resumed parking enforcement. And last month, the Jersey City Board of Education announced that school lots would be closed to the public, forcing many residents to compete for limited street parking.

I dont want to ticket everybody for no reason when they cant help that theres no parking, one officer said.

Though the 30-minute-rule is allegedly standard, officers said some supervisors are more lenient than others. But others are like tyrants to work with, one officer said. Under some supervisors, officers said they were expected to issue tickets on certain streets or to certain vehicles on command, even when they could see no violations.

Supervisors who were once part of the rank-and-file are generally more understanding of the realities of issuing tickets on the street, the officers said. In addition to trying to keep up with ticketing expectations, they said, officers sometimes face angry and aggressive car owners..

One officer recalled an incident when a cars owner threw an egg at her. Other times, she said, drivers spat on her and intentionally hit her parking enforcement vehicle with a car. Another said he never carries cash while on duty.

Youre not giving flowers. Youre giving tickets, one officer said. This job is very, very complicated.
HOMELESSNESS campaigners have staged a further protest outside the HSEs offices in Catherine Street.

They are furious over the impending end to the 24-hour access to the Temporary Accommodation Provision (Tep) in Lord Edward Street.

On Friday last, a small group of demonstrators gathered outside the health services local offices, causing it to close its doors.

From the onset of Covid-19, the Tep facility  normally a 9-9 hostel  was open around the clock for the health and safety of residents.

While talks are ongoing to keep this going into the winter months, as it stands, this service will end on October 16.

Southill man Jonathan Kelly, who represents residents, said: We don't want the answer around that ye are going to be here for the foreseeable future. What we want to hear is that we are going to be here for the indefinite future.

He believes there should be more beds for homeless folk, not less.

They are trying to belittle us, push us under the carpet like the issue isn't there. They don't want Tep1 and Tep2 open. It's not even about that. What about the people living on the street? What about the people who have died on the street, he added.

One of those people who died on the street was Louise Bubu Casey back in 2016.

Her sister Pauline said: Louise was sent away with a sleeping bag from the services in Limerick. She was failed and let down by society. Pauline and the Casey family say they will never forget that morning. Waking up and hearing Louise was dead, especially the way in which she died.

Neither the HSE nor the council commented in relation to the demonstration.

However, on foot of a similar protest last month, an HSE spokesperson confirmed they, Limerick City and County Council and homeless charity Novas are continuing to explore all options in relation to how best to help the people staying in Tep.

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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Hanoi, Vietnam  Fri, August 21, 2020 10:03 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f73e98 2 Art & Culture Vietnam,artist,food,arts,sculpture,miniature-artist,miniature Free

Squinting in concentration, Vietnamese artist Nguyen Thi Ha An drops a bright red chilli onto a bowl of pho noodles barely bigger than a coin -- the finishing touch to a miniature clay model that has eaten up days of her time.

An -- a 28-year-old architecture graduate -- began crafting food miniatures a year ago, spotting a chance to capitalize on the world's growing love of Vietnamese cuisine.

"Each Vietnamese dish has its specific beauty," she says, using tweezers to softly lay a scallion beside a "banh mi" sandwich.

"I want the models to help people see that."

Less globally well-known dishes such as sweet rice dessert "che com" are also on the menu at An's Hanoi studio.

But the classics get plenty of attention, with An modelling tiny bottles of chilli sauce and pickled garlic to accompany her bowls of pho.

"Each model comes with its own difficulty," she tells AFP.

"The bowls have to be very clean and neat, while we must show the lines on a scallion to convey its texture."

Read also: Whipped cream and cherry sculpture to grace London square

An's assistant, 21-year-old Nguyen Ngan Ha, agrees their work must be "meticulous at every stage".

"People must be able to believe this is real food," she says.

Ninety percent clay and 10 percent liquid plastic, the models can take up to five days each to make, and An sells them for up to $80.

She also plans to expand the business to beverages -- including Vietnamese coffee and beer -- as they are served at a traditional open-air "bia hoi" bar.

And although she has given up a potentially more stable career in architecture to pursue this niche craft, she believes she made the right choice.

"I really want to make my work the best that it can be," she says.

"And I want to help more people see the beauty of Vietnamese culture."
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday, promising to bring light to the nation after President Trump had cloaked America in darkness for far too long.

Democrats presented Biden throughout the partys four days of virtual conventioneering as a fundamentally decent man who cares about every American, banking that voters will support him over Trump in part because of his potential to heal a nation divided by partisanship, reeling from a pandemic, and on the precipice of an economic depression.

That effort culminated with a 24-minute speech that the 77-year-old Biden delivered from Wilmington, Del., with precision and passion, a subtle rebuke to Trumps repeated attacks on his mental acuity and stamina.

Biden never mentioned Trump by name, but drew contrasts with him at every turn.

Too much anger, too much fear, too much division. Here and now, I give you my word, if you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst, Biden said. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness. ... United, we can and we will overcome this season of darkness in America.

Biden tried to broaden his appeal beyond Democrats desperate to avoid another term for a president they blame for a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans and wrecked the economy, with disproportionate impacts on Black and brown lower-income communities.

Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy  theyre all on the ballot, Biden said. Who we are as a nation, what we stand for. And most importantly, who we want to be.

Those contrasts included what Biden said his first move in the White House would be.

As president, the first step I will take is to get control of the virus that has ruined so many lives, Biden said, adding that Trump has never understood that taming the coronavirus is key to reversing the nations economic decline.

The speech was delivered without a crowd, allowing every word to shine through at home. Afterward, Biden and his wife, Jill, went to the parking lot outside, where a drive-in viewing crowd watched fireworks and cheered.

It was the final, most vivid snapshot of the unconventional nature of this years convention, where delegates and prominent officeholders communicated from around the country. It was a format that proved to have a major advantage, drawing a wide diversity of voices into prime time.

Here are some takeaways from the convention:

Now Playing: Sen. Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president Wednesday night, a historic moment that she marked with a speech about her family's immigrant heritage. Harris, an Oakland native, is the first woman of color on a major party's ticket. Video: SFGATE

For now, Democrats tent is growing: For a Democratic convention, there were a lot of Republicans.

It started on the first night, when former GOP Ohio Gov. John Kasich talked up Bidens candidacy, and continued with a roster of disgruntled Trump voters now behind the former vice president.

But progressives, led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, also featured prominently  at least some of them. The biggest progressive rising star, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, got only one minute of face time, and that was to second Sanders nomination.

Democrats were sending a message that the election should be divided into two camps, Trump supporters and everyone else, and the Democrats would welcome the latter. But it also exposed the underlying tension in Bidens candidacy  the question of how he would govern.

Progressives acknowledged that Biden was not their preferred choice, and Sanders said he and Biden still disagree on his supporters preferred Medicare for All health policy. But progressives say theyve pulled Biden to the left.

Thats not what Republicans like Kasich think.

Im sure there are Republicans and independents who couldnt imagine crossing over to support a Democrat, he said. They believe he may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I dont believe that. ... No one pushes Joe around.

Biden hinted Thursday that he would be leaning more toward progressives when it comes to economic policy.

Im not looking to punish anyone, far from it, Biden said. But its long past time that the wealthiest people and the biggest corporations in this country pay their fair share.

That debate, for now, is being tabled by both sides in the name of defeating Trump. I say to you, to everyone who supported other candidates in the primary and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election: The future of our democracy is at stake, Sanders said.

Who needs policy when you have Trump: The Democrats largely avoided one topic: their actual plans.

The convention featured plenty of value statements, including a focus on restoring immigrant-friendly policies, combating climate change, preventing gun violence and ensuring Americans access to health care. Many were highlighted in slickly produced video spots and prerecorded round-table-style discussions moderated by Biden.

Biden did get to some policy in his speech, but largely rattled off a bullet-point list with few specifics. The deepest policy discussion came from Bidens former rivals like Warren, who focused on child care.

I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plans, said Warren, whose campaign catchphrase was, Ive got a plan for that.

Sanders highlighted Bidens support of a $15-an-hour minimum wage, paid family leave and moving to 100% clean electricity. But the message largely was that Biden would be the anti-Trump, especially on issues of racial justice, which was woven into most of the major speeches.

History has thrust one more urgent task on us, Biden said. Will we be the generation that finally wipes out the stain of racism from our national character? I believe were up to it. I believe were ready.

No more conventions as usual: Coronavirus concerns forced party leaders to do something about the dinosaur that the old-style convention has become.

The upside: The virtual convention was a much better made-for-the-small-screen show. Crisp pacing condensed what had been a three-hour-plus nightly slog into a tighter two hours. It also enabled the party to highlight more people of color in prime time and showcase stories of real people  not politicians  who otherwise would have been lost in the arena din.

What the convention lacked in the energy of cheering crowds, it gained in intimacy.

If Michelle Obama had given her speech in a convention hall, she would have been interrupted by applause dozens of times, said veteran California Democratic strategist Rose Kapolczynski. It wouldnt have been as powerful as it was.

The downside: The tightly scripted program and caucus meetings stifled most dissent. Unlike 2016, when Sanders supporters jeered Hillary Clinton backers at state delegation meetings and inside the arena, it was harder for differing opinions to be heard.

If John Kasich had given that speech for Biden in the arena, half of the people would have booed, said Zenaida Huerta, a 22-year-old delegate from Whittier (Los Angeles County).

Vote like our lives depend on it: Thats what Michelle Obama said, a refrain echoed all week. Not only vote, but vote early. Democrats fear that service cutbacks by Postmaster General and Trump donor Louis DeJoy are intended to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service, although DeJoy backed away from them this week.

If youre voting by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back as soon as you can, Hillary Clinton said.

Its not just about Biden: Polls have consistently shown that Democrats under 35 are not enthusiastic about the nominee. Thats one reason organizers focused on building a team approach to defeating Trump  and why the convention frequently highlighted vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her personal story.

Former Democratic primary opponent Andrew Yang pointed to her selection as evidence of Bidens inclusive approach during a panel of the nominees vanquished former rivals.

He wants to build the best team, lets do it together, Yang said. The magic of Joe Biden is that everything he does becomes the new reasonable.

A July study of young voters in battleground states done by San Franciscos NextGen found that some respondents viewed Biden more favorably when he was described as the leader of a team of progressives who would listen to the advice of others.

The team approach will be a far cry from what Republicans will hear next week at their convention, as Trump has turned the party into a cult-of-personality built around the presidents signature line from the GOPs 2016 convention: I alone can fix it.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer, and Tal Kopan is The Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com, tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli, @talkopan
A Congress delegation met the family of Sudiksha Bhati, who died earlier this month in a road crash, at their Greater Noida home on Friday and extended 5 lakh aid along with a condolence letter from party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in which she has assured full support in their fight for justice.

Gandhi in her letter to the bereaved family recalled Sudiksha as a girl who brought glory to the country.

The incident that happened with Sudiksha and her death shook me. She was a sincere and brave girl. I have heard some of her speeches. Sudiksha could feel the difficulties felt by other girls. She was passionate for the cause of girls education and for her family. And this is why she brought glory to India at world stage, Gandhi wrote.

I can feel it is a moment of grief for you and your family. I want to assure you, that we all are with you. Do not feel alone in your fight for justice, she wrote in the letter addressed to Sudikshas parents Jeetendra Bhati and Geeta Devi.

Congress secretary Rohit Chaudhary led the delegation which reached Deri Scanar village around 2.30 pm and met the family, partys district unit office-bearer Deepak Bhati said.

The delegation handed over 5 lakh as a token of support to the family and also the condolence letter by our general secretary and state in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Bhati told PTI.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had on August 11 attacked the Yogi Adityanth government in Uttar Pradesh over the alleged lack of security for women in the state and asserted that there should be zero tolerance to crimes against women in the wake of Sudikshas death.

Sudiksha, who hailed from Deri Scanar village in Gautam Buddh Nagars Dadri, had died on August 10 in a road accident in Bulandshahr district. Her family had alleged she was being harassed by two motorcycle-borne men that led to the crash and death.

Two men were eventually arrested over the matter, even as the Bulandshahr police had ruled out harassment, citing CCTV footages and eye-witness account, and stressed it was a case of accident.

An academically bright student, she was pursuing a graduation course in entrepreneurship at the Babson College, Massachusetts in the US on a 3.80 crore scholarship and was scheduled to go back on August 20.

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BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- The campaign is starting. No, were not talking the U.S. presidential campaign, or even a local city council campaign. This is the annual Jewish Federation of Clevelands Campaign for Jewish Needs, and it is kicking off this year in a way thats becoming more and more familiar to us all as the coronavirus pandemic carries on -- via the drive-thru.

Led this year by General Campaign Chair Bradley A. Sherman, a principal and co-founder of Sherman Boseman Legal Group, the Campaign for Jewish Needs is the federations annual fundraising campaign for the Jewish community.

For the first time ever, the campaign will get under way from 5 to 8 p.m. Aug. 27 with an open-to-the-public drive-thru event in the Temple-Tifereth Israel parking lot, 26000 Shaker Blvd. in Beachwood.

For more than 115 years, the federation has helped keep our community safe and thriving by addressing immediate needs while planning for the future, Sherman said in a news release.

This years campaign is both like and unlike any other. While we face extraordinary and uncertain times, our community has faced daunting challenges before and has come together time after time after time to help make life in our Jewish community better today and even stronger in the future.

Sherman noted that the federations slogan, Here for the good, reflects both the immense caring that permeates the community, as well as Jewish Clevelands deep roots and bright future.

As announced on Aug. 12, this years campaign will feature a special matching gift initiative by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation. Known as the Mandel Match, for every new or increased gift to the campaign, the foundation will make a donation to Jewish Clevelands Coronavirus Emergency Relief Fund in the amount of the new gift or the amount last years gift is increased.

This years campaign will also feature an incentive for donors to make their gifts early and renew or increase their gifts from last year. In the first 18 days of the campaign (Aug. 27-Sept. 14), all gifts of $180 or more that are renewals or increases of a campaign gift made last year will be matched with an additional $180 gift to the campaign by Brunswick Companies.

We are thrilled to be able to provide a match opportunity to incentivize donors to the federations annual campaign to give early and give generously, said Todd Stein, president and CEO of Brunswick Companies. With the Brunswick Bonus, we look forward to the 2021 campaign hitting the ground running.

This years campaign launch event seeks to bring together community members in a safe and socially distant setting. Attendees will choose a half-hour time slot to attend the event, enjoy pre-packaged snacks and beverages, and celebrate the Jewish community coming together.

Registration is required for the drive-thru event. There is no cost to attend. For more information, or to register, visit jewishcleveland.org.

Starting young: Shaker Heights Verb Ballets has announced that it is launching fall semester in-person and hybrid classes for youth dancers, while also holding virtual classes.

Creative Movement and PreBallet will continue on as online-only classes, delivered through Zooms online platform. The semester will be divided into three four-week sessions, beginning Sept. 14.

Virtual classes have no capacity limit. In-studio classes will be limited to eight students, and masks will be required. Students are encouraged to sign up for more than one class.

Since in-person class sizes are limited, dancers are asked to register early for each session to be assured a spot. You can register at verbballets.org/youthclasses/.

In-person classes will include Youth Jazz with Ms. Kenya, Wednesdays from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. at a cost of $70; and PrePointe/Beginning Pointe with Ms. Kate, Thursdays from 5:30 to 6 p.m. at $35.

Virtual and in-studio classes are Ballet I with Ms. Ashley, Mondays, 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. at $70 for in-studio and $40 for virtual; and Ballet 2/3 with Ms. Kate, Thursdays, 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. at $70 in-studio and $40 virtual.

The virtual-only classes are Creative Movement with Ms. Kate, Tuesdays, 4:15 to 4:45 p.m. at $30, plus $10 for a class kit; and PreBallet with Ms. Kate, Tuesdays, 4:45 to 5:30 p.m. at $30, and $10 for a class kit.

Looking for artists to instruct: Shaker Arts Council, aka SHAC, is seeking artists and artisans to instruct online community art classes to be offered after school and on weekends.

SHAC is presenting these classes during the months of September and October via Shaker Arts Councils Zoom account as part of its Stay-in-Place Productions, the arts councils response to COVID-19.

These classes can cover any artistic genre, such as dance, cake decorating, jewelry making, painting, writing, drawing, improvisation, music theory, scrapbooking -- or even juggling. Classes can be one-day workshops or multiple days, depending on the course content.

Applications will be reviewed by SHACs selection committee upon receipt. The deadline is Aug. 28. Applicants will be notified after review by the selection committee. Preference will be given to residents of Shaker Heights and the Shaker Heights School District and to Shaker Arts Council members.

For more information and to download the call and application, visit shakerartscouncil.org.

Collegiate update: If you want to hear the latest news from the Rochester Institute of Technology, here it is. It seems that Angela Bamfield, of Shaker Heights, has graduated from RIT with a bachelor of science degree in software engineering. Yes, there were other RIT graduates, but they werent from our Sun Press area, so well just move on.

Also, at Montclair State University in New Jersey, Cleveland Heights Rose Scalish was named to that schools spring deans list. Rose is a theater major.

Down in Baltimore, at Loyola University Maryland, University Heights resident Elizabeth Murphy was named to the spring deans list.

Closer to home, at Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland Heights students Maya Serna and Talia Weeks were selected for Tri-C Honors Program Fellowships, which offer high-achieving students scholarships to cover tuition, fees and books as they work toward an associate degree.

Serna and Weeks signed commitment letters with the college during a recent virtual ceremony. Each scholarship, funded by donors to the Cuyahoga Community College Foundation, is valued at up to $5,120 per academic year.

Library listings: We havent had a listing of Cleveland Heights-University Heights Libraries activities in a long time, since the branches closed their doors five months ago.

But, things are again taking place -- some live and in person, others online.

-- The Coventry Village branch, 1925 Coventry Road, has an outdoor paper airplane event from 3 to 4 p.m Sept. 3, during which youngsters can learn to make paper airplane designs. The library is also hosting an outdoor tai chi and Qigong practice for adults from 10 to 11 a.m. Sept. 5. Both sessions take place at Coventry Peace Park, right across from the branch. Call 216-321-3400.

-- The Noble Neighborhood branch, 2800 Noble Road, will have a Kids Cafe Grab and Go Meal from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 3 and Sept. 8. Youths up to the age of 18, and their accompanying adults, can pick up a free, nutritious meal courtesy of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Lunch bags will be handed out in the front yard of the Noble Neighborhood Branch. Children must wear face masks and keep 6 feet of distance between themselves and others. Call 216-291-5665.

-- As for online programs, heres one with a really long title -- Murder Between the Pages Book Talk: Cold Cases: A True Crime Collection: Unidentified Serial Killers, Unsolved Kidnappings, and Mysterious Murders, with author Cheyna Roth. This one takes place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 8.

For this Zoom event -- or we should say events, as more discussions about other books are to come -- the library asks you to join in for a true crime book discussion every second Tuesday of the month. For the Sept. 8 get-together, Roth will take part in the discussion. The book club is brought to you in partnership with Macs Backs.

You can borrow the book or buy it from Macs Backs, 1820 Coventry Road, at 20 percent off.

-- And, finally, we have Virtual Lunchtime Yoga with Kelly, for adults, from noon to 1 p.m. Sept. 4. This session will be held online via Facebook Live/Heights Libraries Facebook page. Those of you who are working from home and need a good stretch can join yoga instructor Kelly Jensen for Virtual Lunchtime Yoga.

Thats right, spend some time focusing on yourself so that you can get back to work feeling refreshed and energized. Kelly promises to create an interactive environment and cater the session to everyones needs.

Learn about Alzheimers: The Alzheimers Association Cleveland Area Chapter is offering free virtual education programs in August to help caregivers and family members learn more about Alzheimers disease and dementia.

The webinars, which last one hour, are free and open to the public. They are available by telephone or video conference to make them more accessible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-registration is required. To register, call 800-272-3900.

Coming up are 10 Warning Signs of Alzheimers, from 11 a.m. to noon Aug. 25, and Understanding and Responding to Dementia-Related Behaviors, from 4 to 5 p.m. Aug. 27.

Learning from The Gathering Place: Beachwoods The Gathering Place, which helps people and their families deal with the ravages of cancer, has announced classes for September.

All programs are for individuals and families coping with cancer. The Gathering Place is closed for on-site programming, but the following programs are being held virtually. All programs require advanced registration, unless otherwise specified. To register, call 216-595-9546.

-- Meditation for Individuals and Families Coping with Cancer will take place from 1:30 to 2:15 p.m. Sept. 21 with presenter Eileen Coan.

-- For young adults ages 18-40 who are surviving cancer, there is a Virtual Support Group: Drop In, ZOOM and Hang Out, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 24, via ZOOM. Dial-in details are forthcoming. To register for this class, contact Casey Durkin at 216-455-1523 or at durkin@touchedbycancer.org.

-- A Group for Young Women with Breast Cancer (those in their 20s, 30s, and 40s), will take place from noon to 1 p.m. and 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 1. Contact Susan Marinac to register at 216-455-1512.

-- For support for a child or teen with cancer, including siblings and parents, there is March Movement Madness, from 10 to 11 a.m. Sept. 12, via GoToMeeting. Contact Casey Durkin to register at 216-455-1523 or at durkin@touchedbycancer.org.

-- Exercise Classes for Those Currently Coping with Cancer will take place Mondays from 7 to 7:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 6:30 to 7 p.m. with instructor Michael Ciccarello, on GoToMeeting. Also, from 12:30 to 1 p.m. Tuesdays with instructor Stephen Cerne, via Zoom.

If there is an item you would like to see appear in Press Run, send me an email, at least 12 days prior to an event, at jeff.piorkowski@att.net.

Read more from the Sun Press.
China will not join the nuclear arms control talks between Russia and the United States , Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

"China has no intention of joining the so-called trilateral arms control talks with Russia and the United States. This position is both clear and consistent. The Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (known as the New START treaty) is the only remaining in force bilateral nuclear arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia. Its maintenance affects not only the strategic security of the two countries, but also global strategic stability," TASS cited the diplomat as saying.

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea said earlier that that "there are some areas of convergence between Russia and the United States, but we do remain far apart on a number of key issues."

The U.S. argues that any new nuclear arms limitation treaty should cover all types of warheads, include better verification protocols and transparency measures and be extended to include China, which has been increasing its own arsenal.

The operation of the treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States on the elimination of intermediate and shorter range missiles signed in Washington on December 8, 1987 was terminated on August 2, 2019 at the initiative of the American side.
New Delhi: The Centre is apparently ready to go ahead with the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) after the recent Supreme Court order. The National Testing Agency (NET) earlier issued admit cards for the JEE Mains.

For the JEE Mains, scheduled from September 1 to September 6, 2020, so far 6,49,223 candidates have downloaded admit cards out of the total 8,58,273.

"Out of the total candidates, 99.07 per cent have been given the first choice (centre) of their preference. So far, only 120 candidates have requested for a change in the centre cities allotted to them, which is being looked into sympathetically," said government sources.

The National Testing Agency has given the JEE (Mains) candidates the option of changing their cities of choice five times amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 63931 candidates took advantage of this facility.

Similarly, the NEET (UG) candidates were also given the same option to change the cities five times amid the COVID-19 pandemic. About 95,000 candidates took advantage of it. The admit cards for the NEET (UG), scheduled to be held on September 13, are scheduled to be released shortly. Out of the total of 15,97,433 candidates, 99.87 per cent are being given the first choice of their preferred city.

Out of a total of 15,97,433 candidates, 99.87% are being given the cities of their choice. Instructions have been given for detailed arrangements at the examination centers, especially for cleanliness before and after the examinations, due to the COVID-19 situation.

According to government sources, elaborate arrangements have been made to sanitize the centres before and after the exams, provide the candidates with fresh masks, and (on demand) hand gloves based on the comprehensive guidelines issued in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Notably, there were 2,546 centres for the NEET 2019, while this year it has been increased to 3,843--about 50 per cent increase.

The Supreme Court order earlier said, "We find that there is absolutely no justification in the prayer made for the postponement of the examinations in question relating to NEET UG-2020 as well as JEE (Main), 2020. In our opinion, though there is a pandemic situation, ultimately life has to go on and the career of the students cannot be put in peril for long and a full academic year cannot be wasted."

The NTA, however, confirmed that the JEE (Main) exam will be be held from September 1-6 and NEET (UG) on September 13, while issuing a statement.

According to the statement, "The NTA is happy to share with the JEE (Main) 2020 candidates that it has been able to offer the first choice of preference of centre cities to 99.07 per cent of the candidates," adding "142 candidates have, subsequently, requested for a change in their allotted centre city due to various reasons, and the NTA is considering these requests positively".

"NEET (UG)-2020 is concerned, again for the first time, candidates of this examination were given opportunity five times to change their choice of centre city," it added.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian spoke of Turkeys destabilizing and destructive approaches as he chaired a regular session of the countrys Security Council in Yerevan on Friday.

In his opening remarks Pashinian addressed last months deadly escalation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, stressing that the victorious battles in July came to demonstrate that there is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.

I consider it important to state that Armenia continues with its constructive stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Our position is that the conflict should be settled through peaceful talks, he underscored.

At the same time, the Armenian leader slammed Turkey, which during the July border skirmishes expressed its unequivocal support for Azerbaijan.

He reminded that one of the factors specified in the recently adopted new National Security Strategy of Armenia is Turkeys non-constructive policy in our region and in the world, in general.

I think that Turkeys destabilizing and destructive approaches are causing serious concerns to our partners in the Middle East, the Eurasian region and the European region. This is an agenda that has already been formed, and our future action should be the subject of substantive discussions in the Security Council, the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and todays session will address this issue among other agenda items, Pashinian said.

The most important record we have to make is that the Republic of Armenia is in a position to meet the emerging security challenges. At the same time, we must set ourselves the task of improving the countrys security environment every week, every month and every year, the Armenian prime minister concluded.

Officials in Armenia and Turkey, the two neighbors with no diplomatic relations and a closed border, have exchanged accusatory statements on a number of regional affairs during the past two weeks.

The most recent spat concerned Ankaras effort on the search of natural gas and oil in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean that Greece and Cyprus view as illegal and hostile.

Earlier, diplomats in Armenia and Turkey exchanged acrimonious remarks on the centennial of the Treaty of Sevres, a post-World War I document viewed differently from Yerevan and Ankara.
Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Thursday evening that a complaint over the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the government and Parliament over the possibility of a motion of censure against his cabinet being tabled in extraordinary session during a parliamentary recess will be filed with Constitutional Court on Friday.

"Basically, this complaint is in the form of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the government and Parliament over motions of censure and the possibility to table such motion during a parliamentary recess," Orban told Realitatea Plus private broadcaster.

In his opinion, the conduct of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) from the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic has been irresponsible.

"The conduct of PSD from the beginning of the epidemic has been irresponsible, as PSD boycotted all the measures taken by the government authorities, the healthcare authorities; the positions were very clear in the sense of trivialising risk, ignoring health safety measures. The whole attitude was an attitude that from my point of view is irresponsible ... For example, they refused to put on the agenda our proposal to dismiss the Ombudsman, PSD lawyer Renate Weber," said Orban.
Former President John Mahama says he will legalise Okada operations if he wins the December 7 elections.

According to the NDC flagbearer, even though the business of commercial motto riding is illegal in Ghana, it has created jobs for many unemployed young people.

Addressing chiefs and people of Kpando in the Volta region Friday, Mahama said: Ive been seeing young people who have finished school and they cant find a job and, so, they are looking for something they can do and many of our young people are riding motorcycles and transporting people from place to place, and we call them Okada.

But in our law, it says Okada is illegal but Okada is a reality, it has come to stay, you cant stop it, and, so, Ive suggested and I say when we come into office, we will legalise Okada but we will regulate it, Mr Mahama said.

In March last year, the Okada business caught the attention of Members of Ghanas Parliament, as they call for the amendment of the countrys road traffic laws to accommodate the practice.

In a statement on the floor of the House on Thursday, Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak charged the government to legalize the commercial use of motorcycles as Okada due to its contributions to the Ghanaian economy.

Ghanas Parliament in 2012 approved a legislative proposal by the government to pass the Road Traffic Regulations, 2012 (Legislative Instrument 2180) to regulate road transport in this country.

Sections 128 (1), (2) and (3) of the L.I. 2180, prohibit the use of motorcycle or tricycle, or what has been popularly known as Okada for commercial purposes.

Arguing for the lifting of the ban on the usage of motorcycles or tricycles for commercial purposes, the Asawase MP noted that the benefits outweigh the negatives associated with their operations.

Even though these Okada operators are working hard to make a living, their activities have been described by some people as counterproductive because many of them flout road traffic regulations. They fail to wear protective clothing such as helmets, thereby putting their lives and those of their clients in danger. Some of them ride recklessly resulting in road accidents.

These negative tendencies necessitated a call for an outright ban of the practice and also some of the major reasons that initially influenced the passage of the law. But it is my considered view that the benefits outweigh the social costs and as such we cannot kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by this countrys continuous ban on the use of motorcycle or tricycle for commercial purposes, he stated.

---starrfmonline
Jammu:

Jammu and Kashmir government on Thursday clarified it was not granting domicile certificates to West Pakistan Refugees and the settlers were instead being issued identity cards, after protests against the reported decision peaked in the state.

The government said a false and contrived impression was being created over the change of status of WPRs and reports on granting domicile certificates were being deliberately spread to hit the political-economic interests of the people.

It seems an orchestrated and misleading campaign has been launched to create an impression that the government is changing the status of the WPRs and they are being provided domicile certificates, Minister for Education and state government spokesman Naeem Akhtar said in a statement in Jammu.

The WPRs, settled in Jammu and Kashmir, are citizens of India and have the right to vote in parliamentary elections. However, they are not permanent residents of the state in terms of Jammu and Kashmir Constitution. They do not enjoy voting rights to the state assembly and local bodies.

Earlier today, independent legislator Sheikh Abdul Rashid and his supporters were detained in Srinagar after they tried to march against the move to issue domicile certificates to WPRs. Separatists too have objected to the reported move.

Akhtar said the refugees who settled in Jammu and Kashmir in the aftermath of the partition include those from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and then-West Pakistan.

While the refugees from PoK have the status of the permanent residents of the state, those from West Pakistan are not entitled to permanent residence as they are not the domiciles of Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

He said as WPRs cant apply for jobs in the state, being non-state subjects, to facilitate their applications to get work in the paramilitary forces and other central government establishments, the state government has issued them identity certificates, which is in the same format as in the voter list for parliamentary polls.

Issuance of identity certificates does in no way change the status of West Pakistan Refugees and they continue to be non-state subjects, he clarified.

Akhtar said earlier this year too controversies unfortunately broke and passions were raised deliberately on issues relating to Pandit Colonies and Ex-Servicemen Colonies, which ended in a long spell of violence and unrest.

Now when the situation has started improving in Kashmir with academic, tourism, developmental and economic activities slowly picking up again, unfortunately speculative reports are being passed around about the change of status of the WPRs to create confusion and once again fuel disquiet, he said, urging people to not to give credence to unsubstantiated reports.

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This is a strong human impulse according to Robin Dunbar, the author of Gossip, Grooming and the Evolution of Language and professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, and one that we shouldnt necessarily fight. Its primary purpose is to allow us to keep track of whats going on in our social circle when we dont have time to keep track of things on an individual level, he said.
3 1 of 3 Courtesy photo /U.S. Border Patrol Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Courtesy photo /U.S. Border Patrol Show More Show Less 3 of 3





U.S. Border Patrol agents rendered aid to two people with severe symptoms of heat exhaustion near the City of Rio Bravo.

Agents and an EMT responded to a report of two lost individuals near the city during Friday afternoon. Responding agents encountered the people near the riverbank.
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Linkedin Toh Ting Wei (The Straits Times/Asia News Network)  Fri, August 21, 2020 14:25 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f8a45a 2 News Singapore-Airlines,Airlines,travel Free

Travelers from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand will now be able to transit through Singapore in the latest round of approvals for the Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group.

Transit passengers from two other Southeast Asian countries - Vietnam and Cambodia - were allowed to transit through Singapore on SIA Groups airlines last week.

The five countries are the first from the region whose passengers the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has allowed to transit here after border restrictions were slightly eased on June 2. Transit passenger traffic to Singapore had stopped in late March after the Government announced a ban on short-term visitors to reduce the risk of importing COVID-19 cases.

SIA said on Aug. 18 that the group - which also includes regional arm SilkAir and budget arm Scoot - has received approval to fly transit passengers through Singapore from three Indonesian cities. SIAs passengers can transit in Singapore through flights departing from Jakarta, SilkAir from Medan, and Scoot from Surabaya.

For Malaysia, Scoot's passengers departing Ipoh, Kuching, Kuala Lumpur and Penang will be able to transit through Singapore. SIA and SilkAir flights from Kuala Lumpur will be able to transit through the Republic as well.

For Thailand, travelers can transit in Singapore by taking SIAs flights from Bangkok.

Transit passengers from Vietnam and Cambodia are expected to begin arriving soon.

These Southeast Asian destinations were major transit markets for the SIA Group prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has wiped out air travel.

Read also: Singapore Airlines, SilkAir offer cabin crew early release, retirement

The SIA Group had earlier received approval to fly transit travelers from some other countries, including Australia, China, Italy and Switzerland.

Experts have said that while the reopening of borders to transit passengers will help the SIA Group, the impact will be limited, given that demand for air travel is still low at the moment, with several countries still struggling to control the pandemic.

Changi Airport Group told The Straits Times in early July that it had handled more than 10,000 transit passenger movements in slightly over one month since the gradual resumption of transit passenger traffic, "though these still remain at very low levels compared with pre-COVID-19".

Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said last week that even at its peak, transfer and transit passengers only accounted for at most a third of total Changi passenger traffic. At the moment, there are only about 400 transit and transfer passengers passing through Changi Airport daily, which equates to about 150,000 such passengers a year as compared to the pre-COVID-19 levels of almost 20 million a year.

He added that Singapore used to record about 1,000 aircraft movements a day, but the number is now down to 150.

To revive the ailing local airlines and airport, Mr Ong suggested that Singapore could consider introducing reciprocal green lanes at Changi Airport for tourists from countries where the COVID-19 situation is similar to or better than that in Singapore.

This means leisure travelers from such countries will be exempted from having to serve a 14-day quarantine on arrival, and vice versa.

Topics :

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
When California State University announced May 12 its schools would be online for the fall semester, Graciela Moran thought she might end up homeless.

The San Bernardino student is immunocompromised and had been living in her dorm as a residential assistant. But with the Cal State announcement, her contract ended and her stipend was taken away. Her father, a carpet installer, had to keep working during the city's increase in coronavirus infections, so she couldn't move home without putting herself at risk.

"I was really thinking about living in my car," she said. Her mind raced as she weighed finding a full-time job that would allow her to afford an apartment.

But the college stepped in. A COVID-19 relief fund from the Basic Needs Department provided the fifth-year senior, who is also the school's student body president, with the payment she needed to stay in her dorm room. When it was safe for her to move home, Cal State provided her with a Wi-Fi hotspot and a computer to do her classwork among the $4 million in laptops and tablets purchased and distributed to students.

Graciela Moran transformed her makeup vanity in her bedroom into her permanent workspace for her classes at Cal State-San Bernardino. Moran, the student body president at the campus, will be a senior this fall.

Cal State, the largest public university system in the nation, was among the first schools to put learning mostly online for fall 2020  with massive consequences for its nearly 500,000 undergraduates. One-third are the first in their family to attend college. Sixty percent are students of color. Like Moran, many are struggling to find the best way to learn, and still be a college student.

'I am the future': Students are fighting to defy college dropout stats during COVID-19

The Cal State colleges have helped out. They're renting out laptops and providing Wi-Fi to students and have been training faculty on how to use technology, said Leslie Kennedy, senior director of technology services.

"That will minimize or remove the digital divide," she said.

'Saved my life'

Putting courses online instantly has disproportionate effects on some students. In California, 10% of all households don't have internet access, according to a Pew Research Center study in 2017. More than a quarter lack broadband subscriptions.

Story continues

The 23-university consortium that makes up the Cal State system has already committed to eliminating equity gaps, including the digital divide, by graduation 2025.

The administration at CSUSB "saved my life in so many aspects," said Moran  providing her with internet, a place to stay, disability accommodations and mental health support.

Still, some students and professors say the university system can only go so far in providing support.

For example, Sacramento State has converted a parking garage into a classroom where as many as 100 students each weekday park, pull out their laptops and attend class virtually or do homework from their vehicles. They access the internet through Eduroam, the school's Wi-Fi service, in a distraction-free environment.

COVID-19 pushed learning online: But half of all Americans lack high-speed internet

But the State Hornet, Sac State's student newspaper, reported in May that the parking facility was only open for a limited time frame each day.

At the San Bernardino campus, Paola Galvez, a rising second-year, would pull into a Wi-Fi-equipped parking lot to do her reading after spring classes went online when the pandemic first struck. In April, she was surrounded by other students using the drive-in Wi-Fi.

The internet at school was faster and better than what she has at home. Students' usage dropped off as the semester ended, she said.

Students count on their campuses for more than just Wi-Fi. They use school computers, child care facilities, spaces to work and study, food banks and clothes closets.

The clothes closet at the Dominguez Hills campus offered students casual everyday wear as well as business attire for professional environments, completely free, according to the State Bulletin, the school's newspaper. It has closed temporarily because of the pandemic.

Then there's the problem of how to teach students and find effective ways to test them while courses are online. The problem mainly lies with faculty, who need to be understanding and flexible toward students, said Pascale Guiton, a biology professor at Cal State-East Bay.

"How do you keep them motivated? Because they can just sit there and not do anything," she said.

Cal State is encouraging professors to work flexibility into their classes, said Christian Roessler, an economics professor at Cal State-East Bay. When classes are flexible, students are less likely to cheat, Roessler said.

No perfect solution

In some cases, even with all the supports Cal State is providing, there are no good solutions for students.

Rising fourth-year student Gabriel Islas didn't have Wi-Fi at home. In the spring, when Cal State-Long Beach first went online, he took advantage of the Wi-Fi at the university to finish a podcast he had worked on with a friend.

But he was driving 35 minutes each way just to get online.

Days after he got the email telling students Cal State would be online for the fall, he bought internet access for his family.

"I wasn't planning on waking up at 6 a.m. to drive to Starbucks for Wi-Fi to attend my class," he said.

He also paid $240 for a desk, so he could work from the privacy of his bedroom, instead of doing homework at his kitchen table. The new workspace is lined with Funko Pop! figures, posters and LED lighting. He can get to work without even having to turn the light on in his room, he said.

Students say they understand why Cal State made the decision to move online and wouldn't want to go back to college anyway during a pandemic. But that doesn't make it any less hard emotionally or mentally.

Students partied, the school wasn't read: How Notre Dame's back-to-campus plan unraveled

As the student newspaper staff at Cal State-Fullerton was planning how they might put out the news remotely, editor-in-chief Jessica Benda, a rising third-year, remembers thinking: "It seemed like such a far-fetched scenario.

"And then, like, fast forward a couple weeks later, everything that we were talking about happened," she said. "That was crazy to me."

Taylor Helmes, a rising senior student at Cal State-Dominguez Hills, will graduate this year and will miss out on parts of what makes the last year of college so special.

"I grieved over my spring semester that was cut short. Plus, the hustle and bustle of the first few weeks of school always gives me butterflies," Helmes said. "I'll miss that, too."

Meanwhile, students are bracing for another possible outcome: for spring 2020 to be online as well.

But for Benda, her biggest concern is staying connected through this semester.

"Everyone's been having a difficult time," she said. "My biggest goal for this semester is to check up on my friends and make sure everyone is doing okay, because these are tough times and we need to look out for each other."

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of universities in the Cal State system. There are 23.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID college fall semester: CSU went online; students needed internet
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 00:42:23|Editor: huaxia

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President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about local measures for flood control, disaster relief and post-flood production recovery at a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground with higher elevation that functions as a safe haven from river floods, in Funan County in Fuyang, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

HEFEI, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has visited flood-stricken residents in east China's Anhui Province.

While visiting Funan County in the city of Fuyang, Xi checked the water situation of the Huaihe River and learned about local measures for flood control, disaster relief and post-flood production recovery. He also visited and consoled those affected by floods.

As floods have basically receded, local farmers in Anhui have resumed farming to secure a bumper harvest in autumn, with the help of agricultural technology.

Twenty-five-year-old Xi Wei manages an 87-hectare rice farm in the city of Wuhu. Every day he rides an electric bicycle to learn the growth of rice seedlings. From time to time, he stops for a quick check on soil conditions -- on his smartphone.

The farm is on the banks of the Zhanghe River, a tributary of the Yangtze River. It is a "smart" agricultural demonstration project initiated in 2018 by Zoomlion Agriculture Machinery Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd., one of China's leading high-tech equipment manufacturers.

An app in his phone provides information about soil moisture and temperature. Sensors in the fields monitor the soil conditions around the clock and relay the readings to him via WiFi.

Xi Wei just checked the moisture of the soil in the paddy fields.

"It is necessary to drain all the water in the fields so that the permeability of soil can be increased, and the roots of the seedlings can grow deeper," he said.

Since the launch of the project, the company has installed many high-tech devices in the fields, such as soil sensors and insect-monitoring lamps. The data collected by these devices will be transmitted simultaneously by the Internet of Things (IoT) to smartphones and computers.

Despite the rare floods since mid-June, the rice seedlings in the fields have not been affected much because of the equipment embedded here.

"The information-driven rice planting is the primary feature of our fields. Meteorological stations, soil sensors, insect-monitoring lamps, and the IoT are cutting-edge tools we use to cope with natural disasters and mitigate losses," said Xi Wei.

The project also uses satellite navigation technology to level the fields to increase yield of rice.

"With the help of the global navigation satellite system, the machine levels the fields with an average error of less than 3 cm for each patch," said Xi Wei, adding that the result was impossible for the traditional farming machines.

With constantly improving flood prevention systems, water conservancy infrastructure and mechanization over the past few years, major grain producers in China have upgraded their capabilities in countering natural disasters.

China attaches great importance to food security. President Xi Jinping has spoken of the issue on many occasions. Grain production, with farmland as the fundamental element, is supported by water conservancy systems, facilitated by science and technology, and driven forward by policies. Issues relating to these key points must be addressed earnestly and properly to attain breakthroughs in grain production, he has said.

China issued a guideline regarding advancing the development of agricultural high-tech industry demonstration zones in 2018, highlighting the importance of technology in modernizing agriculture and the role of demonstration zones in spearheading the efforts.

The country has been promoting key technologies in agriculture, such as high-yield hybrid rice varieties developed by Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice," and the wide use of smart farming machinery.

Aerial photo taken on July 15, 2020 shows grain storehouses of China Grain Reserves Group (CGRG) in Xinzheng City, central China's Henan Province. Various storage technologies have been applied in the storehouse to ensure the grain safety. (Xinhua/Hao Yuan)

The application of agricultural science and technology has played a positive role in increasing grain output. In 2018, the contribution of scientific and technological progress to agriculture reached 58.3 percent, an increase of 42.8 percentage points from 15.5 percent in 1996, according to a white paper titled "Food Security in China" issued last year.

As the world's top food producer and consumer, China saw its grain output reach a record high of 664 million tonnes last year, the 16th bumper year in a row. The country's summer grain output reached a historic high of 142.81 million tonnes this year, up 0.9 percent from last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In addition to the improved infrastructure, Anhui has also been mobilizing resources and using upgraded technology to ensure grain security, and make up for losses from flood and other natural disasters.

In Funan County, Kang Guoping was busy shoveling up the ditches to clear the remaining floodwater in his farmland, ready to plant sweet potato seedlings distributed by the local government.

The flooding is unlikely to cause a sharp decrease in grain production since the reinforced dikes and embankments along the Yangtze River have made farmlands safer, said Wu Liquan, a professor at Anhui Agricultural University.

Improved irrigation and drainage facilities, coupled with advanced agricultural technologies, have further improved safety, according to Wu.

"I'm looking forward to a bumper harvest this year as my paddy fields have become more disaster-resistant, with the improved water conservancy facility and smart farming technology," said Xi Wei. 
On Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in a premeditated attack, two shooters opened fire inside a kosher deli in Jersey City, New Jersey, and murdered four people. The killers included a former member of a notoriously anti-Semitic group and, reportedly, a follower of Louis Farrakhan.

Its becoming obvious to most Jews that we are living in a state of siege. Practically every Jewish institution in America now needs significant security. College campuses have become hostile territory for Jewish students. Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Jersey City, beaten on the streets of Brooklyn, bu...
BIRR and Ferbane are to be the focus of new employment creation drives according to the draft Offaly County Development Plan, now open for public submission.

The plan addresses the pressing question of the employment crisis resulting from the move away from turf as an energy source.

But it states that all new large scale enterprises, especially those in the technical and medical area, must be located in Tullamore,

The plan defines Tullamore's role as a Key Town which requires it to act as the economic driver of the county and provide for strategic employment opportunities to improve its economic base.

To carter for new enterprises, two extensive Strategic Employment Zones are proposed on the northern side of the town, one around the hospital and the other at IDA lands in Ballyduff.

The plan, unveiled for public comment earlier this month, contains a radical new vision for Tullamore which will set the town in a direction very different from that of the past 30 years, the town planner, architect and commentator Fergal MacCabe has stated.

Mr MacCabe, a native of Tullamore, writing in this week's Tribune, describes the plan as very coherent and says it taps into a clear cut policy stream and funding programme.

It is based on a sound survey and analysis of Offaly's strength and weakness, opportunities and threats, he says.

Mr MacCabe concludes: Its objectives are realistic and achievable within its timeframe.

The plan aims to create alternative employment by supporting and promoting the Ferbane Food Campus, expanding the Rhode Green Energy Hub and exploiting the potential offered in Birr by the technology associated with Irish Low Frequency Array which is tied into the European network of observatories.

It also envisions Offaly as an ideal location of back office facilities for high tech firms in the Dublin Metropolitan area

The plan also commits to the completion of the Tullamore/Kilbeggan link road and the improvement of rail service on the Portarlington/Athlone line.

Adds Mr MacCabe: All of these projects flow from or align with the objectives of Project 2040 and therefore can expect funding via the National Development Plan- quite unlike the bizarre proposal of the Draft Plan to support the development of an international airport in Offaly. This crazy idea is unmentioned in any national or regional policy and therefore any investment will have to come directly and solely from the budget of the council.
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Over the past month, Nigerias struggle with inordinate and escalating violence intensified. Our data coalition informs that there were at least four hundred and fifteen (415) deaths occasioned by atrocious violence in July 2020. Of this number, one hundred and thirty-two (132) were state security agents, this implies that 1 out of every 3 persons killed was a security officer. With the deliberate targeting of security officers, the fate of civilians that they are enthused to protect becomes even more precarious?

The spike in communal violence in Southern Kaduna in the month of July, left more residents homeless, and at least one hundred and thirty-nine (139) persons dead. These killings have continued to spiral despite the curfew imposed by the government in a bid to nip the conflicts in the bud. The IDP situation created by this crisis is creating a tragic humanitarian emergency with very poor response on the side of government.

Other violent incidents within this period included coordinated banditry/pillage attacks particularly in Katsina state, unrelenting terrorism in the North East, and pockets of communal clashes.

Below are highlights of incidents that occurred in July:

Banditry/Pillage

In the first week of the month, armed bandits, numbering about 50, abducted 30 persons and killed two vigilante members in Nasarawa Local Area (LGA) of Nasarawa State. Accordin to the Chairman of the LGA, The vigilantes were ambushed when they had gone after the bandits as they attempted to rescue the victims of the abduction. Accounts revealed that the bandits had rode in on 25 motorcycles, blocked the Udege/Loko road unchallenged for hours, and kidnapped the victims.

As noted earlier, the crisis in Kaduna continued unabated. In this period, no fewer than 30 people were killed by armed militia in an attack on Chibuak and Kigudu 11 Communities in Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State. In another incident, armed bandits invaded Kukum-Daji village, Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State, killing 24 people.

While the situation in Kogi state has been relatively contained, gunmen killed 14 villagers in an isolated attack on Agbudu village in Koton-Karfe area, Kogi State.

The situation in Katsina state also continued to be troubling. At least 23 soldiers were killed in an ambush by bandits, after an attack in a remote part of the Jibia district in Katsina State. In another developmet, no fewer than 18 persons were killed in Matazu Local Government Area of the State, when armed bandits attacked some villages in the region.

Boko Haram/ISWAP

In Borno state, 37 soldiers lost their lives in Damboa, 20 in Kukawa, 15 soldiers in Ngala, 8 at Kondua, and 4 at Kaga); along with several civilians caught up in clashes with insurgents,. Days later, , in Konduga Seventeen Boko Haram militants were killed during the clash in Damboa, Borno

In a video that went viral, four aid workers who were abducted in transit by Boko Haram terrorists in June were shot dead, a month after their abduction.

Herdsmen attacks

Concerns around violent episodes often described as herdsmenattacks have also continued to feature throughout the month of July across various states, and particularly in the Middle Belt and North-West regions.

15 farmers were shot dead by armed herdsmen. The incident occurred while the victims were working on their farms in of Yargamji village, Katsina State. At least seven people were killed in Chembe Community of Logo Local Government Area of Benue State when suspected herdsmen attacked the community.

Suspected Fulani militias attacked a family in Exland (Gindin Akwati) of Gashish District, Barkin Ladi LGA of Plateau State and killed a man identified as Daniel Mwantiri.

At least 21 people, including at least one policeman, were killed and dozens of others were wounded after a group of suspected armed herdsmen attacked two communities in Sabon Gari Manchok, and Kaura Local Government Areas in Kaduna state.

Security Forces Victory Records

While the death toll from violent attacks has steadily risen in the past few months, Nigerias security agencies have also claimed the successful repeal of organized criminal groups, and have announced killing 176 terrorists. Below is a breakdown of the number of terrorists killed in each state:

Borno: Ngala (40) Damboa (17) Bama (20) Mobbar (7)

Zamfara: Zurmi (6) Maru (40) Talata-Mafara (20)

Katsina: Birnin-Magaji/Kiyaw (10) Dan Musa (4) Dutsinma (3)

Sokoto: Sabon Birni (5)

Plateau: Jos North (2)

Ebonyi: Ishielu (2)



Summary

The numbers in July depicts the dire state of insecurity in Nigeria. One hundred and eighty-five (185) deaths were attributed to banditry attacks, while Boko Haram terrorism accounted for one hundred and twenty-three (123) deaths.

The wave of massacres in Southern Kaduna and Katsina state, further highlights the brittle nature of security in Nigeria. The degradation of security has risen exponentially in the past 20 years for a number of complex reasons which we will be discussing in subsequent publication. In this edition, we will focus on the crises in Southern Kaduna and Katsina state.

Since as far back as the 1940s, relations between the Hausa-Fulani and communities in Southern Kaduna had become tense, stemming predominantly from conflicts on land resources and political control. Historically, these tensions often led to deadly ethnic and communal violence. These aggravations have overtime become more complicated due to the introduction of other factors, including climate change which is exacerbating natural resource conflicts  particularly for water, and land; to sustain a rapidly growing population, with no commensurate growth in human development and economic opportunities. Political exacerbation is also a major source of violence. For example, the disruption of the nuanced Christian/ Muslim governorship team was disrupted during the Jonathan administration and occasioned the mistrust of residents. The creation of Emirdoms and the kidnap and subsequent killing of an Adara chief also inflamed an already combustible situation.

Killings in Katsina state, on the other hand, have risen exponentially and have become worrisome. While a lot of people were caught off guard by the recent sudden spike in violence in the state, it is important to note that the state had been vulnerable to attacks over the years because of its poor border control with Niger Republic, through which a thriving smuggling hub has occasioned the importation of arms and eased the movement of armed mercenaries. And with the repel of Boko Haram from the North East of the country, there has been a westward movement criminal element, further compounding the already delicate state of Katsina. In the past year, at least 23,000 residents of the state have fled to Niger Republic in fear for their lives. Villages/Communities in Kankara, Dutsinma, Danmusa Local Government Areas have also been abandoned because of these coordinated attacks.

In both Katsina and Kaduna states, impunity is the core factor that continues to embolden attackers and counter-attackers. In a situation in which labeling massacres as religious conflicts herdsmen attacks or banditary creates jail passes for perpetrators of violence, they will continue unabated, and become more audacious in their exploits.

Nigerias 1999 Constitution makes clear that the primary responsibility of the government is to ensure the safety, security, and welfare of all who live within its territory. Section 17(2)(c) of the same constitution commands that governmental actions shall be humane.



The big question is that is the government fulfilling its constitutional mandate as directed by the constitution? Has it been humane to the victims of mass violence across the country?

Are perpetrators being brought to justice?



What does Nigeria need to do to conquer this cancerous growth ?

Military installations in Kaduna.

Source: SBM Intelligence

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Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  New Mexico seized the national stage Thursday  for a few minutes, at least  as U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland declared to viewers of the Democratic National Convention that the promise of this country is older than our Constitution.

Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo, said she was grateful to join the convention from Indigenous land, noting that her ancestors migrated to the Rio Grande Valley in the late 1200s to escape drought.

I am a symbol of our resilience  as the embodiment of Americas progress as a nation, Haaland said in a short speech recorded inside the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. I know we cant take our democracy for granted, especially now, as people are dying, as our land is abused, as our Constitution is under attack.

Haaland spoke at 7:45 p.m. on the final night of the convention and a day after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham delivered a brief speech from northern New Mexico.

Haaland urged DNC viewers to take nothing for granted.

Voting is sacred, she said. My people know that. We werent universally granted the right to vote until 1962, and that fundamental right is more important than ever.

Haaland herself is up for reelection. She faces Republican Michelle Garcia Holmes, a retired police detective and former chief of staff to then-Attorney General Gary King, a Democrat.

In an interview, Garcia Holmes said she, too, has Native ancestry, though she is not enrolled as a member of a tribe.

Our Indigenous community hasnt really been taken care of our by our congressional delegation, Garcia Holmes said. I just felt her speech was disingenuous.

Haaland highlighted her background Thursday, describing how her Laguna grandparents worked on the railroad and her mom served in the Navy.

In 2018, Haaland became one of the first two Native American women to win election to the U.S. House. Democrat Sharice Davids of Kansas also won election that year.
Although he is a relatively new resident of The Woodlands, having resided in the township about four years, local forensic psychologist and Texas A&M University graduate Dr. Jerry D. Smith is hoping to transform his passion for the community and public service into a seat on the township board.

Smith is one of three candidates for the Position 1 seat on the seven-member board, challenging four-term incumbent Gordy Bunch as well as local executive Ron Keichline, known to many residents for his unsuccessful run for Montgomery County Precinct 2 commissioner seat in 2018.

A former prison psychologist who worked for several state, local and federal government entities, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Smith said he wants to parlay his extensive academic background  he has four different degrees including two masters degrees and a doctoral degree  and psychological skills to hold a seat on the board as the township grapples with several big issues such as incorporation, the COVID-19 pandemic, economic and financial health of the community among others.

I think the time right now (in America) is about change. The Woodlands has an opportunity to be an example to the rest of the state and the nation on how different people of different backgrounds and skills can work together to uplift a community. I think here in The Woodlands, we have the resources, the people and we have the opportunity to make The Woodlands the utopia is can be, Smith said. We are at a pivotal moment, with issues of incorporation, coronavirus and the issue of racism. I want to help steer the discussion of those issues locally. My idea of leadership is not just pushing my own personal ideas, but listening to the people and using my skills and expertise to enact the will of the people. I think i can do that.

Smith is one of two candidates pushing the boundaries of diversity in The Woodlands. He said he identifies as a bi-racial person.

I do identify as bi-racial, half-Black and half-white, Smith said.

Smith is the second candidate in 2020 that breaks the normal mold of township candidates. Position 2 hopeful Jimmie Dotson is the first Black candidate to ever seek office in the modern era of The Woodlands, which dates to 2008.

Bunch also identifies himself as having a dual racial background, with one parent being Latino from Mexico and the other white.

Prison-related counseling

Smith currently works in private practice as a psychologist, treating a wide range of patients, he said, with a range of personal issues and conditions.

His official specialty, though, is forensic psychology  a specialty area that led him to a lengthy career in prison environments where he worked as a hostage negotiator, treated sexually deviant inmates and also did gang deprogramming. Now, he does therapy and counseling for patients seeking help with relationships and their personal lives.

Most of my work has been in the criminal justice field, at the county level, the local level, the federal level. I spent about 10 years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Beaumont, Texas, I was there from 2007 until 2016, Smith said. We moved here to The Woodlands in 2017. I left the Bureau of Prisons after I had started my full-time practice. I was working quite a bit in Houston and Huntsville, and decided that the distance and travel was too long. We had known for sometime that Beaumont was not going to be our home. We moved to The Woodlands and thought wed try it out for a while. We came here and after our first year, we decided this is where we want to be. It is where we call home.

Now, Smith has offices in both Magnolia and Huntsville, and he treats patients at both offices. His wife works with him, he said, as his administrative manager and personal assistant. The couple has two children, one in college and a second who is in elementary school.

Local issues

In his nearly four years living in The Woodlands, Smith said he has witnessed both positive developments and trends as well as identified areas he is concerned about, including flooding, mobility and traffic, incorporation, the economic health of the community and now, COVID-19.

When it comes to incorporation, Smith said he has not made a decision one way or another, but he strongly believes more data is needed. The Woodlands recently completed more than two years of studies on the issue, but no vote will occur in 2020.

I dont think as a community as a whole that we have enough information on the impact of what (incorporation) would be. We need more information before we move forward. I love the idea of not incorporating. I think (the township) is a unique concept that adds to The Woodlands. But all the indicators show there is a net bonus or plus to The Woodlands (being a city). I think the jury is still out on (incorporation) and we need more information, Smith said. I do think we need to get that information as soon as possible, so that we can figure out what we want to do and which direction we want to go, rather than have this stagnation of, what if, what if not. We need to start strategizing how we are going to move forward.

In regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith said he is very concerned about the coronavirus, especially how the public is receiving information about the virus.

We are unique in the sense that we dont have direct responsibility (as a township), we have different jurisdictions that impact our local decisions. I think the township itself has done a fairly decent job in the sense of at least educating the constituents and keeping us informed, he said. I do think there is a lot left out, I dont think weve heard enough from local health officials to provide us with the information we need. I think the information that has been put out has been very generic and left a lot of openings for interpretation. There has not been a lot of quality leadership on this issue.

As the nation grapples with racial issues and questions about claims of institutional and possibly systemic racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Smith said he has been pleasantly surprised at the diversity, unity and also respect shown toward people of all races in the community.

He did admit the issue of racism cannot be ignored and that conversations must continue to occur as society moves forward with a new reckoning on race relations.

I have really been proud of how (racial issues) has been handled so far in The Woodlands. People have been showing a lot of respect and consideration, he said. We are in a very conservative county, and a lot of times, conservatives dont get the benefit of the doubt (on their racial feelings). There is a large, diverse population here. I think, as a whole, (race) has been handled well. I would like to see more discussions about race, and the impact on various institutions. In terms of community unity and civility, I think the discourse has been pretty good.

Focused on future

Smith said aside from incorporation, his election platform includes focusing heavily on flooding issues, storm water drainage, traffic and also mobility projects. While roads is the domain of the county, he feels if incorporation occurs, smart technology can be implemented on township roads. He also is concerned about the economic fallout from the coronavirus and varying restrictions on businesses that limit occupancy and may create declines in the sales tax revenue collected.

With regard to flooding, we need new and novel ideas to deal with flooding. It has been going on a while and it doesnt seem like there has been a whole lot of progress made. It is consistently talked about, but I have not been aware of any progress. That is an issue that really needs to be touched on and I want to address it in my candidacy, as well as dealing with other green energy concepts, trying to build a culture that encourages those things, Smith explained. COVID has devastated not only The Woodlands, but pretty much the whole country. We need to look to the (Woodlands) Economic Development Partnership to not only build an economy that restores us post-COVID, but that prepares us to better be able to deal with similar situations we may deal with in the future. We need the types of businesses that we can promote and draw people to the area using new technologies. We need new ideas on those (issues).

The township Board of Directors election is Nov. 3, with early voting beginning on Oct. 13 and continuing in three sessions until Oct. 30. Township directors are elected to two-year terms and are unpaid.

jeff.forward@chron.com
About 100 people marched to the Portland police union office and along North Portland streets Thursday without incident, and a separate crowd later spurred a police response outside a federal building across town on the citys 85th consecutive night of protests.

The North Portland demonstration featured no interaction between police and protesters. But the South Portland protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building featured familiar run-ins between protesters and law enforcement officers.

Three people were arrested in the latter demonstration, which police declared an unlawful assembly.

The evening of protest began with a march from Kenton Park to the Portland Police Association headquarters, which has become a steady draw for protesters.

The goal right now is to disrupt the peace, said Erandi Jones-Vega, 17, addressing the crowd from the bed of a blue Chevy pickup leading the march as it wound through the neighborhood. If youre here right now you need to be loud. You need to be exhausted. Because were exhausted.

Some residents stood on their porches, balconies and front yards to watch the march. They cheered, raised fits and took photos as the group passed by.

Among the chants heard on the route: My neck. My back. We gonna take these streets back and No cops. No KKK no fascist USA.

Signs included: Reparations, Black Lives Matter, Abolish Police and Silence Perpetuates Violence.

Another woman in the back of the pickup read aloud the names of Black people killed in shootings by Portland police. People in the crowd responded by saying, Rest in Power.

No police were visible at the Portland Police Association headquarters, which was completely boarded up. The scene remained peaceful as darkness fell.

After about 30 minutes of speeches outside the union building, the crowd marched back to Kenton Park about a half-mile away and scattered just before 10 p.m.

The event signaled one of the most low-key gatherings in weeks.

A crowd of protesters in North Portland on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, outside the Portland Police Association office on North Lombard Street.

About an hour after the North Portland demonstration ended, around 100 people met outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in South Portland, the site of a riot declared the night before.

Some walked up to the building, looking in windows, drumming on plywood covering the outside, spray-painting messages on the boards and also painting over the security camera at the entrance.

After repeated loudspeaker announcements from a Federal Protective Services official warning of arrests or crowd control tactics if people damaged the building or set fires, a phalanx of about two dozen officers emerged  some in riot gear with batons and others in camouflage with less-lethal munition launchers.

The officers set off smoke or gas and started firing munitions after a mortar-style firework exploded. The officers retreated about 10 minutes later and most of the crowd left.

A journalists photo posted on Twitter showed a spent canister on the ground, it was labeled triple chaser cs  a form of tear gas.

Many people filtered back to the building by midnight. A small number resumed pounding on the plywood and windows.

Portland police arrived and declared an unlawful assembly, forming lines and pushing people back on surrounding streets. A dumpster fire burned in the middle of South Moody Avenue near Thomas Street, the flames dying down as police chased people out of the area.

Black Lives Matter signs were few and chants scarce.

Police said some demonstrators threw rocks, cones, glass bottles and paint balloons at officers during the protest. Some in the crowd also shined green lasers at officers, police said. Three people were arrested and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center.

More on this weeks protest developments:

Protest timeline: Portland police on Thursday distributed a protest timeline, detailing their depiction of demonstrations that have occurred since late May.

They also offered definitions of two terms used by police to describe demonstrations:

A Civil Disturbance is an unlawful assembly that constitutes a clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets or when another immediate threat to public safety, peace or order appears.

A Riot is when six or more persons engage in tumultuous and violent conduct and thereby intentionally or recklessly creating a grave risk of causing public alarm, excluding persons who are engaged in passive resistance.

FBI asks for help: Also on Thursday, the FBI asked for help identifying people who they say participated in  or may have witnessed  crimes at the Multnomah County Justice Center and a downtown Portland bank branch in late May. Images of the people can be seen on posters distributed by the FBI.

The agency asked anyone who has information about the people on the posters or the incidents themselves to submit a tip online or call 1-800-225-5324 or 503-224-4181.

Wednesday night: Protesters and federal officers clashed for the first time in several weeks after crowds gathered at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in South Portland.

Protesters tagged the ICE building with graffiti and broke several windows. Federal officers came out of the building and pushed protesters into the street, where Portland police officers arrived and directed the crowd back to Caruthers Park, where it had initially gathered.

After several such rounds, officers used stun grenades and gas about midnight to break up the crowd. It was unclear which law enforcement agency deployed the gas.

Portland police said officers were hit with thrown rocks, full soda cans and a hammer during the demonstration. They cited the risk to life safety caused by these dangerous projectiles as their reason for declaring the riot.

Two people were arrested.

The use of tear gas drew complaints from residents, some of whom complained they were having trouble breathing as gas wafted into their open windows in nearby residential buildings.

A downtown resident previously filed a claim against the city of Portland after gas used against protesters entered her home May 31, causing severe burning in her chest, throat and nose, as well as ear pain. She asked the city to settle for $10,000 but accepted an offer of $1,000.

Earlier this week: Portland protesters on Tuesday marched to a new venue, the county seat of government, where they broke windows and lit fires  including inside the building.

Police quickly moved in and declared a riot, pushing protesters away from the Multnomah Building at Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard and Grand Avenue. Two people were arrested.

Authorities decried the damage.

Video footage shows a Portland police officer apparently shoving a woman and hitting her in the head with a baton at the Tuesday night protests.

On Thursday, the Independent Police Review confirmed that they were aware of the video and were investigating the incident.

Cop 37 shoves woman hitting her from behind in the head with baton, then hits her again in the face with baton while she is sitting on the ground pic.twitter.com/t4phwbWpsK  John #PortlandProtest (@Johnnthelefty) August 19, 2020

Arrest in shots fired: Portland police on Wednesday arrested Skyler Jernigan in connection with a shooting that occurred after pro-police protesters squared off with counterprotesters Saturday in downtown Portland. Jernigan, a 27-year-old Milwaukie resident and one of the pro-police protesters, was charged on Thursday with four counts of unlawful use of a weapon and two each of menacing, reckless endangerment and discharging a firearm in city limits.

At least one video from the scene showed a man, who is suspected to be Jernigan, fire two rounds from the drivers side window of a blue sedan. Additional videos captured the sound of the rounds as they rang out.

No one appeared to have been injured.

Beating video: Sundays protest took a violent turn, as a group of protesters beat a man bloody and unconscious in the street after he crashed a truck during a confrontation that unfolded near a downtown Portland demonstration.

Adam Haner, the man who was beaten, has been released from a hospital and is recovering. Police have identified one suspect  Marquis Love, 25  and said they have probable cause to arrest him.

A 32-minute video that captures the clearest, most comprehensive picture of the incident to date was published Wednesday.

Haner is home and recovering from multiple injuries. Some 3,600 people had donated nearly $130,000 to an online fundraiser in his name as of Thursday afternoon.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; skavanaugh@oregonian.com; 503-294-7632; @shanedkavanaugh

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

Mark Graves, K. Rambo, Jayati Ramakrishnan and Eder Campuzano of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Holly Willoughby is doing her best to recharge her batteries ahead of returning to work after she was forced to cut her family holiday to Portugal short.

The This Morning presenter, 39, shared a snap of herself donning an aura amethyst crystal which she credited with 'rockin' and rechargin'' her.

The multi-coloured necklace, which Holly wore with a white vest top, was a gift from her friend and clairvoyant Emma Lucy who said she made it with the star in mind.

Crystal: Holly Willoughby is doing her best to recharge her batteries ahead of returning to work after she was forced to cut her family holiday to Portugal short

Sharing Holly's photo, she wrote: 'The amulet was made with your aura in mind - crystal hand charged and programmed in white light for auric protection and magnification as you can learn to do in your own time in my new book "You are a Rainbow".

'When we tap into the magic of our energy within and without us - we can truly up vibe our lives and those that we love around us.'

Holly styled her blonde locks into an updo for the snap while she also donned a simple gold necklace.

The handmade necklace, made in conjunction with jeweller Roxanne First, will come in handy for Holly as she prepares to return to work after her holiday was cut short.

Present: The multi-coloured necklace, which Holly wore with a white vest top, was a gift from her friend and clairvoyant Emma Lucy who said she made it with the star in mind

Last week it was revealed that Holly was forced to end her seven-week family holiday to go into quarantine so that she can return on time to host This Morning.

The TV presenter had planned to fly home from the Algarve at the end of August for her summer break.

But UK government Covid-19 restrictions mean all passengers returning to Britain from Portugal must self-isolate for 14 days.

As a result, the TV star has flown home a fortnight early and will quarantine with her husband Dan Baldwin and their three children at their London home to be back on screens by September 7.

Emma wrote: 'The amulet was made with your aura in mind - crystal hand charged and programmed in white light for auric protection and magnification'

A source told MailOnline: 'Holly accepts that she has to go into quarantine and will follow the rules but she isn't happy losing two weeks from her holiday.

'The summer break is her chance to re-charge after a hectic period and to spend time with her family. After all the stresses of the pandemic she had been looking forward to relaxing as long as possible.

'Instead of seven weeks away she has had to make it five  but it's what she's had to do to keep the This Morning team safe and to ensure she returns to the show on time.'

A source close to Holly said of the arrangement: 'Holly isnt unhappy to be returning, but happy to do what is necessary to keep everyone safe'.

Family first: Holly jetted off with husband Dan Baldwin and their three children Harry, 11, Belle, nine and Chester, five - but had to cut their holiday short to self-isolate under new government guidelines

The UK government introduced the 14-day quarantine period for travellers to the country on June 8 when a coronavirus spike hit with an infection rate of almost 50 per 100,000 population, one of the highest in Europe.

They flew to Portugal soon after her last appearance on This Morning on July 10 with Eamonn Holmes and his wife Ruth Langsford, both 60, filling in.

Friends say Holly cherishes the summer break as she gets to spend more time with her family away from the commitments of filming ITV's This Morning.

The strain of presenting during the pandemic showed when Holly penned an emotional farewell from TV last month.

Returning to work: The source explained that Holly was disappointed but it's what 'she's had to do to keep the This Morning team safe and to ensure she returns to the show on time'

She had continued to present the popular daytime program with Phillip Schofield, 58, working with producers to ensure the show went ahead as normal.

Holly took to Instagram before her summer break to express her thanks to the This Morning team and the viewers who tuned in during lockdown.

She said: 'Thank you thank you for staying with us over the last 109 days... When we began this new way of broadcasting, we had no idea how long we would be able to come in, or whether it would be our last time broadcasting from the studio during lockdown.

'The team have adapted and had plan a, b, c and d in place just in case... Some days we didn't know If we'd have the content to fill the show, but somehow we always managed it and even had a few laughs along the way.

Quality time: Holly had planned to fly home from the Algarve at the end of August after taking a summer break with husband Dan and their children

'You see us, but we feel that you are there with us, every single show... @thismorning holds a mirror up to life and reflects the mood of what we are all feeling.'

Holly added: 'I can't thank our team enough! @martinfrizell1, Emma, all the production who came in.

'The production team who worked from home, crew, the TM family and fellow presenters who are consistently brilliant, but mostly to @schofe for metaphorically holding my hand and reliably being socially distanced shoulder to shoulder with me...

'What a strange time... Feeling incredibly grateful... Huge love, thank you again... See you in September.'
OTTAWA  Premier Brian Pallisters legacy flood channel project has hit yet another roadblock, with a court pausing the construction of an access road due to concerns about consultation with First Nations.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Premier Brian Pallisters legacy flood channel project has hit yet another roadblock, with a court pausing the construction of an access road due to concerns about consultation with First Nations.

"Its a good day for Indigenous people," said Lake Manitoba Chief Cornell McLean, reacting Thursday to a ruling the same day in the Court of Queens Bench.

The Interlake Reserves Tribal Council has long complained about how the Lake St. Martin-Lake Manitoba flood channel outlets are being planned. The chiefs say the province isnt adequately hearing out their concerns.

The $540-million project is meant to prevent catastrophic floods by diverting water between those bodies and Lake Winnipeg. Ottawa has agreed to pay almost half the cost, recognizing the channels as critical infrastructure to adapt to a changing climate.

Local reserves claim they were blindsided in March 2019 by the clearing of a 23-kilometre route, with a 25-metre right-of-way. The province said it had obtained all required approvals for the road, which it says it required to survey the site for engineering reviews, and wants to use this coming winter.

IRTC had previously tried unsuccessfully to get a provincial regulator to stop the building the road, alleging the province hasnt meaningfully examined their concerns over the environment and treaty rights.

In April, the six First Nations filed a court injunction, which was granted Thursday.

The interlocutory injunction means the court wants to prevent further construction of the road, until it has enough evidence to weigh the concerns of IRTC chiefs.

The province is thus forbidden from clearing Crown land, unless a flooding emergency occurs and an existing, temporary channel needs to be reactivated.

The injunction will be in place until the court rules on whether the province has adequately heard out local concerns and tried to mitigate them, such as through a work plan, or if the project clears all existing regulatory reviews.

"When it comes to First Nations, we're Manitobans as well," McLean said. "The premier needs to treat us as such."

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The Pallister government says its reviewing the decision and strives to work with First Nations.

The Interlake area was severely flooded in 2011 and 2014. McLean stressed the First Nations support the idea of preventing floods, and the IRTC said its optimistic about finding a solution.

"Were excited to work with the province," said IRTC spokesman Karl Zadnik. "The pandemic has really put (us in) a difficult path, to ensure the consultation meetings take place."

Thursdays decision related to the access road; it does not decide the fate of the actual outlet channels.

An ongoing federal review has found gaps in the provinces assessment of how the outlets will impact invasive species, water flows far downstream and fish life.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
In Animal Farm, George Orwell coined the perfect phrase for any socialist society: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Without exception, all socialist societies have eventually created (to use the Soviet term) a "nomenklatura"  that is, an elite class of high political officials who get special treatment, especially in the realm of material goods denied to other citizens. With her ukase against protesting around her house, Chicago's Lori Lightfoot seems to have taken Orwell's dictum to heart with a vengeance.

We all remember back in April when Lori Lightfoot violated her super-strict lockdown rules so that she could get a haircut. When Chicago's ungroomed people and their unemployed hairstylists objected, Lightfoot had an answer: she was special.

That's not even an exaggeration. At a press conference, Lightfoot stated:

I'm the public face of this city. I'm on national media, and I'm out in the public eye. I'm a person who, I take my personal hygiene very seriously, as I said I felt like I needed to have a haircut. I'm not able to do that myself.

Those other animals in Chicago, the ones who also took their "personal hygiene very seriously," simply weren't equal enough to act upon that serious concern.

This week, Lightfoot again set herself apart from the unhygienic masses over whom she wields her mayoral power. I've written already about the latest threatening BLM and Antifa tactic, which is to terrorize neighborhoods, so I won't belabor that point here. Suffice to say that while Lightfoot generally believes in free speech for the Democrats' terrorist branches, and has done little to nothing to protect Chicagoans from rioters, it's different when it's about her:

Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended the Chicago Police Department's ban on protesters being able to demonstrate on the block where she lives, telling reporters Thursday that she and her family at times require heightened security because of threats she receives daily. Lightfoot refused to elaborate on the specific threats, but said she receives them daily against herself, her wife and her home. Comparisons to how the Police Department has protected previous mayors' homes, such as Rahm Emanuel's Ravenswood residence, are unfair because "this is a different time like no other," Lightfoot told reporters. "I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure," Lightfoot said.

To her credit, Lightfoot has not gotten on board with the "defund the police" madness (although she frames it in racial terms), so she's not a hypocrite along those lines. However, as noted above, she has been less aggressive in preventing BLM's and Antifa's terrorist behavior elsewhere in Chicago.

On August 10, Chicago was overtaken by looters who destroyed people's livelihoods. She's also been singularly ineffective when it comes to protecting Chicago's citizens from violence. On June 8, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote about 18 murders in 24 hours, an occurrence the paper described as "the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago." Just two days ago, 21 people were shot in Chicago, and that followed 15 people being shot on Tuesday, 21 people being shot on Monday, and 64 people being shot over the weekend.

One has to give Lightfoot points for her honesty: she's not shy about letting her citizens know that she matters more than they do. At a certain point, you can't even blame her for this. After all, Chicago citizens, like urban residents over large parts of America, keep promoting open hypocrites like Lightfoot to positions of power. If the voters don't care that they're turning themselves into second-class animals, why should the politicians be shy about showing off their first-class-animal status?

Image: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (cropped) by Smart Chicago Collaborative's Photostream, CC BY 2.0.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

Kazakhstans Prime Minister Askar Mamin and Russian Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin discussed further development of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Trend reports with reference to the press office of Kazakhstans prime minister.

The topic was discussed during a meeting held on Aug. 21, 2020.

The parties discussed issues of the Kazakh-Russian cooperation in the space sphere, including the further development of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and interaction in the field of remote sensing of the Earth.

Special attention was paid to the project to create a Baiterek joint space rocket complex (Nazarbayev Start) and a trilateral project to modernize the Gagarin Start (in cooperation with the UAE).

In July 2020, Russias Energia Rocket and Space Corporation has concluded an agreement with Baiterek Joint Venture on provision of services on creation of a Baiterek Rocket and Space Complex.

The Baiterek project oversees construction of the Baiterek complex at the base of a number of already existing Baikonur Cosmodrome sites in Kazakhstan. According to a preliminary agreement, Russia is to be responsible for the rocket construction, whereas Kazakhstan takes the responsibility for construction of the infrastructure.

Kazakhstans Baikonur city is the administrative and living center of major Baikonur Cosmodrome. The city and the Cosmodrome together create a Baikonur complex, which Russia is renting from Kazakhstan till 2050.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
UPDATE: Man accused of I-5 shootings connected to at least 7 shootings in southern Oregon, state police say

A Roseburg man was arrested Thursday in a string of shootings on Interstate 5 in southern Oregon, the most recent of which wounded a motorist the night before.

Kenneth Ayers, 49, was booked into the Jackson County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder, assault, unlawful use of a weapon and other charges. Hes being held on over $350,000 bail.

The Oregon State Police said Ayers is the suspect in a string of shootings along the freeway that date back to late May. The agency didnt disclose a motive or specify exactly how many shootings had occurred.

The motorist wounded Wednesday was traveling north near milepost 37, between Gold Hill and Central Point, when she was shot, according to the state police. She was taken to a hospital, treated and released.

Her injury was the first known to authorities in the string of shootings, which occurred in Douglas, Jackson and Josephine counties.

Troopers had twice asked for help identifying the person or people responsible for the shootings prior to the incident that left the motorist injured.

Authorities are planning to hold a news conference Friday afternoon.

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

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The U.S. Postal Service on Friday announced that it has launched a new election mail website to offer clear information about voting by mail.

The website, usps.com/votinginfo, offers voters information on how to use the mail to vote, as well as resources for election officials, the postal service wrote in a news release.

Many states are offering mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic. In Massachusetts, voters are already in the process of mailing in or dropping off ballots ahead of the Sept. 1 state primary. With the Nov. 3 general election approaching, the postal service says it expects a significant increase in demand among postal customers who want to participate in elections by mail.

For domestic voters, the new website provides direct links to federal election resources and state-specific resources, the news release said. For overseas and military voters, the site offers links to resources supporting their election participation.

The most critical information on the website, the USPS said, is in encouraging people to start the voting process early. To make sure voters can receive, complete and return ballots via the mail on time, the agency recommends asking for a ballot no later than 15 days before the election.

When complete, voters should mail in their ballots at least one week before their states due date.

The U.S. Postal Service remains fully committed to fulfilling its role in the electoral process when policymakers choose to use our services in administering elections. The Postal Service can fully handle and deliver the anticipated increase in Election Mail volume and is continuing to coordinate with state and local election officials through November, the news release reads.

The website has information for election officials to contact Postal Service personnel to discuss getting ballots out timely and efficiently.

Election officials and voters are being asked to be mindful of the Postal Services established delivery standards and consider how the mail actually works, so that voters have adequate time to request, receive, complete and send their mail-in ballots, the release continues. The Postal Service will continue to do everything in its power to efficiently handle and deliver Election Mail, including ballots, in a manner consistent with the proven processes and procedures that have been relied upon for years.

The Postal Service does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

Related Content:
First Minister set to announce indoor care home visits could be allowed from 29th August

This article is old - Published: Friday, Aug 21st, 2020

Indoor visits to care homes will be allowed in Wales from Saturday 29 August, subject to the strict controls set out in the guidance and conditions remaining favourable, First Minister Mark Drakeford will confirm later today.

In the now regular trail from Welsh Government they say the First Minister will also give detail from the podium this lunchtime that from Saturday, August 22, extended households can expand to include up to four households in an exclusive, extended arrangement.

Weddings and funerals will also be able to include a meal for up to 30 people, in suitably socially distant settings.

However, he will also warn that despite the latest easing of lockdown restrictions in Wales, now is not the time to move away from the careful and cautious approach taken so far.

He will say: While coronavirus remains effectively suppressed in Wales and cases continue to fall, the situation in the rest of the UK and further afield is still problematic. Coronavirus has not gone away and so, as we move out of lockdown and look to the future, it is important we do this in a careful and cautious way.

You can watch the First Minister give his briefing at lunchtime today  the briefing will be partially live on BBC One Wales, S4C, ITV Wales and in full via the @WelshGovernment twitter account.
Hashem Abedi, the brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. Photo: Force for Deterrence in Libya/PA Wire

THE brother of the suicide bomber who set off an explosion at a 2017 Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds, was sentenced yesterday to a minimum of 55 years in prison.

Hashem Abedi (23, pictured) had denied helping plan the attack at Manchester Arena but was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and conspiring to cause explosions.

His sentencing had been postponed due to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

His elder brother Salman Abedi, who set off the bomb, died in the May 22, 2017 bombing at the end of the concert.

Hashem Abedi refused to attend court for the sentencing hearing.

Judge Jeremy Baker said during Hashem Abedi's hearing that the two brothers were "equally culpable for the deaths and injuries."

"Although Salman Abedi was directly responsible, it was clear the defendant took an integral part in the planning," Judge Baker said.

The judge said that had the younger brother been over the age of 21 at the time of the explosion, he would have been given a "whole-life term". Instead, he was sentenced to serve a minimum of 55 years.

"The defendant should clearly understand the minimum term he should serve is 55 years. He may never be released," Judge Baker added.

He added that there was a "significant degree of premeditation" and that the motivation for the brothers was "to advance the ideology of Islamism".
CNBC's Jim Cramer recommended investors buy shares of Nvidia on the next dip after the semiconductor manufacturer reported a standout quarterly report after Wednesday's close.

"Nvidia reported a blowout quarter last night, and you had to pounce when the stock sold off because it quickly came roaring back," he said on "Mad Money" Thursday.

Nvidia, which produces gaming and datacenter chips, saw its stock inch up 0.02% the day after reporting record revenue in the second quarter for its fiscal 2021. The company posted $3.87 billion in revenue, growth of 50% from a year ago, and non-GAAP earnings of $2.18, up 76% in that same period. Net income came in at $1.37 billion.

By comparison, Wall Street was looking for $3.65 billion on the top line and $1.97 per share on the bottom line.

Nvidia expects current quarter revenues to come in at $4.40 billion. In the analyst community, 19 firms upped their price targets on the stock Thursday, the largest number of upgrades Cramer said he has ever seen made in unison.

"If you don't own it already, be prepared for the next dip. The next time Nvidia comes down, you need to buy," he said.

The strong report did not come without any weakness, Cramer noted. Nvidia's on-premise data center sales were considered suboptimal, which caused some shareholders to unload the stock, he said.

Nivida said on-site service was a challenge due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the company is focused on transitioning enterprises to the cloud. The company is relying on the fourth industrial revolution, Cramer said, which is the digital transformation.

"There's nothing temporary about this," he said.

The pandemic has only sped up the enterprise adoption of digital as more and more people work and learn from home.

Softness in the on-site business is "why people sold at first, but if you thought about this for more than like two seconds, you would've realized the weak on-premises business is just the flip side of the company's incredible strength in regular data centers," Cramer said. "The on-premises business is the past. Look at it like this: the opposite of on-premises is the cloud."

Nvidia shares closed Thursday at 485.64, up 106.39% on the year. The stock is the biggest gainer on the S&P 500 in 2020, followed by DexCom, West Pharmaceutical and PayPal, according to Factset.

The stock is off its about 1.6% off its closing high of $493.48 it set on Monday.

"The company's holding a  special event on Sept. 1st where there's going to be some surprise announcements related to gaming," Cramer said.

"That could be the next catalyst."
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.
LONDON  For all of the challenges in controlling the spread of the coronavirus, Europes initial strategy was relatively straightforward: nearly universal, strictly enforced lockdowns.

It eventually worked. And in the two months since most countries have opened up, improved testing and tracing have largely kept new outbreaks in check. With basic rules on wearing masks and social distancing, life has been able to resume with some semblance of normality.

But in recent days France, Germany and Italy have experienced their highest daily case counts since the spring, and Spain finds itself in the midst of a major outbreak. Government authorities and public health officials are warning that the continent is entering a new phase in the pandemic.

There isnt the widespread chaos and general sense of crisis seen in March and April. And newly detected infections per 100,000 people across Europe are still only about one-fifth the number in the United States over the last week, according to a New York Times database.
PARMA, Ohio -- Theres a memorable scene in the 2019 Academy Award-nominated feature film adaptation of Louisa May Alcotts Little Women in which a male editor provides misplaced advice in an attempt to dilute Jo Marchs female-centric novel.

Someone who can -- unfortunately -- relate to that all-too-familiar experience is Ohio-based author Tiffany McDaniel.

While her 2016 debut novel, The Summer That Melted Everything, won the Ohioana Librarys Reader Choice Award, the first book she wanted to publish was Betty, which was inspired by her mother of the same name, life in Southern Ohios rural Appalachian foothills and a hidden family secret.

The searing novel about a young girls resilience, the disarming realities of prejudice and generational abuse was met with one publishing agent after another not only providing bad advice, but completely missing the point of the book.

I heard several times that I should make Betty a boy narrator because they sell better, McDaniel said. One agent said this could be the Huckleberry Finn of our generation, but I didnt write Huckleberry Finn.'

I really wanted to capture Betty as a girl, her spirit and her relationship with everyone around her. They also said regarding women, we have to see them having romantic relationships and I should take out the bras and the menstruation, she said.

The one piece of advice McDaniel did accept had to do with having a male narrator.

She had already written The Summer That Melted Everything, which had a male voice, so after selling that book, it provided enough cachet to finally get Betty published, which Knopf Doubleday did earlier this month.

Its timing couldnt be any better.

It was interesting, because Betty is talking about sexism and yet the book over the course of all these years faced the same sexism within the industry, McDaniel said. It was kind of internally, but then it was also having to face it externally.

The #MeToo movement and the resurgence of the feminist movement in this generation sort of paved a way for this story and for more people to lean into it.

Even though McDaniel is a prolific writer with a dozen written -- yet unpublished -- books, shes thinking her next project will explore the disappearance and death of six women from Chillicothe, which isnt too far from her hometown of Minford.

As fate would have it, I went to grade school with one of the women who went missing, McDaniel said. That hasnt been solved, so Im sort of hoping to give them more of a voice and keep their crime on the radar.

McDaniel is scheduled to take part in the Cuyahoga County Public Librarys Beyond the Book Jacket speaker series, which normally provides readers the opportunity to meet their favorite local, regional and national authors in the 400-seat black box auditorium located in the Parma-Snow Branch.

However, this year due to COVID-19, the popular behind-the-scenes series is going virtual. Registration is not required for the free events, which are open to the public and broadcast live via the Cuyahoga County Public Librarys Facebook page.

While McDaniel was looking forward to officially visiting Cuyahoga County in person for the first time, the virtual affair will have to suffice for now.

My hope is this will give people a moment to relax and kind of cancel out the noise of everything going on, McDaniel said. I love doing these virtual events. Im just really excited to talk about the book and meet some readers. It should be a good night.

Read more news from the Parma Sun Post.
Joe Biden is preparing to take office in January with a unified national plan to defeat Covid-19, but he won't have a unified nation ready to follow it.

The former vice president and Democratic nominee is putting together a centralized federal strategy for testing, contact tracing, and shoring up the medical supply chain that would replace the patchwork of state plans that enabled the virus to spread widely under President Donald Trump.

"As president, the first step I will take will be to get control of the virus that's ruined so many lives," Biden said in his speech on the closing night of the Democratic convention. "Because I understand something this president doesn't. We will never get our economy back on track, we will never get our kids safely back to school, we will never have our lives back, until we deal with this virus."

Yet implementing his plans will be even more daunting in a bitterly divided political environment. Large swaths of Americans, still suspicious that the coronavirus threat is being exaggerated to harm Trumps re-election prospects, are likely to resist a new Democratic presidents more aggressive public health measures and shun guidance on masks and social distancing. And many Americans are skeptical of a vaccine that may or may not be available next year.

Depending on what happens in November, Biden could face a Republican Senate, with its own agenda and approach, or a closely divided Democratic one, with little room to maneuver. There are also big unknowns about the transition, whether a defeated Trump would have his administration collaborate from November to January to ensure a smooth handoff, or whether he would withhold access and information until Biden is sworn in Jan. 20. Bidens allies wonder too whether Trump or his supporters, through social media or other outlets, would inflame conservative backlash against masks and other measures that Biden would promote.

Story continues

But unity and reconciliation are a big part of Bidens brand and one of his core campaign messages. His nominating convention this week, which has often highlighted Trumps pandemic failures, brought together everyone from Bernie Sanders supporters to disenchanted Trump voters. Jill Bidens keynote speech emphasized how her husbands ability to heal his own family following multiple tragedies gives him unique insight into how to make a nation whole.

Bidens team says his approach to the virus will center on science, outreach and consistency. A Biden administration would counter any public skepticism and opposition with thoughtful messaging that centers the voices of experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci rather than politicians.

The way that you build public trust is that you tell the truth, said former Surgeon General and Biden adviser Vivek Murthy. You lead with science. You communicate frequently and with empathy and show you understand what people are going through. You set goals and meet them. This is how he will lead as president.

Biden will make it a priority to reach out to the people who didnt vote for him and listen to them and make sure they know that were all in this together, senior adviser Jake Sullivan said.

One plan, not 50

The policies have been under development since the early days of the pandemic, when Biden started pulling together a team of veteran public health officials and disease experts  many of whom he had worked with in the Obama administration on Ebola, Zika and the H1N1 flu. As the coronavirus again surged over the summer, Biden built out that team and kept retooling and expanding his pandemic plans, adding guidance on what the federal government should do to address racial disparities, reopen schools and distribute a vaccine.

The vice president is designing a structure and a strategy thats adaptable to the evolving pandemic, Sullivan said in an interview. Where the hallmark of the last six months has been the president saying across the board This is not my issue and pushing it down to states, the vice presidents view is that his No. 1 job is to assert presidential leadership over this.

Many experts  including some Republican governors  believe Trumps decision to push so much of the response to the states has set the country back. More than 170,000 people have died in the United States, and the deaths will continue to mount.

Right now, we have 50 different data dashboards, 50 different testing plans, 50 different school reopening plans. It's like were 50 separate countries with different definitions of whats good, said Cyrus Shahpar, the former head of the Global Rapid Response Team at the Centers for Disease Control who now helps run the Covid Exit Strategy tracker. That's not a roadmap for success.

Trump and his allies strongly defend his management of the coronavirus, blaming much of the disaster on China and arguing that their policies prevented it from being far worse. They also argue that its Biden, not Trump, who lacks the competency to lead  citing the Obama administrations handling of the 2009 flu outbreak, which killed between 2,500 and 6,000 people in the U.S.

Trump himself tweeted this week that the Obama-Biden response to that flu was "weak and pathetic."

Given the current tensions in the country, which will only escalate during a bitter campaign season, depoliticizing the pandemic wont be easy. Some experts fear stronger federal action could provoke a backlash.

A mask-wearing mandate issued by President Biden might actually make things worse, cautioned Dr. Marta Wosinska, deputy director for policy at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy. If there is a change in administration, it will be absolutely critical that the Biden team thinks carefully about when to issue mandates.

Biden had called on governors to require masks, although in his speech Thursday night he did refer to a national mandate, without giving any details. He wears a mask in public, and he's pleaded with Americans to think of masking up as a patriotic act. But some worry that leaning on persuasion is risky as well.

What worries me is not whether Democrats who are already wearing masks will keep wearing masks because Biden tells them to, said Chris Meekins, former deputy assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for preparedness and response, who served for part of the Trump administration. My concern is how do you get the people that aren't  and if you think they're going to listen to a President Biden who just defeated their guy, thats just not going to happen.

Bidens team is thinking about how to counter this inevitable resistance.

Its going to be hard, I think, because the public trust is so much less than it used to be, which is unfortunate, said Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and health policy expert advising Biden. But part of leadership is to educate the public on why we're doing what we're doing and to get them behind you.

How well Biden seizes control of the virus, and whether he can pull the country together, may both define a Biden presidency and dictate whether he can also make progress on his other campaign pledges, like clean energy, expanding affordable health insurance, and rebuilding the damaged economy.

"He knows he's going to have to move aggressively on multiple fronts in parallel, Murthy said in an interview. He understands  that you dont get to a better economic picture without implementing an effective public health solution.

Murthy and Emanuel are both part of the deep bench of advisers that Biden began pulling together early this year, when the virus was surging in China but not yet visibly spreading across the globe. Others include Obama administration Ebola czar Ron Klain, global health expert Rebecca Katz, former HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Nicole Lurie, former FDA Commissioner David Kessler and former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Many worked with Biden before on both public health threats like the H1N1 flu in 2009, as well as on the Affordable Care Act.

Since March, the group has briefed Biden at least four times a week on the virus spread and what has worked, or fallen short, in the states. Its been the backbone of his public health planning, helping the campaign churn out plans to double the number of federally run drive-through testing sites, invoke the Defense Production Act to make swabs and reagents to alleviate testing bottlenecks, hire at least 100,000 contact tracers, and deploy twice as many OSHA investigators to enforce Covid safety measures in workplaces.

But as early state reopenings and a hands-off federal government allowed the outbreak to intensify over the summer  overwhelming hospitals, upending plans to bring children back to school and kneecapping the already bruised economy  Biden and his team decided they had to do more, especially for marginalized groups hit the hardest.

As more data emerged that Black and brown Americans were getting sick and dying at disproportionate rates, Biden put out plans and statements on strengthening the social safety net and implementing more protections for essential workers and communities of color  groups that often overlap.

As the death toll climbed in nursing homes, the campaign in July outlined how it would overhaul Medicaid to allow more long-term care at home.

Later in July, as the dilemma of reopening schools devolved into another partisan battle, Biden vowed if elected to give schools more detailed and uniform guidance on things like ventilation and safe classroom layout, along with the resources to carry it out. He also promised universal broadband so kids can stay connected remotely, and pledged to double the ranks of school counselors and psychologists to address the mental health crisis that has accompanied Covid-19.

And since a pandemic, by definition, is a global problem, Biden has promised a global response. He has vowed in his speeches to restore ties to the World Health Organization that Trump aims to sever, and revive the global health directorate at the National Security Council that the Trump administration disbanded in 2018.

A shot in the arm

Should a viable vaccine emerge before January  either from the Trumps administrations Warp Speed project or another country or private company  that will make Bidens job easier, but not easy. The campaign is already thinking through how to manage a mass vaccination campaign, pledging to invest $25 billion to manufacture and distribute it, and launch a national campaign to persuade skeptics to take it.

Bidens team cautions that its impossible to know when a vaccine may be ready or how effective it may be, but campaign officials said it would be fully covered with no out-of-pocket costs under Obamacare's rules and free to the uninsured under his administration.

Emanuel, who has briefed the Biden campaign on a vaccine distribution strategy he created this summer with the Center for American Progress, said the team knows they need to prepare for multiple scenarios.

What if theres more than one vaccine? What if we have very limited safety data since well only have tested it on one-ten-thousandth of the people who will ultimately need it? What if the immunity it confers is short-lived? Then what do we do? he said. On top of the complicated logistics of producing and distributing a vaccine, he emphasized, there are also the dicey questions of who should be first in line and how to coax hesitant populations to participate.

Campaign advisers arent necessarily opposed to the Trump administrations plan to give the Defense Department an unprecedented role in distributing a vaccine, as long as public health officials are in charge of key decisions and remain the nonpartisan face of the effort.

And Murthy said the troubled rollout of the H1N1 vaccine in 2009, when the administration initially came up short on the number of doses available, taught Biden many lessons  including how to partner with state and local leaders, how to avoid overpromising, and how to discover problems before its too late.

We need strong data systems, he said. What we dont want to do is a vaccine delivery effort and then realize three months in that there are huge holes and that certain populations are not getting the vaccines they need.

But even in the best-case scenario, with an effective vaccine and enough of the population willing to take it, the virus is still likely to dominate at least the early stages of a Biden presidency.

We could have been like New Zealand, with a very low rate of background transmission that we would need to suppress, Emanuel said. Instead, we have way too many cases, so well have to go back to the basics. It makes it harder for everyone, because so little of the groundwork has been laid to get it done.
She made history as one of the first Indigenous women to become a pilot in Manitoba. Now, Robyn Shlachetka is raising questions about the province's screening process for flight crews travelling to northern circuit courts.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

She made history as one of the first Indigenous women to become a pilot in Manitoba. Now, Robyn Shlachetka is raising questions about the province's screening process for flight crews travelling to northern circuit courts.

The 35-year-old Keewatin Air pilot says she was denied security clearance from Manitoba Justice this summer to fly to and from circuit court locations  even though she has no criminal record, passed vulnerable-sector and child-abuse checks, and has more than 12 years flying experience, including previous circuit court runs.

SUPPLIED Robyn Shlachetka wasn't told why she was rejected. She was told she couldn't reapply or contact provincial staff about the decision.

Shlachetka wasn't told why she was rejected. She was told she couldn't reapply or contact provincial staff about the decision.

"I think I had some red flags, because on the application itself... (It asks) 'Do you know anyone with a criminal background?'" said the Cree/Sioux mother of five who lives in Thompson.

"If you're from the North, from Thompson, especially, and living up here, there's... such a high crime rate and such a high poverty rate and stuff, it's almost impossible to not be involved or not be a conflict in some way, shape or form by their standards. And I feel like Indigenous people, we tend to have larger families... and it's as simple as one relative committing a crime," she said.

"If you're from the North, from Thompson, especially, and living up here, there's... such a high crime rate and such a high poverty rate and stuff, it's almost impossible to not be involved or not be a conflict in some way, shape or form by their standards. And I feel like Indigenous people, we tend to have larger families... and it's as simple as one relative committing a crime."  Robyn Shlachetka

Thompson has consistently had some of the highest violent-crime rates in Canada.

Shlachetka said the home she shares with her partner was broken into last year by machete-wielding intruders who killed the family dog. About a month later, the home was destroyed in an electrical fire, and she said RCMP later sought a search warrant.

Shlachetka said she believes she's under undue police suspicion, despite never being involved with any criminal activity.

As part of her security screening application, a copy of which she provided to the Free Press, Shlachetka was asked to disclose whether she, her spouse or anyone in her immediate family had ever been involved in the justice system, whether criminally charged, convicted, or as a witness or victim.

She indicated two relatives had criminal records; neither she nor her spouse have been convicted of a crime. Apart from a criminal record check, she was required to consent to a credit check and checks on other police databases, as well as online checks, including her social media presence.

The application asked if she knew anyone currently incarcerated, if she knew any current or former gang members, if she was associated with any organization that would demand loyalty from her or if she had any "personal vulnerability" that would leave her susceptible to taking bribes.

"The interview, honestly, felt like a formality, like they'd already decided I wasn't going to be cleared."  Robyn Shlachetka

Shlachetka answered no to all of those questions, but she says she was questioned at length in a subsequent interview about her social media network.

She had never asked online connections about their potential criminal histories, she said. Strangers reached out to her on social media after she was featured along with co-pilot Raven Beardy in a 2018 CBC News article about Manitoba's first Indigenous female medevac team.

"After me and Raven made the news, I had hundreds of Facebook requests, and I added a ton of people not even checking to see who those people were, because it's social media, it's not a reflection of who I'm friends with," Shlachetka said.

"The interview, honestly, felt like a formality, like they'd already decided I wasn't going to be cleared."

Shlachetka, who is from Wabowden, had been operating medevac flights in Manitoba, but applied for a position transporting court personnel because it offered a schedule that would allow her to return home to her children each night.

It's the same job she did for several years for a previous employer.

"Indigenous Peoples are facing generational experiences within the judicial system, because that's what the system was set up for and that's how it operates against our people. And here she is, she's being penalized and punished for things that are beyond her control, despite accomplishing something extraordinary."  NDP MLA Nahanni Fontaine

Additional security screening was introduced last year, after the province awarded a new contract to private companies providing government air travel, a Manitoba Justice spokesperson wrote in a statement, adding pilots are required to pass the screening in order to fly for Manitoba Justice.

Manitoba Justice confirmed provincial staff conduct the security screenings, but declined to disclose the specific standards required of pilots to "ensure the integrity of our security screening methodology."

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Provincial policy states security screenings including criminal record checks are required.

The Free Press asked the justice department for more information about the screening Shlachetka went through, and received a statement from the minister's office that simply expressed confidence in the process.

NDP MLA Nahanni Fontaine, justice critic for the Opposition, said she contacted the justice minister to try to give Shlachetka another chance to apply. She said her case is "a clear example of systemic racism."

"Indigenous Peoples are facing generational experiences within the judicial system, because that's what the system was set up for and that's how it operates against our people. And here she is, she's being penalized and punished for things that are beyond her control, despite accomplishing something extraordinary," Fontaine said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Sushant Singh Rajput's death has left the Hindi film industry divided, with many calling out the power structures in Bollywood for sidelining the late actor. Kangana Ranaut, in an old interview with Republic TV, had accused Swara Bhasker and Taapsee Pannu of not speaking up for Sushant, and rather supporting "Bollywood mafias."

During the same interview, Kangana had called Swara and Taapsee "needy outsiders" and "B-grade actresses."

Now in an interview with Pinkvilla, Swara, who earlier laughed off Kangana's remarks, has said that what Kangana said about her -- being a B-grade actor and a bootlicker of Karan Johar -- shows more about her own mentality.

In my head, B stands for best. So I am like, 'call me whatever you like.' Sometimes what people say reflects more about their mentality than people that they are talking about. And I think thats what happened with the outsiders and the being B grade actors debate, its really just sad. I think people were revealing their own mentality rather than saying anything about me, Taapsee or anyone, she said.

Sushant's death has triggered the outsider-insider debate in the industry, with several members of the industry coming forward and sharing their bitter experiences.

Talking about the same, Swara earlier told CNN-News18, "This is not a debate where two sides are really presenting their views quite equally. Taapsee (Pannu), Richa (Chadha), Anurag (Kashyap) and I have now spoken but this is just because our names were dragged into this whole issue. I didnt choose to begin this whole conversation, I got dragged into it. It seems that the whole framework of this conversation has been set by this completely hysterical mob that is just looking to vilify people without facts or logic.

"It just looks like that there is this bloodthirsty need to find villains. Sadly, the reality might not be that. It doesnt feel right to turn the personal tragedy of the suicide of such a bright, talented, and successful star... I feel everyone needs to just take a step back and ask ourselves, 'What are we doing?' Police are doing their job and Im sure theyll do it in a fair manner."
HYDERABAD: The Nagarkurnool Collector on Friday claimed that two bodies, including one of an Assistant Engineer, have been recovered from the Srisailam hydroelectric power plant where a major fire erupted following an explosion late on Thursday.

News agency ANI reported that at least ten people have been rescued so far, of which 6 are under treatment at a hospital in Srisailam. Nine others still feared trapped inside the plant.

Initial reports indicate that a short circuit led to an explosion resulting in a huge fire and a thick layer of smoke later engulfing the spot.

Of the several persons reported to be present at the spot when the fire took place, 8 escaped to safety through a tunnel whereas many others were believed to be trapped inside the complex. Those trapped include six TS Genco employees and three private company employees.

Firefighters are at the spot and carrying out the rescue operation. Officials said thick smoke which has been billowing due to the fire is hampering rescue operations.

Telangana Minister Jagadish Reddy and TS Genco CMD Prabhakar Rao had reached the spot to oversee the rescue efforts.

Reddy said that the mishap occurred in the first unit of the power station and four panels were damaged. He said that the rescuers were unable to enter the tunnel due to thick smoke.

CM K Chandrashekhar Rao also expressed shock over the Srisailam power station fire mishap. The Chief Minister said that he is in touch with concerned officials and is taking updates on a regular basis.

Sources said that CM Rao has instructed officials to evacuate all workers who are trapped inside the plant. He also spoke to Minister Jagdeesh Reddy and Transco, Genco CMD D Prabhakar Rao, who was at the site, and the reviewed relief measures taken so far.

Rescuers are also being rushed in from the Singareni collieries to aid the ongoing rescue operation there. Power generation operations at the power station have been suspended following the incident.

Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has also cancelled his scheduled visit to Srisailam after fire mishap.

The Srisailam dam is located across the Krishna river which serves as the border between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Donald Trump praised supporters on Thursday as "incredible people" for defying the state's "shutdown" orders and social distancing guidelines while gathered for a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a key swing state he boldly predicted he will win come Election Day.

"Based on the crowd outside it looks to me like we're going to win this thing," the president said near Scranton, eliciting a round of loud cheers and whistles.

"I think, by the way, by a lot. But your governor has you in a shutdown. Like, what's going on?" he said of Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.

"How did they all get out there?" Mr Trump asked, pointing off stage to his left, in the direction of supporters who had gathered for his rally speech outside the venue in the town of Old Forge. "And they were not socially distanced, I can tell you. We'll have to  on the way back, they'll still be there. Because they're incredible people."

As the president continues his counter-programming tour of official events and campaign rallies in swing states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, he and his backers have grown increasingly cavalier about observing health guidelines such as wearing masks and socially distancing  though cameras did catch some of the Thursday attendees with masks over their noses and mouths.

At a rally at the Yuma International Airport in Yuma, Arizona on Wednesday, the president spoke before a crowd of tightly packed supporters, many of whom were wearing his signature red "Make America Great Again" hat  but not masks.

Mr Trump doubled down on his oft-repeated notion that if he loses key swing states, it will only be because of election fraud. Voting rights groups, Democrats, and several Republicans have dismissed, calling it baseless and fundamentally anti-democratic.

"How are we doing in Pennsylvania  OK?" the president asked his Pennsylvania campaign chairwoman, Bernadette Comfort.

"I think so, I think so. If we don't [win], they did a lot of manipulation," Mr Trump said without providing a shred of evidence of any nefarious effort to alter the outcome there on 3 November .

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is beating the president by 5.7 percentage points in an average of several recent polls in the Keystone State, according to RealClearPolitics.

Over the course of the summer, the president has opposed expanding mail-in voting by spreading falsehoods about the prevalence of fraud in the process, even though confirmed cases of voter fraud nationwide have been in the single digits in past presidential elections.

He has spent countless hours on Twitter and before reporters during his political career promoting unsubstantiated theories about rampant voter fraud in the US, which study after study has shown is extremely rare. The president has repeatedly claimed, falsely, that he would have beaten Hillary Clinton in the 2016 popular vote were it not for the millions of people who voted illegally.

Mr Trumps own advisory commission on election integrity spent eight months, from May 2017 to January 2018, probing claims of voter fraud but did not turn up a single confirmed instance.

A Washington Post review of data from after the 2016 election found just four confirmed cases of voter fraud: three people who tried to vote for Mr Trump twice  and were caught  and an election worker in Miami who was caught trying to fill in a bubble on someone elses ballot for a local mayoral candidate.
Olivia Pope and Selina Meyer are used to finding themselves on the political stage. Gaby Solis and Rainbow Johnson not so much. Yet this week, all four  or at least, the actresses who have played them  presided over the Democratic Partys biggest political event of the year.

Celebrities have long been a fixture of politics, but never quite like this. During the Democratic National Convention, four women werent quite the leads, but perhaps the best supporting actresses.

The women  Eva Longoria, Kerry Washington, Tracee Ellis Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus  are all known for their activism, emerging as some of the most famous figures in the #Resistance movement to the Trump administration. Theyre also familiar American faces, having all starred in long-running television shows.

Each night, the four celebrities guided the television audience through the program, introducing taped segments, montages and speakers from a soundstage in Los Angeles. After moving videos of victims of gun violence or the coronavirus, it was the women who helped television viewers process what they had seen.
Technavio has been monitoring the fast casual restaurants market and it is poised to grow by USD 63.25 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 12% 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/20200820005517/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Fast Casual Restaurants Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please request the Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

Frequently Asked Questions-

At what rate is the market projected to grow during the forecast period 2020-2024?

Growing at a CAGR of over 12%, the market growth will accelerate in the forecast period of 2020-2024.

Growing at a CAGR of over 12%, the market growth will accelerate in the forecast period of 2020-2024. What is the key factor driving the market?

Rising demand for gluten-free dining.

Rising demand for gluten-free dining. Who are the top players in the market?

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc., Noodles Co., Panda Restaurant Group Inc., Potbelly Corp., Shake Shack Inc., and YUM! Brands Inc. are the top players in the market.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc., Noodles Co., Panda Restaurant Group Inc., Potbelly Corp., Shake Shack Inc., and YUM! Brands Inc. are the top players in the market. Which region is expected to hold the highest market share?

North America.

North America. What is a major trend in the fast casual restaurants market?

The introduction of healthy meals in food menus.

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc., Noodles Co., Panda Restaurant Group Inc., Potbelly Corp., Shake Shack Inc., and YUM! Brands Inc. 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.

Rising demand for gluten-free dining has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, intense competition from quick-service restaurants, adherence to stringent regulations and guidelines, and fluctuations in food commodities prices might hamper the market growth.

Fast Casual Restaurants Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Fast Casual Restaurants Market is segmented as below:

Type North American Italian Mexican Others

Geography North America APAC Europe 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=IRTNTR41067

Fast Casual Restaurants 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 fast casual restaurants market report covers the following areas:

Fast Casual Restaurants Market size

Fast Casual Restaurants Market trends

Fast Casual Restaurants Market industry analysis

This study identifies the introduction of healthy meals in food menus as one of the prime reasons driving the fast casual restaurants market growth during the next few years.

Fast Casual Restaurants Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the fast casual restaurants market, including some of the vendors such as Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc., Noodles Co., Panda Restaurant Group Inc., Potbelly Corp., Shake Shack Inc., and YUM! Brands Inc. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the fast casual restaurants market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Fast Casual Restaurants Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist fast casual restaurants market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the fast casual restaurants market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the fast casual restaurants market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of fast casual restaurants market vendors

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five Forces Summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Cuisine Type

Market segments

Comparison by cuisine type

North American Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Italian Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Mexican Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by cuisine type

Customer landscape

Overview

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Volume driver Demand led growth

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.

Firehouse Restaurant Group Inc.

Godfather's Pizza Inc.

McAlister's Franchisor SPV LLC

Noodles Co.

Panda Restaurant Group Inc.

Potbelly Corp.

Shake Shack Inc.

The Wendy's Co.

YUM! Brands Inc.

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.

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By Azernews





By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan will establish a Joint Agrarian Insurance company as part of measures aimed at introduction of agrarian insurance mechanism, the Ministry of Agriculture reported on August 21.

For this purpose all companies working in the field of insurance in the country, except life insurance, were offered to participate in the authorized capital of the new joint insurance company.

Some companies have already agreed to participate in the joint capital of the new company, in connection with which a meeting of companys shareholders was held, corresponding decision was taken.

On July 24, the constituent meeting for the establishment of the Joint Agrarian Insurance Company was held. The meeting was attended by seven insurance companies, which expressed their intention to participate in the activities of the new company. Following the meeting, the decision to establish the company was taken.

Furthermore, the Central Bank has received a preliminary application for permission of the companys activity.

It should be noted that by the decision of the CBA of March 4, 2020, the minimum joint capital of the new company is set at AZN 1 million ($588,235).

At the same time, in order to ensure high financial stability and compliance with prudential norms, the company has the right to form a share capital in excess of the minimum amount set by the state.

According to the agreement between the founders, the authorized capital of " Joint Agrarian Insurance Company " is AZN 2.1 million ($1.2M). The share of each founder is envisaged at the rate of AZN 312,500 ($183,823).

Under the Agrarian Insurance Fund, all companies engaged in insurance activities in the country, except life insurance, may participate in the activities of "Joint Agrarian Insurance Company".
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:50:01|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The following are the updates on the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

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TEHRAN -- Iran reported on Friday 2,206 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total number in the country to 354,764.

Overnight, 112 people died in Iran from the virus, taking the death toll to 20,376, according to figures provided by The Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education on its website.

Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the ministry, said during her daily briefing that so far, 305,866 patients have recovered and 3,794 are in critical condition.

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YEREVAN -- Armenia on Friday reported 158 new COVID-19 cases in the last day, bringing its total caseload to 42,477, according to the National Center for Disease Control.

Data from the center showed that 217 more patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries to 34,655.

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HELSINKI -- Finland has decided to take part in the joint European Union (EU) agreement to purchase coronavirus vaccines and informed the European Commission of its decision on Friday, the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health said in a statement.

The European Commission has said that it will have a contractual framework in place for the initial purchase of 225 million doses of coronavirus vaccines on behalf of all EU member states, to be supplied once a vaccine has proven to be safe and effective against COVID-19.

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BAGHDAD -- Iraqi Deputy Health Minister Hazim al-Jumaili Friday warned of the collapse of the country's health infrastructure if the infections continued to increase, while the Health Ministry reported 4,288 new COVID-19 cases.

Al-Jumaili made his comment in a press release when he told the Iraqi citizens who do not abide by the preventive health measures that the health sector infrastructure could not bear a further increase in coronavirus infections.

"The health institutions in Iraq is in trouble, so citizens must abide by the preventive health instructions," al-Jumaili said.

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NAIROBI -- Until three months ago, COVID-19 infections were largely concentrated in Kenya's capital Nairobi, its neighborhoods and the coastal city of Mombasa.

However, the lifting of restriction of movement in and out of the capital Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa on July 7 has seen infections gather pace in rural counties, with many of the regions now having more than double-digit cases, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

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JUBA -- A team of medical experts sent by the Chinese government to South Sudan on Friday embarked on experience sharing with their local counterparts in a bid to strengthen the east African nation's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since arriving in South Sudan on Wednesday, the Chinese medical expert team shared experience with frontline health workers and members of the country's COVID-19 taskforce headed by Vice President for Service Cluster, Hussein Abdelbagi.

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MALE -- Maldives will import 10,000 new COVID-19 test kits in order to expand testing capacity, local media citing the Health Emergency Operation Center (HEOC) reported here Friday.

HEOC Spokesperson Dr. Nazla Rafeeq was quoted by state media as saying that the country has 15,000 PCR test kits in stock. The current stock was sufficient to meet testing demands for the next two weeks, as each kit was capable of conducting 200 tests, Rafeeq said.

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HONG KONG -- As the support from the central government has boosted its testing capacity, Hong Kong will start a mass screening for COVID-19 on Sept. 1 and aims to complete the testing in no more than two weeks in an effort to bring the severe epidemic situation under control.

Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam announced the plan on Friday at a press conference. Enditem
GREENWICH  The Greenwich Historical Society will commemorate the centennial of the womens suffrage movement with a concert on its great lawn.

Thank You for The Music: An Evening of Song with Justine Goggin is sponsored by First Bank of Greenwich.

The concert, marking the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote, will be Aug. 26 on the lawn at the Greenwich Historical Society at 47 Strickland Road in Cos Cob. The grounds will open for picnics at 5:30 p.m., with the concert scheduled for 6:30 to 8 p.m.

For a festive touch, the Greenwich Historical Societys grounds will be lit up in purple and gold as part of the nationwide Forward into Light campaign to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment.

For Goggins performance, music will be provided by Kreg Gottschall and Grammy-nominated Caroline Worra. Goggins selection of show tunes, folk songs and contemporary hits for the concert will honor some of the greatest female songwriters of our time in celebration of the women's suffrage centennial.

Goggin was born and raised in Greenwich and graduated from Dartmouth College, where she began her career in musical theater. She has performed in musicals, operas and cabarets all around New York City, Connecticut and New Hampshire. She is co-founder and artistic director of The Sappho Project, a nonprofit organization that seeks to bridge the gender gap in musical theater by supporting women, trans and gender non-conforming writers.

Registration for the concert is required as space as limited. It is free for members. Nonmembers can pay $20, or become a member for $25. VIP Bistro seating for four with appetizers and refreshments is available. Masks are required inside the campus and suggested outdoors.

For more information and to RSVP, visit https://greenwichhistory.org/music-on-the-great-lawn/.
Hochul beat Williams by 6.6 percentage points, and now it seems clear she plans to be ready in case anyone might want to run against her in 2022. She ramped up her fundraising, pulling in $470,000 between July 2019 and January  a sizable sum for a race that's still two years away. And this week's convention proved that she's ramping up her friend-making activity, too.

For example, on Thursday she volunteered to have a virtual cup of coffee (or, in Hochul's case, tea) with delegates to the convention who are interested in running for office themselves.

"I'd love to talk to you about your desire to run for office," she said to one delegate. "I'm gonna have the biggest bench in the country by the time we're done. I want everybody to see themselves as a candidate; you'll have to tell me why you're not a candidate by the time we're done. I want us to have a lot of talent to choose from."

To hear Jacobs tell it, that's characteristic of Hochul.

"Whenever there's an election, whenever there's an event, you can count on Kathy Hochul being there and standing right next to you, working hard," Jacobs said at the party breakfast on Wednesday. "There is no harder working lieutenant governor than our lieutenant governor."
Tiki is one of Vietnams up-and-coming e-commerce services that also wants to extend towards other regional countries, Photo Le Toan

In its role as the ASEAN chair this year, Vietnam launched the official ASEAN Online Sale Day to stimulate cross-border e-commerce in the region.

The event, held on August 8, saw participation of 216 companies across all 10 member states. Along with strengthening intra-bloc solidarity, the event assisted regional economic recovery amid the pandemic, while digital consumers in the ASEAN experienced cross-border e-commerce in an open, safe, and quality manner under the supervision of governments. Companies also promoted their platforms and services to regional customers.

Richard Burrage, CEO of market research company Cimigo, told VIR that Vietnam has a great role to play in stimulating the Southeast Asian online shopping market. A strong digital, entrepreneurial, technologically-savvy consumer base in Vietnam supports the demand side and is leading the region in building new tools and ecosystems to support online sales growth, he said.

As a result, local e-commerce platform Tiki experienced growth of more than 50 per cent in sales during ASEAN Online Sale Day. Ngo Hoang Gia Khanh, group vice president of growth at Tiki, told VIR that although the company has been focusing on the Vietnamese market, it aspires to promote e-commerce also across the region.

In order to respond to ASEAN Online Sale Day as well as support customers during the pandemic, since early August Tiki has launched a variety of promotions and services, such as thousands of discount coupons, free shipping, same-day delivery service, and more.

Besides our own programme, we also promoted the ASEAN Online Sale Day with banners and announcements on our social media and onsite platforms to leverage the programme coverage and reach as many consumers as possible, Khanh said.

The promised land

By the end of 2020, the number of digital consumers in Southeast Asia could reach 310 million, a number previously forecast to be reached only by 2025. This means almost 70 per cent of Southeast Asian consumers will go digital by the end of 2020.

Southeast Asias online retail market penetration has now also surpassed Indias, increasing as much as 1.6 times to reach 5 per cent, according to the latest annual report by Facebook and Bain & Co.

The report said that 2020 has been a pivotal year. Social distancing has paved the way for home-centric lifestyles as well as commerce with minimal physical contact. This disruption has inadvertently accelerated the growth of Southeast Asias digital economy.

Thus, there are many opportunities for Southeast Asian companies to ride the cross-border e-commerce wave, Burrage from Cimigo noted. In particular, the potential for improved lower-cost logistics for sourcing goods across borders will make the size of the prize worthy of significant investments even for the most niche consumer segments.

On the same note, Dang Dang Truong, lead representative of iPrice Vietnam, said that the country so far has been a very important market for the growth of e-commerce in the entire region. Google and Bain & Co. in 2019 found Vietnam to be the second fastest-growing digital economy market in the ASEAN behind Indonesia, and the first in terms of GDP penetration. The astounding growth rate has been very attractive for international investors and allows Vietnam as well as Southeast Asia to continue to attract new funding into the e-commerce sector, even as COVID-19 is happening.

We cannot discount the competitiveness and innovativeness of Vietnamese e-commerce companies such as Tiki, Sendo, and Mobile World, as well as the Vietnamese digital economy as a whole. We found these companies to be among the most eager and most innovative companies in the regional e-commerce industry, Truong said. For example, besides Shopee and Lazada, Sendo and Tiki were among the first in the region to show a strong priority towards their mobile apps. They were also the first to introduce live streaming features on mobile devices. Such innovations help force other companies to improve and continue to push the industry forward, bringing e-commerce to more and more consumers.

Challenges ahead

In line with the good prospects, e-commerce in Vietnam still faces immense objections, according to the E-commerce White Book 2019 published by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Pointedly, the quality of goods, concerns on online payments, data leaks, and shipping costs are sizable obstacles for the e-commerce industry. Despite e-commerce companies steady improvements, concerns still affect the shopping orientation of consumers, noted the white book.

On the side of an e-commerce operator, Tran Tuan Anh, managing director at Shopee, said that the largest issue for the sector in Vietnam is under-developed transport infrastructure, resulting in high logistics costs. The remaining concerns could increase steadily, he warned.

According to the Vietnam Logistics Association, local logistics costs currently occupy about 20.8 per cent of total GDP, while the ratio in developed countries is about 9-14 per cent. Of this, transportation cost makes up nearly 60 per cent because most goods are transferred by land.

Logistics is also a common challenge in other regional countries, as Indonesia and the Philippines also report large expenses for such activities. According to the World Bank, the cost in the Philippines makes up about 27.16 per cent of sales on average, the highest rate in the region, followed by Indonesia (21.4 per cent) and Vietnam (16.3 per cent).

Meanwhile, Cimigos Burrage added that online shopping platforms are burning cash to attract transactions, with the only winner being the consumer for now and the next few years. Burrage expected that more consolidation has to happen until only a few winners remain. Only then will the consumer have to pay realistic prices for the convenience.

Cash on delivery still accounts for 85 per cent of payments in Vietnam, while cash collections and returns cost shopping platforms a great deal and will limit inbound cross-border sales, said Burrage.

Echoing this, Truong from iPrice told VIR that cash on delivery, the preferred payment method of consumers in most ASEAN countries, is very problematic for e-commerce businesses since it introduces extra risks and affects cash flow and expansion plans. For Southeast Asian e-commerce to achieve its full potential, a transition towards e-payment is a must.

For sellers, Burrage said they need to build capabilities, experience, and confidence to go beyond national borders. There are not yet many strong regional brands emanating from Vietnam. Thailand perhaps has the most visible brands around Southeast Asia, followed by Indonesia. Vietnamese brands will accelerate and perhaps surpass many of our Southeast Asian neighbours, driven by that quintessential Vietnamese entrepreneurial spirit, willingness to learn, hard work, and perseverance, he said.

Relating to other factors, Truong said that cultural differences and the lack of senior talents have set a great burden on the e-commerce sector in the 650-million population market. The cultures of ASEAN member countries are quite divergent, with varied consumer preferences as well as differences in technological and political structures.

This presents a serious challenge for e-commerce players that aim to spread the business across the region, and also why most companies, besides Shopee and Lazada, can only maintain their business in one or two countries, Burrage added.

Pondering Tikis plan to expand in the ASEAN, Khanh also pointed out some challenges that any business expansion, especially for e-commerce players like Tiki, requires the company to understand and fulfil all factors to ensure a satisfying customer experience, including understanding insights and behaviour, technology, operations, products, and services meeting the highest standards.
A Detroit police officer plans to sue the city of Warren for $5 million for his off-duty arrest outside of his Warren home, alleging it was improper and racially motivated.

Donald Owens said Thursday at a news conference at the Detroit Association of Black Organizations (DABO) Sheffield Center in Detroit that he was falsely arrested last Nov. 11 after he refused to provide identification information to Warren officers. Police responded to a car-pedestrian injury car crash outside of his home.

Owens, a five-year veteran of the Detroit force, said he was not a witness because he did not see anything so he didnt have to identify himself or provide his profession as asked by officers.

I didnt witness a crime at all, Owens told The Macomb Daily. Because I didnt do what they wanted me to do, they arrested me.

Officers insisted he tell them his name and profession, even though Owens said they already had his name from other people at his Timken Avenue home, a couple of whom also were off-duty Detroit cops.

It went wrong at the point they tried to intimidate me by telling theyre going to arrest me for something that wasnt even true , he said at the news conference. I was polite the entire time, professional, and they took me to the precinct where one of their co-workers verbally disrespected me, abused me.

He said he was detained for disorderly conduct by two male Warren officers, and a female office who was processing him for arrest called him ignorant and stupid and he was going to lose my job.

He said other racial comments were made, but his attorney, Michael Fortner, said those remarks will be revealed later.

The Rev. Horace Sheffield of DABO said black people are not treated well by Warren police. You can live here, you can visit here but you aint free here.

Owens said he also suffered minor injuries and was refused medical treatment. His handcuffs were too tight, causing injury to his wrist, and an officer slammed the door on his head, causing him a migraine headache, he said.

In defending its officers actions, Warren police released the police report and accompanying video and audio recordings in saying their officers acted properly.

Our officers acted appropriately. There was no misconduct on our part, Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer told The Macomb Daily. He was responsible to identify himself when asked by a law enforcement officer.

Dwyer disputed Owens claim he was injured and noted he did not seek treatment while in the city lockup cell.

Dwyer noted that Owens was found by Detroit police internal affairs that he acted unprofessionally.

Owens told The Macomb Dailly he received a reprimand, and the incident resulted in his denial to transfer to the K9 unit.

The Warren prosecutor rejected a warrant against Owens for a formal disorderly conduct charge.

Fortner said Owens spent nearly 24 hours in the city lockup cell, but Dwyer said it was slightly less than eight hours.

In audio and an in-car video of the incident released by Warren police, Owens is heard complaining about the handcuffs tightness and asked officers several times to loosen them.

Fortner said the police report falsely indicated Owns had alcohol on his breathe and responded to officers request for his name by saying, Go ahead, lock me up.

Officers basically made up some charges in order to justify arresting him, Fortner said at the conference.

Fortner said a lawsuit will be filed Monday, likely in federal court in Detroit. Accusations will include racial bias, wrongful arrest and imprisonment, Fortner said.

Warren police Capt. Christian Bonett provided a different version of events in a narrative accompanying six clips from audio microphones and patrol-car cameras.

Bonett says Owens broached the topic of his profession by saying he is a f police officer.

This is the exchange that prompts inquiry into Owens profession, Bonett said.

Bonets says officers attempt to reason with Owens in hopes he provides information so he can be released.

Owens refuses to act reasonably even in discussion with his own supervisors, who clearly tell Owens that WPD has the right to ask for his information given the events of the evening are occurring at his home and that he can be arrested for hindering if he persists, Bonett said.

Multiple officers, including those from Detroit, checked the spacing of Owens handcuffs, according to Bonett.

In an audio clip, a woman can be heard telling officers, Owens didnt disclose his job with the Detroit police and the department is already after him and he is already in trouble.' She said, He doesnt need this.

Owens denied he has prior disciplinary issues in the Detroit Police Department.
Hyderabad, Aug 21 : Rescue efforts are on to rescue nine persons trapped in a fire mishap at TS Genco's hydel power station at Srisailam left bank canal in Nagarkurnool district of Telangana.

The incident is reported to have taken place late on Thursday. Initial reports indicate that a short circuit led to the fire and thick smoke engulfing the spot.

Of the 17 persons reported to be present at the spot, 8 persons escaped to safety through a tunnel. Those trapped include six TS Genco employees and three private company employees.

Firefighters were rushed to the spot and trying to rescue the trapped including a deputy engineer and assistant engineers. Officials said thick smoke is hampering rescue operations.

Telangana minister Jagadish Reddy and TS Genco CMD Prabhakar Rao reached the spot and are overseeing rescue efforts.

Reddy said that the mishap occurred in the first unit of the power station and four panels were damaged. He said that rescue personnel was unable to enter the tunnel due to thick smoke.

Rescue personnel is being brought in from the Singareni collieries to support the rescue operations.

Power generation operations at the power station have been suspended following the incident.

The Srisailam dam is located across the Krishna river which serves as the border between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
That means the country registered a trade surplus of US$10 billion.

In the first half of August, Vietnam exported US$12.7 billion worth of goods and imported US$10.8 billion, according to the General Department of Customs.

It is worth noting that Vietnams export activity has seen signs of a rebound recently.

With US$24.87 billion worth of exports, July was the second best-performing month, behind August of 2019, and Vietnams exports continues to maintain momentum this month.

Top export earners in the first half of August include mobile phones (US$2.58 billion), computers and electronics (US$1.9 billion), textiles (US$1.36 billion), machinery (US$1.11 billion) and footwear (US$652 million).

Conversely, Vietnams main imports were computers and electronics, machinery, mobile phones and fabrics.
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds with Hospitality Ulster chief executive Colin Neill and (right) Hospitality Ulster chairman Danny Coyles in Ballycastle yesterday

Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds urged the Government to step up and address the escalating crisis facing the economy as she visited Northern Ireland yesterday.

Ms Dodds was in Londonderry and the north coast for a series of engagements with representatives from the hospitality and tourism sector.

The shadow chancellor heard directly from industry stakeholders during a roundtable lunch in Ballycastle.

Hospitality and tourism have been among the hardest hit areas as a result of the pandemic, with many traditional pubs still closed across Northern Ireland.

Experts raised the need for targeted and ongoing financial support with Ms Dodds.

Writing in today's Belfast Telegraph, the shadow chancellor said she had heard concerns from across business.

She added the pandemic had caused huge and lasting economic damage, highlighting that the local unemployment rate had doubled in two months.

"Unfortunately, the UK government simply is not rising to the level of the challenge," Mr Dodds wrote.

"This month the Chancellor started to withdraw the income support schemes he introduced at the start of this crisis, not just for businesses that have reopened but across the entire economy.

"What have we got in its place? A new Jobs Retention Bonus that will hand out billions to companies that freely admit they do not need it.

"It won't be enough for all of those that do."

Yesterday the challenges facing the hospitality and tourism sectors were underlined by representatives from Hospitality Ulster, the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation, the National Trust, the NI Tourism Alliance and the Taste Causeway Collaborative Growth Network.

The shadow chancellor visited the Giants Causeway and Londonderry, where she visited the Guildhall and signed the council's book of condolences for former SDLP leader John Hume.

Speaking after meeting Hospitality Ulster and a range of other stakeholders on the north coast, Ms Dodds said: "Northern Ireland is a wonderful place to visit.

"I've been overwhelmed by the friendly welcome I've received from everyone here.

"But it's also clear to me that the tourism industry here is really struggling in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

"The UK government's decision to withdraw wage support across the economy in one fell swoop will only make things worse."

Ms Dodds called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to support jobs in hospitality and tourism.

"Many businesses are set to lose support before they've been able to get back onto their feet," she said.

"The Chancellor must think twice before more jobs go in sectors like tourism and hospitality, both in Northern Ireland and across the UK."

Colin Neill, the chief executive of Hospitality Ulster, said it was valuable to have had the shadow chancellor hear at first-hand about the severe impact the coronavirus pandemic has had.

"We were greatly encouraged by her support for the sector, which contributes 1.2billion annually to the local economy," he said.

"We welcome how engaged the shadow chancellor is to our issues right across the sector, including on the challenges which Brexit will pose and the need for a reduction in VAT and a targeted extension of furlough, among others."

Mr Neill also urged the Executive to ease the present restrictions placed on pubs that do not serve food.

"With our traditional pubs still closed after five long months, there is an urgent need to allow these to reopen in a safe and controlled manner," he said.
I am useless at whale watching. I see a whale! I cry. No, wait  maybe its a boat? Oh. Just a wave. But even if I cant see them, the annual humpback whale migration  at up to 10,000 kilometres, the worlds longest mammal migration  is well underway. Between June and August, approximately 25,000 humpbacks travel north along our coastline from the Antarctic to the subtropical waters off Queensland to mate and calve. And from late August to October, they retrace their journey south.

Watching for whales? Then know that different species can be identified by their silhouettes and blow types. Credit:Illustration based on information from ORRCA.

That return journey has already begun, explains Jools Farrell of ORRCA, NSWs only licensed marine mammal rescue group. And this southern leg can actually be better for seeing whales. Theyre bringing the calves back, so they often hug the coastline a little closer; they often stop in bays so the babies can rest and suckle; the mothers might have an escort of a bull whale or two. Theyre easier to spot in groups.

They also do more on the return leg: more flipper and fluke slapping, more breaching. Those behaviours are primarily for communication; the mothers are teaching the calves what to do. But theyre also trying to get rid of sea lice and parasites. They get itchy, and slapping the water is like scratching. They pick up parasites in the warm water, so theyre scratching on the way south.

No excuses for whale-spotting failure, then. Any advice for the ineffective amateur? One, have patience! says Farrell.
Mr. Satterberg said the decision to charge Officer Nelson with second-degree murder and first-degree assault reflected changes brought by Initiative 940, which was overwhelmingly approved by Washington State voters in 2018 and began to take effect in cases beginning last year. The initiative redefined when deadly force would be justified, making it clear that there should be an increased role for juries to decide whether such force constitutes a crime, Mr. Satterberg said.

For cases that happened before 2019, state law required prosecutors to show that an officer had acted with malice and a lack of good faith, he said. That was essentially an impossible standard to meet, he said. Initiative 940 created a new legal standard centered on what a reasonable officer would do in similar circumstances, Mr. Satterberg said.

We know there will be questions about how older cases could have been handled differently, or if this means all police shootings going forward will lead to criminal charges, Mr. Satterberg said in a statement. The answer is we look at each case individually, and follow the law as its written at the time.

Officer Nelson, who has been a member of the Auburn Police Department for more than 11 years, will appear in court next week and will be placed on paid administrative leave while his case is pending, Mr. Harvey said. Prosecutors said they did not plan to ask for bail but would ask that Officer Nelson not have access to firearms.

Officer Nelson has used deadly force in two previous cases, Mr. Harvey said, but prosecutors said that the officers record had not factored into their decision to charge him with murdering Mr. Sarey, which was based solely on the evidence.

Mr. Harvey said that he had grave concerns about the decision to charge Officer Nelson, who he said had been engaged in the sort of one-on-one contact that officers do every day. He said that Mr. Sarey had grabbed for Officer Nelsons gun after the officer had given him verbal commands. He said the two had then fought as Officer Nelson sought to make a lawful arrest.

Joseph Rome, a lawyer for Mr. Sareys family, said the past year had been exceptionally challenging for the family.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 03:56:26|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Friday said it voluntarily deported 118 illegal immigrants, including women and children, back to their country from Libya.

IOM said in a statement that "118 Ghanaian immigrants stranded in Libya over COVID-19 restrictions boarded a flight home yesterday."

"All were medically screened by IOM prior to departure and received personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves and hand sanitizers, and psychosocial assistance," it added.

"The organization will continue to provide support during a 14-day quarantine period in Ghana and later, it will provide reintegration assistance," the statement said.

Before the Libyan authorities closed the country's borders as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, IOM had been running a Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) program that arranges the return of illegal immigrants stranded in Libya to their countries of origin.

"We continue to operate a hotline for immigrants and to work very closely with embassies, the Libyan authorities, and governmental entities in countries of origin to help people return home and rebuild their lives," said the program manager Ashraf Hassan.

In the first quarter of 2020, IOM's VHR program helped 1,466 stranded immigrants return home from Libya, the statement said.

The state of insecurity and chaos from which Libya has been suffering since the downfall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011 triggered the wave of illegal immigrants who want to cross the Mediterranean from the country towards Europe. Enditem
President Donald Trump is expected to stop by the Republican National Convention site during a trip to North Carolina on Monday, according to a Republican close to the Trump campaign.

The president also plans to make an appearance on each of the four days of the convention, the Republican said, which will take place Aug. 24-27.

Although Trumps schedule could still change, the news of his potential visit to the conventions venue on its first day comes as little else is known about Republicans efforts to stage the high-profile nominating event.

In an interview following POLITICOs report, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel confirmed on Friday that voters will see the president every day of the convention.

Im not going to tell you when, because everybodys got to tune in, she told Fox News.

Trumps visit next Monday to the conventions host city of Charlotte would come on a trip to Mills River, N.C., where he will participate in a pair of events highlighting the administrations Farmers to Families Food Box Program, according to a White House official.

Trump will be accompanied by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, a senior adviser to the president.

The trip will be Trumps 11th time traveling to North Carolina, a swing state he won by 3.8 percentage points in 2016. Recent polling, however, shows him trailing there to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Biden formally accepted his partys nomination Thursday on the final night of the Democrats four-day virtual convention, which was initially set to be based out of Milwaukee.
Be slow to tear down; slower to erect.

Heroes and villains are too often aligned  in the same body. So beware the memorials and monuments we construct.

That should be a direct lesson from the mound of past sins now being excavated and tossed on the sculpted images of our once shining heroes.

Once a hero, always a hero  in somebodys mind. But the conquering coloniser is a miserable picture of pain and suffering to the victims of imperial conquests.

So, rip em down. Tear down that statue. Remove the monument. Behead that statue that causes us so much pain. But be willing to square off against a phalanx of counter-protesters brandishing Hands off our heritage placards. America is Exhibit A  raw, extreme, seemingly irreconcilable, attempting to confront the past and a study in how not to get there in the first place.

It doesnt have to be so, of course. Reasonable human beings can study the lives and contributions of the people our forebears honoured with monuments and memorials and reconsider their place of honour in light of modern norms and practices.

We learn. We grow. We listen to our neighbour. We may have to change our minds.

A tear-down doesnt have to be a whitewash or a blackout. It can be an opportunity to present an era or person or people in wider context. Still, in real life, on the street, it doesnt play out that neatly.

Toronto is not a city of statues and monuments. There are a few at Queens Park and along University Avenue and on university campuses, but nothing like the affinity found in Europe or the American south.

Maybe its because we are so young, compared to ancient cities. Maybe the paucity of public statues serve as a natural inhibitor to erecting new ones. After all, who are you to tower over us when so many before you have not been awarded that honour? Why this hero when we can name another 10 or 20 worthy competitors?

Count me among those who have advocated for more piazzas, grand boulevards, fountains and statues. Maybe we are fortunate not to have a proliferation because it is so difficult to install perfect human beings. Prime Ministers and presidents owned slaves. The British monarchy sponsored slave-ship expeditions. The Anglican Church owned slaves and branded them on the Codrington estate in Barbados.

In the midst of this tangled time stamp, affirming the victims, confronting the ugly truths and moving towards reconciliation and reparations is no easy feat. Denial is the worst option. So is a blanket erasure of evidence of the past.

We could be Richmond, Virginia, where the mother of all statues  the 21-foot high horse and rider General Robert E. Lee, head of the pro-slavery Southern Confederate states in the U.S. civil war  is coming down after years of protest that it is a symbol of white supremacy and racism. Opponents see it as symbol of southern heritage. The work, completed in Paris in 1890 is considered an artistic masterpiece. It took 10,000 people to transport the pieces from port to platform. Dismantling it and its granite base thats almost twice as high as the stature itself, is a feat.

Here, we worry about spray paint on the King Edward VII statue at Queens Park.

Here, the city of Vaughan is embarrassed when a citizen pointed out that by changing the name of its August civic holiday in 2013 to Benjamin Vaughan Day, the city was celebrating a man of who not only owned hundreds of slaves in Jamaica but fought against the abolition of slavery. (Educated, Vaughan city council dropped the holiday name this year, returning to Simcoe Day.) Theres no word on the fate of the citys name itself, cut from the same cloth.

Clearly, we pay scant attention to the names we give our streets. So many streets to name in so many subdivisions. Developers name your street address after their girlfriends. Architects throw in ninny names to satisfy whatever fantasy overcame them. Whos to know?

Maybe Toronto city planners were a bit more fastidious when they laid out the old city by name. You cant go wrong with Front or Lakeshore, er Lake Shore, or King, Queen, Princess, John and Jane. Who would suspect Mr. Bathurst or Mrs. Dufferin of having damaging secrets that might render them unfit to adorn our boulevards? Dundas? Harmless.

Oops. Apparently, only as harmless as Ryerson and Macdonald  names and esteemed people now under scrutiny for questionable racial history.

Torontos city manager has issued a brief committing to broadly understand and respond to how systematic racism and discrimination are embedded in city assets, commemorative programs and naming policies.

Chris Murray says this might ultimately touch all named city streets, parks and facilities, public monuments, and civic awards and honours, potentially leading to a variety of actions (e.g., renaming streets, removing monuments, revoking awards or reinterpreting any of these).

Addressing the historical legacy of Dundas Street is one of these steps necessary in challenging systemic institutionalized racism and build a more inclusive Toronto, Murray writes.

If these are more than just words  and if city council next month adopts the philosophy and true intent  we are in for a turbulent period that will test our maturity as a city. If the effort doesnt get messy, its a sure sign it isnt real.

We honour people who touch us and move us to dream and aspire to greatness. When the very visage of our heroes evoke the image of villains in our neighbour, this clash of vision can only crash at our feet  assuming we are equally invested and rooted and valued.

How we clean up the mess will define our future. It will also remind us: Be slow to tear down; slower to erect.
A 23-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly raping a 17-year-old Borivli girl at Mumbais Dadar Chowpatty. The accused allegedly had sexual intercourse with the girl twice after promising marriage to her. Later, the girl discovered the man was in a relationship with another woman.

Also read: Life-term for Indian guilty of rape, murder in London

Tushar Jadhav, a Diva resident, was arrested on Thursday.An employee at the Nair hospital, Mumbai Central, Jadhav had reportedly befriended the girl in September 2019 when she had gone to the hospital for the treatment of her aunt. The two had exchanged phone numbers and started chatting with each other.

In October 2019, Jadhav proposed marriage to her. He also spoke to the girls mother and assured her he would talk to his father too.

In December 2019, Jadhav allegedly called the girl to Dadar and the two then went to Dadar Chowpatty.

At Chowpatty, Jadhav allegedly took her to an isolated spot and forced himself upon her. He did the same on February 24, this year, at the same place.

On March 20, the girl received a phone call from another girl informing her that she and Jadhav were in a relationship for the past four years. When the girl confronted Jadhav, he reportedly told her that he wont be able to marry her.

The girl confided in her parents and they approached Borivli police which directed her to Dadar police.

Police registered a rape case against Jadhav under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Ofdense (POCSO) act.

Jadhav was arrested on Thursday and produced in court that remanded him in three-day police custody.

Advocate Sunil Pandey, who appeared for Jadhav, said the latter had been trapped by the girls family as he had a government job. The accused has chat records to support this, he said. He also claimed that the girl had lodged a similar complaint against another boy in the past.

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One person was arrested and owners of 1,839 vehicles were issued challans across Noida and Greater Noida on Friday over alleged violation of the curbs imposed due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Gautam Buddh Nagar police said.

Also, 17 vehicles were impounded for similar violations across the district, which has so far recorded over 6,900 positive cases of Covid-19 including 43 deaths, according to official figures.

Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) Section 144, which bars assembly of more than four persons, is in force in Gautam Buddh Nagar in view of the pandemic. Security checks were also intensified in view of the lockdown-like curbs over the weekend beginning Friday 10 pm.

One FIR was registered and one person arrested for violating the Covid-19 curbs. A total of 4,728 vehicles were checked across 200 barrier points in the district and challans issued to 1,839 of them while another 17 were impounded, the police said in a statement.

Altogether, Rs 2,64,300 were collected in fines during the action, the police said.

The Noida-Delhi border, which was closed for normal public movement since the outbreak of the coronavirus in March, has been reopened since August 1, officials said.
FLINT, MI  Following the state of Michigans announcement Aug. 20 of a historic $600 million settlement for victims of the water crisis, Flint students have secured support in a separate class action lawsuit that will allocate a minimum of $9 million from the settlement to special education services in schools.

Its well-known now that Flint has suffered a public health crisis with the lead in the water, but whats not as well-known is that lead also precipitates an education crisis because of the cognitive and behavioral impacts of lead poisoning, said lead attorney Lindsay Heck from White & Case LLP, a global law firm representing the children of Flint pro bono. Thats why our suit focuses on education and services and programs children desperately need, especially after exposure to lead.

Lawsuit claiming schools are failing Flint children affected by lead could go to trial

Heck said at a time when the entire nation is experiencing a public health crisis, economic downturn and the eruption of centuries of racial pain, Flint is at the epicenter.

(Its) the one place in the nation where all of these forces coalesced not in the last six months, but over the course of the last six years, Heck said. In Flint, the lead crisis was entirely preventable. It was not merely fueled by government policy, it was created by it.

Though the agreement is separate from the state deal, this smaller settlement for the separate lawsuit is being funded through the $600 million settlement from the state. It will get special education programs into Flint-area schools toward the end of 2020, chief trial counsel for Education Law Center Gregory Little said, or by 2021 at the latest.

Kristin Totten, education attorney with the Americans Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said about 18,000 school-aged children have been identified as eligible to receive services under the settlement.

The Michigan Department of Education, the Genesee Intermediate School District and Flint Community Schools  all defendants in the case  have agreed to provide additional funding and services to settle the special education class action lawsuit.

What makes us feel so good about this settlement is not just that the resources are going to be able to give them immediate relief, were going to have ... $9 million in new programs and services for the kids who have been impacted by the lead, Little said. Were also setting up a structure that is going to have systemic change to a special ed program that frankly had systemic flaws.

The terms of the settlement, which is subject to approval by the court, include $9 million from the state to establish the Flint Water Crisis Special Education Fund, supplemental assistance from the Genesee Intermediate School District to Flint Community Schools and other districts impacted by the crisis, an assessment of preschool programs, modification of the Genesee Intermediate School Districts countywide special education program plan and continued implementation of the partial settlement of the child find claims reached earlier in the case.

The lawsuit, filed in 2016 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, Education Law Center and the White & Case LLP law firm against the Michigan Department of Education, alleged the educational institutions violated federal civil right laws, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The lawsuit included 15 named plaintiffs that say their children are victims of the Flint water crisis.

The lawsuit was partially settled in April of 2018 when the Michigan Department of Education provided more than $4.1 million to create a registry of Flint children affected by the water crisis. A trial had been tentatively scheduled for sometime between June and September.

The model we have created in Flint  which provides the most comprehensive program in the United States to identify children with disabilities, resources to ensure that those disabilities are properly addressed and measures to prevent school discipline from being used as a substitute for behavioral interventions  is not only a model that will transform the educational system for Flint children, it is also a model that can be followed in communities outside of Flint with aging infrastructures that may be similarly affected, Heck said. The stakes have never been higher. For the children of Flint, what is on the line is their childhood and their futures. They will finally receive an education worthy of their promise.

Read More on MLive

The money is not justice: Flint mothers express relief, skepticism about water crisis settlement

Youngest Flint water crisis victims to get 80 percent of historic $600 million settlement

12 critical moments in the history of the Flint water crisis
On the Record, the premium subscription film that HBO Max posted on Twitter for free viewing, wasnt offered out of generosity but for indoctrination. On the Record is propaganda made on the divide-and-conquer principle of the progressive movement.

The music-industry documentary reportedly was greeted with a standing ovation at Sundance last January, where it won notice for its female-empowerment and male sexual-abuse themes. On the Record presents allegations by several black women that they were raped or harassed by Def Jam Records president Russell Simmons and harassed by Arista Records president L.A. Reid. Even if you dont care about the subculture being scrutinized, the film is striking in its devious dismantling of sexual relationships in black culture.

On the Record represents a new kind of sensationalism. It was directed by the team Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick, the latter a specialist in agitprop disguised as journalism (the docs This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Outrage, The Invisible War, The Hunting Ground). Kirby Dick is not a muckraker, hes a troublemaker.

Under Hollywoods new dispensation of #MeToo, #TimesUp, and #BlackLivesMatter, Dick and Ziering propagate dissension and showcase the aggrieved womens self-righteousness. The Washington Post mistakenly praised On the Record as investigative filmmaking . . . and a crucially important historical text. But outdated imagery on the films poster says otherwise: It depicts a broken record. Oops

Heres what the broken record sounds like: Its a one-sided conviction, without due process, similar to Leaving Neverland, HBOs sickening assault on Michael Jackson that, despite Oprah Winfreys endorsement, was eventually debunked. Winfrey was also the original producer of On the Record but withdrew her name and support after Simmons challenged her  millionaire-to-billionaire  about her recent gender bias.

I cant litigate this films allegations, but any honest, alert viewer should notice the angle of On the Records testimonies. The elephant on screen is linguistic: These black women are already so thoroughly indoctrinated in the rhetoric of grievance that they can only express themselves in social-justice terms. (Their self-description is Were all light-skinned, were all attractive and beneficiaries of light privilege.) Their language is corrupted  empowerment, activism, women of color, class indicator  even as they try to distinguish themselves from/or within white feminist movements.

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The result is that On the Records black showbiz participants and academics (Sil Lai Abrams, Sherri Hines, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Kierna Mayo, Joan Morgan, and others) reduce their culture for white-liberal-approved standards. The irony is in their cooperation with music-industry sexism despite their complaints about words like bitch and ho coming into the music. And they complain about videos that were clearly a statement against a large majority of black women and how we look . . . ideology that had been spread by defenders of slavery.

Among the films weakest segments is a montage designed to show that hip-hop certainly did not invent misogyny, using pointless clips of the Beatles, Tom Jones, the Rolling Stones, the Misfits, Guns N Roses. This facile context cannot contain the unnerving confession I was reduced to nothing. I was trash. I was a physical item. I was something that he utilized for his pleasure. Neither should such devastation follow their grumbling that the earning power of people at the very top are white men and at the very bottom are women of color. But Ziering and Dick merely follow #MeToo agitprop formulas.

The interviews use frequent, trusting reliance on the New York Times publication of the first accusations against Simmons, which instigated others. This dependence on media as a source of validation verges on fanaticism. The accusers recite phrases and canards like prisoners in a reeducation camp. Feminist newspeak makes On the Record resemble a black version of the Kavanaugh hearings in which males are assailed, without self-defense, seemingly for political reasons.

On the Records politics seem most dubious when based on its key witness, the likable and sympathetic Drew Dixon who professes a familiar love of hip-hop music and culture:

Hip-hop had this additional appeal to me as a sort of black movement that was empowering people who were otherwise lost and overlooked. I grew up as the daughter of black politicians and this was my mission. . . Hip-hop combined two things that I loved: activism and this sense of pride with music and it seemed like, I thought, it could sort of change the world.

It gets worse as Dixon relates her disenchantment with hip-hop to her discovery of slavery during a family trip to Ghana: The intentional breakdown of the black male-female dynamic from the beginning. Its time for someone to acknowledge the plunder of black women.

Dixon, who began her Def Jam music career after leaving Stanford University, is the daughter of former Washington, D.C., mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon, but her alarming unworldliness seems another consequence of the hip-hop generations naivete. Music, politics, and sex combined inconsistently  sometimes disastrously  harming Dixon and her peers, who never received adequate practical or moral guidance. Whats left is a grievance culture, newly victimized by propagandists such as Ziering and Dick.

In a review titled Empathy and Its Limits, Pauline Kael lamented that Paul Mazurskys An Unmarried Woman (released in 1978 and newly reissued on Criterion Blu-Ray) takes refuge in the new womens rhetoric. A similar exploitation occurs in On the Record when Ziering and Dick neglect psychology (they seem incapable of it, really). As in the recent Surviving R. Kelly doc, feminist anger doesnt prevent these women coming off like weepy harpies.

The free viewings of On the Record are not without cost. They connect to Black Lives Matters official agenda to destroy the traditional family, including that black male-female dynamic that apparently Dixons politician mother never taught her about. Ziering and Dicks all-encompassing feminism only proves that some black girls can be as poorly raised as some white girls.

More from National Review
Sonakshi Sinha, who has started speaking up against cyber bullying and harassment, has prompted action through her anti-bullying campaign, 'Ab Bas'. The Mumbai Cyber Crime Branch arrested a perpetrator for harassment on social media.

Many celebrities have observed that hate and negativity has grown on social media in recent times. Some, like Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Shaheen Bhatt and Sonakshi Sinha have taken a strong stand against social media bullying and harassment of women.

Sonakshi initiated a campaign called 'Ab Bas' to fight back bullying online. When she reopened the comments section on her Instagram account and urged users to refrain from harassment, this was met with a blind eye by some who continued to be abusive.

According to Pinkvilla, Sonakshi's team tracked down some of the perpetrators and filed an FIR against them on August 14, 2020. This step taken by Sonakshi got the police to take concrete action, which they did by arresting a 27-year-old man from Aurangabad.

Talking about this, Sonakshi was quoted as saying, "I am immensely grateful to cyber crime branch Mumbai for taking prompt action and being so supportive. I took this step to report the culprits so that even others gather the courage to do the same. Ab Bas, we will not watch and allow online abuse happen to us or others. I am extremely glad to be part of a campaign like this to help as many people as I can, who have been subjected to online harassment."

Sonakshi recently deactivated her Twitter account stating that she wished to stay away from the negativity.

ALSO READ: Pooja Bhatt Makes Her Instagram Handle Private After Receiving Death And Rape Threats

ALSO READ: Shaheen Bhatt To Take Legal Action Against Online Harassers; 'Will Not Protect Your Identity'


Bindi Irwin announced she was expecting her first child with husband Chandler Powell last week.

And on Friday, the Australian wildlife warrior gushed over her partner as he rescued a scrub python from the side of the road.

Sharing footage to her Instagram, the 22-year-old wrote: 'My sweetheart husband rescuing a scrub python off the road who didn't understand that cars mean danger.'

'I married well': Bindi Irwin, 22, (right) gushed over her husband Chandler Powell (left), 23, in an Instagram post on Friday, after he rescued a scrub python on a dirt road the previous night

'I'm glad Chandler loves wildlife as much as we do. I married well,' she continued.

In the video, Bindi was heard telling the snake, 'You gotta get off the road'.

'He's so cute!' she then called out as a brave Chandler attempted to move the snake from the dirt road.

Caring: Sharing footage to her Instagram, Bindi wrote: 'My sweetheart husband rescuing a scrub python off the road who didn't understand that cars mean danger'

'I'm glad Chandler loves wildlife as much as we do. I married well,' she continued

'He's so cool, isn't he? Should I get him off the road?' asked Chandler.

After managing to move the python from harm's way, Bindi was heard saying, 'Good work. How cool is that?!'

The brave rescue comes after the couple announced they were expecting their first child together.

In an Instagram post shared on August 11, Bindi wrote: 'Baby Wildlife Warrior due 2021. Chandler and I are proud to announce that we're expecting!

Impressed: After managing to move the python from harm's way, Bindi was heard saying, 'Good work. How cool is that?!'

Congratulations! Last week, Bindi confirmed that she is expecting her first child with Chandler

'It's an honour to share this special moment in our lives with you. Though I'm still in my first trimester, we really want you to be part of our journey from the beginning of this new life chapter.

'We couldn't wait to share the news as this beautiful little being has become the most important part of our lives. Your support means the world to us.'

The couple tied the knot on March 25 at Australia Zoo.
Every Indian village to have optical fibre cable connectivity in 1,000 days

Each village in the country, including those in the remotest areas of the country, will be connected with optical fibre cable (OFC) in next 1,000 days Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day speech.

The government also plans to connect far flung islands like Lakshadweep with undersea optical fibre cable, after Andaman and Nicobar Islands was recently connected to the mainland using undersea cable.

In the coming 1,000 days, every village in the country will be connected with optical fibre cable, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his address on the occasion of 74th Independence Day.

Modi mentioned that before 2014, only 5 dozen panchayats in the country were connected with optical fibre cable. In the last five years, nearly 1.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country have been connected with optical fibre cable. He further said that participation of rural India and villages in Digital India is very important for balanced development of India. To enable this, the government will rapidly expand our optical fibre network so as to reach all the 6 lakh villages within 1,000 days.

Today you have entrusted Department of Telecommunications with the responsibility to connect all the villages of India by optical fibre Internet in 1000 days. It's a game changer for Digital India. With your inspiration we will do it, minister for electronics and IT and communications Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted.

During the 74th Independence Day speech PM also announced that in the next 1,000 days, Lakshadweep will be connected with submarine optical fibre cable. "We have around 1,300 islands. Keeping in mind their geographical location and their significance in the development of the nation, work on new projects in some of these islands is underway. We have chosen some islands for rapid development. Recently, we connected Andaman and Nicobar Islands with an undersea cable for better internet service. Next, we will connect Lakshadweep," he said.

Earlier this week PM Modi inaugurated the undersea optic fibre link between Chennai and Port Blain in Andaman and Nicobar to ensure high-speed broadband connectivity for the union territory at par with services in the cities like Delhi and Chennai.

OFC connectivity to the villages and submarine OFC to the Lakshadeep islands will help the people in rural areas/villages and those in Lakshadweep islands in getting cheaper and better connectivity and all the benefits of Digital India, especially in improving online education, tele-medicine, banking system, online trading, boosting tourism and skill development etc, Ravi Shankar Prasad commented.
Christopher Stevens, 35, will be charged with arson following a Friday morning house fire off Explorer Lane. During the incident, firefighters had to delay going in after hearing gunshots. Authorities said Stevens lives at that residence and was there by himself at the time.

According to CFD investigators, Stevens was upset about something and allegedly set the home on fire. He did not suffer any injuries from the fire, but was taken to the hospital for evaluation. He did not suffer any injuries from the fire, but was taken to the hospital for evaluation. He will be charged upon his release from the hospital.

Firefighters worked the house fire in a wooded area, requiring extra logistical operations to get water and tools to the scene.





It happened around 9:10 a.m.





When firefighters arrived, they received information from dispatch that Chattanooga police officers were also headed to the scene following reports of a possible armed person at the same location.





CFD crews heard what sounded like several gunshots and pulled back for safety reasons. Once officers had the suspect in custody, firefighters could advance to the residence.





By that point, they were dealing with a fully involved structure fire that had spread to the surrounding woods.





Firefighters spent most of the morning getting the fire out. It required them to take gear and hoses a long distance. The house is a total loss.





Battalion 1, Battalion 2, Engine 15, Engine 9, Quint 13, Quint 21, Quint 8, Squad 13, Squad 7, members of CFDs Investigations Division, EPB, CPD and HCEMS were on the scene.
German Radio amateur falsely accused in Greece A Greek court queries the validity of a radio amateur contacting other hams while on vacation



The Greek City Times carries a translated report that originated in the Greek language Europost. Oddly the Greek City Times translation omits some of the amateur radio equipment mentioned in the original, this has been added in below:



...a German tourist was arrested on espionage charges after so-called spy equipment was found in his car.



He denied being a spy and said that he was a radio worker.



In a period of major national issues with Turkey, and in the midst of vigilance, a German tourist was arrested in Rhodes for violating Law 4070/12: regulation of electronic communications, transport, public works and other provisions.



Specifically, the 51-year-old German national was arrested at 10:30 PM on August 9, 2020. The police of the Rhodes Security Sub-Directorate brought the accused from Tholos, who had rented and was driving a Suzuki vehicle.



[Inside, therefore, were found a CG3000 antenna with two bundles of cables connected to it, a white antenna with the inscription www.DX-WiRE.de mini 10m / 2018 / II, a YAESU MUSEN CO LTD wireless car with number FT- 891, a dc verteiler electronic device and a BENQ JOYBOOK S73 SERIES laptop without a license from a competent authority, which were powered and operated by the car battery.]



He also stated that he has a legal amateur radio license and that because he has no stations in Rhodes, he came with his radio and equipment and talked about his two days in Rhodes with other radio amateurs in a network of 250 people, mainly from Germany and on frequencies legally licensed for him for this purpose.



The court wondered what kind of vacation this was, but considered that there was not enough evidence for the nature of the offense.



Read the full English language story at

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/08/13/german-citizen-arrested-on-espionage-charges/



Original Europost story in Greek

https://europost.gr/thriler-sti-rodo-synelifthi-51chronos-germanos-kataskopeia/
A new study by Michigan Tech researchers questions conventional methods of calculating carbon emissions liability based on point source pollution by introducing new bottleneck theory.

A comparison of the results for conventional point source pollution and bottleneck carbon emissions sources shows that oil and natural gas pipelines are far more important than simple point source emissions calculations would indicate. It also shifts the emissions liability toward the East Coast from the Midwest. Most surprisingly, the study found that seven out of eight oil pipelines in the US responsible for facilitating the largest amount of carbon emissions are not American.

Fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) emit carbon dioxide when burned, which scientists say is the greenhouse gas primarily responsible for global warming and climate change. Climate change causes numerous problems that economists call externalities because they are external to the market. In a new study published in Energies, Alexis Pascaris, graduate student in environmental and energy policy, and Joshua Pearce, the Witte Professor of Engineering, both of Michigan Technological University, explain how current US law does not account for these costs and explore how litigation could be used to address this flaw in the market. The study also investigates which companies would be at most risk.

Saving Lives and Money In a similar analysis, by swapping solar photovoltaics for coal, the US could prevent 51,999 premature deaths a year, potentially making as much as $2.5 million for each life saved, Pearce found.

Pearce explained their past work found that as climate science moves closer to being able to identify which emitters are responsible for climate costs and disasters, emissions liability is becoming a profound business risk for some companies.

Most work in carbon emissions liability focuses on who did the wrong and what the costs are. Pascaris and Pearces bottleneck theory places the focus on who enables emissions.

Focusing Efforts

The US Environmental Protection Agency defines point source pollution as any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollutants are discharged. For example, pipelines themselves create very little point source pollution, yet an enormous amount of effort has been focused on stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline because of the presumed emissions it enables.

The Michigan Tech study asked: Would the magnitude of the emissions enabled by a pipeline warrant the effort, or should lawsuits be focused elsewhere if minimizing climate change is the goal?

In order to answer this question quantitatively, the study presented an open and transparent methodology for prioritizing climate lawsuits based on an individual facilitys ability to act as a bottleneck for carbon emissions.

Just like a bottleneck that limits the flow of water, what our emissions bottleneck theory does is identify what carbon emissions would be cut off if a facility was eliminated rather than only provide what emissions come directly from it as a point source, Pearce said. This study found that point source pollution in the context of carbon emissions can be quite misleading.

The results showed that the prominent carbon emission bottlenecks in the US are for transportation of oil and natural gas. While the extraction of oil is geographically concentrated in both North Dakota and Texas, the pipeline network is extensive and transcends both interstate and national boundaries, further complicating legal issues.

Overall, seven of eight oil pipelines in the US are foreign owned and accountable for contributing 74% of the entire oil industrys carbon emissions. They are a likely prioritization for climate-related lawsuits and thus warrant higher climate liability insurance premiums.

As a whole, fossil-fuel related companies identified in the study have increased risks due to legal liability, future regulations meant to curb climate destabilization and as targets for ecoterrorism.

All of these business risks would tend to increase insurance costs, but significant future work is needed to quantify what climate liability insurance costs should be for companies that enable major carbon emissions, concluded Pearce.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
Weather Alert

...Spotty Black Ice Tonight... Slick spots on area roads may persist overnight as temperatures continue to fall. Snow will linger across west Kentucky through about midnight then diminish. Untreated roads and bridges are most likely to see black ice development. Motorists should use caution if driving overnight.
Siva Sekaran By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Coming to the rescue of lakhs of students pursuing studies in first, second and third year courses in various engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University, the Madras High Court has directed the varsity to publish their semester results for 2019-20 without insisting on payment of examination fees.

Justice N Anand Venkatesh gave the direction on Friday while passing interim orders on the writ petitions from B Sowndharya and S Hariharan, third year students of Annapoorna Engineering College in Salem.

Senior advocate K Doraisamy, appearing for the students, submitted that the Controller of Examinations, Anna University, on August 1 issued instructions to all the educational institutions to furnish the attendance secured by the students upto March 16 for theory and practical subjects. He also called for internal assessment marks for these courses conducted till March 16. The proposal was to give the deficit marks and pass all the students.

However, in the last para of that communication, he had demanded examination fees from the students for the exams, which were not conducted since they were cancelled pursuant to orders of the AICTE/UGC/State Higher Education department.

The university on August 6 extended the time for payment of examination fee to August 14. Fearing that their future may be ruined, some well to do students paid the fees. The university published the results only for those who had paid the fees by giving automatic pass in the examinations which were not conducted. For students like the petitioners, who were not in a position to make the payment due to the ongoing lockdown, the results were not published.

When the government authorities had issued orders for cancelling the end semester examination for UG and PG students of first to pre-final year students taking into consideration the extraordinary situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the university was not justified in demanding payment of the exam fee of Rs 1,450 during the unprecedented national emergency, said Doraisamy.

There are totally seven lakh students studying engineering programmes both UG and PG in the university affiliated non-autonomous colleges. The demand for fees for the cancelled exams will amount to unjust enrichment, the petitioners contended. The university, having given automatic pass to those students who paid the examination fees, erred in denying the same benefit to the other students like the petitioners who did not pay the fees, Doraisamy argued and sought to quash the August 1 communication in so far as it demanded exam fees.

The court has passed interim orders to the university to publish the results. The university had earlier justified that the exam fees are required since the university has to incur various expenses in publishing the results.
The St. Josephs Convent Kingstowns (SJCK) compound received a colourful addition by way of a mural created by six students enrolled in the Fine Art, Design and Cultural Communications (FADCC) Associate Degree programme, at the St. Vincent & the Grenadines Community College (SVGCC).





The mural, which took four (4) weeks to complete, is part of the course requirements for students enrolled in the Mural Arts: Urban Space Enhancement elective, and provides them the opportunity to showcase the techniques and knowledge gained in the course.





Tansha George, mural student and past student of the SJCK, said the experience for her was a nostalgic one.

"Walking through the gates brought back a flood of good memories. I was finally able to leave a visible print through my art on my Alma Mater, and not many students get the opportunity to do something like that, George said.





The students, having now completed the mural, will move on to the final year of the programme.





Dane Jack, course lecturer, lauded the mural six for their dedication throughout the project. Jack is also encouraging the public to show greater support for the arts by collaborating with the college by,, for example, contributing supplies, funding to future projects, or by commissioning work from FADCC students.





FADCC Programme Coordinator, Leytisha Jack, said such initiatives serve as national platforms for expressive cultural creation. She is calling on the public, especially the business community, to offer spaces for such expression, as the course is one that runs every academic year.





To offer support to the programme and students, please contact Programme Coordinator, Ms. Leytisha Jack, at [email protected]




The apex court, however, said that no permission for prayers would be given for any other temple in Mumbai while stating that decision for Ganpati festival will have to be taken on a case-to-case basis by the MDMA

The Supreme Court Friday allowed devotees to offer Paryushan prayers in three Jain temples in Mumbai on the condition of "strict compliance" with the standard operating procedures meant to contain COVID-19 pandemic.

Making exception for the three Jain temples located at Dadar, Byculla and Chembur in Mumbai, a bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde said, however, that the permission for 'Ganpati ' festival will have to be taken on a case-to-case basis from the Maharashtra Disaster Management Authority.

"Upcoming Ganpati festival in Maharashtra is altogether different and it will become uncontrollable and we understand the situation for that but in this case the situation is different," said the bench, also comprising Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

The apex court said that no permission for prayers would be given for any other temple in Mumbai.

The bench was hearing an appeal against the Bombay High Court order which had said that it did not wish to interfere with the state's decision of not to permit Jain temples in Mumbai to open for devotees to mark the eight-day Paryushan festival from 15 to 23 August in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The petitioners before us have filed for the permission in three temples... The Solicitor General have fairly stated that the Government of India is not treating it as adversarial litigation and if the petitioners are observing the requirements of SOP then it has no problem," the bench said in its order.

"We direct the petitioners shall follow the SOP... We are of the view that the statement made (by petitioners) are in form of an undertaking and the petitioners will comply with it. It would not be hazardous to allow them to offer worship at temples at Dadar, Byculla and Chembur," it said.

The top court also made clear the order permitting prayer was order "specific" to the three temples only and will not be made applicable to other temples.

"Our order will not apply to other temples where large congregation takes place... Ganesh Chatuthrthi and others festivals will be dealt by the state on case-to-case basis," it said.

At the outset, the bench indicated that it may allow the prayers as done in the case of Puri Jagannath Yatra if the petitioner can give an undertaking that COVID-19 SOP will be followed.

It said Maharashtra government will have to take a decision on case-to-case basis and if five people go into a Jain temple at a time then it would not cause problem.

Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the state government, said there are over 40 lakh Jains in Maharashtra with around five lakh in Mumbai itself and the issue should be left to the executive as it has to look at the interest of everybody.
In a huge relief to homebuyers, as many as 101 stressed housing projects have received Rs 10,300 crore sanction for completing their projects under the SBICap managed Special Window for Affordable and Mid Income Housing (SWAMIH) scheme, the finance ministry said on August 21.

This will enable completion of 71,559 dwelling units across various parts of the country.

Special window for Affordable & mid income housing Fund(SWAMIH) is working at a fast pace to provide relief to homeowners. As on 20.08.2020, 22 projects with investment of Rs 3,472 Cr accorded final approval & will lead to completion of 20,380 home units.(1/2)#AatmaNirbharBharat pic.twitter.com/xr9OoONfOT August 21, 2020

As many as 22 projects with investment of Rs 3,472 crore were accorded final approval as on August 20, 2020 and will lead to completion of 20,380 home units, it said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a review meeting last month to assess the progress of SWAMIH scheme.

In July, the government announced that it had approved funding of over Rs 8,700 crore for 81 stressed housing projects, with as many as 27 in Mumbai and 26 in Delhi-NCR, under the Rs 25,000 crore stressed-asset fund set up in 2019.

These projects are spread across a mix of markets including large cities such as NCR, MMR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and also Tier 2 locations including Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Vizag, Chandigarh, the finance ministry had said in a statement last month.

While reviewing the performance of the SWAMIH, the finance minister last month had underlined the need for speedy efforts to complete construction of projects for which last mile funding has been sanctioned, the ministry statement had said.

"This special window was an unprecedented initiative that has provided extraordinary support to the real estate sector and poised it at the cusp of a turnaround despite such turbulent economic times," the finance minister had said.

The alternative investment fund (AIF), was set up in November last year to provide last-mile funding for stalled real estate projects by the government.

The fund was to help complete over 1,500 stalled housing projects, including even those that have been declared NPAs (non-performing assets) or admitted for insolvency proceedings. The move is likely to help 4.58 lakh housing units across the country. Only RERA-registered projects with positive net worth will be provided funds.

The recent initiative by the Fund to reduce the cost of capital to 12 percent has resulted in an increase in the number of projects that meet the funding criteria laid out under the Special Window, the ministry statement had said in July.
People hold signs calling for China to release Canadian detainees Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig during an extradition hearing for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou at the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on March 6, 2019. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)

Canada Should Be Proactive in Uniting With Allies Against Beijing, Says MP

As many countries around the world reassess their relationship with the Chinese Communist regime, Canada is in a unique position to build alliances with other link-minded democracies in order to push back against bad behaviour with a more unified voice, says Conservative MP Philip Lawrence.

Canadas legacy as a defender of human rights and its middle-power status makes it naturally suited to a consensus builder roleone that can work with others to achieve a common goal, Lawrence says.

If we work as a team, if we work with the other great countries in the world, the other free peoples, I believe that we can push the Chinese communist government to do more of the right things, he said.

Lawrences comments come as relations between Canada and China continue to deteriorate.

Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor remain jailed in China, and earlier this month a fourth Canadian was given the death penalty on drug charges in that country since Canada detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018a move that infuriated Beijing.

The fate of the CCPs victims could still be salvaged if Canada has the political will to take a stronger stance against the regime and work with allies to push back, says Lawrence, who is a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Were facing a very challenging regime in the Chinese communists, and we need to not be afraid to push back and stand up for Canadians, he said.

We cant be afraid to stand up for Canadians and for free people around the world.

Ties between Canada and China have soured since Canadas arrest of Meng, a Huawei company executive and the daughter of Huaweis founder. She was detained in Vancouver at the request of the United States, which wants her extradited to face fraud charges over the companys dealings with Iran.

Many countries have reassessed their relationship with China due to the coverup of the global pandemic that originated in Wuhan and has killed at least 780,000 people worldwide, including 9,000 Canadians.

The regime also received international condemnation for imposing a draconian national security law on Hong Kong last month, effectively ending the one country, two systems arrangement, while arresting activists en masse. Signed into law on June 30, the legislation stipulates punishment up to life in prison for acts of subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. It also calls for the creation of a security agency in Hong Kong under the direct control of Beijing.

A riot police officer points at a woman lying on the ground after she was searched during a pro-democracy demonstration in a mall in Hong Kong on July 6, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

This week, the parliamentary Canada-China committeewhose future is in limbo now that Parliament has been proroguedheard testimony from several experts who said the new security law in Hong Kong puts all Canadians at risk. The committee was set up earlier this year to address the fraught relationship between Ottawa and Beijing.

In addition to the 300,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong, any Canadian who travels to or transits through Hong Kong are at risk of being arbitrarily detained under the law if theyve said or done anything that could anger Beijing, Alvin Cheung, a Canadian citizen and scholar at New York Universitys U.S.-Asia Law Institute who studies authoritarian abuses of law told the committee.

Canadians currently living in Hong Kong must now live in fear of violating the national security law because there can be no meaningful certainty as to what will be treated as a violation, Cheung testified on Aug. 17.

Lawrence said Canada and other democracies need to stand arm in arm with the people of Hong Kong and hold Beijing accountable for its actions, as well as for a laundry list of ongoing human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime such as the repression of Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners.

It comes down to having strong leadership, he said, adding Canadian politicians need to accept the reality of the regime, not what we hope it to be.

That leadership could take many different forms: working in concert with the United States and other allies, imposing sanctions on Chinese or Hong Kong officials involved in rights abuses, or working with pro-democracy NGOs or community groups.

The United States has led the charge so far by introducing a flurry of direct measures to counter the regime, ranging from sanctions against human rights violators and the removal of Hong Kongs special trade status to the closing of a Chinese consulate in Houston and a formal denial of the CCPs hegemony in the South China Sea.

Whatever action Canada takes is an opportunity to showcase the countrys values on the world stage, and show who Canadians are, says Lawrence.

I believe in individual liberty and freedom, and so this is to me at the heart of who Canadians are and what we must do to step up.

With reporting from Danielle Zhu
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Starting from August 21 Ucom mobile customers will receive significantly better quality services than they did 2-3 months ago.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from Ucoms press service, in the previous months, Ucom's technical directorate has been recruited with professional and knowledgeable specialists, many of whom have worked abroad and have important experience and skills in designing and maintaining complex networks. Thanks to their efforts, the power supply of the Company's data center was recovered, two independent UPS systems were integrated, and the cooling system of the data center was completely re-equipped, which will now allow to gain additional important time while performing recovery works in emergency situations.

"A thorough analysis of the mobile network has been carried out, the weaknesses of operation of 2G, 3G and 4G+ technologies have been identified, most of which are eliminated, and the network performance and upgrading are already underway and ongoing. As a result, our subscribers will benefit from services with significantly improved quality," said Ara Sergei Khachatryan, Director General at Ucom.

We should add that Ucom has carries out large-scale works on its fixed network as well, the results of which we will soon report.
Actor and filmmaker Pooja Bhatt has made her Instagram account private after receiving death and rape threats on social media. She says that if her fans wish to know what is happening in her life, they can send her follow requests.

Pooja shared a picture that read, I dont have the time, energy or interest in hating the haters; I am too busy loving the lovers. With it, she wrote a long caption explaining why she chose to go private. This has to be said. Instagram seems to have become a place where people anonymously & otherwise use their access to hurl abuse, threaten rape and goad you to go die. I used to ignore this sort of talk as I always believed that only people who are in pain themselves want to hurt another and also if you accept love, you must accept criticism too. But is someone wishing you and you family death, constructive criticism or just an attempt at vile cyber bullying? I have been advised to turn off all comments but by doing that you block out all the positive, well meaning constructive feedback as well. Why should I push back the people who give me good vibes for the ones that only spew venom towards people in general? But what I have done now is make my account private. You want access to my world? Make a request, she said.

Earlier, Poojas sister Shaheen Bhatt had also talked about getting death threats online. Taking to Instagram stories, Shaheen shared screengrabs of the sort of hateful messages she has been receiving, and wrote, A country where rather than being raised on empathy, most people are raised with the explicit permission to hate. A country where a woman is either your mother, your sister, your wife or a wh**e. A country where not just men, but women feel like the worst thing you can call another woman is a sl*t. Because what better way to render a woman powerless than to make her ashamed of being a woman. Ashamed of being herself. Because if she werent a woman would she still be debased, humiliated and threatened with violence and violation every day? Would she so casually be robbed of her security and sense of agency? You see. Its genius. You abuse her. Yet, you try to convince her the problem is her. Not you.

Also read: Akshay Kumar told me not to become a producer, said you will become a struggler from a star: Mika Singh

Addressing Instagram, she wrote, To Instagram- you have zero tolerance policies for a lot of the content that people put up on your platform - I think its fair to say that misogynistic slurs, intended to subdue and oppress *should* fall under the umbrella of your zero tolerance community guidelines. But if you dont want to receive abusive message turn off your message requests `Tired of being called a b*tch in your comments? Turn off your comments. Asking me to change the way I use a platform because of someone elses hatred and misogyny is the equivalent of telling me that if I go out at night and get assaulted I was asking for it. I should not have to change the way I use a platform if someone is being abusive. They should. Full stop.

The Bhatt family is being targeted online ever since the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June. Alia Bhatt has also made her comment section private, allowing only those that she follows to comment on her posts

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author: Steven Lerner

Apple has defied expectations. The California-based tech giant became the first U.S. public company to reach a $2 trillion valuation on Wednesday.



Although it's technically not the first global company to achieve this record - that honor goes to oil and gas behemoth Saudi Aramco back in December 2019 - it is still an incredible accomplishment. (Apple recently overtook the Aramco as the world's most valuable publicly-traded company.)

The company first reached a $1 trillion valuation in August 2018. It only took 22 months for the company to climb to $1.5 trillion in June 2020, and just two more months to soar to $2 trillion. If the 20th century ran on oil, the 21st will run on tech.

Despite the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, Apple still managed to increase sales for its flagship iPhone during the second quarter.

Dan Ives, a technology research analyst with Wedbush Securities, predicts that the company will reach a $3 trillion valuation due to the move to 5G and Apple's growing services segment.

There are certainly some potential headwinds that could prohibit Apple's rise, most notably - China.

Trump Whacked Huawei, Again

The same week that Apple achieved a $2 trillion valuation, the U.S. Commerce Department issued new regulations that limit Huawei from getting chips that were made using American equipment or software.

These new limitations are in addition to the initial U.S. restrictions imposed in May that required international semiconductor companies that rely on American technology to get a license before working with Huawei.

The Trump Administration has frequently accused the Shenzhen-based tech giant of spying on behalf of the Chinese government, which Huawei has always denied.

In spite of the regulations from May, Huawei still managed to overtake Samsung Electronics as the biggest smartphone seller in the world during the second quarter. Huawei achieved the title due to its strong demand in China.

Seeing that its initial regulations were not stymying Huawei, the U.S. Commerce Department turned to harsher restrictions this week. There are now 38 affiliates with commercially available chips in 21 countries that are prohibited from working with Huawei.

While the news might seem like a "death sentence," which is how Dan Wang of Gavekal Research described the move, it hasn't impacted the markets. Huawei's publicly-traded partners and competitors have experienced little increased share price volatility.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, described the new regulations as "nothing short of bullying" and called the U.S. an "empire of hackers."

"The Chinese government will continue to take all necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate and legal rights and interests of Chinese companies," Lijian says.

Denouncing the restrictions is probably just the first step. In its trade war with the U.S., China has often retaliated with its own tariffs.

This time, China could get revenge by targeting the crown jewel of the surging U.S. tech market - Apple.

Could China Poison Apple?

Between Apple's $2 trillion valuation achievement and the new penalties against Huawei, the timing would be ripe for China to unleash commensurate restrictions against Apple.

If China hit Apple, the blow would be devastating. China is the third-largest market for Apple after the U.S. and Europe and accounts for a quarter of its revenue. Its iPhone sales in China increased by a third in the second quarter.

China has been more reluctant to retaliate against the U.S. in the past, outside of tariffs, in order to preserve the international cooperation that has propelled its economic growth.

But this new attack against Huawei might be the last straw.

If China were to hurt Apple, it could disrupt its supply chain by imposing its own parts restrictions.

It could also go the legal route against Apple, just as Zhizhen Network Technology is doing now. The Shanghai-based company recently filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Apple for $1.43 billion, which could prevent Apple from selling in certain international markets.

If China wanted to try a more forceful retaliation, it could cut off Apple's manufacturing by raiding the factories that are assembling iPhones. A more covert option involves China getting its citizens to buy phones from Huawei instead of Apple, which would hurt its sales in the country.

Part of the reason China hasn't targeted Apple is fear of such a move backfiring. A 2017 analysis found that Apple is responsible for creating and supporting nearly 5 million jobs in China.

China could choose to strike Apple after November, depending on the results of the U.S. presidential election. But there is also a good chance it will do nothing at all. If China does slice Apple out of the Middle Kingdom, the tech company's future $3 trillion market cap might not come to fruition, and certainly not by 2023.

Apple survived the pandemic in part due to its presence in China. Investors may want to wait to see whether Apple's stock will fall should China unleash such an attack. A temporary dip in the stock on news of such an attack might be a perfect time to scoop in.




Newsrooms around the U.S. are adding dozens of positions that involve covering race and social justice. They're also publishing statistics about their own staffs for the first time, in an effort to better address their decades-long shortcomings around diversity and inclusion.

Why it matters: A national awakening surrounding systemic racism in America ahead of an historic election is awakening newsrooms to the fact that they can't adequately cover the current state of affairs if their editorial teams don't reflect the changing dynamics of their readership and the nation.

Driving the news: Gannett, the parent company to USA Today  the largest newspaper in the U.S. by circulation  and hundreds of local newsrooms, posted an op-ed from its publisher on Thursday stating that for the first time in its history, the company would publicly share data on the gender, racial and ethnic diversity of its network of newsrooms.

Gannett also announced the creation of 60 jobs to expand coverage of inequities in the U.S., with about one-third of the roles being new hires and the rest reassignments.

"These new hires and jobs serve to underscore our commitment to diverse staffing and news coverage at USA TODAY and our local newsrooms. And its a commitment that starts at the top," wrote Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president of the USA Today network and publisher of USA Today newspaper.

The big picture: Newsrooms across the country are adding more positions to cover race. Many are changing the way their style guides reflect terms about race and ethnicity.

The Washington Post and the New York Times announced company-wide diversity initiatives in June, including the addition of dozens of new positions to cover race.

announced company-wide diversity initiatives in June, including the addition of dozens of new positions to cover race. CBS News and CNN both launched initiatives to cover race and culture this summer.

Yes, but: Some news companies are facing backlash from employees for not addressing diversity issues quickly or adequately enough.

The Los Angeles Times Guilds Latino employees have been pushing management for more hires to improve coverage of their community. A letter from Wall Street Journal employees to management earlier this summer expressed concern about the company's coverage of race and diversity.

What's next: Newsrooms are setting staff goals to hold themselves accountable to their efforts.

USA Today said Thursday that its goal is "parity with our communities" by 2025.

said Thursday that its goal is "parity with our communities" by 2025. NBCUniversal's News Group set an objective of having a 50% diverse workforce this July.

Go deeper: Newsrooms add new positions to fortify coverage on race
21.08.2020 LISTEN

Introduction

Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) have no respect for age, place or gender, or socioeconomic status. NCDs are the leading global health challenge in the 21st century, resulting in ill health, economic loss, life loss, diminished quality of life, and poor social development equally in both high-resource and low-resourced countries.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 41 million people die from NCDs each year, more than 85% are premature and occurring in low and middle-income countries1. Unfortunately, over half of the worlds population cannot access essential healthcare and millions are driven into poverty each year because of out-of-pocket spending on health services.

NCDs cut across every facet of the Ghanaian economy and by extension global economies, thus the need to prioritize NCDs in all policy-making beyond health. NCDs include mental health, diabetes, cancers, hypertension, strokes, sickle cell, Asthma, etc. and even old age, therefore enacting policies across all sectors, will play a key role in the wellbeing of the over 28 million Ghanaians.

In 2016 alone, over 94,400 Ghanaians died from NCDs (WHO). An estimated 22, 000 lives in Ghana can be saved if all the WHO Best Buys for NCD prevention and control are implemented effectively. We must stand for action now so that many lives can be saved.

Ghana has made some progress in strengthening policy response to NCDs. These include the adoption of the Public Health Act (Tobacco Control Measures and Regulations) in 2012 and 2016, a 175% tax increase on tobacco products highest in the sub-region, the National Alcohol Policy of 2016, the National Policy and Strategy on NCDs and National Strategy for Cancer Control and in 2006, passed the Disability Act (Act 715). However, the implementation of these national laws and policies remains weak.

Reducing the burden of NCDs is essential to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Ghana. Stronger national health systems that emphasis on integrated care, particularly at the primary healthcare (PHC) levels are imperative to reducing the burden of NCDs.

The elected government has a responsibility to ensure prevention, treatment, and care, and financial risk protection across the continuum of care is available especially for the poorest and most vulnerable populations.

Find the Ghana NCD Alliance Advocacy Agenda for more information in this link: https://ncdalliance.org/news-events/news/launch-of-the-ghana-advocacy-agenda-of-people-living-with-ncds

The Ghana NCD Alliance and People living with NCDs (PLWNCDs) strongly oppose the following trends:

The inability of the government to meet all the health budget proposed by the Ministry of Health, this inhibits the development of health infrastructure and weakens health systems- NCDs are mostly affected with little or no budget allocation

Inadequate regulations of the private health sector, allowing the sector to continue massive profiteering at the cost of patients, especially by corporate hospitals

Hiking of prices of drugs due to lack of price control

Advertising of all manner of goods and services injurious to the health of the people and especially to people living with NCDs and children

Inadequate specialized healthcare professionals and public facilities for NCDs and other chronic diseases treatment and care

Rationale

The Ghana NCD Alliance and PLWNCDs all over the country request all political parties in the lead up to the 2020 December polls to invest in prevention, human right and social justice, treatment care and support and meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs and to note that upholding the fundamental rights of humans as stated in Ghanas Constitution also includes right to health without any discrimination or exception.

We expect that the party elected will implement these recommendations and parties in opposition will join the rest of the CSOs and the media to continue to raise these proposals and demands for policy actions that address these health challenges.

In this context, we propose the following policy actions, in the lead up to the upcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections to commit to by all political parties and candidates.

Recommendations

Ensure the attainment of Human Right and Social justice

Legislations on the right to healthcare should be enacted to ensure universal access to good quality and comprehensive health care services for the entire population and against stigma and discrimination at every level.

Access to treatment, care, and support services is a prerequisite for the fundamental human right to achieve the highest possible standard of physical and mental health and well-being.

Availability and access to essential lifesaving medicines and products for people living with NCDs is, unacceptably, still out of reach for millions of people around the country, particularly in low income, poorest, and most vulnerable populations. A particular issue is the inadequate supply of glucometers at the community health centers for diagnoses.

Prevention, research, and implementation of NCDs policies

Increase in public investment in health and NCDs prevention, research, and implementation, focusing on prevention across the lifespan. According to WHO for every US$1 invested in scaling up actions to address NCDs in low- and lower-middle-income countries, there will be a return to society of at least US$7 in increased employment, productivity, and long life.

Governments need to increase domestic investment through domestic revenue mobilization, and other sources such as taxes on alcohol, tobacco, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), fossil fuel, etc. and allocate more public financing for health. Increasing substantially the public expenditure on health and NCDs to be financed primarily through domestic taxation will help achieve the Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda.

Placing multi-sectoral collaboration at the heart of the NCD response means working together and winning together. Young people need to be on board as stakeholders in the NCD/health response: they are the main targets of unhealthy commodity industries.

Invest in research and development to quantify Ghanas NCD burden and build strong evidence for NCD prevention and control as currently highly, it is inadequate.

Provision of Treatment Care and Support Services

The huge costs associated with the treatment and care for NCDs have caused many PLWNCDs to lose their businesses and income, leading to total neglect by their families and friends.

The capacity of the Public Sector Health System should be enhanced to monitor and analyze new elements of social determinants of health to recommend preventing and mitigating measures.

Design and implement UHC that addresses the growing burden of multi-morbidities and considers the practical needs of people living with more than one chronic condition.

The government must ensure the availability of comprehensive services for early detection, diagnosis, treatment, psychological, rehabilitative, palliative care for those with NCDs and other chronic conditions.

Introduce a policy that mandates everyone to know their health status via a health card connected to the National identification card and National Health Insurance Card.

Expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme to cover comprehensive services, treatment, and care of NCDs

Decentralized healthcare services that enable access at the local level including equipping Community Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds and health centers with physiotherapy facilities and basic diagnostics equipment especially in hard to reach places.

Meaningful involvement of CSOs and People living with NCDs

People living with NCDs can be critically resourceful in the National NCD and Health response. They can contribute meaningfully across the spectrum of the health and NCD related activities from research, policymaking, programme planning to implementation as well as monitoring, evaluation, and accountability efforts.

Consult with and actively involve people living with NCDs, young people, and civil society actors directly or through their representative organizations when designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating policies, laws, and services that affect them directly or indirectly.

Other recommendations

Active participation by the government in all high-level decision making bodies and meetings especially UN high-level meetings on health/NCDs.

Ensure increased transparency in NCD care and access to unbiased information about the benefits and harm of our drugs.

Conclusion

The next government should increase ambition by developing a cross-government plan for preventing NCDs and promoting good health. This should lead to a workplan of policies and outcomes for each government department, running alongside the National Policy on NCDs. The plan must meaningfully address the root causes of NCDs problems.

Further, the next government should show ambition and boldness in utilizing taxation, regulation, and legislation these have been proven to be the most effective tools for driving sustained improvements in population health.

Finally, we urge all political parties to effectively adopt and implement the recommendations to show the ambition and boldness necessary to prioritize, protect, and promote the publics health.

We call for increased political buy-in for free, quality, and accessible universal healthcare for all without exception.

Contacts

Labram Musah: National Coordinator, Ghana NCD Alliance

For Ghana NCD Alliance, NCDs CSOs and People living with NCDs

Email: [email protected] Mobile: 024 3211854

Find out more about the GhNCDA: https://ghanancdalliance.org/index.html
A decision about whether the Supreme Court will hear the case is not likely before the presidential election in November

Washington: President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics from his personal Twitter account.

The administration said in a high-court filing Thursday that Trump's @realdonaldtrump account with more than 85 million followers is his personal property and blocking people from it is akin to elected officials who refuse to allow their opponents' yard signs on their front lawns.

President Trump's ability to use the features of his personal Twitter account, including the blocking function, are independent of his presidential office, acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote in urging the justices to review the case.

The federal appeals court in New York ruled last year that Trump uses the account to make daily pronouncements and observations that are overwhelmingly official in nature.

It held that Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint.

A decision about whether even to hear the case is not likely before the November election.

The case grew out of a challenge brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which sued on behalf of seven individuals blocked by Trump after criticising his policies.

Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute's executive director, said the justices should decline to take up Trump's appeal.

This case stands for a principle that is fundamental to our democracy and basically synonymous with the First Amendment: government officials can't exclude people from public forums simply because they disagree with their political views, Jaffer said in a statement.

The administration argued in its appeal that the Supreme Court, not lower courts, should decide where to draw the line between the president's personal decisions and official conduct.

The pace of the case was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic as well as Trump's decision to ask the full 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals to review the ruling by a three-judge panel. The court refused to do so by a 7-2 vote in March.

Two Trump appointees, judges Michael H Park and Richard J Sullivan, were the only members of the court to side with the president.

The Supreme Court extended its deadline to file an appeal from 90 days to 150 days when it shut the building to the public and abandoned in-person meetings in favor of telephone conferences because of the virus outbreak.
Two pediatricians, two allergists, one dermatologist and three hospitals. Anna Akins, 32, sat in waiting rooms in Louisiana for over nine months trying to get her newborn son's condition diagnosed while he spent his days coughing and wheezing with undiagnosed allergies and no answers.

For Akins, it took hours of exhausting conversations with doctors. She said she was not taken seriously by medical professionals as a Black mother. Doctors questioned her mental state, asked her if she was on drugs and yelled at her when she became more persistent in pushing for her son's diagnosis, she told USA TODAY.

At a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says communities of color are at a higher risk of COVID-19, medical professionals say complaints of medical discrimination are on the rise and they are pushing to change it.

Anna Akins and her son.

"I don't think they took me seriously as a mom," said Akins. "I think that we don't say anything because we are not taken seriously. Even if we say we feel like we've been discriminated against medically, we are not taken seriously."

Her son's diagnosis ended up being asthma and dairy, wheat and egg allergies. Akins said the diagnosis shouldn't have taken so long.

While discrimination in health care has been a longstanding issue, the pandemic has shown numbers highlighting the racial disparity in the industry.

Racial and ethnic minority groups are listed as people who need extra precautions throughout the pandemic in the CDC's information page on the coronavirus.

According to a report published this month by the National Urban League, Black people and Latinos are four times more likely than white people to be hospitalized for COVID-19.

"This is a crisis," said Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League. "Those with underlying conditions are more likely to get sick. Those that have less access to doctors and hospitals are going to be diagnosed much later. when they're diagnosed much later, they are more likely to be hospitalized, they're more likely to die."

Story continues

COVID-19 is devastating Black, brown and Indigenous communities with mortality rates for Black Americans being about 2.4 times higher than for white Americans.

Higher mortality rates come at a time when national attention is being drawn toward the issue of discrimination and racism. Systemic health and social inequities have put members of racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting COVID-19 or experiencing severe illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, lawmakers across the nation have declared racism as a public health emergency. As numbers reveal the need for equity in the medical field, discrimination at a doctors office or a hospital are not isolated incidents.

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on national health issues, showed that one in six Black adults said they have experienced unfair treatment while getting health care.

A very small share of white adults say they have experienced this type of unfair treatment due to their racial or ethnic background, according to the poll.

A recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine pushes the need for addressing racism in the health care industry and acknowledging the disparities.

"By looking through a racially impervious lens, clinicians neglect the life experiences and historical inequities that shape patients and disease processes," read the editorial. "They may inadvertently feed the robust structural racism that influences access to care, quality of care, and resultant health disparities."

Dr. Monique Aurora Tello, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, is pushing for representation and inclusion in medicine. She has been in practice since 2005 and has heard many stories of patients who suffered through substandard medical care because of their race.

Tello is a part of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at her hospital where she's helping to develop a plan for addressing inequities. She said she did not receive any training to ensure racial equity in the medical field.

"Believe it or not, teaching things like health inequities, systemic and structural racism as it impacts health outcomes in medical school is still controversial," she said.

Just because implicit bias teachings are not integrated does not mean they do not exist. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) developed by Harvard researches for a non-profit called Project Implicit tests equity, diversity and inclusion training.

The health care industry is beginning to speak up on the importance of acknowledging racial disparities. According to The American Medical Associations policy statement, integrating social determinants of health into medical education are essential in ensuring that "graduating medical students are well prepared to provide their patients safe, high quality and patient-centered care."

Tello has seen how the pandemic has affected communities of color and how those teachings could be helpful in avoiding misdiagnoses or further discrimination in medical practices.

"In April, I was redeployed by my institution, plucked from the outpatient side to work on the inpatient COVID-19 surge wards," said Tello. "We all saw that the majority of patients who were sick and very sick and dying from COVID-19 was overwhelmingly Latino and Black, and our other Boston hospitals had a similar experience. Per the data, there is no doubt that COVID-19 is impacting communities of color to a much greater degree than whites."

Complaints of discrimination in healthcare are not always physician-to-patient. A lawsuit that began in November accuses St. Lukes Physician Group and St. Lukes Health System of race, color and sex discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

The discrimination continued even after the staff went through a bias training. According to The Kansas City Star, the staff was told to "get over it" afterwards.

Italo M. Brown, an Emergency Medicine physician and Clinical Instructor in Social Emergency Medicine at Stanford Hospital, told USA Today that education about health disparities are not fully integrated but that there has been a push to have implicit bias training as a part of the curriculum.

Brown said he constantly hears stories about patients experiencing discrimination and that this is one way to prevent it.

"It would be interesting to see how you could capture the presence of bias earlier on in medical training and potentially design a curriculum or learning to help correct some of these biases," said Brown.

Black, Native American and Alaska Native women remain at the top of the list for the highest risks when it comes to racial medical disparities, according to a study by the CDC. Maternal mortality rates are about three times higher than those of white women.

The study showed that systemic issues and lack of resources contribute to the persistent racial disparities when it comes to health care.

Unstable housing, limited access to transportation, missed or delayed diagnosis and inadequate access to care are some of the most significant contributing factors.

Maternal mortality review committees (MMRC) provided prevention strategies alongside the contributing factors. According to MMRC, systemic solutions include expanding clinical office hours and the number of providers who accept Medicaid, prioritizing pregnant and postpartum women for temporary housing programs, and improving access to transportation.

Dr. Myra Jones-Taylor is the Chief Policy Officer at Zero to Three, a national nonprofit organization that "informs, trains and supports professionals, policymakers and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers."

The organization released a "State of Babies Yearbook" which provides a national look at how certain inequities affect Black and brown communities even before birth. Jones-Taylor said that because evidence is shown from birth that there are inequities in healthcare, the entire industry needs to be reexamined.

Jones-Taylor expressed the importance of advocating for yourself in discriminatory health care instances. She said that healthcare providers need to take the initiative to further educate themselves on how to provide equitable care.

"We have to be tireless in our laser focus in tracking data that is aggregated by race so we really understand the full picture," said Jones-Taylor. "Then we need to target our resources and our efforts to make sure that we are addressing those very specific concerns that we're seeing in Black and brown communities."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Healthcare providers push to fix racism in the medical industry
Photo: Contributed

The Prime Minister has asked the Governor General to prorogue Parliament and recall it Sept. 23

The prorogation brings an end to proceedings before Parliament. There was a hybrid sitting in the House of Commons planned for next week as well as many committee meetings, which are all now cancelled.

Some of the effects of prorogation include:

Any government bill that has not received Royal Assent being terminated

The government not needing to respond to any outstanding Order Paper questions

Matters of privilege and the terms of any privilege motion being nullified

There are other items that discontinue as well as similar affects in the Senate.

I was in Ottawa on Aug. 12 and questioned Finance Minister Bill Morneau about Canada losing our AAA credit rating from Fitch Ratings earlier this summer.

Little did I know that I would be the last member of Parliament to question Morneau before his resignation as Finance Minister and MP.

I focused on two reasons Fitch Ratings cited for our downgrade.

First, was Canada's lack of an economic recovery plan, and I questioned when the government would be releasing a plan.

Second, was due to Canadian interprovincial trade barriers and the government putting all work on hold to remove barriers.

As we work on economic recovery, now is the time to embrace made-in-Canada products and services. Unfortunately, we did not hear clear answers to either question.

It has become more evident than ever how important parliamentary standing committees are in a minority government with Parliament not sitting fully since March.

Many revelations have come out through committee studies and questions, such as improper government planning for the pandemic and its related programs, the WE Charity scandal and other agreements or contracts, and more.

Unfortunately, with the prorogation of Parliament, all committees cease to exist.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, the Industry, Science and Technology Standing Committee that I sit on has conducted studies on fraud and the Investment Canada Act.

We looked at whether Canada has strict enough laws against foreign state-owned enterprises purchasing Canadian companies.

Weve focused on the effects of the pandemic on institutions, workers and businesses. Recently, our Conservative team put motions forth to question the Privacy Commissioner about the COVID-19 mobile app and Amazon about reports of anti-competitive behaviour.

We were slated to hear from more businesses bringing forth their perspectives and suggestions, but as mentioned, these are all now cancelled.

Tourism is important to our economy in the Okanagan. It was one of the first to be affected by COVID-19 and Im hearing it will continue to have serious ongoing challenges.

Its disappointing that the Industry committee scheduled only one short meeting to hear from the tourism sector, which contributes $100 billion to the economy and employs 1.8 million people in Canada.

I made a statement to this effect before I questioned witnesses. I believe it is important that the committee hear from all aspects of tourism, from many stakeholders  whether individual businesses, local associations, or national groups, and from all regions so that a comprehensive report with recommendations can be given to the federal government.

Tourism operators and organizations can write and share your thoughts with the committee, so your voice is heard via email at: [email protected].

You can view videos of my comments about tourism and questioning about our credit downgrade on my Facebook page or website.

It has been wonderful being out in the community more lately connecting (safely) with residents and businesses. Please be sure to reach out if you need assistance or have thoughts youd like to share: 250-470-5075, [email protected].
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:31 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f7109b 1 National COVID-19,public-holidays,Islamic-New-Year,COVID-19-protocol,covid-19-task-force,Wiku-Adisasmito,coronavirus,virus-korona-indonesia,long-weekend,tourism Free

The government has urged managers of tourist attractions to strictly enforce COVID-19 health protocols as visitors are expected to flock to popular sites for the long weekend.

National COVID-19 task force spokesman Wiku Adisasmito encouraged all tourist sites to limit the number of visitors to half of their respective capacity to ensure sufficient space for physical distancing. Managers should also provide handwashing facilities for visitors.

Make sure all visitors wear masks and maintain physical distancing, Wiku said during a press briefing on Thursday.

He highlighted that several tourist sites had seen overwhelming crowds last weekend, which turned out to be three days with Independence Day falling on Monday.

Read also: More than 15,000 hikers swamp Mt. Bawakaraeng in South Sulawesi to celebrate Independence Day

For example, more than 15,000 hikers thronged Mount Bawakaraeng in South Sulawesi to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Independence Day on top of the mountain. As authorities failed to intervene, the number of hikers commemorating the event on the mountain had tripled from previous years.

"We don't want to see that happening again this holiday weekend," said Wiku.

The government declared Friday a collective leave day in addition to Islamic New Year, which fell on Thursday, to create a four-day weekend.

The move is expected to boost economic activity in tourism, a sector that had seen a significant decline in the last few months due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Health authorities announced 2,266 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 147,211. Meanwhile, the official count of COVID-19 fatalities has reached 6,418.
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Linkedin Mohamad Ali Harissi and Guillaume Lavallee (Agence France-Presse) Dubai, United Arab Emirates/Jerusalem  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:00 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6cb14 2 World UAE,Israel-UAE,Middle-East,normalization Free

Hard hit by the coronavirus, the UAE and Israel expect rapid dividends from their normalization deal, which gives the Jewish state "kosher" access to the wealthy Gulf for the first time.

From oil to tourism to cutting edge technologies, the two countries hope to benefit from the ripple effect of their "historic" agreement to be signed in three weeks time.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates, with big ambitions in space and technology, is the first Gulf state to normalize relations with Israel and only the third Arab country to do so after Egypt and Jordan.

Saudi Arabia has said it will not follow in the UAE's footsteps until Israel has signed a peace accord with the Palestinians.

Economically, "Israel and the UAE should benefit from this new relationship tremendously," says Ellen R. Wald, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center.

While Israel's focus will mainly be on the Gulf state's oil wealth, the UAE is set to invest heavily in Israel's tourism and high-tech sectors.

'Hungry customer'

Dubai, which has the most diversified economy in the region, saw its GDP contract 3.5 percent in the first quarter following two years of modest growth.

Its Emirates airline, the leader in Middle East aviation, was forced to downsize and cut thousands of jobs.

After years of growth, the Israeli economy is facing a "severe recession", with GDP set to fall by 6.2 percent this year, according to official projections, while unemployment has jumped from 3.4 percent in February to 23.5 percent in May.

Normalization could boost recovery.

"Israel would benefit greatly if it can purchase UAE oil, and the UAE will benefit if it can sell to a hungry customer," said Wald.

Israel wants to attract business for its tourism industry, especially in the Mediterranean metropolis of Tel Aviv, and to attract Muslim visitors to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site.

Currently most of the millions of Israelis who travel abroad each year head to Europe or the United States, but that could now change.

In Israel's third largest city of Haifa, which has a mixed Arab and Jewish population, travel agency Mirage Tours has already started advertising travel to Dubai with the promise "soon".

"I get a lot of calls from Arabs and Jews and there're many Jews who ask me for a seat when there is a first flight," said owner George Muhashim.

Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994 but some of his customers are nervous about visiting two countries, with which the Jewish state fought bitter and bloody wars in the past.

The UAE, however, is a dream destination Muhashim says.

'Kosher'

On Sunday, Israel's Channel 12 television reported that the economy ministry had estimated exports to the UAE could reach between $300 million and $500 million a year.

UAE investments in Israel were predicted to amount to up to $350 million a year.

The sectors expected to gain the most were cyber industries, medical equipment, financial technology and communications, the report said.

"The Emiratis admire Israeli competitive advantage and know-how in the cyber and high-tech sectors and they absolutely want to get access to said know-how, as a very forward-looking leadership," said Cinzia Bianco, a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Over the past 20 years, the Israeli foreign ministry has helped "more than 500 Israeli companies who wanted to do business with companies in the Gulf states, resulting in deals worth millions of dollars," an official in Jerusalem said, on condition of anonymity.

Prior to last Thursday's announcement, business was done discreetly, according to Erel Margalit, head of Israeli investment company JVP - which specializes in innovation and cyber security.

"But now it's all 'kosher'... we shall have a more direct relationship and things will move faster," he told AFP.

'Headache'

Israelis would occasionally meet Emiratis at international fairs or use employees with non-Israeli passports to travel there but products could not be identified as made in Israel.

Small Israeli start-up Bo&Bo Ltd had for two years been trying to distribute its advanced physiotherapy equipment in the UAE through third parties.

"It was a huge headache as you had to manufacture it in a different country," co-founder Gadi Nir told AFP.

Since last week's normalization announcement, things have accelerated, with Bo&Bo having negotiated a first contract in the UAE to distribute its "Made in Israel" products there over the next three years.

But with the coronavirus pandemic still raging and direct flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai or Abu Dhabi yet to become reality, the contract signing ceremony is to take place on Zoom.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The Palace is confident the countrys diplomatic protest over the Chinese Coast Guards illegal confiscation of fishermens devices in Scarborough Shoal will not have any impact on the close relations with Beijing, including the talks for a COVID-19 vaccine.

Iyang mga protesta naman, ginagawa talaga yan ng ating mga diplomats kung meron sa tingin natin nalalabag sa ating soberenya o doon sa ating tinatawag na sovereign rights, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in an online media briefing on Friday.

[Translation: Protests are normally done by our diplomats if there are what we perceive as violations of our sovereignty or sovereight rights.]

Pero hindi naman po makakaapekto yan sa kabuuan ng ating matalik na pagsasamahan sa panig ng bansa natin at ng bansang Tsina, Roque added.

[Translation: But that will not affect the entirety of our close ties with China.]

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Thursday announced that it has filed a diplomatic protest with China after its Coast Guard seized in May the fish aggregating devices or payaos of Filipino fishermen in Scarborough, a shoal west of Zambales which is being claimed by both Manila and Beijing. The Philippines calls it Bajo de Masinloc, but lost control over it following a controversial standoff with China in 2012.

Four years later, the Philippines won its case against China at an international tribunal in The Hague, which invalidated Beijing's sweeping claims to almost the entire South China Sea. The landmark decision also ruled that China violated Filipino fishermens traditional fishing rights in Scarborough Shoal, but did not make a stand on who should have sovereignty over the area.

The arbitral ruling largely recognized the Philippines sovereign rights in other areas within its exclusive economic zone that China claims.

However, China rejects the ruling and insists on owning the global waterway. The DFA in its diplomatic protest also opposed China's illicit issuance of radio challenges at Philippine aircraft conducting regular maritime patrols in the West Philippine Sea  an area of the South China Sea off the country's western coast that Manila claims.

RELATED: Philippines protests Chinas creation of new districts in South China Sea

Still, President Rodrigo Duterte has maintained friendly relations with China and agreed to set aside the ruling to pursue cooperation. He has also appealed to China to prioritize the Philippines once it develops a vaccine for the coronavirus disease, which originated in the Chinese City of Wuhan in December 2019 and has since infected millions worldwide.
Majority of black, Hispanic Americans support universal basic income; most whites oppose: poll

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As support for guaranteed or universal basic income grows across America, a recent survey from the Pew Research Center says a majority of black and Hispanic Americans support monthly $1,000 payments from the federal government for all adult citizens regardless of work status. Most white Americans dont back it.

The survey of 11,001 U.S. adults, which was conducted online between July 27 and Aug. 2, showed that a slim majority (54% of Americans) overall oppose UBI payments. The opposition was concentrated among white Americans, Republicans, upper and middle income households and older adult Americans.

Some 73% of black Americans and 63% of Hispanic adults support the idea of UBI from the government compared with just 35% of white adults.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to take lives and disrupt economies in the United States and around the world, some groups argue that giving Americans a guaranteed income, which was a major platform issue for former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, has become necessary.

"We have people in our community who work 60 hours a week and still scrape by to feed their children and pay their rent," Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul, Minnesota, who supports UBI as a simple, scalable and equitable solution for families and local economies, told NBC News. "Whole neighborhoods that are in deep poverty and doing the best they can."

In June, a coalition of 16 city leaders from across the country led by Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, California, launched Mayors for Guaranteed Income.

Economic insecurity isnt a new challenge or a partisan issue. Wealth and income inequality, which have long plagued our country, continue to grow. Even prior to the pandemic, people who were working two and three jobs still couldnt afford basic necessities. COVID-19 has only further exposed the economic fragility of most American households, and has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people, the website explains. This is our New Deal moment: everyone deserves an income floor through a guaranteed income.

In the Pew survey, younger adults in both the Republican and Democrat parties and those with lower incomes expressed higher levels of support for the federal government providing a UBI for all adult citizens.

In his 2018 book, The War on Normal People, Yang, who founded Venture for America, an organization that helps entrepreneurs create jobs in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, argued that normal Americans who represent a majority of the population would be vulnerable to unemployment due to increased displacement from jobs by automation and technological advances.

To prevent the inevitable widespread squalor, despair, and violence that would result from millions of workers being permanently displaced by technology, Yang suggested a UBI of $1,000 a month.

The call for UBI in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic isnt just limited to the U.S. Kanni Wignaraja, United Nations assistant secretary-general and UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, suggested last month that global governments should offer citizens UBI as part of a strategic sustainable economic policy.

It is time to add a new element to the policy packages that governments are introducing, one we know but have abandoned: Universal Basic Income (UBI). It is needed as part of the package that will help us to get out of this yawning pit, she wrote.

The naysayers, and there are plenty, will point out that it wont work because no country can afford to regularly dole out money to every citizen. They will argue that we will run unsustainable deficits, which cannot be financed.

This is a valid concern. But the alternative will result in a greater surge in inequality, increasing social tensions that would cost governments even more and open countries to heightened risk of societal conflict.

On Wednesday, the Times of London reported that Germany launched that countrys first systematic experiment with an unconditional UBI in which a group of 120 people will each receive just over $1,400 monthly for three years to put them just above the poverty line. The experiment is being funded by about 140,000 private donors.

The group will track their attitude and behavior change through regular surveys.

So far the debate has resembled a philosophical salon at best, and a religious war at worst, Jurgen Schupp, who will lead the study, according to German outlet Der Spiegel.

On both sides, it is characterized by cliches: critics claim a basic income would make people stop working and lie on the couch with fast food and streaming services. Supporters say people would carry on with meaningful work, become more creative and pro-social, and rescue democracy.

Some 90% of the participants in the study have opted to continue working.
Meals on Wheels View Photo

The 14th annual Meals On Wheels fundraiser is a Radiothon that takes place this morning (Friday, August 21) from 9 AM to 11 AM on STAR 92.7 FM.

Sierra Senior Providers CEO Kristi Conforti was Fridays KVML Newsmaker of the Day.

Due to pandemic-related concerns, the Radiothon is being held in lieu of MOWs very successful annual outdoor dinner and auction event.

The two-hour broadcast will be hosted by Mark and Maryann and will feature interviews with members of the MOW team, major MOW sponsors and Darrel Slocum, the Executive Director of the Sonora Area Foundation (SAF), which is offering a $50,000 matching grant in support as well.

Sierra Senior Providers, Inc. (SSPI), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization established in 1996, has operated the Meals on Wheels program since opening its doors. MOW provides five home-delivered meals weekly to qualified Tuolumne County residents age 60 or older who are unable to drive, shop or cook safely and consistently. Over the past 13 years, 715,630 meals have been delivered to almost 2,700 homebound seniors.

The meals promote health by providing a third of necessary daily calories, and moreover, each meal delivery involves social interaction  perhaps the only contact some seniors have all day  and an opportunity for drivers to check on seniors safety. Meals on Wheels also provides pet food and newspapers, and delivers library books in conjunction with the Tuolumne County Library.

The program is praised by clients and their families, according to Meals on Wheels Coordinator Kelli Kleinhans, and thats been especially true during the pandemic. Drivers are hailed for going above and beyond, and are deemed lifesavers and heroes. One clients family member had this to say: Thank you so much for your service. What you provided for our mom wasnt just meals, but also a sense of security knowing she was checked on daily.

SAF is pleased to offer a $50,000 matching grant for MOWs Radiothon to encourage community support of this outstanding and vital program. SAF has a long history of supporting SSPI and MOW: SAF in the past 20 years has granted SSPI nearly $750,000, and honored the nonprofit with the 2019 Irving J. Symons Community Impact Award. The matching grant will be funded through SAFs Community Recovery Fund, which was created to assist Tuolumne County communities response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clarke Broadcasting Corporation is providing air time and on-air talent for the Radiothon. Clarke Broadcasting Corporation is owner and operator of radio stations KVML AM 1450/FM 102.7, KZSQ STAR 92.7 FM and KKBN 93.5 FM, as well as the regions most-visited community website www.mymotherlode.com.

Donations to be applied to the matching grant are being accepted now through the end of the Radiothon.

To donate online, click the Radiothon logo, located in the upper right corner of the mymotherlode.com homepage.

Listeners can also call Sierra Senior Providers, Inc at (209) 533-2622. Credit cards will be accepted.

Both Oak Valley Community Banks in Sonora and east Sonora, will accept donations as well.

Checks may be made payable to and mailed to Sonora Area Foundation (362 S. Stewart St., Sonora, CA 95370), with SSPI/MOW in the memo line.

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
She recently returned to work as a nurse after recovering from coronavirus.

And Rachel Fenton enjoyed a much needed break away from the NHS frontline, as she soaked up the sun in Santorini, Greece, on Friday.

The Love Island star, 27, looked sensational during the trip as she showed off her enviable figure in a plunging black bikini.

Wow! Love Island's Rachel Fenton looked sensational as she showed off her enviable figure in a black bikini during Greek getaway on Friday after recovering from coronavirus earlier this year

Rachel's ensemble featured a plunging bikini top and high-cut briefs that had bow-tie detailing on the sides that accentuated her toned abs and slender frame.

The reality star was unrecognisable from her usual attire as an orthopaedic clinical nurse specialist, as she relaxed in the pool at her luxury resort.

Her golden locks were pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and she shielded her eyes from the brilliant sun with a pair of chic shades.

Great location: Rachel also shared a stunning snap in the Greek getaway, as she posed for a snap in front of a gorgeous sea view in the city

Rachel also shared a stunning snap in the Greek getaway, as she posed for a snap in front of a gorgeous sea view in the city.

The medical professional put on a stylish display in a colourful summer dress that fit loosely on her frame as she smiled for the photo.

Rachel's outing comes after her coronavirus battle earlier this year, which saw her lose her sense of taste and smell, and also experience sleep disturbance and flushed cheeks.

In April, Rachel explained that she was thrilled to be able to return to work after recovering from COVID-19, but had be tested negative twice before she could resume her nursing job.

Illness: Rachel's outing comes after her coronavirus battle earlier this year, which saw her lose her sense of taste and smell, and also experience sleep disturbance and flushed cheeks

She said: 'They swabbed me straight away and came back positive so I then isolated, I needed two negative swabs before I could come back on the ward which I've got now.

'The patients that are coming to us, we are swabbing them for coronavirus and when they come to the ward so they usually have to wait for a day in the rooms before they can have the procedure so their swabs can come back.'

'Some of them have come back positive, and most of them negative luckily.'

The blonde beauty rose to prominence after appearing in the second season of Love Island where she met and embarked on an 18-month romance with Rykard Jenkins.
Technavio has been monitoring the railcar leasing market in Europe and it is poised to grow by USD 296.44 million during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 4% 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/20200821005109/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Railcar Leasing Market in Europe 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 type, which is the leading segment in the market?

The freight cars are expected to be the leading segment in the global market during the forecast period.

At what rate is the market projected to grow?

Growing at a CAGR of over 4%, the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be USD 296.44 million.

Who are the top players in the market?

Akiem SAS, Beacon Rail Leasing Ltd., ERMEWA Group, GATX Corp., Mitsui Rail Capital, Porterbrook Leasing Co. Ltd., RAILPOOL GmbH, The Greenbrier Companies Inc., Touax SCA, and VTG Aktiengesellschaft. are some of the major market participants.

What are the key market drivers and challenges?

Growth in oil, gas, and mining industry and increased funding by the European Commission are the major factors driving the market. However, the shortage of skilled labor in the industry restraints the market growth.

The market is concentrated, and the degree of concentration will accelerate during the forecast period. Akiem SAS, Beacon Rail Leasing Ltd., ERMEWA Group, GATX Corp., Mitsui Rail Capital, Porterbrook Leasing Co. Ltd., RAILPOOL GmbH, The Greenbrier Companies Inc., Touax SCA, and VTG Aktiengesellschaft are some of the major market participants. The growth in oil, gas, and mining industry will offer immense growth opportunities. To make 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

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.

Railcar Leasing Market in Europe 2020-2024: Segmentation

Railcar Leasing Market in Europe is segmented as below:

Type Freight Cars Tank Wagons Intermodals

Geography Germany France UK Poland Rest of Europe



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=IRTNTR43966

Railcar Leasing Market in Europe 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 railcar leasing market in Europe report covers the following areas:

Railcar Leasing Market Size in Europe

Railcar Leasing Market Trends in Europe

Railcar Leasing Market Analysis in Europe

This study identifies the increased funding by the European Commission as one of the prime reasons driving the railcar leasing market growth in Europe 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.

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Railcar Leasing Market in Europe 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist railcar leasing market growth in Europe during the next five years

Estimation of the railcar leasing market size in Europe and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the railcar leasing market in Europe

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of railcar leasing market vendors in Europe

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Type

Market segments

Comparison by Type

Freight cars Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Tank Wagons Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Intermodals Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Type

Customer landscape

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Germany Market size and forecast 2019-2024

France Market size and forecast 2019-2024

UK Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Poland Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Rest of Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market drivers

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Akiem SAS

Beacon Rail Leasing Ltd.

ERMEWA Group

GATX Corp.

Mitsui Rail Capital

Porterbrook Leasing Co. Ltd.

RAILPOOL GmbH

The Greenbrier Companies Inc.

Touax SCA

VTG Aktiengesellschaft

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Type

Market segments

Comparison by Type

Freight cars Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Tank Wagons Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Intermodals Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Type

Customer landscape

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Germany Market size and forecast 2019-2024

France Market size and forecast 2019-2024

UK Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Poland Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Rest of Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market drivers

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Akiem SAS

Beacon Rail Leasing Ltd.

ERMEWA Group

GATX Corp.

Mitsui Rail Capital

Porterbrook Leasing Co. Ltd.

RAILPOOL GmbH

The Greenbrier Companies Inc.

Touax SCA

VTG Aktiengesellschaft

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/20200821005109/en/

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David J. Pecker, the tabloid media titan who drew the scrutiny of federal investigators for his alleged role in Donald J. Trumps 2016 presidential campaign, is out as the leader of the parent company of The National Enquirer, Us Weekly and other publications, according to a company announcement on Friday.

At the same time, American Media, the company led by Mr. Pecker since 1999, has a new name, A360Media, and will be merged with a sibling company, Accelerate 360. Both are controlled by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management.

The chief executive of Accelerate 360, David Parry, announced the changes to employees on Friday. The company, based in Smyrna, Ga., describes itself as a logistics firm that delivers products from corkscrews to umbrellas.

Accelerate said Mr. Pecker, 68, the chief executive and president of American Media, would take on a new role, executive adviser. Under his leadership, The Enquirer sometimes moved away from its usual coverage of Hollywood celebrities and reality television stars to bolster the candidacy of Mr. Trump and attack his political foes, including Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton.
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China on Thursday donated a new batch of medical aid to Tunisia to help its fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinese Embassy in Tunisia announced in a statement that the donation included 100,000 medical masks.

It added that China is keen to continue strengthening its cooperation with Tunisia to fight the pandemic together.

Before the donation, the North African country had already received several batches of medical aid from the Chinese government, Chinese foundations and companies since late March to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.




Two tropical storms are expected to hit the mainland of the United States at the same time next week, for the first time since the Great Depression.

Both storms - one currently centered east of the Leeward Islands and the other in the Caribbean Sea - will eventually become storms Laura and Marco.

In addition to being the earliest 13th and 14th named storms in an Atlantic hurricane season, the storms present an almost unheard of scenario where two forecast cones are both pointed at the mainland, and expected to arrive around the same time.

Two tropical storms - Tropical Depression Thirteen and Fourteen - are expected to make landfall on mainland U.S. soil at around the same time - and will possibly the first time two tropical storms or hurricanes have hit the mainland U.S. at the same time since 1933

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tropical Depression 13 was likely to become a tropical storm Friday and then skirt the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

The early, still uncertain track showed it potentially close to Florida by Monday as a hurricane.

Late Thursday, the system was centered about 445 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph and it was headed briskly to the west-northwest at 22 mph.

Tropical Depression 14 was forecast to graze the Atlantic coast of Honduras, then curve northward to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula possibly at hurricane strength and then potentially head for the Texas or Louisiana coast by Tuesday, again possibly strengthening into a hurricane.

It is expected to become a tropical storm on Friday.

Late Thursday, it was centered about 65 miles east of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Honduras-Nicaragua border, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph. It was headed west-northwest at 14 mph.

Tropical Depression 13 was likely to become a tropical storm Friday and then skirt the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba (pictured)

Tropical Depression 14 was forecast to graze the Atlantic coast of Honduras, then curve northward to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula possibly at hurricane strength, before heading towards Texas and Louisiana (pictured)

Both potential hurricanes have triggered storm warnings across the Caribbean and parts of Central America, and are expected to make landfall on either Monday or Tuesday.

However, Todd Kimberlain, a meteorologist at the South Florida Water Management District, suggested on Thursday that the power of one of the systems could help quash the other.

'The outflow sink created by #TD14 could carve out a downstream upper level trough that would negatively affect #TD13's intensification,' he Tweeted. 'Haven't heard this mentioned in any discussions, but seems as if this could be a complexity to the #TD13 intensity forecast that hasn't been considered.'

The outflow sink created by #TD14 could carve out a downstream upr-lvl trough that would negatively affect #TD13's intensification.Haven't heard this mentioned in any discussions, but seems as if this could be a complexity to the #TD13 intensity fcst that hasn't been considered. pic.twitter.com/NNB9Z6vKTB  Todd Kimberlain (@ToddKimberlain) August 20, 2020

According to Weather.com, it is common for multiple storms and hurricanes to be in progress at the same time throughout the Atlantic Basin, and therefore not unusual for one storm to make landfall in the U.S. and another in Central America, for example.

Brian McNoldy, a tropical scientists at the University of Miami noted that most recently, Hurricane Irma made a Category 5 landfall along the north coast of Cuba in 2017, on the same hour as Hurricane Katia made landfall along the Mexican Gulf Coast 1,200 miles west.

However, two storms or hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin affecting the U.S. at the same time is much rarer, he said.

There are examples of two storms hitting the U.S. and Puerto Rico, or the U.S. and the U.S. Virgin Islands at around the same time

But you have to go back to September 5, 1933 to find a documented case of two mainland U.S. landfalls happening at exactly the same time.

On that date, a Category 3 hurricane made landfall at Brownsville, Texas, at 12 a.m. ET. During the same hour, a tropical storm reached Ceder Key, Florida.

Twenty-three hours earlier to the tropical storm's landfall in the Gulf Coast, the storm known as the 'Treasure Coast hurricane', a Category 3, made landfall in eastern Florida.

An archived map shared by Colorado State University tropical scientist Phil Klotzbach showed the unusual sight of two hurricanes on U.S. shores at the same time, and only around 1,000 miles apart.

Colorado State University tropical scientist Phil Klotzbach shared a map from 1933 showing two storms hitting the U.S. within 24 hours on one-another (pictured)

Meanwhile, Hurricane Genevieve weakened to a tropical storm Thursday after lashing Mexico's Los Cabos tourist resorts with hurricane-force gusts and heavy rains. And two new tropical depressions formed in the Atlantic Basin - both on potential tracks toward the United States.

Genevieve had a been a powerful Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 mph on Tuesday, but weakened as it pushed past the Los Cabos region, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The center said the storm was expected to stay in the Pacific while moving northwestward along the Baja coast and continue weakening through the night, likely becoming a tropical depression by Friday evening. Still, it was raking the shore with powerful winds and heavy rain, creating the potential for dangerous flooding.

Pictured: A beach in the resort of Acapulco, Mexico, as it is battered by Hurricane Genevieve on Monday. The storm has since been weakened to a tropical storm

Pictured: Hurricane Genevieve is seen from the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting Earth in an image taken by NASA astronaut Christopher J. Cassidy August 19, 2020

High surf already claimed two lives in the area. Police in Cabo San Lucas said a 15-year-girl was trapped by a large wave and an adult tried to save her Tuesday. Both died.

The hurricane center said Genevieve's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 65 mph Thursday night, and it was centered about 70 miles southwest of Cabo San Lazaro. It was moving to the northwest at 10 mph.

The storm knocked out power and phone service to a large part of the Los Cabos area, flooded streets in poor neighborhoods and toppled palms in the tourist zone. Los Cabos Mayor Armida Castro said more than 800 people had gone to shelters in Cabo San Lucas and 250 sought refuge in San Jose del Cabo, where distancing measures were in place due to COVID-19.

Baja California Sur state officials said 15,000 foreign tourists were in the state, most in the Los Cabos region, which earlier had almost been emptied of visitors by pandemic restrictions.
Donald Trump speaks to a crowd of supporters during a campaign stop at Mariotti Building Product in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, on 20 August, 2020: AP

Donald Trump, standing under a blistering Pennsylvania sun, officially shifted his re-election bid to Plan B on Thursday.

Unable to implement Plan A, making the pre-coronavirus US economy the basis of his sales pitch for a second term, the president used a campaign rally near Scranton, Pennsylvania  designated Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's hometown  to unveil some new attack lines.

And the claims and innuendo in those lines reflect a re-election strategy designed more to sow fears and doubts about Mr Biden and his fellow Democrats than convince voters four more years of a Trump administration would be a solid investment for their wallets and portfolios.

Mr Obama still boasted about what he called his tough trade stances against China and other countries. He suggested, as he has for months, that some of America's oldest friends have treated Washington worse than its longtime enemies.

He delivered the typical-GOP-nominee's assertions that, given the levers of power, Democrats would implement hefty tax cuts. Mr Trump repeated his claim that if Mr Biden wins the White House, "the market's gonna crash". As he did for months and months during campaign rallies before the Covid-19 pandemic shut them down, he accused Mr Biden and Democrats of having "gone totally stone-cold crazy", and being pulled away from the beliefs of most Americans by a "radical left" wing of their party.

He criticised progressive freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her "Green New Deal", saying she lacks the expertise about the environment to propose such a sweeping climate plan that experts say would require a complete overhaul of the structure of the American economy.

But his Scranton sales pitch felt like a test drive. He was behind the wheel of Plan B, and he didn't hesitate to put the hammer down a few times as he tries to make up ground on Mr Biden in polls there and across the country.

Story continues

He told supporters that Democrats, via alleged progressive school curricula, are aiming to "indoctrinate your children with twisted, twisted world views that no one ever thought possible".

Mr Trump has become prone to douse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his 2016 general election opponent, with what can sound, for him, like flattery. "There was a certain sense of sanity four years ago," he said on Thursday of the Democratic Party she led. But today, it has been taken over by the "radical left", he contended. A few days ago, he referred to Ms Clinton as both smart and tough, saying Mr Biden is old, senile and weak.

He trotted out a new claim about the Democratic National Convention that seemed a throwback to a controversy from the party's 2012 convention: "That's another word they don't want you to say: God. They decided to take the word God out."

Then, in his showman-like and fear-sowing manner, came this warning: "They're coming to get you."

The president delivered that line in a menacing voice. Much of his other new attack lines were dropped with a gusto and energy that he has lacked in recent months as the coronavirus has spread anew like wildfire across the Sun Belt and in other states, and as he has responded with force to protests across the country.

As his reactions to those events sent his approval ratings plummeting and gave Mr Biden a clear edge in the 2020 race, Mr Trump's energy level also dropped. He appeared morose at more than one evening coronavirus briefings at the White House, and once complained that no one liked him  because of his unique personality.

'Field of battle!'

Former President Barack Obama used his dramatic and unprecedented convention address to harshly criticise his successor, saying Mr Trump has not grown into the job "because he can't". He also described another Trump term as a threat to the country and its democratic system. Mr Obama also said the current chief executive treats his office like a "reality show" to garner "the attention he craves".

On the attention cravings, Mr Trump's demeanour since shutting down his campaign rallies shows the 44th president had a point.

Mr Trump neared the end of his prepared remarks on Thursday, reading the usual flowery language about the greatness of America and how four more years under his watch would only make it greater, when he repeatedly went off script. As the sun-soaked crowed applauded and cheered, the president clearly was enjoying the event.

A senior administration official recently told reporters on Air Force One that one reason Mr Trump enjoys the raucous rallies so much is because he is an "engaging" fellow. He certainly has sounded like his old self this week, as he revises his campaign message and zeroes in on old and new Democratic foes.

"Welcome, Barack and Crooked Hillary. See you on the field of battle!" he tweeted on Wednesday evening, before firing off all-capital letters.

A day later, he unveiled what promises to be the crux of his re-election pitch.

"If you want mobs and criminals, you've got to vote Democrat," he said outside Scranton. "They don't talk about law and order. I haven't seen anyone get up [and do so at the Democratic convention]." And he touted his administration's push to get police departments "ex-Army equipment," saying Obama and Biden "didn't want the police to strong strong".

Then, the showman was back, emphasising the last word of this line for effect: "I want the police to look strong."

Read more

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon pleads not guilty

Trump claims Biden 'abandoned Scranton'

Trump praises 'incredible people' at rally defying social distancing

Judge dismisses Trump's second attempt to block criminal investigation

How Bannon allegedly duped Trump supporters with fraudulent campaign
Rogue planets could outnumber the stars

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An upcoming NASA mission could find that there are more rogue planets - planets that float in space without orbiting a sun - than there are stars in the Milky Way, a new study theorizes.

"This gives us a window into these worlds that we would otherwise not have," said Samson Johnson, an astronomy graduate student at The Ohio State University and lead author of the study. "Imagine our little rocky planet just floating freely in space - that's what this mission will help us find."

The study was published today in he Astronomical Journal.

The study calculated that NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find hundreds of rogue planets in the Milky Way. Identifying those planets, Johnson said, will help scientists infer the total number of rogue planets in our galaxy. Rogue, or free-floating, planets are isolated objects that have masses similar to that of planets. The origin of such objects is unknown, but one possibility is they were previously bound to a host star.

"The universe could be teeming with rogue planets and we wouldn't even know it," said Scott Gaudi, a professor of astronomy and distinguished university scholar at Ohio State and a co-author of the paper. "We would never find out without undertaking a thorough, space-based microlensing survey like Roman is going to do."

The Roman telescope, named for NASA's first chief astronomer who was also known as the "mother" of the Hubble telescope, will attempt to build the first census of rogue planets, which could, Johnson said, help scientists understand how those planets form. Roman will also have other objectives, including searching for planets that do orbit stars in our galaxy.

That process is not well-understood, though astronomers know that it is messy. Rogue planets could form in the gaseous disks around young stars, similar to those planets still bound to their host stars. After formation, they could later be ejected through interactions with other planets in the system, or even fly-by events by other stars.

Or they could form when dust and gas swirl together, similar to the way stars form.

The Roman telescope, Johnson said, is designed not only to locate free-floating planets in the Milky Way, but to test the theories and models that predict how these planets formed.

Johnson's study found that this mission is likely to be 10 times more sensitive to these objects than existing efforts, which for now are based on telescopes tethered to the Earth's surface. It will focus on planets in the Milky Way, between our sun and the center of our galaxy, covering some 24,000 light years.

"There have been several rogue planets discovered, but to actually get a complete picture, our best bet is something like Roman," he said. "This is a totally new frontier."

Rogue planets have historically been difficult to detect. Astronomers discovered planets outside Earth's solar system in the 1990s. Those planets, called exoplanets, range from extremely hot balls of gas to rocky, dusty worlds. Many of them circle their own stars, the way Earth circles the sun.

But it is likely that a number of them do not. And though astronomers have theories about how rogue planets form, no mission has studied those worlds in the detail that Roman will.

The mission, which is scheduled to launch in the next five years, will search for rogue planets using a technique called gravitational microlensing. That technique relies on the gravity of stars and planets to bend and magnify the light coming from stars that pass behind them from the telescope's viewpoint.

This microlensing effect is connected to Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and allows a telescope to find planets thousands of light-years away from Earth--much farther than other planet-detecting techniques.

But because microlensing works only when the gravity of a planet or star bends and magnifies the light from another star, the effect from any given planet or star is only visible for a short time once every few million years. And because rogue planets are situated in space on their own, without a nearby star, the telescope must be highly sensitive in order to detect that magnification.

The study published today estimates that this mission will be able to identify rogue planets that are the mass of Mars or larger. Mars is the second-smallest planet in our solar system and is just a little bigger than half the size of Earth.

Johnson said these planets are not likely to support life. "They would probably be extremely cold, because they have no star," he said. (Other research missions involving Ohio State astronomers will search for exoplanets that could host life.)

But studying them will help scientists understand more about how all planets form, he said.

"If we find a lot of low-mass rogue planets, we'll know that as stars form planets, they're probably ejecting a bunch of other stuff out into the galaxy," he said. "This helps us get a handle on the formation pathway of planets in general."

###

CONTACT: Samson Johnson, johnson.7080@osu.edu Scott Gaudi, gaudi.1@osu.edu

Written by: Laura Arenschield, arenschield.2@osu.edu

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Facebook on Friday said it is a non-partisan platform and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India that are in violation of its standards, amid allegations that the social media giant did not apply hate speech rules for posts by certain ruling party politicians.

Recently, a Wall Street Journal report alleged that Facebook's content policies favoured the BJP in India. The ruling BJP and the opposition Congress have since traded barbs over the social media giant's alleged bias.

"Facebook is and always has been an open, transparent and non-partisan platform where people can express themselves freely. Over the last few days, we have been accused of bias in the way we enforce our policies. We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form," Facebook India Vice President and Managing Director Ajit Mohan said in a blog post on Friday. He added that Facebook has an impartial approach to dealing with content and is strongly governed by its Community Standards.

"We enforce these policies globally without regard to anyone's political position, party affiliation or religious and cultural belief. We have removed and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India when it violates our Community Standards," he said.

Mohan's statement came a day after the parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology, led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, announced its decision to summon Facebook on September 2 to discuss the issue of alleged misuse of social media platforms.

Facebook has been summoned to appear on September 2 and the discussion will last for 30 minutes.

"The subject is serious because of Facebook's extensive reach in India ... and the potential for hate speech to incite violence and other unlawful behaviour," said a panel member who declined to be identified.

Facebook, which has more than 300 million users in India, its biggest market, did not respond to a request for comment on being summoned by the panel.

Facebook has long faced criticism for high-profile content moderation issues. Its soon-to-be-operational content Oversight Board, which some have dubbed the company's "Supreme Court", said it was committed to protecting users.

"How Facebook treats posts from public figures that may violate the Community Standards are within the scope of the board," the board told Reuters in a statement.

"We won't shy away from the tough cases and holding Facebook accountable," said the board, which has powers to overturn decisions by the company and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on whether individual pieces of content should be allowed or not.

'Expect to consider challenging cases'

Facebook's Oversight Board has said it will be within its scope to examine how the social media giant treats posts from public figures that may violate community standards and are the type of "highly challenging cases" that the board expects to consider once it starts functioning.

Oversight Board is an independent body set up by Facebook for content moderation in a transparent manner. In May, Facebook announced the names of 20 board members, including National Law School of India University Vice Chancellor Sudhir Krishnaswamy. The board is expected to begin operations in the coming months.

An Oversight Board spokesperson said the board, comprising independent expert members from around the world, is empowered to make binding and independent decisions on many of the most challenging content issues on Facebook and Instagram.

"... we are committed to protecting users and holding Facebook accountable. How Facebook treats posts from public figures that may violate the Community Standards are within the scope of the Board and are the type of highly challenging cases that the Board expects to consider when we begin operating," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The spokesperson said that hate speech is included in this and "we won't shy away from the tough cases and holding Facebook accountable". The board is working hard to become operational and expects to begin to hear cases in the coming months, the spokesperson added.

The board was formed after Facebook was mired in various controversies, including the one in relation to Cambridge Analytica.

(With inputs from agencies)
In the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic was full blown and end-of-life care for patients was primitive, a San Francisco social worker turned administrator had seen enough of the indignities of ageism and homophobia.

So Hadley Hall leased a church building on Diamond Street for $1,000 a month and opened Coming Home Hospice, the first live-in facility offering 24-hour AIDS hospice care in the country.

Those 15 beds for hospice care were just the start of many innovations and contributions from Hall, who dedicated both his professional and retirement years to supportive services for the aging, disabled, elderly and terminally ill, ranging from San Francisco Home Health Service to the 30th Street Senior Center to Meals on Wheels to Openhouse  the citys only retirement home targeted specifically at seniors in the LGBTQ+ community.

Thats a life of service worthy of a bronze plaque and likeness, and Hall was about to receive one at the new Openhouse Community Center when he died Aug. 10 at Kaiser San Francisco. He was 87. The cause of death was pneumonia brought on by health issues, said his sister, Carmela Sanders of Beaverton, Ore.

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Hadley wasnt just an accomplished person. He was bigger than that. He was a giant of a person, said psychotherapist and former Openhouse board member Marcy Adelman, noting that Hall stood 6 feet 2 and seemed taller than that, on account of both his wide shoulders and his legend.

Hadley loomed large. You knew when he was coming down the hall, said Ramona Davies, a retired social worker who met Hall in 1971. His ideas were large, and his advocacy to get those ideas implemented was large.

When Davies met Hall, he was the executive director of San Francisco Home Health Service, with the mission to prevent and postpone the institutionalization of frail individuals.

Hadley wanted to keep people in the place they called home no matter what that looked like, Davies said. The arrival of the AIDS epidemic added a whole new population to the equation.

If you think back to 1984, this was a marginalized population, said Jeannee Parker Martin, who was hired by Hall as executive director of the AIDS Home Care & Hospice Program, a title and concept that Hall invented. Hadleys vision was to assure that these individuals had care and services during the most vulnerable time of their life.

A funding drive raised $700,000 to convert the residential wing of the Castro neighborhoods Most Holy Redeemer Church into a residence for $30 a day, and workarounds were found for people too poor to cover it. It opened in 1987, and there was a natural progression from the AIDS Home Care & Hospice Program.

About 400 AIDS patients died with us last year, Hall told the Chronicle in 1987. Thats roughly half the total deaths from the disease in the city.

Coming Home remains one of the most emulated hospice care programs in the country, but Hall did not stop there. He was just getting started.

A merger between his own nonprofit umbrella VNA and Pacific Presbyterian Hospital, to form California Pacific Medical Center, led to his retirement. So he just switched to volunteer status to ensure high-quality health care for marginalized individuals.

According to his sister, Hadley had always been a worker.

Hadley Dale Hall was born July 1, 1933, in Devils Lake, N.D., the middle of five children. The Great Depression was on and times were hard in Devils Lake, so his father, Walter Scott Hall, hitchhiked west, telling his wife, Gladys, he would send for her and the kids when he found work. He did, getting a job as a logger, and later sent bus fare for his family, including a 9-year-old Hall, to move to the forest overlooking the Columbia River.

Hall graduated from Washington State College and taught school before getting on with Standard Oil, driving a delivery truck. The next step was social work, which brought him to Vallejo, then UC Berkeley, where he earned his masters degree in social work, and finally San Francisco.

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.

He was working an internship at a family services agency in San Rafael when he fell in love with the director of the program, L. Warde Laidman, and they were together for 60 years, finally marrying at San Francisco City Hall in 2014.

By then, Hall was using a wheelchair because of chronically bad hips, but that didnt slow him down. He got an electric wheelchair, which he regularly used to get to the San Francisco Opera, where he and Laidman held season tickets and were dedicated to the point of living in Opera Plaza. But mostly what he used the electric wheelchair for was to get to board meetings. His sister didnt know about half of them until recently.

Im his sister, she said by phone. I didnt Google his name until after he died.

Hadley was a giant in home care and hospice and instrumental in guiding hundreds of people to successful careers in aging services, says Parker Martin, who is one of those people, having advanced to the position of president and CEO of LeadingAge California in Sacramento.

Hall is survived by his husband of nearly 60 years, Warde Laidman; a sister, Sanders; nine nieces; and seven nephews. On Lok and Openhouse plans to observe a celebration of Halls life at the new Openhouse Community Center in 2021 after it is safe to gather socially. The bronze plaque at Openhouse Community Center will become a memorial at the celebration.

Parker Martin, for one, will be there.

His passion for care and service will not be forgotten, she said.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @samwhitingsf
By Akbar Mammadov

The recent belligerent statement made by the regime set up in Azerbaijan's Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region is another manifestation of Yerevans aggression, hatred against Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijanophobia.

The Azerbaijani Community of the Nagorno-Karabakh made this remark in response to the statement made by the separatist regimes leader that Armenian can strike the Azerbaijani city of Ganja.

This statement, voiced through the criminal regime established in the occupied territories of our country, is another manifestation of Armenia's aggression, hatred against our country and Azerbaijanophobia, the community said.

The community noted that targeting a city like Ganja with an ancient history, which has a special place in the world cultural heritage, indicates Armenias dangerous policy against humanity.

This once again shows that Armenia has raised terrorism and vandalism to the level of state policy and continues to do so today. This has been confirmed in the recent document of Armenia's national security strategy. It is pointless to expect anything different from the Armenian leadership, which rejoices in the destruction of an ancient civilization that has played an important role in human history, the statement reads.

The community stressed that occupying Armenia seeks to build its "welfare" on the life and heritage of Azerbaijanis that it has destroyed.

On the one hand, this country threatens to massacre the civilian population of Ganja, on the other hand, it is building underground shelters to protect the civilian population living in the occupied territories. This shows that Armenia is not interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict and is looking for opportunities and pretexts for new attacks on our country, the community noted.

Furthermore, the community reiterated its support for the peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiations and the peaceful coexistence of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijans territorial integrity.

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on August 17 also commented on the threat voiced by the Armenian side about possible strikes on Ganja, describing it a clear demonstration of Armenia's intention not to eliminate the consequences of the conflict, but to strengthen the occupation situation created by the use of illegal force.

After the Armenian military-political circles statements that Azerbaijans large settlements and strategically important civil facilities such as Mingachevir HPP were viewed as military targets, Armenia is now trying to threaten with a military strike on the Azerbaijani city of Ganja through the so-called head of the illegal regime created in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, the ministry said.

It should be noted that recently Armenia stepped up its military provocation not only on the line of contact along the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is the main source of tension but also on the state border with Azerbaijan. On July 12, Armenian forces shelled Azerbaijan's positions in Tovuz, Azerbaijan's strategically-important district on the border. The Armenian attack killed 12 Azerbaijani servicemen, including an army general, as well as a 76-year-old civilian. Armenian forces retreated after suffering losses in Azerbaijan's retaliation.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

---

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

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Emissions testing has been in place for most vehicles since the 1990s. The regions air quality has improved, even as EPAs air standards grew stricter, with ozone limits last tightened in 2015. For example, Michigan Citys ozone levels have improved from 92 ppb in the early 2000s, when it also ranked near the top, IDEM records show.
After lounging around in the 70s with what feels like no humidity, we're tossing our weather hats back into the summer ring. Dewpoints rise today and hold through early next week with 80s and even a few 90s to show up. Areas north of Albany will hog the shower and storm opportunities through the weekend before more of us get into the action next week.

Today

Skies are clear until you get way up to the St. Lawrence River valley and well downstate. Temperatures are all over the place too, from the upper 40s to the low 60s, with those variations coming over short distances. So, depending on where you are, it's a chilly, cool or mild start to the day.

Of note and forecast importance for us today, some heavier showers are pushing west to east from Potsdam to Plattsburgh. Granted that's way out of our forecast jurisdiction but it's a forecast precursor for areas to the north this afternoon and early evening. More on that in a second.

The sun will help to normalize things as we roll through this morning as temperatures become milder pretty quickly. Afternoon highs will top out in the upper 70s to the middle 80s across our area. You'll also notice the humidity creeping up as we get into this afternoon.

Back to the rains up north: these are associated with some energy in the atmosphere, which will continue to roll across New York into northern New England through this afternoon and evening. More showers and storms will develop in response, and some of those storms will be on the strong side with gusty wind.

Now, you'll note I am still out of said jurisdiction in that assessment. However, the energy and associated showers and storms will nudge south as we progress through the day. How far south is tough to say, but I'd say if you're sitting on Saratoga Lake or points north today, just keep your eyes open. The farther north you go, like Lake George into the Adirondacks, the better shot you'll have at dealing with a storm or two.

The rest of us will stay dry, warm and breezy at times into this evening.

A few showers may leak a little farther south tonight before they dry up, which will leave us with scattered clouds and milder temperatures overnight.

We'll settle in the 50s and low 60s.

Tomorrow and Sunday

As I discussed yesterday, a weak front will be draped across the northern half of our area in the morning and will retreat north through the day. Most of us will stay dry, but this boundary will set off a few showers and perhaps a storm or two in some of the same areas that will have the same opportunity today. It'll otherwise be a warm and somewhat muggy day with highs a few degrees warmer than today; some upper 80s will be felt down the Hudson Valley. Humidity will also be noticeable with dewpoints into the middle 60s.

A mild to warm, muggy night will follow with lows in the 60s.

Sunday will be a few degrees warmer than Saturday, both in temperature and dewpoint. It'll be a real summery day with a few widely scattered showers and storms once again to the north of the Twin Bridges.

Next Week

I have to say, I'm looking forward to how it all plays out, as things look pretty active and variable.

Warm, muggy on Monday with a few showers. Tuesday may be a big thunderstorm day with a warm, humid air mass in place before a strong shot of cold air dives down from the south through the afternoon. We'll cool off behind this on Wednesday with less humidity but come Thursday, warm and more humid air comes rushing back in almost as quickly.

Stay tuned, especially for Tuesday.

JasonsWeather

The Forecast You Want
The Bombay high courts Nagpur bench on Thursday reserved its verdict on a public interest litigation demanding appointment of three trustees, including two from opposition parties, to manage Prime Ministers Citizens Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund.

The petitioner, lawyer Arvind Waghmare, has also sought removal of private auditing firm M/s SAARC Associates since public money is involved in the fund. According to him, the appointment of an auditor before filling up vacant seats of three trustees is illegal and, therefore, should be cancelled. He amended his petition in the wake of the Supreme Courts order on Tuesday dismissing a plea seeking the transfer of money collected by the PM Cares Fund to the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF).

In his petition, Waghmare has sought a direction to the government to declare funds received and expenditure of the same on a governments website periodically.

A division bench of the high court reserved the verdict after a hearing that lasted for more than one-and-a-half hours and witnessed sharp exchanges between the petitioner and the respondents.

Additional solicitor general of India Anil Singh opposed the petition. He called it politically motivated while doubting the intentions of the petition. He maintained total transparency has been maintained in the fund.

The petitioner said three trustees have not been appointed till date despite clear guidelines even as crores were being accepted. Being a donor to this fund, he insisted on the appointment of other trustees for fortifying confidence of the general public.

This is not a personal fund of any political party, said Waghmare while seeking appointment of leaders belonging to opposition parties to make the working of fund more transparent and inclusive.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench on Tuesday held the establishment of PM Cares Fund was necessitated by the situation borne out of Covid-19 pandemic and requirement of financial resources to deal it. It added the court cannot object to the same.

The Centre set up the PM Cares Fund on March 28 as a public charitable trust with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation such as that posed by Covid-19 pandemic.
An NRI woman lodged an FIR in Bhopal on Friday accusing her husband of divorcing her by uttering talaq thrice through WhatsApp, said police. Triple Talaq has been banned in the country through an act of the parliament to protect the rights of Muslim women.

The case became a high profile one when Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took note of the womans grievance, saying justice will be ensured.

The accused, a resident of Bhopal, is working as a manager in a hotel in Bengaluru while her parents reside in Bhopal.

As per the complaint lodged by the 42-year-old woman with Kohefiza police station, she was married to one Faiz Alam Ansari, a resident of Kohefiza locality on October 4, 2001. They have two children. After the marriage, Ansari shifted to Singapore with his family and now they both have citizenship of Singapore.

Officer-in-charge of Kohefiza police station Anil Bajpai said, As per the womans complaint, she was regularly harassed by her husband who exerted pressure on her to give him Rs 25 lakh in dowry. The couple shifted to Bengaluru in 2013. In June, her husband asked her to leave the house and come back only when she has Rs 25 lakh. She came to her parental place in June. On July 31, the husband gave a call on WhatsApp to her brother and when she talked to him, he uttered talaq three times.

Also Read: MP budgets Rs 1.6 daily for 1.8 lakh cows in state shelters, department sends SOS

The police officer said that an FIR has been lodged against the accused under Dowry Prohibition Act and Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act. He added that a team of police personnel will go to Bengaluru in connection with the investigation.

In a series of tweets on the issue, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, A Muslim sister in Bhopal lodged an FIR with police this morning regarding her divorce through triple talaq delivered through a message. I can assure the sister that MP police will take all possible steps to ensure justice to her.

Also Read: Madhya Pradesh police rescue kidnapped 6-year-old boy within 24 hours

Referring to the Central legislation banning triple talaq, he said, After years of struggle of our Muslim sisters, the central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi enacted a law to prohibit the practice of triple talaq but still there are still some mean-minded people who are playing with the law.
As he discussed how the pallid sturgeon has responded to differing conditions along the Missouri River, the mind of soft-spoken fish ecologist Mark Pegg drifted to a Def Leppard lyric inspired by Neil Young.

What is the old song? 'It's better to burn out than to fade away?' In this case, I'm not sure that's true." Mark Pegg, Professor and Ecologist, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Pegg was referring not to the existential fate of the shovel-nosed, long-lived endangered species, but to the life cycles of individual specimens. He was talking about the impressive developmental flexibility, but also the troubling developmental deficits, that some specimens have shown in the face of human intervention on Missouri -- the power of nurture, or lack thereof, revealed by an unprecedented new study.

The study found that pallid sturgeon stocked around the lower basin of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri live an average of just 19.8 years -- nearly three times shorter than in the upper basin of Montana and North Dakota, where the average was an estimated 56.4 years.

Combined with the fact that females in the lower basin weighed an average of seven times less than in the upper basin, that altered trajectory also seemed to dramatically influence reproduction. The shorter-lived female specimens appeared to compensate by reaching sexual maturity at around age 10, compared with age 17 in their longer-lived counterparts.

Despite the head start, though, their looming demise caught up with them: The lower-basin females spawned between three and 11 times, well below the range of 13-20 times among females in the upper basin. According to the estimates of the research team, the lower-basin females consequently laid about 10 times fewer eggs over their lifetimes.

The researchers, led by the University of Georgia's Martin Hamel, came to the striking conclusions by analyzing existing data gathered from both wild and hatchery-raised sturgeon -- more than 1,200 in total. In the mid-2000s, a cadre of agencies began regularly measuring and monitoring the age, size and fertility of wild specimens in an effort to learn more about threats to the endangered species. But an even earlier effort, begun in the mid-1990s, sought to supplement the species' declining numbers.

"So they grabbed whatever fish they could that were of reproductive size and age and started making little sturgeon," Pegg said.

The sturgeon they initially grabbed and set to spawning in hatcheries came from the upper basin in Montana. When it came time to release those offspring into the Missouri River, the agencies stocked them across both the upper basin, where their parents had lived, and the lower basin.

Years later, that decision would manifest as a boon for Hamel, Pegg and their colleagues, Kirk Steffensen of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and Jonathan Spurgeon of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Because of it, the researchers had access to an exceedingly rare dataset: substantial numbers of genetically similar specimens left to grow and mature in two environments separated by more than a thousand miles.

Any major differences in their development, then, would almost certainly arise from differences in those environments -- an ichthyological analog of studying identical human twins raised in different households.

"Replicating that (approach) is horribly difficult, especially in Mother Nature's lab," Pegg said. "We just don't have the space, time or resources to really do that. So this was more of a moment of serendipity than any real planning on our part.

"We knew where the fish were coming from, and we could start to look at how they were actually responding to their new environment."

Pegg said the extreme developmental differences the team discovered between the upper- and lower-basin populations probably speak to at least two major differences in their environments: depth and currents. Though the upper basin has undergone some human-related change over the past few centuries, it more closely resembles the relatively shallow, slow-moving river it was before the arrival of white colonialists.

Even where it is deeper and faster, he said, it still offers some slower-flowing refuges where larvae and finger-length juveniles can settle and grow without much stress. Those refuges also house food, from algae to minnows, that make life easier for larvae and adults alike.

The lower basin, by contrast, features more reservoirs and deeper channels that were carved into the river to promote currents and ease the conveyance of ships down the river. The success of those efforts, Pegg said, has probably forced the sturgeon to invest an inordinate amount of time and energy essentially swimming in place -- investments that likely slow growth among juveniles and keep females from putting on the weight that is strongly tied to fertility.

"They have to spend a lot of energy maintaining position, as opposed to up in Montana ... where they have the ability to get bigger because they're not spending a lot of energy keeping themselves in the water column.

"We're sort of shortchanging the fish down here in a lot of different ways."

The team's study follows in the wake of others that have demonstrated the ability of organisms, including fish, to adjust their development and behavior in response to their environments -- and on timelines far too short for genetic-based evolution to explain.

Some research, for instance, has tracked the fates of largemouth bass that were transported from Florida to bodies of water farther north. But from what Pegg has seen, no prior studies have examined the phenomenon on such a wide scale, either geographically or numerically.

"To my knowledge, this is the one and only that's covering literally 2,500 miles of river or so," he said of the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports. "From a fish perspective, this is pretty unprecedented, as far as I know, in the literature.

"Most of the other (similar studies) were dealing with tanks of fish or, at best, a pond of fish with maybe a few hundred. But we're talking about -- at least in the lower part of the river, where we really saw that change -- literally thousands of individuals. So I think from the magnitude of sample size, our effect is pretty large, in terms of what we can say about the results."

And what they can say, according to Pegg, is that the findings make a dramatic and literal case for the downstream effects of environmental change. While those effects may not be solely responsible for the species' endangered status, they probably account for some of the difficulty in resuscitating its population, he said. But they might also point the way to more successful conservation efforts, and more careful planning, down the line.

"What it really highlights is that we do need to be careful about just willy-nilly stocking or reintroducing fish or birds or mammals into places they may or may not be well-adapted to," he said. "At least in this case, (the sturgeon) seem to be holding on and maybe have adjusted to their new environments a little better than some other places.

But we aren't necessarily producing a viable population based on those original stockings (to the extent) that we'd hoped for. So taking care to properly think through and plan with the best science we have available to us is certainly one of the big take-home messages."
Google Australia boss Mel Silva says the search giant's concerns about a new regulatory code that will force it to pay news publishers are not simply about money, as it issued a fresh warning to YouTube creators about the changes.

The global tech giant took aim at the Morrison government and the competition regulator this week in a series of public warnings about the new code, including an open letter on its website that claimed the changes could jeopardise the free nature of its services in Australia. On Friday it also told YouTube stars the code would have a "negative impact on the creator ecosystem in Australia".

Google Australia managing director Mel Silva caught the public eye this week after the tech giant published multiple warnings about a new code of conduct on YouTube and its search site. Credit:

Google's warnings sparked fury and a quick response from The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission which accused the company of spreading misinformation and misleading its users.

But Ms Silva insists the public relations offensive is because the code is unworkable and unfair, and does not take into account the traffic it sends publishers. "It is not only about the money or paying publishers - which we already do and are looking to support further - but about a draft Code that is unworkable," Ms Silva told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
As China enters a third month of devastating flooding, it is grappling with catastrophic damage that has spread from the central provinces to the upper Yangtze  a region that includes Chongqing, a city of 30 million  and Sichuan province, in the high-altitude southwest. So far, 63 million people have been affected and 15 million acres of farmland destroyed  an area the size of West Virginia. In official statements, the government has placed the floods on the same level as the coronavirus pandemic when describing shocks to China this year.
- Chinese media defended Wuhan residents after photos and video of a huge pool party went viral

- The state-run media said complaints by foreigners were sour grapes

- This was after thousands of people celebrated at a water park music festival crowded in front of the stage

- A section of social media users argued the Wuhan event was a slap in the face to the rest of the world

Chinese newspapers on Thursday, August 20, defended images of a pool party at an amusement park in Wuhan, the original epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The images had sparked concern around the world, but the Chinese state newspapers said the images showed that life had returned to normal in Wuhan.

READ ALSO: Alexei Navalny: Russian opposition leader hospitalised after suspected poisoning

While people could be seen wearing swimsuits and life jackets none of them donned a mask. Photo: The Guardian.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: COVID-19 fears grip Kericho GK Prison after 48 inmates, officials test positive

State-run tabloid Global Times said in an editorial that while some Twitter users had questioned whether a video from the pool party was recent, the park said that it was taken recently.

The park also said it took necessary measures to protect visitors and employees safety, such as temperature tests, disinfection and allowed only half the previous number of visitors.

Its not only a massive pool party. Wuhan, the city where COVID-19 was first reported and the one hit hardest by the virus, is now welcoming an influx of tourists," it said.

READ ALSO: Prolonged school closure is harmful to learners, UN agencies

A performer hovered above the attendees with sparks shooting from the back. Photo: The Guardian.

Source: UGC

According to the tabloid, the city's economy was reviving, which local residents believed should not only be seen as a sign of the citys return to normalcy.

They wanted it to be a reminder to countries grappling with the virus that strict preventive measures have a payback.

The Global Times claimed that Twitter users from China strongly defended the photographs and video.

READ ALSO: Elephant shrew found in Africa after 50 years of hiding

They were locked down for 76 days, one of the strictest measures we have seen so far, a Twitter user reportedly said.

They took the hard pain, now come out of it so fully and are entitled to celebrate their hard-earned work in crushing the outbreak," the Twitter user added.

Another tweep bemoaned the fact that Western countries accused China of violating human rights when it imposed a strict lockdown in Wuhan.

READ ALSO: 9-year-old boy's heartbreaking plea for a mum and dad goes viral

But now the same countries were claiming images of the pool party were inhumane because other countries are suffering.

These people gonna criticise whatever happens in the city because its a Chinese city, the person said.

The Hubei government is reported to be working towards boosting the local economy and has been offering free entry to 400 tourist sites.

READ ALSO: Dubai mega-mansion to be sold for KSh 3.9b with free Rolls Royce, Ferrari

The park too was giving female visitors entry in half the original ticket price. At the festival, attendees partied in waist-deep water while some sat on rubber dinghies.

A performer hovered above the attendees with sparks shooting from the back while partygoers took photos on their phones protected in plastic pouches, as a disc jockey played on the stage.

While people could be seen wearing swimsuits and life jackets at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park, none of them donned a mask.

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The alleged counterfeit $20 bill used by George Floyd wasn't inspected or collected before his fatal arrest in Minneapolis, according to one of the first officers at the scene.

Former police officer Thomas Lane said in newly-released audio that he didn't obtain the bill before, during or after the incident that led to Mr Floyd's death on 25 May.

In response to questioning by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Mr Lane said that he didn't look at the alleged $20 forgery being held by the Cup Foods worker identifying Mr Floyd.

"We were more concerned with a least attaining that person on suspicion of passing a counterfeit bill and then figuring out the validity of the bill," Mr Lane can be heard in the audio recording.

When asked if the bill was later collected, Mr Lane said: "I think it was. I'm not sure."

Mr Lane's attorney has submitted in previous court filings photos showing crumpled $20 and $1 bills on the inside of Mr Floyd's car.

The 90-minute recording released this week was filed by prosecutors in support of their motion to try all four officers charged over Mr Floyd's death at one trial. A transcript of the interview was previously released on 7 July.

Mr Lane is one of three officers charged with aiding and abetting the murder and manslaughter of Mr Floyd, while Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

Mr Lane, who was the first to approach and speak to Mr Floyd, drew his gun on the 46-year old before he and officer J Alexander Kueng handcuffed him and placed him under arrest.

 George Floyd: Police release new bodycam video

"As I was walking across the street to get to the vehicle, I could see the front seat passenger look back and see us, and believe the driver as well looked back. And then they both started digging underneath the seat, looked like they were reaching for something," Mr Lane said in the recording.

"I directed him, 'Let me see your other hand.' He didn't do that, and he was just, 'Oh, it's not a big deal,' or whatever, and he kept his hand down there. He glanced back, so I took my gun out, and said, 'Let me see your other f***ing hand. Put your hand up,' gave him commands to do that. I'm not sure how many. Think I gave a few."

In a filing to dismiss the charges on Monday, attorney Earl Gray claimed that Mr Floyd swallowed a two-milligram lethal dose of fentanyl, pointing to bodycam footage that showed a "white spot on the left side" of his tongue when he was first approached.

All he had to do is sit in the police car, like every other defendant who is initially arrested. While attempting to avoid his arrest, all by himself, Mr Floyd overdosed on Fentanyl, the court documents read.

"Given his intoxication level, breathing would have been difficult at best. Mr Floyds intentional failure to obey commands, coupled with his overdosing, contributed to his own death."
Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John died on July 1

21.08.2020 LISTEN

Ghanaians will pay their last respect to former General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John on October 29.

The late Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission will be laid to rest in his home town, Wonoo, in the Kwabre Municipality of the Ashanti Region where the final funeral rite would be held.

The leadership and the rank and file of the governing New Patriotic Party will gather to bid farewell to their illustrious son, brother and comrade of the elephant party.

Sir died on July 1 at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital after a short illness.

The staff of ModernGhana.com wishes him eternal rest in the bosom of the Lord.
Michel Barnier again criticised Boris Johnson over Brexit at a press conference on Friday. (European Commission)

Michel Barnier has accused Boris Johnson of time wasting as he said a Brexit deal between the UK and EU is now unlikely.

The EUs chief Brexit negotiator said at a press conference on Friday that talks have gone backwards.

Barniers comments came after the conclusion of the seventh round of negotiations between the UK and the EU to establish a future relationship framework once the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December.

The UK has ruled out extending the transition period.

Michel Barnier, pictured with Boris Johnson in September last year, has accused the PM of time wasting. (AP/Olivier Matthys)

In an attack on the Johnson administration, Barnier said: It felt as if we were going backwards rather than forwards.

Today, at this stage, an agreement between the UK and EU seems unlikely.

I simply do not understand why we are wasting valuable time."

It comes after David Frost, the UKs chief negotiator, accused Barnier of making negotiations unnecessarily difficult by insisting the UK must sign up to the blocs state aid and fisheries policy.

He added an agreement is still possible, and it is still our goal, but it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve.

On Tuesday, the EU warned that if an agreement is to happen, it must be done in October at the latest.

At Fridays press conference, Barnier said the UK needs to agree to the EUs level playing field principle: common rules to prevent prevent businesses on one side undercutting their rivals in the other with lower workers rights or environmental protections.

He added there has been no progress whatsoever on another key issue of fisheries.

The next round of talks will start in London in the week beginning 7 September.
Iran's UN envoy: US will be humiliated again if it tries to snap back Iran sanctions

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 1:56 PM

Iran's permanent ambassador to the United Nations says if the United States tries to use the Iran nuclear deal's snapback mechanism to restore sanctions against the country, it will be humiliated again as the international community has already rejected Washington's bid.

Majid Takht Ravanchi made the remarks in a Thursday tweet just a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he will meet with Indonesia's UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, who is also the Security Council's president for August, on Thursday, to submit a complaint about Iran's non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even though Washington quit the accord in 2018.

Pompeo's meeting is an extension of the United States' efforts to use the JCPOA's snapback mechanism to reinstall all UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Pompeo also warned Russia and China not to disregard the reimposition of all UN sanctions on Iran, adding that the United States would target the two countries with sanctions if they refuse to reimpose the UN punitive measures against Iran.

Pompeo's remarks came after the UN Security Council on Friday rejected a US resolution to extend an arms embargo on Iran that is due to expire in October.

"@SecPompeo yesterday called for full enforcement of UNSCR 2231," Iran's UN envoy said in his Thursday tweet, adding, "2231 endorsed JCPOA, & US ceased its participation in it. It is in violation of BOTH."

Referring to the Security Council's rejection of the US-drafted anti-Iran resolution, Takht Ravanchi added, "The int'l community rejected US' right to snapback last week."

He also warned the US administration that it "shouldn't try its luck" to restore sanctions against Iran once again because, "It'll only be humiliated again."

On Wednesday, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said the US will once again fail in its new push to invoke the so-called snapback provision in the 2015 nuclear deal and re-impose all UN sanctions against Tehran.

"America is no longer a member of the JCPOA to use this mechanism, and all the parties [to the deal] have already condemned the US effort," he told a cabinet meeting in Tehran

President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA in May 2018, calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated." Washington also reinstated its unilateral economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic after leaving the multilateral agreement in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the nuclear agreement.

Speaking on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on August 12, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said that the US had forfeited its right to use the snapback mechanism as it was no longer a party to the JCPOA.

"Legally speaking, the United States is no position to use the snapback [mechanism]. The three European allies of the United States also explicitly stated at a previous meeting of the UN Security Council that the United States could not use this mechanism," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters.

During the Friday voting at the Security Council, Washington failed to receive nine votes in favor of the measure, removing the need for Russia and China to use their veto-wielding power, which they had indicated they were prepared to do.

The resolution needed support from nine of 15 votes to pass. Eleven members abstained, including France, Germany and Britain, while the US and the Dominican Republic were the only "yes" votes.

The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to trigger the so-called snapback provisions of the 2015 nuclear deal if it cannot secure an arms embargo extension.

Since leaving the JCPOA, the US has been resorting to its maximum pressure campaign against Iran by reinstating its sanctions and persuading others to follow its suit.

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RICHMOND  The Virginia Department of Health reported Friday that the statewide total for COVID-19 cases is 110,860  an increase of 978 from the 109,882 reported Thursday.

The 110,860 cases consist of 106,177 confirmed cases and 4,683 probable cases. There are 2,436 COVID-19 deaths in Virginia  2,319 confirmed and 117 probable. Thats an increase of 9 from the 2,427 reported Thursday.

Locally, there were 29 new cases reported by the Thomas Jefferson Health District on Friday. To date, there have been 2,217 reported cases of COVID-19 in the health district. One new hospitalization was also reported.

There were 13 new cases reported in Albemarle County, marking a total of 943 reported cases. There have been 60 reported hospitalizations in the county.

In Charlottesville, five new cases were reported. There have been 575 reported cases in the city, with 26 reported hospitalizations.

Fluvanna County added three new cases to its count on Friday, along with one new hospitalization. To date, there have been 207 cases and 35 hospitalizations.

Three new cases were reported in Greene County, which now has 188 cases and nine hospitalizations.

In Louisa County, two new cases were reported. To date, there have been 225 cases and 25 hospitalizations.

On Thursday, a second Louisa County Public Schools student tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The student, who attends Louisa High, contracted the virus outside of the school and has not been in school this week.

Three new cases were reported in Nelson County, which has seen a total of 79 cases and three hospitalizations. It remains the only locality in the TJHD without any reported fatalities.

Eleven new cases were reported in people between the ages of 20-29 on Friday. The case count for people in their 20s sits at 399 cases; the same as people in their 30s. Only four new cases were reported in that age group.

On Thursday, officials with the University of Virginia tried to assured the public by saying that positive cases of COVID-19 in the community would be the new normal. Students are slated to return to Grounds for in-person classes on Sept. 8. {span}Students in graduate and professional programs have begun to return as in-person classes for them start later this month.

Seven new cases were reported in young people between the ages of 10-19. To date, 195 cases have been reported in that age group.

To date, the most cases in the region have been reported in people between the ages of 20-49, marking a total of 1,127 cases.

The majority of the regions hospitalizations have been reported in older age groups: people 60 and older.

The VDH defines probable COVID-19 cases as people who are symptomatic with a known exposure to COVID-19, but whose cases have not been confirmed with a positive test.

As the overall number of positive COVID-19 test results in Virginia grows, data from the VDH coronavirus dashboard shows the percentage of positive results from testing is down. The seven-day average for percentage of positive test results was at 6.6% as of Aug. 17, which is the most recent figure provided by the VDH. Thats down from a peak of 20.8% on April 21.

On Friday, the seven-day PCR positivity rate dropped slightly to 6.1%. To date, there have been 44,344 PCR testing encounters performed across the district. When combined with the number of all the regions testing efforts, including antibody testing, there have been 48,041 testing encounters performed.

There have been 26 outbreaks reported across the region, with a total of 458 outbreak-associated cases. Thirteen outbreaks have been reported in the regions long-term care facilities, eight in congregate settings, three in correctional facilities and two in educational settings.

To date, there have been 162 cases reported in the regions healthcare workers.

Across Virginia, there have been 779 reported outbreaks with 16,380 outbreak-associated cases. There have been 6,258 reported cases in Virginias healthcare workers.

State health officials have said theres a lag in the reporting of statewide numbers on the VDH website. Figures on the website might not include cases or deaths reported by localities or local health districts.

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.
Technavio has been monitoring the thermal scanner market and it is poised to grow by USD 1.85 bn 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/20200820005572/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Thermal Scanner Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is concentrated, and the degree of concentration will accelerate during the forecast period. 3M Co., AMETEK Inc., FLIR Systems Inc., Fluke Corp., Infrared Cameras Inc., L3Harris Technologies Inc., Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd., Robert Bosch GmbH, Seek Thermal Inc., and Testo SE Co. KGaA are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Demand from airports for passenger screening has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market.

Thermal Scanner Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Thermal Scanner Market is segmented as below:

Technology Uncooled Cooled

Geography North America APAC Europe MEA South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR43388

Thermal Scanner 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 thermal scanner market report covers the following areas:

Thermal Scanner Market size

Thermal Scanner Market trends

Thermal Scanner Market industry analysis

This study identifies the increasing penetration of AI as one of the prime reasons driving the thermal scanner market growth during the next few years.

Thermal Scanner Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the thermal scanner market, including some of the vendors such as 3M Co., AMETEK Inc., FLIR Systems Inc., Fluke Corp., Infrared Cameras Inc., L3Harris Technologies Inc., Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd., Robert Bosch GmbH, Seek Thermal Inc., and Testo SE Co. KGaA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Thermal Scanner Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Thermal Scanner Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist thermal scanner market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the thermal scanner market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the thermal scanner market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of thermal scanner market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five force summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Technology

Market segments

Comparison by Technology

Uncooled Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Cooled Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Technology

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Volume Driver Demand led growth

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

3M Co.

AMETEK Inc.

FLIR Systems Inc.

Fluke Corp.

Infrared Cameras Inc.

L3Harris Technologies Inc.

Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd.

Robert Bosch GmbH

Seek Thermal Inc.

Testo SE Co. KGaA

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.

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They first performed together during the eighth season of American Idol in 2009.

And now, after years of sharing stages around the world, Queen & Adam Lambert will be releasing their first-ever live concert album.

'Queen + Adam Live Around the World' will include more than 20 songs and feature clips from more than 200 performances, including the entire recreation of the band's legendary 1985 Live Aid set that helped raised money for those affected by the recent wildfires in Australia.

A taste of live: Queen & Adam Lambert will be releasing their first-ever live concert album

The compilation album of concert highlights was personally selected by original members, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, along with lead vocalist Lambert, who started touring with the band in 2011.

'We hadn't really watched those clips before, we were always too busy touring,' Taylor, 71, said in a statement.

'We weren't aware of how good the band sounded. So we thought, well, maybe there's a live album of highlights of concerts that we've done over the last eight years with Adam Lambert to be made.'

Hands on: The compilation album was personally selected by original members, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, along with lead vocalist Lambert

It turns out the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shuttered most live music and touring around the world since March, was the catalyst to giving the band the time to go through their live concert archives from the past decade.

'When we couldn't tour this year we wanted to give the fans something in place of that, and a Live album just felt right,' Lambert, 38, explained.

'It's the first time we have released an album together and we have had a lot of fun putting it together, picking out favorite performances over the past seven years.'

'As we all grapple with the challenge of creating live shows in a world dominated by a formidable viral enemy, it seemed the perfect time for us to create a collection of hand-picked live highlights from our Queen shows over the last 7 years with our brother Adam Lambert,' May, 73, added.

Fate: After meeting on the set of American Idol in 2009, Queen & Adam Lambert have performed over 200 times since they began touring in 2011

Queen first took the rock world by storm beginning in 1970 with Freddie Mercury on vocals and piano and John Deacon on bass.

With Mercury's iconic vocals and charisma, the band went on to become one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, with sales ranging from 170 million to 200 million records. That was culminated by being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2001.

Mercury died from complications of AIDS in 1991 and Deacon retired from music in 1997.

'Queen + Adam Live Around the World' is slated to drop worldwide on October 2, in CD, CD+DVD, CD+Blu-ray and vinyl formats.

It will feature many of the original band's classic hits including Bohemian Rhapsody, We are The Champions. We Will Rock You, Radio Ga Ga, Hammer To Fall and Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
(ANSA) - ROME, 21 AGO - Italy on Friday hailed a ceasefire announced by both warring sides in Libya, the foreign ministry in Rome said..

In Tripoli, the head of the UN-backed government Fayez Al Sarraj announced an immediate ceasefire.

The speaker of the eastern Libyan parliament, Aquila Saleh, also announced a ceasefire.

Libya has been backed by conflict betwen the Tripli-based government and eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar.

The Italian foreign ministry said Rome would "continue to carry out its active role of facilitation for a political solution to the crisis." It said "Italy urges all parties concerned to give a swift and substantive follow-up to the course mapped out by the communique from the Presidential Council (in Tripoli) and the Chamber of Representatives (in Tobruk)." The ministry voiced the hope that there would be "a concrete application of (the ceasefire) to all the articulations of the Libyan petroleum industry over all the country's territory".

The fighting in the north African country has hampered efforts to slow a migrant flow to Italy.

The ministry added that Italy would continue to back the Berlin Process for peace under the aegis of the UN and with the help of its EU partners. (ANSA).


Homes in eastern Ghouta have been forcibly seized by the regime, who have identified them as belonging to families that fled north reports Sowt Al-Asima.

The Syrian regime has recently acquired many homes in the village of al-Ubadah in eastern Ghouta, Damascus. The homes are owned by families who have been forcibly displaced to northern Syria.

According to The Syria Report, quoting a local source, the decision to choose those specific houses was not random, but as a result of a committee formed by the municipal council in al-Ubadah, who categorized houses according to their owners political affiliation. It was based upon that information that the homes, whose owners were away at the time, were numbered, using two colors of paint.

The regime used the color blue to number the homes whose owners were displaced to northern Syria and Turkey, as well as those who have defected from the army, police, and government jobs. The color red was used to number the homes whose owners sought refuge in Lebanon and Jordan, and those who have not been pursued by regime security.

According to the outcome of the work of the committee, and in compliance with security directives, municipality officials and the Baath Party division in the town sent warnings to the residents of the blue-numbered houses, including relatives of the displaced or renters, and asked them to evacuate.

Some homes were turned into housing for the families of officers, while others were repurposed to serve as military headquarters, vacation villas, and headquarters for official departments.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The DDMA on Friday issued an order, asking hotels to open in the city with various anti-Covid-19 measures, including use of contactless processes like e-wallets, undertaking deep cleaning of washrooms and proper crowd management on its premises.

It also prescribed use of disposable menus, social distancing at buffet, restricted numbers in elevators and use of escalators with a person on alternate steps.

The representatives of the hotel associations in Delhi also met Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and thanked him for opening the hotel industry.

During the meeting, the chief minister said all the stakeholders have to work together to strengthen Delhis economy.

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) in its meeting on Wednesday had given its approval for opening of hotels, restaurants and weekly markets in the city.

The order issued on Friday by DDMA said hotels will be permitted to operate throughout the National Capital Territory of Delhi in all areas, except the containment zones, subject to strict compliance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on June 4, 2020, and other instructions and guidelines of Government of India and Government of NCT of Delhi from time to time.

According to the Union Health ministrys SOP, proper crowd management inside and outside hotel premises like parking lots should be ensured and large gatherings at the hotels should be prohibited.

Besides general precautions like social distancing, use of face cover and hand and respiratory hygiene, it prescribes furnishing details like travel and medical history as well as identity proof by the guests at the reception.

It also states that gaming arcades and play areas for children shall be closed and the hotels must adopt contactless processes like QR code, online forms, digital payments like e-wallets for check-in and check outs.

It also prescribes air conditioning to be maintained in the range of 24-30 degrees Celsius and relative humidity at 40-70 per cent. Valet staff will use face covers and disinfect key, steering and door of vehicles of the guest, it said.

Earlier, during the meeting with representatives of hotel associations, Kejriwal thanked the hotel industry, saying when coronavirus was at its peak, the hotels supported the government in enhancing the capacity of beds for treatment of patients.

Kejriwal said even though the central government was against the opening of the hotel industry in Delhi out of a fear that the cases might rise again, it was a very important step in reviving the economy of Delhi.

The Central government was against the idea of opening the hotel industry in Delhi, and I would not blame them because the Centre must have thought that the cases might rise again.

But I explained to them that the hotels are functioning in areas where the cases of corona are rising in the country. Either the Centre should shut the hotels down across the entire country, or open it in the region where the corona is under control, he said.

The chief minister said there were two challenges -- how to end the spread of the virus and reviving the economy of Delhi because businesses have been shut and jobs have been lost due to the pandemic.

I am happy that since June 1, when the central government had opened the lockdown, and after we went ahead to lift the lockdown in Delhi on their directions, we did not have the need to re-impose the lockdown in the capital, he said.

He said Delhi government planned in detail for this and once the lockdown was lifted on June 1, the government did feel that the situation was getting out of hands during first 15-20 days, but it took support of all and reinstated normalcy and control in Delhi, he added.
Police in Portland, Oregon, declared a riot on the evening of August 19, after a large crowd of people marched to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building, on the 83rd day of anti-racism protests in the city, officials said.

In a statement, the Portland Police Bureau said because the crowd blocked traffic, shined lasers at Federal officers, and vandalized property, the gathering was declared an unlawful assembly. Police said two arrests were made during the protest.

Police fired tear gas and crowd control munitions at groups of protesters, before marching the crowd down the street away from the ICE building.

Videos filmed by independent journalist @gravemorgan shows protesters dragging a burning mattress down Bond Street and chanting quit your job. Credit: @gravemorgan via Storyful
Houston's East End Studio's 15th annual Frida festival will include a popup show and curated exhibit you can attend.

The beloved Frida festival is scheduled to take place Sept. 4- 12, at the Hardy & Nance Studios located at 902 Hardy St., Houston, 77020.

MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE GOES ON: Macy's continuing with Thanksgiving Day Parade plans during COVID-19 pandemic

As the pandemic continues to cancel events and alter plans, it's nice to look forward to events such as this one that is putting the proper protocols in place, allowing for in-person attendance.

The festival, inspired by Frida's legacy, will include a popup show in the studio's gallery and will have a limit of 15 guests come through every 30 minutes, according to the Facebook page.

The festival is also putting out a call out to all artists to submit "original pieces that incorporate Frida's legacy and or inspiration," according to the website. Submissions can be made through the link here.

All visitors are asked to wear masks and practice social distancing while attending.

The event is free to attend and guests can sign up for a time slot via the Eventbrite website here.

STAY INFORMED: Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : With Shashi Tharoor moving a privilege motion against a BJP MP for questioning his power to unilaterally summon Facebook representatives to a Parliamentary Standing Committee, the BJP has realised the Congress' seriousness in the matter. The saffron party is also ready with two plans to block Tharoor's moves, with the first already set in motion.

Lets talk about Plan B. If Plan A doesn't give the desired result, BJP is likely to set the backup plan in motion on September 1, when the Standing Committee on IT reconvenes. Facebook representatives have been summoned the next day, between 4 and 4.30 p.m. "on the subject 'Safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms". Rules allow any member to question the move and seek voting over it.

Among the 21 Lok Sabha members in the committee, the BJP has 12 and an ally member. Among the 10 Rajya Sabha members, one has died, leaving only nine. Out of these nine, the BJP has 3 members and hopes to get the vote of a nominated member.

Strictly, on its own, the BJP has 15 members in the 30 member panel. If it considers ally LJP and a nominated member whose views align with the BJP, the ruling party will have 17 votes. Voting is not unusual, given that the last time the issue of WhatsApp Snooping came up, those who opposed summoning representatives called for a vote. However, the BJP lost that round. But this time, the BJP has started to work on its arithmetic.

However, the goal is not to lean on Plan B. The BJP's Plan A is to get Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to censure Tharoor, who is also the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Information Technology, which has summoned Facebook representatives to the committee on September 2, to explain allegations of favouritism for BJP lawmakers, against it.

Tharoor's colleague in the committee and increasingly the face of the BJP's opposition to Tharoor's move, Nishikant Dubey has set the ball in motion for Plan A, by writing to Birla, where he urged him to invoke Rule 283 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha, to block Tharoor's bid.

The rule says, "The Speaker may from time to time issue such directions to the Chairperson of a committee, as the Speaker considers necessary, for regulating its procedure and the organisation of its work". In simpler words, the Speaker can step in to stop Tharoor if he deems fit.

Speaking to IANS, Dubey said, "The signing authority for summoning anyone to the committee is the Secretary General who in turn reports to the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Speaker does not report to anyone." Stressing on this overarching power of the Speaker, Dubey has cited instances of Tharoor's alleged misconduct that includes him allegedly bypassing the committee members, talking through social media, his reference to the British House of Commons among others to argue that Tharoor be sent on "leave".

Even though many BJP members, without being named, have accepted that removing Tharoor is not going to be an easy task for even the Speaker, given the optics associated with the ongoing case, blocking Tharoor's summon seems to be well within the ambit of the laid down rule.

Did Facebook India favour BJP over others? While that seems to be at the core of the entire political fight, the ruling party has devised multiple strategies to win it.

(Anindya Banerjee can be contacted at anindya.b@ians.in)
Chronic stress increases a blood-based hormone called acyl-ghrelin for years after the initial traumatic stressor exposure in some adolescents, and those with elevated levels of the hormone are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to experience more severe cases of the condition, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published August 20 in JAMA Network Open.

Acyl-ghrelin, a blood-based hormone that is released mostly by the gut during times of energy depletion, was originally termed a "hunger hormone," but the Mount Sinai researchers argue that it is more appropriately classified as a stress hormone and that hunger is a form of stress. Acyl-ghrelin may be a "missing link" by which chronic stress produces lasting changes in the brain that enhance the risk for mental illness, they said.

Specifically, the research team found that the odds of developing PTSD were almost eight times higher in trauma-exposed adolescents with moderately elevated acyl-ghrelin, compared to trauma-exposed adolescents with low levels of the hormone. Those with the highest levels of acyl-ghrelin all developed PTSD, and symptom severity was directly related to acyl-ghrelin levels, both in adolescents who met the criteria for PTSD and those who might be considered to have "sub-threshold" PTSD. Though the researchers' measured cortisol, another hormone often thought to mediate the effects of stress in the brain and body, it was acyl-ghrelin alone, rather than cortisol or the combination of both hormones, that explained most of the variability in PTSD symptom severity, suggesting it as an especially potent biomarker of the disorder.

"Previous work from our lab, using rodent models of PTSD, showed that acyl-ghrelin was increased by chronic stress exposure for months after the exposure, and that this increase was responsible for driving changes in the brain that led to excessively strong fear memories in rodents, similar to those observed in humans with PTSD," said Ki Goosens, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and lead author of the study. "We also previously showed that in adolescent humans, exposure to severe traumatic stressors led to long-term elevation of the hormone, for years after stressor exposure ended. This study extended these previous studies to ask whether the acyl-ghrelin levels observed years after trauma exposure in adolescent humans are related to PTSD risk and severity."

To answer this question, researchers conducted a cross-sectional study on 49 adolescents who had experienced severe trauma and 39 healthy, matched control participants. Children in the trauma group had experienced a terror attack and were injured, or lost a parent, relative or close friend as a result of the attack. Children from the control group had no terror-associated losses or injuries. Acyl-ghrelin and cortisol were measured in blood and saliva samples, respectively, and all participants were administered the PTSD CheckList - Civilian Version, a standardized rating scale for PTSD.

Their observation of an association between acyl-ghrelin and PTSD in adolescents who experienced severe trauma motivates additional research to investigate the mechanisms underlying trauma-induced elevation of the hormone. The researchers suggest that blood banks collecting samples from PTSD patients should use methods that preserve acyl-ghrelin for analysis, as the hormone can be readily measured in small quantities of blood.

"We hope that lowering acyl-ghrelin levels in traumatized humans will reduce the risk and severity of subsequent PTSD. We also believe that stress-induced production of the hormone may also impact other brain circuits that predispose individuals to additional illnesses beyond PTSD," said Dr. Goosens. "In the meantime, measuring levels of the hormone in stress-exposed individuals may identify some of those who are at risk of developing PTSD so that early therapeutic interventions may be initiated to prevent development of the disorder."

###

Researchers from Khyber Medical University in Pakistan contributed to this work.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai is a national and international source of unrivaled education, translational research and discovery, and collaborative clinical leadership ensuring that we deliver the highest quality care--from prevention to treatment of the most serious and complex human diseases. The Health System includes more than 7,200 physicians and features a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including more than 400 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 14 on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of the Top 20 Best Hospitals in the country and the Icahn School of Medicine as one of the Top 20 Best Medical Schools in country. Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are consistently ranked regionally by specialty and our physicians in the top 1% of all physicians nationally by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Meghan Markle has told women if they dont vote they are complicit as she warned we all know whats at stake this year.

Meghan was speaking during a virtual couch party hosted by When We All Vote, a non-partisan organisation which seeks to mobilise more people to vote.

The Duchess of Sussex said that those who were complacent are complicit, as she urged people to vote in the forthcoming US election.

While the event was non-partisan, Meghan previously voiced concerns about Donald Trump before she married Prince Harry.

Royal Family members typically do not vote, and the Queen is politically neutral.

Meghan Markle, here in South Africa in 2019, said women who don't vote are 'complicit'. (Getty Images)

During the couch party, Meghan said: Look, if were looking at whats happening here, and the work that youre doing in the United States with women, it is fair to say that we are all very grateful for that work because we need it now really more than ever.

When I think about voting and why this is so exceptionally important for all of us, I would frame it as, we vote to honour those who came before us and to protect those who will come after us.

Because thats what community is all about and thats specifically what this election is all about.

Were only 75 days away from election day and that is so very close, and yet theres so much work to be done in that amount of time, because we all know whats at stake this year.

I know it, I think all of you certainly know if youre here on this fun event with us, then youre just as mobilised and energised to see the change that we all need and deserve.

Read more: Prince Harry praises the Queen's Commonwealth  weeks after saying it had to 'acknowledge its past'

Story continues

She continued: As we look at things today, though it had taken decades longer for women of colour to get the right to vote, even today we are watching so many women in different communities, who are marginalised, still struggling to see that right come to fruition, and that is  its just simply not okay.

And we look at the attempts of voter suppression and what thats doing, all the more reason we need each of you to be out there supporting each other to understand that this fight is worth fighting and we all have to be out there mobilising to have our voices heard.

I think we are obviously faced with a lot of problems in our world right now, both in the physical world and in the digital world, but we can and must do everything we can to ensure all women have their voices heard.

Because at this juncture, if we arent part of the solution, we are part of the problem. If you arent going out there and voting, then youre complicit. If you are complacent, youre complicit.

She also told the audience of the online event that voting is being part of a legacy.

Meghan, in New Zealand in 2018, has spoken more openly about politics since leaving her senior role. (Getty Images)

She said: We can make a difference in this election and we will make the difference in this election.

Speaking about ensuring people are registered to vote, she said: I think its an exciting day, because it is the countdown to the change that we would all like to see for the better for our country.

I appreciate the work youre doing, I thank you so much, you know, in the fraught moment right now that we find our nation, exercising your right to vote isnt simply being part of the solution, its being part of a legacy.

So thank you for being part of that legacy with us, take good care of yourselves and of each other, and I cant wait to see what we can all accomplish together.

Meghan, 39, has spoken in recent weeks about not being able to use her voice recently, writing in Marie Claire that she knew what its like to feel voiceless.

Read more: 'The Crown' season 4 trailer teases the arrival of Lady Diana

Meghan and Harry spoke to the QCT earlier in the week, covering issues of using digital for good. (QCT)

In a virtual summit for news agency The 19th, she said: My husband, for example. Hes never been able to vote, and I think its such an interesting thing to say that the right to vote is not a privilege, its a right in and of itself.

Speaking about the changes in the US, she said she could use my voice in a way that I havent been able to of late.

Meghans appearance with When We All Vote, which was founded by former First Lady Michelle Obama, comes shortly after she and Harry spoke to the Queens Commonwealth Trust (QCT), about using digital for good.

Despite stepping back as senior royal family members in March, they retain their positions as president and vice president of the QCT.

Over a video call, they spoke to young people from Zambia, Australia and the UK about how they are trying to use digital platforms for good ends, something likely to feature as a project in Archewell, the duke and duchesss forthcoming non-profit.

The couple have moved into their new family home, which they are believed to have a mortgage on, and are making more appearances in support of causes they care about.

They are also reported to be pitching a commercial media project as joint producers to Hollywood studios.
"In this particular letter from the office of the director of national prosecutions, dated the 2nd of June, [Batohi] indicated that the NPA has already taken an independent decision to institute prosecution in the matter and done what is necessary for the extradition of the accused," said the head of AfriForum's private prosecutions unit, Gerrie Nel.
Yet Mr. Bidens case is as much about how he wants to govern as what he wants to accomplish. Democrats on Thursday night noted that Mr. Biden was the person to whom lawmakers turned during the Obama administration to round up votes to pass the 2009 economic rescue package. Before he was vice president, he was famous on Capitol Hill for forging relationships with lawmakers from far left to far right. A lifetime of building goodwill helped persuade Republicans such as former Ohio governor John Kasich and Cindy McCain to speak at a Democratic convention. Though many of the Republicans who appeared this year spoke because President Trump is such a threat, they could offer not only warnings about the nations current course but also heartfelt affirmations of Mr. Bidens decency.
WEST SPRINGFIELD  For the past few months, loyal customers of the iconic White Hut have lined up outside the closed Memorial Avenue burger joint to devour the beloved cheeseburgers with signature fried onions from a food truck version of the restaurant.

On Friday, new owners Andy Yee and Peter Picknelly celebrated the re-opening of the 81-year-old White Hut.

We are very fortunate to have great restaurants in Western Massachusetts, but few restaurants have the emotional connection to families who have come here for generations to get cheeseburgers and fried onions and Andy and I are so pleased to be a part of it, Picknelly said.

The restaurant at 280 Memorial Avenue has been a fixture in the Western Massachusetts dining scene for eight decades. Its burgers have been called among the best burgers in the country by media outlets ranging from Thrillist to the Wall Street Journal.

The restaurant closed abruptly in February, but in May, Yee, Picknelly and investors Michael K. Vann and Kevin B. Vann finalized the purchase of the business from Edward J. Barkett. His grandfather founded the White Hut in 1939.

West Springfield Mayor William Reichelt said he remembers the calls in February as soon as people started noticing the closure sign.

I was out to dinner on a Friday night and the news was calling, councilors was calling, everyone was calling me asking me how I could let the White Hut close, he said. Contrary to popular belief I dont control the businesses here in town, but I was just as shocked as everyone else was.

Reichelt said the next morning he got a call from Yee and Picknelly letting him know they were going to buy the restaurant.

The White Hut is iconic. In the next couple of years we are going to be redoing the entire section of Memorial Avenue from the bridge in Agawam to the rotary in Springfield... We are at the crossroads of everything here in West Springfield and this (White Hut) really sits at that point, he said.

While the building underwent many renovations the original charm of the art deco style restaurant remains in tact. Yee and Picknelly obtained the family recipes, maintained relationships with longtime vendors, and hired the previous staff, including manager Artie White.

Artie has been here for 43 years, he is the head chef and we have some of the same staff that have been working here for generation, Picknelly said. While we have polished up the restaurant and modernized the inside and the outside and put a new kitchen in, what we did not do was mess with recipes or mess with the food. Its the exact same hamburgers and hot dogs that have been on the grill for 81 years.

The bright renovated interior boasts more seating space than before. In addition, there are outdoor tables under a large canopy.

While the White Hut menu remains unchanged, the frequent chaos and shouting out of orders for burgers and dogs is gone. Orders are now keyed in on a tablet at the register and displayed for the grill staff to fill.

Grand re-opening of White Hut in West Springfield Posted by MassLive on Friday, August 21, 2020

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Austin Abrams and Lili Reinhart: Why must they be teenagers in love? Credit - Amazon Studios

In troubling times, it sometimes helps to look back on even more troubling times. As a character in the romantic melodrama Chemical Hearts puts it, the teenage years are an unavoidable limbo between childhood and adulthood: Adults are just scarred kids who were lucky to make it out of limbo alive.

Chemical Hearts, directed by Richard Tanne and adapted from Krystal Sutherlands young adult novel, invites you to relive the trauma of teen romance, and dont be surprised if you get sucked right in. Aspiring writer Henry Page (played by the raffishly appealing Austin Abrams) is just starting his senior year of high school and waiting for his life to begin. Enter Grace Town (Lili Reinhart, of Riverdale), a bristly, brainy transfer student who walks with the aid of a cane. They meet as Henry looks over her shoulder, reading the line from a Pablo Neruda poem shes highlighted. This highly annoying maneuver pays off: The two segue into a tentative romance, though Grace harbors a painful secret that threatens their future.

Lili Reinhart as Grace Town and Austin Abrams as Henry Page in 'Chemical Hearts.' Courtesy of Amazon StudiosCourtesy of Amazon Studios

Painful secrets, its true, are a dime a dozen. But that doesnt keep Chemical Hearts, which debuts on Amazon Prime Aug. 21, from being almost embarrassingly enjoyable. Tannewho previously made the charming romance Southside with You, based on the early courtship of Barack and Michelle Obamaapproaches the material without condescending to it, even as he acknowledges that teenage love always feels much larger than life. Part of the movies appeal is that it dwells in the realm of the imperfect: so many teen romances depend on a happy ending. But what does a happy ending mean, really, when youre 17 or 18? For most of us, that ageand the smudge of time before and afterconstitutes a permanent state of impermanence. Grace and Henry are both cerebral, thoughtful kids, which, in teenage terms, means theyre perfect for one anotherfor now. Yet the evanescence of their time together doesnt make it any less meaningful, to them or to us.

Chemical Hearts never pretends that getting through teenagerhood is easy or fun. But if Grace and Henry can survive the perils of first love, theres got to be hope for the rest of us. Reliving all that anxiety makes adulthood in the modern age look betterat least a little.
Words almost never come first to author-illustrator LeUyen Pham, but as she walked her Los Angeles neighborhood with her husband and kids during the first weeks of the coronavirus outbreak, the Caldecott Honoree started envisioning the text for a story. Five months later, the result is Outside, Inside, a picture book inspired by the swirling mixture of grief and peace that Pham experienced during the initial months of the outbreak, but with a message intended to last for years beyond the pandemic.

It is a story about the innate kindness of individuals and the promise that it can signal for the future, Pham told PW. It is also a story that came about because of a close, trusting partnership between Pham and Connie Hsu, executive editor at Roaring Brook Press. That partnership is rooted in a friendship that began long before this book. Hsu was starting out as an editor when she met Pham, who illustrated Jabari Asims Boy of Mine and Girl of Mine. Since then, they have collaborated on other projects. So when people began to quarantine and Pham started taking notes on her daily walks, the ideas she was putting on paper brought her back to Hsu.

I would jot down things I saw, Pham said. I was developing two lists; things that were going on inside and things that were going on outside. At some point I thought, I wonder if theres a story in this. What would the message be? 

She told her agent that she thought the idea could become a book, but that it would only succeed if she could work with Hsu. When they connected, Pham asked if Hsu thought the premise of writing about what people were experiencing publicly and privately during the outbreak could lead to a book with a lasting message. It sounds like it could really be something, Hsu replied, but she added a note of caution. It has to be just right.

I had seen a handful of projects about the coronavirus, but none of them captured the whole experience because they talked about being inside, and thats only part of it, Hsu said. The experience wasnt the same for everyone. Being able to have this moment to be with your family to connect is a privilege. A lot of the projects I had seen didnt show that, and the stories werent being told in a way thats accessible and truthful and hopeful.

Hsu told Pham that if anyone could do it, it was her. But from that moment on, the project also became a collaboration between the two, with a back-and-forth dialogue that encouraged Pham to persevere when working on the book was emotionally challenging.

Pham scoured articles and reports for real-life stories of the experiences of hundreds of others, not only reflecting them in the text but also drawing them in the illustrations. There are the nurses bringing an 88-year-old woman her last birthday cake, a husband with a sign at the window of a hospital thanking workers for saving his wife, and the mother of Phams friend who died from the virus. Those who died are hued in blue at the end of the book, but the story is as much about the living, representing the world many have started to create out of a sense of kindness toward one another.

Scenes depict the way that nature began to return when people stopped driving so much, the way families came together inside their homes, and how they joined with neighbors to do good outside in their communities. In small groupings of text, the words form a poetic landscape that can be read multi-directionally across the page spreads. Guiding the reader through the story is a cat, navigating all of the spaces that people have traveled, and leading readers into renewal in the form of a spring season that represents an emergence into kindness that was first cultivated during the outbreak.

Through it all, Pham has kept Hsus words in mind, committing herself to creating a book that, while written in a moment of upheaval, can stand the test of time. It has to last both this period and past this moment, Pham said. It has to capture something that keeps or stays and warrants being published 10 years from now. What needed to come across is that sense that we are fairly powerful in what we can accomplish and achieve through goodness.

Since Pham wants the entire project to reflect the good that she has seen around her, she is establishing a fund to support food banks and is donating a portion of her advance to support it.

For Hsu, the book meets the high standard she set for it. Looking back, she said it is hard to believe that the entire process of creating the book occurred in a matter of weeks. With such a fast turnaround, the book is slated to hit shelves on January 5, 2021, just as a new year begins.

And while the process of creating the book was emotionally difficult, Pham said, This is one of the first times I did a book where everything fell into place so easily. She credits Hsu for helping make that possible by embracing the inside/outside message at the center of the story. It took me into a space where it felt like everyone was working together, Pham said. It immediately felt like, were both going to attempt to realize something for a whole group of people.
The lawsuit filed last year by Common Cause Indiana only claims that the problem affected a small percentage of mailed-in ballots in the 2018 election, but the ruling comes as Indiana election officials are expecting a big jump in voting by mail this fall because of the coronavirus threat.
The on Friday



refused to grant any interim stay on transfer of funds from the trust here to the government for fight against COVID-19 and also for a subsidised food scheme for the poor in the state.

The court, however, made it clear that if any irregularities related to the funds were found later, it would direct the government to refund the amount.

An advocate, Leela Ranga, had filed a petition in the HC challenging three Government Resolutions (GRs) dated March 19, June 25 and July 25, 2020, that accorded sanction to the temple trust committee to donate Rs 5 crore each for the state's 'Shiv Bhojan' food scheme and to the Chief Ministers Relief Fund to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rangas counsel Pradeep Sancheti argued that the resolutions were "illegal and impermissible" under provisions of the Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Temple Trust (Prabhadevi) Act, 1980.

The trust manages the famous at Prabhadevi here.

Sancheti sought the court to grant an interim stay on any transfer of money from the temple funds to the government.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Revati Mohite Dere, however, said that it was not inclined to grant any stay at this stage.

The bench directed the government and the Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Temple Trust Management Committee to file affidavits in response to the plea.

Prima facie, we are satisfied that the petitioner has made out a case. However, we are not inclined to grant any interim relief at this stage.

"But any action taken (by way of transfer of funds) shall be subject to the final orders of the court, the bench maintained.

If at the time of final hearing of the petition, we come to the conclusion that there have been irregularities (related to the funds), we will set the clock back and ask the government to refund the amount, Chief Justice Datta said.

The bench posted the plea for further hearing in the first week of October.

(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.)
Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden gives a thank you speech with supporters during the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention on Aug. 18, 2020. (Handout/DNCC via Getty Images)

Chinese State Media Would Prefer Biden Presidency, Says He Would Be Smoother to Deal With Than Trump

Chinese state media has voiced its support for a Joe Biden presidency, saying the former U.S. vice president would be smoother for the regime to deal with than President Donald Trump.

Hawkish state-run outlet Global Times ran a piece on Aug. 19, citing Chinese analysts, who said that if Biden won the election, the United States is likely to remain tough on China.

But tactically, the U.S. approach would be more predictable, and Biden is much smoother to deal with than Trumpa viewpoint that is shared by many countries, it said.

The article was published in the midst of the Democratic National Convention, where Biden formally accepted his nomination to be the partys presidential candidate. Both Biden and Trump run on the platform of being tough on the Chinese regime.

In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination on Aug. 20, Biden only mentioned China once, when he pledged to end the United States reliance on the country for medical supplies if hes elected, and instead focused on Trumps alleged failings in handling the pandemic and smoothing the divisions in the country.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (L) speaks to reporters in Wilmington, Del., on Aug. 13, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images); President Donald Trump (R) before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on June 27, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that Biden is definitely smoother to deal with, which is the consensus around the world.

For China, because Biden was vice president during Obamas term, and had a lot of prior experience dealing with Chinese leaders, we would expect to facilitate more effective communication with Biden if he wins, Li added.

The Biden campaign didnt immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Aug. 19 criticized the Democrats for not mentioning during their convention the Chinese regimes role in causing the pandemic.

Were halfway through this convention, and there is just not a word of how the Chinese Communist Party has basically infected this country with a deadly virus, killed over 160,000 Americans, wreaked all manner of havoc on 40 million unemployed Americans, cost us trillions of dollars already in terms of fiscal and monetary stimulus, Navarro told reporters.

What I think is happening here is the Democratic Party and the Chinese Communist Party have entered into a common cause to defeat Donald J. Trump, and their whole strategy is based on blaming this administration for a global pandemic created by the Chinese Communist Party.

A U.S. intelligence agency said earlier this month that the regime would prefer Biden to win the election.

We assess that China prefers that President Trumpwhom Beijing sees as unpredictabledoes not win reelection, William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in a statement on Aug. 7.

Evanina said the Trump administrations increasingly hard-line stance against Beijing, including its recent forced closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, has led to an increase in criticism against the administration.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and national security adviser Robert OBrien have also said the regime would prefer to see Trump lose.

The Trump administration in recent months has accelerated actions countering a range of threats posed by the regime, including its rights abuses in Hong Kong and the region of Xinjiang, security risks posed by Chinese apps and technology, and its military aggression in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, Chinese state media has ratcheted up its anti-U.S. rhetoric amid the deteriorating relations. State media has recently promoted the idea of war, while central authorities directed television stations to run war movies to foment nationalist sentiment.
KEARNEY  Activities kicking off the new school year at the University of Nebraska at Kearney arent being affected following a bomb threat this morning.

Around 10 a.m. the UNK main switchboard received a phone call from a digitized voice indicating suspicious packages were being delivered to campus. Todd Gottula, a UNK spokesperson, said the caller didnt identify specific locations.

UNKs threat was one of several made to college campuses across the country, including institutions in the Big Ten Conference and Penn State University.

UNK administrators worked with UNK Police, Kearney Police Department, Nebraska State Patrol and FBI, and based on similar situations across the country, determined the threat was not credible. UNK Police and KPD did a sweep of the Kearney campus and ensured it was safe.

We take all threats seriously, and followed the protocols in place, Gottula said.
They're on a family vacation in Greece with their two daughters Ella, five, Mia, two, and Dan's son Teddy, seven.

And, Jacqueline Jossa, 27, strolled around in a peach coloured bikini as she praised husband Dan Osborne's, 29, BBQ skills, on Thursday.

'He's done good!' exclaimed the I'm A Celeb star, while walking around the gorgeous villa complex which they're holidaying in, and showed off her curves in the process.

Proud wife: Jacqueline Jossa, 27, strolled around in a peach coloured bikini as she praised husband Dan Osborne's, 29, BBQ skills, on Thursday

The proud wife took to her Instagram Stories to boast of her husband's cooking skills after he had prepared a lavish BBQ feast for the whole family.

He'd specially cooked two salmon fillets for Jacqueline, who told her followers she'd be having them with salad and rice.

The make-up free star spoke directly to the camera, capturing her pink swimwear in shot before capturing Celebrity Big Brother star Dan in the background.

She announced: 'Dan is in charge of the BBQ, he's done good you know. I'm not going to lie, he's done good!'

Looking good: 'He's done good!' exclaimed the I'm A Celeb star, while walking around the gorgeous villa complex which they're holidaying in, and showed off her curves in the process

Loving life: The proud wife took to her Instagram Stories to boast of her husband's cooking skills after he had prepared a lavish BBQ feast for the whole family

'Alright I'll show you the food, he is very proud of it,' chuckled the actress, adding later: 'It is a bit burnt but I think BBQ food is meant to be burnt.'

Jacqueline then tilted the camera down she show off her peach coloured bikini, telling fans that it's from online retailer In The Style.

The ex-EastEnders star is an ambassador for the brand and confessed her entire suitcase was packed with items from the fast-fashion company.

A feast! 'Alright I'll show you the food, he is very proud of it,' chuckled the actress, adding later: 'It is a bit burnt but I think BBQ food is meant to be burnt'

The make-up free star spoke directly to the camera, capturing her pink swimwear in shot

On Thursday, Jacqueline took to Instagram to share a loved-up snap of herself with her former TOWIE star husband.

The soap actress showed off her bronzed tan as she went make-up free for the selfie and looked ready for bed as she relaxed in her spotty pyjamas, and captioned the shot: 'Cosy holiday nights'.

The couple have looked happier than ever recently after defending their marriage in recent weeks.

Earlier this month Jacqueline took to Instagram to make another public statement about her marriage to Dan.

Wow! They're on a family vacation in Greece with their two daughters Ella, five, Mia, two, and Dan's son Teddy, seven

Sharing a loved-up snap of them laughing together, the star captioned the image with the words: 'No one needs to understand but us.'

The couple have had their share of ups and downs with allegations of cheating on Dan's part since they married in 2017.

Dan later admitted he had in fact been unfaithful to Jacqueline and that she had forgiven him for his past indiscretions.

The reality star also let rip on social media about his marriage in a foul-mouthed rant after a fan questioned why Jacqueline stays with him.

Loved-up: Jacq and Dan looked the picture of marital bliss as they relaxed in Greece on Thursday after putting their children to bed

He wrote: 'Because we love each other, have a beautiful family, I'm a good husband, good dad to our kids, we get on well, laugh together, super attracted to each other

'Any more reasons you need? You didn't know none of that, eh? That's because you do not f***ing know me, or my wife, or us as a couple lol.

'So concentrate on your own life and you (sic) clearly never been taught to not be rude, especially to people you don't even know. Hope you've learnt something from this.'

The response stemmed from a post Jacqueline shared the previous day of herself and husband Dan, urging him to 'hurry home please' amid his Turkey trip.
Flareups are seen from the Christie Mountain wildfire along Skaha Lake in Penticton, B.C., on Aug. 20, 2020.(The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward)

Penticton Still on Evacuation Alert as Wildfire Rages

An aggressive wildfire continues to blaze near Penticton, and thousands of residents remain ready to evacuate at any time.

The wildfire is burning near Skaha Lake on Christie Mountain, about 12 kilometres southeast of the city of Penticton in British Columbias southern Okanagan.

An evacuation alert has been issued for nearly 3,700 properties on the southeast side of Penticton. On Thursday evening, the alert level was set to urgent as the blaze had grown to over 2,000 hectares

The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen has already ordered residents of more than 300 homes to leave the Heritage Hills area.

The BC Wildfire Service reported on Twitter that it will be increasing the number of Structural Protection Strike Teams. They also reported the fire as burning in difficult rocky sloped terrain with limited access points for ground crews and heavy equipment.

The fire is also being attacked from the air, but low visibility from the smoke limited the use of water bombers.

If a trigger point near Skaha Bluff is overtaken by the fire, the emergency evacuation order will be issued, giving residents about four hours to evacuate, according to a post on the City of Pentictons Facebook page.

The winds were reported as having been in favour of the residents during the day on Friday. However, residents under the evacuation alert should have a bag packed and reserve accommodations in case the fire reaches the trigger point for the evacuation order, the post said.
While COVID-19 has forced cancellation of nightly fireworks displays this summer, a Niagara Falls man thinks its time Niagara Parks Commission rethinks the practice altogether.

Brad Pine has created a petition on change.org calling on the commission to stop the displays, which he feels are bad for the environment.

The NPC is supposed to be about caring for, for protecting and preserving the parks, Pine said. The use of fireworks is definitely detrimental to the environment.

He doesnt view the desire for a change as negative; rather, its a chance for the parks commission to modernize.

I am pleading for positive change to how Niagara does things like this. I am hoping that the NPC sees the benefit of making a positive change, such as switching to a laser light show.

But David Adames, NPC chief executive officer, said the issue is more complex and would involve other parties before a switch could be made.

For a possible laser show, the initiative would need to go to the Niagara Falls Illumination Board for consideration, he said, adding NPC is one of six member organizations on the board that represents interests from both sides of the Niagara River.

Back in 2016, he said, it upgraded the nightly illumination of the falls using LED lights, for both sides of the border.

Pine said he was driven to circulate the petition because he grew tired of the noise the displays create.

As a resident its disturbing, and sounds like a war zone, he said. After some research, I realized other residents also dislike the noise pollution, and that the harm the fireworks cause to the environment was the tipping point to take action.

Pine said he has no plans to take the petition to the NPC itself, but said if anyone else wanted to bring it up, please do.

He said as an arms-length organization created by the province, the parks commission should be able to solve the issue.

I am concerned about the amount of environmental pollution and endangering wildlife, etc. these fireworks cause, so I may file a complaint with Natural Resources Canada, Pine said.

Adames said he appreciates environmental concerns brought forward by residents such as Pine.

When we procure the fireworks vendor, we ensure that bidders can meet the highest environment standards, he said, adding NPCs current fireworks vendor Whysall International Fireworks Inc., is a leading supplier in Canada.

RELATED STORIES Niagara Region Quieter fireworks over falls in 2019

Niagara Parks staff work closely with our fireworks supplier to review research completed on fireworks and ensure our standards are beyond the scope of minimum standards set for fireworks in Canada, Adames said.

For instance, while plastic shells are permissible as a shell encasement, Niagara Parks does not permit the use of plastic shells. Our fireworks are all encased using recycled paper which completely disintegrates upon explosion.

Further, Adames said, all wire and packaging is recycled and Whysall follows the Department of Natural Resources Guidelines for Consumer and Display Fireworks, which outlines which chemicals are not permitted for use.

Pines petition can be found at https://bit.ly/31euOUz.
Historically, there are many winemaking practices that may or may not exactly be backed-up scientifically. Todays article examines one of those practices/theories: that small grapes produce better red wines. The thought process behind this idea is that smaller grapes may have a higher skin-to-flesh ratio, and thus more of the compounds commonly found in grape skins may be extracted and thus lead to higher quality wines. According to the authors of a study published early this year, this theory doesnt take into consideration variations in skin thicknesses or seed composition/size.

The study presented today, published in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Science of Food and Agriculture, aimed to take a scientific look at this tradition of selecting for smaller berries under the assumption that those berries would produce higher quality wines.

For the full citation of this article, see below. Alternatively, there was an online summary of this article by one of the researchers at the Science & Wine (Ciencia & Vinho) website, which I encourage you to read for more technical details regarding the project and the results (instead of the brief summary I will provide here). That article may be found here.

Brief Methods

Grapes used in this study were own-rooted Vitis vinifera Carmenere from William Fevre vineyards in Maipo Valley, Chile from the 2015 vintage.

Grapes were sampled/harvested from two different plots (named 94N and 99S) that underwent the same viticulture practices that were managed by the same grower.

Grapes were manually harvested from 30 vines in 3 consecutive rows, which were then split up: some for berry analysis, while the rest underwent alcoholic fermentation, 15 days of maceration, stabilized, bottled, then stored for 3 months before further analysis was performed.

The following characteristics were measured/analyzed:

Grape skin thickness

Soluble polysaccharides

Phenolic index of wine

Total anthocyanins

Proanthocyanidins

Flavanols

Volatile compounds

Selected Results

The two vineyard plots experienced similar weather and physiological conditions during the growing season.

Grapes on vines from both sites showed similar vigor, yield, and ripening.

Grape berry size was different between sites at harvest.

Grapes from both sites showed the same technological and phenolic maturity.

Grapes were smaller at site 94N than the site 99S.

Average number of seeds per grape were very similar between sites. Site 94N had more grapes containing two seeds than grapes at the 99S site.

Mass and volume of seeds were statistically similar between site 94N and 99S This indicates seed size does not dictate berry size, since mass and volume of seeds were more or less the same yet the berry size was different between sites.

The proportion of seeds was 2x higher in 94N grapes compared to 99S grapes (despite the grapes being smaller in size).

Grape skins were thicker in berries at the 99S site compared to the 94N grapes.

Relative proportion of skins and skin-to-flesh ratios were greater for grapes at the 99S site compared to the 94N grapes.

Despite showing differences in phenolic evolution during the fermentation process, after maceration the wines from both contained statistically similar concentrations of total phenols.

After stabilization, the wines from 99S grapes had statistically higher total phenols than wine from the 94N grapes.

Anthocyanins were statistically higher in 99S wines from day 4 of maceration until the end, compared to 94N wines.

Aldehyde content was statistically similar between wines from the two sites.

Volatile alcohol levels were higher in wines made from 99S grapes compared to the 94N site.

2-phenylethanol (produced by the yeast and known for a rose-like aroma) was about 25% greater in concentration in the wines made from 94N grapes compared with wines from the 99S grapes. 99S wines had more alcohols from grapes and less alcohol produced by yeasts compared to 94N wines.

Total esters were statistically similar between wines made from grapes at both sites.

Acetate esters were higher in 99S wines than 94N wines (mostly isoamyl acetate).

Linalool and -terpineol (terpenes) were statistically higher in 99S wines compared to 94N wines.

99S wines had a darker color than 94N wines.

Monomeric flavanol levels were higher in 94N wines than 99S wines.

Dimeric flavanol levels were statistically similar between the wines from the two sites.

Higher mean degree of polymerization levels for polymeric flavanols were found in 94N wines compared with 99S wines.

Total extracted polysaccharides were statistically similar between grape skins at both sites.

99S wines had statistically higher amounts of soluble polysaccharides compared with 94N wines.

Conclusions



In summary, total aldehydes, alcohols, esters, and norisoprenoids were statistically similar between finished wines at both vineyard sites. On the other hand, total acids, total terpenes, and acetate esters were statistically higher in 99S wines (bigger grapes, thicker skin) compared to 94N wines (smaller grapes).

Results also showed that greater anthocyanin extraction may be related to the proportion of skin (skin-to-flesh ratio) rather than the size of the berries themselves (surface-to-volume ratio). Similarly, skin color appeared to be related to skin thickness rather than the size of the berry itself.

According to the authors of this study, grape berry size should not be used as a quality parameter for grapes if they are coming from different vineyard sites. In other words, just because grapes are smaller doesnt mean that they are going to produce higher quality wines. As the results of this study show, many of the differences in chemical analyses were due to factors governed by skin thickness, which in this case happened to belong to the larger 99S grapes.

Can you have smaller grapes that produce higher quality wines? Of course you can, if those wines you are comparing them to have a smaller skin-to-flesh ratio. Skin thickness appears to play an important role in finished wine quality, and not necessarily the size of the grape itself.

For further reading.

Source:

Cortiella, M.G., Ubeda, C., del Barrio-Galan, R., and Pena-Neira, A. 2020. Impact of berry size at harvest on red wine composition: a winemakers approach. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 100(2): 836-845.

Detailed post related to this and another paper: Does Berry Size Matter? (last accessed 08/19/2020)
SAGINAW, MI  A 20-year-old Saginaw man is heading to a Michigan Department of Corrections boot camp for his role in covering up the accidental shooting of teen.

Saginaw County Circuit Judge Andre R. Borrello on Thursday, Aug. 20, sentenced Elijah D. Norris Jr. to two years of probation, during which he is to complete Special Alternative Incarceration boot camp with the MDOC. The boot camp is a 90-day program that focuses on changing negative behavior into socially acceptable behavior, according to the MDOCs website.
Attorney General William Barr said he would be 'vehemently opposed' to any attempt to pardon former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, after the president suggested he might consider it.

The attorney general's comments in an interview with The Associated Press come days after President Donald Trump said he would 'look at' whether to pardon Snowden, who was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013 with disclosing details of highly classified government surveillance programs.

'There are many, many people - it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things,' Trump said of Snowden at a news conference on Saturday. 'And Im going to take a very good look at it.'

The Justice Department's criminal complaint against him was dated just days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the person who had leaked to the news media that the NSA, in classified surveillance programs, gathered telephone and Internet records to ferret out potential terror plots.

No way: 'He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people,' AG Bill Barr said of Snowden

Live from Russia: The former intelligence worker lives in exile in Moscow and is campaigning aggressively for a pardon which he sees as the only way to return to the U.S. without going straight to prison

'He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people,' Barr said. 'He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We cant tolerate that.'

Snowden remains in Russia to avoid prosecution even as the federal charges against him are pending.

It was unclear how serious Trump was, particularly given that years earlier he had denounced Snowden as a spy deserving of execution.

But Trump's distrust of his own intelligence community has been a staple of his tenure, particularly because of its conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf, and he has at times bemoaned the broad surveillance powers that the intelligence agencies have at their disposal.

Any effort to pardon Snowden would unquestionably infuriate senior intelligence officials, who say his disclosures caused extraordinary damage and will have repercussions for years to come.

In a memoir published last year, Snowden wrote that his seven years working for the NSA and CIA led him to conclude that the U.S. intelligence community had 'hacked the Constitution' and put everyone's liberty at risk and that he had no choice but to turn to journalists to reveal it to the world.

There are many, many people - it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things,' Trump said of Snowden at a news conference on Saturday. 'And Im going to take a very good look at it.'

'I realized that I was crazy to have imagined that the Supreme Court, or Congress, or President Obama, seeking to distance his administration from President George W. Bush's, would ever hold the IC legally responsible - for anything,' he wrote, using an abbreviation for the intelligence community.

In 2013, Snowden shared thousands of classified documents with journalists, prompting the US government to charge him with two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property.

The Hawaiian-based whistleblower worked for the CIA and NSA for several years and says he concluded that both agencies had 'hacked the constitution' with extensive government surveillance, putting everyone's liberty at risk and forcing his hand to leak the information to the media.

Snowden's decision to go public with the information set off a global debate about government surveillance, put in place by intelligence agencies in a perceived bid to avoid a similar attack to 9/11 from happening ever again.

He has been living in exile in Russia since he leaked the documents.

However, last year, Snowden said his 'ultimate goal' was actually to return home to the US.

Though he said any such return would be dependent on the US government offering him a fair trial, something he says officials have 'refused to guarantee'.

'But if I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom line demand that we have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial.'

Snowden said a fair trial won't be possible as the government won't allow him to take a public interest defense.

'I'm not asking for a parade. I'm not asking for a pardon. I'm not asking for a pass. What I'm asking for is a fair trial,' he said.

Critics have repeatedly reminded him that by leaking the classified documents he broke both federal law and the oath he took when he joined the NSA.

Last year, he published an autobiography, titled Permanent Record.

The day after its publication, the US Department of Justice filed a two-count civil lawsuit against Snowden 'alleging he had breached nondisclosure agreements signed with the U.S. federal government'.
While there is broad support in the United States for pro-vaccination policies, as many as 20% of Americans hold negative views about vaccination. Such misinformed vaccine beliefs are by far the strongest driver of opposition to pro-vaccination public policies - more than political partisanship, education, religiosity or other sociodemographic factors, according to new research from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania.

The findings, published online in the American Journal of Public Health, show how misperceptions about vaccination have the potential to shape public policy. The study is based on an APPC multi-wave panel survey of 1,938 U.S. adult respondents conducted in 2019, during the United States' largest measles outbreak in a quarter-century.

The researchers found that belief in a group of negative misperceptions about vaccination:

reduced the probability of strongly supporting mandatory childhood vaccines by 70%,

reduced the probability of strongly opposing religious exemptions by 66%, and

reduced the probability of strongly opposing personal belief exemptions by 79%.

"There are real implications here for a vaccine for COVID-19," said lead author and former APPC postdoctoral fellow Dominik Stecula, an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University. "The negative vaccine beliefs we examined aren't limited only to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, but are general attitudes about vaccination. There needs to be an education campaign by public health professionals and journalists, among others, to preemptively correct misinformation and prepare the public for acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine."

Stecula was on a team of APPC researchers that included former APPC postdoctoral fellow Ozan Kuru; Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who is an APPC distinguished research fellow; and APPC Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

Broad support for vaccination

Overall, the researchers found strong support for pro-vaccination policies in the United States:

72% of U.S. adults strongly or somewhat supported mandatory childhood vaccination,

60% strongly or somewhat opposed religious exemptions for vaccines, and

66% strongly or somewhat opposed personal belief exemptions in their states.

"On the one hand, these are big majorities: Well above 50% of Americans support mandatory childhood vaccinations and oppose religious and personal belief exemptions to vaccination," said Kuru, an assistant professor of communications and new media at the National University of Singapore. "Still, we need a stronger consensus in the public to bolster pro-vaccine attitudes and legislation and thus achieve community immunity."

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, the portion of the population that needs to be exposed to the disease or inoculated to achieve community immunity is not yet known.

Research on vaccine beliefs

The researchers drew from a probability-based, nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, specifically from two waves conducted in February-March and September-October 2019. They measured negative beliefs in vaccination by asking respondents about four common claims by those who view vaccination skeptically, including the beliefs that: vaccines cause autism; vaccines are full of toxins; delaying vaccination and altering the vaccine schedule is not harmful; and developing natural immunity by catching the disease is superior to getting vaccinated.

The analysis controlled for a variety of theoretically relevant variables that could shape views about vaccination, including gender, education, income, and age, as well as self-described religiosity, partisanship, the presence of children in the household, and recent exposure to news about measles and the MMR in traditional (print and broadcast) and social media.

An earlier study from the Annenberg Public Policy Center, also using survey data collected during the 2018-19 measles outbreak, found that people who rely on social media were more likely to be misinformed about vaccines. Another APPC study found that people who used conservative or social media at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic were more likely to be misinformed about how to prevent the virus and believe conspiracy theories about it.

###

"Policy Views and Negative Beliefs About Vaccines in the United States, 2019" was published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Public Health.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about communication's role in advancing public understanding of political, health, and science issues at the local, state and federal levels. Follow APPC on Twitter and Facebook.
Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

The thousands of San Antonians who have recovered from COVID-19 are being called on to help their fellow residents by donating plasma.

According to Mayor Ron Nirenberg, an estimated 33,000 people have recovered from the virus in San Antonio, but less than 1,000 have donated plasma.
By Lesli A. Maxwell and Denisa R. Superville

The physical and emotional strain of the coronavirus pandemic is taking a steep toll on Americas principals, with a large share saying they are speeding up plans to retire or otherwise leave the profession.

Forty-five percent of principals said that pandemic conditions are prompting them to leave the job sooner than they had previously planned, according to a new survey from the National Association of Secondary School Principals. A slightly larger share46 percentsaid the pandemic has not changed their plans to stay in or leave the profession.

The prospect of a sudden and widespread turnover in school leadership would deal a tough blow to an education system already in upheaval because of the pandemic. It would also exacerbate an already high level of churn in the profession.

A report from NASSP and the Learning Policy Institute earlier this year found that nearly 1 in 5 principals turn over each year, largely driven by challenging working conditions, too little support and professional development, among other factors.

Within the group of leaders who said they are now weighing leaving the profession, 22.8 percent said the working conditions in the pandemic sparked their thoughts of leaving the job for the first time. Slightly more than 17 percent said the pandemic has moved up their plans to leave within 1 to 2 years. And 5 percent said they would leave the job as soon as possible. Those findings were consistent across leaders in elementary, middle, and high schools.

The specific reasons respondents said they were planning to leave included a lack of leadership and support for carrying out their responsibilities in such chaotic conditions and health concerns for themselves, their staff, and their students.

School leaders are worried about their health, the health of their spouses, who may have underlying conditions, and the constantly changing guidelines and policies are adding more stress to an already stressful job, said Ernest Logan, president of the American Federation of School Administrators, a national union for principals. Some are worried about liability and what happens if they will be held personally responsible if a student or employee gets sick.

There is enough stress running a school every day, " Logan said. What you are starting to see is that people who would have worked until their 60s are saying, You know what, I dont need this aggravation. 

A Principal Decides to Leave

Nadia Lopez, 43, made the choice to leave in July. Lopez had been the principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy, a public middle school in the Brownsville community in Brooklyn, since its founding in 2010.

Sheand her school, situated in one of the poorest communities in New York Citybecame famous nearly overnight in 2015 when a student, Vidal Chastanet, was photographed and interviewed by Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York. Vidal, then 13, told Stanton that Lopez had been the greatest influence in his life.

Just before that story went viral, Lopez was ready to quit. The stress of the job had taken a toll on her physical health. The response to Vidals interview and the outpouring of public support for her mission-driven leadership of the school kept Lopez from leaving. She was invited to the White House. She was featured in national magazines. But the pressure and stress didnt diminish.

It was the unfortunate circumstance of fame where people were looking to me for all the answers, Lopez said in an interview.  If you leave, what will happen to all these kids? I stayed because I didnt want that to be the story. I stayed because I didnt want the kids to think I was abandoning them.

Fast forward to May 2019. Still running the school, Lopez had developed a serious kidney disorder.

She went on medical leave and had major surgery several months later. An interim principal was leading the school during the summer, fall, and winter of 2019-20. Then the pandemic hit, the mayor ordered all schools to close, and principals and teachers had to quickly start up remote learning.

I thought about my team, who were fearful. The one thing I could do is jump in and support them, to build a virtual learning program out of nothing, Lopez said.

At the same time, virus-related illness and death were ravaging New York, and the Brownsville community was hit hard, she said. We had a teacher whose grandfather died from COVID in her house minutes before she was supposed to teach, Lopez said.

Lopez began mobilizing mental health and other supports for teachers and students and their families. She started a night school for 20 students who couldnt get online during the regular school day. Soon, she was back to working 12 hours a day, skipping meals, and barely stopping to use the bathroom.

Her doctor told her she needed to remove the work stress. She resolved to get through the end of the school year. Then, she said, she would resign. She stepped down last month.

Im a human being with a family, Lopez said. At the end of the day, if I died in this position, who would take care of them? It really came down to that.

High Turnover Is Already a Problem

In its survey of 1,020 principals in mid-August, NASSP also asked what conditions specifically were pushing school leaders to rethink their time in the job. Many cited the chaos of operating their schools in a pandemic amid confusing, often contradictory guidance that is constantly shifting.

The conditions, said one principal, make it near impossible to plan for the year. Parents and community members are frustrated and blame us for the constant changes being communicated.

Others said the responsibility of making decisions that can put their staff members at risk of illness or death weigh heavily.

The unprecedented leadership challenges that COVID-19 presents may further erode a talent pool thats already plagued with churn. Nearly half of new principals leave their schools after three years. Almost 20 percent leave every year.

And though they may move on to another school, many leave the job entirely, according to recent research on a large set of school leaders in Texas . When principal talent moves on, or is lost altogether, its a blow to districts and states that invest millions of dollars to prepare and hire new leaders every year.

An exodus of experienced principals with so much institutional knowledge and connections and the loss of possible mentors for a younger generation of school leaders are major concerns. Older principals often run district professional development and have spent years building up trust in the community, getting to know parents, students, local powerbrokers and others who help with everything from budgets to donations. All of that could be disappear when older principals leave in droves, Logan said.

You cant regain that, he said. It takes a long time to build that up.

So how can districts and decision-makers move quickly to stem the tide?

Remove the politics. Include principals in major decisionmaking about operations. Be guided by data. Be honest and clear about plans and give principals the resources they need to make those plans work, whether its to buy PPE for staff or adequate supply of cleaning materials, Logan said.

Dont do that, and theyll be out the door.

Image credit: E+/Getty
Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday stressed the need for utilising modern and green technologies in highways construction besides reducing the cost of road building by at least 25 per cent.

The road transport minister also launched a mobile app 'Harit Path' to monitor the plantation along the national highways.

Chairing a meeting via video conference to review 'New Green Highways Policy (Plantation)' and discuss use of new technologies in road construction, Gadkari said it should be the ministry's mission to reduce cost of construction by 25 per cent and for this new technologies are required, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a statement.

Gadkari, who also holds MSME portfolio, also stressed on utilising modern and green technologies in road construction all over the country.

"The minister launched 'Harit Path', a mobile app to monitor the plantations through geo-tagging and web-based GIS enabled monitoring tools. The app has been developed by NHAI to monitor location, growth, species details, maintenance activities, targets and achievements of each of its field units for each and every plant under all plantation projects," the statement said.

While inaugurating the mobile app, the minister emphasised on strict monitoring of plantation and transplantation of trees.

The minister suggested that specialised persons/agencies should be hired for plantation of trees along the highways.

He suggested involving NGOs, self-help groups and horticulture and forest department in this.

The officials assured that they will be able to achieve the goal of 100 per cent plantation on highways by March 2022.

"While discussing the issue of transplantation of trees, Gadkari said that it should be our mission to save all the trees from being cut and specialised agencies equipped with new technologies should be hired for the purpose. The minister stressed upon using local indigenous material like jute, coir, etc for strengthening purposes," the statement said.

Gadkari also said that right choice of species suiting local conditions is also very important.

He said that specific areas like hilly areas, border areas and coastal areas need different approach and technologies.

The minister appreciated the use of such technology in road construction in Andaman and Nicobar and motivated the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd to follow the example in rest of the projects.

Meanwhile, the the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in a statement said the mobile app 'Harit Path' launched by the minister will provide digital address to every tree planted along the national highways.

The GPS-based app has been developed by the NHAI to monitor location, growth, species details, maintenance activities, targets and achievements of each of its field units for each and every plant under all plantation projects, it said.

"To commemorate 25 years of its service to the nation, the National Highways Authority of India has also recently undertaken 'Harit Bharat Sankalp', a nation-wide plantation drive which is in line with NHAI's commitment to promote environment protection and sustainability," the statement said.

Under this initiative, the NHAI planted over 25 lakh plants in 25 days along the stretches of the national highways between July 21 and August 15, 2020. The drive takes the total cumulative number of plantations done during the current year to 35.22 lakh.

"The nation-wide plantation drive has been actively taken up by NHAI's regional offices to achieve the collective target of making greener national highways. Maximum number of over 5.0 lakh plants have been planted in Uttar Pradesh, followed by over 3.0 lakh in Rajasthan and 2.67 Lakh in Madhya Pradesh along the national highways," the statement said.

In order to ensure 100 per cent survival of the plants, avenue plantation of minimum height of 1.5 metre has been emphasised along the national highways.

Also Read: New airplane for PM Modi to land in Delhi soon; check out details

Also Read: Coronavirus vaccine: Army, frontline workers may get it first; COVAXIN to be ready by year end
Pension constitutes a fundamental right and deprivation of even a part of it cannot be accepted, except in accordance with the authority of law, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) held on Thursday.

The bench of justice Ravi Deshpande and justice NB Suryawanshi was hearing a petition filed by Naini Gopal, a Nagpur resident who retired as an assistant foreman from Ordnance Factory, Bhandara in October 1994. The petitioner complaining of action by the Centralised Pension Processing Centre of the State Bank of India in recovering an amount of Rs 369,035 from his pension by deducting it in monthly installments of Rs 11,400

The bank responded to the petition stating that an amount of Rs 782 was mistakenly being paid in excess to the 85-year-old since October 2007, due to a technical error. SBI maintained that it was because the petitioners pension was fixed, treating him as a personnel below officer rank, instead of a civil pensioner, and claimed that the Reserve Bank of India had authorised it to recover the excess pension paid mistakenly.

HC, however, rejected the argument after noticing that the bank failed to demonstrate the technical mistake. The judges held that there was no good reason to deduct the amount from the petitioners pension, after the Ordnance Factory pointed that there was no error in fixing the the 85 year olds pension. The bench struck down the action of the bank observing that it cannot fix pension payable to retired employees.

Pension payable to employees upon superannuation is property under Article 300-A of the Constitution of India and it constitutes a fundamental right to livelihood under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The deprivation, even a part of this amount, cannot be accepted, except in accordance with and authority of law, said the bench.

We, therefore, hold that the action of the bank to reduce the pension of the petitioner is unauthorised and illegal, the bench said, and directed the bank to stop the recovery and credit the amount recovered so far to the pension account of the petitioner.

Irked with the insensitive approach of the bank officers towards the senior citizen, HC has also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the bank and directed it to deposit the amount in the petitioners pension account in eight days, failing which the bank will have to pay a fine of Rs 1,000 for every day of delay.

In this regard, the bench said a bank is a trustee of its account holders like the petitioner, and has no authority in the eyes of law to dispute the amount of pension payable to an employee, other than those in its own employment.

HC noted that the petitioner is of 85 years of age and has a huge liability of looking after his 45-year-old specially-abled daughter, who also requires costly medical treatment. Instead of showing sensitivity to the problems of senior citizens, the bank has shown arrogance, and the petitioner was driven from pillar to post to know the reason for deduction of the amount from the pension payable to him, said the court.
London

The brother of the suicide bomber who set off an explosion at a 2017 Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds, was sentenced Thursday to a minimum of 55 years in prison.

Hashem Abedi, 23, denied helping plan the attack at Manchester Arena but was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and conspiring to cause explosions. His sentencing had been postponed due to travel restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

His elder brother Salman Abedi set off the bomb in the arena's foyer at the end of the May 22, 2017 concert, as fans were leaving the pop star's show. He died in the explosion.

Hashem Abedi refused to attend court for the two-day sentencing hearing, which heard powerful testimony from the families of the victims, many of whom fought back tears as they described their grief.

Judge Jeremy Baker said the two brothers were "equally culpable for the deaths and injuries caused by the explosion."

"Although Salman Abedi was directly responsible, it was clear the defendant took an integral part in the planning," Baker said.

The judge said had the younger brother been over age 21 at the time of the explosion, he would have been given a "whole-life term." Instead, he was sentenced to serve a minimum of 55 years before parole may be considered.
The Harris County Constable Precinct 1 Constable's Office is issuing a warning to pet owners after discovering a dog tethered to a chain that apparently died from heat exhaustion.

The precinct's animal cruelty unit last Friday found the dog tethered to a weighted down metal chain in the backyard of a home located in the 2800 block of Loganberry Park Lane in Houston, according to a recent Facebook post from police. In a video sent to the Houston SPCA by a concerned resident, the dog can be seen gasping for breath, police said.

PACT SIGNED INTO LAW: Animal cruelty is now a federal felony in the U.S.

There was no shade, water or food available to the dog. The dog's internal temperature was measured at 106.5 degrees; its external body temperature showed 122.9 degrees.

An investigation is ongoing and could lead to prosecution, police said.

"The Harris County Precinct One Constables Office encourages you to bring your pets inside during this extreme heat," officials said in the post.

In 2007, the Texas Legislature passed a bill addressing tethering standards in extreme weather, among other conditions. But according to the Texas Humane Legislation Network (THLN), the actual enforcement of the bill is rare.

"The [2007 version] law...is unenforceable because no citations can be issued, only warnings," THLN stated on its website. "Because there has not been a single prosecution since the law's passage, it is time to fix this statute where citations can be issued before the dog's situation becomes a cruelty case."

On HoustonChronicle.com: Harris County Animal Cruelty Task Force credits spike in cases to pandemic, domestic abuse

The 2019 "Adequate Shelter and Restraint Bill," also known as Senate Bill 295, would have made it a criminal offense if owners unlawfully restrained their dogs with chain leashes and do not provide adequate shelter, food, shade and water. A companion bill, HB 940, would have helped enforce the adequate shelter bill by not forcing officers to wait before issuing pet owners a violation. Both bills failed, according to BillTrack50.

However, 2019 did see the passing of the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) into law. The law, signed by President Donald Trump in Nov., makes animal cruelty a federal felony on interstate commerce and federal property with a punishment of a fine or up to seven years in jail.

Anyone that witnesses or suspects animal cruelty is asked to call the precinct's Animal Cruelty Hotline at (832) 927-1659 or the SPCA animal cruelty hotline at 713-869-SPCA. Cruelty cases may also be reported to the Harris County Animal Cruelty Task Force at 832-927-PAWS or on the task force website.

rebecca.hennes@chron.com
Alabama schools are back in session this month, but not all are opening their school buildings. Some districts opted to begin the year entirely online to help curb the spread of COVID-19, while others offer the option of virtual or traditional in-person learning.

But virtual school leaves working parents in a bind, scrambling to find or afford a safe learning environment for their children while theyre at work.

A recent nationwide poll from the Washington Post-Schar School found half of working parents said it would be harder or impossible to do their jobs if their childrens schools are online-only. That share jumped to 71% of elementary school parents.

Working families are on their own when it comes to finding and affording pandemic childcare that can also double as virtual school management.

It can be expensive and hard to find.

During normal times, all-day child care can gobble up 12% of a median household income in Alabama, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit nonpartisan think tank. It can be a serious financial blow for a family who didnt previously have to budget for it.

And COVID-19 has upended an already-inadequate child care system, particularly in Alabama where the number of licensed centers has been declining for a decade and some regions have only enough licensed child care slots to serve 25% of eligible children. As of mid-July, only about 53% of Alabama day care facilities were open.

Even for parents who can afford child care for their school-age kids, it can be difficult to find open slots.

But around the state, some cities and school districts have started pooling funding and other resources to help working parents find or afford child care. They serve as potential models for other communities looking to help families. Here are a few.

Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa City Schools set aside $100,000 from federal funding received through the CARES Act to provide childcare tuition assistance.

One of the things our school system has worked to do is address removing barriers to student learning, said Lesley Bruinton, public relations coordinator for Tuscaloosa City Schools. When the pandemic happened, this was the opportunity to think differently. What does removing barriers to virtual learning mean, and how can we provide supports for our families?

School in Tuscaloosa began on Thursday, where all students are virtual-only for the first nine weeks. And 42% of students have signed up to a full year of virtual schooling, though they will have the option of transferring back to traditional in-person school.

Tuscaloosa parents whose children are enrolled in care at nine local organizations, including the Boys and Girls Club of West Alabama and the YMCA, can apply for childcare tuition assistance on the districts website.

The district has received about 300 applications so far. Once the application window closes Aug. 26, said Bruinton, the district will figure out how much financial assistance will be awarded to the applicants. The payments will be made directly to the child care providers.

Our intention is to make sure those who apply receive something, said Bruinton. For families where parents are working outside of the home, or you dont have family members nearby who can support student learning at home, then this was a way we could help.

Selma

The Selma City school district was one of the first in Alabama to announce it would begin the school year entirely online to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

Back in July, just 24% of Selma parents said they would send their children back for in-person learning. COVID-19 rates were on the rise.

So the district approached community partners like the YMCA and local churches to ask them to think about new ways to support families. Some organizations stepped in to offer child care, while others set up virtual tutoring services or provided free school supplies and internet hotspots.

All of these partners were already Team Selma, said Selma City Schools Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams. Thats one of the beautiful things about this community.

The YMCA in Selma is expanding child care for working parents, she said, opening in new spaces around town and using AmeriCorps volunteers to staff them. Some churches are doing the same.

Williams said the district plans to post a list of all available options by the end of this week, explaining where families can get various types of support, from child care to tutoring to supplies.

Were excited about being able to compile the various support to meet families needs, said Williams. We cant overpromise, but we are trying. We dont want to burden our parents with having to find different services and supports they need.

Huntsville

When the three school districts in Madison County  Huntsville City, Madison City and Madison County  jointly announced theyd be all-virtual for the first nine weeks, the decision affected families of more than 53,000 children in the area.

Shortly after the announcement, the business community jumped in. The Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerces Child Care Task Force surveyed nearly 800 parents in the area.

More than half said they had unmet childcare needs as a result of the decision to start schools remotely. About half of survey respondents who hadnt been able to find childcare cited the costs being too high as the reason why.

Finding affordable, quality child care was a big enough challenge before remote schooland its become even harder, said Lucia Cape, senior vice president of economic development at the Chamber and a member of the task force, which formed back in December.

(The pandemic) threw everything into high relief, she said. Existing gaps got bigger and the concerns grew.

The Chamber is working to recruit community investors to create a fund that would pay childcare costs on a needs-based sliding scale. Childcare providers could apply for a grant to cover costs for parents who are struggling to afford care. The fund needs $50,000 to get off the ground, and school began earlier this week.

The Chamber also created a one stop shop page on its website, listing child care resources across the region, including information on camps and day care programs run by organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and the YMCA, as well as school district resources. The Huntsville and Madison YMCAs have already enrolled 133 elementary-aged children in their day care programs.

The task force enlisted the help of popular local parenting site Rocket City Mom to create lists of in-home tutors and child care workers willing to help families manage virtual schooling.

Cape said helping working parents find child care is a problem that companies and communities cant afford to ignore.

Were still looking at child care as an overall workforce issue, said Cape. Its important to the retention of employees, for overall productivity, and its a really good recruitment tool in this day and age.

Its not something any one group or company can solve on their own.
"Having an 8.5% figure for July is a big help in that regard, but we do have to see the August and September rates in order to compute an average," said John Quinterno, a principal with South by North Strategies Ltd., a Chapel Hill research company specializing in economic and social policy.

"With this big number on the board, the odds are good that the maximum duration will rise come on Jan. 1, but the exact number of weeks is to be determined."

Ebb and flow job market

The two monthly employment measuring sticks reflected the ebb and flow dynamic connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the household survey, there was an increase of 134,923 people in the state's workforce from June to July, including 72,211 North Carolinians gaining a job.

However, there also were 62,712 who were unsuccessful in their return to the labor force. Individuals who are not actively looking for work are not counted in the workforce.

In the employer survey, there was a net gain of 43,400 government jobs  mostly furloughed employees back at work  and 13,800 private-sector jobs.
President Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon leaves federal court, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, after pleading not guilty to charges that he ripped off donors to an online fundraising scheme to build a southern border wall. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

NEW YORK (AP)  If the recent firing of the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan was intended to quell criminal investigations into President Donald Trump's close associates, as some have accused, federal prosecutors in New York appear to have missed the memo.

Thursday's arrest of Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, served as a stark reminder that no one who has been within the president's inner circle is automatically immune from federal scrutiny.

Bannon, 66, and three others are charged with defrauding online donors in the name of helping build the presidents cherished southern border wall. Bannon pleaded not guilty at a hearing Thursday in Manhattan.

The indictment came just two months after the abrupt dismissal of Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who had overseen several investigations with tentacles into Trump's orbit  including one involving the business dealings of Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney.

The same office prosecuted former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for campaign finance crimes, as well as two Giuliani associates tied to the investigation that led to Trump's impeachment investigation in December. Giuliani himself has not been charged with any crime.

Berman's unceremonious removal  decried by some critics as a Friday night massacre in June  fueled longstanding concerns among Democratic lawmakers that the Justice Department has become politicized under Attorney General William Barr.

But the wire fraud and money laundering charges against Bannon confirm the ongoing professional independence of the Southern District of New York, said Bruce Green, a former prosecutor in the office.

The Manhattan prosecutors' office, known as SDNY, has long been nicknamed the Sovereign District of New York for its independence from Washington politics. The office, older than the Justice Department itself, has been home to famous mob trials, terrorism prosecutions and, increasingly, probes involving Trump's allies.

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It shows that the Trump administration cannot fully protect the presidents former associates from federal criminal prosecution simply by firing U.S. attorneys like Geoffrey Berman who honor their responsibility to seek impartial justice, said Green, who now directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at the Fordham University School of Law.

Green said in June that Berman's firing certainly wasnt a routine decision, and the only fair inference is that there are some cases where the office is proceeding too independently.

The charges against Bannon came as Trump himself faced renewed legal perils, as a federal judge rejected Trump's latest bid to shield his tax returns from a state grand jury investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney.

Trump, who is appealing the ruling, blasted the subpoena as the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country  a refrain he has used to deride several criminal cases targeting him and his associates. He has criticized many of the criminal cases as politically motivated.

The president also sought to distance himself from Bannon on Thursday, saying he knew nothing about the We Build The Wall fundraiser. Bannon served as chief strategist during the early days of Trump's administration but clashed with other top advisers and was pushed out after less than a year.

Trump's frequent attacks on federal law enforcement  including his feud with former FBI Director James Comey and his scorn for special investigator Robert Mueller  have not prevented some of his closest associates from being hauled away in handcuffs.

Aside from Cohen, those convicted include Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser whose jail sentence Trump commuted last month.

Berman refused to leave his post before ensuring he would be succeeded  at least in the interim  by Audrey Strauss, one of his most trusted lieutenants. Strauss leaned into the role, soon announcing headline-grabbing charges against Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The prosecution of Bannon, meanwhile, shows once again that SDNY is intent upon continuing its work without being influenced by politics, said Jennifer Rodgers, another former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who now lectures at Columbia Law School.

I think the public owes a debt of gratitude to Geoff Berman for his fortitude in standing up to Bill Barrs attempts to take control of SDNY, Rodgers added. I doubt we would be seeing this charge today if Barr had succeeded.
Also on Thursday, the two sides in the civil case submitted a stipulation of uncontested facts in the case. The items are offered without explanation but indicate that Amaya and Vinyard were each subject of three separate complaints and investigations, stretching back to 2008 in the case of Vinyard and 2013 in the case of Amaya. The stipulation gives no indication of the nature of the complaints or their resolution.
The Cabinet is expected to announce later today that will Kildare remain under the lockdown restrictions imposed two weeks ago, while these are eased in Laois and Offaly.

Additional restrictions were introduced in the three counties after a spike in cases. However, while new incidences of Covid-19 have eased off in Laois and Offaly over the last fortnight, cases remain high in County Kildare.

Of the 1,311 cases of Covid-19 in Ireland over the past fortnight, 33% or 435 cases were in County Kildare.

The National Health Public Emergency Team are understood to have recommended to Cabinet last night that the restrictions be eased in Laois and Offaly, but remain in place in Kildare for a further fortnight. The Cabinet is considering their advice today.

Under these restrictions, Kildare people will be asked to travel only within the county boundaries, with exceptions for work, if they cannot work from home; medical appointments; vital - not social - family reasons; for farming reasons or to return home to or from the county.

Cafes and bars can offer only take-away food and drink, deliveries or socially distanced outdoor dining.

Sports and social venues such as betting shops, gyms, museums and swimming pools are closed. No sporting events or matches can take place, but outdoor training is permitted.

Visits to hospitals, nursing homes, long-term residential care facilities and prisons are suspended, except for compassionate reasons. Masses and other religious services have been cancelled.
The National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), Malis new governing body established by the military leaders after the recent coup, on Friday, eased the curfew it had imposed in the country.

This is contained in a communique signed by Ismael Wague, as cited by the Journal du Mali news outlet.

The National Committee for the Salvation of the People is informing about the easing of the curfew.

Now, it is in effect from 0.00 a.m. to 5.00 a.m. [00:00 to 05:00 GMT], Mr Wague, a colonel-major, said.

The curfew was introduced on Wednesday and was in effect from 9.00 pm to 5.00 am.

The coup began on Tuesday at the Kati military base near the Malian capital of Bamako.

The rebels detained President Ibrahim Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and some other senior government officials.

Mr Keita then announced his resignation and dissolution of parliament.

The rebel leaders established the CNSP, which closed the borders and imposed the curfew.

The M5-RFP movement, which led months-long anti-government protests that preceded the coup, has promised to cooperate with the military in organising the transition period.

(Sputnik/NAN)
Why Being Grounded for Months Was the Best Pandemic Outcome for This Airline

For five months, Copa Airlines barely flew, operating a smattering of humanitarian and cargo flights. Panamas national government demanded it, barring any airline from flying international flights.

Copa, which has just one domestic route, is back in business, but only in a small way. Thanks to Panama Government Executive Decree No. 300, Copa is launching limited flights to New York, San Jose, Costa Rica, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Quito and Guayaquil in Ecuador. Assuming it goes OK, the government should allow more flights next month.

Only Panamanian citizens will be able to get off in Panama City, but passengers can transfer at the airlines hub at Tocumen International Airport to make connections between North and South America. (At least among the countries that are open; several South American countries have not opened their borders to all travelers.)

U.S. airlines have argued they must fly as much as the market allows, saying they need cash generated from fare sales to keep their businesses running. But what about Copa? If the airline has effectively not flown for five months, shouldnt it be in dire financial straits?

Not exactly. Despite flying only 86 cargo and humanitarian operations in the second quarter, Copa actually did all right, compared to other airlines. The company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, posted a net loss of $386 million, or $114.6 million excluding special items, such as costs from permanently grounding certain fleet types.

Though clearly a brutal quarter, Copa was one of the few airlines to exceed our expectations both mathematically and otherwise, Hunter Keay, an analyst at Wolfe Research, wrote in a report.

Whats the Secret?

Before the pandemic, Copa was arguably one of the worlds most boring airlines. It consistently made money  this past quarter marked its first loss in 20 years  but it preferred slow and steady over flashy.

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Its CEO, Pedro Heilbron, has run the company since 1988, and he didnt like to take unnecessary risks. As other airlines expanded fleets and route networks, Copa kept its simple strategy, flying only narrowbodies, only within the Americas. Heilbron understood his airlines strength was its location, with Panama perfectly placed between North and South America to capture connecting passengers.

Consumers may have found better options between, say, Miami and Buenos Aires. But if they wanted to go from Orlando to Barranquilla, Colombia, Copa probably was their best choice.

Panama has been our success story for so many years in the region, Peter Cerda, regional vice president for the Americas at IATA, the global airline trade group, told Skift Airline Weekly. Theyve been more successful, probably, even than their North America counterparts on really connecting North and South America.

Copa has had some missteps, including a small low-cost Colombian airline called Wingo that has not yet been a success. But compared to other big Latin American airlines, it has been remarkably steady. During this crisis, Aeromexico, Avianca and Latam all have filed for bankruptcy protection, while Copa has relied on its balance sheet to raise new liquidity.

Copa is a best in class airline and the company regularly capitalizes on weak competitors in a high growth but unpredictable part of the world, Keay said.

Can It Last?

Copa will not be the same airline this winter as it was last year. Itll be smaller  it is retiring Embraer E190 and Boeing 737-700 jets  and it will fly to fewer markets.

But it remains an investor darling, again on a relative basis. Investment analysts like the airlines cost-control focus, which has strengthened during the pandemic. In his report, Keay noted Copa reduced fixed costs by 40 percent in the second quarter. Copa is in control of a bad situation to the extent it can be expected, Keay said.

In his report, Joe DeNardi, an analyst at Stifel, lauded the airline for burning only $77 million a month in the most recent quarter, not bad for a period of nearly no operations. Based on the current burn rate, that gives Copa ~19 months of runway with essentially no revenue production, he said.

The airline could recover some revenue sooner. It may be years before any network airline matches 2019 revenues, but Copas streamlined business model could hold up OK during the early part of a recovery.

Most airlines rely on three types of passenger segments  leisure, visiting friends and relatives, and business. Conventional wisdom suggests business travelers will be the last to return during the pandemic, since many employees are working from home and becoming more comfortable with video conference platforms. But airlines have noted some people in the leisure and visiting friends and relatives segments have already resumed flying. Most expect these two groupings will drive any early recovery.

In its recent earnings call, Copa reported only 1/3 of traffic had been business-related, with the rest split evenly between leisure and visiting friends and relatives. So while its competitors may have trouble filling Boeing 787 premium cabins on Bogota-Madrid or Mexico City-London, Copa can make money without significantly altering its customer mix or its network.

Its hub should help drive revenue, even if it will not be as bustling as before, DeNardi said. Most airlines will cut nonstop routes, he said, leaving more traffic for Copa to siphon.

Demand aggregation through Tocumen will remain a key differentiator as the recovery in international demand should lag domestic globally, making the sustainability of certain point-to-point routes challenging, DeNardi said.

Copas fortunes could further improve if more countries open borders. Several big countries, including Argentina, Colombia and Chile, effectively have banned many outsiders from entering.

If you are in New York or in Canada and you want to go into Latin America, whichever countries are open, you can travel, Cerda said. Thats what Copa will do. It is not normal, but it is what we have available, so we certainly want to take advantage of it so we can try to begin slowly to begin increase capacity and connectivity throughout the region.

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New York: The mayor of Los Angeles has shut off power to the Hollywood home of a TikTok "influencer" after he repeatedly hosted large parties in violation of the city's coronavirus regulations.

Bryce Hall, who has nearly 13 million followers on the social media app, hosted his 21st birthday party with a large number of guests despite warnings from the Los Angeles police.

"This house has turned into a nightclub in the hills, hosting large gatherings in flagrant violation of our public health orders," Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The city has now disconnected utilities at this home to stop these parties that endanger our community," he said.
Flanked by his lawyers, Emilio Lozoya, former head of Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex, attends a news conference in Mexico City. (Gustavo Martinez Contreras / Associated Press)

It was a startling fall from grace in a country where high-level corruption is rarely prosecuted.

In 2019, Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Mexico's state oil company, one of the most powerful positions in the government, was charged with bribery, money laundering and criminal association in a scheme that allegedly earned him millions.

A fugitive for seven months, he was arrested early this year in Spain under an international warrant, extradited to Mexico in July and placed in home detention as the case against him proceeds.

He is not going quietly.

In a 60-page declaration to prosecutors leaked to the Mexican media this week, the 45-year-old leveled bombshell corruption charges against more than a dozen former and current politicians, including three ex-presidents, five former senators and a pair of 2018 presidential runners-up.

The revelations have been alternately received here as a shocking inside story of how the system really works or as the invention of a corrupt ex-functionary desperate to stay out of prison.

Lozoya's most explosive allegations  payoffs, bribery, extortion and vote-buying  were directed at Enrique Pena Nieto, who upon assuming the presidency in 2012 named him head of Petroleos Mexicanos, and Luis Videgaray, who managed Pena Nieto's election campaign and became his finance chief and later the foreign minister.

Pena Nieto and Videgaray, according to the statement, directed the oil company boss to create a criminal association, aimed at enriching themselves not only from the public treasury, but also through extortion  fraud and deception  and to take economic advantage of this damage to the nation.

Pena Nieto has not responded publicly.

Videgaray, currently a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called Lozoya's assertions lies invented to try and free himself from the consequences of his own actions.

Federal authorities are investigating the accusations from Lozoya, who is now a protected witness, said Alejandro Gertz Manero, the attorney general.

Story continues

In his declaration, Lozoya includes numerous lists of what he calls bank transfers of alleged bribes for lawmakers. He asserts that witnesses and videos back his sensational allegations. But prosecutors have released no official evidence.

Still, the accusations have shaken the political hierarchy here and raised the prospect of ex-presidents facing interrogation under oath, something unprecedented in modern-day Mexico.

Neither current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador nor any of his party loyalists were accused of receiving payoffs. That has prompted many to denounce the affair as a political smear job meant to bolster the presidents lagging poll numbers in advance of next years midterm elections.

The president is deploying Lozoya as an instrument of vengeance and political persecution, tweeted former President Felipe Calderon, who is among the accused and has denied any wrongdoing. Lopez Obrador, he said, "is not interested in justice, but rather in a lynching.

A pair of sitting opposition governors  Francisco Dominguez and Francisco Cabeza de Vaca, from the states of Queretaro and Tamaulipas, respectively  both denied Lozoyas allegations that they took bribes while serving in the Senate.

For Lopez Obrador, the media focus on the scandal has been a welcome shift from persistent criticism of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cratering economy and unchecked gang violence.

Its incredible how well this is functioning for Lopez Obrador, Mario Campos, a political analyst, wrote on Twitter. Focus all the attention on Lozoya  The economy is sinking, poverty is growing, the pandemic is unrelenting, and violence doesnt stop. And his approval ratings [are] going up.

The president has called on his two immediate predecessors, Pena Nieto and Calderon, to testify before Mexican prosecutors.

The president has denied seeking revenge," despite bad blood with the pair. He has repeatedly accused Pena Nieto and Calderon of employing fraud to thwart him in two failed presidential bids.

We are not persecuting anyone, Lopez Obrador told reporters Friday. What we want is for the corruption to end, an end to this official banditry.

Lopez Obrador finally won the presidency in 2018 on an anti-corruption platform citing a shadowy mafia of power  a corrupt, inner-circle ruling clique.

At a news conference this week , he played YouTube footage depicting Mexican Senate aides placing plastic bundles of cash into a suitcase.

This video  displays the filth of the regime of corruption, declared Lopez Obrador, who lamented that many television stations didnt showcase the images. All this money was used to buy ... consciences, to buy votes.

Prosecutors have not verified the undated clip.

Lozoya was often described by the Mexican media as a "golden boy" of politics, a debonair, Harvard-educated product of the country's entitled governing class, grandson of an ex-governor, son of a former Cabinet minister, and protege of Pena Nieto.

His stature took a hit in 2016, though, when he stepped down as head of the oil giant  known as Pemex  amid declining revenues and criticism of his management.

As Pemex director, he allegedly purchased luxury homes and stuffed international bank accounts with millions of dollars in payoffs from various sources, including the Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht.

The company stands at the center of one of the largest international corruption scandals in history. A U.S. prosecutor once said it ran an off-the-books Department of Bribery, paying off officials on three continents.

In his declaration, Lozoya said that when he was serving as the international coordinator of Pena Nieto's election bid, he met with Odebrechts Mexican representative and secured a $6-million payment to the campaign.

I told [the Odebrecht executive] that this request came directly from then-candidate Pena Nieto and that Odebrecht would see benefits once he was president, Lozoya said in his statement to prosecutors. He told me that was fine.

Lozoya also told prosecutors that, as president-elect, Pena Nieto later met secretly in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with the company's chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht, who was convicted of corruption in the country in 2016 and sent to prison.

Money from Odebrecht bribes was also used to buy votes in the Mexican legislature to help secure passage of Pena Nietos signature energy privatization initiative, Lozoya said.

In the case of Calderon, who was president from 2006 to 2012, Lozoya alleged that Odebrecht paid bribes to secure approval of a petrochemical plant in the gulf state of Veracruz and also received a sweetheart deal in purchasing ethane, a compound used in plastics manufacturing.

In addition, Lozoya alleged that Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the president from 1988 to 1994, pressured Pemex officials to give contracts to one of his sons. Salinas de Gortari has not responded to the allegation.

Lozoya, who had been keeping a low profile as a fugitive in a luxury villa on the Mediterranean Costa del Sol, did not fight extradition.

Pleading not guilty to the charges, which carry a prison sentence of at least 15 years, he offered to cooperate with Mexican authorities in the apparent hope of leniency for himself and for relatives implicated in his alleged schemes, including his wife, mother and sister.

Times special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez contributed to this report.
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A day after the Supreme Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, a team comprising a dozen CBI officials arrived in Mumbai late Thursday.

CBI currently is questioning Neeraj Singh, the actors cook, at the DRDO guest house in Mumbai and will later question his manager Deepesh Sawant, said CBI sources.

CBI has formed four teams to investigate the case. One team first met deputy commissioner of police (zone 9) Abhishek Trimukhe at his office in Bandra to collect documents, including the forensic report, autopsy report, statements of over 60 people that the Mumbai Police has recorded, and other material evidence, said Mumbai police sources.

The team is currently camping at the Bandra police station next to the DCP office to complete the documentation process.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput sister expresses faith in CBI

CBI sources said that once the documentation is complete, another team will visit the actors Bandra flat to recreate the scene. One of the CBI teams will focus on translating documents from Marathi to English, while another will be questioning people. The fourth team will be coordinating with superiors in Delhi and handling logistics in Mumbai.

The actor was found dead in his Bandra apartment on June 14, following which Mumbai Police had registered a case of accidental death. Later, based on a complaint by the actors father which accused actor Rhea Chakraborty and her family of abetting the actors suicide and siphoning of his money, Bihar Police registered an FIR and handed the case over to CBI. The Enforcement Directorate also filed a case on July 31 to probe money laundering allegations against Chakraborty and her family.
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At least five people have died and two are missing after dozens of lightning-sparked California wildfires spread rapidly on Thursday, doubling in size in the state's wine country alone while expanding by nearly a third near Palo Alto.

There are now 26 major fire incidents in the state, the largest raging to the north and south of the San Francisco Bay Area and affecting more than 350,000 acres in total.

Up to 62,000 people have now been forced to flee as shocking satellite images show how smoke from the massive blaze has drifted 600 miles into the Pacific Ocean.

Five fatalities were reported as of Thursday night as Governor Gavin Newsom asked for help from other states in fighting the flames back. At least two people were missing and 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured.

Ten of thousands evacuating to safety are trying to do so as the coronavirus pandemic still rages through the state and thick smoke creates dangerous breathing conditions.

Locals have described being 'trapped' between the pandemic and the flames heading toward them. Up to 100,000 more people may be forced to leave their homes if the fires can not be pushed back soon.

California's air quality has become the worst in the world, according to CNN, having plummeted to 'very unhealthy' and 'hazardous' levels.

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The San Francisco skyline is obscured by smoke from wildfires Thursday as the state's air quality has become the worst in the world and tens of thousands are forced to evacuate as 26 major fire incidents are reported across California

A structure is damaged by the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Santa Cruz County on Thursday. Evacuation orders were issued across the county Thursday evening as it was revealed there is zero percent containment on the fires in this zone

Scorched homes and vehicles fill Spanish Flat Mobile Villa following the LNU Lightning Complex fires in unincorporated Napa County, California. At least four civilians were injured in the fires in this area

Smoke from California wildfires up to 200 miles away blankets an interstate in Sparks, Nevada

A home burns as the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Bonny Doon, California. Officials say that up to 200 structures may already have been destroyed in the arwa as the fires continue to grow in size and evacuations continue

SATELLITE SPOTLIGHT: @NOAA's #GOES17 continues to track the extensive #smoke from the #wildfires across Northern California. This #GeoColor view shows the smoke blowing well away for the #fires, stretching hundreds of miles over the Pacific Ocean. #CAwx #CaliforniaWildfires pic.twitter.com/tjskieth8E  NOAA Satellites - Public Affairs (@NOAASatellitePA) August 19, 2020

'Were in a pandemic and a heat wave, and we dont have air conditioning,' Kena Hudson, whose young son has asthma, told CNBC.

'We cant open up the window, were trapped, were hot and no one can come over to play'.

California has been hit by its worst lightning storms in nearly two decades. Around 11,000 strikes ignited over 370 fires this week, fouling air quality for hundreds of miles and stretching firefighting resources to the limit, authorities said.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California's oldest state park with redwood trees up to 2,000 years old, suffered extensive damage to historic buildings, the state parks department said.

South of San Francisco, a cluster of lightning-strike fires doubled in size to 40,000 acres in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, injuring three first responders, forcing 22,000 to evacuate and destroying 20 structures, wildfire authority CalFire reported.

As the fire moved south, the University of California Santa Cruz called for voluntary evacuations from its campus on the northern flank of the coastal city.

Firefighters chop trees and mop down hot spots caused by the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Santa Cruz County

Smoke from a wildfire fills the air over Silicon Valley in an aerial view as California's air quality plummets

People guide a herd of goats into an awaiting trailer during the CZU Lightning Complex Fire in Santa Cruz County

A man hoses his pickup truck as the California wildfires double in some parts of the state

On Thursday evening, evacuation orders were expanded throughout Santa Cruz County which lies within the zone known as the CZU lightening complex.

There was zero percent containment on the fires in this zone as evacuations reached 50,000 people, 48,000 acres were confirmed burned, and 20,952 structures were threatened maid reports from officials that up to 200 have been destroyed.

To the north, at least nine fires raced through hills in California's wine country about 35 miles southwest of Sacramento, destroying over 105 homes and other structures.

Collectively known as the LNU Complex Fire, they have doubled in size to 131,000 acres since Wednesday, forming a 'megafire' 10 times larger than New York's Manhattan island.

'It sucks, everything is gone,' Nick Pike told CapRadio in Sacramento after he and three neighbors lost their homes near Vacaville.

A PG&E utility worker died on Wednesday helping first responders, the second fatality from fires after the death of a firefighting helicopter pilot in a crash.

On the Thursday afternoon, a third death, of a resident in Solano County, was reported by Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara, although he didn't have any additional details.

Two more deaths were reported late Thursday night but details were not immediately available.

At least four civilians were injured in the LNU fire, according to Cal Fire.

Smoke from wildfires hovers over Richardson Bay in Sausalito, California, threatening thousands of homes

Michael Smith loads tools into his truck as he prepares to evacuate in Boulder Creek, California, on Thursday

Smoke from California wildfires up to 200 miles away blankets a residential neighborhood in Sparks, Nevada

Another group of 20 fires, called the SCU Lightning Complex, expanded by nearly a third to around 140,000 acres on Thursday some 20 miles east of Palo Alto.

In addition to about two dozen major blazes, small fires kept erupting, though most were quickly stopped. Crews were also battling blazes in the Sierra Nevada and Southern California wild lands.

Residents in portions of Lake and Napa counties as well as Sonoma County have been advised to evacuate as there was an 'immediate threat to life and property'.

Record-breaking heat baking the West Coast is caused by a dome of high pressure over the desert east of California that is siphoning off moisture and causing precipitation to evaporate before it reaches the ground, sparking dry lightning.

California has warmed 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of the 20th century, and higher temperatures are blamed for longer and more intense fire seasons that have caused eight of its 10 largest wildfires in the last 15 years.

On Thursday, satellite footage from the NASA showed the high levels of smoke now hovering over the state and being pulled over the Pacific Ocean.

Other images showed how it had spread almost 200 miles to towns in Nevada.

This satellite image from NASA shows how the smoke from the California wildfires has spread to the Pacific Ocean

This satellite image from the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) and released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows smoke from massive wildfires in Northern California, top left, being pushed by winds to the northeast on Thursday as firefighters continued to battle the destructive wildfires

Smoke from a wildfire fills the air over Silicon Valley in an aerial view

Smoke from wildfires obscures a view of the San Francisco skyline as evacuations continue

The American Lung Association warned that the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated health hazards posed by smoky air and extreme heat.

Inhaling smoke and ash will likely worsen the weakened lungs of people infected with coronavirus and undermine the natural defenses of those who do not have it, said Dr. Afif El-Hassan, a physician spokesman for the lung association.

As of Thursday, there were 640,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases in California and more than 11,000 deaths.

'If you think about indoor office spaces, patients with chronic lung conditions were likely already nervous with the pandemic,' Dr. Sachin Gupta, a pulmonologist based in San Francisco told CNBC.

'But with the air pollution and struggles to ventilate spaces, would they want to go in now?'

'With the wildfires, were going to see increases in PM 2.5,' added Dr. Neeta Thakur, a pulmonology and critical physician at UC San Francisco.

'Theres some studies that have suggested an association between increases in particulate matter and severity of Covid-19 infections,' she said. 'Although how those are related is less well understood.'

According to Environmental Protection Agency measurements, the air quality index is measuring in the 'very unhealthy' (AQI 201-300) and 'hazardous' (>300) range in Central and Northern California.

'These levels are rare in the Bay Area, and even healthy adults can experience immediate health impacts from short term exposure to these levels of fine particulate pollution,' Erin DeMerritt of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District told CNN.

'Exposure to wildfire smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, causing cough, a dry scratchy throat, and irritated sinuses,' DeMerritt added, 'it can trigger wheezing in those who suffer from respiratory illnesses'.

A structure destroyed by the Hennessy Fire along English Hills road in Vacaville on Wednesday

A home continues to burn as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fire spread in Vacaville on Wednesday

Governor Gavin Newsom requested 375 fire crews from out of state as California prisoners who normally fight fires were locked down for COVID-19 or released from prison to slow the spread of the virus.

More than 10,000 firefighters are on the front lines, but fire officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours. The state has requested 375 engines and crew from other states.

'Thats going to allow our firefighters that have have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest,' Berlant said.

In Marin County, just north of San Francisco, where a smaller fire is burning near the Pacific Ocean, county fire chief Jason Weber said he is waiting for assistance from Montana to arrive this weekend.

He said in his 25 years in fire service, 'we've never seen this level of draw-down' from cooperating agencies, as there is heavy competition in the western United States for equipment and people.

Tim Edwards, president of the union representing 7,000 Cal Fire firefighters, said lawmakers need to allocate more money at a time when firefighters are working 40 to 50 days at a time without real relief.

'Here we are, were not even into our peak fire conditions, and we dont have enough resources throughout the whole state because were stretched so thin,' he said.

Travis Air Force Base ordered non-mission-essential personnel to evacuate. Residents in nearby Vacaville, a city of 100,000, were roused before dawn Wednesday by orders to flee.

California State Parks announced full or partial closures of more than two dozen parks, including Big Basin Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the park headquarters and other facilities were damaged. The park featuring towering stands of ancient coast redwoods dates to 1902 and is the states oldest.

In Southern California, firefighters worked in high heat to increase containment of fires in mountains north and east of Los Angeles. A huge fire also burned in the remote Mojave National Preserve.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 03:52:31|Editor: huaxia

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A medical worker talks to travelers getting ready for a COVID-19 swab test at the port of Piraeus, Greece, Aug. 20, 2020. Teams of Greek medics and volunteers have been offering holidaymakers returning to Attica at the ports of Piraeus and Rafina free, randomized COVID-19 tests and informative leaflets this week as COVID-19 cases surge. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

PIRAEUS, Greece, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Teams of Greek medics and volunteers have been offering holidaymakers returning to Attica at the ports of Piraeus and Rafina free, randomized COVID-19 tests and informative leaflets this week as COVID-19 cases surge.

Following a surge in infections lately and increased epidemiological load on a few popular islands, authorities have stepped up measures to contain the spread of the virus with a focus on the region that hosts half of the country's population.

Greece's National Public Health Organization (EODY) announced on Thursday 269 new novel coronavirus infections within 24 hours.

A total of 7,934 cases have been diagnosed in the country so far since late February, and fatalities stand at 235, EODY noted.

Officials reiterated lately that according to the official data, 8 in 10 cases were domestic and not linked to the arrival of tourists this summer.

Out of 332,934 tests conducted at 31 entry points from July 1 to Aug. 18, only 725 travelers, or 0.2 percent, were found positive, EODY noted.

The average age of new cases has dropped from 48.6 years old in March to 36.2 years old in August. Starting from this week the government has taken more restrictive measures on young partygoers.

In destinations like Mykonos island and Halkidiki peninsula in northern Greece, all parties and festivals are suspended until Aug. 31. In Attica and the islands of the Saronic Gulf and Kythira, bars and restaurants will be closing at midnight until at least Aug. 24.

Of the 13,000 or so diagnostic tests conducted nationwide per day, hundreds are now carried out at Piraeus and Rafina.

The tests were conducted by the Region of Attica and the Athens Medical Association with the help of port authorities, the region's public health directorate and volunteers, as the bulk of holidaymakers are expected to be returning from the islands till the end of August, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

From the start of the epidemic in Greece, Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) S.A., which is controlled by China's COSCO SHIPPING group, has taken a series of protection measures to ensure the health of its employees, clients. The company has also donated sanitary supplies to the Hellenic Coast Guard, a local hospital and many municipalities surrounding Greece's largest port. Enditem
Iran Unveils Homegrown Ballistic, Cruise Missiles Ahead Of US Move At UN

Radio Farda August 20, 2020

Iran unveiled on Thursday two new homegrown ballistic and cruise missiles, amid tension with the United States over the U.S. move to reimpose U.N. sanctions and restore the arms embargo against the country.

The missiles were presented in a ceremony virtually attended by President Hassan Rouhani and Defense Minister Brigadier-General Ali Hatami to celebrate Defense Industries Day.

The surface-to-surface ballistic missile has a range of 1,400 kilometers, according to Iranian authorities, and has been named after Iran's slain Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a U.S. attack in Baghdad on January 3.

The cruise missile, named after the Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis who was killed in the same targeted attack in Baghdad against Soleimani's convoy, has a range of 1,000 kilometers.

President Rouhani said in a speech that missiles, and particularly cruise missiles, are very important to Iran. "The fact that we have increased the range from 300 to 1,000 in less than two years is a great achievement," he said.

Iran's unveiling of the missiles defies U.S. demands for the country to halt its missile program. Tensions are running high between Iran and the U.S., with President Donald Trump saying on Wednesday that he ordered the commencement of the "snapback" provision of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who will officially invoke the provision which allows any one of the six signatories of the nuclear agreement to bring back all U.N. sanctions on Iran known as the "trigger mechanism," has threatened Russia and China with sanctions if they refuse to endorse the move.

According to Reuters, diplomats say Russia, China and other countries are likely to ignore the U.S. move.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-unveils- homegrown-ballistic-cruise-missiles-ahead-of-us-invocation-of- mechanism-to-reimpose-un-sanctions/30793785.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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After a two-week search for missing Kansas Mom, Marilane Carter's corpse was discovered inside her car and parked in a shipping container. The body of the missing woman was found on Tuesday.

A resident of Overland Park in Kansas, she left on August 1 to visit her parents who were living in Alabama. She was supposed to have arrived earlier, but she was missing for two weeks without any traces. According to witnesses, she was going to seek psychiatric help as well, which is why she took the overland drive, reported Meaww.

Soon after, the remains of the 36-year-old mom were discovered in the interior of a nondescript shipping container located in West Memphis Arkansas. The remains are that of the missing mother whose identity was proven after finding a credit card that had her name on it inside the vehicle.

Department officials of the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department informed the press that it was the uncle of the deceased who joined the search for his missing niece during the weekend. He was able to help the sheriff department find the car in the interior of the shipping container, with his niece's remains still inside it.

According to her uncle, they were also seeking for her whereabouts in West Memphis which is the last place her phone was traced before missing on August 1, noted Fox 13 Memphis.

Also read: Man Stabs Brother to Death Due to Heated Argument Overly Freshly Laundered Pillowcase

Her uncle, while on the search, noticed three old shipping containers that he saw in a field farther than the interstate. On a hunch and knowing that his niece was driving along, he had to investigate. He reached the area and got into the containers with one which was already ajar. When he stepped in the structure, inside was the car driven by Marilane that is a 2011 GMC Acadia, colored dark gray. He then called 911 to report to the operator that the missing woman was found dead. So, far no foul play was involved in the death of the deceased, mentioned WWLP.

Based on reports the deceased is married to Rev. Adam Carter, the lead pastor of Leawood Baptist Church in Kansas. Marilane was on her way to Birmingham to see her sister who will be giving birth soon, and to help her with mental issues. The drive was unplanned as she got a plane ticket, but opted to drive going there instead. Knowing this detail, it gave one of the detectives like Blake Larsen guess what her state of mind could have been.

More info about the smartphone data and credit card used by the deceased help the investigators trace where she went. Last August 2, she stayed at the Quality Inn on West Plains in Missouri, checking out early in the morning on the same day. Her last stop was a gas station, and the trail went cold. The last phone trace was at exactly 8:02 p.m. on August 2 near Interstate 55 going to Memphis.

Not all the details are known, but there was no foul play when the deceased was found in her car in a shipping container.

Related article: Boxer Woman Kills Two Men: Rapes One With Shovel Handle , Kicks Another to Death

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The Cabinet has given approval for the security agencies to be exempted from the unification of pension schemes.

The unification seeks to bring all pension schemes under the three-tier system by 2021.



The exclusion of the security services means they will remain on their existing pension programmes, such as the CAP-30



Per the National Pensions Act (766), passed in 2008, all parallel pension schemes are to be unified and brought under the three-tier system.



Under the CAP-30, which was set up in 1952, civil servants and the security agencies were not supposed to contribute towards their retirement benefits.



The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who announced this at a press briefing in Accra yesterday, explained that the exclusion of the security services from the unification of pensions was premised on the peculiar nature of their task and the risks they faced in their line of duty.



He mentioned the security services involved as the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ghana National Fire Service, the Ghana Prisons Service and all other security and intelligence agencies.



Government directs



The minister said the government had directed the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to have the law amended to make room for the changes.



He said the decision was taken by the Cabinet last Monday at its 81st meeting after it had examined a report on the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766).



The Cabinet considered the recommendations of the report seeking the following actions for the completion of the unification process. One, the exclusion of the security services, that is, the police service, the immigration service, the National Fire Service, the Prisons Service, as well as other security and intelligence agencies. Two, the amendment of Act 766 to exclude the security services from the unification of pensions, he said.



He said the Cabinet, in granting the approval for the security services to remain on their old pensions, directed the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to commence processes to have the law amended to reflect the decision.



The security services will not be subject to the unification of pensions and will remain on their old pension programmes. The security services will not be subjected to or included in the programme to unify pensions. They will instead remain on their already existent pension programmes, such as the Cap-30 and the other pension programmes that exist, he said.



Implications



The Cabinet directive means that the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations will have to cause the amendment of Section 213 of Act 766 to expunge the security agencies from the list of institutions whose pension schemes should have been collapsed and unified.



When successful, the members of the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) and the Ghana Universities Staff Supernuations Scheme (GUSSS) will be the only groups of workers whose pension scheme will be collapsed and unified.



Some pension sector experts who spoke to the Daily Graphic on condition of anonymity said the action was counter-productive and defeated the primary purpose of the pension sector reforms, whose implementation started in 2010, reports Maxwell Akalaare Adombila.



They expressed the fear that the exemption of the security services would deepen the disaffection among worker groups that would be unified and also increase the cost of social security contributions to the government.



"This technically means that unification is a dead horse and it risks increasing the government's indebtedness to the pension sector," one of the sources who have been part of negotiations to unify the various pension schemes, said.



Background



Ghana began processes to unify its pension regime in 2018.



With an approval from the Cabinet to develop a road map towards the unification of the regime by 2021, the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations engaged stakeholders within the sector in a bid to unify all parallel pension schemes and incorporate them under the three-tier system, as stipulated in the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766).



The process of unification is one of the mandates of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA).



The CAP-30 pension scheme, which many agree has outlived its usefulness, is a non-contributory pension scheme instituted in 1952 under the Pensions Ordinance, No 42 of Chapter 30, for civil servants in the service before 1972.



COVID-19 update



Providing an update on the national COVID-19 situation, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kumah-Aboagye, said the active COVID-19 case count stood at 1,723.



He said the total number of recoveries and discharges was currently 41,279.



The death toll has also increased from 256 to 261, with the latest death recorded on August 13. The total case count stands at 43,216, he said.



He said Ghana currently had a case fatality rate of 0.6 per cent and had carried out a cumulative test of 431,272.

Source: Graphiconline.com









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Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty By

A feisty President Trump has shifted his campaign into attack mode as soon as Joe Biden, a former Vice-President and the Democratic Party Presidential nominee in the forthcoming November elections, picked California Senator Kamala Harris, 55, as his running mate. Undoubtedly a historic move, Harriss nomination breaks an important barrier as she is the first Black-American to be picked up as a Vice-Presidential candidate of a major party and the first Indian-American woman too.

The campaign is certainly going to be full of acrimony and name-calling. Within minutes of the news breaking, Trump launched his attack by calling her nasty, disrespectful, meanest and most horrible. He has claimed that he has more Indian-American supporters that Harris. Trump has also raised the issue of the racially tinged birtherism against Harris, a campaign issue brought up against former President Obama that questions the place of birth and, thereby, the eligibility of a candidate to stand for election as president or VP.

Senator Harris ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination, but dropped out last December. Recent polls among Democrat Party voters had indicated a clear preference for Senators Elizabeth Warren and Harris over other potential candidates. These polls also indicated a preference for a female non-white running mate, which may have clinched the nomination in favour of Harris. The profiles of the two women Senators were far more impressive than those of their competitors.

Indian-Americans, almost four million strong and upwardly mobile, are delighted and social media has exploded in support for her nomination. Within the last few days, the Biden-Harris campaign chest has raked in millions of dollars, closing the gap between theirs and Trumps funding, which was ahead. The high-tech community in Silicon Valley in California is expected to back Harris and could be the source of the surge in funds for the campaign.

Historically, no Vice-Presidential nominee has influenced a Presidential election nor has increased voter turnout. At 77, Biden is the oldest Presidential candidate ever in American electoral history and may not seek re-election. He has therefore indicated that he will need a Vice-President who can govern from day one and can be President in future. Harriss nomination will send a strong message from the Democratic Party on its commitment to Black, Asian and women voters. If the Biden-Harris team wins the election, Harris will be on course to be the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2024.

Kamala Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, and grew up watching them as civil rights activists. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan came from Chennai to the US in 1959, when very few single Indian women made such a trip. She became a cancer researcher after obtaining a PhD and married Donald J Harris, currently a professor of economics (emeritus) at Stanford University. Kamalas upbringing was more as a member of the Black community than an Indian-American, though Kamala wrote in her autobiography The Truths We Hold that she was deeply influenced by her grandparents who lived in Chennai.

She has served four years as a Senator since 2016, worked six years as Californias Attorney-General and twice as district attorney earlier. A graduate of Harvard University and University of California Hastings Law School, she has worked on removing systemic racial bias and instituted the first database in California to track racial bias in police killings. The media in India giving wide coverage to Harriss nomination highlights how politics in the US and India are developing linkages. Many Indian-Americans see candidates through the lens of their attitude towards India.

Harris has identified herself with the Black-American community mostly and much less with the Indian-Americans. The Biden-Harris team are seen to be critical of Indian policies on Jammu and Kashmir, and prone to purvey views using the prism of human rights. The Democrats have also been critical of the CAA and are seen to be leaning towards Muslim advocacy groups. Pakistans state-sponsored terrorism seems to attract less attention, in comparison.

President Trump has wooed the India-American community by publicly projecting a close personal bond with PM Modi. The Trump administration has moved the US-India relationship closer in strategic areas like military hardware sale and technology trade that were no-go areas earlier. The USs full-throated support to India against Chinese adventurism will also weigh in with Indian-American voters. This vote bloc is likely to be divided as before.

Whether Democrats, who have traditionally garnered 60% of the Indian-American vote, will retain this share is the important question. The Biden-Harris team has already come out in support for India against Chinas aggression in Ladakh and for an open and transparent Indo-Pacific. On immigration, their position will be more liberal than that of Trump. They have come out strongly against cross-border terrorism in South Asia, a clear reference to Pakistans state-sponsored terrorism against India.

With three months left for campaigning, Senator Harris has already set the trend by attacking President Trump, leaving Senator Biden to concentrate on being Presidential and focus on policy issues. Trump can be expected to infuse his attacks on Biden-Harris with racial overtones and anti-left-liberal rhetoric. Harris is expected to lead the attack on Trumps handling of the Covid pandemic. Criticising Trump, she said, This is what happens when we elect a guy who isnt up for the job, and Our country ends up in tatters and so does our reputation around the world.

Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty

Former Ambassador, Ex-Secretary in MEA & currently a Visiting Fellow at ORF, Delhi

(pr.chakravarty@gmail.com)
Well that was a refreshing Doug Ford interlude. Since the COVID-19 crisis began, he has been everything he wasnt before, and that we didnt expect, Ontarios Gregor Samsa: metamorphosing into another creature, with appendages he never had.

Instead of promising to unleash the private sector, he released the public one. The words, gravy train, never passed his lips. Rather than lay big hates on Justin Trudeau and John Tory, he lauded them. Trump, the adored, got slagged. It had an ingenuous quality, like hed discovered an alter ego he enjoyed being.

Till the school openings. Old, dogged Doug, is on his way back.

The hinge of the retransition is class size, exclusively. You can see why parents are wrung out over it. They want their kids in school. But they also want them to have a fighting chance against the virus.

With 15 kids per room you can picture them with the defensible space weve gotten used to. With 30, its like theyll have their hands tied. All Doug needed to do is mandate 15 per class. Hes already said hell spend whatever it takes to keep kids safe. Yet no mandate.

Instead, he sounds like Trump again. When politely questioned on class size, he dodges and maunders about the superiority of his plan, best in the country, bar none. The cliches are back and they sound like cliches again.

He says hes taking advice from my chief medical officer, Dr. David Williams. Bad argument. Hes the only CMO whos been savaged publicly, often, by other MDs and clued-in journalists. Early on, the government sent in a troubleshooter to cover for him. They left him in place to sustain public confidence and give Doug someone to pass the buck to if things went sideways.

This has the quality of a small tragedy. During the crisis, Doug said he doesnt believe in passing the buck and then, remarkably, didnt do it. Even when he couldve laid blame on, say, Kathleen Wynne. (Dr. W. was on her watch.) Now the buck-passing scruple has also faded  and it was so admirable.

This clarifies why leadership matters in a pandemic. When Democrats in the U.S. whine about Trump not providing it, it sounds abstract and self-serving. But if a leader like Doug sounds like hes blustering to cover inaction and cant explain why he wont do what he said everyone should  like safe distancing in classrooms  then why the hell should any of us take it seriously? Thus does joint action disintegrate. Theyve given up all the ground they gained. Were back at Toronto City Hall and the Raptors victory rally. Cue the boos at Dougs name.

OK, but why? Why avoid the issue of class size? The other target theyve passed the buck to, is teachers unions. Doug and education minister Stephen Lecce laced into them this week, in ways that theyve never attacked long-term care companies who were disproportionately involved in thousands of deaths.

Because, I can only guess, smaller classes mean more teachers, which could strengthen unions. And folks like Doug and his party hate unions.

I differentiate between labour and leadership, says Doug. He loves the front-line folks like teachers or workers, but not unions theyve built to protect themselves and leaders theyve elected as democratically as any legislature.

Its partly based on a small or medium business mentality. You built the firm, like Dougs family, and resent outsider unions interfering with your control and your workers. It runs deep. Most of us have irrational baselines like that. None of which will stop unions from fighting for their members safety. Imagine going into a class of 30 little kids, without enough mere space to limit contact.

Theres also a devious strategy at work. The government is counting on enough parents keeping their kids out, that class sizes will fall without adding staff. But thats cruel to both sets of kids: those that go back and those that dont.

As for teachers, Im not sure Ive ever known one who didnt love going into their classroom and shutting that door. Its when the magic starts, they say, despite bureaucrats, ministries, overwork  they surely want to be there.

Rick Salutin is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Reach him on email: is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Reach him on email: ricksalutin@ca.inter.net

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Rideshare is still on. Lyft reverses its earlier decision to suspend its California operations after an appeals court grants a further stay.

The appeals court granted the reprieve in a decision announced Thursday. Uber and Lyft are mandated to submit a sworn statement stating that they will comply with the law if the court decides against their appeal. According to the LA Times, they have until early September to do so. The stay order will remain until the court decides on the appeal. However, both companies submit their written statements agreeing to the procedures within five days.

Court decision averted Lyf Rideshare suspension in California

Before the court decision, Lyft announced that it would suspend its California operations beginning Thursday. Lyft said the suspension is not something they want to do. The company said it would keep up the fight for a benefits model that favors all drivers. It has been working with policymakers and labor leaders in crafting an alternative proposal with no adverse consequences.

Read also: Apple's Market Value Hits $2 Trillion





Lyft is campaigning for voters to support Proposition 22. The initiative will be part of the November ballot. It seeks to reverse part of AB5. It also considers app-based drivers as independent contractors instead of employees. A simple majority vote will pass the proposal and exempt Lyft and Uber from complying with AB5. The stay would allow both companies to campaign for the initiative while continuing their operations.

Lyft said that they need to continue to fight for independence and benefit for drivers. That is the solution on the November ballot, the statement added. It is also the solution drivers want as it preserves their ability to earn and use the platform. Without that option, up to 90 percent of Californians earning on these platforms will lose that opportunity.

Lyft added that 4 out of 5 don't support what Sacramento politicians are pushing. About 80 percent of drivers will be out of work while the rest will have to be content with scheduled shifts and capped early earnings. They further stressed that low-income riders would be burdened with unaffordable prices.

Following the news, Lyft's and Uber's shares rose 5.8 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively. Before the granting of stay, Lyft's shares dropped up to 8.5 percent while Uber's stock tumbled by 3.2 percent.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and city attorneys of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego sued Lyft and Uber in May. They argued that their drivers should be classified as employees under AB5. Then a California judge ruled in favor of a motion filed by Becerra. The preliminary injunction mandated both companies to comply with the law immediately.

Last week both companies said that they would shut operations in California if they are forced to comply with AB5. However, Uber said it would continue its Eats operations in the state. Uber further noted that the new state law does not impact Uber Eats.

Becerra said they are confident in the facts of their case. And that they will continue fighting for the California workers' rights.

Read next: EV Adoption Study: Billions of Dollars, Thousands of Lives Would Be Saved With Vehicle Electrification
* Finance committee says minority govt must break deadlock

* Committee sets out conditions for Tangen to take job on Sept 1

* Finmin to meet central bank chief, board later on Friday

By Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche

OSLO, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Norway's finance minister said on Friday he had called the central bank governor to a meeting in a bid to defuse a crisis over the appointment of a wealthy businessman to run the country's $1.1 trillion sovereign fund.

Norges Bank said in March that Nicolai Tangen would become CEO of Norway's rainy-day assets from Sept. 1 while maintaining his own 43% stake in a hedge fund, triggering a backlash from a public watchdog and from parliament.

Tangen's ownership in London-based AKO Capital posed a potential conflict of interest even though the hedge fund stake would be placed in a blind trust, parliament's finance committee said.

Tangen has ruled out divesting his stake in AKO, which he founded.

The government rules in a minority and takes its instructions from parliament as Norway is a parliamentary democracy. At the same time, the central bank, which runs the wealth fund, is independent of the government.

DEADLOCK

The unprecedented deadlock between the central bank's executive board and its watchdog, known as the supervisory board, must be broken by the government, a finance committee in parliament said in a unanimous opinion on Friday.

The committee demanded that Tangen cannot have holdings or interests that could create or appear to create conflicts of interest with the oil fund and "weaken the fund's reputation and trust".

Second, Tangen cannot have holdings or interests that weaken, or can weaken, the "oil fund's work on tax and transparency".

Finally, "these conditions must be in place before he (the new CEO) takes up his job," Hadia Tajik, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour party and a member of the finance committee, told reporters in parliament.

Finance Minister Jan Tore Sanner and Central Bank Governor Oeystein Olsen, together with the other members of the central bank's executive board, will meet later on Friday.

Tangen and the central bank declined to comment. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
A man wanted for a 2016 murder in New York with ties to the MS-13 gang has been detained in El Salvador, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Jose Jonathan Guevara-Castro - also known as Suspechoso - was arrested on August 13 in Acajutla, Sonsonate, the Eastern District of New York said in a Tuesday press release.

His latest charge is in connection to participating in the murder of 20-year-old Kerin Pineda, who was brutally killed on May 21, 2016, in Nassau County.

Pineda was believed to be a member of the 18th Street gang, one of the principal rivals of MS-13. The murder was a joint venture between two 'cliques' of MS-13 operating on Long Island: the Hollywood Locos Salvatruchas clique and the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside clique.

Guvara-Casto is believed to have been a part of the Hollywood clique.

On May 21, 2016, members of the gang lured Pineda to a wooded area near the Merrick-Freeport border and violently hacked at him with machetes.

Jose Jonathan Guevara-Castro (left) - also known as Suspechoso - was arrested in connection to the murder of 20-year-old Kerin Pineda (right), who was killed on May 21, 2016, in Nassau County

Guevara-Castro is charged in a 24-count indictment that also included seven other members of the MS-13 gang. Charges range from racketeering offenses, murder and narcotics trafficking.

They then burned his body in a hole that they had made the day before. It would take a year for authorities to recover Pineda's body.

Guevara-Castro is charged in a 24-count indictment that also included seven other members of the MS-13 gang. Charges range from racketeering offenses, murder and narcotics trafficking.

'Guevara's arrest more than 2,000 miles away from Long Island where he allegedly participated in the brutal murder of a young man more than four years ago, is a testament to the commitment of this Office and our law enforcement partners to bringing members of the MS-13 gang to justice for their crimes,' Acting United States Attorney DuCharme said in the release.

'There is no place to hide, here or abroad, and neither distance nor the passage of time will offer any safe harbor to criminals from our mission to eradicate violent gangs from the Eastern District of New York.'
A woman from Chisasibi, Que., says she feels "stuck" in Africa because she misses home, but doesn't want to leave without her Moroccan husband who was rejected in an attempt to move to Canada.

"We don't want to be alone anymore. It has been 13 years," said Jane Sam-Cromarty, who is with her husband in El-Ouatia, Morocco.

Sam-Cromarty and Illyasse Gountiti started out as online friends in 2006. Eventually they married in Morocco with the Gountiti family present on July 9, 2007, and have a Quebec marriage licence.

Since then, Sam-Cromarty has had month-long visits at a time to North Africa from northern Quebec, followed by months of being apart. She said regular communication by phone and eventually through the internet played a vital role.

In an attempt to live together in Canada, the newlyweds submitted an application more than a decade ago so Gountiti could obtain a permanent residency visa.

Sam-Cromarty said Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada rejected the application on grounds that the legally married couple had not lived together for a year.

I started to feel sad, longing to be out on the land. - Jane Sam-Cromarty

Sam-Cromarty said she was disappointed their marriage was considered not genuine.

"I was devastated," she said, speaking to CBC over the phone from Morocco.

"I just want to be with my wife  we won't give up," said her husband Gountiti.

Sam-Cromarty, who's been in Africa since October 2019, said "the first attempt was a learning process."

She said she has help from an immigration lawyer in Quebec, and they are filing another application.

Lawyer says delays due to pandemic

"She's improved her odds this time around by, first of all, staying in the relationship," said David Chalk, Sam-Cromarty's immigration lawyer.

"They've been married for over a decade  and second of all, she is spending as much time with her husband and including a protracted stay."

Story continues

With 30 years of service for the Cree Health Board and Social Services of James Bay, Sam-Cromarty retired in June 2019. As a Cree beneficiary, Sam-Cromarty is seeking assistance from the Cree Health Board and the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec.

"Due to uncertain circumstances surrounding COVID-19, I am not sure if I will make it home. I don't want to be alone. I need my husband," said Sam-Cromarty. "It seems like I am stuck here."

Submitted by Jane Sam-Cromarty

The worldwide pandemic has delayed progress and made things harder, she said. Although the first application documents are no longer admissible, it does not discourage the couple from pursuing a second attempt.

"We knew it would not be easy  We want to do this carefully. It is a timely matter," said Sam-Cromarty.

"Ordinarily, it's supposed to take 12 months, but we're not living in ordinary times," said Chalk, Sam-Cromarty's lawyer.

"There are thousands of unopened envelopes containing the applications like theirs."

October marks one year of living together for the couple  the longest stretch of time they've lived together.

"It was very tough for me just wanting to be home when I couldn't. I thought about my mother, my only surviving parent, my siblings and friends," she said.

"There were times I cried thinking about people that are heading out to their camps back home," said Sam-Cromarty.

"I started to feel sad, longing to be out on the land."
WASHINGTON - With President Donald Trump's executive order suspending federal student loan payments through the end of the year creating confusion among borrowers, the U.S. Education Department on Friday fleshed out the terms and effectively extended the moratorium as written by Congress earlier in the year.

That means that all borrowers with student loans held by the federal agency will have their payments automatically suspended until Dec. 31 without penalty or accruing interest. Each month until then would still count toward loan forgiveness for borrowers in public service jobs. It would also count toward student loan rehabilitation, a federal program that erases a default from a person's credit report after nine consecutive payments.

Those are the same terms Congress agreed upon in the last stimulus package. Lawmakers suspended education debt payments through Sept. 30 after the Trump administration in March gave borrowers the option of postponing payments for at least 60 days as the pandemic leveled the economy.

As the deadline approached and Congress was unable to reach an agreement on an extension, Trump stepped in earlier in the month. But the president's order created more questions than gave answers about how the suspension would be applied. And by giving borrowers the option of halting their payments, rather than making it automatic, and ignoring the treatment of loans in default, consumer advocates worried that many would fall through the cracks.

On Friday, the department addressed many of those concerns, though others remain. Chief among them is that the order still excludes more than 7 million borrowers whose federal loans are held by private companies or universities.

For borrowers with loans in the department's portfolio, they can continue making payments on their debt to pay it off faster, though they are under no obligation to do so. Collections on defaulted, federally held loans are still halted, and any borrower with defaulted federal loans whose wages are being garnished will receive a refund.

"Thanks to President Trump's leadership, students can continue their education and borrowers can enjoy relief from some of the financial stress many may be facing due to the coronavirus pandemic," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement Friday. "We want everyone to be focused on a safe return to full-time learning."

The department is working with its student loan servicing companies to get the word out about the terms of the extension.

The Education Department has had trouble executing some elements of the student loan moratorium. Tens of thousands of borrowers were still having their paychecks shorted to repay past-due student loans months after the order went into effect. The department blamed the delay on employers failing to take action to end involuntary collection, despite calls and emails from the agency.

But people familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly, previously told The Washington Post that the Education Department failed to promptly mail out notices to employers. And they questioned why the agency failed to deploy all methods of communication from the outset.
The United States is one of six countries, including the three European nations, Russia and China, that signed the 2015 deal under which Iran agreed to sharply curtain its nuclear activities and open them to international monitoring, in exchange for the immediate lifting of some sanctions and future sunset provisions on others. That included a ban on Iranian purchase or sale of conventional weapons due to expire on Oct. 18.
"Mountain America is proud to support teachers in extending learning possibilities for their students," says Spencer Carver, assistant vice president of select employer group development. "2020 has provided teachers with unique challenges due to the Coronavirus, and we are honored to provide classroom grants to help provide essential learning tools."

Mountain America is accepting applications through October 9, 2020. The 2020-2021 grant recipients will be announced online by October 31, 2020. For additional details and to apply, visit www.macu.com/scholarships.

About Mountain America Credit Union

With more than 920,000 members and $11 billion in assets, Mountain America Credit Union assists members on the right path to help them identify and achieve their financial dreams. Mountain America provides consumers and businesses with a variety of convenient, flexible products and services, as well as sound, timely advice. Members enjoy access to secure, cutting-edge mobile banking technology, over 95 branches across five states, thousands of shared-branching locations nationwide and more than 50,000 surcharge-free ATMs. Mountain Americaguiding you forward. Learn more at macu.com.

SOURCE Mountain America Credit Union

Related Links

http://www.macu.com


BERLIN  A prominent Russian opposition figure was flown to Germany for treatment of suspected poisoning on Saturday, his spokeswoman said, after a day of delays in which Russian doctors offered a variety of reasons to block his transfer.

The opposition leader, Aleksei A. Navalny, who had been in a coma since Thursday, was flown from the Siberian city of Omsk to Berlin on a Challenger 604 air ambulance arranged by the foundation of a movie producer based in the German capital. The evacuation came after a team of German doctors, who had arrived in Omsk on the air ambulance, stated unequivocally on Friday that it was safe for him to travel.

Mr. Navalnys personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, said in an interview Friday that she believed the Russian authorities had tried to delay his departure long enough for the poison in his system to diminish and become difficult or impossible to identify.
CALGARY, Alberta, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Athabasca Minerals Inc. (Athabasca, AMI or the Corporation)  TSXV: AMI announces that it has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) for an Employee Share Purchase Plan (the ESP Plan) with employees, management and directors of AMI. The Corporation will seek shareholder approval of the ESP Plan at the Annual General and Special Meeting to be held on September 22, 2020.



In an effort to preserve the Corporations cash position and employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn, AMI implemented a 90/10 compensation program whereby 90% of base salary is paid in cash and 10% of base salary is paid in treasury-issued shares. For this compensation program, the Corporation has put into place an ESP Plan and participation in the ESP Plan is voluntary.

The compensation program was put into effect June 1, 2020 for employees and management. For directors fees, the compensation program was retroactive to April 1, 2020. The Corporation will present the ESP Plan to Shareholders for approval at the 2020 Annual General and Special Meeting. The ESP Plan is subject to the final acceptance of the TSXV.

ABOUT ATHABASCA MINERALS INC.

Incorporated in 2006, Athabasca is an integrated group of companies focused on the aggregates, industrial minerals and resource sectors, including exploration and development; aggregates marketing and midstream supply-logistics solutions. Business activities include aggregate production, sales and royalties from corporate-owned pits, management services of third-party pits, acquisitions of sand and gravel operations, integrated supply/delivery solutions of industrial minerals, and new venture development. The Corporation is strategically focused on growing its three core business units: the AMI Aggregates division, the AMI RockChain division, and the AMI Silica division. Management is continually pursuing opportunities for sustained growth and diversification in supplying aggregate products and industrial minerals.

Athabascas business comprised the following three reportable segments:

AMI Aggregates division produces and sells aggregate out of its corporate pits and manages the Coffey Lake Public Pit on behalf of the Province of Alberta for which aggregate management services revenue are earned. Additionally, the Corporation has industrial mineral leases, such as those supporting AMIs Richardson Quarry Project, that are strategically positioned for future development in industrial regions with historically and consistently high demand for aggregates.

division produces and sells aggregate out of its corporate pits and manages the Coffey Lake Public Pit on behalf of the Province of Alberta for which aggregate management services revenue are earned. Additionally, the Corporation has industrial mineral leases, such as those supporting AMIs Richardson Quarry Project, that are strategically positioned for future development in industrial regions with historically and consistently high demand for aggregates. AMI Silica division is positioning to become a leading supplier of premium domestic silica sand with regional deposits in Alberta and NE British Columbia. This reporting segment encompasses all silica assets including Firebag, the Duvernay Project and the Montney In-Basin Project.

division is positioning to become a leading supplier of premium domestic silica sand with regional deposits in Alberta and NE British Columbia. This reporting segment encompasses all silica assets including Firebag, the Duvernay Project and the Montney In-Basin Project. AMI RockChain division is a midstream technology-based business using its proprietary RockChain digital platform, associated algorithm and quality assurance & control services to provide cost-effective integrated supply / delivery solutions of industrial minerals to industry, and the construction sector.

 TerraShift Engineering Ltd. is a newly acquired division of RockChain. It offers technology-based applications that support resource exploration and development, environmental and regulatory planning, resource management, compliance reporting, and reclamation for a growing customer base across Western Canada and Ontario.

For further information on AMI, please contact:

Tanya Finney, Director, Investor and Stakeholder Relations

Tel: 587-391-0548 / Email: tanya.finney@athabascaminerals.com



Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively referred to herein as forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words expects, plans, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates, continues, projects, potential, budget and similar expressions, or are events or conditions that will, would, may, could or should occur or be achieved. This news release contains forward-looking statements pertaining to the approval, implementation and success of the ESP Plan.

Although the Corporation believes that the material factors, expectations and assumptions expressed in such forward-looking statements are reasonable based on information available to it on the date such statements are made, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Corporation can give no assurances that such statements and information will prove to be correct and such statements are not guarantees of future performance. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties.

Actual performance and results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to known and unknown risks, including those set forth in the Corporations Annual Information Form (a copy of which can be found under Athabascas profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com) and in the Corporations most recent Managements Discussion and Analysis. Accordingly, readers should not place undue importance or reliance on the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that the list of factors is not exhaustive.

Statements, including forward-looking statements, contained in this news release are made as of the date they are given and the Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

Additional information on these and other factors that could affect the Corporations operations and financial results are included in reports on file with applicable securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed under Athabascas profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
FILE - This Wednesday, July 17, 2019 file photo shows Southwest Airlines planes at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. The Transportation Department's inspector general said in a report Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020 that Southwest Airlines continues to fly airplanes with safety concerns, putting 17 million passengers at risk, while federal officials do a poor job overseeing the airline. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) Associated Press

Southwest Airlines will turn down $2.8 billion in federal CARES Act funds, it quietly announced this week.

The airline said that it can do without the loan from the Treasury Department, citing its ability to fundraise elsewhere.

The airline's short-term outlook remains bleak, however, with air travel demand still down significantly amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Southwest Airlines will turn down a $2.8 billion loan from the federal government through the CARES Act.

The airline's leadership believes it has enough liquidity in the form of cash and short-term investments, and potential future access to additional financing, to help it weather the COVID-19 crisis, according to an investor update filed with the SEC on Wednesday.

Southwest has raised about $18.7 billion net in 2020, and currently has about $15.2 billion in liquidity available.

The CARES Act, which was passed in late-March, offered the airline industry $58 billion in aid  half in payroll support grants, meant to help airlines continue to pay workers through at least September, and half as low-interest operational loans.

Southwest received $3.3 billion in payroll support, of which it must repay $990 million.

Although Southwest agreed to terms for the loans last month, CEO Gary Kelly had previously characterized the conditions attached to CARES Act loans as onerous.

In exchange for the payroll support funding, airlines including Southwest were required to agree to avoid furloughs until at least October, suspend stock buybacks, and issue warrants for equity to the federal government. Similar terms  including equity requirements  were attached to the operational loans.

Despite the airline's optimism over future funding, it made it clear in this week's investor update that the overall business environment remains bleak. Although Southwest saw travel demand begin to improve through May and June, a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the US led that modest recovery to stall by July. The airline said that while there has been a modest improvement in August, mostly in the form of last-minute bookings, traffic remains low.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Coronavirus lockdowns may have largely silenced various social movements but a new form of protest is spreading on the walls of buildings in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.

Social activists are beginning to find their voice again, projecting words and punchy images onto the walls of towering buildings.

These include everything from "Bolsonaro Out" slogans against the Brazilian president in Sao Paulo, to "No one is above the law" hailing the arrest this month of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe.

"We decided that it was a nice idea to keep that protest spirit alive and not let the coronavirus overshadow things that continue to happen and that need to remain in the national conversation," said Laura Mora, a 39-year-old filmmaker using this new form of expression in Medellin, Colombia.

"And if we can no longer go out on the streets the walls serve as a printing press."

An image depicting former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is projected in Medellin /  AFP

On an April evening, months into Colombia's lockdown, Mora and her 42-year-old musician friend Sergio Parsons climbed onto the roof terrace of their apartment building to break the monotony of confinement with an open-air cinema screening for friends.

A neighbor set up a projector. "But there was a crazy gust of wind," which blew their screen away.

"But we realized we had this wall," she said, pointing to the building opposite, and the messenger had her medium.

- Lighting up the walls -

An activist uses a laptop to project an image on a building in Medellin /  AFP

"We're inspired by the spirit of the events of late 2019," said the director. "A lot of people have written to me. One of them said, 'I've got a projector, let's join forces.'"

The following Sunday, the walls of several Medellin neighborhoods lit up in the night -- the work of street artists, illustrators, publishers, musicians.

Until then, they had never met. Now, with half a dozen projectors, they are making walls talk in Colombia's second-largest city.

Colombian activist and filmmaker Laura Mora takes photos of a projection in Medellin /  AFP

The messages are disparate, ranging from the sign-of-the-times standard "Everything's strange" to slogans like "Public health for all" to calls for the legalization of abortion or denouncements of Colombia's "narco-democracy."

"We think it's very interesting to keep shouting what there is to say," adds Juan David Mesa, 29, a film producer who projects images and slogans onto the walls of Medellin's cathedral from the Plaza Bolivar below.

The activists are also sharing their messages on social media.

"By putting it here our neighbors can see it but the good thing about social media is that it makes it permanent," said Tatiana Rios, a visual designer.

- From Mexico to Chile -

A projection reading "Bolsonaro Out" appears on a building wall during a protest against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo in May 2020 /  AFP/File

As countries have withdrawn into themselves during the pandemic, this new form of protest has jumped borders, reaching cities across Latin America via social networks.

"We're connected with a projection initiative in Sao Paulo in Brazil, another in Chile, a girl in Uruguay. There are others in Mexico who have a mobile projector and move around," said Mora.

The movement is still in its infancy in Colombia, having just reached the capital Bogota where a political scientist projected images from her balcony but was asked to turn it off by a neighbor.

So far, the silent protests have largely been well received by the public.

Uruguayan TV personality Diego Gonzalez holds a picture of Carlos Arevalo, who disappeared during the country's military dictatorship, in an image projected on a building in Montevideo in May 2020 /  AFP

"People notice the reflections, turn around, stop, read, take photos and look for the source of the projection. Sometimes they laugh and wave," said Maritza Sanchez, 37, a journalist with an alternative radio station.

The biggest impact has come via social media. Mora's Instagram account @lanuevabandadelaterraza has attracted more than 8,000 subscribers in three months.

Projections in Medellin usually take place on Sunday, except when breaking news becomes part of the national conversation, such as when Uribe was placed under arrest for alleged witness manipulation.

That evening, a projection showed a portrait of the influential right-wing leader with his face decomposing, alongside a slogan about him being put behind bars.
The Cherokee Nation will host a series of drive-in movie nights as part of its upcoming 68th annual tribal holiday events.

The movie event will take place at One Fire Field in Tahlequah on Sept. 3-5, and tickets for the free showings will be available online at holiday.cherokee.org.

Among them is the premiere of a pilot episode for a new animated Cherokee-language series, Inagei (Ee-nah-geh-ee), which translates to In the Woods.

Telling the adventures of four woodland friends (a rabbit, wolf, deer and bear) who live in a forest, this family-friendly animated production was funded by the tribe as part of its Durbin Feeling Language Preservation Act, which seeks to preserve and revitalize the Cherokee language.

The animated episode is part of the Sept. 4 screening events. A lineup of the three nights screenings, set to begin at 8 each night, can be found on the website.
The Bombay high court on Friday issued notices to the Maharashtra government and Mumbais Siddhivinayak Temple Trust in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging latters transfer of 10 crore to the former for the fight against Covid-19 pandemic and the states Shiv Bhojan Scheme for subsidised food for the poor. It has directed them to file their respective replies within four weeks. The court granted one week thereafter to the petitioner to file rejoinders to the replies and posted the PIL for further hearing in the first week of October.

A bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Revati Mohite-Dere said prima face case was made out for admitting the PIL.

Petitioner Leela Ranga, a lawyer, has questioned two recent transfers of 5 crore each and said the trust has donated about 30 crore to the state government.

Ranga has called the transfers illegal and impermissible under provisions of the Shree Siddhivinayak Temple Trust (Prabhadevi) Act, 1980, which governs the trusts functioning.

Rangas lawyer, Pradeep Sancheti, said 5 crore each have been transferred to the government for the fight against the pandemic and for the Shiv Bhojan Scheme. He cited the Acts section 18 and added the trusts funds can be utilised only for the maintenance, management and administration of the temple. Sancheti added the section allows use of surplus funds only for development of the trust properties like rest houses for devotees and for maintenance of educational institutions, schools, hospitals or dispensaries.

Sancheti said the law does not allow transfer of the trust funds to the government. He pointed out the proposals for transferring the amounts have been initiated by the government and not even by the trust. This is systematic way of transferring the trust funds to the government, he said, urging the court to pass an interim order to stop any further transfers.

A bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Revati Mohite-Dere refused to consider the prayer, saying no one appeared on behalf of the temple trust. It added the court can direct transfer of the funds back to the trust if, after final hearing, it finds that the transfers were illegal.

The court rejected Sanchetis request to restrain the government from renewing appointment of certain trustees, whose terms are ending this month. Sancheti claimed the chairman of the temple trust has got extension of three years after the transfers under challenge in their plea.

This is also not the stage for appointing a retired judge, the bench said referring to the petitioners interim prayer for appointment of a retired high court judge to inquire into the affairs of the trust in view of impermissible transfers.

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With moving a privilege motion against a MP for questioning his power to unilaterally summon representatives to a Parliamentary Standing Committee, the has realised the Congress' seriousness in the matter. The saffron party is also ready with two plans to block Tharoor's moves, with the first already set in motion.

Lets talk about Plan B. If Plan A doesn't give the desired result, is likely to set the backup plan in motion on September 1, when the Standing Committee on IT reconvenes. representatives have been summoned the next day, between 4 and 4.30 p.m. "on the subject 'Safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms". Rules allow any member to question the move and seek voting over it.

Among the 21 Lok Sabha members in the committee, the BJP has 12 and an ally member. Among the 10 Rajya Sabha members, one has died, leaving only nine. Out of these nine, the BJP has 3 members and hopes to get the vote of a nominated member.

Strictly, on its own, the BJP has 15 members in the 30 member panel. If it considers ally LJP and a nominated member whose views align with the BJP, the ruling party will have 17 votes. Voting is not unusual, given that the last time the issue of WhatsApp Snooping came up, those who opposed summoning representatives called for a vote. However, the BJP lost that round. But this time, the BJP has started to work on its arithmetic.

However, the goal is not to lean on Plan B. The BJP's Plan A is to get Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to censure Tharoor, who is also the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Information Technology, which has summoned representatives to the committee on September 2, to explain allegations of favouritism for BJP lawmakers, against it.

Tharoor's colleague in the committee and increasingly the face of the BJP's opposition to Tharoor's move, Nishikant Dubey has set the ball in motion for Plan A, by writing to Birla, where he urged him to invoke Rule 283 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha, to block Tharoor's bid.

The rule says, "The Speaker may from time to time issue such directions to the Chairperson of a committee, as the Speaker considers necessary, for regulating its procedure and the organisation of its work". In simpler words, the Speaker can step in to stop Tharoor if he deems fit.

Speaking to IANS, Dubey said, "The signing authority for summoning anyone to the committee is the Secretary General who in turn reports to the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Speaker does not report to anyone."

Stressing on this overarching power of the Speaker, Dubey has cited instances of Tharoor's alleged misconduct that includes him allegedly bypassing the committee members, talking through social media, his reference to the British House of Commons among others to argue that Tharoor be sent on "leave".

Even though many BJP members, without being named, have accepted that removing Tharoor is not going to be an easy task for even the Speaker, given the optics associated with the ongoing case, blocking Tharoor's summon seems to be well within the ambit of the laid down rule.

Did Facebook India favour BJP over others? While that seems to be at the core of the entire political fight, the ruling party has devised multiple strategies to win it.

(Anindya Banerjee can be contacted at anindya.b@ians.in)

--IANS

abn/in/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.)
With less than three months to go for the Bihar assembly elections, there have been major disruptions in the state's Dalit and Mahadalit politics.

Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) founder and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi exited the opposition Grand Alliance on Thursday. The development comes as a major setback to the coalition's bid to defeat the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) in the state assembly elections due in October-November.

"HAM will no longer be a constituent of the Grand Alliance. The party has decided to leave the Mahagathbandhan," party spokesman Danish Rizwan said. Though the party did not declare which coalition it will align with, close watchers of the evolving political scene in Bihar said Manjhi could veer towards the JD(U)-led NDA once again.

Earlier in the week, Bihar industries minister Shyam Rajak resigned from the JD(U) over differences with the party leadership and joined the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Rajak is an MLA from the reserved Phulwari Sharif seat and is considered a strong Dalit face. Political experts say that he also has strong backing from a sizeable Muslim population in his constituency. After Rajak announced his decision to quit, he was expelled from the JD(U) and sacked from the ministry. Before joining the JD(U) in 2009 he was with the-then Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD.

According to experts, Manjhi could compensate for the loss of Rajak.

With the exit of HAM, the opposition Grand Alliance now comprises the RJD, Congress, former union minister Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), and ex-Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni's Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP).

Meanwhile, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president Chirag Paswan has been taking potshots at the Bihar government and chief minister Nitish Kumar over governance and management of the migrant crisis and Covid-19 pandemic. The Paswans has been upset over the JD(U)s reluctance in accommodating LJP in the 12 nominations to the Bihar legislative council from the governors quota even as the BJP wanted to give it one seat.

The JD(U) has maintained it does not have an alliance with the LJP in the state and has become friendlier with former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi as it seeks to have a Dalit leader by its side to offset possible exit of Ram Vilas and Chirag Paswans party from the ruling NDA.

The 2011 Census of India indicated that Scheduled Castes constituted 15 per cent of Bihar's 10.4 crore population. The Mahadalits constitute nearly 16 per cent of the states population and 38 seats are reserved for them in the 243-member assembly.

Political observers say Mahadalit votes will be an added advantage for the RJD, which has the core traditional votes of the Muslims and Yadavs, constituting around 30 per cent of the total votes.

Out of the 38 reserved seats for Scheduled Castes, RJD had bagged 15, JD(U) 10 and Congress got five seats in the 2015 assembly polls. The JD(U), RJD and Congress had fought the assembly elections together. While the BJP had five seats in its kitty, four went to others. Of the 38 reserved seats, 13 were won by candidates belonging to the Ravidas community and 11 seats by Paswans.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, interact with supporters via video teleconference after Biden delivered his acceptance speech on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, on Aug. 20, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Democratic Convention: Light on Policy, Heavy on Ideology

News Analysis

The four nights of the Democratic National Convention devoted a sliver of time to specific policy proposals while focusing heavily on appeals to progressive ideology and emotion.

Delivered in a condensed format due to concerns about COVID-19, the Democratic National Convention served as an eight-hour summary of the state of the Democratic party and the presidential campaign of Joe Biden.

Even though Biden was presented as a moderate Democrat during the primary elections, his policy platform shifted far to the left as he sought to appeal to progressives heavily courted by the socialist agendas pitched by the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

Any doubt about Bidens far-left shift dissipated with his campaigns decision to create a so-called unity platform in cooperation with the campaign of Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist. The Biden campaign stopped short of adopting Sanderss major universal welfare programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

With the general election arriving in two-and-a-half months, the Democrats have to reconcile the new platform with the views of moderate American voters who are averse to the high taxes needed to pay for these welfare programs, environmental policies, and social justice projects. This could be a reason why both the convention and Bidens capstone speech steered clear of policy specifics.

The convention instead focused on appeals to emotion, ideology, andas is usual for political conventionsattacks on the opposing candidate.

Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. lll be an ally of the light, not the darkness, Biden said. Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

Biden spoke of his personal family suffering, alluded to dark forces driving the nation, and highlighted his government experience. But the policy portion of his speech stood out for its brevity and lack of specifics.

The clearest proposal in the speech called for rolling back Trumps $1.3 trillion tax cut. Biden also promised to build on Obamacare and protect Medicare. The former vice presidents plan to address the COVID-19 pandemic did not differ much from the one already executed by the Trump administration, with a notable difference being Biden calling for making masks mandatory nationwide.

The Trump campaign, keenly aware of the Democrats lack of policy specifics, has hammered away at the point on each night of the convention, with the Trump campaigns formal responses on each night focused squarely on Bidens shift leftward in his policy proposals.

Biden supports raising taxes by $4 trillion and forcing a government takeover of healthcare that will lead to the elimination of your employer-provided health insurance, Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, said in a statement. He would kill 10 million energy jobs with the Green New Deal and bow to anti-police activists in cutting funding for law enforcement. He will sacrifice public safety and jobs for Americans by granting amnesty, taxpayer-funded healthcare, and work permits to 11 million illegal aliens.

Over the course of four nights, the Democratic convention appealed to several issue-based groups, including environmentalists, gun control advocates, and social justice activists. The closing night featured several segments and speeches on faith, which again appealed to emotion but mostly lacked policy specifics, including Bidens stance on abortion, one of the single biggest motivators for evangelicals, with whom Trump maintains an overwhelming advantage.

Instead of offering a choice between policies, Biden framed the choice as one between angrier, less hopeful, more divided nation or a turn toward hope and light and love.

We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful, and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal, Biden said of his campaign.

The conventions programming likewise sidelined policy specifics in favor of appeals to emotion and ideology and depictions of Biden as a person over.

On Thursday, it was Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old who shared his story of bonding with Biden over their shared stutter. Harrington made it, sometimes stuttering, through his own speech, which hed marked up to show the cadences, just the way he said Biden had taught him when they met.

The night before, there was the Sanchez family of North Carolina talking about how Trumps immigration policies threaten them.

On Tuesday, Bidens name was placed in nomination by a New York elevator operator.

On Monday, Kristin Urquiza recounted losing her father to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus and blamed Trump for his death.

Vice President Mike Pence told Fox Business Network that the Democrats painted a grim picture of America. He said most of the convention was an ad hominem attack on the president of the United States.

The vice president outlined what would be the main thrust of Republicans at their own national convention next week, offering a policy-centered riff on a line from Bidens speech which said that character, decency, science, and democracy are all on the ballot.

The economy is on the ballot. Law and order is on the ballot, and the American people know it, Pence said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
By Tim Reid

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Over 70 former Republican national security officials including ex-CIA and FBI chiefs will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday while launching a scathing indictment of President Donald Trump, calling him corrupt and unfit to serve.

The group, called Former Republican National Security Officials for Biden, includes some of the most senior Republican members of the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment to have served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump.

The 73-strong group includes retired General Michael Hayden, who served as national security director and head of the CIA; William Webster, the only man to serve as both head of the CIA and FBI; John Negroponte, the first director of National Intelligence; Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Mike Donley, former Air Force secretary.

Their full-throated condemnation of Trump and backing of Biden will come three days before Trump's nominating convention opens on Monday and underscores how the Republican president has alienated some members of his own party, especially among intelligence and foreign policy veterans.

"Trump has demonstrated that he lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president," the group plans to declare in a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

"We have concluded that Donald Trump has failed our country and that Vice President Joe Biden should be elected the next President of the United States," it adds.

The group is one of a number of Republican organizations opposing Trump's re-election in the Nov. 3 election.

Collectively, they object to his alienation of U.S. allies abroad and his leadership at home, most recently his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 170,000 Americans and triggered a severe economic downturn, as well as his reaction to nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality against Black Americans.

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The Trump campaign has described Republican-led groups campaigning for Biden, such as Republican Voters Against Trump and 43 Alumni for Biden - hundreds of officials who worked for George W. Bush - as "the swamp," disaffected former officials "trying to take down the duly elected President of the United States."

Trump himself has expressed contempt, saying on Twitter last year that such "Never Trump Republicans" are "human scum."

'GLOBAL CHAOS'

Bob Tuttle, who was director of personnel under Reagan and ambassador to the UK under George W. Bush, is a member of the national security group and said Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis had been "abominable."

"He's a malignant narcissist. He's a liar. He's a despicable human being and the worst president in American history - it's not even close," Tuttle told Reuters.

Another group member, James Glassman, an undersecretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, said Trump had created "global chaos."

"Lack of leadership has led to the deaths of 170,000 Americans," Glassman said. "There's no excuse in the country with the best health scientists in the world."

The group lays out a detailed charge sheet against Trump, including accusations that he is unfit to lead in a national crisis, undermined confidence in U.S. elections, aligned himself with dictators, preached a "dark and pessimistic view of America" and attacked and vilified immigrants.

The national security group will launch a website on Friday and come under the umbrella of another anti-Trump organization run by Republicans, Defending Democracy Together. The former national security officials raised $140,000 among themselves to launch their effort.

(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Below is the oral statement prepared for delivery by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy before today's hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs.

"Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Peters, and members of the Committee.

Thank you, Chairman Johnson, for calling this hearing. I'm proud to be with you today on behalf of the 630,000 dedicated women and men of the United States Postal Service.

On June 15th, I became America's 75th Postmaster General.

I did so because I believe the Postal Service plays a tremendously positive role in the lives of the American public and in the life of the nation.

I also welcomed the opportunity to lead this organization because I believe there is opportunity for the Postal Service to better serve the American public, and to also operate in a financially sustainable manner.

Congress established the Postal Service to fulfill a public service mission to provide prompt, reliable, and universal postal services to the American public  in an efficient and financially self-sustaining fashion.

Our ability to fulfill that mandate in the coming years is at fundamental risk. Changes must be made to ensure our sustainability for the years and decades ahead.

Our business model  as established by Congress  requires us to pay our bills through our own efforts. I view it as my personal obligation to put the organization in a position to fulfill that mandate.

With action from Congress and our regulator  and significant effort by the Postal Service  we can achieve this goal.

This year, the Postal Service will likely report a loss of more than $9 billion. Without change, our losses will only increase in the years to come.

It is vital that Congress enact reform legislation that addresses our unaffordable retirement payments. Most importantly, Congress must allow the Postal Service to integrate our retiree health benefits program with Medicare, which is a common-sense practice followed by all businesses that still offer retiree health care. It must also rationalize our pension funding payments.

Legislative actions have been discussed and debated for years, but no action has been taken. I urge the Congress to expeditiously enact these reforms.

I also urge Congress to enact legislation that would provide the Postal Service with financial relief to account for the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our financial condition.

The Postal Regulatory Commission began a mandated review of our pricing system 4 years ago. It has been 3 years since the commission concluded that our current system is not working. The lack of action is astonishing.

We urgently require the PRC to do its job and establish a more rational regulatory system for our mail products.

Had Congress and the PRC fulfilled their obligations to the American public concerning the Postal Service, I am certain that much of our $80 billion in cumulative losses since 2007 could have been avoided, and that our operational and financial performance would not now be in such jeopardy.

The Postal Service must also do its part. We must adapt to the realities of our marketplace, generate more revenue and control costs. I believe we can chart a path for our business that accomplishes these goals.

In my 67 days as Postmaster General, I have also had the chance to observe the many hidden strengths of the organization, and to appreciate our critical mission of service to the American public.

Despite our deep, longstanding financial problems, there is an incredibly strong base to build upon  and a tremendous desire of the public for the Postal Service to succeed.

As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on-time.

This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day.

Mr. Chairman, the women and men of the Postal Service have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to our mission of service throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

In every community in America, we continue to work to keep our employees and customers safe as we fulfil our essential role in delivering medications, benefit checks and financial statements the public depends upon.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a public outpouring of support for postal employees as they performed their essential service throughout the nation. This is a well-deserved testament to their dedication.

Mr. Chairman; Ranking Member Peters; I look forward to working with you and this committee and our stakeholders to restore the financial health of the United States Postal Service and to improve the way we serve the American public.

This concludes my remarks. I welcome any questions that you and the committee may have."

Please Note: For U.S. Postal Service media resources, including broadcast-quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom . Follow us on Twitter , Instagram , Pinterest and LinkedIn . Subscribe to the USPS YouTube channel , like us on Facebook and enjoy our Postal Posts blog . For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com

Contact: David Partenheimer

[email protected]

usps.com/news

SOURCE U.S. Postal Service

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CAPE TOWN, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as the African Union (AU) Chairperson, has pledged his "unwavering support" for the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), his office said on Thursday.

Ramaphosa provided his assurance of support to AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene on the occasion of the commissioning and handover ceremony of the AfCFTA Secretariat building in Accra, Ghana, to the African Union Commission (AUC) earlier this week, said Tyrone Seale, acting spokesperson for Ramaphosa.

Ghana was selected to host the AfCFTA Secretariat by AU member states on the occasion of the 12th AU Extraordinary Summit held in Niamey, Niger in July of 2019.

In this regard, Ramaphosa has, on behalf of the AU and the continent, expressed profound gratitude to the government and people of Ghana for generously offering the building and residences which house the AfCFTA, Seale said in a statement.

Ramaphosa assured Mene of the AU's commitment to the successful implementation of the AfCFTA, as a practical contribution to economic development of Africa and welcomed progress achieved thus far in the implementation of the 12th AU Extraordinary Summit, Seale said.

Ramaphosa also acknowledged the challenges that exist in the negotiations, in particular around the issue of the Rules of Origin and Trade Offers, as well as trade in services, according to Seale.

Ramaphosa voiced his confidence that through Mene's leadership and the determination of the AU member states, all bracketed issues should be resolved, Seale said.

Elected in February 2020 with a mandate to administer the free trade agreement, Mene is the first secretary-general of the AfCFTA.

The AfCFTA envisages a single market for AU member states with a combined population of over one billion and a total gross domestic product (GDP) of about 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars.
Suniel Shetty On Nepotism Says He Hasn't Forced His Kids Athiya And Ahan Into Films: 'People Have Seen Something In Them'
In his recent publication of the book 'Dick Willis Irish Freedom Fighter', David Willis pays tribute to his father and his many colleagues in their courageous fight for Irish Freedom in the War Of Independence from 1919 to 1922 and the following 12 month Civil War where Irishman fought Irishman in a difference of opinion on a free state and a 32 County Ireland.

Davis Willis, the former Fianna Fail Town Councillor and presenter of 250 episodes of Irish Paint Magic on TG4, gives a blow by blow account of his father's activities in both conflicts from 1919 to 1923. The 134 page book gives detailed accounts of Dick Willis, known as Gunner Willis for his expertise with the lethal Hotchkiss machine gun, and well known Republican colleagues such as Jack Bolster, Congo Moloney, Owen Harold, Sean Moylan, Dick and Paddy McCarthy, Sando Donovan and many more.

The book also covers De Valera's secret meeting with William O'Brien at his home at Bellvue House, the Dano O'Mahony home today. Both top Republicans met with the hope of ending the then Civil War but the event failed to find a solution.

Willis acted as guide and bodyguard to Dev on the visit to and from the Mallow meeting.

Dick Willis became a wanted man while he was also personal bodyguard to top Republican Liam Lynch. Eventually he was captured and spent jail terms in various parts of the country.

The book gives a clear picture on the capture of Mallow Baracks in September 1920 and Willis' pivotal role in the plans and final take-over of the building.

Being the only barracks taken over by Republicans, it received national news, as did the burning of Mallow by Black and Tans in reprisal for the barrack takeover, in which Cleaves Factory, in the now Dairygold site, and Mallow Town Hall were gutted, among other buildings.

Willis' home at West End also suffered in the Black and Tan outrage while a Sacred Heart picture was the only item that was recovered in tact.

Activities at Mallow Railway Station and in various other parts of Co. Cork and further afield are also featured in this publication as well as many other ambushes throughout the region and the blowing up of several bridges to halt the advance of the enemy in both conflicts.

David also pays glowing tributes to Cumman Na Mban and their role in the struggle for Irish Freedom 100 years ago.

The Willis family were deeply involved in painting and decorating and had a shop in the West End, This trade was handed down through several generations up to modern times.

Dick Willis had four brothers and two sisters.

In more peaceful times Dick served on Mallow Town Council for many years while his son, David, followed serving up to 20 years.

Dick was also very active in the Emergency during WW2.

Dick himself married Maud Lane from Bridge Street and they had ten children, six boys and four girls. In 1951 Maud suffered a massive stroke and was paralysed on one side but she regained her strenght and months later she became mobile again but, sadly, on a spring day in 1952 she suffered a second stroke and died at the age of 47.

In August 1959 Dick died in his sleep at the age of 60. He was laid to rest with his wife at St. Joseph's Cemetery in with full honours.

There are many illustrations and photographs in this book and also beautiful art work by David. The book closes with a quotation by David Willis... 'When the Poppies smiled in Britain...The Shamrock cried in Ireland'
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The resurgence of the coronavirus in Europe has reignited fears that governments will have to lock down their economies again in the autumn. Some political leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, have rushed to dismiss this possibility, saying the collateral damage from a new bout of confinement would just be too high.

Europes second wave of Covid-19 is certainly different  and, so far, less alarming  than the first. There is plenty that politicians and the general public can do to avoid a return to the most draconian measures of March, April and May. Localized lockdowns have been effective in particular towns or regions that suffer sudden infection spikes.

However, its impossible to rule out a new round of generalized isolation. A full shutdown isnt an optional policy, but a last resort against the epidemic should it spiral out of control again. As we saw in the springtime, tens of thousands of deaths and overwhelmed hospitals are not politically acceptable in most countries. Weve yet to see what will happen in the colder months, when more people are forced inside and governments try to keep workplaces and schools open.

After a quiet start to the summer, Europe is experiencing a sharp rise in cases. Spain and France have registered more than 3,000 and 4,000 new infections per day respectively, and Germany and Italy are seeing more cases too. The pressure on hospitals remains manageable, but its slowly increasing. Public-health officials, who are generally working hard to trace the contacts of those who test positive, face an increasingly difficult job.

Theres no doubt this phase of the virus is unlike the first. Many more people are being tested and the percentage of those who test positive is significantly lower. In Italy it is barely above 1%; in March it was regularly in excess of 20%. Theres a much higher proportion of people with few or no symptoms. This means that the number of counted cases is much closer to the real figure than it was a few months ago. Back then, most of the testing was of people with severe symptoms, meaning the scale of contagion was inevitably much larger.

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Moreover, governments have designed better tools to keep the situation in check. For a start, they can seek to circumscribe the outbreak actively via contact tracing. They can also rely on more help from the public. While theres growing evidence of distancing fatigue, where people are letting their guard down by not wearing masks and ignoring guidelines on socializing, the severity of the first outbreak is still fresh in everyones minds. Finally, doctors have got better at treating Covid-19 patients, even though theres no definitive cure yet.

This explains why Macron and others believe they can avoid another full economic lockdown. Of course, there will be sacrifices: Its unlikely that governments will permit events with large crowds, or the reopening of nightclubs. There are also fears over how students will be allowed back into schools and universities, given the potential for widespread contact and evidence that youngsters can carry a similar load of the virus as their parents. But relying on smart, localized lockdowns, as Macron aspires to do, is indeed the ideal course of action. It would help avoid the calamitous economic and psychological costs of a second generalized lockdown.

However, politicians cannot simply wish away a strategy of confinement. Countries such as Italy, Spain and Britain had to force people to stay home because the pandemic was out of control and their health systems were overwhelmed. There were simply not enough hospital beds and intensive care units to deal with the severe cases. Prioritizing Covid patients also had a dramatic impact on the lives of those who needed treatment for other diseases, such as cancer, who often couldnt receive adequate help.

Its also difficult to avoid the financial consequences of a raging pandemic, even if you keep the economy open. As people become scared, they avoid shops, restaurants and hotels. Sweden didnt introduce a hard lockdown in the spring, but its gross domestic product contracted more in the second quarter than neighboring Nordic states that imposed harsher measures.

Handling the pandemic will require a hammer and dance strategy, in which governments have to impose a strict confinement strategy (the hammer) and then lift it while keeping the pandemic in check (the dance). The hope is that the enforcement of more severe restrictions can be limited to selective closures of affected regions, or certain activities. But its foolish to rule out wider interventions; we simply dont know how the epidemic will evolve. Governments should prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Ferdinando Giugliano writes columns and editorials on European economics for Bloomberg View. He is also an economics columnist for La Repubblica and was a member of the editorial board of the Financial Times.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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In September 1972, just before the start of my second year of law school, I was eating dinner with a group of law students, including a female first-year whom I had just met. The topic turned to the Democratic National Convention.

Never shy with an opinion, I said that the Dems had spent too much time bragging about how many (American) Indians were included among the delegates, and not enough time attacking Richard Nixon. The female first-year disagreed, politely but firmly.

Only later did I learn that her father, as former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, had helped implement reforms that made the 1972 Convention so diverse, and that her mother was a Native American.

There are several lessons to this story. The least important one is that an opposition party can never attack a president strongly enough to satisfy those who hate him.

This, I think, is also the lesson of a Washington Post column by Paul Waldman. The title of the column is If anything, the Democratic convention has been too soft on Trump.

I havent watched the convention, but I would be surprised if the Democrats have been soft on President Trump. Barack Obama certainly wasnt in his speech, which I read this morning.

Obama accused Trump of not putting in the work, of not using his power as president to help anyone but himself and his friends, and of being interested only in gaining attention. Has any former president ever spoken this harshly in public about a sitting president? Not that I know of.

Waldman claims that Obama didnt sufficiently describe the moral depravity of this president. But to Waldman, Trumps depravity has no bounds. How, then, in a relatively short speech can anyone adequately describe it?

Its true that Kamala Harris speech, which I have also read, didnt attack Trump as harshly as some other vice presidential candidates have attacked the opposing standard bearer. For example, Hubert Humphrey ripped into Barry Goldwater in 1964. Dick Cheney did a number on the Clinton-Gore regime in 2000.

But Humphrey and Cheney could afford to devote themselves to attacking the other side because they didnt need to introduce themselves to voters, and the public did not doubt their competence to lead the nation. Humphrey had been a national figure since 1948. He was as prominent as Goldwater. Cheney had been a wartime Secretary of Defense.

Harris, by contrast, has been a U.S. Senator for only three and a half years. Shes a badly failed presidential candidate whose poll numbers leave much to be desired.

Thus, she needed to use her speech to shore up her standing with the American public, not to feed the limitless appetite of vicious Trump haters like Paul Waldman.

If you make it until the end of his column, I think youll agree that therapy, not speeches, is Waldmans last best hope.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  Rural banks can afford to pause loan payments by another two months to help borrowers cope with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, an industry official said.

Elizabeth Carlos-Timbol, president of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines or RBAP, said Friday that small lenders can still absorb the impact of delaying the collection of monthly mortgages and other loan receivables ahead of the 60-day grace period this year as provided under the Bayanihan 2 bill.

"Based on our stress tests in rural banking, 30-45 days is the one that we can handle. But an additional 15 days... because the rural banks are well-capitalized, we can manage that as a striking balance and in the spirit of cooperating with the Bayanihan 2," Carlos-Timbol told CNN Philippines' The Exchange on Friday.

Lawmakers on Thursday agreed to a unified version of the 165.5-billion stimulus plan called the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, which is close to becoming law. The Senate has ratified the bill and is waiting for the House of Representatives to do the same before it can be sent to Malacanang for enactment.

Rural banks have not stopped lending especially to small firms, farmers, and fisherfolk  segments which big lenders deem risky  amid the pandemic, saying that they are also encouraged by various relief measures provided by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The Bayanihan 2 bill also provides as much as 55 billion in additional capital to state-run banks and government financing units to extend more loans to small businesses and affected sectors. The RBAP said they may serve as conduits for such loans.

Central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno earlier spoke up on behalf of banks to ask Congress to reduce the 365-day moratorium on loan payments under the House version of the bill, saying a leeway this long would lead to a significant collapse in banks' cash positions and may trigger a bank run.

There are currently 427 rural banks operating. Carlos-Timbol said those who remain are "well-managed, stronger, and better capitalized" compared to provincial lenders which have closed shop in the past years.

"Our borrowers, just like the rural banks, are very resilient... We rural banks are mostly family-owned businesses and are mid-sized so we are more conservative... We sacrifice profitability over stability," the RBAP official added, citing their network of more than 3,200 bank branches and over 22,000 workers employed by these small banks.

In a separate statement, the Management Association of the Philippines commended lawmakers for passing an agreeable version of Bayanihan 2, noting significant policy changes that makes it easier to build telco towers and removes taxes on initial public offerings of companies looking to join the Philippine Stock Exchange.

"Since the funds appropriated are extremely limited, we urge that disbursement be based on objective criteria, such as the sectors contribution to the GDP, employment share, value added contraction, and their multiplier effect on the economy," MAP said.

The House earlier proposed a recovery plan worth over 1 trillion, but the Department of Finance said they can only fund some 140 billion for fresh stimulus measures this year.
TANZANIA, Tanzania - The Trump administration ran into immediate opposition after its top diplomat officially informed the United Nations it is demanding the restoration of all U.N. sanctions on Iran, with allies and opponents declaring the U.S. action illegal and doomed to failure.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted Thursday that the United States has the legal right to snap back U.N. sanctions even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

Russia and China, along with European allies Britain, France and Germany, who often disagree, are united in declaring the U.S. action illegal on grounds that you cant withdraw from a deal and then use the resolution that endorsed it to re-impose sanctions.

How this dispute plays out in the weeks ahead remains to be seen, but Thursdays U.S. move set the stage for a showdown in the United Nations that could lead to a crisis of credibility for the Security Council, its most important and powerful body.

Pompeo came to the U.N. to deliver a letter to Indonesias ambassador to the U.N., Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating council presidency. It cited significant Iranian violations of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, a requirement to snap back U.N. sanctions.

Pompeo said his message was simple: The United States will never allow the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles, and other kinds of conventional weapons ... (or) to have a nuclear weapon.

And he said U.N. sanctions will continue the arms embargo on Iran, set to expire on Oct. 18, as well as prohibit ballistic missile testing and nuclear enrichment that could lead to a nuclear weapons program  which Tehran insists it is not pursuing.

Pompeo was sharply critical of our friends in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom who didnt support a U.S. resolution to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran, which was resoundingly defeated a week ago.

He accused them of privately agreeing with the U.S. but lacking courage to say so publicly and proposing no alternatives.

Instead they chose to side with ayatollahs, Pompeo said. Their actions endanger the people of Iraq, of Yemen, of Lebanon, of Syria and indeed their own citizens as well.

Following Pompeos half-hour meeting, the council president began one-on-one consultations with its 14 other members on the legality of the U.S. action, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.

Under the terms of the Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal, Thursdays notification starts a 30-day clock after which pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran that were eased will be re-imposed unless a resolution specifically extending their suspension is passed. The U.S., however, would use its veto power to block any resolution extending the sanctions relief.

Pompeo said a Security Council resolution will be introduced as required, but he wouldnt say which country would initiate it. Only the Dominican Republic supported last weeks defeated U.S. resolution to extend the arms embargo.

He appeared confident the U.N. sanctions would be re-imposed in 31 days and indicated that the U.S. may impose sanctions on countries that dont enforce them.

Diplomats said the likely outcome of the council presidents consultations is that the majority of members inform him that the U.S. is not legally entitled to invoke snap back, and therefore they consider that snap back has not been triggered and the U.S. action will have no effect.

In these circumstances, the council president would not be required to introduce a resolution to extend sanctions relief, which would face a U.S. veto, the diplomats said.

The Europeans are still hoping that an agreement might be reached before the Oct. 18 expiration of the Iran arms embargo that could bridge the major differences between Russia and China, who support its lifting, and the United States, which seeks an indefinite extension, the diplomats said.

The Russians have been the most outspoken critics of the U.S. decision to invoke snap back.

Before Pompeos notification, Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the U.S. didnt have the legal right to initiate snap back, and said of course, we will challenge it.

As soon as Pompeo delivered the letter invoking snap back, Russias deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, tweeted: Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.

Russia then asked for an open council meeting Friday to discuss implementation of resolution 2231 endorsing the nuclear deal, which the Trump administration rejected.

After groundlessly claiming that they triggered #snapback our US colleagues objected to holding a SC meeting to discuss whats happening around implementation of Resolution 2231, Polyansky tweeted.

Looming on the horizon, and an unspoken consideration for many Security Council members in this dispute, is the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3.

The Europeans fear that the re-imposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the nuclear deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons, and they are hoping to preserve the JCPOA in the event Trump loses his bid for a second term. Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.

The Trump administration says the deal wasnt working and gave Iran billions of dollars to buy weapons and support its proxies while gradually easing sanctions.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, meanwhile, told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a Thursday phone call that the Security Council must resist the U.S. demand.

This would have dangerous consequences for international law, it will bring nothing but the destruction of international mechanisms and it will discredit the Security Council, Zarif said.

Irans U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi expressed confidence at a news conference that the Security Council will reject the U.S. move because it violates international law, has not enjoyed the political support of council members, and is definitely doomed to failure.

___

Lee reported from Washington. Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed.
'Shalom, Salaam' UAE ambassador writes in Yedioth Ahronoth Al-Otaiba says 'we look forward to Israeli visitors at Expo'

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, AUGUST 21 - Yousef al-Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the US, wrote an article titled "Shalom, salaam and welcome" on the normalisation of relations with Israel published on the front page of the widely circulated Tel Aviv daily Yedioth Arinoth. "We unlocked a gate toward a better future across the Middle East," al-Otaiba said. "We also closed the gate on annexation and created new dynamics in the peace process. It is an important win for diplomacy and for people of the region," he said. Al-Otaiba said the Emirates will remain "an ardent and consistent supporter" of the Palestinian people, and said the decision to normalise relations "maintains the viability of a two-state solution as endorsed by the Arab League and international community". At the same time, the UAE is initiating close cooperation with Israel in various areas, including the fight against coronavirus, telecommunications, air travel, and scientific research. "We look forward to welcoming Israelis to visit their pavilion and more than 100 others at the World Expo in Dubai next October," al-Otaiba said.(ANSAmed). (ANSA).




Italy sees a steady increase in new coronavirus infections.

Italy recorded 845 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on 20 August, representing the highest daily increase since May when the country was still in lockdown.

Thursday's daily caseload of new covid-19 cases was the biggest since the 875 recorded on 16 May, two days before Italy reopened its bars and restaurants after a 10-week lockdown, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

The upsurge in cases on 20 August came the day after Italy registered 642 new cases on 19 August, with the number of swabs taken also up: 77,000, about 6,000 more than the day before.

However despite the rise in cases, the daily death toll in Italy remains low, with six fatalities registered on 20 August compared to seven the day before, according to data from the health ministry.

Italy's new coronavirus cases are concentrated mainly in the northern regions of Veneto (+159) and Lombardy (+154).

Numbers in the central Lazio region, which includes Rome, continue to rise, with 115 new cases recorded yesterday, reports ANSA.

Lazio regional authorities blame this increase in large part on people arriving in Rome - tourists and Italians - from abroad or from other Italian regions, notably Sardinia.

In recent days Italy has taken measures to halt the rise in cases - linked mainly to holidays and nightlife - by closing night clubs and obliging people arriving into Rome's airports from 'at risk' countries to undergo covid-19 testing.

Italy's rising number of new coronavirus infections is, however, significantly lower than other large European countries, with Spain and France both close to 4,000 new cases a day, reports Reuters.

Photo credit: Sara Sette / Shutterstock.com.
Publication: Journal of General Internal Medicine

Authors: Girish Nadkarni, MD, Co-Chair; Anuradha Lala, MD, Member; Benjamin Glicksberg, PhD, Member; and other coauthors of the Mount Sinai COVID Informatics Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Bottom Line: This study describes characteristics of patients with COVID-19 who returned to the ER or required readmission to the hospital within 14 days of being discharged. Understanding what conditions impact these patient outcomes can help improve care during the hospital stay and after discharge.

Researchers found the most common cause for a patient's early hospital readmission after discharge was for respiratory distress. These patients were also more likely to have other ailments including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.

Results: Of the nearly 2,900 discharged patients, more than 100 (3.6%) returned for emergency care after about 4.5 days; 56 of those returning patients required readmittance into the hospital. Half the patients returned for respiratory complications. Compared to patients who did not return, those returning had higher rates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.

Patients who returned also had a shorter length hospital stay during treatment, lower rates of anticoagulation treatment, and were less likely to require intensive care. Age, sex, and race/ethnicity were no different among readmitted patients compared to those who did not return.

Why the Research Is Interesting: The findings provide insight that can potentially lead to improved care for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 to reduce both complications after discharge and hospital readmissions.

Who: 2,864 patients with COVID who were treated and discharged from five hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System, and later readmitted.

When: COVID patients hospitalized between February 27 to April 12, 2020.

What: The study describes clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 who were most likely to return to the ER or require hospital readmission within two weeks of being discharged.

How: Researchers examined data collected from electronic health records including time spent in the emergency department and within an outpatient lab visit. They also considered more than 100 variables including demographics, key vitals, disease diagnoses, comorbid conditions, procedures during hospitalization, ICU-level care, and outcomes.

Study Conclusions: A return to the hospital after admission for COVID-19 within 14 days of discharge was relatively low for the majority of patients. However, the most common cause for a patient's return to the hospital was for respiratory distress. Patients who returned were more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.

Said Mount Sinai's Girish Nadkarni of the research:

"This study shows that many patients have lingering effects from hospitalization for COVID-19 and thus, there is opportunity for longitudinal studies that could further assess the long-term effects of COVID on patient outcomes when they are discharged."

Said Mount Sinai's Dr. Anuradha Lala of the research:

"COVID-19 has diminished and then resurged in many places, and as such, it is crucial for us to understand the post-hospitalization course and risk factors for coming back into the hospital. While caring for patients during the peak of the pandemic in NYC, our focus was on safe and efficient discharge to make room for new patients and prevent additional exposure. As we move into a phase where COVID-19 is no longer a novel disease, we must transition our attention to the post-acute phase to understand how to keep patients well and out of the hospital."

Said Mount Sinai's Dr. Benjamin Glicksberg of the research:

"We found that individuals with certain comorbid conditions, specifically COPD and hypertension, were more likely to return to the hospital. These findings may help clinical practitioners optimize discharge strategies in the short-term and suggest the need for future studies on tailored monitoring to decrease the risk of hospital returns."

View the full paper here. To schedule an interview with an expert from the Mount Sinai COVID Informatics Center, please contact Stacy A. Anderson at stacy.anderson@mountsinai.org or 347-346-3390.

###

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai is a national and international source of unrivaled education, translational research and discovery, and collaborative clinical leadership ensuring that we deliver the highest quality care--from prevention to treatment of the most serious and complex human diseases. The Health System includes more than 7,200 physicians and features a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including more than 400 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 14 on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of the Top 20 Best Hospitals in the country and the Icahn School of Medicine as one of the Top 20 Best Medical Schools in the country. Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are consistently ranked regionally by specialty by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
BISHKEK -- The Bishkek city court has upheld a lower court's verdict that the Kyrgyz government didn't violate the rights of late activist Azimjan Askarov while he was in prison.

Askarov's wife, Khadicha Askarova who was present at the trial, said she will appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

"I intend to fight until the end," Askarova said on August 20.

On July 25, Askarov died in a Kyrgyz prison.

He had been in custody for 10 years, despite appeals from international and domestic rights organizations, the UN Human Rights Committee, the European Union, and individual governments who all pointed out violations of Askarov's rights from the time he was detained until his death.

A court rejected his complaints on June 12 and ruled that the government hadn't violated his rights.

Askarov and his lawyers appealed that verdict, but the activist died before the Bishkek city court began the proceedings, scheduled for August 20.

The official cause of Askarov's death was respiratory problems, but his lawyer said Askarov was exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 before his death.

Askarov was convicted of creating a mass disturbance and involvement in the murder of a police officer during deadly ethnic clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad in 2010.

Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, has called Askarov's death "a stain on the human rights record" of the Kyrgyz government.
Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he doesnt know anything about the QAnon conspiracy theory and that he dismisses it out of hand while denying having heard President Trumps recent embrace of its followers.

On Friday morning CNNs John Berman questioned the vice president on the conspiracy theory, which claims Trump and his allies are secretly working to expose a deep-state ring of child sex traffickers. While the theory was labeled a domestic terrorism threat by the FBI last year and many Republicans have publicly denounced it, Trump and Pence have been largely uncritical of the movement.

Pence claimed to have no knowledge of QAnon, saying he had no time for conspiracy theories as he heads the White Houses coronavirus task force. When asked if he would denounce QAnon specifically, Pence said only, I dismiss conspiracy theorists out of hand.

Speaking with CNN's John Berman this morning, Pence claimed not to know much about the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying he had little time to focus on conspiracy theories while heading the White House's coronavirus task force https://t.co/vBNUR8qwQu pic.twitter.com/7DMjuJq1QG  POLITICO (@politico) August 21, 2020

I said its a conspiracy theory, I dont have time for it, I dont know anything about it. And honestly, John, I get it. I mean, I get that the media, particularly CNN chases after shiny objects, Pence said.

This is not a shiny object, Berman replied. The FBI considers this a dangerous group.

President Trump on Wednesday had said he didnt know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.

These are people that dont like seeing whats going on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and other cities and states, Trump said. Ive heard these are people that love our country and they just dont like seeing it. I dont know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me. And they also would like to see problems in these areas  go away.

After a reporter attempted to describe the QAnon conspiracy theory in further detail, Trump repeated that he wasnt aware of it but it wouldnt be bad thing if he could help save the world from problems.

Pence denied that Trumps statements were an embrace of the movement, saying, I didnt hear that. I didnt hear anything. I heard the president talk about how he appreciates people that support him.
Ghanaian contractors are challenging political parties to tell them about their policies towards the growth and development of the construction industry and indigenous contractors. They want this properly captured in their manifesto so that they can hold whoever wins the elections in December, accountable.



President Akufo-Addo has stated that all the 88 district hospitals the NPP government intends to construct, will be done solely by indigenous contractors, while the former President and Presidential Candidate of the NDC, John Mahama is recently reported to have said that he will pay contractors to stimulate the economy.



Speaking in an interview, the President of the Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors of Ghana (ABCECG), Mr. Prosper Yao Ledi, welcomed these pledges, but he noted that it was not uncommon for governments to depart from such laudable promises, after the elections. Mr. Ledi therefore called for clear and implementable plans from the political parties. They should tell us what in their manifesto, will fix the challenges bedevilling our sector.



The construction sector has been bedevilled with perennial delay in payments, low capacity of indigenous players, complaints of shoddy work, uneven playing field, suspicion of political manipulation and favouritism among others. Governments have over the years, paid lip service to these challenges which appear to be getting worse.



As electioneering campaigns pick up, the contractors want the political parties to move away from mere promises and rather document how they perceive the industry and the plans they have to develop it and support Ghanaian contractors.



Mr. Ledi noted the pivotal role of the construction sector in the economic development of the country. He explained that the multi-sectoral nature of the industry makes it critical in job creation, wealth generation and infrastructure development of the country. When advanced countries are confronted with a recession, the first sector they turn to, to stimulate economic growth, is construction, because when you touch construction, you literally touch everybody but unfortunately that cannot be said of our country.



The ABCECG President said with the projection that Ghanas economy will grow below 1 percent this year and equally at a slow rate in the medium term, due to the corona pandemic, the county can equally target the construction industry to quicken the recovery of the economy. But he added that using the construction industry in its current state as a catalyst for the economic recovery will only benefit some foreign contractors with little or no impact on indigenous contractors and the real sector of the economy. He, therefore, wants a blueprint from the political parties on their plans for them.



Mr. Ledi decried the situation where some construction companies are literally smuggled into the country to undertake projects, given them an undue advantage, even over other foreign construction companies that are registered in Ghana and with the various associations. We have our Class A contractors, who are foreign firms registered with us and are good corporate citizens but some people cunningly bring in other foreign contractors, who disregard our rules and yet get the big jobs. That is not fair to the properly registered foreign contractors and definitely not fair to us the indigenous contractors.



Mr. Ledi said the fortunes of the industry will only change if there are deliberate policies to address the numerous challenges and urged the political parties to demonstrate that in their manifestoes.



The ABCECG President also emphasised the need to pay special attention to indigenous contractors, stressing that indigenous contractors are very important to the country because unlike others, we retain our earnings in our economy.



Mr. Ledi said the Association will scrutinize the manifestoes of the political parties in order to decide on who has the most credible plan for the sector and deserve their votes.







Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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The Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), a PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Govt. of India, has invited online applications from eligible and interested candidates for filling Three Fifty (350) vacancies to the post of Technical Officer on contract on a fulltime basis to be posted at ECIL units in Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata in India. The registration-cum-application process towards the same started on August 19, 2020 and closes on August 30, 2020 by 2:00 pm.

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Technical Officer Organisation Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) Educational Qualification B.E/B.Tech/Degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering/Electrical Electronics Engineering/Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering/Mechanical Engineering/Computer Science Engineering/Information Technology Experience One-year in a relevant domain Job Responsibilities null Skills Required Desirable Job Location Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata Salary Scale Rs. 23,000 per month Industry Electronics Application Start Date August 19, 2020 Application End Date August 30, 2020

ECIL Recruitment 2020: Age Criteria And Fees

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The meeting became tense at times. Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, criticized Lightfoot for not sharing information with the City Council and communicating more often with aldermen. Referring to Lightfoots recent comment that President Donald Trumps son, Eric, has sent her little notes after the citys protected Trump Tower downtown from protesters and vigilantes, Sigcho-Lopez said Eric Trump has an easier time getting responses from the mayor than people on the South and West Side of Chicago.
New Delhi: A five-member medical board of forensic experts was formed by the AIIMS on Friday to look into the autopsy files related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death after the CBI approached the hospital for assistance.

"We will look into the possibility of murder. However, all probable angles will be thoroughly examined," AIIMS' forensic department chief Dr Sudhir Gupta, who will lead the team, told PTI. He said the team will evaluate the injury pattern on Rajput's body and correlate it with circumstantial evidence.

"The preserved viscera will be examined and the anti-depressants that were given to Rajput will also be analysed at the AIIMS laboratory," Gupta said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) approached the?forensic department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here on Friday for its medico-legal opinion in the case. In a letter to the premier medical institute, the central probe agency said it will provide the team of forensic experts with the necessary medical papers, post-mortem reports, videographs and viscera reports at the earliest.

"It is in connection with the investigation of Sushant Singh Rajput's death case that a medical board of doctors of the AIIMS, New Delhi is required to be constituted for providing an expert medical opinion.

"The necessary medical papers, post-mortem reports, viscera reports will be provided at the earliest. It is, therefore, requested that a medical board of doctors at the AIIMS, New Delhi may please be constituted and deputed for visiting the place of occurrence at Mumbai at the earliest," the CBI said in its letter.
SAN MATEO, Calif. and NEW YORK, Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PeakSpan is proud to celebrate the promotion of four of our team members. Jack Freeman and Sanket Merchant have been promoted to Principal, Shayna Lyandvert to Associate and Andrew Bartusiak to Senior Analyst. Sanket and Jack both joined PeakSpan in 2016 as Associates and Shayna and Andrew joined PeakSpan in 2019 as a Senior Analyst and Analyst respectively. As a core element of its culture, PeakSpan embraces an apprenticeship model and a culture of continuous development and mentorship. As a firm that prides itself on building the next generation of firm leadership from within our own ranks, we couldn't be more delighted to share these well-deserved promotions as evidence of the growing responsibility and impact these team members drive for our firm, for our stakeholders, and for the entrepreneurs with whom we partner.

Jack Freeman

Jack joined PeakSpan's NYC office in 2016 and has worked with growth-stage technology businesses his entire career. Jack currently focuses on the supply chain, e-commerce, real estate technology, and hospitality technology sectors. At PeakSpan, Jack has collaborated and worked with twelve of PeakSpan's portfolio companies including Kenna Security, JRNI, Oaky, Ecwid, ReviewTrackers, XOI, and PetDesk amongst others. Prior to joining PeakSpan, Jack worked for Macquarie Capital on the firm's software M&A and capital markets teams. Before joining Macquarie, Jack worked in business development as an early team member for Stackpop, a startup in the infrastructure software arena. Jack holds a B.A. in Economics from Middlebury College.

"We have a tradition at PeakSpan. If you look at our conference room walls  you'll see full org-wide pictures of each portfolio company at time of partnership and at time of exit. We do this to remind ourselves of who we truly come in to work for every day. It's my sincere pleasure and privilege to be working for so many amazing entrepreneurs and their teams. It's incredibly rewarding and self-actualizing to partake in a culture of putting our teams first while rolling up our sleeves to secure the best possible outcome for stakeholders."

Sanket Merchant

Sanket joined PeakSpan's Burlingame office in 2016 and has dedicated his career to working with growth-stage B2B software companies across the entire company development lifecycle. Sanket splits his investment focus between the infrastructure software, HR tech, customer experience management, and enterprise fintech sectors. Since joining PeakSpan, Sanket has assisted on more than six partnerships and boards including Cyara, Epignosis, Inference, MindBridge, Fuel50, and Qwil, amongst others. Previously, Sanket worked in the Technology, Media, and Telecom Group at Houlihan Lokey, where he focused exclusively on B2B software M&A and private financing transactions. Prior to Houlihan Lokey, Sanket was a consultant in the Global Banking and Brokerage Group at FactSet Research Systems. Sanket holds a B.B.A. in Finance with a minor in Economics from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"Our mission of being the partner of choice for growth-stage software companies is both inspiring and motivating. It's an incredibly humbling feeling to have the opportunity to work alongside true innovators, disruptors, and visionaries who see opportunities rather than challenges and to be a part of a platform where the principle focus is on building enduring businesses and securing the best risk-adjusted outcomes for stakeholders. I'm excited to continue contributing, in any capacity that is most needed and impactful, knowing that it's not only our teams that stand to benefit but a significantly larger ecosystem of stakeholders."

Shayna Lyandvert

Shayna joined PeakSpan's NYC office in 2019. Shayna focuses on the real estate technology, sales and marketing technology, next-gen security, and e-commerce sectors. Prior to joining PeakSpan, Shayna worked in the Technology Investment Banking Group at Moelis & Company, where she focused exclusively on M&A and capital raise transactions. Prior to Moelis, Shayna worked at Goldman Sachs in their Asset Management division where she analyzed portfolio construction of private equity funds to create strategies which would improve net fund performance. She has also worked at MetaProp Ventures as a founding Venture Capital Associate. Shayna earned a B.A. in Economics at Claremont McKenna College and was a Robert Day Scholar.

Andrew Bartusiak

Andrew joined PeakSpan's NYC office in 2019 after interning at the firm for the previous two summers. Andrew focuses on the customer experience management, HR tech, infrastructure software, next-gen security, and supply chain management sectors. Prior to PeakSpan, Andrew interned at UPMC Health Plan where he sourced and evaluated enterprise software opportunities for the Product Administration Team. Andrew holds a B.S. in Business Administration and a minor in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

About PeakSpan Capital

Based in New York City and Silicon Valley, PeakSpan Capital is a growth equity firm with a singular mission to be the partner of choice for growth-stage entrepreneurial teams building amazing business software companies. PeakSpan combines deep domain expertise within a select number of themes with an active partner approach to help entrepreneurs drive excellent risk-adjusted growth and value creation. To learn more about PeakSpan Capital and its portfolio, please visit peakspancapital.com.

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Social media company defends allegations of bias following a WSJ report that said it ignored hate speech by BJP leaders.

Facebook has admitted it has to do better to curb hate speech as it battles a storm in India over ignoring hate speech by leaders linked to the governing right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last week reported that a top Facebook India executive refused to remove the comments of a BJP legislator because it would damage the companys business interests.

Weve made progress on tackling hate speech on our platform, but we need to do more, Facebook Indias managing director Ajit Mohan said on Friday in a statement that denied any bias.

The WSJ report said T Raja Singh, the lone BJP legislator in the southern state of Telangana, used his Facebook page to say that Rohingya refugees in India should be shot and that Muslims were traitors.

The report also mentioned at least two other BJP leaders, whose incendiary posts were deleted from the platform after the United States-based newspaper approached them for a response.

Facebook Indias top public policy executive, Ankhi Das, told staff that hate speech rules should not be applied to BJP individuals and party allies even though the post had been flagged by staff, said the WSJ.

Over the last few days, we have been accused of bias in the way we enforce our policies. We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form, said Mohan.





The Facebook India chief defended his companys actions and said, We have removed and will continue to remove content posted by public figures in India when it violates our community standards.

Mohan did not give details and his online post did not explain the case of Singh. He, however, said, decisions around content escalations are not made unilaterally by just one person.

Indias opposition Congress party has accused the social media company of favouring the BJP.

Facebook executives have been ordered to appear before an Indian parliamentary information technology committee on September 2.

Anti-Muslim bigotry

Meanwhile, Das, 49, and other top Facebook India executives are facing questions internally from employees over how political content is regulated in its biggest market, according to sources with direct knowledge and internal posts seen by Reuters news agency.

An open letter written to Facebooks leadership by 11 employees on one internal platform, and seen by Reuters earlier this week, demands company leaders acknowledge and denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and ensure more policy consistency.

The letter also demanded that Facebooks policy team in India [and elsewhere] includes diverse representation.

It is hard not to feel frustrated and saddened by the incidents reported  We know were not alone in this. Employees across the company are expressing similar sentiment, said the letter.

The Muslim community at Facebook would like to hear from Facebook leadership on our asks.

Facebook, the worlds largest social media company, has been under fire in recent years for its lax approach to fake news content, state-backed disinformation campaigns and violent content spread via its platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram.
It's troubling news for any parent who's sending their kids to a university this fall. Just as Texas students head back to their college campuses, two Texas A&M sororities have now been placed in quarantine after a coronavirus outbreak, according to Texas A&M officials.

"In particular, this week we are aware of two sororities--Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Delta Delta--whose activities and members are experiencing exposure to the virus," Texas A&M officials stated.
Commanding hook - England's Zak Crawley on his way to 97 not out in the third Test against Pakistan at Southampton

Zak Crawley struck his maiden Test century after Pakistan saw off England captain Joe Root on the opening day of the series finale at Southampton on Friday.

Crawley, 97 not out at tea, took two down to fine leg off Mohammad Abbas before an offside glide off the paceman saw him to a 171-ball hundred, including 11 fours in what was his eighth Test.

This was just the fourth first-class century of the 22-year-old right-hander's career and it was an especially valuable innings, with no other England batsman having made more than Root's 29 as they reached tea on 184-4.

Yasir Shah had interval figures of 2-60 from 19 overs -- a fine return for a leg-spinner on the first day of a Test.

England, 1-0 up in a three-match contest, need to avoid defeat if they are to win their first series against Pakistan in 10 years.

They suffered an early setback when Rory Burns nicked a full-length ball from fellow left-hander Shaheen Afridi that moved away late, with Shan Masood holding a good low catch at fourth slip.

Burns stood his ground but replays confirmed it was a fair catch and he was out for six, the batsman now averaging a lowly five from four innings in a tough series for openers.

Crawley, fresh from his 53 in the second innings of the drawn and second Test at Southampton, a match marred by bad weather, cut Yasir for four and glanced fast bowler Naseem Shah for another boundary.

But a second-wicket stand worth of 61 ended when Dom Sibley, going down the pitch to Yasir, was given out lbw for 22.

Sibley reviewed but, once again this season, a decision by umpire Michael Gough was upheld, with tracking technology indicating the ball would have hit middle stump.

Crawley brought up an 80-ball fifty off the last ball of the session when, tempted to drive after Pakistan reinforced the slip cordon, he struck Afridi to long-off for a stylish four .

England 91-2 at lunch, lost two wickets early in the second session to be 127-4.

- Naseem gets Root -

Story continues

There was little Root could do on 29 when a full-length delivery from teenage paceman Naseem seamed away late to take the outside edge, with wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan holding a fine diving catch.

Ollie Pope was then once again this series undone by Yasir's quicker delivery when clean bowled for three hanging back in the crease.

But Crawley surpassed his previous Test-best of 76, which he made last month against the West Indies at Southampton.

England made just one change to their second Test team, with fast bowler Jofra Archer replacing Sam Curran.

Left-arm seamer Curran had been brought into the side in place of Ben Stokes, with the star all-rounder missing the last two Tests of the series to be with his ill father in New Zealand.

Pakistan were unchanged for another match being played behind closed doors because of the coronavirus.

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Ministers should be doing more to get workers back into the office, a Daily Mail poll reveals. Voters fear that Britain's economic recovery will be hampered if staff continue to stay away from city centres.

The survey, conducted by JL Partners, found that 47 per cent want the Government to step up efforts to encourage employees back to their desks  compared to 22 per cent who disagreed.

More than half  51 per cent  believe civil servants should set an example to the rest of the country by returning to their offices in Whitehall, compared to 21 per cent who said they should not.

More than half  51 per cent  believe civil servants should set an example to the rest of the country by returning to their offices in Whitehall. Pictured: Boris Johnson

Meanwhile a majority (54 per cent) said getting back to the office was important for the economy. The poll suggests strong public support for ministers to get Britain back to work next month as the summer holidays end and schools return.

The Government scrapped official advice to work from home at the beginning of this month. But efforts to stimulate a return to offices appear to have stalled, leaving many city centres looking more like ghost towns, even at rush hour.

There are concerns that many shops and restaurants that rely on office workers may not be able to survive. Many businesses are not planning for workers to return to offices until at least the end of the year, while firms including Facebook UK and RBS said staff will not go back until 2021.

In a boost to efforts to get more employees back at their desks, Matt Hancock earlier this week revealed there has been only a 'relatively low' number of workplace infections. Instead new cases are predominantly coming from social gatherings held inside homes, he said.

The Health Secretary said the Government had ruled out copying France, which is making face coverings compulsory in almost all workplaces as it tackles a resurgence in coronavirus cases. From the start of next month, masks will have to be worn in all shared spaces in French offices and factories when there is more than one employee present.

Mr Hancock said similar measures would not be introduced on this side of the Channel, adding: 'The reason is that the evidence from NHS Test and Trace for where people catch the disease is that very largely they catch it from one household meeting another household, usually in one of their homes.

'And so it's that household transmission that is the core group of passing on this virus in this country. The amount of people who've caught it in workplaces is relatively low we think from the evidence that we've got.'

Chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured) said: 'No-one is under any illusions, our economy has been hit hard by the pandemic  but today's retail sales figures are a positive sign of Britain bouncing back'

Research this month revealed that British office workers have returned to their desks at a much slower pace than staff in France, Germany, Italy or Spain, as they continue to work from home following the lockdown.

Only a third (34 per cent) of UK white-collar employees have gone back to offices, while in Europe almost three-quarters of staff (68 per cent) have done so, according to the analysis by Morgan Stanley. In a glimmer of good economic news, retail sales bounced back to pre-pandemic levels in July  the first full month non-essential shops were allowed to reopen.

After falling a record 18.1 per cent in April, sales are 3 per cent above February's mark according to official data.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: 'No-one is under any illusions, our economy has been hit hard by the pandemic  but today's retail sales figures are a positive sign of Britain bouncing back.'

However, the Office for National Statistics said a distinct split is emerging as food and online retailers surpass February's sales figures, while non-food businesses have not. Officials said fashion store sales were the 'worst hit during the pandemic' and still 25.7 per cent lower than they were in February.

Meanwhile, online sales are still more than 50 per cent higher than before the crisis. The online boom has fuelled concerns about the future of the High Street as a string of retailers, including Boots, Marks & Spencer, Pret A Manger and WH Smith have announced brutal job cuts.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, warned the 'survival of many retail businesses hangs in the balance'. 'The latest ONS sales results mask a crisis under way in some parts of the retail industry,' she said.

Separate figures from HM Revenue & Customs also showed the housing market recovered last month. Some 70,710 homes were sold in July, up 14.5 per cent in a month.
Latino Democrats in California are putting the cart before the donkey. Lets hope they dont make asses of themselves.

Looking past the November election, theyre demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint a Latino or Latina to fill the seat that Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., would vacate if she becomes vice president.

Not so fast. The demand assumes that the Democratic ticket of Harris and Joe Biden can push President Donald Trump out of the White House.

Latino Democrats  who are often Democrat first, Latino second  are so anxious to expel Trump that they dont mind that the Democratic National Convention, which kicked off virtually this week, is in Black-and-White.

The fact that Eva Longoria Baston emceed the first night was ceremonial. It doesnt make up for the insult that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was given only 60 seconds to speak at the convention, or that Julian Castro  the only Latino to run for president in 2020  was excluded altogether. The former secretary of Housing and Urban Development recently told Alicia Menendez of MSNBC: Id be lying if I didnt say Im disappointed in the lack of Latino speakers.

This is par for the course. The nations largest minority is also one of its most humiliated. We put up with it. While others riot, we fall in line.

In California, the picture is no different. Although we make up nearly 40 percent of the states population, and comprise its economic engine, Latinos account for only 6 of 40 state senators and 21 of 80 assembly members.

Politicians dont respect us  let alone fear us. It is our fault. We let vengeance get the better of us, and were worse off. For the last quarter century, Latinos have been punishing Republicans in the Golden State for waging a culture war in the 1990s. Thats when the GOP pushed a succession of ballot initiatives that denied benefits to undocumented immigrants, eliminated racial preferences and gutted bilingual education.

Latinos took the hint, and took apart the GOP. But voters who have nowhere to go dont get their calls returned. A better strategy would have been to split our votes and keep the state competitive. Instead, California Latinos went from being picked on by Republicans to being neglected by Democrats.

Soon, Newsom could have a chance to make amends with a down payment on the incalculable debt that his party owes Latinos.

About this, there are mixed feelings. In my mind, math and experience are battling.

Math tells me that, if Newsom gets to pick a replacement for Harris, the pick needs to be Latino or Latina. Its unthinkable that the state with the largest number of Latinos has never sent a Latino to the U.S. Senate. The bill is past due.

Besides, there are only four Latinos in the Senate: Democrats Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas.

But the experience of covering politics and politicians for three decades tells me that  even if we wind up with a Latino senator from California  it wont make a difference in the lives of everyday Latinos.

We have been burned too many times by do-nothing, place-holding, resume-padding elected officials who put their own interests  or those of the Democratic Party  ahead of the interests of the people theyre supposed to represent. Time and again, Latinos have been betrayed  by their own kind  on education, immigration, labor issues and more.

Some of the same names circulating as good choices to represent Latinos in the Senate  like State Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, or former State Senate President Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles  hid under their desks for eight years rather than criticize President Barack Obama for deporting 3 million people, separating families and putting refugee kids in cages. These people dont deserve a promotion. They should be run out of politics.

Last year, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., told a roomful of activists: We dont need more brown faces that dont want to be a brown voice. We dont need black faces that dont want to be a black voice. ... If youre worried about being marginalized and stereotyped, please dont even show up.

Heed those words. If youre a do-nothing Latino elected official in California with an ego healthy enough to think you belong in the major league of do-nothings  the U.S. Senate  and yet youve spent your career hurting the folks who got you this far, then do us all a favor. Dont even show up.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A heroin-toting driver accused of dragging and injuring a cop during a traffic stop on Hylan Boulevard Wednesday previously led police on a high-speed chase through the South Shore of Staten Island, authorities allege.

In the most-recent incident, Michael Morelli, 36, of Annadale Road, hit the gas in a red 2003 Hyundai Sonata after he was pulled over by police for a defective tail light at about 1 p.m. on Hylan near Linwood Avenue at the Grasmere/South Beach border, according to the criminal complaint.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:08:54|Editor: huaxia

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CHENGDU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Seven villagers were killed and two others remain missing after heavy rain unleashed a landslide in southwest China's Sichuan Province early on Friday, local authorities confirmed.

The landslide, with a total volume of about 800,000 cubic meters, hit the Zhonghai Village in the city of Ya'an at around 3:50 a.m., according to the municipal emergency management bureau of Ya'an.

Local authorities said they evacuated 55 villagers on Thursday afternoon after days of intense rain left cracks on local hills, and other signs of geological hazards. Nine villagers, however, returned to their homes without permission on Thursday evening.

They were buried after the landslide severely damaged eight houses. Three were found dead, while four died in the hospital after treatment failed.

Sichuan Province on Tuesday activated their highest level of flood control response for the first time on record, as continuous rainfall swelled 22 major rivers to the point of exceeding their flood warning levels, causing floods in the cities of Ya'an and Leshan. Enditem
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Washington: US Postmaster Louis DeJoy has told politicians the Postal Service would deliver ballots "securely and on time" in the November presidential election, but indicated he would pursue dramatic operational changes after that date.

DeJoy faced pointed questions on Friday local time (Saturday AEST) at a Senate hearing from Democrats, who have accused the wealthy Republican donor of trying to tilt the election to President Donald Trump.

Louis DeJoy is virtually sworn in during a Senate committee hearing. Credit:Bloomberg

Republicans largely defended DeJoy, saying the Postal Service needed an overhaul. "I am sorry you are on the targeting end of this political hit piece," Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson told him.

DeJoy sought to assure Americans that widespread delays caused by cost-cutting measures would not cause their mail ballots to go uncounted in November. DeJoy suspended those service changes this week after facing public outrage.
Late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Shweta Singh Kirti has said that she and her family believe CBI will most definitely bring the truth out. In a fresh tweet, she expressed her thoughts with regard to the central investigating agency as it begins probe.

She wrote in a tweet, #CBIInMumbai The whole world has relentlessly fought for CBI Enquiry and now it is the responsibility of CBI to uphold our trust in them, we have full faith that CBI will most definitely bring the truth out and justice will be served. #CBIForSSR.

#CBIInMumbai The whole world has relentlessly fought for CBI Enquiry and now it is the responsibility of CBI to uphold our trust in them, we have full faith that CBI will most definitely bring the truth out and justice will be served. #CBIForSSR  shweta singh kirti (@shwetasinghkirt) August 20, 2020

Shwetas tweet came even as a team of officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) reached Mumbai on August 20. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of India had handed over the investigation to CBI in Sushant Singh Rajput death case . The SC had rejected actor Rhea Chakrabortys petition to transfer the investigation from Patna to Mumbai. It said that said Bihar government was competent to give consent to CBI for probing the FIR lodged in Patna.

#WATCH Maharashtra: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team that will probe #SushantSinghRajput case, arrives in Mumbai. pic.twitter.com/3Bixojqnj6  ANI (@ANI) August 20, 2020

As soon as the verdict was out, a delighted Shweta had tweeted: There we go!! Finally!! CBI for SSR!! #CBITakesOver. Thank you God! You have answered our prayers!! But it is just the beginning... the first step towards the truth! Full faith on CBI!! #Victoryoffaith #GlobalPrayersForSSR #Wearefamily #CBITakesOver, she had continued.

She had congratulated fans of Sushant from across the world for being the familys support system. From invoking the blessings of the divine to showing how fans were campaigning for a CBI probe, Shweta has been active in the case.

Sushant died by suicide on June 14. Mumbai Police began investigating the case thereafter. The actors father KK Singh, in late July, filed an FIR against actor Rhea Chakraborty accusing her of abetment to suicide and cheating among other charges.

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WINDSOR, UNITED KINGDOM, Aug. 21, 2020this week, dated August 3, 2020, from Her Majesty via Royal Mail directly from Windsor Castle.

Only the second occasion in history that the British Crown has awarded certificates for equine protection work, Irby's recognition follows the acknowledgment of eight horsemen and women the Queen recognized in 2012. The Royal Family planned to recognize Irby in-person at Buckingham Palace, but the gathering and in-person presentation were postponed to a later date due to world events surrounding COVID-19.

"Marty Irby is our hero and has paid a huge price in his own life in the interest of being fair to the horses," said Monty Roberts, founder of Join-Up International. "Along with thousands of supporters, Her Majesty and I strongly recommend the necessary rules and regulations to eliminate violence from this breed and all other competitions involving the horses we love."

"I am deeply honored and grateful to Her Majesty, and my friend Monty Roberts for their recognition - working to help the voiceless horses we all care so deeply about has been the greatest honor and privilege of my life," said Marty Irby, recipient of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, II's Award. "I am certain that we will one day see the end of soring, doping, slaughter, and the use of whips in racing venues around the globe, and I hope that every horse lover will join me, Monty, and Queen Elizabeth, II in helping eradicate all violence and abuse from the equine world."

Irby first came to know and work with Monty Roberts, The Man Who Listens to Horses, in 2005 at Waterfall Farms, where Irby served as Director of Sales and Marketing. As a result of the influence of Queen Elizabeth II, Roberts beganteaching Join-Up methods of natural horsemanship to Irby and his mentor, the late William B. Johnson, founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC in an attempt to imprint Roberts' principles of non-violent training and horsemanship upon the walking horse industry and eradicate the painful practice of "soring," the intentional infliction of pain to Tennessee Walking Horses' legs and feet by applying caustic chemicals such as mustard oil, croton oil, kerosene, and diesel fuel and inserting sharp objects in the horses' hooves to create an exaggerated high-stepping gait known as the "big lick."

For the past fifteen years, Irby has worked to transition the Tennessee Walking horse breed away from its painful past of soring, much of that time from within the ranks of the breed, and since 2013he has championed the U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings Memorial Prevent All Soring Tacticsthat would eliminate the use of large stacked shoes and ankle chains integral to the soring process; increase penalties for violators of the Horse Protection Act; and eliminate the breed's self-policing system, replacing it with inspectors licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Irby has also worked to end the rampant practice of doping American racehorses by pushing for passage of the Horseracing Integrity Act that would ban the use of drugs on race-day; worked to advance the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act that would permanently end horse slaughter on American soil; worked to help provide funding for the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs' equine-assisted therapy program to help our American heroes with PTSD, and worked to help save our iconic American horses and burros from the Bureau of Land Management's mass round-ups and incarceration.

Irby testified before the U.S. House of Representatives in support of both the PASTAct in 2013 and Horseracing IntegrityAct in 2020 and was recognized as one of The Hill's Top Lobbyists for 2019following the passage of the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Tortureby President Trump in the Oval Office with Irby present for the ceremony. Irby resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the board of directors for Equine Collaborative International, LLC, the Organization for Competitive Markets, and the American Horse Protection Society, and his written works on equine protectionhave been published in dozens of outlets across the U.S.

Click here to view the certificate from Queen Elizabeth, II.

Click here to view Monty Roberts' full statement regarding Irby.

JOIN-UP philosophies can be seen at work with both humans and horses across the world, from farms to major corporations. To learn more about Monty Roberts or the many applications of his Join-Up training methods, visit www.montyroberts.com. Horse Sense and Soldiers aired on Discovery Military in 2010 highlighting the therapeutic effect horses and Monty Roberts' Join-Up have on PTSD. Soon after Monty and his team developed the Horse Sense & Healing program for veterans and first responders. Lead-Up International was officially launched worldwide at the Monty Roberts International Learning Center in Solvang, California, in February 2017. The purpose of Lead-Up International is to reduce violence in the community by creating peaceful leaders from vulnerable youth utilizing equine-assisted therapy and non-verbal communication, building trust-based relationships.

Animal Wellness Action (Action) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) organization with a mission of helping animals by promoting legal standards forbidding cruelty. We champion causes that alleviate the suffering of companion animals, farm animals, and wildlife. We advocate for policies to stop dogfighting and cockfighting and other forms of malicious cruelty and to confront factory farming and other systemic forms of animal exploitation. To prevent cruelty, we promote enacting good public policies and we work to enforce those policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that's why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don't. We believe helping animals helps us all.

The Animal Wellness Foundation (Foundation) is a Los Angeles-based private charitable organization with a mission of helping animals by making veterinary care available to everyone with a pet, regardless of economic ability. We organize rescue efforts and medical services for dogs and cats in need and help homeless pets find a loving caregiver. We are advocates for getting veterinarians to the front lines of the animal welfare movement; promoting responsible pet ownership; and vaccinating animals against infectious diseases such as distemper. We also support policies that prevent animal cruelty and that alleviate suffering. We believe helping animals helps us all.

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ANN ARBOR, MI  From more than 400 residents applying for eight available affordable housing units in Ann Arbor, to an Ypsilanti murder-suicide that went unreported for a month, a lot has been going on in the Ann Arbor area.

Here are some headlines you might have missed this week.

Over 400 apply to get on Ann Arbors new affordable housing waitlist, but only 8 units available

When Ann Arbor launched a new affordable housing waitlist website last month, Jeff Hayner said he tried to help someone who didnt have computer access sign up.

The waitlist opened at 1 p.m. July 27 and they were online within about 10 minutes, filling out the online application form, the 1st Ward City Council member said.

The new waitlist, operating on a first-come, first-served basis, gives local residents an opportunity to get into income-restricted apartments in new housing developments.

Hundreds have applied since last month, while only eight apartments are expected to be available in the near future.

I told her he would kill her one day, sister of woman killed in murder-suicide says

Danyale Neely knew her sister had been killed when police told her to contact Child Protective Services about her 4-month-old niece

She would soon learn that her sister, Courtney Latrice Neely, was killed by ex-boyfriend Michael Duane Taylor -- the father of Courtneys only child -- at his Ypsilanti home on July 15.

The couple had a history of domestic violence. Danyale Neely said she warned her sister about Taylor.

Michigan State University switches fall semester to remote learning, tells students to stay home

Michigan State University is switching its fall class schedule to remote learning and has asked students who planned to live in dorms to stay home.

In a public letter to the MSU community on Tuesday, Aug. 18, MSU President Samuel Stanley Jr. said the current status of the novel coronavirus pandemic, including recent outbreaks at other universities, caused the change in plans.

MSU originally had planned for a hybrid learning model of in person and online classes in the fall.

Outdoor gatherings in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti restricted to 25 people, health officials say

Outdoor gatherings in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti have been restricted to 25 people as both communities prepare to welcome students back to local college campuses during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The order, issued Wednesday by the Washtenaw County Health Department, is more strict than the number of people allowed to gather outside through a statewide executive order from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Indoor gatherings remain limited at 10 or fewer people not of the same household, according to an Aug. 19 news release from the health department.

Ann Arbor City Council members question University of Michigans effort to prevent spread of coronavirus

A majority of University of Michigan students will return to Ann Arbor soon for the fall semester and several City Council members are not convinced the university is doing enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

At the Monday, Aug. 17 City Council meeting, UM Dean of Students Laura Jones and UM Director of Community Relations Michael Rein presented their plan for the fall semester, which was created on proactive prevention education, a commitment to joint accountability and creating an infrastructure to hold both individuals and groups accountable for their actions.

University of Michigan professors have no confidence in administrations plan to contain coronavirus

Asymptomatic testing. Accountability, Listening. Respect.

Those are some of the things University of Michigan professors want from university administrators regarding the Aug. 31 reopening of campus for the fall semester, but think theyve not gotten thus far.

A few dozen UM professors and Ann Arbor community members gathered outside the Fleming Administration Building Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 19, to protest in-person classes this fall during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2 hotels approved for former Michigan Inn site in Ann Arbor

A plan for two adjacent hotels on an eyesore site on Ann Arbors west side has been approved by City Council.

A plan and rezoning request for a four-story Aloft by Marriott with 128 rooms and a four-story Home2 by Hilton with 107 rooms on the site of the former Michigan Inn, 2800 Jackson Ave., were approved by City Council on Monday, Aug. 17.

Coronavirus pandemic forces Bobcat Bonnies owner into terrifying ultimatum

Nine months into opening a gastropub, Matt Buskard was forced into an ultimatum by the novel coronavirus crisis.

Bobcat Bonnies, 200 W. Michigan Ave. in Ypsilanti, was hit hard when students left town and businesses were ordered to close to prevent the further spread of COVID-19. And Buskard had an overwhelming three weeks in July, when he nearly shut the door on what he called his prettiest store among the five Bobcat Bonnies he owns.

A look inside Wax Bar, Ypsilantis new record-themed lounge

A new lounge with booze, records and art-covered walls recently opened in Ypsilantis Depot Town.

Wax Bar took over the Cream and Crumb ice cream shop at 44 E. Cross St. in Ypsilanti to provide guests with cocktails and records. Anyone can shop, have a drink or sit by the listening station to absorb the sounds of the many records owner Mark Teachout has int the lounge.

Coronavirus pandemic causes empty Briarwood Mall storefronts. The Gap, Banana Republic among closures

Detroit resident Justin Ward had a hunch he might strike gold during an afternoon trip to Briarwood Mall after his online search for a pair of shoes proved unsuccessful.

Making his first trip back to Briarwood in a couple of months, Ward, 18, found the white Nike Air Force 1 sneakers he wanted inside the malls Foot Locker store.

But shoppers looking to visit some of their favorite mall stores might come up empty handed.

Ann Arbor keeping short leash on parking deal with University of Michigan

Ann Arbor officials have agreed to continue leasing hundreds of parking spaces in Fuller Park to the University of Michigan for use by UM employees.

But its only for the next year until the longstanding deal comes back to City Council for consideration again.

Governor taps Ann Arbor police oversight chair to serve on state policing commission

The leader of Ann Arbors citizen-led police oversight commission is among the new members of a state law enforcement commission.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has appointed Lisa Jackson, chairwoman of the citys Independent Community Police Oversight Commission, to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards.

Also known as MCOLES, the commission works to develop training and ethical standards for law enforcement officers in Michigan, setting professional standards for education, selection, employment, licensing, license revocation and funding in law enforcement and criminal justice.
In addition to measures like social distancing and wearing masks, an Indian-German team of scientists recommend controlling indoor humidity conditions to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19.

IMAGE: A health worker in personal protective equipment collects a sample using a swab from a person at a local health centre to conduct tests for the coronavirus disease amid the spread of the disease, in the old quarters of Delhi. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

The researchers, including those from CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi, said in order to contain the pandemic, it is extremely important to implement standards for indoor air humidity in rooms with many people, such as hospitals, open-plan offices, or public transport.

In their review of studies, published in the journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research, the scientists specifically drew focus on relative humidity, which is a measure of water vapour in the air compared to the total saturation of vapour that can exist in the air at its current temperature.

According to the study, a relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane.

The scientists said tiny drops of five micrometres in diameter, such as those produced when speaking, can float in the air for up to nine minutes.



"In aerosol research, it has long been known that air humidity plays a major role -- The more humid the air is, the more water adheres to the particles and so they can grow faster. So, we were curious -- what studies have already been conducted on this," explained Ajit Ahlawat, a co-author of the study from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Germany.



According to the scientists, humidity affects the behaviour of microorganisms within the virus droplets, and the survival or inactivation of the virus on the surfaces.



They said it also influences the role of dry indoor air in the airborne transmission of viruses.



"If the relative humidity of indoor air is below 40 per cent, the particles emitted by infected people absorb less water, remain lighter, fly further through the room and are more likely to be inhaled by healthy people," Ahlawat explained.



"In addition, dry air also makes the mucous membranes in our noses dry and more permeable to viruses," he said.



The scientists believe the new findings are particularly important for the upcoming winter season in the northern hemisphere, when millions of people will be staying in heated rooms.



"Heating the fresh air also ensures that it dries. In cold and temperate climate zones, therefore, the indoor climate is usually very dry during the heating season. This could encourage the spread of coronaviruses," said study co-author Alfred Wiedensohler of TROPOS.



At a higher humidity, the scientists said droplets grow faster, fall to the ground earlier, and can be inhaled less by healthy people.



"A humidity level of at least 40 per cent in public buildings and local transport would therefore not only reduce the effects of COVID-19, but also of other viral diseases such as seasonal flu. Authorities should include the humidity factor in future indoor guidelines," added study co-author Sumit Kumar Mishra of CSIR - National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi.



For countries in cool climates, the scientists recommend a minimum indoor humidity.



They said countries in tropical and hot climates, on the other hand, should take care that indoor rooms are not extremely undercooled by air conditioning systems.



When air is extremely cooled, it dries out the air and the particles in it, making people inside the room feel comfortable, but the dry particles will remain in the air for longer duration, the researchers warned.



They added that the measures already known, such as social distancing, having as few people per room as possible, and wearing masks should also be practised to lower the risk of infection.
Russia and its partners in the OSCE Minsk Group are working on the earliest possible resumption of negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"We are expecting early resumption of the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement," he said in an interview with Trud newspaper.

"We are working on this together with our partners in the OSCE Minsk Group," the minister noted.



Lavrov stressed that the July border conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was the second most widespread violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement. The minister pointed out that the Russian Foreign Ministry made active mediation efforts to resolve the conflict.

"The Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh Igor Popov has been in direct contact with the leadership of the foreign ministries of the two countries all this time. As a result, with active Russian mediation, a ceasefire has been reached since August 16, albeit not on the first attempt," TASS cited Lavrov as saying.
Scooters are marketed as so easy to use  you can pick them up anywhere, drop them off anywhere. Theres no training or instruction provided, other than very few pages in the app, Lerer said. Generally the riders who get on them have little to zero experience riding. They have no idea the danger theyre about to encounter.
Good Morning Britain viewers have blasted the 'ridiculous' decision of a university to rename 'freshers' week to avoid 'negative connotations'.

Broadcaster Darryl Morris, 29, Bolton, and University Challenge's Bobby Seagull, 36, London, appeared on the show with hosts Alex Beresford and Kate Garraway to discuss whether all offensive language and phrases should be banned.

It comes after The University of Gloucestershire dropped the term 'freshers week' because of it's connotations with drunkenness and close contact in the age of Covid-19 , and will instead be invited to an online 'welcome week'.

Viewers were not impressed with the decision, insisting we're 'too easily offended by language' and saying there are 'bigger issues in the world'.

Broadcaster Darryl Morris, 29, Bolton,(right) and University Challenge's Bobby Seagull (midde) , 36, London, appeared on the show with host Alex Beresford (left) to discuss whether all offensive language and phrases should be banned

Teacher Bobby went on to argue that rather than fixating on individual words, we should focus on the reasons certain words cause offence, and tackle the underlying issues behind them

Teacher Bobby argued that rather than fixating on individual words, we should focus on the reasons certain words cause offence, and tackle the underlying issues behind them.

'The way I think about it, where should we focus our energy?', asked Bobby, 'Tackling and banning words or looking at the underlying cause, why the words are causing offence.

'There are clear red lines, there are words that are beyond the pail like racial slurs which are meant to demeaning or grievously offensive words to certain communities.

'But if you want to cut down a tree - the tree here is young people going to university and it being about drunkenness and debauchery - you're trying to cut the branches, not the twigs.'

However viewers weren't convinced by his viewpoint, with many saying that we can be 'too offended' by language, and that there's not very much 'complexity' in the word 'freshers'

Many viewers agreed with the viewpoint, saying that we can be 'too offended' by language, and that there's not as much 'complexity' in the word 'freshers' as the university believes.

'Yes we are certainly becoming too offended by words', said one.

Another argued: 'Don't understand how someone can get so much complexity out of freshers. One uni I went to called it freshers, another welcome week. Most of the week didn't appeal to me, at either uni, but I couldn't care less what it was called.'

'For goodness sake, get a grip. Everybody is offended by anything these days', raged a third.

Darrel felt that language is 'constantly evolving', and it does not harm to take a second look at words and ask 'what they mean in the modern world'

Meanwhile, Darrel felt that language is 'constantly evolving', and it does not harm to take a second look at words and ask 'what they mean in the modern world' - adding that 'freshers' is a great example of a word with a 'shared meaning'.

'Language evolves', he said, 'It changes and it's right for us to constantly take a second look at language we use and ask questions about what those words mean in the modern world.

'Freshers is a really great example of this. This university have decided not to use the word as they don't want their welcome week to be about booze and close contact and there's a good example of a word having a shared meaning.'

Host Alex, 39, admitted that while some language, for example using the term 'Half-caste' to describe someone of duel heritage, has become outdated

Darryl added that 'freshers' is a great example of a word with a 'shared meaning', as it has connotations with drunkenness

Host Alex, 39, admitted that while some language, for example using the term 'Half-caste' to describe someone of duel heritage, has become outdated and is clearly unacceptable to use, words such as 'fresher' are more difficult to deal with.

'When I was a kid growing up I would refer to myself as 'half cast', said Alex, 'That's what I was taught. My parents used the term, it was socially acceptable but as I got older it started to jar and I said mixed race.

'When it's stuff like that it's black and white but then things like freshers week. [It's more unclear].

Darryl went on to point out that words used in his youth are no longer acceptable, and called the evolution of language 'progress and change'.

'Alex made a really great point earlier', said Darrel, 'That he used a term to describe himself that is no longer acceptable.

'I used to use the word 'gay' when I grew up in Bolton and we have come to know that using that word is no longer acceptable, and that is progress, that is change.'
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii - Several dozen aging U.S. veterans, including some who were in Tokyo Bay as swarms of warplanes buzzed overhead and nations converged to end World War II, will gather on a battleship in Pearl Harbor next month to mark the 75th anniversary of Japans surrender, even if it means the vulnerable group may be risking their lives again amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The 75th anniversary was meant to be a blockbuster event, and the veterans have been looking forward to it for years. There were to be thousands of people watching in Hawaii as parades marched through Waikiki, vintage warbirds flying overhead, and gala dinners to honour the veterans.

Now, most in-person celebrations have been cancelled over fears the virus could infect the veterans, who range from 90 to 101. But about 200 people, mostly veterans, their families and government officials, will still commemorate the milestone on the USS Missouri, which hosted the surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay.

It comes as Oahu  Hawaiis most populated island and the home of Pearl Harbor  has seen an alarming spike in coronavirus cases in the past two weeks, forcing many restrictions to be reinstated, including a ban on gatherings of more than five people and the closure of all beaches.

Ive been told what I need to do in order to be responsible for myself but also toward others, said WWII veteran Jerry Pedersen, who was aboard the USS Missouri and watched the Japanese surrender. I cant hug the people that Id like to hug.

Pedersen, who will be coming from Sacramento, California, for the commemoration, turned 95 on Wednesday.

No, Im not concerned particularly, he said. If we would do in life everything the way weve been told to handle this pandemic, wed come through it pretty good.

Officials plan to keep the veterans socially distanced while they are honoured in front of livestreaming cameras instead of live crowds of thousands, as was first planned.

I want to go back because that day, as much as I remember it, what happened, why we were there, the fact that it was the end of the realities of war and killing and all, it was the first day that I had to start answering, What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Pedersen said.

He said he reflects on Gen. Douglas MacArthurs words that weve got to pursue in peace what we won in war. And I made a decision that day that I wanted to be a peace worker. And my life has been that. Pedersen became a pastor after the war.

But as cities and states see new waves of COVID-19, some medical experts are questioning the safety of having dozens of vulnerable war heroes flying to Hawaii from all over the United States.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, who specializes in infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, said older people are more at risk from COVID-19, especially if they have illnesses like lung or heart disease or diabetes.

The impact of COVID-19 on the elderly is very pronounced, Chin-Hong said. I continue to be concerned about ... the impacts of infection on the elderly, not only on acquiring it, but mainly on progressing from infection to disease and being in the ICU and then dying.

The veterans will board a flight reserved just for them from Oakland to Honolulu. That flight will be about half full, but they need to get to Oakland before the jet shuttles them across the Pacific. Chin-Hong says that segment of the trip is of greater concern because its more unpredictable.

He said that ensuring the veterans know the risk is important. As long as people have the information ... thats all I can really hope for.

But taking into account the human element of why these men want to attend the ceremony is also important, he said.

For somebody who may not live to see the next anniversary ... the risk benefit calculus becomes a little bit different, Chin-Hong said of the aging group. I feel like sometimes in these settings, you think about risk and benefit in different ways.

Once in Hawaii, the veterans will be isolated in hotels except when attending mostly outdoor events with health screenings and social distancing. The public is not invited, and workers will be continuously screened.

WWII veteran Art Albert, who had come to Hawaii for every commemoration, had promised loved ones that he would make it to the 75th anniversary. But he died in June.

Somehow, he and the Missouri just connected. Every year as we neared Ford Island, his eyes would fill with tears as he saw what he called his first home, Alberts wife, Sherry, said by email, referring to the USS Missouri.

Michael Carr, president and CEO of the USS Missouri Memorial Association, which operates the museum the battleship has become, was friends with Albert. Of the veterans, he said that despite the travel restrictions, despite the pandemic dangers, they are determined to be here.

As of Wednesday, about 60 veterans, each with one companion, were set to attend, but the number has fluctuated as some who wanted to come have died and others have requested to participate last minute.

Hawaii is expected to grant modified quarantine orders for those travelling for the anniversary, allowing them to attend the official ceremony and other events. Otherwise, people coming to the islands are required to quarantine for two weeks.

Gov. David Iges office said this week that the details are still under review but that the state will do everything possible to ensure the veterans are safely honoured.

Defence Secretary Mark Esper and other senior U.S. officials plan to attend the events at Pearl Harbor. Espers spokesman, John Supple, said the defence secretary is aware of the recent spike of COVID-19 cases on Oahu and everyone in his entourage will be tested for coronavirus before they arrive in Hawaii.

Pedersen, the veteran, says that while the enemy was more defined in 1945, the globe is still at war in many ways.

We had an enemy that we could see, and we knew how to handle it. Our enemies today are injustice. Its the lack of respecting the dignity and freedom of every single individual, Pedersen said.
Hisense Ghana Limited on Tuesday, 18th August 2020, has donated two brand new ambulances worth $90,000 to the Apinto Government Hospital and the Tarkwa Municipal Hospital.



The gesture, an initiative of Hisense Ghana Limited was to enhance quality health delivery to people in the area and afar.



To management of Hisense, quality health delivery is an essential service towards the development of every nation.



However, Ghana is confronted with lack of medical equipment that ensures the realization of health delivery, hence its support.



The Medical Superintendent of Tarkwa Municipal Hospital, Dr. Frederick Yaw Sarpong expressed gross thanks to management of Hisense for the support.



We are indeed grateful for this gesture, it will go a long in ensuring that quality and efficient health delivery is administered to the people in the Municipality, he said.



He added, We thank management of Hisense for the donation, it has come at a time that quality health delivery cannot be compromised.



In like manner, Dr. Frank Baidoe-Ansah, who spoke on behalf of Apinto Government Hospital expressed appreciation to the Home Appliances giants for the support, which he said will enhance better healthcare delivery to the people in the area, and promised to put it to good use.



Hisense Ghana's Brand Ambassador, Nana Ama McBrown stated that the gesture part from being the companys Corporate Social Responsibility, was dear to the companys management, taking into account the service it will provide.



The Kurontehene of Apinto, Nana Kwabe Fosu expressed his sincerest appreciation to the donors for the kind gesture.

Source: Kofi Aduonum









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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By Alun John

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's markets regulator has agreed in principle to issue a license to cryptocurrency firm OSL Digital Securities, a unit of Fidelity-backed BC group <0863.HK>, the company said in an exchange filing on Friday.

OSL said last November it had become the first firm to apply for a digital asset license from Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) under new rules allowing crypto exchanges to opt into regulation. No other company has so far said it has received such approval.

Financial regulators worldwide have been debating whether and how they should regulate the cryptocurrency or virtual asset industry.

OSL, and some of its competitors, say they welcome regulation in order to make it easier to provide services to financial institutions wishing to trade cryptocurrencies.

BC Group CEO Hugh Madden said that one benefit of being licenced was that regulated institutions would be able to reduce their risk by being able to engage with other regulated entities.

BC Group provides business park and advertising services as well as its cryptocurency business, which accounts for the bulk of its revenues. It made a net loss of 90.8 million yuan ($13.13 million) in the first half of 2020, according to its interim results.

Final approval is subject to certain conditions, the filing said, without identifying them. Madden said that these were "as you'd expect from a conservative regulator in a financial hub."

Other Asian regulators are also looking to regulate cryptocurrency companies.

Singapore is in the process of bringing in licencing for digital asset companies, and some exchanges have chosen to apply for licences there rather than Hong Kong as the rules are less prescriptive.

Japan's Financial Services Agency already licences some cryptocurrency exchanges.

(Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Nick Tattersall)
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Portland protesters marched on the city's ICE compound for a second night running last night as cops revealed they have arrested more than 500 people over 85 nights of demonstrations.

Protesters banged on the windows of the federal complex while some of them tried to disable its security cameras, ignoring loudspeaker warnings not to damage the building.

The protest was declared an 'unlawful assembly', with three people arrested as police used tear gas to clear the crowds who had failed to disperse - but cops did not declare a riot as they did on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Cops have declared 17 riots in 85 days and only seven nights have been free of vandalism, fireworks or deliberate fires, a newly-released timeline shows - while more than 500 people have been detained including 17 in the last week.

Protesters gathered outside Portland's ICE building for a second night running on Thursday night as protests continued for an 85th day in the city despite the police chief's plea to call off the 'senseless criminal activity'

Protesters wave a Black Lives Matter flag outside the ICE building during last night's demonstrations in Portland, which were declared an 'unlawful' assembly with tear gas fired on the crowds

Portland's police department released this timeline on Thursday showing the scope of the protests over the last three months since the death of George Floyd. More than 500 people have been arrested while 17 separate riots have been declared

Protesters confront with the police near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement centre in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 20, 2020

Protesters confront with the police near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement centre in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 20, 2020

Protesters confront with the police near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement centre in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 20, 2020

Protesters confront with the police near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement centre in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 21, 2020, in this still image from a video obtained from social media

According to KOIN 6, protesters gathered in Elizabeth Caruthers park last night close to the ICE building which was the focus of demonstrations for a second night.

The crowd was smaller than on Wednesday but protesters waved a Black Lives Matter flag and flashed strobe lights towards the ICE compound.

Parts of the building have been boarded up after windows were smashed with rocks on the previous night's demonstrations.

Later there were clashes between police and protesters which led to cops firing tear gas and pepper spray in a bid to disperse the crowds.

Several people in the crowd were seen carrying shields and wearing helmets and gas masks' while others set fire to a dumpster nearby, police said.

One person was seen lifting up another protester to help them try and reach a security camera on the outside of the ICE compound.

Others allegedly tampered with the control panel at the ICE gate while others sprayed paint into port holes on the side of the building, meaning officers could not see out of the building.

A loudspeaker warning blared out saying that protesters could face 'arrest or use of crowd control munitions' if they damaged the federal building - but protesters nonetheless sprayed graffiti on the side of the compound.

Police announced in the early hours of Friday that the ICE protest had been 'declared an unlawful assembly', but not yet a riot.

The decision was made after protesters 'blocked traffic, vandalized the ICE building, set fires to dumpsters, and threw projectiles' at federal officers, according to Portland's police bureau.

'Failure to comply with this order may subject you to citation or arrest, and may subject you to the use of tear gas, crowd control agents, and or impact munitions,' a statement said.

Three people - 30-year-old Christopher Wise, 18-year-old Riley Haralson and 27-year-old Courtney Pace - were arrested on various charges including harassment and disorderly conduct.

In addition to the ICE protest, around 100 people marched to the offices of Portland's police union on Thursday night

The Portland police timeline shows how dozens of people were arrested in the early days and weeks after Floyd's death. The numbers for each date show the number of people arrested, while the symbols show various kinds of protest violence

Violent acts continued in July with riots declared four times in 13 days after protesters started fires and vandalized buildings

Riots have been declared regularly throughout August as protests have continued, the most recent ones targeting the ICE building in Portland

Separately, around 100 people marched to the offices of Portland's police union on Thursday night, according to the Oregonian.

'The goal right now is to disrupt the peace,' a 17-year-old demonstrator told the crowds outside the boarded-up building.

'If youre here right now you need to be loud. You need to be exhausted. Because were exhausted.'

Some protesters sat in the street while other Portland residents applauded from their balconies nearby.

Elsewhere, a crowd gathered in Kenton Park for a protest organized by the PDX Black Youth Movement, where at least one person held a sign calling for the abolition of Portland's police department.

As protests continued to rage, Portland's police department released a detailed timeline of the 84 nights of protests so far.

According to police figures, more than 500 people have been arrested at the demonstrations including more than 100 in the first week of riots after George Floyd's death.

Two people - Joshua Buckley, 30, and Mark Putman, 25 - were arrested on Wednesday night on suspicion of disorderly conduct and interfering with a peace officer.

Seventeen people have been arrested in the last week with a riot declared on four of the last nine days after protesters set fires and threw projectiles including rocks and glass bottles.

Police have declared a riot 17 times over the 84 nights of protest, with acts of vandalism committed on 49 nights and fires lit on 41 separate days.

Cops define a riot as 'when six or more persons engage in tumultuous and violent conduct and thereby intentionally or recklessly create a grave risk of causing public alarm'.

Since the protests began on May 29, police have only recorded seven nights that were free of vandalism, fireworks or intentional fires.

A crowd outside the ICE building which was described as smaller than the protest on Wednesday which was declared a riot

A crowd of people outside the ICE building which has been partially boarded up following the demonstrations in Portland

Demonstrators stand near the fence at the federal compound, which has been the focus of protests in the last two days

The city's Justice Center which houses the police department's Central Precinct was the focus for the first few weeks of demonstrations.

However, other federal buildings as well as separate police precincts and most recently the ICE complex have also been targeted by protesters.

Cops in Portland have repeatedly clashed with crowds targeting the city's federal courthouse.

ICE has long been a target of criticism from the left, especially after the Trump administration separated thousands of migrant children from their parents.

However, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has rejected calls from some quarters to abolish ICE, which was founded in 2003.

In a statement, officers said initially peaceful demonstrations after Floyd's death in Minneapolis had mutated into 'criminal behavior' in recent weeks.

'The members of the Portland Police Bureau are sworn to facilitate the peaceful and lawful exercise of free speech and assembly,' the statement said. 'Bureau members do everything possible to support these activities.'

'In late May and early June, there were several large peaceful demonstrations where no police interaction was needed.

'However, a second group began to commit crimes that necessitated law enforcement response.

'When criminal behavior occurs, especially behavior threatening the safety of those near the event or those targeted by the event, law enforcement must respond.'

Wednesday night's protests (pictured, a member of the media stands amid tear gas near the ICE building) had been declared a riot with two people arrested

Police claimed protesters were throwing glass bottles and 'softball-sized rocks' and shining lasers at federal officers leaving the ICE building on Wednesday, while two people were arrested before the crowd was finally cleared after 1am

Portland police chief Chuck Lovell had pleaded on Wednesday for protesters to call off their 'senseless criminal activity'.

'To effect change, we must work to build and not destroy,' said Lovell.

'This is more than property paid for by community members; these buildings host critical materials and spaces that provide essential services and support to our community at large.

'The damage is costing millions of dollars that could be used to help people during an already challenging time.'

Separately, a US judge granted a preliminary injunction on Thursday exempting journalists and legal observers from orders to disperse in a riot.

The 61-page order prohibited federal officers from seizing any 'photographic equipment, audio- or video recording equipment, or press passes'.

A lawyer from the U.S. Justice Department had argued that the press does not hold any special right when police declare an unlawful order crowds to break up.

'If military and law enforcement personnel can engage around the world without attacking journalists, the federal defendants can respect plaintiffs' First Amendment rights in Portland', said US District Judge Michael Simon.

The order came in a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Oregon, which called it 'a crucial victory' for civil liberties.

Donald Trump has continued to rage at the violence in Portland, saying on Tuesday that the city was a 'disaster' - putting New York and Chicago in the same category.

'The Democrats have to start enforcing Law and Order in their cities and states,' he said, reviving one of the key themes of his re-election campaign.

Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News on Wednesday that Trump told him on a recent trip: 'We've gotta do something about it. We send in the FBI.'

Asked if federal forces could return to the city, he said: 'It looks like we're going to have to, they're not doing the job. We want to make sure that not just Portland's safe but every city across the country is safe.'
Lord mayor Sally Capp is firming as the clear front runner in the race to lead Melbourne Town Hall, after the Victorian government confirmed it would allow the October election to go ahead.

Multiple sources say Cr Capp, a former Liberal Party member and Property Council chief, will run a joint ticket with former ALP state secretary Nicholas Reece for deputy lord mayor.

Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp, pictured in March. Credit:Simon Schluter

Neither councillor would confirm the joint ticket on Thursday, with Cr Reece saying only that he was focused on helping Melbourne recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With nominations opening in four weeks, Cr Capps deputy, Arron Wood, is firming up to challenge her for the leadership.
(Newser)  "He left," President Trump told a crowd about former vice president Joe Biden near his birthplace. "He abandoned Pennsylvania. He abandoned Scranton. He was here for a short period of time, and he didn't even know it." Biden was 10 years old when his family moved to Delaware for his father's job. Trump was getting his criticisms in hours before Biden was to give his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The president spoke at a family-owned remodeling business in Old Forge next to Scranton, the Washington Post reports. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat who also is from Scranton, told reporters Thursday that Biden "has the values and the spirit of Scranton in his heart," per the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Donald Trump doesnt know the first thing about Scranton, about Lackawanna County, or about Northeastern Pennsylvania," Casey said. "He doesnt relate to us, he doesnt share our values."

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In other shots at Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, Trump said:

"If you want a vision of your life under a Biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago, and imagine the mayhem coming to your town."

"Joe Biden and Kamalashe's another beautyalso strongly support the deadly sanctuary cities that have been so bad for you and everyone else. ... We believe our country should be sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not for criminal aliens."

"He's going to make a speech tonight. ... I really hope does well, but I also want him to tell the truth. He's got to tell the truth about things, and he's going to do a lot better if he does, but hopefully, not well enough."

Trump won Pennsylvania by less than a percentage point in 2016; polls show him trailing now. The president's convention counterprogramming is to continue Thursday night, per ABC , when he's scheduled to do a live interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity as the Democrats' broadcast begins. (Read more Election 2020 stories.)
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The pilot of a private plane has died after the aircraft ran off the runway and caught fire before taking off.

The incident took place at around 3:40pm at Chicago Rockford International Airport in Illinois, about 90 miles from Chicago.

The aircraft was a small Beechcraft Super King Air 200 twin-prop two-engine plane which can carry up to 12 passengers. The pilot was the only person on board at the time of the crash.

Just minutes after the pilot started to taxi out of the runway, emergency responders were notified that an aircraft was on fire, CBS 2 TV reported.

The above image shows the charred wreckage of a small aircraft that caught fire while taxiing out of a runway at Chicago Rockford International Airport on Thursday

The aircraft, which can carry up to 12 passengers, was completely gutted by the fire. The pilot, who died after failing to escape, was the only person on board

The aircraft caught fire just before takeoff from Runway One at Chicago Rockford International Airport on Thursday

'First and foremost, we extend our thoughts and prayers to the individual on board and the family,' said airport chief Mike Dunn.

'We also want to thank all of the first responders who were on scene and assisted with the efforts.'

Dunn's deputy, Michelle Cassaro, said firefighters managed to put out the flames within 10 minutes.

'Our crews responded very quickly, and we are pleased with their response,' Cassaro said.

The pilot was not able to escape the burning aircraft, authorities told the Rockford Register Star.

Fire crews raced to the scene to extinguish the blaze. Images from the runway show pieces of the aircraft strewn in the immediate vicinity of the cabin.

Investigators and fire crews are on the scene after the flames were extinguished on Thursday

Airport officials said that the fire was extinguished within 10 minutes of first responders receiving a report about an emergency

A piece of the tail is seen above at the wreckage site in Rockford on Thursday

The Federal Aviation Administration was called to the scene to investigate the cause of the crash

The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it is investigating the cause of the crash.

There were no other people on board the aircraft, which can hold up to 12 passengers.

The NTSB is investigating the crash Thursday of a Beech 200 at Chicago Rockford International Airport.  NTSB_Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) August 20, 2020

The Beechcraft Super King Air 200 series, which is now simply known as the King Air after the Super was dropped from its name in 1996, was first used in civilian air travel in 1974.

It is an aircraft that is powered by two Pratt & Whitney PT6A-41 turboprop engines that each have a shaft horsepower of 850.

The Beechcraft Super King Air 200 series, which is now simply known as the King Air after the Super was dropped from its name in 1996, was first used in civilian air travel in 1974. The above image is a stock photo of the plane

The King Air can reach an altitude of 35,000ft and can carry a maximum takeoff and landing weight of 12,500 pounds.

On a full tank of fuel, it can fly 1,490 nautical miles between takeoff and landing.

The company ended production of the 200 model in 1981. There are a total of 702 King Air 200 planes.

Chicago Rockford, which is located in Winnebago County just a few miles south of the city of Rockford and some 90 miles north of the Windy City, is the third-busiest airport in Illinois behind O'Hare and Midway.

The airport has been used as a hub for parcel delivery company UPS.
Hello! And welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. Ive always been the kind of person who likes to cook when things feel out of control. My mom died when I was quite young, and the kitchen was her place, so when she died, it became my place, where I escaped to  and still do, to find comfort in making a recipe that will work if I just follow the instructions. How life-affirming, right?

These crazy days, I find myself gravitating toward comforting dishes, not necessarily of the mac and cheese sort (which I love, but ate my weight in back in March), but noodles and chicken and stews that have an air of familiarity with a touch of the unexpected. The dishes below are like that, I think. I hope that you like them and that youll cook them.

You can reach me at margaux@nytimes.com with questions, complaints and compliments. Have a wonderful week.
The crisis at the Postal Service has been building and accelerating for months with virtually no official response. Over the past two weeks, however, it reached a crescendo that even the countrys remarkably confrontation-averse opposition party could not ignore.

In a matter of days, overwhelming grassroots pressure pushed House Democrats from seemingly having no plan to executing a rapid return to Washington, D.C., getting a hearing with the postmaster general on the calendar for next week and winning a promise from Louis DeJoy to cease operational changes until after the election.

But, despite these early wins, protecting the USPS will require a steadfast commitment to seeing concessions implemented and getting to the bottom of this woeful series of events to make sure the caucus doesnt lose its resolve, its essential that we keep up the pressure through the November finish line and beyond.

In 2018, Democrats promised that, if propelled to a House majority, they would take on Trump. But it wasnt long before it became clear that their actions in office would fall far short of their campaign trail promises.

Starting from Rep. Richard Neals initial failure to request Trumps tax returns through to pursuit of the narrowest possible impeachment strategy, Democratic leadership failed to deliver. Up until just a few days ago, the Postal Service story was shaping up to be a repeat of this lackluster oversight pattern.

Within weeks of the pandemics onset, the Postal Service was warning that lower mail volumes put it at risk of collapse by summer. As we argued at the time, Democratic lawmakers had enormous leverage to protect elections and the USPS, and provide much-needed relief in March. With stock markets (and thus, the rich) a mess along with the real economy, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump needed Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

In the blink of an eye, however, Democratic leadership traded postal service relief away at Trumps insistence. Funds wouldnt surface again in proposed legislation until May, by which time Democrats leverage was gone. With the stock market still flying high (thanks in part to the CARES Acts generous corporate relief measures), its unclear when Democrats will have negotiating power again.

Story continues

In the meantime, the situation at USPS has only grown more dire. The little help that the CARES Act provided to the Postal Servicea $10 billion loanran through the Treasury Department. Predictably, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin leveraged the funds to extract concessions. In June, Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, a major GOP donor, as postmaster general. He quickly set about shifting the agencys priorities and upending usual practice. Before long, reports of protracted delays began surfacing across the country.

Over the last couple of weeks, the steady drip of bad news has become a flood. DeJoy oversaw a worrying organizational shakeup, reassigning or displacing 23 postal service executives, including two who managed day-to-day operations. Mail sorting machines in several distribution centers are being dismantled and sold, limiting the services capacity to rapidly sort flat mail (like absentee ballots). In Oregon and Montana, envelope collection boxes are being picked up and hauled away. Oregon, notably, votes entirely by mail. On Friday, we learned that the USPS has warned states that mail-in ballots in 46 states may not arrive in time to be counted.

For those still unconvinced by this mountain of evidence, President Trump spelled out the logic of these attacks and his stubborn opposition to Postal Service funding last Thursday: They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. If they dont get those two items, that means you cant have universal mail-in voting because theyre not equipped to have it. And just two days later he warned, almost gleefully, that problems with mail-in voting could delay Novembers election result for months or even years.

This is a direct, undisguised assault on the basic democratic process. Yet, until this weekend, Speaker Pelosi leaned almost exclusively on standard tactics to respond, issuing sternly-worded statements that seemingly seek to appeal to the presidents still hidden (after four years!) sense of decency. This is how one plays against a political opponent who is negotiating in good faith, not a would-be demagogue dismantling the very process of democratic elections. For months, other members of the caucus seemingly toed leaderships line.

But, over the last few days, as the crisis spiraled further and further out of control, a rebellion was brewing. From the grassroots up through the Democratic caucus, people who had long been willing to trust Pelosis lead were fed up. Major people-powered organizations demanded action, pushed calls into members offices and poured out into the streets, including in front of Postmaster General DeJoys home. In turn, Democratic House members from the left to the center grew more strident in their calls for action and creative oversight tactics.

This pressure worked. After days of unacceptable dithering, Pelosi agreed on Sunday night to re-gavel the House into session to confront the USPS crisis. She also greenlit an emergency Oversight Committee hearing with DeJoy and USPS Board of Governors Chairman Robert Duncan for next week. Facing credible threats from newly rebellious members to issue subpoenas and deploy the Sergeant-at-Arms in the case theyre ignored, DeJoy has already agreed to appear. Tuesday, he went a step further, promising to suspend operational changes until after the election to avoid the appearance of any impact on election mail.

These wins are consequential but they shouldnt blind USPS valiant defenders to the need to keep the pressure on. A promise to end the operational overhauls does not necessarily mean that it will be implemented, nor that harmful changes already enacted will be reversed. To win this battle, House Democrats are going to need to be pushed to take up the fight on multiple fronts.

Oversight must press full steam ahead with its investigation by, for example, issuing subpoenas to any and all potential sources for information on the ongoing disaster. Democrats can start with the other members of the USPS Board of Governors, an independent, bipartisan body with six sitting appointees (four Republicans and two Democrats), including Chairman Duncan, who voted to approve DeJoys appointment. Members are insulated from the presidents influence by measures that protect them from firing, except for cause. That raises the question: why would the governors, even the presidents co-partisans, go along with the plan to install the obviously unsuitable DeJoy? Their role in this should not be lost.

In addition, hearings with Postal Service workers, local election officials, and any other relevant players would elicit consequential information about the shape and scope of the threat. Members are seeking out this information as we speakon Saturday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used her Instagram story to encourage postal workers to describe the changes they were seeing on the ground. Such inquiries are likely to be even more consequential with the weight of the oversight committee (of which Ocasio-Cortez is a member) behind them. These hearings should begin this week, not in a month. And they should not end until USPS operational integrity and election security have been achieved.

Several lawmakers have called for the postmaster general to resign or be removed. But Democrats shouldnt be waiting for Trump or DeJoy to act. If theyre worried about his fitness for office, whether because of his leadership or his blatant conflicts of interest, they should open an impeachment inquiry to dig deeper. Even after DeJoys reversal Tuesday, its essential that House members get to the bottom of the operational changes (and any ongoing problems).

These committees represent the natural first lines of defense but the full caucus will need to provide reinforcements if they want to have any hope of success. Last fall, Speaker Pelosi tried a different strategy, explicitly closing impeachment proceedings off from the rest of the caucus work. Even as the White House refused to provide any cooperation, House Democrats acceded to demands for appropriations, thus trading away any leverage they had to compel compliance.

This time around, House Democrats cannot let a cent out the door until Postal Service funding and operational integrity have been assured (along with aid to states to ensure they can implement necessary changes to their voting systems). With the fate of another relief bill uncertain and government spending set to expire at the end of September, this could not be more important.

Drawing this clear line in the sand will also signal to states and localities that reimbursement later for outlays on election infrastructure now are a near certainty, thereby incentivizing earlier preparations. (States that wait until a budget or continuing resolution is passed in, say, October, will struggle to prepare no matter the volume of aid provided.) While congressional Democrats wait for their colleagues across the aisle to cave, they can keep passing a package with the necessary funds for USPS and voting to ensure their priorities are at the top of the American publics mind (no, no one outside of the Beltway remembers that the HEROES Act exists, let alone whats in it).

Members can also look to the indirect convening and organizing authorities that come along with being a federal politician. They can, for example, meet with state and local officials to develop other creative strategies. They can also call upon figures from both sides of the aisle, from ex-military commanders to former presidents, to lend public support to the caucus efforts to safeguard the election.

And speaking of the presidency, Biden and Harris must make clear that in case the election is bent but not broken, any lawbreakers from Trump and DeJoy on down will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That could influence the risk/reward calculations of key figures in this attack on democracy.

But even if they can be convinced to do all this and more, House Democrats need to also prepare for the possibility of a contested election this fall. A statement of standards that outlines scenarios in which they would judge a broken election illegitimate and details responses in each case, will lessen the degree to which they can be accused of establishing post-hoc metrics. Perhaps just as importantly, such a step would signal to the American public that lawmakers recognize the gravity of the situation.

After over a year and a half of hoping otherwise, millions have seemingly come to the hard realization that Democratic leadership is not going to save us from Trump of its own volition. Only with overwhelming pressure will House Democrats rise to the occasion. As the number of days before the election dwindle and many lawmakers inevitably gravitate back towards their habitual complacency, it is essential that we keep the pressure on.

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The Supreme Court appointed trust for the construction of the temple, held a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday.

This is how the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will look like.

New Delhi: The Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will be constructed by adhering to India's ancient and traditional construction techniques and copper plates will be used to fuse stone blocks with each other. The construction has "begun" and currently soil testing at the site is being done. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had performed the bhoomi pujan of the temple on August 5.

Members of the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the Supreme Court appointed trust for the construction of the temple, held a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday.

Asking Ram bhakts to donate copper for the construction, the trust said donors can engrave family names, place of origin or their community temples' names on copper plates which should be 18 inches long, 30 mm wide and three mm in depth.

This way, the copper plates will not only symbolize the unity of this country but also be a testament to the entire country's contribution towards mandir construction, tweeted the trust. Iron will not be used in the construction.

After the meeting, trusts general-secretary Champat Rai said, We are taking help of Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee and IIT Chennai. 1200 pillars with one metre diameter will be brought up from depth of 30-35 metre for a strong foundation. The temple will be built to sustain earthquakes, storms and other natural calamities. Engineers from CBRI Roorkee, IIT Madras along with L&T are currently testing the soil at the temple site and the construction work is expected to finish in 36-40 months, said the trust.

The temple will be 161 feet tall, three-storey structure on a raised platform with multiple turrets, pillars and domes and in Nagara style of architecture. The original design by renowned temple architect Chandrakant Sompura in 1983 has been slightly modified.
A 21-year-old man accused of attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault in a vicious attack on a 50-year-old woman has ties to Burlington, police say.

Durham Regional Police investigators released images, Aug. 20, 2020, of Whitby resident Anthony Doiron-Francis, 21, who is charged in the "brutal assault" of a 50-year-old Whitby woman back on July 29, to ensure there have been no other victims, officers said in a news release.

Doiron-Francis was arrested Aug. 13 after an intensive investigation into the attack that left the woman with "horrific injuries," police said.

The woman had gone out for a walk on the evening of July 28 and failed to return. She was found the following day near a creek with critical injuries and rushed to hospital. She remains there in critical condition.

Information released by police Thursday, Aug. 20 indicates Doiron-Francis moved to Whitby from Ottawa in March of this year. He has also spent time recently in Burlington, police said.

Hes 5 feet 10 and about 220 pounds with short hair and a goatee. As the investigation continues, police want to ensure there are no other victims.

Call police at 905-579-1520, extension 5418 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

-with files from DurhamRegion.com
Yet local Democrats say they see evidence that Luzerne could be swinging back in their favor as Biden courts the White working-class voters who defected four years ago. And the convention that ended Thursday night with Biden paying tribute to his Northeastern Pennsylvania roots, they say, is likely to have helped their cause.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown reshuffled her list of counties struggling to contain coronavirus Thursday, identifying Jackson as a new hot spot but clearing Marion and Wasco for apparently making enough progress.

Brown added Jackson County to her so-called watch list that serves as a precursor for more aggressive action, such as restoring business restrictions or stay-home guidance. She removed Wasco and Marion counties, which had been on the list since July 3 and July 30.

I want to applaud county officials and community members in Marion and Wasco counties for their efforts in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in their communities, Brown said in a statement. This is yet another example of how we can combat this disease by working together.

Eight counties are now on Browns watch list, which has had mixed results since being established in early July. The designation is supposed to ensure state resources for hard-hit counties. Some local officials say its worked well while others say they still dont have what they need.

Brown places counties on the watch list when public health officials frequently cannot link confirmed or presumed coronavirus infections to an identified source. The states benchmark for such sporadic spread is 50 cases per 100,000 residents.

Its not immediately clear how any of the counties have performed by that metric, including those that have been removed from the watch list. Thats because Browns office didnt cite the statistics in her announcement and the Oregon Health Authority, the states public health division, doesnt list those figures online among its many datasets.

An agency spokesman said hed provide the information to The Oregonian/OregonLive as soon as possible.

Confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases have been climbing steadily this month in Jackson County, which includes Medford in southern Oregon. The Oregon Health Authority reported 352 cases as of Aug. 1. The tally Thursday stood at 636. More than half of all cases last week could not be traced to a source, according to state data.

Publicly available data shows that Marion County continues to struggle with coronavirus cases. Among residents tested for the virus, 10.9% were positive, according to data for last week. Thats the highest level for Marion County since at least June, and double the states rate last week.

Officials also could not trace one-third of Marion Countys cases last week to a known source, the highest rate since May, according to state data.

Being on Browns watch list ensures active monitoring for at least three weeks and the threat of new restrictions. Brown has already moved Morrow, Malhuer and Umatilla counties back to a first phase of reopening, with Umatilla originally sent to stay-home status.

The full list of watch list counties also includes Baker, Hood River, Jefferson and Multnomah.

-- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court gave two days time to Prashant Bhushan to reconsider his statement on the contempt case against him. Excerpts of the courtroom exchange between the bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari and senior advocates Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave and Bhushan:

Dave: I want to bring to courts notice the plea filed by Bhushan to defer the punishment till the review petition is filed and decided. I have 30 days to file the review petition and the order of conviction can then be reviewed.

Justice Mishra: But this remedy is consequential. You can file a review after our final orders.

Justice Gavai: Why do you want to give an impression that you want to avoid these proceedings?

Dave: And why my lordships want to give an impression that this bench wants to decide everything before Justice Arun Mishra retires? Heavens arent going to fall if sentencing is deferred till the review is decided.

Justice Mishra: Suppose I werent retiring, should I have placed this matter before some other bench for deciding the sentence?

Dave: In the larger interest of people, in larger interest of this institution, the sentencing must be deferred. This cant be hurried like this.

Justice Gavai: It was Rajeev Dhavans statement on August 17 that review was ready to be filed.

Dave: Its ready but why should we file it now? We have time of 30 days, i.e., till September 14 to file our review.

Dhavan: I am not going to ask for deferment. Let the judges words be final. Mr Bhushan wants to make a statement.

Bhushan reads out the statement: I am pained not because I can be punished but because I have been misunderstood. These two tweets represented my bonafide belief, expression of which should be permissible in any healthy democracy.

Dhavan: From 2G to coal block, from Goa mining to PWC case, from FCRA funding to CVC selection case, RTI  all this were Prashant Bhushans case. You (bench) must examine who is the person before this court. When your judgment will reach academy, it will be severely criticised. Over 19 pages were cut and paste from Vijay Kurles judgment.

Justice Mishra: Dont worry. We are open to fair criticism. Restraint has to be shown by everyone. There is a Lakshman Rekha for everything. Why cross it? I havent convicted anyone of contempt in 24 years as a judge. This is my first such order.

Justice Mishra to AG K K Venugopal: What should be done when someone who has been convicted of contempt, says he has no remorse. Should we give him time?

AG: This court may give him some time but knowing him...I can say he has done some tremendous good work.

Justice Gavai again ask Bhushan: Do you want to reconsider your statement?

Bhushan: No. I dont want to reconsider it...I dont want to waste my lordships time.

Justice Mishra: You better reconsider it. Dont just apply legal brain here.

Bhushan: I will consult my lawyers then. I will think over.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 06:38:00|Editor: huaxia

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BRUSSELS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A member of the European Parliament (MEP) on Friday called for rapid progress in the negotiations over the future relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom after the seventh round of talks met little convergence.

"Another month has passed without any meaningful progress," David McAllister, Chair of the European Parliament's EU-UK Coordination Group, said in a statement, following a briefing by the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier in the European Parliament.

"Losing precious time now in the hope of getting a better deal in a last-minute poker game is not helpful, and potentially very detrimental for both sides," said McAllister.

The German parliamentarian reminded that the European Parliament needs time to scrutinize the agreement, if one is reached, before giving its consent, and thus October would be the deadline for the two sides to submit the document.

He reiterated the determination to preserve EU standards and achievements in areas including environmental standards, "for the sake and well-being of EU citizens."

Barnier said on Friday the two sides remained far apart on issues including level playing field, fisheries, governance and law enforcement, although progress was made on technical issues like energy cooperation and anti-money laundering.

"Those who were hoping for negotiations to move swiftly forward this week will have been disappointed," Barnier told a press conference in Brussels.

He blamed the British negotiators for having not shown "any real willingness to move forward on issues of fundamental importance for the European Union."

However, British government's chief negotiator David Frost said Friday that the EU stance made it unnecessarily difficult to make progress. There is a lot of detail to work through, he said, adding: "Time is short for both sides." Enditem
IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- American Medical Technologies ("AMT") has been acquired by One Equity Partners ("OEP") and The Silverfern Group ("Silverfern"). OEP is a middle market private equity firm with a focus on the industrial, healthcare, and technology sectors in North America and Europe. Silverfern is a global middle-market investment management firm.

AMT is the leading independent provider of wound care programs for Long Term Care facilities in the United States. These programs include bedside clinical education, advanced dressings and enabling technologies, designed to facilitate positive clinical and risk management outcomes. AMT has been providing these high-quality programs since 1994 and currently services residents in over 6,250 facilities nationwide and more than 250,000 patients annually.

"Our Skilled Nursing Home customers, along with the rest of the Long-Term Care industry, are navigating through challenging times brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. This acquisition will secure our ability to serve our customers and afford us the opportunity to create more value for them through innovation," said Sam Muppalla, CEO of AMT.

"We are focused on helping our customers respond to increasing patient acuity levels, staffing pressures and changes required to support PDPM," said Sarah Holden-Mount, SVP of Sales and Clinical Delivery. "We are deepening our collaboration with practitioners and suppliers to adapt to the new reality."

"Forty percent of Medicare beneficiaries have chosen to be involved in a Medicare Advantage plan. To support this choice, we have built extensive collaborations with the managed care organizations," said Julie Rhodovi, SVP of Channels, AMT. "We look forward to expanding these collaborations to address continuity of wound care across settings and enabling new value-based reimbursement models."

About One Equity Partners

OEP is a middle market private equity firm focused on the industrial, healthcare, and technology sectors in North America and Europe. The firm builds market-leading companies by identifying and executing transformative business combinations. OEP is a trusted partner with a differentiated investment process, a broad and senior team, and an established track record generating long-term value for its partners. Since 2001, the firm has completed more than 180 transactions worldwide. OEP, founded in 2001, spun out of JP Morgan in 2015. The firm has offices in New York, Chicago, and Frankfurt. For more information, please visit www.oneequity.com.

About The Silverfern Group

Silverfern is a global middle-market investment management firm. Led by founding Principals Clive R. Holmes and Reeta K. Holmes, the Firm invests on behalf of both major institutional investors and a network of more than 65 sophisticated multi-billion-dollar single family offices. Through its private equity offices in New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Sydney, Silverfern makes direct investments in middle market private equity globally. Silverfern's unique co-control investment strategy seeks to mitigate systemic risk in its portfolio by pursuing attractive risk-adjusted returns on a global basis, while at the same time seeking to manage local/market risk through its strategy to partner with qualified, local, investment partners on each of its investments.

About American Medical Technologies

Founded in 1994, AMT is a leading advanced wound care company that delivers comprehensive wound care, ostomy, urological, and tracheostomy programs to health care providers in the long-term care and post-acute environments. AMT is also an accredited supplier of Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies ("DMEPOS") as well as a participating Medicare Part B provider. AMT serves over 6,250 facilities across all 50 states to facilitate the delivery of high-quality patient care.

Media Contact:

Name: Ritesh Seth

Phone: 240.712.3135

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.amtwoundcare.com

SOURCE American Medical Technologies

Related Links

https://www.amtwoundcare.com


Libyas UN-supported government has announced a ceasefire across the country and called for demilitarising the strategic city of Sirte, which is controlled by rival forces.

In a separate statement, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival east-based House of Representatives, also called for a ceasefire.

The announcements came amid fears of an escalation in the more than nine-year-old conflict.

Both administrations called for an end to an oil blockade imposed by the camp of military commander General Khalifa Hifter since earlier this year.

General Hifter is an ally to the parliament speaker.

They also called for oil revenues, the countrys main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to General Hifter closed export terminals and choked off major pipelines at the start of the year.

That was aimed at pressuring their rivals in the Tripoli-based government.

Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in the capital Tripoli, also announced parliamentary and presidential elections would be held in March.

The development comes amid international pressure and fears of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war, as rival sides mobilise for a battle over Sirte, the gateway to the countrys major oil export terminals, which are under General Hifters control.

Both statements called for demilitarising the city of Sirte and the Jufra area in central Libya, and a joint police force to be responsible for security there.

There was no immediate comment form General Hifters army, but General Hifter agreed on an Egyptian initiative in June that included a ceasefire.

The UN Support Mission in Libya welcomed both statements and called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya.

Both sides of the conflict are supported by thousands of mercenaries.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a Nato-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was later killed.

Recommended Trusted British courts have done more to help Libya than politicians

The country has since split between rival east and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

General Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture the capital Tripoli.

But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of Tripoli and other western towns.

The chaos in the oil-rich country has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

General Hifter is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle over political Islam, is the main patron of the Tripoli forces, which are also backed by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

General Hifters offensive on Tripoli has deeply polarised the already divided country and aborted UN efforts to hold a peace conference more than a year ago.

AP
But the majority opinion states the record of Greens case shows he waived the issue of having a jury determine his sentence. A footnote indicates the court found Greens decision in April 2019 to drop the pursuit of his initial motion to withdraw his plea, combined with his choosing to allow Greenough to handle his sentencing hearing, waived his right to sentencing by jury.

The motion (to withdraw plea) made no mention of an improper sentencing procedure or waiving jury trial for his (punishment stage) hearing, the majority opinion says. The court also noted Greenough presided over Greens earlier competency jury trial before handling his plea and sentencing hearings.

The court made it very clear it should be the rare individual for whom the state should seek this kind of punishment, Gray said, citing the case of Michael Bever as another example involving a then-minor accused of murder. Bever was 16 at the time he and his brother, Robert Bever, killed their parents and three siblings in Broken Arrow, as well as nearly killing a fourth.
Dear Cathy,

Im on the board of a local teen service organization called Teens Give Back. Would you have any suggestions for our service organization (100 high school teens and their parents) to volunteer in a hands-on manner with a pet service-related group?

We were especially interested in your article about the K9s For Warriors, but I do not see that theyve made it to San Antonio yet. Our teens have responded to surveys multiple times that they would like more opportunities working with animals. Any suggestions you might have would be very welcome.

Stephanie

Dear Stephanie,

With the pandemic right now, most animal shelters are either closed or running with minimal staff and arent letting their volunteers return to the shelter. So, it can be difficult to find volunteer opportunities right now with animals.

But have you and your 100 volunteers considered fostering kittens or other pets from a local animal shelter? There is always a plethora of neonatal kittens this time of year that need to be feed and cared for until they are old enough to be adopted.

There also are dogs and cats that need to be fostered for reasons of sickness or injury or because there is not enough space at the shelter. Fostering puts you in direct contact with animals and is a great volunteer opportunity for the entire family. (It also will keep you out of public spaces and safe from exposure to the coronavirus.)

Talk to your volunteers to see who might be interested and then email the animal shelters to let them know you have families who want to help. You would be providing an enormous service to these animal groups and getting that direct contact with animals that your members desire.

Some other options to help animals, but that wont put you in direct contact with them, include running a pet food drive or creating goody bags for the pets waiting for new homes. Ask people to drop off pet food at a designated location or leave it curbside in front of their homes, and then pick it up and deliver it to the San Antonio Food Bank for its DaisyCares Pet Food Program, safoodbank.org/pets, that distributes pet food to struggling families to help them care for their pets.

Work with your parents to establish protocols for wiping down donation items before accepting them, and check with the Food Bank to see what their protocols are for accepting donations right now. As for the goody bags, you could provide a toy (ordered online or handmade) for a dog or cat waiting for their forever homes. Contact local shelters to see what their protocols are prior to delivering anything.

Finally, reach out to rescue groups to see if they need any help or foster care. The city of San Antonio Animal Care Services maintains a list of rescue group community partners it works with on its website, sanantonio.gov/Animal-Care, under the resources tab.

Send your pet questions, tips, and stories to cathy@petpundit.com. You can read the Animals Matter blog at http://blog.mysanantonio.com/animals and follow her at @cathymrosenthal.
MECOSTA COUNTY  Recent legislation introduced by state Rep. Jack O'Malley could improve childcare regulations in rural Michigan communities.

"Generally speaking, (House Bill) 5975, sponsored by Reps. Hoitenga, OMalley and others, is aimed at improvements in how childcare providers are regulated and services reviewed," Big Rapids Mayor Tom Hogenson said.

Mecosta County Reads is an organization that aims to inform locals of literacy issues that exist within the community while also providing support and resources for those who struggle with reading.

Hogenson, a member of Mecosta County Reads, said the group supports the legislation's efforts to bring awareness to the difficulties many area childcare providers are facing.

"Our group believes that we need to celebrate the availability of childcare services and to rise in support of the provider community to enable and sustain this resource for parents, providers, employers and, of course, for the children," he said.

While aiming to improve literacy rates in Mecosta County, Hogenson said Mecosta County Reads also works closely with Mecosta Osceola Great Start Collaborative Coordinator Jessica Wimmer to help improve childcare in the area for both providers and parents.

While dealing with the difficulties imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, Wimmer said area childcare providers also have been struggling with the frequently changing requirements for licensure and regulation.

"It's the current regulatory oversight that is not only punitive, but the uncertainty of it," she said.

Wimmer said this has caused a dramatic decline in childcare options within Mecosta County.

"Childcare providers are leaving the field faster than many other fields," Wimmer said.

The new legislation, however, would allow a 90-day grace period for childcare providers to adjust to any new rules issued by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. It would also increase the amount of children a provider is allowed to care for.

Wimmer said these changes would allow for providers to continue to do their job, making it easier for children, parents and the overall community.

"We're looking to make sure parents can devote themselves to work," Wimmer said, noting parents cannot work without first having someone to care for their children. "Quality childcare impacts children but it also impacts businesses and makes sure children will enter school ready to succeed."

While raising awareness for providers in the area, Wimmer said there are also many ways locals can show their support for childcare businesses.

This includes being informed of the challenges associated with being a licensed childcare provider, speaking with providers in the area and letting them know their work is appreciated, Wimmer said.

"Without licensed child care slots, quality isn't an option," she said. "The need is for currently licensed slots to get the community support needed to help them to remain in business while a pathway to promote others getting licensed is created and takes place."

Wimmer said those wanting to learn more about the challenges faced by area childcare providers also may email her at jwimmer@moisd.org.
SPRINGFIELD  Two men from Chicago and Brooklyn, New York, were arraigned Friday on federal charges linked to a series of large marijuana grow operations in Palmer and Monson.

Weiqing Li, 41, and Li Qin Li, 49, were charged in late July in U.S. District Court with manufacturing marijuana and processing marijuana with intent to distribute.

Both pleaded not guilty to the charges through an interpreter. Weiquing Li, of Chicago, told agents he moved to Massachusetts around February for the sole purpose of growing weed, prosecutors said. Li Qin Li came from Brooklyn.

The men were released on bail and traveled back to their home states after detention hearings earlier this month.

The two Chinese nationals were arrested after federal agents busted the alleged grow ring, which had apparently been under surveillance by law enforcement for months, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Curley.

Agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration executed search warrants at two residences in Palmer, two residences in Monson and one warehouse in Monson, seizing more than 4,000 marijuana plants in what they characterized as a large, commercial-style grow operation. Along with the plants, agents found elaborate systems for lighting, cooling, irrigation and ventilation systems, according to court records.

The pair were among four Chinese nationals arrested recently in connection to large grow operations in rural communities in Western Massachusetts. Also on July 29, utility workers responded to a home in Savoy in response to what appeared to be a safety issue at a home at 72 Jackson Road.

A man who said he only spoke Chinese answered the door and tried to shoo the workers away by stuffing a wad of $100 bills in ones front pocket. The house had been logging $10,000 monthly electricity bills and Eversource workers found charred electrical boxes around the property, according to Massachusetts State Police troopers.

That agency said it uncovered a $3 million marijuana grow operation there. Two men, Yebin Mai, of Staten Island, New York, and Bin Huang, of Brooklyn, were arrested days later. They were arraigned in state court and held on $100,000 bail, police said.
France, Germany and UK do not support U.S. in seeking to reimpose sanctions on Iran: joint statement

LONDON, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on Thursday saying that they cannot support the United States in seeking to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

The U.S. sent a letter to the UN Security Council on Thursday requesting to initiate the "snapback" mechanism, which allows a participant to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) to seek the reimposition against Iran of the multilateral sanctions lifted in 2015 in accordance with resolution 2231, adopted by the UN Security Council.

"The U.S. ceased to be a participant to the JCPoA following their withdrawal from the deal on 8 May, 2018... We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPoA," the statement noted.

France, Germany and the UK said they "are committed to preserving the processes and institutions which constitute the foundation of multilateralism. We remain guided by the objective of upholding the authority and integrity of the United Nations Security Council. We call on all UN Security Council members to refrain from any action that would only deepen divisions in the Security Council or that would have serious adverse consequences on its work."

Reiterating that they remain committed to the JCPoA despite the significant challenges caused by U.S. withdrawal, the three countries said they "believe that we should address the current issue of systematic Iranian non-compliance with its JCPoA obligations through dialogue between JCPoA participants, including through the Joint Commission and use of the Dispute Resolution Mechanism."

In order to preserve the agreement, they urged Iran "to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay."

The three countries also pledged to continue to work with all UN Security Council members and stakeholders to seek a path forward that preserves space for further diplomacy.

"Our efforts will be guided by the need to uphold the authority and integrity of the UN Security Council and to advance regional security and stability," they noted in the statement.

The JCPoA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was inked by Iran in July 2015 with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. However, the U.S., under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the deal on May 8, 2018, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, despite objections from the international community.

A year after the U.S. unilateral exit, Iran stopped implementing some of its commitments under the deal and set a 60-day deadline for the Europeans to help the Islamic republic reap the economic benefits of the deal.

The European signatories still support the deal and have vowed to sidestep U.S. sanctions re-imposed after its withdrawal.
In a major escalation of the campaign to reopen schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration released new guidelines Tuesday branding educators critical infrastructure workers. In doing so, Trump made clear his willingness to bring the full force of the state against the mounting opposition to the unsafe opening of schools.

The guidelinesissued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a subdivision of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)enable districts to prevent educators who have come into contact with someone known to have tested positive for COVID-19 from going into quarantine to protect themselves and prevent further community spread. In effect, Trump has codified the herd immunity strategy of the ruling class into official policy, deliberately flouting the most basic public health protocols in order to let the virus rip through the population and infect as many as possible.

Wearing a face mask and shield to protect against the spread of COVID-19, kindergarten teacher Judith Ramos prepares her classroom, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

In an interview with Fox News Thursday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated, "Look, we believe teachers are essential workers, adding that meatpackers didn't stop working during this pandemic Nor should our teachers, because America's children must come first."

The comparison with meatpackers is apt. In April, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to force resistant meatpackers back into the plants, where close quarters and poor air circulation rapidly spread the virus, infecting thousands and killing at least 65 workers. The conditions facing teachers are now the same, with overcrowded classrooms and antiquated ventilation systems setting the stage for a rapid spread of the virus throughout every school and community.

Trumps move comes in response to the intense opposition of educators, parents and students to the catastrophic reopening of schools, which has already infected over 2,500 students and staff at hundreds of schools in at least 44 states across the country. There have been well over 100 protests in the past six weeks, a district-wide sickout in Arizona this week, and a continual outpouring of criticism on social media, with the majority of the population firmly opposed to in-person learning.

On Wednesday, 91 percent of Detroit teachers voted to authorize a safety strike to prevent the reopening of schools, and across the US there is growing support for nationwide strike action. The most politically conscious section of educators have formed the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, which within a week has received wide support and an enthusiastic response to its founding statement that calls for the building of a network of rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the unions, to prepare for a general strike to stop school openings.

The CISA guidelines follow similar diktats issued by local officials in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. Trumps Republican allies that have demanded the full resumption of in-person learning, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, and others, will now be emboldened to escalate this campaign, knowing theyve been granted carte blanche to use their repressive state apparatus to force educators back in the schools.

While the Republicans are most brutally conducting this campaign, the Democrats are equally beholden to Wall Street and are pushing for the full reopening of schools, in order to force parents back to work producing profits.

The issuance of the guidelines coincides with the Democratic National Convention (DNC), which, under a Biden-Harris administration, would accelerate imperialist militarism around the world and class war at home.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday, Biden advisor Ted Kaufman made it clear Biden would impose deep austerity against the working class, including the further gutting of education spending. "When we get in, the pantry is going to be bare. When you see what Trump's done to the deficit, he said, we're going to be limited.

Biden, along with Democrats at every level and their backers in the teacher unions claim that schools can be reopened safely during the pandemic, with minimal personal protective equipment (PPE), and unspecified testing and contact tracing programs.

In her speech to the Democratic convention, Jill Biden gave voice to the bipartisan character of the drive to reopen schools, saying, So many classrooms are quiet right now, the playgrounds are still. But if you listen closely, you can hear the sparks of change in the air. Across this country, educators, parents, first responders, Americans of all walks of life, are putting their shoulders back, fighting for each other With Joe as president, these classrooms will ring out with laughter and possibility once again.

The Biden-Harris campaign website states that reopening schools should be a top national priority, while providing no scientific guidelines for how this should be done, effectively pursuing the same policy as Trump.

The chief allies of the Democratic Party in the campaign to reopen schools are the teacher unions and their defenders in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations whose members have obtained top positions in the union apparatus in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten concealed the danger to teachers by downplaying the new CISA guidelines, and then reiterated the lie that schools can be reopened safely simply with more PPE. If the president really saw us as essential, hed act like it Teachers are and always have been essential workersbut not essential enough, it seems, for the Trump administration to commit the resources necessary to keep them safe in the classroom. Similarly downplaying the threat to educators, outgoing National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen Garcia characterized the guidelines as a rhetorical gambit.

With infections mounting daily among students and educators, both union heads adamantly oppose the mobilization of educators in a nationwide struggle, well aware that this would lead to a direct political confrontation not only with Trump and the Republicans but the union-aligned Democrats.

With the sanctioning of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is allowing all schools to reopen statewide, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is pressing to reopen the citys schools under the equally unsafe hybrid model. The aim is to set a precedent in the largest school district in the US, to allow Democratic politicians across the country to reopen their schools.

Each day, there is growing anger and resentment among city educators, which threatens to erupt outside the control of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). In response, UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Wednesday floated the idea of a strike by the citys 120,000 teachers and staff members. Mulgrews posturing is meant to cover up the fact that the UFT already has blood on its hands by keeping schools open in early March as the virus spread, ultimately killing at least 74 educators.

After privately negotiating with city officials for weeks, Mulgrew suddenly demanded that students and teachers be tested for COVID-19 within 10 days of reopening schools, and then monthly after that. These measures, even if implemented, would do little to stop the spread of infection and death. The union issued a three-page checklist that is full of loopholes, including repeatedly demanding that rooms be properly ventilated without specifying at all what this means.

For its part, the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) caucus of the UFT issued a statement welcoming Mulgrews announcement, and adding, We appreciate that he echoed many of the demands we have been articulating since May and are proud that our advocacy helped push UFT leadership to take a stronger stance against the Mayors inequitable, unsafe plan.

The various radical factions of the unions that are tied to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations are peddling the lie that the unions can be pushed to the left if only enough pressure is applied from below. But the AFT and NEA are not genuine workers organizations subject to the pressure of their members. They are corporatist syndicates that have spent decades imposing austerity and selling out struggles, including during the 2018-19 strike wave, and they are thoroughly integrated into the state.

The schools can be kept closed and lives saved but only through the independent intervention of the working class. To fight for this, educators, parents and students must take the struggle into their own hands by building rank-and-file safety committees, independent of the unions, in every school and community. These committees must appeal to and unite with every section of workersmanufacturing, logistics, food-processing, health care, public and private sectorto prepare a general strike.

The Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee will serve as a national coordinating body for this work, and all those seeking to carry out a genuine struggle should contact the committee today.

The committee is hosting an online event tomorrow to present a genuine fighting program for educators, parents, students, and the entire working class. Register today and invite your friends and coworkers that agree with the need for an independent struggle to halt the reopening of schools. Join the committees Facebook group, and sign up today for the WSWS Educators Newsletter to follow developments.
Philippines Protests Chinas Illicit Warnings, Coast Guard Conduct

MANILAThe Philippines has lodged a diplomatic protest over what it said was Chinas illegal confiscation of fish aggregating devices from Filipino fisherman in a disputed lagoon held by Beijing in the South China Sea.

The Philippine foreign ministry said the incident happened three months ago at the Scarborough Shoal, a prime fishing site seized by Beijing in 2012 after a standoff that prompted an unprecedented international legal challenge by Manila.

In a statement late on Thursday, it gave no other details about that incident, but it also protested Chinas continuing illicit issuances of radio challenges (to) Philippine aircraft conducting legitimate regular maritime patrols.

Chinas coast guard routinely warns foreign planes and vessels passing through and over international waters.

The Philippine protest comes amid concern in the region and by the United States and allies about what they see as provocative Chinese activities and military exercises in contested parts of the strategic waterway.

Vietnam on Thursday complained about the presence of Chinese bombers on the Paracel islands.

China claims historic ownership of most of the South China Sea using old maps that it says are proof of sovereignty. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims.

Chinese boats fish at the disputed Scarborough Shoal April 5, 2017. (Erik De Castro/Reuters)

The Scarborough Shoal is located within the Philippines 200-mile exclusive economic zone and an arbitral tribunal in The Hauge ruled in 2016 that Chinas claim to itand to most of the South China Seahad no basis under international law.

Using frigates converted into coast guard vessels, China for years blocked Filipinos from the Scarborough Shoal, about 130 miles (209 km) off the Philippines and about 400 miles from Chinas Hainan Island.

The coast guard after 2017 allowed some Filipinos to return, owing to President Rordrigo Dutertes good ties with Beijing.

By Enrico Dela Cruz

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / August 20, 2020 / NEXGENRX INC. (TSXV:NXG) ("NexgenRx" or the "Company") is pleased to announce its interim financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2020.

Despite the many challenges arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Q2 2020 ended with excellent financial results for the Company, generating net income and EBITDA of $479,104 and $772,389 respectively, an increase of $514,042 and $529,083 over the second quarter of the prior year. The effects of COVID-19 (with the lockdown starting March 16th) impacted NexgenRx immediately and continues to drag down the Company's transaction revenue. Despite the revenue loss, the Company achieved its financial goals by aggressively managing variable expenses to match projected reduced revenue through its disaster containment strategy, which is made up of 3 distinct phases: Mobilize; Stabilize; and Strategize. Management took many important steps forward for the Company, centred around the health & safety of NexgenRx employees.

The effect of the pandemic on the second quarter ended June 30, 2020 was a significant decline in dental and extended health care ("EHC") transactions. Combined revenue in dental and EHC dropped by 61.8% compared to the same period last year. The performance of drug transactions has remained strong in the second quarter as pharmacies are deemed essential and remain open. The cost cutting measures implemented in the second quarter resulted in a 21.2% drop in operating expenses compared to the same period last year, which has allowed NexgenRx to remain cash flow positive. Management is ensuring the Company's customers continue to receive the level of services they expect while keeping the Company's expenses under control.

Management evaluated the eligibility criteria for the newly enacted Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program. NexgenRx did not qualify for the first period, but qualified for the second to fourth periods that ran from April 12 - July 4. The government of Canada has now extended the wage subsidy program and management expects the Company to qualify for the new reduced programs as Company revenue slowly returns.

"In the past quarter, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, NexgenRx engaged in extensive consultations with all its stakeholders to identify priorities and areas of focus for the Company's revised COVID-19 2020 strategic plan. The issues, trends and challenges that evolved are common to all organizations both here in Canada and globally. It is evident that keeping up with the rapid changes in technologies, investment options and business models will provide both challenges and opportunities over the coming years. Under our revised 2020 strategic plan, we remain committed to supporting plan members with service of excellence and strengthening collaboration with key stakeholders," stated Ron Loucks, President & CEO.

About NexgenRx

NexgenRx is Canada's only independent full service technology solutions provider, offering proprietary full front end enrollment, hour bank and mobile access capabilities, combined with state of the art claims adjudication and full provider network coverage. These combined capabilities allow NexgenRx to provide complete proprietary solutions to plan sponsors that need sophisticated front end administration and health benefit technology applications, all in a cost- effective manner. NexgenRx is committed to building partnerships with organizations looking to exceed the expectations of their clients and plan members and deliver superior administration and claims processing solutions at a competitive cost. More information on NexgenRx can be found at www.nexgenrx.com.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. In particular, forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to earnings and profitability statements, in addition to statements concerning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Company's responses thereto. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, performance or achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: uncertainty as to whether our strategies and business plans will yield the expected benefits; availability and cost of capital; the ability to identify and develop and achieve commercial success for existing and new products and technologies; the level of expenditures necessary to maintain and improve the quality of products and services; changes in technology and changes in laws and regulations; continued development and enhancement of the Company's proprietary software technology; cyber security risks and the other risks and uncertainties disclosed in our annual Management's Discussion and Analysis, as filed under our profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. We undertake no duty to update any of the forward-looking information to conform such information to actual results or to changes in our expectations except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the release.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Ronald C. Loucks

NexgenRx Inc.

President and CEO

416.695.3393 x801

Kelly Ehler CPA, CA

NexgenRx Inc.

Chief Financial Officer

416-695-3393x803

SOURCE: NexgenRx Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602695/NexgenRx-Announces-2020-Q2-Interim-Results
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Newfoundland and Labrador is back down to zero active cases of COVID-19.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Newfoundland and Labrador's provincial flag flies on a flag pole in Ottawa, Friday, July 3, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Newfoundland and Labrador is back down to zero active cases of COVID-19.

The Department of Health said today the two most recent cases reported this month are now considered recovered.

The cases involved two employees of the St. John's-shot television series "Hudson & Rex," who tested positive for the virus earlier in August.

Three people have died from COVID-19 in the province and 265 people have recovered.

Ten cases have been reported since the beginning of May.

News of the recoveries comes days before an order requiring mask-wearing in indoor public spaces enters into effect across the province.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2020.
Renters can dodge expensive bonds, avoid living with annoying housemates and save money on fridges and dishwashers by moving into a new type of housing in Sydney.

LIV Indigo at Sydney Olympic Park, about 16 kilometres west of the CBD, is the first residential community in NSW designed and built exclusively for renters, giving tenants greater flexibility in their living situation - but without the vulnerability.

Residents can make their Mirvac apartment a 'home' by freely painting on the walls, hanging pictures on nails and keeping a pet.

The tenants, who are not required to pay an expensive bond, simply sign a 12-month secure lease with rental increases capped.

LIV Indigo at Sydney Olympic Park is the first residential community in NSW designed and built exclusively for renters. Pictured: A bedroom inside one of the units

Residents can make their Mirvac apartment (pictured) a 'home' by freely painting on the walls, hanging pictures on nails and keeping a pet

The two towers, comprising of 315 apartments, also come with an on-site maintenance team who can organise repairs immediately.

All apartments are fitted with refrigerator, oven, cooktop, microwave, washing machine and dryer - to the joy of admin officer Gail.

The 24-year-old is moving into a one bedroom apartment next month.

'The idea of having security and ownership without the hassle of mortgage was appealing to me,' she said.

'LIV would save me a lot of money especially because of amenities that tenants can use for free.

'I would say that it is very much worth its value.'

Admin officer Gail, 24, is moving into a one bedroom apartment next month. She is saving a lot of money on the amenities in the apartment she can use for free

There is a function space (pictured) which renters can book out to host guests

LIV Indigo renters can also enjoy the shared community spaces, which includes a gym, cinema space (pictured), co-working arrangements and a kids game area

LIV INDIGO BY MIRVAC AT SYDNEY OLYMPIC PARK Pricing: Starting prices: One Bedroom Apartments - $535 Two Bedroom Apartments - $615 Three Bedroom Apartments - $900 Leasing Capped rental increase No bond Car parking and storage optiona Advertisement

Gail, who was previously living in the Parramatta area, said she is particularly excited she is allowed to drill holes in the walls.

'I couldn't mount my TV in my old apartment and I also wasn't allowed pets. Now I can have both,' she said.

'I'm also super excited about painting my walls.'

LIV Indigo renters can also enjoy the shared community spaces, which includes a gym, cinema space, co-working arrangements and a kids game area.

There are also function spaces which renters can book out to host guests.

Instead of spending money on a weekly gym membership, Gail is excited to use LIV's facility for free.

The 24-year-old said she 'definitely' recommends this new style of renting.

'It just takes away so much of the stress and hassle,' she said.

'Why buy when you can rent and still feel like you own the place?'

At the LIV Indigo launch on Wednesday, Mirvac CEO and Managing Director Susan Lloyd Hurwitz said the apartments are bridging a gap between owning and renting.

'We are living in an era where property ownership is not the overarching goal of all Australians,' she said.

'And those who do aspire to home ownership will on average spend more time in the rental market before they can afford to buy their home.

Tenants of the two LIV Indigo towers can say goodbye to gym memberships by using the gym on-site

Residents working from home can book meeting rooms in the shared community space (pictured)

Renter Gail, 24, jumps in front of one of the LIV Indigo buildings at Sydney Olympic Park

'People who choose the LIV lifestyle will know that for as long as they want it, this is their home.'

Ms Lloyd Hurwitz said Mirvac crafted the housing choice that offers convenience, comfort and security after studying the market overseas and speaking to Australians about their rental experiences.

NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Rob Stokes said build to rent was a game changer for the state's housing market.

'We can't just assume that the homeowner model is for everyone. As society changes and grows, our policies and approaches to living need to reflect that,' Mr Stokes said.

'Build to rent can attract direct investment in construction at a time when bank finance is hard to secure. It is a critical way to ensure housing is built during difficult financial times.

'Not only do we need different types of housing, such as detached, high-rise and missing-middle types, we need different tenures so that individuals and families can access secure housing that suits their circumstances.'

LIV Indigo is by Australian property group Mirvac.

Pictured: The kids room in the shared community space of LIV Indigo
Also, going by the name Lacos de Sangue, Blood Ties is a Portuguese-Brazilian soap opera with a thrilling story that has made it captivating for over a decade now. The telenovela is the brainchild of co-producers Sociedade Independente de Comunicacao (SIC) and Rede Glob, and it aired on SIC between September 2010 and October 2011.

Image: facebook.com @The Afro Brazillian Affair

Source: UGC

Blood Ties plot summary portrays sibling rivalry, which persists to the conclusive Blood Ties final episode. Initially done in Portuguese, the series has only one season with 322 episodes.

Blood Ties telenovela synopsis

The plot begins in 1984 where a wealthy family is relaxing by the riverbank, with their two daughters Marta and Ines playing by their parents. Suddenly, the young girls fall into the raging river waters while fighting for a doll.

Without a second thought, the dad jumps into the river to rescue them. The heavy currents swept them away, but the dad succeeded at saving the eldest child, Ines.

Unfortunately, he drowns while trying to save the younger Marta. His then-pregnant wife watches the tragedy helplessly and in shock, and everyone else believed that Marta drowned alongside her father.

READ ALSO: Citizen TV Maria cast: Actors and actresses full names and photos

Fortunately for her, she was rescued by a couple who had just lost their daughter. They were touched and decided to treat her as their daughter. The couple named her after their deceased child, Diana, and relocated to Lisbon.

The trauma made Diana lose her memory of her previous living, but she always felt uncomfortable with her life. She grows into a beautiful woman with an intense desire for money and power.

Once while she was still young, Diana eavesdropped her parents' conversation and heard her mother mention that she was not their biological daughter. The mother also revealed the events of the day in which they found her.

All this information sparked her curiosity, and she embarked on the journey to find the truth. Once she was aware, she decided to come back and avenge her sister for causing the accident that made her life miserable.

Ines, on the other hand, has grown into a successful young lady with a kind heart and strong personality, always willing to assist those in need. She is also learned, holding a Degree in Hospitality Management.

Ines is the proprietor of Restaurant M, which she founded alongside her mother. Though successful, she is always tormented by the loss of her father and sister.

READ ALSO: Selina cast and characters' names and photos

Ines is in love with Joao, a medical doctor who is always out on humanitarian assignments. Later on, he proposes to her after a mission in the Amazon, but unfortunate circumstances characterized this day. His grandfather suffers a stroke, and robbers fatally shot the sister (pregnant by then) during the engagement dinner.

Years to come, Diana and Ines would enter into a bitter rivalry filled with revenge dilemma, and suspense. They even fight for love, with each of them interested in Joao.

Blood Ties telenovela summary of main actors

If you've been watching the show, you're probably in love with some of the characters. Who is your favourite? Blood Ties comprises of three main actors. They include:

Diana Chaves

Image: instagram.com, @dianachavesofficial

Source: UGC

The talented actress takes the role of Ines, Diana's elder sister. The irony of the matter is that she fits in so well in this role, yet she would have readily played Diana and used her real name.

Diana's birthday is on 11th July 1981. She was born in Lisbon, Portugal. Her full name is Diana Morais Rosado Quintela Chaves, and she has taken part in several film projects. While she may not have any award yet, her future is still promising as she continues to keep viewers glued to their TV screens.

Diogo Morgado

Image: instagram.com, @doogomorgado

Source: UGC

Diogo is a Portuguese actor who stars as Joao, Ines' fiance. He ends up caught up in the sister's blood feud, but love wins in the end. Morgado debuted his acting career while aged 15 years and earned international recognition thanks to his pioneering depiction of "Jesus" in the film called Son of God by 20th Century Fox. The talented star proudly holds ten award wins and 12 nominations.

Joana Santos

Image: instagram.com, @joanasantosmusic

Source: UGC

Taking up Diana's/Marta's role is Joana Santos. She's beautiful and maintains a tough frame, making her the ideal actress from her character. Joana was born on 16th November in the Portuguese city of Lisbon.

Before joining the film industry, she was a renowned model, a career that opened her doors to acting. Santos has grown to be among the most popular and adored film stars from her country. She has won one award and has eight nominations up her sleeve.

Blood Ties accolades

In 2011, the film bagged an Emmy Award for the Best Telenovela. This was the 39th edition of the International Emmys. It topped other successful film projects such as Impostor by Precious Hearts Romances Philippines, Contra las Cuerdas of Argentina public television, and Destiny River of TV Globo.

READ ALSO: Top 10 latest Kenyan movies in 2020

A year later, the movie was nominated for the third SPA/RTP Authors Awards in the Best Fiction/Telenovela category.

Blood Ties telenovela has withstood the test of time and remains one of the most captivating films.

Broadcast screens

Besides SIC, the episodes are also broadcast in several nations in Latin America, such as Brazil, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Equator, Uruguay, and Costa Rica. You can also watch Blood Ties telenovela teasers on the SIC Content Distribution YouTube channel.

Are you a fan of Blood Ties telenovela? Kindly share your experiences with other readers in the comments section.

READ ALSO: Lulu Hassan warns aspiring actors about fake auditions for role on TV series Maria

In other news from tuko.co.ke, actor Brian Ogana, aka Luwi of Citizen TVs Maria recently opened up on his past depression. He recounted his despair after his girlfriend burned his expensive suits on accusations that he had affairs. The star denied these rumours, stating that he has never cheated on her.

The father of two notes that it was a difficult time after his lover chased him from their home and set his expensive designer suits on fire. He noted that he lost weight significantly, and it took him about three years to recover. Fortunately, the stylish thespian recovered and is now among the most successful film stars in Kenya.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
According to Stepanov, as of August 19, laboratories of all forms of ownership conducted 1,356,698 PCR testing and 860,388 ELISA tests.

Ukrainian Health Minister Maksym Stepanov has said the total number of PCR testing for coronavirus infection COVID-19 should be 30,000 per day by mid-September.

"We have a task to reach the level of 30,000 PCR testing per day by September 15. Today, laboratory facilities allow us to do this," he said during the conference call with the heads of health departments of regional state administrations, regional laboratory centers and heads of regional headquarters on the elimination of the consequences of the emergency situation related to the spread of COVID-19, according to the government portal.

According to Stepanov, as of August 19, laboratories of all forms of ownership conducted 1,356,698 PCR testing and 860,388 ELISA tests. Currently, the city of Kyiv, as well as Lviv and Odesa regions, are in lead in laboratory research. The smallest number of surveys was conducted in Luhansk (11,035), Mykolaiv (17,494) and Poltava (21,924) regions.

Read alsoPresident Zelensky's son cured from COVID-19

During the meeting, Stepanov also stressed the shortcomings in the work of hotlines should be urgently corrected in each region. Their staff should promptly answer citizens' questions and provide clear advice on what to do if they have symptoms of coronavirus disease.

Coronavirus epidemic in Ukraine
After leaving the Army, Debbins moved to Washington and worked at Fort Meade as a Russian analyst, he said in an alumni profile for the Institute of World Politics published in 2018. He said he also worked for three years with CACI, a defense contractor, and as a contractor for the firm CoSolutions, working at U.S. European Command while based in the United Kingdom.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : After reports surfaced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has put on hold the emergency use authorisation of blood plasma therapy to treat severely ill Covid-19 patients, health experts in India on Friday stressed that the therapy should not be abandoned till the development of an effective vaccine against the virus.

The convalescent plasma therapy has shown encouraging results in India to date.

According to Rahul Bhargava, Director and Head, Haematology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurugram, so far, data has been equivocal with many confounding factors.

"Only a properly well-randomised controlled trial will help to know which patient at what time/duration of disease and the extent of disease will get benefitted. In the past also, for various diseases, plasma therapy has been utilised with great success and failure," Bhargava told IANS.

What is required is to know the antibody strength of the donor to see the beneficial effect.

"It should not be abandoned until we have a vaccine or any other option to treat sick patients. We should follow the policy of let's do no harm," he added.

According to several studies, plasma donated by people who've survived Covid-19 has high levels of antibodies and is considered safe.

The convalescent plasma therapy has gained much traction in several countries, including in India, where several lives have been saved with the therapy.

Dr Satya Prakash Yadav, Head of Pediatric Hematology, Medanta Hospital in Gurugram told IANS: "The use of convalescent plasma collected from previously infected individuals to passively-transfer antibodies in order to protect or treat humans dates back almost 100 years." According to him, multiple published and unpublished studies have now reported on the use of convalescent plasma to treat severely or critically ill Covid-19 patients, without unexpected or serious adverse effects.

"Many patients improved clinically and cleared the virus. However, the role of the convalescent plasma treatment in these patients is unclear because all patients received at least one additional therapy, including antivirals, antibiotics or antifungals and corticosteroids," he explained.

Yadav stressed that more randomised controlled trials are needed to confirm the benefit of plasma therapy for severe Covid-19 patients.

To assess the safety and efficacy of plasma therapy, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had in April sought participation in the randomised controlled study.

While the ICMR is yet to publish the results, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently said that the plasma therapy has shown encouraging results in the recovery of the critically-ill patients.

The Delhi government's plasma bank administered plasma to 710 Covid-19 patients (as of August 11), and over 900 people who recovered from the disease have come forward to donate their plasma.

Congress Legislator H. D. Ranganath from the Kunigal Assembly segment in Karnataka's Tumakuru district donated his plasma to Covid patients at a private hospital in Bengaluru this week.

Union Minister of State for Defence and AYUSH Shripad Naik was administered plasma therapy and put on high-flow nasal oxygen as part of the treatment for coronavirus.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Peel Region police board has joined neighbouring Toronto in unanimously approving body-worn cameras for hundreds of front-line police officers.

On Friday, the board passed a motion giving Peel police the blessing to finalize an estimated $9 million deal with American firm Axon Enterprises for hundreds of body-worn cameras as well as the software required to catalogue and store the video footage.

The move comes just days after the Toronto police board approved its own plan to adopt the sometimes controversial devices, and amid a continentwide protest movement calling to defund police over systemic racism.

Were going to face a lot of scrutiny, so we have to be as transparent as possible, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, who is also on the police board, said at the Friday meeting.

Moving forward, Crombie said the collection, storage and use of data will be a key point to consider as Peel police become one of the first large Canadian services to roll-out the cameras.

Meanwhile, some in the Black community say they were not properly consulted, arguing body cameras are expensive and unlikely to boost confidence in police, or improving the safety of Black people in Peel.

Its just a distraction, Kola Iluyomade spokesperson for Advocacy Peel, a proponent of the Black Lives Matter movement in Peel told the Star this week. Its a non-starter of a remedy, Dont patronize us.

Dept. Chief Anthony Odoardi did not give a timeline as to when the cameras will be deployed to all of the regions roughly 1,200 front-line officers.

Depending on how Toronto rolls them out, were not too far ahead and were not too far behind, Odoardi said. Toronto plans to equip front-line officers with approximately 2,350 cameras by fall 2021.

Axon is the same firm being used by Toronto for its camera system. The Peel contract is for a five-year term.

Peel police say the estimated $1.8 million in yearly costs, over five years, will be covered within the existing police budget, with the final price-tag dependant on total usage.

Arizona-based Axon Enterprises sells both the body-worn cameras and software to record, manage and store digital evidence. The company is Peels current provider for Tasers and interview room recording equipment.

Earlier this week, Crombie acknowledged that trust has been fractured by a series of incidents this year in which Peel officers have shot or harmed civilians in recent months.

Those cases include the death of Clive Mensah, a mentally ill man who died after he was Tasered by Peel police near his home last November, the shooting death of DAndre Campbell in April, the fatal shooting of 62-year-old Ejaz Choudry in June, and the Mothers Day shooting of Mississauga mother Chantelle Krupka, for which a rookie Peel officer was charged by the provinces police watchdog.

On Friday, Odoardi told the board those are certainly the cases that wouldve been captured and that we intend on capturing.

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
Allies Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) traded barbs on August 20 over the latter denying permission to Hindu groups wanting to celebrate Vinayaka Chaturthi even as COVID-19 pandemic rages on.

The war of words between the two allies in Tamil Nadu began after BJP national secretary H Raja called his party's government in Karnataka "manly", according to The Indian Express. Raja, according to reports, was taking a dig at the AIADMK government for denying permission to festivities.

In response to Raja's comment, State Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar said that AIADMK is "very much a manly party" and added that the party's government is a "manly" government too.

"Do not rub us the wrong way," Jayakumar said. "All of you know about Raja. We have already seen his greatness and manliness Do people who post a tweet and go hiding have manliness? Do people who make statements and then go and apologise before the court have manliness?"

Jayakumar added, referring to a previous incident where the BJP leader had blamed his Twitter admin after a controversial tweet and had apologised before Madras High Court for another remark.

Jayakumar also reacted to BJPs state social media convenor C T R Nirmal's remark, where he had said that AIADMK had hid behind the saree of a woman for 30 years. Nirmal was ostensibly referring to the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa.

"Everyone knows who all were waiting at the residence of that woman leader years ago," Jayakumar said.

The BJP has been questioning the AIADMK government about its refusal to allow the Vinayaka Chaturthi festivities even as governments in Maharashtra and Karnataka have allowed them to go ahead.

"I do not know why the state government is denying permission for installing Vinayaka idols. It allowed liquor shops, it allowed public worship in small places of worship," L Murugan, the state BJP chief, said.

On its part, the state government has said that it is following Centre's guidelines, which have banned religious events and processions. Senior AIADMK leaders, however, told the newspaper that behind the party's stance is BJP state vice-president V P Duraisamy's recent statement, in which he said BJP, being the national party, will lead the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state.

"The result of our alliance with BJP was disastrous in the last Lok Sabha elections. There are many factors that force the party leadership to maintain that alliance, but it is also necessary for us to make the right decisions for everyone, including a large section of traditional minority voters who used to support us," a senior party leader said.
The failure of Californias infectious disease monitoring system for a stretch of at least 20 days in July and August triggered potentially deadly fallout that continues to reverberate across the state.The fallout has been most severe in heavily populated counties, which rely primarily on a statewide electronic information system to guide their pandemic response. Local health departments couldnt clearly see where the coronavirus was spreading, dramatically slowing their efforts to trace and track new infections  leading to more death and disease, public health officials said.Data system failures left California with a backlog of about 300,000 lab reports. Of those, nearly 15,000 turned out to be positive for COVID-19, according to state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.By the time you get those cases, even if you do your best to trace the contacts, you might be too late, said David Campos, deputy Santa Clara County executive. Individuals who were positive didnt know they were positive and therefore may not have isolated and quarantined, so they ended up spreading the virus to other people unknowingly.Its frustrating and its very scary, Campos added.Gov. Gavin Newsoms administration is still struggling to fix the problems and prevent future breakdowns, even as school districts are weighing difficult decisions about sending kids back into classrooms, businesses are contending with repeated openings and closures, and the state is working to tamp down rising infections  all life-or-death scenarios that rely on accurate COVID-19 data.The whole key to lab testing is the speed with which its done, said Bruce Pomer, a public health expert and chief lobbyist for the California Association of Public Health Laboratory Directors. The system is slower than it should be, and it means more people are going to get sick and die. The lifeblood of public health is data.Ghaly said he and Newsom first became aware of the magnitude of the states data failures on Aug. 3, though the California Department of Public Health had alerted counties about problems as early as July 15.By the time Ghaly said he was informed, the state infectious disease database  the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange , known as CalREDIE  had experienced a series of breakdowns, including an outage that prevented electronic lab reports from flowing to counties, and a lapsed security certificate needed by the commercial lab giant Quest Diagnostics to transmit records. The problems did not affect death and hospitalization data.The state says it has since cleared the backlog.It is clear that CalREDIE simply does not have the capacity to scale as we had hoped, Newsom said following the resignation of the states top public health officer , Dr. Sonia Angell, after the data system collapse. We will reform that.California isnt alone in its COVID-related data problems. Iowa recently discovered a major flaw that backdated thousands of test results; North Carolina learned that another commercial testing company, LabCorp, had been including out-of-state tests in its data since April; and Alabama found that some labs were not properly sending test results to the state.But the breakdown in California stands out for its size and consequence.In Santa Clara County, public health officials felt they finally had resources to aggressively track people who might have been exposed to the virus.But a contact tracer for the county who declined to be named confirmed that the number of cases trickling in from the state data system was so slow by late July that tracking operations had nearly ground to a halt.Santa Clara County did not receive data on many residents who tested positive during that time. Dr. Sara Cody, the countys health officer, said earlier this month that she had discovered missing cases of infected people as far back as July 8.If we cant get the data from the state system, were all kind of flying blind, said Contra Costa County health officer Dr. Chris Farnitano. Then our case investigation and contact tracing efforts arent very effective.Contra Costa and other counties are still digging themselves out of the data failures  and working to dramatically expand testing. But public health officials worry that an influx of tests will overwhelm the system, once again undercutting counties ability to adequately respond to the pandemic.This really puts our whole strategy at risk, Farnitano said. Were looking to start doing in-person school at some point in the fall, if conditions allow, but that would add a whole bunch more tests that need to perform in the system.Mendocino County provides a glimpse of how vital real-time data is for an aggressive response. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the sprawling rural Northern California county has kept up its old-school strategy of tracking infectious diseases by telephone and fax machine, providing a reliable flow of COVID-19 data even as the state system crashed.That meant local officials could see that cases were spiking in the county even as state data suggested it was faring relatively well, keeping the county off the state watchlist . Mendocino County health officer Dr. Noemi Doohan nonetheless decided to proactively shut down high-risk businesses like bars without being ordered to by the state.I wanted to retain local control for our county, and I also wanted to do the right thing, Doohan said.The county has since been added to the states watchlist, which means that nine schools that had planned to hold in-classroom instruction now either have to move teaching online or seek permission to open from the county and state.In Riverside County, where contact tracing efforts were also hampered by the data failure, public health director Kim Saruwatari said she is at the mercy of the state data system. She said fax-and-phone data collection efforts like those used in Mendocino County are not possible for larger counties like hers.The volume of data that we have coming in, it would take an army to receive all the reports and enter them into a system separately, she said.Saruwatari and other county officials had been asking for state assistance to identify potential data discrepancies in the weeks before the state took action. During that time, state health officials knew there were issues but appeared to be unaware of the magnitude of the data failures and were slow to respond, some county officials said.We cant get ahold of anyone at the California Department of Public Health to help, wrote Wendy Hetherington, chief epidemiologist for Riverside County, in an email to a state epidemiologist while trying to figure out why she couldnt access critical data.I am not aware of any specific issues, however we are starting to notice problems  because the files are becoming too large for our computers to obtain in this manner, the state epidemiologist responded.Kate Folmar, a spokesperson for the California Health and Human Services Agency, said in a statement that the administration has accelerated a replacement project to ensure accurate, timely COVID-19 data. A state bid for the project went out last week, Folmar said, and Ghaly said this week that the new system is weeks away from being ready.For years, the state has patched holes in its communicable disease information system, which was designed 20 years ago and also tracks other infectious diseases, including the flu.Local health officials, who blame the long-standing lack of investment in public health infrastructure, describe it as clunky, slow and at times ineffectual. But COVID-19 has presented an even bigger challenge than routine cases of measles, syphilis and meningitis.Our systems were not designed for this kind of pandemic threat, said Daniel Zingale, a former top Newsom adviser who led health-care initiatives for previous Democratic and Republican administrations.Data failures are likely to continue given the limitations of the system, and not only will they harm public health officials ability to trace COVID-19 and prevent its spread, but they will also erode the communitys confidence in public health efforts, Saruwatari and others said.Already, comments on social media and at public meetings suggest that state failures have undercut trust in public health, especially in conservative-leaning regions like the Inland Empire and Californias rural north.Theres been a lot of the questioning of the data all along, like if somebody dies, did they really die of COVID-19, said Lake County health officer Dr. Gary Pace. Now people that were prone to not trust us or not follow guidance before are even less likely to follow it.
 Flash

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met with Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, at the Istana on Thursday.

Yang, also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, said at the meeting that China is willing to join hands with Singapore and other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to promote regional as well as global peace, stability, development and prosperity.

Noting the rising instability and uncertainties in the current international situation, Yang said that the spread of COVID-19 has made it increasingly clear that humanity shares common destiny.

China is also willing to work together with Singapore and other ASEAN countries to deepen strategic mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation and to make concerted efforts with them to safeguard economic globalization and fairness and justice in the international arena, Yang added.

In the face of the epidemic, China and Singapore have been helping each other and keeping the industrial and supply chains stable and smooth, the senior Chinese diplomat said, pointing the various bright spots in the joint anti-COVID-19 efforts between the two countries.

As this year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Singapore, the China-Singapore relations are at a new historic starting point, Yang said.

China stands ready to work with Singapore to strengthen what they have achieved in the fight against the COVID-19, further promote the high-quality joint development of the Belt and Road and build the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a joint project of western Chinese provincial regions and Singapore under the government-to-government framework of the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity.

Lee Hsien Loong, for his part, emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic requires more than ever that countries work together and communicate with each other rationally.

The achievements the two countries have scored in their relations are beyond the imagination when the ties were forged 30 years ago.

Lee added that Singapore would take good use of the existing bilateral cooperation mechanism with China to push forward the ASEAN-China relationship and jointly spur the regional and global economic recovery.

Yang Jiechi was on a two-day visit here from Wednesday. During his visit, Yang also met with Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat, Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean and Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan.


 Further top-up to Restart Grant Plus

 One to One Business Support





The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar T.D. today announced that the Government will provide further assistance to businesses in Kildare, following on from todays decision to extend restrictions.

The Tanaiste said:

I realise how disappointing todays news will be for the people of Kildare. It has been a devastating few months for business owners, their staff and families. By extending these restrictions now, we will avoid further, more damaging measures later on. We must do everything we can to protect people. The people of Kildare are making a sacrifice on behalf of the entire country. I recognise that and we are redoubling our efforts to help businesses.



Existing measures will be stepped up:

 Restart Grant top up Kildare businesses will receive a further 20% top-up to the Restart Plus Grant, equivalent to a 40% uplift overall, bringing the new minimum grant to 5,600 and the maximum grant to 35,000.

 Increased Enterprise Agency Assistance The local enterprise office in Kildare will step up assistance to impacted businesses. One to one specialist expertise and mentoring will be provided to impacted businesses, helping them reassess their financial plans. A virtual Sustaining Business open day will be held early next week.

 Marketing Grants Marketing grants under the Technical Assistance for Micro Exporters (TAME) programme will be reinforced to help businesses to get their message out that they are open for business. Up to 2,500 is available. A publicity campaign will be run locally to ensure businesses are aware of all the funding options available to them

 Applications prioritized Applications from Kildare for all existing schemes will continue to be prioritised

The Tanaiste said: Im particularly concerned about small businesses and those in the hospitality sector. I have asked the Local Enterprise Office to make a list of recommendations for further measures that Government can take to help businesses in Kildare to maximise trade over the next two weeks. I look forward to their recommendations. Government will do everything we can to help.

Notes for Editors

The Government have previously announced measures on the 14th of August to assist businesses in Kildare, Laois and Offaly. More information here

There is an existing package in place to help businesses nationally re-open and stay open, through the July Stimulus.

 Restart Plus grant support for B&Bs is being administered by Failte Ireland

 Extension of the wage subsidy scheme to the end of March 2021, supporting viable businesses and jobs, including new hires

 Provision of more and cheaper loan finance through Microfinance Ireland and the Credit Guarantee Scheme

 Provision of funding to help businesses and get ready for Brexit

 Exploiting opportunities in areas like Life Sciences and investing in decarbonisation and digitalisation

 Six-month reduction in the VAT, going down from 23% to 21%

 Provision more funding for the IDA to promote Ireland as a place for foreign direct investment

There will also be a six-month commercial rates holiday for the vast majority of businesses.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21

By Eldar Janashvili - Trend:

Members of the working group of Azerbaijans parliament on inter-parliamentary ties held an online meeting with their Ukrainian counterparts, Trend reports on August 21.

Greeting the meeting participants, Rufat Guliyev, head of the working group, noted that Azerbaijan has historically supported and continue to successfully maintain friendly relations with Ukraine.

He pointed out the special role of the parliaments in deepening the bilateral ties.

"Within the [Azerbaijani] parliament, working groups for relations with the legislative bodies of various countries of the world, including Ukraine, are functioning," he said.

Guliyev added that the value of trade between the two countries over the past seven months of the year amounted to $519 million.

It was noted that currently, more than 550,000 Azerbaijanis live in Ukraine, actively participating in the social and political life of this country, and up to 30,000 Ukrainians live and work in Azerbaijan.

Co-Chairman of Azerbaijan-Ukraine Friendship Group at Ukraines Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) Vladimir Kreydenko noted that his country is interested in developing ties with Azerbaijan as the leading state in the South Caucasus, pointing out the important role of the two states inter-parliamentary cooperation.

"The group of friendship with Azerbaijan functioning in the Ukrainian parliament is considered the largest, and it includes 51 MPs," he said.

The meeting speakers representing Azerbaijani side were Honorary Consul of Azerbaijan in the city of Kharkiv Afgan Salmanov, Azerbaijani MPs Ali Masimli, Emin Hajiyev, Elman Nasirov and Razi Nurullayev.

On behalf of the Ukrainian side, MPs Alexander Feldman and Gabriel Mikhailov, representative of the Kharkiv city council Viktor Rud and Director of the Institute of International Education of Kharkiv National University Alexey Navrotsky spoke at the meeting.

The discussion participants exchanged opinions on the expansion of inter-parliamentary ties between the two countries, the prospects for the further development of bilateral relations in the economic, cultural, humanitarian, social, educational spheres as well as on resolving regional conflicts, combating the coronavirus pandemic and others.
Brexit trade talks between the UK and EU are actually going backwards as negotiators waste valuable time, Brussels chief negotiator has said.

A visibly annoyed Michel Barnier told reporters on Friday after a week-long round of talks that, on some subjects, there had been no progress whatsoever on the issues that matter.

Too often this week, it felt as if we were going backwards more than forward. Given the short time left ... today at this stage an agreement between the UK and the European Union seems unlikely. I still do not understand why we are wasting valuable time, he said.

David Frost, the UKs chief negotiator, said in a written statement that he believed agreement is still possible but that it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve.

Mr Barnier stuck to his previous assessment that an agreement was unlikely. He said there had been some minor progress on technical issues, such as UK participation in EU programmes and anti-money laundering, but that the fundamentals were still out of place.

Recommended EU rejects UK plea to allow asylum seeker returns after Brexit

Mr Frost said: The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts.

This makes it unnecessarily difficult to make progress. There are other significant areas which remain to be resolved and even where there is a broad understanding between negotiators, there is a lot of detail to work through. Time is short for both sides.

However, Mr Barnier said the UK would find that all countries with which it tried to negotiate agreements would require the British government to sign up to common rules.

No international agreement was ever reached without the parties agreeing to common rules, and I can predict with absolute certainty this will also be the case of trade agreements between the UK and other partners in the future such as the United States, Japan, and Australia, he said.

He continued: Apart from the question of a level playing field, there are still many other areas where progress is needed.

For example, obviously, fisheries, where we have made no progress whatsoever on the issues that matter; governance, where we are still far from agreeing on the essential issue of dispute settlement; law enforcement, where we still struggle to agree on the necessary guarantees to protect citizens fundamental rights and personal data; and also mobility and social-security coordination, where our positions also remain far apart.

Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Show all 37 1 /37 Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit supporters celebrating in Parliament Square, after the UK left the European Union on 31 January. Ending 47 years of membership PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Big Ben, shows the hands at eleven o'clock at night AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro Brexit supporters attend the Brexit Day Celebration Party hosted by Leave Means Leave Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage smiles on stage AFP/Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People celebrate in Parliament Square Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A Brexit supporter celebrates during a rally in Parliament square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Police form a line at Parliament Square to prevent a small group of anti-Brexit protestors from going through to the main Brexit rally PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Nigel Farage speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square JD Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin speaks as people wave flags Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage arrives Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters gather AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Ann Widdecombe speaks to pro-Brexit supporters PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Brexit supporters wave Union flags as they watch the big screen AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square People wave British Union Jack flags as they celebrate Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Pro-Brexit demonstrators celebrate on Parliament Square on Brexit day Reuters Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter jumps on an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AP Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A man waves Union flags from a small car as he drives past Brexit supporters gathering AFP via Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square A pro-Brexit supporter pours beer onto an EU flag PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square An EU flag lies trampled in the mud Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square Getty Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square PA Brexit celebrations in Parliament Square AFP via Getty

The Brexit transition period ends on 31 December this year, after which EU rules and benefits will cease to apply to the UK. Both sides want to get a trade deal agreed by the autumn so that it can be ratified before the UKs economic break with Europe.

The economic damage to the UK from the new barriers to trade is expected to be significant, even more so if no free-trade agreement can be reached.
Kamala Harris officially became the first Black and South Asian woman ever nominated to a major presidential party ticket on Wednesday night when she accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. The daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris additionally is the first child of two immigrants to ever be nominated as vice president of the United States.

"I am committed to the values [my mother] taught me, to the word that teaches me to walk by faith, and not by sight, and to a vision passed on through generations of Americans  one that Joe Biden shares," Harris said. "A vision of our nation as a beloved community  where all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we love. A country where we may not agree on every detail, but we are united by the fundamental belief that every human being is of infinite worth, deserving of compassion, dignity and respect."

Harris, who was a sharp critic of Biden's during the Democratic primaries, stressed that "we must elect a president who will bring something different, something better, and do the important work. A president who will bring all of us together  Black, White, Latino, Asian, Indigenous  to achieve the future we collectively want. We must elect Joe Biden."

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IRGC: Iran's new missiles symbol of defense, invasion deterrence doctrine

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, August 20, IRNA -- The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement on Thursday called the unveiling of the missiles of "Martyr Haj Qasem Soleimani" and "Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis" as a symbol of Iran's determination to follow up its defense doctrine of deterrence and perseverance in the path of the two martyred commanders of the Islamic Resistance.

The IRGC issued the statement on the occasion of Defense Industry Day which falls on August 21.

Part of the statement read that the strategic position of the defense industries in country's national authority and its power of deterrence which gains specific importance in face of probable threats, makes it imperative to speed up the trend of capacity building and improving defense and invasion might of the country espeicially at this time of sanctions.

The statement also emphasized the fundamental impact of Iran's defense industries in working out domestic models which make their uttermost demonstration in the resistance trends outside Iran's borders and said they function as the most important factors in defeating proxy wars which led to collapse of the Takfiri terrorism and evil alliances proving Iran's will and authority.

It described the unveiling of these missiles as a symbol of national determination in line with the country's defense and invasive doctrine, further noted that it shows the proportionate capacity to the need for a successful "reciprocal strike" to encounter any invasion of the enemies.

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The parents of a baby girl who suffers with horrendous seizures every day claim cannabis oil is saving her life.

Baby Luella has a rare type of epilepsy called West syndrome, meaning the 10-month-old has hundreds of tiny seizures a day.

Her mother Erin Oudshoorn described it as a living death sentence.

Babies with the disorder often lose basic skills such as sitting, rolling over, or babbling.

Luella's seizures were so bad doctors were preparing to remove half her brain.

But that plan was put old hold after her parents Erin and David Oudshoorn turned to cannabis oil help.

The couple were left stunned at her drastic, overnight improvement.

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Baby Luella (centre with her parents Erin and Dave Oudshoorn) who suffers with horrendous seizures has seen her condition improve after using cannabis oil

'Life poured back into her. Pure, uninhibited joy flourishing through my home, through my family,' Ms Oudshoorn said.

Before using the oil baby Luella was unable to hold her head up. She was enduring hundreds of seizures daily.

She is now far more alert, she can hold her head up and she can enjoy tummy time again.

'She knows who Dave and I are, eyes following us around the room, she squeals in delight and that little smile is back. It's just heaven,' Ms Oudshoorn said.

'It's just remarkable.'

Luella was diagnosed when she was just 11 weeks old. Her parents have tried dozens of anti-epileptic treatments but none seemed to work.

Ms Oudshoorn said other than ACTH steroid injection, which can't be used long term, no other anti-epileptic treatment has given her these kinds of results.

And while Luella is still experiencing spasms, they are no where near as bad as they were, Ms Oudshoorn said.

CBDa, or cannabidiolic acid, comes from a hemp plant and does not include the psychoactive part of the plant that creates a 'high'.

Medical cannabis is often prescribed for seizure management, epilepsy and psychological conditions.

Other than ACTH steroid injection, which can't be used long term, no other anti-epileptic treatment has given her these kinds of results

Luella was diagnosed when she was just 11 weeks old. Her parents have tried dozens of anti-epileptic treatments but none seemed to work

The product is legal in Australia but it is only granted to certain patients under the Special Access Scheme, which is managed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Accessing the medicine through legal channels can be difficult and costly.

Epilepsy patients spend an average of $992 a month on treatment while those with chronic pain spend an $353 per month, according to Cannabis Access Clinics.

Mr and Ms Oudshoorn did countless hours of research and found CBDa was the best treatment for their daughter.

They struggled to import the oil from overseas at first due to the COVID-19 pandemic but have now secured a supplier who they hope to work with long term.

The NSW government has created a farm which will produce the first-ever cannabis crop for a new local industry.

'Life poured back into her. Pure, uninhibited joy flourishing through my home, through my family,' Ms Oudshoorn said

Doctors remain cautious about prescribing the product and have called for more high-quality research into the safety and effectiveness of it. But for Luella's parents, they are prepared to take the risk if it means helping out their baby

Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall told 7news it's about 'creating the McDonald's of the medicinal cannabis world'.

However, doctors remain cautious about prescribing the product and have called for more high-quality research into the safety and effectiveness of it.

But for Luella's parents, they are prepared to take the risk if it means helping out their baby.

'When you're in our shoes and none of the medicines are working you'll do anything to stop the suffering of your child, absolutely anything,' Ms Oudshoorn said.

The ACT is the only state in Australia to legalise the recreational use of cannabis, having passed a bill in September last year.

In Canberra, people can possess up to 50 grams of dried cannabis, 150 grams of fresh cannabis, grow two cannabis plants per person and use cannabis at home.
Even though the evidence points to St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) as being used as a decoy in a recent scenario in which a Learjet packed with boxes of weapons and ammunition was intercepted at the Miami airport, a number of persons with whom this publication spoke were not treating this countrys implication in the matter as a trivial one.





One person commented that, had this country not been considered an ally of Venezuela, "an ally to be used and abused if necessary, the persons concerned would not have felt so at ease to name SVG as their destination.





"No amount of talk, another person said, "could take away from the fact that we have been used like a pawn, just like how Chavez came here and we allowed him to use his visit to cuss out the USA.





Another person did say, however, that it would not be unfounded to speculate that "somebody was setting up our country.





Yet another said Alyo should shut up and listen to what de man say  the pilots an dem say dey were heading for Venezuela.





The scenario





According to information from the US Border and Patrol, Air and Marine Operations (AMO), agents from the Fort Lauderdale Marine Unit were alerted, on Saturday, to an aircraft movement related to an ongoing investigation.





Officers from various federal agencies, including the FAA, detained the aircraft whose flight plan showed its destination as St. Vincent and the Grenadines.





A search of the aircraft turned up a find that included 18 assault/bolt action rifles with optics, a Barrett .50 calibre sniper, six shotguns, 58 semi-automatic pistols, a firearm suppressor, body armour, 63,000 rounds of ammunition, and $20,312 in U.S. currency and $2,618.53 in endorsed cheques.





Two Venezuelan pilots  Luis Alberto Patino and Gregori Mendez were arrested and charged in connection with the operation and the aircraft was seized along with its cargo.





But even as documentation showed that the pilots of the aircraft concerned had listed this country as the final destination, Mr. Jared Rine, a Special Agent with Homeland Security.





Investigations, was quoted in the Associated Press as having said in an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint against the persons who were arrested, that "one of the defendants said after being arrested that the aircrafts ultimate destination was Venezuela.





Tine was also reported as saying that "from my training and experience, I know that pilots have filed flight plans to third party (countries).





It was on the basis of this statement that Police authorities here moved, in a release issued late on Tuesday, to affirm that the aircraft in question was not destined for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and that the countrys name was used a decoy.





This, SVGs Police Commissioner Colin said, was confirmed by the Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (CARICOM IMPACS).





But, the matter, even in the face of the statement from the RSVG Police Force, remains under investigation.

Relations between the USA and Venezuela are for the most part, conducted when necessary through third and even fourth parties. The countries are far from being on friendly terms.





The President Trump administration has tightened existing sanctions and introduced new ones against Venezuela, not least being that all USA-registered aircraft are not allowed to fly to that South American country.





Notwithstanding the evidence, another person with whom this publication spoke, commented: "The issue for me is why was St. Vincent and the Grenadines name used? Why would the pilots feel they could use our name just like that? Why didnt they use another Caribbean destination?
President Trump offers help, prayers to Iowa after storm devastates swing state

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President Donald Trump offered additional aid and prayers to Iowa Tuesday just over a week after the swing state was battered by a derecho storm that left churches, homes and farms in shambles and three people dead.

"All Americans are united in grief and prayer for the precious life that was lost, Trump said during a visit to the state where he held a roundtable discussion with Iowa officials on the recovery efforts.

When you look at the severity of the damage and how widespread it is  and especially in Linn County that youre in right now, its been a blessing that we havent had any more loss of life than weve had, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said, according to a transcript of the meeting released by the White House.

On Monday, a Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman confirmed with the Associated Press that Trump had approved the public assistance portion of the governors request totaling about $45 million covering 16 counties. That portion of the declaration provides debris removal and repair to government buildings and utilities.

An individual assistance request for 27 counties  that includes $82.7 million for homes destroyed or with major damage and $3.77 billion for agriculture damage to farm land, grain bins and buildings and $100 million for private utilities repair  was not approved.

During the meeting with the Iowa officials on Tuesday, however, Trump committed to providing the individual assistance.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Brad Hart explained that it was needed as tens of thousands of homes were impacted by the storm, and many Iowans could not afford the unexpected expenses that came with the damage that their insurance would not cover.

Almost every one of our almost 60,000 homes and businesses had some kind of damage. Thats how widespread it was. Most of the city didnt have power for a week. I still dont have power at my home, and theres about maybe another 20-, or 30-, or 40,000 people that are still waiting for power to come back up in Cedar Rapids, Hart said.

Marion resident Starr Moyer told KRCG that her family lost both of their vehicles as well as their home in the storm that hit on Aug. 10.

We could see the wind was picking up, so we went down to the lower level, and we just gotten down there when we heard kind of a big crash, she said.

Her husband, Fred Moyer, said when he came up to see what had happened to their home he couldn't believe what he saw.

I went upstairs and didnt understand why there was a breeze in the house, he said. I looked up and there was nothing but sky and rain. It was hard to take in.

River of Life Associate Pastor Marcus Bratsch told The Gazette that when the storm hit, he felt the church building tremble as the wind ripped off the roof. The pastor, who said he was taking a walk past the church when the storm hit, explained that he along with a church elder, a mail carrier and a couple of people had run to the Cedar Rapids church for refuge.

I have never been through anything like that in my life. The church isnt about a building, its about Gods people. We can take comfort through that. There is pain there, too. My wife and I got married in that sanctuary, Bratsch said.

Pastor Brian Pingel of the nearby First Assembly of God Church said his church suffered about $2.5 million in damage after the storm ripped off about two-thirds of their roof and rain soaked the sanctuary.

About a third of Iowas 31 million acres of farmland was also destroyed in addition to the devastation of churches, homes and other buildings.

If I were going to compare the 150 miles I traveled from Boone to Cedar Rapids  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, last week  the damage to the crops  Ive seen corn flat on the ground in my 50 years of farming, but I have never seen it mile after mile, and, you know, just flat on the ground. And very little of it recoverable, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley told the president after thanking him for personally traveling to Iowa to represent the federal government.
The ICT Guild Organization report reveals that only 12% of technology companies have benefited from business opportunities. The lockdown resulted in an increase in demand, but the country's infrastructure network was inadequate. 38% of the companies have ceased all activities, 40% have operated at half regime.

Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Due to the new coronavirus pandemic and its devastating impact on the national and world economy, about 50% of Iranian start-ups are doomed to failure, according to a report drawn up by the ICT Guild Organization.

It states that only 12% of technology companies have benefited from the business opportunities following the global health emergency and from the closures imposed to contain it. The picture appears bleak and confirms a significant rise in unemployment in the sector.

The study shows that, since the reintroduction of US sanctions in May 2018, the Iranian economy based on oil revenues has suffered a severe backlash. However, the tech sector and startups continued to grow and expand, bucking the trend of the rest of the nation. That was until the arrival of Covid-19, which dealt the final blow to the Islamic Republics economy and also destroyed information and communication technologies (ICT).

According to the report, demand for online services increased significantly in the months of the lockdown, as the population relied on online platforms for a variety of services, from education to shopping. However, the country's infrastructure network was by no means prepared for the sudden increase in demand for services.

The data provided by the Iranian Center for Training and Statistics (Srtc) confirm what was anticipated by the ICT Guild Organization, showing the impact of Covid-19 on the technological innovation sector. In recent months, 38% of Iranian i-tech companies have ceased all activities; on the other hand, only about 22% were able to continue at full capacity; the remaining 40% operated at half of full capacity in the pre-virus period.

The sales sector is the most affected, with a collapse of 49.6%. Monetary liquidity, human resources and the production index fell by 15.3%, 13.2% and 10.5%.

The difficulties in the technological sector do not only concern the Islamic Republic, but involve all the major economies in the world, albeit in different ways. According to the report by the International Data Corporation, the impact of Covid-19 will differ by sector with some favourable indices for collaborative applications, artificial intelligence and devices. The fact remains that the market will not return to pre-coronavirus levels before 2023.
Apple Inc. cant dodge a lawsuit in which its accused of canceling a contract with a janitorial service because the owner is a woman.

In a tentative ruling Wednesday in California state court in San Jose, Judge Cynthia Lie ruled that the conduct alleged in the lawsuit  which includes an Apple manager referring to the services female owner as a typical woman in business who thinks she is assertive, but shes just pushy  was enough to allow the case to proceed to trial.

Industrial Janitorial Service sued last year after its long, and apparently tortured, relationship with the tech giant came to an end.

According to the complaint, in 2013 Apple paid $215,000 a month to have about 40 Apple Stores cleaned but it cut the number of stores to five later that year and ended its contract with the service in 2017.

The problems started in mid-2013 when Apple managers discovered that the service was selling some of its unpaid invoices  according to the lawsuit Apple was typically three to four months late in paying its bills  to a third-party broker.

The managers asked the owner, Darla Drendel, to come to Apple headquarters for a meeting and when she arrived were rude and dismissive, the cleaning service said.

A few months later, an Apple manager made the comment about her being pushy in a phone call with her husband, according to the complaint.

In 2017, after Drendel notified Apple of $1.5 millions in unpaid invoices, the tech giant terminated the contract, according to the cleaning service.

In her ruling, the judge found that the service had alleged facts sufficient to support its claim of discriminatory business practice. However, she rejected other claims, including that Apple had unlawfully breached its contract.

Apple didnt immediately respond to a request for comment, made after regular business hours on Wednesday.

The case is Industrial Janitorial Service v. Apple Inc., 19CV357745, California Superior Court, Santa Clara County (San Jose).

About the photo: Pedestrians walk past an Apple Inc. store in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Angry market women at Bantama are threatening to vote against the New Patriotic Party over the closure of their shops by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA).

According to the traders, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assemblys continues to harass them, a situation they claim is affecting their businesses.

Currently, the KMA has locked shops of traders who have defaulted payment of their business operating permit.

The traders complain the assembly didnt give them any prior notice before locking up their shops.

Speaking in an interview with Ultimate FMs Isaac Bediako Justice, the traders said, they are unable to pay their business operating permit because of the negative impact COVID-19 has had on their trading activities.

However, the Mayor of Kumasi, Osei Assibey in an attempt to calm the angry market women has ordered his guys to open the shops to business.

---starrfmonline
A new Oregon State University study suggests that firefighters are more likely to be exposed to potentially harmful chemicals while on duty compared to off duty.

The on-duty firefighters in the Kansas City, Missouri, area experienced higher exposures of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are a family of chemicals that are known to have the potential to cause cancer. They were also exposed to 18 PAHs that have not been previously reported as firefighting exposures in earlier research.

The study, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is published in the journal Environment International.

The results are important because previous studies have shown that firefighters have an increased risk of developing cancer and other damaging health effects, said study lead Kim Anderson, an environmental chemist and Extension specialist in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences.

PAHs are a large group of chemical compounds that contain carbon and other elements. They form naturally after almost any type of combustion, both natural and human-created. In addition to burning wood, plants and tobacco, PAHs are also in fossil fuels.

We don't have enough data to profile the source of the PAHs, but we know PAHs appear from combustion, and obviously combustion is their work. They are also putting on a heavy load of protective gear that has PAHs, and they use cleaning products that have PAHs." Kim Anderson, Environmental Chemist and Extension Specialist in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences

The firefighters in the study wore personal passive samplers in the shape of a military-style dog tag made of silicone on an elastic necklace. The tags are made of the same material as OSU's patented silicone wristbands that Anderson's lab has been using for several years to study chemical exposure in humans and cats.

This study demonstrates that the dog tags, which absorb chemicals from the air and skin, appear to be a reliable sampling technology necessary for assessing chemical exposures in firefighters, Anderson said.

"I'm quite confident those exposures existed but if you don't have something to help you find them you don't know for sure," Anderson said. "Certainly, we found that it's a lot more than what people had thought."

For their study, the researchers sampled individual firefighters' exposures at two departments - the Raytown Fire Protection District and Southern Platte Fire Protection District. They defined the Raytown department as a "high call volume" department, with a historic average of 12 fire calls per month, and the Southern Platte department as "low call volume," with less than two calls per month historically.

After completing a survey on demographics, occupational history, and suspected current exposures, the recruited firefighters wore a dog tag during the next 30 on- and off-shift days. During fire calls, tags were worn over clothing but underneath their gear. The firefighters were instructed to wear the dog tags continuously during all regular activities, including eating, showering and sleeping. Sampling occurred from November 2018 to April 2019.

When they analyzed the dog tags that were returned to Anderson's lab at Oregon State, 45 unique PAHs, of which 18 have not been previously reported as firefighting exposures, were detected. PAH exposures increased as the number of fires a participant responded to increased. PAH concentrations were not only higher when on-duty compared to off-duty, but also higher from the high call volume department compared to the low call volume department.

Each of the participating firefighters has been provided a report on their basic health information and chemical exposure, Anderson said. The participants also received a fact sheet about firefighters and cancer risk. The fact sheet includes some simple steps firefighters can take to reduce their exposure to harmful chemicals, such as always wearing their personal protective equipment, taking a shower after each fire and before ending their shift, and cleaning their gear after every fire.
She became a first-time mother after welcoming the birth of her daughter Sienna with husband Hugo Taylor at the start of May.

And Millie Mackintosh, 31, was spotted doting on her adorable bundle of joy on Thursday, as she took her out for a stroll through the bustling streets of London.

The former Made In Chelsea star, who recently returned from a trip to Santorini, planted a loving kiss on her offspring's forehead as she picked up an iced beverage.

Taking a stroll together: Millie Mackintosh was spotted going for a walk with her baby daughter Sienna in London on Thursday

Placing her back in her pram, Millie enjoyed a chat on her phone as she and her daughter made the most of their daily dose of fresh air.

Millie looked casually cool for the outing, donning a blue plaid shirt, which she teamed with a grey tank top and black patterned leggings.

Looking sporty in a pair of black Nike running shoes, the media personality shielded her eyes with stylish sunglasses, while she wore her brown locks in a sleek blowout.

So cute! The former Made In Chelsea star, who recently returned from a trip to Santorini, planted a loving kiss on her offspring's forehead as she stopped for an iced beverage

Stealing the show: Adorable little Sienna stole the show, as she peeped out of her high-end pram while wearing a woollen white babygrow

First-time mother: Millie became a first-time mother after welcoming the birth of her daughter with husband Hugo Taylor at the start of May.

Doting: The former Made In Chelsea star doted on her baby daughter as they enjoyed a break

However, it was her beautiful little baby stole the show, as she peeped out of her high-end pram while wearing a woollen white babygrow.

They day before, Millie appeared to be in a reflective mood as she shared a sweet throwback snap from her recent family getaway to Greece.

In the photo, the star breastfed her baby daughter Sienna, three months, while relaxing on a sunlounger on the beach.

Millie looked effortlessly chic in a white cotton maxi dress and stylish nude pink sunglasses.

Chilling out: Millie relaxed outdoors with her offspring during their mother-daughter day out

Busy: Millie sipped on her iced beverage as she checked her phone and watched over Sienna

Wrap: She wrapped a blanket over her daughter to keep her warm as they prepared to depart

Beaming to the camera as she cradled baby Sienna, the new mother had styled her brunette locks into a relaxed bun and gone makeup-free to soak up the sunshine.

In her caption, Millie admitted that she was pining for another holiday and an idyllic beach day with her daughter.

The star also lauded her white cotton maxi dress for its duel functionality, revealing she could easily transition from 'Millie' to 'Mamma'.

She penned: 'Missing beach days with my babe but hoping our UK Indian Summer returns soon! I loved wearing this Angelica dress on holiday. Most of my clothes at the moment need a duel functionality element.

Casually cool: Millie looked casually cool for the outing, donning a blue plaid shirt, which she teamed with a grey tank top and black patterned leggings

All in the details: The media personality shielded her eyes with stylish sunglasses, while she wore her brown locks in a sleek blowout

Going for a scroll: Millie scrolled through her phone as she and her daughter made the most of their daily dose of fresh air

'One to make me feel good and the other being easy access for Sienna when feeding time comes around. With a button down front my transition from "Millie" to "Mamma" was easy be it at lunch / dinner or at the beach thrown over a bikini.

'The perfect combination for hot summer weather and breastfeeding #ad #millieXpitusa @pitusa.co #collab.'

The photo comes after Millie posed in underwear while showing baby Sienna, three months, who was recently diagnosed with hip dysplasia, wearing her hip brace in a different Instagram snap last week.

The new mum smiled happily as she showcased her slim frame in a black bra and briefs set, after sharing a breastfeeding snap of herself bonding with her little girl.

Lovely: Millie appeared to be in a reflective mood on Wednesday as she shared a sweet throwback breastfeeding snap from her holiday to Santorini

Idyllic: The former Made In Chelsea star, 31, and husband Hugo Taylor recently enjoyed their first family holiday with Sienna to the Greek hotspot

Last week, the mother-of-one admitted it was the 'hardest' thing she has had to overcome as a parent, after being told Sienna would wear a harness for up to 12 weeks.

Despite her own initial struggles with the news, Millie praised her baby girl for being able to 'adapt' to wearing a harness - which she is allowed to remove once a day.

Discussing Sienna's hip dysplasia, Millie said: 'Now the shock's worn off, babies are incredible at adapting. It's been one of the hardest things we've overcome as a parent.

'Sienna has already adapted, harder for the parents to adapt. Sienna is able to take off her harness once a day.'

Morning! The photo comes after Millie posed in underwear while showing baby Sienna, who was recently diagnosed with hip dysplasia, wearing her hip brace in a different Instagram snap

Bonding: The new mum smiled happily as she showcased her slim frame in a black bra and briefs set, after sharing a breastfeeding snap of herself bonding with her little girl

Millie first detailed her 'emotionally challenging' week after discovering her little girl Sienna has developmental hip dysplasia on Saturday.

She said her little girl was diagnosed with the condition during a follow up appointment after a routine scan.

The diagnosis means that Sienna will have to wear a special harness for six to 12 weeks in order to treat the dysplasia and new mum Millie admitted she is finding it tricky to cuddle and breastfeed her daughter.

According to the NHS website, developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is a condition where the 'ball and socket' joint of the hip does not properly form in babies and young children.

Candid: Millie first detailed her 'emotionally challenging' week after discovering her little girl Sienna has developmental hip dysplasia on Saturday

It's sometimes called congenital hip dislocation or hip dysplasia. The hip joint attaches the thigh bone (femur) to the pelvis. The top of the femur (femoral head) is rounded, like a ball, and sits inside the cup-shaped hip socket.

In DDH, the socket of the hip is too shallow and the femoral head is not held tightly in place, so the hip joint is loose.

Millie explained that 'Sienna had a routine hip scan at 6 weeks because she was breech from 28 weeks onwards.'

She added: 'Apparently, it has a 90% chance of totally correcting her hip, so she hopefully shouldn't need surgery or have any issues with her movement, so we are remaining positive and grateful that we found out early.'

Millie and her husband Hugo Taylor welcomed their first child together, baby Sienna, in May.
The leadership of Congregation Ohev Shalom is pleased to announce the hiring of Jayme Epstein as youth director.

Epstein grew up between Westchester, New York, and Dallas, Texas, and has been in Orlando for eight years. She graduated from Texas Tech University with Bachelors of Business Administration in Marketing and Accounting. A little over three years ago, Epstein made the switch from Marketing to Jewish youth work. She spent the last three years working as the regional director for BBYO North Florida Region. Epstein is currently pursuing her master's in Jewish Education from the Wil...
In the past six months, a dozen ATMs have been uprooted and stolen in the national Capital, causing a loss of over Rs 1 crore. In August, two ATMs were uprooted and stolen from Narela and Rajokri. The increase in number of such instances has prompted the city police to take steps to curb such crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Senior police officers said that the modus operandi in all ATM thefts was about the samethe thieves drive a stolen SUV, spray black paint on CCTV cameras installed at the ATM booth, uproot the machine by tying it to their vehicle and flee with the machines and the CCTV camera footage storage device.

An analysis of the reported cases shows that while a majority of the thefts took place in February and March, before the nationwide lockdown was announced to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), one case was reported in south Delhis May during the lockdown. Of the 12 reported cases, seven are from southeast Delhi areas, such as Jaitpur, Badarpur, Pul Prahladpur, Govindpuri and New Friends Colonyall bordering Haryanas Faridabad.

Between February 9 and 14, four such cases were reportedthree in southeast Delhis Jaitpur, Govindpuri, and Badarpur and another in Mandawali in east Delhi. On March 5, two cases were reported from Jaitpur and Pul Prahladpur.

During Unlock 3.0, two consecutive cases involving the uprooting of cash dispensing machines from ATM booths in outer Delhis Narela and Rajokri in south Delhi were reported within three hours on August 5. They not only left the city police baffled but also forced its top brass to constitute multiple teams and intensify their manhunt for the perpetrators of such crimes.

Soon, the police arrested three suspects from Haryana involved in seven reported ATM uprooting cases after an exchange of fire in two separate operations between August 9 and 14 in Delhi and Haryanas Rithath village in Mewat district.

Two of them, identified as Arshad Khan, 27, and Ahmad alias Kalma,35, were injured in the leg. Khan was caught on August 9 from south Delhis Vasant Kunj, while Ahmad and his associate Saddam, 32, were arrested from Rithath village on August 14 by a joint team of Delhi and Haryana Police.

When the team caught up to the suspects, it was surrounded by a mob that assaulted them with lathis and pelted them with stones, the deputy commissioner of police (special cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said in the press statement released on August 15, a day after the operation.

Nearly 25 bullets were exchanged between the raiding party and the two suspects. One assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of Haryana Police was also shot in the hand while Ahmad was shot in the right knee, Kushwah said in the press statement.

A senior police officer who was part of both operations said on condition of anonymity that Khan and the other two men belonged to the same gang that was involved in most ATM uprooting cases reported in southern parts of Delhi.

This gang comprises nearly 12-15 members, and each member has a specific task to perform in the uprootings execution and theft of ATMs. Khans job was to drive around the city during odd hours, look for unguarded ATM booths in isolated areas and conduct detailed reconnaissance before passing on the information to other gang members, who would enter Delhi only to execute the crime, said the officer.

Equipped with necessary tools such as gas cutters, belts or ropes, the officer said, the men would enter Delhi in their own vehicles and before heading to the selected ATM booth, they would steal an SUV. One of them would carry out the final reconnaissance to ensure there was no security guard, police or any danger lurking around.

After getting a go-ahead from the assessor, another man would immediately blacken the lens of the CCTV cameras with spray while the others would cut the cables to disable the security alarms, if any, tie the machine to their stolen vehicle and uproot it, said another police officer from the special cell, requesting anonymity.

This ATM uprooting technique is new. Earlier, the thieves would cut into the machine using a gas cutter at the booth. But since a lot of currency notes would burn, the thieves devised this new way of uprooting and stealing the machine. Their earlier process was time-consuming as well. But now they hardly take four-five minutes to complete the job, the officer added.

Senior police officers said that apart from neutralising the perpetrators of such crimes, they are also holding meetings with bank officials, asking them to take preventive measures such as strengthening the foundations of ATMs, installing hidden cameras in the ATM booths and deploying security guards with firearms.
(Newser)  In 2001, a high school junior from Phoenix disappeared on her last day of school. Now, nearly two decades later, a suspect is in custody, thanks to her sister's perseverance and dogged investigative work. Arrested Thursday in Mesa, Ariz., and charged with second-degree murder in the case of Alissa Turney: her stepfather, Michael Turney, per NBC News. Authorities say that after 17-year-old Alissa was last seen on May 17, 2001, Turney told police he'd picked her up from school, gone to lunch with her, and then argued with her because she wanted more freedom. When they got home, he said, a still-miffed Alissa went to her room, while he left to run errands and pick up her younger half-sister, Sarah. Per police, Turney said he found a note from her when he got home saying she'd left for California. Cops didn't suspect foul play and she was thought to be a runaway.

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In 2006, a Florida man confessed to her murder, but that was found to be false. Alissa's case was reopened in Phoenix, however, after investigators heard allegations that Turney had sexually abused her. Police showed up at their home with a search warrant in late 2008 and found surveillance video from around the house, as well as 19 assault rifles, gasoline cans stashed in a van, and 26 pipe bombs, which police believe Turney meant to use to blow up a union hall. He served seven years in prison after pleading guilty for possessing the explosives and was released in 2017. Per the Arizona Republic, Alissa's mother, who'd married Michael Turney when Alissa was 3, died of cancer before her daughter went missing. Sarah Turney, who's been seeking justice for her sibling for years, reacted Thursday to her father's arrest. "I'm shaking and I'm crying," she tweeted. "It took almost 20 years but we did it." (Read more murder stories.)
Photo: BC Ferries

BC Ferries president Mark Collins says the company expects to be back to pre-COVID capacity levels across the system starting Sept. 7.

Thats good progress when you consider the cliff that weve come through, he said. We would have liked it to have been faster, but its reasonable and prudent Were grateful to be at this stage.

Collins made the comments at the BC Ferries annual general meeting Thursday in front of limited crowd in Victoria and streamed online.

He also said BC Ferries will join other transit companies in moving to a mandatory mask policy. Up until now, travellers had to carry a mask but were not required to wear it on board unless they were in an area where distancing wasnt possible.

When people are travelling on the BC Ferries system, on a terminal or a ship, they must wear a mask, Collins said. There are certain key exceptions. If youre in your car or eating in a designated area [or] if youre outside and you can be sure of maintaining distance, thats OK. But if youre in the interior of our ships or terminals it will no longer be discretionary; it will be mandatory.

Collins said an official announcement would come later this week.

Collins also told the AGM that its 100 per cent certain that Transport Canada will end the temporary exemption allowing people to remain in their vehicles on closed decks as a COVID precaution.

That regulation will come back into force at some point, likely this fall, he said. We are discussing with Transport Canada that later is better as we need to wait to see [about a] potential second wave, if it emerges or if the situation stabilizes Were advocating strongly that the date be as late as possible.

Just prior to the AGM, BC Ferries released its first quarter results coving the period April 1 to June 30.

Ferries said revenue for the quarter was $137.4 million, down $109 million year-over-year, a loss that was partially offset by reductions in expenses of $36.7 million compared to the first quarter of last year.

Among those lower expenses was the cost of salaries, wages and benefits, which dropped from $101.3 million for the first quarter of 2019 to $89.7 million. The ferry company also spent $8.6 million less on fuel in the first quarter of this fiscal year than it did over the same period last year.

The $62-million net loss compares to net earnings of $12.2 million for the first quarter of 2019.
A report reveal that because of the zealousness of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris in prosecution, she sent Caramad Conley to jail wrongly. He said that he spent 20 years in jail due to an opportunistic district attorney who saw a chance to further her career at his expense.

Conley had to stay twenty years in prison and was even placed in Pelican Bay because of an unjust conviction. It is noted that Harris is selected by Joe Biden as his Vice President. She was the San Francisco District Attorney (DA) from 2003 to 2010. During that term wherein she conducted several cases that were essential a wrong sentence, especially that of Conley's, reported Meaww.

One of her last jobs was the terminal task as the DA. While conducting the Conley retrial, he was cleared by the last DA for the 1989 case of Charles Hughe and Roshawn Johnson a double murder case. At this time, he has spent 18-years in jail and was sent twice to the fearsome Pelican Bay Supermax facility in Crescent City, California, cited Daily Mail.

After Harris left the DA job to become the Attorney General of California and the successor to the former DA assignment, he decided to finally release Conley. According to the ex-convict, who is now 50-years old, he was a stepping stone for her to get ahead, adding that they are all like her- opportunists. The ex-convict said about Biden's running mate.

Also read: Joe Biden's Family Record Show Drug Usage, Drunk Driving, and Other Charges But No One Was Jailed

He remarked that hopefully, Harris will not repeat those errors, rather forgiving for someone sent to the toughest jails. He said that such mistake is more like ruining a life. The ex-con said that it goes for most politicians who are not as clean as they claim.

According to Conley, he aspired to become a policeman way back, saying that respecting authority was important. He pointed out as a teenager when his friends went to a local store. An unidentified undercover cop was trying to sell one of the drugs, but no one accepted it. One of his companions hit the cop, and there were officers all over the place.

When everything was happening, Conley was just in the car and doing nothing. Later cops pulled everyone out of the automobile, all eight of them were laid on the ground, and they did mean things to them. Because of that, he changed his mind and decided that police are corrupt.

After the drive-by shooting of Johnson and Hughes, three years later, he was charged with murder and other charges. The testimony of Clifford Polk was false. During the trial, the DA relied on the Polk testimony to make the case. In the end, then Defendant Conley was sentenced to life with no parole. He said he was never given a chance to defend himself, noted SF Gate.

Related article: Mike Pence Says Biden Is a 'Trojan Horse' With a Similar Radical Agenda to Sanders

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Johnson To Receive Funding For Fellowship At Securities & Exchange Commission

Bret Johnson, Assistant Professor of Accounting, is set to receive $322,764 from the Securities and Exchange Commission for an SEC Academic Fellowship.

Johnson will serve as a research resource for the Office of the Chief Accountant (OCA) and participate in OCA projects. These projects frequently involve the SEC's oversight of the auditing and accounting standards setting and assisting in auditor and registrant matters.

Funding for this work will begin in late August 2020 and will end in late July 2021.

###
US ends extradition treaty with Hong Kong amid escalating tensions with China

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 6:53 AM

The United States has suspended three bilateral agreements with Hong Kong related to extradition and tax exemptions, in yet another move that escalates tensions with China.

US State Department said it notified Hong Kong on Wednesday that the administration has suspended or terminated "the surrender of fugitive offenders, the transfer of sentenced persons, and reciprocal tax exemptions on income derived from the international operation of ships."

The move follows President Donald Trump's executive order last month to end Hong Kong's special status under US law in reaction to the enactment of a uniform national security law in Hong Kong.

"These steps underscore our deep concern regarding Beijing's decision to impose the National Security Law, which has crushed the freedoms of the people of Hong Kong," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

Washington described Hong Kong's new security law as "oppressive actions" against the former British colony.

The new law punishes crimes of secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces with sentences of up to life in prison in Hong Kong.

Under the law, mainland security agencies are also officially based in Hong Kong for the first time since 1997, when the city's rule returned from Britain to China.

Hong Kong has been governed under the "one-country, two-system" model since then, meaning that Chinese sovereignty is applied to the city even as it has its own government.

The US also imposed sanctions this month on Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam and other current and former Hong Kong and mainland officials over what it describes as curtailing political freedom in the financial hub.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China in a Twitter post on Wednesday of choosing "to crush the freedoms and autonomy of the people of Hong Kong."

He said because of those actions, "We are terminating or suspending three of our bilateral agreements with the territory."

Relations between the US and China have deteriorated to their worst level in recent months.

A political scientist from the University of Chicago, Dali L. Yang, said what is happening between Washington and Beijing "is truly a tug of war in terms of mutual actions against each other."

China also threatened to slap retaliatory sanctions on the US, urging The Trump administration to stop interfering in China's internal affairs.

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HOLYOKE - Spiros Hatiras, president and chief executive officer of Holyoke Medical Center, is among this years recipients of the Whats Right in Health Care Hero Award that is presented annually by a global consultancy whose business group partners with health care organizations to implement strategies to advance development.

Hatiras was named a Hurons Studer Group 2020 Healthcare Hero Award during the business groups recent virtual Whats Right in Health Care conference.

According to a release, Hatiras was nominated by Don Dean, a Studer Group managing director and senior advisor, for HMCs response to a request from Governor Charlie Bakers administration to provide immediate shelter to 40 residents of the Soldiers Home during a surge of coronavirus disease 2019 at the home in April.

Those transferred had screened negative for the disease and were housed in HMCs Birthing Center and its outpatient Cardiovascular Center that were temporarily converted for this purpose.

Spiros exemplifies what it means to be a health care hero, said Debbie Ritchie, Studer president.

He is a leader in the community and continues to improve the health care organization and the patient experience. I congratulate him on this well-deserved recognition.

Other 2020 award recipients include Madeline Bell, chief executive officer of the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, Amanda Kidd, chief nursing officer with Cornerstone Health Group, and Erica Steed, director of patient experience at Wellstar North Fulton Hospital, Roswell, Georgia.
MOSCOW - Family and allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who remains in a coma in a Siberian hospital, were fighting for his transfer to a German clinic on Friday as local doctors insisted the politician is too unstable to be medevaced and refuse to give authorization for the transfer.

Navalny, a 44-year-old politician who is one of President Vladimir Putins fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in a coma at a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday, following what his supporters are calling a suspected poisoning that they believe was engineered by the Kremlin.

A plane with German specialists and all the necessary equipment landed at Omsk airport on Friday morning, prepared to take Navalny to a clinic in Berlin. But doctors treating the politician said his condition was too unstable to transport him and bristled at the idea of consulting with German specialists, saying that doctors that flew in from Moscow over night were competent enough.

Omsk hospital deputy chief doctor, Anatoly Kalinichenko, also said that no traces of poison were found in Navalnys body.

Poisoning as a diagnosis remains on the back burner, but we dont believe that the patient suffered from poisoning, Kalinichenko told reporters Friday.

Kalinichenko added that a diagnosis have been determined and relayed to Navalnys family members. He refused to reveal it to reporters, citing a law preventing medical workers from disclosing confidential patient information.

Navalnys spokesman, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted that the politicians family wasnt given a diagnosis, but rather a range of symptoms that can be interpreted differently.

Doctors still cant determine the cause of Alexeis condition, she said.

Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders or dissidents and insisted that the transfer is paramount to saving the politicians life.

The ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life, Yarmysh tweeted.

German officials have been in contact with both Russians and a private group that sent a plane to pick Navalny up, and support the initiative. If Mr. Navalny wants to get treated in Berlin and if he is able to come to Berlin, the Charite hospital is obviously ready, Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller told the German news agency dpa.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalnys Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russias ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russias Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the regions governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.

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A man last living in Arizona was sentenced Friday to four years in federal prison for trafficking narcotics to Connecticut, authorities said.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez-Rubio, 41, a citizen of Mexico, last living in Phoenix, Ariz., was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.

In late 2018, the Drug Enforcement Administrations New Haven Task Force and New Haven police started investigating an organization responsible for trafficking kilogram-quantities of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine from Mexico and Arizona to the New Haven area, officials said.

Investigators eventually identified Gonzalez-Rubio and an associate as being responsible for moving the drugs from Arizona to Connecticut, authorities said. From March through May 2019, investigators intercepted three packages that Gonzalez-Rubio and his associate shipped from Arizona to New Haven, authorities said.

Authorities said two of those packages seized had 1 kilogram of cocaine, while the other had about 1 kilogram of a mix of heroin and fentanyl.

Gonalez-Rubio and his associate used UPS and FedEx to ship their drugs, according to authorities. The two put the drugs in hidden compartments of vehicles being transported on commercial car-haulers.

In August 2019, an undercover officer met with Gonzalez-Rubio in Arizona to arrange a transport of drugs. The man told the undercover officer he was preparing for a trip to the northeast, and planned to use a used car on a hauler to transport the drugs, authorities said. Authorities said he told the undercover officer he would charge about $2,000 per kilogram to ship the drugs.

On Oct. 1, 2019, the undercover officer gave Gonzalez-Rubio what the man believed to be 5 kilograms of fentanyl. Instead, the officer gave Gonzalez-Rubio something disguised to look like a shipment of drugs.

Twelve days later, the car-hauler arrived in Connecticut. When Gonzalez-Rubio was caught driving the car with the fake fentanyl to a spot in East Haven, authorities arrested him. He has been detained since his arrest.

Gonzalez-Rubio pleaded guilty on Feb. 25 to conspiracy to distribute, and to possess with the intent to distribute, heroin, fentanyl and cocaine. Authorities said the man was previously deported to Mexico and returned to the U.S., which means he faces immigration proceedings after his sentence is up.
A man accused of using Honey Buns to help him rob gas stations across Arkansas was caught during a getaway, police say.

The recent string of three robberies all had one thing in common: The suspect pretended to buy Honey Buns and would steal cash when clerks opened the register drawer, police say.

The Conway Police Department put out an alert for other law enforcement agencies to be on the look out for similar crimes.

When the suspect deemed by police as the Honey Bun Bandit  tried a similar ruse, the police were prepared.

On Wednesday, a man purchased a Honey Bun at a gas station in nearby Morrilton, knocked a glass shield off the counter and grabbed cash from an open register, police say. A description of the suspect and a white Chevrolet Tahoe getaway car was sent to area police departments.

Conway detectives posted up along Interstate 40, which connects the two towns, and soon spotted the vehicle. They followed it until North Little Rock, where Arkansas State Police pulled over the driver.

Mark Anthony Persley, 49, was arrested and faces charges of aggravated robbery, robbery and theft, according to court records.

He was in jail and does not have an attorney listed.

Police say another woman was taken into custody, but no charges are listed in court records.

Dead animals kept appearing on a grandpas Arkansas grave. Then family set up cameras

19-year-old finds secret cameras in photographers dressing room, Arkansas police say
HYDERABAD, India, August 20, 2020 (Morning Star News)  Municipal officials in Nepal ordered a church to stop construction of a worship hall after local Hindus objected to it, sources said.

Some of the area Hindus had threatened relatives who became Christians after pastor Manish Bohra began proclaiming Christ in Galkot in January. When a small church began that outgrew its rented room for worship, in March he leased land on which to build a temporary structure for worship.

The novel coronavirus pandemic halted construction, and after authorities lifted the lockdown on July 21, members of the church in western Nepals Baglung District renewed construction on a structure to accommodate 50 people, Pastor Bohra said.

On July 26, I received a phone call from officials at Galkot Municipality warning us not to construct a church in the area, and that they had received a petition from the local residents opposing Christian activities in the area, Pastor Bohra told Morning Star News. When we tried to reason with the officials, they told us that we have gone against the Nepalese laws, and that we must stop all activities in the area and vacate the premises with immediate effect.

All religious groups except Buddhist monasteries must register as nonprofit organizations to own land or other property, according to the U.S. State Departments 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom, but Pastor Bohra was only leasing the land. Nepalese law does not provide for registration or official recognition of religious organizations as religious institutions with the exception of Buddhist monasteries, but all religious groups must register as nonprofit organizations or Non-Governmental Organizations to operate legally as institutions, according to the report.

The church in Galkot began with just two families in January and within a few weeks grew to 45 members, Pastor Bohra said.

Many from Hindu families had come to Christ from poverty-stricken and emotionally drained families, he told Morning Star News. As a church, we had encouraged them to put belief in Christ, and soon we saw the Lord working in their lives. But the members faced severe opposition from their Hindu relatives. Some of them had even received threats that they will be killed if they see them attending church services.

Galkot officials informed the church that about 40 people had signed a petition requesting authorities to stop the construction, he said.

The church had obtained an eight-year lease on land from an area resident, the pastor said.

The entire transaction was done legally, and there is no chance of any foul play from our side, he said, adding that he informed municipal officials that the church was prepared to go to court to retain its rights.

The Nepalese constitution establishes religious freedom, but what is the use of writing it on a paper if the government and municipality officials do not allow construction of churches? Pastor Bohra said. Since we remained strong that we would even approach the court, they are putting pressure on the landlord, Ganesh K.C., to cancel the lease agreement or he would have to face consequences for leasing out his property to Christians.

Last year the pastor faced a similar challenge in his native Kharbang village, he said.

The villagers complained to police against assembling for prayers and use of a piece of land for Christian prayers, and the matter had gone to an extent of police taking Christians into custody, Pastor Bohra said. Only because I am a native of Kharbang village, they gave up the idea of pursuing a case against me and instead ousted me from there.

Legal Confusion

Mukunda Sharma, executive secretary of Nepal Christian Society, told Morning Star News that Nepalese law on churches and their buildings is not clear, and that Hindu extremists exploit that vacuum to level accusations at Christians.

Article 26(2) of the Nepal constitution states, Every religious denomination shall, maintaining its independent existence, have the right to manage and protect its religious places and religious trusts in accordance with the law, Pastor Sharma said.

There is no law stating that Christians gathering to worship and pray should obtain permission from the government to do so, Pastor Sharma said. The constitutions Article 26(2) and the Nepal National Code require such permission for official religious institutions, but Christians maintain that gatherings such as those of Pastor Bohras church are not official religious institutions.

The latest amendments to the Nepal National Code, also derived from Article 26(2) of the constitution, make it mandatory for religious institutions carrying out charity and philanthropic activities to be registered and obtain permission from both the district administration and revenue officials, he said.

The same provision includes the word girijaghar, loosely translated as church house or church building, as among the entities carrying out charity and philanthropic work that are so regulated, but such buildings are not the same as gatherings of Christians, he said.

If the Supreme Court interprets these specific provisions in the national code and the constitution as that they prescribe the churches to register before they operate as private places of worship, we want the apex court to issue certain directions and guidelines on this, Pastor Sharma told Morning Star News. With no expressed provision or a precedent before us, the churches have become an easy target for Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] groups, government, and police officials to impose false allegations of forced conversions, book cases and arrest pastors.

Hence, the matter is for the apex court to decide what the laws say and how the churches should operate.

Once the high court issues guidelines, they can be challenged on grounds of religious freedom or based on authorities deliberate attempts to withhold registrations or renewals of Christian groups registered as Non-Government Organizations or nonprofits. Many churches have tried to register with local and revenue officials, but they refuse to process them, he said.

When a Christian institution into charity or philanthropic work approaches the officials for renewal, they ask the institution to amend the specific words signifying Christianity, Pastor Sharma said. For example, they would ask us to exclude words like grace, salvation and hope. If there is a cross in the logo, they would ask the organization to change its logo.

If an institution points out that they were registered long ago and had faced no objection, he said, officials reply to churches, We do not know who had approved this earlier. We are sorry that you are not aware of the Nepalese laws. Kindly amend your constitution and apply again.

Nepals constitution declares the country to be a secular state but defines secularism as protection of the age-old religion and culture and religious and cultural freedom. The country was a Hindu monarchy until 2007 when the interim constitution established a secular democracy.

The definition of secular in Nepals 2015 constitution appears to protect Hinduism, and Article 26 forbids anyone to convert a person of one religion to another religion, or disturb the religion of other people.

Advocacy groups have detected increased enforcement and other anti-Christian efforts as officials seek to placate Hindus incensed that the new constitution did not re-establish a more prominent place for Hinduism. A landlocked country between the giants of India and China, Nepal is said to be more than 75 percent Hindu and 16 percent Buddhist. Christians are estimated to make up nearly 3 percent of Nepals population, and Muslims 4.4 percent.

An increase in persecution of Christians in Nepal began after a new criminal code was passed in October 2017, which took effect in August 2018. By criminalizing conversions, Nepal has infringed on the fundamental freedom of religion or belief which is guaranteed not only by its constitution but also secured by several international covenants, according to ADF-International.

Nepal is ranked 32nd on Christian support organization Open Doors 2020 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

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: Getty Images/Derek Brumby
Russian doctors treating the country's most prominent opposition figure said on Friday that Alexei Navalny was not poisoned, as allies of the Kremlin critic suspect. Instead, the 44-year-old is said to have been diagnosed with a metabolic disease possibly caused by low blood sugar. Navalny is in a coma after falling ill during a flight to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday. Allies of Navalny have claimed something was put in his tea at an airport cafe. Alexander Murakhovsky, the head doctor treating Navalny in the Siberian city of Omsk, said traces of industrial chemical substances had been found on Navalny's clothes and fingers, according to Reuters, in comments after doctors said he hadn't been poisoned. Earlier on Friday, Murakhovsky had warned an attempt to move him to Germany would pose a threat to his life.

Alexander Murakhovsky, chief doctor at Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1 where Alexei Navalny was admitted after he fell ill in what his spokeswoman said was a suspected poisoning, speaks to the media in Omsk on August 21, 2020. DIMITAR DILKOFF | AFP via Getty Images

Navalny's spokesperson has pressed for the Russian authorities to urgently approve his medical evacuation to Germany, saying "every hour" of delay represents a "critical threat to his life." "The ban on the transportation of Navalny is only needed to stall for time and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced," Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokesperson, said via Twitter on Friday, according to a translation. Yarmysh said doctors at the hospital were initially willing to authorize the transportation of Navalny until very recently. "This decision, of course, was not made by them, but by the Kremlin," she said. Yulia Navalnaya, Alexei's wife, has since appealed directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking the country's long-time leader to approve her husband's medical evacuation to Germany. The letter was posted on Navalny's official Twitter account at around 2:20 p.m. Moscow time. Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny's FBK anti-corruption foundation, questioned why the stricken Kremlin critic's official diagnosis should prevent his medical transfer. "Due to metabolic disorders and falling sugar, Alexei is not allowed to transport?!" he said via Twitter. The Kremlin on Friday said it would be up to the Russian doctors treating Navalny to decide whether he could be transported by air ambulance to a European clinic. A German air ambulance thought to have been sent to collect Navalny landed in Omsk on Friday morning, Reuters reported, citing flight tracking data. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has since claimed German doctors arrived in Siberia at the invitation of the Kremlin to assist in Navalny's treatment.

Rights groups call for investigation

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at a joint press briefing on Thursday that they were both prepared to offer medical assistance to Navalny. Merkel called for the circumstances surrounding Navalny's hospitalization to be "cleared up very quickly," while Macron said he was "extremely worried and saddened" by the news. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, has pushed for Moscow to swiftly pave the way for Navalny to be treated in Germany. A spokesperson for the bloc also called for a probe into his suspected poisoning. Human rights groups have denounced the alleged poisoning of Navalny and called for an immediate and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the hospitalization. "We are deeply concerned for the health of Mr. Navalny, and wish him a speedy recovery," Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, said in a statement on Thursday.

A file photo dated September 29, 2019 shows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a rally in support of political prisoners in Prospekt Sakharova Street in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny is unconscious in hospital after allegedly being poisoned according to his press secretary. Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
China and the United States have agreed to hold talks "in the coming days" on economic and trade issues, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said on Thursday, after reports that planned high-level talks on their phase-one trade deal had been postponed.

Speaking at a weekly briefing, Gao made the announcement without elaborating.

Experts and business leaders said that the two sides are likely to discuss how the phase-one trade deal has been implemented so far and how they might resolve trade and investment barriers in the next stage.

"High-level official talks are helpful to reduce distrust between the two countries," said Zhang Yongjun, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Chen Qingzhou, chairman of Hytera Communications Co, a Shenzhen-based provider of land mobile radio communications solutions, said he hopes the two countries can promptly settle their differences.

"Although China and the U.S. have disputes in trade, science and technology and other fields, their technology and manufacturing industries are highly integrated and are complementary in some fields. True cooperation will benefit both sides," he said.

The world's two largest economies reached an agreement on Jan. 15 after a two-year trade dispute.

Despite the COVID-19 outbreak in the first half of this year, China has maintained that it will try its best to implement the phase-one trade deal.

Related government departments in China have worked extensively to that end, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Assistant Minister of Commerce Ren Hongbin said last week. However, tighter controls imposed by the U.S. on exports to China and other restrictive measures have affected imports of goods and services from the country, he said.

In May, China unveiled the second list of U.S. goods to be excluded from the second round of tariff countermeasures against the U.S. Section 301 measures.

In the first seven months of this year, China's goods trade with the U.S. declined 3.3 percent year-on-year to 2.03 trillion yuan ($292 billion), while its exports to the U.S. fell 4.1 percent and imports shrank 0.3 percent amid the pandemic and other economic uncertainties, according to the General Administration of Customs.

China always welcomes foreign investors, including U.S. companies, to invest and operate in the country and share development opportunities, ministry spokesman Gao said.

Since January, a number of big-ticket projects from Starbucks, Costco and Tesla have been established in China, showing the confidence U.S. businesses have in the Chinese market, Gao said.

Profitability is also a key component of long-term confidence in the China market, according to a survey released last month by the U.S.-China Business Council. About 91 percent of U.S. companies said their China operations are profitable.

Gao said U.S. firms are not leaving the Chinese market, where most are making profits and are optimistic about future growth prospects.

Robert Aspell, president of Asia-Pacific at Cargill Inc, said that with many countries still struggling to stimulate their exports and consumption, China offers a model of recovery, stabilization and then growth, adding that the company has introduced a number of food items into the Chinese market over the past two months.

The Minnesota-based agribusiness group opened the Asia-Pacific headquarters of its agricultural supply chain in Shanghai early this month, further demonstrating the company's continued commitment to the Chinese market.
The mother of a Manchester Arena bomb victim has blasted the 55-year-old jail term handed out to Hashem Abedi.

Charlotte Hodgson's daughter Olivia, 15, died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017.

Salman's brother Hashem Abedi is expected to die in jail after yesterday being handed a record-length sentence for the Manchester Arena bomb plot which killed 22 people and injured hundreds of others.

Mrs Hodgson, appearing from Bury, Greater Manchester, on Good Morning Britain, was asked by presenter Alex Beresford if she thinks justice was served at the Old Bailey.

She said: 'No I don't. I don't see how just over two and a half years per person got killed is justice. I know he's never going to get out of prison but its still not justice.'

Olivia died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017

Charlotte Hodgson and Paul Hodgson's daughter Olivia died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017

Abedi refused to leave his jail cell to hear testimony in court and also didn't turn up to his sentencing hearing, much to the chagrin of families.

Mrs Hodgson added: 'For myself there has been no closure whatsoever as he wasn't there.

'I didn't get to see his face. He's given us no answers, has shown no remorse, there is just nothingness.'

The couple, who said they struggled with their mental health during the coronavirus lockdown, found the evidence during the trial difficult to hear.

Mrs Hodgson said: 'It was extremely tough. It's hard to describe how we are feeling and how we are coping with it.

'And I think it would have been even harder knowing he was listening to it and not bothered. Because as I've said he's shown no remorse through all this.

Paul Hodgson added: 'I think the time factor between between convicted in March and coming to sentencing, it's been a big long time and distance between it which is taken away from the actual impact.'

Hashem Abedi, convicted of murder in the Manchester bombing, is seen in this police mugshot released by the Greater Manchester Police

The heartbroken couple got married earlier this year, but are still coming to terms with their daughter's death.

She said: 'I don't know how we try and have a life. We just literally are day by day still. THere's still days I don't want to get out of my bed.

'There's still days I wish I wasn't here. And as for keeping Olivia alive we'll never forget her she's just an unforgettable child, we talk about her all the time, we play her music. She'll always be here.

On the upcoming inquest Mrs Hodgson said: 'It does prolong the agony, but we are hoping to get some answers because its like we keep saying, we're still not got an snswer of how this was allowed to happen.

'Why it happened. Why wasn't it stopped and that's all we want, we want answers.'

Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Baker ordered that Abedi serve 24 life sentences and said he would spend at least 55 years in prison before he could even be considered for parole.

Olivia (pictured) died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017

Family members gasped as the sentence - a record for a determinate prison term - was handed down for Abedi's role in the largest murder case in English legal history.

Abedi, born and raised in Manchester, was accused of showing 'contempt' to the families of those he and his suicide bomber brother Salman Abedi killed more than three years earlier by not coming into the dock.

He was again absent as the sentence was handed down, the judge ordering a copy of his remarks to be sent to the cells.

Sentencing him on Thursday afternoon, the judge said: 'The defendant and his brother were equally culpable for the deaths and injuries caused.

'The stark reality is that these were atrocious crimes, large in their scale, deadly in their intent, and appalling in their consequences.

'The despair and desolation of the bereaved families has been palpable.'

The sentence eclipsed that of racist homophobe David Copeland, who was handed a 50-year term for a 13-day nail bombing campaign in London in 1999 which killed three and injured scores.

The judge - who put on record his tribute to 'the tremendous dignity and courage' of the families who attended court - said the 1,024 days Abedi spent remanded in custody will count towards the overall sentence, adding he was unable to hand him a whole-life term due to his age.

He added: 'He may never be released.'

Reacting to the sentence, Paul Hett, father of victim Martyn Hett, said: 'He's now going to spend the rest of his life in jail, I'm sure because after the 55 years he was given, I'm sure the Parole Board which then has to make a decision, will ensure this coward never sees the light of day again.'

Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the bombing 'a horrifying and cowardly act of violence which targeted children and families,' and praised the 'courage and dignity' of those affected.
Like most 77-year-olds, after winding down a long-time family business that included a year-long demolition project, Elliot Rodin decided to start a new on-line business.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 20/8/2020 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Like most 77-year-olds, after winding down a long-time family business that included a year-long demolition project, Elliot Rodin decided to start a new on-line business.

It required the creation of sophisticated equations and could help Canadians earn as much as $100,000 in additional funds from their government pensions, so, nothing too complicated.

The website, HelpYouRetire.ca recently went live. Rodin has figured out the obscure mathematical formulas that lets people key in a modest amount of information and find out what their Canada Pension Plan, Quebec Pension Plan and Old Age Security benefits would be if they delayed the start of receiving their pension benefits by six months or a year or longer.

Its not a problem Rodin has been distracted by all his life. After finishing up the demolition of Central Grain Co. Ltd.  the large grain elevator complex that was at the corner of Archibald Street and Provencher Boulevard  he happened across an article that said that 90 per cent of Americans didnt start their retirement benefits at the right time.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Elliot Rodin has launched the website HelpYouRetire.ca  designed to help people determine the best time to collect CPP and OAS.

He looked at the data and found that Canadians were also leaving a lot of money on the table.

In his prior life, Rodin was also a money manager and has plenty of training as an analyst, having worked for 13 years as a portfolio manager and securities analyst for Investors Group before he went to work for the family business.

"Im basically going back to my roots," he said. "I thought I could solve a problem and I didnt see any other solutions out there. I genuinely want to help Canadians and I think I have something unique here."

Knowing that his target market is people 58 to 68 years old hes holding off spending on digital marketing and he made sure the website was simple and easy to use and not clouded with verbiage that turn people off.

The site will give users a basic dollar figure that could be gained in delaying receiving benefits for a year for each year up to age 70 at no cost.

The site will give users a basic dollar figure that could be gained in delaying receiving benefits for a year for each year up to age 70 at no cost.

A detailed analysis with numerical and bar charts and further detailed explanations for CPP and QPP costs $49.00, $39.00 for OAS and $65.00 for the two combined.

Rodin said the intention was to be as honest and straightforward as possible. He makes it clear that his analysis will not benefit everyone. For instance, people who are sick or in poor health should not bother with his analysis and his OAS for people on survivors pension will also not be helpful.

But on a basic level, the formula shows that for every month after age 65 that people delay beginning their CPP payments it will mean an additional 0.7 per cent in benefits. So if you wait six months past your 65th birthday to start collecting benefits it will mean an individual will collect an additional 4.2 per cent of income for the rest of his or her life.

"Government pensions can become one of the most significant retirement assets, worth $300,000-to-$400,000  equivalent to the value of a home," Rodin pointed out as a reason for people to make sure they can maximize its value.

"It will obviously vary by individual depending on their pension entitlement and years of residence in Canada so its just a ballpark number, but the total value of waiting until age 70 could easily be worth as much as $50,000-to-$100,000."

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By providing a modest amount of information, people cam find out what their benefits would be if they delayed the start of receiving their pension benefits by six months or a year or longer.

Using a web design firm and coders from Ottawa, Rodin did everything else himself. Although hes not dependent on revenue from the site for his own retirement he is also careful about sharing his secrets and has not invited professional pension advisors to become familiar with the inner workings of his website.

"Im hoping professional advisors will find it a useful thing to incorporate into their programs," he said.

But he did feel good that he was on the right track after the release a couple of months ago of a paper by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries that addresses some of the same issues, called "The CPP Take-Up Decision: Risk and Opportunities."

In a recent article in the Globe and Mail, one of the authors of the paper, Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, the director of financial security research at the National Institute on Ageing at Ryerson University, wrote, "People love these programs (CPP and QPP) because theyre simple: automatically pay contributions while you work, along with your employer; then, in retirement, collect the benefits earned until you die However, underneath that outward simplicity lies a complicated financial system. That complexity includes generous financial incentives to delay the start of CPP  or QPP  payments."

After reading the 40-page paper Rodin is confident he didnt miss a thing.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
It takes seconds, not minutes, for Recorder Queen to dispel the conventions that so often govern the biographical documentary. Beginning with an animated flourish, director Sophie Raymond doesnt just tell the story of internationally acclaimed Australian recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey, she captures the musicians vivid mindset, complete with Lacey playing a version of herself in stylised scenes or amid fantastical imagery.

Through live action and animated scenes, the half-hour work adds the otherworldly to autobiographical detail and literally positions the act of creativity as an inspiring force of magic. Music can sometimes reach places where words cannot, Lacey, who co-wrote the script with Raymond, notes in her narration, and Recorder Queen boldly reaches for that same space.

Filmmaker Sophie Raymond with recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey Credit:ABC

Its a story of collaboration and it weaves in and out of stylistic forms. It takes risks, and thats Genevieves story as well, says the Sydney-based Raymond. We felt that we were telling a story bigger than Genevieves alone. I could relate to the idea of being taken over by the power of music. When you have that moment you cant ignore it. We felt that the stepping stones of the story had a universal aspect to it. As we developed it visually we just naturally looked to fairytales and storybooks.

The two women met when Raymond was shooting the 2011 documentary Mrs Careys Concert, which she co-directed with Recorder Queen producer Bob Connolly. Lacey was coming to give a masterclass to the high school students of the titular music teacher, and the wave of anticipation that preceded the soloists arrival alerted Raymond to her standing. By the time Raymond fitted Lacey with a radio mic the pair were deep in conversation, and their old souls bond has only grown stronger since.
Isabella Countys cumulative number of COVID-19 cases jumped significantly Thursday, with five additional cases reported by the afternoon.

That brings the total number of cases reported from Isabella County to 208, with another 28 monitored as probable cases by the Central Michigan District Health Department. A probable case is someone who had close contact with a COVID-positive person and during quarantine developed consistent with COVID-19.

The cases are believed associated with Central Michigan University, said Steve Hall, health officer for Central Michigan District Health Department. That would mean that the number of COVID-19 cases from the university has increased by at least 10 in the last 10 days.

Nine people in Isabella County have died from the disease and 144 meet the inexact criteria for recovery.

Cases and testing were both expected to increase as CMU brought students back to campus.

Monday, when CMU reported an additional five cases from Aug. 10 through Sunday, a county-level dashboard maintained by the University of Michigans school of information and school of public health listed the number of tests that day as 208, the third highest number since March.

Local healthcare providers report that it normally takes one to two days on average for test results to come back.

McLaren-Central Michigan has been reporting one or two positive tests per day going back to July, said Rachel Blizzard, McLarens director of marketing. One day this week, they reported a spike while reporting results from Readycare and the hospital.

Isabella Countys seven-day average positivity rate as of Monday was 1.7 percent, which qualifies it as low risk using just that metric. Based on the number of cases per million, 20.2, it qualifies as a medium-high risk county.

Elsewhere in mid-Michigan, Clares cumulative cases increased by two to 83. Three people have died of the disease there. One more case was added in Gladwin County, which has 65 cases and two deaths. Midland County added four, for 285 cases and 10 deaths.

Gratiot County remained unchanged with 149 cases and 15 deaths. So did Montcalm, with 187 cases and three deaths; and Mecosta, with 69 cases and two deaths.

Statewide, another 419 cases were added for a cumulative total of 94,697; another 19 deaths were announced for a cumulative total of 6,368. Eleven of those deaths were added after a review of vital records. The states death rate  more technically referred to as the case fatality rate  stands at 6.7 percent.

READ MORE:
Nokia C3 may be headed to India. The entry-level smartphone from the house of HMD Global debuted a few weeks back in China. It is the successor of the Nokia C2 and brings only a few upgrades over that. You get a single camera on the back now with an eight-core Unisoc processor under the hood. Nokia C3 could be a rival to the Realme C11 that was launched recently with a MediaTek Helio G35 processor. But we are awaiting the price of the Nokia C3 India price to be able to draw a fair comparison.

NokiaPowerUser has shared what looks like a poster in some shop, showing the Nokia C3. It mentions specifications of the Nokia C3, along with the one-year replacement guarantee that Nokia phones have lately begun to come with. The price and availability of the Nokia C3 are not clear from the poster. Previously, a report said HMD Global could launch at least three devices in India, including the Nokia 5.3, and we predicted the Nokia C3 could be on its way to India.

The Nokia C3 is likely to sit below the Nokia 1-series in India, and rightly so because HMD Global does not look in the mood to bring the Nokia 1.3 here. The Nokia 1.3 was launched back in March alongside the Nokia 8.3 5G and Nokia 5.3, which is debuting in India soon. Anyway, the Finnish company might be looking to introduce its candidate in the entry-level segment that would otherwise have the likes of Realme C11 and Redmi 8A.

In China, the Nokia C3 is priced at CNY 699, which is roughly Rs 7,600. But I assume it could be priced less than that point. The Realme C11, on the other hand, bears the price tag of Rs 7,499. It comes in Nordic Blue and Sand Gold colourways.

For specifications, the Nokia C3 has a 5.99-inch HD+ LCD display without a notch or a punch-hole. There is an octa-crore Unisoc processor paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, with the ability to be expanded via a microSD card of up to 128GB. There is also a fingerprint sensor at the back of the smartphone, unlike the Realme C11 that solely relies on passcodes and facial recognition methods. You see thick bezels on the front of the smartphone, with the bottom chin carrying the Nokia logo.

The cameras on the Nokia C3 are an upgrade over the last-generation smartphone. There is an 8-megapixel camera at the back of the Nokia C3 while the shooter on the front is a 5-megapixel sensor. There is a 3040mAh battery that can be removed after you take the back panel off.
Press Release

August 21, 2020 Gatchalian calls for continuous increase in hospital capacities Senator Win Gatchalian urged hospitals to continuously expand their patient capacity for COVID-19 cases that could overload the country's healthcare system. The senator cited the latest data from the Department of Health (DOH) showing that the number of COVID-19 ward beds in the National Capital Region (NCR), or for those mild cases, asymptomatic, and suspected ones, have reached 82% capacity. Isolation beds in the NCR, similar to those at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), are almost 70% occupied. ICU beds have reached 70% capacity, while half of the available ventilators are already occupied. Nationwide, ward beds have reached 51% capacity, isolation beds and ICU beds have each reached 47% capacity, respectively. Although Gatchalian sees a good balance with Metro Manila and neighboring provinces now again placed under General Community Quarantine (GCQ) in pushing forward the country's economy and managing the health care system, he however expressed fears that this will entail further movement of people and will encourage more interaction, which could increase the rate of infection and will put hospital capacity under pressure in the next two weeks. "My fear really is the capacity of the hospitals to treat patients, especially in the NCR because it is the hotbed. By loosening up the economy under GCQ, hospital capacity might be put under pressure and if we don't increase capacities for our hospitals, we will definitely see around 90% or even more in terms of our isolation and ICU capacities," Gatchalian said. A pronouncement was made by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) that the danger point is when our hospital capacity reaches 70%, according to the senator, emphasizing that the pronouncement was made a month ago when COVID-19 cases were only 70 thousand. The senator stressed that there is a need to monitor very closely the occupancy rate and critical care capacity of all hospitals nationwide. "By these actions we will stop the spread which could overload our healthcare system, our emergency rooms and our hospitals, and we can continue to provide the necessary health care to the people," Gatchalian said. The senator reiterated the need to put up makeshift hospitals in various local governments for patients with mild symptoms and those who are recovering from the disease, to ease the burden of hospitals and medical facilities. "Hindi na natin dapat hintayin pang mapuno ang ating mga ospital. Dapat manguna na ang Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) sa programang pagpapatayo ng mga pansamantalang pagamutan para mas maging mabilis ang tugon lalo na't pataas nang pataas ang bilang ng kaso ng COVID-19," said Gatchalian. The senator likewise reminded the DILG to ensure that all barangays strictly comply with directives to establish Barangay Isolation Units (BIUs) and mobilize Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERT).
BANGKOK, Aug 20, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - The Prospect Logistics and Industrial Leasehold Real Estate Investment Trust (PROSPECT) made a debut on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) today (Aug 20) amid optimism for it being well accepted by investors. PROSPECT invested in the Bangkok Free Trade Zone (BFTZ) which offers outstanding rental rates and strategically located in the industrial and logistics zone that is attracting the movement of production bases from other countries to the ASEAN region. The expected strong response from the investors is primarily driven by the PROSPECT's attractive 1st year yield of 11.1% or 1.112 baht per unit in the first year of operation.Vorasit Pokachaiyapat, Chairman of Prospect Development Co., Ltd, which is the developer and operator of BFTZ, said the company is confident in the potential of PROSPECT's portfolio in terms of financial performance, the economic recovery and relocation of industries from other countries to Southeast Asia should benefit BFTZ, is strategically located on Bangna-Trad Road km.23, near strategic ports, airports and well connected to major roads with transportation linkages between Bangkok and other provinces in all regions.Aon-Anong Chaithong, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Prospect Management Co.,Ltd, said PROSPECT was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) on August 20, 2020, we expect that in the future the investors will respond as well as the initial offering. "PROSPECT invests in BFTZ, a quality income-producing real estate of Prospect Development Co., Ltd. which is a subsidiary of M.K. Real Estate Development Plc. and Finansa Plc.," she pointed out.PROSPECT invested in the sub-leasehold right of parts of land and buildings in the BFTZ which consisting of 63 buildings (183 units), approximately 219,116 Sq.m. of leasable area and approximately 214-1-88.8 Rai of land area from the date of lease registration until 22 December 2039.BFTZ is an industrial zone for manufacturing & warehousing, strategically located on Bangna-Trad Road km.23, near strategic ports, airports and well connected to major roads with transportation linkages between Bangkok and other provinces in all regions. PROSPECT will invest in the sub-leasehold right of parts of land and buildings which include warehouses and factories in the BFTZ from the date of lease registration until 22 December 2039. And Prospect Development Co., Ltd., who has long experience in developing and managing the BFTZ since 2010 will be appointed as the Property Manager of PROSPECT.For the year 2017, 2018, 2019 and Q1/2020 the occupancy rate was 89.1%, 96.4% 93.1% and 93.6% (including the Built-to-Suit's contract started on May 1, 2020). PROSPECT initial investment asset has well diversified tenants profile in terms of industry and nationality. The expected yield of 11.1% or 1.112 baht per unit in the first year of operation is based on pro forma income statement for projection period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021.Paiboon Nalinthrangkurn, Chief Executive Officer and Director of TISCO Securities Co.,Ltd. which acts as the financial advisor and underwriter for PROSPECT, noted that REITs has increasingly become a popular investment due to the constant dividend payment policy and the opportunity to receive return on the REITs unit price. "So we believe that PROSPECT will be one of the REITs which attract a keen interest from investors mainly for its quality asset and the high occupancy rate," he concluded.This press release is issued by MT Multimedia Co Ltd on behalf of Prospect Development Co Ltd.For more information, please contact:Ornanong Phattharawetkul (Fah)Tel: +66 2 612 2081 ext. 129 or +66 86 884 4458E-mail: ornanong.p@mtmultimedia.comSource: Prospect REIT Management (PRM) Company LtdCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
F ierce Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma after being taken ill on a plane, has been allowed to fly to Germany for treatment.

Doctors treating Mr Navalny said earlier that he was too ill to make the flight from the hospital in the western Siberian city of Omsk.

Supporters of the politician and anti-corruption campaigner insist he was poisoned, although doctors said no poison was found in his body. An earlier test showed traces of an industrial chemical on his skin and hair.

Medical staff say Mr Navalny could be flown within hours, according to reports. A medically-equipped plane is waiting near the hospital.

Doctors at the Omsk hospital address the media / AFP via Getty Images

Dr Anatoly Kalinichenko, deputy head doctor at the Omsk facility, said: "As we're in possession of a request from relatives to permit him to be transported somewhere, we have now taken the decision that we do not object to his transfer to another in-patient facility," the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

It would have been "deadly" for Mr Navalny to remain in the Omsk hospital, according to Mr Navalny's spokeswoman.

Kira Yarmysh added that it was a shame that permission to let him fly to Germany had been delayed, as documents for the flight had been ready since Friday morning.

Leonid Volkov, a member of Mr Navalny's staff, told a Berlin press conference that Russian doctors had been preparing to let him go before a sudden change in attitude.

Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Alexei Navalny / REUTERS

He said: "[It was] like something was switched off - like medicine mode off, cover-up operation mode on - and the doctors refused to co-operate any more, refused to give any information even to Alexei's wife."

"The doctors who were helping to do the paperwork to make the transportation... possible started to say that he's not any more transportable, he's not any more stable, contradicting themselves."

It remains unclear what is wrong with Mr Navalny. Doctors said that he might have a "metabolic condition" causing low blood pressure.

His supporters think poison was slipped into his tea while waiting for a plane at an airport cafe in the Siberian city of Tomsk.

Mr Navalny has been a long term critic of the Kremlin and Russian president Vladimir Putin and investigations led by his Anti-Corruption Foundation have exposed several incidents of alleged graft among Russia's elite.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny speaks to the media as a policeman stands guard at the Anti-Corruption Foundation office in Moscow last year / AP

The organisation has been declared a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. Its offices were raided in December last year, with security forces using power tools to get through the door before confiscating laptops and other equipment.

Mr Navalny has been targeted personally before. In 2017 he had antiseptic cream thrown into his eye twice, needing to be hospitalised on one occasion.

After being arrested for an un-sanctioned protest in 2019 he fell ill in jail and later said he could have been poisoned.

His wife Yulia Navalnaya begged the Russian government to let him fly to Germany. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov said on Thursday that the government wished Mr Navalny well and would help arrange for him to fly.

Mr Peskov said on Friday that transporting him by air could "pose a threat to his health".
UPDATED: There are 11 new cases of Covid-19 today, nine of those cases are linked to the community cluster in Auckland and two are in managed isolation.

Of the nine cases, five are linked to churches and four are household contacts of cases, says Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

There are eight people in hospital due to Covid-19 - two in Auckland City, one in North Shore Hospital and five in Middlemore Hospital, including one in ICU.

An additional person in Waikato Hospital was hospitalised but not as a direct result of Covid, he says

Ashley says everyone in hospital is isolated and carefully managed so the public doesnt need to be worried about receiving hospital care.

Ashley says 88 of the 89 cases in the community are linked to the cluster and one is under investigation.

He says there are 223 contacts from churches linked to the main cluster in this country - 170 tested, and further tracing would continue.

There are now 143 people linked to the community cluster in quarantine.

There is now a total of 1315 confirmed cases, including 105 active cases and 16 in managed isolation.

Ashley says surge testing of border workers is all but completed and another wave of testing will start next week with a focus on Auckland.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is also updating the country on todays Cabinet meeting and the decision about reassessing alert levels.

She says there is nothing to suggest there is a need to change alert levels but retain the current settings and Cabinet will review this again on Monday.

She says there are encouraging signs that the Auckland community cluster has been circled.

The range of the cluster had been identified and New Zealand was not dealing with multiple outbreaks - the majority of cases had already been contact traced and put in isolation, says Ardern.

The country is getting in front of the virus, she says.

Ardern began her comments at today's press conference by thanking those who had been tested.

"We would not have got in front of this cluster without them.

"Villifying those who have caught the virus, or those who helped keep us safe by getting tested is something that I simply will not tolerate.

"It is those who shame others, those who seek to blame, they are the dangerous ones. They are the ones who cause people to hesitate before getting a test, they are the ones who make people feel afraid."

She says New Zealanders need to stick together, supporting each other and acting responsibly to defeat Covid-19.

EARLIER: Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield will provide a COVID-19 update at 1pm today, he will be joined by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who will give an update on today's Cabinet meeting .

There were five new cases of COVID-19 reported yesterday with all of them linked to the Auckland community outbreak.

Four of the cases are Auckland based and one is linked to the two cases in Tokoroa and is receiving treatment in Waikato Hospital.

As of yesterday there are six people in hospital. One in Auckland City, four in Middlemore and one in Waikato Hospital.

"One person in Middlemore Hospital is in ICU and is in stable condition," says Ashley

There are 101 active cases and 1304 confirmed cases.

Ashley says of the 80 cases in Auckland, 78 are linked to the cluster with two under investigation - one being the Rydges Hotel maintenance worker and one being a case announced yesterday that was thought to be linked to the cluster but has been reclassified as under investigation because no clear link has been established to the cluster yet.

That person whose case was reclassified today was at St Lukes Mall on the morning of 12 August.

Anyone visiting St Lukes at that time should be alert to symptoms and contact health professionals if feeling sick, says Ashley.

Ashley says a new "strong line of investigation" was being looked at after it was discovered the maintenance worker used the same lift as the woman he is believed to have contracted the virus from, shortly after she had been there.

The nurses who attended the hotel have all returned negative tests so it was unlikely to have been a link, says Ashley.

Cabinet ministers have met this morning to review the COVID-19 lockdown settings, but are not expected to make a definitive decision on whether to relax them.

One week ago, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed Auckland would stay at alert level 3 and the rest of the country at level 2 until at least the end of Wednesday, August 26.

At the time, she described the move as a "short but precautionary hold" which Cabinet would review on August 21.

Speaking yesterday, Health Minister Chris Hipkins said ministers would consider the most up-to-date information from the recent "surge of testing" and contact tracing.

"There's not an exhaustive hard-and-fast set of rules here. It ultimately comes down to judgements."

Additional reporting RNZ.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), speaks after hearing reports from the military on joining localities in battling floods across the country, Aug. 20, 2020. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended regards to servicemen of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force, and members of the militia and the reserve force, who had been fighting floods and helping with disaster relief. Xi was inspecting flood control and disaster relief in Anhui. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

HEFEI, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- 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 instructed the armed forces to make unremitting efforts to complete the follow-up tasks of flood control and disaster relief.

Xi, who was inspecting flood control and disaster relief work in east China's Anhui Province, gave the instruction on Thursday after hearing reports from the military on joining localities in battling floods across the country.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the CMC, Xi extended regards to servicemen of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Armed Police Force, and members of the militia and the reserve force, who had been fighting floods and helping with disaster relief.

Xi stressed the need for the military to continue emergency rescue and disaster relief efforts, assist flood-hit areas in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, and complete the follow-up tasks of flood control and disaster relief.

As of Wednesday, dispatches totaling more than 1.2 million head counts from the PLA and the People's Armed Police Force and more than 300,000 from the militia had been made in flood control missions in 17 provincial-level regions. They evacuated more than 170,000 residents, handled over 3,900 breaches and piping emergencies, and reinforced embankments of more than 900 km.

Under the firm leadership of the CPC Central Committee, China has scored major achievements in the battle against floods, Xi said, highlighting the spearhead role of the armed forces in shouldering critical tasks.

Xi demanded that relevant military units work with local authorities and strengthen research and analysis of the water situation to ensure the scientific and proper use of the military forces.

He required the army to keep in good condition, promptly check potential risks and dangers, effectively carry out emergency rescue and disaster relief work, safeguard people's lives and property, and help them restore normal production and life.

"This flood battle is a practical test of the leadership and command system of our army, and the army's combat readiness and ability to perform the tasks," Xi said.

Xi underscored requirements to complete all the work of the armed forces in the second half of the year, stressing efforts to strengthen the organization and leadership, focus on priority tasks and innovate ways and methods to achieve the development targets of the national defense and the armed forces for 2020.

The army must always enhance its awareness of potential threats, persist in considering the worst-case scenario, and strengthen military training and war preparedness to guarantee that, when the time comes, it will take action and win, Xi noted.

Xi required solid effects in key areas of work such as the implementation of the military's 13th Five-Year Plan, the formulation of its 14th Five-Year Plan, and the reform of its policies and systems.

Xi underscored the importance of reinforcing theoretical and political education and running the military strictly in accordance with the law.

CMC Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia and others attended the event.
A woman who had never had a single pimple until she took birth control pills that caused her face to break out in cystic acne has revealed how the condition was so severe it affected her sight.

Mina Stein, 20, from Frankfurt, Germany, has struggled with acne for the past two years after birth control pills triggered a change in her skin.

After an initial knock to her confidence, Mina, who is an office management assistant, is now championing the acne positivity trend and encouraging others to embrace their skin.

For most of her teenage years Mina had clear skin, and so the sudden change came as quite a shock.

Mina Stein, 20, (pictured) from Frankfurt, Germany, is encouraging others to embrace their skin after developing cystic acne

Mina (pictured before), who had clear skin throughout her teenage years, says her skin changed when she began taking birth control pills

Mina began taking birth control pills in 2018, when acne was not listed as a side effect - however this has since changed.

The 20-year-old, who developed acne as soon as she started taking the pills, says the condition started out with a few faint pimples but a few months later, she was suffering from painful cysts, swelling of the face, and rosacea - a condition causing redness in the skin.

'I wasn't aware acne was a side effect of the birth control pills as it was never mentioned in the packaging insert,' she explained. 'It started developing immediately. At first, I got red bumps under the skin on my cheeks and a few pimples on my forehead.

'Then the pimples became more painful and my face would swell. I developed cysts and rosacea. I switched birth control pills but it wouldn't go away. It only got worse.'

Mina (pictured) developed red bumps under the skin on her cheeks and pimples on her forehead while unaware that acne can be a side effect of birth control pills

Mina (pictured) says her cysts began to bruise and if anything touched them the pain would make her cry

Having experienced dismissive dermatologists, Mina would often consider cancelling plans with friends for fear of appearing in photos or being judged for her acne.

WHAT IS CYSTIC ACNE? Cystic acne is the most serious type of acne. It develops when cysts form deep underneath your skin. This can result from a combination of bacteria, oil, and dry skin cells that get trapped in your pores. Although anyone can develop acne, cystic acne tends to occur in people with oily skin. Its also more common in teens, women, and older adults with hormonal imbalances. Usually, cystic acne can improve with age. However, the stubborn and painful bumps wont go away on their own. If you suspect you have cystic acne, your dermatologist is your best line of defense. They can prescribe the medication necessary to help clear your skin. Source: Healthline Advertisement

'It definitely influenced my confidence,' she said. 'I didn't want to look in the mirror or be in photos - or even look anyone in the eye.

'I cried a lot. I'd never had skin issues before so I felt totally overwhelmed.

At the time, some of my friends were abroad and I was so worried about what they'd say when they came back.

'I didn't know whether to see people but I decided to anyway and it was fine. I'd never felt that way before - so powerless.

'By that stage, it was very much a rollercoaster. Some days my acne would look better and then worse again the next.

The cysts began to bleed and bruise causing blue patches to appear, and the pain was so bad that Mina struggled to sleep comfortably.

'My cysts began to bruise and I'd cry if anything touched them as they were so painful,' she explained. 'They'd bleed when I washed my face.'

She claims her skin becoming extremely dry, particularly around her eyes where the tightening of the skin blurred her eyesight.

Mina said: 'I developed really dry skin which really affected my eyes. I thought I needed glasses as it affected my eyesight, but eyedrops managed it.

'The rosacea also caused my face to become red and swollen which affected my self-esteem.'

Mina, who has tried various skincare brands, is yet to find an effective solution. The skincare brand, Paula's Choice, alleviates her symptoms the best by reducing dryness and soreness.

Despite changing birth control pills four times, Mina's acne problem has only worsened.

The 20-year-old (pictured) says posting bare-faced selfies on Instagram has helped her to regain her confidence

Mina (pictured) receives many messages from people thanking her for her empowering posts

During a trip to the supermarket, a young girl standing by Mina turned to her mum and asked "what does that girl have on her face?" Initially shocked by the comment, Mina explained acne to the young girl and it soon became a turning point in Mina's outlook.

She joined the acne positivity community on Instagram in August 2019 and felt immediately more confident after posting her first bare-faced selfie.

Now, Mina encourages her 13,000 followers to embrace their skin and hopes to continue promoting self-love.

'I thought about trying Accutane but I was dissuaded by unfriendly dermatologists,' she said. 'Paula's Choice skincare has been my best find so far.'

Since posting bare-faced selfies on Instagram, Mina has been able to regain her confidence. Not only that, but many other acne sufferers have reached out to Mina for advice and support.

Mina (pictured) says we need to stop criticising how we look and compliment ourselves instead because we're all uniquely beautiful

'I remember being in a supermarket and a little girl, who was about three-years-old, asked her mum what I had on my face. I explained what acne was to her and after that, she didn't seem to mind - and in fact, started showing me her sweets,' she said.

'After that, I started my Instagram account where I began to post about self-love. I'd been following similar accounts for a few months and loved seeing other people's improvements in their skin.

'I was so proud of myself after taking my first bare-faced selfie and I felt a lot stronger. Now I receive so many messages from people thanking me for my posts or empowering me to keep going.

'The messages are from people all over the world so it makes you feel less alone. My followers even tag me in their own bare-faced photos which I love.

'Treat yourself the way you treat others. We need to stop criticising how we look and compliment ourselves instead. Everyone is uniquely beautiful and should remember that.'
AUSTIN  The recount in the Republican primary runoff to replace U.S. Rep. Will Hurd is over, with Trump-backed candidate Tony Gonzales maintaining a slim victory over opponent Raul Reyes.

Reyes paid for the recount after a razor-thin loss to Gonzales in Julys Republican runoff for the 23rd Congressional District, a swing district that has long been targeted by Democrats.

The final stretch of the recount Friday, which held up Gonzales win by a few dozen votes, ends a nail-biting series of events. A crowded GOP field competed in March, with no candidate receiving a majority. That forced the top two candidates into a runoff election that was delayed by the governor for six weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The runoff, initially too close to call, ended narrowly in Gonzales favor after an additional delay of three weeks as the votes were tallied.

Tony Gonzales has won the primary runoff at every stage: on election night, when the canvass was complete and throughout the recount, Gonzales campaign spokesman Matt Mackowiak said.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Reyes called it off Friday evening after a review of ballots in Bexar, Medina, Uvalde, Kinney, Val Verde, El Paso and Crockett counties.

Without a sizable shift in the vote margin after a recount in the most populous parts of the district, I have decided to end the recount, he said in a release.

The conclusion brought a sigh of relief from the Gonzales campaign, which has grown increasingly frustrated with delayed results. The 23rd District is a lot of ground to cover for any candidate: Stretching from San Antonio to El Paso, it includes 29 counties and 800 miles of the border with Mexico.

Plus, tight elections are becoming the norm in the district, where Hurd beat Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones by about 900 votes in 2018. In May 2019, she committed to running again in 2020, and she won the Democratic primary in March.

Hurd announced in August 2019 that he would not seek re-election. At that point, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated the race lean Democratic, which has not changed.

The postponed election and recount efforts created division and delay (that) is only helping Nancy Pelosi and Gina Jones, Mackowiak said.

Gonzales, a former Navy cryptologist, received President Donald Trumps endorsement early last month and has campaigned on a conservative platform touting his support of the Second Amendment, strict border regulations and support for small businesses. Reyes, who had been backed by U.S. Sen Ted Cruz, challenged him from the right.

As ballots were recounted this week, Jones released her second television ad, a 30-second hit called Issues in which she touts her support for national security, vocational training and broadband expansion. Her latest financial filing indicates that she has about $3 million on hand  considerably more than Gonzales, who has roughly $400,000 in his campaign coffers.

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton beat Trump in the 23rd District by 4 percentage points.

Jones campaign spokeswoman Sharon Yang said Friday that the Democrat is well-equipped to defeat either of them in a district President Trump lost and will lose again.

Reyes initiated the recount July 31 after a 45-ballot loss in the runoff. On Friday, the Gonzales campaign said it won by 42 votes; Reyes team had said the difference was 39 votes.
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 13:41 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f8761a 1 National Tempo,hacker,media-company,media-outlets,journalism Free

News site tempo.co from Tempo Media Group experienced a series of hacks from Thursday midnight to early Friday.

As reported by the site on Friday morning, tempo.co was not accessible on Thursday midnight, with a white screen that said 403 forbidden.

At 12:30 a.m., its homepage turned black and played Gugur Bunga, a national song honoring deceased heroes, for 15 minutes. The screen said, Stop Hoax, Dont LIE TO the Indonesian People, Return to true journalistic ethics [and] obey the press council. Dont [bow to] PEOPLE who PAY. Deface By @xdigeeembok.

When clicked, it led directly to the @xdigeeembok Twitter account, which has existed since July 2009 and has some 465,000 followers.

At 12:51 a.m., the Twitter account @xdigeeembok tweeted #KodeEtikJurnalistikHargaMati (#JournalismCodeofEthicsFixedPrice).

A number of Twitter users commented with screenshots of the hacked tempo.co site. The @xdigeeembok account replied to one of them, saying Intimate Warning.

At 1:24 a.m., the black screen turned white, with the message, Well be back soon!, followed by, Sorry for the inconvenience but were performing some maintenance at the moment. If you need to you can always contact us, otherwise, well be back online shortly! - The Team.

At 01:30 a.m., tempo.co was back to normal, with the site back to its usual appearance.

At 02:26 a.m., the site was once again attacked but five minutes later, the Tempo team took back the site.

On Friday morning, @xdigeeembok posted a number of tweets, claiming to be responsible for the hacks.

Just wait. I will stick boogers onto your system again, it replied to a Tempo article.

Tempo.co chief editor Setri Yasra confirmed the incident, saying that whether it was an attack or joke, such hacks could be dangerous as it interfered with journalistic activities and press freedom.

We condemn anyone who tries to interfere with the work of the media. Press products are not always perfect, but we have a controlled mechanism, we have a press council to go to, Setri told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Setri considered the hacks an attempt to silence the media, but the media group had yet to identify what had triggered the attack.

We feel that we dont have any special or exclusive [writing] on a theme. We just go with the flow, work and cover stories like other media outlets. All the more, our concentration right now is the pandemic.

Setri said the news company was still discussing the incident internally and conducting an internal audit of its Information and Technology (IT) security system, before determining whether or not to process the case legally.

Separately, National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) commissioner Choirul Anam said the hack was a serious threat to democracy and human rights in Indonesia, calling on authorities to track down those responsible.

If there is a hacking network, dismantling the network is imperative. Without maximum law enforcement and dismantling the network to its roots, this can turn into a scourge for the nation organizing its democracy and human rights, Choirul said in a statement on Friday.

Choirul argued that Tempo has delivered high-quality stories and information to the wider public under the journalism code of ethics. He hoped that Tempo and other media outlets would not be affected by this incident.
Figure 1

Location and Tenure

Location and Tenure

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Macarthur Minerals Limited (ASX: MIO) (TSX-V: MMS) (the Company or Macarthur) Joint Venture Partner, Fe Limited (FEL) has announced that it has entered into a binding Heads of Agreement to acquire a 50% interest in the Yarram Iron Ore Project in the Northern Territory.

The consideration is A$1.5m in cash and shares with a further A$1.5m in cash and shares payable on achieving a JORC indicated resource milestone. FEL is to cover certain historical and future costs. FEL will operate the Joint Venture and has a casting vote on the majority of key issues, with approval of other matters not to be unreasonably withheld.

Outstanding historical drill intercepts include:

108m @ 65.6% Fe, 2.3% SiO2, 1.8% Al2O3, 0.037% P from 18m in hole RJRC0119



65m @ 66.4% Fe, 2.0% SiO2, 1.5% Al2O3, 0.022% P from 13m in hole RJRC069

(hole finished in 65.9% Fe)





35m @ 62.9% Fe, 4.3% SiO2, 1.6% Al2O3, 0.045% P from 23m in hole RJRC0106

Yarram is located just over 100km by road from Darwin and is adjacent to the Browns Polymetallic project which is presently on care and maintenance. FEL is purchasing its interest from Gold Valley Iron and Manganese Pty Ltd which owns the iron ore rights over the Yarram area, which represents a portion of a mining licence (MLN 1163 and two exploration licences, ELR 125 and ELR 146). The Mining licence is located on Freehold land. The underlying tenure is owned by an unrelated party, Northern Territory Resources Pty Ltd, owner of the Browns Polymetallic project.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3ab95169-6f8f-4fbd-8339-1e4b57344667

A copy of FELs full news release (including supporting JORC Table 1) is available here .

Cameron McCall, President and Executive Chairman of Macarthur Minerals commented:

We are excited by the news that Fe Limited is acquiring a 50% interest in the Yarram Iron Ore Project. With the current robust iron ore market, FELs play for a mature iron ore asset like Yarram, which is located close to existing port and mining infrastructure, is a smart move. As Macarthur currently holds 26,666,667 Ordinary Shares in FEL (and pursuant to its Joint Venture Agreement with FEL, can earn a further $500,000 in cash or shares in FEL under the earn-in arrangements), the successful delivery of the Yarram Project by FEL and its joint venture partner, Gold Valley Iron and Manganese Pty Ltd, has the potential to form part of the continuing success story for Macarthur and its shareholders. We wish FEL and its management team well in the pursuit of its objective to bring Yarram into production.

Story continues

On behalf of the Board of Directors, Mr Cameron McCall, Executive Chairman

For more information please contact:

Joe Phillips CEO & Director +61 7 3221 1796 communications@macarthurminerals.com Investor Relations  Australia Investor Relations - Canada Advisir Investor Cubed Sarah Lenard, Partner Neil Simon, CEO sarah.lenard@advisir.com.au +1 647 258 3310 info@investor3.ca

Earn-in with Macarthur



Macarthur Lithium Pty Ltd (MLi), a wholly owned subsidiary of Macarthur entered into an exclusive option agreement (Option Agreement) with FEL as announced on May 14, 2019, to earn up to 75% in its Pilbara lithium and gold projects in respect of eight tenements in the Pilbara.

About Fe Limited

FE Limited (ASX: FEL) is a listed mineral exploration Company that holds or has rights or interests in various projects and tenements prospective for battery metals, copper, iron ore, gold and base metals located in Australia. The Company is focused on the exploration of battery metal projects. In March 2019, FEL entered into an agreement to acquire the Pippingarra Lithium Project and the Marble Bar Lithium Project from Mercury Resources Group Pty Ltd. These areas complement the tenement portfolio of Macarthur Minerals, establishing a 1,242 square kilometer exploration footprint in the important Lithium and Gold region of Western Australia.

Company profile

Macarthur is an iron ore development, gold and lithium exploration company that is focused on bringing to production its Western Australia iron ore projects. The Lake Giles Iron Project mineral resources include the Ularring hematite resource (approved for development) comprising Indicated resources of 54.5 million tonnes at 47.2% Fe and Inferred resources of 26 million tonnes at 45.4% Fe; and the Lake Giles magnetite resource of 53.9 million tonnes (Measured), 218.7 million tonnes (Indicated) and 997 million tonnes (Inferred). Macarthur has prominent (~721 square kilometer tenement area) gold, lithium and copper exploration interests in Pilbara region of Western Australia. In addition, Macarthur has lithium brine Claims in the emerging Railroad Valley region in Nevada, USA.

This news release is not for distribution to United States services or for dissemination in the United States

Caution Regarding Forward Looking Statements

Certain of the statements made and information contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including but not limited to statements regarding expected completion of the Feasibility Study; conversion of Mineral Resources to Mineral Reserves or the eventual mining of the Project, are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect the current expectations, assumptions or beliefs of the Company based upon information currently available to the Company. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct as actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include but are not limited to: unforeseen technology changes that results in a reduction in iron or magnetite demand or substitution by other metals or materials; the discovery of new large low cost deposits of iron magnetite; the general level of global economic activity; failure to complete the FS; inability to demonstrate economic viability of Mineral Resources; and failure to obtain mining approvals. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. Such statements relate to future events and expectations and, as such, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and except as may otherwise be required pursuant to applicable laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.




Jewish Academy of Orlando began the 2020-2021 school year on Monday, Aug. 17, after adding additional precautions to ensure a safe start. Some students began attending in-person with precautions in place while others participated in remote learning. The school will provide a blended learning model, utilizing both synchronous instruction (lessons that will be delivered simultaneously in the classroom and available for remote learning) and asynchronous instruction (recorded lessons that can viewed at a time of your choosing).

We are thrilled to welcome back our students  both those th...
Check-in is conditional on passing a temperature test and there is more paperwork to fill out now that contact details are needed for COVID-19 tracing programs. Travelling with a pen, always recommended, is now a must as pens were sparse to prevent unnecessary contact. Polignano a Mare in Bari, Puglia, southern Italy. Credit:Shutterstock Security was an improvement and worked much faster than normal as the conveyor line had been broken into compartments with perspex dividers so four people could stand to prepare hand luggage for screening. Sadly, a major downside of the new travel process is all the plastic. Just as some countries seemed to be making progress in drilling into the public the environmental horrors our single-use plastic dependence is wreaking on our oceans and wildlife, coronavirus has drastically set us back. British Airways flight attendants handed out plastic bags filled with sanitising wipes and gels which seemed unnecessary given that by the time you've entered and been through the terminal you've had the opportunity to sanitise your hands dozens of time.

Similarly, the in-flight food; a packet of chips, a pretzel snack and a small bottle of water was handed out in huge plastic bags. Sadly, it is also common to see the light-blue disposable medical face mask as litter on the ground. The plane itself appeared immaculately clean and everyone I saw wore their mask onboard. (You can take it off to eat and drink). Another excellent improvement was staggered disembarking ending the futile rush people make for the overhead lockers as soon as the seatbelt light goes off. Now, flight attendants call your rows for disembarking, giving everyone plenty of time to find their bags and leave the plane, reducing the amount of people you might come into contact with. This measure shouldn't have needed coronavirus and should we get a vaccine, I pray it will stay. It was easy to feel safe in Italy given its warm weather and alfresco lifestyle. Temperature testing was required as a condition of entry to the country, at times in shops, while masks were worn by everyone in shops and by waiters serving up delicious meals. Sanitiser was everywhere.

On the beach, life couldn't have been more normal, you could trade your mask for a swimsuit and Aperol Spritz. Because Europeans rent out beach space through loungers or day beds, the system already works to cap numbers and prevent crowds on the sands, as well as providing you with your own designated spot with plenty of space. I had thought I might be the only one keen to travel as soon as government rules allowed after lockdown but far from being deserted, parts of Puglia were pumping. One balmy evening in Otranto, we began the search for dinner at 9pm and were turned away everywhere we went. We finally landed a table at 10.30. Flying home into London was a stark contrast. Whereas the flight to Bari had been full, the return leg sported just 40 passengers and I had the entire row to myself.

Despite signs warning us to have our UK government tracing forms completed and ready to show Border Force, there was no-one checking whether you had filled it in or not and I was through the e-gates and out of the terminal in about 20 minutes. In Bari we were temperature tested upon landing, but there were no tests for arrivals at Heathrow. The stream of tourism certainly felt one-way, and not in Britain's direction. Central London remains a ghost town, even more so after seeing the bustle of Puglian life. The Italian experience felt like a trial run of how life coexisting with coronavirus might look.

Aside from our AirBnB host attempting to charge an extra 70 ($115) for "COVID-cleaning", on top of the 70 prepaid in the original bill, Puglians were extremely hospitable and although we were one of the few foreigners among the holidaying Italians, we were only asked once, and on the final day, where we were from and what things were like in the UK regarding coronavirus. Italy's gamble may be a mistake. Puglians returning from Greece, Spain, Croatia and Malta are now asked to quarantine. Only time and case numbers will tell us for sure, whether reopening faster than Australia was better for its economic and public health. But if auditions are underway to see who can be the first to demonstrate how to live safely alongside COVID-19 then plucky Puglia is certainly leading the way.
Batman fans rejoice! Or rather, Ben Affleck fans rejoice! The actor will don his cape and cowl once more as the sorely missed "Batman."

He is not getting his own film, but fans will be treated to the next best thing: seeing Ben Affleck as Batman alongside "The Flash."

Affleck is joining Ezra Miller's "The Flash," produced by Warner Bros. The director of the show, Andy Muschietti, confirmed the news himself.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Muschietti revealed that the script is already in the actor's hands. It was given to him last week, and Ben already said yes to being part of the project.

The last time Affleck donned the cape was back in 2017, when he joined "Justice League."

"The Flash" will be featuring Miller's Barry Allen traversing different parallel dimensions so he can meet different DC heroes in various timilines. It has certainly an exciting premise, which is made more thirlling by the fact that there will be two Batmans!

Aside from Ben Affleck's version, Micheal Keaton -- who played Batman in Tim Burton's 1989 flick -- will also appear in the project.

Batman Is Special For Ben Affleck

Batman has always been special for Affleck. He was even planning to direct and star in a standalone Batman movie for Warner Bos in 2017, but he stepped down before even starting. The directing of the project was given to Matt Reeves instead.

On the other hand, the acting part was given to Robert Pattinson.

Affleck was honest enough to admit that he had to give up on the big project of both directing and acting because he had a problem staying sober. However, that was three years ago.

Also, he truly made a mark in how he handed the superhero role. Muschietti, the director of "It" movies for Warner Bros., praised the actor's Batman version.

"His Batman has a dichotomy that is very strong, which is his masculinity - because of the way he looks, and the imposing figure that he has, and his jawline - but he's also very vulnerable," he explained.

The director added that given the right story, Ben Affleck would not have a problem in delivering "from the inside out," showing Batman's both tough and vulnerable side.

A True Batman

Cheesy as this sounds, but Affleck can treat himself as a superhero if he wants to. He bravely addressed his alcoholism problem, which a lot of people with the same issue could not. He opened up about how it ruined his life, creating marital problems that ultimately ended in divorce.

Affleck said he never wanted and never could imagine getting a divorce. Nonetheless, it happened all because he could not control his drinking.

Talking with Good Morning America, he shared how he started drinking so much that it has become a nightly thing for him the point of oblivion. That was in 2017, when he canceled his vision for Batman. In 2018, he checked himself into rehab so he can kick this addiction out.

His experience is not something to emulate, but it is certainly one can learn from. Superheroes usually had such rough pasts, too. He may be an alcoholic in the past, but this is not a reason for fans to stop adoring him.

If anything, they should look up to how he finally gotten his act together once more. The fact that he said yes to this project means he is now confident that he can stay sober for good.

READ MORE: Ben Affleck Love: Ana de Armas Suprises Boyfriend With Incredible Gift!
Prague, Aug 21 : India's challenge at the ongoing ATP Challenger Prague Open came to an end after all the three players -- Sumit Nagal, Divij Sharan and N Sriram Balaji -- suffered defeats in their respective singles and doubles matches.

Top-seeded Sharan and Robin Haase lost their quarterfinal clash 3-6, 6-7(8) to Jiri Lehecka and Tomas MacHac on Thursday, thus bowing out of the competition.

In other match, Balaji and his partner Kimmer Coppejans also suffered a straight-sets defeat in their last-8 clash as they went down 4-6, 3-6 to Steven Diez and Blaz Rola.

Earlier in the day, Nagal suffered a 6-2, 0-6, 1-6 defeat to world no. 17 Stan Wawrinka to bow out of the singles event.

Nagal, who faced Wawrinka's illustrious fellow countryman Roger Federer at the 2019 US Open and took a set off him as well, had the upper hand in the first set but could hardly compete in the second and third.

"It was a tough start again," said Wawrinka after the match as per the ATP Tour website. "I was not feeling the ball very well and it was flying a lot on me. Again, it's good to win another match and to do it in three sets gives me more time on the court. It's all positive." Nagal, who then featured in the doubles quarterfinal with his partner Belarusian Ilya Ivashka, lost 2-6, 4-6 to Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Arthur Rinderknech.
A sickening video has captured the moment a group of students assaulted a black teenager in a racially motivated attack.

The footage was taken at the Parramatta Marist High School at Westmead, in Sydney's Western Suburbs.

The 20 second video features several teenage boys kicking and punching another student, with one making reference to the 'George Floyd Challenge'.

The boy filming laughs as he repeatedly urges the other students to 'get that mother******'

A 'sickening' video shows a group of students assaulting a black teenager in a racially motivated attack

'Get him boys, get him boys!' he says.

Another screams 'George Floyd Challenge,' as he jumps on the student.

All the while the teenager lays on the grass begging his attackers to get off him.

When they're done, a student calls him a n**** and they leave the victim curled up on the grass in pain with no shoes on.

The clip was circulated among students on Snapchat and Whatsapp.

A parent who witnessed the clip described it as 'sickening' and condemned the behaviour in an area known for its multicultural community.

One student calls the boy a n**** before the group leaves the victim curled up on the grass in pain with no shoes on

'This is disgusting and the language has no place with young people,' he told 7 News.

The Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta has since referred the incident to the police.

'We are appalled by the conduct of these students and that racist and offensive language was used during this incident,' it said.

The diocese said it had no tolerance for violence and harassment among students.

The boys involved have been suspended from attending school while investigations are ongoing.

The school is providing support for the victim and says they are in close contact with the student's family.

Footage was taken at the Parramatta Marist High School (pictured) at Westmead, in Sydney's Western Suburbs

A punishment will be determined for those involved to reflect the severity of the incident once the investigation concludes.

The George Floyd Challenge emerged on Snapchat in June after the 46-year-old was killed by a white police officer.

Mostly white males have been sharing images and videos as they kneel on the necks of their friends.

The vile trend developed after the death of Floyd, 46, when police officer Derek Chauvin put a knee in his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, ignoring his cries of I cant breathe.
Nigeria Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said on Thursday that his country will ban flights from those countries refusing Nigerian flights permission to land due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent restrictive measures imposed.

Sirika told reporters: The principle of reciprocity will be applied. If you ban us from coming to your country, the same will apply the other way.

However, a spokesperson for the minister clarified that Sirika wasn't referring to banning citizens of these countries, rather meant that landing permits won't be issued to aircraft coming from those countries that have banned Nigerian carriers.

Follow all the latest coronavirus-related news in Africa via our dedicated live blog

Nigeria drafting no-flight list

The director-general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that authorities were still drafting the list of countries whose carriers won't be granted permission to land in Nigeria, adding that European Union countries are among those barring Nigerian flights.

Nigerian authorities earlier this week declared their intention to resume international flights on 29 August following a suspension that lasted for almost 5 months. All international flights (except for essential or repatriation flights) have been suspended since March.

The country will start with four daily international flights landing in Lagos and Abuja airports, with Sirika revealing that the number of passengers landing in Nigeria would be initially limited to 1,280 a day.

Nigeria has reported more than 51,000 Covid-19 cases so far with 989 people losing their lives to the disease.
WASHINGTON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - The United States is prepared to block Russia and China from any attempts to violate sanctions on Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, one day after Washington moved to restore sanctions imposed on Tehran by the United Nations.

Pompeo, in an interview on Fox News, also said Washington was disappointed that its allies did not support the U.S. effort to push for a "snapback" of U.N. sanctions, including an arms embargo, after what the Trump administration said was Iran's violation of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Ahmann)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:47:26|Editor: huaxia

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CHICAGO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Midwestern state of Michigan has produced a 600-million-U.S.-dollar settlement for more than 33,000 Flint water victims as a result of a water switch in April 2014, local media reported Thursday.

According to the agreement, the victims will not receive payouts from the settlement equally. The amount of the payment will be "based on a formula that directs more money to younger claimants and to those who can prove greater injury," the Detroit News reported.

The formula will be further outlined when the settlement is approved.

The settlement is expected to cover all Flint children who were younger than 18 at the time of the water switch as well as adults who were personally injured by lead contamination or Legionnaires' Disease or whose property was damaged.

So far, 33,459 people have filed a claim or intend to bring a claim, the Detroit News quoted Attorney General of Michigan Dana Nessel's office as saying, adding the number is expected to grow.

The Flint water crisis started in April 2014, when a cost-cutting decision diverted the city's water source from treated Detroit Water to the polluted Flint River.

The corrosive Flint River water caused lead from aging pipes to leak into the water supply, resulting in extremely elevated levels of the heavy metal neurotoxin and exposing over 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.

The city switched back to the Detroit water system in October 2015. Enditem
President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday expressed grief at the loss of lives in Srisailam hydroelectric plant fire tragedy in which nine persons were killed.

The incident took place late on August 20 night in the plant on the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border. At least 17 people were inside the hydroelectric plant and eight of them managed to come out, officials said.

President Ram Nath Kovind said he was pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident. "Pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I wish speedy recovery for the injured," Kovind tweeted.

Pained by the loss of lives in the tragic fire accident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. I wish speedy recovery for the injured.  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 21, 2020

Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 21, 2020

Distressed by the loss of lives in a fire incident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.  Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) August 21, 2020

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, PM Modi called the tragedy as "deeply unfortunate" and hoped that the injured recover at the earliest. "Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest," the prime minister said in a tweet.

The Vice President tweeted, "Distressed by the loss of lives in a fire incident at Srisailam hydroelectric plant in Telangana. My thoughts are with the bereaved families."

Initial reports indicated that a short circuit led to an explosion resulting in a huge fire and a thick layer of smoke later engulfed the entire spot.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has ordered a CID investigation into the fire. News agency PTI quoted Nagarkurnool District Collector as saying that nine people have died in the Srisailam hydel power plant fire mishap. According to reports, Additional DGP Govind Singh will head the CID investigation into the incident.

CISF experts along with other officials of the Telangana government are carrying out the search and rescue operations. The CISF had despatched a 39 member Fire Rescue and Disaster Management team led by Commandant Siddarth Raha. The team is equipped with fire-fighting equipment from the CISF's National Industrial Security Academy at Hakimpet to the Srisailem Dam fire site following a requisition from the DG, Fire Services, Telangana with the consent of DG, CISF and orders of Director NISA CV ANAND.

The team left at 8:35 am from NISA and covered a 245-km journey to reach the dam fire site at 1 PM. They have played an active role in removing the bodies from the tunnel and controlling the fire and smoke.
Some Executives of the Greater Accra Regional body of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Thursday, 20th August, 2020 paid a visit to the "Ga Mantse" palace in Accra.

The visit which was led by the speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon.Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye was to officially introduce the newly elected leaders of the regional wing of the party to the overlord of the land and seek his blessings.

The Regional Chairman of the NPP Mr Divine Otoo Agorhom, in an exclusive interview with this portal after the meeting, stated that it was necessary for the campaign team of the party to pay homage to the rulers of the land ahead of the December 2020 general elections.

"After our regional election on Wednesday, the council of elders thought it wise to pay a special visit to the overlord of the land, this was also important because they are the owners of the land and we needed their blessing before we begin our campaign tour," Mr Divine stated.

He stressed that, "The interaction was a success and the Ga Mantse and his entourage gave us their blessings and has assured us of their strong support during and after the campaign and the elections."

He however, urged Ghanaians to cast their vote for Nana Akufo Addo come December 7 in order to continue the developmental works he has started.

"We want to encourage Ghanaians to do the right thing and vote for Nana Akufo Addo, because if you look at the wonderful works he is doing, building of schools, hospitals, roads, restoring of teachers and nurses allowance, creating jobs for the youths and others.

"His Excellency Nana Akufo Addo has done a lot for Ghana and we urge all to give him the renewal. We the regional executives across the country are also doing the needful, so I am sure Ghanaians will look at the good works of NPP and give us another term," he posited.

The former Member of Parliament for Ayawaso Central under Kufour's administration Sheikh I.C Quaye, who also led the delegation stated that the NPP will keep working together with the chiefs and kings before and after the elections.

"We are here to introduce ourselves and moreover we will still keep working with all the overlords of the land and this, we will make sure that there is peace among the chiefs.

"When I was the Regional minister, we made sure we restored all the lands that were taken by unknown people, we have been able to reclaim some and it will continue," Sheikh I.C Quaye intimated.

The speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye, in his speech, advised the chiefs to stay focused and help push the agenda of the NPP and Nana Akufo-Addo.

"We want to let you know that we are one and don't allow anyone to mislead you. Let us all walk the talk together. If you look at the transparency and good works of President Akufo Addo, you will all testify. So let us all embrace each other, we will work with you and make the Ga Traditional council proud. We will involve you in all our activities and I think these will make us grow together," Rt. Hon. Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye stressed.

The "Ga Mantse" in his remarks acknowledged the efforts of the regional executives of the NPP and advised its members to keep a cool and peaceful campaign as well as the elections.
MOSCOW - Before his flight to Moscow departed, Alexei Navalny sipped a cup of tea at a cafe in Russia's Tomsk airport. Later, the prominent Kremlin critic was moaning in pain, prompting an emergency landing with an ambulance waiting to race him to intensive care.

The drama Thursday in Siberia left Navalny in a coma and doctors offering scant public information about the cause. But his spokeswoman and others had no hesitation, speculating that the 44-year-old activist was the latest foe of President Vladimir Putin to be poisoned - perhaps in the tea he drank at the airport cafe.

Even with many questions still unanswered, the stricken Navalny quickly became a rallying point for Russian opposition groups and others who accuse Putin's government of plots to silence its foes, including similar poisonings in the past.

Navalny's possible poisoning also could open new rifts with the West, where Navalny is among the best-known opposition figures in Russia. A German medical team was ready to transport Navalny from Russia for treatment.

Doctors in the Siberian city of Omsk had Navalny on a respirator.

In Washington, President Donald Trump said his administration was looking into the possible poisoning, and national security adviser Robert O'Brien called the incident "extraordinarily concerning."

"If the Russians were behind this . . . it's something that we're going to factor into how we deal with the Russians going forward," O'Brien told Fox News in an interview.

Navalny once ran for mayor of Moscow and faced arrest multiple times for leading street protests. He also has angered Putin and his oligarch allies with a popular YouTube channel that discloses alleged corruption and extravagant excesses.

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, asserted on Twitter: "This is Putin."

"Whether he personally gave the order or not, the blame is entirely with him," she added.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that an investigation will be opened "if [Navalny] was actually poisoned," adding that he wished Navalny a "speedy recovery, just like any other citizen of our country."

For Navalny's backers, parallels were immediately drawn with other cases of apparent retaliation against Kremlin opponents.

In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former spy and prominent dissident, died of polonium-210 poisoning in London, identifying Putin as responsible while in his hospital bed. The polonium was in his tea.

More recently, Sergei Skripal, a former double agent, and his adult daughter, Yulia, were poisoned in 2018, after they came into contact with a deadly Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok.

Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the Pussy Riot protest group, accused Russian military intelligence for his suspected poisoning in 2018. He wrote on Twitter Thursday that both his and Navalny's alleged poisoning were "certainly sanctioned personally by Putin."

"In Russia, operations of this level are not carried out without the consent of the first person," he said.

The chief doctor for the Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1, where Navalny is in the intensive care unit for toxicology patients, told the state-run Tass news agency that Navalny was in serious condition. Another physician at the hospital, Anatoli Kalinichenko, told local reporters that "there is no certainty that the cause of Navalny's condition is poisoning."

"Doctors are working to save his life," Kalinichenko said, adding that Navalny is "stable."

Yaroslav Ashikhmin, Navalny's longtime physician, told the Russian news outlet Meduza that the opposition leader "needs to be taken to Europe" for treatment because a Western clinic had a higher chance of identifying what might have poisoned him. Yarmysh said the Omsk hospital had yet to offer a diagnosis.

An ambulance aircraft with a team specialized in treating coma patients is due to leave Germany to pick up the stricken Navalny, Berlin-based human rights activist Jaka Bizilj told the German Bild newspaper.

But it's unclear whether Navalny will be released because of possible complications in paperwork to transfer out of the country. When Navalny's wife arrived to visit him, she was initially denied because she didn't have a marriage license with her to prove their relationship, Yarmysh said. She was later permitted to see him.

Yarmysh said she suspects a poisonous substance was slipped into Navalny's tea because it "was the only thing Alexei drank this morning," she wrote on Twitter.

The manager of the Tomsk airport coffee shop where Navalny drank the tea told the Interfax news agency that he is "looking into all circumstances and studying [security camera] footage."

In one video, shot during the flight and later posted to social media, Navalny can be heard moaning in pain.

Navalny traveled to Tomsk to meet with activists and opposition candidates for regional elections next month. Navalny and his allies have encouraged voters to back anti-Kremlin candidates as a message of discontent over Russia's sagging economy and the unchecked power of Putin, who has the potential to stay in office until 2036 under constitutional changes approved this year.

A year ago, Navalny was hospitalized with an "acute allergic reaction" a week after being detained, and at the time, Yarmysh said he may have been affected by an unknown chemical substance, citing a physician who observed Navalny at the hospital. In 2017, Navalny was attacked with an antiseptic green dye that damaged vision in one of his eyes.

Navalny, who was barred from running for president in 2018, has frequently been jailed and harassed. In March, authorities seized the contents of his bank account as well as the accounts of his wife, son and daughter. Last month, Navalny was forced to close his Anti-Corruption Foundation because of a lawsuit filed by oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a close associate of Putin. The foundation exposed graft and other wrongdoing by Russia's elite for more than a decade, making Navalny an even bigger target for attacks.

In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia's arrests and detention of Navalny from 2012 to 2014 violated his rights and appeared to be part of a broader effort "to bring the opposition under control." Moscow disagreed with the decision.
The primary way the novel coronavirus spreads, according to health experts, is through close contact with people who are infected. Being in proximity with someone who has the coronavirus exposes you to the respiratory droplets emitted when the person coughs, sneezes or even speaks.

What if you're close enough to smell someone's secondhand smoke, or pass through a cloud of smoke on your way into a store? Does that expose you to the coronavirus, if the smoker happens to be infected?

There is little evidence to suggest the smoke itself could be carrying the coronavirus, but researchers and physicians say that merely being able to smell someone's cigarette is a warning sign you're breathing air that was just in someone else's lungs.

William Ristenpart, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California at Davis who researches how pathogens are transported, told The Washington Post that the smoke particles themselves are unlikely to be carrying a virus that could infect other people. This is partly because the heat from the cigarette would probably kill the virus, but also because "a large fraction of the smoke particulates go into your lungs, never hit anything, and then are exhaled," Ristenpart said.

But there is reason to be concerned about transmission if you get a whiff of someone's smoke - the respiratory particles that come along with it.

"If you smell somebody else's exhaled cigarette smoke, then you are inhaling air that was in that person's lungs," Ristenpart said. "This means you could also be inhaling their virus-laden respiratory particles, which are composed of respiratory mucosa rather than ash."

Research is still inconclusive on whether the coronavirus can be transmitted in airborne particles, but the hypothesis is gaining traction. While the main source of transmission is believed to be large respiratory droplets - which do not hang around in the air for long before falling to the ground - some believe that certain outbreaks could have only been possible if the virus can be suspended in air.

A group of prominent scientists in July pointed to "superspreading" events, during which an infectious person unwittingly spreads it to many others, as evidence shows the virus is being transmitted long distances through the air in far smaller and more numerous particles.

This has implications not just about what's wafting around in exhaled cigarette smoke but about the hazards of indoor settings as well. William Nazaroff, an environmental engineer from the University of California at Berkeley, believes the coronavirus can be airborne and suggests we should consider modifying indoor ventilation systems to filter or kill the virus.

"It has to do with the plume of what is emitted and the extent it can infringe on your breathing zone," Nazaroff told The Post's Ariana Eunjung Cha.

Smokers also need to remove their masks to take a puff. Being around people who aren't wearing masks is inherently a risk, but on top of that, smokers tend to exhale more forcefully, according to Herman Gatzambide, a pulmonary specialist in Orlando who was interviewed by WFLA. Someone who isn't smoking may only project respiratory particles six feet, but it could be more like 10 or 12 feet for someone who is smoking.

"Not only are they potentially spreading virus by not wearing a mask, they are blowing those droplets to the people around them to potentially get infected," Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, told the Associated Press.

Ristenpart said smelling someone's cigarette smoke "serves as a proxy to warn you that, 'Hey, I might be breathing in that person's virus.'"

Smokers themselves are also at higher risk of severe illness from covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking increases the risk of illness because it impairs lung function and makes it more difficult for the body to respond to respiratory infection.

Recent studies have shown young adults who smoke, even if they don't have other underlying health conditions, are more susceptible to severe symptoms, intensive care admissions and even death.

- - -

The Washington Post's Ariana Eunjung Cha contributed to this report.
No Time To Die has raised the excitement level of fans not only because it marks Daniel Craig's final appearance as Bond, but because it also stars Oscar winning Rami Malek as the Bond Villain.



A new still has been released recently that gives a fresh look at Rami's character in the movie.

His character will don a mask and will have facial scars.

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It is said that in majority of the film, he will wear a mask that covers most of his face. What caused those scars, remains to be seen.

The villains isn't a religious fundamentalist or Arab-speaking terrorist.

Twitter

"I said, 'We cannot identify him with any act of terrorism reflecting an ideology or a religion. That's not something I would entertain, so if that is why I am your choice, then you can count me out", he said adding that Safin is a "very different kind of terrorist."

His role as great Mercury influenced his performance as Bond villain.

Twitter

"If I went in there and tried to make a carbon copy of someone, what joy or fun would that be for anybody? I guess that may be a lesson I learned from Mr. Mercury."

"If it's not original, then why bother? I've pocketed some things from some of my favourites. But I tried to every day imbue this character with something I thought made sense for the character, but might also at the same time be shocking and unnerving," he was quoted as saying by Empire.



Among other cast members who return from recent films in the franchise are Ben Whishaw as Q, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Christoph Waltz as Blofeld, Ralph Fiennes as M, and Naomie Harris as M's secretary Moneypenny. The movie is slated to release in November.


Sunil Grover has returned to the small screen with a new show titled Gangs of Filmistan alongside Shilpa Shinde, Upasna Singh, Sugandha Mishra among other comedians. The new Star Bharat venture is a laugh riot inspired by Bollywood and it will have Sunil in a never-seen-before avatar.

The actor-comedian recently opened up about why actors should be willing to take a pay cut given the current economic downturn thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said, "I feel that in the current scenario, we need to accept a pay cut; what matters is going out and working."

For the unversed, Sunil who became a household name after his stint on Comedy Nights With Kapil followed by The Kapil Sharma Show also revealed if he will make a comeback as Gutthi on Kapil's show in a media report.

The 41-year-old said, "I am not reprising Gutthi. If Kapil and I are destined to work with each other again, we will. But, as of now, there are no such plans. Also, it is common for people to ask me something about Kapil, whenever I am doing a show. We do occasionally talk to each other. A lot of time has passed since I exited his show, and time changes many things."

ALSO READ: Sunil Grover & Shilpa's Gangs Of Filmistan Promo Out; Here's What You Can Expect From First Episode

ALSO READ: Sunil Grover On Sushant Singh Rajputs Demise: His Family Is Demanding Justice & They Should Get It
Tesla, the new movie about Nikola Tesla written and directed by Michael Almereyda, reuniting the Hamlet filmmaker with Ethan Hawke, is the most detailed cinematic treatment of the life of the eccentric inventor so far. Teslas careervisionary work with alternating current, followed by decades of bold claims that rarely panned outis tailor-made to inspire urban legends, but Almereyda sticks to reputable sources, and for all its metatextual gimmicks, his film is an attempt at a biography or character sketch, not an exercise in myth-building. Still, the movie invents some scenes, rearranges many events, and raises as many questions as it answers. Below, weve consulted multiple biographies of Tesla and Thomas Edison, the engineers own articles, and several other sources to sort out how Tesla compares with the historical record.

Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke)

Tesla is built around Hawkes performance as the brooding inventor, but its not a cradle-to-grave portrait: Almereyda covers Teslas life between 1884, when he went to work for Thomas Edison, and 1905 or so, when his research at Wardenclyffe Tower in New York came to an end. The film is stuffed to the gills with Tesla facts, and those facts are more or less accurate, but the real focus is interior.

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Hawkes Tesla is brilliant but psychologically tortured, suffering from some combination of what we might now call germaphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, in addition to many other peculiar troubles for which we might not have diagnoses even now. All of this checks out. In an autobiographical sketch Tesla published in Electrical Experimenter in February 1919, Tesla wrote of his many strange likes, dislikes, and habits, noting, I would not touch the hair of other people except, perhaps, at the point of a revolver and All repeated acts or operations I performed had to be divisible by three and if I mist I felt impelled to do it all over again, even if it took hours. He also wrote of a violent aversion against the earrings of women, saying, The sight of a pearl would almost give me a fit. If anything, Hawke underplays Teslas tics and maladies, although we do see him reacting violently to a string of pearls.

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Tesla is unusual in that it also dramatizes one of the less visible aspects of his personality: his visual imagination, to which Tesla credited much of his skill at invention. In Tesla, this manifests in two ways: occasional conversations with people who are not there and intrusions from the modern world of electrical conveniences (and inconveniences) Tesla helped usher in.

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As for Teslas sexuality and his personal life, the details have been lost to history, occasionally on purpose. As Tesla biographer W. Bernard Carlson reports, one member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, in a 1956 interview, applauded this historical amnesia for the sake of the AIEE, since it would bury Teslas reputation for voyeurism which was embarrassing to the older members. The AIEE member didnt get specific, but he did say, The stories of Teslas sexual episodes were at one time the talk of the Institute and, You must be aware, of course, that he never went out with women.

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In other words, the biopic, which leaves it ambiguous whether Tesla was gay, bisexual, asexual, or some other orientation altogether, accurately reflects the fuzziness of the historical record. Similarly, Tesla really did have a very close friendship with his fellow engineer Anthony Szigeti, who traveled with him to Paris and then to New York, and Szigeti really did invent a nautical compass that Tesla informed him had already been independently developed by Sir William Thomson, but whether the relationship was more than platonic remains unclear. Tesla also had a later close friendship with Spanish-American War hero Richmond Pearson Hobson, though thats not seen in the film. Any attraction to actress Sarah Bernhardt, meanwhile, seems less likely: His first biographer and friend John ONeill maintained women were all double duds to him.

Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan)

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Edisons rivalry with Tesla is an enormous part of most pop-culture portraits of the two men, and one of the trickiest things for Tesla to navigate. This Drunk History episode is a classic example of the conventional framing, in which Tesla is the hero and Edison the villain:

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Tesla treats the relationship with slightly more nuance, while still providing a certain amount of Tesla fan service. The movie references the popular notion, for instance, that Edison cheated Tesla out of $50,000. This has been extrapolated from a passage in one of Teslas articles in the magazine Electrical Experimenter about his time working for Edison, in which an unnamed Manager does promise that sum but later claims it to be a practical joke, but the Manager in that passage is not necessarily (or even probably) Thomas Edison. Still, itd make for a better story if it were, so thats usually how its presented.

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We first meet Teslas Edison telling his employees a story about the death of his childhood friend George Lockwood, and its much how the real Edison remembered it 50 years after the fact:

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When I was a small boy at Milan, and about five years old, I and the son of the proprietor of the largest store in the town, whose age was about the same as mine, went down in a gully on the outskirts of the town to swim in a small creek. After playing in the water a while, the boy with me disappeared in a creek. I waited around for him to come up but as it was getting dark I concluded to wait no longer and went home. Some time in the night I was awakened and asked about the boy. It seems the whole town was out with lanterns and had heard that I was last seen with him. I told them how I had waited and waited, etc. They went to the creek and pulled out his body.

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You can find a lot of MacLachlans detached performance in that passage, and most of the rest of it in Edisons reaction to the death of his first wife, Mary Stilwell Edison. The circumstances of her death are slightly murky, but the most likely cause was an accidental morphine overdose. Edisons feelings about his first wifes death are murkier than its causes: He almost never spoke about her after she died, although biographer Edmund Morris notes that that wasnt unusual: Henry Adams and Theodore Roosevelt and the other dumbstruck widowers of the time acted similarly.

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Edisons second wife, Mina Miller Edison, shows up more or less true to life in Tesla, although her and her husbands meet cute is slightly altered for the screen. The film shows Mina asking Edison to teach her Morse code, which he is supposed to have used to propose to her. This is charming but also compatible with Teslas portrait of Edison as a cold fish. What actually happened at their first meeting was that Mina played piano horribly and sang off-key, which sparked Edisons curiosity because, as he later put it, I could not help being interested immediately in anyone who would play and sing without hesitation, when they did it as badly as that. Thatd be a funnier and slightly more human Edison than a Tesla biopic can probably support, but Tesla gets points for giving him any private life at all.

Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson)

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Anne Morgan serves as the films narrator and delivers a large part of the exposition, and whenever shes in that role, the facts of her life are treated extremely loosely: She did not have a Mac laptop or hang out at Teslas experimental station in Colorado Springs comparing the number of Google search results for various historical figures.

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In her non-narrator role, shes closer to the real thing, although her feelings for Tesla are probably exaggerated. In Margaret Cheneys 1981 biography Tesla: Man out of Time, she mentions a rumor circulating that Anne Morgan had a schoolgirl crush on Tesla as well as another report that she threw herself at him. The films Anne Morgan seems to have been extrapolated from those clues, but if Tesla broke Morgans heart in the real world as he does in the film, theres not much in the historical record about it. The movie also gives a glimpse of Morgans post-Tesla life in France with Bessie Marbury, a detail that suggests that perhaps Tesla was not the love of her life. (Marbury was gay, and it seems Morgan was as well.)

George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan)

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George Westinghouses business dealings with Tesla are accurately depicted in Tesla, with a few allowances for dramatic compression. Its true, as the film shows, that when Westinghouse ran into financial troubles, his backers asked him to terminate his contract with Tesla. Its also true that Tesla supposedly tore up the contract himself, out of loyalty to Westinghouse. Its not true, however, that J.P. Morgan was behind these machinations. The movie only has room for one avatar for rapacious capitalism, but in real life it was August Belmont. Also, Westinghouses bid to provide AC power at the Chicago Columbian Exposition wasnt hanging in the balance. The biggest thing Tesla gets right that many fictional portraits get wrong is that Westinghouse, not Tesla, was Edisons opponent in the war of the currents, the business and PR battle over the safest and most practical electrical format for home and industrial use.

The Execution of William Kemmler (Blake DeLong)

A montage structured around the execution of William Kemmler stands in for most of the war of the currents. Kemmler, a peddler who killed his wife with a hatchet, was the first person ever scheduled to be executed in an electric chair, and that chair was going to run on Westinghouses alternating current. Kemmlers lawyers appealed, saying it was cruel and unusual punishment, and Westinghouse, sensing an impending PR disaster, helped fund his defense. Edison testified in the casehis dialogue in this sequence of Tesla comes straight from the court transcriptsand Kemmler lost the appeal. His execution was a fiasco. (In the movie, his character reads aloud from the New York Times account.) Suffice it to say they eventually succeeded in cooking Kemmlers brain.

J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz)

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The facts of John Pierpont Morgans life, as shown in Tesla, are accurate. He invested $150,000 in Teslas research at Wardenclyffe, then cut Tesla off when his experiments didnt seem to be going anywhere. Tesla wrote him a series of letters asking for more funds and making increasingly grandiose claims about his research, to no effect, and some of the text of these letters shows up verbatim in the script.

Still, the most important question Tesla raises about J.P. Morgan is a simple one. Just how deformed was his nose, anyway? Super-duper deformed, it turns out! Morgan suffered from rhinophyma, a severe form of rosacea that causes a red, bumpy, and bulbous nose, a condition he managed to keep out of his official portraits and photographs. If youd like to learn more about J.P. Morgans nose, check out Karl Smallwoods article J.P. Morgan and His Giant, Knobbly, Purple Nose, which may or may not be the best research on the topic but is definitely the best headline.

Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan)

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Actress Sarah Bernhardt is depicted more or less faithfully in Tesla in terms of the broad details of her lifeshe really did sleep in that coffin!but her connections with both Tesla and Edison have been exaggerated a little. She really did visit Edison at Menlo Park in 1880, as seen in the film, where she made a recording on Edisons thenstate-of-the-art tinfoil phonograph, though its exact contents are unknown. (In Tesla, she is seen reciting lines from a 1998 translation of Phedre into a wax cylinder recorder. That recording exists, but its in French.)

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As for Bernhardts connections with Tesla, there is a rumor she once dropped a handkerchief at Teslas feet, and that he returned it without recognizing her and continued his conversation. Tesla knew her socially in the 1890s and attended at least one party she threw, although he didnt have an awkward run-in with Edison there. Later in the film, Bernhardt meets with Tesla in Colorado while on her second worldwide farewell touror was it her third? according to Anne Morgans voice-over, but this never happened. (She performed in Colorado on a farewell tour, but years after Tesla left.) Meanwhile, her thoughts about loveSuppose you had to cut your head off and give it to someone else. What difference would it make? This is what love is likecome from Robert Blys 1976 translation of the work of 15th-century poet Kabir. Like Tesla, she truly was ahead of her time!

Tears for Fears

British pop band Tears for Fears was formed in 1981 by musicians Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, both of whom were born in 1961, 18 years after Teslas death. By the time the band released their smash hit Everybody Wants to Rule the World, hed been dead for more than four decades, which makes it unlikely that Tesla ever heard the song, much less performed an off-key karaoke version of it, as he does in Tesla.
Thousands of evacuees fleeing more than 300 fires rampaging through the Bay Area and across Northern California are being forced to make quick decisions about where to go and what to do after the coronavirus pandemic forced dramatic changes in emergency procedures.

Shelters and evacuation centers, where large groups normally gather, have become a last resort for emergency workers and residents fleeing the flames, as many are reluctant to crowd inside with strangers for fear of spreading the virus.

The shelters will be open, but we are really trying to encourage people to have a plan for a safe place to go, said Jennifer Adrio, chief executive officer for the Red Cross in Northern Californias coastal region, which placed 303 evacuees in hotels and 470 more in nine emergency shelters Wednesday night. The first thing we would do is send people to a hotel, but there are only so many hotels. Thats why there are shelters open.

The limited number of hotel rooms is why Dennis Hartman and his fiancee left their home in Deer Park, near the town of Angwin in Napa County, about an hour before the actual evacuation order. Hoping to beat the crowds scrambling for rooms, they booked a hotel for an indefinite period.

Hartman, 62, said COVID-19 wasnt a concern for the couple because they had both recently recovered from the disease. But now the fire was kicking them when they were down.

I keep joking that 2020 is The Hunger Games at home edition, he said, laughing behind his N95 mask. It just keeps coming.

Fearful of staying in a shelter or unable to pay for hotels, some people are sleeping in their cars or in campgrounds.

Im camping in the Prius! laughed Cheryl Jarvis, 69, as she rearranged the pillows in her Toyota Prius in the parking lot of the Vacaville Community Center. Its not real comfortable, but Im so tired it didnt matter.

Jarvis evacuated her home at 4 a.m. Tuesday, after sheriffs deputies banged on her door. The photos of her late mother and father and the clothes she grabbed as the orange glow of the fire moved closer filled up her trunk.

On Wednesday evening, 30 people stayed at the community center, but Jarvis said many more stayed outside  with people camping in their RVs, trailers and vehicles.

It was like a party here, she said. It was just too noisy.

Diane Bubb, 62, her husband and 93-year-old aunt, who uses a wheelchair, stayed in a hotel Wednesday night, but planned to return to their Vacaville home Thursday after the evacuation order in their neighborhood was lifted.

Bubb said she wasnt worried about the virus.

Its the last thing Im worried about. Im more worried about my house than that, said Bubb, as her family passed the time at one of the long tables inside the shelter.

The fires came after a rare heat wave brought powerful thunderstorms and more than 10,000 lightning strikes at the end of a dry summer. With the response complicated by the pandemic and rolling blackouts, the fires are a major test for Californias emergency response system.

Places to go if you need to evacuate Shelters Vacaville: Ulatis Community Center, 1000 Ulatis Drive Carmel: Carmel Middle School, 4380 Carmel Valley Road Watsonville: Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, 2601 E Lake Ave. Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz Civic Center, 307 Church St. Suisun City: Joseph A. Nelson Community Center, 611 Village Drive Vacaville: Will C. Wood High School, 998 Marshall Road Fairfield: Rodriguez High School, 5000 Red Top Road Temporary Evacuation Points Sonoma County Bodega Bay: Westside Regional Park, 2400 Westshore Road Santa Rosa: A Place to Play, 2375 W. Third St. Santa Rosa: Tom Schopflin Fields, 4351 Old Redwood Hwy. Santa Rosa: Spring Lake Park, 5585 Newanga Ave. Santa Rosa: The Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 1350 Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa, is sheltering large animals. Solano County Vacaville: Vacaville Ice Sports, 551 Davis St. Vacaville: McBride Senior Center, 91 Town Square Place Vacaville: Sierra Vista School, 301 Bel Air Drive Fairfield: Old Walmart parking lot, 300 Chadbourne Road Fairfield: Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, 2948 Rockville Road Napa County Napa: Crosswalk Community Church, 2590 1st St. See More Collapse

The coronavirus was not on Linda Tiptons mind when she evacuated her property Wednesday on Gibson Canyon Road in Vacaville, where a glowing swirl of fire was creeping up from behind her home, which also serves as her business, 36 Oaks Day Spa. But Tipton sure wasnt going to go to a shelter during the pandemic. Instead she got a room at a Comfort Inn in Vacaville.

Im so isolated out here, and Im not used to being around people, said Tipton, who returned home Thursday relieved after so much anxiety.

People forced out of their homes by the fires are being directed to parking lots, fairgrounds, parks and other places designated by each county where evacuees can get food, supplies or hotel vouchers from the Red Cross or county emergency workers.

Adrio said Red Cross volunteers are being stationed at dozens of these temporary evacuation points where they are serving meals and helping people find shelter. The idea, she said, is to first locate family or friends who can put them up, or if that isnt possible, provide a hotel voucher.

When evacuations happened in the pre-COVID days, we would open shelters and people would stand in line and be in shelters with a lot of other people, said Adrio, whose organization is serving about 1,000 meals a day. With COVID going, we are not doing that.

Vacationers, meanwhile, are being urged by officials in fire zones to get out of town.

With hotel rooms at capacity, the Santa Cruz County Emergency Operations Center on Thursday asked tourists, out-of-towners and other visitors occupying hotels, motels and vacation rentals to leave the county to free up capacity.

The entire states resources are stretched thin, officials said.

The scale of existing and anticipated evacuation orders is unprecedented, and the need to safely house evacuees is critical, Santa Cruz officials said in a statement. New visitors should not travel to the county.

County officials also asked people on NextDoor, Facebook and other social media platforms, to help locate volunteer in-law units, spare bedrooms and even tents for evacuees.

This is unprecedented, Adrio said.  People are afraid, people never want to leave their home, but people need to take this seriously. Were in the process of saving lives. Dont be afraid of the support thats out there for you.

Peter Fimrite, Sarah Ravani, Matthias Gafni and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com, gafni@sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @SarRavani, @mgafni, @TrishaThadani
The pandemic is a crisis, and we do not emerge from a crisis the same as before: either we come out of it better, or we come out of it worse. We should come out of it better, to counter social injustice and environmental damage. Pope Francis said this at the General Audience on Wednesday morning, 19 August. The following is a translation of his catechesis which he delivered from the private library of the Vaticans Apostolic Palace.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Good morning!

The pandemic has exposed the plight of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world. And while the virus does not distinguish between people, it has found, in its devastating path, great inequalities and discrimination. And it has exacerbated them!

The response to the pandemic is therefore twofold. On the one hand, it is essential to find a cure for this small but terrible virus, which has brought the whole world to its knees. On the other, we must also cure a larger virus, that of social injustice, inequality of opportunity, marginalization, and the lack of protection for the weakest. In this twofold response for healing there is a choice that, according to the Gospel, cannot be lacking: the preferential option for the poor (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, [EG] 195). And this is not a political option; nor is it an ideological option, a party option. The preferential option for the poor is at the centre of the Gospel. And the first to do this was Jesus; we heard this in the reading from the Letter to the Corinthians which was read at the beginning. As he was rich, he made himself poor to enrich us. He made himself one of us and for this reason, at the centre of the Gospel, at the centre of Jesus proclamation, there is this option.

Christ himself, who is God, despoiled himself, making himself similar to men; and he did not choose a life of privilege, but he chose the condition of a servant (cf. Phil 2:6-7). He annihilated himself by making himself a servant. He was born into a humble family and worked as a craftsman. At the beginning of his preaching, he announced that in the Kingdom of God the poor are blessed (cf. Mt 5:3; Lk 6:20; EG, 197). He stood among the sick, the poor, the excluded, showing them Gods merciful love (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 2444). And many times he was judged an impure man because he went to the sick, to lepers which, according to the law of the time, made people impure. And he took risks to be near the poor.

This is why Jesus followers can be recognized by their closeness to the poor, the little ones, the sick and the imprisoned, the excluded and the forgotten, those without food and clothing (cf. Mt 25:31-36; CCC, 2443). We can read that famous parameter by which we will all be judged; we will all be judged. It is Matthew, chapter 25. This is a key criterion of Christian authenticity (cf. Gal 2:10; EG, 195). Some mistakenly think that this preferential love for the poor is a task for the few, but in reality it is the mission of the Church as a whole, as Saint John Paul II said (cf. St John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42). Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor (EG, 187).

Faith, hope and love necessarily push us towards this preference of those most in need, (1) which goes beyond necessary assistance (cf. EG, 198). Indeed it implies walking together, letting ourselves be evangelized by them, who know the suffering Christ well, letting ourselves be infected by their experience of salvation, by their wisdom and by their creativity (cf. ibid). Sharing with the poor means mutual enrichment. And, if there are unhealthy social structures that prevent them from dreaming of the future, we must work together to heal them, to change them (cf. ibid, 195). And we are led to this by the love of Christ, who loved us to the extreme (cf. Jn 13:1), and [this love] reaches the boundaries, the margins, the existential frontiers. Bringing the peripheries to the centre means focusing our life on Christ, who became poor for us, to enrich us by his poverty (2 Cor 8:9).(2)

We are all worried about the social consequences of the pandemic. All of us. Many people want to return to normality and resume economic activities. Certainly, but this normality should not include social injustices and the degradation of the environment. The pandemic is a crisis, and we do not emerge from a crisis the same as before: either we come out of it better, or we come out of it worse. We should come out of it better, to counter social injustice and environmental damage. Today we have an opportunity to build something different. For example, we can nurture an economy of integral development of the poor, and not of providing assistance. By this I do not wish to condemn assistance: aid is important. Let us think of the volunteer sector, which is one of the best structures of the Italian Church. But we must go beyond this, to resolve the problems that lead us to provide aid. An economy that does not resort to remedies that in fact poison society, such as profits not linked to the creation of dignified jobs (cf., EG 204). This type of profit is dissociated from the real economy, which should bring benefits to the common people (cf. Laudato Si [LS], 109), and in addition is at times indifferent to the damage inflicted on our common home. The preferential option for the poor, this ethical-social need that comes from Gods love (cf. LS, 158), inspires us to conceive of and design an economy where people, and especially the poorest, are at the centre.

And it also encourages us to plan the treatment of virus by prioritizing those who are most in need. It would be sad if, [with regards to] the Covid-19 vaccine, priority were to be given to the richest! It would be sad if this vaccine were to become the property of this nation or another, rather than universal and for all. And what a scandal it would be if all the economic assistance we are observing  most of it with public money  were to focus on rescuing those industries that do not contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, the promotion of the least, the common good or the care of creation (ibid.). These are criteria for choosing which industries should be helped: those which contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, to the promotion of the least, to the common good and the care of creation. Four criteria.

If the virus were to intensify again in a world that is unjust to the poor and most vulnerable, then we must change this world. Following the example of Jesus, the doctor of integral divine love, that is, of physical, social and spiritual healing (cf. Jn 5:6-9)  like the healing worked by Jesus  we must act now, to heal the epidemics caused by small, invisible viruses, and to heal those caused by the great and visible social injustices. I propose that this be done by starting from the love of God, placing the peripheries at the centre and the least in first place. Not forgetting that parameter by which we will be judged, Matthew, Chapter 25. Let us put it into practice in this recovery from the epidemic. And starting from this tangible love anchored in hope and founded in faith, a healthier world will be possible. Otherwise, we will come out of the crisis worse off. May the Lord help us, and give us the strength to come out of it better, responding to the needs of todays world.

Special Greetings

I cordially greet the English-speaking faithful. My thoughts turn especially to those families who have had to forego their summer holidays this year; I entrust them to the Lord that he will grant them peace and joy. May God bless you!

Lastly, my thoughts turn to the elderly, young people, the sick and newlyweds. Tomorrow we will celebrate the liturgical memory of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a great Doctor of the Church and above all a tender cantor of Our Lady. May his example stir in each one the desire to trustingly surrender ourselves to the maternal protection of the Blessed Virgin, consoler of the afflicted.

1) Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on some aspects of Liberation Theology, (1984), 5.

2) Benedict XVI, Address at the Inaugural Session of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (13 May 2007).
Two men were fatally shot late Thursday night at this Shell gasoline station on North Broad Street near Stenton Avenue in Ogontz. The gas station is shown here on Friday morning. Read more

The victims included two men shot at an Ogontz gas station, a man walking with two children near a West Philadelphia park, and a woman gunned down on her North Philadelphia block.

Gun violence erupted again across the city on Thursday, with six people killed as Philadelphia heads into another summer weekend. And on Friday, hours after the overnight violence, police and communities were still searching for answers and evidence, and bracing for the prospect of another deadly summer weekend.

About 11 p.m., two men were shot to death in the parking lot of a Shell station on Broad Street near Stenton Avenue. Police said a 29-year-old man who was shot multiple times in the head and torso, and a 50-year-old man who was shot once in his left leg, were taken by police to Einstein Medical Center, where they were both pronounced dead before midnight.

Police said weapons were recovered, but did not say from where.

On Friday afternoon, there was no sign that deadly violence had taken place at the gas station. Owner Dennis Jacob said he doesnt have cameras outside and wasnt present when the shootings occurred. He said there had never been a killing in the three years he has owned the station, but that crime is commonplace.

I call the police four or five times a week, Jacob said. They usually come late. ... I tell my employees never to go outside, stay inside.

Earlier, about 8:15 p.m., a 29-year-old man who was coming out of a park with his dog and two children, ages 3 and 9, was fatally shot by a gunman wearing a black mask on the 700 block of North 46th Street in the Mill Creek section of West Philadelphia, police said.

The victim, identified by police Friday as Will Myatt of Southwest Philadelphia, was shot several times in the torso and pronounced dead shortly afterward at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

At Myatts home Friday, mourners arrived bringing food to grieving family members, who declined to talk.

Cherri Wilkins, the block captain in the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Myatt was killed, said Friday that she heard nine gunshots and ran to the corner of 46th and Aspen Street, where she found Myatt lying in the middle of the street near Lucien E. Blackwell Park.

Its just sad that it happened on this block. Its really shocking, Wilkins said, expressing her condolences for Myatts family. Youll notice that theres a lot of shooting going on, but you dont hear about 46th Street killings.

A resident of Aspen Street, who asked not to be identified out of fear for his safety, said that as a father of four, he found news of the shooting disconcerting. In the 14 years he has lived on the block, he said, there had never been a shooting.

Im not surprised, because its Philadelphia, but Im shocked it happened in this quiet neighborhood, he said, adding that he and his daughter walk their dog every day at the park.

About midnight Thursday, officers responded to a report of a person with a gun on 62nd Street just north of Market, also in West Philadelphia. They found a 26-year-old man on the porch of a house lying in a fetal position and suffering from a gunshot wound to his back, police said. He was taken to Penn Presbyterian, where he was pronounced dead at 12:28 a.m. Friday.

Meanwhile, police said, a second man called from a different area of West Philadelphia to say he had been shot at 62nd and Market, near where the first victim was found. The man, 29, suffered a graze wound to his left leg and was transported by medics to Penn Presbyterian. After he was treated and released, he was transported by police to the Homicide Unit for questioning. No weapon was recovered, and police reported no arrest Friday in the shootings.

There have been 289 homicides in the city so far this year, police said, representing about a 34% increase from the same period last year. The number of killings so far exceeds that in each of the past 30 years, except for 1990, when 304 homicides were recorded in the city in the same period. Most homicides are shootings.

Overall, the number of shooting victims in the city this year has reached 1,255, a 39% increase from last year and a 71% increase from 2015. The number of people shot through Thursday has surpassed total year-end numbers in 2015 and 2017.

On Thursday, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw walked with police officers and residents in North Philadelphia  a neighborhood where two other people were fatally shot that day  as part of a peace rally.

These are the very folks that we are trying to reach, and our only way to find out the answers to the questions that we have is to go and ask them, Outlaw told CBS3.

I couldnt imagine what it would be like having to live with my head on a swivel everywhere I go. I dont want that for yall, she told residents.

Just before 7:50 p.m. Thursday, a 40-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man were shot on the 1400 block of North Etting Street in North Philadelphia. Both victims were transported by police to Temple University Hospital.

The woman, identified by police Friday as Melanie Raye, who lived on that block, had multiple gunshot wounds in her torso and was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

The man, who was shot in the head, was in critical condition at Temple. Police said two weapons were recovered from this scene.

On the corner of Etting and Master Street, where Raye was killed, someone had placed two stuffed animals, a candle, and an empty bottle of Hennessy. Employees of Sajoma Deli said Friday that the store was closed when the shooting took place and they didnt know the victim. Passersby likewise said they didnt know the victim or what sparked the violence.

Earlier, about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, two people were shot on the 1800 block of Judson Street in North Philadelphia. A man, believed to be about 50 years old, was shot 21 times throughout his body and was pronounced dead shortly afterward at Temple. A 65-year-old woman who was shot once in her right leg was in stable condition at Temple.

And about 2:30 a.m. Thursday, an 18-year-old woman was wounded after being shot once in her left thigh after having an argument with two women and a man on the 100 block of South Christopher Columbus Boulevard at Penns Landing, police said. She was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in stable condition.

Police reported no arrests in any of the shootings.

Graphics editor John Duchneskie and staff writer Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.
An astonishing 771,000 acres have burned in California since a rash of thunderstorms sparked hundreds of fires across the state less than a week ago, Cal Fire officials said Friday.

The burn area combined is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

"We simply havent seen anything like this in many years," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing with Cal Fire.

The number of total fires has grown from 376 on Wednesday to 560 on Friday. Of those, 20 to 25 are massive, threatening communities. These fires were sparked by more than 12,000 lightning strikes that struck amid a heat wave, delivering a dangerous mix of triple-digit temperatures and monsoonal conditions, Cal Fire spokesperon Jeremy Rahn said. Some fires doubled in size within 24 hours.

More than 12,000 firefighters are battling flames but crews are stretched to a point where hands and equipment isn't meeting needs. Newsom said 96% of wildfire engines are in use. Crews from Oregon, Idaho and Arizona have arrived to relieve local firefighters, Newsom said, with engines on their way from as far away as Maryland and New Jersey.

"We're putting everything we have on this," he said. The fires have taken at least six lives with four deaths claimed by fires burning in Wine Country north of San Francisco. The bodies of three people were found in a home that burned in Napa, Henry Wofford, spokesman for the Napa County Sheriffs Office, told the San Francisco Chronicle. In Solano County Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara reported the death of a male resident there.

Separately, a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker was found dead Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area Wednesday. In central California, a pilot on a water-dropping mission in western Fresno County died Wednesday morning when his helicopter crashed.

At least two other people were missing and more than 30 civilians and firefighters have been injured, authorities said.

While there are fires throughout the entire state, from the North to the South and from the Eastern Sierra to the coast, the three largest and most severe complex of fires are in the Bay Area. The SCU Lightning Complex  that's burning across Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties  is now the 7th largest fire in the state's history, said Cal Fire PIO Daniel Berlant.

The CZU August Lightning Complex has led to evacuations of more than 64,000 people in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. In the North Bay, the LNU Lightning Complex has led to the evacuation of tens of thousands more people as flames have spread across Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.

For more on these three fire complexes and others in the greater Bay Area see below:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

CZU Lightning Complex: Fire grows at rate of 700-1,000 acres an hour in Santa Cruz, San Mateo

LNU Lightning Complex: 4 dead, nearly 500 homes destroyed in North Bay fires

SCU Lightning Complex: Blaze spreads to 230k acres across five counties overnight

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
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Storm Ellen has claimed its first victim after a London tourist died in Cornish seas - as 95mph winds battered the UK coastline, washing away beach huts and threatening travel and flooding chaos this weekend.

The man, who was a holidaymaker from London aged in his 50s, was pulled from the water at Church Cove in Gunwalloe, Cornwall, at about 2pm yesterday but was confirmed dead shortly afterwards.

A teenager related to the man, who was with him when they got into difficulty, was rescued and airlifted to Treliske Hospital in Truro where he was said to be in a stable condition today with his next of kin present.

A 15-year-old girl died after being found in a river in Llanrumney, South Wales, local police said late last night, but it was not immediately clear whether the extreme weather conditions were responsible. South Wales Police were not immediately able to comment on the circumstances of the child's death.

The force said they were called at 5.20pm to the river in Ball Lane, Llanrumney, and attended with other emergency services and the police helicopter but 'despite the best efforts of emergency services', the girl died.

As the storm hit Britain for a third day, the Met Office imposed a wind weather warning across England, Wales and parts of Scotland until 6pm today, amid concerns over short-term power cuts, falling trees and debris on roads.

The conditions caused major disruption in Wales and South West England, where gusts of up to 95mph forced the closure of the M48 Severn Bridge, while a 30mph speed limit was imposed on the A55 Britannia Bridge.

Asthma sufferers have also been warned to stay indoors as forecasts show the pollen count is high in several areas across the UK which, combined with the strong winds, could cause fatal asthma attacks, experts have warned.

Power cuts affected homes in Caerphilly, Monmouthshire and the Vale of Glamorgan, while rail services on the Cambrian line between Pwllheli and Machynlleth were halted and replacement buses put on. It comes as:

One campsite owner in Pembrokeshire said he had 'never seen anything like this' after 'battling the elements';

Devon and Cornwall Police warned the public to be wary of 'storm conditions' across their region;

The Environment Agency has issued 40 flood alerts and 19 flood warnings largely along the South West;

In the Republic of Ireland, around 50,000 homes and businesses remained without power overnight.

Beachgoers enjoy strong winds as Storm Ellen continues to blow on the south west coast at Gyllyngvase Beach this afternoon

An RNLI lifeguard directs swimmers to move to safer water as Storm Ellen continues to blow at Gyllyngvase Beach in Cornwall

A wind surfer takes advantage of strong winds as Storm Ellen continues to blow on the south west coast at Gyllyngvase Beach

Waves crash against the harbour wall in Porthcawl, Wales, this afternoon as the UK is battered by Storm Ellen

Separately, a body of a man in his 20s was found this morning on Dover beach in Kent following a search operation after reports that a man had jumped into the water yesterday afternoon.

The coastguard was also active off Dover yesterday amid reports of migrant boats headed for the UK, although there is no indication that the man's death was linked to small boats crossings.

The UK is currently in weed pollen season, which experts warn could raise the risk of asthma attacks.

As a result, asthma sufferers have been warned to stay indoors as forecasts show the pollen count is high in several areas across the UK which, combined with the strong winds, could cause fatal asthma attacks, experts have warned.

This is especially true in London, the East of England, Wales and the Midlands.

Meteorologists said tomorrow will be 'breezy' with sunny spells and thundery showers in the North West, while Sunday will be mostly dry and Monday will feature cloud and outbreaks of rain from the west.

Earlier, forecasters had said disruption to road, rail, air and ferry transport was 'likely', along with delays for high-sided vehicles on exposed routes and bridges - as coastal routes and seafronts were affected by spray.

Britain's worst storm for six months wreaked havoc in North Devon overnight, sending beach huts floating out to sea. Footage showed the huts at Woolacombe beach being washed away by the tides while onlookers watched.

About 70 huts, owned by Parkin Estates and mostly rented out to holidaymakers, were dragged down to the sea. Local resident and eyewitness Richard Walden said the sea became a 'cauldron of debris'.

Mr Walden, whose home overlooks the beach, said they were an 'iconic' part of the town's tourist appeal, adding: 'Many of the beach huts have literally just been smashed to bits by the waves. It's unbelievable.'

Emergency services have urged the public to take extra care in the windy conditions, particularly along the coast where many people are enjoying August beach breaks as they go on a staycation instead of a foreign holiday.

Waves up to 9ft (2.7m) high could create dangerous seas and strong rip currents, and police have been asking the public to heed the RNLI's warning to visit lifeguarded beaches and avoid storm watching if swells become high.

The stormy conditions represent a dramatic turnaround from the extreme heatwave experienced in Britain up until last week which saw temperatures of at least 93F (34C) for six days in a row for the first time on record.

Waves crash against the harbour wall at Porthcawl in South Wales this morning, where wind gusts could hit 70mph

At least eight cars were damaged when the trees were brought down at the village of Portmeirion in North Wales this morning

Gale force winds and massive waves batter the South Wales seaside resort of Porthcawl in Bridgend today

 Slide me  A beach hut is washed into the sea today after being hit by waves at Milford on Sea in Hampshire. Before (left) and after (right)

A fallen tree completely blocks the road near Sandplace railway station in Looe, Cornwall, after Storm Ellen's 90mph winds

A police sign placed in front of the giant fallen tree in Looe, Cornwall, where the road has been closed due to strong winds

National Trust rangers look on as large waves strike the National Trust-owned harbour at Mullion Cove in Cornwall

Waves cased by Storm Ellen strike the National Trust-owned harbour in Mullion Cover, Cornwall, this afternoon

Met Office meteorologist Matthew Box told MailOnline: 'It's going to be a windy day for many on Friday as an area of low pressure brings strong winds. Gusts could reach 70mph in exposed parts of Wales.

'With trees still in leaf the wind could bring down branches and cause disruption if power lines are brought down. We've also got spring-like tides at the moment which will impact the coast with large waves.'

Experts warn extreme weather set to happen 'more frequently' Britain has lurched from a record breaking heatwave in August to 70 mile per hour gales, flooding and torrential downpours. But these extreme weather events are likely to become more, not less, frequent, with the explanation likely due to climate change. Luke Miall, a forecaster at the Met Office, told the Telegraph that Storm Ellen will be felt 'for the next couple of days' and is 'not going to move through really quickly so we will continue to see a really big area of low pressure through the rest of this week'. He added: 'We have gone from one extreme to the other, the first thing that springs to my mind with these sorts of events is climate change. We are likely to see these swings in extreme events more frequently. 'Although I couldn't necessarily say these two events were directly caused by climate change, it's likely that these sorts of swings in our weather will become more frequent.' Advertisement

There are coastal flood and gale alerts in North Wales as the threat is compounded by spring tides which are likely to produce big seas.

The Environment Agency has issued 40 flood alerts and 19 flood warnings - which urge people to take immediate action - largely along the south and south-west coastline of England.

They warn that a combination of high spring tides, strong winds and large waves are expected to cause property flooding into this morning.

The agency warned people in the south-west to not 'wave watch' and 'stay away from sea promenades and exposed coastal areas', with tidal gates being closed on Cornwall's south coast.

Natural Resources Wales has also issued seven flood warnings for the south west coast of the country.

Toby Rhys-Davies, who owns the Apple Camping campsite in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, told BBC Radio Wales he had 'never seen anything like this' and said it was a 'dramatic evening battling the elements'.

He added: 'We did have a couple just leave, but another couple just got in touch - there are those who are not put off because there are so few campsites. We have been turning away 30 people a day.'

Devon and Cornwall Police have warned the public to be wary of 'storm conditions' across their region, particularly on the coast where waves could reach up to nine feet high.

The force said strong winds could bring 'dangerous seas and strong rip currents' and urged beachgoers to check tide times, stick to life-guarded beaches, be aware watersports may be unsafe and avoid storm watching.

Chief Inspector Tom Cunningham said: 'We are aware there is many thousands of tourists in our coastal communities currently who may not have experienced conditions which we are expecting or be aware of the danger they can bring.

A group of inner-dock sea swimmers pose for a selfie in front of the large waves at Porthleven in Cornwall today

Two women check out the waves at high tide as Storm Ellen lashes the South West coast at Falmouth in Cornwall today

Several beach huts were washed into the sea at Woolacombe beach in North Devon yesterday. They are pictured this morning

People form a human chain at Durdle Door, Dorset, on Thursday in an attempt to rescue two people caught in the rip tide

A woman walks across Westminster Bridge during strong winds in London this morning as Storm Ellen batters the country

Huge waves from Storm Ellen smash into the cliffs and coastal defences at Porthleven in Cornwall at sunrise this morning

Few people are to be seen today at a near deserted Bournemouth beach in Dorset as strong winds continue to hit Britain

High tides and strong winds from Storm Ellen lead to treacherous conditions in West Dorset at West Bay today

A lifeguard puts out a red warning flag at the beach in Bournemouth today after the Met Office extended a weather warning

Huge waves batter the Mumbles Lighthouse and headland near Swansea at Langland Bay in South Wales this morning

Vehicles nervously push through the water covering The Strood from the mainland onto Mersea Island in Essex this afternoon

'We would ask everyone to heed the advice of the RNLI and HM Coastguard by not putting themselves, and indeed emergency responders, at risk by entering dangerous waters. Beaches are a huge draw to tourists in our region, but our coast needs to be respected by all.'

Body of man in his 20s is found on Dover beach after overnight search and rescue mission failed to spot him A body has been found on a beach following a search operation in Dover after reports of a man jumping into the water. Coastguard teams scoured the area alongside the RNLI and local vessels after a report of a man in the water yesterday afternoon. Kent Police also responded to the incident, as well as a helicopter. Efforts to find the man were suspended last night. Police announced this morning that the body of a man in his 20s had been found. A spokesman for Kent Police said: 'Kent Police was called at 12.35pm on Thursday August 20 following concern for a man in the sea near Marine Parade, Dover. 'Officers attended to assist HM Coastguard in searching the area. His death is not being treated as suspicious and a report is being prepared for the coroner.' The coastguard was also active off Dover yesterday amid reports of migrant boats headed for the UK. There is no indication the man's death was linked to small boats crossings. Advertisement

HM Coastguard urged people to take extra care during the windy weather, adding on Twitter: 'The South West coast is set for a bit of a battering over the next couple of days, with dangerous sea conditions involving large swells, strong winds & spring tides expected.'

In Ireland, around 50,000 homes and businesses remained without power overnight - and operator ESB (Electricity Supply Board) Network said some customers may have to do without it beyond today.

Many properties were affected in Co Cork which had a red status warning on Wednesday ahead of the storm. Other areas hit by power cuts include Tipperary, Sligo, Westmeath, Longford, Galway, Roscommon and Leitrim.

There have been reports of flooding and fallen trees across parts of Cork and Clonmel. Derek Hynes, ESB Networks operations manager, said staff are working to help homes and businesses impacted by power cuts.

On Wednesday, gusts of 89mph battered Roches Point at the entrance to Cork Harbour as Ireland bore the initial brunt of the freak weather which swept across the British Isles.

Footage on social media showed strong winds and sparking power lines in Cobh in Ireland, while West Cork TD Holly Cairns shared video of flooding in Skibbereen.

Millions who have taken UK breaks away from home continue to face torn-down tents, blackouts and travel disruption as winds, usually seen in winter, roll through.

Ellen, Britain's worst storm for six months since Storm Dennis on February 15, was shown arriving in dramatic satellite images and maps on Tuesday.

The West will continue to see the strongest winds over the next few days but gale-force 40mph gusts are also expected in parts of the East.

This week surf towering more than 15ft was seen along the Cornwall coast and nearly 100 homes were blacked out by power cuts in the area as the Environment Agency warned of flooding.

A four-day buffeting of strong winds is expected to last until Sunday, with rain now easing.

Ellen, which contains remnants of Tropical Storm Kyle, is the first storm named in school summer holidays by the Met Office or Ireland's Met Eireann since they began naming Atlantic storms in 2015.

Ellen is known as a 'weather bomb' by forecasters due to 'explosive cyclogenesis' seeing it strengthen as its air pressure plunges more than 24 milibars in 24 hours. The storm's air pressure fell by 34mb to 965mb in the 24 hours to midnight on Tuesday, Met Office forecasts showed.

The Met Office imposed a weather warning of strong winds until 6pm today (left) as the UK is hit by severe weather (right)

A dramatic satellite images shows Storm Ellen arriving from the Atlantic Ocean with the remnants of Tropical Storm Kyle

Storm Ellen has struck in Warwickshire with two trees falling and blocking roads in Kenilworth this afternoon

A DFDS ferry is hit by waves as it arrives at the Port of Dover in Kent amid the severe weather conditions today

A couple walk through a heavy downpour in Newcastle city centre today as the changeable weather continues

Large waves hit the sea wall with the arrival of Storm Ellen at Kingsand in Cornwall this morning

Two women are caught in the wind as they cross Westminster Bridge in London today amid Storm Ellen hitting the UK

A man walks his dog on a sand blown beach at Branksome in Bournemouth this morning

Waves crash into the seawall at Dawlish in Devon this morning as Storm Ellen sweeps across Britain today

Surfers are taking advantage of the wind and waves today off the coast of Bournemouth as Storm Ellen batters the country

A woman in a coat paddles at the beach today in Bournemouth as Storm Ellen continues to blast Britain with strong winds

A woman braves the water at high tide in a swimsuit as Storm Ellen lashes the South West coast at Falmouth this morning

Waves crash into the seawall at the Dawlish seafront in Devon this morning as a Great Western Railway train goes past

Windy conditions at Newhaven in East Sussex today as strong winds are sweeping across the UK and Ireland

Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna said: 'Storm Ellen's very unseasonable conditions come with the tourist season in full flow and trees in full leaf.

Dramatic moment beachgoers form human chain to pull two swimmers to shore as they struggled against tide whipped up by Storm Ellen This is the moment beachgoers formed a huge human chain to drag two people to safety in a dramatic rescue at Durdle Door. A swimmer had been in the water at the foot of the Dorset landmark when he began to struggle against the mounting tide. He tried to swim back to the shore but was halted by exposed 20mph winds and enormous waves that rose well over his head. The man, believed to be aged in his 30s, began frantically waving and shouting for help towards sunseekers on the shingle beach. After initially thinking he was waving, about 30 people rushed to the water's edge and linked arms. The crowd form a chain to rescue the two men at Durdle Door Their attempts were not helped by a huge mass of frothy white foam that was created by the enormous waves crashing into the shore. Before finally making it to the stricken swimmer, rescuers attempted to throw a body board and a lifeguards' rope out to him. In one particularly dramatic moment, a beachgoer tried to run out to the man himself but he too was blown away by the wind. After a battle of around two minutes, those within the chain were able to reach both casualties and bring them safely back to the beach. Eye-witness Emily Foote, 27, a teacher from Bridport, said: 'We got there at about nine in the morning and this guy had been in and out of the water quite a few times throughout the morning. 'He seemed to know what he was doing and was probably about 50ft out for the most part. At around midday the winds picked up and that's when he started struggling. Dozens of people linked arms to reach the stricken two men 'He managed to get closer and was pretty much just at the point where the waves broke but he couldn't get back. Every now and then there was just a freak wave that stopped him getting back and he ended up just frantically waving for help. 'Loads of people just sprinted to the sea and formed this chain but they were being battered by the waves too. The foam was like a washing machine and at one point I thought we were going to end up with 10 casualties in the sea rather than just one.' Advertisement

'The low pressure is deepening, with warnings issued for winds of 70mph-plus in some exposed areas. It will be wet and windy on Thursday and Friday, with further strong winds and squally rain bands.

'And big waves will develop on some west coasts, combining with high tides.'

Staycationers are facing the brunt of the storm with one forecaster claiming 'summer will be long forgotten' as days of heavy rain are set to batter the nation.

A Met Office forecaster said: 'Summer will be long forgotten as rain and wind sets in. It will feel much more like autumn.'

'A 'weather bomb' is not a perfect meteorological term but is defined as an intense low pressure system with a central pressure that falls 24 millibars in a 24-hour period.'

The Environment Agency said: 'Local flooding is possible from surface water and rivers on Thursday evening in the South-West, and from large waves and high tides on Thursday and Friday in the South-West, Wales and North-East.

'Land, roads and some properties may flood and there may be travel disruption.'

It comes after the Met Office warned Britain could see as much as two inches (50mm) of rain over higher ground, falling within the space of six hours.

Ellen has already devastated the UK, with a dramatic rescue operation launched on Wednesday morning after a yacht was 'snapped' from its anchor and driven on to a West Country beach by the fury of the tempest's howling 70mph-plus winds.

The Coastguard said the yacht was blown ashore from its anchorage out in the sea at Wherrytown, near Penzance, Cornwall. One person was aboard and he was safely rescued following a joint operation involving an RNLI lifeboat crew from Penlee Station and the coastguard.

Engineers were battling to restore supplies at properties near Falmouth, Par, Gunnislake and Porthleven.

As police warned the storm will turn roads into deadly skidpans, a driver was rescued when his car skidded and overturned on the A38 in Plymouth, Devon, this morning.

Another smash was reported on the B3285 at Goonhavern, Cornwall, and blown-down trees blocked roads at Liskeard and on the A380 Teignmouth Road in Devon.

The car park at the Tesco store in Truro has been turned into a lake by torrential rain.

Huge waves pounded exposed beaches facing the Atlantic in north Devon and Cornwall, sending beach-goers and walkers scrambling for cover, while tourists were warned not to stand on promenades or rocks taking selfies in the storm - or they could be swept into the sea and drown.

Residents in Barnstaple, Devon, are still mopping up after torrential rain flooded shops and homes earlier this week.

Now they have been hit by another soaking after the latest storm tore a path across Ireland and slammed into the UK yesterday.

Most of the UK can expect strong winds and rain over the coming days, the Met Office warned.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist, Steve Ramsdale said: 'Following the recent hot and thundery weather we are seeing a significant change to very unsettled conditions for August with an unseasonal spell of strong winds associated with low-pressure centres for the second half of the week.

'Uncertainty remains high in the intensity of these systems at this point, but we are confident in the change to a spell of much windier weather.

'Tropical air associated with a decayed tropical cyclone is being drawn towards the UK, and the marked contrast between this warm and moist air with normal North Atlantic airmasses can lead to a very vigorous system.'

He described it as a 'very vigorous' weather system that has been created by the warm and moist air from a decayed tropical cyclone with normal North Atlantic air masses.

Waves crash over Newhaven Lighthouse on the south coast of England today as Storm Ellen brings high winds to the country

Rough seas and strong winds at Brighton in East Sussex today as Storm Ellen hits the UK

High tides and strong winds from Storm Ellen lead to treacherous conditions in West Dorset at West Bay today

Waves hit the sea wall as high winds are expected with the arrival of Storm Ellen in Kingsand, Cornwall, this morning

Waves crash over the lighthouse at Porthcawl in South Wales this morning as Storm Ellen continues to batter Britain

A woman walks across Westminster Bridge during strong winds in London this morning as the storm hits the country

Huge waves from Storm Ellen smash into the cliffs and coastal defences at Porthleven in Cornwall during high tide today

Two women take cover from the rain under an umbrella during the AIG Women's Open at Royal Troon in Scotland this morning

Waves caused crash beyond the barrier and onto cars parked along the waterfront at Louth in Ireland this morning

Waves caused by Storm Ellen crash beyond the barrier along the waterfront in Louth, Ireland, early this morning
British Airways ground staff have decided they may hold a ballot to decide on whether to strike over the half-term holidays.

The potential industrial action would cause travel chaos during the school half-term and ground hundreds of BA flights.

Cargo, loading and baggage staff intimated that they want to hold a ballot during a mass meeting in Heathrow, London, yesterday.

The October holiday was chosen for 'maximum impact'. One worker told The Sun: 'There's disgust at the behaviour of British Airways. A strike is inevitable.'

The industrial action, which is expected to be voted through, would cause travel chaos during the school half-term and ground hundreds of BA flights. Pictured, people boarding a British Airways flight in Split, Croatia, yesterday

It comes as Unite and the GMB union have called for BA to drop its 'fire and rehire' proposals which will reduce the pay and conditions of thousands of cabin crew, engineers and maintenance staff.

The airline has been looking to make cuts since the impact of coronavirus put a major dent in profits.

On Friday, BA began sending letters to staff to inform them of their fate in the plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs, including voluntary measures.

Employees will either be made redundant, keep their job but on lower pay, or remain on the same contract.

Cargo, loading and baggage staff agreed to hold a ballot during a mass meeting in Heathrow, London, yesterday (pictured)

Pilots' union Balpa reached a deal that mitigated job losses late last month. An industry insider said: 'McCluskey's mistake has been to treat the consultation process as a dispute  not as a crisis for the airline.'

A BA spokesman said: 'We are having to make difficult decisions.'

Unite has accused BA of 'industrial thuggery' and it is trying to win support from lawmakers to strip BA of airport slots.

BA is currently only flying about 20 per cent of its normal schedule and burning through 20 million pounds per day.

Unite has accused BA of 'industrial thuggery' and it is trying to win support from lawmakers to strip BA of airport slots. Pictured, BA workers at a mass meeting yesterday

'We are having to make difficult decisions and take every possible action now to protect as many jobs as possible,' a spokesman for BA said.

Rival airlines Lufthansa and Air France-KLM have also announced job cuts.

Unite, which has already threatened BA with strike action, called on the airline to offer the same deal that it has agreed with its pilots to other staff.

'We will do everything in our power to prevent compulsory redundancies and attacks on workers' wages by a boardroom with billions in the bank,' Unite said in a statement.

British Airways agreed a deal last week with pilots union BALPA for a pay cut of about 20 per cent and some compulsory job cuts estimated around 270.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French Defence Minister Florence Parly may attend the ceremony to induct the high-profile Rafale fighters jets into the Indian Air Forces (IAF) 'Golden Arrows' Squadron at the Ambala airbase soon.

Though no official date for the induction ceremony has been finalised, sources claim that it may take place in the last week of August or first week of September.

According to sources, the IAF is planning for a high-profile Rafale induction ceremony which is most likely to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French Defence Minister Florence Parly and other VVIPs at the Ambala air force station.

The first batch of five Rafale jets, which recently arrived at the Ambala airbase, have already proven their mettle with successful weapons firing at a test range after arrival.

French Defence Minister Parly, who had earlier pledged support for India as the China crisis unfolded and had requested for a bilateral visit, will most likely be a part of the formal ceremony at Ambala, sources said.

When the first batch of Rafales arrived at Ambala on July 29, the IAF said that a final induction ceremony will be held in the second half of August and that efforts are focused on operationalisation of the aircraft at the earliest.

After the ceremony, the French side is also likely to raise the possibility of a larger order for the Rafale fighter jets under the 'Make in India' initiative, the sources said.

The first batch of five incoming Rafale fighter jets landed at the Ambala Air Force base around 3.14 PM on July 29, 2020, amid a ceremonial welcome and unprecedented security. The squadron of Rafale jets has been stationed at the Ambala airbase in Haryana. The fleet of five jets comprises three single-seater and two twin-seater aircraft.

The jets will be inducted into the IAF as part of its No. 17 Squadron, also known as the 'Golden Arrows'.

Nearly four years ago, India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France to purchase 36 Rafale jets under a Rs 59,000-crore deal to boost the IAF's combat capabilities.

The aircraft is capable of carrying a range of potent weapons. European missile maker MBDA's Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missile and Scalp cruise missile will be the mainstay of the weapons package of the Rafale jets.

Of the 36 jets, 30 will be fighter jets and six will be trainers. The trainer jets will be twin-seater and they will have almost all the features of the fighter jets. The IAF has undertaken major infrastructure upgrades at the Ambala base for the deployment of the first Rafale squadron.

Built in 1948, the airbase is located on the east side of Ambala and is used for military and government flights. The airbase has two squadrons of the Jaguar combat aircraft and one squadron of the MIG-21 'Bison'. Air Force Marshal Arjan Singh was the first commander of the base.

The Mirage fighters that were used for the airstrike in Balakot in Pakistan in February 2019 after the Pulwama terror attack had taken off from here.
NASA has shared the developments on its effort to come up with an all electric aircraft. Working on the goal to make emission free flying a reality, the US Space Agency marked the National Aviation Day on August 19 with the public note.

In the note, NASA shared a visualization of X-57 Maxwell electric experimental aircraft. The moment, captured in an image accompanying the note, was simulated on a supercomputer and denotes the cruise phase of flight of the electric aircraft.

The simulations are in pursuit of the final or Mod IV modifications on the aircraft that is being developed since 2015. The NASA team working for the space agencys first crewed X-plane in more than 20 years is trying to understand the aerodynamic effects of this design through the simulation tests.

A unique mission!

NASA Electric X-57 Plane

It is seldom that you hear NASA involved with projects other than those meant to be in outer space. The space agency justified the goal in the note, saying after all, we are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Aviation and aeronautics are as much a part of our mission as space travel.



Now in pursuit of that goal, NASA claims to have set a goal of making the electric aircraft five times more efficient than conventional aircraft. That means using five times less energy. The project can even result in zero inflight carbon emissions, if the aircraft is powered by renewable energy.

The electric plane

To achieve this, NASA has finalised on a design that uses a unique propulsion system. In the final configuration of the X-57, it uses 14 battery-powered electric motors and propellers.

12 of these motors are to be used to provide lift during takeoff and landing. Two larger ones are attached to the tip of the wings to provide forward thrust during the flight.

Understanding Aerodynamics

Image captured from the simulation of NASA Electric X-57 Plane (Image: NASA/Ames Research Center/J. Duensing)

With the recent simulations being carried out on the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at Ames, NASA engineers are now trying to understand the aerodynamic effects of the design.



A team of engineers from three NASA centers are involved with the effort. These include Ames Research Center in Californias Silicon Valley, Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

In the latest image shared by NASA as seen above, the pressure on the aircraft surface is displayed during the cruise phase of flight. Maroon on and Dark Blue colour on the wings indicate high pressure and low pressure respectively. Streamwise velocity, or the velocity of air toward the aircraft, as seen on the X-57s rightmost propeller is indicated with Red and Green/ Blue for high velocity and low velocities respectively.

NASA says that these simulations help the team analyze the aircrafts stability during flight. In addition, it allows them to create an accurate computer model of aerodynamic performance to use in the X-57 flight simulator. These further enable pilots to test emergency scenarios and safe recovery measures.

NASA is yet to provide more details on the battery that will power the aircraft. Considering it to be the biggest hurdle to long range flights, it will be interesting to see the solution that the space agency comes up with.




Editor's note: Tom Fowdy is a British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities. He writes on topics pertaining to China, the DPRK, Britain, and the U.S. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

On August 18, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he "doesn't want to talk to China right now" and states that he, after reports circulating in the media of a meeting which failed to occur on the 15, postponed trade talks with Beijing concerning the implementation of the "phase one trade deal" that was signed between the two countries in January.

When asked by a reporter if he would withdraw from the deal, the President merely stated "we'll see." The remarks came despite a steady flow of comments from U.S. officials over the past few weeks saying that America was committed to the deal and satisfied with China's implementation.

The deal commits China to make large agricultural purchases in exchange, open up its financial services and energy sectors to American investment, whilst the U.S. reduced tariffs on certain imports and permanently postponed others.

However, despite the importance of the deal the U.S. has decided to throw its entire relationship with Beijing off a cliff, pursuing since June an endless spree of bi-weekly measures which have included growing sanctions, attacks on technology companies and other moves seen as an attempt to force through outright decoupling.

This has made the agreement's position unusual, the U.S. expects China to live up to given commitments whilst happily destroying companies such as Huawei. Thus inevitably, the media has questioned it.

So what is its fate? Despite the background noise, it remains highly unlikely that Trump will scrap the phase one trade deal, at least before the election, and China will remain committed to it. To bin the deal now would be a tremendous own goal on behalf of the President that would ruin his electoral chances.

Instead, this is merely tough talk by Trump and we have heard this "I don't want to talk to them" comments many times when confronting other countries, which can change or be U-turned very quickly. Thus whilst the deal is being abused in obvious bad faith by Washington, this is one of the few areas of stability left in the relationship and an incentive for future negotiations once the election is over.

There is little question right now that Washington is being extremely unfair to China. The trade deal might hardly said to be a deal at all, but a form of extortion. However, despite the endless weekly barrage of hostility and new measures, Beijing is choosing to be restrained rather than engage in a catastrophic tit for tat and give into the bait. The reason that this is a U.S. election year is part of the reason why.

Trump and his administration thrive on drama and confrontation, and to give into these provocations would result in an even greater demonization of China and a fulfillment of Pompeo's wishes to permanently shift U.S. foreign policy into a new cold war paradigm, as well as encourage the Democrats to follow suit. As a result, China is choosing to continue to approach the trade agreement in good faith.

Despite everything, Trump remains unlikely to scrap the deal. To u-turn on what he marketed as a signature foreign policy win for himself just months before the election would be to declare his own policy a failure and throw a massive constituency of Republican farmers under the bus. This would be a gift to Joe Biden who would very quickly pledge to salvage a new deal for the agricultural sector. It would be self-defeating.

Instead, because Trump is floating the election on hostility towards China, he is obviously going to politically distance himself from diplomacy and pretend talks don't matter, even if they go on at a lower level. Numerous U.S. officials have still stated they are committed to this deal, their word matters more here.

In addition, the long term pursuit of stability matters. Shrewd diplomacy requires looking ahead into the long term, rather than caving to short term impulses. Even if Trump himself gets re-elected, things will not be easy but there will be an increased scope to negotiate and explore new concessions, likewise if Biden wins.

To bin this deal as a sign of disapproval would be drastically destabilizing and would consolidate the fall of China-U.S. relations into a disastrous trajectory, removing its symbolic role as a truce which brought the trade war to an end, thus heralding the return of tit for tat tariffs and more mutual economic damage. It's not the best, but the key here is the long term perspective that it can eventually be built upon and that it ought to serve as a platform for enhanced agreements, instead of an end in itself.

Thus as a whole, Trump is signaling that he does not want to negotiate the deal further owing to the context of the election at this time. However, it ultimately remains unlikely that he will bin the deal given it would certainly cost him the election. It's tough talk without substance.

On the other hand, China remains committed to the agreement and is focused on a pursuit of long-term stability, it recognizes the consequences of failing to do so at such a crucial time. Despite everything, the deal is a somewhat of an insurance for the relationship.
Fire crews across the region are scrambling to contain dozens of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes (Noah Berger/AP)

At least five people have died as dozens of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes continue to burn in Northern California.

The latest death of a resident in Solano County on Thursday followed that of a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker assisting with advance clearing and a pilot on a water-carrying mission whose helicopter crashed on Wednesday.

Three civilians had died in Napa County since the fires began said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire assistant deputy director, adding that more than 30 civilians and firefighters have been injured.

Governor Gavin Newsom addressed the wildfires, calling them clear evidence of climate change, in a last-minute video recorded for the Democratic National Convention from a forest after he visited an evacuation centre.

Climate change is real  and its not going away. We need a president who will take bold action to address it.#DemConvention pic.twitter.com/F3myrxnYFh  2020 #DemConvention  (@DemConvention) August 21, 2020

He said: If you are in denial about climate change, come to California.

I confess this is not where I expected to be speaking here tonight.

Mr Newsom had recorded an earlier, more lighthearted video, to be delivered at the convention but decided it did not strike the right tone amid his states disasters, said Dan Newman, one of his political advisers.

More than two dozen major fires were scorching California and taxing the states firefighting capacity, sparked by an unprecedented lightning siege that dropped nearly 11,000 strikes over several days.

Expand Close The fires were triggered by lightning strikes (Noah Berger/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The fires were triggered by lightning strikes (Noah Berger/AP)

The fires have destroyed 175 structures, including homes, and are threatening 50,000 more, said Mr Berlant.

Smoke and ash billowing from the fires has polluted the air throughout the scenic central coast and San Francisco.

Most of the activity is in Northern California, where fires have ripped through about 500 square miles of brushland, rural areas, canyon country and dense forest surrounding San Francisco.

Expand Close Extra fire crews have been drafted in to help the effort (Nic Coury/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Extra fire crews have been drafted in to help the effort (Nic Coury/AP)

More than 10,000 firefighters are on the front lines, but fire officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources.

Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours and the state has requested 375 engines and crew from other states.

Thats going to allow our firefighters that have have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest, Mr Berlant said.
Dozens of protestors attended an A-level results demonstration outside Downing Street calling for the immediate sacking of Gavin Williamson.

Students and teachers have demanded for the Education Secretary to be sacked at Friday's protest over A-level and Btec results in England.

The event, supported by several London branches of the National Education Union (NEU), saw protesters wave Socialist Worker banners and chant slogans including 'get Gav gone'.

Dozens of students and teachers gathered for A-level results demonstration outside Downing Street on Friday calling for Gavin Williamson to be sacked

Protestors held Socialist Workers banners and chanted slogans including 'get Gav gone' at the event, which was supported by some London branches of the National Education Union (NEU)

Glen Morgan-Shaw, 18, co-organised Friday's demonstration outside Downing Street was amongst those calling for Gavin Williamson's dismissal.

Glen, who is a Btec student from Bollingbrooke Academy in Wandsworth, south-west London, said: 'Gavin Williamson has to go, it's quite simple. He hasn't got anything right, so why is he still in the position?

'We're here for the long term, we're here for the future generations who will have their dreams ruined if this regime stays in place.

'And we're here for the working class kids on council estates who will continually be deemed less important and unworthy of university.'

Ofqual's grading system saw many devastated students marks reduced to the point where they were turned down by their first choice universities.

Both Boris Johnson and Education Secretary previously insisted the results calculation system was 'robust'.

But it saw almost 40 per cent of grades reduced from teachers' predictions - devastating bright and dedicated pupils.

Following an outcry, the Government made a u-turn decision on Monday, announcing that students would be able to use their teacher-assessed grades.

This comes as Education Secretary Gavin Williamson (above) apologised to students and parents affected by 'significant inconsistencies' with the grading process

Mr Williamson apologised to pupils and parents affected by 'significant inconsistencies' with the grading process amid calls for him to resign or be sacked.

More than ten per cent of A-level students results have been upgraded to an A or higher after the algorithm was abandoned.

Thousands of students have been scrambling to get places at their first choice university after Education Secretary Gavin Williamson scrapped the algorithm system.

The government tried to ease pressure on universities by removing admission caps - but initially excluded medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences.

Friday's protest saw one aspiring medical student break down as she spoke of potentially missing out on university due to the grading system, which downgraded her from four A*s to four As.

Kaya Ilska, who took her A-levels at St Marks in Hounslow, west London, said her plans are now in 'limbo'.

The 18-year-old said: 'I'm now stuck in limbo. I want to study at University College London, but my plans are up in the air.

'Does this Government not care about medical students?

'It seems the system is weighted in favour of the privileged few who attend private school.'

The Government abandoned Ofqual's grading algorithm in a u-turn decision on Monday, allowing students to use teacher-assessed grades instead

More than ten per cent of A-level students results have been upgraded to an A or higher after the grading algorithm was abandoned

Yesterday, the Government agreed to lift the cap on medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and teaching courses following the U-turn decision.

The Department for Education (DfE) has also announced additional funding to increase capacity in medical, nursing, STEM and other high-cost subjects.

The Government confirmed that students who did receive sufficient grades will be able to take up their place at their chosen university.

If the school is full, students can be offered an alternative course or deferment to 2021 following the A-level results fiasco.

It also emerged yesterday that universities may prioritise the applications of those from 'disadvantaged backgrounds' - and encourage middle-class students to defer their places.

Asked about reports that disadvantaged pupils' applications will be prioritised for the 2020/21 academic year, Clare Marchant told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think it is absolutely the right intention. I think we know from all of our survey work that those from most disadvantaged backgrounds really, really worry about money.

'And so if they are deferred for a year, or asked to defer for a year, we're likely to see a drop-off. And so that's the real intent behind that.'

Thousands of students have been scrambling to get places at their first choice university this week, after Education Secretary Gavin Williamson scrapped the algorithm system

Students have been re-applying for their first choice universities and the Government confirmed students who received sufficient grades will be able to take up their place

She added: 'They won't just be looking at that. They'll be looking at a number of different things in terms of that individual student.'

This comes as an NEU petition calling for action to fix the exams system has reached 25,000 signatures in 24 hours.

The petition urged the Prime Minister to consider changing the content assessed in GCSE and A-level exams for next summer.

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU, said: 'This Government has no one but itself to blame. The weaknesses in a system of its own creation have been left horribly exposed.

'What is needed is nothing short of an independent review into what went wrong, and a determination to ensure it never happens again.

'That would be a big step towards regaining the trust of parents and the profession.'
No safety concerns in China-Saudi nuclear energy cooperation: Chinese FM

Global Times

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 20:34:38

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said there is no cause for concern toward the nuclear energy cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia, at Thursday's media briefing.

"China has been actively promoting the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy globally in a responsible manner," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said.

China and Saudi Arabia have established a comprehensive strategic partnership. In recent years, bilateral relations have been developing steadily and healthily. The two sides have conducted fruitful cooperation in various fields and maintained normal energy cooperation, he said.

Zhao noted that China will continue to strictly abide by its international non-proliferation obligations, cooperate with other countries on the peaceful use of nuclear energy on the basis of mutual respect and benefit, and make contributions to global sustainable development.

It came after reports that Israel and the US were concerned about China-Saudi Arabia cooperation in nuclear power, citing possible safety issues. Some Western media, without proof, even claimed the cooperation shows Saudi Arabia's ambitions for nuclear weapons with China's help.

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They're doting parents to five children.

And, Gordon Ramsay's, 53, wife Tana, 45, took to Instagram on Friday to share a heartwarming Friends-style family snap of their brood.

Megan, 22, flashed a wide smile as she lay next to her brother Jack, 20, while their sisters Holly, 20, and Matilda, 18, as well as the latest addition to their family, Oscar, 16 months, placed their heads in between.

Sweet! And, Gordon Ramsay's, 53, wife Tana, 45, took to Instagram on Friday to share a heartwarming Friends-style family snap of their brood

Although he wasn't in the family shot, Tana made sure to tag her husband in the Instagram post.

The author captioned the sweet selfie: Family time xxxxxxxx @gordongram so blessed.'

Gordon recently angered Cornwall locals after relocating his family to their second home during the outbreak as the Government urged Britons not to travel from hotspots to the countryside.

The TV personality moved into a beachside 4.4 million mansion in the village of Rock in Cornwall as he decided to escape from London at the start of the pandemic.

Dating dad: Although he wasn't in the family shot, Tana made sure to tag her husband in the Instagram post

The star was spotted a number of times taking long excursions when outings were still limited to an hour a day including a beachside stroll with his entire family.

The Hell's Kitchen star also landed in hot water with the local coastguard, who are said to have issued an official warning to him over his apparent flouting of lockdown guidelines.

Sources indicated that Gordon was seen in Rock, Fowey, Port Isaac and Newquay  some distance from his 4 million home in Trebetherick.

The warning was particularly troubling because Ramsay was the face of a 'Stayhome' initiative on YouTube which he has been plugging on his ten-minute cookery shows, filmed in 'isolation' in his Cornwall kitchen.

Moreover, the TV personality hit yet another stumbling block when he was forced deny 'almost causing an accident' after a resident accused him of jumping a red light while on a 26.2-mile bike ride.

Whilst the UK was in heavy lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, the government advice was to 'stay local and use open spaces near to your home where possible.'
JOLIET, IL  The following people were arrested by police agencies across Will County and brought to the Will County Jail since Thursday, Aug. 20. Here are the reasons for their arrests.

Alejandro Perez-Cervantes, 37, 3600 block of Judy Court, Joliet, arrested by Illinois State Police District 4 on charges of child pornography/soliciting child/photos.

Perez-Cervantes





Louis Goode, 35, Valencia Drive, Shorewood, arresting agency not listed, four October 2018 charges of domestic battery. In March, prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Joliet Patch reported that Goode was a fugitive and he was captured by police in Colorado.

Goode





Juan Arambula-Rodriguez, 19, South Kenneth Avenue, Chicago, arrested by Will County Sheriff's Office on two charges of possession of controlled substances with intent to deliver them and one count of possession of controlled substances.

Arambula-Rodriguez





Brianna Cotton, 23, West Monroe Street apartment units, Chicago, arrested by Mokena police on two charges of retail theft.

Cotton





Matthew Durka, 29, South 116th Avenue apartment units, Mokena, arrested by Mokena police on charges of aggravated domestic battery and domestic battery.

Durka





Michael Harris, 48, 500 block of Springwood Drive, Joliet, arrested by Joliet police on charges of possession of controlled substances, aggravated domestic battery and three temporary police holds for authorities in La Salle County.

Harris





Arrest report information is provided by local police departments. Charges are merely allegations, not evidence of guilt.



This article originally appeared on the Joliet Patch
It was last year when Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had accused the actor of funding the NGO that he felt was responsible for the devastating forest fires in the Amazon. He indirectly blamed him for the fires at Brazils Amazon rainforest, which were so intense that they could be seen from space.

Now Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourao has challenged the environmentalist to an eight hour hike in the rainforest. He said he wanted to show him that it was not actually burning.



wiki

"I would like to invite our most recent critic, Leonardo DiCaprio, to go with me to Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira to do an eight-hour ride through the jungle between the Sao Gabriel airport and the Cucui highway," Mourao said at an event on sustainable development.



Twitter

"He will learn with each big pothole that he has to pass that the Amazon is not a flat land and understand better how things work in this vast region," he said.

DiCaprio shared a post on his Instagram that said, "Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, is under pressure internationally to curb the fires, but he has publicly doubted the severity of them in the past claiming opponents and indigenous communities were responsible," said the post.



Mourao claims his policies this year are working.


India's largest Kisan Call Centre (KCC) in the agricultural sector, a project under the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmer Welfare (DAC & FW) and run by IFFCO Kisan as the execution partner, is strengthening the farmers through its advisory and consultancy services.

Having started in 2008, the call centre has come a long way ever since it collaborated with the government to assist farmers in their day-to-day practices. Focusing on improving the quality of the calls and constant monitoring has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of daily inbound calls. Initially, the call centre was operating across 13 locations; today it is operating from 21 locations.

The calls are being answered by approximately 600 Agriculture Expert who is hired from different Agriculture Universities from morning 6 AM to evening at 10 PM. Taking into account the diversity of the country, the service comes in 22 vernacular languages to overcome the geographical barrier.

KCC establishes to resolve the enquiries with 90 per cent efficiency, the average answering speed is less than ten seconds. It not just supported the farmers against the devastating shutdown but also contributed to the country's economy.

Entertaining more than 22,000 calls daily, the call centre ensured uninterrupted service even during lockdown owing to the collective expertise of the team functioning from their home.

From guiding the farmer's over the call to providing additional services crucial for enhancing productivity, KCC has proved to be a true companion assisting farmer's in every step of the process.

Moreover, the team backed up with intensive training have been well versed in Kisan Knowledge Management System that comes handy in providing myriad services that don't compromise on the quality. Periodic training and monitoring are conducted for the tele-advisors for quality assurance and successful resolution of the issues.

To expand the verticals of services, KCC is diversified in the realm of automated calls updating on weather and mandi price. In addition to this, the services are not just limited to agricultural advisory but have included other allied services entailing horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, etc.

Thus, the Kisan Call Centre is entirely dedicated to improving the farming techniques that align with the goal of enhancing the overall livelihood of the farmers where they can emerge as an enriched and empowered community.

Keeping in mind the potential of the agricultural sector, the call centre is intensively working towards making agriculture the backbone of India's GDP and eventually farmer welfare.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

DISCLAIMER

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Syracuse, N.Y.  Diners can eat in at mall food courts in New York again.

The state quietly modified its coronavirus rules Thursday to allow table seating in food courts. So shoppers who grab something to eat in the food court at Syracuses Destiny USA and the states other malls no longer have to down it while standing or, as has happened occasionally, sitting on the floor.

New York allowed malls to reopen July 10 after a nearly four-month shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. But until Thursday, malls had to keep their food court seating closed.

Food court operators at Destiny, New Yorks largest mall and the sixth largest in the nation, had complained that the restriction was killing their business.

MORE: Destiny USA food court tenants say take out-only rule hurting business

While it has lifted the ban on seating, the state has imposed the same restrictions as those for dine-in restaurants at malls and elsewhere:

Seating is limited to 50% of capacity

Tables must be at least 6 feet apart

Once seated, customers are encouraged but not required to wear face coverings when not eating and/or drinking.

Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
Nostalgia is a wonderful feeling.

A certain film comes on TV on a Sunday and takes you back to your childhood days in your hometown. You feel happy and proud to see someone who looks like you on screen, the beautiful roads and rivers that are so familiar that you instantly feel a connection. However, as a 23 year old Assamese woman, I have literally no idea how that feels like!

For years, I have looked for a mainstream Indian film I could relate to. There have been fleeting mentions and an Assamese character here and there in films like Margarita with a Straw, but there was nothing more than a few minutes of tokenism. Even when there were actors like Adil Hussain and Plabita Borthakur shining in brilliant, content-driven films, there were no Assamese stories per se.

That was why when I started watching Dil Se on an afternoon, determined to watch every film that legendary filmmaker Mani Ratnam had made, I was quite surprised to find that there was a film back in 1998 that was based in Assam. I was surprised as to why my parents never told me about it, for they had conveniently spoiled the ending for me. I got my answer soon enough.

As I watched the first half an hour of the film, I was over the moon. Shah Rukh Khans Amar had taken a fancy to Manisha Koiralas Meghna, but my eyes were at the dheki, a traditional rice-pounder used in Assamese villages, and the Mekhela Chadar (two piece traditional attire worn by women). Udit Narayans Aye Ajnabee transitioned into Pakhi Pakhi Bidekhi hummed by Zubeen Garg.

When the film hinted at extremism in Assam, I thought it was very brave of the director to do so. There was finally a film made about the states militancy and extremism. What more could I want?

However, I was soon to be disappointed, because even when the beautiful frames and melodious tracks distracted me for a while, I could not help but think how uncomfortable it was for a woman to be followed around by a man, after having said no multiple times. But I had just found a movie about us, I was determined to not write it off so quickly. It was the 90s and stalking a woman was a norm at that time. I just needed to be patient.

However, as the film progressed and reached Ladakh, it slowly started slipping away. One of the most triggering experiences of my life was watching Amar grope Meghna and forcefully kiss her. I didnt think the film could disappoint me any further, but it did, repeatedly.

Throughout the film, I had to watch Amar describe Meghna to several people as choti choti aankhen, chapti naak (small eyes, flat nose). To Meghnas face, Amar would exoticise her choti aankhen. I understand that it was the 90s but I am saddened how that gave people the free pass to normalise racism in a mainstream film! Was human rights not invented in the 90s? Were Northeast Indians not harassed with racial slur in the 90s?

You see, for Assamese people, the trauma was two-pronged. While extremist organisations like ULFA for decades from its inception in 1979 upto the 2010s killed hundreds of people in the state, many suffered due to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Countless innocent people were caught in the crossfire.

For years, people in the state have been terrified of National Holidays and any festival for that matter, because it would mean a high possibility of explosion.

How do you take the collective trauma of a state and exploit it for your aesthetics, only to forget about it completely? Filmmakers with their creative freedom have done this for years, but what Dil Se did was glorify a stalker, sexual offender and a racist, and made him a Romeo for the rest of India to lap up.

Even the flashback scene about Meghna's childhood seemed superficial. When your protagonist was a victim of sexual harassment as a child, in what world did the maker think it was okay to romanticise the sexual harassment she faced on the hands of our hero?

Even the climax immortalises our hero, because our agency-less heroine was destined to die for nothing anyway. The whole extravagance of the embrace, as if no other members of the terrorist organisations had bombs on them, only went on to stroke the mainstream Indian saviour complex and the way it looks down upon Assam and other Northeastern states.

22 years have gone by since the films release and it is still termed as iconic and revolutionary and brilliant.

It probably is, for people who are looking from outside. For people who have lived through the trauma, it is a different story altogether. My parents did not tell me about Dil Se because they didnt like it. Most people remember it as a film that lasted 10 minutes in Assam, even in the 90s. Can you blame them?

People everywhere else seem to love the film. Cinema pages on Instagram cannot get over how beautiful the frames are. Yes, the acting is great, so is AR Rahmans music and Santosh Sivans cinematography. So what?

A friend, after I expressed my feelings for the movie, told me, Yeah the stalking is a bit much but I dont have a problem with the movie.

Of course you dont. Youre not a woman. Or an Assamese.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Most Syracuse teachers and staff want to start the year without bringing students into classrooms.

A survey of teachers, staff and administrators in the city school district found that 74% of the 2,572 people who responded want to start the year with a full remote learning plan.

The largest group to respond was teachers: 1,237, or 76%, wanted virtual instruction to start the year. Teaching assistants, too, were overwhelmingly in favor of online learning with 78%.

The district sent the online survey out Monday afternoon. It followed a vote last week by the Syracuse Teachers Association to ask the district to delay having in-person instruction until November. Teachers said there were too many unanswered questions about health and safety. That vote was overwhelmingly in favor of not returning in-person, but it was a limited vote by building representatives, not the entire teaching staff.

Syracuse teachers have been joined by unions in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Schenectady, Yonkers and New York City asking the city schools districts to delay in-person instruction until more questions about safety during the pandemic are answered.

Rochester has delayed in-person education, as have Ithaca, Auburn and Binghamton.

After the teachers union vote, the district decided to move its start date to Sept. 14. At the time, Superintendent Jaime Alicea said the district would revisit the issue.

Bill Scott, the teachers union president, said tonight that the survey shows that the unions request to delay in-person education was the right choice.

... We hope that the superintendent and school board take the status into consideration as we continue to recommend that we start virtually, Scott said.

The city school board meets again Aug. 24.

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
The precipitous drop in tourism due to the Coronavirus pandemic will have an outsized impact on countries that rely on foreign travelers  with potentially large-scale effects on their economies national accounts, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Since COVID-19 emerged in China's Wuhan in late December last year, governments worldwide have been forced to lockdown their countries and put curbs on international air travel to contain the spread of the highly contagious disease.

According to the IMF's recently released 2020 External Sector Report, Costa Rica, Greece, Morocco, Portugal, and Thailand could be among the hardest hit with losses in tourism proceeds exceeding 3 per cent of GDP.

During the first four months of 2020, international tourism arrivals were about 50 per cent lower than over the same period in 2019, with deeper declines for related indicators, such as international flight arrivals and hotel reservations, the reports say. The projected direct impact on tourism trade balances in 2020 will depend critically on the pace of tourism recovery, which is highly uncertain.

A recent study (UN World Tourism Organization 2020) includes a scenario involving a gradual lifting of travel restrictions starting in September. This scenario implies tourism receipts 73 per cent below their 2019 levels, with a direct impact on tourism trade balances ranging from 6 per cent of GDP to 2 per cent of GDP.

READ | IMF Chief Economist Urges Governments To Provide 'equity-like' Support To Firms

READ | Global Public Debt, Fiscal Deficits To Reach All-time High, IMF Warns

The chart calculates direct tourism impacts on imports, exports, and current account balances under a scenario that envisions gradual reopenings in September but a drop of about 70 per cent in tourism receipts and international tourist arrivals in 2020.

A countrys current account balance is a measure of its total transactionswhich includes but is not limited to trade in goods and serviceswith the rest of the world. For some economies, a drop in tourism (which is considered an export) could have an impact on overall current account balances.

For example, in Thailand, a decrease in tourism due to COVID-19 could bring the countrys overall exports down by 8 percentage points of GDP and have a direct net impact of about 6 percentage points of GDP on its current account balance in 2020. That could erode part of the 7 per cent overall current account surplus the country had in 2019.

The outlook for smaller, tourism-dependent nations is even starker. This chart and the External Sector Report focus on medium to large economies, but, under the same scenario, some smaller states especially reliant on tourism could see a dramatically larger direct impact on their trade and current account balances.

Still, the IMF said, the overall effect a decline in tourism will have on current account balances may be less than these projected direct impacts foretell. Smaller, tourism-dependent countries and even larger economies with a large tourism industry (like India) may see offsetting indirect effects. For example, smaller nations with less domestic resources often rely on more imports to support their tourism industries. A drop in tourism exports and the economic activity that it drives, both directly and indirectly, will lead to a corresponding drop in importslessening the overall impact on the current account balance.

"Much is still unknown about the pace of tourism recovery in 2020. Peoples desire and ability to travel abroad may continue to face headwinds going into 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic, leaving an uncertain outlook for tourism industries in economies both big and small," the IMF said.

(AP Photo for representation)

READ | IMF: U.S. Economy Will Drop 6.6% In 2020 In Face Of Pandemic

READ | IMF: Mideast Loses USD 270 Bn Oil Income Amid Virus, Recession
Belarus Prosecutors Open Probe Against Founders Of Opposition Council As Protests Continue

By RFE/RL's Belarus Service August 20, 2020

MINSK -- Belarusian prosecutors on August 20 opened a criminal investigation into the founders of an opposition council set up to negotiate the transition of power amid huge protests challenging the "rigged" results of a presidential election earlier this month that gave President Alyaksandr Lukashenka a fresh six-year term.

The council formed by opposition leaders who claim the result of the poll was falsified has been insisting new presidential elections must be held as protests in Minsk entered a 12th day despite a new push by the authoritarian to clear the streets.

Still, the 65-year-old leader, who has been in power since 1994, has reiterated he won't resign or call a new vote while under pressure from protesters, and on August 19 escalated tensions by instructing authorities to bring criminal charges against opposition leaders and calling on his security services to get tougher on demonstrators, in an indication that a renewed crackdown on the peaceful demonstrators was in the works.

Maryya Kalesnikava, one of opposition presidential candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya's top aides, said on August 20 that despite "flagrant falsifications" in the August 9 ballot that gave Lukashenka a landslide victory, the incumbent has "the right to participate" in a fresh election, though "we do not believe Lukashenka will do that."

A 37-year-old political novice, Tsikhanouskaya ran after other potential candidates, including her husband, were jailed or exiled prior to the election during an opposition crackdown.

"The term of the incumbent Belarusian president expires only on November 5. After that, we intend to hold an election in strict compliance with international standards and to invite international observers. However, the CEC [Central Election Commission] composition must be completely renewed, and the head of the CEC must be replaced," Kalesnikava said.

Lukashenka has faced the biggest domestic challenge to his 26-year rule since the election, which the European Union has said it does not recognize because of irregularities that ended up giving the strongman just over 80 percent of the vote.

Official results gave Tsikhanouskaya about 10 percent of the vote, but she claims to have actually received between 60 and 70 percent.

Thousands have since taken to the streets and walked off the job at state-controlled factories, even heckling the man sometimes referred to as "Europe's last dictator."

Tsikhanouskaya fled to neighboring Lithuania last week, from where she has called for the protests to continue peacefully.

The Coordination Council says numerous election-law violations were recorded in the vote, and more than 7,000 people have been detained and arrested for political reasons.

The council consists of top associaties of Tsikhanouskaya, as well as rights activists and representatives of striking workers and includes the nation's most famous author, Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature.

It met for the first time on August 18, saying it represents the people and seeks to negotiate a peaceful transition of power.

Volha Kovalkova, an aide to Tsikhanouskaya, says she expects her to soon return to Minsk from Lithuania to act as a guarantor in a negotiated transition of power.

Protests continued on August 20 in Minsk and other Belarusian cities for the 12th straight day.

On August 19, hundreds of protesters defied the security forces and assembled in front of the Interior Ministry, which runs the police. A large number of officers were stationed there with vans, but they took no action.

Demonstrators chanted "Resign!" and "Let them out!" in reference to those still detained, while passing cars honked their horns in the rain.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on August 20 that the United States remains deeply concerned by "serious flaws" in Belarus's election, adding that Washington was in support of international efforts to independently look into the country's electoral irregularities and human rights abuses surrounding the vote.

"We remain deeply concerned by serious flaws in the August 9 presidential election in Belarus and strongly condemn the violence carried out against peaceful protesters and journalists, the arrest of opposition candidates and peaceful protesters, the blockage of Belarus' internet service, and the abuse of detainees, "Pompeo said in a statement released on August 20.

"We urge the Belarusian government to actively engage Belarusian society, including through the newly established National Coordination Council, in a way that reflects what the Belarusian people are demanding, for the sake of Belarus' future, and for a successful Belarus," he added.

The European Union has said it does not recognize the result of the Belarus election and will soon impose sanctions on Lukashenka's government.

On August 20, EU Council President Charles Michel tweeted that he held another phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is Lukashenka's closest ally, and told him that the only solution to the Belarus crisis is "political inclusive dialogue & a peaceful and democratic process."

"Yesterday, EU expressed solidarity with the people of Belarus in their desire to determine their own future. Today I reiterated this to President Putin. There is only one way forward: through political inclusive dialogue & a peaceful and democratic process," Michel tweeted.

The Kremlin, however, insisted that direct talks between foreign entities and the Belarusian opposition would amount to "interference in Belarusian internal affairs."

"We believe that dialogue should be primarily conducted inside Belarus. Because if foreign countries, among them Russia, establish dialogue with the opposition, that would be an act of interference in internal affairs," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on August 20.

Peskov also said that Putin and Lukashenka have held four phone calls "of late."

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, dpa, and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-opposition- insists-on-fresh-elections-lukashenka- remains-defiant/30793707.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Property prices were unchanged in July, but rents rose even when there was a surge in properties coming on to the market.

There was a 41pc rise in the number of properties available to rent.

The increased rental supply is in Dublin and is down to young people returning to their parents' homes, fewer Airbnb lets, and fewer people moving to the city to take up new jobs.

Dublin rental costs were largely unchanged despite greater rental availability.

In the capital, the rental stock on the market is almost twice what it was a year ago. Elsewhere in the country, availability is largely unchanged.

Read More

In the rest of Leinster and in Munster, rental costs have risen in the past year, according to the latest Daft.ie housing market report.

The average listed sale price nationwide in July was 259,733, while the average monthly listed rent was 1,412.

The rental moratorium was credited with keeping rental levels unchanged in the capital, while the changes to the Help-To-Buy scheme are seen as helping to keep sales prices from falling.

Daft.ie reported its best day for traffic last Monday, when more than 560,000 sessions were recorded.

The property website found that asking prices for properties for sale across the State were unchanged in July.

This was despite a sharp drop in the number of houses and apartments for sale.

In Dublin, asking prices were up by 1.2pc to around 379,000.

Leinster saw prices rise by 2.1pc to an average of 241,000.

In Munster and Connacht-Ulster, prices fell.

The average in Munster is now 212,000, while it is 177,000 in Connacht-Ulster, Daft.ie says.

The unchanged level of prices across the State comes despite a 22pc fall during August in the number of properties for sale.

This may have given rise to expectations that a hike in prices was on the way.

However, it is likely that the devastating impact of the pandemic means fewer people are currently qualifying for a mortgage.

Recent banking figures found a 50pc fall in those getting mortgage approval in March. People on the temporary wage subsidy, for instance, are unable to draw down a mortgage.

Daft.ie said there were just 19,538 properties for sale nationwide on August 1, down 22pc year-on-year.

The average cost of renting across the State is now 1,412, up 1.2pc in the year to July. Dublin rents were largely unchanged at 2,030.

Leinster saw a 3.3pc rise in the cost of rent to 1,219.

Trinity College Dublin economist and author of the Daft report Ronan Lyons said the fact that property prices and rental costs were showing only a slight fall was down to the rental moratorium, and the changes to the Help-to-Buy scheme.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:08:07|Editor: huaxia

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TASHKENT, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Uzbekistan has asked Afghanistan to strengthen security protection for the personnel of Uzbek companies operating in Afghanistan following an armed attack in Balkh Province, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov and his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar discussed over the phone an armed attack on an Uzbek railway company near Hairaton railway station in Afghanistan that occurred on Thursday, the statement said.

Uzbekistan's state railway company said in a separate statement that during the attack by unidentified gunmen, an Afghan soldier guarding the railway was killed, and an Uzbek railway specialist was wounded and taken to the hospital.

In response, Atmar said that Afghan authorities will conduct a thorough investigation of the incident and bring those involved to justice.

Uzbekistan shares a border with Afghanistan in the south, and has been participating in the socio-economic revival of the war-torn country through regional infrastructure projects, including building railways and electricity lines. Enditem
The LDF government filed the application in the court, a day after an all-party-meeting in Kerala demanded the withdrawal of the Centre's decision to privatise the airport

The Kerala government on Friday moved the high court seeking a stay on further proceedings in leasing out Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Enterprises.

Unless the stay is granted, it will be put to irreparable injury and hardship, the state government said in its application already filed by it challenging the central government's move to privatise the airport.

The state government filed the application in the court, a day after an all-party-meeting in Kerala demanded withdrawal of the Union Cabinet's wednesday decision to lease out the airport to Adani Enterprises.

Last year, the high court had dismissed the petition challenging the decision, terming it as not maintainable under Article 226 of the Constitution. The state government then filed an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the high court order.

The apex court set aside the judgement of the high court and the matter was remanded back to it for a decision on merit.

Referring to the top court directive, the state government said, "all further proceedings in relation to grant of lease with regard to operation, management and development of Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Enterprises Ltd, is to be stayed pending disposal of the

aforementioned writ petition."

In the virtual meeting, called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to discuss the issue, barring the BJP all other parties opposed the Union cabinet's decision to lease out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

It has also decided to move a resolution in this regard in the state assembly when it meets for a day on 24 August.

Vijayan later shot off his second letter in two days to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, conveying the decision taken at the all-party meeting and requested him to reconsider the privatisation move.

The Adani Enterprises has won the rights to run six airports  Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati  through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February, 2019.

Vijayan told the all-party meet that the state government had asked for the management and the operation of the airport with the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which it will be the major shareholder.

The Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) had taken part in the bidding.

The Centre has said the state government did not qualify in the bidding process that was carried out in a "transparent manner".
The parents of a nine-year-old girl who went missing on Sunday insist she is alive and has been human trafficked - despite a confession from their neighbor who said he had raped and murdered her, before dumping her body in the Caribbean Sea.

Liz Maria Sanchez was last seen Sunday morning walking into an alley in the eastern Santo Domingo neighborhood of Ensanche Isabelita in the Dominican Republic.

Liz's mother Liselot Garcia told Dominican newspaper Hoy on Thursday that Sanchez reportedly had told her friends that she was going to visit the home of Esterlin Francisco Santos, 40, to pick up a cellphone that he promised to gift her before disappearing.

'To me this smells like human trafficking,' said Garcia, who added she senses her daughter is alive each time she looks at photos of her on her phone.

Santos was arrested for the murder and reportedly told police officers he had raped the girl - then murdered her to stop her from telling her parents. He said he had then thrown her body into the ocean.

Liz Maria Sanchez (pictured) has been missing in the Dominican Republic since she was last seen Sunday walking into an alley next to the home of Esterlin Francisco Santos, who admitted to raping and killing her and dumping her body in the Caribbean Sea in Santo Domingo. He appeared before a judge Thursday and said his confession had been forced by the police

Liselot Garcia (pictured) told Antena Latina Channel 7 that she believes her daughter, Liz Maria Sanchez, is alive and could have been passed off to a human trafficking ring by Esterlin Francisco Santos, a friend of the family who confessed to raping and killing the nine-year-old

The Dominican Republic's Civil Defense Department said the search for the body of Liz Maria Sanchez was called off Friday in the Caribbean Sea waters near the 14 kilometer mile marker of Las Americas Highway, where the nine-year-old's confessed killer, Esterlin Francisco Santos, said he had dumped her in a bag Sunday. Pictured is a search and rescue team on Thursday

But when he appeared before a judge Thursday afternoon, he recanted his statement and pleaded not guilty - telling the court his confession had been coerced by the police.

Authorities refuted his claim and said they have video and audio of Santos admitting his guilt. There is also footage of Santos transporting a large bag on his motorbike - which police believe had Liz's body inside.

Santos will remain in custody for 18 months while prosecutors carry out investigations.

The authorities have not yet recovered Liz's body and the Civil Defense Department said the remains were not where Santos claimed he had dumped her.

Surveillance footage from the night Liz disappeared, showed Liz walking past two people at 8.58am and then turning the corner near Santos' home, before disappearing from the camera's view.

The same security video camera showed Santos pushing his motorcycle from his home, with a large bag stuffed into a milk crate that was attached behind the back seat of the moped at 11.23am. He then returned to the home as 12.33pm without the bag.

Esterlin Francisco Santos (pictured with the pink face mask) pleaded guilty Thursday

Surveillance camera captures Liz Maria Sanchez's (center) last moments as she walked toward her killer's home. She had been promised a cellphone if she remained quiet about her killer having sexually assaulted her

Esterlin Francisco Santos was seen on camera driving off on his motorcycle with a large bag containing the body of Liz Maria Sanchez, whom he confessed to killing Sunday in the Dominican Republic and dumping tossing her into the Caribbean Sea

The 40-year-old was arrested a short time later and told law enforcement officials that he raped and strangled the girl and dumped the bag containing her body into the Caribbean Sea coast on the 14 kilometer marker on Las Americas Highway.

Santos told authorities that he killed Liz Maria Sanchez because he was afraid she would tell on him to her parents because he had promised to gift her a cellphone for permitting him to touch her.

A boy, whose identity was not revealed by Antena Latina Channel 6, said he had spoke to Liz on Saturday and that she told him her parents knew that Santos had sexually assaulted her in the past and that she would be going to his house to pick up the mobile device.

'I told her, 'Liz Mari, do not go,"' the boy said.

Garcia and her husband Emmanuel Sanchez acknowledged to Antena Latina Channel 7 being friends with Santos and regretted having welcomed the suspect into their home for meals.

'I saw him going to work with the boy [Santo's son] and in my good faith and as a Dominican I finally told him to come to my house so that he and the boy could eat there,' Sanchez said. 'That child was skinny and malnourished. Out of pain I opened my house's doors to him.

'He planned that. He waited for a weekend that I wasn't here. If I were here, my girl were alive and I would have dismembered that charlatan. The girl had never been there and on that day he tricked her with the cellphone.'
Inside Hook

Many students preparing to start their fall semester of college classes in person this month are, naturally, a little uneasy about the threat of COVID-19 on campus. And according to one administrator at Yale at least, those fears are completely justified: in a recent email to students, she warned that they should emotionally prepare for some of their peers deaths due to the pandemic.

We all should be emotionally prepared for widespread infections  and possibly deaths  in our community, Laurie Santos, head of the schools sprawling Silliman College, wrote in the email to students, which was sent on July 1. You should emotionally prepare for the fact that your residential college life will look more like a hospital unit than a residential college.
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Covid-19 may have entered Britain through at least 79 countries and Croatia is not one of them, according to NHS statistics released today.

Data given to SAGE - Number 10's scientific advisory panel - revealed 800 patients who were hospitalised between March and August had travelled abroad in the past fortnight.

It does not necessarily mean they caught the virus overseas but Covid-19 has an incubation period that lasts up to 14 days, suggesting they may well have brought the virus back to the UK.

A quarter of the hospitalised patients (200) had been to Spain, which was at the epicentre of Europe's coronavirus crisis before the deadly pathogen had reached British soil. It was followed by Italy (92), where thousands of families flocked to during the February half-term to ski.

But staggeringly, only three patients told doctors they had visited China, where the coronavirus was first detected in December 2019. Eight were from Thailand, five were from the Philippines and zero had been to Vietnam - all countries on the 'high-risk' list at the start of the pandemic.

Covid-19 may have also been imported from several luxury holiday destinations, including Barbados, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic.

The data - released today by the government - was presented to SAGE. It is just one of dozens of papers presented to advisers over recent months to help guide ministers through the crisis.

Covid-19 entered Britain through at least 79 countries, NHS data for hospitalised patients show. Patients most commonly reported going to Spain (205), other parts of the UK (116), Italy (92), France (35) and Germany (35) in the two weeks before their infection

TOP 10 COUNTRIES: HOW MANY CASES AND DEATHS ARE THERE NOW? Spain Cases, 371,000 Deaths, 27,797 UK Cases, 322,000 Deaths, 41,403 Italy Cases, 256,000 Deaths, 35,418 France Cases, 230,000 Deaths, 30,480 US Cases, 5.59million Deaths, 174,000 Cyprus Cases, 1,359 Deaths, 20 Portugal Cases, 54,992 Deaths, 1,788 Austria Cases, 24,431 Deaths, 729 Barbados Cases , 155 Deaths, 7 India Cases, 2.91million Deaths, 54,849 Pakistan Cases, 292,000 Deaths, 6,219 Advertisement

The COVID-19 Clinical Information Network (CO-CIN) collates information from NHS hospitals across the UK to give an idea of the symptoms, characteristics and outcomes of the sickest patients.

Between March 10 and August 5, CO-CIN had recorded information for 77,676 patients who were confirmed to have Covid-19.

Patients give information at the time they are admitted. However, it is not possible to get a full set of data because some patients are too unwell to answer basic questions about their travel history or background.

A total of 23,392 patients answered the question: 'Did you travel in the two weeks prior to your symptoms starting?'

A third (825) stated that they had, but only 797 named the country they had been to.

The other 54,284 patients did not answer the question or data was missing, therefore the following information only gives a snapshot of where hospitalised patients had travelled to before they became infected.

And the data only refers to those who ended up in hospital, and not the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered a mild infection.

The most commonly reported travel destination was Spain, where cases soared in March at a pace two weeks ahead of the UK.

Neighbouring Italy and France (35) were also on the higher end of the scale, having seen thousands of cases at the height of the crisis just before the UK was stuck. It can be assumed that these European locations were reported so commonly because they are visited so often by Britons.

It took the Government three weeks after the first two cases were detected in Rome to announce that anyone feeling ill after coming home from northern Italy should self-isolate.

The second most common country was the UK, indicating domestic travel for holidays or work may have played a significant role in the spread of the disease.

But Croatia was not on the list, with none of the patients revealed they had travelled there before being struck down with the disease at any point during the pandemic.

Croatia has become the latest country to be added to the UK's quarantine list after a spike in infections.

Travellers arriving in the UK after 4am on Saturday will have to self-isolate for 14 days, it was revealed last night, along with Austria and Trinidad and Tobago.

At the same time Portugal, where eight hospital patients reported travelling to, is now exempt from the UK's requirement to quarantine.

The quarantine list is based on diagnosed cases being reported in that country.

A significant increase in Covid-19 infections have been recorded across Croatia, along with Spain, the Netherlands and France earlier in the month.

BRITONS SCRAMBLE TO RETURN FROM CROATIA British holidaymakers have been seen scrambling to airports in Croatia in a bid to get home before they face a two-week quarantine on their return to the UK. In scenes similar to those seen in French airports and ferry terminals last week, tourists were spotted in their numbers at Croatia's Split Airport yesterday, as the rush begins to get home by Saturday's deadline. Around 20,000 British tourists are thought to be in Croatia currently. The pictures were taken hours after the UK government announced Croatia, along with Austria and Trinidad, would be taken off the quarantine-free travel list - meaning tourists will be forced to quarantine for a fortnight on their return. The decision comes following a spike in cases in each of the three countries. Figures released by Department for Transport (DfT) indicate that the weekly incidence (cases) per 100,000 for Croatia increased from 10.4 on August 12 to 27.4 on August 19, a 164% increase. Over the same period, Trinidad and Tobago saw a 232 per cent increase in weekly incidence per 100,000, while Austria had a 93 per cent increase between August 13 and August 20 (from 10.5 per 100,000, to 20.3). Portugal meanwhile has been put on the list, meaning tourists will be allowed quarantine-free travel to popular holiday destinations, such as the Algarve, from Saturday. Advertisement

On Thursday afternoon, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tweeted: 'Data shows we need to remove Croatia, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago from our list of #coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN.'

Several countries in the 'travel corridor' - those where Britons are free to holiday without needing to self-isolate afterwards - were on the list of countries where cases had been imported from.

Among the top 10 were nearby Cyprus, Portugal and Austria, which were reported by patients 26, 22 and 21 times respectively.

India, Pakistan and South Africa, all of which are currently battling some of the worst outbreaks the world has seen, were also high on the list.

It is not clear from the data if there is a correlation between the timings of each countries' epidemic and when patients' had travelled there.

In other words, all 11 cases from India could have been imported in March. Or they could have been in the past couple of months, given its outbreak is ongoing.

Far-off tourist locations, famed for their hot climates and crystal-clear oceans, were also on the list - Barbados (18), the Bahamas (6), Antigua and Barbuda (4), Jamaica (3) and the Dominican Republic (3).

Some had been reported more often than close-by countries like Belgium (4), Malta (1) and Denmark (1).

The data spans several months, in which time the spread of the disease has altered drastically. It was first centered in Asia, before moving to Europe, and now the Americas.

But despite the coronavirus first emerging in China, a mere three of almost 23,000 patients said they had been there in the two weeks before they developed symptoms.

And similarly fewer than ten patients reported travel to Thailand and the Philippines, where Covid-19 first spread to from China.

Very few countries were on the original list of 'high-risk' Covid-19 hotspots that were identified by the Government in February.

At the beginning of February any travellers coming back from Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Macau and mainland China, were advised to call NHS 111 if they felt even slightly unwell.

The Government said they nine countries had been 'identified because of the volume of air travel from affected areas, understanding of other travel routes and number of reported cases'.

Six NHS hospital patients said they had returned from Japan, four from Singapore and Malaysia each, and only one each from South Korea and Hong Kong.

But no patients revealed they came from Taiwan, Macau, Vietnam or Japan. There may be fewer cases reported from those countries given how far away they are from the UK.

On top of this, it's unlikely any Britons travelled there after repatriations brought swathes of citizens back to the UK in January and February - all the while people were still freely travelling in and out of Europe.

But it may also be as a result of missing data - several other hospital patients may have visited one of those early hotspots but it has not been noted down.

Conversely, the Government's announcement in early March that people from France, Spain and Germany were not to be considered at-risk of having coronavirus has not aged well.

Official advice changed on February 25 to tell anyone feeling ill after coming home from northern Italy to self-isolate  at the time the country had 229 diagnosed cases.

In contrast, Asian countries warned of by the Foreign Office had only dozens of cases at the time.

Holidaymakers returning from Cambodia, for example, were told to self-isolate if they feel ill even though the country only had two confirmed cases.

The same went for Vietnam, which had 31 cases, and Thailand, which had 53.
Alison OConnor was expecting to find some dishonesty among people when reporting symptoms of COVID-19.

But considering the threat posed by the pandemic virus, the Brock University PhD student didnt anticipate lying would be as prevalent as her U.S.-based research indicated.

OConnor and the St. Catharines universitys associate professor of psychology, Angela Evans, shared their findings in an article published this week in the Journal of Health Psychology, called Dishonesty during a pandemic: The concealment of COVID-19 information.

The research showed 55 per cent of participants who had tested positive with the virus reported some level of concealment of their symptoms, while 34 per cent of COVID-19 positive participants denied having symptoms at all; 25 per cent lied about physical distancing practices, and 53 per cent denied needing to quarantine.

We were a little surprised, OConnor said.

She was expecting there would be some dishonesty among study participants, but they were not sure if the seriousness of the pandemic would encourage more honesty because people recognize the importance of being honest right now.

Based on the study results, she said there does seem to be something thats a barrier for people to tell the truth.

Perhaps that is that people are worried about judgment from others because people are uncomfortable talking about COVID experiences, she said.

Because this pandemic affects everyone and its in the news a lot, I think people may not want to be honest about COVID symptoms.

OConnor said survey respondents who described themselves as more community-focused reported they were more honest about their experiences with the virus.

You really need to be focusing on the collective here and really working as a group and realizing that even though in the moment it may be hard to talk about our COVID experiences, its really important for the safety and the health of the broader community, she said.

The study included 451 adult participants aged 20 to 82 years, living in the U.S.

OConnor said the study was focused on U.S. residents  where at least 5.54 million people have been diagnosed with the virus  to expedite the results, taking advantage of an existing online pool of study participants who were primarily from the south of the border.

She said a study is planned to look specifically at how truthful Niagara residents have been regarding the virus, but that study will take at least a few months to complete.

Although a similar study has yet to be conducted in Canada, OConnor suspects such a study would garner similar results.

Lie-telling in any situation is something that we all do from time to time, and we would expect a degree of lie-telling in Canada as well, she said.

However, she suspects differing responses to the virus in Canada and the U.S. could have an influence on participant responses.

There could be differences in how governments are framing the pandemic and measures that theyre putting out there that can impact how people are responding to it, how comfortable people are talking about their COVID experiences, OConnor said.

Niagaras acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, said public health has caught some people not telling the truth when following up with positive COVID-19 cases.

We definitely do find times where its pretty obvious to us that people arent giving us truthful information, he said, adding they might not be forthcoming about contacts or about how many people live in a home with them.

Its quite frustrating because our whole work is based around getting information that lets us figure out when a persons infectious, find contacts, isolate them, stop the spread of infection.

If were not getting active information around that, were not able to make sure the right people are isolated for the right time period.

Hirji doesnt know why some individuals arent forthcoming when telling the truth would seem so inconsequential to them. He emphasized privacy is one of public healths top values.

Were very careful about the information we report out. If someone tells us something, were not going to go rat them out to another agency or get them in any kind of trouble because its really important for us to get accurate information to do our role and so everything is protected in a level of privacy, he said.

Hopefully if people understand that, theyll be more willing to be open and forthcoming with us, but its definitely a challenge when theyre not.
Tran Nhu Duong, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, and deputy head of the standing unit on COVID-19 in Da Nang, talks on the critical role of contact tracing and surveillance in suppressing COVID-19.

Tourists stranded in Da Nang City, Vietnam's current and largest COVID-19 epicentre, were sent to a military camp upon returning to Hanoi on a specially arranged flight on August 12, 2020.  VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Dat

As an epidemiologist that has been to many COVID-19 outbreaks in Vietnam since the beginning of the pandemic, what do you consider the most important measures in preventing outbreaks?

As we all know, there is currently no effective treatment plan nor a vaccine for COVID-19. The most important method we have right now to fight the pandemic is to break the chains of transmission, which involves isolating the source of infections and preventing the source from spreading the virus into the community.

This is the foundation of the forced quarantining of all contacts to confirmed COVID-19 patients or suspected patients. Regarding the close contacts of a patient, referred to as F1 cases, the Vietnams Ministry of Health said these people warrant special attention.

F1 are those who have had contact with the confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients within two metres, no matter for how long, and the health ministry regards these people as probable COVID-19 patients given the exposure.

The identification of these F1 cases, carried out immediately when a patient is confirmed positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus or suspected to be positive, is the key factor in fighting the pandemic.

Our current strategy is community-based, involving identification and isolation. Early detection of cases is possible via surveillance and testing.

Across the country, the principle stays the same  swiftly and comprehensively tracing contacts, meaning that we have to carry out the tracing as fast as possible while making sure that all F1 cases are discovered.

If we somehow fail to isolate the F1 cases from the community, these cases  again, I have to reiterated that these are highly probable virus carriers  will infect others.

The infections start first with their family, and then their workplace, community and then other large crowds, making it difficult to contain the outbreaks.

Can we allow these F1 cases to self-isolate at home?

The health ministry is clear that these F1 cases are not to be isolated at home, but to be forced into mandatory centralised quarantine facilities managed by the Government.

Home isolation is not easily monitored, just a small breach  say, leaving home anytime during the isolation period  would result in the virus infiltrating the community.

Aware of the strict management of F1 cases, the health ministry requires, in this time, that all these cases be sent to centralised quarantine facilities under the supervision of health workers.

What are your recommendations for management of F1 cases in centralised quarantine facilities?

The health ministry has issued detailed guidelines on centralised quarantine operations, including instructions for the managers, staff and quarantined people as well, to prevent cross infections in these quarantine camps.

Since F1 cases are placed under supervision here, the risks of virus transmission are considered elevated, everything from arranging rooms and daily activities need to be done right.

All people inside the facilities  from the quarantined to the supporting staff  must follow the guidelines to avoid risks of cross infections.

The quarantined person should stay inside their rooms, refrain from going outside, meeting or talking with other people, and especially avoid large gatherings.

As someone who has braved the countrys COVID-19 outbreaks, what message do you want to convey to the public?

Our Governments motto is fighting the pandemic like fighting the enemies. This is an all-people war, not a war of the health sectors or the governments alone, a war in which, every household is a fortress, each person a soldier."

In this fight against the virus, we need a buy-in from the entire population. Everyone must participate and contribute their efforts to repel the pandemic.

Everyone must exercise their civic duties to the entire society, one for all and all for one, only through this coordinated efforts can we gather enough strength to defeat COVID-19.

Everyone should abide with health guidelines  wearing masks in public, frequently washing or disinfecting hands, keeping a distance, and declaring health status, etc.

The F1 cases need to strictly observe the rules in quarantine facilities, this is not just a civic duty but its also in their best interests.

The interests are that they get medically examined routinely, and quick access to proper medical attention if they fall ill, and their health and life are protected. The duty part is that they have a responsibility to avoid infecting others and the community at large. VNS

COVID-19 prevention work in Da Nang on the right track Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son, who led a ministerial special task force to Da Nang to help with COVID-19, speaks to the press on pandemic prevention and combat work.
Health Minister Nelu Tataru sent a message on August 21, Military Medicine Day, in which he emphasises that this is an important segment that provides services recognised for high performance and quality to both the military personnel and the civilians.

"Today marks 157 years since Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza signed the High Royal Decree establishing the Army Sanitary Officers Corps. (...) On this holiday I wish my military colleagues much success," the minister said.

He thanked the military medical staff for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I want to thank the military medical staff as well as all the healthcare workers in the medical system for responding to the greatest health challenge of the last century, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, unprecedented in modern times. Once again, regardless of the social, economic, or political situation of the country, the health staff knew how to heed the call and respect the oath taken in order to ensure the necessary treatment to our patients," said Tataru.

Military Medicine Day is marked annually on August 21. Ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859-1866) signed High Royal Decree 4629/21 August 1862 establishing the Army Sanitary Officers Corps and the General Directorate of the Romanian Sanitary Service, this being the moment of establishing a specialist element for ensuring the health of the military personnel.

Military medicine is attested as a specialist component in ensuring the health of the army.
A funeral service for President Donald Trumps younger brother, Robert Trump, will be held at the White House on Friday afternoon.

Last Friday, the president announced that his younger brother had died at the age of 71 at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, after a spell in care for an unspecified illness.

Although he did not reveal the cause of his brothers death, Mr Trump told reporters on Friday that his brother had been having a hard time over the past few months.

White House officials confirmed to CNN that the service will be held in the East Room, and that staff are expecting several dozen of his family members to attend, after around 200 were invited, according to ABC News.

Robert Trumps body will be driven to the White House from New York on Friday, and the service will be paid for by the president out of his own pocket, another White House source told CNN.

On Monday, Mr Trump said that he wanted to host a service for his brother at the White House, and claimed that he was proud of the work he was doing as US president.

Were looking at Friday. And we may do just a small service right here in the White House for my brother. Were looking at doing that, he said.

I think hed be greatly honoured. He loves our country. He loved our country so much. He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country, he added.

It is rare for the White House to host a funeral service, but the East Room was last used for former president John F Kennedy following his assassination in 1963.

The East Room of the White House was last used to hold a funeral for someone who was not a president in 1936, when Franklin D Roosevelt hosted a service for his political adviser Louis Howe.

Mr Trump visited his brother in hospital in New York prior to his death, and released a statement over the weekend, where he said: He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again.

His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.
The troops of Operation Sahel Sanity have killed three bandits and arrested over 10 suspected bandits and informants during clearance operations at various bandits enclaves in Katsina and Zamfara.

Benard Onyeuko, a brigadier general and Acting Director, Defence Media Operations, said in a statement on Thursday in Katsina.

On Aug. 16, the troops conducted clearance operation in some identified bandits enclaves in Dumburum forest.

During the operation, the troops neutralised three bandits and recovered one AK 47 rifle, two empty AK 47 rifle magazines and 127 rounds of 7.62mm Special ammunition, Mr Onyeuko said.

He said that the troops similarly conducted clearance operations in different places within the two states.

He further said that the places where the operations were conducted include Bagaga, Yarmalamai, Munhaye, Bena, Unguwar-tsamiya, Unguwar-Malama-Rama, Yadi and Tudun-Ali.

According to Mr Onyeuko, the troops succeeded in rescuing about 10 kidnapped victims during the operations.

He added that clearance operations were conducted between August 15 and Aug. 19,

Mr Onyeuko assured people of the Northwest of troops commitment to the safety of lives and property within the zone.

He urged the people to continue to avail the troops with information that would assist in the clearance operations.

(NAN)

ZI/CHIN/AFA
A pork processor is closing for mass testing of its 500 staff after a "significant" outbreak in which 35 workers tested positive for Covid-19.

Cranswick plc in Ballymena said it had also temporarily suspended its exports to China in light of the positive tests.

The number of staff affected was confirmed by Health Minister Robin Swann, although it had not been revealed by the company.

He added that there had been a "smaller" number of positive cases among contacts of affected staff.

It is the first major factory here to shut down completely to deal with an outbreak.

Cranswick said it is requiring staff who have tested negative to self-isolate for 14 days - which is likely to mean that the factory will be shut for 14 days. It is to close from tomorrow.

Yesterday Mr Swann said: "As of yesterday evening there had been 35 cases identified within staff and a further smaller number of positive cases with contacts.

"Supported by the advice of the Public Health Agency and Chief Medical Officer, the outbreak is so significant and so extensive that all the workers in the factory and all recent visitors should now be required to self-isolate.

"This will see the plant closure of the factory and as a priority all staff will be tested and the plant will undergo a full deep clean over the period of the closure."

Trade union Unite said it is seeking reassurance that sent-home staff will not lose pay.

Unite regional officer Liam Gallagher said the meat processing sector had been badly hit in the pandemic.

"This latest outbreak in Cranswick shows that the issues in the sector have still not been addressed, despite the risks being highlighted since May," he said.

"In particular, Unite has consistently called for a significant increase in unannounced inspections by the HSE, along with other transparent and robust enforcement measures."

But the Health Minister said the outbreak "was by no means unique" to Cranswick.

"There have been outbreaks in similar facilities in England, Scotland and Wales and the Republic of Ireland," he said.

A spokesman for Cranswick said: "There has been a recent increase in the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Ballymena and the wider region and this has been acknowledged as a community issue.

"As a result of this, we can confirm that a number of colleagues at our Ballymena site have tested positive for Covid-19.

"Working with the Public Health Authority (PHA), we have taken the decision to send all of our colleagues for testing.

"If the test results are positive, the individual will be required to self-isolate for 10 days; if the test results are negative, the individual will be required to self-isolate for 14 days. Therefore, the site will need to temporarily suspend production.

"The health and safety of all of our colleagues has always been our number one priority and we have done everything we can to protect our Ballymena team."

The company said it had taken measures at the outset of the pandemic to protect staff, including social distancing measures, personal protective equipment (PPE) for all staff and additional cleaning and hygiene measures across the site. North Antrim DUP MP Ian Paisley said he was concerned about the impact of the closure on the agri-food industry.

He said the company had behaved responsibly but added: "We cannot have a situation where Covid prevents factory production that ultimately damages the Northern Ireland agri-food sector. That would be catastrophic."

Separately, in Mid-Ulster, well-known Magherafelt bar Dorman's said it is closing for the weekend after three members of the public who visited last weekend later tested positive for the virus. It is shutting for a deep clean to be carried out as well as testing of staff.

In an online statement posted on Facebook, Dorman's Bar said: "We are absolutely devastated that this has happened but unfortunately it is a situation that is unavoidable and which a lot of businesses will face in the coming months."

Belfast nightclub Thompson's Garage also remained closed yesterday evening after a staff member tested positive for Covid-19.

A spokesperson said all remaining staff members have been tested. "These results should be in today or tomorrow at the latest but sadly we cannot open until we are certain that everyone employed at Thompson's is in the clear," they said.

"In the interim the entire venue is undergoing a deep clean, fumigation and decontamination in preparation for reopening this weekend."
TPG Telecom chief executive Inaki Berroeta has said the newly formed telco giant can recover revenue lost by reduced international roaming and fewer prepaid and postpaid customers by winning new local customers through an expanded local product offering.

The telco, which was formed as part of the $16 billion merger between Vodafone Hutchison Australia and TPG Corporation, reported a revenue fall of 12 per cent to $1.5 billion for the June half as global travel restrictions and retail store closures linked to the coronavirus pandemic led to falls in customers and revenue.

TPG Telecom chief executive Inaki Berroeta said the pandemic had a particularly bad impact on the mobile sector. Credit:Renee Nowytarger

Postpaid mobile customer numbers fell by 2 per cent to 3.4 million in the half, while the number of prepaid customers fell 10 per cent to 1.8 million.

I dont see [international] borders opening anytime soon," Mr Berroeta said. "We will remain serving customers that are currently in Australia. We have already started to be a bit more generous in terms of the products and services that we are giving to our customers because we have certainty around the spectrum, the vendor, the rollout of the 5G network so we are in a position where we can attract more customers.
She earned the title of 'supermodel' during her stellar career on the catwalk.

And on Thursday Alessandra Ambrosio, 39, showed that she can still turn heads dressed down in a sporty and casual ensemble.

During an afternoon of shopping, the Brazilian-born beauty gave more than a hint of her toned midriff in a brown crop top that was matched with white sweatpants.

Effortless: Alessandra Ambrosio, 39, made sporty wear look fashionable during an afternoon of shopping in Los Angeles on Thursday

In keeping with her sporty ensemble, Ambrosio also donned white sneakers and had a yellow sweatshirt tied around her right shoulder, just in case she needed to cover up.

She also wore sunglasses, on another summer sunny day in Southern California, and styled her brown tresses long with a part on the slight right.

In adherence to the health and safety protocols amid the still raging COVID-19 pandemic, she wore a black and white protective mask.

Flirty: The Brazilian-born model showed more than a hint of her toned midriff in crop top

Sporty: The former supermodel paired her brown crop top with white sweatpants and white sneakers

Afterwards, Ambrosio took to Instagram and shared a photo of herself in her SUV dressed in that very same outfit, along with a quick video of her two children, Noah and Anja, riding in the back seat.

'Keep calm and mask on,' she wrote at the top of the selfie snap, in an effort to remind people of one of the simplest things we can all do to help stay safe during the coronavirus crisis.

The outing comes three days after the longtime Victoria's Secret Angel took her daughter Anja, 11, to get tested for the coronavirus at a drive-thru outlet.

Coronavirus crisis: The longtime Victoria's Secret Angel kept her black and white protective mask on at all times while out in public

Coronavirus crisis: The outing came three days after she and her daughter got tested for COVID-19 at a drive-thru outlet in Los Angeles

The pair both did a swab test for the virus and then the model tossed their individual testing packages from her vehicle into a large container set up along the route.

Ambrosio co-parents her two children with former fiance Jamie Mazur.

The former couple announced their split in March 2018 following a 10-year engagement.

Ambrosio was among the highest paid models several times over during her career in modeling that began back in 1999.

Safety first: Afterwards, Ambrosio took to Instagram to promote mask wearing when she shared a photo of herself riding in her SUV dressed in the very same outfit

On the go: The doting mom also shared a quick video of her two children: son Noah, eight, and daughter Anja, 11, riding in the backseat of her SUV
A helicopter attached to the PLA army aviation troops prepares to land on a vessel.

BEIJING, Aug. 21 -- Recently, an army aviation brigade under the PLA 71st Group Army organized multi-type helicopters to conduct deck-landing training, fuel and ammunition replenishment and emergency repair on a civilian semi-submersible vessel, in a bid to test support capabilities.

According to the training scenario, after the multi-type helicopters flied to the target island, the transport helicopter selected a site for landing with the attack helicopter on alert overhead. Then the transport helicopter carried the mocked wounded soldiers to a civilian semi-submersible vessel for a replenishment-at-sea.

During the training, the multi-type helicopters landed precisely on the deck of civilian semi-submersible vessel and quickly received fuel and ammunition supplies.

There are three helipads in the middle area of the semi-submersible vessels deck.

Colonel Xu Yifeng, deputy commander of the army aviation brigade under the PLA 71st Group Army, said that this training has effectively improved the pilots deck-landing ability on the offshore platforms and also the maintenance personnels comprehensive support capacity, laying a solid foundation for the cross-sea operations of the PLA Armys helicopters.

It is learnt that the civilian semi-submersible vessel participating in the training is manufactured by the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. The middle area of the vessels deck is equipped with 3 helipads, which can carry and support multiple types of helicopters in active service to conduct cross-sea operations, such as the WZ-10, WZ-19, and Z-8 helicopters. China has so far dozens of dual-use semi-submersible vessels.

Chinese military expert Li Jie said on August 20 that the large semi-submersible ship can take advantage of its large deck and better stability to temporarily serve as a platform to carry helicopters, an offshore parking apron, and a replenishment and repair center when performing some tasks in offshore areas, especially those with air domination. If missions are performed around large islands or reefs, a large semi-submersible ship can also be deployed at each end of the islands or reefs as maritime relay platforms to further enhance the cross-sea combat capability of the helicopters and to increase the helicopters combat radius.

Maintenance crew members arm a WZ-19 helicopter with an AKD-9, an air-to-surface missile.

Li also believed that with the improvement of China's shipbuilding technology, the current large-tonnage civilian semi-submersible vessels with relatively advanced technology have great potential for military-civilian integration.

Disclaimer: This article is originally published on globaltimes.cn, and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
By JONATHAN LEMIRE

Determined to keep Pennsylvania in his column, President Donald Trump took the fight to Joe Bidens old backyard Thursday and insisted his Democratic rival would be the states worst nightmare if elected president.

In a particularly in-your-face bit of campaign trolling, Trump staged a small rally in Old Forge just outside the former vice presidents birthplace in Scranton mere hours before Biden was to formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination.

The campaign framed Trump's speech as a review of "a half-century of Joe Biden failing America," and the location pointed to the importance of Pennsylvania as a battleground state.

"Joe Biden is no friend of Pennsylvania  he is your worst nightmare," Trump declared.

Trumps visit came on the same day Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion released an election poll, done in conjunction with The Morning Call, showing Biden holds a narrow 4 point lead Trump among likely Pennsylvania voters. The report drew from 416 randomly selected voters surveyed by telephone statewide Aug. 11- 17, 2020, and has a margin of error+/- 5.5%.

In an August 2020 Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion election poll, done in conjunction with The Morning Call, former Vice President Joe Biden holds a narrow 4 point lead over President Donald Trump among likely Pennsylvania voters.Courtesy Muhlenberg College

In his campaign stop, Trump sought to diminish Bidens ties to Scranton. The former vice president often spotlights his early years in the northeast Pennsylvania city as evidence of his middle-class upbringing.

Biden was born in Scranton but his family moved to Delaware when he 10. His father, Joe Sr., was once a sales manager at a car dealership in Scranton, but quit when he thought the owner was trying to humiliate employees during a Christmas party. The family eventually moved to Delaware, where Joe Sr. found work.

"He'll remind us that he was born in Scranton, but you know he left like 70 years ago, right?" Trump said.

Biden's speech will come hours later from his Delaware hometown and, as the culmination of the four-day convention, will surely dominate headlines and cable news chyrons. But Trump has offered a robust slate of competing activity, holding multiple in-person events this week meant to draw a contrast with the largely virtual campaign Biden has conducted during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump visited two other battlegrounds  Wisconsin and Arizona  as well as Minnesota, one of the few blue states from 2016 that Trumps team feels like he may have a chance to flip this fall. But his campaign has been warily watching his standing falter in the trio of Rust Belt states that carried him to the presidency in 2016. Trump planned more convention counterprogramming Thursday evening with an appearance on Sean Hannitys Fox News Channel show just before Biden is to deliver his acceptance speech.

The so-called Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, meant to provide Electoral College insurance for Hillary Clinton, instead all broke for Trump by slim margins in 2016. He captured Pennsylvania by a mere 44,000 votes four years ago and has since clashed with the state's Democratic governor over efforts to reopen its economy.

Many in the Trump campaign have all but written off Michigan, a state battered by the virus, and whose governor has repeatedly fought with the president. But advisers believe Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, remains in play and could be captured again if the economy continues to rebound.

Trump returned to northeastern Pennsylvania, where he did unexpectedly well in 2016, winning Luzerne County and nearly winning in Lackawanna County, both of which have a solid registration advantage for Democrats. They bear the hallmarks of Trump country: They are whiter, with lower median incomes and fewer people with college degrees, than the rest of Pennsylvania.

The number of GOP registrations in Pennsylvania has outpaced Democrats this cycle and many political observers believe the state, which has many white, older voters, could become stronger for Republicans. But Trump has stubbornly trailed Biden, whose team aims to return Pennsylvania to the blue column, where it had been from 1992 until 2016.

To that end, Trump is seeking to portray Biden as out of touch with more moderate and conservative parts of the state, making the argument that Biden is a "puppet of the radical left."

Trump said he's best suited to return the country back to its pre-pandemic status, when unemployment stood at the lowest rates since the early 1960s and the economy was experiencing moderate growth. He said a Biden win in November would usher in economic pain for Americans and more chaos in U.S. cities that have endured sometimes violent protests in recent months over police brutality and racial injustice.

"If you want a vision of your life under a Joe Biden presidency, imagine the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland and the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago coming to every city and town in America," Trump said.

Trump also took aim Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, accusing him of slowing the reopening of the state's economy to hurt the president's reelection chances. Trump charged the Democratic governors of Michigan and North Carolina  two other battleground states  are employing similar tactics.

"Shut down Wolf," Trump complained. "You can't do this. He's gonna destroy your soul."

The outdoor rally drew a few hundred supporters. Many, but not all, wore masks and seats were lined up closer than 6 feet apart, the space recommended by public health experts to reduce the chance of transmission of the coronavirus.

The former vice president is particularly suited in the Democratic field to carry Pennsylvania, with his deep ties to Scranton and messages catering to white working-class voters and Black voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Scranton is in Lackawanna County, which went for Clinton in 2016, and Biden's team hopes to increase turnout there.

The Biden campaign dismissed Trump's visit as a lame campaign gambit.

"This sideshow is a pathetic attempt to distract from the fact that Trump's presidency stands for nothing but crises, lies and division," said Biden spokesman Andrew Bates.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Supervising reporter Kurt Bresswein contributed to this report. Reach him at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 23:20:24|Editor: huaxia

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GAZA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Gaza-based Palestinian resistance factions on Friday vowed that they would not allow the Israeli blockade against the coastal enclave to continue and would respond to Israel's raids.

The factions' committee of military operations said in a press statement that "we will not allow the enemy to continue the unjust siege on our Palestinian people, who have the right to express by all appropriate means their rejection of the blockade."

The Palestinian resistance has the right to respond to Israeli attacks as well as "its aggression against our people," said the statement.

Earlier in the day, Islamic Hamas movement said in a press statement that the Palestinian resistance would not hesitate to battle with Israel "if the escalation and siege continue."

Last night, Israel announced that it had detected the launch of seven rockets from the Gaza Strip into its southern territory, one of which hit a residential house in Sderot city, adjacent to the strip.

The Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids on the Gaza Strip targeting military sites belonging to Hamas.

Meanwhile, Israeli public radio earlier said that farmers were banned from working in fields adjacent to the Gaza Strip, due to the military tensions.

The violence came amid weeks of tensions, which according to Palestinian and Israeli commentators was triggered by Israel's refusal to allow the transfer of Qatari money to the besieged Palestinian enclave. Enditem
Religious Leaders Are Crafting Plans To Get To The Heart Of Kansas City's Violent Crime Problem "Getting to the Heart of the Matter" is a new initiative seeking to do just that for violent crime in Kansas City - address its root causes. It involves faith leaders throughout Kansas City, who are working with police to address crime during an especially violent year.

An August tradition as the murder count continues to rise . . . Locals desperately seek answers but don't offer a plan or any proof that so much local concern works to curb the rate of killing in this town.File this one under: "Preaching to the choir
Cavendish left out of Tour De France squad

Manx cyclist Mark Cavendish will not race at the Tour de France for a second consecutive year after being left out of Bahrain-McLarens eight-man squad.

Cavendish, 35, is second all-time on the list of Tour stage winners with 30 victories, the last of which came in 2016.

Last year, Cavendish was controversially left out of Team Dimension Datas squad after fighting his way back from the effects of the Epstein-Barr virus, leading to a breakdown in his relationship with the team.
India is stepping up its curbs on Chinese activity in the country, adding extra scrutiny for visas and reviewing Beijing's links with local universities, as relations between the two nations continue to nose-dive.

India's Ministry of External Affairs has been told that visas for Chinese businessmen, academics, industry experts and advocacy groups will need prior security clearance, said senior officials who asked not to be identified, citing rules for speaking to the media. The measures are similar to those that have long been employed with Pakistan, India's neighbor and arch-rival, they said.

The activities of India universities with tie-ups to Chinese institutions are likely to be drastically scaled down, one official said. The government is reviewing 54 memoranda of understanding signed between educational institutions including the Indian Institutes of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and others with links to the official Chinese language training office, known as Hanban, which runs Confucius Institutes across the world.

With the exception of Mandarin language courses, tie-ups with Chinese institutions are likely to be discontinued, the officials said. The institutions are used to influence policy makers, think tanks, political parties, corporates and academics, they said.

India's Foreign Ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

"These and other steps that have been taken over the last few weeks are designed to decrease Indian over-dependence on China and reduce the exposure or vulnerability of various sectors to direct and indirect Chinese state influence," said Tanvi Madan, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institute and the author of "Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War." New Delhi should "assess the ramification both in terms of potential retaliation from Beijing and Indian ability to withstand that," Madan said.

India recently blocked dozens of popular Chinese mobile applications including TikTok and changed rules to limit Chinese investments in Indian companies. The move came as both countries moved thousands of troops, artillery guns and tanks to a disputed area on their Himalayan border after 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers were killed in a clash on June 15.

The U.S. and Australia have taken similar steps to limit China's influence.

The Trump administration is increasing scrutiny of Confucius Institutes that teach Chinese language and culture in the U.S. and other nations. It looks set to force them to register as "foreign missions," subjecting them to certain requirements.

Australia in 2018 passed tough laws to crack down on foreign interference due to alarm over unrest on campuses and the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on student bodies. Last year it drew up new guidelines for universities collaborating on research with China.

India, Australia and the U.S. have also blocked Huawei Technologies from participating in 5G networks. Those countries, along with Japan, form the diplomatic and strategic forum known as the Quad.

For the first time this year, all Quad members will engage in a military exchange when India invites Australia to join the annual Malabar naval exercise that has so far included only Japan and the U.S.
(Photo : United Launch Alliance Facebook Page ) This Man Beats Elon Musk by $27 Million on Space Force Contract and its Not Jeff Bezos (Photo : REUTERS/Joe Skipper) A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover vehicle lifts off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. July 30, 2020.

The United States Space Force agency has recently announced its chosen private companies to accommodate its future space missions. Two of them includes Elon Musk's SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance (ULA). We all know who Elon Musk is, but who is the man behind ULA? Here's what we know about him so far.

Meet ULA CEO Tory Bruno

Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA since 2014, has recently closed deals with the US Space Force for one of the biggest funded space military missions of the country called National Security Space Launch Phase 2 Launch. This project will last until 2027.

Just like ULA, Elon Musk's SpaceX also won on the said contract. This means that both of their companies will help the government agency to fly rockets into space for at least three missions.

However, interestingly, ULA was more valued compared to the SpaceX.

According to Business Journals, Bruno expected the government's support with their company. After all, ULA received 60% of all their launches, amounting to $337 million to launch two satellites in 2022.

This was compared to SpaceX that only receives $316 million to launch one satellite on the same year. Technically, that's ULA winning against rival SpaceX for a prize of exactly $27 million.

"I was able to sell them two missions for the price of SpaceX selling one," Bruno said in an exclusive interview with the Denver Business Journal. "That's pretty remarkable."

Though it was interesting, Elon Musk seemed to take this news as a challenge for his company.

Efficiently reusable rockets are all that matter for making life multiplanetary & space power. Because their rockets are not reusable, it will become obvious over time that ULA is a complete waste of taxpayer money.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2020

He called Bruno's company as a "complete waste of taxpayer money."



ULA CEO answered it back and said that "this was a big, competitive procurement. It's in the country's best interest to have a broad industrial base."

It is not just ULA vs. SpaceX; its Blue Origin too!

The rivalry between SpaceX and ULA is not just a two-way fight. Its actually a three-way fight and the other one belongs to another tech billionaire Jeff Bezos called Blue Origin.

Just like SpaceX and ULA, Blue Origin also offers space rocket businesses and also presented to the U.S. Space Force. As Tech Times unfortunately reported, the agency denied their proposal, which was actually surprising since they were the previous partner of the agency in 2019.

Maybe the world needs to know more about Tory Bruno now.

ALSO READ: Elon Musk Admits Not 'Biggest Fan' of Nikola Tesla-- the Man Behind His Car Brand

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Jamie Pancho

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A photo of Californias devastating bushfires tearing through an aged care home has summed up the states devastating battle with mother nature and coronavirus.

The California wildfires have already burnt through 1,250 square kilometres of land destroying 175 structures, including homes, and were threatening 50,000 more. The fires were sparked by lightning strikes on Monday.

Two people have died including a pilot on a water-dropping mission in central California on Wednesday when his helicopter crashed.

Adding to the states anguish is the ongoing coronavirus pandemic  Los Angeles and San Diego have at least 260,000 cases between them.

The LNU Complex Fire rips through a senior centre. Source: AAP

One of the blazes, dubbed the LNU Complex Fire or megafire, has ripped through more than 53,000 hectares after doubling in size since Wednesday.

Its made up of nine fires burning in Californias Napa County renowned as the states wine country.

Associated Press photographer Noah Berger has been on the ground in the county taking photos of the horrific impact of the megafire.

One photo he shot shows an aged care home being enveloped by flames.

Wear a mask, wash your hands, social distance, stay safe, a sign outside the home reads as it's torched.

Crews battle the LNU blaze at Fairfield. Source: Getty Images

Mr Bergers photo has been widely shared on Twitter with some saying it pretty much sums up 2020 so far.

2020 - the hits just keep coming, one woman tweeted.

Another woman called the image the embodiment of 2020.

This photo gives me chills, one man tweeted.

The scariest thing

Some residents in fire-affected areas have described their horror at witnessing the blaze while dealing with COVID

Cheryl Davis, who evacuated to flee the LNU Complex Fire, told CNN she went to a community centre but chose to sleep in her car instead concerned about social distancing.

Story continues

We didn't want to go inside because there are too many people," Ms Jarvis told CNN.

"Not only are we dealing with Covid, but with also the heat and now the fires.

A house burns down in Bonny Doon. Source: Getty Images

Stacey Kline, who also fled her home, said the fire is the scariest thing shes seen and it came so fast.

Incident Commander Mike Smith at the fire near Santa Cruz said firefighters have been taxed to the limit.

Tim Edwards, president of the union representing 7,000 Cal Fire firefighters, said lawmakers need to allocate more money at a time when firefighters are working 40 to 50 days at a time without real relief.

Here we are, were not even into our peak fire conditions, and we dont have enough resources throughout the whole state because were stretched so thin, he said.

A bicycle and palm tree burn in wine country. Source: Getty Images

Jeff Cooley, who lives in the area near the LNU Complex Fire, told WLOX hes concerned firefighters wont be able to help him.

California is out of resources to be able to fight the fires, he said.

Theyre just making decisions on whether your house burns or not. Thats why I am kind of staying around to see exactly what may happen tonight (Wednesday).

Concerns for COVID patients as smoke seen from space

Such is the size of the fires the smoke can be seen from space in images captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The American Lung Association warned that the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated health hazards posed by smoky air and extreme heat.

Inhaling smoke and ash will likely worsen the weakened lungs of people infected with coronavirus and undermine the natural defences of those who do not have it, Dr Afif El-Hassan, a physician spokesman for the lung association, said.

The smoke from the fires can be seen from space. Source: Reuters

Trump blames excess leaves for forest fires

US President Donald Trump spoke about the California wildfires on a visit to Pennsylvania for a campaign rally on Thursday.

Mr Trump said the reason fires are starting in the state is due to unclean forest floors.

I said, youve got to clean your floors. Youve got to clean your forests.

The president said California has many, many years of leaves and broken trees.

And theyre like, like so flammable. You touch them and it goes up. Ive been telling them this now for three years, but they dont want to listen, he said.

Mr Trump gave a similar assessment in 2018 when wildfires ripped through the state in 2018.

At the time he said Finland doesnt have forest fires because they spend a lot of time raking - something Finnish President Sauli Niinisto told him

The Finnish president later told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat he couldnt recall ever telling Mr Trump about raking but they had discussed the fires.

with Reuters and The Associated Press

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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COVID and the impact that it has had on the market, has come at a time when the market is already experiencing difficulties. And we believe COVID will only prolong and intensify the hardening of the market that had already started before it showed up, he said. So, were seeing positive rate movements across virtually all our classes of business.

The level and the magnitude of the rate increases being achieved varies depending on the class of business itself. But, across our longtail segment in the first six months of the year, we saw almost 30% increases in rate movements across our renewal book, while on the short tail segment we saw almost 20% rate increases, on average, across our renewal book.

Jabsheh highlighted that, due to manageable exposure to COVID claims, IGI is in a strong position to take advantage of this hardening market by embracing new opportunities, such as its recent entering of the US excess and surplus lines space and the expansion of its marine insurance segment. With rates improving, and this expected to continue for the foreseeable future, the market appears to be in the businesss favour, and IGI is on the constant lookout for new ways to further diversify the product suite in its portfolio.

At the end of the day, what a market like this does in terms of opportunities is not just give the opportunity to grow, which clearly our numbers are showing we are, but also the opportunity to refine your portfolios and be more selective with the business that you put on the books.

Its a message we constantly discuss among ourselves and say to our underwriters that, while we are hungry to grow, the most important thing is to maintain the credibility and the quality of our book to ensure that the returns that these portfolios generate are in line with our expectations This market will end up turning and going back in the opposite direction, and the stronger your renewal book is at that point in time, the stronger your position will be in addressing a softening market.

For IGI, a key point of focus recently has been on making sure that the pandemic has not impacted its service levels with regards to its broker partners and its clients. Jabsheh paid tribute to the way the businesss employees have handled the transition to working from home so smoothly. Every effort has been made by staff, he said, to ensure that clients continue to be serviced, that claims continue to paid on-time, and that brokers are getting the attention and service they could expect under normal conditions.

Service has always been a key metric for us, he said. Its built into our DNA to ensure that we provide the right service levels in all areas of the operation. Its not just about underwriting and responding to inquiries in a short timeframe, but it's about everything else within the business that impacts the experience that our clients have with us and our brokers have with us.

When we started 20 odd years ago, we were a much smaller company, with a lot less capital and no rating at a time when financial security was high on everybodys radar. So, it was our personal relationships and service levels that allowed us to build the reputation that we have today. In a sense, we still have that mindset of that much smaller company and fighting for every piece of business that we go after. So, its within our DNA, that service will always be important and is looked at a very high level to ensure continuity.
Police are searching for a good Samaritan who administered critical first aid to a 62-year-old woman after she was seriously wounded in a rollover crash Friday morning in Randolph that left four others injured, officials said.

A 1999 Ford Explorer with five people inside was traveling southbound in the second lane from the right on Route 24 shortly after 7 a.m. when it clipped the front-end of a tractor-trailer, Massachusetts State Police said.

The Ford was crossing into the far right lane, presumably to take Exit 20B, according to state police.

The SUV rolled over into the infield between the highway and the exit ramp, leaving the driver, a 62-year-old Dorchester woman, with life-threatening injuries, police said.

Before the woman was extricated from the Ford by firefighters, a man gave valuable emergency first aid to her, according to state police.

She was then flown by medical helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, according to state police.

Route 24 southbound was shut down for around an hour and a half to allow the medical helicopter to land, authorities said.

The four passengers in the SUV suffered minor injuries and were driven by ambulance to Boston Medical Center and Good Samaritan Medical Center, state police said.

Among the passengers was a 65-year-old Mattapan woman, a 39-year-old Boston man, a 36-year-old Mattapan man and a 27-year-old Dorchester woman, according to authorities.

The person driving the 2016 Volvo tractor-trailer, a 34-year-old Weymouth man, did not appear to suffer any injuries, officials said.

Authorities are looking for the good samaritan who helped the wounded driver. He left the scene once EMS arrived, before troopers knew what he had done and could speak with him, according to officials.

State police said they would like to speak with the man to see whether he witnessed the crash and also to thank him for his help at the scene.

We likewise would like to speak to any other motorists who may have witnessed the crash, state police noted.

Any person who was driving on Route 24 near Randolph around 7 a.m. and may have witnessed the crash has been urged to call state police at (617) 698-5840.

The crash remains under investigation.
In the early days of the pandemic, when grocery stores in the United States ran low on staples like toilet paper, people flocked to Walmart and Target to stock up. Five months later, as the number of coronavirus cases remains high, shoppers continue to buy from the big-box retailers in record amounts.

On Wednesday, Target reported the greatest percentage increase in quarterly sales in the companys history. Walmart, which reported earnings Tuesday, doubled its e-commerce sales. Home Depots sales increased more than 23 per cent in this years second quarter. Wayfair reported earlier that its revenue was up roughly 80 per cent year over year.

The success of those retailers can be attributed, in part, to their one-stop shopping advantage  both in person and online. It allows budget-conscious shoppers to pick up groceries, clothing, electronics and home goods at the same time.

In a pandemic, you dont want to make multiple stops, you want to go to one place that is safe and convenient, said Andy Mantis, head of data insights for the research firm 1010Data.

The pandemic has been devastating for the broader retail industry, with name-brand companies like Neiman Marcus, J. Crew, J.C. Penney and the owner of Mens Wearhouse among those that have filed for bankruptcy in recent months. But monthly retail sales  after plummeting in March and April  have returned to the level they were at in February, fed in large part by behemoths like Amazon, Walmart and Target.

Walmart had strong demand for groceries, as well as for home and sporting goods. With people still largely stuck at home, Targets electronics sales surged. Home Depot and Lowes drew crowds of people eager to finally tackle home improvement projects, with sales of hard surface flooring and interior lighting doing especially well.

These big-box retailers are just perfectly positioned, said Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at the data analytics firm eMarketer. They have basically every tail wind at their back.

For shoppers who wanted to completely avoid in-store shopping, big-box retailers already had robust e-commerce platforms in place that allowed them to immediately start providing customers with so-called contactless shopping options, including curbside pickup and home delivery of things as diverse as groceries and furniture.

Throughout this crisis, we have deepened our relationship with American consumers and introduced millions of them to our digital fulfilment services, Targets chief executive, Brian Cornell, said on an earnings call.

These advantages have won the stores new customers who might have previously preferred local grocers or hardware stores. Target added 10 million new digital customers in the first half of this year.

Its creating a massive opportunity, and if they are smart about it, this is going to help them retain those customers and continue to fuel their growth, Mantis of 1010Data said.

Whether the retailers are able to sustain this growth will depend partly on how much disposable income their customers have. The stimulus payments and $600 (U.S.) weekly increase to unemployment benefits meant that millions of unemployed Americans were still able to buy necessities at stores like Walmart and Target, and in some cases a few extras, like toys to keep their children entertained at home. But with the $600 payments now stopped, and Congress still deadlocked on an additional aid package, some shoppers may have to tighten their belts.

In contrast, many people who have held onto their jobs and are now working from home full time have found themselves with more discretionary income than ever before. People who might have spent money on dining out, travel or event tickets are now redirecting those funds toward home improvement projects like buying a hot tub, building a home movie theatre, redecorating a home office or building a guest cottage.

Sales were driven by a consumer focus on the home, core repair and maintenance activities, and wallet share shift away from other discretionary spending, Lowes chief executive, Marvin Ellison, said Wednesday in an earnings release.

The recent sales growth of big-box stores is good for the economy, keeping supply chains strong and helping ensure job security for the millions of people the retailers employ, said Matt Williams, managing partner at the Brand Federation, a consulting firm.

For the economy, it means consumers are still spending, maybe not at the same volumes and on the same things as in the past, but theyre still spending, Williams said. Thats encouraging.

But it comes with a cost, particularly for small businesses, whose survival has long been threatened by the increasing dominance of corporate retailers.

While large retailers like Walmart and Target were deemed essential businesses when the pandemic hit, many small stores were not, and they were forced to close their doors, leading to lost revenue and wasted inventory. Many small businesses did not have a robust e-commerce business before the virus struck, and they have lost customers while they struggle to adapt.

People are also less likely to start their own businesses during this period, unable to muster enough capital or fearful that their businesses will fail in such uncertain times, said Ryan Gellis, founding partner of RMG Media, a digital commerce agency.

Its part of why a pandemic is a tragedy, Gellis said.

It is not just the loss of life, but the loss of peoples ability to run their own businesses and pursue that American dream.

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This will hopefully provoke the creation of caste as new grounds for discrimination in the United States. This will help create a legal discourse on the synonymity of the manifestations between race and caste.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed an action against Cisco Systems Inc (Cisco) on behalf of Complainant John Doe (name anonymised). John Doe alleges that his supervisors imported discriminatory practices against him due to his status of being a Dalit. Does role as "lead" on two technologies was taken away. After that, Doe's peers were given a promotion and granted the ability to supervise Doe, despite the fact that he was both competent and deserving of a promotion and salary raise.

The Department of Human Resources at the company refused to acknowledge a problem. The grounds of action emanate from Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964. The grounds include both factors discrimination and harassment on the basis of religion, ancestry and ethnicity, and also a failure to take reasonable steps to avoid such treatment.

This is groundbreaking in two ways. First, it will provoke the creation of caste as new grounds for discrimination in the United States. This will help create a legal discourse on the synonymity of the manifestations between race and caste. Second, this will be the first time when a "Black-White" law shall be forced to make space for a Yellow-Brown problem. In other words, American law which is scripted only to accommodate battles shaped as person of colour versus White persons, shall now have to lend its language to other categories oppressed categories such as being Dalit or belonging to a lower caste  a South Asian phenomenon. This piece is geared towards borrowing vocabulary from the Critical Race Theory framework to analyse this case of caste discrimination.

Doe studied at a reputed Indian university by availing affirmative action. Instead of the intended effect of reservations of bringing Doe to a level playing field with those who have not been oppressed due to their caste identities, Doe has effectively been retrenched. It brings back the idea of allowing such special treatment in University Admissions only for the sake of "diversity" from the American case of Bakke versus Regents. In this case, affirmative action was granted on the grounds that students of colour would offer diversity to White Students. And so, rather than deeming it essential for a student with a historically oppressed background to receive equal treatment  the White-centricity caused the court to reason in strictly White terms.

This is similar to the argument Kimberle Crenshaw makes by saying that the emphasis on measures such as reservations to create colourblindness, in turn ends up reinforcing hierarchies of colour. Haney Lopez calls this a "myopia" where Whites fail to look at themselves in racial terms. According to Flagg, the default skin colour according to White people is "white" and so, White people themselves do not think of themselves as "racially distinctive". Such Whiteness is so deeply normalised that there is a certain "unconsciousness" or obliviousness towards their own Whiteness. This is what Flagg calls "White consciousness". This automatically puts persons of colour into a "different" category  where they are regarded as "racially distinctive".

This unintentional conspicuousness accorded to Doe's caste status makes it difficult for him to justify his allegations against his colleagues to the HR department.

This is because, similar to a racial distrust which pervades relationships between White persons and persons of colour, there is a "Dalit distrust" which comes into play in this dynamic. The varying subjective threshold of what may constitute "harassment" interferes with John Does caste identity and legitimises a disbelief of Doe's allegations. The predominant understanding that the normative employee is either "White" or upper caste makes this the "baseline" or the "normal".

This causes John Doe to become the outsider  because of his caste identity. Therefore, the denial of salary raises, bonuses and awards that Doe deserved but did not receive  are only actions that reject a clarification of the "baseline" assumptions. The case of "Dalit distrust" is further strengthened when an offence under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 is registered only if the offence is committed due to the victims caste identity. This causes a number of rapists of Dalit women to be let off the hook as merely rapists and not, "Dalit women rapists". This selective prioritising of a victim's gender identity over their caste identity reveals a deep legal and societal bias towards believing the victimhood of one identity over another. In other words, we find it easier to accept a woman's allegation that she was raped rather than a Dalit woman's allegation of rape.

While some parts of the world celebrate Kamala Harris' "Indian" descent on the one hand, a while ago a man named Plessy  while being tested on whether he was White enough to avail of the same rights as any other White Person in the United States or not  was denounced from being a US citizen due to his "mixed" origin. The "petitioner was seven-eighths Caucasian and one eighth African blood". The court went onto judicialise a vocabulary where a person of colour was constructed as the stark opposite of a White person. It called people of colour as those with "a badge of inferiority and servitude". Similarly in India, and the case of Indira Sawhney  the court coined the term "backward class" to refer to Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe persons. One is forced to think if the legal construction was more to refer to these people as "backward" or to normalise the existence of those who are not SCs/STs or OBCs as "forward".

Robert Chang, in his book Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation-State, talks about how because of his Korean descent, becoming "American" is an "aspiration" for someone who does not biologically fit into the "born in the United States" category. He goes on to recall incidents where he would hush his mother talking in Korean on the streets of America only so that they would not appear as outsiders. This ties in neatly with Amartya Sen's argument on the 'notion of merit'. There is a re-coding of the idea of "merit" in normatively upper caste/White terms by deliberately excluding the oppressed.

The idea of basing oppression due to one's racial identity on a temporal continuity stems from Du Bois. Such acts of ostracism attempt to forcefully re-create a historical continuity of oppression based on caste identity despite the fact that such oppression stands outlawed. Herbert Wechsler's point on how the real problem is of associational rights where laws that overrule apartheid and untouchability force integration between people who may not want to interact with one another gain currency here. However, in practice this would amount to a legitimised proliferation or a complacence of such identity based oppression. While one would traditionally think that caste/colour based discrimination is a non-occurrence in "educated, elite" institutions or companies such as Cisco Systems, this case forces us to think about quite the contrary.
Suspect in Jam Master Jay killing pleads not guilty

A man eyed for years as a possible suspect in the 2002 fatal shooting of hip-hop pioneer Jam Master Jay pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Tuesday, and remained in federal custody where he is already serving a prison sentence for robbery.

Ronald Washington, 56, entered his plea remotely from Kentucky, while his attorney and the governments lawyers appeared by teleconference because of coronavirus concerns.

Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., 36, face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison, or the death penalty if convicted of murder in the death of Jason Jay Mizell, known professionally as Jam Master Jay.

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Jay formed Run-DMC with Joseph Run Simmons and Darryl DMC McDaniels in the early 1980s, and the group charted mainstream success with songs like the Aerosmith remake Walk This Way, and My Adidas.

Jordan pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Monday, the day federal prosecutors announced the indictment.

Jay was 37 years old when he was killed, shot once in the head with a .40-caliber bullet by a masked assailant at his studio in the Hollis section of Queens.

Police identified at least four people in the studio with Jay when he was killed, including the two armed gunmen, but the case was cold for years, even when thousands of dollars in reward money was offered, as witnesses refused to come forward.

Washington, who had reportedly been living on a couch at Jays home in the days before the killing, was publicly named as a possible suspect or witness as far back as 2007. Prosecutors allege he waved a handgun and ordered another person at the recording studio to lie on the ground while Jordan shot Jay in the head on Oct. 30, 2002.

According to prosecutors, Jay would bring in bulk amounts of cocaine to sell retail and was killed as retribution for cutting Washington out of a plan to distribute 10 kilograms in Maryland.

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The Mizell family issued a statement saying they have mixed emotions; we truly hope that these indictments are a solid step towards justice being served in the murder of Jay.

McDaniels, his band mate, said, Although this latest news opens up a lot of painful memories for all of us who knew and loved Jam Master Jay, Im relieved to hear that 2 suspects have been arrested and charged with his murder. Its been a difficult 18 years not having him around while knowing that his murderers were not yet indicted for this heinous crime.

Neither statement addressed authorities contention that Jay was involved in selling drugs.
Ken Cuccinelli: DHS Tackling Drug Cartels, Illegal Immigration, and Forced Labor in China

Recently, border patrol officers found 7 tons of marijuana hidden in what was supposed to be a shipment of limes. And they found over 600 pounds of methamphetamine disguised in a cactus shipment.

COVID-19 restrictions on border crossings have made it a lot harder for cartels to smuggle drugs into the United States. So in some cities, prices for illicit drugs have doubled.

On the other side of the globe, communist China has been exploiting imprisoned Uyghurs and others to produce cotton textiles, electronics, and other commodities. The Department of Homeland Security along with the State, Treasury, and Commerce departments recently warned businesses about employing forced labor in their supply chains.

In this episode, we sit down with Ken Cuccinelli, the Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

This is American Thought Leaders , and Im Jan Jekielek.

Jan Jekielek: Ken Cuccinelli, its such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Ken Cuccinelli: Good to be with you.

Mr. Jekielek: Theres been a lot of talk recently about asylum-seeking. Actually, were going to talk a lot about the border and whats happening at the border. Theres been people saying that basically, asylum seekers are being completely turned away; theres no opportunity; this incredible system that America has had is going away, and I wanted to give you a chance to speak to that.

Mr. Cuccinelli: Certainly in the United States, we have for a long time, certainly years in my lifetime, had the most generous immigration system in the world. And that has not changed. What has changed is we have a president who insists that people not abuse it and obey the law. That has not existed in the presidency in this millennium. Here, President Trump comes along and actually enforces the rules, and uses the legal authorities he has available to him to do that. And so people view all of what were doing through that light, but were still bringing refugees in, we still are bringing asylees in, and we bring more in than any other country in the world. So anything short of characterizing America as the most generous immigration country in the world would be inaccurate.

Mr. Jekielek: Theres been these allegations even among USCIS workers. People are saying that they dont want to follow the current policy. Some are even saying its unlawful or something like that. What would you say to that?

Mr. Cuccinelli: Certainly, they are lawful. The president has been very strong in insisting with us, as we implement his policies, that we stay within the boundaries of the law unlike previous administration. Employees who dont like that are welcome to leavethats their primary option. But the notion of public service is service regardless of whos in authority.

Of course, the question of whether the actions are illegal, first, belongs to the administration and we police ourselves in terms of keeping our legal activities within the boundaries of the law. And then second, the Trump administration has the distinction of being sued over everything we do. So some court, somewhere, will decide each question that whatever employee is curious about, has in their mind.

But as you watch over the years, and as those cases move up the path of courts through the appellate system, the president wins those cases, and he wins those cases because hes been pretty firm with his team to stay within those boundaries of the law. He is a rule of law president, and he leads by example in that regard.

Mr. Jekielek: Even under coronavirus where, of course, there are even significant restrictions when it comes to border traffic and so forth, are there asylum seekers coming through at this time?

Mr. Cuccinelli: All of that still continues. We are operating under public health order at the southern border. We entered into agreements with Canada and Mexico about economic traffic and thats brought the traffic at both borders, northern and southern, down by over 50 percent. Thats legal traffic. And under the health care order, if you will, or public health order, really, for the southern border, most of the people we encounter at the southern border are dealt with from a public health standpoint, over 80 percent.

The ones coming from Mexico, and the northern triangle countries and so forth, are returned to Mexico on average in under two hours. Youll recall that we had what was called the MPP, we still have, the MPP programMigrant Protection Protocols. And so people coming and seeking asylum are waiting in Mexico for those hearings, rather than what was going on before. With the numbers that were coming through, there were so many that we couldnt hold them through the process of giving them a full hearing.

That has worked spectacularly well, and the very same people, career asylum officers, who were deciding 25 percent and 30 percent of cases should be granted asylum in general, are deciding around 1 percent to 3 percent out of that MPP program. Again, the same people judging the cases, and the reason is because people were flooding the southern border trying to, essentially, work together to flood our system and overwhelm it to get through the process in the sense that they just be released, and then we never see them again.

The partnership with Mexico has allowed us to maintain a proper due process based system that gives everybody their day in court, frankly, faster than even the detained docket in the United States. And they wait in Mexico for that, and they get work permits and other things in Mexico while they wait. Mexico has been a great host in that respect.

Mr. Jekielek: Lets jump to maybe both legal and illegal traffic across the border and how it pertains to coronavirus. Theres been some statistics Ive been reading that theres heightened levels of coronavirus in those counties that are along the border. Do you have a sense of why thats happening and what were doing to deal with it?

Mr. Cuccinelli: The CDC has been working very hard to get exactly thata sense of why its happening there. It has plateaued, and there are signs its improving at this point as you and I sit here talking. But one of the features people assume [is] that illegal traffic drives things like that, and its true that the western hemisphere south of us has a worse coronavirus problem probably than we do in terms of the inability to control it.

At the same time, theres over a million U.S. citizens living in Mexico, the majority of them in northern Mexico, [and] when theyre concerned about their health care system, they can cross the border legally anytime they want. And recent data gathered by CDC of hospitals in those border areas shows 92 percent of the people being treated are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, so were not seeing our hospitals flooded with illegal aliens.

That doesnt mean they cant contribute to the spread in the community that then shows up in hospitals for instance for treatment, but it is very hard to get an exact answer. Believe me, weve been trying for a couple of months because theres been a rising number of cases there for a while. So while theres undoubtedly some relationship, I cant sit here and quantify it for you, and its one of the mysteries were still trying to solve.

Mr. Jekielek: Its interesting because I dont know if people are aware of this million Americans that can travel freely.

Mr. Cuccinelli: I dont think most people knew that, and certainly, even in DHS, most people didnt realize that.

Mr. Jekielek: Fascinating information here. So lets jump to the China Working Group. About a month ago, this China Working Group was initiated. I want to understand what is the scope, what is its purpose, and frankly, whats been going on the last month?

Mr. Cuccinelli: The scope is virtually as far as we reach. Its to cover any topic, and certainly for our components and agencies, that covers a lot of ground, whether its immigration, both legal and illegal, in the case of China. And China is outrageously recalcitrant in accepting their illegal aliens back. They are one of the two most problematic countries in the world, the other being Cuba, and both of those have more than twice as many illegals in this country who have final orders of removal. Theyve been all the way through the process, who their countries arent taking back, and thats just not good relations.

And so China has talked nice to us repeatedly in the Department of Homeland Security but honestly, theyve largely proven they were lying. They never intended to cooperate. Theyll take back, oh, you know, pick a number, 100 a month or so, but in the context of 40,000, thats a drop in the bucket. And theyre coming into this country illegally, or overstaying visas illegally, at a higher rate than theyre taking them back.

And needless to say, we dont really appreciate that in the United States. So far, weve only imposed extremely minimal sanctions. The Department of State has been excessively restrained, in my view, in terms of making this matter to the communist Chinese government there.

Mr. Jekielek: Something I was reading about was this Xinjiang Supply Chain Business AdvisoryDHS involved and thats fascinating. I come from the human rights side of things back in the day. What exactly are you doing?

Mr. Cuccinelli: With that report, we put that out jointly with other departments like state and so forth, sharing what weve learned over the years about how the communist Chinese government forcibly detains Uyghurs and others in that region of China, and then forces them to engage in labor for the profit of the state. Whether its cotton textiles, electronics, theres a variety of things that have been identified.

Thats something that obviously we want to sensitize businesses to, thus the report is to inform them so they can further educate themselves on their own supply chains to extricate themselves from any relationships that they discover are relying on forced labor, slave labor. And that is just the beginning of what were doing there. Youve seen customs border protection in their trade role withhold release orders ofor three different ones recently against various Chinese companies for their use of slave labor in delivering products to the United States.

Those products get held, and they either have to prove that they in fact were not made with slave labor, forced labor, or they have to ameliorate the aspects of that labor that essentially made it a humanitarian problembrought it out of compliance with our laws. And thats accelerating, I would say, in those efforts. And other countries, to use Australia as an example, are becoming more aggressive in this space as well.

So the human rights person in you would appreciate that this has basically gotten a lot bigger on the worlds radar, and I think American leadership and the president has pushed us hard in this space to reveal all of thishas played a big role in that.

Mr. Jekielek: Aside from what we just discussed, these two areas, what else is this China Working Group up to?

Mr. Cuccinelli: Theres real interest in medical supply chains. Youll hear from Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow, from the White House, on the subject as well. We study, from a trade perspective, the course of products, and because of CBPs [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] trade role which we inherited from the Treasury Department, were engaged in those discussions.

Youve seen the president issued an executive order to shore up medical supply chains, for instance. That was something that we were deeply involved in. And our S and T, science and technology, folks participate as well in developing some of the technologies that allow us to analyze some of these things and to understand them in ways. I look forward to explaining, hopefully in the months ahead as we finalize some things, how we can use some technologies to better understand the flow of these goods, particularly where some portion of them is made in violation of the law.

Mr. Jekielek: Lets jump to the border then. Actually, I think the president is at the border in Newmont.

Mr. Cuccinelli: Yes, today.

Mr. Jekielek: What is the situation with the border wall? Theres been some progress, growth in its length. What is the current situation with the border wall, and how is it impacted? Lets not just talk about the immigration issue, but also the smuggling of drugs and human trafficking and so forth.

Mr. Cuccinelli: It took us three years from the presidents inauguration to get to 100 miles, it took six more months to get to 200 miles, and it took us less than three months to get to 300 miles. So at this rate, I would expect us to hit 400 miles in the fall, and well certainly beat the 450-mile mark by the end of the year, with room to spare, I think.

The border patrol agents, when you talk to them about the role the wall plays in accomplishing their mission, they do nothing but lavish praise on this system. And its not just a wall. We put up surveillance. Weve put up roadways behind the wall to move from point A to point B quickly, in ways that we couldnt necessarily do before, and its being built in areas that are highest priority for crossings. So it does the most to impede the crossing of people, of illegal goods, and the combinations of those two.

You have human smuggling operations connected to gangs and cartels on the south side of the border that make money off this trafficking business, as they see it, but they also use these same pipelines to move meth and opioids, and all these drugs that are killing 70-plus-thousand Americans a year, into this country, and the way the illicit drug business has evolved, it overwhelmingly comes through Mexico. They are making it synthetically or theyre moving it in the case of cocaine.

And so theres a lot of value not just to stopping illegal immigration of people with the wall, but also of impeding the ability of these drug cartels who are some of the most vicious, violent, evil people in this hemisphere, to move their products into this country. So it serves both those purposes.

When youve got a wall in front of you, and you cant get over this wall, you have to go somewhere else. So it does move the traffic but it moves it in ways that are predictable and that allow us to apply our limited manpower to those gaps. And so we are, in my view, doing a better job of picking up each person who crosses the border illegally, identifying that they are crossing, oneand then intercepting them and returning them to their home countries, two.

Our ability to do that has improved rather dramatically by building more of this wall with a 1900-plus-mile border. A good portion of it borders on impassable. So there are critical areas in Texas, in Arizona and California, and some in New Mexico as well, that are the corridors you expect people and drugs to come through, and its those areas where were focusing first on building the wall.

The presidents very proud of this. He promised that we would do it, were doing it, and this is one area like so many others in our area of responsibilitythe Department of Homeland Security. The biggest thing you can say about the president over the last three years is hes done what he said he would do.

We face major hurdles, lawsuits continue, and theyve sometimes stopped construction, but we have overcome those. Weve prevailed in those cases because again, we were operating within the boundaries of the law. And thats proven a great success for the national security of this country and critically to us, the safety of our officers as they perform their jobs.

Mr. Jekielek: You recently had a big meth bust. I recall they were disguised as cactus leaves or something like that.

Mr. Cuccinelli: A couple were.

Mr. Jekielek: Also, theres been a lot of fentanyl seizure. I wanted to get a sense of how that level of apprehending the people smuggling these drugs [now] compares to a year or two ago?

Mr. Cuccinelli: Thats a comparison we make regularly, but COVID has made it a little squirrely. Early in COVID, because less people were crossing the border, we literally reached incredibly low levels, 16,000 in one month, for instance, which is a number belowI dont know when the last time it had been that low. But those pipelines of people are cover for the drug organizations to move drugs too. So when those numbers drop, they lose their opportunities to move products across.

So whats happening is theyre producing these things and they cant get them across the borders easily. I keep in touch with my street cop friends from different parts of the country, and two different guys, two different weeks, two different drugs, both told me, I want to say it was opioids and meth, that the price had doubled per ounce, per pound, per kilogram, and street price had doubled because of COVID.

I havent circled back around with them in the last month or so to see how thats changing but as the numbers crossing the border go back up, it creates more opportunities for cover, for the drug cartels, and so they move more product into the United States. Now, as you know, were interjecting an awful lot of it. Weve seen incredible spikes in the ports of entry where theyre trying to smuggle it through a legal port of entry.

And our technology is improving there as well and in the coming years, were going to get better and better at spotting and rooting out the drugs coming through in what would otherwise look like legal traffic. And some of that is dogs which I am a particular fan of, but some of it is other types of technology that were using there. And as we get better and better at that, were going to squeeze them out entirely of those ports of entry, and theyre going to rely more and more heavily on that illegal traffic, and the wall comes into play to make that more difficult for them.

The wall doesnt make ports of entry any more difficult for them, it makes everything else more difficult for them, and it allows us to focus our resources in ways that catches more of what theyre trying to put in here. I should also note, by the way, weve been cooperating, particularly over the last eight or nine months, with Mexico on southbound traffic of guns, and ammunition, and currency, and the cooperation, sharing of intelligence and other things has been gradually increasing and improving.

And were doing a better and better job as a team of interdicting these flows as well, and thats important to try to help Mexico keep the violence down in their country because obviously they have a very high murder rate, mostly cartel on cartel violence. But we want to try to do what we can to eliminate the weapons and ammunition coming from the United States, so weve been putting a lot of effort into that.

Mr. Jekielek: What about the human trafficking and sex trafficking piece of the equation? Presumably, theres been reduced traffic there as well during COVID, but how is that playing out?

Mr. Cuccinelli: The sex trafficking runs along the same pipelines as the human trafficking. The easiest way to think of this is as pipelines, and they can put people through them, they can put drugs through them, they can put people whove paid to come through them, they can put people theyre forcing through them, be it sex trafficking victims, for instance. They can also put terrorists through them. Thats rare numerically, but it can and does happen as well. And those are things we have to be particularly careful of.

So its one pipeline. All they think of it as is products. They think of people as just a money-making opportunity, anymore than they do drugs. And so as the flows go down, it becomes harder for them to hide because we can apply more resources to what is there, whether its drugs or people. And so we have managed to interdict more of, probably as a percentage, the flows of involuntarily trafficked peoplepeople who didnt pay to come to this country but are being forced at gunpoint, and threatening their families, and doing other things.

And the advertising has continued in Central Americanot caravans, those have been successfully stopped for the last year and a halffor smugglers who just advertise like youd advertise any other product here in the United States. And they talk about how well theyre going to treat you and all these other things, but oftentimes what ends up happening is you cross one border and then they turn around, guns in hand and demand another fee, and that can happen in northern Mexico as well with the plaza bosses, and people who dont pay it can be killed. So thats one of the dangers that people suffer from.

But the human trafficking is handled more by the gangs and the cartels themselves, and they reach to endpoints in this country. And ICE, Homeland Security, investigation has been ramping up its efforts to interdict those flows, including tracing them far into the United States, not just dealing with it at the border. But in South Carolina, to use one bust as an example, they traced it all the way through over there.

And we look at trying to hit what are called stash houses, which are way points for these human smuggling organizations where they divide up their drug product to make it harder to catch all of it. They also do the same with people and they move them in different directions from these local points, often in the border statesTexas, Arizona, California. And so ICE, Homeland Security, has a major role to play in breaking that up and theyre the primary ones going after the human smuggling pieces. They also get after the drugs but the human smuggling is a major target for them, and its been expanding in terms of the amount of resources being put into that.

Mr. Jekielek: Its fascinating to hear that there might be some small silver lining out of the whole COVID thing, allowing you to deal with this issue. Any final words before we finish up?

Mr. Cuccinelli: Just the one, in the Department of Homeland Security, in this whole immigration space and dealing with China, we have a president whos done what he said he would do. [Ive] been proud to be part of that team which really has put America first in the sense of making sure our immigration system is set aside for those who are playing by the rules, who we invite here with the generosity America always has, but has been the toughest that I ever remember on the people who arent playing by the rules.

Thats the right way to be. Part of being a rule of law country is to respect both sides of that equation and to apply the appropriate resources to both sides of that equation. I think this president has done that. And as someone who had been engaged in policy and politics for years before I entered this administration, frankly, its nice to see someone who runs for office and then actually does what they said they would. Thats something were very proud of here.

Mr. Jekielek: Ken Cuccinelli, such a pleasure to have you on.

Mr. Cuccinelli: Good to be with you. Thanks for visiting.

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. It airs on Verizon Fios TV and Frontier Fios on Channel 158.
South Korean health officials have tried to secure the full list of members of a church at the center of the recent spike in coronavirus outbreaks, but their overnight attempt failed due to a strong protest by church officials on Friday.



Officials from the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC), accompanied by police officers, visited the headquarters of Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul on Thursday evening, citing what they deemed an incorrect list of 900 members the church submitted.



They, however, returned empty-handed on Friday morning after more than 10 hours of confrontation with church officials who refused to let them in.



The move comes as a recent spike in infection cases in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province is tied to the church.



Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon of the church took part in a massive anti-government rally attended by approximately 20,000 people at Gwanghwamun Square, central Seoul, on Saturday, leading church members and his political followers from around the country. It is not known exactly how many of the church congregants participated in the event. Jun and several of his aides tested positive after the rally.



The officials arrived at the church, located in the northern ward of Seongbuk, at around 5 p.m. Thursday, after they tried unsuccessfully in their first attempt in the morning.



Once they entered the church compound, they initially faced strong protest from church officials who demanded a search and seizure warrant. The search began at 8 p.m. and finished around 3:30 a.m.



Around 30 congregants gathered in front of the church while the search operation was going on. Some right-wing YouTubers who were at the scene spread misinformation that police were trying to tear down the church, which provoked angry responses from worshipers.



An official from the ward office said the original list of 900 congregants was not "correct."













But lawyers of the church claimed that they have already submitted the full list of the congregation to the authorities but they trespassed on the church compound without legal grounds.



"I checked the official document issued by the Seoul municipal government, but our church was not subject to the epidemiological examination," lawyer Kang Yeon-jae, who represents pastor Jun, said in a press conference on Friday. "But city officials demanded us to open the gate and police officers dragged citizens out from the church compound."



She said the church will take legal steps against the illegal execution, suing Seoul city's acting Mayor Seo Jeong-hyup for employing violence.

Pastor Jun released a statement on a YouTube channel earlier in the day, blaming "virus terrors by outside forces" for the massive outbreak in his church. He has been admitted to a Seoul hospital since he was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19.



"I'm sorry that I have caused health concerns," he wrote. "My church has fully complied with the anti-virus guidelines. ... I am curious about the origin of the virus."



It is considered hard to know the exact size of its congregation. According to a person who is familiar with the church, the total number is estimated to be around 2,000-3,000. In one text message that the church sent out outside, the number was 4,000.



The church and pastor Jun have been magnets for conservatives critical of the Moon Jae-in government who flock to the church from around the country to attend Jun's sermons and political rallies.



As of Friday morning, 732 coronavirus infections have been tied to the church, and transmissions have continued through religious facilities and workplaces around the country, according to the KCDC.



The KCDC has been contact tracing and doing epidemiological studies in some 150 places linked to the church cluster, the country's second biggest since the outbreak in the Shincheonji Church of Jesus earlier this year.



The country reported 324 new cases Friday, the eighth straight day of triple-digit jumps and the first time that the number passed the 300 mark since March 8 when it recorded 367 infection cases. The country's total caseload is 16,670. (Yonhap)
BarcelonaCatalonias Court 5 of Penitentiary Surveillance has dismissed the Prosecutors appeals which sought to revoke the home leave granted to Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sanchez, Raul Romeva, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull, Joaquim Forn and Jordi Cuixart. However, the Catalan political prisoners will have to stay in jail for now because the judge believes their level 3 classification must remain suspended until Madrids Supreme Court which convicted them in the first place has had the final say on the matter.

At any rate, this is a very significant development that will likely have a bearing on the final ruling in the case. Justice Manuel Marchena, who sits on the bench of the Supreme Courts criminal law section, has been handed a devastating judgement by a specialist court, which also torpedoes the Public Prosecutors arguments. Indeed, Court 5 has made it very difficult for Marchena to revoke the political prisoners home leave, even though its not inconceivable for the judge to try to get back in the limelight he lost when the trial ended by handing down a ruling that wins him praise and front page headlines from Madrids conservative media.

Still, it will not be an easy decision because ruling for the Prosecution would be akin to discriminating against the Catalan prisoners for being who they are, as Court 5 has pointed out. Furthermore, to do so Marchena would need to invoke the sort of criminal law principles which, according to Court 5, would feel more at home in 19th century Spain and certainly pre-date our Constitution and the Prison Service Rules and Regulations that are in force today. This is the crux of the matter, indeed. The Prosecutors goal to take away all leave, benefits and prison privileges from the jailed Catalan leaders (each and every one of them has been appealed against) is clearly unconstitutional and undemocratic and it is the sort of thing you would expect from an authoritarian regime.

As if that werent enough, the Prosecutor also expects the Catalan prisoners to undergo a re-education programme of sorts, to recant their political views and to refrain from engaging in any pro-independence activities. The judge of Court 5 has pointed out that neither Spains penitentiary legislation nor the Constitution allow for that sort of treatment, which is strongly reminiscent of Vallejo-Nageras methods. The Francoist pseudo-psychologist attempted to excise communist thinking from the minds of the republican prisoners [who were held by General Francos brutal regime]. A more recent case in point would be Chinas re-education camps where millions of Uyghurs are being held in an attempt to strip them of their language and Muslim faith.

Worst of all, the Public Prosecution is an institution funded by the taxpayer and the General Prosecutor who leads it ultimately reports to the Spanish government. At present the job is held by Dolores Delgado, a former socialist minister. Well, Ms Delgado should be the first person to disavow the arguments put forward by the Public Prosecutor [in the case of the Catalan leaders] as being unlawful and unconstitutional. This is not about influencing the Prosecutor, but taking action according to democratic principles, without seeking retribution or making an example of anyone. It is a very sad, worrying affair when a judge has to put the Prosecution in its place, an institution that is supposed to represent us all.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 13:41:24|Editor: huaxia

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ULAN BATOR, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A total of 417 Mongolian nationals have returned home from abroad on two chartered flights over the past two days, the country's State Emergency Commission (SEC) said Friday.

The Hong Kong-Ulan Bator flight with 149 passengers onboard landed at the Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport here on Thursday evening, the SEC said in a statement.

The other Istanbul-Ulan Bator flight landed at the airport on Friday morning, with 268 passengers onboard, the SEC said.

The returnees include pregnant women, elders, children, sick people, and those with financial and other problems, and will be isolated at designated facilities for 21 days, the SEC said.

Since its COVID-19 outbreak, Mongolia has evacuated more than 18,000 nationals on chartered flights, buses or trains from different parts of the world, according to the commission.

The Asian country has confirmed 298 COVID-19 cases so far, with no local transmissions or deaths. Enditem
US President has urged universities to reopen their campuses, despite reports of Covid-19 cluster outbreaks among students across the country.

The virus is very dangerous for older people, "but for university students the likelihood of severe illness is less than or equal to the risk of a seasonal flu", Xinhua news agency quoted Trump as saying to CNBC news on Thursday.

However, some universities are rethinking their plans to reopen for the fall semester after several outbreaks emerged soon after students returned to campus.

The universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Notre Dame, and Michigan State University, have decided in succession to halt the majority of in-person classes for the fall.

"Instead of saving lives, the decision to close universities could cost lives. It is significantly safer for students to live with other young people than to go home and spread the virus to older Americans," Trump said.

The number of COVID-19 cases among young people in the US has increased sharply recently.

Leading experts told Xinhua on Wednesday that factors including high Covid-19 infections among adults, increasing gatherings among teenagers and returning to school during the pandemic, may be contributing toward the high infection rates.

As of Friday, the US accounted for the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 5,573,501 and 173,114, respectively.

--IANS

ksk/

(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.)
South Africa: Military Ombud finds soldiers acted "improperly" in Alex

The Office of the Military Ombud has found that the official conduct of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members was improper, irregular and in contravention of the Code of Conduct, Operational Orders and Rules of Engagement in their interaction with the Khosa family and other members of the public in Alexandra during the lockdown.

Collins Khosa was killed at his home in April.

We also found that the Platoon Commander failed to command the platoon, in line with Command Orders, said Military Ombud Lt Gen (Ret) Vusumuzi Masondo.

The Military Ombud was assigned by the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans to conduct the investigation, in terms of section 6 (11) of the Military Ombud Act 4 of 2012.

Earlier this month, the Office of the Military Ombud submitted its report, with findings and recommendations, to the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans.

The investigation was an administrative inquiry into the conduct of members of the SANDF, which is separate from the criminal investigation conducted by the South African Police Service.

The investigation conducted by the Military Ombud is an independent investigation, in terms of the Military Ombud Act.

Masondo, meanwhile, said investigations into other complaints are ongoing. So far, the office has received 32 complaints from members of the public against members of the SANDF since the beginning of lockdown.

These complaints are at different stages of investigation. In cases where there was a joint operation, the law enforcement agencies concerned conduct their own investigation into the conduct of their members.

The Military Ombud has appealed to members of the public, who lodge complaints with his office, to do so in writing, using the prescribed Complaint Form, which can be obtained from www.milombud.org.

The Military Ombud is mandated to conduct investigations without fear, favour or prejudice. It is generally accepted that allegations of misconduct against members of the SANDF while conducting official duties, including official duties performed during the lockdown, fall under the ambit of official conduct of a member for the purposes of section 4(1) (c) of the Act.

The Office of the Military Ombud can be reached via intake@milombud.org, WhatsApp 012 676 3800.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
He has been staying at his ranch in Wyoming in recent weeks.

But Kanye West made a trip to New York City on Thursday, as his wife Kim Kardashian returned to Los Angeles with their children after a family trip amid marital issues.

The 43-year-old rapper donned a blue and brown jacket that featured pictures of his children on the front and back.

Trip: Kanye West made a trip to New York City on Thursday, as his wife Kim Kardashian returned to Los Angeles with their children after a family trip amid marital issues

The varsity style jacket featured brown leather sleeve, and lined pockets with a dark blue center.

His son Psalm, one, appeared to be featured on the back in a beautiful piece of artwork.

With a blue background, the words deeply loved were written over the child's head in a pink spray paint font.

While on the front left portion of his jacket, his oldest daughter North, seven, was also featured in a portrait with a blue background.

Deeply loved: The 43-year-old rapper donned a blue and brown jacket that featured pictures of his children on the front and back, Psalm was on the back under the words 'deeply loved' and North was on the front

Foam: The star teamed the jacket with yellow acid wash jeans and his white Yeezy foam runners with a futuristic look

The star teamed the jacket with yellow acid wash jeans and his white Yeezy foam runners with a futuristic look.

Kim and Kanye recently looked to put their marital issues behind them on a family vacation in the Dominican Republic, after the pair were said to have held crisis talks about their future amid Kanye's controversial run for presidency.

Though after their reunion in Wyoming Kim returned to Los Angeles without husband fueling speculation that the pair are leading increasingly separate lives.

Children North, 7, Saint, 4, Chicago, 2, and 15-month-old Psalm are said to be at home with their mother Kim, 39, while Kanye stays in Wyoming because it's 'where he wants to live' a source has told PEOPLE.

Leading separate lives? Kim and Kanye recently looked to put their marital issues behind them on a family vacation in the Dominican Republic, after the pair were said to have held crisis talks about their future amid Kanye' s controversial run for presidency (Pictured above with children North, 7, Saint, 4, Chicago, 2, and Psalm, 1)

Their source claims Kim is 'happy to be back' in LA, saying that 'it's hard traveling with the kids for such a long time.'

The source adds: 'Kim still seems focused on making her marriage work. She is pretty quiet about her exact plans for the future, but for now she seems okay with Kanye living in Wyoming.

'He is moving ahead with the presidential campaign. This is a decision that no one can change his mind about.'

Happy solo: A source has said that Kim, 39, is happy to be back in LA while Kanye staying in Wyoming

However, another source close to the couple tells DailyMail.com that they were 'never living apart' adding: 'He does a lot of work in Wyoming and she works in LA. They're focused on their family now and rarely talk politics.'

Kanye - who suffers from bi-polar disorder - caused huge controversy in July when he went on a series of Twitter rants that included accusing Kim of having an affair with rapper Meek Mill, as well as claiming they once considered having an abortion.

Kim was then seen in tears as she held crisis talks with Kanye in Wyoming, which was the first time they had been seen together since disastrous first campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Staying in LA: Kim - pictured this month with daughter Chicago - is said to be OK with Kanye staying in Wyoming

The couple appeared to patch things up while on their vacation to the Dominican Republic, while daughter North is said to have spent some alone time with her father Kanye in Wyoming this past week, before returning to LA to be with Kim.

Over the weekend, Kim was seen at Kanye's Sunday Service event in Wyoming, and posted a video on social with the caption, 'Guess what's back?!?!'

The positive message appeared to suggest the family vacation did the family the world of good, a source close to the couple adds to DailyMail.com that their children 'loved' the time away.

Kanye tweeted about the event too, making it clear that his team had made sure there were safety guidelines.

Proud dad: Kanye West was quite the doting father Monday in a sweet photo with his oldest child North, as they enjoyed some quality time in a gorgeous setting

He is risen: Kim Kardashian supported husband Kanye West this weekend, as his popular alternative church event Sunday Service returned for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, set against a gorgeous Wyoming backdrop

'Praise God. We would like to thank our staff for making sure all Covid safety guidelines were followed today during Sunday Service at our West Mountains family ranch in Wyoming,' he tweeted.

The married couple certainly appear to be in a better place than they were last month, following Kanye's controversial comments around his run for presidency.

In one of his many outbursts during his July campaign rally, Kane shockingly revealed that he and Kim had considered aborting their daughter North, who is now seven, before he got a 'message from God'.

However, later that month he apologized to Kim on Twitter saying: 'I would like to apologize to my wife Kim for going public with something that was a private matter,' adding: 'I did not cover her like she has covered me. To Kim I want to say I know I hurt you.'
The Congress party urged Governor of Telangana to use her discretionary powers and submit a report to President of India Ramnath Kovind on the mishandling of Covid-19 situation by TRS Government.

The Congress party urged Governor of Telangana Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan to use her discretionary powers and submit a report to President of India Ramnath Kovind on the mishandling of Covid-19 situation by TRS Government. It is highly unfortunate that the State Government, headed by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, did not respond to the suggestions given by the Governor in handling the Coronavirus situation in Telangana State. However, instead of expressing helplessness, the Governor must utilise her discretionary powers and submit a report to the President seeking action against the State Government for its inept handling of Covid-19 situation, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy said in a media statement on Friday.

Narayana Reddy said that the Governor herself has admitted that the State Government has denied people the right to get tested for Covid-19. In such a scenario, the Governor shouldve summoned the Chief Secretary and ordered him to act on her suggestions. As the Governor of Telangana, Dr. Soundararajan enjoys enormous powers which she never exercised. Instead of complaining about the inefficiency of the State Government, the Governor shouldve played a proactive role by getting her suggestions implemented through top officials, he said.

Further, the Congress urged the Governor to make public the letters she wrote to the State Government giving suggestions on Covid-19 situation. He said people have a right to know what was suggested by the Governor and why the State Government did not act on those suggestions.

ALSO READ : Sushant Singh Rajput case: CBI interrogates SSRs cook, ED records sister Priyankas statement

ALSO READ : EC issues guidelines for conduct of elections amid Covid-19 threat

The Congress leader also condemned the statements made by a few TRS leaders targeting the Governor for her serious remarks. Some TRS leaders have crossed all limits of decency in criticising the Governor. Instead of making personal remarks, the ruling party leaders must have answered the questions raised by the Governor who is also the Constitutional head of the State, he said.

He also condemned both TRS and BJP leaders for trying to turn the Governors remarks into a TRS-BJP tussle.Narayana Reddy said that the both TRS and BJP leaders were engaging in blame games to divert peoples attention from the failures of both the Central and State Government. He said that both BJP Govt at the Centre and TRS Govt in Telangana have failed to control the spread of Covid-19 and they focussed on managing or manipulating the numbers instead of actually controlling the disease. They imposed the lockdown in an unplanned manner and failed to mobilise required health infrastructure to deal with the situation. Consequently, lakhs of people got infected and thousands died primarily due to the negligent attitude of BJP Govt at the Centre and TRS Govt in Telangana, he said.

The Telangana unit of BJP criticises the TRS Government for its failures, but some Central Ministers and members of NITI Aayog issue statements praising the KCR Govt. While TRS leaders accuse the Central Government of denying Telangana its share in Central funds, CM KCR always praises Prime Minister Narender Modi and never raises a complaint during the video-conference. Therefore, the TRS-BJP blame game is just an eyewash aimed at diverting peoples attention, he alleged.

ALSO READ : Srisailam fire incident: Andhra CM expresses shock, directs officials to help
By Dan Kaburu for K24 TV in Kenya

Scientists monitoring wildlife declines calculate that the roan antelope should be classified as of Least Concern. But in Kenya, numbers have dropped from hundreds to only a handful in one human generation.

Ruma National Park in the countrys west is their last retreat. Dan Kaburu visits to speak to locals who remember when these were commonly-sighted animals, and hears it is the illegal wildlife trade and poaching that has driven them to the very brink of extinction in Kenya.

Watch Dans full story here

This article is reproduced here as part of the Giants Club African Conservation Journalism Fellowships, a programme of the charity Space for Giants and supported by the majority shareholder of ESI Media, which includes independent.co.uk. It aims to expand the reach of conservation and environmental journalism in Africa, and bring more African voices into the international conservation debate.
National Senior Citizen's Day has been celebrated in the United States every year on August 21 since 1988 when President Ronald Reagan officially observed the holiday to celebrate the accomplishments of seniors in America. Last year, AAG celebrated National Senior Citizen's Day by partnering with the Pet Prescription Team to surprise seniors at the Orange Senior Center with a group of specially trained therapy dogs.

About AAG

AAG is dedicated to helping older Americans find new ways to fund a better retirement through the responsible use of home equity. As the nation's leader in reverse mortgage lending, AAG offers a suite of home equity solutions  including Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, traditional and proprietary mortgages, and real estate services  that are designed to give seniors a better financial outcome in retirement. AAG is a proud member of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA). To learn more about AAG and reverse mortgage loans, please visit the company's website at www.aag.com.

American Advisors Group, NMLS ID: 9392, 3800 W. Chapman Avenue, 3rd & 7th Floor, Orange, CA 92868. AAG Residential Services, Inc., 18200 Von Karman Ave., Suite 950, Irvine, CA 92612. Real estate broker, California Department of Real Estate, License number 02039087. AAGRS is performing acts for which a real estate license is required.

Contact:

Ryan Whittington

[email protected]

(657) 236-5220

SOURCE American Advisors Group (AAG)

Related Links

https://www.aag.com


Evaluation of the Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention  Multi-Sectoral Partnerships (MSP) Program 2014-15 to 2018-19

Prepared by

the Office of Audit and Evaluation

Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada

March 2020

Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables

List of Acronyms

ISHLCD Integrated Strategy on Healthy Living and Chronic Diseases MSP Multi-Sectoral Partnership PHAC Public Health Agency of Canada SGBA+ Sex and Gender-Based Analysis Plus TBS Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat WHO World Health Organization

Executive Summary

The Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention  Multi-Sectoral Partnerships (MSP) Program launched in 2013, with the aim of advancing innovative solutions to public health challenges. The Program is premised on multi-sectoral partnerships and provides co-funding to recipients in order to test and scale up the most promising primary prevention interventions that address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, particularly a lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating, and smoking.Footnote 1 By engaging with multiple sectors of society, partners can leverage knowledge, expertise, and resources to work towards the shared goal of producing better health outcomes for Canadians.

The objective of this evaluation was to review the relevance and performance of the MSP Program from April 2014 to December 2018. This evaluation also looked for innovative transfer payment models that are currently being used across the Government of Canada to explore best practices and lessons learned from their implementation.

The evaluation focused on MSP Program projects funded under the following contribution funding terms and conditions:

Men's Health;

Canadian Breast Cancer Initiative;

Canadian Diabetes Strategy;

Cancer;

Cardiovascular Disease Program; and

Healthy Living Fund.

It also examined projects, both approved and under development, that were created under the new Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat pilot on Generic Terms and Conditions, which was officially launched on April 1st, 2017. The evaluation did not review the relevance and performance of interventions tied to the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy, as these were examined as part of the Evaluation of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy 2012-13 to 2015-16, that was approved in January 2017 and will be evaluated again in 2022-23.

This evaluation was conducted jointly with an audit of the MSP Program, as scheduled in both the Departmental Evaluation Plan and the Risk-Based Audit Plan. A separate report on audit findings has been developed following the normal internal audit process.

What we found

The MSP Program responds to an ongoing need to address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease. This need is well recognized by PHAC and available statistics further demonstrate that there are significant differences in the prevalence of major chronic disease risk factors among certain segments of the Canadian population. As such, chronic disease prevention efforts continue to be aligned with federal priorities and PHAC's mission to promote and protect the health of Canadians through leadership, partnership, innovation, and action in public health.

To date, there are early indications of success stemming from program activities and outputs, in terms of number of individuals participating in funded projects, knowledge development relating to healthy behaviours, and evidence of progress towards behaviour change and improved health. At this early stage in the Program's life cycle, it has not yet identified and shared what works or does not work in terms of innovative interventions and new models.

The MSP Program is perceived as a leader across those within the Government of Canada using experimental program design and applying innovative funding models. In fact, the Program has been able to leverage $92 million in matched funding from other organizations, such as provincial, territorial, and local governments, health service organizations, school boards, and universities.

The overall delivery model of the Program includes a focus on establishing multi-sectoral partnerships, a continuous intake process, a requirement for matched funding from non-taxpayer sources, as well as use of innovative financing mechanisms, which has demonstrated the viability of the multi-sectoral approach. Additionally, a range of partners have shown themselves to be willing to contribute their own resources in pursuit of shared goals that respond to and address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease. Most interviewed project applicants, funding recipients, and partners noted the need for a clearer indication of the types of projects the MSP Program is looking to fund, as well as the priority at-risk populations targeted by the Program.

The Program has conducted Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+) analyses in critical areas, and is collecting information on populations targeted in individual projects. That said, the Program has encountered challenges in applying SGBA+ due to its broad scope of chronic disease risk factors and its current program design. There may be opportunities to see if there are gaps in populations targeted and potential mechanisms which can be used to bridge those gaps. More could be done to share SGBA+ information gathered to date from projects with internal and external stakeholders. At the same time, the Program could more clearly determine how it should respond to the needs of vulnerable populations in addressing common chronic disease risk factors in conjunction with similar programs in PHAC's Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch.

The MSP Program collects performance data through regular project monitoring of each individual funding agreement, as well as final reports and evaluations of individual projects to capture longer-term results of program investments. However, the program design makes the collection of data inherently difficult. Continuous intake means that the project portfolio includes a mix of projects that started at different points in time, and thus were established under different policy contexts and requirements (e.g., SGBA+). Further compounding the difficulty of putting together an overarching performance story is the fact that the Program targets multiple risk factors and intervention settings. This diversity in project focus makes it challenging to aggregate consistent project performance information over time. As such, there is a lack of reliable performance information, including performance targets and baseline data, to serve the Program's need for strategic information. Therefore, the MSP Program is unable to effectively present an overall performance story on its contribution to reducing common modifiable risk factors of chronic disease.

The systematic process of identifying, integrating, and sharing lessons learned on the Program's innovative approach and individual projects (i.e., best practices, areas of improvement) to present what is or isn't working, for whom, and in what context, would also benefit its efficiency and effectiveness, as well as its future development.

Recommendations

The evaluation findings discussed in this report has led to the following recommendations:

Recommendation 1: Considering the complexities of its current design, the Program should determine how to integrate SGBA+ findings into the design of projects, in order to attain the strategic objectives of the Program. Recommendation 2: Revise current performance measurement practices to ensure that performance data is being collected consistently across all funded projects, to effectively measure program impact, and to ensure that expected program-level results are being appropriately tracked and communicated in order to guide future decision making on project selection. Recommendation 3: Introduce a systematic process to compile lessons learned on what is or isn't working, for whom, and in what context, and share these lessons learned with internal and external partners and stakeholders.

Management Response and Action Plan

Evaluation of the Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention Multi-Sectoral Partnerships Program Recommendations Response Action Plan Deliverables Expected Completion Date Accountability Resources Recommendation as stated in the evaluation report Identify whether program management agrees, agrees with conditions, or disagrees with the recommendation, and why Identify what action(s) program management will take to address the recommendation Identify key

deliverables Identify timeline for implementation of each deliverable Identify Senior Management and Executive (DG and ADM level) accountable for the implementation of each deliverable Describe the human and/or financial resources required to complete recommendation, including the source of resources (additional vs. existing budget) Recommendation 1: Considering the complexities of the Program's current design, moving forward, the program should determine how to integrate SGBA+ findings into the design of projects, to enhance the strategic objectives of the program. Agree 1.1 In consultation with the Centre for Grants and Contributions, we will develop and implement a Program Charter and Business Management Model for the Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention - Multi-Sectoral Partnerships (MSP) Program, including a dedicated Appendix on Implementation and Monitoring of SGBA+. 1.1 SGBA+ findings integrated into relevant stages of MSP business processes, and incorporated into the Program Charter and Business Management Model. December 2020 Vice President, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Existing resources Recommendation 2: Revise current performance measurement practices to ensure that performance data is being collected consistently across all funded projects, to effectively measure program impact, and to ensure that expected program-level results are being appropriately tracked and communicated to guide future decision making on project selection. Agree 2.1 In consultation with the Centre for Grants and Contributions, we will develop and implement a Program Charter and Business Management Model for the MSP Program that sets procedures for consistent collection of data and the effective measurement of program results and impacts. 2.1 Procedures for data collection and results measurement implemented and incorporated in Program Charter and Business Management Model. December 2020 Vice President, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Existing resources 2.2 In consultation with the Centre for Grants and Contributions, we will develop and implement a Program Guide for Applicants for the MSP Program that communicates program impacts and expectations for funded projects. 2.2 Project requirements for data, results and measurable impacts reflected in the Program Guide for Applicants. December 2020 Recommendation 3: Introduce a systematic process to compile lessons learned on what is working and what is not working, for whom and in what context, when it comes to the Programs current design and funded projects, and share these lessons learned with internal and external partners and stakeholders. Agree 3.1 We will develop a knowledge transfer strategy that clarifies the process and expectations for capturing MSP program-level findings, strengthens third party evaluation and reporting requirements, expands existing knowledge transfer mechanisms, includes an approach for capturing and sharing project-level learnings at appropriate intervals, and clarifies governance and oversight expectations related to knowledge transfer. This knowledge transfer strategy will be incorporated and implemented through the Program Charter and Business Management Model for the MSP Program. 3.1 Knowledge transfer strategy implemented and incorporated into the Program Charter and Business Management Model. December 2020 Vice President, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Existing resources 3.2 We will develop and implement the relevant knowledge transfer expectations as identified under 3.1 in an MSP Program Guide for Applicants. 3.2 Expectations and approach to knowledge transfer explained in MSP Program Guide for applicants. December 2020

1.0 Evaluation Scope

The objective of this evaluation was to review the relevance and performance of the Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention  Multi-Sectoral Partnerships (MSP) Program from April 2014 to December 2018. This evaluation also looked for innovative transfer payment models currently being used across the Government of Canada, in order to explore best practices and lessons learned from their implementation. Information was collected through several means, including a literature review, a review of program documents and files, and 44 interviews with senior management, project managers and staff, federal partners, funding partners, funding recipients, and applicants. See Appendix 1 for more detail on how data was collected and analyzed, and Appendix 2 for more detail on the evaluation scope and approach.

The evaluation focused on MSP Program projects funded under the following contribution funding terms and conditions:

Men's Health;

Canadian Breast Cancer Initiative;

Canadian Diabetes Strategy;

Cancer;

Cardiovascular Disease Program; and

Healthy Living Fund.

It also examined projects, both approved and in development, created under the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat pilot on Generic Terms and Conditions, which was officially launched on April 1st, 2017. The evaluation did not review interventions tied to the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy, as these activities were examined as part of the Evaluation of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy 2012-13 to 2015-16, which was approved in January 2017 and will be evaluated again in 2022-23.

2.0 Program Profile

Program Context

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), non-communicable diseases, commonly known as chronic diseases in Canada, are increasingly complex health challenges. In Canada, more than two-fifths of the population over the age of twenty is living with at least one major chronic disease, such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or chronic respiratory disease. Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour, unhealthy eating, tobacco use, the problematic use of alcohol, as well as exposure to unhealthy built environments, are all common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease. Obesity is also considered to be a key driver of chronic disease in Canada, where one in three children are overweight or obese, and over one in four adults are obese.

Over 150,000 Canadians die annually from diseases that are preventable. Chronic diseases are also responsible for a high rate of morbidity, associated reductions in quality of life, and negative impacts on communities and the economy. Chronic diseases and other illnesses cost the Canadian economy $190 billion annually, including $122 billion in indirect income and productivity losses, and $68 billion in direct health care costs.Footnote 2

In May 2012, the World Health Assembly endorsed the first global target to reduce, by 2025, premature mortality from non-communicable disease by 25 percent. Member states also came to an agreement on a comprehensive global monitoring framework. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development increased this global target to one-third (33 per cent) by 2030.

In 2005, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) received $255 million for the first five years, and $67.3 million for every following year in ongoing funding, for the Integrated Strategy on Healthy Living and Chronic Disease (ISHLCD), which represents PHAC's foundation in the areas of healthy living and chronic disease prevention. The aim of the ISHLCD framework was to ensure that Canada had an integrated approach to addressing major chronic diseases by focusing on common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, as well as through complementary disease-specific work. The framework consisted of three pillars: promoting health, preventing chronic diseases by minimizing risk, and early detection and management of chronic diseases. The Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Equity (CCDPHE), within the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention (HPCDP) Branch, leads PHAC's chronic disease prevention activities. Within the CCDPHE, the Partnerships and Strategies Division (PSD) is directly responsible for administering the MSP Program.

Of the $67.3M in ongoing funding for the ISHLCD framework, approximately $20M per year is used to fund MSP Program activities. PHAC's MSP Program was launched in 2013, with the aim of advancing innovative solutions to public health challenges. The Program provides co-investment to partners with the goal of preventing chronic diseases, while reducing health inequalities among population groups where necessary.

Overall Program Approach

Traditional approaches to chronic disease prevention have not led to desired results at the population level, and often struggle to engage individuals in behaviour change interventions. Therefore, the Program sought new solutions for the complex challenge of preventing chronic diseases in Canada. It provided funding through PHAC contribution agreements to test and scale up the most promising primary prevention interventions (i.e., those that enable and change behaviour in ways that will positively affect health). Typically, these interventions emphasize increased physical activity, healthy eating, smoke-free living, and the creation of social and physical environments that support healthy behaviours. Project leaders have recognized that it is not enough to assume 'if they build it, people will come' or assume that if a target population is reached, the intervention will be adopted. Instead, the MSP Program projects tested theories of behaviour change rooted in research on behavioural insights, user-centred design, and choice architecture in order to influence, attract, inspire, or motivate populations to actively use or participate in the intervention. Additionally, by delivering interventions in ways that are culturally or socially appropriate for specific populations, they were expected to be more likely to succeed in promoting healthy behaviours, not only in the short term, but also in the long term after the project has finished.

The MSP Program worked across sectors to leverage investments, expertise, and ingenuity in order to develop and test integrated upstream approaches that help reduce common modifiable risk factors of chronic disease. Each project must include partnerships from both the private and not-for profit sectors, such as governmental organizations, academia, workplaces, industry, and communities. By engaging multiple sectors of society, partners can leverage knowledge, expertise, and resources to work towards the common goal of producing better health outcomes for Canadians. Project findings for both successes and failures were to be shared with internal partners and external stakeholders to help build the evidence base of what interventions work, for whom, and in what context. Ultimately the Program aimed to contribute to increasing healthier behaviours and preventing chronic diseases among Canadians by having multi-sectoral partnersFootnote 3 adopt, scale up, and sustain effective healthy living policies and interventions. Appendix 3 provides a graphic that shows the program logic.

Key elements of the Program's use of contribution agreements to fund projects were as follows:

Primary prevention projects must go beyond raising awareness to include a coordinated set of activities that enable and change behaviour in ways that will reduce the common risk factors for chronic disease (physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour, unhealthy eating, and smoking);

Projects must test innovative ideas and approaches using a strong theoretical basis, or must scale up evidence-based approaches that have been shown to produce measurable behaviour change;

A matched funding ratio of 1:1 from non-tax payer funded sources or private sector partners is required, although exceptions do exist as the Program focuses more on meeting a 1:1 ratio at a portfolio level;

Projects must have pay-for-performance agreements, where payments are tied to accomplishing health outcomes and outputs that are specified in advance, jointly negotiated, and measureable; and

As appropriate, some projects are structured to advance other pay-for-performance funding models, including social impact bonds and other social finance approaches.

Funding recipients were also required to develop and implement a rigorous evaluation of their intervention, and report on results on an annual basis according to their risk profile.

The Program used a continuous intake approach for project submissions. Rather than using a specific proposal deadline, the Program used an open solicitation process and a two-step review process for incoming proposals. The review process included Letters of Intent (LOI), followed by a full proposal. This approach generally involved a high degree of co-creation between program officials and project proponents.

As mentioned above, the Program generally required that project partners secure matched funding (identified as a ratio of 1:1) of financial (cash), and in-kind contributions from non-taxpayer funded sources and private sector partners to be eligible for program funding, which is consistent with the multi-sectoral approach. No other Government of Canada program exists that has a combined focus on continuous intake with a two-step review process, and a multi-sectoral approach specifically focusing on private sector matched funding (this applies only to the federal sector).



The MSP Program also made use of outcome-based funding models in its project design, as set out under the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's (TBS) new Generic Terms and Conditions for Innovative Uses of Transfer Payments Pilot. Such funding models focus on innovative financing tools, including prize/challenge, base plus premium, and micro-funding models, which transition from funding based on tasks and activities, to funding based on the achievement of concrete results and goals. Some risk is assumed, given that it is unknown if an intervention will 'work' with its intended population (in some cases, projects may be effective in promoting healthy behaviours, but may reach a different population than intended). As a complement to innovative financing, the Program also identified a series of physiological and psychological measures related to common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease (e.g., blood pressure, body mass index), which were used as performance indicators to tie payments to recipients' successful achievement of project results.

The MSP Program used innovative financial models before the formal approval of TBS' Generic Terms and Conditions, including signing a Social Impact Bond (SIB) with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in 2016 for the ACTIVATE project (Community Hypertension Prevention Initiative), and contributing to a prize/challenge approach implemented by the LIFT Philanthropy Partners in 2014 for The Play Exchange. Since TBS' Generic Terms and Conditions were launched in April 2017, the MSP Program has also approved three new projects using the Base Plus Premium Payment model.

Program timeline

A timeline of the Program's history is presented below (Figure 1), showing the sequence of significant events which have had an impact on program activities since 2013, notably the introduction of the Treasury Board Policy on Results in 2016. Other events include a requirement to incorporate Sex and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+) in performance reporting, and a Directive on Experimentation in December 2016, as well as the introduction of the Generic Terms and Conditions in April 2017. The figure also presents examples of projects approved by the Program and their start dates. The diagram shows that the Program has had to respond to an evolving set of policies over the period of this evaluation. This has led to changes, for example, in project reporting requirements, which has affected program performance measurement data (discussed in more detail in Section 6.2).

Figure 1: Timeline of Significant Events which have Affected Program Activities

Figure 1 - Text description The Multi-Sectoral Partnerships (MSP) Program launched in 2013, followed by the start of a number of projects and activities including: the AirMiles Reward Program in 2013, The Play Exchange prize challenge initiative in 2014, the social impact bond signed with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in 2016 for the ACTIVATE project as well as the KidFood Nation project in the same year, the launch of the Social Enterprise Incubator and three projects funded under the Base Plus Premium Payment model in 2018. Lastly the Office of Audit and Evaluation undertook data collection for a Joint Engagement audit and evaluation of the Program in 2018 and 2019. A series of significant events have had an impact on program activities, starting with the introduction of the 'plus' in Gender-Based Analysis Plus by Status of Women Canada in 2012 and then the introduction of the Treasury Board Policy on Results in 2016 which included a requirement to incorporate sex and gender-based analysis plus in performance reporting. Furthermore, the Treasury Board issued a Directive on Experimentation in December 2016 and issued the Generic Terms and Conditions in April 2017. The Federal, Provincial and Territorial Declaration on Public Sector Innovation was announced in November 2017. The Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative was launched in 2018. On May 31st of the same year, the Federal Provincial and Territorial document A Common Vision for Increasing Physical Activity and Reducing Sedentary Living in Canada was released. Lastly, in September 2018, Canada adopted the United Nations Political declaration of the third high-level meeting to control and prevent non-communicable diseases.

Since 2013, the MSP Program has invested approximately $112 million in support of 49 projects, which together have leveraged an additional $92 million in investment from private organizations and involved 400+ partners from across a range of sectors and industries.

Program Resources

The PSD's planned budget information, which includes MSP program funding, is presented below in Table 1 for the period of 2014-15 to 2018-19. Overall, the PSD had a budget of $107.7 million over the five-year period.

3.0 Ongoing Importance of Supporting Health Promotion in Priority Areas

The MSP Program responds to an ongoing need to address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, and it continues to be clearly aligned with federal and departmental priorities, roles, and responsibilities.

Continued Need for the Program

Evidence from both the document review and interviews all supported the need for the MSP Program. Several common risk factors (e.g., physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour, unhealthy eating, tobacco use, problematic alcohol use) responsible for increased risks of chronic disease morbidity and mortality later in life can be mitigated, and chronic disease prevented or its onset delayed.

According to 2016 data from the Canadian Chronic Disease Surveillance System (CCDSS), chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, are the leading causes of death and reduced quality of life. Forty-four percent of adults aged 20+ have at least one in ten common chronic conditions. Furthermore, according to the Canadian Community Health Survey, 82.5 percent of Canadian adults 18 and over do not meet the Canadian physical activity guidelines, while only one-third of Canadians aged 12 or older report eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, an indicator of healthy eating. Finally, in 2015, there were 4.6 million tobacco users in Canada aged 15 and over (15% of the population), of which 3.9 million were cigarette smokers (Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey).

While problematic alcohol use is considered one of the top four risk factors when it comes to chronic disease, the MSP Program focused its project selection on physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour, unhealthy eating, and tobacco use. At the time of the evaluation, a scoping paper was being developed to help mitigate the risks and harms associated with the harmful use of alcohol in Canada.

Alignment with Government Priorities and Appropriateness of Roles and Responsibilities

Chronic disease prevention efforts continued to be aligned with federal priorities domestically and internationally, as well as with PHAC's mission to promote and protect the health of Canadians through leadership, partnership, innovation, and action in public health. Domestically, the 2015 Mandate Letter to the Minister of Health outlined the importance of building partnerships with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments in an effort to collectively improve health outcomes for Canadians. More recently, A Common Vision for Increasing Physical Activity and Reducing Sedentary Living in Canada: Let's Get Moving, a policy framework developed by federal, provincial, and territorial governments, was released on May 31, 2018. Also, the Government of Canada's five-year renewal of Canada's Tobacco Strategy in Budget 2018 provides funding for interventions that target smoking as a common risk factor for chronic diseases. These policy frameworks are also consistent with the Integrated Strategy on Healthy Living and Chronic Disease (ISHLCD) focus on partnerships and multi-sectoral collaboration.

Furthermore, in December 2015, the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Equity (CCDPHE) launched its new strategic plan, entitled Improving Health Outcomes: A Paradigm Shift. The main goal of the plan was to continue focusing on better health outcomes for all Canadians, mobilizing multi-sectoral and evidence-based action to promote healthy living and prevent chronic disease and injuries, with a vision for Canadians to live healthier and more productive lives. PHAC was therefore adapting its role to meet the changing environment by focusing on common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease using innovative solutions, and providing the co-investment needed to test and scale up the most promising interventions.

The Federal, Provincial and Territorial Declaration on Public Sector Innovation (November 2017) identified that innovation, experimentation, and openness require constant effort, even if they present risks. The Declaration also identified that the federal, provincial, and territorial Clerks and Cabinet Secretaries should commit to taking action, including experimenting and measuring results by identifying what works and what doesn't.

The MSP is also aligned with Canada's international commitments. At the Third United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases in September 2018, global health leaders, including Canada's Minister of Health, adopted a political declaration, which included commitments to scale up efforts and further implement actions to control and prevent non-communicable diseases, including through the development of adequate national multi-sectoral responses.

Likewise, some internal and external key informants felt that a multi-sectoral approach was necessary to address chronic diseases in Canada, and should involve all levels of government, as well as other sectors (e.g., the private sector). Furthermore, by shifting their approach to focus on common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, interviewees felt that the Program would have a more positive impact on reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality.

As part of its strategy, the Program is also advancing a variety of partnership arrangements and funding models to promote more effective use of its grants and contributions investments, focused on achieving measurable results. The MSP Program is developing partnerships with the private and not-for-profit sectors, organizations within and outside the health sector, and other levels of government that support behavioural changes that aim to positively affect health.

Targeting At-Risk Population Groups

Different population groups show inequalities in rates of health risk behaviours. This suggests that people face different challenges in improving their health depending on various social, economic and demographic factors such as sex and gender, income, education, race and ethnicity, and where they live. Therefore, interventions to reduce chronic disease need to account for these different determinants of health and health inequalities in order to effectively meet the needs of diverse population groups.

Public health authorities, including PHAC and the WHO, have recognized that different population groups have unequal rates of health risk behaviours and exposure to unhealthy environments, leading to unequal rates of chronic diseases. These inequalities can be seen across populations as distinguished by sex and gender, age, cultural and racial backgrounds, First Nations, Inuit or Metis identity, income, education, as well as rural versus urban residency. These inequalities mean that strategies for promoting healthy behaviours and living environments among different population groups need to be tailored to address the diverse ways in which risk factors are manifested and experienced; there is no one size fits all' model. This kind of thinking reflects the Government of Canada's commitment to apply Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus' (SGBA+) to policy and program development.Footnote 4

The Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Data ToolFootnote 5 displays information on health risk behaviours between population groups, as derived from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey (2010-13).Footnote 6 The following table, drawn from the Data Tool, shows differences between females and males for health risk behaviours prioritized by the MSP Program.

Table 2: Differences by Sex for Common Modifiable Risk Factors for Chronic Disease - Females Males Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey - Annual Component (2010-2013) as reported by the Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Data Tool, 2017 Physical activity, active or moderately active (aged 18+) 49.8% 54.3% Fruit and vegetable consumption, 5 or more times per day (aged 18+) 47.9% 33.5% Smoking, daily or occasionally (aged 18+) 18.2% 24.5%

In the table presented above, males were shown to be more physically active than females, while females ate more fruits and vegetables and smoked less than males. These differences between the sexes were generally consistent when other population characteristics were added to the analysis, such as income levels, as shown in the table below.

Table 3: Differences between Lowest and Highest Income Levels by Sex for Selected Health Risk Behaviours - Lowest income level (quintile) Highest income level (quintile) Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey - Annual Component (2010-2013) as reported by the Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Data Tool, 2017 - Females Males Females Males Physical activity, active or moderately active (aged 18+) 40.2% 46.4% 62.5% 64.2% Fruit/vegetable consumption, 5 or more times per day (aged 18+) 40.1% 30.4% 54.8% 35.3% Smoking, daily or occasionally (aged 18+) 23.6% 32.8% 13.6% 18.6%

Table 3 shows that a clear difference exists between the poorest and richest income groups regarding health risk behaviours and health promotion behaviours. Rates for each of these health risk behaviours improved progressively when comparing each income level to the next higher one. Furthermore, health promotion behaviours increased with each increase in income level. Similar differences in rates for these behaviours were observed when comparing population groups according to the level of educational achievement, wherein health risk behaviours were higher in populations with lower levels of education. When considering other population subgroups that matter for effectively engaging people on improving health, crucial differences existed in health risk behaviours. For instance, the table below displays figures for three Indigenous peoples in Canada, as compared to non-Indigenous populations.

Table 4: Differences between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Populations by Sex for Selected Health Risk Behaviours - First Nations off reserve Metis Inuit Non-Indigenous - Females Males Females Males Females Males Females Males Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey - Annual Component (2010-2013) as reported by the Pan-Canadian Health Inequalities Data Tool, 2017 Table 4 - Footnote a To be interpreted with caution as the low numbers of people in this group mean that the percentage reported here may not be accurate. Return to Table 4 - Footnote a referrer Physical activity, active or moderately active (aged 18+) 47.9% 57.5% 52.7% 56.2% 41.8% 42.5% 49.9% 54.3% Fruit/vegetable consumption, 5 or more times per day (aged 18+) 35.6% 26.0% 39.8% 32.3% 26.9% 17.8% Table 4 - Footnote a 48.2% 33.7% Smoking, daily or occasionally (aged 18+) 42.4% 41.8% 35.0% 39.9% 55.4% 56.7% 17.5% 23.9%

The rates for different Indigenous populations show differences in health risk behaviours among them, as well as when compared to non-Indigenous people; all Indigenous groups had a lower rate of fruit and vegetable consumption, as well as a higher rate of smoking, particularly for Inuit people, whereas Metis women and First Nations men showed the highest rates of regular physical activity across all the population groups. The historical, social, political, and economic contexts specific to Indigenous people in Canada are key to understanding these differences in health risk behaviours. The colonial legacy of residential schools, displacement of communities into remote settlements and reserves, and systemic discrimination are some factors leading to health inequities between First Nations, Metis, Inuit, and non-Indigenous people.Footnote 7

All three of the preceding tables illustrate that there are varying relationships between population characteristics and health risk behaviours. This suggests that people face different challenges in improving their health, depending on education, income levels, and ethnicity. Examples of these challenges include access to information and resources, as well as supportive physical and social environments. As such, a variety of strategies are needed to engage and empower different population groups in reducing the risks of chronic disease.

4.0 Evidence of Program Success

Since 2014-15, the MSP Program has provided $112 million in funding to 49 projects that address one or more risk factors for chronic diseases. Of the 49 projects, 19 were completed by March 31st, 2019. Of the other 30 projects, nine are scheduled to be completed in 2019-20, ten in 2020-21, four each in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and the remaining three are scheduled to be completed in 2023-24. The largest groups of projects, by risk factor, focused on physical activity (14), such as the Right To Play's Promoting Life-skills in Aboriginal Youth (PLAY) program, or combined physical activity and healthy eating (14) (e.g., Community Food Centres Canada - Food Fit: Promoting Healthy Eating and Fitness in Low-Income Communities). The next largest group of projects (11) addressed multiple risk factors, in some combination of the modifiable risk factors. These projects include the Girls Action Foundation - Girls' Health and Wellness Project: Promoting Healthy Living, Healthy Weights and Tobacco Reduction among Girls. Table 5 below shows the number of projects by type of risk factor addressed.

Table 5: Number of MSP Projects by Type of Risk Factor Addressed Type Number % Source: Program documents Table 5 - Footnote a Although outside the scope of this evaluation, we have included tobacco-focused projects in Table 5 to show the full range of projects funded under the MSP Program to date. Return to Table 5 - Footnote a referrer Physical Activity and Healthy Eating 14 29% Physical Activity 14 29% Multiple Risk Factors 11 22% Tobacco Footnote a 6 12% Built Environment 3 6% Injury Prevention 1 2% Total 49 100%

The evaluation found early indications of success in terms of who participated in the projects (numbers of participants and engagement of vulnerable populations), improved social and physical environments, knowledge development relating to healthy behaviours, progress towards behavioural change, and the identification and sharing of models for reducing risk factors for chronic diseases. While performance information is available, reporting varied according to the scope of the project and its stage of implementation, as well as project recipients' interpretation of information requirements. Therefore, considering that not all projects collected the same information, the statistics in the following sections vary according to the number of projects that collected specific information on the goals of the project, and MSP in general.

4.1 Participation in the MSP Projects

Program documents showed that 31 of the 49 funded projects had recorded a cumulative total of almost 1.9 million participants up to the end of 2017-18. Projects varied widely in scope, with the smallest reaching 105 participants (Girls Action Foundation) and the largest over 850,000 (Carrot Rewards) in 2017-18. This reflects the variety of activities across the projects, from intensive live workshops in a few communities to online smartphone apps available nationwide. Eight funding recipient interviewees mentioned receiving positive feedback from participants on the quality of different project activities, specifically that participants enjoyed using a variety of tools and that the projects had benefits for a wide variety of people (i.e., children, youth, adult workers and seniors, individuals and families, parents and caregivers).

As shown in Table 6, 69% (34 out of 49) of the projects specifically targeted a vulnerable population known to have a higher exposure to risk factors for chronic diseases (e.g., adult smokers, low income earners, Indigenous). Twelve of these projects specifically targeted children and youth, based on the concept that interventions at a young age can lower risk factors for developing chronic diseases later in life. Table 6 shows the breakdown of the number of projects according to the primary target population.

Table 6: Number of MSP Projects According to the Primary Target Population Target population # of projects (total=49) Source: Program documents Vulnerable populations 34 Adult smokers 2 Adults: inactivity or chronic diseases 5 Children / Youth 12 Children / Youth: intellectual disability 1 Children / Youth: obesity 2 Girls / Women 4 Indigenous 3 Low income 2 Newcomers to Canada 1 Seniors 2 Adults/general population 10 Health professionals 5

Some funding recipient key informants mentioned that different vulnerable groups benefited from projects that had intentionally targeted these specific populations, such as Indigenous children and youth, adults who are more at risk of developing chronic diseases, newcomers to Canada, and young athletes facing potential injuries. Some funding recipients also identified groups who were not well-served, specifically newcomers who have multiple jobs, and people with Type 2 diabetes in Indigenous communities.

It should be noted that the classification of projects by primary target population did not take into account additional factors noted by the projects (e.g., targeting adults in their workplaces or places of residence, environments that may expose people to risk factors like sedentary behaviour).

A demographic breakdown from a limited number of projects that collected SGBA+ performance data (between 3 and 12 depending on the specific demographic indicator, as per Table 7 below) and reported on some of the groups reached in 2016-17 and 2017-18, shows that females formed a clear majority of participants. Furthermore, almost one-quarter lived in a rural location (averaged over both years), approximately two-thirds of participants had at least some post-secondary education, and there was very little Indigenous representation.

4.2 Improved Social or Physical Environments to Support Healthy Behaviours

Performance data shows some early progress in making improvements in social or physical environments, which is a factor in sustaining healthy behaviours. Three projects in 2017-18 reported that approximately 72% of project participants indicated improved social environments, thanks to opportunities to connect with peers through activities that promoted physical activity and healthy eating. The Girls Action Foundation Learning Lab is a good example, where 105 girls across the country had the opportunity to bolster skills related to making healthy choices about food, drug use, and physical activity. Another was the Get BUSY project, where Boys and Girls clubs supported teens in becoming peer mentors to younger children in healthy eating and physical movement activities.

Spotlight: Carrot Rewards Until it was discontinued in June 2019 due to a lack of revenue, the Carrot Rewards program aimed to harness the power of rewards to create positive and lasting behavioural change. It was Canada's first national mobile app-driven program to reward Canadians for making healthy lifestyle choices by using collectable loyalty points. Project documentation shows that users increased the number of steps they walked over an eight-month period, as well as increased their knowledge of key healthy living and chronic disease prevention practices. The program's platform had also been expanded to serve other Government of Canada policy needs.

4.3 Improved Knowledge, Capacity, or Skills on Healthy Behaviours

According to program data, 71% of project participants from nine projects surveyed in 2017-18 demonstrated improved knowledge of chronic disease or risk, and related protective factors. For example, the Canadian Cardiovascular Harmonized National Guideline Endeavour (C-CHANGE) has produced an online tool for primary care practitioners treating patients who suffer from cardiovascular disease to become more knowledgeable and apply up to nine related clinical guidelines. It has also developed workshops intended to increase knowledge, influence attitudes, and change clinical practice with the uptake of best practices for cardiovascular disease prevention and management. Participants felt that the overall initiative should lead to improved cardiovascular management and outcomes by promoting greater awareness and adherence to the C-CHANGE guidelines in primary care. In another example, nearly 20,000 women used the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's online breast health planning tool that promotes awareness of cancer risk factors. Preliminary results of the Food Fit program indicate that 96% of participants (n=3,000) have learned something new about healthier eating and cooking. Though it does not directly demonstrate improved knowledge, one external key informant reported that 70,000 people have visited and used CHEO Research's online interactive portal called Build our Best Day and also mentioned that many are downloading the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth (ages 5-17 years) from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Web site.

4.4 Participants have Improved Health Behaviours

Ninety-six percent of project participants in 11 projects reported improvements in their health behaviours related to common risk and protective factors, due to their involvement in these projects. Key informants for two projects indicated that participants had maintained or increased healthy behaviours, such as increased vegetable consumption or walking to school, even after the project came to an end. This is illustrated by the AirMiles-YMCA Physical Activity Project, which found an increase (between 1.37 and 3.84 times) in weekly physical exercise between those participating in the Project, compared to those who did not. As well, the Special Olympic Canada project reported a decrease in social isolation and increased likelihood of lifelong participation in physical activity for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Another example where participants improved their health behaviours was the Food Fit project, which was launched at 30 community sites, with a total of 3,000 participants. Project documentation indicates that almost all participants learned something new about healthier eating and cooking. Furthermore, 72% of participants increased their daily number of servings of fruits and vegetables and their average daily numbers of steps taken. This led to most participants reporting an improvement in their physical (78%) and mental health (82%). It also led to partnerships with Six Nations Health Services (Ohsweken, Ontario) to support a Food Fit curriculum adaptation to co-create and co-brand a program for an Indigenous community.

4.5 Innovative Intervention and New Models of Public Health are Identified and Shared

One of the MSP Program's main objectives is to provide evidence of what does or does not work, for whom and in what contexts, through the chronic disease prevention initiatives funded by the MSP Program. It is expected that the Program will also provide information on the factors that facilitate or impede the effectiveness of a specific intervention. However, at this early stage in the Program's life cycle, there is no systematic evidence available on the identification and sharing of innovations and models across the 49 funded projects.

It should be noted that current thinking about chronic disease prevention, based on insights on human behaviour such as nudge theory, recognizes that it is not enough to offer or encourage people to choose healthier options, but that tangible and perceived barriers to change must be also recognized and addressed. Such barriers will differ between groups and individuals, given the differences in lived realities and social inequities. In keeping with the 2016 Directive on Experimentation, the Program has accepted that some ideas will fail while others may succeed, yet both outcomes are important for learning. It is understood that the evidence from funded projects would be used to inform the design of current and future projects, as well as to make program adjustments. In addition, evidence-based knowledge products (e.g., articles, infographics, webinars) may be developed for internal and external audiences.

Spotlight: Kid Food Nation The Kid Food Nation initiative aims to empower children and families by developing knowledge and skills for healthy food preparation through a hands-on program, supported by online and on-air media content. The initiative saw 1,650 children participating, through Boys and Girls Clubs, with an estimated online and on-air reach per month of 1.5M Canadian children and 1.2M families. Project documentation shows an increase in knowledge and changes in behaviour among participants in the initiative, when compared to non-participants. For example, participating children and staff were more aware of healthy choices available at their clubs, were more likely to know how to store foods properly, were more likely to have tried different types of foods and more confident to prepare a meal from scratch.

A scan of 13 project evaluation reports revealed a number of lessons learned from the project experiences. For example, projects that engaged people with online tools found that individualized goal-setting, short-term rewards, and fresh content were important factors for recruiting and keeping users. Projects that emphasized community-level engagement highlighted the need for a variety of stakeholders to take ownership and agree to pool resources to collaborate on commonly-identified goals. Knowledgeable and adaptable facilitators were also seen as crucial for keeping participants engaged and helping them benefit from programming. Furthermore, there were some examples where activities had been sustained or expanded by recipient organizations for projects whose MSP funding has ended, such as:

The Girl's Action Foundation published a girl's health and wellness facilitation guide, developed through the learning lab experience and covering topics such as group capacity building, healthy eating, physical activity, and health body image (addressing reduced tobacco and alcohol use); Footnote 8

Trottibus, the Canadian Cancer Society's walking school bus project, received financing from the Government of Quebec to sustain and promote the project. This project has also started to expand into several communities in Ontario;

Right To Play's Promoting Life-skills in Aboriginal Youth (PLAY) program has continued to expand across Canada, with a model of using community mentoring in sport as a positive influence for increasing physical activity, as well as promoting mental health, and school attendance and retention;

The Canadian Cardiovascular Harmonized National Guideline Endeavour (C-CHANGE) continues to educate primary health practitioners on the use of nine clinical practice guidelines for preventing and managing cardiovascular diseases; and

The ParticipACTION Learn to Play program has brought hundreds of youth sport stakeholder organizations together at the local level to build capacity for increasing physical literacy, as well as in forming and sustaining partner relationships, with indications that this will continue to have an effect past the end of the funding period.

5.0 Elements of an Innovative Program

The overall delivery model of the Program, which includes a focus on establishing multi-sectoral partnerships, a continuous intake process, a requirement for matched funding from non-taxpayer sources, as well as use of innovative financing mechanisms, has demonstrated the viability of the multi-sectoral approach and the willingness of partners to contribute their own resources in pursuit of shared goals.

According to a majority of federal key informants interviewed, the Program is considered to be a leader in experimenting with innovative G&Cs approaches within the Government of Canada, having developed a unique delivery approach and incorporated a continuous intake model for submissions, as well as a two-step review approach for proposals, including a co-creation component, and matched funding from non-taxpayer sources. At this time, no other programs within PHAC or other federal departments were found to have the same approach as the MSP Program.

The MSP Program has been experimenting with innovative financial models since 2014, well before the formal approval of the TBS Generic Terms and Conditions. To date, the Program has signed five agreements using this new TBS model, including signing a social impact bond with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in 2016 (the Activate Project, formerly known as the Community Hypertension Prevention Initiative), and using a prize/challenge approach in 2014 (the Play Exchange). Since TBS' Generic Terms and Conditions were launched in April 2017, the MSP Program has also approved three new projects using the Base Plus Premium Model. These projects also support the Government of Canada's overall approach to social innovation and social financing, as well as realizing the Agency's objective of encouraging innovation and effectiveness in public health programming.

As previously mentioned in Section 2.0: Program Profile, the Program also identified a series of physiological and psychological measures to be used to tie payments to the achievement of precise health-related measures. In the case of the Activate Project, reduced blood pressure levels for people at risk of developing high blood pressure (hypertension) is being used as a performance measure to tie payments to the successful achievement of precise health results aimed at reducing heart disease and stroke, as high blood pressure is an important risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

Matched Funding General Advantages: It can improve the sustainability of a project once federal funding ends. It can encourage a broader base of community support for the project. It can allow federal programs to support more projects with its resources, even if at a lesser amount. General Challenges: The amount of time needed to secure matched funding may significantly delay the start of a project. Rural areas are at a disadvantage because there are fewer potential funders. It may deter many otherwise eligible applicants from applying (who may be unable to secure matched funding), thereby reducing the diversity of applicants and limiting the creativity and innovation of the projects that are funded.

The approach to preventing chronic diseases has also shifted upstream and now focuses on common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease. By focusing on common risk factors, interviewees felt that the Program can better influence obesity rates and healthy lifestyle choices among children, which will then have an impact on reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality later in adulthood. This corresponds strongly with positions taken by PHAC and the WHO that an integrated approach to address common chronic disease risk factors is a cost-effective way of improving health and lowering health care costs at a population level.Footnote 9

The multi-sectoral partnerships approach allowed PHAC to gain some efficiency (e.g., through partnership requirements and leveraging matched funding), which is expected to translate into improved results. These measures have enabled the Program to participate in initiatives that have a greater scope and reach than would be the case if the Program was the sole funding partner. By securing other partners, it also increases the likelihood that a successful initiative will be able to sustain itself past the end of the contribution agreement.

The Program invested $112 million between April 2013 and December 2018 to promote multi-sectoral collaboration across various sectors to address chronic diseases through a requirement for matched funding. Projects were required to obtain matched funding in the form of cash or in-kind contributions from non-tax payer funded sources in the private sector, or from non-governmental organizations. Through this approach, the Program has expanded the number of partners involved in the 49 MSP-funded projects to over 400 corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises, charitable foundations, individual donors, as well as non-governmental organizations representing the industry, health, and community recreational sectors. Furthermore, by implementing the matched funding model, the MSP Program has leveraged $92 million (a 1:0.8 ratio) from private organizations up to now. It has also leveraged additional funding from other sources, such as provincial, territorial, and local governments, health service organizations, school boards, and universities.

These partnerships have also allowed national, regional, and local organizations striving to reach similar goals of chronic disease prevention to leverage each other's strengths, in order to achieve outcomes more efficiently. This includes extending project reach to new participants (e.g., Right to Play linking with First Nation community-based leaders, Sharing Dance collaboration with the national Revera chain of long-term care facilities), broadcasting key messages on healthy living (e.g., simultaneous launch of 24-hour movement guidelines for children in Canada and Australia), and attracting additional funders and sources of expertise (e.g., APPLE school project in Ft. McMurray attracting business investment).

The MSP Program approach also included a continuous intake element, with no call for proposal, or closing date. This was seen as a viable approach, with trade-offs between flexibility and operational efficiency, and financial management and planning. This model received positive feedback from all interviewees, especially applicants and recipients, as it provided more flexibility for the applicant to work with the Program in developing the submission, without it being tied to a specific proposal deadline. Although they generally took longer to develop, and thus likely affected the Program's ability to meet its previously established service standards of 45 days for the review of LOIs, the proposals were perceived to be of better quality and better aligned to MSP Program objectives.

Recipients also felt that the Program was successful in providing support and guidance through regular phone calls, emails, and teleconferences. They felt supported, encouraged, and well-resourced throughout their project.

On the other hand, most interviewed project applicants, funding recipients, and partners were aware of the Program's Web site, but they had difficulty finding relevant information on priorities, strategic directions, and target populations. They would have liked a clearer indication of the types of projects the MSP Program is looking to fund, as well as the priority at-risk populations that the Program aims to serve.

Some internal staff felt that a continuous intake approach had created an unpredictable workload, as proposals could be submitted at any time of the year, rather than working with a set schedule and clear deadlines. Staff also mentioned that the open solicitation process made budgeting more difficult, because project funding could be approved throughout the year, instead of at a specific period.

6.0 Program Efficiency

6.1 Program Spending

Over the five-year course of the evaluation, the Program spent most (approximately 94%) of its budget, despite individual variances in spending for each year.

Table 8 presents planned and actual program expenditures for the period between 2014-15 and 2018-19. During the evaluation period, the Program lapsed approximately $6 million, largely attributable to fiscal year 2015-16 and the Program's inability to commit new funding or negotiate new agreements during the election period. Lapsed funding in 2016-17 and 2018-19 were due to other Agency pressures, such as the need for immediate resources to support various efforts to address the opioid crisis, which delayed the signing of new agreements until the fall of 2018-19.

Table 8: Planned and Actual PSD Expenditures (2014-15 to 2018-19) Year Budget ($) Expenditures ($) Variance ($) % Budget Spent G&Cs O&M Salary TOTAL G&Cs O&M Salary TOTAL Source: Financial data provided by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. 2014-15 $17,307,120 $735,765 $2,850,220 $20,893,105 $16,927,504 $948,780 $2,971,816 $20,848,100 $45,005 99.8% 2015-16 $14,067,871 $690,954 $2,847,469 $17,606,294 $12,342,318 $594,947 $3,049,493 $15,986,758 $1,619,536 90.8% 2016-17 $15,341,876 $550,471 $2,847,469 $18,739,816 $13,570,585 $461,863 $2,596,955 $16,629,403 $2,110,413 88.7% 2017-18 $17,707,053 $666,279 $3,089,798 $21,463,130 $17,385,341 $510,273 $2,733,388 $20,629,002 $834,128 96.1% 2018-19 $24,775,243 $1,015,035 $3,204,822 $28,995,100 $23,661,225 $942,741 $2,903,664 $27,507,630 $3,374,461 88.4% Total $89,199,163 $3,658,504 $14,839,778 $107,697,443 $83,886,973 $3,458,604 $14,255,316 $101,600,893 $6,096,550 94.3%

6.2 Collection and Use of Performance Measurement Data

The MSP Program collected performance measurement information on each project for the period examined by the evaluation. There are, however, opportunities to improve the Program's performance measurement practices, including setting appropriate targets for each performance indicator and ensuring that data is collected consistently at the project level.

Furthermore, although the Program has collected information at the end of each project, the lessons learned about what is and what isn't working, for whom and in what context, is not being systematically compiled and shared with program stakeholders.

Program information shows that only eight projects of the 19 that were started since the Policy on Results came into effect in July 2016 have reported on specific vulnerable populations. Examples of specific groups represented in collected information include teenage girls (promoting physical activity); overweight or obese men in lower income, rural, Indigenous, immigrant, or official language minority communities (physical activity and healthy eating); and construction workers (reduced tobacco use).

The Program has collected performance data on individual projects through regular monitoring of each individual project funding agreement, as well as final reports and evaluations of recipients to capture longer-term results of program investments. Many recipient key informants reported that they were monitoring the delivery of planned activities under their funded projects, including the contributions of their partners, a finding corroborated by internal interviewees. However, both groups felt that improvements were needed to make this data collection more relevant to the projects and to serve the Program's need for strategic information. Moreover, a few internal key informants stated that the project information received to date was based on different types of required reports that have been developed over time, but have been reviewed in isolation. This has resulted in fragmented information that does not clearly support program and senior management needs, or that could be communicated to external partners interested in proposing new projects. For example, there have not been any analyses of project gaps or overlaps that could inform program priorities for specific health risks. In addition, the collected data has not been able to:

provide direction on how the Program can best reach high-risk populations (see sidebar);

determine which types of projects and tools would be most appropriate to invest in; and

identify lessons learned or best approaches for community-based projects.

The MSP Program has also collected 13 third-party evaluations for various projects, and has had articles published in journals on its multi-sectoral approach and many of its funded interventions, including Alliance Wellness, Carrot Rewards, SmartMoms, and UpNgo with ParticipACTION. A number of recipient key informants said that they had robust project evaluation processes in place, with some being led by third-party consultants, and mentioned holding regular meetings with partners to update them on the status of the projects. However, this evaluative feedback is not being systematically compiled or shared with others, including applicants, recipients, and contribution programs within PHAC and across the Government of Canada. Internal and external stakeholders, including applicants and recipients, expressed interest in lessons learned from the implementation of new funding models and intervention types. The Program is currently exploring options to develop a peer-to-peer network for program recipients, as well as funding partners and their networks.

6.3 Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+)

The Program has conducted SGBA+ analyses in critical areas, and is collecting information on populations targeted in individual projects. Considering how SGBA+ could be incorporated into the design of the Program could better balance innovative and experimental interventions with the need to address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease in the most vulnerable populations.

The Government of Canada is committed to using gender-based analysis plus in the development of policies, programs, and legislation in order to be more responsive to specific needs and circumstances. Strengthening the ability of PHAC's programs to address sex, gender, and diversity issues has the potential to improve performance and enhance impact, particularly by optimizing reach and the manner in which activities are delivered.

In an evaluation context, it is asked if the health issue addressed by a program differs systematically across population groups, if a program has been designed to address these differences, and if any impact has been demonstrated as a result. As noted in section 3.0, there is evidence that different population groups show inequalities in rates of health behaviours. The Program is aware of these differences as they have conducted SGBA+ analyses for healthy eating (December 2017), smoking (October 2018), and sedentary behaviour and physical inactivity (November 2018). More recently, applicants were asked to identify their project's target populations in their proposals. However, the current program design (e.g., the broad scope of projects funded, open intake process, matched funding requirement) makes it challenging to intentionally target specific populations that have been identified to be most at risk, or disproportionally impacted. For example, as mentioned previously, the Program is focused on addressing three common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, each with their own identified set of vulnerable population groups. Moreover, with an open intake process that leads to a constant influx of applications throughout the year, it has been a challenge for the Program to take a step back to assess coverage and identify any gaps for vulnerable populations among the funded projects. Finally, up until now, the Program has taken a conscious approach not to target specific populations in order not to limit the potential breadth of proposals, and therefore did not direct any proposal requests, which is in line with the current program design. However, with the SGBA+ analyses completed, and with the information learned from the various projects completed and underway, there may be opportunities to see if there are gaps in target populations and what potential mechanisms could be used to bridge them.

7.0 Conclusions

The MSP Program responds to an ongoing need to address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, which is well-recognized by PHAC. Available statistics further portray that there are significant differences in the prevalence of major chronic disease risk factors among certain segments of the Canadian population. As such, chronic disease prevention efforts continue to be aligned with federal priorities and PHAC's mission to promote and protect the health of Canadians through leadership, partnership, innovation, and action in public health.

To date, there are early indications of success stemming from program activities and outputs, in terms of number of individuals participating in funded projects, knowledge development relating to healthy behaviours, and evidence of progress towards behaviour change and improved health. At this early stage in the Program's life cycle, it has not yet identified and shared what works or does not in terms of innovative interventions and new models.

This Program is perceived as a leader across the Government of Canada in using experimental program design and applying innovative funding models. In fact, the MSP Program has been able to leverage $92 million in matched funding from other organizations, such as provincial, territorial, and local governments, health service organizations, school boards, and universities.

The overall delivery model of the Program includes a focus on establishing multi-sectoral partnerships, a continuous intake process, a requirement for matched funding from non-taxpayer sources, as well as use of innovative financing mechanisms, which has demonstrated the viability of the multi-sectoral approach. Additionally, a range of partners have shown themselves to be willing to contribute their own resources in pursuit of shared goals that respond to and address common modifiable risk factors for chronic disease. Most interviewed project applicants, funding recipients, and partners noted the need for a clearer indication of the types of projects the MSP Program is looking to fund, as well as the priority at-risk populations it is targeting.

The Program has conducted Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Plus (SGBA+) analyses in critical areas, and is collecting information on populations targeted in individual projects. That said, the Program has encountered challenges in applying SGBA+, due to the broad scope of chronic disease risk factors and its current program design. There may be opportunities to see if there are gaps in targeted populations and to determine the potential mechanisms that can bridge those gaps. More could be done to share SGBA+ information gathered to date from projects with internal and external stakeholders. At the same time, the Program could determine more clearly how it should respond to the needs of vulnerable populations in addressing common chronic disease risk factors, in conjunction with similar programs in PHAC's Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch.

The MSP Program collects performance data through regular project monitoring of each individual funding agreement, and through final reports and evaluations of individual projects to capture longer-term results of program investments. However, the program design makes the collection of data inherently difficult. Continuous intake means that the project portfolio includes a mix of projects that started at different points in time and were thus established under different policy contexts and requirements (e.g., SGBA+). Further compounding the difficulty of putting together an overarching performance story is the fact that the Program targets multiple risk factors and intervention settings. This diversity in project focus makes it challenging to aggregate consistent project performance information over time. Given this, there is a lack of reliable performance information, including performance targets and baseline data, to serve the Program's need for strategic information. As a result, the MSP Program is unable to effectively present an overall performance story on its contribution to reducing common modifiable risk factors of chronic disease.

The systematic process of identifying, integrating, and sharing lessons learned on the Program's innovative approach and individual projects (i.e., best practices, areas of improvement) to present what is and isn't working, for whom, and in what context, would also benefit its efficiency and effectiveness, as well as its future development.

8.0 Recommendations

The evaluation evidence discussed in this report led to the identification of the following recommendations.

Recommendation 1: Considering the complexities of the Program's current design, the Program should determine how to integrate SGBA+ findings into the design of projects, to attain the strategic objectives of the Program. Balancing the complexity of an innovative approach to grants and contributions funding has its challenges, including the ability to direct the objectives of individual projects. The Program has conducted SGBA+ analyses in critical areas (healthy eating, smoking, and sedentary behaviours). Coupled with information gathered on populations that are targeted by current projects, the SGBA+ analyses would provide some guidance into any missing populations that should be targeted by the Program. Furthermore, the more individual projects advance, the more the Program will be able to discern the most effective approaches for different populations. This could also provide guidance to potential applicants of the types of projects the MSP Program is looking to fund, as well as any priority at-risk populations.

Recommendation 2: Revise current performance measurement practices to ensure that performance data is being collected consistently across all funded projects, to effectively measure program impact, and to ensure that expected program-level results are being appropriately tracked and communicated to guide future decision making on project selection. The evaluation found performance measurement data collection requirements changed over time, considering the various policies that were implemented over the lifetime of this project. Therefore, there were inconsistencies at the project level in the collection of performance data, as well as gaps in collecting SGBA+ data. These then affect the ability of the Program to identify project impacts on targeted populations. There are opportunities to improve the MSP Program's performance measurement, which would allow it to more effectively present its overall performance story, including program impacts on reducing common modifiable risk factors of chronic disease. Improvements would also help to provide clearer information to support decisions, such as identifying priorities and opportunities for scaling up MSP Program-funded projects.

Recommendation 3: Introduce a systematic process to compile lessons learned on what is and isn't working, for whom, and in what context, and share these lessons learned with internal and external partners and stakeholders. Internal and external stakeholders, including applicants and recipients, valued and expressed interest in identifying lessons learned and best approaches for community-based projects to learn from the implementation of new funding models and intervention types. By introducing a systematic process to compile and share lessons learned and best practices, the Program would be better able to provide evidence of what does or does not work, for whom, and in what contexts, as well as the factors that facilitate or impede the effectiveness of a specific intervention.

Appendix 1  Evaluation Scope and Approach

The evaluation was scheduled in the Departmental Evaluation Plan 2018-19 to 2022-23, and is required under the Financial Administration Act. The objective of this evaluation was to review the relevance and performance of the Multi-Sectoral Partnerships Program from April 2014 to December 2018. This evaluation also looked for innovative transfer payment models that are currently being used across the Government of Canada to explore best practices and lessons learned from their implementation.

The evaluation focused on MSP Program projects funded under the following programs:

Men's Health;

Canadian Breast Cancer Initiative;

Canadian Diabetes Strategy;

Cancer;

Cardiovascular Disease Program; and

Healthy Living Fund.

Evaluation Issues and Questions

Issue Area Evaluation Questions Relevance and Performance 1: Continued Need 1.1 What is the current and projected burden of chronic disease and how have PHAC activities adapted to changing needs related to chronic disease in Canada?

1.2 To what extent do chronic diseases differ systematically across population groups? Are there certain population groups that should be targeted? 2: Program alignment with federal and PHAC priorities and responsibilities 2.1 Since the previous evaluation in 2015, have there been any significant changes to Government of Canada and PHAC priorities and roles related to chronic disease prevention? 3: Performance  Effectiveness 3.1 To what extent has the MSP achieved its immediate, intermediate, and long-term expected outcomes?

3.2 Have the expected outcomes of the MSP had a different impact on different population groups? If yes, to what extent, and in what ways?

3.3 Have any unintended (beneficial or adverse) outcomes been produced? 4: Performance  Efficiency and Economy 4.1 To what extent is the MSP efficient and cost-effective? How have new funding mechanisms improved the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the MSP to date?

4.2 Are there alternative and innovative ways to promote the health of Canadians and reduce the impact of chronic disease in Canada? 4.3 Does the MSP respond to the needs of its target population groups (e.g., outcomes in the Program's logic model)? If yes, how?

4.3 Does the MSP respond to the needs of its target population groups (e.g., outcomes in the Program's logic model)? If yes, how?

Appendix 2  Data Collection and Analysis Methods

It also examined projects, both approved and under development, that were created under the new Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat pilot on Generic Terms and Conditions, which was officially launched on April 1st, 2017. The evaluation did not review the relevance and performance of interventions tied to the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy, as these activities were examined as part of the Evaluation of the Federal Tobacco Control Strategy 2012-13 to 2015-16, that was approved in January 2017 and will be evaluated again in 2022-23. The following table shows the issues and questions addressed by the evaluation.

Evaluators collected and analyzed data from multiple sources. Data collection started in September 2018 and ended in March 2019. Data was analyzed by triangulating information gathered using the different methods listed below. The use of multiple lines of evidence and triangulation was intended to increase the reliability and credibility of the evaluation findings and conclusions.

Literature review:

A search of literature on chronic disease prevention interventions, including material from other innovative transfer payment models that are currently being used across the Government of Canada, was conducted to explore best practices and lessons learned from their implementation.

Program document and file review:

The evaluation reviewed a series of documents to inform findings related to relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency of the Program. Approximately 300 documents were reviewed.

Key informant interviews:

Key informant interviews were conducted to gather in-depth information related to the relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency of the Program. Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured manner, based on a predetermined questionnaire. A total of 44 interviews were conducted with senior management (n=2), project managers and staff (n=10), as well as federal partners (n=7), funding partners (n=2), funding recipients (n=19), and applicants (n=4). The list of interviewees was developed in consultation with Partnerships and Strategies Division (PSD). Once the list was developed, PSD and the Office of Audit and Evaluation (OAE) communicated with all individuals on the list, informing them of the review and the request for an interview.

Limitations and Mitigation Strategies:

Most evaluations face constraints that may have implications on the validity and reliability of evaluation findings and conclusions. The table below outlines the limitations encountered during the implementation of the methods selected for this evaluation. Also noted are the mitigation strategies put into place to ensure that the evaluation findings can be used with confidence to guide program planning and decision making.

Limitations and Mitigation Strategies Limitation Impact Mitigation Strategy Limited primary data was collected from direct beneficiaries of funded activities. Direct beneficiaries of funded community-based activities were not consulted as part of primary data collection. More interviews with these stakeholders could have provided greater insight into the performance of funded activities. Although interviews with direct beneficiaries were not conducted, triangulation methods were used to corroborate key findings (literature and document reviews, as well as key informant interviews with other stakeholders). Key informant interviews are retrospective in nature. As interviews are retrospective in nature, this may lead to the provision of recent perspectives on past events. This can affect the validity of assessing activities or results relating to improvements in the program area. Triangulation of other lines of evidence was used to substantiate or provide further information on data received from interviews. Performance measurement data was limited and heavily reliant on participants' self-reported data. Furthermore, as data collection requirements changed over time, not all projects collected the same information. A significant portion of project data presented is captured through self-reported data that participants provide. The total number of projects reporting on given statistics varied according to how many collected and reported on that information, which makes it much more difficult to rely on aggregated performance data to reach a conclusion on the achievement of program expected outcomes. Triangulation of other lines of evidence was used to substantiate or provide further information on performance measurement data received from the Program.

Appendix 3  MSP Program Logic Model

Innovation Strategy Logic Model



Innovation Strategy Logic Model - Text description The Multi-Sectoral Partnerships (MSP) Program contributes to the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch's logic model on Chronic Disease Prevention. There are three activities under the logic model: develop partnerships and multi-sectoral collaborations to design and test innovative approaches and experiment with newer models for public health; use tested suites of financial tools to leverage resources, funds and expertise for interventions; provide leadership and engagement with national and international stakeholders. This leads to the output of theory and/or evidence-based healthy living and chronic disease prevention interventions. Indicators are the ratio of funds leveraged for each intervention and the number of multisectoral partnerships brokered identified in contribution agreements. The output of healthy living and chronic disease prevention interventions leads to the short-term outcome of target populations participating in the interventions. Indicators are the number of individuals participating in each intervention, identified by demographic characteristics such as gender, age, geographic location, etc.; and the percent of each target population participating. It is anticipated that this leads to two medium-term outcomes. The first is that social and/or physical environments are improved to support ongoing healthy behaviours. Indictors are the percent of project participants who agree that they have improved access to environments that support healthy living, e.g. facilities, programs, parks, playgrounds, etc.; and the percent of project participants who report that their social environments are improved to support ongoing healthy behaviour. The second medium-term outcome is that project participants have the knowledge, capacity or skills to support ongoing healthy behaviours. Indictors are the percent of project participants demonstrating knowledge of chronic disease or risk and protective factors; and the percent of project participants demonstrating skills, ability or self-confidence to support healthy behaviours. It is anticipated that the medium-term outcomes will lead to the long-term outcome that project participants have improved health behaviours, with the indicator of the percent of project participants that improve health behaviour related to common and protective risk factors, e.g. increased physical activity, decreased sedentary behaviour, increased fruit and vegetable consumption and smoking cessation. It is also anticipated that the preceding outcomes will contribute to the identification and sharing of innovative interventions and new models of public health. Indicators of this outcome are the percent of interventions demonstrating positive results; initiatives demonstrating or forecasting positive social return on investment (using a social return on investment ratio); and documented learnings on facilitators and barriers related to intervention success, e.g. from project evaluation results. It is further anticipated that these two long-term outcomes will contribute to intervention evidence being incorporated across sectors into policies, programs and practices. The indicator is the nature of incorporation of evidence into policies, programs and practices. For the program to contribute to increased physical activity, decreased obesity and the prevention of chronic disease, policies and interventions for healthy living and chronic disease must be adapted, scaled up and sustained by multisectoral partners across Canada. Note: these three long-term outcomes link to a complimentary Evidence logic model applied by the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch. The long-term outcomes are anticipated to contribute to the departmental-level impacts: that Canadians have improved health behaviours, and that chronic diseases are prevented. Indicators for improved health behaviours are the percent increase in average minutes per day of physical activity among adults and among children and youth. Indicators for the prevention of chronic diseases are the percent increase in years lived in good health by seniors, the percent of adults who are obese, the percent of children and youth who are obese, and the rate of new diabetes cases among Canadians..
Ross Stores, Inc. ROST reported better-than-expected second-quarter fiscal 2020 results. However, both top and bottom lines declined year over year. Results were affected by temporary COVID-19-related store closures, including all Ross Dress for Less and dds DISCOUNTS stores. Further, loss of sales, as only 75% of stores were open, weighed on operating margin. Moreover, costs related to COVID-19 and negative timing of packaway remained concerns.



Also, management noted that business trends were drab during the fiscal second quarter with comparable store sales down mid-teens year over year for the first two and a half weeks.



However, the company started reopening its stores in a phased manner from May 14th and by the end of June, most of its stores were operational. Comparable store sales have fallen 12% between the date of the reopening of these stores and the end of the fiscal second quarter. Although, it witnessed improved sales driven by pent-up demand and higher markdowns, the metric was hurt by depleted store inventory levels. That said, it continues to remain uncertain about the COVID-19 impacts on demand and economy. As a result, management refrained from providing top and bottom-line guidance for fiscal 2020.



In the past three months, shares of the Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have declined 9.7% against the industrys growth of 11.6%.

Q2 Highlights

Ross Stores posted a loss of 13 cents per share against earnings of $1.14 per share reported in the prior-year quarter. However, the figure was narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 31 cents.



Total sales plunged 32.5% to $2,684.7 million but surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2,617 million. Further, sales were hurt by adverse COVID-19 impacts such as shifting consumer demand, mostly in California, Florida, Texas and Arizona, which accounts for 50% of its store base.



Cost of goods sold or COGS declined 26.9% to $2,080.1 million. Selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses decreased 12.2% to $519.5 million while the metric as a percentage of sales expanded 450 basis points (bps).

Story continues

Store Update

During the quarter, the company did not open any new stores. It continues to anticipate opening 39 stores this fall season and 66 in fiscal 2020.

Ross Stores, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Ross Stores, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Ross Stores, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Ross Stores, Inc. Quote

Financials

Ross Stores ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $3,793 million, long-term debt of $2,285.6 million and total shareholders equity of $2,286.3 million. Earlier, the company had already suspended the share repurchase program in light of the ongoing pandemic. Moving ahead, it does not intend to repurchase any shares for the rest of fiscal 2020.



Apart from these, it has a liquidity of $4.3 billion and a revolving credit facility of $500 million, which is likely to keep it afloat amid the pandemic.

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Time for climate protection is pressing. One approach to tackle this challenge is to use the greenhouse gas CO 2 as a raw material for chemicals. To this end, the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, together with partners from science and industry, has pursued a new path in the EU-funded project CELBICON. The researchers were able to produce a value-added terpenoid dye from CO 2 adsorbed from air by a combination of electrochemical and biotechnological conversion.

Dry soils in Germany, heat records in the Arctic and thawing permafrost soils in Siberia. The consequences of climate change are visible across the globe. To reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere, numerous research groups are investigating how CO 2 can be used as a raw material for the production of chemicals.

"Developing processes for the utilization of CO 2 will be a crucial component of a future climate-friendly and resource-efficient circular economy," believes Dr. Arne Roth, who leads the Innovation Field Catalysts at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB.

From educt to product in three steps: Adsorption, electrochemistry, biotechnology

Combined electrochemical-biotechnological processes provide a new way of using CO 2 as a raw material for producing fuels and chemicals. The Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, together with partners from science and industry, has pursued this approach in the EU-funded project CELBICON and demonstrated an exemplary process chain on a pilot scale. The advantage of this approach: "By using the natural synthetic capabilities of bacteria  in addition to CO 2 adsorption and electrochemical conversion  we can produce more complex molecules and, thus, value-added products that make the new process economical," says Dr. Lenard-Istvan Csepei, who coordinated the project at Fraunhofer IGB.

Adsorption in CO 2 collector

In order to use atmospheric CO 2 as raw material, it must be adsorbed from the air first. For this purpose, the project partner Climeworks set up a demonstration plant on the premises of the IGB BioCat branch in Straubing. In the CO 2 collectors of the plant, CO 2 is adsorbed to selective filter material that is in direct contact with air blown though the system by a ventilator. The technology of the Swiss company is already being used in various industrial pilot facilities. But how can CO 2 be converted into a marketable product?

Production of formic acid from CO 2

CO 2 can be converted into simple compounds, such as formic acid, methanol or ethanol, via electrochemical reactions in so-called electrolysis cells powered by electricity. The formed products are so-called C 1 or C 2 compounds, which contain only one or two carbon atoms. "However, the electrochemical conversion of CO 2 only makes sense ecologically, if renewable energies are used for this purpose," explains Csepei.

Fraunhofer researchers at the Straubing-based BioCat branch have screened hundreds of different catalysts to ensure that the electrochemical conversion of CO 2 is carried out efficiently and that formic acid is formed in the highest possible concentration. "With particular catalysts containing tin and a phosphate-based buffer electrolyte for the electrolysis cell, we were able to achieve the best results and produce formic acid in higher concentrations," explains electrochemical expert Dr. Luciana Vieira. "The electrolyte must neither be toxic nor inhibit enzymes for the subsequent biotechnological conversion step to work," says the scientist.

Using biotechnology to create value-added dye

However, the simple C 1 and C 2 compounds can hardly be produced in an economical way through this method. The reason: The availability of renewable energies in Germany is subject to strong fluctuations - mainly due to local climatic conditions. Therefore, only a partial-load operation of maximum 2000-3000 hours per year is possible. "Electrochemical production will only become economically advantageous if the primary products can be further converted into products of higher value," explains Csepei.

Thus, the C 1 compounds, such as methanol or formic acid, produced in the second, electrochemical process step serve as the sole carbon and energy source for methylotrophic bacteria applied in the third process step, the microbial fermentation. The Fraunhofer researchers selected Methylobacterium extorquens for the CELBICON process. This organism is capable of forming a complex red dye from methanol or formic acid. "The value-added dye is formed via the microbial terpene metabolism," explains Dr. Jonathan Fabarius, who was in charge of the fermentation work at IGB. Other bacteria require energy-rich sugar as substrate, instead of formic acid or methanol utilized here.

Fermentation was established as a fed-batch process on a 10-litre scale. "We were able to demonstrate that 14 percent of the formic acid used in the fermentation process is converted into terpenoid dye," emphasizes Fabarius. After the Straubing researchers were able to extract and purify the dye, they are currently working on clarifying its exact chemical structure. Fabarius looks ahead: "Our goal is to further optimize the applied bacteria by means of metabolic engineering and enzyme engineering to increase the product yield and therefore the efficiency of the overall process".

Process demonstration

After validation of the complete process firstly on laboratory scale, Fraunhofer IGB succeeded in constructing and building an automated electrolyzer demonstration unit. The core of this unit is an electrochemical cell with an electrode area of 100 cm2. "We can use the demonstrator to control important parameters, such as temperature and pH value of the electrolytes used in long-term stability tests. For this purpose, the plant is equipped with an automatic data acquisition system," explains Dr.-Ing. Carsten Pietzka, who is researching the electrosynthesis of basic chemicals at the IGB branch in Stuttgart. The integrated system consisting of CO 2 adsorber and electrolyzer demonstration unit was validated in continuous operation.

The demonstrator is designed also for the integration of electrode stacks. "This allows us to increase the production rate of formic acid and use the demonstrator for the further development of the electrolysis cell to an industrial scale," says Pietzka.

Valuable fine chemicals  climate-neutrally and decentrally produced

"With our new combined technology, CO 2 can be electrochemically converted into C 1 intermediates, and these can then be fermented into value-added compounds," summarizes project manager Csepei. With further optimization of the applied microorganisms and the fermentation step, it is also possible to produce basic chemicals such as lactic acid, isoprene or the biopolymer polyhydroxybutyric acid  in a completely carbon-neutral way.
A mother of eight arranged for her ex-boyfriend to get his face bashed in with a metal pole after he called her a S**t, a court heard.

Jennie Louise Wright, 44, faced the ACT Supreme Court with her new partner and co-accused Michael John Barron, where they pleaded guilty to intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm on Peter Watson.

The Canberra lipstick saleswoman was also recorded laughing about the vicious assault on a recorded phone call, describing the sickening attack as 'karma', the Daily Telegraph reported.

Jennie Louise Wright (pictured left) and her new boyfriend Michael John Barron (pictured right) pleaded guilty to intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm

The mother of eight (pictured) arranged for her former lover to have his face bashed in with a metal pole

As Barron bludgeoned Mr Watson with a trolley pole, the court heard Wright say: 'F**k  I can just hear the mallet hitting the concrete  I might have a big clean up job to do.'

Brandon Ashley Edgerton, who also pleaded guilty for his role in the violent crime did not appear in court on Wednesday.

The dispute between Wright and Mr Watson was sparked by a text message argument where he called his former girlfriend a 's**t' after the pair had recently ended their relationship.

Wright later arranged for her former lover to collect his belongings from her home but when Mr Wilson arrived Barron and Edgerton were lying in wait.

The court heard Mr Watson was loading up his ute when Baron repeatedly struck him with the metal trolly pole.

The brutal attack left Mr Watson with bone-deep cuts to his face, severe facial fractures and a broken wrist.

The Canberra lipstick saleswoman (pictured) was also recorded laughing about the vicious assault on a recorded phone call, describing the sickening attack as 'karma', a court heard

Barron then said: 'F*ck off and don't come back', the court heard.

Following the incident Wright was recorded laughing repeatedly and said 'it's called Karma'.

In the initial stages of the investigation Wright and Barron attempted to provide false whereabouts to police before their alibis eventually unravelled, the court heard.

Wright, Barron and Edgerton will all return to court at a later date yet to be determined.

The court heard Barron would likely have his parole revoked in the coming weeks and will be required to undergo a mental health assessment before he is sentenced.
In late July, a young woman was shot and killed. A second person was also shot. A man was arrested. That this was a tragedy cannot be emphasized enough, however, what followed after was also important.

The reaction of the Peel Regional Police Association (PRPA), Chief Nishan Duraiappah of Peel Regional Police, and Chief Steve Tanner of Halton Regional Police Service warrant examination.

Chief Duraiappah said   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 and called it a failure of systems to protect her.

The police association blamed the judicial system for allowing this to happen. Chief Tanner decried the institution of bail, tweeting It is time for our justice system to WAKE UP. Do NOT let dangerous repeat offenders back out to kill and injure others. Balance victims rights equally with those of accused persons. Listen to recommendations of crowns and police. Please

Police are entitled to their opinions. These views become a problem when the police become careless in what they express. Police hold a special place in society and as such they have a duty not to misstate the law.

Arguably, police should not advocate at all. Their roles include enforcement, de-escalation, investigation, collection of evidence, and crime prevention  although calls to defund the police question this.

The experience police bring may be important in how policy develops, but there is a line between their role as providers of data and advocates. Police are not equipped to do the latter. I am an officer of the court and often critical of legal rulings. When I do so, I endeavour to be intellectually honest. Police often fail to do so.

Chief Tanner simplified the issue into a call to not let dangerous, repeat offenders back out. The law of bail in Canada is complex and the chief forgets that reasonable bail is a right. There is no offence for which an accused cannot be eligible for bail.

Similarly, repeat offenders can be eligible for bail if they address the concerns of the court. Broad sweeping generalization that dangerous repeat offenders should not be let out is an uneducated take not befitting the office of the chief of police.

Chief Duraiappah also claims the failure in the system was that the accused was granted bail. Using tragedy to blame the system is distasteful. The fact is that during the pandemic, more people have been granted bail than prior to March. The Supreme Court of Canada has implicitly told us that not enough people are being released with reasonable bail conditions. The chief is forgetting that the expansion of bail has not led to an explosion in uncontrollable crime.

There will be times when people breach their bail. Judicial officers considering bail are not psychic. But Chief Duraiappah is guilty of intentionally using a tragedy to amplify a false narrative that more people charged with should be jailed.

Recall the recent protests in the GTA. Police services purported to be sympathetic to systemic change, yet Chiefs Duraiappah and Tanner revert to jail. They forget the presumption of innocence and the importance of treating people as such.

The worst offender has to be the Peel Regional Police Association, which irresponsibly called out the judiciary for this tragedy. They say judicial officers will not be named by the media and that the judicial system allowed this to happen. This attack on judicial independence must be condemned.

To say that independent members of the judiciary should be held accountable if a person they release on bail commits an offence is incorrect. Judicial officers cannot be expected to eliminate the risk of a breach of bail. The PRPA should be mindful of the fact that at times their own officers release accused persons from the station. If one of those people commits an offence, will they call for their own officers to be held accountable? Not likely.

Police have used their badges and their platforms to take aim at the judiciary. Tragedy can drive a conversation but it needs to be done responsibly. Peel Regional Police, PRPA, and Halton Regional Police need to take note.
STORY LINK GBP to AUD Exchange Rate Sees Friday Slide despite Disappointing Australian PMI Results

GBP Exchange Rates Tumble despite Impressive UK PMI Results

Private sector firms reported another sharp fall in employment numbers as scarring from the pandemic and lingering doubts about the sustainability of recovery resulted in a need to cut overheads. The rate of job shedding accelerated since July, with survey respondents frequently noting that redundancy programmes had been running in tandem with efforts to return some staff from furlough

AUD Exchange Rates Remain Appealing despite Weakness in Australian Data

Other factors which are likely to continue to support AUD are the likely ongoing boosts to risk  firm commitments by central banks to support liquidity and demand; ongoing government stimulus; improving news around developments with vaccines; and Australias ongoing current account surplus which we expect to register at $46 billion for 2020 including $10 billion for the December quarter.

GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Forecast: Coronavirus and Brexit in Focus amid Quiet Data Week

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Despite Fridays strong UK data and mixed Australian data, the British Pound to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate fell back from the weeks highest levels on Friday. The Pound outlook remains pressured by various factors like coronavirus and Brexit uncertainties, while the Australian Dollar remains generally appealing due to global central bank liquidity and coronavirus vaccine hopes.After opening this week at the level of 1.8244, GBP/AUD briefly saw mixed movement. At the beginning of the week, GBP/AUD touched on an August low of 1.8141, but towards the end of the week the pair trended with an upside bias.This morning, GBP/AUD even touched on a high of 1.8404 - the best level for the pair for over two months, since June. Since that high however, GBP/AUD has been tumbling with investors hesitant to hold the pressured Pound near its best levels.While the Pound has seen relatively bullish movement this week so far, todays stronger than expected UK data has not done enough to help the Pound to hold its best levels.Britains key July retail sales and August PMI projections all came in well above forecasts. The figures alone were so impressive that they indicated Britain could have seen more of a v-shaped recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.Britains key services PMI even printed at 60.1, well above the forecast 57. The overall composite PMI printed at 60.3 rather than the forecast 57.1.However, analysts were quick to point out that the details of the report hid great uncertainty and concern, especially for Britains job market.According to Tim Moore, Economics Director at IHS Markit:On top of the downsides to this UK data, the Pound was weighed by news that Britains national debt had risen over 2trillion. A lack of developments in UK-EU Brexit negotiations this week are also keeping the Pound from its highs.Australias own August PMI projections, from CommBank, were published today. Unlike Britains PMIs, Australias largely fell short of forecasts.As Australias State of Victoria has seen fresh coronavirus lockdown in recent months, hopes for continued strong economic performance have weakened. Analysts expect it will show in Australian data.However despite this, the Australian Dollar was rebounding from its worst levels against Sterling today.Whats more, analysts believe that due to the overall global tone of central banks and continued hopes for progress in a coronavirus vaccine, risk-sentiment is likely to keep buoying the Australian Dollar. According to Analysts at Westpac:Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate investors wont have much data to react to in the coming week, amid a quiet week for UK and Australian eco calendars.The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will publish its August distributive trades data on Tuesday. UK car production results will be published on Thursday.As for the weeks Australian data, construction stats will be published during Wednesdays Asian session, followed by private capital expenditure data on Thursday.With none of these stats expected to be particularly influential, the Pound to Australian Dollar will be driven more by global coronavirus and political developments.If second wave coronavirus fears worsen, markets could see shifts in risk-sentiment.On the other hand, if no-deal Brexit fears worsen as investors digest a lack of progress in negotiations, the Pound may have an even harder time holding its recent advance attempts.The Australian Dollar could see stronger demand if Australias coronavirus situation continues to calm.The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate could also be influenced by Friday comments from Bank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey.

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Kevin Durkin, Partner at Clifford Law Offices

Kevin Durkin, Partner at Clifford Law Offices

Chicago, Illinois, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clifford Law Offices partner Kevin P. Durkin was recently recognized by Best Lawyers as the 2021 Lawyer of the Year for Aviation Law.

Only a single lawyer in each practice area and designated metropolitan area is honored as the Lawyer of the Year, making this accolade particularly significant. Receiving this designation reflects the high level of respect a lawyer has earned among other leading lawyers in the same communities and the same practice areas for their abilities, their professionalism, and their integrity.

Kevin Durkin was chosen by his peers as Lawyer of the Year in Aviation Law due to his work in aviation litigation at all levels, from commercial crashes to small plane crashes. He has been involved in nearly every major commercial airline crash of the last four decades, often serving as lead counsel.

He served for four years as the Co-Chair of the Aviation Committee for the 75,000-member American Bar Associations Section of Litigation. In that position, he chaired an annual program that brings together the best and the brightest to discuss cutting-edge issues in aviation litigation.

Mr. Durkins inclusion in the 2021 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America marks the 10th consecutive year that Kevin has been recognized in the publication, starting in 2011.

In addition to being named Lawyer of the Year for Aviation Law, Durkin was also listed in the 2021 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the following practice areas:

Personal Injury Litigation  Plaintiffs

Product Liability Litigation  Plaintiffs

Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence.

To learn more about Clifford Law Offices, click here. To learn about Kevin P. Durkin, click here.

About Clifford Law Offices

Clifford Law Offices is ranked as one of the top law firms in Illinois as well as in the country. They are recognized leaders in complex personal injury and wrongful death cases such as medical malpractice, aviation litigation, products liability, premises liability, and transportation litigation. Clifford Law Offices has a reputation in class action matters, qui tam litigation or whistleblower cases, and commercial litigation cases.

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CONTACT: Rachel Baker Clifford Law Offices rbaker@cliffordlaw.com




Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: The bitter exchange of words between Nagaland Governor RN Ravi and Neiphiu Rio government has continued.

The Peoples Democratic Alliance (PDA) government is not happy over the negative statements made by Ravi, who is also the interlocutor in Naga peace talks, in his Independence Day speech.

Nagaland is endowed with one of the finest human and natural resources. Unfortunately, today it has the dubious distinction of the worst-performing state in the country including the Northeast region on almost all the significant indicators of human development, the governor had said in his Independence Day speech.

Days later, the state government responded to counter the statement. The PDA has taken note of the peoples concern on the contents of the honourable Governors Independence Day speech wherein negative statements on Nagaland were made. The PDA observes that the speech has not been well received by the people, an official statement reads.

It added: Though Nagaland may not be the best-performing state, we are making every effort to take the state forward on all developmental fronts. As representatives of the people, the PDA is compelled to voice the feelings of the people.

The relationship between the Governor and the PDA government strained after the formers stinging letter to the CM on the alleged worsening law and order situation.

In the June 16 letter, Ravi had said the unrestrained depredations by over half a dozen organized armed gangs, brazenly running their so-called governments and challenging the legitimacy of the state government without any resistance from the state law and order machinery, had created a crisis of confidence in the system.

His oblique reference was to the various insurgent groups in peace mode. The statement was countered not just by the extremists but also by the state government.

Rio claimed that the law and order situation had vastly improved compared to the years preceding the Centres signing of ceasefire agreements with the insurgents in the 1960s and 1990s. To prove a point, he had pointed out that Nagaland was awarded the Best Performing Small State in Law and Order in 2018 and 2019 by The India Today Group State of the States survey. He said the award was testimony to the states improved law and order situation.

Thereafter in July, based on a direction from the Raj Bhawan, the states chief secretary had issued a memo, directing the heads of departments to obtain information, in a self-declaration form, from all government servants if they have any family members or close relatives in the rebel groups. Unlike the extremists, the Rio government chose not to react but it was said to be upset with the governors direction.
Ukraine has already strengthened controls on the border with Belarus.

There is a real military threat coming from the Union State of Russia and Belarus, says Ukrainian expert Mykhailo Samus.

A common regional grouping of the Armed Forces of Belarus and Russia operates as part of the Union State, said Samus, who is Deputy Chairman of the Center for Army Research, Conversion and Disarmament, according to RBC-Ukraine.

"Since the creation of the Union State, for us, Ukraine, a military threat has been constantly present from the territory of Belarus, since a common regional grouping of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation operates within the Union State," the expert explained.

Earlier, the report came that Ukraine had strengthened controls at the border with Belarus after Belarus decided to redeploy more military to the west of the country  toward Poland and Lithuania.

Read alsoLukashenko warns Zelensky against "fomenting riots" in BelarusAlso, Ukraine's military command were alarmed by repeated references to Ukraine in Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko's public addresses where he alleged foreign meddling and warned some foreign leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, of responsibility "for fomenting riots".

Protests in Belarus: background

On August 9, presidential elections were held in Belarus. The Central Election Commission said Alexander Lukashenko won a sweeping 80.1% of the vote, while main rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya sealed just 10.1%.

Thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to contest what they believe is a rigged vote count. Riot police violently slammed on protesters, detaining thousands, of whom many were badly beaten and injured while in custody.

On August 15, following phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko said Russia had promised full-fledged assistance to ensure the country's security. Earlier Lukashenko has repeatedly claimed external forces are trying to destabilize Belarus.

On August 16, Lukashenko press service announced following another conversation between Lukashenko and Putin that the two leaders intend to react jointly "in the event of an escalation in terms of external threats."

On August 19, the European Union said they did not recognize election results and tentatively agreed on introducing a package of sanctions against those involved in a violent crackdown on protesters and vote-rigging. On August 20, Belarus prosecutors opened a criminal case into a seizure of power by the opposition.
Earlier this month, the Jewish people celebrated the joyous holiday of Tu BAv, the date on the Jewish calendar that focuses on love and commitment.

Little did we know, but at the time, U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan were putting the finishing touches on an agreement formalizing the bond between Israel and the UAE.

This agreement is a match made in heaven, wedding the technology of Israel with the economic powerhouse of the UAE.

Only those who have spent time in both countries, as...
Besides the advantages that the EVFTA brings, it also forces local logistics companies, particularly in maritime trade, to up their game, Photo: Le Toan

Vietnam Maritime Corporation (VIMC) last week held the first general shareholder meeting to transform it into a joint-stock company, and to discuss future plans amid new advantages and stiffening competition on the back of the enforcement of the landmark EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

VIMC, which has a fleet of 69 vessels with total tonnage of 1.53 million, is facing some disadvantages to compete with foreign rivals. Le Quang Trung, deputy general director, said that VIMC and other shipping firms have age-old vessels and so are further away from meeting the strict regulations of seaports in the bloc.

With the existing vessels, we find it hard to gain the advantages to win import-export orders into the European Union. This requires us and other shipping firms to focus investment in maintenance to satisfy high technical requirements by EU seaports, Trung admitted.

VIMC, which is also a powerful seaport operator, also needs to improve the service quality of seaports and logistics to adapt to the EVFTA commitments. The giant now has stakes in 16 seaports nationwide with 80 berths, accounting for over 23 per cent of the countrys total number of piers and 30 per cent of total piers length.

Similarly, Saigon Newport Corporation is concerned about possible problems for Vietnamese businesses from technical barriers, labour resources, pressures to compete with EU goods, trade remedy measures, quality, and regulations on environmental protection.

A representative of Saigon Newport Corporation said, The EVFTA can affect logistics development prospects in two aspects: opening markets in the field of transport and transport-related services; and commitments in areas affecting logistics service market capacity in terms of scale, service quality, demand for capacity expansion, and service performance.

Vietnamese maritime service providers like Saigon Newport Corporation will be hit by the EVFTA commitment on consolidation and redistribution of empty containers. The EUs international maritime transport services are allowed to provide the service on the Quy Nhon-Cai Mep route immediately after enforcement before expanding to all routes in the following five years.

This is expected to create competition for Vietnamese shipping lines that were so far monopolised on inland shipping services, noted the representative, adding, In the dredging service, Vietnam permits EU businesses to set up joint ventures of up to 51 per cent to provide services in Vietnam.

To enable domestic players to gain a competitive edge, the two giants have urged the government to take concrete action soon. Trung proposed that the government adjust the import duty, cut fees, and increase the minimum handling service for import-export containers at Haiphong, Lach Huyen, and Cai Mep-Thi Vai ports by 10 per cent from early 2021 to gradually bring it on par with regional ones.

The government should reduce the import duty for spare parts that Vietnam is not able to produce at home, or those made locally but yet to receive recognition from international registration organisations while reducing personal income tax for the crew, Trung of VIMC said.

We also need the supporting policies on maritime fees and shipping charges, allowing vessels of 50,000 gross register tonnage to enjoy a reduction of 40 per cent in fees in comparison with those at other areas starting from January 1, 2021, he elaborated. Regarding customs procedures, supporting policy for goods in transit among seaports in the Cai Mep-Thi Vai port area should also be built.

Meanwhile, Saigon Newport Corporation proposed concentrating on port service price adjustment and development of transport links between seaports and industrial zones, other means of transport, and port-centric logistics.

The country should adjust port service prices to suit the investment scale and development needs of each kind of seaport, quickly approaching the average price in the region because the current prices of seaport services, especially container handling and towage rates applied at Vietnamese seaports, are much lower than other Southeast Asian nations, preventing losses for local seaports, the representative suggested.

Ministries and agencies should have more concrete solutions to attract investment in the development of inland container depots, inland waterway wharfs, logistics centres, and specialised barge berths to increase their capacity, thus easing pressures on roads, he added.

If all the problems are solved, VIMC and Saigon Newport Corporation are expected to fully benefit from the EVFTA thanks to growing logistics demands driven by the deal, which took effect on August 1.

The EU is currently one of Vietnams largest trading partners. Every year, EU ports unload around four billion tonnes of cargo, in which the biggest profit comes from big seaports. Transport accounts for 46 per cent of the total market value of logistics, while warehousing 11 per cent and other logistics services 43 per cent.

According to a study from the Ministry of Planning and Investment conducted last year, the EVFTA is expected to raise Vietnams exports to the EU by an extra 20 per cent in 2020, 42.7 per cent by 2025, and 44.37 per cent in 2030. In the meantime, the countrys imports from the EU will also rise by an extra 15.28 per cent in 2020, 33.06 per cent in 2025, and 36.7 per cent in 2030.
Source: Common Dreams

By Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies

August 03, 2020

Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. Chinas responses have been careful and proportionate, with Chinese officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly asking the U.S. to step back from its brinkmanship to find common ground for diplomacy.

Most of the U.S. complaints about China are long-standing, but the answer to the Why now? question seems obvious: the approaching U.S. election.

Danny Russel, who was Obamas top East Asia expert in the National Security Council and then at the State Department, told the BBC that the new tensions with China are partly an effort to divert attention from Trumps bungled response to the Covid-19 pandemic and his tanking poll numbers, and that this has a wag the dog feel to it.

Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has been going toe-to-toe with Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a potentially dangerous tough on China contest, which could prove difficult for the winner to walk back after the election.

Elections aside, there are two underlying forces at play in the current escalation of tensions, one economic and the other military. Chinas economic miracle has lifted hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, and, until recently, Western corporations were glad to make the most of its huge pool of cheap labor and growing consumer market. Western leaders welcomed China into their club of wealthy, powerful countries.

So what has changed? U.S.high-tech companies like Apple, which were once only too glad to outsource American jobs and train Chinese contractors and engineers to manufacture their products, are finally confronting the reality that they have not just outsourced jobs, but also skills and technology. Chinese companies and highly skilled workers are now leading some of the worlds latest technological advances.

The global rollout of 5G cellular technology has become a flashpoint, not because the increase and higher frequency of EMF radiation it involves may be dangerous to human health, which is a real concern, but because Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE have developed and patented much of the critical infrastructure involved, leaving Silicon Valley in the unfamiliar position of having to play catch-up.

Also, if the U.S.s 5G infrastructure is built by Huawei and ZTE instead of AT&T and Verizon, the U.S. government will no longer be able to require back doors that the NSA can use to spy on us all, so it is instead stoking fears that China could insert its own back doors in Chinese equipment to spy on us instead. Left out of the discussion is the real solution: repeal the Patriot Act and make sure that all the technology we use in our daily lives is secure from the prying eyes of both the U.S. and foreign governments.

China is investing in infrastructure all over the world. As of March 2020, a staggering 138 countries have joined Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive plan to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks. Chinas international influence will only be enhanced by its success, and the U.S. failure, in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the military front, the Obama and Trump administrations have both tried to pivot to Asia to confront China, even as the U.S. military remains bogged down in the Middle East. With a war-weary public demanding an end to the endless wars that have served to justify record military spending for nearly 20 years, the U.S. military-industrial complex has to find more substantial enemies to justify its continued existence and budget-busting costs. Lockheed Martin is not ready to switch from building billion-dollar warplanes on cost-plus contracts to making wind turbines and solar panels.

The only targets the U.S. can find to justify a $740-billion military budget and 800 overseas military bases are its familiar old Cold War enemies: Russia and China. They both expanded their modest military budgets after 2011, when the U.S. and its allies hi-jacked the Arab Spring to launch covert and proxy wars in Libya, where China had substantial oil interests, and Syria, a long-term Russian ally. But their increases in military spending were only relative. In 2019, Chinas military budget was only $261 billion compared to the U.S.s $732 billion, according to SIPRI. The U.S. still spends more on its military than the ten next largest military powers combined, including Russia and China.

Russian and Chinese military forces are almost entirely defensive, with an emphasis on advanced and effective anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. Neither Russia nor China has invested in carrier strike groups to sail the seven seas or U.S.-style expeditionary forces to attack or invade countries on the other side of the planet. But they do have the forces and weapons they need to defend themselves and their people from any U.S. attack and both are nuclear powers, making a major war against either of them a more serious prospect than the U.S. military has faced anywhere since the Second World War.

China and Russia are both deadly serious about defending themselves, but we should not misinterpret that as enthusiasm for a new arms race or a sign of aggressive intentions on their part. It is U.S. imperialism and militarism that are driving the escalating tensions. The sad truth is that 30 years after the supposed end of the Cold War, the U.S. military-industrial complex has failed to reimagine itself in anything but Cold War terms, and its New" Cold War is just a revival of the old Cold War that it spent the last three decades telling us it already won. China Is Not an Enemy The U.S. and China do not have to be enemies. Just a year ago, a hundred U.S. business, political and military leaders signed a public letter to President Trump in the Washington Post entitled

China Is Not an Enemy.

They wrote that China is not an economic enemy or an existential national security threat, and U.S opposition will not prevent the continued expansion of the Chinese economy, a greater global market share for Chinese companies and an increase in Chinas role in world affairs. They concluded that, U.S. efforts to treat China as an enemy and decouple it from the global economy will damage the United States international role and reputation and undermine the economic interests of all nations, and that the U.S. could end up isolating itself rather than Beijing.

That is precisely what is happening. Governments all over the world are collaborating with China to stop the spread of coronavirus and share the solutions with all who need them. The U.S. must stop pursuing its counterproductive effort to undermine China, and instead work with all our neighbors on this small planet. Only by cooperating with other nations and international organizations can we stop the pandemicand address the coronavirus-sparked economic meltdown gripping the world economy and the many challenges we must all face together if we are to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the new book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her previous books include: Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection; Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control; Dont Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).

Nicolas J.S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapters on "Obama at War" in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obamas First Term as a Progressive Leader.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/08/03/us-cold-war-china-policy-will-isolate-us-not-china
The Democratic National Convention concluded Thursday night with the formal acceptance of the partys presidential nomination by former Vice President Joe Biden, after a final two-hour session that was full of empty cliches, inane rhetoric and nauseating insincerity.

The atmosphere Thursday was more of a religious revival than a political event. There was incessant emphasis on the personal moral superiority of Biden compared to Trump, accompanied by increasingly maudlin testimonials to Bidens alleged deep concern for children, the downtrodden, and virtually anyone who crossed his path. One former White House official referred to Bidens empathy skills, a phrase which recalls the old wisecrack: Sincerityif you can fake that, youve got it made.

The sheer contempt for the intelligence of the population and the viewing audience was summed up in Bidens acceptance speech. His speechwriters appeared to have been trying to cram every possible trite phrase into a single 20-minute address.

He ran through a laundry list of promises, from climate change to racism to student debt, none of which the Democratic Party has the slightest intention of actually carrying out. Only two phrases had real meaning.

Biden reassured Wall Street and the billionaires, Im not looking to punish anyone. This sent a message to the financial aristocracy that, while the candidate was compelled to make demagogic attacks on the wealthy for electoral purposes, these would have no lasting consequences. Nothing will change for the super-rich, he told a Wall Street fundraiser last year, and that pledge he will keep.

And the former vice president denounced Trump for being too soft on Russia, threatening to hold Vladimir Putin accountable for allegedly paying bounties to Taliban fighters who attacked American troops in Afghanistan. This phony story is just the latest fabrication by the New York Times in its four-year-long campaign to provoke a US war with Russia.

The tone for the conventions final day was set by the report Thursday afternoon that a group of 73 former national security officials from four Republican administrations were endorsing Biden and denouncing Trump in an open letter to be published in the Wall Street Journal. The list includes an array of militarists and police-state operatives who are responsible for the death of millions of people in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Among the most prominent and most deserving of prosecution for war crimes endorsing Biden are:

John Negroponte, with a bloody record from the contra terrorist war against Nicaragua to the occupation of Iraq in the 2000s;





Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and secretary of state during the 2003 Iraq War, in which he played a central role in justifying a war based on lies;





Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and later CIA director, who oversaw CIA torture programs and domestic spying;





Robert Blackwill, deputy director of the National Security Council with responsibility for Iraq war policy in 20032004;





Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center under the younger Bush; and





William Webster, director of the FBI under Reagan and of the CIA under the elder Bush.

The support of these former leaders of the military-intelligence apparatus only underscores the real character of the conflict between the Democratic and Republican parties, the twin political instruments of the American ruling elite.

The Democrats oppose Trump, not because of his tax cuts for billionaires or his attacks on democratic rights and the rights of immigrants and refugees, but rather because of differences over foreign policy related to the Middle East and particularly Russia. An incoming Biden administration would immediately adopt an even more provocative and aggressive anti-Russian policy.

This was underscored in one segment after another of the final days program leading up to Bidens acceptance speech, with military veterans and Republicans brought forward to speak in video segments. The most strident pro-war message came from Senator Tammy Duckworth, who denounced Trump as the coward in chief for his alleged capitulation to Putin over the bounties.

As for domestic policy, Bidens closest political associate, his Senate chief-of-staff Ted Kaufman, who heads the transition team preparing for a future Biden administration, told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that the rising federal budget deficit would make ambitious spending programs impossible. When we get in, the pantry is going to be bare, Kaufman said. When you see what Trumps done to the deficit forget about COVID-19, all the deficits that he built with the incredible tax cuts. So were going to be limited.

The reference to what Trumps done is a fraud, since the both the Democrats and Republicans endorsed, on a nearly unanimous basis, the multi-trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street in March. The coronavirus pandemicwhich, as a result of the policies of the ruling class, has produced a social and economic catastrophe for the American populationhas been utilized by the ruling elite as an opportunity to loot the public treasury. And it is the working class that will be forced to pay.

Despite claims by Bernie Sanders that Biden could become the most progressive president since Franklin Roosevelt, the real policy orientation of a future Biden administration was signaled by the appearance of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who gave the last speech before Biden himself was introduced, pouring scorn on Trump as a poor businessman and incompetent manager. It is the billionaires and the military-intelligence apparatus, not political charlatans like Sanders, who will call the shots if the Democrats win the White House.

Next week will put the ultra-right ravings of the Republican Party and the Trump White House on display. The Democratic Party masquerades as the friend of the workers while doing the bidding of the corporate elite; the Republican Party, under Trumps direction, is working to develop a fascist movement. Both parties are the enemies of the working class, which must develop and build an independent revolutionary alternative.
Two workers stand before the backdrop of an oil pump, while silhouetted against the sunset.

Oil prices dropped on Friday as the economic recovery worldwide runs into stumbling blocks due to renewed coronavirus lockdowns, even as major global crude producers limit crude supply.

The euro zone's economic recovery from its deepest downturn on record has stalled this month as pent-up demand unleashed by the easing of lockdowns in July dwindled, a survey showed.

By contrast, U.S. housing and manufacturing survey data came in better than expected, offsetting a surprising increase in jobless claims on Thursday.

Brent crude futures were down 84 cents, or 1.9%, at $44.06 a barrel, heading for a nearly 2% weekly fall.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled 48 cents, or 1.12%, lower at $42.34 per barrel.

"Right now, the concerns about demand and the uptick in COVID cases seems to be the big reason why we're weaker," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

India's crude oil imports fell in July to their lowest level since March 2010, while U.S. motorists drove 13% fewer miles in June than a year earlier, according the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Libya's national oil company said it could restart oil exports after the North African country's internationally recognized government in Tripoli announced a ceasefire, putting further pressure on oil prices.

"This is a market that can't afford to absorb any additional barrels," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

OPEC+, which consists of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, including Russia, was focused on ensuring members that had overproduced against their commitments would reduce output.

An internal report showed the group wanted oversupply between May and July compensated for with cuts this month and next, Reuters reported.

It also showed OPEC+ expects oil demand in 2020 to fall by 9.1 million barrels per day, and by as much as 11.2 million bpd if there is a resurgence of coronavirus infections.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 12:55:48|Editor: huaxia

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SANTIAGO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- "If tonight I dig a deep well in Chile, I could go back to China," wrote Zhou Sese, one of the 20 Chinese poets included in a special issue of the Chilean Cuaderno magazine to commemorate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Chile.

This edition of the magazine, which is published by the Pablo Neruda Foundation of Chile, is dedicated to contemporary Chinese poetry and comprises an eclectic group of writers, including Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan.

Sun Xintang, the curator of the special issue and translator of the poems, told Xinhua that this edition celebrates the works of 20 poets from different generations and schools that represent current trends in Chinese poetry.

Among the poets is Jidi Majia, who belongs to the Yi ethnic minority.

"His poetics are very similar to that of Pablo Neruda, because Neruda has a very broad world view of Latin America, not only of Chile...He speaks on behalf of the continent and Jidi Majia has this kind of style," said Sun.

"There are many similarities between Chinese poetry and Chilean poetry. Both countries have great poetic traditions, without a doubt," he added.

Sun said that this publication includes Chinese poets who write about Chile. "I think that in this sense, it is a good exchange of not only literature but also the emotion that one feels on that distant land," he said.

Sun, who is also former deputy director of the Latin American Regional Center for Confucius Institutes, said that the publication has been appreciated by scholars and poets from across the world.

Chinese poet Hu Xian, for example, called this publication "the birth of an island."

"With this new island, many readers on the other side of the Pacific can read Chinese poetry," Hu said.

Diplomatic relations between Chile and China were established on Dec. 15, 1970.

"Pablo Neruda traveled to China several times, where he met and forged a friendship with poet Ai Qing, one of the most important Chinese poets of the 20th century," Raul Bulnes, president of the Pablo Neruda Foundation, wrote in the magazine.

Cuaderno was founded in 1989 with an aim to promote literature and art in Chile. Enditem
aw. I stan adventurous Mittens.





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aww how cute!

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Good. Humans only disappoint.

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aww mittens is so cute!

my friend and i actually went to the shelter this morning to help him decide on what cat to get. unfortunately none of the ones we interacted with caught his eye, but one of them totally caught mine and if my apartment actually allowed cats (and my roommate and i already have an illegal cat lol) i would have swooped him in a heartbeat. he was soooo cuddly and also playful, and he was a chubby buff colored tabby w/ a slightly floppy ear lol i was in such love playing w him and petting him today



Edited at 2020-08-21 12:34 am (UTC)

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I want a pet so badly, but they are not allowed by my landlord. How do you manage to keep an illegal cat inside? I need to know! 

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make him prime minister tbh

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But we have Jacinda!

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next PM then

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second in charge!

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Deserved

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I really hope no one tries to harm that cat, it being famous attracts all sorts of crazies. Is it weird that "some dude is gonna try to kill that cat" is my second thought right after "aww he's cute"?

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No it's not weird. I still think about the Mandarin Duck in Central Park disappearing. :(

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no! that's so sad omg

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I worry about that a lot, but in Wellington he's treated like a treasure. He has the key to the city and people post about seeing him all day long. I think if anything happened, we would know immediately. I think I'm glad it's a NZ thing and not a US thing. He's really treated like he's precious here. Which he is!

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sadly that was my exact same thought. Some nut job is probably going to take it upon himself or herself to hurt this kitty just to make people upset. I don't trust humans.





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Mte. My mind immediately went to that lady who threw a neighbourhood cat in the trash bin for shits and giggles and got caught on the security cam.

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As cute as Mittens is Ashley Bloomfield needs that award. That poor man is looking more frazzled by the day. Everyday he comes on at 1pm and even when he's announcing new cases he kinda makes me feel less anxious.

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The fucking questions he gets asked. I get so angry I have to turn it off. Shut up, Tova.

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The fact hes had to start saying to stop being vicious trolls to people with COVID is absolutely ridiculous and I agree when they start all screaming over each i turn it off. I hope youre doing well (and that youre hopefully not stuck in Auckland).

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I love Mittens! Last I checked, Ashley was first, Mittens was second!

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Her name is Jacinda Ardern lol

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Ack sorry. Fixed it.

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awww so cute!

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Omg gorgeous 

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we stan!

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what about how since we got covid back, IMDB has listed those 1pm tv announcements under 'season 2' i can't

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That was so funny! The reviews!

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Global warming is commonly associated with the melting polar ice caps and algal blooms in oceans with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing levels of oxygen. However, lack of oxygen levels also highly affected fish populations, as witnessed by residents from Biscayne Bay, Florida, when thousands of fish were found dead.

Experts also fear that coral bleaching may soon follow. Corals are known to be very sensitive to environmental conditions such as temperature, pollution, light, fishing, and human contact. Stressful conditions force corals to expel algae that live within them while becoming more vulnerable to disease and pollution.





Chris Langdon of the Coral Reefs and Climate Change Laboratory at the University of Miami described the double threat that corals are facing. "Heat is breaking records, and there are more nutrients flowing into the bay, so we are watching closely for signs of stress on the corals."

Florida's coral reefs also face other stressors such as acidification, boat traffic, and dredging. The recent incident with the dead fish is just further proof that water conditions are getting worse.



Thousands of Dead Fish

On August 10, thousands of dead fish were scattered all over the northern side of the bay where temperatures reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit and oxygen levels were depleted. Since then, the government and environmentalists have used massive pumps to mix seawater with air to increase oxygen levels.

Todd Crowl of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University explained, "In principle, taking low-oxygen water from the water column and spraying into there should greatly increase the oxygen molecules that bind." In Miami, they have also set up ground-level water pumps to help make more oxygenated water.

Researchers from the FIU CREST Center for Aquatic Chemistry and Environment have tested the waters for toxic nutrients such as nitrogen or phosphorus but found no traces of toxic algal blooms. Scientists believe that chronic pollution, they dying population of seagrass, and nutrient discharges from canals all contributed to the damage.

READ: 6 Bottleneck Whales Dead in Largest Live Stranding in the History of Ireland



Coral Bleaching

In early July, Brian McNoldy of Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science shared that the Virginia Key recorded its warmest temperature at 92.5 degrees Fahrenheit. NOAA's Coral Reef Watch said that summer temperatures usually peak much later in August, where Biscayne Bay temperatures went from 88 degrees to 90 degrees.





Experts are anticipating that they bay temperatures will get warmer still. "If the temperatures continue to rise as they're forecast to, we're likely to see coral bleaching increase across South Florida," shared Mark Eakin from NOAA. Up to 10 percent of the coral might begin to bleach.

They have already put the keys under level one alert of bleaching, which may soon become level two if large amounts of coral die under the present conditions. Weaker coral species have already died due to pollution, global warming, and other human activities while the more resilient species remain. Other threats include tropical storms and hurricanes.

"It's possible we could see a mass bleaching event if these temperatures don't drop," shared Cory Walter, a biologist from Mote Marine Lab. "If it's really bad, it almost looks like it snows on the reef because everything turns white."

READ MORE: Alaska Salmon Grew Smaller Over the Past 60 Years

Check out more news and information on Environment & Climate on Science Times.
Chinese diplomats urge right path for US

Global Times

By Yang Sheng and Liu Caiyu Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 21:28:40 Last Updated: 2020/8/20 21:22:40

A few politicians in Washington warned against for threatening ties

Senior Chinese diplomats, on many occasions, have warned against the attempts by some US politicians that damage bilateral ties, as these moves have pushed the world's most important bilateral relations toward deeper confrontation.

Terms like "new cold war" and "McCarthyism" have been frequently mentioned by Chinese officials and diplomats as bad examples of US moves.

The senior diplomats include Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, who is also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai. They have warned of the danger of worsening China-US ties at least seven times since the US forced China to close the consulate general in Houston in July.

If the negative trend of China-US relations is allowed to continue, China might face more difficulties and challenges; but the promoters of the so-called "new cold war" must weigh the costs they have to pay and the consequences for the world, Cui warned at a recent Brookings Institution webinar. "For whom the bell tolls, there will be a day of reckoning," Cui warned.

"Right track" and "wrong direction" are the key words that Chinese diplomats frequently used in their latest remarks, as "right track" is about "cooperation, mutual understanding and respect," while "wrong direction" is "conflict and confrontation." The remarks showed that China is the one who insists on pulling bilateral ties back on the right track.

Cui said "Stigmatization will not make anybody great. Ideological crusades will not solve problems in today's world, and are doomed to fail."

To bring relations back on the right track, Cui had spoken at least four times on China-US relations in a month, the Global Times found. Wang had expressed concerns over the current tense bilateral ties in interviews and in discussions with his foreign counterparts.

Wang said in the phone call with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on July 28 that he was alarmed that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo incited ideological confrontation and was pushing the world toward a new cold war.

The world sees that McCarthyism, which has been swept into the dust bin of history, is trying to make a comeback. If the conspiracy theory which Pompeo recently made against China is allowed to succeed, not only will China-US relations fall into the abyss of confrontation, but the world will fall into a crisis of division, and the future and destiny of mankind will also be in danger, Wang said.

Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times on Thursday that based on the comments of senior Chinese diplomats and officials, "we could tell that China is committed to smooth ties with the US and won't be diverted by attempts to ruin the relations."

China's sincerity may not be accepted by the Trump administration; but hopefully, other forces in the US, including the Democrats, the public and rational people would understand China's tone, Xin noted.

Comments by senior Chinese diplomats and officials always aim their criticism on the US on "some people" rather than the whole country, which means China believes only a few politicians who only care about their own political interests should be responsible for the worsening bilateral ties, experts said.

Chinese officials don't blame all US elites, politicians and people, as they know many of them also don't want to see a new cold war as their interests have likewise been damaged by the dangerous policies of the Trump administration, a Chinese expert on US affairs, who asked not to be named, said.

Yang also recalled how the two countries overcame the challenges and realized the development of relations since the establishment of diplomatic ties in an article published on the Xinhua News Agency on August 7. Yang said that in the past 41 years, the history of China-US relations has proven that both countries, as well as the rest of the world, stand to benefit from cooperation.

"China-US relations would substantially be damaged in the next four years if Trump is reelected. But if Biden wins, he would use different tactics against China - a combination of cooperation and competition, rather than competition only," Xin noted.

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Not fully vaccinated? No entry to malls, restaurants in Haryana from Jan 1: See Covid-19 guidelines

Lockdown in Haryana 2022: Know Time, Districts List, Guidelines, Rules, What Is Allowed & What Is Not Allowed

Weekend lockdown in Haryana: Offices, shops except essential to remain closed on Saturdays, Sundays

India

oi-Deepika S

Chandigarh, Aug 21: The Haryana government on Friday announced that all offices and shops in the state, except those selling essential items, will remain closed every Saturday and Sunday due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"All offices and shops except those selling essential items will remain closed in Haryana on every Saturday and Sunday in an attempt to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, said Home Minister Anil Vij tweeted.

Meanwhile, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tested negative for COVID-19 on Thursday, days after he attended a meeting with Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who has been found infected with the contagious disease.

Haryana CM Khattar tests negative for COVID-19; goes into home quarantine

However, Khattar decided to go into home quarantine for the next three days as a precautionary measure.

The state, which shares its borders with Delhi, has logged over 50,000 cases of coronavirus with 578 deaths.
When Grace got to her friends room around 1:50 a.m., she found her friend in bed with a bruised face and realized she was the person who said shed been raped. She told Grace that she and the SEAL started out having consensual sex but then he started choking her and at one point she thought what is he going to do with my body when he kills me?
BERLIN, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Germany's public health agency on Thursday declared the Croatian counties of Sibenik-Knin and Split-Dalmatia, which are popular with tourists, coronavirus risk regions, as Europe battles rising coronavirus cases during the summer season.

Croatia is the country with the third-highest number of infections among people returning to Germany, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), after Kosovo and Turkey.

Concerns are growing in Germany about rising infections. The RKI on Thursday published data showing the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany climbed by 1,707 to 228,621, marking their biggest daily increase since April 26.

The RKI also added the Valcea region of Romanian to its coronavirus risk list, having previously designated several other parts of Romania as high-risk.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin, Michael Nienaber and Caroline Copley Editing by Riham Alkousaa)
Williamstown DIRE Committee Focuses on Police Procedure, Town's Response to Suit

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The town's Diversity, Inclusion, Race and Equity Committee has said from day one that it would be a place for difficult conversations.

On Wednesday evening, it had one that ended with one of its own members being accused of expressing white privilege.

The panel, which normally meets on Mondays, held a special meeting with the stated purpose of reacting to the Select Board's response to a federal lawsuit filed against the town, town manager and police chief last week.

The conversation included DIRE Committee members' dissatisfaction with that response and a more general discussion of police practices in the town of 7,700.

In the latter context, Bilal Ansari told his colleagues about an incident just this week when he counseled a Black co-worker who was shaken and fearful after a routine traffic stop in which a Williamstown Police officer asked the driver, "Are you from this town?"

Moments later, Jane Patton related a similar experience.

"I'm going to go with the safe space thing here," Patton said, before sharing a story from 14 years ago, the day after she moved to town with her family.

"I rolled through the stop at Water Street and Main, like we all do and got pulled over," Patton said. "And again, white woman [pointing to herself].  'Are you from Williamstown?'

"I say that only as context. I'm not saying that happens all the time. I'm not saying it should be asked or it shouldn't be asked. I'm just saying that, new to town, Massachusetts plates, 'Are you new to Williamstown?' I probably got a warning or whatever and moved on."

Patton, who serves on both the Select Board and the DIRE Committee's town policies and procedures working group, said she had made notes on the conversation and would on Thursday start asking questions about situations like that encountered by Ansari's co-worker.

"I will ask these questions tomorrow," Patton said. "I'm not going to wait and send it in an email.  Is this a policy? If it is a policy, why is it a policy? Is it intended as friendliness but it doesn't come across that way? What is the intent behind it?  Then, might I suggest that you consider being very mindful to whom and when you ask this question because there are some people it might make feel uncomfortable."

Aruna D'Souza said she thought the question, "Are you from Williamstown?" is a sundowning technique, referencing a practice of municipalities intimidating people of color with signs at city limits saying Blacks had to leave by sundown.

Ansari immediately said Patton, as a white woman, could not understand the experience that people of color have when they are questioned by the police.

And Patton said she appreciated that.

"A hundred percent," Patton said. "That's why I said that at the beginning. I was a little anxious. I brought that up in a conversation and said, I am confident that I am treated differently simply because I am a white woman. I had never really thought about that before, and that's what all of this is about -- starting to look through things not through your own lens."

Drea Finley then sharpened the focus of that lens.

"Jane, I think I can appreciate the onus of where you started and the place where you said, 'In full vulnerability, I want to be honest about where I'm coming from,' " Finley said. "But one of the things I would say to you, Jane, even in this moment, is, you say that you're mindful of, 'Yes, Bilal, I hear you.' But yet, still, you still went to that place to offer [a story].

"That I think is an acknowledgement of your own privilege. That exactly is that moment of just exactly what white privilege is."

Finley said the comments were offered with love and that it was important that the committee acknowledge such attitudes and talk through them honestly, even in a public space.

"For as uncomfortable as we might feel in this moment, this is the work," Finley said. "This is the integrity of the work. And these are the moments that I think we sometimes can forget even when it's the forefront of our work every moment."

The three-hour meeting began with another difficult conversation, a presentation from Town Manager Jason Hoch, who offered his first public comments on the lawsuit filed last week by Williamstown Police Sgt. Scott McGowan.

Hoch began by saying that there is a lot he cannot say while the suit is active, but he acknowledged that the allegations made in support of McGowan's complaint are horrifying.

"First and foremost, I understand how reading that [complaint] feels, absolutely," Hoch said. "I understand what that looks like, the questions it raises. That's not the community we want to be.

"What is reflected there is not the Jason Hoch that I believe I am and try to be. It's certainly not who I want to be. I think, similarly, the Police Department that appears to be developed in that narrative is not the Police Department we want. It is not the Police Department we aspire to "

"Is it the Police Department we have?" D'Souza asked, interrupting Hoch. "I'm sorry. I need to jump in because I think this isn't the time for personal apologies. What we need to hear is some idea of the facts. This is not, for me, a matter of whether you're a good person or not. It really is a question of, is this the Police Department we have? And is this the reporting structure we have?"

Hoch reiterated that he wished he could get into specifics of the allegations, but his hands are tied as a servant of the town and a named party in the lawsuit. But he did indicate that the incidents alleged in McGowan's complaint had been looked at when they came to his attention.

"On many of your questions, I wish I could get into a lot more detail than I can," Hoch said. "While this is active in the courts, I can't get into the details that I want. That's frustrating to you. It's frustrating to me. I'd love to be able to walk you through and say: Here's what I saw. Here's what I learned.

"Because not any of those things was not without followup and question on my part."

D'Souza said she understood that many of the allegations in the complaint were based on the word of the complainant and that the suit has yet to be adjudicated. But there were incidents mentioned in the complaint that appeared to be verifiable through third parties, D'Souza said.

"Even without the sense of the difficulty of making assessments without knowing the full legal understanding of the facts of the case, there are certainly moments at which the facts seem relatively verifiable that are really beyond the pale," D'Souza said.

"I completely agree," Hoch said. "And when those were things that were seen, I was angry, horrified. 'What is this?' 'This is not who we are.' 'How did we end up in this environment?'

"We've had some difficult conversations digging into those because reading them on their face -- as I read those and others on their face, it horrified me.  I would love to walk through with you each and every one of those horrifying examples and explain what we did, what we learned and where that was left. That's the box I can't get into right now.

"The thing that is helpful, that I hope we get to at some point  is: If we encounter something like that, this is how I would respond; what are we missing to do something differently, better, more supportive in the future?"

Hoch noted that municipalities are governed by rules, including labor laws and state statutes and said, "There are times that that doesn't yield a solution of the community we want to be."

D'Souza pressed Hoch on the point.

"Do you feel that those laws preclude the acting on of complaints -- not this particular complaint but complaints such as this?" D'Souza asked. "Complaints of sexual harassment, complaints of racial harassment, complaints of an unsafe work environment, anything like that. You seem to imply that what you were doing is constrained by all of these things, and I want to clarify. If you're operating under Massachusetts law that explicitly doesn't allow for communities to act on this, I want to know that."

Hoch said he did not intend to imply there is no way to address such complaints.

"My observation was somewhat more general than that," he said. "Obviously, any of those complaints you just outlawed and any other complaint are reviewed and addressed seriously. There's no free pass for any bad behavior. The questions really come from: What's the scale of the measured response in terms of discipline to that, in some cases.

"And then also there's the challenge of 'a documented event' versus a 'documented pattern.' I'm not naive enough to think that if it happens once, it's a one-off and it only happens once. I get that. The issue then becomes, in a legal situation, how much of that has been there, how much of it is traceable. When I talk about constraints, that's what I think about."

Hoch spent about 22 minutes with the DIRE Committee in the virtual meeting. Toward the end of the discussion, he reiterated that he understands the town's response and his comments will not satisfy townspeople.

"I totally get it," Hoch said. " 'Jason seems like a nice guy' doesn't help you. Right now, you're only thing to [say], 'Hey, this isn't my town,' is very much generalities or, 'no comment.' That's a hard lift, and that's not a fair ask to the rest of the community. I hear it."

Andrew Art thanked Hoch for coming, but questioned the Select Board's response to the lawsuit by pointing out that it says board members only learned of the allegations "recently" but also that the allegations were "previously disputed" by the town.

"The only way I can square those statements is the Select Board was not made aware of the investigation," Art said. "If it's true the complaint named the town manager in addition to the chief of police, and that the investigation was done without the Select Board, it's not impartial. And it can't be impartial because you can't investigate yourself if the claims are against you."

Art then repeated the calls made by the DIRE Committee and numerous members of the community for the town to commission a full, impartial study of the allegations in McGowan's complaint. Hoch said he noted the request but that he did not have the ability to engage on that issue.

Art later capped the discussion with the town manager by reiterating a point that has been made by several members of the committee about the perception of racism and sexual assault stemming from the allegations in the McGowan lawsuit.

"I said this before [Hoch] got on, but I also want to say this: People do not feel safe in our community," Art said.
Cabinet approves setting up of National Recruitment Agency

The union cabinet today approved a proposal to set up a National Recruitment Agency (NRA) for conducting the Common Eligibility Test (CET) for recruitment to all non-gazetted posts in central government and for posts in public sector banks as well.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the proposal to set up the National Recruitment Agency (NRA), marking a paradigm shift in government recruitment process.

With this, all aspirants to non-gazetted government posts will have to appear for a single, online CET exam across the country. This CET score will remain valid for three years.

#CabinetDecision to set up National Recruitment Agency (NRA) to conduct Common Eligibility Test (CET) for preliminary selection to various government vacancies is a revolutionary reform brought in by visionary intervention by PM, union minister Jitendra Singh tweeted welcoming the decision.

NRA will conduct the Common Eligibility Test (CET) for recruitment to non-gazetted posts in government and public sector banks. This test aims to replace multiple examinations conducted by different recruiting agencies for selection to government jobs advertised each year, with single online test.

The Common Eligibility Test will be held twice a year.

There will be different CETs for graduate level, 12th pass level and 10th pass level to facilitate recruitment to vacancies at various levels.

The CET will be conducted in 12 major Indian languages. This is a major change, as hitherto examinations for recruitment to central government jobs were held only in English and Hindi.

To begin with CET will cover recruitments made by three agencies, viz, Staff Selection Commission, Railway Recruitment Board and the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection. This will be expanded in a phased manner.

CET will be held in 1,000 centres across India in a bid to remove the currently prevalent urban bias. There will be an examination centre in every district of the country. There will be a special thrust on creating examination infrastructure in the 117 aspirational districts.

CET will be a first level test to shortlist candidates and the score will be valid for three years.

There shall be no restriction on the number of attempts to be taken by a candidate to appear in the CET subject to the upper age limit. Age relaxation for SC/ST and OBC candidates as per existing rules will apply.

Advantages of CET:

Single examination fee would reduce financial burden that multiple exams imposed;

Since exams will be held in every district, it would substantially save travel and lodging cost for the candidates;

Examination in their own district would encourage more and more women candidates to apply for government jobs;

Applicants are required to register on a single registration portal;

There is also no need to worry about clashing of examination dates;

Removes the hassle of conducting preliminary / screening test of candidates;

Drastically reduces the recruitment cycle;

Brings standardisation in examination pattern;

Reduces costs for different recruiting agencies (Rs600 crore savings expected).

The government also plans to provide outreach and awareness facility to assist candidates in rural and far flung areas to familiarise them with the online examination system. A 24x7 helpline will be set up for answering queries, complaints and queries.

National Recruitment Agency will be a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act. It will be headed by a chairman of the rank of the secretary to the Government of India. It will have representatives of ministry of railways, ministry of finance/Department of Financial Services, the SSC, RRB and IBPS. The government has sanctioned a sum of Rs1,517.57 crore for the National Recruitment Agency (NRA). The expenditure will be undertaken over a period of three years. It is envisioned that the NRA would be a specialist body bringing the state-of-the-art technology and best practices to the field of central government recruitment.

Approximately 1.25 lakh government jobs are advertised every year for which 2.5 crore aspirants appear in various examinations. A common eligibility test would enable these candidates to appear once and apply to any or all of these recruitment agencies for the higher level of examination.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 01:15:38|Editor: huaxia

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Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam attends a press conference in Hong Kong, south China, Aug. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai)

As the support from the central government has boosted its testing capacity, China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will start a massive screening for COVID-19 on Sept. 1. All asymptomatic Hong Kong residents aged no less than six can participate in the testing.

HONG KONG, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- As the support from the central government has boosted its testing capacity, Hong Kong will start a massive screening for COVID-19 on Sept. 1 and aims to complete the testing in no more than two weeks in an effort to rein in the severe epidemic situation.

Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam announced the plan on Friday at a press conference.

The HKSAR government said earlier that the large-scale testing that may cover millions of people in Hong Kong will be conducted for free and on a voluntary basis.

All asymptomatic Hong Kong residents aged no less than six can participate in the testing, Secretary for the Civil Service of the HKSAR government Patrick Nip said, adding that the process is scheduled to last seven days and can be prolonged to no more than two weeks.

The HKSAR government will set up testing stations in all 18 districts of Hong Kong where trained medical staff will collect samples of deep throat saliva or nasopharyngeal swab, Nip said, stressing that personal information of the participants will be well protected and will not be transferred out of Hong Kong.

Lam said the testing scheme would not be possible if there were no support from the central government.

Members of the nucleic acid testing team which was established by the central government to assist the HKSAR government in launching the virus testing arrived in Hong Kong on Aug. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

A 60-strong nucleic acid testing team was established by the central government to assist the HKSAR government in launching the virus testing. After the first 10 team members came to Hong Kong at the beginning of August, the other 50 also arrived here on Friday afternoon.

Besides, three national-level testing institutions have also helped enhance Hong Kong's testing capacity significantly.

Hong Kong has seen a new round of COVID-19 infections in communities since the beginning of July. With 27 additional cases reported on Friday, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed 4,600, and a large proportion of the infections were found over the past weeks.

The resurgence of new cases has made medical resources overstretched and the virus testing capacity far from enough. Given the situation, the central government has spared no efforts to help Hong Kong brave the challenges.

Lam said with the assistance of the central government, Hong Kong will add utmost 1,000 hospital beds in the AsiaWorld-Expo and will strive to put the medical facilities into use in a couple of weeks, and a new two-storied temporary hospital that can provide more than 800 beds will also be erected adjacent to the expo in four months.

Secretary for Food and Health of the HKSAR government Sophia Chan said Hong Kong will also request the central government for support in the COVID-19 vaccine.

"With the full support of the central government, we are confident that we can combat the virus with a view to enabling people to resume their normal daily lives as soon as possible," an HKSAR government spokesperson said in a statement.

Qiu Hong, deputy head of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, said Friday that the central government cares about the well-being of Hong Kong compatriots and she hopes the epidemic can be curbed as soon as possible so that Hong Kong residents can resume their normal lives.

Looking ahead, Lam said that the HKSAR government will work to rebuild the economy upon the easing of the epidemic, including introducing the health code system to facilitate mainland-Hong Kong travels and pushing forward the work related to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Accessibility

SAS Intros Free Tool for Creating and Sharing Non-Visual Digital Maps

Analytics company SAS has introduced a free browser extension that converts graphs and charts into sound, allowing users to create digital maps that can be explored using non-visual methods. Using the SAS Graphics Accelerator, students with visual impairments or blindness can access maps of their college campus, including points of interest such as intersections, bus stops, buildings and other landmarks, to help prepare for life on campus.

The locations of objects on the non-visual digital maps are conveyed using sound to signify distance, direction and orientation, according to a news announcement. Nearby objects are indicated using a high-pitch sound, while distant objects emit a low pitch. Cardinal directions are indicated using the left-right balance of the speakers and by changing the nature of the sound (clean vs. metallic). The maps are best navigated using headphones and a gamepad controller.

In a blog post, SAS Director of Accessibility Ed Summers further explained how the maps work:

"Users explore non-visual digital maps using a 'virtual' cane. They can swing their virtual cane clockwise or counter-clockwise. As the cane encounters an object within the map, the user hears the direction and distance of that object relative to their virtual location within the map. Users also hear the name of each object they detect with their virtual cane.

"Users can quickly change their virtual location within the map. For example, if a user detects an object of interest, they can press a key on their keyboard to move to the object. Users can also search the entire map for objects of interest and jump directly to any object.

"The combination of virtual location and virtual cane enables users to systematically explore a non-visual digital map. While doing so, they build a mental map of the objects and their relative position to each other."

SAS is working with the Perkins School for the Blind to create and maintain a library of the maps that currently includes maps from Brown University, Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Johns Hopkins, North Carolina State, Texas Tech, UCLA, University of North Carolina, University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, among others. The maps are housed on Perkins' Paths to Technology website, and can also be posted on an individual school's website or shared via e-mail. SAS plans to grow the library by crowdsourcing map creation for other colleges and universities around the world. While anyone can contribute, map creators need to be familiar with the needs of people with visual impairments.

"This product was built by the blind for the blind," said Summers, who is visually impaired himself and led the creation of the SAS Graphics Accelerator. "With the ability to make charts and graphs consumable to people with blindness, geospatial data is a natural application for SAS Graphics Accelerator. We started with college campuses to address a common need among young students with blindness. It's exciting to consider what the crowd will come up with, whether it's theme parks, city attractions or walking tours. We're just getting started."
Karl Stefanovic's daggy year 12 formal photos emerged on the Today show on Thursday.

And fans have noticed that the 46-year-old breakfast TV presenter and his eldest son, Jackson, share very similar facial features.

Karl's teenage throwback, from his days at Brisbane's Anglican Church Grammar School, showed him with his formal date in the early '90s.

Like father, like son! Karl Stefanovic looks just like his eldest child Jackson (right, in 2016) in resurfaced photos from the Today host's year 12 formal (left)

One fan commented on the Today show Instagram account: 'Baby Karl looks so much like his son.'

'Wow haven't aged, Karl, you just get better looking,' another wrote, while a third added: 'Has Karl grown into the suit yet?'

Karl shares 20-year-old Jackson with his first wife, former journalist and TV producer Cassandra Thorburn.

No paternity test required! Fans have noticed that the 46-year-old breakfast TV presenter and his eldest son, Jackson, share very similar facial features. Pictured in 2016

It was previously reported that Karl and Cassandra's separation in 2016 caused a rift between the father and son.

But it seems they have since mended the relationship after Jackson attended Karl's Mexico wedding to Jasmine Yarbrough in December 2018.

Last year, Jackson told Woman's Day he felt a duty to 'step up and protect' his mother, Cassandra, during his parents' high-profile split.

Karl also shares son River, 12, and daughter Ava, 14, with his ex-wife.

Karl welcomed his fourth child, a daughter named Harper May, with new wife Jasmine in May.

Karl was left red-faced when his daggy year 12 formal pictures resurfaced during an embarrassing live segment on the Today show on Thursday.

Co-host Allison Langdon revealed that she'd tracked down the early '90s photos after contacting Karl's brothers for help.

The first image that flashed on screen showed an awkward-looking Karl dressed in an oversized tuxedo with his date, Noella, who looked elegant in a fitted black dress.

Throwback! Karl was left red-faced on Thursday when his daggy year 12 formal pictures resurfaced on the Today show. In one photo, the TV host was seen awkwardly posing with his date, Noella

The second image showed Karl pulling a serious face while posing alongside a group of male friends.

Allison joked that he was doing his best 'Blue Steel' impression, referring to a pose from the film Zoolander, adding: 'I mean, you were good looking!'

An embarrassed Karl explained that he didn't have a date, so one of his pals arranged for a friend named Noella to join him.
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They say their lightweight, tailorable eye mask named "Chesma," is fitted with two kinds of fabric electrodes that can simply be sewn onto a variety of pre-made garments and further miniaturized, if desired. This capability allows them to integrate electrodes into a lightweight foam mask for recording electro-oculography and cardiac signals. Their design automatically positions the electrodes on the face with no need for custom fitting.As explained in a video created by Ph.D. student and first author, S. Zohreh Homayounfar, the mask contains five silver (Ag) thread-based hydrogel electrodes -dubbed tAgTrodes - needed to translate ion-based biological signals into an electric current, among other goals. The researchers took advantage of a vapor-phase deposition process to create the electrodes, including what they call a first-of-its-kind reusable and washable hydrogel component that distinguishes the tAgTrode from other equivalents.Here, Andrew says she takes pride in noting that "part of the work that went into carrying out the deposition process was performed by Emerson T. Alexander, an exceptional student from Springfield Technical Community College," who took part in a paid internship in her lab and funded by the L'Oreal USA For Women in Science program.The mask also contains one fabric pressure sensor (PressION) positioned over an artery to monitor pulse as a proxy for cardiac function, with the whole linked to two microcontrollers with water-repellant silver threads as connectors. Another author, Ph.D. student Ali Kiaghadi, explains thatThe team tested the new eye mask on subjects while they were chewing, talking, and during various head and eye movements. They also used the same device for more than a year and after 15 washings found no degradation in performance. Homayounfar notes that the tAgTrodeAndrew expects that Chesma's "unique bimodality" - the combination of electrode network with the pressure sensor - will enable many new cutting-edge studies not possible until now, for investigating sleep quality, sleep disorders, mental health, neurodegenerative diseases and schizophrenia, for example.Source: Eurekalert
Joe Biden is accepting the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, achieving the pinnacle - so far - of his nearly five-decade political career on the final night of the most unorthodox national convention in modern history. The former vice president is hoping the night helps the Democrats make progress toward not only unifying the diverse party but a deeply divided America struggling through a global pandemic as well.

The night's keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who at 77 would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Donald Trump in November. The convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has "common decency."

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in U.S. history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans. And Pete Buttigieg, a 38-year-old openly gay military veteran from Indiana, noted that Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage as vice president even before President Barack Obama did.

Also read: US Presidential Elections 2020: Democrats nominate Joe Biden to take on Donald Trump

"Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans," Buttigieg said. "It's the struggle to call out what is good for every American." Above all, Biden was focusing on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice - and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Biden's positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by former President Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, addressed race problems in a way Biden could not.

Throughout their convention, the Democrats have summoned a collective urgency about the dangers of Trump as president. In 2016, they dismissed and sometimes trivialized him. In the days leading up to Biden's acceptance speech, they cast him as an existential threat to the country. Beyond Biden's highly anticipated speech, Thursday's program was designed to highlight the diversity of the Democratic Party and the nation he hopes to lead.

Also read: US Election 2020: Biden campaign raises $48 million in 48 hours after picking Kamala Harris as VP choice

"We know how important it is that we elect real leaders like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, people of honor and integrity, who hold justice close to their hearts and believe that the lives of my four black children matter," Lance Bottoms said. She spoke ahead of a tribute to the late John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and civil rights leader who devoted much of his life to ensuring African Americans are able to vote.

Biden's Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trump's policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centered and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nation's mounting crises and policy challenges.

Voting was a prime focus of the convention on Thursday as it has been all week. Democrats fear that the pandemic -- and the Trump administration -- may make it difficult for voters to cast ballots in person or by mail. Comedian Sarah Cooper, a favorite of many Democrats for her videos lip syncing Trump's speeches, put it bluntly: "Donald Trump doesn't want any of us to vote because he knows he can't win fair and square."

Also read: Kamala Harris' ode to her mother, mention of 'chithis' fill Indians with pride

Biden's call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Trump down; Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. That's easier said than done in a modern Democratic Party made up of disparate factions that span generation, race and ideology. For that reason, Thursday's program, like much of the convention, emphasized Biden's personal values like decency, honesty and empathy more than any single policy proposal or achievement.

The pandemic has also forced Biden's team to abandon the typical pageantry and rely instead on a highly-produced, all-virtual affair that has failed to draw the same television ratings as past conventions. The silence was noticeable Wednesday night, for example, as Harris took the stage to make history in a cavernous hall inside the Chase Center in downtown Wilmington. She was flanked by American flags but no family, and her audience consisted of a few dozen reporters and photographers.

It's Trump's turn next. The Republican president, who abandoned plans to host his convention in North Carolina and in Florida, is expected to break tradition and accept his nomination from the White House lawn next week. In the meantime, he's seeking to take attention from Biden. Trump was continuing this week's swing-state tour on Thursday with a stop near Biden's birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania. While he is trying to stay on offense, the president has faced a series distractions of his own this week, many of his own making.

Also read: Elected US President because Barack Obama did 'such a bad job': Donald Trump

Trump on Wednesday praised a conspiracy-theory group that believes the president's political opponents support satanism and pedophilia. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors could access his long-hidden tax returns. Also Thursday, New York prosecutors announced the indictment of Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign manager and White House chief counsel, who was charged with fraud.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - A total of 67 illegal migrants were rescued by Libyan coastguards 18 nautical miles from the Abu Kamach region, about 170 km west of Tripoli, when their boat capsized while they were trying to sail to Europe, the Libyan Interior Ministry announced on Friday
THE Food Bank Ordinance of Cebu City, passed by the Cebu City Council last August 12, 2020, will establish a food bank to be managed by the Department of Social and Services (DSWS), with a governing board led by a representative of the mayor, and an initial budget of P3 million.

The ordinance is clearly prompted by the current Covid-19 pandemic, with City Hall providing rice and canned goods to residents who are banned from leaving their homes during the lockdown period or cannot afford to buy them. With the quarantine in the city limited to "granular" lockdowns, food dole-out has been confined to much-smaller areas.

Other disasters too

But the ordinance "whereas" list also cites (natural) disasters, not just public health emergencies, as occasion for the City Government to help residents, especially "the poor and disadvantaged," meet their essential needs during the calamity.

Councilor Alvin M. Dizon, author of the ordinance, told SunStar Thursday, August 20, the food bank is "a continuing entity to be managed by the office of the city mayor through DSWS and the governing board," which will "ensure its year-round operation." The plan is rather ambitious, given the promise from Councilor Dizon: "a more systematic, coordinated, monitored food and assistance network...that during and outside the pandemic, no one goes hungry ever."

Two models

What kind of a food bank will it be? The ordinance adopts both (1) the "frontline model," which gives directly to the poor and hungry, and (2) the "warehouse model," which supplies food to "intermediaries" like community kitchens and other relief organizations operating during public emergencies.

The "front-line model," which Dizon said will include a daily soup kitchen, like that in the US, may soon fill the need for City Hall's packaged meals.

People sheltered "in place" within a locked-down area have been current beneficiaries. But when fire, typhoon, earthquake or any calamity displaces people and enhances problem of hunger, the same need for instant and convenient feeding arises.

Story continues

The "warehouse" phase of a food bank prepares and stores essential but not-immediately-perishable goods. When disaster strikes, the food bank can distribute them directly to beneficiaries or through relief agencies.

Rescue, distribution

Less-known part of a food banking operation is the "rescue and distribution," wherein food that is bound to be wasted -- because of excess, over-production, lack of a market, or otherwise not consumed -- can be saved and, through the food bank, is fed to the poor and hungry.

That means a link-up between the food bank and the producer, manufacturer, or processor as well as the bank's network of distributors, so that "unwanted" food goes to the needy after it has gone through bank controls on nutrition and safety. The controls, under the ordinance, include a punishable ban on sale of food donated to the bank and measures to protect the health of those eating the food.

The Dizon ordinance calls for "dynamic and multisectoral" food distribution plans and such strategies as "supply chain analysis," algorithms to address actual and anticipated problems, and the like.

An ambitious objective, which at this stage seems too formidable, given the reputation of government to fall far short of its purpose or objective.

Private models

The City Hall food bank has models to follow or just study: The Cebu Food Bank & Soup Kitchen in Mabolo, a non-profit collaboration of Simply Share Foundation Inc., Rotary Club of Cebu, Archdiocese of Cebu, Philippine Navy Reservists and Rise Against Hunger Philippines.

There's also the Good Food Grocer, a food bank social franchise run by Rise Against Hunger Philippines. It has organized food banking systems in pilot cities Taguig, Quezon, Bacolod and, yes, Mandaue (with Simply Share Foundation).

The Cebu City ordinance provides for collaboration with the private sector. That may take the form of non-profit non-government groups providing Cebu City with information on best practices of food banking.

Foreseen problems

The expected problems will include the lack of dedication and energy that among government workers are often found wanting.

In the governing board, two councilors, two department heads (city health and general services) and two representatives from the private sector could help.

But overseer and manager of the food bank is the man or woman from the office of the mayor, which already a lot of stuff on its plate.

More efficient way

Then there's the matter of politics, which can derail the best-laid plans. The experience in other City Hall dole-outs tells of the risk of politics dictating choice of beneficiaries and mode of distribution. Would DSWS and food bank governing board be free of the politics that seeps into most patronage policies of the city?

The City Council may decide to scale down its purposes by modifying the ordinance, or, if it is bungled, abandon the ordinance and keep itself to the extemporaneous way of helping calamity victims, with the packed meals cornered by some favored supplier. A number of City Hall commissions and boards created through the years have not been functioning.

The city administration may be content with its present procedure in distributing food and other handouts through friendly barangay captains or, where they are not, by Milo chiefs.

But the food bank ordinance, if approved by the mayor and steadfastly implemented, seems to provide the much more efficient way.
TROY  An activist's effort Friday morning to file a complaint about the removal of benches and chairs from Barker Park downtown ended with him facing charges and his arm in a sling for an injury he said he suffered when a police officer threw him down stairs in the station house.

As demonstrators gathered outside police headquarters to protest the arrest of the activist, 25-year-old Kenneth Zeoli of Troy, he returned after having his injuries examined at an urgent care clinic. Zeoli said it felt like he had sustained a shoulder or collarbone fracture, in addition to visible scrapes and bruises, and said he suffered a seizure while in police custody. He said he was referred for further treatment to receive a formal diagnosis.

Troy Assistant Police Chief Dan DeWolf issued a statement about Zeoli's arrest, concluding with: "There is a story that the arrested person may have been assaulted by police and that is absolutely false."

The protest ebbed and swelled through the morning and afternoon Friday, with a group of 50 or more walking a few blocks from the police station to Barker Park, where members of the city's homeless community have long gathered. Later in the afternoon demonstrators returned to the police station. In the evening, some were expected to reassemble at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, in the city's North Central neighborhood. The facility was holding a previously scheduled teach-in about Black August, which celebrates Black activism, said co-founder Branda Miller.

On Friday evening, a television reporter for CBS6 News said on Twitter that she had witnessed a car try to run down protesters and included a photo of a sports car with a damaged windshield on what appeared to be River Street. The reporter, Leanne DeRosa, said she was told by Troy police on the scene that the driver, who was taken into custody and had their car towed, likely would face a charge of reckless endangerment.

DeWolf did not reply to an inquiry seeking confirmation.

Zeoli's arrest has as its background an effort that he and other members of the Coalition for Barker Park, a subsidiary of the group Equality for Troy, recently began after the city late last month ordered the removal of benches from the park and banished from the park a program that had provided meals there to the homeless. For almost two weeks coalition members have daily brought chairs to the park and had members sit in hourlong vigils before leaving the chairs. Activists allege city workers on most nights have been removing chairs from the park, which officially closes at dusk, and destroying some of them. A coalition representative said more than 60 chairs have been removed and/or broken.

Zeoli was taken into custody and charged after he and three others presented themselves Friday morning in the lobby of police headquarters.

They repeatedly asked a desk sergeant to provide them with a complaint form so they could take issue with the removal of chairs and benches. Zeoli was arrested by the desk sergeant, identified as Sean Kittle, with whom Zeoli said he has had previous run-ins.

While in custody, Zeoli said he was pushed down stairs and had a seizure during the more than three hours he spent in a holding cell.

He was charged with trespassing and marijuana possession, according to attorney Said Ibrahim, who works with activists and volunteered to represent Zeoli on Friday on an emergency basis after being told of the incident by others involved in organizing the protest. (Zeoli has since retained other counsel.) Ibrahim said he was denied the opportunity to see Zeoli while he was in custody on Friday; Zeoli said police refused his requests for a phone call, access to an attorney and medical attention.

Demonstrators quickly gathered outside police headquarters after video of Zeoli's arrest was posted on Facebook. The incident began at around 8:15 a.m. Friday. The video shows Zeoli and three others being ignored by Kittle. After more than 20 minutes of the foursome seeking Kittle's attention, a woman who says she is trying to turn herself in on a police warrant arrives. Kittle comes into the lobby, the video shows, and tells Zeoli's group to leave, saying their presence violates the woman's privacy. Zeoli says he is as entitled to a complaint form as the woman is to her privacy.

"You're entitled to leave my station now. Leave the station now," Kittle says on the video before grabbing Zeoli. On the video, he tells Zeoli he is under arrest for disorderly conduct, though he was eventually cited with trespassing. None of the others with him were charged. On the video, Kittle is seen telling them to leave the station and repeatedly opening a secure door to argue with them.

"You're interfering with my ability to do my job," he says. Apparently referring to the chairs campaign and vigil, Kittle says, "You need a permit to have your little public art project."

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Zeoli later said he'd had a previous encounter with Kittle, at Barker Park, during which the sergeant scoffed at Zeoli's assertion that the chairs campaign was free expression protected by the First Amendment. Zeoli said he would provide video of that exchange but later Friday, through a representative, said, on the advice of his attorney, he would not share the video.

The city has offered differing explanations  among them containment of the spread of the coronavirus and criminal activity including drug use  for why the benches were removed from the park, a small plot at the corner of State and Third streets. Members for the Coalition for Barker Park said they were told it was because of a spate of drug overdoses in the park.

Zeoli said Friday that, since the chairs campaign began, he has helped five addicts from the park get placed at in-patient treatment facilities and has four more who are willing to go when spaces become available. The assertion could not be independently verified.

A recovering addict himself who said he's been clean for 11 months, Zeoli said of the addicts he's worked with recently, "They want help, they ask for it, they need it. ... They've fallen through the cracks of the ... recovery system, and they get forgotten about." He added, "That is very familiar to me."

Tasheca Medina, a member of Equality for Troy, said Friday's incident illustrated how the city's police department views residents and fails to serve them.

Theyve gotten away with so much, they just feel untouchable, Medina said.

The problem could have been easily resolved had Kittle acknowledged Zeoli and tried to help him, she said.

Medina said, All this took was a bit of de-escalation training.
Pope Francis has extended the Loreto Jubilee, associated with the centenary of the proclamation of Our Lady of Loreto as Patron Saint of Aviation, until 10 December 2021. The announcement was made on Friday, 14 August, by the Papal Delegate Archbishop Fabio Dal Cin following the recitation of the Angelus during the vigil for the Solemnity of the Assumption. The Prelate expressed to the Pontiff heartfelt gratitude, my own, of the entire military and civilian air force, of all the faithful, the people of Loreto, pilgrims and devotees of the Holy House, for this great gift. In this difficult time for humanity, the Holy Mother Church gives us another twelve months to start anew from Christ, allowing ourselves to be accompanied by Mary, a sign for all of consolation and certain hope. The Jubilee, which officially began with the opening of the Holy Door on 8 December 2019 in the presence of Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin  and was originally to conclude on 10 December 2020 , thus renews for an additional 12 months the experience of grace and forgiveness for all the faithful who will visit the Papal Shrine. The gratitude also extends to the many chapels in civilian airports and military air force bases throughout the world. Many times this year, Archbishop Dal Cin recalled, the Holy Father has manifested his closeness to the Shrine of the Holy House: with his visit on 25 March 2019, during which he signed the Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit; with the concession and the extension of the Loreto Jubilee; with the inscription of 10 December on the Roman calendar for the facultative memorial of the Blessed Virgin of Loreto; and lastly with the insertion of three new invocations into the Litany of Loreto: Mater Misericordiae, Mater Spei and Solacium Migrantium.

The following is a translation of the text of the Decree by which Pope Francis Apostolic Penitentiary, on special mandate, extends the Jubilee.

Prot. n. 580/20/1

DECREE

The Apostolic Penitentiary, having received the request of 21 June 2020 presented by the Most Excellent and Reverend Fabio Dal Cin, Archbishop Prelate of the Holy House of Lauretana, Papal Delegate to the Shrine of Loreto and the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua, by special mandate of His Holiness Pope Francis, with the present Decree, extends until 10 December 2021, in favour of the faithful, each and every spiritual benefit already ritually granted in accordance with the Decree (Prot. n. 271/19/1) of 1 November 2019 for the entire Jubilee Year, announced from 8 December 2019 to 10 December 2020, but unfortunately not celebrated in its entirety due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

The Jubilee granted for the occasion of the 100th anniversary of when the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto was constituted by Pope Benedict xv as Principal Patroness to God of all air travellers.

Certainly, the faithful, by the Churchs generous postponement, will draw good intentions and spiritual vigour to be implemented in life according to the law of the Gospel, in hierarchical communion and filial devotion to the Supreme Pontiff, the visible foundation of the Catholic Church, and to their Bishop.

Notwithstanding any disposition to the contrary.

Given in Rome, from the seat of the Apostolic Penitentiary, on 16 July 2020, memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Carmel.

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza

Major Penitentiary

Krzysztof Nykiel

Regent
Sacramento, Calif.

Tearful family members of people killed by Joseph DeAngelo assailed him Thursday for stealing away their loved ones as he escalated his attacks from burglaries and rapes to a series of horrific murders that terrorized California four decades ago.

"Today the devil loses and justice wins," Debbi Domingo McMullan, the daughter of one victim, said during the third day of a sentencing hearing for the 74-year-old man known as the Golden State Killer. She called him a "pathetic excuse of a man who will now, finally, be held accountable for his actions."

Earlier in the week, a judge heard testimony from rape victims who endured sadistic, hours-long assaults by DeAngelo, a former police officer whose serial crimes began in Northern California. He later moved to Southern California, where his rapes followed the same pattern of binding couples he surprised while they slept and assaulting the woman as the man lay helpless.

By then, his assaults routinely ended in murder and his identity remained a mystery until investigators used a new form of DNA tracking to arrest him in 2018.

DeAngelo pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges stemming from crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. A plea deal with prosecutors will spare him the death penalty when he is formally sentenced Friday to consecutive life prison sentences.

Prosecutors walked through his slayings in near-chronological order on Thursday in what one relative called a "timeline of horror"  from three early Northern California victims killed when they interfered with his assaults on women, to his 10 known Southern California murders.

DeAngelo was dubbed the Visalia Ransacker when he killed 45-year-old Claude Snelling on Sept. 11, 1975. The journalism professor in the San Joaquin Valley was slain while thwarting the attempted kidnapping of his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Hupp.

"My dad died saving my life that night and he is my hero," Happ said as she broke down in tears.

While DeAngelo was able to live a normal life with his family for all those years, her dad's killing left "a huge hole in my heart," she said, because he wasn't there to walk her down the aisle at her wedding or be a grandfather to her children.

"Little did we know that the man stalking me was actually a police officer, someone who is sworn to protect people and not to terrorize and harm people," she said.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

DeAngelo was known as the East Area Rapist by Feb. 2, 1978, when he fatally shot Katie Maggiore, 20, and Brian Maggiore, 21, as they walked their dog around their Rancho Cordova neighborhood in Sacramento County.

"You no longer live in the shadows, we all know who you are," Katie's brother, Ken Smith, told DeAngelo about his acts of "terror and evil."

"You lurked in the dark so you could prey on innocent victims," Smith said. "Well, now you are prey, DeAngelo, and you can look over your shoulder the rest of your life" in prison.

Debra Manning, 35, was raped and killed along with 44-year-old Robert Offerman on Dec. 30, 1979, in Santa Barbara County.

In a letter to the court, Manning's best friends Natasha Holliday and Roseanne Howard remembered her as a "beautiful and brilliant" doctor while blasting DeAngelo for the "'obsessive madness" that led him to beat and shoot the couple before he bizarrely ate some of their Christmas turkey leftovers.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Hong Kong  Fri, August 21, 2020 08:53 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6c333 2 World Hong-Kong,US-China,US-China-tension,US-China-Hong-Kong-tension Free

Hong Kong on Thursday accused America of using the city as a pawn in ties with China as it slammed a US decision to withdraw from three accords on extradition and taxation.

The United States formally notified the Asian financial hub on Wednesday that it had withdrawn from bilateral deals covering the surrender of fugitives, transfer of prisoners and tax exemptions on income from shipping.

Washington's move came in response to the imposition by China of a national security law in Hong Kong that critics say is an attack on freedoms in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

"These steps underscore our deep concern regarding Beijing's decision to impose the national security law, which has crushed the freedoms of the people of Hong Kong," the US Department of State said.

But a Hong Kong government spokesperson on Thursday said abandoning the deals created further "troubles in the China-US relationship, using Hong Kong as a pawn", and "should be condemned by the international community".

He said the decision reflects a "disrespect for bilateralism and multilateralism" under the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Beijing also criticized the "wrong actions of the US", saying China has decided Hong Kong would suspend its agreement with the US on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular press briefing: "Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs... China urges the US to immediately correct its wrong decision."

The US announcement followed an earlier decision by Trump to revoke the preferential trade status afforded Hong Kong under American law, as Beijing clamps down on the territory after huge and often violent pro-democracy protests last year.

Hong Kong authorities said the three agreements terminated on Wednesday were negotiated "in good faith to benefit the peoples and businesses of both sides".

The spokesperson added that ending the tax exemptions would increase the operating costs of shipping companies.

"It will hamper the development of the shipping sector between Hong Kong and the US, and is in nobody's interest," he said.

Earlier this month Washington imposed sanctions on Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam along with 10 other senior officials in the city, and criminalized any US financial transactions with the group.

It also required goods imported from Hong Kong to be marked as "made in China" rather than "made in Hong Kong" as previously.
Los Angeles: Hollywood star Ben Affleck will make a comeback as caped crusader Batman in actor Ezra Miller-led 'The Flash' movie.

The film will feature Miller's Barry Allen appearing in parallel dimensions and meeting different versions of DC's heroes

Director of the Warner Bros movie, Andy Muschietti, revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that Affleck was given the script last week and he has agreed to join the project.

"His Batman has a dichotomy that is very strong, which is his masculinity, because of the way he looks and the imposing figure that he has, and his jawline, but he's also very vulnerable. He knows how to deliver from the inside out, that vulnerability. He just needs a story that allows him to bring that contrast, that balance," Muschietti said in an interview.

The director said that the 48-year-old actor's Batman will have a strong emotional impact on the storyline.

"He's a very substantial part of the emotional impact of the movie. The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck's Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven't seen before."

"I'm glad to be collaborating with someone who has been on both sides of the camera, too. He understands," he added.

Apart from Affleck, veteran actor Michael Keaton, who played Batman/Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton's "1989 'Batman' and its 1992 sequel 'Batman Returns', is also set to appear in 'The Flash'.

Affleck made his debut as the Batman in 2016 with Zack Snyder's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and then followed it up with "Justice League".

He also made a cameo appearance as Batman in David Ayer's 2016 film "Suicide Squad".

The actor was planning to direct and star in a standalone Batman film for Warner Bros. but stepped down from helming in 2017, handing over the project to Matt Reeves.

He announced early last year that he will no more play the superhero, with the role going to Robert Pattinson.

Reeves' 'The Batman' was in the midst of shooting when the coronavirus lockdown hit, and production is set to resume later this year.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Moldovan farmers abruptly ended their week-long protest in the Eastern European nation's capital on Friday, saying an ad hoc council will negotiate drought relief funding on their behalf

CHISINAU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2020) Moldovan farmers abruptly ended their week-long protest in the Eastern European nation's capital on Friday, saying an ad hoc council will negotiate drought relief funding on their behalf.

Farmers drove tractors to a bus station in Chisinau last Thursday to raise awareness of extreme weather destroying their crops. The government initially promised to pay $60 for a hectare in damages but increased the offer to $90 after an outcry from food producers, who want twice as much for the spoiled crops.

Farmers said they had to go home to tend to the land but were ready to resume the protest if their conditions were not met.

"They are waiting for us at home. The land is waiting. There is urgent work that needs to be done. But it does not mean we are giving up," a protester told Sputnik.

A coordination council is staying behind to keep the pressure on the government and secure tax breaks, grants-in-aid and credit restructuring.

A warmer and dryer winter followed by a spell of hail in May and a hot summer have greatly damaged the prospects for a good harvest, such as of corn, sunflower, sugar beet and grains. Up to 80 percent of Moldova's territory has been affected by drought.
When the COVID-19 shutdown started, Jim Holton found himself with a lot of excess beer. Some of it was his breweries Iron Horse IPA, some of it Cow Catcher Red.

By the time the shutdown ended, all of it had something in common: it was past the date it could get sold to consumers.

One thing it also had in common is that it contained alcohol, which in high-enough concentrations is powerful enough to deactivate the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

So, he teamed up with Grand Traverse Distillery, in Traverse City, and distilled the 600 gallons of it down to 55 gallons of 90 percent liquid sanitizer.

Friday, he handed it all out to local schools and one of Mt. Pleasants long-term care facilities.

We had it, why not use it, he said, shortly after loading the last of it into a truck bound for Mt. Pleasant Public Schools.

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Every Friday, The Citizen features a pet available for adoption from the Finger Lakes SPCA of Central New York. This week, we spotlight Paulie.

AGE: 6 months

BREED: Domestic shorthair, tuxedo/black and white

COMMENTS: Paulie and his litter mates arrived at the shelter as stray kittens. They have grown up in the shelter, have had all of the good things that our shelter cats and kittens get and are more than ready to move on. Paulie's sister, Mary, has already gone home. Paulie and his brother, Petie, are still waiting for that special family to find them.

Paulie is approximately 6 months old. He is fully vaccinated (rabies, distemper, feline kennel cough), has been tested for FIV/FeLV and is negative, and he is neutered. He is good to go as far as his veterinary care is concerned.

We'll let Paulie tell you about himself. Here is his interview.

Q. Who is your best friend?

A. That would be my brother, Petie! And I had another BFF, that was my sister, Mary. Yes, Petie, Paulie and Mary! We made an awesome trio. Mary's adopted, but Petie and I are waiting very impatiently!

Q. If you could visit any place in the world where would that be?

A. Well, listen to this! I just discovered that there is a travel agency called Black Cat Travels. They specialize in travel to the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii and Tahiti. I think they cater mostly to people, but I'm going to check them out and if cats are allowed, Tahiti is my preferred destination. My dishes are packed!

Q. If you could have a job, what would that be?

A. Well, because I am a very friendly guy and handsome to boot, I would like a job as a maitre d' in a posh hotel. I would only work in a pet-friendly hotel and would welcome and assist those lodgers who arrive with their cats (and dogs, too!). If you hear of any openings, would you please let me know?

Q. How would you describe yourself?

A. In a word, "extraordinary." I am very cute. I am very friendly and playful! I get along well with my fellow felines and my favorite thing of all is visiting with anyone who might happen to come into our room. I am also a very fastidious guy with amazing potty habits. I guess that sums it up. You just can't go wrong with me.

Q. Do you have an interesting fact to share today?

A. I do! Let me share just some of the many interesting facts about my whiskers. First, they are awesome! Check 'em out! But besides being an amazing fashion statement, cat whiskers perform many functions. Our whiskers are highly sensitive and can detect slight changes in air current, which helps me maneuver in the dark. Also, my emotions are expressed through my whiskers. When my whiskers are hanging loosely, I am relaxed. And when my whiskers are facing forward, I am curious about something or I am hunting for something. I could go on  there are lots of fun and interesting facts about feline whiskers, and this is just a sample!

Q. Do you have any advice for our Citizen readers?

A. I do! Aug. 17 was National Black Cat Appreciation Day. My shelter people think every day should be, but that's for a different interview. So, in recognition of all black cats in the world, we are having an adoption special. Through the end of August, all black and mostly black cats will be available for adoption for half of the adoption fee. That's a real deal and a steal! So, come on by, pick up an adoption application, get approved and get ready for the best experience of your life  especially if you are lucky enough to adopt me! Thank you and much love and many purrs. Paulie 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.

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New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - August 20, 2020) - FingerMotion, Inc. (OTCQB: FNGR) (the "Company" or "FingerMotion"), a mobile services and data company, is pleased to announce recent and continued expansion of its Portal Sales & Marketing Management business through its contractually controlled company, Shanghai JiuGe Information Technology Co., Ltd. ("JiuGe"), in cooperation with China Mobile Limited, the leading mobile telecommunications carrier in China.

Specifically, JiuGe has been awarded Portal Sales Cooperation Agreements covering two additional China Mobile online portals which service the Chifeng and Henan Provinces in China. The agreements call for JiuGe to jointly build and manage China Mobile's leading online stores which are located on the Tmall.com portal.

Over the course of the past year, JiuGe has demonstrated its ability to successfully execute its digital marketing and online promotion by marketing phones, phone plans, data, and SIM cards to both Chifeng City, located in Inner Mongolia with a population of 4.3 million people (source: Wikipedia), and Henan Province, which represents the 5th largest economy within China and has a population of 100 million people (source: Wikipedia). Unlike the United States, where one carrier has a nationwide portal, the telecom portals in China are regionalized to compensate for population considerations, thereby avoiding overwhelming network loads on the portals. For a U.S. comparison, such would be equivalent to having AT&T host its primary store on the Amazon.com portal.

"The two additional portal contracts awarded to JiuGe represents a further deepening and growth of our strategic relationship with China Mobile. The areas we expect to see the most synergies are in an upgraded product layout, growing market share, and brand awareness. Our shareholders should take note that these two agreements are a testament to the continued dedication and commitment from our JiuGe team and we look forward to sharing even more developments in the near future," said CEO, Martin Shen.

Story continues

About Tmall Portal

Tmall is considered a China Retail Marketplace under various subsidiaries of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) and is the world's largest third-party online and mobile commerce platform for brands and retailers, with a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of 3.2 billion Yuan in fiscal 2020. Tmall Global allows overseas brands and retailers to reach Chinese consumers and is the largest import e-commerce platform in China (based on GMV in the twelve months ended March 31, 2020, according to Analysis, a research institution). As of March 31, 2020, there were over 250,000 brands and merchants on Tmall, including 80% of the consumer brands among the Forbes Top 100 World's Most Valuable Brands for 2019. Tmall encourages its merchants to make product quality a priority and has established various safeguard mechanisms and requires merchants to make a significant deposit (ranges from RMB 10,000 to RMB 1,000,000 per storefront). Tmall is committed to protecting intellectual property rights and eliminating counterfeit merchandise and fictitious activities. (The foregoing information on Tmall was obtained from the Form 20-F for Alibaba Group Holding Limited for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, filed with the SEC on July 9, 2020, at pages 8, 71, 94 and 95.)

About China Mobile Limited

As a pioneer and market leader in the world's largest mobile market, China Mobile aims to maintain its leading position in 4G development and lead the commercialization of 5G technologies. As of March 31, 2020, China Mobile had approximately 946 million mobile customers, including approximately 752 million 4G customers and approximately 32 million 5G package customers. China Mobile's revenue from telecommunications services alone was 674 billion RMB as of December 31, 2019. (The foregoing information on China Mobile was obtained from the Form 20-F for China Mobile Limited for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, filed with the SEC on April 28, 2020, at pages 25, 26 and 50.) In addition, as at the end of May 2020, China Mobile had 55.6 million 5G customers (source: RCRWirelessNews Intelligence on All Things Wireless article dated June 23, 2020 by Joan Pedro Tomas).

About Shanghai JiuGe Information Technology

Shanghai JiuGe Information Technology Co., Ltd. is an internet technology innovation enterprise, adhering to the development concepts of "innovation, pragmatic, integrity." JiuGe is committed, through sound technology solutions and high-quality market resources, to providing customers with professional online marketing and information data services, to help clients achieve business success.

About FingerMotion, Inc.

FingerMotion is an evolving technology company with a core competency in mobile payment and recharge platform solutions in China. It is one of only a few companies in China with access to wholesale rechargeable minutes from China's largest mobile phone providers that can be resold to consumers. As the user base of its primary business continues to grow, the Company is developing additional value-added technologies to market to its users. The vision of the Company is to rapidly grow the user base through organic means and have this growth develop into an ecosystem of users with high engagement rates utilizing its innovative applications. Developing a highly engaged ecosystem of users would strategically position the Company to onboard larger customer bases. FingerMotion eventually hopes to serve over 1 billion users in the China market and eventually expand the model to other regional markets.

For further information e-mail: info@fingermotion.com

718-269-3366

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements give our current expectations of forecasts of future events. All statements other than statements of current or historical fact contained in this release, including statements regarding our future financial position, business strategy, new products, budgets, liquidity, cash flows, projected costs, regulatory approvals or the impact of any laws or regulations applicable to us, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "should," "estimate," "expect," "hope," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "will," and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations about future events. While we believe these expectations are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. Our actual future results may differ materially from those discussed or implied in our forward-looking statements for various reasons. Factors that could contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: international, national and local general economic and market conditions; demographic changes; the ability of the Company to sustain, manage or forecast its growth; the ability of the Company to manage its VIE contracts; the ability of the Company to maintain its relationships and licenses in China; adverse publicity; competition and changes in the Chinese telecommunications market; fluctuations and difficulty in forecasting operating results; business disruptions, such as technological failures and/or cybersecurity breaches; and the other factors discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov ) . Given these risks and uncertainties, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this release are made only as of the date hereof. We do not undertake any obligation to update any such statements or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any of such statements to reflect future events or developments.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62182
Froyen said he is not expecting anyone to be caught or punished for the act, but thought it was important to have the vandalism committed to public record with the report. He said it is the first act of vandalism since he has been at the church, but said he is trying to turn it into something positive.
China has been sending its PLA Air Force into the Senkaku islands to test the Japanese defenses in the stretch of the East China Sea. Now, the Chinese are getting more adventurous as they perceive their forces superior.

For over a year, the Chinese have done these intrusions regularly, but with expanding naval resources and not too many nations want to stand against it. Japan is one of those who have made it clear it will not back down.

It is of particular interest to China, the Senkakus which possesses a store of oil resources located between Japan, China, Taiwan which is also a strategic location as well. These islands are part of a recent study by Mercedes Trent, who is connected to the Federation of American Scientists, reported Forbes.

Most air-defense identification zone (ADIZ) lie in-between international airspace and the airspace controlled by any nation. This border will stretch twelve miles from its coastal points. If any unknown aircraft will intrude in the control zone, the reaction is interceptors are sent to ID the intruder, making sure the intruders do not have any hostile intent, said Trent.

The nature of ADIZs can be confusing when those of contesting countries will overlap in some areas. For example, in the South China Sea, it can be confusing with the ADIZs of China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Forming a complex puzzle that like in the Senkakus is exactly under Japan's and China's ADIZs, noted CSIS.

Also read: India-Japan Naval Exercises Ramp up Push Back Against Chinese Navy

She added when Beijing stated its ADIZ in the East China Sea in 2013, that the motive of China according to experts is to lay greater claim of the ECS that will allow more control. Another is the Japanese controlled Senkakus could be claimed. China was manipulating factors to get the facts on its side, but Tokyo did not have any of China's maneuvering.

Endgame for the CCP is taking the Senkakus Isle as Chinese territory with foreign policy. Sending flights of planes to confuse the Japanese is part of a crooked design as well on the Chinese. In the meantime, it is unlikely that the Chinese can even lay an inch on the disputed islands. Most of the flyovers are just for training when hostilities will happen. Beijing is lighting a powder key slowly.

According to Chinese China's foreign ministry, they told CNN that the PLA AF has been conforming to international law and international practice without malice to other countries.

As China's PLA AF and its sorties attempt to seek out weak spots in the Senkaku Islands, it shows Beijing's ill-intent.

Allegedly, China has a right to do flyovers in the disputed islands despite the objections of the Japanese. With the Japan ADIZ overlapping the area, the Chinese are observant of the defenses and the reactions. Chinese vessels and submarines conduct a silent war on Japan as well.

The total number of flights that have been recorded in seven years in the ADIZs of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan is 4,400 sorties. All indications show the Senkakus and Japan is the main target with 675 overflights done in 2019.

All these Chinese flights are usually intercepted by the F-15 of the Japanese Air Force, but mostly the U.S. Fighter is used because of its capabilities.

Related article: Japan's Dispute Over Chinese Ships in East China Sea Near Senkakus Will Get U.S. Support

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Mr Joseph Kofi Adda, the Minister of Aviation, has assured that major safety challenges at the Wa Airport would be addressed to guarantee the safety of flights.



These safety challenges include the interference of Radio and Telecommunication masts with airline communication systems and navigation service devices.



The others are the inability of aircrafts to refuel at the airport; the need for two additional aprons and a new control tower.



Mr Kofi Adda, who visited the Wa Airport, said the challenges must be addressed to ensure the airport met the standards set by the Civil Aviation Authority and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).



The Aviation Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Navrongo Central Constituency in the Upper East Region, said because of the interference, the airport management had reduced the length of the runway to 70 metres to enable landing of aircraft.



He said on the relocation of the masts would enable the airport to have the full length of 2,000 metres to ease the difficulty associated with the landing of aircraft.



He said the Ministry would work with the National Communication Authority (NCA), adding that by the end of August 2020, they would be clear on the timelines for the relocation.



He said he had given his commitment to parliament that Ministry will undertake the relocation if the owners of the masts failed to do it on their own.



However, the Ministry would charge them for the cost of the removal.



On the communication system interference, Mr Kofi Adda said the challenge made it difficult for the pilots to communicate well with the civil aviation navigation officials at the airport.



He noted that the current Apron was small for its purpose, saying reports from the Ghana Air Force was that they could not park their helicopters there when an aircraft was coming to land, hence the need to provide two additional Aprons.



The Aviation Minister noted that the plan to improve safety at the airport was part of President Nana Akufo-Addos agenda to provide infrastructure to enhance effective and efficient operations.



Mr Kofi Adda said the commercial airlines stopped flying to the region due to COVID-19 and the lack of passengers.



He expressed hope that when the government reopens the airport for international airlines by early next month, passengers would be available for the airlines to resume operations.



On encroachment at the Wa Airport, the Aviation Minister noted that the Ministry was in touch with the Regional Lands Commission to ensure they were removed.

Source: GNA









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Rameswaram:

Fishermen in nearby Pamban went on an indefinite boycott on Thursday demanding the release of 50 of their colleagues, arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy in the last two months, for allegedly entering its waters illegally.

Rameswaram Fishermen Association president P Sesuraja said the strike would continue till the release of the fishermen, who were arrested in seperate incidents for allegedly poaching off the coast of Katchatheevu, Neduntheevu and Thalaimannar in the last two months.

They also sought the release of 127 boats in the custody of the island nation.

Meanwhile, about 300 fishermen from Pamban gathered near the bus terminus and staged a protest condemning the continuing arrests of the state's fishermen. The agitators raised slogans against the Lankan navy and the government for its actions, Sesuraja said.

The fishermen urged the Central and state governments to take immediate steps for the release of the fishermen and their boats. The Sri Lankan navy had yesterday alone arrested 30 Tamil Nadu fishermen on charges of fishing in their waters.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about local measures for flood control, disaster relief and post-flood production recovery at a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground with higher elevation that functions as a safe haven from river floods, in Funan County in Fuyang, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 18, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

HEFEI, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to flood-stricken areas this week has once again demonstrated the commitment to putting people first in governance.

Inspecting east China's Anhui Province, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visited flood-affected residents, checked the progress made with the post-disaster business recovery and consoled families of those who died fighting floods.

After heavy rain triggered floods in many parts of southern China this summer, Xi has stressed giving priority to safeguarding people's lives and property.

He delivered instructions to guide flood control efforts, convened high-level meetings on flood control and disaster relief, before personally visiting flood-stricken areas in Anhui.

LIVES MATTER

Under the blazing sun, Xi on Tuesday afternoon walked into the fields and visited local residents living on a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground that functions as a safe haven from river floods.

Local residents told Xi that they have access to stable power and water supplies, and have daily necessities delivered to them. As the floodwater receded, they have also resumed farm work.

"I have always been concerned about the people in flood-stricken areas," Xi said, adding that he felt relieved when he saw people were safe, hopeful and had their livelihoods protected.

While visiting a local luggage company, Xi also learned about the post-disaster resumption of business.

On Wednesday, Xi met family members of those who died fighting floods when he visited a floodwater diversion zone in the county of Feidong.

Xi consoled the family members suffering from the pain of bereavement.

FIGHTING SPIRIT

The people's fighting spirit is a powerful weapon against floods.

During the inspection, Xi lauded the will and solidarity the people in the flood-stricken areas have demonstrated when fighting the disaster, and praised the military for rising to the challenge.

As long as our Party unites the people and relies on the people, we can overcome all difficulties and challenges ahead, Xi said.

As of Wednesday, dispatches totaling more than 1.2 million head counts from the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police Force and more than 300,000 from the militia had been made in flood control missions in 17 provincial-level regions. They evacuated more than 170,000 residents, handled over 3,900 breaches and piping emergencies, and reinforced embankments of more than 900 km.

On Wednesday, Xi called people who died fighting the floods heroes and said they deserve respect from everyone.

"Every time a calamity occurs, heroes charge forward. This embodies the great spirit of the Chinese nation," Xi said.

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, checks the water situation of the Chaohu Lake at a section of a dam in Feidong County of Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 19, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

MAN AND NATURE

Besides their fighting spirit, the Chinese people now battle disasters with better infrastructure and more mature systems.

In Anhui, Xi underscored the importance of improving China's capability to prevent and combat disasters in its effort to build a modern socialist country in an all-round way.

But Xi also said the struggle against disasters is one that must respect the laws of nature.

The Chinese nation has been fighting against natural disasters for thousands of years and has accumulated valuable experience. And the fight will go on, he said.

Inspecting the water situation of Chaohu Lake on Wednesday, Xi also underlined the need to live in harmony with nature, calling on people not to compete for development space with nature.

"In this fight, we should respect nature, conform to the laws of nature and live in harmony with nature," he said.
After the Supreme Court nod, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday started its probe into the Sushant Singh Rajput death case in the city as it collected relevant documents and reports from the Mumbai police, officials said.

A special investigation team of the CBI, consisting of officers, other personnel and also forensic experts, landed in Mumbai on Thursday evening to take over the probe into the high- profile case which has received much media attention.

Getting down to business, CBI officials on Friday morning brought Rajput's cook for inquiry at DRDO and IAF guest house in suburban Santa Cruz, where the visiting probe team members are staying.

A vehicle, in which the cook was seen sitting next to a CBI official, was spotted entering the guest house complex.

The probe team will record statements of people connected with the case, sources said.

It will also scan financial transactions of the 34- year-old actor, who was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14, they said.

Another team of the CBI, led by a superintendent-rank officer, reached the Bandra Police Station, where an ADR (accidental death report) was registered after the alleged suicide by the actor, an official said.

The team collected a case diary of the ADR and other important documents related to the investigation of the case, which included autopsy and forensic reports, he said.

The CBI team also met DCP Abhishek Trimukhe, who was heading the Mumbai police probe team, the official said.

The CBI squad will also visit Rajput's flat in Mont Blanc building where he was found hanging, he said.

The team will recreate the crime scene at the spot during the investigation, the sources said.
There is no inmate with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infection at the three prisons in Delhi, prisons director-general (DG) Sandeep Goel said, after the last of the two Covid-19 positive patients was declared recovered on Thursday.

However, two members of the Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP), the force that provides security inside the prison, are yet to recover from the disease, Goel said.

The three prison complexes -- Tihar, Mandoli and Rohini -- have reported 232 Covid-19 cases till date. These include 63 prisoners, 87 jail staff and 82 members of the TSP, Goel said.

Two inmates have succumbed to the virus infection so far. Both were senior citizens jailed in Mandoli, the prisons DG said.

The dead included a 1984 riots convict Mahender Yadav, who had succumbed to the disease at a private hospital in Dwarka during treatment.

The officer said of the 63 inmates, only two were detected positive this month -- both on August 3. Now, both of them have recovered, leaving us with no Covid-19 positive inmates. But two staffers continue to remain infected while the remaining 167 have recovered, he said.

Tihar jail is the most populated prison complex in the country and houses around 18,000 prisoners. Since March, around 4,000 prisoners have been released on interim bail and emergency parole in a bid to reduce overcrowding and to contain the spread of Covid-19. Many of them have since returned to jails after they were allegedly found involved in crimes.

Prison officials said they have managed to contain the spread of Covid-19 among prisoners by implementing measures such as isolating all new prisoners for 14 days before lodging them with the others. In March, the prisons department had also suspended the bi-weekly family visits of all prisoners. All court hearings are also being held via video conferencing.

The prisons department has also started a virtual visit (video conferencing) facility with family members in Tihar. This facility will soon be extended to all 15 sub-jails of the three jail complexes.
AEOI: Iran has taken great steps towards 190k-SWU uranium enrichment

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 10:34 AM

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says it has taken "great steps" towards enriching uranium at the level of 190,000 separative work units (SWUs).

In a post on its Twitter account on Thursday, the AEOI said, "Whether snapback is triggered or the current status continues, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has taken great steps in providing 190,000 SWUs. The authority of the nuclear industry remains."

SWU is the standard measure of the effort required to separate isotopes of uranium during an enrichment process. One SWU is equivalent to one kilogram of separative work.

The announcement comes as the US has intensifies a push to kill a 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers.

The administration of US President Donald Trump is seeking to trigger the so-called snapback of anti-Iran sanctions at the UN by claiming that it remains a participant in the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The new US push came after it failed in its bid at the UNSC to extend the Iranian arms embargo set to expire in October under UN Security Council Resolution Resolution 2231 that endorsed the JCPOA.

This is while Washington withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and reinstated its unilateral economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of Resolution 2231.

In response to Washington's exit and the ensuing failure of the remaining European parties to the deal to live up to their contractual obligations, Iran suspended some of its commitments under the JCPOA.

A month after the US withdrawal, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei ordered the AEOI to make preparations for a potential collapse of the JCPOA, including getting ready for enriching uranium up to a level of 190,000 SWU without any delay.

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Then, one by one, the rest of his family in the home also got sick and were diagnosed with COVID-19. Everyone except Victoria was cleared to go home about a week later. Gusman said she was in New York visiting her mother and did not become ill.
Youve got your hardware ready for the new school year, and todays the day to stock up on must-have software. Right now, Newegg has an excellent deal for the student in your life. The retailer is selling Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019 together with Norton 360 Standard for one year for 1 PC for $80Remove non-product link. Thats an incredible value considering the Office package is usually $150 by itself. Both software packages are available for PC and Mac. The price will be shown once you add the bundle to your cart.

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019 is a standalone, one-time software purchase unlike the annual subscription of Office 365. Home and Student 2019 comes with Word, Excel, and PowerPointthe classic and essential Microsoft Office appsavailable for a single computer. This offer is restricted to the North American region for activation and installation.

Norton 360 Standard is an excellent antivirus suite. In addition to solid protection and Nortons smart firewall, it provides a number of extra features,se including VPN access, so-called Dark Web monitoring, password manager, 10GB of secure cloud backup, and webcam protection.

This is an overall excellent bundle for anyone who needs Microsoft Office and some solid third-party protection for their computer heading into the new school year.

[Todays deal: Microsoft Office Home and Student 2019 and Norton 360 Standard for $80 on Newegg.Remove non-product link]
Ethical drugs are the main distribution channel in the local pharma market, accounting for around 70 per cent, Photo Le Toan

The Ministry of Healths (MoH) Drug Administration of Vietnam (DAV) on August 10 issued Circular No.15/2020/TT-BYT on the list of drugs for procurement through bidding, the list of drugs for concentrated procurement, and the list of drugs for procurement through price negotiation, with some changes aiming to lower prices of brand-name drugs.

An official at the DAV said that with the new rules, most branded drugs will be added to the third list for procurement through price negotiation.

In the past, just eight brand-name drugs were on the list, but now the number will increase to 700, he told VIR.

Under Circular 15, pharmaceuticals subject to price negotiation include brand-name drugs announced by the MoH, and wholly produced in a country considered a stringent regulatory authority (SRA).

They must have at least two registration certificates of marketing authorisation of generic Group 1 drugs.

As per the new rules, there are two schemes for procurement of branded items: price negotiation, and open bidding in Group 1 of generic pharmaceuticals under Circular No.15/2019/TT-BYT dated July 2019 regulating drug tenders at public healthcare facilities.

Specifically, brand-name pharmaceuticals with many generic drugs in replacement in Group 1 failing in procurement via price negotiation will be included in tender of that group.

The new issuance amending some regulations on tenders in Circular 15 of 2019 is in line with the governments direction to increase local access to quality medicines and to reduce prices, focusing on brand-name drugs.

Previously in Circular 15, branded drugs or equivalents were named in the specific tender. In-patient and off-patient pharmaceuticals (OPPs) are not classified as different by the MoH and are still included in tenders for brand-name drugs or equivalent drugs with costs 10-20 times higher than generic products.

Meanwhile, tenders of generic drugs are divided into five groups, with Group 1 including drugs manufactured entirely by a manufacturing line satisfying EU-GMP requirements or equivalent requirements in a country that is considered an SRA.

Taking effect from October 6 and replacing Circular No.09/2016/TT-BYT from 2016, the new rule is not good news for multinational corporations (MNCs) and members of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnams Pharma Group such as Novartis, AstraZeneca, and GSK advocate price negotiation.

With the new issuance, they may have to reduce prices to compete with other generic Group 1 drugs, meaning that their future profits may be reduced.

Industry insiders said that the big blow may hit MNCs which focus on OPPs, with many generic drugs in replacement in Group 1. They are mostly from Eastern Europe and Asia.

According to statistics from the DAV, brand-name drugs make up an average of 26 per cent of total health insurance spending. The rate is 47 per cent at central hospitals and 26 per cent at provincial ones.

MNCs often rake in big profits because their brand-name pharmaceuticals go to the hospital system or the ethical drugs channel (ETC), the most profitable segment.

At present, the ETC is the main distribution channel in the local pharma market, accounting for around 70 per cent, while the remainder of the market comprises of over-the-counter or non-description drugs. Foreign players hold the majority of the ETC market due to ownership of brand-name drugs, which operate in a monopolistic manner and usually sell at high prices.
He collected five tonnes of fire gear for Mexico, donated supplies to a couple of dozen departments in the Maritimes, and now P.E.I. firefighter Kory MacAusland is helping collect equipment for firefighters in Beirut.

"I'm just a small piece in a very big puzzle," said MacAusland, who is part of the organization Canadian Bomberos, a group with a mission to help and provide gear to disadvantaged firefighters throughout Mexico, Central and South America.

"If you can help, why not?"

It's been over two weeks since an explosion rocked the city of Beirut, killing more than 170 people, injuring thousands and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

The blast  linked to ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse  was the largest in Lebanon's history and could be felt up to nine kilometres away. It flattened buildings, shattered windows, killed 10 firefighters and destroyed fire equipment.

Willing to help

"Last week I got a call from Firefighters Without Borders  asking if we could help," said MacAusland.

"It was a pretty convenient time. I was just leaving New Brunswick, where someone had donated a shipping container full of gear."

I couldn't imagine losing 10 firefighters from our hall in something like that.  Kory MacAusland, P.E.I. firefighter

MacAusland also received a donation from the Summerside fire department that he picked up Wednesday evening.

"I got a call from the chief, Ron Enman, and he said, 'How big of a truck do you got?'" MacAusland said with a laugh.

"Got there and little more than I expected, but we got it all on."

Sheehan Desjardins/CBC

MacAusland said the supplies are cleaned and checked over. Sometimes, he said the equipment hasn't even seen a fire, but in Canada you can't use gear older than 10 years.

"We're lucky enough that there's enough people, good people, out there that [say]: 'Hey, you need help? Here's some gear we can donate.'"

Story continues

'Firefighters are family'

So far, MacAusland estimates they have collected about 1,000 sets of gear including hoses, rescue baskets and pumps, but they are still short on hoods, gloves and medical supplies.

MacAusland said Micmac Fire and Safety Source, Island First Aid Services and Nova Fire Equipment have agreed to give them special pricing on products. Islanders interested in helping out can purchase supplies from those groups, which will then deliver directly to the Canadian Bomberos.

More information is also available on the group's Facebook page.

The first shipment for Lebanon is set to be loaded on Monday and the rest will leave the Island on Sept. 18. MacAusland expects it will take around two and a half weeks to arrive.

All the donations are being sent in memory of the 10 Beirut firefighters who lost their lives in the explosion.

"I couldn't imagine losing 10 firefighters from our hall in something like that. That would be probably your darkest day," said MacAusland.

"It doesn't matter where you go in the world, firefighters are family."

More from CBC P.E.I.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday seeking directions to start live-streaming of the proceedings in the suo motu contempt case against senior advocate Prashant Bhushan.

The petition, filed by advocate Amritpal Singh Khalsa, said that the print and digital media has been glorifying Bhushan in their reporting and therefore urged for a live-telecast and video recording of the proceedings.

The contempt case against Bhushan will have a substantial effect as far as the Bar and the Bench are concerned, not only in India but across the world, the plea contended.

READ| Didn't tweet in fit of absent mindedness, expressed my bona fide belief, Bhushan tells SC

"The instant contempt case is one of the most sensational cases ever since the inception of the Supreme Court, the projection of Prashant Bhushan's case at the hands of print and digital media is nothing but glorifying him and his acts which tend to lower the respect and repute of the institution," the plea submitted.

It said that there is a "lobby" which has targeted Chief Justices in the past and of which Bhushan is one of the founding members.

The lobby aims to destabilise the institution of the Supreme Court and "criticise to the lowest possible level when favourable orders are not obtained from the court", the plea alleged.

Notably, the Supreme Court yesterday reserved its order on the suo motu criminal contempt of court proceedings initiated against lawyer Prashant Bhushan for his two tweets in June concerning present and former Chief Justices of India.

Earlier, the top court had held Prashant Bhushan guilty of contempt of court in a different contempt case for accusing past Chief Justices of India (CJIs) of involvement in corruption.
We've lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So before you buy or sell Sound Energy plc (LON:SOU), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.

What Is Insider Buying?

It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required.

We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. 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'.

View our latest analysis for Sound Energy

Sound Energy Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single purchase by an insider was when insider Brian Mitchener bought UK108k worth of shares at a price of UK0.019 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at around the current price of UK0.02. That means they have been optimistic about the company in the past, though they may have changed their mind. If someone buys shares at well below current prices, it's a good sign on balance, but keep in mind they may no longer see value. The good news for Sound Energy share holders is that an insider was buying at near the current price. Brian Mitchener was the only individual insider to buy during the last year. We note that Brian Mitchener was both the biggest buyer and the biggest seller.

You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

Story continues

There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Insider Ownership of Sound Energy

Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Our information indicates that Sound Energy insiders own about UK74k worth of shares. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. This level of insider ownership is notably low, and not very encouraging.

What Might The Insider Transactions At Sound Energy Tell Us?

The fact that there have been no Sound Energy insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. While we have no worries about the insider transactions, we'd be more comfortable if they owned more Sound Energy stock. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. For example, Sound Energy has 4 warning signs (and 1 which is concerning) we think you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Representative Image

Nearly two weeks after the Delhi government rolled out its electric vehicle policy, the national capital is now set to have 1,000 electric buses with subsidy support from the Centre. Delhi Transport minister Kailash Gahlot reportedly had a meeting with Union Power Minister RK Singh wherein they discussed the ramping up of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in the city.



Had a fruitful meeting today with Honble Minister of Power @RajKSinghIndia and other stake holders. Heartfelt thanks & gratitude for your appreciation of Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy & support for successful implementation.

 Kailash Gahlot (@kgahlot) August 20, 2020

"Had a fruitful meeting today with Hon'ble Minister of Power RK Singh and other stake holders. Heartfelt thanks & gratitude for your appreciation of Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy & support for successful implementation," Gahlot tweeted on August 20.

A Delhi government statement quoting Gahlot noted that Singh had also assured to consider subsidies for 1,000 electric buses in the city.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had on August 7 launched the 'Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy' under which a waiver of registration fee and road tax, and incentives of up to Rs 1.5 lakh for new cars in the national capital are some benefits being offered.

As part of the EV policy, the Kejriwal-led government also plans to set up 200 charging stations in a year to ensure that people driving EVs can get a charging station within the radius of three kilometers. Also, in a first-of-its kind move, a "scrapping incentive" will be made available.]

(With inputs from PTI)
Lifestyle partner of the youth realme Philippines dares to disrupt the entry-level price segment yet again, this time with a bona fide battery beast, the realme C15.

realme C15 is PHs first smartphone with 6,000mAh and 18W Quick Charge

A trailblazer in the battery department, the realme C15 packs the worlds first power combo of a 6,000mAh battery and 18W Quick Charge. The large-capacity battery is ideal for heavy smartphone users such as online learners, sellers and content creators who rely on their device for digital-heavy interactions.

This latest smartphone from realme also features an eight-core processor, 6.5in LCD fullscreen with high screen-to-body ratio and ultra-wide quad cameras with a stylish geometric gradient design, making it another smartphone ready to deliver a Dare to Leap experience to young customers.

Staying safe at home has pushed digital-centric activities to the forefront of peoples daily lives even more: We stay connected, informed and entertained through online platforms. We launch the realme C15 today to accompany Filipinoswhether they be students taking online classes, online sellers reaching out to their market through livestreams or content creators sharing snippets of their daily lives. Let the realme C15 supply you with the power you need, shares realme Philippines VP for Marketing Austine Huang.

The launch of the latest realme C-series device is also one of the highlights of the monthlong realme Fanfest. With the launch of the realme C15, realme reflects its continuous optimization of its C-series to provide more value-experience products to every Filipino. The realme C15 further broadens realme Philippines growing lineup of smartphones with high quality, outstanding battery life, excellent ultra-large display and colorful designs, fortifying its position as the best entry-level smartphone choice for young users.

Dare to do more with realme C15s ultra-long battery life

Do more with a smartphone that has the power to let users do more, whether these activities are for completing school work, meeting deadlines at work, attending to business online, or keeping in touch with family and friends. The realme C15 supports 46 hours of continuous calls, 28 hours of YouTube and a standby time of up to 57 days. In its most power-saving state Super Power Saving Mode the phone can be on standby for up to 2.9 days and support 1.73 hours of YouTube and 2.45 hours of call with only 5 percent battery.

The phone also features APP Quick Freeze, which can reduce idle background app power usage; Screen Battery Optimization, which lowers some display effects to increase the battery life; and Sleep Standby Optimization, which allows the phone to work in a lower battery-consuming mode. All these give users the best smartphone battery life experience there is.

Besides allowing users to do more with a large-capacity battery, realme Philippines ensures the safety of the users with the realme C15s fireproof back cover. The phone incorporates a power monitoring sensor and a temperature monitoring sensor to automatically check the thermal state of the smartphone, eliminating users worry about battery explosions or other accidents during extensive use.

The realme C15s 18W Quick Charge feature charges the battery in full in just 2 hours or 1,500mAh power every 30 minutes. Even with only 25 percent battery left on Super Power Saving Mode, users can still watch YouTube for about 8 hours.

As the realme C15 is OTG-ready, it can charge other mobile phones and AIoT products attached to it as well as transfer files.

Dare to be more productive with realme C15s features

Designed to be a capable tech partner for everyday use, the realme C15 is equipped with a 2.3GHz Helio G35 octa-core processor. Its super reliable performance guarantees no lags and slowdowns no matter how many apps and games users run simultaneously.

The realme C15 uses the new realme User Interface (UI) based on Android 10, featuring new visual effects, icons, wallpapers and animations specially designed for young people.

The phones 6.5in ultra-large screen delivers an immersive visual experience. With its 88.7 percent screen-to-body ratio, the smartphone guarantees a larger surface visibility with sustained magnificent visual effects whether you surf the internet, play games, view pictures or watch YouTube. The classic mini drop design takes the phone aesthetic a level higher.

Create more engaging, share-ready content with the realme C15s cameras. The rear 13MP AI quad camera setup features a Super Nightscape Mode, 119-degree Ultra-Wide Mode and Portrait Mode with hardware-level portrait blurring effect to provide more shooting options for the artsy youth. The 8MP selfie camera features f/2.0 large aperture, a gesture command, AI Beauty options and 1080P full-HD video recording. It also allows users to achieve high-definition effects no matter how many self-portrait photos or videos are taken.

realme C15 Specs:

6.5-inch HD+ (720 x 1600) Mini-drop display w/ Corning Gorilla Glass

MediaTek Helio G35 2.3GHz octa-core CPU

3GB/4GB LPDDR4X RAM

64GB of internal storage

Expandable via MicroSD up to 256GB

Dual rear cameras: 13MP F2.2 (main) + 8MP F2.25 (ultra-wide) + 2MP F2.4 (black and white) + 2MP F2.4 (retro)

8MP F2.0 front camera

Realme UI (Android 10)

4G LTE / WiFi 802.11n / Bluetooth 5.0 / GPS

MicroUSB / 3.5mm audio jack

Fingerprint scanner

6,000mAh battery with 18W Quick Charge

164.5 x 75.9 x 9.8mm (dimension)

209g (weight)

Colors: Power Blue and Power Silver

Dare to be a realme squad member with the realme C15

The realme C15 will be available in two storage configurations: 3GB RAM + 64GB storage and 4GB RAM + 64GB storage, with prices at Php6,490 and Php6,990, respectively. The 3GB RAM + 64GB storage variant will be exclusively available on Lazada, while the 4GB RAM + 64GB storage variant can also be purchased in offline realme stores starting August 20, 2020.

There are two realme C15 colors to choose from  Power Blue and Power Silver  both inspired by the picturesque view of the vast blue sea and the seagulls flying over it.

realme Fans can get the realme C15 3GB RAM + 64GB storage variant in a limited-edition PH Squad Box, designed by the doodle box challenge winner and realme community member, Vince Ricohermoso. The realme C15 PH Squad Box will be available solely on August 20 and August 28 on Lazada.

realme is also bringing its biggest launch sale yet on August 28 at the Lazada Super Brand Day, where purchasers can enjoy up to 30% discount on realme smartphones and AIOT products! On the same day, realme will be rolling out numerous activities in select stores nationwide and will be capping off the month with the realme Music Fanfest, a virtual music festival just for realme fans featuring Moira dela Torre, Krissha Viaje, and December Avenue.
Two North Carolina women were arrested Monday after a traffic stop led a New York State trooper to a gun, marijuana and a baby on the passengers lap, according to New York State Police.

Mia E. Lowry, 22, of Pembroke, North Carolina, was charged with criminal possession of a firearm, second-degree reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child, police said.

Christy R. Holden, 26, of Lumberton, was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child, police said.

A trooper monitoring traffic on Interstate 88 in the Town of Otego stopped a car after observing a vehicle and traffic infraction, according to police. When the trooper approached the car, he smelled marijuana, police said.

An infant was sitting in the lap of Holden, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, police said. The trooper also found that Lowry had a gun, police said.

Lowry was remanded to the Otsego County Jail on $500 bail and Holden was released on her own recognizance.

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Chris Libonati via the Signal app for encrypted messaging at 585-290-0718, by phone at the same number, by email or on Twitter.
MECOSTA, LAKE COUNTIES  District Health Department No. 10 recently has seen an increase in inquiries on how to file health and safety complaints during COVID-19 and would like to provide clarification on how residents may initiate the process.

It is important that with each complaint, details such as location, date, type of violation, risks, any evidence that the violation occurred, contact information of the violator and individual contact information for follow-up be provided.
Pune, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global SONAR systems market size is projected to reach USD 3.60 billion by the end of 2027. The increasing product applications across diverse industry verticals will aid the growth of the market in the coming years. According to a report published by Fortune Business Insights, titled SONAR System Market Size, Share and COVID-19 Impact; By Product Type (Hull -Mounted, Stern-Mounted, Sonobuoy, and DDS), By Application (Commercial, and Defense), By Platform (Ship Type, Airborne), By Solution (Hardware, and Software) By End-User (Line Fit, and Retrofit), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027, the market was worth USD 2.77 billion in 2020 and will exhibit a CAGR of 7.17% during the forecast period, 2020-2027.

SONAR or sound navigation and ranging systems are products that are used to detect obstacles or specific objects underwater. It makes use of an ultrasonic wave that helps locate the exact location and the distance of the object from the focal point. The increasing number of commercial shipbuilding activities will add to the growing demand for SONAR systems across the world.

The increasing use of these systems in military and defense as well as in transportation ships and carriers used in trading will favor the growth of the overall market in the coming years. Due to the increasing demand for these systems across the world, several large scale companies are looking to invest heavily in the development of efficient products. The healthy market competition has encouraged companies to integrate the latest technologies; a factor that will ultimately influence the growth of the overall market in the foreseeable future.





Get Sample PDF Brochure with Impact of COVID-19:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/sonar-system-market-101830







Company Mergers are a Growing Trend Among Major Companies

The report encompasses several factors that have contributed to the growth of the market in recent years. It highlights the ongoing trends and major industry developments of recent times and discusses their impact on the growth of the overall market. Due to huge product demand, major companies are looking to adopt strategies that will help them ward off the competition in the market. It is observed that company mergers and collaborations are a growing trend among major companies across the world. In September 2016, L-3 Communications announced that it has bagged a contract from the US Navy for the development of a passive SONAR system.

The contract is said to be worth USD 238.2 million. Through this contract, L-3 Communications will be working on the development of an efficient SONAR system for applications that will cater to defense and military purposes. L-3 Communications latest contract with the US Navy will not just benefit the company but will have a huge impact on the growth of the overall market in the coming years.

Industry Developments:

July 2017: EdgeTech announced that it has delivered an advanced multiphase sonar system to the University of New Hampshires Center. The product will be used for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/Joint Hydrographic Center.





Browse Detailed Research Insights with Table of Content:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/sonar-system-market-101830







List of the Leading Companies Profiled in the SONAR System Market Research Report are:

ASELSAN A.S. (Turkey)

ATLAS ELEKTRONIK INDIA Pvt. Ltd. (India)

Dsit Solutions (Israel)

Edgetech Air Systems Pvt. Ltd. (India)

FURUNO ELECTRIC CO., LTD. (Japan)

Japan Radio (JRC) Co., Ltd. (Japan)

Kongsberg Gruppen (Norway)

Lockheed Martin Corporation. (United States)

L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (United States)

Navico (Norway)

Raytheon Technologies Corporation (United States)

Sonardyne (United Kingdom)

Teledyne Technologies Incorporated. (United States)

Thales Group (France)

Ultra Electronics (United Kingdom)





North America to Emerge as the Leading Region; Rising Naval Shipbuilding Activities to Aid Growth

The report analyzes the ongoing market trends across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Among these regions, the market in North America is likely to emerge dominant. The increasing shipbuilding activities, specifically in the United States, have contributed to the growth of the regional market in recent years. The rising demand for the product and subsequently rising applications will aid the growth of the market in the coming years.

Moreover, the presence of several large scale companies in several countries across this region will aid the growth of the market. As of 2019, the market in North America was worth USD 0.88 billion and this value is projected to increase further in the coming years. Whereas, the market in Asia Pacific will witness considerable growth in the years. The growth of this region is attributable to the increase in domestic ship production in countries such as China, Japan and South Korea.





Order a Complete Research Report:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/101830







Detailed Table of Content:

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities

Key Insights Key Industry Developments  Key Contracts & Agreements, Mergers, Acquisitions and Partnerships Latest technological Advancements Porters Five Forces Analysis Supply Chain Analysis

Global SONAR System Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Product Type Hull-Mounted Stern-Mounted Sonobuoy DDS Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Application Commercial Defense Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Platform Ship Type Airborne Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Solution Hardware Software Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By End-User Line Fit Retrofit Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region North America Europe Asia pacific Rest of the world



TOC Continued!!!







Get your Customized Research Report:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/sonar-system-market-101830







Have a Look at Related Research Report:

Aerospace Fasteners Market Size , Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Product (Rivets, Screws, Nuts & Bolts, and Others), By Material (Aluminum, Steel, Superalloys, and Titanium), By Platform (Fixed-wing Aircraft (Commercial Aircraft, Business Aircraft, General Aviation Aircraft, and Military Aircraft) and Rotary-wing Aircraft (Military helicopters and Civil helicopters)), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

Maritime Surveillance and Intervention Market Size , Share & COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By System (Detectors, Combat Management Systems, Surveillance and Tracking, Geographic Information System (GIS)), By Services (Risk Assessment and Investigation, Maintenance and Support, Security Management), By Application (Port and Critical Infrastructure Facility, Vessel Security, Coastal Surveillance, and Search and Rescue), and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027

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Read Press Release:
The choice to enlist is a calling. A chance to live a life of purpose. Its a deeply personal choice that has been the backbone of this nation for generations.

But the shape of that career choice can take on many forms. That is why the U.S. Army allows new recruits and reservists the opportunity to choose their own personal path. Want a career in supply chain management or vehicle maintenance? The Army can help you create that path. The opportunities are as diverse as our nation, and equally as vital.

There are two primary components of the Army structure: full-time active duty and the Army Reserve. Active-duty soldiers and officers live on-site and carry out orders and complete missions while serving full-time. They receive full benefits including salary, health care and retirement. The Army provide part-time, full-success options. Soldiers in the Reserve often live where they want, attend school and work a civilian joball while receiving Army-specific benefits. The benefits that Soldiers receive now, whether in active duty or the Reserve, become security for their future.

A future you create.

A Call to Serve

Humans have an innate desire to make a difference and be a part of something bigger than themselves. Everyone hopes to live out their purpose and leave behind a legacy that matters. For most, the path to achieving this goal may not always be linear. And many are unsure of where to start.

Perhaps its the soon to-be-high school graduatesearching for their path in life and seeking divine direction. Maybe, its the 20- or 30-year-old wanting to dig deeper and find their why or just hoping to find a stable job in an uncertain time. Every person has a different story, but one thing is for sureserving the country is an obvious way that someone can feel they are leaving their mark and making an impact.

The U.S. Army is ready to streamline the process of getting every person where they want to bewith their distinct skills and passions in mind.

1775 to Today, the U.S. Army Leads the Way

From the Revolutionary War in 1775 to now in 2020, U.S. soldiers have been and continue to be held in high regard for their integrity, bravery and commitment to service and protecting our country.

Today, the U.S. Army is the largest military branch in the United States. At its core, the Army protects the country and its citizens. But it goes beyond combat. The U.S. Army is often misunderstoodguns and fighting are far from all the U.S Army has to offer. The branch is multi-faceted, consisting of a myriad of education, enlistment and career options. Service in the U.S. Army looks different for everyone.

Soldiers are doctors, coders, engineers and construction workers. They are logistics experts and civil affairs representatives. They are young professionals. They are parents, husbands and wives. And often they are strong leaders and mentors helping a next generation of recruits find their way.

Education, Careers and Real Sense of Community

Cultivating foundational education is an important aspect that the Army takes pride in, whether its helping you attend college through financial aid, tuition reimbursement or scholarships, or pursuing education during or after your service. In fact, the U.S. Army is the largest provider of scholarships in the nation, enabling scholar athletes to attend colleges and universities and become officers.

CPL Brian Hankins, Drill Sergeant Candidate in the U.S. Army Reserve, is one such Solider who reaped these benefits. CPL Hankins works his civilian job in information technology while training to be a drill sergeant in the service. The Army paid for my degree with tuition reimbursement, he said. And they continue to offer me additional certifications through credentialing assistance in any career field.

Beyond education, career opportunities in the U.S. Army are endless. There are over 150 different career fields within the Army including but not limited to cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, health care and aviation. The Army has a unique career match tool and on-site recruiters and mentors that will ensure that you are on a continuum to your personalized path to success.

The Army offers a massive variety of jobs that, with the proper level of intelligence and work, anyone can easily leverage to help themselves gain employment outside of the military, said Tyler Jones, Reconnaissance Team Leader in the U.S. Army. Certain jobs offer more transferable skills than others, but joining the Army in something such as a cybersecurity position could very easily lead for you leaving the Army in four years with a multitude of certifications, a Top Secret Security Clearance and real world-experience.

Not to mention, one of the lasting benefits of enlisting in the military is the strong sense of community that Soldiers build. The people make the Army great, CPL Hankins said. You make life-long, give-the-shirt-of-their-backs type of friends.

The way you choose to serve can be tailor-made for you. I truly believe the Army is for everybody now, said CPL Hankins.

No matter the trajectory you take within the U.S. Army, you are guaranteed to gain imperative life skills and disciplines that will ensure current and future success. The path to a fulfilling life often comes in the midst of selflessly serving others. The U.S. Army is here to help you achieve just thatand find your why along the way.

This content was produced by Brand Ave. Studios in collaboration with the U.S. Army. The news and editorial departments had no role in its creation or display. For more information about Brand Ave. Studios, contact tgriffin@brandavestudios.com.

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The First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, has urged the chiefs and people of Osu, Teshie, and Nungua to give the Government four more years to continue to develop the country.



She said a vote for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December polls would ensure the spread of developmental projects in all parts of the country with many social interventions to benefit the people.



The First Lady said this when she paid courtesy calls on the chiefs and people of Osu, Teshie, and Nungua in the Greater Accra Region to wish them well in their annual Homowo Festival celebration.



She also donated various food items including maize, palm-nuts, palm-oil, fish, as well as some alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and water to the traditional councils towards the festival.



Homowo, to wit hooting at hunger, is celebrated with the preparation of the traditional meal called Kpokpoi made from fermented corn dough and eaten with palmnut soup with smoked fish.



Among the various groupings Mrs Akufo-Addo visited at the Teshie Traditional Council were the Klemusu, Krobo, Agbawe, Lenshie and Gbugbla clans.



She also conferred with the chiefs and elders of the Osu and Nungua Traditional councils.



Mrs Akufo-Addo extolled the chiefs and people for keeping the peace within their communities and for remaining united for this important festival.



She, however, urged them to forge towards a united front so they could attract the needed economic and social investments and growth within their communities.



She advised the people to adhere to all COVID-19 safety protocols in celebrating this years Homowo by limiting the sprinkling of the Kpokpoi to their individual homes.



Mrs Akufo-Addo asked them to take advantage of the Free Senior High School programme to educate their wards to break the vicious cycle of semi-literacy and poverty in their communities.



She pledged the determination of the Rebecca Foundation to complement governments efforts at enhancing the lives of the citizenry.



The Foundation is into projects such as Terema, (supporting women to improve their economic status), Because I want to Be (keeping girls in school), and the Learning to Read (improving child literacy).



The first lady was accompanied by Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament (MP) for Anyaa Sowutuom, Dr Bernard Oko Boye, Deputy Minister of Health and MP for Ledzokuku.



Others were Ms Irene Naa Torshie, Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund, Ms Mariama Karley Amui, Municipal Chief Executive of Ablekuma Central, Nii Adjei Tawiah, MCE for Korle Klottey, and Mr Joshua Nii Bortey, MCE for Krowor.



On behalf of the chiefs and elders of Teshie, Nungua and Osu, Dr Oko Boye commended the First lady for the kind gesture and the many philanthropic activities her Foundation was undertaking.



He said the projects had had great impact on the lives of women and children in the coastal communities of Accra.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Airtel has started offering Disney+ Hotstar VIP subscription to its users through the Rs 448, Rs 499, Rs 599, and Rs 2,698 prepaid recharges. Recharging with any of these four amounts will offer customers one year of free Disney+ Hotstar VIP access. This is in addition to the Rs 401 prepaid recharge plan launched back in April that offers similar benefits.

The new benefits have been reportedly listed on the Airtel FAQs page. In addition to the one-year subscription to Disney+ Hotstar VIP, the Rs 401 prepaid recharge now offers a total of 30GB data for 28 days, the Rs 448 recharge offers unlimited local, STD and roaming calls, 100 SMS per day and 3GB data per day for 28 days. The Rs 499 offers the same benefits as the Rs 448 recharge but it is a First Time Recharge available to only new Airtel Prepaid customers as the first-ever recharge they perform on their Airtel prepaid number. The Rs 599 prepaid recharge offers unlimited local, STD and roaming calls, 100 SMS per day and GB data per day for 56 days and the Rs 2698 recharge offers unlimited local, STD and roaming calls, 100 SMS per day and 2GB data per day for 365 days.

Disney+ Hotstar VIP, which actually costs Rs 399 per year, offers users seven multiplex movies, exclusive Hotstar specials, Disney+ shows, movies, kids content, as well as access to live sporting events. According to Airtel, the subscription will be activated automatically after a user recharges with any of the above-mentioned packs. Users need to login to the Disney+ Hotstar app with the same mobile prepaid number linked to their account or use the login link sent via SMS after the completion of the recharge.
Spanish police are probing the death of a Northern Ireland holidaymaker at an Ibiza hotel.

The 23-year-old mother of one was found around midday on Thursday at her room in the Ibiza Rocks Hotel in the party resort of San Antonio.

She has been named as mother Amy Elizabeth Connor from Coleraine.

Police confirmed Ms Connors death but said they were unable to comment on the report and said more would be known after an autopsy had taken place.

A Spanish Civil Guard source said: There were no external signs of violence on the dead womans body or signs of any violence at the scene.

Amy, a former pupil at Coleraine College, had been with group of holidaymakers who included her sister Toni - who raised the alarm.

The Coleraine womans sudden death has sent shockwaves through the north coast town.

Amys grieving elder sister Toni said on Facebook  I dont understand how life just goes on. as hundred of Amys pals flooded social media with heartbreaking messages and memories of their friend.

Amys heartbroken mum Carol McKibbin, who lives in Castlerock, posted a link to her daughters funeral death notice on the website of a local undertakers.

My baby girl... love you loads, she wrote.

Amy said she leaves behind her daughter Kaliyah, parents Arthur Connor and Carol McKibbin and siblings, Aaron John, Jean and Toni.

Very deeply regretted by her sorrowing family and entire family circle, the notice read.

Messages of sympathy and condolence were pouring in last night.

One posted: I knew Amy as a wee teenager who used to come into my place of work at the time in Coleraine and she was always such a wee ball of energy...

God bless you all at this sad time Xxx,.

Another said: "My heart is breaking for yous all no words will ever help but I believe your baby girl Amy will give yous all the strength to cope in the long difficult road ahead! Fly high with the angels Amy Connor.

Its understood elder sister Amys Toni remains in Ibiza as the investigation into her sisters death proceeds.

Another friend posted a heartfelt tribute to the young Coleraine mum: Amy, you were most beautiful soul.

 Honestly Im so shocked that you have gone to heaven.

Please look over your family.

You will be sorely missed by all of us, my heart breaks for you all

You have been my friend for nearly ten years, and this is not fair that this has happened to such a beautiful person.

I will miss our wee conversations, and you shouting out the car window when you see us.

Thinking of you and your beautiful daughter!

Rest in peace my darling," they wrote.
Greater Torontos 10 school boards are spending $4.5 million in provincial funding to hire additional social workers and psychologists and to set up mental health support programs for students as classes resume in September.

But advocates say this one-time funding is not enough to address a worrisome spike in mental health challenges among children and youth due to COVID-19.

I dont think that theyre realizing the impact COVID is going to have, said Maria Estrada, a peer support worker in Burlington. She added the funding is inadequate to tackle both immediate and long-term needs of students in a mental health support system that is already not being used by schools to its full potential.

The GTA funding is part of $20 million announced by Ontario earlier this summer to provide the provinces 72 school boards support for student mental health during the pandemic, including direct access to mental health professionals in schools and attempting to reduce wait times.

Mental health will be a pivotal focus point for schools when classes resume in September, said Kathy Short, executive director of School Mental Health Ontario, an organization funded by the province to support the implementation of mental health resources and programs in schools.

Were going back to a school thats different than usual, Short said. I think about little ones and how theyll react to masks, or might have a harder time understanding their teachers or might feel fearful.

But COVID-19 has already taken an almost six-month toll on students. The pandemic has led to reported higher rates of anxiety, negative changes in mood and a sense of loneliness among the general population, Short said. She expects these issues will be mirrored in children.

Estrada, who works at Support & Housing, a non-profit supportive housing organization for people living with mental health issues in Halton, said demand has risen significantly for her services since March. The lack of stability is really hurting (youth) mental health, she said, adding it has resulted in high anxiety, paranoia and behavioural issues among young people.

Short said there are currently about 1,000 social workers and other regulated mental health professionals working with Ontario schools, serving about two million students. Bolstering that number is a welcome measure, she added, to meet the increase in demand under COVID-19.

We can intervene early if young people are having difficulties ... and that is helpful for everyone so more intensive services arent needed, Short said.

Each board will be receiving a base amount of $200,000 plus a top-up based on enrolment numbers. School boards have flexibility to use the money based on their needs, though five per cent of the total has been set aside by Ontario for students who have behavioural problems and are at a higher risk of suspension in kindergarten through to Grade 3, Ted Chang, spokesperson for the ministry of education, said in an email.

The Durham District School Board, which serves more than 70,000 students east of York Region, said it will use part of the $393,000 theyve received to permanently hire five social workers and psychologists for a total of 55 to serve the districts 133 schools, according to Andrea McAuley, the boards superintendent of education. Broadening the team translates into greater access and greater service for our children, youth and families, McAuley said.

Some money is also being put toward a program that can be accessed through the boards website by families looking to connect with a specialist if they notice their child needs support. Virtual services have been developed over the summer so that students, whether theyre at school or learning from home, can access one-on-one sessions with a member of the boards mental health team.

Estrada argued that model isnt adequate to support higher-risk youth. She added mental health professionals are often designated to more than one school at a time, which hinders them from monitoring children in real time should they be in a crisis. Ideally, Estrada said there should be one full-time professional assigned to each school.

Shorts organization has been building a framework to guide staff and teachers on how to be supportive of students as everyone tries to grapple with fears related to COVID-19. Much of it emphasizes giving professionals and parents the tools to monitor children for any changes in behaviour and normalize open conversations about mental health, therefore aiming to prevent a crisis before it happens.

It also emphasizes approaching mental health support in a culturally sensitive manner that addresses anti-Black racism in Ontario schools  an issue laid bare by a Peel District School Board report in June that called the board dysfunctional and incapable of addressing racism issues among its schools.

Short said school psychologists and social workers have been trained to provide a digital coping program for milder mental health concerns, inspired by a model led by Harvard researchers. The Brief Digital Interventions Program, which will be available in the fall, gives school psychologists the ability to prescribe an online learning module to children that will teach them how to cope with their anxieties and changes in mood or sleeping patterns, for example. The student then meets again with the clinician to assess their mental well-being after completion.

Short acknowledged that many parents are stressed about the well-being of their children over the course of the pandemic. And while going back to school in the fall is riddled with uncertainty, she tried to reassure parents that much has already been done to ensure their children wont be navigating these challenges alone.

I want people to feel confident that there is a good system of support in place and people have been working on it for many months, Short said. I think everyone just needs a little dash of hope, because these are very hard times.

Correction  August, 21, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly referred to GTA school boards hiring additional psychiatrists. In fact, boards hire psychologists.

Nadine Yousif is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering mental health. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Follow her on Twitter: @nadineyousif_
The threat of COVID-19 in San Antonio hovered in a moderate range Thursday with 185 new cases reported by health officials, a slight decrease from 191 the day before.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg reported 21 new deaths from the disease, bringing the total in Bexar County since the start of the pandemic to 677. Some of those deaths date as far back as May 24.

At least 16 of the victims had underlying conditions. One of them, a Hispanic woman in her 90s, died at home.

At least two, a Hispanic man in his 90s and a Hispanic woman in her 90s, died at nursing homes  the man at Huebner Creek Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, the woman at River City Care Center.

Among the deceased was the countys second centenarian to fall victim to the virus.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

The 185 new cases brought Bexar Countys total since the onset of the pandemic to 44,641.

The pressure of COVID-19 on area hospitals continued to ease with 532 people reported hospitalized with the virus, down 14 from the day before. Of those, 239 were in intensive care and 163 were on ventilators.

Hospitals remained under high stress, however, with just 15 percent of beds available.

This week, state officials said the accuracy of the statewide positivity rate  the percentage of people who test positive for the coronavirus  has been thrown into question by a backlog of test results going back as far as March.

The statewide rate reached 24.5 percent last week before plummeting to 11 percent this week as officials at the Texas Department of State Health Services accounted for more backlogged tests.

In San Antonio, the positivity rate is hovering at 11 percent, a sign that COVID-19 is still circulating widely in the community.

On ExpressNews.com: State overcounts COVID-19 deaths in Bexar County, officials say

Nirenberg said residents should have a high degree of confidence in the local positivity rate reported by the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District.

The San Antonio data thats being presented has a very high standard of accuracy, he said. We are getting (test results) back from the labs on the day that they are reporting them, and sometimes there are backlogs at the state that slows down their numbers, but were getting the bulk of those results back directly to us.

At this point, we dont have any backlogs that we are aware of at the state that are impacting the San Antonio area.

Worries about voting

The pandemic has cast a shadow over the November election, when Americans will choose a president, a new Congress and fill numerous other federal, state and local offices.

Large numbers of people are expected to vote by mail because of concerns about contracting COVID-19 at polling places. But recent cuts at the U.S. Postal Service have led to widespread delays in mail deliveries, prompting worries that mail ballots could reach election offices too late to be counted.

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales stepped into the controversy this week, requesting a legal opinion from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on whether a district attorney may prosecute a federal official who prevents Texas voters  particularly those age 65 or older  from voting by mail

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Post Office sorting machines thrown in the trash

Gonzales said Thursday that he could target newly appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a supporter of President Donald Trump who made cuts to the Postal Service that union leaders say have slowed the mail.

It potentially could include him, Gonzales said in an interview. Were talking about high-level officials with the Postal Service, and it could go as far up as the postmaster general.

Gonzales, a Democrat, said he could move forward regardless of whether the Republican attorney general responds to his letter or gives him a green light.

On ExpressNews.com: Postal worker: San Antonio post office hid backlogged mail from congressman

He said he first would ask the Texas Rangers to investigate reports that mail-sorting machines have been dismantled and that piles of backed-up mail were removed from San Antonios main post office before a visit Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio.

The Express-News, quoting postal union leaders, reported that mail handlers were directed to remove piles of mail in an effort to deceive the congressman.

If thats what happened, I want to know at whose direction, Gonzales said. I want to know whether that amounts to a crime, if thats something I can prosecute. We have to have someone investigate this, and then bring us back that investigation for us to determine that a crime occurred.

In the meantime, Gonzales urged voters to cast their ballots in person if possible. Those who cannot vote in person should request mail-in ballots as soon as possible, he said. Request it today and get it in as soon as possible so that they will be counted.

Brian Chasnoff is an investigative reporter based in San Antonio. To read more from Brian, become a subscriber. bchasnoff@express-news.net | Twitter: @bchasnoff
Amongst the new Covid measures announced by Taoiseach Micheal Martin on Tuesday evening are directions for the over 70s to limit their time spent outdoors, avoid congregated settings, avoid public transport where possible and to shop during designated hours. Active Retirement Ireland, a voluntary organisation for older people, said the new measures unfairly target older people who have already sacrificed so much. The Corkman's Sheila Fitzgerald went out and about to find out what locals think about the new measures introduced regarding the over 70s.

"I haven't been out much, but when I go shopping, I'm very careful. Recently, I had to go to Cork and travelled by train. I was very impressed by the way things were done, the seat next to me was designated to remain empty and there was no catering trolley going around.

"Our age group has observed all the rules and it's disappointing that it is other people who are putting everyone in danger.

"I'm a member of the local ICA and Boherbue Active Retired Group. We haven't had meetings or gone anywhere since early March. We were looking forward to going on an outing soon, and the ICA had planned a trip abroad for September but obviously all that is now cancelled. It can be very isolating. We miss our ICA meetings and I always went to two card plays every week, so all that is gone as well. I'm lucky that I have plenty hobbies so I can be content at home".

"We've been staying indoors mostly since all this started and avoiding crowded places.

"As far as I'm concerned, I think that the people in NPHET telling people over 70 to be careful are looking out for our welfare and not punishing us, as some people feel.

"Many of us have health issues, myself included, and so we are more susceptible to this.

"We've found it difficult not being able to go out and have family and friends in regularly but we're thankful to be healthy.

"We have plenty fresh air and lovely forestry walks here in Rockchapel so we'll continue to enjoy that and hopefully the crisis will be over soon".

"It's very disappointing that the same people are being hit all the time such as older people and pubs.

"Here in Kilbrin, we have a fantastic social club where people gather to socialise, some would come in every evening around 7pm to meet up with friends and enjoy a chat and a drink or a cup of tea. Many were really looking forward to reopening but now they are devastated by this new surge and no end in sight.

"It's very upsetting even at home when you can only have six people in at any one time, we have a large family and we had a break planned for next week but now we don't know what to do, we will probably have to cancel. It's especially hard for older people who don't have family living near them, it's very tough on them".

"Interaction with people is what keeps us feeling young. but all that is taken away, so

we have to make a lot more effort in order to try and remain alert and upbeat.

"It is very important to try and find a bright side to all this. Our attitude should be to try and find something to cheer up people and not look at the bad side.

"I think prayer is very important, and to ask God to guide us through this, so we should continue to pray and ask him to help us cope with what is happening. Many of us feel we got this illness last Christmas, a lot of people were awfully sick around that time.

"Now the main thing is to follow the rules, and continue to be vigilant at all times".
No National Standard

State Complaints

Poultry Plant Risks

(TNS)  Ron Smith, a bus operator in San Mateo County, California, says at least six of his colleagues have tested positive for the new coronavirus. But until recently, he said, it was unclear whether bus operators should keep going to work if they were exposed to a sick colleague. The bus drivers union also wasnt getting updates on the number of workers falling ill.Smith said hes worried about getting infected on the job and exposing his wife, who has Parkinsons disease. I would like to know the risk that I am taking coming to work, and the possibilities that I could expose my family member, he said.The transportation district has since told workers that if theyre exposed to an infected person, they should quarantine while waiting for coronavirus test results, Smith says. But he said it would be a good idea if the state laid out clear rules for all companies to keep workers safe during the pandemic.In the absence of federal action, some left-leaning states are creating safety rules to protect workers from catching the coronavirus while on the job. Rules went into effect in Virginia last month, and regulators in California and Oregon are now debating a similar move. Unions and labor advocates have implored states to create coronavirus-specific safety standards. They say employers must be forced to provide protective equipment, create socially distanced break rooms, tell sick workers to stay home and take other steps to reduce infection risk.In our experience in enforcing wage and hour violations  until theres a law, non-union janitorial contractors will not follow it, said Yardenna Aaron, executive director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a Los Angeles-based janitorial watchdog thats petitioning for a standard in California. So issuing guidance, in our opinion, is not enough.Yet business groups say theres no need for new regulations. They say state and federal officials already can crack down on businesses for not protecting workers, and that states have resolved most coronavirus complaints fairly easily. Creating rules before scientists fully understand how COVID-19 spreads will burden companies with confusing paperwork, they argue.Most Virginia businesses were following federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and state public health orders before the state standard went into effect, said Nicole Riley, Virginia director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a Washington-D.C. based group that advocates for small businesses.Business owners now must study the new rules, assess employee risk of workplace exposure to the virus, write an infectious disease response plan and train workers in required safety protocols by the end of September.You as an owner are trying to do all this work on top of trying to keep your business afloat during this pandemic, Riley said.Dan Lieberman, a public affairs specialist for the San Mateo County Transit District, said in an email tothat the agency promptly notified the bus drivers union when employees tested positive and has been following public health orders and guidance from the county, state and CDC.There has been no indication that an employee has contracted COVID-19 due to a workplace exposure, he added.The debate over safety rules has shifted to the states as its become clear that the U.S. Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has no plans to create a national safety standard. The AFL-CIO in June lost a lawsuit it hoped would compel the agency to act.The federal agency that usually is responsible for protecting workers from dangerous conditions at work has totally abdicated its responsibility, said Deborah Berkowitz, worker health and safety program director at the National Employment Law Project, a New York City-based think tank. Its completely missing in action.Berkowitz, a former OSHA official during the Obama administration, said the federal agency also isnt doing enough to respond to coronavirus-related complaints. Despite receiving over 8,000 such complaints since April, it has issued only three citations, all to an Ohio nursing home chain.U.S. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia says OSHAs industry-specific safety recommendations go far enough, given that federal law already requires businesses to provide workplaces free of deadly or seriously harmful hazards.We believe we already possess the enforcement authority we need, Scalia said in a June speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, and that our current approach is the best means to protect workers and give employers guidance and confidence in the steps to be taken to provide a safe workplace and satisfy their obligations.Its possible Congress will force Scalias hand: The latest House Democratic coronavirus aid bill would require OSHA to issue an emergency coronavirus standard.But for now, labor advocates are looking to the states. About half the states run their own federally approved health and safety programs, which cover either all employees or just public sector workers. Officials in those states can create state-level workplace safety standards that go beyond federal requirements.In Virginia, a Democratic governor sympathetic to labor, a grassroots pressure campaign that began with poultry plants and the structure of its OSHA program all helped the state become the first to announce a coronavirus-specific standard, said Rebecca Reindel, director of occupational safety and health at the AFL-CIO. Its sort of like the stars aligned.Virginias new standard codifies CDC guidance, such as by requiring all employers to provide face masks to certain workers and give staff frequent access to hand sanitizer or soap and water. It requires employers to train workers on coronavirus prevention and prohibits employers from retaliating against workers who report infection control concerns.Not all governors can order emergency regulations, as Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam did. In North Carolina, for instance, the labor commissioner is an elected official who doesnt report to the governor  making it politically more difficult to create a statewide standard, Reindel said.Other progressive states may follow Virginias lead. Oregons OSHA is using its own statutory authority to create a temporary standard, and regulators there have begun hosting listening sessions with workers and businessowners. In California, regulators are currently considering a petition from labor groups to create a state standard.Governors also can use executive orders to require enforcement of public health recommendations, Reindel said, as Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has done.In a June executive order, Whitmer required businesses to take steps such as keeping everyone on a worksite at least six feet apart, requiring employees to wear face coverings if they cant keep a safe distance from others and immediately notifying the local public health department, co-workers and contractors if a worker tests positive for the virus.State OSHA programs, like federal OSHA, already are responding to coronavirus-related complaints.And as at the federal level, few of the complaints filed in California, Oregon and Virginia have resulted in formal citations and fines. In Oregon, for instance, most coronavirus-related safety complaints have been resolved after regulators talked to employers over the phone or sent them a letter.The high number of easily closed cases appears to back up industry claims that few businesses are willfully violating safety recommendations. But worker advocates say the data also could suggest confusion within state agencies over what counts as a workplace safety violation during the pandemic.The reality is, they cant enforce what doesnt exist yet, Oregon AFL-CIO President Graham Trainor said of the state agency. He said that a statewide standard would make it crystal clear when an employer is doing something wrong.Oregon OSHA has received over 8,000 coronavirus-related complaints since March. Among them: an allegation that cashiers at a local grocery store werent wearing face coverings and an allegation that bosses at a tanning salon had told symptomatic employees to keep coming to work.So far, regulators have conducted 60 inspections and issued 14 citations. In most cases, we are in fact able to reach a resolution by clarifying issues with employers without the need for an actual enforcement visit, said Aaron Corvin, a public information officer for Oregon OSHA, in an email toCorvin said the agency is somewhat more hesitant to conduct inspections during the pandemic, both because of the volume of complaints its receiving and the health risk of in-person interactions.A new state standard is unlikely to change the process for responding to complaints.California OSHA has received about 5,000 complaints, conducted 538 inspections and told 71 workplaces to prepare for a citation. Virginias labor department has received about 656 coronavirus-related complaints since the pandemic began and conducted 29 inspections (the agency did not respond to arequest for citation numbers by publication time).In Virginia, coronavirus outbreaks at poultry plants pushed Northam in May to ask the state labor department to issue a temporary emergency standard for preventing the spread of the virus at all workplaces.The temporary standard expires after six months, when the state of emergency declared by the governor ends or when its replaced by a permanent standard the state labor department is now developing and intends to adopt.Poultry plant workers and their allies launched a campaign for statewide rules after workers said they werent being provided with face masks, couldnt keep a safe distance from co-workers and were worried about retaliation if they complained, said Jason Yarashes, an attorney for the Charlottesville, Virginia-based Legal Aid Justice Center, a group that advocated for the standard.Workers also were getting sick. Northam announced in early May that more than 260 coronavirus cases were associated with two poultry plants on Virginias Eastern Shore alone.Poultry companies, like other businesses in the state, opposed the new rules and said they already were taking action to reduce infections.From the outset  way back in March or before  poultry plants across Virginia took significant and unprecedented steps to protect workers, said Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation, a trade group. That includes cleaning facilities thoroughly, checking employees temperatures and installing plastic dividers between workstations, he said.While Bauhan acknowledged that at times there have been coronavirus outbreaks among poultry workers, the caseload is way, way down, he said.Its unclear how many coronavirus cases have been linked to poultry plants. Virginias health department has reported over 3,000 cases linked to non-health care congregate settings, such as businesses, churches and community events, but the agency doesnt publish more specific data.Advocates for workers say employers who are already following state and federal safety guidelines should embrace official standards. Our belief is that if good actors are doing the right thing, a rule around infectious disease standards should be no big deal, Trainor said.Business groups and their allies, however, say it doesnt make sense to create strict standards while scientific guidance is constantly changing.Some aspects of the Virginia standard are already out of date, said Eric Conn, chair of the OSHA Workplace Safety Practice Group at Conn Maciel Carey, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm that represents employers.For instance, the rules include a former CDC recommendation that employers use either symptoms or test results to judge when an infected employee can safely return to work. The latest CDC guidance advises employers to use only symptoms.And business groups worry that new regulations could lead to lawsuits.While Virginias new standard doesnt presume sick workers caught coronavirus on the job, Riley of the National Federation of Independent Businesses said it could still encourage lawsuits blaming employers for workplace outbreaks or holding them responsible for customer behavior.That sets the business owner up for a lot of liability, she said.
DARIEN  Interstate 95 reopened Friday afternoon after northbound traffic was shut down for multiple hours following a fiery crash involving two tractor trailers early Friday morning, according to transportation officials.

The two trucks collided around 4 a.m. Friday morning between exits 10 and 11 in Darien, according to the Darien Fire Department.
MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the two sides had a 'candid and in-depth' exchange of views and reaffirmed to work towards complete disengagement of the troops

New Delhi: India and China on Thursday agreed to resolve outstanding issues in an "expeditious manner" and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said after the two sides held a fresh round of diplomatic talks to resolve the border standoff in eastern Ladakh.

MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the two sides had a "candid and in-depth" exchange of views on the existing situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and reaffirmed to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops in the western sector.

The virtual talks were held under the framework of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs.

"The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the existing situation in the India-China border areas," Srivastava said at an online media briefing.

"They reaffirmed that in accordance with the agreements reached between the two foreign ministers and the two Special Representatives, the two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control in the western sector."

Srivastava further said: "In this context, they agreed to resolve the outstanding issues in an expeditious manner and in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols."

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had held a telephonic conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on 17 June during which both sides agreed that the overall situation would be handled in a responsible manner.

On 5 July, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Wang held a nearly two-hour-long telephonic conversation on ways to resolve the border row.

The formal process of disengagement of troops began a day after Doval-Wang parleys. Both Doval and Wang are Special Representatives for boundary talks.

Referring to the outcome of Thursday's talks, Srivastava said the two sides were in agreement that restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas would be essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.

"The two sides further acknowledged the need to maintain close communication through both the diplomatic and military channels so as to ensure complete disengagement. In this regard, they also agreed to continue their ongoing engagements including through the meetings of the WMCC," he added.

The Indian delegation at the 18th meeting of the WMCC on border affairs was led by Naveen Srivastava, Joint Secretary (East Asia) in the External Affairs Ministry while the Chinese side was headed by Hong Liang, Director General of the Boundary and Oceanic Department of the China's Foreign Ministry.

According to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign ministry, the two sides positively evaluated the progress made in the disengagement of the front-line forces of the two countries, exchanged candid and in-depth views on the remaining issues on the ground, and enhanced mutual understanding.

The two sides agreed to conscientiously implement the consensus reached between the two foreign ministers and the Special Representatives on China-India boundary question, continue to maintain dialogue and communication through military and diplomatic channels, further cool down the border situation, properly handle the remaining issues on the ground, and jointly maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas, it said.

The previous round of negotiations under the WMCC took place on 24 July.

After this talks, the armies of the two countries held their fifth round of Corps commander-level discussions on 2 August with an aim to expedite the disengagement process. However, the disengagement of troops from the friction points in eastern Ladakh has not moved forward as expected by India.

At the military talks, the Indian side insisted on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to 5 May when the standoff began following a clash between the two armies in Pangong Tso, sources said.

The Chinese military has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas since mid-July, the sources said.

Even as both sides were engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army is making elaborate preparations to maintain its current strength of troops in all key areas in eastern Ladakh in the harsh winter months.

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to maintain a significantly high state of alertness to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", the sources said.

The Army is also in the process of procuring a number of weapons, ammunition and winter gears for the frontline troops, they added. The temperature in some of the high-altitude areas along the LAC drops to minus 25 degree celsius in the winter months.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the violent clashes in Galwan Valley on 15 June in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. The Chinese side also suffered casualties but it is yet to give out the details. According to an American intelligence report, the number of casualties on the Chinese side was 35.

Following the Galwan Valley incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Indian army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.
In the last two weeks, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Belarus to protest against the widely disputed results of the countrys August 9 election, which handed President Alexander Lukashenko some 80 percent of the popular vote and a sixth term in office. A police crackdown on peaceful protesters in the days after the vote saw nearly 7,000 demonstrators arrested, and sparked allegations of abuse and torture at the hands of security services. The opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who refused to concede defeat against Lukashenko, was forced to flee the country two days after the election.

Lukashenko managed to remain in power for 26 years without facing a significant challenge to his authority by playing the West and Russia against each other. Despite this tactical jockeying, however, Lukashenko always stood closer to Russia, entering his country in Russia-led regional groupings. In 1999, when the then Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, was weak and his power was leaching away, Lukashenko even proposed to unify his country with Russia, with the hope that he would eventually emerge as the leader of the new union. The rise of Putin eliminated such hopes for Lukashenko, but the idea to merge Belarus and Russia remained under consideration. Indeed, Putin started pushing for a merger last year, partly as a way to sustain his own rule beyond 2024.

The Belarusian protesters are facing unique challenges, not only because they are revolting against a violent and highly authoritarian regime, but also because they are trying to trigger a democratic transition in a country placed firmly in Russias authoritarian security orbit.

Among those with strong security and economic ties to Russia, Belarus is only the second state, after Armenia, where people have risen against their Kremlin-backed rulers. As such, Armenias Velvet Revolution in 2018, during which the masses successfully triggered a democratic transition through peaceful disobedience, offers a range of tactical lessons for both the opposition movement and the government in Belarus.

Three key lessons emerged from Armenias democratic breakthrough.

First, the protesters in Armenia worked hard to keep the protests strictly local. They resisted attempts by the ruling forces to frame the protests as another Western-instigated colour revolution, which would have delegitimised the movement. To achieve a successful democratic breakthrough, the Belarusian opposition should mimic this approach, and capitalise on the grassroots nature of the protests.

Second, the leader of Armenias protest movement, current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, signalled early, clearly and consistently that the movement, if successful, would not lead to a shift in foreign policy away from Russia. This messaging played an important role in keeping the Russian soldiers in their bases during the revolution. While Armenias security needs are quite different from those of Belarus, protest leaders in Minsk could also benefit from managing Russias threat perceptions.

Third, Pashinyan held formal and informal negotiations with incumbent political forces from the very beginning. As a result, Armenias protest movement unfolded within an imperfect but, nevertheless, constitutional order. This ensured some level of political stability, increased the perceived legitimacy of the protest movement and emboldened more people to take to the streets  a key marker of successful disobedience campaigns everywhere.

In many respects, the movement in Belarus is similar to Armenias Velvet revolution of 2018. Just like Armenia, Belarus is a former Soviet nation that still has strong economic, political and social ties to Russia. Both countries are members of Russia-centric regional organisations such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union, and they are both economically reliant on Russia.

But there are also some significant differences between the ongoing protests in Belarus and the Velvet Revolution that took place in Armenia.

Unlike Armenia, there is not a strong civil society in Belarus. In the post-Soviet era, Belarus has always been under a strict dictatorial regime while Armenia has been led by what could be described as soft authoritarians. This allowed Armenias civil society enough space to organise itself and consolidate a protest culture through a long string of public protests before an opening for democratic transition appeared in 2018. Such processes are only beginning in Belarus.

But the protest movement in Belarus is perhaps in a better position than Armenias in a few important aspects  Belarus is not involved in an unresolved regional conflict. In the region, dictatorial regimes often use prolonged conflicts to create a false dichotomy between security and democracy, and silence opponents. This tactic was used by Armenias pre-revolution rulers for years and is currently being used in neighbouring Azerbaijan by Ilham Aliyev to silence opposition forces inside the country.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Lukashenko is trying to contrive an external threat where there is none. He has claimed, inaccurately, that NATO forces are building up in Eastern Europe, attempting to portray the protest movement in Belarus as a threat to its, and Russias, security.

Another advantage the pro-democracy movement in Belarus has over the one in Armenia is the democratic character of its immediate neighbourhood. As I have written elsewhere, the extent of regional connectivity in Russias vicinities can make or break the Kremlins incursions into its near abroad, be they military or hybrid. The democratic consolidation in, and regional ties between, the Baltic states, therefore, is an obvious political asset for the pro-democracy movement in Belarus. Furthermore, Belarus also shares a border with Poland, and therefore the European Union.

This is in sharp contrast to Armenia which is surrounded by authoritarian states, the sole exception being Georgia to its north. The Armenian pro-democracy movement formed a democratic dyad with Georgia, which helped it constrain Russian involvement and complete its Velvet Revolution. Intervening in Belarus would be much more costly for Russia, given the regional resiliency around Belarus from the Baltics to Poland. And unlike in Armenia, Putins past attempt to formally unite Belarus with Russia created a backlash among the populace in Belarus, exposing the disingenuous nature of Putins claims of protecting Belaruss security and independence. Russian intervention in the context of post-election protests can revive such fears and push more people into the streets.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
(Newser)  Steve Bannon went from a yacht to a holding cell Thursday, pleading not guilty during his arraignment in New York on federal fraud charges. The former adviser to President Trump was on a 150-footer when he was arrested earlier in the morning on charges that he defrauded donors to a "We Build the Wall" online campaign. Bannon was handcuffed and wearing a white face mask during his Manhattan court appearance, during which he could be seen on video rocking back and forth throughout.

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A judge approved Bannon's release on a $5 million bond package, secured by $1.75 million in cash or real property that he has until Sept. 3 to put up, per CNN. He won't be allowed outside of the Connecticut, New York and Washington, D.C., areas. There'll be no more yachts while he's free, per NBC, and he's not to travel on private jets, either. Bannon, 66, will have to turn over his passport. (Bannon's arrest is "very sad," President Trump said.)
The Tamil Nadu governments decision to ban processions, public installations of idols and immersions on the occasion of Vinayaga Chathurthi in the state has set the ruling AIADMK on a collision course with its ally, the BJP. The state governments decision comes amid the raging coronavirus pandemic. However, the Hindu Munnani, a right-leaning group associated with the BJP, has announced that it would defy the ban and instal idols across TN.

With the state BJP failing to persuade CM Edappadi K Palaniswami, party leader H Raja on Wednesday tweeted that he felt this years festival would be a battleground for Hindus. Lines have been drawn.

Ahead of Assembly polls next year, the AIADMK has been attempting to keep its ally at arms length to avoid a repeat of its debacle in the 2019 Parliamentary elections, when antipathy towards the saffron party rubbed off on it.

The BJP, too, has been trying to develop its own base, setting an ambitious target of 25 seats in the next House. In the process, it first turned to Lord Muruga, raising a furore over a seven-month-old YouTube video in which a hymn to the God is described in offensive terms. It sought to establish a link between the videos makers and the opposition DMK, painting the Dravidian party as anti-Hindu. Now, it has turned its attention to Murugas sibling, Lord Ganesha. Whether the remover of obstacles will open Tamil hearts to the BJP remains to be seen.

However, Tamil Nadu has been reporting over 5,000 new cases each day and has a caseload of 3.55 lakh, with over 6,000 deaths. While it has seen some success in containing the pandemic with consistently high testing and surveillance efforts, the virus has by no means been tamed. As a responsible national party running the Union government in the time of a global crisis, it would be better for the BJP to choose a different battle on which to lay ground for political success rather than one that is likely to put it at odds with public health and safety.


North Korea appears to have completed a new submarine at a shipyard in Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, the National Intelligence Service told the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

The 3,000-ton submarine is believed to be capable of carrying ballistic missiles. There are no indications when it will be launched.

Satellite images show a large facility at the Sinpo shipyard, where three new 3,000-ton subs could be built simultaneously, according to a report compiled by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea in April.

A 3,000-ton sub could pose a threat to both South Korea and the U.S. as it is capable of carrying three or four ballistic missiles. The likeliest missile is the Pukguksong-3, which is currently in development.

The North's 2,000-ton sub is capable of carrying only one ballistic missile.

"The North could unveil the new sub anytime," a military officer here said. "It's possible that the North will launch it around the time of the U.S. presidential election in November to draw maximized attention from the Americans."

The NIS said whale-class submarines and underwater missile launch tubes have also been detected at the shipyard. But the North's 5 MW nuclear reactor in Yongbyon and the fuel rod reprocessing plant there do not seem to be operating at the moment after the nearby river overflowed its banks.

The NIS said the North Korean military's summer training has also been significantly reduced.


The Trump administration on Thursday formally notified the United Nations of its demand for all UN sanctions on Iran to be restored, setting off an immediate confrontation with Russia and other Security Council members, including Americas European allies, who called the US move illegal, AP reported.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered the notification to the president of the UN Security Council, citing significant Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal, a requirement to snap back UN sanctions.

In a letter presented to Indonesias ambassador to the UN, Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the council, Pompeo said the US was notifying the body of significant non-performance by Iran related to the nuclear deal. As a result, Pompeo said the process leading to the re-imposition of UN sanctions had been initiated.

Pompeos letter was accompanied by a six-page explanation of why the U.S. believes it retains the right to invoke snapback.

The United States will never allow the worlds largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks, missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons ... (or) to have a nuclear weapon, Pompeo told a UN press conference.

He said the US action will extend the arms embargo, which is set to expire October 18, and also prohibit Iran from ballistic missile testing and enrichment of nuclear material.

At the heart of the dispute is President Donald Trumps 2018 withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between six global powers and Iran.

The US maintains that under the Security Council resolution endorsing the agreement it retains the right as an initial party to invoke the provision to snap back sanctions. Russia, China, Britain, France and virtually all other council members say the Trump administration does not have the right since it is no longer a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

The UNs nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has reported some Iranian violations of the agreement, but Tehran says those are the result of the U.S. violating the accord by withdrawing from it and then re-imposing harsh unilateral sanctions.
(Natural News) A Black-Vietnamese, transgender non-binary/gender-transcendent mermaid Queen-King currently living out their ever-evolving truths in Winston-Salem spoke at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) during the day on Tuesday.

(Article by Doug Mainwaring republished from LifeSiteNews.com)

Fox Newss Tucker Carlson introduced J Mai to the American public, most of whom dont have access to the daytime proceedings at the DNC.

You should know that J Mais preferred pronouns are they, them, said Carlson. According to their biography at Wake Forest University, J Mai is a Black-Vietnamese, transgender non-binary/gender-transcendent mermaid Queen-King currently living out their ever-evolving truths in Winston-Salem.

DNC LGBTQ Caucus meeting. Credit: Fox News screen shot .

Got it? asked Carlson, who played a video of the black-Vietnamese transgender non-binary/gender-transcendent mermaid Queen-Kings DNC presentation:

Why cant folks imagine a world without the cops? Why cant folks imagine a world without prisons? Why cant people expand their imaginations to include community care, to include an abolitionist future? Im talking about like for real-for real abolition, not just the watered-down DNC version of abolition. Were talking about abolishing the police, were talking about abolishing ICE, were talking about abolishing prisons.

Youre starting to get some sense of why theyre not putting this stuff on TV, chortled Carlson.

Democrats and their faithful lackeys the media have been telling you for weeks that none of this is real, youre imagining it. Democrats dont really want to take the cops away and leave you defenseless. Yes, they are voting to take billions from police departments across the country, but thats not really defunding; its redistributing, Carlson explained.

Not a big deal. Calm down! added Carlson sarcastically.

But now J Mai shows up and lets an entire animal shelter of cats out of the DNCs bag and lets you know that, yes, all your fears are true. Were doing exactly what you think were doing.

The gender-transcendent mermaid Queen-Kings are here, and its a whole new deal, snarked Carlson. Get psyched!

J Mais Wake Forest biography  apparently now hidden from public viewing but reported by American Greatness  describes Mai as a recently licensed minister in the Progressive National Baptist Church. J received their Bachelors in Sociology and Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at Wake Forest University and is currently working towards a Masters in Divinity at Wake Forest University School of Divinity.

Image: Archived page of https://lgbtq.wfu.edu/about-us/staff.

Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com
Mauritius: Fishermen registration cards presented to 26 fishermen

August 21,2020 | Source: AllAfrica

A first group of 26 fishermen received, today, their Fishermen Registration Cards during a ceremony held at the LIC Building, in Port-Louis. The fishermen were also offered certificates for having successfully completed a General Course for Fisher. The Minister of Blue Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mr Sudheer Maudhoo, was present at the ceremony.



The General Course for Fisher is a foundation programme that has been designed and developed to meet the needs of artisanal fishermen, enabling them to operate outside the lagoon and in particular around Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). The training, which ran over a period of eight weeks, was held at the Fisheries Training and Extension Centre (FiTEC) at Pointe aux Sables and included theory sessions and practical sessions at sea.



The aim was to provide fishermen with the knowledge, skills and attitude to fish responsibly, efficiently and safely around FADs. The training comprised a component on good fishing practices based on the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries. The modules covered related to fisheries in general, fishing techniques, basic navigation, seamanship, protection and conservation measures, legislations and safety at sea.



In his address, Mr Maudhoo, expressed Government's firm commitment in providing the necessary assistance to the fisher community. On this score he recalled that some 90 Fishermen Registration Cards have been issued since 2015 adding up to the 26 fishermen who received their cards today. A total of 1909 fishermen will also receive their Fishermen Registration Cards shortly, he announced.



The Minister indicated that, through these Fishermen Registration Cards, the fisher community will avail of several benefits namely: Bad weather allowance; Discount on road tax; Loan facilities from the Development Bank of Mauritius; Insurance Cover; and Funeral grant. The children of those fishermen will also reap from other advantages under the Fishermen Welfare Fund.



Furthermore, Mr Maudhoo outlined that various measures have been implemented for the welfare of the fishermen which include a 100% increase regarding bad weather allowance. For the month of July 2020, he underlined, all fishermen were allocated an allowance of Rs 10 200. With regards to the MV Wakashio incident, the Minister reiterated Government's support to those fishermen and boat operators who work in the afflicted regions. These people will also receive an allowance of Rs 10 200 to help them in their daily livelihoods, he added.

 2020 AllAfrica

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.
The men are the last of the crew of Iranian fishing vessel FV Siraj, captured by the pirates on March 22, 2015.

Three Iranian hostages held by Somali pirates since 2015 have been freed, a senior maritime crime adviser told the Reuters news agency on Thursday.

The men are the last of the crew of the Iranian fishing vessel FV Siraj, which was captured by pirates on March 22, 2015.

The fourth member of the crew was freed last year as he needed urgent medical care.

This marks the end of an era of Somali piracy and the pain and suffering of Somalias forgotten hostages, said John Steed, coordinator of privately supported, Nairobi-based Hostage Support Programme, on Thursday.

Steed, a former British army officer who has spent years negotiating the release of piracy hostages in Somalia, said the three men were released on Saturday, but were awaiting coronavirus tests to travel to Ethiopia and then home.

The three men are very thin as expected and have gastric problems, but are otherwise fine, said Steed.

Between 2010 and 2019, Somali pirates held over 2,300 crew either captive on their ships or as hostages, said fellow HSP member George Lamplugh in a statement seen by AFP news agency on Thursday.

Many were tortured, some died but all were traumatised by their experiences. We are only glad that we have been able to rescue all those who were left behind and fell outside the normal reaches of companies and countries.

At the height of their power in 2011, Somali pirates launched 237 attacks off the coast of Somalia, the International Maritime Bureau says, and held hundreds of hostages.

Attacks later sharply subsided, mainly because shipping firms implemented better security protocols, including posting look-outs, sailing further away from Somalia, and hiring private security.

International warships operating as part of a coalition also helped to drive down the number of attacks.
The number of workers applying for unemployment benefits jumped to 1.1 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the first time in two weeks that new claims have gone up.

States have been processing roughly 1 million new unemployment applications each week since mid-March, when the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping through the country, forcing the shutdown of many businesses.

An additional 542,797 workers filed for jobless aid under the new pandemic unemployment assistance program, created for those not traditionally eligible for unemployment benefits like the self-employed and gig workers.

How bad is it?: New jobless applications filed in state programs are still far above the previous record of 695,000 in 1982  and have topped that record for 22 weeks in a row.

That figure also doesn't include the thousands of workers who are applying for jobless benefits under the federal pandemic assistance program.

In total, there are more than 28 million people receiving jobless benefits, the department said.

New Jersey saw the largest jump in new claims last week, reporting an estimated 24,646 new applications, a more than 10,000 increase from the previous week. New York also received 62,397 new claims last week, nearly 10,000 more than it saw the week before.

Where's Congress?: Lawmakers left Washington after Democratic leaders and the White House were unable to agree on another round of pandemic aid.

The House will gavel in for a rare weekend session on Saturday to vote on a bill to shore up the U.S. Postal Service, but Democratic leaders have been facing pressure within the party to also vote on aid programs like beefed-up unemployment insurance. Democrats are considering a proposal that would automatically extend jobless benefits to millions of Americans if the economic and health crises continue.

Unemployed workers were receiving an extra $600-a-week boost from the federal government under a program created by the CARES Act, the massive economic relief bill passed in March. But those payments expired on July 31, cutting most unemployed workers' checks by at least 50 percent.

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Republicans meanwhile, are planning to introduce a "skinny" coronavirus relief bill that is expected to include $300 in boosted weekly federal unemployment benefits until Dec. 27.

What are states doing?: Eleven states so far have applied to tap into a $400 extra unemployment payment program initiated following President Donald Trumps move to expand jobless aid via executive action.

Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah have been approved for extra federal assistance, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The program was launched after Trump on Aug. 8 issued an executive memorandum instructing FEMA to use disaster relief funding to send the extra $400 a week to unemployed workers.

But laid-off workers in those states will probably not see the extra cash on their unemployment checks for several weeks. The presidents memo required states to create and implement a new system and fund one-fourth of the additional $400 benefit.

Because states have to adjust their unemployment insurance system to access the funds and accommodate program requirements, the DOL estimates it will take each state three weeks to set up the program.
Thirty-three-year-old Janta Mali has been stuck in Pakistan since February after she went there with her husband and three children to see her ailing mother in Mirpur Khas before the Covid-19 lockdown was clamped.

In the last week of June, India and Pakistan operated a shuttle service for people stuck on both sides of the border due to the pandemic. Being Indian citizens, the husband and the children returned to Jodhpur but Janta Mali, a Pakistani living in Jodhpur on long-term visa since 2007, was denied permission to travel.

Like her, several Pakistani immigrants, who visited Pakistan to meet relatives or renew passports and other identity cards, are stranded. The immigrants visited Pakistan on No Objection Return to India (NORI) visa valid for 60 days. That period is long over.

In 2017, Rajasthan High Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the deportation of Pakistani nationals from minority communities. During hearing on it on Wednesday, amicus curiae Sajjan Singh Rathore raised this issue in the division bench of justices Sangeet Lodha and Rameshwar Vyas.

Due to the expiry of the (NORI) visa and closure of international routes, many people are stranded in Pakistan, he told the court.

The court has sought response from the Central and state governments on this.

Rathore said the NORI visa of Janta Mali and others who went to Pakistan was not extended by the MEA. Many Hindus in Pakistan immigrate to India to escape religious persecution and stay here on LTV until they become eligible for Indian citizenship.

The extended stay in Pakistan may jeopardise that, said Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangthan, an organisation working for Indian citizenship to Hindus from Pakistan.

The period of NORI is 60 days. If they do not return in these 60 days, their NORI gets expired and they have to apply fresh for the visas. When this happens, their previous stay in India will not be counted for grant of citizenship, he said. Their NORI visas should be extended and they should be allowed to return to India, Sodha said.

The Seemant Lok Sangthan also wrote to the Central government on July 11, requesting intervention in the matter. It also wrote to Subodh Agarwal, the Rajasthan official in charge of coordination cell overseeing return of Indian nationals.

The state government had written to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs last month to intervene in the matter of stranded people.

Meanwhile, the responsibility of raising the three children  Kuldeep (9), Mohit (8) and Chanchal (6)  has now fallen on Leelaram, Janta Malis husband.

The children talk to their mother through WhatsApp video call but she starts crying on seeing them, Leelaram said.
GREENVILLE  Its been five years since whistleblowers launched a case against an Upstate chiropractor who is being sued on claims he made millions by billing unnecessary lab tests to the federal government.

For the first time, a decision has been rendered that shows a slice of how much money could be at stake  a $4.2 million default judgment issued last month by a federal judge.

It signals a small part of what may be to come. Federal prosecutors, who last year intervened in the five-year-old case, have their eyes on $140 million.

David Rothstein, a Greenville attorney representing the whistleblowers, said he sees the number as nearing $1 billion.

Theres no sign of the complex case stopping anytime soon. Court records show it could extend into June 2021, as the coronavirus health crisis slows the legal system. The timeline could extend even further as whistleblowers push to sue more defendants than the government is pursuing.

The $4.2 million is just the tip of the iceberg, Rothstein told The Post and Courier this week.

The legal action revolves around Easley-based chiropractor Daniel McCollum, who owned and operated pain-management clinics and labs in the Upstate and other regions of South Carolina and in North Carolina.

McCollum's attorney, Mike Leonard of Chicago, told The Post and Courier on Friday that he is "still very confident in our defense of the case and our ability to knock down these allegations."

Leonard said that any dollar figure cited before the case is resolved is "based on thin air." The judgment, he noted, was against two defunct entities that McCollum didn't own.

The government alleges that from the beginning of 2011 and the end of 2018, McCollum and his pain management clinics paid bonuses to physicians and other health care providers that included amounts based directly on their referrals of urine drug testing to labs that McCollum owned.

McCollum entered into direct bill agreements with physicians and other providers around the country. Those providers, after paying McCollums Labsource a set fee to run the test panels they ordered, could then bill private insurance companies directly for those tests  generally for much more than they had paid Labsource.

In exchange, McCollum and Labsource induced them to refer their tests for Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE patients to his lab.

One urine test could cost up to $4,000.

The scheme as alleged would be in violation of the federal governments laws against kickbacks and physicians making medical decisions based on financial relationships rather than the best interests of patients.

As for any criminal investigation into the alleged fraud, Rothstein said a client was interviewed by federal law enforcement about the case. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in South Carolina, Derek Shoemake, said he couldn't confirm any potential ongoing investigation.

Whistleblowers who attempted to bring the alleged fraud to light say they were fired in retaliation.

However, Leonard said that at least one of the former employees became a whistleblower only after having to admit misdeeds on the job, which are laid out in court documents by McCollum's lawyers in his defense.

The $4.2 million default judgment awarded in July is related to two of many defendants sued, ProLab and ProCare Counseling. The entities are now defunct and weren't owned by McCollum, Leonard said.

The judgement was rendered because they declined to defend against the case.

"It's no blemish on Dr. McCollum," Leonard said. "It's really a hollow judgment. Nobody's going to collect on that."

Leonard said he's not aware of any criminal investigation into his client.

McCollum has until next week to answer the whistleblowers' request to a judge to file an amended complaint that adds more defendants and allegations, and a request to sue McCollum as an "alter ego" of his companies, which have since gone under.

The government and McCollum's defense team have agreed to a mediation deadline of June 2021.

In its filing, the government said that it "has taken to heart" the judge's request that the two sides reach a settlement.

"The United States and Dr. McCollum remain far apart in their negotiations, but all parties have expressed interest in continuing the negotiations and in pursuing a private mediation," the government said.

The government intervened to sue a collection of companies related to the alleged scheme: FirstChoice Healthcare P.C.; Labsource LLC; Oaktree Medical Centre P.C.; Pain Management Associates of the Carolinas LLC; Pain Management Associates of North Carolina P.C.; ProLab LLC; and ProCare Counseling Center LLC.

On its own, Oaktree Medical Center in Easley allegedly billed Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare roughly $31 million for urine tests over the eight-year period.

Typically, whistleblowers file their own lawsuits first, which become public once the U.S. Attorneys Office decides to sign on. Whistleblowers are entitled to part of any settlement.

A final settlement number is unclear but lawyers for the government are asking for a settlement triple the amount the companies billed.
Learning to be fearless: How mentorship can propel you into a top-tier college

How mentorship can propel you into a top-tier college

My phone buzzed. Like every other text message, I grabbed my phone immediately to read it. But this was no ordinary text. I looked down and read three words that suddenly meant someones life was about to change forever:

I chose Berkeley

As Ronni Lopezs mentor, I saw a young man of color work hard every day to achieve his highest academic ambitions. So when he sent me that text message, I was extremely proud of what he just accomplished. Getting admitted into college is no small feat. But his story isnt ending. He is about to start his next chapter. This fall Ronni will be attending the University of California, Berkeley.

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Ronni and I were brought together through The Fellowship Initiative (TFI), a JPMorgan Chase program that focuses on improving economic and social outcomes for Black and Latino men, as well as other young men of color, from low-income communities.

Ronni and I didnt have the typical mentor mentee relationship rife with shared experiences. We look different. I am a Black woman and he is a Latino young manand we were raised in different scenarios.

As Ronni and I got to know each other, I realized we had more in common than I thought. Were both members of communities of color and intimately understood the challenges that this brings. We share a diversity of thought and background. And, from a personal perspective, we both embody a boldness to defy the odds and fearlessly go after what we wantto shoot for the stars.

But you need to learn to be fearless.

As a woman of color in banking, I know a thing or two about proving my worth. But in my experience, its one thing to know that you are enough, and its another to overcome your own the fears and do something about it. Thats where my mentors have helped me thrive in my life and thats what I hoped to do for Ronni.

For the past 10 years, TFI has helped increase access to mentorship, college preparedness and career readiness for young men of color, whodue to systemic barriersoften face significant challenges when it comes to advancing their education and careers. The program is especially important now, during a crisis, when inequality for communities of color is magnified.

The power of a positive role model is game-changing. When I met Ronni, it was obvious that he was a social, outgoing and brilliant young man. What was less obvious was how he planned to apply himself.

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We worked through the stress of college applications, discussed the importance of goals and how to learn from the success of others. I shared my own career journey, hoping to inspire him to dream big. After all, I could be an ally for Ronni, but he had to muster the courage to rise above his surroundings on his own.

And that can be daunting. Ronni is from a tight knit family and community. When he succeeded in life his community rejoiced and supported him every step of the way. We discussed at length his inclination to stay close to home when considering colleges, close to his support network and his comfort zone.

We worked through the concept of success and what it might mean for him and his community. We determined that his success was their success, so he not only owed it to himself to reach for the stars, he owed it to them. I stressed that he wouldnt be abandoning the people who helped raise him if he decided to leave South Los Angeles, quite the contrary, he would be elevating them. His success in life is their return on investment.

So when my phone lit up and the message read I chose Berkeley, I got emotional. Because Ronni chose more than Berkeley, he chose to overcome his fears. He chose to reject negativity and to invest in himself, his independence and his future. He chose a path that will open up countless doors.

Ronnis journey is just beginning, but I know one thing for sure, Ronnis community invested in Berkeleys next rising star. And I cant wait to see the dividends.

###

If you are entering your sophomore year of high school and would like to apply to be a part of TFI in the 2020 school year and receive mentorship  please contact Melissa Echeverry: [email protected]

We will have Zoom calls on August 20th, 25th, 26th and 27th from 3:30pm-4:00pm to discuss the program. The deadline to apply is Friday September 4th.
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No school today! All of us can remember waking up to these words connected to whatever weather or current event thing and breathing a sigh of relief. A day without learning, without teachers nagging: a day to do whatever you wanted. What are todays children feeling about this phrase?

The problem is that we arent really asking them. A quick internet search about children and COVID-19 brings up countless articles on How to talk to your child  These lists focus on information for creating safe spaces for kids to express fear and get information, but then the conversation seemingly stops there, as if these young members of our society just want to say they are scared and then fade into the background.

Living in an unprecedented time, maybe we are afraid to hear what our young people have to say about how the world has changed to accommodate the virus, and what they think needs to happen now. Maybe, their uncensored honesty about what they are experiencing will be too poignant, too real, make too much sense. Kids do say the darndest things, after all.

History doesnt have the best track record for heeding childrens advice during tumultuous times; however, times are changing. Malala Yousafzai didnt just want to express her feelings about the Taliban rule in her hometown. Knowing that a proper education was an essential part of her being, she spoke out and stood up. Her courage was rightly rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize, and she is a model of courage to millions around the world.

The Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Miami, Florida in 2018 catalyzed those young survivors into speaking out against lax gun control laws to protect themselves. Their joint efforts and actions prompted the Florida legislature to pass the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which raised the minimum age to purchase rifles to 21 and established background checks and waiting periods to obtain a gun. The students at that school saw adults that were failing to protect them. They demanded change.

Now, our new generation of coronials and quaranteens  what do they want, what do they need? Most pressingly their thoughts on returning to in-person schooling. Working with the American Academy of Pediatrics and treating children of all ages, I have seen the numerous negative effects of virtual schooling (no doubt youve also seen countless media pieces talking about these). I havent started exploring what these patients think about the future.

What I do know, though, is that young people are incredibly perceptive, constantly reacting, adapting, and adjusting to their caregivers behaviors. Children also begin to fully grasp the concept of death at age 6 to 7, so they know (or at least can learn) what is at stake with returning to school. Their incredible growing brains are also able to understand altruism and the need to wear masks and wash their hands to protect others, after all, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Elmo taught them how to do both of these things on television.

Its time to give the children, arguably our most at-risk group of long term adverse developmental effects, a powerful voice in this heated debate. Perhaps we will find a new generation of children that breathe easy when they wake up to the words, Its time to go to school 

Casey Nagel is an internal medicine physician and can be reached on Twitter @NagelCasey.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois compared coward-in-chief Donald Trump to Democratic nominee Joe Biden as a potential commander in chief on the final night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.

Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs in combat, said that Biden knew the sacrifices the families of military members had to make because his late son Beau served in Iraq.

Neither Trump himself nor any of his adult children have served in the military.

Joe knows the fear that military families live because hes felt that dread of never knowing if your deployed loved one is safe, Duckworth said. He understands their bravery because he has had to muster that same strength every hour of every day Beau was overseas. Thats the kind of leader our service members deserve, one who understand the risks they face and would actually protect them by doing his job as commander in chief.

Duckworth then turned her attention to Trump, noting his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his response to reports that Russia was paying bounties on American troops in Afghanistan.

Instead, they have a coward in chief who wont stand up to Vladimir Putin, read his daily intelligence briefings or even publicly admonish him for reportedly putting bounties on our troops heads, Duckworth said.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks during the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. (via Reuters TV)

In 2004, Duckworth was flying an Army Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq when the chopper came under attack. She was so seriously wounded in the ensuing crash that her fellow soldiers initially thought she was dead, but she survived and entered politics when she returned to the U.S.

Duckworth was first elected to the Senate in 2016, defeating Republican incumbent Mark Kirk. Previously, she had represented Illinois in the House and worked in the Department of Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration. She became the first sitting senator to give birth in 2018 and was the second Asian-American senator to be elected, after Hawaiis Mazie Hirono.

Story continues

According to a New York Times report on the vice presidential selection process, Duckworth impressed the search team, but there were concerns that her eligibility might be challenged because she was born in Thailand to a Thai mother. However, by the usual interpretation of the Constitution, Duckworth is a natural-born citizen because her father was American.

Last month, Duckworth was attacked by the Trump campaign and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who called the Purple Heart recipient a vandal and moron for suggesting there could be a dialogue about potentially removing the statues of Founding Fathers who owned slaves. In a New York Times op-ed responding to the comments questioning her patriotism, Duckworth noted that her ancestors fought alongside Washington in the Revolutionary War.

What some on the other side dont seem to understand is that we can honor our founders while acknowledging their serious faults, including the undeniable fact that many of them enslaved Black Americans, wrote Duckworth. Because while we have never been a perfect union, we have always sought to be a more perfect union  and in order to do so, we cannot whitewash our missteps and mistakes. We must learn from them instead.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Russian doctors have said they will not allow leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny to be transferred from a hospital in Siberia to one in Germany following his suspected poisoning.

The head doctor treating Mr Navalny said he was not well enough to be moved. But a spokeswoman called the decision a direct threat to his life.

Activists in Germany have sent a plane to bring him to Berlin for treatment.

Mr Navalny is a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He fell ill during a flight on Thursday. His team suspects something was put in his tea at an airport cafe.

The head doctor at the Siberian hospital, Alexander Murakhovsky, told reporters on Friday that Mr Navalnys condition had improved a little, but that he was still unstable. He said legal questions would need to be resolved before Mr Navalny could be moved.

But Mr Navalnys team said it was deadly for him to remain in the Siberian hospital.

The ban on the transportation of Navalny is an attempt on his life, which is being made right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities who sanctioned it, Mr Navalnys spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.

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Thousands of students are back at Texas A&M University System campuses in Corpus Christi and Laredo, places that have logged some of the countrys highest rates of coronavirus cases.

The growth of cases per capita in Nueces County, home to Corpus Christi, and Webb County, which includes Laredo, has far surpassed Bexar Countys, state data shows. But the A&M schools in those cities are offering considerably more in-person classes than their sister university in San Antonio.

Faculty from all three, along with Texas A&M University-Kingsville, have called the classroom reopenings premature. The A&M System has remained committed to back-to-campus plans formed over the summer, even as some universities across the country curtailed or halted even limited classroom openings.

Nueces County had 38 coronavirus cases per 1,000 residents on Tuesday, while Webb County had 36.7 per 1,000, Texas Department of State Health Services data show. Bexar County had fewer than 18 cases per 1,000.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

The daily numbers of new cases hit alarming levels in Nueces and Webb counties in August but have been on a downward trend in recent days.

A&M-Corpus Christi opened last week with 34 percent of fall courses fully online, 53 percent in a hybrid model that includes some in-person instruction, and 13 percent fully in-person, university spokeswoman Luisa Buttler said.

A&M International in Laredo started Monday with only 18 percent of classes fully online. Most were set up as a hybrid of in-person and online, university spokesman Steve Harmon said.

By contrast, no more than 30 percent of A&M-San Antonios classes will be taught in person, including some hybrid arrangements, with the rest fully online. The school started its fall semester Thursday.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

On ExpressNews.com: Profs say adjunct instructors are hostages in A&M-San Antonio reopening plan

Professors from the San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Laredo schools said in interviews that they believe their presidents were under considerable unofficial pressure to find a way to reopen.

A&M-Corpus Christi President Kelly Miller said system officials have been collaborative, not pressuring.

Its a very reassuring thing to be part of the system right now because you have the wisdom of the A&M System and a lot of other presidents and talk through things collectively, she said.

Miller will be in the classroom herself  teaching advanced public speaking  partly to set an example and show how important it is. Therell be 15 students in a room that usually seats 150 and everyone will have a bottle of sanitizer, she said.

We walked every single classroom and counted and measured and thought how many people can we fit and how can we adjust the schedule so we can keep the safe environment, Miller said.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

The usual excitement at the start of the semester has been replaced with worry, A&M-Corpus Christi political science Professor Carlos Huerta said.

He posted pictures to Twitter of his classrooms before students arrived  trash bags over seats designated as unoccupied, plexiglass shields in front of each table  and a first day selfie in his new uniform: a blue mask emblazoned with the universitys logo and a face shield provided by his department.

Huerta will teach close to 150 students this fall in hybrid courses. The students have been divided and assigned different days to report to class in person to keep them from crowding the classroom.

Part of me was always under the assumption that if the situation were really bad in the community, that there would be reconsideration of the plans, Huerta said. We made these plans with different information and with different assumptions about what it was going to be like.

He was one of more than 900 faculty and staff members from four A&M schools in South Texas to sign an open letter to the system chancellor and regents last week asking that the decision to reopen physically be left to individual campuses.

Pablo Arenaz, president of A&M International, said he was a little surprised to see his faculty among the signers. In the spring, he created five committees on fall reopening that each included faculty, staff and students. Their work was released to the university community in mid-July. He hosted two discussions with faculty, before and after the plans release, and each drew nearly 70 participants, he said.

The Laredo signers of the letter seemed oblivious to what wed been doing for the last five months, Arenaz said.

Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox

He acknowledged his faculty might have thought the plan would change if the coronavirus situation in Webb County reached the point it has. Like others, Arenaz anticipated Laredos numbers would be better by now, he said, but hes still comfortable with starting the semester under current protocols, and the university has contingency plans if it gets worse.

You can never take the probability down to zero. But I think weve done enough here on this campus to try to mitigate and minimize exposure, Arenaz said.

The regents chairwoman, Elaine Mendoza, and Chancellor John Sharp issued a statement last week saying university presidents customized their plans to fit the circumstances and needs of their campuses, emphasizing safety and providing for testing and tracing.

The systems vice chancellor for academic affairs, James Hallmark, included the statement in a presentation to regents Thursday, saying it frames our commitment to being open and hopefully remaining open.

He expects to see clusters of cases throughout the systems 11 institutions, but each campus has plans to identify people who had contact with those who test positive, to avoid closing entire campuses or even classes.

Its really the students who are right around that individual in a classroom. So a sort of level of specificity is very important because we want to isolate those individuals, but not shut down an entire class unless there is a known spread in that class or in that residence hall or wherever it might be, Hallmark said.

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina praised A&M International for its close collaboration with local leaders and health experts. He expressed confidence in the health and safety protocols the university has planned but said he worries about whether students will adhere to social distancing guidelines in gatherings outside the classroom.

Tijerina said hed rather A&M International go fully online for at least the first six weeks. He pointed to the quick closure last week of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana after more than 100 new cases were reported, most of which could be traced to a single off-campus gathering.

My gut feeling is, if students do their part, it will stay open, but if history is showing us what its showing us, as soon as they get in there and they start a party and whatnot, and start gathering in the apartments and dorms, and start thinking theyre invincible  its going to be a situation and well start getting more numbers, Tijerina said.

Students at the Laredo campus are required to take back-to-school training and sign a pledge to wear masks, keep their social distance and refrain from activities that put them at risk of exposure.

At this point, Im very comfortable with the plan that we put in place, Arenaz 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
A month after being chastised for its complicity in sending asylum-seekers to U.S. jails, a defiant Ottawa says its appealing a court decision that ruled its bilateral pact with Washington is unconstitutional.

On Friday, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the government will challenge the earlier Federal Court decision that gave officials until January to ensure the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) complies with the Canadian charter before declaring the accord invalid.

There are factual and legal errors in some of the Federal Courts key findings. There are important legal principles to be determined in this case, and it is the responsibility of the Government of Canada to appeal to ensure clarity on the legal framework governing asylum law, Blair said in a statement.

Advocates called the Liberal governments move disappointing and shameful.

This decision to appeal protracts Canadas ongoing complicity in what is by any measure a full blow human rights crisis in the United States, said Alex Neve, Secretary General at Amnesty International Canada, one of the parties that took the government to court.

This appeal flies in the face of government assertions that Canada remains firmly committed to upholding a compassionate, fair and orderly refugee protection system. 

Added Dorota Blumczynska, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees: This government says that it believes in the rights of refugees, that its feminist, anti-racist and committed to human rights.

Yet when a court rules that rights are being abused, the government chooses to continue the policies that cause these rights abuses.

Under the bilateral agreement, Canada and the U.S. each recognize the other country as a safe place to seek protection. Each can turn back potential refugees who arrive at land ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they should pursue their claims in the country where they first arrived.

The accord, which took effect in 2004, was originally touted by both countries as a way to curb asylum shopping.

But critics have argued the U.S. asylum system is cruel and inhumane, criticisms that have grown louder and more pronounced under the Trump administration.

In her ruling released last month, Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald said asylum-seekers directed back to the U.S. were routinely detained and their verbal accounts demonstrated both physical and psychological suffering from detention.

Blair maintained that Canada is firmly committed to upholding a compassionate, fair and orderly refugee system.

The STCA remains a comprehensive vehicle to help accomplish that, based on the principle that people should claim asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive, Blair said.

However, critics said the agreement to ban potential asylum-seekers from entering Canada has only created further chaos.

The STCA bar led to people crossing into Canada at Roxham Road in Quebec, said Maureen Silcoff, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, another party in the litigation.

The dissolution of the STCA would allow people to instead cross at official ports of entry, and be dispersed throughout border crossings from coast to coast, rather than be attracted to Quebec.

Queens University immigration law professor Sharry Aiken said every day that this agreement remains in place is another day where asylum seekers most fundamental right  to be free from arbitrary detention  is at risk.

It is a waste of taxpayer money launching this matter up to the Federal Court of Appeal when the most appropriate course of action would and should be immediate cancellation or at least suspension of the agreement, Aiken said.

Such a move would not preclude the government from resurrecting a similar and more genuine responsibility-sharing deal when conditions facing asylum-seekers in the U.S. change, as (I hope) they will at some point  .

Read more about:
The UN-backed government of Libya announced a ceasefire on Friday, and the east-based rival administration also called for a truce in a move that could pave the way to reopening of Libya's oil terminals, if the ceasefire holds.

Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of the Libyan UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) has "issued instructions to all military forces to immediately cease fire and all combat operations in all Libyan territories," the GNA said, as carried by France 24.

Currently, oil production in Libya is around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). This figure is dramatically down from 1.2 million bpd at the start of the year, just before paramilitary formations affiliated with the Libyan National Army (LNA) of eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar occupied Libya's oil export terminals and oilfields.

Haftar's forces, backed by the UAE, Egypt, and Russian mercenaries, have been fighting the GNA-backed forces supported by Turkey in recent months. GNA forces have pushed Haftar's forces back to Sirte, a strategic city that the UN-backed government proposed today to be a demilitarized zone.

Early in June, Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) resumed production at the 300,000-bpd Sharara oilfield after negotiating the opening of an oilfield valve that had been closed since January. Just a day later, however, Sharara shuttered again, after an armed force had told the workers in the field to stop working.

Earlier this week, Haftar's Libyan National Army said it would reopen Libya's oil ports for a short while to empty tanks with crude oil and condensate and ship them abroad.

Libya will export some of the fuel, while the remaining fuel will be shipped into eastern Libya to feed its power plants, a spokesman for an LNA affiliate said in a televised statement.

"The instructions were to allow for the emptying of tanks holding crude and condensate stored at the oil ports to be loaded and exported," LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said, as quoted by Bloomberg. "The decision taken yesterday doesn't mean the reopening of fields or the resumption of exports."

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to discuss the latest situations in Libya and Syria.



Lavrov and Cavusoglu also discussed bilateral relations, said the source, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media, Anadolu agency reported.



This March, Ankara and Moscow agreed on a protocol for the de-escalation area in Idlib, northwestern Syria, urging parties to "cease all military actions along the line of contact there.
The credit reporting agency Experian has been on the headlines on Aug. 21 after a data breach has been reported in its South Africa branch. After the incident, people suddenly heighten their security defense as well as left many people be concerned about their personal data while banks and financial institutions have advised users to be extra vigilant, despite Experian has already contained the breach.

What to Do to Protect Your Information?

In this case, it is best to know what to do to protect your information from a leak. Here are some useful tips.

Be vigilant

Since the leak is not a direct attack on the account, you are not sure if it is hard to tell if your account is compromised in this massive breach. Thus, you must be vigilant.

Monitor transactions on your account like regularly checking statements and your credit score and adding security features payment notifications via SMS from your bank. If in case you find irregularities, report it immediately. This will make it easier to reverse and block the source of transactions.

Change passwords immediately

Once a breach happens, the public will be advised to change their passwords if they are worried that their accounts are affected by the breach.

While changing passwords should be done regularly, many passwords are weak and can be hacked easily, especially if these are old ones. Keeping a new password means it would be hard to access your accounts based on older information acquired in a leak.

Meanwhile, it would help if you did not have a common password for all your accounts. It is best to have a combination of symbols, numbers, upper and lowercase letters in your password to achieve maximum protection.

Register with the fraud prevention service

In case your passport or ID is stolen, it is recommended to register with the South African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS) to alert banking and financial institutions when your ID is used in any application. While this means you will need to go through a more stringent process, it is worth the extra work to ensure your ID is not illegally used.

Read also: How to Easily Password Protect a PDF from Data Breach

What happened before?

Experian South African branch had a data breach on Wednesday, Aug. 19 after an individual tricked the company by posing a legitimate client and got access to their users' private information. Experian said its security systems and database was not compromised. Tech Times reported that 24 million customers had been affected by the breach, and their information will be used in creating marketing leads for credit-related and insurance services.

Meanwhile, Experian assured that no credit-related or financial information was compromised in the breach as only personal information, which is being shared during an "ordinary course of business" is acquired by the perpetrator who has already been tracked by authorities.

The fraudster's hardware has also been impounded while the stolen data saved in the hardware has already been secured and deleted. Meanwhile, Experian Africa CEO Ferdie Pieterse has apologized to the affected customers for the inconvenience caused by the incident.

Read also: Experian South Africa Confirms Data Breach: 24 Million Customers Impacted

This is owned by Tech Times.

Written by CJ Robles

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Russian Health Authorities Say Navalny's Condition Currently Steadily Serious

Sputnik News

20:33 GMT 20.08.2020

OMSK (Sputnik) - The Ministry of Health of Russia's Omsk Region said on Thursday doctors assessed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny's current condition as steadily serious after he suffered an acute health condition during a flight earlier in the day.

Navalny was on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow when he suddenly felt unwell. The airplane made an emergency landing in the city of Omsk, where Navalny was hospitalized and put on a ventilator in a coma. Navalny's spokeswoman claimed he could be poisoned, although the Omsk doctors said this was only one of the possibilities.

"Doctors assess his condition as steadily serious at the moment," the ministry said in a press release.

According to the press release, doctors have held consultations via video conferencing with the leading federal health centers and coordinated the treatment plan.

"Tomorrow, a team of anesthesiologists, resuscitators and neurophysiologists from the Moscow-based Pirogov National Medical Surgical Center and the Burdenko National Neurosurgery Center will arrive in Omsk at the invitation of local specialists and on the request of Navalny's relatives to conduct an extended consultation," the press release read.

A Sputnik

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WESTFIELD  Millions of gallons of water are being tested for contaminants each month, a city engineer told the City Council during a special meeting called Tuesday to answer longstanding questions regarding water quality.

Filtering equipment has been installed in wells in the north part of the city following the discovery several years ago of contamination linked to toxic chemicals from firefighting foam used at Barnes Air National Guard Base.

Heather Stayton, systems engineer for the Westfield Water Department answered questions Tuesday posed in writing by city councilors from as far back as June.

Council President Brent Bean explained that the purpose of Staytons appearance was to answer the specific written questions, and there would be no additional question-and-answer opportunity.

This is an update, not a back and forth, Bean said. This is the Water Departments time to answer the 50 questions.

Many of the questions were technical, with the majority of them outside the scope of what Stayton was able to address. She referred councilors to public records supplied by the state Department of Environmental Protection for more information.

At-large Councilor Kristen Mello, who penned 37 of the 50 questions, said she obtained much of the information herself from the state. Mello alleged Mayor Donald F. Humanson and the Water Department violated the city charter by not providing answers in a timely manner.

She said after the meeting that Stayton answered her questions regarding the quality of Westfield drinking water and was satisfied with them.

I am glad the mayor and water department came forward tonight to resolve the six-and-a-half week violation of the city charter and state law, Mello said.

Since WRAFTers (Westfield Residents Advocating for Themselves) had already filed records requests with Mass DEP for the data, and have analyzed it, I already had accurate answers, she said.

Frankly, it was more information than I expected, Mello said. But I found the answers heavily edited by the Law Department and not the model of transparency and meaningful engagement by the Massachusetts Environmental Justice policy dictate should happen. We have a lot of work to do.
New Delhi, Aug 21 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed shock and anguish at the loss of lives due to the fire at the Srisailam plant.

Taking to twitter, Prime Minister said, "Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I hope those injured recover at the earliest." All nine persons trapped after a huge fire at an underground hydroelectric power station in Telangana were killed, officials said on Friday.

The rescue workers recovered the bodies of five victims. They were identified as Assistant Engineers Mohan Kumar, Uzma Fatima, and Sunder, Divisional Engineer Srinivas Goud and Mahesh, an employee of a battery company.

A short-circuit is believed to have caused the fire at the unit of one of the underground power house. Of the 30 persons reported to be present at the spot, 15 escaped to safety through a tunnel while six were rescued by rescue personnel. They were admitted to a local hospital.
Myleene Klass looked striking when she was pictured heading to work at Smooth radio on Friday.

The mother-of-three, 42, wore a pretty red summer's midi dress which had a floral design as she made a very sassy entrance.

Myleene looked pretty pleased with herself as she teamed her red dress with some gold wedge heels as she sashayed into work.

Myleene Klass looked striking in a bold red strappy dress as she headed to work at Smooth Radio in London on Friday after laying into 'cheating exes'

She carried a matching classic red Chanel bag under her arm as she made her way indoors and wore designer shades.

Her outing comes after Myleene laid into cheating exes on Instagram stories in a seemingly veiled dig at her ex-husband Graham Quinn.

Her words came in response to a troll who claimed her boyfriend Simon Motson will cheat on her.

Stylish: She carried a matching classic red Chanel bag under her arm as she made her way indoors and wore designer shades

The broadcaster had posted a gallery of sweet images with the PR executive, 45, on Wednesday to celebrate five years since they had met.

The troll wrote underneath: 'Not long before this one cheats on you. Dear oh dear, heading for the lawyers are we?'

Myleene clapped back: 'He wishes! Cheating exes usually get a house, a car and a fat pay-off.'

Love: Myleene has been celebrating her five year dating anniversary with boyfriend Simon Motson

The mother-of-two's words appear to be a pointed dig at her ex-husband Graham Quinn, who left her on her 34th birthday in 2012.

The heartbreaking incident came just six months after the couple's wedding, but they had been together for 11 years at the time, after meeting when Graham became the bodyguard for Myleene's pop group Hear'Say in 2001.

The former couple are parents to two daughters, Ava, 13, and Hero, nine. It has never been confirmed that Graham was unfaithful.

'Cheating exes usually get a house, a car and a fat pay-off': The outing comes after she hit back at a troll who claimed her boyfriend Simon (pictured) will cheat on her

Dig: The mother-of-two's words appear to be a pointed dig at her ex-husband Graham Quinn, who left her on her 34th birthday in 2012 (pictured in 2005)

Something to say: Myleene's words came in a response to a troll and she posted them on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday

Myleene was then devastated to learn that he had secretly bought a bachelor pad for himself  meaning that he must have been planning his departure for some time.

The broadcaster was said to be blindsided by the split after supporting Graham, who had a drugs conviction.

Speaking in an interview with Woman magazine in 2015, Myleene said: 'I felt so betrayed and so crushed. But I couldn't wallow in it. I said to my mum and dad, "I'm broken, but I will not sink".

'I just had to keep going because my girls would be up every morning asking me to make breakfast or fetch their recorders. My girls saved me.'

Multi-millionaire Myleene also admitted those close to her begged her to sign a prenuptial agreement when she married Graham to protect her assets.

'I married a convicted drug dealer and didn't sign a pre-nup', she previously told the Mirror. 'What was I thinking? When I say that sentence aloud, I realise how stupid it was.

'I just wish I had listened to my dad, my friends and everyone in the papers. Everyone could hear the alarm bells except me. I should have just opened my eyes.'

Myleene and Simon began dating in 2015 after being introduced by two mutual friends and they welcomed their first child together, son Apollo, in August last year.
She is the popular Mummy Diaries star who is building a business empire.

And Sam Faiers joined forces with her mother Suzie Wells for a Kardashian-Jenner inspired shoot to promote her new skincare brand on Friday.

The former TOWIE star, 29, and her age-defying mother, 50, channelled their inner Kim and Kris as they posed for a radiant shoot for Sam's new business, Revive Collagen.

Wow: Sam Faiers joined forces with her mother Suzie Wells for a Kardashian-Jenner inspired shoot to promote her new skincare brand on Friday

Sam, who recently opened up about her battle with adult acne, and Suzanne wowed in simple white vest tops as they showed off their flawless complexions and natural beauty.

The reality star sported fluttery lashes, glowing highlighter and a simple glossy lip, with her brunette tresses swept off her face, for the shoot.

The mother daughter duo oozed confidence as they posed up a storm while holding the sachets of collagen, before joining stunning models for more shots.

Sam revealed she discovered collagen skincare products for their anti-ageing benefits, but soon realised it significantly helped with the hormonal acne she suffered after the birth of her daughter, Rosie, now two.

Radiant: Sam, who recently opened up about her battle with adult acne, looked radiant as she launched Revive Collagen

The queens: With their soft yet radiant glamour, Sam and her mum emulated Kim Kardashian and 'momager' Kris Jenner

Yay: The former TOWIE star, 29, and her age-defying mother, 50, channelled their inner Kim and Kris as they posed for a radiant shoot for Sam's new business

Glossy; The mother-daughter duo sported glossy brunette locks and shimmering make-up for the shoot

She said: 'The last few years I've been very quiet about the fact that I've been suffering with adult acne - in my case, it was hormonal.

'After breastfeeding Rosie, my skin just broke out and I couldn't get it under control. I tried absolutely everything.

'It felt like the more I was doing to stop it the worse it became. I've been so embarrassed about it and have used filters on Instagram to try and hide it.

'I would always edit and smooth my skin in pictures and I definitely wouldn't leave the house without makeup.

Work it: Sam also appeared to be channelling Kylie Jenner's Kylie Skin campaign as she posed

Seeing double? The campaign also bore a marked resemblance to Kylie Jenner's Kylie Skin campaign

Stunning: Suzanne wowed as she showed off the liquid collagen sachet

I initially started to use collagen skincare products for the anti-ageing qualities but soon noticed a dramatic reduction in breakouts along with my skin becoming firmer, lines reducing and my skin feeling more hydrated.

That's why I set out to create a collagen skincare brand. Over the past two years, I've been working with some of the UK's top laboratories to bring to the market a uniquely formulated skincare brand that delivers real results.'

Revive Collagen is a daily liquid marine collagen supplement in a single-serve sachet.

Gorgeous: Sam looked breathtaking as she sported tousled locks while posing

Showing it off: Sam displayed her flawless complexion as she modelled for the brand

Glamour: Suzie looked gorgeous as she supported her daughter's latest business venture

Smile: Suzie looked proud and radiant as she showed off the product

It comes after the former TOWIE revealed she will not be returning to The Only Way Is Essex for the ITVBe show's 10-year anniversary special in October.

Sam, who has two children Rosie and Paul, four, told The Sun: 'I wont be getting involved because, to be honest, its like Im at a completely different stage in my life now.

'I dont even know what I would do on there any more.'

Trio: Sam joined other stunning models for the radiant photoshoot

'I've been so embarrassed': Sam recently has spoken out about her secret battle with cystic acne and how collagen has helped her

Love the skin you're in: The reality star earlier this week to share photos of her skin during a particularly bad flare-up and after treatment (pictured)

The blonde beauty was just 19 years old when the show first aired on 10 October 2010, and she admitted that she had nothing to lose at the time.

During her stint, Sam was an integral character, having a love triangle storyline with Lothario Mark Wright and his on-off girlfriend of nine years, Lauren Goodger.

The reality star then went on to date Joey Essex after Mark announced his engagement to Lauren, and ended up becoming engaged herself to Joey, 30.

However it wasn't meant to be and the pair split up on the show in 2013.
President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Yuma International Airport in Arizona on Aug. 18. Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

Employers and payroll companies have less than two weeks to put President Donald Trump's payroll tax deferral in place. It's looking like an uphill battle. The president signed an executive order on Aug. 8 calling for a deferral of the employees' portion of the payroll tax from Sept. 1 through the end of the year. Currently, employers and employees share responsibility for a 12.4% levy that funds Social Security and a 2.9% tax to support Medicare. Social Security taxes are subject to an annually adjusted wage cap ($137,700 for 2020), but Medicare taxes are assessed beyond that threshold. The executive order applies specifically to the Social Security tax and would affect workers whose bi-weekly pay is less than $4,000 on a pretax basis. Employers and payroll companies are still awaiting final guidance from the IRS on how this will work.

It's looking less likely that they'll be ready in time. "It's getting close to Sept. 1, and if [guidance] is issued any further beyond today or tonight, it'll be harder for employers to do something about it," said Pete Isberg, vice president for government relations at payroll provider ADP. To that effect, the National Payroll Reporting Consortium  of which ADP is a member  highlighted its concerns in an Aug. 20 statement. "Even if guidance were available today, the programming changes are substantial in scope," the trade association wrote. To meet the guidance, payroll companies would have to recalculate the payroll tax in the middle of a quarter and have it apply to some employers and some workers  but not others, they said. "Not all employers and payroll systems will be able to make these complex changes by Sept. 1," the consortium said.

Questions linger

While Trump handed down the deferral through an executive order, there's no guarantee that the employees' share of the payroll tax will be forgiven. This has created uncertainty among payroll providers and employers. For starters, employers are generally responsible for withholding and depositing payroll tax. If the employer doesn't withhold employees' share of taxes and the IRS can't collect them, then the worker is on the hook for the tax. "If this were a suspension of the payroll tax so that employees were not forced to pay it back later, implementation would be less challenging," wrote the U.S Chamber of Commerce in an Aug. 18 letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. More from Personal Finance:

Eviction protections are quickly disappearing

Extra $300 in unemployment benefits not coming soon

What Joe Biden plans to do for student loan borrowers "But under a simple deferral, employees would be stuck with a large tax bill in 2021," the group wrote. "Many of our members consider it unfair to employees to make a decision that would force a big tax bill on them next year." An employee earning $50,000 per year would be able to pocket $119 per paycheck if Social Security taxes were deferred. That adds up to $1,073 over nine pay periods, the Chamber said. The employee will have to fork that money over to the IRS in 2021 if there's a deferral but no forgiveness of the tax. Even the execution of the payroll tax cut on the part of the employer remains uncertain. "Do you default everyone in, so they're all deferred, or do you ask each employee if you want us to do this for you, let us know and they have to elect the deferral?" asked Isberg. "We have no idea what to expect."

Saving Social Security

Jose Luis Pelaez | Getty Images
A2 Milk boss Geoffrey Babidge says the company's $NZ270 million ($246 million) bid for a majority share of a New Zealand dairy processor would provide significant infant formula manufacturing capability and greater links with Chinese business partners.

The dual Australian and New Zealand-listed infant formula and dairy company would acquire 75.1 per cent of Mataura Valley Milk under the proposed deal, while Mataura's existing major shareholder, China Animal Husbandry Group, would retain the rest.

A2 Milk has launched a $246 million bid to buy a majority share of a Kiwi dairy manufacturer.

Mataura Valley owns a near-new processing plant north-east of Invercargill in a region known as Southland, a developing dairy area.

Mr Babidge said the plant was currently focused on milk powder production, but if the deal went ahead a2 would invest about $NZ100 million to enable the plant to can infant formula, giving it a vertically integrated facility that processed fresh milk and produced finished infant formula products.
Karnataka Exam Authority will announce the results for Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET) 2020 today, according to media reports. Once the results are declared, candidates will be able to download their scorecard online at kea.kar.nic.in or cetonline.karnataka.gov.in.

KCET 2020 Result declared, direct link here

Earlier, the deputy CM of Karnataka Dr Ashwathnarayan CN had informed that the result will be announced on August 20 which was delayed due to technical error,=. The result will be available on Friday, August 21 at 12:30, pm, Indian Express reported.

KEA had conducted the KCET 2020 on July 30 and 31, after Bengaluru High Court dismissed the plea of students demanding the postponement of the exam in view of Covid-19.. Nearly 1.47 lakh candidates had appeared for the KCET 2020 exam at 120 places in 497 exam centres across the state.

How to check KCET Result 2020:

Visit the official website at kea.kar.nic.in

Find a link scrolling on the homepage that reads KCET 2020 result

Key in your login credentials and submit

Your KCET Result will be displayed on screen.
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With a few drops I learned that these liquids had the potential to last 2007 runescape gold 6 months or more. That was a huge savings! To only spend 4 5 dollars every six months to refill you e cig compared to a pack a day at $7.00 saved me loads of money. There was also a much cleaner taste..

FACT: Post said, "Dernoga has never worked as a prosecutor, nor even as a criminal defense lawyer; in fact, he hasn't practiced law of any sort in almost a decade. Lacking that basic background and familiarity with criminal law, Mr. Dernoga has no business running a prosecutor's office in one of Maryland's biggest and most crime ridden counties.".

I'm a prototypical Ask Culture critter, but I'm surrounded by High Context Culture types. I've struggled for years, but I've finally come to understand that my way is not inherently better, and I want to learn how to interact with peoplepeople I'm close toso we can all be happy. Do you know of books or papers I should read, or things I should do? Thank you..

The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ), known as the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission until 1993, is Texas' state environmental agency. The agency was created by the Texas Legislature in 1991, after combining the Texas Water Commission and the Texas Air Control Board to provide synthesis and cohesion in environmental standards. The agency focuses mostly on promoting clean air and water and the safe management of waste in Texas.

Valerian is an herbal extract. It is one of the leading natural supplements for managing anxiety and insomnia. But according to the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Data Base there is not enough proof to say that it is effective in treating insomnia.

Missed the BBC, she says. Not me making a political statement; I genuinely missed the way it shapes our culture and opens the world up to us, and us up to the world. In the States you can watch TV for more than a few minutes without an advert for indigestion or laxatives; the most vulnerable people are killing themselves with cheap junk food..

Among Jones outrageous claims? That the terrorist attacks on 9/11 was an job. Whole thing is a black hole of lies, he said on his radio show in March of last year. When President elect Trump raised the possibility that some 3 million people voted illegally, that had been on now his own lawyer suggests Jones shouldn be taken at his word..

West's clemency filing says the jury never heard a jail recording from Martin saying he carried out the killings, not West. But a 1989 state Supreme Court opinion rejected the recording as uncorroborated hearsay that wouldn't have exonerated West. West's attorney opted against playing the tape at sentencing because the judge would have allowed other recordings in which Martin incriminated West, court records show..

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Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 08:20 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6925f 1 Editorial hospitals,COVID-19,pandemic,healthcare-infrastructure,health-system,puskesmas,#Editorial Free

While the fact that more COVID-19 patients are now able to receive hospital treatment may appear like a positive sign, the reality is the countrys health system may struggle to keep up and begin to buckle if the rate of infection continues to increase.

As of Wednesday, 100,674 people had recovered from COVID-19 and been discharged from the hospital, according to the national COVID-19 task force, while more than 40,000 are currently receiving treatment across the country.

With the positivity rate  the percentage of tests that return a positive result  increasing, hospital overcrowding is an issue we must anticipate, unless drastic measures are taken to contain the virus. However, restrictions have been eased to enable the economy to bounce back and further relaxation of restrictions are on the horizon, given the governments zeal for economic growth.

In Jakarta in particular, the rising infection rate is worrying.

Just recently Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said that 65 percent of the 4,456 beds in isolation wards and 67 percent of the 483 beds in intensive care units (ICUs) at COVID-19 referral hospitals across the city were now occupied. The capital has regained the top spot on the countrys provincial case tally after its average positivity rate jumped to 8.6 percent from below 5 before the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) began to be eased in June.

At present, there are almost 9,000 active cases of COVID-19 in Jakarta, but only 2,559 are receiving treatment at hospitals due to limited capacity. Hospitals also have to allocate ICU beds for non-COVID-19 patients.

Across the country the bed occupancy rate at hospitals is equally a cause for concern. In many provinces, such as Central Java, South Sumatra, East Kalimantan and South Kalimantan, the rate has exceeded 50 percent and is nearing 60 percent. The rate has even reached 92 percent in far-flung Papua.

We can avoid hospital overcrowding if the countrys health support system, like community health centers (Puskesmas), works well. However, a number of Puskesmas have been closed indefinitely after its health workers contracted the virus.

Frontline health workers are at increased risk of infection. Not only have they have been stretched to their limits, but they are sometimes required to work without sufficient protective gear. As if to add insult to injury, many of them have not received the allowances promised by government because of drawn-out bureaucratic procedures.

Another problem that has gone unaddressed is the availability of ventilators at hospitals, which are vital when COVID-19 infection reaches its most critical levels.

The government can increase hospital capacity and provide more ventilators to deal with the soaring number of infections, but for how long can it keep up? By a low estimate, experts have said we will probably need 80,000 more hospital beds, including 12,850 ICU beds, and 6,300 ventilators.

The question is whether the government has enough money, not only to meet the rising demand for hospital care, but also to provide the sick with life-saving medication.
Hudson, NY (12534)

Today

Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. Morning high of 30F with temps falling to near 20. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Partly cloudy skies. Low 4F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Tesla has raced pass Walmart in value, marking another extraordinary milestone in the electric car maker's rise.

A fresh surge in the firm's share price has taken its market capitalisation to $373billion, eclipsing the US supermarket group's $370billion.

It comes ahead of Tesla's planned shares split, which will see investors given five shares for every one they hold.

Bright future: Some analysts predict that Elon Musk's firm is set to become one of the largest in the world off the back of its cutting-edge battery technology

The company's stock passed the $2,000 mark on Thursday, taking its rally so far this year to almost 380 per cent.

However, its size and revenues are just a fraction of those of Walmart, the world's largest retailer.

Walmart boasts annual revenues of $524billion and profits of $15billion, compared to

Tesla's revenues of $24.6billion and profit of $35.8m in 2019. It also employs 2.2m people, has 11,500 stores globally, serves some 265m customers and has one of America's most-visited websites after online rival Amazon.

Tesla has about 50,000 employees and about 200 stores globally. It has produced more than 1m electric cars since 2012.

However, some analysts predict that Musk's firm is set to become one of the largest in the world off the back of its cutting-edge battery technology, which has given it a lead over traditional car makers.

It has also boosted investor confidence recently by ramping up production of its flagship Model 3 car and successfully expanding into China, where it has built a new factory in Shanghai.

Critics have claimed its meteoric rise this year is a sign the company has become a 'bubble stock'.

But Tim Bain, president at investment group Spark Asset Management, said earlier this month: 'Investors need to focus on whether or not Tesla can continue to move beyond being just a car company.

'In order to justify a valuation that can continue to grow at above-market rates, investing in Tesla today requires you to believe that they will move into energy production and storage.'

Tesla shares, which have soared more than 800 per cent in the past 12 months, were trading at around $2,080 just before the closing bell on Wall Street last night.
There have been widespread protests and strikes in Belarus (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

The Belarusian ambassador to Slovakia has resigned just days after expressing support for those protesting against president Alexander Lukashenko.

Igor Leshchenya said in an interview that it was a logical move after he recorded a video statement supporting the protests that have been happening in Belarus since the presidential election on August 9 that gave a sixth term to long-time leader Mr Lukashenko.

In the statement released on Saturday, Mr Leshchenya expressed solidarity with those who came out on the streets of Belarusian cities with peaceful marches so that their voice could be heard.

He added he was shocked by the reports of mass beatings and torture of protesters and accused Belarusian law enforcement of restoring the traditions of the Soviet secret police.

As an ambassador, Im appointed by the president, and it is expected that I follow the policies determined by him. The Foreign Ministry believes my civic stance has gone beyond that, Mr Leshchenya told independent Belarusian news outlet Tut.by on Tuesday.

Expand Close Protests continue in Belarus (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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The president is yet to sign Mr Leshchenyas resignation.

Mr Leshchenya, 52, was the first top government official to support the protests against Mr Lukashenko, who won 80% of the votes according to the official election.

His top challenger, former English teacher Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, got only 10% and denounced the vote as rigged, demanding a recount as hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets all across Belarus in protest.

The rallies have continued despite a response from the police, who in the first four days of demonstrations detained almost 7,000 people and injured hundreds with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs. At least two protesters have died.

Ms Tsikhanouskaya left the country for Lithuania in a move her campaign said was made under duress and on Monday she announced she was ready to act as a national leader to facilitate a new election.

Mr Lukashenko, who has run the ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million since 1994, bristled at the idea and refused to cede his post despite the protests growing and attracting more and more people who used to be at the core of his electorate.

On Monday, several major state-controlled plants and factories announced strikes, with thousands of workers taking to the streets and demanding Mr Lukashenkos resignation. Nearly 100 employees of state television also started a strike on Monday.

More factories announced strikes on Tuesday.

In the capital Minsk, several dozen people gathered in front of a theatre to support the troupe that gave notice en masse after the theatres director Pavel Latushko was dismissed for siding with the protesters.

The embattled president said on Monday that the country could have a new presidential election but only after approving an amended version of its constitution in a nationwide referendum.

Western officials said the elections were neither free nor fair and criticised Belarusian authorities for their crackdown on protesters.
The 1-square-kilometer village of Wulin in Fujian province features foreign architecture dating back to about a century ago. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Most people wouldn't imagine a place like Wulin village exists. It not only does but also is drawing a growing number of travelers, who come to see its unlikely structures.

Indeed, it's extremely rare in the country to find a rural settlement like the one 15 minutes' drive from Fujian province's Jinjiang city's downtown that features foreign architecture dating back to roughly a century ago.

Some buildings in the 1-square-kilometer hamlet feature Romanesque and Gothic styles. Some carry Southeast Asian elements. And some are typical of Fujian's south.

They were built by Chinese who returned from such Southeast Asian countries as Malaysia and Singapore.

Some weren't yet completed during the Minguo period (1912-49), when their owners joined the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

A standout is the three-story Xiuyang Building, constructed as a watchtower in 1934.

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[ Editor: SRQ ]
OTTAWA, ON, Aug. 20, 2020 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada understands that cetaceans, which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises should be enjoyed in the wild, not in captivity.

Today, the Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, launched a 90-day online public consultation on a suite of policies that implement legislative changes to the Fisheries Act, which came into force last year.

The policies will provide guidance for the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard to grant or deny authorizations related to:

specific circumstances under which a whale, dolphin or porpoise may be taken it into captivity;

the import or export of living whales, dolphins or porpoises, as well as their reproductive materials, into or out of Canada ;

; scientific research involving whales, dolphins or porpoises; and

circumstances in which a whale, dolphin or porpoise may be kept in captivity for their health and well-being.

These new policies are being introduced as a result of June 2019 amendments made to the Criminal Code and Fisheries Act aimed at ending the captivity of these animals. These legislative changes set out a very specific set of circumstances in which whales, dolphins and porpoises, as a last resort, can be removed from their natural habitat.

The public consultation will be open until November 18, 2020. Submissions can be made through the Consulting with Canadians website.

Quotes

"Like Canadians across the country, our Government understands that whales, dolphins and porpoises should be enjoyed in the wild, not on display behind glass walls. These new policies will help end their captivity across the country and ensure those already in captivity will not be imported or exported into or from Canada, unless it is in the best interest of their health, welfare, or for strong scientific reasons."

The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

Quick Facts

There are only two aquaria in Canada that hold cetaceans: the Vancouver Aquarium (managed by Ocean Wise) in British Columbia , and Marineland in Ontario .

that hold cetaceans: the Vancouver Aquarium (managed by Ocean Wise) in , and Marineland in . The Vancouver Aquarium has one cetacean in captivity: a 30-year-old Pacific White-sided dolphin. In January 2018 , the Vancouver Aquarium announced that it would no longer hold cetaceans in captivity for public display, with the exception of its one remaining dolphin.

, the Vancouver Aquarium announced that it would no longer hold cetaceans in captivity for public display, with the exception of its one remaining dolphin.

Marineland holds one Orca whale, five Bottlenose dolphins, and a population of more than 50 Beluga whales.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has not issued a permit to capture a cetacean from the wild for the purposes of public display since the early 1990s.

DFO is responsible for the conservation and protection of Canada's marine resources, including wild marine mammals, as set out in the Marine Mammal Regulations. We achieve this through regulation, research, education, policies, and management plans.

Associated Links

Consulting with Canadians: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/consultations/consultingcanadians.html

The Fisheries Act: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/f-14/?wbdisable=false

Stay Connected

Follow Fisheries and Oceans Canada on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Follow the Canadian Coast Guard on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Subscribe to receive our news releases and more via RSS feeds. For more information or to subscribe, visit http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/rss-eng.htm

SOURCE Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada

For further information: Jane Deeks, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, 343-550-9594, [email protected]; Media Relations, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 613-990-7537, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca


If you're looking for an effortlessly stylish and comfortable jumpsuit, Amazon has got you covered. The mega-site is selling an affordable, slouchy wide-leg jumpsuit that's quickly becoming a favourite among fashion lovers.

According to shoppers, the comfortable piece of loungewear is one of the best the mega-retailer has to offer. Reviewers are calling the Smile Fish Women Wide Leg Drawstring Jumpsuit 'a great find', 'flattering' and 'like PJ's but for day time'.

In short, the Amazon bestseller is comfy, versatile, and ridiculously affordable, costing as little as 12.44 depending on the colour and size you select.

The Smile Fish Women Wide Leg Drawstring Jumpsuit is comfy, versatile, and ridiculously affordable, costing as little as 12.44 depending on the colour and size you select

You can shop the jumpsuit in khaki green, classic black, stripped and floral designs, and it can be easily styled with sandals or a leather jacket.

'Like PJ's but for day time!! Perfection,' one shopper wrote in their five-star review. 'This product is divine! It feels like I'm wearing PJ's, it's so comfy. I'm 5ft9 when the length is perfection, both body and leg, which is often a problem for me in jumpsuits.'

Another shopper added: 'So comfy material feels good quality not horrible thin and cheap. I'm def going to order more it's the first jumpsuit I have brought that I love and looks good on my tummy area.'

The fuss-free bodysuit is made with an tie waistband and a soft, stretchy fabric described by one customer as 'soft and thick, but floaty'. It also features adjustable spaghetti straps and pockets.

Reviewers are calling the Smile Fish Women Wide Leg Drawstring Jumpsuit 'a great find', 'flattering' and 'like PJ's but for daytime'

Whether you're doing yoga, seeing friends, popping to the supermarket, or simply lounging around the house, the jumpsuit will be your go-to this summer.

Mums-to-be are fans of the Smile Fish Women Wide Leg Drawstring Jumpsuit too. One reviewer wrote: 'I'm currently 18 weeks pregnant and working from home so I needed something comfortable and stretchy that would grow with me.

'This is perfect! It's so comfy, and the loose legs make sitting for long periods so easy! The legs are a little long but nothing to worry too much about.'

MailOnline may earn commission on sales from the links on this page.
: Protesting against the



Centre's decision to lease out the airport here to Adani Enterprises, the ruling CPI(M) in Kerala on Friday said it would send two lakh emails to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, opposing the move.

"Party workers and representatives at various levels will send emails to Modi to express the state's sentiments on the matter," CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told reporters here.

An all-party virtual meeting called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had onThursdaydemanded withdrawalof the union cabinet decision to lease out to the Adani group, while the Centre maintained that the state government had failed to qualify in the bidding process that was carried out in a "transparent manner".

The CPI(M) on Friday demanded that the Union government hand over the airport to the state government and said it would not allow its takeover by the Adani group.

"We will not allow privatisation of the airport. It cannot be handed over to private hands",Balakrishnan said.

"The centre'saim is to hand over airports to corporates. All airports and seaports are being handed over to the Adanis," he alleged.

Setting aside political differences, all parties should join hands with the state government in this fight against the privatisation of Thiruvananthapuram airport,he said.

Alleging huge corruption was involved in the Centre's decision, the Marxist leader recalled that Union minister V Muraleedharan, who has justified the move, had opposed it in 2018.

"We need to put pressure on the Union government to change the decision.

The state government is prepared to take over the airport.

During the pandemic, such a decision by the centre smacks of huge corruption", he alleged.

He also urged all MPs to intervene in the matter.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who has welcomed the Centre's decision, should change his stance and stand with the state's interests,Kodiyeri said.

After the all-party meeting, Vijayan once again wrote to the Prime Minister on the matter and informed him about the decision taken and requested him to reconsider the move.

The Chief Minister had told the meeting that the state government had asked for the management and the operationof the airport with the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which it will be the major shareholder.

Union Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said the Kerala government did not qualify in the bidding process, which was held in a transparent manner.

Adani Enterprises won the rights to run six airports --- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati -- through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode after a competitive bidding process in February, 2019.

(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 Japanese-owned bulk carrier that ran aground off Mauritius and spilled oil over pristine waters and fragile coral reefs diverted more than 100 kilometers from a regular shipping lane, data from a maritime analysis firm showed.

The MV Wakashio, owned by Nagashiki Shipping and chartered by Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., struck a coral reef on Mauritiuss southeast coast on July 25 and later began leaking oil. Two of the ships officers have since been arrested on charges of endangering safe navigation.

The iron-ore carrier was using a well-traveled shipping lane that passes near Mauritius when the accident happened, according to maritime analysis firm Windward and shipping sources.

It appears to have deviated from that lane about 55 nautical miles (102 km) from Mauritius and headed straight for the Indian Ocean island, the data showed. The data shows the ships track during the last few hours of its journey, including a minor turn after crossing into Mauritius territorial waters.

Assessing Liabilities from Massive Mauritius Oil Spill The Wakashio is insured by Japan P&I Club, which could cover up to as much as $1 billion.

It was on a very bad trajectory, Omer Primor, Windwards head of marketing, told Reuters.

Reason Unclear

It was not immediately clear why the ship appeared to deviate from its course. Tracking data for other cargo vessels passing close to Mauritius recently show them all sticking to the shipping lane.

The Mauritius coast guard had repeatedly tried to reach the ship to warn it that its course was dangerous but received no reply, Reuters reported this week.

When asked about the Windward data, a Nagashiki Shipping spokesman said: We have submitted our route record data to the police, but we cannot comment on the data, as the police are investigating the incident.

The company has declined to comment on the report that the coast guard had tried to contact the ship. A spokesman at Mitsui OSK, which chartered the ship, said it was also investigating the carriers course. He declined to comment further.

One regional maritime official said Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) data he had seen did not show the ships turn inside Mauritius territorial waters, but added that it could be because of an inaccuracy in AIS data.

The government of Mauritius and maritime authorities there did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the data.

Mauritius said on Thursday it has started to scuttle the ship, after announcing the plan a day earlier, which had raised alarm from environmentalists worried about further damage after more than 1,000 tons of fuel oil leaked.

Scientists say that the full impact of the spill is still unfolding but that the damage could affect Mauritius and its tourism-dependent economy for decades.

The wildlife at risk include the seagrasses blanketing sand in the shallow waters, clownfish living in coral reefs, mangroves systems, and the critically endangered Pink Pigeon, endemic to the island.

(Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick; Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo and Giulia Paravicini in Milan; Editing by Gerry Doyle and David Dolan)

Photo: The MV Wakashio, a bulk carrier ship that recently ran aground off the southeast coast of Mauritius, can bee seen from the coast or Mauritius, Wednesday Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/ Kooghen Modeliar-Vyapooree-Lexpress Maurice)

Topics Energy Oil Gas
The Pentagon's top weapons buyer said Thursday that the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter should finally go into full production by next March following a series of delays -- the latest for COVID-19 workplace restrictions.

"I am confident that we are going to meet the March date," said Ellen Lord, undersecretary of Defense for Acquisitions and Sustainment.

Read next: Inspectors Said Her Toxic Leadership Was 'Worst Seen in 20 Years.' She Just Became a 1-Star

However, Lord said she is going to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, next week with Robert Behler, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, to check on issues with the Joint Simulation Environment (JSE) facility for flight operations testing.

She said the trip is necessary to "understand exactly where we are" on the ability to run the JSE and get to full production.

"There have been setbacks within the JSE" on getting to full production for the F-35, the most expensive weapons system ever bought by the Pentagon, at $398 billion thus far.

The March 2021 target date, first reported by Bloomberg, was forced by delays to comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines "to make sure we had a safe working environment," Lord said at a Pentagon briefing.

More than 440 F-35s have been delivered around the world as of October 2019; full rate production approval would allow Lockheed to start producing upward of 160 aircraft per year.

Military.com reported last September that issues with the Joint Simulation Environment were delaying Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) for the F-35s.

The IOT&E will go ahead "when the JSE is ready to adequately complete the testing," DoD spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Andrews said in a statement at the time. "The JSE is required to adequately perform F-35 IOT&E against modern adversary aircraft and dense ground threats in realistic scenarios."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Executes 1st Alert Status Drill in the Middle East.
Killing someone takes a lot of wickedness backed by an equal amount of temerity, none of which was lacking in Tony Marino, Joseph "Red" Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg, when they gathered at a shabby speakeasy in New York City on a cold winter night in 1933, and hatched a scheme. It was the height of the Depression, and these five lowly men were struggling to make their ends meet. Tony was the proprietor of the establishmenta derelict store wedged between a small awning shop and a brick wall. It never seemed to open, until late at night, when the doors were unlocked to usher in all kinds of shady characters looking to wet their whistle.

Depression-era speakeasy. Illustration by Virnard/Shutterstock.com

But not all of Tony Marinos customers paid. Some emptied out their dirty pockets and put the rest on a tab, which was conveniently forgotten. The biggest offender was Michael Malloy, an old Irishman who came to America seeking a better life, but instead found himself, along with the rest of the nation, plunged into poverty and homelessness.

Malloy worked as a firefighter before the stock market crash. Then he began doing odd jobs like sweeping alleys or collecting garbage. At nights he staggered to the door of Marinos speakeasy and drank his brains out. He was, the Daily Mirror wrote, just part of the flotsam and jetsam in the swift current of underworld speakeasy life, those no-longer-responsible derelicts who stumble through the last days of their lives in a continual haze of Bowery Smoke. 

That night, as Malloy sat snoring in one corner of the bar, the five men discussed the hard times and how they might earn some quick bucks. Over several rounds of drinks, the men decided on a sinister planthey would take out an insurance policy on innocent naming themselves as beneficiaries, then they would kill the victim and collect the cash. Marino had pulled off such a scheme once before. Just the previous year, he had befriended a homeless woman, convinced her to take out a $2000 insurance policy, and then one frigid night, got her drunk and left her naked, wet and and unconscious beside an open window. The medical examiner ruled her death as an accident, and Marino collected the policy amount without incident.

Marino and his party of crooks believed they could do it one more time. All they needed was someone expendable with no friends or family. Mallory fitted the bill perfectly.

Tony Marinos speakeasy. Photo: Ossie Le Viness/NY Daily News

The five conspirators started cosying up to Malloy and plied him with free drinks. They explained to him that the men were collecting signatures for a petition that would get Marino elected to local office. If Malloy signed the petition, Marino promised he would get unlimited credit. The promise of free booze delighted Malloy, and he hastily signed everything that was put in front of him. Without knowing Malloy signed three insurance policies, for a total of over $3,500 (roughly $70,000 in 2020).

The plan was simple. Malloy was in his fifties, although he looked at least a decade older, and was in awful shape. With unlimited credit, Marino thought that Malloy would abuse it and drink himself to death. But Malloy turned out to be a hardy fellow. Each night, Malloy would drink half his weight in booze, thank Marino for his hospitality, and return the next day without fail.

The gang realized that alcohol alone wouldnt do the job, so Marino started adding a little antifreeze to his drinks. But that made no difference. Antifreeze was replaced with turpentine, followed by horse liniment, and finally rat poison was mixed in. Still Mallow lived. The group then tried raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol, because Pasqua, one of the conspirators, had seen a man die after eating oysters with whiskey. Then came a sandwich of spoiled sardines mixed with poison and carpet tacks. Malloy not only lived, he thrived, even putting on weight.

The group concluded correctly that Malloy had an iron stomach and it might be impossible to kill him with alcohol and food. So they decided to try out the tested methodfreeze him to death, like Marino did with the homeless woman. On an exceptionally cold night they waited until Malloy passed out, put him outside, and poured water over him. But that didnt work either. Malloy woke up sometime later, and dragged his half-frozen body to Marinos speakeasy to sleep it off on the floor.

By this time killing Malloy had become as much a matter of pride as payoff. With monthly insurance payments looming large, Marino in desperation hired a cab driver to run over Malloy. But that only left Malloy with a few broken bones. After a short stint in the hospital, Malloy was back at the speakeasy.

Tony Marino and Frank Pasqua, after their arrest.

This time, the gang had enough. On February 22, after Malloy passed out for the night, they took him to Murphy's room, put a hose in his mouth and connected it to the gas jet. This finally killed Malloy. He barely lasted five minutes. They bribed a doctor to pronounce him dead by lobar pneumonia and he was quickly buried. But a story like this stays rarely buried. Soon word got out of Malloy the Durable and when the rumors fell on the cops ears, an investigation was opened. Malloys body was exhumed and forensically examined

What the murderers didnt know was the gas that killed Malloy was carbon monoxide, a gas that forms such a lethal and stable bond with proteins in the blood that it stays with the body for months. Laboratory analysis easily found lethal levels of carbon monoxide in the remains of old Malloy. A little grilling from the cops and both the doctor, who conducted the initial autopsy, and the cab driver hired to run down Malloy sang like a bird. The entire gang was arrested.

Hersey Green went to prison, while the other four members were executed in the electric chair.

References:

# Karen Abbott, The Man Who Wouldnt Die, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wouldnt-die-89417903/

# Harry Brent, The incredible story of Durable Mike Malloy - a Donegal man living in New York who simply refused to die, https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/incredible-story-durable-mike-malloy-donegal-man-living-new-york-simply-refused-die-169395

# Deborah Blum, The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim, https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-legend-of-mike-the-durable-malloy-historys-most-st-5918834
NICOSIA, Cyprus: Thousands of motorcyclists staged simultaneous rides through cities and towns in Cyprus on Friday to protest a police decree that they claim infringes on their constitutional right to unfettered mobility.

Motorcyclists gathered in Nicosia, the capital of the Mediterranean island nation, and four other towns before setting off.

Riders are upset over a decree that bans large-displacement motorcycles from some city streets during the predawn hours on certain days this month. Police say the measure is needed to combat noise pollution that has gotten out of hand because of illegally modified motorcycles.

Law enforcement officials say the chief of police can issue such a decree if its in the public interest."

Police eased some restrictions after talks with riders but motorcycle representatives insist on their complete lifting.

Residents near busy streets have applauded the police move, which they said was long overdue but motorcyclists insist its collective punishment for the misdeeds of a few scofflaws.

Cyprus Motorcycle Federation President Zannetos Koumashi told The Associated Press motorcyclists had been willing to work with police to catch scofflaws but now the decree has upset many and made cooperation more difficult.

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
Les membreas du Cabinet ont pris note que le MV Wakashio sest brise en deux parties dont une a ete coulee alors lautre sera demantelee, que Le Flock Depollution a commence a depolluer dans les regions de Bois des Amourettes, Vieux Grand Port, Riviere des Creoles, Pointe dEsny ainsi que La Case du Pecheur.

1. Cabinet has taken note of developments in respect of the MV Wakashio oil spill, namely 

(a) MV Wakashio broke into two distinct parts on 15 August 2020. Following the advice of technical experts and NGO experts, the scuttling operations of the forward section of the vessel are ongoing. The rear section of the vessel is still aground on the reef of Pointe dEsny and a salvage plan is being worked out for its removal;

(b) as at date, around 14.9km of booms have been deployed at all the affected sites. Some 2.2km of booms have also been deployed at Ile aux Aigrettes. River booms have been placed at Riviere La Chaux, Riviere des Creoles, Riviere Champagne and Grande Riviere Sud Est;

(c) Le Flock Depollution, the international contractor appointed by Protection & Indemnity Club, has started clean-up operations, together with 56 fishers at Bois des Amourettes public beach, Vieux Grand Port public beach and Riviere des Creoles public beach as well as at Pointe dEsny and La Case du Pecheur;

(d) as regards removal and disposal of waste, 991 metric tons of oily waste have been collected at 14 sites as at 18 August 2020 and have been sent to recyclers. Some 597 metric tons of solid waste and contaminated debris have been collected and transferred at the Hazardous Waste Interim Storage Facility at La Chaumiere for interim storage and subsequent exportation. Some 582 cubic metres of saturated booms have been carted away to La Laura Transfer Station;

(e) since 08 August 2020, 13 air monitoring exercises have been conducted regularly by the National Environmental Laboratory, at 25 sites, including 18 schools;

(f) coastal water quality monitoring is also being carried out by the Ministry of Environment, Solid Waste Management and Climate Change;

(g) around 30 foreign experts are currently in Mauritius to assist Government in different areas and ten experts are providing assistance remotely;

(h) a joint team comprising officers of the Ministry of Environment, Solid Waste Management and Climate Change, the National Coast Guard and the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation had conducted surveys for a better mapping of the affected sites from the lagoon side, including mangroves and other sensitive areas; and

(i) the University of Mauritius had a working session with experts at local and international levels to advise on scientific matters relating to clean up and restoration of affected areas.

2. Cabinet has taken note of the situation of COVID-19 pandemic prevailing worldwide and in the region. As at 20 August 2020, there were two imported active cases of COVID-19 in Mauritius. The Ministry of Health and Wellness has strongly advised that sanitary precautions should be maintained in order to avoid any importation or resurgence of COVID-19 within the Mauritian territory.

3. Cabinet has agreed to the Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives promulgating the Jewellery (Dealers Registration and Transactions) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 following the amendments made to the Jewellery Act under the Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020. The amendments were brought with a view to reinforcing the existing legal provisions to further counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism in the Jewellery Sector and pertaining to 

(a) the definition of dealer to include any person who processes, buys, sells or imports precious metals, besides from a person who deals in jewellery and precious stones;

(b) the definition of precious metals to include palladium apart from gold, silver and platinum; and

(c) the definition of jewellery to include an article made of gold, platinum and palladium or their alloys, which exceeds one gramme.

4. Cabinet has taken note of the implementation of a Flood Emergency Plan for Dr A.G. Jeetoo Hospital which is located in a flood prone area. The Plan has the following objectives 

(a) defining actions and responsibilities at different stages that should be taken by hospital staff and other stakeholders in the event of flooding at Dr A.G. Jeetoo Hospital so as to enable business continuity without any disruption and risks;

(b) providing for general preparedness measures in terms of setting up of a Hospital Disaster Management Committee;

(c) elaborating on the response measures, including watch stage and the relevant actions to be taken; and

(d) defining the roles and responsibilities of the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Energy Services Division of the Ministry of National Infrastructure and Community Development, as well as other external stakeholders.

5. Cabinet has taken note of the initiative of the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council to launch a Special Call for Proposals, aimed at supporting research and innovative projects that can improve and accelerate the Government and national response to the challenges posed by the oil spill resulting from the grounding of the MV Wakashio. A maximum award of Rs2 million per selected project is envisaged. Non-Governmental Organisations, enterprises, private organisations, public and private institutions, academia and research institutions would be invited to submit proposals that could address issues of immediate concern as well as those that would need to be considered in the medium to longer terms. Thematic areas to be considered for funding would include the following 

(a) oil spill tracking;

(b) development of healthy ecosystem and related indicators;

(c) restoring coastal, marine, and wetland resources;

(d) restoring coral reefs and sea-grass beds;

(e) identification of the best remediation techniques to deal with oil spillage in the sea;

(f) societal impact and building community resilience;

(g) enhancing beaches and shorelines;

(h) assessing and addressing the impact of oil spill on human health;

(i) oil spill waste management; and

(j) understanding ecological impacts.

6. Cabinet has taken note that the My.T money payment facility would be integrated to the National Electronic Licensing System platform at the Economic Development Board, for the payment of Building and Land Use Permits.

7. Cabinet has agreed to the ratification of the Articles of Association of two entities of Africa50, namely the Africa50 Project Development and the Africa50 Project Finance. Africa50 is an infrastructure investment fund established by the African Development Bank. It was founded in response to the existing infrastructure deficit on the African continent with the ability to act as a bridge between Government shareholders and private investors to channel and catalyse funding. Its focus is on high-impact national and regional projects in the energy, transport, ICT and water sectors. The primary objective of the Africa50 Project Development business segment is to make skilled experts available to projects from an early stage of development. The Africa50 Project Finance provides primarily equity and quasi equity with flexible exit options, while accessing preferential debt from the Africa Development Bank and Development Finance Institutions.

8. Cabinet has taken note of the National AIDS Spending Assessment (NASA) Report 2018 of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. The NASA is an internationally standardised framework developed by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) based on a system of classification and guidelines to track the resources spent on the HIV/AIDS response from all sources to beneficiary populations in a given year. The Report is based on the countrys third round of HIV/AIDS spending assessment and tracks national healthcare spending on HIV and AIDS for the period 01 January to 31 December 2018 in Mauritius and Rodrigues. According to the NASA Report 2018, an estimated amount of Rs237.27M was spent for the HIV/AIDS response in 2018 out of which Rs229.50M was spent in Mauritius and Rs7.77M in Rodrigues.

9. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Executive Committee of the National Youth Council with Ms Diksha Ramdonee as Chairperson.

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Obama administration

saw pretty good results

In today's world, we can access information at the click of a button. We don't have to drive to the library and spend time leafing through ponderous books to check things out. When I read Larry Herbst's letter, "Trump's record starkly different from Biden's," I couldn't help but think that he didn't take the few minutes required to check out government statistics. Apparently he just believed what he was told.

If you google the gross domestic product for the past 15 years, and google unemployment figures for the past 15 years, you get a clearer picture on what happened. And Herbst obviously doesn't remember what happened in 2008 with the financial crisis. When Barack Obama and Joe Biden took office in January 2009, we were on the brink of a worldwide financial meltdown. It was the closest thing to the repeat of the Great Depression in the 1930s. We were loosing 500,000 to 700,000 jobs a month, the unemployment rate zoomed to near 12%, and the stock market took a dive down to around 7,000. There were rampant foreclosures across the county. Eight years later, the unemployment figure was a 5%, the stock market rose to more than 18,000. And the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land, prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. A good first step. Hardly a socialist outcome. Not perfect, but very acceptable results considering where the Obama administration started from.
The head of Northern Ireland examinations body CCEA has apologised for leaving tens of thousands of young people with reduced AS and A-Level grades.

Justin Edwards, the head of CCEA was appearing before this mornings Education Committee at the Assembly, where he was questioned by members on the organisations response following the implementation of teacher assessed grades for all examinations.

Speaking in his opening remarks, Mr Edwards apologised for having added to the stress of pupils and their families at what is already a stressful time of the year and described the exceptional circumstances which led to the decision to implement the now scrapped grading algorithm.

He said: It is clear that despite our best efforts, the alternative arrangements may have led to greater concern among students, parents and teachers during an already stressful time.

I apologise on behalf of CCEA to all students, young people, parents, teachers and principals.

The lessons learnt from this process will feed into such circumstances, as are dealt with in the future, to ensure that mistakes arent repeated.

During questioning, the organisation also denied that the situation in Scotland had any bearing on the final grading model implemented here just days later, with Margaret Farragher from CCEA explaining, Those models selected didnt have anything to do with Scotland a few days prior.

They also confirmed that the Education Minister Peter Weir had the final say on any decision taken, with Mr Weir writing to CCEA on 13 May, specifying the exact approach we were to take in relation to A-level, AS and GCSE qualifications and that the mandate was to mitigate the risk to standards.
Barbara Kopples Desert One, released in theaters or available to stream today, is a documentary film about the US militarys effort in April 1980 to free American embassy staff captured during the 1979 Iranian revolution.

It is a deplorable work, which, while making minor gestures in the direction of Iranian suffering under the US-backed Shahs regime, espouses nauseating pro-military and patriotic sentiments. In particular, it is a cinematic ode to former President Jimmy Carter and US Special Forces.

Desert One

Kopple came to prominence with Harlan County, USA (1976), a documentary film focused on the Brookside Mine strike of 1973 in Harlan County, Kentucky, which pitted 180 coal miners and their families against the giant Duke Power Company (today Duke Energy). She later directed American Dream (1990), about the Hormel Food strike of 1985-86, and Shut Up & Sing! (2006), on the Dixie Chicks and their criticisms of George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

Kopples Desert One presents Operation Eagle Claw, the Carter administrations plan to rescue the 52 US embassy staff, many of them no doubt CIA agents and spies complicit in the crimes of the Shahs torture regime, as noble and heroic. The press notes begin excitedly: It has been called the most audacious, difficult, complicated, rescue mission ever attempted. Desert One uniquely blends emotion and bravado to tell the incredible tale of Americas secret mission to free the hostages of the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Much of the film simply provides a platform for Carter administration officials and former special forces officers and soldiers to wax nostalgic about the operation, which ended in a complete fiasco in the Iranian desert.

Kopple, in her directors statement, writes: There was something special about these special operations warriors I came to know making Desert One. I was touched to be able to get to know another side of them I had never seen, and it changed me. They got real and surprisingly emotional with me. I will never forget the very personal conversations we had as they sat down to interview, telling me their own piece of a bigger story that clearly matters to them.

I also experienced one of the most precious moments of my career on this film, sitting down to interview President Jimmy Carter.

Kopples interviewees include, along with Carter, former Vice President Walter Mondale; former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; Ted Koppel, the longtime anchor on ABCs Nightline (as the WSWS once characterized him, an insufferable statesman of the airwaves who was little more than a conduit for US government and ruling elite propaganda); Maj. James Q. Roberts, who, according to the films press notes, spent three decades working in the office of the Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict which oversees Special Forces command, and other assorted reprobates and professional killers.

A special mention must be made of the appearance in Kopples film by Maj. William G. Boykin, the Christian Right zealot. Boykin made a foul name for himself in 2003 when, as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, he repeatedly asserted that the Bush administrations war on terror was a religious war between Christianity and Islam, while making it clear that he himself answered only to God. There is certainly something special about him.

This is the company the former radical, Kopple, now keeps. Another American petty bourgeois left has returned to the fold.
U.S., China differ over plans for Phase 1 trade deal talks Chinese and U.S. flags flutter in Shanghai

By David Lawder and Yawen Chen

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Thursday declined to acknowledge any plans to meet with China over the Phase 1 trade deal after the commerce ministry in Beijing said bilateral talks would be held "in the coming days" to evaluate the agreement's progress.

Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng made the comments about the forthcoming discussions at a weekly briefing held online, but did not elaborate.

The videoconference meeting, originally envisioned for the Aug. 15 six-month anniversary of the trade deal's launch, had been delayed, and U.S. President Donald Trump said it was his decision.

Two U.S. sources familiar with the plans said on Thursday no new meeting date has been scheduled.

The U.S. Trade Representative's office and U.S. Treasury did not respond to queries about plans to review the trade deal, a regular six-month review by high-level officials called for in a chapter on enforcement.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow did not comment on possible talks with Chinese officials. But he said the Trump administration remains engaged with Beijing on the Phase 1 trade deal and USTR Robert Lighthizer was pleased with the progress so far.

China purchases of U.S. goods are running well behind the pace needed to meet a first year increase of $77 billion specified in the deal, according to official data. But China has increased the pace of farm product purchases in recent weeks.

Trump, who has frequently expressed anger at China over the coronavirus pandemic, said on Tuesday he had "postponed" talks with China because "I don't want to deal with them now."

As his re-election campaign ramps up, Trump has turned to tougher talk and actions against China, including sanctions over China's Hong Kong security crackdown and the forced sale of Chinese-owned short video platform TikTok.

Trump told supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday his administration would offer companies tax credits to bring U.S. jobs back to America from China.

"And if they don't do it, we'll put tariffs on those companies, and they'll have to pay us a lot of money," Trump said.

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Ryan Woo in Beijing; Editing by Alison Williams, Clarence Fernandez and Tom Brown)
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 19, 2020) - Roscan Gold Corporation (TSXV: ROS) (FSE: 2OJ) (OTC Pink: RCGCF) ("Roscan" or the "Company") announces that the Company is closely monitoring the political situation in Mali as it unfolds. Our top priority is the health and safety of our employees, their families and the local communities near where we work in West Mali. Additionally, the Company has added a fifth (5) drill rig to its exploration program.

The Exploration Program has not been affected and the Company continues drilling as normal. The fifth rig will be allocated to test our exploration targets as we continue to unlock value from the entire property. No operational days have been lost due to the political situation in the country and we are comfortably on target to achieve our 45,000m drill program target for 2020.

Roscan will continue to closely monitor the situation and ensure the safety of our employees and their families as this is our utmost priority at this time. Roscan has a positive relationship with the Government of Mali and our Country Manager is in consultation with the local Mayor to ensure we are updated regularly. It should be noted that the Mali Capital, Bamako, is over 600km from our exploration site.

Nana B. Sangmuah, President and CEO of Roscan said, "We cannot stress that our top priority is the health and safety of our employees, their families and the local communities near where we work in West Mali. Our aggressive exploration campaign through the rainy season continues with no disruptions to date. We will continue to provide ongoing updates to all our stakeholders going forward."

About Roscan

Roscan Gold Corporation is a Canadian gold exploration company focused on the exploration and acquisition of gold properties in West Africa. The Company has assembled a significant land position of 100%-owned permits in an area of producing gold mines (including B2 Gold's Fekola Mine which lies in a contiguous property to the west of Kandiole), and major gold deposits, located both north and south of its Kandiole Project in West Mali.

Story continues

For further information, please contact:

Andrew J. Ramcharan

Executive Vice President - Corporate Development

Tel: (902) 832-5555

Email: aramcharan@Roscan.ca

Greg Isenor

Executive Vice-Chairman

Tel: (902) 832-5555

Email: gpisenor@Roscan.ca

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, including those risks set out in the Company's management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62122
Although you never know how hurricane season is going to pan out from year to year, making sure you have what you need should disaster strike is always a good idea, and this year that means taking COVID-19 into account.

Robert Hemminger, the city of Deer Parks director of emergency services, says residents of his town and other coastal-area communities like Pasadena and La Porte should understand that planning this year may be more complex than in the past, particularly as it refers to evacuation.

Have virus-related supplies in emergency kit

Each family should allow for more time than usual to gather supplies and prescriptions, and please pay attention to local guidance about updated plans for evacuations and shelters as they may look somewhat different with COVID protocols in place, he said.

Along with the usual items to include in your emergency kit such as batteries, first aid supplies, important documents, prescription medicines, food and water, cash and a cell-phone charger, people should have at least two faces masks per person, extra bottles of hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol, sanitizing wipes and soap.

Special attention also should be paid to evacuation preparation.

Discuss social distancing ahead of time

Being prepared this hurricane season Centers for Disease Control recommendations for this storm season amid the coronavirus pandemic: https://bit.ly/2EqrfBC. Houston-Galveston Area Council's ZIP Zone evacuation map: h-gac.com City of Deer Park emergency preparedness checklist:https://bit.ly/3hoRCXy City of Pasadena emergency information:https://bit.ly/2Ym3imk City of La Porte storm preparedness guide:https://bit.ly/32cdaQK. See More Collapse

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends talking to the people you plan to stay with ahead of time to discuss social distancing and consider if either of your households has someone who is at higher risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19, Hemminger said.

Of course, if any residents have to shelter with another household they should pay extra attention to hygiene such as hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes. They might also consider limiting out-of-the-house errands to minimize exposure.

However, if you dont have family or friends to stay with and end up in a shelter further inland, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention website has a laundry list of ways to protect yourself from the coronavirus, including wearing a mask if youre over age 2; keeping with your family and staying at least 6 feet away from other people; washing your hands often and covering coughs and sneezes. It also recommends not sharing your food or drinks with anyone in the shelter outside of your immediate family.

Residents should refer to the Houston-Galveston Area Councils ZIP Zone map at h-gac.com and identify which zone they live in to determine the order in which theyll evacuate should a mandatory evacuation be called.

For the city of Deer Parks emergency preparedness checklist including links to emergency alert systems, click here.

The city of Pasadena provides this information, and the city of La Porte has a storm preparedness guide.
Indecline, an activist collective based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, first made a name for themselves in 2016. That summer, inspired by the farcical campaign of Donald Trump  and the art theyd seen during the election season, most notably Illma Gores portrait of the future 45, painted in her menstrual blood  the group put on a cross-country show of guerilla art. Early one August morning, teams in five cities simultaneously unveiled unauthorized, six-foot-five statues of Donald Trump, naked, his manhood comically small against the grotesque folds of his nude body. Based on these statues, crafted by a horror artist named Ginger, the installation called, fittingly, The Emperor Has No Balls  was documented by a shadow crew and turned into a video project in itself, a short film of the creation and implementation of an ambitious art project.

For their newest piece, a 40-minute documentary called The Art of Protest, Indecline teamed up with Saving Banksy director Colin M. Day to turn that footage  as well as footage of their numerous installations since, from prison rooms fabricated in Trump hotels to walking a pack of leashed MAGA supporters  to illustrate the importance of art and satire in the movement for social change. In this trailer, watch activist artists from Shepard Fairey to Pussy Riots Nadya Tolokonnikova to Tom Morello discuss how they use their work for protest. We are from the streets, and we wont give them up quietly to the corporate warlords of information-era tyranny, says a representative for Indecline. The art of protest is the process of finding humor in the Armageddon, but then hiding the tools of change in between the laughter.

The documentary will be released on Tuesday, October 13th, on RollingStone.com.

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping arranges his papers at the closing session of the regimes rubber stamp legislature Congress in Beijing, China on May 28, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Xi Jinpings Latest Published Speech Indicates Trend Toward Planned Economy: Experts

A speech given by Chinese leader Xi Jinping five years ago about facing difficult economic times has just been reprinted in nearly all of Chinas state-controlled media, including the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) main theoretical journal. Some analysts take it as a sign that the Chinese economy is in trouble and the CCP is reverting to a planned economy.

In the speech, delivered in November 2015, Xi reiterated the importance of studying Marxist political economy in the face of an extremely complex economic situation at home and abroad. Now the speech has been republished in Qiushi, a bi-monthly political journal, among other state-run media.

Economist Li Hengqing, from Taiwans Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times that this is going back to the planned economy under Chinas current economic difficulties.

Another analyst, economics professor Huiling Wu, told The Epoch Times he believes that this newly phrased old idea (of a planned economy) is in preparation for decoupling from the United States and adapting to isolationism. Wu said that the goal of the CCPs state-owned economic system has remained unchanged and is aiming at eliminating and plundering the private economy. However, the regime no longer holds the rights to speak on the international stage.

Returning to Isolation

On Nov. 23, 2015, Xi delivered a speech at the meeting of the Politburo on the basic principles and methodology of Marxist political economy. On Aug. 16, nearly all state-run media reprinted Xis speech.

Economist Li Hengqing said in an interview with The Epoch Times that a Marxist political economy means overthrowing the capitalist system and overthrowing the exploiter/exploited labor relationship. At the core of Marxist political economy is the theory of surplus value, he said. Then, given the disparity between the rich and poor, and the serious inequality in current Chinese society, Li raised the questions: Does this mean that another proletarian revolution is going to happen? Isnt it quite dangerous [living] under the leadership of the Communist Party?

China is now faced with both domestic and foreign economic difficulties, Li said. The economy lacks momentum for upward growth. With the U.S.-China trade war, exports have experienced negative growth and investment ended up with high debt. Therefore, Xi hopes to shift economic development through promoting domestic circulation, which means reliance on domestic consumption and demand.

This is equivalent to going backward to the planned economy pioneered by Lenin, Li said.

What will it be like to return to a planned economy? Li summarized Chinas history under a planned economy between 1949 and 1976, when the CCP eliminated all privately-owned enterprises and confiscated their assets. A rural economy was established with peoples communes forming administrative units. But there was a lack of motivation to work, and productivity was low. Not only were resources and materials wasted, but people also suffered from lack of food.

Those days of standing in line to receive vouchers for grain, oil, sugar, and so forth, and the militarized management, may return, Li said. Chinas economy is already on the verge of turmoil and collapse. Xi may be preparing to enter the economic state of wartime military management, he said. Its like reminding his drummers that its theoretically correct to embark on the wartime economy, and that people must be prepared.

Uncertain Future of Private Enterprises

Two years ago, a slogan Guo Jin Min Tui was widely publicized by the regimes media, meaning, state-owned enterprises are to lead the economy and private industries are to retreat.

But with the unprecedented economic downturn in 2020, Xi said twice this year that private industries must play their role well in the market, and the old path of a planned economy must not be revisited, when he spoke during the annual Two Sessions in May and at a meeting with business sectors in July. The Two Sessions refers to the regimes annual political meetings, where the rubber-stamp legislature and its advisory body enact policies and agendas.

However, the reprinted article in Qiushi stresses that the leading role of the state-owned economy must not be altered.

Li said Xi has shifted the plan again, focusing more toward a planned economyto replace the market economy with the state-owned economy.

Lis interpretation of this shift is: Whether its private enterprises, small and medium-sized private businesses, or even the self-employed, it must be abolished.

Li said this is reflected in the fact that state-owned enterprises must follow the direction of the Central Party Committee, have Party branch committees set up in private enterprises, and local Party branch committees set up to lead small businesses collectively.

Its completely become a Party-state system, which is the essence of the Guo Jin Min Tuithe state advances, and the people retreat, Li said.

Everyone can see now that the withdrawal from the free market economy is the general direction in China. But this is a complete reversal of history, and there will be no good results, he added.

Rogue Regime Plundering the World

Quoting from The Epoch Times editorial, How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World, professor Wu Huilin said the political economy of Marxism is actually neither a doctrine nor a theory. Communism should not be understood as an ideological movement, a political doctrine, or a failed attempt at a new way of ordering human affairs. Instead, it should be understood as a demonan evil specter forged by hate, degeneracy, and other elemental forces in the universe.

Wu said communism breeds war, famine, slaughter, tyranny, and has now given us the CCP virus (novel coronavirus), which has caused a disastrous global pandemic.

In Wus opinion, the reason why President Trump advocates countering the CCP is because the CCP has failed to fulfill its promises after China achieved rapid growth through gaining access to international market resources since joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a developing country in 2001, and enjoying tariff-free and other preferential policies.

As a rogue regime, its purpose is to plunder the world, Wu said, adding that its a regime based on a state-owned economya planned economy led by the Party.

The hope that the Party would change its nature by allowing it to join the WTO has, to the contrary, led to the CCP attacking the West with its propaganda and its diseases. And the CCP virus is now destroying the world.

In regard to the possibility of a U.S.-China economic decoupling, Wu said the CCP had no other choice. Fair trade is reciprocal, like the fair trade advocated by former U.S. President Ronald Reaganits about removing all restrictive obstacles, one by one.

Summing up his thoughts, Wu said, The ultimate goals of all U.S.-China conflicts are the change of Chinas institutional structure, the fall of the Communist Party, and the emergence of freedom and democracy.
When developers were trying to buy Gloria Blakes land in the Southampton Place pocket of West University, she liked what she heard about a luxury living senior community with great views and excellent service.

She liked it so much that she wanted to move in. And that is just what she and her husband Glen, a retired dentist, did.

The Village of Southampton recently opened and the Blakes moved in in early June.

We were the second couple to move into the community, she says, and we love it. My husband is an Aggie, so we have unit 1212 (because of the 12th man tradition at Texas A&M). She also has great views of everything from NRG Stadium to the Galleria from their two-bedroom, two-bathroom corner unit with floor-to-ceiling windows. She also can look down on the school she is owned for 51 years, the Southampton Montessori School.

We both love the area, she says. My husband and I can walk to the shops at Rice Village and to great restaurants. The area is also minutes away from the Museum District, Rice University, Hermann Park, and the Texas Medical Center.

As for The Village at Southampton, it offers independent living, assisted living and memory care apartments with high-end features including quartz countertops, open floor plans and individual climate control. There are beautiful community rooms, a gym, and an indoor swimming pool. Activities offered are many, including yoga, tai chi, and Pilates as well as walking groups, book clubs, weekly movie nights, cooking classes, nightly cards, and board games.

The ninth floor has an elegant dining room and a little bistro for coffee and snacks, Gloria says. All foods are prepared in-house daily from fresh ingredients and focus on healthy and delicious choices.

To learn more about The Village of Southampton, please visit the website at www.villagesouthampton or call 281-886-8944 and schedule a personal tour.
A left-wing teaching union faction is protesting today and threatening to boycott the reopening of schools if its demands over coronavirus safety are not met.

The Education Solidarity Network, part of the National Education Union, is holding a 'day of action' as it calls for measures including free PPE, smaller classes to allow social distancing and weekly Covid tests for teachers.

Campaigners are also demanding that parents who don't feel comfortable letting their children return to the classroom should not be fined as demanded by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson earlier this summer.

If local infections top 50 per 100,000 people, classrooms should close to all but priority children, protesters argue, despite Boris Johnson wanting a full reopening in September.

Demonstrations are taking place today in Bristol, Coventry, Worcester, Newham, Medway, Huddersfield, Plymouth, Lewisham, Greenwich, Leicester, Carlisle and Merton.

It comes as an exclusive poll for MailOnline found just over two-thirds of parents intend to send their children back to school when classrooms in England reopen next month - but almost a third do not feel comfortable with the restart.

James Kerr, a senior figure in the Education Solidarity Network, told The Times: 'We have already lost colleagues to the virus and will lose more if there is not action.

'It's not the Victorian era anymore. Every worker should be able to go to work in the knowledge that they will return alive and well.'

A left-wing teaching union faction is protesting today and threatening to boycott the reopening of schools if its demands over coronavirus safety are not met

The wider union's leadership has distanced itself from the faction's demands, but said bosses are pressing the government for a more robust track-and-trace system and a 'plan B' in case of local lockdowns or a second spike.

Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling hit out at the threat, however, as she told the Sun: 'This hard-left action takes a wrecking ball to our children's futures.'

To help make schools Covid-secure, plans have been drawn up for one-way systems, extra cleaning and staggered arrival and departure times for pupils.

Those in secondary school will be confined to year group 'bubbles', with smaller groups put together for primary children.

The Prime Minister has insisted schools will be the last to close even in areas which suffer surging cases of the virus, while Sir Keir Starmer said he also 'expects' all pupils to be back in the classrooms next month  despite opposition from pro-Labour unions.

The Labour leader wrote in the Mail on Sunday that it was a 'moral duty' for children to return to full-time schooling, arguing that Mr Johnson has a 'moral responsibility' to ensure that it happens.

It comes as a trade union official warns the 'rushed reopening' of schools could lead to the next care home crisis.

Justin McCamphill of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) was one of six trade union representatives who expressed concern to the Stormont education committee.

Schools across Northern Ireland are due to reopen on Monday for Primary 7, Year 12 and Year 14 pupils, and for vulnerable children across all year groups.

All other pupils will return to school on a full-time basis from August 31.

James Kerr, a senior figure in the Education Solidarity Network, told The Times: 'It's not the Victorian era anymore. Every worker should be able to go to work in the knowledge that they will return alive and well'

Mr McCamphill told the committee: 'It would have been more cautious and more sensible to open on a phased basis to see what the impact would be before moving to a full reopening.

'Unfortunately in many schools risk assessments have yet to be shared with staff, it is a legal requirement that risk assessments are shared with trade union health and safety reps, and in the absence of a trade union health and safety rep with staff in general.

'So we have schools putting out measures that they have not consulted with their staff on.

'This is going to lead, in my view, to what I think is going to be the next care home crisis.'

Gerry Murphy of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) emphasised that schools need to be adequately funded to reopen.

'The 35m component of the additional money announced last week is to be used for sub cover, to support pupil wellbeing and mental health, to support schools' transport and finally the statementing process, according to the minister.

'It is nowhere near enough to fund this restart adequately.

'Schools need to be reassured now that they can spend money to support their reopening and that money will either be returned to their budgets or DE will pick up the costs,' he said

Graham Gault of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) described the guidance to schools as 'substantial in volume but vague and contradictory in areas'.

'It places substantial burden on principals in terms of interpretation and implementation,' he said.

The Prime Minister, pictured on holiday in Scotland, has insisted schools will be the last to close even in areas which suffer surging cases of the virus

Jacquie White of the Ulster Teachers' Union (UTU) said getting children back to school is the wish of all, but stressed it is 'imperative that that's done in as safe a way as possible'.

She also expressed concern about funding for schools to put safety measures in place, telling MLAs that, for example, one primary school with 289 pupils has costed the requirements for one school year at 100,000.

'If we all want to be safe it is imperative that the funding and the resources are put in to make sure that anything that is thrown up by those risk assessments is mitigated against and dealt with,' she said.

Alastair Donaghy of the National Education Union (NEU) said his members are 'yet to be convinced that the complete and full-time return for all pupils without adequate social distancing is safe for pupils, school staff and the community circles they mix with and move in outside of school'.

'We are also concerned that there is no plan B should infection rates continue to rise and where localised lockdowns may occur,' he said.

'We believe it would have been sensible for schools to reopen initially with the original 50% plan, and social distancing, to slowly start reopening.'

Meanwhile Robert Wilson of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) warned that plans should be made for exams next year.

'Examinations in 2021 are the very desirable goal for most, but we feel there does need to be contingency planning in place in the light of the unpredictable nature of the virus,' he said.

There were also calls for a helpline to be set up.

Mr Gault said: 'We're asking the minister, is the department planning to set up a helpline for parents to ensure that they have confidence in returning their children to school or is the principal expected to manage this as well?'

Committee chairman Chris Lyttle (Alliance) said it is 'abundantly clear that there is considerable concern' about the reopening of schools.

He told the representatives the committee will follow up on the issues raised.

'For the avoidance of any doubt, I have full confidence and faith in the resilience of our teachers, our non-teaching staff, our parents, our young people, but they must be given the resources and support that they need from the education minister to meet the challenge of safely restarting our schools,' he added.
The man accused of bashing an 84-year-old pensioner within an inch of his life has been charged with an extraordinary list of crimes.

Quade Karsum Jones, 28, and another man were arrested on Thursday after a four-day manhunt sparked by his alleged crime spree across Perth.

Emilio Lombardi suffered a broken nose, eye injuries, and numerous deep cuts after he was attacked outside his home in Cannington on August 16.

The elderly man is in a critical condition at Royal Perth Hospital after allegedly being slashed with pieces of a mirror broken off his car.

Police allege Jones also indecently assaulted a woman in her 40s, bashed another in her 20s in the head with a metal pole, and violently robbed a man in his 20s.

Quade Karsum Jones, 28, who accused of bashing an 84-year-old pensioner within an inch of his life, has been charged with an extraordinary list of crimes

Emilio Lombardi suffered a broken nose, eye injuries, and numerous deep cuts after he was attacked outside his home in Cannington on August 16

The alleged rampage lasted just an hour, between 6.30pm to 7.30pm, but Jones, a roofing tradie, managed to rack up seven charges.

They include intent to do grievous bodily harm, indecent assault, robbery, and assault occasioning bodily harm.

The young man allegedly attacked by Jones is one of Mr Lombardi's neighbours and described it as 'terrifying'.

'They came out of nowhere. I was kicked and punched. One of them tried to spray paint into my eye,' he told Nine News.

Jones will remain behind bars until September 15 after briefly facing Perth Magistrates Court on Friday.

A 24-year-old man who allegedly joined Jones in his crime spree was charged with multiple counts of criminal damage and firearm and drug crimes.

Police allege Jones also indecently assaulted a woman in her 40s, bashed another in her 20s in the head with a metal pole, and violently robbed a man in his 20s

Jones was arrested on Thursday morning at Kelmscott Railway Station suspected of being involved in the sickening assault of the helpless pensioner

He allegedly sprayed graffiti on two walls, a gate, and a park bench, threw a brick through a window, and damaged two letterboxes and a fence.

Police also allegedly found drug smoking implements, a round of ammunition, and a slingshot during a search of his Armadale home. He will face court on September 15.

Mr Lombardi went outside his home to investigate a disturbance during the allege crime spree, and was allegedly attacked with a car mirror on his front lawn.

Jones was arrested at Kelmscott Railway Station before police carried out a raid on his father Dean Gray Jones' home in Seville Grove.

The other man was nabbed in Yanchep, on the opposite side of Perth to his home, on Thursday as police redoubled their efforts amid public outrage.

Police still want to speak with anyone who interacted with Jones and his co-accused on the night of August 16, or who noticed damage to their property.

Emilio Lombardi, 84, was allegedly assaulted outside his home in Cannington in Perth on August 16, suffering gruesome injuries (pictured)

Mr Lombardi left his home on on Henry Street East at about 7pm to investigate a disturbance happening outside his property when he was allegedly assaulted

Holding back tears on Thursday as she announced the arrests, Cannington Acting Detective Sergeant Alexandra Hill said police were 'stoked' a breakthrough had been made following the alleged 'cowardly, disgusting and appalling act'.

'This kind of incident is sickening and will no doubt leave a lasting impact on this victim for the rest of his life,' she said.

Western Australia Police said they had received an 'overwhelming response' from the community since they first shared photos of Mr Lombardi's gruesome wounds.

Footage has emerged of Mr Lombardi smiling and laughing in happier days - before he was allegedly set upon on Sunday.

CCTV footage from a nearby property shows two shadowy figures walking through a backyard on Sunday evening.

Pictured: Police using a battering ram to carry out a raid on Jones' home in Seville Grove

Jones was taken into custody at Kelmscott Railway Station after police said they received an 'overwhelming response' to their appeal for information into the alleged attack

The alleged rampage lasted just an hour, between 6.30pm to 7.30pm, but Jones managed to rack up seven charges

A police forensic team conducted testing at a property about 2km away in an attempt to find DNA evidence which could help find those involved.

The vicious assault garnered so much attention from West Australians that Premier Mark McGowan flagged the issue in parliament.

'Attacking an 84-year-old man is a shocking and appalling thing for anyone to do, and the police are looking to deal with that matter as quickly as they possibly can,' he said.

Mr Lombardi's neighbour described the gruesome scenes he was faced with after hearing the commotion outside.

'I went to see what's going on and there was all blood along the front of the patio,' one neighbour told 7News.

'I looked inside and there's blood and guts inside the house.

'He's just a hell of a nice guy, grows veggies out the back, brings them over to us, just one hell of a guy.'

Footage has emerged of Mr Lombardi smiling and laughing before he was allegedly set upon when he went out into his front yard

The 24-year-old man was arrested in Yanchep in Perth's far north as part of their investigation into the alleged assault

Acting Detective Sergeant Hill said Mr Lombardi had lived in the area for 40 years.

'They are horrific, horrific injuries that this man has sustained to his face. People should be able to feel safe in their own homes.'

Sergeant Hill said Mr Lombardi's family were 'shaken up' by the brutal assault, which appeared to have no motive.

'They are devastated... It's been a very long week for them,' she said.

The victim's ute, which was left with a smashed window and bloodstains, is being used in the police investigation.
The United States was further isolated on Friday over its bid to reimpose international sanctions on Iran with 13 countries of the 15-member UN Security Council expressing their opposition, arguing that Washington's move is void given it is using a process agreed under a nuclear deal that it quit two years ago.

In the 24 hours since US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he triggered a 30-day countdown to a return of UN sanctions on Iran, including an arms embargo, long-time allies Britain, France, Germany and Belgium as well as China, Russia, Vietnam, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Indonesia, Estonia and Tunisia have already written letters in opposition, seen by Reuters.

The United States has accused Iran of breaching a 2015 deal with world powers that aimed to stop Tehran developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. But President Donald Trump described it as the "worst deal ever" and quit in 2018.

Diplomats said Russia, China and many other countries are unlikely to reimpose the sanctions on Iran. Pompeo again warned Russia and China against that on Friday, threatening US action if they refuse to reimpose the UN measures on Iran.

The United States acted on Thursday after the Security Council resoundingly rejected its bid last week to extend an arms embargo on Iran beyond its expiration in October. Only the Dominican Republic joined Washington in voting yes.

Dominican Republic has not yet written to the council to state its position on the sanctions snapback push.

Under the process Washington says it has triggered, it appears all UN sanctions should be reimposed at midnight GMT (8 p.m New York time) on Sept. 19 - just days before Trump is due to address world leaders at the UN General Assembly, the annual meeting that will be largely virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic.

WHAT NOW?

A 2015 Security Council resolution enshrining the nuclear deal states that if no council member has put forward a draft resolution to extend sanctions relief on Iran within 10 days of a non-compliance complaint, then the body's president shall do so within the remaining 20 days.

The United States would be able to veto this, giving it a cleaner argument that sanctions on Iran have to be reimposed.

However, the 2015 resolution also says the council would "take into account the views of the states involved." Given the strong opposition, some diplomats say the council president - Indonesia for August and Niger for September - would not have to put up a draft text.

"Faced with this very strong view of a majority of Security Council members that the snapback process has not been triggered, as the presidency they are not bound to introduce the draft resolution," said a UN Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pompeo and outgoing US Iran envoy Brian Hook signalled that Washington expects Indonesia or Niger to put a text to a vote. Another US option is to put forward the draft itself or ask the Dominican Republic to do so.

The United States argues that it can trigger the sanctions snapback process because the 2015 Security Council resolution still names it as a nuclear deal participant.

However, in a joint letter to the Security Council on Thursday hours after the US submitted its complaint, Britain, Germany and France said: "Any decisions and actions which would be taken based on this procedure or on its possible outcome would also be devoid of any legal effect."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres distanced himself from the showdown in the Security Council.

"Security Council members will need to interpret their own resolution," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. "It's not the Secretary-General."
(Newser)  Alexei Navalny is headed to Germany. The family of the 44-year-old Russian opposition leaderin a coma and on a ventilator in a hospital's intensive care unit in Omsk after what allies suspect was a poisoning on Thursdayhad wanted Navalny to be transferred to a clinic in Berlin, but Russian doctors initially refused that request, insisting his condition was too precarious. That decision was apparently reversed Friday, with a doctor now saying Navalny's condition is "stable" and that he's free to make the trip, the BBC reports. Per the Tass state news agency, via CNN, Navalny could be transported "within a day." Doctors at the Omsk hospital say no poison has been found in his body and that they think he may be suffering from a metabolic disorder caused by low blood sugar.

story continues below

Per CBS News, Western toxicology experts don't think a poisoning could've been ruled out so quickly. And a metabolic disorder is not the theory held by Navalny's supporters, who insist he was poisoned and that the Kremlin is to blame. Ivan Zhdanov, who heads up Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, says that he was at the hospital when a transport cop told him a "deadly substance" was involved in Navalny's sicknessa substance so dangerous that "everybody around should wear protective suits," per CNN. Navalny's wife, Yulia, had earlier written a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom her husband has been a fierce critic of, to demand Navalny's release. She said at a presser that she believes the stalling on releasing her husband was to give the substance used to poison him enough time to become untraceable. (Read more Alexei Navalny stories.)
Rhylee Gerber from Below Deck recently provided a little backstory behind some of her tattoos. She has a vivid, colorful design on her thigh and also a dream catcher inked into the back of her arm.

Rhylee Gerber | Karolina Wojtasik/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank

She opened up on an Instagram story Q&A about her ink and also offered some insight into what it was like to be on the show. Fans asked her for opinions on the current season of Below Deck Mediterranean, but Gerber preferred to refrain from weighing in.

Gerber shared that she personally knows Captain Sandy Yawn but has never worked for her. Ive only known [Yawn] to be supportive, uplifting and thoughtful, Gerber shared. Having never worked under her I cannot speak for her management style.

The tattoo on her thigh was brutal

A fan wondered if the tattoo on Gerbers thigh hurt when she had it done. Brutal, she shared. In fact I had to take half a Xanax just to sit through the second session so that I didnt move.

She shared that taking any kind of medication should not be done lightly. After which I was in no shape to drive or operate heavy machinery, she continued. Drug use (prescription or not) can have a great impact on you and your potential surroundings. Side effects and legal ramifications can be far worse than the emotions we saw/felt with the latest episode [of] Below Deck Med.

Rhylee Gerber Instagram story

RELATED: Below Deck: Rhylee Gerber Hikes Through Alaska With Her 50 Pound Pup on Her Back

The dream catcher tattoo had a sweet story behind it. Long story short, she wrote. I visit the St. George, Utah area often on my travels. Theres spectacular hot springs there that the city wanted to fill in with concrete. I won a $100 tattoo raffle at a local bar one night and the friend that introduced me to the springs designed this logo for the petitioners to help protest and save the hot springs.

Shes staying creative during COVID

Gerber has shared her hikes and travels through the breathtaking Alaskan frontier. Shes also still creating unique jewelry designs, Untamed by Rhylee, and plans to take more orders soon. Soon Ill be taking more orders, she shared in her story. COVID has thrown a wrench in a few details and Im working diligently to sort them out so my last presales get to their owners ASAP.

RELATED: Below Deck: Rhylee Gerbers Popular Jewelry Line Is as Authentic as the Artist

She shared how she got into designing a jewelry line created from natural elements. I was with a girlfriend of mine and we spotted a porcupine by the road, she told Showbiz Cheat Sheet in January. And Id always heard that you can get close to the porcupine just by tossing like a little hat at them or some little small piece of clothing or something that the clothes would stick to. It was so funny because there were a bunch of tourists on the road and they pulled over watching us basically chase after this porcupine. Long story short, I got some quills out of it.

The porcupine lived! she laughed. Gerber thoroughly cleaned the quills but carried them around for what seemed to be an eternity. And then, of course, fishing, I was I collecting these little earbones. Theyre really cool and they look like little ivory feathers.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 21

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Russia exported sheep and goats to Turkmenistan in the amount of $46,000 in 1H2020, which is 17.9 percent more compared to the same period last year, Trend reports, citing statistics from the Eurasian Economic Commission.

According to the statistics, the volume of exports of sheep and goats amounted to 550 livestock heads, which is by 83.3 percent higher than last year's volume.

In addition, Russia exported 25 heads of cattle to Turkmenistan, totaling $49,980.

During 1H2020, Russia also exported 720 heads of poultry for a total of $15,694 to Turkmenistan.

Almost 1,5 tons of dried, salted and smoked fish worth $14,161 were exported from the EAEU countries such as Belarus and Russia to Turkmenistan.

The share of Belarus amounted to 1,656, and the share of Russia  to $12,505.

Furthermore, Russia exported 660 kilograms of shellfish for a total of $8,250 to Turkmenistan in 1H2020.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Recently, one of the most powerful voices against dictorship and human rights violations in Nigeria and the founding Bishop of the fastest growing religious organisation:- the Living Faith Church, Reverend David Oyedepo has been made the object of political campaign calumny and vicious attacks by the Current president of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari.

The unreasonable reason for these deluge of attacks including media attacks by some completely ignorant and rebellious characters, is because of the stand of the Christian leader concerning certain provisions of the companies and Allied matters Act of 2020 in which the financial controls of religious and non-governmental organisation were interfered with and certain powers vested in the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

Reverend Oyedepo had advised the Federal Government to expunge the part of the newly signed amended CAMA that gives the supervising minister the power to remove the board of trustees of churches without recourse to the court.

The Bishop had affirmed as follows: in the document, they said the registrar can remove the trustees with no recourse to the court. They shouldn't try it. This must be from somebody who woke up from the wrong side of the bed after dreaming. The person must have drafted the aspect in the bill as their custom is. I am 51 years old in this thing (Christianity) , dont try it. I have been with Jesus some time and i am sent as a prophet to the nations. There minister can remove the trustees and close the account of a church is...... Infact they say they would appoint managers. So, they can appoint occultists to be managers of church affairs when we are alive. Dont try it when this crude prophet is alive, when all the sons of the prophets are alive. Dont try it, this is a timely advice.

But rather than engage in introspection and listen to divergent opinions on these contentious provisions in the amended version of CAMA, the president started pouring invective and unmitigated insults on Reverend David Oyedepo in what has become a familiar character of the media team of President Muhammadu Buhari to always resort to argumentum ad hominem whenever Nigerians are not happy with certain policies of the administration.

One of the most unruly and ethically notorious members of the President Buharis media team, even asked Oyedepo to set up his own Country if he cant accept changes to the business law.

An aide to President Muhammadu Buhari on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, reportedly berated the presiding bishop of Living Faith Church Worldwide, David Oyedepo, for kicking against the Company and Allied Matters Acts in churches.

Oyedepo, while speaking in his church on Sunday, described as illegal the power given to a minister to remove a trustee and close the accounts of the church without legal backing.

He said, Who was Paul persecuting? The church! Who said, Im the one you are persecuting? Jesus! This country is going too far and its a risk. I saw something on CAMA (Company Allied Matters Act) and they put religious bodies there that Registrar-General can remove trustees without recourse to the court. Dont try it!"

Reacting to the issue, the media said Onochie said, "I hope this is not true. If it is, Oyedepo will have to manufacture his own country and live by his own laws.

As long as he lives and operates within the entity called Nigeria, he will live by Nigerian rules and laws. He will do as he's told by the law. Enough of lawlessness.

Recall that controversially, the new amendments to CAMA provides that religious bodies and non-governmental organisations will be strictly regulated by the Registrar-General of Corporate Affairs Commission and a supervising minister.

The law also wields power to suspend the trustees of an association or a religious body and appoint an interim manager or managers to coordinate its affairs where it reasonably believes that there had been any misconduct or mismanagement, or where the affairs of the association are being run fraudulently or where it is necessary or desirable for the purpose of public interest.

I must state without mincing words that this garrulous media aide who deployed gutter language to respond to the well thought out criticisms of the amendment to CAMA 2020, must be living in fools paradise not to have realised that Nigeria is a constitutional democracy and therefore, President Buhari is neither an unopposed constitutional monarch nor is he a fascist leader in the mode of Benito Musolini of the pre-Workd war Italy.

What this means is that, Nigerians have the fundamental Human Rights to exercise their freedom of expression and in this instance, the opinion of Rev. Oyedepo is constructive and positive whereas the response from the presidency is irrational, idiotic, and thoughtless.

I will ask the media team of President Buhari to pick up copies of the Nigerian constitution to go through chapter four to realize that the president is totally obliged to listen to educated and rational opinion of Nigerians and to be responsive and not antagonistic.

Can they please in their sober moments read sections 39(1), 40, 38(1) as follows: says: "38(1). Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance."

Then section 39(1) provides that: "Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impact ideas and information without interference." The next section which is 40 added that: "Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests".

Moreover, Nigeria being a constitutional democracy, cannot be making a law that makes the executive arm of government far and above the other arms or segments of government when the grund norm has clearly envisaged a clear delineation or Separation of powers in section 4,5 and 6 as follows: "4(1). The legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly for the Federation which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

(2). the National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative list set out in part 1 of the Second Schedule to this Constitution.

The House of Assembly of the state shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the State or any part thereof with respect to the following matters, that is to say-

a. any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part 1 of the Second Schedule to this Constitution;

b. any matter included in the Concurrent LEGISLATIVE List set out in the first column of Part ll of the Second Schedule to this Constitution to the extent prescribed in the second column opposite thereto; and

c. any other matter with respect to which it is empowered to make laws in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.

Specifically, the powers of the executive arm of government is provided for in section 5. (1) thus: "Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the executive powers of the Federation

a. shall be vested in the President and may, subject as aforesaid and to the provision of any law made by the National Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through the Vice-president and Ministers of the Government of the Federation or officers in the public service of the Federation; and

b. shall extend to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, all laws made by the National Assembly has, for the time being, power to make laws."

Then section 6. (1) says,: "the judicial powers of the Federation shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts established for the Federation.

2. The judicial powers of a State shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates being courts established, subject as provided by this Constitution, for a State.

3. The courts to which this section relates, established by this Constitution for the Federation and for the State, specified in subsection (5)(a) to (i0 of the section shall be only superior courts of record in Nigeria; and save as otherwise prescribed by the National Assembly or by the House of Assembly of a State, each court shall have all the powers of a superior court of record.

Before I proceed, can I say that it is irregular for president Buhari to try to control the finances of churches when there is a clear separation between church and state? Also, it is unnatural for the government to enjoy the arbitrary powers to suo moto nominate trustees for organisations that are NON-GOVERNMENTAL because this is a direct affront to the operational independence of non-governmental groups and a way to kill the vibrancy of the civil society community.

What has happened is that President Buhari through his lackeys in the National Assembly has succeeded in crippling opposition voices even when the essence of the law as a whole is to encourage ease of doing business.

By the way, how does religious worship fall into a commercial venture? Perhaps, the media officials recruited by president Buhari thinks that their boss is a tyrant and therefore not subject to the tenets of the Constitution which even in section 10 prohibits government from making religions as state apparatuses.

Make no mistake about it; the law itself is a wonderful piece of legislations but the insertions of these aforementioned toxic and obnoxious provisions to cripple religious worships and the independence of non-governmental organizations was done in bad faith and must be expunged just as Reverend Oyedepo demanded.

To begin with, the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (the Act), repeals and replaces the extant Companies and Allied Matters Act of 1990. The new CAMA, now seen as Nigerias most significant but nevertheless highly contentious and controversial business legislation in three decades, introduces new provisions that promote the ease of doing business whilst reducing regulatory hurdles and also bringing the provisions in tangent with the technological realities of the 21st century.

Promoters of this law in the media wants us to believe that this is expected to ultimately promote investments, create more jobs, and promote a friendly business climate in Nigeria. But they are dead wrong. How can government try to control how businesses are organised as if the executive arm of government now enjoys the judicial powers of the Federation. Why then do we have Section 6 of the Nigerian constitution?

Some of the provisions of the amended bill and how it will affect businesses are explained below by some media writers tgus: S.18 (2) of the new CAMA now makes it possible to establish a private company with only one (1) member or shareholder. This is good news for growing startups and young entrepreneurs because it has totally resolved business registration bottlenecks. A lot of businesses have been forced into unnecessary partnerships because prior to the new CAMA, to legally own a business in Nigeria, you needed to provide at least two or more people as co-owners of the business.

Section 40 (1): There is the introduction of Statement of Compliance (SOC) signed by an Applicant (or agent), without the need for a Lawyer or Notary Public to attest to Declaration of Compliance (DOC). SOC is a requirement of the law that indicates that the applicant has complied with the registration and requirements.

Section 27: This section replaces Authorized Share Capital with Minimum Share Capital. This implies that the promoter(s) of a business is not required to pay for or allocate shares that are not needed at the specific time of incorporation.

The procurement of a Common Seal is no longer a mandatory requirement according to S.98 of the new CAMA. With the amended bill, companies can now authenticate documents by other means other than a common seal. This means you dont need to stamp seals on documents anymore. The world is digital so who needs those seals.

The new CAMA makes provision for electronic filing, electronic share transfer and e-meetings for private companies. You can now register your business from anywhere in the country via the e-registration portal. The new CAMA also provides for remote or virtual general meetings, provided that such meetings are conducted in accordance with the Articles of Association of the company. This will facilitate participation at such meetings from any location within and outside the shores of the country, at minimal costs.

Small companies or any company having a single shareholder are no longer mandated to appoint auditors at the annual general meeting to audit the financial records of the company. S. 402 of the new CAMA provides for the exemption in relation to the audit of accounts in respect of a financial year.

Relatedly, these media canvassers of these reform measures stressed that the appointment of a Company Secretary is now optional for private companies.

According to S. 330 (1) of the new CAMA, the appointment of a company secretary is only mandatory for public companies.

Besides, the new Act, introduces Limited Liability Partnerships and Limited Partnerships, which combines flexibility and tax status of a partnership with the status of limited liability for members of a company. This they envisaged implies that Startups are not stuck with the option of setting up a Company, but also enjoy the benefits of partnership which a partnership agreement (including vesting agreement, and founders agreements) beyond the regular Articles and Memorandum of Association, whilst still protecting their personal assets from being sold in claims for debts, liability, or creditors.

The media reports too that Under Section 223 (12) of the new Act, filing fees for Registration of Charges payable to the CAC (Corporate Affairs Commission) has been reduced to 0.35% of the value of the charge. This they reasoned is expected to lead to up to 65% reduction in the associated cost payable under the regime

the new Act extends merger beyond LLCs to Incorporated Trustees.

Section 849 implies that two or more NGOs, social entrepreneurs with different registered organizations, with similar goals can merge to form one (1) single organization.

Section 119 emphasizes transparency in terms of control in a company. It requires that persons with significant control in a company disclose its shareholding to other shareholders. For example, anyone who has person(s) holding shares on their behalf as trustees or proxies, whilst being shareholders themselves in same company, are expected to disclose such relationship for transparency.

S.307 (1) of the Act prohibits a person from being a director in more than five (5) public companies at a time.

The media promoters of the amended version also claimed that the new Act introduces a framework for rescuing a company in distress and to keep it alive as against allowing such entity to become insolvent. Provisions were made with respect to Company Voluntary Arrangements (S.434 to S.442), Administration (S.443 to S.549) and Netting (S.718 to S.721).

The National Assembly and the Executive arm of government shot themselves on their legs by shutting out the real stakeholders in the process of amendments apparently to allow them introduce from the backdoors those tyrannical rules that will take the control of Non governmental bodies from their formators to the Government so they appoint their cronies to run these organisations if the government feels intimidated by the independent opinions of these Non governmental individuals. This is a plot to destabilize pluralism in the society. These amendments have failed the simple test of sound policy making process.

"Public policy is best described as the broad area of government laws, regulations, court decisions, and local ordinances.Today, government affects all aspects of our lives. Everyone has a stake in the public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments.

Many citizens and groups try to influence public policy through the political process by supporting candidates and political parties. That's a good way to make a positive impact, but not the best way.

Politicians and political parties come and go. Their positions on issues can change due to circumstances. They can be voted out of power as easily as they are voted in.

The best way to make a lasting impact on public policy is to change public opinion. When you change the beliefs of the people, politicians and political parties change with them", ( https://www.mackinac.org/ ).

The opposition of President Muhammadu Buhari to the strong voices that rejec these draconiam amendments is in breach of the well known rules of constitutional democracy..

As one top rating scholar wrote thus: "Rule of law and democracy are both desirable attributes of a political system. Scholars writing of democratic transitions from authoritarian rule usually argue that the goal of such a transition is the establishment of democracy with the rule of law, implying that both may be achieved simultaneously."

The researcher stated that perhaps that is so. "What is often meant by rule of law is no more than the notion that government should work its will through general legislation, legislation to which the governors themselves are subject, rather than through irregular decrees and ad hominem proclamations."

"But rule of law may require more than this: it may require that people are able to foresee accurately the legal consequences of their actions and not be subject to sudden surprises whether or not these take the form of legistation, or perhaps that the law contain, or at least not violate, certain substantive principles and rights."

"Democratic rule minimally requires government by the people or their representatives, elected on a broad franchise. But, in some conceptions, it too many require more than that. Perhaps, democracy demands that the range of choice open to government be broad and not constricted by externally imposed restraints (such as legal protections for minorities). We expect, for example, or hope, that our government can correct inequities arising from markets or social interactions. Such interventions can involve confiscatory taxes or draconian regulations, either of which can threaten claims for minority rights. Or perhaps, democracy requires that the people be regularly and genuinely consulted on fundamental legal changes so that institutions or practices of deliberation and consultation are in place and functioning( https://www.researchgate.net).

These amendments that relates to the plot by President Muhammadu Buhari to control how NGOs and Churches are administered are satanic and must be expunged by the National Assembly or annulled by the Court of law immediately.

*Emmanuel Onwubiko is the Head of HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) and [email protected] www. huriwanigeria.com, www.emmanuelonwubiko.com;www.thenigerianinsidernews.com).
The British High Commission in Nigeria said it would replace, for free the 30-day visa of individuals that were supposed to travel to the UK before the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

It said the free visa replacement, which will be open till December 2020, covers those who will be travelling to the UK for work, study or to join their families.

This was contained in a statement issued yesterday by the commission titled, Update on VAC Services From The BHC Nigeria posted on its verified Twitter handle, @UKinNigeria.

The statement read in part, as a result of the disruptions to travel caused by COVID-19, we are experiencing high demand for replacement vignettes for 30-day visas to travel to the UK for work, study or to join family.

If an individuals 30-day visa to travel to the UK for work, study or to join family has expired, or is about to expire, they can request a replacement visa with revised validity dates free of charge until the end of this year. This does not apply to other types of visas. This process will be in place until the end of 2020. The replacement visa will be valid for 90 days.

To request a replacement visa, individuals can arrange to return their passport to their Visa Application Centre in Nigeria without an appointment.

The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, had announced that international airports would reopen for commercial flight operations effective August 29 after about five months of closure.

Glad to announce the resumption of international flights from the 29th of August, 2020- beginning with Lagos and Abuja as we did with the domestic flight resumption. Protocols and procedures will be announced in due course. We thank you for your patience, the minister had said.
By Dean Rolfe, partner and head of digital and e-commerce KPMG Vietnam

With this challenge in mind, most fair-minded people would probably agree that the profits of a business ought to be subject to some level of taxation. Leaving aside the question of how much taxation is considered fair and reasonable, the question becomes more complex when business profits arise in more than one country.

That is to say, the question then becomes not only how much tax to pay, but who to pay it to? It is precisely this question that has given rise to the controversial topic of taxing the digital economy, especially when businesses can now operate outside territorial boundaries with no physical presence.

Before looking at Vietnams proposed solution to this challenge, it is worth understanding the history to the challenge of taxing international commerce and why this has become such a controversial topic.

International trade is not new and as far back as recorded time, there are many examples. But it was not until the 1920s when the League of Nations was established with 42 founding members on January 10, 1920 that international agreement was sought on how to tax international commerce.

The tax rules that were developed then are largely responsible for the problem we face today. But to be fair to the efforts of those founding members, consider for a moment what international trade looked like back in the 1920s. International trade was almost exclusively the sale of goods and most particularly commodities like natural resources and food. Consider too how this international trade was facilitated. It was largely transported on steel ships (closely resembling small bulk carries) powered by coal. Containerisation was not invented and adopted until the 1950s.

Steam locomotives, as a means of overland transport, were still widely used in Europe as late as the 1960s. Air transportation only really became economically attractive in the 1970s after the development of palletisation and the Boeing 747.

Communication was also very different back then. No mobile phones, internet, or personal computers. Indeed the humble facsimile machine was only adopted as a communication tool during the 1970s. This meant that the ability to conduct international trade was slow and required significant human intervention.

While the personal computer was invented in 1971, its large-scale use really only became a feature of modern society with the reduction in the price of semiconductors. The Commodore 64 was released in 1982 for example and this allowed the adoption of email as a means of mass communication.

Mobile telephone (smartphone) use exploded after Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) launched the world's first cellular network in Japan in 1983. The first iPhone was of course released in 2007, more than 20 years later.

From the beginnings of .com in 1985, the internet has now exploded in 2017 to over 330 million domain names.

Why is all this relevant to the subject of taxation? Simple, tax laws were developed at a very different point in our economic history when international commerce was very different indeed. From the simple trade in commodities on ships to the digitisation of our global economies, the way we lead our lives today has fundamentally changed.

However, our international tax laws that were designed to collect taxation from international trade have not. It is also worth making the point here, that modern-day taxpayers are not the cause of the problem we face today. Legislators must accept much of the responsibility for this modern-day challenge.

How do international tax rules work today?

As a first step in the process of taxing non-resident businesses is by reference to the domestic tax laws of individual countries like Vietnam. That is to say, the domestic tax law must first contain relevant provisions to tax non-residents with e-commerce activities. However, domestic tax laws are subject to the provisions of any international tax treaties which may be in force at that time.

Without exploring the details of these treaties, there is a fundamental international rule that must be applied. According to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (which Vietnam is a signatory), any conflicts between domestic (tax) laws and international (tax) treaties must be resolved in favour of international (tax) treaties. Vietnam has currently signed tax treaties and this means individual countries like Vietnam do not always have the freedom to set tax policy in a way they would prefer when that policy direction creates conflicts or contradicts international (tax) treaties. This is the heart of the taxation challenge with e-commerce activities.

There are currently more than three thousand international tax treaties in operation around the work today. While there are many different models used to negotiate international tax agreements, the majority of international tax agreements are based on templates developed by the League of Nations, the United Nations or the OECD. These models have not been updated to accommodate electronic commerce. There are exceptions of course.

And it is because the principles used in these treaties were developed a long time ago, some even more than 50 years ago!

The e-commerce challenge and physical presence

Having considered how our global economy has changed over the past 100 years, it is worth briefly explaining how international tax rules have evolved during that time.

As a starting point, it is worth highlighting that international tax rules were historically developed via international consensus through organisations like the League of Nations, the UN and the OECD.

The genesis of these rules can be traced back to work undertaken in the 1920s by the League of Nations. As already mentioned above, our globally economy looked very different in the 1920s and it was at this time that many of the principles we apply today were developed and agreed. Simply put, the rules we apply today were developed through the lens of international shipping of physical goods on cargo ships.

Critically, the work conducted in 1920 developed the idea of taxing international trade based on physical presence. Some element of physical presence (like warehouses) were excluded because warehouses were not proprietary to one particular business. They were typically large shared spaces. Warehouses were also considered essential to day-to-day movement of food and commodities at that time because containerisation and palletisation had not yet been invented. Representatives were also allowed to operate without triggering a tax presence because communication was so unreliable and slow.

These same taxation concepts were adopted by the OECD in the 1970s when they developed their model tax treaty. The OECD tax treaty is the most widely adopted international tax treaty in use today.

So the profits of a company that was incorporated in one country, would only be taxed in another country if it company had a physical presence in that other country. This is referred to as a "permanent establishment". For completeness, I must highlight that this is a gross simplification of the rules, but this point is this, the basis upon which all our current tax rules have evolved is the notion of physical presence. And business practices in the 20th century, these rules worked extremely well to regulate the taxation of international commerce because, to a large extent, there was a correlation between the generation of profits and physical activity or presence in that location. In summary, there was no real need to change the rules that have served the business community and taxation authorities alike extremely well for so long.

The road to change

However, this taxation nexus with a physical activity or presence has slowly been eroded with the evolution and adoption of technology. Business can now operate in ways that do not require a physical presence in a location where commercial activity is undertaken.

A digital platform can sell a subscription for media or music content to a customer without even needing to have a locally registered domain name, little own a physical presence in the location of the customer. That is to say, our global economy has fundamentally changed, while our international tax laws have not. It is this realisation that has now generated such interest in the taxation of multinational companies.

As already mentioned above, our international taxation principles were developed as far back as the 1920s by the League of Nations with only 42 founding members. The United States of America was not one of them. This limited number of founding members made finding international consensus, on a range of issues, much easier.

Today the OECD is looking at how to modernise our international tax laws and principles through its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. This project commenced in 2013 and had 137 members as at December 2019. With this many interested parties, progress on tax reform relating to the digital economy has been very slow indeed.

Action 1 of the BEPS programme was focused on the challenges of taxing the digital economy. In 2020, we are still waiting for international consensus and action on this matter. Progress on the need to update the definition of permanent establishment for example and the need to move away from a physical presence as a means to levy taxation seems to have stalled.

The rise of unilateral tax measures targeting e-commerce

With this lack of progress on the reform and modernisation of our international tax rules, its hardly surprising to see so many countries announcing the adoption of unilateral measures to tax the digital economy.

In June 2020, there are estimated to be 46 counties who have announced, released draft laws, or enacted new tax laws designed to tax the digital economy. Most of these changes are in the form of changes to VAT or GST laws, but increasingly governments are turning to the introduction of a new tax law called Digital Services Tax (DST).

It would, I propose, be a mistake to suggest these unilateral measures are discriminatory or unfairly targeting companies which may have a headquarters in one particular country. The simple fact of the matter is digital transformation has fundamentally changed every facet of our daily lives and tax laws have not kept pace with this rate of change. Adopting new laws is not discrimination, it is simply being realistic especially when you consider that the global rate of digital transformation is only accelerating. Taxation systems need to evolve with the times if government revenue is to grow along with general economic development.

I should hasten to add that it is not technology companies that are doing the wrong thing or deliberately trying to avoid the payment of taxes they should otherwise pay. This assumption does not, as I have highlighted above, reflect the fact that tax laws simply have not evolved to tax a whole range of digital activities and transactions. Arguing that companies are not paying their fair share of tax is a value judgement that ignores the rule of law. Such statements have no place in this discussion.

The Vietnamese response

With effect from July 1, 2020, Vietnam introduced a new tax collection procedure for e-commerce activities. This is called a withholding tax and would be applied at the source of the payment for e-commerce goods and services sold to Vietnamese customers by non-resident e-commerce enterprises.

The idea is to rely on the taxpayers responsibility of self-assessment and to use the banking system as a collection agent and this is a unique solution to a problem that has confounded governments around the world. Admittedly this may impose a huge burden on the financial service sector, but it has created in a process that once operational, is likely to result in significant new sources of taxation revenue. Unfortunately, however, it also has the potential to cause significant challenges through the collection of tax that is not due and would, under international rules, need to be refunded.

Many of the operational details are not publicly available at this time and we are awaiting the finalisation of a new Decree and Circular containing detains on the relevant processes and procedures.

What we do know is the General Department of Taxation is working on a new Tax Portal which will be used for the coordination and tax compliance of these new rules. This centralisation is welcome and should help simplify the day to day procedures and ensure greater levels of tax compliance.

Concluding remarks

It is clear that digital transformation is providing many benefits to the societies we live in, but it is also true that governments need tax revenue to provide the goods and services we expect from a civilised society.
Venezuelas opposition says Washington has granted it access to millions of dollars of frozen government funds.

The United States has granted access to millions of dollars of frozen Venezuelan government assets to support the opposition in its efforts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country.

The US Treasury Department approved the release of the funds, the opposition said in a statement on Thursday, without specifying the total amount.

The statement said part of the released funds would go to pay some 62,000 health workers $300 each.

During a live appearance on Twitter on Thursday night, opposition leader Juan Guaido said health workers could register accounts to receive payments of $100 a month starting Monday. Healthcare workers in Venezuela can earn as little as $5 a month.

Guaido first announced the additional support for healthcare workers four months ago, but distribution required a permit from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), as the frozen funds were held by the New York Federal Reserve.

200708025905621

US President Donald Trump has ramped up sanctions on Venezuelas state-run oil company, its key foreign partners and customers since it first imposed measures against the PDVSA in early 2019, seeking to overthrow left-leaning President Nicolas Maduro after a 2018 re-election considered a sham by most Western nations.

The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on more than 150 Venezuelans or connected individuals, and the State Department has revoked the visas of more than 1,000 individuals and their families

Venezuela has been mired in a political impasse since January last year when Guaido proclaimed himself acting president, quickly receiving the support of more than 50 countries, including the US.





In July, the opposition obtained permission to distribute $17m in funds frozen in the US that would be channelled through international health organisations to buy supplies for medical workers.

The license also approves another $4.5m to support Venezuelans at risk of death, an opposition press release said.

The opposition plans to distribute the funds using AirTM, a digital payment platform, but on Thursday, the website was blocked in Venezuela.

You have to be very bad to block an account for men and women who are giving everything with conviction to protect our people when they are going to receive a bonus, said Guaido.

The opposition leader added healthcare workers would be sent a manual with the steps to download a virtual private network (VPN) so they could circumvent the restrictions. AirTM also tweeted instructions on how to use a VPN.

Venezuela is suffering economic collapse and its crumbling health system has so far registered 37,567 cases of COVID-19 and 311 deaths, although experts say the number is likely to be higher because of widespread insufficient testing.
By Associated Press

CANBERRA: A Chinese mining company in Papua New Guinea claims to have immunised employees against COVID-19 in an apparent vaccination trial, a newspaper reported on Friday.

The South Pacific island nation's Health Minister Papua Jelta Wong said his department was investigating the claim by Ramu NiCo Management (MCC) Ltd., The Australian reported.

National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning banned COVID-19 vaccine testing or trials in Papua New Guinea on Thursday and later noted the National Department of Health had not approved any trials.

"Any vaccines imported into PNG must be approved by NDoH and must go through vigorous vaccine trials, protocols and procedures" and must be pre-qualified by the World Health Organization, Manning said in a statement on Friday.

Wong did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

A document on company letterhead entitled "Vaccination Statement" said 48 Chinese employees "have been vaccinated with SARS-COV-2 vaccine" on August 10.

The statement was sent to the Papua New Guinea Health Department and advised that the vaccine could cause false-positive test results in those who received it, the newspaper said.

Manning has written to Chinese Ambassador Xue Bing seeking "immediate clarification of the Chinese government's position regarding the vaccination statement."

Ramu is operated by Metallurgical Corp.of China, a subsidiary of state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corp.

Phone calls to Ramu's office in the Papua New Guinea city of Madang and to the parent company's Beijing headquarters in Beijing weren't answered.

Australia, which is Papua New Guinea's nearest neighbor after Indonesia and its largest provider of foreign aid, had learned China may have begun trialing a coronavirus vaccine in the region using employees of state-owned enterprises, the newspaper reported.

Australian government officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Papua New Guinea is a poor country of 9 million people who are mostly subsistence farmers.

It has recorded only 361 COVID-19 cases and four deaths.

But infections have surged in the past month, particularly in the capital Port Moresby where a curfew is being enforced as a pandemic measure.
Photo: The Canadian Press Fayez Sarraj, head of Libya's internationally-recognized government.

Libyas U.N.-supported government Friday announced a cease-fire across the oil-rich country and called for demilitarizing the strategic city of Sirte in an initiative supported by the rival parliament in the east.

The development could mark a breakthrough following international pressure amid rising fear of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war as rival sides mobilize for a battle over Sirte. The gateway to Libyas major oil export terminals has been under the control of forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter since January.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

The chaos has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year. Thousands of mercenaries including Russian, Syrians and Sudanese are fighting on both sides of the conflict.

Hifter, who is allied to the parliament in eastern Libya, is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli have backing from Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle, as well as from the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 trying to capture Tripoli. But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with heavy Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of the city and other western towns.

Fighting has died down in recent weeks, but both sides were preparing for a possible battle over Sirte. Emboldened by Turkeys support, Tripoli-allied forces vowed to retake Sirte and the Jurfa area, which includes a vital inland military base, from Hifters forces, prompting Egypt to threaten to send troops to Libya.

Achieving an effective cease-fire requires the demilitarization of Sirte and Jurfa areas, and that police forces from the two sides agree on security arrangements there, said Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

In a separate statement, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival eastern-based House of Representatives, supported Sarrajs proposal of demilitarization of Sirte, an idea floated earlier this month by the United States as a compromise to prevent an escalation.

A cease-fire blocks the way for foreign military interventions and ends with the expulsion of mercenaries and dissolving the militias in order to achieve comprehensive national sovereignty, Saleh said.

There was no immediate comment form Hifters army, but Hifter agreed on an Egyptian initiative in June that included a cease-fire.

Sarraj also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March according to a a constitutional base agreed on by the Libyans.

Saleh, the parliament speaker, called for Sirte to be a temporary seat of the new government.

Both Saraj and Saleh said they want an end to an oil blockade imposed by Hifter's camp since earlier this year. They also called for oil revenues, the countrys main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

The National Oil Corporation urged for oil revenues to remain frozen until a comprehensive political agreement is reached.

Full transparency and effective governance are required as well as the return of security management of oil facilities to NOCs exclusive control, it said in a statement.
DUBLIN, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "AI-based Clinical Trial Solution Providers Market, 2020-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report features an extensive study of the companies offering AI-based platforms for clinical trial applications, in addition to the current market landscape and their future potential.



One of the key objectives of the report was to understand the primary growth drivers and estimate the future opportunity within this market. Based on several parameters, such as annual number of clinical trials, average capital investment per trial across different phases and therapeutic areas, cost saving potential of AI and expected annual growth rate across various geographies, we have provided an informed estimate of the likely evolution of the market, in the mid to long term, for the period 2020-2030.



The chapter features the likely distribution of the opportunity across different:

[A] trial phase (phase I, phase II and phase III)

[B] therapeutic areas (cardiovascular disorders, CNS disorders, infectious disorders, metabolic disorders, oncological disorders and other disorders)

[C] end-users (pharmaceutical companies, and academia and other users)

[D] key geographical regions ( North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific and Rest of the world)

Market Insights

The process of successfully developing a novel therapeutic intervention is both time and cost-intensive. In fact, it is estimated that a prescription drug requires around 10 years and over USD 2.5 billion in capital investment, before reaching the market. In this process, clinical trials are a crucial requirement, enabling both innovators and regulators to assess the efficacy of a candidate drug and establish whether it is safe for use in humans.



It is estimated that nearly 50% of the total time and capital expenditure during the drug development process, is on conducting clinical research. However, all trials are not successful; they are prone to delays (due to various reasons), and failure, both of which are known to impose enormous financial burdens on sponsors.



According to a study conducted by the MIT Sloan School of Management, the rate of clinical success, defined as the proportion of trials that result in approval of the drug/therapy under investigation, was currently estimated to be 14%. The study further demonstrated that there is significant variance in the aforementioned rate across different types of therapies; for instance, for vaccines against infectious diseases, clinical success was estimated to be slightly above 30%, while for investigational anti-cancer drugs, it was 3%.



Some of the key factors responsible for clinical-stage product failure include inadequate study design, insufficient/incomplete patient recruitment, improper subject stratification during study conduct, and high rate of participant attrition.



In attempts to address the abovementioned challenges, stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry are actively exploring diverse strategies and solutions, one of which involves the collection and processing of real-world data. In fact, real-world data analysis is deemed to possess the potential to offer valuable insights from patient/healthcare provider testimonies, in order to drive future trial optimization efforts and facilitate better decision making during clinical research conduct.



However, in order to generate actionable insights from real-world medical data, there is a need for robust and advanced data mining technologies, such as big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) powered tools.



Data integration, evolutionary modelling and pattern recognition using predictive AI models, can enable trial sponsors to aggregate, curate, and analyze large volumes of data, thereby, harnessing information captured during past trials to drive future therapy development initiatives. Experts also believe that the use of AI-powered solutions have the potential to address some of the commonly reported challenges, such as concerns related to clinical trial design, patient recruitment and retention, site selection, medical data interpretation and evaluation of treatment efficacy, which are encountered during trial conduct.



Considering that the aforementioned issues are addressed, it is safe to presume that opting to use AI-enabled technologies in clinical trials may eventually improve clinical R&D, and allow innovators to optimize on both time and capital investments made in such initiatives.



Currently, this technology is still in its early stages, with limited adoption across the world. However, it is worth mentioning that close to USD 4 billion was invested into AI-focused healthcare startups, in 2019. We are led to believe that the opportunity for AI-based solution providers within the healthcare industry is likely to grow at a significant in the foreseen future.

Amongst other elements, the report features:

A detailed assessment of the competitive landscape of AI-based solution providers based on parameters, such as area of application, year of establishment, company size and location of headquarters.

Brief profiles of prominent players engaged in offering AI-based solutions for clinical trial applications. Each profile features a brief overview of the company and its proprietary technology platform(s), recent developments, and an informed future outlook.

An analysis of the partnerships and collaborations inked in the domain, in the period between 2014 and 2020 (till May), based on several parameters, such as year of partnership, type of partnership, application mentioned in agreement, target therapeutic area mentioned in the agreement, year of partnership and type of partner, most active players and geographical analysis.

An analysis of the funding and investments made in the domain, in the period between 2014 and 2020 (till May), including seed financing, venture capital financing, debt financing, grants, capital raised from IPOs and subsequent offerings, at various stages of development in companies that are engaged in this field, based on several parameters, such as number of funding instances, amount invested, type of funding, leading players and investors, and geographical analysis

A detailed analysis of completed, ongoing and planned clinical trials involving the use of AI, based on multiple parameters, such as trial registration year, trial phase, trial status, type of sponsor/collaborator, target therapeutic area, trial design, top sponsor, geographical location of the trial and enrolled patient population.

An analysis of various AI-related initiatives of top 10 big pharma players (based on revenue), based on multiple parameters, such as year of initiative, type of initiative, focus of initiative, area of application and target therapeutic area. In addition, leading players and leading partners have been highlighted based on the number of initiatives.

A case study on recent use cases, wherein various pharmaceutical/healthcare companies have employed AI-based solutions for different processes of clinical trials, highlighting different business needs of such players and key takeaways of the solution provided by AI-based solution providers.

An in-depth analysis of the cost-saving potential across various processes of clinical drug development that can be brought about by the implementation of bespoke AI-based solutions.

In order to account for future uncertainties and to add robustness to our model, we have provided three forecast scenarios, portraying the conservative, base, and optimistic tracks of the market's evolution. The opinions and insights presented in this study were influenced by discussions conducted with multiple stakeholders in this domain.



Key Questions Answered

Who are the leading AI-based clinical trial solution providers?

How has the clinical activity involving the use of AI evolved in recent years?

What is the focus area of big pharma players in the AI domain?

Which companies have raised a significant amount of money in the domain?

What is the total cost-saving potential of AI-based clinical solutions across different steps of a clinical trial?

What kind of partnership models are presently being used by stakeholders in the industry?

What factors are likely to influence the evolution of this upcoming market?

How is the current and future opportunity likely to be distributed across key market segments?

Key Topics Covered

1. PREFACE

1.1. Scope of the Report

1.2. Research Methodology

1.3. Chapter Outlines



2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



3. INTRODUCTION

3.1. Chapter Overview

3.2. Overview of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

3.2.1. Machine Learning

3.2.2. Natural Language Processing

3.2.3. Classification of AI

3.2.3.1. Reactive AI

3.2.3.2. Limited Memory AI

3.2.3.3. Theory of Mind AI

3.2.3.4. Self-Aware AI

3.2.3.5. Artificial Narrow Intelligence

3.2.3.6. Artificial General Intelligence

3.2.3.7. Artificial Super Intelligence

3.2.4. Application of AI in Healthcare

3.2.4.1. Drug Discovery

3.2.4.2. Drug Manufacturing

3.2.4.3. Drug Marketing

3.2.4.4. Diagnosis and Treatment

3.2.4.5. Clinical Trials

3.2.4.5.1. Patient Recruitment

3.2.4.5.2. Patient Monitoring

3.2.4.5.3. Patient Adherence

3.3. Key Challenges Associated with the Adoption of AI

3.4. Future Perspectives



4. MARKET LANDSCAPE

4.1. Chapter Overview

4.2. AI-based Clinical Trial Solution Providers: Overall Market Landscape

4.2.1. Analysis by Area of Application

4.2.2. Analysis by Year of Establishment

4.2.3. Analysis by Company Size

4.2.4. Analysis by Location of Headquarters



5. COMPANY PROFILES

5.1. Chapter Overview

5.2. AiCure

5.2.1. Company and Technology Overview

5.2.2. Recent Developments and Future Outlook

5.3. Antidote

5.4. Deep Lens

5.5. Deep 6 AI

5.6. Innoplexus

5.7. Median Technologies

5.8. Mendel.ai

5.9. Phesi

5.10. Saama Technologies

5.11. Trials.ai



6. PARTNERSHIPS AND COLLABORATIONS

6.1. Chapter Overview

6.2. Partnership Models

6.3. AI-based Clinical Trial Solution Providers: Partnerships and Collaborations

6.3.1. Analysis by Year of Partnership

6.3.2. Analysis by Type of Partnership

6.3.3. Analysis by Application Mentioned in the Agreement

6.3.4. Analysis by Target Therapeutic Area Mentioned in the Agreement

6.3.5. Analysis by Year of Partnership and Type of Partner

6.3.6. Most Active Players: Analysis by Number of Partnerships

6.3.7. Geographical Analysis

6.3.8. Intercontinental and Intracontinental Agreements



7. FUNDING AND INVESTMENT ANALYSIS

7.1. Chapter Overview

7.2. Types of Funding Instances

7.3. AI-based Clinical Trial Solution Providers: Funding and Investments

7.3.1. Analysis by Number of Funding Instances

7.3.2. Analysis by Amount Invested

7.3.3. Analysis by Type of Funding

7.3.4. Leading Players: Analysis by Amount Invested and Number of Funding Instances

7.3.5. Most Active Investors: Analysis by Number of Funding Instances

7.3.6. Geographical Analysis by Amount Invested

7.4. Concluding Remarks



8. CLINICAL TRIAL ANALYSIS

8.1. Chapter Overview

8.2. Scope and Methodology

8.3. AI-based Clinical Trial Solution Providers: Analysis of Clinical Research Activity

8.3.1. Analysis by Trial Registration Year

8.3.2. Analysis by Trial Phase

8.3.3. Analysis by Trial Status

8.3.4. Analysis by Type of Sponsor/Collaborator

8.3.5. Analysis by Target Therapeutic Area

8.3.6. Analysis by Trial Design

8.3.7. Geographical Analysis by Number of Clinical Trials

8.3.8. Geographical Analysis by Enrolled Patient Population

8.3.9. Geographical Analysis by Number of Clinical Trials and Trial Status

8.3.10. Geographical Analysis by Enrolled Patient Population and Trial Status



9. BIG PHARMA INITIATIVES

9.1. Chapter Overview

9.1.1. Analysis by Year of Initiative

9.1.2. Analysis by Type of Initiative

9.1.3. Analysis by Focus of Initiative

9.1.4. Analysis by Area of Application

9.1.5. Analysis by Target Therapeutic Area



10. CASE STUDY: USE CASES

10.1. Chapter Overview

10.2. Roche and AiCure

10.2.1. Roche

10.2.2. AiCure

10.2.3. Business Needs

10.2.4. Objectives Achieved and Solutions Provided

10.3. Takeda and AiCure

10.3.1. Takeda

10.3.2. AiCure

10.3.3. Business Needs

10.3.4. Objectives Achieved and Solutions Provided

10.4. Teva Pharmaceuticals and Intel

10.4.1. Teva Pharmaceuticals

10.4.2. Intel

10.4.3. Business Needs

10.4.4. Objectives Achieved and Solutions Provided

10.5. Unnamed Pharmaceutical Company and Antidote

10.5.1. Antidote

10.5.2. Business Needs

10.5.3. Objectives Achieved and Solutions Provided

10.6. Unnamed Pharmaceutical Company and Cognizant

10.6.1. Cognizant

10.6.2. Business Needs

10.6.3. Objectives Achieved and Solutions Offered

10.7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Deep 6 AI

10.7.1. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

10.7.2. Deep 6 AI

10.7.3. Business Needs

10.7.4. Objectives Achieved and Solutions Offered



11. COST SAVING ANALYSIS

11.1. Chapter Overview

11.2. Key Assumptions and Methodology

11.3. Overall Cost Saving Potential of AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions, 2020-2030

11.3.1. Cost Saving Potential in Phase I Clinical Trials, 2020-2030

11.3.2. Cost Saving Potential in Phase II clinical Trials, 2020-2030

11.3.3. Cost Saving Potential in Phase III clinical Trials, 2020-2030

11.3.4. Cost Saving Potential in Patient Recruitment, 2020-2030

11.3.5. Cost Saving Potential in Patient Retention, 2020-2030

11.3.6. Cost Saving Potential in Site Monitoring, 2020-2030

11.3.7. Cost Saving Potential in Source Data Verification, 2020-2030



12. MARKET SIZING AND OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS

12.1. Chapter Overview

12.2. Key Assumptions and Forecast Methodology

12.3. Overall AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity, 2020-2030

12.4. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity: Distribution by Trial Phase, 2020 and 2030

12.5. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity: Distribution by Target Therapeutic Area, 2020 and 2030

12.6. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity: Distribution by End-user, 2020 and 2030

12.7. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity: Distribution by Key Geographical Regions, 2020 and 2030

12.7.1. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity in North America, 2020-2030

12.7.2. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity in Europe, 2020-2030

12.7.3. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity in Asia-Pacific, 2020-2030

12.7.4. AI-based Clinical Trial Solutions Market Opportunity in Rest of the World, 2020-2030



13. CONCLUSION

13.1. Chapter Overview

13.2. Key Takeaways



14. EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS

14.1. Chapter Overview

14.2. Intelligencia

14.2.1. Company Snapshot

14.2.2. Interview Transcript: Dimitrios Skaltsas, Co-Founder and Executive Director



15. APPENDIX I: TABULATED DATA

Companies Mentioned

A.I. VALI

AbbVie

Accenture

AccuBeing

AG Mednet

Agent Health

AiCure

Aidar Health

AliveCor

Anaqua

Anthem

Antidote

Aspen Insights

AstraZeneca

Avident Health

Bayer

Bioinfogate

BlueData

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

Brainpan Innovations

Bristol- Myers Squibb

Brite Health

BullFrog AI

Business Health Care Group

Cambia Health Solutions

Canary Speech

Cancer Genetics

Canon

Carebox

Carenet Health

Carenity

Carnegie Mellon University

Catana Capital

Cedar Health Research

Celgene

Central Ohio Primary Care

Cerba Research

Chainlink

CHDI Foundation

ChemAxon

CIMS

Clarivate

ClinArk

Clinerion

Clinevo Technologies

Clinical AI

CliniOps

Clinithink

ClinTex

CMIC

Covance

Crestle.ai

Curify

Darts-ip

DataON

Deep 6 AI

Deep Lens

DeepTrial

Dell

Department of Veterans Affairs

DiA Imaging Analysis

doc.ai

EBSCO

Egyptian Knowledge Bank

eimageglobal

Erlanger Health System

ExperiMind Technologies

fathom it group

Flow Pharma

GE Healthcare

Genpro Research

GlaxoSmithKline

GNS Healthcare

Google

H2O.ai

Halo Health

HCL

Healint

Healthix

HealthMatch

IBM

ICON

iLoF - Intelligent Lab on Fiber

IMNA Solutions

Inato

Indegene

iNDX.Ai

Innoplexus

Inova Translational Medicine Institute

Inspire

Intel

Intelligencia.ai

Intrepid Analytics

IP Australia

IXICO

Janssen Pharmaceuticals

Johnson & Johnson

Joovv

Kadena

Kognitic

Kopernio

Kryo

Kx Systems

KYT

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Lieber Institute for Brain Development

Life Image

Lokavant

London Medical Imaging & Artificial Intelligence Centre

Medable

Medairum

Medaptive Health

Median Technologies

Medica

Medidata Solutions

mediri

Medtronic

Mendel.ai

Merck

MGH Group

Microsoft

Mount Sinai Health System

MRN

Nanox

NEC

Nor-Tech

Northern Data

Novadiscovery

Novartis

Novoic

nQ Medical

Olea Medical

OncoImmunity

OncoSec Medical

One Nucleus

Oura

Owkin

P360

P3Life

PangaeaData.AI

Passage AI

PatchAi

PatientPoint

PatienTrials

Patiro

Pear Therapeutics

PenRad Technologies

Pepgra

Pfizer

Pharmamodelling

PHASTAR

phaware

Phesi

Precipio

ProofPilot

protocols.io

PWNHealth

Qmetrics Technologies

QUIBIM

Qure.ai

Raylytic

Redox

Remarque Systems

Roche

Royal Philips

Rymedi

Saama Technologies

San Raffaele Hospital

Sanofi

SAP

Science37

sensedat

Sensyne Health

ServiceNow

SiteRx

Skura Corporation

Snowflake

Springer Nature

Syneos Health

Synexus

Talkdesk

Teleradiology Solutions

TeraRecon

Teva Pharmaceuticals

The ALS Association

TrademarkVision

tranScrip

Translational Drug Development

Trial Sense

Trialcome

TrialJectory

Trials.ai

TTi Health Research & Economics

University of California

University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

Unlearn.AI

Vanguard Scientific

Veritas IRB

VIDA

Vivoryon Therapeutics

Viz.ai

Vizyon Technologies

Vooban

Wiley

Winterlight Labs

Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust

Worldwide Clinical Trials

Xingtai People's Hospital

KRN Scientific Consulting

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FALLS CHURCH, Va. - A Libyan military commander who previously lived for decades in Virginia says he deserves immunity from a pair of civil lawsuits accusing him of atrocities and indiscriminate killings because he is Libyas head of state.

Family members who say their loved ones were killed or tortured by Khalifa Hifters forces have filed two separate lawsuits against him in federal court in Alexandria. The lawsuits seek millions of dollars in damages that could be recovered from property Hifter, a dual U.S. and Libyan citizen, and his family still own throughout northern Virginia.

Hifter leads the self-styled Libyan National Army, a faction in a civil war that has raged in the country for years. Once a lieutenant to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Hifter defected to the U.S. during the 1980s and spent many years living in northern Virginia. He is widely believed to have worked with the CIA during his time in exile.

Hifter returned to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafis fall, and Hifters army gained control of the eastern part of Libya. Last year, he launched a campaign to take Tripoli, its capital. But his army suffered significant setbacks in recent months after the United-Nations-backed government opposing Hifter received military support from Turkey.

Hifter has received Russian and Egyptian backing.

Initially, Hifter did not respond to the lawsuits in Virginia, and a magistrate in one of the cases had recommended that the plaintiffs be awarded a default judgment. But earlier this month, lawyers representing Hifter sent a letter to the judge saying he wanted to defend himself. Hifter opponents who support the lawsuits against him say he changed tactics in the lawsuit after suffering military setbacks that might at some point force him to flee Libya.

In court motions filed Thursday, Hifters lawyers say he merits head-of-state status that would render him immune from civil suit under U.S. law. The U.S. actually supports the United Nations-backed government that has been fighting Hifter. But Hifters lawyers point to an April 2019 phone call President Donald Trump placed to Hifter in which Trump reportedly praised Hifter for his efforts to fight terrorism.

Faisal Gill, a lawyer for plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, rejected the notion that Hifter deserves head-of-state immunity.

An off-hand comment from President Trump is not official US policy, Gill said.

Hifter makes other arguments seeking dismissal of the suits, including claims that he was not properly served notice of the lawsuit and that the issues delve into a political question which courts are unsuited to resolve.

Hifters lawyers also say the allegations of indiscriminate killing and torture are not valid and that the U.S. law designed to protect torture victims is not intended to create liability for collateral civilian casualties resulting from legitimate military operations undertaken in a civil war.

A hearing on the motions to dismiss is scheduled for Sept. 15 in Alexandria.

Hifters filing comes as Libyas U.N.-supported government, which opposes Hifter, announced a cease-fire Friday across the oil-rich country.
In the New Article, Deloney Shared Common Mistakes that All Landlords Should Try to Avoid

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2020 / Winston Deloney, a real estate investor and entrepreneur based in Chicago, Illinois, is pleased to announce that he was recently featured in an article on the Space Coast Daily website.

To read the new article, which is titled "Real Estate Expert Winston Deloney Shares Common Mistakes All Landlords Should Avoid" in its entirety, please check out https://spacecoastdaily.com/2020/08/real-estate-expert-winston-deloney-shares-common-mistakes-all-landlords-should-avoid/.

As Deloney told the author of the article, real estate investors who own rental properties are also typically the landlord. For people who are new to the world of real estate investing, this can be a challenging time as they learn to navigate the ins and outs of their role as landlord.

In order to help new landlords, as well as established ones who are facing issues with their tenants, Deloney was happy to share some common mistakes that all landlords should avoid.

For example, Deloney said that not being strict with tenant screenings is a common problem, especially with newbies to the landlord role. In order to quickly rent out housing, it may be tempting to fill the units with anyone who walks in the door.

As Deloney noted, acting in haste can actually end up costing landlords a lot of money in the long run.

"Taking the time and effort to carefully screen your tenants allows you to weed through ones who may not have stable jobs, adequate income, or who may have a history of things like property damage," he said.

Another common issue that can come back to haunt new landlords is not being knowledgeable about rental, tenant and landlord laws. While it may seem like a tall order to be up on these types of laws, Deloney said studying them will help landlords to know when they can legally do, what their tenants can legally do and what protocols must be followed.

Trying to avoid hiring professionals to complete needed tasks on the property is another common mistake that many landlords make, Deloney said. Even those who are great at DIY projects can fall behind in their work, and the property can suffer as a result.

"Landlords may be hesitant to want to call in professionals, because they think of the cost. But as problems escalate without being properly solved, they'll become more and more costly to fix," he said in the article.

About Winston Deloney:

Winston Deloney is a Chicago, IL based real estate investor, passionate entrepreneur, and a self-proclaimed foodie. To learn more, follow Winston Deloney on his Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/TheWinstonDeloney/.

Contact:

WInston Deloney

thewinstondeloney@gmail.com

773-453-5132

SOURCE: Winston Deloney

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602760/Real-Estate-Investor-Winston-Deloney-is-Featured-in-an-Article-on-the-Space-Coast-Daily-Website
(TNS)  More than 2,000 letters were recently mailed out mostly to North Texans notifying them that their personal information mightve been compromised during a July cyberattack, according to Cooke County Judge Jason Brinkley.Several people have called asking if the letters are real, Brinkley said Tuesday, Aug. 18. While I am glad people are that vigilant, the letters are real.Brinkley said notices were mailed early last week by a third-party service that is assisting in the notification process.On July 4, a ransomware attack on the countys information system for the Cooke County Sheriffs Office resulted in the data breach of personal identification information, the Register previously reported.Brinkley said much of the compromised data came from either CCSO reports or cases going back several years.The CCSO was the only county department impacted by the attack.Shortly after the data breach, ITWire, an Australian information technology news website, reported that attackers claimed to have used REvil ransomware to attack the Cooke County website. The attackers posted screenshots on the dark web  part of the Internet that requires specific software or authorization to access  showing what were said to be documents and data from the sheriffs office, according to a previous Register report.Screenshots from the attackers announcement about the hack showed data folders with filenames that appeared to reflect archived case files as well as current cases. The screenshots, provided by threat analyst Brett Callow with antivirus software company Emsisoft, also displayed a threat that the files would be uploaded in seven days, though Callow said its unclear what date that was counting from, according to the archived Register report.REvil, used to refer both to the hacker group and the ransomware it uses, was first identified last year and is known to auction the data it steals, Callow previously told the Register.Brinkley told the Register on Tuesday that the ransomware attackers appear to be based on foreign soil. A law enforcement investigation into the attack is ongoing, he said.
The number of Republicans speaking at the Democratic National Convention had progressives on edge.

They shouldnt have fretted. Even if a handful of estranged Republicans are along for the ride, the Left is steadily moving the Democratic Party in its direction. Would progressives prefer winning the optics at a virtual convention, or the substance over the longer term?

The Democratic Convention was, for the most part, bereft of policy, focusing instead on President Donald Trumps character failings  rehearsed at length  and Joe Bidens personal decency. Together with all of the speakers with a Republican pedigree, this reinforced Bidens image of being more moderate than he is, which is perhaps his greatest political strength.

There is obviously no percentage in him running as the most progressive presidential nominee in a couple of generations. Its much better for him to portray himself simply as a good guy whose tent is so broad it stretches from AOC to the former secretary of state for a Republican president many progressives think was guilty of war crimes.

Its not as though Biden pulled from the Republican A-Team, though. At this point, itd be shocking if Colin Powell didnt endorse the Democratic candidate for president. Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, found former President George W. Bush too divisive for her taste. John Kasich, a Republican presidential candidate in 2016 and the two-term governor of Ohio, was more of a get, but still, if all of these figures were collectively asked to go build an audience of Republican voters, they probably couldnt fill out a moderately sized Zoom call.

In his speech, Kasich fulsomely endorsed Biden the man without getting close to endorsing any of his plans. He cited Republicans and independents who might believe that Biden may turn sharp left and leave them behind. I dont believe that. I know the measure of the man. Reasonable. Faithful, respectful, and no one pushes Joe around.

Story continues

Then, Kasich was followed on the program by Bernie Sanders, who boasted to his supporters, and not unreasonably, Many of the ideas we fought for, that just a few years ago were considered radical, are now mainstream.

While Sanders excoriated Trump, he also focused, more than others, on Bidens agenda and implicitly took credit for his embracing more far-reaching measures on issues ranging from the minimum wage to universal pre-K.

So, whos right? Kasich, who makes assurances that Biden will not turn left? Or Sanders, who says hes already turned?

It is true that Biden has avoided the most extreme and easily attacked versions of progressive proposals, whether the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, or defunding the police. But Biden is to former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clintons left on most domestic questions. Bernie Sanders and others shifted the Overton window of Democratic politics, and Biden moved to stay smack in the middle of it.

The Biden campaign is, in this respect, trying to do what Hillary Clinton did four years ago, except even more so. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat pointed out at the time, the Clinton campaign wanted to reach out to Republicans who couldnt abide Trump, but gave them nothing of substance, and in fact ran to the left of where shed been most of her career.

This approach probably has a better chance of working this time, since Biden isnt as radioactive as Hillary, and Trump cant run again as a take-a-flyer-on-me outsider.

If Biden can actually pull off tacking Bernies way on issues while running as a boring moderate, maybe he doesnt get the credit for political canniness that he deserves.

Yet, this is an evasion that represents a major vulnerability. The question is whether the Trump campaign can exploit it. If Biden is allowed to coast through the fall with his current image not being seriously contested, well then, campaign malpractice will have to be added to the long litany of charges against Donald Trump.

 2020 by King Features Syndicate

More from National Review
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With election day approaching, the citys largest police union lent its support on Thursday to the Republican candidate for the East Shores New York Assembly seat.

The citys Police Benevolent Association endorsed former Assistant District Attorney Michael Tannousis in his race for the seat to be vacated by Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/South Brooklyn) because of her congressional race.

These brave men and women put their lives on the line each and every day for our community, Tannousis, who is also running on Conservative Party line, said. Given todays political climate, it is important to show them our support and appreciation for the work that they do.

PBA President Pat Lynch, who announced the unions endorsement of President Trump last week, said it was his pleasure to endorse the former Bronx and Staten Island prosecutor.

Mikes commitment to addressing the issues affecting New York City police officers is well recognized, Lynch said. It will be an honor to have him representing our members in the Assembly. We look forward to working with him towards our shared goal of a stronger, safer New York.

Tannousis has also secured the endorsements of several unions representing members of the NYPD, including the Detective Endowment Association, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the Lieutenants Benevolent Association and the Captains Endowment Association.

Tannousis will face off against Democratic candidate Brandon Patterson, who is a longtime staffer for State Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn), in the Nov. 3 election.
Romee Strijd couldn't help but show off her growing baby bump during a trip to the beach on Thursday.

The 25-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel looked totally relaxed as she showcased her figure in a short video posted to her Instagram Stories.

The model displayed her impeccable pout while highlighting her striking black one-piece bathing suit, which featured a cut-out panel for her tummy.

Fun in the sun: Romee Strijd, 25, glowed while lounging at the beach in a striking black one-piece suit on Thursday

Romee jazzed up the string halter top by wearing it over one shoulder and tucked under the other.

The top featured square cups and a ruched band over her midriff, and the black bottoms were held together by thin straps of fabric at her sides.

The catwalk star matched her suit with a pair of thick black cat-eye sunglasses, and she wore her golden blonde locks in a tall updo.

Striking: Romee jazzed up the string halter top by wearing it over one shoulder and tucked under the other

Eye-catching: The top featured square cups and a ruched band over her midriff, and the black bottoms were held together by thin straps of fabric at her sides

Baby on board: She gave special attention to her baby bump, which stuck out through a cut-out panel

Romee seemed to delight in showing off her baby bump, but she also proved she had a sense of humor about her impending motherhood in another photo posted to her Insta Stories.

She showed off her figure with the sea at her back as she gazed off into the distance.

'My future [black heart emoji] Behind the stroller,' she captioned the snap.

The model has been enjoying plenty of time at beaches in the Netherlands throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this month, she shared photos from a day out in the sun with her fellow Angel Taylor Hill and other friends.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, neither she nor anyone in the photos appeared to be wearing masks to slow the spread of the virus.

Unlike in many other nations, Dutch public health officials have resisted calls to mandate or even recommend non-medical mask use, aside from on public transit, where they're required.

Having a laugh: Romee seemed to delight in showing off her baby bump, but she also proved she had a sense of humor about her impending motherhood in another Insta Stories photo

Stunners: Earlier this month, she shared photos from a day out in the sun with her fellow Angel Taylor Hill and other friends

Romee announced she was expecting her first child with her husband Laurens in May, and revealed they were expecting a baby girl in June.

Laurens stood at her side in an announcement video with a thick metal canister that spewed pink smoke

'We cant wait to meet our little girl,' captioned the runway star, adding a heart emoji for good measure.

Romee and Laurens, whose father is a famous TV presenter in the Netherlands, eloped in October 2018 after dating since 2010.

'We can't wait': Romee announced her pregnancy in May and revealed she was expecting a girl in June

The model revealed last month that she was expecting her first child, following a year's long struggle with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) that kept her from having periods for years.

Romee wrote that '2 years ago I got diagnosed with PCOS after not getting my period for 7 years. I was devastated because being a mom and starting a family with @laurensvleeuwen is my biggest dream..

'I was so scared that I would never be able to because I got told it was harder to get babies in a natural way.. I started to research PCOS and came to the conclusion that mine was not the typical pcos,' she added.

The model revealed: 'Mine was because of my body being in fight or flight mode.. which means my body was under constant stress. I never felt mentally super stressed so it was hard to understand this, but my life consisted of traveling all the time (no biorhythm), working out every day, eating super clean (restricting foods).'

Her solution was to give up the high-intensity training she had been doing and not to restrict her food choice, as well as being 'nice to myself' and taking breaks whenever she needs them.
A woman who murdered her partner by poisoning him with a toxic cocktail of drugs including morphine, valium and tramadol, has been called an 'outlandish liar' by the man's family.

Wendie-Sue Dent was found guilty by a jury in April of murdering her de facto partner David Lawrence in December 2015 to claim his $300,000 estate.

The SA Supreme Court was on Friday Mr Lawrence's five siblings said their brother was helpful and kind to everyone but paid for that with his life.

'It takes no effort for us to hate you. We will never forgive you, never. You do not deserve that,' the family told the 61-year-old in a victim impact statement.

Wendie-Sue Dent (pictured) was found guilty by a jury in April of murdering her de facto partner David Lawrence in December 2015 to claim his $300,000 estate

'You knew what you were doing. You planned David's death. You murdered him over several days only so you could get his life savings.'

Dent, who lived at Dapto in NSW's Illawarra region before her arrest, had denied murdering her de facto husband.

She was also accused of falsifying his will.

The SA Supreme Court was on Friday Mr Lawrence's (pictured) five siblings said their brother was helpful and kind to everyone but paid for that with his life

At the opening of the seven-week trial, prosecutor Emily Telfer SC said Dent administered Mr Lawrence a cocktail of dangerous medications that had all been prescribed to her.

The court heard a post-mortem examination revealed the toxic levels of morphine alone were enough to kill the 62-year-old.

'Next to the bed where David Lawrence's body was, was a glass of orange liquid that contained dissolved traces of the same drugs that were found within David Lawrence,' Ms Telfer said.

'This was no accidental overdose of medication, this was no suicide but a deliberate killing.'

In their statement, the family said Dent had 'lied about everything'.

'You told outlandish lies about yourself and David,' they told her.

Defence counsel Martin Anders asked the court to consider Dent's medical history when setting a non-parole period, describing her as someone with a profound opioid addiction who had operated in a 'drug-induced fog'

'You are incapable of telling the truth. You have no respect for life. You have only thought of yourself and your own selfish desires.

'We do not believe you can ever be redeemed. Your life is a waste.

'While you remain in jail, the world will go on without you, happy in the comfort that you are locked away in a meaningless existence.'

Defence counsel Martin Anders asked the court to consider Dent's medical history when setting a non-parole period, describing her as someone with a profound opioid addiction who had operated in a 'drug-induced fog'.

But Ms Telfer said there was no evidence of Dent being in a fog or removed from reality.

Justice Tim Stanley will sentence Dent next month.
In the view of recent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak, movement restriction (lockdown) and mass testing are considered to be the most important measures to control the viral spread. In the UK and US, many websites are selling direct to user self-sampling and testing kits to detect SARS-CoV-2. Recently, a cross-sectional observational study was carried out to check the completeness and accuracy of information provided by these websites.

The study findings have revealed that users purchasing these kits online are provided with incomplete and misleading information regarding the accuracy of tests, interpretation of results, and intended use. The study by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the University of Warwick in the UK is currently available on the medRxiv* preprint server.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), viral testing using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based kits is the best possible way to identify and isolate people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2. However, because of the low sensitivity (70%) of a single PCR testing, even having negative results from two consecutive PCR tests is not sufficient to exclude possible SARS-CoV-2 infection (the WHO). Besides viral testing kits that detect active infection, there are antibody testing kits to determine previous infection. However, the WHO does not recommend antibody testing kits for personal use, because it is still uncertain whether the presence of antibody ensures adaptive immunity to protect individuals from future infection.

Study objective

Direct to user kits available on different websites should be provided with high-accuracy and thorough user instructions because these tests are performed at home without any professional supervision. In the current study, the researchers aimed at investigating the completeness and accuracy of information provided by different websites that sell home self-sampling and testing kits to detect SARS-CoV-2. They performed a website search on 23rd May 2020 using the Google search engine and screened 27 websites that sell a total of 41 kits (23 viral testing kits and 18 antibody testing kits) either in the UK or in the US. Websites that sell viral testing or antibody testing kits directly to users via direct purchase or insurance purchase were included in the study.

Study findings

For the analysis, the researchers extracted information from these websites between 23rd and 28th May 2020. The information extracted from the websites included test type and manufacturer details, timing of testing; test accuracy; advice provided regarding changing behavior considering test results; authorization; and test cost.

The researchers observed that about 78%, 24%, 29%, and 51% of testing kits were devoid of information about the manufacturer, test timing, test accuracy, and result interpretation, respectively. Regarding test accuracy, they found that about 66% of the kits are provided with specificity and sensitivity details as accuracy measures. Surprisingly, there were hardly any details about predictive values, which is defined as the probability of truly having a disease based on test results. Only 12% of the kits reported positive predictive values.

Proportion of home-sampling COVID-19 tests identified which met/did not meet each of the predefined criteria for clear communication to the consumer.

Regarding viral testing, it was mentioned in 39% of the kits that people who test positive should self-isolate, whereas, in 35% of the kits, it was mentioned that people with negative test results may still have the infection. Regarding antibody testing, 67% of the kits are provided with information that having a positive result does not ensure protection from future infection.

Regarding regulatory approval and endorsement, 41% of home-sampling antibody test kits available on the UK websites claimed to have a CE mark; However, in reality, there is currently no antibody test kit with regulatory approval for home sampling or testing. These inappropriately made claims were based on the approval for testing by experts using venous blood samples instead of finger-prick samples. Moreover, 24% and 29% of the UK websites selling viral testing kits claimed to have approvals from the regulatory bodies and policy-making bodies, respectively.

Study significance

The researchers believe that the observations made in the study will help understand the fact that inadequate or misleading information provided to users by test kit-selling websites can actually accelerate the pandemic rather than containing it through rapid home-based testing. People who perform home-based tests inappropriately or interpret test results inaccurately can be potential carriers of the virus, and thus, can increase the risk of disease transmission.

The researchers developed a guideline that mentions what should be included on the websites that sell home-based testing kits. According to them, a kit must be provided with information about the type of test, timing and procedure to perform the test, test accuracy, regulatory body approval status, test result interpretation, and implication of the test result.

*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.
Former President John Dramani Mahama has said he regrets the Eastern Corridor road could not be completed before his tenure expired in 2016.



Mr Mahama is campaigning to return to the seat of the presidency in December and he is hoping to unseat the man that beat him in 2016, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



The Eastern Corridor road is an important road that links the northern part of the country to the southern areas.



Although many governments have promised to improve the road network and complete it, they have failed to do so.



My regret is that we did not complete the famous Eastern Corridor road before we left. By the time we left, all segments of it were being worked on. I believe that if the NDC had continued in office today we would not be talking about the Eastern Corridor road.



It is the number one priority for us. This Eastern Corridor road goes through 21 districts from south and north and you can imagine the number of agricultural products and others that come down this road to be able to reach the markets in Accra and Tema, he said.



The NDC presidential candidate for the December 7 polls made the comment when he was addressing Chiefs and people of Peki in the Volta Region as part of his tour of the region.



The 965-kilometre Eastern Corridor road links Greater Accra, Eastern, Ashanti, Volta, Oti and Upper East regions.

Source: ghanaweb.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Linear Air "Linear Air offers the safest and most convenient private air service to smaller and midsize markets across the United States." Bill Herp, CEO

American Airlines announced yesterday that they were suspending service to 15 cities across the United States. Linear Air, the leading provider of bookings for private and charter flights is stepping up to make extra flights available in each of those markets effected, in addition to the many convenient airports currently available.

In addition to providing additional flights on the safest fleet of charter and private airplanes, Linear Air CEO, Bill Herp says, Our customer service representatives and pilots will take extra measures for travelers, so they feel welcomed and wanted on these flights."

Cities affected by the American Airlines service interruption include: Del Rio, Texas; Dubuque, Iowa; Florence, South Carolina; Greenville, North Carolina; Huntington, West Virginia, Joplin, Missouri; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Lake Charles, Louisiana; New Haven, Connecticut; New Windsor, New York; Roswell, New Mexico; Sioux City, Iowa; Springfield, Illinois; Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Since 2013, Linear Air has been making booking private air accessible, specializing in small, midsized and under-serviced markets. Herp continues: For instance, if you live in Rockland County, New York, would you rather drive 2 hours and 75 miles to JFK airport, deal with the hassles of checking in and finding your self in a crowded middle seat; or just drive 20 minutes to Stewart Airport, be welcomed by name and escorted up the steps to your flight?"

Linear Air coordinates everything to insure travelers fly in a safe, private plane, and arrive at their destination as planned.

Since early this year, Linear Air has taken special precautions with all of its charter partners to insure the safety of its passengers. With commercial airlines cutting back flights in important cities, now is the perfect time to book a flight on your own private plane.

For more information, please visit: https://www.linearair.com/
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Calif. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced on Aug. 11, 2020, that he picked Harris as his running mate.

(JNS) - Jewish and Israel-related groups expressed mixed reactions to the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, picking Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate.

Organizations from the Democratic Majority for Israel to J Street praised the selection of Harris, who would be the first African-American and South Asian to be picked as a running mate for a major-party candidate. She would also be the third woman tapped for the vice-presidential slot, following former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2008 and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-N.Y.) in...
Scotlands dairy farmers are being urged to complete once in a generation government consultation on milk contracts.

NFU Scotland is encouraging all dairy producers in Scotland to complete the UK governments consultation.

It was launched in response to concerns that dairy farmers tend to occupy positions of relative market weakness in the food supply chain.

Unequal bargaining power with processors and retailers can expose farmers to unfair treatment, with the potential to undermine equitable price transmission along the chain.

NFU Scotland says it has been calling for reform in milk contracts for a long time, and this consultation is 'the best opportunity for change in thirty years'.

Launched on 24 June, farmers have just four weeks left to participate in the online consultation - with the deadline set for 15 September.

Four Zoom meetings were held at the end of July, which saw Scottish farmers attend to hear more information on the consultation as well as raise any issues.

The union says it has spoken with milk processors, buyers, industry stakeholders and key dairy consultancies in order to reflect the sectors thoughts on milk contracts.

NFU Scotland Milk Committee Chair, Gary Mitchell said: For most dairy farmers, their contract to sell milk is the single most important piece of paper they have for their business.

"It shapes the relationship with their milk buyer, and therefore it is important that every dairy farmer engages in this consultation from Defra."

He added: We have already had excellent input from dairy farmers with our Zoom meetings last month, but now we need you to fill in the consultation.

"This is the best opportunity for we, as the farmers, to take control into our own hands.

A number of other nations have introduced regulations in an attempt to stabilise markets and address systemic imbalances.

In the EU, thirteen member states including France and Spain have introduced laws on compulsory written milk contracts between farmers and processors.
Hindu elephant god Ganesh might be known to ride around on a mouse, but have you ever heard of the actual "elephant shrew"? This small mammal resembles a mouse with a trunk-like nose and was last recorded half a century ago, but it has been rediscovered in the Horn of Africa, scientists announced this week.

Officially named the Somali sengi, the insect-eating elephant shrew is monogamous and mates for life, and, despite its small stature, runs like "a gazelle" at nearly 30 km/h, the researchers found.

"The Somali sengi should no longer be considered lost to science," Steven Heritage, a research scientist at Duke University's Lemur Center in the United States and lead author on the paper, told dpa.

The species, as its name suggested, was previously only known to live in Somalia, so it was another interesting finding that Heritage's team found them in neighbouring Djibouti.

Through interviews with locals, scat analysis and trapping, the scientists saw 12 sengis during their trip in 2019. "We were thrilled to learn that they are the Somali sengi ... which has not been documented in the scientific literature for several decades," he noted.

"The geographic distribution is greater than was previously thought. The Somali sengi species is not just in northern Somalia, but also in Djibouti and perhaps in other Horn of Africa countries, like northern Ethiopia," Heritage told dpa.

The Somali sengi is currently listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species as "data deficient," something the researchers believe should now be changed.

---GNA


Space News space history and artifacts articles Messages space history discussion forums Sightings worldwide astronaut appearances Resources selected space history documents





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Rocket Center gets $500K grant to 'save' mock NASA space shuttle



August 21, 2020  An early space shuttle mockup that was used in the test of NASA ground facilities before becoming part of a landmark public display has qualified as an "American Treasure" worthy of preservation and a half-a-million-dollar federal grant.



The National Park Service (NPS) on Thursday (Aug. 20) announced that it was providing $500,000 towards the conservation and restoration of the space shuttle Pathfinder located at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. More than 40 years old, the mock orbiter is part of the world's first and currently only "full-stack" display of a space shuttle launch vehicle, and has been viewed by millions of people, including the hundreds of thousands of students who attended Space Camp at the rocket center.



The award is part of $12.8 million in Save America's Treasures grants that are going this year to fund 42 preservation and conservation projects in 26 states. The Save America's Treasures program is run by the NPS in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.



"We are honored to have received this generous Save America's Treasures grant to help us preserve the Pathfinder space shuttle, a beloved exhibit at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and a critical piece of hardware in the American space program," Louie Ramirez, CEO and executive director of the Space & Rocket Center, said in a statement. "Pathfinder was our top restoration project in 2020, and now this grant provides us a path forward for restoring this important artifact in the future."



Built in 1977 out of wood and steel, Pathfinder was designed to be roughly the same size, weight and shape of a space shuttle orbiter, but lacked the exterior details that eventually made Enterprise, Columbia and the other winged vehicles iconic. Living up to its later-given name, Pathfinder was used as an advance stand-in for the soon-to-come real orbiters in order to work out the procedures for moving and handling the space shuttles.



The mockup was used in ground tests at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, as well as at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it was hoisted by cranes inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and at the Mate/Demate Device on the Shuttle Landing Facility apron, as well inside the orbiter processing facilities.



Following its operational use and sitting in storage at Marshall for several years, Pathfinder was acquired by the America-Japan Society and was modified so that it more closely resembled the space-worthy orbiters. It was then shipped to Tokyo and exhibited as part of the "Great Space Shuttle Exposition" from 1983 to 1984.



Upon its return to the U.S., Pathfinder found a new and permanent home at the Space & Rocket Center, where it was eventually mated with a propulsion test article for the shuttle's external fuel tank and two prototype solid rocket boosters. Its outfitting also included two engine nozzles that had flown on the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia, STS-1, in 1981.



More than three decades of outdoor display took its toll on Pathfinder, raising the need for its restoration. Structural concerns have led to its plaza needing to be partially cordoned off and for one of its components being temporarily removed to keep visitors safe.



The Save America's Treasures award is a matching program, such that the Space & Rocket Center will need to raise at least an additional $500,000 during the grant period. The scope and total cost of the project is still to be determined.



"We applied for this grant long before the global coronavirus pandemic hit with its resulting financial devastation to the center," Ramirez said, referencing the $1.5 million shortfall that the center needed to raise to remain open through next spring, for which it turned to its alumni and corporate patrons to help fund. "The matching aspect of the grant presents us with a unique challenge as we continue our Save Space Camp campaign to recover from pandemic-related losses."



"The grant, however, does provide us with time to work with community partners to help raise the funds it will take for this massive project. We look forward to working with our U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation to raise these funds over the next year or so," he said.



The Pathfinder space shuttle orbiter simulator, modified from its original NASA build and mounted atop an external tank and solid rocket boosters at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will benefit from a Save America's Treasures $500,000 federal conservation grant. (U.S. Space & Rocket Center)





The space shuttle orbiter simulator Pathfinder undergoes a lift test in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in May 1978. (NASA)





The space shuttle orbiter simulator, later named Pathfinder, being used in a fit-check test for the Mate/Demate Device at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida in October 1978. (NASA)





The mock space shuttle orbiter Pathfinder as it looked when it arrived for display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. (USSRC)





Space Camp attendees gather for a graduation ceremony under the space shuttle Pathfinder at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama. (NASA)



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An international team of researchers have discovered a dense, cold gas that's been shot out from the centre of the Milky Way "like bullets".

Exactly how the gas has been ejected is still a mystery, but the research team, including Professor Naomi McClure-Griffiths from The Australian National University (ANU), say their findings could have important implications for the future of our galaxy.

"Galaxies can be really good at shooting themselves in the foot. When you drive out a lot of mass, you're losing some of the material that could be used to form stars, and if you lose enough of it, the galaxy can't form stars at all anymore. So, to be able to see hints of the Milky Way losing this star-forming gas is kind of exciting  it makes you wonder what's going to happen next!," Professor McClure-Griffiths said.

The study also raises new questions about what's happening in our galactic centre right now.

"The wind at the centre of the Milky Way has been the topic of plenty of debate since the discovery a decade ago of the so-called Fermi Bubbles  two giant orbs filled with hot gas and cosmic rays. We've observed there's not only hot gas coming from the centre of our galaxy but also cold and very dense gas. This cold gas is much heavier, so moves around less easily," Professor McClure-Griffiths said.

The centre of the Milky Way is home to a massive black hole, but it's unclear whether this black hole has expelled the gas, or whether it was blown by the thousands of massive stars at the centre of the galaxy.

"We don't know how either the black hole or the star formation can produce this phenomenon. We're still looking for the smoking gun, but it gets more complicated the more we learn about it," lead author Dr Enrico Di Teodoro from Johns Hopkins University said.

"This is the first time something like this has been observed in our galaxy. We see these kinds of processes happening in other galaxies. But, with external galaxies you get much more massive black holes, star formation activity is higher, it makes it easier for the galaxy to expel material. And these other galaxies are obviously a long way away, we can't see them in a lot of detail. Our own galaxy is almost like a laboratory that we can actually get into and try to understand how things work by looking at them up close," Dr Teodoro added.

The gas was observed using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile.
Value investing is easily one of the most popular ways to find great stocks in any market environment. After all, who wouldnt want to find stocks that are either flying under the radar and are compelling buys, or offer up tantalizing discounts when compared to fair value?



One way to find these companies is by looking at several key metrics and financial ratios, many of which are crucial in the value stock selection process. Lets put FirstEnergy Corporation FE stock into this equation and find out if it is a good choice for value-oriented investors right now, or if investors subscribing to this methodology should look elsewhere for top picks:

PE Ratio

A key metric that value investors always look at is the Price to Earnings Ratio, or PE for short. This shows us how much investors are willing to pay for each dollar of earnings in a given stock, and is easily one of the most popular financial ratios in the world. The best use of the PE ratio is to compare the stocks current PE ratio with: a) where this ratio has been in the past; b) how it compares to the average for the industry/sector; and c) how it compares to the market as a whole.



On this front, FirstEnergy Corporation has a trailing twelve months PE ratio of 11.17, as you can see in the chart below:





This level actually compares favorably with the market at large, as the PE for the S&P 500 stands at about 23.89. If we focus on the long-term PE trend, FirstEnergy Corporations current PE level puts it below its midpoint over the past five years. Moreover, the current level is fairly below the highs for this stock, suggesting it might be a good entry point.





However, the stocks PE also compares unfavorably with the Zacks Utilities sectors trailing twelve months PE ratio, which stands at 16.14. At the very least, this indicates that the stock is slightly overvalued right now, compared to its peers.





We should also point out that FirstEnergy Corporation has a forward PE ratio (price relative to this years earnings) of just 11.50, so it is fair to expect an increase in the companys share price in the near future.

Story continues

P/S Ratio

Another key metric to note is the Price/Sales ratio. This approach compares a given stocks price to its total sales, where a lower reading is generally considered better. Some people like this metric more than other value-focused ones because it looks at sales, something that is far harder to manipulate with accounting tricks than earnings.



Right now, FirstEnergy Corporation has a P/S ratio of about 1.41. This is substantially lower than the S&P 500 average, which comes in at 3.73 right now. Also, as we can see in the chart below, this is somewhat below the highs for this stock in particular over the past few years.

Broad Value Outlook

In aggregate, FirstEnergy Corporation currently has a Value Score of A, putting it into the top 20% of all stocks we cover from this look. This makes FirstEnergy Corporation a solid choice for value investors, and some of its other key metrics make this pretty clear too.



For example, P/CF of FirstEnergy Corporation comes in at 5.93, which is better than the industry average of 7.69. Clearly, FE is a solid choice on the value front from multiple angles.

What About the Stock Overall?

Though Exelon Corporation might be a good choice for value investors, there are plenty of other factors to consider before investing in this name. In particular, it is worth noting that the company has a Growth Score of B and Momentum Score of C. This gives FE a Zacks VGM score  or its overarching fundamental grade  of A. (You can read more about the Zacks Style Scores here >>)



Meanwhile, the companys recent earnings estimates have been discouraging. This has had a noticeable impact on the consensus estimate, as the current year consensus estimate witnessed no movement in the past two months, whereas the full-year 2021 estimate declined 0.38%. You can see the consensus estimate trend and recent price action for the stock in the chart below:

FirstEnergy Corporation Price and Consensus

FirstEnergy Corporation Price and Consensus

FirstEnergy Corporation price-consensus-chart | FirstEnergy Corporation Quote

Owing to the bearish estimate trends, the stock has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which is why we are looking for in-line performance from the company in the near term.

Bottom Line

FirstEnergy Corporation is an inspired choice for value investors, as it is hard to beat its incredible lineup of statistics on this front. However, with a sluggish industry rank (bottom 22% out of more than 250 industries) and a Zacks Rank #3, it is hard to get too excited about this company overall. In fact, over the past two years, the sector has clearly underperformed the market at large, as you can see below:





So, value investors might want to wait for estimates, analyst sentiment and broader factors to turn around in this name first, but once that happens, this stock could be a compelling pick.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.



Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2021.



Click here for the 6 trades >>



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



FirstEnergy Corporation (FE) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
A man in Arizona has died while in police custody after being held down on hot tarmac for six minutes.

Ramon Timothy Lopez, 28, was pronounced dead on 4 August in Phoenix following an altercation with police and his subsequent arrest.

Lopez was arrested after he ran from police and reportedly threw a stolen drink at an officer who was looking into a report of a suspicious man making obscene gestures and looking into cars".

Following an evasion from officers, Lopez was eventually forced to the ground, where he was restrained and held for six minutes, Phoenix Police Department said in a release.

He was then reportedly put in a patrol vehicle to move him out of the roadway, where he was later found to be unresponsive.

Police released footage of the incident from body-worn cameras of all three of the officers involved.

Nobodys perfect but he did not deserve any of that, Lopezs brother David Gonzales told KNXV-TV.

They were on top of him with all their weight on the hot asphalt, he added. Who wouldnt be fighting? He was fighting for his life, and he lost.

Officers said they used handcuffs and leg restraints to prevent Lopez from kicking and said that they believed he was under the influence of illegal drugs due to his erratic behaviour.

Recommended Three Mississippi police officers charged with murdering black man

Police said that when they realised he was unresponsive they took him out of the police vehicle, trying to wake him and give him water.

Lopez had two children with his girlfriend Evangelina Rodriguez, including a two-month-old baby.

I just feel like they couldve done something, and I just feel like they cheated my kids of their dad, Ms Rodriguez told the local broadcaster.

Lopezs cause of death is yet to be determined by a medical examiner. Two separate investigations into the incident are under way, examining the actions of the police officers involved.

Conclusions about whether the actions of the officers are consistent with department policy and the law will not be made until all facts are known and the investigation is complete, the police department said.
WATCH: Keisha Lance Bottoms full speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms addressed Democrats on Aug. 20 during the final night of the Democratic National Convention. The coronavirus pandemic upended both parties traditional conventions. Instead of in-person events, the program each night features a number of speakers and musical performances virtually across the country.

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Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Hallowfest at Six Flags Fiesta Texas will be different this year as it navigates safety concerns sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the amusement park's website, Hallowfest will ensure social distancing by having no indoor mazes, haunted houses or indoor shows. The popular spooky celebration will run on weekends and select days from Sept. 19 to Nov. 1.
Vince has relocated its shop within The Westchester mall in White Plains, N.Y., to larger quarters enabling the contemporary fashion brand to display the full breadth of its assortment.

The old store was a tiny shoebox, Brendan Hoffman, the outgoing chief executive officer of Vince Holdings Corp., told WWD. It didnt allow us to show anything more than womens. Our new store allows us to show womens, mens and other categories  our complete range of Vince clothing and accessories. We always do better with dual-gender locations.

The 2,486-square-foot shop, which opened Thursday a few doors from the former 1,775-square-foot site, sells womens apparel, footwear, handbags, mens wear, home and a selection of Vince Collective items. Gucci previously occupied the space Vince moved into.

Vince worked out the relocation with the mall owner Simon Property Group prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. Nevertheless, the move underscores opportunities brands like Vince have to optimize their brick-and-mortar presence when other retailers close stores through rationalizations of their retail fleets or bankruptcies.

Vince will continue to look opportunistically at brick-and-mortar as part of our omni strategy, said Hoffman. Given the current environment, its clear there is lots of availability for good brands to take advantage of the need for occupancy.

Vince is further advantaged by having kickout clauses written into many leases, providing the right to exit a mall, typically after five years. This gives us the flexibility to continue to strengthen the portfolio, said Hoffman, who is leaving Vince to join Wolverine Worldwide on Sept. 8, first as president and eventually adding the title of ceo.

Vince, with its understated, coastal California-inspired style, is well suited to shopping habits shifted by the pandemic. The store design reflects the brands aesthetic. It has a neutral color palette, plaster details, custom built-ins, and 1970s Italian furnishings. The space also spotlights work by Los Angeles-based ceramicist Katie Thompson, reinforcing the California design influence.

Story continues

Vince has 48 retail stores and 14 outlets. It also operates vince.com, the Unfold subscription service, the Rebecca Taylor and Parker brands, and sells through wholesale channels.

The Westchester unit is the first Vince location to open since the onset of COVID-19. The shop operates with reduced hours to accommodate additional cleaning and coronavirus prevention measures including frequent disinfection, reduced occupancy, and the requirement of employees to wear face masks and regularly wash hands. In addition, the store will operate on a showroom model, where single units are placed on the selling floor and store associates will pull new items from the back to fulfill purchases.

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The Czech Republic and Russia will begin consultations for the normalization of relations in the coming weeks, a source among the Czech organizers of the consultations told Sputnik on Friday

PRAGUE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2020) The Czech Republic and Russia will begin consultations for the normalization of relations in the coming weeks, a source among the Czech organizers of the consultations told Sputnik on Friday.

"Political consultations for the normalization on relations between the Czech Republic and Russia will begin in a few weeks," the source said.

The Czech Republic's focal point for the consultations is Rudolf Jindrak, the director of foreign affairs in the Czech presidential administration. Earlier this month, he told Sputnik that the consultations would first be held on the working level across specific issues and subject areas before being held at a higher level.

According to Jindrak, Russia's focal point for the consultations will be Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov.

Before the two diplomats are able to meet for talks in-person amid the coronavirus-related restrictions, the Czech Republic will be negotiating with Russian Ambassador in Prague Alexander Zmeevsky.

The Russian-Czech relations suffered a blow after the Czech authorities dismantled a Prague-based monument to Marshal Ivan Konev of the Soviet Union, who led the liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Nazis during the Second World War.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has decried the dismantlement of the monument as yet another "cynical" manifestation of the Czech government's pursuit to revise the results of World War II.
Three astronauts are going to spend the weekend in the Russian section of the International Space Station after a leak was detected somewhere onboard.

While in the Russian section the crew members will close all of the hatches on the station - allowing Earth-based experts to monitor air pressure levels and find the source of the leak.

Commander Chris Cassidy and his crewmates Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin will stay in the Zvezda service module from Friday night into Monday morning.

NASA and Roscosmos said the situation represented no immediate danger to the crew or to the space station but that it was important to find the source.

Commander Chris Cassidy and his crewmates Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin will stay in the Zvezda service module from Friday night into Monday morning

The stations atmosphere is maintained at a level of pressure designed to be comfortable for the crew members - a tiny bit of that air leaks out over time.

The leaks are a part of life for the 22-year-old orbiting laboratory which gets routine re-pressurisation thanks to nitrogen tanks delivered by cargo spacecraft.

'In September 2019, NASA and its international partners first saw indications of a slight increase above the standard cabin air leak rate,' NASA said in a statement.

Because of routine station operations like spacewalks and spacecraft arrivals and departures, it took time to realise what the measurement changes meant.

'The leak is still within segment specifications and presents no immediate danger to the crew or the space station,' NASA and Roscosmos said.

The test to find the source of the leak will involve ground staff monitoring air pressure levels over time - something that doesn't pose a risk to the crew.

The Zvezda module that will house the three crew members provides the living quarters that enabled permanent human habitation to begin nearly 20 years ago when the Expedition 1 crew arrived at the station November 2, 2000.

Cassidy, Vagner, and Ivanishin also will have access to the Poisk mini-research module and their Soyuz MS-16 crew ship for the duration of their stay.

A leak isn't a new thing for the ageing laboratory - they happen regularly including a controversial leak in 2018 that was suspected to have been human made.

The ISS has been under constant occupation by astronauts since November 2000 but due to structural fatigue needs to be decommissioned by 2030

Astronauts had to rush to fix a hole which appeared in the outer wall of a Russian Soyuz capsule that had been docked with the station for three months.

Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, conducted an investigation into the hole and compiled a dossier on the incident, but reports claim it will not disclose its findings.

This includes, it seems, its international collaborators on the ISS, including NASA.

Just days prior to their return to Earth, the cosmonauts endured a gruelling spacewalk that lasted almost eight hours to investigate the hole, using knives and shears to carve into the side of the ISS.

NASA claimed the astronauts on board were never in danger but images and further investigation revealed it was made from the inside.

The report on where this latest leak is should be known by the end of next week, according to NASA, who explained that once found astronauts can be directed to carry out repairs to stop it getting worse.
Classes under shade of trees, reminding one of education in Viswa Bharati University at Shantiniketan in West Bengal, started in Tripura from Thursday.

Over one lakh students across the smallest states in north-eastern India participated in open air class rooms from Thursday, officials said.

There are total 27,000 teachers serving at 4,400 government schools attended these open air schools.

A recent survey conducted by Education Department had found that 94,013 students dont have any kind of phones and 1,42,238 students dont have cable TV network to take classes on television.

To overcome these issues, the Education Department started the  neighbourhood classes with 1:5 teacher-student ratio for all students especially those who cant afford or access online studies.

The survey also found that there are 3,22,297 students studying in Grade I to VIII in different government schools of the state. Of the total, 1,11,618 students have smartphones, 1,16,666 have ordinary mobile phones and 1,80,059 have cable network in their homes.

Total 1,96,389 students could access internet in their smartphones.

In the beginning of the classes, teachers dedicate 10 minutes to make students aware about Covid-19 and suggest precautionary measures to them including wearing face masks, using hand sanitizer and others.

All the students have to wear face masks and use hand sanitizer during the classes. We have asked the teachers not to force any parents who are not interested to send their children to neighbourhood classes, said Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath.

He added that they would seek opinions of the parents and teachers soon about the neighbourhood classes.

Earlier, the state Education Department launched online classes, video lecture sessions in local TV channels, SMS based classes, Students Helpline Call Centre for the students after Covid-19 lockdown was imposed since March.

The state reduced 50% syllabus of Bengali, English and Social Science Studies and 40% of Science, Mathematics and Environmental Science for classes 3 to 8 in the pandemic.
The Wayne County Board of Canvassers is asking the Michigan Department of State for oversight during the Nov. 3 general election after discovering several of its precincts votes were out of balance for the August primary.

The Michigan Board of Canvassers started discussing the countys issues at a Friday, Aug. 21 meeting before technical issues forced them to recess the meeting until 10 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 24.

Jonathan Kinloch, the vice-chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, said election workers on the countys absentee ballot county board had a lot of out-of-balance vote counts for precincts in Detroit. Michigan elections are conducted under a rigorous check-and-balance system where polling places and absent voter counting boards are operated by bipartisan teams of election inspectors, he said.

Election workers did not do the work to balance it out, Kinloch said. We found out that individuals actually left and didnt complete their work. That is unacceptable. Whether its training or whether these people should never work on an election board, the bottom line is that we cannot have these types of deficiencies that would potentially prevent precincts from being recounted.

Though there were no issues with the countys vote totals, there are a variety of reasons why the precincts votes are out of balance, according to Kinloch.

Ballots may have been canceled and they werent properly noted for, Kinloch said. Proper notation and proper comments as to why certain things occurred inside of a precinct werent indicated by the election worker. So, those precincts are determined to be out of balance.

Kinloch said this poses a big problem because, under state election law, a precinct cannot be recounted if its out of balance.

The blame falls on untrained election workers and those who hired them, Kinloch said. It warranted us to ask the Secretary of State to come in and lend some additional guidance as well as appoint a monitor because we definitely dont want to see these types of issues in November.

Many of Wayne Countys seasoned election workers didnt feel comfortable working because theyre older and the risk of COVID-19 was too dangerous.

So, you had a whole bunch of new folks, Kinloch said. Its fine to have new folks, but you need the appropriate level of training and oversight. You want to have people actually on marking off and confirming the transactions and the actions that are occurring in those and absentee counting boards.

What concerns Kinloch the most is individuals who choose to work on election day are not given enough training or those people not taking the job seriously.

Individuals need to understand how important it is to get the work done right, Kinloch said. I hope that with all the conversations taking place the last few days, there is enough of a response from the state so that this doesnt happen again in November.

The Board of State Canvassers meets again Monday to certify the results of the Aug. 4 election.
Biden accepts Democratic Partys nomination for president and sets out vision for the presidency.

Democrats moved on Tuesday to nominate former Vice President Joe Biden as their presidential candidate to take on United States President Donald Trump in the November 3 election. Tonight gives Biden his first opportunity to address the nation as a presidential candidate in a formal speech.

The speech was a test for Biden, who is well known for his straight-talk gaffes. However, some have noted that Bidens speaking abilities have faltered in recent years, with some critics raising questions about his mental acuity. Trump has already started calling the former vice president Sleepy Joe.

Bidens big night came as the US economy continues to struggle, with unemployment rising amid the coronavirus pandemic. Observers have noted that the convention thus far has been lofty in its criticisms of Trump and hopeful rhetoric, but relatively light on policy proposals. Biden delivered concrete proposals with personal stories.

A range of other Democratic party figures spoke on the final night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), with former presidential candidates Mayor Pete Buttigieg, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and billionaire media mogul Mike Bloomberg featured prominently.

These were the updates:

Thursday, August 20

02:42 GMT  Biden casts himself as capable, working-class hero in crucial DNC speech

Former Vice President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden was cast as a decent, dependable friend of the working class who will handle the coronavirus with his experience and decency.

If you trust me with the presidency, Biden began, I will be an ally of the light, not the dark.

Biden called the situation in the US a perfect storm: the worst pandemic in over 100 years and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He said the country was experiencing the biggest call for racial justice since the 60s, referencing the major crisis of the US, saying its a time of real peril, but extraordinary possibilities.

Biden cited the over five million and 170,000 dead as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, along with its serious economic toll, promising to get the virus under control as his first step as president. He vowed to deploy quick testing and protective equipment needed to handle the virus.

Former US Vice President Joe Biden accepts the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination during a speech delivered for the largely virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]

Biden spoke fondly of former President Barack Obama, under whom he served as vice president, and his landmark Obamacare law, which Republicans have vowed to repeal, promising to expand healthcare access.

Speaking about the economy, Biden said that if Trump wins, working families will struggle to get by  and yet the wealthiest one percent will continue to gain billions  echoing common rhetoric from progressive leader Senator Bernie Sanders and coming alongside a promise to change a tax code that rewards wealth more than it rewards work.

Biden promised to create five million clean energy jobs, and expand train lines while making universities more affordable. Women will receive equal pay for equal work, he said, and early childhood care will be available to all. Social Security and Medicare, popular sections of the US welfare system aimed at the elderly, will be protected.

Biden also referenced George Floyds death, saying the US might be ready to end the scourge of racism.

02:20 GMT  Former Democratic presidential candidates remember Biden as leader, force for good

A group of former Democratic presidential hopefuls sat in a virtual roundtable to discuss their memories of Biden as a leader.

Buttigieg opened the segment with a standalone speech, saying over 10 years ago, I joined a military where firing me because of who I am wasnt just possible  it was policy, referring to the former policy of Dont Ask, Dont Tell, the US militarys stance on not allowing openly LGBT members.

Now in 2020, it is unlawful in America to fire anyone because of who they are or who they love. The very ring on my finger reflects how this country can change.

Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks by video feed during the fourth and final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention [2020 Democratic National Convention/Pool via Reuters]

Then, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Cory Booker were joined by former Texas Representative Beto ORourke and Buttigieg spoke about Bidens decency while calling on their supporters to join forces to defeat Trump at the ballot box.

Sanders said Biden is decent, which the US needs especially now. Whether youre progressives  moderates  or conservatives, we must come together, he urged.

Booker concluded the segment by telling the others, It was an honour to run against you. It is a greater honour to stand with you, referencing their group effort to get Biden elected.

02:02 GMT  Cory Booker recalls familys history as workers in case for Biden

Senator Booker, a former presidential candidate, recalled his grandfathers history in moving from the segregated US South to Detroit, where he made a living by working blue-collar jobs.

The working class is pivotal for Biden, Harris and the Democratic party, Booker said, and they will be appreciated if Biden is elected.

Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker speaks during the fourth and final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention [Democratic National Convention/Pool via Reuters]

Well stand for those who cook, and serve, and clean; who plant and harvest; who pack and always deliver, whose hands are thick with calluses, like my grandads who held mine when I was a boy, Booker said.

If he was alive, Joe and Kamala, he would be so proud of you  and hed tell us, take another by the hand, and another, and lets get to work, this dream aint free, you gotta work for it.

01:27 GMT  Atlanta Mayor Bottoms invokes memory of John Lewis

The DNC invited Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to speak on the importance of electing candidates who believe the lives of [her] four Black children matter: Biden and Harris.

Bottoms spoke about the inspiration the late Representative John Lewis, who died on July 17, and his struggles in the civil rights movement.

The baton was passed to the current generation, Bottoms continued, as seen in the mass movement that arose after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks by video feed during the fourth and final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention [2020 Democratic National Convention/Pool via Reuters]

We have cried out for justice, we have gathered in our streets to demand change, and now, we must pass on the gift John Lewis sacrificed to give us, we must register and we must vote, Bottoms said before a video tribute to Lewis played, followed by a performance by John Legend and Common.

We cannot wait for some other time, some other place, some other heroes. We must be the heroes of our generation.

01:00 GMT  California Governor Newsom stresses climate change is real

Governor Gavin Newsom of California appeared in a video shot on a mobile phone a few miles from raging wildfires, he said in his address.

California is currently experiencing a megafire bigger than Manhattan, and Trump doesnt believe its real, Newsom said, even as temperatures reach up to 54 degrees Celsius in California.

Climate change is real, Newsom stressed.

A firefighting aircraft drops retardant ahead of the LNU Lightning Complex Fire on August 18, 2020 in Napa, California [Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP]

Biden has fought to protect the environment, and voters must do everything they can to get Biden and Harris elected, Newsom continued.

There is so much at stake in this election, the governor said, and stressing the need to vote, he concluded, the future isnt something to experience, its something to manifest.

00:40 GMT  DNC viewership rises on third night

The virtual Democratic National Convention attracted its biggest TV audience to date on Wednesday when former President Barack Obama and vice-presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris made their appeals to voters, according to data from tracking firm Nielsen.

An estimated 22.8 million people watched the third night of proceedings across 10 broadcast and cable television networks, Nielsen said. Viewership jumped 3.6 million from the same period Tuesday.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris stands on stage with Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden the third day of the Democratic National Convention [Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo]

The TV audience for the convention, where Democrats nominated Joe Biden for president, remained below the level of 2016. TV viewership was about seven percent higher on night three of the convention four years ago.

But the TV figures do not include viewing on digital platforms, which has jumped significantly since 2016 as traditional television watching has declined.

00:24 GMT  Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg to make case for Bidens ability to heal

Speech excerpts released ahead of the DNC show former presidential hopefuls Andrew Yang and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg are going to make appeals based Bidens moral character and willingness to fight for the common man.

I have gotten to know both Joe and Kamala on the trail over the past year, Yang is expected to say. They understand the problems we face. They are parents and patriots who want the best for our country. And if we give them the chance, they will fight for us and our families every single day.

Buttigieg, whom Biden has compared to his late son, Beau, will say Americans must now decide. Can America be a place where faith is about healing and not exclusion?

Democratic presidential hopeful former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg speaks during the ninth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season [Mark Ralston/AFP]

Buttigieg, who faced controversy surrounding his handling of policing in South Bend, will ask: Can we become a country that lives up to the truth that Black lives matter? Will we handle questions of science and medicine by turning to scientists and doctors? What will we do to make America into a land where no one who works full time can live in poverty?

23:42 GMT  AOC calls out Democrats for challenging progressives in primaries

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a figurehead of the burgeoning progressive movement within the Democratic Party, tweeted a challenge to Democrats after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would endorse a moderate challenger to the progressive Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.

Pelosi will endorse Joe Kennedy, a relative of former President John F Kennedy, to challenge Markey.

Progressive challengers have made gains in the wake of Senator Bernie Sanderss two presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. Often, they have done so by challenging unpopular, moderate Democrats in safe seats.

These challenges have gone without support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which works to elect Democrats to Congress and usually blacklists its associates from working to unseat Democrats in good standing.

So, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted to the DCCC, when can we expect you to reverse your blacklist policy against primary orgs?

No one gets to complain about primary challenges again.  So @dccc, when can we expect you to reverse your blacklist policy against primary orgs? Because between this & lack of care around @IlhanMNs challenger, it seems like less a policy and more a cherry-picking activity. https://t.co/xSneSK8H2q  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 20, 2020

The challenge comes amid talks of a feud between the progressive wing  which observers say has been noticeably absent from the DNC  and the moderate wing, headed by Biden.

23:24 GMT  Pelosi says the election depends on Wisconsin

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a stark reminder to Wisconsin Democrats on Thursday about the importance the Midwestern battleground state plays in the presidential election less than 11 weeks away.

Wisconsin did not get the national attention it hoped for when the Democratic convention  originally planned for the states biggest city, Milwaukee  was moved online due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.

The Democrats previous nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, did not visit the state during the 2016 campaign, though Trump visited several times. Trumps victory by razor-thin margins there helped in the US Electoral College, which guaranteed him the presidency in spite of losing the popular vote.

After Trumps narrow victory of fewer than 23,000 votes in the state in 2016  and with polls showing another close race this year  Democrats are pledging not to downplay the importance of Wisconsin in Bidens efforts to defeat Trump.

Read more here.

22:02 GMT  Steve Bannon, architect of Trumps 2016 victory, arrested for fraud

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon, an architect of Trumps 2016 election victory, was arrested on a yacht and pleaded not guilty on Thursday after being charged with defrauding donors in a scheme to help build the presidents signature wall along the US-Mexico border.

The indictment claims the scheme was related to an online crowdfunding campaign that claims to have raised more than $25m to build a wall along the southern border of the US, a signature policy proposal from Trump.

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon speaks during a political meeting in Rome, Italy, on March 21, 2019 [Ettore Ferrari/Efe/EPA]

As a top adviser to Trumps 2016 presidential campaign who later served as White House chief strategist, Bannon helped articulate the right-wing populism and fierce opposition to immigration that have helped define Trumps three and a half years in office.

21:45 GMT  Unemployment ticks up as coronavirus continues in the US

The number of workers in the US who are filing for state unemployment benefits climbed back above one million last week, signalling that businesses continue to lay off workers as the economy struggles to climb out of the deep recessionary hole caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Some 1.1 million Americans filed initial jobless claims with states in the week ending August 15, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday. That is 135,000 more than the previous week, when the number fell below one million for the first time since March.

A man walks past a retail store that is going out of business due to the coronavirus pandemic in Illinois. Unemployment numbers are evidence of the devastation the coronavirus outbreak has unleashed on the US economy [Nam Y Huh/AP Photo]

For the millions of Americans collecting unemployment, times are only getting tougher. The $600 federal weekly top-up to state benefits expired last month. Trump issued an executive order for a replacement $300-a-week federal top-up bankrolled by the governments disaster relief fund, but only half of states so far have said that they will be applying for that additional aid.

The state of the economy was always a strength for Trump, but it is turning into a liability. Read more here.
 Flash

France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on Thursday saying that they cannot support the United States in seeking to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

The U.S. sent a letter to the UN Security Council on Thursday requesting to initiate the "snapback" mechanism, which allows a participant to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) to seek the reimposition against Iran of the multilateral sanctions lifted in 2015 in accordance with resolution 2231, adopted by the UN Security Council.

"The U.S. ceased to be a participant to the JCPoA following their withdrawal from the deal on 8 May, 2018... We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPoA," the statement noted.

France, Germany and the UK said they "are committed to preserving the processes and institutions which constitute the foundation of multilateralism. We remain guided by the objective of upholding the authority and integrity of the United Nations Security Council. We call on all UN Security Council members to refrain from any action that would only deepen divisions in the Security Council or that would have serious adverse consequences on its work."

Reiterating that they remain committed to the JCPoA despite the significant challenges caused by U.S. withdrawal, the three countries said they "believe that we should address the current issue of systematic Iranian non-compliance with its JCPoA obligations through dialogue between JCPoA participants, including through the Joint Commission and use of the Dispute Resolution Mechanism."

In order to preserve the agreement, they urged Iran "to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay."

The three countries also pledged to continue to work with all UN Security Council members and stakeholders to seek a path forward that preserves space for further diplomacy.

"Our efforts will be guided by the need to uphold the authority and integrity of the UN Security Council and to advance regional security and stability," they noted in the statement.

The JCPoA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was inked by Iran in July 2015 with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. However, the U.S., under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the deal on May 8, 2018, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, despite objections from the international community.

A year after the U.S. unilateral exit, Iran stopped implementing some of its commitments under the deal and set a 60-day deadline for the Europeans to help the Islamic republic reap the economic benefits of the deal.

The European signatories still support the deal and have vowed to sidestep U.S. sanctions re-imposed after its withdrawal.
Jill Biden, a potential first lady whom most people have not heard speak at length, or at all, steered a sharp pivot toward hope on Tuesday. Speaking from a high school classroom where she once taught English, the nominees wife described in intimate terms a husband and father who has endured personal losses and emerged with a heart big enough to do for your family what he did for ours: Bring us together and make us whole, carry us forward in our time of need, keep the promise of America for all of us.
Chandigarh, Aug 21 : Accusing the Congress government in Punjab of shielding the illicit liquor mafia, BJP leaders and activists on Friday staged a protest demanding a CBI probe into the death of over 100 people in the recent hooch tragedy.

The police detained around 200 protesting BJP activists, led by state President Ashwani Sharma, who were demanding a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the deaths and the 'flourishing' illicit liquor mafia under the patronage of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

They were marching towards the Chief Minister's official residence here to stage a protest.

"We are protesting against the government and staging state-level blockades for nearly a fortnight so that the government wakes up from its slumber," Sharma told the media.

A police official told IANS that they had warned the protesters to vacate the protest site as they did not have permission to stage a protest. When they refused to move, the police took them in custody.

Senior BJP leaders Vijay Sampla and Tarun Chugh were among those detained after a minor scuffle with the police.

The detained protesters were later released.

On the direction of the Chief Minister, the Director General of Police ordered the constitution of two Special Investigation Teams (SITs) on August 5 to fast-track investigations into the five FIRs registered after the hooch tragedy that claimed over 100 lives in Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran districts.
Meanwhile, Suryapet district police and revenue authorities and Nandikonda Municipality have decided not to permit the visitors to watch the release of water.

Hyderabad: The authorities of Nagarjuna Sagar Dam on Thursday opened the 4 gates of the project at 11 am on Friday to release water in view of heavy flood inflows into the reservoir from the Srisailam Project.

According to the project engineers the current water level in the reservoir was 576 feet as against its full storage level of 590 feet and the reservoir will reach its full capacity of 590 feet by Friday morning.

Meanwhile, Suryapet district police and revenue authorities and Nandikonda Municipality have decided not to permit the visitors to watch the release of water.

There is a chance for the spread of coronavirus due to cool weather conditions if people arrived at the place in large numbers. Hence, people would not be allowed to watch the release of water, the authorities said.

Suryapet district police superintendent R Bhaskaran cautioned that the people not to go near the Krishna river in the district as gates of Nagarjuna Sagar Project as the flow of water in the river would be heavy after opening the gates of the project.

He said that fishermen should not go into Krishna river for fish hunting and the people living in the villages along with catchment areas of Krishna and Musi rivers should be alert.
The Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) has donated various items to the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs as part of the annual support towards the celebration of Homowo by the Ga people.

Hon. Ishmael Ashitey, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, accompanied by his deputy, Hon. Elizabeth Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey, and the Acting Regional Coordinating Director (RCD), Mrs. Felicia Dapaah, on Tuesday, 18th August 2020, led a delegation from the RCC to donate various food items and money to the Regional House of Chiefs.

The presentation made at Dodowa, the capital of the Shai Osudoku District, in the Greater Accra Region comprised food items including bags of maize and rice, assorted drinks, cartons of mineral water, and an unspecified amount.

The President of the Regional House of Chiefs, Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona, who is also the Paramount Chief of the Osu Traditional Council, received the donation on behalf of the GAR House of Chiefs and expressed utmost appreciation for the gesture.

The Hon. Regional Minister and his delegation thereafter engaged the House of Chiefs in very fruitful discussions centered on measures to move the region forward and the collaboration between the administrators and the traditional authorities.

The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the Ga East Municipal Assembly (GEMA) Abokobi, Hon Janet Tulasi Mensah, was among the Hon. Regional Minister's team together with her colleague Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the Greater Accra Region.
General Electric's board extended Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp's contract by two years after the coronavirus pandemic upended his plan to turn around the ailing industrial giant.

Culp will lead GE through at least August 2024 with the option for a one-year extension after that, the company said in a regulatory filing. The board also revised how Culp would be compensated, making it easier for him to take home as much as $230 million at the end of his contract.

The extension represents an endorsement of Culp's revitalization strategy even after the shares tumbled 44% this year as the pandemic gutted demand for GE's jet engines, power equipment and medical scanners. The new contract also preserves a key stock-based piece of his compensation package to offset the share drop.

JPMorgan Chase analyst Steve Tusa expressed surprise at the new plan and noted that it came after Trian Fund Management sold nearly half its GE stake earlier this month.

"While shareholders are down another 44% since the new CEO was appointed, executive comp continues to not seem to be suffering nearly as much," he said in a Friday note to investors titled "Redefining Winning." The bank has kept its cautious "neutral" rating on the shares, expecting that "the near term V-shape embedded in consensus is not going to happen."

GE was little changed at $6.28 at 11:12 a.m. in New York.

Since taking the reins in late 2018, Culp has slashed debt, sold assets and focused on turning around GE's beleaguered gas turbine business, a major source of the company's cash woes in recent years. His efforts caught on with Wall Street last year as GE posted its biggest share-price gain since 1982, when Jack Welch was starting in the top job.

"Larry has made significant progress in transforming GE's operations and culture," lead director Tom Horton said by email. "Larry's compensation remains overwhelmingly tied to producing results for shareholders, with nearly 90% of his annual pay at risk."

The Boston-based company last month reported double-digit declines in orders across the board for the second quarter. Jet-engine revenue plunged 44% as the pandemic crushed air travel, dimming the outlook for aircraft sales.

"Covid-19 clearly put us back," Culp said at the time. "It will take us a little longer, just because of what's happened in aviation, in particular. But that said, I have more confidence today than I ever have that we're going to see this transformation through."

The pandemic also dealt Culp a personal blow by drastically reducing his chances for a big stock payout -- a fate the board remedied with his new contract.

When Culp signed on to take the CEO job, the stock fetched around $12.40, less than half where it had traded two years earlier and far below its peak two decades ago. To push Culp to boost the stock price, the board put in place a big incentive.

If GE rose to $31 a share within a few years -- a 250% increase -- Culp would receive as many as 7.5 million shares, valued at more than $230 million at that price. He could earn a partial payout, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, if the stock price increased at least 50%. If the price fell short of that threshold, he wouldn't get any shares.

By February of this year, that lower benchmark was within striking distance. But as the pandemic worsened, GE plummeted.

Culp's new employment agreement, announced Thursday evening, cancels the old equity grant and replaces it with another that's identical in size and structure but essentially halves the price targets.

Under the new terms, Culp will earn his $230 million windfall if the shares reach $16.68 within a few years. If they only get to $13.34, roughly 10% above the mark when he became CEO, he will take home $124 million.

"This restores a lot of people's reasons to believe that the quest that Larry set about to implement in rejuvenating GE is by no means dead and maybe is just delayed by a couple of years," said William Blair analyst Nicholas Heymann, citing the long cycle of the aviation business. He has an "outperform" rating for GE shares.
Barack Obama's speech at the DNC's misbegotten cyber-convention worked only for those Americans, including most in the media, who paid no serious attention to the eight years of Obama's presidency. As I document in my book Unmasking Obama, I and scores of other journalists, many of them unsalaried, did pay attention. What follows are some of the riffs that I, and likely they, found most entertaining.

Obama began by telling us the Constitution "wasn't a perfect document," implying that he would have done better had he been there. Its redeeming quality was that it established "a system of representative government  a democracy  through which we could better realize our highest ideals."

As late as March 2011, Obama seemed to believe this, saying, "With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed."

In 2012, with re-election looming, Obama unilaterally decided he could suspend deportations through executive orders. He gave out a million or so work authorizations while he was at it, arguing that he personally could make laws that were "more fair, more efficient, and more just" than Congress. Curiously, that is almost exactly what Stalin told the Politburo when he forcibly collectivized Ukrainian farms.

Said Obama at the DNC: "Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. One hundred seventy thousand Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever."

To blame Trump for the COVID dead is disgraceful, pure demagoguery. Trump resisted the urge to nationalize the response and allowed each state to respond to local conditions. As a result, perhaps a third of American deaths occurred in just three of our bluest states  New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. A much higher percentage of people died of COVID in the U.K. Was Trump responsible for those? As to "those at the top" who profited  people like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos  they are almost all Obama-supporters.

"For eight years," said Obama, "Joe [Biden] was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision." Biden was certainly in the room on January 5, 2017. So were Comey, Brennan, Rice, Clapper, and Sally Yates. The "big decision" here was how best to tie Trump to Russia and subvert his presidency, "by the book," of course.

In speaking of the Biden-Harris ticket, Obama told the DNC, "They'll expand health care to more Americans, like Joe and I did ten years ago when he helped craft the Affordable Care Act and nail down the votes to make it the law."

The DNC might have invited Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber to explain how those votes were really nailed down. Said Gruber when he thought no one was looking, "This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies."

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," Gruber continued. "And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."

Biden and Harris, said Obama at the DNC, would "rescue the economy, like Joe helped me do after the Great Recession." Rescue? Was this a laugh line? As Louis Woodhill noted in a May 2012 Forbes article, "[u]nder Obama, the worst recession since the 1930s has been followed by the slowest economic recovery in the history of the republic. In a very real sense, there has been no recovery at all  things are still getting worse."

Here was one of my favorite Obama lines: "Joe knows the world, and the world knows him." No one denies that, especially not the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. In February 2009, Biden was the first to say, "It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia."

During a 2011 speech, Biden boasted of visiting a high-tech hub on the outskirts of Moscow. With a proven talent for taking care of those close to him, a talent he would hone in China and the Ukraine, Biden encouraged American venture capitalists to invest there. By the way, yes, this is the same evil Russia that Trump allegedly colluded with.

According to Obama, Biden and Harris "believe that no one  including the president  is above the law, and that no public official  including the president  should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters."

At the time Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was still struggling to pay his student debts. Today, the Obamas have a net worth north of $40 million, almost as much as the Clintons and slightly more than Hunter Biden.

Biden and Harris, Obama insisted, understand that the military ought not to be used "against peaceful protesters on our own soil." Obama actually said "peaceful," and no one apparently laughed.

Biden and Harris also understand that "political opponents aren't 'un-American' just because they disagree with you." Catherine Engelbrecht had to chuckle at that one. Engelbrecht faced twenty-three distinct audits or inquiries for daring to organize a Tea Party in Texas. The IRS stalled or rejected the applicants of hundreds, if not thousands, of comparable groups as well.

In public testimony, Engelbrecht asked Congress "to end this ugly chapter of political intimidation. There was a time when people of goodwill were encouraged to participate in the processes of government, not targeted because of it." Obama and Biden would not have been re-elected in 2012 without that "ugly chapter."

Obama assured us, too, that Biden and Harris understand that "a free press isn't the 'enemy,' but the way we hold officials accountable." Tell that to Sharyl Attkisson. Then with CBS News, Attkisson endured an unprecedented campaign of Deep-State cyber-harassment for her failure to be "reasonable" in her Benghazi reporting.

Meanwhile, James Rosen, then chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, went three years unaware that the DOJ was surveilling his personal and professional communications. So invasive was the DOJ's surveillance that it moved even the Washington Post, if not to condemn the action, at least to report it.

After several minutes of multicultural blather, Obama closed by accusing Trump of exactly what his administration did in the closing months of the 2016 campaign: "tear[ing] our democracy down if that's what it takes to win."

Mr. Barr, let's get those indictments ready.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.
The mutant form of the novel coronavirus reported from Malaysia as being 10 times more infectious is not a concern for India as it is widely prevalent here and isn't any more virulent than the strain originating in Wuhan, say scientists.

The D614G strain of the virus was discovered in Malaysia from a cluster, including a restaurant owner returning from India, the country's Director General of Health said in a Facebook post this week.

His assertion that it was "found to be 10 times more infectious and is easily spread by an individual super spreader" created a flutter but scientists here dispelled fears and said there is nothing to worry about.

According to virologist Upasana Ray, the mutation may have just been reported in Malaysia but is not new for the world.

"We saw it happening in April and it eventually dominated many countries. It is new for Malaysia but is not a new mutation," the senior scientist at Kolkata's CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology told PTI.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

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

While some reports claim the mutation is capable of enhancing the infectivity of the virus, this is not well established and also does not necessarily indicate more virulence or harmfulness of the disease. Ray said even a highly infectious and transmissible variant of the virus might actually have a lesser ability to cause disease in humans.

In July, a study in the journal Cell by scientists, including Bette Korber from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US, noted that a variant of the novel coronavirus, dubbed 'D614G', can infect more lab-grown cells than other strains.

The study said this mutant -- in which a molecule aspartic acid' (denoted as D) is replaced by another building block glycine' (G) -- had quickly taken over as the dominant strain across the world soon after it first appeared, and grew more rapidly in lab-grown cells. This mutation is part of the spike protein that the novel coronavirus uses to enter host cells.

The strain with the D614G mutation, dubbed the 'G clade', became widely prevalent in India even as far back as April, agreed Kumar Somasundaram, professor of Microbiology and Cell Biology at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore.

The G clade, or variant, currently makes up about 70-75 percent of the cases in India, he told PTI.

In June, Somasundaram's team published a study in the journal Current Science, analysing hundreds of samples of the virus in India.

"Back in April, if 100 patient samples were analysed in India, 40-50 percent of them had the G clade virus. If you look at those analysed in June, almost 95 percent are G clade cumulatively if you add up all the samples that have been analysed over the months, the G clade makes up 70-75 percent of the cases in India," he explained.

While the original "wild type" of the virus from the first epicentre of the pandemic in Wuhan, China, had the D clade of the virus, much of the outbreak in India began from infected people returning from Europe with the G clade.

"In February-March, the viruses we detected in Indian patients came mainly from Europe, and to some extent from the Middle East and Oceania. And Europe, even then, had an enrichment of the G clade virus. And then this strain started growing more and more in prevalence in India," Somasundaram said.

Unlike in several other parts of the world, such as the US, where other clades were initially present, the IISc microbiologist noted that in India the G clade was more prevalent even at the onset of the outbreak.

"Because this virus can grow faster, it was able to take advantage over the other types, and it has started taking over almost completely the other strains. This is true even in the worldwide scenario where it is dominating other strains," he added.

"Over a period of time, the G clade took advantage of its ability to spread and has occupied almost 95 percent of the infected patients at a point," Somasundaram said.

However, he explained that the strain is no different compared to the wild type virus or the other strains in terms of COVID-19 disease outcome.

"The G clade virus does not have any different impact on disease severity or outcome. So that way it is no different from the wild type." Somasundaram said.

While studies, such as the one by Korber and her team, have demonstrated that the G clade virus has the potential to infect more lab-grown cells than other strains, some virologists argue this may still may not be evidence of increased transmissibility in humans.

Scientists, including Angela Rasmussen from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health in the US, noted in a recently published commentary in the journal Cell that while lab tests can demonstrate the ability of a virus to infect a cell in culture, "it's not clear what it means for the ability to productively transmit to a new host".

"These assays don't account for the effect of other viral or host proteins and the parade of biochemical host-pathogen interactions that must occur to support infection and transmission," Rasmussen and her colleagues noted.

According to Somasundaram, the mutation in the G clade virus spike protein may also not have any implications for vaccine development.

"Initially, it was implicated that a vaccine developed against the wild type virus may not work against the mutant form. But this mutation may not have any difference in terms of how the immune system recognises the virus," he said.

"The mutant S protein containing virus can also be neutralised by a vaccine developed against the wild type virus," Somasundaram explained.

Rasmussen's team also noted the same.

They said antibodies generated from natural infection with the D or G clade viruses could cross-neutralise, suggesting that "the D614G mutation is unlikely to have a major impact on the efficacy of vaccines currently in the pipeline".

Ray said a safe strategy for developing vaccines could be to look for targets in other areas of the spike protein that have not undergone mutation.

"The spike protein has other areas that are more stable and thus should be targetable. Monitoring this mutant, and in-depth research on this mutation is definitely required," she added.

Follow our full coverage on COVID-19 here
Massachusetts added 72,100 people to the labor rolls in the month of July, according to the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, but unemployment statewide continues to hover above 16%.

July marks the second straight month Massachusetts has seen an increase in the number of people finding work since the economy crated with the COVID-19 shutdown in March, April and May. In June, an estimated 94,600 jobs were added.

Massachusetts unemployment rate of 16.1% is 1.6 percentage points below the 17.7% recorded in June. The state continues to lag behind the national unemployment rate, which is around 10.9%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For July, 591,000 people were out of work in Massachusetts, compared with 3.08 million who are employed.

According to the Office of Labor and Workforce Development, most of the jobs added were in the areas of leisure and hospitality; trade, transportation and utilities; education and health services; manufacturing and construction; and information.

Losses were recorded in the areas of financial activities and professional, scientific and business services.

When comparing last month to July 2019, Massachusetts lost 452,600 jobs.

Every category, even those showing gains in July, has fewer people employed than at this point 12 months ago. In some fields, such as leisure and hospitality, the losses are significant.

July 2020 Employment Overview

Leisure and Hospitality gained 35,300 (+18.9%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Leisure and Hospitality lost 156,100 (-41.3%) jobs.

Trade, Transportation and Utilities added 15,000 (+3.1%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Trade, Transportation and Utilities lost 73,900 (-12.8%) jobs.

Education and Health Services gained 7,300 (+1.0%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Education and Health Services lost 77,700 (-9.6%) jobs.

Other Services gained 6,300 (+6.5%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Other Services are down 36,300 (-26.0%) jobs.

Manufacturing added 2,300 (+1.0%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Manufacturing lost 12,900 (-5.3%) jobs.

Construction gained 1,900 (+1.4%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Construction has lost 19,500 (-12.0%) jobs.

Information added 600 (+0.7%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Information lost 4,800 (-5.1%) jobs.

Government added 4,800 (+1.1%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Government lost 28,300 (-6.2%) jobs.

Financial Activities lost 600 (-0.3%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Financial Activities lost 5,900 (-2.6%) jobs.

Professional, Scientific and Business Services lost 800 (-0.1%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Professional, Scientific and Business Services lost 37,000 (-6.1%) jobs.

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I remember in college my Danish visiting biochemistry professor told me a peculiar story. He said he loved spending his spare time in the university library as he had always done back home, reading scientific journals and sometimes relaxing with current issues of any of a number of popular periodicals. It happened that several of his colleagues had made a note of him spending time in the library and they had reported that to his supervisor.

As such, he was called into a meeting. His supervising professor admonished him not to spend time at the university library: He had a job, he was expected to always be working while on campus; sitting in the library was wasting his salary and costing the university money. Ever resourceful, he created a temperature, humidity and pressure monitoring experiment, which he placed in the window in his lab at the university. He was then able to continue enjoying his relaxing library usage without raising a single eyebrow, because, instead of wasting valuable university time he was now working on an experiment  albeit meaningless with data that was neither stored nor reported to anyone.

While the Danes, who reportedly have one of the highest levels of population happiness, not only value but demand spare time to relax, we Americans view relaxation as slacking. The diametrically different cultural positions may have once seemed trivial to me, but in these days of COVID-19, Im no longer so sure.

In the decades since college I have seen the culture accelerate faster and faster driven by quicker and smaller and more ubiquitous technology. Lately especially, relaxation is gone. Walking to the car, sitting at a dining table, waiting for anything, even on the toilet, most people have a phone glowing in hand. There are tweets that need to be read. Posts need to be commented on. News stories, movies, shows have to be binge-watched. No time to stop and smell the flowers; texts are coming in. In todays modern world, relaxing quiet unplugged unconnected life much like my professors moral from years ago  is forgotten. Forgotten, well, until the novel coronavirus.

In the last few weeks of February and on into March, especially here in the extended New York Metro area, we saw something we havent seen in decades: People. COVID-19 had closed uncountable businesses and schools, people were trapped days on end with nothing except their technology. At one point, that was it. Phones themselves were boring. Sitting inside, waiting for the next tweet on the phone, the next virtual friend to like your post, the next video game release had finally become unimportant and the world of sun, fresh air, and relaxation was back in our lives probably for the first time in decades.

Without work or school, lost in the morass of the first reactions to the virus with almost everything shut down, people here in Connecticut went where they had never ventured: outside their own homes. Even with limited possibilities for interaction, families I didnt know existed were walking or biking or running on my own street. With their usually overscheduled time now unscheduled again, kids were jumping, skating, giggling, romping, exploring and smiling. They laughed and ran unfettered along with new friends, not the usual ones pre-scheduled and carpooled in. Indeed these were spontaneous childhood friends from next door, up and down the street  neighbors.

For that moment, America felt less pressured, less bleak, less hyperactive and more at peace with itself. That stress-free moment of freedom was like opening a pressure valve on our society. There were no cars clogging the roads, streets opened up, planes flew and trains rode like they did in the 50s, many with lots of empty seats. The air was cleaner, the wildlife freer, the waters clearer, the noise was quieter, the anger and divide less palpable. We all were scared, but we stuck together and took a break from the madness of high-speed life, for that moment there was calm.

If any good can come from the tragedy that has been the coronavirus, it should be the lesson that the fast-paced, always-need-to-be-connected nonstop lifestyle is the true waste of time. COVID-19 actually demonstrated we can slow down. We can take a breath of fresh air. We can go out onto our own street and see each other. We can relax. Kids can still make friends without help. Peace and quiet still exist.

After all that this disease has taken, for all the lives lost, if Americans can realize the necessity and intrinsic good of quiet, reflecting time off, then something good may actually have come from COVID-19 after all.

Jakob Satir is the Station Concessionaire at the Cos Cob and Riverside train stations in Greenwich.
What has been dubbed safe September is turning out to be more of a stressed-out September for parents sending their kids back to school, says a new national poll.

Pollara Strategic Insights, which surveyed families across the country, found while most families plan to send their kids to class amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, theyre doing so reluctantly, said President Craig Worden.

Parents have their backs against the wall, he said in an interview. They would like their kids to go back to the classroom, but they still have serious concerns and misgivings about their governments plan.

Yes, they think that the plan is based on health experts advice, but they also think that class sizes are too high, theres inadequate social distancing and that the plan is underfunded in their province.

The Pollara results mirror what boards in Greater Toronto have found as they reach out to parents to find out who intends to send kids to class in-person, versus keeping them home to learn online. Although some boards are now contacting parents again as plans change for elementary and secondary classes, roughly one-third have opted for virtual learning this fall.

The Toronto District School Board, for example, says 71 per cent of elementary parents have opted for in-class learning, with 29 per cent wanting online. In high school, 83 per cent of parents want their kids to return to school, with 17 per cent choosing remote learning.

The Peel public board, which released its numbers Thursday, said 30 per cent of its elementary school students opted for distance learning, and 17 per cent of secondary students opted for remote.

The so-called #SafeSeptember (a hashtag on social media) is shaping up to be a stressed-out September, Pollaras Worden said.

While maybe Canadians thought the return to schools would be a time of reduced stress for parents, it has emerged as the opposite  the school year is likely to be a time of significantly higher stress because of concerns around childrens safety in the face of COVID-19.

The online survey by Pollara, conducted between Aug. 11 and 16, surveyed 879 parents across the country with at least one child 16 or younger in school. The margin of error for a probability sample of the same size is 3.3 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Worden said Canadian parents are concerned about their kids educational progress, mental health and socialization and they would really like their kids to go back to school for those reasons  given the current plans, they are willing to do so  but they are doing so with a fair bit of stress and reluctance.

About half of families approve of back-to-school plans in their province, with 35 per cent disapproving, and just 47 per cent confident that the plans will keep their kids safe from COVID-19.

Some 53 per cent surveyed believe class sizes are too large  an issue that has also been raised in Ontario, which has stringent mask rules but left elementary classes as is. In some grades, that can mean up to 30 kids in a room.

Worden said families feel school reopening is too rushed, and 36 per cent approve of making improvements even if it means delaying the school year. They are giving a lot of slack to governments to delay things to get it right.

Some 70 per cent will send their children back to school in person, though that varies depending on their childrens grade: kindergarten, 66 per cent, elementary 68 per cent and high school, 74 per cent.

Scarborough mom Jennifer Sheridan has opted for online classes for her daughter.

I am deeply concerned and scared that there is no safe plan for our child to go back to school this September, she said at a press conference Wednesday with NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

Even though Sheridans daughter, who is on the autism spectrum, has made great gains in school, in the end class size and social distancing is such a concern she wont be sending her in person for Grade 1.

This is the untenable situation parents are going to find themselves in, Horwath said, raising concerns of large classes, inadequate ventilation and insufficient personal protective equipment.

If parents see that happening, they are going to have to make some pretty serious decisions.

On Thursday, Premier Doug Ford said nothing is more important right now than making sure we have a safe environment for the kids going back to school. And Ive always said we have the safest, most cautious approach in the entire country.

The province has mandated masks for all students starting in Grade 4, though the Toronto public and Catholic boards, as well as the Waterloo boards, have voted that kids start donning face coverings in kindergarten.

It has also announced about $900 million in COVID-related funding, including about $500 million for boards to dip into their reserves to hire more teachers to lower class sizes. However, it has not mandated lower class sizes in elementary schools  with Ford saying Ontarios class averages are among the lowest in the country.

Ontario is also the only province hiring 500 public health nurses to work in schools, in part to help with targeted COVID-19 testing of teens.

We have our health team on full alert, Ford said. Were doing a lot of things that no other province is doing in the entire country. Theyre taking our lead on things. But I want to emphasize as much as we put the plans forward, its not the Doug Ford plan, its not the (Education Minister) Stephen Lecce plan, its a plan put together through the advice of some of the best doctors in the country and our health table and our chief medical officer, along with Sick Kids and other hospitals, including the Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.

Other GTA boards have also conducted surveys. In the Durham public board, roughly 19.5 per cent of its student body of around 70,000 have opted for virtual learning. That breaks down to 2,886 students in secondary opting for virtual learning and 10,749 students in elementary.

In York Region, 33 per cent of elementary students have opted for online learning, while only 20 per cent of high school students are choosing to learn remotely.

Haltons survey is still underway until Monday, as is the survey for the Toronto Catholic District School Board, which has a deadline of Wednesday. The Toronto public board will re-survey parents over three days next week.

Former Liberal education minister Mitzie Hunter is calling on the province to conduct COVID-19 tests for students, families and staff before schools restart and early in the school year.

Students across Ontario have been learning at home since after March Break, when schools were closed due to the pandemic.
Actor Kangana Ranaut has questioned Aamir Khans decision to travel to Turkey and participate in a photo-op with the Turkish first lady. Aamir is filming his upcoming movie Laal Singh Chaddha in Turkey. Last week, he met with Emine Erdogan.

In an interview to Pinkvilla, Kangana said, Aamir has been complaining about intolerance in India, and yet he goes to Turkey, which is right now one of the most intolerant countries in the world. It sets a kind of an example where he comes across as someone who has double standards. I, as a fan and as a well-wisher, want him to come clean on this matter.

She clarified that she and Aamir share a great bond, but just because they are friends that shouldnt mean she isnt allowed to criticise him. She said, I have stopped responding according to my personal equations with people. As a human being, I have a responsibility towards my nation and its citizens. Just because he is my friend, and I have huge admiration for him, does not mean I will ignore something that bothers me about him.

ALSO WATCH: SC order on Sushant case: Kangana Ranaut, Chirag Paswan & Fadnavis respond

Earlier this week, Kangana had demanded to know during a Republic TV interview why Aamir, along with several other Bollywood personalities, hadnt condoled actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death. If you see, Aamir Khan worked with Sushant in PK. But if he does not say anything, even Anushka will not say anything, Raju Hirani will not say anything, Aditya Chopra and his wife Rani Mukerji will also not say anything. This racket works like a gang, she had said.

Also read: Kangana Ranaut talks about Bollywood racket, questions why Aamir Khan didnt condole Sushant Singh Rajputs death

Previously, Kanganas sister Rangoli Chandel had said that the actors relationship with Aamir -- whom she once considered a role model -- soured because of their differing political views. She is a legend, has inspired an entire generation and not to forget at one point she followed Aamir sir as her role model, he too mentored her, sadly things are very different now but its OK its life,a friendship that can be affected by political views isnt strong enough anyway, Rangoli had said.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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If youve passed the corner of Northeast Glisan Street and 24th Avenue in the past few weeks, you might have noticed people sipping drinks out of hollowed-out pineapples near a makeshift food cart parked outside Northeast Portlands former Uno Mas.

That cart would be the current ordering station and bar for Avenida Tropicale, a new cocktail bar and restaurant from Oregons mobile pina colada king, Alfredo Climaco. As first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive.com, Climaco got his start serving drinks at dozens of Oregon festivals and street fairs before making the brick-and-mortar leap this year.

Born in Puebla, Climaco took his first bartending job at a nightclub at age 17. After moving to the United States, he launched the Pacific Northwests first mobile Caribbean bar as a table set up at Portland Mercado in 2015, with a name designed in part to honor his Puerto Rican best friend, Ignacio Falcon. Two years later, Mexiricans pina coladas made enough of a splash at 2017s Cinco de Mayo Fiesta that Climaco decided to devote his attentions to the business full-time, eventually appearing at as many as 45 festivals a year.

Avenida Tropicale serves pina coladas out of hollowed-out pineapple shells.Courtesy of Avenida Tropicale

As construction was progressing on the brick-and-mortar bar, Climaco spent part of the shutdown delivery nonalcoholic pina coladas to customers doorsteps.

After quietly opening earlier this month, Avenida Tropicale will hold its grand opening this weekend, with live music, DJs and small bites this Friday and Saturday evening at 2337 N.E. Glisan St. Going forward, the restaurant will be open from noon to 10 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, with Monday service coming soon.

Super Deluxe and Boxer Ramen co-owner Matt Lynch, who hired Climaco at Little Big Burger around 2012, is a partner in Avenida Tropicale, handled the bars design.

The pan-Latin food menu comes from Climacos sister, Viviana Reyes-Climaco, and includes skirt steak and octopus grilled on a small hibachi as well as tacos and cemitas, the signature sandwich of Puebla. Take a look at Avenida Tropicales opening food and beverage menus below.

Avenida Tropicale's food menu

Avenida Tropicale's drinks menu

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
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Pet Insurance Market: Global Industry Analysis 2014-2018 & Opportunity Assessment 2019-2029

A recent market study published by Future Market Insights on the pet insurance market offers global industry analysis for 2014-2018 & opportunity assessment for 2019-2029. The study offers a comprehensive assessment of pet insurance market dynamics. After conducting a thorough research on the historical, as well as current growth parameters, the growth prospects of the market are obtained with maximum precision.

Market Segmentation

The global pet insurance market is segmented in detail to cover every aspect of the market and present complete market intelligence to readers.

Policy Type End User Region Accident

Accident & Illness Dog

Cat

Horse

Exotic Pets

Others North America

Latin America

Europe

East Asia

South Asia

Oceania

Middle East & Africa

For more insights into the Market, request a sample of this report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-11172

Chapter 01 - Executive Summary

The executive summary of the pet insurance market includes the market country analysis, opportunity assessment, and recommendations on the global pet insurance market.

Chapter 02 - Market Overview

Readers can find the detailed segmentation and definition of the pet insurance market in this chapter, which will help them understand basic information about the pet insurance market. This section also highlights the inclusions and exclusions, which help the reader understand the scope of the pet insurance market report. The associated industry assessment of the pet insurance market is carried out in this section. The macroeconomic factors affecting growth of the pet insurance market are provided in this section and the impact of these macroeconomic indicators on the pet insurance market is analyzed. The drivers and restraints impacting the growth of the pet insurance market are explained in this chapter. Opportunities and ongoing trends in the pet insurance market are also comprehensively discussed.

Chapter 03 - Global Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 and Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes detailed analysis of the historical pet insurance market (2014-2018), along with an opportunity analysis for the forecast period (2019-2029). This chapter provides details about the pet insurance market on the basis of policy type, end user, and region. This chapter explains how the pet insurance market is anticipated to grow across North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Oceania and the Middle East and Africa.

Chapter 04 - North America Pet Insurance Market Size and Forecast, 2014-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the pet insurance market in the North America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the U.S. and Canada. This chapter provides details about the North America pet insurance market on the basis of policy type, and end user.

Chapter 05 - Latin America Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the pet insurance market in the Latin America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America. This chapter provides details about the Latin America pet insurance market on the basis of policy type, and end user.

Chapter 06 -Europe Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

Important growth prospects of the pet insurance market based on product type, end use, price and sales channel for all countries such as Germany, U.K., Spain, France, Italy and Rest of Europe are included in this chapter.

Chapter 07 - East Asia Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the pet insurance market in East Asia region including the important growth prospects of the pet insurance in several countries such as China, Japan, South Kore are included in this chapter.

Chapter 08 - South Asia Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the pet insurance market in the South Asia region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Rest of South Asia & Pacific.

Chapter 09 - Oceania Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the pet insurance market in the Oceania region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes, Australia and New Zealand.

Chapter 10 - Middle East and Africa Pet Insurance Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter offers insights into how the pet insurance market is expected to grow in major countries in the MEA region such as GCC Countries, Northern Africa, South Africa, and Rest of MEA, during the forecast period 2019-2029.

Chapter 11- Competition Assessment

In this chapter, readers can find detailed information about tier analysis and market concentration of the key players in the pet insurance market along with their market presence analysis by region and product portfolio.

For Information On The Research Approach Used In The Report, Request Methodology@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-11172

Chapter 12 - Competition Deep-Dive

In this chapter, readers can find a comprehensive list of leading companies in the pet insurance market, along with detailed information about each company, which includes company overview, revenue shares, strategic overview, and recent company developments. Some of the market players featured in the report are Figo Pet Insurance LLC., Embrace Pet Insurance Agency, LLC, Hartville Group, Health for Pet, Hollard, Nationwide, Oneplan, Petfirst Healthcare LLC, Petplan, Protectaplan, Petplan Limited, Trupanion, Inc., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company., Anicom Holdings Inc, Pethealth Inc., Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada, Inc., Direct Line Insurance Group plc, Petsecure, Healthy Paws, Trupanion, Nationwide, 24PetWatch and others.

Chapter 13 - Disclaimer

This chapter includes a list of acronyms and assumptions that provide a base to the information and statistics included in the pet insurance report. This chapter helps readers understand the research methodology followed to obtain various conclusions, as well as important qualitative and quantitative information, on the pet insurance market.
UNODC celebrates International Youth Day

 UNODC



Vienna (Austria), 21 August 2020  To celebrate International Youth Day on 12 August 2020, the UN family in Vienna organized two webinars to discuss active and meaningful youth engagement. Over 200 people participated  75 per cent were under the age of 35 - asking questions and interacting with panellists from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and other Vienna-Based Organizations (VBOs)*.

Youth Engagement for Global Action

This years theme for International Youth Day 2020, Youth Engagement for Global Action, seeks to highlight the ways in which the engagement of young people at the local and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes, and to draw lessons learned on how, as critical agents of change, their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced.

Although the mandates of VBOs vary greatly, various organizations could come together on International Youth Day to celebrate youth engagement and young people throughout the UN system.

In Vienna, the two panels reflected upon individual perspectives of young people working at the Vienna International Center (VIC) and covered different topics about the involvement of youth in their programmatic work. Representatives from the different organizations highlighted the plethora of youth-focused and youth-based initiatives. Among others, the internship programme, the Young Professionals Programme, the UN Nuclear Young Generation and the Young UN were also highlighted.

Opening statements were made by different heads and representatives from Vienna-Based Organizations (VBOs), including UNODCs Executive Director, Ms. Ghada Waly. She vowed to continue to support young people when stating: To all our young partners, I pledge UNODCs full support and respect. International Youth Day must be a reminder to young people worldwide that your voice matters.

Youth & UNODCs Strategic Priorities

Youth and young people are essential to accomplish UNODCs mandates of enhancing the rule of law and improving human security, including justice and health priorities. UNODC continues to emphasize meaningful youth engagement to empower young people to become leaders in their communities, representing the worlds best hope for recovering better from the COVID-19 crisis and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

With just 10 more years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals  our shared vision to end poverty, rescue the planet and build a peaceful world, the participation of young people is imperative. Indeed, as the world enters the Decade of Action, the youth is essential in mobilizing more governments, civil society, businesses and calling on all people to make the Global Goals a reality.

________________________________________________________________________

* The United Nations Office in Vienna (UNIS), the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the International Atomic and Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Office on Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Further Information
LONG GROVE, Ill.  A covered bridge in northern Illinois has been damaged twice by vehicles within days of its reopening after a $1 million rebuild repaired severe damage a delivery truck inflicted in 2018.

Less than 24 hours after Long Groves iconic covered bridge reopened on Friday, it was struck by a chartered bus, and on Wednesday another vehicle struck the more than century-old span, WLS-TV reported.

June Neumann, owner of Viking Treasures in Long Grove, said she heard the bus collide with the bridge last weekend. I said oh no, oh no, Neumann told the station.

She also heard Wednesdays collision, after which the colliding vehicle fled, leaving behind debris.

Ben Finch, who lives near the bridge, saw Wednesdays collision.

I think what goes through all of our minds is like, `Wow, these people. What are they doing? Finch said.

The bridge, which dates to 1906, graces the Lake County villages emblem, storefronts and signs.

Its just a huge part of where weve been and where we are. Its a connection piece, said Jesse DeSoto, Historic Downtown Long Grove Business Association president.

The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in June 2018. Sixteen days later, a box truck plowed into it, severely damaging the structure, which was closed after being deemed structurally unsound.

The two-year rebuild included engineering work and construction.

Village Manager David Lothspeich said village officials are considering putting physical barriers in front of the bridge to try to prevent such collisions. Steel reinforcements added during the rebuild are keeping the bridge structurally sound, he said.

People size it up and sometimes they dont size it up correctly, and they still go regardless of whether or not its overweight or oversize, Lothspeich said.

Photo courtesy of the Village of Long Grove.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking to a crowd during a political protest in Moscow, Russia, on July 20, 2019. (Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

Russia Allows Gravely Ill Kremlin Critic Navalny to Be Airlifted to Germany

OMSK, RussiaRussian doctors said on Friday gravely ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny could be flown to Germany to receive medical attention after the politicians allies accused the Russian authorities of deliberately trying to stop his evacuation.

Navalny, a long-time opponent of President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants and a campaigner against corruption, collapsed on a plane on Thurday after drinking tea that his allies believe was laced with poison.

A German special medical plane prepares to land at the airport of Omsk to pick up Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny from the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1 on Aug. 21, 2020. (OmskSpottingClub via AP)

German doctors flew in to evacuate Navalny, 44, at the request of his wife and supporters who said they feared authorities might try to cover up clues as to how he fell ill, and said the hospital treating him was badly equipped.

Russian medical staff at the hospital in Omsk, Siberia, initially said on Friday Navalnys condition had improved slightly overnight but that he was in too unstable a state to be safely transported out of the country.

But on Friday evening they said they would not object to him being moved after the German doctors were granted access to Navalny and said they thought he was fit to travel.

Alexei Navalnys wife Yulia (C) and Navalnys colleague Ivan Zhdanov (L) arrive to the Omsk Ambulance Hospital No. 1 intensive care unit, where Alexei Navalny was hospitalized, on Aug. 21, 2020. (Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP Photo)

A senior doctor at the hospital, Anatoly Kalinichenko, said the hospital could help transport Navalny to the airport and that he would be moved within several hours.

We have taken the decision that we do not object to him being transfered to a different hospital, Kalinichenko said.

The decision came after Navalnys wife Yulia sent a letter to the Kremlin directly appealing for it to intervene and for it to grant permission for him to be allowed to fly out.

Alexander Murakhovsky, the head doctor at the hospital, said earlier that Navalny had been diagnosed with a metabolic disease that may have been caused by low blood sugar.

He said traces of industrial chemical substances had been found on Navalnys clothes and fingers and that doctors did not believe he had been poisoned.

Navalny fell ill while on a domestic flight. He was taken on a stretcher off the plane and rushed to hospital after it made an emergency landing in Omsk.

Navalny has been the biggest thorn in the Kremlins side for more than a decade, exposing what he says is high-level graft and mobilizing crowds of young protesters.

He has been repeatedly detained for organizing public meetings and rallies and sued over his investigations into corruption. He was barred from running in a presidential election in 2018.

By Anton Zverev
HANOI -- Vietnamese police have arrested four men accused of defrauding more than 5,000 Americans trying to buy COVID-19 protective equipment online out of nearly $1 million, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

The arrests of the four, aged between 22 and 36, were made following a joint investigation by the ministry and U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Homeland Security Investigations, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

In March, the four began operating 110 websites that offered personal protection equipment (PPE), including hand sanitizers, masks and disinfectant wipes, and received money from the Americans via their Paypal accounts, the ministry said.

The four never had the products offered on the websites and their victims never received what they paid for, the ministry said.

This investigation resulted in significant financial losses to people who were already facing enormous challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink said in a statement on the embassys website.

Speaking at a regular press briefing on Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said Vietnam was determined to prevent and strictly deal with any trade fraud and highly appreciated the coordination from the United States.

The ministry said the four had been charged with appropriation of property using a computer network, telecommunications network or electronic device, a crime that carries a prison term of up to 20 years.
The joint commission on the Iran nuclear agreement will meet in Vienna on September 1, the European Union has said, after the U.S. and its European allies sparred over Washington's bid to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran.

The meeting will be chaired by the EU and attended by representatives of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran, the EU said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on August 20 formally launched the process of activating a mechanism aimed at reimposing UN sanctions on Iran, citing Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal, which Washington exited in 2018.

France, Germany, and Britain said they cannot support the U.S. move, as it is incompatible with efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal.

"In order to preserve the agreement, we urge Iran to reverse all measures inconsistent with its nuclear commitments and return to full compliance without delay," the three said in a joint statement on August 20.

The United States maintains it has the right to trigger the reimposition of sanctions through the agreement's "snapback" mechanism.

With reporting by AFP
Libyas UN supported government Friday announced a cease-fire across the oil-rich country and called for demilitarizing the strategic city of Sirte in an initiative supported by the rival parliament in the east.

The development could mark a breakthrough following international pressure amid rising fear of a new escalation in the chaotic proxy war as rival sides mobilize for a battle over Sirte. The gateway to the countrys major oil export terminals has been under the control of forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter since January.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since split between rival east- and west-based administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Hifter is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Turkey, a bitter rival of Egypt and the UAE in a broader regional struggle over political Islam, is the main patron of the forces loyal to the Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli, which are also backed by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.

Hifters forces launched an offensive in April 2019 to try and capture Tripoli. But his campaign collapsed in June when the Tripoli-allied militias, with heavy Turkish support, gained the upper hand, driving his forces from the outskirts of the city and other western towns.

Emboldened by Turkeys support, Tripoli-allied forces vowed to retake Sirte and the Jurfa area, which includes a vital inland military base, from Hifters forces, leading Egypt to threaten to send troops to Libya.

The chaos in the oil-rich country has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year. Thousands of mercenaries including Russian, Syrians and Sudanese are fighting on both sides of the conflict.

Achieving an effective cease-fire requires the demilitarization of Sirte and Jurfa areas, and that police forces from the two sides agree on security arrangements there, said Fayez Sarraj, head of the Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

In a separate statement, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the rival east-based House of Representatives, supported Sarrajs proposal of demilitarization, an idea floated earlier this month by the United States as a compromise to prevent an escalation in the more than 9-year-old conflict.

Sarraj also called for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in March according to a a constitutional base agreed on by the Libyans.

Saleh, the parliament speaker, called for Sirte to be a temporary seat of the new government.

Both Saraj and Saleh said they want an end to an oil blockade imposed by the camp of military commander Khalifa Hifter since earlier this year. Hifter is an ally to the parliament speaker. They also called for oil revenues, the countrys main source of revenue, to flow into the bank account of the National Oil Corporation outside Libya.

Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to Hifter closed oil export terminals and choked off major pipelines at the start of the year in an effort to pressure the Tripoli-based government, which is accused of using oil revenues to fund militias and mercenaries.

There was no immediate comment form Hifters army, but Hifter agreed on an Egyptian initiative in June that included a cease-fire.

The U.N. support mission in Libya welcomed both statements and called for the expulsion of all foreign forces and mercenaries in Libya. Both sides of the conflict are supported by thousands of mercenaries.

The two initiatives have created hope for forging a peaceful political solution to the longstanding Libyan crisis, a solution that will affirm the desire of the Libyan people to live in peace and dignity, said Stephanie Williams, acting head of the U.N. mission.

Previous efforts to secure lasting cease-fires have stalled. But this time could prove different with heavy foreign interference in the conflict-stricken country, and the possibility of direct military confrontation between Egypt and Turkey, both allies to the U.S.

It sounds more like an announcement that tried to tick all the theoretical boxes, with a clear American influence, said Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at The Netherlands Institute of International Relations. But is it fully implementable? That will be hard.

The chaos in the oil-rich country has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

Hifters offensive on Tripoli deeply polarized the already divided country and aborted U.N. efforts to hold a peace conference more than a year ago.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Twitter welcomed both statements as an important step on the path of achieving the political settlement.

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The attorney generals comments in an interview with the Associated Press come days after President Donald Trump said he would look at whether to pardon Snowden.

He was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013 with disclosing details of highly classified government surveillance programmes.

There are many, many people  it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things, Mr Trump said of Snowden at a news conference on Saturday.



He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people

And Im going to take a very good look at it.

The Justice Departments criminal complaint against him was dated just days after Snowdens name first surfaced as the person who had leaked to the news media that the NSA, in classified surveillance programmes, gathered telephone and internet records to ferret out potential terror plots.

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He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people, Mr Barr said.

He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We cant tolerate that.

Snowden remains in Russia to avoid prosecution even as the federal charges against him are pending.

It was unclear how serious Mr Trump was, particularly given that years earlier he had denounced Snowden as a spy deserving of execution.

But Mr Trumps distrust of his own intelligence community has been a staple of his tenure, particularly because of its conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf, and he has at times bemoaned the broad surveillance powers that the intelligence agencies have at their disposal.

Any effort to pardon Snowden would unquestionably infuriate senior intelligence officials, who say his disclosures caused extraordinary damage and will have repercussions for years to come.

In a memoir published last year, Snowden wrote that his seven years working for the NSA and CIA led him to conclude that the US intelligence community had hacked the constitution and put everyones liberty at risk and that he had no choice but to turn to journalists to reveal it to the world.

I realised that I was crazy to have imagined that the Supreme Court, or Congress, or President Obama, seeking to distance his administration from President George W Bushs, would ever hold the IC legally responsible  for anything, he wrote, using an abbreviation for the intelligence community.
With ocean shipping and air transportation greatly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, China-Europe freight trains have become the main bridge connecting the Eurasian continent, using "China's strength" to contribute to the global fight against the epidemic, with its unique advantages of high efficiency and sectional transportation.

Chinese and French representatives pose for a photo in front a China-Europe freight train loaded with anti-pandemic supplies in Paris, June 23, 2020. (Photo/Xinhua)

With the epidemic situation at home stabilizing, China is quickly organizing its transport resources and sending all kinds of epidemic prevention materials to other countries through the China-Europe freight trains.

The first China-EU train carrying epidemic prevention materials was dispatched from Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang province on March 21. By the end of July, a total of 4.97 million pieces - or 39,000 tons - of epidemic prevention materials had been delivered, proving greatly effective in supporting prevention and control efforts against the international epidemic.

The China-Europe freight trains have played an increasingly prominent role in stabilizing the central European and global industrial supply chains. The automobile industry is a typical example: since July, five "special trains for Audi" have arrived in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin province, from Bremen, Germany.

Correspondingly, Chinese auto parts such as glass, tires, wheels and seats can be shipped to Germany in just two weeks through the China-Europe freight trains, supplying Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other auto companies.

"Some of the goods that were originally supposed to be transported by sea are now being transferred to the railway," said Dong Wanxu, general manager of Germany's DBO Bahnoperator GmbH Company, adding that in April this year, the company was responsible for the operation of 80 China-European trains, more than double that of the same period last year. The central European train station in Duisburg, Germany, even became so congested that the company had to send some of the trains to surrounding city stations.

In the first seven months of 2020, freight services between Chinese cities and destinations along the Eurasia trade routes came to 6,354 trips, an increase of 41 percent from a year earlier.
- The Abuja zonal office of EFCC has arrested nine suspected internet fraudsters in Niger state

- The agency said the suspects were nabbed following volunteered intelligence by concerned residents

- Sophisticated gadgets including laptops, phones and one Toyota Venza were recovered by the EFCC operatives

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it has nabbed nine suspected internet fraudsters also known as Yahoo boys in Minna, Niger state.

The anti-graft commission made this known in a statement on Friday, August 21, adding that the suspects were apprehended following "volunteered intelligence by concerned residents of the area.

"The suspects were picked up by the operatives of the Commission at their hideouts in Room 202, Seftec Hotels, behind NNPCs mega petrol filling station, Minna, Niger State, for their alleged involvement in a love scam and other internet-related crimes," part of the statement read.

Items recovered from the suspects by the commission's Abuja zonal office operatives include one Toyota Venza, different laptops and exotic phones.

The Abuja zonal office of EFCC has arrested nine suspected Yahoo boys in Niger state.

Source: Facebook

EFCC gave the name of the suspected fraudsters as Ohanuka. O. Samuel (26) Adebayo Adeyinka Samuel (26) Omoh Simeon (25) Igah Abumere (28) and Ajobo Sunday (26).

Others are Abdukadir Musbau (20), Iredia Johnson (29), Aliyu Abdulazeez (25) and Adebisi Temitope (27).

The anti-graft commission said the suspected fraudsters will be arraigned in court after the conclusion of the investigation.

EFCC made this disclosure barely hours after the agency said it arrested four students of the University of Port Harcourt for their alleged involvement in internet fraud.

They were picked up on Thursday, August 20, from their hideout at Chibiak Avenue, Elenpranwo, Ada George, Port Harcourt.

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In a related development, EFCC said it has secured the conviction of two Lebanese citizens after they both pleaded guilty to a separate one-count charge of money laundering.

The anti-graft agency told the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers state that Chamseddine Waell Mohammed and Dina Jihad Khalil were arrested for attempting to smuggle a total sum of $890,000 out of Nigeria.

The anti-graft agency said the noted amount was found inside their luggage on board a chartered flight with the registration number 9HVFF to Lebanon.

Buhari suspends Magu as EFCC boss, Nigerians react | Legit TV

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The eldest brother of the two Manchester Arena terrorists has welcomed the judge's decision to jail his surviving sibling for 55 years for plotting atrocity.

Ismali Abedi has spoken out about the attack orchestrated by his two younger brothers, Hashem and Salman, in 2017 which left 22 people dead.

He told SkyNews: 'I'm glad this has happened, because I can put it all behind me, get on with my life and look after my family.

'The past three years have been hell. I've lost two brothers and my family is ripped apart because of it.'

Ismali Abedi has spoken out about the attack orchestrated by his two younger brothers, Hashem and Salman, in 2017 which left 22 people dead. Pictured: Ismail Abedi (right) with his brothers Salman (left) and Hashem (centre)

He later apologized for his brothers' actions as he said: 'I want to apologise on behalf of my family to the victims, for all the pain Hashem and Salman caused.'

His comments come after Hashem received a life sentence of at least 55 years in prison earlier this week after he refused to attend court.

But the mother of one of the Manchester Arena bomb victims has since blasted the jail term.

Charlotte Hodgson's daughter Olivia, 15, died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017.

Ismail also apologises to victims' families for his brothers' actions. Pictured: Scenes close to the Manchester Arena after the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert

Hashem (pictured) received a life sentence of at least 55 years in prison earlier this week after he refused to attend court

Salman's brother Hashem Abedi is expected to die in jail after yesterday being handed a record-length sentence for the Manchester Arena bomb plot.

Mrs Hodgson, appearing from Bury, Greater Manchester, on Good Morning Britain, was asked by presenter Alex Beresford if she thinks justice was served at the Old Bailey.

She said: 'No I don't. I don't see how just over two and a half years per person got killed is justice. I know he's never going to get out of prison but its still not justice.'

Abedi refused to leave his jail cell to hear testimony in court and also didn't turn up to his sentencing hearing, much to the chagrin of families.

Salman Abedi (pictured at Victoria Station making his way to the Manchester Arena) died after detonating a suicide bomb

Scenes close to the Manchester Arena after the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in March 2017

Mrs Hodgson added: 'For myself there has been no closure whatsoever as he wasn't there.

'I didn't get to see his face. He's given us no answers, has shown no remorse, there is just nothingness.'

The couple, who said they struggled with their mental health during the coronavirus lockdown, found the evidence during the trial difficult to hear.

Mrs Hodgson said: 'It was extremely tough. It's hard to describe how we are feeling and how we are coping with it.

'And I think it would have been even harder knowing he was listening to it and not bothered. Because as I've said he's shown no remorse through all this.

Olivia died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017

Charlotte Hodgson and Paul Hodgson's daughter Olivia died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017

Paul Hodgson added: 'I think the time factor between between convicted in March and coming to sentencing, it's been a big long time and distance between it which is taken away from the actual impact.'

The heartbroken couple got married earlier this year, but are still coming to terms with their daughter's death.

She said: 'I don't know how we try and have a life. We just literally are day by day still. THere's still days I don't want to get out of my bed.

'There's still days I wish I wasn't here. And as for keeping Olivia alive we'll never forget her she's just an unforgettable child, we talk about her all the time, we play her music. She'll always be here.

On the upcoming inquest Mrs Hodgson said: 'It does prolong the agony, but we are hoping to get some answers because its like we keep saying, we're still not got an snswer of how this was allowed to happen.

'Why it happened. Why wasn't it stopped and that's all we want, we want answers.'

Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Baker ordered that Abedi serve 24 life sentences and said he would spend at least 55 years in prison before he could even be considered for parole.

Olivia (pictured) died after Salman Abedi who detonated a suicide bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on May 22 2017

Family members gasped as the sentence - a record for a determinate prison term - was handed down for Abedi's role in the largest murder case in English legal history.

Abedi, born and raised in Manchester, was accused of showing 'contempt' to the families of those he and his suicide bomber brother Salman Abedi killed more than three years earlier by not coming into the dock.

He was again absent as the sentence was handed down, the judge ordering a copy of his remarks to be sent to the cells.

Sentencing him on Thursday afternoon, the judge said: 'The defendant and his brother were equally culpable for the deaths and injuries caused.

'The stark reality is that these were atrocious crimes, large in their scale, deadly in their intent, and appalling in their consequences.

'The despair and desolation of the bereaved families has been palpable.'

The sentence eclipsed that of racist homophobe David Copeland, who was handed a 50-year term for a 13-day nail bombing campaign in London in 1999 which killed three and injured scores.

The judge - who put on record his tribute to 'the tremendous dignity and courage' of the families who attended court - said the 1,024 days Abedi spent remanded in custody will count towards the overall sentence, adding he was unable to hand him a whole-life term due to his age.

He added: 'He may never be released.'

Reacting to the sentence, Paul Hett, father of victim Martyn Hett, said: 'He's now going to spend the rest of his life in jail, I'm sure because after the 55 years he was given, I'm sure the Parole Board which then has to make a decision, will ensure this coward never sees the light of day again.'

Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the bombing 'a horrifying and cowardly act of violence which targeted children and families,' and praised the 'courage and dignity' of those affected.
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the pro-chancellor and the embattled vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos to step aside while a special panel investigates the crisis rocking the university.

The publicist of the ministry of education, Ben Goong, confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES Friday.

The special visitation panel set up by the president is expected to submit its report within two weeks, Mr Goong said.

The president also directed the Senate of the school to convene to nominate an acting vice-chancellor form among its members for the confirmation of the universitys council, state-owned NTA reported.

The interim head is expected to act until the government reaches a resolution.

Following the controversial sacking of the incumbent vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, Olawatoyin Ogundipe, the university has been locked in a leadership quagmire.

The council led by pro-chancellor Wale Babalakin had accused Mr Ogundipe of mismanagement of funds, a basis for which he was sacked and Theophilus Soyombo appointed acting vice chancellor.

Displeased about the move, Mr Ogundipe filed a case at the Lagos Industrial Court urging the court to nullify and set aside his purported removal.

His counsel, Ebunolu Adegboruwa, however, later told PREMIUM TIMES on Friday that the case had been withdrawn.

Indeed, upon detailed consultation with all stakeholders and his supporters in and outside the University, Professor Ogundipe directed his lawyers to file a notice of discontinuance of the suit and this has been done on August 21, 2020, he said.

This is to defer to the authority of the president as the visitor of the University as Professor Ogundipe has enough time to challenge his purported removal.

The president, who is the visitor of the university, has therefore appointed a seven-member committee to investigate the controversies in the school.

Members of the panel include Tukur Saad as chairman, Victor Onuoha, Ikenna Oyindo, Ekanem Braide, Adamu K. Usman, Jimoh Bankole and Grace Ekanem, NTA reported.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, under pressure from Democrats and some Republicans, will be asked Friday to justify Postal Service cutbacks before an election in which mailed ballots are expected to reach record numbers because of the coronavirus pandemic.

DeJoy, who Tuesday paused several operational changes at the post office, including reduced operating hours and a curb on overtime, also is likely to be questioned closely about post office finances at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The U.S. Postal Service is at the center of political clash between Democrats and President Donald Trump over voting and the integrity of the November election. It's also become entangled in the stalled negotiations over a new virus relief bill in Congress.

Republicans have been mounting a defense of the post office and of DeJoy, dismissing Democratic alarm over Postal Service operations and the possible effect on the November vote that will decide control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

DeJoy "has already been subjected to character assassination as Democrats have put him in the crosshairs of another hyperbolic false narrative perpetrated to gain political advantage," Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, will say on Friday, according to prepared remarks.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed concerns about the Postal Service not being able to handle an increased volume of mail due to the election in comments in Paducah, Kentucky, on Thursday.

"The post office is not in trouble," McConnell said. "We're going to make sure that they are able to deliver our ballots on time."

The House Oversight Committee is scheduled to question DeJoy on Monday. Postal Service Board of Governors Chairman Robert Duncan is to join DeJoy at that hearing.

The Democratic-controlled House is set to vote Saturday on legislation to bar the post office from making any changes to its operations amid the coronavirus pandemic. The bill also would give the agency $25 billion in additional financing. McConnell has indicated that there were no plans to take up the legislation in the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was among the Democrats who said they weren't satisfied with DeJoy's announcement that he would suspend "longstanding operational initiatives" until after the election.

She called the decision "wholly insufficient" and said that in a conversation with her DeJoy "frankly admitted that he had no intention" of replacing sorting machines and mailboxes or allowing "adequate overtime, which is critical for the timely delivery of mail."

DeJoy may also get questions about statements by former Postal Service Board of Governors Vice Chairman David C. Williams that Trump sought to turn the Postal Service into a "political tool" that could be used to punish Amazon.com, whose chairman, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post. Trump has been critical of the news organization's coverage of him. Amazon uses the Postal Service to complete what's known as the "last mile" of delivery.

Williams told an informal hearing organized by the Congressional Progressive Caucus that he resigned his post "when it became clear to me that the administration was politicizing the Postal Service."

Republicans have argued that the changes sought by DeJoy were part of a years-long overhaul amid declining use of the mail and that Democrats were trying to make the issue political.

The changes are "sensible reforms designed to get the American people their mail on time and get the USPS on a sustainable fiscal path," the office of Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican said in a statement.

Brian Morgenstern, a White House spokesman, accused Pelosi and Democrats of "manufacturing a crisis."

"The USPS has been losing billions of dollars for more than a decade and is projected to lose tens of billions more in the next decade," Morgenstern said in a statement on Thursday night. "President Trump has established a Postal Reform task force to make recommendations for improving the financial future of the USPS. He has also encouraged the Post Office to raise its package delivery prices to ensure that the USPS will be more solvent in the future, and to protect the jobs of hardworking American postal workers."

DeJoy was selected in May by the Postal Service Board of Governors, which is controlled by Trump appointees, and took over in June. He is a major Republican donor who once played host to Trump at his North Carolina home. He served as national finance chair for the Republican National Convention, which was scheduled to be held in his home state's biggest city, Charlotte.

Since 2009, DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Z. Wos, have given $2.6 million to Republicans, Federal Election Commission records show.

DeJoy was an executive with Connecticut-based supply chain company XPO Logistics and served on its board of directors until 2018, according to the Postal Service. Wos was nominated in February to be the U.S. ambassador to Canada.
Kuleba and Maas will discuss issues of interaction between Ukraine and Germany to restore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state as a result of Russian aggression.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas will pay a visit to the city of Kyiv on the 29th anniversary of Ukraine's independence on August 24.

"On August 24, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will hold talks with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas who will visit Kyiv on Independence Day," the ministry reported on August 21.

Read alsoGerman FM Maas says policy regarding Ukraine and Russia will be among his country's prioritiesIn particular, the officials will discuss issues of interaction between Ukraine and Germany to restore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state as a result of Russian aggression.

The ministers will also outline joint steps in the Normandy format to achieve progress in a peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas.

What is more, Kuleba and Maas will also discuss practical measures to strengthen Ukrainian-German cooperation and interaction between foreign ministries. Particular attention will be focused on the issues of European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine, including taking into account the German presidency in the EU.
DeJoy said postal workers would prioritise election mail as they have in the past, he would personally vote by mail.

US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday told senators that the Postal Service has not changed the way it handles election mail as he sought to assure the public that ballots would be handled securely and on time in the November presidential election.

In his first public appearance before Congress, DeJoy sought to tamp down Democratic concerns that service delays prompted by his cost-cutting measures could result in millions of uncounted ballots in the November 3 election and help Republican President Donald Trump.

As he testified, six states led by Pennsylvania sued the US Postal Service and DeJoy, saying service changes in recent weeks have harmed the ability of states to conduct free and fair elections.

DeJoy, who has donated millions of dollars to Trump and other Republicans, said he has not spoken with the Trump campaign or White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, about postal service operations. DeJoy said postal workers will prioritise election mail as they have in the past, adding that he would personally vote by mail.

Demonstrators march to the condo of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to protest against changes in the postal service in Washington, DC [Cheriss May/Reuters]

As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on-time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and Election Day, said.

But DeJoy said he would not bring back mail-sorting machines that have been pulled from service in recent weeks, saying they were not needed.

He also told senators he could not provide a detailed plan about how he will ensure on-time election mail delivery.

Under pressure from the public and politicians, DeJoy on Tuesday suspended all mail service changes until after the election. Critics feared they would interfere with mail-in balloting, which is expected to be much more widely used amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump has repeatedly and without evidence said that an increase in mail-in ballots would lead to a surge in fraud, although he himself has voted by mail.

Senator Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he had received more than 7,500 reports of mail delays from people in his home state of Michigan.

If you plan to continue pursuing these kinds of changes, I think my colleagues, and many of our constituents, will continue to question whether you are the right person to lead this indispensable public institution, Peters said.

Republican committee chairman Ron Johnson defended DeJoy, saying the Postal Service needed an overhaul to shore up its shaky finances.

After he took the job in June, DeJoy imposed reductions in overtime, cuts in retail hours and restrictions on extra mail transport trips that resulted in widespread delays nationwide.

DeJoy said the decisions to remove sorting machines and mailboxes had already been under way and were a routine response to changes in mail volume, which has dropped during the coronavirus pandemic.

Protesters holding a demonstration against changes in the postal service, outside of the condo of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in Washington, DC [Cheriss May/Reuters]

DeJoy is also due to testify before the Democratic-led House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday.

A group of 90 Democrats in the House on Wednesday called on the Postal Services board of governors to immediately remove DeJoy to protect this critical institution.

The House is set to vote on a bill on Saturday that would provide $25bn in funding for the Postal Service and require the reversal of operational changes.

The White House said on Friday it strongly opposes the bill and would recommend Trump veto it.

The White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement that the House of Representatives bill would arbitrarily give USPS $25bn in emergency taxpayer funding, without linking that funding to either the COVID-19 pandemic or the upcoming election.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia - Slovakias foreign minister on Friday condemned the violent treatment of a Slovak citizen by police officers at a Belgian airport and demanded a thorough investigation. The man, who was in distress, later died.

Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok commented on the case after a Belgian newspaper this week published a 2018 video of an officer sitting on top of a man at Brussels South Charleroi Airport and another officer apparently making a Hitler salute.

Theres no place for such practices in the democratic society, Korcok said during a news conference with German Foreign Minister counterpart Heiko Maas.

Korcok said the security video recorded in an airport detention room showed an inadequate and absolutely unacceptable police brutality that shocked all of Slovakia. He said his ministry sent a note to Belgian authorities with a request to investigate.

The Slovak man, Jozef Chovanec, had been prevented from boarding a plane at the airport after he didnt show a ticket and was disruptive. The security video shows him repeatedly banging his head against the wall of the detention room.

When officers came in, they put him on a bed and forcefully restricted his movements, with one officer sitting on him for a long time. Another officer made an apparent Nazi salute. Chovanec died after emergency health officials took him to a hospital.

On Thursday, the No. 2 Belgian federal police official, Andre Desenfants, temporarily stepped aside from his post until an investigation is carried out.

Korcok said he appreciated the move.

Belgiums government itself reacted vigorously after the video from an ongoing investigation came to light Wednesday. Justice Minister Koen Geens called the recording unseemly and totally shocking.

Interior Minister Pieter De Crem said, The circumstances need to be clarified and an investigation is ongoing.

Police brutality has gained renewed attention as an issue after the police killing of George Floyd in the U.S. state of Minneapolis in May. Floyd, a handcuffed Black man, died after a white officer pressed his knee against Floyds neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd repeatedly said he couldnt breathe.
'Have You Seen This Person?': Activists In Belarus Say Dozens Unaccounted For Amid Political Crisis

By Ihar Karney, Michael Scollon August 20, 2020

MINSK -- Kanstantsin Shyshmakou, the head of the local military history museum in the medieval southwestern Belarusian city of Vaukavysk, was one of two members of his local election commission to refuse to sign off on the results of Belarus's contentious August 9 vote.

It didn't make much difference: Shyshmakou called his wife and said that others had signed for the recalcitrant ones.

Afterward, Shyshmakou went on a short vacation -- one that coincided with growing national demonstrations triggered after long-serving strongman President Alyaksandr Lukashenka was handed a landslide victory.

But on August 15, Shyshmakou was back at the museum for what would be his last day at work. At 5 p.m., he called his wife, telling her, "I cannot work here anymore; I am going home."

He never made it. His phone was unreachable, and his family reported him missing.

It was the last time anyone would see him alive.

Shyshmakou had joined scores of Belarusian citizens who activists say have disappeared since the beginning of the protests and the brutal police crackdown against them.

According to human rights organizations, the fates of many remain unknown more than a week after the election, feeding fears that the authorities are deliberately covering up severe injuries, or worse, carried out by the security forces.

Online search services have been organized to help families locate their missing loved ones. One of them, launched by the popular media outlet Tut.by with the title Have You Seen This Person?, enables people to post images and information about the missing and the circumstances of their disappearance so readers can contribute tips or join in the search. The site estimates that about 80 people are currently missing.

People can also turn to the Angel Search and Rescue Squad, a nonprofit set up in 2012 that describes itself as the first volunteer movement in Belarus. Its Facebook page features a hotline for readers to call with information about missing individuals.

One post directs readers to Tut.by's list of registered detainees. Some entries highlight people found alive, while others tell of those reportedly found dead.

Abducted, Held In Secret

Minsk resident Katsyaryna Savitskaya spoke with RFE/RL's Belarus Service about her experiences trying to determine the whereabouts of her husband, Yury Savitski, a tire-shop manager and supporter of jailed would-be opposition presidential challenger Viktar Babaryka.

On election night, Savitski participated in demonstrations against alleged vote fraud. The next night, on August 10, his wife says he was abducted by six people in civilian clothing, pushed into a minibus, and driven away.

Savitskaya and the couple's 4-year-old child were left at home with no idea what had happened to him for the next four days.

With no mention of her husband's name on any of the official lists of those detained -- she says she was told by authorities in Minsk there "are too many prisoners; we don't have time to register them" -- she took things into her own hands.

Armed with a photograph of her husband and a tip that he was being held at the Zhodzina prison outside the capital, she set out looking for someone who might have seen him.

On the morning of August 13, she joined the crowd of people outside the prison awaiting the release of prisoners, showing those who left the facility the photograph and asking if they had seen Yury. As night fell, she got a hit. A man took a close look at the photo and confirmed that Savitskaya's husband was indeed inside awaiting criminal charges for "organizing mass riots."

"That's how I learned that my husband was a suspect in a criminal case...[and was] facing a prison term of five to 15 years," she told RFE/RL. "From random people, can you imagine? The initial interrogation was conducted without the right to a lawyer or to contact relatives. How many more days it would have taken me to wait idly for official information, we can only guess."

"Yes, he was a member of the initiative group that was collecting signatures for Viktar Babaryka," Savitskaya said. "Yes, he discussed the election campaign with friends and made reposts on social networks. Yes, he attended a rally against election rigging on August 9. But that doesn't make him a criminal!"

Savitskaya says that she finds herself asking questions she cannot answer: "Why is holding an alternative civic position judged even more severely than murder? Why are people abducted from the streets, offices, apartments without [police] showing their IDs or explaining the reasons for the detentions? Why are people kept more than 72 hours without relatives being notified? How is this possible in a country that calls itself 'democratic'?"

Ministry: Information 'Not Fully Accurate'

The Interior Ministry, for its part, has cast doubt on the claims that scores of people have disappeared.

Ministry spokeswoman Volha Chamadanova wrote on Telegram that such information often turns out to be inaccurate, according to the BelTA state news agency on August 18.

"The criminal police of the Interior Ministry have checked the information regarding more than 70 participants of the unsanctioned rallies (held in the country from August 9 to 13) that has been published on the website Tut.by and in various social networks," she wrote. "This information is not fully accurate: many of these citizens have been found at home, while the information about them is not removed in a timely fashion from these Internet resources."

She did not give any specific information about the people who had purportedly been found at home.

Chamadanova claimed that the information relating to only one woman listed as missing by Tut.by at that time was accurate.

She suggested on behalf of the Interior Ministry that citizens verify information and be wary of material posted online. "If you still cannot locate your family members, please apply to the Interior Ministry authorities first, rather than Internet resources," Chamadanova wrote.

In the case of missing museum director Kanstantsin Shyshmakou, however, it was the Internet that was finally able to provide an answer for his family, friends, and colleagues who staged rallies demanding to know what happened to him.

On August 18 post, the Angel group posted on Facebook that the 29-year-old museum director had been found dead by members of its team without providing details of the circumstances.

Written by Michael Scollon based on reporting by Ihar Karney of RFE/RL's Belarus Service. RFE/RL's Belarus Service also contributed to this report

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/activists-in- belarus-say-dozens-unaccounted-for-amid- political-crisis/30794079.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Each piece shown was created by a Black artist including longtime CLC art faculty member Terry Dixon, who died last year, and retired CLC art professor and painter Reginald Coleman. The online art gallery also includes artist biographies, and can be viewed through Sept. 15 at https://www.clcillinois.edu/campus-life/arts/wright-gallery/black-artists-showcase. The works reflect a variety of styles as well as the history of Black artists.
A 44-year-old Charlestown man is facing federal charges after being accused of trafficking firearms obtained a straw purchaser in New Hampshire, federal authorities said Friday.

Charles Baker was arrested Thursday and is charged with one count of dealing in firearms without a license and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling.

Baker had an initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell and is scheduled to have a detention hearing on Aug. 25, Lellings office said in a statement.

Federal court documents indicate Baker dealt firearms in Charlestown, Woburn, Lowell, Somerville, Holbrook and Boston. It is unclear when the alleged activity began, but it continued until about May 2019.

Baker is prohibited from possessing firearms because of a prior conviction and does not possess a federal license to sell firearms, Lellings office said.

The case is part of the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, which aims to bring together all levels of law enforcement to reduce violent crimes in neighborhoods.

No further information was immediately available.
The picture of Uma Bharti's rain play that has gone viral.

Bhopal: Former chief minister Uma Bharti, the die-hard saffronite, has literally set the social media on fire when she posted a picture in which she was seen romancing with monsoon rains.

The twitter post showing the saffron-clad leader enjoying monsoon rains trickling through a pipe from the roof of her official bungalow here along with her young niece has attracted 1,57,000 likes within a few hours.

I enjoyed the monsoon rains leaking through the pipe from the roof under the open sky along with beti (referring to her niece) Nitya. I thanked the god, she tweeted while posting the picture of her rain bath.

The post was retweeted 796 times and commented by 174 followers within a few hours.

The 61-year-old sanyasin also took the opportunity to wish good rainfall this monsoon and good harvesting by farmers of Madhya Pradesh.

The picture has incidentally stirred a flutter in BJP circle here amid growing speculations that she was trying to stage a comeback to MP politics by taking active role in the upcoming by-elections to the 27 assembly constituencies in the state, scheduled to be held by end of September this year.

In fact, Ms Bharti has of late been found touring MP very frequently giving rise to the speculation on her growing ambition to return to MP politics.

Besides, she has also been found to be engaging her in political activities in Bhopal in the last eight months.

Ms Bharti who led BJP to power in MP in 2003 assembly elections, had left MP politics after she resigned as chief minister of the state in2004.

She had represented Jhansi Lok Sabha constituencies in 2014 polls, but she decided not to contest the last LS polls.
Just over two thirds of parents intend to send their children back to school when classrooms in England reopen next month - but almost a third do not feel comfortable with the restart.

The Government wants all pupils to return to class full-time in September but an exclusive poll for MailOnline suggests many parents are yet to be convinced it is safe.

Meanwhile, the survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies also showed voters believe Gavin Williamson is most to blame for the Government's education omnishambles.

The Education Secretary continues to face calls for him to resign over his handling of the A-level and GCSE results furore.

However, he has signalled he wants to continue in the role long into the future while Boris Johnson has faced criticism for failing to pause his holiday in Scotland to take personal charge of the crisis.

Some 69 per cent of parents said they do intend to send their children back to school next month

Pressure on Mr Williamson's position comes as the Government prepares for the planned crunch return of all students to schools in England next month.

Today's poll revealed that among parents with school age children, some 69 per cent intend to send their children back to school when classrooms reopen.

But some 14 per cent said they do not intend to send their children back while 17 per cent said they were unsure.

Just under half of parents - 49 per cent - said they feel comfortable with schools in England returning full-time for the start of the new academic year.

But 32 per cent said they do not feel comfortable while 19 per cent said they did not know.

The numbers suggest Mr Williamson has a lot of work to do over the next two weeks in order to persuade all parents to send their children back to class as he tries to cling onto his job.

The Education Secretary sparked anger earlier this week after he initially tried to blame exam regulator Ofqual for the A-level results fiasco.

He subsequently performed a U-turn as he expressed full confidence in the regulator and its leadership.

Today's poll, conducted on August 19, showed that voters believe it is Mr Williamson who is most to blame for the situation.

Some 38 per cent of respondents said the Education Secretary is most to blame while 16 per cent pointed the finger at Mr Johnson and Ofqual chief Sally Collier.

Today's poll showed almost four in 10 parents believe Gavin Williamson is most to blame for the A-level and GCSE results chaos

A quarter of respondents said they did not know who is most to blame for the fiasco which erupted after a controversial algorithm was used to calculate student grades before it was ditched in favour of teacher estimates after 40 per cent of grades were downgraded.

Tory MPs have called for Mr Williamson to be sacked over the row but Mr Johnson has stood by his Cabinet minister.

Some 36 per cent of people believe Mr Johnson's decision to support Mr Williamson 'shows the weakness of his leadership' while 22 per cent said they believed it showed the PM's strength.
EU Sanctions Belarus Officials, But Lacks Leverage Against 'Europe's Last Dictator'

By Henry Ridgwell August 20, 2020

As protesters continue to take to the streets in Belarus following a disputed August 9 election, Europe says it will impose sanctions on Belarusian officials it says were involved in vote-rigging and in the violent crackdown on opposition demonstrations.

Incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner with 80 percent of the vote. The United States and the European Union say the vote was heavily rigged.

"We stand firmly behind the right of Belarusian people to determine their own fate," EU Council President Charles Michel said at a press conference following a summit of European leaders held over video link Wednesday. "The EU will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression and election fraud," Michel said.

The threat of further violence looms over Belarus. Lukashenko has told security services to clamp down on ongoing opposition protests, which have been building across the country since the vote. There have been numerous cases of alleged police brutality and torture of detained demonstrators.

The main opposition leader, 37-year-old Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania after the election. She has implored Europe to offer political support.

"When there is a new government  and let's face it, Lukashenko may not fall this week, or this month but he is going to fall, now I think the end of his regime is now inevitable  Europe should be ready to provide whatever assistance it can when that happens."

EU foreign ministers are drawing up a list of officials in Belarus who could face sanctions. Analyst Mark Galeotti of University College London, founder of the Mayak Intelligence analyst group, says the sanctions are largely symbolic and Europe has little leverage against Lukashenko.

"Precisely because we wanted to encourage Lukashenko's flirtation with us and therefore his challenging of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Moscow, we were prepared to a considerable extent to turn a blind eye to the fact that we had this brutal and ugly dictatorship within Europe. And that leaves us now with very few options," Galeotti told VOA in an interview Aug. 19.

Forefront in European minds is the risk of repeating events in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine following the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. "There is a dilemma about how much to push the process through without risking a Ukraine-style new confrontation with Russia," says analyst Jonathan Eyal of Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Europe must tread carefully, says Galeotti. "The worst possible case would be if they made it look as if somehow the European Union was trying to woo Belarus and bring it into its camp. Because that might trigger a disproportionate response from Moscow. So at the moment I think actually the European Union in a way has it right precisely by sticking to essentially symbolic gestures."

Analysts say any violent government crackdown on the protests in Belarus would likely intensify opposition demands for a more powerful response from the West.

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Joe Biden was nominated for president, but some of the most memorable moments came from the supporting cast. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

The 2020 Democratic National Convention is over, and it will be most memorable for what it wasn't. Certainly not a thronging affair in Milwaukee, where it was ostensibly held. There were no funny patriotic hats, no madding crowds of Democratic delegates.

The coronavirus pandemic drove it online, where the party, as a socially distanced collective, appeared remotely via video from across the nation's states and territories in a political convention unlike any other in the nation's history to formally nominate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be the party's presidential and vice presidential nominees.

Here were some of the convention's most memorable moments. Biden was the candidate chosen to become president, and he gave a well-received acceptance speech at the close of the convention, but the supporting cast offered many of the most memorable moments.

Michelle Obama on Donald Trump: 'It is what it is'

Former First Lady Michelle Obama is one of the Democratic Party's most popular figures, despite having shown no interest in seeking higher office. But she delivered one of the party's most scathing rebukes of President Trump in a low-key, patiently delivered and stately fireside chat (minus the fireside) that the New Yorker called "something unprecedented, the invention of a form: the civilian State of the Union speech."

"Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can," she said. "Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us."

Her voice hardened: "It is what it is." Those were the words Trump used in a recent interview about deaths from COVID-19, a disease that has killed more than 174,000 people in the U.S.

It's a tribute to her own formidable talents as a public speaker that she arguably overshadowed the speech given a night later by her husband, former President Barack Obama, who also laced into Trump's record.





Story continues

A COVID-19 victim's 'preexisting condition': believing Trump

(Associated Press)

Democrats invited Kristin Urquiza of California  who wrote a scathing death notice in the Arizona Republic after her father, Mark Anthony Urquiza, died in June of COVID-19  to criticize Trump's botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life," Kristin Urquiza said.

The coronavirus has made it clear that there are two Americas: the America that Donald Trump lives in and the America that my father died in.





Gabrielle Giffords speaks, and perseveres

Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords almost died in 2011 when a she was shot in the head during a meet-and-greet event with constituents in Tucson. The gunman killed six people. In the years since, Giffords has become one of America's most prominent gun-control advocates despite losing the ability to speak easily, a condition called aphasia.

But during this week's convention, Giffords gave the longest speech that her staff says she's made since she was shot.

Words once came easily. Today I struggle with speech," Giffords said. "But I have not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words.

"We are at a crossroads. We can let the shooting continue or we can act. We can protect our families, our future. We can vote. We can be on the right side of history. We must elect Joe Biden. He was there for me; hell be there for you, too. Join us in this fight. Vote, vote, vote."





Yes, that's a calamari platter, and 34 votes for Joe Biden

I dont know about you... but Ive been craving calamari ALL day after this! #RhodeIsland #calamaricomeback pic.twitter.com/PA5pw1hzVk  Doreen Scanlon (@DScanlonABC6) August 19, 2020

There was no floor drama from state and territory delegations as they overwhelmingly handed their votes to Joe Biden to formally enshrine the former vice president as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

What replaced it was totally different  a montage of remotely recorded videos of the state and territorial delegations casting their votes, with backdrops of beaches, farmland and famous municipal landmarks. Native American activists particularly applauded the on-camera use of several indigenous languages by Native delegates before they cast their votes.

Though the roll call ended up as a surprisingly engrossing tour of the nation's enormity of places and peoples, in the end it was Rhode Island that stole the show. State party chair Joe McNamara stood on a beach alongside a beefy masked chef dressed in black, holding out a platter of calamari, the state's official appetizer, like it was a ransom video.

The calamari comeback state of Rhode Island casts one vote for Bernie Sanders and 34 votes for the next president, Joe Biden," McNamara said, explaining that the state's restaurant and fishing industries had been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.





Kamala Harris makes history

Sen. Kamala Harris of California made history as the first woman of color to be featured on a major party ticket by becoming Biden's vice presidential nominee. The daughter of a cancer researcher who emigrated from India and an economist who emigrated from Jamaica, Harris has energized many Black women and Indian American voters who identify with her as a "first" whose candidacy has broken a historic barrier.

And in her acceptance speech, Harris, a former prosecutor, signaled that she would be strong in confronting Trump, telling listeners, "I know a predator when I see one."





What Joe Biden and a New Hampshire 13-year-old have in common

A stutter.

In front of an audience of millions, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington gave a speech about how he and Biden learned after meeting at a New Hampshire event that they "were members of the same club  we stutter."

Brayden then powered through troublesome consonants to deliver an endorsement for a candidate he's too young to vote for.

In a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me feel more confident about something that was bothering me my whole life. Joe Biden cared," Brayden said. "Imagine what he could do for all of us. Kids like me are counting on you to elect someone we can all look up to. Someone who cares.

Obama: 'Donald Trump hasnt grown into the job because he cant'

Trump long ago shattered the norm of presidents avoiding criticism of their predecessors, and hes targeted none more caustically than Obama.

The former president, in a solemn speech Wednesday from Philadelphias Museum of the American Revolution, warned that Trump has shown he will tear our democracy down if thats what it takes to win.

We cant let that happen, Obama said. Do not let them take away your power. Dont let them take away your democracy.

Obama said hed hoped Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care. But he never did.

Instead, Obama said, Trump treated the presidency as one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

Donald Trump hasnt grown into the job because he cant, Obama said. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed. Our proud reputation around the world badly diminished. And our democratic institutions threatened like never before.

Biden's appeal to American voters: 'A chance to heal'

The former vice president used his convention speech to return to the overarching theme of his campaign since he launched it 16 months ago: The 2020 election is about reclaiming the soul of America.

History has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced, Biden said. Four historic crises. All at the same time. A perfect storm. The worst pandemic in over 100 years. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The most compelling call for racial justice since the '60s. And the undeniable realities and accelerating threats of climate change.

After months of Trump and Republican attacks on his mental acuity, Biden, 77, forcefully laid out a rhetorical indictment of the presidents leadership.

With 5 million Americans infected with COVID-19 and more than 170,000 dead, its by far the worst performance of any nation on Earth, he said, adding that 50 million people had filed unemployment claims.

Americans know in our bones that this election is more consequential than usual, he said.

We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion  or we can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light.

Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be.

Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.
By PTI

SINGAPORE: An Indian couple here has been jailed and fined up to 15,000 Singapore dollars after being found guilty of abusing their domestic helper from India, a media report said on Friday.

Farah Tehseen was sentenced to 21 months while her husband Mohammed Tasleem was sentenced to four month of jail for abusing Amandeep Kaur from the very starting day after hiring her in November 2016, The Straits Times reported.

During the initial hearing of the case on June 9, the prosecution said Farha and Tasleem lashed out at Kaur as they saw her as a "poor performer" who "did not meet their standards".

Farha repeatedly assaulted Kaur in November and December 2016 and also threatened to beat the maid with a stick, the paper reported.

ALSO READ | Eight in 10 imported COVID-19 cases in Singapore between June-Aug from India or Philippines: Report

Tasleem punched and kicked the maid on two separate occasions, the court heard.

According to the court documents, Farha also accused the maid of possibly having an affair with her husband.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Houston Johannus said that on one occasion, Kaur climbed out of a living room window and perched herself dangerously on a ledge.

A foreign worker named Mani Manoharan, who was doing some painting works in the estate, later spotted the maid and used a gondola to take her down.

Following her rescue, Kaur was placed in the care of the Good Shepherd Centre, which provides shelter to people such as abused women.

A medical report later stated that she had injuries such as multiple bruises in places including her left arm.

During the trial, Kaur testified that Farha treated her very badly from the outset.

At Friday's hearing, the court also ordered Farha to pay the helper 4,500 Singapore dollars in compensation while her husband was to pay 1,000 Singapore dollars.

The Deputy Public Prosecutor also informed the Judge Shaiffudin Tasleem tried to cover up their ill deeds to Kaur by offering her money and asking her to tell the court that she got the injuries after falling in the bathroom.

The maid declined the offer, the court heard.

Defence lawyer Peter Keith Fernando pleaded for his clients to be given shorter jail terms and said that they have an autistic son who is "severely disabled".

Later, the court also heard that the couple plan to appeal against their conviction and sentence and therefore Farha was offered bail of 15,000 Singapore dollars while Tasleem's bail was set at 8,000 Singapore dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 22:35:24|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Friday confirmed 1,034 new daily COVID-19 infections, bringing the nation's cumulative total to more than 61,000 cases with those in urban areas remaining comparatively high.

The total death toll from the pneumonia-causing virus has reached 1,188, with 15 new fatalities being announced Friday, according to the latest figures from health officials and prefectural authorities.

Tokyo remains the nation's epicenter of the virus outbreak, with a cumulative total of 18,685 cases, while Osaka Prefecture in western Japan reported 166 new cases Friday, bringing its total caseload to 7,586 infections.

Tokyo's neighboring prefecture of Kanagawa, meanwhile, saw cases rise by 82, bringing its overall total to 4,268 infections, the latest figures released Friday evening showed.

With cases, particularly those in urban areas showing little signs of abating, a well-known infectious disease expert in Japan warned earlier this week that the nation is in the middle of a second wave of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Kazuhiro Tateda of Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases said the chart of new daily infections shows Japan is "in the midst of a second wave of infections."

"We are now in the midst of a second wave. People may think coronavirus infections have peaked out, both in Tokyo and nationwide. But we need to closely monitor the situation for whether a resurgence is underway."

Tateda was also quoted as saying the nation's current COVID-19 predicament may be worse now compared to a few months ago.

Economic Revitalization Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura at the time said the government recognizes the severity of the situation and the urgent need to take action, but sidestepped definitely saying Japan is being hit by a second wave, owing to an exact definition as to what constitutes a second wave being ambiguous.

"With regards to daily new cases, the current figures are higher than those during the state of emergency. We consider the current wave to be a big one," Nishimura said.

The Tokyo metropolitan government, meanwhile, reported 258 new daily infections on Friday, dipping below Thursday's 339 cases, but remaining above the average seven-day tally of 256.6.

Of the 258 people newly testing positive for COVID-19, 137 of them were aged in their 20s and 30s, accounting for about 53 percent of the total. Those in their 40s and 50s totaled 73 people, comprising 28 percent of the latest tally.

The Tokyo metropolitan government said that the number of people being treated in hospital and designated as being in a "serious condition" stood at 33, dropping by three patients from a day earlier.

The Tokyo metropolitan government has urged Tokyo residents to refrain from traveling outside the prefecture during the holiday season.

Residents here have also been asked to avoid dining out in groups, including small gatherings held in close proximity with others, in a bid to curb the virus' spread.

Establishments serving alcohol such as restaurants, bars and karaoke parlors have been requested to shorten their opening hours until the end of August.

They have been asked to shut their doors at 10:00 p.m. to limit the number of patrons drinking into the night as another means to try and limit the virus' spread as people's inhibitions tend to lower once intoxicated, including mask wearing and maintaining appropriate social distancing measures.

The metropolitan government has described the situation in the capital of 14 million as "extremely severe" and has said that the "utmost caution is still required."

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has said that a Tokyo-specific state of emergency could be declared if the virus' resurgence continues to worsen. Enditem
Washington: The Trump administration has notified the United Nations the US will - on its own - reinstate numerous sanctions to punish Iran after failing to rally international support to extend an arms embargo on the Islamic Republic.

In an embarrassing rebuke, numerous countries refused to go along with the United States on the embargo and now are questioning whether Washington even has standing to impose sanctions.

US President Donald Trump said this week he would call on the United Nations Security Council to restore all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, an attempt to kill the 2015 nuclear agreement and force Tehran back to the negotiating table. Credit:AP

The dispute is the latest sign of the United States' loss of global influence and growing international isolation in recent years.

In a formal letter delivered in person to US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday, New York time, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo declared the White House was activating a mechanism known as snapback sanctions, which would take effect in 30 days. He cited what he called persistent violations by Iran of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that dismantled much of its nuclear infrastructure in exchange for sanctions relief and the unfreezing of Iranian assets in banks around the world.
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dispel today announced their collaboration in the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Data Confidentiality: Detect, Respond to, and Recover from Data Breaches Project.

An organization's data is one of its most valuable assets and must be protected from unauthorized access and disclosure. Large and small data breaches impact the ability of an organization to survive when data such as operational, financial, employee, or customer personally identifiable information becomes compromised. Breaches undermine an organization's work and success, and lead to severe reputational damage.

In this new project, the NCCoE seeks to provide industry with a practical solution to detect, respond to, and recover from incidents affecting data confidentiality. Through use of data and network monitoring, event detection, and other potential technologies, Dispel and the NCCoE project team will create a reference design and a detailed description of the practical steps needed to implement a secure solution based on standards and best practices. This project will result in a freely available NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide. The guide will include the technical capabilities needed by an organization to maintain full awareness of its data as well as mitigate the effects of a data breach.

Dispel is joined by collaborators Cisco, FireEye, and PKWARE.

This project will also provide guidance on data confidentiality paralleling another NCCoE program titled Identifying and Protecting Assets and Data Against Data Breaches.

About the NCCoE

The NCCoE is a collaborative hub where industry organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions work together to address businesses' most pressing cybersecurity challenges. Through this collaboration, the NCCoE develops modular, easily adaptable example cybersecurity solutions demonstrating how to apply standards and best practices by using commercially available technology.

About Dispel

Utilities and manufacturers use Dispel for secure remote access to their industrial control systems. Purpose-built for industrial environments, Dispel serves over 1.2 million people and partners every day from offices in New York, Austin, Virginia, and Tokyo.

Press Contact

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The surrounding businesses were anxiously waiting its return as well.

Were excited to have the students back, said Kolton Huttes, manager of University Dogs. We hope they all take the precautions that they need to take to stay safe, but were definitely glad to see them back in town.

It's been a long few months. After initially extending its spring break in March because of growing coronavirus concerns, the university eventually cancelled the remainder of the spring semester and all the activities that went with it. No sports, no plays, no concerts, no graduation.

That meant no students, no visits by friends and family, no out of town teams and theirs fans, and no community members grabbing food or a drink after taking part in a league at the Decatur Indoor Sports Center or watching a performance at Kirkland Fine Arts Center.

At the same time, the pandemic wreaked havoc on the businesses in other ways. State mandates closed all non-essential businesses. Restaurants were allowed to operate initially by offering delivery or curbside service only.

The timing couldnt have been worse for Imagine Cafe, a new coffee shop that opened just weeks ahead of the coronavirus restrictions. The business reopened Aug. 14 with a new owner and new name.

After Imagine Coffee was forced to close in March, manager Nick Wood said he took a few months to just wrap my head around what we were going to do with the quarantine.

From that emerged a new business in the location, Pure Coffee House, of which Wood is the owner.

In just its first week in business, Wood said he has enjoyed a steady flow of Millikin students and their families.

I have a lot of repeat customers from staff as well as students, Wood said. At least half of my business has been from Millikin, if not Millikin parents dropping students off.

The restaurant serves coffees, espresso, smoothies and juices as well as sandwiches and pastries. When he purchased the restaurant, Wood had hoped to add a lounge area for students and others to relax. But with social distancing, we had it set up differently, he said.

The hours have been shortened a few hours to 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. But when everything kind of gets back into some sort of normalcy again, Im going to encourage students to come and hang out and study here, Wood said. And I will extend my evening hours to allow for that.

Returning customers of University Dogs will see some changes, too.

The lobby of the business remains closed, meaning customers must order online or call in for curbside pickup.

We dont really foresee that changing for us anytime soon, Huttes said.

Head West Sub Shop district manager Brian Becker said he was surprised to see the students again.

I heard they were going all online learning, he said.

In less than a week, the sub shop has had a steady stream of customers, according to Becker. And Im very happy, he said. My business is doing great this week.

Although he appreciates the business, Becker understands it can all change again. Were playing it by ear and seeing whats going to happen, he said. Im just worried if this is going to be something thats going to all of a sudden halt and go back to quarantine.

As coronavirus numbers declined, the state has gradually eased some of the restrictions placed on businesses. However, officials continue to warn that a spike in cases or other metrics by which its severity are measured could bring renewed restrictions and, in extreme circumstances, the closing of Millikin again.

The students going back to their home towns would be a big detriment to us, Huttes said. Having them here is furthering our business.

A look back at the people and places of Millikin University

Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR

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After President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in for a second term on May 29, 2019, he appointed 43 ministers and inaugurated them with different portfolios.

While Chris Ngige was reappointed the Minister of Labour and Employment, Tayo Alasoadura was appointed as Minister of State. Barely a month after, Mr Buhari redeployed Festus Keyamo from Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to help man labour/employment.

In this report, PREMIUM TIMES presents the scorecard of this ministry in the last one year. This is based on their promises on assumption of office and others made thereafter.

Promises

Upon assumption of office on August 21, 2019, Mr Ngige, vowed to resolve the crisis surrounding the N30,000 national minimum wage, the ongoing university workers strike and other issues affecting the industrial sector.

The News Agency of Nigeria, reported that the minister said he will follow due process to put smiles on the faces of workers by putting energy in all assignments assigned to his ministry.

Other promises made by the minister included creation of job opportunities to avoid job losses, revival of Nigerias Labour Advisory Council and implementation of 1990 Factories Act which entails occupational safety and health components of labour activities.

After his redeployment, Mr. Keyamo also promised to use his versatility in all sectors to help the ministry achieve great achievement.

Achievements

On September 26, 2019, Mr Ngige told the leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that the government was planning to reconstitute a new committee to begin fresh negotiations for full implementation of the new national minimum wage and in reaction to that, NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, urged the minister to protect the interest of workers.

By mid-October that year, the government and labour unions reached an agreement on consequential adjustments in salaries that must be implemented across board in line with the new minimum wage law and also stop the threatened strike by organised unions.

As of the time of this piece, several states have begun the implementation of new minimum wage for civil servants in their employment.

Those that have commenced include Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Lagos, Ondo, Sokoto, Yobe and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The states that are yet to start include Benue, Cross River, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba and Zamfara.

In May, Mr. Keyamo revealed the details of the government plan to employ at 1,000 persons from each of the 774 local government areas in the country.

Festus Keyamo, Minister of State Labour and Employment [Photo: Vanguard]

He noted that the beneficiaries will be paid N20,000 each monthly to carry out public works with political leaders having not more than 10 per cent of the beneficiaries.

The jobs include drainage digging and clearance, irrigation canals clearance, rural feeder road maintenance, maintenance of the Great Green Wall nurseries and orchards in Borno, Jigawa and Katsina states, traffic control, street cleaning, cleaning of public infrastructure like health centres, schools and others.

Bylate June, the ministry constituted a committee to supervise the activities across the country. This led to uproar between the National Assembly joint committee on labour and employment and Minister Keyamo. But in July, the ministry announced the commencement of recruitment processes.

READ ALSO:

The ministry is also probing alleged N3.4 billion financial infractions levelled against suspended Managing Director of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Adebayo Somefun, and others.

Failures

One of the major failures of the ministers is their inability to resolve the incessant strike actions from unions.

PREMIUM TIMES understands that the Academic Staff of Universities Union (ASUU) has been on indefinite strike since March following the enforced enrollment of the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS)  a governments accountability software that has been made compulsory for all public institutions, mainly for personnel payroll.

In his last interview with this newspaper, Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU president urged the federal government to inaugurate a taskforce to look education sector challenges which include revitalisation funds for universities.

The country is also battling with a high unemployment rate which National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently said has risen to 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020. It is an increase from 23.1 per cent unemployed in the third quarter of 2018.

Before now, Mr. Ngige himself has decried the alarming rate of unemployment in the country.

Scorecard

For two public affairs analysts, the two ministers havent done badly in the last one year.

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Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, Jide Ojo, a public affairs commentator, said the ministry might not have been proactive in dealing with the workers crisis, but the ministers havent done badly in other sectors.

The ministry of labour and employment does not generate employment but on issues around employment, the ministry has done well except in the aspect of resolving some crisis. You cannot hold the ministers accountable for issues of unemployment because there are many factors that shaped that.

For instance, the 774,000 jobs idea is fantastic even though it has generated furor. COVID-19 on the other hand has hampered the scorecard because it never helped in reducing unemployment rate. If we want to be fair, the ministry has tried. It is like a system. Keyamo and Ngige have done well, so far.

No one envisaged COVID-19 and I think that is why the ASUU crisis is yet to be resolved. They never envisaged that when they came on board. I think it is COVID-19 that is also delaying the ASUU crisis.

Speaking on the way forward, he said much as IPPIS is not principally under the labour ministry, they must look at complaints of workers and also find solution to other issues as well. They should be proactive and not wait for workers to down tools before taking necessary actions.

Another commentator, Ademola Owolabi, told our correspondent that the ministry most times carries the burden of the failures of other ministries.

If industry closes down because of a finance ministry decision, there will be job loss. So, the labour and employment ministry is in the limelight. The ministers appear to have failed in dispute resolution, the lawyer said.

He also commended the government for the 774,000 jobs it offered.

It is a good one but it can be more transparent. Largely, cronavirus has impacted negatively on labour in rating them. They just need to be more proactive in dealing with issues affecting workers unions and not talk down on them when they protest or express their displeasure on some policies.
There are little to no national data network that enables the health system to respond effectively to disasters and disease outbreaks.

After terrorists slammed a plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, ambulances rushed scores of the injured to community hospitals, but only three of the patients were taken to specialized trauma wards. The reason: The hospitals and ambulances had no real-time information-sharing system.

Nineteen years later, there is still no national data network that enables the health system to respond effectively to disasters and disease outbreaks. Many doctors and nurses must fill out paper forms on COVID-19 cases and available beds and fax them to public health agencies, causing critical delays in care and hampering the effort to track and block the spread of the coronavirus.

We need to be thinking long and hard about making improvements in the data-reporting system so the response to the next epidemic is a little less painful, said Dr. Dan Hanfling, a vice president at In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit that helps the federal government solve technology problems in health care and other areas. And there will be another one.

There are signs the COVID-19 pandemic has created momentum to modernize the nations creaky, fragmented public health data system, in which nearly 3,000 local, state and federal health departments set their own reporting rules and vary greatly in their ability to send and receive data electronically.

Sutter Health and UC Davis Health, along with nearly 30 other provider organizations around the country, recently launched a collaborative effort to speed and improve the sharing of clinical data on individual COVID cases with public health departments.

But even that platform, which contains information about patients diagnoses and response to treatments, doesnt yet include data on the availability of hospital beds, intensive care units or supplies needed for a seamless pandemic response.

The federal government spent nearly $40 billion over the past decade to equip hospitals and physicians offices with electronic health record systems for improving treatment of individual patients. But no comparable effort has emerged to build an effective system for quickly moving information on infectious disease from providers to public health agencies.

In March, Congress approved $500 million over 10 years to modernize the public health data infrastructure. But the amount falls far short of whats needed to update data systems and train staff at local and state health departments, said Brian Dixon, director of public health informatics at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis.

The congressional allocation is half the annual amount proposed under last years bipartisan Saving Lives Through Better Data Act, which did not pass, and much less than the $4.5 billion Public Health Infrastructure Fund proposed last year by public health leaders.

The data are moving slower than the disease, said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. We need a way to get that information electronically and seamlessly to public health agencies so we can do investigations, quarantine people and identify hot spots and risk groups in real time, not two weeks later.

The impact of these data failures is felt around the country. The director of the California Department of Public Health, Dr. Sonia Angell, was forced out Aug. 9 after a malfunction in the states data system left out up to 300,000 COVID-19 test results, undercutting the accuracy of its case count.

Other advanced countries have done a better job of rapidly and accurately tracking COVID-19 cases and medical resources while doing contact tracing and quarantining those who test positive. In France, physicians offices report patient symptoms to a central agency every day. Thats an advantage of having a national health care system.

If someone in France sneezes, they learn about it in Paris, said Dr. Chris Lehmann, clinical informatics director at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Coronavirus cases reported to U.S. public health departments are often missing patients addresses and phone numbers, which are needed to trace their contacts, Hamilton said. Lab test results often lack information on patients races or ethnicities, which could help authorities understand demographic disparities in transmission and response to the virus.

Last month, the Trump administration abruptly ordered hospitals to report all COVID-19 data to a private vendor hired by the Department of Health and Human Services rather than to the long-established reporting system run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The administration said the switch would help the White House coronavirus task force better allocate scarce supplies.

The shift disrupted, at least temporarily, the flow of critical information needed to track COVID-19 outbreaks and allocate resources, public health officials said. They worried the move looked political in nature and could dampen public confidence in the accuracy of the data.

An HHS spokesperson said the transition had improved and sped up hospital reporting. Experts had various opinions on the matter but agreed that the new system doesnt fix problems with the old CDC system that contributed to this countrys slow and ineffective response to COVID-19.

While I think its an exceptionally bad idea to take the CDC out of it, the bottom line is the way CDC presented the data wasnt all that useful, said Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California-San Francisco.

The new HHS system lacks data from nursing homes, which is needed to ensure safe care for COVID patients after discharge from the hospital, said Dr. Lissy Hu, CEO of CarePort Health, which coordinates care between hospitals and post-acute facilities.

Some observers hope the pandemic will persuade the health care industry to push faster toward its goal of smoother data exchange through computer systems that can easily talk to one another  an objective that has met with only partial success after more than a decade of effort.

The case reporting system launched by Sutter Health and its partners sends clinical information from each coronavirus patients electronic health record to public health agencies in all 50 states. The Digital Bridge platform also allows the agencies for the first time to send helpful treatment information back to doctors and nurses. About 20 other health systems are preparing to join the 30 partners in the system, and major digital health record vendors like Epic and Allscripts have added the reporting capacity to their software.

Sutter hopes to get state and county officials to let the health system stop sending data manually, which would save its clinicians time they need for treating patients, said Dr. Steven Lane, Sutters clinical informatics director for interoperability.

The platform could be key in implementing COVID-19 vaccination around the country, said Dr. Andrew Wiesenthal, a managing director at Deloitte Consulting who spearheaded the development of Digital Bridge.

Youd want a registry of everyone immunized, youd want to hear if that person developed COVID anyway, then youd want to know about subsequent symptoms, he said. You can only do that well if you have an effective data system for surveillance and reporting.

The key is to get all the health care players  providers, insurers, EHR vendors and public health agencies  to collaborate and share data, rather than hoarding it for their own financial or organizational benefit, Wiesenthal said.

One would hope we will use this crisis as an opportunity to fix a long-standing problem, said John Auerbach, CEO of Trust for Americas Health. But I worry this will follow the historical pattern of throwing a lot of money at a problem during a crisis, then cutting back after. Theres a tendency to think short term.

Harris Meyer reports for Kaiser Health News.

This article was originally published by Kaiser Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
(Natural News) John Thompson, who recently won the Democratic primary for the Minnesota House of Representatives District 67A, was filmed threatening a group of white teenage girls during an unhinged rant at a Black Lives Matter protest on Saturday in a suburb of Hugo, Minneapolis.

(Article by Chris Menahan republished from InformationLiberation.com)

WATCH:

From AlphaNewsMN, DFL candidate supported by Walz screams at teenaged girls during Bob Kroll protest:

A DFL-endorsed candidate for the Minnesota House screamed profanities at a group of teenaged girls during a protest Saturday outside the home of Bob Kroll in Hugo, Minnesota. Im a black man being terrorized by this fing Klansman right here, shouted John Thompson, who won his primary Tuesday for House District 67A. Yall got the grand wizard living in your [vulgarity] neighborhood.

https://twitter.com/AlphaNewsMN/status/1294736792856535040

Dont run now. Dont run now racist white people. Im here. Oh yeah, we pull up. We pulled the f up, Thompson continued. Blue lives aint s, and if people here dont support black people, f Hugo, Minnesota. While he was shouting, Thompson was looking in the direction of a group of four to five teenaged girls who were standing on their front driveway and watching the demonstration. One of their acquaintances was apparently wearing a blue lives matter shirt, but had gone back inside. Thompson was endorsed by the Minnesota DFL Party and Gov. Tim Walz in his campaign for the State Legislature.

https://twitter.com/AlphaNewsMN/status/1294807858022948865

Ive known John for years. His fierce advocacy and commitment to his community is exactly whats needed in the State Legislature right now. I look forward to working with him as the next State Representative for 67A, Walz said in his endorsement. He also received the endorsement of Attorney General Keith Ellison and Rep. Betty McCollum.

Gov. Walz in May tried to blame white supremacists for the George Floyd riots.

https://twitter.com/infolibnews/status/1266644779267436545

Meanwhile, Thompson proudly boasted that his community was responsible for the riots and threatened that Hugo was next.

We coming! Thompson screamed at local residents. We coming for everything that you motherf***ers took from us  This whole goddamn state burned down for 20 goddamn dollars. You think we give a f*** about burning Hugo down?

Thompson is a shoo-in and odds are overwhelming he will soon represent the Democratic Party in House District District 67A in St. Paul.

Read more at: InformationLiberation.com
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Mary Jane Dockeray, founder of Blandford Nature Center, died Tuesday, August 18.

Dockeray, 93, inspired thousands of children through her infectious love of nature, according to her obituary.

The tribute shares how Dockery spearheaded the creation of Blandford Nature Center and the Blandford Environmental Education Program. The center now encompasses 264 acres of diverse habitats, an interpretive center, farm demonstrations and several historic buildings.

Mary Jane was a local icon in our community, Bill Faber, chairman of the centers Board of Directors said. The world was changed through her work not only because she preserved over 143 acres of habitat in the City of Grand Rapids, but because she inspired so many children and adults to fall in love with nature and do their part to protect nature too.

After graduating from then Michigan State with degrees in geology and environmental studies, Dockeray worked at the Grand Rapids Public Museum in the early 1950s as a curator of natural history. In this position, she visited schools to educate students about natural sciences.

She was able to convince the Blandford family to donate 17 acres to the museum for the development of a nature center, and she became the curator, according to the center. In 1965, the Museum Association helped seek the cash necessary for building a visitor center, which opened in 1968.

The beloved founder was a leader within environmental education. For over 50 years, Dockeray could be found at the center almost every day talking with children, adults, and families about nature trails, wildlife and history of the Center.

Its important to recognize the fact Blandford Nature Center literally would not have come into existence over 50 years ago without her, said Jason Meyer, president and CEO of Blandford Nature Center.

There will never be another Mary Jane Dockeray and her impact will be felt for generations.

If we all followed Mary Janes example the world would be a much different, and better, place, Meyer added.

Mary Jane Dockeray, founder of Blandford Nature Center, has passed away at the age of 93.BPN

Blandford Nature Center celebrated the opening of its new Mary Jane Dockeray Visitor Center in 2017.

Its just amazing how far weve come, Dockeray told MLive at the opening. I would have never imagined. Blandford has always been an important part of Grand Rapids, but now were really blossoming. I cant wait to see whats next.

Dockeray authored the book Lets Go Exploring: Suggestions for Field Trips and Associated Studies in Environmental-Conservation Education. She also wrote and produced the film These Things Are Ours, which has been viewed throughout the United States and Canada as part of the National Audubon Societys lecture tours.

The founder received numerous awards for her work and leadership in the community including the Michigan Audubon Society Outstanding Member Award and induction into the Michigan Womens Hall of Fame.

Mary Janes awards are too vast and far-reaching to list, said Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss. She did not measure her success by awards, she measured it by the smiles on childrens faces, the curiosity and questions of visitors and the volume of frog calls in the evening. Her passion, energy and heart for our community will be greatly missed.

Due to Dockeray being adopted as a child, she did not leave behind any survivors. Nature staff and volunteers really were her family, Meyer told MLive.

According to her obituary, there will be a funeral Mass on Monday, August 24 at 11 a.m. at Blessed Sacrament Parish, 2275 Diamond Ave. NE in Grand Rapids.

There will be a community celebration at Blandford Nature Center at a future date.

Dockeray has asked that donations be made to the Mary Jane Dockeray Endowment. Donations may be made here in memory of the beloved founder.

More on MLive:

Residents escape overnight apartment fire in Muskegon

Michigan elected officials welcome Flint water crisis settlement, say theres more work to do

Jail staff ignored dying womans dire medical condition, familys lawsuit says
Tirupati: In a tragic incident, nearly 20 people were affected after an ammonia gas leaked in Hatson dairy unit at M.Bandapalli village near Puthalapattu at Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday night. Reportedly, all the workers affected in the incident are females.

Those injured were rushed to Chittoor government hospital. As soon as the incident was reported, District collector Narayan Bharath Guptha and Superintendent of Police Sendhil Kumar immediately reached the location to monitor the situation.

Speaking to media, Narayan Bharath Guptha said, ''Its too early to speak about the cause of leakage, this gas leakage occurred while wielding of the pipe which carries ammonia gas. The gas leak has affected several workers''

He added that a team of officers are appointed to provide a detailed report of the incident and appealed people staying nearby to avoid any kind of panic situation.

Seeking details of the mishap, Andhra's Deputy chief minister K Narayana Swamy spoke to the District Collector and SP Senthil Kumar. Panchayat Raj minister directed the collector to ensure better treatment for workers who fell ill.
Hospitals are empty despite coronavirus cases having gone up over the past month - and it could be because the most vulnerable to the disease have already died, an intensive care specialist claimed today.

Dr Ron Daniels, a consultant in the West Midlands, said there are barely any Covid-19 patients being admitted despite government statistics showing cases had risen throughout July.

More than 1,000 Britons are testing positive for the life-threatening disease each day, on average, data shows - but the figures appears to have started dropping. There are fewer than 100 daily hospital admissions for the virus.

For comparison, up to 5,000 people were diagnosed daily during the darkest days of the crisis in April, and as many as 2,500 of these patients needed hospital care.

However, hospital admission figures at the height of the crisis need to be treated with caution because they were inflated due to a counting error, it emerged last night.

Dr Daniels believes the recent spike in infections is due to young people catching the coronavirus more, who are unlikely to get severely ill and need hospital care.

And older and vulnerable populations may have already had the disease and died, or are being more cautious in fear of catching Covid-19.

Other scientists have theorised the coronavirus has mutated to become less deadly, but this is 'slightly optimistic' in Dr Daniels' eyes.

It comes as official data today suggested England's coronavirus crisis could be in retreat for good as weekly infections have plummeted by a third in a week. The Office for National Statistics estimates 2,400 people are contracting the disease every day, down 37 per cent from the 3,800 the previous week.

Cases of Covid-19 have been on the rise since July

But hospital admissions per day are not increasing, data shows

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Dr Daniels said: 'I think there are considerations around the positivity rates, but we're not looking at the case fatality rates and were not looking at hospital admissions.

'We've seen cases go up since the beginning of July, and still our hospitals are relatively empty of patients with this condition.

'Were seeing very few patients admitted to hospital, let alone requiring intensive care.

Dr Ron Daniels, a consultant in the West Midlands, said there were barely any Covid-19 patients coming into hospitals there, even though cases had been on the rise since July

YOUNG PEOPLE SHOULD NOT FEEL 'INVINCIBLE', WHO SAYS Younger people should not feel 'invincible' as draconian coronavirus restrictions are lifted, a World Health Organization official has said. Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, admitted he was 'very concerned' that under-24s are regularly appearing among new cases. And he warned low risk does not mean no risk, saying the disease 'may stick to your body like a tornado with a long tail'. In a briefing with journalists on August 20, he said: 'Young people are at the forefront of the Covid-19 response and they have a very powerful message to convey through their behaviour and their communication. 'Low risk does not mean no risk, no one is invincible and if you do not die from Covid-19, it may stick to your body like a tornado with a long tail. 'While young people are less likely to die than older people they can still be very seriously affected, this virus affects organs throughout the body.' It is thought that younger generations have contributed to recent resurgences of Covid-19 by gathering for parties, barbecues and holidays amid the easing of lockdown restrictions. Dr Kluge's warning comes after the global coronavirus death toll topped 788,000. 'Younger people also need to take on board that they have a responsibility,' said WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan in an online discussion. 'Ask yourself the question: do I really need to go to that party?' Advertisement

'So, I was on duty over the weekend at one of the West Midlands hospitals and we didnt receive a single referral for a patient from the wards or emergency departments strongly suspected to have Covid-19. Were simply not seeing it.'

Some 3,500 people were admitted to hospital on the worst day of the crisis - April 1, data from Public Health England shows.

At that time, around 3,700 people were also testing positive for Covid-19 per day, which does not include the thousands others who were unable to get a test, or who did not show symptoms.

Now, around 1,051 Britons are testing positive for the life-threatening disease each day, on average. It had consistently risen from the start of July and doubled by August 15, when the figure reached a six-week high of 1,097.

But neither hospital admissions or deaths  two other ways health bosses track the disease  ever spiked in line with cases.

There are no more than 870 patients in hospital right now, 70 of whom are on mechanical ventilation. Fewer than 100 patients are being admitted per day.

Experts say the rise in cases have been as a result of more testing being carried out, especially in badly-hit areas such as the North West.

Dr Daniels suspects young people with the infection make up most of the new cases. And because young people are less likely to suffer a severe form of the respiratory disease than their parents or grandparents, they are not being admitted to hospital.

His comments echo those of health chiefs in current Covid-19 hotspots in England.

The majority of cases in the past four weeks in Oldham, in Greater Manchester, has been in women in their 20s, data shows.

And in Birmingham, Dr Justin Varney, the authority's director of public health, said it was typically 30-year-olds who were testing positive.

He said: 'What we are seeing, quite specifically, is that those aged from 27 to 40 are testing positive for the virus, much more than other age groups.

'These would tend to be people who are going to work and are likely socialising in small groups or with other households known to them, attending faith settings, or going to the pub.'

Dr Daniels said: 'It can be argued, and its true, that testing at the moment is identifying a younger population who dont tend to become as seriously ill.

'Although, whats not true is that the young dont become seriously ill. We treated plenty during the peak. Those in intensive care are now older than they were during the peak  but appear to be less seriously ill, which is interesting.

'Other explanations might be, that we might have, and this is not what I see going about my daily business, a vulnerable population, the older population and those who are shielding, continuing to to do so and theyre remaining safe.

In-depth government statistics, which are published on a map by the Department of Health, show no specific wards in Birmingham are responsible for the city's soaring infection rate

Official figures show the city of Birmingham's infection rate has more than doubled over the past fortnight, with around 25 new cases of coronavirus for every 100,000 people  up from just 11 in the first week of August

PUTTING BIRMINGHAM IN LOCKDOWN WOULD BE 'RISK AVERSE', DR DANIELS SAYS An intensive care doctor working in Birmingham has said that putting the entire city under lockdown would be 'risk averse' because new cases are being driven by clusters in separate parts of the city. Dr Ron Daniels, who works for University Hospitals Birmingham, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the increase in coronavirus cases is not a city-wide problem. Official figures show Birmingham's infection rate has more than doubled over the past fortnight to around 25 new cases for every 100,00 people. A handful of wards are seeing a similar amount of new infections, according to government data. It comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock yesterday chaired a 'Gold Command' meeting to discuss the potential of Birmingham being placed under lockdown. Council bosses who attended the meeting were desperate to prevent further damage to the already-crippled local economy by avoiding tougher measures like ones imposed in the North West and Leicester. Birmingham is expected to be placed on a national 'watch list' from today, meaning it will be offered 'enhanced support' to avoid further cases. Local health bosses warned residents of the city  1.1million people  that 'what we do in the next seven days will decide if we go into lockdown or not'. Advertisement

'I see older people milling around in the shops and so forth, they are being careful, they are wearing masks, so that might be one thing.

'The other slightly more macabre thing, is the most vulnerable to this condition might have been exposed to this early on and might have already had this disease with many having sadly died.'

Dr Daniels said there 'is hope' SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, has genetically mutated to become less fatal, but that is a 'little optimistic'.

He said: 'That is the natural behaviours viruses over time. But coronaviruses mutate rather more slowly than for example influenza viruses, and it might seem a little early for that change to have happened.'

Scientific theory suggests viruses may become weaker over time in a bid to survive. If they only succeed in killing all their human hosts they will run out of road.

Professor Matteo Bassetti, an Italian doctor, has said multiple times in recent months that patients with Covid-19 seem to be faring much better than they were at the start of the epidemic in Italy.

Professor Matteo Bassetti said he is convinced the virus is 'changing in severity' and patients are now surviving infections that would have killed them before.

He suggests this could be because of a genetic mutation in the virus making it less lethal, because of improved treatments, or because people are not getting infected with such large doses because of social distancing.

And if the virus's weakening is true, Covid-19 could even disappear without a for a vaccine by becoming so weak it dies out on its own, he claimed.

Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, also claimed in June the coronavirus is weaker and 'no longer clinically exists'.

Speaking to RAI TV channel, Professor Zangrillo said: 'In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy.'

But other scientists have hit back at such claims in the past and said there is no scientific evidence that the virus has changed at all.

Hospital coronavirus admissions were OVER-reported at peak of pandemic as patients with other illnesses were mistakenly included

The figures of those admitted to hospital for coronavirus during the peak of the pandemic were over-reported, it was revealed last night. People who were suffering from other illnesses were included in data collected to monitor the virus outbreak, according to the Daily Telegraph. The Government's Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) found that patients were categorised as Covid-19 hospital admissions if they had ever tested positive for the disease. And they were included in the number of people who were admitted specifically for coronavirus. Around 20,000 people a week were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 at the peak of the crisis in April, according to government figures. But following the findings from Sage, the correct figure is not yet known. It comes after a recent review into the way Public Health England calculated coronavirus deaths. Thousands of people who died from causes unrelated to the virus were initially included in the statistics. The UK's coronavirus death toll was then revised and fell by more than 5,000 as it only included those who died within 28 days of a positive test. Professor Graham Medley, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was asked to examine the situation by Sage. Professor Graham Medley, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was asked to examine the situation by Sage He told the Daily Telegraph: 'By June, it was becoming clear that people were being admitted to hospital for non-Covid reasons who had tested positive many weeks before. 'Consequently, the NHS revised its situation report to accommodate this.' Experts have warned that the over-counting is a worry because the hospital admission figures had been used to look at the current circumstances of the crisis. Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: 'The admissions data is a crucial point.. I'd say it is more important than the death data because it is the best marker of the impact of the disease.' The problem was first noticed on June 18, when government scientists made their worries clear that non-Covid patients were being added to the outbreak statistics, according to Sage minutes. Public Health England, the NHS Medical Director and Professor Medley were asked to assemble a group. 'So, we saw with the death statistics, that initially a "Covid death" was defined as any death in which the person had previously tested positive,' Professor Medley said. 'The same is true, but even more so, for hospital admissions. In order to capture all the potential manifestations of the disease at the start of the epidemic, all admissions of people who had tested positive were counted as "Covid-related admissions".' The NHS then started to only count coronavirus admissions as people who tested positive within a short timeframe of entering hospital, from July 1. NHS England revealed there had not been a change in the trend line for admissions since the method was altered. But it is not known how many people were wrongly registered as coronavirus patients before July. And experts say the correct number is needed to also work out death rates. Prof Heneghan added: 'If admissions are going up, then that should drive the lockdown. But currently you have people with active infections, those who have tested positive but have been discharged, and those who have contracted it in hospital, so it isn't helpful. 'This really does need sorting out as we go into the winter, otherwise we get into this noisy position where we can't understand what's going on. 'There will be loads of people coming in with different conditions who have survived this, so it's a huge problem. It's clouding our judgment as to whether the disease is having a significant impact.'

By Kamal Sultan For The Daily Mail
ISTANBUL, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Turkey's central bank raised forex and lira required reserve ratios for commercial banks on Thursday, continuing a series of policy tightening steps that have slowed the decline of the lira as it fell to record lows.

After keeping its policy rate unchanged, the central bank said it raised the reserve ratio for banks fulfilling real credit growth conditions by 700 basis points for precious metal deposit accounts, and by 200 basis points for all other forex liabilities.

It raised the required ratio by 200 basis points for Turkish lira deposit and participation fund liabilities of up to 6 month maturity and other liabilities of up to 1 year maturity. It raised the ratio for other liabilities with up to 3 year maturities by 150 basis points.

It said 17 billion lira and $8.5 billion of forex and gold liquidity is expected to be withdrawn from the market as a result of the move. (Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen Editing by Dominic Evans)
Concerns among Indian expatriate community members in Kuwait government service are growing after comments by the countrys finance minister about its capacity to pay salaries beyond October.

Kuwaiti Finance Minister Barak Al-Sheetan has said that the country has $6.5 billion worth of liquidity, which would not be enough to cover state salaries beyond October.

According to a report by The Hindu BusinessLine, the oil-rich nations government is withdrawing money from the General Reserve Fund at a rate of $5.5 billion a month and this would result in weakening liquidity.

The Gulf nation will not be able to borrow from international markets unless there is a significant improvement in global oil prices.

Experts suggest that private entities, especially providing contracts and other indirect services to the Kuwaiti government, would be materially affected.

According to the news report, this could delay disbursal of salaries and payments to citizens and more expats working in the government sector. Kuwaits expat community is dominated by Indians. Around 30,000 Indians may be employed directly in sectors associated with the government.
13 places in East Chinas Anhui province have been recognized as the provinces annual summer resorts, bringing the total number to 58, according to a meeting held in Hefei, capital of the province, on Wednesday.

Here are the 13 destinations for summer-holiday-makers:

Jiapeng township in Jixi county

Tafan township in Qianshan city

Lingda township in Langxi county

Manzhuang in Shitai county

Tuju Campsite in Huangshan city

Shuizhukeng in Qizili township, Shexian county

Danlongsi township in Huoshan county

Chashui township in Qianshan city

Bailiu township in Zongyang county

Changan township in Jixi county

Heyetiantian Farm in Zongyang county

Hongyang township in Wuhu county

Banqiaotou township in Jixi county

The selection, in its fourth year, was jointly launched by Anhui Public Meteorological Service Center, Anhui Radio & TV Station and Anhui Global Culture Tourism Group Co. amid rising demand for vacations to get away from summer heat.



Weather conditions, forest coverage and air quality were taken into consideration while rating candidates.

From 2017 to 2020, 58 towns, villages and scenic spots made the cut. Most of them are located near the Dabie Mountains, Huanshang Mountain, the Anhui-section Yangtze River and Chaohu Lake.




Former President George W. Bush on Friday backed Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine in his first public endorsement of the 2020 election cycle.

'She's honest period. She's forthright period. She brings dignity into a world that has gotten really ugly,' Bush said, after lunching with Collins at his seaside home. Collins said the support of the former president and his wife, Laura, 'means the world to me.'

In June, The New York Times reported that the Republican ex-president would not be supporting the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump, citing people familiar with Bush's thinking.

Former President George W. Bush (right) gives Republican Sen. Susan Collins (left) an elbow bump outside his Kennebunkport, Maine home. Bush endorsed Collins' Senate re-election bid Friday

Sen. Susan Collins (right) speaks to reporters after having lunch with former President George W. Bush (left) and former first lady Laura Bush (center) in Kennebunkport, Maine Friday

Sen. Susan Collins. (left), former first lady Laura Bush (center) and former GOP President George W. Bush (right) walk out to greet the press after having lunch together Friday

Former President George W. Bush called Sen. Susan Collins 'honest period. She's forthright period.' Collins is facing a formidable challenge in November, running against Democrat Sara Gideon. Democrats want Collins picked off over her vote for Justice Brett Kavanaugh

The meeting took place at the Bush family compound at Walker Point, Kennebunkport, where President George W. Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, spent much of the year until his death in 2018

The Bush family compound at Walker Point, Kennebunkport, Maine, where the late former President George H. W. Bush spent his final days

His brother Jeb Bush, who ran against Trump in 2016, isn't sure how he'll vote, the same sources said.

Bush has largely stayed out of the political fray since he left the White House in 2009, and his endorsement is a welcome boost for Collins, who is waging her most difficult campaign yet as she seeks a fifth term.

The centrist senator has become a top target for Democrats, who cast her as an enabler of President Donald Trump's agenda, even as she occasionally tries to distance herself from his more controversial statements and policies.

That national attention has helped Collins' opponent, Democrat Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, amass a sizable cash advantage.

The nod from the former president, whose politics appear centrist by Trump-era standards, may nudge some traditional Republicans into Collins' corner.

Trump has not endorsed the Maine senator, whose race is among a handful critical to Republicans' hopes of keeping control of the Senate, where they have a 53-47 advantage.

Collins, meanwhile, has not said whether she intends to vote for Trump.

The endorsement is a rare move for Bush.

While he has done some private fundraisers for candidates since leaving office, this is his first show of public support for a candidate this year, his office said.

Collins worked with Bush when he was president and served as the first chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Back then, Collins served alongside another Republican from Maine, Olympia Snowe, who has since retired from the Senate. Collins is now the only Republican member of Congress from New England.

Bush's family has long had a compound in Kennebunkport, where his father, former President George H.W. Bush, spent much of the year until his death in 2018.

The younger Bush has increasingly spent time at the home.

Collins has been popular in Maine, but Democrats were incensed when she voted for Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court and for Trump's tax breaks.

Democrats view unseating Collins this fall as a key to retaking control of the Senate, and Gideon drew early support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Gideon already has raised more than $24 million, compared with more than $16 million for Collins.

That doesn't include $3.8 million for Gideon that was crowd-sourced by critics of Collins during the Kavanaugh debate.

Gideon also has picked up a number of endorsements from groups that previously backed Collins: the Human Rights Campaign and the Maine State Council of Machinists, for example.

The Planned Parenthood Victory Fund, which was neutral in Collins' 2014 race, is backing Gideon.
Sheila Sewell of Oklahoma City came out with her sister, Lana Reed of Muskogee, in her first partisan political event. She worked in the courts for 30 years and couldnt be political, she said, but she retired in March and wasnt going to miss a chance to make her stance known.

She remembered watching the results pour in for Trumps election in 2016.

We were devastated, she said. I certainly dont want to feel that way again.

Sewell said she views Donald Trumps presidency as a great disappointment, both personally and for the country, and shes ready for America to get back to a kinder way of living.

Her sentiments were shared by many at the event. Sylvia Insall of Tulsa, when asked what motivated her and Sammie Kraushaar to come out to the watch party, said, Well, were both staunch Democrats, and weve had  I started to say enough  too much of Trump.

A former political science teacher, Insall said she typically watches both major parties conventions on election years and that shes going to try to stick to her tradition for the Republican National Convention next week, as well.
As the United States exceeds 5 million reported coronavirus cases -- the world's first country to do so -- epidemiologists have pinpointed what helped to set the country on this path.

Research from the University of Notre Dame estimates that more than 100,000 people were already infected with COVID-19 by early March -- when only 1,514 cases and 39 deaths had been officially reported and before a national emergency was declared. The study provides insight into how limited testing and gaps in surveillance during the initial phase of the epidemic resulted in so many cases going undetected. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We weren't testing enough," said Alex Perkins, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and population biology and the lead of the study. "The number of unobserved infections appears to be due to very low rates of case detection during a critical time, when the epidemic was really starting to take hold in this country. Part of it was the availability of testing, but another huge part was case definitions and the fact that they were overly restrictive early on."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was reported in January. Early guidance on identifying possible infection included respiratory symptoms, and travel to Wuhan, China -- where an outbreak occurred in December 2019.

"While we were focusing on people coming back from China, we were ignoring people coming from Europe, and actually quite a bit of the initial seeding of the virus into various parts of the United States came from Italy," Perkins said.

While awareness and concern over COVID-19 grew from January to March, it wasn't until Feb. 29 that Washington became the first state to declare a state of emergency -- closing schools and restaurants and imposing restrictions on large gatherings. By mid-March several states followed, but a lack of a coordinated national response created a number of variables as each state decided for itself how to react to a rising number of cases.

By focusing their analysis on the January to March timeframe, when little to no action had been taken on a wide scale, Perkins and his team were able to incorporate a constant into their models. While other studies provide a sense of how school closures and lockdowns slowed the spread of the virus, looking at transmission for the first three months of the year gave the epidemiologists a clearer picture of how the virus emerged and spread throughout the country so quickly.

"It was such a crucial period in terms of how this situation started," said Perkins. "We look at the United States now and compare it to other countries like South Korea or Germany, New Zealand or Vietnam, any number of countries who have done a much, much better job controlling transmission. The key differences really come down to the time period we examine in this study. Those countries had adequate surveillance up and running at that time, whereas we show that throughout most of February the United States missed the vast majority of infections that were already out there. This particular timeframe that we focus on is really important for figuring out how we got here in the first place."

The study used a simulation model beginning on Jan. 1, using data reported by Johns Hopkins University on confirmed cases and deaths, accounting for asymptomatic infections, case fatality rates and local transmission. Perkins and his team first generated an estimate of total infections in the U.S. through March 12. The team then factored in how detection of symptomatic infections changed over time and estimated the number of unobserved infections during this time.

A significant aspect of the analysis is the model's incorporation of many uncertainties that played out in the early days of the epidemic in the U.S., which Perkins said speaks to the inherent nature of a novel and emerging infectious disease. The number of unobserved and unreported infections also speaks to how critical containment strategies are when battling infectious diseases.

"I think the fact that there were so many infections by the second half of February speaks to the importance of and what we could have done in terms of containment," said Perkins. "If you think about Ebola or SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) or other emerging infectious diseases, there have been cases that show up in the U.S. or other countries where officials move quickly to get ahead of them. They isolate those people, they do contact tracing -- and transmission is extinguished. I think a lot of us were hoping that would be the situation with this disease. By the time we got to February, the problem had grown so big, containing the virus wasn't possible."

The potential for misdiagnosis and the limitations of surveillance are huge issues across infectious diseases, especially emerging infectious diseases, he added. As illustrated in the COVID-19 study, while public health officials must work quickly to understand how a new virus functions, without appropriate testing or coordinated response strategies the risk grows for infections to go unreported.

###

Perkins is an affiliated member of Notre Dame's Eck Institute for Global Health and Environmental Change Initiative. Co-leads of the study include Sean M. Cavany and Sean M. Moore, and co-authors include Anita Lerch, Rachel J. Oidtman and Marya Poterek, all at Notre Dame.

The study originally appeared prior to peer review on medRxiv, a preprint server for health sciences research.

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation through a Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant.
A freak polar blast is set to hit Australia this weekend and batter the east coast with icy winds, heavy rain and snow.

The deep low-pressure trough will see snow fall for the first time in 15 years across areas 500m above sea level in the ACT and New South Wales.

The Bureau of Meteorology's Dean Narramore explained the 'strong cold front' would even bring snow to the outskirts of Melbourne and Sydney.

He said the front 'will drag air all the way up from Antarctica, bringing showers, hail, thunder and widespread snow across many parts of southeastern Australia.'

Spectacular satellite imagery showing the deep Antarctic air mass approaching south east Australia. pic.twitter.com/V2PNsKkzrD  Andrew Miskelly (@andrewmiskelly) August 20, 2020

The southeast coast of Australia (Sydney harbour pictured) will be hit with an Antarctic blast this weekend after a low pressure trough brings icy winds, rain and snow

Up to 100cm of snow will fall across alpine areas in Victoria and NSW (Thredbo pictured)

The meteorologist said the wild weather would 'sweep across Victoria and NSW on Friday with widespread showers, hail, thunder, strong and gusty winds.'

Mr Narramore explained the snow would fall down to at least 600m in Victoria and across NSW Central and Southern Tablelands.

'Widespread snow will spread across much of New South Wales later Friday and early Saturday, falling in places like Orange, Crookwell and the Blue Mountains.

'We'll also see snow about the outer parts of Melbourne including Mount Dandenong, Mount Macedon and many parts of the central and eastern ranges.

'Strong winds combined with heavy rainfall will lead to blizzard-like conditions at times for alpine areas on Friday and Saturday,' he said.

Mr Narramore warned the snow could reach 100cm and 'lead to numerous road closures and dangerous and hazardous driving conditions.'

Parts of Australia will also experience the coldest day of the year thanks to the wild winds and chilly temperatures that are likely to persist until Monday.

The strong cold front (pictured above) will bring snowfall to areas 500m above sea level in the ACT and New South Wales Tablelands for the first time in 15 years

Sydney's (pictured) maximum temperature will reach a mere 16C with a minimum of 8C on Saturday and winds of up to 40km/h

Perisher (pictured) recorded 15cm of fresh snow with more expected to fall over the weekend

Jane Golding from the Bureau of Meteorology said the 'unusual weather event' will send temperatures plummeting to 10C below average on Saturday.

'This could be the coldest day with the windchill factor we've seen all year,' Ms Golding said.

'Over the next few days we're expecting that system to really bring some high winds, some really cold temperatures and also some snow to quite low levels here in New South Wales that we don't normally see.

'We've already seen the start of that with some pretty gusty winds develop over a lot of NSW, those winds kicked up some dust over western NSW.'

Temperatures will plummet to a freezing 5C at Goulburn, Katoomba, Canberra and Orange, but the strong winds will make it feel more like -3C to -5C (Thredbo pictured)

Wind gusts will exceed 90km/h making it feel much colder than it actually is

Temperatures will plummet to a 5C at Goulburn, Katoomba, Canberra and Orange, but the strong winds will make it feel more like -3C to -5C, she said.

Sydney's maximum temperature will reach a mere 16C with a minimum of 8C on Saturday and winds of up to 40km/h.

Orange, Batemans Bay, Cooma and Lithgow will see snow fall for at least 36hours over the weekend.

NSW snowfields have been warned about the potential for blizzards and avalanches with Perisher reporting 15cm of fresh snow on Friday.

Bureau of Meteorology map showing where snow is expected to fall over the weekend

The State Emergency Service (SES) issued a weather warning for NSW (pictured: Thredbo)

The State Emergency Service (SES) issued a weather warning for New South Wales and warned sheep graziers to protect their livestock.

Further south in Melbourne, temperatures are expected to hover around a cool 12C for Friday and the weekend.

In Brisbane, the mercury will reach a maximum 23C, but there will be winds of up to 45km/h.

In Adelaide, there will be rain with minimum temperatures of just 6C over the weekend.

Perth will enjoy a mostly sunny day on Friday before some wet weather on Saturday and Sunday.

Temperatures in Hobart will sit at a minimum of just 3C and a maximum of 12C, with rain expected up until Monday.
Asim Abbasi's Churails  currently streaming on Zee5  is what many will call a 'game-changer'. In a candid interview, the filmmaker expands on his fiesty series based in Karachi.

Asim Abbasi's Churails is what many will call a 'game-changer'.

This becomes apparent in the second episode, when a runaway teenage girl is called back home by her parents because they 'miss' her. Hours after the girl has returned, it becomes sufficiently clear that the parents want to marry her off to a stranger. Just when the audience thinks that the young girl's fate is sealed, like a million others in the subcontinent, a handful of her accomplices barge into the apartment with masks on their faces and (toy) guns in their hands. The girl is making her way to the front door, evidently shaken by parents' duplicity when an accomplice pulls her back to face her father. Pointing the gun to the father's temple, she demands that he look his daughter in the eye and say 'Jaa Zubaida jaa... jee le apni zindagi'.

Creator Asim Abbasi's subversive nod to DDLJ's famous climax is not subtle, but his craft is what makes the scene soar. A frenetic song plays in the background, and the camera follows the gang navigating their way through the mohalla's narrow staircases. It's an adrenaline-charged scene that will 'entertain' viewers not just with its whimsical humour, but also its revisionist gaze.

"It was my version of this much romanticised trope in Hindi films, where entire subplots are spent trying to get the approval of parents... and that's okay. But there also needs to be a cut-off point where the individuals take their own life decisions. It (the scene) was the "Churails" taking a stand, that you will not force us to get married like this, we will get the permission to live life on our own terms... by hook or crook, Abbasi says on a zoom call from London.

Born in Karachi (Pakistan), an 18-year-old Abbasi moved to London to pursue an undergraduate degree from the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). Devouring '80s Bollywood films like Jaanbaaz and Khoon Bhari Maang during his growing up years, Abbasi quit his 9-year investment banking career and enrolled himself in the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS, London). Making his feature film debut with 2018's Cake, Abbasi has established himself as an assured and exciting new-age voice from Pakistan. In Churails, it all goes to the next level.

Having been toying with years worth of stray notes around subjugation of women, LGBTQI rights, the prevalent colourism in society on post-its and brief notes scribbled into his notebook, Abbasi first started writing the pitch for Churails in the summer of 2018. Getting approval for the pitch in August, 2018, what followed was some of the most intense writing sessions he'd ever done in his life. "The writing process was really fast because I was chasing deadlines. Even though it took me close to a year to write Cake, I knew I had to do this sooner because we wanted to go into production by 2019. I was writing 16-18 hours a day, every day for eight months. And you're spending all your time with these characters, so you're obviously going a little mad," Abbasi says about the hectic process.

"Churails is a messy show, and I mean this in the best manner possible. Its ambitions are boundless, the show is unapologetic about its politics. There's more than the routine check on one's privileges, there's more than mere lip-service to equal rights. It wants to do right by everyone. Much like its two upper-class central characters, Sara (Sarwat Gilani Mirza) and Jugnu (Yasra Rizvi) who want to make the philandering men of Karachi 'pay' for their indiscretions, even the show's cinematic language starts out as something thriving on catty dialogue. Abbasi is aware of this, given how he finds a way to mention 'Desperate Housewives' in a throwaway line in the first episode. "The beauty of having full control over content (which Zee5 gave me), is you get the opportunity to experiment more often. You watch Ep 1 of Churails, and it's not the same show when you're watching Ep 7," he says.

Sara and Jugnu recruit Batool (Nimra Bucha) and Zubaida (Mehar Bano) to start an under-the-radar detective agency, called (what else, but) Churails, that helps the wronged 'trophy wives' reach a hefty divorce settlement, and also supports the vulnerable and discarded not-so-well-off women in society. The intentions are stellar, and yet life (like a series) hardly ever turns out exactly like we imagined it. There are no easy truths, the world isn't full of one-dimensional villains. Housing their detective crew behind an upmarket fashion boutique and the tagline Mard ko Dard Hoga, the 'Churails' soon find themselves battling women in denial about their husbands' infidelity, occasionally sauntering into circumstances way beyond their control.

"Look, there are lots of worries when you're writing a show like this. You want to be doing justice whether it's to the issues of women, the LGBTQI community or the class discussion. Even now, I'll hear that the show didn't push the class discussion far enough, it's obviously subjective. It depends on the baggage that the audience is bringing to the show. In Cake it was a very privileged POV, something I wanted to widen with Churails because I think oppression of women have many forms, and can be found in different classes of the society. It would be unfair to say that only working-class women suffer from oppression," says Abbasi.

Fully aware of the slippery slope he was on as a man writing about female rage, he was also sure of what the show shouldn't end up like. "I didn't want it to feel like it was written with a male gaze. There will always be noise from certain quarters, but I didn't want to be in a position where the show was fully shutdown because it didn't reflect women's issues or rage in any way whatsoever." And to keep his 'gaze' in check, Abbasi surrounded himself with ADs, a script consultant, who Abbasi describes as 'strong, smart women with lots of opinions' constantly questioning what Abbasi had written. "I felt this was always steering me in the direction of a complex truth... ensuring that I wasn't doing injustice to their stories."

We get a glimpse of the show's terrific intentions in episode four, featuring a tender scene in which the gay husband owns up in front of his wife. "It would have been far easier for me to show a vile, lecherous and straight husband, deserving a 'bad death' so to speak. But that wasn't morally ambiguous for me, I'm more interested in the grey area. I wanted to show where one person draws the line, and how that could be completely different in the case of another person." The fact that Abbasi doesn't make a 'villain' out of the gay husband is commendable. "I think a lot of these relationships are birthed out of societal pressures, where gay men are forced to marry women. They're not all necessarily bad, you know?"

Starting out as a frothy, subcontinent cousin of Big Little Lies, Churails surpasses most expectations with its many, messy detours. One that passes through a botched murder case, more than one subplot of missing women, a cancerous cosmetic product and a secretive prostitution ring run by the wealthy men of Karachi. For a show that brings up Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope strategy through one of its primary characters, Zubaida (also an amateur boxer), it's not surprising how it ropes us in with a certain kind of promise and goes on to deliver something entirely unexpected. The latter part of the show, even though far-fetched, takes such a big swing... that it's hard to remain indifferent.

In a fabulously disorienting scene, Zubaida enters a party where the men wear animal masks (looking almost Lynchian), with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake playing in the background. It's an eerie scene where women are being auctioned based on the mens definition of 'perfection' in physical beauty, like they were livestock. "I had planted small seeds of surrealism in the previous episodes, and the surrealism comes to the forefront in Ep 7. And of course, when you're thinking surreal, you always think about (David) Lynch. I'm a huge fan, and I'm sure many things that appeared in the scene might have looked like a nod to him. This episode is the culmination and subversion of everything we've been talking about. The overt references to fairytales during the show, how we dress Zubaida in that red dress to look like Little Red Riding Hood, with a wolf beside her. The montage where shes getting ready is almost like a nod to Cinderella dressing up for the ball. I think all those elements were there, and there's a certain question about the 'reality' of this episode. We were going for 80% real, and 20% hyper-real," Abbasi speaks of his favourite episode.

One of the reasons why Asim Abbasi's Churails feels so sincere and rooted, is thanks to its first-rate casting. Sarwat Gilani Mirza's Sara is not only someone who gives up on her career in law to become the 'perfect' wife of a politician, but her looks and her privilege are brought up in more than one scene. Yasra Rizvi's Jugnu, nearly a Pakistani counterpart of a Swara Bhasker-template character, is the hard-drinking socialite best friend, showering her friends with a generous share of 'bitches'. Mehar Bano is earnest in her role as the baby of the group, often becoming the voice of young idealism, when the group becomes too comfortable while catering to the 'loaded' wives. However, one of the revelations of this show is Nimra Bucha, in the role of the mercurial Batool. Having served 20 years for bludgeoning her husband, Batool's steely stares become a monument in the show.

It's also interesting how Churails views the 'other' women in the show - those siding with the powerful men. It ensures that even though they're not fully etched-out characters, the show doesn't do disservice by omitting their agency. Even if it is with a line of dialogue. Like how a wife insist her husband 'eat the fucking pancakes!' or how a CEO recounts the many 'jobs' that have led her to this position of power.

There's an obvious affinity between Abbasi's projects and Hindi film music. While his directorial debut, Cake, primarily featured many classic songs from the 60s and 70s like Mohammad Rafi's 'Yahoo', his streaming debut features some eclectic choices of contemporary Hindi film songs like Da Da Dasse (Udta Punjab), Udaan title track and Kaala Re (Gangs of Wasseypur). "In Churails, the choice of Hindi songs was more situational. There were choices that were presented to me by my editors. One of my editors is Kamal Khan (also the director of the acclaimed Laal Kabootar) was the first one to put Kaala Re in the edit. And once, I saw it I said I absolutely need this. Something similar happened with the Udta Punjab song, thankfully they were all a good fit for the show."

Abbasi's projects could be labelled 'brave' given the general notion around the work coming out of Pakistan. Is the general public ready for the work that Abbasi wants to put out? "I don't know for sure, and frankly I don't know if we should be concerned about whether they're ready yet. Audience will get ready. You know, content is like legacy. It's not made for just today. To be honest, I think the audience has turned out to be much more ready than I had anticipated. Had you asked me this same question around two weeks back, I would've said 'I don't know'. But looking at the feedback we're getting for Churails, they were ready and they were waiting. Acceptance aa jaayegi, nazariye change honge. We just need to try and be as authentic as possible and hold a mirror to society."

Before Churails, there have been a spate of recent Hindi films and shows that have championed 'girl power', and treated feminism like a punchline. Unlike how every second line of Gunjan Saxena had a 'take flight' metaphor, Abbasis show is not as patronising. Addressing racism, classism, rights of the LGBTQI, Churails does become a dense show by the end. At a running time of 11 and half hours, Churails often meanders. Getting its name from the similar kind of homegrown folklore that we saw recently in Bulbbul, Churails digs beyond the obvious. It embraces the mess left behind by the best of intentions, and how most self-appointed heroes are riddled with doubts over the complex nuances of justice. It grapples with the many facets of truth, and that counts for its biggest win.




Korea's major telecom operators are expanding cooperation with financial firms for data-based services, industry officials said Friday, as they seek new businesses based on their troves of user data after changes to the country's data privacy laws.







Earlier this month, amendments to the Personal Information Protection Act came into force, allowing companies to flexibly utilize user data that have pseudonymized personally identifiable information.







Mobile carriers have joined hands with financial firms to develop new services based on such user data to boost their non-mobile business.







Top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. has partnered with local credit card firm Shinhan Card Co. to utilize their data for tourism services. The two companies agreed to merge their pseudonymized user data to develop more accurate tourism information, such as most visited destinations, establishments users spend the most at and most-used mobile applications.







The telecom operator will merge its base station access data with Shinhan Card's credit card transaction data to analyze tourist spending habits in the southern port city of Busan, according to the Financial Security Institute.







The two companies said they plan to provide the analyzed data to regional governments to boost tourism amid the pandemic, and expand cooperation in other sectors such as retail.







Earlier this week, telecom giant KT Corp. joined hands with Woori Financial Group to develop new financial and telecommunication products that better cater to user needs based on their data.







The two firms, which hold major stakes in internet-only bank K-Bank through subsidiaries, have also agreed to collaborate in artificial-intelligence and cloud-based services.







No. 3 telecom operator LG Uplus Corp. has also partnered with Shinhan Bank and local IT services firm CJ OliveNetworks Co. earlier this year to share their data, develop new data-based services and conduct joint marketing based on the companies' shared data.







The mobile carrier has also partnered with LG Group's IT services affiliate LG CNS and the Financial Security Institute for similar data-based collaborations.







Amid the data drive from telecom operators, civic groups, including the progressive People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, have expressed concerns over potential misuse of personal data for commercial purposes.







Korea has launched the Personal Information Protection Commission to monitor such violations. (Yonhap)


Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) rebuked President Trump at the Democratic National Convention for not confronting Vladimir Putin over intelligence reports that alleged Russia paid the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Why it matters: Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost her legs in the Iraq War, sought to draw a sharp contrast between Trump and Biden, whose son Beau was deployed to Iraq, on the issues of national security and protecting U.S. troops.

What she's saying: "Joe Biden understands the sacrifices because he has made them himself. When his son Beau deployed to Iraq, his burden was also shouldered by his family. Joe knows the fear military families live because he's felt that dread never knowing if your deployed loved one is safe," Duckworth said.

"That is the kind of leader our service members deserve, one who understands the risks they face and who would actually protect them by doing his job as commander-in-chief. Instead, they have a coward-in-chief who won't stand up to Vladimir Putin, read his intelligence briefings, or even publicly admonish adversaries for reportedly putting bounties on our troops' heads."

"As president, Joe Biden would never let tyrants manipulate him like a puppet. He would never pervert our military to stroke his own ego. He would never turn his back on our troops, or threaten them on Americans peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights."

The bottom line: "Donald Trump doesn't deserve to call himself commander-in-chief for another four minutes, let alone another four years," Duckworth concluded. "Our troops deserve better. Our country deserves better."
LAFAYETTE, LA  EatLafayette, in partnership with the Lieutenant Governor's office, is kicking off a Louisiana State Park Trip Giveaway on Monday, August 24.

The giveaway will last through Sunday, September 13, when they will select two winners to receive a two-night stay at a Louisiana State Park of their choosing. One of the winners will also receive a free shrimp boil for 10 friends from an EatLafayette restaurant courtesy of Louisiana Seafood.

The public can register by eating at a locally owned restaurant from the list available at EatLafayette.com, look for the QR code or website on the giveaway poster or flyer located at participating restaurants, and fill out the digital registration form every time you EatLafayette for a chance to win.

With the Taste of EatLafayette Kick-Off and Louisiana Seafood Cookoff being canceled, we wanted to create something that would help give one last push for the campaign and encourage everyone to continue to eat local. We reached out to the Lieutenant Governor's office, and they quickly helped by providing the Louisiana State Park giveaway and topped it off with a shrimp boil. Retail sales showed record-breaking restaurant sales in June, the highest amount recorded during the pandemic, and the most ever recorded in the month of June. Hopefully that trend will continue through September, and we hope the giveaway will assist in driving traffic to our locally owned restaurants as well," says Ben Berthelot, President/CEO of Lafayette Travel.
LA County Court backs John MacArthur, says Grace Community Church can worship indoors

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The Los Angeles County Superior Court announced Thursday that there's no court order prohibiting Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church from holding indoor worship services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are pleased with the outcome today, Jenna Ellis, special counsel for the Thomas More Society and one of the attorneys representing MacArthur and his church, said in a statement to The Christian Post.

Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff correctly found there is no court order prohibiting Grace Community Church from holding indoor services, she added. LA County continues to harass and target Pastor MacArthur. Having failed to get a court order to shut down the church they have sought three times, theyre going to try again by hauling us back into court. Ironically, LA County said in its application for contempt that, Grace Church cannot thumb its nose at the court when decisions dont go its way, yet thats precisely what LA County is now doing themselves. We will simply continue to defend our clients constitutionally protected rights because church is essential."

Officials with Los Angeles County had wanted MacArthur and the leadership of the non-denominational, evangelical megachurch held in contempt of court after holding an in-person church service at their Sun Valley, California, campus last Sunday.

The county claimed that Grace Community Church should face $8,000 in fines in addition to attorneys fees. The county also seeks an additional $12,000 in fines for violations of court orders  $1,500 per violation.

The LA County Board of Supervisors has decided to continue their unconstitutional attack against Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church, Ellis, who is also a Trump campaign adviser and lawyer, said.

They are now asking the court to hold the church in contempt for simply being open for worship last Sunday, she continued in a released statement. Pastor MacArthur is standing firm that church is essential and has no plans to yield to this tyrannical board, which is clearly defying the constitutions mandate to protect religious liberty.

The Sun Valley church has been holding in-person worship services for the past four weeks despite Gov. Gavin Newsom's second-round of lockdown orders prohibiting indoor church gatherings in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Grace Community filed a lawsuit last week against state restrictions, accusing government officials of selectively restricting gatherings amid the pandemic.



When many went to the streets to engage in political or peaceful protests purportedly against racism and police brutality, these protesters refused to comply with the pandemic restrictions. Instead of enforcing the public health orders, public officials were all too eager to grant a de facto exception for these favored protestors, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit was filed after MacArthur received a cease and desist letter prohibiting indoor worship and threatened him with fines and imprisonment should Grace Community continue to worship in their church building.

Before last weeks lawsuit was filed, MacArthur and the elders at Grace Community Church had released a statement explaining why it's the churchs biblical duty to remain open.

Church leaders informed civic leaders that they have exceeded their legitimate jurisdiction, and faithfulness to Christ prohibits us from observing the restrictions they want to impose on our corporate worship services.

As His people, we are subject to His will and commands as revealed in Scripture, stated MacArthur, joined by the pastors and elders of the church. Therefore, we cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship or other regular corporate gatherings. Compliance would be disobedience to our Lord's clear commands.

MacArthur recently told The Daily Wires Andrew Klavan that he's "not surprised" by the opposition the church is facing. He said the fact that Satan and all his forces constantly work against the Kingdom of God is a basic theological truth.

So we get it, MacArthur said. "The whole world, says the Apostle John, lies in the power of the evil one. So is there a massive supernatural conspiracy against the Kingdom of God? Of course, but that doesn't mean every person is violently against the Church. Satan works with those who will acquiesce to his leadership at whatever level they will acquiesce.

The pastor said the church is always going to have to fight spiritual battles, adding that Satan will find all kinds of ways to try to silence the Church.

And let me just pivot a little bit to say this: The Church in America has been so caught up in pragmatism; it has drunk the Kool-Aid of trying to devise a religion that non-religious people will like and accept, that it's afraid to be courageous because it might offend somebody, he concluded.

A full hearing in the case is set for Sept. 4.
Members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) communication team across the country have been asked to step up their work and ensure that the numerous policies and programmes being implemented by government are adequately explained to the electorate.

Mr Yaw Dabie Appiah-Mensah, a leading member of the NPP who made the call, observed that with a few months to the elections, it was incumbent on the partys communication machinery to device effective plans and strategies to sell the governments good works to the public to further enhance the partys chances in the elections.

Although Akufo-Addos administration has rolled out major campaign policies in office, the partys communication department is not doing well to communicate these policies to whip up the enthusiasm of many Ghanaians, he said in an interview in Sunyani.

He stated that it was about time the partys communications machinery sat up and came up with innovative means of defusing the propaganda been peddled by the opposition NDC.

In his opinion, the opposition NDC seems to have better communication machinery as compared to that of the NPP and called on the partys leadership to attach maximum seriousness to the communication aspect of the campaign.

He warned that the ruling NPP will not have it easy going forward if it fails to resource its communication department to march NDC boot for boot.

Mr Yaw Dabie Appiah urged the party to quickly recruit communication strategists to spearhead the propagation of the government policies across the media landscape.
But in the past week alone, a deposition from a former senior official and video footage of stacks of cash changing hands have circulated widely, as members of Mexicos political elite simultaneously point fingers at one another. Almost none of those claims has been verified, and the video clips lack context, but taken together they have ignited a national conversation about corruption that has reached the countrys halls of power.
Moscow: Doctors in the Siberian city of Omsk refused to authorize the transfer of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny to a German hospital, his spokeswoman said Friday.

Navalny remains in a coma in intensive care after a suspected poisoning his allies link to his political activity.

The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Familys decision to transfer him is not enough, Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted. Omsk is about 4,200 kilometers (2,500 miles) east of Berlin, roughly a six-hour flight.

The 44-year-old Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to a hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. His team says a plane with all the necessary equipment is ready to take Navalny to a German clinic.

Navalnys ally Ivan Zhdanov said Friday that police found a very dangerous substance in Navalnys system, but officials refuse to disclose which substance it is.

Yarmysh also said in her tweet that the ban on transferring Navalny is needed to stall and wait until the poison in his body can no longer be traced. Yet every hour of stalling creates a threat to his life.

Like many other opposition politicians in Russia, Navalny has been frequently detained by law enforcement and harassed by pro-Kremlin groups. In 2017, he was attacked by several men who threw antiseptic in his face, damaging an eye.

Last year, Navalny was rushed to a hospital from prison, where he was serving a sentence following an administrative arrest, with what his team said was suspected poisoning. Doctors said he had a severe allergic attack and discharged him back to prison the following day.

Navalnys Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. Last month, he had to shut the foundation after a financially devastating lawsuit from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.

The most prominent member of Russias opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but was barred from running.

He set up campaign offices across Russia and has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of Russias ruling party, United Russia. One of his associates in Khabarovsk, a city in Russias Far East that has been engulfed in mass protests against the arrest of the regions governor, was detained last week after calling for a strike at a rally.
A Canadian dollar coin, commonly known as the "Loonie", is pictured in this illustration picture taken in Toronto

By Fergal Smith

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar was little changed against a broadly stronger greenback on Friday as investors rewarded the currency for ongoing signs of economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis, with the loonie advancing for the third straight week.

Canadian retail sales rose by a record 23.7% in June, rising above February levels for the first time since shutdowns tied to the virus, Statistics Canada said.

A staggered reopening from lockdowns, supported by fiscal stimulus, is likely paying off for Canada's economy, with activity forecast to rebound in the current quarter twice as fast as in the United States, its biggest trading partner by far.

"Canada is doing really well on the COVID-19 compared to the U.S. and Europe," said Greg Anderson, global head of foreign exchange strategy at BMO Capital Markets in New York. "It makes sense you'd see the currency start to rally on both fronts as a result of that."

The euro <EUR=> fell as an August batch of business surveys pointed to a stuttering economic recovery, while the U.S. dollar <.DXY> climbed, notching its first weekly rise since mid-June, and the price of oil <CLc1> settled 1.1% lower at $42.34 a barrel. Oil is one of Canada's major exports.

The Canadian dollar <CAD=> was trading nearly unchanged at 1.3188 to the greenback, or 75.83 U.S. cents. The currency, which on Wednesday posted its strongest intraday level in nearly seven months at 1.3131, traded in a range of 1.3159 to 1.3234.

For the week, the loonie was up 0.6% despite the replacement of Canada's finance minister amid friction over spending policies. On Thursday, Ottawa announced measures that will add billions of dollars to spending, including the extension of an emergency income-support program.

Canada's 10-year yield <CA10YT=RR> eased more than 2 basis points on Friday, touching its lowest intraday level since Aug. 11 at 0.540%.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Andrea Ricci)
MS Vidyanandan By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When the Kerala Assembly meets for a single-day session on Monday, it would perhaps be the largest gathering of older adults in the state since the lockdown. According to Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister AK Balan, 71 legislators are aged 60 or above and 41 are aged 70 or above.

The senior citizens who should ideally observe a reverse quarantine in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic are forced to come to the capital to fulfill the Constitutional obligation of the House to meet once in every six months. The day would be eventful since the Opposition UDF will move a no-confidence motion against the government besides the election to the vacant Rajya Sabha seat.

The Law Minister is among those who view the session as a potential threat to the life of senior members. "As per the rules, these senior citizens are to undergo reverse quarantine. But it is a Constitutional obligation to convene the house. Ideally, it should have been limited to one hour. A day-long session poses a severe threat to the members. There is every chance for an infection and I'm really scared," he told The New Indian Express.

Balan who turned 72 this month rued that the ruling and opposition fronts had a "united stand to throw the vulnerable people into the mouth of the pandemic".

A press release issued by the Speaker's Office on Friday evening listed a number of precautionary measures including a revised seating arrangement. Unlike some of its counterparts, the Kerala Assembly has fixed seats for its members. The ministers, Opposition Leader and parliamentary party leaders in the front row are given chairs while all other members share two-seater sofas.

But on Monday, every member will be given a chair and they would be seated at least 1.5 m apart from others. Members will wear masks, face shields and gloves and will have sanitisers on their desks.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan reviewed the safety arrangements on Friday. He directed the officers to restrict the number of persons entering the complex on the day. The Chief Minister, finance minister, parliamentary affairs minister and opposition leader will be allowed to take their attenders inside the house. Staff of other ministers will have to wait outside. The chief secretary has been asked to restrict the number of persons to the officers gallery.

The house will go back to the traditional method of standing up or raising hands for voting as part of the assembly proceedings. This is because the electronic voting will not be possible in the new setting.

All entering the assembly complex will have to undergo thermal scanning. The legislators and their staff members are given two options for COVID-19 testing -- a PCR testing facility at their native places and antigen testing at the Assembly or the Legislative Hostel. A negative certificate is mandatory to attend the session but members who test positive will be allowed to cast their vote for the Rajya Sabha poll.

Legislature Secretary SV Unnikrishnan Nair said the arrangements were made in consultation with experts in the health department. "Members will be subjected to thermal screening when they come for the voting as well. This time the Election Commission will provide a separate pen to each member for voting," he said. The experts have allowed the use of the centralised air conditioner but the temperature should be maintained about 25 degree celsius. They have also advised to keep the doors open if the AC is used.

Besides the regular doctor, there would be two mobile medical units on duty. The antigen test which will begin at 7 a.m. is open to the staff members of the legislators and media persons.

The Indian Coffee House outlets in the complex will be open but only parcel food will be allowed. Legislators will be given food at the dining hall on the cellar floor. Hygienic food packets will be provided for refreshment and lunch. Entry is banned to the public gallery and speaker's gallery.
By Trend

Comments of Assistant to Azerbaijan's President, Head of Foreign Affairs Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev on the new National Security Strategy of Armenia have been featured by Bulgarian media, the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Bulgaria told Trend.

One of the leading Bulgarian media outlets, the Cross news agency, issued an article on August 19, 2020, which was based on the comments of Hikmat Hajiyev on the new security strategy of Armenia, said the embassy.

The article, posted on the Cross news agencys website in Bulgarian, presents Hikmat Hajiyev's reasoning about how Armenia occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan.

It also highlights Hajiyev's statements that, despite four UN Security Council resolutions, Armenia still has not withdrawn its troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, as well as the information he provided about Armenia's illegal activities, including illegal settlement, in these territories.

Furthermore, the article also provides Hajiyev's comments on the April 2016 battles and Armenia's intention to justify the fact of occupation by the principle of self-determination.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Aslam Khan, the younger brother of veteran actor Dilip Kumar, died early on Friday morning. He had diabetes, hypertension and ischaemic heart disease. He had tested positive for Covid-19. The news of his death was confirmed by Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai.

Two of Dilip Kumars brothers, Aslam and Eshan Khan, were admitted to Lilavati Hospital last Saturday. After Aslam complained of breathlessness, he was rushed to the hospital, along with Eshan. Both of them tested positive for Covid-19 and were immediately admitted at the coronavirus ward of the hospital. Their oxygen saturation had dropped below 80%.

Dr Jalil Parker from the hospital had earlier told Hindustan Times, They have been kept in ICU but we havent intubated them as yet. Considering their age and pre-condition health issues like diabetes and hypertension, we have to be extra careful while treating them. Eshan is about 90 years of age while Aslam Khan was a few years younger.

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Challenger voices defiance as Belarus cracks down Belarus opposition supporters have staged a wave of protests against the election results

Belarus opposition challenger Svetlana Tikhanovskaya voiced defiance on Friday after President Alexander Lukashenko's government opened a criminal probe into attempts by the opposition to "seize power".

In her first public comments since fleeing to Lithuania, Tikhanovskaya said Belarusians would "never accept the current leadership again" after a crackdown on mass protests following a disputed August 9 election.

"They can never forgive and forget all the violence that our citizens have suffered," she said.

Tikhanovskaya, a political novice who only put forward her candidacy when her blogger husband was arrested ahead of the vote, also told reporters she loved her homeland and planned to return "when I feel safe there".

"It should be clear to the president that there is a need for change. I hope that good sense prevails and the people will be heard and there will be new elections," she said, declining to comment on whether she would be a candidate in any fresh vote.

A nervous-looking Tikhanovskaya also refused to answer questions about her own safety or about what compelled her to leave Belarus in the aftermath of the election.

"As for threats, you know I don't think I would like to discuss this question now," she said in English.

- 'Fear and falsehoods' -

"Every person in our country feels fear and is scared now, but it's our mission to step over all our fears and move further," she added.

Supporters and the Lithuanian government have said she had little choice but to leave after coming under intense pressure from the authorities during a meeting at the Central Election Commission in Minsk.

Tikhanovskaya's campaign has inspired unprecedented mass protests in the former Soviet republic against Lukashenko's 26-year rule.

The strongman claimed a sixth term with 80 percent of the vote in the poll.

The EU has rejected Lukashenko's re-election and is planning sanctions against those it holds responsible for violence against protesters.

Story continues

Asked about Russian support for Lukashenko, Tikhanovskaya said: "I call on all countries of the world to respect the sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus."

"We don't want to live in fear and falsehoods any more," she said, calling for striking workers to liaise with the coordination council she has appointed to organise pro-democracy protests.

"The creation of the coordination council is aimed at negotiating a peaceful handover of power."

- Belarus engaging in 'intimidation' -

Belarus on Thursday opened a criminal probe into the opposition council, saying it was an unconstitutional attempt to topple Lukashenko.

A member of the Coordination Council, lawyer Maxim Znak, arrived Friday at the Minsk offices of the countrys Investigative Committee, where he had been summoned for questioning.

Supporters clapped and chanted "One for all, all for one!"

The EU on Friday demanded that Belarus halt the investigation, accusing the government of "intimidation".

"The Coordination Council, which consists of representatives of different parts of Belarusian society, reached out to the authorities for a dialogue and the authorities answered with the opening of a criminal case," EU foreign affairs spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said in a statement.

"In doing so, the Belarusian state authorities have once again reverted to intimidation based on political grounds," she said.

"We expect the Belarusian authorities to stop the criminal case and instead to engage in a dialogue in view of moving towards a peaceful way out of the current crisis."

The United Nations also on Friday said it was "seriously concerned" about more than 100 people still being detained in Belarus in connection with the protests, even though several thousand more have been released.

"We call on the authorities in Belarus to immediately release all those who have been unlawfully or arbitrarily detained," said Elizabeth Throssel, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office.

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We dont know how many innocent people have been banged up, he says. Forty years ago, on August 17, 1980, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain lost their nine-week-old daughter, Azaria, taken from the familys tent at a camping ground at Uluru. Lindy and Michael Chamberlain enter yet another court. Credit:Nigel McNeil Despite the alert being raised within minutes and an immediate search by 250 people, Azaria's body was never found. The grieving parents were subjected to a national whispering campaign, four inquests, a trial, wrongful conviction, appeal, acquittal, a royal commission and finally exoneration. It took 20 years before a coroner finally found what the Chamberlains believed all along  that a dingo took the baby.

It was just after 8pm on Friday, October 29, 1982, when I walked into the City Court Hotel in Russell Street and announced to a bar full of detectives that a jury had just found Lindy Chamberlain guilty. The news was greeted with cheers and beers. It showed the irrational passion of the case. At least 20 detectives, all trained to keep open minds and base conclusions on facts, were convinced the Chamberlains were guilty of a crime committed more than 2000 kilometres away. There were no admissions, no witnesses, no proven cause of death and no body. People didnt like the way the Chamberlains reacted in the days and weeks after their baby went missing and police decided they were guilty, even after the first coroner  former Victoria Police officer Denis Dinny Barritt  concluded a dingo had entered the tent and taken Azaria. He was less than complimentary of the police examination and the quality of the forensic evidence. This didnt stop the police, who continued an investigation that led to the couple being charged and convicted, largely on the testimony of a swag of handpicked experts.

When it comes to experts, none comes more qualified than Cordner, who reviewed the Chamberlain case and believes such miscarriages of justice could be uncomfortably common. Police were stung into action, and forensic scientific and medical evidence developed in support of their view  and that of the public, it seemed  that Azaria had been murdered. Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of murder and Michael as an accessory largely on the testimony of so-called experts that Lindy used a five-minute window of opportunity to cut her daughters throat, then somehow managed to bury the body unseen and dump her clothing four kilometres away near a dingo lair. The biggest criminal trial in Australian history was a massive mistake: there was actually no crime, says Cordner. Loading

He quotes the scathing findings of the royal commission: It can be seen that some experts who gave evidence at the trial were over-confident of their ability ... Some of their opinions were based on unreliable or inadequate data ... Other evidence was given at the trial by experts who did not have the experience, facilities or resources necessary to enable them to express reliable opinions. Cordner has reviewed methods of dealing with wrongful convictions and found Australia's system is flawed. He argues we make it too hard to have a false conviction overturned and statistics indicate there are innocent people denied justice. And we do get it wrong. In 2007, Peter Smith was released after serving 12 months when police admitted he had been falsely charged with murder. In 2009, Farah Jama was released after serving 15 months for rape, convicted on faulty DNA evidence for a crime that was subsequently found not to have occurred.

Cordner says too often the world of politics clashes with the world of justice. Until very recently, it was close to impossible in Australia to get your case back into the courts after completion of all appeals. Essentially, if you still knew you were innocent, you had to convince your state attorney-general to send your case back to the courts. In 2018, Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula referred the case of Jason Roberts, convicted of the 1998 murders of police Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rod Miller, back to the Supreme Court. Roberts won the right to appeal against his conviction, which is presently before the full court. Jason Roberts is escorted into the Supreme Court, where he is trying to overturn his 35-year prison sentence for the murders of Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller in Moorabbin in 1998. Credit:Joe Armao It was a brave and correct decision by Pakula because while there are no votes in opening the cell door to a convicted police killer, there are credible allegations that questionable testimony helped convict Roberts.

Roberts may well win a retrial, although I believe there is sufficient admissible evidence to lead to a second conviction. This view concerned Roberts sufficiently that his legal team applied to the Supreme Court to have a Naked City column on the subject expunged from the World Wide Web. His lawyer argued I am so influential that this column, floating in the internet ether, would miraculously persuade a future jury to return a guilty verdict. The Ages lawyer, Sam White (no relation to Perry), countered that I am just a baggy-arsed hack who couldnt persuade a Frenchman to fricassee a frog. (The court agreed with our lawyer. My fervent hope is Slamming Sam isnt part of The Ages salary review committee.) Cordner says that since 1989, the US Innocence Project has used DNA to exonerate 375 people, including 21 on death row. The average term served by those wrongly convicted was 14 years. In virtually every case, they were financially and intellectually disadvantaged. Loading These are only the cases where there is concrete DNA proof of innocence. What about those which didn't feature the scientific silver bullet?

In one such case, an intellectually disabled young man, Christopher Abernathy, was charged and convicted on the 1984 murder of 15-year-old Kristina Hickey in Park Forest, Illinois. Key pieces of evidence were an alleged confession after 40 hours of interrogation and an alleged admission to a local associate (later found to be false). In 2014, a new DNA test cleared Abernathy. He was released after serving 28 years, sued and was awarded $US14 million ($19.35 million). In another case four men were wrongly convicted of rape and murder. Eighteen years later DNA testing cleared them and identified the three real killers, two of whom later pleaded guilty. The Innocence Project found the cause of false convictions included flawed eyewitnesses, faulty forensic evidence, false confessions and in 10 per cent of cases, the innocent were persuaded to plead guilty. It is gob-smacking that 10 per cent pleaded guilty to crimes they couldnt possibly have committed, says Cordner.

Why would the innocent plead guilty? Because it is part of a plea bargain. The suspect is offered a deal and chooses to take a discounted sentence rather than roll the dice on a trial where in many states the death penalty for murder remains a possibility. In Victoria, nearly 80 per cent of criminal prosecutions end in a guilty plea. England took the responsibility of reviewing potential unjust convictions away from politicians more than two decades ago, establishing the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1995. It has sent 673 cases back to the courts and 452 convictions have been overturned. Cordner says if the US and English reviews have uncovered so many cases of wrong and unsafe convictions, we need to accept that similar miscarriages of justice occur here. It shows we should not be complacent. Australia needs a Criminal Cases Review Commission similar to the English one.
TRUMP TO VISIT MILLS RIVER PACKING HOUSE MONDAY

President Donald Trump plans to visit Flavor 1st in Mills River to highlight the administration's Farmers to Families Food Box program, the White House announced.

Trump will and deliver remarks on the administrations support for American farmers and families through the coronavirus food assistance program.

The president will tour Flavor 1st Growers and Packers, which partners with Baptists on Mission to build the Farmers to Families Food Boxes and how the boxes are packaged and placed into refrigerated trucks and then delivered to families in need. Following the tour, he will deliver remarks outside.

"Nervous as a cat shot in the butt," Flavor 1st owner Kirby Johnson said Friday when asked how the preparations were going. "I've been in briefings all morning. They won't let me leave."

Mark Williams, director of the farm-promoting agency AgHC, said he expected to attend the event. Johnson and Williams said many local Republicans had already committed to attend the event.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue toured Flavor 1st last month and showcased the program. Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a senior adviser, tout the program for putting American farmers, ranchers and distributors of all sizes back to work while supporting over-burdened food banks and food-insecure families. Perdue and Ivanka Trump will join the President on the trip.

I am incredibly excited to join the President in North Carolina as he sees first-hand the incredible work being done through our Farmers to Families Food Box program, Ivanka Trump said. With nearly 70 million boxes of nutritious, locally-sourced fresh fruit, vegetable, milk and meat delivered to date, we are deeply appreciative of our strong and innovative partners like Baptists on Mission and Flavor First Growers and Packers that allow us to continue the fight to feed our nations hungry, support our farmers and strengthen our workforce.
Noah Donohoe 14, was found dead in a storm drain in June after going missing in North Belfast (handout/PA)

The mother of tragic Noah Donohoe has spoken of her campaign for answers over the death of her teenage son.

Noah Donohoe (14) was last seen in north Belfast on June 21, prompting a massive search operation which saw hundreds of volunteers take to the streets in a desperate bid to find the missing schoolboy.

His body was found in a storm drain in the city six days later.

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It was reported that he had been travelling to Cave Hill country park to meet friends when he disappeared.

A post-mortem examination later found he had died from drowning, however his mother Fiona is searching for answers surrounding his death.

She has set up dedicated pages on Twitter and Facebook, called MyNoah, in her quest to find out what happened to her son.

Read More

In a video posted to the MyNoah pages, a tearful Fiona spoke about why she set up the accounts.

"My Noah is now like everybody's Noah and I will gratefully share everything about my Noah so that people can get to know him, because he was such an amazing boy," she said.

"These social media accounts, I don't know much about social media, but it's a way for people to learn more about Noah, because they've taken him into their hearts.

"He wasn't perfect, he had socks lying on the ground and it could've taken him 10 hours to tie his shoelaces if I wasn't prodding him. His humour though, he was such a funny boy and this is making him even more real to people, because he is so alive in my heart and he is around me constantly.

"I just need people to see that the time they have invested in searching for him and wanting answers... it's a platform for Noah to sing out - and he couldn't sing - he was in the choir, he was such an enthusiastic wee boy, but he hadn't a note in his head.

"But, my god, he really gave everything to life and that's why I want people to give as much as they can until we get answers - it's all about getting the answers."

Meanwhile, two Northern Ireland councils have pledged support for Fiona's campaign, with Belfast City Hall to be lit up blue this weekend as a mark of support.

Read More

The Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District, Brian Tierney, has also voiced his support.

The Tinnies sculpture in Strabane, Ms Donohoes home town, will be lit up blue on Saturday and Sunday.

A full inquest into Noah Donohoe's death is due to be held on January 18, 2021.
US Triggers Return of Iran Sanctions at UN

By Margaret Besheer August 20, 2020

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally notified the United Nations on Thursday that the United States is initiating a "snapback" of all international sanctions on Iran dating back to 2006.

"Our message is very, very simple," Pompeo told reporters at the U.N. "The United States will never allow the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism to freely buy and sell planes, tanks and missiles and other kinds of conventional weapons. These U.N. sanctions will continue the arms embargo."

He said President Donald Trump and his administration had "discarded the fiction" that Iran merely seeks a peaceful nuclear program.

"We will never allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear weapon," he said.

Pompeo spoke to reporters after presenting a two-page letter to the Security Council president that said after "substantial efforts" by several members to remedy Iran's "significant non-performance" of obligations in the deal, the U.S. was seeking reimposition of sanctions.

He cited several examples related to Iran's uranium enrichment levels and stockpiles that exceed the limits of the nuclear deal. However, all occurred after May 2018 when the U.S. withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the deal is formally known. One year after the U.S. pulled out, Iran responded by gradually breaching agreed upon levels. Until then, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency had said Iran was in compliance with its obligations.

The snapback move comes a week after the U.S. failed to persuade Security Council members to extend a 13-year-old embargo on conventional weapons that will expire in mid-October under the terms of the JCPOA.

The United States received the support of only one other Security Council member (the Dominican Republic), and Pompeo had strong words for European allies who did not.

"Our friends in Germany, France and the U.K.  the E3  all told me privately they don't want the arms embargo lifted either, and yet today, in the end, they provide no alternatives, no options," Pompeo said. "Instead they chose to side with the ayatollahs."

Washington says it has an "explicit right" to invoke snapback "irrespective of its current position on or activities in relation" to the JCPOA, because the deal is enshrined in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231. The other participants disagree.

In a joint statement, the E3 pointed out the U.S. had withdrawn from the JCPOA in 2018.

"We cannot therefore support this action which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA," they said. "We remain committed to the JCPOA despite the significant challenges caused by U.S. withdrawal."

The Europeans also called on Iran to reverse the steps it had taken outside the deal and to return to full compliance.

"We will not take it as snapback," Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters.

"The United States is not a JCPOA participant and has no right to trigger the so-called snapback, and its arbitrary interpretation of Resolution 2231 cannot change this," Iranian Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi told reporters. "We are of the firm conviction that the letter sent to the U.N. Security Council president is null and void."

In the nuclear deal, the original participants, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, agreed with Iran to gradually lift the sanctions in return for limits on Tehran's nuclear activities that would prevent it from making a nuclear bomb.

A return to pre-deal sanctions would mean in addition to extending the arms embargo, Iran would no longer be allowed to enrich any uranium and would find its banking and shipping sectors subject to international scrutiny.

To trigger snapback, a JCPOA member must notify the Security Council that Iran is in noncompliance. That starts a 30-day clock, during which the council would need to adopt a new resolution keeping the current termination of sanctions in place. But the U.S. will veto that, and if at the end of the 30 days there is no new resolution extending the sanctions relief, the old pre-2015 sanctions would automatically snapback.

But analysts and diplomats say the U.S. effort is dead on arrival and that even if the U.S. declares success 30 days from now in reimposing sanctions, countries who disagree with Washington's right to do so may choose to simply ignore and not enforce the old sanctions.

They say this process will damage the Security Council and may ultimately lead to both the JCPOA collapsing and an unrestricted Iran ramping up its nuclear activities.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  An autopsy on National Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultant Randall "Randy" Echanis showed torture marks, a doctor said Friday.

Dr. Raquel Fortun from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine said contrary to the initial physical examination, Echanis was killed by a stab to the aorta, not a gunshot wound.

"[T]he implications seems to be there that, if literally torture means suffering was inflicted, in this sense, physical suffering," said Fortun in an online media briefing. Fortun conducted the autopsy.

However, Fortun said "torture" will not appear in the autopsy report since it is not a term in forensic pathology.

She identified lacerations on the head, which authorities may have mistaken for a gunshot wound, abrasions in the wrist, cuts on the jaw and multiple puncture wounds at the back.

"It looks like he sustained a lot of injuries first that were not intended to kill him outright," Fortun said.

Fortun said a blunt weapon and a bladed weapon such as a knife may have been used to stab him and hit his head, but added the autopsy is not yet final since she is still waiting for more laboratory results.

Fortun said there may also have been more than one assailant but she hoped to examine other evidences from the crime scene such as footprints on blood stains.

Echanis lawyer Rachel Pastores said the consultant earlier expressed security concerns since the suspension of peace talks with the government.

Echanis received threats and was no longer able to attend court hearings for a mass grave case, the lawyer shared. She said she is ready to help the Echanis family and she welcomed the investigations of the Commission on Human Rights and Justice department.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Like a schoolyard bully faced down by those he used to torment, Mike Pompeo went into a sulk. The Secretary of State said Americas European allies chose to side with the ayatollahs by rejecting his attempt to force the reimposition  or snapback  of United Nations sanctions on Iran.

Pompeos petulance didnt end there. Germany, France and Britain had put their own citizens at risk, he said. But the U.S. wouldnt join in this failure of leadership, he added. America will not appease, America will lead. It was the diplomatic equivalent of the defeated bully shaking his fists and vowing, Ill show you all.

The failure of leadership is mostly American. The Trump administrations double humiliation in the UN  Thursdays snub from the Europeans came only days after the failure to extend an arms embargo on the Islamic Republic  was, as I have argued, mostly self-inflicted.

It was also entirely predictable: The European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran had made it clear months ago that they would not support an American attempt to invoke the snapback of sanctions. They claimed this was because the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran outweighed all other considerations, including Pompeos crude effort at blackmail, the threat of a 25% tariff on European automobiles.

But the Europeans have failed, too. For all the schadenfreude in Berlin, Paris and London this weekend, they chose the greater of two evils in siding with the Iranian bully over the American one.

Germany, France and Britain, known collectively as E3, said in a statement they were preserving the processes and institutions which constitute the foundation of multilateralism. That is to miss the wood for the trees. The institutions they claim to be defending are meant to make the world a safer place. Yet despite concurring that giving Iran access to more sophisticated weapons will make the world less safe, the E3 in effect voted to do just that.

Story continues

This could have gone another way. The Europeans might have thrown their weight behind the American proposal to extend the arms embargo. At the very least, they might have dragged out the snapback discussion, letting the theocrats in Tehran sweat a little. The Trump administration may not value the symbolic power of a united Western front against tyranny, but the E3 should.

Instead, in their haste to punish Trumps reckless disregard for international norms, they have recklessly disregarded the wellbeing of tens of millions in the Middle East for whom the Islamic Republic represents a clear and constant danger. Iranians, the regimes longest-suffering victims, make up the largest proportion of those millions. Their Arab neighbors, from Syria and Iraq to those on the opposite shore of the Persian Gulf, are more menaced today than they were yesterday.

The E3 decision will comfort not only Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but also his many agents of mayhem: the dictator Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollahs Hassan Nasrallah, the leaders of Hamas, the commanders of Shiite militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. In turn, Arab rulers will use the Iranian bogeyman, now more frightening, to reinforce their autocratic regimes.

Perhaps Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be abashed by the toasts raised in their direction by this gang of mass murderers, who can now look forward to more money and weapons from Tehran. They may also want to duck the shameful pats on the back from Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who can look forward to selling Iran jet fighters, tanks and missiles. Of course, such pangs of European conscience may well be assuaged by the prospect of billions of dollars in business deals with the Islamic Republic.

The E3 may yet discover that the bully they bested at the UN has some punches left to land. The threat of American unilateral sanctions will deny the Europeans any remuneration for selling out the millions menaced by Iran. The E3 must now hope Trump loses on Nov. 3, and that a Biden administration looks more kindly on their eagerness to trade with the theocrats in Tehran. Until then, schadenfreude will have to suffice.

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 Africa.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Faridkot: Hours after the Punjab and Haryana high court granted regular bail to Moga-based car dealer Pankaj Bansal in the Behbal Kalan police firing case, the Punjab Polices Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU) arrested him in the court of the judicial magistrate on Friday in connection with the 2014 inter-state illegal foreign-made weapons smuggling case.

Chandigarh-based Vishal Gun House owner Satish Kumar was arrested on Thursday and six people, including Bansal, were named accused in the case for buying illegal weapons and forging sales bills. A search is on for the remaining four accused, namely Raj Chopra of Karnal who owns the National Arms Company; Bhupinder Singh of Ferozepur, Amit Goyal of Delhi and Rohit Chabra of Kotkapura.

The court of judicial magistrate Amandeep Kaur sent Bansal and Satish in five-day police custody. Bansal was presented before the court on production warrant.

The special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2015 police firing incidents had arrested Bansal in the Behbal Kalan firing case on June 20.

District attorney Rajnish Goyal said: During investigation, OCCU found that involvement of purchasers of the weapons also pointed to their culpability in knowingly buying illegal weapons and forging sales bills.

However, in 2015 the police had given a clean chit to these persons, claiming that the accused pass the weapons as genuine in connivance with arms dealers and the buyers did not know the genuineness of the weapons, so those persons were innocent purchasers. At that time, the police chose not to disclose the names of the buyers, who they admitted were usually rich or influential.

The case was registered under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 472 and 392 of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act at Faridkot city police station on August 18, 2014. OCCU has added Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) in the first information report.

SEARCH ON FOR PRIME ACCUSED

In October 2014, with the arrest of Ranjit Singh, alias Dupla, and his accomplice Gurcharan Singh Rinka, Faridkot police recovered 13 foreign-made weapons that gangsters sold to rich youngsters in Chandigarh and Delhi. Dupla and other persons were buying illegal foreign-made weapons from other states and selling them in Punjab by preparing false documents.

The police had submitted a final report to the court against accused Ranjit Singh and others on January 17, 2015. A supplementary challan was also submitted against four other accused on April 30, 2015.

Prime accused gangster Dupla has been declared a proclaimed offender in the case. Police sources said he has fled the country and OCCU is trying to locate him.
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)
Georgetown, SC (29440)

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UPDATED

The Trump administration has released nonbinding guidance that teachers and other school staff are critical infrastructure workers as it pushes for schools to resume in-person classes this school year.

In a document issued Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Securitys Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, teachers and others in the K-12 education field are identified as part of a long list of essential workers who conduct a range of operations and services that are typically essential to continued critical infrastructure viability and who support crucial supply chains and enable functions for critical infrastructure.

The agencys section about education includes a wide range of school staff, from teachers, paraeducators, and mental health professionals, to cafeteria workers, crossing guards, librarians, and superintendents.

In a cover letter preceding the guidance, CISA Director Christopher C. Krebs stressed that the guidance is advisory and should not be taken as a federal directive or standard. Krebs went on to say that state, local, territorial, and tribal governments are responsible for implementing and executing response activities in their communities, while the Federal Government is in a supporting role.

Whether to officially declare that teachers are essential workers is a complex and politically fraught decision. A few states and some school districts have done so, and theres been backlash from teachers. Read more about this issue in our colleague Maddy Wills story .

And in a related issue, school districts must figure out which teachers qualify for medical exemptions from having to return to classrooms.

Heres the list of workers in the education field included in the CISA guidance:

 Workers who support the education of preschool, K-12, college, university, career and technical education, and adult education students, including professors, teachers, teacher aides, special education and special needs teachers, ESOL teachers, paraeducators, apprenticeship supervisors, and specialists.

 Workers who provide services necessary to support educators and students, including but not limited to, administrators, administrative staff, IT specialists, media specialists, librarians, guidance counselors, school psychologists and other mental health professions, school nurses and other health professionals, and school safety personnel.

 Workers who support the transportation and operational needs of schools, including bus drivers, crossing guards, cafeteria workers, cleaning and maintenance workers, bus depot and maintenance workers, and those that deliver food and supplies to school facilities.

 Workers who support the administration of school systems, including school superintendents and their management and operational staff.

 Educators and operational staff facilitating and supporting distance learning.

The CISA guidance states the list of critical infrastructure workers in education, health care, public safety, and other employment sectors is intended to be overly inclusive reflecting the diversity of industries. It says school staff were not included in previous guidance about critical workers because schools were presumed to be closed at the time of publication.

The guidance also stresses that the ability of essential workers to work safely is crucial, and says identifying workers who could potentially work from home is one strategy to consider.

In response to the guidance, National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia is trying to extort educators into recklessly reopening that risks lives and should instead work to provide badly needed coronavirus relief.

Pressure for Schools to Reopen Buildings

The Trump administration has made it clear that reopening face-to-face classes in a new school year should be a top national priority, as concerns persist about the economys ability to recover if many parents must stay home with children who are learning remotely.

Over the last several weeks, President Donald Trump and other administration officials have campaigned repeatedly for schools to resume in-person classes. Trump has criticized remote learning and threatened to pull money from schools that only hold remote learning, even though he lacks any clear power to do so.

However, hes also acknowledged that schools in coronavirus hot spots may need to delay reopening their buildings. And hes said that older and other vulnerable educators should not be forced to come into buildings .

Although Congress and the White House agree on the idea that schools need additional federal funding to help them address the pandemic, negotiations over a new virus relief package that includes K-12 aid have ground to a halt.

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
Protecting the identity of the staff who are required to perform this duty ... is done for their safety and the safety of their families, the governor said. He added that execution team members could be identified even if they wore a mask or disguise.

Pansing Brooks called the veto disturbing, saying it betrayed the publics right to transparency and accountability.

In the governments most powerful and solemn act, the taking of a human life, we have an obligation to make sure it is carried out within the highest of standards, the senator said.

The parole measure, LB 1004, was introduced by Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha to allow prison inmates to become eligible for parole two years before their mandatory release date. Lathrop had said the bill would give inmates more incentive to behave and complete rehabilitation programs, and getting more inmates under parole supervision made it more likely that they would adjust successfully.

But Ricketts said he was vetoing the bill in the name of public safety.
The North American church fragments along racial and political lines. But what if the division we experience is more about theology than politics? In their seminal book,Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith conclude that white evangelicals tend toward individualistic rather than structuralist explanations of inequality. Emerson and Smith attribute this tendency to three core beliefs held by this group:

Accountable freewill individualism: Individuals have freewill and are each personally accountable for their own actions.

Anti-structuralism: White evangelicals often do not perceive, are unwilling to accept, or harbor negative reactions to larger, structural forces that shape society.

Relationalism: Interpersonal relationships are centrally important and the locus of societal change.

According to Emerson and Smith, white evangelicals subscribe to anti-structuralism but are selectively aware of structural influences that impact them and undermine accountable freewill individualism. They elevate affirmative action as an example of structural influence and, since Divided by Faiths publication, have shown that they also care deeply about Supreme Court appointments, prayer in schools, abortion, same sex marriage, and the so-called bathroom bill.

While white evangelicals are not the only Christians concerned about these matters, their structural concerns fail to transfer into advocacy or activism on other structural issues. For example, 73% of white evangelicals zealously endorse a prolife ethic regarding the unborn while steadfastly supporting the death penalty. This incongruence invites a discourse between Scripture and the three worldviews listed prior, what Emerson and Smith call the white evangelical toolkit.

Forces and powers exist beyond one's individual will that inform behavior, breed sin, and distort our witness.

Most agree that humans have individual free will and are accountable for their actions. Yet Scripture directs us, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2). In Ephesians 6: 11-12, we read, Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devils schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. These passages and more name forces and powers beyond one's individual will that inform behavior, breed sin, and distort our witness.

Throughout Scripture, unjust structures emerge from leaders who do not fear God but are obsessed with earthly power. Pharaoh (Exodus 1), Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3), and Herod (Matthew 2) all succumb to sin and become tyrannical. Fear dictates how they govern, anxiety drives them to sin, and paranoia provokes them to craft sinful legislation that becomes law and custom. In Exodus, Pharaohs sin and fear lead Egyptian citizens to commit acts of ethnic violence and oppression against Hebrews, dehumanizing, exploiting, and enslaving them in order to stimulate the Egyptian economy. One leaders individual sin can metastasize into structural and institutional sin, leading constituents astray legally and making an entire country complicit.

Biblically, corporate sin entails the enforcement of and adherence to sinful laws that explicitly oppose Gods will and harm our neighbors. Corporate sin includes both active involvement in oppression and apathy in the face of evil and oppressionsins of commission and omissionthe things we have done, and the things we have left undone.

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Scripture repeatedly addresses corporate sin, whether xenophobia, slavery, ethnic caste systems that privilege some and disenfranchise others, and idolatry. Evidence of structural sin shows up in the empires of Babylon (Daniel 3), Egypt (Exodus 1:6-22), Persia (Esther 3), and Rome (Matthew 2). God explicitly indicts Israel for its own participation in and complicity with corporate sin (Micah 6) that violates the covenant made with God (Ex. 19:3-6, 10-12; Deut. 4:6-8). White evangelicals frequently endorse a blind allegiance to law and order, citing Romans 13:1-7. But legal power does not mean ethical power. As subscribers to an Augustinian logic profess, an unjust law is no law at all.

Augustine profoundly shaped Dr. Kings thinking. King said that we must never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Augustinian logic helped King determine that one has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Moreover, according to King, an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. Interpreting Scripture as legitimizing nonviolent civil disobedience has been a major ecclesial dividing line, despite biblical precedent for this interpretation (Ex. 1: 18-22, 2: 2-3; Dan. 3).

Emerson and Smith also confront relationalism among white evangelicals. They write, Absent from their account is the idea that poor relationships might be shaped by social structures, such as laws, the ways institutions operate, or forms of segregation.

In Exodus 1, no Egyptian speaks up or does what is right, as Pharaoh intensifies the oppression of enslaved Hebrews and decrees an infanticide. In Acts 6, interpersonal relationships are strong, and the disciples were increasing in number, [yet] the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. Healthy interpersonal relationships do not eliminate sin or injustice.

Accountability for individual actions and healthy interpersonal relationships are important, but in isolation, they cannot end corporate sin, social inequality, or systemic injustice. As King wrote, Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of humanity and is not concerned about the slums that damned them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually morbid religion awaiting burial.

Moreover, theologically speaking, King wrote,

Like the good Samaritan, we must always stand ready to descend to the depth of human need. The person who fails to look with compassion upon the thousands of individuals left wounded by life's many roadsides is not only unethical, but ungodly. Every Christian must play the good Samaritan. But there is another aspect of Christian social responsibility which is just as compelling. It seeks to tear down unjust conditions and build anew instead of patching things up. It seeks to clear the Jericho road of its robbers as well as caring for the victims of robbery.

As we strive to move forward together, mending the wounds that divide us, lets return to Scripture and reexamine our worldviews. May a richer, more robust, reading of the biblical text across the dividesinformed by the Spiritempower and re-member our broken Body and resurrect a faithful witness within the American church.

Dominique Gilliard is director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Heidi Klum is seeking a court order to force ex-husband Seal to let their kids travel with her to Germany in October for Next Top Model filming.

When her stint as a judge on the current season of America's Got Talent ends, Heidi will be heading to Europe to film a new season of the reality TV show for three and a half months.

According to court documents obtained by TheBlast.com, Heidi 47, is seeking an emergency hearing to be granted permission to travel with the children.

Legal battle: Heidi Klum, (pictured in March) is seeking a court order forcing ex-husband Seal, (right) to let their kids travel with her to Germany for Next Top Model filming in October

The former couple, who married in 2005 and finalized their divorce in 2014, share joint legal and physical custody of daughters Leni, 16, and Lou, 10, and sons Henry, 14, and Johan, 13.

In the documents, it appears that British musician Seal, 57, is concerned about the safety of traveling and living abroad during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

He prefers that the children remain in Los Angeles, where he also resides, and are cared for by Klum's 'staff', the model states in her legal filing.

Exes: The former couple, who married in 2005 and finalized their divorce in 2014, share joint legal and physical custody of daughters Leni, 16, and Lou, 10, and sons Henry, 14, and Johan, 13

Family: Klum, 47, states she is contracted to be in Germany for three-and-a-half months and that the children do not want to be parted from her for such a long time. (Pictured in 2019)

In requesting an emergency hearing to obtain a court order, Klum states she is contracted to be in Germany for three-and-a-half months and that the children do not want to be parted from her for such a long time.

As The Blast reported Thursday, she claims that Seal only sees the kids 'sporadically' and that the majority of the time they are living with her.

'In 2020 so far, he has spent about six weeks total with Leni, six weeks total with Henry, ten days total with Johan, and ten days total with Lou,' she states in the documents.

The Kiss From A Rose hitmaker - real name Henry Samuel - has previously permitted the kids to travel with their famous mother, but after initially agreeing in April to the fall trip to Germany, Klum says he has changed his mind.

She explained: 'My work in television supports our family. Neither Henry (Seal) nor I pay child support to one another, and because our children are with me the vast majority of the time, I take on a larger portion of their regular expenses.

'I am well aware of all the necessary precautions associated with the Covid-19 virus, and would never put our children at risk. I have taken all the precautions for Germany the same way I do in the US.'

Klum adds: 'Considering the current state of the global economy due to the Covid-19 virus, I am grateful to still have a job and have the ability to provide for my family.'

New husband: The blonde beauty has been married to German guitarist Tom Kaulitz, 30, since February 2019. They're pictured in January in Los Angeles

She also claims that all four children want to go to Germany with her and have told their father the same thing.

'They do not want to stay in LA with their dad without me,' she claimed in her legal documents, adding: 'I cannot imagine them being without me for months.'

In the filing, according to TheBlast.com, Klum included a declaration and letter from eldest child Leni who, she says, is set to do her first modelling gig for Vogue Germany during the fall trip.

In the declaration, the teen states: 'I love my father very much and don't want to hurt him by "picking sides," and this shouldn't be taken as picking sides, but I would like to say for myself and on behalf of my three siblings we believe we should be staying with our mom and travelling to Germany.'
College students can rightfully feel like theyre being cheated. Its only a brief time in their lives they get to experience anything like campus life, and this is a year unlike any other. But for everyones benefit, including their own, they need to show some common sense and respect for basic health guidelines. Its the only way to keep the coronavirus pandemic under control.

Early indications are that this could be a tall order.

A number of University of Connecticut students have been removed from campus housing this week as officials launched an investigation into a dorm party that may have violated COVID-19 measures. Students were not wearing masks, closely assembled and endangering not only their own health and well-being, but that of others at a time when UConn is working to protect our community and resume classes in the context of a deadly global pandemic, a letter to students stated.

Its tempting to dismiss this as completely unsurprising behavior that isnt worth dwelling on. Teenagers arent always known for displaying the best judgment, and certainly no one is shocked to see college students having a party. But university officials are right to crack down, and have no choice but to take similar action in future incidents. The reality is that there will be no campus experience of any kind if students cant figure out a way to live under current strictures.

Other colleges around the country have opted to go online-only this fall. UConn and other Connecticut schools have curtailed on-campus housing, trying to make it possible to maintain social distancing, while adopting a hybrid model of in-person and e-learning depending on the circumstances. Everyone is trying to adjust to the new reality.

Administrators can be forgiven for wondering how we ended up like this. When the virus hit in the early spring and colleges sent everyone home for the semester, it was reasonable to think wed be in a better position by now to start a new year. Few would have thought the federal response would have fallen as short as it has, especially when other countries that were in equally serious straits at the start are now reopening in something like typical circumstances. The U.S. remains far from that, even in places like Connecticut, where the virus is relatively contained.

Most colleges are doing the best they can, and part of that means enforcing safety guidelines that students might find stifling. With the virus on the loose and no remedy on the horizon, there is no other option. Peoples lives are on the line.

Thats what makes this discussion hard to take. The coronavirus has taken the lives of more than 170,000 people in this country, and there are places where its spread has hardly been contained. College students are being asked to sacrifice, but what theyre giving up isnt nearly as serious as what others have faced.

They dont have to like it, but if they want to avoid being sent home altogether, college students need to show some common sense for a while.
Nigerian health minister Dr. Osagie Ehanire revealed on Thursday that the country has been working with global health and research organizations to receive 2 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses as soon as they are available.

Ehanire said "Nigeria is also working with the World Health Organization to finalize enrolment with the ACT  Access To COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, a global mechanism tracking and sponsoring global organizations working on COVID-19 vaccine development."

The Nigeria minister added they are diligently working to secure a fair share of doses through initiatives that are aimed at delivering vaccines to countries with limited financial resources "We also have an interest in the COVAX Facility, which is a Gavi-supported initiative to procure and assure equitable access to vaccines as soon as they are available, especially for lower-income countries".

Follow all the latest coronavirus-related news in Africa via our dedicated live blog

"This will prioritize Nigeria for allocation of a part of 2 billion vaccine doses, that will be secured in a special plan to protect the interest of poorer countries."

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Nigeria has registered nearly 51,000 Covid-19 cases, 37,569 patients have been discharged while the country has suffered 992 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
For close to four years now, [Trump] has shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends, Obama said. Trump treats the presidency, Obama insightfully observed, as . . . one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.
Vehicle checkpoint on the Pacific Highway on the Queensland-New South Wales border in Brisbane on April 15, 2020. (Patrick Hamilton /AFP via Getty Images)

Premiers Must Remember That They Are Not Just Premiers of Capital Cities: Federal Agriculture Minister

State premiers are under pressure to break border deadlocks as businesses warn they are reaching boiling point.

Scott Morrison will plead with premiers and chief ministers to lift the restrictions when national cabinet meets on Aug 21.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is concerned for tourism operators and people in border communities cut off from health care.

Lives are really being disrupted and youve got to ask why when the medical advice is not saying that is what is needed, Dutton told the Nine Network.

If weve got premiers who are pursuing an elimination process, the country will go broke.

Queenslands border closures alone are estimated to cost $21 million and 173 jobs a day.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce says it is confusing why states with no cases are not open to each other.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, who hails from rural Queensland, has poured oil on the debate.

The inability or unwillingness of our premiers to work with each other to find common-sense and practical solutions to restrictions they have imposed is becoming a major test of their leadership, Littleproud said.

Premiers must remember that they are not just premiers of capital cities.

I urge each of them to visit their impacted border regions as soon as possible and thrash out workable solutions with local governments, people, businesses and organisations.

He described the meeting as a flashpoint for our federation.

Unless premiers commit to work with one another to find workable solutions to state border issues for regional Australians, then they risk states becoming irrelevant to modern Australia.

Businesses and farm groups have queried border restrictions on large parts of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia that have no coronavirus cases.

As well, there have been concerns raised about the inflexibility of rules preventing people who live near borders from accessing interstate health services.

And the tourism and transport sectors want greater certainty about when to expect an easing of travel restrictions.

Morrison wrote to state leaders on August 16 urging them to resolve problems, and has been working with individual premiers on specific solutions.

Aged care response plans for each state, working with the federal government, will also be on the agenda.

There is also expected to be discussion about securing seasonal workers to pick fruit and vegetables.

Paul Osborne and Daniel McCulloch in Canberra
MOSCOW - Gravely ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was flown out to Germany for treatment early Saturday, ending a standoff between doctors and Navalny allies who accuse Russian officials of attempting to cover up a suspected poisoning of the country's most prominent opposition leader.

The decision to allow Navalny to leave a Siberian hospital to be transferred to one in Berlin followed conflicting accounts on his condition and whether the comatose Navalny could be taken aboard a German plane that was sent to Omsk.

Alexander Murakhovsky, chief physician at Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1, said Friday that Navalny could be transferred to German care. Earlier in the day, he said the 44-year-old Navalny was not well enough to be moved.

Murakhovsky added that there was no indication Navalny was poisoned, though he earlier said it would take two days for test results.

The confusion added to the many questions since Navalny fell into a coma Thursday after he became suddenly ill on a flight en route to Moscow from Siberia. His spokeswoman and others quickly claimed that Navalny was the latest victim of a poisoning ordered by the state, a method used before in attacks linked to Russian agents.

Doctors treating Navalny said his condition had improved but gave few other details.

Navalny is expected to leave Saturday on a German ambulance aircraft, dispatched by Berlin-based human rights activist Jaka Bizilj's Cinema for Peace Foundation. The plane arrived in Omsk on Friday, along with three German physicians who were later allowed to examine Navalny.

But Navalny's associates wrote on Twitter that the doctors were spirited away by unidentified authorities before they could share their conclusions with Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya. She said in a video that she was blocked from trying to speak with the Germans at the hospital.

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, accused the Russian physicians of endangering Navalny's life, suggesting on Twitter that they wanted to hinder an investigation by stalling "until the poison in his body can no longer be traced."

"The ban on transporting Navalny is an attempt on his life, which is now being carried out by the doctors and the deceitful authorities who sanctioned it," she said.

Less than four hours after German doctors reportedly said it was safe for Navalny to travel, the Omsk hospital gave the clearance for Navalny to be moved.

Navalny's plight has become a rallying point for Russian opposition groups and others who charge that President Vladimir Putin's regime was responsible for the alleged toxic attack. The initial decision to block his release fueled anger over perceived interference from the Kremlin.

Navalny's wife personally appealed to Putin in a letter to allow Navalny to be transported to Germany.

Murakhovsky, the chief physician at the Omsk hospital, said Friday morning that doctors have "five working diagnoses" but that he could not offer details. He later said that the most likely cause for Navalny's coma is "a metabolic disorder, caused by a sharp drop in blood sugar levels during the flight."

Meanwhile, Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny associate, said Friday that transportation police told him they discovered poison they deemed dangerous not only for Navalny but for those around him - so much so that access to Navalny will not be permitted without visitors wearing full hazmat suits. Zhdanov said the authorities did not disclose details of the poison, citing an active investigation.

Omsk physicians later said that the transportation police were referring to an industrial chemical substance that was found not in Navalny's blood but on his clothes. They added that it did not poison Navalny. Multiple calls to the transportation police department were not answered.

The Russian state news agency Tass, citing an anonymous law enforcement source, reported that a criminal investigation has not been opened, because there is no evidence yet that points to intentional poisoning. Photos posted to social media by Navalny's aides have shown a heavy police presence at the hospital.

Navalny, who once described Putin's ruling party as one "of crooks and thieves," has no shortage of powerful enemies in Russia. In addition to his criticism of the government, Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation exposed excesses and alleged corruption by members of Russia's elite who are enriched through Kremlin connections.

His possible poisoning is reminiscent of other high-profile toxic attacks against outspoken Russians. In those instances, the victims were either already abroad and received subsequent treatment outside Russia or, as with Navalny, their families requested urgent evacuation.

In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former spy and dissident, died of polonium-210 poisoning in London after accusing Putin from his hospital bed of being responsible for the attack. Two years ago, Sergei Skripal, a former double agent, and his adult daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in the British city of Salisbury after they came into contact with a deadly Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok.

In 2015, opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza suffered kidney failure from a suspected poisoning in Moscow. He eventually recuperated in the United States. In a second alleged poisoning two years later, samples of Kara-Murza's blood, hair and fingernails were sent to laboratories in France and Israel in an effort to identify the toxin, but there were no conclusive findings on whether he was intentionally poisoned.

Pyotr Verzilov, a member of Russian protest group Pussy Riot, ended up in a Moscow intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning in 2018 and was then flown to Berlin for treatment, but experts could not determine the cause. He had been working with officials in Germany to arrange the same for Navalny.

"The Kremlin and the Ministry of Health will now do everything possible to prevent the evacuation of Alexei," Verzilov said Friday on Twitter. "The details of Navalny's poisoning must remain in Russia."

- - -

The Washington Post's William Glucroft in Berlin contributed to this report.
A Hyderabad-based infrastructure firm is likely to be awarded the contract for the construction of the long-pending Zojila Tunnel in the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, after the Centre shortlisted three firms for the project, officials familiar with the matter said.

The governments nodal agency for the strategic project, National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, had issued a tender in June and opened the bids on July 24.

The NHIDCL shortlisted three firms -- L&T Construction, MEIL and railways PSU Ircon International Limited (IRCON) -- on Tuesday. Hindustan Times has reviewed a copy of the notification.

Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) has emerged as the lowest bidder and is likely to be awarded but no official award letter has been issued yet, a senior official, said requesting anonymity. The estimated cost of the project is 4429.83 crore.

The project, which will be implemented in two sections, involves the construction of a connecting road from Z-Morh Tunnel to Zojila Tunnel and a 14.150 km long bi-directional tunnel across Zojila Pass on the Sonamarg-Kargil section of NH-01 on Engineering, Procurement, Construction mode.

The first section of the project is expected to be completed in 2.5 years and the second part 6.5 years.

The long-pending project has gone through many design changes. In its previous tender a parallel escape (egress) tunnel was also included earlier but has been done away with to reduce the cost of the project, officials said. The project got further delayed after it was stranded by IL&FS Transportation Network amid financial crisis.

MEIL has become an L-1 in the most prestigious Zoji-la pass tunnel in Jammu Kashmir-Ladakh in Himalayan region. National Highways and Industrial Development Corporation (NHIDCL) has opened the bids on Friday, and MEIL topped the list by quoting less than other companies. MEIL topped as L-1 by quoting for a less amount than the other two companies. On 30th July, three companies submitted the bids to NHIDCL, and the finance bids opened on 21st August. The project to be constructed in 2 divisions in two sections of about 33 kilometres, MEIL said in a statement on Friday.

The road from Srinagar to Leh in Ladakh is not suitable for vehicular traffic throughout the year. The Srinagar-Ladakh highway is completely closed for six months, especially during the winter season. Even the military vehicles are unable to move under these conditions. Travelling long distances on alternate routes has become a costly affair and a waste of time. Under these circumstances, the road tunnel was proposed between Sonamarg to Leh and Ladakh via Kargil long back, it added.

The tunnel, likely to be Asias longest 14.2 km long two-lane tunnel road, is expected to reduce travel time between Srinagar and Leh to just 15 minutes, from the current from three and a half hours
The spokesperson has reminded of their oath to serve the people of Belarus.

A representative of the recently created Coordinating Council for the transfer of power in Belarus, Maria Kolesnikova, has called on the country's military and law enforcement to side with protesters.

An emotionally-charged video address was posted on the Youtube channel of the ex-presidential candidate, Viktor Babariko.

"With their criminal orders, the government is pulling you to the bottom of hell made of women's screams, mutilated bodies, severed psyche, and collective trauma that will remain with Belarusians forever," the statement said.

Kolesnikova says people don't respect uniform anymore as it causes disgust in the light of the recent events.

Read alsoLukashenko to protesters: "No new vote unless you kill me"She has reminded law enforcers and military of their oath to serve the people of Belarus.

"Now you see their extermination. Why don't you stop it?" said the opposition politician.

In conclusion, she explained guarantees that are given to those servicemen who side with the people and refuse to follow criminal orders:

Safety and immunity

Fair treatment of units that will not carry out criminal orders;

Lifting of education debts, contractual debts, and other payments that the authorities impose on those willing to quit job or refuse to comply with criminal orders; and

Housing and material support for everyone who refuses to carry out criminal orders.

"We will build the security agencies of the new Belarus made of honest and worthy people wearing a uniform," Kolesnikova emphasized.

Belarus protests: background

On August 9, presidential elections were held in Belarus. The country's Central Election Commission said 80.1% of voters supported incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, 10.1% voted for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, 1.67% for Anna Kanopatskaya, 1.2% for Andrey Dmitriev, and 1.14% for Sergei Cherechnya. Some 4.59% voted against all candidates.

Read alsoUN condemns violent crackdown on Belarus protestsThousands of Belarusians took to the streets to protest what they believe is a rigged vote count.

Riot police violently cracked down on protesters. Belarus' Ministry of Internal Affairs said about 7,000 protesters had been detained in different cities since August 9. On the evening of August 13, the authorities started to release detainees.

On August 14, the European Union announced it did not recognize the outcome of the presidential elections in Belarus and on August 19 leaders reportedly agreed on sanctions to be introduced over election rigging and violence against protesters.

The Coordination Council was on August 14 initiated by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko's rival in the latest elections, who had proclaimed herself leader of the united opposition, to ensure a "peaceful transfer of power."

Lukashenko has repeatedly warned against foreign meddling in Belarus' domestic affairs. He had phone calls with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. As a result, the Kremlin assured they were ready to provide "comprehensive assistance" to Belarus.

On August 20, the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus has opened a criminal investigation into the seizure of state power in the country after Alexander Lukashenko said the founding of the Coordination Council was "an attempt to seize power with all ensuing implications."

Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin at a closed-door meeting with military commanders on Thursday, August 20, said protests in Belarus could escalate into a civil war or a military conflict, therefore, if necessary, the army will shoot to kill.
The fire on Mount Sentinel was roughly 75 percent contained around 9 p.m. Thursday, according to an update from the University of Montana citing the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

Earlier in the evening, firefighters were monitoring roughly 10 different hot spots that broke out after a blaze started around 6 p.m. and firefighters flanked the sides of the main burn to try to catch up with the slope.

We have good air support coming in, were just trying to catch it, Missoula Fire Chief Jeff Brandt said Thursday evening. The slope is pretty huge in terms of firefighter fatigue, but were very lucky that we dont have a lot of winds.

University of Montana Police Department Sgt. Kurt Feilzer said no residences were evacuated as a result of the fire, but officials did request through an alert that hikers on the M trail evacuate the mountain. The mountain is popular with hikers, but Brandt said he did not believe anyone was trapped. However, the DNRC was asking people to remain off the mountain, and the M trail remained closed.

At an A-frame house up the fire road beyond Maurice Avenue, former wildland firefighter Zach Bashoor and a small group of friends were drinking on their porch watching the crews haul hoses around the mountain side. Planes dropped fire retardant just above them, leaving red droplets on the table next to a bottle of vodka.

Bashoor saw the initial heat off the bottom of the mountain, climbed on the roof and then watched the fire roll up the hill.

Those guys were moving, he said of the fire crews swiftly climbing Sentinel to catch the blaze.

Shortly after the fire started, firefighters were spraying the perimeter of the burn with a hose. The fire appeared to have blackened the base of the mountain but looked to have charred mostly grass and brush, not reaching the top of some trees in its path. It wasn't clear Thursday how many acres the fire had burned or what had ignited the blaze. Early on Thursday evening, flames could still be seen near the top of the burn, and billowing smoke was visible from downtown. Vehicles were going up the fire road, and firefighters were bringing hose down.

The U.S. Forest Service, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, Missoula Police Department, UM Police Department, and Missoula Fire Department all were on scene. Chief Brandt said the crew had good air support with helicopters dumping water on the burn and some small airplanes on the way early in the night.

Near Maurice Avenue and the Elliott Village apartments, police were blocking the road early on as onlookers observed the fire from Arthur Avenue. On Mount and Southwest Higgins avenues, bystanders stood on the sidewalks, some in the back of parked pickups, snapping photos as the helicopters made drops.

Near the scene, Waldemar Ortiz, a masters student studying wildlife biology at UM who lives at the Elliott Village Apartments, said the fire started around 6:14 p.m. He said he saw two kids run down the mountain right after a bush caught fire.

He and two other residents grabbed buckets of water to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby residences from the base of the mountain while another neighbor called the fire department.

Our guess is just that its teenagers doing something they werent supposed to be doing, Ortiz said.

Firefighters accessed the burn via the Fire Road, which was marked by a sign citing high fire danger conditions. Ortiz, who has taken classes on wildfires and fire containment, said he watched aircraft drop water and flame retardant on the burn while eating a cold Chipotle burrito he had set aside to help douse the flames.

Since there was no wind blowing it anywhere, no directionality of the fire, just the slope would help the fire creep up rather than coming down, Ortiz said.

Donovan Bell, another resident at the Elliott Village, had just returned from getting a burrito at El Diablo and said the fire had started and spread all the way up to a tree line in the 15 minutes he was gone.

UM photojournalism professor Jeremy Lurgio had just ended a bike ride on the MoZ, a trail that drops down to Maurice, when he heard someone in the student housing apartments yell: Fire!

At that point, It was big enough that I wasnt going to run up there and try digging a fire line, he said.

Lurgio watched as the blaze rolled up the hill, died down and then fired up again in spurts. By then, fire crews and emergency personnel were already on the way.

A neighborhood resident said his son noticed the fire around 6:30 p.m.

"Just another 2020 incident," said Sam Lee.

Mount Sentinel has seen several fires over the years, most of them small. But in July 2008, a fast-moving grass fire scorched 450 acres on the mountains western slope.

Authorities said that fire was started by two boys, ages 7 and 8, playing with a cigarette lighter behind the University of Montanas married student housing complex. 

In an alert Thursday night, UM said all eastbound traffic on South Avenue at Arthur had been stopped, and all southbound traffic on Maurice Avenue at East Sussex had been halted.

Cory Walsh, Gwen Florio and Keila Szpaller contributed to this story.

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By PTI

CHENNAI: The opposition DMK in Tamil Nadu on Friday opposed the Centre's decision to "privatise" airports, saying the move "usurps the rights and autonomy from the State."

In an apparent reference to the Centre deciding to lease out three airports, including the one at Thiruvananthapuram, DMK President MK Stalin described the decision as "unilateral" and demanded its revocation.

"The Center's unilateral decision to privatise airports usurps the rights and autonomy from the State," he said in a tweet.

"It violates the pledge made in 2003 that any proposal concerning airport privatisation would be made only in consultation with the state government and must be revoked," Stalin added.

The BJP-led NDA government had earlier decided to lease out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP) mode to Adani Enterprises, a move criticised by the opposition.

Incidentally, the ruling CPI-M in Kerala had convened an all-party meeting on Thursday and demanded for the withdrawal of the Union Cabinet decision to lease out the airport at Thiruvananthapuram.

Adani Enterprises has won the rights to run six airports-- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram--through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February, 2019.
You have 24 hours, SC to Delhi Govt on rising pollution

Delhi school reopening: Decision to be taken after Christmas-New Year vacation, says govt

Delhi govt to deregister all diesel vehicles that complete 10 years on January 1, 2022

Let hotels, restaurants serve liquor, Delhi govt tells excise dept

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 21: A day after the DDMA gave its approval for opening of hotels and restaurants in the city, the Delhi government on Thursday instructed its Excise department to issue necessary permits to them to serve liquor.

Delhi restaurants and hotels allowed to serve liquor, bars to stay closed | Oneindia News

The hotels and restaurants in the city were closed due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown since March.

In a note to the excise commissioner of the Delhi government, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia directed the department to issue necessary permission to serve liquor in the restaurants and clubs by licensees at the table and in hotel rooms.

Liquor shops in New Delhi to remain open for one more hour

In his note, the deputy chief minister said 'Bars' will remain closed under the provisions of 'Unlock' guidelines of the Union Home ministry.

"Considering the revenue implications, Excise department to issue necessary permission for service of liquor in the restaurants and clubs by licensees at the table and in the hotel rooms," said the note.

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Wednesday gave approval for the opening of hotels and weekly markets, a move that is expected to help revive the city's economy which was hit by the coronavirus pandemic and months of lockdown.

The sale of liquor from retail shops in the city was allowed in May.

Several state governments, including Assam, Punjab, Rajasthan and others have permitted service of liquor by licence holders under the excise rules at the table in the restaurants and clubs and in hotel rooms, the note said.
Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, can be used by patients who are in home isolation after contracting COVID-19 infection as a 'support medicine', doctors have said.

Though not a treatment for COVID-19, it can be used as a supporting medicine, which boosts immunity and does not have known side-effects, Hindustan Times reported.

"In Australia, researchers claimed the viral load went down 5,000 times in 48 hours with this medicine taken in combination. A Bangladesh scientist also claimed a similar effect. At present, research on this medicine is being carried out at 28 places," Dr Kauser Usman, senior faculty at King Georges Medical University (KGMU), told the paper.

However, doctors have cautioned that the medicine should be avoided by children and pregnant women, while others should not consume it without taking professional advice regarding its dosage.

"Ivermectin is a medication that has been used to treat worms for years. There are no known side-effects. But its consumption should not be taken as a complete safety against infection as research is still going on," Abhishek Shukla, Secretary General, Association of International Doctors, said.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

According to a study, published in the Journal Antiviral Research in April, Ivermectin stopped the virus, SARS-CoV-2, from growing in cell culture within 48 hours.

However, those involved with the study had cautioned that the tests conducted in the study were in vitro and that trials needed to be carried out in people.
Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa

Chandigarh: While terming the allegations politically motivated, Rural Development and Panchayat Minister Punjab Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa lashed back on Sukhbir and said that there is no iota of truth in his claims regarding 1,000 crore Rupees scam in MGNREGA scheme.

The cabinet minister said that their government has ensured proper utilization of funds under the scheme for the development of villages which has forced the SAD president to issue such false statements to halt the works for his political benefits only.

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Tript Bajwa

The Panchayat minister said that the wrongdoings and anti-people decisions of Sukhbir Singh Badal and his party leaders have ousted them from the political scenario of Punjab and now riding on these political stunts, wanted to discontinue the scheme with the help of his alliance with central government.

Bajwa cautioned him to stop putting obstacles in the welfare of Punjabis as his false allegations could cost dear to 2.5 lakh needy families out of which 68 percent are Dalits.

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Bajwa said that Sukhbir Badal has labeled allegations of corruption of Rs 1,000 crore but he was not aware that the government has sanctioned budget of Rs 800 crore under MGNREGA for this year.

Sukhbir Singh BadalHe added that out of total budget, only Rs 390 crore have been spent and till the formation of government in Punjab in 2017, they had spent only Rs 520 crore on material.

I want to ask Sukhbir, if a government had spent only 520 crore rupees than how the figure of scam could touch 1,000 crore. Sukhbir is holding responsible position and it not good for a responsible figure to spread rumors for his personal benefits, Bajwa added.

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He informed that under MGNREGA scheme, 60 percent grant could be used for labor and rest 40 percent could be used for material and till now their government has utilized 22 percent funds reserved for material purchase.

Tript BajwaHe also cleared that for the payments of labour, the union government directly transfers the amount in the bank accounts of beneficiaries.

The minister informed that under MGNREGA, around 2.3 lakh workers have been given employment in Punjab and the figure was just 60,000 at the time of imposition of lockdown in the state. He added that as many as 114 lakh man-days have been generated till now.

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Tript Rajinder Bajwa claimed that during the tenure of SAD led government in Punjab in 2016-17, the budget under MGNREGA was only 531 crore Rupees but their government has set the target to increase it upto 1,500 crores.
A video of Donald Trump Jr praising We Build The Wall at an event last year has emerged after the group's leader Brian Kolfage and former top Trump aide Steve Bannon were arrested for allegedly running a crowd-funded border wall scam.

Don Jr, the eldest son of President Donald Trump, gave a 15-minute speech at the 'Symposium at the Wall: Cartels, Trafficking and Asylum' event in July 2019, during which he gushed about the groups efforts to raise money for a border wall.

'This is what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest,' Don Jr says as he holds hands with Kolfage, a Purple Heart recipient and triple-amputee.

'Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is amazing.'

The video of the speech was cast in a whole new light on Thursday after federal prosecutors charged Bannon, Kolfage and two others with defrauding hundreds of thousands of people out of $25million donated to the fundraising campaign.

A spokesperson for Don Jr - who himself donated to the effort - has since said that he was 'deceived' by the fraudsters.

Donald Trump Jr praised We Build The Wall and its leader Brian Kolfage during a speech at an event last year. Video of the speech resurfaced after Kolfage and former top Trump aide Steve Bannon were arrested for allegedly defrauding hundreds of thousands of people out of $25million donated to We Build The Wall's fundraising campaign

'This is what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest,' Don Jr says as he holds hands with Kolfage, a Purple Heart recipient and triple-amputee

We Build The Wall gave Don Jr a customized gun after he visited a section of the wall they built in New Mexico in July 2019. Don Jr has since said he may have been 'deceived' by the group

Another image tying Don Jr to the group also resurfaced on Thursday, showing the president's son holding a customized gun gifted to him by We Build The Wall.

'Our special gift to Donald Trump Jr for taking the time to visit the border wall we built. A custom We Build The Wall Springfield 1911,' the group wrote in a Facebook post on July 30, 2019.

The photo shows Don Jr standing alongside his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle and We Build The Wall advisory board members Mary Ann Mendoza and Steve Ronnebeck on a private plane after they stopped by a section of the wall in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Kolfage launched We Build The Wall in 2018 by setting up a GoFundMe campaign that pledged to build barriers along the border in Texas and New Mexico, some of which have already been erected.

The online appeal for funds included a picture of President Trump and a stamp that said 'Trump Approved'.

But prosecutors say it was a scam, as donors' cash was also funneled to Bannon and Kolfage.

Kolfage launched We Build The Wall in 2018 by setting up a GoFundMe that pledged to build barriers along the border in Texas and New Mexico. The online appeal for funds included a photo of President Trump and a 'Trump Approved' stamp

Bannon, who helped steer Trump's campaign then joined him in the White House in 2017 as chief strategist only to be forced out, is accused of getting $1million in the alleged scheme and spending hundreds of thousands of that on 'expenses'.

Kolfage is also accused of fraudulently pocketing funds. He claimed he did not get a cent from the scheme but instead got $100,000 up front and $20,000 a month salary, prosecutors allege, living a lavish lifestyle at Miramar Beach in the Florida panhandle.

The Iraq war veteran, who had both legs amputated and lost his right arm in a rocket attack, was arrested at his home in Florida and later released.

Meanwhile Bannon was arrested on a yacht owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui off the coast of Connecticut.

The both men are facing one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Bannon pleaded not guilty on Thursday afternoon and was released on $5million bail.

Bannon is accused of getting $1million in the alleged scheme and spending hundreds of thousands of that on 'expenses'. He is seen leaving Manhattan federal court on Thursday after he pleaded not guilty to fraud charges and posted $5million bail

Kolfage, 38, is accused of fraudulently pocketing funds that he used to fund his lavish lifestyle in Florida. He is pictured with his TikTok star wife Ashley, 33, on their boat

HOW ALLEGED FRAUD WORKED In 2018, Kolfage set up the GoFundMe account in support of President Trump and to prove the nation's appetite for a border wall between the US and Mexico. It was inundated with donations from Republicans and had collected more than $20million by December that year. GoFundMe became suspicious of where the money was going and warned Kolfage to donate it to a legitimate charity or refund everyone who'd given to it. That is when, prosecutors say, Bannon, Timothy Shea and Andrew Badolato got involved. They used shell companies and We Build The Wall Inc, a not-for-profit formed by Bannon to launder the money back to Kolfage and keep some for themselves, it's claimed. The fund would pay the shell companies, then they would deposit the money back into accounts held by Kolfage or his wife, marking the transactions down as for 'media', 'consulting' or 'social media', it is alleged. Despite claiming on the GoFundMe that he'd 'never take a penny' from the donations, the indictment alleges that Kolfage took a $20,000-a-month salary from it in addition to a one-off, $100,000 payment. In total, he took $350,000, it's claimed. Bannon allegedly took $1million from it - some of which he used to pay Kolfage, but some he allegedly kept and spent on hotels, travel and credit card debt. Advertisement

Don Jr has since defended his previous support of the group and claimed he may have been 'deceived'.

'Don gave one speech at a single We Build The Wall event over a year ago with a group of angel moms and besides that, has no involvement with their organization,' his spokeswoman Amanda Miller said.

'He never gave them permission to use him as a testimonial on their website and was unaware they included him as one until today's media reports about it.

'His previous praise of the group was based on what he was led to believe about their supposed intention to help build the wall on our southern border and if he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions.'

A Facebook page run by Kolfage indicates that his links to Don Jr ran deeper than the president's son was letting on.

The page spent $185,000 on ads, including some asking for wall-building donations, according to Insider.

In one ad posted in December, Kolfage promised a 'FREE Donald Trump Jr Autographed Book with donation to We Build The Wall Inc! DO NOT MISS OUT!'

Meanwhile, President Trump sought to distance himself from the fiasco and said he didn't know anything about the scheme despite its ties to his inner circle.

'I don't like that project,' he told reporters in the Oval Office. 'I thought it was being done for showboating reasons. It was something I very much thought was inappropriate to be doing.'

He also tried to distance himself from his former campaign manager Bannon, saying: 'I feel very badly. I haven't been dealing with him for a very long period of time.

'I haven't been dealing with him at all. It's a very sad thing by Mr Bannon. He was involved in our campaign and for a small part of our administration.'

In fact Bannon was the campaign CEO for its last 88 days after the ousting of Paul Manafort - who is now a convicted felon himself - and then was Trump's 'Chief Strategist,' with a West Wing office close to the Oval Office.

Just weeks ago, Trump tweeted out his dissatisfaction with the wall project after the group built a section of wall just 35 feet from the Rio Grande river on the US-Mexico border, leading to concerns about erosion and flooding.

'I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads,' Trump tweeted. 'It was only done to make me look bad, and [perhaps] it now doesn't.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 16:10:45|Editor: huaxia

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HANOI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Border guard forces of Vietnam's northern Son La province arrested four Lao men for trafficking 10 cakes of heroin into the country, Vietnam News Agency reported Friday.

The drug smugglers, aged 18-19, were caught red-handed transporting the drug in Moc Chau district on Thursday afternoon. They confessed to taking advantage of the stormy weather to transport the drug from Laos to Vietnam for distribution.

As stipulated in Vietnamese laws, those convicted of smuggling over 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kg of methamphetamine are punishable by death. Making or trading 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal drugs also faces death penalty. Enditem
He had been under a cloud since FBI agents raided the McCook village headquarters on Sept. 26. The raid came on the same day when federal law enforcement authorities descended on the Village Hall in nearby Lyons and two days after raids on the offices and home of state Sen. Martin Sandoval, a Chicago Democrat whose district includes both towns.
A recent uptick in COVID-19 related deaths in Forsyth County continued with a 63rd victim being reported Thursday by state health officials.

There have been 10 deaths reported in Forsyth since Aug. 14, including three on Aug. 14, four on Monday, two on Tuesday and one on Wednesday.

Joshua Swift, the countys health director, said part of the increase in deaths can be attributed to the surge in cases during July.

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, for those who have died from COVID, the median time from first symptom to death is about 19 days. Most people with a severe case typically arent admitted into an intensive care unit until Day 12 of symptoms.

By comparison, it can take one to two weeks to recover from mild symptoms, and four to six week to recover from severe symptoms.

We had such high numbers in July, particularly among our older population having morbidity and other complications, Swift said.

The latest Forsyth COVID surveillance report, which features data as of Saturday, had 49 of the 56 deaths at that time being individuals 55 and older.
The two suspects in the disappearance and murder of 3-year-old Kamille Cupcake McKinney pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal kidnapping charges, the U.S. attorneys office for the Northern District of Alabama told AL.com Friday.

Patrick Stallworth, 39, and his girlfriend, Derick Irisha Brown, 29, face federal kidnapping charges and state capital murder charges in the October 2019 disappearance of Kamille, who was abducted while at a birthday party in Tom Brown Village in Birmingham. They pleaded not guilty to the federal charges during their arraignment in Birmingham federal court.

Stallworth and Brown were arrested the the night after Kamilles disappearance after police released a store surveillance photo of Stallworth and multiple tipsters identified him.

Stallworth was charged with multiple counts of possession of child pornography found in his phone during the investigation. The images were not of Kamille. He was released from jail on bond several days later and rearrested Oct. 22, the night Kamilles remains were recovered.

Brown remained in jail the entire time because of previous kidnapping charges against her.

According to testimony in Jefferson Count Circuit Court by Birmingham police homicide Det. Jonathan Ross, investigators interviewed Brown three times, during which she said she did not have any knowledge about Kamilles kidnapping or subsequent death.

Brown told police the couple had been together all day, including at Tom Brown Village from where Kamille was abducted, but said she was not aware of the childs presence until they stopped at a Jet Pet after leaving the public housing complex on their back to their apartment at Woodside condominiums.

It wasnt until Monday, Oct. 21  nine days after Kamilles disappearance and the day before childs remains were found in a trash dumpster at a Jefferson County landfill  that Brown first acknowledged knowing anything about the girl. Brown also allegedly told police that she saw Stallworth sexually abusing Kamille.

Both Stallworth and Brown face the death penalty if convicted of the state charges.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon fly in a VVIP aircraft - Air India One - which is set to land in Delhi by early next week. The government has ordered two highly customised wide-bodied Boeing 777-300 ERs to fly PM Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind and other senior dignitaries of the country.

The two aircraft are currently being customised in the United States and will replace the nearly 25-year-old Air India One planes of Boeing 747 fleet. The new Special Extra Section Flight (SESF) or VVIP aircraft 'Air India One' will be operated by pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF). While the first jet will land in the national capital next week, the second will arrive by the end of the year, sources told The Print.

Also Read: Two Boeing wide-body planes for Modi, Kovind, Naidu to cost Rs 8,458 crore

Here is a quick lowdown on the new aircraft, which are on their way to India from Boeing's Fort Dallas HQ in Florida:-

The two Boeing aircraft have been converted into an impregnable air fortress and would cost around Rs 8,458 crore to the exchequer.

The aircraft have their own missile defence system, Self-Protection Suites (SPS) that can jam enemy radar frequencies, and state-of-the-art communication system.

The planes function as a full-fledged flying command centre. Its advanced and secure communication system facilitates audio and video communication without being tapped or hacked, just like the American Air Force One used by the US President.

The aircraft's interiors have been divided into a conference room, big cabin for VVIP passengers, a mini medical centre as well as seats for the accompanying entourage of officials or dignitaries.

The aircraft will go with the Air India One sign.

Air India One (also referred to as AI-1 or AICOO1) is the call sign of any aircraft with the President or Prime Minister of India on board.

The aircraft will be operated by the IAF, although Air India would receive them.

A team of senior officers from Air India, IAF and security agencies have reached the US to complete formalities and bring the aircraft to India.

The planes will bear the Ashoka emblem with Bharat and India written over them.

The new aircraft can fly over 17 hours continuously without refuelling. The current one can't fly more than 10 hours without refuelling.

Also Read: Air India likely to get custom-made B777 planes for VVIP travel by September
During a Zoom conference with the press, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced Wednesday that over $1.69 billion will be included in the appropriation bill of the 2021 fiscal year which will work to expand education programs for low-income and Hispanic students.

According to Cuellars office, both TAMIU and Laredo College had over 18,000 students receive the Texas Grant which totals up to over $106 million. For the Pell Grant, TAMIU had 10,528 students and LC had 15,706 totaling over $187.5 million. The data derives from the years that both the grants started; the Texas Grant started in 1997 and the Pell Grant in 2014.

Adding the figures from all across the South Texas region, including San Antonio and the Valley, 114,928 students received the Texas Grant and 181,295 the Pell Grant. The amounts awarded for both is $827,261,673 from the Texas Grant and over $1.3 billion from the Pell Grant.

This year, Cuellar said the Pell grant was increased by $150, which results in the maximum award of $6,495. Additionally, Cuellar wanted to remind students they can apply for the Summer Pell Grant which has returned after years of unavailability. Cuellar believes this will provide approximately a million students nationwide additional funds for higher education.

He also spoke about allocating additional funds from the CARES Act into education programs such as the Gear-Up, TRIO, Title-I, CAMP and more.

This is basically to help students that want to go get their bachelors degree, he said.

For the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), a $5 million increase from the 2020 fiscal year puts the total amount at $370 million for the program. According to the office, GEAR UP is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education by providing six-year grants for high-poverty middle and high school students.

Cuellar said that $1.1 billion for the TRIO program will help with programs for individuals of at-risk backgrounds to progress in their education. It also hosts the TRIO Student Support Services which help increase college retention and graduation rates.

For the College Assistance Migrant Program and the High School Equivalency Program, a $1 million increase puts the funding at $46.6 million. CAMP will help workers that travel during different seasons with their first year of undergraduate studies, and the HEP helps them attain their high school equivalency.

Lastly, Cuellar said that in each appropriation bill, he has added the language to include Hispanic Serving Institutions to receive similar benefits that Historically Black Colleges receive.

It is imperative that all students, regardless of zip code, have the option of going to college, Cuellar said. Thats why I have worked hard to further increase access to higher education, by expanding college financial aid and making federal programs more available for students. These funds will ensure that underserved student populations receive the educational opportunities they deserve. As a senior Member of the Appropriations Committee, I remain steadfast in supporting initiatives that open doors of opportunity for all students.

cocampo@lmtonline.com
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council about Iran's alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal and calling for the restoration of sanctions against Iran at United Nations hradquarters in New York, U.S., August 20, 2020.

WASHINGTON  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday addressed a slew of issues lingering over the United States and China, ranging from strained trade relations to national security threats to the November presidential election.

When asked in a CNBC interview whether the relationship between the world's two largest economies could be restored, he said the Trump administration is open to talks with Beijing. Yet he added that the U.S. would maintain its tough stance in the interest of American national security.

"This is a serious effort, this is a serious risk and President Trump is serious about protecting our information, our networks and the American people," Pompeo said in the "Squawk Box" interview.

When asked about the Chinese-owned TikTok, Pompeo would not discuss specifics of a U.S. tech firm acquiring the platform. He did reiterate the importance of such a sale in order to protect personal American data.

"I predict that TikTok will no longer share its private information that belongs to the American people to the Chinese Communist Party, I'm confident that they won't be doing that," Pompeo said of the potential U.S. acquisition.

"I promise you when we get to the end of this that won't be happening," he added.

Pompeo also vowed to "continue to go after" China if the country presses a policy that all Chinese companies are "beholden to their security apparatus."

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it would remove "untrusted" Chinese tech apps like TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores. Pompeo detailed the new five-pronged "Clean Network" effort aimed at curbing potential national security risks.

"With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok and WeChat and others, are significant threats to personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for Chinese Communist Party content censorship," Pompeo said during an Aug. 5 press briefing.

U.S. officials have long complained that Chinese intellectual property theft has cost the American economy billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs and threatens national security. Beijing maintains it does not engage in intellectual property theft.

Pompeo added that the State Department would work with the Commerce and Defense Departments to limit the ability of Chinese cloud service providers to collect, store and process data in the United States.
The move was announced a day after Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan demanded withdrawal of the Union cabinet decision to lease out Thiruvananthapuram airport to the Adani group

Protesting against the Centre's decision to lease out the airport here to Adani Enterprises, the ruling CPM in Kerala on Friday said it would send two lakh emails to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, opposing the move.

"Party workers and representatives at various levels will send emails to Modi to express the state's sentiments on the matter," CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told reporters here.

An all-party virtual meeting called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had on Thursday demanded withdrawal of the union cabinet decision to lease out Thiruvananthapuram airport to the Adani group, while the Centre maintained that the state government had failed to qualify in the bidding process that was carried out in a "transparent manner".

The CPM on Friday demanded that the Union government hand over the airport to the state government and said it would not allow its takeover by the Adani group.

"We will not allow privatisation of the airport. It cannot be handed over to private hands," Balakrishnan said.

"The centre'saim is to hand over airports to corporates. All airports and seaports are being handed over to the Adanis," he alleged.

Setting aside political differences, all parties should join hands with the state government in this fight against the privatisation of Thiruvananthapuram airport, he said.

Alleging huge corruption was involved in the Centre's decision, the Marxist leader recalled that Union minister V Muraleedharan, who has justified the move, had opposed it in 2018.

"We need to put pressure on the Union government to change the decision. The state government is prepared to take over the airport. During the pandemic, such a decision by the centre smacks of huge corruption", he alleged.

He also urged all MPs to intervene in the matter. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who has welcomed the Centre's decision, should change his stance and stand with the state's interests, Kodiyeri said.

After the all-party meeting, Vijayan once again wrote to the prime minister on the matter and informed him about the decision taken and requested him to reconsider the move.

The Chief Minister had told the meeting that the state government had asked for the management and the operation of the airport with the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in which it will be the major shareholder.

Union Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said the Kerala government did not qualify in the bidding process, which was held in a transparent manner.

Adani Enterprises won the rights to run six airports  Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati  through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode after a competitive bidding process in February, 2019.
"Quicker and more cost-efficient financing" available to suppliers earlier in the business cycle compared with conventional post-shipment supplier financing programs is especially relevant in today's context, where prolonged trade disruptions and tighter credit lines can mean the difference between the survival and closure of a business, Muthukrishnan said.DBS Bank will start to use supply chain data to assess a supplier's performance and credit risk to deliver pre-shipment finance, unlike traditional models which resulted in suppliers being under-funded or unable to access necessary capital. The bank will work together with cloud software firm Infor to assess this.The development of this financing option has been helped by the acceleration of global commodities supply chains toward a digital-physical reset, where contact-free trade financing is starting to become a norm due to Covid-19 restrictions.There used to be many procedures which require physical documents to be signed off with wet signatures, couriered and examined before a transaction can be completed. However, such processes were no longer feasible as businesses shut amid the circuit breaker in Singapore," Muthukrishnan said.The first movers into digital financing will reap the most benefits due to the quicker settlement turnaround times, the DBS head said, because this will result in greater cost savings from operational efficiencies and more efficient cashflows.This is especially important in the commodities sector given its fast-moving nature and the number of players involved, Muthukrishnan added.But current physical procedures are not obsolete. He acknowledged that pre-shipment financing processes like physical letters of credit (LC) and telegraphic transfers do address different customer needs at various stages of the trade life cycle.Pre-shipment financing is typically used to support suppliers in sourcing raw materials for manufacturing the finished goods or buyers who need to pay their suppliers in advance before shipment of goods, he said.On the other hand, a buyers letter of credit is often required by sellers as soon as a shipment is made to mitigate against payment risk, while telegraphic transfers are merely the mode by which funds can be transferred electronically and directly to any part of the world, he added.Stringing together both digitization and current practices would provide an end-to end-solution that addresses clients individual needs and pain points.The supply chain offers an invaluable data source of both financial and non-financial data which are trapped in their often-siloed steps and buried under paper processes. Muthukrishnan believes digitization can assist to lift that veil to provide transparency to all market players involved.Blockchain technology is a front runner in this aspect given its decentralized, immutable and tamper-proof attributes, he said.In an earlier interview, Muthukrishnan explained the advantages of combining blockchain and DBS APIs, allowing the Southeast Asian bank to successfully provide digital financing services to contractual counterparties in an iron ore transaction in real-time This is especially beneficial for small-to-medium sized suppliers embedded deep in the supply chain, as visibility to an underlying transaction with an industry anchor helps provide greater assurance on the authenticity and credit worthiness of the trade, providing banks the confidence to extend financing lines quicker and more cost efficiently, Muthukrishnan said.An international trading house and two major miners have concluded trades using the blockchain technology since late 2019.In November 2019, Trafigura and DBS Bank concluded their first pilot trade on an open-sourced blockchain trading platform for $20 million worth of African iron ore shipped to China.In May 2020, Australian miner BHP and Baowu Steel Group completed their first blockchain-based iron ore transaction.A month later, Rio Tinto used blockchain technology to clear a yuan-denominated iron ore deal that was facilitated by DBS Bank.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has suggested he's not sure if he would send his children back to New York City public schools when they reopen in three weeks - despite the state recording an infection rate below 1 percent for 14 straight days.

In an interview with NBC's Today on Friday, Cuomo described the reopening of schools in New York as a 'risky proposition'.

When asked if he would feel comfortable sending his children - if they were still school-aged - back into a classroom next month, Cuomo wouldn't give a straight answer.

Instead, he admitted: 'I would have a lot of questions'.

He added that city officials were 'still working out what the plan would be'.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has suggested he's not sure if he would send his children back to New York City public schools when they reopen in three weeks - despite the state recording an infection rate below 1 percent for 14 straight days

'This is a risky proposition no matter how you do it, let's be honest. We've seen schools open - we've seen colleges open - and get into trouble in one week. So there's a lot of questions to answer,' he said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to provide a mix of in-classroom and online learning across New York City from September 10.

De Blasio has said the district will use a blended learning plan of part remote, part in-person, with a recommendation that students and staff get tested at least once a month, sit six feet apart and wear masks on school buses.

Cuomo repeatedly said New York state had a low enough infection rate to be able to reopen schools.

'What I've said from day one is if the parents aren't happy and confident and the teachers aren't confident, then you don't have a school district reopening,' he said.

'As long as they're smart and safe, whatever a school district wants to do, our infection rate is low right now.'

It comes as New York reported a COVID-19 infection rate below 1 percent for two straight weeks.

The state also had its lowest hospitalizations since March 16 with 490 patients. Of the 98,880 tests reported on Thursday, 709 - or 0.72 percent - were positive. Three people died from coronavirus across the state on Thursday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to provide a mix of in-classroom and online learning across New York City from September 10. The Mayor is pictured above on Wednesday with Richard Carranza, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, at Brooklyn's New Bridges Elementary School

HOW WILL BILL'S PLAN ACTUALLY WORK? New York City schools are slated to open September 10 for a blend of in-person and remote learning. De Blasio has pledged 'students will be learning five days a week, no matter what' but it is unclear exactly how that will work or how many days each child will in school for. Students 'will remain in pods for as much of the day as possible' and, along with staff 'will wear face coverings throughout the school day'. The reopening plan stipulates that all schools will have a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment at all times and schools will close if the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests in the city is 3 per cent or more on a seven-day average. The mayor's school reopening plan 'encourages' teachers to get tested for COVID-19 monthly and promises that the city's testing sites will expedite results for city school staff. If at least two COVID-19 cases are confirmed in different classrooms at a school, the mayor's plan calls for the school to be closed for 14 days. If one or two linked cases are recorded in the same classroom, then only that classroom must close for 14 days. Advertisement

The issue of reopening schools has become a controversial one as many are left wondering how to know if it's safe.

Public health experts say virus rates in the community should be low, but there's little agreement on a specific threshold or even a measurement.

The federal government has largely left it to state and local governments to decide when it's safe to bring students back to the classroom. The result is a patchwork of policies that vary widely by state and county.

New York City teachers on Wednesday threatened to strike or bring legal action unless the largest school district in the US implements a more rigorous COVID-19 testing plan and other safety measures before reopening schools next month.

The warning by the United Federation of Teachers, which represents the city's 133,000 public school teachers, could delay de Blasio's reopening plan.

'The minute we feel that the mayor is trying to force people in to a situation that is unsafe... we go to court, we take a job action,' UFT President Michael Mulgrew said during a briefing, adding that a 'job action' could include a strike.

Asked about Mulgrew's comments while touring a school in Brooklyn, de Blasio responded: 'Look, any union leader who talks about doing something illegal should really think twice about what he's saying.'

He was referring to a New York state law that bars public employees from striking or engaging in sickouts.

The mayor said city officials would continue working with the union on the reopening and insisted that all facilities would be safe, adding: 'We're going to keep moving forward to get schools ready for our kids.'

His reopening plan stipulates that all schools will have a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment at all times and schools will close if the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests in the city is 3 per cent or more on a seven-day average.

De Blasio has said the district will use a blended learning plan of part remote, part in-person, with a recommendation that students and staff get tested at least once a month, sit six feet apart and wear masks on school buses

'We are going to make sure these schools are safe and ready. And if we don't think they're safe and ready, they won't reopen,' de Blasio said on Thursday.

'We work for the parents and the kids of New York City and we owe it to them to get it right, and we will. So, everyone is working together to make sure the PPEs are in place, the signage, the cleaning, the disinfecting, you name it. That work going on literally every single day.

'Some of it is more advanced and technological. Some of it's really old school. Opening up windows. Some school classrooms have windows that were sealed shut. We're opening them up because, what the doctors tell us is fresh air is actually one of the very best ways to fight the coronavirus.'

Compared to de Blasio's threshold of a 3 per cent COVID-19 infection rate for schools to shut down again, the city's positive test rate on Thursday was 0.88 per cent.

The mayor's school reopening plan 'encourages' teachers to get tested for COVID-19 monthly and promises that the city's testing sites will expedite results for city school staff.

If at least two COVID-19 cases are confirmed in different classrooms at a school, the mayor's plan calls for the school to be closed for 14 days. If one or two linked cases are recorded in the same classroom, then only that classroom must close for 14 days.
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Stumping for regional candidates in Tuscany this month, Italys former interior minister Matteo Salvini waved around a surgical mask  and pointedly did not wear it. Covid-19 has taken more than 35,000 lives since it struck Italy in January. But now the daily death toll is typically in single digits, and Mr. Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigration League party, wants to put the country back to work. Italians are being held hostage, kept at a distance, masked, he hollered, and meanwhile they let thousands of lowlifes land their boats and do what they want, go where they want, spit, infect. Enough is enough!

People cheered. But half of them kept their masks on.

This is a common pattern in the Western countries (and American states) where Covid-19 fatalities are dwindling. The arguments for freedom may be strong  but they are put awfully crudely. The arguments for discipline and prevention may often be resented  but they have a lot of scientific authority behind them, and they carry the day. Better safe than sorry. Late last month, Italys parliament voted to extend the governments state of emergency until Oct. 15.

In a society that respects science, expertise confers power. That has good results, but it brings a terrible problem: Illegitimate political power can be disguised as expertise. This was a favorite idea of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who used it to explain how experts had expanded definitions of criminality and sexual deviancy. One of Italys most celebrated thinkers, Giorgio Agamben, has recently applied similar insights to the coronavirus, at the risk of turning himself into a national pariah.

In late February, Mr. Agamben began using the website of his publisher, Quodlibet, to criticize the techno-medical despotism that the Italian government was putting in place through quarantines and closings. Mr. Agamben, 78, is a philosopher of language, art and meaning. Since 1995, he has focused on what he calls the archaeology of Western political institutions, devoting a monumental nine-volume work, Homo Sacer, to excavating their hidden logic. Some of his earlier work was translated by Michael Hardt, the Duke professor and co-author of the radical campus classic Empire.
President Akufo-Addo has appealed to Ghanaians to retain the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in power to continue building a resilient and robust economy for the general wellbeing of citizens.

The Government would ensure efficient allocation of resources, be accountable and protect the public purse, the President said as he urged the electorate to believe in the Party's vision of enhancing productivity and diversifying agriculture and expanding the industrial and manufacturing sectors.

President Akufo-Addo was speaking at a durbar of the chiefs and people of Twifo-Attimorkwa in the Central Region as part of his three-day working visit to the Region.

Nana Appiah Nuamah, the Paramount Chief of Twifo Traditional Area and the Central Regional representative of the Council of State, as well as Daasebre Kwasi Kani II, Attimorkwahene, expressed gratitude to President Akufo-Addo for the massive infrastructural projects in the area.

They bestowed on President Akufo-Addo the title "Oseadeyo" to reflect his prompt fulfilment of promises made to the people in the area.

They, however, appealed to him to support more of the area's roads and educational infrastructure to improve the standards of living of the people.

Later, the President and his entourage inspected the new 60-bed Twifo-Praso Government Hospital being constructed by Euroget De-Invest, an Egyptian capital investment company, as one of nine hospitals being constructed across the country.

The facility, which is on a 102,000-square meter land, also hosts a two double-storey staff housing unit made up of four flats each and two single units on which work was steadily progressing.

Work has also reached an advanced stage on a dining hall, kitchen, laundry and a mini market being ancillaries of the facility.

At the time of visit, artisans including electricians, tilers, painters and plumbers were busily installing service tubes, laying base materials and doing external landscaping at various points of the project.

The facility will be a one-stop modern facility for healthcare delivery in that part of the Central Region, whose people have to travel between 80 to 100 kilometres to Cape Coast to access critical health services.

The President also inspected the ongoing 40 million cedis Twifo Praso Bridge linking the Central, Western, and Ashanti regions to ease economic activities and commuting distances.

Currently, the old dilapidated bridge had become a nightmare to travellers and other road users each time they crossed it.

---GNA
By PTI

BEIJING: People in China's capital Beijing are no longer required to wear masks outdoors, health authorities said on Friday, a second such announcement since May when it was reversed after a recurrence of coronavirus cases in the city.

According to official data, Beijing had 935 cases of coronavirus since February this year of which 924 have recovered.

The city reported nine deaths.

People are no longer required to wear masks outdoors, but they still need to wear masks when in close contact with others, a new guideline issued by the Beijing Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said.

ALSO READ | Thousands party in water park sans masks, social distancing in former COVID-19 epicentre Wuhan

On May 17, Beijing made a similar announcement, becoming a rare city in the world to relax norms amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the rule was reintroduced a few weeks later after the new clusters of the virus linked to the city's main market called Xinfadi broke out.

The new guidelines suggest that people who have a fever or respiratory symptoms, especially those who have been in close contact with patients with respiratory infectious diseases recently, to avoid attending weddings, birthday parties, and other family gatherings, an official press release here said.

As of Thursday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases all over the Chinese mainland had reached 84,917, including 491 patients who were still being treated, with 20 in severe condition.

Altogether 79,792 people had been discharged after recovery, and 4,634 had died of the disease on the mainland, according to China's National Health Commission.

While the world is gripped by the pandemic which emerged in the Chinese city Wuhan which was the first COVID-19 epicentre, official media here highlighted pool parties in the city with thousands taking part in it, which according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry is "strategic victory" against the virus.

"It reflects a strategic victory achieved by Wuhan and the Chinese government in fighting the virus", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing here on Thursday.
As the COVID-19 emergency dragged into the second half of the year, some were losing faith in Australias ability to respond but this week there have been encouraging signs that we can really get this virus under control.

In early August, parts of Victoria returned to a hard lockdown as new daily cases ticked over 700 a day, leaving thousands in despair. The brutal restrictions on Melbourne were smashing the national economy and public health officials seemed incapable of stopping the virus spreading through aged care facilities or even keeping suspected cases in isolation.

Yet there is now light at the end of the tunnel. Victoria reported only 179 cases on Friday and the seven-day average is down to about 250, half the level before lockdown. Deaths are also trending down.

It has, perhaps, taken longer than it should but Victoria is showing that lockdowns work. The situation could improve quickly from here. With fewer new cases, the teams of contact tracers and testers will have more capacity to hunt down the virus before it can spread. And, with the number of infectious cases falling, it will be much easier to ensure effective quarantine. The risk to health professionals and carers will fall.

It is not just Victoria offering hope. Cases of community transmission in NSW have fallen to low single digits a day  just one on Friday and that case was already in isolation due to being a close contact. It looks increasingly likely that the Berejiklian government has the technology and processes to control outbreaks by carefully calibrated measures that fall short of lockdowns. New Zealands relatively soft lockdown seems to be working, too.
When billionaire Robert Smith ended his 2019 Morehouse College commencement speech by vowing to pay off student debt for the entire graduating class, cheers of MVP, MVP, MVP! rose from students and faculty on the Atlanta campus.

What the audience didnt know was that Smith was harboring a financial secret. He was being pursued by Justice Department prosecutors and Internal Revenue Service agents for potential tax crimes, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Federal authorities have spent four years examining whether Smith failed to pay U.S. taxes on about $200 million in assets that moved through offshore structures, some of those people said. Smith hasnt been charged, and prosecutors may conclude he owes no taxes on those assets.

The matter hinges largely on whether Smith was actually the beneficial owner of Caribbean entities that received proceeds from his companys first private equity fund, according to two of the people. A portion eventually flowed through the offshore entities into a U.S. charitable foundation where Smith is president and founding director.

U.S. citizens are required to pay taxes on income anywhere in the world. When the IRS catches mistakes on a return, taxpayers generally rectify the problem and reach a civil settlement. Prosecutors can bring criminal cases, however, against those who willfully fail to pay taxes or fail to declare their foreign assets.

Smith is trying to persuade the Justice Department to forgo criminal charges and resolve his case with a civil settlement, according to three of the people. A conviction could send him to prison and force him out of Vista Equity Partners, a money management firm with $65 billion in assets that has brought him fame and a luxe lifestyle.

Part of his defense rests on a reported pledge by the private equity fund to direct proceeds to charity. If prosecutors determine that the proceeds were designated for charity all along, it could bolster the argument that Smith was never the beneficial owner and not liable for taxes.

Recently, Smith has talked to prosecutors about possibly cooperating with their investigations in exchange for leniency, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Thats because prosecutors are building what may be a larger tax case against a Smith associate  Robert T. Brockman, a Houston businessman  according to Bermuda court records and people familiar with the matter. The Brockman investigation was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, though the inquiry into Smith hasnt been disclosed previously. The two mens business connections involve a jumble of offshore entities, trusts and foundations, much of it opaque to anyone without subpoena power.

In 2000, Brockman helped provide $1 billion for Smith to begin a private equity firm, a person familiar with the matter said. The funds came out of an entity held by a charitable trust based in Bermuda in which Brockman is a beneficiary, the person said.

The men met through business dealings at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and shared a passion for the potential of software in business. Brockman made his name with software widely used by auto dealerships and is the chairman and chief executive officer of Reynolds and Reynolds, based in Dayton, Ohio. He didnt respond to requests for comment sent by email or made through his company and its outside public relations firm.

Smith and Vista declined to comment for this article. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on whether an investigation exists. An IRS spokesman didnt respond to emails seeking comment.

The Justice Department has discretion in deciding whom to charge, weighing factors such as the prosecutions evidence, the strength of the defense and the way a jury would likely respond to the facts. Smith, a prominent Black businessman and philanthropist, may be viewed sympathetically by a jury in a time of protests for racial justice, lawyers said.

The issue of jury appeal is often considered by prosecutors in cases that are a close call, said David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who isnt involved in the case. If 12 jurors believe they want to acquit a defendant based on something other than the evidence, thats their inherent right. They may believe its not the right time or place to bring a case against a particular defendant.

As prosecutorial scrutiny of Smith has intensified the last few years, so has his wealth and his public profile, evidenced by his $34 million pledge to the families of nearly 400 Morehouse graduates. In an interview with Business Insider, Smith said the goal of his gifts is liberating the human spirit.

The co-founder of San Francisco-based Vista, Smith chairs Carnegie Hall and has received awards from Harvard, Cornell and Columbia universities. Hes graced the cover of Forbes magazine twice and was named to Bloombergs 50 people who defined 2019. Smith is also the only Black American whos signed Warren Buffetts Giving Pledge. In the past five years, his personal net worth has nearly tripled, to $6 billion, Bloomberg data indicates, making him the wealthiest Black person in the country.

Over that same period, Smith and the U.S. charitable foundation he helped create have given away at least $300 million. He used his own money to pay off the Morehouse debt and to donate $20 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. This year, he joined Tyler Perry and Floyd Mayweather in helping to pay funeral expenses for George Floyd.

The foundation, of which he is president and founding director, gave $54 million to the National Park Foundation to acquire the homes of Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent African-Americans, $48 million to the United Negro College Fund and $37 million to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, according to its U.S. tax filings. Proceeds that flowed from his first private equity fund through the offshore entities were ultimately transferred to the foundation that made the gifts, the tax filings show.

Two years ago, Forbes offered this glimpse of Smiths charitable drive. I will never forget that my path was paved by my parents, grandparents and generations of African-Americans whose names I will never know, Smith wrote when he signed the Giving Pledge to contribute half of his net worth to philanthropic causes during his lifetime. We will only grasp the staggering potential of our time if we create on-ramps that empower ALL people to participate, regardless of background, country of origin, religious practice, gender, or color of skin.

From seemingly different backgrounds, Smith, 57, and Brockman, 79, bonded two decades ago. The son of two high school principals in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Smith told his Morehouse audience that he got a break in grade school when he rode a bus across Denver to a wealthy neighborhood with the sort of quality education unavailable to many of his neighbors.

As a young man with a degree from Cornell, he found success as a chemical engineer at Goodyear Tire and Rubber and then at Kraft General Foods. An MBA from Columbia followed, and Smith realized he could make more money on Wall Street. After what he described as more than 100 interviews with banks, he joined Goldman Sachs in 1994 in mergers and acquisitions. Goldman later moved him from New York to be a technology investment banker in Silicon Valley. His star was rising at Goldman when he began working with Brockman, a Goldman client and code-writing whiz.

Brockman, a former Marine and IBM salesman, started his own software company in 1970 and ultimately gobbled up several other companies. Though the Texan generally shuns the spotlight, hes also a philanthropist, creating a scholarship program at Texas A&M and serving on the board of the Baylor College of Medicine.

He decided to make a Texas-size bet on Smith, helping to lure the investment banker out of Goldman Sachs in his late 30s. Smith set up Vista with two partners in San Francisco.

Its first fund, Vista Equity Fund II, had a single limited partner, Point Investments, a British Virgin Islands entity, which made the $1 billion commitment in 2000, a person familiar with the matter said. Point Investments was held as part of the A. Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust, named for Brockmans late father, according to Bermudian court records.

The ownership of the trust was complex, but Brockman is identified in U.K. court records as a beneficiary. The arrangement is typical of those used to help rich Americans lower their taxes. It was owned by another offshore entity, the St. Johns Trust Company, which is at the heart of the U.S. investigation, Bermudian court records indicate.

Over time, Smith, Vista and Brockman grew more intertwined. In 2006, the company that Brockman had founded 36 years earlier launched a buyout of a larger rival, Reynolds and Reynolds. Equity financing was provided by Goldman Sachss private equity arm, GS Capital Partners; Smiths Vista Equity Fund II; and another Brockman trust called Spanish Steps. Prosecutors have studied that transaction, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Back at Vista, Smith racked up an astounding winning streak. In all, hes completed more than $120 billion in deals and produced some of the highest returns in the industry over the last two decades. Vista has started a score of private equity, debt and hedge funds. Its clients include big investors like the state pension funds in New York and Illinois and the City of Los Angeles.

Life grew more complicated for Smith in 2013 when his wife filed for divorce, citing adultery. Jamaican-born Suzanne McFayden had met Smith while studying French literature at Cornell. They married in 1988 and had three children.

Experts on both sides of the divorce pored over the family finances. In 2014, Smith approached the IRS seeking amnesty from prosecution under a program used by more than 56,000 Americans who failed to report offshore assets, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Through the program, the IRS collected more than $11 billion in back taxes, fines and penalties, while learning who enabled offshore tax evaders.

But the IRS rejected Smith, according to people familiar with the matter. The agency typically turned down taxpayers if it already knew they had undeclared offshore accounts.

The divorce was final in 2014. The next year, Smith married Hope Dworacyzk, Playboys 2010 Playmate of the Year and a Celebrity Apprentice participant until Donald Trump fired her. For the wedding, at a five-star hotel along Italys Amalfi Coast, the couples seven-month-old son floated down the aisle atop an artificial cloud. John Legend and Seal entertained the crowd.

Robert Smith and wife Hope Dworacyzk [File: Bloomberg]

Smith also sold about one-third of Vista to Dyal Capital Partners beginning that year for an undisclosed amount.

A criminal inquiry soon emerged. In 2016, near the end of the Obama administration, prosecutors sent out subpoenas from a San Francisco grand jury to witnesses, people familiar with the matter said. The investigation is being conducted by the Justice Departments Tax Division and the U.S. attorneys office for the Northern District of California. A veteran Tax Division prosecutor, Corey Smith, is working on both the Smith and Brockman cases, the people said.

Among other matters, investigators have focused on the winding down of Smiths first fund in 2014, the year of his divorce, the people said. Two offshore entities began transferring $247 million in proceeds from Vista Equity Fund II to Fund II Foundation, the charity where Smith is president.

One of those offshore entities was St. Kitts- and Nevis-based Flash Holdings LLC, tax filings show. At issue is who beneficially owned Flash, the people said. Also under scrutiny is an unusual agreement driving the transfer to the foundation, the people added. The foundation has said a promise was made in 2000 by Vistas first fund to transfer its remaining assets to charity after covering its obligations to its limited partner. Its unclear whether theres a written agreement from the funds inception outlining the pledge.

None of this artful financial work could have been achieved without advisers and lawyers. Prosecutors found at least one and applied pressure a couple of years ago.

Evatt Tamine, an Australian lawyer, lived in Bermuda and worked for various offshore trusts and companies. Tamine was a director of St. Johns Trust Company, which oversaw Brockmans trust. His wife, Sophie Tod, also an attorney, became a director of the foundation led by Smith.

The Tamine family was in the U.K. when Bermuda police and IRS agents raided their home in September 2018 at the request of the U.S. Justice Department. A housekeeper met the agents, who spent hours seizing documents and encrypted electronic devices, according to a person who described the scene. Prosecutors later raided a storage locker, court records show.

Ultimately, Tamine received immunity to help U.S. prosecutors unravel the financial matters, according to court records. He has testified three times before the grand jury in San Francisco and has provided emails and other documents to prosecutors, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Court actions followed in Bermuda and the U.K. over which of the lawyers documents were protected by privilege, whether Tamine stole money and who should be appointed trustees.

The scope of the U.S. investigation emerged at a court hearing in Bermuda on Feb. 20. A Bermudian lawyer, Jan Woloniecki, spoke on behalf of the Justice Department. He said prosecutors were investigating a major and very large tax fraud on the United States that could set a record because prosecutors believe $1.5 billion of revenue was concealed fraudulently from the U.S. government.

Woloniecki also said St. Johns Trust had engaged in a cynical attempt to block the investigation by attacking Tamine. The trust and related entities have accused Tamine in Bermuda and London courts of stealing $20 million. Tamines lawyers said he vigorously denied any suggestion of unlawful conduct.

Mr. Tamine is an important cooperating witness into a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation in relation to Bob Brockman, a spokesperson for Tamines lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, said in a statement. The bogus allegations of theft were raised by entities associated with Mr. Brockman only after he agreed to assist the DOJ and are clearly designed to undermine his credibility as a witness. Those same entities tried (ultimately without success) to delay access to key documents by Mr. Tamine and the DOJ.

Speaking on behalf of the U.S. government, Woloniecki said it would be very damaging to the reputation of Bermuda if the plaintiffs were to use their claims against Tamine to derail the investigation.

If the U.S. decides to charge Smith or Brockman with tax crimes, their cases could surpass one against another billionaire known for charitable giving. Ty Warner, the founder of the company that makes Beanie Babies, pleaded guilty in 2013 to evading almost $6 million in taxes on $107 million held offshore. It was the largest of 150 cases in a U.S. crackdown on offshore tax evasion.

At Warners sentencing, a judge praised his philanthropy and imposed a sentence of probation rather than the nearly five years in prison he faced under a plea agreement. Smith is represented by one of Warners former lawyers.

(Updates with additional comment from Evatt Tamines lawyer beginning five paragraphs from end)

With assistance from Jonathan Browning.
SAN DIEGO - U.S. Navy intelligence specialist Colleen Grace was asleep on a remote air base in Iraq in 2019 when she was woken up by knocking on the door next to her room, and then a voice she recognized.

The voice belonged to a Navy corpsman she knew. He was upset and speaking loudly to the Army colonel who lived next door. Grace heard the corpsman say that a sailor who attended a Fourth of July barbecue had just been raped by a Navy SEAL on the base. The corpsman asked the colonel what to do because the victim was afraid that if she reported the incident, retribution would follow.

And thats real, Grace heard Hospitalman First Class Gustavo Llerenes tell Col. Thomas Collins, a physicians assistant with the Florida National Guard. Its a good ol boys network.

She said she heard Collins urge Llerenes to keep his voice down, saying the walls between the rooms were thin.

Grace, who could no longer hear the conversation between medical professionals, looked down at her phone to check the time. Just then Grace noticed a missed text from a friend asking her to come over. Urgent, the message read.

When Grace got to her friends room around 1:50 a.m., she found the sailor curled up in her bed. A giant black bruise marred her jawline. Several other marks lined her neck. It was then that Grace realized the overheard conversation about a rape was about her friend.

Grace said her friend told her the sex started out consensual in the SEALs room, but then he started biting and choking her. Her friend told her that at one point she thought what is he going to do with my body when he kills me? because she said he was strangling her so hard she couldnt breathe.

Grace gingerly asked her if it would be OK to photograph her injuries. She said she lifted her friends shirt to find more bruises  on her breast, a shoulder, her stomach.

Grace sent the photos to her friends phone, and then hugged her and cried, unsure of what would happen next.

But she and her friend would not stay silent.

Within weeks, the entire Foxtrot platoon of SEAL Team 7, known as Trident 1726, was sent home early to San Diego. It was an extremely rare move to cut short the mission of a unit that was there to combat remnants of ISIS. Navy officials have given few details other than to say there was an alleged sexual assault and drinking at a Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq in 2019 in violation of Navy rules barring deployed troops from consuming alcohol.

The story of the platoon being pulled from Iraq has been previously reported, but documents obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with nearly a dozen people give the first in-depth view into what led to the rare recall. The documents and interviews show that women deployed with the SEALs say they were ogled and sexually harassed during the deployment. Records obtained by the AP from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service also reveal a previously unknown reported allegation of sexual misconduct against the SEAL platoon chief, Special Warfare Operator Chief Nicholas Olson, two days before the Fourth of July barbecue. Olson denies any wrongdoing.

The platoon was withdrawn after the Navy made an unusually public push to strengthen order and discipline in its secretive elite force amid a series of scandals involving SEALs. The misconduct has included cocaine use and tampering of drug tests by members of SEAL Team 10 based in Virginia, and last years conviction of Navy SEAL Adam Matthews, who was sentenced to one year in military prison for his role in the 2017 hazing-related death of an Army Green Beret in Africa.

The Navy fired three SEAL leaders in the aftermath of the alleged rape on the Iraq air base and charged Special Warfare Operator First Class Adel A. Enayat, an enlisted SEAL, with sexual assault, aggravated assault via strangulation and assault by battery for allegedly biting the victim on the face, according to his charge sheet. He faces a court-martial in November.

A hearing in the case was held Friday at Naval Base San Diego. At the hearing, Jeremiah Sullivan, the lawyer for the SEAL, said he was concerned Enayat, who identifies as non-white, cannot get a fair trial because of systemic racism in the military justice system, pointing out that there are no Black judges on the Navy bench.

Sullivan said Enayat is innocent and we look forward to trying his case in a court of law. Enayat, who was charged Dec. 30, filed a counter claim in February against the sailor alleging she sexually assaulted him, taking advantage of him when he was incapacitated.

AP originally did not name Enayat because of the counter claim. But the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on Friday confirmed that it closed the investigation into Enayats allegation after his lawyer decided to have him not talk to investigators. AP has a policy of not identifying victims unless they choose to be named.

Grace is the first service member to come forward to talk about what happened at Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq. She spoke to the AP in an exclusive interview, detailing what she witnessed that night, describing what she said were attempts by Olson, the platoon chief, to stop the alleged sexual assault from being reported, and revealing other misconduct towards another female sailor working with the SEAL platoon during the 2019 deployment to Anbar Province.

AP spoke to other service members on the deployment who asked not to be named or quoted for fear it could jeopardize their military careers. The sailor who reported being sexually assaulted on July 4, 2019, declined to be interviewed. Llerenes, the Navy corpsman, also declined to be interviewed for this story. Multiple attempts were made to connect with Col. Collins but were unsuccessful.

The drinking at the Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq and the alleged sexual assault that same night came only two days after the acquittal of Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher, who was accused by his platoon members of killing a captive Islamic State fighter and shooting civilians during a deployment to Iraq in 2017. Gallagher was also a member of SEAL Team 7 in Iraq but with a different platoon and under different leadership.

Gallagher  who was convicted of a single charge for posing with the dead teen militants body for a picture  got support from President Donald Trump, who prevented the military from taking disciplinary action against the ex-SEAL, pitting the commander-in-chief against the Navys top brass.

The Fourth of July incident led to a second ethics review of Americas commando forces in a year. The review by the Special Operations Command found a problematic culture that overemphasized combat and put troops at times far from supervision, opening the door to inappropriate behaviour.

Navy SEAL Capt. Todd Perry, the commander of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Iraq in 2019, blamed the Gallagher Effect, a term coined by leadership to denote the corrosive influence on a platoon such as the one Gallaghers behaviour had on order and discipline.

It only took one bad platoon chief to influence the entire platoon, that the no-drinking rule did not apply to them and that the brotherhood was more important than the Navy  just as Gallagher was able to do with the dishonourable members of his platoon during his deployment in 2017, Capt. Perry stated in an interview with an Army officer investigating the Fourth of July incident, according to military records obtained by AP. During the interview in Baghdad on July 29, 2019, Perry made no mention of any sexual assault allegations.

-

About a dozen female service members were attached to the SEAL platoon during a six-month deployment to Iraq that began in March of 2019.

On the air base, Grace and the other service members who supported Special Operations Task Force-West, the unit responsible for missions inside Anbar Province, Iraq, lived at Camp Fenin while the SEALs stayed at Camp Freiwald, about a 10-minute walk away.

The deployment  Graces first with the SEALs  was slow, she said. Others who had deployed previously to Iraq told her they had never seen it so quiet. She was asked to identify ISIS targets for the SEALs in an area that had been largely untouched for the past nine months.

Grace said the women worked hard to earn the respect of the SEALs. Were in there 18 hours a day. We wanted their respect. We were doing good work for these guys, she said.

But Grace said the intelligence staff was under a lot of pressure from the SEALs to do more. People were itching to get outside the wire at every opportunity, but not a lot of information was coming in that they could act on, Grace said.

Then she said she started receiving text messages from Olson, the platoon chief, late at night that were not work-related. At first, she thought it was because he thought highly of her work.

After Id been invited over to that side of the camp to have drinks on multiple occasions, I was like this is inappropriate, and thats kind of when he and I stopped speaking, Grace said.



The Fourth of July was a holiday and for some of the special operators, there was even more reason to pop open a bottle with the military jury in San Diego acquitting Gallagher, ending a war crimes case that had tarnished the commando forces image.

Grace said only two days earlier, one of her friends had knocked on her door crying and said Olson exposed himself to her after they met at a makeshift lounge on Camp Freiwald.

According to a July 16, 2019, report of the incident by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a male, whose name was redacted, met a female to talk privately on July 2. He told her how all of the team wants to sleep with you, and we all talked about who will be the first one to do it.

The male then reached into his pants and exposing his penis, grabbed her from behind her neck and pulled her toward his groin area, according to the report. Afterwards, the male drove the woman to a base cafeteria and asked her to walk back alone to her room so no one would see them together. Later, the woman received a text from the man apologizing for his behaviour. The AP was able to confirm the incident involved Olson and a sailor through interviews with service members on the deployment.

Grace said her friend told her that Olson also said how everyone had noticed the nipples poking through the T-shirts of the female sailors during their daily briefings. She added that her friend said there were other vile comments. Olsons lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said his client denies making any inappropriate comments.

I feel violated on her behalf, Grace said. But also like wow, we are not respected. We are not members of the team. We are pieces of meat that these people ogle.

Parlatore, who also represented Gallagher, said the July 2 allegation is false and was made by an intelligence specialist who held back information necessary to kill ISIS.

These individuals have the motivation to lie about my client, Parlatore said.

The victim signed a statement on July 13, 2019, saying she did not wish to participate in the investigation. In the signed statement, obtained by AP, it states she understood the chances of the suspect being brought to justice would be greatly reduced without her assistance. The case was closed.

The woman told Grace she did not want to report Olson for exposing himself to her on July 2 because she was concerned it would hurt her career.

She was tough as nails and she didnt want anyone to know that anything affected her ever, Grace said.

After the alleged incident with Olson, the woman told Grace that she would only go to the barbecue for a short while, and she wasnt going alone. With her friends off to celebrate and the night to herself, Grace face-timed with her family in Michigan, watched Netflix, and then fell asleep.

Hours later, Grace was woken up by the knocking and rushed to help another friend, who said she had just been raped. The Navy corpsman and the female sailor who had been assaulted two days earlier were consoling the victim when Grace got to her room. They told Grace that Olson had stopped outside her room twice that night and warned that everyone at the barbecue will get into trouble if the second woman reported the rape, Grace said.

Parlatore, Olsons attorney, denies that the SEAL chief tried to stop anyone from reporting the rape.

The woman followed the advice of doctors on base who told her she would need to go to Baghdad to be examined and report the July 4 rape. She was told to not take anything off and put her uniform pants over what she already had on.

Grace rode with her in an ambulance to where a helicopter was waiting.

At about 4:25 a.m., Grace hugged her friend, who boarded the aircraft, and then returned to her room.

I was a wreck, so of course I called my mom, Grace said. She told me to block my door, have my gun by my bed and write everything down.

After the Fourth of July, Grace said she could no longer stay silent about the July 2 assault, even though the woman who told her about the incident with Olson was adamant that I dont tell, but I had to. I felt a duty. Her privacy mattered less because our other friend was raped.

Her only regret, Grace said, is she did not take notes July 2 like she did following the Fourth of July when she had the benefit of hindsight and went straight to my computer and typed everything up that I could remember, dates, times, who I talked to, all of it.



Grace said her work environment worsened after the Fourth of July barbecue.

She went back to work hours after seeing her friend off. No one mentioned why a member of the intelligence staff was not at her desk, Grace said.

On July 8, Grace grew concerned that the Navy would try to cover up things and wrote to U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, relaying her detailed notes and naming everyone she knew was involved that night. She told the California Democrat that Olson was sure he would have the power to convince her friend not to report the July 4 assault and that she was concerned that more than 24 hours had passed before the crime scene  Enayats room  was secured.

I said to myself, if they try (to) cover this incident up, Ill tell the New York Times exactly how Eddie Gallaghers old unit is doing things, Grace wrote. Perhaps I should have more faith in my Chain of Command, and I pray that I am not overreacting. However, the more that I think about it, the more I see it is not totally outside the realm of possibility that higher-level leadership will get involved in order to ensure that this quietly disappears.

Almost a week would go by before it was brought up by the commanding officer, Cmdr. Edward Mason, of SEAL Team 7, who visited the base to discuss it on July 10.

It was nice to hear someone finally acknowledge that something had happened, Grace said.

Mason ordered Enayat to be examined by a bio forensics specialist, his room swept for evidence, and his weapons locked up. He also had Enayat and Olson sent home.

On July 11, investigators arrived in Iraq. Two weeks later the entire platoon was sent home after members refused to co-operate with the investigation without having a lawyer present, according to a person who spoke to members of the team. The person, who asked not to be named, said the SEALs were perceived guilty from the start.

Some of the SEALs blamed the female Navy sailors for the interruption in the mission, and the tension made it difficult to do their job effectively, Grace said.

We were ostracized and thats a very difficult position to be in when youre trying to feed people mission information, she said. We were treated like pariahs after the July 4th thing, you know, because we were the people that had lied ... so that the team would go home.

In video conferences, Navy brass gave stern warnings that the SEAL teams cannot have any more bad press, Grace said.

Olson was reprimanded and has since lost his Trident pin, the symbol of his membership in the SEALs. Parlatore said the Navy cited his platoons drinking and the July 2 allegation. He is appealing the decision. The Naval Special Warfare Command declined to comment due to pending litigation.

The Navys top SEAL, Rear Adm. Collin Green, fired Mason, Command Master Chief Hugh Spangler, and Navy SEAL Lt. Cmdr. Luke Im, saying their leadership failures led to a breakdown of order and discipline within two units in Iraq.

Mason and Spangler filed a complaint with the Department of Defence Inspector General to demand the independent agency investigate the firings.

Both men, who have since retired, said in the complaint that they were being used as scapegoats because Green was upset over Navy prosecutors losing the Gallagher case. They accused Navy leadership of putting the SEALs at risk when they pulled the platoon immediately out of Iraq.

The inspector general determined there was insufficient evidence from the complaint to open an investigation, said Dwerna Allen, an agency spokeswoman.

Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, supports Greens actions, his spokesman Cmdr. Nate Christensen said. Green has made changes and taken a back to basics leadership approach to ensure that his community fully demonstrates both professional competency and character in all they do.

Grace said she underwent therapy because of what happened in Iraq. She left the Navy in February.

It literally broke my heart because these were people that were my heroes, she said of the SEALs. It was going to be the highlight of my career, and what do I learn? That these people would rather, you know, have each others backs and cover up a sexual assault.

_____

LaPorta reported from Delray Beach, Florida.

_____

Contact APs global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
ST. LOUIS  Representatives of NorthSide Regeneration, the sweeping and controversial plan to rebuild north St. Louis, on Thursday told the city that the development has nailed down financing for a long-awaited $20 million, three-bed urgent care facility.

The notice, if accepted by the city, will secure $6.42 million in tax subsidies for the project. NorthSide said it will start construction next week.

But it was not clear if the city would accept NorthSides letter as proof of financing, as required under the development agreement with the city.

The letter was sent by NorthSides lawyers on behalf of two banks, in Union and Washington, about an hour west of St. Louis, and does not detail loan amounts nor include records of the transaction. Instead, the letter, written on Bank of Washington letterhead and signed by a United Bank of Union representative, says simply that the banks have closed on the loans providing the financing for the road and infrastructure improvements and the hospital facility.

All necessary project funding is in place, it continues, and disbursement has begun.

A spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewsons office said the city was reviewing to determine if the letter and what they indicate they have done meet the conditions required by the ordinance.

NorthSide, first pitched by developer Paul McKee more than a decade ago, once envisioned the renovation of hundreds of acres of north St. Louis. In 2009, the city approved a massive tax increment financing district for McKee.

McKee first proposed the three-bed hospital in 2017, and the St. Louis Board of Aldermen last year amended the agreement to add new investors and extend deadlines.

Ties between Missouri attorney general and controversial developer stretch back years In all, Eric Schmitt has received some $150,000 in donations from Paul McKees lawyers, the developers family and their companies and the Bank of Washington, which holds much of NorthSides debt. Last year, Schmitt settled a state lawsuit on favorable terms to the developer.

But in 2018, Krewson tried to cancel the district due to a lack of progress. McKees legal team persuaded aldermen to approve subsidies for the medical facility.

NorthSide missed its first financing deadline, but top city leaders, including Krewson, in February gave the project an extension  to Thursday.

NorthSide gets more time to finance hospital project after missing deadline Controversial developer had until Dec. 31 to prove it could finance hospital project. Now it has until August.

Clayton law firm and longtime McKee attorneys Stone, Leyton and Gershman sent the letter to city officials.

NorthSide said the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council, which has financed other NorthSide buildings, is also helping to finance this one.

NorthSide is calling it the Homer G. Phillips Hospital, the name of a former north St. Louis facility that trained Black doctors and served Black St. Louisans during segregation, and says it is just the first stage of the project.

NorthSide and Ponce Health Sciences University, a private, for-profit institution with a main campus in Puerto Rico, announced a second phase in March: A teaching hospital for the planned $80 million Ponce Health Sciences University MD Medical School.

Four-year medical school planned for north St. Louis, aims to increase workforce diversity Plans call for construction to begin late this year and opening with a freshman class of 150 in fall of 2022.

The school has a satellite location downtown in the Globe Building owned by Stone Leyton principal Steve Stone. Dr. David Lenihan, president of Ponce Health Sciences University, will serve as board chairman of the new three-bed urgent care.

Lenihan is also a Republican candidate for Missouri State Senate in south St. Louis Countys first district.

If completed, the hospital would be the second NorthSide project.

In April 2019, NorthSide opened the GreenLeaf grocery store and a gas station just north of downtown on Tucker Boulevard.

Northside also credits its land assemblage  for which the state gave it $43 million in tax credits under a controversial and now lapsed program  was instrumental in drawing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to north St. Louis.

The Ponce university health campus is planned across Cass Avenue from the NGA, on the former Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex site.

Under its development agreement with the city, NorthSide must complete the three-bed urgent care by Sept. 30, 2021.

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Gladys Alvarez, an elementary school teacher in South Los Angeles, talks to her students during a meet-and-greet. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The Orange County Health Care Agency has announced that state waivers have been approved for in-person classes to begin at about 24 private elementary schools and one public school district serving kindergarten through sixth grade.

Under state guidelines, elementary schools may seek reopening waivers from the California Department of Public Health only after their county's COVID-19 seven-day case average falls below 200 cases per 100,000. Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, said the schools can reopen immediately.

Roughly 100 other Orange County private and charter schools have applied for similar permission and are awaiting approval.

The reopening waivers  which must be approved by county and state public health authorities  apply only to elementary schools, and robust safety plans must be presented. State public health officials and educators offered the waivers acknowledging that online learning for small children is particularly difficult. Also, young children are generally seen as being at lesser risk of developing COVID-19 than older children and adults.

Do I have fear and anxiety? Of course I do. Do we expect that there might be an outbreak? Of course we will, Chau said about concerns to reopen schools. But we have to do it. We know that this lockdown has caused emotional turmoil for some of our children, and we know that in-home learning is not the best education.

Chau said that parents who wished to continue with online learning for children, especially those that are high-risk, are encouraged to do so.







Under state rules, all schools can reopen when their county is off the state watch list for 14 days. This means, among other metrics, that county case averages must be below 100 cases per 100,000 people for two weeks.

Orange County officials believe they may be removed from the watch list on Saturday, which could begin the 14-day countdown for school reopenings.

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I am very optimistic that all will go well, Chau said.

In Los Angeles County, home to about 1.5 million K-12 students, Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, the county's chief medical officer, said this week that elementary schools could soon be able to apply for waivers if county COVID-19 cases decline. On Thursday, cases stood at 217 per 100,000, 17 above the threshold for waiver approval.

The county has seen a drop in cases in recent weeks that has encouraged health officials who believe the county may be closer to removal from the watch list. The county meets five of the states six criteria for removal from the watch list. The last metric the county has not yet met is a drop in cases below 100 per every 100,000 people.

On Friday, the L.A. County Department of Health announced nine additional cases of children sickened by a rare coronavirus-related inflammatory syndrome, known as MIS-C. The condition affects children who had or may have been exposed to the virus and can cause inflammation of parts of the body including the heart, lungs, kidneys, skin, eyes and gastrointestinal organs.

A total of 25 children in the county have had MIS-C, officials said. None have died.

In addition, officials reported 46 new deaths related to the virus and 1,759 new cases.

Most recently, San Diego and Placer counties were removed from the list on Tuesday, and Napa County was Thursday. Removal from the watch list does not immediately allow indoor operations at shuttered business sectors  like nail salons and gyms  to reopen after being forced to close. The states health officer would have to revise the order to allow for such changes to take place.

Though the daily average for cases and hospitalizations has declined statewide in recent weeks, it is always possible for a resurgence to occur in an individual county. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that San Francisco County was expected to be taken off, but the county still sits on the list as cases continue to stay above the safety threshold and the number of available intensive care beds has dropped below 20%.

A decline in cases and hospitalizations not surprisingly leads to a decline in deaths.

Hopefully this week and next week youre going to start seeing the death rate really start to drop, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

The decline in current cases has been attributed to peoples social behaviors and businesses modifications in moving indoor operations to outside. It is always possible that a spike in cases could occur if social behaviors relax, as was the case previously over holiday weekends.
A Kiwi crisis centre manager wants Australia's 600,000 New Zealanders to exploit a loophole so they can access welfare payments like JobSeeker.

Migrants from New Zealand have since 2001 been banned from accessing Centrelink payments including the dole, despite paying taxes and working in Australia.

A surge in unemployment, because of coronavirus shutdowns, has also forced Kiwis to dip into their superannuation.

Those lacking sufficient retirement savings to draw from have either moved back to New Zealand or gone homeless - despite rental eviction bans.

Vicky Rose, a Kiwi who runs the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre on the Gold Coast, has seen plenty of New Zealanders plead for help finding somewhere to live after suddenly losing their job.

A Kiwi crisis centre manager wants Australia's 600,000 New Zealanders to exploit a loophole so they can access welfare payments like the dole and JobKeeper. Vicky Rose, a Kiwi who runs the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre on the Gold Coast, has seen plenty of New Zealanders plead for help finding somewhere to live after suddenly losing their job

'We get on average about 25 to 30 calls a day across all of our programs here at the neighbourhood centre and 50 per cent of those calls would be from New Zealanders in crisis - long-time migrants who've just found out what their residency status means here,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

How Australia treats Kiwis badly New Zealanders moving to Australia have since February 2001 have been denied access to welfare benefits, including the dole A Special Category Visa was created for Kiwis allowing them to stay in Australia indefinitely but they don't automatically get permanent residency - the only way someone can access welfare benefits and eventually apply for citizenship Australians moving to New Zealand are treated with a lot more courtesy, getting access to subsidised healthcare provided they demonstrate they intend to stay for at least two years They can also vote after just one year continuously in NZ and be eligible to apply for a student loan after three years Australians can apply for citizenship in New Zealand after five years Since 2017, Australia has allowed Kiwis to apply for permanent residency after five years but they must earn at least $53,900 a year Advertisement

'I've got people co-sharing, living in friends', families' garages.

'It's still happening everyday and we've had people up and leave fully-furnished homes to go back to New Zealand.'

The 50-year-old grandmother, who came to Australia in 2008, wants Kiwis to do something about 19-year old laws banning Kiwis from accessing JobSeeker unemployment benefits or JobKeeper wage subsidies.

Under a special visa category for New Zealanders, known as subclass 444, Kiwis are allowed to stay in Australia indefinitely but they don't have an easy path to citizenship.

This loophole, however, allows them to join a political party.

Ms Rose, an ALP member, wants Kiwis to join the Australian Labor Party instead of the Liberal Party to effect change, arguing the party of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton would be unlikely to budge.

'They're the only ones that are likely to do anything for us,' she said.

'We have to be political.

'You can't just go, "I'm not interested in politics" because politics is exactly what puts us in our position so we have to think strategically and in my mind, this is the best pathway that we have here in Australia.

'What do you think a political party needs? They need numbers: 647,000 Kiwis live in Australia.'

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard in 2001 banned New Zealanders from accessing welfare, after Kiwis had been maligned as Bondi bludgers despite the fact they are more likely to be employed.

'We are not bludgers,' Ms Rose said.

Kiwis are also denied an easy pathway to Australian citizenship or permanent residency.

Migrants from New Zealand have since 2001 been banned from accessing Centrelink payments, despite paying taxes and working in Australia. A surge in unemployment, as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, has also forced Kiwis to dip into their superannuation. Pictured is a Centrelink queue at Southport on the Gold Coast in March

New Zealanders in Australia, however, can access Medicare.

Australians moving to New Zealand can receive welfare and subsidised healthcare straight away provided they demonstrate they intend to stay in the country for two years.

After just one year in NZ continuously, they can vote and after three years apply for a student loan.

'It's not equitable, it's not fair and we're quite different to every other migrant,' Ms Rose said.

'They refer to us as family: this is not how we treat our family.'

Australia's jobless rate in July stood at 7.5 per cent, the highest level since late 1998.

Prominent Australians born in New Zealand have included actor Russell Crowe, the late former Liberal prime minister John Gorton, Queensland's longest-serving premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, former senator and media personality Derryn Hinch and Australia's longest-serving TV newsreader Brian Henderson.
Ali first made a solo trip to India in 2019. He enjoyed it so much that this year, he brought his wife and her parents. The couples three children stayed behind in Buffalo with their two aunts. When the lockdown was imposed in late March, Ali and his relatives were staying at a Tablighi-affiliated mosque in Delhi, where they slept in its common spaces.
A fire burns near a structure along Pine Flat Road in the Felton area during the CZU August Lightning Complex fires on Thursday. Felton is about 15 miles south of Big Basin Redwood State Park. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

This weeks eruption of wildfires has closed 29 state parks and partially closed five others, blackening tens of thousands of acres and extensively damaging the oldest existing state park, Big Basin Redwoods north of Santa Cruz.

All visitors and staff were evacuated as flames from the CZU August Lightning Complex fires destroyed the Big Basin parks historic headquarters, lodge, nature museum, store, ranger station, campgrounds, multiple park residences and bathrooms, along with much forest land. (That fire has also destroyed scores of homes and other structures between the Big Basin and Santa Cruz.)

Big Basin Redwoods State Park, known for waterfalls and Pacific Ocean views, was established in 1902 to protect coastal redwood trees estimated at 1,000 to 1,800 years old.

Beyond the closure of the park as fire continues to threaten Santa Cruz and neighboring areas, the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks are asking all Californians to postpone visits to Santa Cruz County or coastal San Mateo County.

Thousands of residents have evacuated and are in need of shelter in local hotels, motels and vacation rentals, the group wrote in a Facebook post Friday morning. Many parks and beaches are closed, and roads are blocked.

Leaders of the Sempervirens Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the redwoods, wrote that We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone .... We do not yet know the fate of the parks grandest old trees.

Nearby Butano State Park has also been damaged in the fires, a state parks spokesman said, and as of Friday morning, the fire continued to burn in that park.

The fire threats statewide compound the challenge already posed by the battle against COVID-19, which has led dozens of parks to shut campgrounds and restrict parking and visitor access. Many of the state parks threatened by the new fires are in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. The closures are until further notice.

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Parks officials said those holding camping reservations impacted by the wildfires "are being contacted with cancellation information."

Heres an update on closed and endangered parks statewide from the California State Parks:

In Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, the CZU August Lightning Complex fires have forced closure of these parks:

Ano Nuevo State Park

Bean Hollow State Beach





Big Basin Redwoods SP (including Rancho Del Oso)





Butano SP





Castle Rock SP





Coast Dairies SP





Henry Cowell Redwoods SP

Natural Bridges SB

Pescadero SB





Pigeon Point Light Station





Pomponio SB





Portola Redwoods SP





San Gregorio SB





Wilder Ranch SP





In Mono county, the Beach fire has partially closed Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve, including South Tufa and Navy Beach.

In Contra Costa County, Deer Zone fires have closed Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area and Mount Diablo State Park.

In Monterey County, which includes the Big Sur area, the Dolan fire has closed these parks:

Andrew Molera SP





Garrapata SP





Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP





John Little SNR





Limekiln SP





Pfeiffer Big Sur SP





Point Lobos SNR





Point Sur SHP

In Nevada County, the Jones fire has partially closed these parks:

Empire Mine State Historic Park





Malakoff Diggins SHP





South Yuba River SP





In Napa and Sonoma counties, the LNU Lightning Complex fires have closed these state parks:





Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve





Austin Creek State Recreation Area





Fort Ross SHP





In Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, the SCU Lightning Complex fires have closed Henry W. Coe State Park.

In Marin County, the Woodward fire has led to closure of Tomales Bay State Park and partial closure of Mount Tamalpais State Park, where the upper mountain and campgrounds are closed. Day use is strongly discouraged, state park officials said.

Also in Marin County at Point Reyes National Seashore, the Woodward fire has forced closure of Limantour Road, all trails west of Highway 1 and all trails south and east of Limantour Road.

Because fire conditions and road statuses are changing fast, state parks officials say, anyone traveling should take care and check ahead.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A group of US military soldiers have gone viral after sharing their hilarious reasons for joining the army, including money and not having anything else to do.

Daryl Tyrone Littles II, 24, from Augusta, Georgia, and his friend Pvt. Kicklighter caught their colleagues off guard when they asked them to explain why they enlisted.

Daryl, who is an E-4 in the United States National Guard, uploaded the video to his TikTok page @__lyrad__ , and it has since spread like wildfire across social media.

Going viral: Daryl Tyrone Littles II, 24, from Augusta, Georgia, asked his fellow soldiers why they joined the army in a video that has since been shared all over social media

Candid: 'I joined the army because I was in college and I aint got s**t else to do,' Specialist Jefferson responded (L), while Private First Class Pena admitted she didn't know why (R)

He joined the US army because he was inspired by his father and grandfather, who were both in the military, but his fellow soldiers had other reasons.

In the video, he walked around the base and asked men and women the same question: 'Why'd you join the army?'

It was clear that many of them named the first reason that popped into their heads.

'I joined the army because I was in college and I aint got s**t else to do,' Specialist Jefferson responded, while Private First Class Pena admitted: 'I dont know.'

Private First Class Kelly said she enlisted for 'a $20,000 bonus I never received.'

Real answer: Private First Class Kelly said she enlisted for 'a $20,000 bonus I never received.' Daryl later revealed that she finally got the money

Kidding around: ''Cause f**k you,' one unidentified solider told Daryl (L), while another joked that he enlisted to lead soldiers like him (R)

'S**t,' Daryl responded.

An unidentified soldier bypassed the question entirely, telling Daryl: 'Cause f**k you.'

Meanwhile, Corporal Jenkins took a second to think the question over.

'Why'd I join the army?' he said. 'To buy me a Camaro.'

Specialist R. Brown added: 'I dont f*****g know. A big mistake.'

The video ended with an unidentified soldier who just pointed to what he was doing with a confused look.

Not lying: Corporal Jenkins took a second to think the question over. 'Why'd I join the army?' he said. 'To buy me a Camaro'

Caught off guard: One unidentified soldier had a confused look on his face as he pointed to what he was doing

Too funny: 'I dont f*****g know. A big mistake,' Specialist R. Brown said, before walking away

The footage was reposted by Twitter user @Krys_King, where it has been viewed more than 5.3 million times and many people in hysterics over the surprising answers.

In response to the video, one Twitter user said: 'Ppl really be thinking we joined for some holier than thou reason... I joined so they could pay for my transition and my college.'

Others thought the video was actually depressing because many of the soldiers mentioned money as their reason.

'This is actually sad,' someone else commented.

'This just goes to show you if college was free and minimum wage was higher nobody would have joined the military nobody,' another insisted.

Heartwarming: Daryl said he joined the US army because he was inspired by his father and grandfather, who were both in the military

Proud solider: Daryl admitted 'being in the army can be intense,' but he will always recommend enlisting. 'You will meet people from all walks of life and be part of a bond like no other'

Daryl explained that no one thought the viral video 'would blow up like it did' when he filmed it.

'We joke around now saying the command team is going to pull me in the office and talk to me about it!' he said.

'Some of the soldiers responses were real and some were just joking. And Kelly eventually got her $20,000,' he added.

Daryl admitted that 'being in the army can be intense,' but he will always recommend enlisting.

'I have been in some intense situations and some protests that happened this year,' he said. 'You will have to put aside some personal feelings you may have to protect and serve.

'I will always tell people to join the army,' he added. 'You will meet people from all walks of life and be part of a bond like no other.'
President Ram Nath Kovind greeted citizens on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi on Friday and prayed that Lord Ganesha bless all to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, celebrated as the birthday of Lord Ganesha, is an expression of peoples enthusiasm, joy and forbearance in taking every section of society along on this occasion, he said.

Also read: BMC issues advisory ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi, urges caution on 13 dilapidated bridges

At present, we are facing the challenges posed by Covid-19 pandemic. I hope and pray that Lord Ganesha bless us all to overcome this pandemic at the earliest possible and we all live a happy and healthy life, the President said.

On this festival, let us pledge to strengthen the mutual harmony, fraternity and unity among all citizens of the country, he said.

Kovind extended his best wishes and heartiest congratulations to all fellow citizens living in India and abroad on the auspicious occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, the statement said.
"I can't see any possibility of either the Territory Alliance or the CLP forming government in their own right under any circumstance."

NT Electoral Commissioner Iain Loganathan holds serious concerns about the level of voter turnout. There has never been more than 82 per cent of voters casting their ballot at any Territory election and this time looks particularly bad  largely because of the coronavirus.

The NT has only had 33 cases of the virus, all now recovered, and has some of the most relaxed restrictions in the nation. However, many of its remote Indigenous communities were closed between late March and early June.

"People were locked in for quite some time with the Northern Territory biosecurity zones and they've taken the opportunity since those were lifted to scatter to all corners of the Territory," CLP senator Sam McMahon said. "So there are a lot of communities where there's less than half the normal population they would have actually present."

Mr Loganathan says it's understandable because traditional activities, ceremonies and funerals were delayed, but it is making the job harder for his electoral officials.
TOPEKA, Kan. - A state court judge has rejected a freshman Kansas congressmans request to remove the Topeka areas prosecutor from a criminal election fraud case against him.

Attorneys for Republican Rep. Steve Watkins failed to show that District Attorney Mike Kagay in Watkins home of Shawnee County had an axe to grind in filing three felony charges against Watkins, District Judge David Debenham said in a ruling this week. Both Watkins and Kagay are Republicans, but Watkins argued that Kagay was colluding with Watkins main primary opponent because they shared a campaign consultant.

Watkins lost his GOP primary race to State Treasurer Jake LaTurner, who made the criminal case a key issue in their eastern Kansas district. Watkins made his request to disqualify Kagay from the criminal case before the states Aug. 4 primary.

Debenham rejected Watkins argument that it was suspicious for Kagay to refuse to meet with the congressman during the investigation. Kagay said Friday that he has never met with the subject of an investigation while it is pending.

The judge also said he could not see how Kagays use of the same consultant as LaTurner illustrates a conflict even with the consultants public opposition to Watkins.

Any connection is much too tenuous to find a valid conflict of interest, Debenham wrote in his seven-page opinion.

Authorities began investigating in December whether Watkins broke state election laws by listing a postal box at a UPS Inc. store as his residence on a state voter registration form, but Kagay filed the charges just three weeks before the primary, a half hour ahead of the only televised debate between the GOP candidates.

An attorney for Watkins did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment, and spokesmen for his office and campaign did not immediately respond to emails.

Kagay said: It is pretty straightforward and the order speaks for itself.

Watkins is accused of voting illegally in a Topeka City Council race in November 2019 and of trying to mislead a sheriffs detective who was investigating whether he broke state election laws. He listed the UPS store postal box as his residence last year for voter registration purposes but later corrected his residential address  twice. Its now an apartment that lies outside the City Council district that includes the UPS store.

Watkins has said he made a mistake and corrected it, calling the criminal charges bogus.

He acknowledged during a Kansas City Star interview in late July that he voted in the wrong City Council district but said he did not intend to break the law. He suggested the voter registration resulted from collegial work with his staff but denied an allegation that he tried to mislead the detective by blaming the voter registration problem on his staff.

___

Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna.
Creating Post-Modern Intelligence

Uploaded on 2020-08-21 in Directors Reports

We are in a Cyber Revolution that is changing society, geo-politics, crime and conflict. The development has been called a Cyber Innovation or Web 0.3, but is probably best described as the 4th Industrial Revolution and will be a Digital Shock for most people. The very nature of the Internet creates global collaboration that is changing the way in which we view social connections and national borders.

Now the modern globalised society is increasingly dependent on an array of organised and sometimes randomly interrelated electronic infrastructures.

This transformation is happening far faster than previous industrial revolutions and the changes began as a form of Information Technology (IT) but this revolution is now developing and employing a range of emerging electronic technologies.

This new 4th Revolution is characterised by a fusion of technologies such as new methods of 3D commercial production, data driven vehicles, robotic, bio-technology and new criminal activity and there is a blurring of physical, digital and biological elements to create a new techno-reality.

Few Areas Of Our Lives Remain Untouched By The Digital Revolution

Across the world there are now nearly 4.5 billion Internet users and over five billion mobile phone connections; every day, we send about 300 billion emails. This revolutionary change has been called the Cyber Innovation or Web 0.3, but is probably best described as the 4th Industrial Revolution and is an increasing Digital Shock for most people. The transformation is happening far faster than previous industrial revolutions and the changes are coming as Information Technology and AI et al is developing and employing emerging computing technologies.

This process will change everything, with examples such as new methods of commercial production, to data driven vehicles to specific individual identity recognition.

More importantly, it changes us as individuals and will gradually make many of us more physically robotic and AI and bio-technology will help to improve our metal abilities. From 2000 to 2020, the number of global Internet users rose from 394 million to 4.4 billion which nearly 57% of the 7.7 billion global population. Today there are over one billion Google searches every day and two billion videos viewed daily on YouTube. The average user spends 2.5 hours a day online.

The next phase of business web/cyber innovation is the ability to collect, deeply analyse and commercial process global data.

The positive effects have been incredible, connections and info gathering but, control and influence of the message by governments and commercial organisations throughout the centuries was relatively straight forward and this process created a production line model for the way organisations were and still are structured.

Background

Many people think that the Internet and the world wide web are the same thing. While they are closely linked, they are very different systems. The internet is a huge network of computers all connected together. The Internet is infrastructure while the Web is service on top of that infrastructure. Currently, the Internet is a global interconnecting electronic system of about 52 billion computers. networks, which includes the World Wide Web. The Web is the part of the Internet that search engines like Google search.

Deep Web However, the Web also includes the Deep Web which much larger than the searchable Web includes many sites and data that is non-accessible to Google type searches as it has publicly non-accessible parts of business, university data and secret and private aspects of government data. It is difficult to judge how large the Deep Web actually is but it is certainly much larger that the surface Web and many experts believe it to be four or five hundred times larger than the surface Web.

Within the Deep Web however there is a small area known as the Dark Web and this is really the Red Light District.

Searching the Dark Web And so to give this electronic information scape a picture one can imagine that the Internet is an interlinked country with large cities, towns and villages as well as closed farming and woodlands. Now deeper into the cities and some larger towns there are red-light districts where the criminals have hideouts, clubs, brothels and hidden drug shops. This aspect of the Web is the Dark Web which houses the criminal economy which is growing and will affect more aspects of the legal Internet. This is now where one can buy drugs, review porn pictures, prostitution connections, buy passports and weapons, also there are stolen libraries of books, films and videos for sale.

The Dark Web can be accessed by using search engines like Tor. The Dark Web was actually created by the US government to allow spies to exchange information completely anonymously. US military researchers developed the technology, known as Tor (The Onion Router) in the mid-1990s and released it into the public domain for everyone to use.

The Dark Web is used by criminals but it is also used by people like journalists, people who want to stop corporate and government surveillance of their activity on the Web. A lot of these users are not interested in criminal behavior, but just have a preference for their privacy from government or business monitoring and surveillance.

When you log on to a Dark Web site, you quickly notice that there are no pop-up ads following you from website to website.

What you will often see is sites that the criminals host which claim to be very reliable because they also have user ratings. The idea is that if a particular criminal isnt reliable, their reliability assessment significantly declines. So the marketplace, illegal as it might be, is apparently self-regulating. However, the Dark Web is being used by terrorists to gain members, to hide their activities and re-organise themselves.

Fundamentally, the Dark Web is encompassed of small peer-to-peer networks and dark web networks like Tor, I2P and Freenet.

The Dark Web is growing and will certainly change the Internet. From a criminal angle this area of the web is very commercially successful and they use it not only to sell illegal products and items but also to understand who to criminally target and steal from their accounts.

What is Available on The Dark Web? Ulbricht, formerly known as Dread Pirate Roberts, founder of the Silk Road Dark Web online market, was convicted in 2015 on charges of money laundering, conspiracy, drug and hacking-related charges.

However, the Dark Web remains incredibly attractive to Internet users for a wide range of reasons. The enshrouded nature and complex methodology required to access this world have effectively made it a secret world, full of salacious activity, black markets, sights, and perks limited to a select few.

Cyberwarfare There is often little difference in offensive cyber capabilities between criminal groups and some military forces.

Hacking tools are becoming more accessible. In 2017, the US National Security Agencys sophisticated offensive suite was stolen or leaked and subsequently used in attacks. Cyber warfare has reached a new phase this year and the re has been increased levels of integration between the physical and cyber domains, cyber warfare as an interchangeable battlefield tool, an attack in one domain and retaliation in another. The catalyst has been the Middle East, the continuing escalation of tensions between the US and its allies and Iran.

Role of Military in Cyber Security Cyber warfare can present a multitude of threats towards a nation. At the most basic level, cyberattacks can be used to support traditional warfare. For example, tampering with the operation of air defences via cyber means in order to facilitate an air attack. A decade ago in mid-July 2010, security experts discovered a malicious software program called Stuxnet that had infiltrated factory computers and had spread to plants around the world. It is considered the first attack on critical industrial infrastructure that sits at the foundation of modern economies.

Stuxnet, while extremely effective in delaying Iran's nuclear program for the development of nuclear weaponry, came at a high cost. For the first time, it became clear that not only could cyber weapons be defensive but they could be offensive.

The large decentralisation and scale of cyberspace makes it extremely difficult to direct from a policy perspective. Non-state actors can play as large a part in the cyberwar space as state actors, which leads into dangerous, sometimes disastrous, consequences.

Small groups of highly skilled malware developers are able to as effectively impact global politics and cyber warfare as large governmental agencies. A major aspect of this ability lies in the willingness of these groups to share their exploits and developments on the web as a form of arms proliferation. This allows lesser hackers to become more proficient in creating the large scale attacks that once only a small handful were skillful enough to manage.

Current Cyber

The Internet has breathed new life into networked activity and broadened the impact of anarchist post-modern data and thought. This is permitting communications and coordination without the need for central source command. And it is facilitating coordinated actions with minimal resources and bureaucracy These opportunities and threats pose serious questions about the way in which current Intelligence and commercial organisation are structured and operate.

Government and commercial organisations, like all business structures, are built to fit certain times. With the effects of Globalisation governments and organisations need reorganising and strategy and tactical methods need rethinking. And this process must continue from geo-market analysis.The Intelligence Cycle uses Rationalism: task, collect the data, make an assessment, write the analysis and deliver/publish the intelligence. This is only one method of producing intelligence and we should continue to use a rationalistic approach.

Other processes could be non-linear and includes more of a dialogue between specialists and generalists. It is more interactive and discursive.This has ramification: everything from office layout, meetings, to editorial systems/practice. And the connectivity of content and improved service.

In a global electronic environment pattern recognition has become as important as linear analysis.

As analysis and consultants we have to be aware of the new client requirements for actionable Intelligence that will measurably save them people, time and money. We must understand where our cultural bias lies and what effect this has on our final analysis. Organisations are built to fit certain times. They need refreshing and rethinking. News and analysis keeps the client aware. Linear Intelligence process fits a settled and culturally understandable situation.

Scenario and Mosaic changes our thinking and brings new ideas of strategy.

Mosaic Method Created by Information thinkers like Marshall McLuhan and writers like Robert D. Kaplan and Alfred Rolington. Mosaic means building a world that you wish to investigate from the oppositions own views of history, imagery, graffiti, popular culture through to its boundaries, prejudices, cultural conventions, social economics, national and local politics and the views of foreign governments and the personalities involved. Useful as a means towards new perspectives on a problem and a method that works along-side others.From a government, intelligence agency and border policing perspective the strategy required to deal with CyberSpace has some historic similarities to the way in which oceans were used by nations and groups for inter-national exploration, research, trade, military and naval attacks and piracy.

The oceans have similarities in this model to the current Internet and the Web is similar to trade routes and the piracy, which was used on the trade routes as hacking is now used on the Web and across different aspects of the Internet. Piracy was also used by governments, who often called it privateering, as well as by groups of independent pirates.

Piracy was gradually contained and finally internationally significantly reduced, but this process took a very long time.

It required government agreements, extensive intelligence analysis and naval engagement before the reduction of piracy was achieved.

These extended processes took centuries to accomplish any real success, but finally significant aspects of it were outlawed by the Peace of Westphalia and put into international treaties by the Declaration of Paris in 1856. In the 20th century, when the invention of aeroplanes changed many national views on international air space, it came to governments and corporates to review and legalise international flights.

The process of agreements on across border flights, although sometimes difficult was far more effective and faster as a process than the time shipping and piracy agreements had taken. A similar type of process is needed by current governments to achieve Cyber agreements and to reduce the costs of Cyber-crime. Not only did these historic agreements alter commerce and international trade economics, they also changed the ways in which secret intelligence organisations operated in the new environment.

We have gone, in a relatively short space of time, from senior politicians and ministers of state saying that governments dont read a Gentlemens mail, to Snowdens revelations that governments do occasionally review your social network profile, and they do occasionally read your email. Yet of course openly they have claimed that they dont.

Like All Revolutions, This One Is Disruptive.

Digital technology has already rocked the media and retailing industries, just as cotton mills crushed hand looms and the Model T put farriers out of work. Many people will look at the factories of the future and shudder. They will not be full of grimy machines manned by men in oily overalls. The new factory focuses on mass customisation. Producing objects that specifically relates to particular buyers requirements and this is already taking place with some current production systems in Germany with Siemens.

Now the Digital Revolution representing the new Information Age signifying a radical change from mechanical, analog and into the digital technology cyberspace and its fundamental characteristics have changed dramatically over 30 years. Today the concept of cyber is used to describe the systems and services directly or indirectly connected to the Internet, telecommunications, electronic, and computer networks.

Cyberspace can be visualised as an electronic nervous system running through many national and international sectors and systems.

Digital technology which has already significantly rocked the media and publishing industry. Publishing has been completely changed by digital technology and has allowed readers a far faster electronic engagement with issues, news and analysis.

It has threatened the commerciality of newspapers, books and magazines and considerably reduced the amount of overall print. The new process has given far more individuals a growing blogging space in which to add real and false news, comment and views globally. With the face of the publishing industry set to change, it is digital technologies that emerge as one of the defining factors for future business.

Computer technology to create, sort and deliver electronic content that will engage and prove useful for the recipient is among the most important trends for the publishing industry between now and 2020 according to a recent study by Smithers Pira. For television broadcasters the time-shifting function of watching a recorded programme means it is easy to skip advertisements. Advertisers are trying to develop alternative methods of delivering their message, some overt and some covert, using product placement and ambush advertising.

Smaller, more powerful mobile gadgets catch the public attention and there are armies of content providers broadening the range of applications for consumers. They represent a new and rapidly changing media challenge for publishers: how to supplement and earn revenue from these communication channels.

However, as in all revolutions has a criminal down side and this needs all of our engaging attention.

Alfred Rolington is Co - Founder and CEO of Cyber Security Intelligence

You Might Also Read:

Cyber Knowledge The Easy Way:
On Aug. 13, the governments of Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a historic diplomatic agreement to normalize relations. Since the formation of the Jewish state in 1948, only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, have recognized Israel. The new deal would make the Emirates the third.

Five days later, during an interview with Sky News Arabia, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the commonality between the two Middle East countries:

"The deal connects the UAE with Israel; both of them are advanced democracies and their societies are advanced."

This is false.

Although both countries can boast economic achievements, Israel is a parliamentary democracy, while the United Arab Emirates is a federal monarchy that generally scores low on indices of civil liberties.

The U.S. human rights monitor Freedom House gives the United Arab Emirates a paltry score of 17 out of 100 on its freedom scale and classifies the UAE as not free.

Limited elections are held for a federal advisory body, but political parties are banned, and all executive, legislative, and judicial authority ultimately rests with the seven hereditary rulers, Freedom House said of the Emirates in its latest world survey.

The civil liberties of both citizens and noncitizens, who make up an overwhelming majority of the population, are subject to significant restrictions.

The same report states that UAE government policy is determined by the countrys dynastic rulers, while the elected Federal National Council functions purely as an advisory body.

In the area of press freedom, Freedom House scored the UAE at zero, calling the countrys 1980 media law one of the most restrictive in the Arab world. The law prohibits criticism of the government, and a number of journalists have been jailed for violating it.

Laws governing speech online also limit what ordinary citizens can express. Human Rights Watch found that the UAE government arbitrarily detains and, in some cases, disappears its critics. In 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the UAE for its treatment of dissidents.

Another area of concern in the United Arab Emirates is the exploitation of foreign migrant workers. The UAE is unique in that nearly 90 percent of its population is foreign-born.

According to Amnesty International, migrant laborers are often subject to extremely low wages (there is no minimum wage in the country), to wage theft, to confiscation of passports, and to other forms of exploitation. Many workers find themselves detained indefinitely when they are unable to pay fines for visa violations.

Women in the UAE are also subject to discriminatory laws.

The new agreement between Israel and the UAE covers a wide range of activities, from tourism to direct flights to diplomatic relations.

Under the deal, Israel promises to suspend earlier plans to annex the West Bank, a majority-Palestinian territory. The Palestinian leadership condemned the agreement and withdrew its ambassador from the UAE.
LONDON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Huobi Global is looking to take a bigger foothold in the promising cryptocurrency region of Russia after it partnered with Huobi Russia, an entity that has been in place and acting independently since 2018.

The Russian partner will retain the privilege rights to further develop its own digital platforms and solutions as well as use the technologies and liquidity of Huobi Global.

Huobi Russia was officially launched by Huobi in 2018, and has been the only partner of Huobi since then. Huobi is very optimistic about the current Russian market and wants to use the brand of Huobi Global to focus on local market.

After discussing with their Russia partner, Huobi Global decided to appoint Vladimir Demin, the partner and CEO of Huobi Russia as the chief advisor of Huobi Global to assist in the development of the Russian market.

"The market opportunities in Russia for crypto and blockchain are huge and I think that experience, technology and approach of Huobi will help us to develop unique products highly demanded in Russia and in the whole world," said Vladimir Demin.

According to Ciara Sun, Vice President of Huobi Global Markets, Huobi Global will carefully address the users' migration issue from Huobi Russia to Huobi Global through an easy one-click-migration option on site after along with the campaign in brand upgrade.

"Huobi Global will offer a number of benefits and preferential policies to users of Huobi Russia after their successful migration," Sun further added.

"We are positively impressed with the crypto market in Russia and thanks to our Russian partner we have built a strong leadership position on the market. I am absolutely sure that we will keep developing the market in Russia for a very long time."

Russia has long been linked as a positive and vibrant cryptocurrency market. In fact, the trading volume from Huobi Russia alone reached 10 percent of Huobi Global's. The region also contains currently 4,000 customers and has a wide range of services such as OTC, spot trading, margin trading, and custody.

About Huobi

Huobi is the world's leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by liquidity and real-trading volume. Trusted by users over 170 countries, the Huobi platform is dedicated to improving the freedom of money for users, and features an unmatched portfolio of crypto products and offerings, including: trading and finance, cryptocurrency finance infrastructure solutions, education, data and research, social welfare, investment and incubation, and many more. For more information, visit https://blog.hbg.com/

SOURCE Huobi Global

Related Links

http://hbg.com/


The Governor of Diffa Province in Niger Republic, HE, Alhaji Isa Lamin led a high-powered delegation consisting of Traditional Rulers, Chief of Security Establishments, and Cabinet Members on a solidarity visit to Governor Babagana Umara Zulum in Maiduguri Friday.

His Excellency, Governor Lamin was in Maiduguri to sympathise with Prof. Babagana Umara Zulum over an attack on his convoy near Baga Earlier this month.

He was accompanied by members of Diffa Parliament, Secretary to the Government of Diffa Province, Alhaji Yahaya Godi, Corp Commander Guard National, Diffa Region, Col. Daye Mohammed, Corp Commander Gendarme for Diffa Region, Col. Bashir Leo, Prefet of Diffa Abube Wazagam Adam, Prefet of Maine, Isaka Mai Saleh, and traditional rulers from the region of Diffa to th Government House Maiduguri.

He said: Your Excellency, we are here to encourage you with what you have been doing. We have been following with keen attention of what you have been doing in Borno State. And we in Diffa are in full support of your administration. Governor.

"Since you became the Governor of Borno State, we know and we have seen what has been going on. We thank you and urge you to continue like that.

" In Niger, most especially in Diffa, we are asking you, we are pleading with you to continue with what you are doing. Irrespective of your citizens in Diffa, irrespective of nationalities we are all in your support" Lamin said.

He however said that Borno and Diffa share the same problem of insurgency which he however believes shall be defeated sooner than later. He reiterated their support and encouragement to Governor Zulum and the people of Borno State.

 Both of us share the same problem, we are encouraging you to continue with the way you tackle this problem. We encourage such visit between us so that we can defeat our enemies.

"God willing, our enemies shall be defeated and we are going to start our normal lives Our people will enjoy peace irrespective of those in the borders. I believe every problem has an end and the end of our enemies will come sooner than later, Lamin said.

Responding, Governor Zulum expressed appreciation for the visit, saying "Let me first and foremost on behalf of the Government and people of Borno State welcome you. Indeed, the entire people Borno are happy to see you in our midst this afternoon.

Zulum described the relationship between the two states, noting the similarities in culture, religion and inter-marriage relations, the Governor promised to maintain the relationship.

The governor also commended the Government of Niger Republic and that of Diffa for continuously supporting citizens of Borno taking refuge in Diffa region.

Let me use this forum to convey our deep appreciation to the Government of Niger Republic and that of Diffa for taking good care of our refugees.

"Insha Allah, we shall discuss how we can return some of our people that are willing to come back home in a dignified manner. We are aware of the economic challenges facing the world, but despite that you continue to support our people. We thank you most sincerely. Zulum said.

The meeting later went into a closed door session where security issues affecting the two states was discussed.
The government has begun the process of shedding its stake in Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp (IRCTC), a move that will help it move closer to its FY21 divestment target.

The Centre on August 20 invited bids from merchant bankers for the IRCTC stake sale, setting a deadline of September 10.

"The GoI intends to disinvest a part of the paid up equity capital of IRCTC out of its shareholding through 'Offer for Sale (OFS) method of shares by promoters through the stock exchanges' as per Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Rules and Regulations," DIPAM said while inviting Request for Proposal (RFP), as quoted by PTI.

The government currently holds 87.40 percent stake in IRCTC. To meet SEBI's public holding norm, the government has to lower its stake in the company to 75 percent.

The IRCTC OFS will help the government move closer to its Rs 2.10 lakh crore disinvestment target. Of this, Rs 1.20 lakh crore will come from disinvestment of public sector undertakings and another Rs 90,000 crore from stake sale in financial institutions.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has not been able to sell stake in any CPSE during 2020-21, since the coronavirus outbreak has impacted equity markets. However, through Bharat Bond ETF-II, the government has garnered subscription worth Rs 11,000 crore for 'AAA' rated bonds of CPSEs.

DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey had last month said restrictions on international travel due to COVID-19 pandemic have put brakes on strategic disinvestment of CPSEs, like Air India and BPCL, but completing the transactions remains a priority of the government.

(With inputs from PTI)
Priscilla Aguirre

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office identified the woman found dead Thursday in her Northwest Side duplex while her children were inside as Cora Ann Nickel.

The medical examiner did not provide a cause of death for the 27-year-old. She was previously reported to be 26.
Cheshire-based Assisted Living Services Inc. has been named in Inc.s ranking of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the U.S.  Inc. 5000 2020  according to a release.

Assisted Living Services was one of 36 Connecticut businesses that earned a spot on the list, the release said, and the only one in the Health Industry category.

One key to our success is that we put most of our emphasis on achieving audacious quality goals first and foremost, Ron DAquila RN, CEO, said in the release. The other is that we strive to surround ourselves with the very best talent - from managers to field staff.

ALS CarePlus program blends providing personal care with state-of-the-art safety and monitoring devices from its sister company, Assisted Living Technologies Inc., the release said, used help to reduce falls, improve medication compliance, and improve rapid access to emergency care. The company in March 2019 launched its Platinum Caregiver program that awards $5,000 each month to honor outstanding caregivers, the release said.

We have remained a family-owned and operated company since 1996, and to achieve this level of national recognition is a testament to the dedication of our entire team, Mario DAquila, MBA and chief operating officer of ALS, said in the release. We pride ourselves on leading industry trends as we constantly adapt to a changing business environment. Demand for quality in-home care has exploded as Baby Boomers retire and prefer to age in place.

DAquila said the companys 87 percent growth in revenue over the last three years is related to its expansion into Fairfield County, moving its headquarters from Meriden to Cheshire. The company is a credentialed provider with the CT Homecare Program for Elders, administered through the state Department of Social Services for seniors who are eligible for the state Medicaid program.

Assisted Living Services Inc. is owned and operated by Sharon and Ron DAquila, RN. Sons Mario DAquila, COO, and Nicholas DAquila, CIO, are heavily involved in operations, the release said.

The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually Oct. 23-27.

Connecticut Housing Partners wins Best of Trumbull award

Connecticut Housing Partners, based in Trumbull, has won this years Best of Trumbull Award in the Non-Profit Affordable Housing Developer category, according to a release, the second year in a row the company has received the award.

The awards program recognizes local businesses that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value, the release said.

We are honored to receive this prestigious Award for the second year in a row. Our work in Fairfield County is very important and impactful as providers of affordable housing, Renee Dobos, CEO of Connecticut Housing Partners, said in the release. We have pulled our communities together when they need us the most especially during this pandemic. We are not only offering stable housing to our residents, but we are offering them hope during these challenging times.

For more information, visit https://cthousingpartners.org.
In a political response to Kerala opposing privatisation of its Thiruvananthapuram airport, union Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri said that if the state government is against privatisation, then why did it participate in the bidding?

Kerala government lost out during the bidding process that was finally won by Adani group.

"The state government was given a fair chance and right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10% below the range of highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 % below. Then they approached Kerala High Court which dismissed the petition in Dec 2019. Petitioners then filed a SLP in Supreme Court. Apex Court remitted the matter back to Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by SC or Kerala High Court," the minister said.

He added that the Union Cabinet has given its go-ahead for awarding the airport to the private party subject to the outcome of Writ Petition and in accordance with provisions of undertaking given by the Concessionaire.

"If the petitioners succeed and outcome of litigation leads to annulment/cancellation of bidding process then the Concessionaire will handover the possession of airport to AAI. They will be entitled to refund of amount paid to AAI and additional investments made in the assets. The Concessionaire will also not demand any damages from AAI.

Here it should be borne in mind that these airports will come back to AAI after the lease period of 50 years,' Mr Puri said.

The minister clarified that sovereign functions like Customs, Security, Immigration, Plant and Animal Quarantine, Health Services, Communication and Navigation Surveillance / Air Traffic Management services will continue to be provided by the Government agencies.

The minister said Kerala is the pioneer as far as airports under Public Private Partnership are concerned as first PPP airport in India came up in Kochi followed by another in Kannur.

"In fact, it was during the UDF regime in Kerala that the foundation for Kochi airport was laid in 1994 and the airport was inaugurated in 1999 during LDF regime. Now, Kerala Government, running two very successful airports in PPP mode, is opposing the handing over of Thiruvananthapuram airport under PPP mode. It has come to my knowledge that an all-party meeting in Kerala has opposed the PPP model at Thiruvananthapuram airport," he said.
Update, Aug. 21, 9:41 a.m. The SCU Lightning Complex fire has burned 229,968 acres as of 9:41 a.m. on Friday, per Cal Fire. Find more updates here.

---

The SCU Lightning Complex, which has torn through Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus counties this week, has now torched over 214 square miles, per Cal Fire.

This makes it the largest of the three complexes currently ravaging the Bay Area, alongside numerous smaller wildfires in the region. (Read our explainer on how 'complex' fires differ from other wildfires here.)

The vastness of this blaze has already eclipsed 2019's Kincade Fire that burned just under 80,000 acres of land in Sonoma County over the course of two weeks last year. 2018's Camp Fire in Paradise, the deadliest blaze in the state's history, razed approximately 150,000 acres. 2017's devastating Tubbs Fire burned more than 36,000 acres.

The scope of this week's damage is hard to imagine, so to put its size into perspective, we mapped the fire zone over some known cities and destinations.

Here are the approximate reaches of the SCU Lightning Complex as of Thursday, in location, including the two larger fire zones, the Calaveras Zone and the Canyon Zone. For the purposes of this visual comparison, we did not include the smaller Deer Zone in Contra Costa County in the mapping.

Andy Andersen/SFGATE

Here is that same area overlaid onto New York City. The SCU has now burned an area of land approximately ten times larger than Manhattan's 22 square miles. A similar size comparison was made during last year's vast Kincade Fire, though that fire burned less than half the acreage of the SCU's current reaches.

Andy Andersen/SFGATE

Here's how the fire's size compares to Lake Tahoe. The alpine lake that straddles California and Nevada (and is currently also seeing the damaging effects of the wildfires) is around 191 square miles, smaller than the current reaches of the SCU Lightning Complex.

Andy Andersen/SFGATE

If the fire was replicated over Maui, Hawaii, almost half of the island would be affected:

Andy Andersen/SFGATE

The complex is over four times that of San Francisco's 47 square miles. As this comparison shows, the reaches of the SCU fire's damage would cover both S.F. and most of the East Bay.

Andy Andersen/SFGATE

Here's a size comparison with Los Angeles.

Andy Andersen/SFGATE

For new details on the SCU Lightning Complex Fire find our updates here.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

These are the fires burning in the Bay Area right now

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

San Mateo and Santa Cruz fires threaten many mountain towns

Vacaville wildfire destroys homes, evacuations extended into Fairfield

California's oldest state park now completely surrounded by fire zone

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Andrew Chamings is an editor at SFGATE. Email: Andrew.Chamings@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AndrewChamings
Press Release

21 August 2020

Putting the nice into MICE

Advertisements

Nothing to do with pest control, everything to do with business-minded travel. Put simply, MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions. It is business tourism at its finest, aimed at bringing together top professionals from every sector in an enhanced, tailor-made hospitality setting.

What is MICE?

Meetings

Meetings are typically held in hotel conference rooms or at convention centers. They are single-day events that bring together a group of professionals to address a key challenge or set goals for the organization.



Incentives

Incentives are travel rewards a company may provide in return for excellent professional performance from individual employees, groups or partners. A few days in a resort, hotel or popular hospitality venue at your company's expense does wonders for employee loyalty.



Conferences

Conferences take meetings to the next level and are designed for a large corporate group to share knowledge across several days. They often include not only key members of the organization, but also guest speakers and the general public.



Exhibitions

Exhibitions are essentially trade shows where an organization promotes its key products and services to the public. They are hyper-focused events that drum up business and help employees to network and build lasting professional relationships.



MICE services: Revenue implications

Implementing tailor-made MICE services into a hotel infrastructure is a way of securing additional long-term valuable growth. The latest Convention Industry Council report claimed that 85% of meetings in the U.S. are conducted at venues with lodging, generating more than 275 million room nights annually.

The expenditure of MICE travelers is much higher than leisure travelers, with profitable customers coming from the world of IT, banking, pharmaceuticals, retail and hospitality.

In brief, hotel meetings and corporate events are great way to boost revenue and secure those extra bookings. Lastly, developing MICE services is the perfect opportunity to enhance a hotel's reputation and profile, besides its profitability.



MICE: Required skills

The expertise required to excel in MICE tourist management is based on interpersonal, creative, organizational and technical skills. Innovative creativity is needed to design original event concepts, select the right venues and market effectively. The strong practical component must include technical know-how ranging from audio-visual dexterity to accessing fast-track visa apps. Soft skills such as patience, empathy, teamwork and problem-solving are vital if, for example, a large traveling party from a culturally-specific region are to be greeted with the appropriate welcome drink.

This niche hospitality market has seen hotels having to create jobs for innovative meeting planners and professional conference services staff, as well as develop industry-specific programs to add new dimensions to their overall service infrastructure. In some cases, recruiting in-house can prove difficult if all competencies are to be met, hence the rise in Destination Management Companies (DMC) that have started to spring up worldwide.

A DMC aims to offer the full range logistic services in their specialist destinations: meet & greet, transfers & transportation, hotel accommodation, restaurants, activities, excursions, conference venues, themed events and gala dinners. They are often able to provide preferential rates based on the buying power that they have with their preferred suppliers.

MICE: Global events

A number of global events focus on MICE travel, especially the incentive niche, many of which are organized by Questex Travel Group (formerly MEET). Of the annual events, these are some of the most prominent in the industry around the world:
United States (US) presidential candidate Joe Biden had one abiding goal during the just-concluded Democratic Party Convention  keeping his flock together. Mr Biden had to motivate his disparate sources of support  young liberal activists, middle-class suburban Whites, minorities, and moderate conservatives  to show up and vote for him in November. The US voter is prone to staying at home, a tendency likely to be exaggerated by Covid-19. The American Left has never been enthused by Mr Biden, and much of the convention saw their icons, such as former first lady Michelle Obama, giving him ringing endorsements. The convention also reached out to the partys other diverse support groups, in terms of ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. This is where vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris came into her own.

The Democratic Party system backed Mr Biden because it believed only he could appeal to both the converted and the uncertain. Mr Biden also needed to reassure the independent, fence-sitting US voter. Many of these are defectors from the Republican Party, repelled by President Donald Trumps character. It was no accident the convention had four moderate Republicans and an independent on its speaker roster. Mr Bidens own acceptance speech kept policy pronouncements in the margins. The focus was on contrasting a future Biden administration with the ethical and ideological morass of another four years of Mr Trump. The almost biblical refrain he used was, bring light to the existing darkness. Going by media and a smattering of polls, Mr Biden was able to satisfy his base, but the middle will wait until Mr Trump accepts his nomination next week.

Mr Biden has maintained a lead over Mr Trump for six months in a row. But national polls are irrelevant in the US electoral college system. What matters is who wins the roughly dozen or so swing states and their electoral college votes. In these swing states, the race is much narrower. There is no expectation of a bounce in the polls after this or next weeks Republican Convention. Virtual summits generate less excitement and attract smaller audiences. Both candidates will preach to their own flocks and hope their message spreads further. It says something about the unusual nature of the present elections that the whims of a virus may yet prove the most important factor in deciding the winner.
The alertness of our forces and border management are so good that for the first time the level of infiltration has come down, he said

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmirs Director General of Police, Dilbagh Singh, on Thursday claimed that the security forces combating a three-decade old insurgency in the erstwhile state have wreaked the leadership structure of separatist militant organizations apart by killing as many 26 of their top commanders in, so far, this year.

He said that two of them-both belonging to outlawed Lashkar-e-Tayabba (LeT)- were neutralised in the past three days along with four other militants in three separate operations.

Singh also claimed that infiltration of militants from across the border had decreased by half this year. The alertness of our forces and border management are so good that for the first time the level of infiltration has come down by fifty percent when compared to the past. Also, the local recruitment into the militant outfits has decreased considerably. I think people, particularly our children are listening to our advice and appeals and staying away from the gun.

Speaking to reporters in Handwara town of frontier Kupwara district, the police chief said, Weve succeeded in breaking the leadership structure of militants in Kashmir. Twenty-six top most commanders have been killed in encounters across the Valley, so far, this year.

Taking about the killing of LeT commander Naseer-ud-Din Lone along with another militant in the latest gunfight with security forces that took place in Kralgund area of Handwara, the DGP said, He was involved in the killing of six CRPF personnel in two separate terror attacks besides similar other acts including the murder of a local policeman. We had had reports that he was planning to carry out a big strike in north Kashmir after the killing of Sajad Ahmed Mir alias Sajad Hyder. Mir, also a senior commander of the LeT, was among three militants killed in a gunfight with security forces in Kreeri area of neighbouring Bandipore district earlier this week.

The group led by Mir had on Monday killed two CRPF jawans and a local Special Police Officer in a sneak attack carried out by them in Kreeri, 38-km north of here. In the ensuing encounter which continued for about thirty hours, all the three assailants including Mir, his close associate Innayatullah and their Pakistani aide Osman and two Army jawans Grenadiers Ravi Kumar Singh and Prashant Singh were killed.

Singh said, In last four days three encounters took place across Kashmir. In those encounters, four militants of A and A+ category were killed. Those four militants were top commanders and figured in the list of top 10 or top 20 militants operating in Kashmir. He termed the outcome of these operations as a big relief for common people.

He said that Mir had lured a large number of local youth into the militants ranks. In past few days, we have picked up several such youth and, thereby, taken back from the path to joining militancy. This year we have brought 16 such youth back and restored them to their families. We will continue to bring those youth, who have lost their way, towards a better path and help them to pursue a better future, he asserted.

IGP Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, who was also present at the briefing, strongly denied the charge that the police are harassing the families of militants in the Valley. He said, The J&K Police are working for peace and tranquility in the society so people should view our operations in that prism. Police will not harass the families of militants. In fact, we respect them, he said.
In a warm shallow sea about 240 million years ago in what is now southwestern China, a large dolphin-like marine reptile attacked and swallowed an almost equally big lizard-like marine reptile in a savage encounter that left both beasts dead.

Scientists on Thursday described a fossil unearthed in Chinas Guizhou Province that reveals this Triassic Period drama in exceptional detail and changes the understanding of megapredation in prehistoric seas.

While it long has been presumed that large apex predators preyed upon other big animals  megapredation is defined as feeding on the prey of human size or larger  the Chinese fossil represents the first direct evidence of it, as demonstrated by a prehistoric animals stomach contents.

The fossil shows the skeleton of a 15-foot-long (5 meters) Guizhouichthyosaurus, a type of marine reptile called an ichthyosaur. Its body design married elements of a dolphin and a tiger shark though it lacked a dorsal fin, also boasting four strong flippers and a mouth full of powerful but blunt teeth.

Inside its stomach was the torso of a 12-foot-long (4 meters) Xinpusaurus, a type of marine reptile called and a thalattosaur. Its body design resembled a komodo dragon with four paddling limbs and teeth equipped for crushing shells. The Xinpusaurus was beheaded in the melee and its tail severed.

Nobody was there to film it, but it is possible to interpret what may have occurred between the two animals, said paleobiologist and study co-author Ryosuke Motani of the University of California, Davis.

The Guizhouichthyosaurus literally may have bitten off more than it could chew.

The prey is lighter than the predator but its resistance must have been fierce, Motani said. The predator probably damaged its neck to some extent while subduing the prey. Then it took the head and tail of the prey off through jerking and twisting, and swallowed the trunk using inertia and gravity.

Motani added, These activities may have expanded the damage of the neck to the point it was fatal. The neck vertebral columns of these ichthyosaurs are quite narrow and once they could not hold the skull in place anymore, the predator could not breathe. Soon, it died not far from the site of the predation, where the detached tail of the prey lay.

The fossil bore evidence of this broken neck. The prey in the stomach showed little signs of digestion, indicating the ichthyosaur died soon after swallowing it.

It is among the more dramatic fossils on record, joining others such as one showing the Cretaceous Period dinosaurs Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in combat and another of the large Cretaceous fish Xiphactinus that had swallowed whole another sizeable fish.

Guizhouichthyosaurus was the largest-known marine predator of its time, about 10 million years before dinosaurs appeared. Its teeth, however, were not the type thought to be needed for megapredation: blunt rather than having cutting edges for slicing flesh.

Its teeth look like they are good for grasping squids. So, it was a surprise to find such large prey, said Peking University paleontologist Da-Yong Jiang, lead author of the research published in the journal iScience.

Motani noted that crocodilians also have blunt teeth and attack large prey.
The last of four men being sentenced in a series of burglaries and home invasions last year will spend 38 years in prison, a judge ruled this week.

Judge J. Frank McCartney sentenced Edwin L. Powell, 29, of Jacksonville on Wednesday for Powells role in a series of residential burglaries in Adams, Pike and Scott counties that started Aug. 15, 2019, and continued with two home invasions in rural Pike County on Aug. 16.

Powell pleaded guilty June 30 to three counts of home invasion, one count of possession of a weapon by a felon, one count of possession of a stolen firearm, and two counts of felony theft.

As part of a plea agreement, the sentence was capped at 40 years. The minimum sentence because of the home invasion charge was 26 years.

Mr. Powell committed horrific offenses against law-abiding citizens in their homes, said Pike County States Attorney Zack Boren, who prosecuted the case. I know the victims lives will never be the same, but I hope they can begin to move on now that we have sentenced the last of the four co-defendants.

McCartney ordered cash and other stolen property, including two vehicles, be applied as restitution to the victims.

The others charged in the spree already have been sentenced, although one has asked the courts to withdraw his plea.

Tyler J. Runk, 23, of Jacksonville pleaded guilty March 5 in Pike Circuit Court to three counts of home invasion, one count of residential burglary, one count of possession of a weapon by a felon, one count of possession of a stolen firearm and three counts of felony theft. He has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Germarco D. Tate, 26, of Jacksonville pleaded guilty Oct. 22 to three counts of home invasion and one count of residential burglary. He was sentenced to 32 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. He filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which McCartney denied July 7, and appealed the denial. His appeal is before the Illinois Court of Appeals.

Jordan T.R. Gallup, 29, of Jacksonville pleaded guilty Dec. 19 to two counts of residential burglary and one count of unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison on the residential burglary counts, concurrent with seven years on the charge of possession of a stolen vehicle.
Police in Seattle have arrested the landlord of a couple whose bodies were found dismembered and stuffed inside a suitcase which was dumped on a beach.

Michael Dudley, 62, was detained on Wednesday evening, Seattle police confirmed to DailyMail.com, and held on a $5 million bail.

He has not yet been charged, but Seattle police confirmed he was in custody for the murder of the pair.

On the night of their killing, a man was reportedly heard yelling: 'Please don't do this, just let me leave,' before gunshots were fired.

The bodies of Jessica Lewis, 35, and Austin 'Cash' Wenner, 27, were discovered on Seattle's Alki Beach on June 19.

The TikTok users who found the suitcases containing the victims' dismembered bodies alerted the authorities and posted video online.

The landlord of Jessica Lewis, 35, and Austin Wenner, 27, has been arrested for their murder

**WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT**

The human remains that were found by TikTok users in Seattle last month have been identified as belonging to Jessica Lewis, 35 (left), and her boyfriend, Austin 'Cash' Wenner, 27 (right)

Dudley had previously argued with the pair about payment of their rent, The Seattle Times reported.

Detectives learned that neighbors had heard gunfire and yelling from inside the house on June 9, ten days before the remains were found, and dialled 911.

But Burien police officers did not get a response from the residence when they arrived.

Probable cause documents said when officers obtained a search warrant, they found bullet holes and blood inside the 'blue room' inside the house.

Dudley allegedly confirmed to officers that the couple had been staying in the room during the state's coronavirus quarantine, and that the argued with him because they couldn't pay rent.

Police said he 'could not explain' the bullets, bullet holes or blood in the room.

The King County Medical Examiner determined that both Lewis and Wenner had been shot several days before their remains were found, reported KIRO7.

The footage of their bodies being discovered went viral.

'Something traumatic happened that changed my life,' TikTok user UghHenry wrote in the caption of the video.

The social media user used the hashtags 'crime' and 'murder'.

'We found this black suitcase. We were joking that maybe the suitcase would have money[But] the smell was overwhelming,' the video captions explain.

In the clip the amateur videographer is heard tell one girl: 'Open it! It stinks, yo.'

A TikTok video posted last month shows a group of youths opening a suitcase at Duwamish Head in Seattle, Washington. But they had no idea they'd discovered human remains

Lewis' aunt has described the murdered woman as a kind-hearted mother-of-four who worked with developmentally disabled adults. She and Wenner had been together for eight years

The discovery was near Luna Park on June 19, according to the Seattle Police Department

They are heard laughing before realizing that a black bag stuffed inside the suitcase may contain something sinister.

The caption states they felt a 'little scared' and 'nervous'.

The clip then cuts to another girl calling 911 and authorities arriving at the scene on the 1100 block of Alki Avenue.

Lewis' aunt, Gina Jaschke, said: 'Jessica & Cash were good -hearted people.

'She leaves behind 4 beautiful children. Their parents and family are heartbroken beyond words. Along with countless friends and loved ones.'

Jaschke said that Lewis and Wenner were a fun-loving couple who had been together for eight years.

'They were just nice normal people,' she said. 'Nobody deserves what happened to them.'

TikTok users said they were sent to the area by an app that comes up with random coordinates. Then they spotted the suitcase

The young people were hoping the luggage would contain money. One girl is seen prodding it with sticks (right)

But the group sensed something was wrong after smelling what was inside. They called 911 and felt 'nervous' and 'scared'

According to a caption in the TikTok video documenting the gruesome discovery of the couple's bodies, the amateur videographers were directed to the rocky beach by the Randonautica app.

The app encourages people to explore areas around them by using a random number generator to come up with a set of coordinates, according to Wired.

Users are told to set an intention before embarking on the trip and then report back later on whether they experienced any coincidences that suggest the universe fulfilled the intention.

'There are two main parts to randonauting,' Joshua Lengfelder, who founded the randonauting movement, told Wired.

'Exploring blindspots or places nearby that are outside of your conscious awareness, and experimenting with mind-machine interaction; the hypothesis that consciousness can influence the distribution of random numbers.'
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Bangkok, Thailand  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:50 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f72a88 2 SE Asia Thailand,pro-democracy,protest,lese-majeste,Monarchy Free

A pro-democracy movement led by student groups is gathering steam across Thailand, with some activists even calling for reform of the kingdom's unassailable monarchy.

Authorities have so far made 11 arrests on various charges, including sedition and breaking coronavirus rules, before releasing them on bail.

Here is what we know so far:

What do the protesters want?

The protesters are rallying against the government of Premier Prayut Chan-O-Cha.

The former army chief led a coup in 2014 and kept the kingdom under military rule for five years.

Under the junta, a new constitution was drafted before elections were held last year.

Prayut was voted in to lead a civilian government -- a win analysts say was tilted by the new charter's provisions.

Protesters say the whole process was a stitch-up and are calling for parliament to be dissolved, the constitution rewritten and an end to the harassment they are facing.

They also have a list of 10 demands for the monarchy, including throwing out a defamation law that shields the powerful royal family from criticism.

The law is one of the harshest in the world, carrying a jail sentence of up to 15 years per charge.

Why now?

Discontent has been simmering since February when the leaders of an opposition party, popular among young people, were banned from politics.

Many protesters say the move against the Future Forward Party was politically motivated.

A pandemic lockdown, which sent Thailand's economy into freefall, exposed the chasms between the billionaire class and the poor.

In June, prominent activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit, who had been living in self-exile in neighboring Cambodia, then disappeared.

Thailand's social media-savvy activists lit up Twitter with their demands for answers.

The online campaign spilled offline mid-July and the wave of protests across the country started, with up to 20,000 turning out at the biggest rally so far last weekend.

We've seen Thai protests before. What's different?

True, Thailand has seen a spin-cycle of violent street protests and military coups over the decades.

But in the past the protest movements had vast financial and political clout behind them.

Today's student demonstrators say there is no single leader -- a strategy partly inspired by the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

Daring to take on the taboo topic of the country's monarchy is also a first.

Under the constitution, the royals -- including the super-rich King Maha Vajiralongkorn -- are supposed to stay out of politics, but they wield enormous clout.

Since the king took the throne in 2016, he has made unprecedented changes, taking direct control of the palace's fortune and moving two army units under his command.

At his side are the arch-royalist military and powerful billionaire clans.

What's the reaction?

Mixed.

The student-led protests have drawn support from a broad demographic, including many from the country's working classes.

The movement has also spread to high schools across the country with teenagers tying white bows of solidarity in their hair and on backpacks.

But pro-royalist groups are enraged and have held their own, smaller counter-demonstrations with mostly older protesters carrying signs like, "Don't touch the monarchy".

Army chief Apirat Kongsompong has ominously warned that "hatred of the nation" is an incurable disease.

Prayut last week branded the protest demands as "unacceptable" to most Thais but later struck a more conciliatory note by calling for unity.

What comes next?

Hard to predict.

By tackling the monarchy, Paul Chambers of Naresuan University says the protesters have "effectively forced the genie out of the bottle".

Historians -- and even the student leaders themselves -- have raised the specter of a previous student-led movement.

That ended in October 1976 in what became known as the Thammasat University massacre.

Students protesting the return of a military dictator were shot, beaten to death and lynched by state forces and royalist mobs.

Matt Wheeler of International Crisis Group points to the "clear pattern" of the state using deadly force against pro-democracy protesters.

"So much is at stake for those who benefit from the status quo that it would be imprudent to rule it out," he told AFP.

Prominent activist Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree plays down such fears.

"We're now living in a world where social media is embedded in every aspect of our life, so people are not going to let an event like that happen again."
VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2020 / Gold Terra Resource Corp. (TSXV:YGT)(OTCQB:TRXXF)(FRA:TX0) ("Gold Terra" or the "Company) is pleased to announce that its common shares have been accepted for trading on the OTCQB Venture Market, a U.S. trading platform operated by the OTC Markets Group Inc. in New York. The common shares will begin trading today on OTCQB under the ticker symbol "TRXXF".

"With the resurgence of the gold market and the Company's recent exploration success on its YCG project, it is the right time to upgrade from the Pink Market to the OTCQB Venture Market," said David Suda, President and CEO of the Company. "Having this listing will broaden our reach in the United States and facilitate the trading of our stock for U.S. based retail and institutional investors as we continue to build awareness and unlock the potential of our gold project in Yellowknife."

The Company will continue to trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "YGT".

About OTC Markets Group Inc.

OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX:OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities.

The OTCQB is a marketplace for entrepreneurial and development stage U.S. and international companies that are committed to providing a high-quality trading and information experience for their US investors. To be eligible, companies must be current in their financial reporting, pass a minimum bid price test, and undergo an annual company verification and management certification process.

About Gold Terra's Yellowknife City Gold Project

The Yellowknife City Gold ("YCG") project encompasses 790 sq. km of contiguous land immediately north, south and east of the City of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Through a series of acquisitions, Gold Terra controls one of the six major high-grade gold camps in Canada. Being within 10 kilometres of the City of Yellowknife, the YCG is close to vital infrastructure, including all-season roads, air transportation, service providers, hydro-electric power and skilled tradespeople.

The YCG lies on the prolific Yellowknife greenstone belt, covering nearly 70 kilometres of strike length along the main mineralized shear system that host the former-producing high-grade Con and Giant gold mines. The Company's exploration programs have successfully identified significant zones of gold mineralization and multiple targets that remain to be tested which reinforces the Company's objective of re-establishing Yellowknife as one of the premier gold mining districts in Canada.

Visit our website at www.goldterracorp.com.

For more information, please contact:

David Suda, President and CEO

Phone: 604-928-3101 | Toll-Free: 1-855-737-2684

dsuda@goldterracorp.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Gold Terra Resource Corp

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602703/Gold-Terra-Commences-Trading-on-the-OTCQB-Market
The first black journalist on British television says she's 'glad' she was the victim of racism because she believes it has helped future generations.

Barbara Blake Hannah, 79, made her television debut in 1968, however was let go from her job at Thames TV after bosses refused to renew her contract, and justified it with appalling racist notes complaining about her presence.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain today, she told how she's pleased to have seen the Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by the death of George Floyd, and hopes her experience with racism has had 'some useful purpose'.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain today, she told how she's pleased to have seen the Black Lives Matter movement and that her experience with racism had 'some useful purpose'

Barbara Blake Hannah, 79, made her television debut in 1968, however was let go from her job at Thames TV due to racist complaints. She is pictured at Thames Television's 'Today' programme in 1968

'The Black Lives Matter movement has done a lot to make people realise the extent racism has affected the life of black people', she told.

'I'm glad George Floyd's death has changed the world in so many ways, it's made so many people look at how they treat each other, because we are supposed to live together in love no matter what and racism prevents us from doing that.

'I'm glad I'm around and I'm glad that what happened to me 50 years ago is having some effect today and can be put to some useful purpose, make lemonade out of lemons.'

Barbara arrived in England in 1964 from Jamaica with huge journalistic experience and as the found of the country's Press Association.

Her contract was not renewed by Thames TV because of complaints from viewers who would phone in and write in saying 'Get that n-word off our screens'

She said when Thames TV bosses introduced her, Jane Probyn and Eamonn Andrews to the press they rushed out of the room to file stories on her appointment.

However when her contract was up, she was let go because of the large volume of complaints the station received about her race - including viewers who would phone in and write in saying 'Get that n-word off our screens'.

She told: 'The barrier I faced was just race and that is what happened. At the end of my first job, my contract was not renewed because so many people called in objecting to my colour, to my race.'

'I didn't know it was happening at the time', said Barbara, 'I didn't know until it was time for my contract to be renewed. When I was working, I just didn't know, nobody told me, i'm glad to say. But then I was told 'sorry Barbara, goodbye'.

Press Gazette has launched the Barbara Blake-Hannah prize to recognise up and coming non-white journalists

At her next job Birmingham to work on Associated Television she was sent out of the office after right-wing politician Enoch Powell  fresh from his anti mass-immigration 'Rivers of blood' speech  was due in.

She later discovered he had only agreed to be interviewed on the condition she was not in the studio at the time.

However, Barbara felt 'nobody really objected' while she was out working on stories, and was sometimes pleasantly surprised by interviewees, recalling a story about the 'sweet' Hells Angels motorbike gang.

She said: 'Nobody really objected when I went out on stories, so I had no idea [about the racism] , nobody treated me differently among interviews.

'I interviewed the Hells Angels and they were famous for being racist but they were so sweet.

Barbara told hosts Alex Beresford and Kate Garraway (both pictured) 'nobody really objected' while she was out working on stories, and was sometimes pleasantly surprised by interviewees

She explained that while it's hard to imagine the racism she faced 50-years ago, it was simply the 'reality of her life'

'They didn't mind at all and they didn't mind and they wrote to me years later saying 'We remember being interviewed by you' and so on the job I didn't have any problem.'

She explained that while it's hard to imagine the racism she faced 50-years ago, it was simply the 'reality of her life'.

'It's hard to imagine that was 50 years ago, she told, 'And that really was the reaction and they wrote letters and called the station and that was just the truth.

'I know things would be different today, but 50 years ago that was the reality of life.'

Press Gazette has launched the Barbara Blake-Hannah prize to recognise up and coming non-white journalists.
Vivek Murthy, the Indian-American former US Surgeon General, has hailed Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden's support for immigrants and his leadership to deal with crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, saying he is the leader who will heal the country after getting elected as the President.

Murthy, 43, who served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States from December 2014 to April 2017, said Americans need a leader who works with the people for the progress of the country.

"Six years ago, when Biden met my family, many of them immigrants awed to be in the nation's capital, I saw how he kneeled beside my grandmother's wheelchair, took her hands in his and said Thank you for choosing us, the United States of America, as the place to trust with your family,"

Murthy said in his remarks to the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention on Thursday. "Tonight, as a father, son and grandson, as a doctor who swore an oath and as an American who loves my country, I can tell you that Biden is the man I trust to look out for my family and the leader I know will heal this nation," he added.

During his video remarks, a photograph of Murthy, flanked by his parents and wife and being sworn-in as the US Surgeon-General by Biden, was displayed. Murthy, who was born in England and raised in Miami, had taken the oath on the Gita and as the Surgeon General was the highest ranking Indian-American in the Obama administration.

In his remarks to the convention, Murthy said it is not typical for a former Surgeon General to speak at a party convention but the highest duty of the nation's top doctor is to the public and true guide is science. "Our job is to speak the truth about public health even when it's controversial or perceived as political. So here's the truth. Our nation absolutely has what it takes to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic that's claimed tens of thousands of our loved ones. We have the talent, resources and technology. What we're missing is leadership," Murthy said.

He added that America needs a leader who works with states to ensure there is enough testing and results are delivered quickly. "A leader who secures a safe, effective vaccine and distributes it quickly and fairly. A leader who inspires us to practice distancing and wear masks, not as a political statement but as a patriotic duty, a commitment we make to one another, he said.

Murthy underlined that Biden is a leader that America needs today. Having worked with Biden, Murthy said he has seen who Biden is "with no cameras around, how he sits with people and their pain and holds them in his heart. Biden pours over COVID briefings, asks smart questions and lets science guide his way, just as he did when managing the Ebola crisis, Murthy said.

In April 2017, Murthy, a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Medical School, was asked by the Trump Administration to resign from his duties as Surgeon General..

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The logo of French media group Lagardere is seen at the group's shareholders meeting in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) - Activist fund Amber Capital on Thursday called on French publishing and media group Lagardere <LAGA.PA> to hold a shareholder meeting, its latest bid to trigger a board shake-up as a battle between the firm's top investors intensifies.

In a letter to the firm seen by Reuters, Amber, which has teamed up with fellow Lagardere shareholder Vivendi <VIV.PA> to demand four seats between them on the board, nominated its founder Joseph Oughourlian as one of its three candidates.

Lagardere declined to comment.

The request cranks up a tussle over the loss-making company and Paris Match owner that has drawn two of France's richest businessmen into its wake.

Bernard Arnault, who runs luxury goods group LVMH <LVMH.PA>, is investing in the personal holding company of Arnaud Lagardere, the firm's managing partner - effectively backing the firm and its bosses, which have brushed off Amber in the past.

But media group Vivendi, controlled by billionaire Vincent Bollore and which now has a 23.5% stake in Lagardere, last week sided with Amber, a 20% stakeholder, to seek board representation.

Amber and Vivendi want Lagardere to send its notice for a shareholder meeting within 15 days, and hold the event in the 50 days that follow, according to the letter. Amber said it would go to court if Lagardere refused.

In May, Lagardere succeeded in fending off Amber's attempt to revoke its directors and appoint new ones partly thanks to Vivendi, but relations have now soured.

Arnaud Lagardere was re-appointed to his top job earlier this week, seven months ahead of schedule, at a board meeting neither Vivendi or Amber had been aware of, people familiar with the matter have said.

One Lagardere board member, Aline Sylla-Walbaum, a top executive at auction house Christie's, resigned ahead of the vote, a separate source close to the situation said.

Online news site Wansquare, which first reported her resignation, said she had had reservations about prolonging the CEO's mandate. Sylla-Walbaum confirmed she had stepped down but declined to comment further.

(Reporting by Sarah White; Editing by Geert De Clercq, Kirsten Donovan)
In a 30-second advert to air on Fox News during the 2020 Republican National Convention, a conservative political group opposed to Donald Trump's re-election has targeted former White House adviser Steve Bannon's arrest on fraud charges related to a US-Mexico border wall scheme.

"The Border Wall Scam" from Republican Voters Against Trump depicts how "Trump's friends and advisers took advantage of his base's support for a border wall only to create a culture of anger and hate throughout the country and defraud their own supporters", the organisation said in a statement.

A voice speaks over news clips from the arrest and charges against Mr Bannon, who pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and money laundering on Thursday after his early morning arrest. Mr Bannon and three other men are accused of defrauding donors who contributed to a privately funded border wall project that raised $25m.

It also cuts together footage from law enforcement firing tear gas into crowds of protesters outside the White House.

"The Trump posse didn't care about the forgotten man," a narrator says. "They didn't care about building a wall. They didn't want to drain the swamp. They just wanted power, by making you angry and robbing you blind. The truth: It was all a scam."

Republican Voters Against Trump's ad is set to air on Fox & Friends on Thursday and will appear during other time slots during the week, a spokesperson told The Independent.

Mr Trump is set to speak during every day of the week-long GOP conference, culminating in the party's renomination to face against the former vice president in November elections.

The organisation, which launched earlier this year under conservative political group Defending Democracy Together, also ran ads featuring former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor, the first former senior-level Trump official to endorse the president's rival Joe Biden.

Republican Voters Against Trump also assembled a statement from 73 former national security officials who worked across four Republican administrations to produce a 10-point indictment against the president, labelled "dangerously unfit" to serve and accused of having "imperilled" national security and US relations abroad.

The statement was released on the final day of the Democrats' nominating convention, which has notably featured several Republican officials and voters voicing their support for the former vice president, including former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Ohio governor John Kasich, and Cindy McCain, the widow of longtime senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

"While some of us hold policy positions that differ from those of Joe Biden and his party, the time to debate those policy differences will come later," the former officials said in a statement. "For now, it is imperative that we stop Trump's assault on our nation's values and institutions and reinstate the moral foundations of our democracy."
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Donald Trump held a private funeral service at the White House Friday for his younger brother Robert who died last week one day after the president flew to New York to be by his bedside.

Trump and Melania Trump cut somber figures as they watched pallbearers carrying Robert's casket out of the North Portico of the White House and down the steps to a waiting hearse late Friday afternoon.

At one point, the president shut his eyes and took a moment at the top of the steps as his brother's coffin was led down the steps and bagpipes played in the background.

The First Lady, dressed in a midi length belted black dress and black court shoes, comforted her grieving husband clutching tightly onto his hand.

This is the first time a deceased person was held at the US seat of government since President John F. Kennedy's lay in state and his funeral procession started from there following his assassination back in 1963.

The service made Trump's brother one of only a handful of private citizens to have had their funeral service in the White House in its entire history.

Donald Trump held a private funeral service at the White House Friday for his younger brother Robert

Trump and Melania Trump cut somber figures as they watched pallbearers carrying Robert's casket out of the North Portico of the White House and down the steps to a waiting hearse late Friday afternoon. Robert's widow Ann Marie Pallan Trump (second right) watched tearfully as her husband's body was carried away joined by Donald and Robert's sister Elizabeth Trump Grau (far right) and her husband James Grau (hidden)

Trump and Melania watch the casket of his brother Robert be placed in a hearse and driven away from the White House

Members of the Trump family embrace following the funeral of Robert Trump at the White House. Robert's stepdaughter Genna Nixon (back far left), Elizabeth Trump Grau, widow Ann Marie Pallan Trump and Robert Grau (left to right first four individuals) comfort each other as Robert's stepson TJ Pallan and his partner Laura Taylor (both far right) look on

Trump and Melania Trump held hands and stood next to Donald and Robert's sister Elizabeth Trump Grau and her husband James Grau as they watched the hearse drive away

Trump, in a black tie and navy suit, and Melania led mourners out of the North Portico and down the steps of the White House in a procession following Robert's black casket late Friday afternoon.

Pallbearers carried the casket - which was adorned with white floral wreaths - to a waiting hearse.

Family and friends of Robert - who died Saturday after 'suffering brain bleeds from a recent fall' - followed his body down the steps and watched as it was driven away.

Behind the president and First Lady was Robert's widow Ann Marie Pallan Trump, 55, - who he wed back in March - who looked on tearfully.

She was joined by Donald and Robert's sister Elizabeth Trump Grau, 78, and her husband James Grau, 84, a former film producer and one-time events executive at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Elizabeth choked back tears while bagpipes played Lord Lovats Lament in the background - a tribute to the familys roots as their late mother Mary Anne MacLeod came from Scotland.

They were joined by the president's children who were all pictured on the steps of the White House to pay their respects to their uncle.

Barron Trump towered over his siblings Donald Trump Jr. and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, Eric Trump and wife Lara and Tiffany Trump.

The two brothers pictured together in 1999. Robert died Saturday age 71 after 'suffering brain bleeds from a recent fall'

Family members including the president's children look on as Robert's casket is led out of the White House after the service

The president's sons Barron Trump (center) and Donald Trump Jr. (right) with girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle pay tribute to their uncle

Bagpipes played Lord Lovats Lament in tribute to the familys Scottish roots. The Trump's late mother Mary Anne MacLeod was Scottish

Trump shuts his eyes and takes a moment as he watches his younger brother's coffin leave the seat of government

Also present were Robert's stepchildren Genna Nixon, 31, and TJ Pallan, 25, and their respective partners Flynn Nixon and Laura Taylor.

Genna and TJ were seen comforting their distraught mother and Robert's widow Ann Marie at the bottom of the steps.

David William Desmond, 59, Roberts oldest nephew and the only child of Maryanne Trump Barry, from her first marriage to David Desmond, was also pictured on the steps.

Absent from the service were Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, the eldest surviving Trump child and a retired federal appeals judge.

Christopher Hollister Trump-Retchin, 44, Roberts stepson from his first marriage to socialite Blaine Trump was also not seen.

It is not clear if they were present at the ceremony or not.

Several mourners embraced and comforted each other as the black casket was placed inside the hearse and driven away.

Family members and friends comfort each other on the steps of the White House Friday afternoon. From left: Trump, Melania, Elizabeth Trump Grau, Robert Grau, Genna Nixon, Flynn Nixon, Ann Marie Pallan, TJ Pallan, unknown, David William Desmond, Barron Trump

The president's children Barron Trump (left), Donald Trump Jr. (center), with girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ivanka Trump (third right), with husband Jared Kushner, Eric Trump (partially hidden) and wife Lara, and Tiffany Trump (right), walk behind the casket

Trump, in a black tie and navy suit, followed Robert's black casket out of the North Portico and looked on as bagpipes played in the background

The First Lady, dressed in a midi length black dress and black court shoes, comforted her grieving husband clutching tightly to his hand as the black casket was placed inside the hearse and driven away

The president did not address reporters outside the White House but posted a tribute to his brother on social media soon after the service.

'Robert, I Love You. Rest In Peace!' Trump tweeted around 7 p.m. E.T.

Sources confirmed to ABC News on Thursday that Trump would be hosting a funeral service at the White House for his brother the following day.

Robert's body would be driven from New York to the White House for the private service, the sources told ABC News.

Around 200 people were invited to the private ceremony in the East Room which was reportedly personally paid for by the president.

Trump said Monday he was considering holding a small service at the White House for Robert, saying his brother would be 'greatly honored' and 'loved our country' so it would be 'appropriate'.

'We're looking at Friday. And we may do just a small service right here in the White House for my brother. We're looking at doing that. That would be, I think, a great honor to him,' Trump told reporters on the South Lawn.

'I think he'd be greatly honored. He loves our country - he loved our country so much.

'He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country. So, I think it would be appropriate.'

Robert pictured with his wife Ann Marie Pallan Trump, 55, who he married back in March just months before he died

Ann Marie shared this picture on social media just over a month before her husband died

Robert and family pictured with Trump at the White House in 2018 where a private funeral service was held for him Friday

Robert is pictured hugging Donald on Election Day 2016. Trump tweeted 'Robert, I Love You. Rest In Peace!' Friday after the ceremony

Around 200 people were invited to the private ceremony which is reportedly being personally paid for by the president. Pictured Donald and Robert Trump

The last time a deceased person was held at the White House was in 1963 for JFK after he was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22.

Following the shooting, Kennedy's body was flown back to the White House and placed in the East Room and set upon the same catafalque used at Lincoln's funeral, where officials and heads of state visited to pay their respects.

His funeral procession on November 25 then started from the White House down Pennsylania Avenue to St. Matthew's Cathedral, before his body was buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetery.

Other presidents who were assassinated also had services at the White House.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley lay in state in the East Room and James Garfield did not have a White House funeral but did lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

Other presidents who died while in office, like Franklin Roosevelt, also lay in state at the White House.

It is rare for a non-president to have a funeral service at the White House.

There have been only two other known services for private citizens in history - the last being in 1936 for Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor.

This came after a Lincoln held a private service in the Green Room for his son Willie Lincoln who died in February 1862 of typhoid fever aged 11.

Woodrow Wilsons first wife, Ellen Louise Axson Wilson died of Bright's disease in the White House in August 1914, but it is unclear if she had a funeral service in the executive mansion.

The last time a funeral was held at the White House was in 1963 for JFK after he was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22. Pictured JFK's coffin is carried from the White House to The Capitol during the service

His funeral took place at the White House on November 25 and his body was buried in Arlington Memorial Cemetery. The caisson carrying JFK's casket leaves the Capitol bound for his funeral

It is rare for a non-president to have a funeral service at the White House. There have been only two known services for private citizens - the last being in 1936 for Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. Pictured Roosevelt, Eleanor and their son, Franklin at the funeral

Trump's brother Robert died Saturday  just one day after Trump visited him in hospital in New York.

The president said in a statement announcing his death Saturday night: 'It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight.

'He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.'

Trump paid tribute to his brother in an interview with Fox & Friends Monday morning calling Robert his 'biggest fan.'

'When I became president, he was, I think, one of the most loyal people,' the president said of his brother, who was the youngest of the five Trump siblings.

'There was no jealously... There was not an ounce of jealousy.'

'He'd go around talking about how great this is for the country and 'it's so incredible' and he was my biggest fan,' Trump told the Fox News morning show panel.

Robert, who reportedly took blood thinners, had suffered recent brain bleeds that began after a recent fall, according to a close friend of the family, who spoke to The New York Times.

Over the past few weeks, he had not been able to speak on the phone, according to the family friend.

Robert was married to socialite Blaine Trump (pictured) for 25 years until their 2007 divorce. Until his death, he lived in Long Island with wife Ann Marie Pallan

Robert is pictured right with sister Maryanne and brother Donald in 1990

Trump arrived at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center on Friday afternoon to visit his ailing younger brother

Trump left Manhattan on Friday afternoon to fly to Bedminster, New Jersey, having said goodbye to his brother in hospital

Robert Trump had no children, but he helped raise Christopher Hollister Trump-Retchin, the son of his first wife, Blaine Trump.

Besides the president, he is survived by his second wife, Ann Marie Pallan, and his sisters, Maryanne Trump Barry and Elizabeth Trump Grau.

His brother Fred Trump Jr. died in 1981.

Robert's death came one day after the president visited him in hospital in New York City, where he was said to be suffering from a serious condition.

Trump had been scheduled to travel to his country club in nearby Bedminster, New Jersey for the weekend, but made a stop in Manhattan first to check in on his sibling.

Robert had been admitted to the hospital and was described as 'very ill', however details of his illness are still not officially confirmed.

During a White House press briefing after his visit to his brother's bedside, the president said his brother was 'having a hard time' but did not elaborate on why he had been hospitalized.

Robert, the youngest of the five Trump siblings, was previously hospitalized for ten days at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in June.

He was admitted to the neurosciences intensive care unit where he was treated for a 'serious condition', the Daily Beast reported.

Around the same time, Robert had filed a lawsuit against his niece Mary Trump, seeking to block her from publishing a tell-all book on the president.

Mary is the daughter of the brothers' eldest sibling, Fred Trump Jr, who struggled with alcoholism and died in 1981 at the age of 43.

Robert filed for an injunction claiming the explosive book, 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man', violated the terms of a confidentiality agreement she signed nearly two decades ago.

From left to right: Robert, Elizabeth, Freddy, Donald and Maryanne Trump. Robert was the youngest of the five siblings

Robert is the youngest of the five Trump siblings born to Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. Pictured left to right: Donald, Fred Jr, Robert, Maryanne, and Elizabeth

Robert married his former secretary Ann Marie Pallan (center) in March. The two were rumored to be having an affair while he was married to first wife Blaine

In a statement to The New York Times in June, he accused his niece of attempting to 'sensationalize and mischaracterize' their family relationship for her own financial gain.

'I and the rest of my entire family are so proud of my wonderful brother, the president, and feel that Mary's actions are truly a disgrace,' Robert said.

The explosive memoir was eventually released last month after a judge agreed to lift a temporary restraining order preventing Mary from publicizing or distributing her work.



The judge said the confidentiality clauses in the 2001 agreement, 'viewed in the context of the current Trump family circumstances in 2020, would offend public policy as a prior restraint on protected speech'.

The younger Trump had openly voiced his support for his brother over the years.

In an interview with Page Six ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Robert said he supported his brother's campaign '1,000 per cent'.'

He was later seen celebrating Donald's victory at the New York Hilton where the then president-elect delivered his acceptance speech.

Robert also spoke out in support of his brother during a brief, but rare interview at LAX airport last December, when Trump had been at the center of an impeachment trial.

When asked how his older sibling was doing, he told the cameraman: 'I think he's doing fantastic,' before getting into the his car.

Just like his older brother, Robert formerly served as an executive for the Trump Organization, but managed to keep a relatively low-profile. He is pictured above with ex-wife Blaine (in green), Donald, parents Mary and Fred, and sister Maryanne

Left to right: Blaine Trump, Robert Trump, Donald Trump and Ivana Trump are seen at the Pierre Hotel New York in 1987

Fred Trump with his son Robert, wife Mary Anne and Robert's wife Blaine at a gala in 1985

Blaine and Robert Trump at the Met Ball, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1983

Robert Trump and wife Blaine at Halloween AIDS fundraiser, hosted by Magic Johnson in 1993 at Tavern on the Green

Robert had also held a senior position in the family business, but unlike his brother, he has generally maintained a low public profile.

He previously served as an executive for Trump Organization where he managed the real estate portfolio outside of Manhattan.

In 2016 Robert told Page Six that he was 'gainfully retired'.

He was married to socialite Blaine Trump for 25 years until their 2007 divorce, and until his death served on the board of directors of ZeniMax Media.

The couple's split was widely reported in the tabloids following reports that Robert had been living with his mistress - and now wife - for two years.

Prior to his death, he was based in Long Island where he lived with wife Ann Marie Pallan, his former secretary, who he reportedly married in March.

Despite their split, Robert was said to have remained on good terms with his ex-wife, who reportedly attended Trump's inauguration in 2017.

Robert also has two older sisters.

Elizabeth Trump Grau, 78, is a retired executive from Chase Manhattan Bank, and Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, is a retired federal judge.

As the youngest of the five Trump siblings, Robert was shielded from the pressures placed on the eldest, Fred Jr, and then Donald.

Robert Trump is pictured with his older brother Donald and then-girlfriend Melania Knauss

Trump put Robert in charge of the Atlantic City casino in 1989 - which sparked a huge row. The pair are pictured at a Casino Control Commission meeting in Atlantic City in March 1990

From left: Donald Trump; his father Fred Trump; Blaine Trump and her husband Robert Trump

He was never groomed to take over the family real estate company, and was considered by those who knew him to be the inverse of the brash, self-promotional brother who eventually did.

After graduating from Boston University, he first went to work on Wall Street, instead of immediately joining the family business.

But he eventually went to work for his brother as a senior executive at the Trump Organization.

'You could consider him the quietest of Trumps,' said Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer.

'He was glad to stay out of the spotlight.'

Jack O'Donnell, a former Trump Organization executive who worked closely with the Trump family, told the New York Times that Robert was someone with a natural ease and good humor that his older brother lacked.

'He was dignified, he was quiet, he listened, he was good to work with,' O'Donnell said.

'He had zero sense of entitlement. Robert was very comfortable being Donald Trump's brother and not being like him.'

The pair were not always close.

In 1990, a year after Trump had put Robert in charge of the opening of the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Trump furiously attacked Robert over problems with the slot machines.

People who knew him said Robert was devastated by the fight with Trump, and the rift between them took years to heal, the New York Times said.

He reconciled with his brother when Trump decided to run for president, according to a person close to the family.
The word unprecedented gets tossed around a lot these days. But when were talking about the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has completely decimated the restaurant industry, its absolutely warranted. Niki Russ Federman knows  shes got over a century of family experience to pull from, and as the co-owner of New Yorks iconic Russ & Daughters, shes quick to admit that this is the most trying time in her restaurants history.

This has by far been the toughest challenge Russ & Daughters and my family has faced in 106 years, she tells InsideHook. We were started in 1914 by my great-grandfather, so he went through the Spanish Flu. I unfortunately cant communicate with him about what that was like, but Russ & Daughters has survived that pandemic, multiple World Wars, recessions, depressions, floods, terrorist attacks, and you name it. But this is really unprecedented in its impact and that there is no road map. Theres this abyss of not knowing, right? Were all experiencing that.

Russ & Daughters now has half the staff it did before the pandemic, and several of its locations are essentially shut down, according to Russ Federman.

Its been so hard because we do everything with the goal that Russ & Daughters will be around for another 106 years, she says. When the crisis started there in the beginning, we went from thinking about 106 years down the road to not even knowing what the next hour was going to bring.

Still, despite all the uncertainty, she knows shes in a better position than most independent restaurant owners. Restaurants cant survive on a few tables out front, but we consider ourselves very lucky that Russ & Daughters is not just a restaurant, she explains. We have our original 106-year-old shop on the Lower East Side, and we have been shipping around the country for decades now, so we had that in place. We didnt need to create a whole shipping business out of nothing. That has been huge for us. That is what is carrying us through right now until we can become whole again. I know that in a way were in a privileged position compared to our colleagues, our fellow chefs and restaurateurs and bar owners who thats all they have and cant be open. So thats why we felt we wanted to use our position to help the greater effort to help save our industry.

To do that, theyve teamed up with one of their most loyal customers, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, to create a special tie-dyed Russ & Daughters T-shirt (lox-colored, naturally) to raise money for the Independent Restaurant Coalition.

Jake is a longtime Russ & Daughters diehard, Russ Federman explains. He comes to the shop, and he sends care packages of our food to people he cares about. He has leisurely meals at our restaurant, and weve developed a friendship with him through that. The original shirt was a one-off that he had that we did not make. This guy, Simon Golby, just decided for fun to tie-dye the shirt, and Jake got his hands on it and it became his favorite shirt. Every time he would wear it, we would get all these calls and emails, I dont see the shirt online. Where do I buy it? So we would tell people we dont actually make this shirt. Then Jake did this viral video that you might have seen where hes doing this headstand challenge.

A lot of people saw it. The video became a news story and also got other celebrities in on the act.

He told me afterwards basically right before he shot the video, he decided, well, if Im going to do this handstand challenge, I might as well use it as a way to make a bigger message,' Russ Federman continues. So he thought, oh, perfect. Im wearing my favorite Russ & Daughters shirt. And at the end of the handstand in the video, he says, Dont forget to support your local businesses. And again, we got flooded with calls and requests for the shirt, and again we said, Sorry, we dont make the shirt.'

Trying to run the business in the middle of 2020 was already difficult enough, but Russ Federman started to consider the possibility that maybe making the shirts wasnt such a bad idea. In the middle of scooping whitefish and slicing lox, they got to work on the shirts. The only thing left to do was try and get their celebrity friend involved.

I reached out to Jake, and he immediately was on board.

The limited-edition shirt, which you can buy here, costs $40, and for the next month, 100 percent of the proceeds from it will go to the Independent Restaurant Coalition and their efforts to lobby Congress to pass the RESTAURANTS Act to provide relief to the industry.

New York City will not be the same if our favorite restaurants go away, Gyllenhaal said in a statement. I cant imagine our city without Russ & Daughters, just the same way countless small restaurants, bars, coffee shops and distilleries across the country form the backbone of their own communities. Im proud to be working with my friends Niki and Josh to support the Independent Restaurant Coalition and the urgent work theyre doing to make sure Congress takes action to save one of our most essential industries.

As Russ Federman points out, the need for government intervention to save our restaurants is clear: if passed, its estimated that the RESTAURANTS Acts $210 billion revitalization fund would pay for itself more than double and single-handedly drop the unemployment rate by 2.4 percent.

What inspired us was the sad truth that unless the restaurant industry receives targeted aid from the government, we are going to lose close to 85 percent of independent restaurants in this country, she says. So thats 500,000 restaurants  and thats bars, restaurants, food trucks, caterers, et cetera. And in jobs, thats 16 million peoples jobs, 11 million directly within restaurants and bars, but then another five million up and down the food supply chain. So its dire, and I want people to really understand the unique ways that the restaurant industry has been disproportionately decimated by the pandemic.

Fortunately, so far, the response to the collaboration with Gyllenhaal has been overwhelming. Russ Federman says they sold 1,600 shirts in the first day alone, meaning they raised $45,000 for the non-profit in just a day.

Its been huge, she says. I think the shirt even in just one day has blown up the way it has because restaurants and bars and neighborhood spots are so important in the fundamental ways that we understand and live our lives, and make meaning of it, and come together, and celebrate different milestones in life, and socialize. Theyre the centers of our community not just as social centers, but also as economic centers. Restaurants and bars drive so much of our local economies. So I think people just understand that and want to help. Now we just have to make our leaders in the House, at the very top, understand that as well.

The post Jake Gyllenhaal and Russ & Daughters Made the Most Viral Shirt of the Summer appeared first on InsideHook.
Port authority says it requested removal of 2,700 tonnes of the explosive material following the massive Beirut blast.

The port of Senegals capital Dakar said it requested the removal of about 2,700 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate stored in its complex  almost the same volume of the chemical that caused Beiruts devastating blast this month.

The unidentified owner of the stockpile has found a warehouse to store the industrial chemical outside the city, according to the general directorate of the port, which sits next to Dakars densely populated downtown.

He is currently working with the environment ministry to obtain approval to urgently remove this cargo, it said in a statement that did not say how long the port had stored the goods destined for Mali.

The port strictly adheres to international rules for the management and storage of dangerous materials, it said.

Beiruts port had held 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate for six years without safety measures, before the cache detonated on August 4, killing more than 180 people, injuring thousands, and leaving about one-quarter of a million people homeless.

The dramatic situation that Beirut has just experienced prompted the High Commander of Dakars port to take journalists on a tour of the facilities to show that security measures are up to standard, the statement said.

The Beirut blast should be a wake-up call for countries on the dangers of ammonium nitrate, experts say. Commonly used in fertilisers and as an industrial explosive, it is considered relatively safe if handled properly, but has caused some of the worlds deadliest industrial accidents.
Pompeo Accuses European Allies of 'Siding With Ayatollahs' Over Iran Sanctions Stance

Sputnik News

20:25 GMT 20.08.2020(updated 21:44 GMT 20.08.2020)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed Washington's European allies in a Thursday news conference from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), claiming that while officials from Germany, France and the UK have privately expressed support for the extension of the arms embargo on Iran, they publicly "chose to side with ayatollahs."

"We will never allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Pompeo remarked during his UNSC speech.

After admonishing France, Germany and the UK, he went on to applaud the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia - stating they "deserve praise for showing courage and unity in warning about the danger from Iran."

He then referenced the GCC's August 9 statement to the UN, which called for an extension of the international arms embargo, set to expire on October 18.

"It is inappropriate to lift restrictions on the supply of weapons from and to Iran until Iran gives up its destabilizing activities in the region and stops supplying terrorist and sectarian organizations with weapons," GCC Secretary-General Nayef Falah Mubarak al-Hajraf said, as reported by Reuters.

The three European nations have since issued a joint statement explaining that as still-active members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement, they cannot support the US' push to invoke the "snapback" mechanism because it violates the agreement.

"France, Germany and the United Kingdom ('the E3') note that the US ceased to be a participant of the JCPoA following their withdrawal from the deal on May 8, 2018," they wrote.

"We remain committed to the JCPoA despite the significant challenges caused by US withdrawal. We believe that we should address the current issue of systematic Iranian non-compliance with its JCPoA obligations through dialogue between JCPoA participants."

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif issued a tweet earlier Thursday, labeling the US attempt to extend the arms embargo as "illegitimate and felonious."

Russia and China have both expressed support for Iran, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov even calling Washington's push for sanctions "absurd."

"We have repeatedly said that the US has already withdrawn from the JCPOA and therefore has no right to request the restoration of the UN sanctions regime against Iran," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian noted during a briefing.

A Sputnik

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Only a few months from a presidential election, at a time when the nation is on edge, a prudent attorney general would take care to stay above the fray, reassuring all Americans that he or she would bring rigorous impartiality to the conduct of the election and the fair counting of votes.

Instead, we have William P. Barr.

Two weeks ago, the attorney general gave a wide-ranging interview to right-wing provocateur Mark Levin in which he attacked Democrats, Black Lives Matter and the media in tones of emotional, almost bizarre partisanship.

Barr described Democrats as power-mad agents of a revolutionary party that believes in tearing down the system. Theyre not interested in compromise. Theyre not interested in dialectic exchange of views. Theyre interested in total victory, he said. In his telling, President Trumps olive branches have been slapped away, as theyve shredded the norms of our system to do what they can to drive him from office or to debilitate his administration. He explained that the left wants power because that is essentially their state of grace and their secular religion.

How do so many Americans fail to see what Barr sees? The attorney general attacked the partisan press for warping the debate. In fact, practically everyone who disagrees with him appears to be slanted in Barrs eyes: Courts increasingly ignore the rule of law, he argued, but new Trump judges will change that.

And what of his boss? Ive never seen such energy. Hes always working. He cares about people, Barr assured us.

Accusing ones opponents of misdeeds of which your side is more guilty is a classic Trump tactic. The presidents recent commutation of his longtime friend Roger Stones sentence makes a mockery of Barrs self-righteous sermons on the rule of law. The presidents recent suggestion to move the presidential election reflects an obsession with winning at all costs, the Constitution be damned. Trump was impeached not because the left is in the grips of a power mania but because the president attempted to extort political favors from a foreign leader. But Barr apparently notices no challenges to constitutional norms from the president.

During the interview, Barr speculated on why Democratic members of Congress would not, in his telling, condemn the burning down of federal courthouses.

Some of them are essentially revolutionary in their outlook. They believe in tearing down the system, he explained. But many of them are just cowards.

These are not the words of someone aspiring to be an attorney general for the nation as a whole.

 The Washington Post
The upcoming 10th Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF) launched presales of tickets to those films to be screened at the festival at noon on Wednesday, and sold out fast.

Posters of some classic films that are most popular among movie fans at the 10th Beijing International Film Festival. [Images courtesy of BJIFF]

Based on the requirements of normalized epidemic prevention and control, integration, innovation and development, the 10th BJIFF, with the theme "In Pursuit of a Shared Dream", will take place online and offline, highlighting the features of the "Online BJIFF", and present sections and activities such as Launch Ceremony, Beijing Film Panorama, Theme Forum, Beijing Film Market, Beijing College Student Film Festival, Film+ and Together Again, to deliver an upgraded film festival with highlights and innovative features.

The presales were held on Alibaba Group's Taopiaopiao, the official ticketing platform designated by the BJIFF organizing committee. But movie fans soon found the tickets to the heated new films and old classics were sold out in seconds.

According to Taopiaopiao, the fastest sold-out films include "Like the Dyer's Hand", "Talking the Pictures", "Akira", "War and Peace", "Wet Season", "Cinema Paradiso", "The Elephant Man", the "Matrix" trilogy, "Apocalypse Now" and "All About ING." Within 10 minutes, 72% of tickets of all films were sold.

The screenings are arranged for the "Beijing Film Panorama" section of the festival, which has always drawn close attention from the media and movie fans for a decade, and will achieve a breakthrough in content and form this year.

Made up of Online, TV, Cinema and Outdoor Screenings, the section will present over 300 outstanding Chinese and foreign films this year. In the Cinema Screening part, there will be a selection of over 100 Chinese and foreign masterpieces. In terms of screening program planning, at the 10th anniversary of the BJIFF, "Beijing Film Panorama" has designed fresh sections while retaining the popular classic sections, to offer an all new viewing experience.

"Official Selection" will screen the outstanding shortlisted films from those that have signed up for the film festival; "The Beguilding World of Eric Rohmer" aims to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the French film master; "Restored Classics", which is highly favored by movie fans for showcasing film restoration through cutting-edge technology, will present the historic film masterpieces such as "War and Peace" and "The Elephant Man."

"Vision" brings together outstanding new films from around the world; "Chinese New Wave" will present great Chinese-language films including "Damp Season" and "Wild Swords;" " IMAX Experience" is being added to the Beijing Film Panorama as a "silver screen gift" for movie fans, in which they can enjoy the ultimate audio-visual experience through IMAX, reliving the masterpieces in the film history -- this year, fans can enjoy IMAX versions of "Akira," "Forest Gump" and "Apocalypse Now."

"Virtual Reality" is set for the offline Beijing Film Panorama which continues to be upgraded to present a selection of the world's top virtual reality film works; "Long Live Cinema" will present films like "Cinema Paradiso" and "The Truth", with the expectation of arousing new thinking and discussions on the movie history and looking to the future; "Dimension", a new future-proof section, will present "The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin)", "The Reunions", "Honeyland" and multiple other films that are groundbreaking and experimental in artistic style; "Women's Voice" will present a group of Chinese and foreign films focusing on women's lives and their inner world, such as "Like the Dyer's Hand," "Only You Alone," and "Wet Season", which record the distinct trends of the time.

In the Online Screening part, about 250 films in 12 sections will be screened in a special BJIFF zone set up by iQIYI, the exclusive online screening platform of the BJIFF, including a record some 50 Chinese and foreign new films among domestic film festivals.

For TV Screening, 20 outstanding Chinese and foreign films will be screened in a loop on BTV-1, BTV Movie & TV Channel and BTV Youth Channel, marking the first time that 10 foreign films will be screened on domestic TV stations and films will be on TV screens during a domestic film festival.

As a highlight of the 10th BJIFF, the Outdoor Screening will present 24 Chinese and foreign classics and quality new films such as "Romance on Lushan Mountain" and "Undine".

The speed of selling out shows that movie fans are still enthusiastic and passionate for the motion pictures, a Taopiaopiao spokesman said.

The second wave of presales of "Beijing Film Panorama" was launched on Aug. 21, and the BJIFF will be held from Aug. 22 - 29, with all the screenings being arranged in Beijing's local cinemas from Aug. 21 - 30.

Renowned filmmakers and celebrities like Xie Fei, Zhang Yimou, Jia Zhangke, Tang Guoqiang, Wu Jing, Wu Gang, Wen Muye, Hai Qing, Du Jiang and Cai Xukun will meet the audience. Wu Jing will be the ambassador for the festival.
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Rendering by Mithun [enlarge] In this southeast-looking view, the dotted line merely indicates the hypothetical development potential for the McDonalds property to the west. The company owns that corner, and there is no such plan.





In a venture separate from her famous father's company, property owner Jordan Selig is planning to redevelop the Ballard Firestone property at 1145 N.W. Market St. Mithun is the architect for the planned seven-story, 123-unit building. Selig is also an executive with Martin Selig Real Estate.





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WE Charity co-founders Craig (L) and Marc (R) Kielburger introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as they appear at the WE Day celebrations in Ottawa on Nov. 10, 2015. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

RCMP to Examine Awarding of Student Service Grant to WE Charity

The RCMP is examining the federal governments decision to award the now-cancelled Canada Student Service Grant to WE Charity, Global News reports.

On Wednesday, Global asked the national police force whether the RCMP is investigating the Liberal governments decision to award a contract to the WE Charity Foundation to administer the $900-million federal student grant program?

An RCMP spokesperson responded, The RCMP is examining this matter carefully with all available information and will take appropriate actions as required. It would be inappropriate for us to provide anymore further comments on this matter at this time.

Global noted that the RCMP similarly said last year it was examining the SNC-Lavalin case. No charges resulted in that instance.

On July 10, Conservative MP Michael Barrett wrote a letter to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki requesting an investigation into possible criminal offences committed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in relation to the WE contract based on known facts.

Yesterday, media reports revealed that three members of the Trudeau family have been paid by WE Charityincluding, since Mr Trudeaus appointment as Prime Minister, $312,000 to Margaret Trudeau and $40,000 to Alexandre Trudeau, Barrett wrote.

He added that records show other than the Canada Student Service Grant, WE Charity has also received seven grants or contributions amounting to about $5.2 million, and another five contacts that totalled over $120,000 from the federal government since 2017.

Barrett said it troubles him that these transactions may have breached certain subsections of the Criminal Code.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion has begun investigating Trudeau on possible contravention of the Conflict of Interest Act, as well as former finance minister Bill Morneau.

Both have apologized for not recusing themselves from the decision to grant the WE Charity contract.

During a finance committee hearing on July 22, Morneau admitted that he had just repaid WE Charity more than $41,000 for expenses the organization covered for trips his family took to Kenya and Ecuador in 2017 to see some of its humanitarian work.

WE said the Morneau family trips were meant to be complimentary, part of a practice of showing donors the charitys work to encourage them to give more.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said the trips violated several sections of the conflict-of-interest law that prohibit ministers or their families from accepting paid travel, adding that Morneau should resign his ministerial post.
Kenia Madrigal found herself in a situation many could easily find themselves in with just one job loss or illness.

This Houston mother found herself homeless with nowhere to go, along with her four children ranging in ages 11, 8, 3, and 1.

"The 2019 Homeless Count & Survey shows that we can expect to see 3,938 people experiencing homelessness at any given moment in the Houston region," states the Coalition for the Homeless.

WALLS OF LOVE HELPS HOUSTON'S HOMELESS: 'Walls of Love' in downtown Houston offers basics for people who are homeless

"Since June, I don't have a place to live," said Madrigal to Univision 45. "I have stayed with some friends, but with four children it's too much for one person, so I am not able to stay long."

According to a GoFundMe account, Madrigal was laid off at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown and denied unemployment, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and unable to find work for months.

Madrigal was able to find another job during this time, but the pay is only $11.50 an hour and not enough to cover rent or other housing, according to a report by ABC13.

Madrigal spent many nights in her small SUV with her children after being evicted from their home.

In less than 24 hours, after her co-worker set up the GoFundMe account, the outpouring of support Madrigal has received went from an initial goal of $800 to over $60,000 raised for this young mother.

"These funds will go towards a safe home for Kenia and her children. They will also fund her childrens education for this new virtual school year," stated the GoFundMe page.

According to ABC13, nonprofits such as Kids'Meal Inc., and Northwest Assistance Ministries (NAM) reached out offering their assistance to Madrigal.

"My goal was to get enough to get into a place, and now I can actually give them a home," said Madrigal.

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Students at NUI Galway will have to sign up to a Covid-19 safety code for the new academic year and face sanctions if they breach it.

All students and staff will be required to give a promise to adhere to public health advice and university guidelines on responsible behaviour.

NUI Galway President Ciaran O hOgartaigh said they were asking students and staff to buy into the need for a deepened sense of maturity and responsibility for the collective good.

The commitment also requires students to respond in an open, positive and respectful way if their actions are challenged, and to avoid scenarios that run counter to its principles.

NUI Galway is also establishing an expert group to help support behaviour change among the student body and to develop and promote alternatives to traditional social activities.

Explaining the rationale behind the group, Professor Michelle Millar, Dean of Students at NUI Galway, said students were "rightly challenging us about what they can do, how they can gather safely, how they can socialise. We can't simply tell them what not to do."

Meanwhile, Further and Higher Education Minister Simon Harris has announced that up to 17,000 laptops will be distributed to students to support online learning.

A 15m fund for student devices was set aside as part of a 168m package for further and higher education to deal with the impacts of Covid-19.

So far, colleges have placed a bulk order for 16,700 devices, while some colleges are also buying them individually.

The devices will be distributed through targeted lending schemes run by the colleges.

Mr Harris said the focus would be on ensuring that disadvantaged students would have access to the devices, "but we must also recognise many students and their families have fallen on hard times as a result of Covid and ensure they can access this support fund also".

Sinn Fein Higher Education spokesperson Rose Conway-Walsh is advising parents to hold off on booking accommodation for third-level students until there is clarity around how physical classes will be held.

Many parents are already being pressured by landlords to pay deposits on flats when no-one knows how universities and institutions will structure the next academic year.

She said some universities could decide on having one week of in-person lectures per month. She also warned of the looming unaffordability of college for many.

Ms Conway-Walsh said she knew of parents who were being contacted by providers seeking a deposit of 6,000, with people running the risk of being tied into leases when only one week's tuition might be provided in a month.

More than 1,000 students responded to a Sinn Fein survey on third-level education, with 80pc concerned or very concerned that college will prove unaffordable.

More than three-quarters (77pc) cited financial stress and anxiety within their families, she said. Others told how the Susi grants system excluded them or was not enough to cover the costs of their third-level education.
The gig economy model powering a number of key tech giants threatens to break down in California, in a battle that may spill out across the country over whether gig workers should be considered employees.

Why it matters: Treating gig companies' workers as employees would guarantee them benefits and other rights they don't necessarily get as independent contractors. But the prospect presents an existential threat to the firms' business models.

What's happening: Uber and Lyft on Thursday backed off threats to suspend ride-hailing services across California after an appeals court stayed an injunction ordering them to reclassify their drivers in the state as employees. The court halted it from taking effect as long as the companies' appeal of the order remains pending.

Yes, but: It's a temporary victory for the companies. The broader court battle still looms, and California is sure to keep the pressure up. The injunction represented the state's latest attempt to enforce its new law codifying stricter requirements for classifying workers as contractors rather than employees.

The big picture: Gig economy companies view themselves as two-sided markets, connecting customers looking for, say, a ride or overnight stay with people selling that service. Labor groups and Democratic officials see them as conventional employers who have figured out a business model that lets them dodge the obligations and liabilities of employing people.

California is the battleground for those two opposing camps, as gig companies in the state look to avoid complying with the new law and increasingly end up in court. It's not just Uber and Lyft:

San Francisco's district attorney, who sued food delivery company DoorDash over the reclassification law in June, requested a preliminary injunction last week that could similarly force the company to immediately reclassify workers.

San Diego's city attorney sued grocery delivery company Instacart last year over the same issue.

Between the lines: The companies' legal battles until now have centered around lawsuits filed by individual drivers over owed wages or expenses, many of which have been forced into arbitration. These classification fights mark a new era.

More significant for the companies is the very real possibility of other statesor even the federal governmentfollowing Californias lead.

Last month, Massachusetts' attorney general filed her own lawsuit against Uber and Lyft to enforce a 2004 state law similar to California's.

The U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year passed a labor rights bill almost entirely on party lines that included similar provisions to California's law  a messaging exercise indicating national Democratic priorities.

Meanwhile, both Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris have expressed support for California's law (as Donald Trump's campaign pointed out in a Thursday email to press, calling the law an "all-out assault on workers who are just trying to earn money for themselves and their families").

The big question: What would companies like Uber and Lyft do if they exhaust all options to keep drivers as contractors?

Uber says classifying California drivers as employees would lead to a 25111% increase in prices and a 2359% decrease in trips, and that the number active drivers in a quarter would fall from 209,000 to 51,000.

Under the stay granted Thursday, both companies will have to certify that they do in fact have a plan to comply with reclassifying drivers, though it's unclear whether they'll make those plans public before November.

Theyve also considered alternative models like franchising their business out to standalone fleets, similar to Ubers early black car service and its operations in some countries.

Whats next: Uber, Lyft and their peers are headed to the California ballot box in November, pushing Proposition 22, which would let them keep classifying workers as independent contractors while, for the first time, providing them a limited set of benefits.
A dismal 25% of B-17 and B-24 bomber crews completed their 25 required missions during the initial phase of the Allied air war over Europe. The mean average was 15 missions before being shot down, killed, wounded or captured. Crew members had a one-in-four chance of going home. Arlie Aukerman completed 25 perilous missions as a nose gunner on a B-24 Liberator including a 1,300 plane raid over Berlin, Germany on March 18, 1945. A member of the 453rd Bomb Group, Aukerman fought the war over Europe in good company. Among them: Oscar winning actor Jimmy Stewart piloted B-24s and future actor Walter Matthau served with a ground crew in the 453th at the Old Buckingham RAF Base near Attleborough, England.

Aukerman was born into the agriculture community of Jackson, Michigan in 1922. Recalling life down on the farm, he said, We raised our own food and livestock. I did the milking and churned butter. Mom canned tomatoes and peaches and other good stuff. We had no indoor plumbing and no electricity. Their soft water was rainwater caught running off the roof. Aukerman called to mind, Ma had a cook stove in the kitchen and always had a hot meal on the table for Pa, the three boys, and two adopted girls.

Extra money was earned driving a team of horses in a hay field for 50 cents a day, plus a hot meal. Fifty cents went a long way back then, he said. We could go to a movie, buy a Coca-Cola and snacks, and still have money left over. When we caught one of the rats running around inside the theater we got free tickets for next weeks movie.

After high school graduation Aukerman worked a variety of jobs: carpentry; concrete work in the summer; delivering coal in harsh winters; cleaning slag and unloading pig iron at coal mines. He said, Pa was proud of his boys. We never accepted welfare or handouts. We made our own way. Married in 1940 and the father of a son, Aukerman avoided the draft until November of 1943.

He was inducted into the service in Detroit, Michigan then sent to Chicago for marshaling. I did so well on the I.Q. test they assigned me to the air corps, Aukerman stated. Basic training took place at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, better known as Pneumonia Gulch. After basic the Army sent him to Butler University in Indianapolis. I joined the CTD, college training detachment, he said. I was going to be a pilot, bombardier, or navigator. Disappointment lay ahead: all of the draftees were pulled out of CTD for gunnery school.

Yeah, that was a bit discouraging, he admitted. I was sent to Harlington, Texas for gunnery training but at least I was in good company; Clark Gable was training there too, or so I heard. I never saw the guy. Aukerman flew on his first B-24 bomber in Mountain Home, Idaho, before going to Topeka, Kansas for additional schooling. He explained the daily routine: We rode in back of pickup trucks and fired at moving targets plus practiced field-stripping .50 caliber machine guns while wearing thick gloves. When youre flying at 20,000 feet the temperature is 20 or 30 degrees below zero so wearing the gloves prepared us for the reality of combat.

After mastering the Emerson gun turret, Aukerman was finally assigned to a crew. We were typically American, he said. Two Jews, a German Dutch, Yanks and Rebels, and a top gunner from Kentucky. The guy earned a living as a bootlegger and drank a fifth of whiskey every day.

Once training was completed Aukerman sailed from New Jersey aboard the Isle de France luxury liner to Glasgow, Scotland, then went overland to Old Buckingham RAF Base on the coast of the North Sea. The routine became, well, routine: Up at 0200, breakfast, briefing, boarding a B-24, usually the Silent Yoakum. The actor Jimmy Stewart flew in the same squadron, Aukerman said. He was a regular type guy and took his chances just like the rest of us. We had a lot of respect for Jimmy.

After takeoff the bombers formed into bunchers, flying in circles at prearranged altitudes until properly positioned in formations. That was a scary part, Aukerman said. We usually lost two or three planes during the procedure. From the nose gunners front-row view, Aukerman witnessed one B-24 clip the tail off another B-24. Nobody made it out, he said. One B-24 with a full bomb load and 2500 gallons of aviation fuel didnt have the power to successfully take off. It ran off the end of the runway and exploded in a gigantic fireball, Aukerman recalled. Nobody even checked for survivors because we knew the crew couldnt survive that kind of crash. To everyones twinge of guilt, one of the crew members had survived. Aukerman said, They found the guy the next day. Hed crawled into a ditch and died of exposure overnight.

One incident had Aukerman believing the Grim Reaper had arrived for his soul. We were forming benchers, he said. The sun was directly behind us so our shadow reflected on a bank of clouds in front of us. It looked like another B-24 was heading straight into us with no time left to react. In a split second we hit the cloud, but, thank the Good Lord, not another B-24.

Their targets were varied but all dangerous, as noted on a mission sheet: Mayen: the Marshaling yards in town, 2000 planes on raid, lost 35. Neuwied: the Rhine River Bridge, lost two planes from formation, missed target by two miles, crash landing upon our return due to crosswise nose wheel. Rheine: Marshalling yards, feathered #3 engine 34 minutes from target, lagged formation, returned alone. Gielbelstadt: Jet Airfields near town, awarded citation for best bombing in 8th AF, worst flak ever encountered, 15 holes in plane, four hits in one wing. Berlin: Anti-aircraft factory, unbearable flak, 1300 planes in the raid, lost 24 bombers and six escort fighters.

Aukerman had too many close encounters with the deadly Schwalbe, meaning Swallow in German, better known to the Allies as the Me-262 German Jet Fighter. The Me-262 was the first operational jet fighter in history and made its debut in mid-1944. With a top speed of 559 mph, the jet fighter was years ahead of the prop-driven Allied fighters and their vulnerable bombers. Approximately 545 Allied planes fell victim to the deadly Schwalbe, but American fighter pilots quickly learned the new jets were vulnerable during takeoffs and landings. Aukerman said, It was too fast for us to draw a bead on, he said. By the time you saw it, it was gone, but our P-51 escorts would drop their fuel tanks and dive after the jets. They bagged quite a few with that maneuver, but our planes couldnt turn with them at high speed. For Germany and Hitler, the Me-262 was too little too late, but one of the best fighters of the war.

Having completed 25 missions, Aukermans crew members were sent home for various assignments. But Aukerman, having studied to be an engineer, was sent to Alma Gordo, New Mexico to train as a flight engineer on a B-29 bomber. Albeit, the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved his life. He said, Theres no doubt I would have been part of the Invasion of Japan. I was thankful that America developed the bomb first, and yes, thousands died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but those two bombs saved an estimated one million Allied lives and an estimated 10 to 20 million Japanese lives. Think about that, a spread of 10 million lives lost had we invaded the Japanese mainland. I dont think either side wanted to see that kind of carnage.

After the war Aukerman returned to the concrete business. Times were good; the nation was rebuilding and reviving itself. Aukerman invented then patented a variable screed, a contraption that enables highway contractors to quickly construct concrete medians separating traffic on interstates. Approximately 90% of concrete poured into the interstate system circling Atlanta was poured by A. C. Aukerman Company.

After his first wife was lost to a heart ailment, Aukerman met then married his present wife, Frances, in 1980. As a couple they renovated an old farm house into an elegant antebellum home in Lovejoy, Ga. They also discovered a long forgotten Confederate cemetery on the new property. He stated, You know, Hitler caused the deaths of many brave men, and its an ironic note to history that the S.O.B. took the cowards way out. And let me close with this, we are known as The Greatest Generation but we just did what we had to do, and thankfully we did it well.

Well done, sir, very well done. B-24 nose gunner Arlie Aukerman reported for his final inspection on January 22, 2017.

Pete Mecca is a Vietnam veteran. For story consideration visit his website at VETERANSARTICLE.COM and click on contact us.
The CBI's Special Investigation Team (SIT) has arrived in Mumbai to investigate the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. The team, including senior IPS officers of the probe agency, started its investigation whereby it reached the crime scene- Sushant's Bandra home- on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai police have handed over all related evidence i.e., all 56 statements, spot panchnama, crime scene photographs, CCTV footage, forensic reports, autopsy report, and case diary of Bandra Police, etc to the CBI team.

The Supreme Court had, on Wednesday (August 15), allowed the investigating agency to take charge of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: All you need to know about CBI team probing the case

Here's is a lowdown of the CBI team's plan of action in Mumbai today: -

Interrogation and statement recording

The CBI's SIT team will interrogate and record statements of people connected to the case. Bihar IPS officer Nupur Prasad is heading the squad at DCP's office. The team, which is currently staying at the DRDO guest house in Mumbai, will question the officers of the banks in which Sushant had his accounts. The investigators will also interrogate the two DCPs of Mumbai Police. Besides, is questioning the late actor's cook, all who were present in the house when Sushant died, as well as his family.

Crime scene photos to be examined by forensic experts

The CBI investigators have secured crime scene photographs from Mumbai Police which, according to sources, will be sent to forensic experts for further analysis. The photos will be shared with the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) for examination.

Crime scene inspection

The CBI's SIT team visited Sushant Singh Rajput's Bandra flat for a crime location examination. The agency might rule out the possibility of murder, according to sources. The investigators will get an accurate picture about the nature of the crime, if it was a death by suicide or murder, by examining the crime scene combined with postmortem report and forensic examination. Meanwhile, the forensic experts will also go through Sushant Singh Rajput's autopsy report. The Technical, Forensic and Coordination unit (TFC) of CBI is assisting the SIT team.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput case: Rhea Chakraborty-Mahesh Bhatt's WhatsApp chat from June 8 leaked

CBI squad at Bandra Police Station

The CBI's SIT team reached Bandra Police Station to meet the Station House Officer (SHO) and take the hand over of all related evidence and inquiry done by the Mumbai Police. The handover documents include- all 56 statements recorded by Mumbai Police, Sushant Singh Rajput's autopsy report, his three mobile phones, his laptop, mobile CDR analysis, crime scene photographs, spot panchnama, spot forensic report, CCTV footages and recording of the building from June 13 and June 14, forensic reports, autopsy report, case diary of Bandra Police, the clothes he was wearing when his body was found hanging, the blanket, bedsheet on his bed, green kurta used for hanging, his mug in which he had his last juice,

CBI questions Sushant Singh Rajput's cook

The CBI team questioned the late actor's cook, Neeraj, for three hours on Friday (August 21), During the interrogation, the investigators asked him about what happened on June 13, a day before Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging at his Bandra home. The team also asked about the people present in the house on June 13, how was Sushant Singh Rajput's mood, if he had dinner that day, and when he retired for the day, etc. Asking about the events of June 14, the team asked Neeraj regarding who first saw Sushant Singh Rajput's body hanging, who brought the body down, who asked the body to be brought down, and who called the Police Control Room (PCR) after the late actor's body was found, the time when the call to the PCR was made, etc.
The government has been told to prioritise food security as new figures show Britain's self-sufficiency sits at just 64% - a number which has remained stagnant for years.

Today (Friday 21 August) marks the notional date in the calendar that would see the country run out of food if it relied solely on domestic produce.

The UK is only 18% self-sufficient in fruit, 55% in fresh vegetables and 71% in potatoes, according to new figures released.

For both vegetables and potatoes, this has fallen by 16 percent in the past 20 years.

The NFU said government must play a 'crucial role' in reversing this downward trend in food security.

A green recovery from Covid-19 was a golden opportunity for British farming to become a global leader in delivering food security, it said.

NFU President Minette Batters explained that being able to feed the population was 'absolutely critical' for an island nation.

She called for a 'horticulture revolution' as the UK's self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetables was falling.

"Even as a global trading nation, shocks can expose fragility in any reliance on imports. We all experienced the impact of this during lockdown.

Imports will always play a crucial role in our food system but our own self-sufficiency must be paid more attention by government. It is stagnating.

"We sit now at only 64% self-sufficiency, having fallen from over 75% in the mid-1980s," Mrs Batters said.

She added that British farming can be central to the green recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown period.

"We have a golden opportunity to place food security at the centre of our food system and become a global leader in sustainable food production.

We have the capacity to do much more. We cannot let our self-sufficiency slip further," she said.

To remedy this, the government has been urged by the NFU to place food security at the heart of wider policies.

The union calls for an annual reporting system to ensure the UK does not allow domestic food production to diminish.

More government investment in agriculture and water infrastructure is needed, to better manage increasingly volatile weather.

Mrs Batters said: "Better water infrastructure can allow us to use one of our most abundant natural resources in rainfall to more effectively grow food and take a more integrated approach to water management.

Farmers are uniquely placed to improve their productivity while delivering for the environment."
Hundreds of thousands of Lao migrant workers who returned from Thailand after losing their jobs when their host country shut down businesses to fight the COVID-19 pandemic are now pining for the border to reopen after finding no work in their impoverished homeland, sources in Laos told RFA.

When the Southeast Asian neighbors shut down checkpoints along their shared 1,140-mile, mostly Mekong River border in March, most of the migrants flocked home -- to an economy that couldnt support them in the first place.

Laos is the ninth poorest of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in terms of GDP, with an economy mostly based on resource extraction and farming and an education system that experts say lags behind its richer neighbors.

While the official jobless rate in Laos is below one percent, analysts say the country has not created opportunities for a surplus of unskilled workers  who can make three times the wages and live more cheaply in Thailand. Business leaders in Laos estimate that there is only one position open for every 12 returned migrant jobseekers.

The World Banks office in Laos said recently that the unavoidable drop in remittances to families at home from the idled Lao workers is projected to increase the ranks of the poor by as much as 3 percent, or 200,000 people in the country of 7 million people.

Tens of thousands of Lao workers who did not make it back before the March border closures were stranded in Thailand with no income until early May, when Laos let them come home. Since then, streams of returning migrants have crossed back into Laos, to face a two-week quarantine in makeshift quarters in the capital Vientiane.

On Aug. 20, 60 more Lao workers returned to Laos at the Nongkhai-Vientiane international border gate, after their contracts expired and they could find no new work in Thailand. A day earlier, 40 more Lao workers returned through the same border gate.

The earlier returnees cant wait to go back to Thailand after months of unemployment in Laos.

The first reason that I am waiting for the borders to reopen is because my employer needs workers. The second reason is that I want to help my family, a Lao migrant who had previously worked in Bangkok told RFAs Lao Service.

It would be better to return than to just stay at home. I can not find any jobs in my hometown, so I regret that I came home, she said.

The migrant, who requested anonymity to speak freely, also said that even if she were able to find a job in Laos, the countrys minimum wage is too low, and in Thailand she would be able to earn three times as much.

If I work eight hours per day in Thailand, I can earn about U.S. $14 per day. The cost of living is also cheaper in Thailand, so I can save some money to send back homearound $150-183 per month. Its so much better working in Thailand, she said.

Another migrant, who requested anonymity for legal reasons, said she also could make much more in Thailand while spending less than she would in Laos.

It really is much better over there. A Lao employer will pay only $115 per month, but in Thailand I can earn maybe $350 per month, she said.

Health concerns

The border remains closed, but at the end of July, the Thai government began discussing a plan to allow migrant workers from three countriesMyanmar, Cambodia, and Laosto return, as many Thai industries rely heavily on migrant labor.

Thailands Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CSSA) said the lifting of restrictions on migrants could come as soon as August 31, if the countrys cabinet can come to a resolution.

The Thai government authorities will be discussing the management of migrant workers. The topic will be up on the table when the COVID-19 national taskforce committee meets, said CSSA Spokesperson Taweesin Visanuyothin in a statement released in late July.

There are two groups of migrant workers. One, those migrant workers with MOU work permits and visas who are waiting to enter Thailand, and two, those who do not have work permits, but are necessary to some business sectors, he said, referring to the 2002 agreement on employment cooperation that granted legal status in Thailand for migrant workers from Laos.

These two groups of migrant workers are very important, as they will be working in some projects related to infrastructure and the food industry. It is very necessary to use this kind of workforce, he added.

Despite Laos relative success in handling COVID-19as of Friday the country has reported only 22 confirmed cases and zero deathsLao migrants will need to go through health screenings and isolation to be allowed to return to work in Thailand.

All migrant workers, including Lao migrant workers, have to get a fit-to-travel health certificate, the employers guarantor document, and they have to stay at the provided state quarantine [facility] for 14 days once they enter Thailand, the spokesperson said.

Migrant workers rights

The government of Laos is working with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to address the unemployment problems.

Starting now, the ILO and UN are working to make brief policy recommendations to the Lao government in response to the problem both in the short term and long term, Khemphone Phaokhamkeo, the ILOs officer to Laos told RFA.

The Lao government has to review its policies for both domestic and international investment. Future investment should facilitate small and medium enterprises to a greater extent, in order to create jobs for local people, she said.

Also, the ILO recommends that the Lao government review its minimum wage and improve the skills of Lao migrant workers for a better job opportunities in the future, she added. The ILO recommends training programs to improve and certify Lao migrants skills.

She stressed the importance of Laos helping gain legal status for those Lao migrants working in Thailand illegally in order to make sure that their rights will be protected and they will not be taken advantage of once they return to work in Thailand.

Savannakhet helps jobless

Laos southern province of Savannakhet is enacting policy aimed at helping migrant workers who have returned to the province. The provinces department of labor and social welfare is assisting the workers in acquiring benefits they are owed.

At this time we will help Lao migrants who had paid into social security while working in Thailand to claim their unemployment money from Thailands social security funds, an official of the department told RFA.

We are also counting the numbers of migrant workers who were both legally and illegally [in Thailand] and we are requiring that they register their information, so that we can help them find jobs. We also plan to organize some training programs for them, but we have to know first what kinds of training they want to have, the official said.

The official said the department is working with the countrys ministry of labor and social welfare to coordinate support programs to get the migrants back on their feet.

The Vientiane Times reported last week that the ministry is asking all provincial and provincial-level city labor departments to compile information about returning migrants from Thailand since the onset of COVID-19, as part of a national effort to assess numbers of unemployed workers and match them with available jobs.

The World Banks office in Laos recently reported there were more than 100,000 Lao migrant workers who have returned from Thailand, with estimates from NGO sources saying the number may be as high as 200,000.

In an early assessment of the impact of the border shutdown on the economy of Laos, the World Bank estimated that remittances would fall by $125 million in 2020, amounting to about 0.7 percent of the countrys GDP.

About nine percent of households rely on remittances from abroad, with the money accounting for 60 percent of their household income.

As a result, the population living in poverty will likely increase by 1.4 to 3.1 percent this year, meaning between 96,000 and 214,000 people could be newly classified as impoverished.

The Lao national chamber of commerce and industry recently reported that there are only around 16,000 jobs available in the country across all sectors, including those in special economic zones -- about one vacancy for every 12 unemployed migrants.

An ILO officer told RFA the number of workers losing their jobs in Laos itself is growing each month.

As of Friday, Thailand has reported 3,390 confirmed coronavirus cases and 58 deaths, far outweighing Laos 22 cases and zero deaths.

A World Bank analysis of Laos issued in April gave the country credit for boosting incomes, reducing extreme poverty, and extending public services, but said its growth model based on natural resource extraction excluded many Laos and was of questionable sustainability. Education, nutrition and health remained poor, it said.

A child born in Lao PDR today will only be half as productive as she could be if she enjoyed full health and education, said the report. It said that the average of 10.8 years a Lao student spends in school provides the equivalent of 6.4 years of learning.

With growth falling from 6.3 percent in 2018 to 4.8 percent in 2019 as a result of floods and drought, the COVID-19 outbreak is expected to further intensify the countrys macroeconomic vulnerabilities," it said.

Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Phouvong Boutsady. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
A Pringles lover has been left with a sour taste in her mouth after being told she had won a $10,000 cash prize after months of trying - only to have the money snatched away from her because of a tiny detail.

Melbourne-based scientific researcher Jane, 37, entered the company's What's The Flavour? competition every day from May until it closed at the end of July.

Each time she and her friend guessed correctly the flavour in its 'mystery tubes', which were sold across Australia during the promotion, was 'carbonara'.

On August 13, Pringles got in touch to tell her she had won the mouth-watering prize, but within 24 hours her jubilation had turned to bitter disappointment.

When asked to send her ID to the company for validation, the potato chip fan found she had actually entered the New Zealand version of the competition.

To her dismay, a Pringles representative then told her only New Zealand permanent residents were eligible to enter the competition and she wouldn't be receiving a cent.

Melbourne-based scientific researcher Jane, 37, (pictured) entered the company's What's The Flavour? competition every day from May until it closed at the end of July

Each time she and her friend guessed correctly the flavour in its mystery tubes - which were sold across Australia during the promotion - was 'carbonara'

Jane said she had somehow confused the Australian and New Zealand landing pages for the competition - which look almost exactly the same apart from a slight difference in their URL addresses.

'I didn't even know there was a New Zealand mystery flavour - I just clicked on a link that came up,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I don't know why it came up with the wrong one but if you go and type in the New Zealand one and you have a look at that page its exactly the same.

'I guess once I'd done it once it came up in my history so I have no idea how many times that happened.'

She said in no way was it obvious she was on the wrong website and believes the company should 'do the right thing' and give her the money.

'I don't really know what their obligation is but I feel like they should have some notice of what competition it is and make it clearer on their page.

'When you enter other competitions they have check boxes or make it very clear which country you are applying to.'

'I recently entered a competition where it said that or said in big letters Australia or New Zealand - they should honour that.'

The Pringles Mystery Flavour competition has been running around the world for a number of years, though only reached Australia in 2019.

The popular potato-chips company packaged the mystery-flavoured Pringles into its iconically shaped cylindrical tube with the logo: 'WTF: Whats the Flavour?

Entrants were teased with a number of clues throughout the course of the competition with several videos posted to the Pringles social media pages.

When asked to send her ID to the company for validation, the potato chip fan (pictured) found out she had actually entered the New Zealand version of the competition

Jane (pictured) said she had somehow confused the Australian and New Zealand landing pages for the competition - which look almost exactly the same apart from a slight difference

The first clue showed a cheese grater slowly shredding a block of cheese.

The second one showed three eggs lined up before one of them exploded.

Another clue showed the brand's mascot photoshopped into several locations across Italy.

Some clued-up entrants guessed the flavour might be Italian themed and suggested a 'mac 'n cheese' flavour.

Others were wide of the mark and guessed 'bacon' or 'nachos.'

Pringles was launched in 1967 and changed from the hands of Procter and Gamble to Kellogg's in 2012.

The chips have become a household favourite and are sold in more than 140 countries.

Pringles has been contacted for comment.
MONTREAL, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Elixxer Ltd. (the "Corporation" or "Elixxer") (TSX-V: ELXR and OTC-QB: ELIXF) announces, further to its press release of July 24, 2020, the revised terms of its proposed debt settlement transactions. The Corporation proposes to settle a total of $7,867,620 of debt owed by the Corporation through the issuance of securities.

The debt to be settled includes $2,738,408 of principal and $880,697 of interest and fees owed to AIP Global Macro Fund LP ("AIP") pursuant to an existing loan agreement (the "AIP Debt"). The Corporation proposes to settle the AIP Debt by issuing to AIP a total of 241,273,667 common shares at a deemed issue price of $0.015 per share and 241,273,667 common share purchase warrants (the "AIP Debt Settlement"). Each warrant will be exercisable for a period of 60 months from the date of issuance at an exercise price of $0.05 each. AIP currently holds 8,900,000 common shares and 35,000,000 common share purchase warrants of the Corporation. The AIP Debt Settlement will result in AIP becoming a "control person" of Elixxer. Upon completion of the AIP Debt Settlement only, AIP would hold 250,173,667 common shares and 276,273,667 common share purchase warrants of the Corporation, representing approximately 31.20% of the Corporation's issued and outstanding common shares on an undiluted basis and 48.83% on a partially diluted basis. As such, the AIP Debt Settlement as proposed is subject to the Corporation obtaining shareholder approval which will be sought at the Corporation's upcoming annual and special meeting of shareholders anticipated to be held in September 2020.

The Corporation also proposes to settle a total of $3,275,123 of principal and $73,392 of interest and fees owed to Arlington Capital LP ("Arlington") pursuant to an existing loan agreement (the "Arlington Debt"). The Corporation proposes to settle the Arlington Debt by issuing to Arlington a total of 283,234,333 common shares at a deemed issue price of $0.015 per share and 283,234,333 common share purchase warrants (the "Arlington Debt Settlement"). Each warrant will be exercisable for a period of 60 months from the date of issuance an exercise price of $0.05 each. The Arlington Debt Settlement will result in Arlington becoming a "control person" of Elixxer. Upon completion of the Arlington Debt Settlement only, Arlington would hold 387,234,333 common shares and 283,234,333 common share purchase warrants, representing approximately 45.89% of the Corporation's issued and outstanding common shares on an undiluted basis and 59.45% on a partially diluted basis. As such, the Arlington Debt Settlement as proposed is subject to the Corporation obtaining shareholder approval which will be sought at the Corporation's upcoming annual and special meeting of shareholders anticipated to be held in September 2020. The Arlington Debt Settlement also constitutes a "related party transaction" as such term is defined in Regulation 61-101 respecting Protection of Minority Securityholders in Special Transactions. The Corporation relies on the exemption from the valuation requirement pursuant to subsection 5.5(b) of Regulation 61-101 as the securities of the Corporation are not listed or quoted on enumerated stock exchanges.

Upon completion of both the AIP Debt Settlement and the Arlington Debt Settlement as proposed, the Corporation will have approximately 1,085,016,032 common shares issued and outstanding with (i) AIP holding approximately 23.06% on an undiluted basis and approximately 38.67% on a partially diluted basis; and (ii) Arlington holding approximately 35.69% on an undiluted basis and approximately 49.00% on a partially diluted basis. Upon completion of both settlements, each of AIP and Arlington will have the right to nominate two members to Elixxer's Board of Directors, with at least two other members being independent.

The pricing of the common shares issuable pursuant to the debt settlements is in reliance of the temporary relief measures established by the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") on April 8, 2020 providing for temporary relief measures to its Policy 4.3, lowering the minimum pricing from $0.05 to $0.01 per share for shares issued pursuant to a debt settlement where the market price of an issuer's shares is not greater than $0.05. The market price of the Corporation's common shares at close of business on August 20, 2020 was $0.015.

Completion of the AIP Debt Settlement and the Arlington Debt Settlement as proposed is, in each case, subject to (i) completion of definitive agreements; (ii) approval of the TSXV; and (iii) shareholder approval as outlined above. All securities issued pursuant to the settlement of the AIP Debt Settlement and the Arlington Debt Settlement will be subject to hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance.

About Elixxer Ltd. (www.elixxer.com)

Elixxer is a Canadian public company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: ELXR) and the US OTC-QB exchange (OTCQB: ELIXF).

Through its partners, Elixxer presently has significant interests in Australia, Jamaica, Switzerland, Italy and Canada.

For further information please contact:

Mazen Haddad, CEO: mazen@elixxer.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements with respect to Elixxer and its operations, strategy, investments, financial performance and condition. These statements can generally be identified by use of forward-looking words such as "may", "will", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intends", "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. The actual results and performance of Elixxer could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Some important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include, among other things, general economic and market factors, competition, government regulation and the factors described under "Risk Factors and Risk Management" in Elixxer's most recent Management's Discussion and Analysis filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). The cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements attributable to Elixxer and persons acting on its behalf. Unless otherwise stated, all forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and Elixxer has no obligation to update such statements, except to the extent required by applicable securities laws.
: Exporters



Association (TEA) on Friday thanked the Centre for the (Employees State Insurance Corporation) decision to pay 50 per cent of the average wages of the employees for a maximum of 90 days of unemployment due to the pandemic.

The decision would be helpful to the workers as it can also help in overcoming their difficulties during the period of unemployment, TEA president Raja M Shanmugham said in a press release here.

In the first four months of this financial year, knitwear exports from clocked Rs 4,325 crore and TEA was hopeful of an improvement in the exports in the coming months, the release quoted Shanmugham of saying.

Once the situation improves, units would resume providing jobs to the workers from other districts of Tamil Nadu and also migrant workers from northern states, he said.

The TEA president has sent a letter of thanks to Prime Minister, Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment, chairman, Labour Secretary, Union Textile Minister, and textile secretary, the release 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 View

Suffragists used hunger strikes as powerful tool of resistance

Suffragists protest President Woodrow Wilson's opposition to women having the right to vote on a Chicago street corner in 1916. Photo: Library of Congress

By VICTORIA W. WOLCOTT

Professor of history

Reprinted from The Conversation

Pacifists and civil rights activists who engaged in hunger strikes were directly indebted to the suffragists who had preceded them. These activists used their bodies to subvert the prison system.  Victoria Wolcott

Asylum seekers held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in California have launched a series of hunger strikes to demand personal protective equipment, medical care and provisional release as COVID-19 cases surge among incarcerated populations. In Kentucky, four activists went on a 25-day hunger strike seeking justice for Breonna Taylor, the African American woman police officers killed in her home in March 2020. As Americans celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in August 1920, these protesters and many others owe a debt of gratitude to the militant suffragists who elevated the hunger strike as a powerful form of protest.

The hunger strike

The prison system, as it developed in the second half of the 19th century, rendered prisoners largely invisible to the outside world. Imprisoned hunger strikers and their supporters outside the prison gates made visible what was invisible. As a historian of American social movements, I have studied the origins of this tactic. Although there were earlier examples of hunger strikes in early modern Europe and Russia, Marion Dunlop, a British suffragist, carried out the first modern-day hunger strike in 1909 in Londons Holloway Prison. In both Great Britain and North America, the immediate motivation for suffragists to embark on hunger strikes was the demand to be considered a political prisoner. Political prisoners had more rights than other prisoners and were not considered merely criminals. Dunlop and other suffragists sought public sympathy when they refused to eat, playing on popular ideas that white female bodies were vulnerable and passive. Hunger strikers made their starving bodies a form of speech that could breach prison walls through testimonials, picketing and protests. That sympathy increased when suffragists like Dunlop were routinely subjected to brutal force-feedings. Initially devised to feed patients in asylums, force-feeding often damaged suffragists teeth, gums and throat. In some cases, when food went into lungs, it even resulted in pneumonia. One suffragist, Mary Leigh, who was forcibly fed in 1909 after her arrest protesting for womens suffrage, recalled the horror of the experience. She wrote: The sensation is most painful  the drums of the ear seem to be bursting, a horrible pain in the throat and the breast. The tube is pushed down 20 inches  I resist and am overcome. Suffragists argued that their rough handling and force-feeding revealed the brutality of the government. After their release, Dunlop, Leigh and others wrote prison narratives and spoke at rallies to encourage other women to follow their example and join the movement.

American suffragists

These narratives soon reached American ears, and by the 1910s some American suffragists adopted the more militant British tactics, rather than the lobbying and polite protests of earlier decades. They were led by Alice Paul, the author of the Equal Rights Amendment, who had spent time in England learning from her British counterparts. When arrested for offenses such as obstructing traffic during demonstrations or chaining themselves to the White House fence, suffragists began their own hunger strikes. They too were forcibly fed. Perhaps the most spectacular attempt to bring publicity to the hunger strikers was undertaken by American journalist Djuna Barnes. In 1914 Barnes staged a forcible feeding to demonstrate the brutality of the process. The staged event was covered by New York World Magazine and both horrified and fascinated readers. Photographs of her experience appeared beside her article in which she stated that she shared the greatest experience of the bravest of my sex. This form of performative journalism brought the spectacle of physical punishment outside the prison walls to the American public.

International repercussions

Suffragists directly influenced the use of the hunger strike by British colonial subjects in Ireland and India. When Marion Dunlop was released from prison after her hunger strike in 1909, she gave a public speech attended by a visiting Indian lawyer, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Male Irish Republicans employed hunger strikes after the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule  some four years after female suffragists in the country employed the same tactic. The Republican men, however, did not acknowledge the precedent set by women. In the West, Gandhis emaciated and frail body came to symbolize the spectacle of a colonized India seeking its freedom through nonviolence. In the United States, civil rights activists like Bayard Rustin began using Gandhis tactic of nonviolent direct action by the early 1940s. During World War II, Rustin and other male pacifists served in Civilian Public Service camps, which offered an alternative to military service or, in some cases, in prison. Imprisoned pacifists launched hunger strikes to protest racial segregation and mistreatment. Many of the pacifists suffered painful force-feeding by prison authorities.

Pacifism and hunger strike

While during the war years male pacifists took center stage, at the wars end Black and white women began to actively engage in nonviolent direct action. Radical pacifist women routinely used hunger strikes as a form of protest. An African American women, Eroseanna Robinson, exemplifies this trend. She was a member of the Peacemakers, a radical pacifist organization that practiced civil disobedience and tax refusal, and took to hunger strikes when in jail. In 1960, when Robinson was arrested for not paying her taxes, she practiced total noncompliance and refused to submit to what she perceived as undemocratic and coercive power. During her year of imprisonment, Robinson refused all nourishment and suffered painful force-feedings. Robinsons ability to control her own body through self-discipline gave her the strength she needed to endure months of fasting and force-feeding. And as in the case of the suffragists, Robinsons defiance revealed the brutality of the state. Pacifists and civil rights activists who engaged in hunger strikes were directly indebted to the suffragists who had preceded them. These activists used their bodies to subvert the prison system. Today, prisoners and those fighting for racial justice are attempting much the same to bring attention and a measure of justice to the suffering world.

READER COMMENT
The show can go on. The show must go on. The show will go on.

Like sequels, reboots or slashers that just won't die no matter how many times they're shot, stabbed or decapitated, Northwest Indiana's movie theaters are back. In a world where COVID-19 lingers on, the Region's multiplexes are starting to reopen after the curtains closed in March as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the world.

AMC Schererville 16 welcomed back its first moviegoers with a 2 p.m. matinee Thursday, offering 1920 prices of 15 cents each. Screenings of "The Goonies," "Back to the Future," "Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back" and more contemporary flicks like "Bloodshot" were sold out, although at reduced capacity to encourage social distancing.

Cinemark at Valparaiso reopens Friday with new releases like "Unhinged" and "Words on Bathroom Walls."

There is nothing quite like the awe and power of great cinematic storytelling on the big screen, and Cinemark is proud to once again welcome guests to enjoy the shared, immersive experience they crave in a way that provides them confidence and peace of mind, Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi said.
If the headline of the story is making you go, Wait, what? then youre not alone. People on Twitter are sharing the same reaction with some even posting the laughing out loud emoji.

This highly unusual tale came into limelight when the cop in question took to Twitter to say thanks to Northants Fire Department officials who helped him get out of the handcuffs.

Scott Renwick, whose bio says he is a Core Training sergeant for Northamptonshire Police, shared the tweet along with an image. Quite wittily he used the hashtag #NotFunny in his tweet but then added, I would have laughed too!

Take a look at what he tweeted:

Well that wasnt a good start to the day. Thanks to @northantsfire for cutting me out of some broken cuffs. #NotFunny. I would have laughed too!! pic.twitter.com/WyOKGNDC8s  Core Skills Norpol - Scott Renwick (@CoreNorpol) August 18, 2020

With over 500 likes, the post also received tons of comments from people. While some laughed out loud, others appreciated the cop for posting about his goof up.

I have so many questions, but Im not even sure where to begin! Only you! wrote a Twitter user and shared this GIF:

I have so many questions, but Im not even sure where to begin!!!  Only you!!  pic.twitter.com/dfkeO8zpX0   g  (@WhiskeyEcho538) August 18, 2020

Oh god! Its funny! Sorry sarge! wrote another and shared a GIF. To which, the cop replied too. Take a look at the interaction:

If I put a smile on a single face during these difficult times my job is done.  Core Skills Norpol - Scott Renwick (@CoreNorpol) August 19, 2020

There were many who simply wrote cake or shared images or GIFs of cakes. Confused by the comments, a Twitter user asked the reason and the officer explained but in the wittiest way possible. Heres the conversation:

If you do something silly you buy cakes. If its your birthday you buy cakes. If you start on a new team, cakes. Leave team, cakes.



The threshold is very low. We just like cake.  Core Skills Norpol - Scott Renwick (@CoreNorpol) August 20, 2020

Heres what others wrote:

I love that you shared this. I can imagine the laughs this gave everyone involved   Sara Postlethwaite (@empathy_matters) August 18, 2020

Youre a brave human being for posting it! Like ya style - just run with it! expressed an individual and we do agree.

What do you think of the tweet?

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ESKASONI, N.S. - RCMP say ground and aerial searches are continuing today along several trails in southeast Cape Breton for an Indigenous teenager who has been missing for more than a week.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/8/2020 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ESKASONI, N.S. - RCMP say ground and aerial searches are continuing today along several trails in southeast Cape Breton for an Indigenous teenager who has been missing for more than a week.

Police are searching the Canoe Lake area for 14-year-old Molly Martin, a member of the We'koqma'q Mi'kmaq First Nation, last seen in Eskasoni at around 4 p.m. on Aug. 13.

Mary (Molly) Martin, 14, is shown in this undated RCMP handout photo. Nova Scotia RCMP are continuing the search for a 14-year-old Cape Breton girl who has not been seen since last Thursday. RCMP say a ground and aerial search continues along several trails in an area of southeast Cape Breton for a teenager who has been missing for more than a week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, RCMP *MANDATORY CREDIT*

RCMP said today Martin is travelling with 47-year-old Darcy Doyle and the two are believed to be on foot after using a green all-terrain vehicle to move around.

Police say they found a green ATV and other evidence on Thursday indicating Martin and Doyle spent time in Canoe Lake, a heavily wooded area with numerous trails.

Investigators say it's possible the two have left that area but are asking nearby residents to call police with any tips or sightings of the two people.

Martin is described as Indigenous, 5 feet 1 inches tall and 100 pounds, with brown hair and eyes, with a rose tattoo on her left forearm and could be wearing glasses.

Doyle, who is from Mira Gut, is described as six feet tall, 190 pounds, with long black hair, a full beard and moustache, and brown eyes.

Video surveillance footage placed Martin and Doyle at a gas station in Catalone, N.S., on Aug. 13.

RCMP requested an emergency alert be issued to residents living east of the Mira River in Cape Breton on Thursday  one week after Martin went missing.

The move followed criticism the force did not act with enough urgency to find Martin and bring her home safely.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2020.
The top of the Flint Water Plant tower in Flint, Mich., in a file photo. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

Michigan to Pay $600 Million to Flint Water Crisis Victims

The U.S. state of Michigan said on Thursday that it had reached a preliminary settlement to pay $600 million to victims of the Flint water crisis, potentially closing a chapter on one of the countrys worst public health crises in recent memory.

If approved, the deal would provide the bulk of the funds to children impacted by poisoning of the water in the city of Flint and would rank as the largest settlement in the states history, Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement.

The settlement is the culmination of 18 months of talks over how to compensate residents who were sickened by tap water after state officials switched the citys water supply six years ago, sparking a crisis that garnered national attention.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who inherited the crisis upon taking office in 2019, acknowledged that the agreement would not solve all of the citys problems and vowed to keep allocating resources to ensure Flints water was safe.

What happened in Flint should never have happened, Whitmer said in recorded remarks. The uncertainty and troubles that the people of Flint have endured is unconscionable. It is time for the state to do what it can.

The settlement is subject to approval by a federal judge in Michigan.

In January, the Supreme Court let Flint residents pursue a civil rights lawsuit that accused the city and government officials of knowingly allowing the water supply to become contaminated with lead.

A National Guard soldier looks at a bottle containing contaminated water headed for lab testing in Flint, Mich., on Jan. 21, 2016. (Sarah Rice/Getty Images)

Flint switched its public water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River to cut costs during a financial crisis. But the corrosive river water caused lead to leach from pipes, and the city switched back to Lake Huron water the following year.

More than 25,000 people were harmed through exposure to contaminants in Flint, court records showed as of January.

The settlement stipulates that 79.5 percent of the funds will be allocated to children exposed to the water, the majority who were under 6 at the time of the crisis. Some 18 percent will go to adults and to settle property damage.

Corey Stern, a partner at Levy Konigsberg who advocated for the victims as part of the settlements negotiations, said that children under the age of 6 who number about 8,500 could be paid a combined $390 million of the total settlement sum.

That would come to about $45,000 per child in that group, although not all are likely to seek compensation and those who have been most harmed would be paid about five times more than others under the deals terms, Stern said.

LeeAnne Walters, a 42-year-old resident of Flint, said she was happy the agreement is focused on children. She said her twin boys, now 9, have been seeing a speech therapist after a pediatrician diagnosed them with an impediment caused by lead in the water.

Even today, we still suffer with the rashes that started in 2014, all of us, she told Reuters. Whatever was in that water then is still affecting us now.

If the settlement gains approval, it will resolve more than a hundred state and federal cases, Nessel said.

However, Nessel said that lawsuits filed against a subsidiary of French water company Veolia and Houston-based engineering services firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN) would continue unless they joined the states settlement in 45 days.

A spokeswoman for Veolia North America, which was hired in early 2015 to review Flints water quality and found it complied with standards, said the company was reviewing the settlement and did not immediately have a comment.

A lawyer for LAN, one of the companies involved in carrying out the switch of the citys water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014, said the company had no responsibility for providing water treatment and plant operation services at the time of switch and the state was to blame.

We look forward to our day in court so that all of the facts surrounding LANs lack of involvement in this tragedy will be made clear, Wayne Mason said in an emailed statement.

By Kanishka Singh, Sebastien Malo and Nathan Layne
Using a simple 'thermometer scale survey' to measure public attitudes towards people with autism could help improve public understanding and acceptance, say researchers.

In a new study, published in the journal Experimental Results, psychologists from the universities of Bath and Essex, propose a simplification in the way in which attitudes are measured - replacing existing, complex surveys with just one question that would gauge public attitudes and acceptance.

They say that changing the way we measure attitudes towards people with autism and mental health conditions would increase the usefulness of such measures and improve public understanding of such conditions.

Public attitudes about autism can feed into government and NGO policies when, for example, they decide on levels of funding and other support directed towards autistic people, they add.

In a new study, Dr Punit Shah, an autism expert from the University of Bath, and Dr Paul Hanel, an attitude expert from the University of Essex, analysed data from the only survey for measuring attitudes towards autism.

Their results suggest that this outdated scale, which includes questions such as - 'people with autism should not have children' - was confusing attitudes, intentions, and behaviours towards autistic people. They concluded that it is not fit for purpose.

In its place they created a simple 'thermometer' scale, where members of the public were simply asked, 'please provide a number between 0 and 100 to indicate your overall evaluation of an autistic person'. They found that this sliding scale was as accurate as time-consuming surveys at predicting how much people said they wanted to interact with autistic people.

Dr Punit Shah from the University of Bath's Department of Psychology explained: "Autism is the 'costliest health condition' in the UK, more so than the cancer, stroke, and heart disease, combined. This is because it is a lifelong condition, meaning that autistic people are impacted by societal attitudes which influence behaviours towards them from non-autistic people.

"Despite the impact that non-autistic people have on the lives of those with autism, overall public attitudes towards autistic people are very poorly understood. This is because there has been no scientifically-robust way to measure public attitudes and therefore no robust way at devising interventions to improve acceptance and cohesion."

The researchers found that, on average, non-autistic students rated autistic people relatively favourably - 71/100; they have since found this to be around 62/100 more generally in the UK. The researchers say that it is good to see that public attitudes towards autistic people are generally more favourable than unfavourable, but that there is a long way to go in understanding and changing negative attitudes to autism and mental health conditions.

Dr Shah, adds: "Our research is a critical step towards improving the science of attitudes towards people with autism and mental health conditions. Our scale, which is freely available for use by researchers and policymakers, will enable us to better understand the many reasons for negative and positive attitudes towards autistic people and other neurodevelopmental conditions. Using this scale, researchers in my group are now looking into how people's autism knowledge and level of contact with autistic people are linked to their attitudes towards people with the conditions."

Dr Paul Hanel, a Lecturer at the University of Essex and researcher at Bath, added: "Our scale is an important step towards a better of understanding and ultimately improving attitudes towards people with autism. Because it is so simple it can also be translated and used in other countries and cultures, whereas old measures could not. While attitudes towards people with autism are on average favourable in the UK, and also in India and the USA, we are currently discussing ways how those attitudes can be further enhanced.

"For example, many people still have some misconceptions about autism and might believe that people with autism are more different to them than they actually are on various attributes such as their personality or beliefs. We want to test whether correcting misconceptions improves intergroup attitudes. To test for attitude change it is crucial to have a reliable and valid measure of attitudes towards people with autism, as we have developed in this study."

###

The researchers hope this type of research and arising policy can help to tackle stigma and improve the lives of people with autism and similar conditions.

Hanel, P. H. P & Shah, P. (2020). Simplifying the measurement of attitudes towards autistic people is published in 'Experimental Results'.
New Delhi: On the auspicious occasion of Hartalika Teej, the women across the country gear up to perform special prayers for the long life of their husbands. On this day, married women pray to Lord Shiva and Mata Parvati for their blessings. 'Teej' basically refers to monsoon festivals celebrated in various parts of the country.

This year, Hartalika Teej is on August 21.

Hartalika Teej Puja Timings:

Hartalika Teej on Friday, August 21, 2020

Pratahkala Hartalika Puja Muhurat - 05:54 AM to 08:30 AM

Duration - 02 Hours 36 Mins

Pradoshkala Hartalika Puja Muhurat - 06:54 PM to 09:06 PM

Duration - 02 Hours 12 Mins

Tritiya Tithi Begins - 02:13 AM on Aug 21, 2020

Tritiya Tithi Ends - 11:02 PM on Aug 21, 2020

(According to drikpanchang.com)

Teej refers to the third day which falls each month after the new moon or the Amavasya, and the third day after the full moon night of every month. There are various types of Teej celebrated in the country. The monsoon festival of Teej includesHaryali Teej, Kajri Teej and Hartalika Teej respectively.

Legend and significance:

As per Hindu mythology, the legend behind celebrating Hartalika Teej has it that Mata Parvati, the daughter of Himalaya was incarnated as Goddess Shailaputri. Her father has promised to marry her with Lord Vishnu after Narada Muni suggested it. When Goddess Parvati got to know of this, she immediately went to her friend and told her about King Himalaya's plan. Then, it is believed that Goddess Parvati's friend took her to the forest so that she stays away and the marriage plan which was against her wish never happens.

Then, Goddess Parvati on the third day of the Bhadrapada made Shiva Lingam out of her hair and prayed to the Lord. Shiva was mighty impressed by her dedication and Tapasya, finally agreeing to marry Goddess Parvati.

Soon, Goddess Parvati's family too got to know of her preference and after some convincing, the union between Lord Shiva and Parvati happened. Their wedding was a huge affair where the gods were part of the marriage ceremony. The goddess's mother and father blessed the divinity.

Meanwhile, the Goddess had made Lord Vishnu her brother, as per popular belief.

Since then, the day is referred to as Hartalika Teej. Because Goddess Parvati's female (aalika) friend sort of abducted her (harit) to the forest so that Mata can marry Lord Shiva.

The festival of Hartalika Teej is celebrated on the third day of the bright half of the North Indian Lunar month of Bhadrapada.

On this day, women dressed in bright new clothes pray to Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva. They observe a fast (also known as nishivasar nirjala vrat) which commences during the evening of Hartalika Teej and is broken the next day after a full day's observance which involves women not even drinking water.

The devotees pray to Mata Parvati, who prayed with utmost dedication and devotion, to get married to Lord Shiva. The goddess is worshipped under the name of Hartalika or Maa Hartalika.

Hartalika Teej is celebrated with much grandeur chiefly in the states of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

Here's wishing our readers a very happy Hartalika Teej!
The Trump administration is now labeling teachers "essential" workers, a move aimed at pushing school districts to open for in-person instruction for the fall semester amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The declaration of teachers as "critical infrastructure workers," which came in an Aug. 18 guidance published by the Department of Homeland Security, means that teachers exposed to coronavirus but who show no symptoms can return to classrooms and not quarantine for 14 days as public health agencies recommend.

DHS said the label is only advisory and not meant to be a federal directive. Still, school districts that want teachers to return to classrooms - even when teachers don't think it is safe enough - could use the federal designation to bolster their own mandates.

Essential workers are those deemed by the DHS to work areas typically essential to continue critical infrastructure operations and who are expected to show up for their jobs on site because there is no other way to do them.

Schools closed last spring when the pandemic began in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease, and teachers have done their jobs remotely.

School districts had hoped to begin the 2020-21 school year with campuses reopened, but some have decided the risk of spreading the disease is too high and have returned to remote learning. Others are allowing students who want to return to school to do so.

In July, President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos began a push to force schools to reopen and threatened to withhold federal funding to those that refused. (They don't have unilateral power to withhold money that Congress has already approved.)

School district leaders have spent the summer preparing safety protocols aimed at preventing the virus's spread when buildings reopen, but many teachers say not enough has been done to allow for safe reentry.

The teachers union in New York City threatened to strike if members are forced back into classrooms in September, and the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest national teachers union, said it would support strikes called in areas where teachers feel they are being forced into unsafe classrooms.

Yet some districts have or are considering declaring teachers as essential workers with the intent of sending them into classrooms if they have no symptoms after being exposed to the virus. On Tuesday, Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he supported new state guidance that tells school districts they can declare teachers as critical infrastructure workers and require them to return to work even if exposed.

The Tennessean reported that a handful of districts in the state have already labeled educators as essential workers, including the Bradley County Board of Education near Chattanooga, which approved a policy that will allow the superintendent to designate teachers or other employees as essential.

Greene County in Tennessee was one of the first school districts to do so, the Associated Press reported, quoting Hillary Buckner, who teaches Spanish at Chuckey-Doak High School in Afton: "It essentially means if we are exposed and we know we might potentially be positive, we still have to come to school and we might at that point be carriers and spreaders."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), sectors deemed "essential" by federal or state guidelines before the pandemic included energy; child care; water and wastewater; agriculture and food production; critical retail, such as grocery stores, hardware stores and mechanics; critical trades, such as construction workers, electricians and plumbers; transportation; and some social service organizations. While at least 28 states labeled child-care providers as essential workers, teachers were not, per the NCSL.

A recent report on essential workers by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, Washington-based think tank, said many essential workers are not being protected by basic health and safety measures, and some have died of covid-19 as a result.
Cancun  On August 19, 2020, Sunset World Group hotels in Cancun and the Riviera Maya, including Hacienda Tres Rios, Sunset Royal, Sunset Fishermen and Sunset Marina, received the 2019-2020 Gold Crown recognition from RCI in a virtual ceremony at Hacienda Tres Rios. The hotels also received the Excellence in Service award. In addition, Orlando Arroyo, CEO of Sunset World Group, received the Presidents Award for the second year in a row in recognition of the amount of business that Sunset World's vacation clubs have generated for RCI. These awards confirm Sunset World's leadership in the vacation club segment in the Mexican Caribbean.

The Sunset World awards ceremony hosts were Orlando Arroyo, CEO, Annie Arroyo, Brand and Communication Corporate Director and Martha Richardson, Corporate Director of Operations. RCI was represented by Carolina Zapata, Business Development Manager and Jazziel Rodriguez, Account Executive in person, and virtually by Ana Laura Acevedo, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Marketing and Alejandra Espinosa, Director of Business Development.

"It is an honor to receive these awards on behalf of Sunset World Group's staff. They provide the high quality service that we offer to RCI members", said Orlando Arroyo, Sunset World Group CEO, "Our resorts are among the best of 4,400 hospitality developments in the world," he said.

Ana Laura Acevedo, RCI Senior Vice President of Business Development and Marketing explained, Resorts that are awarded the RCI Gold Crown Resort award are examples of superior quality and exceptional service. They achieve high standards in five categories evaluated by our members during a 12-month period. The Excellence in Service award is only received by resorts that achieve the highest scores on these criteria, which means that only 10% of the resorts affiliated with RCI receive it. It is worth mentioning that RCI (Resort Condominiums International) is the most important vacation exchange company in the world.

Sunset World Group is a family-owned Mexican company and a leader in the hospitality industry, offering authentic and unforgettable vacation experiences in Cancun and the Riviera Maya. It was founded more than 30 years ago and has grown to offer six resorts, world-class travel services, amenities and a diverse network of operational and marketing solutions that focus on providing the best vacation experiences for its Members and guests. From cultural excursions to water sports, the Members of Sunset World are never far from their next great adventure.


Albuquerque is not the safest place to work and raise a family. In fact, Albuquerque is No. 2 in the nation for violent crime and auto theft. The city has become so crime-riddled that a recent arrested drug dealer justified his arsenal of firearms and ammunitions, saying he had to have them to protect himself as Albuquerque is very dangerous. Plus, with 82 homicides in 2019 and over 30 homicides thus far in 2020, no one can debate that violent crime is a serious problem in our city.

When Mayor Tim Keller was elected he said he would increase the number of police and reduce the high crime rate. Yet, his promises have never been fulfilled, and his recent comments regarding Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales show he is willing to place political considerations ahead of the peoples safety.

On July 22nd, Gonzales met with federal authorities regarding Operation Legend, which is designed to combat violent crime and bring 35 federal law enforcement officers to Albuquerque  FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security. This is an extension of Operation Relentless Pursuit, which began last fall but was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Operation Relentless Pursuit first came to Albuquerque, Keller and other local officials welcomed the federal law enforcement assistance. But, 2020 is an election year, and now Keller and his fellow Democrats have changed their tune. Even though Gonzales is a fellow Democrat, the thought of the sheriff meeting with President Trump and asking for federal help in fighting Albuquerques crime problem led progressive Democrat leaders, such as U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich, to call for Gonzales resignation. Keller and these other progressive leaders also called these federal law enforcement officers secret police and storm troopers, and inferring they will violate citizens civil rights. Even Police Chief Michael Geier added negative comments about the requested federal help.

The reasons why Albuquerque needs federal help are simple. When federal law enforcement personnel make an arrest, the offenders are processed through the federal criminal justice system where the penalties are much stiffer, and the feds dont catch and release those arrested. Federal help also brings new resources to the crime fighting effort, such as the FBIs $25,000 reward for information about the murder of a mother who was killed in her driveway while her car was warming up.

Crime is not a partisan issue. But what are New Mexicans supposed to think when our elected leaders turn to denouncing the Bernalillo County sheriff for simply working with federal law enforcement officers in an effort to try (to) make our city safer? Or, what justification did Heinrich, who actually lives in Maryland, have calling for a duly elected sheriff to resign? Are these progressive leaders completely unaware of the citys violent crime problem? After all, APDs 2019 homicide solution rate is about 50%.

Naturally, these progressive elected officials point to Portland to justify their negative comments (on) having federal law enforcement help. Over 60 days of protests and rioting have taken place there.  Buildings destroyed, police assaulted, and general mayhem spreading throughout Downtown Portland, but local law enforcement, due to a lack of local leadership, were unable to quell the unrest.

Regardless, Albuquerque is not Portland, although residents of Albuquerque should drive Downtown and look at all the new artwork covering the boarded up businesses. The reality is this artistic work is concealing the results of Kellers and progressive leaders lack of political will to stop our Downtown riots.

Gonzales explained he would cross party lines and meet with whomever to reduce Albuquerques crime problem. That is true leadership.

We have a major crime problem in this state and most notably in Albuquerque. As retired law enforcement officers, we can tell you our progressive leaders are out of touch with the communitys safety needs. We also need to completely repeal our current catch-and-release bail system, as such a system ensures that criminals are quickly back on the streets and in our neighborhoods.

If the people we vote for as leaders do not have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and protect our way of life, then we need to question their ability to govern. And if it is necessary for federal law enforcement agencies to do the job our elected leaders refuse to do, then it is time we find new local leaders.
Thursday was a bad day for Netflix, one of the largest video content providers in the world, as well as being a left-leaning organization that partners with the Obamas and other well known Democrats. Thursday was the day when thousands of people got upset that Netflix was screening and promoting a new French film about tweens twerking as a form of liberation.

The obvious problem is that what Netflix did is catnip for pedophiles. It also degrades our culture and encourages young children to sexualize themselves. Beyond the obvious, Netflixs terrible decision points to a more serious problem in Western culture, which is that sexualizing children is a precursor of state control over the individual.

A tweet on Wednesday first identified the problem:

The pedophiles at Netflix are releasing a movie sexualizing children called 'Cuties.' The description claims it's about an 11 year old girl that becomes "fascinated with twerking" and "exploring her feminity." pic.twitter.com/mh4MKftEPt  Jaden McNeil (@JadenPMcNeil) August 19, 2020

A Variety article from January promoting the movie when the producer had entered into an agreement for it to open nationwide on Netflix described the film this way:

"Cuties" is about the hyper-sexualization of pre-adolescent girls. It follows an 11-year-old girl of Senegalese [Muslim] origin, living in one of Paris' poorest neighborhoods, who is raised in a pious tradition, but joins a group of young dancers who hope to twerk their way to stardom.

The movie may indeed be about culture clashes in modern Paris or about pressure on immigrant children (which is what the producer seemed to say), but it still sounds like pedophile porn  and that's certainly how Americans understood Netflix's promotional campaign.

In response to Thursday's outcry, Netflix lowered the sexual heat in its promotion:

Amy, 11 years old, tries to escape family dysfunction by joining a free-spirited dance clique called "Cuties," as they build self confidence through dance.

It later lowered the heat again. As of this writing, the description sounds like a wholesome Disney tween comedy:

Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family's traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.

The people pictured on the movie's Netflix page in dance poses are no longer disturbingly sexualized little girls but are, instead, older teenagers, including boys.

On his Thursday night show, Tucker asked the right question: why?

The obvious answer is that our cultural arbiters are debauched people with pedophile tendencies. After all, stories about Hollywood's pedophilia and pederasty problem are everywhere.

It goes deeper, though. Since the 1960s, the left has focused on pedophilia as a way to diminish children's sense of self and make them easier to subdue. It's a form of grooming, of the type Epstein and Maxwell did, but on a national scale.

Children are born with a strong sense of self ("Me! Mine!"), but it's instinctive, not intellectual. The intellectual knowledge of oneself as a unique and inviolate individual develops in later childhood and continues through the tweens and teens.

Leftism isn't about the individual; it's about the collective. If leftists are to take over a society, they need to break the connection between a person's body and his sense of self.

German leftism was at the forefront of this movement. Typically for leftists, they promised that sexualizing children would promote, not destroy, individuality. For example, Der Spiegel wrote about Revolution der Erziehung (The Revolution in Education), published in 1971, which insisted that bourgeois morals dehumanize children:

The de-eroticization of family life, from the prohibition of sexual activity among children to the taboo of incest, serves as preparation for total assimilation  as preparation for the hostile treatment of sexual pleasure in school and voluntary subjugation to a dehumanizing labor system.

The same Spiegel article then offered chapter and verse about the German left's active efforts to sexualize children  and the damage it did to those children's development.

In West Berlin, beginning in the 1970s and continuing for thirty years, a psychology professor convinced the authorities to place homeless children with known pedophile men on the theory that they'd make "loving" parents. In Belgium, the leftist Catholic diocese actively promoted pedophilia. In Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's communist mentor, along with promoting disturbing sexual practices such as bondage, simulated rape, and undinism, also encouraged pedophilia (or, at the very least, pederasty).

In America, using the vehicle of the LGBT movement, leftists relentlessly pressure schools to expose children to graphic sexual practices. In California, a sex ed curriculum ostensibly intended to help kids have safe sex exposes fifth-graders not only to traditional male-female sex but also to...well, everything, including extreme and dangerous sexual practices.

What statists have always understood is that our bodies are the first line in the battle between statism and individualism. If a person is allowed to develop a sense that his body is his own to control, he will never willingly yield to the demands of the state. Only by convincing its citizens that they have no personal autonomy, beginning with control over their bodies, can a state completely subsume the individual to the bureaucracy.

Image: Student_ipad_school  138 by Brad Flickinger; CC 2.0 Generic.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo, Japan  Fri, August 21, 2020 07:57 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f682f4 2 Sports Japan,badminton,badminton-star,Olympian,retirement Free

Ayaka Takahashi, who won Japan's first ever badminton Olympic gold with her doubles partner in Rio 2016, has retired conceding she no longer has the "inner fire" to compete.

Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo scored a spectacular come-from-behind win at the 2016 Olympics, scoring five straight points when down 19-16 in the final game to defeat Denmark's Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl.

But she has opted to skip the chance to defend her Olympic title on home soil, citing in part the decision to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games by a year because of the coronavirus.

"After winning the gold medal in Rio, I'd been struggling to maintain morale," she confessed at an online press conference this week.

Despite training hard with Matsutomo, she said she had struggled with "records that were not satisfying enough in 2019, the suspension of tournaments, and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics".

"I doubt if my inner fire and body will last for another year," she said.

Takahashi said Matsutomo and her sponsors "respected" her decision, and that she now hoped to work to promote badminton.

Takahashi and Matsutomo, nicknamed "Takamatsu," were the first non-Chinese pair to win gold since badminton was introduced to the Olympics in 1992.

Matsutomo told reporters she was "deeply grateful for the partnership", adding she couldn't imagine "having gotten this far" without Takahashi.

The coronavirus pandemic has badly hit the 2020 badminton world tour, forcing the cancellation of the prestigious Japan and China Opens next month.

The Tokyo 2020 Games are now scheduled to open on July 23, 2021, though there are questions about whether the global event can go ahead if the pandemic has not receded by then.
(Natural News) Forests around the globe are fighting a pandemic, too  that of beetle infestations. The outbreaks of mountain pine beetles  bugs no bigger than a grain of rice  are killing mature pine trees in record numbers across the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC), according to a recent report from Bloomberg.

The mountain pine beetle has already infested enough trees to build nine million homes; however, the pests have demonstrated no sign of stopping in the near future. This has raised concerns that the infestations might also threaten to decimate log supplies in the U.S., similar to the ongoing situation in parts of Europe.

Experts point to rising temperatures as the main culprit behind the unhampered proliferation of mountain pine beetle populations despite concentrated efforts to stamp them out. BC, in particular, has seen the most rapid increase in temperatures across the globe in recent decades.

Mountain pine beetle infestations decimate lumber supplies

From 2000 to 2015, BC authorities estimate that the mountain pine beetles had decimated a total of 730 million cubic meters of pine trees. This translates to more than a decade of lumber supplies lost to BC, Canadas largest exporter of timber to the U.S. housing market.

David Elstone, a professional forester and the founder of the Vancouver-based Spar Tree Group, said that the infestation is set to further reduce BCs production of lumber supplies in the near future. Provincial modeling also indicates that the beetles might kill up to 55 percent of the regions marketable pine trees by 2020.

For this reason, BC authorities are concerned that the recent infestation is going to further exacerbate the record-high prices of lumber in the global market due to the ongoing pandemic. There has been a surge of demand for lumber in the U.S. as people scramble to repair their homes during the quarantine.

The mountain pine beetles are also threatening to spread to forests of BCs neighboring regions, and other beetle species are coming out of hiding, threatening the populations of other tree species, too. One such beetle, called the spruce beetle, is poised to infest BCs spruce trees.

But it appears that the recent beetle infestations are not unique to BC. In Europe, the succession of droughts has left trees ripe for pests like beetles. In fact, about a dozen or so European countries are hard-pressed to contain outbreaks of the spruce bark beetle.

In fact, these beetles are projected to decimate more lumber supplies than the mountain pine beetles in BC should the droughts continue, according to recent reports from Canadas Forest Economic Advisors (FEA).

Squashing the bugs

Decades ago, mountain pine beetles had been part and parcel of forest health. In feasting on mature trees, the beetles, in effect, turned them into fuel for natural forest fires. The fires fed on the dead trees to clean the forest floor of debris and to nourish the soil, setting the stage for more plants and saplings.

But humans became good at putting out forest fires in the 1950s, said Allan Carroll, the director of the Forest Sciences Program at the University of British Columbia. This, in effect, has left a buffet of older trees for the beetles to feast on.

On top of human interference, warm winters and rising temperatures in the region allowed the beetles to survive in areas that used to be too cold for them to live in. Therefore, without natural forest fires to burn older trees and cold winters to stall beetle activities, beetle populations were able to flourish unhampered.

But squashing the bugs is easier said than done. Caroline Whitehouse, a forest health specialist for the province of Alberta, detailed the painstaking process of singling out infested pine trees and felling them to contain the beetle outbreak.

Helicopters would scour the forest looking for signs of red pine tree needles. Red needles are a clear indication that beetles have bored into the bark and overwhelmed their host, said Whitehouse. She and her team also look for pine trees whose barks are oozing a reddish resin, another sign of beetle infestation.

The team then cuts down the infected trees using chainsaws before chopping them into smaller chunks and burning them with fuel. This technique of cut and burn is important as it eliminates the chance of beetle larvae surviving and spreading again.

Concentrated efforts like these have saved up to 30 percent of Albertas forests from potential infestation. However, this is an almost insignificant achievement in light of the more than 5.4 million acres that the beetles have affected in the region.

Beetle outbreaks mean there are millions and millions of beetles in the forest, said Whitehouse. Therefore, authorities might still be hard-pressed to contain the outbreak within the next decade.

The far-reaching impact of beetle infestations

Besides their implications for forest health and global lumber trade, experts have also expressed grave concern over the potential impact of recent beetle infestations around the globe on carbon dioxide emissions.

Russ Taylor, the managing director of FEA Canada, noted an apparent and vicious cycle: Warming temperatures make older trees more susceptible to beetle attacks, resulting in poor forest health overall.

In turn, weak, infested trees end up doing a poor job of absorbing carbon dioxide and emitting oxygen. This has an indirect effect of contributing to carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. (Related: Californias redwood forests capture massive amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide.)

Besides felling infested trees, Canadian lumber producers and suppliers are looking to expand their operations in the U.S. South due to the worsening situation in regions of Canada.

Mark Wilde, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets in New York, said that the U.S. is far from running out of timber.

Wilde is also hopeful that countries with beetle outbreaks could still regain their lumber supplies as scientists continue to develop technology for planting faster-maturing trees less susceptible to beetle attacks.

Read more articles about the ecology and management of beetles at Ecology.news.

Sources include:

Bloomberg.com 1

Bloomberg.com 2
SPRINGFIELD  Several months after being indicted for allegedly kidnapping his estranged wife from her Agawam home and taking her on a terrifying ride through several states, Sunil Akula is facing new charges of obstruction of justice and witness tampering in U.S. District Court.

Akula, 31, of Plano, Texas, on Friday pleaded not guilty to four charges of kidnapping, stalking, and the two additional charges. The latest charges are linked to Akula contacting a relative of his estranged wife to try to get her to recant truthful statements and not appear for trial, according to the latest indictment.

In late September, Akula traveled from Texas to Agawam, arrived at his estranged wifes apartment, physically assaulted her and announced he was taking her back to Texas, according to prosecutors.

Akula held his wifes phone, wallet, and computer, and forced her into his car with only the clothes she was wearing, read a statement by Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling.

Akula drove through multiple states and assaulted the woman repeatedly, Lelling said. Akula also is accused of forcing her to send a resignation email to her employer, then smashing her laptop and throwing it onto the side of the highway.

He allegedly continued to beat his wife during a stop at a Tennessee motel during the trek back to Texas. When she would not stop sobbing, he left the hotel room  and was met by members of the Knox County Sheriffs Department. Akula was arrested and transported back to Massachusetts to face charges, according to Lelling.

Akulas case is set for a final pretrial conference on Aug. 26 on the original charges. The new charges likely will restart the clock on court proceedings.

Akula faces a potential life sentence on the kidnapping charge if convicted.
London, Aug 21 : Three more countries -- Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago -- have been added to the UK's quarantine list in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced.

In his announcement on Thursday, Shapps said that the new measures will come into force at 4 a.m. on Saturday, reports Xinhua news agency.

The Transport Secretary also announced that travellers arriving in the UK from Portugal will no longer need to self-isolate for 14 days.

He said the decision to change the travel corridors took a range of factors into account, including the estimated prevalence of COVID-19 in a country, the level and rate of change in the incidence of confirmed positive cases, and the extent of testing in a country.

The other factors included the testing regime and test positivity, the extent to which cases can be accounted for by a contained outbreak as opposed to more general transmission in the community, government actions and other relevant epidemiological information, he said.

The new move was announced after Covid-19 cases on the Caribbean islands more than doubled in a week.

The UK Foreign Office said that it would look at putting any country with more than 20 cases per 100,000 people on its quarantine list.

Earlier this week, the British government refused to deny that tourists returning from Croatia and Greece could face quarantine measures after the number of cases per 100,000 people in Croatia reportedly rose above 20, seen as a key benchmark.

Downing Street said the government continues to "keep these rules under review" and that "protecting public health" remains the main priority.

Pushed on the limited time between new quarantine measures being announced and their implementation, Downing Street said: "It is important that when we make changes to the exemptions list, we do so in a swift way." France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta and other countries were placed on the UK quarantine list on August 15.

Previously, Shapps announced that travellers returning to the UK from Belgium, the Bahamas and Andorra would have to quarantine at home for two weeks, citing rising Covid-19 levels in the three countries.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
An international team of scientists said that they have extracted eggs from the last two remaining northern white rhinos. This is being done to prevent the species from extinction. Reports suggest that ten eggs were extracted from the last two female rhinos- Fatu and Najin. The last male white rhino, reportedly died in the year 2018 leaving the species practically extinct. The 45-year-old Sudan was euthanized after a spell of deteriorating health. However, genetic material was saved in hopes of artificially inseminating the remaining females to save the species from going extinct.

Eggs harvested to save rhinoceros from extinction

Reports suggest that the ten eggs were extracted at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. On August 18, the scientists said that they will use the extracted eggs to create viable embryos that would be transferred into surrogates as Fatu and Najin cannot carry a pregnancy. The team from Germanys Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and Safari Park Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic told AP, The ovum pickup went smoothly and without any complications. However, there was a delay in the process due to the novel coronavirus.

Read: Assam: Kaziranga Staff & CWRC Rescue Female Rhino Calf In Joint Operation

According to the reports, the harvested eggs were immediately flown to the Avantea Laboratory. There, they will be artificially inseminated with frozen sperm from now-deceased northern white rhino bulls. The international team is now planning to female southern white rhinos to serve as surrogate mothers.

Read: Experimental Stem Cell Technology Gives Hope For Revival Of Malaysia's Sumatran Rhinoceros

Reports by the conservancy suggest that in August 2019, an international team of scientists harvested 10 eggs from the two female rhinos. 7 out of these 10 were considered viable and 2 were successfully fertilized into embryos. This was done with the help of stored sperm from two northern white rhino bulls. In a tweet on August 18, Ol Pejeta informed that the procedure went according to plan and the eggs are en route Italy to be fertilised with sperm (frozen) from a northern white rhino male. Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Tourism Najib Balala also took to Twitter to laud the efforts and posted pictures of the conservation project with #SaveNorthernWhiteRhino.

A special day on Ol Pejeta. 8 eggs from Fatu and 2 eggs from Najin were harvested. Both of them are doing well and the procedure went according to plan. The eggs are already on their way to the Avantea Clinic in Italy to be fertilised with sperm from a northern white rhino bull. pic.twitter.com/uL6j2O05jp  Ol Pejeta (@OlPejeta) August 18, 2020

8 eggs were harvested from 20 year old Fatu and 2 eggs from 31 year old Najin. The eggs have been transferred to a lab in Italy, where scientists will attempt to fertilize them with frozen sperm, from a Northern White Rhino male.

#SaveNorthernWhiteRhino pic.twitter.com/Nxh34fgkan  Najib Balala (@tunajibu) August 19, 2020

Read: Climate Change Lead To Extinction Of Woolly Rhino, Finds Study

Also Read: Assam: Kaziranga National Park Staff Rescues Baby Rhino, Netizens Say 'amazing Job'

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Sean Feucht's Facebook page. Sean Feucht/Facebook

A evangelical Christian musician is traveling from city to city hosting church services amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The events are being hosted by Sean Feucht, a musician and worship leader from Bethel Church in Redding, California.

Photos and videos of services show few people wearing masks and little social distancing.

Health experts told Insider that the events are dangerous and could turn into super-spreader locations for COVID-19.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's a sight that brought comfort to some and consternation to many: A video taken in Seattle, Washington, earlier this summer shows a woman getting baptized outdoors in the city's Cal Anderson Park. She's flanked on either side by two women, offering her words of comfort and support, and surrounded by hundreds of people cheering her on  none of whom are wearing masks.

Up and down the West Coast, hundreds of evangelical Christians have gathered for outdoor church services, all calling for one goal: "Let Us Worship."

The events are hosted by controversial religious leader Sean Feucht, a musician at Bethel Church in Redding, California, who recently lost a Congressional race and once visited the White House to pray with President Donald Trump.

His services, so far seen in Portland, Seattle, Redding, and other areas in California are being held in apparent defiance of states' orders limiting gatherings, which were put in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A quick search of #LetUsWorship on Facebook or Twitter shows photos and videos of the events, which feature revival baptisms and music with little social distancing or mask wearing.

Health experts told Insider that the events are dangerous, and could turn into COVID-19 super-spreader locations.

"Whenever we see images of large groups of people close together without masks on it raises concern for transmission of COVID-19 and for having spreader events," Ben Linas, an infectious disease doctor at Boston University School of Medicine, told Insider. "These events [are] outside, which is a good thing, but if people are close together and singing and chanting without masks on, there's still probably a risk of transmission in such a large group."

Story continues

He said Feucht's decision to travel from city to city could also create clusters of COVID-19 outbreaks in multiple regions.

Linas is on the reopening committee for his synagogue, and said he empathizes with the desire to gather for spiritual connection. But he said gathering needs to be done safely, with masks and social distancing.

Evangelical pastors have called for in-person church services since the pandemic began

Feucht  who also runs several other political and religious endeavors, including the grassroots worship mission Burn 24-7, Light a Candle, which brings "tangible change to war-torn nations," and Hold The Line, a political activism movement working to engage with churches and young people  did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Insider.

In an interview with "Fox & Friends" in July, he said that his followers should be able to gather for worship because thousands gathered for Black Lives Matter protests this summer. Demonstrators at Black Lives Matter protests, however, have praised their fellow attendees for wearing face masks in a way Feucht and his followers have not.

Feucht isn't alone in his desire to host in-person church services. Since the pandemic began, pastors across the country have called for religious exceptions to shutdowns, while some churches that reopened have seen COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths among their congregations.

The resistance to COVID-19 regulations has been especially prevalent in evangelical circles, where pastors have said gathering for worship services is necessary.

According to Bethel Church's website, the "Let Us Worship" events are being financially supported by Feucht himself and are not sponsored by the church. The megachurch said that while the services feature individuals from Bethel and other pastors, congregation leaders differed with Feucht when it came to social distancing practices and mask wearing.

"Now more than ever, it's important for the entire community to carefully consider decisions and actions made, as we each seek to love and respect our neighbors," Bethel Church said.

People who went to Feucht's services told Insider they thought the debate over wearing masks was "political" and "dehumanizing"

In interviews with Insider, two attendees of Feucht's services in Portland and Seattle said they were inspired to attend the events because they missed in-person worship during the pandemic, and saw themselves as low-risk when it comes to symptoms related to COVID-19.

Lara Germino Dunn, who lives in the Seattle suburbs, told Insider that she didn't wear a mask to the Seattle event, and that no organizers even brought up mask concerns to attendees.

While she wears a mask to the grocery store and other public places, she said she believes that the debate over wearing masks has turned "political" and "dehumanizing" in recent months.

"We're looking at one another through very suspicious eyes, and rather than seeing one another as human beings, we're seeing each other as germ and virus spreaders. I don't think that's healthy," she told Insider. "I don't think that that helps us come together to fight a pandemic. It just polarizes people."

Oleg Marandyuk, who lives in Portland, went to Feucht's services in both Portland and Seattle. He told Insider that he is "younger, an athlete and in great condition," and that the open-air environment made him feel safe.

"I was willing to take that risk in order to openly worship my King with my fellow brothers and sisters," he said. "I think that with so much inconsistency, people, including myself, were definitely more willing to attend this worship because for us the only certainty and consistent factor was us wanting to worship Jesus Christ together."

Health experts say wearing a mask and social distancing can help protect your community

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 can be spread by people who are asymptomatic, or showing no symptoms, and masks can help prevent the virus from being spread to others.

The CDC recommends that everyone wear masks in public, and many states require residents to do so. But masks have been the center of a heated debate, with some people claiming that masks show "fear" of the virus and are a sign of control by the government.

Linas said there seems to be a "false choice" between spiritual fulfillment and infection risk, and encouraged all attendees at Feucht's events to wear masks.

"I think there's a lot in most of our religious texts that suggest that the holy way to see the world is to be seeking out others and our place in the community," he said. "I think it's important to remember that the masks aren't about ourselves, they're about the larger good. And I think that's something that could very easily dovetail beautifully as a religious message."

One health expert told Insider that people can't 'pick and choose' what science they believe in

Susan Michaels-Strasser, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, told Insider that she has empathy for those who want to gather, especially because her husband is a pastor who runs St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Manhattan. His church switched to virtual services when the pandemic began, and has since started hosting outdoor services, in which they ensure chairs are spaced out on the sidewalk and street.

"Not coming together is not easy but potentially infecting someone else is potentially dangerous. To me it is a no brainer. If we truly love our fellow man and women, it is our duty to protect them," she told Insider. "To do otherwise seems unloving to me. Why would I go against science when we are lucky enough, privileged enough, to have internet and phones to remain connected with people. A God of love does not require us to come together amidst a pandemic."

Michaels-Strasser told Insider that people shouldn't "pick and choose" what science they support, and called the idea that masks limit people's freedom "ridiculous."

"Wearing a mask is about freedom to get through this frustrating pandemic and get on with our lives. In fact, this whole anti-mask mentality has made the problem worse and inhibited our freedom," she said. "It has extended the pandemic. Kids can't go back to school in states where the positivity rate is so high but in other states where the virus is now under control, communities are in a very different position and able to open schools."

Feucht has at least 16 more worship services scheduled across the US in the next four weeks

Despite public health concerns, Feucht hasn't shown any sign of stopping his "Let Us Worship" services.

He has 16 events scheduled across the US before September 17, in cities including New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. Several listed on his Facebook page show hundreds of people saying they'd attend.

It is unknown if he will follow travel guidelines while crossing multiple state lines, or how he'll approach the coronavirus in his upcoming events.

Linas and Michaels-Strasser said attendees should wear masks and social distance  and said Feucht should encourage them to do so.

"Does not wearing a mask make someone more faithful? Does social distancing make me less a believer?" Michaels-Strasser told Insider. "These are silly and false dichotomies. God expects us to do the right thing. Hold your worship service but wear masks and socially distance. Perhaps set out chairs as markers for appropriate seating. Keep it short. Discourage singing along loudly. Hand out sanitizer liberally ... It is rather simple actually. "

Read the original article on Insider
ISA to showcase latest solar technologies at virtual global summit on 8 Sept

The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is organising the First World Solar Technology Summit on a virtual platform on 8 September 2020. The event will bring the spotlight on state-of-the-art technologies as well as next-generation technologies, which will provide impetus to the efforts towards harnessing solar energy more efficiently.

Shared details of the summit, RK Singh, president of the ISA Assembly and union minister of state for power and new and renewable energy and skill development and entrepreneurship, said the summit will focus on innovative, cost effective, affordable solar technologies.

A galaxy of speakers from Nobel laureate Stanley Whittingham to heads of global corporations will set the tone of the deliberations. Union power minister has invited all stakeholders to participate in the event.

ISA would also be launching the ISA Journal on Solar Energy (I JOSE) that would help authors from across the globe to publish their articles on solar energy, during the event. The articles in this journal would be reviewed by global experts and will reach the member countries through ISAs vast network of National Focal points (NFPs) and Solar Technology and Application Resource (STAR) centres.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the inaugural address of the First World Solar Technology Summit to be graced by ministers from member countries from across all ISA regions. High level dignitaries from the world of Scientific Research and Development and a CEOs conclave will set the tone of the deliberations on low cost, innovative and affordable solar technologies. Senior government functionaries, heads of global corporations, financial and multilateral institutions, civil society, foundations and think-tanks will be present during the inaugural session.

Nobel Laureate M Stanley Whittingham will be presenting the Keynote Address during the Inaugural ceremony. Stanley Whittingham was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (jointly with John B Goodenough and Akira Yoshino) in 2019 for the revolutionizing discovery of the lithium ion batteries.

A power packed session is to follow with CEOs of top global corporations who have made pathbreaking progress in implementing and scaling up solar technologies. CEOs expected to take part in the Global CEOs session include Bertrand Piccard FRSGS, founder and chairman, Solar Impulse Foundation, Switzerland; Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman and CEO, Schneider Electric; Eric Rondolat, chief executive officer, Signify. The leaders will share their vision on how scientific breakthroughs and innovations can be commercially made available to all parts of the world for the wider consumption.

The event will hold four technical sessions that would be available to the participants in different languages namely English, Spanish, French and Arabic. Leading companies and research organisations from across the world will present their work during these sessions and will deliberate on latest trends in solar technologies.

Session -1: Vision 2030 & Beyond: The overall context of PV technology development and its future, on its way towards becoming the first source of energy worldwide, with PV technologies supplying 70 per cent of the worlds electricity generation.

Session -2: Towards a Decarbonised Grid: The most recent advances (conversion efficiency improvements and declining costs) regarding key components such as PV modules and storage technologies.

Session -3: Disruptive Solar Technologies: On-grid applications, whether ground-mounted, floating, or integrated in residential and commercial rooftops.

Session -4: Solar Beyond the Power Sector: Innovative applications where PV is used to move, heat, cool, and drive eco-friendly industrial processes and produce fuels as well as off-grid applications, to provide universal access to energy.
Former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar has been appointed the new Election Commissioner of India. Kumar will take charge from outgoing Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa on August 31, the Law Ministry said in a notification on Friday.

"In pursuance of clause (2) of Article 324 of the Constitution, the President is pleased to appoint Shri Rajiv Kumar, IAS (Retd.) as the Election Commissioner with effect from the date he assumes the office vice Shri Ashok Lavasa, Election Commissioner who has resigned with effect from 31st August, 2020," the notification read.

Lavasa has stepped down from the office of Election Commissioner with effect from August 31 to join Asian Development Bank as its vice president.

ALSO READ: Compulsory masks, hand gloves, online nominations: EC issues guidelines for 2020 Bihar polls

Kumar, a retired 1984 batch IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, has a 30-year-long career behind him with experience in public policy and administration across sectors. He holds Bachelor degress in science and law, along with a Masters degree in public policy and sustainability.

The 60-year-old administrator joined as secretary, Department of Financial Services in September 2017 when the banking sector was neck-deep in bad loans. He was appointed as the finance secretary in July 2019.

The former finance secretary is known for spearheading the consolidation in public banking sector that resulted in the total number of state-run banks being reduced from 10 to 4. He also played a crucial role in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious financial inclusion plans through schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and Mudra loan scheme.

ALSO READ: Centre invites bids from merchant bankers for further stake sale in IRCTC

During his term, the 59-minute loan scheme for the MSME sector was rolled out. He also undertook Rs 3 lakh crore recapitalisation of banks during his tenure. Kumar also acted as a bridge between the Reserve Bank of India and the Centre at the time of transfer of Rs 1.76 lakh crore surplus transfer from the former to the latter.

Before joining the Finance Ministry, Kumar was the establishment officer in the Personnel Ministry. After retiring, he was appointed as the Chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) that looks after high-level recruitments in public sector enterprises.

ALSO READ: Cabinet approves new National Recruitment Agency; to allow common test for all govt jobs
Mumbai, Aug 21 : Pooja Bhatt has complained of being a victim of cyber bullying by women on Instagram. She has also made her account private after receiving death threats.

"People threatening violence/hurling abuse, suggesting you die seems to have become a norm on @instagram when reported, #Instagram mostly responds saying that the conduct does not go against their guidelines & suggests you block them. #Twitter has far better standards/guidelines," wrote Pooja "What's even worse is that most of the abuse and messages screaming 'Go die' or 'why don't you kill yourself' come from women or at least people pretending to be women -- one can't really tell with @instagram anymore. Get your act together @instagram cyber bullying is a crime," the actress wrote in two separate tweets from her verified account on Friday.

Ever since Sushant Singh Rajput passed away, the Bhatt family has been facing the ire of netizens especially because of the late actor's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty's close association with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. His daughters Pooja and Alia Bhatt are also being trolled on social media.

Pooja Bhatt's comeback film "Sadak 2" has also been facing flak from netizens who have accused the Bhatt family of championing nepotism, after Sushant's untimely demise in June. "Sadak 2" casts both daughters of Mahesh Bhatt -- Alia and Pooja Bhatt, along with Sanjay Dutt and Aditya Roy Kapoor. The film's trailer emerged as one of the top three most disliked videos in the world.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Kerala government on Friday filed an application in the high court, seeking a stay on the Union governments move to lease out Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Enterprises.

In the plea, the government said the airport was handed over to a private entity while ignoring the states opposition and that a petition was already pending in the court questioning the 50-year lease.

The state government filed the application a day after an all-party-meeting in Kerala demanded withdrawal of the Union governments decision.

Last year, the high court dismissed a petition challenging the decision, terming it as not maintainable under Article 226 of the Constitution. The state government then filed an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the high court order. The apex court set aside the judgement of the high court and the matter was remanded back to it for a decision on merit.

Referring to the top court directive, the state government said: All further proceedings in relation to grant of lease with regard to operation, management and development of Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Enterprises Ltd, is to be stayed pending disposal of the aforementioned writ petition.

The Adani Enterprises won the rights to run six airports  Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati  through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February, 2019. The Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) had taken part in the bidding.

Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri tweeted: If Kerala Govt is against privatisation, then why did it participate in the bidding process? State Govt was given a fair chance & Right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10% below the range of highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 % below.

Then they approached Honble Kerala High Court which dismissed the petition in Dec 2019. Petitioners then filed a SLP in Honble SC. Apex Court remitted the matter back to Honble Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by Honble SC or Honble Kerala High Court.

The Union Cabinet has given its go-ahead for awarding the airport to the private party subject to the outcome of Writ Petition & in accordance with provisions of undertaking given by the Concessionaire, he added.

Meanwhile, Keralas ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) decided to send 200,000 mails to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him not to lease out the airport to Adani Enterprises. During pandemic times, the Centre is privatising all sectors, including civil aviation and railways. A selected group of businessmen are thriving under the present regime. We will not allow the transfer of the airport, said party leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
The first school principal I ever knew was Mr. Frank Szynalski, who also served as my fifth grade teacher. Kind and gentle, as well as intelligent and well-read, Mr. Szynalski was a favorite of the students and always led by example. After a brave battle with cancer fought in recent years, Mr. Szynalski  who at a school alumni banquet in April 2018 told me to please call him Frank  died at age 81 at his home in North Judson. He requested there be no funeral, and, still leading others by his example, he donated his body to Indiana University Medical School to assist their cancer research.
South Korea's two major electronics firms, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., have continued to report virus-infected workers at their business facilities in the greater Seoul area, but have not suffered production disruptions.



Samsung said Friday a LED technology researcher at its Giheung Campus in Yongin, south of Seoul, tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The company said it has shuttered a building where the researcher worked and ordered others to work from home.



"The virus-infected worker had not entered our productions lines, so production is unaffected," a Samsung official said.



Samsung last week reported virus-infected workers at its chip plant in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, and its research and development (R&D) center in Seoul.



LG also on Friday said an employee at its Seocho R&D Campus in southern Seoul tested positive for COVID-19. On Thursday, the company reported a virus-infected worker at its Gasan R&D campus in southwestern Seoul.













LG said buildings where the virus infected employees have worked will be shuttered through this weekend for disinfection work.



Last week, LG Display Co., a display making unit of LG Group, reported a virus-infected worker at its plant in Paju, north of Seoul, though the case did not affect its production.



As the country is facing another wave of infections following a spike in virus cases in the densely populated capital area, Samsung and LG have recently tightened their anti-virus measures.



Samsung recently told employees to forego meetings that involve more than 20 people and ordered to keep safe distance during meetings. It also advised to limit unnecessary business trips.



The company said it is also considering expanding in-house COVID-19 testing clinics to its business sites. Samsung currently runs a virus testing clinic inside its plant in Hwaseong, south of Seoul.



LG has limited outside visitors entering its plants and buildings. It also ordered employees to restrict business trips, in-person meetings and group education programs. (Yonhap)
For Troye Sivan, life has come full circle. Having rocketed to fame as one of the early stars of YouTube in his teens, Sivan, now 25, finds himself uploading content from his bedroom once again.

Now, however, Sivan is a global superstar with a swag of music awards, including ARIA Song of the Year, film credits and a friendship circle that features Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.

Time called Sivan the "perfect pop star" and he has notched up more than eight billion streams and 1.3 million sales of his first two albums.

Troye Sivan will release his new EP on Friday.

Sivan, who grew up in Perth, is living with his family in Melbourne after returning from Los Angeles due to the coronavirus pandemic. It feels like a switch flicked one day and I was 17 again in Perth. I dont come out of my bedroom and spend every day on my laptop," he says.
File photo

According to SaharaReporters, there was a mild drama and confusion at a high court in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, on Thursday as a convicted inmate was rejected by officials of Nigeria Correctional Center due to COVID-19 related issues.

A midle-age lady, Mercy Elder, was convicted for impersonating the Department of State Services and obtaining money from the public through false pretence.

She was accordingly sentenced to seven years imprisonment without the option of a fine.

However, officials of the correction center in Yola rejected her.

An officer attached to the Yola Correctional Center, who doesnt want to be named, told our correspondent that they wouldnt admit any more inmates not certified to be Coronavirus free.

He said, The state COVID-19 Containment Committee should be held response for this mess.

However, spokesperson for Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, Humwashi Wonosikou, rejected the claim, saying, Both the DSS and Nigeria Correction Center are federal agencies, how possible is it for either of them to have blamed the state government for their own failure?

The convict was arrested eight months ago after she was reported to have defrauded some unsuspecting persons on the grounds that she was a director with the DSS detailed to investigate them.

She obtained monies through false pretence, claiming to help her victims evade justice.

Delivering judgment on Thursday, Justice Nathan Musa sentenced her to seven years imprisonment without the option of a fine.

The woman has not been admitted to any correctional center as the DSS has also refused to take her into custody.


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President Donald Trump invited 200 people to White House for the funeral of his brother, Robert Trump, who died last Friday at the age of 71 years old. Still, the family remained private of his cause of death.

Pres, Donald Trump invited around 200 people mostly comprised of his friends and family members to join him on Friday for the funeral service of his deceased younger brother, Robert Trump, who died at the age of 71 last Friday.

According to sources familiar with the arrangements, Robert Trump's body will be driven from New York to the White House for the ceremony. However, only 200 people are invited as the family wants the funeral service to remain private.

Moreover, it is not clear as to how many of the 200 invited people will come to Robert Trump's funeral service at the White House. According to a published report in ABC News, the service will be held in the East Room of the White House.

Additionally, the reliable sources who have the knowledge of the funeral service said that Pres. Trump will personally cover all the expenses for his brother's funeral service. Meanwhile, the White House declined to give a comment about this matter.

Pres. Trump described Robert Trump as his best friend. He has been very supportive to his brother most especially during Donald Trump's first bid for the presidency. It is not a surprise anymore why Pres. Trump mourned the death of his younger brother.

Robert Trump just like his brother is also a businessman. He amassed most of his wealth in real estate businesses in New York. He also ran the majority of their father's remaining company and at the same time managing his own line of business.

Moreover, it is not the very first time in the U.S. history that a civilian was brought inside the White House for the funeral service. Louis Howe, an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was brought inside the White House for a funeral service in 1936.

The last time that a body was brought inside the White House was in 1963. Former Pres. John F. Kennedy's body was brought inside the White House for the service after he was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963.

Meanwhile, Pres. Trump said when he announced the death of his brother "It is with a heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight. He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace."

Until today, the family remained silent and private as to the cause of the death of Robert Trump. However, it was found out that Robert Trump had been sick for months and had been admitted to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.

Check these out!
By Jonathan Landay and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number two U.S. diplomat will visit Russia and Lithuania soon for talks on Belarus, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, as Washington seeks a peaceful resolution to that country's election crisis that averts Russian intervention.

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun's planned mission signals a greater U.S. role in trying to settle the strife that erupted when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters rejecting his claim of a landslide Aug. 9 election win.

Asked about Biegun's planned trip, a State Department spokesman said "there is no travel to announce at this time."

One source, a former senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Biegun was expected to leave in the coming days for Moscow and the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where Belarusian opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya took refuge after Lukashenko launched his crackdown.

The United States and European Union have condemned the election as marred by irregularities. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged Lukashenko to accept international help in opening talks with the opposition and implicitly warned Russia, Belarus' massive neighbor, not to intervene.

Lukashenko has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for help salvaging his 26-year rule. Belarus is bound to Russia by a mutual defense treaty and deep economic, political and cultural ties.

Putin has offered assistance, if required. Moscow on Wednesday said it saw no need to help for now, but has warned against outside involvement in Belarus and said the crisis should be settled internally.

The second source said he did not know Biegun's planned message but thought he would aim to prevent further violence in Belarus or Russian intervention.

"I would guess the administration is trying to dissuade Moscow from either intervening on its own or using its influence with Lukashenko to encourage him to have a (more) violent crackdown," said this source, also on condition of anonymity.

Story continues

EU member Lithuania, which has sought backing from Washington, has been an outspoken critic of Lukashenko's crackdown on the demonstrations by tens of thousands of Belarusians in which his security forces have beaten, teargassed and arrested thousands of people, many of whom say they were tortured.

Experts say Washington seeks a larger role in a search for a negotiated resolution to the crisis. The turmoil disrupted a U.S. effort to exploit tensions between Putin and Lukashenko, with Pompeo visiting Minsk in February for talks on normalizing diplomatic relations.

Protesters are not demanding closer ties with the West, experts noted, but a redo of the vote and respect for human rights, which Washington has a strong interest in promoting.

Moreover, the crisis gives Washington an issue on which to unite with European allies amid serious tensions over the Iran nuclear deal and U.S. President Donald Trump's expressions of disdain for the trans-Atlantic alliance, they said.

"From the U.S. perspective, there's a whole host of issues both in terms of human rights and democracy, but there's also a security component," said Jonathan Katz, a former U.S. official and expert on Eastern Europe with the German Marshall Fund, a thinktank. "Belarus borders the Baltic allies and Poland."

At the same time, he said, Washington wants to avoid giving Putin an excuse to intervene militarily in Belarus as he did in 2014 in Ukraine, when Russian forces seized Crimea and backed separatists in the country's east after the ouster of a pro-Moscow government.

"There are concerns about the potential for Moscow to act militarily," said Katz. "You can't dismiss it even if you think the likelihood is not there."

(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mary Milliken and Daniel Wallis)
Reginald Adams, CEO/One Caribbean Airline, is confident that his airline will be able to expand its fleet before year end.

One Caribbean Ltd. Barbados, (OCL Barbados), trading as One Caribbean, is primarily Vincentian owned though circumstances evolved to require a Barbados-based, CARICOM Single Market Economy styled registration .





The airline commenced operations in 2016 and fueled by the prospects identified through its current CEO Reginald Adams and Everett Best, Operations Director, both Vincentians, and at least one other investor, and carved out a niche in the regional market as they began offering private chartered flights to travelers, as far north as Jamaica and the Cayman Islands back down to Guyana in the Southern Caribbean.





At that time, they employed 2 Beech-craft airplanes - a B200 and an Airliner 1900D. A few years after their inaugural charter, One Caribbean attempted to offer the first, indigenously sourced, Caribbean to the African and Asian continent flight using a Boeing 747-400. That is yet to unfold.





The cessation of the operations of LIAT (1974) Ltd., however, provided greater opportunities for OCL Barbados, but if it was going to exploit these, if it was going to effectively fill the void created by LIATs discontinuation of a scheduled service, the 4-year-old air travel company had to embark on an accelerated expansion programme.





Stepping up





The airline stepped up with a scheduled passenger service that offered connections between St. Vincent, Barbados and St. Lucia, and plans to later include Grenada and Dominica.

The company was forced to shelve plans to transport passengers into and from Grenada when civil aviation authorities there ordered the airline to desist from operating into Grenada, since it had not obtained the appropriate licence to do so.

While the airline objected to what amounted to, in their view, an abuse of the "compassionate exemptions extended to the airline, Adams reported that his airline has since heeded the Grenadian Civil Aviation Ministrys explicit reminder to finalize the "appropriate license to operate continuous flights.

And given that the airline had since 2017 been operating charter flights in and out of Grenada, that may have expedited it being granted a short term permit, while the official licensing process is allowed to take its course.

"They (Grenadas Aviation Authorities) have assured us that they will keep us on the short permit until the regularized permit is done and were okay to start the service again. So Grenada is back, Adams reported.





Other issues





Another issue that was surmounted was the ECCAAs capacity to deliver on services as required by One Caribbean. This led the company to solicit alternative certification for its Argyle, St. Vincent based maintenance facilities since, "the ECCAA couldnt get the maintenance facility certified in the timeframe that we needed it. Barbados was able to, Adams explained.





This capacity issue also prompted One Caribbean to rethink its proposed Boeing 747-400 service as ECCAA reportedly refused to certify the long distance carrier based on its lack of adequate resources. Adams however noted that they appreciate the value of the ECCAA certification and as such are working towards completing the process for its Argyle facilities.





Of concern too, is One Caribbeans rather popular Tortola to SVG service. That British Overseas Territory enacted COVID-19 management protocols that prohibit airline passengers from entering the island, yet it has been increasingly pressuring non-citizens to leave. This singular challenge means that an aircraft would fly from SVG to Tortola without passengers and so incur inevitable losses, Adams again explained.





The airline principals remain undaunted and are considering a cargo service into Tortola and a passenger service out.





In the meantime, the team is actively working to grow the company into a joint venture as they privately offer shares to like-minded investors from across the Caribbean.





And if all goes as planned, three more aircrafts would be added to the fleet that currently fly under the One Caribbean brand, by years end.
A ustralian business owners are calling for the right to fire workers who refuse to take a Covid-19 vaccine.

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia made the demand after warning that infectious employees could lead to their enterprises closing down, 7NEWS reported.

It comes after Australia's government announced it had signed a deal to buy the vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

Under the deal Australia would manufacture and supply the vaccine themselves, providing it free for all Australians.

However, authorities say 95 per cent of Australians would need to take the vaccine in order to achieve herd immunity.

Australia have signed a deal to manufacture a vaccine being developed by Oxford University / Getty Images

Council CEO Peter Strong told 7NEWS: If one of my staff members says, no, Im against it, then Im going to have to say, Im sorry you are a threat to my business.

If you dont sack them, you dont have a business, especially if youre in a high contact area where youve got a lot of customers.

Its not discrimination, thats a business decision.
A 14-member task force constituted by Thane district collector Rajesh Narvekar compiled and launched a book on Thursday on the guidelines to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. The guidelines include the treatment protocol, investigations, clinical management, home isolation protocol and biomedical waste disposal and other steps to control the pandemic within Thane.

Dr Santosh Kadam, president, Indian Medical Association, Thane chapter, said, The first meeting of the task force was held on August 4, when a decision to formulate guidelines to control and management of the Covid-19 pandemic within Thane district was taken.

According to state figures, Thane district has 1.18 lakh positive cases, of which 20,133 are active cases.

Seeing the rising number of cases, we passed an order to form a task force to effectively tackle the spread of coronavirus across the district. The task force was entrusted with sharing information on government policies, to conducting webinars and meetings, monitoring patient treatment and discharge protocol at government and private hospitals, said Narvekar.

The dean of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital, Dr Pratibha Sawant, was heading the task force along with medical officers of health from the various municipal corporations across the district.

We started with developing patient management protocols, treatment guidelines for mild, moderate and severe patients, deciding upon staff requirements and assisting local administrations as and when required. Moreover, we would ensure hospitals have proper documentation of all patients, said Dr Sawant.
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Linkedin Sara Hussein (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo, Japan  Fri, August 21, 2020 09:08 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f6cf9d 2 Health health,stem-cells,diabetes,diabetics,research Free

A new technique that grows insulin-producing cells and can protect them from immune attack after they are transplanted may offer new hope for treating some people with diabetes.

In type-1 diabetes, the body turns on itself and attacks the so-called beta cells inside clusters in the pancreas called "islets".

These beta cells are responsible for gauging sugar levels in the blood and releasing insulin to keep them stable. Without them, diabetics must rely on insulin injections or pumps.

One treatment devised to end that reliance involves transplanting donor islets into diabetics, but the process is complicated by several obstacles, including a shortage of donors.

Islets also often fail to connect with blood supply, and even when they do, like other transplants, they can come under attack by the recipient's immune system, which views the cells as invaders.

As a result, patients have to take drugs that suppress their immune systems, protecting their transplant but potentially exposing the rest of their body to illness.

In a bid to overcome some of these challenges, a team looked to find another source for islets, by coaxing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to produce what the team called HILOs, or human islet-like organoids.

These HILOs, when grown in a 3D environment mimicking the pancreas and then turbocharged with a "genetic switch", successfully produced insulin and were able to regulate blood glucose when transplanted into diabetic mice.

"In the past, this functionality was only achieved after a month-long maturation in a living animal," said Ronald Evans, director of the Gene Expression Lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

"This breakthrough allows for the production of functional HILOs which are active on the first day of transplantation, placing us closer to clinical applications," Evans, who led the study, told AFP.

Read also: China promotes needle-free insulin injection among diabetes patients

Giving hope

Having found a potential way to solve the supply chain problem, the scientists then sought to tackle the issue of immune rejection.

They focused on something called PD-L1, a so-called checkpoint protein that is known to inhibit the body's immune response.

In cancer treatments, medication is sometimes used to block PD-L1, boosting the body's immune response to cancer cells.

The team effectively reversed that process, and induced the HILOs to express the protein in a bid to outwit the immune system.

"Normally, human cells placed in a mouse would be eliminated within a day or two," said Evans.

"We discovered a way to create an immune shield that makes human cells invisible to the immune system."

While HILOs transplanted into mice without the PD-L1 protection gradually stopped functioning, those induced to express the protein were shielded and continued to help diabetic mice regulate their blood glucose for more than 50 days.

Being able to grow insulin-producing cells and protect them from attack "brings us much closer to having a potential therapy for type-1 diabetic patients," Evans said.

Around 422 million people worldwide were living with diabetes by 2014, according to the World Health Organization, a figure that includes both type-1 and type-2 diabetes.

Islet transplantation is generally considered as a treatment for type-1 diabetics, whose disease is the result of an auto-immune response.

Evans cautioned that the research, already a decade in the making, was still years from being able to treat diabetes in humans.

"To advance HILOs into the clinic, we need to confirm that they work in other animal models, including primates, as well as do longer-term studies in mice," he said.

He hopes that human studies of the technique will be possible in two to five years.

"This is a hard-to-manage disease and insulin is not a cure," he added, noting that 1.6 million children and teenagers are living with type-1 diabetes in the United States alone.

"Good science is not just a discovery -- it can enrich the world and give hope to those who live with disease."
Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2020 > Racism: An Entrenched System | Suranjita Ray

by Suranjita Ray

The death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020 spurred the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement back into action. The video clip of a white police man crushing the neck of a black man under his knees and choking him till he breathed his last, shocked the world. Social media was flooded with voices against police brutality, violence and barbarism inflicted on black communities by the state and its vigilantes. In solidarity with the movement, which contests the systemic prejudice, discrimination, and racism that targets the black community, millions took to the streets demanding justice for George Floyd and those killed by police.

Structurally rooted and intergenerationally transmitted atrocities against particular communities have brought black people across social and economic sections together to express their collective experiences of harassment and assault. They demand a future that values human rights, dignity and equality for the black community. Several such struggles by ordinary black people against police brutality and killings of unarmed African Americans such as those in Ferguson in 2013 and the march from Freedom Plaza down to Pennsylvania Avenue to Washington D.C. with the slogan I Cant Breathe in 2014 are reminiscent of the fact that anti-black racism not only survives but also its perpetrators have not been held guilty.

While it is hard to delineate the narratives of racial oppression as a category of everyday life and a form of stigmatised existence, such incidents elucidate that racism is not an archaic phenomenon. Racism persists despite a series of civil rights laws and policy reforms that aim at eliminating centuries old and deeply entrenched systems of racial inequality and injustice. We find resurgence of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and racial bias which grievously questions the commitment to democratic values.

Everyday Racism

Race plays an important role in demarcating boundaries between communities creating binaries that divide the social and cultural space in society. It is not race but racism that endorses the idea of a racial hierarchy and opposes racial parity. Racists have their prejudices against the black community and rationalise discrimination, humiliation, subjugation and control. While segregationists argue to exclude black people as inherently inferior, assimilationists express their willingness to include black people in white society on the condition that they change their culture and behaviour (see also Sanneh, 2019).

The forms of racism are multiple, historically specific, situationally variable, complex and often contradictory. While verbal racism is experiencing verbal remarks that are obnoxious and offensive, behavioural racism is based on racist sentiments, discrimination, assault and denial of identity and dignity. Everyday racism is a collective prejudice which sustains hierarchy defined by skin colour and bodily features (see also Bhargava, 2020: 6). Colour consciousness is built into the cultural and social reality which stigmatises black people as inferior and sustains exclusionary practices and layered oppression.

Racism is complex, multi-layered and is not a constant and monolithic attitude. While the historical context is specific to the forms of racism, it is important to understand that even when obvious forms of racial oppression become less visible, subtle forms of everyday experiences of discriminations, marginalisation, subjugation, control, oppression and exclusion of the minorities, which are insidious, continue. It is cumulative and embedded in the geographical, physiological, cultural, social, economic and political structures, institutions, and processes which directly or indirectly legitimise the dominance of particular belief systems, values, attitudes, ideologies and practices. It is embodied through attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, laws, norms, practices that reinforce the power asymmetries. At times it is hard to talk about racism as the racial prejudices and beliefs are at an unconscious level, but it has a detrimental effect as black people experience stare, abuse, violence, distress and exoticism, which leaves them with trauma. These experiences are a lived reality for people of colour across the world. It is not easy to narrate  what it means to be black in society. The transgenerational ordeal has enormous impact but they largely remain silent or invisible issues. It is only when visible forms of blatant and violent street racism and heinous crimes occur, that people come together against racism.

Often solidarity movements that fight against anti-black racism have been transformative. We see intra-white conflict as many white participants who are sensitive towards racism (see also Sanneh, 2019) join these movements. We also see that most black people do not always contest their subordination. Therefore, the hidden dynamics in personal, interpersonal and social relations alongside the unconscious negative feelings and beliefs about black people needs to be understood. It is important to underline the new forms of vulnerabilities and control which black communities and minorities have been subjected to. Repackaging itself as colour blind, a multi-polar racial pattern has largely supplanted the old racial system with a new racial stratification that varies substantially by gender, class, religion and region, which although comprehensive allows racial inequalities to endure (Winant, 2006). Contemporary forms of racism have shifted their focus away from biological notions of racism to cultural notions. However, it is important to take into cognisance the biology-culture continuum and intersections between race, culture, religious beliefs rather than a fixed biological/cultural divide to understand increasing intolerance, hatred and segregation of certain minority religious groups and communities. While solidarity movements worldwide condemn white supremacy, the unchanging forms of social stratification/categorisation, and unaltered hierarchical social relations legitimise inequalities and discrimination.

Though race as a category disadvantages black communities, making them vulnerable to multiple processes of deprivation, oppression, exploitation, exclusion and marginalisation, conscious validation of egalitarian principles by the state makes racial discrimination, humiliation and other slights less visible. Institutionalised racist domination and white supremacy is not always oblivious. However, at the micro level racist discriminations are embedded in institutional practices. An intersectional analysis of state and society is important as both draw on each other to develop strategies of dominance and control. They are mutually reinforcing systems and multiplication of group identities has seen the conflicts over immigration, ethnic minorities, indigenous people, refugees and citizenship that have taken new intensity in plural and multicultural societies. Race, ethnicity and culture have formed the basis of nation building of many contemporary nation states. The neo-conservative and neo-rightist ideologies understand racism as an ideology that is continually changing, challenged, and interrupted. Though racism is open to interpretations, it is important to constructively engage with everyday experiences of racism to eliminate it. The practice of democracy will remain incomplete without the annihilation of practices of racism which are gaining ground.

In recent years we have seen increasing hostility towards minorities leading to the mounting waves of public lynching, intolerance, hate speech, prejudice, and everyday violence. This has contributed to alienating major sections of society as the Other. Over the years, frequent violent attacks on African and African American students and minorities across the world illustrate that no sufficient and visible deterring measures have been implemented by the State. Despite strong condemnation from the highest political levels across ideologies, the state has failed to acknowledge the persistence of deep rooted prejudice and racial discrimination that stigmatises particular groups and communities. Experiences of denial of freedom, liberty, self-respect and dignity have made the constitutional rights of citizens guaranteed by the state merely symbolic.

Summing Up

With a history of its own, the BLM movement expanded the repertoire of rights claims and moved beyond the extra judicial killings of black people by the police to value the lives of black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black undocumented folks and folks with records (Graza, 2016). By calling oneself Black, one not only affirms the content of those categories, but also asserts the confrontational identity and struggle that challenges the history of discrimination, subjugation, humiliation and stigmatisation. However, To Be Free was/is deeper than symbolic for black minorities, as major issues still remain unresolved. Patterns of experiential structures and processes of inequalities, discrimination, oppression, exploitation, stigmatisation and dehumanisation that are systemic and cumulative persist. Therefore, it is critical to address the root causes of racism rather than the symptoms of it.

The waves caused by the death of Floyd were felt across continents resulting in an interrogation of inherent racism which once again brought to the fore the need to contest the legacy of the culture of violence against the black community. There is a need to dismantle the structures of inequality, hierarchy and oppression without which vast majority of black people will continue to remain victims of the processes of deprivation, exploitation, suppression, marginalisation and disempowerment. It is important to lead the protests and the recent assertions against anti-black racism. There is a need to change racist attitudes alongside changing racist policies to defeat racism.

Author:

Suranjita Ray teaches Political Science at Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi. She can be contacted at: suranjitaray_66 [at] yahoo.co.in

References

Bhargava, Rajeev (2020) The anatomy of anti-black racism in The Hindu, 10 June, page 6.

Graza, Alicia (2016) A Herstory of the #BLM Movement in Janell Hobson (Ed) Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms, State University of New York Press.

Sanneh, Kalefa (2019), The Fight to Redefine Racism in American Cronicles, 19 August Issue, www.newyorker.com, visited on 2 August, 2020.

Winant, Howard (2006) Race in 21st Century in Mark Kesselman and Joel Krieger (Ed) Readings in Comparative Politics Political Challenges and Changing Agendas, Boston, Houghton Mifflin.
She recently posted she was 'so happy to be back at work' but on Wednesday, Spring Breakers star Vanessa Hudgens was back in a bikini as she spent the day beating the heat.

With temperatures in Los Angeles soaring this past week, it is no surprise that Vanessa was ready to cool off. In the snap she looked incredible sporting a full yellow number as she took a dip in the water.

The 31-year-old wore a retro-looking marigold bikini with a bustier top and a high-waisted bottoms to match, captioning the sizzling pool snap 'Heatwaveeee.'

Her good friend and Modern Family actress, Sarah Hyland was quick to like the post.

'Heatwaveee': Vanessa Hudgens, 31, took a dip in the pool to beat the Los Angeles heat wave on Wednesday. Vanessa wore a marigold bikini captioning the sizzling pool snap 'Heatwaveeee

Passion for fashion: Vanessa delicately placed a passion fruit flower behind her ear for an Instagram photo as she posed with a green-eyed filter.

Hudgens adorned the top with two plumeria flowers - which are native to parts of the Caribbean - and threw on a pair of yellow tinted aviators to complete the look. Her noticeably shorter tresses allowed for a no-fuss day in the sun as the beauty continued to add layers to her perfectly golden tan.

At one point on she also delicately placed a passion fruit flower behind her ear for an Instagram photo as she posed with a green-eyed filter.

Vanessa is never one to skimp when it comes to jewelry.

Wearing a stack of delicate bangles she also decorated her neck with layers of chokers and body chains, completing her pool glam look with a pair of statement Jacquie Aiche earrings.

Howdy: Vanessa and her friend GG posted an eye-popping photo of the two of them in bikinis and cowboy hats on another pool day

Dancing in the rain: On her recent trip to Turks and Caicos Vanessa spent the day singing and dancing into the camera

Iconic: Vanessa's friend and musician, GG Magree posted a story of Vanessa as the two girls enjoyed spicy margaritas outside

The brunette beauty previously spent her day getting pampered at a salon in Beverly Hills before grabbing a margarita with a friend later that afternoon with her friend and musician GG Magree who has also appeared in a number of Vanessa's social media posts.

Hudgens, who early on received criticism for her video about COVID-19, has spent a lot of her quarantine in a bikini - even traveling to Turks & Caicos with friends for a change of scenery.

While many of Vanessa's projects were on hold due to the pandemic, the actress and former High School Musical Breakout star has been finding a balance of safe shoots and pool play in recent weeks.
I also dont love how Licorice holds up a mirror to my shortcomings. Forgetting, for a minute, what my love of dogs (who slavishly adore you) over cats (who decidedly do not) says about my level of emotional neediness.

Ninety-five per cent of the time, when I approach him  sometimes crawling across the wood floor to him, slowly, and with half-closed eyes, so as not to be intimidating  his response is to shrug, and saunter off in whatever direction I am not in. Its such a steady stream of rejection, its like being back in Year 7.

What a privilege it is, to have an animal  an entirely different species to you, in a home with no other species like itself  trust you.

Because while I now cup Licorices sweet black face  with ears that magically pivot like a submarines periscope  with reverence, as though hes gods gift to living creatures, he, well, lets just say that he does not respond in kind.

There is also the matter of my main fear that proceeded getting a cat, besides the extra work one would entail. We had just renovated our house, and  Ill say it  I didnt want it scratched to hell.

Do I like that Im the kind of person that cares that much about their stuff? I snapped to my daughter, one day, after Licorice scratched the back of our newly refurbished 1960s sofa. No, I do not. But this is who I am, this is. Its cooked, I said, gesturing wildly to my torso, but referring to my inner desires that, after three kids  and the sacrifice parenting entails  have become more and more feverish about getting what's mine.

Hes really growing to love you, my 13-year-old son said to me the other day, while we patted Licorice. Jasper looked up at me with kind, but imploring eyes. Both he and his sister have expressed the fear that I might give Licorice away, one day, because of my frustrations with him.

But I would no sooner do that, than I would move to Afghanistan, and tell them so.

Because I love my family. And, though its not how I wanted a pet to be, I love Licorice. For five minutes, on most days, when Licorice laps water out of my cupped hands in the shower, I feel like all is right with the world. What a privilege it is, to have an animal  an entirely different species to you, in a home with no other species like itself  trust you. And, especially when it's such a discerning one.
SOCIETY

The Trials of Portnoy

Patrick Mullins

Scribe, $35

It is easy to forget that only 50-odd years ago Australia had absurdly restrictive censorship laws. Patrick Mullins has written a sprightly account of how one famous book, Portnoys Complaint by Philip Roth, came to be made available as a consequence of the brilliant efforts of Penguin Australia, in particular the systematic campaign of its managing director, John Michie, who at only 34 pushed against the Liberal government and the person most responsible for vetting what Australians read, Don Chipp.

Penguin had 75,000 copies of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint raring to go. Credit:

Michie went on to marry Hilary McPhee, one of Mullins sources for this likeable and anecdotally rich book. Chipp went on to become leader of the Democrats, so The Trials of Portnoy has the slightly strange quality of a joust between people of liberal disposition, even though the starting point is a grotesquely repressive system of literary censorship.

The cast list is quite extraordinary. The trials were spread over the separate states. In two of the Sydney trials the defence council is William Deane, who will rise to be a judge of the High Court and later governor-general. At one point he says: You might dislike it. Not everyone enjoys Shakespeare.
First-time claims for unemployment insurance climbed for the first time in six weeks in Texas, a potentially worrisome sign for a tentative economic recovery.

The number of workers filing claims jumped by 9,000 to more than 60,000. Nationally, claims grew by 130,000 to about 1.1 million. Both are far below the peaks of late March and early April, when government-ordered shutdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus forced mass layoffs across the economy. But both also are several times higher than levels before the pandemic.

Economists say its too soon to know whether the increase was a one-time blip or the beginning of a concerning trend. Parker Harvey, an economist for Gulf Coast Workforce Solutions, a workforce development organization, said he would like to see at least three to five weeks of claims data before drawing conclusions.

The jump in unemployment claims comes about three weeks after the expiration of an emergency program that provided unemployed workers with an additional $600 a week in benefits. Policymakers have yet to agree on whether to extend the program and at what level as they try to negotiate another stimulus package to support the economy  and the U.S. households that prop it up  during the pandemic.

Before the pandemic, Crystol Antoinette was working two jobs to save money as she prepared to transfer from Houston Community College to the University of Houston. Now, she has none.

Antoinette, 26, who worked as a dispatcher for a plumbing company and was an employee at a Dennys restaurant, waited several weeks before her claim was finally approved in June. With about $300 in state benefits and $600 in emergency federal benefits, she could cover her rent, utilities and other expenses.

But with the federal benefits gone, not anymore.

Im reapplying for food stamps, Antoinette said. I have to figure out how Im going to pay my electricity bills, because my rent is $800 and Im only getting paid $600 every two weeks. I have to try to make it all make sense.

RELAPSE WORRIES: Fragile economic recovery at risk as millions go without enhanced benefits

Texas requests help

After the expiration of the $600 per week in unemployment benefits, President Donald Trump issued an executive memo promising an additional $400 per week in assistance to people unemployed because of the pandemic.

On Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbotts office said he had directed the Texas Workforce Commission, which administers unemployment benefits in the state, to apply for a $7 billion federal grant made available by the presidents memo.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide $300 per week to the unemployed. States are required to match the assistance with $100 per week  intended to make the total assistance $400 per week. Abbotts office, however, said Texas would count regular unemployment benefits as the states contribution, rather than providing an additional $100 match.

Under the presidents directive, workers unemployed because of the pandemic who are receiving at least $100 per week in either state or federal unemployment benefits will be eligible. In Texas, benefits range from $69 per week to $521 per week, so some may fall below the $100 threshold.

If you are already receiving benefits, no new actions are needed, said Cisco Gamez, a spokesperson for the Texas Workforce Commission. Just continue requesting funds as you would normally.

Abbotts office said claimants should expect to get the extra $300 per week in assistance after Sunday, and the funds will be backdated to the benefit week ending Aug. 1.

Texas is grateful to President Trump for making these funds available to individuals and asks that our federal partners quickly grant this request so that TWC can swiftly administer this funding to Texans, Abbott said in a statement.

Texas Democrats criticized Abbott for not finding an additional source of funding for the match, preventing claimants from getting the full $400 per week in potential assistance.

Abbott is shortchanging Texas families by halving our unemployment benefits for absolutely no reason, said Abhi Rahman, spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party. Three hundred dollars a week is not enough.

Texas Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

Financially insecure

More than 1.7 million people are receiving state unemployment benefits in Texas, according to state data. Since the spring business shutdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19, the economy has been destabilized by cautious reopenings, consumer fears about shopping and spending money, and mass layoffs.

Many unemployed workers say they have run through savings and cannot find a suitable new job. In mid-July, about 1in 5adults surveyed in the Houston metro area said they sometimes or often didnt have enough to eat in their household, according to the Census Bureau.

More than 1 in 4 adults in the Houston-area survey missed last months rent or mortgage payment or had no confidence that they could make next months payment.

Experts said that because getting additional benefits is uncertain, and often decided on political whims, unemployed people should focus on skills training and education to prepare to rejoin the workforce when the economy recovers.

From a sustainability standpoint, the benefits cant be at the same level as they were at the most severe parts of this crisis, said Harvey, the Workforce Solutions economist. Regardless of what those benefits are doing, you should try to be poised to get back into the job market as quickly as possible.

Still, its easier for certain applicants to get hired during a period of high unemployment than others. Antoinette recently was offered a job at Amazon, but the employer rescinded it, citing a misdemeanor on her record, she said. She continues her search, but so far hasnt had any luck.

Everyone says, Just get a job, Antoinette said. I apply to jobs all the time. Its not so simple.

erin.douglas@chron.com

becca.carballo@chron.com
Statewide and locally, new COVID-19 case numbers are experiencing a downward trend.

On Monday the weekly total for new virus cases in Kenosha County was 21, a significant decrease from 111 for the week of Aug. 10 and 182 for the week of Aug. 3.

The current cumulative total for COVID-19 cases in Kenosha County as of Thursday was 2,843. Sixty people have died from the virus and 82% of those with confirmed cases have recovered from it.

Local numbers reflect statewide trends as well. According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, new cases have declined statewide from previous highs. The most recent peak has been 913 on Aug. 3.

According to data found on the Kenosha County COVID-19 Response Hub website, new case numbers have been declining since about mid-July, with the largest drops being seen since the statewide mask mandate went into effect Aug. 1.

For many these numbers indicate that mask wearing is helping reduce the spread of the coronovirus.

During a Kenosha Unified School Board meeting Tuesday night, president Tom Duncan expressed optimism regarding the new case trend, saying, People are getting the message: physically distancing, wearing masks, being smart. Thats where were at.

I think we can continue to improve, said Duncan, who is also the vice-president and chief operating officer of Froedtert South.

Public health officials suggest cautious optimism, however.

We dont want to fear monger but its not time to relax, said Jen Freiheit, health officer for the Kenosha County Division of Health, on Wednesday.

Freiheit stresses that because COVID-19 is a novel virus its containment has been unpredictable at best.

Historically in pandemics there would be one large first wave, three or four valleys or reprieves and then a larger, second wave over a period of 18 months, she said. Thats what we thought wed have in early March.

Instead, she said, What were finding is that COVID is a community-spread virus with peaks and valleys dependent on social behaviors.

In other words, when numbers dip, people relax, which is dangerous because the disease will spike back up. 

The permanent solution, she said, is a vaccine, which is not anticipated for use in Wisconsin until mid to late spring of next year.

We need to use caution on the trending downward, she said. The community may want to hang its hat on one data point but thats a dangerous point.

Commenting on the KUSD boards decision to offer in-person school to students starting Sept. 14, Freiheit said, For KUSD it was an impossible decisionwere all receiving immense pressure on all sides. There is no right answerkids need socialization and there are still safety risks.

The decision changes things for the health department as well, she said.

We supply schools with nurses; now were going to pivot from what we thought was an all-virtual environment to providing some on-site staffing while still offering telehealth to students with chronic health issues.

How many on-site nursing staff will be needed will be known after the school registration deadline.

If getting kids back to school is a top priority, the community needs to help support the decision in part by avoiding large social gatherings and wearing masks, Freiheit said. Its hard to convey this to the public because they so want to see the end of this.

Weve got to hang on for the long ride, Freiheit said.

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Vietnam recorded 14 new Covid-19 cases Thursday evening, taking the national count to four figures at 1,007 with 439 active cases.

Eleven of the new cases are from the central city of Da Nang, one from neighboring Quang Nam Province and two are imported, the Health Ministry said.

The Da Nang patients, numbered 994 to 998 and 1,001 to 1,006, are aged 24-65. They include six caregivers, one medical worker and one patient at the Da Nang Hospital and the Da Nang Oncology Hospital. The remaining three are people who'd come into contact with people later diagnosed with Covid-19.

"Patient 999", a 26-year-old resident of Quang Nam, is the husband and brother-in-law of two previously confirmed Covid-19 patients who were treated at the Da Nang Hospital. He is being treated at the Quang Nam General Hospital.

"Patient 1,000," a 33-year-old Filipino man in Khanh Hoa, is an expert who flew from South Korea to the south-central province's Cam Ranh Airport on August 14, and was quarantined upon arrival. He is being treated at the Khanh Hoa Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

"Patient 1,007" is a 27-year-old resident of Ho Chi Minh City who had landed July 29 in Hanoi's Noi Bai Airport on a repatriation flight from Equatorial Guinea and quarantined at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases on arrival. He self-quarantined himself at home in HCMC starting August 14, before testing positive for the novel coronavirus on August 19. He is now under treatment at HCMC's Cu Chi field hospital.

Also Thursday evening, "Patient 994," an 87-year-old man, was taken off Vietnam's tally of Covid-19 patients after testing negative for the virus thrice. He had been recorded as a Covid-19 patient in Hanoi Thursday morning. However, the octogenarian is still being monitored at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi's Dong Anh District.

Nine Covid-19 patients were confirmed recovered Thursday - one at the Da Nang Lung Hospital and the rest at the city's Hoa Vang District medical center.

The health ministry also said Thursday that the country's biggest Covid-19 outbreaks in Da Nang, Quang Nam and Hai Duong have "basically been put under control."

The northern province of Hai Duong has not recorded any new case in the last two days, while "suspected cases in Da Nang and Quang Nam have been traced, tested and quarantined" per Covid-19 prevention protocols.

While the number of new cases in Da Nang and Quang Nam has markedly dropped of late, new cases could still spring up, so authorities should continue to be on the lookout to detect and trace them, it added.

Of the 1,007 Covid-19 cases recorded to date in Vietnam, 542 have recovered, 439 are active cases and 25 have died.
About 350,000 acres in Northern and central California have burned as of Thursday, in the states latest round of wildfires. The lightning from that weird thunderstorm on Sunday caused 367 of the fires, officials say. All of the active fires have been difficult to get under control because of record high temperatures, low humidity, and high winds. The heat has also caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of residents.

Interviewed by the MIT Technology Review on Thursday, climate scientists concurred: The heat wave and the lightning strikes can absolutely be attributed to global warming, meaning that the severity of these wildfires is a function of climate change. Sitting in front of his RV in a Walmart parking lot Wednesday, Vacaville rancher Taylor Craig told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Im a climate refugee.

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We are living through multiple crises at once. Remember way back in May, when we all realized the coronavirus was not going to be under control any time soon, and we wondered how an uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic might hamper the emergency response to any other natural disasters we might experience? Its happening now, in California.

Here are all the ways COVID is making this particular climate disaster harder to face.

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Where can people go if they have to leave their homes?

Sonoma Countys director of emergency management, Chris Godley, told KQED earlier this week that preparing shelters that would work with social distancing was a huge lifthis staff was getting 10 shelters ready, rather than just one: Thats 10 times the amount of work and logistics and staffing levels and training for staffing. Its a significant cost. Its not just buying two bottles of hand sanitizer and calling it good. At congregant shelters, the Red Cross told KQED that it is planning to offer health screenings, require masks, and add spacing between cots and chairs.

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Shelters are bad places for infectious diseasesas the Sacramento Bee pointed out, hundreds of Camp Fire evacuees got norovirus in evacuation centers in 2018. Because of that, the Red Cross is trying to house people in non-congregant accommodations, meaning motels and hotels, officials told the Bee on Wednesday.

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Evacuees are being told to go to temporary evacuation points first, where theyre supposed to be screened for symptoms and given temperature checks before being redirected and set up with motel and hotel rooms if they have no other option. But one evacuee the Bee interviewed at a temporary evacuation point said he didnt get a temperature checkthough they did clean the pen before I signed in, which was nice.

In some places, officials may be directing people to try find shelter themselves first. An official with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, The recommendation  is try to find family and friends that you are comfortable with before you go into these large environments with multiple people where they may be [at] an additional risk for exposure.

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Shelter is a problem not just for fire evacuees but also for people trying to escape air filled with wildfire smoke. As SFGate pointed out, the recommendation for those without access to adequately ventilated and sealed-up shelter when air quality is bad is often to seek out public places with filtered air systems, like libraries, community centers, and government buildings. But with many of those places closed due to the coronavirus, that will be much more difficult to follow this year.

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Who will fight it?

The confluence of crises is causing unforeseen logistical problems for a state that relies on prison populations to fight fires. Earlier this summer, a huge COVID-19 outbreak at a prison in Lassen County prompted officials to put 12 of 43 inmate fire camps on lockdown, and many worried that without access to incarcerated firefighters, the states firefighting capacity would be severely diminished. This week, only 90 of the 192 inmate fire teams are currently available to work, with the rest infected, quarantined, or released from prison under initiatives meant to reduce overcrowding.

How will the firefighters stay safe?

Firefighters usually transform county fairgrounds into base camps while fighting wildfires, and these can be sprawling, crowded places. On Wednesday, the Sacramento Bee reported, there were about 6,900 firefighters deployed, and the state was trying to bring in more from out of stateevery one of those a COVID risk. This year, organizers of these camps are trying to keep firefighters from congregating by using pod arrangements, offering hand-washing stations, and providing ready-to-eat meals rather than buffet-style lines.

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Are homes prepared?

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In non-COVID years, KQED reported, Cal Fire, the state agency that handles wildfire preparedness, inspects households to see if their defensible spacethe buffer zone between buildings and the branches, woodpiles, flammable plants, and vegetation that fires like to burnpasses muster. This year, Cal Fire inspectors have had to curtail these inspections in order to maintain social distance, asking homeowners to do self-assessments instead.

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How will people breathe?

The fires mean the air quality is bad, especially in the Bay Area, and that might make COVID risk worse. Air pollution from wildfire smoke, the CDC advised in early June, can irritate the lungs, cause inflammation, alter immune function, and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, likely including COVID-19.

Dr. Afif El-Hasan, a lung health specialist interviewed by the New York Times, said, Anything that weakens the lungs, like really bad air, which causes the lungs to lose some of their ability to fight infection, is going to be an issue. Another doctor the Times spoke with, Dr. Seth Kaufman, pointed out that people exposed to wildfire smoke will cough, and that will make it harder for people to assess whether theyre coughing because of bad air or because they have the coronavirus. He advised anyone coughing to presume they have the coronavirus, and to self-isolate.

Also, the cloth face coverings that reduce spread of the coronavirus dont work for wildfire smoke, reported SFGate. N95 masks do, but they are (still!) hard to find. Further, the ones with exhalation valves that many people used in previous wildfire seasons let virus particles out, so officials recommend that people tape the valve or wear a cloth mask on top.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump and UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Aug. 13, 2020, achieving a historic peace agreement between Israel and the UAE.

(JNS) - Jewish and pro-Israel groups instantly applauded Israel and the United Arab Emirates for a deal on Thursday to normalize relations between the two countries - the first of its kind between Israel and a Middle Eastern country in more than 25 years, following Jordan and Egypt.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the development "a historic breakthrough for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East."

The lobbying group also called on "other Arab states and the Palestinians to follow their lead," and for the Palestinian leadership to "end its boycott of Israel and Am...
LAKE LUZERNE  A chimney fire caused the blaze that damaged celebrity chef Rachael Ray's home on Chuckwagon Drive, state investigators determined.

Following a thorough evaluation of the physical evidence, witness interviews, and various photographs and video clips, investigators from New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control have determined the fire which damaged a residence on Chuckwagon Drive in Lake Luzerne was accidental in nature and began in the chimney of a wood-burning fireplace," Colin Brennan, a spokesman for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said on Friday.

The state is expected to issue a final report on the Aug. 9 fire later this week.

Ray, her husband, John Cusimano and her mother, Elsa Scuderi, escaped the flames that damaged the home on the private drive in Lake Luzerne. The couple's dog, Bella, got out too.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The fire spread from the chimney to the roof and the second floor. The second floor was heavily damaged but the first floor was mostly spared. The kitchen, where Ray has filmed her Food Network show the "Ray Rachel Show," was not damaged.
Kamala Harris, the black daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, has become the first woman of colour to accept the nomination for vice president from a major political party.

The senator from California signalled she plans to help lead the attack against President Donald Trump while reaching out to voters to vote for the Democrats.

"We're at an inflection point," Ms Harris said. "The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone.

"It's a lot. And here's the thing - we can do better and deserve so much more."

Ms Harris (55) stepped into her place in history on the third night of the Democratic Party's mostly virtual convention - joined not by the raucous partisan crowd that would have erupted for such a moment in ordinary times, but instead standing on a small stage in Wilmington, Delaware accompanied only by aides and a smattering of reporters who had been tested for the coronavirus before being granted entry.

Joe Biden, who lives a few miles away, was scheduled to speak from the same stage last night.

"Right now, we have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons," Ms Harris said. "Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose."

Outlining her optimism for the US, she said she is "committed" to "a vision of our nation as a beloved community - where all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we love.

"In the streets of Oakland and Berkeley (in her home state of California). I got a stroller's-eye view of people getting into what the great John Lewis called 'good trouble'," Ms Harris said of her upbringing, citing the recently deceased civil rights leader and Georgia congressman.

She also spoke of her career as a prosecutor. "I know a predator when I see one," she said, a line she had used in her presidential campaign against Mr Trump.

Ms Harris leaned heavily into her life story - citing her pride in her mixed-race background. She spoke of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who she said had immigrated to the United States with a dream of curing cancer but died in 2009. She also spoke of her own family, her husband Douglas Emhoff whom she married in 2014, and his two children who she said call her "Momala".

She said her mother raised her and her sister "to be proud, strong black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage."

Former president Barack Obama delivered a sharp reproach of his successor's behaviour as US leader. It echoed a similar excoriation by Michelle Obama, the former first lady, two days earlier. He cast Mr Trump as a man incapable of rising to the office he won in 2016.

"For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends," Mr Obama said from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.

"Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe."

The evening was packed with the party's history-making leaders. It also included New Mexico's Michelle Lujan Grisham, the first Democratic Hispanic woman elected as a governor; Hillary Clinton, the first woman to top the ticket of a major party and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to lead the House of Representatives.

Ms Clinton, who won nearly three million more votes than Mr Trump but lost in the electoral college, said: "For four years, people have told me, 'I didn't realise how dangerous he was. I wish I could go back and do it over.' Or worse, 'I should have voted.'"

 Washington Post
China hits back as US, Five Eyes allies sanction Hong Kong

Global Times

By Wang Qi Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/20 20:48:40

Washington shows disrespect for bilateralism, multilateralism: HKSAR govt

China reacted against the US which motivated its allies from the Five Eyes alliance to sanction Hong Kong, by suspending the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's mutual judicial assistance with the US and its closest allies.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that they have decided to suspend Hong Kong's implementation of the treaty on mutual judicial assistance between the city and the US, following Washington's decision to suspend or terminate three bilateral agreements with Hong Kong, including the extradition treaty.

The US move on Wednesday came after four other Five Eyes intelligence alliance countries suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong.

Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, condemned the US move at Thursday's press briefing, saying the central government supports the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's announcement, which said the US attempted to use Hong Kong as a pawn against the central government.

The US decision reflects its disrespect for bilateralism and multilateralism, and should be condemned by the international community, the HKSAR government spokesperson said on Thursday.

The three suspended or terminated agreements involve the transfer of fugitives and sentenced people, and tax exemptions for income derived from the international operations of ships.

Observers believe nobody wins with the US move. They said as the presidential election approaches, the Trump administration is likely to upgrade its "craziness."

The US suspension of judicial cooperation with Hong Kong will bring about reciprocal damage, making the two sides a "paradise for fugitives" to each other, said Tian Feilong, a legal expert on Hong Kong affairs at Beihang University in Beijing, noting it is the US that is wielding its international influence trying to weaken Hong Kong's global status.

The HKSAR government said that since the enactment of the fugitive extradition agreement in 1998, 69 fugitive offenders surrendered to the US from Hong Kong, much higher than the 23 fugitives surrendered to the HKSAR by the US.

Since the crimes committed by fugitives mostly involve fraud, drug trafficking, murder, sexual offenses, money laundering, corruption and theft, suspending the agreement will allow them to evade law enforcement. As such, the US will need to be answerable to the rule of law, to the American people and to the international community, the HKSAR government said.

The clash between the US and China also weighed on other countries. Liu Weidong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of American Studies, told the Global Times that the US believes that if it doesn't enlist its allies, US pressure on Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland would have very limited effect.

Besides the "Five Eyes," Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono recently expressed Japan's interest to eventually become the "sixth eye." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's lobby in eastern and central European countries was also regarded as an anti-China tour.

The US always pressures its allies to cooperate with its anti-China policies. However, since other countries do not have the same strategic interests as the US and only agree under US pressure and threats, it is doubted how far they can cooperate with the US in the future, Liu said.

US allies, shaken by years of Trump denigrating them and pulling out of international accords, are closely paying attention to Joe Biden's plans to restore relationships, Washington-based media The Hill reported on Sunday.

Some experts noted that the US policy against Hong Kong has had little impact, but Tian warned that China must be well prepared and speed up development.

Earlier this month, the US also imposed so-called sanctions against 11 officials of the central government and the HKSAR government.

Even if there is a change in the US presidency, the overall course of suppression of China will not change, Tian warned. If US-China ties deteriorate on Hong Kong affairs, possible financial and trade sanctions would affect Hong Kong's international engagement and the status of the Hong Kong dollar.

With the US election turning into an anti-China race, there is still a possibility that Trump will escalate the conflict, Tian said, noting that China should leave out any illusions and become stronger to find a new way out of US containment.

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Viruses like the influenza virus and even the novel coronavirus are capable of spreading from person to person via airborne droplets as well as dust, fibers, and other surfaces. Now, a new study provides evidence of airborne virus transport on microscopic particles called aerosolized fomites.

The study from the University of California, Davis, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai titled, Influenza A virus is transmissible via aerosolized fomites, is published this week in the latest issue of Nature Communications. The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

What was this study about?

The researchers wrote that there may be several ways in which the influenza virus can spread from one person to another. These have been speculations with no concrete evidence. Every season of influenza, there are thousands of deaths due to the disease around the globe, they wrote. The exact way the infection spreads is thus an essential piece of the puzzle that must be understood, they wrote.

Direct and indirect contact

They wrote that it had been agreed that direct contact needs a susceptible person to self-inoculate by, for instance, touching ones nose with a virus-contaminated hand. On the other hand, indirect contact helps the transfer of the virus between an infected person and a non-infected person is via a fomite, which is an object like a doorknob or toy that has been contaminated with infectious virus.

Transmission via air can occur in two ways, they write. This could be via sprays of virus-laden respiratory droplets, such as from a cough or sneeze, impacting immediately onto the respiratory mucosa of a susceptible individual. It could also be via inhalation of droplet nuclei, microscopic aerosol particles consisting of the residual solid cores of evaporated respiratory droplets.

What was done?

For this study, a sample strain of Influenza A/Panama/2007/1999 (H3N2) virus (Pan99) was used. The animals used for this experiment were six-week-old female Hartley strain guinea pigs. The test animals were infected with the Pan99 strain of the virus.

Four pairs of experimental animals were used. One of them was infected with the virus, and the other was virus naive. They were kept in custom made cages joined together by a stainless-steel air conduit to allow airflow. Donor guinea pigs had been infected with the virus 6 weeks prior to the experiment. Transmission pairs were kept together for a total of 7 days. Nasal washings were taken from the naive recipients on days 2, 4, and 6 of exposure.

In the second part of the experiment, the infection carrying guinea pigs were dead while the recipients were alive. Next, they painted virus filled liquid onto the furs of influenza immune guinea pigs and placed them in an adjacent cage with non-infected guinea pigs. The spread of infection from dead infected guinea pigs as well as from virus painted guinea pigs to uninfected animals was noted at the end of the experiment.

To show fomite borne transmission, the team then applied the Pan99 virus in liquid solution on different paper tissues and towels and allowed them to dry in a biosafety cabinet. Then if these tissues were crumpled or folded by hands or rubbed, they were found to release up to 900 particles of the virus per second. This release was similar to that of what infected guinea pigs release into the air.

What was found?

The spread of the infection from the infected guinea pig to the uninfected one was clearly seen in the experiment. The experiment also showed that the infected animals had contaminated fur, which spread the virus to their surrounding environment. These dust particles could become laden with the virus and spread act as aerosolized fomites that could be inhaled by the susceptible guinea pigs. The virus could be spread via rubbing of a virus contaminated tissue paper as well.

The team writes, ...we find that an uninfected, virus-immune guinea pig whose body is contaminated with the influenza virus can transmit the virus through the air to a susceptible partner in a separate cage.

Dr. Nicole Bouvier, an infectious disease physician at Mount Sinai, said, The particles were definitely coming from the animal even when it wasnt breathing. The virus was spreading from the animal even when it was not alive, she said. That was just very surprising, she said.

Professor William Ristenpart of the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering, one of the lead researchers said, Its really shocking to most virologists and epidemiologists that airborne dust, rather than expiratory droplets, can carry influenza virus capable of infecting animals. The implicit assumption is always that airborne transmission occurs because of respiratory droplets emitted by coughing, sneezing, or talking. Transmission via dust opens up whole new areas of investigation and has profound implications for how we interpret laboratory experiments as well as epidemiological investigations of outbreaks.

Conclusions and implications

The team wrote, aerosolized fomites may contribute to influenza virus transmission in animal models of human influenza, if not among humans themselves, with important but understudied implications for public health.

Ristenpart said, Our experiments very clearly show that when guinea pigs move around, they stir up dust. And if that dust is contaminated with the virus, then it can transmit that virus through the air to another animal in a separate cage. He added, When you rub your face or brush your shirt or crumple a piece of tissue paper, youre aerosolizing micron-scale particulates. And if that surface had been previously contacted by virus-containing mucus, then youre also aerosolizing the virus that other people can inhale.
The claim: The mayor of Washington, D.C., exempted from self-quarantine members of Congress who attended John Lewis' funeral.

The Atlanta funeral for civil rights icon John Lewis, who served in Congress for 33 years, drew a large contingent of fellow lawmakers from Washington on July 30. At the time, Georgia was on the list of "high-risk" states because of the spread of COVID-19.

An Aug. 2 Facebook post by BizPac Review's Conservative News Today said: "Washington DC's mayor is exempting members of Congress who attended John Lewis' funeral in Georgia from her mandatory 14-day quarantine. Let that sink in..." The post, shared more than 14,000 times, featured a photo of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a mask.

BizPac Review, which says it provides news and analysis unfiltered by the liberal bias that has eroded the medias credibility, according to its site, did not respond to USA TODAY's inquiry regarding the posting.

Sen. Cory Booker sits with other members of Congress during the funeral of late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis at the State Capitol in Atlanta, Georgia on July 30, 2020. -

But after being fact-checked by another media organization, the page added a correction to the caption of its meme. "BPR would like to add a clarification to this meme, which doesn't make clear that the mayor's order already exempted government activity and did not cover the U.S. Capitol. There was no "special" exemption for Congress," it reads.

The claim in the meme has been repeated by other Facebook users without that clarification, often in a photo of a Charlie Kirk tweet that says, "Wow: The Mayor of Washington DC is exempting members of Congress who attended John Lewis' funeral in Georgia from her "mandatory" 14-day quarantine after travelling to a "high risk area" Why do DC elite get special treatment from Democrats while Americans suffer?"

USA TODAY reached out to Kirk for comment.

DC and high-risk states

The Facebook item refers to an order issued by Mayor Muriel Bowser that took effect July 27  three days before the funeral  regarding the coronavirus.

Story continues

It said a person coming to Washington from a high-risk state who was traveling for nonessential activities will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days from their arrival in the District. Those engaged in "essential travel" from high-risk states are required to self-monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 for 14 days.

"If they show signs or experience symptoms of COVID-19, they are to self-quarantine and seek medical advice or testing," the order says of individuals engaged in essential travel.

The scene is set for the funeral service for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, July 30, 2020.

In an order issued by the mayor of March 30, "essential travel" is defined as including "essential government activities" as well as travel "required to visit a house of worship."

Susan Castillo, the mayor's press secretary, told USA TODAY by email: "Government activity is essential, and the Capitol of the United States is exempt from the Mayors Order."

More: Which members of Congress have tested positive for COVID-19?

Our ruling: Missing context

Our research shows that the the mayor did not specifically exempt travelers to Lewis' funeral from the order covering travel from high-risk states. The order allows for "essential government activities" under its "essential travel" provisions. In addition, the Capitol, where members of Congress gather and work, is exempted from the mayor's order. We rate this claim as MISSING CONTEXT.

Our fact-check sources:

Mayor Muriel Bowser's March 30 "Stay at Home order"

The mayor's Phase 2 order, June 22

Email conversation with Susana Castillo, the mayor's press secretary

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: DC's pandemic orders exempt lawmakers as essential
MBABANE - Our position remains unchanged.

These were the words of Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General, Sikelela Dlamini, following Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlaminis announcement of the reopening of Form III and Grade VII classes with effect from Monday August 24, 2020 and September 1, 2020, respectively.

According to Sikelela, their position as an organisation remained unchanged.

You will recall that we currently have a pending court case, where we are challenging the reopening of schools because we believe this was done hastily without adhering to all the requirements needed for schools to operate smoothly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. As an organisation, our position and convictions remain unchanged, he said.

Sikelela said all along, teachers were probably coping because it was only the Form V pupils who were attending classes, but now that government had announced the reopening of more classes, the situation would be challenging.

Challenge

The first challenge he pointed out was that some schools had small classrooms, which would make it difficult to adhere to social distancing.

We are increasing chances of having more COVID-19 cases, not to mention the stress that will be experienced by teachers as a result of inadequate resources such as running water and sanitisers, he said.

He said the proper running of schools would also be compromised, as teachers would be forced to use one thermal scanner to check temperatures of pupils in schools that had a large number of pupils, resulting in the possible delay of starting lessons.

Sikelela said the chances of transmission of the virus would also increase as pupils would be changing classes in between subjects, since there would be a large number of pupils in attendance.

He opined that the situation would be even more challenging for teachers in primary schools due to the large numbers of pupils and that most of the schools were located in the rural areas.

It is for that reason government should have regarded the year 2020 as a gap year and not reopen schools, so that between now and the end of the year, proper preparations for the reopening of schools for next year January are done, he explained.

He said this was also because the COVID-19 pandemic would not subside anytime soon as it could last for a period of more than two years, so by having a gap year, government would have adequate time to prepare for the reopening of schools next year.

Preparing

This would ensure that government does not do a shoddy job in preparing for the reopening of schools, he said.

Sikelela said it was during the reopening of the other grades where government would discover that it had done absolutely nothing in terms of preparedness. I dont want to lie; government did pay some of the high schools a visit, to check their level of preparedness, but compliance is not something that happens in one instance, which is why government needed to ensure continuity and sustenance on the standards being upheld in the different schools going forward, he said. He said the fact that government once paid the high schools a visit and found that they were prepared, did not mean that preparedness was permanent, since they used water and sanitisers among other things, which ran out.
Chennai: Rising steel prices have hit export of value-added products and made them less competitive in the international market. Along with increasing iron ore exports, curbs on import of steel from China, Vietnam and South Korea are boosting domestic steel prices.

Against the backdrop of restrictions on imports from China, Vietnam and South Korea, Indian steelmakers have raised prices across product categories. This has sent raw material cost for user industries sky high. This is making engineering exporters non-competitive in the international market, the Engineering Export Promotion Council of India has said.

Pig iron and steel prices went up by Rs 3,000 per tonne in the local market in July. Further, hot-rolled coil prices have moved up by Rs 700-750 per tonne on an average, cold-rolled coil prices by Rs 500-550 per tonne, steel pellets by Rs 300-350 per tonne and iron ore fines and lumps by Rs 200-250 per tonne.

Iron ore exports have been increasing of late. Though they started exporting when demand was low in the domestic market, it is continuing even after demand picked up. Lower import of steel from the international market is also making steel producers hike prices, said Mahesh Desai, chairman of EEPC India.

According to Desai, international prices of some of the categories used by Indian steel product manufacturers are less than domestic prices.

But the government had imposed anti-dumping duty on imports of certain types of steel products from China, Vietnam and South Korea for five years. Duties ranging from $13.07 per tonne to $173.1 per tonne have been levied on imports of flat rolled product of steel, plated or coated with alloy of aluminium and Zinc from these three countries.

MSMEs are not in a situation to use advance authorization scheme to z steel at higher duties.

''In such a scenario, the dependence of Indias engineering industry on the domestic steel market is only expected to increase in the coming months, said Desai.

The export of value-added products, including automobile components, industrial machinery has been down in the past few months. Higher steel prices will further affect the competitiveness of Indian value-added products, finds EEPC.

EEPC wants government intervention in ensuring availability of steel at the export parity price for MSME engineering exporters.
Ammo Grrrll finds that we have come FULL CIRCLE. She writes:

When I was a teenager living in northern Minnesota, every single person in our small town was white. The dramatic civil rights struggle was unfolding down South and virtually everyone I knew was sympathetic to it. Pictures of ugly bullies dragging black people away from lunch counters or young black students trying to go to school had a powerful effect, even on distant white teenagers who had never known a black person.

When we discussed the issue in class or in private, we were mindful of using the approved polite terminology. I only heard the disgusting N-word once from a classmate trying to tell a joke. The teacher closed the door and dressed him down. Even calling black people colored was, by then, considered low-class. We all knew that Negro was the proper term. It was the term The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King used and that was good enough for us.

Soon enough, Black Power came to the forefront through Malcolm X and others and the new approved term became black. Colored wasnt just low-class now; it was prima facie evidence of the cold heart of a racist. Next, Afro-American had a brief flurry of political correctness; but soon, SOMEBODY decided abbreviating Afro was somehow demeaning and the whole, cumbersome African-American held sway. Until about 15 years ago, give or take, when another new term dominated the field.

And you will NEVER guess what term came full circle! Yeah, no, seriously: they resurrected COLORED! Oh, it was cleverly disguised by putting people in front of it instead of behind it, but its still colored. It was obvious that one of the reasons was to enlarge the Grievance Pool and pretend that all people fell into only one of two categories: dreadful, racist, privileged white people and every other color bunched together in a solid phalanx against whitey.

It required us to pretend that black people faced identical challenges as kids adopted from China, or Vietnamese boat people, or Navajos, or wealthy Mexicans whose families had owned businesses in El Paso, Los Angeles or Albuquerque for decades. Why, a suburb-raised, college-educated waitress named Alexandra whose skin is barely even beige hopped on the Of Color Bandwagon too. If Sandy SAYS she is of color, then, by God, she is!

And nobody fought back. Not in academia, where such folderol takes root, nor in corporations where stern memos went out, nor in journalism where the stylebooks have to be re-issued about every 15 minutes to keep up.

It also flowed in part from a well-intentioned notion in which we were encouraged to think of every subgroup as PEOPLE FIRST. The theory was that if you called someone a blind person that you were emphasizing their disability first rather than their personhood. Fair enough. They became people with visual impairment. Whereas once retarded was a great leap forward in terminology from more demeaning terms, now we had to say people with cognitive impairment.

One tiny problem with People of Color was that there was no parallel form to emphasize the PERSONHOOD of white people. Oh well, who cares? Are genetic racists even people? If they complain, well just call them fragile. Previously, we had Negro and Caucasian. We had black and white. We even had African-American and European-American, or however much hyphenated silliness you could come up with. I, myself, am an Irish-German-Danish-Dutch-American cis-normal female Jew of late, late middle age.

Family lore on my paternal side even postulated an American Indian of some indeterminate tribe. For some reason, the favored tribe to pretend to be part of is usually Cherokee. Sadly, my alleged ancestor must have been from a tribe with prominent thighs rather than high cheekbones. Im still hoping to catch on at the Harvard faculty for approximately half a million a year, give or take. To teach one class.

It is a terrible thought crime to think of someone unlike yourself as an Other. Despite the fact that everyone NOT you, is, in fact, an OTHER. Yet, white people are being culled from the human herd and Othered to a fare-thee-well. There are all of us Good People of Color on this side  and then there are YOU TERRIBLE GUYS, who are just white. And thats when theyre not appending supremacists onto the white. It gets tedious. To their great credit, there are tens of thousands of righteous black people who refuse to sign on to this new racist paradigm  from Terry Crews to Candace Owens to Tony Dungy to Alveda King. Most of whom are devout Christians and not interested in hatin on anybody for fun and profit.

Moving on. Fifty-six years ago my now-husband, the famous novelist Max Cossack, applied for college admission to a prestigious private college in Chicago. He has a broad, flat nose and very curly Jewish hair. He was actually told to make sure that his mandatory attached photo was not too dark because there was evidently grotesque racial discrimination alive and well in the area. (A few years later when we were married and seeking an apartment in Chicago, he not only had to apply in person, but had to produce a picture of his wife! Nobody ever claimed that there had never been bigotry in Mayor Daleys Democrat Chicago.)

In try-outs for orchestras, there had been concern that the people doing the choosing might have a problem with that same kind of overt or even unconscious bias. The clever solution was the idea of blind auditions. (Auditions with visual impairment?)

And, indeed, after that, something like a third more women won spots in the orchestra. But, alas, STILL the orchestra didnt look like America, unlike, say, the NBA. You will think I am making this up but Im not. Efforts are now underway to bring BACK the ability of the decision-makers to make prominent note of the color and gender of the applicants and fill orchestra sections with approved categories rather than with musical prodigies. Full circle. Sorry, Russian Jewish immigrant or Chinese guy who practiced for 14 hours a day on your violin. Wrong color. Wrong gender. Just wrong. Merit is racist and its just not your turn.

The bigots of BLM, along with Antifa  mostly unattractive white radicals who know whats best for black people  constitute the paramilitary wing of the Democrat Party. They have an apparent new mantra: Just Say No to a color-blind society! Just Say No to MLKs Dream where character trumps skin color. Turns out the new Democrat racists believe that the old Democrat racists were on the right track after all: Character is actually racist! Skin color uber alles. Again, we have come full circle. Hail the Brave New Racists! Same Party, same bilge. Reject them en masse in November.
Vietnam has asked Malaysia to treat detained Vietnamese fishermen humanely and handle issues relating to Vietnamese fishermen and fishing vessels in line with international law,

taking into account that the two countries boast a strategic partnership and are members of ASEAN, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang said.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang. (Photo: VNA)

The spokesperson made the remarks during a press briefing in Hanoi on August 20, informing the press that the Malaysian law enforcement chased Vietnamese fishing vessels that led to the death of a Vietnamese fisherman, and 18 other fishermen were detained in a recent incident.

The Consular Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 18 contacted and handed over a diplomatic note to the Embassy of Malaysia in Vietnam to express its concerns over the matter.

Vietnam has asked Malaysian authorities to investigate the case, punish those responsible for the death of the Vietnamese fisherman, and not allow similar acts to happen again, Hang said.

The ministry has instructed the Vietnamese Embassy in Malaysia to work with the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and requested Malaysian authorities provide detailed information regarding the incident, and facilitate representatives from the Vietnamese Embassy to pay consular visits to the detained fishermen and take necessary citizen protection measures, she said.

Vietnamese authorities and the Embassy of Vietnam in Malaysia are maintaining close contact with the Malaysian side to seek details on the case and have urged them to facilitate consular visits, she reaffirmed.

Also during the meeting, Hang told the press of a case in which three Vietnamese fishing vessels, with 26 fishermen on board, have been detained by Indonesia.

After being notified of the incident, the Embassy of Vietnam in Indonesia immediately contacted local authorities to verify the information and asked them to soon provide formal information.

According to reports from Indonesia, the three fishing boats and fishermen were brought back to a facility of the marine and fisheries resources surveillance agency in Pontianak for further investigation. They face charges of illegal fishing and using banned fishing tools./.VNA
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, August 21, 2020 16:03 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f96a37 1 News raja-ampat,tourism,travel,destination Free

West Papuas prime tourist destination and diving haven Raja Ampat Islands regency is set to reopen to domestic tourists on Saturday after being closed for months to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Raja Ampat will be [available] for domestic tourists on Saturday, said the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry's deputy of tourism product and event organizer, Rizki Handayani, during a live-streamed event on Thursday as quoted by kompas.com.

Read also: Indonesia mulls over plan to develop medical tourism at home

According to Rizki, the ministry worked with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) to prepare new protocols for diving activities in Raja Ampat waters.

We composed [the new protocols] together for diving operators. I know diving enthusiasts cant wait to jump into the waters, he said.

Rizki is confident that Raja Ampat is safe from the pandemic, as nearby regency Tambrauw has been declared a green zone with a lower risk of virus transmission.

I heard that Sorong is not yet a green zone but Tambrauw is, and now I'm sure that Raja Ampat is also green. However, we have to maintain health protocols so that Raja Ampat can stay safe from COVID-19."

Raja Ampat Islands are located at the northwest tip of the Birds Head Peninsula in West Papua. The small archipelago comprises 1,500 islets, cays and shoals surrounding four main islands: Misool, Salawati, Batanta and Waigeo.

The destination is famous for its pristine greenish-blue waters and rich biodiversity. It is recognized as a paradise for divers and snorkelers who can view colorful fish amid coral reefs in almost all parts of the region. (gis/kes)
Lebanese army, rescue teams and investigators work at the scene of the explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon - AP

The port of Senegals capital Dakar on Thursday said it had requested the removal of around 2,700 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate stored in its complex - the same volume of the chemical that caused Beiruts devastating port blast this month.

The unidentified owner of the stockpile has found a warehouse to store the industrial chemical outside the city, according to the general directorate of the port, which sits next to Dakars densely populated downtown.

He is currently working with the environment ministry to obtain approval to urgently remove this cargo, it said in a statement that did not say how long the port had stored the goods destined for Mali.

The port strictly adheres to international rules for the management and storage of dangerous materials, it said.

Beiruts port had held 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate for six years without safety measures, before they detonated on August 4, killing more than 150 people, injuring thousands and leaving about a quarter of a million people homeless.

The dramatic situation that Beirut has just experienced prompted the High Commander of Dakars port to take journalists on a tour of the ports facilities to show that security measures are up to standard, the statement said.

The Beirut blast should be a wake-up call for countries on the dangers of ammonium nitrate, experts say. Commonly used in fertilisers and as an industrial explosive, it is considered relatively safe if handled properly, but has caused some of the worlds deadliest industrial accidents.
Tripoli, Aug 21(UNI) The UN recognised government of Libya on Friday announced a ceasefire in the entire country and called for demilitarising the contested strategic city of Sirte.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) also called for an end to an oil blockade imposed by rival forces since earlier this year, Al Jazeera reported.

It further said that parliamentary and presidential elections should be held in March next year.

The head of GNA Fayez al-Sarraj "issued instructions to all military forces to immediately cease fire and to end all combat operations in all Libyan territories", a statement said.

Al-Sarraj in a statement said that the ultimate aim of the truce is to impose "full sovereignty over the Libyan territory and the departure of foreign forces and mercenaries".

There was no immediate response from eastern forces military commander Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).

UNI XC ACL PS 1705
A man who stole mail from nearly two dozen people was sentenced to four years in prison by a Washington County judge on Thursday.

Nicholas Berry, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and was sentenced to prison by Circuit Judge Eric Butterfield.

Matt Wise, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said it was one of the most prolific cases of identity theft he had ever prosecuted.

Investigators found that Berry had stolen payroll checks, identity cards, stimulus checks and debit cards. They said Berry was able to cash some of those checks.

The Washington County Sheriffs Office said a Beaverton resident first spotted Berry taking a package from a home in May. As he was stuffing the package into his backpack, several mail items fell out, according to a news release from the DAs office.

The neighbor called police to report Berry, and police went to his home. According to the DAs office, Berry gave police permission to search his home, and they found stolen mail belonging to more than 20 people.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: Democratic Party's presidential nominee Joe Biden praised his Indian-American running mate Kamala Harris during his nomination acceptance speech, describing the California senator as a "powerful voice" in the US and said her "story is the American story."

Harris, 55, scripted history in US politics as she became the first Indian-American and Black woman to get a major party's vice-presidential nomination on the third day of the virtual Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.

"It will be the work of the next president to restore the promise of America to everyone. And I am not going to have to do it alone. I will have a great vice president at my side," Biden, 77, said in his acceptance speech on Thursday.

He touted Harris' diverse family, her parents are Jamaican and Indian, heritage and her perseverance to "overcome every obstacle she has ever faced."

"Her story is the American story. She knows about all of the obstacles thrown in the way of so many in our country.

Women, Black women, Black Americans, South Asian Americans, immigrants. The left out and the left behind. She has overcome every obstacle she has ever faced," he said on the last day of the four-day Democratic National Convention.

ALSO READ | America would be lost if Trump reelected: Bloomberg urges countrymen to vote for Biden, Harris

"No one has been tougher on big banks and the gun lobby. No one has been tougher on calling out the current administration for its extremism, its failure to follow the law, it's failure to simply tell the truth.

Kamala and I both draw from our families. That is where we get our strength. For Kamala, it is Doug, and their families.

For me, it is Jill, and ours," Biden said.

Introducing herself as the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants at the virtual convention on Wednesday, Harris fondly remembered her Chennai-born mother who she said taught her two daughters to "be conscious and compassionate about the struggles of all people" and to believe that "the fight for justice is a shared responsibility."

"One of the most powerful voices we hear in the country today is from our young people. They're speaking to the inequity and injustice that has grown up in America. Economic injustice. Racial injustice. Environmental injustice," Biden said.

"I hear their voices and if you listen, you can hear them too.

And whether it's the existential threat posed by climate change, the daily fear of being gunned down in school, or the inability to get started in their first job, it will be the work of the next president to restore the promise of America to everyone," he said.

Later, Harris said in a tweet that Biden will be an incredible president.

"Tonight, Joe Biden spoke to the moment. Just like he'll do as president for our country," she tweeted.

"You're going to make an incredible president. America, we need your help to make that happen. As Joe Biden reminds us, character, compassion, decency, they're all on the ballot in November. Who we are and who we want to be are on the line," she said in a fund-raising email and tweet.

Soon after Biden concluded his speech, Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff joined him and his wife Jill Biden.

The couples stepped onto an outside stage and embraced as they watched the fireworks light up the sky.

Before Biden stepped off, reporters shouted: "How do you feel?".

Biden pulled down his face mask and yelled: "Welcome to Wilmington!"
A Balmain lawyer who was blasted by a NSW Supreme Court judge for defaming her neighbour and ordered to pay $300,000 in damages has lodged an appeal against the decision.

In an excoriating judgment on July 14, NSW Supreme Court Justice Stephen Rothman said Vanessa Hutley had bullied her neighbour, builder Anthony Cosco, and defamed him in an A Current Affair broadcast in which she accused him of putting "my family through hell".

"Displayed an abysmal arrogance and sense of privilege": lawyer Vanessa Hutley and her neighbour's house in Balmain. Credit:Jessica Hromas, Nine

Mr Cosco launched defamation proceedings against Ms Hutley after the July 2016 broadcast. The court found Ms Hutley accused Mr Cosco of bullying her and her family, endangering their lives, and threatening her with physical harm, among other claims.

Justice Rothman rejected all of Ms Hutley's defences, including truth, and ordered her to pay $300,000 plus interest in the order of $60,000, and costs.
Mumbai/New Delhi, Aug 21 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday kickstarted the probe into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput here as it collected documents from the Mumbai Police and recorded the statements of several people.

The federal probe agency also contacted the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to seek medico-legal opinion on the autopsy report of the late actor.

Over two months after Sushant was found dead at his Bandra home, the CBI team has expedited the investigation after the Supreme Court's nod for a federal agency probe on Wednesday.

The CBI team, which is expected to camp in Mumbai for 10 days, has its plans ready as it formed several teams, each with its task outlined.

Led by SIT official Nupur Prasad, the central agency team arrived at the office of the Bandra DCP earlier and met the Mumbai Police officers, who were handling the investigation. According to official sources, the CBI sleuths were given a detailed briefing on the current case status by the Mumbai Police.

The team of CBI officials from Delhi along with the forensic team took over the case documents, all the evidence collected so far and statements recorded till date, among other details, from the Mumbai Police in the morning.

The agency has formed four or five small teams -- one to liaise with police, another to take up the crime spot probe, while others will engage in field probes, witnesses, and interrogation.

Sources said that Sushant's death scene will be recreated at his Bandra flat in a day or so and the first five persons who had reached the spot after the actor's death will be questioned.

The agency will also speak to the doctors who conducted Sushant's autopsy. If required, the team will also speak to the Mumbai Police DCP, with whom the family of Sushant shared a WhatsApp message in February this year citing alleged threats to Sushant's life.

Meanwhile, Sudhir Gupta, head of forensic science department at AIIMS Delhi, told IANS, "The CBI has contacted us and they wanted a competent medical board to examine the postmortem report, the crime scene and give an opinion along with the request to visit Mumbai to cross verify the facts." When asked when the team will visit Mumbai, he said, "The team of AIIMS will soon decide when to visit Mumbai and examine the flat where the actor was found dead." An agency source in Mumbai further said that the CBI will ask for the call detail records of Sushant, his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and others.

The CBI and CFSL teams have been exempted from the mandatory quarantine by the BMC.

Earlier on Friday, the federal agency recorded the statement of Sushant's cook Neeraj and personal staff Dipesh Swant and house manager Samuel Miranda.

In all probability, it will also question Rhea Chakraborty's relatives.

The sources also said that in the coming days, the agency will also call Rhea and other people named in the FIR for questioning.

The CBI also got the seven-page detailed autopsy report of Sushant from the Mumbai Police.

According to the autopsy report, there were no external injury marks on Sushant's body and no marks on the back of his neck.

The CBI team is currently staying at the IAF Guest House in Santacruz area.

On August 6, after a recommendation by the Bihar government, the CBI had taken over the probe into the death of the 34-year-old actor on the orders of the Central government following an FIR lodged by the deceased's father at Patna's Rajiv Nagar police station.

The case was registered against Rhea Chakraborty, her father Indrajit, mother Sandhya, brother Showik, Sushant's ex-manager Shruti Modi and flatmate Samuel Miranda and unknown persons on the basis of Sushant's father K.K. Singh's complaint that was filed on July 25.

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing a money laundering case involving the death of the actor, on Friday recorded the statement of his sister Priyanka Singh in Delhi.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at q.najmi@ians.in and Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
TORONTO, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX: SRHI, SRHI.WT)  SRHI Inc. (the Company or SRHI) provides the following update of the ongoing creditor protection process and proposed restructuring plan for Minera Tres Valles SpA (MTV), the Companys 70% owned producing copper mine in Salamanca, Chile.



In May 2020, MTV filed a Judicial Restructuring Procedure (JRP) in Chile providing MTV protection from creditors to give itself sufficient time to complete its refinancing efforts to allow for the completion of the construction of its underground mine.

Over the past 3 months, MTV and the Company have conducted constructive negotiations with MTVs senior lenders (Lenders), Vecchiola S.A. (Vecchiola, a related party to MTVs 30% minority shareholder) and other unsecured creditors.

Although no formal agreement has yet been entered into, the Company, the Lenders and Vecchiola (together, the Parties) have negotiated a framework to support MTVs future operations including the construction of the Papomono Masivo incline block caving underground mining project. Subject to a successful reorganization process to be voted on by all creditors of MTV and the necessary internal approvals of the Parties, it is expected that the Lenders, Vecchiola and the Company will provide the following additional debt financing to MTV:

SRHI Inc.

Up to $10 million secured second ranking debt to be financed from the Companys cash resources (the  SRHI New Loan )

Drawn down by MTV over the next 12 months

Subordinated to the Lenders existing and new financing amounts

Expected payback beginning 2025

Fulfills (and will reduce, pro-rata) the Companys $10 million corporate guarantee provided under the facility agreement (the Facility Agreement) entered into between the Lenders, MTV and the Company in December 2019

Vecchiola

Conversion to subordinated long-term debt, of 75% of amounts owed by MTV to Vecchiola, to be repaid only after all other amounts due to unsecured creditors are fully repaid.

Story continues

Lenders

Release of $7 million cash, currently restricted by the Lenders pursuant to the Facility Agreement, to support MTVs operations - $2 million has already been released to support MTV during the reorganization process

Extension of the maturity by 12 months to December 2024

Extension of the commencement for principal repayments by 12 months to begin March 31, 2022

Extension by 18 months of the requirement to pay 50% of interest

Up to $6 million of new senior debt ( New Senior Debt ) to have substantially the same security and terms as currently contemplated in the Facility Agreement (with some amendments)

The New Senior Debt is to be made available to MTV, if needed, after SRHI has fully advanced the SRHI New Loan

In addition, MTV and the offtake provider are in agreement that certain amendments to the offtake agreement are expected to be implemented resulting in the (i) acceleration of payment terms for the receipt of cash by MTV and (ii) increases to the fixed price portion originally agreed to in the offtake agreement from 25% to 40%.

The Company expects that a judicial reorganization agreement implementing the proposed reorganization of MTV will be voted on by MTVs creditors in late August or early September.

About SRHI Inc.

SRHI is a publicly-listed company based in Toronto and its principal operating business is its 70% equity interest in the producing copper mine Minera Tres Valles in Salamanca, Chile. For more information about SRHI, please visit www.srhi.ca .

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements in this news release, contain forward-looking information (collectively referred to herein as the "Forward-Looking Statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. The use of any of the words "expect", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe", "plans", "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify Forward-Looking Statements. In particular, but without limiting the foregoing, this news release contains Forward-Looking Statements pertaining to: the JRP process; giving MTV sufficient time to complete its refinancing efforts, providing the necessary protection to allow MTV to negotiate repayment terms, and timing thereof; the providing of a financial foundation to grow MTVs business; beginning the construction of the Papomono Masivo underground mine; constructive negotiations with MTVs Lenders and unsecured creditors; the Company, the Lenders and Vecchiola agreeing to a framework to support MTVs future operations; the expected terms of the additional financing to MTV; expected amendments to the offtake agreement; and the expected vote date for the proposed reorganization of MTV.

Although SRHI believes that the Forward-Looking Statements are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future results, performance or achievements. A number of factors or assumptions have been used to develop the Forward-Looking Statements, including: a successful negotiation with creditors, including the Lenders during the stay period; additional financing available from the Company, Vecchiola and Lenders; a successful vote by creditors to approve MTVs restructuring; the conversion of the framework to definitive documentation; there being no additional significant disruptions affecting the development and operation of MTV; and assumptions concerning general marketing, political, business and economic conditions.

Actual results, performance or achievements could vary materially from those expressed or implied by the Forward-Looking Statements should assumptions underlying the Forward-Looking Statements prove incorrect or should one or more risks or other factors materialize, including: (i) risks associated with the mining industry in general (e.g., operational risks in development, exploration and production; delays or changes in plans with respect to exploration or development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of estimates and projections relating to mineral reserves, production, costs and expenses; and labour, health, safety and environmental risks) and risks associated with the other portfolio companies' industries; (ii) risks associated with investments in emerging markets; (iii) general economic, market and business conditions; (iv) failure to secure additional financing in the future on acceptable terms, if at all; (v) failure to obtain a successful reorganization vote from MTVs creditors; (vi) commodity price fluctuations and uncertainties; (vii) risks associated with catastrophic events, manmade disasters, terrorist attacks, wars and other conflicts, or an outbreak of a public health pandemic or other public health crises, including COVID-19; (viii) risk that MTV and/or the Company cease to be going concerns and the Companys guarantee of the MTV debt is called and the related pledge is realized (ix) those risks disclosed under the heading "Risk Management" in SRHIs Managements Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2019; and (x) those risks disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" or incorporated by reference into SRHIs Annual Information Form dated March 24, 2020.

The Forward-Looking Statements speak only as of the date hereof, unless otherwise specifically noted, and SRHI does not assume any obligation to publicly update any Forward-Looking Statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be expressly required by applicable Canadian securities laws.

Investor contact information:

Michael Staresinic

President and CFO

(416) 943-7107

mstaresinic@srhi.ca

Source: SRHI Inc.




UNITED NATIONS: The Trump administration on Friday dismissed near universal opposition to its demand to restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran, declaring that a 30-day countdown for the snapback of penalties eased under the 2015 nuclear deal had begun.

U.S. allies and foes have joined forces to declare the action illegal and doomed to failure, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. special envoy for Iran Brian Hook strongly disagreed and questioned the motives of those who object.

Opponents say the U.S. lost the standing to trigger snapback when President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. Pompeo and Hook maintain that the United States retains that right and doesnt need permission to use it.

We dont need anyones permission, Hook told reporters in a briefing Friday. Iran is in violation of its voluntary nuclear commitments. The condition has been met to initiate snapback. And so we have now started to initiate snapback.

He said that whether people support or oppose what were doing is not material, adding that today is day one of the 30-day process.

The five countries now in dispute with the U.S. administration Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany remain supporters of the 2015 nuclear deal, which the Obama administration backed, to rein in Irans nuclear program and prevent its development of nuclear weapons.

That agreement was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in resolution 2231, and includes the snapback provision.

Pompeo officially informed the Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday that the United States was invoking snapback, and has the legal right because the United States is mentioned as a party to the 2015 nuclear deal in resolution 2231.

The Europeans fear that the reimposition of sanctions may lead Iran to quit the nuclear deal entirely and plow ahead with efforts to develop atomic weapons. They are hoping to preserve the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in the event President Donald Trump loses his bid for a second term. Democratic candidate Joe Biden has said he would try to revive the agreement.

Following the meeting with Pompeo, Indonesias U.N. Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, the current council president, began one-on-one consultations with its 14 other members on the legality of the U.S. action, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.

Diplomats said the likely outcome of the council presidents consultations is that the majority of members inform him that the U.S. is not legally entitled to invoke snapback, and therefore they consider that snapback has not been triggered and the U.S. action will have no effect.

In these circumstances, the council president would not be required to introduce a resolution to extend sanctions relief, which would face a U.S. veto, the diplomats said.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who has long questioned the validity of the administrations argument and recently called it too cute by half, told The Associated Press: I can think of three or four ways for the deal supporters to sabotage this effort at triggering the snapback mechanism.

Im sure that the European and the Russian and Chinese diplomats are all working on that now, said Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-2006 during the George W. Bush administration. This was not well thought out by the United States.

Pompeo kept up his sharp criticism of U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany, who didnt support a U.S. resolution to indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Iran. It was resoundingly defeated a week ago, with only the Dominican Republic supporting the Trump administration.

The three European nations issued a joint statement Thursday saying the U.S. ceased to be a participant in the JCPOA" in 2018 and they couldnt support Pompeos action, which is incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA."

Pompeo accused the Europeans on Thursday of privately agreeing with the U.S. on the need to extend the arms embargo, but lacking courage to say so publicly and proposing no alternatives. Instead, he said, they chose to side with ayatollahs.

On Friday, Pompeo said it was incomprehensible that the Europeans didnt support the arms embargos indefinite extension.

To side with the Russians and the Chinese on this important issue at this important moment in time at the U.N., I think, is really dangerous for the world, he told Fox News.

Hook again repeated that there was never a compromise proposal presented by any country to the United States, but diplomats said there were extensive discussions, including on a six-month or one-year extension, and on lifting the embargo and requiring all arms sales to be approved by the Security Council but there was no agreement among its 15 members.

The Europeans are still hoping that an agreement might be reached before the Oct. 18 expiration of the Iran arms embargo that could bridge the major differences between Russia and China, who support its lifting, and the United States, which seeks an indefinite extension, the diplomats said.

Russia has been the most vocal critic of U.S. action to impose snapback.

As soon as Pompeo delivered the letter invoking snapback, Russias deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, tweeted: Looks like there are 2 planets. A fictional dog-eat-dog one where US pretends it can do whatever it wants without cajoling anyone, breach and leave deals but still benefit from them, and another one where the rest of the world lives and where intl law and diplomacy reign.

Pompeo expressed certainty in a Fox News interview that U.N. sanctions will be restored, saying, Russia and China can talk a good game today, but I assure you the United States will use every tool in its arsenal to make sure that the Chinese and the Russians are incapable of delivering weapon systems to Iran that threaten us.

He added, We will do everything in our power to make sure that they dont get the money that comes alongside being a global arms dealer as well.

___

Lee reported from Washington.

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
Officials with the Howard Hughes Corp. announced recently that a new PNC Bank branch is now open in the mixed-used eight-story residential complex Two Lakes Edge, located inside the Hughes Landing area along Lake Woodlands.

Situated at 1975 Hughes Landing Boulevard on Lake Woodlands, the new PNC Bank brings a wide array of banking and financial services to residents of the new structure. The bank joins two other recently opened businesses in the building, the Row House restaurant and StretchLab, officials stated in a release.

PNC Bank is part of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., which offers banking and financial services. The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States.

Kellie Forman, senior vice president of lasing for The Howard Hughes Corp., stated in the release company officials were excited to bring in a nationally-known brand like PNC Bank.

(PNC) is a national brand business offering banking services within walking distance to the local residents in Two Lakes Edge and One Lakes Edge, along with employees in Hughes Landing, Forman said in the release.

New warehouse, business park planned for South County

A new industrial warehouse and flex-office business park will be developed in South Montgomery County, according to 2978 Land Holdings, L.P.

Known as the Woodgrove Business Park at FM 2978, the 85,000-square-foot planned development will offer warehouse, light industrial, flex and office spaces for a variety of users. Located south of the intersection of Woodlands Parkway and FM 2978, the park is situated on the west side of The Woodlands and just north of Tomball along the newly expanding FM 2978 corridor.

The development is intended to include six buildings ranging in size from 5,000 to 35,000 square feet to accommodate a variety of light industrial users and businesses. Situated on 9-plus acres, plans for the park feature outside storage areas, convenient truck access and turnaround points, generous parking ratios, and business park signage.

The first building is anticipated for completion by the first quarter of 2021.

Randalls storefronts remain empty

The Feb. 15 closure of two Randalls grocery stores in both the Grogans Mill and Panther Creek shopping centers has left empty storefronts in both village centers.

Two township directors who have been involved in trying to resolve the issue and find replacements  Bruce Rieser and Ann Snyder  both recently said there have been no developments to their knowledge on the fate of the spaces. Each sits empty with signs on doors advising interested parties to contact various real estate officials.

The stores were part of a list of Randalls closed around the Houston region, leaving the two oldest village centers in The Woodlands without an anchor grocery store.

In February, township President and General Manager Don Norrell told members and attendees of an Ad Hoc Economic Development Committee meeting that replacing the stores could take longer than expected due to covenant and deed restrictions.

jeff.forward@chron.com
More than a decade has passed since the largest mass arrest in Canadian history and gross violation of civil rights occurred on Toronto streets.

The people who were penned in by riot police, stripped of their belongings and detained inhumanely in metal cages  for protesting peacefully, or in some cases simply walking home  are finally set to receive a modicum of justice.

The Toronto Police Service has agreed to pay $16.5 million to those kettled  an inappropriately used crowd-control technique  indiscriminately arrested, and detained in a makeshift jail during the chaotic G20 summit in 2010.

More than 1,000 people will be eligible for payouts ranging from $5,000 to $24,700 once a court approves the agreement. They, along with the rest of the city and indeed the country, can only hope this class action settlement also provides some assurance that such appalling police behaviour wont happen here, or anywhere else in Canada, ever again.

As part of the settlement, Toronto police must publicly acknowledge the mass arrests and the conditions in which people were detained and commit to more appropriate use of crowd-control techniques in future demonstrations.

Thats not all it could be, but its still significant. Especially considering how little accountability theres been, from the rank and file, boots-on-ground cops to those in charge who set the tone and gave the orders to trample citizens rights.

This settlement should make it clear to all police that indiscriminately rounding up innocent people, with the slight hope of catching a vandal in the mix, is not acceptable. The right of citizens to peacefully protest cannot be set aside just because police think it would be convenient to do so.

This is a particularly timely message amid the continent-wide reckoning over police power, how it is used and misused.

For many caught up in the events of that June 2010 weekend, including Sherry Good, a white office administrator who became a lead plaintiff in the class action, it was their first experience with the police as an aggressive force. Their first realization that rights they believed to be sacrosanct in Canada could be cast aside by the very authority entrusted to uphold them.

But this, as we know all too well, is a situation that Black and Indigenous people encounter more regularly in their lives. Thats at the very core of the Black Lives Matter movement, calls to defund police and the protests that swept the globe after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Its also instructive to recall what happened after the G20 policing debacle.

Many of the police officers who were on the streets developed amnesia when faced with photos of a few riot-clad police wielding batons against protesters. The top brass, who were only too happy to gather for a massive co-ordinated policing effort, then scattered to the winds when it was time to answer for what happened on the streets.

We can only wonder how things might have been different if officers were wearing body cameras  equipment the Toronto police board finally approved this week.

Cameras are certainly not an instant fix for excessive use of force or anti-Black racism, but they have proven useful in getting to the bottom of things.

We have only to look to Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam for recent examples of citizens on the receiving end of excessive police force  initially blamed on the victims by the authorities  who had their version of events, the truth, backed up by video proof.

At a time of increased scrutiny of police behaviour the settlement for wrongs more than a decade old is a stark reminder that problems with how police authority is sometimes used and misused are long-standing ones.

When Ontarios top court gave the green light to the G20 class action, it noted that the remedies would be stronger instruments of behaviour modification than the non-binding recommendations produced by various investigations into how the police behaved.

We hope that proves to be the case.
Houston-area home sales registered another week of gains, as buyers continued to put homes under contract  in some cases after heated bidding wars  while fewer new listings hit the market, exacerbating the limited supply of properties for sale.

Seizing on some of the lowest mortgage rates in history, buyers closed on 2,138 homes during the week ending Aug. 17, up 15.9 percent from a year earlier, new weekly data from the Houston Association of Realtors show. New listings fell 11.4 percent from the year-ago period.

Homes in the $500,000 to $750,000 range have been one of the strongest segments of the market.

If youre a buyer in this price point, youve been frustrated as hell, Bill Baldwin, owner of Boulevard Realty, said this week in a market update to agents and customers. If youre a seller, its a pretty good scenario because thats really been one of the strongest portions of the market.

Economic uncertainty causes home shoppers to tighten their budgets, so instead of buying the million-dollar house, theyll by the $750,000 house, Baldwin said.

A force of nature: Pioneering Third Ward engineer, property inspector dies at 87

Demand for new homes has been on the rise since sales plunged in the early months of the pandemic.

This month, Metrostudy, a consulting company for the homebuilding industry, revised its forecast upward for 2020, estimating that builders would start as many as 31,500 new homes.

Development activity has already been pushing to the far outskirts of the Houston region, and COVID-19 could accelerate that trend.

With companies now considering letting some employees continue to work from home even after the pandemic, more urbanites may consider moving to the suburbs.

Builders and developers have been expressing interest in parts of Waller, Sealy, Montgomery and Needville, Bryan Glasshagel, senior vice president in advisory services at Metrostudy, said in a presentation to builders this month.

Theres a lot of activity already starting to sprout up in these locations, and on the advisory side, were seeing some of our assignments come in from there, so thats kind of a leading indicator of where development will play out, Glasshagel said.

Housings supply crunch: Is Houston running out of home for sale?

Historically low mortgage rates  which recently fell to below 3 percent  are helping fuel Houstons housing boom. Monthly sales of single-family homes surpassed 10,000 for the first time in July, according to Multiple Listing Service data.

While supply continues to be limited in the below-$250,000 market, the inventory of homes priced above $1 million remains high.

Baldwin said he expected that to change as summer winds down and wealthy Houstonians who fled the city for cooler temperatures return and start shopping for homes.

Wealthier people get out of the heat, Baldwin said. They go on vacations. You saw a pretty big exodus of families out of Houston someplace else, which caused some slowdown in that higher-end market.

nancy.sarnoff@chron.com

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The provinces Special Investigations Unit has determined there is no basis for pursuing criminal charges against two Niagara Regional Police officers after they shot and a killed a 56-year-old St. Catharines man armed with a bread knife last winter.

In his decision, SIU director Joseph Martino wrote he is satisfied the two officers shot the man, previously identified as Fred Penner, in the reasonable belief that doing so was necessary to protect themselves from an imminent knife attack.

Accordingly, as there are no reasonable grounds to believe the SOs (service officers) used unlawful force, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case, and the file is closed, said the report dated Aug. 10.

The incident occurred Dec. 31 shortly after 4:30 p.m. near the boarding house where Penner lived at 71 Rykert St. Police had received a call that a man was walking around carrying a large kitchen knife and had threatened someone with it.

The SIU report said a female officer was the first to arrive at the scene, accompanied by a Canadian Mental Health Association registered counsellor.

The complainant (Penner) was in mental distress at the time, Martino wrote. The week prior, police had also attended at the residence to check on his welfare. At the time, the complainant had been apprehended by an officer under the MHA (Mental Health Act) and taken to hospital for a psychiatric examination.

The SIU report said Penner was holding a large serrated kitchen knife in his right hand with a blade measuring about 17 centimetres in length. Although the officer drew her sidearm and pointed it at Penner and repeatedly ordered him to drop the knife, he refused to do so.

The officer attempted to build a rapport with the complainant, but those efforts proved in vain, the report said, adding Penner then began walking towards the police officer as a second officer joined her.

Both officers, with their firearms pointed in the complainants direction, walked backward with the complainants advance.

The second officer repeated warnings that Penner would be shot if he did not drop the knife, but the complainant remained undeterred, the SIU report said.

With the SOs having retreated as far back as the sidewalk and possibly onto the roadway, the complainant took a few quick steps in their direction and was met with a flurry of shots from the SOs guns.

The SIU investigation revealed the officers fired nine rounds at Penner from their Glock semi-automatic pistols, with five shots fired from one gun and four from the other.

Both officers went to the complainant and rendered emergency first aid while they waited for paramedics to attend. Bandages were placed on the complainants neck to stem the bleeding from a wound in that area, the report said.

The complainant was taken to hospital in St. Catharines where he was stabilized before being transported via air ambulance to hospital in Hamilton. He passed away the following day of multiple gunshot wounds.

Six SIU investigators and three forensic investigators were assigned to the case, who interviewed 11 civilians and three officers who witnessed the incident.

The report said investigators also reviewed a witnesss cellphone video, police communication recordings, police equipment and other evidence related to the incident.

Martino wrote he is unable to reasonably conclude that either officer transgressed the limits of permissible force when they discharged their firearms  notwithstanding the tragic loss of life.

The full SIU report on the shooting is available on the organizations website.

Members of Penners family declined to comment on the SIUs decision.
A 60-acre grassland unit located in Powys is now available on a farm business tenancy until 2029.

Penybryn, Kerry comes with a three bedroom detached house and modern farm buildings.

Powys County Council states that applicants should have sufficient financial resources to stock and equip the property.

It adds that those interested should also have a proven background in farming with sound practical experience.

The farm business tenancy is available from from October 2020 to 24 March 2029.

Requests for particulars should be made via email to county.farms@powys.gov.uk.

With 144 holdings and 11,400 acres of land, Powys County Council's farm estate is the largest of its kind in Wales and the fifth largest in the UK.

"We keep the farms estate to give people the chance to set up and develop farm-based businesses in rural areas," the council said.

"The estate also provides investment income for the council by generating an operational surplus each year."

Most holdings are in Montgomeryshire but there are several estates in Radnorshire and further holdings in Breconshire.
JACKSON, MI  From Jackson County public school districts offering parents a choice of in-person or remote learning for the new school year, to three men being rescued from a farming silo after a scaffolding collapse, a lot has been going on in the area.

Here are some headlines you might have missed this week.

Remote or in-person? Jackson County schools offer a choice

All of Jackson Countys traditional public school districts are offering a choice between in-person and remote classes as the school year prepares to begin on Aug. 26.

Thats by design, as weeks of collaboration between Jackson County superintendents has resulted in each district offering the same basic choices for parents.

Countywide, district surveys found about 70% of parents were in favor of having in-person classes in 2020-21, which drove the decision to provide parents with a choice between in-person and remote learning.

3 men rescued from fall into silo after scaffolding collapse in Jackson County

Three men were rescued Wednesday when a scaffold collapsed and they fell into a silo in rural Pulaski Township.

The men, who were tearing down the silo in the 12000 block of Pulaski Road in southwestern Jackson County, suffered serious injuries in the fall that occurred around 11:45 a.m. Aug. 19, Pulaski Township Fire Department Chief Dan Riley said.

They were taken by ambulance to Henry Ford Allegiance Health in Jackson after being rescued by first responders who were able to enter the silo through a door, Riley said.

Girl expected to recover from I-94 crash that killed 5-year-old

A 10-year-old girl seriously injured in a traffic crash that killed a child is expected to survive her injuries, police say.

The girl, from Homer, was seriously injured Friday, Aug. 14, on eastbound I-94 at Airport Road in Jackson County when a semitruck crashed into the rear of the Kia SUV she was riding in.

Her current condition is still unknown, though she is expected to recover from her injuries.

Historic Brooklyn bar transforms into Callaghans Coffee Cafe

For decades, Callaghans in downtown Brooklyn served residents their favorite beers and mixed drinks. Now, Chad and Desiree Fires want to serve drinks too -- but sans alcohol.

We still pour shots, only theyre shots of espresso, and we still have taps but its cold brew and Nitro brew coffee on tap, Chad Fires said.

The space, most recently named Callaghans, was a restaurant that converted to a bar after the Prohibition Era, they said. But it sat vacant at 109 S. Main St. for the last several years. The Fires thought it was a great spot to build their dream coffee shop, Callaghans Coffee Cafe.

Input from students, community leads Jackson College to offer in-person classes

Jackson College will now offer several in-person classes this fall after hearing from students and community members who wanted the option.

All of the in-person classes being added are general education and core classes that are easily transferable should students want to go to a four-year college, Cindy Allen, Jackson College senior vice president and chief operating officer, said

Were just trying to set up as many opportunities for all kinds of learning styles, as safe as we can be, Allen said.

Man flees from Michigan State Police, arrested for meth possession in Jackson County

A man was arrested in Jackson County for possession of methamphetamines after fleeing from police on Monday.

Michigan State Police attempted to stop the 53-year-old Eaton Rapids man for an equipment violation in Rives Township on Aug. 17, but he refused to stop, police said.

He then pulled into a driveway behind a house and tried to run, but was captured, police said.

2 people killed in Jackson County crash identified by police

Police have released the names of the two people killed Friday in a Concord Township crash.

Lavern A. Bell, of Jonesville, and Kellie A. Baker, of Jackson, both 57, were killed around 7 p.m., Aug. 14, in a crash on N. Concord Road at the intersection of King Road, the Jackson County Sheriffs Office said. Bell and Baker were pronounced dead at the scene.

31 new trees now occupy Jackson lot where a crumbling building once stood

Thirty-one trees now occupy the spot where Jacksons Ghuman Auto Sales crumbling building once stood.

The dealership, which opened in 1995, closed in 2016 when its license was suspended by former Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson because its owners did not provide records for inspection.

New Biggby Coffee drive-thru comes to Jackson

Michigan-based Biggby Coffee is bringing a new drive-thru location to Jackson.

The new 1,803-square-foot coffee shop at 1220 W. Parnall Road will be in a converted office space in the strip mall near Pollys Country Market. Theres no firm opening date yet, due to delays caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic, Biggby company officials said in an email.
Peskov told reporters that Russian law enforcement would launch an investigation if poisoning was confirmed.

The Kremlin says that a decision to refuse the transfer to Germany of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a Siberian hospital with suspected poisoning, is based only on medical grounds.

"This is a question of a purely medical decision," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on August 21 after Russian doctors said Navalny was not well enough to be moved from the Omsk hospital where he is being treated, RFE/RL reported.

Read alsoSubstance in Navalny's body hazardous to those around him, police say

Peskov told reporters that Russian law enforcement would launch an investigation if poisoning was confirmed, but the Russian news agency TASS quoted an unidentified law enforcement source as saying that there were "no grounds for opening a criminal case, no crime elements have been identified."

Navalny poisoning: background
Rackspace Technology Inc. alleges that a now-former employee threatened to go to the media with concerns about its business practices if it didnt pay him severance.

The allegation was made in a lawsuit Rackspace filed June 15 against James Barcelona, who had worked as a storage and backup engineer at the San Antonio cloud computing company.

Barcelona countered that the companys paranoid overreaction to his workplace complaints about its dysfunctional midlevel management and human resources representatives was spurred by its plans to go public again.

It has all of the signs of a company that panicked, probably  now that we have the benefit of hindsight  because they were about to go into an initial public offering, said Edward Pina, a San Antonio attorney defending Barcelona.

Rackspace returned to the public markets Aug. 5, raising $703.5 million in the process. It sold 33.5 million shares at $21 each, the bottom end of its target price range.

On ExpressNews.com: Rackspace raises $703.5 million in IPO

Mr. Barcelona was doing nothing other than complaining within the company through accepted channels, Pina said Friday. They have accused him of everything from fraud to breach of fiduciary duty to tortious interference with clients. Theres absolutely no basis for any of that.

Rackspace fired Barcelona on June 15, the same day it sued him in state District Court in San Antonio. It also obtained a temporary restraining order that prevents him from disclosing any of Rackspaces confidential business information through social media or to news media or the companys customers.

It is unfortunate that Rackspace Technology had to ask a court to issue a restraining order against a disgruntled former employee, spokeswoman Natalie Silva said in an email. The court granted the restraining order, and Mr. Barcelona has now agreed to an extension of the order and to abide by the order and his legal obligations.

Silva declined to comment on the details of the litigation. Rackspace seeks damages of at least $200,000 and as much as $1 million.

In his Aug. 13 response to Rackspaces lawsuit, Barcelona said he had been treated in a very demeaning and unprofessional manner by his immediate supervisor. The mistreatment included insults, slurs and other offensive comments, he added.

SA Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

Pina declined to reveal the nature of the offensive comments, saying they are the subject of a discrimination complaint that Barcelona has filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Texas Workforce Commission.

Severance package

Barcelonas troubles began after he complained about how he was being treated, Pina said. Within a week of making the complaints, Pina said, Barcelona received a corrective action from human resources. The action was later withdrawn after Barcelona showed it was false, he said in an Aug. 13 response to the lawsuit.

On May 30, Sarah Miller, a Rackspace human resources representative, said Barcelona sent her an email demanding a severance package equal to at least 12 months pay.

In that email, for the very first time, Barcelona also raised business concerns about Rackspaces business practices and protocols  concerns he had never before raised to me or anyone else on my team, Miller said in a declaration filed with the lawsuit.

Barcelona also threatened that if Rackspace failed to meet his severance demand of 12 months pay, he would go to the media outlets with his alleged business concerns, she added. He refused to provide any information on those concerns unless he knew the end result  namely, whether Rackspace would agree to his severance demand, the lawsuit said.

Barcelona later requested at least 15 months severance, she said.

On ExpressNews.com: Report: Amazon looks to acquire stake in San Antonios Rackspace

On June 10, Miller said, she received messages Barcelona had sent to another employee that indicated that he intended to disclose confidential business information and intentionally harm Rackspace.

Id be glad to make a bet with someone to see if I cant single handedly lose (Rackspaces) managed backup over a million dollars, Barcelona allegedly said in one message, according to Miller.

Barcelona also intended to contact thousands of clients and disclose how data is actually handled, Miller added.

He also said he may own the website rackspacetruth.com, Miller said in her declaration. However, the website Whois.com shows that Rackspace registered that domain name June 12.

Internal discussions

In his response, Barcelona said he never disclosed or even threatened to disclose confidential business information. The lawsuit creates the false impression that he made threats, he said.

Miller apparently was unaware of the alleged mistreatment by his supervisor and complaints he lodged with the supervisors superior, Barcelona said.

Barcelonas June 10 comments were all internal workplace discussions with co-workers, he said in his response.

Barcelona characterized his statements as hypotheticals, he added. Rackspace has gone out of its way to pervert months of internal discussions intended by Barcelona as an impetus for Rackspace management to improve its core business and core values into a paranoid tirade against him.

The lawsuit should be dismissed, and Barcelona should be awarded damages, the document also said.

A temporary injunction hearing is set for Oct. 26.

Patrick Danner Patrick Danner covers banking, insurance, business litigation and bankruptcies. To read more from Patrick, become a subscriber. pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD
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An estate agent is trying to cast a spell on prospective buyers as a two-bedroom property that used to be home to the infamous Magic Circle is up for sale.

The split-level apartment in Chenies Mews is situated in the fashionable area of Fitzrovia, on a residential mews, just a deck of cards throw away from a number of London landmarks.

On the market for 2million with Savills, the home is valued at around double the typical price tag for the area, according to property website, Zoopla.

However, it is likely to pique interest as it was once part of the Magic Club's theatre room, which was regularly frequented by many famous faces including Prince Charles.

Spellbinding? The split-level apartment, priced at 2m, is situated in the popular area of Fitzrovia and was once home to the Magic Circle

The Magic Circle is a British organisation that claims it is 'dedicated to promoting and advancing the art of magic'.

Famous members include Prince Charles, Dynamo, John Archer, Walter Rolfo and Stephen Fry.

It was formed in 1905 by twenty three amateur and professional magicians who gathered together at London's Pinoli's Restaurant with the intention of forming a club.

Prince Charles is a member of the Magic Circle and was known to visit the property

David Devant, often thought of as the greatest magician of his era, became the first President of The Magic Circle and the Society grew rapidly.

The total membership currently sits at around 1,500 with a quarter of these living overseas in 38 countries.

The first official meeting was held at the Green Man pub in Soho with later meetings held in a room above the stage of St. George's Hall in Langham Place before it moved to Chenies Mews.

The Fitzrovia property was originally built as a stable for horses of Camden carriages.

However, 84 Chenies Mews replaced the Magic Circle's 'Hearts of Oak' premises in 1968 on the Euston Road, when that had to be demolished due to road widening in 1966.

The property played host to the organisation for thirty years until, in 1998, the Magic Circle moved into its current location when it opened a purpose built headquarters in Euston.

The 1,335 square foot home is now up for sale to potential home owners looking for a spellbinding central London property.

Central: The Chenies Mews property is situated in Fitzrovia in a residential area, near many classic London landmarks

Inside, the split level apartment is home to an open plan kitchen and dining area with bright blue kitchen units installed

Anyone looking to purchase will get a share of the freehold.

The apartment comes equipped with an open plan kitchen and dining area with high ceilings on the ground floor.

Those looking to move in may wish to redecorate, however, as currently the less than bewitching kitchen has a number of bright blue kitchen units installed throughout with a stainless steel oven, hob, counter and drawers.

The spacious room can hold several sofas, a large dining room table and leads on to a guest cloak room.

Both bedrooms are also situated on the ground floor with a private patio leading out from the first bedroom as well as having an en-suite attached.

There is a bathroom situated next to the second bedroom for the other occupiers.

Spacious: The first floor mezzanine is home to a large reception room that has plenty of room for owners to entertain guests

On the first floor, there are two bedroom - one with an en-suite - as well as a guest cloak room and access to an outside patio

There is a second tiled bathroom situated next to the second bedroom on the ground floor of the property

On the first floor mezzanine is a large reception room with space for three sofas and a coffee table that looks down on to the open place dining area.

The area is well lit with a number of skylight windows lining the ceiling.

The home also has many nearby amenities including a wealth of restaurants on Charlotte Street, shopping in Oxford Street and the West End and the greenery of Regent's Park.

The transport links are excellent with Goodge Street being the nearest tube stop just 0.2 miles away while Warren Street is only 0.3 miles away.

Euston is also only 0.6 miles away and Kings Cross St Pancras is approximately 1.1 miles away. Access to the West and Heathrow is available via the A40.

The home has many nearby amenities including the restaurants on Charlotte Street and the shops on Oxford Street

There are many transport links to the property with it sitting just a few minutes walk away from Goodge Street tube station

The outside patio can be accessed through the first bedroom which also has an en-suite bathroom attached to it

Any families thinking of moving in will also be able to take benefit of the numerous nearby schools and universities including All Souls CofE Primary School and the University College London Medical School.

A number of museums including the British Museum, the Cartoon Museum and the Grant Museum of Zoology are also within walking distance.

Nick Poppe, a property agent at Savills, said: 'A quiet mews perfectly sandwiched between Regents Park and theatre land, what a fabulous location.'

When the property was used by the Magic Circle, members used to gather and use the home as a theatre to watch shows
Rashida Tlaib wins Michigan Democratic primary

By Ron Kampeas

WASHINGTON (JTA)  Rashida Tlaib, one of two Congress members to support the boycott Israel movement, defeated a challenger in her Michigan districts Democratic primary as she bids for a second term.

Major media declared Tlaib the winner against Brenda Jones, who had preceded her in representing the Detroit-area district.

Tlaib, a Palestinian American, favors a binational state as an outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She and Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, favor the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movemen...
She's been on a seemingly-endless holiday in Ibiza to escape lockdown in London.

And Demi Rose was once again displaying her eye-popping curves as she relaxed in the sunshine during her Spanish getaway on Thursday.

The model, 25, flaunted her voluptuous physique in a sexy green palm leaf bikini as she reclined on her sunbed to read a psychology memoir.

Wow! Demi Rose, 25, displayed her eye-popping curves as she relaxed in the sunshine during her Spanish getaway on Thursday

Demi displayed every inch of her amazing curves as she arrived at the sunbed to top up her tan, opting for a strapless green bikini top with a palm leaf print.

The Birmingham-born model teamed the top with thong bottoms that perfectly highlighted her peachy posterior.

Demi swept her glossy brunette curls into a loose bun and finished her glamorous poolside look with chunky gold hoop earrings.

The star was also seen reading the memoir Many Lives, Many Master by Dr Brian Weiss, which documented his work with a patient named Catherine.

Sexy: The model flaunted her voluptuous physique in a sexy green palm leak bikini as she enjoyed an afternoon of sunbathing

Jaw-dropping: Demi displayed every inch of her amazing curves as she arrived at the sunbed to top up her tan, opting for a strapless green bikini top with a palm leaf print

Deep in thought: The star was also seen reading the memoir Many Lives, Many Master by Dr Brian Weiss, which documented his work with a patient named Catherine

Revealing: The Birmingham-born model teamed the top with thong bottoms that perfectly highlighted her peachy posterior

Hours earlier Demi also showcased her incredible sunbathing ensemble in an array of sexy Instagram videos, before changing into a plunging swimsuit with a blue palm print.

Despite the prospect of two weeks behind closed doors upon her return to the UK - the result of tightening travel restrictions in the fight against COVID-19 - Demi still seems to be smiling.

Spain had been among of a number of 'air-bridge' countries considered to be safe for quarantine-free travel, promoting many stars to book getaways, but a spike in coronavirus cases across the country has prompted a change in policy.

Fun in the sun: Despite the prospect of two weeks behind closed doors upon her return to the UK, Demi still seems to be smiling

Irate: Before her trip to Ibiza Demi had been isolating in her London flat after the novel coronavirus pandemic scrapped her travel plans for March - much to her displeasure

Upset: Taking to social media at the time, she lamented: 'All I have with me is crochet stuff and bikinis. I'm sick of wearing all the other stuff that I bought that is loungey

Sizzling: Demi certainly seemed to be enjoying her sunny getaway as she reclined on the sunbed in her revealing two-piece

Before her trip to Ibiza Demi had been isolating in her London flat after the novel coronavirus pandemic scrapped her travel plans for March - much to her displeasure.

Taking to social media at the time, she lamented: 'All I have with me is crochet stuff and bikinis. I'm sick of wearing all the other stuff that I bought that is loungey.

'What is your bet that this will be over in June, July, August... What do you think, like never? Corona really f**ed us up, really majorly f**ked us up.

'I hope you're all staying safe and me... I am meditating, I'm trying to read a lot of books. Me and Teddy are really bored. I really want corona to f**k off, honestly.'

The brunette beauty was catapulted to fame when she became romantically linked to Kylie Jenner's ex, rapper Tyga.
Second IntercityHotel in the Sultanate opens in the oasis city of Nizwa

FRANKFURT, Germany and NIZWA, Oman, Aug. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Deutsche Hospitality is expanding its presence in the Sultanate of Oman. On 15 August, the group has opened a second hotel operating under the Intercity brand name. The hotel is situated in Nizwa at the edge of the Hadschar mountain range and surrounded by the Nizwa Grand Mall and the Aqua Water Park. Set in an oasis, the city of Nizwa is considered to be a cultural centre and is the historic trading centre of the Sultanate.

The IntercityHotel Nizwa will offer 120 guest rooms and suites, a restaurant, a cafe and an Aqua Pool Bar. Health and beauty spa facilities will comprise a gym, a steam bath and a rooftop pool. The hotel's luxurious Ballroom will be able to accommodate up to 700 people and stage unforgettable weddings, family celebrations and business events. Three combinable conference rooms will also provide additional options for meetings.

"We are delighted to be establishing a further IntercityHotel in Oman," explained Thomas Willms, CEO, Deutsche Hospitality. "Oman offers fantastic holiday destinations and an outstanding host culture. Our guests in Nizwa will be provided with a new international hotel with superb services that combine bot European and Arab influences."

Deutsche Hospitality has been operating in the Sultanate since 2016, when the IntercityHotel Salalah opened. Nizwa exudes historic flair and is considered to be both a centre and a link between various parts of the country because it lies between the routes connecting Muscat and Salalah. It is also highly popular amongst domestic travellers. "The huge Ballroom, the rooftop pool and the events rooms are all USPs for us in this wonderful city," said Anees Shinnara, General Manager of the IntercityHotel Nizwa. "The whole team is ready to fire the enthusiasm of our guests."

- Picture is available at epa European Pressphoto Agency (http://www.epa.eu) and AP Images (http://www.apimages.com) -

Current press information is available in our press portal.

IntercityHotel is a Deutsche Hospitality brand which stands for modern upper mid-range urban hotels. IntercityHotels are located within easy walking distance of airports or railway stations. Guests also benefit from a "FreeCityTicket" scheme, which enables them to use local public transport free of charge. The IntercityHotels portfolio includes more than 40 hotels in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Oman and China, and 20 further properties are currently at the development stage. Deutsche Hospitality operates four further brands. Steigenberger Hotels & Resorts boast 60 hotels housed in historic traditional buildings and lively city residences and also offer health and beauty oases set at the very heart of nature. MAXX by Steigenberger is a new and charismatic concept which places the focus on the essential in accordance with its motto "MAXXimize your stay," whilst Jaz in the City branded hotels reflect metropolitan lifestyle and draw upon the local music and cultural scene. Zleep Hotels provide quality and design at an affordable price in Denmark and Sweden.

Press contact:

Deutsche Hospitality | Lyoner Strae 25 | 60528 Frankfurt am Main | Germany

Sven Hirschler | Tel: +49 69 66564-422

E-mail: [email protected]

Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

www.deutschehospitality.com/en

www.steigenberger.com/en | www.maxxhotel.com/en | www.jaz-hotel.com/en

www.intercityhotel.com/en | https://www.zleep.com/en/

Related Links

https://www.deutschehospitality.com



SOURCE Deutsche Hospitality
Flavoured ice cubes containing the breast milk of women who have had Covid-19 could help fight off the life-threatening infection, scientists say.

Dutch researchers claim to have found antibodies in 30 mothers' breast milk after they recovered from Covid-19.

Breast milk could therefore be used to protect the most vulnerable people in the event of a second wave, experts claimed.

They said the best way to provide this would not be a drink, but rather sucking an ice cube.

This, they claim, gives the antibodies more of a chance to latch on to the mucous membranes of the mouth and airways, where they can prevent the coronavirus from spreading further in the body.

The blood of Covid-19 survivors, rich in antibodies, is already being used to treat patients, including in the UK.

Using breast milk is a 'strange picture', the Dutch team admit - but if it can help to prevent infection, it should not be frowned upon.

Thousands of women have responded to a campaign asking them to donate 100ml of breast milk for further research.

The thick yellowish milk (colostrum) produced for the first few days following birth is particularly rich in antibodies against other viruses, such as chickenpox, according to the NHS.

Flavoured ice cubes containing the breast milk of women who have had Covid-19 could help fight off the life-threatening infection, Dutch scientists say (stock)

The antibodies are not destroyed by pasteurisation - a heating process necessary in order to kill pathogens before it can be drunk by other people. This means they could be pasteurised and then made into a form of ice cream or ice cubes and given to patients suffering the infection, it is claimed (stock of milk cubes)

The initial study, a collaboration between Emma Children's Hospital of Amsterdam UMC and other institutes, started in April.

Dr Britt Van Keulen, of the Dutch Breast milk bank of Amsterdam UMC, said: 'We know breast milk protects newborn children against respiratory infections.

'That's because there are antibodies in breast milk. By breastfeeding, the mother passes on her own antibodies to her child. '

Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, like the coronavirus.

The role of antibodies is to latch on to invading pathogens and mark them for other immune cells, such as T-cells, to kill.

Neutralising antibodies are able to kill the virus themselves, rather than just tagging it for other immune cells to attack.

Researchers recruited 30 women who had already recovered from Covid-19.

They claim laboratory experiments showed the antibodies they found are powerful enough to stop the spread of the coronavirus, The Times reported.

CAN BREAST MILK HELP FIGHT COVID-19? Breast milk contains antibodies passed on from the mother, which boost a baby's immune system and help it fight infections and viruses. This is on top of the last three months of pregnancy, when antibodies from the mother are passed to her unborn baby through the placenta, the NHS says. Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, like the coronavirus. The role of antibodies is to latch on to foreign substances like the coronavirus and mark it for other immune cells, such as T-cells, to kill. Neutralising antibodies are able to kill the virus themselves. The transfer of antibodies from mother to baby provides the baby with 'passive immunity'. If they catch an infection, there is more chance they can fight it using the immune cells their mothers passed on to them. The amount and type of antibodies passed to the baby depends on the mother's immunity. For example, if the mother has had chickenpox, she'll have developed immunity against the condition and some of the chickenpox antibodies will be passed to the baby. But if the mother hasn't had chickenpox, the baby won't be protected. Passive immunity to measles, mumps and rubella can last for up to a year, which is why the MMR vaccine is given just after your baby's first birthday. If a mother has had Covid-19, it can be suspected she will have antibodies that are passed on to the baby. But it is not clear how long antibodies against Covid-19 last, with scientists saying it is evident they can wane after just a few weeks. Therefore, if a women had Covid-19 in the first few months of her pregnancy, it's not clear if she would still have the antibodies for it when she gives birth. Many people infected with Covid-19 in March and April don't have antibodies anymore. On top of this, some people with Covid-19 never mount an antibody response anyway, because other immune cells, such as T-cells, fight the virus off rapidly. Bottle-feeding can be costly for many parents struggling to cope with the financial burden of a new baby. Formula milk also has varying levels of nutrients, decided by the provider, but cannot contain antibodies which are produced by the mother's immune system. Advertisement

But there do not appear to be findings published in a medical journal or elsewhere.

The antibodies are not destroyed by pasteurisation - a heating process necessary in order to kill pathogens in breast milk before it can be drunk by other people.

This means they could be pasteurised and then made into a form of ice cream or ice cubes and given to patients suffering the infection, it is claimed.

Dr Van Keulen said the antibodies need to be in contact with mucous membranes - a layer of cells surrounding body organs that secrete a thick fluid protecting the inside of the body from pathogens such as viruses.

This is why an ice cube is the most attractive form of giving the breast milk because it needs to be sucked on.

Dr Van Keulen said: 'When you drink it, it disappears quickly. Our idea is to give it in the form of ice cubes, so it takes a little longer, there is longer contact with the mucous membranes to create that layer.'

Hans Van Goudoever, head of Emma Children's Hospital, said: 'We think that after drinking the milk, the antibodies attach themselves to the surface of our mucous membranes. There they attack the virus particles before they enter the body. '

Treatments would not be available on a mass scale because of the limited quantities of breast milk.

But it could also be used to protect vulnerable people, such as elderly residents during an outbreak at a care home or young children.

'In that case, breast milk could possibly be used for risk groups when a second corona wave occurs,' said Dr Van Goudoever.

'You would have to give the milk for ten days. After that, the virus will hopefully have left that nursing home.'

Dr Van Keulen said: 'It is perhaps a strange picture, elderly people drinking breast milk.

'But if it protects against a deadly virus, we should just get over that embarrassment.'

The researchers pleaded for thousands of women to donate breast milk, even if they have not had not been formally diagnosed with Covid-19, in order to detect how prevalent the antibodies are among nursing mothers.

The response has been 'overwhelming', a spokesperson for the hospital told The Brussels Times.

Some 5,000 women have responded to the call to donate 100ml of breast milk in the name of coronavirus research.

The researchers initially said it would be 'difficult' to get responses because few pregnant women are known to have had Covid-19 infection.

'Women who have been infected with corona unnoticed may also have produced antibodies that can be found in the milk,' Dr Van Goudoever said.

'We are therefore looking for mothers who have (possibly) been infected with the corona virus, but even if this is not the case, a mother can register.'

The team will now try to determine what percentage of mothers' milk contains antibodies.

It remains to be seen whether the breast milk is indeed effective as a preventive treatment against the coronavirus.

But Dr Van Keulen is hopeful because of information about a pregnant woman during the 2003 outbreak of SARS - a related human coronavirus.

She said: 'This woman became seriously infected with the SARS virus and gave birth to a healthy baby at 38 weeks.

'Antibodies to that virus were found in her breast milk. If you know that the coronavirus is very similar to the SARS virus - they are from the same family - then I think that corona antibodies can also end up in breast milk.'

Antibodies are a promising line of Covid-19 treatment because they could be used to bolster the immune system of people struggling to fight off the infection.

The blood of Covid-19 survivors, rich in antibodies, is already being used to treat patients.

The treatment  used for around a century for other infections  works using the liquid part of the blood, known as convalescent plasma.

This antibody-rich plasma is injected into Covid-19 patients struggling to produce their own antibodies, with hopes it can help clear the virus.

Other therapies in the pipeline, such as injections, use laboratory genetically engineered antibodies.

Administered in doses like a vaccine, scientists say antibodies could give humans the ability to avoid being struck down by the disease.
A Bangladeshi woman, who claimed



to have been living in for 20 years, was apprehended near the international border in West Bengal's Nadia district after she crossed over from the neighbouring country with the help of traffickers, a BSF official said on Friday.

The woman was caught in Hazarakhal area on Thursday, he said.

During interrogation, the woman admitted that she is from Jessore district in Bangladesh, the BSF official said.

"The woman claimed that she has been staying with her husband in for the last 20 years. She works as a housemaid there and has been visiting her relatives in at least once a year illegally with the help of traffickers," he said.

Several Indian identity cards were recovered from her possession, the BSF official said.

"An Aadhaar card, a voter identity of address and a PAN card in her name were seized from the woman," he said.

The border guards of the Hazarakhal outpost spotted three persons near the international border. They caught the woman, while two suspected traffickers fled from the spot taking advantage of the darkness.

(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.)
Earlier this year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made their shocking announcement of stepping down as senior members of the Firm.

Following their bombshell news, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex vowed to be "financially independent" as they "carve out a progressive new role within the institution."

According to their initial statement, they plan to split their time between the U.K. and North America and continue "to fully support Her Majesty The Queen."

Unfortunately, as part of their departure to the royal family, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would no longer receive money from the "sovereign grant" provided by the treasury.

According to the Sussexroyal.com, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle receive five percent from the Sovereign Grant, which is a funding mechanism that pays for the work of the royal family (including expenses related to their workspaces and official residences).

As the two slowly adapt to their post royal life, this raises the questions on how the Sussexes can fund their lavish lifestyle.

Prince Harry Net Worth

According to Forbes, the British royal family's net worth is estimated to be at $88 billion. Sure enough, the biggest portion belongs to the richest royal, Queen Elizabeth II.

Meanwhile, celebritynetworth.com estimates Prince Harry's net worth to be around $40 million. It is made up mostly of an inheritance from Princess Diana and Queen Mother, which reportedly includes precious jewels.

How Much Did Prince Harry Inherit From the Princess of Wales?

In 1997, the whole world was devastated when news broke that then 36-year-old Princess Diana died in a car crash.

During that time, her net worth was around $31.5 million and the majority of it went to her kids.

Prince William and Prince Harry were both teenagers at that time and were only allowed to collect the interest at 25. They also could not touch the actual money until they reached 30.

According to reports, they both received $16 million on their 30th birthday.

Prince Harry's Benefits to the Duchy of Cornwall

Aside from his inheritance, Prince Harry's net worth is also supported by his annual allowance from his father through the Duchy of Cornwall.

Being the heir to the throne, Prince Charles only holds the possession for the duchy, known as the assets of the Prince of Wales' private estate.

Daily Mail noted that even after Megxit, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expected to receive funds from the Duchy of Cornwall amounting to $3 million a year.

Prince Harry's Previous Work

Although royals can't have their own income "professionally," Prince Harry served as a captain in the British Army and reportedly earned around $50,000 and $53,000 a year, as cited by Forbes.

In addition, multiple reports mentioned that the duo recently signed under prestigious speaking agency Harry Walker Agency that includes clients like former president Barack Obama and wife Michelle, as well as the Sussexes' close friend Oprah Winfrey.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are expected to make up to 1 million dollars from delivering speeches about "social issues in the world."

READ MORE: Angelina Jolie Fires Back at Brad Pitt Amid Messy Divorce -- 'No Special Favors' Please!


New virus cases exceed 300 for first time since early March

By Jun Ji-hye

President Moon Jae-in called on the health authorities, Friday, to take stern legal action against anyone who attempts to disrupt the country's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moon's comments came as the nation's fight against the coronavirus is now at a critical phase, with new cases exceeding 300 daily for the first time since early March, Thursday, amid growing fear of a second wave of infections.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 324 cases, including 315 locally transmitted ones, with the country's total caseload rising to 16,670.

The President demanded the authorities bring criminal charges against those hampering epidemiological investigations and quarantine operations and, if necessary, apprehend them on site and seek an arrest warrant.
Helsinki:

Nokia on Wednesday announced that it is suing Apple in German and US courts for patent infringement, claiming the US tech giant was using Nokia technology in many products without paying for it.

Finnish Nokia, once the worlds top mobile phone maker, said the two companies had signed a licensing agreement in 2011, and since then Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apples products.

After several years of negotiations trying to reach an agreement to cover Apples use of these patents, we are now taking action to defend our rights, Ilkka Rahnasto, head of Nokias patent business, said in a statement.

Also Read: Finnish telecom giant Nokia finalises acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent

The complaints, filed in three German cities and a district court in Texas, concern 32 patents for innovations related to displays, user interface, software, antennae, chipsets and video coding. Nokia said it was preparing further legal action elsewhere.

Nokia was the worlds leading mobile phone maker from 1998 until 2011 when it bet on Microsofts Windows mobile platform, which proved to be a flop. Analysts say the company failed to grasp the growing importance of smartphone apps compared to hardware.

It sold its unprofitable handset unit in 2014 for some USD 7.2 billion to Microsoft, which dropped the Nokia name from its Lumia smartphone handsets.

Meanwhile, Nokia has concentrated on developing its mobile network equipment business by acquiring its French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent.

Including its 2013 full acquisition of joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia said the three companies united represent more than 115 billion euros of R&D investment, with a massive portfolio of tens of thousands of patents.

The 2011 licensing deal followed years of clashes with Apple, which has also sparred with main rival Samsung over patent claims.

At the time, Apple cut the deal to settle 46 separate complaints Nokia had lodged against it for violation of intellectual property.

For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Thousands gather in capitals Independence Square, birthplace of a months-long protest movement, to celebrate the coup.

Malis opposition supporters have flooded into Bamakos central square to celebrate the military overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, which their leaders hailed as a victory of the Malian people.

Thousands on Friday gathered in the capitals Independence Square, the birthplace of a months-long protest movement, many of them draped in Malis national flag and blasting on vuvuzela horns.

They rallied three days after mutinying troops seized the countrys 75-year-old president, forced him to announce his resignation and unveiled a military government that would rule until a transitional president takes over.

We have come here to thank you, to thank the Malian public for its support. We merely completed the work that you began and we recognise ourselves in your fight, the military governments spokesman, Ismael Wague, said.

A man holds a banner against the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and Barkhane, an operation started on August 1, 2014, which is led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africas Sahel region, during a protest to support the Malian army and the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) in Bamako, Mali [Annie Risemberg/AFP]

Keita, who was elected for a second five-year term in 2018, announced his resignation on Wednesday, saying he had been given no other choice and wanted to avoid bloodshed.

The coup came after months of protests, staged by a loose coalition called the June 5 Movement, that were fuelled by anger at Keitas failure to stem a bloody rebellion, revive the economy and tackle corruption.

We won

In contrast to fierce condemnation abroad at the overthrow of an elected leader, many in the rally were jubilant at the change as they sang, danced and waved banners thanking the mutineers.

I am overjoyed! We won. We came here to thank all the people of Mali, because this is the victory of the people, said opposition supporter Mariam Cisse, 38.

Ousmane Diallo, a retired soldier aged 62, said, We are here to celebrate the victory of the people. Just the victory of the people.

IBK has failed, he said, using a common reference to the former president by his initials. The people are victorious.

But, he cautioned, The military should not be thinking now that they can stay in power.

Malians celebrate the overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in capital Bamako [Annie Risemberg/AFP]

Its a scene of joy. God delivered us from the hands of evil, we are happy, we are behind our army, said a 59-year-old farmer who gave his name only as Souleymane.

Some of the placards brandished in the rally reflected resentment at perceived foreign interference in Malis affairs.

One read, ECOWAS, a union of heads of state serving personal interests, a reference to the 15-nation regional bloc that has led the condemnation of the coup and stands by Keita.

The bloc is to send envoys led by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday.

Another sign had the words Barkhane and MINUSMA crossed out, the latter a reference to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Mali.

US halts military cooperation

Meanwhile, Keitas removal has dismayed Malis international partners, who fear it could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africas entire Sahel region.

The United States on Friday said it had suspended cooperation with Malis military in response to what the Pentagon referred to as an act of mutiny.

Let me say categorically there is no further training or support of Malian armed forces full-stop. We have halted everything until such time as we can clarify the situation, the US Sahel envoy J Peter Pham told journalists.

The US regularly provides training to soldiers in Mali, including several of the officers who led the coup. It also offers intelligence support to Frances Barkhane forces, who are there to fight affiliates of al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS).

Pham said a decision on whether Washington would designate the actions a coup  which could trigger a cut-off of direct support to the government  had to go through a legal review.
Matthew Staver / Bloomberg

The U.S. rig count rose for the first time since oil markets crashed in March, a sign that the historic oil industry downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic has hit bottom and is slowly recovering.

Energy companies operated 254 oil and gas rigs nationally, up 10 from last week, according to Baker Hughes, a Houston oil-field services company that has been tracking the rig count since the 1940s. There are 183 oil rigs, up 11 from last week, and 69 natural gas rigs, down one from last week, as well as two maintenance rigs in operation nationally.
The shocking moment a woman allegedly attempts to enter a Florida home and abduct a nine-month-old baby in the early hours of Tuesday morning was captured on Ring footage.

Hannah Braun, 28, was arrested in St. Petersburg in Pinellas County after police say she tried to kidnap at least two babies in the neighborhood.

Two children under five were found alone in her own home who told police they had 'lost mommy'.

Detectives say Braun was picked up shortly after 2am when a terrified mother caught her in their home trying to snatch her baby daughter from the arms of an older sister, while claiming she was going to 'protect' the child.

Hannah Braun, 28, was caught on Ring footage as she allegedly knocked her way into a home in Florida on Tuesday and then tried to abduct a nine-month-old baby girl

The mother, identified only as Amber by WFLA, said she does not know Braun but now lives in fear thinking of how easy it was for her to get into their family home.

Ring footage shows the moment Braun approached their house and knocked on their door with a phone in her hand.

'It's me,' she states. 'It's me, Momma, Hannah.'

The video ends as the door of the house swings open and she walks inside.

According to WFLA, Braun had been let into the house by a child.

She then approached a 12-year-old girl holding her nine-month-old sister and tried to take the baby from her.

According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, Amber found Braun and a struggle began but she was able to take back her child.

Braun is charged with attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault or battery, child abuse, and two counts of neglect of a child without great bodily harm

'Shes standing in my living room, talking about, yah, Im just here to get the baby. Im trying to protect the baby,' said Amber. 'Im like protect the baby? Why are you in my house.

'I dont want to live here anymore. I dont feel safe. Its not a good feeling at all,' Amber added.

'A random person can like, come to your house and literally take your child out of your house?'

Just before she tried to break into this house, Braun had knocked on the door of another neighbor, Thelma Reynolds, and tried to take her one-year-old grandson from her.

'She wanted the baby. She said she was taking care of babies here. And thats what she wanted,' said Reynolds. 'She wanted this baby.'

Her grandson, Elroy Reynolds was able to push Braun from the house but said that she was yelling and he believed she was on drugs.

'The lady is pushing the door open. She comes in the house. Almost pushed my grandmother over and that's when I jump up,' he told Fox13.

'I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "I want the children. I'm here for the babies". I said, "Where are your kids at? What's going on?" She said, "No, the babies." Then she pointed to my little cousin and said "Let me touch her face".

'She was on something. She was yelling.'

It is also unclear whether drugs or alcohol were involved.

She knocked on the door until a child let her in. She is heard saying in the video 'It's me. It's me, Momma, Hannah.' This was allegedly the second home she hit that night

Police said that she is not cooperating with the investigation and a motive is unknown

He added that he then watched her walk on to the next house in the 600 block of 15th Avenue South in St. Petersburg which is where cops caught up with her.

Police say that Braun lives nearby but had no previous relationship with either of the families.

Once police were called by neighbors, she was taken into custody and two children under the age of five were found waiting alone in her own house.

Her relationship with the children is not clear but according to the arrest report, one of the children stated 'she lost her mommy'.

The children are are now in the care of a family friend.

Police said the alleged abduction attempts happened in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the 600 block of 15th Avenue South in St. Petersburg, Florida, pictured above

'If youre coming in here and trying to take my baby, theres no telling what youre doing to your own kids and how your own kids mental state is after all this trauma they experienced,' Amber said of the abandoned children.

'I can only imagine the trauma they experience on a regular basis.'

'It was kind of scary, she left her own children in the house and was running around looking for other children. That makes no sense,' Elroy Reynolds added.

The motive for Braun's crime is not known and police say she did not cooperate with their investigation.

She has been charged with attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault or battery, child abuse, and two counts of neglect of a child without great bodily harm and is in jail on $145,000 bond.
A man has been arrested in a brazen drive-by shooting near Jane Street and St. Clair Avenue West that left one man dead this July.

On the night of July 10, a suspect fired multiple gunshots from a vehicle, striking Mohamed Sow and four other people at a plaza parking lot at 251 Woolner Ave.

Sow, 21, of Toronto, died the next day.

The reason that this is so concerning is its a brazen shooting, deputy police chief Shawna Coxon told reporters at the time, noting that more than a dozen rounds were fired and five people were shot but it could have been much more.

Malique Francis-Taylor, 20, of Toronto, was arrested Friday and charged with first degree murder.

Miriam Lafontaine is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @mirilafontaine
Director of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Lawyer Abraham Amaliba says Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia's rank as the Vice President of the country is gradually fading into oblivion.



He claims majority of Ghanaians have lost interest in his style of politics which has been eclipsed with barefaced lies.



Bawumia is increasingly making people lose confidence in him, he claimed.



Lawyer Amaliba was discussing Dr. Bawamias four interchanges saga which has generated some cacophonies in the political fraternity.



According to the Vice President, the cost of one interchange under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration is the cost of four interchanges under the Akufo-Addo administration.



Speaking at a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, August 18, 2020, Dr. Bawumia said this clearly shows that the NPP government has been economical with the little resource at its disposal, thereby, doing more infrastructure projects than the previous administration.



He cited Tema, Pokuase and Obetsebi-Lamptey interchanges in the Greater Accra Region and Tamale in the Northern Region, all at a total cost of $289 million comparing it with the $260 million Kwame Nkrumah Interchange.



I would just leave that for you to ponder, Dr. Bawumia said.



But Lawyer Amaliba who is not too pleased with the Vice Presidents assertion argued that he is not behaving like the second gentleman of the country.



He is behaving like a senior Presidential Staffer than a Vice President, he told Kwasi Aboagye in an interview with NEAT FMs morning show 'Ghana Montie'.



Bawumia should have told us what really went into the construction of those interchanges. He just left a blank statement. Its worrying to have our Vice President speak this way. Its unfortunate, he added.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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By Trend

Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov will pay an official visit to Russia, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Leyla Abdullayeva wrote on her Twitter page on August 20, Trend reports.

Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova informed during a briefing that Bayramov will visit the country on an invitation of Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.

"The heads of the foreign ministries of the two countries will hold negotiations, during which it is planned to discuss a wide range of issues of bilateral relations, regional and international agenda, Zakharova said. Meetings of the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister in the government and in the Federal Assembly of Russia are also planned to be held".

--

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Midland Health President and CEO Russell Meyers said Thursday that while metrics are showing an improvement in the level of coronavirus in the community, he doesnt see it being eliminated soon.

Meyers said during a Unified Command Team press conference that hospital officials are encouraged by the fact that fewer people are seeking testing and fewer people are sick with coronavirus. He added that there have been six straight weeks of reduced positive tests at MMHs testing site.

So, while we consider those to be encouraging numbers and the hospitals declining census to be encouraging, under no circumstances do we believe that the virus has been eliminated from the community, Meyers said. Thats not going to happen until there is a vaccination for the virus and or an effective treatment that can be used broadly to eradicate.

Meyers and Mayor Patrick Payton talked about this being a critical time as students return to school, community leaders wanting to open the economy more, and Midlanders wanting to avoid another larger increase in the number of coronavirus cases.

Meyers said he expects a smaller spike, and no matter the numbers, the hospital district will be there to support Midland ISD and other educational entities.

The same holds true, according to Meyers, when it comes to businesses reopening safely and effectively.

Can we drive (the number of cases) to zero in the short run? Meyers said. I dont think we can. We have to recognize that fact. So, well continue to work together closely to get better and better information.

Meyers said he was open to broader testing, especially as testing resources have become a little bit more abundant recently. Meyers said that more should be known in the next few days about the possibility of using oral swabs or a saliva test.

There is actually one lab in the state of Texas that is beginning to ramp up its ability to do oral swabs and may be able to do those in significant quantity, Meyers said. But clearly, theres been a good bit of development of less-invasive, faster-turnaround testing that might allow us to broaden the swath of the community that were able to test and get a better idea of community spread. And we hope thats useful in decision-making as we go forward.

Other hospital metrics

There are 14 COVID patients at Midland Memorial Hospital, the lowest number in a couple weeks, according to Meyers. Five of those patients are in critical care, he said. Those patients range in age from 30s to 90s.

He said there are eight staff members who have either tested positive or had symptoms that required them to be quarantined  a number that is down from a peak in the 50s.

He also said the emergency department saw 109 patients on Wednesday, a number he indicated was down from what is normal around this time of year. So, that challenge continues, he said.

Whats with the low recovery numbers?

There might be some who believe the number of recoveries seems low. For instance, there have been 3,011 total cases in Midland County but 1,366 recoveries. That includes only 25 recoveries since Aug. 10.

Ector County, on the other hand, reports that 3,143 of the 3,931 cases have recovered.

Whitney Craig with the Midland Health Department reported that there isnt a timeframe for recoveries but that the department looks at how a person is actually feeling (on a medical basis). She said health department officials look at their symptoms, so for example, if there is a patient with a lingering cough that requires the patient to be on oxygen, then the health department wouldnt consider that person recovered.

Determination of active cases

Craig said that the health department adds the number of people isolating and those under investigation to determine the number of active cases. She said those people who wouldnt respond to requests for updates are not factored into that number because health department officials havent spoken with them.
This week, cases of COVID-19 continued to rise in Skiatook and Sperry.

The total number of confirmed cases in Skiatook has risen to 215 as of August 21, up from 195 a week ago. 186 have recovered. Testing results are now taking five to seven days as there is a very short supply of rapid tests available.

Sperry has 70 cases, up from 62 last week with 61 recovered and one death.

Osage County has 582 confirmed cases, up from 397 last week, 12 deaths and 408 who have recovered. Tulsa County has 11,873, up from 10,135 last week, 123 deaths and 10,389 recovered.

Across the state of Oklahoma 50,699 cases have been reported, up from last weeks 42,255. There have been 709 deaths and 42,695 recovered. Oklahoma continues to see a rise in over 1.5% in day over day cases.

All 77 counties in Oklahoma now have at least one confirmed case.

The United States has 5,573,847 cases with 174,255 deaths.

The County Health Department is asking that everyone continue to follow these simple tips to protect yourself and those around you during the COVID-19 pandemic:
A Labour councillor and candidate for the London Assembly has been suspended after the discovery of social media posts in which he supported an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Preston Tabois is accused of voicing support for a Ukip election candidate suspended in 2013 for claiming Jews killed each other in the Holocaust as part of a masterplan to create Israel.

Anna-Marie Crampton, who stood for election to East Sussex County Council, was suspended by Nigel Farage's then party over reports she posted extreme views on a conspiracy theorist website called 'Secrets of The Fed'.

Crampton, then 57, was alleged to have said: 'Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers.

'The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist Jews and financed by the bankers to make the general public all over the world to feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.'

In messages unearthed by the Guido Fawkes blog, Spurs fan Mr Tabois , who addressed the Labour conference in 2014, left a message on a post about her comments, saying 'Your (sic) not wrong brother.'

In messages unearthed by the Guido Fawkes blog, Spurs fan Mr Tabois , who addressed the Labour conference in 2014 (above), left a message on a post about her comments, saying 'Your (sic) not wrong brother'

Anna_Marie Crampton (left, with Nigel Farage) was suspended by Ukip in 2013 over reports she posted extreme views on a conspiracy theorist website called 'Secrets of The Fed'

It's understood that Mr Tabois, who represents Tottenham Green on Haringey Council, has been placed on administrative suspension by Labour pending an investigation. Such a move would prevent him from standing in an election.

He is on the slate for the London Assembly elections postponed to May 2021.

Under new leader Keir Starmer Labour has shown a zero tolerance approach to members accused of anti-Semitism in an attempt to distance itself from the Jeremy Corbyn era.

A Labour Party spokeswoman said: 'The Labour Party takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.'
Police are still searching for the man suspected of shooting and killing an 18-year-old woman in Southeast Portland last month, and a local organization has offered a cash reward for information that leads to his arrest.

Portland police say they suspect Kceon Colbert, 19, of shooting ShaiIndia Harris, 18, outside a home in the 7400 block of Southeast 84th Avenue on July 10. Police say Harris died at the scene before medics arrived. Police have an arrest warrant for Colbert for second-degree murder.

Colbert, 19, is suspected in the murder of Shai'India Harris.Crime Stoppers of Oregon

Crime Stoppers of Oregon, a community donation-funded group, has offered up to $2,500 for information that leads to Colberts arrest.

A Facebook page created by Harris family in her memory says Colbert and Harris had been in a relationship. Harris had recently graduated from Parkrose High School, according to the nonprofit Dont Shoot Portland.

Police described Colbert as 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds. Anyone with a tip can report it online at https://www.p3tips.com/823 or call 503-823-HELP (4357).

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday called on the country's medical workers to make unremitting efforts in improving their medical skills and services to further promote the reform and development of China's health sector.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks in an instruction on the occasion of China's third Doctors' Day.

In the instruction, Li lauded the contributions made by medical workers in protecting people's lives and health amid the COVID-19 epidemic, and expressed his respect for them.

Li called for efforts to further coordinate epidemic control and economic and social development, as well as efforts to step up training of medical workers. He also urged fostering a sound social environment that respects the medical profession.

A symposium was held on Wednesday morning at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark Doctors' Day. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan attended the event and delivered a speech.

Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, extended greetings to medical workers, and called on them to further promote the spirit they have demonstrated in fighting COVID-19 to protect people's lives and health.

Sun also praised the outstanding roles of medical workers in securing "major strategic achievements" in China's COVID-19 response, and called for efforts to always stay alert in maintaining response measures on a regular basis.

She called for efforts to better publicize the actions of medical workers, and put in place and implement incentive policies for them.




LONDON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Elsevier, a global research publishing and information analytics provider, and part of RELX, has acquired SciBite, a semantic AI company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, to help customers make faster, more effective R&D decisions through advanced text and data intelligence solutions.

SciBite's solutions identify and extract scientific insights from structured and unstructured text and content, to identify key concepts such as drugs, proteins, companies, targets, and outcomes. This semantically-enriched, machine-readable data, helps SciBite's customers around the world make streamlined, more efficient decisions.

SciBite was founded in 2011 by Dr. Lee Harland, who currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer at the company, with a mission to help customers better understand the complexities of life sciences data. SciBite's major products include: TERMite, an AI and ontology driven text analysis engine; DOCstore, which transforms search through semantic indexing; and CENtree, a next-generation collaborative ontology management platform; they are complemented by a suite of apps that support its core technology and allow customers to automate data-curation and manage terminology standards.

Dr. Harland said: "I am incredibly proud of everyone at SciBite; we believe that our continued investment in innovative technology enables our customers to address the huge challenges they face in creating, connecting and analyzing disparate content and data. Our track record in driving new insights and efficiencies within drug discovery and the wider life sciences is something we will continue to build upon in this next phase of our journey."

Rob Greenwood, CEO and President, SciBite, said: "This is an exciting next step for our business. The combined offering of Elsevier's high-quality content and data and the innovative technology from SciBite will deliver amazing value for any data led strategy across the scientific community. As part of the Elsevier organization, SciBite will have the ability to deliver enterprise technology, and new advances in scientific insight and discovery across its broad reaching global customer base."

Elsevier helps researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. To support this, Elsevier's Life Sciences Solutions division is transforming from a provider of reference solutions into a creator of data and information analytics capable of supporting multiple scientific domain-specific use cases, ranging from search and discovery through to machine learning and AI.

SciBite's proven and award-winning solutions will enable Elsevier to develop its Life Sciences Solutions services, such as: Reaxys, which powers chemistry research and development; Embase, the world's most comprehensive international database of biomedical information; and Entellect, its FAIR data compliant platform that integrates, stores, and enriches client data with Elsevier and third-party content into a common analytical environment.

Cameron Ross, Managing Director Life Sciences Solutions, Elsevier, said: "The life sciences and corporate R&D communities face complex challenges, with an ever-expanding sea of data and content to extract knowledge from. We aim to combine Elsevier's expertise and content from existing products, with SciBite's impressive capabilities and suite of ontology-led products, to support more customers around the world make data led decisions in the drug development process."

Stuart Whayman, Chief Commercial Officer, Elsevier, said: "Elsevier and SciBite have an aligned vision to better understand the complexities of the life sciences to better serve our customers, a vision which we believe will create exciting opportunities in the future. I am very pleased to welcome the SciBite team to Elsevier and look forward to working with them in the future."

About SciBite

SciBite provides an enterprise-ready semantic software infrastructure to standardise and transform scientific information silos into clean, interoperable data. Combining world-leading ontologies, cutting edge software and FAIR data principles, SciBite offers a differentiated set of capabilities to enrich the innovation processes of the world's leading life science R&D companies, SciBite is headquartered in the UK with additional sites in the US and Japan. Find out more at www.scibite.com

About RELX

RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. The group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs over 30,000 people of whom almost half are in North America. The shares of RELX PLC, the parent company, are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX. The market capitalisation is approximately 33.5bn, 37.1bn, $44.2bn. www.relx.com

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps scientists and clinicians to find new answers, reshape human knowledge, and tackle the most urgent human crises. For 140 years, we have partnered with the research world to curate and verify scientific knowledge. Today, we're committed to bringing that rigor to a new generation of platforms. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 39,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. www.elsevier.com

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Media contact

David Tucker

Elsevier Communications, Europe

+44 7920 536 160

d.tucker@elsevier.com
If youre in California and planning to use a ride-hailing service, it looks like Uber is your only option at the moment. Thats because Lyft announced on Thursday, Aug. 20, that it would be suspending its ride-hailing services in the Golden State at 11:59 p.m.Why? It all has to do with a lawsuit that the state of California brought against Uber and Lyft back in May, stating that the companies violated California law by classifying their drivers as independent contractors and not employees. Last week on Aug. 10, Judge Ethan Schulman of the San Francisco Superior Court ruled that the companies must reclassify their drivers as employees and gave them 10 days to appeal, which they did.The injunction is now in the hands of a state Court of Appeals  Lyfts statement said they would suspend operations only if the court did not rule in their favor by midnight Thursday. If Uber and Lyft were to classify their drivers as employees, it would mean they would have to provide the drivers with benefits such as health insurance, paid sick leave and minimum wage. As independent contractors, drivers are not currently eligible for these kinds of benefits.Read Lyfts full announcement here
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Shanghai, China  Fri, August 21, 2020 11:15 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f7b037 2 Business Alibaba,online-shopping,coronavirus,coronavirus-restrictions,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba on Thursday reported solid 34 percent growth in revenue for the April-June quarter in the latest sign that the coronavirus, rather than hurting the company, had actually helped.

Hangzhou-based Alibaba said revenue -- a key measure of the internet giant's business health as well as overall Chinese consumer spending -- rose to 153 billion yuan ($22 billion), slightly exceeding a Bloomberg analyst poll.

The coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, hammered the Chinese economy, causing a historic 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter of 2020.

But Alibaba and other Chinese tech titans have largely shrugged off the impact, and Chairman Daniel Zhang made clear the pandemic and its associated lockdowns and social distancing were fuelling turnover by consumers opting for the safety of online shopping.

"We were well-positioned to capture growth from the ongoing digital transformation, which has been accelerated by the pandemic, in both consumption and enterprise operations," he said in a statement accompanying Alibaba's earnings announcement.

Profit jumped 124 percent in the quarter to $6.7 billion, due mainly to gains in equity investments, it said.

But Alibaba could find itself in the crosshairs of Trump administration efforts to squeeze Chinese tech giants.

The US has for two years waged an escalating campaign to isolate telecom company Huawei, and is now also threatening to shut down video-sharing service TikTok unless Chinese parent ByteDance sells it to an American company.

President Donald Trump has said both companies pose threats to use national and data security and has hinted in recent days that other companies, possibly including Alibaba, may face similar US pressure.

Trump also in May ordered a probe into Chinese companies listed on American financial markets, which include Alibaba, JD.com, Baidu and a host of others, amid rising tensions between the world's two biggest economies.
A sign at Santiago Hills Elementary School anticipates the first day of school for the 202021 school year in Irvine, Calif., on July 14, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

OC Officials Say County Will Soon Go Off Watch List, Allowing Schools to Reopen

Officials in Orange County, California, announced Aug. 20 that positive trends in county case numbers for COVID-19 may soon allow the county to reopen schools for in-person learning.

The Orange County Health Care Agency (OCHCA) reported that the county dipped below significant data-monitoring thresholds used to determine a state watch list on Aug. 19. Once the county remains off the watch list for 14 consecutive days, in-person education for K-12 schools is allowed to resume.

OCHCA Director Clayton Chau said during a press conference that he is very optimistic that it will go well, and that he aims for the county to be off the watch list by Sept. 6.

On Aug. 20, the OCHCA reported that the countys case rate per 100,000 residents fell from 98.6 to 96.6still far above the states desired threshold of 25 cases per 100,000and the rate of county residents testing positive for the disease dropped to 5.7 percent from 5.9 percent.

But Orange County CEO Frank Kim said on Aug. 19 that because the case count is under 100 per 100,000 residents and the positivity test rate is below the states desired 8 percent, the county may be removed from the states watch list as soon as Aug. 22 due to newly outlined metrics.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Michelle Steel said the officials first priority is to protect public health and safety.

With the waiver process, and the careful review by the Health Care Agency and approval by the state, we can work together to make sure schools open safely as the new school year begins.

According to Chau, 10 county elementary schools have already submitted waiver applications to the state to reopen early. He said the applications were approved by county officials and the state on Aug. 19.

An additional 24 elementary school waivers are pending approval by the state, he added.

The state introduced the waiver process for elementary schools in early August, allowing them to reopen for in-person instruction if certain conditions are met.

To be considered, schools must be located in counties with fewer than 200 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, and the majority of staff, students, and parents must be in agreement to proceed with on-site learning.

Chau said the OCHCA will support reopening schools by offering COVID-19 testing for staff and students. Schools will have access to a full medical team, including pediatric infectious disease specialists, which will be standing by to assist as needed.

We understand there are risks, but the majority of applications have large staff and parental support, said Chau.

Families concerned about sending their children to school amid the COVID-19 pandemic can opt out of in-person learning and continue virtual education for their kids, he said.

The OCHCA on Aug. 20 reported 429 new COVID-19 cases and 23 deaths, bringing the county totals to 44,936 confirmed cases and 856 fatalities. On Aug. 19, the agency reported the first death of a person under 18 years old from the disease.
France's president insisted Thursday that the country will send millions of students back to school starting September 1, despite the biggest weekly spike in confirmed coronavirus cases since the height of its national outbreak in March and April. President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also pledged during a joint news conference that European countries would work more closely in the coming weeks to coordinate virus protection measures and vaccine supplies.

A wave of chaotic border closures followed when the virus first swept the continent. France's national health agency reported 4,771 new infections Thursday, and more than 18,000 new cases over the past week the biggest weekly rise since April.

Authorities attributed the increase to summer vacation parties and family gatherings, and to workplace clusters emerging as people returned to their jobs from a strict lockdown. Concerns are mounting among teachers and parents in France that schools won't be able to keep the virus at bay with children in classrooms. A leading teachers' union asked the government this week to delay the start of the school year.

"The return to school will happen in the coming days, Macron said. "We will not bring our countries to a halt, but we will have to learn to live with the virus." Germany reported 1,707 new daily cases Thursday, which officials blamed on travelers returning from other countries and private get-togethers. Germany's death toll in the pandemic, at 9,253, remains much lower than the 30,480 virus-related deaths reported in France.

Several German states have reopened schools, and several schools had to shut down classes or their entire buildings again because students or teachers subsequently tested positive with the virus. Merkel said she and Macron agreed that we need to work much closer together so that the people get the feeling something is being done on a European level to fight the pandemic.

"If German high school graduates don't celebrate in Germany because they're not allowed to, but then they can travel to other countries where that goes wonderfully, then that will not work out well on the long run," she said. Macron said "there's no reason" to close French borders again, and that European partners need to harmonize safety rules and avoid errors we made earlier in the crisis.

Also read: Namaste Merkel! Emmanuel Macron ditches handshake as he welcomes German Chancellor

Also read: Children are silent spreaders of novel coronavirus: US Journal of Pediatrics study
The former hurricane clips the coast of Baja California Peninsula as it weakens in the eastern Pacific.

Hurricane Genevieve weakened into a Category 1 storm off Mexicos Baja California Peninsula, US forecasters have said, after bringing rain and high waves to the countrys northwest coast.

Mexican authorities said on Tuesday two people, including a lifeguard, drowned at the resort of Los Cabos after a teenager ignored warning flags and was swept away.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said the storm, which had strengthened into Category 4 on Tuesday, moved close to Baja California without making landfall.

Genevieves maximum sustained winds had eased down to 150 kilometres per hour (90 miles per hour), it said, downgrading it to the weakest of five categories on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

However, strong winds, heavy rains, and life-threatening flooding were still a danger, the centre warned.

The system, which is now located 210km (130 miles) west-southwest of Mexicos Cabo San Larazo, has now been downgraded to a tropical storm.

It is expected to weaken further as it moves out into the open waters of the eastern Pacific. It will become a tropical depression on Friday evening and a remnant low by Saturday.

Following this extremely active hurricane season, attention is now focussed further east.

Tropical Depression 14 is in the western Caribbean and moving close to the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua. It has the potential to become a tropical storm by Saturday morning.

It is then forecast to reach the eastern Yucatan coast in the afternoon before moving into the Gulf of Mexico, where it may strengthen into a hurricane early next week.

Meanwhile, a tropical storm watch has also been issued for the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.

Tropical Depression 13 could also strengthen into a tropical storm by the early hours of Saturday as it heads towards the Florida Keys. If conditions allow, this too could become a hurricane next week in the Gulf of Mexico.
Russian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Suspected Poison Attack

By Charles Maynes August 20, 2020

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is in serious condition at a Siberian hospital after falling ill from what his press spokeswoman said appeared to be deliberate poisoning.

Navalny, 44, is in a medical facility in Omsk where doctors have induced a coma and connected him to a respirator.

He was aboard a flight heading home to Moscow when he fell ill, forcing an emergency landing. A passenger posted a video to Telegram in which cries could be heard from inside the airplane's lavatory stall.

Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said in a tweet that the opposition leader had some black tea before complaining he felt poorly during the flight.

"It was the only thing that he drank in the morning. Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid," said Yarmysh in a post to social media.

A passenger, Pavel Lebedev, posted a photo from an airport cafe prior to the flight that showed Navalny in a cafe drinking what appeared to be a cup of tea. S7, the airline whose plane Navalny boarded, said he had not been served food or drink.

Speaking to reporters, the deputy head doctor of Hospital No. 1 in Omsk, Anatoly Kalinichenko, suggested Navalny's condition had stabilized somewhat but remained serious.

"His active treatment is ongoing," Kalinichenko said. "Doctors aren't simply doing everything possible. Doctors are truly working to save his life."

Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, arrived at the hospital Thursday afternoon but initially was prevented from visiting Navalny on the ground that the patient hadn't given consent to the visit.

Navalny's personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, accompanied Yulia Navalnaya but was denied access to her patient.

Pictures and video from the scene showed scores of police at the hospital, presumably to carry out an investigation.

Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny associate, reported to the media that the hospital had for now ruled out the opposition politician's transportation to Moscow.

Supporters of the opposition leader held picket vigils in protest in several cities across the country.

When asked about Navalny at a daily briefing Thursday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, said, "We are following with concern the reports that Mr. Navalny has a sudden illness. We obviously wish him a speedy recovery. Any allegations of suspected poisoning, if confirmed, should be fully investigated."

Anti-corruption work

Navalny has long been a problematic figure for the Kremlin  detailing corruption and excess at the highest levels of the government on his popular YouTube channel.

The channel's mix of investigative journalism and caustic humor has resonated with younger Russians in particular.

Navalny has also made no secret of his political ambitions. He tried to run a campaign for president in 2018 that ultimately was undone by a lingering criminal conviction. His supporters  and the European Court of Human Rights  agreed that the charges were levied to keep him out of the race.

Associates from the Navalny-founded Anti-Corruption Foundation, known by its Russian initialism FBK, also were prevented from participating in local elections in Moscow in 2020  a ban that prompted a wave of street protests last summer in the capital.

Despite not being on the ballot, FBK members promoted what is described as a smart voting strategy that resulted in the defeat of dozens of Kremlin-backed candidates.

The foundation was raided by police and hit with money-laundering charges shortly thereafter.

In June, Navalny announced he was dissolving the foundation amid a slew of court-ordered fines and penalties handed down by judges loyal to the state.

The group had been planning to widen the smart voting strategy to regional elections scheduled for September 13.

Poisoning trends

Under President Vladimir Putin's rule, Russia has had a grim history of government opponents being attacked, poisoned or worse.

In 2015, Navalny ally Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed on a bridge just outside the Kremlin walls. Vladimir Kara-Murza, an aide to Nemtsov, barely survived a poisoning attack a few months later. There are several other notable instances of Putin adversaries having been killed.

This isn't the first time Navalny has been targeted. He suffered a serious burn to his eye after provocateurs doused him with antiseptic dye in 2017.

He also fell ill while serving a monthlong prison sentence in July 2019. Doctors suspected he might have had contact with "some toxic agent" that led to "contact dermatitis." None of his cellmates had similar symptoms.

Navalny's suspected poisoning Thursday instantly prompted debate over whether his political enemies  and the Kremlin in particular  would have anything to gain from a brazen attack that many would blame on Putin.

"Even if [the] Kremlin doesn't know anything about it, it's quite strange because it means these kinds of events are uncontrollable," said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Moscow Carnegie Center in an interview with VOA.

Kremlin denial

The Kremlin repeatedly has denied involvement in past attacks against opposition figures, arguing they're provocations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the government was monitoring news of Navalny's condition through the press and "wished him a speedy recovery, as they would any citizen of the country."

Peskov also said that he saw no reason to inform Putin about the incident, but that the government would launch a criminal investigation if a toxicology report found the poisoning allegations true.

Meanwhile, some political observers focused on the circumstances of the incident and wondered what they meant for Navalny's chances of recovery.

Anton Orekh, a columnist with radio station Echo of Moscow, noted in a comment to social media that if Navalny had indeed been poisoned before his flight, it was intended to do maximum damage.

Once in the air, noted Orekh, "quick medical help is all but impossible."

VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.

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Late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs autopsy report has surfaced online. The actor was found dead at his Bandra apartment on June 14. The autopsy report, of which Hindustan Times also has a copy, mentions asphyxia due to hanging as the cause of death.

The report mentions that there are no injuries or fractures around his neck and brain. It also mentioned the ligature marks around the neck, which were more prominent towards the right and absent over the back of the neck. "...pressure abrasion (ligature mark) present around the neck at the level of thyroid-cartilage, passes obliquely upward, backward towards mastoid process on both sides," it noted. The report said that the "total length of ligature mark is 33 cm".

The report, which has been signed by five doctors, said that there is no evidence of haemorrhage in subcutaneous tissue and muscle and in the thyroid gland, laryngeal muscles and para-tracheal muscles.

Sushants death is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Several conspiracy theories are circulating on social media around his death. While it was earlier reported that he died by suicide, his family has also claimed that it should be investigated to rule out murder.

A forensic team of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi will analyse the injury pattern in relation to medical findings in the death of Sushant. The CBI has approached the premier research institute for its medico-legal opinion.

Also read: Akshay Kumar told me not to become a producer, said you will become a struggler from a star: Mika Singh

The move came days after the Supreme Court approved CBI investigation, as recommended by the Bihar government to probe the death of the actor. Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of the forensic department at AIIMS, said that CBI will provide them reports related to Sushant Singh Rajputs case.

Another forensic expert at AIIMS said they will also evaluate whether the post-mortem findings are correct or not or there is a possibility of judgmental error.

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Social media in general has many different pros and cons. On the pro side of things, one example is that it is great for showing things to families that live far away. Not all families live close together all the time, so being able to share pictures, videos or even word posts online to thos
More than nine out of 10 Americans say they hold a favorable view of the U.S. Postal Service, according to a March Pew Research Center survey. New Jersey is demonstrating its approval for the agency with more than 20 statewide Save Our Mail! Save Our Vote! rallies this weekend, including an enthused crowd of more than a hundred in Morris Township on Friday.

Activists gathered to show their support for USPS and rail against the policies of President Donald Trumps embattled Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, whos become a wildly controversial figure for his proposed and recently rescinded cost-cutting changes.

Organized by the grassroots organization, Blue WaveNJ, rallies were held Friday in Jersey City, Montclair, Summit and 16 other municipalities, all of which were sponsored by local Democratic clubs and activist groups. Three more rallies are planned for Saturday.

Decked with shirts, buttons and signs reading, Dont Mess With Our Mail, S.O.S.: Save our Sorting Machines, and Return DeJoy To Sender, the mostly elderly group in Morris Township stood in front of the Convent Station post office as two police cars kept watch nearby. Many protesters also sported Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill T-shirts, as she represents New Jerseys 11th congressional district.

Barbara Delaney of Madison participates in the Save the Post Office rally held by the group NJ 11th For Change in front of the Convent Station post office in Morris Township on Friday, August 21, 2020John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

Crippling the U.S. Postal Service now, knowing that our countrys voters are relying on the mail to cast their ballots in a Covid-safe way, is a blatant way to suppress voter turnout, Mara Novak, co-executive director of NJ 11th for Change, the sponsoring organization behind Morris Townships rally, told the crowd. American citizens should not be forced by the federal government to choose between exercising their constitutional right to vote and the health and safety of themselves, and their friends, their families and the brave people who staff the polls.

Morris Township Mayor Cathy Wilson also addressed the crowd, listing off questions and concerns she has for local Postmaster Jose A. Reyes. She called for documentation of removed mailboxes, a list of mailboxes slated for replacement, an explanation on whether sorting machines have been removed and a clarified procedure on overtime.

Its concerning, Wilson told the crowd. We have questions. We want answers. I want the answers in writing, I want them shared with the public. This is something we all need to stay on top of.

A Save the Post Office rally is held by the group NJ 11th For Change in front of the Convent Station post office in Morris Township on Friday, August 21, 2020John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

In neighboring Morristown, Sherrill called for an investigation after the removal of blue sorting boxes last Saturday without advance notification to the town caused alarm in the community. USPS later confirmed the boxes were being replaced with new, high-security boxes.

Though not in attendance, Novak read a statement from Sherrill, who voted for $25 billion in emergency funding for the USPS in May and will return to Washington Saturday to vote on an additional $25 billion in funding as well as block DeJoys organizational changes.

I will continue to fight for a strong USPS and encourage you to do the same, Sherrill said in her statement. I know our residents care deeply about our postal service, our elections, and our democracy. Thank you for using your voice today.

A Save the Post Office rally is held by the group NJ 11th For Change in front of the Convent Station post office in Morris Township on Friday, August 21, 2020John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

On the same day as the rallies, DeJoy testified before senators, vowing that USPS would be able to handle the influx of election mail come the fall.

As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on-time, Dejoy said during the hearing.

This Tuesday, DeJoy suspended his planned changes, which included eliminating employee overtime and removing mail-sorting machines. DeJoy, a Trump megadonor, endured widespread criticism after the president admitted last week that he was opposing additional funding for USPS in order to undermine mail-in voting.

They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots, Trump said during an interview with Fox Business. If they dont get those two items, that means you cant have universal mail-in voting because theyre not equipped to have it.

Jack Gavin of West Caldwell participates in the Save the Post Office rally held by the group NJ 11th For Change in front of the Convent Station post office in Morris Township on Friday, August 21, 2020John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

On the same day DeJoy made his reversal this week, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced hed be suing the USPS over concerns the Trump administration was purposely crippling the agency before the election.

Voting by mail is safe, secure, and reliable and we intend to keep it that way for New Jerseyans, Grewal said in a statement to NJ Advance Media. Americans will vote by mail in record numbers this November and the Postal Services dramatic changes threaten to disenfranchise voters by disrupting mail service.

In Morris Township, the spirited residents booed at the mention of DeJoys name and cheered while community members suggested that voters cast their ballots as soon as they receive them and track their votes.

Jeffrey Eger of Morris Township wears a tee shirt with a Farewell Trump message as he participates in the Save the Post Office rally held by the group NJ 11th For Change in front of the Convent Station post office in Morris Township on Friday, August 21, 2020John Jones | For NJ Advance Media

Jack Gavin, clad in a button-covered vest, handed out American flags and pocket constitutions from a trolley to other rally-goers. Holding a mock envelope reading, Stamp Out Trump, Jeffrey Eger, another man in the crowd Friday, continued a lifelong trend of public protest, having attended his first rally in 1965 against the Vietnam War.

I come to this post office three times a week, Eger told NJ Advance Media, noting the mail delays hes seen in the past weeks. Its just one more thing that touches us on an everyday basis, and its now impossible to continue using these essential services in our lives.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Josh Axelrod may be reached at jaxelrod@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Multiple wildfires are burning in the greater North Bay. Cal Fire is referring to them collectively as the LNU Lightning Complex. LNU stands for Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, and you can find the latest evacuation info here. The biggest fires are:

Hennessey Fire (merged with Gamble, Green, Aetna, Markley, Morgan, Spanish and Round): Napa County, 194,942 acres, 7% contained

Walbridge Fire (merged with Stewarts): Sonoma County, west of Healdsburg, 21,125 acres, 0% contained

Meyers Fire: Sonoma County, north of Jenner, 3,000 acres, 0% contained

---

LATEST, Aug 21, 7 p.m. The LNU Lightning Complex had grown to 302,388 acres Friday evening with 15% containment.

Cal Fire said "significant fire growth is expected" and that the fire was exhibiting "extreme" behavior, making "runs in multiple directions and impacting multiple communities."

Aug 21, 4:15 p.m. The Walbridge Fire has entered Armstrong Redwoods Natural Reserve just outside of Guerneville.

The fire, deemed Cal Fire's top priority in the LNU Lightning Complex since it threatens Guerneville, Healdsburg and Rio Nido, has entered the northern part of the historic reserve.

As the Walbridge Fire draws closer to Guerneville, the Sonoma County Sheriff's office notes that it is "breezy" in town.

The Chronicle's Jessica Christian also reported that the wind is picking up in the area, much to the concern of firefighting crews hoping to keep the blaze out of the evacuated town.

Aug 21, 3:50 p.m. Cal Fire officials will hold a press conference to provide updates on the LNU Lightning Complex at 7 p.m. You can watch it on Napa County's Facebook page.

Aug 21, 2:10 p.m. All evacuation orders for the city of Vacaville have been lifted and residents are clear to return to their homes.

The Vacaville Police Department announced Friday afternoon that that all evacuation orders in the city are no longer active after firefighters stopped the progress of the Hennessey Fire. Cal Fire officials said Thursday they were "fairly confident" that the fire had been halted.

In addition, the evacuation order at Travis Air Force Base was also lifted.

The Walbridge Fire threatening Guerneville in Sonoma County remains Cal Fire's top priority in the LNU Lightning Complex.

Aug 21, 1:50 p.m. The Global SuperTanker was once again deployed against the Walbridge Fire once again Friday.

The Walbridge Fire was identified as Cal Fire's top priority on Thursday, and the SuperTanker  the world's largest firefighting plane that can deploy 20,000 gallons of water or fire retardant on a single drop  made a pass Thursday afternoon before returning Friday.

Aug 21, 1:45 p.m. The 220,00-acre LNU Lightning Complex is now the 10th largest wildfire in California's history, Cal Fire announced Friday. For reference, 2018's Mendocino Complex is the largest wildfire recorded at 459,123 acres.

Aug 21, 12:30 p.m. New evacuation orders have been issued in Lake County as the massive Hennessey Fire continues to burn. The order applies to all residents north and south of Morgan Valley Road, east of Sky Ridge Road, south of SR-20 and west of the Lake County line.

Aug 21, 11:30 a.m. Even more evacuations have been ordered in the Forestville and Lake Sonoma areas in Sonoma County as the 21,125-acre Walbridge fire continues moving south.

An evacuation order has been issued for residents in map grid 2A3 (access the map here) in the following areas:

North of Stewarts Point Skaggs Springs Road to the eastern edge of Lake Sonoma

Everything west of the eastern edge of Lake Sonoma to the western boundary that runs north along the ridge line from the intersection of Stewarts Point Skaggs Springs Rd at Old Stewarts Point Skaggs Springs Road to the interception of Rockpile Road at Cooley Ranch Road north to the Mendocino County Line

An additional evacuation order was issued for residents in map grid 4B1:

All areas south of River Rd. from Martinelli Rd. to the intersection of River Rd at Trenton Rd:

West of Covey Rd.

North of Front St. / Hwy. 116

East of Martinelli Rd.

The Walbridge Fire has burned 21,125 acres and was Cal Fire's top priority on Thursday as it approached Guerneville. The fire is still growing.

Aug 21, 10:10 a.m. Some evacuation orders have been lifted in Napa County. Orders are no longer in effect for the portion of Silverado Trail between Rosedale Road and Highway 29, but orders on Highway 29 from Silverado Trail to the Lake County line (excluding the portion within Calistoga City limits) remain in effect.

Aug 21, 9:30 a.m. More evacuations have been ordered in Sonoma County as the Walbridge Fire, one of the fires in the LNU Lightning Complex, continues to grow.

An evacuation order has been issued for residents in map grid IF2 (access the map here) in the following areas:

All areas south of the Russian River

East and North of Hwy. 116 (Pocket Canyon)

West of Martinelli Rd

An evacuation warning has been issued for residents in map grid 4D1 and 4D2 in the following areas:

East and North of Green Valley Road

South and West of Hwy 116



Furthermore, warnings were also issued for those in map grid 4C1:

North of Guerneville Road

East of Covey Road and Hwy 116

West of Laguna Rd

South of River Road

Aug 21, 8 a.m. The LNU Lightning Complex  named for the North Bay fires ignited by a rash of thunderstorms early this week  had minimal growth overnight. Before everyone went to bed last night, the blaze was 215,000 acres and this morning Cal Fire officials reported it had grown to 219,067 acres. Containment went from zero percent to 7%.

Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with Cal Fire, said three civilians died in Napa County and one died in neighboring Solano County since the fires began. He didn't have details but Solano County Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara reported the death of a male resident there.

The Vacaville Reporter said Thursday night a missing-persons report was filed for one of the deceased. A team was sent out to assess fire damage at his home and found him dead. He is believed to have died from fire-related injuries, according to the Solano Sheriff's office. The man, who was not identified, had reportedly declined to evacuate his property on Pleasants Valley Road in Vacaville.

It wasnt immediately clear whether the four fatalities included a Pacific Gas & Electric utility worker who was found dead Wednesday in a vehicle in the Vacaville area. PG&E confirmed the employee's death to the Sacramento Bee early Thursday, and said in a statement that a "Vacaville-based troubleman passed away while assisting first responders as they dealt with the LNU Complex Fire." The man was not identified by authorities.

Four people have also been reported injured.

The fire has destroyed 480 structures, damaged 125 and 30,500 are threatened.

MediaNews Group/East Bay Times via Getty Images/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Since multiple blazes were sparked Sunday, the fires have merged into massive infernos spread across Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Solano and Yolo counties, engulfing the region in flames and smoke and spurring tens of thousands of residents to evacuate. The Aetna and Round fires in Napa and Lake counties have now merged with the Hennessey Fire, adding up to a total of 194,942 acres burned in that area. In Sonoma County, the Walbridge Fire has since merged with Stewarts, for a total of 21,125 acres as of Friday morning. The Meyers Fire, also in Sonoma County, has now torn through up to 3,000 acres.

Although temperatures are predicted to ease slightly on Friday, they are also expected to be hot enough so that firefighters will not be able to count on cool evening weather aiding them. Erratic winds also could drive the fires unpredictably in multiple directions, state fire officials said.

Theres so much heat in these fires that they create their own wind ... and they may blow in any direction, and very erratically," said Berlant.

An arm of the fire is stretched into Lake County and Cal Fire issued new evacuations warnings Thursday for the Middletown area. Per Cal Fire, "All areas west of Highway 29 (including areas west of Saint Helena creek Road), north and east of the Lake/Napa County Line (extending north to the Anderson Springs Rd. prolongation between the County Line and Highway 175), south of Anderson Springs Road, Neft Road., and the Boggs Mountain Recreation Area prolongation to the intersection of Hofacker Lane and Highway 29" are now under evacuation warnings.

Evacuation information is always changing. Check Cal Fire's Twitter feed for the latest information.

Jose Carlos Fajardo/Associated Press

On Thursday night, several fires combined around the west, north and south ends of Lake Berryessa, encircling the lake on three sides. "This is a very large fire. It's one of many in the state of California and honestly, our resources are stretched very far," Cal Fire unit chief Shana Jones said. "So please be patient."

The fire of highest priority Thursday was the Walbridge Fire near Healdsburg. It has burned 14,500 acres so far and is pushing east and south toward Guerneville. The Walbridge Fire has already caused "significant structure damage and significant structure loss," Cal Fire said.

The world's largest firefighting plane the Global SuperTanker Services LLC's B747-400 "Global SuperTanker"  was deployed to the LNU Lightning Complex's Walbridge Fire in Sonoma County.

Cal Fire stated that the 14,500-acre Walbridge Fire currently bearing towards Guerneville is the Thursday's top priority in the LNU Lightning Complex. The blaze currently is 0% contained.

State Sen. Mike McGuire tweeted that the Global SuperTanker is "on the job" against the Walbridge Fire Thursday afternoon. The SuperTanker can deliver approximately 20,000 gallons of water or fire retardant in a single drop.

Fire crews also mounted a defense of Pope Valley, which they said has many structures in danger.

Out-of-state firefighters and freed-up crews from other California fires are expected to arrive in the coming days. Fog and clouds are expected to enter the forecast which crews hope will help slow the spread. Unfortunately, this may mean the air response will be limited by poor visibility.

One bit of good news Thursday came in the Vacaville area, where spread of the fire subsided.

Earlier this week on Wednesday, the blaze took a dramatic turn, burning over hills and through valleys, racing toward the community of Vacaville, where residents were roused before dawn Wednesday by orders to flee. Police and firefighters went door-to-door in a frantic scramble to warn residents to evacuate as flames encroached.

Karen Hansen had fled late Tuesday as flames approached her small farm.

Jose Carlos Fajardo/Associated Press

The whole sky was red orange and it was coming over the hill there and it was massive. Ive never seen anything like it, and it only took a few minutes to get here, she said.

The family fled with some animals but had to leave two beloved horses. They returned Wednesday to find the house and barn destroyed, but Hansen was thrilled to see that her horses had survived.

Im not upset about the house. Im just happy that my horses and animals are alive and my daughter, she said.

Video and photos of the English Hills area showed some homes had been destroyed. The owners of Yin Ranch, an event and wedding venue on Pleasants Valley Road, confirmed it is at least partially destroyed.

"The devastation on Pleasants Valley Road is pretty bad. Parts of it looks like Paradise, like the Camp Fire," Don Ryan, manager of the Office of Emergency Services, told the Daily Republic. "Lots of homes are burned down."

The fire jumped I-80 after 4 p.m., forcing a closure of I-80 between Fairfield and Vacaville and a partial evacuation of Travis Air Force Base. By Thursday morning, some residents were allowed to return as Vacaville lifted evacuation orders for the areas south of I-80, including Alamo Dr. south of I-80 to Marna Dr., California Dr. and Peabody Rd. I-80 also reopened around 9 p.m. Wednesday.

An evacuation center is set up at Crosswalk Community Church at 2590 First St. in Napa. (Find evacuation updates on the Napa County Sheriff's Office Nixle page.)

People can bring their pets to the Napa County Animal Shelter 942 Hartle Court in Napa.

Find more evacuation information:

Sonoma County: Find latest evacuation information at SoCo Emergency.

Napa County: Find evacuation information at Napa County Office of Emergency Services.

Lake County: Sign up for evacuation information with Lake County here.

Solano County: Evacuation information on the Solano County website.

Yolo County: Evacuation information on the Solano County website.

For updates on the blazes, check the Cal Fire website.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

MORE WILDFIRE COVERAGE:

Map: See where wildfires are burning in Bay Area

CZU Lightning Complex: Fire grows at rate of 700-1,000 acres an hour in Santa Cruz, San Mateo

LNU Lightning Complex: 4 dead, nearly 500 homes destroyed in North Bay fires

SCU Lightning Complex: Blaze spreads to 230k acres across five counties overnight

What to do to keep wildfire smoke out of your house

Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
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Competitive Analysis:

Leading players in the Global Water-Based Coatings Market include Sika AG, Jotun, Chenyang Waterborne Paint, Tikkurila Oyj, The Valspar Corporation, Asian Paints, The Sherwin-Williams Company, RPM International Inc., PPG Industries Inc., Nippon Paint Company Limited, Kansai Paint Co. Ltd., Berger Paints India Limited, BASF SE, Axalta Coating Systems, and AkzoNobel NV.

In October 2019, WEILBURGER Graphics GmbH announced the launch of a new, state-of-the-art production facility for water-based coatings in Gerhardshofen, Germany. The plant is expected to have a production capacity of 30,000 tons once its full capacity is reached.

Segmentation:

Global Water-Based Coatings Market is segmented on the basis of Product Type, Resin Type, End Use and Region.

By Product Type, the Global Water-Based Coatings Market is segmented into water-soluble paints, colloidal coatings, emulsions/latex paints, and water-based alkyds.

By Resin Type, the Global Water-Based Coatings Market is segmented into acrylic, polyurethane, formaldehyde, epoxy, alkyds, and others.

By End Use, the Global Water-Based Coatings Market is segmented into building and construction, electronics, automotive, marine, paper and packaging, and others. The construction industry holds the largest share in the Global Water-Based Coatings Market and is likely to remain the leading revenue generator over the forecast period.

Regional Analysis:

Asia Pacific is likely to dominate the Global Water-Based Coatings Market over the forecast period, followed by North America. The growing automotive and construction industries in Asia Pacific are likely to remain the major contributors to the Global Water-Based Coatings Market over the forecast period. The electronics and marine sectors are also likely to play a key role in the growth of the Water-Based Coatings Market in Asia Pacific over the forecast period, with China playing a leading role.

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Market Analysis:

Global Water-Based Coatings Market is profiled in great detail in the latest research report from Market Research Future (MRFR). The Global Water-Based Coatings Market is mainly analyzed from the point of view of understanding the market's previous growth trajectory and then make studied forecasts and projections about the market's likely growth trajectory over the forecast period from 2016 to 2023. The major drivers and restraints affecting the Global Water-Based Coatings Market are also analyzed in detail in the report.

Water-Based Coatings are widely used in the construction, automotive, marine, electronics and other industries due to their benefits in terms of environmental viability. The conventional solvent-based coatings are still widely used in the industrial sector. However, the growing demand for Water-Based Coatings is majorly driven by the growing demand for environment-friendly alternatives. Water-Based Coatings do not emit poisonous substances into the ecology and are also biodegradable, which means that they have no major impact on the global ecosphere. This has been the major driver for the Global Water-Based Coatings Market.

The growing construction industry is likely to remain a major driver for the Global Water-Based Coatings Market over the forecast period. The construction industry has been driven by the growing urbanization in developing countries, which has driven the demand for new residential construction. As more and more workers migrate from rural areas to cities in search of better employment opportunities, the demand for residential construction is likely to grow at a rapid rate in the coming years. This, allied to the construction industry's increasing efforts to become more environmentally sustainable, has led to a growing demand from the Water-Based Coatings Market in the last few years. The construction industry has taken several steps to go green in the last few years, driven by political motivation as well as the increasing public will. The adoption of Water-Based Coatings is just one of many measures taken by the construction industry to reduce its environmental footprint. This is likely to remain a major driver for the Global Water-Based Coatings Market over the forecast period, as the construction industry is a major end-use application for Water-Based Coatings and is likely to play an important role in the market's development in the coming years.

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The soldiers who seized power Tuesday in Mali have formed a junta, named the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), that they say will lead the nation until the appointment of a "transitional president".

These are its principal members.

Assimi Goita, chairman of the CNSP

The new strongman in the troubled Sahel country is a 37-year-old colonel and son of an army officer. Before the coup, Goita commanded the country's Special Forces battalion and ran combat training bases, according to a statement from the junta.

Goita attended the best military schools in Mali and rounded off his training in Gabon, Germany and the United States.

He specialised in armoured weapons and mobile infantry and was stationed in the desert north, in Gao and Kidal, from 2002 to 2008.

He then led the struggle against "armed terrorist groups" and drugs traffickers operating along the northern border with Algeria, between 2008 and 2010.

He also took part in several operations in the far north of Mali, a territory where French troops intervened in 2013 to drive jihadist forces out of towns including Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

He then took up duties in the Malian general staff, but was attached to the defence ministry after the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako on November 20, 2015, which left 22 dead.

Goita has also worked in Sudan's Darfur region and received decorations from France and the United Nations. He has three children.

Malick Diaw, first vice-chairman

Colonel Malick Diaw is believed to have been in charge of coordinating the military units leading to the coup. By MALIK KONATE (AFP)

Adjutant to the commander of the military zone of Kati in a suburb of Bamako, where the coup started in a military camp, Colonel Malick Diaw is believed to have been in charge of coordinating the military units leading to the downfall of president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

In a CNSP communique he signed personally, Diaw "humbly requested" that "people of goodwill who try to approach" the committee "for potential assistance of financial support... put an end to such practices."

Ismael Wague, spokesman

Junta spokesman Ismael Wague has justified military intervention on account of the "suffering" of the people. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP)

Wague, an air force deputy chief of staff, announced on national television early Wednesday that the army had taken power.

Seen as "rigorous" by his peers, he called on Malians to "go freely about their business" and urged civil servants to work normally. He also demanded "the halting of acts of vandalism".

Interviewed on Thursday by TV channel France 24, Wague rejected the phrase "coup d'etat" and reasserted that the junta would install a transitional president, whether "military or civilian".

He justified military intervention on account of the "suffering" of the people and by "dysfunctions in the army", including corruption that has become "too high".
A small school district in Sussex County is bucking the trend toward all-remote learning by offering students a full-time, in-person classroom schedule.

The Lafayette Township School serves 210 students, pre-kindergarten through 8th grade, and is the rural districts only building.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 20, 2020 / Informa Tech are delighted to announce the release of the 2020 5G 100 List, an inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in the wide world of 5G products, technologies and services.

Bringing together work from across 5G World, Omdia, the 5G Exchange, Light Reading and Telecoms.com, the 5G 100 is a comprehensive overview of the biggest influencers in the 5G universe, encompassing those who have the voices to cut through the industry noise and have the power to say where 5G could go next.

The list has been compiled from nominations, sources and industry contacts by 5G experts across Informa Tech, including Light Reading editors and Omdia analysts.

In the list's introduction, Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief of Light Reading, writes: "As you'd expect, there are a few CEOs in this list, but you'll also notice technologists, business development people who have engineering backgrounds, journalists, regulators, analysts and board-level executives who we wouldn't dare ignore if we're trying to find out what's coming next in this area."

He added: "Some folks on this list are in charge of 5G networks that have millions of subscribers and are scaling up and out. Some are the stewards of the technologies that power all of this stuff and they're definitely people you should watch"

You can access the full list by downloading here.

About Light Reading

Light Reading is an independent B2B digital media platform providing daily news analysis and insight for the global communications networking and services industry. Our broad readership and solid reputation make us the leading resource for telecom, mobile and cable network operators, cloud services players and all the companies that develop and supply them with technology, applications and professional services. Light Reading has over 500,000 qualified registered users, our websites attract over 1.3 million monthly page views and our newsletters are sent out to 220,000 opt-in subscribers. Our brand is also active across all social media channels, with over 100,000 members and followers. The Light Reading Group incorporates a dedicated research division Heavy Reading, more than 15 successful annual industry events, including the Big 5G Event; several targeted online communities, including The 5G Exchange, Connecting Africa and Broadband World News, that dig even deeper into key areas of the global communications industry; and its sister industry news site Telecoms.com.

Contact:

Amy Averbook

Marketing Consultant

Light Reading

917-743-2693 | averbook@lightreading.com

SOURCE: Light Reading Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602595/Informa-Tech-Releases-the-5G-100-2020-List
Seoul: No more "Little Rocket Man", exchanging love letters or summit pageantry.

If Joe Biden is elected US president, American policy towards North Korea is likely to see less emphasis on personal dealings with leader Kim Jong-un, and more focus on allies and working-level diplomacy, campaign advisers and former officials say.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during his nomination acceptance speech. Credit:Bloomberg

President Donald Trump has said he will make deals with North Korea "very quickly" if re-elected on November 3.

Pyongyang officials, however, have said while Kim still has a good relationship with Trump, they have to look ahead to a time when Trump isn't president.
Jay Baruchel provided the voice for Hiccup in the 'How To Train Your Dragon' trilogy. (Credit: Paramount)

Jay Baruchel is immensely proud of his work on the How to Train Your Dragon movies, but doesnt think hell ever play his character again.

The 38-year-old actor and filmmaker played the timid Hiccup  son of the village chief  in the DreamWorks trilogy, which ran from 2010 until 2019.

His bond of friendship with Night Fury dragon Toothless captured the attention of fans and left many in tears at the conclusion of last years threequel The Hidden World.

Read more: Behind-the-scenes footage of How to Train Your Dragon cast

The movies proved to be among the most successful and beloved in the history of DreamWorks, earning $1.64bn (1.25m) cumulatively across the three films.

Baruchel told Yahoo Movies UK he was immensely proud of my minuscule participation in the series.

Jay Baruchel attends the Canadian premiere of "Random Acts Of Violence" held at The 5 Drive-In on July 29, 2020. (Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images)

He added: It's crazy that there's three of them. They are these really special gifts to the world  the pinnacle of artistic achievement in animation. I sincerely believe that.

I am so f***ing lucky they let me be at a microphone a few times. I am proud of being part of something that means what these movies mean to people.

Read more: Baruchel says third Dragon film is the strongest

Baruchel said he was particularly pleased to be a part of a story that was so significant for young audiences.

When you adore something when you're young, you adore it in a pure, all-consuming way, the actor said.

I know that nothing, no happiness in my adult life, has matched my happiest moments as a child.

Toothless and Hiccup's friendship was at the heart of the 'How to Train Your Dragon' series. (Credit: Paramount)

Baruchel added that the friendship he made with How to Train Your Dragon director Dean DeBlois also proved useful in making his new horror movie Random Acts of Violence.

Dean DeBlois saw a rough cut of Random Acts like a year and a half ago, said Baruchel.

He gave me a lot of notes  no, actually he gave me a lot of encouragement and almost no notes. He was super cool about it and a big booster.

Read more: Baruchel discusses Random Acts and his obsession with true crime

Story continues

Baruchel described working on the Dragon films as a pretty special experience, but said that the door does definitely seem to be closed in terms of returning to that world.

Random Acts of Violence is available to stream on Shudder now.
The Ho Municipal Assembly Tender Committee has awarded a contract for works to commence on a 142-unit modern store at the cost of GHC 9.3 Million.

The project would help to expand the Central market and create a greater enabling environment for doing business.

It is a 'Secondary City Project' with funding from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and is being undertaken in 25 Municipal and District Assemblies, including Ho.

The project, awarded to Messrs Omega A. Company Limited and Messrs Silver Cross Estate Developers Company Limited, is in two lots and expected to be completed in eight and half months.

The Lot 1 comprises a two-storey facility with 58-units of shops, restaurants and other ancillary facilities will be executed by Messrs Omega A. Company Limited at a total cost of more than GH 3.7million.

Messrs Silver Cross Estate Developers Company Limited would construct Lot 2, made up of two-storey block with 84-unit shops and other ancillary facilities at a total cost of more than GH 5.6million.

Mr Prosper Pi-Bansah, the Ho Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), who disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency after handing over the project document to the contractors, said the facility would help decongest the market and improve accessibility.

The MCE said the facility when completed would secure the wares of traders from theft and bring some sanity to the market.

Mr Pi-Bansah said the Assembly would increase rates and levies to generate enough revenue to undertake more development projects.

The MCE said the Assembly had given the traders, currently operating from the project site, a new location to continue with their business.

Mr Francis Arthur, the project consultant, said his outfit would monitor the progress of the project to ensure it was done effectively to benefit the people.

He urged the contractors to strictly adhere to the scope of the contract, especially specifications, to ensure that they deliver according to requirements in the contract document.

Mr Issac Adza Tettey, the Regional Economic Planning Officer, said the project had come at an opportune time to enhance the growth and development of the local economy.

Mr Benjamin Kpodo, the Member of Parliament for Ho Central, warned against the sale of materials meant for development projects, saying such an act was not helpful for the country's progress.

---GNA
Agriculture Minister Saboto Caesar painted a far from encouraging picture of how the agricultural sector has been affected by drought and COVID-19 related factors.

Losses incurred by the agricultural sector as a result of the drought earlier this year, amounted to some EC$16M.





Agriculture Minister Saboto Caesar made this disclosure while addressing last week Thursdays, Aug. 13, sitting of Parliament.





"The losses to overall production are estimated at 16 million Eastern Caribbean dollars. It is broken down by commodity and the values are as follows: Bananas $762, 000; Plantains $4.3M; vegetables $6.1M; root crops $4.4M; herbs $243, 000; other commodities $526,000, Caesar reported.





And in reporting that the losses were spread across the three main agricultural regions, he detailed this as follows: Region 1 (from Richmond to Lowmans Leeward) $3M; Region 2 (Lowmans Leeward to Peruvian Vale, including the Mesopotamia Valley and the Grenadines) $3.4M; Region 3 (Peruvian Vale to Fancy) $9.9M.





Minister Caesar also noted that, "Drought 2020 has been recorded as one of the worst droughts experienced in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the last 50 years, impacting on all types of agricultural production.





And if the drought was not enough, Caesar told the nation that COVID-19 "compound[ed] an already challenging period by causing "uncertainty in farm workers timetables and interrupted trade.





Additionally, he posited, increased regional and international border restrictions also hampered trade in the sector as well as "delays in the supply of inputs as a result of impacted shipping lines.





The Agriculture Minister declared that his team "redoubled its efforts to ensure that the factors of production needed to sustain a viable sector are maintained.





Farmers continued to register at 30 centres across the state, so as to take advantage of the Drought 2020 Recovery Support measures, Caesar said.





Registration will continue until Friday 21st August.








Phuket beach cleanup nets 1.5 tonnes of trash

PHUKET: More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and trash was recovered from Nai Yang and Mai Khao beaches and the areas immediately offshore in a mass cleanup today (Aug 21).

tourismenvironmentpollution

By Tanyaluk Sakoot

Friday 21 August 2020, 05:28PM

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

More than 1.5 tonnes of marine debris and other waste were collected from Mai Khao and Nai Yang beaches today (Aug 21). Photo: Sirinath National Park

The cleanup was organised by officers from Phukets Sirinath National Park, park chief Natthawat Nuisriram explained to The Phuket News.

The cleanup began at 10am, with five park officers taking part, eight national park divers along with expats and other local residents lending a hand, he explained. In total about 50 people joined the cleanup, which continued until about midday, he added.

About 1.2 tonnes of waste was collected from the beaches, and a further 300 kilograms if waste was recovered from underwater areas off Nai Yang Beach, Mr Natthawat explained.

They collected all different kinds of garbage, mainly marine debris such as plastic and glass, pieces of foam, plastic water bottles and pieces of discarded fishing nets, he said.

About 80% of the garbage collected had been washed ashore from the sea, pushed onto the beach by the wind and waves.

"Most of the waste recovered in the underwater cleanup was discarded fishing nets. The divers saw it had become caught on the coral reef, and some corals were damaged," he added.

Chief Natthawat invited people to help keep the beaches clean, and thanked those who already lent a hand in keeping Phuket beautiful.

We go out to collect trash from the beach in the national park every day. Yesterday, park officers joined with hotel staff to clear about 50kg of trash from Layan Beach, he said.

"Please come and join us. We welcome everyone to help clean the beach together. To join our cleanups, please contact us through our Facebook page or call the park at 076- 328226 and 076- 328226," Chief Natthawat added.

https://www.facebook.com/sirinath.np
This pale German beer is easy to drink but difficult to brew

This German-born beer is good year-round, but summer is my favorite time to have some Kolsch: Light, crisp, with a hint of fruit from the yeast and a touch of bitterness from the hops to balance it all out. The delicate dance of flavor makes it an easy drinker but a difficult brew to get just right.

In Germany, this beer can only be called Kolsch if it actually comes from Koln, the literal meaning of the name. In Europe, the beer holds the status of PGI (protected geographical indication). (Other products, such as the beers and cheeses from Trappist monasteries, also have agreed-upon rules for production and labeling, but in the case of Trappist, it is not a particular style like Kolsch is.)

Kolnor Cologne, as we generally say in English, perhaps out of wariness of umlautslies along the Rhine River, with a towering Gothic cathedral at the citys center. One of the tallest and most remarkable in Europe, the double-spire beauty also played a role in the identity of the local brewing style. It was said that if you couldnt see the cathedral from your brewery, you were not brewing Kolsch.

Kolnor Colognelies along the Rhine River, with a towering Gothic cathedral at the citys center. (Rudy Balasko/Shutterstock)

That may be a folksy legend, but it is true that in 1986, the Koln breweries came together for the Kolsch Konvention to declare a PGI for their beer, and one of the rules stated that it had to be made within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the city.

Other rules held that the ingredients must be Koln water, top-fermenting yeast, and hops, and only malted barley could be used as the grain. (The limitation to these four ingredientsyeast, water, hops, maltis also the rule of Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law). The brew must have a pale straw color, be clear-filtered, and bear an alcohol content of 4.55.3 percent.

Unlike pilsners and other lagers with cold fermentation temperatures and yeast that works at the bottom of the tank, Kolsch calls for top-fermenting yeast and a warmer fermentation temperature, which imparts a hint of fruitiness. After that, however, it is aged a bit at colder temperatures, like the lagers.

But despite the adherence to guidelines, Kolsch beers are not all the same, thanks to the permitted variations in the malts and hops used. Additionally, exported varieties are not required to stick exactly to the rules.

Kolsch in Cologne

While there are at least a couple dozen brands of Kolsch currently on the market, only 13 breweries are brewing it. You can visit many of them in just a couple days, and mostly on foot.

On a trip to Cologne, I went on a tour of Sunner, the oldest currently operating Cologne brewery, founded as a brewpub in 1830 and then moved to a failed and flooded coal-mining operation in 1858. The move gave them an abundant water source and the partial excavations provided lagering cellars.

Sunner, the oldest currently operating Cologne brewery. (Pictor Picture Company/Shutterstock)

Top-fermenting yeast was nothing new, they told me; this sort of beer had been brewed for centuries. But in 1906, Sunner was the first to call it Kolsch (as in from Koln), and the other brewers soon followed suit. Even so, bottom-fermented pilsners led sales until the 1970s, when Kolsch finally caught on locally.

The serving vessel itself is particular to Cologne and its beer: a special 200-milliliter glass cylinder called a stange. A kobes, a beer server, whirls amid tables carrying several glasses in a special tray known as a kranz, meaning wreath. It looks like a deep-dish pizza pan with a handle rising from the middle and a top surface of circular holes, to secure the glasses for the ride. Without being asked, the kobes deftly swaps out empties for full glasses and marks a tally on your bar mat, and when you are ready to settle up, you lay the mat over the glass until the server comes by to collect your tab.

When you are ready to settle up, you lay your bar mat over the glass until the server comes by to collect your tab. (Kevin Revolinski)

A kobes, a beer server, whirls amid tables carrying several glasses in a special tray known as a kranz, meaning wreath. (Kevin Revolinski)

If you dont plan on being in Cologne, dont worry: Sunner exports limited quantities to the United States, as do Reissdorf and Gaffel.

Kolsch in America

Kolsch, however, is a fairly common style among American brewers. But per the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB, in the United States, any beer variety that suggests foreign origins must display the hyphenated style on its label. Thus, you dont see Scotch ales, German pilsners, or Belgian ales produced in the United States, but Scotch-style, German-style, and Belgian-style beers.

Sunner Kolsch. (Courtesy of Artisanal Imports)

You may also find flavored Kolsch-style beers, with additions of fruits, wheat, or even coffee, which would surely draw frowns from our Kolner friends.

But for the real deal, I turned to Dan Carey, master brewer of Wisconsins largest craft brewery, New Glarus Brewing. Carey has a passion for Germanic styles and produces Kid Kolsch as a summer seasonal. It is as spot on as Ive ever had outside Cologne.

New Glarus Brewing Companys Kid Kolsch. (Courtesy of New Glarus Brewing Company)

I asked him why such a seemingly simple brew often fails to hit the mark outside of Germany.

Like all thingsthe devil is in the details (or maybe its God thats in the details), Carey wrote to me in an email. He believes that many small things combine to make a huge difference, and that a brewer needs to nail them all to make a successful Kolsch-style beer.

Besides using the traditional ingredients, Carey also employs a double decoction mashing method. To put it simply, decoction mashing is a work- and time-intensive method of heating a portion of the mash separately and adding it back to raise the temperature in stagestwice in Careys case. Once a common practice in Germany, most brewers there, and especially here in the United States, opt for the quicker direct heating of an infusion mash.

Decoction mashing is one of those small details that alone wont make much difference, but when coupled with other thingsproper malt, hops, and yeast; open fermentation, long lagering; and bottle fermentationmake a noticeable difference, Carey wrote.

Kid Kolsch has been very popular for New Glarus. As Carey put it: The perfect beer is a marriage of drinkability and complexity. Its easy to make a beer with big flavors, but to make a drinkable yet complex beer takes a lifes effort.

Pairing Foods

Beer halls in Cologne will serve Kolsch with Halver Hahnnot a half rooster, as the name translates, but a rye roll with cheese, butter, and mustard.

Another traditional dish is Himmel und Erde (Himmel un Aad in Rhineland), or Heaven and Earth, which is apple sauce (picked from heaven above) and mashed potatoes (dug up from the earth). This combo is typically paired with blood pudding or blood sausage (such as Flonz, a smoky and firm local take on blutwurst that also enjoys PGI status) and fried onions.

Dont have any blutwurst in the fridge? How about fried pork knuckle? No? Then try bratwurst or perhaps some German-style cheeses.

Kevin Revolinski is an avid traveler and the author of 15 books, including The Yogurt Man Cometh: Tales of an American Teacher in Turkey and several outdoor and brewery guidebooks. He is based in Madison, Wis., and his website is TheMadTraveler.com
A Lewisville, Texas woman died Wednesday night in a two-vehicle crash in Tuscaloosa.

Alabama State Troopers said the incident happened at 11:10 p.m. on U.S. 82 near the 65 mile marker, 11 miles east of Tuscaloosa.

Jada Christin Harris, 19, was killed when the 2015 Jeep she was driving collided head-on with a 2011 Chevrolet Tahoe, driven by Michael Ray Roberts, 35, of Coker.

Harris was pronounced dead at the scene. Roberts was transported to DCH Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys (ALEA) Highway Patrol Division continue to investigate.
A military coup Tuesday toppled Malian President Ibrahim Bouba Keita, who is widely hated for his complicity in the bloodbath that has followed the French occupation of Mali begun in 2013. The opposition June 5 Movement-Rally of Patriotic Forces (M5-RPF) linked to imam Mahmoud Dicko is organizing celebrations today of Keitas ouster in the capital, Bamako.

The sharpest warnings must be made about the class character of this coup. Led by a self-proclaimed National Committee for Popular Salvation (CNSP), it is not opposed to the French occupation, which has dragged Mali into bitter ethnic conflicts that Paris uses to divide and rule the country. The CNSP has declared its loyalty to the French intervention force, Operation Barkhane. The coup is aimed at opposition among the workers and oppressed masses of Mali and all of Africa against imperialism and the failure of official attempts to halt the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Malian news site Bamada, the mutiny began around 8a.m. Tuesday, at the Kita army base, from which the 2012 coup that paved the way for the French intervention in 2013 was launched. The mutineers put government districts in Bamako on lockdown, called on public service workers to go home, and entered discussions with other army units.

Around noon on Tuesday, the mutineers were fighting loyalist troops of the Anti-terrorist Special Forces (Forsat), who had cracked down on previous M5-RPF demonstrations in Bamako. Reports on social media stated initially that the mutineers had been arrested, as well as Defense Minister Dahirou Dembele.

Dembele, who became head of the military after the 2012 coup, is now reportedly a leading figure in the CNSP junta.

Around 1p.m. Tuesday, Oumar Moriko, the leader of the SADI (African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence) party, linked to Frances petty-bourgeois New Anti-capitalist Party, launched a public appeal to Bamako youth to mobilize behind the putschists.

As youth sacked and burned the residences of several leading figures of the Keita regime, several military units joined the mutiny. At 4p.m., Keita as well as Prime Minister Boubou Cisse were arrested and interned at the Kita base. They then announced that they were in talks with Dicko and that they would make a public statement that evening.

It was around midnight that Keita gave a brief, five-minute address announcing his decision to leave all my positions effective immediately, and with all the legal consequences: the dissolution of the National Assembly and that of the government.

While the M5-RFP presented this putsch to the Malian people as a popular uprising against crimes committed during the Mali war under Keitas presidency, the CNSP was busily reassuring Paris. CNSP spokesman Colonel Ismael Wague spoke at around 3a.m. Wednesday to insist that order would be restored in the face of growing demonstrations against French troops in Mali, and that the CNSP would work with the Operation Barkhane forces to suppress internal opposition.

Wague declared, For some time, politico-social tension has prevented our country from working properly Mali is sinking ever day further into chaos, anarchy and insecurity, and it is the fault of the men tasked with overseeing its destiny. Wague declared that the CNSP wanted all trade union and socio-political groupings to act with calm.

He raised the violent inter-ethnic attacks and tensions that have accompanied French occupation troops operations in Mali: Entire villages are burned, peaceful citizens are massacred, and every day we must grieve for losses among our comrades-in-arms. Horror has become a daily event in the lives of Malians.

Wague stressed that the Malian army would continue its close collaboration with French and German troops of Operation Barkhane, as well as their UN (Minusma) and Sahel auxiliary forces: We ask sub-regional and international organizations to accompany us in seeking Malis happiness. The Minusma, the Barkhane force, the G5 Sahel force, the Takuba force are still our partners for stability and the restoration of security. Speaking to my comrades in arms, I ask you to ensure the continuity of your police and military missions.

European authorities have barely masked their support for the coup. The UN Security Council adopted a pro forma declaration criticizing the putschists and calling for the re-establishment at some point in future of an elected government. Their statement emphasizes the urgent necessity to re-establish the rule of law and to go in the direction of a return to constitutional order.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel whose troops are deployed to assist Operation Barkhane. He insisted that criticisms of the coup should not stop French troops collaboration with the Malian army. Having himself briefly criticized the coup, he added, But it not our task to substitute ourselves for Malian sovereignty Nothing should distract us from the struggle against the jihadists.

The French daily Le Monde almost applauded the coup, writing in an editorial, It is an understatement to say that there are no regrets in Paris about IBKs fall. Complaining of the wave of protests now engulfing Mali, the daily added that the coup against Keita had been carefully prepared: The visit in Bamako last July of five West African heads of state come to help their Malian colleague to find a solutionno doubt themselves fearing that the protests could be contagiousended in failure. From then on, IBKs days were numbered.

An international wave of strikes and demonstrations against the neo-colonial interventions of France and its European allies is shaking Africa. The strikes of Malian teachers and railworkers, as well as several demonstrations demanding the withdrawal of French troops had further staggered the Keita government. Last year also saw a mass movement of workers and youth in Algeria against the French-backed military regime, and protests are growing in Ivory Coast against President Alassane Ouattara, installed by a French military intervention in 2011.

This international opposition to imperialism among workers and oppressed masses finds no genuine reflection in the African political establishment. Struggling against imperialist war requires building an international socialist movement in the working class, where workers in struggle against imperialist war and plunder in Africa would appeal to the class solidarity of European workers in struggle against social austerity and police-state forms of rule at home.

The cynical role of SADI, Dicko, and the M5-RFP is a warning: they are complicit in a pro-imperialist putsch, which they are trying to pass off as a popular uprising. After the putsch Dicko has tried to minimize his role and gave an interview on Radio France Internationale to insist he has no ambitions for the next presidential elections: In 2023, I will be a candidate for no position. This comment led the news site Senegal7 to note: The M5 has done the work, and the mutineers are collecting the results.

Dicko and Mariko have served as tools of French imperialism, whose troops in Mali are closely following the political situation and decided not to intervene to try to save Keita. Everything points to the fact that this coup was made in France.

In July, Le Monde published a column hailing Dicko and declaring: Imam Dicko can offer a way out of the crisis for France in Mali. It continued, Imam Dicko is a skillful politician, who is aware of power relations. He represents the possibility of negotiating peace with the jihadist groups Let us recall that after 18 years of war, the Americans were finally forced to cut deals with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

As for the putschist general Dembele, trained according to his official biography at the Applied Infantry School in Montpellier, France in the 1990s, his services for French imperialism have led him to receive the Gold Medal of French National Defense and the citation of Commander of the French National Order of Merit.

It is not difficult to foresee that a junta led by such reactionaries is preparing to turn violently against Malian workers and youth seeking to oppose the neo-colonial French occupation of their country.
'Mr (Gautam) Adani invested in Vizhinjam port when no other viable party was willing to bid.'

'He has also been active in charitable work and CSR projects in our coastal areas.'

'As the local MP, I do not judge the local situation purely through the prism of politics.'

IMAGE: Thiruvananthapuram airport. Photograph: Kind courtesy Trivandrum Airport/Facebook

The central government's decision to lease out the airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership, has met with stiff opposition from the ruling Left Democratic Front government in Kerala.

The Adani group had won the rights to operate six airports -- at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati -- through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi said, 'In view of the unilateral decision taken by the Government of India without giving credence to the cogent arguments put forward by the state government, it will be difficult for us to offer co-operation to the implementation of the decision, which is against the wishes of the people of the state.

"," Dr Shashi Tharoor, who represents Thiruvananthapuram in the Lok Sabha, tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com.

Why is it that both the LDF and the Congress are against the Centre's decision to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram airport along with two more airports through the PPP model to the Adani group, in which the state government also is a stakeholder?

You will have to ask them!

My position is clear: The people of Thiruvananthapuram want a first-class airport worthy of the city's history, status, and potential.

In this context, a decision, however controversial, is preferable to the long delay we have suffered. That is why I welcomed the Cabinet decision of Wednesday.

Some of the best airports in India are working under the PPP model. As the MP from Thiruvananthapuram, why do you feel it will not help improve the standards of the airport if it is maintained by a private party?

On the contrary, my position is that PPP will help improve standards. The reality is that a private entity running the operations competitively is the only way this airport could flourish.

Whoever the private party is, the ownership of land and airport as well as the responsibilities of the ATC, security, customs and immigration still remain with the government agencies.

The general perception is that there will be more professionalism and less bureaucracy if governments exit from businesses. Do you agree?

Yes.

The state government wants to entrust the management of the TVM airport with the special purpose vehicle in which the state government is the major stakeholder. Do you support this?

I am an open-minded person, but once an open competitive process was announced, in which the state government participated and lost, I fail to understand why this issue is up for discussion again.

The travelling community in Thiruvananthapuram is tired of this political back-and-forth which has created so much uncertainty for our airport. In the meantime we are losing flights and passengers to Cochin.

I would rather have a private operator anxious to achieve excellence in Thiruvananthapuram than a government-run airport which is a step-sister of Cochin and Kannur and run by a government whose priorities are there rather than here.

Why did the Congress say that the Centre is privatising all PSUs when the country is battling COVID-19? What is the connection between the two?

I am not a party spokesman. Please ask those who said this.

Is the objection by the Congress actually against the Adani group, or the PPP model itself?

I am not a party spokesman. Please ask those who said this. As you know, the PPP model was originally introduced by the UPA-I government in 2006, starting with the airports in Mumbai and Delhi respectively.

The Modi government has been criticised for supporting the Ambanis and the Adanis. Do you also feel so?

I share my party's general concerns about crony capitalism under the present government, but it is not my style to take names.

As for Mr (Gautam) Adani, he invested in Vizhinjam port when no other viable party was willing to bid. He has also been active in charitable work and corporate social responsibility projects in our coastal areas.

As the local MP, I see all this and do not judge the local situation purely through the prism of politics.
RMIT University will cut hundreds more jobs as the crisis in the university sector brought on by the coronavirus worsens.

The move to approve 355 voluntary redundancy applications comes after hundreds of the university's research and professional casual staff were let go in April.

RMIT University has announced 355 staff will take voluntary redundancies. Credit:Dianna Snape

An RMIT spokesperson said the measures would save $48 million.

"RMIT has taken a careful and considered approach to addressing the financial challenges associated with COVID-19 and we are continuing to seek ways to reduce our costs and align our operations to the environment we face."
Jimmy Carter Condemns Sex-Selective Abortion, Killing at Birth of 160 Million Girls, in Liberty U Address

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Former President Jimmy Carter, who said he is still an evangelical, called on all Christians to come together in his Liberty University commencement address Saturday in Virginia. He also identified the killings and abortions of 160 million girls around the world today as one of the greatest injustices facing humanity.

Carter, the 39th President, jumped through various talking points in his address at the major Christian university, and focused some of the most pressing human rights issues in the world today that he said Christians should be involved in.

He spoke of countries like China and others where male infants are greatly preferred over females due to economic opportunities, and noted that 160 million girls are not alive today because their parents "either kill their daughters by strangling them at birth," or they decide to abort them when finding out that the fetus is female.

Carter also condemned human trafficking and sexual assault, which he pointed out is a devastating problem in several South East Asia nations. At the same time, he noted that in the U.S. military itself, which he called "one of the finest organizations on earth," 16,000 cases of sexual abuse are reported every year.

As an evangelical and Southern Baptist who still teaches Sunday school, he urged Christians from all denominations to come together and focus on the things that unite them, rather than drive them apart.

"Baptists ought to come together as friends and not be alienated one from another," the former president urged.

Carter continued:

"One of the things we have to learn is how to get along, to do good for one another ... in other words, just following the mandates of the Prince of Peace. ... We don't need enemies to fight, nor do we need 'inferior' people whom we can dominate."

Quoting Galatians 3:28 in the Bible, he added: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither male nor female, there is neither slave nor master, for ye are all one, all one, in Christ Jesus."

He also urged the graduating class to use their education to spread Christ's message and to make the world a better place.

"We decide whether we tell the truth or benefit from telling lies. We're the ones who decide, do I hate or am I filled with love? We're the ones who decide, do I only think about myself, or do I care for others? We ourselves make these decisions and no one else. There are no limits to our ambition," the 93-year-old politician said.

Carter has denounced sex-selective abortions in the past as well. Back in a 2014 interview with late night host David Letterman, he said that the infanticide of female babies was the "worst human rights abuse on earth."

"Many people are missing and they're all girls who are missing," he warned at the time.

In a 2015 interview with The New York Times, Carter admitted that abortion was the "only conflict" he's had between his political duties and Christian faith.

"I have never believed that Jesus would be in favor of abortion, unless it was the result of rape or incest, or the mother's life was in danger. That's been the only conflict I've had in my career between political duties and Christian faith," he revealed at the time.

Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. previously explained in a statement why he decided to invite Carter to deliver the commencement speech:

"While Christians may disagree about what role government should play in serving those in need, the Liberty University community along with all Christians worldwide are united in the belief that we, as individuals, should provide food and shelter to the poor.

"President Carter, both during his time in office and since, has followed the teachings of Christ by serving the poor and loving his neighbors. I am thrilled that he will be sharing the story of his life of faith in action to our graduates and their families," Falwell Jr. added.
If youve about had it with COVID-19, there are some places where you could go to escape it. There remain a dozen countries that still have yet to record a single case. However, a quick perusal of that list will show that it mostly contains very small, remote island nations  such as the Federated States of Micronesia  or places where you might have every reason to doubt the counts released by the government. (Say, North Korea, as an example.) Theres an important difference between being a country that simply hasnt encountered the coronavirus yet and a country where a strong health system has confronted and largely overcome the threat.

Thats why GOBankingRates compiled a list of the countries  beyond the dozen where COVID-19 either has yet to reach or the statistics seem questionable  where the virus effectively has been limited. Taking data on the number of new cases per million people in the first 10 days of August, the study shows which places are confronting the virus most effectively. And just in case you might consider moving to one of these locales  even a temporary relocation could make sense  theres information on the basic cost of living to help you see whether theres a country within your budget or even well below it.

So which nations have shown the ability to keep their citizens the safest from this threat? Heres a closer look at the countries closest to achieving a return to normal.

Last updated: Aug 20, 2020

1. Mauritius

This small island off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean has had a total of 344 cases with no new ones in August, so it could be among the safest places in the world now in terms of the pandemic. If you have a decent savings account, your funds should last a while as living expenses are less than $700 a month, but earning a living there might be harder. The island relies heavily on tourism, which has taken a serious blow from the COVID-19 crisis. The country also is coping with the aftermath of a recent oil spill.

Story continues

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 1.27 million

Total cases: 344

Total deaths: 10

New cases in August: 0

Cases per million people in August: 0.00

The Cost To Live in Mauritius

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $287.41

Cost of groceries: $264.71

Cost of public transportation: $25.09

Cost of utilities: $91.75

Total monthly expenditures: $668.96

2. Saint Lucia

A Caribbean island located north of Barbados, Saint Lucia could provide you with a gorgeous and safe place to wait out the pandemic. Saint Lucia doesnt have a serious issue with the coronavirus at the moment, and you could get by on about $1,000 a month  all on a beautiful, sunny island paradise.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 182,790

Total cases: 25

Total deaths: 0

New cases in August: 0

Cases per million people in August: 0.00

The Cost To Live in Saint Lucia

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $366.32

Cost of groceries: $371.85

Cost of public transportation: $148.01

Cost of utilities: $144.08

Total monthly expenditures: $1,030.26

3. Taiwan

Taiwan is off the coast of China, where the virus originated, so it shouldnt be taken for granted how much success the nation has had in limiting its spread. In a country of nearly 24 million people, there were a mere 13 new cases recorded in early August. All this in a place of considerable cultural and culinary renown where you can live on less than $1,000 a month.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 23.6 million

Total cases: 480

Total deaths: 7

New cases in August: 13

Cases per million people in August: 0.55

The Cost To Live in Taiwan

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $396.24

Cost of groceries: $383.73

Cost of public transportation: $43.51

Cost of utilities: $99.56

Total monthly expenditures: $923.04

4. Thailand

Once again, Thailands proximity to the place the virus originated should say a lot about just how effectively the government has limited the outbreak. This nation long has been a destination spot for tourists, but living there should cost you a little over $750 a month while reducing the risk posed to you by the virus considerably.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 69.63 million

Total cases: 3,351

Total deaths: 58

New cases in August: 41

Cases per million people in August: 0.59

The Cost To Live in Thailand

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $381.76

Cost of groceries: $237.42

Cost of public transportation: $38.62

Cost of utilities: $103.49

Total monthly expenditures: $761.29

5. China

While it shouldnt be overlooked that a lack of transparency early on by Chinese officials could well have exacerbated the pandemics spread internationally, the government there has done an excellent job of fighting the virus. The worlds most populous nation had just 1,314 new cases in early August. So no matter how many people might try to label this the Wuhan Virus, the numbers indicate that nations across the globe could learn a lot about best practices in public health policy from China.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 1.4 billion

Total cases: 89,270

Total deaths: 4,693

New cases in August: 1,314

Cases per million people in August: 0.94

The Cost To Live in China

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $391.39

Cost of groceries: $215.36

Cost of public transportation: $21.57

Cost of utilities: $66.63

Total monthly expenditures: $694.95

6. New Zealand

If youve longed to travel to New Zealand one day to take in the stunning scenery employed in director Peter Jacksons The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the timing might be better now than ever. You would have the additional benefit of being far safer from the coronavirus there than you would be in most of America.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 4.92 million

Total cases: 1,219

Total deaths: 22

New cases in August: 9

Cases per million people in August: 1.83

The Cost To Live in New Zealand

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $954.89

Cost of groceries: $282.40

Cost of public transportation: $105.97

Cost of utilities: $172.92

Total monthly expenditures: $1,516.18

7. Vietnam

Long known for its astonishing beauty, this Southeast Asian nation is among the countries showing the rest of the world how to deal with the spread of infectious disease. But, wait and watch a bit before packing your bags. The country saw just 332 new cases in early August  microscopic when you consider nearly 100 million people live in Vietnam  but that represents a huge portion of 841 total cases registered there. So while Vietnam has done well fighting the virus, that recent uptick could prove a troubling sign.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 96.46 million

Total cases: 841

Total deaths: 13

New cases in August: 332

Cases per million people in August: 3.44

The Cost To Live in Vietnam

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $354.57

Cost of groceries: $200.23

Cost of public transportation: $7.77

Cost of utilities: $78.71

Total monthly expenditures: $641.28

8. Jordan

This desert nation has a rich cultural history, including the ruins of the legendary trading city of Petra. And living there, at present, provides more than just a chance to connect with the past. Jordan has done an impressive job in limiting the spread of the virus, and the cost of living there should work out to well under $750 a month.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 10.1 million

Total cases: 1,252

Total deaths: 11

New cases in August: 61

Cases per million people in August: 6.04

The Cost To Live in Jordan

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $295.61

Cost of groceries: $189.31

Cost of public transportation: $56.42

Cost of utilities: $124.38

Total monthly expenditures: $665.72

9. South Korea

South Koreas efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus within its borders have been a model for the rest of the world since the earliest stages of the outbreak  with its success in mass testing receiving particular praise. With expenses projected to run less than $1,250 a month, in South Korea you could find yourself staying safe from the coronavirus, saving money and indulging your appetite for K-pop all in one go.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 51.71 million

Total cases: 14,626

Total deaths: 305

New cases in August: 321

Cases per million people in August: 6.21

The Cost To Live in South Korea

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $487.04

Cost of groceries: $497.33

Cost of public transportation: $46.44

Cost of utilities: $171.09

Total monthly expenditures: $1,201.90

10. Rwanda

Rwanda is a central African nation filled with diverse natural settings and wildlife, known as the land of a thousand hills. And living there now offers a unique chance to protect yourself from COVID-19 as the nation of more than 12 million people had fewer than 150 new cases in early August. Not to mention, with a cost of living at around $600 a month, you could end up saving some real money in the process.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 12.63 million

Total cases: 2,140

Total deaths: 7

New cases in August: 146

Cases per million people in August: 11.56

The Cost To Live in Rwanda

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $339.50

Cost of groceries: $147.32

Cost of public transportation: $15.55

Cost of utilities: $106.07

Total monthly expenditures: $608.44

11. Hungary

Hungary and its beautiful capital city of Budapest long have been one of the favored places to take in the beauty of the Danube River. And at present, the country could provide an oasis for escaping from COVID-19 as well as high prices  the cost of living there comes to just over $750 a month.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 9.77 million

Total cases: 4,696

Total deaths: 602

New cases in August: 191

Cases per million people in August: 19.55

The Cost To Live in Hungary

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $379.46

Cost of groceries: $174.59

Cost of public transportation: $32.24

Cost of utilities: $184.16

Total monthly expenditures: $770.45

12. Norway

Norway is among those Scandinavian nations where excellent governance (and high taxes) are the norm. However, while neighboring Sweden went with a failed attempt at developing herd immunity early on, Norway has kept a lid on the spread of the virus much more effectively. Living there wouldnt save you much money, though. With average expenses of more than $1,800 a month, its the most expensive of the countries listed here.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 5.35 million

Total cases: 9,468

Total deaths: 256

New cases in August: 296

Cases per million people in August: 55.35

The Cost To Live in Norway

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $1,025.42

Cost of groceries: $457.57

Cost of public transportation: $83.31

Cost of utilities: $239.33

Total monthly expenditures: $1,805.63

13. Italy

Italy got a lot of negative press early on in the pandemic for the rapid spread of the coronavirus there and the tally of more than 250,000 total cases. However, the country has made significant strides in battling COVID-19 as new cases in early August were notably low for Italys size.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 60.3 million

Total cases: 250,566

Total deaths: 35,205

New cases in August: 3,408

Cases per million people in August: 56.52

The Cost To Live in Italy

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $631.55

Cost of groceries: $314.83

Cost of public transportation: $41

Cost of utilities: $217.01

Total monthly expenditures: $1,204.39

14. Estonia

This Baltic nation could provide a good option for saving money and preserving your health. It has done an impressive job at limiting coronavirus from the start, with just over 2,100 total cases there. Throw in a cost of living that works out to less than $1,000 a month, and living in Northern Europe could start to sound a lot more appealing.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 1.33 million

Total cases: 2,152

Total deaths: 63

New cases in August: 101

Cases per million people in August: 76.14

The Cost To Live in Estonia

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $452.53

Cost of groceries: $202.54

Cost of public transportation: $26.94

Cost of utilities: $229.99

Total monthly expenditures: $912

15. Denmark

Denmark is well-known for its impressive social safety net and sky-high income taxes, but that emphasis on quality governance might have paid off here. New cases of coronavirus in early August would seem to show that Denmark is a place where health officials have acted effectively in stemming the virus. Just dont think living in Denmark would provide a great opportunity to save money. It follows only Norway in terms of the cost of living.

COVID-19 Stats

Population: 5.82 million

Total cases: 14,442

Total deaths: 617

New cases in August: 717

Cases per million people in August: 123.23

The Cost To Live in Denmark

Cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment: $950.54

Cost of groceries: $349.75

Cost of public transportation: $66.06

Cost of utilities: $244.32

Total monthly expenditures: $1,610.67

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How Much It Costs To Live in 15 COVID-Free Countries
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Male Sex Toys Market: Global Industry Analysis 2014-2018 & Opportunity Assessment 2019-2029

A recent market study published by Future Market Insights on the male sex toys market offers global industry analysis for 2014-2018 & opportunity assessment for 2019-2029. The study offers a comprehensive assessment of male sex toys market dynamics. After conducting a thorough research on the historical, as well as current growth parameters, the growth prospects of the market are obtained with maximum precision.

Market Segmentation

The global male sex toys market is segmented in detail to cover every aspect of the market and present complete market intelligence to readers.

Product Type Demographics Price Range Sales Channel Region Male Masturbators

Cock Rings

Penis Sleeves

Male Prostate Toys

Sex Doll Toys

Penis Enhancement Toys

Others Male

Female Premium/ Luxury

Mid-Range/ Economy Online

Offline North America

Latin America

Europe

East Asia

South Asia

Oceania

Middle East & Africa

For more insights into the Market, request a sample of this report@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-11170

Chapter 01 - Executive Summary

The executive summary of the male sex toys market includes the market country analysis, opportunity assessment, and recommendations on the global male sex toys market.

Chapter 02 - Market Overview

Readers can find the detailed segmentation and definition of the male sex toys market in this chapter, which will help them understand basic information about the male sex toys market. This section also highlights the inclusions and exclusions, which help the reader understand the scope of the male sex toys market report. The associated industry assessment of the male sex toys market is carried out in this section. The macroeconomic factors affecting growth of the male sex toys market are provided in this section and the impact of these macroeconomic indicators on the male sex toys market is analyzed. The technological advancements in the male sex toys market is also provided. The drivers and restraints impacting the growth of the male sex toys market are explained in this chapter. Opportunities and ongoing trends in the male sex toys market are also comprehensively discussed.

Chapter 03 - Global Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 and Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes detailed analysis of the historical male sex toys market (2014-2018), along with an opportunity analysis for the forecast period (2019-2029). This chapter provides details about the male sex toys market on the basis of product type, demographics, price range, sales channel and region. This chapter explains how the male sex toys market is anticipated to grow across North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Oceania and the Middle East and Africa.

Chapter 04 - North America Male Sex Toys Market Size and Forecast, 2014-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the male sex toys market in the North America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the U.S. and Canada. This chapter provides details about the North America Male Sex Toys market on the basis of product type, demographics, price range, sales channel.

Chapter 05 - Latin America Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the male sex toys market in the Latin America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America. This chapter provides details about the Latin America male sex toys market on the basis of product type, demographics, price range, sales channel.

Chapter 06 -Europe Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

Important growth prospects of the male sex toys market based on product type, demographics, price range, sales channel for all countries such as Germany, U.K., Spain, France, Italy and Rest of Europe are included in this chapter.

Chapter 07 - East Asia Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the male sex toys market in East Asia region including the important growth prospects of the male sex toys in several countries such as China, Japan, South Kore are included in this chapter.

Chapter 08 - South Asia Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the male sex toys market in the South Asia region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Rest of South Asia & Pacific.

Chapter 09 - Oceania Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the male sex toys market in the Oceania region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes, Australia and New Zealand.

Chapter 10 - Middle East and Africa Male Sex Toys Market Analysis 2014-2018 & Forecast 2019-2029

This chapter offers insights into how the male sex toys market is expected to grow in major countries in the MEA region such as GCC Countries, Northern Africa, South Africa, and Rest of MEA, during the forecast period 2019-2029.

For Information On The Research Approach Used In The Report, Request Methodology@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-11170

Chapter 11 - Competition Assessment

In this chapter, readers can find detailed information about tier analysis and market concentration of the key players in the male sex toys market along with their market presence analysis by region and product portfolio.

Chapter 12 - Competition Deep-Dive

In this chapter, readers can find a comprehensive list of leading companies in the male sex toys market, along with detailed information about each company, which includes company overview, revenue shares, strategic overview, and recent company developments. Some of the market players featured in the report are Church & Dwight Co., Inc.; Reckitt Benckiser Group plc; LELO; LifeStyles Healthcare Pte Ltd; Doc Johnson Enterprises; Lovehoney Group Ltd; BMS Factory; Tenga Co., Ltd.; Fun Factory; We-Vibe and others.

Chapter 13 - Disclaimer

This chapter includes a list of acronyms and assumptions that provide a base to the information and statistics included in the male sex toys report. This chapter helps readers understand the research methodology followed to obtain various conclusions, as well as important qualitative and quantitative information, on the Male Sex Toys market.
With the coronavirus pandemic changing the way the world interacts with each other, salutations and greetings are also changing. And it seems the Indian 'namaste' is a popular choice as world leaders like France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel seem to have adopted it as their chosen form of greeting.

The French President Macron was hosting Merkel for talks at his summer residence in a medieval island fortress in the Mediterranean, in southern France.

Mindful of the coronavirus outbreak, when Macron greeted the Geerman Chancellor, he replaced the traditional handshake with an Indian-style namaste, pressing his palms together and bowing slightly.

Merkel responded in a similar fashion, bowing slightly while pressing her hands together.

A video of the incident was shared by Macron on Twitter in which he welcomes Merkel to Fort Bregancon.

Willkommen im Fort de Bregancon, liebe Angela! pic.twitter.com/lv8yKm6wWV Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 20, 2020

Many Indians have since responded to the video, some even expressing joy and pride at the desi salutation coming to the aid of world leaders in the time of coronavirus.

Namaste() used as form of greeting by President of France and Chancellor of Germany  Srijan Das (@srijann25) August 20, 2020

NamastePresident Emmanuel Macron of #France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of #Germany greet each other. https://t.co/AGGcvIahcK Kanchan Gupta (@KanchanGupta) August 21, 2020

All India Radio also shared the video.

Namaste is Global !:When Emmanuel Macron, President of France and Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany greet each other with Namastepic.twitter.com/jHUhW2CfPY All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) August 20, 2020

This is not the first time that Macron has expressed his love for the desi salutation. Earlier in March, Macron had greeted Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia in a similar fashion. Macron had also greeted Boris Johnson and Prince Charles with a Namaste when he was in London to mark the 80th anniversary of former French President Charles de Gaulle's famous appeal to resist the Nazis during the World War II.

(with inputs from Agencies)
YEREVAN, AUGUST 21, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the Military-industrial committee of Armenia Artak Davtyan visited Kalashnikov production facility of Neutron GAM , ARMEN PRESS was informed from the press service of the Ministry of High-tech Industry.

Just one month has passed following Armenian PMs visit and already the factory is ready to provide the first batch  1000 automatic rifles to our Armed Forces, Davtyan said, adding that this is already a good result.

T he production stages were presented to Artak Davtyan and special attention was paid to quality surveillance.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
Several dozen wildfires have burned thousands of square kilometres across California: AP

Five people have died, two are still missing and tens of thousands more are at risk of losing their homes as dozens of wildfires rip through Northern California.

A further 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured during across several counties in the state, as fire services have struggled to contain more than 20 separate blazes sparked by lightning strikes during a heatwave.

Among those who have died are a helicopter pilot who crashed while trying to drop water on one conflagration in central California and a utility worker from Pacific Gas & Electric.

The worst fires are around the Bay Area and San Francisco in the north of the state, where 1,250 sq km of forest and brushland have been burned to a crisp.

Some 10,000 firefighters have been deployed to battle the flames, stretching Californias capacity to the limit. Some are working 72 hour shifts on the frontlines, three times the normal 24 hours, but still fire chiefs have said they do not have enough resources.

State officials have requested help from neighbouring fire departments in other states, saying they need at least 375 fire engines and crews to bolster their own resources.

Thats going to allow our firefighters that have been on the front line since this weekend to have an opportunity to take some rest, said Daniel Berlant from Californias Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

But help may be some time in arriving. US Forest Service firefighters are tied up battling blazes on federal land, while the unprecedented demand means assistance will have to travel from further afield than normal.

Cal Fires assistant chief Billy See said his crews badly needed reinforcing. Were still drastically short for a fire of this size, he told a press conference about a complex of fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, south of San Francisco.

Today we saw a growth of approximately 700 to 1,000 acres an hour in heavy timber. Thats a dangerous rate of spread for our firefighters and for all those residents out there.

Story continues

Mr Berlant said 175 buildings had already been consumed by the wildfires and 50,000 more homes were threatened.

Firefighters have pleaded with Californians to be ready to evacuate at a moments notice, as delays in moving when told to put crews lives at risk as they have to stay behind.

Cal Fire has also urged locals not to try to put out fires themselves, following reports of volunteer firefighting brigades organising on social media.

The dangers out there to their own lives outweigh anything they can accomplish, a spokesman for the fire service said. Theyre putting their lives in jeopardy.

In the mountainous costal region south of San Francisco, 48,000 people have already been told to evacuate their homes as a complex of fires approached. The blazes have already scorched 194 sq km and were now threatening 21,000 structures if they could not be stopped.

Several other smaller fires across the state have required local evacuation orders, with tens of thousands of residents either told to flee or warned to be ready to evacuate in the coming days.

As well as lives and property at stake, the wildfires have also caused serious damage to some of Californias world-famous state parks, including the Big Basin Redwoods, outside Santa Cruz.

The crop of ancient redwood trees has been protected since 1902  making it the oldest such park in California  but a conflagration has burned the parks headquarters and other facilities.

We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone, said the Sempervirens Fund, an advocacy group for the trees, in a statement.

Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed much of the parks historic facilities. We do not yet know the fate of the parks grandest old trees.

Read more

California wildfire camera destroyed by fast-moving blaze
100%

Website whatson.ae uses latest and advanced technologies. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 147927 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 85192 bytes (83.20 kb uncompressed) and 11736 bytes (11.46 kb compressed).

This CoolSocial report was updated on 2020-07-15, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.
As a political touchpoint, face masks have been the center of controversy this summer, with various factions promoting them to save lives and others saying it's all overblown hogwash. One scientist, however, believes in "masking up"and he talked about it yesterday. The director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, spoke with Dr. Howard Bauchner of the Journal of the American Medical Association about the states he's worried about the most (Middle America, like Oklahoma and Nebraska), and urged Americans to get their flu shots. He also implored Americans to wear their face masks, appealing to their humanitarian sides with an inspirational message.

Related: Sure Signs You've Had Coronavirus

"I Wear My Maskto Protect You," he said.

The outbreak has resulted in "a big loss of life," Redfield said, underlining what's at stake. "This is why, if there's a message from us from a public health point of view, the most important thing we can do is do everything we can to protect the vulnerable around usnot just those in nursing homes, but also those of us that are elderly that might have certain comorbidities, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, kidney disease, lung diseasewe all have an important role to play." Then he laid down his inspirational message, one he hopes will break through to skeptics: "I always say, well, the reason I wear my mask, it's not to protect me, I wear my mask in case I'm infected to protect you. Cause I want COVID to stop with me."

He went on to describe a harrowing scenario that could happen to anyone if they are not careful. "When you're that young 30 year old and you don't think there's a big deal"to wear a mask"if you get COVID, the problem is if you're jogging through Central Park and there's two 85-year-olds sitting on the bench and you have to sneeze when you go by them," and they could get COVID-19 and die. "It's an important thing that all of us try to control the pandemic to protect the vulnerable."

Story continues

Here's How You 'Can Get This Outbreak Under Control'

This wasn't the first time a leading health official encouraged empathy to promote face mask use. Before having a polyp removed from his vocal cord, rendering him temporarily speechless, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the nation's leading infectious disease expert, appealed to the same side. "A risk for you is not just isolated to you. If you get infected, you are innocently or inadvertently responsible for propagating the pandemic," he has repeated many times.

As for staying safe during this pandemic, Redfield reiterated his message during the interview. "We don't have to close retail, you don't have to lock down," said Redfield. "We really just need to wear face coverings when we can't social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds. Particularly obviously the overcrowding that occurs in bars and indoor restaurants, and we can get this outbreak under control." And to get through this pandemic at your healthiest, don't miss these 37 Places You're Most Likely to Catch Coronavirus.
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Linkedin News Desk (Thai PBS World Syndicate/Asia News Network)  Fri, August 21, 2020 12:45 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f802cd 2 SE Asia Thailand,pro-democracy,activists,anti-government,Monarchy,protest,politics Free

In the eyes of pro-royalists, Anon Nampa, Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul and Parit Chiwarak are trying to abolish the monarchy, but for fellow anti-establishment protesters they are heroes.

The three have become leading voices in the ongoing student-led protests calling for reform of the monarchy, a move seen as breaking deeply entrenched taboos in Thailand.

Their open challenge puts them at risk of arrest for lese-majeste, the penalty for which is up to 15 years in prison. So far, none of them has been charged with violating the draconian law.

However, Anon was arrested over sedition charges on Wednesday in relation to the speech on monarchy reform he delivered on August 3 at a Harry Potter-themed rally.

Arrest warrants for him, Panusaya and another four protest leaders were also issued on Wednesday morning for their roles in the August 10 protest at Thammasat Universitys Rangsit campus, during offensive remarks were allegedly made about the monarchy. They are accused of sedition under Article 116 of the Criminal Code and of breaking the pandemic prevention law.

Thai PBS Worlds Political Desk looks into the trios backgrounds, thoughts and what they want.

Anon Nampa: The lawyer who lifted the veil

The role of the monarchy  a taboo topic in Thailand  was first raised at a rally early this month by Anon Nampa, a human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist.

At an anti-government demonstration dubbed Harry Potter versus You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, held at Bangkoks Democracy Monument on August 3, the activist delivered an almost unprecedented public speech on the role of Thailands monarchy.

Amid protesters dressed as characters from JK Rowlings stories, the 35-year-old speaker took the stage and called for the power of the monarchy to be curbed. He claimed legislation issued by the post-coup Prayut government had given the monarch a free hand to manage the Crowns property. An emergency decree issued at the time had also transferred two military units under HM the Kings direct supervision.

Anon stressed he was seeking reform of the constitutional monarchy, not its abolition.

Four days later, he was arrested on charges of sedition and breaching emergency law at a different rally on July 18. Bailed on condition that he does not repeat the same offences, Anon continued to make the same calls for monarchy reform at three rallies.

We dream of a monarchy that coexists with democracy, Anon said to cheers from a crowd of more than 10,000 people at Democracy Monument last Sunday, Thailands biggest protest in years. We will keep dreaming. We must achieve this within our generation.

Anon was born to a family of rice farmers in Roi Ets Thung Khao Luang district and graduated in law from Ramkhamhaeng University.

He began working for human rights in 2006, the year that Thaksin Shinawatras government was overthrown in a military coup. Two years later, Anon began his career as a human rights lawyer before founding a legal practice to defend political prisoners and lese majeste suspects amid the 2010 protests, earning himself a name as a lawyer for the red shirts. The high-profile activists he defended include Jatupat Pai Dao Din Boonpattaraksa and Amphon Uncle SMS Tangnoppaku.

Anon also aided Thai Lawyers for Human Rights in several lese-majeste and human rights-related cases following the military coup of May 22, 2014.

The lawyer stepped up his political activism after the 2014 coup, co-founding the Resistant Citizen group in 2015 and joining the Democracy Restoration Group campaigning for the return of elections.

His activism turned him from law defender to law breaker. So far, he has been charged in 13 cases. Of the six cases that have concluded, three were thrown out and three resulted in fines totaling Bt2,200. Seven cases are pending, including some stemming from protests in 2018 to demand fair elections.

Its fine if Im put in jail. I will still be able to conduct cases wearing a brown suit [prison uniform] and chains on my ankles. Lets think whether that will look good or not, said Anon, after being charged with organizing a banned political gathering in 2015.

Despite his fierce and serious manner on rally stages, the pro-democracy activist is known for his humor. He starred in two protest music videos produced by Resistant Citizen  Joob Yoei Chan-o-cha to mock then PM and coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha and Yang Nee Tong Tee Khao to protest the 2017 junta-sponsored draft of the Constitution.

In his spare time, Anon writes poetry  much of it politically inspired  and posts it on his Facebook account.

Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul: The girl with the 10-point manifesto

While Anon was the first person to publicly break the taboo, Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul is responsible for driving the monarchy debate forward.

In her closing statement at a rally last week, Panusaya called for change in the role of Thailands royal institution. The girl in the red blouse stepped into the national spotlight at a demonstration titled Thammasat will not tolerate at the universitys Rangsit campus on August 10 and read out a 10-point manifesto for monarchy reform.

Initiated by a group called the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, the 10 demands include scrapping the lese-majeste law, reducing public spending on the royal family and abolishing the Privy Council (Kings advisers) along with other unnecessary units.

Unlike Anon, Panusaya  or Roong as she is known to friends  is a new face among rally leaders.

The 21-year-old is spokesperson for the Student Union of Thailand (SUT) and is studying at Thammasats Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology. She first emerged in early June when she faced an arrest warrant for violating the Covid-19 emergency law by participating in an SUT-led protest over the disappearance of Wanchalerm Satsaksit, a Thai activist abducted by unknown assailants in Cambodia.

As a teenager, Panusaya had little interest in politics. According to her own account, the turning point came while she was revising for her university entrance exams and discovered interesting points about Thai political history. Curious, she sought more knowledge from her father, a keen follower of the political situation.

Panusaya says she has been tailed by authorities ever since proclaiming the manifesto and fears she will be arrested at any time.

The student activist insisted her movement was simply seeking ways to improve society and peoples quality of life, but acknowledged that the methods may shock more conservative citizens.

When we abruptly declared [the manifesto] we were aware that many people would be very shocked. But we want to ask them to read [it] carefully and consider whether its true or not, she said.

We know there are some parts where they think like us. We can discuss and adjust [opinions]. Or if [they] disagree, we will accept the different [points of view] in order to help the country move forward, she said.

I know I am at risk of going to jail or being tortured or even dying, she said. But I dont think this is a time to be afraid anymore.

Parit Chiwarak: The Penguin who wont back down

Anti-establishment protest leader Parit Penguin Chiwarak had no chance to speak about the no-go topic on a rally stage. He first read about the 10-point manifesto last Saturday outside a court after being released on bail.

The 22-year-old student activist had been arrested the day before and charged with sedition and breaking disease control laws for co-organizing a protest on July 18.

My arrest must not be wasted, people must talk more publicly about the monarchy, he said after reciting the 10-point call for royal reform delivered at Thammasat Rangsit on August 10.

We have lifted the ceiling, there is no lowering it now.

Parit is a co-founder and former president of the SUT and a regular participant in the youth-driven flash mobs against the Prayut government that first emerged last year.

The young activist first drew media attention at the tender age of 16. While studying at Bangkoks prestigious Triamudom Suksa School, he unfurled a banner in front of Prayut in 2015 asking how Thai children can be kept from the path of corruption.

A year later, he won widespread support for speaking up against a draft Constitution, which threatened to deprive children of their 15 years of free education.

Since enrolling at Thammasat Universitys Faculty of Political Science, his political involvement has deepened. He has often been accused of organizing illegal rallies, yet he insists that the more he feels intimidated and abused by those in power, the more he wants to fight.

In his view, Thais had their future stolen in 2014, referring to the military coup and the events that followed.
In the course of the 2018 elections, a large group of former military-intelligence operatives entered capitalist politics as candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination in 50 congressional seatsnearly half the seats where the Democrats were targeting Republican incumbents or open seats created by Republican retirements. Some 30 of these candidates won primary contests and became the Democratic candidates in the November 2018 election, and 11 of them won the general election, more than one quarter of the 40 previously Republican-held seats captured by the Democrats as they took control of the House of Representatives. In 2020, the intervention of the CIA Democrats continues on what is arguably an equally significant scale.

More military-intelligence and FBI candidates

The number of contested congressional seats in 2018 was unusually large, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee targeted 115 seats, about half of those in the Republican caucus. Candidates from military-intelligence backgrounds won the nomination for 30 of those seats, making them the largest single occupational group, ahead of lawyers (20), state and local politicians (26), businessmen (15), and others (24).

The likely takeover targets have shrunk in number because of the Democratic success in 2018. Only 31 seats are on the DCCCs red-to-blue shopping list, and even of these, one is held by a Democrat already. That leaves 30 seats now held by Republicans but targeted for potential takeover. Of these, five have military-intelligence operatives as the Democratic nominees: Feehan, Jones, Jacobs, Kulkarni and Johnson, profiled above.

Another 18 military-intelligence candidates are running in districts held by Republicans that are not currently considered competitive but could become so in some cases if the Democratic edge in the election widens significantlyit is currently averaging about seven percent in the polls. The number of CIA Democrats in the House of Representatives could rise to as many as 20, depending on political shifts between now and November 3.

Reviewing the biographies of these candidates, based on the information they themselves chose to present on their campaign websites, gives a glimpse of the social types who are being attracted to and mobilized by the Democratic Partys campaign against Trump, and particularly by the incessant claims that Trump is a Russian stooge and that his victory in 2016 was the product of Russian meddling in the elections.

By region, these candidates include:

Northeast

New Jersey, 4th Congressional District: Stephanie Schmid, a retired Foreign Service officer, is opposing incumbent Christopher Smith, an anti-abortion zealot who has held the seat for 40 years. A former attorney, Schmid joined the Foreign Service in 2011 and worked in Haiti, Brazil and Washington, D.C. Her website declares, Stephanie has proudly served with Republican and Democratic leaders who have always put country before party.

Pennsylvania, 13th Congressional District: Todd Rowley, a retired FBI counterintelligence officer, is the Democrat opposing first-term Republican John Joyce. Rowley is a former policeman, state trooper and paramedic who spent 24 years as an FBI agent engaged primarily in paramilitary and counterintelligence operations, including liaison with the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence.

Todd Rowley

Maryland, 1st Congressional District: Mia Mason is a retired 20-year military veteran, who completed a total of 5 combat tours between Iraq and Afghanistan while serving in the Navy and Army, according to her campaign website. She was discharged from the military for being gay and then brought back in. She was onboard USS Kitty Hawk CV-63 for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. She is opposing five-term Republican incumbent Andy Harris in a district that comprises the rural eastern shore of Maryland.

Pennsylvania, 14th Congressional District: William Marx retired from the Marines after a 16-year career and is now a high school teacher and local councilman. He is running against first-term incumbent Republican Guy Reschenthaler in this southwest Pennsylvania seat.

Bill Marx

Midwest

Ohio, 14th Congressional District: Hillary OConnor Mueri was a Navy pilot, who flew combat missions during the Iraq war to provide close air support to ground forces. She went to law school after the military, specializing in product litigation in the aviation industry. Mueri is running against four-term incumbent David Joyce in a mixed suburban and rural district extending northeast from Cleveland along Lake Erie.

Wisconsin, 1st Congressional District: Roger Polack was recruited by the US intelligence services while a student at the University of Wisconsin and trained to specialize in Asian affairs. His web site declares: Roger served multiple tours as a civilian intelligence officer in Afghanistan, spending 20 months on the ground first as an analyst for, and then Deputy Director of, the Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell. He sat face to face with Taliban detainees, helped plan law enforcement and military operations, and managed the intelligence priorities of 40 civilian and military staff.

In other words, the Democratic candidate in the district formerly held by Republican Paul Ryan, now by first-term Republican Bryan Steil, should be investigated for possible connections to torture and assassination. But in the eyes of the Democratic Party leadership, this record is a credential, not the mark of Cain.

Chip Coldiron in Afghanistan

Indiana, 3rd Congressional District: Chip Coldiron is an Army veteran deployed twice to Afghanistan, who became a health care worker and then schoolteacher after leaving the military. He is running against four-term incumbent Jim Banks in a district centered on Ft. Wayne.

South

Kentucky, 6th District: Josh Hicks is a Marine veteran turned policeman. In his four years on active duty, he was deployed twice with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, rising to the rank of sergeant. He went to work as a policeman in eastern Kentucky, becoming a member of the SWAT team. He is running against four-term incumbent Andy Barr in a district centered on the city of Lexington.

North Carolina, 11th Congressional District: Morris Davis is the former chief prosecutor at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, although he was forced out by the Bush administration because he objected to the use of testimony obtained through torture of detainees. The Guantanamo posting was the culmination of a 25-year military career as a Judge Advocate General in the Air Force. Davis is running for the Asheville-based seat formerly held by Mark Meadows, now White House Chief of Staff for Trump. He was initially a heavy underdog to 25-year-old Madison Cawthorn, a right-wing activist who won an upset victory in the Republican primary, but Cawthorn is now caught up in a scandal over social media postings of his trip to see Hitlers vacation hideaway in the Bavarian Alps, which he tweeted was on his bucket list of must-see locations.

Georgia, 1st Congressional District: Joyce Marie Griggs retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel after a 33-year career in Army intelligence. She won the Democratic primary to face incumbent three-term Republican Buddy Carter in a district centered the city of Savannah. According to her website: Among her many decorations, medals, and badges are the Bronze Star, Defense Meritorious Service, and Global War on Terrorism Service medals, and the Parachutist badge. Griggs had three tours in Iraq in 2007, 2008 and 2010.

Georgia, 9th Congressional District: Devin Pandy, like Griggs, is a career Army intelligence officer, who initially specialized in electronic warfare systems maintenance and was deployed overseas five times, to Panama, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer 2. He boasts of coming from an Army family, with his grandfather in World War II, his father in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, and his brother and sister-in-law also in the military. Pandy is the Democratic candidate for the seat vacated by right-wing Republican Doug Collins, who is running for US Senate. He will face Republican Andrew Clyde, a businessman and Navy veteran with a huge financial advantage.

Devin Pandy (left)

Florida, 1st Congressional District: Philip Ehr is a repeat candidate from 2018, when he lost to incumbent Matt Gaetz, perhaps the most fervent Trump supporter in Congress, by a 2-1 margin in a district that comprises Pensacola and much of the Florida Panhandle. According to his campaign website, in the course of his 26-year career as a Navy seaman and pilot: He flew reconnaissance missions in the Cold War, Desert Storm and post-9/11 operations; oversaw U.S. air operations in NATOs 78-day bombing campaign in the Balkans; organized operational intelligence support to non-DOD Federal agencies; improved electronic warfare readiness of Allied forces; and provided strategic advice to senior leaders in Washington and London.

Florida, 12th Congressional District: Kimberly Walker was in the Army for eight years, then a prison guard, and is now a civilian employee of Centcom, the US military command for all operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, headquartered in Tampa. After the military and prison system, Walker was hired as an IT contractor at MacDill Air Force Base, then accepted a position as a Software Engineer at United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). Later she became a contractor for Centcom headquarters. She is the Democratic candidate against four-term incumbent Republican Gus Bilirakis, who has a 50-1 advantage in terms of fundraising.

Florida, 18th Congressional District: Pam Keith is a former Judge Advocate General in the Navy, who continued in the legal profession and became a legal counsel to Florida Power & Light. Keith lost the Democratic primary in 2018 to another military-intelligence candidate but ran again in 2020 and won Tuesdays primary easily. She will oppose two-term incumbent Republican Brian Mast, himself a combat veteran who lost his legs to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Alabama, 1st Congressional District: James Averhart retired from the Marine Corps as a Chief Warrant Officer Five after a 30-year career, mainly as a military policeman, rising to head the Marine Corps Correction Service (the prison for Marines convicted of criminal offenses on duty). He was in combat in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm (the two phases of the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War). As the Democratic candidate in the Mobile-based 1st Congressional District, left vacant by the retirement of Republican Bradley Byrne, Averhart is a prohibitive underdog to Republican nominee Jerry Carl, a Mobile County commissioner, who has raised $1.7 million to Averharts $50,000.

Oklahoma, 2nd Congressional District: Danyell Lanier is a Navy veteran and health care trainer who won an uncontested primary for the Democratic nomination against five-term incumbent Republican Markwayne Mullin. Laniers website gives little biographical information about her. Mullin has raised $1.3 million compared to $18,000 for Lanier.

Colorado, 4th Congressional District: Ike McCorkle is a retired Marines Corps special forces officer, who boasts of a military family, including two grandfathers, his father, a brother and two cousins. According to his campaign website, he retired in 2014 to recover from eighteen hard years of service in the USMC Infantry and Spec Ops communities. McCorkle deployed six times overseas, four times in combat, was wounded multiple times, and medically retired with the rank of captain. He is the Democratic candidate in the heavily rural district covering the eastern third of Colorado, against three-term incumbent Ken Buck, an extreme right-winger.

Utah, 2nd Congressional District: Kael Weston spent seven years as a military adviser in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than any other State Department official. According to his campaign website, he was State Department Political Adviser to a dozen Marine commanding generals, including during and after the biggest battle of the Iraq War (Fallujah, 2004-2007). He also played a significant role in Afghanistan, in the city of Khost and as a Marine Corps adviser in Helmand province, one of the bloodiest battlegrounds against the Taliban. Weston is a published author and has written regularly for the corporate media on counterterrorism and military subjects. He will be the Democratic candidate against four-term incumbent Republican Chris Stewart, who is a heavy favorite and enjoys a 4-1 fundraising advantage.

Some conclusions

There is one other aspect of this list that has political significance. It represents the intersection of the pro-imperialist orientation of the Democratic Party and identity politics. Of the 18 candidates given thumbnail descriptions above, six are African American (Griggs, Pandy, Walker, Keith, Averhart and Lanier), and three more are white women (Schmid, Mason and Mueri). In other words, half of these military-intelligence candidates are examples of diversity, although enabling minorities and women to commit the same crimes previously committed by white men would not seem to be an improvement.

Not every one of these 18 candidates is a monster or a war criminal. But then there are those whose background is so filthy that they provide an unanswerable argument against claims, put forward by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, that it is possible to reform the Democratic Party and even to transform it into a vehicle for social progress.

What does it say about the Democratic Party that it has, among its candidates for Congress, a half dozen career military intelligence operatives, the longest-serving civilian adviser to US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, and the former overseer of prisons for the Marine Corps? What of the record of FBI counterintelligence officer Todd Rowley? His campaign website deserves a more extended citation:

Todd served as the FBIs senior liaison representative to the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) regarding the FBIs role in support of and counterintelligence efforts related to U.S. government overseas sensitive and classified construction projects in critical threat countries. Todd regularly interacted with FBIHQ and USIC senior executive managers and personnel throughout the USIC, representing the FBIs security and counterintelligence interests related to a host of critical threat and national security matters Todd traveled overseas extensively in support of this critically important mission. During Todds distinguished FBI career, he was entrusted with some of our countrys most sensitive and classified intelligence information and was called upon to provide testimony in Federal Court and Grand Juries, as well as being the affiant in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) proceedings.

What does such an individual see in the Democratic Party? And equally important, what does the Democratic Party see in him?

This list, however tediousand hideousis instructive. It gives a picture of the social elements that comprise a significant fraction of the Democratic Party. These candidates, drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus, demonstrate the real nature of this organization, a political instrument of Wall Street and the imperialist state.

Concluded
Zarif: US has no right to abuse JCPOA mechanisms to restore Iran sanctions

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 20 August 2020 6:18 PM

Iran's foreign minister says the United States has no right to abuse mechanisms enshrined in a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers to restore UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic after they were lifted under the accord.

Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks in a Thursday letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, saying that the dangerous and unlawful position of the United States defies the established norms of international law and procedures, which have been put in place through centuries to safeguard the world from chaos.

As part of an illegal underway push, the United States is trying to invoke a "snapback" mechanism in the nuclear deal that was made between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of states -- the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany -- in Vienna in July 2015.

The US left the accord, which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018. The move, by extension, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorses the JCPOA.

Although by leaving the JCPOA the United States forfeited all of its rights under the nuclear deal, it launched a bid earlier this year to prevent expiry of an arms embargo against Iran that will expire in October under the accord.

A US-devised resolution to prolong the embargo was, nevertheless, recently defeated at the Security Council, prompting Washington to threaten to try and trigger the JCPOA mechanism that would restore all of the UNSC sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran has warned Washington that it would again be snubbed at the world body if it sought recourse to the mechanism.

Also on Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with Indonesia's UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, who is also the Security Council's president for August, to submit a complaint about what Washington alleges as Iran's non-compliance with the nuclear deal. Pompeo's meeting will be an extension of the United States' efforts to reinstate the UN sanctions against Iran.

The top US diplomat has, meanwhile, threatened Russia and China with sanctions if they chose to stonewall Washington's drive as they did in the case of the push to prolong the arms ban.

The Iranian foreign minister's letter underlined that given the baseless and illegal nature of the United States' bid, it has to be "rejected on the part of the Security Council and the international community."

He reminded the absence of "all 'credibility or legitimacy'" in the US' apparent justifications aimed at rationalizing its efforts to restore previously annulled resolutions against Tehran, as yet another reason why Washington has to be snubbed by the Security Council.

In order to lend a plausible aspect to its most recent bout of anti-Iran efforts, whether when it was trying to extend the arms embargo or now that it has the snapback module on target, Washington has falsely alleged that it is still "mentioned" as a JCPOA member in Resolution 2231.

"It is imperative that the international community be wary of such [attempts at] abusing the Security Council's mechanisms," the letter added.

"Iran advises the Council to stop this abuse of mechanism -- which carries serious repercussions for the international peace and security," it noted.

Zarif added that the US administration has not only shunned its commitments under the JCPOA, but also prevented other signatories to the deal to implement it.

He said since Donald Trump became the US president, he has imposed sanctions on Iran in more than 145 occasions and has also ignored frequent requests from the UN secretary general to lift these embargoes.

Iran's foreign minister concluded by saying that the Iranian nation rightfully expect the Security Council to guarantee their rights as per Security Council Resolution 2231, which upholds the contents of the nuclear deal, and hold the United States accountable for the irreparable damage it has done to the Iranian nation.



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The Bombay high court (HC) questioned Mashal Khan, a Pakistani national, as to how he could be appointed as the guardian of his aunt Zarin Ghani Walsh, a Canadian citizen and resident of Pedder Road. Khan submitted that he filed the petition to take his aunt back with him to Pakistan due to her frail health and urged the court to decide on this as he and his family are the only surviving heirs of Walsh. He also added that his other request for appointing him as executor of her properties in India could wait. The court has asked Khan to file an additional affidavit listing Walshs properties as well as the remedies available to him under the Disabilities Act, 2016 within 10 days and posted the matter for hearing on September 21.

The division bench of justice KK Tated and justice Milind Jadhav, while hearing the petition filed by Khan, a resident of Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (North West Frontier Province) in Pakistan, was informed that Walsh, 76, was ailing and living alone in Mumbai. Advocate Mayur Khandeparkar, representing Khan, along with advocate Vaishali Dholakia said as Khan and his brothers and their family in Pakistan were the only surviving relatives of Walsh, they wished to take her to Pakistan so that she may spend her remaining time with them.

On a query as to how a Pakistan national could approach an Indian court, Khandeparkar said that he was doing so under Article 21 which the court accepted. The court then said that while it could allow Khan to take Walsh back to Pakistan, his second plea for appointing him as the executor of her estate and bank accounts could not be granted. To this, Khandeparkar cited an order by a previous bench of the HC which allowed a foreigner to be appointed as a guardian.

The Union of India and the state, however, opposed the same and said that as per National Trusts Act, Khan could not be appointed as executor of Walshs property and bank accounts.

Khandeparkar said Khans main concern was uniting his aunt with the family back in Pakistan and the issue of her property and bank accounts could be dealt with at a later stage.

After hearing the submissions, the court directed Khan to file an affidavit listing the movable and immovable properties of Walsh in India as well as justify the 2013 will of Walsh which named him as executor and heir as it was not approved by any competent court. The court also directed Khan to study the Disabilities Act and directed the Union of India to file an affidavit and rejoinder to the petition and Khans affidavit in light of the relevant laws. The matter has been posted for hearing on September 21.
Jayden Bird, nine, was left with third-degree burns after brushing against hogweed while on a camping holiday. (SWNS)

A mum has warned parents about the dangers of Hogweed after her son was left with horrific burns from the toxic plant.

Jayden Bird, nine, was playing with siblings on a camping holiday with his family when he rubbed his leg against the weed.

Within minutes his leg was covered in red marks that erupted into painful puss-filled blisters.

Hogweed, which can cause a host of harmful side effects including blindness, permanent scarring, irritable blisters and burns, is thriving due to warmer weather and people taking more walks during the coronavirus pandemic has made it more likely that they will come into contact with it.

Jayden's mum is warning other parents about the dangers of Hogweed. (SWNS)

Doctors have said the third-degree burns suffered by Jayden will leave scars that could last several years, and his mum Carly said he now doesnt want to wear shorts outside.

The 31-year-old care worker, from Warwickshire, warned other parents to keep an eye out for the plant which can look quite attractive to the untrained eye.

Read more: Man and two children, six and 16, die after car skids into water

She said: The poor boy, the blisters are so big and look so sore, I am just so glad that none of my other children were hurt from this horrid plant, Jayden has suffered enough.

It doesnt look like a nasty plant - it looks quite attractive. It's not a surprise that kids would naturally go up to it without knowing its the UKs most poisonous plant.

Hes lucky it didnt go on his face as if it had gone in his eye he would have gone blind.

Doctors have told Jayden that he could be left with scarring from the blisters. (SWNS)

The family were on holiday at Bosworth Water Trust in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, when Jayden came across the toxic weed. (SWNS)

The family were camping at Bosworth Water Trust in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, when Jayden brushed against the plant on August 16.

It was immediately itchy and sore, but the rash grew larger and after several hours huge blisters appeared.

He was taken to hospital, where medics said it was a third degree burn from Hogweed.

Jayden was treated with antibiotics, painkillers and cream and his blisters bandaged up.

Described by some as Britains most dangerous plant, Hogweed has thrived following a mild winter and sunny spring, with lots of rain.

According to the NHS website it looks like innocuous cow parsley with white flowers clustered in an umbrella-shaped head that is up to 80cm in diameter.
"This release is not to instill fear in anyone, this is the reality of how it works during this virus," the statement said.
David Reinert with a large "Q" sign while waiting in line on to see President Donald Trump at his rally August 2, 2018, at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Rick Loomis/Getty Images

It's possible that President Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party forever, turning the "Party of Lincoln" into the Party of the Paranoid Racist Internet Troll.

Trump's embrace of far-right fringe candidates and the QAnon conspiracy theory are horrible, but predictable.

Congressional Republicans refusing to rebuke them is a full-on surrender of any ideals they claim to stand for. They are not conservatives now; they are Trump cultists.

It's not a terribly high bar Republicans need to reach to ensure their party isn't known for being wholly indecent idiots. They can and should reject these people and ideas.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

There are just six months left in Donald Trump's presidential term. I think it's fair to say the office isn't going to change him.

But it's possible that he just changed the Republican Party forever.

In praising adherents of the deranged QAnon conspiracy theory on Wednesday  as well as publicly endorsing two overt bigots who won their nominations to represent the Republican Party in November's congressional elections  Trump has officially made the GOP the party of the internet scumbag.

The Party of Lincoln InfoWars

Mainstream Republicans for the past four years have held their noses during Trump's most embarrassing tantrums, ragestorms, and racist blurts. They've dutifully swallowed their pride and surrendered their spines. In doing so, they've allowed the rot on the fringes of the right to seep further and further into the party's core.

Trump's latest trifecta just puts the stamp of approval on the rot.

Marjorie Green won last week's Republican primary in Georgia's 14th Congressional District. It's a deep-red district, and she is widely expected to be elected to Congress.

Greene is a 9/11 truther and QAnon supporter who posed for a photo with the former Ku Klux Klan leader Chester Doles to help advertise his political group. When asked about the seeming endorsement, Greene said the question was "silly and the same type of sleazy attacks the Fake News Media levels against President Trump."

Story continues

She wrote in 2018 that "Saudi Arabia, Rothschild and Soros are the puppet masters that fund this Global Evil"  referring to the fictitious global pedophile ring that's central to the QAnon conspiracy theory. In 2019, she stalked the halls of the Capitol looking for Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib  the first Muslim women elected to Congress  to badger them into swearing their oath on the Bible rather than the Quran.

On her own campaign's Facebook page she speculated that "Demon possession" and "military grade intelligence developed weapons like Voice of God technology" could be to blame for school shootings. She's also implied that some school shootings could be fakes, according to Jewish Insider. During her victory speech last week, Greene said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "a hypocrite, she's anti-American, and we're going to kick that b---- out of Congress."

Trump congratulated Greene on Twitter as a "future Republican star" who is "strong on everything and never gives up  a real WINNER!" House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also made it clear Greene was welcome in the House GOP caucus and would be assigned spots on committees.

Separately, Laura Loomer  a self-described "proud Islamophobe" who has cheered the deaths of migrants and called Muslims "savages"  won the Republican primary in Florida's 21st Congressional District. It's a strongly Democratic district, and the seat is almost certainly not in danger of being won by Loomer.

Though she's well-known in far right and ultranationalist internet cadres, the 27-year-old Loomer is basically a B-list exhibitionist troll in the Milo Yiannopoulos mold. She's just as prodigious as he is at getting barred from every social-media platform, as well as by Uber and Lyft for harassing Muslim drivers  but has been unable to even get arrested when flagrantly trespassing.

So embarrassing are her antics that she's even been barred from the Trump cult-of-personality festival CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference).

But rather than ignore this marginal far-right internet performance artist, Trump endorsed her: "Great going Laura. You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!" Several GOP congressmen also expressed their support for Loomer.

And on Wednesday, Trump responded to a question about QAnon by calling its supporters "people who love our country" and who "like me very much, which I appreciate."

The FBI has called QAnon a domestic-terrorism threat, and Facebook has barred hundreds of QAnon accounts it's said attempted to incite violence.

Each of these endorsements is a presidential seal of approval on an internet culture riddled with racism, overt calls for violence, and a belief that our "culture war" is just an early stage of a coming civil war.

More consequentially, Trump has stamped that same poisonous culture onto the Republican Party itself. That's how it works: Presidents are the head of the party for the time they are in office.

But president aren't kings, not even of their party.

This shouldn't be hard, if you have a spine

All Republican lawmakers in Congress need to decide whether losing their seats is too high a price to pay for having principles.

This isn't a partisan issue. This can't be blamed on antifa or the "SJW snowflakes." This is an easy call.

Prominent conservative commentators such as Rich Lowry and Ben Shapiro have expressed disgust at Trump's embrace of QAnon. The former Bush adviser Karl Rove even called for Trump to disavow the "nuts and kooks" of QAnon.

When the partisan commentariat shrinks with embarrassment, it should be a clue to Joe Q. Republican that they could survive sticking their chins out to ensure that they and their political ideals are not associated with racists, bigots, and sadistic liars trying to incite a civil war.

But GOP lawmakers, with rare exceptions, have been either silent or tacitly supportive.

McCarthy stripped the racist Rep. Steve King of his assignments in 2019. Having set the precedent that rank bigotry is unacceptable in the Republican caucus, there's no justification for putting Greene on committees.

Republicans once prided themselves on being the "Party of Lincoln," or the "Party of Business," or the "Party of Limited Government." Failure to condemn racist paranoid internet trolls bearing their party's imprimatur  even if it means defying the president  is to forever surrender any of the principles for which the party once stood.

When the former Women's March leader Linda Sarsour  who has been credibly accused of anti-Semitism  appeared as a guest of Muslim delegates on a video call during the Democratic National Convention this week, Joe Biden's presidential campaign swiftly condemned Sarsour's views and reiterated that she had nothing to do with the Biden campaign. There's no reason GOP leaders can't clean up their own backyards, as well.

It's not a terribly high bar Republicans need to reach to ensure their party isn't known for being wholly indecent idiots. They can and should reject these people and ideas.

Sure, rebuking Trump invites the likelihood of retribution, but if you can't stand up to this, you can't stand up for anything.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Among the 2020 Emmy Awards nominations were, from left, "Schitt's Creek," "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and "Black Mitzvah."

(JTA) - Though much about the 2020 Emmy Awards ceremony is not yet known, one thing is clear: Jewish TV stars are well positioned to clean up.

Dozens of Jewish actors and creators were on the list when this year's nominations were announced Tuesday. Read through to see who could take home prizes when the awards show airs in September.

One notable show that was shut out: "The Plot Against America," the HBO miniseries that depicts an alternate history in which isolationist Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 presidential election and encourages anti-Semitic attitudes throughout the United States...
Spanish chemical plant to become worlds first to operate on 100% renewable power

A SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) chemical plant in Cartagena, Spain is set to become the worlds first large-scale chemical production site to be run entirely on renewable power, following the signing of a major agreement. The polycarbonate facility is planned to be fully operational in 2024.

SABIC's Cartagena facility - Image: SABIC

SABIC is a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco and is active in petrochemicals, chemicals, industrial polymers, fertilisers, and metals. The deal will see Iberdrola, a Spanish utility company, invest almost 70m (63) to construct a 100MW solar PV facility with 263,000 panels. The facility will be built on land owned by SABIC, making it the largest industrial renewable power plant in Europe. The plant is expected to be fully operational in 2024.



The 25-year deal represents another step in SABICs ambition to transition all its global operations to cleaner energy. SABICs aim is to have 4GW of either wind or solar energy installed for its sites globally by 2025, rising to 12GW by 2030. In 2019, solar panels were installed at SABIC sites in India and Thailand, helping reduce greenhouse emissions by 200 tonnes.



Bob Maughon, EVP Sustainability, Technology & Innovation and CTO and CSO at SABIC, said: This ground-breaking deal with Iberdrola is a significant step towards achieving our long-term sustainability and clean energy targets. Partnerships of this kind are the cornerstone of our business growth model. The solar PV powered plant in Cartagena demonstrates that SABIC continues to drive the sustainability agenda in the chemicals industry and that a transition on such a large scale is possible.



In recent years, the many breakthroughs in renewable energy technology have made deployment at this kind of scale possible. Our commitment to technology and innovation means we will always be early adopters, and we are optimally positioned to undertake this transformation right now. The new PV plant will deliver an 80kt annual reduction in indirect CO2 emissions, and furthers strengthens our support and contribution to wider climate change initiatives like EU 2030 and our alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.



Once the solar plant comes on line, SABICs customers, including those in the automotive and construction sectors, will have access to polycarbonate solutions produced with 100% renewable power.



"These partnerships enhance the competitiveness of renewables and continue to create opportunities for the development of innovative projects that are transforming the present and the future of energy. The long-term energy purchase contracts provide stability to investments and have become an optimal tool for managing the electricity supply of major consumers, committed to clean and sustainable energy sources", explained Inigo Alonso, Corporate Customer Global Director of Iberdrola.



Plans are also underway to install PV technology at SABICs global HQ in Riyadh, and a final-stage feasibility study with Marafiq and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu is underway to explore a $300m, 300-megawatt solar array project on the western coast of Saudi Arabia. Once complete, SABIC will take the electricity generated by the plant and deliver it to local chemicals manufacturing plants.

More information...

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By Akbar Mammadov

Members of Azerbaijani and Ukrainian parliaments working group on interparliamentary relations have discussed the development of cooperation between the two countries during the online meeting held on August 20, the Azerbaijani Parliament s press service has reported.

Head of the working group on interparliamentary relations with Ukraine Rufat Guliyev said that Azerbaijan and Ukraine have had friendly and mutually beneficial relations since many years and these relations are continued successfully today.

It was also noted that cooperation in international parliamentary bodies is of great importance, therefore, it is expedient to organize regular meetings between Azerbaijani and Ukrainian MPs and to exchange views on various issues.

Guliyev reminded that the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $519 million over the past seven months.

Furthermore, Guliyev spoke about the dynamic development and reforms in the economic, social, humanitarian, educational and cultural spheres in Azerbaijan. He stressed the importance of developing cooperation between the two countries in these areas.

It was noted that over 550,000 Azerbaijanis live in Ukraine where take an active part in the socio-political developments. Azerbaijani students study various disciplines in a number of Ukrainian educational institutions. At the same time, about 30,000 Ukrainians live and work in Azerbaijan. There are tolerant and mutually respectful relations between the two nations.

In turn, Vladimir Kreydenko, co-chair of the friendship group of Ukraines parliament (Verkhovna Rada) with Azerbaijan, said that his country is interested in developing relations with Azerbaijan, the leading country in the South Caucasus. Speaking about the expansion of relations between the legislative bodies of the two countries, Kreydenko stressed the importance of cooperation between the MPs, both bilaterally and at the international level.

It was also noted that the friendship group with Azerbaijan in the Ukrainian parliament is the largest group, which includes members of the parliament. This is a clear example of the attitude of the Ukrainian people to Azerbaijan. There are potential opportunities for expanding relations between the two countries in all areas.

During the meeting, the sides exchanged views on expanding inter-parliamentary ties between the two countries, prospects for further development of relations in the economic, cultural, humanitarian, social and educational spheres, settlement of regional conflicts, fight against the coronavirus pandemic and other topical issues.

Honorary Consul of Azerbaijan in Kharkiv Afgan Salmanov, Azerbaijani MPs Ali Masimli, Emin Hajiyev, Elman Nasirov, Razi Nurullayev, Ukrainian MPs Alexander Feldman, Gabriel Mikhailov, representative of the Kharkiv City Council Viktor Rud, director of the Institute of International Education of Kharkiv National University Alexei Navrotsky also spoke at the meeting.

The meeting was also attended by members of the Azerbaijani friendship group with Ukraine Anar Mammadov, Javid Osmanov, Nagif Hamzayev, Mushfig Mammadli, as well as the chairman of the Kharkiv Regional Council Sergei Chernov and other officials.

---

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

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A film that so effortlessly takes us through the hysterical world of us and them without being too preachy and yet communicating how important the idea of love is in todays time. This quick-witted satire is a gem to watch with some fine writing, thoughtful direction, engaging performances, lovely camera work and soulful music.

Talking about his film, Writer Director Akram Hassan says  I created a world which is more or less a magic realism, a world that could connect us to the core of our existence and connection with each other, which is love. In todays time our thoughts and our world are so much clotted with information, imageries, acquired emotions and things which we pick from this confused and coagulated world that we lose the inner brilliance in our self, both as individual and society. And thats what I tried doing in the film, to bring back that core brilliance, that spark in us, the beautiful tender idea of love. And it can only come through an uncorrupted individual and kids are the most untouched entity, away from preconceived notion, prejudices and other negative emotions. And I felt using social harmony as a vehicle to talk about our brilliant inner self is the need of the hour. And thats how Pandit Usman was created. For me Pandit Usman is the antidote to all hatred and this is the real soul of India.

After watching the film, one could easily say, Akram Hassan is in total control of his craft and effortlessly stay loyal to the core idea of the film. The way film blissfully juggles between realism and magic realism gives us the idea of Akrams skill as a story teller. The world is so believable that you cant question the logic of the film though its based on the most farce idea of heart transplant and how things get mixed up. But this is what the power of cinema is, and Akram managed to pulled it off quite well. A former assistant director with Aamir Khan Productions, It would be really interesting to see Akrams future work witnessing the extraordinary control he has on film grammar. Akram says he is working towards his first feature film which he is writing and directing. Direction is my first passion, writing comes with it.

With an extraordinary ensemble cast and many mainstream crew members, Pandit Usman never feels like a typical short film just loyal to its short format. It feels like a feature with multiple locations, many characters and a beautiful song at the end of the film. Sudip Senguptas camera work stays true to realism, while Satyajeet Kelkars editing is seamless with some lovely cut points working at different levels both in emotion and concept . Harpreet Singh has created very soothing yet quirky background score for the film while Shantanu Moitra and Swanand Kirkires collaboration in creating the song Khushaamdeed is an amazing treat at the end of the film.

Pandit Usman features Swanand Kirkire, Kumud Mishra, Anant Vidhaat, Ishtiyak Khan, Heeba Shah, Danish Husain, Sucheeta Trivedi and Kabir and is streaming on Hotstar currently.

Disclaimer: This is a company press release. No HT journalist was involved in the creation of this content.
The Pasadena Health Center has received a $50,000 donation on behalf of Chevron Pasadena Chemical Co.

According to PHC director and CEO John Sweitzer, the donation will provide a boost to the facilitys efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the community.

Recent studies indicate that the hardest hit communities have been black and Hispanic populations.

The health care centers largest demographic, Sweitzer said, is the Hispanic community.

PCH cites estimates showing over 5,000 people in Pasadena are unemployed due to the COVID pandemic because of business shutdowns and layoffs. Pasadena Health Center has been working to help curve the pandemic and to help school children in the area.

To date, the center has provided over 1500 free COVID-19 tests.

The center provides medical and dental services, pediatrics, womens health, mental health services, counseling, internal medicine and accepts Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and self-pay. A sliding fee scale is available for eligible families who do not have insurance or qualify for other assistance.

In 2017, Chevron Pasadena donated $5,000 to the center for Harvey disaster relief. The health care facility plans to host an event to officially thank Chevron for its recent donation on Aug. 26.

For more information on the center, visit https://www.pasadenahealthcenter.com/

Chamber hosts State of Education event

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce will host a virtual State of Education event featuring Ira K. Blake, president of University of Houston Clear Lake; Brenda Hellyer, chancellor of San Jacinto College; and DeeAnn Powell, superintendent of Pasadena ISD. The event will cover how educational leaders in the community are navigating a changing environment and how institutions are meeting the challenges of providing equitable access to connectivity and ensuring needs of student are being met.

When: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Aug 27. Meet and greet at 11:30 a.m; program at noon

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Details: RSVP the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce at pasadenachamber.org or call 281-487-7871

Hospital hosts stroke support virtual meeting

Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital- Stroke Support Group will host a Zoom meeting for patients and caregivers to discuss topics associated with recovering and living life after a stroke. The meeting is welcome to participants who register online.

Date: 9-10:30 a.m. Aug. 27

Cost: Free

Website: https://bit.ly/3aehr9Q

Contact Information: 713-222-CARE (2273). Register online at www.memorialhermann.org
Class of '83 demands close attention and that's not hard to give because the director and editor keep it rivetting at all times.

It has been a quarter century since Bobby Deol debuted in Bollywood. In the years that followed, he earned success in the thriller and action genres, but was unable to emerge from the shadow of his legendary father Dharmendra and superstar brother Sunny Deol. Post-2002, the younger Deol faded from public memory, barring brief revivals with the box-office response to the family vehicles Apne (2007) and Yamla Pagla Deewana (2011). Class of '83 is his shot at a comeback and at being his own person in a film industry that is more experimental and adventurous than it was when he was starting out.

Directed by Atul Sabharwal and "loosely inspired by" journalist S Hussain Zaidi's non-fiction book The Class of 83: The Punishers of Mumbai Police, this film is about a frustrated senior Mumbai policeman who forms an unauthorised killing squad within the force to shatter the politician-underworld nexus that has made it impossible for honest officers to effectively fight crime.

As with most extra-legal strategies with violence as their cornerstone, soon this one too takes on a life of its own and goes out of the hands of those who initiated it.

Crime and corruption have long been Sabharwal's areas of interest. A decade back, he had written and directed the then-underrated-but-now-cult TV narcotics drama series Powder. Links between corporates, politicians, police and gangsters in Gurgaon were his focus in his debut feature film Aurangzeb (2013) starring Arjun Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Prithviraj Sukumaran and Amrita Singh. Sabharwal has now found a perfect match in Zaidi who gets an associate producer credit in Class of '83 and whose books on the Mumbai underworld have yielded several Hindi films including one of the finest works to emerge from the industry in the 21st century: Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday.

Class of '83 is less dramatised than Aurangzeb, its tone more akin to Kashyap's docudrama approach to his masterpiece. It does not play out as a suspense thriller, but as a matter-of-fact chronicle of actual events  precise, concise, credible and as tightly drawn as a leash stretched just short of breaking point.

Bobby Deol here plays Vijay Singh, the dean of a police training institute in Nashik. Class of '83 opens in 1982 with a bunch of students who are excited at the prospect of being taught by a top cop.

This is a film with no time to waste and a director in no mood to waste it. It gets down to business from the opening shot and not a second is squandered thereafter. Abhijeet Deshpande's screenplay and Sabharwal's dialogues have clarity and purpose. The humour in the friends goofing around at the institute, the cutting repartee between them and later scenes once they enter the professional arena all have a real-world feel to them. Sabharwal believes in an economical use of words and shots, and ensures that every moment serves to take the plot forward or add another element to the characterisation.

The writers clearly enjoy the use of language and are fortunate to have with them a first-rate cast who favour naturalism, whether it is the exceptional newcomers Sameer Paranjape, Hitesh Bhojraj, Bhupendra Jadawat, Ninad Mahajani and Prithvik Pratap who play Dean Singh's handpicked students Aslam, Varde, Shukla, Jadhav and Surve respectively, or their senior co-artistes. Veteran actor Vishwajeet Pradhan as their PT instructor Mangesh Dixit cracked me up when the deliciously lofty epithet "mandbuddhi maanush" (dim-witted human) rolled off his tongue with seeming effortlessness.

It has been a while since Bobby Deol has made an impression on screen. In Class of '83, Sabharwal uses him intelligently and reins in the star's tendency to over-emote. Despite being up against two gifted contemporaries  Annup Sonii as a high-ranking politician and Joy Sengupta as his police chief  Deol earns his keep in this film that is meant to be his big return to our screens. He is effective even if not outstanding. What gives Class of '83 a massive edge, however, are the charismatic youngsters mentioned in the previous paragraph  I have not been this excited about an ensemble of newbies since the release of the 2018 Mollywood film Angamaly Diaries and that, my friends, is a huge compliment.

Class of '83 is a showcase for Maharashtra politics and society, and the primary characters are a microcosm of the state's caste and class dynamics, cultural and religious markers. As with most Hindi police/gangster flicks though, the one social group that gets relegated to the background here too are women  they are wives, fiancees, daughters and even classmates in Class of '83, but never a full-fledged character in their own right at the centre of the action. This marginalisation is particularly ironic since the two real-life figures mentioned by their actual names in the voiceover are India's first woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi along with the Maharashtra union leader Datta Samant. Although silence about women was a problem also in Sabharwal's otherwise engaging 2015 documentary on Agra's shoe trade, In Their Shoes, it's not as if he does not have it in him to write solid women  Amrita Singh did, after all, play a memorable character in Aurangzeb's male-dominated universe.

As much as Class of '83 is about the despair of an upright policeman, it is also about poor workers caught between netas, unions and criminal gangs.

One point that merits a discussion is the position the film takes on the extra-constitutional means used to eliminate gangsters. While Class of '83 does not glorify these methods, it does not merely dispassionately tell it like it is either  there is a stance being taken with the air of inevitability in the premise articulated by Aslam Khan's voiceover, "Sometimes to maintain order, one needs to break the law, because when order is maintained, the system runs properly," which is troubling considering the realistic vibe the film gives off.

While these aspects of Class of '83's politics may be debatable, its cinematic quality is not. Every technical department is in spiffing form. Cinematographer Mario Poljac plays around throughout with light and shadow, gloom and grey, all of which serve to exacerbate the narrative's brooding air.

Viju Shah's original music score complements the director's unadorned storytelling while unexpectedly lending urgency to crucial passages.

Class of '83 is not to be watched lightly. Especially in the latter half when youthful banter is dispensed with and harsh realities take over, it demands close attention. As it happens, that attention is not hard to give because Sabharwal and editor Manas Mittal keep the proceedings rivetting at all times.

Class of '83 is a masterclass in entertaining minimalism.

Class of '83 is streaming on Netflix.

Rating: ***1/2
(Natural News) Muscle soreness can happen for a range of reasons, from strenuous exercise to difficult menstruation. It can make the slightest motion painful and difficult, and it can stick around for longer periods if left untreated.

One holistic approach to muscle soreness that has been around for millennia is the use of essential oils. Natural healers and aromatherapists had long since used essential oils to enhance mood and relax tight muscles, according to certified nurse practitioner Harpreet Gujral.

Research corroborates the use of essential oils for pain relief and anti-inflammation. In fact, there are numerous studies on the therapeutic effects of essential oils on arthritis pain, chronic back pain, menstrual pain, pediatric pain, cancer pain and multiple sclerosis pain, among others.

Best essential oils for muscle soreness

The scents of essential oils are said to ease tired and sore muscles. Some people prefer to inhale them, others opt for an aromatherapeutic massage, and others still might ingest certain essential oils in capsules.

The administration might differ depending on the person or the natural health practitioners recommendation, but the therapeutic effects of the oils should remain the same.

From peppermint to rose oil, here are 12 essential oils that can help ease muscle soreness, pain and inflammation, according to registered nurse and medical journalist Rachel Nall.

Muscle soreness due to arthritis

Some people might suffer from chronic muscle soreness due to arthritis, a chronic condition that affects the joints and surrounding tissues. The best essential oils for reducing discomfort related to arthritis include:

Eucalyptus  Eucalyptus oil has natural analgesic and anti-arthritic properties. Marjoram  Marjoram is relaxing and calming for tight muscles. Peppermint  Peppermint oil can ease pain, suppress inflammation and release spasms.

Menstrual cramping

Difficult menstruation can cause painful muscle cramps in the abdomen. In some cases, this can spread to the back and the thighs. The pain might also come in intense spasms and necessitate bed rest. Here are four essential oils that are best used for menstruation-related muscle soreness and pain:

Clary sage  Clary sage oil is said to be useful for easing muscle spasms and pain. It also has a warming and soothing effect. Lavender  Lavender oil has natural analgesic properties. Rose  Rose oil stimulates the brain to release endorphins, the chemicals that reduce pain and boost pleasure. Roman chamomile  Roman chamomile is calming and can ease muscle discomfort through its anti-spasmodic properties.

General muscle soreness

General muscle soreness could mean that stemming from back pain, neck pain, knee pain, and the like that isnt due to an apparent condition or ailment. In such cases, massaging alone might help ease pain and discomfort, but using these essential oils can help complement that:

Almond  Almond oil can relieve pain and boost blood circulation. Grapeseed  Grapeseed extract contains a large number of organic plant compounds that act as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. Jojoba  Jojoba oil has natural analgesic properties potent against general pain and inflammation. Ginger  Ginger oil has a warming effect and antiseptic properties. Tea tree  Tea tree oil can reduce muscle inflammation.

Tips for using essential oils

Essential oils contain high concentrations of potent compounds, so using them isnt as simple as using other home remedies and natural medicines.

If treating sore muscles, the oils are best added into a hot bath, put in a compress or diluted into a carrier oil for massage.

For most adults, the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA) recommends at least a three percent dilution. This translates to about 20 drops of essential oil per one ounce of carrier oil. Nonetheless, some people might go for 30 drops of essential oil per one ounce of carrier oil for intense muscle soreness.

Gujral also cautions against using essential oil diffusers, noting that essential oils might not be safe for all members of the household. In fact, some essential oils should not be used around certain groups, such as children, older adults and people suffering from lung or heart conditions.

Lack of regulations also means that essential oils should not be ingested, added Gujral. If used as a topical medicine, the essential oil should first be diluted in a carrier oil to protect the skin from possible burning sensations and other side effects. (Related: Which carrier oils should you pair with your essential oils?)

There are tons of essential oils on the market, from the purest to the most diluted ones. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not obligated to approve essential oils, so its important to read labels on the bottles or purchase oils from reputable sources to ensure that the oils are safe, potent and legitimate.

Read more articles about essential oils for pain relief at EssentialOils.news.

Sources include:

HopkinsMedicine.org

Hindawi.com

MedicalNewsToday.com
And where we saw real political engagement deployed, it was toward American foreign policy  toward what was happening in Latin America and South Africa and so on.

And, of course, toward Reagans failed response to the AIDS crisis and the emergence of a really activated gay rights movement. That is where the energy was going  toward cultural change and shifts in international policy at the end of the Cold War, not toward the ways that the system had been re-engineered to serve only the well-to-do and big business.

Spy excelled at skewering the very rich. Occasionally, I get letters from readers arguing that The Times in general, and my column in particular, harp too much on the excesses of the privileged. Is that kind of skewering merely cultural sport or moral imperative?

As soon as we turn the clock back on economic inequality and insecurity and immobility and de-rig the system and reduce Wall Street power, as soon we go back and replace market values as the supreme values in America, Ill stop. Until that happens  besides being fun, it is one front in the critique of a system that disadvantages almost everyone.

Lets turn to New York right now and the whole This City Is Over meme. The other day you mentioned a New York Post piece by a former hedge-fund manager titled New York City Is Dead Forever. Much of this sentiment is coming from the right  from people at the Manhattan Institute, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post. What is the investment in this narrative? Whats in it for the narrators?

Well, different people have different reasons. That guy who wrote that foolish and shallow piece was basically saying: What? Theres no more Broadway Theater for a while? What? I cant go to my favorite restaurant in Midtown anymore? Oh, yeah, right. I guess New York City is dead then. So he had his own reasons.

The other day, Trump retweeted someone saying let the Democratic cities rot. On the crudest level it is that: this is where everybody we hate lives. If the pandemic makes these places impossible to live, good, because then people will move to suburbs and become Republicans  that is, I guess, the theory. Or, it is just bloody-minded schadenfreude, taking pleasure in the fact that New York suffered early and hard in the pandemic.
She has made no secret of the fact she loves Botox and filler.

But Angie Kent nonetheless raised eyebrows on Friday, when she stepped out in Sydney's Rose Bay sporting a very swollen pout.

The former Bachelorette, 30, displayed her fuller-looking lips as she grabbed a takeaway lunch.

Hmm! She's made no secret of the fact she loves Botox and filler, but Angie Kent nonetheless raised eyebrows on Friday when she stepped out in Sydney sporting a very swollen pout

Angie, who recently split from her boyfriend Carlin Sterritt, cut a casually chic figure while running errands in the upmarket suburb.

She wore a pair of black Nike leggings and a yellow top, which she paired with a salmon corduroy jacket.

To complete the outfit, she accessorised with chunky white sneakers, hoop earnings and tortoiseshell sunglasses.

Luscious lips! The former Bachelorette, 30, displayed her fuller-looking lips as she grabbed a takeaway lunch in Rose Bay

She's glowing! The former Gogglebox star appeared to be wearing natural-look makeup, including soft foundation with bold eyebrows

The former Gogglebox star appeared to be wearing natural-look makeup, including soft foundation with bold eyebrows.

She wore her hair in a half-up 'do and appeared to be in good spirits.

Angie glanced down at her phone while she waited for her food, before heading back to her car.

Keeping busy: Angie glanced down at her phone while she waited for her food, before heading back to her car

Casual chic: She wore a pair of black Nike leggings and a yellow top, which she paired with a salmon corduroy jacket

Angie has made no secret of the fact she has been getting Botox and filler for years.

'They say it is a preventive. I just love it just a little bit. You don't need it often, maybe once every year,' she told The Daily Telegraph last year.

'I have got real everything but I look after my skin so I get a little bit of [Botox] and cheeky fillers.'

Cosmetic procedures: Angie has made no secret of the fact she has been getting Botox and filler for years

The latest sighting comes after she underwent an obligatory 'breakover' following her split from Carlin last month.

The reality star swapped her long blonde locks for a shoulder-length 'do, which she couldn't wait to show off on Instagram.

'Cutting off the old, in with the new!' she told her followers.

Looking good! The latest sighting comes after Angie underwent an obligatory 'breakover' following her split from Carlin Sterritt last month. The reality star swapped her long blonde locks (left) for a shoulder-length 'do (right), which she couldn't wait to show off on Instagram

Calling it quits: Angie and Carlin (left), who fell in love on The Bachelorette last year, confirmed their split at the start of July

Angie and Carlin, who fell in love on The Bachelorette last year, confirmed their split at the start of July.

'We have not wanted to confirm until this point because there have been much bigger issues going on in the world and we've both been taking space to think about what we really want,' Angie wrote on social media.

She added: 'Matters of the heart are extremely difficult and I'm sad to say that Carlin and I have broken up.'
Social media giant Facebook, which is in the midst of a political row in India, has said that it is an open, transparent and non-partisan organisation.

Over the last few days, we have been accused of bias in the way we enforce our policies. We take allegations of bias incredibly seriously, and want to make it clear that we denounce hate and bigotry in any form. We take this opportunity to offer clarity on policy development and enforcement at Facebook, Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India, said in a statement on Friday.

Facebook also publicly defended its employees, amidst protest from its global staff about bias in India.

This also reflects in our organizational set up - like a truly diverse organization, our employees represent a varied political spectrum who have either served in many administrations or have political experience and take immense pride in being active contributors to public service. Despite hailing from diverse political affiliations and backgrounds, they perform their respective duties and interpret our policies in a fair and non-partisan way, the statement further said.

The decisions around content escalations are not made unilaterally by just one person; rather, they are inclusive of views from different teams and disciplines within the company, Mohan said in the statement.

Read the full statement here

The controversy around Facebook India erupted after a Wall Street Journal report showed that the companys top lobbyist in India recommended against taking down hate speech posts of a BJP leader on the ground that this could spoil the media companys relationship with the government.

A parliamentary standing committee on information and technology has summoned representatives of the social media company to appear before it on September 2 to present their views on the issue of safeguarding citizens rights and prevention of misuse of social and online news media.

The committee is headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

The Congress party has said that it will raise the issue of Facebooks alleged nexus with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Parliaments monsoon session which is expected to begin from September 10.

The Congress wrote to Facebooks founder Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday saying the social media company may be a willing participant in thwarting the rights and values Indias founding leaders had sacrificed their lives for.

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This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Margaret and Jimmy Shaw grew up with humble means in a Georgia town with no streetlights or indoor plumbing. They were teenagers when they got married  without telling their parents, walking back from the ceremony to their respective family homes. They remained married for nearly 63 years, long enough to see their grandchildren go to college.

Its a beautiful love story, their granddaughter Tiffany McGee said.

But it was one with an ending unique to 2020. They died of the coronavirus within 24 hours of each other, in separate hospital rooms, without relatives or friends around them. Ms. Shaw, who did not own a cellphone, did not even know how her husband was faring while they were hospitalized in North Shore Medical Center in Miami.

Mr. Shaw died on July 17 at 80. Ms. Shaw died a day later at 79.

In addition to Ms. McGee, they are survived by three children, seven more grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, as well as a sister on Ms. Shaws side and two sisters on Mr. Shaws.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London  Fri, August 21, 2020 11:03 517 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f7a764 2 News United-Kingdom,travel,quarantine Free

Britain said on Thursday it will reimpose quarantine for travelers from Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago, but ease restrictions on arrivals from Portugal, in its latest response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The decision, which will come into effect from 0300 GMT on Saturday, will require travelers from the trio of newly red-flagged countries to self-isolate for 14 days after cases in each rose markedly.

"Data shows we need to remove Croatia, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago from our list of #coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN," transport minister Grant Shapps said on Twitter.

"Data also shows we can now add Portugal to those countries INCLUDED in Travel Corridors," he added, noting "things can change quickly" and people should only travel if they are willing to potentially quarantine on their return.

The latest moves follow quarantine being imposed last week on France, the Netherlands and several other countries, as the government fears Europe is starting to see a second wave of virus infections.

Britain, which has been the hardest-hit European country by COVID-19, registering more than 41,000 deaths to date, has seen its number of confirmed cases creeping up in recent weeks.

Officials announced nearly 1,200 new cases on Thursday.

The UK had no quarantine measures in the early stages of the pandemic but in June imposed a blanket self-isolation requirement on all arrivals.

Weeks later it carved out "travel corridors" which exempted travelers from certain countries from quarantine.

However, the measures were reintroduced for arrivals from Spain in late July, catching airlines by surprise -- as well as thousands of Britons leaving for their holidays.

Last week's restrictions on arrivals from France, announced just 36 hours before they were implemented, sparked similar chaos, as thousands of British holidaymakers scurried to get home before they began.

The country's struggling tourism sector, including airlines and airport operators, has criticized the quarantine policy as overbearing and called for more targeted testing at ports of entry.
The makers of The Crown have roped in American actor Gillian Anderson to essay the role of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher in its fourth season. The final two seasons of Netflixs popular show would be covering the 1990s and early 2000s. The makers have also released a short teaser which showcases a glimpse of Margaret Thatcher along with Princess Diana who will be acting as the catalyst to proceed with the plot forward.

Also Read: Gillian Anderson's Diverse Characters In 'Sex Education 2' And 'The Crown 4

Gillian Anderson to essay Margaret Thatcher in The Crown Season 4

Gillian is known for her performance as the sex therapist Jean Milburn in the show, Sex Education. She had also played FBI Special Agent, Dana Scully in the X-Files. The actor is also known for playing socialite Lily Barth in the movie, House Of Mirth. Apart from that, Gillian was also seen in the series, The Fall wherein she essayed the role of DSU Stella Gibson.

The trailer shows a sneak peek of Gillian as Margaret wherein she can be seen getting ready in the mirror while donning her signature pearl earrings. It also shows the actor as the Conservative Prime Minister sitting in a church and addressing the photographers outside her residence. The trailer also showcases a glimpse of Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki who will be playing Princess Diana. Her portions revolve around her struggling with the limelight and the trailer concludes with her all geared up for marrying Prince Charles.

Also Read: The Crown: Season 4 To See Claire Foy Reprising Her Character Queen Elizabeth?

New cast members joining the show

Recently, Jonathan Pryce and Imelda Staunton have also joined the cast of The Crown, where Oscar-nominated actor Jonathan Pryce will play Prince Phillip in the fourth and the fifth season of the series. Previously, actors Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies have played the role of Prince Phillip in the show. Imelda Staunton will be essaying the character of Queen Elizabeth which was previously played by Olivia Colman and by Claire For prior to her. On the other hand, Lesley Manville will portray the character of Princess Margaret.

Also Read: Research Reveals That Elizabeth I Translated Tacticus Into English

Speaking about the show, The Crown is a historical drama created by Peter Morgan. The show depicts the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The first season of the show focused on the period from Queen Elizabeth and Phillips marriage to the disintegration of her sister Princess Margarets engagement to Group Captain Peter Townsend. The second season showed the period from the Suez Crisis that took place in 1956 to the retirement of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the birth of Prince Edward.

The third season shows the period between the years 1964 to 1977. It showcases two periods of Harold Wilson as Prime Minister and also introduces Camilla Shand. The fourth season of The Crown will show Lady Diana Spencer and Margaret Thatchers premiership. The fifth and the sixth seasons are expected to be the final seasons and will be closing the series. The final seasons will cover Queen Elizabeths reign in the 21st century.

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
The U.S. has not yet had a "true second wave" of the coronavirus and the country could see a resurgence of the virus in the fall and winter, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday.

"I think most peoples' perception is we had one epidemic in New York, in the New York region, we came down the epidemic curve, we had another epidemic in the Sun Belt, so that really looks like and feels like a second wave," Gottlieb said on "Squawk Box." "I do think that we're going to have a third act of this virus in the fall and the winter and it's likely to be more pervasive spread in a broader part of the country."

He added that the virus is likely to spread to rural parts of the U.S., some of which have been "largely unaffected to date." Cases are already beginning to build in the West and Midwest, Gottlieb said, adding that "every community is vulnerable."

He said the coronavirus does not spread like the flu, which one person might pass on to two or three others, he said, but that the virus spreads largely at "super-spreading events" such as large gatherings, especially indoor events.

"Really, an outbreak can happen anywhere," he said.

While daily new cases have fallen steadily for about a month in the U.S., the number of new cases reported every day remains above 40,000 and more than 1,000 people in the U.S., on average, are still dying everyday due to Covid-19. Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield said Thursday he'd like to bring the number of daily new cases down below 10,000 and see daily new deaths fall to under 250.
The postal service was a mess when Philadelphia's 47-year-old postmaster general was appointed in 1753 to help run it. His name: Benjamin Franklin.

The Colonial postal service was still run under the Crown as a moneymaking venture for Britain. The service was expensive and used mostly by lawyers and businessmen to send legal documents. Franklin got paid with any profit that was left after mail service was conducted. For years, it ran a deficit, and Franklin realized the best way to turn a profit was to improve services instead of gutting them.

The future Founding Father - a statesman, scientist and shrewd businessman - believed in efficiency and innovation. Some historians say he would have been alarmed at the Trump administration's threats to slash operations of one of the nation's founding institutions.

"Franklin would be outraged," historian Richard John, author of "Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse," said in a phone interview. "He was an institution builder - he wants to build things up, not tear things down."

This week Franklin's 21st-century successor, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, promised to drop some of his cost-cutting changes, including shortening retail hours at post offices and removing drop boxes and mail processing equipment. But he is apparently considering significant after the election that could slow mail delivery in parts of the country and hike prices for some services, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Historian Joseph Adelman said that while Franklin shared DeJoy's concern for financial efficiency, he would be "apoplectic" over any disruption in service. Franklin, he argued, wouldn't support anything that undermined the spread of information and the ability to vote, two pillars of American democracy.

"Franklin's interest in the postal system was in improving the effectiveness and quality of information circulation," said Adelman, associate professor of history at Framingham State University, and author of "Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789." In fact, Franklin's salary depended on the postal service turning a profit. He pursued his goal not by cost-cutting but by enhancing the service to make it more popular.

Franklin was postmaster general of Philadelphia from 1737 until 1753 when he was appointed deputy postmaster general of the colonies.

One of the first moves Franklin made was to improve transit routes for the nascent communications network. He began an extensive survey of post roads and post offices from Maine down to Charleston, South Caroline, writes Winifred Gallagher in her 2017 book, "How the Post Office Created America: A History."

From his survey, he plotted more efficient routes marked with milestones. He measured mileage by attaching a rod inside a wagon wheel - based on the circumference of the wheel, a clapper would sound at each mile and that's where a marker would go. The milestones allowed letter carriers to calculate postage due, which at the time was paid by the receiver, not the sender.

With markers in place on better routes, Franklin created a rate system based on miles traveled and the number of sheets of paper mailed. Under his supervision, round-trip mail service between Boston and Philadelphia was cut from six weeks to three, and one-way service between Philadelphia and New York City to just a day and a half, according to Gallagher. His efforts followed his own adage that "lost time is never found again."

Franklin "wanted to innovate the post office, he streamlined routes and schedules," Adelman said. "He even tackled boring administrative tasks like improving accounting practices, the kind of things that are critical to operating a large agency."

Along with William Hunter, the other deputy postmaster general, Franklin sent instructions to the service's newly appointed comptroller on April 22, 1757. Franklin urged him "to endeavor the Rectification of every thing that you find amiss, so that Correspondence may not be impeded or interrupted by any Neglect or Mismanagement in the Post Offices, or Misconduct of the Riders, nor any just Cause of Complaint be given to the Merchants," according to a document in the National Archives.

Within four years of Franklin becoming deputy postmaster general, the service began to register a profit. He advanced the system even further and made the post more equitable by lowering prices and expanding service for all colonists, not just wealthy businesspeople who could afford to use it.

As involved as Franklin was in establishing a communications institution to fit the fledgling nation's needs, he didn't write any ringing statements about the post, despite being a prolific writer, according to John. But the job did influence the statesman's political thinking, Devin Leonard writes in his 2016 book, "Neither Snow Nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service."

"He began to think of the colonies not as individual provinces but as parts of a potential nation, bound together by shared institutions like the post office," according to "Neither Snow Nor Rain."

As evidence of this thinking, during the years Franklin pioneered changes to the postal service, he also became renowned as a civic leader who established quintessential American institutions. He set up the University of Pennsylvania, the public library system of Philadelphia, as well as the city's fire companies and Pennsylvania Hospital

"He really wanted the poor man to get ahead and to do that, you need stable institutions," John said. "He recognizes that ordinary people need a commercial society that can work for everyone."

After making improvements, starting in 1764, Franklin administered much of his postal duties while living in London, where he served as a lobbyist for various colonial territories. He supervised his son-in-law along with a number of personal hires to carry out the duties of the post.

As the relationship between England and the colonies disintegrated, Franklin worried he would lose his position. "Lord Sandwich, the crown's postmaster general, disapproved of Franklin's pro-American sympathies," Leonard writes, and in 1775, the noble dismissed Franklin from his post.

Franklin was furious. He had transformed the colonial post from a money-losing operation to a steady source of income for the crown and this was how they thanked him? Now that he'd been dismissed, Leonard writes that Franklin warned Americans that they could expect British postal officials to routinely open and read their letters like they did at home.

In 1775 when the Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia to discuss creating an American state, the delegates created a plan to create an official American post office outside of British rule. Franklin had spent years setting up a proficient infrastructure and they selected the diplomat to be the new nation's first postmaster general.

Congress formalized the idea that the post office would be a communication network for the entire nation with the Postal Service Act of 1792, Adelman said. The Act made the United States Post Office into a Cabinet department. Now newspapers could be sent through the mail at a discounted rate, which helped expand freedom of the press, and it protected privacy by calling for punishment of people who opened someone else's mail.

The Act also established new postal routes, and built new roads to accommodate post offices springing up across the young nation.

"The Post Office is one of the most equalizing forces in American society," Adelman said. It's become a mechanism for freedom of the press, distribution of medicine and a way to vote - some of the most important public functions of a healthy democracy, he added.

"Harming that mission and appearing to do so intentionally harms democracy," he said - and all that Benjamin Franklin stood for.
As the last Wisconsinite to speak at the Democratic National Convention, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin on Thursday channeled the states motto as a clarion call to move past the Trump era.

This November, lets move forward and never look back, Baldwin, D-Madison, said live from the Wisconsin Center stage in Milwaukee.

Baldwin, 58, urged the nation to build back better by supporting former Vice President Joe Biden as he faces President Donald Trump, who narrowly won the state four years ago.

She also shared her own story of growing up with a pre-existing condition, and how passing the Affordable Care Act, which prevents health insurance companies from charging people more for pre-existing conditions, was a big effing deal  a reference to Bidens own characterization of the landmark health care law that Trump has tried to repeal.

At one point, Baldwin was considered near the top of Bidens list of potential running mates. While that nomination has gone to Kamala Harris, a fellow U.S. Senator from California, Democrats say Baldwins inclusion in this years running mate speculation underscores her accomplishments.

(Baldwin) is always is fighting from the heart for the people of Wisconsin and people all across this nation, who far too often, have just been closed out of our political conversation, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday.

Baldwin served seven terms in Congress before she defeated Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson in the race for the U.S. Senate in 2012. In her 2018 re-election race, Baldwins popularity among Democratic voters played a key role in flipping 17 counties that supported Trump two years earlier.

Baldwin also paved the way as the nations first openly LGBT woman elected to Congress in 1999 and first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate.

While in Congress, Baldwin played a critical role in helping craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which included a provision to keep dependents on their parents health insurance through age 26.

Speculation over Baldwins chances of the vice president nomination also fed into questions of whether or not her place on the ticket would secure a Democratic victory in Wisconsin  a state notorious for its razor-thin margins.

Speaking with reporters on Thursday, Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Andrew Hitt said Bidens decision to pass on Baldwin as running mate was another example of the former vice president taking the state for granted.

If youre going to pick a liberal senator, why not pick a liberal senator from a state that you need to win? Hitt said. It just continues to confuse me why they are seemingly ignoring Wisconsin and not learning from the lessons of Hillary Clinton.

UW-Madison political science professor David Canon said vice presidential picks usually have fairly minimal impacts within their home state.

Are there any voters who will not vote for Joe Biden because Harris is the VP instead of Baldwin? Yeah, maybe there are a few, but I cant imagine that will be enough to change the result in Wisconsin, Canon said.

While Baldwin may have been a boon for Wisconsin Democrats this fall, Angela Lang, executive director with Black Leadership Organizing for Communities in Milwaukee, said Harris appears to be resonating well with voters  despite concerns among some of the partys more progressive members who point to the former California attorney generals background at a time when racial disparities in the criminal justice system are such a focal issue.

At the end of the day we can debate the vice presidential pick all we want, until were blue in the face, but thats not going to stop who is on the ballot and ultimately we need to make sure that we remain focused, Lang said.

Whats more, if Baldwin were to vacate her U.S. Senate seat, a likely contentious special election would have been held to fill the vacancy.

Certainly, to not have her in the Senate, it would have been the nations gain but Wisconsins loss, said Mike Browne, deputy director with liberal advocacy group A Better Wisconsin Together.

Milwaukee Democratic strategist Sachin Chheda, who worked on Baldwins 2000 re-election campaign, said Bidens pick for running mate may not have been all that complicated.

I think that people sometimes look for hidden meanings, but I think this one is staring us in the face, Chheda said. You have someone who can do the job and you have trusted and who can be a partner to you  its really that simple sometimes.

Despite not being nominated to run with Biden, simply being a part of the conversation is a boost for Baldwin going forward, Chheda said.

It is yet another step forward for her as a leader to be in this conversation and I think that means she will have growing influence and growing leadership in the United States Senate, and that will be good for Wisconsin, Chheda said.

COVID-19 in photos: How Wisconsin is managing the pandemic
STA Travel UK, one of the biggest names for backpackers and adventurers has gone out of business.

On Friday evening, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced that the London-based firm had failed with the loss of 500 jobs.

The news leaves thousands of customers who are owed refunds uncertain about when they might get their money back.

These are the key questions and answers.

What was the background?

STA was launched in Australia in 1971. Five years later it capitalised on the collapse of the dominant British student travel enterprise, NUS Travel, to establish a foothold in the UK.

The companys stated mission was: We are youthful, adventurous and have a desire to experience new cultures.

Originally its main appeal was in selling cut-price air tickets to students and young people.

But as low fares for all became more common, and online competitors started to take some of that core business, STA Travel moved into providing tailor-made adventures for a wider age range.

STA Travel UK took over the long-haul specialist Bridge the World in 2010.

Before the coronavirus pandemic began, STA had a network of around 50 high-street stores.

What went wrong?

The firm depended on a constant flow of business to pay staff costs and high-street rents, and for decades it succeeded  despite intense online competition.

But like other travel enterprises, STA saw forward sales dry up because of the coronavirus pandemic.

When travel restrictions started coming into effect in March, many trips were cut short, or did not begin.

Long-stay trips to distant destinations, the mainstays of STA Travel, have since been near-impossible to undertake.

Instead of selling, staff face demands for refunds from thousands of increasingly frustrated customers.

How have customers been affected?

With intercontinental travel almost at a standstill, there are believed to be a negligible number of STA Travel customers abroad. Many abandoned their long-haul, long-stay trips in the spring and flew back to the UK.

Others were not able to start their trips due to the coronavirus pandemic.

There are relative few customers with forward bookings, because STA Travel has sold virtually nothing since March. Most future trips, such as they are, will be the result of customers postponing journeys rather than demanding a refund.

My trip booked with STA was cancelled due to Covid-19. How do I claim a refund?

Most STA sales were package holidays: typically a flight plus some accommodation and one or more adventure tours. Those are covered by the Atol scheme, administered by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Many customers whose trips were cancelled have been trying to claim money back for months, with the company offering only partial refunds and/or vouchers.

Assuming you have a correctly written refund credit note, you will be able claim for any outstanding monies owed by STA Travel under the Atol scheme.

The CAA told customers: Consumers that have accepted valid refund credit notes or are due refunds for the cancellation of their Atol-protected booking will be able to submit a claim to Atol through our online portal.

What about flight-only tickets?

Abta, the travel association, says: You will need to contact the airline about your booking. The airline is responsible for your booking and this should proceed as normal.

If your flight was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, and you have been trying to get your money back from STA, you will need to make a claim direct with the airline concerned.

The CAA broadly concurs, saying: If consumers have a flight-only booking that was Atol protected, they will only be able to make a claim if they are still due to travel and have not received a valid ticket.

Otherwise, consumers should speak to their airline, including if the flight has been cancelled or they have received a voucher for a cancelled flight.

I booked a holiday through STA Travel but a different company is providing it.

Where an Atol-protected package with another tour operator has been booked through STA Travel, your Atol certificate will say package sale in the bottom right-hand corner.

Abta says: You will need to contact the tour operator named on your paperwork or Atol certificate (listed under Who is protecting your trip?). Your tour operator should be able to confirm that your booking will proceed as normal.

How significant was STA Travel?

Millions of travellers booked formative travel experiences with the company over the past few decades.

One of many expressions of sadness was tweeted by Michael Rogers: I bought a very reasonably priced Round [the] World ticket from STA about 15 years ago and it changed my life. Very grateful for that and very sad news.

Dawn Smith said: Booking student travel at STA opened the door to a new and exciting world. Happy memories.

And Alice Brown wrote: They sparked my love for travel when I was 21 and planning my first-ever trip.

Are more travel casualties expected?

Sadly, yes. Travel restrictions are stifling business. In the UK, the rules on different European destinations keep changing. Due to the uncertainty this creates among prospective travellers, sales are not picking up as anticipated.

On Thursday Qantas said it did not expect to start flying intercontinental routes until the second half of 2021  signalling the continued closure of a key market, Australia, to UK travel firms.

STAs holding company said there was no prospect of any improvement this year.
Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump speaks to the 2020 Council for National Policy Meeting, Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump sought to put a more positive light on his presidency Friday after four days of bashing at the Democratic National Convention, saying that where Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sees American darkness," he sees American greatness.

Trump was anxious for his turn in the spotlight after the four-day Democratic National Convention, which was culminated by Biden describing a perfect storm" hitting the nation under Trump's watch as a result of the pandemic, the jolt to the economy that it delivered and racial unrest after the killing of George Floyd.

Over the last week, the Democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history, Trump said in a speech to the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy in Arlington. They spent four straight days attacking America as racist, a horrible country that must be redeemed. 

Biden, in his nomination acceptance speech, portrayed Trump as someone who tries to divide Americans. United we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America, he said.

Trump, in recent speeches, has drawn his own stark images of unrest and violence in American cities and has positioned himself as a defender of law and order. He did so again on Friday, saying that if he loses, no one will be safe in our country and no one will be spared."

Trump and the Democrats agreed on one thing, however. Just as the Democrats had repeatedly contended Thursday night, Trump declared, The future of our country and indeed our civilization is at stake on Nov. 3.

He chided the Democrats, saying their convention did not address the threat that China posed to the U.S. or bringing safety to Democratic-run cities. He also jabbed at former President Barack Obama, saying, You cant be a great president when much of what he has done we have undone.

Vice-President Mike Pence said in an interview Friday that the Republican National Convention next week will focus on what Trump has accomplished, including on the economy and with his coronavirus response.

Pence promised a heavy focus on GOP support for law and order and said the Democrats had failed to acknowledge violence plaguing some U.S. cities.

We're going to make sure that the American people see the choice here, Pence said.

Both Trump and Pence have blamed outbreaks of violence on a radical left, which they have sought to associate with Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Trump made clear after the killing of Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, and the protests that called for changes to policing that he sides with law enforcement. He said there are always going to be bad apples."

We're with them and they're with us, and they've done a fantastic job," Trump said.

Trump also gave his starkest warnings yet about the impact that mail-in voting could have on the election, saying the final results may not be known for an extended period.

I dont think youll know two weeks later. I dont think youll know four weeks later," Trump said.

Pence appeared on morning TV talk shows to counter Democrats and promote the Republican viewpoint hours after Democrats wrapped their four-day convention. He promised a great lineup of leaders next week, along with a great number of voices from all across the country to talk about what this president has done. Among known speakers are Trump, Pence and first lady Melania Trump.

The Democrats argued at their convention that Trump is unfit to lead the country for another four years. Obama, a frequent target of Trump's broadsides, warned that democracy itself is at risk under Trump.

Pence said, I didn't watch much of it and, frankly, I couldn't watch much of it. There was so much negativity, nothing but ad hominem attacks.
Police in southeastern Michigan were looking for out for a man who has reportedly taken a young baby girl.

Michigan State Police said the 47-year-old man is the boyfriend of the biological mother of Ivy Delarosa, a 4-month-old girl from Melvindale.

The state police issued an endangered missing advisory on the girl but cancelled it after about two hours after the girl was found.

After a diligent effort by law enforcement she was located safe in Perrysburg Ohio, state police said in their update. Arrangements are being made to return her back to her family in Michigan.

Police had said that Richard Edwardo Delarosa took the girl and is either heading to see family in Detroit or the area of Perrysburg, Ohio. He was driving a dark blue 2003 Mercury Montana with Ohio license plates with the license plate GUL5787.
China's Sinovac Biotech has committed to provide up to 40 million coronavirus vaccine doses to Indonesia's government between November and March, a minister said, as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to secure its supply as cases rise unabated.

During a visit to China, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said a preliminary agreement had been signed with Sinovac for bulk purchase and supply of the vaccine, CoronaVac, from November to March, after which Indonesia's state-owned Bio Farma would get priority access until end-2021.

Also read: COVID-19 pandemic: WHO lambasts 'vaccine nationalism' in last-resort attempt against hoarding

Indonesia has recorded 147,211 coronavirus infections and 6,418 deaths and is keen to secure a vaccine for its 260 million people and develop its own, amid concern among some developing countries about competition for access. "Indonesia sees a strong commitment from China's industries to forge partnerships and a strong commitment from its government to foster those partnerships," she said late on Thursday via video.

Sinovac did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday and Bio Farma said it would provide comment later. Phase III trials for Sinovac's CoronaVac began last week in Indonesia involving 1,620 volunteers. Bio Farma is involved in the development of the vaccine and has said Indonesia should have capacity to produce 250 million doses a year by the end of 2020, pending human trials.

Also read: China's Sinopharm rejects high prices for COVID-19 vaccine; not to cost over $144.2 for two shots

In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, research minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said Indonesia was developing its own COVID-19 innoculation, dubbed the "red and white" vaccine after the colours of the national flag. Brodjonegoro expected production by Bio Farma to start sometime in 2021.

"Obtaining vaccines entails risk, uncertainty," he said. "Even if there are other countries or parties who have found effective vaccines, we need to make our own vaccine for COVID-19."

Also read: Pfizer, BioNTech to take vaccine candidate with least side effects to final trials
Australians stranded overseas could get a lifeline with the Prime Minister asking key ministers to come up with options to help citizens who can't get home.

Scott Morrison has asked Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds to come up with ways to support Australians overseas.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is looking for options to help Australians stuck overseas get home. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"We acknowledge that some of them are in some difficult circumstances," he said.

"Our consular teams are doing a great job to help them in those circumstances and well be doing more to help them in those circumstances and to assist them to get home within those caps."
Senator Gallagher asked the minister how many aged care residents had died from COVID-19 in Victoria, and how many were currently infected, which he struggled to answer, fumbling over documents before a public servant confirmed 258 aged care residents had died as of 8am on Thursday. Senator Gallagher seized on the hesitation, saying, "You don't know how many people have passed away? ... You're the Minister for Aged Care." The minister said he had spoken to families affected by Victoria's outbreak and "we have all been mortified by the circumstances we've found in those facilities". "We thank the staff who have been available and express our condolences to all those who have lost family and loved ones," he said.

"But the situation that's occurred in Victoria is that the resources of the entire health sector have been stretched, the resources of the aged care sector have been stretched, where you have close to 2000 residential aged care workers who are furloughed because of being either COVID-positive or close contacts ... That's why we have continued to bring additional resources to bear." Senator Colbeck said the situation in Victoria's aged care sector, where Australian Medical Assistance and Australian Defence Force teams were now co-ordinating surge workforce deployments, remained "extremely fragile". Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner Janet Anderson also addressed the Senate Committee, telling it her agency had made changes since a communication breakdown early in the St Basil's outbreak. Ms Anderson corrected the public record earlier this month to make clear that the commission knew about the first positive case at the facility four days earlier than initially claimed. "Although the commission is not the first responder in a COVID-19 outbreak, and our understanding at the time was that the public health unit had been contacted, I recognise that we erred in not escalating this information to the Commonwealth Department of Health at the time and we should have done better."

Loading The commission had since reviewed its procedures "to ensure any evidence about an outbreak is immediately shared with the Commonwealth Department of Health and the relevant [state] public health unit," Ms Anderson said. "Our processes for sharing data and intelligence are now significantly enhanced and we are routinely sharing data daily." She said the commission was "using the full range of our regulatory powers" to ensure providers were "doing everything possible and necessary to protect those for whom they are providing care". Senator Colbeck rejected the accusation the government did not act quickly enough to protect Victorian aged care residents in the weeks after it became aware there was community transmission of COVID-19 in June, saying its entry into the sector was inevitable.

"The only way that you will stop the ingress of the virus into any workplace is to stop the movement of people," he said. "Quite frankly, that's not a viable option to completely isolate residential aged care from the rest of the community." Senator Gallagher put to the minister that community transmission was "a known risk" that the government should have done more to prepare for. The minister said there was a direct correlation between the level of community transmission and the rate of the virus spreading through residential aged care facilities. "People have the virus, they don't know they have it, they're carrying it in an asymptomatic fashion and they're going into workplaces of all kinds, including, unfortunately, residential aged care.

"No country in the world has been able to prevent it," he said. Loading Federal Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy said a list of all aged care facilities with COVID-19 infections would not be made public, because media coverage of smaller outbreaks was not in the public interest. Asked by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert why the information was not released, Professor Murphy said the suburbs in which outbreaks occurred, the relevant risk factor, were already published by the Victorian Health Department. The federal government had released the names of more than five aged care facilities with "significant outbreaks", he said, which the public had "a right to know about."
UC Santa Cruz was ordered to evacuate Thursday as a wildfire approached. (Carolyn Lagattuta / UC Santa Cruz)

A raging and unpredictable complex of wildfires forced authorities Thursday to order the evacuation of UC Santa Cruz, one of the few times students and faculty at a top California learning institution have been forced to flee from flames.

State and local authorities ordered the campus to evacuate late in the day after previously warning that evacuations might be necessary.

Scotts Valley, a hub of Santa Cruz County's tech industry, was also ordered to evacuate, with some residents heading down to the Santa Cruz boardwalk, a refuge from the blazes.

"All on-campus residents must evacuate now and be prepared to not return for at least two weeks," UC Santa Cruz said in a tweet. "The evacuation center for UCSC is in Coconut Grove at the Boardwalk."

UC Santa Cruz has issued at State of Emergency. All on-campus residents must evacuate now and be prepared to not return for at least two weeks. The evacuation center for UCSC is in Coconut Grove at the Boardwalk. Get more info: https://t.co/Fir6Rth3qX pic.twitter.com/0jh5TPWaJy  UC Santa Cruz (@ucsc) August 21, 2020

The mascot of UC Santa Cruz is the banana slug, a creature that thrives in cool, wet forests. Santa Cruz has been anything but lately, and the flames from the CZU August Lightning Complex fire threaten to overwhelm the campus and possibly push down into Santa Cruz, a city of 64,000.

More than 18,000 students are enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, although it is unclear how many were physically on campus or in Santa Cruz before the evacuation order. The university is working with local hotels to find rooms for students forced to flee.

As of Friday morning, the CZU August Lightning Complex fire was 0% contained, according to Cal Fire. It had spread to more than 50,000 acres, was threatening more than 20,000 structures and had forced the evacuations of roughly 64,000 people. It has destroyed historic structures in Big Basin Redwoods State Park and is jumping across rugged terrain amid a pandemic and multiple fires in Northern California that have challenged fire crews.

Story continues

As of late Thursday, more than 700,000 acres have burned in Northern and Central California.

Firefighters called the fires hitting San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties the largest in recent memory.

Its a historic event. This fire is historic for an area like San Mateo-Santa Cruz. We have not seen fires burn like this in this unit, in either one of these counties, for many, many years. And those fires were much smaller than what we have in front of us today, said Ian Larkin, unit chief for Cal Fires San Mateo Santa Cruz Unit.

Billy See, a Cal Fire incident commander, said the fire grew fast on Thursday  from 700 to 1,000 acres an hour in heavy timber.

Thats a dangerous rate of spread, See said.

We need to be cognizant that we are in historic times in this fire that were dealing with here on the coastline. Its a dangerous situation for everyone involved, See said. While more resources and more manpower are arriving, its still not enough. Were still drastically short for a fire this size.

See said the return of the cool, humid marine layer would help, but theres still some concern about the forecast for winds of 10-20 mph on ridge tops. There will still be low humidities overnight, he said.

This country likes to burn at night, moreso than during the day. And thats because of the wind patterns. The winds aloft will lower down, and clear out the smoke, which will then increase the fire rate of spread through the vegetation out there, See said.

Its all based on terrain, weather conditions and fuels conditions. And the fuels conditions right now are very poor, just because of the drought conditions.

Officials said Thursday night that the fire was encroaching into the San Mateo County communities of Pescadero and Loma Mar.

The Santa Cruz County community of Davenport was still threatened, although fire was subsiding on the coastline.The fire has moved down to Highway 9 near the mountainous community of Ben Lomond, which is also close to the communities of Boulder Creek and Felton.

Firefighters were in that area protecting structures. San Mateo County has issued evacuation orders for the towns of Pescadero, San Gregorio and La Honda.

The National Weather Service on Thursday night said low pressure was nudging into the area, bringing cooler temperatures and higher humidities.

The smoke plume associated with the fire was blanketing most of the Central Coast in smoke, with the plume stretching nearly 600 miles offshore, the weather service said.

Smoke continues to be trapped over the region owing to a strong decoupling of the lower and free atmosphere, resulting in poor air quality conditions, the weather service said.




Israeli warplanes carried out three consecutive rounds of airstrikes against Gaza Strip targets. Two strikes were carried out last night (Aug. 20), and one early this morning. According to reports by the army, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fighter jets first hit a cement facility providing materials for tunnels used by Gaza terror groups and a site where rockets are manufactured. The third air raid targeted a Hamas underground infrastructure.

The IDF attacks followed a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. In all, 12 rockets and projectiles were launched from Gaza, with six of the seven rockets intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. Still, one rocket hit a house in the southern town of Sderot, causing considerable damage. No injuries were registered from the rockets. Pictures and videos shared on social media of the home that was struck showed a kitchen blown apart and large holes in walls and the roof.

Thousands of Israelis residing in the south of the country spent the night in bomb shelters, as warning sirens kept sounding. One woman fell and was injured on her way to the shelter during the red alert siren, and three people were treated for anxiety.

Last nights volley of rockets and projectiles marks a major escalation of violence on the Israel-Gaza border. Over the past few weeks, Palestinian militants in Gaza renewed the launching of incendiary and explosive-laden balloons, igniting more than 200 fires in the south of Israel. They also fired rockets sporadically. On Aug. 20, 42 bush fires were sparked by balloons. The IDF issued last night a statement saying, "We hold Hamas responsible for all terror activity emanating from Gaza."

Two fires broke out this morning (Aug. 21) at the Karmiya natural reserve. Authorities said that both fires were sparked by incendiary balloons. The authorities are also checking the origins of a fire sparked in the Hof Ashkelon region. The IDF instructed farmers not to go to their fields adjacent to the Gaza border this morning.

According to Palestinian reports, Egypt-mediated talks to restore calm in the region continue, though the Egyptian intelligence delegation that arrived to Gaza earlier this week left yesterday. Reports claim that the delegation left, since Israel rejected conditions imposed by Hamas. Arab outlets have reported that Hamas demands that Israel enlarges the Gaza fishing zone to 20 nautical miles, increases the number of work permits for Israel and enables the operation of the Gaza power plant. Israel Today news site reported that Hamas also demands to increase Qatari financial aid from $30 million to $40 million a month. On Aug. 13, following dozens of fires ignited by incendiary balloons from Gaza, Defense Minister Benny Gantz suspended fuel imports to Gaza and reduced Gaza's fishing zone from 15 nautical miles to 8 miles.
The government again is easing the deployment ban on medical workers. Those who secured deployment on or before March 8 are allowed to leave the country.
As the Covid-19 crisis forces micro, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) in India to stay afloat in the absence of incoming revenue and kick-start their business again, digital lenders have come of age as they have the advantage of speed and adaptability to assess and disburse loans faster, according to a new report.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) estimates the total addressable credit demand by the country's MSMEs at $490 billion and the overall supply from formal sources at $192 billion.

"This credit gap of up to $331 billion suggests that traditional lenders are either reluctant or unable to serve this segment of borrowers. In contrast, alternative lenders like FlexiLoans, Indifi, SMEcorner and ZipLoan see lending to MSMEs as a business opportunity," said a latest Forrester report.

These digital lenders offer a wide range of alternative lending options, such as working capital loans from Happy, lines of credit from Indifi, startup loans from Lendingkart, and merchant cash advances from FinBucket.

"They use technology such as digital applications, automated underwriting, digital verification, and digital disbursement to improve risk assessment, accelerate loan processing, reduce costs, and enhance experiences," said Arnav Gupta, Analyst at Forrester Research.

Digital business lenders use payment and accounting platforms to find borrowers.

BharatPe lets payment solution customers know that they can apply for a loan and repay it via a percentage of sales made on the payment platform. Lenders lacking their own payment or accounting platform partner with firms that do.

"FlexiLoans offers loans to small businesses based on their activity on Paytm's platform. Digital lenders such as Indifi and ZipLoan work with an ecosystem of companies and marketplaces to gather information on potential borrowers and assess risk before granting loans," Gupta elaborated.

Indifi is working with food delivery startups Zomato and Swiggy to assess a restaurant's credit risk by checking its borrowing history and customer feedback before issuing a loan.

So far, digital business lenders have proliferated thanks to little competition from incumbents. To compete with them, a few Indian banks and NBFCs have started to raise their game  reducing the time to lend, improving risk assessment models, and building end-to-end digital lending processes.

Digital lenders put more effort into fine-tuning credit risk assessments using data from alternative sources.They also avoid the cumbersome paper-based application and approval processes that traditional lenders use.

Many MSMEs expect flexible loan repayment terms  which the Covid-19 crisis will make more important than ever.

Loan repayment flexibility is something that traditional lenders have always failed to offer to businesses. In contrast, many digital lenders offer repayment flexibility as a product feature.

"Lendingkart offers business loans that borrowers can repay in equal monthly or biweekly installments, allowing them to adjust their repayments to their sales and invoicing cycles," Gupta noted.

Many digital lenders are also extending credit for a cause.

"Capital Float offers educational institutions collateral-free loans to improve the quality of education by investing in educational infrastructure. Digital lenders such as FinBucket and Lendingkart offer preferential loans to women entrepreneurs," the report mentioned.

FinBucket matches MSME borrowers with lenders such as banks, offering loans under the national government's "Stand-Up India" scheme to help borrowers from different social strata and women entrepreneurs set up their own businesses.

Many startups have sought to disrupt India's business lending landscape, dominated by banks and NBFCs.

Firms such as BharatPe, FlexiLoans, Happy, and Paytm are offering credit to small businesses that already use their services and often tie loans to sales flowing through their platform.

FlexiLoans partnered with more than 100 merchant platforms to offer merchant POS-based loans; merchants repay these loans via automatic deductions from future sales.

To help MSMEs cope with the pandemic, Indifi partnered with PayU to offer lines of credit to merchants, which can borrow up to $66,000 in revolving credit; they can draw on it when needed, and interest is calculated on the outstanding amount on a given day, said the report.

"Digital disruptors threaten to make incumbents irrelevant by delivering more compelling products, services and experiences than traditional firms and at a lower cost. To avoid being disrupted, relentlessly focus on understanding your customers' needs so you can give them more of what they want faster," the report said.
Manhattan Beach Toyota has extended its special offers on some of its 2020 Toyota Corolla and 2020 Toyota Camry models. Just as Labor Day is coming around the corner, Manhattan Beach Toyota is offering ways for shoppers to save.

The 2020 Toyota Corolla is a compact sedan that can help families get where they need to go. Shoppers can finance this vehicle for as little as 0% APR from 36 to 60 months with Manhattan Beach Toyota. For a 72-month payment plan, the 2020 Toyota Corolla is available at 1.9% APR.

The 2020 Toyota Camry can be financed at 0% APR for 36 to 60 months. The Toyota Camry can also be financed at 2.9% APR for 72 months for drivers who are looking for a longer timetable. Customers who are interested in this financing opportunity must qualify for Tier 1 or Tier 1+ credit with the Toyota Financial Services. Interested drivers can learn more about this vehicle and other deals by speaking with a professional at Manhattan Beach Toyota.

The pricing of these vehicles may include current promotions, incentives, and/or bonus cash from Toyota Financial Services. Interested shoppers can learn more by visiting Manhattan Beach Toyota or by calling the sales team at 855-995-7001.

The 2020 Toyota Corolla and the 2020 Toyota Camry specials will expire on August 31. Drivers who would like to learn more about the 2020 Toyota Corolla or the 2020 Toyota Camry and their special offers can visit the specific web page on the dealer website, manhattanbeachtoyota.com. The Manhattan Beach Toyota showroom is located at 1500 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 for drivers who would like to test drive these models before signing.
Northern Ireland is tightening its coronavirus lockdown restrictions by reducing the number of people allowed to meet, as it fights a rise in COVID-19 cases.

In a news conference at Stormont, health minister Robin Swann said groups who meet outdoors would now be limited to 15 - down from 30.

Groups meeting indoors will be limited to six people from two households. That is a reduction from 10, from two households.

And in another apparent policy shift, Mr Swann said there would be "focused police enforcement" in areas with high numbers of cases.

"Unless we take action now I fear it would soon have been too late to arrest further extensive spread of the virus," he said.

He added that a meat plant in Co Antrim was to close for a deep clean following a coronavirus outbreak. Cranswick Country Foods, in Cullybackey, processes pigs.

Mr Swann said at least 35 cases had been identified associated with the factory.

"All the workers and recent visitors to the factory should be required to self-isolate," he said.

Another 51 people in Northern Ireland have tested positive for COVID-19, official figures showed on Thursday.

Across the UK, a total of 1,182 new coronavirus cases were reported on Thursday - the second-highest daily total since June 21. Britain also reported another six deaths.

But Northern Ireland's department of health said the current estimate of the disease's R number - or reproduction rate - in the nation was between 1.0 and 1.6. It said that meant it was likely to be around 1.3.

Last week it was between 1.2 and 2.0, so estimated to be around 1.6.

Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said there had been a significant rise in infections among younger people, which he said partly explained why a similar increase in hospital admissions had not yet been seen.

The medic conceded some of the evidence around people's behaviour was anecdotal.

"We are seeing increased social mixing, close contact occurring in domestic settings," he said.

Story continues

"What we now need to do is act on that evidence and act on it in a proportionate way."

Mr Swann went on to attack "armchair experts" who believed they knew better and had decided to ignore official advice.

He also confirmed one person had been arrested and was in police custody over "personal abuse" directed at him.

It comes after the Republic of Ireland "significantly" tightened its lockdown rules after the number of COVID-19 cases there increased rapidly over the past two weeks.

The government there ordered all businesses have to let employees work from home, while new limits were imposed on outdoor gatherings, and people were urged to avoid public transport.

Prime Minister Micheal Martin said the new rules would be in place until at least 13 September following a spike in coronavirus cases over the last three weeks. He blamed "a large number of people" for flouting the rules.

Analysis: Northern Ireland puts journey out of lockdown into reverse

By David Blevins, senior Ireland correspondent

Northern Ireland's devolved government had already put the brakes on its journey out of lockdown. Now, it's gone into reverse but not at great speed.

There had been speculation the Stormont Executive might push back again the 1 September indicative date for the re-opening of pubs which don't sell food.

With the number of cases having increased tenfold in Northern Ireland since July, some feared the five-party coalition might even announce the first local lockdown.

In the end, they opted to re-impose restrictions on the number who can gather but warn of focused police enforcement in areas with most cases.

They appear to have struck a compromise around the table but that's the name of the game when sharing power in a devolved government.
An albino kangaroo that was born only a couple of weeks ago has gone missing from Kaiserlautern zoo in Germany, with authorities suggesting the animal could have been stolen.

Before her disappearance, Mila the baby white kangaroo had been one of the star attractions at the zoo, reports Spiegel.

Zoo workers discovered that the rare animal had gone missing from its enclosure on Wednesday.

Mila the baby albino kangaroo has gone missing from the zoo in Kaiserlautern, Germany, with police unable to rule out the possibility that she was stolen

The zoo was then closed for the rest of the day as zoo workers tried to locate Mila.

In a statement, Mattias Schmitt, director of Kaiserlautern zoo said that their 'little star' had disappeared without a trace.

Schmitt also said that Mila would not usually wander too far from her mother.

'The whole team at the zoo is hoping Mila will be found again and is in good health,' Schmitt added.

Mila was only born a couple of weeks ago but had already become a star attraction for the zoo

Hunters with dogs are also being used to try and find the missing animal but so far they have been unable to find her.

The lack of blood traces found suggests that Mila was not killed by a fox.

The zoo believes the animal may have been stolen and have reported the incident to the police who are now appealing for any witnesses.

Police have said that they cannot rule out that Mila was stolen.
Much more research is needed on the impact of mutations in the coronavirus, World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said on Friday.

A special working group has been formed to identify mutations ... and were looking at how we can better understand what the mutation means and how they behave, she told a briefing in Geneva.

More than 22.78 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 792,837 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Sen. Tom Carper experienced some technical difficulties Friday morning.

The Delaware Democrat said the "F-word" three times during a virtual Senate hearing on the United States Postal Service, which aired uncensored over C-SPAN.

Carper seemed to be unaware that he was unmuted  and on air  as he was turned away from his computer when he shouted the expletive in frustration.

Carper's colleagues quickly caught his attention, however, and Carper muted his mic.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, asked Carper to unmute himself again after the hearing resumed.

Empty mailboxes, missed rent: US Postal Service's struggles have real-world impacts

Gov. John Carney and Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware cast nominating votes during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020.

"We don't want to be on TV again," he joked.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., responded to the gaffe on Twitter, writing, "Oh my."

Like most Americans in 2020, Senator Carper got frustrated with technical difficulties this morning," a spokeswoman for Carper told USA TODAY. "But that pales in comparison to his frustration with a Postmaster General whos actively undermining the U.S. Postal Service during a national crisis.

The Senate panel had convened to question President Donald Trump's Postmaster General Louis DeJoy after he instated operational changes at the USPS amid criticisms the moves would hinder the delivery of mail-in ballots in November's election.

DeJoy drew strong objections from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the Postal Service's sudden changes, which included cuts in overtime and other policies that have led to mail delivery delays.

Contributing: Nicholas Wu

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sen. Tom Carper curses in live mic during hearing on Postal Service


Vali-1 ST1 Flow Test Completed

Melbourne, Aug 21, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The ATP 2021 joint venture: Vintage Energy Ltd ( ASX:VEN ) 50% and operator, Metgasco Ltd ( ASX:MEL ) 25% and Bridgeport (Cooper Basin) Pty Ltd 25%) is pleased to advise that the highly successful flow test program for Vali-1 ST1 has completed. During the extended flow test program, a rate of 4.3 MMscfd of gas was measured through a 36/64"choke at a flowing well-head pressure ("FWHP") of 942 psi over a two-day period. Transient tests were also undertaken with rates recorded between 3.7 MMscfd (through a 24/64" choke at 1,676 psi FWHP) and 7.5 MMscfd (through a 32/64" choke at 1,593 psi FWHP).- Two day test with measured stabilised flow rate of 4.3 MMscfd through 36/64" choke at 942 psi- All fracture stimulated zones contributing to gas flow- Reserve assessment commenced- Independently certified gross 2C Contingent Resource of 37.7 Bcf (18.8 Bcf Net)1Neil Gibbins, Vintage Managing Director, said "We are ecstatic with the results of the stimulation and flow test work. The program was a resounding success, with all fracture stimulated zones contributing to the overall gas flow from the well. The team has worked incredibly hard and diligently on this opportunity which takes us a massive step toward realising one of our initial strategic imperatives, that being the delivery of gas to the east coast of Australia."The program was carried out safely and as planned. Strong rates were achieved during all flow periods and quick pressure build-ups were observed during all shut-in periods, with pressure levels quickly approaching around 3,000 psi. All flow rates were restricted through varying choke sizes to ensure proppant was not returned from the formation into the well bore, therefore avoiding any reduction in the effectiveness of the stimulation process.During the flow testing of the well, the following activities were undertaken:- Production Logging Tool run - determined that gas was being contributed by each of the stimulated zones- Shut-ins - designed to observe the pressure response of the reservoir, with pressure readings reaching 2,932 psi- Flow testing - transient tests were undertaken under various choke sizes of 24/64", 32/64" and 40/64" over three equal periods of six hours. During these tests, rates were recorded between 3.7 MMscfd at 1,676 psi FWHP and 7.5 MMscfd at 1,593 psi FWHP. These transient tests were followed by an extended flow test through a choke size of 36/64" for two days, during which the well flowed at 4.3 MMscfd at 942 psi FWHP- Gas samples taken - currently being analysedAs a consequence of the flow testing of the well, we estimate that the initial production flow rate for the Vali-1 ST1 well could be more than 5 MMscfd.All this information will be assessed and incorporated into a commercialisation plan for the asset, which will include an estimate of the number of development wells required to efficiently produce gas and maximise returns from the Vali Field. The well will now be completed, with production tubing to be installed during October 2020. Discussions are underway with Santos Ltd, the Cooper Basin Joint Venture operator, on connection of the field into the Moomba gas gathering system. All remaining equipment used during the program will be demobilised from site today.Neil Gibbins continued, "I would like to thank all of our stakeholders who supported the company and allowed it to thrive during this difficult period. We acknowledge the Wongkamurra people, the traditional custodians of the area, and the owners and management of Nappa Merrie Station, for their cooperation. Thanks go to the contractors working on-site, our joint venture parties for their support, the State governments for assisting with the cross-border logistics of the operation, and our industry bodies, APPEA and SACOME, who have assisted us with obtaining approvals to proceed in the current restrictive COVID-19 environment. In a time where industry projects are being delayed, Vintage has continued with a safe, high value project that we believe will soon be delivering gas to market with sustainable returns for our shareholders. The talent of our team here at Vintage is on full display with this success. Again, I would like to thank them for all their hard work, commitment and showing how working as a team an lead to great outcomes."To view photographs, please visit:About Vintage Energy Ltd

Vintage Energy Ltd (ASX:VEN) has been established to acquire, explore and develop energy assets principally within, but not limited to, Australia, to take advantage of a generally favourable energy pricing outlook.
Oyate Health Center is building a new multi-million dollar health care facility, with a formal groundbreaking set for Friday.

The new building is expected to be three times the size of the current one, and a spokesman said most of the buildings on the Oyate Health Center and Sioux San campus may be razed to combine the services in one location.

Twenty historic structures sit on the campus where the estimated $80 to $120 million facility will go up, including a barn, root cellar, rock retaining wall and the hospital itself. IHS had previously set aside $72 million in funding for the construction.

None of the buildings  which used to serve as a boarding school, tuberculosis sanitarium and other purposes  are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but some are eligible. The other buildings on the campus include garages, offices and storage buildings.

Patients have been waiting many years for this day," said Jerilyn Church, CEO of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmens Health Board.

It is a tremendous honor to stand at the helm of this long overdue update to the facilities that house the health services offered to our people in the Rapid City community, she said.

Building history

The Oyate Health Center sits on the site of former Rapid City Indian Boarding School, which opened in 1898.

The school operated for three decades and closed in 1933 when the Civilian Conservation Corps used the facility as a federally-funded work relief program.

By 1939, the building was converted to the Sioux Sanitarium to treat Native American patients during the tuberculosis epidemic, earning the building its Sioux San nickname.

IHS took control of Sioux San in 1955, creating the Rapid City Indian Health Service Hospital, a full-service hospital. Congress later appropriated funds for the pilot IHS clinic in Rapid City. Only minor updates have added to the physical structure of the building since its construction.

In 2017, IHS announced it would permanently close the hospitals emergency and inpatient departments in favor of outpatient services and urgent care, which would be the focus of the proposed new facility on the campus.

The IHS has spent many years planning a new facility at Sioux San. In recent years, the plan has been mired in controversy while some tribes attempted to take over the management of Sioux San from the IHS.

Some Native Americans lobbied for the planned new facility to be built on more conveniently located land in eastern Rapid City, but the IHS declined and stayed with the Sioux San campus.

The IHS announced last year that the Health Board would assume the majority of the operation of the IHS Rapid City Service Unit, and that a contract would soon be awarded for construction of a 200,000-square-foot facility on the Sioux San campus.

IHS operates its outpatient clinic on the second floor of the Sioux San building, with urgent care services for all IHS-eligible patients provided by Oyate Health Center on the first floor. The Health Board serves as a liaison between area tribes and the IHS, and manages the Oyate Health Center.

Long overdue

The Native American community has been trying to get a new facility built in Rapid City for decades," said Health board spokesman Brandon Ecoffey.

Its a major step forward for health care for this community, he said. There hasnt been any substantial upgrades to that facility in many years. An opportunity to create a new building and a new health care facility represents progress.

Ecoffey said one of the buildings that may stay on the campus is a brick warehouse by West Middle School that may have had historical value as a fire department, but that the remainder of buildings will be torn down or moved.

Darrell Shoemaker, communications coordinator for the city, said there havent been any discussions of the city taking over any of the buildings or property.

Ecoffey said the new facility will house both the IHS and Oyate Health Center services. The sweat lodges will relocate to another spot on campus, he said.

Groundbreaking will kick off 2 p.m on Friday at 3200 Canyon Lake Drive, behind the urgent care. The event will be live-streamed on the Health Boards Facebook page.

Guests will include tribal leaders, city and state officials, community members and IHS representatives. Social distancing, masks and sanitizing will be prioritized at the event, Oyate Health Center said.

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Union Minister for Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri on August 21 questioned the Kerala government on its participation in the bidding process for Thiruvananthapuram airport "if it is against privatisation."

"If the Kerala government is against privatisation, then why did it participate in the bidding process? The state government was given a fair chance and Right of First Refusal (RoFR) if their bid was within 10 percent below the range of the highest bid. However, they bid 19.64 percent below," Puri said in the statement.

He added that Kerala is a "pioneer as far as airports under public private partnerships are concerned" and that the state government is already 'very successfully' running two airports in public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Also Read | Thiruvananthapuram airport privatisation: With state government against the move, Adani faces delay

"Now, Kerala government, running two very successful airports in PPP mode, is opposing the handing over of Thiruvananthapuram airport under PPP mode. It has come to my knowledge that an all-party meeting in Kerala has opposed the PPP model at Thiruvananthapuram airport," Puri said.

In the first round of privatisation, airports in Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati were cleared on August 19 by the Union Cabinet for operation, management and development by Adani Enterprises through the PPP model.

The three airports, including Jaipur and Guwahati, are currently run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and have been leased out to the Adani Group.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had expressed his disapproval with the move and had shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling the move "against the wishes of the people."

Also Read | Leasing out Thiruvananthapuram airport: Shashi Tharoor backs Union Minister Hardeep Puri

Puri, in his statement, said the state government had then approached Kerala High Court, which had dismissed its writ petition challenging AAI's granting of operation, management, and development of the Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Enterprises.

"Petitioners then filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court. The apex court remitted the matter back to Kerala High Court. There is no stay in the case either by the SC or the Kerala High Court," Puri said, adding, "if the petitioners succeed and outcome of litigation leads to annulment/cancellation of bidding process then the concessionaire will handover the possession of airport to AAI."

"They will be entitled to refund of the amount paid to AAI and additional investments made in the assets," Puri said.
We see a growing clash of interests as advisors want to do what is best for the client while the broker/dealer wants to do what is best for their overall profit.

In his recent WealthManagement.com article, broker-dealer recruiter and industry observer Jon Henschen discusses the two mounting threats to the independent broker/dealer (IBD) channels sustainability. The first is the number of advisors retiring, with too few new advisors entering the field to fill those vacancies. The second threat, and even more concerning to the broker/dealers, is the number of advisors choosing to go fee-only.

According to Henschen, as the SECs adoption of RegBI makes doing transactional business increasingly difficult, numerous broker/dealers are positioning themselves more as RIAs and less as broker/dealers. His firm, Henschen & Associates, has had an increasing number of discussions with advisors who are at the crossroads of: When is it appropriate to get my own RIA? and What kind of costs will we incur? Henschens article continues by addressing these and other related questions.

Regarding, At what AUM does it make sense to get our own RIA? Henschen states that his firm has seen advisors with as little as $10 million of assets launch their own RIA; $100 million is a common threshold. He also notes, There are a number of companies that help advisors set up their RIA and help with the ongoing compliance and administration. How much you want them to do is up to you but delegating those tasks to others will cost around $10,000 to $15,000 annually. Henschen also provides examples of RIA setup and maintain companies: Foreside, National Regulatory Services (NRS), MarketCounsel and RIA in a Box.

In terms of advisor costs and how they will differ from being with a broker/dealer, Henschens article provides a table discussing typical advisor expenses and what they may cost as an RIA.

Henschens review also discusses the issue of residual trails and commission business. According to Henschen, There are broker/dealers that pay 100% on the RIA side and they apply a payout only on trails and commissions. If you are no longer doing commission business and have under $50,000 of trail revenue remaining, its best to give that up because it is not enough to be worthwhile for these 100% RIA broker/dealers. If you have $50,000-$100,000 of remaining trails, there are options that will keep your expenses low and continue to pay your trails.

For the larger broker/dealers that have the RIA fee-only model, Henschen states that, These options will pay 100% on RIA assets. However, you need to custody your assets in their clearing (not TD, Schwab or IWS) and you are subject to their costs such as administrative fees on advisor-directed assets, which run 3-15 bp on client assets, as well as ticket charges on stocks and ETFs (while you would have zero cost at TD, Schwab or IWS). Henschen adds that these firms have services such as research, practice management, higher-end services and technology offerings that may outweigh their additional costs, which is something advisors will need to evaluate based on their particular needs.

Addressing SMA/UMA account costs as an RIA, Henschen explains that, The wirehouses have always had the best pricing on SMA/UMA accounts because they have the most scale and assets concentrated on proprietary platforms, with UMA all-in costs as low as 30 bp, while independent broker/dealer costs can be as high as 90 bp or more. There are a few larger independent broker/dealers that have competitive costs on SMA/UMA accounts because they have brought third-party money managers (TPMM), such as Envestnet, in-house (meaning held on the broker/dealers clearing platform and to be used by advisors), so they benefit from the scale committed to a single TPMM.

Henschen adds, Weve seen broker/dealers that are sensitive to maintaining a fiduciary standard on their advisory that have been wooed by Envestnet to bring their platform in-house to gain pricing advantage but turned them down due to conflict-of-interest concerns. A broker/dealers motive in bringing Envestnet in-house is to increase profits by having assets concentrated under the one TPMM. This environment frequently shuts out other TPMMs such as Sawtooth Solutions, SEI, Loring Ward and others, thus giving exposure favoritism to Envestnet.

Continuing, Henschen observes that, When platforms such as Envestnet are brought in-house, we sometimes receive complaints from advisors who are upset that this also reduces the selection of managers. From a fiduciary perspective, having the scale with Envestnet usually gets the clients better pricing, but on a choice basis, advisors are being pigeonholed, shutting out other money managers that may be a better fit for a particular advisor than what Envestnet offers.

SMA/UMA costs at TD, Schwab and IWS are less than at many of the independent broker/dealers, but a small amount higher than the wirehouses and large IBDs concentrated to a single TPMM or proprietary platform.

Addressing if independent broker dealers enabling moves to fee-only, Henschen comments that broker/dealers have been expanding penalty charges for not holding advisory assets in their primary profit centers, with platform fees costing the advisor 10 bp if they hold assets at TD, Schwab or IWS, or 5 bp if they hold assets directly at the TPMM. Many larger firms have also been marking up third-party money manager management fees from 10 bp-25 bp with the rationale that the charge is for the cost of ongoing due diligence on managers, but in reality, its predominantly a profit center.

Increasingly, broker/dealers are steering assets to their profit center sweet spots, i.e., broker/dealer managed platforms, in-house turnkey asset management platforms like Envestnet and all assets held in brokerage accounts.

Closing his review, Henschen asserts that, We see a growing clash of interests as advisors want to do what is best for the client while the broker/dealer wants to do what is best for their overall profit. The more broker/dealers impose pressure on advisors to use their primary profit centers, the more well see advisors go fee-only and divorce themselves of broker/dealers entirely.

Jon Henschen is founder of Henschen & Associates, an independent broker-dealer recruiting firm located in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. With more than 20 years of industry experience, Jon is a staunch advocate for independent financial advisors, and is widely sought after by both reps and broker dealers for his expertise and advice on independent broker dealer topics. He is frequently published and quoted in a variety of industry sources, including WealthManagement.com, ThinkAdvisor, Investment Advisor Magazine, Wealth Management Magazine, Financial Advisor IQ, Financial Advisor Magazine, Investment News and others.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 17:33:35|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese inactivated COVID-19 vaccine has started phase-3 clinical trials in Peru, according to the vaccine developer China National Biotec Group (CNBG) affiliated to Sinopharm.

The launching ceremony of the phase-3 clinical trials was held in Beijing Thursday, and the CNBG obtained the certificate of approval for the clinical trials from Peru's Ministry of Health.

This is another important step forward for China's international cooperation in developing a COVID-19 vaccine. The inactivated COVID-19 vaccine received approval for phase-3 clinical trials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on June 23.

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase-3 clinical trials in Peru will be jointly conducted by the CNBG and experts from Cayetano Heredia University and the National University of San Marcos in Peru.

Liu Jingzhen, chairman of Sinopharm, said the phase-3 clinical trials of the inactivated vaccine are progressing smoothly. The vaccine has secured approval for phase-3 clinical trials in the UAE and Bahrain, achieving breakthroughs in the number of vaccinations, countries and populations involved. Enditem
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Nina Popova was a celebrated ballet dancer who escaped the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Nazis in Paris. It was the coronavirus that ultimately caught up to her.

She died on Aug. 7 at Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, Fla., with a nurse holding her hand, her daughter, Irene Arriola, said. She was 97.

Nina Popova was born in Novorossiysk, Russia, on Oct. 20, 1922, two months before the Soviet Union was established. Her parents, Paul Popoff and Natalie Yacovleff, decided it was time to leave the country. They landed in Paris with their new baby in their arms. Mr. Popoff, who had been a hydroelectric engineer in his home country, joined the ranks of Russian cabdrivers there; his wife found work as a seamstress.
Opera Australia is putting its Alexandria warehouse up for sale as it battles for survival and attempts to stem multimillion dollar losses caused by the pandemic lockdowns.

Chief executive Rory Jeffes announced to staff late on Friday an organisational restructure, almost certain to lead to redundancies, just three weeks after calling an abrupt end to its 2020 season.

Opera Australia chief executive Rory Jeffes. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Mr Jeffes said the loss of the vast proportion of the company's ticket income for 2020, caused by the coronavirus pandemic, had been devastating.

The loss for the year would run in the "multi-millions".
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang on Thursday extended an olive branch to voters who cast their ballot for President Trump in 2016, saying that he understands their decision because many politicians promise and then fail to deliver.

If you voted for Trump or didnt vote at all back in 2016, I get it, Yang said during his address Thursday evening to the Democratic National Convention. Many of us have gotten tired of our leaders seeming far removed from our everyday lives, and we despair that our government will ever rise to the challenges of our time.

Yang, an entrepreneur whose 2020 presidential campaign focused on his proposed universal basic income policy, which would give every American adult $1,000 a month, called for bold and innovative policies to assist Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, which he says has accelerated everything.

We must give this country, our country, a chance to recover, Yang said.A We are in a deep, dark hole, and we need leaders who will help us dig out.

The convention has featured many speakers who were quick to condemn Trump for his administrations response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The previous night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed the convention and accused Trump and Senate Republicans of standing in the way of the $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill proposed by House Democrats.

The Democratic convention is being held virtually due to coronavirus concerns. Along with Yang, former 2020 presidential candidates Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg as well as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee himself, Joe Biden, are slated to speak.

More from National Review
Despite the continuous social media outrage and pressure by the students across the country on the Central government, the Education Ministry on Friday confirmed that JEE (Main)/NEET 2020 exams will not be postponed in any condition.

Students have been arguing that conducting exams in September when the Coronavirus cases are on a continuous rise across the country, is irresponsible on part of the government. Earlier in the day, there were speculations that exams could be postponed and a final decision could be made after August 25, that gave the students a sliver of hope.

After the confirmation by the Education Ministry, students have unanimously condemned the decision, and expressed disappointment, saying that the government is playing with the lives of the students and their families. Wasil Mohammed, a NEET aspirant from Hyderabad said, "We have seen in the recent past where conducting various exams in different states during COVID has turned out to be horrible, with several students testing positive after appearing for exams.There should be no hurry to conduct the exams when college admissions will anyway be delayed."

The government had earlier released SOP guidelines to be followed by exam centres during and before the exams, however students believe it will not serve the purpose. Ummal, a JEE aspirant says, "The pressure and nervousness among students will be so high that we can't expect everyone to follow the SOPs. They don't guarantee everyone's safety. Moreover, even if youngsters are more immune to the virus, who will guarantee the safety of our old parents and grandparents if we carry the virus back home after the exam?"

Students also pointed out that during the times of pandemic, transportation is another big challenge, with many students being allotted centres far away. To add to the woes, Bihar and Assam are fighting floods too. With all these students fear they would not be able to reach the exam centre. The National Testing Agency has however assured the Supreme Court that it will make sure that the exams are conducted with all the precautions.
Robert O'Neill in 2013 - AP Photo/The Montana Standard, Walter Hinick

A former Navy Seal who has said he killed Osama bin Laden has been banned by Delta Air Lines after removing his mask during a flight.

American Robert O'Neill tweeted about his ban on Thursday, and the airline confirmed the action.

"Part of every customer's commitment prior to travelling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask," the airline said in a statement.

"Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future."

All major US airlines require passengers to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Delta said it had banned more than 100 passengers for violating the rule.

Mr O'Neill posted a selfie showing himself, with no mask, on a Delta Connection flight on Wednesday from Minneapolis to Newark, New Jersey.

Other passengers in the photo, including a man across the aisle who was wearing a Marine Corps hat, were wearing masks. The tweet was later deleted.

In another tweet on Thursday, Mr O'Neill said: "Thank God it wasn't @Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden... we weren't wearing masks..."

Thank God it wasnt @Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden... we werent wearing masks...  Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) August 20, 2020

Mr O'Neill said in 2014 that he fired the shots that killed bin Laden during a 2011 raid on the terrorist's compound in Pakistan. The US government has neither confirmed nor denied the account.

The Telegraph reported in 2014 that Mr O'Neill was being investigated by military police for possibly leaking secrets over the raid.

Mr O'Neill later wrote a book about his time in the Seals. He has 375,000 followers on Twitter.
Syracuse, N.Y.  A woman stabbed a man in the shoulder early Friday during a fight in Syracuse, police said.

Tyanni A. Yarbrough, 44, has been charged by the Syracuse Police Department with assaulting a 46-year-old man. She was arrested after a stabbing in the 100 block of Lakeview Avenue, said Sgt. Matthew Malinowski, the police departments spokesman.

The assault was reported at 1:47 a.m. when a woman called 911, according to police scanner dispatches, and reported she had stabbed a man.

The incident happened after an argument between the pair turned into a fight, Malinowski said. During the fight, the woman stabbed the man with a knife, he said.

The mans injury is not life-threatening, Malinowski said. He was not taken to a hospital.

Yarbrough has been charged with second-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon. She has been released from the Onondaga County Justice Center, custody records show.

In addition to police, American Medical Response and the Syracuse Fire Department responded to the scene.

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.
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The Democratic National Convention, held almost entirely virtually, aimed to create a spirit of togetherness and unity for "all Americans," as Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said.

"I'll work hard for those who didn't support me, as hard for them as I did for those who didn't vote for me. That's the job of a president," Biden told the digital audience.

The party nominated Sen. Kamala Harris of California as the first woman of color on a major presidential ticket as vice president. Both she and former President Barack Obama spoke of the injustices of racism and urged Americans to express their dissatisfaction by voting.

"We've shown that, when we vote, we expand access to health care, expand access to the ballot box, and ensure that more working families can make a decent living," said Harris.

DNC leaders reached across the aisle to invite heavy-hitting Republican leaders like former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich to speak. Both expressed their confidence in Biden.

More progressive factions of the party spoke of rallying together behind Biden, with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren appealing to viewers.

Watch the video above to see the best moments from the convention.
Jennifer Kirby has quit Call The Midwife after four years as Nurse Valerie Dyer.

The actress, 31, took to Twitter on Friday to reveal she'd be saying goodbye to Poplar and Nonnatus House, but said she 'couldn't wait' to see the 'beloved' show from 'the other side of the screen.'

The news comes days after bosses announced that Call The Midwife had resumed filming for Series 10 and its upcoming Christmas Special, after production was suspended in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Off to pastures new! Jennifer Kirby, 31, has quit Call The Midwife after four years as Nurse Valerie Dyer

Jennifer, who joined the cast as Nurse Dyer in 2017, wrote: 'After four joyful years spend with Call the Midwife I have decided to say goodbye to Nonnatus, Val and the wonderful cast, crew and production team.

'The programme is truly a national treasure, and it will always be a huge honour for me to have been a part of something so wonderful. I can't wait to keep watching our beloved Nonnatuns from the other side of the screen.

'Long live Call the Midwife. So long chicks. x'

Jennifer made her Call the Midwife debut back in series six, appearing as an army nurse who came to Shelagh Turner's aid following an explosion.

Two episodes later she joined the Nonnatus team as a midwife, and recently faced a devastating dilemma, after learning her beloved grandmother Eileen had been running a backstreet abortion clinic.

Sad: The actress took to Twitter to reveal she'd be saying goodbye to Poplar and Nonnatus House, but said she 'couldn't wait' to see the 'beloved' show from 'the other side of the screen

Back to work: Jennifer's departure comes just days after Call The Midwife resumed filming, after being brought to a halt by the COVID-19 pandemic

Deciding to report her to the authorities, viewers were moved to tears when Valerie was forced to watch her grandmother pass away of cancer after being thrown behind bars.

Jennifer's departure comes just days after Call The Midwife resumed filming, after being brought to a halt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking to Facebook bosses gushed they were 'overjoyed' to be heading back to work to ensure their yearly festive special could air on time in December.

Bosses also shared snaps of mask-clad star Stephen McGann - who plays Dr Turner in the series - having his makeup applied by a crew member, who is dressed head-to-toe in PPE.

A lengthy statement posted to the show's social media account said: 'This has been no mean achievement. Giving birth to each season of Call the Midwife, even in healthy times, is a major logistical task, involving the skills of far more people than you see on screen

'Call the Midwife can have up to 200 crew members working on our set in a shooting day  and there are around 150 shooting days in every year. Our cast includes not only our 15 main cast members, but also about 70 guest actors in each season.'

'And babies? We reckon we've employed about 1,100 babies in total since our series began!

Thrilled: Taking to Facebook bosses gushed they were 'overjoyed' to be heading back to work along with snaps of a mask-clad Stephen McGann outside Nonnatus House

Back to business: In the snaps Stephen - who plays Dr Turner in the series - can be seen having his makeup applied by a crew member, who is dressed head-to-toe in PPE

Exciting: Bosses also vowed that they would still be airing the Christmas Special and its 10th series on time, after being forced to halt filming in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic

'And let's not forget those other essential staff members who keep our Nonnatus House team fed and watered. Over 40,000 meals are served to our cast and crew during each filming season  as well as 100,000 cups of tea and coffee!

'Bringing all of these heroes back together to film in safety during a pandemic has been our top priority in these last months. But being able to deliver a brand new Christmas Special and Series 10 to you is the very best reward that we could wish for.'

Dame Pippa Harris, Executive Producer said: 'Alongside the rest of the country, we have all been devastated to see how Covid-19 has affected people around the world.

'Our midwives and nurses may not be the front-line heroes of today's NHS, but by getting back to work, they, and we, hope to bring some joy and respite into people's lives.

'In such difficult times, the values of Call the Midwife seem more resonant than ever. In series ten we will continue to celebrate the skill and bravery of the UK's NHS whilst bringing laughter and love into our homes.'

'Overjoyed': In a statement bosses shared their delight to be back to work at weeks in lockdown, and vowed fans would be seeing the nurses back in Poplar this Decemberr

Series Creator, Writer and Executive Producer Heidi Thomas added: 'Everyone is overjoyed to be whisking the dust sheets off Nonnatus House and getting back to filming after lockdown.

'It is a particular thrill to be able to deliver the Christmas Special on time, just as we promised at the start of the pandemic.

'We are very much a family at Call the Midwife, and like families everywhere, we have missed each other. We will now be putting more love and energy into our work than ever and can't wait to share Series 10 with our fantastic, loyal audience.'

Dramatic: This year's festive special will once again see the nurses and nuns of Nonnatus House hit by drama and delight (pictured in 2019's Christmas Special)

This year's Call The Midwife Christmas Special will once again see the nurses and nuns of Nonnatus House look forward to a festive celebration in 1965, but won't be without drama as Sister Monica Joan (played by Judy Parfitt) is rushed to hospital.

Trixie (Helen George) is furious to receive a subscription to a Marriage Bureau as a Christmas gift, while Shalagh is involved in a deeply moving birth following a surprise reunion.

The circus also arrives in Poplar for the first time to the East End's delight, leading to a new adventure for Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett).

Call The Midwife's Christmas Special will air on BBC One in December. Series 10 will begin in 2021.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size In the early weeks of George Trumbull's reign as AMP chief executive in 1998 the brash American set out on a cultural fishing expedition  a fireside chat over lunch with his top 10 male executives. He asked them to nominate the then 145-year-old mutual's biggest problems. The answers were telling. "It's funny you should say that because I had a group of women executives in recently and they said one of the biggest problems at AMP is sexual harassment and sexual discrimination," Trumbull said in a media interview at the time. "And five of the biggest offenders they named are sitting at this table." More than 20 years on, AMP is in the midst of yet another reputational crisis and current chief executive Francesco De Ferrari has, once again, made culture his number one priority. AMP's art deco building overlooking Circular Quays glistening harbour is a defining feature of the citys skyline Credit:James Brickwood AMP has a long history of hiring CEOs during times of crisis. The newly appointed man will often start his tenure acknowledging a problem. Whether its AMPs strategy, value or culture  there are promises to make things better. De Ferrari is the latest to occupy that high pressure role. But the Italian's strategy to revive the firm is built around top executive Boe Pahari  a rainmaker embroiled in a sexual harassment case that just wont go away. The 171-year-old company is now in a stand-off with Pahari's accusers lawyers to release a report that may contain details of Paharis misconduct and could trigger the companys fourth board purge this century.

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AMP is a company that kills careers Its become a reputational graveyard, says one former senior executive. So how did it get to this? AMP is one of the oldest financial institutions in the country, opening its doors in 1849 to sell life insurance. Its modernist building overlooking Circular Quays glistening harbour is a defining feature of the citys skyline. It was opened by then-prime minister Robert Menzies in 1962, and for many years was the nation's tallest building. The companys name was emblazoned across another cultural icon, Sydneys Centrepoint Tower, that came to be colloquially known as the AMP tower. In 1990, then-prime minister Paul Keatings six pillar policy recognised AMP as one of the largest and most powerful companies in the country. The big four banks and two insurers (AMP and National Mutual) were prohibited from merging to protect competition and customers. Former AMP chairman Ian Burgess once said the best job you could get as a businessman in Australia was the chairman of AMP or BHP. AMP chairman was an elite, sought-after position that would set you up for life  in cash and prestige.

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AMP is a company that kills careers Its become a reputational graveyard. Former AMP senior executive Being chairman of AMP was like being Australias corporate king, said another former board member, who declined to be named. However, a high-profile position with AMP could be turning into a curse. Over the past two decades, AMP has had seven chief executives and six chairmen (one woman). The words disastrous, outrageous and "downhill like an electric train" have been used to describe the companys endeavours. AMPs headaches set in when the group was demutualised and listed on the ASX in 1998. The company went from being an inward-looking mutual that existed for its customers, staff and planners, to a profit-hungry beast focused on expanding globally. At that time, AMPs chief executive was George Trumbull. The American businessman was photographed in the press for his new job wearing traditional native American headdress. In February 1999, he infamously got on the bad side of then-prime minister John Howard and treasurer Peter Costello at a dinner party for threatening to take the company offshore if the government changed tax laws to hurt multinationals. George Trumbull photographed as CEO of AMP. If Trumbull had been trying to act out an aggressive stereotype, he couldnt have done better, the Australian Financial Review reported at the time.

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Trumbull started the acquisition that would come to haunt AMP shareholders and executives for several years and wipe billions off the companys value  GIO. AMP bought the insurer on the prediction of a $250 million profit, but massive reinsurance costs turned that reality into a $750 million loss. Trumbull used the money raised by AMPs demutualisation to massively expand its UK operations, buying funds manager Henderson for $1 billion and National Provident Institution for $3.6 billion the same year. By 2002, AMP had twice as much capital invested in the UK as it did in Australia and the market was headed for a meltdown. The end of the early 2000s bull market and the implosion of UK equity prices punched holes in AMPs capital position and exposed the poor profitability of the acquired businesses. GIO continued to bleed money and Trumbull was ultimately forced out the door. However, his $13 million farewell package triggered an investor revolt that mounted into one of the biggest boardroom shake-outs in Australian corporate history. By April 2000, king of corporate boardrooms Ian Burgess had resigned as chairman, along with four of his directors. AMPs bad run was only just beginning. The real pearler was the handling of the British insurance company AMP bought in 1989, Pearl Assurance. Newly appointed chief Paul Batchelor lost his job in 2002 after it became apparent he failed to inform the market the company was insufficiently capitalised to meet UK regulatory requirements. AMP shares halved between 2001 and 2002 as investors punished the company for chronic underperformance, boardroom brawls and capital mismanagement.

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Andrew Mohl took over as chief executive in 2002, promising to turn a new leaf. Mohl, a former RBA economist, immediately set to work, cutting back the groups Australian and UK operations, slashing costs, people and portfolios. Former AMP chief executive Andrew Mohl in 2015. Credit:Peter Braig His plan would dismantle Trumbull and Batchelors global aspirations for AMP, splitting the company in two  a UK company and an Australian company. The remaining AMP was a smaller, less capital intensive organisation focused on wealth management and life insurance. Mohl tied AMPs past failings to its corporate culture during a speech in 2007. Business acumen and the capacity to drive strong commercial outcomes were not well-developed skills in the organisation, Mohl said. This was not surprising in the sense that as a mutual society, driving shareholder value had never been a relevant consideration. Mohl detailed the tsunami of issues faced by AMP in its early days as a listed company. A regulatory solvency crisis, a collapse in investor [confidence] and a barrage of negative media. At issue was simply this. When AMP became a public company in 1998, it was not well prepared to deal with the richness of capital it had.

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Homeless encampments line the sidewalk along 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles on Aug. 11. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, advocates predicted that a time bomb was about to go off in the homeless community.

Many homeless people live under conditions worse than those of a refugee camp, with health problems that predispose them to severe illness. Researchers feared they'd succumb in high numbers to the worst ravages of the disease.

But the powder keg has yet to go off. There has been little spread of the novel coronavirus in Los Angeles' street encampments. Some shelters have had outbreaks, but most of those infected had no symptoms.

Of the more than 1,300 cases among homeless people in L.A. County, fatalities by mid-August stood at 31, a mortality rate comparable to or better than that of the overall population. An influential early paper had estimated the numbers were likely to go as high as 400 deaths and 2,600 hospitalizations.

It definitely is and has been better than we expected, said Heidi Marston, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Marston and county officials said an aggressive public health response, including a homeless hotel program, is paying off.

Nurse practitioner Sharlene Gan and medical assistant Celia Cerna, left and registered nurse Zoe Garcia with medical assistant Carolina Maradlaga-Esguerra, right, preparing to take swab samples from homeless at the Midnight Mission on skid row in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

But homeless people in the rest of California and across the nation have had a better-than-expected time of it as well. And one reason might be the environment where nearly three-quarters of L.A.'s homeless people live: outside.

Living outside normally weathers homeless people, teeing them up for a host of diseases and early death. But during COVID-19 crisis, outside is safer than indoors because fresh air disperses droplets containing the virus and theres more room to keep people apart, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. A small Japanese study released in April found the risks of transmission in a closed space were 19 times greater than in the open.

Of the 83 homeless service settings that Los Angeles County officials tracked for COVID-19 outbreaks, 19% were encampments, with 11% of the cases. The rest were shelters, hotels or recuperative centers.

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"It's possible being outside is protective relative to inside," said Dennis P. Culhane, University of Pennsylvania professor and homelessness researcher who co-authored the early COVID-19 study.

Even in shelters, COVID-19 has not been the catastrophe that was predicted. Shelters in Boston, San Francisco and Nashville have had outbreaks, and at the Union Rescue Mission on skid row, 107 residents and staff were infected, leading to three deaths.

Monica Palma, an outreach worker with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, visits with Kim M., who is homeless, and her dog Dee-O-G along Venice Boulevard under the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

But most of those infected had no symptoms: In Boston, where every shelter resident was tested, the asymptomatic rate was 70% to 90%, said Dr. James OConnell, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, who called the finding "bizarre."

"There is still much to learn to try to understand what truly impacts susceptibility," said Dr. Anne Rimoin, professor of epidemiology at UCLA.

The apparent resiliency of homeless people in the face of a pandemic has so confounded expectations that researchers are looking at disparate and sometimes far-fetched causes. A small French study found less severe and symptomatic COVID cases among heavy smokers (most homeless people use tobacco). But an Italian study concluded the opposite, O'Connell said.

Researchers linked deficiencies of Vitamin D, which is absorbed from the sun, to more severe cases of COVID-19. But homeless people in Boston were tested and have the same vitamin deficiencies as other people, O'Connell said.

Could the virus have mutated into a milder strain? Or did homeless people build up a special resistance from bouts with previous coronaviruses or other illnesses?

It has certainly crossed my mind, although Im not sure there is any data to support that, said Margot Kushel, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and head of a university institute to end homelessness. "An easier explanation is the data on homeless infections is poor, and the homeless community is cut off from the rest of society."

We werent doing no traveling, skid row resident Donald Stratton, 59, said last month, adding that he doesnt know anyone who has tested positive for the virus.

"People down here are quarantined already," said Natosha Smith, 41, who volunteers at the Los Angeles Community Action Network.

Ciara DeVozza, right, director of the People Concern's C3 program, talks with a 20-year-old woman without shelter on skid row in Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Social distancing is what everyone does with homeless people, said UCLA associate professor Randall Kuhn, co-author with Culhane of the early paper.

Testing of homeless people got off to a slow start, and an unknown number of homeless people might have died of stroke, cardiac arrest or other causes without their conditions being recognized as complications of COVID-19. Not all jurisdictions track deaths of homeless people, and homelessness is not always noted on death certificates.

"It's hard to say that there have not been super-spreader events among people experiencing homelessness because we are far from having universal surveillance testing and most cases have been asymptomatic, Bobby Watts, chief executive of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council in Nashville, said in an email.

Robert Kim-Farley, epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said we wont really know how homeless people in L.A. are faring until they undergo seroprevalence testing, which looks for antibodies left by past infections.

The county is trying to do some additional targeting of subgroups, and it would make a lot of sense among homeless people,  Kim-Farley said.

Im not so sure we can say there hasnt been a huge hit, Culhane said.

In the meantime, nearly every corner of the homeless delivery system has been modified to meet the COVID-19 challenge. Hundreds of wash stations have been placed near homeless encampments, pop-up testing went up on skid row and the Venice Boardwalk, and 26 city recreation centers were turned into temporary shelters, although most have since been closed  prematurely, critics said.

Project Roomkey, the hotel program, fell short of its goal but placed more than 4,000 medically fragile homeless individuals in lodgings. The city suspended encampment sweeps, although some service providers are worried about a recent City Council vote to resume cleanups around bridge-housing shelters, which are intended to be transitions to permanent housing.

Cleanings are good but disrupting peoples lives is not a positive thing, said Dr. Coley King, director of homeless services at the Venice Family Clinic.

The Centers for Disease Control guidance has not changed on how to handle encampment cleanups: by not disrupting the people, Marston said. Were hoping to find some middle ground, maintaining the cleanliness everybody wants to see but so were not putting people at further risk unnecessarily.

Outreach workers handed out masks, food and water, while screening homeless people for virus symptoms and educating them about social distancing and other precautions.

Quite a few teams are out there every day advocating for people to see if they need water, food and to do wellness checks so any symptoms are quickly evaluated  and to see if they need to go to the emergency room or be referred to isolation or quarantine, said Dr. Silvia Prieto, a county Department of Public Health official.

At the Salvation Army's shelter in Bell, one of the largest in the nation, the population was more than halved, from 480 in March to 220. Two-person sleeping cubicles were reduced to one and residents sit two to a table in the cafeteria, separated by blue plexiglass.

When it first started, people used to line up with masks hanging half off their face. Now they are very diligent about masks and social distancing, said Bell Shelter Director Steve Lytle. It is certainly a more muted environment. He added that the shelter put on a Juneteenth celebration, a pride event and an In-N-Out burger truck day to lift spirits.

It can be a little bit overwhelming after a while; you cant be yourself at times, said Bell Shelter resident Mahuro Cortez, 49. But it feels so good to have a place to be.

On skid row, homeless people are taking their health into their own hands. Stephanie Arnold Williams cranked out masks from her sewing station in a big white tent at 5th and San Pedro streets, and the Los Angeles Community Action Network ginned up sidewalk wash stations from barrels.

At a recent Sunday Strong event at Community Action Network's headquarters at 6th Street and Gladys Avenue , scores of people ran their hands under a wash station, grabbed masks and danced, pranced and vogued up a socially distanced line for sack meals with a side of hand sanitizer. The food was provided by grass-roots groups Miss Rodgers' Neighborhood, Polo's Pantry and Eayikes.

"Just because they're homeless doesn't mean people are not concerned about their health," General Dogon, an organizer with the network, said over the ear-splitting sounds of Marvin Gaye and Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band.

"We can't let our guard down. These are very vulnerable people," Kim-Farley said.
President Trump, speaking in Pennsylvania on Thursday afternoon, made a litany of accusations against the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California.

Mr. Trump said that Ms. Harris, during her time as San Franciscos district attorney, put a drug-dealing illegal alien into a jobs program instead of into prison. Four months later, the illegal alien robbed a 29-year old woman, mowed her down with an SUV, fracturing her skull and ruining her life.

The attack was an echo of the Willie Horton episode during the 1988 presidential race between former President George Bush and Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts. In that race, Mr. Bushs campaign and its allies repeatedly invoked Mr. Horton, a Black prisoner in Massachusetts who, while released on a furlough program, raped a white woman, to suggest Mr. Dukakis was soft on crime. Mr. Dukakis did not start the furlough program, but supported it.

Mr. Trump was referring to the case of Alex Izaguirre, an undocumented immigrant convicted of selling cocaine in 2008. He was a participant in Back on Track, an initiative spearheaded by Ms. Harris that placed young first-time drug offenders who pleaded guilty to their crimes into a jobs program rather than jail.
Students, Staff Not Wearing Masks in Schools Could Face Misdemeanor Charges: Utah Governor

Utahs K-12 students and staff can be charged with a misdemeanor if they dont wear face coverings while in school as required by the governors order.

Gov. Gary Herberts office on Wednesday confirmed the penalty, but also said it is up to school administrators to decide whether to press criminal charges on those who defy the mask mandate without a legitimate medical exemption.

Its enforced on a district and superintendent level, spokesperson Anna Lehnardt told The Salt Lake Tribune. But were not thinking, Lets slap a bunch of kids with misdemeanors.'

The charge for the violator, including those in kindergarten, would be a class B misdemeanor punishable up to six months in jail and a fine up to $1,000the same level of punishment for any violation of a public health order under Utah state law.

The primary reasoning behind the penalty is to keep teachers safe when schools reopen amid the ongoing pandemic, Lehnardt said.

Herbert, who declined to impose a statewide face covering mandate, ordered in July that all students, teachers, staff, and visitors must wear a mask while in a school building or on school buses. The order, which goes into effect this month, applies to all of Utahs 41 public school districts as well as public charters.

When asked on Thursday about the criminal penalties, the Republican governor reaffirmed that leaders of individual schools would decide how to enforce his mandate in order to protect teachers, whom he said are more vulnerable to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus than students because of age or health conditions.

We certainly can minimize the risk and mitigate the chances of you catching the virus at school, which were trying to do, he said during his monthly press conference. One of the best ways, the most effective, inexpensive ways to do that is have everybody wear a face covering.

Herbert added that parents who do not want their children to comply with his mask mandate when returning to school are a little bit irrational.

I think these same people might get on an airplane and say theyre not going to fasten their seat belts, he said. And they may be invited to get off the plane if thats the case.

Some state lawmakers have pushed back against Herberts mask order, arguing that it is overly restrictive.

Of course, we need to protect our teachers, especially those that are compromised, said Republican state Rep. Mark Strong during an education committee meeting, reported Desert News. So, how do we address that? And are we being too restrictive, especially with this young population that has very, very, very low risk?
On August 19, Peru and Morocco approved Phase III clinical trials of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine, worlds first inactivated vaccine manufactured by China National Biotec Group (CNBG), the company announced on the social media. The human clinical trials will include 6,000 volunteers to test the efficacy of potential vaccine and get regulatory approvals basis the results. China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a unit of state-owned pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) has already recruited over 15,000 people across 107 nationalities in UAE and Abu Dhabi to get the phase III trials started.

According to UAEs state medias press release, the Sinopharm's vaccine has been developed by G42 Healthcare in partnership with the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP), the Department of Health - Abu Dhabi, and Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA). Volunteers have been administered with two vaccine shots as the healthcare continues to monitor their safety and conducts health checks to ensure no side effects. Lunched on 16th July in Abu Dhabi, the #4Humanity trials has had full co-operation from the UAEs multinational population eager to help the UAE leaderships commitment to combat the COVID-19 via global collaborative effort.

"Securing this milestone is a testament to the commitment and partnership of the relevant authorities working together to conduct the largest possible number of medical tests and providing the necessary care for those infected, while simultaneously strengthening the UAEs cooperation with international partners to develop a safe vaccine against the disease, Minister of Health and Prevention, Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais said. He added, "This is a very proud day for everyone associated with these trials and we are looking forward to continuing to play an integral role in the work to come in the months ahead.Chairman of the Department of Health , Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Hamed, as the first volunteer to participate in the trials as he received 2 shots of the experimental vaccine.

We would like to thank our partners G42 Healthcare and the UAEs health authorities for their hard work and professionalism and we look forward to continued success as the trials proceed in the weeks and months aheadPresident of Sinopharm Group Biological Products, Jingjin Zhu said in the release.

Read: Argentina And Mexico, Partners In A Coronavirus Vaccine

Read: Mexico Needs 200 Million Coronavirus Vaccine Doses, To Start Shots In April 2021

Diversity of volunteers

UAE Principal Investigator, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City CMO and Chairperson of the National COVID-19 Clinical Management Committee Dr. Nawal Ahmed Alkaabi said in the press release, "This is a wonderful achievement and the importance to get involved in these clinical trials has captured the imagination of the nation and the 15,000 volunteers who have stepped up to participate. Further he added, Once again it goes to show the passion and commitment of everyone living and working here in the UAE to play their part for the good of humanity.President of Sinopharm Group Biological Products, Jingjin Zhu, was quoted saying that the speed of these trials to date and the diversity of volunteers has fully reinforced company's decision that the UAE was a perfect location to test inactivated vaccine. Further he stressed, with nations joining in, the vaccine is ready to reach the widest demographic and ethnic range of volunteers.

Read: Australian PM Vows To Manufacture And Distribute COVID-19 Vaccine For Free To Citizens

Read: Russia To Roll Out COVID-19 Vaccine Doses By August End, Production Begins: Report
A group of five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, is allowed to take part in door-to-door campaigning.

For roadshows, convoys of vehicles should be broken after every five vehicles instead of 10 (excluding security vehicles).

Public gatherings and rallies can be held subject to adherence to COVID-19 guidelines.

IMAGE: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan being checked by thermal screening as he arrives to cast his vote for the Rajya Sabha election in the state assembly in Bhopal in June. Photograph: ANI Photo

Voters will be provided gloves while using electronic voting machines and COVID-19 patients in quarantine will be allowed to vote at the last hour of the polling day, according to broad guidelines issued by the Election Commission on Friday for holding polls during the coronavirus pandemic.

A separate set of guidelines would be issued for voters who are residing in areas notified as "containment zone", the Election Commission said.

The poll panel has also extended the option of postal ballot for electors who are marked as persons with disabilities and those above 80 years.

Electors who are COVID-19 positive or are suspected of having the infection and in quarantine at home or at an institution can also exercise the postal ballot option.

An official explained that this postal ballot facility is different from the one extended to service voters.

Here, those willing to use the facility have to fill up a form.

Officials then carry the ballot to the residence of such voters and videograph the voting to ensure transparency.

"COVID-19 patients who are quarantined will be allowed to cast their vote at the last hour of the poll day at their respective polling stations, under the supervision of health authorities... Sector magistrates shall coordinate this in their allocated polling stations," the guidelines said.

Bihar may become the first state to go for assembly elections amid the pandemic.

The polls are due in October-November.

Asked why the norms have no mention of "virtual" or "digital" campaigning, another official said the "broad guidelines have been framed based on COVID-19 guidelines issued by the health ministry and the home ministry to prevent the spread of the virus."

"Based on our guidelines, states will prepare their own set of three-layered comprehensive guidelines at the state, district and assembly constituency level. The state specific guidelines may talk of virtual campaign," he said.

The commission has recommended mandatory sanitisation of polling stations, preferably a day before the polls. Circles would be painted at polling stations to ensure social distancing.

"Hand gloves shall (apparently disposable in nature) be provided to the voter, for signing on the voter register and pressing button of electronic voting machine for voting," the document pointed out.

Thermal scanners would be placed at the entry point of every polling station. Polling or paramedical staff will conduct thermal screening of voters at the entry point of a polling station, it said.

If the temperature of a voter is above the set norms of health ministry at first reading, then it will be checked twice and if it remains, then the elector shall be provided with a token or a certificate and will be asked to come for voting at the last hour of poll.

"At the last hour of poll, such electors shall be facilitated voting, strictly following COVID-19 related preventive measures," it said.

Face masks in reserve would be kept for those electors who are not carrying one.

During the process of identification of voter, the voters will require to lower the face mask for identification, according to the document.

"There shall be maximum 1,000 electors instead of 1,500 electors in a polling station," the guidelines said.

In view of this, the state is already creating additional 34,000 (approximately) polling stations which is 45 per cent more, and will increase the total number of polling stations to around 1,06,000.

Another EC officer said indelible ink would be applied on voters' fingers as per norms. Sufficient number of hand sanitisers, soap and water would be made available to maintain hygiene he said.

Mask, sanitiser, face shield and gloves "shall be provided to every polling official and security personnel".

A group of five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, is allowed to take part in door-to-door campaigning.

For roadshows, the commission said, convoys of vehicles should be broken after every five vehicles instead of 10 (excluding security vehicles).

Public gatherings and rallies can be held subject to adherence to COVID-19 guidelines.

The district election officer should identify in advance dedicated grounds for public gatherings with clearly marked entry and exit points.

In all such identified grounds, the district election officer should put markers in advance to ensure social distancing norms.

The district election officer and district superintendent of police should ensure that the number of attendees does not exceed the limit prescribed by the State Disaster Management Authority for public gatherings, the Commission said.

The EC has also stressed on holding training sessions online for polling personnel to ensue social distancing norms.

As an optional facility, nomination form will also be available online on the website of chief electoral officer and district election officer.

It said the number of persons to accompany candidate for submission of nomination has now been restricted to two. The number of vehicles for the purposes of nomination is also restricted to two.

"Returning Officer should allot staggered time in advance to prospective candidates," as pr the guidelines.

Anybody violating instructions on COVID-19 measures will face legal action, it warned.

To ensure security personnel are not infected by the virus while performing duties, the number of vehicles to ferry them will be increased.

Several bypolls were recently postponed mainly due to coronavirus and rains.

No fresh schedule has been announced as yet.
A nation that nurtures elites that are at best ambivalent about their nation will not have sufficient confidence to inspire, or deserve, the confidence of other nations. Victoria Nuland, former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, recalls George Kennans 1946 Long Telegram, in which he said that in opposing the then-emerging Soviet threat much depends on [the] health and vigor of our own society. Nuland adds, The first order of business is to restore the unity and confidence of U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- Two Syracuse students who witnessed the large campus gathering of freshmen on Wednesday night said that Department of Public Safety officers eventually broke up the gathering but they didnt initially show much urgency in breaking up a meeting that lasted 45 minutes.

The students, who requested anonymity because they feared repercussions from SU, said they arrived at a gathering of hundreds of students to find a DPS officer already on the scene. They said the officer observed the event and the growing crowd for a number of minutes before eventually leaving, indicating he was going to call for more officers.

While Syracuse has said that it expects enforcing rules to limit the spread of coronavirus to be a challenge in off-campus locations, violations of the schools mask-wearing, physical distancing and gathering policies occurred smack in the middle of campus on Wednesday, just a short walk from the DPS building in Sims Hall.

There was a DPS officer there, said one student, who works for the school as a residence adviser. He was pretty close to them. I asked him what he was doing. I didnt see him doing anything, talking to anyone. He said he was about to walk back and grab his cell phone to call his sergeant. I didnt see exactly when he got there, but I cant believe it went from zero people to 400 in that moment. It didnt seem urgent. Ill say that.

I saw a DPS officer there and he told me hed just gotten there, said another student. He was pretty close to his car, so I imagine he was telling the truth and he had gotten there within 10 minutes or so. I asked him, What are you going to do about it? He said, Im thinking about going to my car to call my supervisor. I said, Youre thinking about it? You should really get on that.

According to a timeline of events provided to syracuse.com | The Post-Standard in a statement by Syacuses Department of Public Safety Chief Bobby Maldonado, the gathering lasted 45 minutes.

Once the officer left the scene initially, others arrived quickly, the two students said. They estimated that it took about 20 minutes from when they first observed the officer to when a group of officers arrived to break things up.

In the best-case interpretation, they said, they found an officer intimidated by such a large group and uncertain what to do on their own. In a worst-case version, they found an officer unconcerned about a gathering until it swelled out of control and well beyond the 25 people permitted by the school.

Syracuse did not specifically answer questions about how the crowd was permitted to gather so close to the middle of campus or how many DPS officers were out on patrol on Wednesday night. The school has not said how it expects to police off-campus neighborhoods. In late July, the school said it was still working on those plans.

The two students said they came across the gathering at around 10:08 p.m. when it was already in progress. They know because they took a video. They believe the gathering was broken up about 20 minutes later, around 10:30 p.m.

The timeline supplied by the two students matches one later provided in a statement by Syracuse Department of Public Safety Chief Bobby Maldonado. He said that Syracuse is conducting an investigation and that the crowd began arriving around 9:45 p.m.

A full investigation is underway into the gathering that occurred on the quad last night, Maldonado said in the statement. I am disappointed that a group of this size was able to congregate so quickly. I assure you: we have already taken the appropriate steps to ensure this will not happen again.

After reviewing security camera footage, speaking with students who were in attendance or in the area, and witnesses, I want to clarify the timeline of events. A small group of students arrived on the quad around 9:45 p.m. last night. By 10 p.m., the group had grown considerably. At 10:19 p.m., DPS officers were dispatched to the quad. Moments later, DPS officers arrived on the scene and the quad was cleared just after 10:30.

The two students who spoke to syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, said they found their way to the quad by following large packs of freshmen who they observed headed in that direction. When they arrived they found many, but not all, of the students werent wearing masks or distancing. They were particularly frustrated by the lack of masks, which they said seems like a very easy thing for students to wear.

We saw this big group of people walking from Brewster and Boland Halls toward the campus and it was just like, What the hell is going on? one said. We started following them and it got louder and louder. Eventually we came around and saw a couple hundred people.

The officer was already present. So were many of the students. One estimated the group at 200. The other estimated it at 400. They started to hear the noise from the quad when they reached the Heroy Geology Building.

The gathering students were mostly or entirely freshmen. The students could tell because many of them were still wearing wristbands, which were part of the schools move-in process. The freshman students gathered on the quad, near where Syracuse has installed tents for the semester, areas that serve as spaces that groups can reserve to schedule safer gatherings outside.

As officers were coaxing the freshmen to leave, the two students said they heard officers asking them how the event had been organized and promising students they wouldnt get in trouble if they shared information. The two students were told the event was unorganized and word had spread organically on social media via Snapchat.

In an email on Thursday, Syracuses administrators promised said that students identified would go through the student conduct system and that the gathering could have done enough damage to get the campus shut down.

Already this week, North Carolina has been forced to shut its campus down after a week due to coronavirus spread, while Notre Dame was forced to move classes online for two weeks.

Syracuse brought most of its freshman class to campus between Monday and Wednesday and will continue re-populating its campus with returning students this week.

The two students said they worried that the behavior of other students will get the campus shut down, costing them the ability to be with their friends for the semester.

They said they do believe that older students, already robbed of a semester of college, will behave better than the freshman. One said that parties are occurring in off-campus housing but the ones he hears about generally have fewer than 50 people attending, a number higher than Syracuse allows but within state law.

The most upsetting part was talking to the freshman and they didnt give a (f***), one said. They said, Were just here to talk and hang out.

Contact Chris Carlson anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1639
Suva, Aug 21 : Fiji's Ministry of Health has ramped up quarantine measures due to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the Pacific region.

Health Ministry Permanent Secretary James Fong said on Friday that they are expecting some high-risk repatriation flights in the next few weeks and they need to be prepared, reports Xinhua news agency.

"We are taking preventative measures to ensure the quarantine protocols will be adhered to at all times.

"In the long run, what we are trying to look at is trying to make sure that we can get a more sustainable service delivery model with regards to quarantine," he added.

Fong confirmed four border quarantine cases remain in isolation while more than 200 Fijians are at various quarantine facilities.

Fiji reported its first coronavirus death on July 31.

The 66-year-old Fijian, who had a history of cardiac problems and returned from India early July, died in the hospital in Lautoka, Fiji's second largest city.

The man was the island nation's first border quarantine case of Covid-19.

Fiji has reported a total of 18 coronavirus patients since it confirmed its first case on March 19, and all of them had fully recovered before June 5.

Fiji has conducted more than 4,500 Covid-19 tests since January.

Currently, Fiji maintains a nationwide curfew which came into effect on March 30.
Chevron has been ordered by the West Australian regulator to place its massive Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant into a temporary phased shutdown.

The demand comes after workers at the $76billion project last month identified large cracks in pressurised propane kettles on one of three LNG trains.

Train two has been in a period of scheduled maintenance but the discovery of its cracks raised concerns about possible issues with the rest of the plant.

Chevron has been ordered by the West Australian regulator to place its massive Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant into a temporary phased shutdown

WA's Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety had ordered Chevron to check the propane heat exchangers on the other two trains for similar cracks by Friday.

But on Friday the regulator said it had agreed to Chevron's plans for a staged inspection schedule after being presented with safety and technical information.

Train one will shut down for inspection in early-October and train three in January 2021.

It is not immediately clear how long the trains would need to shut down for.

DMIRS dangerous goods director Steve Emery said the supporting evidence provided by Chevron was comprehensive.

'This information included details on the origins and nature of the defects as well as the risks associated with various approaches to addressing the uncertainties around trains one and three,' he said.

DMIRS was satisfied the proposal provided an acceptable level of risk under the Dangerous Goods Safety Act, he added.

Authorities are also confident Chevron has taken sufficient measures to mitigate potential gas leaks.

Workers had identified cracks of up to one metre long and 33mm deep on train two's kettles, according to the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union.

The plant on Barrow Island, 60km off the Pilbara coast, supplies gas locally and across Asia.

Chevron has been issued improvement notices for each of the eight propane kettles on train two and it has until September 4 to make them compliant.

A further 24 improvement notices were issued earlier this month relating to other issues at the plant.

'We are committed to operating safely and reliably and continue to work closely with DMIRS in planning and implementing inspections in the safest and most effective way,' Chevron said in a statement on Friday evening.

'The appropriate safety measures are in place and we continue to deliver LNG to customers and natural gas to the Western Australian domestic market under our contractual commitments.'
DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / August 21, 2020 / RNR Group was founded by Swapnadip Roy and Pavel Rudanovskiy. R&R Capital LLC and RNR Medical Equipments Trading LLC are members of RNR Group.

R&R Capital solves the most complex business matters in international business, with extensive experience working with large corporations, different regions and cultures. We understand international business language and we provide clients with strategic and speedy solutions.

RNR Medical Equipments Trading provides top trading options within premiere global network with access to medical equipment merchandisers globally from the US to Europe, to Middle East, to Asia Pacific. RNR Medical Equipments Trading focuses on assisting clients to get access to trending trading medical items while at the same time providing suppliers due diligence and contracting services.

RNR Group is a leading international trade and business management group focusing on providing personalized business solutions to private clients internationally, powered by high-end services and experience. RNR Group is actively following the latest change in global markets to remain at the front of the industry.

About Swapnadip Roy

Swapnadip Roy is a professional business developer and financier who has worked with mainstream financial corporations, banks and mutual funds including companies like Boston Consulting Group, Disney, AXA insurance, Indigo Airlines. Swapnadip has managed to bring $250 million worth of capital to ILS group of hospitals. He has also worked with international startups and the United Nations. Swapnadip has established a strong business network around the world.

About Pavel Rudanovsky

Pavel Rudanovsky advises the large corporations and governments on entering foreign markets with public and investor relations. Pavel has worked with Chinese government, Malaysian Government, Russian Government, as well as major companies such as Russian Sberbank, Alrosa, Rosnano, HSBC, Citi and Unicredit bank.

More about RNR Group

RNR Group is also a co-founder of BRICS+ global initiative. The key mission of BRICS+ is to become a practical tool to overcome economic, political and religious barriers by contributing to the improvement of the investment climate between countries.

RNR Group is working on establishing the world's first UNESCO International Interdisciplinary Innovation Centre as well as advising the governor of Krasnodar to establish Ecological Fund of Krasnodar Region which will promote Krasnodar as global centre of ecology.

Media Contact

Contact: Paul

Company: RNR Group

Email: paul@rnr.business

Telephone: 585879865 (UAE)

Website: https://rnr.business/

SOURCE: RNR Group

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/602002/RNR-Group-Professional-Consulting-Firms-Business-Overview-and-Founders
DNY59/iStock

By EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Joseph DeAngelo, the man now known as the "Golden State Killer," addressed the court on Friday as he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.



DeAngelo, who had sat in a wheelchair and was covered by a white face mask as victims and family members gave statements, rose out of wtheheelchair and spoke free of the face covering.



"I've listened to all your statements. Each one of them," DeAngelo said. "And I'm truly sorry to everyone I have hurt. Thank you, your honor."



DeAngelo, who was a police officer from 1973 to 1979, committed 13 murders as well as multiple rapes and burglaries in the 1970s and '80s. Now a 74-year-old father and grandfather, DeAngelo was arrested in 2018.



In June he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder as part of a plea deal, which also required him to admit to multiple uncharged acts, including rapes.



The death penalty was taken off the table in exchange for the guilty pleas.



"I honestly believe that this person -- not even a person, this beast -- deserved the ultimate punishment of death," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Friday. "But we met with our victims. We knew the age of the case. We knew how long it took to solve. And we knew that this was the right thing to do."



"For the victims whose voices have been stolen and the family members who sadly ran out of time and could not make it here today, I want you to know that there are 13 angels watching us today," Spitzer said.



Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert added, "My greatest hope for all of these victims and their families perhaps is best put in their own words as we heard this week. The greatest revenge is to live your lives. Paint your children's and your grandchildren's rooms again with hearts and rainbows. Water ski again. Know that the monster of your childhood or your younger years is gone forever and will die alone in the dark."



A statement from DeAngelo's sister, which was read in court Friday, put some blame on their father who she described as an abuser and a womanizer. A statement from DeAngelo's niece described him as a loving and patient man who taught her how to drive.



This week brought three days of victim and family impact statements, beginning Tuesday and Wednesday with powerful words from rape survivors and their relatives. On Thursday, DeAngelo was confronted by the family members of people he murdered decades ago.



"His crimes were always committed in the dark of night. And it was common for him to cover lights," said Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten. "Even now here in this courtroom he turns away from the light, and dare not face or look at his accusers, for fear that the truth of their testimonies might penetrate the deep darkness."



'I was the only living witness'



On Sept. 11, 1975, DeAngelo, who was a police officer at the time, shot and killed journalism professor Claude Snelling in front of his daughter, Elizabeth, at their Visalia, California, home.



"My father caught him twice peering in my bedroom window when he came home from teaching night school, and tried to chase him down but wasn't able to catch him," Elizabeth Snelling said in court Thursday.



In the early hours of Sept. 11, Elizabeth Snelling, who was 16 years old, said she was awakened by an intruder in a ski mask who pointed a gun at her head.



Snelling said the intruder told her "he was taking me with him and if I made any noise he would kill me."



DeAngelo dragged her out of the house with a gun pointed at her head, she said, and her dad charged out of the house.



"DeAngelo fired two shots hitting my dad," she told the court. "He then turned the gun on me as I was down on the ground. My only thought was, 'this is it.'"



"He started kicking me in the head and face, then ran off," she said.



Claude Snelling was 45 years old and in "the prime of his life," his daughter said, calling him her "hero."



"We somehow managed to stay in the same house, but with added security. I slept in my mom's room for the next year," Elizabeth Snelling said.



"Knowing that my dad's murderer was never caught ... left us all feeling very vulnerable," she continued. "Since I was the only living witness ... there was a chance he could come after me. The police gave us extra security and patrolled our neighborhood ... but I still lived in fear."



"DeAngelo was able to live a normal life with his family for all those years while my family and I could not be with my dad," she said. "I am so thankful that he will at least spend the rest of his miserable life in prison."



'Unspeakable horror'



In March 1980, Charlene Smith and her husband, attorney Lyman Smith, were killed in their Ventura home. The couple was found dead by Lyman Smith's 12-year-old son, Gary.



"The walls were splattered with blood and gray matter. The bed was saturated with bodily fluids," Lyman Smith's daughter, Jennifer Carole, said Thursday. "Gary gently lifted the corner of the comforter to find my dad face down in the pillow cemented to the fabric by blood."



Carole was 18 at the time of the murder.



"Joe might be surprised to learn that I was a suspect for two days," Carole said to DeAngelo in court, as he sat silently.



"I've lived with the shame for decades," Carole said, crying. "It's your shame, Joe."



"Joe sitting here [in court] with his blank face, [trying] to ignore what he's done to not validate his victims ... is not justice," Carole said. "Joe spending the rest of his life in prison is not justice. ... Justice is not possible in this case."



"It's been a never-ending ache and sadness that does not go away," Charlene's best friend, Jill-Karen Morrill, said in court. "Charlene was so much more than beautiful and Lyman so much more than handsome. When she and Lyman were taken, the world lost two amazing people, full of life and both with bright futures."



"I cannot allow myself to think of all they endured in death. But we know of the unspeakable horror they suffered," she said.



'If I had my way he would be shivering, blindfolded, naked and exposed'



In July 1981, Cheri Domingo and her boyfriend Gregory Sanchez were killed.



Sanchez, 27, was shot and bludgeoned in the head two dozen times, prosecutors said. DeAngelo then bound 35-year-old Domingo, raped her and beat her in the head more than 10 times, prosecutors said.



"My heart is racing," said Domingo's daughter, Debbi McMullan, as she began speaking in court Thursday.



McMullan, who was 15 at the time of her mother's murder, said in her 20s, "I started to sink into a depression that was undiagnosed and untreated for many years."



She said she "stumbled into drug use," during which "a decade was lost."



"Mom would have helped," she said. "She would have supported me and guided me toward solutions. She would have prodded me into admitting that I needed help."



By her mid-30s, McMullan was clean, sober and welcoming her children back home, she said. McMullan then learned her mother's slaying may be the work of a serial killer and she poured her energy into helping solve the case.



"I am not that lost teenager anymore. Today I am in the room with the pathetic excuse of a man who will now finally be held accountable," she said. "If I had my way he would be shivering, blindfolded, naked and exposed every moment from now on."



'He had no idea how much Katie and Brian were loved'



In Feb. 1978, Brian and Katie Maggiore were shot dead while walking their dog. After Brian Maggiore was shot, his wife ran away and yelled for help, but DeAngelo caught up with her and shot her in the head, prosecutors said.



Katie turned 20 years old four days before she was killed in "cold blood," her brother said in court Thursday.



"He had no idea how much Katie and Brian were loved. They have remained alive in all our hearts," he said.



'I hope he rots'



In May 1986, 18-year-old Janelle Cruz was bound, raped and bludgeoned in the face and head, prosecutors said.



Cruz's sister, Michelle Cruz, said in court, "I wonder if [DeAngelo] remembers the details. I wonder if he remembers Janelle, my sister, fighting him off."



She was beaten "beyond recognition" and needed a closed casket funeral, Cruz said.



"My sister had a lot of hard times growing up, but she was finally on a good path. She had dreams of going to college, living in her first apartment, getting married, having children," Cruz said, noting that DeAngelo had a "good, full life" with a wife, children and a home.



"I cry for her all the time," she said. "I wonder if Joseph DeAngelo has any remorse."



After her death, "I lost my identity," Cruz said, and she devoted her life to finding her sister's killer.



When DeAngelo was arrested, Cruz said she "cried and cried for hours."



"I could stop looking over my shoulder with fears of him sneaking up on me," Cruz said. "No more thinking he would try and find and kill me, too. I did not have to keep moving house to house -- all the things that haunted my mind for 32 years."



"I hope he rots," she said.



'Black and soulless eyes'



In Feb. 1981, 28-year-old Manuela Witthuhn was bound, raped and bludgeoned to death while home alone.



Manuela Witthuhn's husband David suffered extreme grief, anxiety and depression for years, said his brother, Drew Witthuhn.



Drew Witthuhn shared with the court a photo of Manuela's headstone, a place he said David often visited to be near her.



For years, Manuela's husband lived with "scrutiny and suspicion" that he may have been involved in the slaying, Drew Witthuhn said. DNA later proved it was a serial killer, but David died before DeAngelo was identified, his brother said.



Drew Witthuhn only referred to DeAngelo as "the convict," and remarked that he has "black and soulless eyes."



'Her future was stolen'



Debra Manning and her boyfriend, Robert Offerman, were killed on Dec. 30, 1979.



Manning was bound, raped and shot twice in the head, while Offerman was bludgeoned and shot four times, her friends said in a statement.



"Her future was stolen," they said.



'DNA may have stopped the 'Golden State Killer'



In August 1980, Keith Harrington, a medical school student, and his wife Patrice Harrington, a pediatric nurse, were bludgeoned to death in their Dana Point home. They had been married for three months.



"Our dad found them two days later," said one of Keith Harrington's older brothers, Ron. "Dad was never the same."



The Harringtons devoted their lives to looking for the killer, but their father died before they had an answer.



The brothers' advocacy continued, pushing for an expanded DNA database in California.



"If these crimes had occurred today, DNA may have stopped the 'Golden State Killer' before he progressed to murder," Ron said in court.



DeAngelo was the first public arrest obtained through genetic genealogy, a new technique that takes the DNA of an unknown suspect left behind at a crime scene and identifies him or her by tracing a family tree through his or her family members, who voluntarily submit their DNA to public genealogy databases.



To identify DeAngelo, investigators narrowed the family tree search based on age, location and other characteristics. Authorities conducted surveillance on DeAngelo and collected his DNA from a tissue left in a trash. Investigators plugged his discarded DNA back into the genealogy database and found a match, linking DeAngelo's DNA to the DNA found at multiple crime scenes, prosecutors said.



Since DeAngelo's April 2018 arrest, over 150 other crime suspects have been identified through genetic genealogy.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Some of California's largest-ever fires are raging across the state, forcing tens of thousands from their homes as forecasters warned of further blazes sparked by lightning.

Several thousand lightning strikes in recent days ignited fires that left thick smoke blanketing the region on Saturday.

The total area burned for all the fires in California this week is "close to one million acres (400,000 hectares)," according to CalFire public information officer Jeremy Rahn.

"More lightning is anticipated tomorrow (Sunday) and into Tuesday -- everyone must remain alert and have an evacuation plan," the agency said on Twitter.

The National Weather Service added: "With severe drought and exceptionally dry fuels present, dry thunderstorms could spark additional wildfires this weekend."

"The western US and Great Plains are shrouded under a vast area of smoke due to ongoing wildfires that extend from the Rockies to the West Coast."

About 2,600 firefighters are tackling the two largest blazes, out of 13,700 battling "nearly two dozen major fires," according to Rahm.

"If you don't believe in climate change, come to California," tweeted state Governor Gavin Newsom alongside a dramatic photograph of huge clouds of smoke rising from fires.

"This is from today. And is just a small part of the nearly 600 fires we are battling this week."

He had earlier tweeted an ABC News video showing apocalyptic images of smoldering orange roadsides thick with smoke, with sparks flying as trees burned ferociously.

Wineries in the famed Napa and Sonoma regions, which are still reeling from blazes in recent years, are under threat.

"Many of these firefighters have been on the lines for 72 hours, and everybody is running on fumes," Assemblyman Jim Wood of the Healdsburg district in Sonoma told the Los Angeles Times.

"Our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have."

Story continues

- Bodies recovered -

The two largest blazes -- dubbed the SCU Lightning Complex and the LNU Lightning Complex -- have burned about 660,000 acres and destroyed more than 840 structures.

The SCU fire had burned nearly 340,000 acres by early Sunday, making it the second-largest fire in California history. It was 10 percent contained.

The LNU blaze covered 325,000 acres and was the third largest in state history. It was 15 percent contained.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the 1.2 million acres burned in California in the past month is far higher than the 259,000 acres destroyed in the whole of last year. It was "an astonishing toll so early in fire season," the paper said.

Five deaths have been linked to the latest flare-ups, with four bodies recovered on Thursday, including three from a burned house in a rural area of Napa County.

But many residents have refused evacuation orders.

"At least if we're here, we know exactly what's going on," Napa resident John Newman, 68, told the San Francisco Chronicle as he sat in a lawn chair in his driveway. "Family is worried, but it's a little different if you're here firsthand."

Nature reserves were also ravaged. The Big Basin Redwoods State Park said that some of its historic buildings had been destroyed by flames.

The park, where giant redwood trees of well over 500 years old can be found, was "extensively damaged," it said.

About 119,000 people have been evacuated, with many struggling to find shelter and hesitating to go to centers set up by authorities because of coronavirus risks.

In some counties south of San Francisco, evacuees opted to sleep in trailers along the Pacific Ocean as they fled nearby fires, while tourists were urged to leave to free up accommodation.

But faced with the sheer scope of the disaster, Newsom also asked for help from Canada and Australia, which he said had "the world's best firefighters."

bur-acb/mdl/kaf/mtp
Wahab Shittu, the counsel representing the suspended EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu, has again written to the Ayo Salami-led investigative panel, demanding fair hearing and copies of relevant exhibits from proceedings of the committee.

Mr Shittu requested that all records from the proceedings be provided to his client and his counsel ahead of the embattled EFCC bosss defence before the judicial commission of inquiry.

The lawyer also asked the panel to provide his client with adequate time and facility as he prepares to defend himself, as well as access to all exhibits tendered in the proceeding.

Mr Shittu said the request was in compliance with Section 36 of the Nigerian constitution.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in a letter dated July 3 approved the establishment of a Judicial Commission of Enquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act (Cap T21, LFN, 2004).

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Shittu last week, in a letter addressed to Mr Salamis investigative panel, faulted the committees interpretation of its role as a judicial commission of inquiry.

Although, the Tribunals of Inquiry Act provides for public sittings, it says a panel has in its absolute discretion, to admit or exclude the public or any member of the public or the press from any meeting of the tribunal.

In reaction, Mr Shittu argued that despite the powers of the inquiry to exclude members of the public, it is not for the entirety of the proceedings.

If you want to exclude members of the public, it has to be on selected occasions. Now, they have not allowed members of the public to the proceedings, Mr Shittu had said.

President Buhari had also directed the panel to submit its interim reports to him not later than 45 days starting from its first public sitting.

For over a month now, Mr Magu has continued to appear before the presidential panel investigating him over allegations of corruption and insubordination.

He was arrested on July 6 in front of the EFCC Wuse II office.

The allegations were levelled against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.

Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official web page of the Federal Ministry of Justice]

It is not clear the exact date the presidential panel held its first sitting, as the panel had been sitting behind closed doors, barring journalists from covering its activities.

However, given the date of the letter directed to the Salami-led panel, the committee ought to have submitted its report on August 16.

Mr Shittu in his latest letter urged the panel to clarify the duration of the sitting and whether the appointing authority (Buhari) has extended the period.

We humbly request that you note that in view of the timeline stipulated above and the need to clarify the duration of the sitting and whether the appointing authority has extended the period,

Justice Ayo Salami

It is of utmost importance that access to the required documents is granted to our client and his counsel to ensure seamless proceedings and the guarantee of fair hearing as enriched in the constitution, he added.
Rare Glimpse of Chinese Sub Outside Concealed Bunker Near South China Sea

By Drake Long 2020-08-20 -- A rare sighting by Radio Free Asia of a Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine, captured in a satellite image at the entrance of an underground base, hints at how China can marshal considerable undersea power on the doorstep of the disputed South China Sea.

Satellite imagery from Aug. 18 shows what appears to be a Type 093, or Shang-class, submarine in service with the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) outside an underground bunker at Yulin Naval Base, on the southern Chinese island province of Hainan. The bunker, accessed from the sea, is known for harboring submarine construction and repair facilities.

It offers an intriguing snapshot of what is a key home port for many ships and submarines in China's South Sea Fleet, which is predominately focused on the South China Sea  a venue of growing rivalry between China and the United States. China has shown an increasing determination to assert its sweeping sovereignty claims in those strategic waters, and the U.S. has been flexing its own military muscle in response.

Two tugboats are also visible in an Aug. 18 photo. In an Aug. 19 image, they appear to be pushing what looks to be the same submarine towards a pier.

Capt. Christopher Carlson, a retired officer of the United States Navy Reserve, who examined the image, said the Type 093 would have exited backward out of the tunnel entrance of the bunker, aided by the tugboats  a typical maneuver.

"Given the narrow aperture of the tunnel, you are just asking for trouble for a submarine to leave the tunnel under its own power," he said, pointing out the tight fit would also make it unlikely the submarine could safely use its nuclear reactor.

"Most people don't realize submarines maneuver like pigs on the surface. With about half your rudder out of the water, wagging about in the air, this doesn't leave a lot of control surface to effect steering," said Carlson, who now works with a wargame publisher, the Admiralty Trilogy Group.

The Type 093 is one of China's more advanced submarines, although it is currently developing bigger, stealthier subs to replace it, including an improved version called the Type 093B. Experts say there are only known to be six Type 093 submarines in service with China's navy. The vessel is primarily meant to attack other ships and submarines, depending on which variant is deployed.

As part of China's military build-up over the past two decades, it has rapidly improved its submarine force since the early 2000s and now has about 70 submarines, dwarfing the fleet of any other country that abuts the South China Sea, according to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's annual China Military Power Report.

But Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, believes that the U.S. still enjoys an edge over China in undersea warfare.

"Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) is one of the last remaining U.S. strengths against China," she said in an interview, citing U.S. aircraft and other systems in the region that can locate submarines as they leave port.

"Chinese submarines, as they become more advanced, are still noisier than U.S. submarines. But it's not really a question of their submarines versus our submarines. It's their submarines versus our ASW, and our submarines versus their ASW. When you're trying to kill a submarine, being able to find them and track them is the most important thing," she said.

Both China and the United States have stepped up military maneuvers in the South China Sea this year, amid increasing rivalry between the two powers, as well as Washington's growing opposition to what it calls China's "bullying" of Southeast Asian nations that have competing claims there.

As part of these maneuvers, the U.S. Navy has flown a number of maritime surveillance missions over the South China Sea in recent weeks. A U.S. Navy P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, which can be used to detect suspected submarines lurking beneath the surface, flew over the disputed waters just last week according to a report by CNN.

Mastro said part of the reason why the U.S. stays active in the South China Sea is that it is constantly gathering information about the undersea environment, enabling it track submarines.

Meanwhile, China has been conducting military exercises near and around Taiwan, which were reported by Chinese state media late last week. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which is self-governed as the Republic of China, and regularly threatens to unify it with the Chinese mainland by force.

"Submarines are probably primarily important for surface warfare or blockade operations. Usually we talk about [blockades around Taiwan] because blockades don't seem to be a huge part of China's playbook in the South China Sea," Mastro pointed out, although she didn't rule out the possibility of China using submarines to 'starve out' other countries' outposts in the South China Sea.

While China strives to conceal the activities of its submarine fleet, cracks occasionally show. Its subs have been periodically spotted in the East and South China Seas.

Japan's Self Defense Force said it spotted a Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine within 24 nautical miles of the Senkaku Islands in mid-June. The Senkaku Islands are administered and owned by Japan, yet claimed by China, and a frequent point of tension in the East China Sea. And an advanced Chinese Type 094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine accidentally surfaced near a Vietnamese fishing vessel in September 2019, according to Forbes, which covered photos and videos of the incident circulating on social media.

Mastro said that while the U.S. may be able to track Chinese submarines, other countries in Southeast Asia cannot do so on their own.

There are indications that China is taking other steps to enhance the ability of its submarines to operate with stealth in the South China Sea. In June, China laid down undersea cables between its occupied features in the Paracel Islands, a string of rocks and atolls in the northern half of the South China Sea, likely as part of an undersea monitoring network that would detect any other vessels tailing their submarines.

Some of China's research and survey vessels, particularly those associated with the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute for Acoustics, are suspected of mapping the topography of the ocean floor to find safe routes for Chinese subs as they travel to nearby areas like the Western Pacific or the Indian Ocean. This concern was part of the reason India expelled a Chinese survey ship, the Shi Yan-1, from its waters in December 2019.

China's hydrographic surveys continue unabated  just last week the Dong Fang Hong 3 survey vessel was operating south of the Paracels, and passed through Vietnamese waters on Aug. 15. China's government operates the largest fleet of survey and research vessels out of any other country in the world.

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Sydney, Australia (CNN Philippines Life)  If you ever needed quail eggs, a NutriBullet, or a plumber, the last place youd think to look was a chat group. But with anxieties flying high during the first few weeks of the lockdown in Metro Manila, Filipinos found solace in one another through Viber communities. Here, all questions and topics are welcome  like where to get water, what new ordinances are imposed, or a 36-hour discussion on where to get the best pan de sal.

The community feature was launched by the tech company Rakuten Viber in late 2018, allowing users with similar interests to interact in one group while maintaining their privacy. The phone number of a community member is by default hidden, and the member can disable getting a private message from other community members, says Lana Macapagal, Rakuten Vibers PR Manager for the Asia Pacific. She says that Viber enjoys a 71% penetration rate in the country, mostly from millennial users within Metro Manila, its nearby provinces, and Cebu. Recently, we have seen a surge in community engagement, not just globally, but also in the Philippines. There has been a 2.5 times increase in community viewers and 2.7 times growth in messages sent to communities.

Amid the pandemic, users in the Philippines turned to Viber communities as a support system and information hub, usually demarcated by location: for cities from Quezon City to Paranaque. Some groups broke off and clustered according to barangay, zones, or subdivisions.

One of the earlier groups to pop up was the New Manila Community Updates group, currently with over 4,000 members. Its creator and administrator, Vladimir VJ Manuel, says that initially the community only had four members: himself, two cousins, and his dentist. Manuel, who works with the Asian Institute of Management, made the group a few days after the lockdown to keep up with what was happening within his neighborhood. "You want people to quickly exchange information in real-time, so you use the tools that you have," says Manuel. He chose Viber simply because it was natural to him  he was already a heavy user.

When Zarah Ruiz, a former brand and social media manager, saw other neighborhoods were conglomerating on Viber, she gathered her friends, mostly other parents like herself, to create the Pasig Residents Group. Ruiz says she preferred the Viber platform over Facebook to avoid trolls. The intention was just to share updates, like how long the lines in the groceries were, to friends and friends of friends who wanted the low-down. Then we started getting more members, mostly through word of mouth. We just woke up one day with over a thousand members. Now, the Pasig Residents Group has over 6,000 members, with a separate group dedicated to selling products called the Pasig City Marketplace, with more than 9,000 users.

These communities, if not bombarded with updates, have information that cant be found on the news. When checkpoints were deployed around Manila, people could get tips on which routes to pass. When the alcohol ban was imposed, some communities bartered liquor. It's so easy to get information about whats going on in the Philippines as a whole, but its hard when youre more concerned about whats impacting you in your neighborhood, says Manuel. "The interesting thing about it is while the world is really global, we still need certain elements for small communities to thrive, especially when you can only move around your geographical area that is so constricted, he says.

Ruiz adds that these communities worked because the information was tailor-fit to the user. Its more personalized because for example, in the Pasig community, you know that the information youre getting is really for Pasig residents, she says.

Kapwa in Viber communities

The administrators noticed unique aspects of social interaction arise in the groups. "I see them trying to look after each other, and there's an urge to help out, says Ruiz. Parang may feeling of belongingness since you know that they belong to the same community. Kasi, there was a time somebody passed by Ortigas and saw construction workers stranded there with placards asking for help, and they posted it in the group. I remember members of the community got together and did something to help those stranded workers, she shares with delight. Proving that the cultural characteristic of pakikipagkapwa comes to light especially during a crisis, a theorized core value of Filipino social psychology posited by Virgilio Enriquez. Pakikipagkapwa means that we carry a moral obligation to treat others as fellow human beings, connecting through a shared identity.

Manuel also observed this sudden reliance on the goodwill of strangers when users asked to share in bulk purchases or pabili. When one user wants to buy something online, but the item is only sold in bulk, they make a shoutout for whoever wants to go halves with the purchase, and someone would most likely raise their hand. It suddenly became normal for two complete strangers to share a cart, anything from bulk sweet white corn to bulk bibingka. "I felt na it became more neighborly," says Manuel.

Administrators as mediators

People like Manuel and Ruiz are community administrators, who acquire the responsibility of managing these groups voluntarily. Their mediating roles afford them substantial authority. For example, banter about politics is something they can choose to deal with, or not at all. This is a responsibility that, only until recently, tech companies like Facebook have tried to steer away from. We delete posts that do not follow community guidelines. We don't want 'fake news' as much as possible, we only want reliable and valid sources of information shared in the group," says Ruiz.

Ruiz, who also administers the Pasig City Marketplace, says that the monitoring work there is even more tedious. "We have to monitor not only the posts but also the pricing kasi we see overpriced products being sold. Since were the admins, we feel like we owe it to our members to protect them. Kinakabahan kami for the buyer, lalo na if they're from Pasig, so we also intervene," says Ruiz, exercising an intermediary role over the community. When the alcohol ban was imposed, Ruiz didnt want the marketplace group to be complicit in the selling of alcohol. We dont want to put the drivers at risk, reasons Ruiz. While she admits some of her decisions were contentious, she thinks it her role to impose regulations, and isnt afraid to call out a seller for jacking up the price of a pack of Yakult.

Support system

As weeks pass, and things normalize in Manila, Viber communities have also become more self-managed. Users come in and out of it when they need to, sharing news, an occasional meme or two, and for some groups (like the San Juan City Residents) lots of prayers. Information within these groups is not hard to find. One can easily search on Google to see which branches of BPI are open today. But it shows that in times of difficulty, having access to any kind of information is enough. These digital communities offer the comfort of sharing worries during a time of utter precariousness. And during a crisis, an answered query provides guidance when the world seems so lost. Its even better when information is vouched for by your kapitbahay.

It also doesn't hurt to have access to the lived experiences of other people, like knowing whether the internet is down for the whole area, or is it just me? Or knowing that the pack of U.S. seedless oranges bought from Unimart last week were all rotten. Most of all, it's a reminder that while we are more isolated than ever before, we're not struggling alone. There is comfort in knowing that at the end of the day, everyone enjoys an excellent pan de sal.
A former student is preparing legal action against Cardiff University over their handling of a racism complaint.

Natasha Chilambo, 25, was one of eight black students to complain when a fellow medical student blacked up and wore a large fake penis to impersonate their lecturer in an end-of-term play.

More than 30 students were suspended after police were called in over the staged 'comedy' - and were also accused of including racist, sexist and homophobic jokes.

American-born lecturer Dr Jeff Allen, 50, was left feeling 'isolated' when students portrayed him as a 'hyper-sexualised black man'.

Natasha Chilambo, 25, was one of eight black students to complain when a fellow medical student blacked up and wore a large fake penis to impersonate their lecturer in an end-of-term play at Cardiff University

The university apologised for the 'pain and upset' caused, and have held an independent inquiry.

But Ms Chilambo says she was left feeling ostracised by other medical students after protesting. One of the other black students attempted suicide and another was unable to attend lectures.

Ms Chilambo said she was forced to quit the medical school at the Welsh university but has since finished her studies at King's College London.

American-born lecturer Dr Jeff Allen, 50, was left feeling 'isolated' when students portrayed him as a 'hyper-sexualised black man'

She is now considering taking legal action over the way her complaint was dealt with in 2016, and has raised nearly 6,000 on GoFundMe for legal fees.

'The way in which Cardiff University dealt with the complaints that we made was inadequate,' she said.

'It felt and it feels now that the ways in which they handled the procedure of the whole complaints process didn't really give space to what our experiences were.

'It didn't really capture the cost to ourselves, and having to say remember me, remember my humanity, remember what it means for me to be saying to you 'do better for the sake of black students'.'

She added: 'My physical health, my mental health got so bad that I became so paranoid my friends had to come and literally rescue me from where I was.

'I couldn't walk down the streets in Cardiff without feeling unsafe, without panicking at who am I going to meet, are they going to be like the students in the play.

'Up until now, I don't think I've been back to the university because it just scares me and that's because the way in which the university dealt with the play and the complaint and our experiences.

Other black students also quit the course after saying they could no longer attend lectures - another attempted suicide.

A Cardiff University tweet condemning racism following the death of George Floyd brought it all flooding back for Ms Chilambo.

But Ms Chilambo was left feeling ostracised by other medical students after protesting, and is now considering taking legal action against the university over their handling of the complaints

She said: 'I remember thinking, wow, how can you make such a bold declaration around the space when students who are there now, and students who have been there in the past have told you for years and years and years that they face racism.'

Since the tweet, Ms Chilambo has raised nearly 6,000 for legal fees in the hop of improving the future for students.

She told BBC Wales: 'I've tried loads of different ways to say that what happened at Cardiff was not OK and they didn't bring the responses that I thought, for me, matched my experiences or acknowledged my experiences.

'The final thing, the last thing I'm doing is exploring, or seeking is legal support, if that could be a different way of acknowledging the experiences that I had at Cardiff medical school.'

An independent report commissioned by Cardiff University revealed complaints of racism, sexism and lack of diversity in their School of Medicine.

Two students quit their courses to move to other universities in the race row.

The report said: 'There were three performances of the revue in February 2016 in which a medical school staff member was portrayed as a stereotypical, hyper-sexualised black man, wearing an oversized dildo.

'Other lecturers too were made fun of. There were racist, sexist and homophobic jokes and stereotype references.

'The script of the show was not seen or approved by anyone in authority at the university, nor by the Student Union.'

Police were called in to investigate but decided that no further action would be taken. Two students involved in the blacking up admitted a lack of sensitivity.

Cardiff University says a 'wide range of support' was offered to students in the aftermath of the play.

A spokesperson said: 'What the university does recognise is that it failed to forsee the depth of reaction and feeling amongst the medical cohort of students and that we were unable to influence or intervene in a manner that was able to prevent the very deep hurt caused by the breakdown in friendships and peer group relationships that we know impacted so heavily on some members of the complainant group.'
Bilateral relations with both India and China are long-standing and significant in different ways to Iran. Under pressure because of economic sanctions imposed by the United States while also being locked in conflicts of varying intensities with its Arab neighbours as well as Israel, Iran has few countries it can bank on for political and economic succour. India and China have filled this role occasionally and the difference really has been in terms of who has been able to do it for longer stretches and to greater effect.

One sign of who was winning this contest came in late June when Iran announced that it was close to entering into a long-term strategic partnership agreement with Beijing involving some $400 billion worth of Chinese investment in the Iranian energy and financial sectors among other things. In exchange, the Chinese would receive Iranian oil at a heavily discounted rate for the next 25 years. The contrast in Indias fortunes with Iran was highlighted in subsequent reports that the Indians had lost an important rail project along the Iran-Afghanistan border over concerns about unmet commitments.

Crucial Centrality

Iran is, however, no passive actor in this contest and is capable of playing the two sides against each other. As a civilisational power that considers itself no less than either India or China, the Iranians possess the self-perception and long tradition of statecraft that make them ambitious and formidable negotiators with an eye on the longer term.

Irans weight is such that New Delhi has over decades regularly defied the Americans and even won an exception from the Donald Trump administration to continue with its engagements in Chabahar. Similarly, Chinas desire to play a greater role in West Asia's politics will require Iranian cooperation if it is to chart a different trajectory from the one the US has taken. But while India is a near neighbour for Iran and cultural and religious ties between the two countries run deep, for the ruling regime in Tehran, the greatest political advantages whether domestically or externally have been afforded by its association with the regime in Beijing.

China has invested considerable effort into building up its salience for Iran as well as in courting the Iranian elite. Besides being a major military supplier, China has also aided the Tehran regimes domestic surveillance efforts. Indias interest in Iran as a crucial cog in regional connectivity projects precedes that of Chinas but the latter has quickly caught up with and overtaken New Delhi in terms of its centrality to the Iranians.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative has been especially important in this regard. Even in Chabahar, often seen wrongly by many Indians as something of an exclusive preserve and a rival to the China-sponsored project in Gwadar less than 200km away in Pakistan, the Chinese have made their presence felt with multiple businesses. In fact, the Indians themselves have had to depend on China in Chabahar with India Ports Global Ltd, the Indian operator in the port, having to hire cranes supplied by a Chinese manufacturer, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co Ltd, to meet its requirements. Interestingly, the Shanghai company is banned from supplying its cranes to ports in India, itself.

Losing Options

All of this said, it is not necessary for New Delhi to look at everything only in terms of what China is doing, even if it is instructive. India possesses advantages in terms of soft power and people-to-people connections in Iran that can do a better job at leveraging at both the elite and popular levels. Beijings aforementioned involvement in the Iranian regimes domestic surveillance has not made China popular on the Iranian street. The latest deal with China, too, has set off widespread opposition within Iran over concerns that the countrys sovereignty was being compromised.

However, Indias current inward-looking and majoritarian domestic political dynamics on the one hand and a rather unalloyed willingness to partner with the Americans on the other risk undercutting whatever advantages it might have had over China, as a result.

(Jabin T. Jacob is Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University, Uttar Pradesh. He tweets @jabinjacobt. Views expressed are personal)
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP)  Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night with a vow to be a unifying "ally of the light" who would move an America in crisis past the chaos of President Donald Trump's tenure.

In his strongest remarks of the campaign, Biden spoke both of returning the United States to its traditional leadership role in the world and of the deeply personal challenges that shaped his life. Virtually every sentence of his 22-minute speech was designed to present a sharp, yet hopeful, contrast with the Republican incumbent.

"Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. l'll be an ally of the light, not the darkness," Biden said. "Make no mistake, united we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America."

For the 77-year-old Biden, the final night of the Democratic National Convention was bittersweet. He accepted a nomination that had eluded him for over three decades because of personal tragedy, political stumbles and rivals who proved more dynamic.

But the coronavirus denied him the typical celebration, complete with the customary balloon drop that both parties often use to fete their new nominees. Instead, Biden spoke to a largely empty arena near his Delaware home.

Afterward, fireworks lit the sky outside the arena where supporters waited in a parking lot, honking horns and flashing headlights in a moment that finally lent a jovial feel to the event.

The keynote address was the speech of a lifetime for Biden, who would be the oldest president ever elected if he defeats Trump in November. Trump, who is 74, publicly doubts Biden's mental capacity and calls him "Slow Joe," but with the nation watching, he was firm and clear.

Still, the convention leaned on a younger generation earlier in the night to help energize his sprawling coalition.

Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq and is raising two young children, said Biden has "common decency."

Cory Booker, only the ninth African American senator in U.S. history, said Biden believes in the dignity of all working Americans.

And Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and a gay military veteran, noted that Biden came out in favor of same-sex marriage as vice president even before President Barack Obama.

"Joe Biden is right, this is a contest for the soul of the nation. And to me that contest is not between good Americans and evil Americans," Buttigieg said. "It's the struggle to call out what is good for every American."

Above all, Biden focused on uniting the nation as Americans grapple with the long and fearful health crisis, the related economic devastation, a national awakening on racial justice  and Trump, who stirs heated emotions from all sides.

Bidens positive focus Thursday night marked a break from the dire warnings offered by former President Obama and others the night before. The 44th president of the United States warned that American democracy itself could falter if Trump is reelected, while Bidens running mate, Kamala Harris, the 55-year-old California senator and daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, warned that Americans lives and livelihoods were at risk.

Bidens Democratic Party has sought this week to put forward a cohesive vision of values and policy priorities, highlighting efforts to combat climate change, tighten gun laws and embrace a humane immigration policy. They have drawn a sharp contrast with Trumps policies and personality, portraying him as cruel, self-centered and woefully unprepared to manage virtually any of the nations mounting crises and policy challenges.

Voting was another prime focus of the convention on Thursday as it has been all week. Democrats fear that the pandemic -- and Trump administration changes at the Postal Service -- may make it difficult for voters to cast ballots in person or by mail.

Comedian Sarah Cooper, a favorite of many Democrats for her videos lip syncing Trump's speeches, put it bluntly: "Donald Trump doesn't want any of us to vote because he knows he can't win fair and square."

Biden's call for unity comes as some strategists worry that Democrats cannot retake the White House simply by tearing Trump down, that Biden needs to give his sprawling coalition something to vote for. That's easier said than done in a modern Democratic Party made up of disparate factions that span generation, race and ideology.

Though he has been in the public spotlight for decades as a Delaware senator, much of the electorate knows little about Biden's background before he began serving as Obama's vice president in 2008.

Thursday's convention served as a national reintroduction of sorts that drew on some of the most painful moments of his life.

"I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes," Biden said. He added: "I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose."

As a schoolboy, Biden was mocked by classmates and a nun for a severe stutter. He became a widower at just 30 after losing his wife and infant daughter to a car accident. And just five years ago, he buried his eldest son who was stricken by cancer.

From such hardship, Biden developed a deep sense of empathy that has defined much of his political career. And throughout the convention, Biden's allies testified that such empathy, backed by decades of governing experience, makes him the perfect candidate to guide the nation back from mounting health and economic crises.

His allies Thursday included Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy from Concord, New Hampshire. The boy said he and Biden were "members of the same club," each with a stutter they're working to overcome.

He noted that Biden told him about a book of poems he liked to read aloud to practice his speech and showed the boy how he marks his speeches so they're easier to read aloud.

"I'm just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me more confident about a thing that's bothered me my whole life," Harrington said.

The end of the carefully scripted convention now gives way to a far less-predictable period for Biden and his Democratic Party as the 2020 election season speeds to its uncertain conclusion. While Election Day isn't until Nov. 3, early voting gets underway in several battleground states in just one month.

Biden has maintained a polling advantage over Trump for much of the year, but it remains to be seen whether the Democratic nominee's approach to politics and policy will genuinely excite the coalition he's courting in an era of uncompromising partisanship.

Trump's Republican Party is expected to deliver a message next week squarely focused on the president's most loyal supporters..

Biden summed up his view of the campaign: We choose a path of becoming angry, less hopeful and more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal.

By Steve Peoples and Alexandra Jaffe
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Forty cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed in Laredo during Friday's coronavirus media briefing, the smallest number of positives seen in a single day since July. Officials also confirmed three additional deaths due to the virus.

A woman in her late 60s died on Thursday and two males, one in his early 30s and another in his mid 50s, died on Friday.

With the added cases, Laredo has a total of 10,087 recognized cases of the novel coronavirus. A total of 218 deaths have been recorded.

During quality assurance checks conducted by the City of Laredo health department, a discrepancy was noted on today's active case count. As a result, the number of active cases (1,013), as well as recoveries (9,010), was delayed.

In Laredo, all persons considered recovered from previous infections has to pass a mandatory 14-day quarantine period, as opposed to the 10-day quarantine currently recommended by the CDC.

As of noon Friday, 29,271 tests for COVID-19 have been submitted in Laredo. 190 tests are still pending results.

154 people remain hospitalized with the virus, a slight increase of yesterday's number. However, the number still trends down from the hospitalization numbers seen recently at Laredo hospitals. 63 people remain under intensive care.

Earlier this week, officials reported seeing a "glimmer of hope" in regards to the spread of the coronavirus, and especially with the number of hospital beds now available for COVID patients at local hospitals.

Health Authority Dr. Victor Trevino said he was "cautiously optimistic" in regards to the hospital capacity, but stressed the battle against the virus is not over.
By ANI

WASHINGTON D.C.: Online retail giant Amazon has removed shirts from its platform that featured derogatory references to Kamala Harris, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee.

"All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action including potential removal of their account. We are working to remove these products," an Amazon spokesperson told reporters, according to The Hill.

As per the report, Harris has incurred some personal attacks ever since Joe Biden selected her as his running mate.

Biden has officially accepted the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

ALSO READ: Joe Biden praises Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris in his nomination acceptance speech

"It is with great honour and humility that I accept this nomination for President of the United States of America," Biden was quoted as saying by CNN.

On Thursday (local time), the former Vice President was introduced by a video at the Democratic National Convention that went through his life and career and highlighted his role as a father, husband, and political leader.

Biden hit out at US President Donald Trump saying that "the current president's cloaked American darkness for much too long."

Biden thanked former President Barack Obama for being a "great President" during his tenure.

"You were a great President. A president our children could and did look up to. No one's going to say that about the current occupant of the White House," Biden said, reported CNN.

Last week, Biden picked Harris as his running mate, with the latter being the first African-American and Indian-American woman to be nominated on a major party ticket.

The presidential election in the US is scheduled to be held on November 3.
The Equality State We started in 1953 with a $35.00 check sent to the US Treasury Department on behalf of the Wyoming Highway Department. Now, with this growth opportunity, we can use our expertise to connect everyone in Wyoming with exceptional, trusted service.

As a financial institution with nearly 70 years of experience serving Select Groups, WyHy Federal Credit Union is proud to announce that it is expanding its services and membership eligibility to all residents of Wyoming. With eligibility no longer bound by employment or membership in limited entities, this nonprofit financial organization now has even greater power to assist, educate, and uplift communities across the state.

WyHys expansion is not just an exciting development for its members and staffits also a symbol of victory. After two years of litigation attempts by the American Bankers Association (ABA) to limit where WyHy can serve, this Wyoming-grown organization won the right to accept membership from anyone who lives, learns, works, or worships within the state. This is a triumph for WyHy and for anyone seeking more not-for-profit banking options in The Equality State.

Our institution has worked with, served, and uplifted our surrounding community for over 60 years, said Bill Willingham, President /CEO of WyHy. We started in 1953 with a $35.00 check sent to the US Treasury Department on behalf of the Wyoming Highway Department. Now, with this growth opportunity, we can use our expertise to connect everyone in Wyoming with exceptional, trusted service. We cannot wait to show our neighbors all over the state that we are with them, regardless of county lines.

Unlike other financial institutions, credit unions like WyHy return their extra revenue to members by offering lower rates on loans, higher rates on deposits, and fewer all-around fees. WyHys Wyoming-minded financial philosophy also shines through the organizations status as a Co-Op credit union. This shared branching system means that members dont need to be close to WyHys physical locations. At a shared branch, members can walk in and enjoy banking services at 5,600 other credit unions as if they were stopping by a WyHy branch. Members also have access to 30,000 surcharge-free ATMs nationwide.

For more information on WyHy, please visit wyhy.org.

For over 60 years, WyHy Federal Credit Union has served its members with a singular promise: to provide individualized, trusted guidance in wealth management. Today, it is the fourth largest credit union in the state of Wyoming and is the 957th largest credit union in the nation. Additionally, it is proud to rank among the Top 200 Healthiest Credit Unions in the US according to independent financial analysts at DepositAccounts. WyHy, headquartered in Cheyenne, is proud to assist each of its 15,000 members on their unique paths to financial health. WyHys reputation as a stalwart, Wyoming-minded institution comes from a dedication to member satisfaction and economic responsibility.
My mother came down with polio before Jonas Salks vaccine was introduced in 1954. My Guatemalan friend, Alba Hernandez, developed the paralyzing disease 23 years after the vaccine arrived in her country. At age 5, she developed a high fever and could not move her legs. Later, her mother sent her to an orphanage where the nuns told her the illness could have been prevented with shots.
The release of the Russia report in the UK last month has raised more questions than it answered.

But the most troubling question it raises is about what role, if any, the Kremlin played in the drive to the Brexit vote.

This week in Washington, a bipartisan US Senate intelligence panel released a report that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered interference in the US 2016 election.

The British report released last month, the publication of which was delayed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson until after the December 2019 general election, didnt examine the same question about the Kremlin and Brexit.
Now that we no longer can call Richmond the City of Monuments or the Capital of the Confederacy, I would like to propose a new slogan  Richmond: At Least Were Not Portland.

When various governments around the country enacted halts to evictions, did they ever invite the landlords into the room when those discussions were held?

The federal government has a knack for not taking advantage of situations that arise. The cost to make a penny now is 2.41 cents, and the cost to make a nickel now is 11.18 cents. We have been paying more for these coins than they are worth since 2006. There currently is a coin shortage, and merchants are rounding prices to avoid nickels and pennies. Now is the perfect time to eliminate both of them and save the taxpayers millions of dollars every year.
A megadrought that crippled Southeast Asia for 1,000 years was triggered by the Sahara going from lush grassland to a barren desert 4,000 years ago, a study found.

The end of the 'Green Sahara'  also known as the 'African humid period'  was brought about as changing world weather patterns caused the region to dry up.

The emergence of the desert we are familiar with today has long been studied by archaeologists for its impact on human civilisations of the time.

For example, it led to the end of Mesopotamia's Akkadian Empire, the de-urbanisation of the Indus Civilisation and the emergence of pastoralism by the Nile.

However, experts from the US found evidence in caves in Laos that it was also behind the 'missing millennia' in inner Southeast Asia's archaeological record.

The megadrought it caused would have led to mass population movements and the adoption of new, more resilient subsistence strategies.

It may even have led to the inception of Neolithic farming in mainland Southeast Asia, the researchers have concluded.

A megadrought that crippled Southeast Asia for 1,000 years was triggered by the of Sahara going from lush grassland to a barren desert 4,000 years ago, a study found. Pictured, the Sahara desert today, with sand dunes seen in the background

Experts from the US found evidence in caves in Laos that the desertification of the Sahara was also behind the 'missing millennia' in inner Southeast Asia's archaeological record. The megadrought it caused would have led to mass population movements and the adoption of new, more resilient subsistence strategies

'We provide the first proof for a strong link between the end of the Green Sahara and Southeast Asian monsoon failure during the mid- to late Holocene period,' said earth scientist Kathleen Johnson of the University of California, Irvine.

'Our high-resolution and well-dated record suggests a strong connection between Northern Africa and mainland Southeast Asia during this time.'

In their study, Professor Johnson and colleagues reconstructed the climate of the past by analysing samples of stalagmites taken from caves in Northern Laos for the diagnostic oxygen and carbon isotope levels and trace metals.

They combined this data with climate simulations which allowed them to explore the long-range impact of the drying in Africa  including on atmosphereocean feedbacks  based on varying levels of Saharan vegetation and dust concentrations.

The researchers found that the reduction in plant growth in the Sahara region 4,000 years ago led to an increase in airborne dust.

This cooled the Indian Ocean, shifting eastward the so-called Walker circulation pattern which today crosses the equatorial Pacific causing it to behave in a manner similar to modern-day El Nino events.

This shift led to a sizeable reduction in monsoon-related moisture across Southeast Asia that lasted for at least 1,000 years, Professor Johnson said.

'Archaeologists and anthropologists have been studying this event for decades now, in terms of societal adaptations and upheavals,' said paper author and environmental scientist Michael Griffiths of the William Paterson University, NJ.

However, he added, 'its exact cause has eluded the scientific community.'

'Results from this work provide a novel and convincing explanation for the origin of the Southeast Asia megadrought and could help us better understand [...] the observed societal shifts across many parts of the tropics and extra-tropics.'

The end of the 'Green Sahara'  also known as the 'African humid period', which would have resembled the savannah of today's Tanzania, pictured  was brought about as changing world weather patterns caused the region to dry up

'This is outstanding evidence for the type of climate change that must have affected society, what plants were available, what animals were available,' said paper author and anthropologist Joyce White of the University of Pennsylvania.

'All of life had to adjust to this very different climate. From an archaeological point of view, this really is a game changer in how we try to understand or reconstruct the middle Holocene period.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications.
(PHOTO: The Front Row)

SINGAPORE  With Coronavirus still in full swing, much of the fashion world is desperately searching for new ways to reach out to their customers, both to keep their attention, but importantly to also save their businesses.

In Singapore, we have been relatively lucky; now that CB is over, we can once again move around the city shopping to our hearts content. But our borders are still closed, and that means that local fashion brands business has slowed.

So, what to do? As the rest of the fashion world pivots to online sales and fashion films instead of runway shows, so too the Singapore fashion industry - by taking advantage of our countrys tip-top technology to create Singapores first virtual fashion festival, The Front Row.

I had been thinking about doing something like The Front Row, a virtual fashion show, for a while, explains co-founder Daniel Boey, known as Singapores Godfather of fashion.

I had the ideas, but I needed help with developing the technology, so I put the word out that I was interested in working with someone. Luckily, I was introduced to Nick Tan at Anonymous Production Media, which is known for its work on virtual reality technology.

Anonymous Production Media then introduced the concept of a virtual Singapore fashion event to Enterprise Singapore (ESG), and the launch of the 360-degree 3D platform concept happened quickly after, with ESG excited to get the idea up and running.

Our proposal was fast-tracked, and we began putting everything together from mid-June - in the middle of lockdown! It meant we only have about one and a half months from concept to launch, says Boey.

Boey reached out to his connections in the Singapore fashion industry, including long-time collaborator Jansen Siak from Word of Mouth Communications, and started getting Singapore fashion brands on board.

Sustainable and inclusive

Story continues

Right from the start Boey and the team wanted The Front Row (TFR) to be about more than just selling clothes and accessories. I wanted to create something new, something that heralds the future of the fashion industry, says Boey.

To that end, TFR features sustainable and ethically focused brands, inclusive model hiring, and will feature emerging young designers from the recent NAFA graduating class.

Boey says that while many fashion brands are now claiming to be sustainable, much of their claims are unproven and involve a fair bit of greenwashing. While he says the brands featured in TFR do have some sustainable or ethical components, they are also all actively working on improving by using deadstock fabrics, reducing waste, and supporting at-risk communities in various ways.

Since TRF is a virtual event, this will reduce waste too. In fashion show production there is a lot of waste, explains Boey, however, there have been several production companies working on being more sustainable in their practices, and this is what I am now doing in my company too.

Support Local, support Asian, support young talent

The 21 fashion and accessories brands featured on The Front Row, range from womenswear and menswear to swimwear and jewellery. The majority of these brands would be considered small, independent businesses, without a great deal of cash available to help them establish a more significant online footprint or shopfront. That is why people will be able to buy these brands on TFR, which will become an online store and archive once the ten-day launch event is over.

This is all about creating a platform for independent, small brands, explains Boey. Its support and a celebration of our fashion businesses of the future. [They will be] online, digitally savvy, eco-friendly, and sustainable.

Boeys regional contacts from the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand also reached out to him about being involved in TFR, saying they also felt the need to do something new and innovative to help support the regional fashion industries.

It was a nice show of solidarity, says Boey. The organisers of TFR are already talking about the future of the concept, suggesting that various countries could hold their versions, like The Front Row Malaysia for example.

Im thrilled to be working with like-minded people on TFR from Singapore and around the region. Its all about how we can all discover new ways of doing business, says Boey.

While the majority of the fashion brands featured on TFR are established businesses, the team is also interested in supporting the new crop of graduate designers. A total of 22 fashion graduates from NAFA will have a chance to show their work on TFR; the fashion exhibition Splat, Splash, Squish, Swish Illustrated by Rui Liang and Gary Goh, will be the first online interactive project between a photographer and an illustrator.

Gin Lee Studio. (PHOTO: The Front Row)

Dont miss The Front Row!

This year is Boeys 30th anniversary in the Singapore fashion industry, and he also wanted to do something that gave back to the creative world that had given him so much success over the years.

I had the simple wish to do something for the Singapore fashion industry, I wanted to do something for the designers, but we also needed something to pull everyone together because of the recent Coronavirus situation. I also wanted to help the brands with online sales too, to help support their businesses during this time, explains Boey.

The Front Row runs from August 20-29 on www.thefrontrow.style. There will be 21 Singapore brands featured on TFR, including Gin Lee, Maisha Concept, Reckless Ericka, Max Tan, Elohim by Sabrina Goh, HHER, OliveAnkara, Shirt Number White, Tria, Graye, Holtan Vibes, IKV studio and Irene Kusuma Couture, ITT Swim, Q Menswear, Binary Style, Layla Luna, Lully Selb, Marilyn Tan Jewellery, State Property and theKANG.

Follow The Front Row on Instagram at @thefrontrow.style and hashtag #TheFrontRowSG
RADNOR, Pa., Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) ("Safeguard" or the "Company") announced that it will host a virtual discussion with John Nardone, CEO of Flashtalking at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, September 16, 2020.

This virtual discussion is the second in Safeguard's recently launched program to provide shareholders with additional information about Safeguard's ownership interests and exposure to the CEOs of Safeguard's companies.

Flashtalking is the leading global independent ad management platform for advertisers. Its platform enables brands to create, activate and independently measure data driven digital advertising at scale, and to optimize advertising campaign effectiveness by driving personalized message relevance. Flashtalking is the leading alternative to Google for advertisers who value ownership and control of their media data. Since Flashtalking is not conflicted by having any roll in media buying, it is certified with all major demand side platforms and publishers and has extensive partner integrations across the digital media ecosystem.

Safeguard holds a 13.4% ownership interest in Flashtalking.

Mr. Nardone joined Flashtalking as its CEO in April 2015 and has spent over 30 years in the advertising sector. Prior to joining Flashtalking, Mr. Nardone's roles included: brand manager at Procter & Gamble and Pepsi; President, International at Modem Media, Co-President of Marketing Management Analytics; and CEO of [X+1], which he sold to Rocketfuel in 2014 for $230M. In 1994 while at Modem Media, Nardone placed the first paid ads on the Internet. In 1995, John was a founding board member of the industry trade association, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).

To attend the virtual discussion, please register at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OpNWBNANSVWQZgOU1JaBVg

Participants are encouraged to dial-in 15 minutes prior to the start of the event. The virtual discussion will also be accessible for replay later at the Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. Investor Relations website.

About Safeguard Scientifics

Historically, Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE) has provided capital and relevant expertise to fuel the growth of technology-driven businesses. Safeguard has a distinguished track record of fostering innovation and building market leaders that spans more than six decades. Currently, Safeguard is pursuing a focused strategy to value-maximize and monetize its ownership interests over a multiyear time frame to drive shareholder value. For more information, please visit www.safeguard.com .

About Flashtalking

Flashtalking is a data-driven ad management and analytics technology company. The company helps sophisticated marketers use data to personalize advertising, analyze its effectiveness and optimize performance across channels and formats. Flashtalking's platform leads the market with innovative products and services to ensure creative relevance and unbiased, actionable insights, powered by proprietary cookieless tracking, data unification and algorithmic attribution. Born in the UK, established worldwide, Flashtalking spans the globe with offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Leeds, Cologne, Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Barcelona, Brasilia, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. For more information, please visit www.flashtalking.com.

Forward-looking Statements

Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Safeguard's ability to maximize the value of monetization opportunities of its ownership interests and drive total shareholder returns. Safeguard's initiatives taken or contemplated to enhance and unlock value for all of its shareholders, Safeguard's efforts to execute on and implement its strategy to streamline its organizational structure, reduce its operating costs, pursue monetization opportunities for ownership interests and maximize the return of value to its shareholders, Safeguard's ability to create, unlock, enhance and maximize shareholder value, the effect of Safeguard's management succession plan on driving increased organizational effectiveness and efficiencies, the ability of the management team to execute Safeguard's strategy, the availability of, the timing of, and the proceeds that may ultimately be derived from the monetization of ownership interests, Safeguard's projections regarding the reduction in its ongoing operating expenses, Safeguard's projections regarding annualized operating expenses and expected severance expenses, monetization opportunities for ownership interests, and the amount of net proceeds from the monetization of ownership interests that will enable the return of value to Safeguard shareholders after satisfying working capital needs and the timing of such return of value. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future operational or financial performance and are based on current expectations that involve a number of uncertainties, risks and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and/or results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, our ability to make good decisions about the monetization of our ownership interests for maximum value or at all and the return of value to our shareholders, our ability to successfully execute on our strategy to streamline our organizational structure and align our cost structure to increase shareholder value, whether our strategy will better position us to focus our resources on the highest-return opportunities and deliver enhanced shareholder value, the ongoing support of our existing ownership interests, the fact that our companies may vary from period to period, challenges to achieving liquidity from our ownership interests, fluctuations in the market prices of our publicly traded holdings, if any, competition, our inability to obtain maximum value for our ownership interests, our ability to attract and retain qualified employees, market valuations in sectors in which our ownership interests operate, our inability to control our ownership interests, our need to manage our assets to avoid registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940, risks, disruption, costs and uncertainty caused by or related to the actions of activist shareholders, including that if individuals are elected to our Board with a specific agenda, it may adversely affect our ability to effectively implement our business strategy and create value for our shareholders and perceived uncertainties as to our future direction as a result of potential changes to the composition of our Board may lead to the perception of a change in the direction of our business, instability or a lack of continuity that may adversely affect our business, and risks associated with our ownership interests, including the fact that most of our ownership interests have a limited operating history and a history of operating losses, face intense competition and may never be profitable, the effect of economic conditions in the business sectors in which Safeguard's companies operate, and other uncertainties described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of these factors are beyond the Company's ability to predict or control. As a result of these and other factors, the Company's past operational and financial performance should not be relied on as an indication of future performance. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements or other information contained in this press release.

SAFEGUARD CONTACT:

Mark Herndon

Chief Financial Officer

(610) 975-4913

[email protected]

SOURCE Safeguard Scientifics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.safeguard.com


They were pin-up girls on the soaps, often being nominated for the 'sexiest female' category at the British Soap Awards.

And Jorgie Porter and Faye Brookes turned heads as they arrived at Peru restaurant in Manchester for a glitzy dinner party with Clogau on Thursday night.

The former Hollyoaks actress, 32, showed off her tanned legs in grey high-waisted plaid shorts which she teamed with nude heels.

Leggy: Jorgie Porter turned heads as she arrived at Peru restaurant in Manchester for a glitzy dinner party with Clogau on Thursday night

Jorgie flaunted her cleavage in a plunging black vest top, which she wore underneath a smart blazer with silk lapels.

The soap star wore her peroxide blonde locks in a ponytail and accessorised her outfit with a cross-body bag.

Faye, 32, meanwhile, cut a chic figure in a white broderie anglaise summer dress which sheathed over her slender physique.

Stylish: Faye, 32, meanwhile, cut a chic figure in a white broderie anglaise summer dress which sheathed over her slender physique

The girls appeared in high spirits as they posed for a photo together before joining Real Housewives of Cheshire star Nicole Sealey.

Jorgie's night out comes after her decision to try and spice up her love life with a spot of virtual dating during lockdown.

In April, the former soap star admitted she had to resort to FaceTime to try and get to know possible suitors after struggling to meet someone due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Stutting her stuff: The former Hollyoaks actress, 32, showed off her tanned legs in grey high-waisted plaid shorts which she teamed with nude heels

Strike a pose: The girls appeared in high spirits as they posed for a photo together

She revealed she gets a lot of attention on dating apps, but wanted to try her hand at video dating while she has additional time on her hands.

Jorgie told New! magazine: 'I've had a FaceTime date. It's quite scary because you think we're just gonna sit face to face and say, "Hello, how are you?"

'It's kind of awkward, so it's good to do a creative activity like paint a picture together, which is what we did. It's cool because you see how much effort they've put in.

'So if they get their paints and canvas ready, you're like, "Ah, he wants to impress me".'
A majority of consumers say pandemic restrictions are putting them off shopping in physical stores.

The survey findings have raised fears that weak demand will dampen hopes of swift economic recovery.

Restrictions such as social distancing, queues, and capacity limits are proving to be a turn-off for shoppers.

More than seven out of 10 consumers say that Covid-19 restrictions in physical stores have negatively impacted their decision to shop in them, according to a new research report published by IE Domain Registry.

This implies that the worst fears expressed by some economists since the start of the pandemic about weak demand may be borne out.

The 'Tipping Point' report published by IE Domain Registry in partnership with Digital Business Ireland found that the pandemic is changing consumer behaviour.

However, it also found that if Covid-19 was brought under control and if social distancing was no longer required, almost half of consumers would continue to do the bulk of their shopping in physical stores.

Only 11pc would do most of their shopping online, while the remaining 41pc would opt for a combination of both.

The survey shows that the changed consumer behaviour means that a blended shopping approach is now preferred by consumers.

Some four out of 10 would do a combination of both, shopping in-store for necessities but online for other products, if the restrictions were lifted.

Consumers who said they would mostly shop online believe it to be safer and time-saving.

Among the group that would prefer to shop mostly in-store, 62pc say that physical shops are more convenient.

Half of the consumers surveyed say they simply want to go outside and be social, indicating the growing psychological toll of Covid-19 restrictions.

According to the report, 95pc of Irish consumers shop online at least some of the time.

Some 75pc say they have either spent more online during the Covid-19 crisis or the same as before it.

Historically, the bulk of Ireland's e-commerce spend has gone abroad to foreign companies like Amazon.com.

However, since the Covid-19 crisis, Irish consumers estimate that they have done most of their online shopping with Irish small and medium businesses rather then international retailers.

The report said that was the reverse of pre-crisis spending patterns and that

Over two thirds (67pc) of consumers said that they now shop online with Irish small and medium-sized businesses out of a sense of solidarity.
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I certainly hope Im wrong. I certainly hope it doesnt come to this. And yet I am concerned. Will Christian conservatives in America take their foot off the gas if Trump is reelected? Will we somehow put our trust in the government to save our nation from moral and cultural decline? Will we rely on the White House to fight our battles for life and liberty? Or will it take an overtly hostile president to awaken us from our all-too-common complacency and compromise?

For decades it has been clear that serious change needed to come to the Church of America. For decades it has been clear that we needed a revolution in the Church  by which I mean dramatic reformation and renewal  before we could see the tide turn in our land.

Yet it seems that it has taken the COVID-19 crisis to shake us into action. Finally, on a large, national scale, we are rethinking how to do church and how to be the church. We are looking outside the four walls of our congregational buildings. We are moving beyond spectator Christianity. We are taking public stands against unfair government practices. We are waking up.

In addition, the radical nature of the protest movement (in contrast with legitimate issues concerning reconciliation and justice) is waking us up.

Im talking about the radical agendas of the BLM movement and Antifa and the growing army of cultural anarchists and political socialists.

These extreme and destructive groups have also helped to awaken slumbering believers, enabling us to see with our physical eyes the very real spiritual war we are fighting. And all this underscores the importance of the November elections.

But if Trump is re-elected, will we be lulled into a false sense of security? Will we somehow think that, because he is such a fighter, he will fight our battles for us?

Although Joe Biden is the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, should he win, vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris could very likely become president within the next four years. The consequences would be daunting.

As a Christian friend (and native Californian) recently expressed to me via email, She terrifies me. At least Biden has a purported Catholic faith and takes a pragmatic view re: his political stance on abortion... whereas Harris is vehemently anti-life in every conceivable way.

As for Biden, he already shifted dramatically left during the campaign, abandoning his historic support for the Hyde Amendment, to cite one important example. And it was Biden, as vice president, who spoke out publicly in favor of same-sex marriage before President Obama made his real views known. And it was Biden who earlier this year tweeted, Lets be clear: Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time.

So, a President Biden would be dangerous enough when it came to the culture wars. But a President Harris would be more dangerous still.

Just ask David Daleiden, the courageous activist who exposed Planned Parenthoods trafficking in aborted baby parts. I have been on the receiving end of her abuse of power, he said.

As Fox reported, Under Harris, California authorities raided Daleiden's home for evidence  prompting questions about her relationship with Planned Parenthood, which has donated to her and many other Democrats. In May, Daleiden filed a lawsuit alleging that Harris conspired to violate his civil rights through a bogus prosecution.

With regard to her voting record as a senator, the Washington Times noted that, Ms. Harris, who has a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, appears to support no restrictions on abortion, calling it a fundamental issue of justice. She voted last year with Senate Democrats to block a GOP bill requiring doctors to treat infants born alive after botched abortions.

And who can forget how Harris led the vicious assault on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh? In the words of Townhall editor Guy Benson, Her performance during the Kavanaugh circus stood out as particularly demagogic, cynical & abysmal.

Yet Harris, despite her poor performance in the Democratic primaries, could soon be President of the United States. Is this what it will take to wake up the Church?

In my new book Evangelicals at the Crossroads: Will We Pass the Trump Test?, I picture two evangelicals debating about Trump, one an ardent supporter and the other an ardent opponent.

The opponent concludes his remarks by saying, I would rather stand on principle than compromise my convictions for the sake of political expediency. And in the end, what have we gained if the laws are changed and the courts are changed but hearts are hardened to the gospel? Maybe we would do better if a radical liberal was elected. Maybe then we would wake up as a church and stop putting our trust in the government and the White House.

To this the supporter replies, Oh, thats a great idea, kind of like not treating cancer so we can see God perform a miracle. Not on my watch!

The national stakes really are that high.

In recent days, speaking face-to-face at some Christian gatherings, I said this (as a Trump voter myself): Four more years of Donald Trump will not save America. At best, he is like a human wedge, lodged in the door to stop it from slamming. But if the Church does not wake up and do its job, the nation will go over the edge.

I was pleased to see numerous believers, many of them Trump voters themselves, stand to their feet and applaud. They get it too.

So, what will it be? Will we retain our spiritual urgency no matter who wins in November? Will we give ourselves to prayer, fasting, the Great Commission, and acts of mercy and righteousness? Will we stay involved (or, finally, get involved) in the culture? Or will we vote for Trump and take our foot off the gas?

What will it be?
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 21)  The hospitality sector was among the hardest hit by lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but some quick movers were able to find new revenue streams to stay afloat.

Megaworld Hotels Group general manager Cleofe Albiso said their chains were able to remain in business despite the public health crisis as they embraced new business models, helping them endure the slump in travel, tourism, and MICE or Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibition bookings for nearly half a year now.

"The journey of the Megaworld Hotels group during this pandemic has actually been a very unique one," Albiso told CNN Philippines' Rico Hizon. While some hotels opted to shut down as a precautionary measure and to preserve cash, she said the group heeded the call of the Department of Tourism to accommodate repatriated overseas Filipino workers as well as seafarers who need to undergo quarantine upon arrival.

Among the properties part of billionaire Andrew Tan's conglomerate are Richmonde Hotel Ortigas, Eastwood Richmonde Hotel, Richmonde Hotel Iloilo, Savoy Hotel Manila, Savoy Hotel Mactan, Savoy Hotel Boracay, Belmont Hotel Manila, Belmont Hotel Boracay, Twin Lakes Hotel, Hotel Lucky Chinatown.

"We also hosted employees of BPOs (business process outsourcing firms) who needed housing because of the restrictions on travel as well. This kept us going," Albiso said, referring to call center workers whose employers opted to provide sleeping quarters to minimize their exposure.

Another nifty solution was to take the business online. Corporate events and meetings had long been sources of profits. The hotel group did not let work-from-home arrangements take that business away.

"We saw the need to develop a virtual events management platform, where the supposed events that we do in the hotels are now being done online," she said.

"It doesn't stop with technical support that people do in doing a webinar and online meetings, it also ends in being able to provide food that is uniform and standard and we make deliveries," Albiso added. E-concierge arrangements have also been put up to lessen interaction.

Hotels are only allowed to resume tourism-related activities in areas under modified general community quarantine, so the wait is longer especially for branches in Metro Manila.
Shiori Ito, a journalist and symbol of Japan's #MeToo movement, sued ruling party member Mio Sugita for damages on Thursday for allegedly clicking the "like" icon on several tweets she says defamed her.

In a suit filed with the Tokyo District Court, Ito is seeking 2.2 million yen ($21,000) in damages from Sugita for liking tweets by other people. The lawmaker, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, allegedly criticized Ito on Twitter and on a BBC program between June and July 2018, according to the complaint.

In a country where few sexual assault victims come forward, Ito, 31, has become a symbol of Japan's movement against sexual abuse after going public with a rape accusation against Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc.

The district court last December ordered Yamaguchi, a biographer of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to pay 3.3 million yen in damages to Ito, recognizing he "had sexual intercourse without the consent of Ito, who was in a state of intoxication and unconscious."

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Ito's lawyer said that liking the tweets is the equivalent of "group bullying," adding Sugita must be responsible for her remarks even if it is in cyberspace.
Haridwar: Seeking justice in the into the Palghar mob lynching incident, Swami Avdheshanand Giri of Juna Akhada on Thursday (August 20) demanded CBI investigation in the matter. The Juna Akhada's demand comes a day after the Supreme Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate actor Sushant Singh Rajput`s death case.

Speaking to media Avdheshanand said, "There has been no action over killing of 'sadhus' in Palghar. Mob killed the innocent sadhus with barbarity in front of the police. There is anger as justice has not been served. Like the Sushant Singh Rajput case, CBI must probe it. This is what religious groups and devotees want. The probe should be handed over to CBI.''

"Many religious organisations have demanded CBI investigation into the case. Saint communities across the world demanding justice for departed souls," he added.

Taking to microblogging site Twitter Avdheshanand Giri wrote in hindi, "The call of millions of saints and the religious people of the country is that the CBI should impartially investigate the killing of saints in Palghar. The country wants justice."

Swami Avdheshanand also received the support of Yoga guru Ramdev on demanding CBI investigation in the Plaghar mob lynching incident.

On August 6, a Supreme Court (SC) bench ordered the Maharashtra government to produce the charge sheets filed in the FIRs related to the Palghar mob lynching case. The order was passed by a SC bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and R Subhash Reddy while hearing a plea filed by an advocate demanding a CBI probe into the incident.

On June 11, the SC had issued a notice to Maharashtra government seeking response on a petition demanding a CBI probe into the lynching of two sadhus by a mob in Palghar.

The public interest litigations (PILs) in the matter are seeking a CBI or a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe in the incident that took place in Palghar district.

On the night of April 16, the two sadhus and their driver were travelling from Kandivali in Mumbai to attend a funeral in Gujarat`s Surat amid the nationwide lockdown when their vehicle was stopped and they were attacked and killed by a mob in Gadchinchile village in the presence of police officers.

The mob lynching of three men, including two saints Kalpavriksha Giri Maharaj, Sushil Giri Maharaj, took place in Palghar on April 16 upon rumours that they were kidnapping children to harvest organs, including kidneys.

The two saints and their driver Nilesh Yalgade were going to Surat in a Maruti Eeco van to attend the funeral of a saint from their Kandivali ashram in Mumbai when they were attacked by the mob.
Judith Schalansky, trans. from the German by Jackie Smith. New Directions, $23.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8112-2963-0

Schalanskys inspired latest (after Atlas of Remote Islands) melds history, memoir, and fiction into something new and extraordinary: a museum of the extinct, the missing, and the forgotten. Chronicled in 12 short pieces, each based on a lost objectamong them an early-20th-century film, fragments of Sapphos poetry, destroyed Italian villas, demolished East German government buildingsthe narratives are distinct, memorable, and, at their best, spellbinding. Some are highly researched, meticulously reconstructing historical places such as the the Villa Sacchetti at Castelfusano in Rome and figures such as 18th-century British explorer James Cook, who, in search of a then-mythical southern continent, had ploughed the southern seas in huge, sweeping zigzags and discovered nothing but mountains of ice. Other tales take on the flavor of impressionistic, contemporary memoirs, rooted in the narrative of a Schalansky-like writer-researcher as she explores the topic at hand. Still others have the feel of speculative fiction, so detailed in their histories that they feel like memories. In one, wild animals are brought to fight one another before the massive audiences of Rome; another follows the moments, both dramatic and mundane, of a day in the life of an East German couple. With this collection of illuminating meditations on fact and fiction, Schalansky cements her reputation as a peerless chronicler of the fabulous, the faraway, and the forgotten. (Aug.)
Streets in towns such as Ennis in Co Clare and Malahide in Dublin stopped vehicles passing through the town centre to allow for social distancing.

In Princes Street in Cork, cafes and restaurants were given permission to set up outdoor dining areas to increase the number of customers they could serve while adhering to public health guidelines.

The trial extension of pedestrian measures in Dublin City Centre recently has also been a success, with a survey from Dublin City Council finding there was up to 100 per cent increases in business in the affected areas.

As many town centres have noted decreased footfall in recent years, the move to adopt pedestrianisation has been welcomed by business owners, with more towns calling for the same measures to be taken.

Oh hello pedestrianised Ennis. Love that for you! pic.twitter.com/NhgvFCAf6J Advertisement  Paula Healy (@thecountessp) August 17, 2020

In Mayo, Councillor Mark Duffy has been calling for the pedestrianisation of Pearse Street, saying the decision could make the town safer and more accessible.

Partner Director, Cormac OSullivan at DNG OSullivan Hurley in Ennis says while the pedestrianisation of the towns main streets is being enjoyed, it will take some time to see if the measures are beneficial to businesses.

It will be a twelve-month process for us to really be able to see how good and beneficial this has been for the customers and for the retailers and how it has impacted their businesses, positively or negatively.

When you take Ennis, which is a typical historic, market town, which has its narrow streets, it can have a different impact, Mr OSullivan said.

The dream is becoming reality. So great to see this. This is how Cork City Centre can be and should be. Between the two rivers you'll know where we'll meet on Princes Street. pic.twitter.com/q1aoYX9Qmg  Cllr. Dan Boyle (@sendboyle) June 30, 2020

You then have to look at wheres the parking availability and how is it for people to access some of the services.

In Ennis you may have to look at a staggered pedestination period, just so you can facilitate those who do need to have vehicular access to the main streets, he added.

We are still in very uncertain times in terms of Covid-19 and whether or not that is going to continue to be influential over the next 12, 18 or 24 months.

People are realising that they have to move on, and part of that is new businesses looking to open during these times, and perhaps its the pedestrianisation that has encouraged them to do that.
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Market Research Future (MRFR) publishes periodic market research reports Bipolar Disorders Treatment Market Research Report - Global Forecast till 2025 on niche and emerging technologies. For more information on our market research, please visit-

Leading Market Players

BMS (U.S), Janssen Pharmaceuticals (Belgium), Eli Lilly (U.S), GSK (U.K), AstraZeneca (U.K), Allergan (U.S), and others.

Market Insight :

The report by Market Research Future (MRFR) predicts that the Bipolar Disorders Treatment Market shareis on its way to achieve a whopping amount of revenue at a healthy CAGR during the forecast period (2016-2022).

Segmental Analysis

The segmentation of the bipolar disorders and treatment market has been segmented on the basis of drug type, treatment, and regions. Based on the drug type, the bipolar disorder and treatment market consists of anti-anxiety drugs, mood stabilizers, anticonvulsants, antidepressant drugs, and atypical antipsychotics. On the basis of treatment, the bipolar disorder and treatment market consists of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and others. The regions included in the market are APAC, North America, Europe and the rest of the world

Table Of Content

Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis

5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis

5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers

5.1.2 Bargaining Power Of Buyers

5.1.3 Threat Of New Entrants

5.1.4 Threat Of Substitutes

5.1.5 Intensity Of Rivalry

5.2 Value Chain Analysis

Continued.

Global Bipolar Disorders Treatment Market Research Report: Information by Drug Type (Mood Stabilizer, Anticonvulsant, Antipsychotic Drug, and Antidepressant Drug), Mechanism of Action (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, Serotonin Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors, Beta Blockers, and Tricyclic Antidepressant Drug), End User (Hospitals and Clinics, Multispecialty Centers, and Others), and Region (the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa)Forecast till 2025 For more information on our market research, please visit- https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/bipolar-disorders-treatment-market-1566

Market Drivers and Barriers

Growing prevalence of bipolar disorder, government support for augment awareness regarding bipolar disorder, and technological advancements facilitating accurate detection of a patients mood as well as mental state are few factors elevating the market position on a global level. Case in point is the usage of tricyclic antidepressants which has declined over the years due to the higher incidence of side effects compared to other drugs used for the treatment of bipolar disorder.

Browse Other Related healthcare report

Blood Glucose Monitoring Market Research Report - Global Forecast till 2023

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About Market Research Future:

MRFR team has supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country-level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.
(CNN) - Sitting squeezed between a number of strangers on board an aircraft might feel like a risky position during these uncertain times.

But according to some experts who point to the very few documented cases of in-flight transmission, the chances of catching COVID-19 while on board a flight are actually relatively slim.

Fear of flying during the pandemic has drastically reduced global air traffic, which has also been restricted due to border closures. If new scientific claims are borne out, the perceived heightened risk of boarding an airplane could be unfounded.

In one case, about 328 passengers and crew members were tested for coronavirus after it was learned that a March 31 flight from the US to Taiwan had been carrying 12 passengers who were symptomatic at the time. However, all the other passengers tested negative, as did the crew members.

And while there have certainly been cases of infected passengers passing the virus on to an airplane's crew or fellow travelers in recent months, the transmission rates are low.

A study recently published in medical journal JAMA Network Open found evidence of the possible spread of coronavirus during a four-hour flight from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt in March.

Two passengers developed infections after flying with a group of tourists who had come into contact with an infected hotel manager and also became infected, according to researchers from the Institute for Medical Virology at Goethe University in Frankfurt.

The two who may have been infected were seated at the back of the aircraft, directly across the aisle from seven passengers who had unknowingly picked up the virus.

An earlier flight from the UK to Vietnam on March 2, in which one passenger seemingly spread the virus to around 14 other passengers, as well as a crew member, is so far believed to be the only known on-board transmission to multiple people.

One explanation for the apparently low risk level is that the air in modern aircraft cabins is replaced with new fresh air every two to three minutes, and most planes are fitted with air filters designed to trap 99.99% of particles.

Meanwhile, various new protocols have been implemented, such as face-coverings for both passengers and crew, which is mandatory on most airlines, temperature screenings, as well as more intensive cabin cleaning and limited movement in the cabin during flight.

Arnold Barnett, a professor of statistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, tried to quantify the odds of becoming infected with the virus while on board a short flight in a recent study that looked at the benefits of the empty middle seat policy.

Low transmission risk

According to his findings, based on short haul flights in the US on aircraft configured with three seats on either side of the aisle, such as the Airbus 320 and the Boeing 737 -- and assuming everyone is wearing a mask -- the risk of catching the virus on a full flight is just 1 in 4,300. Those odds fall to 1 in 7,700 if the middle seat is vacant.

"Most things are more dangerous now than they were before Covid, and aviation is no exception to that," he tells CNN Travel.

"But three things have to go wrong for you to get infected (on a flight). There has to be a COVID-19 patient on board and they have to be contagious," he says. "If there is such a person on your flight, assuming they are wearing a mask, it has to fail to prevent the transmission.

"They also have to be close enough that there's a danger you could suffer from the transmission."

Barnett says he took all of these probabilities into account before determining an overall transmission risk.

These figures are specifically for two-hour flights within the United States, the country currently with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world.

The odds will be even lower for flights taken in parts of the globe with few cases, as well as long haul flights, as "the ratio of proximity is a factor along with the existence of proximity," he says.

Barnett goes on to state that there isn't much of a difference in terms of risk between passengers sitting in an aisle seat on a full flight and those in the window seat.

However, the chances of becoming infected are ever so slightly higher for those in aisle seats, because they simply have more people around them.

"You're endangered by the people sitting next to you in the same row," he says. "And to a lesser extent, the people in the row behind and the row ahead.

"Statistically, the window seat is a little safer than the middle seat or the aisle seat on a plane that's full. But it's not a big difference."

Fewer fliers

Barnett's research is based on the assumption that flights are operating at full volume, but it's worth noting that many are still running at reduced capacity.

Although the US Transportation Security Administration reported that traffic through airport security checkpoints had passed 800,000 for the first time since the pandemic earlier in August, this was still a 31% decrease on the numbers for the same day in 2019.

The professor is a strong supporter of the middle seats empty policy, which has been adopted by the likes of Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways.

However, the International Air Transport Association (IATA,) describes this approach as "economically unfeasible" for airlines.

"Screening, face coverings and masks are among the many layers of measures that we are recommending," Alexandre de Juniac, IATA's Director General and CEO said in an official statement released last month. "Leaving the middle seat empty, however, is not."

De Juniac goes on to suggest that an effective COVID-19 test that can be administered at scale, and immunity passports could also be included as temporary biosecurity measures if they become available.

"We must arrive at a solution that gives passengers the confidence to fly and keeps the cost of flying affordable," he adds. "One without the other will have no lasting benefit."

Although different airlines have slightly different measures in place, the overall guidance for passengers is to wear a mask, wash their hands regularly and check in online to minimize the risks of in flight transmission.

Enhanced protection

However, Barnett recommends that travelers take things one step further by wearing a shield.

"There are various things that can be done to take the risk, which is small, and make it even smaller," he says.

"Because it (a shield) covers your eyes, nose and mouth, it lessens the risk of others infecting you.

"The science is changing every day, but my understanding is, if you wear a mask, it greatly reduces the chance of you infecting others. But it doesn't protect you all that much, whereas a shield will protect you.

"If I were flying now, I would certainly wear a shield."

This view is somewhat supported by a new research report from the UK's University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, which concludes that using plastic barriers called personal protection seat shields will reduce the risk of COVID-19 contamination significantly, provided they are worn with face masks.

According to the "Face Coverings, Aerosol Dispersion and Mitigation of Virus Transmission Risk" report, jets of air can leak from the sides and back as well as the front of face masks.

It recommends that aircraft seats be fitted with personal protection windows (PPW,) clear plastic barriers designed by UK-based aircraft interior and exterior specialist RAS Completions, which can be secured to the back and sides of any seat on an airplane.

"Our recommendation is that airlines should make face masks mandatory, and if used in conjunction with PPW and regular cleaning of PPW, COVID-19 contamination risk is kept to a minimum," say the report's co-author Dr. Cathal Cummins, an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University, also in Edinburgh.

"If all three measures are mandatory, together with good personal hygiene, airlines can increase passenger protection."

High-risk groups

In July, Qatar Airways became the first airline to make it compulsory for passengers to wear a face shield in addition to a face mask or face covering.

The shields, which are supplied by the carrier, are obligatory for economy class passengers, unless they're eating or drinking, while those traveling in business class can wear them "at their own discretion, as they enjoy more space and privacy."

However, all passengers must wear them during boarding and deplaning.

Philippine Airlines followed suit earlier this month, so it seems likely other carriers may choose to implement this rule in the future.

Before boarding their flight, customers traveling with the Middle East carrier will be issued with protection kits -- including face shields, hand sanitizer, a surgical face mask and disposable gloves.

Although it's clear that such precautions can greatly limit the danger of infection, which is already relatively slim, for some travelers, any level of risk is simply too much of a gamble, particularly those in high-risk groups.

Barnett stresses that it will take the development of a vaccine or a change in the care available to Covid-19 patients for those anxious travelers to feel comfortable flying again, regardless of how many safety measures are put in place.

He is choosing not to fly himself at present due to various risk factors -- at 72, Barnett has a higher risk of contracting the virus, while men are more likely to die from the virus than women.

"I miss it quite a bit," he admits. "I think flying is beautiful and under normal circumstances inordinately safe.

"But these are not normal circumstances."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "The odds of catching COVID-19 on an airplane are slimmer than you think, scientists say"
OPINION: "The City of Tucson must work to rapidly develop heat protection standards for those at risk, which can be all of us," argues our latest local contributor.
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In late July, the body of Pastor Balvinder Bagicha Bhatti was found on the side of the road in the Indian state of Punjab. Returning from a nearby village after a visit to a church members home, Bhatti was found beaten and bloodied, with tattered clothes and scraped shoes. The additional set of bloody footprints led his family to believe that he had been assaulted. Local police, despite the evidence of foul play, registered the case as an accidental death.

Bhatti isnt the first Christian pastor in India to die under suspicious circumstances. In 2017, Pastor Sultan Masih was gunned down by two motorcycle-riding assailants outside his church in Ludhiana. In fact, Batthi is not even the first member of his family to die under suspicious circumstance. His brother was murdered just a few years ago.

Just a week after Batthis death, only on the other side of the country, Hindu radicals prevented a family in Jharkhand from holding a Christian burial for a loved one, told instead that they must conduct the funeral in accordance with the villages majority Hindu faith as a way of preserving communal peace.

More and more in India, it seems that preserving communal peace means keeping Hindu fanatics from attacking and/or killing their non-Hindu neighbors. According to a new report by the group Persecution Relief, Hate crimes against Christians in India [rose] by an alarming 40.87 percent in the first half of 2020, even despite the nationwide [coronavirus] lockdown in place since March 25.

According to the report, the 293 cases of persecution against Christians reported in the first six months of 2020 included five religious-motivated rapes and six religiously-motivated murders. The vast majority of these hate crimes are committed by Hindu nationalists who wish to turn India into a Hindu state, and therefore oppose Christianity and Christian missionary work.

In places like Jharkhand, Hindu violence is often directed at Christian households. Around the same time the Christian family was forced to conduct a Hindu funeral, a mob of Hindu fanatics beat up the heads of three Christian families in another Hindu village, leaving the families homeless. When the police came to investigate, the village head man intervened on behalf of the attackers, forcing the families to sign a document promising they would not conduct any more Christian activities in the village.

In other parts of India, Christian persecution is taking the forms of anti-conversion laws and impediments to the building of churches. The cumulative result is that India now ranks tenth on Open Doors World Watch List, which tracks the persecution of Christians worldwide. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, advancing Hindu nationalism, India has consistently moved up on the World Watch List, which, for the record, is the wrong direction.

Given the current political climate, it seems likely that the situation for Indian Christians will continue to deteriorate. Thus, its vitally important for us to pray for them, and to speak up for them wherever and however we can.

I invite you to join us as we pray together each and every Wednesday morning, from now until the day after the November election. One of the reasons we will be praying for the preservation of religious freedom in America is so we can continue to advance religious freedom, and work for the end of religious persecution, all around the world. Including in India. Come to BreakPoint.org to sign up and join us. We will be led this week by Os Guinness.

Modi and company must know that, eventually, they will have to pay for accommodating violent fanatics. While India casts itself as the worlds largest democracy, the blood of our brothers and sisters literally cries out from the ground.

Originally posted at breakpoint.org
LONDON, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- One News Page, the long-running online news portal, continues to enhance the way that its readers can access the latest stories and breaking content on world affairs. Now, by making use of enhanced entity analysis, One News Page is able to tailor itself to the user experience through advances in artificial intelligence.

The news portal connects stories, categories, and subjects through a simple, yet hard-working AI algorithm. Focusing on natural language, One News Page is arguably working harder than many other news portals thanks to its innate programming.

This, CEO Marc Pinter-Krainer states, helps One News Page to deliver news and story results to interested browsers with greater accuracy than they are used to expecting elsewhere on the web.

"It's possible for our users to explore millions of stories, videos and topics through AI-gathered connections," Pinter-Krainer confirms. "The algorithms One News Page uses perform entity recognition to tailor an experience which benefits from context."

"What's missing from some automated news portals is this idea of context. Readers will be looking for deeper value from the stories they read. By fine-tuning our AI to sort data in an intelligent fashion, our readers are able to get to the stories, videos and articles they want to read without getting frustrated."

One News Page's smarter approach to news aggregation seems to be striking a chord, and the amount of data it regularly crunches is truly staggering. The portal's AI has already analysed more than 1.3 million different news articles, adding to its impressive index of more than 100 million stories.

The portal is also getting smarter about video content, too, with more than 440,000 different news videos already analysed through split entities recognised in titles, descriptions, and transcripts. In fact, One News Page can boast more than 85,000 different accessible entities indexed thus far.

Readers can see the AI in action from page to page. For example, when reading one of the site's unique movie reviews, users will be able to visit 'knowledge' pages based on specific actors. This means that they can explore content related to the stars listed in reviews in their own AI-filtered pages.

"I do believe that online news is in dire need of mass organisation," Pinter-Krainer confirms. "We're living in an age of fake news, which means that readers are going to need access to resources which help them bring together publishers they can trust."

"One News Page continues to be a news portal defiant in the age of fake news. With the world continuing to struggle with COVID-19, and at a critical time for US politics, the latter half of 2020 is in dire need of news article aggregation that's smarter by design."

One News Page continues to offer filtered stories and video content from sources trusted all over the globe, making it easier for readers to find breaking stories and content likely to pique their interests. AI integration is likely to help the site to continue aggregating and improving in the months and years to come.

About One News Page Ltd

One News Page Ltd is a British media firm which runs a family of news portal websites across the globe. The sites, founded in 2008, feature original news coverage and syndicated news content including news videos from major trusted news sources.

The One News Page portal is arguably the fastest-access news portal in the world. It is free to browse and provides its users with a powerful search engine of more than 100 million news resources from scores of reputable and authoritative sources and journalists, allowing users to discover and locate relevant news coverage easily.

Offering written digests, original content and video news for readers to access and consume at their leisure, One News Page is continuing to tap into the news aggregation market by making it easier and quicker to access with each update.

Access to all One News Page sites is free of charge.

https://www.onenewspage.com/

Enquiries / Media Contact

One News Page Ltd

Dr Marc Pinter-Krainer

Founder & CEO



Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 (0) 208 1333 700

SOURCE One News Page Ltd
Her Majesty's Australian Ship Stuart sails in company with the Republic of Singapore Ship Supreme and Kapal Diraja Brunei (Royal Brunei Ship) Daruleshan through the Pacific Ocean as they prepare to take part in Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2020 on Aug. 17, 2020. (Australian Department of Defence)

Australian Forces Arrive in Hawaii for Largest Maritime Naval Exercise

Four Royal Australian Navy vessels and almost 700 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel have arrived in Hawaii ahead of the worlds largest naval exercise: the Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2020 (RIMPAC).

This years RIMPAC has been scaled down with the number of nations reduced from 26 to 10.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event will only involve maritime exercises over a two-week period, and no land-based activities or social events.

Linda Reynolds, minister for defence, said in a media release that Australias participation reflects the nations close alliance with the United States and its regional partners.

HMA Ships Sirius and Stuart sail in company with RSS Supreme, KDB Daruleshan, and JS Ashigara through the Pacific Ocean as they prepare to take part in Exercise Rim of the Pacific 2020 on Aug. 17, 2020. (Australian Department of Defence)

The government recognises the importance of our maritime forces as a vital element of our defence strategy, and exercises such as this are key to further enhancing our capabilities, Reynolds said.

The exercises will involve 22 surface ships, one submarine, multiple aircraft, and around 5,300 personnel.

Participating forces will engage in simulations of multinational anti-submarine warfare, maritime intercept operations, live-fire training events, and other cooperative training opportunities.

Held biennially, this years RIMPAC includes forces from Australia, Brunei, Canada, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, and the United States.

One noticeable absentee is China, who was disinvited from the 2018 event following objections over Beijings deployment of missiles and electronic jamming equipment to the disputed Spratly Islands.

An aerial view of uninhabited island of Spratlys in the disputed South China Sea on April 21, 2017. (Erik De Castro/Reuters)

Sascha Bachmann, professor of law and hybrid warfare expert, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 20, that despite the 2020 event being scaled down (from 47 navy vessels to 22) it nonetheless still sends a strong signal of maritime warfighting capabilities to Beijing.

Bachmann said Beijings army and naval forces have shown increased aggressive behaviour in the region, namely around Taiwan and its activities in the South China Sea.

According to Commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. John Aquilino, the increasingly tense security environment in the Indo-Pacific required like-minded nations to join forces to build trust and collective strength to ensure a continuing free and open Pacific for all nations.

HMAS Hobart fires its 5-inch gun in the southern waters of Hawaii during Exercise RIMPAC 2020, on Aug. 17, 2020 (Australian Department of Defence)

Australia has contributed a sizeable force to this years event, with the nation sending the second largest contingent.

The United States as the lead nation with its navy has sent eight surface ships. It also highlights Australias growing role as a middle power by being the second largest contributor with four surface ships, Bachmann added.

Commander of the Australian Contingent, Captain Phillipa Hay said RIMPAC is a real test of Australias maritime military capability, from warfighting exercises to the missile firings.

Hay will be in command of Task Force One, comprising 2,500 personnel across 11 warships.

Australian vessels HMAS Hobart, Stuart, Arunta and Sirius, which have recently been part of a regional deployment in Southeast Asia, will take part in RIMPAC.

RIMPAC has been running since 1971.
Convicted drug kingpin Xaysana Keopimpha leaves the courthouse after his trial in Bangkok, March 20, 2018.

Thailands Appeal Court has upheld a life sentence for Lao drug kingpin Xaysana Keophimpha, better known as Mr. X, who was found guilty two years ago of colluding to possess large quantities of methamphetamines in 2015 and 2016, according to his lawyer.

Xaysana, 42, was arrested with accomplices Chumphon Phanompai and Ratchapon Ratsaponpakorn on Jan. 19, 2017 at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok in possession of drugs with evidence of intent to distribute.

While Ratchapon was acquitted, Xaysana and Chumphon were sentenced to death by a lower court in Thailand in September 2018, before their punishments were reduced to life in prison because their confessions were deemed useful to an ongoing investigation.

Authorities brought the two men to the Appeal Court to hear Thursdays ruling on their life sentences from the Central Correctional Institution for Drug Addicts, where they have been serving their terms.

Xaysanas lawyer, who gave his name as Witoon, told RFAs Lao Service that the court upheld the sentences of both men.

The verdict was delivered only by the court to the defendantsno lawyers were involved, he said.

The defendants now have 30 days to appeal to a higher court. That is the process of the law.

Witoon said Xaysana had yet to inform him whether he intends to pursue an appeal.

Xaysana and Chumphon had been found guilty of arranging for 2,381,400 pills of methamphetamine, known locally as yaba, to be smuggled from Laos to southern Thailand and Malaysia between July and September 2015.

Their conviction also stemmed from charges of smuggling another 1 million pills into Thailand in August 2016 and delivering them to a distribution ring in the countrys southern provinces through a contact in Malaysia.

On Dec. 19, 2019, the Appeal Court upheld a separate life sentence for Xaysana for smuggling 1.2 million pills into the country in September 2016.

Drug ring

In April, Xaysana denied playing a role in a major Southeast Asian drug ring and backtracked on his confession. His lawyer at the time, Vorakorn Pongthanakul, told a court that Xaysana did not understand Thai law and said officials told him he could change his plea at his trial.

Police have reported that prior to his arrest, Xaysana regularly boasted of his wealth through photos he posted online and often hosted celebrities at lavish parties in both Thailand and Laos.

In January, a court in Laos sentenced eight people to death for their roles in connection with Xaysanas drug ring and sentenced fourteen others with ties to the organization to prison terms of between two and 20 years.

The eight sentenced to death were convicted on charges of purchasing and selling heroin and methamphetamines, weapons trade, buying and selling stolen property, money laundering, and assault. Under Lao law, possession of more than 500 grams of heroin or meth is punishable by death.

The steep increase in seizures of methamphetamines in Southeast Asia points to a growing demand for the drug in the region, where 287 million pills were seized in 2015, according to the 2017 report of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Most of those seizures took place in Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, UNODC said.

Reported and translated by RFAs Lao Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-22 01:14:36|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi holds the second strategic dialogue between China and Pakistan with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, south China's Hainan Province, Aug. 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Liyun)

HAIKOU, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has entered a new stage of high-quality development and will continue to play an important role in the revitalization of Pakistan, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday.

Wang made the remarks when holding the second strategic dialogue between China and Pakistan with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in south China's Hainan Province.

Both parties will push to complete the projects under construction in time, create more job opportunities, vigorously improve the people's livelihood, strengthen cooperation in fields including industrial parks, human resource training, poverty alleviation, medical care and agriculture, and continue to release the potential of the corridor to achieve common development, said Wang.

Speaking of the current COVID-19 epidemic situation, Wang said that China is willing to share the experience of regular epidemic prevention and control with Pakistan in a timely manner, continue to carry out cooperation on anti-epidemic supplies, and choose Pakistan as a prior international cooperation partner of the vaccine research.

"China-Pakistan ties have been tested by the epidemic, the mutual trust has been consolidated and cooperation has been deepened," said Wang, adding that the relation of the two "iron friends" has been purified. The two sides also agreed to deepen the construction of the China-Pakistan community of a shared future and a community of health in the common fight against the epidemic.

For his part, Qureshi said that Pakistan firmly supports all of China's core interests and major concerns, and is willing to work with China to jointly plan for future cooperation, carry out cooperation in various fields including vaccine research, and jointly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the epidemic.

"Pakistan is willing to work with China to advance the construction of the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor," Qureshi said.

The two sides also exchanged views on Afghanistan and other international and regional issues.

After the dialogue, the two foreign ministers met with the press.

When answering a question that the United States requested the United Nations Security Council launch the snapback mechanism to restore sanctions against Iran, Wang said that such demand was "completely unreasonable."

"The United States only considered its own interests. It applied international law if the law was in conformity with the nation's need and discarded the law if it did not," said Wang.

Regarding the intra-Afghan negotiations, Wang said that China hopes relevant parties to uphold the fundamental direction of achieving a political settlement, adhere to the basic principle of Afghan-led peace progress, strive for a broad and inclusive framework, and stick to the path of solving both symptoms and root causes.

The international community and regional countries should also uphold justice and push the negotiation to achieve peace, he said. Enditem
Tata Consultancy Services on Friday said a US Court of Appeals has held that the punitive damages award of USD 280 million (around Rs 2,098 crore) on the Indian IT major in an intellectual property rights case with Epic Systems was constitutionally excessive.

In the EPIC Systems Corporation matter, the US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, Chicago, returned a verdict on the appeal filed by TCS, reducing the damages award.

The Court held that the punitive damages award of USD 280 million is constitutionally excessive and directed the Trial Court to reassess the punitive damages, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said in a regulatory filing.

The Court has however, upheld the compensatory damages award of USD 140 million (approx Rs 1,049 crore), the filing added.

TCS is exploring the options available to it, as it believes that there is no evidence of misuse of EPIC information by TCS. TCS will vigorously defend its position before the relevant court, the filing noted.

The matter relates to a US grand jury order that slapped two Tata group companies  TCS and Tata America International Corp  with a USD 940 million fine in a trade secret lawsuit filed against them by Epic in April 2016.

On April 16, 2016, TCS made a disclosure to the stock exchanges regarding a US court verdict related to an intellectual property rights case with Epic Systems.

On October 1, 2017, TCS said the court significantly reduced the compensatory and punitive damages of USD 940 million to USD 420 million.

In May this year, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had warned TCS to be careful in dealing with disclosure of material information to investors after the watchdog found that the IT major did not prominently display the extent of damages related to a case in the US.

The regulator has also asked the company to ensure that disclosures provide adequate, accurate, explicit and timely information to the investors.

Shares of TCS were trading 0.20 per cent lower at Rs 2,247.60 apiece on BSE.

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Thiruvananthapuram, August 21 : Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala on Friday stepped up his attack on the CPI(M)-led LDF government in connection with the allegations of bribe taking in the construction of 140 dwellings for the landless and homeless under the LIFE mission at Wadakkanchery in Thrissur district.

Addressing a press conference, Chennithala said that chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans role in what he has termed as the LIFE mission scandal had unambiguously come to light.

No amount of explanation could exonerate the chief minister. Now, the CPI(M) had tasked its legislators with mounting a defence of the government over the issue. It would come to naught as the people of Kerala had seen the true face of the LDF government, he added.

In a facebook post, the opposition leader claimed that the facts that had come out gave the lie to the chief ministers claim that the government was unaware of the deal between UAE-based NGO red crescent and private builders Unitac for the construction of the dwellings under the LIFE mission.

The state government was actively involved in all stages of the project, Chennithala alleges, saying that unitac had submitted the blueprint of the project to LIFE mission, of which the chief minister was the chairman.

LIFE mission CEO U V Jose in his August 2019 letter to red crescent stated that he had examined the project blueprint and that unitac could be roped in for constructing the dwelling.

That a commission to the tune of 4.5 crore rupees was paid for giving the contract to unitac was revealed by none other than the chief ministers media adviser. Finance minister Thomas Isaac had confirmed this, Chennithala said. He flayed the finance minister for being a mute witness to the bribery transaction.

The opposition leader labelled as a smokescreen the chief ministers decision to call for files from the LIFE mission pertaining to the project at Wadakkanchnery.

He also slammed the LDF government for ignoring the oppositions call to release the memorandum of understanding inked with red crescent for the 20 crore LIFE mission project at Wadakkanchery.

The project under the states LIFE mission to construct 140 dwelling units for the landless and homeless poor at Wadakkanchery came under a shadow after Swapna Suresh, an accused in the diplomatic baggage gold smuggling case, told the enforcement directorate that the one crore rupees found in her bank locker was the commission for helping private builders unitac secure the 20-crore rupee housing project financed by red crescent.
Quarantine officials disinfect wedding hall in Seoul, in this file photo. / Korea Times file





By Bahk Eun-ji







Couples wanting to get married are again facing a dilemma over wedding ceremonies after the government reintroduced strict social distancing measure amid a recent resurgence of COVID-19 infections.







With the heightened guidelines imposed in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province last week  which will continue to next week  large gatherings such as local festivals, trade fares and wedding ceremonies, with estimated attendees of more than 50 people indoors and 100 outdoors have either been banned or postponed.







Although in placed for only two weeks, the stricter social distancing guidelines for the Seoul metropolitan area will be extended for another two weeks unless there are signs of a fall in the number of infections.







Lee Jee-ahn, a 34-year-old office worker living in Incheon, who has already postponed her wedding ceremony from March to this month due to the virus said she has been seriously considering rescheduling once again.







"I am worried that it will be a nuisance to those who are invited. Besides, most guests of my parents are elderly who are more vulnerable to the coronavirus infection. Even if we accepted the financial damages from postponing the ceremony, who can be sure whether the spread of the coronavirus will subside or not?" Lee said.







Chung Beom-yoon, a 31-year-old veterinarian in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, whose wedding ceremony is scheduled for early September, said he has not even come up with a Plan B if the current toughened social distancing rule is extended.







"My fiancee and I have been preparing for the wedding for almost a year. We're so disappointed at what's going on these days, and we really don't want to postpone it again," Chung said.







In response to the complaints from many consumers, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Friday that the Korea Wedding Business Association (WBA) has accepted a request to minimize the damage suffered by soon-to-be married couples ahead of the ceremony.







The FTC earlier requested the association to allow couples to postpone weddings without paying cancelation charges or reducing the number of guaranteed guests, or lose their non-refundable deposit, because fewer people are expected to attend the ceremony than initially predicted.







The WBA accepted the request of the FTC. If a customer requests a postponement of their ceremony date, the date can be rescheduled without cancellation charges for up to six months from the original one. Also, if the wedding ceremony proceeds as scheduled, the minimum number of guaranteed guests will be reduced and adjusted according to the circumstances of the individual wedding venue.










A number of Prince Charles former employees have accused the future king of being a diva and even dubbed him the pampered prince for his odd rules and over-the-top demands. But many royal fans have wondered about his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and if she too gives outlandish orders to her staff.

Turns out, she does. Read on to find out what Camilla demanded after she and Charles arrived for an official visit in the Middle East.

Camilla Parker Bowles | Molly Darlington  WPA Pool/Getty Images

RELATED: Camilla Parker Bowles Rejects Title of Queen When Prince Charles is King, What She Wants To Be Called Instead

What Camilla demanded after she arrived in Kuwait

Like her husband, Camilla has been accused of making some outrageous requests when she travels abroad. She reportedly wants non-essential items she left at home brought to her location.

The Evening Standard noted that this was the case when the duke and duchess were in Kuwait and Camilla realized she didnt have a pair of high heels that matched an outfit she wanted to wear to a dinner party. The publication reported that after the heels were flown more than 3,600 miles from her Highgrove residence, Camilla decided not to wear them.

A palace spokesman later stated that The duchess did not ask for the shoes to be sent, but a member of her staff did arrange for them to be flown over to her after they realized that they had forgotten to pack them. They were not specially couriered, but were sent along with a number of items and paperwork as is often the case on royal tours.

The duchess also give hosts list of what foods she will and will not eat

Camilla Parker Bowles | Chris Jackson  WPA Pool/Getty Images

RELATED: Where Did Prince Charles Get the Engagement Ring He Gave to Camilla and Does She Still Wear It?

Another thing the duchess is said to do when shes on royal tours overseas is make sure her hosts are aware of what she eats and what she doesnt.

According to the Daily Mail, Her hosts are now sent a list of the foods she likes and dislikes ahead of her meals. This is something she picked up from Charles who reportedly has people deliver him organic food before his arrival.

Some of the food on Camillas banned list include garlic and onions. Members of the royal family never eat anything with garlic and onions in it to avoid having bad breath while interacting with others during their royal engagements.

The oddest item Prince Charles reportedly travels with

Another claim about a ridiculous travel demand the Duke of Cornwall made was revealed in Tom Bowers 2018 biography titled Rebel Prince, The Power, Passion and Defiance Of Prince Charles. In it, the author wrote that the royal brings along his own toilet seat and paper when he takes trips abroad.

Bower also claimed that on one occasion while staying at a friends home, the prince wanted to move his entire bedroom set. Bower said that Charles sent his staff with a truck carrying furniture a day earlier to the destination to replace the perfectly appropriate fittings in the guest room.
Evening Standard

The Covid self-isolation period has been cut to five days, following an announcement by Health Secretary Sajid Javid. The announcement, on January 13, means people can leave isolation at the start of day six, subject to two negative lateral flow tests taken a day apart, with the first of these tests being no sooner than day five. It comes after changes which means Britons who are asymptomatic who return a positive lateral flow test will no longer need to get a confirmatory PCR test.
"For more than 70 years, suffragettes across the nation marched and rallied for their audacious cause: affording women the right to vote," said Chief Commerce and Business Solutions Officer Jacqueline Krage Strako, dedicating official for the Postal Service. "This stamp commemorates their perseverance in securing this unalienable right for themselves and future generations."

In 1848, the U.S. women's suffrage movement coalesced in Seneca Falls, NY, where 300 women and men gathered for a two-day women's rights convention. Their call for women's suffrage spread across the country in the decades that followed. Supporters of the movement quickly discovered change would be frustratingly slow.

On Jan. 10, 1918, the House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. The amendment was introduced in the Senate that September, and President Woodrow Wilson gave a rousing speech in support of it. But the Senate failed to pass the amendment. Suffragists continued their public protests until Wilson called for a special session of Congress.

The amendment finally passed in the House in May 1919 and in the Senate in June 1919. The tremendously difficult process of ratification, which requires three-quarters of all states (36 of 48 states at the time), took another year.

The 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution on Aug. 26, 1920.

Inspired by historic photographs, the stamp art features a stylized illustration of suffragists marching in a parade or other public demonstration. The clothes they wear and the banners they bear display the official colors of the National Woman's Party  purple, white and gold.

Designed by art director Ethel Kessler using art by Nancy Stahl, the stamp includes the words "Women Vote" and "19th Amendment" in shades of purple beneath the image. "Forever" and "USA" appear along the stamp's bottom edge.

News of the stamp is being shared with hashtags #WomenVoteStamps and #19thAmendmentStamps.

Postal Products

Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the Postal Store at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724), by mail through USA Philatelic, or at Post Office locations nationwide.

Information on ordering first-day-of-issue postmarks and covers is at usps.com/shop.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

Please Note: For U.S. Postal Service media resources, including broadcast-quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube channel, like us on Facebook and enjoy our Postal Posts blog. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com.

Contact: Sara Martin

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[email protected]

usps.com/news

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SURREY, British Columbia, Aug. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Police Federation (NPF) today released results of an exclusive RCMP survey of Members currently serving in Surrey which confirms a major problem for the proposed Surrey Police Service (SPS) and police detachments throughout Metro Vancouver municipalities  less than 14% of current RCMP Members would apply to work with the SPS.



Brian Sauve, President of the NPF, says the results show recruitment for the SPS would create significant disruption and destabilization for all police departments in Metro Vancouver and beyond if Surrey is allowed to continue with their proposed transition. These results further confirm that this transition will not happen within Mayor Doug McCallum's promised timeframe.

This exclusive survey shows that only about one in eight RCMP Members would apply to work at the proposed SPS if Mayor Doug McCallums plan moves forward, said Sauve. Surreys plan is relying on nearly 500 Surrey RCMP Members out of more than 800 moving over to SPS but this survey shows only 103 indicate they would apply  and none of these Members have yet had access to information on how this might negatively impact their pension or seniority.

On top of the significant strain Surreys plan will place on new officer training and recruitment in Metro Vancouver municipalities, it is clear they will need to meet their targets by recruiting hundreds of officers away from neighbouring jurisdictions who are not familiar with policing in Surrey, Sauve said.

The survey was conducted in July 2020 directly by management of the BC RCMP, and had an overall response rate of 95%. The results were shared with Members on August 17, 2020.

These results further confirm an enormous problem that the NPF and other experts have been highlighting for months  Surrey does not have a credible plan to develop and launch a new police service without raiding neighbouring jurisdictions for officers, added Sauve. Communities throughout Metro Vancouver that are already struggling to keep up with recruitment for retiring officers would face losing hundreds of current officers to Surrey.

About the National Police Federation:

The National Police Federation (NPF) was certified to represent ~20,000 RCMP Members serving across Canada and internationally in the summer of 2019. The NPF is the largest police labour relations organization in Canada, the second largest in North America and is the first independent national association to represent RCMP Members. The NPF will focus on improving public safety in Canada by negotiating the first-ever Collective Agreement for RCMP officers, and on increasing resources, equipment, training and supports for our Members who have been under-funded for far too long. Better resourcing and support for the RCMP will enhance community safety and livability in the communities we serve, large and small, all across Canada.

For more information: https://npf-fpn.com/ .

Media contact:

Brian Sauve

President

National Police Federation

media@npf-fpn.com

T: 604-861-2684

A PDF accompanying this announcement is available at http://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/ad70a51d-70e3-4f75-b543-323b2cdad341
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the entry of a limited number of devotees to three Jain temples in Mumbai over the weekend (August 22 and 23) to offer prayers during a community festival.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde said that the opening of the temples would be subject to the undertaking given by the petitioner trust, which said that only five people will be allowed to enter a temple at a time and only 250 people would be allowed to enter per day in the wake of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

Considering the peculiar facts and circumstances, the prayer made by the petitioners is allowed to the limited extent of permitting them to open the three temples one each in Byculla, Dadar (West) and Chembur in Mumbai on August 22 and 23 for devotees to perform the rituals connected with Paryushan, the bench said.

The court was also critical of the Maharashtra governments policy of allowing economic activities to continue but imposing restrictions on activities connected with religion on ground of Covid threat.

We find it strange that you are allowing every activity involving economic interests and money. But if it involves religion, you say you cannot do it because of Covid, CJI Bobde said.

The court stated that its order allowing entry into the three temples would be limited to this particular case and would not apply to any other temple or festivals involving large congregation, including the annual 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, which start on Saturday.

We make it clear that this order is not intended to be used as a precedent by other persons to seek permission to hold any festivals/festivities which would involve, by their very nature, congregation of people, such as Ganesh Festival, the court said.

The order was passed on a plea by Shri Parshwatilak Shwetamber Murtipujak Tapagacch Jain Trust, which had approached the apex court against a Bombay high court on August 13, in which the HC said that it did not wish to interfere with the states decision not to permit Jain temples in Mumbai to open during the Paryushan festival.

Paryushana is a key festival for members of Jain community, during which they observe fast and come together to pray.

The Maharashtra government opposed the plea before the Supreme Court stating that the state was worst hit by the pandemic in the country and it would be difficult for the state to ensure adherence to Covid-19 precautions if places of worship are opened.

Maharashtra is the state most affected by Covid in India. I am here opposing the plea vigorously due to the unimaginable situation in the state and keeping in mind the interests of the state, senior counsel AM Singhvi, who was appearing on behalf of Maharashtra, said.

CJI Bobde, however, pointed out that if the standard operating procedure (SOP) laid down by the central government on June 4 and the undertaking given by the petitioner can be enforced, the plea can be allowed.

The central government, through solicitor general Tushar Mehta, supported the plea provided all precautions and SOPs are adhered to.

This is exactly the choice we had faced with the Puri Jagannath Ratha Yatra. We held that of congregation can be avoided then mere pulling of Rath will not lead to anything bad. And nothing bad happened after that. Lord Jagannath forgave us. We will be forgiven in this case too, CJI Bobde said.
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Linkedin Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) New York, United States  Fri, August 21, 2020 15:07 516 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066f8e6a8 2 People Ghislaine-Maxwell,Jeffrey-Epstein Free

Ghislaine Maxwell's chance of a fair trial on criminal charges she aided Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of girls could be destroyed by substantial negative publicity if a deposition she gave four years ago were publicly released, her lawyers said.

The lawyers made the argument in a Thursday night filing asking the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to reverse a lower court judge's order to unseal the deposition and other documents.

Maxwell's deposition had been taken in April 2016 for a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit against the British socialite by Virginia Giuffre, who said Epstein kept her as a "sex slave" with Maxwell's assistance.

Lawyers for Maxwell said the unsealing order did not take into proper account their client's privacy interests or the promise of confidentiality she received before being deposed.

"If the unsealing order goes into effect, it will forever let the cat out of the bag," the lawyers said, warning that "intimate, sensitive, and personal information" about Maxwell might "spread like wildfire across the Internet."

The lawyers also said an unsealing would cause irreversible and unconstitutional negative publicity, and undermine the "truth-seeking function" of Maxwell's trial by leading witnesses to "recast their memories of events from decades ago."

Prosecutors have until Sept. 9 to respond. Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 22. Some other documents from the defamation case were released last month.

Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls, who prosecutors did not publicly name, from 1994 to 1997, and to committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath.

She was arrested on July 2 in New Hampshire, where prosecutors said she was trying to evade capture, and is being held 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.

Giuffre has been one of Epstein's most visible accusers, and her lawyers have said the public has a right to see Maxwell's deposition.

Lawyers for Maxwell disagree, saying her constitutional rights to remain silent and get a fair trial by an impartial jury outweigh any presumption of public access.

Maxwell would not be required to testify at her trial.

A lawyer for Giuffre did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Maxwell is separately seeking to have prosecutors identify the three accusers in her indictment and challenging her confinement conditions at the Brooklyn jail, saying she is being treated worse than other pretrial inmates.
"It puts us on par with North Korea, in terms of, are we now a prison state, that unless you can justify yourself to the department, you cannot leave the country?" Ms Steggall said. "Even in times of war, we don't have that kind of restriction so it does seem a little extreme." Loading Ms Steggall's office has been "inundated" by constituents wanting to travel for events such as the birth of a child, the death of a parent, or to take up a job or scholarship. "This is not about going on holiday," she said. Among several examples of Australians affected, Fitzsimmons spoke to Donna Burton, 57, from Sydney's Balmoral Beach, who missed her only daughter's wedding in London in July because of the restrictions. "I can see both sides  but it was absolutely devastating not being able to go to something so significant," Ms Burton said.

The issue divided readers. Some called on Australians to take a reality check and put personal freedoms aside in the short-term, while others called for greater empathy. ihsankasyn: "If you didn't notice yet, there is a global pandemic going on and everyone expects everyone else to play their part." wiseone44: "Get a grip. We are in the midst of a double whammy; a pandemic and a depression. Hellooo. The world has changed. Get on board and help out instead of living in the past. Although, a one-week stopover in North Korea would give you the clarity to compare apples with apples." Annie: "All of those who are complaining about not being able to visit family or elderly parents overseas seem to forget that there are vast numbers of us who cant visit family or elderly parents in another state. (For Victorians, even another suburb). Yes its tough, but the sooner we all comply with the rules the sooner it will be over."

Backyard Kindling: "Cant go to a wedding? What about all of those people who couldnt go to their relatives' funerals. Suck it up!" Old Bloke, Summer Bay: "The absence of empathy in these comments for those separated from partners and family births, deaths and marriages is very disappointing." mark holden: "I'm a dual Aust NZ Citizen. All my family, Mum, Dad, Sisters and Brother are in NZ - which, despite a recent slip is probably the most covid safe place in the world. Imagine my distress when my application was flatly denied. How can a dual citizen be banned from leaving? I don't even expect to return? I feel trapped." usman.zone: "if i must share, my father passed away last month and i couldn't attend his funeral or share my grief with my siblings face to face especially my mother who did ask few times if i could come. i didn't even apply as it's a logistical nightmare to do the return trips in current environment. Far too many of my friends got stuck, had flights cancelled without refunds and ended up regretting the decision to travel. Instead, i'll hold onto my emotions until there is some semblance of normality in international travel. Easier to say, but hard for people involved to understand it." Some readers couldn't understand why, with certain rules in place, more international travel couldn't be allowed.

What, but what?: "...Surely we can let people go overseas to attend a wedding. What's the issue? Just make them sign a declaration that on return that will have to spend 14 days in quarantine and pay $3,000. If they still want to go - then fine." Loading DT: "Hows this for a policy: if you want to travel overseas for any reason you must agree to pay 100% of the fully burdened cost of your quarantine, not just the trivial amount youre being asked to pay now plus you will be disqualified from all Medicare services for three months so that if you do get sick. And need hospitalisation its on your coin." Reflecting on the reader debate, Fitzsimmons says it's clear why the story touched a nerve. "So many of us are making considerable sacrifices during the pandemic and we want to feel a sense of solidarity, that we are not the only ones," she said.

"Many people would see an overseas trip, even to see family, as frivolous in that context. "At the same time, every restriction on our civil liberties should be justified on the basis of public health risk. "Many would argue that outbound travel restrictions do not fit that criteria." While Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week said his international border position was "uncontroversial", business leaders called for greater certainty on the conditions for reopening borders.

"The ban on Australians travelling overseas may have made sense as an early emergency measures, but it is today a barrier to business that can be easily and safely removed," Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said. "At the very least, the government should signal a firm date on which ... outbound travel restrictions will be reviewed and lifted." Loading Readers were also looking for longer-term solutions than an indefinite ban on outbound travel and costly quarantine upon return. Annj: "What if there is no vaccine found? How long are Australian citizens prepared to be confined to Australia? Urgent effort needs to go into finding an affordable and safe way of quarantining people returning from overseas in the long term, if that means using new or existing Federal Government quarantine facilities that everyone has to go into on their return, wearing of location devices or some other plan get on and formulate it and put it into action. I don't imagine the country can afford to continue to keep paying for hotels etc so find another way."

Dr J: "Using wrist or ankle bands should be option vs hotel quarantine with the proviso you pay a $1000 deposit and if you break quarantine there is no fine, but instead a mandatory 28 days detention (and loss of the deposit)." Steggall likening the Australian policy to something out of North Korea did unite many readers, however, in describing such comparisons as absurd. RoverDownUnder: "Very ill thought out and naive comment from the MP - this country bears no comparison to North Korea. For one thing she is an elected representative allowed to make that ridiculous comment and the newspaper is allowed to publish it." Anne Cook: "I disagree strongly with the headline 'On par with North Korea'. The numbers being denied permission to leave the country might be similar, but the reasons are totally different."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-21 05:13:48|Editor: huaxia

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Migrants prepare to disembark from a patrol boat of the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) in Senglea, Malta, on Aug. 20, 2020. The Armed Forces of Malta rescued a group of 118 migrants, including 10 women, five children and a baby, after their boat was sinking and the migrants were drowning, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri said on Thursday. (Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua)

VALLETTA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Armed Forces of Malta rescued a group of 118 migrants, including 10 women, five children and a baby, after their boat was sinking and the migrants were drowning, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri said on Thursday.

Camilleri said the migrants were in Malta's search and rescue area when they were seen to be in distress, with many of them at risk of drowning, forcing the Maltese navy officers to intervene to save lives.

In a recorded message posted on Facebook, Camilleri said the army personnel were "constrained" to effect the rescue as people were at serious risk of drowning.

Camilleri said the soldiers had to choose between life and death for these migrants and that they will continue to choose to save people out at sea.

"The Armed Forces of Malta were constrained to bring in the migrants who were drowning in the Maltese search and rescue area, ten women, one of them with a newborn baby and five children. The soldiers had no choice but to either let these people drown, or save them," Camilleri said as he assured his listeners that the migrants will be kept isolated and in quarantine until they are tested for the COVID-19.

Camilleri said that in the first seven months of the year, the Libyan authorities had intercepted 7,000 migrants trying to leave the country. Malta was committed to continuing working closely with the Libyan authorities to avoid more arrivals and more deaths in the Mediterranean. Enditem
Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, beginning a general-election challenge to President Donald Trump that Democrats have cast as a rescue mission for a country equally besieged by a crippling pandemic and a White House defined by incompetence, racism and abuse of power.

Speaking before a row of flags in his home state of Delaware, Biden urged Americans to have faith that they could overcome this season of darkness, and pledged that he would seek to bridge the countrys political divisions in ways Trump had not.

The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long  too much anger, too much fear, too much division, Biden said. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness.

Bidens appearance was an emphatic closing argument in a four-day virtual convention in which Democrats presented a broad coalition of women, young people and racial minorities while going to unusual lengths to welcome Republicans and independent voters seeking relief from the tumult of the Trump era.

The former vice president alluded to that outreach, saying that while he is a Democratic candidate, he will be an American president. And in an implicit contrast with Trump, Biden said he would work hard for those who didnt support me.

This is not a partisan moment, he said. This must be an American moment.

The party has offered Biden, 77, less as a traditional partisan standard-bearer than as a comforting national healer, capable of restoring normalcy and calm to the United States and returning its federal government to working order. He has campaigned as an apostle of personal decency and political conciliation, and as a transitional figure who would take on some of the worst American crises  not just the coronavirus outbreak but also economic inequality, climate change and gun violence  before handing off power to another generation.

That rising generation, defined by its diversity and in many cases by its liberalism, was again in evidence Thursday, as it has been throughout the week, most notably with the introduction Wednesday of Bidens running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to appear on a major partys presidential ticket.

The program leading up to Bidens address included speakers such as Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Asian American military veteran; Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, one of the countrys most prominent Black mayors; and Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay major presidential candidate. All are younger than Biden by a quarter-century or more.

Buttigieg hailed Bidens leadership on the issue of same-sex marriage in the not-distant past as a sign of how much progress Democrats could quickly make toward building an America where everyone belongs.

Duckworth, a former helicopter pilot who lost her legs in the Iraq War, used her remarks to denounce Trumps leadership of the military and singled out for scorn his administrations tear-gassing of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., in June.

Donald Trump doesnt deserve to call himself commander-in-chief for another four minutes, let alone another four years, said Duckworth, whom Biden considered seriously for his running mate.

The task that faced Biden on Thursday night, and that looms over him for the next 10 weeks, was assuring Americans that he had both the grit and the vision first to topple Trump and then to deliver on a governing agenda that would materially improve their lives. Biden has laid out an ambitious suite of plans for next year, should Democrats win power, but in the daily din of public-health emergencies and presidential outbursts, it is not clear how many voters are familiar with them.

The party conveyed its governing priorities throughout the convention, with multiple segments featuring victims of gun violence and people struggling with the immigration system and the cost of health care.

Democrats have promised to redraw the countrys energy economy to fight climate change and to build new protections for Americans voting rights. Every night of the convention featured front-and-center vows to take on racism in the economy and criminal justice system, and to empower the generation of women whose political mobilization has reshaped the Democratic Party into a powerful anti-Trump coalition.

The overarching focus of the party, however, was on defining Trump as an enemy of public health, economic prosperity and democracy itself. More than any other modern political convention, this one situated the greatest threat to Americans lives and freedoms not in a foreign capital or a terrorist encampment, or in the executive suite of an insurance company or a Wall Street bank  but rather in the Oval Office, and in the person of the incumbent president.

This, Biden said, is a life-changing election. This will determine what Americas going to look like for a long, long time.

If Democrats depicted Trump as an aspiring autocrat, then in their telling Biden took on the role of a sturdy holdover from an earlier government  a chairman of Senate committees, a shaper of laws and a counselor to presidents who is capable of delivering the practical prize of national stability if not a more romantic version of national salvation.

For Biden, his speech Thursday night, at a Wilmington, Delaware, event center, was the culmination of nearly five decades in national politics, a career he began in his 20s as a Senate candidate who won a November 1972 election several weeks before he reached the constitutional age of eligibility to serve. After 36 years and two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, Biden finally achieved national office in 2008 as a political sidekick  Barack Obamas running mate.

A child of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, Biden has long emphasized his familys blue-collar roots in courting a multiracial coalition of working-class voters, as well as more affluent white moderates. In the Senate, he spent decades forging his credentials as an expert on foreign policy and the judiciary, along the way developing a reverence for Washington institutions and old-school Capitol Hill deal-making.

Should Biden win in November, he would be the countrys second Catholic president, after John F. Kennedy. He would also be the first since Ronald Reagan not to hold an Ivy League degree.

Earlier efforts to win the presidency in his own right ended in defeat and even humiliation. Bidens campaign for the 1988 nomination collapsed amid plagiarism controversies, and his 2008 bid never gained traction. But this cycle, after eight years as Obamas vice president, Biden entered the race as the front-runner. He is known to the country as a loyal adviser to a popular president, and as the resilient father of a tragedy-stricken family, possessed of an uncommon capacity to relate to voters experiencing grief.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a close ally of Bidens, paid tribute to his friend Thursday night, describing him as a man of deep faith.

Joe knows the power of prayer, and Ive seen him in moments of joy and triumph, of loss and despair, turn to God for strength, Coons said, citing the nuns and priests right here in Delaware who taught him and inspired in him a passion for justice.

The overt emphasis on faith was striking at the event. But Biden has often cited his Irish Catholic upbringing on the campaign trail, a background that may help him connect with some swing voters in the Midwest in particular.

From the start of his 2020 campaign, Biden pitched himself as a sober, seasoned leader who stood the best chance of defeating Trump. It was a message that ultimately resonated with Democratic voters  especially African Americans and white suburban moderates  as he surged to the nomination despite facing great trepidation from younger and more progressive voters, and after stumbling badly in the first two nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Biden enters the general election with a clear upper hand against Trump, leading him by wide margins in most national polls and appearing to hold a clear advantage in crucial swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Bidens electoral strength is derived mainly from the presidents deep unpopularity: Trumps negative ratings have climbed and grown more intense since the onset of the coronavirus crisis. And swing voters this year appear far more comfortable with Biden than they were with several of his 2020 primary rivals  or with the Democratic Partys previous nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Yet Bidens advisers have cautioned that they expect the polls to tighten in the fall, and there is widespread anxiety among Democrats about the possibility that the pandemic may complicate the process of voting in ways that will disadvantage voters of color and others in their urban political base.

Even more than on previous nights, reminders to turn out the vote formed an insistent drumbeat throughout Thursdays program. There were exhortations from, among others, Bottoms; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the actor and comedian who served as master of ceremonies; and Alex Padilla and Jocelyn Benson, the top election officials in California and Michigan, reflecting Democrats concern that limp voter enthusiasm or Republican efforts to obstruct the vote could hinder Biden.

We must pass on the gift that John Lewis sacrificed to give us, Bottoms said. We must register, and we must vote.

Up to this point, Biden has taken a less-is-more approach to his campaign against Trump, converting his candidacy into a largely virtual affair and holding only sparse and infrequent public events. And so far that approach has seemed to work for him, much as this weeks stripped-down, long-distance party gathering has appeared to do. While television ratings have been down since the 2016 conventions, the Democratic events have still garnered robust viewership, and the party has avoided any significant technical glitches or eruptions of internal strife.

Biden also does not seem imminently inclined to barnstorm the country to make his case.

In a briefing with reporters Thursday, Bidens advisers emphasized that his decisions about travel would continue to be guided by the recommendations of public health experts, and that he and Harris, and their spouses, would campaign virtually in the meantime. Such an approach did not hurt Biden in the polls this summer, but in the final stretch of the campaign those restrictions may complicate efforts to advance an affirmative case for his candidacy.

But this week it was Trump who was at times obviously frustrated at his own inability to break into the news cycle: During Obamas sober address Wednesday night, for instance, Trump posted several tweets entirely in capital letters raging at his predecessor.

Shedding the political convention whereby each party defers to the other during the week of its nominating convention, Trump has tried throughout the week to step on Bidens general-election rollout, so far with little success. On Thursday, he traveled near Bidens childhood home of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to attack Biden in a speech as a puppet of the radical left movement  a label that could scarcely have clashed more with the pragmatic profile Bidens party has drawn for him in recent days.

In his address Thursday night, Biden promised to strengthen the labor movement and roll back Trumps tax giveaway. And he described a perfect storm of challenges facing the nation: a pandemic, an economic crisis, climate change and the most compelling call for racial justice since the 60s.

So the question for us is simple: Are we ready? he said. I believe we are. We must be.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
With a third of Wisconsin households behind on their utility bills, state regulators have extended a moratorium on shutoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Public Service Commission voted 2-1 Thursday to continue a ban on disconnections until Oct. 1, temporarily preventing more than 93,000 customers from losing electricity, gas or water service next month.

Chairwoman Rebecca Valcq said utility service remains critical to public health, noting the number of COVID-19 cases has continued to rise since July, when the PSC extended the moratorium to Sept. 1.

If we disconnect customers and send them out to places to congregate  in order to stay cool, or they lose the ability to maintain hygiene, that to me outweighs the ability to pay and the fact that the unemployment rate is getting better, Valcq said. Were not going to get through this if we dont start acting like adults. We have to start following the guidelines if we want to get out of this crisis.

Almost 1.4 million households  32.9% of the total  were behind on their bills in July, together owing nearly $229 million, according to the PSCs survey of nearly 200 utilities. For comparison, fewer than 13% of residential customers were behind in April of the previous two years, although those past-due balances averaged about $186 million.

Nearly 70% of low-income households were behind, although they account for only about 1% of all those in arrears.

Not all of those customers are facing disconnection.

How to get help The Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program offers one-time help for people having trouble paying energy bills. To determine eligibility or apply for assistance go to homeenergyplus.wi.gov or call 1-866-HEATWIS. The Citizens Utility Board also has a list of resources at cubwi.org/covid19. Customers who cannot work out a payment plan with their utility can file a complaint through the Public Service Commission website, psc.wi.gov, or call 800-225-7729.

As of Aug. 10, utilities said they planned to disconnect about 93,673 residential customers, including about 7,500 households at risk of losing water. That number is up from about 71,000 households eligible for disconnection in July when the PSC voted to extend the moratorium until Sept. 1.

Utilities reported nearly 13% of commercial and industrial accounts in arrears, compared to an average of just 2.7% in the previous two years. About 1,358 businesses would be eligible for disconnection.

All but five of the 53 comments the agency received called for extending the moratorium. Those seeking an extension of the moratorium included the mayors of Madison, Monona and Verona and the Milwaukee city council, which cited high jobless rate and the expiration of the $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits as well as the need for people to stay home as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise.

Three groups representing utilities requested a resumption of shutoffs.

Disconnection is a last resort but remains a necessary tool to encourage customers to work with us to address their unpaid balances, wrote Bill Skewes, executive director of the Wisconsin Utilities Association, which represents the states investor-owned utilities.

Municipal utilities can collect unpaid balances through property tax assessments, but their trade groups argued that option often leaves landlords on the hook for their tenants bills.

State Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Cedarburg, sent a letter Wednesday urging the commission to end the moratorium, which he said creates an incentive for people to not pay their bills, spreading the cost to other ratepayers. Stroebel went on to say that policy decisions such as this should be left to elected officials.

Commissioner Ellen Nowak said a broad exemption is the wrong answer, arguing there is no evidence that COVID-19 infections have affected the ability of customers to pay their bills. She suggested Gov. Tony Evers redirect funds from the federal CARES Act to energy assistance programs for low-income residents.

We shouldnt allow middle-income people and millionaires to be excused from paying their bills, Nowak said.

Health needs

But Valcq and Commissioner Tyler Huebner said access to electricity, gas and water are key to protecting public health and noted the expiration of federal unemployment benefits.

There really is no silver bullet or easy choice here today that doesnt have consequences, Huebner said.

Two state programs that offer one-time heat and electric bill assistance have seen caseloads grow by about 2.7% compared to the same point last year. The programs together have distributed about $112.5 million, which is down about 2.7% from last year.

The heating assistance fund had about $11.2 million remaining as of Wednesday, while the electric bill assistance fund was down to about $326,000, according to data from the Department of Administration.

Funding for programs, which serve families earning less than 60% of the state median income, was cut by about 6.4% this year.

Federal aid

The federal CARES Act included $900 million in additional energy assistance  of which Wisconsin will receive $8 million  but that barely scratches the surface of the nations needs, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which says $4.3 billion is needed to keep millions of American households from losing utility services during the pandemic.

Wisconsin is one of 18 states  along with the District of Columbia  where utility shutoff bans remain in place, according to NEADA. Three state moratoriums are set to expire this month and another six in September.

The disconnection moratorium was established in March after an executive order from Gov. Tony Evers. The commission voted in June to allow disconnections to resume on July 25 but reinstated the moratorium after COVID-19 cases hit record levels.

The PSC will discuss the moratorium again on Sept. 17.
No combat casualties were reported.

Russian occupation forces in eastern Ukraine's Donbas violated the ceasefire agreement twice over the past day, Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Command reports.

At the same time, no artillery shellings were reported, the JFO press service wrote in its morning update.

"Non-aiming shots were reported of a large-caliber machine gun near Avdiyivka, and of an automatic heavy-grenade launcher near Novo-oleksandrivka," the report says.

The JFO HQ noted that since the shots were of a provocative nature, Ukrainian servicemen did not return fire.

No combat casualties were reported.

Read alsoRemains of Russian occupation victims exhumed from unmarked grave in SlovianskSince day-start on Friday, August 21, silence has been observed in all sectors of the front line.

Ukrainian forces remain ready to "adequately respond to possible threatening action on the part of the enemy" the JFO Command says.

Ukrainian sappers with the State Emergency Service have been working in the warzone, having demined nearly nine hectares in the front-line area and handed for disposal 51 explosive objects found in the JFO zone.

Donbas truce: background

Parties to the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE) on the peace settlement in Donbas on July 22 agreed on a full and comprehensive ceasefire along the contact line from July 27.

On the very first day of the newly-agreed truce, Russia's hybrid military forces mounted three attacks on Ukrainian positions. More provocations have been reported since.

The OSCE envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Heidi Grau, has urged the sides to continue making all necessary efforts to keep a sustainable and comprehensive ceasefire in Donbas.
A global summit which aims to boost effective collaboration between experts working in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being organized by academics at the University of Exeter.

Working with MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and STEMM Global, the University of Exeter's Professor Anna Baldycheva and a PhD candidate Kate Berseneva are launching the AI in Healthcare Summit, which will take place online on October 1st and 2nd, and is now open for registration.

Professor Baldycheva, who heads up the organising committee, said: "Artificial Intelligence research is a key focus for the University of Exeter, and in light of Covid-19, the future is now. Galvanizing global experts is crucial to avoiding future pandemics. It's now crucial that we launch and drive innovation and development of AI for good, and our international summit will boost effective collaboration among leading AI academics, healthcare experts and business leaders to support innovation in healthcare."

The experts will discuss how AI is helping to address the ongoing healthcare crisis and look at the technologies being developed now that will change the future of healthcare.

The summit provides a platform to enable collaboration around cutting-edge research including contact tracing, vaccines, ethics, diagnostics, precision medicine, electronic healthcare records and more. The program is focused on the ways that AI helps address the biggest challenges in the healthcare industry and features panel discussions uniting experts across business and academia.

It comes as the University of Exeter recently launched its new Institute for Data Science and artificial Intelligence, in conjunction with the Met Office. One of the key focuses for the new Institute is health research.

Daniela Rus, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and the director of MIT CSAIL will convene the summit. She said one of the key goals was to promote women in AI research and industry and to highlight women in STEM making improvements to healthcare.

"Curing disease is among the most important grand challenges facing humanity today, and for this we need all the talent, creativity, and diversity of experiences that women bring to the table. This symposium highlights amazing work in AI and healthcare by incredible women. Our world is so much richer for these contributions."

Through a virtual platform, participants will have an opportunity to discuss the latest AI breakthroughs in Healthcare, generate and influence the discussion, host meetings and interact through video calls. Live streaming of the talks will be available at no cost to the general public.
GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands, Aug. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Economic nationalism worldwide will favor ongoing strength in US-traded stocks, as global investors shift their attention to the most stable economies, argues a new white paper by Plotinus Asset Management. The US is the most sensible opportunity amid geopolitical uncertainty.

An Economic Representation of the Global Progression of Covid-19 vs S&P 500 (Chart Source: Plotinus Asset Management) Artificial Intelligence: The Post-Pandemic US Equity Strategic Allocation - Plotinus Asset Management White Paper August 2020

Artificial Intelligence: The Post-Pandemic US Equity Strategic Allocation gauges portfolio opportunities as investors see new peaks in US market indices. The white paper is published by Plotinus Asset Management, a company that oversees institutional money using an artificial intelligence-based overlay on a broad index of US stocks.

"As investors make post-pandemic plans, the US equity opportunity must be given serious consideration, particularly with respect to reallocating from crisis-driven cash positions," reasons CJ Finnegan, founder of Plotinus Asset Management.

Plotinus acknowledges the extreme political, media, and medical baggage attached to pandemic analysis in this setting. But focusing purely on data (see chart), the firm points out that the relationship between the economic progression of coronavirus-related deaths worldwide and the trajectory of the S&P imply a more confident outlook, particularly if you consider that investors are subject to the weight of their actions.

The firm spotlights the role of the Federal Reserve. US stocks have taken on a "too big to fail" mantle, demanding government intervention to retain long-term value.

"The sensitivity of the Federal Reserve to how it manages its Covid-19 crisis response should provide reassurance to skeptical investors," emphasizes Finnegan.

Plotinus challenges investors to consider the role of cash allocations in their portfolios, weighing the trade-off between safety and volatility. In an affront to convention, the white paper points out that US equities may act as a hedge against cash, not the other way around, as well as protection against the cost of lost opportunity.

ABOUT PLOTINUS ASSET MANAGEMENT

Plotinus Asset Management is regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority. Its suite of AI-based products is designed primarily for institutional investors who are eligible to invest in offshore funds. The firm is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is a member the US National Futures Association. See https://plotinus.ai.

To arrange an interview with CJ Finnegan on this topic, contact +447504775024 or [email protected]

SOURCE Plotinus Asset Management
STAMFORD  A Stamford judge agreed to reduce the bond of a man charged with drunk driving following a June accident that left a passenger grievously injured. But he would not budge when the mans attorney asked that the driver be allowed back behind the wheel with special conditions while his criminal case goes through the court system.

Id like to sleep at night, Judge John Blawie said from the bench during the Friday arraignment of 20-year-old Saba Surguladze, who is charged with second-degree assault with a motor vehicle, second-degree assault while under the influence of alcohol, drunk driving and reckless driving.

I think Ill sleep better right now if there is no more driving until I have seen more of a track record of treatment, the judge said. Thats the order of the court.

Surguladze, of Dagmar Place in Stamford, turned himself over to police early Friday morning and was held in lieu of a $100,000 court appearance bond. Police say the car he was driving crashed into into a utility pole on Cove Road on the afternoon of June 20. A passenger in the car, Miguel Machado, 22, of Stamford, remains in severely critical condition, according to Machado family attorney Matt Maddox, who was present at the arraignment.

Mark Sherman, Surguladzes criminal defense lawyer, would not comment on the DUI assault accusations or any case specifics.

Since the accident, Sabas thoughts and prayers have been focused on his friends recovery, Sherman said. That has been his priority.

Blawie reduced Surguladzes bond to $25,000 and he was released after his mother posted the bond at the Stamford courthouse Friday afternoon.

According to his five-page arrest affidavit, police and ambulances were called to 441 Cove road at 4:18 p.m. on June 20 on the report of a serious accident involving an unconscious passenger.

Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Squad Officer Lindsey Yanicky reported to the scene to find the vehicle, a BMW 328i, off the road with heavy damage to the passenger-side door. A utility pole had been snapped in two places from the crash, the report said.

Firefighters had to use the jaws of life to cut cut the roof and rear passenger door away in order to extricate Machado, who was rushed to Stamford Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a severe skull fracture and other injuries, and placed in the Intensive Care Unit in critical condition, the affidavit said.

Surguladze, who was found stumbling in the area of the wreck, was also taken to the hospital with injuries to his face and cuts on his arms, according to the affidavit. Officers could smell alcohol on Surguladzes breath, the document states.

At the end of July, after analyzing the toxicology reports performed on Surguladzes blood, the state toxicology lab reported that he had a blood alcohol concentration of .19, well above the legal limit of .02 for a 20-year-old driver, the affidavit said.

Christine Landis, an attorney who works for Sherman and represented Surguladze at his arraignment Friday, said their client graduated Quinnipiac University with a degree in finance this past May and is currently enrolled there in the MBA program.

She said that since the accident he completed an intensive out-patient program at Mountianside Treatment Center in Wilton.

Landis asked about the possibility of her client being allowed to drive and said Surguladze was agreeable to driving a car equipped with a breathalizer device that would not allow him to start the vehicle if it detected any alcohol. She also said that he would agree to driving a vehicle with a governor that would not allow it to go over 55 miles per hour.

But Blawie dismissed the proposal out of hand, saying it did not matter what Surguladze was agreeable to.

Im very encouraged that he has got some treatment, but he is not walking out of custody driving a car until further order of the court, Blawie said.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com